Lawrenceville Conference: 2010
Table of Contents
Ephesians 2:1-5
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It's a whole. It covers the whole Bible.
First of 13th 15, verse 45.
The first the first plan Adam was made of living soul.
The last item was made a quickening spirit.
Go down to verse 47. Read that verse 2.
The first man is of the earth, earthy. The 2nd man is the Lord from heaven. I've been told years ago this book is the story of two men. There they are. That's what the whole whole Bible is about.
Maybe we could cover the whole Bible. Let's try. I'm going to sit down.
Mercy.
Ephesians chapter 2.
And you and be quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, where in time past he walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past. And the loss of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
And we're by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace you are saved, and has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly pleas in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come you might show the exceeding riches of his grave.
And as kindness poured us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.
Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh, made by hands, that that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
But now in Christ he's got you sometimes were far off.
Are made nigh by the blood of Christ, for He is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us.
Having a violation in his flesh, the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, or who may get himself obtained. 1 Newman.
Solemn peace, and they might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross.
Having slain the enmity thereby, and came and created peace to you which were afar off, and to them there were nigh. For through Him we both have access by 1 Spirit under the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God.
00:05:13
And our bills upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the buildings Bentley framed together, grow us under unholy temple in the Lord, in whom He also are building together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit.
I am reminded.
When we read this chapter of the stories that the Lord told when he was here of a Good Samaritan but we all know so well.
That man that went from Jerusalem down to Jericho.
And as bad as he was, left high dead.
I heard a man talk about this recently and he said mercy is compassion in action.
To mercy, His compassion and action.
Verizon America went to where he was to meet that band was out there. But the picture that we have here and the picture we have there is, uh, uh, it doesn't really describe well enough the picture that you and I were in, doesn't it?
New York Hound Dead, brethren, we were dead.
1:30 And you have the victims who were dead in trespasses and in and you and I need a man who doesn't know Christ and Savior.
There's no life in here, there's no response government and unless there is a work of God in the soul, he'll never be saved. And you can't convince anybody to be saved and neither can I.
But it says God who is rich in mercy. Well, I think it is good for us to do. Remember to tell us it's in the chapter and the burden of heaven. Remember where you were. You were in past nine Gentiles.
And to remember where we are now. Beautiful chapters.
You have both mercy and grace in this chapter, and mercy is grace in connection with our states, as what we are in dead trespasses graces great in connection with God's thoughts towards us, and it's nice to notice. I'd like to read the last two verses of the first chapter to see, uh, the purpose here of quickening.
Uh, dead people describe the purpose to have uh people for himself and in verse 22 of chapter one it says Speaking of Christ and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness or completeness of him that fill up All in all.
The church is that which completes the plan of God and having a people in relationship with him in love and.
And to get that, he chooses these dead souls, these dead in trespasses and sins. That's the greatness of the mercy and the greatness of the grace according to God's heart to to do that.
00:10:01
Death in Scripture denotes the separation of two things, and so it tells us in the Old Testament your iniquities have separated between you and your God. In this epistle we have man brought into the closest.
As a result of the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus at Calvary and those we're going to find later on in the chapter who were afar off or made nigh by the blood of Christ, and so on. But it was important that He reminds them, as has already been said, of what they once were. They were dead. Sin separated. As soon as sin entered the Garden of Eden through man's disobedience, there was an immediate separation.
And Adam having received a conscience, he and Eve, they hid themselves, they were no longer comfortable in the presence of God. And a distance came in a distance that was never really bridged in the Old Testament completely until the work of of the Lord Jesus. There was a bridge to a degree so that man could come in a, in a certain, a certain distance and in a certain way with the Tabernacle in the wilderness, with the temple in the land of Israel, in in Jerusalem, and so on.
God made provision for his people, but the bridge was really never the gap was really never bridged until the work of the Lord Jesus, and now God can impart divine life.
