Lawrenceville Conference: 1996
Table of Contents
John 17
John 17
Fathers & Sons
Ruth For Our Blessing
Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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I'd like to turn this afternoon, noon to a well known portion, the book of Ruth. We've often looked at this, but I believe we can always learn fresh lessons from God's word because tells us, you know, forever, oh Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. And I like to think that when we get home to glory, we're going to see this blessed book and we're going to learn all that God had for us. We only learn a little.
Here, but we'll learn all He had for us and the wonderful revelation of truth.
And love that He has given to us in His word. Now let's look to this book. I'd like also, first of all, to read the last verse of the book of Judges.
In those days there was number king in Israel. Every man did that which was right.
In his own eyes now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to soldier, and in the country of Moab he and his wife and his two sons. In the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of their his two sons Mallum and Jillian.
Hebrithites of Bethlehem, Judah.
And they came into the country of mauve and continued there, and alone, like Naomi's husband, died.
And she was left and her two sons. Then they took them wives of the women of Maude.
The name of the one was Oprah and the name of the other Ruth, and they dwelled there about 10 years. And Madeleine and Chilean died also, both of them, and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband.
With the Lord's help, I'd like to go through the book and learn some of the little lessons I believe God has for us in this precious book.
The reason I read the verse in the end of Judges is to see the time that this letter, this book was written, and what a difficult time it was for any who desired to please the Lord. But I think it corresponds very much to the day in which we live. It says here every man did that which was right in his own eyes. We're seeing that more and more that people don't have.
Standards that are formed by the Word of God.
They do set their own standards, say I have as much right as another to think what is right and wrong, and I'm just going to do as I please. I'm not going to shut out God entirely, but I'm going to plan my own life as I see best. That was the time in which this family lived. The book of Judges takes up particularly God's dealings with the nation of Israel, for they were in a special place of favor, and I believe we are brethren.
To be in a place of special favor, living in a land where we have the Word of God, the open Bible. Many of us brought up in homes where the Bible is read, where the Lord is known. And we are greatly privileged. And so were the people that we read about in the book of Judges and also this family in the book of Ruth. And so they were a very privileged people. But even with our privileges, we can be very indifferent.
We can be very self assertive and we can plan our own lives as we see best for ourselves without turning to the Lord.
There is a verse in Jeremiah 10 that says, oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. They're not one of us in this room, young role who has the knowledge that is needed to direct our pathway a right in a world like this. But isn't it wonderful that we have one that we can turn to?
Our faithful, unchangeable friend, the Lord Jesus.
The one who loved us and gave himself for us, and he cares for us. And if there's one who's not saved here, he cares for you too. He wants you to be blessed. It's the will of God that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth He desires. The blessing of all in Christ died for all. But we ourselves, perhaps I could say again, are specially privileged. So they were in the book of Judges.
But they departed from the Lord. But God was faithful as he always is, and he raised up judges, deliverers for them. And if you read through the book, you'll see how over and over again when they got away, the moment they turned to the Lord, then he raised up a deliverer. He came in. And if there's any of us in a special time of trouble, let me tell you that God cares. And if you know him as your Father, you can turn to him as we've been having in our.
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And turn to him as your father and know that he is concerned may not always be an easy way back. Because we do reap what we sow, You know, we sow wild oats, we reap wild oats and we may have to reap, but isn't that lovely? But even if we have done things like that, while we reap, the Lord will be right beside us. If you like the father who had to punish his child.
And went and sat beside him and loved him.
And sought so with God our Father, that even though we might and we do make mistakes, He doesn't forsake us. Well, the reason I read this book and I must take up too much time to speak of this, but just to get the setting of this chapter and this book.
God picks out one little family in the midst of all this. And I think this is most interesting to me, perhaps to me, especially because I like to read the Bible in this way, that when I read about people, I think of them as people just like myself, people who have feelings like I do.
People who feel things, who feel pain or feel difficulties of feel reproach, you feel misunderstanding. They were normal people and this was a normal family. Perhaps a little special in the way that it was a favored family, because we can see by the names that are mentioned here that there was something special about this family. I was brought up in a special family. I don't mean that anything as to ourselves.
Personally, but I mean that I was in a favored family where the Bible was read, where my parents loved me, where they sought my good, they sought my blessing. And in that way I was especially favored. And so after giving us the book of Judges and God's dealing with Israel as a nation, we then come to this book where we have this family picked out.
The man's name was Elimelech, and that name means God is king.
God is king. I like to think of the time when that little boy was born.
And his parents looked at him and they saw their child and they said God is king. They wanted their boy to be brought up acknowledging the claims of God, and they named him. God is king. And he was also born in a wonderful place, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah. I hardly need to say, because we all recognize that that was the place where our blessed.
Was born and thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah, though thou be little among the Princess of Judah, yet out of these shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel. Wasn't this a favored place? And without any ************ because we need to be humble if God has been good to us. But it's a great privilege to be brought up in a Christian home where the Lord's claims are acknowledged when we gather to know other name.
But the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's a great privilege. He was born in Bethlehem, Judah.
Perhaps his parents were very happy when he got married. His wife's name was Naomi, which means pleasant. I take it that means it was a happy marriage, and you know it is. There's a great joy that we as parents have on our children. Marry someone who is the Lord, who wants to please the Lord, and who is what we might call a nice person, a pleasant person.
Because it's a very lovely thing that God cares.
About the partner that we have a prudent wife is from the Lord. You might say, well, I just choose from myself. Oh, you and I can't choose the right for ourselves. We need the Lord to help us. The Lord bless this marriage with two boys.
The names of these boys were Malin and Chilean, and so here were these this little family. Things were going well now up to this point, but there was a famine in the land.
Well, famines had come before in Israel's history. There was a famine in the life of Abraham, and when Abraham was faced with his famine, he decided to go down into Egypt to escape the famine. He went away from the difficulty and he went down into the land of Egypt. And I won't go into it, but he got into a lot of difficulties down there.
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Denied his proper relationship to his wife and had to be rebuked by the king of Egypt.
It was a sort of a sad situation. He brought back Hagar, who brought problems into his house. Let me say this, if there ever comes a difficulty in the assembly, don't run away. You'll only run into difficulty. The best thing is to face it in the fear of God. Seek the Lord's help, seek the guidance and direction of His Word, and don't turn aside because of.
Difficulties. Abraham got into difficulties here. This family went down into more of well, we know where Moab came from. Moab was from the descendants of Lot and Lot was a self seeking man, a true believer, but a self seeking man and he, a nation had been following him. So they went down there, didn't quite go as far as going to Egypt, but they went.
Perhaps I could compare him to a worldly Christian. And usually when we get discouraged, we become worldly. And that's exactly what happened here. They went down there to Moab. Well, you know what happened down there because it tells us in the part that I read that the Lord began to speak to this family and things didn't go quite as well as they had hoped they would.
First, it tells us that LM Elect died and she was left alone with the two boys that God had given to her. Well, this should have caused an exercise. You know, brethren, shall I say nothing happens by chance. You have a problem rises in your life and mine. I'm not standing here to say, well, you must have done something wrong or it wouldn't have happened because.
The Lord does deal with us, and some of the things that He allows in our lives are not necessarily disciplined, but we always ought to be exercised as to why problems come into our life. And I believe if they had been exercised right at the very beginning here, the Lord wouldn't have to continue and speak a little louder.
You know God speaks gently the first time, but if we don't listen then he has to speak louder.
And after the death of after the death of Elimelech, then the two boys and their mother were left alone. And it tells us here they took wives of the women of Moab. Well, you know, that was also contrary to the word of God, because according to the Mosaic law, they were not to marry among the nations around about them and for us.
The Bible says, and I say this to any young person who's contemplating marriage.
Bible says be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, and so it tells us this very plainly, and a Christian should never marry an unbeliever. That is an unequal yoke. That is what the Word of God tells us not to enter into such a relationship.
Well, we see here that after a while.
They, both Malin and Chilean died. The Lord spoke still louder again and the woman was left alone and now she just has her two daughters in law. Thankfully they were nice girls and I'm not saying that there aren't nice girls, but they aren't proper relationship for you. If they're not saved, they don't know the Lord.
But you know, God is the God of all grace, and this is what I think we can see here.
Interwoven we see the ways of God, the government of God, but we also see the grace of God, the grace of God coming in and in spite of the fact that it was wrong for them to gone down into more of it was wrong for them to marry those of the posterity of Moab. But we see the grace of God coming in and the first little glimpse here is.
And I think it's so sweet what it says here. It says here in the.
End of the sixth verse. She had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread. Someone brought down this good message. Someone told how God was blessing his people. And so, you know, sometimes, as I say, we do get discouraged. There are famines of different kinds.
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Famines of food, famines of health.
Famines in the assembly when there isn't all the fresh and happy ministry that we'd love to have and we get discouraged. But we see here that she heard, she didn't have to come back. She heard in the country of Maude how that God had visited his people and giving them bread. Someone must have cared about them. Someone must have sent the message that they heard down there what God had done for his people.
And so this concerned her and she, the Bible says, He restoreth my soul, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. And we see now the result of this goodly message got down to them. With her heart so sore after having lost her husband and two sons, now she gets a note of cheer.
God had visited his people in giving them bread and so.
She decides that whatever the cost, she is going to go back.
And you know, if you and I have gone the wrong way, and everyone of us do at times, why? Let's remember that there is a way back. There is a way back. And it's beautiful to see here that she starts on the way back. She didn't know how she was going to be received. Maybe she could expect the kind of a scolding when she got back that she shouldn't have done, shouldn't have gone there and all that. But she decided to go back.
You have to leave everything with the Lord.
Take the first step in obedience is so important as the Bible says, seems to do evil, learn to do well. She wasn't going to stay there any longer and so she starts out, but immediately she sees that there are problems. It's not easy. The way back when they went today's journey without the Lord Jesus in the 2nd chapter of Luke. It took three days.
Before they found him. And, you know, when we go away, maybe it's comparatively easy. It's a slippery path. But coming back is not always so easy. And the enemy tells you, oh, it's all right, It's too late now. No use. It wasn't too late. The wonderful story that comes in here in this beautiful book of Ruth.
Set apart by the Spirit of God to give us the history of this little family.
And God's dealings with them in grace, they set out and it says here.
In the sixth verse then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Mog. The seventh verse Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her, and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah. Now she starts out.
But turns her back upon mold and she starts out.
And the Lord touched the hearts of these two girls so that they came along with her and they started out on the journey. But Naomi.
Knowing that it was not going to be easy for these girls, she loses heart and isn't as sad. But she says in the eighth verse. And he only saith unto her, Two daughters in law, go, return each to your mother's house. The Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead, and with me the Lord grants you that she may find rest each of you in the House of her husband.
Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voice and wept. I say again, these were what we would say were nice girls, and they didn't like to leave their mother-in-law destitute. But we also see another thing. A Christian out of communion doesn't always give good advice.
Have we ever found that when we were discouraged, we gave somebody else bad advice? You know, we don't live unto ourselves. We don't die unto ourselves. What we do and the way we live and those things that we say affect other people perhaps more than we thought or we intended. And so here she's giving.
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Bad, bad advice to them. She's retelling them to return to their own land.
And we know that as we read on, we'll see that they were idle worshippers in the past. They didn't know the true God of Israel. So sadly had the household of Lot departed that they were their worshippers of strange gods. But she thought about the natural side of life. She said that you'll find rest in the House of your husband, in other words.
What she thought was the important thing in life was a good, happy relationship, husband and wife, and a home. Well, that's a normal thing, but it isn't the most important. It shouldn't be first on our list, dear young people. And we were older too, we know. And what should be first on our list is that in all things, he might have the preeminence that we give the Lord Jesus.
His rightful place.
But she thought of their husband having a husband and a home was everything. And the 10th verse. And they said unto her, I'll read the rest of the chapter here. Surely we will return with the unto thy people. And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters, why will you go with me? Are there yet more sons in my womb that they may be your husband's? Turn again, my daughter's. Go your way, for I am.
To have an husband, if I should say I have hope, if I should have an husband also tonight, and should also bear sons, would you tarry for them until they were born? Would you stay for them from having a husband's name? My daughters for agree with me much that for your sakes that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. And they lifted up their voice and wept again. An Orpa kissed her mother.
The mother-in-law about Ruth Clave under her.
And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law has gone back unto her people, and unto her gods.
Return thou after thy sister-in-law. And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee.
For wither thou ghost, I will go, and where thou largest I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also I thought. But death part thee and me. When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left, speaking unto her.
So they too went until they came to Bethlehem.
And it came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them. And they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty have dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me?
Seeing the Lord hath testified against me in the Almighty hath afflicted me, so Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite as her daughter-in-law with her.
Which returned out of the country of Moab and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.
Well, here we see that she suggests to them that they go back to their people and to their gods, and that hope of natural things would not be with them and if they stayed with her. But she then goes on when they wept. Then she begins to talk about the Lord's dealings with her, and it's nice that she brings in something here.
At the end of the 13th verse.
It grieveth me much for your sakes, that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.
Now she recognizes, I think for the first time, that the hand of the Lord was over all these things. And I say this for myself as well As for everyone here. Do we see the Lord's hand in things that happen in our lives? Do we recognize that He's behind all the scenes, moving all the scenes, that He is behind that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose?
Now she realizes that.
The Lord was dealing with her. Well, we find a sad situation here with OPA. OPA turns and goes back to her people and to her gods. Yes, that's the end of anything that we read about Oprah. Not a sad ending. And I hope there's not a person here brought up, perhaps in a Christian home.
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And heard the way of salvation.
But you're still not saved.
And what a sad thing it should be brought up in a Christian home with all its privileges.
