Lawrenceville Conference: 1999
Table of Contents
Colossians 1
Reading
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Senator Colossians, Chapter 1 And this day when man is setting himself so much forward, it's wonderful to think of that one of whom we read that chapter, that in all things he might have the preeminence. Have someone read it for us.
Colossians, chapter 1.
Fall and Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timotheus our brother to the Saints and faithful brethren in Christ, which are at glossy grace beyond you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.
Now the love what she have through all the Saints.
For the whole which is laid up for you in heaven, where have you heard before? In the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come unto you as it is in all the world, bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day you heard of it.
And knew the grace of God and truth, as you also learned of Epifras, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ, who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit for this 'cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and do desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will.
Wisdom and spiritual understanding that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with Almighty according to His glorious power unto all. Patience and long-suffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father, which has made us meet to be partakers of the.
Of the Saints in life, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Where is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature?
For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth.
Visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. And He is the head of the Body, the Church, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminent.
Or please the Father, that in Him should all fullness dwell, and having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, by him I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.
And you there were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. Yet now hath he reconciled.
And the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy, and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight, if he continue in the faith grounded and settled, be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which he have heard, which was preached to every creature which is under heaven whereof I fall, and made a minister.
Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and Philip, that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ.
And my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church, whereof I am a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill the Word of God. Even the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest, is seen.
To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery?
Among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man and all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Where unto I also labor strive according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
00:05:14
There are two epistles which particularly bring before us the Church truth.
And I believe they are Ephesians and Colossians. In Ephesians, that's what the church is to Christ. He's had over all things to the church, which is his body. And so we see his care for the church, providing for all the deeds and so on. That is particularly brought out in Ephesians, whereas I believe in Colossians. It's what Christ is to the church, that is.
What the church is, what Christ is to the church, yes.
That is, the glory of his person is particularly brought before us in this epistle. And if we might illustrate it in this way, if a man was to talk about what his wife means to him, how he do anything for her, and how much he loved her, and so on, and that means to her.
And all that she sees in him, Well, the first one is Ephesians, what the church is to Christ. And so the two expressions, I think, bring this out. In Ephesians we have he's head over all things to the church. Whereas in Colossians he's head of the body, the church. And the glory of his person, I say again, is particularly brought out in Colossians, whereas in Ephesians it's what the church.
To him and what he has done, gave himself for it, loved it, nourishes and cherishes it. Well, I just mentioned this because I think what we need in this day when there's so much of the setting forward of man and all that he's accomplishing and all that he's doing.
Good for us to be occupied with the one in whom all fullness dwells, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him. And I just thought I'd just mention this because I think this is the theme of this particular chapter.
There are two expressions found in each of the books that bear out what has been said.
Lord has blessed us with all spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ, That's in Ephesians.
But when we get to Colossians, it is Christ and you, the hope of glory. So there you have these two characteristics of what?
Christ what the church is to Christ. We are in him there and and he is in US and Colossians, but but he is to us. I believe we see also that there's just a minimal mention of the Spirit of God is there not in verse eight of our chapter.
And we noticed too an expression I don't know that we have anywhere else, and that is in chapter 3 and verse 16 where it says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom and so forth. It is the word of God, but Christ is God. But it's the way it's expressed, the word of Christ. So we see how that the Spirit of God is focusing upon him, giving him that preeminence.
Would it be the fulfillment of that verse?
In John where it says he shall not speak of himself, but he shall glorify me. And so in this particular epistle where we have the glory of Christ brought before us, but not so much the mention of the Spirit, He's doing his work. He's occupying us with Christ and all the glory that's in him as a person, and that's very precious to our souls.
Another thing that's noticeable and that is that.
He gets the the double glory. You might say we have a double headship here, a double reconciliation and a double ministry. So the Spirit of God would magnify those things as to the person of Christ.
Relative to the word of Christ dwelling in you literally, would that not suggest that which Christ has spoken from heaven? He went there as a man, and He has revealed to the apostle here in our chapter that which completes the revelation of God. And so that which He would have us, with which He would have us occupied, is that which the Lord Jesus Christ has risen.
And glorified has set down in His word as Christianity, as we haven't revealed in the Apostles ministry, is. Could we mention something else that I have enjoyed in Colossians one and two in connection with what our brother Gordon has said? And that is that it's a day when man is exalting himself and judging everything and looking at everything from his own vantage point.
00:10:21
Well, it's most blessed in the ministry of the Apostle.
To see that even with the believer, God does not begin with you and me. He begins with his beloved Son. And I've enjoyed the thought of this first chapter particularly brings before us the glories of Christ. And although you and I of necessity are included in the picture because that is part of the fullness of him, that is part of the result of his work, yet it's really.
The 2nd chapter, that is the fullness of the head with respect to the body. But the first chapter brings before us more the fullness of Christ from God's vantage point and from his purposes and councils and His beloved Son. And so when the apostle Paul, for example, preaches the gospel, when he brings it before people, he doesn't start particularly with man's need, although that is of course brought in, but.
With God's purposes in Christ, he starts with the glories of Christ, and that theme runs throughout the ministry of the apostle Paul. Well, I have enjoyed that because even as believers, there's a strong tendency, if we're not careful, to be occupied with our own blessings, with our own portion in Christ. And that's a wonderful thing. We wouldn't take away from that. But there's something even more blessed than that, and that is to see things as.
Sees them to see God's purposes and His counsels and His beloved Son, and to enjoy that first and foremost.
Would you agree with that?
It's nice to see the very first verse, the will of God is mentioned, and certainly that has to do with what we've been hearing. I noticed it's mentioned in the ninth verse as well, that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will. Isn't it wonderful, brethren, in a day when human will is so evident in our world, to be able to turn from it for a brief moment and to consider.
The eternal councils of the will of God and whether it's Ephesians or whether it's Colossians, it both has to do with what is God's thoughts, God's counsels, God's purposes of blessing His will for us. It's interesting, I noticed in the 1St chapter of Ephesians, I think the will of God is mentioned four times.
And it's only when you get down to the second chapter.
And the first verses that you get the will of the flesh.
Mentioned the desires of the flesh and the mind. Mentioned what a contrast. Oh brethren, the Lord help us to discern the times we're passing through. We do live in man's world, where man's will is so evident and if we don't watch it, we get a under the influence.
Of man's thinking. How wonderful to get back into the Scriptures. See something of the will of God and His eternal purposes of blessing.
That's so necessary because those purposes are never frustrated. Man's purposes are frustrated. He may set out on an agenda and they're trying to change the map in Europe today and on different continents through wars and summits and peace pacts and agendas and all this kind of thing. But their purposes are more often than not frustrated and they don't bring what they had planned to fruition.
But when we speak of the will of God and the counsels of God, I think it's good to get ahold of it in our souls that those purposes and those councils are never frustrated. And whether it's his eternal purposes and councils in connection with this earth, whether it's in connection with the church or.
Bring it down very practically, whether it's in connection with the everyday circumstances of life. He is on the throne. Our brother Bill read to us in Ecclesiastes this morning how there's one that's above all the arrangements of man, and he's greater than they. And I think that's very good to get ahold of. And so as we take up these things that we have in Colossians 1, to see that God is above everything. And brethren, he is working everything after the council of his own will.
00:15:16
If I could just make this very practical for a moment, maybe there's brethren here this morning and you say, well, I don't understand why God has allowed this in my life or why He has arranged this. I just don't see His purpose. Well, we need to just realize that, well, we don't perhaps always see His purpose. Now He knows the end from the beginning and He's arranging everything. If we're just willing to turn everything to commit our way under the Lord, it says commit.
The Lord trust also in Him and he shall bring it to pass, maybe not to pass in the way that we had planned, but His purpose and His way is always the best. In all my ways. Acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths. I think that's so helpful for those who are too in the world like we're living in, because so often I find young believers who.
Very sincerely desire to do the will of God, but they don't have much knowledge.
Of what the will of God is and that's why I think it brings out in our verse 9. It might be filled with the knowledge of his will because that will will stand. Nothing is going to frustrate God's purposes of blessing and if I can understand the knowledge of his will and be guided by it then.
What I do will stand forever, but there's many who have their own purposes.
Nice purposes, but they don't square with the big picture of God's will. Even though their purpose is their sincere desire, it will not stand in the end. And so we need to seek to leave our thoughts and man's ideas to one side and get God's picture.
The 10th verse to notice that in Galatians.
At the beginning.
It not only says the will of God was said, and our Father be brought into the knowledge of who he is for us. Inflation.
Read verses 3 and 4. Grace be to you, and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. It's precious. What do you think of? God is our Father and it just helps us.
To be able to go forward in the circumstances that God allows.
Realizing that he is our father.
The Saints of the Old Testament could have known and should have known, perhaps didn't know the will of God as it was revealed then. But now in the New Testament we have the added relationship and that makes it very precious and delightful for process His children.
Colossians in the.
10th verse in Mr. Darby's translation, it says that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good word, and increasing by the knowledge of God. It's increasing by the knowledge of God. In other words, the only way we can be sure that we are doing that which is pleasing to Him is when it's in accordance with His Word. It's something like Joshua because I think this answers in some measure to the Old Testament.
Joshua was the one who was leading the people of God, and when that.
Angel appeared to him, and he said, Art thou for us or our adversaries? He said Nay, but as captain of the Lords, host of mine, now come. And Joshua took off his shoes from his feet, and did reverence. And we need to know that in all our plans and all our purposes, that in all things he must have the preeminence. We may have plans. Joshua no doubt had plans in connection with the strategy they were going to.
Used to take the land. He knew that it was God's will. They should have it, but there was a captain who was going to lead in all those things, and he must acknowledge him. And brethren, that's the thing for us, and it's just what our brother has been talking about, recognizing that there is one who can direct us, who is willing to direct us. And as our brother has just said, to the knowledge of God and of the Father, because I and my father are one.
00:20:15
So God we we have God the Father and counsels the Lord Jesus.
Who carries out the counsels of God and the Spirit of God, the power by which they are carried out?
And the will of God made known to us in his Word for our direction.
And to set our own wills aside, because I think sometimes when we don't know the mind of the Lord in something in our lives, it's because our own will is at work. And in John 7, the Lord Jesus said if any man desire to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. And if I don't know the mind of the Lord, it's not a hindrance on his part, because He wants us to know what his mind and will, what his counsels and purposes are.
But the difficulty is, my own will stands in the way. But when I submit my own will to the will, to His will, then He wants to show me. That's why I quoted that verse. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he might direct thypass. No, that's not what it says. And he shall direct thy paths.
Again, the psalmist said in 100 and 43rd Psalm, teach me to do thy will. That is not just to know it, but to walk in the good of it. And as we walk in what He does reveal to us, then He gives us further light. Is that right?
It's nice to compare.
Paul's prayer verse 9 with what we have an epipress. I'll read verse 9 again for this cause. We also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
Now in the 4th chapter, verse 12, Epifras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluted you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
Beautiful to see how the the teacher and the taught were in harmony in their prayers. And we should pray more for the full growth, the full development, the full perfection of the Christian. There's so many that just stop at the beginning of the the truth of God in the gospel, wonderful as it is.
But he has his counsels. I just want to read two more verses. Connection with councils Isaiah 14. This is a particular instance here, but it it illustrates the point.
Isaiah 14.
And verse 26, this is the purpose that is purpose upon the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannow it, and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back. And again in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, beautiful verses. They just thrill your soul, as you realize that everything that happens here.
Is under his direct control.
He has just created things and then retired and let man run it. It's not the way it is. God is over everything. And verse 13 who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord?
Or being his counselor hath taught him. What a question do we teach God, or does He teach us?
With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding. And notice the next verse. Behold the nations man with all his pride.
With all his self exaltation, with all of his promotion of himself and his.
Intellect and his achievements. Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Some of us have been in physics labs and you have the balance scale and they always wipe off the the platen there, but the small dust of the balance is so insignificant and weightless.
00:25:25
That it really wouldn't make much difference in the reading.
And that's what he compares this to. They're counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the aisles as a very little thing, and Lebanon is not sufficient to burn.
Nor the beast thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing. And vanity, emptiness.
When we think of the greatness of God, that's what this chapter brings out, doesn't it? The greatness of God. He purposes, He wills, and He will do it in His time. The will of man cannot frustrate or set aside the will of God. Never.
It might be helpful to just back up in that chapter for a moment connection with what you say, something I've enjoyed here. If you just noticed in the 40th of Isaiah and verse 4, it says every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places playing, And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord have spoken it well. This looks.
Not to a future day when he takes control.
His man thinks he's in control today and the Lord is behind the scenes, but he doesn't outwardly have his rightful place yet and things are not going to be straightened out in this world. All the NATO and the allied forces and the superpowers think they're doing to bring about peace and arrange things on the global stage. It's not going to happen until the Lord comes and every valley is going to be exalted and every mountain made low and the crooked are going to be made straight and the rough places playing.
But I just want to bring this down to our to us today because was mentioned earlier that sometimes we don't see the fruition of all of God's purposes in our lives right away. But I've enjoyed this little expression. The crooked shall be made straight and the rough place is playing.
All flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Because again, there might be someone here and you say life is just a tangle of circumstances. It's so crooked and mixed up, I just can't make any sense of it. I don't see how the Lord is arranging things in my life. But isn't it nice to look on because I believe we probably won't see the fruition of all God's purposes in our lives down here? There's many things rather than perhaps you're going to have to wait for until we get to the judgment.
Christ. And then isn't it wonderful to think that that seemingly tangle of circumstances is all going to be shown from His perspective? I sometimes use this little illustration. Sometimes when my wife is with me, she keeps a little handiwork to do while we travel and visit. And I don't know anything about handiwork, but I do know that some types of handiwork, if you look at the back of the canvas, it just seems like a tangle of threads and maybe you can't even discern what the picture.
Pattern is from the back of the canvas, you say. How can these threads all have a purpose? But when the work is done and you turn the canvas over, then you see that all of those seemingly tangled threads had a purpose to make up that pattern, and you see it all in its completion. You say, oh, I understand what those threads meant now, what they were for.
Brethren, we look at the backside of the canvas now. It might just seem like a tangle of circumstances, but brethren, there's a day when we're going to see it from His perspective. We're going to see it from the other side of the canvas, and we're just going to praise Him for all His ways and purposes and all the way He walled those circumstances together. It takes faith to count on that now, but I believe it gives us real piece of soul if we can just realize that the crooked will be.
Straight and the rough place is playing. I'd just like to read three more verses right following where you left off. Verse 6 of Isaiah 40. The voice said cry, and he said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord blows upon it.
00:30:10
Surely.
