Lawrenceville Conference: 1993
Table of Contents
John 17:1-5
Reading
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This Young Gospel, chapter 17.
Seem to give us there a little bit of the relationship between your father and son.
Son praying to the Father and his total confidence in the Father, especially with regards the Father gift of the Son.
Concern for us and the love that he had been given.
He had been worse than he did.
Help them. And now he was going to leave.
And seemed that we had something of the heart of our Lord Jesus brought out there with regard to it.
I had the same chapter on my heart.
John chapter 17 verse one These words fake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.
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That thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is like eternal, that they may know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ, and thou hast sent, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do, And now old Father.
Glorify thou me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.
Thine they were, and thou gave us them me, and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me.
Are of they For I have given unto them the words which thou gave us me, And they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee. And they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them, I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me. For they are thine, and all mine are thine.
And thine are mine.
And I am glorified in them.
And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee, Holy Father, keep through thine own name those, and thou hast given me that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the Son of perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
And now I come to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou should just take them out of the world, but that thou should keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Sanctify them through Thy truth by word is truth.
As thou has sent me into the world, Even so have I also sent them into the world, And for their sake I sanctify myself. But they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also, which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me.
And I and thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me, and the glory which thou gave us, may I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I and them, and thou and me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou has sent me, and has loved them.
As thou hast loved me, Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
And I have declared unto them by name, and will declare it, that the love for with thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
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I.
There's a beautiful order in these chapters, isn't it? This what is sometimes called the upper room ministry. The Lord washing the disciples feet was preparing them for what was going to be like when he was taken away from them and how we often need to have our feet washed for their hindrances to our enjoyment of what the Lord has for us. And then I believe the 14th chapter, we have communion so necessary.
We're going to walk to please the Lord down here, and then fruit bearing and service in the 15th chapter, intelligence in the 15th chapter, and then dependence, this prayer of the Lord Jesus that we might be kept during His absence, kept in the enjoyment of that which is ours in the relationship into which He has brought us here. We don't have so much the one body but the truth of the family brought before us.
Because we're children in the family.
And richly blessed.
Through such a closeness and intimacy here isn't there between him and God the Father, His Father, and we've been brought right into that relationship. It's a beautiful thought, and in fact, if we look at John's Gospel, chapter one, verse 18.
The Lord Jesus said where it was said in 18. No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared him. And so the Lord could say in that 14th chapter, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And then he told Mary that I go to my Father, and your Father, my God, and your God. So when we.
Read this wonderful prayer. We sense the intimacy of it. Isn't it the closeness as he addresses God his Father?
The first time in the Bible we get the Trinity talking together.
Are members of the Bot of the Godhead speaking to one another?
Is in Genesis 126 or they say, let us make man in our image. Man did not hold that wonderful image. It was there in perfection and innocence lost it. Now this very large chapter, as we commonly speak, the second member of the Godhead, the Son, is talking to the Father. And who's he talking about?
That love gift of the Father to the Son that we might have, that oneness. It comes out in three aspects in this chapter. First, it's one in communion. Oh, Communion is so beautiful, so necessary, and it must come first before there can be the second Oneness. And that's oneness in testimony.
We have seriously broken down in that Christendom is in Saturn, outwardly. Nevertheless, the truth of the one body is not affected. God keeps that well. If we keep the Oneness in communion, then we can have something of the Oneness in witness or testimony. But even when that is broken down, as we confess, God is going to bring it up to the Oneness and glory where all will be perfect.
I've enjoyed 3 distinct things that seem to be brought out in this prayer of the Lord Jesus. And in the 1St 5 verses we might have what we say the Father glorified in the Son. And it's good to realize that that was His purpose for coming, to fully show out the Father's heart and to glorify God in this world. And at the end of His pathway He could say with confidence I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do.
And then we might say from the sixth verse to the end of the 21St verse, we have the Son glorified in the Saints. And that's why he's left us here, as he says in the 10th verse. And I am glorified in them. And that's why we're left here in this world, that we might be a reflection of Christ as we walk through the path of faith and service, he says in Philippians 2. I think it's the 15th verse, that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of in the midst of a crooked.
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And perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights or illuminators in this world, that is where to be a reflection of Christ. And in the measure in which we walk and enjoy that communion with the Father and with the Son, there will be that reflection in our lives. And then in the end, from the 22nd verse to the end, we have what we might say are the Saints glorified with the sun. And so we're looking on to that day when there will be the full display of all this. And so he says, I will that they also whom thou has given me.
Be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, and so on. So sometimes it's good to get an overall view of it, of a chapter, and to realize that in this chapter everything is in connection ultimately, with the glory of God.
In the beginning of that address where Gord referred to in the 13th chapter.
The Lord said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. And it goes on, of course, to speak of if God be glorified in him, God will straightway glorify him, and glorify him immediately. And so here we have the end of that address is speaking to the Father of those things of which he introduced in saying that the Son of Man should be glorified.
Man should go in obedience to God is the glory of man even to death. Respect to our Lord Jesus Christ. Now he says to the Father, the hours come.
So he is going to be taken up to glory in order that he may glorify God in his own, as has been pointed up to us.
It's very lovely to turn to first, second Thessalonians one and see how that the Lord Jesus is going to come to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe. Brothers spoke of how everything has broken down, testimony and all and the failure in the hands of man were part of it. But there's a day coming and we love to look on to that day when he'll be glorified in all them that believe. Just think what a day that will be as the Lord Jesus comes out of heaven.
And presents the church to the world and says, these are the people whom I chose out of the world for myself. And there won't be one, as there often is now, in which there's something that doesn't glorify Christ, but in that day he'll be glorified in all them that believe.
I was also thinking Brother Clem, you mentioned about the image and how man fell in the garden, but isn't it nice to see also in Colossians?
That the Newman is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. So that when you and I as believers display the new man, what is seen, that image which man lost through the fall through the new life that God has given to us, The life of Christ can be manifested in US, and it's renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. So we're still in that test and.
It's not an impossible thing.
If we live in that Newman, there is that reflection of that which is perfect, that which is of God.
My brother in the Dominican Republic told me years ago that.
The verb to give.
Appears 17 times in the 17th of John.
I haven't checked it out. Some form of the verb to give. Well, that's the God we have. He's a giving God. And the main subject of the gift here is the love gift of the father to the son his church.
It is marvelous that the whole prayer is concerned with the gift of the Father to the Son. Isn't it thanking him and asking him to care for us too, in that sense, to sanctify us through His word? But I believe that expression of them that thou hast given me, or a like expression, appears 7 * 7 times. He thanks his Father for them that thou hast given me for the gift, and it really should exercise us when we read it.
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But the first time, each time there's something very special. And that first time in verse two, it's eternal life. Isn't it wonderful? We have that very life of Christ, eternal life, and it's the beginning of everything for us. And I just mentioned the second time in verse six, it's his name, that precious name above every name, and it's lovely. We have that. I believe the third time in six to eight, it's the word which we're enjoying now.
And which is so precious in fact in the Psalms that says he's magnified his word above all his name. This is everything for us to have this precious word. And in the 4th, the 4th one is verse nine. We have his high priestly prayer. How wonderful to think who's praying for us and looking out for us. And I just mentioned the fifth one is verse 11. I think it's eternal security. It's that keeping that if we're not kept by Him, we can't keep ourselves. And that's a wonderful thought. And I think the 6th one is verse 12 to 13.
It says joy, it's his joy. And then the last, the 7th is verse 21 and I think it's very beautiful, he said It's his will that we be with him where he is and behold his glory which which was given him by the Father. So those things are very precious when we think what comes to us each time we're mentioned as as his thankfulness.
Gift the church from the Father to the Son.
It draws out our affections, does it not? When we realize what the church is to Christ. It's a very wonderful line of truth as to what Christ is to the church. You get that in the book of Colossians. But it's very wonderful to realize what the church means to his heart. And I believe that that is really what is going to drive our affections, because if we're occupied with our love and our response.
Then we're only going to become discouraged. But it's often been said, and I believe rightly so, that in the Psalm of Solomon, as the bride is occupied with her bridegroom, she becomes less and less occupied with herself and with her response to her bridegroom, and more occupied with him and with his love to her. I have no doubt that her affections were deeper at the end of that discourse, because she could say, yeah, he is altogether lovely, but the result of those affections, being deeper, were sprung from her enjoyment.
Of the bridegroom. And I really think this is what we need to encourage our hearts and to deepen our affections, is to be occupied with his love and what we mean to him. And then again to realize that there's a day coming when he's going to view us, brethren, and he's not going to be grieved or disappointed in us, but he's going to see if the travail of his soul and be satisfied. I find that a marvelous thought because I can in some way perhaps understand what David meant.
When he said I will be satisfied. When I awaken my likeness, we look on with joy to that day when the trials and the difficulties will be behind and will be there within life, our precious Savior and occupied with him. But to think that he's going to look at us rather. And they say there's nothing like a mutual feeling, but there's nothing like that mutual feeling of satisfaction in that day. When we look into his precious face, we're satisfied. We're home and He looks at us and he's satisfied.
Just for those of us who are younger, I've sometimes used a little illustration when I was still not very good with my hands. But when I was home sometimes I put together a model or do a little woodworking project in my parents basement. And we always had a large wood stove. And I would view the finished product and before anybody could see it the wood stove was open and the finished product was in the fire because I was disappointed with the work that I had completed. But I speak reverently the Lord Jesus who loved us enough to die for us.
Who then picks us up in all our needs, then carries us safely home to glory and he views us all with and like himself. I say again, what a wonderful day it's going to be when he sees the travail of his soul and is completely satisfied.
We haven't specifically said it, but perhaps it would be helpful to point out that the.
Viewpoint the Lord takes.
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Throughout the upper room ministry and in this prayer is a viewpoint which is characterized by two things.
I have finished the work that gave us me to do.
And.
The expression in verse 11 I am no longer in the world.
Now that's a very obvious.
Thing if you read that ministry, but it helps to understand the ministry to understand that the Lord's viewpoint is perspective of speak from which he speaks is that he has finished the work and he's no longer in the world. And I think if we fail to understand that when we don't get then what we should out of the upper room ministry and out of the high priestly prayer of the Lord.
That is characteristic of Christianity, isn't it? It is the work finish and a man at the right hand of God and really what we get in.
John's Gospel is what Brother AC Brown used to say.
The seeds of Christianity.
It's essential, beloved, to realize that the man at the right hand of God is the Son of God, who is glorified for having completed the work that God gave him to do what was here. The Son owned of God in his service when he began, proud of God and his exhortation when he finished the work. It has impressed my soul immensely.
To realize that the Son of God is the infinite Ness of his person, there in his own body, in the full possession of all his faculties, the accumulated guilt of all who had faith, from Adam until the Rapture, or on to the Millennium.
So that he consciously bore our judgment to the point that he says it's done, and having finished the work in the full confidence of his Father, he says into thy hands I commend my spirit, infinite Son of God, glorified that the right hand of God, because he finished the work.
God has been more than satisfied with the work. He has been glorified by the work. But that's very precious to say. Pardon me for using an illustration that I've used. If I had a debt and somebody pays the debt, my creditor is satisfied. But I don't know whether my creditor likes me or not. Maybe he doesn't, but at least he has had a satisfactory payment. But if my creditor's own son sold his home, that this debt might be paid.
And so it's paid by my son, but my my creditors own son. And it was his Father that asked him to do it. Now I've known the heart of my creditor, and isn't that very blessed? We had a great debt against God, brethren. And the Lord Jesus not only paid the debt, but he was sent of the Father to pay the debt. And it was the outtelling of the Father's heart when the Lord Jesus did that work. And that's why I believe it says glorified thy Son, that thy Son also make glorify thee.
So God has been fully glorified in the work that Christ has been done. He sent him to do that work, to tell out his heart to Wretch is like ourselves, and to bring us into such a wonderful place of blessing. And the Lord Jesus came in perfect obedience and love, and he did that work.
And now, as our brother has said, he's gone back to the Father. He's seen in this as the one who's gone back to the Father. And he not only wants us to know the blessedness of the question of sin being settled, but he says, I want you to walk constantly in the enjoyment of this until that time. And so until that time when we'll be there. And I'd like to thank rather than that there are three things that are given to us that make this possible.
That is, He's given us eternal life.
Because unless we possess the new life, we could never enjoy divine things. The carnal mind is enmity against God, but God gave us, and this is what eternal life is. This is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent. God has given to every believer a life by which he can hold fellowship, common thoughts with God, know what's in the heart of God, and now we need direction. So he tells us twice in this chapter.
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I have given them Thy word. And how are we going to know how to please him? We want to please him because we have a new life. His word gives us the instruction and shall I say, regulates our pathways so that we can know how we can please him. And because of the importance of his word, this is mentioned twice. And then I think it's very beautiful. The glory which Thou gave us me. It doesn't say I will give them, but I have given them. It looks on to that day, Brethren, we're just as sure of heaven as if we were already there.
We're just as sure of being with and like Christ as if we were already there, and this is the Lords prayer for us. So he has glorified God and God has been glorified in him, and now he has given us the capacity all that we need so that we might walk in the enjoyment of it and look on to a day when is that lovely? When we'll see the church presented A glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
In the Epistle of John.
Spirit of God gives us to see that eternal life that was manifested.
That eternal life which was promised before the world was getting, and the epistles. And here we have the sun coming out of glory to manifest that eternal life, and it has been given unto us. And so having finished the work, he then as Son returned. Oh, now verse five, Father, glorify thou me with the glory, because I don't self which I had before the world wants.
So it's so blessed that the very one who came is the Son sent of the Father. And now having finished the work, he goes back his Son to sit as the Father right hand until his anything made the footstool of his feet.
And in the meantime, while we wait that day, he's living for us. And I think this is nice to see in connection, I think, with our brother. Gorgeous mentioned that we here we have the Lords high priestly prayer, and his thoughts go beyond just those who were his own on that occasion, but all those that would believe. And I think it's just a little picture, a little foreshadow here of that work that the Lord Jesus was and has carried on since the hour of his return to the Father.
Because there he's there at the Father's right hand, the place of power. And what is he taking up there? He's taking up our interests, and he's praying for us every hour of every day. Sometimes we forget to pray for the needs of the Saints. Sometimes we're not even aware of them, or we forget to pray for our own needs. But it's been a tremendous comfort to me to realize that there's one there and he doesn't forget one of his own or one knee. And there he's there, not only praying for us, but he enters into what we're passing through.
And I don't want to get away from our chapter, but I was just thinking of how this is illustrated in the 14th of Matthew, because the people of God are going through and have gone through some real tests and trials collectively and individually and as families in the path of faith. And you see the disciples there in the 14th of John, constrained by the Lord Jesus himself, to get into a ship and to go across that sea to the other side. And that's where we are, brethren. We're crossing the Sea of Light.
We're going to the other side. But in the meantime, it was dark. It was midnight. The storm was, the waves were high, the wind was contrary. But there was one up on the mountain and he was praying. And we have one who's up on the mountain, brother, and he's gone on high and he's praying for us. And there's a nice comment made about that incident in Mark's Gospel that you don't get in Matthew, and that is he, it says. And he saw them toiling and rowing.
Brethren, He sees us toiling and rowing, Whether it's something personal, whether it's a difficulty in the in the family, whether it's something in the assembly. Maybe we say, well, no one knows what I'm going through. No one understands our situation where we are. There's one who sees Brethren. He sees us toiling and rowing, and more than that, he fully enters in to what we're passing through. Because as a man, he hasted through this world, glorified God, not only in the work of eternal redemption.
That's paramount, but in his pathway too. And he still feels as a man that which each one of us pass through. And so in Hebrews 8 he's at the right hand of God as our high praise. And in the 4th chapter there he says we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmity, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. So it's good to see this chapter in that light that it was just a pale reflection of that work that the Lord Jesus.
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Was and has carried on for 2000 years on behalf of his own.
I think there's a contrast in the second verse between Adam, as thou has given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou has given him, that is Adam as the head of the creation. For he was placed in that position. He brought him death, but the Lord Jesus by the glorious work that he accomplished, fully telling out and glorifying the heart of God. And now he takes his place and he doesn't impart life.
Like Adam brought in death, he imparts eternal life. That life that was given to Adam was forfeited through death. But isn't this lovely? He's given to us eternal life? And I say again, this third verse is the explanation. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent now, that is, God has given to us eternal life, a life by which we can have.
Communion and enter into We could read this blessed book and enter into the thoughts of God.
The natural man can natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, for they are foolishness unto him. I say this because eternal life does not just mean eternal existence, because even the lust will exist eternally, but they will never have eternal life. In fact, God speaks of an eternal as eternal death because it's separation. But we have eternal life. We have a life given to us right now that we can enter into and enjoy what's in the heart of God.
As we seek to do here this morning, but which we're going to do without hindrance another day.
When every hindrance has been removed, and the Lord's Prayer here is that we might be in the intelligent enjoyment of this here and now. Pull out from this meeting, having fellowship with God, is entering into His thoughts concerning His Son and the blessing that He has in store for us.
That's all possible because of the Holy Spirit of God indwelling us, isn't it? And he brings Christ to our hearts and gives us those thoughts that are always pleasing to God. Life eternal in that third verse is not a definition, is it? It's of essence, of what it is. It's to know God is Father and Jesus Christ is warned. And we have it. But it goes so much deeper than just the definition.
But we know God as Father. It's wonderful to think about that and then we enjoy it. But the highest is we can please Him, and that's because of that life we have. That's Christ and the Spirit of God, that rich young ruler said, good ******* what must I do to inherit eternal life? What did he have in mind?
Undoubtedly, he thought he would have a special place in the Kingdom. Perhaps it was something no doubt of an earthly nature.
But what is eternal life, You know, it says that life and incorruptibility was brought to light through the gospel. Eternal life is a person which our eyes have seen, which are hands have handled. It's a person. And that's the key to the whole thought, is it not? Paul spoke of eternal life often. Is the issue of a life of godliness the expected end? But John in his ministry presents it.
As a present possession, and we have it in Christ. Everything that we have in our is in Christ.
Eternal life is not so much a question of duration, isn't it? Although it is forever, we, because of our position in time, always think of it immediately. That way it's a life that is forever. Which is true that the thought is more the quality of life is what the Lord Jesus says.
In John chapter 10, I am come that they might have life and have it in abundance. It's abundant life is the thought of eternal life.
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It's life in the full revealed knowledge of God as Father in the Lord Jesus.
I was wondering if we could read first John chapter one, just a few verses of what has been said, because they really quoted these verses in their brethren and their conversation. First John chapter one beginning with verse one, that which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life.
For the life was manifested, and we had seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us that which we have seen, and heard fairly unto you, that he also may have fellowship with us.
And truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
In connection with what our brother was saying about Paul, Speaking of eternal life as being at the end of the journey, I think it's simply the fact that we all, every believer, now possesses eternal life, but there's a hindrance to our enjoyment of it. I had a fish on this chair and it's alive. It doesn't enjoy life even though it has a fish life because it's out of its element here in the air. And if it could talk, it would say please put me in the water.
When you see it in the water, be swimming and enjoying, the life that it possessed wouldn't have a different life than it already had sitting in that chair. And so every believer possesses eternal life. You and I, brethren, will not receive a different new life. When we get to heaven, we already possess eternal life, But when we get to heaven, there will be no hindrance to our enjoyment. And Paul sought to lay hold of that more and more, because God has given us, by the Holy Spirit, the capacity.
To enjoy in a large measure this life that we possess, but not without hindrance. Here we're in a world where we still have the old nature, where we're still have around us those things that hinder our enjoyment. But we long for that time when we'll be in that sphere. Just like that fish that put me into the water, please, I can enjoy my life and and you and I are just longing for that time. When the Lord comes, the old man is gone, and there are two hindrances now to our enjoyment of these things.
And that is our physical bodies, because there's a hindrance. As we have mentioned in Romans, in this Tabernacle we've grown and so we're here with a hindrance. But the Spirit of God helps two things for us now as believers helps our infirmities and says the Spirit helps our infirmities. And then he also helps us in that conflict with the old man. It says the flash lusted against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary one to the other.
So God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us in this difficulty that we have in this world the two things that hinder our enjoyment. But the moment we hear the shout, those two things will be gone. We lose that body of humiliation changed into the very likeness of Christ. No aches and pains, no groans there. And we'll also not have the old man. And so the spirit of God, the same Spirit of God who indwells us now, the same Newman that we possess now.
Will be without hindrance, Mr. Garvey's little hymn says by the Spirit all pervading hosts, unnumbered round the Lamb. What a blessed prospect. But the Lords high priestly prayers it mentioned is that we might be more in the enjoyment of these things here and now, brethren, because there's a lot of hindrances, but there's a lot of help. Also the High Priest, the Spirit of God indwelling us, although that's not brought in in this chapter, it is brought in in the 14th chapter particularly.
But what a blessed portion is ours and the Lord's prayers, that we might enjoy more of it now.
I've enjoyed the fact that God always did two things for His people, whether His people in this dispensation or His people in the Old Testament. He always gave them an eye to the future, a hope, an object, because faith needs an object. But then he also gave them a present portion, just like Israel in the wilderness, when they looked back after having got into the promised Land, they had to admit and to own that God had made full provision for them and brought them through.
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And as we've been speaking this morning, I've thought of that verse that says in Peter, he's given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness so that we're not only the possessors of divine life, not only the possessors of eternal life, but we can live in the enjoyment of it and we can live for God's glory. Now it's true we have that hope, but there's always a present portion given to us, and I would just say to those of us who are younger, we can never look around at the condition of things, whether it's in the world.
Whether it's in Christendom or even in the assembly and blame our circumstances and the condition of things around us on our failure or compromise, Some of us were just enjoying it. The breakfast table this morning. How that when Paul wrote to Timothy, he wrote about the breakdown of all those things and complete failure and giving up outwardly. But he said in the midst of it to Timothy, two things. One, continue thou that is, there's individual faithfulness and we can go on amidst all the ruin and difficulties.
Because the resource that we have in Christ is the same limitless supply that the people of God have always enjoyed.
But then there's something else there in Timothy before he even tells him Continue thou as an individual, he says, Go on with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart, because there's the collective aspect of things as well. And so it ought to encourage our hearts that there's never any excuse for failure, brethren. There's always provision for it, but never any excuse. Because, I say again, he's made full provision and given us all things that pertain under life and godliness.
Just thinking that in connection with verse three, that we've enjoyed so much this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God in Jesus Christ whom thou has sent, that the conclusion of John's epistle, first epistle, the next to the last verse first John 520, expresses it very fully and very deeply. First John 520 says, and we.
No.
Rather than that's true of it.
What do we know? That the Son of God is come remarkable statement since they came, since he's coming, which are both true, they seem to be in perpetuity. He took a form.
Like out became a man, He died as a man, he rose as a man. He's gone back to the glory. As a man, he brings us into that life. And that's expressed here and what it is, is the deepest thing you can possibly have. He is calm and have given us an understanding.
God didn't make man like He made the dogs and horses and fish. He made a creature. Let us make man in our image. He made a creature with whom he could commune and communicate, and He's given us an understanding.
Let's use it and.
Get this word that brings us the truth of all these things, given us an understanding what for that we may.
Know him that is true in the world, full of lies and falseness.
One who is always true, no lies of the truth. I am the way, the truth and the life know Him. The more we learn of him, the more we apprehend of this length that belongs to us And it goes on and explains it. And we are in Him that is true. He puts us into the same position. God puts us in the same position as Christ. He puts us in Christ. We are in Him that is true.
It's an absolute fact. That's where God looks at you and I. It's like those boards of the Tabernacle, which were cut out of the forest, had the roots in the earth, and that's disconnected, pulls over, just dead, lifeless. But it's shaped up and covered with gold, put on 2 sockets of silver and banded together with bars of gold and a picture of the house where God dwells today.
Without, each individual board was completely hidden as to the board factor.
It was all gold. We are in him, that is true.
Who is it? You said a person.
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Even in his Son Jesus Christ, that's where we are. God says this to us for our enjoyment.
Now the last part of it is so tremendous you just can't grasp it. This is the true God and eternal life.
In distinguishing in effect, in effect, the Father and the Son, they are one like the Lord, answered Philip, when he said, Show us the Father, and it suffices us. Have I been so long time unit? Yes, Thou not known me. He that has seen me has seen the Father. There was a Son who is the exact image of God.
Exact image of God. When they saw Jesus, they saw God. And we see Jesus, we saw, we see God. Now what is eternal life? It's where we are put in the Father and in the Son. Nothing So absolute, Nothing so secure.
What is the thought that you're getting in the first tenant, Fantasy Center?
Speaks about laying hold on eternal life. Read in verse. Well like the good fight of faith lay a hold on eternal life. We're on dissolve. Mark also called and has professed a good precision before many witnesses. An inverse 19 laying up in Stewart. With themselves a good foundation against the science of Congress. They may lay full on eternal life. What is the thought that we have to go.
Says in Galatians chapter 6 and verse eight, he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting, eternal life. The thought I understand what to answer the question you ask is that we?
Enter into in a practical way the enjoyment of and give expression to the life that we have in Christ. He that soweth to the Spirit of the Spirit. Read Life Everlasting.
I suppose we have this messenger in contrast to those that were laying up store riches upon earth, whereas this was really a fleeting thing. The thing that is that that God would have for us is is here already and we can lay hold upon it, is that which is really life.
We just speak of it in just laying hold of it in a practical way. Somebody might give you a gift and it's sitting on the chair. You lay hold of it, you make it your own. But it was yours sitting on the chair. And so I think Timothy was exhorted and we all need to be exhorted. Every believer in this room, I say again, possesses new life. The reason it speaks in first in John chapter 10 about having life abundantly is because in the Old Testament they did not possess life in the same way.
Now, that is, they had a life, but until the work of redemption was accomplished, they weren't able to enter into the enjoyment of these things. And now the Spirit of God has come and it says, I think it's well described by the Spirit of God in Galatians chapter 3 or 4. Is it?
Where he speaks of the child in the royal family, he's a child but he doesn't know what really is his.
But when he comes to a certain age, then it says that his father declares him and he is in the enjoyment of his relationship.
He really had it in one sense before, but he's in the enjoyment of it in the Old Testament, excuse me, Before redemption was accomplished, they could not enter into these things. But when redemption is accomplished and the spirit of God has come, now it says, because ye our Son's God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying ABBA father. So they were children. It says they were children, but they were in *******. They didn't know what belonged to them. Just like that child in the royal family doesn't know the position he's been born into.
And I believe that that rich young ruler wanted to know how he could enjoy eternal life. Of course, theirs was an earthly inheritance, but he thought he could get it by his own works. And we know that it's a gift. The gift of God is the eternal life. But just let me say this, that it says I am come, that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. That expression has been taken up by some to say that.
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Even now, in this Christian dispensation, every Christian does not possess the abundant life.
But every Christian has it in the Christ now in the Christian dispensation.
They did not have it before the coming of the Holy Spirit, but now we're exhorted to live in the enjoyment of it. And as our brother has pointed out, lay hold of it. It's ours. Lay hold of it, make it our own. But no Old Testament could say could enjoy what we can enjoy now. Since redemption is completed, there's a glorified man at the right hand of God. The Spirit has been sent down, and because ye are sons, not just children, sons, the dignity of the position.
God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying. Have a Father.
And so I believe this is the difference now in Christianity. But I say again, every believer possesses it abundantly. But we're not all in the enjoyment of it. We're not all practically laying hold of it and living in the good of that new life communicated to us.
That man, Michael Milken, who came out in the news two or three years ago, a great trader in the largest exchanges in the world, gathered together more money than anybody has ever gathered together to be a traitor in it, and he was convicted of fraud.
And.
Spent a term in prison? Well, that's riches. And that's the contrast you had here.
He had more than nearly anybody, and he lost it in shame. He's recovered some of his popularity in the world.
That's the contrast in these things. Here lay on, lay hold on what is really like what we have got of this eternal life can never be forfeited, can never be lost, and it is so far superior value that we ought to be very careful with any of the.
Monetary things that are put in our hands, use them wisely and lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven. That's very practical in this chapter that Ken had brought before us. Maybe. Maybe you have more say on it, Ken.
I'd like to ask a question about glory we we.
I think sometimes they've been guilty in our ministry of taking a word like that and using it and assuming everybody knows what it means.
What does it mean?
What does the word glory mean, and what does it mean? I have glorified thee, or thou hast glorified me. I don't think we ought to assume, brethren, that everybody is familiar with that word. We don't use it every day. We do among the Lord's people. But perhaps we do without even defining what the word means. And I think it might be helpful if one of our brothers would help us with what the word.
Glory means and glorified as a verb.
Keep going, Brother ****.