And it should turn your back upon them. Remember what it says when they sprinkle the blood on the lentil and the two side posts of their homes in the land of Egypt. It says a lamb for in house. God delights to bless in households. But he added this warning. He said if you go out and turn your back on the home where the blood has been sprinkled, you'll be exposed to judgment.
Well, what a sad thing. Turn your back upon the home where you're so privileged brought up.
Where the blood soda spreek is on the Lindell and the two side pulse. But you say I want the world and you turn a sign. And that's what it seems to me that it was happening here. She turned her back. She returned to her people and to her gods, but that God had begun to work in the heart of Ruth. And here we see, oh, isn't this wonderful brethren, we all make mistakes, I say, but the grace of God comes in here.
There are two things that run through the whole scripture. The grace of God.
And the government of God without one of us that would be saved if it wasn't for God's sovereign grace. We're not saved because we were better than somebody else, only that his grace has reached out. Whether we're in a Christian home or otherwise, it's all of grace. And so here we find that.
Ruth was brought to put her trust in the God of Israel. And when Orpa turned back, Ruth turned around and said, now I'm going with you back to that lamb. Yes. Back to that land of famine, back to that land where they felt things weren't so acceptable to them. Yes. And I want to say this to you, dear young people, and to all of us. We don't. We're not.
To expect an easy path as Christians, we must through much tribulation and enter into the Kingdom of God. Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God. I didn't say, and the Bible doesn't say, choosing rather to have a good time with the people of God, but choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God. No, I don't say that we don't have lots of good times with the people of God.
But when you make your choice.
You don't make your choice because it's all the good times that we have. It's because you need a savior and you're going to accept the Lord Jesus, she said. I'm not looking for a home. I'm not looking for a husband. What I want is to be where the true God is known. His presence is valued, she said.
Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
Oh, what a lovely decision that she made and I hope each one of us.
Will those of us who know the Lord as our Savior will decide that we will identify ourselves with the people of God who seek to walk amid much weakness in the truth, and that we'll seek to go on and make our friendships and our people will be among them? Well, this is what the decision that Ruth made here, and she said it's a lifetime decision.
In the 17th verse where thou diest.
Will I die and there will I be buried is not just a decision, you say in natural things? Well, give it a try for a little while and see if it works. That's not the way in spiritual things we present ourselves, we give our lives to the Lord that we should not live the rest of our time to the will of the flesh, not to the will of God.
The love of Christ constraineth us that we should not live unto ourselves.
But unto him who died for us and rose again, so we come to the final nineteenth verse. They too went until they came to Bethlehem. They went all the way. They went right back to the point of departure. And that's the true restoration is to go back to the point of departure. When was the time that we said, I'm going to choose my own way?
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That's the important thing, is to come to that point and say now I want to choose.
The way that's pleasing to the Lord. And this is where we find these two now. And they come and it says.
The 19th verse. So they too went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them. And they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, but Meryl, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
Because I don't deserve to be called pleasant. It didn't sound like Saul did it. Saul said I have sinned yet, yet honor me now, I pray thee in the presence of my people. He said yes I did wrong, but I don't want to lose any prestige or position because of this. I just want to come back as if nothing had happened now.
She comes back and she says.
I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again. Empty, in other words.
She could have said, well you know why I left, There was a family. Do you blame me? There wasn't food here and I left for that reason, though she didn't say that. She said there was no good reason for me to leave. I went out full and she doesn't take credit to herself for coming back. She says the Lord hath brought me home again.
Empty, she said. In other words, I didn't gain anything in the path of self will.
Didn't gain anything it was just a loss but the Lord came in in grace and oh how wonderful. We don't want to just talk about the government of God. We want to talk about the grace of God she had with her this girl Ruth whom God was to use. Isn't it blessed? Isn't it wonderful rather than how when we do seek to acknowledge the Lord's claims how he comes in far beyond anything that we.
There is not one of us that could say, well, I am blessed because I have been such a good Christian. It's all his grace and his goodness. And she said I went out full. I went out when I had plenty. It was the Lord that dealt with me in allowing this to happen in my life and he's brought me back again.
And here she comes back and bows beneath the Lord's claim, and.
What happens? It says here she came back in the beginning of barley harvest. She came back at the very beginning of the time when God in His goodness was blessing His people. He gives us occasions. Perhaps some of us feel such an occasion as this is like.
The beginning of a barley harvest that we can spend these couple of days together and have our souls fed and have the rich joy of Christian fellowship with one another. That's when she came back in the beginning of Harley barley harvest. Well, as I say now, the story as it were turns, if I can use the expression Naomi is restored.
Ruth has been brought back as the fruit of His grace.
And now Naomi, she starts, as it were, from another viewpoint. She was giving bad advice at one time, but from this point on, she doesn't give bad advice. She gives good advice every time she advises her daughter-in-law, she advises her to do what's right and pleasing to the Lord. You know, we need to be careful when we give advice.
I say this for myself as well as anyone else. We do have to be awfully careful.
Because people do listen to our advice sometimes and it can be good or it can be, it can be poor advice. But if we're walking with the Lord, be be careful. And we find Ruth and Naomi rather is very careful. Now it says here in the 2nd chapter. And they only had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth of the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz.
Isn't this lovely? And it says here a kinsman, a mighty man of wealth. And we have a kinsman Redeemer. We've been talking a little bit about him this morning, that one who came down became a man born in a Manger in order that he might redeem us. What grace we know him. He's a mighty man of wealth.
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When the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, some of them were doubting as they gathered in that upper room in the 28th chapter of Matthew.
And it says, And Jesus came and said unto them, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Is there someone here who's having some problems and you're full of doubts? Isn't it wonderful to know the person who has it worse as to you, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth, and then.
Closing his message to them, he says. And lo, I am with you always.
Even unto the end of the world. Amen. Yes. He'll never leave you nor forsake you. He's always there. Sometimes we're like the two on the road to Emmaus, not realizing he's right beside us. But we are. Our eyes are, shall I say, blinded to the nearness. He's standing right there. Well, and she gives her good advice.
And she goes out now and she gleaned, she says, go, my daughter.
And she goes and gleans in the field. She is directed to the Lord at this point, it seems to me.
That she didn't really know that she was going to get into the field of Boaz. She just sought to be directed of the Lord. And there sometimes the Lord doesn't show us the future. He just says that where you take one step to please me and I'll give you light for the next step.
Thy word is a lamp. To my feet that means just one step and a light to my path. That's all the way. As I often illustrated, lights in my car, I suppose, shine a few 100 feet. But I've driven for miles and those lights didn't just light me for a few 100 feet. They lighted me all the way. As long as I kept going with the light before me, I got light for the next mile. For the next mile. That's what God does.
He says you take that one step and I'll give you light for all the way and that's what he was doing here. And you see this with Ruth. She goes out now she get her hat was that was she was she wasn't planning so to speak. She was just looking to the Lord in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path. So she got into the field of Boaz.
And we find that.
Malaz takes notice of her there, and the Lord takes notice. Other people may not take notice, but the Lord does. Isn't that comforting? Lord knows the desire of your heart. Sometimes someone else might misunderstand, but the Lord never, never misunderstands us. He knows that the desire and so known to the first things.
He says in the eighth verse, this is the first time that Boaz speaks to Ruth then says.
Under Ruth Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens. Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them. Have not I charge the young men that they shall not touch thee, that they may.
And when are the thirst go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn?
Is the first time that Boaz speaks to Ruth and he tells her that thine eyes be on the field, that they do reap. That is the importance of being where the Lord is, to be in his presence, to be where he is in the midst. What a great privilege. Well here she was and he said did it not to go to another field. And he told her two things. There was protection for her and there was.
Food for her provided says when thou art a thirst, go and drink of that which the young men have drawn. Then he tells the young men to let fall handfuls of purpose for her. While he was thinking about her, he was going to provide for her in every way.
And I would just like to say when thou art a thirst drink of that which the young man have drawn.
I'm facing the bookroom back there and there's a lot of ministry back there which God's young men have drawn.
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I'm sure I couldn't write anything like some of the volumes that those dear brothers who have been.
Use of the Lord to give us precious ministry from the word of God. He said when you're a thirst, go and drink. And I just like to make this suggestion to when you read ministry, read it first for your own soul. If you've enjoyed it, then out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. That means you've taken it in and digested it and then it flows out to others.
So when you read Ministry, it's always good.
Sometimes we can go to ministry to find something that we want to know a little bit more about just for knowledge or to tell somebody else. But it's best when you read the word and when you and when you read the ministry to read it for food for your own soul. And then it'll flow out in blessing to others because it'll flow out of your belly. It'll be something you've made your own. I just mentioned that by the way, and so.
That was the first time he spoke, and then it says in the 20 tenth verse. Then she fell on herself and bowed herself to the ground and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I I'm a stranger? She said, why? And every one of us can ask ourselves that question. Why?
Did the Lord save me?
Why?
It's grace and grace alone. It wasn't that he looked over a big crowd of people and said there's a nice person there.
Now it's just his wonderful grace. Why through all eternity, I believe we're going to say, why did he pick me out? I can just praise him for all eternity. Maybe picked me out to be in such a place because we were indeed strangers. And then Boaz answered and said, I knew all about you. I knew all about you. Yes, he knew all about her when he picked up that.
Sinful woman that came in and washed his feet, he said. Her sins, which are many, are forgiven. He knew all about her.
When Saul of Tarsus was saved on the road to Damascus, Why when?
When someone was sent to him to ask him to tell him that the Lord had chosen him, oh, he said, I've heard by many of that man he just came down here to persecute people. He said he's a vessel specially chosen of me to bear my name. Did the Lord know about him? Of course he did. And the Lord knows all about you.
And me, He saved us in his grace. And then he goes on to say.
In the 12Th verse the Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel.
Under whose wings thou had come to trust. Yes, he said. He said a full reward is going to be given, because anything you do for the Lord will be rewarded in that day. Even a thought upon His name, even a cup of cold water. We do things for other people and sometimes they forget. I forget kindnesses that people have done to me sometimes, that the Lord will never forget anything He has a book of.
Well, it tells us then that he invited her to the meal table and he said at meal time you can come and sit beside the reapers. And I want to say to any here who know the Lord is Savior who are desiring to go on and please him. He's the one that invites you. People say, why don't you invite people to come and break bread? It's not our table, it's the Lord's table, but he invites you to.
At meal time come. And so she came, and he noticed that she was there too. And the Lord notices whether we are there. He says, Let me hear thy voice, let me see thy face, for thy voice is sweet, and thy countenance is comely. Isn't it good to come to the Lord's table, because we're invited by him?
And to know that he wants us there, I believe that's the force of that verse that says.
The joy of the Lord is your strength, brethren. It's not our joy in the Lord, but His joy in having us there. That's the thought that gives us strength. Perhaps I can use an illustration. Maybe you heard me use it before. But just so we get the thought in the verse, supposing someone asked you over to their house for an evening.
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And it turns out to be a very stormy evening, and you look at each other and husband and wife and say.
Oh, I wonder if they would mind. It's such a bad night. Maybe we won't go tonight some other time. And when you're talking, the phone rings and the other parties on the phone, they say please come. We know it's a bad night, but we'll be so disappointed. We've been looking forward to this evening together. And you get a little fresh supply of strength and you say we've got to go, we've got to go. Why?
All they want us there. The joy of the Lord is your strength.
And so that was really the force of that passage in Nehemiah. The joy of the Lord is your strength.
Well, it tells us here that she sat at the table and then the rest of the day she spent gleaning in the field. Nice little word for us about the Lords day. It seems she spent the rest of the day leaning in the field. So we have that privilege and she comes home and shears it with her daughter-in-law. There's one little interesting point that I just like to point out, and that is it says in the.
18th verse. No, the 12Th verse. So she gleaned in the field until evening, and beat out that she had gleaned, and it was about an Eiffel barley. And she took it up and went into the city. And her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned, and she brought forth and gave to her what she had reserved after she was sufficed. And her mother-in-law said unto her.
Where hast thou gleaned today?
Well, I just want to point out one little thing. She didn't bring home the chaff. She didn't bring home the chaff. Sometimes we do that. We go to a meeting, there's a little bit of chaff. There are few things said that maybe perhaps in the meeting or perhaps afterwards, and that's what we bring home instead of bringing home the good things that were said. And so she left the chaff right there, but she brought home what was good, what you could share.
That helped her mother-in-law who hadn't been able to go, probably quite old at that time. So how lovely this is to see. She brought it home and she shared and we can share the good things that we enjoy too when we come around the Lord. And well, I won't go on and read all the details of the rest of the story, but I just like to point out a few things in the rest of the story.
When?
It tells us here that.
The the in the 3rd chapter in the.
The 1St 2 verses. And Naomi her mother-in-law said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee? And now it's not Boaz our of our kindred, but whose maidens thou wast. Behold, he winneth barley tonight in the threshing floor. Wash thyself, therefore anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor.
But make not thyself known unto the man, until he shall have done eating and drinking.
Well, here we she is advised by her mother-in-law to go where he was, where he was threshing out the barley and the wheat. And you know the Lord is doing that with our lives. It says in the Psalms, thou winnowest my pathway. It's 139 some perhaps I could turn to it because that's the reading in the margin. I'd like to just call attention to that verse.
Psalm 139.
You've got a margin in your Bible. I think you'll see the word it says.
Verse 3 Thou winnowest by path, and my lying down, and heart acquainted with all my ways. Now that is, the Lord is winnowing our pathway. He's picking out that which is for himself. And shall I say lay the rest aside. And that's what the Lord is doing with us Now in our pathway. Sometimes there's quite a bit of chat, but He's picking out that which is good, that which is pleasing to him.