That's why when we give the gospel, we always want to aim at the conscience. There's no other material to work with yet. Man doesn't have life, and we don't know when that life is imparted. It's a sovereign work of God in his own time and way. But we do have something to work with, with our children before they're saved. There's something to work with. They have a conscience. And so we bring the Word of God to bear on the conscience and pray that the Spirit will take that word and use it to impart divine light, whether it's to our children or whatever.
Whoever it is in the gospel, so it tells us in Peter, we're born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever, but necessary, brethren, for us to be reminded that we were dead in trespasses and sin, separated from God, unable to take any step forward. No response. Just like from a dead corpse, there's no response. But there's been a sovereign work of God in our souls.
We know the Lord Jesus is our Savior, and the reason we responded to His mercy and His grace is because of that sovereign work. And He's going to take that up. It's not really in the first verse. You have to be quickened. You get that later on in the chapter, but in this first verse, it's simply the statement and the truth of what we were by nature as fallen creatures of Adam's race. And now in this chapter, he's gonna go on to bring in that which mercy and grace has brought in as a sovereign work of the Spirit of God.
So you have those two men that were referred to in First Corinthians 15 verse 3 verses describe the state of that man also versus 11 and 12. It's interesting after the first three verses, there's a but and after those two verses, 11 and 12, there's another but it's God intervening into the.
Seeming impossibility of there being any hope at all, you say, Jim, No hope for a dead man. You can get intelligent doctors working on people while they're still alive, and they'll do everything they possibly can to maintain that life. As soon as they're dead, that's it. Sorry. Take them to the morgue. That's it. There's no more hope. And that's the way it is with us. But that's where God comes in, isn't it?
It's wonderful, but it's not only that we are dead, but we are under the power of the friend, of the power of the air, the spirit that works now, and the children of disobedience.
Satan is working to control those who.
Who in verse 3?
Are controlled by the lust of the flesh.
00:15:01
The desires of the flesh and of the mind. Sometimes used in illustration with.
Rather than South America of a horse, when you're gonna ride a horse, you put a bridle in its mouth and you get on the saddle. And that horse may think he's going where he wants to go, but you have something inside that horse's mouth that allows you to guide him where you want him to go. So the unsaved person that thinks sees the master of his own destiny is badly mistaken.
Through the lust of the flesh and the desires of the flesh of the mind, Satan uses to control that person to where he wants to take him. But a hopeless situation. Not only is there deadness to life towards God, but there's a being controlled by an enemy that only seeks for your own destruction. People talk about free will.
This is not being free.
To Will where you wanna go. You're not master of your own destiny if you're in Adam alone. No, you are under the control of somebody else. And he's using those desires, those fleshly luck that are in all our hearts naturally, to take you where he wants you to go. What a terrible black picture we have in the 1St 3 verses of this chapter.
I'd like to refer to a verse in John's Gospel, chapter 4.
Uh, chapter 5. I'm sorry, John's Gospel, chapter 5.
And verses 24 and five Verily, verily, I stand to you. He that heareth My word, and believeth on him that sent Me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life, or from judgment unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is when the dead.
Shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.
It's a wonderful thing is given in this verse connected with our chapter that while man cannot communicate to a dead man, here we see the picture of man morally dead toward God. But God is not limited and it's a wonderful thing that God speaks to the dead and as it says in these verses.
Umm, he that hears, well, how could a dead man ever hear? And yet the 25th verse says, the hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that here shall live. So faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, and God is presently speaking to the dead.
And those who hear with the ear of faith given of God, believe and receive life.
And participate in all the blessings that God has purposed.
Is that why the last item was made? A quickening spirit?
The first Adam received his life from God, but he didn't have life in himself apart from God.
But the last atom has life in himself and has the capacity to impart that life to others. And so the Lord Jesus, when he was here on earth, he had life in himself.
A man couldn't even take it from him when he was on the cross and it was necessary to do the work of redemption. He had to die. But in literally man did not have the power, even by what he did to him, to take his life.
He was truly a quickening spirit and had the power of life in his own being. And so it says, he dismissed his spirit to fulfill the work of redemption and to die for us. He did, but it was his own.