Well, in Philippians 29 it says, Wherefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name that which is above every name that is the name of Jesus. Every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ to the glory of God the Father. And I think that's an example, certainly, of what it means to be glorified. Having been obedient unto death, he was given the highest place in heaven by right. He sits there because he won the right to sit there.
As our great High Priest has been mentioned, he passed through all the initiatory rights that gave him the honor to be what he has been given to me. And these are all thoughts that suggest himself in my mind that these are what it is before to be exalted, to be extolled by his own.
Be given the highest place that in everything he might have the 1St place. Is that something of what we mean when we talk about the glory of the Lord Jesus? Let me ask a question to add to it in John Trail.
The Lord says.
Now it's the judgment of this world.
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31St verse Now shall the Prince of this world be cast out in the eye.
If I be lifted up.
From the earth will draw all men unto me this, he said, signifying.
What death? He should die? Does the cross enter into that glory and the display of it?
Perhaps I could use a little illustration. It might be in your heart to give somebody $1000. That's in your heart, but nobody knows about it. But when you have done that, when you have given that person, then other people know about it and they honor you for what you have done. There was a purpose in the heart of God, an eternal purpose to bring blessing to us, to manifest all that was in the heart of his beloved Son, because.
Jesus came as the willing person to glorify God his Father.
And not until that work of redemption was accomplished did we know all this that was in the heart of God. Our brother Armstead Barry, I think, used to use the definition manifested excellence. That is, all this excellence was in the eternal purposes of God. But where was it displayed?
It was displayed at the cross when there the Father's heart was told out that he sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. They're the heart of Christ is told out. And so now all that is made known. And so we glorify Him for what has been revealed to us through this work that he has accomplished. And also look on to the fulfillment of it when the whole scene is going to be filled with the results of what was originally in the heart of God but is going to be displayed in another day.
So I think the little definition our brother Armstead Barry had manifested excellence in some measure. We as believers have laid hold of this until we glorify God. We glorify the Lord Jesus because this is all been made known. But eternity is too short. We're going to learn more and more even here. I hope we're learning more this morning, but in heaven we're all hindrance has been removed. All this display of what was in the heart of God from all eternity.
Is unveiled as it were, Mr. Darby and Little Hymn says. And radiant hosts forever share the unveiled mystery.
What you say is borne out in the first chapter of John, where it says, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the glory of the only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And I think it was mentioned earlier, but I believe it's good to realize that that was his first purpose in coming into this world, was to completely tell out the heart of God and glorify God on the earth. It's a wonderful thing that through it all we have been brought into blessing and into the position that we've been Speaking of and enjoying this morning.
And through it we have a hope before us of that being with Christ in that full day of glory and manifestation. But we need to realize that his first purpose in coming, I say again, was to glorify God. And I believe that that's the main thrust of what you have in Hebrews chapter 12, where it says who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has forever sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Because there again, I believe you have his motive in coming in obedience to glorify God. I have no problem with applying that verse to His love for us and His realization that he would be alone for all eternity if he did not accomplish the work of eternal redemption. But nevertheless, we need to see God's portion.
Maybe we should just add 2 to be?
To be.
Careful that we understand that there are different kinds of glory that the Lord speaks of. That glory which He had with the Father before the world was. Perhaps we call that His essential glory, isn't it? Then there's that glory that he displayed as a man down here. We refer to that sometimes as the moral glory of the Lord Jesus. By the way, if any of the young people haven't read that wonderful little book by.
Mr. Bellitt, I try to read it about every five years, because I find I forget some of it, and it's just a delightful meditation on the Lord's glory that He manifested as a man down here into that in which he entered and displayed excellence in all of it. But then there is what we sometimes refer to also as his official glory, which was manifested on the Mount of Transfiguration.
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That which we will see the display of in the coming day. And then there's an interesting expression here, the glory that thou has given me. So we have various.
Kinds of glory that have been displayed. And all of it is excellence, isn't it? But each thing in its proper place.
What the Lord had before the world was his essential glory, that moral glory that he displayed as a man down here so perfectly.
When he came into this world, he displayed in that relationship all the excellence that was in his person.
And suited to that place he took as a man. And that's beautiful. It's food for our souls business. The manifested glory of the millennial reign which you get in the Transfiguration. Then we have the glory which thou gavest me. And could we say that that's new glory is that new glory, Acquired glory, acquired glory. That's it. Wonderful to think of that, isn't it? That's the 24th verse.
That they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.
And that was really the character of Pauls. Gospel wasn't enough. It was really the gospel of the glory. That's how it should be worded in First Timothy chapter one, the Gospel of the Glory. It pertained to a risen and glorified man at the right hand of God.
And first one, the acquired glory.
The only reason I hesitate is that my Son also may glorify thee, and that's the Father that is horrify the Father. But certainly, as far as the Lord Jesus was concerned, he's doing this blessed work. He there was added glory brought to the.
Name of God in that sense that God's heart was on display in and through the sun.
And we sing together 110.
Glory for our way. Glory, Glory, glory.
John 17:5-11
Reading
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For me, for God, I say God and love.
Lord and.
You have made your world.
And I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world. But these are in the world, and I come today. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those thou gave us me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the Son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And now I come to they and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them my word, and the world had hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is true.
As thou hast sent me into the world, Even so I also have sent them into the world, and for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also, which thou shalt, which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me.
And I and they that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me, and the glory which thou gave us me, I have given them that they may be one, even as we are one, I and them and thou and me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.
Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world.
O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known they, and these have known that thou hast sent me, and I have declared unto them thy name.
And will declare it that the laws were with thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them.
I wonder if something more might be said about verse 5 before we go on Whether the.
This glory that he had before the world was And now ask, Glorify thou me? What if I know himself with that glory?
There's the wrong doctrine that is going around in.
You need to be so jealous for the glory of the Lord Jesus.
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That when the Lord Jesus became a man, he ceased to be equal with God.
And.
I know that is not a right doctrine, that I think we need to understand the scripture well. If maybe something more could be said to explain it, I think it would be helpful.
Did he leave his glory, or was it veiled, nearly veiled, when he became a man?
Well, I believe it was only veiled. I believe he always dwells in the bosom of the Father. The Lord Jesus does say in John 10 my father is greater than I, but that is just the position that he took as man here and so as man, as he says in the. I think it's the end of the 12Th chapter that he didn't say a word without a commandment from his father. Perhaps he could read that.
He proved that he was the eternal Son of God.
Right. That's the proof that he was.
Well, certainly I hope I didn't say any question about that, but I just speak of the place the Lord took in obedience and humiliation here in this world. And He took a place in obedience. He never left the bosom of the Father. He was always and is always the Son from all eternity. But he took a place in humiliation in this world in the end of the 12Th chapter.
Of John.
49th verse For I have not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me. He gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. I know therefore, that his commandment is life everlasting. Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak so in that place of obedience. He was the one who, as we read in Hebrews, learned obedience.
He learned what obedience cost, because as God there ever with the Father, there was no call for obedience. But having taken that place in humiliation by he learned the cost of obedience. When he tells you to do something, that costs you something. For instance, when the Lord refused to turn stones into the into bread, he was still hungry and he felt that and it says he was afterward hungered and he was weary and he was thirsty and so.
As God shall I speak reverently. He didn't feel those things, but as man he did. But he never left his place in Godhead. But he returns, I believe, to that place which he had. And so he's not the one, so to speak. Now who has taken the place of obedience? He's back there in the full glory of all that he was. Not that he ever left it, but he veiled it. He laid it aside when he came into this world. I believe that's the thought.
I hope I didn't make any suggestion that he ever left that.
We had read to us this morning that 18th verse of John, one who is in the bosom of the problem. We could have read in the third chapter of John, where he is in heaven. So though he veiled his God, had glory in humanity, and took upon himself our nature in order to redeem us, in order to be able to die for us, he never lost anything.
Communion with heaven or his place in heaven? Who is in heaven? Says in the third chapter of God. And so when we come to Philippians chapter 2, it is that which he took in addition to what he always wants. So I thought as our brother was speaking this morning, of the various glories, and I certainly have no quarrel with the expression of the last one, except I have enjoyed an added glory, a glory of perfect manhood and perfect submission, and obedience, and obedience to the Father, and as such.
Yes, the glory now of a glorified man at the right-handed door. So it's the thought of addition to and not subtraction from his godhead glory veiled in human God brought up morally to see all the wonderful works they did as a God man, and then to be given the highest place in heaven because of his perfect submission and perfect obedience to the Father. There's one more verse in addition to John 114 we had this morning.
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And that's in John chapter 2 and verse 11.
John 211 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory, and his disciples believed on him. It was because of who He is, not because of what He did there. Because in the 12Th chapter we have though He did so many miracles before them, yet they believe not on him.
So it's because he had revealed in a way of who He is, His person, and his disciples believed on him. So that glory, though veiled, was revealed to those that had faith or that received faith in him.
I don't like to use illustrations, but if the king had a son, and his son put on working clothes and went out and worked and sold, someone said, well, he can't be the King's son because he is out there in working clothes, he would never have left his place as the King's son. And I would grieve the king very much and he'd say I demand honors to that person. And when he puts on his royal clothes again, he's no less the King's son than he was when he was in the working clothes.
And so the Lord Jesus came into this world, laid his glory by, took the place of perfect obedience, went through experiences apart from sin, but he never left his place. But now he is returning here, and I believe that's brought out in this 17th chapter. He's returning to that place which he had before he ever came down in humiliation and took that place. No change as to the glory of his person, but his position in this world was one of obedience. And now he's up there.
And the Father says, Every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord for the glory of God the Father.
This amount of Transfiguration.
17 We often refer to that as a Shekinah glory picture. Is that a picture of the glory of the Lord Jesus had failed in his humanity of humility here on earth, but we get to see a picture of it sort of like unveiled.
Well, I really believe it's the Kingdom glory that the Lord Jesus is going to take another day. The one who walked in this world despised and rejected by they saw him. And so if you turn the second Peter, I think you see that thought brought out.
Second Peter chapter one and verse 16.
That we have not followed coming. We devised fables when we made known unto the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty where he received from the Father God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, we heard.
When we were with him in the Holy Mount we have also a more sure word of prophecy, or I believe Mr. Darby translates that the prophetic word made sure where under ye do well that he take place is unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn, and the day star or the morning star arise in your hearts. So he's seen a little preview of the Kingdom glory there on the mount of Transfiguration.
And that makes it more real. Here were these Jewish believers. They knew all those promises as to the Kingdom, and they said, what about all those promises to the Kingdom? Well, Peter says we had a preview of that. We saw a little display of it on the Mount of Transfiguration. That's made all the prophecies more clear and sure to us because we've seen it. But for us, we don't look for the Kingdom. We look for the morning star.
The Lord Jesus comes for us as the morning star and as we see events coming close to the time when the Lord will take His Kingdom glory. It causes the morning star to rise in our hearts and we say, oh, he's coming for us before as the bright and morning star.
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Every time the Lord Jesus formed a miracle here, he left his glory up enough. He was at the root of the right ground, and they could say that when we see him there's no beauty in heaven. We should desire him so. He was veiled in human flesh as he walked down here in this world, and so much so that they did not see in him who he really was until he wasn't worried out, he could say.
When he stayed to the.
And he said, I am. And he fell backwards to the ground, such was his glory that was veiled in human flesh. And the woman in the 4th chapter of John, she could say, Is not this the price? Why didn't you say that? It was because she saw in this a man who could tell her all things, whichever I did. And so she could say it's not just Christ, the testimony as to who he really was. And so he thought he was very man yet.
Veiled in human flesh, he was still God, and he let that Gloria every time he performed a miracle. It's wonderful. It's wonderful to see that.
And it was to the eye of faith. To those who did not have faith, they could not see this but.
His His glory was there, and he let it out every time he performed a miracle.
It's really beloved, the glory of the sun.
Even though he veiled his Godhead, glory, human nature, he never ceased to be God. And it was a Son that he was owned in that place, and it was as the Son of God that they conceived him in that place and confessed him to be.
Mary. Yes, Martha, When And at the grave or before the grave? Believe us now this. Yes, we believe that thou art the Son of God. They believe that this voice that came out of heaven bore witness that this man, Jesus, was God's Son. Here throughout the gospel he was revealed. The brother spoke of the miracles that made him known it was as the sun.
When he still the waters in the storm, they said never a man speak like this. Truly this man is the Son of God. So it is the glory of a Qantas man in this sea. And it's that capacity he's been glorified at the right hand of the Father as the Son of God.
Can I speak of these things though? I think we need to have unshard feet. Shall I say it? I just like to read him. Matthew, Chapter 11 and verse 27.
All thing verse 27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father. And no man knoweth the Son, but the Father either knoweth any man. The Father saved the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him. We see in this verse that the Father has been revealed in the Son, but the mystery of the person of Christ, it says.
No man knoweth the Son but the Father, so we have to be careful that we don't go beyond what God tells us.
In his word, when we speak of him, there is that about his glorious person that is beyond our minds, always was and always will be, even in eternity. There's a mystery about his person that. So we turn. If you turn to the 15th, the First Corinthians.
And verse 24.
Then come at the end, when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
40th Put all things under his feet. But when he said all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is accepted, which did put all things under him.
And not all things shall be subdued unto him, Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him.
Put all things under him, that God may be All in all when it says God may be All in all.
That's the whole tragedy. That's the three persons. So God had an eternal purpose.
And that eternal purpose was to bring blessing to man through his beloved Son. And so we see in the work of the cross it says, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God. The whole Trinity involved in that work that he was doing there at Calvary in glorifying God and bringing blessing to us. And in the end it will be displayed that.
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All God's purposes.
Been fully accomplished in and through that one do not only became a man, but remains a man for all eternity. And as we have in the Gospel of Luke, he becomes the servant, the servant who says I'll serve forever and so forever as the Son he will, he will reveal to us this wonderful love and things that are in the heart of God that are the ages to come he might.
Show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
He does that as man. He remains a man forever, and the Spirit is the power for the accomplishment of it all. And those three persons make God All in all, Well, brethren, it's beyond our minds. But this is, I believe, the, what shall I say, the mystery of God, that which is far beyond us, but revealed as far as our little minds can take it in, in the scriptures.
When the Lord Jesus spoke of being the Son of God in John chapter 5, the Pharisees had no problem putting that together.
It says in verse 18 of John chapter 5. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him because not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his father, making himself equal with God.
Is that passage in First Corinthians 15 more the thought of the son of man delivering up the Kingdom as the son of man?
Yes, but he remains a man forever. Then shall the son also be subject. So having taken that place, it's like the Hebrew servant who said, I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free and in order to have the company of his redeemed ones. He remains a man forever. But he never leaves that place in Godhead. He never relinquishes any of the glory that belongs to that place in Godhead, but he remains a man.
But brethren is beyond our minds. Let's not try to bring it within the limits of our human mind. We can, but we bow to the revelation that God has given. There's another passage that I think some have had a problem with, and that's in Philippians 2. And perhaps we might have a little more clarity on it. And that is in verse 5, where it says Christ Jesus, verse six, who being in the form.
Of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Now that thought of being in the form of God.
Is that not simply in contrast to his taking upon the form of a servant? How would you express that?
Well, I believe so.
God was never a man until the Incarnation. That God became a man in the incarnation, and saw this very person who appeared before a man walking in this world, hungry, thirsty, weary, He He was not in the form of God. He was there in the form of man, But he was God. He was God all the time, but he he appeared to man in that place. If I could use my feeble illustration again.
The man in working clothes didn't look like the King's son, but he was just as much the King's son then as he was before. But he appeared in the form that was different than what you would expect when he wears royal clothes.
Adrian Broach used to float something of J&D's, and I'm not sure where he got it, but it went something like this. He never ceased to be what he was because of what he became, but he was perfect in what he became. And I think that sums it up beautifully, that he never ceased to be what he was because of what he became. But he was perfect and what he became, that is, he became a perfect man. And of course carrying that on.
When the Lord.
In the 15th of First Corinthians delivers that up.
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He doesn't deliver up anything of his, of what he is, does he? But he simply makes that decision to remain a man, and in doing so, God is All in all and he shares in that. Doesn't he has the Son?
And in remaining a man for all eternity, he's able to devote himself to his bride so that he can enjoy her company and so that the bride can enjoy his company. And I enjoyed the way one of the writers put it concerning that verse in First Corinthians 15 when he delivers up the Kingdom to the Father. The writer said it's as if he says, I want to default now, my full time for all eternity to my bride. Well, what a wonderful portion is ahead for us. And I was just thinking too, is our brother Hayhoe was Speaking of the purposes of God.
How that those purposes are never going to be frustrated. God's heart is going to be never satisfied until his Son has his rightful place and his full exaltation, not just in heaven, but on earth, because he's going to gather together all things in one, even in Christ. That's the ultimate of God's purposes. That's the fruition of everything, when everything gives glory and honor to the Son, the one who was the brightness of his glory and the express image.
Of his person, the one who fully glorified God in his pathway and in the work of eternal redemption. God is going to see to it that he has his full exaltation and his glory. But I was just thinking in connection with the purposes of God, of something that ought to encourage our hearts now, because while we look on, there's always a present enjoyment and something to exercise and encourage us at the present. And as the people of God go through the wilderness, and there are the tests and trials.
And the enemy is busy. I think it's good to realize that there's one who's still on the throne this afternoon, one who's still head over all things to the church, which is his body. And sometimes things seem out of control. But I often said at one time that we were going through some real difficulties at home. And I went to see an older brother and we sat down in his living room and he made one statement. He said, Jim, sometimes things seem out of hand, but they're never out of the Lord's hand. And that statement brought comfort, and we didn't need to discuss the problem or the situation.
But just to realize that there was one in control and sometimes brethren things seem out of control.
I think of the book of Esther. God is not mentioned by name there, but as you read the book of Esther and it seems like the people of God are going to be annihilated.
Find that God had a purpose. Not just a purpose, but a purpose of blessing. And that's what God's purpose is. Always are in view of, always in view of blessing. And by the end of the book, so God is not mentioned by name. I don't believe you have any difficulty in recognizing that God was in control of everything, and he had a far greater blessing for his people than could ever be anticipated. It was unthinkable to think that a Jew Mordecai could sit on the throne next to Antioch Xerxes, but that was God's purpose.
Esther brought into a place of prominence and blessing, and he has a purpose of blessing. But I would just say this too, that we may not always see it this side of the glory, but we can leave it in His hand. And I found great comfort from the scripture that says the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places playing and all flesh shall see it together, For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. In that day we're going to see everything in the light of His presence and how everything was working out for a purpose of blessing.
Bob, can we move on to the sixth verse now?
Get up and up a nice line of things, but perhaps we ought to go on to the sixth verse, so.
Amen.
Seemed in the six words that brings in these eternal purposes thy neighbor, and thou gave us them me. We learned from Ephesians one that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world had little hymns, as and when was come the moment thou calling by thy grace to gently, firmly drive us, or call us each from our hiding place, so God had those eternal purposes, and here were these disciples.
They were chosen before, but now the Lord speaks of those nine they were and thou gave us them me. So He now takes them as his own. He tells them that he's going up in glory, and there he's going to intercede for them, take care of them all along the journey. And there's a day coming when they'll be brought into the fullness of the blessing, as we have in the end of the chapter That they also now has given me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.
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And so it's lovely to think of this, that God had those thoughts about us before we were ever brought to himself.
Now we have been brought, we have been given to the sudden he's the captain of our salvation. He's going to bring us home to glory.
The spirit of God in Christianity is very careful to detach us in every way from this world. I've enjoyed a little contrast in connection with the verse our brother mentioned in Ephesians, one in connection with our being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world in Matthew. I think it's the 24th chapter when he speaks of the blessing for Israel.
He says that their blessings were from the foundation of the world and they will be blessed in that way in the coming day.
Because they're an earthly people. But for the Christian in this dispensation, I say the Spirit of God is very careful to detach us in every way from this world. We have been Speaking of the one who has glorified God in this world and now is glorified at God's right hand. And now he brings us into a relationship with himself. In fact, in Ephesians we're already seen as seated there in Christ Jesus in heavenly places.
And the Lord Jesus spoke to Mary in the 20th chapter of John. I believe it is. And he said, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father to my God and your God. He had come from God. He was returning to God. But he says you're going to be brought into a place of association with me now in resurrection. And so careful is the Spirit of God in the New Testament to detach us from this world in every way that in Revelation 5 when it speaks of that time when we reign with Christ.
I believe the thought is there. We reign over the earth. And so we're not connected with the world in any way. And we need to realize this brethren, that we're not associated with the world. We're still in the world. We're not immune to the things that people in the world pass through. We're not immune to the that which sin has brought in, but to see that we're brought into this new association. And when he writes to the Saints in different assemblies, the apostle Paul particularly, he never writes to the Saints of chorus or the Saints of colossi, he writes to the Saints.
Corinth or in philosophy? Because we're in this world and we're at Bridgeport this afternoon. But I trust there's some realization with us that we're not of this world, but we're fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God.
It's very significant that in verse six he says that he has given them to him out of the world.
In John 13, he says to his own as the Father has sent me into the world, Even so I have sent you Our citizenship is in heaven from which we look, from whence we look for the Savior.
These bodies of humiliation and change them into bodies of glory like unto his own, So we are delivered. He gave himself nation 145 for us, that he might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God. So it's very important what our brother has just said, that we are disassociated entirely from this scene, that rejected the Lord Jesus Christ and associated with him, joined to him by the Spirit, and returned to the world in the same character.
Which the Lord Jesus Christ will send of the Father here to reconcile men unto himself, your ambassadors for Christ beseeching men in Christ, that be ye reconciled into God. So it's very important for us to realize and enter into a little by faith of our disassociation from this world completely, so that we don't follow the pattern of the professing church at large and settle down and become earth waters and miss the entire purpose of God.
In calling us out of the world, unto himself in glory.
Something else very characteristic of Christianity in this verse six it is I've manifested Thy name. The name of the Father, isn't it? It was something that was not known in any previous dispensation. He was known.
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In Jehovah, which is.
The name generally used in the Old Testament, although there are others, the Almighty, and others as well that it was.
This name the Father no closer relationship to God can we enjoy rather than this that we have been brought into. And it was the Lord Jesus and his being down here in all His life manifested that.
New name. That name of the father. I think This is so beautiful. It's tremendous to get ahold of.
I think that's specially brought out here and in the Lord's Prayer because he came to reveal the Father. He doesn't want us just to know that he loved us and gave himself for us, but he wants us to know that he was the expression of the Father's heart. The Father himself loveth you as we have in the 16th chapter. This is brought out of these chapters. It isn't really the Church that is looked at as such, but it is those. It's the family rather that He's brought before us.
In John's gospel there are three different ways in which oneness is spoken of oneness in the family. We get that in John's gospel. Then there's oneness in the body of Christ baptized by 1 Spirit into one body, and then when it speaks in Hebrews too, he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one, for which 'cause he is not ashamed to call him brethren. Is oneness in kind. Now that is, there's a real man in the glory, and we're going to be men there too.
And so there's one that's spoken of in those three ways. I think it's helpful to see not that each one isn't blessed, but helpful to see that what you've been saying that in John, it's particularly the father that's revealed and we're brought into that family and there's a family relationship that we can enjoy.
A bride is brought in, a husband and wife are very happy together, but there's a different relationship and a very real relationship in the family.
And that's brought out in John Spirit of God would have us to enter into both, and I think it's blessed for us not only that the Son of God loved me, but the Father himself loveth. He was not blessed.
Hello, hymns. This beautifully dwells in his bosom, knoweth all that in that bosom lies and came to her to make it known that we might share his jewels. That's what he's bringing his brethren, his home to the father's house. He doesn't say in my house are many mansions in my father's house or many mansions?
Another characteristic of Christianity brought out in this sixth verse is that they have kept.
Thy word. It is the nature of the family of God to be obedient to God. So we have that brought out here. Peter tells us that we have been separated, sanctified by the Spirit under the sprinkling of blood and the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's characteristic of family and God's family that they keep his word. He obeyed. God has ordered this universe.
To be controlled by obedience and submission to himself. And that's what we see in the exhortation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Until his enemies He made the footstool of his feet. So it's one of our characteristics. And so when we are disobedient, we're acting out of character and so we need to be aware.
That it is belongs to us as believers, not of this world, and obedient to the Fall.
Just before we move off the thought of the father.
In the early part of the verse, I'd like to.
Remind us that it is not in this chapter at all the thought of our Heavenly Father. Is it?
We used to have a little tract. I don't know, Brother Don can tell me if it's still available. Why Christians should not say Heavenly Father. I'm afraid of the Holy Ghost. I don't know if it's incredible. Anyway, I remember reading that when I was first gathered and just before that maybe, but.
It's an important line of things that christened them really has let go and that is that we stand in relationship to the Father, not as a heavenly Father often.
The distance. But we stand in in the same relationship that the Lord Jesus stood here and we see that he uses it Father in verse one.
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And verse five, Father and.
In verse 11 Holy Father.
There's a reason for that too. In verse 21 it's father and then in verse 24 it's Father and then finally in verse 25 righteous father but.
I not once did we find the Lord using in this chapter that expression your Heavenly Father or the Heavenly Father. It's just Father, isn't it? And it's an unknown and enjoyed relationship.
And I believe that we lose much if we get away from that.
We see too, that there is a special enmity between the Father and the world because of the rejection of his beloved Son, that is, God sending his only Son into this world, and the world's reaction to him and so.
We see how first John brings that out so strongly and we tend to.
Not consider these verses but in first John chapter 2 and verse 15 it says love not the world neither the things that are in the world.
If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father that is of the world, and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
Very serious thing to consider, isn't it? We see that in a general sort of way that enmity between Christ and Satan, that enmity between the spirit and the flesh, and this enmity in a special way between the Father and the world. His heart of love going out to the world and rejecting his beloved Son. And now the world stands in condemnation. God is calling out of the world.
That's why it's so important, isn't it? To emphasize especially for?
Are young, although it really applies to us all, rather than the enjoyment of the love of the Father.
Why is it, brethren, that we love the world? Why is it? It's because we're not in the enjoyment of the love of the Father, and the Lord. Jesus came to bring us into that. In a very special and a very real way. He manifested the name of his Father so that we could enjoy those same divine affection. And if I'm in the enjoyment of that in a real way, this world can present itself and all the fancy forms that it does, It's not going to have any attraction.
To my heart, because I have something far, supremely better.
Someone has spoken about that being the most solemn condemnation of the world. If you turn to the 15th chapter of John.
And the 22nd verse.
If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. But now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
I believe that's really the world saying if they when they saw the Lord Jesus walking in this world.
Healing the sick, cleansing the leper, opening the blind eyes, showing out love, feeding the hungry, and so on. And the world said, as it were, if that's what God the Father's like, we don't want him and we don't want His son, because He has revealed to us what the Father is like. And that's why it doesn't say they have not had sins, but they have not had sin because the rejection of Christ brought out in great relief that man's heart did not want God.
Revealed imperfection.
In the beloved Son whom he sent the Lord Jesus. And so this is the world. This is that's why the world tried and world's trials ended when they saw God perfectly revealed in the sun, even the tone of his voice. Everything was a revelation of the Father. And they said we don't want him. They had rejected God revealed in Christ, and that's what brought down that awful judgment. Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the Prince of this world be cast out.
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And so as our hearts go out to him and as we realize His love for us, then there is a keeping up His word. Because as has often been said, and I think Brother Bob has pointed it out to us many times, that the truth speaks to our hearts. It's as these things touch our hearts and affect us that way. But then we're true disciples. And then there's a following of him. I was thinking of a verse in John 14. He says here in verse 21, he that hath my commandments.
And keepeth them, He it is that loveth me, And he that loveth me shall be loved of my father, and I will. I will, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him. And I really believe that we're going to keep his word and have an understanding of the truth. It's contained in that verse where the Lord Jesus said, if any man desire to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. As there's a desire for to know his mind and to walk in these things, then he will reveal it.
Reveal it to us.
And so it's a timely word in the day in which we live. And I really feel that sometimes perhaps you talk to those and they say, well, I'm confused in the path of faith and service. So I really believe that confusion stems from not being willing to bow to the divine principles of Scripture. If I'm really willing to bow to the word of God, His commandments are not grievous. If it's spoken to my heart, if the love of the Father has touched my heart, if the love of the Lord Jesus has touched my heart, then I want to be a true disciple.
Really willing to follow and to bow to the path and to the principles that he has laid out.
In his word.
Relative to our speaking to God as Father, and the intimacy into which we as children have been introduced into the family of God, we hear the Lord Jesus and the garden in deep suffering of his soul, and the death address God as Adam, Father, and when we come to the Epistle to the Galatians.
God has set forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, whereby we cry ABBA Father. It is our blessed privilege as God's children to address our Father in the same intimate terms by which the Lord Jesus Christ addressed Him as Father. ABBA Father showing to us beloved, how completely He has given us His place because He took our place.