And now she was told.
To wash yourself. I just like to apply these things practically. The Scripture speaks of the washing of water by the word. It says anoint thee. We need to enjoy the place of relationship into which we have been brought. And then she was to lay at his feet until the morning. And that's our place, brethren.
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We, we to come. He's winnowing our pathway.
To take our place at His feet. We're to enjoy the position in which He has brought us. And He said, he'll tell you what to do. And he told her what to do. And she went back before it was morning to her mother-in-law, and her mother-in-law saw the effect that they had upon her. But we haven't got time to go into all the details. But that's the way if you and I are seeking to go on for the Lord, our place now is to lay.
Until the morning and to walk in the enjoyment of the place that we have been brought into.
He's we've been anointed who hath anointed us and given the earnest of the spirit in our hearts. The Bible tells us. And then Mary is commended because she's laid. She sat at Jesus feet and heard his words. Well, the story goes on to the completion in the last chapter and we know that the time had come and that.
Boaz was going to take Ruth to be his wife, and that's the prospect before us, brethren, We're waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus.
What a glorious day it will be when it says the marriage of the Lamb is coming, and his wife hath made herself ready. Now there's a a glorious time coming, and that's what Ruth was waiting for. Perhaps you might wonder why the near kinsman is brought in there, but it's the near the near kinsman.
It's just a little picture of the law, and the law could never bring us into a place and what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin.
He's brought us into a wonderful place. And so she becomes the bride of Boaz. And there was great rejoicing. And the whole, shall I say, the company and the family all rejoiced. And brethren, there's a a day of rejoicing ahead for us. Just read of it for yourself in that 19th chapter of Revelation. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him for the marriage of the.
And his wife hath made herself ready. Well, may these few little personal lessons that we can learn from this lovely book of Ruth. Just think of this little family introduced. Set yourself as it were, in that position. Just think of all that they went through, and how God came in, and how in spite of failures in their lives, that He still came in, and what a rich and happy ending there was.
But what of joy it is that we have?
The rest of our time, the rest of our time that we should not live unto ourselves. None of us can change yesterday, but we have perhaps a little time left. If the Lord doesn't come. May we enjoy something of what we find in this book. If there's anyone who's got a way you restore my soul, does any of us who are not giving the Lord Jesus his rightful place, may we realize the precious privilege?
Of honoring Him, being where He is, being in His fields, being at His table, sitting at His feet, enjoying what grace has done for us. Oh, how abundantly He has blessed us. It's going to take all eternity to tell out His praise. But on earth the song begins. In heaven, more sweet and loud.
John 17:22
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About verse 22, just finish this chapter.
And the glory which Thou gave us, me I have given them. They may be one, even as we are one Me. They may be made perfect in one, as the world may know. Thou has sent me as lovely, and Thou hast loved me. Father, I will, as they also now has given Thee, be with Thee where I am, that they may behold my glory.
Thou hast given to thee.
Without levels where the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, thrilled has not known thee that I have known, and these have known that Thou hast sent me, and I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it the love. For with our love be may be in them, I think.
Sure, our souls are raptured by.
Let me have thinking of being one with Him in glory because that's what's presented to us, seeing we're one with Him in glory.
What an eternal day that would be.
Expressing His will here I will in verse 24, Father, I will that they also thus given me, be with me, with me where I am.
Hey baby, hold my glory.
Has given me.
Without novice, the important foundation of the world.
It's really astounding to see the grace of God that would do that over in First Thessalonians.
Or rather, Second Thessalonians.
Chapter 1.
And verse 10.
When he shall come to be glorified in his Saints, and to be admired in all them that believe, because our testimony among you was believed in that day.
There we have him coming out of heaven.
With those that will be to His glory. And then over in Revelation 21, I believe we see the church in that millennial setting in answer to this desire of the Lord Jesus.
In chapter 21 and verse 11 I believe we have it.
Verse 10 He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. And then we see in that setting that she radiates that glory for all eternity.
The Holy City.
There would be a little difference between that glory of the 22nd.
And.
The 24 when they're in this way, that the glory that the Lord Jesus had received from the Father's a man, and which he had won in his glorious work for the glory of the Father.
That is, given that we can enjoy.
But the other one, the glory that we will see in the behold, in the glory that will be looked upon, we will look at that glory.
That's his own glory.
So the glory of verse 22 we will share. Glory of verse 24 we will behold but not share. That is his unique special.
That's really the highest privilege that we have is to not just share a glory, which is an external thing, but to to behold that special glory which he has.
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The Spirit of God delights to occupy our hearts even now with those glories in Philippians 3 there or Second Corinthians 3 from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
It's another one of those I have given.
We've enjoyed so much in this chapter.
Verse 24 is the glory though is a the choir glory would be right to say, because he says that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.
In contrast to earlier in the chapter, in verse five he says and now.
Oh Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee.
Or the world was.
Hear some comments on the difference between those two verses perhaps?
My understanding is that the fifth verse is is deeper.
And that is the divine glory that the Father has put upon the Son.
And that that's a very deep.
Glory, if I could use that term.
Well, the one in the fifth verse would be what He is and was from all eternity. What a time. And now, Father, glorify thou Me with thine own self, with the glory which I have with Thee before the world was.
He laid aside the display of that glory. He came down born in this world, seen here and humiliation, but it was always that glory which was His. And He goes back now and he's displayed in that glory which He never really in that sense laid aside in the sense that it wasn't seen. But it ever was His never will be, for all eternity ever was.
Eternity past, but as a man he has that glory that he has glorified God about the whole question of sin.
Brought a way of blessing by which man who had been ruined by the fall would be brought in. And the head of new creation is a man, that man, the eternal Son of God. But he became a man, and remains a man for all eternity, that he might have the company of His redeemed here. It's not so much the thought of the Church, but it's rather the thought of that He is associating us with Him.
Has redeemed men in the family. Their brothers brought before us the family of God and so were brought in as part of the family of God. In Pauls ministry we have oneness in connection with the church, but here it's rather in the family.
With younger son in Luke 15. When he returned to his father, his father embraced him and brought him into the house.
And I guess he's still there because they began to be married. We're eternally going to be there in that place of glory as sons with the Father.
I was thinking of that word in 2nd Corinthians 318 that but we are unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, as you say, Brother Gordon, when he has when he came here, the disciples really never really grasped it.
Who he really was, as was pointed out, he was Speaking of knowing the Father and then they said, oh, now we understand that thou came us from God. Well, they were missing the point. They weren't getting that, but what would be thought in connection with the.
Fact that he veiled that glory and they didn't see it, and now we.
Was unveiled without the our part unveiled for us to gaze on that glory now.
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You mean verse 24? Yes.
Or you're thinking of First Corinthians 3 and verse 18, the last verse.
Unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Well, I would think that has to do with the moral glory of the Lord Jesus that will be seen reproduced in the believer as we're occupied with him. Because that seems to be the whole subject in First Second Corinthians rather chapter 3.
That is how that can be seen in us in a practical way. But as we are occupied with the Lord Jesus, see him, then we are we manifest that occupied with him. Little picture of it something like when Moses.
He came down, he had been there in the mountains and he came down and his face was shining. In fact, if I turn to it because I think it's brought out there, 2nd Corinthians 3.
Verse 9 We're at the administration of condemnation be glory. That was the giving of the law. There was a great display of glory manifested when the law was given much more. Shall administration of righteousness exceed in glory for even that which was made glorious.
In this respect I reason of the glory that excelleth, for that would show as done away was glorious much more that which remain of this glorious. Seeing then, that we have this hope, we use great plainness of speech, and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face.
That the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold.
Look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded, for until this day remain at the same veil, untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ.
But even under this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. And now in the 17th verse is connected with the sixth verse. There is a parenthesis from the end of the sixth, where, if you look at Mr. Darby, you'll see this, the six birds who also have made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit.
For the the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. Now the 17th verse. Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with open face or unveiled face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
There was a glory when the law was given. The holiness of God was manifested.
And then God provided a way that the people could, through the sacrifices, go into his presence. But there wasn't a full display of the glory of God. But since the work of redemption has been accomplished, God has been fully glorified. Now not only satisfied, but glorified.
In the work of His Son were not under law. We have the Spirit of God as the power, and knowing that that work has been completed, having our eyes upon Christ in glory as the one who has fully glorified God about the whole question of sin, we like Moses. His face reflected something of that glory which he had seen when he was on the mount receiving the instructions about the Tabernacle.
And he says there's a far greater glory when we see how God has been so fully revealed in the work of his beloved Son. And occupied with that, there's a reflection in our faces, a change in our lives by the Spirit.
As a result of beholding that glory.
It's beautiful, isn't it? It brings it right down to today in the life of each one of us, young and old alike, that this can be reflected. If we are looking to Christ day by day, then we are. We don't change ourselves, but we are changed. It's a passive verb.
Our change.
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I think a little picture of it is in.
Steven, he looked up, he said I see the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. What did the people see? His face was like the face of an Angel. He saw God had been fully glorified, not by any law keeping or the giving of the law, but by the person who had glorified God about the whole question of sin. And he saw him up there at the right hand of God.
And it was reflected in his face. Now he says it'll be morally reflective in us if we are brought into the good and enjoyment of this. It'll be seen not by placing ourselves under law, by seeing that one who is up there, the glorified man at the right hand of God.
The one who's glorified God about the whole question of sin. It's significant, isn't it, that in connection with Moses, it says that his face shone, but he whisked not that his face shone. It was really just the unconscious reflection of being in the presence of Jehovah on the mount. It wasn't that he tried to make his face shine. And I think there's something very practical perhaps for those who are a little younger here, because sometimes I hear, I've heard it said, well, we need to.
Generate a testimony for the Lord and to live for the Lord in that way. But brethren, it's not that we try to generate a testimony within ourselves as we walk in company with the Lord Jesus, there will be an unconscious reflection of Christ in our lives. As the hymn writer said, not I may live well here below, but Christ our life may be to be glorified is to have all the.
Qualities that exalt a person brought into display.
How are those things going to be displayed in our lives? It's, I say, in company and communion, in fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And I believe us, we're walking with him. Then there will be a display of Christ in our lives. Not even trying to generate that from within, I say, but walking in company with himself. Well, this is very practical, but I believe that each one of us can.
Manifest Christ in our lives.
As we walk with him, and I think it's already been said earlier in these meetings, but we're epistles known and read of all men. Others are looking on and what they're going to see of Christ is what's manifested in your life and mine as believers down here.
How can a young person?
Do this.
Could someone explain what a young believer sitting here this afternoon can grasp of this? That this is available to him? Like to hear someone just speak of that a bit so that this can be made hours today. As our grandson was leaving before this meeting began, I said to him.
I'm giving you the best advice that I ever received when I was a believer your age, and that is to keep low and to keep looking up.
I said to him, Walk with the Lord. We've been admonished to do here, take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
And we walked with the Lord Jesus Christ by setting aside a daily time to spend in His company, reading His Word and speaking to Him every day in prayer. Neglected. The heart grows cold.
Do it and we are able to go on in communion with him and not have to expand energy determining what is his will because we're walking with him.
Maybe somebody can enlarge on that a little bit. I've sometimes used a little illustration in connection with the verse in the 2nd chapter of Philippians. I believe it's verse 15 because it says there that she may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom He shine as.
Lights, or I believe really the thrust of that word is illuminators in the world. Now, an illuminator is something that doesn't have any light of itself. It reflects the light of another. We look up in the November sky and we see a big harvest moon, but the moon has no light of itself. Men have landed on the moon. It has no light of itself. It's only reflecting the light of the sun. And I've sometimes used the illustration of the watch that I had when I was a child.
I know perhaps they don't do this too much today with digital watches and so on.
But when I was a child, I had a watch that had luminous paint on the hands of numerals of the watch. And I used to wear it to bed because I like to see what time it was after the light was turned out. But sometimes the light would be turned out and I'd look at the watch and I couldn't see the time, even though there was luminous paint on the hands and numerals of that watch. Well, what was the answer? Well, you turn on the light for a few moments and you hold the watch up to the source.
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Now you turn out the light, the room is just as dark, and you haven't changed the condition of the watch. It had luminous paint all along, but now there's a difference. That watch glows in the dark because it was it's drawing from the source. And I think what Brother Tom says is very good as we're walking in company with the Lord Jesus, spending time speaking to him in our closets, in prayer and reading His Word and letting him speak to us.
Words, we speak to him and He speaks to us. That's what fellowship is. If we get together and we have some fellowship or community, we're speaking to one another. And so He speaks to us, we speak to Him. And then as a result of being in His presence that way, we've liked that watch. We've drawn on the source, we've drawn on the light, and we're only reflecting the light of another. We're reflecting the light of our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Again, just like Moses, he came down. He wished not that his face shone, but there was a reflection of having been in the presence of his God on the mountain. When you read the Scriptures, you.
See the Lord Jesus, that's the way we look at him. That's the way we're occupied with him. And I encourage the young people to read the Gospels too, because that's where we see him in his life down here.
The pathway that we're passing through now and you look at him says in verse John 1 and verse one, that which we have seen, which we have looked upon, or the new translation says that which we have contemplated. In other words, it's not only getting a glimpse of it, but it's looking.
In detail at the person of the Lord Jesus as he walked through this world.
You see complete perfection, no flaw there at all. And to think, dear young person, this is our life. We are entitled to say as we view complete perfection, this is our life.
Think of him as he stood there in the that time when they brought that woman taken in adultery in the very act. And he knew very well that those others that brought that poor woman were probably as guilty as that poor woman. And they want, they say, Moses said that we should stone her, that they knew that the Lord Jesus preached the forgiveness of sins. And so they thought they laid a trap for his feet.