The people is grass, the grass withereth the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. And I was thinking of a verse in Job verse 34. I'm going to read it as it reads, I think in the new translation if verse 14.
Job 34 If he only thought of himself.
And gathered unto himself.
His spirit and his breath. All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn unto dust. If God was like we are thinking only of ourselves so often.
We don't perish, but He is the one that is the upholder, the sustainer of the Creator of all things. But and just one more verse in Isaiah, and then I'll be quiet. Isaiah 2. To me, these are thrilling verses as we consider God's will and God's glory.
Verse 17 of Isaiah 2. And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
Verse 22 See she from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of, as we are in this first chapter of Colossians, where God is everything, Christ is everything, and man is nothing. And how good to have that perspective in a day when man has set God aside and is exalting himself. The Tower of Babel all over again.
I wonder, brethren, if before we.
Go from this thought of will that God's will that we've been considering if we could look.
I had a couple verses. What I have on my heart is that we have received very stirring and very important in the street this morning to help us to remember and be reminded that God's will is going to stand. The scene that we're in is a passing scene. Everything about it is a passing scene.
But no doubt there are a brethren here of all ages who have had this question and frequently asked this question. How do I know for sure what God's will is for me? And I want to read because I believe His will is going to stand. I want to know what His will is. I want to follow His will.
Just a little word on that. Let's look at 2:00. Well known verses, but look in Psalms 119 and the second.
Verse Psalms 119.
And verse 2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek Him with the whole heart. Now in Proverbs 23.
Proverbs 23.
Verse 26 My son, give me thine heart. What I just want to suggest in a little simple thought is that God's will will be done. If we're going to be blessed, we want to be walking in and according to His perfect will. How do I know what that will is? This is the answer.
To daily be finding my acquaintance with him.
Giving my heart to him.
In full and free happy liberty to be spending time. I think it was Mr. Darby that said something like if someone had asked him that and he said if a child habitually neglected the presence of his father.
If he habitually neglected, think of that, brethren, is that so with me, that there are those days in my life that I don't find time to be in the presence of my father, to give him my heart? And then I wonder what is his will for me today? What should I be doing today? I have serious decisions, young people. You have decisions about your careers, about a life's companion. Those who are older have decisions about raising families. Those who are even older have to have other.
Every stage of our life we have decisions. What's the Father's will? What's God's will for us? His will is going to be done. Brother. We can go into the presence of the one who is the fullness and know Him as our friend, as our Savior and, and know and give our heart to him. And that's the way I submit before we leave this thought that we've heard about the will, I submit that all that we might give our hearts to him fully.
00:35:30
And then we're going to have that will, that sense, not always the Bible verse, though the word of God is so critical, but we'll have that sense, won't we, as we walk daily in our life of what his thoughts, what his will for our lives are. I think, Bob, you said earlier that we might have that will fulfilled in our life.
Beautiful thought, but I can't do it if I'm a stranger to him daily, can I? I can't expect that though he's going to work his counsels and purposes of blessing. I can't expect perhaps that knowledge, that joy, that peace and certainty, if I'm not daily in His presence, giving him my heart. Mr. Agee's rule, asked Mr. Darby one time. How can I know of a will of the Father? He says I never forgot.
Never forget his answer, he said.
The secret of the Lord is with them that fear the secret of the Lord.
Well, that's getting that's being in his presence isn't being in communion with him.
Secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and going on with him.
The rest of that first two plans, the 25th of Psalms.
Claim is quoting and I was thinking of the same verse.
2514 Once man is giving us the secret of the Lord is with them that fears the rest of us says that he will show them his covenant, his covenant, he shall make them know it, says the margin.
What's referred to in the 119th Psalm is to be fulfilled.
In the day when God writes the covenant on the restored Israel tribes, they don't teach every man saying know the Lord, for all of them shall know it. God's going to make them know. The 119th Psalm is God writing the Word on the heart and in the minds of those in that millennial day.
Wonderful to think of an Old Testament St.
Who is?
Read out he was the friend of God. Well, it's a wonderful thing to have to have God as our friend. Oh how sweet that is. How many lovely hymns have been written.
I found a friend, oh such a friend. So he loved me here. I knew him, but for God to have.
One as his friend. Oh, that's and that was Abraham, a friend of God. And in that wonderful chapter where he finds Abraham sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day, and Abraham looks up and there's three men out there.
And he recognizes one of them as the Lord.
The other two are angels. Well, then, Abrahams. He serves them a very.
Patient very wonderful meal and.
Then the two angels, they go on their way to the work. They're going on their way to Sodom.
And what a song. What a song trip that was. But.
Abraham he the Lord seems to stay. He wanted to talk to Abraham. He wanted to he wanted to have a conversation with him and Abraham as they walked together way. God says hell, I withhold from Abraham the thing that I shall do. A friend will tell you things that he he won't tell anybody else.
He'll tell you, he'll talk to you about things that perhaps they don't concern you particularly, but he just likes to.
He just likes to talk to you and tell you about things, things that he is interested in. Friend. Well, the Lord Jesus is in John. He tells us that he says I have called you friends.
He's called a serve, He'd call him servants, but I said I'd call you friends. So how wonderful it is to have a friend and he'll tell us. And so the secret of the Lord is with them to fear him. And so he goes on. He speaks about.
00:40:07
He speaks about here that mine eyes are ever towards the Lord.
Well, that's that's one. That's one thing that every one of us, even even and the youngest believer can ever have the Lord.
See please the Lord and and to ever have the Lord before him.
And I believe that the Lord will tell us things, that He will speak to us and tell us things, and He'll help us along through our pathway and He make Himself precious to us, A friend. I'd like to read a couple verses in connection with the will of God as well, because I think it's so important, especially for young who are taking direction and light.
It's in Romans chapter 12, the 1St 2 verses.
We want to get back to Colossians, but just a brief moment here, brother.
Paul says, I beseech you therefore, brethren.
Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.
By the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that he may prove what is that good.
And acceptable and perfect.
Will of God.
We've been talking about living in the world where man's will is increasingly evident and directly opposing many times the direct will of God. But how important it is, Young people, if you want to get a picture of God's will is first of all to realize that He has.
All claims over us and it's a willing rendition.
Of our bodies in a living sacrifice to God. So often, as Jim brought out, our wills are in the picture. Our hearts are deceitful above all things, and we can actually persuade ourselves that we want God, when really underneath it might be our own will that we want to do. And we say we want to know the will of God, but we only want to know it if it's convenient for us, if we think it's convenient for us to do.
Let's not trust our own hearts in this matter. But in verse 2 is what I wanted to draw attention to be not conformed to this world. This world is a sphere where man exalts himself.
And we need to do what is mentioned here, the renewing of your mind. And it's a continual thing as we pass through this world, we are affected by young people.
And you get a hold of human wisdom in your thinking, and you need to renew your minds. You need to challenge our ways of thinking. Think of the apostles who were with the Lord Jesus and heard him announce so often that he was going to be crucified and rejected and killed and rise again the third day. They could not get a hold of that in.
Why couldn't they get a hold of that in their minds? Why did they never understand what he said is because they had another frame of thinking, their frame of thinking that he was come to establish his Kingdom right here and now. And so when he was rejected and killed, they were totally devastated. They.
Weren't thinking according to God's thoughts, and that's so often happens in our lives.
Our thinking is faulty and so we need to have our minds continually renew. So often I've been thankful for older brethren who have challenged me as to my own thinking. It wasn't right, it just was. Maybe not what you would call directly wrong, but it was not the thinking that God has in His Word and I needed my mind.
Renewed.
And then notice what it says at the end of that verse 2 That he may prove It doesn't say that he may know.
00:45:06
That you may prove it is when we do this young people that we've proved in ourselves in practical reality and obedience to his word. We may not understand it all at a moments notice, but it's as we walk in this way that we are LED in a direction and we.
Prove that God's will is.
Not only good, not only acceptable, but actually is perfect.
How wonderful to come to them. Question. You talk about walking, talking with the Lord and fellowship with him, walking close to Him. How many hours of the day should this be done, and can it be done unconsciously?
How important is it to be conscious?
Of this and how much of the time that we're doing this do we need to maintain this consciousness, this purposeful consciousness that I want to do this? That's a very important question.
In connection with what our brother was saying too, I think there is the two sides and I just like to notice the 139 some which seems to bring the two together. That is knowing the Lord knows all about us.
But being willing to let him search our hearts. Psalm 139 just like to read the.
First 3 verses and then the last couple in that chapter. O Lord, thou has searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising. Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compasses my path, my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
And the last two verses search me, O God, and O my heart, try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Been talking a lot about how the Lord knows all about us and that's a very very important thing for us to realize that He has a positive will for our pathway marked out in His Word and also discerned in communion with Him.
But sometimes when there's a hindrance on our part and we don't realize that hindrance, and I believe that's what the psalmist is expressing in this last two verses of this 139 Psalm. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Sometimes there are thoughts and motives and things in our hearts that we're not aware of, brethren.
Only as we get into the light of his presence are those manifested. And we wonder why we don't discern the will of God. But there's something working in us that isn't right, something that we need to judge. And I believe this is a private prayer. It isn't something that we make public, so to speak. But each one of us can get before the Lord individually and say, Lord, why is it that I don't discern thy will in this matter? And maybe there's something in my heart that's a hindrance, a certain amount of my will that I.
I'm not aware of. And if we do that, is the Lord willing to show us? Oh indeed He's most willing. What does he desire? He desires to have our company. He said to Abraham, looked before me and beat all perfect. He wants, as our brother was saying, he wants to count us as his friends.
That we might know him and that enter into that that he can make known his mind to us. There's some people you're afraid to make known your mind because they wouldn't understand. But if there's a person that you can freely talk to that's a real friend. It is a wonderful. There's those two sides that there's the will of God made known in his word that God is willing to reveal. But very often there's this hindrance in ourselves and this brethren, we need to watch.
Not that we make a big public thing out of it, but get quietly into the presence of the Lord.
And search what, what is the matter? What's what? Is there something? David wanted to build a house for the Lord. That was a good desire that he had, but he also had to get before the Lord and see that it wasn't God's will that he should build that house. Someone else was to do it, not him. Though that must have been kind of humbling for him because he really didn't want, did the Lord want a house built? Yes, but he wasn't the one to do it. Isn't that beautiful to see? And so there's always the two sides, aren't there?
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To the truth is that which reveals to us the mind and will of God through his word, which we learned in communion, but also that we learn what we are in ourselves. In me that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. How we need to learn that and what we do learn that then there's an inlet God can show us when we haven't got a will of our own and truly seek his will only well takes a lot of grace, but the Lord is able and He's willing.
We had that one thought touched on in the 25th song, or rather we didn't say too much about it, but I believe where it comes, verse 9, it says the equally guide and wisdom and the meek will he show his way. I believe that that's in keeping with Colossians because there was.
A a philosophic type pride that must have been coming in amongst them.
And that was anything but meekness. And I believe this is what will characterize the godly remnant in a coming day. They will be looked upon as the meek. There's such arrogance in all in connection with man's pride and what's going on even today. But.
He'll reveal His mind and His will to those godly ones, and we certainly ought to learn a lesson for ourselves that if they're fried there, it's going to stand in his way of making known his will to us.
In answer to the question that was put to us, I think of the verse where Paul says I exercise myself to have a conscience void of offense towards God and man. And that was every day, wasn't it?
I was thinking too Brother Chuck of a portion in the 73rd Psalm make this very practical, particularly for those who are younger.
Again, in connection with the question that was raised, and let me just say before I read this that I believe 1 hindrance in not understanding the will of God in our lives is neglect of His Word. Because young people will never know the mind of the Lord for us in any step of our lives if we're neglecting daily, orderly, consistent reading of the Word of God.
David said in the 27th Psalm, Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path. And I trust that's the desire and prayer of each of our hearts. But when you come over to the 119th Psalm, he says by word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. In other words, the psalmist recognized that if he was going to be LED in that plain path that he desired, he was going to have to find that path marked out in the Word of God.
And it's not just from sporadic reading of the Word of God. It's from orderly, daily, consistent reading. I believe that's how God the Lord directs our footsteps. You're reading in your regular portion, and the Spirit of God takes that portion and answers the question or gives you guidance and direction for just that step that you needed.
And let me say this to it also says in the Psalms that will guide me with thine eye and that leads up to what I want to read here in this 73rd Psalm because I suggest to not to take away from what I have just said. They're infallible guidelines in the word to guide them in every step of our pathway and it will do it until the Lord takes us home. But I also suggest that there are some steps in our Christian pathway that are only discerned in the relationship to.
Nearness to the Lord Jesus and that's why he says I will guide thee with mine eye. I've illustrated this way. If my children were here with me this morning and one of my children is sitting three seats away and they're doing something that I don't want them to do, I don't have to speak to them. I can look at them and as long as they're looking at my face, I can speak with my eyes. And they get the message from the expression of my eyes of what I am trying to.
Tell them, but they're not going to get that unless they're looking right at my face. And rather we need to be looking at the face of the Lord Jesus, who's seated on the right hand of God. And if we're walking in the conscious sense of His presence, then he can direct us in steps as the right time comes.
Just notice this 23rd verse of the 73rd Psalm. Nevertheless, I am continually with Thee. Thou hast hold in me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. And so the psalmist says I'm conscious of him holding me by his right hand. By my right hand. And if someone is holding you, someone takes your hand. I might be out with one of my girls.
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And they might be somewhat conscious of my presence, but if we come to a rough spot and I reach out and I take their hand so they don't stumble or fall, then they're more conscious of my presence with them. Are we conscious of our hand in his as we go through the path of faith and service? And he says as a result.
Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel. That's this book we hold in our hands. It's all here, everything to answer every question in our lives, personally, in the family, in the assembly. This book is the present truth that's relevant to what is happening and what we are facing in 1999. And I say it will do the same until the Lord takes us home. And so he says, Oh, guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
He said I'll have a direction for the whole pathway if I'm walking in the conscious sense of the Lord's presence and listening to his counsel. Well, these things are very practical. They're very instructive. Christianity is a very practical thing. It's a step by step going on in the conscious sense of the presence of the Lord from day-to-day in John 829.
The Lord said the Father hath not left me alone.
For I do always those things that please him. And then John, who wrote those words, also wrote these words. He that saith, He abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. First, John 2. If we were in the conscious sense. Now listen to this, if we were in the conscious sense of the Lord's presence.
Every moment of every day.
There are many things that we do do that we wouldn't do.
And there are many things that we don't do that we would do now. Think about that.
Brother Gordon, would you tell us what is it? Autumn meat?
Well, I've often thought a lowly person is a person who takes the low place. A big person is a person who doesn't resent it when he's put in the low place.