Abbott father is our precious privilege to address our God.
But in the revelation that he gave to Mary, he said, I have sent unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God and your God, showing that in all things he must have the preeminence. It's very beautiful. Could it just said our Father, and included them. But instead my Father and your Father, there's always that place as we were talking about at the beginning, where the Lord Jesus, that in all things he must have the preeminence.
So beautifully accuracy of scripture to maintain the glory and honor of the person of Christ and how in all eternity he's going to stand out as that one that is the center of the whole scene of glory. And we receive all in and through him. We'll never have a place in Deity. We'll be, we'll be associated with the one who is deity himself, but we'll never have a place. He'll always be God, and we'll be always those who are blessed in association as children.
He's done everything he can for us, short of essential deity, made partakers of the divine nature and so forth. What grace and even the selection of these men that God had given him out of the world?
Well, I just thought of this verse in Acts chapter 4 where it says in verse 13. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled.
And they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. He didn't select.
The elite of the world or the intellectual giants? No, he just selected ordinary fishermen, men that were not well educated. And the people could tell that, I suppose, by their speech. They said to Peter, thy speech be ray of thee. And so they were marked out as not being intelligent and learned men. Now certainly the Lord in his own purpose could raise up a Saul of Tarsus, a very well taught.
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Man and one who was number doubt intellectually above most. But he began with these men of a humble rank, and I think that's marvelous. That all demonstrates his grace and his power, his purposes.
Grace here when he says, and they have kept my word just before Peter was going to deny him, just before when he went across.
And yet he can say to the Father, they have kept my word. We go to the to the 11Th chapter of Hebrews, and there we we get God's mind about his people. In the Old Testament. There's not one measure of the failures but all that was in place. And so when He presents us to Him, to his father will be without a Father blemish. And he said things.
And that brings in the relationship of the Father again, because in verse eight he said, For I have given unto them the words which thou gave us me, and they have received them. And you know, that really identifies those that belong, and know the Father, and those that do not.
In John eight he mentioned it that way to those that did not believe, and he said in verse 42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father.
He would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God. Neither came of myself.
But he sent me. Why do you not understand my speech? Because you cannot.
Hear my word. And then he mentioned in verse 47.
He that is of God heareth God's word. He therefore hear them not.
Because ye are not of God. So it makes it plain that these words were from the Father, and you had to realize he was the eternal Son, and that these words were from the Father through the Son. He was sent to manifest and reveal the Father's thoughts and mind. It's good to view the people of God through the way God sees them. And when we view the people of God the way God sees them, then we have nothing bad to say about the people of God because.
He views them in all the perfection and loveliness of Christ, and that's how he could say here they have kept Thy words. When we look at the failure and that which was yet to come, we say, how can He do that? Well, this is God's perspective and he can do that. But in connection with keeping His word, there is a commendation given in the third of Revelation. And I trust, brethren, there's no thought even in the corners of our hearts as to being Philadelphia, but you do see it Philadelphia, that which met with the Lord's approval.
He says that they have kept my word and not denied my name. And isn't that what we really covet the Lord's approval?
Paul said it was the great labor of his life that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
The 138 saw the first two, Father says. I established A sanctified Thy word of all my neighbors.
If you keep his word, you will not deny his name. That's the most important, isn't it? To to to do his will and keep his word. And according to the truth that name will become more and more precious. I've often wondered, Brother Bob, in that connection, why in those two verses, the one our brother quoted in the 138 Psalm, and then in connection with the commendation to Philadelphia, why it's the word before the name? God doesn't I speak reverently. Just give a list.
Haphazardly there's an always in order to a list he gives, and in both those cases he places the word above the name. But I've just thought of it this way. We're never justified in doing anything in the name without the authority of the word for what we do. If I go out and preach the gospel in some way contrary to the word of God, then I'm not justified in doing it. Not that God isn't sovereign and can't come in and bless it, Paul said, Whether in truth or pretense, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, and ye will rejoice.
We are never justified in meeting to have some some activity, perhaps even to remember the Lord, except it be in the way that he has instituted. It must be according to the word. We're never justified. I speak reverently in putting the name above the word. He says that He's magnified his word above his name. And it's a good exercise for us, brethren, in a day when many things are done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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That we be sure they're done with the sanction and authority of the Word of God.
Everything has to be that way. Like Paul says, thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life. The doctrine has to come before the manner of life. There can be an imitation of Christianity to such an extent that it might shame real Christians on some occasions. But still, if the doctrine isn't right, neither is the manner of life.
I think too you find in Acts 242 That the first thing they persevered steadfastly in was the apostles doctrine, and it was the basis for everything else. It was the basis for fellowship, for breaking of bread, and for prayers. And we said if we set aside doctrine as not being relevant or as important as was once considered, then we've taken away the foundation again when he speaks of all scripture being given by inspiration of God.
The first thing that it is profitable for, it's profitable for doctrine. And I know I've said this before, but it burdens my heart rather than the day in which we live to find that there's an OFT repeated statement made. While we're not gathered to a doctrine, we're gathered to a person rather than that's true, we are. And if we lose sight of the person of Christ, we're not going to be preserved. But if we throw out doctrine, because I fear that some that use that expression use it to justify setting aside the fundamental principles of the word of God. And if we do that.
Then we have no basis on which to meet. The foundation has been swept away. Thank God. If I give up the truth, it doesn't change the truth itself. The foundation of God standeth, sure, but let's be careful that we don't throw out doctrine as not being relevant. I say it's the basis for everything.
Drawn out here in these readings a number of years ago, when we were in the first chapter, Ephesians, that if the doctrine of God does not form the affections of the heart, those practical portions imposed by extraneous or outward power only becomes a system of rules and destroy the truth. So it is the word of God, the teachings, that we must adorn.
And let form the affections of our heart, so that the manner of life is that which is acceptable to God.
We have in our 7th and 8th verses other characteristics of the family of faith. Verse seven shows us they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. Beloved, there is divine intelligence in the flight of Christ that we possess. The apostle says we have the mind of Christ, that is, the intelligent faculty of our blessed Savior has been given us so that we have.
Instinctive understanding.
Of certain things that are that pertain to the life of the child of God. Look at the thief on the cross. How did that man who had not been a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ know? This man has done nothing amiss. He had been a criminal and was receiving the just recompense of his deeds. But in decline understanding he saw in the man he owned to be Lord, a man who had done nothing wrong.
So there is divine intelligence given us by the life that we receive in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a characteristic of our family relationship.
Very important that we realize too, that God and his part is willing to make his mind known. I think that's a very important thing. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. Or again in Philippians it says, if it anything you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. If I find myself differing from a brother, the Spirit of God didn't teach us those differences. There's something wrong, because if we were taught by the Spirit of God.
We'd be led to see the same view because on God's party's willing. So that's why we need to search our own hearts if we have a difficulty. Am I? Is my will at work in this matter? If my will is at work, then it's going to be a hindrance because our own wills are the hindrance to blessing. But God's will is always that we should be brought into the fullest blessing. Father, I will that they also now has given me be with me where I am.
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That they may behold my glory. And so the will of God will be fully accomplished. When we see eye to eye, when Christ is All in all, when everything is suited to the mind and character of God. And down here in this world, rather than the measure in which we submit our wills to the word of God, He teaches us.
And so when we find those differences, we need to search our own hearts. Is my will at work? Have I some preconceived thing that I'm allowing in my life?
We often don't realize it. Peter, when he would have kept the Lord from going to the cross, didn't realize that there was something in his will that was at work because he couldn't have been blessed if the Lord hadn't gone to that cross, satisfied the holy claims of God, and glorified him.
So I say again, because I've heard people say, well, if 2 great brothers like Mr. Darby and Mr. Kelly didn't agree on certain things, who are we? Well, who am I? I'm nothing. But is God willing to make his mind known? Yes, he is. Any man will do his will, he shall know the doctrine.
Is that a similar thought in Proverbs 3IN all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Than I be single. Thy whole body shall be full of light. But sometimes our eye isn't single. You want to please the Lord, But perhaps we want to please ourselves or someone else. And that hinders the the inflow of light and wisdom for our pathway. We've got something else in view than just the Lord.
It's important to see that there are.
If we can move on to verse nine, that there are two words used for to ask for or to pray for.
And the one that the Lord uses in this verse.
Which he characteristically uses in speaking to the father is one of one speaking to an equal.
And so Mr. Darby translates that I demand.
Perhaps using the French sense of that word, but it it really is the statement of what the Lord wants and said with the confidence that one would speak to one who was equal that he was equal to and.
There's a good note on it if anyone wants to look into those two words.
In Mr. Darby's translation in chapter 14 where the two were.
Developed was sometimes it can be used interchangeably, but invariably the Lord uses with regard to the Father, He uses the one that is translated.
Like J&D here as demand. And that's another wonderful internal testimony to who he was.
I thought of this ninth verse as in contrast with what is commonly called the Lord's Prayer, because the Lord taught that disciples there and the what is known as the Lord's Prayer to pray thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But when the King was rejected, then the Kingdom is postponed and the Lord is not asking for the kingdoms of this world. Now what is he asking for? He's asking, brethren, that you and I would be kept.
But in this time.
And so I I like to think of what is known as the Lord's Prayer, commonly called that in Christendom. It's really the disciples prayer. We never read that the Lord prayed those words, but he taught the disciples those words. So it was really that disciples prayer was given for a certain time but the King was rejected. So the Kingdom is postponed. The beautiful moral order in the prayer I say, but as far as asking for the Kingdom now, that isn't what we look for.
So the Lord is saying, I'm not asking for the kingdoms of this world, but in the second Psalm, the Father says to the Son, ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. And so we read in Revelation, I think it's the 11Th chapter. The kingdoms of this world are becoming the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. But he's not asking for that. Now, brethren, isn't this wonderful? He's asking for you and I. He's asking for for us, that we would be kept walking through this world.
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And that we would walk at the enjoyment of this life that we possessed, that we walk in the light of His word, that he walked with the glory shining before us, and that as we go through this world we would have that light and wisdom through His Word. So He says, I I pray for them. I pray not. I don't ask for the kingdoms of the world now, but for them which thou hast given me.
For they are thine. What a beautiful thought that he's up there, inner city, and asking for us. He knows what it's like to go through this world. He trod the path before us. Now he's asking the Father to keep us here during his absence.
When her brother brought before us those verses in John Epistle pointing up the enmity between the world and the Father, that is the reason for his remark that he does not pray for the world when the Spirit of God is given in the 16th of this chapter, the previous chapter of this book.
He shall convict the world of judgment. The world is in the lap of the wicked one and is waiting the sentence of judgment to be executed. There is no recovery for the world, and so he prays for those, as our brother has just said, who are in the world to be kept on that evil that's going to come under judgment. This judgment is going to fall on the world, and so there's no need to pray for that. It's sealed.
But we need our we need the prayers of the Blessed Lord to keep us in this wicked world, to test them out.
That's why that little expression in the 25th verse or righteous Father world likes to say, well, we all have one father, that's God. But as far as the world is concerned, it's a righteous Father. As though God the Father said, what can you do with my son? He crucified him. That demands judgment so that his regards this world, O righteous spot of the world, hath not known me. But he says I have known me and these have known me. And so his prayer is that we walk in the enjoyment of this.
In a world that doesn't know, God likes to talk about God as our Father, but they don't know Him. And if they call him Father, they must remember that he's a righteous father. And as someone has said, but unsaved people pray thy Kingdom come. They're really asking for judgment because it tells us in the 13th of Matthew that when the Kingdom has come, he's going to gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend them, that do iniquity and cast them into a furnace of fire.
So for us, we can say Father in the blessed nearness of relationship and we should never forget that our Father is a Holy Father, but it's regards the world. He's righteous. He's going to have to deal with them for what they did to his son.
That's why it is addressed in that 11Th verse of Holy Father, because it's for sanctification, practical sanctification. And it's through His Word. And it's nice to see that the Lord is looking to His Father and Our Father through the Word in verse 17. Sanctify them. That's a practical thing. Through Thy Word, thy Word is true. So it's Holy Father there when it's in respect to our being kept in this world.
Does that connect brother Bob with first Peter chapter one and verse?
16 and 17 and 18.
The the 16th verse says or 15th verse rather as he was called you as holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation because it is written be holy and I believe it should be for I am holy.
That is, if we're in connection with that one who is holy.
We are called to the same path of holiness, and then it goes on to say and.
I'd like to appeal to Mr. Darby's translation for that 17th verse. If ye invoke as Father, if this is the one you call father, the one who, without regard of persons, judges, according to the work of each pass, the time of your sojourning here in fear, knowing that you've been redeemed. So it puts it on the basis that if we are in connection and claim a connection by calling him Father, the one who is holy.
And the one who without respective persons judges according to every man's work, then we ought to pass the time over. So journeying here in fear, I don't believe that means in terror of him does. It really is in a sense of who it is that we stand in connection to and to remember that we're calling one whole father who is only. And we need to be careful about that. It's a very precious and intimate relationship.
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But it isn't one to be indulged carelessly and to forget who it is that we call father.
It's one who stands who, as we're reminded in our chapter, is the Holy Father.
I can say my child is all dirty and clothes dirty and I'm going down the street And she says, Daddy, can I go with you? I say, well, I love you, but I don't like those dirty clothes. I'd like you to get cleaned up. You're going to walk down the street with me. And so if we're going to walk in the company of God, our Father, we must remember that he is a Holy Father. And that's what you're bringing out in in Peter. That's what he's really telling them, that if they're in that relationship.
Why he would have us walk in the becoming way because be holy, for I am holy so she gets cleaned up. I loved her with her dirty clothes, but I want her company and clean clothes.
I might just say what an awful blasphemy it is for a man to arrogate that title to himself to be called Holy Father.
Is coming from Italy kind of painfully aware of how many people use that expression, the Holy Father. But there's one who is the Holy Father, and that's God, Our Father, isn't it? What an awful thing it is for Amanda. Irrigate that expression, that name for himself, and by the same token, reverent.
You know, it says in the Psalm, Psalm, holy and reverent is his name. And you know that's true of the Son, too. I was thinking in connection with Philadelphia. The Lord addresses himself to Philadelphia as He that is holy, He that is true, that has to be true. That has to be the characteristic of that testimony, holiness and truth.
Miss Gerson seems to be the what he asks is in.
Especially in view that they may be one. I'd like to hear some comments on that. In view of the fact that he is the Holy Father still, the purpose he is asking is that they may be one as we are. Nick Cannon mentioned this morning that it was in.
One in Communion.
But I think it's in tremendously important to see the Lord's desire for oneness in his people.
Well, I believe we have the free one that was brought before us in the in the chapter we hear we have this oneness and communion, and then we have oneness in testimony in the 21St verse, that they all may be one, as thou Father, art in me, and I and thee, that they also may be one in us. That the world may believe that thou hast sent me, I believe that was partially fulfilled, we might say, on the day of Pentecost.
The disciples were of one heart and one soul, and there was a tremendous testimony. 3000 got saved in one day, And the world testified and saw in a practical way that the display of that oneness. And so I believe that's oneness in testimony. And then in the 22nd and 23rd verse its future. And that the world and the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I and them and thou and me, that they may be made perfect in one. And that the world may know. It doesn't say. The world may believe, but the world may know.
That thou has sent me, and has loved them as thou hast loved me.
So as we walk in communion with God our Father.
Remembering His Holiness.
Then there is oneness and communion. There is not a hindrance to the enjoyment of that oneness of mind when we remember that God, our Father, is a Holy Father. Alas, as you were saying, our failure in the testimony has caused that the world looks on and says look at the broken state of things. But how it was displayed so beautifully there at Pentecost when they were one heart and one soul, and that it says the people magnified them, that is, they saw a tremendous testimony and there was great blessing.
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But thank God there is a day coming and it's near when all the redeemed and as our little Him expresses that thou shalt to wandering worlds display that we with the are one. And so the Lord is going to come with us. He's going to say now they're one with me, everyone.
Be exactly like Christ. Morally and physically. They'll see eye to eye on that day of glory. What a wonderful prospect. So that'll be oneness in display.
But in a practical sense, brethren, I believe it can only be so as we remember that God our Father, is holy, and as we walk in the light of that, then it says as we have in John's epistle.
Your fellowship with him, and that we might have fellowship with one another as we have that enjoyment in our souls in a practical way. Then there's that fellowship with the Father and with the Son and with one another.
But even there is connected with holiness, because if we walk in the light, if he is in the light.
Fellowship.
Yes.
327.
Lord Jesus.
When we want to live.
Oh my God.
To say why.
Our sins are you.
Started each day without him.
Betray gracious, loving God our Father.
What we have had before us.
From thy precious word this hour and what we have just expressed in him and my presence.
We could never believe were it not revealed my life, Spirit from heaven, in thy precious word we thank the Thy word is true, and we believe. Thou hast indeed exalted thy name above thy word above all thy name, Because my beloved Son, is indeed the Word in the beginning was the word, the Word was.
With thee and the Word was called, and the same He was in the beginning with the your God. We thank thee for the place that He had, and God had glorious We thank thee that he laid it aside, and took upon himself. Our nature became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, in order that he might have thy pride know of how he thinks thee that he's had before our souls that day.
When all shall be subjected to thee, that thou mightest be God All in all, in order that he might devote all eternity to that spotless bride, that he plans with his own precious blood. So we praise the our God that these things have been before us, help us to know how to translate them into an expression in our own life, in order that there might be a little of the life of Jesus manifested in these mortal bodies.
So he committed to thee, give thanks for all the ties brought in the precious and worthy name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
John 17:12-26
Reading
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Yeah.
Our blessed God and Father, we thank thee for that blessed place of sonship that thou hast brought us into.
Lord Jesus Christ giving us the very spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ABBA, Father. Indeed, Thou hast not given us the Spirit of fear, but of love and of power, and of a sound mind, sound judgment in this poor ruined world that is hastening on to destruction. And all Blessed God our Father, but a pure object we have in my beloved Son, the Lord Jesus.
And when we see him, we shall be like him, or we shall see him as he is. We thank thee for the Christ exalting ministry we have had these two days together, and now as we're once more together over Thy.
Word We pray that thou would pour us out a blessing and bring that before us most needful for our spiritual edification, exhortation, and comfort. We pray for those that must be on their journey, that thou would keep them safely. We once again look up to thee for our beloved brother Eric Pilkington, and we pray Lord Jesus to be with Him, be with dear Helen.
In this hard time.
Comfort them. And if it please thee to raise our brother up for little measure for their service if we're yet left here in this scene.
God and Father, we count upon thee for thy help now within this hour, and we ask all with Thanksgiving and that most worthy and precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.
1St.
John Chapter 17, verse 12.
Well, I was listening in the world. I kept him in thy name. Those that thou gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost. But the Son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, and not combined to be. If these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Thy word, and the world has painted them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou should have taken out of the world, but that thou should keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is true. As thou hast sent me into the world, Even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Neither pray, I believe alone, but for them also, which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I indeed that they also may be one Enough, that the world they believe, that thou has sent me, and the glory which thou gave us. We I have given them as they may be one, even as 01 I and them endowed me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and has loved them as thou hast loved me.
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Father, I will that they also, whom God has given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory Thou has given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known me, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou has sent them. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare that the love where was not his love needed, may be in them, and I and them.
S.
I.
Several years ago I was in England and I had a young believer.
Plymouth.
And he was talking about the Oneness in verse 21. And there was a group of leaders, I don't ever know who they were, and they were trying to establish this.
As a enthusiastical thing, a thing that could be established as a body on Earth. And I wondered about this, and I found a little note of Brethren's writing, and I couldn't quote it. Very good. So I I thought I might read it.
Oneness is not ecclesiastical. It is a oneness and personal knowledge of the fellowship with the Father and the Son, Oneness in the Spirit, each of them having the spirit of adoption. Has this failed? That could not be. We are accepted in the blood, having the Spirit of adoption brought together in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. That helped me very much to see that this oneness is what all believers in Christ have together as children of God and sons of adoption brought up.
This oneness would have been kept on going that we see in the primitive church if man hadn't failed.
The man failed very early.
To be seen. To be seen. Details to be seen.
This expression that is repeated the number of times when we get it in 12Th verse those that thou gave us me.
Like to ask the question when were those given to the Senate?
You tell us.
Ephesians One would give you the answer, would it not?
In addition to what we had about proverbs 8, yes.
It was before anything was.
Marvelous, isn't it? But then when you think of the.
Security and the confidence we have with this verse, the verse before 11. At the end he says only Father, keep to thy own name. Those whom thou hast given me. He's he's asking him to keep us. Then he said while I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those without hath given me. I have lost. I have kept.
I have kept and none of them is lost. I was thinking. It's the same thought of John 10, where he says in 28 and 29.
Speaking of his sheep.
28 And I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all. No man is able to pluck them out of my father's hands.
Now here is where we are in our portion. I and the Father are what? Well, it's wonderful to think about that. And now to hear this prayer where he asked the Father to keep us now.
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I believe Judas is brought in to show that the person being in the very finest of company perfection, it didn't change his heart one bit. People often say well that person got in bad company.
But there was number such excuse for Judas. He was with the one whom he saw nothing but perfection at all of his voice, Every action he saw that but it didn't change his heart. A man is tested through the scripture in every possible way, in innocence, under under law, without law, tested too. And the Lord Jesus was here. And of course the Lord knew all beforehand, because it says in the 6th chapter of John.
Have not I chosen you? 12 And one of you is the devil. Not will be, but is. He was never, even when he took his own life. It says that he might go to his own place, but his identification with the Lord didn't change his heart. And so it's a very solemn lesson. A person might sit in these meetings, might profess Christ and everything, but unless there's been real work of God in the soul, finest of company, the best ministry, everything.
Nothing will accomplish the work, only the work of God in the soul and those in whom he does that work for them. They'll never perish, they'll never be plucked out of his hand. But it's very solemn. Through the Scripture we see those who identify themselves with the profession of Christianity, like Simon the sorcerer, and so on. Nothing changes the heart but new birth.
And the Lord Jesus felt that he really felt it when Judas betrayed him in the Psalms, it says, My known familiar friend hath lifted up his heel against me that no doubt was in connection with a hippopotamus. And David, how that intimate counselor of David's turned on him and betrayed him. There may have been some circumstances involved in that. I I believe that a hippopotamus could have been.
The grandfather of Bathsheba, I'm not sure, but there was, with a hippopotamus a desire no doubt to have that first place in Israel. It was his scheme to lead the armies against David instead of Absalom. And we see that God really defeated the council of the hippopotamus, and the result was that when he recognized that, his counsel was rejected, just like Judas.
He went out and he hung himself, but the Lord Jesus really felt the betrayal of Judas.
It's very significant not only that he felt betrayal, but at the time when it became necessary to reveal him, the Lord Jesus did so in terms that exercised every conscience in the company.
One of you is a devil, he said in the 13th of John. And they said, is it I, is it I?
When we have to deal with evil, beloved, it should be as having to be gotten out of us in order to exercise the heart and conscience of every soul that has evidence in a matter. So when Judith took his place among the disciples as an imposter, he exposed himself to being chosen as this one who should be with him, and betray him with the Lord very wisely.
Pointed out in terms of an exercise, every context, that one would be at least betrayed.
It's remarkable that as Judas passed amongst the disciples as they walked with the Lord in his during his public ministry, it seems that the other disciples didn't seem to really detect that there was a difference with Judah, with Judas. And it's again a solemn warning to those who would seek to pass amongst the Lord's people and only make a profession. You can fool mother, you can fool father, you can fool the brethren. I remember a time when I.
Was asked if I was saved as a very young child.
And I said yes, and hastily went out of the door after a gospel meeting. We can fool somebody like that. But God knew what was in Judas fire. The Lord. Jesus knew the heart of Judas. And so I say it's a solemn warning to those who pass amongst us in that way. But I've enjoyed with Judas a little contrast with Peter, because on this same occasion that Judas betrays the Lord, a little later on Peter denies his blessed Lord, and it is possible for a Christian to follow a fire off like Peter and to get into that condition of things.
00:15:16
But you see a difference. Because Peter was one of the Lords, there was reality in his heart, but there was no restoration for Judas, because there never was any reality in his heart. But with Peter, though he denied his Lord three times with oaths and curses, yet there was restoration for Peter. And the Lord not only restored Peter, but he used him in a wonderful way and said to Peter before he went back to the glory. Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.
And we know that Peter was used to shepherd the people of God and to write by divine inspiration, part of the.
Inspired word of God. And so it's nice to see that on the one hand, Judas betrays the Lord. No reality in his heart. He goes out and he hangs himself. But for Peter there was restoration, and if we fail, there is restoration. And the restoring grace of God is as limitless as the saving and preserving grace of God. And if we are a true believer, we can never get to a point where we say I fail too badly, that there isn't restoration, and that I can't go on from here.
I would like somebody to explain.
Romans 9 and 22.
There are some that use that and say that that say it is impossible or that God rather has ordained that there are some should be lost and I would like to get some help on that first.
You you explained.
That verse is very has to be read very carefully because.
There is a distinct difference that the Spirit of God makes between the 22nd and 23rd and the 23rd. To go there, we see vessels of mercy, which he prepared for His glory. Every one of us who is a vessel of mercy is prepared by God for His glory.
That's that's very clear in scripture. But what about those who are the vessels of grass? It says not that he prepared them but they're fitted for destruction. Who fitted them? They fitted themselves for destruction. And it's very interesting that God's word is clear in making a difference and and there's there can be no confusion if we keep in mind that verse 23 says the vessels of mercy He prepared for His glory.
Whereas the vessels of wrath fit themselves really for destruction, And that is clearly brought out in the case of Pharaoh, who hardened his heart numerous occasions. And then we read that the Lord hearted his heart, but that was only after he had pardoned his own heart and and had chosen that path of resistance to God, but every one of us who is a vessel of mercy.
Are prepared by him for his glory, and without that, where would we be?
Thank you that the expression the son of perdition indicates that it was a persistent course that characterized him. And we do have these areas that might be difficult, but I believe that the spirit of God would help us to see where the distinction are is like Peter says. As it is written, the dog got turned to its vomit. Again in the South to the swallowing in the mire Well, a dog is a dog and a sow is a sow. You see, there's.
No change there. It's evident of their nature, and even in Hebrew 6, which has been a difficult portion for many folks.
Whole qualifies it by saying we are persuaded better things of you brethren, beloved, and things which accompany salvation. Though we thus speak so we have to consider these passages carefully and see how God makes a distinction, but even with Judas.
The Lord did not reveal it till the very last, and even then.
There was an opportunity for Judith. It did not have to be that Judith. There had to be Judith. But the Lord knew. But He didn't reveal it till the very last moment.
So along with this state we we get all that the father have given me shell and then him to come to me. I will know why it's cast up. So it wasn't that Judas was was prepared by God for destruction as you say he hurt himself.
00:20:14
The destination has nothing to do with unbelievers. It's never applied to unbelievers. It's only for Christians. And so as far as responsibility is concerned, everyone is responsible. But left to responsibility, no one would accept God's salvation, and so unless God steps in, there wouldn't be any blessing at all. So he steps in. And so the first time you read about it in the Bible is when they had sinned. And as far as they were concerned, there was no hope. And so God says I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy.
In other words, as far as responsibility was concerned, by everyone was doomed to judgment. So God steps in, just like it's ten men broke into your house. They're all responsible. You offer to pardon them, they all refuse it. They're all going to be judged now unless you step in and you say, well, I'm going to pick out some for mercy. Now that's a sovereign act, but that doesn't in any way affect the responsibility of the others. The others can't say, well, we're not responsible because you picked a couple.
The others are responsible for what they did. So were the ones that broke in. But the two that you showed goodness to, that was just the goodness of your heart. And so God makes everybody responsible. They're all responsible. And he never applies in the scripture responsibility to, I mean foreknowledge and predestination to unbelievers. They're treated as responsible people, judged as responsible people. If God is pleased to act in sovereignty, that's just his grace.
And that makes us so indebted, because why did he choose me? We'll never understand. We'll have to say well or soften grace. I don't know why. It was just His grace.
So there's the highways and heads.
That Mr. Brown used to say All may come, but none will come to some government.
The Bible is exceedingly accurate. There are two stories. When the servants go out, they only invite.
But when the servant, just one goes out, then he compels and so going into the highway and hedges and compel them to come in. It was only the servant. So the Spirit of God is the servant and he can compel. I can't compel, but I can invite all the gospel preacher can proclaim the good news to whosoever will, and that's all I can do as a servant. But the Spirit of God can work in that very audience and compel and so.
The scripture is so accurate.
Servants, it's inviting. Where it's the servants. It's compelling.
Isn't it true that only two people are marked out in Scripture as the Son of perdition?