You can't trap a perfect person. You can't do it. He was completely perfect. Instead of answering, sometimes we're quick to answer questions he didn't answer quickly. He wrote on the ground, stooped down and wrote on the ground. And when he got up again, he only says a word to their conscience. He doesn't answer their question, he answers their conscience.
Let him that is without sin among you, first cast the stone at her.
Perfection. They could do nothing with Him. They marveled as they stood around him. I often say the person that scares me of most in this life is a lawyer, because they can twist your words to say just exactly what you didn't mean to say. And they stood around the Lord Jesus and they couldn't catch him in his words. He was completely perfect.
This is the life that is ours. Moral glory.
Complete perfection. And yet, during his life down here, it's beautiful to see other glories that even though his glory was largely veiled, once in a while they shown out. When he was on the ship in the middle of that storm, he was asleep.
Sometimes I say, does God go to sleep? Never. He was asleep. He was human as well as divine. And they woke him up and they and he stands up and rebukes the wind and the waves. There you see him in his Creator glory, controlling all the elements of life. Down here is a humble man.
00:25:03
As a man, the poorest of the poor, and yet controlling the elements of life, those little things show his glory. We need to contemplate that. Read your Bible, look at the Lord Jesus, and as you're occupied with him, it's going to have a transforming effect. There's one other portion I'd like to share.
I really enjoyed it. If some other brother has a thought about it, I'd like to hear about it too. But in John 1.
The 1St chapter of John's Gospel and the the well known verse, verse 14.
John says the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the body, full of grace and truth. Here's something that the disciples beheld in the Lord Jesus, a glory it says, the glory as of an only begotten with the Father.
And they suggestion I would make and I'd like to hear this is not right.
But here was one man in this world who was motivated by nothing else but that. What was the will of his father? Here was a man who went through this life.
An unbroken fellowship with his father.
Unclouded fellowship ever, and the disciples as they saw.
That man, and they knew something of the motives that motivated their hearts, and the hearts of that we have too, and so many times we have different motives. But they saw in the Lord Jesus a man who had only one thing that he was here for, and that was for the glory of His Father, that unbroken fellowship He was.
Always occupied.
With things down here in how they related to his father and that's the way he passed through this life. In the 4th chapter when he met that poor Samaritan woman and the disciples came to him and offered him food, he wasn't interested. He said my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. That was the only thing that really motivated him.
Down here.
What you've been talking about is is the Lord's moral glory.
He was always perfect in every relationship, always doing the will of His Father. But what you have in verse 14 of John 1 is His essential glory as the eternal, only begotten Son of God. And they saw that they by faith, they pierced the veil of human flesh which surrounded that glory, and they saw His glory.
How many loaves have he? Five and two small fishes.
Make the men sit down. And he broke the loaves and distributed, and they were all filled, multiplied the loaves. He was asleep on a pillow in the boat. The storm came up. They awoke in Master Karast. Now not that we perish. He stood up and said, Peace be still. He still the waves and the storm. And they said, What manner of man is this? That wasn't not moral glory, that was his.
Essential glory they saw. Who is this? The end of John 1. Nathaniel.
He saith unto him, verse 48. Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered, and said unto him, Before that Phillip called thee, When thou was under the fig tree, I saw thee.
That was evidently Nathaniel's prayer room, where he was alone with God. No one could have seen him. Nathaniel answered, Notice the answer, and said unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King of Israel. How did he arrive at that conclusion? He saw his glory.
He saw who he was. That's why they crucified him, because he claimed to be the Son of God. That to them was blasphemy. That was as some brother said it today.
I think Henry did that. Sonship is equality with the Father, Not the inferiority, but equality with the Father. And that's what they saw. They saw his personal essential glory as the eternal Son.
00:30:16
That's John 114.
There are many other many other instances of that in Scripture to tie that in then with verse 22 of our chapter.
Go ahead. No, I'm asking. Oh, I thought you were going to tell us.
We had that first brought before us in the 13th of John tie in with what has been said to what has been asked. Now is the Son of Man glorified?
And God is glorified in Him. The only glory of man is obedience to God.
And so in beholding the moral glory that we have in verse 22 in our chapter, which now has given me, I have given them the glory that He shares with us is the fruit of a life lived in obedience to God that takes him right into the glory on high. Wherefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name. And so there we see ourselves.
Raised up together and seated together in the heavenlies in Christ.
And so the epitome of God's revelation to man is man glorified in God's right hand. And there he is and that he shares with us. He won as a man in obedience to God unto death, and not the death of the cross. The right to sit at God's right hand and receive the highest accolades in heaven could ascribe to Him.
And there He is, and now that He has shared with us, brought us right up into glory, seated together, raised up together, seated together in heavenly places in Christ. But that glory is not one we will share. I excuse me, that glory we share. But the glory of John 114, we'll never share that. That's His essential glory as the only begotten Son of the Father.
And he's unique in that. And I think that's that's what he had. We have in verse 5 of John 17.
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. He asks, as a man on earth, to be reinstated into that glory that He had with the Father before the world was, but as a man, a man in that glory.
God and Man United in one person and here now he's put into that glory which he ever had, which he never left in in in a sense, but now as man, he asked to be put into that glory that is a it's, it's, it's a, it's a thought that is.
Most, most awesome. But that's something that we have no parking. That's his own essential glory and the pride in the practical side of it, which our brother was speaking about. How is this going to take place in our own lives? It says about the apostle Paul after he had been saved. They glorified God in me.
That is, they saw this man who before had been a persecutor of the name of Jesus.
And now they saw God glorified in a man. And I believe that is the subject that is taken up in first the Second Corinthians chapter 3. That is, we're not here the place all the young people and everybody else under a certain cold of laws.
We're here to tell them, as he brings out in 2nd Corinthians 3, that the law was written on tables of stone. That's a picture of the natural heart of man. It's a Sony heart. But God's going to take away the Stony heart and give them a heart of flesh. And so if there had been a law given which could have given life barely, righteousness had been by the law. But this wonderful event has taken place.
That you and I consequent upon the work of Christ.
We now have the very life of Christ within us and that's why also in the chapter it says.
That being occupied with him we that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. So we have within us every believer, young and old in this room is has the life of Christ within him and you have the Spirit of God as power and so you walking through this world.
He, it says in John's epistle, he that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. God has no lower standard for our walk in this world than the walk of His beloved Son. And He's made full provision for it because he's given us the life of Christ. He's given us the Holy Spirit of God.
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And so, as that is seen in us, there is the practical manifestation.
And so as people look at us, they ought not to see, oh, that's a wonderful person, but they ought to see Christ manifested in us. There is a person that is Christ like. That's what the true Christian pathway is. You say that's an impossible standard.
Paul says no, it's not God's given you the life, God has given you the Holy Spirit. How can it be we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, occupied with Him, putting that old man in the place of death.
The life of Jesus is manifested in us. Now, of course we're speaking and our brother has been speaking and very clearly too, and I'm fully with it. What he has said. The Lord Jesus is the eternal Son of God. He is the one who has that God had glory, he and he only, but in ourselves the moral glory can be reproduced in this practical way.
And if it is, then there will be glory brought to God.
As they look at us and see people in this world who manifest the life of Jesus, I quote the verse again that the life of Jesus might be seen in our mortal flesh in this section we have read.
Any question of our responsibility of getting into this position? Is there any doubt about getting into this position?
Oh, he's telling us what has been given to us, but the he was just asking the question how it would be practically so in US and the Lord's Prayer in this 17th of John was that there might be that testimony the 21St verse that they all may be one as thou Father art in me.
And I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe, that in the thought would be testimony, that the world may believe that Thou has sent me. And so I believe there was for a short moment this testimony rendered in Jerusalem.
When the people there looked on and they saw a group of people who honored the Lord Jesus, who never said that off that they possessed was that their own they were of one heart and one soul. So there was in that sense the Lords prayer that there would be this true testimony rendered and I believe in that sense it comes in on the 21St verse.
What we begin with the 22nd verse, we began then we were the 22nd verse.
That's a new thing. It's what God does. He gives it to us. We're not responsible. He gives it to us. We ought to enjoy that. He's going to get it to us. He's going to get us into that place. He's expressed His will in the 24th verse about that.
I remember reading one of the earlier brothers illustration of verse 22 in this way that suppose a a king has great powers and over a great nation as a son, and the boy grows up and but the father has all the glory because he was the one that.
Acquired it, but the son as he grows up into manhood.
He goes out and he wins great victories and great glory as brother and now everyone is saying, oh look what he has done and so now the sun has glory. Illustration is that the Lord Jesus came to this earth and in his manhood in all the perfection of.
The work that He has done in His lowly grace.
The fourth fourth verse tells us that that He has glorified His Father in His life. That glory, a reward, has been given to the Son for this glorious work, and that is what He enables you and me to enjoy as we keep our eye on Him, Would it be helpful to look?
In Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 9, I think it bears, I'm hoping that talking about familiar passages.
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But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels from the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God should face that for every man, and just going on in war verses. Or it became Him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, And many sons under glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. Now this verse for both.
That sanctifier and they who are sanctified are all the one which 'cause he is not ashamed to call him brethren. I think that's what we have in the verses here. But if you carry down in the same 2nd chapter Hebrews.
In the end of verse 13, he says, behold, I and the children which God has given me. So that day is ahead. And that's what he's really presenting to us here that day when all of the fruit of that work of Calvary and as the captain of our salvation is to bring us into this glory and then.
And this will be displayed, behold, I and the children which God has given me, and that's really connected with one in kind, is it not?
We are going to be like in there and that is going to be his glory.
That we will have that. But the time hasn't come. The church is not complete yet. The last stone has not been put in the building. That when it is.
As we find he's going to present it to himself, a glorious church, not having his fault or recruit or any such thing for a city looking on, is it not? Immerses 23 and 24 looking on. There he is talking about miseries, expressing this prayer when you have his own there with him.
That they may behold his glory.
It was mentioned yesterday.
Brother, you'll brought it before us very beautifully that.
Jehovah Jesus is the I am, he lived present, so he can speak about events which are still future to us as has having been accomplished. And so that 22nd verse says the glory which thou gave us to me I have given them. We don't have it yet, but.
From the viewpoint of the prayer here, He uttered these words when He was a man on earth. They apply today and on into that day when we'll be glorified with Him. So it it embraces all that. His future to us, but to Him it's not future. He lives in an eternal present, doesn't He? And it's as good as done. It's like what you have in Romans 8.
I'll just read it in verse 30. Moreover, whom he did predestinate them he also called.
And whom he called them he also justified Well, verse 29 says whom he did foreknow, he predestinated. So the foreknowledge and the predestination took place, as far as we're concerned, in the eternal past or dateless past the the calling and the justification took place in time. And then it says whom he justified them he also glorified. Again, it's put as though it's.
It's accomplished because to God it is. It's as good as done.
So that's what we have.
I mean, he can view it on that last maternity, but he does.
Yes, even before the fall of Madam. Anything coming? So he's sort of carrying on into that, it seems to me, right here now. And I've given it to you live as all you were in it, but having arrived yet. But it's yours.
Glenn Beck is abused by my brother Chuck just said if I understood what he said the first quarry and because God is timeless and I understand that, but the worry of verse 22 is for us future. Is that what you said Johnny? Yes. Then how do we understand verse 23?
Where it says I and them and I don't mean that they may be made perfect in one.
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And I've always taken this to be the practical oneness for believers, as we know that's first, and that the world may know that thou sent it.
So in other words, that oneness because it's a result of that Gloria that they may be one. Verse 22 See I've given them that they may be one as we are one as a practical manner should be a practical manifestation of us as believers as a testimony to this world. So how can that be future? That's the world confusion in verse 21 we have that which existed in time that the world might be. He gave the illustration.
2IN Acts 4 they were all 11 mind one heart, and they the world that that oneness was to produce belief on the part of the world that the Father sent the Son. But when the world sees us coming with the Lord Jesus, one in glory with him, Second Thessalonians, one that Don brought before us, they will.
Know that, What does it say? They know that the that thou has sent me.
And thou hast loved them as thou has loved me. So in that future day, when they see US1 with Christ in glory, they'll see, they'll say, Well, he must love them as much as the Father must love them as much as he loves his Son. They're in the same glory.
They're in the same glory. Christ as a man in glory, will come back with us in glory bodies, just like His glorified bodies. That's what it's talking about, isn't it? That's the verse our brother you spoke about in Second Thessalonians chapter 1, wasn't it? When He shall come, The 10th verse of first chapter, Second Thessalonians, When He shall come to be glorified in His Saints and to be admired.
In all them that believe he isn't always admired, now they glorify God in Paul.
That was the present testimony that was rendered by a man who really was seeking to please his Lord. And they glorified God as they saw a man who was displaying us. But in a future day, isn't this lovely? It'll be true of all, and it says when he shall come to be glorified in his Saints, and to be admired in all them that believe, because our testimony among you, among you was believed in that day.
I didn't want to.
Say anything against what's been said in a practical way from 2nd Corinthians 3. I think that's excellent. We need that practical truth to go on according to this, but in a simple way we look at this chapter may have 3 oneness, oneness in community that's believing his worst acting economy.
And then if we do that, we can be one in testimony. But man always breaks down many tested footage. Now you get to check verse 22. And I don't see any responsibility that God does that. He's going to bring us into glory. He never is defeated.
This is His purpose, the testament along the way, and he brings in, I'm going to show you what I can do. And he brings us in there to enjoy all that glory. Now, He tells us all this for our enjoyment down here where we're still in the scene where practice is very, very important. And when that happens, the world will know. Not just know, they will know, but it's not defeated. They will know. But that's the world in a better sense, isn't it?