Good. And I think, Chuck, here's the thinking about a child.
The Lord and all his pathway down here He walked as in the presence of his father. As he walked every step of the way, we always in the presence of his father. Every word that he spoke, everything that he did was always there as the one who did it in the presence of his father.
And bringing all of this into our chapter.
We read the first perhaps 8 or 10 verses of our chapter in Colossians here, and don't we see a picture that each one of us would covet? Don't we see an A laying out of things, a way of doing things that we say? My, I would love to have that. I would love to be rejoicing in the hope that is set before us. I would love to have that knowledge of the Lord's will and all the wisdom.
Spiritual understanding. I would love to be able to walk worthy of the Lord and all pleasing. Surely we would all say that, wouldn't we? But then what does God set before us? Oh, He sets before us His thoughts concerning his beloved son. Brother Jim has been laying emphasis on the word of God and we need that, we surely do. But as someone has said in our good written ministry, it spoke very much to my own heart. He.
We need more than right principles. We need God, we need the Lord Himself. And so I've enjoyed it here that on the one hand, in verse 13, the apostle draws our attention to the Lord Jesus Christ. But how is he referred to?
Half translated us into the Kingdom of his dear son, or the Son of his love, as J&D puts it in his translation.
That is, there's the affection drawn out.
To our love for Christ, no, to His love for us, Wonderful although that is God says. But there's something even more blessed than that. My love for my beloved Son. And when we gaze on that, when we see that, it lifts us right above everything that has to do with ourselves. And then going on. We didn't read the first 3 verses of the 2nd chapter, but properly they connect with the first chapter.
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And we notice and I enjoyed brother Chuck's laying emphasis on this at the end of verse 2. It says in the acknowledgment of the mystery of God. And really the last phrase should be left out and of the Father and of Christ. You'll notice that isn't in a better translation. It could read to the acknowledgement of the misery of God in not in whom, but in which.
Are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?
God would draw out your affections in mind and at the same time remind us that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in the acknowledgement of that mystery of God that is in all the purposes that He has concerning His beloved Son. Well, I don't know whether Brother Tom, that ties in with what you were saying or Brother Tom Kieber's question, but I've enjoyed it for my own soul that on the one hand, the heart is drawn out and on the other hand.
And the mind is properly kept in the right place by the acknowledgement of the mystery of God. And then what happens? All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are opened up unto us.
The will of God is not a hard thing to the heart that's engaged and has its object sometimes said to the young people, there's really only one way to be a true disciple, a true follower of the Lord Jesus, and that's to have a heart where there's only one object in it. Because I believe where our hearts are, then our feet will fall. And that's why the Lord Jesus in the upper room said to the disciples, If you love me, keep my commandments. He said, My commandments are not grievous.
The will of God is not a grievous or difficult thing when the heart is engaged. And I didn't read it. I perhaps should have read on in that 73rd Psalm, because in the very next verse it says Whom have I or it says.
Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire.
Beside me, that's was the heart going out there was a person. He saw his counsel and will. He sought to live in the presence of this one. And what was the result? Oh, there's none upon earth that I desire beside thee. His heart went out to the Lord. Well, in the measure in which we walk in the presence of this one, won't our hearts go out to Him, so that our feet will follow in His counsel?
Colossians 1
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Collections one, not the third verse. I would just like to take the liberty to read one verse from chapter 3.
Defeating the reading of our chapter and it's the third verse that was brought before us into him that we sang. Maybe we'll maybe there will be some connection between this verse and our chapter Blossoms 3 and verse 3. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ and God.
Chapter 1 and verse three we give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the law which you have to all the Saints, for the whole which is laid up for you in heaven.
Where have you heard before? And the Word is the truth of the gospel, which has come unto you as it is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit as it does also in you, since the day you heard that, and knew the grace of God and truth, as you also learned of Epicrass, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ.
Who also declared unto us your love in the spirit.
For this 'cause we also sense the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will, and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being, fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Strengthened with Almighty, according to His glorious power, unto all patience, and long-suffering with joyfulness.
Giving thanks unto the Father, which have made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in life, who have delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.
Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature?
Or by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist, and He is the head of the body of the Church.
Who is the beginning, the first born from the dead?
That in all things He might have the preeminence for it please the Father, that in Him should all wholeness dwell, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself. By Him. I say, What do they be? Things in earth, or things in heaven, and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by?
Yet now hath He reconciled the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable, and unruh provable in his sight. If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven.
Whereof I fall, and made a minister, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you.
Fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh.
For his body's sake, which is the Church.
Whereof I am made of minister, according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill the word of God. Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generation, but now is made manifest to His Saints, to whom God would make known. What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among?
The Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man, and all wisdom, that we may present to every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Where unto I also labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
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Perhaps we could say there's a connection here with what we have in connection with the children of Israel.
They were sheltered under the blood in Egypt, they were brought through the Red Sea, they were brought through the wilderness, they had crossed the Jordan, and now the time was come to possess that good land which God had given to them, and their Lord appeared to Joshua.
As the captain of the Lord's captain of the Lord's host, who was going to bring them into the enjoyment of that possession that have been given?
Only our possession is not an earthly Canaan, but as we have here in this fifth verse, the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, where have you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel? So we see ourselves in this epistle as having gone through the wilderness. We've come, as it were, through the Jordan, and now it's a question of the possession of the land.
And enjoying the portion that is really ours.
We're not seeing as yet in the possession of it, but recognizing the headship of Christ. And as we recognize that, then we come into the enjoyment of all that for the Lord, as the captain of the host LED them into the enjoyment of that good land that God had given to them.
And so Paul was giving thanks for the place that these dear Colossian believers were in, and desiring that they might lay hold of this.
Well, it's a blessed thing when we lay hold of what our portion really is, see where grace has brought us, and live in this world as those who really belong to heaven. So is there a difference then between our position as seen in Colossians and that in Ephesians? Maybe you could enlarge a bit on that forest.
Yes, in Ephesians, where seed is already seated in heavenlies in Christ. So we know as time went on, Israel were brought into the possession of the land of Canaan, but there was a continual conflict, for the enemy didn't want them to enjoy that land that had been given. Here they're seen as not yet in possession of it, but the hope is laid up for us in heaven.
In Ephesians were seen as already.
Seated in the heavenlies in Christ. So there's that difference. So there is the necessity of acknowledging the Lord as the, shall I say, the captain, the one in whom all fullness dwells. See the glory of that blessed person that is particularly brought before us in Colossians. And so there's the practical side of it too, is wrecking ourselves dead and all these.
Truths so that we might be in the enjoyment.
Of this, but there is the need of entering into and enjoying these things.
But were looked upon, as I say, is not yet entered into heavenly places, for we're not yet in heaven, but we're in this world in a wonderful standing. Perhaps I could just mention in connection with what you said, the blessings that are ours mentioned in the 12Th verse, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light.
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, Who hath translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 4 Things that we have and that we can enjoy even here and now.
But we always need to be careful that we're giving the Lord Jesus.
His rightful place and all the glory of His person, and that which belongs to Him as Head of the Body, the Church.
Though there is a difference in point of view of the two epistles, there is no difference in the sphere of our blessing. We are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies as we know there in Ephesians chapter 1, and here the inheritance is reserved for us, and we are made suitable for subjects to be partakers of the Saints and late. So it's very important for us that they hold of the fact that our blessings are heavenly.
And that we are a heavenly company. Though we are viewed here as still on our way to the ultimate fruition of what God has provided, it's still very true. Ye are not of the world. Go in it. Even as I am not of the world, and as the Father has sent me into the world, Even so have I sent you. So here we are, in the very place that we have been sent, in the same nature and character that our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Percent from the Father, and we are ambassadors to Christ, beseeching men in his bed to be reconciled into God. But the sphere of that blessing is entirely in heaven and not down here.
Perhaps I could just say too, that the question has seen in three different possessions. He is seen in this world that is in the land of Egypt. That's where the children of Israel were in slavery, But children from judgment by the blood. And every Christian, every true Christian can say, yes, I'm still here in this world. A world is under judgment. I'm sheltered from the judgment that's coming under the precious blood.
Of Christ, and that was the position of Israel in the land of Egypt.
We are in that sense, in that position in this world still. But what does this world become? This world has become a wilderness. So the second position that we're looked at is being here in this world that is now a wilderness. Not a great system of things like Egypt, but a wilderness where there's nothing that satisfies the desires of the new man. Our provision, everything that we need came daily. The manna fell. The water came from the smitten rock.
The Lord provided for them as each new need arose. That was a wilderness, and many of us feel we're still in the wilderness. We're viewed in these three positions, shall I say. It isn't that we leave one that or another, but we're viewed as in those three positions. And there are different exhortations given where to remember that this is a present evil world. But then we also find it a wilderness where there's many trials.
And are the two lessons of the wilderness were.
That they should learn their own hearts and that they should learn the heart of God. That they would humble themselves as they learn what they were, but they would be thankful that every time they felt a special need, then God came in and met that need. But then when they crossed the Jordan, now they come into the good land. And that is another, the third position we're seeing in only in Colossians. They're not yet in possession of it.
Their steed as being important to recognize that there is a captain of our salvation leading us into these things.
And if we don't recognize him, we'll never enjoy the precious things of Ephesians unless we give the Lord Jesus His rightful place. He is the captain of our salvation. As we give him that place, then He leads us into the enjoyment of our heavenly portion. Don't know whether those thoughts help us to understand the way the Scripture brings before us the believers position in this world.
This world has become a wilderness.
But also in our souls we can enjoy heavenly things, and if we give the Lord His rightful place, He leads us into the enjoyment of these heavenly things.
Across the Jordan.
Seek those things which are above and with Canaan before us. That's our own spiritual heritage.
But I like the way the last part of that verse goes. It says where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. And it is a comfort to realize that in this new position across the Jordan now with heaven before our souls, that there is one who is there, as supreme as Joshua when he went across the Jordan with the children of Israel.
Met the man with the.
Drawn sword and said, Art thou for us or for our adversaries? And he said, nay, but as captain of the Lord's host, am I now come? In other words, there is one who is supreme in his authority. As you mentioned, there's conflict in this new place to going on and enjoying the position that is ours but to realize, brethren.
Not on our own strength that we can take yet, but there is one there when supreme authority, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in chapter 1 and verse 13, you have that thought too. We've been delivered from the power of darkness. All Egypt's darkness is behind, is gone, and we've been translated. We occupy now a new position. Where is that?
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In the Kingdom of his dear Son, it's a place where we recognize the authority of the Lord Jesus. Now He is so important to realize we've been set free, but not free to do our own thing, our own will.
Free to recognize that in this place there is one who is supreme in his authority, and that is real liberty, brethren, to be brought into that position.
The children of Israel learned the practical truth of that very quickly, because when they went up to take Jericho, they went up in the strength of the Lord, recognizing that there was this one going before that was going to fight for them. There was complete dependence, and what a great victory there was at Jericho. Didn't even have to raise a sword. And the walls came tumbling down.
But then they lost sight of that and they said, well, AI, the next city, that's just a little city and.
We'll go up. We won't even send all our men. And they went up. By their own scheme and devices, they were soundly defeated because God was teaching them that apart from them recognizing the authority of this one who was going ahead to fight for them, they couldn't possess the land. And isn't it interesting that the real conflict for Israel never started until they crossed the Jordan? They had a few little skirmishes in the wilderness, they met with Amalek and so on. But the real conflict?
After they crossed the Jordan. And I believe in the measure in which you and I seek by grace to possess the land, as it were, to enter into the enjoyment of all that is ours in Christ, that vast panorama of heavenly blessings. And as we seek to walk by grace in the practical good of it, the enemy is going to be right there to seek to rob us of the enjoyment of it. The enemy does not want us to walk in this world as a heavenly.
The enemy does not want us to enjoy that which is our portion to enjoy now. And so there will be there was that conflict with Israel and there will be that conflict, but greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. The man was the captain of the Lords Host and he's the captain of our salvation, bringing many sons to glory.
Then the practice and the practical side of it, it's very important because we know that many, many dear Christians know that heaven is their home, know that all these blessings are theirs. But man has made so much of. I remember a remark of our brother. Chapter Brown, christened Amica has become a vast arena where men strive for honors for themselves and always see a great deal of that in Christendom.
Christian men seek honors for themselves, but brethren, if you and I are going to lay hold of the truth of God.
We must give all the honor to the Lord Jesus, even though God may use man to use Joshua's wonderful leader, but he had to take off his shoes from his feet and say I'm not the grill captain. The real captain is the Lord himself. And if we're going to do anything for the Lord.
I remember 1 Time 1 brother said they went out preaching on the street and the Lord seemed to give them real liberty and when they came home he said let's get down on our knees and recognize that there's going to be any blessing. It's not what we have done, it's what the Lord is going to do. And unless we realize that, there's not going to be anything accomplished even in our meetings unless we acknowledge the glory and the lordship of Christ.
He that in all things he might have the preeminence.
For those that are a bit younger than some of us, here is a test in which you can put everything that you hear or read, and that is, which man does it exalt? If it exhausts the first man, it must be rejected. If it exhausts the Lord Jesus Christ, it must be embraced.
So put the test of what you hear here, what you read, what you are exposed to in the world. Which man does it exalt?
So many times, Brother Yule. It's a mixture, isn't it?
There's the exaltation of Christ and there's the mixing of the will of man and the system of men and that's what makes it so difficult. If it was just clearly this and or clearly that be easy to see the distinction and what's of God in this thing. I've heard it said amongst us and a shame on us that there's nothing of God in the system that's wrong, absolutely wrong. There's a lot of that's of God in those men that are preaching in the.
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But the whole, the whole thing is wrong in principle, the the system is wrong. But those that preach in there, some of them are servants of God and they're preaching according to the light that they have, but at the same time they're upholding the system that they are a part of. It's sad to hear that when they do that.
Of what they they do do it and but I'm thinking more of ourselves this afternoon. What is the remedy?
To what is the remedy for the pathetically poor attendance at our meetings?
We tend to think of others and talk about others so, so often. What is the remedy? I'll come to a meeting Lords Day morning and the room is almost full.
And you come Lord's Day evening, it's not a work day and one third, one fourth are present. And this is this is this, you know, that grieves my heart. I'm sure anyone that travels and visits the Saints when he sees that he feels that it grieves his what does it do to his heart? What does the Lord, how does the Lord feel about this?
When we can stay home, we can. Sunday night, instead of coming to meeting, there's a meeting.
Oh, it's just the gospel meeting. So that's not Oh yes it is. Well, let's go and let's go to Walmart instead.
And these are things that happen. And it just shows you how cold we, we, I just sometimes I wonder, I don't like to come across as as condemning things, but what can we do to to reach our consciences and our hearts to to make us realize our presence?