Perhaps also in a tight too, but specifically it's Judas and the Antichrist, and I believe they're the only two that are called in Scripture, sons of perdition. I think we have to be careful in using that expression.
To limit it to what Scripture limits it to. There is a distinct connection between the word perished here and Son of perdition There come from the same root and it's the same thought. And he had perished as the Son of perdition. It's a very solemn position. I believe it's one of the few that the scripture says that we're better for him, that he had never been born. And that's a very solemn position, most of us you wouldn't say that about.
In the course of our life. But in the course of that man's life, it was said it were better for him.
That you were never born, the expression guarded, you were kept in verse.
12 is a very strong verse. The Lord says that he has kept them. The ones that have been given to him or Mr. Garvey's translation has guarded, and it's the same word that Peter uses where he says who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
It's the same word. It's guarded by the power of God. To me, that's a very sweet expression to think of the Lord Jesus.
Taking those dear ones that had been given to him, and guarding them while he was down here and now he commends them to the Father's care. And so Peter can say, who are kept guarded by the power of God. That is, he recognized that what the Lord had asked the Father to do, the Father was going to do, and was doing and was keeping them by the power of God through faith unto salvation. Faith is the agency, isn't it?
00:25:18
That's the means I should say by which God?
Preserves us, but it's his keeping.
No flesh and glory in His presence. And that's why if the Lord saved me and I have to keep myself, then if I keep myself, there would be something in which I could glory. I could say, well, the Lord saved me, but after that I kept myself so I would have something glory about. But God shows us that He did the choosing, He did the work through his beloved Son that fitted us for the glory, and he kept us or we would never get there.
So it's all to his praise and glory that no flesh should glory in his presence.
So it's very blessed to see the ways of God so consistent and so perfect. But as far as responsibility is concerned, God will have all men to be saved. He wants all men to be saved. But since man's will refuses it, then unless he acts it in sovereignty, there wouldn't be any blessing at all. So he chooses to act in that way because of what our hearts are and this gives all the glory to him.
I believe when we reach the glory and we're in the presence of the Lord Jesus, we're going to realize fully that if there was any response, whether it was in our coming to the Savior and receiving salvation, or whether it was in any measure following in the path of faith and service, that it was God that worked in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. And I've enjoyed that in connection with those in the 4th of Revelation who having received those rewards, those crowns.
For faithfulness of the judgment seat of Christ, they just take them and they cast them back at His feet. Because we're going to realize that if we gave a cup of cold water in His name, he gave us the desire. He provided the cup of cold water. And then he turned around and said, I'm going to reward you for faithfulness. Well, no wonder we're going to cast our crowns back at His feet. Because as you say, I believe we're going to realize fully that if there was any response in our Christian lives in any aspect, it was all a work of His grace in our souls.
Excuse me for repeating what I often say that we find in the scripture that you can test any doctrine that's presented by Does this line of teaching exalt manners, as exalt Christ? And you'll find that you can detect every false line of teaching that in some insidious way it gives a possession or glory or something that man can do so he can have the credit for himself.
But the truth of God always brings us in. And so whenever you come to a difficult passage, I say that because in John chapter 16 it says perhaps we should read it because it says 16 and verse 13.
Albeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself. But whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak. And he will show you things to come, He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. So as he leads us into all truth, he shows us that the truth of God always gives glory to Christ. So when you come to a difficult passage.
And you find it hard to interpret that passage. Are you interpreting it in such a way that you're giving some glory to man? Take baptism. Baptism is very important. But if that has part in the salvation of our soul, then there's something in which man good glory. Because baptizing is an act that a man has to do, and you can't do it yourself. So somebody does an act, and without that act you couldn't be in glory. That would give glory to man. You could say I was saved through the work of Christ.
But it was necessary for that work to be done, baptizing me in order that I should be fitted for eternal glory. Now, baptism is a great privilege. I'm not lessening its importance, but it has nothing to do with the salvation of the soul any more than putting on a uniform as anything to do with a man being a soldier. He's a soldier, even if he's not wearing the uniform its property should, but he's a soldier. And so the scripture shows us very clearly that nothing that man can do.
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Has anything to do with fitting us for eternal glory. It's all and only through the work of Christ.
Remember many years ago I?
Was up at the tent. I guess it was 1959 and Brother Barry asked me to, along with Bob Macy and Tom Roach, to write some of the chapter day things that year. And I never realized how little I knew about the word of God until you sit down and write it in a simple way. And I was struggling through the passage in in Peter, which says if.
The righteous is scarcely saved. Where shall the ungodly and Sinner appear? And I went over it, and over and over. And finally I read a little comment of Mr. Darby's that just opened up that verse. In a beautiful way. He said, this is going to take all the power of God to get his own. And I thought, isn't that lovely? You know that God is willing to put that at our disposal and to get us home. And it gives us a sense of what a fragile.
Pathway we have and if it weren't for that power of God, if it wasn't for that keeping that the Lord is speaking about here, where would we be? Where would we be? So it says if the righteous is Mr. Darby's translation is is with difficulty saved and I wondered what was that difficulty and it's just that that it takes all the power of God to get its own.
If that's true of the righteous, where shall the ungodly and Sinner appear? It's very solemn, isn't it, to consider.
To end this life without Christ.
Think it's so important that we enjoy this brethren and our souls the power of God that keeps them.
All the way home to glory.
In verse 11 he prays keep to thine own name those that thou hast given.
Verse 12 I have kept them.
It is God who has failed, keeping us all the way home, rather.
To ask the question is to answer.
Oh, brethren, to know his powerful hands are honest. He's bringing us home to glory through ways that perhaps we do not understand.
It's still all the power of God is engaged in bringing us home.
Realize that to be convinced of that in our souls brings what we have in the next verse of our chapter.
Now he says, come I to thee and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy building themselves. He speaks these things rather than that we might have joy. We're going to go through adversity. We may not be taken out of problems. We cannot escape many situations that the Lord allows in our lives, but to realize that through them.
All the power of God is engaged to bring us home to glory. I really enjoy.
In Hebrews chapter 2.
In verse 18, Speaking of the Lord Jesus is our great High Priest and this is in connection.
With our infirmities, our weaknesses, not so much here as a question of our failure, is our advocate in question of our failure. But here it is, our great High Priest, and I just love it the way it's dead here in verse 18 and in that he himself.
Have suffered being tempted.
He is able.
To sucker them that are tempted. I love the way the Spanish translation reads.
Rosso.
Very strong and he is powerful to help those that are tempted. Brethren is is there a problem? Is there a difficulty that is great in your life? It seems to loom great for you. Just listen to these words.
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He is able to 2nd.
To realize president.
That all the power of God is engaged in all the way home, and He won't fail.
Peter used that expression, the power of God in respect to the goodness of God that was brought out in that last meeting and it's first Peter chapter one and.
He speaks well. I'll start at verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a living.
Hope, a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. That fate is not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith under salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. And that joy then comes in, of course, but kept by the power of God to enjoy all the riches of Christ.
In glory as joint heirs, joy comes in our Christian lives as their submission to two things. Submission to the word of God, that that is in the path that He's marked out for us. And we were Speaking of that the other day. But then not only that, but submission to the circumstances that He allows in our lives. As long as I fight the circumstances, as long as I don't realize that God has allowed them, not just for a purpose, but for a purpose of blessing.
There's no real joy and peace in my soul. Sometimes we look at the tangled web of things in the family life or in our personal lives or even in the assembly, and we say, how can this be working out for a purpose of blessing? But again, I'll repeat an illustration that many have heard me use. Sometimes when my wife is with me, she keeps a little handiwork to do while we're traveling and visiting, and I know nothing about that type of thing. But I have noticed that sometimes, depending on what type of work she's doing.
The back of the canvas seems like just a tangle of threads. You look at that and you say, can all these threads mean something? What about the other side? Are they going to really make up a picture like they're supposed to? Well, when she finished the work, you turn the canvas over and those seemingly tangled threads you see all had a purpose. They all had a plan, and they went to make up that beautiful picture and its completion now. I believe we view things now from the backside of the canvas.
There are, as our brother said, things that he does allow us to see and to understand in his ways and his dealings with us. But I believe there's many things that we're going to have to wait until we view them from the other side of the canvas. And I've enjoyed a little expression in the end of Revelation. You have it only twice in the word of God. It's once in connection with the river of life that flows from the throne of God, and it's again in connection with the heavenly city itself. It says it's clear as crystals.
Now we see through a glass dimly. There's shadows, there's things we don't understand, you say, How can this be working out, brethren? There's a day coming when everything is going to be clear as crystal, and we're going to see it in the light of His presence. And it says in the Fourth of First Corinthians judge nothing before the time until the Lord come who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the secrets of the heart. And then shall every man have praise of God.
And I wonder, brethren, when we view things in that day, if there will be any question in our minds as to whether that was right and proper, whether it was something that was allowed for a purpose of blessing. I don't believe we will. I believe we'll see it fully manifest in the light of His presence, and we'll just praise Him for all eternity, for His goodness and His ways with us. But it takes faith to leave it with the Lord.
Significant that the Lord Jesus says that my joy should be fulfilled in them.
It was always the delight of the sun to do the Father's will. So the fulfilling of his joy in US is the delight of being obedient to the will of God as revealed in the word of God. His joy is a joy of obedience, and that is made good to us because he has been so kind to speak these things while he was here, so that when he gets away we can have the joy that He had of obeying the Father's will.
That's brought out nicely in John 15 where he.
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Mentions in verse 10 If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in My love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, that your joy might be full, and that's merely the joy of doing the Father's will.
What a blessed thing that is. And so we have in Hebrews 12, who for the joy set before him endured the cross.
That's astounding statement, isn't it? But when we realized what he said and how he felt, and in the garden anticipating it, yet the joy set before him.
There's only one instance in the Lords life when we read of him rejoicing and that's in Luke chapter 10 and verse 21.
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank the old Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight, that is the Lord taking their rejection even of the nation as from the hand of his Father. And so we rejoice when pleasant things happen in our lives.
And that's right, too, that we should. But the recorded instance of the Lord is how he rejoiced. And and he must have felt that the rejection of those whom he had come to bless those cities he had to pronounce in the verses before, curses upon them, judgment upon them, Woe unto you.
Because they had rejected, but he said I accept it all from my father that test each one of us.
We all rejoice when there are pleasant circumstances in life, but when we take something adverse, something difficult and say.
Well, I'm happy because I know the Lord has allowed this and I accept His will. There is a peace. There is a joy.
That only the Lord can give, and this is brought out here in this instance with the Lord himself. I believe this is a unique instance that we have recorded in the Gospels of the Lord rejoicing. I don't know that we have another place, and perhaps the Lord was anticipating A heavenly people in those.
Those babes that he was referring to, and certainly he will have a vast company around himself for his eternal praise and glory. He will rejoice in that coming day. Did you have something?
We might say, well that was the Lord Jesus as the perfect man in his pathway, but I like to go over to the book of the Acts in the 16th chapter, and there you find it exhibited with Paul and Silas. It was the darkest hour, midnight. They were in a a prison there in Philippi things hadn't worked out the way they had planned or the way they thought God was going to work when they had come to that city, but there they were, and they could rejoice as they just submitted to what God had allowed.
Wasn't a very nice situation, I suppose. Their backs were sore and sore and bleeding, but there they again there was submission to the will of God, and so they rejoiced and they sung and prayed at midnight. And I like to think there too, that God turned that into a wonderful blessing, because not only did they receive joy in their own souls as they submitted, but then there was blessing went out to others because there that the jail keeper was saved, and perhaps others we don't know. Perhaps it was the beginning of that little testimony there at Philippi, and it's easy to live for the Lord when things are going very well.
But the test comes in our Christian lives as we go through the trials. That's when we prove whether we really are in the enjoyment of His love and the enjoyment of himself. And I just say that as I've seen many dear people of God go through real difficulties in trial and exhibit in a practical way, the joy of the Lord in their lives. It's been a tremendous blessing and encouragement to my own soul.
In respect to the remark our brother made of it being the Lord and his being the perfect example of that, and our being discouraged because we are not exactly like him, I would like to read in first John chapter 2 and verse 8. And this is a wonderful thing to show how this unity of life that the Lord Jesus Christ brings out in our chapter.
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Again, a new commandment I write into you.
Which thing is proved in him and in you? So the life that we have is the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit has been given as power to bring that light into display, so that just as he had this life in himself, now it's true in US. Which thing is true in Him and in you.
So it is a possibility for us, beloved, and we should not be discouraged because it's a perfect, perfect example of the Lord Jesus Christ is true of us as well.
There's an expression.
Or should say there are two expressions in scripture.
That are commonly translated. Word one is the usual word that we use.
For the Word of God, which is divine communications. The other one is Logos, which is that which expresses or communicates what is in the mind. And the Lord in this 14 is it not the mind of Christ? And for that reason we can enter into those divine revelations. That's in First Corinthians 2, isn't it? And it can only be. We can only enter into those things by the Spirit of God.
And the reason is that we have the mind of Christ.
So it brings in the deep things of God.
Rather precious as the food.
And isn't that the reason then, that the world hates us because the world does not appreciate?
The mind of God.
And we, having had that communicated to us.
And in whatever measure we seek to walk in that, the world has no use for that. They don't want it. They don't want the mind of God. We need not think that that all the world is just waiting for us, for us to communicate the mind of God to them. The natural man cannot receive that. He does not want it. It's foreign to him and what he doesn't.
Appreciate it. He then takes out in hatred. Now that hatred may not be manifested in the in the bite of the lion, and it may not be manifested in inactive persecution. But we let not kid ourselves that that the world has any thought toward the believer other than hatred. The world has hated the believer. And why? Because the believer has the mind of God in the world doesn't want the mind of God.
There are really two kinds of persecution that a Christian can suffer.
Their physical persecution, which we do not suffer in a land like this. Many of in past generations and centuries have suffered in that way, and perhaps even in some parts of the world today they suffer physical persecution because of their testimony. But there's another kind of persecution we we can suffer, and that is reproach. And I believe, as our brother **** said, that in the measure in which we seek to walk in the truth and follow a rejected savior.
In that measure we will suffer A reproach all they that will live godly in Christ Jesus. It doesn't say might suffer persecution, but shall suffer persecution. Let us go for it. Therefore unto him without the camp, and we might have reproach no bearing his reproach, and the truth has never been popular in any dispensation. Our brother was speaking in the address of those three Hebrew children, and how when they sought to be faithful for the truth as they knew it in their day, they weren't.
Appreciated.
They had to suffer in that way. And you see that all through the Old Testament those who walked in the light that they had in their day were misunderstood. And the heart of this world hasn't changed since the Lord Jesus was here. A brother was telling me of a man he worked with, and on occasion he would give him the gospel. And finally one day it was just the last straw. And the man said, don't ever speak to me of the name of Christ again, he said, if the Lord Jesus came back.
He said I'd be the first one to nail him to the cross that's the heart of this world, even in 1993.
And if we're faithful to Christ, if they hated me, they will hate you also because he said the servant is not greater than his Lord.
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There's a new thing that controls our life, and that is the word of God. That's direction. The world will accept some of the ideas that are in the scripture because they say those are good ideas, those are good principles. But you say I do them because the Bible says it, and that's the word of God and I do it because of that. They won't, they won't go along with that. The world is not appreciate you quoting a verse of scripture as the reason for what you're doing, but for us as Christians.
Why, that's the very guide of our pathway. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto thy craft. So the Lord isn't taking us out of this world. He's giving us a path through this world is a beautiful verse in the 17th Psalm that says by the word of thy lips have I kept me from the paths of the Destroyer. So God has a path through this world that we can trace safely trot, a path that Satan is not able to trip us up when we walk in that path.
If we resort to human wisdom by the enemy may come in, and Satan is wiser than we are, but he's not wiser than God and how blessed it is. And so the Lord has left us here, and we walk in that path, or should walk in that path in which the Lord Jesus walked path of obedience to the Word and brethren. We're going to get into trouble, every one of us individually, when we get out of that path. I guess some remember the story and Pilgrim progress, how he came along to a point where the lions roared.
If he walked on his path that went through there, the path, the lions couldn't touch him. They were chained, and he could walk through there. They could roar, but they couldn't touch him. There was a safe path through that place where the lions were. If he got off that path, he was in danger. And we're in danger once we depart from the path of obedience to the word of God. And so the Lord is praying this that he's given us His word. The world doesn't like us using the Word as the guidance for our path.
But the Lord prays that we would be kept from all the evil that's in this world. We'd like. Just like the man in the Gospel of Luke, when the Lord cast the devils out of him. He wanted to be with the Lord, and who of us wouldn't like it if we that they were saved? The Lord took us just home, wouldn't have any problems like we have to face.
Have to meet the enmity of the world. But he said to the man, return to life friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee. Well, that wasn't quite so easy, but it was a privilege. And this is what the Lord I believe is saying here. He's saying to us, I want to leave them in the world. I want to leave them here to be witnesses for me. So there's no temptation taking you. But such as is common to man. We meet that situations that the world has to meet. But we have divine direction. We have a safe path through this world.
What a great thing. What a privilege this is.
Most interesting that you should mention that incident in Luke of the casting out of the devils. Because I was thinking of the attitude of the Gadarenes in respect to the world. Hating the Lord's own, they implored him to depart out of their coasts. More comfortable were they with the power of Satan that bound the poor man, than they were the power of Christ and did liberty. So it's interesting that you mentioned that in connection with what the Lord.
Enjoined upon him.
When the very principle of our verse is illustrated by them asking that he should depart from their coast, they don't want the believers that's walking in in obedience for the word of God.
It's interesting too, though, that they received the Lord when he returned because the testimony was believed. And that's the wonderful thing, isn't it? So there was real purpose of the Lord in not letting that man go with him. The real purpose of the Lord in sending us here. And I like to mention it that way, not so much where left. I know there's nothing wrong with saying that, But we're sent our home, is there, and we're sent into this world by the Lord.
It's a wonderful privilege to be ambassadors representing the sovereign in the homeland.
There are two things that set us apart from the world around us. One is that as to our.
Position we're not of the world.
That's verse 16.
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Just as the Lord is not of the world, we're not of the world, and that sets us apart from the world around us. But there's a second thing.
That the Lord asks the Father to do. In verse 17 you might say, Is it more?
Active thing, and that is the setting apart or sanctifying of the believer by the truth.
The truth. And then he goes on to say just we have somebody question what the truth is, thy word. And again, it's that same word, logos. Thy logos is the truth. It's a communication of the mind of God. That is the truth. I was mentioning that Gordon, just before the meeting that some years ago in Woodbridge, I asked Paul Johnson what the word, what the expression means that they might come to the knowledge of the truth.
And I asked what is the truth? And he gave me a wonderful answer that I've treasured. He says it's God's viewpoint of things, and that's what will set us apart, is to have God's viewpoint, the communication of the mind of God. And to know that, and to have it for ourselves in a very real way, will set us apart. And so the Lord says, sanctify them by the truth. Thy word is truth.
It's important to read a Psalm like the 119th Psalm and to see how important the word of God is. I believe that whole Psalm sets before us the importance of the Word of God. It's like the word hidden in the heart, and those things mentioned there are so important.
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heat unto thy word?
Have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee? So it gives us the absolute importance of the Word of God, making it, as it were, a part of us, and that has to be through a daily enjoyment and meditation of it. We can't be careless about it, can we?
There is sanctification in the Bible in two different senses, also in the sense of possession and in the sense of it being practical. So we read in Hebrews 10 and verse 10 by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, that is, through the work that the Lord Jesus did every believer, whether walking in godliness or not. If he's a real believer, he set apart. He's not going to be judged with this world.
We belong to heaven and when the Lord comes it says not just devoted Christians, but they that are Christ that is coming. It's going to take up everyone, worldly Christians and faithful ones. We're sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. But then there's the practical, practical side of it. It says here, sanctify them through thy truth or as Paul mentions in First Corinthians 5I pray God, your whole spirit.
And soul and body.
May be sanctified unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the practical side.
If I really belong to heaven, am I walking apart from this world, seeing I don't belong here?
If an ambassador is sent to another country and he mingles freely with the people as though he belonged to that nation, it's true he was sent by his country, if they recall him. He doesn't lose his citizenship, but he is no longer a true representative in that country when he mixes really with the people. And so the Christian is sanctified as to his position, but exhorted to be a practically sanctified person in his walking ways. And that's why we're left here, to display that we are not of this world, but ambassadors for Christ in it.
We must not leave the idea that sanctification is merely in the practical ways of setting apart. It's a setting apart in holiness, connected with the obedience to the word of God. That's what really makes the difference.
The Jews were set apart by the law, weren't they? But the believer is set apart in holiness to God.
That's why this whole portion began with addressing the Father as only Father, His Holiness that is demanded here in our walk and ways. And I was wondering about that 19th verse where he says for their sake I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
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Hebrews one, verse 3.
Who being the brightness of his glory and the expressed image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, When he had by himself purged our sins, but we might reset himself down at the right hand of God, he took that place at the right hand of God, setting himself down there as having finished the work, in order that he might take up the work of priestly ministry to his own that are left behind.
I'd like to say in connection with sanctification and and it's really important, like at first she brought out in Hebrews 10.
Positional sanctification that we were brought into the position we were brought into through the work of the Lord Jesus and the cross. It's a, it's a fact. It's a complete thing and.
It is only when we have the enjoyment of that fact and the soul that there's power to walk in sanctification of life. And I think it's so important that you see a lot of believers struggling to be holy. No, brethren, we don't struggle to be holy. We ought to walk in sanctification of life because we occupy a place of complete holiness before God in Christ. And in the measure that I enjoy the fact that God has set me in a position of such complete sanctification.
Then I'm going to be careful in my life that I do not cause any blood on that precious name by which we are from.
That's the power of sanctification practice.
So it's important rather than to read the scriptures daily. It's already been mentioned, but I'd just like to make an emphasis.
It doesn't seem that important. Maybe to pick up the Bible, read a portion daily, but it is important.
Daily Sometimes you say I just don't remember what I read. I have to confess. Sometimes, rather than I pick up the Bible and I read a chapter. I get done through the end of the chapter. What should I read? Doesn't seem like there's anything to go back and read over again.
It's like somebody brother said one time. It's just like my mind is a sieve. Somebody else said, well, pour water through Sid and it cleans it. They're sanctifying power in reading the word of God. How important to do it, even though we may not feel like doing it, but to read the scriptures daily.
I might just say, particularly for those of us who are younger, that it's good to read the word of God both in the morning and the evening in between times too, because we need all we can get.
But I believe particularly on those two occasions, because when the children of Israel were in the wilderness and God gave them the manna.
Speaks of Christ. They were to go out and gather it in the morning. Because as we go out into the world, we go out into a world where there's nothing to sustain the new man, that new life that we have been given have been given by God. There's plenty to feed our lusts. And if we go out without satisfying our souls with the manna, with Christ, with the bread of heaven, then we're going to be more vulnerable to those things that are offered to feed our loss. I've often said that if I.
Make sure my daughter eats a good, healthy breakfast.
Before she goes off to school, she's not so apartment to want a candy bar at recess time because she's been satisfied with good wholesome food. And so we need to satisfy our souls with the word of God before we go out into the world. But there was an elderly brother in my home assembly. He's now with the Lord, and he used to speak of the washing of water by the word, and he said that when he was working when he got home, he liked to have a good wash And he wasn't talking about soap and water, he was talking about the purifying effect that comes from the reading of God's words. And he used to use a similar illustration to what Bob has just mentioned.
He said, You know, if you take a basket and pour water through it, the basket won't retain the water, but the water will keep the basket clean. And so we need the the sustenance that comes in the morning from reading the word of God and then having walked through a world where there's all sorts of things to defile and to feed our loss.
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Then we need to come home, and we need to have the cleansing effect. And so the priest. It's true they were washed all over at their consecration, but there were many times during the day as they performed the service of the Tabernacle when they had to wash their hands and their feet. And the Lord brought that out at the beginning of the upper room ministry in John Chapter 13. The refreshment that comes through the practical application of the Word of God as to the truth of foot washing.
And if you go back to the first time foot washing is mentioned in Scripture, it's in connection with Abraham and those three men that came to him in the plane. And as they had come on their journey, then he refreshes them by washing their feet. That's why we need times like this when we're together and over the word of God, its refreshment and its encouragement in the path of faith. But it's not enough just to be together on an occasion like this, wonderful as it is. But we need it on a daily basis.
Just like with regards to reading, the word of God is an attitude that I know I have to have leaving the word of God. It's not to get knowledge. It's that this book will judge me, that each time I read this holy book that it would judge me and it would speak to me, God speaking to me to His word that it would judge me. That's the attitude I have to have in reading His words.
I just like to mention too. In Colossians chapter 3, seeing the brother has been mentioning the morning and the evening. 16th verse of Colossians 3 says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. So as we store our minds by the Word of God, situations arise continually during the day and the Word of God dwelling in US. Why we need that situation up in our own wisdom? Well, what does the Word of God have to say about this?
There's many young people here. You're constantly meeting situations at school and business and everywhere. If the word of Christ is dwelling in you richly, then when these circumstances arise, you think of, well, there's a scripture that gives me some instruction in this. So it's very beautiful that I just come and add a little comment about this vessel, keeping the vessel clean. Mr. Darby added another little comment. Even a leaky vessel is always full when it's in the fountain.
And so if it's dwelling in US, why it isn't just that we had our portion in the morning and in the evening?
Becomes habitual to our lives. We dwell in this blessed book. It dwells in us. We meet circumstances in the light and wisdom of the Word, and how God would have us to act in that particular situation. So that's what we have in Colossians, where we're seeing us seated in the heavenlies in Christ.
Number of comments have been made for the benefit of the younger ones.
I'm going to repeat what has given me some time ago as to reading the word of God or studying the word of God, the brother said. I am going to give you the most effective way for studying the Bible, and it has proven itself to be effective from generation to generation, and that is a daily reading of the word of God. Read it prayerfully and meditatively with the attitude.
What is God saying to me from His word today? And that which may appear to a beginner to be a vast knowledge of Scripture and those who are older, is nothing but the day by day accumulation of a regular reading of the word of God. Now that my beloved young people is a success story to understanding the mind of God and having ammunition for your soul as you're engaging in the battle of faith in this world that hates you and is contrary to you.
Perhaps before we pass on, I little we're getting away from our chapter. Perhaps.
But since the importance of God's Word in our lives as individuals has been impressed upon us, and I don't want to take away from that thought.
Perhaps I could just echo something that has burdened my heart, because we not only need the word of God as individuals, but we need it in a collective sense as well. And I feel that often today the collective aspect of things is being set aside and given up. And we need brethren to sit under the sound of ministry in the assembly, because I believe it's in the assembly. And on occasions like this where we receive a balance, there are so many who perhaps put a man at the front.
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And they get one side of the truth. They get one aspect of the truth. But nobody questions what he says. And God knows that we're extremists by nature. And I believe that's why he has given us in the New Testament instruction for having ministry in the in the assembly, I often think of the verse that says, Ephraim, is a cake not turned. And you know, if you put a cake on the griddle and you don't turn it, that it gets too well done on one side and not enough on the other. And I've noticed that sometimes those of us who do not avail ourselves.
The privilege of sitting under the sound of ministry in the assembly, we're often like that. We we take up one side of the truth, we get off on a tangent, and maybe that side of the truth is very good. But in the assembly, when ministry is presented, if I say something that's wrong, then if the spirit of God has liberty, another can bring out something to correct it. If a brother brings out one aspect of the truth, another can bring out another aspect to balance that.
Some can bring out the doctrinal side of things, some can make a nice application from the same scripture.
Some can bring out the gospel, perhaps from the very same scripture. And so that's why we need to have that balance. And I say we get that as we sit under the sound of ministry in the assembly. And perhaps you say when I go home, there's no real gift in our assembly. You say we come together and there doesn't seem to be much brought out of the portion. But the word of God hasn't changed. He's there. The spirit of God is still the same. And I really believe and I say it to my own heart.
There is a danger of despising the simple manner that is given in the local assembly. Maybe it is given in a feeble way, maybe it's only a few simple thoughts. But the Lord can use that for our blessing. And I would say again to my fellow young person, let's be at any assembly meeting where ministry is taken up, because as a brother told me quite a few years ago, he said. Jim, if you missed an assembly meeting.
Where the word of God is taken up, you may miss hearing something that you'll never hear again.
Melvin gathered the manna too. It says some gathered more, some gathered less. But he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack. When did he find that out? When they measured it into the Omer. And the Omar was the needs of the day. Every man was to have an Omar, what was required for the day. And I feel that's important. We could read, say, a chapter in the morning and a chapter in the evening, but if we don't measure it into our Omer, if we don't really.