That will know. I mean, there is that part of the world that.
That will come into blessing.
Where do you get the world in a better sense? That's the new thought.
Well, you do get it in Hebrews, the world to come, the age to come, that sense, but I don't know if that's here.
It's the age to come in. The world will be restored as as still as the first creation during the millennial. It will still be the first creation and Christ will be the first born there in his glory. But it it will still be this world purged and given to his Son. Where? So in that's the sense you're talking about brother. Don't be brought into subjection.
They'll they'll yield the submission to him and.
So it'll be a millennial scene, and of course the Church will have its displayed glory with him. I think you can carry this farther than the Millennium.
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This verse was referred to in Hebrews 2. That he might be the first born, but to read that among many brethren.
One of the writers that we esteem says that that is light and that it goes on into the eternal day.
No, I should say the 11Th verse of Hebrews 2 for both he that sanctify it and they that are sanctified are all of one of that's light.
And it says for which 'cause he is not ashamed to call them rather. So you can find this statement in one of the writings from this man we mentioned frequently about.
Our time here present, and the Millennium and the eternal day in effect, he says.
Our time here now is a training time for a raining time, even as that will be for the eternal day that is the Millennium comes in between.
To introduce us into that perfect scene. It's going to be perfect.
The eternal day God is going to get the full victory.
I do have a question. Excuse me.
Chapter of Revelation in the Night verse.
The connection with the future, it says I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and to know that I have loved thee. Is this the perspective that we're looking at?
Well, I believe myself that it's the judgment seat of Christ, and God will manifest His approval of those who kept His word and did not deny His name.
It isn't that they worship us, but they recognize that that was the true way of gathering and worshipped and praised to the Lord, keeping his word and not denying his name as much of what is called worship and Christendom, but is not keeping his word. It isn't giving denying His, it is denying his name. Many dear Christians, but I believe there's going to be a manifestation and there will be that which.
Is, shall I say it, plead and pleasing to the Lord.
And so it says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. I take it that way because that was to Philadelphia, and that was to encourage those who kept His word and didn't deny his name in difficult times.
Comes out of heaven as the Lord of Lord and King of Kings.
He's going to bring the redeemed with him and that's going to be a time of displaying that he was associated himself with those that he loved and now they come out of heaven.
In a glorious event when He manifests his power and we are now associated with him as the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, we read. And from army that comes with him are the redeemed, aren't they? That's Second Thessalonians one again, but the thought that came before me in this 21St chapter of John.
And verse 25.
Last verse in John's Gospel and.
There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written everyone. I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Men. Does that pertain to his acquired glories? That's a mysterious statement, isn't it? What would you say about that?
Well, I didn't read it, but I heard that Mister Bellitt made the remark that was the thought of a loving, worshipping heart. That is, he thought, oh, I could tell and tell and tell that I could never tell it all.
Isn't that what the father is going to?
Spend an eternity in telling us the glories and the glorious work that the blessed Son of His love accomplished for His glory.
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Not for our glory, but for His glory throughout eternity never come to an end. You look at the future in the light of 2 events.
The blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
And the apostle speaks of loving his appearing well. He talked a great deal of temperature. And that's very, very blessed. And you're looking for that blessed hope. It might happen today. But that's only the beginning of the glory that we enter into that he shares with us.
In that eternal day it love his appearing what we really delight to.
In seeing and have his glory.
He again.
He's so deserving of it.
She doesn't, and there's a crown of righteousness loving his appearing. We want to see Him in his glory.
What a it's just something that overwhelms you to bring it all down to us that the younger ones can understand. There's such a beautiful little picture in First Peter chapter 1.
Of, as it were, a mountain peak. And it's when we greatly rejoice. And then the decline starts. But now. But now, though for a seasoned yarn, heaviness, the manifold temptations that the trial of your faith might be found under praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
From having not seen you love in whom though now you see him not yet believing.
Rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. We're in the valley now, beloved once. But if we live for him, we're going to be displayed with him as ones who reflected some of that glory, and we're going to be shown as those those prizes, those cups, those trophies that he has won. So let's keep on today.
Young and old are like.
Reading the Word of God. I believe our brother Gordon Hagel gave us something I've enjoyed. And reading the Gospels especially.
He spoke about Ruth and about the family and how when you put your.
Family in it and when you read these beautiful.
Happenings in the Lord Jesus with the people.
Like the blind Barbary is, to use it for an illustration, if you just see yourself, there is that poor flying figure and you just put yourself there and all of us up here is the Lord Jesus and he stops.
As he calls it.
And what happened? You know his eyes are open and he sees Jesus, and then you know he follows Jesus. But you just have to put yourself there. And you do that when you're reading the word of God.
Really amazing how the whole picture just takes on a very, very special.
Thing in your life, whether it's the prodigal son or whoever, you know, if you just put yourself there and you think of the prodigal son coming back.
And there's the Father, he has his arms around you, you know, covering you with kisses. And everything is of the Father because the Father gives him everything. And they go in the house, but they enjoy it together. I mean, to me it's just a joy just to put myself. And I think it has to come to that possible thing, even if you're in the Book of the disciples or wherever it is.
You just put yourself there.
You got a real blessing and the real message from God.
Is there something else here too? I just suggest the thought and maybe someone can enlarge on it, but I've noticed that in the expressions used in John's Gospel and in John's epistle, and particularly in this chapter.
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The father is spoken of as being in the sun, and the sun in the father, and we are spoken of as being in the sun and the sun in US, but never us.
In the father or the father in.
US. In a simple way, I have enjoyed that thought that Christ is the center of it all. Will we know the Father? Do we know the Father now? Indeed we do. Are we conscious and living in the consciousness of that relationship? Indeed we should be. But the expressions in Scripture carefully guard the person of the Son in that the Father in me and I in him.
Ye and me.
And I in you, and I'm not quoting it directly, but from various scriptures, I say maybe someone else could enlarge on that a little. It's been very precious to my own soul to see how that the person of the sun is carefully set apart in that way, while bringing the whole of the blessed relationship in between US and the Father and the Son.
That's characteristic of John's writings, isn't it?
That the holiness of this person is guarded to go to Matthew 11, one of the other Gospel brings in the same thing.
Henry made a nice statement. We could.
Distinguish between the person, but the rest of.
The Father in the sandwich distinguished, but you can't take a part. Separate, separate section. And that's what I believe. N George is something like the holy ground upon which Moses stood at the Bush and Joshua.
With that military man with a sword ready. But in Matthew 11, just to guard against trying to separate too much, the deity of which we shall never be apart.
It says in the 20.
Seventh Verse. All things are delivered unto me of my Father.
And no man knoweth the Son but the Father. The Father knows the Son, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal.
The Father is the only one that knows the song. It's like what was put up here in Thunderstool. God and man, How can you understand that? Well, he is God in his mind. Can't separate him.
Have to understand I just need to believe it. Absolutely. It's nice to see that preceding verse though in the Matthew 11 verse 25. And at that time Jesus answered and said, I thank the old Father Lord of heaven and earth.
Because thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them unto babes. That's what we're enjoying in these meetings.
In a practical way, just to go back to that Second Corinthians chapter 3.
I think it's very good to take notice.
That Mister Derby alters the wording of that passage a little in verse 18. But we all with open face unveiled, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord. The spirit that impressed me when I saw that.
Here lordship is ascribed to the Spirit of God, which implies that the Spirit of God ought to have that authority over our hearts to bring these precious things before us. That's what He delights to occupy us with. But so often He has to occupy us with ourselves that we might judge things that are hindering the enjoyment of the glories of Christ.
Spirit of God is doing two things now for us that He won't have to do in the glory.
He's helping the our infirmities, tells us that in Romans 8, the Spirit helps our infirmities. So we may come to a reading like this and we are tired or we have a headache or something. And how often if the ministry is precious about the Lord Jesus, why we forget the headache and we enjoy it? Because the Spirit helps our infirmities and so we're able to rise above them, doesn't remove them, but helps our infirmities, makes intercession for us.
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And then he also helps us in connection with the flesh. We all have the flesh in us, that old man that never improves. And it says the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are the contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. So we're all conscious that we have that old man that hinders our enjoyment of Christ, but the Spirit helps us so that we keep that old man in the place of death so that we can, he's not taken away.
Not burned out or something, but He helps us to keep him in the place. So we reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin. But when we get to glory, and the Spirit of God will be free, He won't have to help our infirmities. We won't have any. He won't have to help us overcome the old man. We won't have any old man, but he'll be able to do just what he delights to do, to shed abroad the love of God in our hearts, to occupy us with the wondrous love of Christ.
And so as all which we only see dimly, we see through a glass darker through what is it? A dim window? I think we see through a dim window. But then face to face, the spirit will be absolutely free to give us, to lead our souls into the full enjoyment. Not we're going to possess any more than we already possess, but we'll be able to enjoy in fullness. But we now only enjoy in part.
I wonder if in the last little.
Few minutes we have here. We can go on to the last two verses.
Verse 25 and verse 26.
Or, righteous Father, the world have not known thee, but I have known thee, and.
And these have known that thou has sent me, and I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare that the law for it thou hast about me may be in them, and I in them.
Remember that your father are saying.
The 15th chapter.
We should remind ourselves of this every day. And that's the verse 9 of Chester 15.
As the Father had loved me, so have I loved you.
Continued He in my love, and I was just thinking of the proposing of this prayer.
Wherewith thou has loved me.
That the love with God love me may be in them, and I in them.
As we consider the.
Love that.
There was between the Father and the Son, and God opened the heavens and said, this is my beloved Son.
In whom I am well pleased, and the verses we read this morning or were read this morning.
Where this as we have in John 10.
Therefore, that my father.
Love me because I lay down my life. I may take it again.
Therefore, that my father love me, but we know that love.
Of the Father to the Son. And there was no cause for that love to ever precipitate or to fail or anything. The perfection of that love because of the perfect obedience.
And dependence of the Lord Jesus.
But with us, to think that as the Father has loved me, Even so have I loved you.
And we know that love is of God from first John four. And we love because we have His life shown to us there in first John 4. We love one another.
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Because love is of God and that love that we expressed is because we have eternal life is enough.
Well, we just sort of enjoy.
This marvelous truth that God loves us.
As he loved his son.
You know the language of the word of God, the.
Truth of God.
It's very difficult to express it enough, but the language of these verses.
As the Father has thought to me, so have I loved you.
Continued thee in my.
That love of the Father to the Son is mentioned 7 times in this gospel.
This is the last one in the last verse of 17. Must be important a complete number of times. The love of the Father for the Son is mentioned in John's Gospel.
I've enjoyed 2 Connection with the join the love of the father.
That in first John chapter 2 when we are told not to love the world, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
He says if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
So it's in contrast the love of the world, the love of the Father.
I think that's so tremendous for us or younger young people to get ahold of.
Sometimes we can stand and exhort against worldliness.
All day and all night. It really doesn't have any effect.
But what is the real?
Preventative for worldliness.
Is enjoying the love of the Father.
You enjoy the love of the Father. There will be no desire in your heart for the love of this world. It just won't be there. The two things cannot occupy the same heart at the same time. But if you see me.
In with the love of the world, evidently in my life.
It's because I'm not enjoying the love of the Father. It's in contrast. Is that the force of first John 5 and verse 5.
Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? And then connecting that with this 25th verse, Oh righteous Father, the world has not known thee. The world likes to talk about the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, but what did they do to God's Son?
They took him and nailed him on a cross.
And how can they talk about the fatherhood of God and enjoy it? Why? He's a righteous father. And he's going to demand that there is going to be something to be settled in connection with what this world has done to his Son. And so the way we overcome the world.
If somebody took and gave someone I loved the most shameful death possible, it wouldn't be hard for me to say no to their friendship because I would think of what they did to someone whom I loved so much. And So what overcomes the world is to believe that that person who they put on a cross was the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
And so as far as the world is concerned.
They can talk about the fatherhood of God, but all righteous Father, the world has not known thee. But then there's such a sharp contrast drawn with the real believer is our brother Bob has been saying the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me as the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love and the Lord praise that we always always be in the enjoyment of this that the love were with thou hast loved me.
Them and the power for enjoyment we have Christ in us the hope of glory. So he's really closing the prayer by saying well simply be hard to overcome the world when we know these things and when we live in the enjoyment of them. This is really an appeal to our hearts not only at the end of this chapter but at the end of these meetings because we've had before us in these meetings many practical things in connection with our walk and.
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Which ought to characterize us as the people of God as we go through this world. But all those exhortations really don't have any effect to a heart that isn't attractive to the person of Christ. I really believe there's only one way to be a true disciple, a true follower, and that's to have a heart where there's only one object in it. And that object is Christ. Because I believe where our heart is, then our feet will follow. And I would just say again to those of us who are younger, we're going to go.
Now to the everyday situations of life. We're going to go back to school. If the Lord leaves us here, we're going to go back to the shop or to the office. We're going to go back to the home and to the local assembly. And how, what effect are these things going to have in a practical way on our lives? Wonderful to be here this weekend.
And to have these wonderful things brought before us from God's Word. But the test is going to come when we go back to the real life situations. But I think you'll find as you read through the Word of God, examples given of men and women and young people who lived for God's glory.
Whether they were in the Old Testament or in the New Testament, those men and women that followed the Lord and lived for His glory, even against all kinds of odds and difficulties, where men and women and young people who had a heart for the Lord. And so if our heart is attracted to the person of Christ.
Then it's not hard to obey his word. If a man loved me, he will keep my commandments rather. That's true Christian liberty. People talk about Christian liberty and use it as license to do what they like, to follow some course. Christian liberty is in the enjoyment of the person of Christ, with a heart so attracted to Himself that we don't like to do His commandments just like the Lord himself, he said.