Act in obedience to the necessity of redemption that He does so, but we even as God's creatures, even as children of God.
00:20:02
Will forever and for eternity be creatures of which God sustains us in that eternal life. It's the life of Christ that we have. But Christ, the quickening Spirit is the one that can impart that life to the soul and does by the by the medium of the by the work of the Spirit of God.
So in Adam, because of sin, Adam dies and there's no blessing.
In atom, but in Christ all shall be made alive.
The hour is coming in now when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and the fear shall live. And so I ended in with the first, started with a new chapter.
Yes, he was really looking forward to the day when the Word would go forth after the death and his death and resurrection, and the Spirit of God would be sent down to take that word and apply it to the conscience and heart of the hearer and use it to impart divine life. But it's been the mighty way in which God has always worked because He could say, and now is.
The Lord Jesus was here in this world, He was speaking the truth, He was speaking the very words that His Father gave him to speak, and the Spirit of God was working. It's unique to this dispensation that the Spirit of God has been sent down to work in the way that we've been Speaking of. But the Word was going forth in the days of the Lord Jesus, and there were those that we know received the Word, and there were those that did have life. The Lord speaks of more abundant life, and that's what you and I have, because now there's the full capacity.
To enjoy that life. But God has been imparting life from the very beginning by His Spirit. And so He speaks of it in this way. And I want to just go back to that just for a moment and put it in perspective perhaps. So we just understand what we're Speaking of when we speak about death and being dead in trespasses and sins. And I've often said this, but something that was helpful to me in getting a hold of and understanding the concept of death in the Word of God.
Is that first of all, as we said, it always denotes the separation of two things. And death is referred to in three different ways in Scripture. When Adam sinned, it says death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. And we know that physical death came in as a result of Adam's sin. And we don't have to drive very far to see a graveyard or a Mortuary.
The reminder that all have sinned and that as a result physical death has come in and physical death is the separation of the Bo, the spirit of the body, and the spirit. The body without the spirit is dead.
It tells us in the book of James that's what constitutes physical death. Just to go over to another, uh, thought of death before we come back to what we're Speaking of, we find in Revelation there is something that is referred to as the second death. And it's referred to, I believe, as the second death because it will be the eternal separation of a person from God in the bottomless pit in the lake of fire.
In hell, and so awful will it be to be separated eternally from God with no spark of love or divinity or the presence of God, that it is referred to as the second death, eternal separation of a person from God. But in the sense that we've been Speaking of it, as we said, it's spiritual death, and your iniquities have separated between you and your God. And in the verse that Dawn read to us in John's Gospel.
That's what we have the dead as Dawn says that here. The voice of the Son of God now.
Are the dead entres, passes and sins? So we speak the gospel, we bring the word to bear on the conscience as we were saying, so that the Spirit of God can take that word and impart divine life to the dead, not the physical dead, but the spiritual dead. But just notice in that 5th of John something else, that he takes up a verse or two later just to make the difference here.
00:25:22
Verse 28 Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming. This is something that's future in which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice. Now those are the physical dead that he's talking about there. Those are those who have died and been buried in the grave. And what about them? Well, it says they shall come forth, they that have done good under the resurrection of life.
And they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. So everyone that has died from Adam down is going to be raised. Not at the same time, and it's not our thought to get into that aspect of things, but they're going to be raised.
There are going to be those who are raised at the rapture, at the coming of the Lord Jesus under the resurrection of life. They're going to be caught up together with us to meet the Lord in the air and will be ever with the Lord. And then there is the resurrection of damnation. Those who have physically died aren't going to get off, so to speak. No, they are going to be raised. Their dust is going to be brought back together and they are going to be raised to stand before the Lord Jesus.
And to be judged for their in their sins and what a solemn thing is going to be. So I just say that because I think it's helpful when we talk about death to keep it in its proper perspective. Always denotes the separation of two things. And spiritual death is to be separated from God with no ability to respond apart from a work outside ourselves.