There, when there's a meeting that the Assembly has announced as a meeting, our presence there is not an optional thing. We, we, we don't ask. Our children are going to meeting tonight. That's where we go. And the meeting is there unless there's some great sickness or something. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about when we're perfectly able to be there.
There are those that have sicknesses where it's very, very difficult not talking about that.
Talking about when there's good health and yet you're not at meeting when there's a meeting.
I don't know what more to say. I'd like to hear some thoughts on it because it's it it, it grieves me. We often speak sort of condemningly about those in system and that the system is wrong. But.
What about ourselves?
My reading in Jeremiah the Heart Problem.
That's right, Chick. Clem, It's, it's really a heart problem like what we had today. The treasurer is there. Will your heart be also? Excuse me, Clam.
Nehemiah, he had problems, and what a zeal that man had. But when he got there, he found he had problems. And what did he do? They prayed. He got down and prayed, prayed.
I think this is a word to those of us who are parents of children and young people, and I appreciate our brother Chuck bringing it up because it burdens my own heart. And I'm thankful as I look back on my life growing up in a Christian home and in the Assembly. I'm thankful for parents who planned our lives around the assembly, and I don't ever remember sitting at the dinner table on a Tuesday or a Thursday evening.
And a question being raised if we were going to go to the assembly meeting or not.
I don't remember on a Lord's Day evening a question raised at the dinner table as to whether we were going to the gospel meeting. Now, perhaps there were times through some circumstance that we couldn't be there, but looking back, though, I didn't always appreciate it as a child and a young person.
I am thankful that I understood very clearly what was important to my parents and parents, our children and young people are watching us. They know what's important to us, and they also know if this is something that we're carrying out just as a routine or because we feel obligated or whether it's something that really delights our hearts. As again, as I look back, I'm thankful to realize that it wasn't just a form in our lives.
00:25:01
Growing up, just, that wasn't just something my parents felt they had to do, but they really wanted to go to the prayer meeting, they really wanted to be at the Reading meeting. They really wanted to go and hear the Gospel Lords Day evening. And not only so, but their desire was to take their, their children and brethren. We cannot expect our children and young people to place any more value on the assembly meetings.
Or the gospel meeting, or whatever it may be, whatever function the assembly has called us together for.
That we cannot expect them to place more value on it than we ourselves have placed on it. And let me just say this again, that I believe it is so important and especially in this day in which we live, where there's every kind of thought and activity and.
We're on a roller coaster pace of society. It is vital to plan our lives around the assembly, and I fear that the tendency of our hearts today is to plan our lives and try to work in the assembly. Brett, brethren, that's not going to work. The enemy doesn't want us there in the presence of the Lord. He doesn't want us there to hear the gospel. Lord's evening, and he's going to bring in everything.
To distract and take us away. But if we have exercise, of course it's a matter of the heart, as our brother Buchanan has said.
I understand if we are exercised to plan our lives around the assembly and we it's a joy to us as parents, then I believe the Lord and it's only the Lord of course. But then the Lord can take that and use it to exercise our children and young people so that if the Lord leaves us here, then they will hopefully have that same exercise and joy before the Lord.
A brother said to me in Denver one time.
Back in the 20s during the Depression, the attendance was pretty good at the prayer meeting. You know, Deuteronomy 32. We ought to think about it.
And verse 46 And Moses said unto them, Set your hearts.
We have that before us in the last meeting and here is a very.
Wholesome exhortation set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which He shall command your children to observe, to do all the words of this law, for it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life.
And through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, whether you go over Jordan.
To possess it, I believe we really need to be exercised about that. I know that the Saints in Africa don't seem to have too much trouble sitting for two hours in a meeting every day, every maybe through the day and through the evening, and maybe they have to sit on rocks. And this is true in Bolivian and South America, too. I know so, brother, And I'm afraid we're just taking up so much with things. We really need to be exerc.
Our brother Hendrick was just mentioning the two meetings that I've enjoyed, the similarity between the remembrance of the Lord and the gospel meeting. What are we doing in the remembrance of the Lord? We're occupied with the glory of Christ and what He has accomplished, and we're telling God, if I might say in worship, how we value His beloved Son and that glorious work that He accomplished. Isn't there a great similarity between that and the gospel meeting? What are we doing in the gospel?
Meeting we're telling sinners the same message we're telling about the glory of the person of Christ. We're setting forth the glorious work that he accomplished for our eternal salvation and for their blessing. And it's the theme is in that sense is the same. It's the glory of the person of Christ, the work that he has accomplished on Lord's Day morning. Well, aren't we interested in others knowing about this wonderful story of God's grace and love.
Well, that's what we're doing in the evening. We're telling the same thing and we're telling the sinners, but in the morning we were telling to God in Thanksgiving and praise. It seems to me, Brother Gordon, on that point.
That the evangelist.
Have the most gift of praise in the worship means because they're used to talking about the same person is talking to somebody else.
Have you noticed that?
No, that's very nice.
I think we have to realize too, brethren, we live in a humanistic society and it has had its effect on us. I think it is good for us, healthy for us to recognize that, confess it to the Lord that we are affected by the society we're passing through. It's too bad to say, but it is true, and we need to get our eyes open, not so much to what we are.
00:30:27
But as to who he is?
That's what we have in this chapter. I often think of those two that were on their way to amass and I would guess it was late in the day when they got to Emmaus and they went in and they sat down to have a meal and as soon as their eyes were opened as to who he was.
There was no question in their minds as to where they belonged, and it was the same.
Hour the night they got up and they walked all the way back into Jerusalem what happened what made the difference? What gave them such energy they got their eyes opened as to who he was and to me that's the secret rather I I must say I've been challenged by some of our Bolivian brands. Maybe I've told this story before but.
In southern Bolivia one time we were at a breaking of bread meeting and a sister.
Sitting across the way, we were waiting for the time to come to start breaking, the breaking of bread meeting and brother beside me said. You see that sister across there? She's an older sister, probably 7075.
Said yeah, and he says she walked 19 kilometers to be here at the breaking of bread. And one of the things she's completely deaf, she won't hear a thing today.
That she's here looking at that sister was a real blessing to my soul. Why did she come? What was the purpose? Couldn't she just stayed home and enjoyed the Lord? Brethren, we need to get our eyes open as to who He is and that's what we have in this chapter.
Oh, what a glorious person.
Lord deliver us from humanism, being occupied with ourselves, they say. It runs through our society. We meet up with it all the time.
Give it to yourself, do what you like. It's runs through the whole warp and whoop of our society and we're affected by it. Lord help us to get our eyes off ourselves and to get them on to who he is.
And I wonder, Brother Bob, if that isn't perhaps why sometimes the weeknight meetings are so poorly attended. Do I really realize that on Wednesday night the Lord is there, just as he is on Lords Day morning? If I really believe that he's there on Wednesday night just as he is on Lords Day morning, and my heart was attracted to that person, wouldn't I want to be there in his presence with the people of God collectively?
And so I think we need to keep this in view that whenever a meeting of the assembly is an assembly meeting is called, the Lord is there, be it a meeting for the remembrance of him, Lord see mourning, be it a meeting for ministry of the word of God, be it the prayer meeting. Let's keep the person in view. Because if, as you say, if we keep the person in view, then we're going to be there, then we're going to be preserved.
I'd like to tell us the story of a book I read.
The first time the gospel.
Went to Jamaica, British W Indies. It was in the 1800s before all all these dreadful divisions that have plagued us.
And this brother was sitting, and these dear Saints were sitting around, and he was ministering the word to them, things they had never heard before.
Got to be 10:00.
Close this Bible.
They said. Doesn't the books say anymore, brother?
Yes, well, we're here.
So he opened it.
For another hour.
Close this Bible, same question. Doesn't the book say anymore brother?
They were so hungry.
For what we take so for granted.
00:35:00
Although we make value.
This precious book.
And the one of whom it speaks.
Somebody said, Well, I get a blessing in reading my Bible at home, why should I stir myself to come to the meeting? And the brothers replied to him, Well, what blessing do you get about reading him? Hebrews 10/25 He says, What does that verse say? And then he read it to him. Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another.
And so much the more as you see the day approaching. Perhaps he got the point.
We don't want to prolong the discussion on this one issue, but I wonder if we could suggest that even more than building our lives around the assembly, which I thoroughly agree with, would it be perhaps more accurate to say that we plan and organize our lives around the Lord Himself?
In Revelation chapter 2, we find that Ephesus was doing everything right, and it would probably have been true that they were at the meetings, wouldn't you think? In Ephesus there, when they're addressed, they were going on well and in many ways their conduct was exemplary. But the apostle John, through the Spirit of God, lays his finger on the very thing that was the.
Crux of the problem.
They left their first love.
Can we generate that by our own efforts? Can we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps? Can we say well?
And I don't want to be irreverent, but with the Lord's help, we're going to go to meeting from now on, and every Wednesday night or every Tuesday and Thursday night, we're going to be at the meetings because this is important, is what we've got to do.
That won't work. We'll run out of steam, won't we? We'll run out. That's human energy. No, it has to be what I was enjoying. Just I'll just read the verse here in 2nd Corinthians 4. We're all familiar with it. You don't need to turn to it, but it's verse 6.
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness.
Hath shined in our hearts to give what? The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's not something that should be. That's a fact that's stated. But as our brother London used to remind us, an apple tree will produce apples unless you deprive it of water or throw a big tarp over it or something like that. You can stop it.
But we have been given these things.
The light of the knowledge of the glory of God has been shown to us in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we let hindrances come in the way and I speak to my own heart and I can identify with what some of our brethren have said here because we find the same thing in Romania. And if I may be permitted to say, the last time I was there with our brother **** Gorgas, he said to me on the day before we were due to leave for home, he said don't you hate to go back to North America. I knew what he meant. We wanted to go back. We wanted to see our wives and our families and our brethren. But there was an atmosphere amongst.
Believers there that we might welcome it here. Well, can I produce that, reproduce it by human energy? No, I can't, but I can get before the Lord and say why is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ not more of a present living reality to my own soul? And then it won't be a question of saying, well, getting to be 730 time to go to meeting.
That's important, and as someone has said, we're creatures of habit, so it's good to make good habits.
But at the same time, there will be the desire in my heart to say, as we've already put it, the Lord is there and I want to go to meet him. I want to be there.
So the Hebrews 13 says, Let us go forth therefore unto him, the person that makes the place. And Peter is the same language, he says.
Too soon coming. It's the person we go to. But I was thinking in our chapter verses 4:00 and 5:00.
Present something in this assembly that was there to keep them.
On that kind of a course is faith, love and hope, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have to all the Saints for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, and so on.
00:40:11
When those three things are existent with us in practice, faith, love, and hope, we're going to get on well.
In connection with what our brother Bill was saying, could I just also read him? Malachi 3 and verse 10. Bring ye all the ties into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me. Now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. Perhaps this is a little word to exercise any of us who take part, that there might.
Meet in my house that there might be that ministered which would refresh the hearts, occupy the soul with Christ. And perhaps that speaks to any of us who take part that we should think of that not just dwelling on knowledge, but it's that the souls might be fed. So that was the exhortation that was given in Malachi where they were not assembling themselves together as they should.
And God was making a special record of those that did. But.
In the 10th verse he's a little word of exhortation that there may be meat in my house. Isn't it true? Often we've gone to a meeting and we felt really refreshed. There was some brother whose heart was just full of Christ and the every, everyone got a blessing just like Mary. I don't think everyone was in the same state as Mary, but she came with that alabaster box of ointment and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.
She didn't have to say one word, did she? No.
It's wonderful that we have in this modern day the ability to tape meetings, tape ministry. And sometimes you hear it said, well, a tape was made and so I can hear it at home, but you cannot recapture the blessing of being there if you just hear it at home. It's not the same.
You might get the same precious truth, and we're thankful for it. There are shut insurance that can't come out.
Or for with the sickness can't be there. They can get the benefit. But there's something that we lose when we're not there with the Saints. And we know most of us have failed in it, but there's something that we lose that we won't get back. It's it's gone.
I've enjoyed a little expression in connection with Hezekiah in that regard. We won't take time to turn to it, but just follow it out. You find that when he wrote those letters, and there were a few that responded and came up to the House of the Lord, there's a little expression that used several times concerning them, it says. And those that were there and those that were there, and they were the ones who had the joy of keeping the Passover, they were the ones who had the joy of being with their brethren. They were.
Who had the joy of being where God had, and so they had to be there to receive the blessing. And we were talking about ministry and Bible on our own and not very important. Reading it in the family circle is very important. But someone has said that the assembly doesn't teach. But brethren, it's in the assembly we learn as taught by the Spirit of God. And when the Spirit of God, the assemblies, the pillar and ground of the truth, when the Spirit of God is given.
And the truth is given out, it might be an ever so feeble away, just rather here. And you're going to go home if the Lord leaves us here to literal twos and threes and little companies that meet on Wednesday night or whatever it may be. You say, well, there doesn't seem to be much ministry. We read the portion. We don't seem to get a whole lot out of it.
The Lord is there, you're there. The Word of God hasn't changed and the Spirit of God is able if we come together and maybe in ever so much dependence, but that's what He wants. And so we come together and we read a portion, maybe just a few comments are made about it. But if you're there with a real desire and exercise to get something, then I believe the Spirit of God wants to feed us and refresh us and teach us. But if we're not there at those meetings, we're not going to receive.
Blessing that our brother Chuck has said brother Chuck, I'd like to take it. Just make a little comment and what you say about the tapes and how nice they are. Little louder please. You mentioned referred to the tapes and the help that they are, which I agree very much.
00:45:05
That some years ago.
We had a little calendar. It didn't happen to be the the Christian counter, but we have that one specialty. But there was another little meditation.
On a calendar and.
The little meditation was to pray for those that are on beds of illness and those are on sofas of Wellness.
And so to prayer meetings. It might help the assembly if we prayed for both because there's a need. I'm sharp.
And also to pray for the Saints when they're going on well. And I was thinking of that in connection with what we have in our chapter, because this morning when we had the prayer meeting, there were several needs mentioned for prayer, and rightly so. Some who are sick, some who are going through sorrow, some who are going through difficult circumstances. And brethren, it's good and important to pray for our brethren when there's a no need, but just notice here in our chapter.
Three, he says we give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice this praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and so on. And then drop down to verse 9. He receives this report from Epiprass and it says for this 'cause we also since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and so on. And I think it's nice to.
In the Paul's epistles, the times when he mentions praying for the Saints are often at a time when they're going on very well. Just as an example, the Saints at Philippi were going on well for the most part, and there was a freshness and a testimony in the gospel, he said, making mention of you always in my prayers. The Thessalonians were in the freshness of salvation. They were looking for the Lord to come, he says. I.