I delight to do thy will, oh God.
He was in the perfect enjoyment of the Father and the Father's love and as a result His delight, His meat and drink was to do the Father's will. If we're in the enjoyment of the person of Christ and our hearts go out to Him, then it's not hard to follow because the joy and the light of our hearts.
To do his will as well.
I know of two occasions that come to mind. There was a young man that worked in a factory years ago.
And by the demeanor and character of his walk and his life. One day a man came over and he said to him, I want what you got. And the young man says, I have Christ. And that was all that there was said. Another case was a brother on the street preaching. He was preaching the gospel and he was telling him the wonderful love of Christ.
And a man that was leaning nearby, he finally when the meeting was over, he said, I want what you've got. And the brothers eye of Christ. And it's like our brother just mentioned, you know, if there's Christ in the heart, it's going to shine out of the light and ways that we don't even realize.
And then that lovely verse, John 17, nine, you know what? David was in Getty and that was it when David was at six flag and they burned the town down and they were all very much grieved.
You know, we get very much grief sometimes with a similar situation maybe, but it says David encouraged himself in the Lord. And you know that brother Bob, you just quoted that favorite verse of mine. When I get discouraged, John 15 verse 9 as the Father hath loved me, that winds up my heart, brethren, I need to have my heart wound up. And then my brother used to say we need to be obedient to the word of God. That was.
A formula for everything, you know. But you know, obedience to the Word of God is one thing. I don't have the power to do it. But if my heart is wound up with the love of Christ, the obedience is going to follow. Like it was said, the feet go where the heart lead. Is that right?
And if I'm occupied with my response to the Lord, to the Lord and my love for Him, I'm only going to be discouraged because my response is cold at best. But if I'm occupied with himself and his love and the love of the Father for the Son, that's what's going to produce love in my heart. Sometimes said that when the bride in the Song of Solomon was occupied with her bridegroom, she becomes less and less occupied with.
And her response as she enumerates the qualities and glories of her of the bridegroom. And at the end of it all, I have no doubt her response had deepened, but it was a result of not being occupied with her love for him, but being occupied with himself and his love for her. That's what deepened the response in her heart. And so as we leave these meetings, as we if we go in the enjoyment of his love and the love of the Father for the son.
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Cannot help but produce a greater response in our hearts. And again has been said where our heart is, then our feet will follow in the path of faithfulness.
John 17:24
Reading
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Your souls are raptured by what we have, thinking of being one with Him in glory because that's what's presented to us, seeing we're one with Him in glory.
What an eternal day that would be expressing His will here I will in verse 24. Father, I will that they also thus given me.
With me where I am, they may behold my glory. I was given me a novice league before the foundation of the world. It's really astounding to see the grace of God that would do that over in First Thessalonians, or rather Second Thessalonians chapter 1.
And verse 10, when he shall come to be glorified.
In His Saints to be admired, in all them that believe, because our testimony among you was believed in that day, There we have Him coming out of heaven with those that will be to His glory. And then over in Revelation 21, I believe we see.
The church in that millennial setting.
In answer to this desire.
Of the Lord Jesus in chapter 21 and verse 11, I believe we have it. Verse 10. He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me that holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.
Having the glory of God.
And then we see in that setting that she radiates the glory for all eternity.
Holy sick, there would be a little difference between that glory of the 22nd and the.
24 When they're in this way, that the glory that the Lord Jesus had received from the fathers, a man and which he had won in his glorious work for the glory of the Father, that is given that we can enjoy.
But the other one, the glory that we will see in the and behold in the glory.
That will be looked upon. We will look at that glory. That's His own glory. So the glory of verse 22, we will share. Glory of verse 24, we will be whole but not shared. That is His unique.
That's really the highest privilege that we have is to not just share a glory, which is an external thing, but to to behold that special glory which he has.
The Spirit of God delights to occupy our hearts even now with those glories in Philippians 3 there for 2nd Corinthians 3 from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
It's another one of those I have given that we've enjoyed so much in this chapter. Verse 20. Glory, though, is a choir. Glory would be right to say, because he says that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.
In contrast to earlier in the chapter and verse five, he says, and now, oh Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was like to hear some comments on the difference between those two verses perhaps.
And my understanding is that the fifth verse is is deeper.
And that is the divine glory that the Father has put upon the Son, and that that's a very deep glory. If I could use that term well, the one in the fifth verse would be what He is. It was from all eternity. What a time. And now, Father, glorify thou Me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.
He laid aside the display of that glory. He came down.
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Born in this world, seen here in humiliation, but it was always that glory which was his. And he goes back now and he's displayed in that glory which he never really in that sense, laid aside. Laid aside in the sense that it wasn't seen, but it ever was his. Never will be for all eternity ever was in the eternity past.
But as a man.
He has that glory that he has glorified God about the whole question of sin brought away of blessing, by which man who had been ruined by the fall would be brought in. And the head of new creation is a man, that man, the eternal Son of God. But he became a man, and remains a man for all eternity that he might have.
The company of his redeemed here. It's not so much the thought of the church.
But it's rather the thought of that he is associating us with him as redeemed men in the family. Their brothers brought before us the family of God and so were brought in as part of the family of God. In Pauls ministry we have oneness in connection with the church, but here it's rather in the family.
In Luke 15.
When he returned to his father, his father embraced him and brought him in to the house.
And I guess he's still there because they began to be married. We're eternally going to be there in that place of glory as sons with the Father.
I was thinking of that word in the Second Corinthians 318 that but be with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, as you say, brother Gordon when he has when he came here, the disciples really never really grasped it.
Who he really was, as was pointed out, he was Speaking of knowing the Father and then they said, oh, now we understand that thou came us from God. Well, they were missing the point. They weren't getting that, but what would be thought in connection with the.
Fact that he veiled that glory and they didn't see it and now we with unveiled, would that be our part unveiled for us to gaze on that glory now.
You mean verse 24? Yes.
Or you're thinking of First Corinthians 3 and verse 18, the last verse.
Beholding the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Well, I would think that has to do with the moral glory of the Lord Jesus that will be seen reproduced in the believer as we're occupied with Him. Because that seems to be the whole subject in First Second Corinthians rather chapter 3.
That is how that can be seen in us in a practical way. But as we are occupied with the Lord Jesus, see him, then we are we manifest that occupied with him. Little picture of it something like when Moses.
He came down, he had been there in the mountains and he came down and his face was shining. In fact, if I turn to it because I think it's brought out there, 2nd Corinthians 3.
Verse 9. Or if the administration of condemnation be glory, that was the giving of the law, There was a great display of glory manifested when the law was given. Much more shall administration of righteousness exceed in glory, Or even that which was made glorious hath no glory in this respect I Reason of the glory that excelleth. For that would show us done away with glorious, much more that would remain of this glorious.
Seeing then, that we have this hope, we use great plainness of speech, and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold.
Look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded, for until this day remain at the same veil, untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. But even under this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.
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Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. And now in the 17th verse is connected with the sixth verse. There is a parenthesis from the end of the six, where, if you look at Mr. Darby, you'll see this and the sixth verse. Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. Now the 17th verse.
The Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. But we all with open face or unveiled face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
There was a glory when the law was given, the holiness of God was manifested, and then God provided a way that the people could, through the sacrifices, go into His presence. But there wasn't a full display of the glory of God. But since the work of redemption has been accomplished, God has been fully glorified, now not only satisfied but glorified in the work of His Son.
We're not under law. We have the Spirit of God as the power.
And knowing that that work has been completed, having our eyes upon Christ in glory as the one who has fully glorified God about the whole question of Satan, we like Moses. His face reflected something of that glory which he had seen when he was on the mount receiving the instructions about the Tabernacle. And he says there's a far greater glory when we see how God has been so fully.
In the work of His beloved Son, and occupied with that, there's a reflection in our faces, a change in our lives by the Spirit as the result of beholding that glory.
Beautiful isn't it? It brings it right down to today in the life of each one of us, young and old alike, that this can be reflected. If we are looking to Christ day by day, then we are. We don't change ourselves, but we are changed. It's a passive verb.
Our change, Let me say I think a little picture of it is in.
Steven, as he looked up, he said, I see the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. What did the people see? His face was like the face of an Angel. He saw God had been fully glorified, not by any law keeping or the giving of the law, but by the person who had glorified God about the whole question of sin. And he saw him up there at the right hand of God and it was reflected in his face.
Now he says it'll be morally reflected in us if we are brought into the good and enjoyment of this. It'll be seen not by placing ourselves under law, by seeing that one who is up there, the glorified man at the right hand of God, the one who's glorified God about the whole question of sin. It's significant, isn't it, that in connection with Moses?
It says that his face shone, but he wished not that his face shone.
It was really just the unconscious reflection of being in the presence of Jehovah on the mount. It wasn't that he tried to make his face shine. And I think there's something very practical perhaps for those who are a little younger here, because sometimes I hear, I've heard it said, well, we need to try to generate a testimony for the Lord.
And to live for the Lord in that way. But brethren, it's not that we try to generate a testimony within ourselves as we walk in company with the Lord Jesus. There will be an unconscious reflection of Christ in our lives. As the hymn writer said not I may live well here below, but Christ our life may be to be glorified is to have all the.
Qualities that exalt a person brought into display. And how are those things going to be displayed in our lives?
I say in company and communion, in fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And I believe us, we're walking with him. Then there will be a display of Christ in our lives. Not the trying to generate that from within, I say, but walking in company with himself. Well, this is very practical, but I believe that each one of us can manifest Christ in our lives as we walk with Him.
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And I think it's already been said earlier in these meetings, but where epistles known and read of all men, others are looking on and what they're going to see of Christ is what's manifested in your life and mind as believers down here. How can a young person.
Do this.
But someone explained what a young believer sitting here this afternoon can grasp of this, that this is available to him. Like to hear someone just speak of that a bit so that this can be made ours today, as our grandson was leaving before this meeting began, I said to him, I'm giving you the best advice that I ever received when I was a believer your age.
And that is to keep low and to keep looking up.
Said to him, Walk with the Lord. We've been admonished to do here, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. And we walk with the Lord Jesus Christ by setting aside a daily time to spend in his company, reading His Word and speaking to Him every day in prayer. Neglected, the heart grows cold.
Do it and we are able to go on in communion with him.
And not have to expend energy determining what is His will because we are walking with Him.
Maybe somebody can enlarge on that a little bit. I've sometimes used a little illustration in connection with a verse in the 2nd chapter of Philippians. I believe it's verse 15 because it says there that she may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom you shine as.
Lights, or I believe really the thrust of that word is illuminators in the world. Now, an illuminator is something that doesn't have any light of itself. It reflects the light of another. We look up in the November sky and we see a big harvest moon, but the moon has no light of itself. Men have landed on the moon. It has no light of itself. It's only reflecting the light of the sun. And I've sometimes used the illustration of the watch that I had when I was a child.
I know perhaps they don't do this too much today with digital watches and so on. But when I was a child, I had a watch that had luminous paint on the hands of numerals of the watch. And I used to wear it to bed because I like to see what time it was after the light was turned out. But sometimes the light would be turned out and I'd look at the watch and I couldn't see the the the time even though there was luminous paint on the hands and numerals of that watch. Well, what was the answer?
Well, you turn on the light for a few moments and you hold the watch up to the source. Now you turn out the light. The room is just as dark and you haven't changed the condition of the watch. It had luminous paint all along, but now there's a difference. That watch glows in the dark because it was it's drawing from the source. And I think what Brother Ton says is very good as we're walking in company with the Lord Jesus.
Spending time speaking to Him in our closets, in prayer and reading His word and letting Him speak to us.
In other words, we speak to him and he speaks to us. That's what fellowship is. If we get together and we have some fellowship for community, we're speaking to one another. And so he speaks to us, We speak to him, and then as a result of being in his presence that way, we've liked that watch. We've drawn on the source, we've drawn on the light, and we're only reflecting the light of another.
We're reflecting the light of our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Again, just like Moses, he came down. He wished not that his face shone, but there was a reflection of having been in the presence of his God on the mount. When you read the Scriptures, you see.
See the Lord Jesus? That's the way we look at Him.
That's the way we're occupied with him, and I encourage the young people to read the Gospels too, because that's where we see him in his life down here in the.
Pathway that we're passing through now and you look at him says in verse John 1 and verse one that which we have seen, which we have looked upon or the new translation says that which we have contemplated. In other words, it's not only.
Getting a glimpse of it, but it's looking in detail at the person of the Lord Jesus as he walked through this world. You see complete perfection, no flaw there at all. And to think, dear young person, this is our life. We are entitled to say as we view complete perfection this is.
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Our life think of him as he stood there in the.
That time when they brought that woman taken in adultery in the very act. And he knew very well that those others that brought that poor woman were probably as guilty as that poor woman. And they want, they say Moses said that we should stone her, that they knew that the Lord Jesus preached the forgiveness of sins. And so they thought they laid a trap for his feet. You can't trap a perfect person you.
Do it. He was completely perfect. Instead of answering, sometimes we're quick to answer questions. He didn't answer quickly. He wrote on the ground, stooped down and wrote on the ground. And when he got up again, he only says a word to their conscience. He doesn't answer their question, he answers their conscience. Let him, that is without sin among you. First cast the stone at her.
Perfection.
They could do nothing with Him. They marveled as they stood around him. I often say the person that scares me a most in this life is a lawyer because they can twist your words to say just exactly what you didn't mean to say. And they stood around the Lord Jesus and they couldn't catch him in his words. He was completely perfect. This is the life that is ours.
Moral glory, Complete perfection.