And said several times in the.
What Brother Clem wrought before us, there's the Word of God, is the story of two men and consequently of two families. The families that have come from those two men, one is Adam and the other is Christ. And as Bob mentioned a little while ago in the 1St 3 verses, we have the 1St man family. That's why it says in verse 2 The spirit that now worketh in the children or the sons of disobedience.
That's the family of Adam. They're the children of disobedience. And just a little comment here and what we're gonna read and have in this book when they when Paul is a Jew by birth and he is writing to Gentiles in Ephesus. And so sometimes he's saying you, he's referring to them as Gentiles. And when he says we, he's including himself with them.
As Jew and Gentile and being brought into the the family of God. But in this second chapter or second verse, he says the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. Well, how is Adam's race controlled? As Bob has already really said, it's Satan is behind the world. He controls the course of things in this world today and throughout this world and we're here on a Saturday morning, but throughout this world at this time.
Satan is the God of it and he is controlling it by the lusts that have been mentioned and those that belong to or not belong to him really, but those that he wants is his own. They're called children of disobedience, and that was what we were. We were children of disobedience, children in rebellion against God, and we're the cat. We're the ones that God has in love according to his counsel that.
I'm going to do something with them. I'm going to take them out of that dead condition in which they are, and I'm going to associate them with the last atom, and I am going to make them part of my family. And so as we don't have developed here, but in John's epistle, we learned that we are now not the children of disobedience, but we sit in this room before God as the children of God.
Children of God, that's Christ, the result of his work and Christ all shall be made alive and by his quickening spirit we have been brought into God's family and have the life of Christ. And where thou the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Incredible blessing for a creature.
00:30:13
The other thing that's connected with the children of disobedience is at the end of verse three, children of wrath, and in that, like you mentioned on Fall includes himself as a Jew, we among whom also we all had our conversation.
And we're by nature the children of Wrath, even as others. That's all that a person.
Of Adam's race has any hope of looking forward to wrath.
We're in a time past the walk, according to the court, in this world and then.
Referring to the block, it really what someone had said before that it referred to our whole lifestyle, uh, the entire way we present ourselves and we're, uh, we uh, just move as we go along in this world. From the time that we get up in the morning till the time that we go to bed at night time, there's, there's a walk.
It is characterized by each of us.
So here it is referring to the vision to our Christians, and it's referring to it in the past tense.
And it's saying we're in a fine task. He walked according to the force of this world.
So Paul is writing, which is. Would you say that?
Umm, there was a way that you were affected. Before you were a Christian before you belong to the Lord, but now you are saved.
And it has made a difference in your life.
And so it should, for each of us.
And, uh, what is behind the walk of this world we've had that brought out before us, but the, uh, uh, the course of this world, the, the Princeton power of the air, so.
The whole system of a world that you and I live in is designed by the God and Prince of this world who is seeking to attract the minds of, of, uh, the world, to carry it on to judgment and to affect the lives of those of us that are believers.
We can be effective as well by the course of this world and the apostle Paul, he seemed to have noticed that there was a difference in these believers.
That they did walk that way before, but now they, uh.
In coming to place.
They were. It had an outward effect as they walked through this world.
So in verse 3, just a footnote to what they've just said in verse 3.
It says con. We had our conversation. It's the same thought as the lock in verse two. It was our manner of life. It was the whole tenor and character of our lives. It isn't just the words we speak when we use the word conversation. Quite often we're just talking about talking to each other, but in that second verse and elsewhere, frequently in the word where it says conversation.
It's talking about, it's explaining to us the whole manner of our lives, the whole way in which they're characterized. What our interests are, what we, our activities are, what our motives are, are all looked at by God is characterized by what we call here our conversation. And so the previous conversation or manner of life of children, of disobedience.
Was as already said, they were children of wrath. That was the very nature umm.
00:35:03
A dog has a certain nature.