Take it as that which we need from the Lord. Why? It just becomes something that we may seem. We think we've accumulated it, but it hasn't become practical. It hasn't done the good that God intends to our souls. Yeah. I believe it's important what you said too, that we need what is brought before us in the assembly. We also need what is before us in the home. But it isn't just to get knowledge. That is what I've eaten.
Let's learn when we read the scripture, to apply it to ourselves.
So as we apply it to ourselves, it's good for our souls because there's a danger of getting a lot of head knowledge to not making it practical in our lives.
This passage in First Thessalonians chapter 4, I believe is relative to our chapter here it says.
For ye know what commandments we gave you, but the Lord Jesus? Well, we have to read the word of God now to know what that divine instruction is.
Verse 3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that she should abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel and sanctification and honor and so forth. But we need the word of God to identify what sin is and to recognize what is really hateful to God, And it has been referred to as the Enoch chapter, this 4th chapter of First Thessalonians it gives us.
This question of how we can walk pleasing to God, as it says in verse one, and then it brings before us our departure. The Rapture and Enoch found himself in very difficult times, you know, a world that was filled with violence and corruption. And yet we see that that dear man of God.
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He He preached that the Lord would come with 10 thousands of his things.
To execute judgment on the ungodly, and so forth. So the Lord enabled him to.
Go on faithfully and walk with God in the face of all that horrible developing condition in the world.
Might be nice if the last verses of the chapter could be summarized. I don't think we have as much time to go over it in detail, but I'd like to hear some comments on these oneness in verse 21 and 22 and 23 and.
Just before we do, Bob, I would like to call attention to verse 20, because I think that it is that which links us with this prayer. And I think that's so very important, at least for me, it is. Up until now, you could think that the Lord was simply praying for the 12 or the 11.
And you might make a good case for that, that the Lord didn't want us to thank God and so He gives us verse 20. He says, I don't pray for these only. Again, it's that same word demand that we mentioned the other day. I do not demand for these only, but also for those who believe on me through.
Their word? And that brings us in, doesn't it? Into all the good of this chapter.
Because that's where we are. We're not perhaps them in the strict sense of it, but we are those that have believed through their word, and that brings us into all the benefit of it. I agree with what you wanted to have brought before us, but I just didn't want to miss that one little point that this is the length it brings us in for blessing.
Enthusiasts for the different Who is us? Those of us here who have believed everyone here who has believed on the Lord Jesus Christ through the word of the Apostles.
It started with 3000 on the day of Pentecost and there it went on. Bob, can't you go ahead and give us that summary?
Well, I think we mentioned before that in the 21St verse, I believe it was the Lorde desire that there should be oneness in testimony that they all might be one. We find in Philippians where there was a normal state of things that says striving together for the faith of the gospel and his His desire was that they might go on together. That was what God's plan was, that disciples should be going on together.
Presenting a united testimony to the world We know the enemy has come in, has spoiled that. But that should be our desire. And even as gathered to the Lord's name, that there should be a oneness of desire in connection with the testimony to the world, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
But then.
That has failed, sad to say, but the last one is sure to be brought about in the glory which thou gave us me. I have given them that they may be one, even as we are one, I and them and thou and me, that they may be made perfect in one. And that the world may know that the world may believe in the 21St verse, But hear that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and has loved them as thou hast loved me.
The Lord is not going to display His own to this world in all the groups that have come about through the failure of ourselves and the man in His testimony. But when he comes again, he's going to present us to this world as the Church. It says you'll come to be glorified. It is Saints and to be admired in all them that believe because our testimony among you is believed. The world will know now that in spite of all that we were that here are people.
Who have been united in one by the Lord Jesus and who are displayed as one.
To this world as we have, that little hymn of shelter, wandering worlds displayed, that we with thee are one. And so it's a beautiful thought. And then that it's the Lord don't desire that. It says here in the 24th verse, Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given, may be with me where I am. This is his desire to have us with himself. He's left us here in this world. He hasn't, He says, I pray not. Thou should take them out of the world.
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But he is waiting for that day now, like that thought in Thessalonians. Thessalonians, yes. The Lord directs your hearts into the love of God. If you notice the margin in the new translation, the patience of the Christ, that is the Lord. Jesus is waiting for that day more than we are the patience of the Christ. And he says, as long as I'm patient, you be patient. There's more to be saved. There's more to be brought in. There's more work to be done. I'm leaving you here. You can have part in that.
But I want you to have the same desire that I have, and so is the patience of the Christ. I like that in connection with the thought because every one of us would say, well, I'd like the Lord to come today. But the Lord said I I'm patiently waiting. Aren't you glad I waited for you while I'm still waiting. And so he's exhorting us to the patients of the Christ. But as we wait that by that the love for with ours love me may be in them and I in them, That's the last verse that we'd walk here in the enjoyment of that love.
The world doesn't know it. The world righteous Father. As regards the world, the world doesn't know it. But are we walking in the enjoyment of that love? That's what he desires. That's what his high priestly prayer, if we can call it that, is that we might be maintained in the enjoyment.
Of this, and I believe. I believe the thought for their sakes, I sanctify myself is simply the thought of set apart.
They wondered why the Lord was going away. He was leaving them. Oh, he says. I'm going up there to serve you and I'm going to serve you. It's going to be difficult going through there, but I'm setting myself apart for your service and I'm serving you there while you're going through this trouble, where below is our and that you would be sanctified, separated people down here for me.
We sing the 2nd and 4th verses of #100 and 41140.
The 2nd and 4th verses, O hour, for which impatience thou is, awaited through the night, whilst we thy Saints were gathered and brought into the light. Then. Then the Church completed. God makes no more delay, oh Lord, with shouts of triumph.
They pass into the day.
2nd and 4th verses.
For which impatience?
I'll see you like Saint Claire, Death and brought into.
The light.
And let's try the strength of the strict complaint.
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Pray.
Gracious Lord Jesus.
We thank thee for thy presence at the right hand of the Father.
For it not only speaks to us.
Of a finished work.
And of a loving high priest.
But it speaks to us of the end of the path of faithfulness to thy God.
And so it encourages us in this scene where thou hast left thine own until that coming day of which we have just sung.
And it gives us courage, blessed Savior, to tread the pathway that thou hast broadened, thanking thee that thy footsteps marked away all the way into the glory. Now to say thine own that whether thou wettest our, we could not follow now, but we should follow after. Having gone through death to pay our debt, we now can be certain of that glory above, For thou art clear as the anchor, pure and steadfast, and the.
Pledge of our entry into that place, for thou art therefore us.
We thank Thee again, blessed God our Father, for the generosity and hospitality of our beloved brethren that have invited us here. And we thank Thee for directing us into such a portion that would bring the Lord Jesus Christ before our souls for our benefit. And we look to Thee now and for the gospel of Thy grace going forth. Yet this evening pray for the Messenger and those who hear that Thy precious word may find root in some good soil tonight.
The precious soul be turned to from darkness unto light.
So we give thanks to thee for the benefit to Thy precious word is to us. Help each one of us translate it into our life in order that a little of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ might be manifested in this mortal body. We give thanks, blessed Savior, commit all to the unite, owned, fearless and precious and worthy name. Amen.
The Goodness of God Displaced in Differnt Ways
Address—G. Hayhoe
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From the home of joy and love came the Lord Himself to seek us. He would have us there above 93.
From the palace of his glory.
From the home of joy and love.
Came the Lord himself to.
Seek us.
Hey, what have I?
There.
From the Eternal.
Pride.
How his thoughts flow forth in love.
Hey, there's Great Love.
Of us ever there will sail power.
Trembling we had.
A farmer safe?
So I'm alone place where there is dark.
But the round of the arthritis?
There we were.
Oh hey, one where I still share.
Shall we pray together?
Our blessed God and our Father, we look up to thee and thank thee for the truth of these words that we have been singing. Truly they cause marvel in our hearts as we think without its Leave Lord Jesus, the palace of Thy glory, and come down into this world of sin and sorrow, because thou would have us to share all the fruit of thy toil and victory, that which thy love had prepared, and not for just a little while, but for all eternity.
All we thank Thee for thy wondrous grace. We pray that that love and grace in thy heart might stir up each one of us to more desire to follow thee, to walk in devotedness and have thyself as our object as we wait. That blessed moment, Lord Jesus, when faith will be changed to sight, when the church will be presented, A glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And I joy will exceed ours when that day of glory dawns.
We thank thee for this blessed hope. And now we just pray that what is before us may stir each one of our hearts affections and draw us with thy cords of love. We ask this as we commend the meeting to thee. We also would pray again for our dear brother Eric, that thou will sustain and comfort him and his loved ones. And if it be thy will that thou will come in and restore him, we leave him in thy hands, confident in thy love. And we ask all in thy worthy name, Lord Jesus, our Savior.
Amen.
I had it on my heart this afternoon to talk about the goodness of God and the different ways in which it has been displayed. It has been said, perhaps many have heard the comment that all our failure comes from unbelief of the goodness that's in the heart of God. The enemy brings before us trials and difficulties instead of occupying our hearts with the goodness of God, and we get discouraged because we get occupied with those things instead of His goodness.
00:05:10
But oh, how good he has been. When we think of it, we think of it in creation.
We think of it in redemption. We think of it in the place of nearness that we have been brought. We think of it in connection with the future that awaits us, how good he has been. And we think of Adam there in the garden, surrounded with all that goodness of God, because God had made everything for his happiness and enjoyment. And instead of rejoicing in that goodness of God, he reached out his hand for something that was forbidden. It is not true with so many of us.
If someone has said, how often does one forbidden thing hide from our view? 1000 Blessings. We reach out for something that is not the will of God for us, and it spoils our happiness and joy, where we could have been enjoying all the good things that He delights to shower upon us. Well. I trust with the Lord's help we'll be able to look at some of these things where He has displayed His goodness and that our hearts might be encouraged to appreciate that, to walk in the sense of His goodness.
And with praise and worship in our hearts. Well, the first one I was thinking of was Proverbs 8, which has to do particularly with creation.
Proverbs, Chapter 8.
Beginning at the 22nd verse.
The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
Where there were no depths I was brought forth. When there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth, while as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, but He said a compass upon the face of the deep depth. When He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, when He gave to the sea His decree that the water should not pass His commandment.
When he appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by him.
As one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth. And my delights were with the sons of men. Now therefore hearken to me children. Blessed are they that keep my ways, hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates.
Waiting at the pulse of my doors, whoso findeth me, findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord.
But he that sinneth against me wrong with his own soul, all they that hate me.
Love. Death.
As I said, I believe this passage particularly brings before us the goodness of God in creation. There's a verse in Romans that says, and almost thou not, O man, that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. And what is repentance will repentance in the simplicity. The word means a change of mind. You know, the natural man and our natural hearts. We have wrong thoughts about God. We have wrong thoughts about many things.
But how often a change of mind makes a complete change of attitude. And so God would have, if there's someone going on in his sins to realize where those sins are going to lead him and where the what the judgment is that is going to fall upon him. If he listens to God and to God's warnings, if he accepts the pardon that God has to offer, his mind is changed. He condemns himself instead of God.
He says I'm the guilty one, and I'll take my place as a guilty one, and I'll receive from the hand of God what he has for me pardon and untold blessing. And so, with us as Christians too, it's the goodness of God that leads us to a change of mind. Why do we go after things that are often forbidden?
Because we think, just like Adam thought, that we're going to get some pleasure in the path of disobedience.
Only to find out that in the end it doesn't bring the joy and the happiness that we expected.
To say nothing of this life than to think of eternity, eternity, because every act in our lives has a present and eternal consequences. So how important it is, oh the goodness of God, may we dwell upon that for a little while. And this portion here in the 8th chapter of Romans and 8th chapter of Proverbs brings before us the goodness of God in creation. You know, I love that little expression that's here in this chapter.
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His delights were with the sons of man. You ever think of that? When you think of all the pleasures that we have, nice food, all the things that we see that are so beautiful, and this world, things that God has made as it tells us in Timothy richly to enjoy, Why should we want to enjoy them in a way that his word has forbidden? He has a plan, and he made this world. And I've often thought as we look out on a beautiful scene, say a lake or something, that we enjoy.
And we see the wonders of God in creation. Isn't it nice to thank God was thinking of man when he made this?
And He made it for our pleasure, not only for his pleasure. It's true. It's for his pleasure tells us in Revelation 4. For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. God takes pleasure even in the creation that he has made, that blooming flower, that beautiful landscape, He takes pleasure. He made it for man to enjoy, and he takes pleasure when he sees boys and girls.
Enjoying it, it tells us in the New Jerusalem that will take place in the millennial day, the street will be full of boys and girls playing in the streets. You know God delights in the blessing of man, and he has made this creation as a testimony to man. He speaks of it in the first chapter of Romans as being a testimony even to the heathen when they see all this wonderful creation about them, that they would say that there's no creator.
Or that this creation was made by a God that I made with my own hands.
God says that heathen is without excuse. He has a testimony in God's creation.
Of all his goodness in providing this and providing us with the capacity to enjoy what he has created.
How many people never think of thanking God? They get up in the morning, they never get on their knees and thank the Creator for all the good things.
Even a dog will wag its tail when you feed it, but a man will sit down and he'll never think about thanking his creator for the good things that he has provided.
Brethren, we need to be reminded of these things, the goodness of God, all that we see around us, that tells us of that goodness. And isn't this a very simple expression in this chapter where it says when he prepared the heavens, I was there.
When He said, when He laid the established the clouds above, when He gave to the sea His commandment that the waters, His decree that the water should not pass His commandment. When He appointed the foundations of the earth He was there is not a very simple answer to creation. Men spend 1,000,000 billions of dollars trying to find out how this earth came into being, and here's the person who was right there when it was made.
Who had his very hand in it. Because he is the Creator. And he says I was there and when I made this earth, I made it so you could enjoy it. Are you going to shut me out of your thoughts? Are you going to leave me out? Are you going to find some other solution for how the creation came about because you don't want me? Well, what a solemn thing it is. That man goes on in his willful course rejecting it. But oh, how lovely it is when we even see in the creation.
The handiwork of God, the one who made it all. They heard a story about two men that were standing on the side of a ship, looking over the side of the ship at a sunset at sea. One man was an unbeliever, the other was a Christian. The unbeliever said to the Christian, he said, Do you know of anything more wonderful enough to watch a sunset at sea? Oh yes, said the Christian man. I know the person who made it and I know him.
As my father, I know his son as my savior, and it means a lot more to me.
When you have something that you bought in the store and you don't know the person who made it, maybe that thing is just a piece of furniture to you. But when you can say the person I love most in the world made this and he made it for me, doesn't that mean more to you? Oh friends, let us realize the goodness of God in creation. But I just like to say this, are we going to use the creation for our own self will and disobedience to God? How many people there are?
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Let's just use things that God has given. They use their bodies as they like. They don't listen to how God says when he gives us directions as to moderation in food, as to moral standards, as to all those things that would help us to enjoy His creation, well, that's what it means when it says here they're now. Therefore hearken unto me, O ye children, for blessed are the they that keep my ways.
Did you ever give a toy to your child and say now you can have a lot of fun with this, But I must warn you, you can hurt yourself with this too. You can hurt yourself because just listen to me. You can enjoy and get a great deal of fun. But listen while I give you the warning and a child says I don't need to listen to you. I can do as I like. Then the child comes to you crying and saying the door you gave me I got hurt and and so on and you say, well if you'd only listen to me.
You could have really enjoyed this. Now you brought sorrow on yourself. That's what the Bible says here.
He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul. Who do you harm the most? Who do I harm the most? When I decide to walk in self will, when I decide to set aside all God standards as to even the use of this creation that he has made, Well, who do I run? Myself. Myself. I am ungrateful to my creator, that's true. But he that sinneth against me wrong with his own soul.
Dear young people, can I say a word to you? You're starting out in life. Make the word of God your guide. There's a verse in Jeremiah and it says this. Wilt thou not from this time cry my father? Thou art the guide of my use.
Poor, dear young people, You can save yourself a tremendous amount of sorrow and trouble in your life if you listen to what God says in connection with this use of this creation in your very body, which, if you're a believer is the temple of the Holy Ghost, that you use it in a way that is within the instructions that God has given to us in His word. You'll be thankful later on that you listened, because you'll enjoy what God gave you to enjoy.
Are you going to leave him out? Are you going to go on and run your own soul by choosing a path of your own?
And saying I won't listen to my creator when he tells me you say my creator isn't interested in me. Yes, this chapter says his delights are with the sons of men sometimes up at Outer Lake. When we look at that lake and think of how many happy times we had, I often have thought, Isn't it wonderful that when God made this lake he knew there was going to be a group of young people? And he just made it so nice for us? Because he said I want them all to have a happy time.
And enjoy what I have made. And the world has been spoiled, because man goes against all God's instruction and he says I'm going to go my own way. Are we like sheep have turned gone astray? We have turned everyone to his own way. But there's more to the verse. But the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Just think of it.
Just think of it when man spoiled this world through sin.
God looked down and said, You spoil this world that you could have enjoyed without death. You could have enjoyed it Of all the trees that thou mayest freely eat, but just one, that would test their obedience, but they reached out for the one forbidden 1 instead of enjoying the rest.
But when sin entered, what did God say? I like to think of it this way, as though he looked down and he said, you've spoiled this world.
That I made for you, but I love you so much.
That I'm going to prepare something you can't spoil and I'm going to prepare the way that you can be there.
To enjoy what I have for you with all eternity, For all eternity. What can we say to that? That's redemption. That's what God has done for us in redemption. Surely, when we think of the goodness of God in creation, yes, this wonderful creation, it is spoiled by sin. But there are still many things in God's creation to give us tokens. Sometimes it's like something that you break and you see, oh, there's part of it that's still preserved. That's good.
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And a little man has spoiled this world. There's still a great deal of it that's preserved, in which man can enjoy the goodness of God, but it spoiled brethren. But now it brings us to redemption. God could create this world by the breath of his mouth that says He's fake. And it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. He just made it by the very word of his mouth. But to save 1 poor Sinner like me was a greater work than creation itself.
You lookout and you see not only this world that we live in, but all that canopy of stars.
All above us the wonders of creation, which man cannot measure. All about him, because the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows his handiwork. God has created all that, but to save my soul it cost him more. Was he willing to pay the price? Yes. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.
But have everlasting life. All friends. Think of the goodness of God.
What it cost him to provide redemption for sinners like you.
And like me, oh, what wonderful grace did he stop at it? You know all this. In the Gospels we find about the pathway of the Lord Jesus, trading through this world on his way to the cross, despised and rejected of man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, despised and rejected. I say he went on in love, and is a lovely passage there in the Gospels. I won't turn to it, but it says when the time came that he should be received up he sat his face.
To go to Jerusalem. You know when the time came that he would be received up. The time came in the life of the Lord Jesus when he had done what his father had sent him to do as far as healing the sick and raising the dead and cleansing, the leper was concerned. And he could have gone back to heaven in his own right. He was the only person that could. I couldn't go to heaven in my own right, but he could. He could have gone back to heaven in his own right. But he was like the Hebrew servant.
When the time came that he could have had his liberty, he had a choice to make. He could go out free by himself, but if he wanted the company of his wife and children, he had to go to the judges. He had a decision to make. Did he love his wife and children enough to go to the judges so he could have them? The time came that he would be received up.
He set his face to go to Jerusalem. And, brethren, that's what we remembered this morning. He went to Jerusalem. What for? To die? That we might live. To tell out the heart of God his Father, to glorify him about the whole question of sin, so that you and I could be fitted for that which I spoke of a moment ago, a scene of glory that we couldn't spoil, a place where sin could never enter the first creation He made by the word of his mouth.
But new creation, the cost was His precious blood. We often sing we are by Christ redeemed.
The cost his precious blood be nothing by our souls esteemed like this.
Great, good. We're the vast world our own with all its varied store. And Thou, Lord Jesus, word unknown, we still were poor. Is there anyone here who doesn't know Him? What about those of us who know him? Isn't our appreciation for what he did very small? Well, I think of that moment when the Lord said I love the people in this room who belong to me. I'm willing to go to Calvary in order to have their company, in order to make them happy for all eternity. I want them.
And he went on to that cross, and on that cross of Calvary he glorified God. He settled the whole question of sin.
And guilt that you and I might be brought into blessing.
The goodness of God. The goodness of God. I quote the verse again. It never wears out. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Or to make it very personal, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That was the Apostle Paul, who called himself the chief of sinners.
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Oh, are we appreciating like we should? Well, none of us like we should, because we never will. But we can't appreciate him more than we have for what he has done. I say again, the goodness of God leads us to change of thoughts, doesn't it? We're awfully selfish. We think about ourselves, but don't we owe a debt of gratitude to the one who did all that? I'd just like to turn over to Acts 13, because I think we have this nicely brought before us.
Where Paul is preaching in Acts 13 and Speaking of these things.
We'll begin at verse 32.
And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made under the Father's God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children in MIDI hath raised up Jesus again, as it is also written in the second Psalm. Thou art my son this day, have I begotten thee.
And it's concerning that he raised him up from the dead. Now no more to return to corruption.
He said. On this wise I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith it also in another solemn Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his Father's, and saw corruption. But he whom God raised up saw no corruption. This particularly is what I had before me. Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.
And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets. Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish. For I work a work in your days, I work with Ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.
As I said, man rejects the testimony of God in creation, tries to find some other way that the world came into being. He won't have the goodness of God in creation. And God always gives a warning, you know, He said that those who reject the testimony of creation are without excuse. They're really.
They're really not recognizing the goodness of God in his creation. And here there's a warning too, But I like to speak particularly of the blessing.
Here he's talking about the Lord Jesus, the one who came to this world, the one who accomplished that work upon the cross. And God dealt with him in my place and in the place of every one who would put their trust in him.
It says near Isaiah chapter 53 the Lord hath laid on him.
The iniquity of us all. I'm glad it says that because, you know, if it depended on me to remember all my sins in order to get forgiveness, I'm afraid I would be unforgiven for a great many because I don't know that I could remember them all. But isn't it wonderful God who had the record?
God who knew every wrong thing that I had ever done and that you had ever done. God.
Took that question up, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. What a wonderful blessing to know that your sins are gone. Little chorus, we used to sing. You asked me why I'm happy, and I'll just tell you why. Because my sins are gone. Is there one who doesn't know that? You can know it, you can know it. Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.
Now God has to be righteous in what he does, and if He's going to forgive, he has to have a payment because it says in Hebrews chapter 2 every transgression, disobedience receives a just recompense of reward. God never passes over sin. Sin has to be punished, and it's either punished on the head of your substitute or it's still upon your head and you will have to bear the punishment if you refuse the substitute work.
Of the of the Lord Jesus. It's it's a pardon that is offered all of believe are justified from all things.
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You know, brethren, justification goes farther than forgiveness, farther than forgiveness.
I've sometimes put it like this. Some people say, well, it's just as if you never sinned. No, it's more than that. Because if you forgave me something wrong that I had done to you.
And you looked at me just as if I had never done it. I'd be in the same position as I'm fallen at them because I might do it again.
But God does more than that. God does more than just look at me as if I had never seen him. He places me in Christ and makes me the righteousness of God in him. And so it tells us in the and they if you forgave me.
I might always wonder what you thought about me, even if you though you'd forgiven me. But if when you forgave me you said. Now listen, Gordon, every time I look at you, I look at you as though you had never done that deed and never could do such a thing. And I'll look at you in all the favor and love and acceptance of my dearest friend. Now I can be at ease. And you know that's where God places the one who believes justified. He places us before him in Christ. We are made the righteousness of God in him.
And let's enjoy this, brethren. This is the goodness of God. He's not only forgiven you, he's looking at you tonight, this afternoon. If you're a saved person, he's looking at you with all the love and with all the favor and acceptance of his own Beloved son. He's made us accepted in the beloved 1 Isn't that goodness? Isn't that tremendous goodness? Do we appreciate it like we should?
Oh, when we think of it, And who is who is it made known to be? It known unto you, Therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe, Who's it for?
For all who believe, are you enjoying this? Are you sitting there and saying, oh, isn't that wonderful?
I'm not only forgiven, but God looks at me in all the perfection.
Of his own beloved son. He's looking on me with love and I can walk down the street here.
In Bridgeport as an object of his love, and that he's looking forward to the day when he's going to.
Take Me Home and give me a body of glory like his son. And his joy is going to exceed ours. Because it says he shall joy over thee with singing. He shall rest in his love. That's redemption. That's what God has done through redemption. He's not only forgiven you, but He's justified you. Does this create a response in your heart?
This create a response in your heart. How could we think of love like that and not feel that we wanted to at least express our gratitude? You remember the Lord cleansed 10 lepers and only one came back to give Him thanks. How often we say we're too busy?
To spend a little time just praising him, too busy to spend the time on Lords Day morning, sitting in his presence and responding to his dying request. We're too busy, too many other things to do that we can't give a little time to the person who brought this blessing to us. Oh, I say it's the goodness of God in redemption, what he has done to save your soul and mine. Are we enjoying this?
Well, there's more, because we're really blessed in this Ephesians chapter one.
Ephesians chapter one verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.
According to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.
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How has he blessed us?
Well, you know, it's a wonderful thing to be forgiven. It's a wonderful thing to be justified from all things. But as we sang, our little hymn trembling, we had hope for mercy Some low place within his door. But the crown, the throne, the mansion, all were ready long before, and in dim and distant ages, in those courts, so bright and fair ere we were, was he rejoicing all he.
With us to share how are we blessed all spiritual blessings? Is it true? Yes, it's true. Who said it? God said it. The one who cannot lie. He's told us He let us enjoy His creation. He let us enjoy forgiveness. But he said, I don't want you just to know that you're forgiven but still living in a world that's so full of sorrow like this, He said, I want you to know what's ahead for you. I want you to know how richly you're blessed.
And it's not conditional. Every Christian is equally blessed as far as these spiritual blessings are concerned, All spiritual blessings, well, you say I have a lot of trouble, but our blessings are heavenly. We're waiting. We're still here in this world.
Everything isn't altogether right. And that's why it says in Romans, now is our salvation nearer than when we believe. When God saved us, He cleansed away all our sins. He made us accepted in the beloved. He blessed us with all spiritual blessings. But he said you have to wait for one thing. You have to wait for the redemption of your body, the redemption of your body. So we're still here and as we had in our chapter that we were reading in the Bible readings.
In John chapter 17, it tells us that he's left us here. He says, as my father has sent me into the world, Even so have I also sent them into the world. He sent us into this world, and he wanted us to tell others how richly we're blessed. Did you ever go on on a vacation? Perhaps? And he came back and you wanted to tell all your friends what a grand time you had, what wonderful things you saw.
Well, they couldn't get there for nothing. They couldn't share it for nothing. But we have good news to tell to our friends that when the Lord saved us, He not only saved us, but He is willing to save all who will come. And he says, I'm leaving you here to be my ambassadors, to have a message for this world that they might have this blessing too. Would it be nice, if you really enjoy the vacation, to be able to go to your friend and say.
You can have all this. You can enjoy what I enjoy, and it won't cost you one cent, and you can have it just as freely as that. Dear friends, we have a wonderful message to proclaim. We not only preach the forgiveness of sins, but we tell sinners that when they accept Christ as their savior, they're made heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. And he left us here in a world full of trouble, just as a country sends an ambassador to another country.
There may be quite a bit of trouble in that other country, but they send them there and they're expected to endure a few hardships, perhaps, as they represent their country. But they carry a message to the country where they are. And we have a message, a wonderful message, to carry from the heart of God to this world, and that's why he's left us here. But I just want us to enjoy a little bit, just to bask, as it were, in the sunshine of what we have.
It says he's blessed us with all spiritual blessings.
In heavenly places in Christ, not some people talk about getting the second blessing, but every believer has all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies.
Doesn't that rejoice our hearts when we think about it? We think of what we have in Christ. Oh how wonderful this is. I just like to turn to this in in Romans chapter 8 and see how God has mentioned here about our bodies.
I'll start from the 22nd verse of Romans 8. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and traveleth in pain together until now, and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirits. That spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope, or in hope, but hope that his seed is not hope.
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For what a man seeth white at the yet hoped for, But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts know of what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the Saints.
According to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.
To them who are the called according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things, if God before us?
Who can be against us?
I was just saying a moment ago how we have already the salvation of our souls that's secured to us. Our standing before God is in Christ, we're holy and without blame. Before him, in love we are accepted. In the Beloved. All this is ours but.
It's necessary that God should explain to us why we are still here, groaning, suffering things going wrong in our lives. And he's explaining to us, isn't this wonderful? You know, I think it's so marvelous that God says, I know you're going to have a lot of questions and I'm going to explain everything because I want you to really enjoy your portion. And so he tells us that Lowy already have the salvation of our souls, that we must wait.