And yet then his life down here, it's beautiful to see other glories that even though his glory was largely veiled, once in a while they shone out. When he was on the ship in the middle of that storm, he was asleep. Sometimes I say, does God go to sleep? Never. He was asleep. He was human as well as.
Divine And they woke him up and.
They and he stands up and rebukes the wind and the waves. There you see him in his Creator glory, controlling all the elements of life. Down here is a humble man as a man, the poorest of the poor, and yet controlling the elements of life. Those little things show His glory. We need to contemplate that. Read your.
Look at the Lord Jesus and as you're occupied with him, it's going to have a transforming effect. There's one other portion I'd like to share. I really enjoyed it. If some other brother has a thought about it, I'd like to hear about it too. But in John one, the first chapter of John's gospel and the the well known verse, verse 14.
John says the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Here's something that the disciples.
Beheld.
In the Lord Jesus a glory, it says the glory as of an only begotten with the Father and the suggestion I would make and I'd like to hear this is not right, but here was one man in this world.
Who was motivated by nothing else but that? What was the will of his father? Here was a man who went through this life.
An unbroken fellowship with his father. Unclouded fellowship, ever.
And the disciples, as they saw that man, and they knew something of the motives that motivated their parts and the hearts of that we have too. And so many times we have different motives. But they saw in the Lord Jesus a man who had only one thing that he was here for, and that was for the glory of his Father, that unbroken fellowship He was.
00:25:03
Always occupied.
With things down here in how they related to his father and that's the way he passed through this life. In the 4th chapter when he met that poor Samaritan woman and the disciples came to him and offered him food, he wasn't interested. He said my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. That was the only thing that really motivated him down here.
What you've been talking about is the is the Lords moral glory.
He was always perfect in every relationship, always doing the will of his father.
But what you have in verse 14 of John 1 is His essential glory as the eternal, only begotten Son of God. And they saw that they by faith, they pierced the veil of human flesh which surrounded that glory.
And they saw his glory. How many loaves have he? Five. And two small fishes make the men sit down. And he broke the loaves and distributed, and they were all filled. Multiplied the loaves. He was asleep on a pillow in the boat. The storm came up. They awoke in Master Carestown. Not that we perish. He stood up and said, Peace be still.
He's still the waves and the storm. And they said, what manner of man is this? That wasn't not moral glory. That was his essential glory. They saw. Who is this, the end of John 1, Nathaniel.
He saith unto him, verse 48. Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered, and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, When thou was under the fig tree, I saw thee. That was evidently Nathaniel's prayer room, where he was alone with God.
No one could have seen him. Nathaniel answered. Notice the answer and said unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King of Israel. How did he arrive at that conclusion? He saw his glory. He saw who he was. That's why they crucified him, because he claimed to be the Son of God. That to them was blasphemy. That was as some brothers said it today.
I think Henry did that. Sonship is equality.
With the Father, not the inferiority, but equality with the Father. And that's what they saw. They saw his personal essential glory as the eternal Son. That's John 114.
There are many other many other instances of that in Scripture to tie that in then with verse 22 of our chapter.
Go ahead. No, I'm asking. Oh, I thought you were going to tell us.
We had that verse brought before us in the 13th of John tie in with what has been said and what has been asked. Now is the Son of Man glorified?
And God is glorified in Him. The only glory of man is obedience to God.
And so in beholding the moral glory that we have in verse 22 in our chapter, which now has given me, I have given them the glory that He shares with us as the fruit of a life lived in obedience to God that takes him right into the glory on high. Wherefore God is highly exalted him and given Him a name which is above every name. And so there we see ourselves.
Raised up together and seated together, and the heavenlies in Christ. And so the epitome of God's revelation to man is man glorified in God's right hand. And there he is that he shares with us. He won as a man in obedience to God unto death, and not the death of the cross, the right to sit at God's right hand.
And receive the highest accolades in heaven to describe to Him. And there He is. And now that he has shared with us, brought us right up into glory, seated together, raised up together, seated together in heavenly places in Christ. But that glory is not one we will share. I excuse me, that glory we share, but the glory of John 114, we'll never share that. That's His essential glory as the only begotten Son of the Father.
And he's unique in that.
And I think that's that's what he had. We have in verse 5 of John 17. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. He asks as a man on earth to be reinstated into that glory that he had with the Father before the world was, but as a man, a man in that glory, God and Man United.
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In one person and here now, he's put into that glory.
Uh, which he ever had, which he never left in a sense, but now as man, he asked to be put into that glory that is a, it's, it's, it's a, it's a thought that is most, most awesome. But that's something that we have no part here.
That's his own essential glory in the pride, in the practical side of it which our brother was speaking about. How is this going to take place in our own lives? It says about the apostle Paul. After he had been saved, they glorified God in me. That is, they saw this man who before had been a persecutor of the name of Jesus.
And now they saw God glorified in a man.
And I believe that is the subject that is taken up in first the Second Corinthians chapter 3. That is, we're not here to place all the young people and everybody else under a certain code of laws, but we're here to tell them, as he brings out in 2nd Corinthians 3, that the law was written on tables of stone. That's a picture of the natural heart of man. It's a Sony heart. But God's going to take away the Stony heart and give them.
Flesh. And so if there had been a law given which could have given life barely, righteousness had been by the law. But this wonderful event has taken place that you and I, consequent upon the work of Christ, we now have the very life of Christ within us.
And that's why also in the chapter it says that being occupied with him we that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. So we have within us every believer, young and old in this room is has the life of Christ within him and you have the Spirit of God as power. And so you walking through this world.
He, it says in John's Epistle, he that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
God has no lower standard for our walk in this world than the walk of His beloved Son.
And He's made full provision for it because he's given us the life of Christ. He's given us the Holy Spirit of God. And so as that is seen in us, there is the practical manifestation. And so as people look at us, they ought not to see, oh, that's a wonderful person, but they ought to see Christ manifested in us. There is a person that is Christ like, that's what.
The true Christian pathway is.
You say that's an impossible standard. Paul says no, it's not. God's given you the life, God has given you the Holy Spirit. How can it be we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, occupied with Him.
Putting that old man in the place of death. The life of Jesus is manifested in US. Now, of course we're speaking and our brother has been speaking and very clearly too, and I'm fully with it. What he has said. The Lord Jesus is the eternal Son of God. He is the one who has that God had glory, He and he only, but in ourselves the moral glory can be reproduced in this practical way.
And if it is?
Then there will be glory brought to God as they look at us and see people in this world who manifest the life of Jesus. Of quote the verse again, that the life of Jesus might be seen in our mortal flesh.
Is there any question of our responsibility of getting into this position?
Is there any doubt about getting into this position?
Oh, he's telling us what has been given to us, but the he was just asking the question how it would be practically so in US and the Lords Prayer in this 17th of John was that there might be that testimony the 21St verse that they all may be one as thou father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in US, that the world may believe that in the thought would be testimony that the world may believe.
00:35:06
That thou has sent me. And so I believe there was for a short moment this testimony rendered in Jerusalem, when the people there looked on and they saw a group of people who honored the Lord Jesus, who never said that off. That they possessed for us, that their own, they were of one heart and one soul. So there was in that sense the Lord's Prayer that there would be this true testimony.
And I believe in that sense. It comes in on the 21St verse, what we begin with the 22nd verse. We began then we were the 22nd verse. That's a new thing. It's what God does. He gives it to us. We're not responsible. He gives it to us. We ought to enjoy that. He's going to get it to us. He's going to get us into that place. He expresses His will in the 24th verse about that.
I remember reading one of the earlier brothers.
Illustration of verse 22 in this way that suppose a king has great powers and over a great nation as a son, and the boy grows up and but the father has all the glory, because he was the one that acquired it. But the son as he grows up into manhood, he goes out and he.
Wins great victories and great glory is brought and now everyone is saying, oh look what he has done and so now the sun has glory. Illustration is that the Lord Jesus came to this earth and in his manhood in all the perfection of.
The work that he has done in His lowly grace. The 4th 4th verse tells us that.
That He has glorified His Father in His life, that glory, a reward, has been given to the Son for this glorious work, and that is what He enables you and me to enjoy as we keep our eye on Him. Would it be helpful to look at Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 9? I think it bears talking about.
Familiar passages.
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels in the suffering death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God should face death for every man, and just going on in war verses. Or it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things?
Many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. Now this person, for both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all the one which 'cause he is not ashamed to call him Brenda.
I think that's what we have in the verses here, but you carry down in the same 2nd chapter Hebrews. In the end of verse 13 he says, Behold I and the children which God has given me.
So that day is ahead, and that's what he's really presenting to us here that day when all of the fruit of that work of Calvary and as the captain of our salvation is to bring us into this glory. And then he will say that this will be displayed. Behold, I and the children.
With God has given me and that's really connected with one in kind, is it not?
We are going to be like in there and that is going to be his glory.
That we have that, but the time hasn't come. The church is not complete yet. The last stone has not been put in the building that when it is.
As we find he's going to present it to himself, a glorious church, not having small or equal or any such thing, or really looking on, is it not immerses?
23 and 24 looking on there.
He's talking about history, expressing this prayer when you have his own there with him, that they may behold his glory. It was mentioned yesterday.
00:40:08
Brother, you brought it before us very beautifully that.
Jehovah Jesus is the I am, He lived present.
So He can speak about events which are still future to us as having been accomplished. And so that 22nd verse says, The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them. We don't have it yet, but from the viewpoint of the prayer here, He uttered these words when He was a man on earth. They apply today and on into that day when we'll be glorified with Him.
So it it embraces all that is future to us, but to him it's not future. He lives in an eternal present, doesn't he? And it's as good as done. It's like what you have in Romans 8. I'll just read it in verse 30. Moreover, whom he did predestinate them he also called.
And whom he called them he also justified. Well, verse 29 says whom he did foreknow, he predestinated. So the foreknowledge and the predestination took place, as far as we're concerned, in the eternal past or dateless past, the the calling and the justification took place in time. And then it says whom he justified them, he also glorified. Again, it's put as though it's it's accomplished.
Because to God it is. It's as good as done.
So that's what we have.
Even before the fall of man or anything coming. So he's sort of carrying us into that, it seems to me right here now. And I've given it to you live as all your work, you know, but haven't arrived yet, but it's yours.
Glamour had been abused by what our brother Chuck just said and if I understood what he said first worry and because God is timeless and I understand that, but the worry of verse 22 is for us future. Is that what you said, Johnny? Yes. Then how do we understand verse 23?
Where it says I and them and I would mean that they may be made perfect in one. And I've always taken this to be the practical oneness for believers as we.
No, that's first. Let me finish, and that the world may know that thou sent.
So in other words, that one is because it's a result of that Gloria that they may be one. Verse 22 See, I've given them that they may be one even as we are 1 is a practical matter, should be a practical manifestation of us believers as a testimony to this world.
So how can that be future That's where I'll confuse in verse 21 we have that which existed in time that the world might believe. He gave the illustration in Acts 2 and Acts 4. They were all 11 mind one heart and they the world that that oneness was to produce belief on the part of the world that the Father sent the son. But when the world sees us coming with the Lord Jesus.
Glory with him Second Thessalonians, one that Don brought before us. They will know that. What does it say? They know that the that thou has sent me, and thou hast loved them as thou has loved me. So in that future day, when they see US1 with Christ in glory, they'll see, they'll say, well, he he, he must love them as much as.
The Father must love them as much as He loves His Son. They're in the same glory.
They're in the same glory. Christ as a man in glory will come back with us in glory bodies, just like his glorified bodies. That's what he's talking about, isn't it? That's the verse our brother you spoke about in Second Thessalonians chapter 1, wasn't it? When He shall come, the 10th of first chapter, Second Thessalonians? When He shall come to be glorified in His Saints, and to be admired in all them that believe He isn't always admired now?
God in Paul, that was the present testimony that was rendered by a man who really was seeking to please his Lord, and they glorified God as they saw a man who was displaying this. But in a future day, isn't this lovely? It'll be true of all, and it says when he shall come to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe, because our testimony among among you was believed in that day.
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I don't want to say anything against what's been said in a practical way.
From Second Corinthians three, I think that's excellent. We need that practical truth to go on according this, but in a simple way we look at this chapter may have 3 onenesses.
Oneness in community that's believing his words, acting a corner.
And then if we do that, we can be one in testimony. But man always breaks down many tested footage. Now you get to check verse 22. And I don't see any responsibility that God does that. He's going to bring us into glory. He never is defeated.
This is his purpose, the test man along the way. Then he brings in, I'm going to show you what I can do. And he brings us in there to enjoy all that glory. Now, he tells us all this for our enjoyment down here where we're still in the seat, where practice is very, very important. And when that happens, the world will know. Not just know, they will know, they will know. But that's the world in a better sense, isn't it?
That we'll know.
I mean, there is that part of the world that that will come into blessing. Where do you get the world in a better sense? That's the new thought. Well, you do get it in Hebrews, the world to come, the age to come in that sense, but I don't know if that's here.
It's the age to come in the world will be.
Stored as as still as the first creation during the millennial. It will still be the first creation and Christ will be the first born there in his glory, but it will still be this world purged and given to his son. So and that's the sense you're talking about, brother Don. They'll be brought into subjection and they'll.
They'll yield the submission to him and.
So it'll be a millennial scene, and of course the Church will have its displayed glory with him. I think you can carry this farther than the Millennium.
This verse was referred to in Hebrews 2, that he might be the first born to read that among many brothers.
One of the writers that may esteem says that that is light, and that it goes on into the eternal day. No, I should say the 11Th verse of Hebrews 2. For both he that sanctifier and they that are sanctified are all of one.
Now that's like.
And it says for which 'cause he is not ashamed to call them rather. So you can find this statement in one of the writings from this man we mentioned frequently I've been out.