The cow has a certain nature and it's going to have its conversation according to the nature that it has. And so man's nature and fallen in Adam and verse three is a nature which is characterized by the desire to fulfill the lust of its flesh. That's its character. Man spends his life seeking to fulfill.
Those lusts that are in his flesh and in his mind, and Satan controls it, and man is no match for Satan, and so he keeps his goods in peace until God steps in. And God, of course, is greater than Satan and is able to break that power and to bring life to that soul and deliver them from that.
Condition in which they were and one of the wonderful things that God has done to change our conversation is He's changed our nature.
Here's the nature of man and Adam, but the nature of man in Christ is a nature that loves to please God, has no desire to do anything according to the lust of its flesh, and so it delights as the Lord Jesus, the perfect man said of his life. His conversation was characterized by I delight to do thy will, Oh my God. And we don't have it in the verse, but in contrast that's what we are now.
Uh, children of God, we are those who have a different conversation that flows from a different nature and a different object and a different source of that we wish to please.
Well, we come to this wonderful **** don't we? And so God brings in something, and it's striking that there are three things that God brings in here in connection with our condition. One is mercy, the other is love. And then in verse five, you have grace. And it's interesting that those three things are listed in those three ways because I might have mercy on something or someone.
But I may not have a particular love or affection to do anymore for it than deliver it from its present situation. You might see a dog who's sick and you might take it to the vet, or you might help it out in some way. You have mercy on the on the beast, on the animal, but you may not have any particular love for that animal.
If I can put it another way, you might have a an animal that is sick and it might be mercy to shoot that animal and put it out of its mercy, out of its misery. That was mercy.
But the animal's gone, and perhaps you feel bad because the animal's gone, but no particular love for that creature. You put it out of its misery and had mercy on it. And God in His mercy has delivered us from hell and from our condition, naturally speaking. But there was a great motive involved, wasn't there? There was a great motive, and that motive was that great love. Brother Dave mentioned the Samaritan who went to that man.
And I believe it was really more than just having mercy on that man. To have mercy on that man would have gone and maybe thrown a blanket over him and given him a little something to eat and drink and made it given him some momentary, momentary easement in his present condition and gone on down the road. That would have been mercy. But that man had compassion on him. There was a deeper motive than just mercy.
A motive that caused him to not only meet him in the ditch, but to pull him out of that ditch, to put him on his own beast, to provide for him, bring him to the end, to provide for his future needs with the money that he took out. To tell him that he was going to come again and check on him and see how he was doing and provide for him until that time and so on. That was a far greater Mer, uh, motive than mercy.
And so mercy's wonderful brethren, but if that was all we had, uh, we couldn't revel in the things that we've reveled in this morning. And so God is rich in mercy, that's true. But the motive behind it is his great love. And then by grace are you saved. And as has often been, Simply put, mercy saves us from hell. But grace has provided for us a wonderful eternity and a wonderful blessing now, and an enjoyment of that blessing.
00:40:12
Again, you might go down to a poor area of the city and you might have mercy on souls and help them in their present condition, give them a little money or food. But grace would bring that. Bring a person right up to your house and make them your your son or perhaps even your heir. You adopt that person that you found down in the inner city and you provide everything that's for them and secure their future. That's not just having mercy. That's great. Well, these are little pictures of what God has done for us.
Beautiful expression. Rich.
In Mercy.
Our God is rich in mercy.
How often when we show mercy like you're mentioning, Jim, we're limited.
But God is not limited.
He is rich in mercy. No case. Too awful. Too bad for our God. Wonderful to think about it. Rich and mercy.
Hope I'm not going to confuse by the next remarks, but I think it's important.
In connection with verse 5, to distinguish something that so far in our reading this morning, we've somewhat used interchangeably.
And verse five it says.
And has, uh, you who are dead in trespassing and sin has quickened us together with Christ. There is a distinction in scripture between quickening and new birth and we've been talking about dead people and so on.
I'd like to make the distinction because it's important for the Lord's sake that we do here in this verse. It's talking about us being quickened with Christ.