The redemption of the body. And He tells us that in this Tabernacle we groan.
Says we that are in this Tabernacle, the whole creation, the 22nd verse, groaneth and travelleth in pain together until now, and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves. Yes, we still are linked with this groaning creation, with these bodies of humiliation, but we have two things that the unbeliever doesn't have.
We have. We have the Holy Spirit of God who helps our infirmities and makes intercession for us. Isn't that lovely? Helps our infirmities. Do you ever come to the meeting with a headache and lovely ministry? In the meeting? And the headache was still there, but you almost forgot about it because it gave you help from that infirmity. And instead of just feeling down and pressed with it, he says, Oh, I got a lift in that meeting.
That's what he does. He helps Our infirmity doesn't remove them, necessarily. That waits the time when they're all going to be removed at his coming. But he helps our infirmities, and more than this, he may he. He sympathizes with us. He makes intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered. You say, Oh, nobody knows how I feel. Yes, you've got a divine guess for them. Who feels all those infirmities that you feel and feels them perfectly. You've grown, He groans. Someone has said, God permits us to groan, not to grumble.
Yes, we groan. We feel things God didn't make us without feelings, and we feel them, but we don't face them the same as the world, because we know quite a few things that the unbeliever can't know because he doesn't belong to Christ. We know that the Spirit helps our infirmities.
We know that he makes intercession for us and we know that he takes our prayers.
And answers according to God's perfect will. And that we know of something very wonderful. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God. We know that God, who purpose such blessing for us, who plans to have us eternally blessed in His home. We know that He knows what He's doing in all the things that happen in our lives so often misunderstood by us.
But he knows no brethren. I like the way this is worded, it says here in the.
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It says here in the 26th verse we know not what we should pray for as we ought.
In the 28th verse, notice we know not in the 20, the 25th verse, but here it says and we know or in Mr. Darbys it says but we do know that all things work together for good to them that love God. But perhaps you come to a circumstance like I do sometimes and I say to myself, but how can this work for good? How can this work for good? You know, I often say, I think you should read the two verses following.
Because it helps you to. It helps me at least to understand the 28th verse. I'm going to read those.
29th and 30th verse. Four whom he did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren. More Who, moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified. And who he justified them he also doesn't say, will glorify, but them he also glorified. You know, I like to think of it this way, brethren, when you come to a difficult chapter in your life, to me it's just like reading a story book.
And I guess we've all done that. You read the story book and you come to real one real sad chapter. Tears are running down your face because you feel so sorry for the people that are going through this problem. What do you do? We usually turn over and see how the story ends. And if the story ends, OK, if it ends right, you go back and you say, well, you keep saying to yourself, it's all going to work out. I don't know how, but it's all going to work out because I read the end of the story.
And God says, I know you're going to go through situations where you're going to say just that. I don't see what good there ever can come out of this. So God says, I'm going to tell you the end of the story. I knew about you before, before you were ever born. I planned your whole life.
I predestinated you for blessing, and in my account the story is all finished. The story's all finished. Doesn't say them you also will glorify, but them he also glorified. And Satan comes and says God's against you like he did to Joel. No, he's not. If God before us, who can be against us in those situations that we go through in life, when in that coming day everything is made plain as it will be, the rough places will be made plain.
The crooked will be made straight, and it says we shall know even as also we are known.
We're going to see. But here what God is saying. Can you trust me? Can you leave that with me? Because I know what I'm doing. That's what it means, brethren in First Peter, where it says the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth. Some people read that as though it said that the trial was precious. It isn't that. It's the trial of your faith that's precious because it says in Hebrews.
Cast not away, therefore your confidence. Let me illustrate it something like this.
You have a child. You have to do something for the child that really hurts.
And you say to the child, well, I'm going to have to do this. I know it'll hurt, but it'll all be over in a minute and it's really for your good. And the child looks up with a smile and says, Dad, I trust you, Dad, I trust you. Don't you appreciate that?
That's what it means, the trial of your faith being much more precious. When in faith we accept a circumstance that we just can't understand and say God loves me. I believe His word that says all things work together for good. I'm confident in His goodness and in His love. I'll just trust Him. God says in the coming day, and that all comes out as it will in the day of manifestation. It'll be found under praise and honor and glory.
That the revelation of Jesus Christ, God has, as I say again.
He's been good to us in creation. He's been good to us in saving our souls. He When He saved us, He blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. And he says you're going to have troubles because your body is still part of this groaning creation. But if you'll just trust me, you'll be able to go through these trials and you can. They can actually turn into a blessing in your life, drawing you nearer to me as you trust me.
And no more of my love and of my ways, I've often said.
Someday I'm going to talk to many of these dear ones that we read about in the Bible, and I often think I'm, I'd like to say to Shade Wreck Music and Abednego, can you tell me what's the best experience that you had down on planet Earth? Where? What was the best experience you ever had? You think they'll talk about some time when they enjoyed the sunshine and had a good time? No, I don't think so. I expect that they very likely will say the most wonderful experience we had was when.
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They were. They cast the king, cast us into the fiery furnace, and the Lord walked with us. It was an experience so wonderful we'll never forget it. So wonderful. He walked with us in the fire. Brethren, we don't always understand. God may not let us understand. Down here, the coming day will declare those things we don't understand some of them He does. Let us understand. Some of them we don't. But it's as goodness.
His goodness that leads us to change of thoughts in these things. And so it tells us here, what shall we then say to these things if God before us, who can be against us? Who can be against us? Can all the powers of darkness hinder the purposes of God for blessing for you and for me? No, they're all going to be fulfilled in a coming day. But here, brethren, we walk by faith, not by sight.
Well, there's another thing I'd like to look at in John Chapter 15.
John, Chapter 15.
In verse 14.
Here, my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you henceforth I call you not servants. For the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth. But I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard of my father, I have made known unto you. Now if you turn back to Ephesians one again, I'd just like to connect this with Ephesians 1.
Verse 8.
Were any of the bounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will?
According to his good pleasure, which he hath purpose in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in him.
Here the Lord distinguishes between being a servant and a friend. Now of course it is true that in a sense we are servants. But he says a servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, because we are more than servants. We had children at home. They did lots of things to serve us, but they weren't servants. They were our children. And God has brought us into his family. And you might ask a servant to do something and not explain what you had in your mind.
But if it's your child, you explain to them, because they are your child.
Isn't that wonderful, brethren, that it tells us here? The Lord says, I haven't called you servants, I've called you friends.
For all things that I've heard of my Father, I've made known unto you. You know God has opened up his heart to us. We often sing a little him what a friend we have in Jesus. But did you ever turn it the other way, as this Scripture does, and thinks it's? I say the Lord Jesus is my friend, but isn't it more wonderful that he says to me you're my friend?
Is that wonderful? He says. You're my friend. Abraham was called the friend of God. So what do you do to your friends? You have to say, Well, I wouldn't tell everybody, but you're my friend. I'll tell you something. I have a little plan. I wouldn't tell it to everybody, but you're my friend. Isn't it wonderful? There's a whole lot of things are going on in this world.
Puzzling things to great statesman and people of the world, but I often say the Christian is the only person who has an intelligent outlook on what's going on in the world.
We can pick up the daily newspaper. We know it's going to happen before it comes out in the newspaper. We know because God has told us how the nations are going to arrange themselves. He told us about how conditions would be in these last days. He told us that instead of getting discouraged that we would just see by all these things that would happen the nations blocking up the way God says they would.
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Them overthrowing all the claims of God tells us in the second Psalm, why do the heathen bridge and the people imagine a vain thing?
The kings of the earth gathered together and take counsel, saying let us break their bands, asunder and castaway their cords from us. Isn't that what's taking place? We're not going to be restrained by what the Bible says. That's an old-fashioned book. We got our own ideas. We're living in 1993. God told us long before in the BCS that this was going to happen. He told us they'd come together and they'd say, let us cast their He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision.
Says I've set my king on my holy hill of Zion, and he says to his son, ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Who's going to take possession of this world? Is it going to be some great nation? Now the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Isn't it lovely, brethren? In a world full of disturbances, you're almost afraid to pick up the newspaper to know what's happening, that you and I have got advance notice of what's going to happen.
And we can meet all these situations in peace and say the one who created this world, the one who controls this whole thing, the one who's head over all things to the church, which is his body, the one who in grace has saved my soul, who's made known his will, has gathered me to his precious name, he says, I've told you all things. You can go through this world knowing what's going on.
And you can go through in the conscious knowledge that the Creator of all things loves you.
That the Lord Jesus died for you, that every event in this whole world is under his control.
Oh, what a lovely thing to belong to Such a friend, such a savior, such a Lord.
What claim does this produce in your heart and mind when we think of it, brethren, What does it mean to us? We don't need to be like the world. Discouraged, disappointed. Cast down as they see everything turning the very opposite, the way they'd like it. Isn't it wonderful to know this?
Cast not away, therefore, your confidence which hath great recompense of reward. Just before we close, I'd like to turn to Romans. Romans, chapter 12.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable or intelligent service, And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
You know God doesn't.
Shall I say, tell us that we have to do this or that in Christianity. So Paul here he has revealed what God has done to meet our need as sinners. And now he says, what return do you want to make? I always like the way the little hymn puts it. I think we sang that little hymn. When we survey the wondrous cross on which the Lord of glory died, our richest gain, we count but loss and poor contempt on all our pride.
Then we sing.
Love that transcends our highest powers demands our soul.
Our life are all so. God is for us. He's made known to us. The goodness of God leads us to a change of mind. Perhaps you came to these meetings discouraged, all cast down. I hope you've been encouraged as you realize the Lords in control, Everything is under his hand. You're blessed in him. You couldn't be blessed more abundantly than you are. God's making all things in your personal life and even in the assembly, He's making all the things work together for good.
He's working out his own purposes in a way that we may not fully understand, but we'll understand another day. But he says, trust in my goodness, leave it with me. And So what do you do? Well, Paul says, I beseech you that you just say, Lord, here I am. I'm not my own. You're not your own. You're bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit. May this response be created in our hearts, brethren.
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The Lord couldn't have done more for us than He has done. Eternity is going to be too short to utter His praise, and more than this you can see the wonders of this world. Satan showed the Lord the wonders of this world in the moment of time. All the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them must have had a great television set up there, showed it all to the Lord in a moment of time. But the Lord said, what I've got for you is going to take longer than that, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us.
Kindness is never going to run out. The exceeding riches of his grace is never going to run out. I say again, what response does it create in your heart and mind do we say, Lord, here I am. I belong to thee. I belong to thee. I don't belong to this world that rejected thee. I belong to Thee.
I don't want to follow the pattern and thinking of this world. I want to live for the one who died for me. May God grant that that response will be created in our hearts, brethren, not because we have to, but just the response of love that says I'm Thine, O Lord, I've heard thy voice. What if we could sing that little hymn we quoted?
It's 283, I think, when we survey the wondrous cross.
On which the Lord of Glory died. Her richest gain, we count, but loss and poor contempt.
The Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven
Children—H. Roossinck
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.
They are with, but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus, Fluffy.
Yeah, Jesus love me.
Yeah.
I won't help me so.
Jesus love me, he heard. I have a game of.
Life he will walk away myself.
Gladly. Let's call child come in.
Yeah, she loves me.
Yeah, Jesus love me.
Yeah, Jesus love me.
The Bible help me so.
Jesus loves me, so I'm best anyway to make me.
Go away. And his arm.
Kitchen say from every harm.
Yeah, Jesus love me.
He asked. Jesus loves me.
Yeah.
The Bible tell me. So now we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to ask all the young girls and sisters, older ones too, to sing the next verse. I'll help you get started. And then we'll all sing the chorus together. So let's have the sisters sing verse #4.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Jesus love me. Yeah, Jesus loves me.
Help me so now the boys.
Jesus loved me.
All the way.
If I cross them, should I die?
He will make me hold my heart.
Yes.
Yeah.
Love me.
You know boys and girls.
It's nice.
That you listen to what I said. And I said, first of all, you know, that we wanted the girls to sing. And then on the last verse we wanted the boys to sing. And you know, I believe everyone heard what I had to say and they did exactly what I asked them to do. I think that's very nice and I want to say thank you.
But in this Bible that I have in my hand, God speaks to us in this Bible, doesn't He? This is His word to us. And I hope and I trust that all of you will listen to what this word of God has to tell each one of us. So now we're going to sing a few more hymns. But before we sing a few more hymns, let's just ask the Lord to help us to listen. Joey.
Let's fold our hands and close our eyes.
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Our gracious God and our loving Father, we thank thee this morning for the Lord Jesus.
Thy beloved Son, who came down into this world and all, blessed Lord Jesus, we thank Thee that we can hear these saying to Thy disciples. Suffer the little children and forbid them not all. We just pray that we might hear those words, for such is the Kingdom of heaven. And we pray that boys and girls this morning will be given the strength and the help.
To listen to Thy word. And we pray that we might just make thy word so clear and so simple that the simplest and the youngest child might know that thou dost love them, and that thou just die on Calvary's cross, and shed thy precious blood. That every guilty stain of sin might be removed, and that they might be able to go to that happy home above in heaven.
We pray thy help, We pray thy blessing in Jesus name, Amen.
Now I wonder if one of the children here have a him they would like to sing. Do you have one you'd like to sing? What one?
You say that 464646 OK, we're going to the Backpage and that's nice 46.
Gladi.
INGI BRINJ.
That day.
As you ask has come here I've been.
And they called and they called all the DIRL.
And he wants all the BOYS to.
Today are you?
Asking him.
And have all their sins now washed away.
Isn't that a nice hymn to sing the singing of where it was singing about glad tidings, Glad tidings and it's about the Lord Jesus coming into this world and then to save me. Oh, I hope that he has saved every one of the boys and girls that I see. And I see a few in the back there too.
But there's room up here in the front yet for more children. If there's any children that would like to come up here a little closer, you're welcome to come up. Well, let's have another one now. Let's have one from this side of the room and we'll get this young lady over here. But number.
I can't reach it right with this. So you, she said 44. So we're going to sing 44.
Oh, this is a story about that little gypsy boy.
And that hand where our gypsy boy lay dying alone at the close of the day. News of salvation we carried that he Nobody ever has told it to me.
Tell it again. Tell it again.
Salvation.
Hell, none can say of the children of men. Nobody ever has told me before.
The dead he saw loved me. A poor little boy.
Stand unto me the good tidings of joy.
Need I not perish my hand? Will he hold nobody ever? The story has called.
Tell it again. Tell it again.
Salvation.
Story repeat our endorse. Hell, I can say of the children of men nobody ever has told me before.
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Standing, we caught the last words of his breath.
Just as they entered the valley of death, the God sent his Thunder. So ever, said he, Then I am sure that he sent him for me.
Tell it again.
Tell it again.
Salvation story repeat our.
Hell, none can say of the children of men.
Nobody ever has told me before.
You know that.
Nice that that little boy heard about the Lord Jesus and he accepted him as his Savior. No one had ever told him before.
That the Lord Jesus loved him. I know that all of you children here have heard the story of the love of the Lord Jesus before. Many years ago, one time we were driving out to Iowa to go to some of our relatives out there, and we stopped by the river, the Mississippi River, and I spoke to a man who was fishing, who was a fisherman there.
And I asked him if he had heard about the Lord Jesus. And he's the only man that I ever heard say that he never heard about the Lord Jesus. So I was quite glad to be able to tell him a little bit.
About the love of the Lord Jesus. I never had met a man before that had never heard about the Lord Jesus, and I don't know if he was telling me the truth, but somehow or other I began to believe he was.
He didn't know how to write. He didn't. We bought a fish from him and he didn't not have any idea how much to charge for the fish. And so he told me about what others had paid for fish. And so I gave him the money and he couldn't even count the money.
But he was glad to get it, and I hope that he was glad to get the story about someone who loved him.
You know, I like to talk about someone who loves me because it brings joy to my heart, but it brings joy to the heart of the Lord Jesus when we talk about him, doesn't it? You know, I I always enjoy talking to children. You know, we all like to be somebody big, don't we? You know, that's really kind of down in our heart. We did you ever play King of the mountain?
You know what it is, Play King of the Mountain. Don't know what it is? You know what it is? Good.
Somebody knows. Well, you know, we used to play when I was a boy, we used to play king of the mountain at school. We had a lot of snow and we'd make a big mound of snow. And then someone would be on the top of that mound of snow and say that they were the king of the mountain. And other boys and girls that tried to get up on that mountain. And they keep pushing them down, pushing them down because the person that was called the king of the mountain, he liked to be somebody great, somebody great.
You know, we're no different than that. We're no different than that. But the Lord had a special word to say in the Bible about those who wanted to be the greatest. And you know who are the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?
Anyone who can humble himself like a little child.
Is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? I'm going to read you a little bit about that story.
It's in Matthew 18, Matthew 18. And if you have a Bible, you can listen. I mean, you can follow me or you can just listen to the word it says in Matthew 18.
And I was kind of surprised at this when I read this, because a few weeks ago we were in the state of Washington and we visited a little meeting there and a brother who has not been gathered all that many years, he said to me he wanted to know, He inquired, he said.
00:15:10
I hope that when Uncle Henry comes, he can tell me something about why.
Matthew 18.
In 20 is in that chapter.
Well, I was a little puzzled, he says in the middle of a chapter. Why is it? Is there something that we're supposed to learn about that verse?
So I got my Bible out and I began to read in verse one it said at that time. At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven? Oh you know most of us are far too.
Polite today to say, well, I wonder who's going to be the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven? Of course we have God's word, but.
You know they came, the disciples they came, and they wanted to know who was going to be the greatest. You know what the Lord Jesus did. Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself.
As this little child, the same is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. So little children, you can be the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven if you just humble yourself. And what it means to humble is to just say.
The Lord Jesus is right and I am wrong, but the Lord Jesus can make me right. And so these little children, the Lord Jesus took them up in His arms and you know, before he got down and said that wonderful verse in Matthew 18 and 27 * 7 times in this chapter we read about a little child. So I hope some of you older ones in the back there will just take a little time sometime.
And read how many times that we are to be like little children. You know, that's the the beginning of getting help to understand the rest of the chapter to be like little children. So now this morning we're going to speak mostly to little children. And I want to try to give a little example that might be a little helpful to you.
I didn't know I was going to talk to the children when I came, but I'm a fruit grower and so I asked.
I asked for someone to help me find a fruit tree. This is not a fruit tree, but we're going to call it a fruit tree. We're going to call it a fruit tree. And you know, what do you expect from a fruit tree? If this is an apple tree, you would like to see a fruit like this, wouldn't you?
Do you like apples? All the boys and girls here like apples. I hope so. There's some apples out there and there's a box of yellow ones. I didn't have a box of red ones to take along. Sorry about that, but.
These apples were grown on a tree.
And most of them are growing on real young trees. And you know when we plant a tree in the ground.
We like to see fruit, and the Lord Jesus likes to see fruit in our lives.
He likes to see fruit. The brother who spoke yesterday. I think maybe you all remember Mr. Gorgas.
He spoke yesterday and he spoke about an orchard, and I was so glad that there are some here who once in a while think about an orchard. And then he was spoke about the fruit, not the fruits, but the fruit of the Spirit. And one word that he stressed in that fruit of the spirit was the word.
Long-suffering, do you remember that? Anybody remember that? You remember that how he said long-suffering? Then he talked about in that orchard, he talked about a certain kind of a wind.
What kind of a wind did he talk about? Let's just check up and see if anybody knows what kind of a win.
A what?
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Or Breeze. Well, that's right.
It was a breeze, but what direction did it come from? Now let's get down what direction S anybody believe that?
Well, he talked about a S wind, but he also talked about a north wind. The north wind came first, you know, in order for an apple tree to bear apples.
And I had this little twig here, this branch, or we're going to call it a tree in my hand. In order for it to bear fruit, it has to go through.
Stress.
North wind, it has to go through a dormant cycle and then the buds can develop. The buds on the apple tree are developed, are started to being developed in the month of August, usually up our way and then they need the cold north wind.
And then in the spring, like now, the trees are beginning to come out and pretty soon they'll all be in blossom. There are a lot of other things that are needed, too, to bear fruit. And we're just going to talk about the north wind and the stress. Well, when we plant an orchard, you know, we like to have good fruit and we need, we need to.
Plant these trees and in order to have them bear good fruit, what do we do when we get a tree from the nursery?
Is the first thing we do is we kind of hurt it. So we usually take and we cut off all these little side branches because they're not the kind that will help us to get fruit on this tree quickly. And we got a lot of little buds here and they just starting to grow.
They're that far along. Sometimes we strip them.
And then we take this tree and we never leave the top go. We cut off about.
Well, really, what we want is a tree 32 inches tall. That's a little more than 32 yet, isn't it?
Anybody got a good measuring? That's what we want, a tree about like that. We plant that tree in the ground. And now if we want to be real severe on this tree and make it bear fruit quick, we'll take this tree and we'll bend it right over. We'll tie it down to the ground like that. And when we do that, we make shoots come out of the side of that tree.
And we leave it that way for maybe six weeks. Then we come and we might tie it over this way. And then branches will come out on the other side of the tree. And that way when we come to it again, we can select the right kind of branches for the right kind of fruit. And sometimes people make these trees come into burying on the second year. We call that the second leaf. The first year we plant it is called the first leaf. The second year is the third of the second leaf.
The third year in the ground, we get the third leaf, and by then we should be getting some nice fruit and we can get apples like this on a little tree that's very young. That's because these are dwarf trees that we're planting. Well, there's another way to do it too, and we can also do the same thing. We cut all the branches off, strip the tree down, and then we slide.
A bread wrapper, or we have special bags that we slide that over the tree and maybe we'll put a rubber band around here. I had some but I lost them already.
And then we make a little, a little greenhouse there. And what happens is that all the branches inside the buds on the side of the bark here will break out and branches will come out. And then after about six weeks, we do this maybe about this time of the year when we plant the tree, we take the branch off, I mean the bag off and then we have all little new branches coming out.
And you know, when we have branches coming out, we like branches that come out like that straight out. We don't like branches that grow up that way. We want them that way because then they will bear apples. Trees that have all their wood going straight up don't usually bear very much fruit. They make a big show.
But they don't bear very much fruit. But when the tree is young and the branch is young, we put it under a stress.
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A stress, you know what a stress is? It's kind of a hard time, you know, sometimes.
The Lord allows us to get very discouraged, and then we turn to the Lord in our distress. That's what it says in the Psalms. And then the Lord can come in and help us. And so then these trees will force branches out like this, and before very long we get a fruit bud.
And then the next year or two, we began to get fruit. Now the thing that we really want these trees to do is to bear fruit very early in their life. And the Lord Jesus is looking for fruit in your lives. And you know how we can bear fruit for the Lord Jesus.
It can be bearing fruit to just sing the hymns in the meeting. You know, the next meeting we're going to have Lord willing in this room is we're going to remember the Lord Jesus in his death. And you boys and girls, you may not be partaking of the emblems, but you can really give praise and honor to the Lord if you help sing the hymns and you really study them and you, you realize that you're singing something.
And you're singing to the Lord, and you're just giving thanks to God. Oh, that's the fruit. That's the fruit that He wants in our lives. And I hope all of us, older ones too, will just be able to return to the Lord Jesus in the next meeting, Thanksgiving and praise for what He has done for us right now, because He's done so much for us. He has given His life.
That we might live. You know, I'm going to tell you a very short little story one time in our little meeting at home many, many years ago.
There was a little boy sitting in the meeting, and on Lord's Day morning someone gave out to him. That and I forget just how it goes, but if we didn't praise the Lord, the stones would cry out.
And you know this little boy thought.
My goodness, if the Lord Jesus can make stones cry out, I want to thank him. And you know, he accepted the Lord Jesus as his Savior because of that one line and that hymn. And I don't expect very many people would ever get saved by singing that line and that hymn. But the Lord Jesus can take anything and just use it for himself. And so this morning, boys and girls, we want to encourage you.
To read your Bible, read Matthew 18. You're not too young to read it, and you will find that seven times in that chapter, the Lord Jesus talks about a little child. If you're going to enter into the rest of the blessing that the Lord has for us in that wonderful chapter, we got to start out being humble and just coming to the Lord and all our simplicity and humility.
And then the Lord can bring blessing into our life, and then we will be able to enjoy.
That wonderful verse, Matthew 18 and 20, I don't know, beside John 316, that's one of the most wonderful verses in the Bible. And I hope and I trust that the enemy who is so busy will not rob us anymore of that verse. The enemy has made a great effort to rob us from some of the verses in the Bible, but the Lord Jesus wants to bring blessing and honor in our for Him and our lives.
So now let's close our meeting. Let's sing another hymn from the hinge. Who has one they would like us to sing? What one would you like?
#45.
#40 Oh well, we.
Oh excellent, 2 little eyes to look to God, that's very good, let's sing #45.
You let all eyes go.
Little ears to hear his word. Hear that call.
To and to work for him all my day.
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One last time to speak his truth.
One level heart for him now in my youth. Take them Lord Jesus and the last Lambeth.
Far away, Go beyond and.
Grow to the, you know, that last verse, the whole hymn is just like a little prayer, isn't it? It's just like a little prayer that we're praying to the Lord. And it says, take them, Lord Jesus, and let them be always obedient and true to thee. Well, I see the clock is right where we're supposed to stop.
So before we.
Romans 6:23
Gospel—J. Hyland
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Pancakes.
Will be long.
Shall we ask the Lord's help and blessing? We thank thee tonight, our loving God and Father, that we can sing of that One who is still the Savior of sinners. We thank thee for each one in this room who can sing that he is their Saviour. But we thank thee too, that the invitation is still going forth to the lost. We thank you that the invitation has come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. We thank thee for that Saviour whose arms are open wide tonight.
And we pray that as we're here on an occasion like this, that our hearts might be solemnized as we take up from Thy word the reality of eternal issues. We pray that Thou use Thy word in the power of the Spirit in blessing to any who are still lost. And on that broad Rd. that leads to destruction, we thank Thee that we can look to Thee and we can count on Thee for a blessing because we know Thy heart is a heart of love, and that is delight to bless the Sinner. And so we would pray.
In confidence and dependence tonight.
For Thy blessing on My word. And we pray that each one of us might be refreshed as we hear the story of Thy love and grace touch our hearts afresh. We do pray as we have the old, old story before us. And so we ask Thy blessing. And wherever Thy word is going forth tonight, and by the many means that Thou art using to spread the good news, we pray Thy richest blessing on it for Thy glory and honor and for the salvation of souls. And so we look to Thee as we give thanks.
In our Savior's name, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen. I'd like to turn to two very familiar scriptures this evening. The first one is in Romans chapter 3.
I'm sorry, Romans, chapter 6.
Romans chapter 6 and verse 23.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And then another familiar verse in First Timothy 1.
First Timothy chapter one and verse 14. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
You know, I find it a tremendous challenge tonight to look into the faces of those who have heard the gospel over and over and over again. Sometimes I have the privilege and responsibility of presenting the gospel to an audience where I feel that perhaps most are not saved and perhaps many have never heard a clear gospel message from the heart of God. And that is a tremendous responsibility. It is a tremendous challenge.
To present the gospel clearly and simply to present Christ.
All his loveliness and his beauty and his saving power. Recently I had the privilege of being in Nassau and the privilege of going from school to school, a privilege we do not have in the country of the United States and Canada where I come from. And sometimes I would have as much as an hour with as many as 1300 students. And I say it was a tremendous responsibility to present the gospel clearly and simply. But you know, as I look into the faces of an audience like this this evening.
It burdens my heart. I find it perhaps even a greater challenge and responsibility.
Because I know that perhaps everyone here has heard over and over and over again the glad tidings of the gospel. You've heard verses such as we've read this evening. You've sung the familiar gospel songs. You've come to conferences like this with your parents. You've come as young people to these times, and you've enjoyed being with the other young people. But all I wonder if there's someone here tonight and you've heard the gospel so many times.
And still you're indifferent to the claims of God, still you're in your sins, still you're in on that broad Rd. that leadeth to destruction. We had before us this afternoon the account of Judas and how Judas passed with the people of God for perhaps three years and he there was no reality in his heart. He heard the warnings that the Lord Jesus had given him are given to others as he had presented the truth as the Lord Jesus.
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Had spoken faithfully.
As he had stood on that last day, that great day of the feast, and cried, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He heard those appeals, he heard those warnings, and yet they went unheeded. And we know the sad history of Judas, how he betrayed his Lord, and then went out and hanged himself and entered into a lost eternity and all. How solemn, how sad, if there's someone here and you come perhaps with your parents again to meetings like this.
And you're going to go out that door tonight.