Pray for you day and night. Here were these Colossians. Epiphros had brought up a good report to the apostle of the faith and love and work of the Colossian brethren. He says I'm going to pray for you because I believe rather than that Paul understood very clearly that when the Saints were going on well.
The enemy was going to be right there. And brother and I believe if we would use prayer both in our private prayers and in the assembly prayer meeting, if we would use it as a preventative measure, it would save us from many things. I had a bit of a rebuke from a sister one night after the prayer meeting. She came to me somewhere. I was visiting and she said, Jim, why is it that in the prayer meeting we only pray for those who have a known problem or need or those?
Not there because of maybe coldness or whatever, she said. Why do they never pray for the Saints who are there and the Saints that are seeking to go on for the Lord? That was a rebuke to my own soul and I believe it would save us from many things if we would carry this out and think of the heart of the apostle Paul.
As he prayed for these brethren, that they might go on, and that there might be a fuller and deeper understanding and appreciation of the truth of God and of Epiphras, who I think it was pointed out this morning in the 4th chapter, he labored in prayer for who? For his brother, and not only in his home assembly of Colossi, but of Heropolis and Laodicea. Do we know what it is to labor in prayer for our brethren, that they might be preserved in the past?
A pepper fries partly and spent some time in prison with the apostles. He speaks a member of his and well, they might shut him up in prison, but that didn't keep him from praying he and it's been pointed out what a wonderful service prayer is prayer if that's if one doesn't have anything more than that.
That is, it is a, it is a service.
Which the Lord would recognize and the service which I believe the Lord will bless very much, if that's what all one had to do on all one could do, just to pray for his president from one another and for the gospel.
I read a statement recently, Brother dear. It said a Christian may not always be able to hear, see, communicate or to work, but he can always pray. I thought that was very good.
But he finds it difficult to pray, and he's not used to it.
00:50:01
He he finds his mind wandering.
He falls asleep.
If you haven't prayed much, try praying for an hour.
One hour without distraction.
You'll find it very, very difficult if you haven't been praying.
So don't get discouraged if you haven't been praying, pray 5 minutes, next day 10 minutes and so on. It's it's like exercise. You can't go out and run 100 mile, not 100 miles.
A long distance race until you're in shape for it.
And prayer is a real exercise, isn't it, Spiritual exercise. I think it's a good exercise too, to pray for those in your assembly by name, because who knows them better than a local brother, you see? And so I think that's a real service to the Lord for each of us to consider the individuals of his assembly. It seems to me that we have more of the thought of.
Developing here from verse 8:00 and 9:00 and then over in chapter 4, I believe there was an urgency in Epiphros laboring fervently in prayer. Sometimes we know of special needs.
A special condition of things, and he keenly felt the burden of it, and he labored fervently.
I believe it's all in that connection because we see what was happening here at philosophy. It was a treacherous and a subtle thing. It was the wisdom of man. It was couched in philosophy and legality to both, the both. And then we know what happened at Laodicea. So you see, there was a 'cause there was a reason for this, I believe.
Urgency.
Praying is not easy brother. I think we need to realize that it says epiprass.
Laboring fervently, the margin says, striving fervently for you and correct Ephesians chapter 6. It's in connection with the spiritual warfare. I must say sometimes, brother, they try to pray every day that I must say, I find it.
Real labor at times it's striving, there's spiritual warfare in connection with it and it's not easy. You'll look at the chapter 1, the end of the chapter 1. It's Paul is Speaking of the mystery and in the last verse 29 were unto I also.
Labor striving according to his working, which worketh in the mightily.
It's the same word that's used in chapter 4, verse 12, Connection with epifras in prayer. He strove fervently for them in prayers. It's not just merely getting down on your knees and mentioning some names.
It's pleading and supplication that is not easy matter. It's it's real striving with God about souls to read the first verse of the next chapter.
21 or I would that you knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh.
James tells us that Elijah Elias was a man of.
Delicate passion as we are, you just like you guys. But he says he prayed earnestly. He prayed earnestly that it might not rain.
And.
And it rained not on the earth by a space of three years. And he says and he prayed again.
And the heaven gave reign, earth brought forth.
So there is a there is a real with his real earnestness. God will bless that.
But think of what he prayed. He prayed that it might not rain. He prayed for a family. He prayed that they might go through the most dire circumstances. The hardships wasn't praying for blessing on them is playing, praying for something that would awaken them from their their spiritual state, which was terrible. They were so hard on him that he put his head between his knees.
00:55:16
That's the way he prayed. I believe that. Yeah. I'm thinking about that claim.
It's nice to notice, though, that he didn't have to pray earnestly that it might not rain. You know, when the blessing? Yeah, when the blessing was to come. It didn't require earnest prayer. God was so ready to bless. You mean when it we prayed for it to rain.
What do you think of the Blessed Lord in the in the garden?
He prayed.
And then?
He goes back and finds them disciples were asleep.
And he goes back again.
And he plays more earnestly than God sends him an Angel down.
And his sweat was, as it were, great rocks and blood falling down on their ground. And we don't know anything about that, do we?
But he prayed. It was prayer.
It's nice to trace his life in Luke's gospel as the dependent man and I believe you'll find that seven times in Luke's Gospel, you he's in prayer as the dependent man. And I want to say this carefully, but if the Lord Jesus says the perfect dependent man could feel the need of prayer in his pathway here, how much more you and me. What an example he's left us that we should follow in his footsteps and just one incident.
Comes to mind when you find Him the night before He chose his disciples, those who would be closest to Him during his public ministry, those he would associate with himself. It says these words, He spent all night in prayer. Now brethren, I must confess I've never spent all night in prayer. But so dependent was the Lord Jesus as this, the weight of choosing His disciples rested upon him that he spends.
In prayer, how little time I spend in prayer in connection with some of the very weighty decisions that need to be made in life. Young people, you're facing many crossroads decisions as to those you will associate with in various ways, maybe even us to a partner in life. Do you spend that kind of time in prayer and dependence before you make those decisions? If there's that spirit of dependence with us, then He wants to guide us and to show us.
One of those that he prayed for that night, all night long with Judas. Judas. Yes, that's what I was going to say.
You can expand that a little more well.
It had to be according to the scripture. You know my known familiar friend hath lifted up his heel against me.
And as Mr. Darby and others have said, we see man in an entirely new test situation to consider all a privilege that Judas had and to witness those gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth and miracles that were just outstanding never performed before, you know, opening the eyes of one blind from his birth.
And raising one that was 4 dead, A day's dead is Judas witnessed all that, Yet in the hardness of his heart he retained covetousness.
It it's terrifying to think how wretched our hearts are, but he made that choice. There had to be a Judas. But Judas didn't have to be Judas. He didn't have to be the one, you know?
It was mentioned that prayer was in accordance with the word of God and this takes us back to Elijah that prayed that it shouldn't rain and this is according to God's thoughts. His prayer was effectual because it was formed. His thoughts were formed by the word of God. The Lord Jesus Christ says in John chapter 15 and verse seven that if my if you abide in me and my word abides in you.
You ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. So if we are before God, and our thoughts are governed by God's word, and we ask anything according to the instruction of the word of God.
One brother writing about it said it's tantamount to a blank check for the Christian.
Just say this to the young ones among us. It's been a real help to my own soul to find a place where I can pray audibly. If it's not nearly so difficult to hear your voice in the meeting and the Spirit of God prompts you to give expression to prayers and praise, if you have heard your voice in the secrets of your closet, it's much easier also to not allow the mind to wonder. So difficult to keep the mind fixed.
01:00:24
A prayer if we're just praying slightly. It's nice to find a place where you can pray audibly so that you don't be frightened at your own voices. The Spirit of God should prompt you to pray in the meeting.
I remember an old brother said to me once. He said I come home from work.
With all the.
Interruptions, activity, and the hassle of the day. It takes me 1/2 hour to an hour just to get calm, Just to get calm in the presence of the Lord and to pray. Just to to really pray. We talk about prayer.
It's saying prayers, but I think of those that in on a ship they said their prayers every night and then when the storm came, then they prayed.
And.
He, he, he just talked about how long it took him just to get disentangled from the, the hustle and bustle of life. And we're living in such a fast lane nowadays that is very difficult to get a loan with the Lord. I mean, really get along with the Lord for you. And here together you can talk to him. And how many of us really know what that is?
And to supplicate rather than that word is used.
Quite often in Scripture, I really wonder how much do we know about really supplicating. It is pleading with God. Not that we want that we can make God change his mind, but that's the word Scripture uses supplications and it's it's really getting into the presence of God and pleading for souls.
I think of Elijah. It's been mentioned that he prayed after the famine was about to end.
But it's interesting the way it speaks about it in first Kings 18. There he knelt down and he prayed, and then he told his servant to go look on the horizon, and there was nothing. And he did that. A second time, nothing. A third time, nothing. 4 * 5 * 6 times, nothing.
Seven times, finally.
A little cloud besides of a hands man, a man's hand it it. It takes perseverance, brother, and we need to learn what that means.
This morning in the prayer meeting, John 1414 was read. I'll read it again. If he shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. And I was thinking later of John 15-7 if you abide in me.
Now that's Communion.
That's walking with him, and my words abide in you.
That's intelligence. Now that His word is abiding in us, we're abiding in Him, and His word is abiding in us. We're been in the Word. Ye shall ask what she will, and it shall be done unto you. Because when we ask, then with His Word abiding in us and we abiding in Him, we're not going to ask amiss. Like James says, you ask and receive nothing, because you ask and miss that you may consume it upon your lust. But here we have one that's walking in fellowship.
The Lord, and he's inviting in the Lord and his word is abiding him. And then what? He asks.
As John says in his epistle, if you ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. And we know that if he hear us, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him so many times. We will ask for things that are not in his will, not in his will. And of course we don't get, we don't get the answer that we are looking for.
But this is a case where we're asking in his will.
Biting in him and his word abides in us if we if this book fills our souls and we know what his will is. Brother Doug was saying, what would you think of a child that never is in the father's, his father's presence and knows what his father's will is? How could he possibly please his father if he doesn't know what's pleasing to his father? Well, this is how we learn what's pleasing to our father, isn't it the word of God And then we can pray intelligently. We can.
01:05:23
According to His will. And then we know we will receive what we've asked, because it's according to his will. That's the way the Lord prayed always.
I wonder if the brethren would allow me for a moment in this subject of prayer to.
Go back to that book of Esther. There's something for my own soul that is so beautiful as to the principle of prayer and supplication, Brother Bob, that you were talking about. Could we just for a minute turn back there? And what I have on my heart is simply to make an application as to helping us, young and old, to know how to pray.
Now we know that story well, so we'll just pick it up in.
Chapter 5.
Nestor goes into the presence of the king.
And, and I won't go into it. It's beautiful. She's accepted. The golden scepter is held out to her and she's accepted. And all the the grace and acceptance that that king could show to her.
But she but he says to her, what do you want?
What do you want, Esther? And you know, brethren, if we were facing what she was facing, her death and the annihilation of her people, it would not be unnatural to assume she would have fallen down at his feet, weeping immediately, crying for mercy that he and his mercy would spare her people. And I find it so interesting that she says, I want you to come to a banquet.
And Haman.
And so there's a banquet of wine. And at the banquet, again, the question is, Esther, what do you want? And she says, I want you to come to another banquet.
I think that's so lovely, brethren. I don't mean to set formulas, but it's wonderful to realize the joy of learning how to pray, to get into the presence of the Father just to enjoy Him.
As a child. And she went in there and she submitted. I'm going to make the application to God's sovereignty. Haman was there. We're in a world where there's an enemy that wants to destroy us. But you and I can still, in those circumstances, go into the presence of God and enjoy, first of all, a time of joy and fellowship with our Father. And then there's another banquet.
That's the, That's the request. I want you to come again.
And it was the second time that she opens her heart and she says, my, I and my people are going to be slain. And she opens her heart to request. But first of all, I think it's so beautiful. The first time, the first banquet, it was simply, you know, you can.
We could imagine naturally a lot of things that she was doing, but brethren, in application, she was enjoying the presence of the one who accepted her in her, in his presence, and loved her. And she was just there enjoying that. And then the second one, she opened her heart. But then look at this now and I would like to read this.
After Haman the attempts the the effects of Haman he's he's destroyed.
She didn't stop. Chapter 8. And brother Bob, I was thinking about this when you talked about suffocation. It says in chapter 8 of Esther verse 3. And Esther spake yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagi, and the device that he devised against the Jews. The king held out the golden scepter.
Toward Esther, I think it's so lovely that there was supplication. There was, first of all, the sense that she was in the presence of one who loved her, and secondly, she could go in there with a request that was much on her heart, a burden for herself and her people.
And it was answered, and now she falls down a third time in weeping and supplication that this awful design might be reversed. What's the answer? Well, I, I just an application, brethren, think of that golden scepter as a picture of grace. It's held out to her. And we, every one of us, let us approach the throne of grace boldly Go before the throne of grace. We're accepted there. We can go there. But I think.
01:10:18
What I what I'd like to encourage us to realize is that there are heavy things that are on our hearts. There are burdens here that are so heavy that they can't even be spoken.
And the Lord wants to hear those things, but He wants us to come there, that banquet of joy, to just be in His presence and realize, brethren, we're loved and we're accepted and we're welcome there. And won't that then with that realization of His love and His acceptance, won't that then really intelligently open our hearts that we can really then pray for those things that will bring that blessing?
I just, I say that only an application, but I tell you, I've often been encouraged as I've gone into that closet thinking about Esther and what she did. And brethren, it's OK. I think if we do that and go into His presence, realize we're loved, we're welcome there by His grace and then open our hearts in supplication.
I think Mr. Darby made the comment that prayer is based on the privilege of having common interests with God. And I've got a wonderful thing when we think of it. God brings our souls and communion into the things that interest Him, that He cares about, lays them upon our heart, then we have in His work.
He's going to do the work, we're not going to be able to do it, but we have part in it in laboring fervently in prayer. Perhaps I could illustrate it so all would understand, even the young people having common interests with God. Supposing you. I have something that I would like to give my wife and.
I think about, I wonder if it would please her. And then one day she says to me, if you ever want to do something that pleases me, she asked for the very thing that I was going to get for her.
Isn't that a lovely feeling that she's I, I wanted to give her this thing and I see it's right, the things she wanted. And isn't it lovely that God can bring our souls into common interest? God had common interests for his people, and Elijah entered into that, that is.