But Christ, who was quickened, never needed to be born again like we do.
Quickening is a work of raising someone who is dead back to a state of life. The Lord Jesus physically died and he was quickened. He was raised from the dead and that was quickening. New birth as we need it, not the Lord Jesus, but we as we need it in John chapter 3 if we were to go back there, which I think we're all familiar with and don't need to.
But when Nicodemus went to the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born again, he was not referring to raising Nicodemus from the dead. He was referring to the fact that Nicodemus had a life that was dead God word, and Nicodemus could have no fellowship in relationship with God on the grounds of what he was.
That which was born of the flesh was flesh.
And Nicodemus was, as a man of Adam's race, was born of the flesh, but that's all it was, flesh. And there was nothing in flesh that God could have pleasure in after sin came in. And so as a consequence, he said, you need a new birth, you need a new life from a new source. And the thought of being born again is the reception of a new life from a new source. And so then the Lord says to Nicodemus that which is born of the Spirit.
Is Spirit, so our natural lives in Adam we received as a consequence of the conception that took place in the womb of our mother and a given of God by God's power. It happens, but the life that we have in Christ.
Wasn't to return to our mother's womb and be born again, but it was a life that's given by the Spirit.
And so we are born again. But here in verse five, in light of that, it's important to also see that God looks at us in connection with the Lord Jesus coming to be made like unto us, to take his place among us and apart, but in the likeness of sinful flesh. And so man knew him when he was here on earth as a man after the flesh.
00:45:06
As you might say, a man that was identified with Adam's race.
Even though he was different and unique and perfect and holy, but as identified with Adam's rice, he goes to the cross, he's placed on it, and there he dies. And if we could use this expression judicially, that's the end of Adam's race before God. That's the end of all that God has to do with man.
In Adam, as far as his working, Christ dies to it.
And he enters the physical state of death.
But when he is raised from the dead, he is raised as the beginning of that which is the race that comes from himself, from Christ. So in Christ, I mean, so in Adam all die, but in Christ all shall be made alive. So in Romans just refer to a few places where this truth is brought out in Romans it tells us in chapter 6.
You've died with Christ.
In Romans we're looked at as responsible people before God. We're not looked at as here in Ephesians, as dead and trespasses and sins. And Romans were looked at as as responsible creatures before God. But there was nothing in us. We, we all had sinned and come short of what God expected. And so the Lord Jesus comes into those circumstances for us and.
He dies, but if we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God says, I look at you as dying with him.
And when he comes out of death, then we learn from not Romans really, but from Colossians and Ephesians here that we are quickened with him before God and we are part positionally of a new race. And that's more the truth of what's presented here in this fifth verse. It's.
It's not so much the eye, it isn't really the idea of how we get saved or being born again in the sense of John 3, but it is our place with Christ.
In that being quickened and being brought into that new position before God. And so we are, and it's in that new position that we were raised up together with Christ to be in heavenly places. That expression in First Corinthians that the last Adam was made of quickening spirit and not referred to the Lord when he was born of the Virgin Mary. It refers to him on resurrection day.
When he, uh, was a, a new creation out of death and resurrection. And that's the life and relationship that we have with him when we, uh, are born again and are quickened. And it's so it's so good to see that because.
I like, I think of it as like the example of when you like you after he had died and they had buried him and they later on, another man was being buried in the, in, uh, enemy came in and they had to quickly dispose of the body. And so they quickly cast them into the grave of Elijah. And as soon as he touched the bones of Elijah, he came alive. That's a picture of the quickening spirit.
Uh.
That results with, in faith in the Lord Jesus and uh, the new life that we have in that way is that connected with the Lord Jesus as risen from the dead and in that life that we can enjoy with him in heaven because it's heavenly. And, uh, that's the relationship the church has with the Lord Jesus as a heavenly people and Satan is looked at as the Prince of the power of the air.
That that's to stop us from enjoying the heavenly relationship that we have with the Lord Jesus.
To the life we have is a life that is beyond death, isn't it? When he rose from the dead, he had a life that cannot die any longer.