You're going to go back where you live, and perhaps you're still lost. Perhaps you still do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Many in this room will remember my uncle Harold, who preached the gospel so faithfully for so many years. And I remember one time he told us an incident that took place in England many years ago. And I never forgot the story that he told us. He said that many years ago in Sheffield, England.
An evangelist was holding some gospel meetings and as he was staying in a home.
In the town, he said to the people he was staying with, how do you sleep with all those hammers and that equipment going? We know that Sheffield is noted for its steel mining, and they could hear this equipment going 24 hours a day. And his host said to him, if you stay here long enough, you'll get used to it. You know, I fear there are many. And they get used to hearing the gospel. They hear the pounding. They hear the appeals from the heart of God.
They hear, they have their conscience pricked from time to time as the gospel is presented and God's Word is opened and read, but they get used to it. But you, I want to impress upon you tonight that there was a sequel to that story because one time the equipment failed and the whole town woke up. And you know, I fear, I fear that the time will come. I know that the time will come when the gospel will no longer go forth.
There will no longer be an appeal from the heart of God, and there are those who are going to wake up and realize.
The awful reality of rejecting Christ. But it will be too late.
The Lord Jesus said the word which I have spoken the same shall judge Him in the last day. How solemn to have in that day a verse of Scripture like we have read this evening before you, and yet no longer have it applicable to you as to a point of refuge. That verse will rise in judgment. Have you ever heard John 316 before? I'm sure you have, and I'm going to quote it now, 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. I'm sure that's not the first time you heard that verse.
But oh, how solemn in a lost eternity to have that verse rise in judgment and you realize that you had opportunity. You know there will be no one in the lake of fire, no one in a lost eternity who will be able to blame God because God is faithful. God gives warnings, He makes a way of escape. And those who wind up in a lost eternity, they will be there without excuse. They will think back.
To times when they heard the gospel, they'll think back to times when they said not tonight.
Tonight, not tonight. Times when they put it off and all. How sad to neglect to put off. The boys and girls here understand what it is to neglect to put something off. You come home from school and mother says, do you have any homework? And you say, well I have a little bit, but I'm going to go out and play first. And then dinner time rolls around and mother says, did you get that homework done? And you say, no, I'll do it right after dinner and time for bed comes and mother says.
How did the homework go? And you say, oh, I've put it off. And she says it's too late, it's time to go to bed. And the next day there's a little difficulty at school. Perhaps you have to stay in at noon hour to catch up.
But in the long run, it's over and done with. But all those who neglect their sole salvation, it says, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? And those that lift up their eyes in a lost eternity will lift them up with the realization, I've lost my soul. Oh, how solemn to lose 1 soul. Well, we began here with this familiar verse in Romans chapter 6.
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Because God is very faithful and all through the Word of God He gives one warning after another, and here He tells us, warns us of the sad consequences of sin. The wages of sin is death. You understand that one time we were driving through Paradise, Nova Scotia. And as we drove through Paradise, Nova Scotia, it was indeed a quaint, picturesque town, but we realized it really wasn't paradise.
Because up on the hillside there was a large graveyard. And you know how death entered this world. It says by one man's disobedience, sin entered and death by sin. So death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. You know, that's not popular. And I know I'm not preaching a popular message tonight. We had a prayer meeting before this meeting. And there were many who were burdened on on your behalf tonight if you're still in your sins.
Many who were there in prayer on behalf of the Gospel.
And I noticed that there was a little sign up on the blackboard in the prayer room this evening. It said that which is popular is not always right, and that which is right is not always popular. That's the gospel message. The truth of God is not popular. It's the truth, but it's not popular. You know, if people could only realize tonight how much God loves them, if they could only realize the truth and the solemnity of God's Word, if they could only realize the solemnity of eternal issues.
When gospel meetings were called, there wouldn't be room to contain the people that would want to hear. But man is indifferent to his condition before God. He's indifferent to God's love. He doesn't realize really the heart of God. And he does not like to like to hear that he is a Sinner. And he not not only does he not like to hear that he's a Sinner, but he does not like to hear that there's nothing he can do to merit favor before God.
Not one thing he can do to better his position. And I believe that that's why in a land like this where the gospel has gone forth so for so many years and the light of the Word of God has been blessed over the centuries, I believe that's why today man is setting aside God's Word. That's why they don't allow it in the schools, because man doesn't want to hear that he's a Sinner. He doesn't want to hear that he's helpless, that he has a fallen nature. He likes to think there's something good in himself. And so he sets aside the light of God's Word.
Queen Elizabeth the 2nd sits on the throne of England today.
But many years ago, Queen Elizabeth the First ruled.
In Britain and Queen Elizabeth the first was a very vain person.
And you know, as she got older, she did not like to see herself in a mirror.
And you know, one of the ones who one of the artists who was commissioned to paint the royal family painted a true likeness of her in later life. And so disappointed was she with that painting that that man was sentenced to prison for the rest of his life.
And her ladies in waiting took the cue. And for about the last 20 years of her life, they were very careful to make sure that Queen Elizabeth the 1St.
Never had a mirror before her. Why did she not like that mirror? Why did she not like that painting? Because it showed her true condition. That's why man doesn't want the word of God. That's why they rejected the Lord Jesus. He was the light of the world. He came in faithfulness. The light shone in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. And they cried away with him. Crucify Him, They said in their hearts, We will not have this man.
To reign over us. But I say God is faithful and the wages of sin is death.
And there is nothing, there is nothing that you can do tonight in yourself to rid yourself of your sins. I'm going to tell a little story for the sake of those who are younger.
Couple of summers ago we were holding gospel meetings in an area in northern Maine and through the kindness of a brother, we were staying in a trailer near where we were holding the meetings. And as my wife and oldest daughter were sitting down to breakfast, we looked out the window and we noticed coming across the lawn a large white cat. And as that cat got closer, we noticed that in the jaws of that cat.
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There was a big fat chipmunk and we noticed further that as that cat approached, that chipmunk was still very much alive. And I guess my wife is a little more tender hearted than I am, but she thought since that chipmunk was still alive, she would rescue that chipmunk from the jaws of that cat. Because we could see that left to itself, that chipmunk was going to become the breakfast of that cat and perish.
At the on at the jaws of that cat. And so she went outside and she released that chipmunk.
And we thought that naturally that chipmunk would take off for the woods, which was not too far away. But to our amazement, that chipmunk went about 3 feet from the cat. And then he stood up and he faced that cat, and he gave that cat an awful scolding. And you know what happened? It wasn't very many seconds until that chipmunk was right back in the jaws of that cat. And my wife went out and released it again. And we thought, surely the chipmunks learned its lesson.
He did the very same thing again. And after he had done that three times, my wife finally brought the cat in and gave it a saucer of milk. And we kept it in until that chipmunk realized that the cat was gone and he went off into the woods. And as I stood, sat, and watched that little drama, I thought of those who received warnings from the heart of God. I thought of those in Christian homes who hear the story of salvation.
Who hear that they're in the jaws of sin and holding with those cords, and yet they toy with danger. They put it off. You know, man likes to take chances. He's a gambler at heart. And I'll never forget three young men who came to some tent meetings. We were holding in Curling, Newfoundland one time. And as I was preaching the gospel that night, I noticed these men on the back row. They had come before and I saw that that night their intent was no different than it had been.
And that was that they would, they had come to disrupt the meeting and to keep others from hearing the good news. And so afterwards they were standing outside the tent door and I went up to them and I said, boys, tell me. I said, is it worth? Is it worth the risk? Is it worth taking the chance and saying we'll have another opportunity tomorrow and putting off your soul salvation? I tremble to tell you what they told me. They said we'll take that chance.
Man likes to take chances and man sometimes does gamble and he loses much. But all I say again, if you gamble concerning eternal issues, if you gamble concerning your soul salvation.
All I say there will be, there will come a time when you will land in a lost eternity. And I think one of the most awful things about hell is this, that there's no hope. There's no hope. You know, if you're sick or you're in pain, there's you can get through today because there's always hope that tomorrow things will be better.
But hope is gone in a lost eternity. The Lord Jesus told about two men. You know, if you were writing a book about two men or you were writing a biography about someone, the story always end, has to end with their death. That's as far as you can go. And as far as this world's concerned, it's over. But you know, the Lord Jesus and Luke's gospel, he told about two men, and you can read it there in the 16th of Luke. And when he came to the end of their life, the story didn't end there.
He drew back the curtain and he told what happened to those two men after they drew that last breath.
When we draw that last breath, it's not all over. We do not die as a dog. We are responsible to God. It is appointed unto man wants to die. And after this the judgment we must do with God. And God has appointed the day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained. And he told of the Lord Jesus told of two men, one went to a place of blessing, one had left God out of his life.
And he lifted up his eyes in hell, being in torment, but it wasn't just that he was in torment, but there was no relief and there was no exit from that place for all eternity. He only wanted one drop of water to cool his tongue. You know, it's interesting that when he cried out, he didn't cry out for deliverance from that place because he knew his destiny was fixed. But he wanted relief in that situation. He never got it.
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And he never will. Well, how solemn. And I would be less than faithful tonight if I did not warn you as to the awful realities of a lost eternity. But thank God that's not the end of the gospel. Thank God the verse we read in Romans doesn't end there. It's true the wages, the consequences of sin are death, but all the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. God has provided a remedy.
God has provided salvation just like that chipmunk I was telling you about. My wife went out and she was able to eventually rescue that chipmunk who could not rescue himself.
I'm going to tell you a story that took place near my hometown of Smiths Falls some years ago. We live on the Rideau River and it's quite a resort area, quite an area for boating and the the Rita Waterway and so on. But in the winter time, it gets very, very cold where I come from and some usually the ice freezes and sometimes it freezes perhaps a couple of feet deep on the Rideau River.
And sometimes in the spring, particularly if there are rains that come, there's flooding because of the ice.
Ice breaks up that may not always flow with the current of the river. And so they have workers who go out in boats and they stick dynamite in the ice at different places to blow up the ice to keep the flow of water moving. And the Rideau River flows through Smith Falls down towards Ottawa. And there it goes over what they call the Rideau Falls into the Ottawa River. And some years ago there were some men out in several boats.
And it had rained very hard, and the ice that was there had sunk a little bit. And so there was quite a bit of water on top of the ice, and it was causing considerable flooding. And so they were out in boats strategically placing dynamite in different places. And one of those men was in a boat alone, and that boat capsized.
And he was able to climb up on top of that boat out of the frigid waters. And the current is very strong there because it's flowing towards the Rideau Falls.
And someone saw the peril of this man, and they very quickly called the fire department. And the fire department came very speedily, and they were over a bridge just before the waters plummet over the Rideau Falls. And as that boat came along with the current and that man on top, they lowered a rope down from the bridge for that man to hold onto.
But sad to say, he didn't grab the rope. And as he went under that bridge and as he went over the Rideau Falls, he was heard to cry. I'm frozen to the boat.
And as that crowd that had been watching dispersed, someone was heard to say, if only they lowered a man.
If only they'd lowered a man. He didn't need a rope. He wasn't able to grab that rope. If they'd lowered a man, he, that man could have helped him and they could have been put. He could have been pulled to rescue.
To safety. But all tonight, thank God, the gospel messages that God has sent his Son down into this world. He's not only told us of our total depravity, He's not only told us that we're helpless, guilty sinners and the consequences of sin, but he has given his Son the Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder Paul could burst out in Corinthians and say thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
You know God has given many gifts to man. In fact, it tells us in the book of James, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning. God has given gifts because God's desire is to bless. It says in Ecclesiastes that a man should eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of his labours. It is the gift of God. God has given many mercies.
The rain falls on the just and the unjust.
How sad that man is willing to take all that God will give him in a temporal way, but he doesn't want the giver. I often think of the prodigal son in that connection. He wanted all that the father could give him. He wanted what he felt was his due and the part of his inheritance, but he didn't want the father. He said, father give me. Isn't that the heart of man? Greed. He wants everything that God will give him in a temporal way. But he says, don't tell me about the blesser. Don't tell me.
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About the giver, don't tell me about the heart of God, the heart of the Lord Jesus who died.
You know, I don't often get a chance to read a newspaper, but I was staying in a home some time ago and there was a paper lying on the table. And I picked that paper up and I just read the headlines on the front page. And I put it down. And I said to the man I was staying with, I said, there isn't one bit of good news on the front page of that paper. And yet, you know, as you pick up the paper and you see this world right for the judgment of God, you see things out of control and sin and violence.
And rebellion against authority on every hand.
And yet and yet, man, seeing this and reading it from day-to-day.
When he hears the good news of the Gospel, he doesn't want it. He'll absorb all the bad news. He'll shake his head in disbelief. He said, I don't know where the world is going to end. We who know Christ as our Savior know where the world is going to end. It's going to end in judgment. This world is not getting better. It's winding down. It's right for the judgment of God. The Lord Jesus. Feeling the solemnity of coming judgment, he said, now is the judgment of this world.
You know, there is a lot of talk today about the environment and saving this planet. And I want to be careful because I believe that man has abused what God has given and given him in creation. He's given him all things richly to enjoy. And we have not been faithful stewards of what God has given us in creation. But I believe on the other hand, that Satan is busy today to keep man insensitive to his ruin, to keep him from thinking.
Of eternity.
And as long as Satan can keep man cleaning up this world and occupied with the betterment of this world, he's not thinking about his eternal destiny and where he will be when he leaves this world. Someone clipped an article out of the Ottawa newspaper some time ago and handed it to me and it was.
An article on environmental issues. But what was striking to me about that article was the last sentence. And this is what it said. It said any attempt to save this planet.
Attempt to save ourselves. Oh, how deceived man is. Oh, how clever the enemy of your soul is, because there is an enemy tonight. Satan does not love you. He wants to drag you down to a lost eternity. He says all this world is getting better and better, and you work for its improvement and its betterment. Oh, let's be careful that we don't work for the betterment of this world at the expense of considering.
Eternal issues.
You know, there is another way that Satan is keeping man insensitive to his ruin, and I believe it's through the tool of amusement. You know, it is remarkable that the word muse is the Latin word which means to think, and the word amuse means not to think. And when has there been a day when amusement is as prevalent as the day in which we live? What does Satan do doing? He's absorbing a man's mind so he doesn't think.
About the reality of eternal issues. But thank God Lord Jesus has come and we can turn to a well known verse like First Timothy 1:15.
And we can proclaim once again that there's a Savior for sinners. You know, just before an occasion like this, two young people were talking.
And they were overheard to say it's just another gospel meeting. It will probably end around 8:00. It probably will end around 8:00. But no gospel meeting is just another gospel meeting. It is a thrill to our souls to present once again the Savior of sinners in all his beauty, in all his glory, and in all his love. It's not just another gospel meeting. In fact, I believe that as a as a gospel meeting rolls around.
Word of God is opened and read once again. It is a proof of the love, the grace, and the patience that's in the heart of God. The fact that he has not closed the door, the fact that the gospel's still going forth, the fact that there's still refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ, the fact that in 1993 the gospel is still going forth. I say it's a proof of the love that's in the heart of God. All tonight, I wish I could tell you how much God loves you.
I wish I could tell you, because if you could just realize how much God loves you, you wouldn't stay away.
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You come and receive the blessing that he has, but the heart of God is such, and the love of God is such that it passeth understanding, it passeth knowledge. And I can't tell you tonight how much God loves you, but oh, I just trust that it can be impressed on your soul a little bit, the love of God and His desire for your blessing. How did God prove His love, the giving of His Son? This is a faithful saying.
And Paul had heard and been and from God.
Faithful warnings he received, one finally on the road to Damascus. No wonder he could speak in the verse before of how the grace of God had been exceeding abundantly toward him. Here was Paul. He hated Christians, he thought he should kill them. He thought he should take any who preached the name of Christ or believed on high in the glory. One whose arms are open wide tonight.
To receive all those who come as repentant sinners. You realize you have a need tonight. You realize you're a Sinner. You realize that God loves you and that He has provided a remedy for sin in the Lord Jesus Christ. I speak reverently. He has lowered a man. That Lord Jesus came right where we were, just like that man on the boat. He had no one to come down and rescue him. But the Lord Jesus has come as a man.
He's come in grace. He went to the cross.
There he allowed his creature, the ones he had created. That very thing that he had pronounced as being good is the very thing that takes him and nails him to the cross of Calvary. All the heart of man was displayed at Calvary like never before. All the hatred, all the enmity, and yet he allows man to take him and to nail him to the cross. They slap his blessed face, they spit, they moth, they ridicule. But that didn't save my soul, terrible as that was.
Terrible as that display was there at Calvary's cross, and there I see my heart represented, but I say that didn't save my soul. Oh, there as the sun was shrouded in night, God dealt with him as to the question of my sins. And I'm thankful that I can stand here tonight and with assurance and confidence on the authority of the word of God, I can thank him that he died and bore, bore my sins in his own body on the tree and died for me.
It was for me. Can you say that? Has it become a personal with you? It's easy to look at others. It's easy to say, well, Christ died for all, but it's a personal thing tonight. What think ye of Christ? What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ? Those questions were asked. They were personal questions. You know, sometimes when the gospel is presented, we look around at others and we say, well, they should come to the gospel meeting.
They need the gospel, they need to be saved because you know, wherever we are in life, we can always look around and find somebody that we feel is a worse Sinner than ourselves.
Somebody who is worse, you remember they brought a woman taken in adultery to the Lord Jesus and they brought her and they set her there. But he said to them, he that is without sin, let him cast the first stone. You know, there is an interesting verse, I believe it's in the book of Corinthians. It says men measuring themselves by themselves are not wise. You know, sometimes when the gospel is presented to those who are morally upright and those who are looked up in the community.
Perhaps they might say, well, that's the right kind of message to take to the drunk in the gutter. And so you go and you speak to the drunk and he says, well, he says, I don't hurt anybody. I hurt myself a little bit. But take that, that message to the man who goes out and steals from others. He needs the gospel. And so you take the gospel to the to the thief, the one who robs from others. And he says, well, he says, nobody really gets hurt in the long run, and everybody's a little dishonest.
Take that message to the man behind prison bars who's murdered someone. You see, you can always find someone who's worse than yourself, who you feel needs that kind of a message. But all I say again, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It's all inclusive. And even if I had only done one sin, and I've done many, but even if I'd only done one sin, that would be enough to keep me out of the presence of God. Christ would have had to die for me.
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His blood would have had to been shed.
To cleanse me from that one stain of sin. But thank God, though I have done multitudes of sin, it says the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. You've envisioned in your mind, no doubt that scene on Calvary's cross where the Lord Jesus, at the end of those three hours of darkness, he cries, it is finished. He bows his head, He gives up the ghost.
And then there was one who bore a record, and he says there in the end of John, that he saw and bear record, and he knew that his record was true. What did he bear record of? He bore record of that soldier who came along, and with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith flowed there out blood and water. I like that little word forthwith. You know, God's heart is a heart of blessing. He cannot delay to bless when the opportunity is given. And if it just said.
There flowed out blood and water. That would be wonderful. But forthwith, oh, think of it, that crowning act of man's hatred.
Think of the hatred in that man's heart, representative of my heart, as he takes that spear and he plunges it into the side of the Lord Jesus. And God, as it were, says, this is the opportunity I've been waiting for. Blessing is going to flow from this crowning act of man's hatred, and forthwith, without delay, there flows out blood and water. I want to speak very plainly to those who are younger, to the children, to the boys and girls, and to the young people.
Have you availed yourself of the precious blood of Christ?
You know, if I were to go up and down these rows and ask each one, how would I get to heaven? How can a lost, guilty Sinner have his sins forgiven and eventually reach God's happy home in a future day? I'm sure even the youngest here perhaps could tell me how to be saved because the gospel is very, very simple and God has made it that way so that even a little child of seven or even 3 or 4 May enter into heaven.
Through Christ the open door. But all it's not. Do you know the way of salvation?
The question is, have you availed yourself of it? Have you made it your own? Can you say that Jesus has died for you? You remember back in Exodus chapter 12 when the children of Israel were in Egypt under the ******* of Pharaoh, who is a picture of Satan in this world? And God said He was going to deliver them and bring them out, but he said it was going to have to be in the way that he had ordained and they were going to have to take a lamb.
And they were going to have to slay that lamb. They were going to have to place the blood in a basin. But that wasn't the end. You know, if they had just done everything up to that point and placed that blood in the basin and, and said, well, God says when he sees the blood, he'll Passover us and there won't be judgment. If they had done that, they would have fallen short. They would have been brought under the judgment that night that fell on Egypt and that fell on the first born as the Lord passed through the land and slew the oldest.
In each family.
There was more to it than that. They had to take that blood and in the way God had instituted, they had to apply that blood to the door of their home, down the side and across the top and down the other side, and only then could they enter in that door with a feeling of certainty and assurance. Only when they knew that the blood was on the door, that it had been applied to that house in which they entered in, has the blood been applied to your heart tonight?
Are you washed in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus?
All we cannot, we cannot make too much of the blood of Jesus. People don't speak so often today about the blood of Jesus, but it's God's remedy. It's God's cure for sin. And can you say honestly before God, who looks into your heart tonight that you know Jesus as your Savior? I'm going to tell about a little girl that I've told about before. She was five years old.
She came to some gospel meetings we were holding in Truro, NS some years ago, and I knew that that little girl knew Christ as her Savior, 5 years old, and she came morning after morning. And one morning she brought her friend who was probably about five years old as well. And they stayed behind that morning because that friend who had come for the first time wanted to be sure that her sins were forgiven.
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She wanted to be sure that the Lord Jesus was her Savior.
And so someone sat down with those two little girls and I believe before they left that morning, both of those girls, not just the one who knew Christ previously, but I believe both of those girls knew Jesus as their Savior. But I'll never forget what happened as those two little girls walked hand in hand out of that tent door that morning, the one who had been saved previously and had brought her friend, she said to her little friend. Now you can say.
That Jesus died for you. Oh, how wonderful, how simple, how precious. This is a day of complications. This is a day when accusations are given of things being presented in a way that's far too hard to understand. But has God made it complicated the things which we have spoken of tonight?
They hard to understand that we're sinners, that we need a Savior, that God has provided a Savior in Christ Jesus, that the blood is the remedy, the cure for sin, that it's the blood that washes our sins away and makes us fit for the presence of God. Is that difficult to understand? And if there's someone here and you don't understand, I trust you won't leave this room this evening until you speak to someone because I know there are many in this room who would be just too happy.
Just too glad to speak to you.
The work of Christ concerning the blood of Jesus concerning the simplicity of coming as a as a Sinner and receiving him by faith. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. Not only has God been faithful, but now there's one that's worthy of acceptance. Have you accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior? Have you accepted the truth of God from God's word, the truth concerning your condition, and then the truth concerning?
His son, the Lord Jesus.
Have you made it your own? Is it real and personal with you, worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came? You know, God, as I say, has given many gifts to man, but the greatest gift that he ever gave was his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, was ever a gift given like that His son whom he loved? His son who was with him from a past eternity?
And yet, he says to his son, you go, you go into the world.
Did He know how they would treat Him when He came? God knew. God knew how they would treat His Son. He knew what would be at the end when the Lord Jesus came in obedience. Did He know what the end of His pathway was going to be? Indeed He did. You know there are many beautiful pictures in the Old Testament of the Father sending the Son. I love when it says the Father sent the Son.
Isn't that more than if it just said God sent Jesus? It was the Father, the one who had that affection for the Son. It was the Son who came the object of the Father's love and affection.
The father sent the son. We'll just cite a couple of illustrations in the Old Testament you'll find when.
When?
Israel sent Joseph to his brethren.
They treated him horribly, put him into a pit, eventually sold him into Egypt, and Jacob didn't see his son for many, many years. And I have wondered, as I read that I have read that account, if Jacob had had any idea on that occasion how they would treat his son Joseph, the one that he loved above all his brethren. If he had had any inkling that he wouldn't see his son for many, many years, would he have sent him on that occasion?
And if Joseph had known how his brethren would treat him, and how he would not see his father for all those years, would he have been so willing to go on that occasion? I wonder if Jacob wouldn't have kept Joseph home on that occasion if he had had any idea what was going to happen.
Again, you find that Jesse sends David to the camp of his brethren, and I've wondered again if Jesse had had any idea that David was going to go down and fight with the champion of the Philistines. I wonder if he wouldn't have kept him home that day. But all God knew when he sent his son what would happen to him here. He knew the treatment that his son would receive from his creature. He knew they would nail him to a cross.
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And he knew too, that his Son would be would suffer the judgment of a holy God against sin in those three hours.
Of darkness I have told before, but I'm going to repeat an incident that took place in history that to me is very, very beautiful and illustrates this thought.
When I was going to school in Canada, we studied British history.
And as we study British history, we studied concerning the explorer David Livingston. But, you know, as I was going to school, I never realized from my social studies that David Livingston was not just a great explorer, but he was a missionary who loved the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior. And David Livingstone had two objects before him as he went to Africa, not just to map out much of that continent for the British government before little was known about it.
But he also wanted to take the message of God's love and grace to those who had never heard before. And David Livingstone and his wife and their baby were staying in a village and preaching the gospel. And David Livingstone that knew that just down that river a few miles, there was a there was a tribe of Africans who were noted for their savagery. And he knew that they had never heard the good news of the gospel. And all his heart was burdened for those souls.
But they had warned him.
Not to go to that tribe, but finally the burden was too great. And so one day with his wife and their child, they got into a boat. They began their journey down that river and they were startled as they approached the area in which that tribe lived to hear blood curdling, war whoops and all kinds of commotion. They saw men running through the trees waving Spears and all kinds of weapons.
And as they approached the shore, they tried to make those individuals realize that they had come in peace, that they had come with a message of good news and further blessing. But they couldn't seem to make them understand.
And finally, David Livingstone said, with a great deal of feeling, he said to his wife, give me the baby.
You can just picture the scene, those souls on the shore not realizing what was in the heart of David Livingstone. David Livingstone and his wife and their child in the boat. And he says, give me the baby. There was a few moments hesitation, and then his wife handed him the baby. And as they approached the shore, he held out that baby in his outstretched arms. And they say that the effect was amazing.
Why they realized as He held out the baby that He had come for their good and for their blessing. It was the display of what was in His heart. And all I say tonight, God has displayed His heart fully in the giving of His Son. And this was manifest the love of God toward us in that He laid down His life for us. He gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. It was the proof. It was the manifestation of His love.
To mankind and the Lord Jesus came. In obedience and love, Christ Jesus came.
Into the world. Yes, he did. He came into this world. He walked through this world.
As the as a perfect man, he went about showing out the heart of God his Father.
That's why he had come. He went about healing the sick, cleansing the leper, giving sight to the blind, giving hearing to the deaf. He rose, and he raised from the dead.
But he went farther than that. He not only came into this world, but he went all the way to Calvary's cross. And there he died for you. He died for me. Christ Jesus came into the world, and God doesn't leave us in any doubt as to why Christ Jesus came into the world. It's here in God's Word. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
That was his purpose for coming.
I think of a question raised in the Old Testament as David went down to the camp of his brethren.
And they scoffed at him and they said, why camest thou down hit her?
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Why had David come? God had allowed it because there was going to be blessing and a victory in Israel that day, as David was, to go down into the valley and slay the giant. And David could say with confidence to his brethren, is there not a cause? Was there a cause in God sending His Son into this world? It's given to us here very plainly. He came into the world to save sinners. I say again, do you realize your need?
Because until you realize your need, there will be no blessing, the Lord Jesus said. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
He said, David, our whole need, not a physician, but they that are sick. When the scribes and Pharisees wouldn't listen, it says, then drew near unto him publicans and sinners, for to hear him. They were the ones that realized that they had a need, and they were the ones who received blessing.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. I like that because here was Paul who had experienced the grace of God in a very wonderful way.
He says I'm the chief of sinners. I'm the worst Sinner that ever lived, and if the worst Sinner that ever lived is in eternity in heaven tonight.
Then there's no excuse for anyone else. There's no excuse because the worst Sinner is safe home in the glory he. Paul spoke of how he was going to be absent from the body present with the Lord. What about you? If you were to leave this world tonight, If the Lord Jesus was to come tonight, and he in all probability may, because the Word of God tells us the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. And if he were to come tonight.
Where would you be?
I'm going to speak again very plainly to those who have Christian parents, those who have Christian grandparents who have brought you to these meetings. If the Lord Jesus was to come tonight and call every Christian, every blood bought child of God to be with himself in that happy home in heaven, would you be left to look around? Mother gone, father gone, brother gone, sister gone?
You would realize what happened, you know, when Elijah was caught away to heaven in a whirlwind. Who was it that missed Elijah? It wasn't the general people, we might say. It was the sons of the prophets.
And all I fear, I fear that there are going to be many who have had Christian parents.