The people needed to be corrected and that burden Elijah to think that this correction was necessary before they could get the blessing. And so he just asked for something that would be a reminder to them that God was in control, withholding the rain. It wasn't actually a judgment in one sense, but was holding something from them. But God wanted to bless them, but they didn't feel their need. And finally, when they were brought to take that place of feeling their need.
Then his heart was full of blessing toward them, opened the windows of heaven, we might say, and poured out a wonderful blessing. And I believe that's why I say that it's so important that we're in close to the Lord and we're not just asking for things, feeling that if we pray often enough He'll answer them, but rather that we would be so in communion with the Lord that we would be asking for those things that He delights to give and having that.
Joy, just as my wife and I said, oh, that's wonderful. That's the very thing I was thinking of, and now you're asking for it. And God our Father delights in our blessing, and he delights to bring our souls into communion with himself. So we're asking for the things he delights to give.
Mr. Chapter Brown used to say.
If you want to learn to pray, just pray.
Just pray.
You don't have to take a course in prayer.
Just pray.
There's a nice verse, brother dear, I was thinking of in that connection. In fact, turn to First Timothy 4, because I think this verse was very helpful to me and it's along the line of what our brother Doug was bringing out in connection with us there.
In First Timothy 4, and I know this is in connection with something very specific here, it's in connection with the food that we eat, but I think there's a nice principle. It says in verse 5, for it is sanctified. That's the food we eat by the word of God. And if you notice Mr. Darby's translation, he translates this word prayer as freely addressing God. And that's what prayer is.
Isn't it a wonderful thing, brethren, to think that we who were once.
And enmity with God, we who were once sinners, no response in our hearts. We have the privilege now of coming and freely addressing God. Because I believe that prayer is more than just making requests. That's part of it. That's what we had before us.
01:15:13
But again, if you'll just allow me to go back to another Old Testament example along the lines of what Doug was bringing before us, I've enjoyed it in connection with Daniel at the near the end of his life. This notice a verse in Daniel chapter 6, because I believe that prayer was really the secret of Daniel's life, was the secret of a life of power and truth and test for God.
But just notice something very interesting and instructive in the 10th verse of Daniel 6. It says Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed.
He went into his house, and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled down upon his knees and prayed three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God. Now I want you to notice this little expression as he did a poor time.
Brother, And I've been struck by that expression, and to my own soul, what it says is that Daniel didn't just pray when he got into trouble. Now, it's true there was a real burden here. There was a real need, and Daniel wasn't overwhelmed by it. He knew where his resource was. And he went into his room and prayed with his window and noticed. It doesn't say he opened his windows toward Jerusalem. His windows being open, if he'd opened them on this occasion, you'd say he was.
Persecution. If he closed them, you'd say it was a coward, but it was the habit of his life to keep his window open toward Jerusalem in the provision that had been accordance to the provision made of the dedication of the Temple. And there he it was the habit of his life to pray three times a day when he got into trouble. No, three times a day as he did a four time. The reason I say that is because it seems for some time under the new King.
Colossians 1
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Colossians, chapter one, verse 12.
Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us need to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in life, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and have translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins, Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature.
For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible.
Whether they be drones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things and by him all things. Consensus.
And He is the head of this body, the Church, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence. For it please the Father, that in Him should all wholeness dwell. And having made peace to the blood of His Cross, I am to reconcile all things unto Himself. By Him I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.
And you that were sometimes alienated in enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of his flesh through death.
To present you holy, and unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight, if he continue in the faith grounded and settled, And be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I fall, and made a minister, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake.
Which is the church whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill the word of God. Even the mystery which hath been here from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His Saints, to whom God would make known. What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles?
Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom.
That we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Wherein do I also labor? Striving according to his working which worketh in me mightily Think it is a surprising thing for young convert, when they learn that they are as fit for glory as they will ever be. But what a peaceful thing it is.
He has made us meet 5th be particularly inheritance of the Saints of life.
Hear all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus and.
Galatians 3. Immigration 4. Because he our sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son in your heart, for by ye cry ABBA. Father John writes, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. There's no improvement on that.
That the meetings in Saint Louis last fall.
Done little gave us.
Kind of a.
Motto of that. Maybe that's not the right word, but what he said was.
The Son of God became the Son of man.
In order that the sins of men might become the sons of God. What a charming and all embracing statement that fears. Well, this verse would go along with that giving thanks unto the Father, which has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light.
Maybe 10 or 15 years ago moving around.
Amongst brethren, I heard this strange statement.
I hadn't heard it before, but I heard it over and over again a few times and it was this.
God.
Wants quantity, not quality. I thought, boy that don't spring right and.
00:05:00
One verse destroys that God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. That's quantity. You can't get any bigger quantity than all but what God does.
He wants quantity and he gets it.
He gets quality. He gets quality like Jesus. That's the way we're going to be brought in as sons of God. What peace to know this. So we can certainly give thanks to the Father when we learn this.
There are actually 4 things here to give thanks for. Arthur made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in life, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness.
Hath translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood. The forgiveness of sins. What a circle of blessing, and all that we can know is a present thing.
The very moment we received these things are blessedly true of us, aren't they?
So if you launch quantity and it gets quality, that quality of the showing of practical life.
And so we get all the exhortations about that.
One brother used to say to us, be what you are.
If you're a son of God, act like it.
Pretty simple way to put it for me.
Be practically what you are positionally through the work of God the Father and the Son.
That's the reason it's so important that we understand these first portions of these prison epistles that take up the doctrine of the position of the believer that God has brought through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we.
Were not instructed as to what we are.
We would have no frame of reference.
With which to identify as to how we should do, I've often used the analogy of a royal child. Unless that child is schooled in the conduct and demeanor that becomes royalty, they would I just like the other children. And so we have these precious portions that give us what God has brought and what we are.
In God's view, because of the work of God in our souls and in our behalf.
In the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus to let us know what we are, and then we have the so-called practical sections that teach us how to relate to what we have been made to be by God.
And is there another dimension 2 to that, Brother Tom, that in the chapter in which we are God must first of all tell us all the perfection of our position in Christ?
Not first of all to tell us how practically to act in that position, but to reveal to us all the glories of his beloved Son. We do get the practical side in this epistle. We surely do.
And blessedly so. But even before all that, God tells us very clearly where we are, establishes, as it were, in the perfect standing that we have in Christ. And now in the peace and enjoyment of that position, He can begin to unfold to us all the glories of his beloved Son. We couldn't bear that otherwise. It wouldn't in that sense have an interest for us. We'd say, well, how can? How can we enter into all this kind of.
Of thing when we don't have any right to it. But now God has brought us into that blessed position, and he establishes a Senate, as we've just read in these verses, but then proceeds to unfold to us the glories of His beloved Son and His purposes in him. So doctrine comes to tell us.
What God has done, where he's put us and then.
Based upon that relationship.
00:10:02
There are two things when we're in a relationship. There's privilege.
And responsibility. And I think they're kind of balance out.
It's easy to understand this in any relationship we get into.
We have the privilege of the place and the responsibility of it. Now we're putting the highest place because you are sons.
Has sent forth the spirit of his son your heart forever by we cry ABBA father. So I'm a son of God. If you're a son of God, we're expected to enjoy it and to live according to it. Privilege and responsibility. That's very important and we were someone was alluding to someone born in the royal family and I remember hearing a story many, many years ago.
Concerning the Prince of Wales, who was on a ship.
And when the ship crossed the equator, there was a great party on the ship celebrating the crossing of the equator, and many dressed up in various kinds of costumes. And it was a great pageant. And the Prince of Wales put on a costume and joined in the frivolity of this event.
And someone was there and took a picture and his picture appeared on the pages of the British press and there was a great hue and cry in Britain because they said that was all right for anybody else. But he should have known that being the Prince of Wales and part of the British royal family, that was not conduct that was suitable for one who was in that position. And I remember our brother Albert Hayhoe telling us that one time he listened to his father speaking in.
Concerning the evils of pride and denounce pride and self esteem and all this kind of thing. And Brother Albert went to him after and he said to his father, he said if I didn't have a little bit of pride and self esteem, he said I wouldn't have made sure that sure that my shoes were shined before I came to meeting and that my hair was combed and my appearance was neat. But I'll never forget what was told to him.
His father said Albert and said remember, if you remember at all times.
That you're a son and heir of God. It will take care of all of those things without an ounce of pride. And I was thinking as we were Speaking of the expression in the 10th verse of this chapter, I don't want to go back, but we did pass over it. And it's very important in connection with the practical side of things.
Says walk worthy of the Lord and we won't take time to turn to it, but there are three times in the epistles we have this exhortation to walk worthy. And brethren, it's interesting to notice the context of each and how each is a little bit different because the exhortation as the practical walk in our lives is always in relationship with the life that has been given the position of the place of blessing.
Light that has been given as to that place, then there's responsibility connected with it. Just I'll just mention the other two times that we have this expression in Ephesians where he brings before us our wonderful calling and we're already seated in heavenly places in Christ positionally and so on brings before the Saints their their blessings. Then he says walk worthy of the vocation wherewith here.
God, there was a responsibility, brings before them this calling. Now he says there's a responsibility to walk in the light of this in a practical way. Then when the Thessalonian believers were saved, there were many things they didn't understand about their position and what they've been brought into, but they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven. And so I think it's in the 2nd chapter there, perhaps it's in the 1St.
He says walk worthy of God. They were. They didn't have as much light perhaps as the Ephesians, but they were to walk worthy of what they had, what they had been brought into and what they understood concerning that relationship here. They're to walk worthy of the Lord.
Because that's the subject here in Colossians, the lordship of Christ is brought before them, and so he says, you walk worthy of the Lord. So I think it's very nice to see. There's always, as we've been saying, very practical side to the truth and the joy and the fruit and the power and the testimony in our Christian pathway come when we seek by grace. And brethren, it's only by grace, but when we seek by grace to walk.
00:15:05
The good of what we have brought before us in the scripture.
10th verse is increasing the new translation by the knowledge of God. In other words, as God was better known, and all of he has done all the glory of his beloved Son and shall we say.
I'd say the standard seems to come higher because when we're going to walk worthy of this glorious Person who is the beginning, the Creator, that in all things He might have the preeminence, how important. But first of all, we need to be filled with thankfulness for all that He has done for us, brought us into this wonderful position which we didn't deserve at all.
So he gives us these things, and we as Christians ought to be the most thankful people in the world, shouldn't we?
When we think of what he has done, well, there is a real power of darkness, and he's delivered us from the power of darkness. Satan has real power, He's a real person and he has real power, but we're completely delivered from his power.
And he's translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love. That's the way Mr. Darby translates it.
The one in whom the father finds all his delight and were brought into relationship with him.
It said of Mary Magdalene that she was one out of whom the Lord had cast 7 devils, 7 demons. And here we have have an example of what we have in our chapter here, one who had been completely under the sway of the authority of darkness. By a word from the Lord Jesus Christ has been delivered from that power.
Power, and I love to put it for my own soul's enjoyment, in these words.
We do not owe any further allegiance to that realm of darkness to which we once were subjected. We have been moved out of. That's the thought of a translation book that we have in our hands has been translated out of its original language into our own language of English so that we can enjoy the word of God. But it is the movement, the actual.
Picking us up, as it were, out of that area where we were enslaved to darkness.
And put us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love.
In the Darby translation, it's the 10th verse is.
Growing by the true knowledge of God.
The true knowledge of God To think of the advance of knowledge that we have of the true God over what the Old Testament Saints had.
The sun hadn't come yet. God hadn't given him yet. He had talked about loving them with an everlasting love. It's one thing to say that. It's another thing to demonstrate the fullness of His love.
The intensity of it, by giving the darling of this bosom the Son of his law, and we know the God who has given him, it says in Second Thessalonians, Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, God will send them strong delusion.
The love of the truth we know, we know. God is the God of love who has not withheld a single thing for our blessing given He's given all that he could give. He could not give more than he has given His well beloved Son. And we, we know him now in a fullness that the older other Saints didn't have.
And we know him as an infinitely holy God.
Because in order to put our sins away, His Son, His well beloved Son, had to hang on a cross of ignominy and shame and undergo the infinite judgment of a holy God against sin, in order that that could that would be removed.
And we could be brought into blessing. We know there were types of all this in the Old Testament, but it hadn't been accomplished yet. And we know him now as the God who gave his Son, who sent him.
The one who forsook him on the cross as a man bearing the judgment of holy God against sin. So we know God in a fuller sense.
Full knowledge of God, we know Him in a fuller sense than any Saints preceding us knew Him. Some of them kind of struck because of Mr. Darby's translation in the 14th verse. He leaves out through his blood.
00:20:15
It's in if the blood is brought in in the 20th verse, but I believe the thought here that is brought before us in Colossians is the glory of the person that did it, just as if I had a great debt and somebody paid by debt.
And you say, well, who was it painted? Well, I say Henry Ford painted. You wouldn't ask how could he ever do that? Because when you think of the person, why you say it's no trouble to him. And so would we think of who it was to think that my debt was paid by the Son of God, the One. And it's the glory of his Person. In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, and the one in whom all the fullness of the Godhead.
Dwell stooped so low as to pay my debt. We have the IT isn't setting aside of the blood. I've heard it mentioned. Well, that must be a mistake, leaving out the blood. The blood is brought in, as I say, in the 20th verse, but the theme in Colossians is the glory of the person of Christ in whom the fullness of the God had dwells in Ephesians. It's redemption through his blood, isn't it?
Regions one.
Is it true that there are more gospel verses?
That direct us to salvation through the person and through the work that he has done.
Through through the Lord Jesus.
Many more what I thought.
Many more. I'll quote to you what a brother in the last century gave us, and anyone can verify this in a little book on the Tabernacle by EC Press Land. And he points out that there are only 2 verses in the whole of the New Testament that directly connect faith or belief with the work of Christ. Might seem to be very surprising, but there are only two.
And they're found in one in Thessalonians.
And there it says.
Might as well turn to it, It's in First Thessalonians.
Chapter 4.
And verse 14.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again.
And then the other one is in the 3rd chapter of Romans. And again, we're we're well familiar with it.
Where it reads in Romans chapter 3.
And verse 15, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.
I'm sorry, 25 Beg your pardon? Thank you. I should put my glasses on.
Romans 3 and 25, whom God had set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. But then the brother went on to point out, And I can only trust his judgment as a Greek scholar because I'm not that kind of a scholar.
But he said, although it's not entirely clear in our English translation, he said in the original Greek, there are exactly 100 verses in the New Testament that connect faith or belief with the person of Christ. And he connected that, of course, with the door to the Tabernacle that was 10 cubits by 10 cubits, and said how that that showed the wonderful provision that God had made and how that.