Our time here present and the Millennium and the eternal day. And in fact, he says.
Our time here now is a training time for a raining time, even as that will be for the eternal day that is the Millennium comes in between.
To introduce us into that perfect sink. It's going to be perfect.
The eternal day God is going to get the full victory in the 3rd chapter of Revelation, in the ninth verse. Is this the connection with the future? It says I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and to know that I have loved thee. Is this the perspective that we're looking at? Well, I believe myself that it's the judgment seat of Christ.
And God will manifest His approval of those who kept His word and did not deny His name.
It isn't that they worship us, but they recognize that that was the true way of gathering and worshiped and praised to the Lord, keeping his word and not denying his name as much of what is called worship and Christendom, but is not keeping his word. It isn't giving. Denying it is denying his name. Many dear Christian, but I believe there's going to be a manifestation and there will be that which.
Is, shall I say it, plead and pleasing to the Lord.
And so it says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. I take it that way because that was to Philadelphia, and that was to encourage those who kept His word and didn't deny his name in difficult times.
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When he comes out of heaven as the Lord of Lord and King of Kings.
He's going to bring the redeemed with him and that's going to be a time of displaying that he was associated himself.
Those that he loved, and now they come out of heaven.
In a glorious event when he manifests his power and we are now associated with him as the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. We read and army that comes with them by the Redeemer. That's Second Thessalonians one again, but the thought that came before me in this 21St chapter of John.
And verse 25, the very last verse in John's Gospel and.
There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written everyone. I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. Does that pertain to his acquired glories? But mysterious statement, isn't it? What would you say about that?
Well, I didn't read it. I I heard that Mister Bellitt made the remark that was the.
Thought of a loving, worshiping heart. That is, He thought, Oh, I could tell and tell and tell, but I could never tell it all. Isn't that what the Father is going to spend an eternity in telling us? The glories and the glorious work that the blessed Son of His love accomplished for His glory.
Not for our glory, but for His glory throughout eternity.
Never come to an end. You look at the future in the light of two events, the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. And the apostle speaks of loving his appearing. Oh, he talked a great deal of temperature.
And that's very, very blessed and you're looking for that blessed hope. It might happen today, but that's only the beginning of the glory that we enter into that he shares with us in that eternal day. It love is appearing what we really delighted in seeing and have his glory.
He's so deserving of it that we should just.
And there's a crown of righteousness speak about of loving his appearing. We want to see him in his groin. But.
It's just something that overwhelms you to bring it all down to us that the younger ones can understand. There's such a beautiful little picture in first Peter chapter 1 of As It Were a mountain peak. And it's when we greatly rejoice and then.
The decline starts, but now. But now though, for a seasoned yard.
The manifold temptations that the trial of your faith might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, from having not seen you love, in whom, though now you see Him not yet believing, he rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
We're in the valley now, beloved ones, but if we live for him.
We're going to be displayed with him as ones who reflected some of that glory, and we're going to be shown as those those prizes, those cups, those trophies that he has won. So let's keep on today. Young and old are like.
Reading the word of God, I believe our brother.
Gave us something I've enjoyed and he's reading the gospel especially.
He spoke about Ruth and about the family and how when you put your.
Family in it and when you read these beautiful.
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Happenings in the Ortiz's bipedal like a blind bargain is to use it for an illustration. If you just see yourself there as a poor flying figure and you just put yourself there and all of us up here is the Lord Jesus and he stops.
As he calls it.
And what happened, You know his eyes are open and he sees Jesus, and then you know, he follows Texas. But you just have to put yourself there. And you do that when you're reading the word of God.
It's really amazing.
How the whole picture just takes on a very, very special.
Thing in your life?
Whether it's the prodigal son or whoever, you know, if you just put yourself there and you think of the prodigal son coming back and there's the father, he has his arms around you, you know, and covering you with kisses and everything is of the fall there because the father gives him everything.
And they go in my house, but they enjoy it together. I mean, to me, it's just a joy just to put myself. And I think it has to come to that possible thing. Even if you're in the book of the disciples or wherever it is, you just put yourself there, you get a real blessing and the real message from God.
Is there something else here too? I just suggest the thought and maybe someone can enlarge on it, but.
I've noticed that in the expressions used in John's Gospel and in John's epistle, and particularly in this chapter, the Father is spoken of as being in the sun and the sun in the Father, and we are spoken of as being in the sun, and the sun in us, but never us in the Father, or the Father in US.
In a simple way, I have enjoyed that thought that Christ is the center of it all.
Will we know the Father? Do we know the Father now? Indeed we do. Are we conscious and living in the consciousness of that relationship? Indeed we should be. But the expressions in Scripture carefully guard the person of the Son in that the Father in me, and I in him, ye and me and I in you. And I'm not quoting it directly, but from various Scriptures.
I say maybe someone else could enlarge on that a little. It's been very precious to my own soul to see how that the person of the sun is carefully set apart in that way.
While bringing the whole of the blessed relationship in between US and the Father and the Son.
That's characteristic of John's writings, isn't it?
That the holiness of this person is dirt. If you go to Matthew 11, one of the other gospels brings them the same thing.
Henry made a nice statement about we could.
Distinguish between the person but the rest of statement Henry.
The father understand, we distinguish, but you can't take a part separate, separate.
That's what I leave something like the holy ground upon which Moses stood at the Bush, and Joshua with that military man with a sword ready, but in Matthew 11, just to guard against trying to separate too much the deity of which we shall never be apart.
It says in the 20.
Seventh verse.
All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father. The Father knows the Son.
Neither knoweth any man, the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal the Father is the only one that knows the song. It's like what was put up here in the thunderstorm. God and man, how can you understand that? Well, he is God needs mine, can't separate him.
Have to understand that just need to believe it absolutely. It's nice to see that preceding verse though in the Matthew 11 verse 25. And at that time Jesus answered and said, I thank the old Father Lord of heaven and earth, because thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them unto babes. That's what we're enjoying in these meetings.
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In a practical way, just to go back to that Second Corinthians.
Chapter 3.
I think it's very good to take notice.
That Mister Darby alters the wording of that.
Passage a little in verse 18, but we all with open face unveiled, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord. The Spirit that impressed me when I saw that.
That here lordship is ascribed to the Spirit of God, which implies that the Spirit of God ought to have that authority over our hearts to bring these precious things before us. That's what he delights to occupy us with. But so often He has to occupy us with ourselves that we might judge things that are hindering the enjoyment of the glories of Christ.
Spirit of God is doing two things now for us that He won't have to do in the glory. He's helping our infirmities.
Tells us that in Romans 8 the Spirit helps our infirmities. So we may come to a reading like this and we are tired, or we have a headache or something. And how often if the ministry is precious about the Lord Jesus, why I forget the headache? And we enjoy it because the Spirit helps our infirmities and so we're able to rise above them, doesn't remove them, but helps our infirmities, makes intercession for us. And then He also helps us in connection with the flesh.
We all have the flesh in us, that old man that never improves, and it says the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are the contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. So we're all conscious that we have that old man that hinders our enjoyment of Christ, but the Spirit helps us so that we keep that old man in the place of death so that we can. He's not taken away, not burned out or something, but he helps us to.
Keep him in the place so we reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin. But when we get to glory and the Spirit of God will be free. He won't have to help our infirmities. We won't have any. He won't have to help us overcome the old man. We won't have any old man, but he'll be able to do just what he delights to do.
To shed abroad the love of God in our hearts, to occupy us with the wondrous love of Christ, and so that all which we only see dimly, we see through a glass darker through what is it? A dim window. I think we see through a dim window. But then face to face the Spirit will be absolutely free to give us to lead our souls into the full enjoyment. Not we're going to possess any more than we already possess, but we'll be able to enjoy.
But we now only enjoy in part. Wonder if in the last little few minutes we have here we could go on to the last two verses.
Verse 25 and verse 26.
O righteous Father, the world have not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent thee, and.
I have declared unto them, Thy name will declare.
Thou hast thou me maybe in them, and I in them.
Remember your father are saying.
The 15th chapter.
We should remind ourselves of this every day. And that's the verse 9 of chapter 15.
As the Father had loved me, so have I loved you.
Continue ye in my mouth, and I was just thinking of the proposing of this prayer.
Wherewith thou has loved me.
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That the love and with God love me may be in them, and I in them.
As we consider the.
Love of that.
There was between the father and the son.
And God opened the heavens and said, This is my beloved son.
In whom I am well pleased, and the verses we read this morning or were read this morning.
Where this as we have in John 10.
Therefore does my father.
Love me because I lay down my life. I might take it again.
Therefore does my Father love me? But we know that love.
Of the Father to the Son. And there was no cause for that love to ever precipitate or to fail or anything.
The perfection of that love because of the perfect obedience and dependence of the Lord Jesus.
But with us, to think that as the Father has loved me, Even so have I loved you.
And we know that love is of God from first John four. And we love because we have his life shown to us there in first John 4. We love one another because love is of God. And that love that will be expressed is because we have eternal life is enough. But we just sort of.
Enjoy.
This marvelous truth that God.
Loves us.
As he loved his son.
You know the language of the word of God.
The truth of God. It's very difficult to express it or not, but the language of these verses.
As the Father has thought, so have I loved you.
Continue thee.
My son.
And that love of the Father to the Son is mentioned 7 times in this gospel.
And this is the last one.
The last verse of 17 must be important a complete number of times. The love of the Father for the Son is mentioned in John's Gospel.
I've enjoyed the connection with the join the love of the father.
That in first John chapter 2, when we are told not to love the world, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. He says if any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him.
So it's in contrast the love of the world, the love of the Father.
I think that's so tremendous for us or younger young people to get ahold of.
Sometimes we can stand and exhort against worldliness.
All day and all night. It really doesn't have any effect.
But what is the real?
Preventative for worldliness.
Is enjoying the love of the Father.
You enjoy the love of the Father. There will be no desire in your heart.
For the love of this world, it just won't be there. The two things cannot occupy the same heart at the same time.
But if you see me.
With the love of the world, evidently in my life, it's because I'm not enjoying the love of the Father. It's in contrast. Is that the force of first John 5 and verse 5.
Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
And then connecting that with this 25th verse, oh righteous father, the world has not known thee. The world likes to talk about the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. But what did they do to God's Son? They took him and nailed him on a cross. And how can they talk about the fatherhood of God and enjoy it? Why? He's a righteous father.
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He's going to demand that there is going to be something to be settled in connection with what this world has done.
To his son. And so the way we overcome the world, if somebody took and gave someone I love the most shameful death possible, it wouldn't be hard for me to say no to their friendship because I would think of what they did to someone whom I loved so much. And So what overcomes the world is to believe that that person who they put on a cross was the son of God who loved me and gave.
Himself for me. And so as far as the world is concerned, they can talk about the fatherhood of God. But all righteous Father, the world hath not known thee. But then there's such a sharp contrast drawn with the real believer is our brother. Bob has been saying the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye and my love.
And the Lord praise that we always, always be in the enjoyment of this, that the love were with Thou, as love me may be in them.
And the power for enjoyment, we have Christ in us, the hope of glory. So he is really closing the prayer by saying, well, simply be hard to overcome the world when we know these things and when we live in the enjoyment of them. This is really an appeal to our hearts, not only at the end of this chapter, but at the end of these meetings because we've had before us in these meetings many practical things in connection with our walk and that which.
Characterizes as the people of God as we go through this world but all those eggs really don't have any effect to a heart that isn't attractive to the person of Christ. I really believe there's only one way to be a true disciple, a true follower and that's to have a heart where there's only one object in it and that object is Christ because I believe where our heart is then our feet will follow and I would just say again to those of us who are younger we're going to go back now to.
Everyday situations of life, we're going to go back to school if the Lord leaves us here, we're going to go back to the shop or to the office. We're going to go back to the home and to the local assembly. And how, what effect are these things going to have in a practical way on our lives? Wonderful to be here this weekend and to have these wonderful things brought before us from God's word. But the test is going to come when we go back to the real life situations but.
I think you'll find, as you read through the Word of God, examples given of men and women and young people who lived for God's glory, whether they were in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. Those men and women that followed the Lord and lived for His glory, even against all kinds of odds and difficulties, where men and women and young people who had a heart for the Lord. And so if our heart is attracted to the person of Christ, then it's not hard to.
Obey his word. If a man loved me, he will keep my commandments. Rather. That's true Christian liberty. People talk about Christian liberty and use it as license to do what they like, to follow some course. Christian liberty is in the enjoyment of the person of Christ.
Heart so attracted to Himself that we don't like to do His commandments, just like the Lord Himself. He said, I delight to do thy will. Oh God, He was in the perfect enjoyment of the Father and the Father's love, and as a result His delight, His meat and drink was to do the Father's will. If we're in the enjoyment of the person of Christ and our hearts go out to Him, then it's not hard to follow because the joy and the light of our hearts will be to do His will.
Well, and if I'm occupied with my response to the Lord, to the Lord and my love for Him, I'm only going to be discouraged because my response is cold at best. But if I'm occupied with himself and his love and the love of the Father for the Son, that's what's going to produce love in my heart. Sometimes said that when the bride in the Song of Solomon was occupied with her bridegroom, she becomes less and less.
With herself and her response as she enumerates the qualities and glories of her of the bridegroom. And at the end of it all, I have no doubt her response had deepened. But it was a result of not being occupied with her love for him, but being occupied with himself and his love for her. That's what deepened the response in her heart. And so as we leave these meetings, as we if we go in the enjoyment of his love and the love of the Father for.
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Son, then it cannot help but produce a greater response in our hearts. And again has been said where our heart is, Then our feet will follow in the path of faithfulness.