And when they're gone, you're going to know what happened. You're going to think of those warnings and those gospel meetings and those pleadings from the heart of God. But it's going to be too late. All come to Jesus tonight. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.
And believe in my heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. God loves you. And there's a solemn question raised to punch. It was raised a Pontius Pilate long ago. What will ye do then with Jesus, which is called Christ? What will you do then with Jesus? The question echo still from the lips of Pontius Pilate, who yielded to the people's will.
Oh, how solemn that question is still being asked.
Said to say Pilate.
Delivered up Jesus to be crucified. He rejected but all I hope there's no one here who's going to reject or neglect God's offer of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, but I hope you're going to accept his offer of salvation. We read that verse. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ is our Lord and God on the basis of that supreme gift that he gave his Son, he's now offering.
Eternal life, we just reach out and take that gift, accept it and say thank you. Oh what blessing and joy you'll be brought into. Shall we pray?
We thank Thee, our loving God and Father, for the glorious news of the gospel. We thank Thee for that word, that Thy word that we can open and proclaim that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And we would be burdened to think that perhaps there is someone here this evening.
Who has heard the message once again, and is still lost? Oh, may Thy love constrain them, speak to their hearts, touch their consciences, and draw them to thyself. May they not leave this room until they have settled the question of their soul salvation. We pray for Thy word wherever it has gone forth this night and is still going forth. We ask Thy blessing as we commit ourselves to Thee. We would again pray for our brother Eric Pilkington tonight, and for his wife and for his family as we do so with Thanksgiving.
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In our Savior's name, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
The Rich and the Poor Alike
Gospel—S. 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.
The first in Exodus 30. A couple of verses there as an introduction to.
The subject.
In Exodus 30 verse.
14.
Everyone that passes among them that are numbered from 20 years old and above shall give an offering unto the Lord. The rich shall not give more.
And the poor shall not give less. This is what I want to note. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel. We're all brought to the same level.
There's no more to give because of course the half a shekel speaks of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
And God has provided that.
Nothing more could be given, and of course nothing less would do.
So the rich and the poor meet together here.
Half a shackle. What's the shackle for when they give an offering unto the Lord to make an atonement for their souls?
Your souls is very personal.
So what we find in type in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the new, and that's one of the intrinsic truths of the authority of the inspiration, the inspiration of the Word of God.
So we turn to Luke's gospel.
We find how all that.
Scriptures tied together so perfectly, so intricately.
Written by so many men over so many thousands of years.
And yet perfectly blended together in its themes. A mere man couldn't have done that.
And we find that the Scriptures speak to us in a moral way.
That's how God deals with us, because we are moral beings.
He has created us as responsible moral agents.
And sometimes we think we can make our way through with our intellect, that we are intellectual agents, or with whatever other capacity we may have at our advantage that our resource.
But we're all leveled at the cross the rich. The poor, whether rich in IQ or rich in your bank account, or rich in good looks, or whatever you may have or whether you're poor.
All come together at the cross.
Now in Luke's Gospel verse chapter 18 and verse 35.
We have the Lord Jesus coming to a man who was poor. The first one we're going to look at was poor.
The one right after that was Rich.
The first one is poor.
The Lord Jesus is going along.
And in verse 35 And it came to pass that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside, begging, He comes down to Jericho.
Is the city of destruction. The whole world lies under judgment.
But the Lord comes right down into that scene of judgment and defines the lost article right here.
And who is it we think? Well, Who is God interested in? The rich? The well to do?
He finds there a certain blind man who was sitting by the wayside, begging.
And this man, he hears the multitude passed by. He couldn't see, but he could hear some certain. He could hear certain things.
And it's the multitude that's passing by.
The multitudes are passing by. How many people are in this world? Billions. Going it in, going out, passing by.
And this is a certain man because God deals with each of us individually. He doesn't just see the multitudes and the masses and the the the nebulous faces and he sees each one of us individually.
We think sometimes man thinks that sometimes God is just sitting out at the edge of Infinity and he doesn't see each one individually.
But he knows each one of us individually.
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And he knew right where to find this man.
And this man was hearing the multitude passing by, and he asked what it meant.
Think of them sitting there.
Taps the guy next to him and he says what's happening.
I hear some people going by what's happening. What does it mean?
The Lord Jesus Christ is passing by. What does it mean?
And that's a good question and everyone of us is going to have to answer it.
Who is the Lord Jesus Christ? Why did he come here? What was he about? He's the one who manifested God. God manifest in the flesh. Think of that. This is what's happening and this is what the man is asking. Have you ever asked that question?
I think most have all should.
Who is the Lord Jesus Christ? Why did he come here?
And they told him.
That Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.
Now he must have heard something about Jesus of Nazareth, though he was blind.
And he probably didn't move too far from this post there where he was begging by the wayside.
Because it gives an answer.
He cried saying.
No, he didn't speculate.
And he didn't philosophize, but he cried. And that comes from down in the soul, doesn't it?
And we all have a soul. We all have our being. We know that I do, you do. And that's where he cried from. Now we can sit in our armchairs and we can go to college and take philosophy classes, and we can listen to people with letters after their names and they can speculate on the origin of things and religious matters and so on. But that's not crying.
And man cries, whether he's willing to admit it or not. Every one of us does. And the Lord Jesus has come to meet that cry. He has come to find the one who is crying, the one who is looking for him.
Just seek the Lord with all of your heart. You shall find Him.
He says, Jesus, thou son of David.
They told him it was Jesus of Nazareth.
But he responds, Jesus, thou son of David. So this man, though he was blind, he knew a few things.
And one thing he knew was that Jesus, the son of David, the root and the offspring of David, has come, and he is the one who is the answer to all the promises to Israel. And here is a blind beggar who cries to this very one in his need and calls him Jesus. Thou son of David, he knows a little bit about the Lord Jesus.
Thou son of David, and the thing that he says is have mercy on me, and that's just the person that the Lord Jesus is looking for.
And they which went before him rebuked him.
That he should hold his peace.
Now there's always somebody who's going to get between you and the Lord.
They have a way of doing it. They rebuked him. If your cry is earnestly from the soul in sincerity to God, you won't find any shortage of people to say, well, that's just a religious experience or it's a crutch, or it's a psychological phenomenon and so on and so on. And they're going to try to talk you out of eternal life in attaching yourselves to the Savior, to the Lord Jesus.
Some way, somehow, somebody near you because they were near him.
Is going to rebuke you.
When we were flying out here from Sacramento, we got a transfer in Denver.
We got on the airplane, my wife and I, and the plane was only about 1/3 full.
And there were three seats across and we sat down in the two seats and the Stella came in and he sat down beside us and he he sit at talking. As soon as he sit down, I think there was a solenoid there that spring loaded into the top position. He says I like to talk.
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And he said, well, where are you going?
Hardly anybody in the plane he could have. That was his seat.
I said, well, we're going over. He knew the plane lit in Indianapolis. That was on the schedule, so I didn't have to answer that. But I said, well, figured he meant something more than that, where you'd go. And I said, well, we're going over near Vin Sands. That was the biggest town I could think of in this area.
Oh, he says, and then he used the name of the Lord Jesus has people casually do.
That's my old stomping ground, you know, I think he said Manchester.
Some 3 syllable were a town that starts with an AM. I don't hold me to it, but I think he said Manchester. We'll use Manchester for the sake of the story. Insignificant.
I thought, oh, I could have put up with this for two hours. He could have sat anywhere.
I said no, I don't know Manchester, but I know the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he kind of started, you know? He chuckled a nervous laugh, and he sat down and kept going anyway.
I was looking at all those empty seats on the airplane.
Wondering why I wasn't in one of them.
But I got to thinking, I got two hours with this man, learned his name was Tom.
And he's a little older than I am, retired, coming back from some wing and in Las Vegas where he had been and.
We kept on the conversation.
I was trying to figure out how I could get him on serious matters.
And Tom, most people that talk a lot, you know, you can you can kind of get a rapport with them.
Tom eventually came to his operation, as those that talk a lot usually do. He had had a brain operation for an aneurysm.
Pretty soon he lit on that subject.
And.
This conversation is vocabulary was still pretty disturbing, but it calmed down a little bit.
And he was telling me about this aneurysm that he had and he did an they did an operation on it. And he was one of the 5% upon whom this operation is done that that come out with good memory and are able to still get up and get around and make a full recovery.
And so I was just talking to him about the mercies of God in connection with his case. I knew he could relate to that, said, yeah, Come to find out, Tom.
His mother is 84 years old, is a godly woman, his mother praying for him, telling him about the Lord. Tom's sister and her husband are the Lords and they were a testimony to Tom.
So they had been somebody planted, somebody had been watering. I thought maybe I could add a little bit of water to that.
He said. My sister, she after this operation, you know, I, I let her talk me into going to church with her.
And sitting up there on the front row and after church, my sister said, you know, Tom, you ought to really get serious about these things. You ought to really take part and come to church on a regular basis. And, and Tom says, well, you know, sis, if you knew all those guys down there shouting their hallelujahs on the front row, like I know them like I knew them last night where I was.
You wouldn't be so excited about this.
His sister said Tom.
Those people you're calling hypocrites are closer to the Lord than you are.
Tom says what?
Yeah, you've set them between you and God. You've got them standing between you and God, so they've got to be closer to God than you are.
They rebuked him.
And somebody is always around to stumble you.
And you know who it is.
They wanted him to hold his peace. A little bit of religion would be all right.
Well, we got to Indianapolis and we parted our ways, Tom said. Well, we had quite a conversation. I said, yeah, we covered some bases, Tom.
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I hope, I hope Tom something got to his conscience in those few hours of conversation.
And I hope something gets into your conscience tonight that you haven't put somebody between you and God, that you haven't felt that you're so clever that you can hide behind somebody you have found somewhere that you can call a hypocrite place between you and God.
This man didn't, and that's the beauty of this man. He was poor and he was a beggar.
And he overcame.
And he cried out so much the more.
He wouldn't be still.
If you seek me with all your heart, ye shall find me. This man is serious. This man is honest. This man means business.
This man is poor.
Thou, Son of David, have mercy on me.
And Jesus stood.
It said Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. This man cries.
And now it says Jesus stood.
Now for a living, I just have a little mom and pop grocery store and you get to know the people in the community fairly well. You know how busy we get.
With our own affairs there.
There is no shortage of people that come into my store. Sooner or later you learn what their distresses are, what their heartaches are, what their difficulties are, and you hear their cry. The Lord Jesus stopped what He was doing, stopped where He was going, and he stood for this man. And we hear the cry. Oftentimes we hear the cry of those in need. That's what we need to do is to stop.
Have we got time for the poor beggar who's crying in his distress? The Lord Jesus does.
I hope I don't get so occupied that I haven't got time.
In the affairs of life, to stop and talk to somebody that comes into the store.
Who cries in their distress?
And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto him.
And when he was come near, he asked him, saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?
And so the Lord Jesus has come to you now in this tower of your visitation, and he would say to you, What will I do for you?
Really, what do you want?
What do you want? Do you want a relationship with God that's real?
Or are you just going to try a religion to see if it works?
Like Western civilization drives marriage as an experiment rather than a commitment.
And it fails. And how often do you hear people say, while I was in, I tried this and that didn't work. And I tried that and that didn't work. And after a while I tried religion and that didn't work either.
Lots of people say that there are just no reality and they haven't cried from the soul.
This man was real, and I hope you're real.
And the Lord, when the Lord says, What wilt that I shall do unto thee?
The man was begging. He didn't say, well, fill my cup with enough for a meal tonight, or a new wardrobe or a place to sleep. He thought well beyond all of that.
What was this man's most urgent need?
He said, Lord, that I may receive my sight.
That's what he needed and that's what man needs today. He needs to have his eyes opened to the things of God in reality.
It's what He has to have. We all need it. That's what he asked for. And so the Lord Jesus said unto him, Receive thy side by faith have saved thee. He had asked the right person.
He didn't go to a group of men, he didn't go to a religious organization, but he went.
To the Lord Jesus, that's the one that can open the eyes.
And so the Lord Jesus had received thy sight. This man hadn't been able to see. You know how often in the Gospels the Lord Jesus says to a person, take up thy bed and walk, stretch forth thine arm.
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Here, take receive thy sight. Do you think that the man was able to do that in his own strength?
That a man could stretch forth the withered arm in his own strength. He'd never been able to do it before. To take up his bed and walk. He'd always been bedridden.
He had no natural strength whatsoever to do that.
But the Lord said, Receive thy sight.
It comes as a command. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Do you really think that there's an option?
Or do you think that you will put this off for a little while and attend to it later?
He says, Receive thy sight, thy faith hast saved thee. And the man received his sight in simple obedience to the command that the Lord Jesus had given him. He receives his sight, and in simple obedience to the command of God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou shalt be saved.
And I suppose the man would have thought, well, where is the optometrist and where is the doctrine? How are you going to do this? And I want to know just how it's going to be done before I submit to this. And I don't know if it's going to work and.
That's the way people come to the Lord Jesus.
And they always ask all these questions, and they've got to have all these questions answered before they'll obey the command to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's just simple. It's obedience to God.
And so that's what the man did. And immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God, he received his sight.
In answer to the command, he received his sight immediately, not at the end of his life. You come to Christ, you're saved right now.
Immediately fully saved, sins forgiven, relationship to God as a child, brought into the intimacy of that relationship to God. Immediately everything full salvation. Immediately he receives his sight. Then it says he followed him.
And that's just a natural result.
Of one who has done so much.
For you to want to follow him.
A young lady doesn't say I do to a young man and consider the transaction done at that point and not go and be with that person. We understand this in the natural realm, it would be unusual for two to get married and the the woman not to be with the man. And it's unusual to take the Lord Jesus as Savior and not want to follow him because it's a relationship of love.
God is love. I had a college professor. This guy had letters after his name. Stand up one day and say God is an idea in the mind of man.
But God is love is love and idea. Everyone of us knows love. We have experienced love. We have been brought into families where we understand love between children and parents, between husbands and wives, between brothers and sisters. God is love.
He followed the Lord Jesus and did everybody say, look at that man, what a wonderful man he is. See how he received his sight.
We're going to make a lot out of that, man.
They didn't. He just simply, in obedience, received his sight.
And he followed the Lord Jesus according to that nature that he received from God. He wanted to please the Lord. He glorified God.
And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto not the man, but to God.
God is glorified in the salvation of a lost Sinner.
Today in this country, when we're trying to make a lot of people, we set the person forth and make a lot of him. Perhaps he gets titles, perhaps he gets a certain uniform.
But God is glorifying.
This poor beggar was saved and saved completely. The next man, Jesus, entered and passed through Jericho.
And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans and he was rich. Now we've got a rich man and that I think that you will find the story here of Zacchaeus. You know, all you children have heard of Zacchaeus. You've had Zacchaeus in Sunday school. It's one of the most popular characters in the Bible to, to learn about in Sunday school, all the children know about Zacchaeus. You, you ask that any child that's been to Sunday school, who is the short man who climbed up into the tree? Zacchaeus, they know that answer right away.
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This man was rich, the last man was poor, but you're going to find that the conditions and the ways in which the Lord dealt with this man are pretty much basically the same, because the rich and the poor meet together. The rich Zacchaeus can't give any more than the blind beggar. He can give the obedience of faith, and that's all there is. He can receive what God has provided for him.
Behold.
There was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the public publicans, and he was rich. This fellow worked for the IRS and he wasn't a very popular person.
Not too much has changed in the history of man in the last few thousand years. You can go back to the Old Testament and read there in the book of Judges and the book of Genesis, and you can find out what was going on in the very hearts of man way back then, and it's no different than now.
He sought to see Jesus, who he was.
And that's what we want to know. Who is the Lord Jesus now? How are you going to find out?
In the 16th of Matthew the Pharisees came to the Lord Jesus and they said, show me a sign.
One of my children was taking a class in college by all these professors and and they were talking about that miracles and signs and empirical evidence that might might convince them that God is.
These Pharisees came to the Lord Jesus there in the 16th of Matthew and said, show me a sign.
And the Lord Jesus said a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and you won't see any sign but the sign of Jonas. And then do you know what it says? It says he turned and left them.
And what that means is he left them absolutely.
Have you ever thought about the how intricate?
Of a being you are.
And the consequences of tampering with the grace of God.
One of the old philosophers was that Aerosol said know thyself. Now how are you going to know yourself until you get a description of yourself by the word of God?
And as you read through the word of God you come across the story of Pharaoh and it says God hardened Pharaohs heart.
Do you think that you are so free in your moral agency that you can settle these things according to your own time and pleasure and will, and that you can figure these things out, and that you can make your moral path through life according to your own direction and carve out your own life?
According to your own will.
And that you will deal with God on your terms. God hardened Pharaohs heart.
It says in Romans one that he gave them over to a reprobate mind.
It says of neighbor.
That he went into a drunken stupor for 10 days after Abigail and after David had come with a message to him which he rejected.
10 days he went into an unconscious stupor. What can you tell a man that's in an unconscious stupor? Western civilization is in an unconscious stupor and we're coming to the last chapter and time is running out because western civilization in all its.
Knowledge and where the gospel has been brought forth has trampled upon these things, and God has given it over to a reprobate mind. Do you know how solemn it is to tamper with these things? Do you think that you can get away with that, young people? Do you think that you will put this off, and someday in your own will you will, you will get these things right? It was not so with Pharaoh, It was not so with Nabal. It was not so with those.
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In Romans chapter one.
It says of Absalom, when he went out in rebellion, 200 men followed him in their simplicity and they knew not anything at all. How did they get that way?
Do you want to get in that kind of a position?
It's so sovereign. The human conscience is the most delicate instrument that we possess, and to be tampering with it puts us under the solemn government of God.
Well, might we be reading looking at the last chapter of the capitalistic experiment. Is God obligated to preserve this when it turns to legislation of moral evil?
No, and these may be the very last days that we're living in.
Heat. On that basis, you read the Sermon on the Mount.
You have read in the law thou shalt not kill. You know what's in your heart, hatred. You've read in the law thou shalt not commit adultery. God knows what's in your heart. In the Lord Jesus tells you he is gone. If you lust, you have committed it in your heart.
Thou shalt not steal. And God turns to the heart, and he sees what's in there.
And he says, you have coveted in your heart. Now how are we going to deal with God who is righteous, who is holy?
The Lord Jesus went to Calvary's cross.
To take up that issue.
I was 23 years old before I understood that, so I was driving down the road with the man that I had picked up to take to a father and son banquet that my father had talked me into going to.
And I didn't want to go, and I was lost. And I had heard that Christ loved you and died for you, and I didn't know what that meant.
And this man, an old retired man driving down the road, he said, Are you saved?
And I said, well, no.
And that kind of took him back. He thought I should have been, if I was there to pick him up, to go to a Christian banquet.
And he said, why not?
And I said, well, why didn't the Lord Jesus just come down? And as a man, he was here, you know, and, and the people that wanted to follow him, where they could have followed him and they could have been with him and they could have heard his instruction in his precepts. Why did the Lord Jesus die? I've always heard the Lord Jesus died, but why did he have to die? I was 23 years old.
And this man said he had to die to settle the question of sins.
There is the subject of atonement. Our sins have to be taken care of. That's how we come into the presence of a thrice holy God. Mere religion isn't going to do it, and good intentions aren't going to do it. Only Christ can bring the lost Sinner into that position. He did it with the blind beggar, and now he's going to deal with Zacchaeus. And Zacchaeus wants to know who the Lord Jesus is. But he was short.
He was little of stature. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. No matter how rich he is, how well he has done in life, what his assets are, he is little in stature. He is short. He has come short of the glory of God. And he ran before and climbed up into a Sycamore tree. Do you know what we read about Zacchaeus here? A little bit about his character. He was diligent.
Now, are you diligent in these matters? Are you? Can you hardly wait to get out of here so you can do something else this evening or tomorrow or the next week?
Zacchaeus knew the issues of life.
And he knew that this was his hour of visitation, right here, just as it is yours tonight, your hour of visitation. This is the time for you.
To resolve these issues.
And so he was diligent, and a man would be a fool if he weren't diligent about these things when you think about the consequences.
He ran before and climbed up into a Sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way.
And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste.
And come down for today I must abide at thy house.
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He was to abide at Zacchaeus house. Would you like to have the Lord Jesus come to your house except.
The Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. And if you're laboring in your house in your life right now without the Lord, you're laboring in vain.
And the further you go, the further away you get and the harder it is to get back.
He made haste and came down in verse six and received him joyfully.
As diligent as he was, he came down in command in response to the command come down.
Then he received him joyfully. When the Lord Jesus came to different ones, there were different ways in which they responded to Him.
Some were mad, the Pharisees, some were glad Zacchaeus, some were sad, the rich ruler who couldn't give up his goods and give it to the poor because they had those riches, their tentacles around his soul and were eaten at his soul, the edges of his soul like acid, and he couldn't let go of what he had. So he was sad. But Zacchaeus received him just as he was told to do.
And he did it joyfully.
And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying that he was gone to be a guest with a man that is a Sinner. And there they are again.
Just like they were in the last chapter with the poor man, somebody is going to be around to try to block.
Your reception of the Lord Jesus.
Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord. He didn't even pay any attention to them.
It's like the fellow that was telling me that he was preaching the gospel in a detention home one time and he had this fellow down. They were sitting there together. It was a a man's youth authority something I was in jail and he was telling this fellow about the Lord. And there were other group of people around here kind of listening in.
And there was one other fellow here as a colored man standing off to the side listening also, and he was telling Estella about the Lord. And these guys over here started to snicker at him because the man who was giving him the gospel said, do you want to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? They started snickering over here.
And the guy that was given the gospel said, you know, they can laugh you right into hell, but they'll never laugh you out. And it reached the man's soul and he got down on his knees and took the Lord Jesus as his savior. And this colored fellow over here watching all the Snickers and watching the transaction, he says, I want to receive the Lord Jesus too.
Meant business paid no attention to the people that were snickering and two men.
Glorified. Gone were trophies of His grace that day, and so was Zacchaeus. He didn't take any heed of that.
Remember your friends.
Can laugh you right into hell. They will never laugh you out.
Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And the Lord cut him off at that point, and just simply said unto him, This day is salvation, come to this house. Why? Because the Lord Jesus had come.
Not because of any good works that he had done, but simply because the Lord Jesus himself, who is salvation, who is eternal life, who has passed by the beggar, and now Zacchaeus and his, you might say, passing by tonight.
Has come to where you are, Right there where the blind beggar was. Right there where Zacchaeus was in the tree. Came right to where they were.
And he gave the command, received thy sight come down. And they did, and they were saved.
This day is salvation. Come to this house.
Now verse 10 and you've all heard verse 10. The children have learned verse 10.
Somewhere along the line, they have learned verse 10 in their Sunday School memory work.
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
About 2100 hours on one June day in 1969. Two flight crewmen.
On the USS Constellation, somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean, about 200 miles off the coast of San Diego, went out onto the flight deck to saddle up in their F4 to an engine two place fighter bomber.
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They got into that aircraft.
They turned on the huffer, came up, blew that hot air through the turbines as the raw fuel was poured in there, and the pilot hit the ignorant switch and the fuel was ignited and the turbines are turning up to General Electrics at 17,000 lbs of thrust each straining at the cable ready to launch.
The pilot salutes the flight deck officer. He salutes back. He touches the ground. The guy in the tower up there is watching all this and he gives the signal to the man underneath. The buttons are pushed and 85,000 lbs of material are hurled off of that flight deck.
In supposedly what is to be a flying attitude in less than two seconds.
From zero to 200 knots.
I was sitting in the back of that airplane.
And we came to the end of the flight deck.
In the nose of that aircraft is pitching down and it's supposed to be pitching up.
You have 80 feet to play with from the flight deck to the Pacific Ocean.
80 feet seconds, less than seconds. I see the flight deck rising above me on the right. I see the gyro getting blacker and blacker.
And there's just seconds I pull the handle.
The back canopy goes off and I go out. The guy in the front seat who is the pilot just sitting in there hollering, eject, eject, and he's talking to himself. I'm gone. His canopy goes off and then he goes out and there's a rocket seat under you that shoots you up 250 feet up into the air.
And in that June evening, I'm going around in circles and I see the stars, and then I see the ocean and then I see the stars, and then my whole seat appendage comes off as it's programmed to do and the chute pops.
But I'm going 200 knots and I'm pretty close to the water and when I hit the water I hit it at a lateral angle with velocity and somehow I rolled and I had popped these two little.
Chords on my life vest that activate too little CO2 cartridges to inflate the life vest just as I hit the water. Hit the water, I roll a little bit and I pop those **** fittings to get rid of my chute. But somehow in the roll the froude line from my chute had gotten caught in the back of my survival vest.
And I couldn't get it loose.
And I get my equilibrium and I look up in the ship, it's 1000 feet long.
5000 men are its complement. It's a seagoing city and I see it going by about from here to that wall and the guys up on top are throwing their little hand lanterns down. It's just about dark because they see me down there and they're throwing these little, they're flashlights from the flight deck crew that they use. They're throwing them down because they see me and they want the helicopter to know where I am.
And the ship goes by and I'm trying to get this cord off of my harness and it won't budget. And the 1St wave from this big ship goes by and just swamps me. And I'm under the water and I don't know if I'm coming up. And I like air just as well as the rest of you people. And I come up for a breath and the ship goes by. And the big screws of that thing were about as big around as this opening here are churning and it leaves quite a turbulence.
But the Navy is courteous enough to have a helicopter airborne for every flight and recovery, and it's right there for just such occasions.
So the helicopter knows right where I am, he's flying right over the top of me and he drops down on a line.
This harness that I'm to get into to get lifted up to the helicopter.
And he was just just from me to hear just this far apart and I grabbed that thing.
But I'm still attached to the parachute and it's all underwater and he's hollering down through his megaphone. Pilot, get away from your chute because he doesn't want to be brought down into the Pacific Ocean as well.
And I didn't really want to let go of that thing because I'd already been underwater a couple of times.
But I knew that I wasn't going to be able to be lifted up.
There I was in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, treading water for all I'm worth. Now you can relate to this little similitude as to how it connects to the distresses of life. I never wanted to be there. That's the last place I wanted to be.
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But the line is down and I let it go and I back off and he sends down a swimmer. He pulls it up and he sends down a swimmer to come around and back at me and to loosen that cord that I couldn't get loose. You can't get loose from your sins. You're going to drown in them. You're in the depths of judgment with these things. The sins that you have committed have put you where you are, in your distresses. The whole world lies in judgment. And I've just got my nose above the water and there it is right there. And he wasn't hollering down with his megaphone, giving me swimming instructions on how to swim to land 200 miles away. I couldn't do it.
He wasn't telling me how to scale the wall of the ship to get back up there. I couldn't do it.
I was absolutely helpless and at the mercy of what they could provide.
So the swimmer came down and he got me untangled.
And now I'm at liberty, take hold of that life, that harness that they had sent down.
The very things that I had depended upon were dragging me under my good intentions.
My own works, what I had accomplished, my own will about things. I had one chance and one only, and that was to lay hold of what had been provided for me right there at that time.
Now imagine the situation if I were sitting there and saying I'm going to try a little bit longer.
Or I'm going to wait for another helicopter. How long are they obligated to sit there and wait in patience and grace for me to take hold of what was perfectly needed?
And suitable for me in my case right there.
How long is God obligated to strive by His Spirit with the souls of men?
I can guarantee you right now, but I can't guarantee you tomorrow.
I took hold of that and they lifted me right up into the helicopter, took me back to ship and I was thankful.
I was really thankful.
And I'm thankful that God has reached down right to where I am and given me.
The Savior.
With the Navy, it cost them a certain amount for that helicopter to provide for me there. What did it cost God to provide the Savior of sinners for you and for me? The Lord Jesus went to Calvary's cross. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost, and He is here tonight asking, beseeching.
Looking in to your soul's deep needs.
He is available tonight.
That you may be saved.
And this is your hour.
To receive the Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved.
Can we sing #38?
I know not why God wonders praise to me He had made no, nor why on the earth.
I am.
Playing before him.
Rich and poor meet together. The Lord is the maker of them all. We all stand in need of God's salvation through Christ Jesus.
And if anything, the coins in my pocket while I was there waiting to get hold of that harness would have only bumped me faster. And riches have a tendency to do that, you know.
Not just the riches of a bank account, but all the things that this world has to offer.
That entertain our minds and put this solemn and eternal question off.
It must be decided each one individually before the Lord, in sincerity of heart. And this is the night for you, our God, our Father, how we thank thee for the Lord Jesus our Savior.
That he has come to give life. He gave his life that we might have life.
And we thank thee for the word of God, that our eyes might be opened like the blind beggars, that we might come into true riches like Zacchaeus.
We ask our Father, thy blessing on this word spoken in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Amen.
"Addr. Jesus, He is Altogether Lovely"