Many dear souls who perhaps had a very imperfect understanding of the work of Christ. And of course God doesn't want us to be ignorant, but he pointed out that what God places the value on in His precious word is the person of that blessed One. There's more than two.
John 6. I'll give you another one. John 6 verse 53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Except she eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, we have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Now the correct understanding of that passage is appropriating by faith Christ in death for us to have eternal life. So that's more than just belief in His person.
00:25:03
As Fun said, that belief in his person is far more awful. I think Bob, Tony can give us another one that he's discovered. Remember the one that you showed me once, Bob? Or don't you remember it? OK?
I shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. The word there.
I shall be saved.
This very thought that has been expressed is what led me to some understanding a number of years ago at Des Moines when Psalm one 32138 two.
Was brought before us that he had exhausted. He had exalted his word above his name.
And I meditated on that considerably to get late because I didn't understand what was being said and I didn't understand the verse. And I may not have such a good understanding of it now, but I was directed in my thoughts to the 1St chapter of John's Gospel. In the beginning was the Word, and that Word is his personal John one and two says, and he was in the beginning with God.
Well, throughout scripture it is commonly understood that a person is known by the work that he does.
And so the work is enhanced and given credence to by the person who does the work. And I believe that's the he's from my own soul's enjoyment, the thought of his word being exalted above his name. His person is more than the work that he did, and it is he.
As the Son of God who went to the cross, that gives value to his work of redemption. Now there is a converse principle in the 2nd chapter of John's Gospel where it said they saw the miracles that he did, that's what he did, by which he was known in this world. But Jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew what was in man, unless the Son of God is the object of faith.
There is no work in the soul that connects our soul to God.
But the work is the basis of all blessedness, right? Death and resurrect Lord Jesus together cannot be separated.
So this is not really the point that was brought up here in this chapter. It's more the person that is the focus. Be nice if we can get down into these verses. Brother and I speaks of so much of the glory of the Lord Jesus 15 on because that's the focus and that's what we need to have before our souls definitely go on and tell us about the first born of every creature then Bob.
1St the image of the invisible God. What does that mean?
Strictly a preeminent thought, isn't it?
Because the Lord Jesus had no beginning, so the first born is strictly the thought of preeminence the first place.
His headship and in regard to creation.
The 89th son, David, is called the first born of the kings of the earth. He was the eighth son of his father, but he's the first born because he had the preeminent position in Israel.
Thought of image though is representation, isn't it? Lord Jesus asked to see the money of the day, he said. Whose image superscription is this? Said Caesars. It was a visible representation of Caesar. We want to know God.
How do we know God? By looking at Jesus?
He is the image of the invisible guy. So we can know God in every sense of the word. The full revelation of God is what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is the image of the invisible God. When God put man in the garden of the evening, in the beginning He made him.
In his image and likeness.
He was to be the representation of God in this creation, but he failed in that. Now God brings forth the One who is the image of the invisible God.
00:30:06
Could we say it was like the answer of what Philip said? Show us the Father and it sufficeth us. How can you show the image of someone who is invisible or God who is invisible? He was seen in the person of that Blessed One who came to this world. It looked upon a man walking here in this world and he was the full manifestation and display of all that God is.
But otherwise God is invisible, can't be seen, but.
He made himself known by the Lord Jesus who walked in this world. And to think that as they looked at the Lord Jesus.
They saw the invisible God, the God who couldn't be seen revealed in a man here in this world and he's a man in the glory, brethren, he's up there. He's really a man. We're going to see a man with the marks in his hands, feet inside that are he went through that glorious work accomplished for our salvation and the glory of God. So to correctly understand what the image means.
He was not the image of the invisible God when he was in the form of God.
He didn't become the image of the invisible God until he took upon himself the form of a servant, in other words, until he became a man. Now he can be spoken of as the image of the invisible God. Not before the incarnation. One of them really asking the question. I think that's correct though, isn't it?
One of the fullest verses. I try to understand these things and I think they go far beyond me, but one of the most wonderful verses on these things we're talking about.
Is first John 5 and 20.
It is so full of what we're trying to express.
That it just fills your soul.
And it says we know.
First John 520 we know.
That the Son of God is calm.
Not a strange verb to use. Doesn't say that he came and that he or that he's coming, which are both true, but he is come.
He has taken that place in perpetuity. He is come. The Son of God is come.
And has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true.
Even in his son Jesus Christ.
This is the true God and eternal life. Notice.
How close together the Father and the Son appear here in this verse as one. This is the true God and eternal life.
Bob said something we need to remember a while ago. We don't want to separate Christ from his work. He's right with the Word we can distinguish things. But Christ and his work with the whole thing together.
So this verse expresses it better than I can express it.
In John one we read, no man hath seen God at anytime.
The only begotten Son who's in the bosom of the Father, He had declared him as. Some have been very puzzled by such verses as I'm going to read it to you in Exodus 24.
Verse 9 then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel.
And they saw the God of Israel.
And there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were, the body of heaven in his clearness. And there's another verse in Exodus 33.
Moses says in verse 18, I beseech thee, show me thy glory.
And he said, the Lord said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy, on whom I will show mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see my face, for there is no man see me. Shall no man see me and live?
And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by. And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts but my face.
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Shall not be seen.
Those are very interesting scriptures, and there's one more in First Timothy 6 that.
Very important Scripture First Timothy 6.
Verse 15 which in his times he shall show who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of Lords. This is Speaking of God, who only had the immortality.
Dwelling in the light which no man, no man, no creature can approach, unto whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom the honor and power everlasting. How do you harmonize those seemingly contradictory statements?
God in His essential glory cannot be seen by the creature.
He has to come out of that in some way in order for Him to be seen some manifestation of Himself. They saw under His work in Exodus 24, a pavement of sapphire work. They saw some manifestation of God. There was the cloud that came upon the Tabernacle, pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night. That was a symbol of His presence. They didn't see God, though. And then you have that mysterious.
Statement there in Exodus where he says.
You can see my back parts, but you can't see me, my face. And that's really what characterizes the Old Testament. We see the back parts of God. We don't see God fully revealed until the sun came. And now when the sun comes, the Lord Jesus, he reveals him. And now we can see him as as far as a creature can. We see him face to face, so to speak, in the person of the sun, but in his.
Essential glory.
The creature can't see him. Isn't that right? Yes, indeed. We're treading on holy ground. We need to be careful the way we express these things. But.
Should you enlarge it a bit just on the word essential glory? Essential we think of as necessary, but what you mean by essential for it, what He is in His essence as God. A good word is intrinsic, intrinsic glory, yes.
And that would include angels, any creature. God is so.
Infinitely holy and great and and and awesome, if we can use that word that the creature just can't behold him as such, He has to come out, and what we have in the New Testament, he has come out in the fullest way of the person of the Son. Something of this seems to me to be expressed.
In that at the Mount of Transfiguration in Luke's Gospel, which goes a little farther than Matthew and Mark.
Where it says they feared as they entered into the cloud. Now they that feared was Peter, James and John on the earth as they saw Moses and Elias enter into the glory cloud with the Lord. Because men in the flesh in the old Adam's nature is as scared of these things. Somebody made the remark while ago that we are, we don't.
To the devil, we don't know anything. To Adam either, He has only brought sin and death and punishment to us, and God is not fixing up the old man.
In Romans 8, the first verse there is therefore.
Now, no separation to those who are in Christ Jesus, No condemnation.
Nor their condemnation, separation, the end of the chapter.
Correct, but it goes on and we leave out that part of the next verse but trying to quote it.
Who walked not after the flesh, but after the Spirit?
Well.
If that's put there as a question.
It doesn't work with the chapters I see it.
The man that's in Christ Jesus does not walk after the place.
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But after the Spirit, it's a statement instead of a question. And so in the chapter we have God giving a treatise upon the believer as he sees the believer. And it's very comforting to read that chapter and see God is saying that about me. That's what he sees.
Because he sees me in Christ. What a wonderful thing that is.
When we're in Christ and we get the new bodies, then I don't think there will be the fearing of entering into the cloud.
It's interesting in 2nd Corinthians 4 and verse 6, what it's been quoted in this conference. I think it says God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, that shine in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
I suppose that's what really relates to the Lord Jesus being the image of the invisible God we now have the knowledge of the true God isn't it wonderful to be able to go to the gospels brethren and see the Lord Jesus from the moment of his advent into this world when he came was born into this world?
And to be able to say this.
Is our God we have seen him, and we could really say that, brethren, through the eyes of faith, by looking and following him through the paths of life, and to see the perfection that was always evident it could not be otherwise and the.
Perversion of men and their desires to trip him up.
Only could manifest in greater measure the perfection that was ever there. How? How could it be otherwise? That was the only thing it could be. And so we can follow him. He had the human veil on and people didn't recognize off times that this was the very God of the universe, the creator of all things. But there were times when.
The glory shone through the human veil and.
And it's beautiful what is said, that verse that's quoted there in John 114, The word was made flesh and.
Dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
That's they discerned that there was one who was more than just a mere man.
The only begotten of the Father, this is Him and those poor disciples, ignorant, unlearned men as far as this world is concerned, where they had revealed to them who this person really was. And now to our hearts too, brother.
They go through the Gospels to see him in his many glories, whether it's Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, just to revel in This is our God, Renmin, this is our God.
So we read in Hebrews 1 Concerning the Son that he was the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person. And there are a number of young people here this afternoon. And I know I used to sit in meetings like this and hear expressions that we sometimes use. And I think sometimes we assume that our younger brethren understand what we're Speaking of. And I often heard people say in ministering along these lines, this line of that the.
Jesus fully glorified God the Father in his pathway and in the work of redemption. And I never fully understood what it meant to be to when they they said he fully glorified him. But I read a helpful comment some years ago, I think it was in Mr. Billets writings that helped me to understand that expression to be glorified. Mr. Bellets put it something like this. He said to be glorified is to have all the attributes.
And qualities that make up a person brought into full display. And as the Lord Jesus walked here in his pathway, and as he took up the work of eternal redemption at the cross, every beauty and attribute, every quality of God was brought into full, full display.
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And so he could say, at the end of it all, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work that thou gave us me to do.
Because, brethren, it was more than just finishing the work. Sometimes I've illustrated it this way. I might set one of my children to a task, and when they've had ample time to complete that task, I come back and I view what they've done for me, and I might be well satisfied with what they've done. They finished what I asked them to do. But you wouldn't say I was glorified in the task. No, they finished it for me. But I didn't bring any glory to myself, any honor.
Myself, but the Lord Jesus not only finished the work rather, but every attribute of God, I say was brought into full display. And if you'll just allow me to make this very, very practical, there's always a practical application to these lines of truth that we take up I.
Noticed and enjoyed it that in the 17th of John, which I have just quoted from in the first part of the the Lords High Priestly Prayer, we might say we have the Father glorified in the Son. I have glorified thee on the earth, finished the work which Thou gave us me to do.
At the end of the chapter we have the Saints glorified with the Son. We're looking forward to that day when we look on him unhindered and we reflect fully. We're with and like Christ. What a day that will be. Father I will that they also, whom now has given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory and so on. But if you notice, in the middle of the chapter, in the middle of that prayer, we have what we might say, the sun.
In the Saints and brother, that's what he desires of his people now. He fully expressed, He fully showed forth who this person was, but he has returned to the glory.
And just turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 and I think we get a very apartment scripture here in connection with what we're saying, something for our present exercise, Second Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 18. But we all with open face, beholding us in a glass, the glory of the Lord.
Or perhaps it could read looking at the glory of the Lord with unveiled face are changed into the same image.
From glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Now very simply, brethren, this verse is Speaking of occupation with Christ. And what it's saying is that in the measure in which you and I are occupied with the man in the glory.
And the measure in which we see him and he is before our souls, and we're walking with him, in that measure there will be an unconscious reflection of Christ in our lives. Because what is this world going to see of Christ?
It's what's manifested in your life and mine as we walk through this world. We're epistles known and read of all men, but it's not as some have given the thought, and I sometimes hear it. Well, we got to try to generate a testimony for the Lord. No, when Moses was in the presence of the Lord on the mount and he came down, it says that his face shone, but he whisked not that his face shone.
He didn't try to make his face shine. It was the unconscious reflection of being in the presence of the Lord on the mouth. And brethren, the heavens are open to us, so that by faith we can be occupied with a man. Not as he was walking here, there were those who saw His glory, as has been pointed out to us. We they saw, our eyes have seen, and our hands have handled of the word of life. But we are to look up and see by faith a man in the glory.
And then there will be something of a reflection of Christ in your life and mind. Now that verse, Second Corinthians 318 is practical sanctification. There's another verse in John 17 that corresponds with this where he says.
For their sakes, I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. He sets himself up on high, apart as an object for our souls, and that's what you have in 2nd Corinthians 318. He's the object that we're occupied with. So he says, I sanctify myself, set myself apart on high to be the heavenly object of my redeemed people who are not of this world as I am not of it. Now I'm giving them a heavenly object even.
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He says to cause them to walk as I walked when I was here. That's what he says in John 17 and that's what we have in 2nd Corinthians 318. Armstead Barry used to talk about this verse. I think it was wonderful what he said 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, by the Spirit of the Lord and agree with what you say, it's practical, but he said it's going from one glory of the Lord to another glory. He says they're infinite. The glories of the Lord are infinite. The Spirit of God brings them out of the Scripture and that's what gives a practical change in us as we behold by the Spirit through the word of God.
And I believe it should be that, even as by the Lord the Spirit.
That is a ascribing lordship to the Spirit of God. He should have that authority over our souls to bring those glories before us and as in a glass should be out should it be there as there's no there's nothing in between. There's no there's no hindering medium in between. It's John 13 told us that what the fear of God was going to do for the Saints on whom these things to us, the Spirit of God would enjoy it and bring to our knowledge.
And his glories. So how wonderful in a meeting like this to take up Colossians 1 and get the one in whom is all preeminent as God has determined it.
Verses 1516 and 17 of our chapter kind of go together and as was brought out, first born of every creature really means the Lord Jesus position of preeminence in creation. And it's so important, I think for us to insist on this because it's being attacked directly.
By the teaching of evolution, even though evolution has.
Folds all the way through. It doesn't really stand the test of scientific testing. Still, people will not go to consider the thought that God created the world. And if evolution is true, our existence here is a mere mistake. We're here by accident. It was just mere.
Evolving. There is no purpose for our being here. And no wonder young people take their lives. They say there's no reason to be living on the earth, but when creation is taught and it's so important to maintain it.
God put us in this world, and He put us in this world in a structured way. Notice verse 16. For by him that is the Lord Jesus.
Where all things created that are in heaven, there's heavenly beings.
And that are in earth, there's earthly beings, there are visible beings, there are invisible beings, whether they be Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. In other words, there is a strata of authority that God has set in this world. Sometimes young people don't understand authority.
It's important to realize that God has set authority in this world.
Because without it there would not be any order. And so here we have one who has set creation the original creation in its place.
What's the purpose of it all? All things were created at the end of verse 16.
By Him and for Him. He did it for his own glory.
That wonderful and he is before all things and by him all things consist. So there you have in those three verses more what relates to the first creation when you get down to the next set of verses, and I don't want to go too fast here. I'd like to hear more comments. You have another sphere of blessing where the Lord Jesus also is the first born.
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That that word in the end of verse 17.
And by him, all things consist. I believe it should be subsist. That is, he's maintaining all of this which he has created, and he keeps it going by the word of his power, even when he was on the cross. It's astounding to consider it, but it is so.
Scientists do not know how to explain the fact that the nucleus of an atom sticks together when they have light charges those little particles. There is no scientific way of explaining that it is something that exists by the word of His power. He maintains it in its place.
Why doesn't it all fly apart?
Just going back for a minute to First Timothy 6, I think it's important to see that there is a glory in connection with God and the Godhead which will never be seen. It's far beyond our minds. It's just an object of worship and it cannot be put in a certain sense in human words. I remember reading a comment in Mr. Darby speaks about God repenting and he said this.
Every time we speak about God, we speak imperfectly.
Because he said human language is finite and God is infinite. And I believe it's well for us to bear this in mind. There is a glory, and there will be for all eternity a glory in connection with God. We'll always be preachers and God will always be God, and we'll have to take the place of worshippers.
But as far as His glory can be manifested, it has been manifested in Christ. And there were, as you were saying, brother, partial revelations in the Old Testament, His back parts, and so on. All that could be revealed shone out in the person of Christ. And so He could say, He that hath seen me has seen the Father. But this doesn't limit God. He is still beyond our little minds. He is still God in the sense.
There is something that is beyond us, and I believe it's important for us to recognize this. It makes us worshippers. But all it can be revealed has been revealed in the person of Christ. And as you and I are occupied with him, the moral likeness, now you're speaking the moral side of things. Now that is reflected in us. But we'll never become part of God himself. Intrinsically. He is God, He always is and will be.
And we will never be part of him, but we can enter into and enjoy these precious things, and there can be a moral likeness produced in US. And that's what we're Speaking of in First Second Corinthians 3. It's produced in us in occupation with him.
His first statement in the garden by Satan the liar. He shall be his God. Absolutely false. We will never be God. And that's what tempted Eve and that's what the New age.
Movement. That's what Mormonism teaches. As God is, so we shall be as we are. He once was. That's their formula, that he was once a man, a creature like we, and now he's gone and will be God too. That's the most blasphemous doctrine that there is. And it's so important to emphasize what you just said. If we could be, that we could reach that point, we would be equal with God.
And he wouldn't be greater than we.
That verse and First Timothy 6 will always be true, dwelling in the light which no man can approach, unto whom no man hath seen or notice can see, to whom the honor and glory and power everlasting. Amen. It puts us in the place of worshippers which we will always be in God, as I say, will always be beyond us. But all it can be communicated has been communicated in and through Christ.
Then there is that too, is there not? Which is very guarded as to the person of the sun in in Matthew 11, no man knoweth the Son. Perhaps you can give us a little more thought on that statement. Well, are the three persons of the Godhead, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit? And what is shall I say if true?
They're all in that equal place, you might say. That is the God of the Bible, the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.
That will always be true.
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But only one of those persons became a man, Yes, Amen. And that's why we can't, we cannot fully know him, because who can understand God and man and one person that's beyond the creature. He never left his place in Godhead to become a man though, did he? I would like to make refer, if I may, referring to Bob's comment, whether Bob's on the evolution and so forth.
And I certainly am no student. I wouldn't pretend to be, but I ran across something just recently.
That might be of interest to the younger people. That was to me. It struck me that I had heard before, and it was Old Mother Darby made the comment that the Earth is the only place where there are inhabitants. Where there what where there are inhabitants? The only planet inhabited.
Because the reason he gave is because it is the only place.
Where he has sent his son to God before we leave the.
Area of discussion here in these 3 verses I would like to just refer to Hebrews 3, three. That explains what I believe clearly. The first born of every creature. And it simply says that he who builds the house has more honor than the house. So if he is the creator of everything, then he has more honor than that which he created.
You know.
When we were considering these things, as to the Son, you know, there he was rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth. You mentioned about the earth being the only habitable place of man, and His delights were with the sons of men. So we see that that was all in connection with the past eternity. But it seems in a certain sense you can see the heart and desire of God.
When he made appearances, and I'm not talking about those majestic, glorious, partial appearances, but for example, when these three men came to talk with Abraham, we clearly know that one of them was the Lord and it turned out that the other two were angels. And then even in the case of Gideon, as you were telling us this afternoon, that Angel that appeared to Gideon and made all those.
Is with a capital A. It must have been the Lord coming in that way. And then it's such a weak time in their history. Here we see there's an Angel that appears to Manoa and his wife, and it should be with a capital A. And they wanted to know his name so that they could pay honor to him afterwards. And he says no, seeing that it is wonderful. Who else bears the title of wonderful but the Lord?
Capital W.
Another thing too, in these verses it sets the Lord Jesus Christ.
Before us as the object of the creation.
And as the intrinsic power by which it was done, and he for whom it was all done, so he is the the object, the power, and for his pleasure it was all done. As to what Denny said while ago.
I'd like to read Revelation 118.
Until your comment that Gordons father made on that verse 118.
I am he that liveth.
And was dead.
And behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen, and have the keys of hell and of death.
Well, his comment was a bit obscure to me, but he said something like this. That verse tells me that God will never visit another planet in grace as he has this one.
Had seemed strange to me, but I believe it too. God has picked out this earth and put creatures on it.
His glory and we're getting that out of this chapter in Colossians all things were created by him and for him to think that he has done it in man and of the failure of the 1St man and he does not improve the atom race. He comes in with a Newman, a new creation and give something which.
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Will last, and Satan shall never get into it.
Well, he is the last Adam because it doesn't say the second Adam. Says the second man because there were more to follow. But it says the last Adam, which indicates surely there is nothing else.
Is what you're talking about would relate to verse 18 forward then?
Lord Jesus.
The head of the church, the body, the church. Who is the beginning, the first born from the dead. That's the beginning of a new race.
The last Adam I said, is that relate there? Yes, there is a new creation.
If any man be in Christ or anyone.
And it really is the first born from among the dead. It was common.
Knowledge in the Jews economy, the Jewish economy, that there would be a resurrection of the dead. But here we have Christ, the first groups, the one who first came out from among the dead.
And afterwards say that Christ at his coming. So we are going to participate in that first resurrection with him, though the time element is far removed. It is out from among the dead that he was raised, and it is going to be that out from among the dead that we are going to be raised, leaving the other dead as we know to be raised.
To stand before the Great White Throne.
This.
Verse Who is the beginning, the first born from the dead?
Revelation 3.
14 And unto the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans write these things, saith the owl men.
The faithful and true witness, the Amen that is the confirmation of all God's promises and His word. He was that faithful and true witness. And then the beginning of the creation of God. Now that's not this creation, but that's the new creation. And that's what's meant there in Colossians one, He's the beginning, first born from it, as risen from the dead. He's the head of a new creation, the beginning of a new creation.
And we see him acting in that capacity in communicating that new creation to the disciples, when he breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit, acting as head of new creation, to bring it down to us.
The life giving spirit.
Adam was a living soul, Christ was a life giving spirit, quickening spirit. So there are two reconciliations here too, aren't there? There is the fact that we already are reconciled says in the 21St verse. And you that were sometimes alienated enemies in your mind by a wicked works. Yet now hath he reconciled. But there's a time coming in the 20th verse that made peace through the blood of.
For us to reconcile all things unto Himself, by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, everything is going to be brought according to the mind and will of God, isn't it? In heaven and in earth we already are.
It tells us in Colossians in 2nd Corinthians 5. It says that Second Corinthians 5 and the 19th verse to it, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and have committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God.
As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ that be reconciled to God. So we have already been reconciled to God through the death of His Son, but there's still a groaning creation all around us. It isn't according to the mind and will of God, but there is a day coming when everything, the whole Lord creation, everything is all going to be according to the mind and will of God.
It will be wonderful, a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. So we're all ready. But it's interesting to notice when it talks about bowing the bee that's in Olympians that says things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, all will have to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus. But when it talks about the reconciliation of all things.
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Here it says in the 20th verse things in heaven, things in earth, and things in heaven.
Everything in the new heaven and the new earth will be suited to the mind and character of God.
But there will be those in a lost eternity, things under the earth that is infernal beings and the lost will never be reconciled, right? So when does this take place then, this final reconciliation? Well, when there's a new heavens and the new earth as we have it in Revelation 21, we saw new heavens and the new earth. That's the eternal state.
And everything in heaven and earth is suited to the mind and character of God during the Millennium.
Righteousness but sin will have to be judged, and it ends with a final judgment. You know, when Satan is released again, but in the eternal state, it'll be a fixed condition. But everything will be suited to the mind and character of God in heaven and in earth. But the lost will never be reconciled.
So it's not even in the Millennium that everything is fully reconciled, is it?
I've enjoyed the thought. That's what I was was thinking of, and I've enjoyed the thought and it's not original with me, but I thought it put it so well referring to the Millennium and the eternal state. And I know that's not particularly the subject of the chapter, but someone has said the Millennium is for the public vindication of God's character, but the eternal state is for the eternal satisfaction of God's.
And it's beautiful to see, isn't it? Because through the finished work of Christ, everything will be reconciled. Not merely that righteousness will reign, but that everything will be according to the mind of God. And it's beautiful to connect that with the reconciliation that is spoken up here concerning ourselves. You get a little bit of the same thought in Romans 5, where reconciliation is brought in. It's not only being.
Reconciled to God in the sense of being saved from the penalty of our sins. But could we say in the verses that are presented here that our walk is brought into the picture too, because it says in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight? Well, I suggest that that goes even beyond, shall I say, the perfection that we have through the finished work of Christ, although that is certainly.
But there's the sense in which we're given the a new life which wants to please him, a new life which is suitable to that place in which we have been brought into. Is that correct? Yes. Except there he's mentioned everything will be reconciled, not the last. They will never be reconciled.
So the next verse begins with an if.
Long as we're down here, there will be if, if he continues, correct?
And that's why we can we put it that way, because if is always connected with our state, isn't it never with our standing we've had brought before us?
Wonderfully, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ as the.
Expression of what God is and all of those things that have been brought out. But it's wonderfully true also that everything desirable that God desires in man is also seen perfectly in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the fourth of Ephesians where the.
Character of the Gentiles is brought out, it says, But you have not so learned Christ. If so, be that you have heard of the truth as it is in Jesus.
All those undesirable and wicked things that the Gentiles displayed, we don't learn in our Lord Jesus Christ. There we learn everything desirable of God and man, perfectly exhibited.
Is that something of the thought that we have in verse 19 because the Lord Jesus is the eminent in the first creation, verses 151617, preeminent in the second creation versus 18, and then it says in the end of verse 18 that in all.
He might have the preeminent.
01:15:03
And I'd like to hear on the numbers 19 it please Father's night, Alex that in him that is even the Lord Jesus should all.
Something could be said on that, and especially perhaps in contrast with or in comparison with what we have in chapter 2, where also it says in verse 9 in.
The Lord Jesus.
Dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
I'd like to hear some comments on that. So verse 19 of chapter 1 would be more correctly rendered for it, please. The Godhead that in him should all fullness dwell, and that would go along with two knives in him, all the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in him.
When it says the Father, it gives the idea that the Father is above the Son and that's wrong. In the Trinity all three persons are Co equal.
One is not superior to the other, so it please yet that all full well in him as a man bubbly in in his. When he came here, he did not. As Gordon said earlier, he did not lose in any sense his deity.
All the fullness of God dwelt in that man and you say I can't understand that. Well, none of us can really. We don't have to. But it's revealed, isn't it?
Well, it's an understanding of the all these things and recognizing this revelation that God has given it's going on perhaps, but I was thinking of what we have at the beginning of the 2nd chapter just to mention this or I would that you would knew knew what great conflict I have for you and for them. But lay it Asian for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh that their hearts might be comforted being nipped together in love.
Unto all riches.
The full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God. I believe that's all in Mr. Darbys translation. The rest is left out, isn't it? The mystery of God and then in the.
Third verse, Wherein are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? If we don't see what we've been, but the Spirit is bringing before us here the glory of the person of Christ, the purposes of God in connection with the blessing of man, and how all is going to be fulfilled, that God may be All in all. We'll never really understand the Bible, knowing and understanding this, in whom or where in our head all the treasures of wisdom?
And that's why these portions are so very important for us, because unless we recognize and see the glory of the Person of Christ and the place that he occupies in the Godhead, even though he became a man in order that he might associate with Him, the Church which is to be His bride for all eternity, will never really understand.
The whole truth that God has set before us in His Word.
Question about the mystery of God here and the mystery of God in Revelation 10. The difference. Revelation 10. The same words in the seventh verse, but in the days of the voice of the 7th Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished as He had declared.
To his service, the prophets. I just mentioned the comment of someone else. That is the great secret why God has allowed sin and why all this is come in. Because the character of God has come out in a way that it could never come out. If sin had not come in, you never had any trouble. I'd never know how you would act in trouble or how you would act toward someone who.
Was perhaps the cause of the trouble.
But for the trouble cave, and I see you act in a perfect, in a wonderful way in the situation. Then I say, well, I know that person's character. I've seen him in a situation and sin came into this world and it seemed as if Satan triumphed. He spoiled the whole scene that God had created. And the secret was God allowed it to go on. What happened at the cross, The question of sin, take it up.
01:20:02
And it's all taken out and settled. When the time comes, the 7th Angel sounds. The kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
And the redeemed, her seed now represented in the four and 20 elders, and they fall down and worship him. You and I would never have known God as a God of love and grace and all his character and love and light and holiness all made known if sin hadn't come in. But God allowed it to come in. But it brought out what was in the heart of God and brought blessing to you and I. I believe that's the thought revelation here.
It's really the fact of the church and the occupation to place the church will occupy an association with Christ in manhood for all eternity. That's a good old instance where the same expression means 2 entirely different things. Yeah, yeah. So good to get that brought out. Yeah, very good.
Remember Now Thy Creator
Colossians 1:12-
Colossians 1:1-11
Gideon
Acts 20:17-35
The Heart
He Hath Filled the Hungry