Absolutely beyond the power of death. And now that's the life that you and I possess. Death may touch our bodies because our bodies are still part of the first creation.
00:50:09
But they can't. Death can no way touch the light we possess in Christ.
That's just that's why it says asleep in Jesus, because God never looks at one of his own, as even in the state of physical death is dead. They're asleep as to their body, not as to their soul, but as to the body. It's asleep. But even that body is to be raised and reunited to the spirit in that new life.
It's interesting here in these verses 5:00 and 6:00 I've been talking about.
Have quickened us together with Christ then it's.
Uh, not left there nearly, but in verse six it says and has raised us up together.
And made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ. Quickening is one thing, but being raised up is also something that is wonderful. We are completely brought out of that position of death.
And use the illustration of Lazarus like it's been mentioned. The dead heard the voice of the Son of God and lived. The Lord stood outside the grave of Lazarus and said Lazarus come forth. You're not going to stood out there and shouted all day long.
Didn't never come out. Why? Because it was the voice of the Son of God that the dead can hear. And the dead did hear. And he came to life, came out of that tomb, rapped in those great clothes. But he didn't stay there, no.
Lazarus didn't live in the cemetery after he was raised from the dead. That's the place of the dead. He was completely taken out of that position of death altogether.
And so, brethren, we have been lifted out of that position. Our position is different. Young people, you're not the same as the world around us. Yes, we occupy the same world. We're passing through it. But you and I, as believers in the Lord Jesus, have been not only quickened, but raised up together with Christ and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ.
See, I thought we were sitting in Allendale.
But as to our position, it's so real, brother, that God sees us.
As now, right now.
Sitting in those heavenly places in Christ Jesus, there is the Lord Jesus in the glory, and we are there seated with him in that glory. Wonderful, precious truth. This is not just fantasy, this is reality. And it's important for us to let these truths sink into our soul, to enjoy them. This is the way.
God looks at you in need right now.
I'd like to ask a question.
Put the two together, which I enjoy, verse five. And when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ.
And have raised us up together. The question is, can a quickened soul be lost?
Can you be lost together with Christ? I don't think so. I mean, I know. So neither can they die anymore.
And then in Ephesians chapter one and verse 4, there's that beautiful verse without blame before him and love. It just seems that the 2GO together and they can't be separated. But I, I put the question out there because I think it gets raised sometime in this confusion in that maybe, uh.
If he's flipping 1-6 would be a a a verse that would answer that. Uh uh.
Philippians chapter one, verse six, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun the good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
When God begins the work of quick by quickening, He never leaves it unfinished.
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It's nice to notice in verse five and six there's two togethers.
Of our chapter 25 quickened us together and then verse six, well actually there's three raise this up together and made us sit together.
And it going back to chapter one, these thoughts, the thoughts in these verses are connected with chapter one and verse 19. What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ.
When he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
And a place of power and glory, far above all Principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but it also in that which is to come. And have put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him that felleth All in all.
Looking at Christ first we see him that.
And then quickened, and then raised, and then seated. And he is raised by the power of God, and seated in a place of honor and glory over all things.
And.
It's that place to which we are brought.
In other words, brethren, our blessing goes far beyond being quickened from the dead. It goes far beyond simply being raised. It takes us to the place of sitting.
With him and that's why the church is not formed until Pentecost.
It's not formed while the Lord Jesus is on earth. It's not formed when He is quickened and raised from the dead. It's formed when he's seated in the heavenly places, because that is His place of glory and honor. And when He is there, then the church is formed so that she will be an association with Him in his place of honor.
And glory. And so we say the church is formed with a glorified Christ and we are identified with him. And that's what's being brought out to us in verse six, that we may sit together in heavenly places in Christ. It's an incredible, it's a it's our blessing. It's an incredible place that no other creature on earth or in heaven, even angels don't share.
In this blessing, but it's all associated with Christ died for us, that man that came among the children of the first Adam. And then we die with Him, Then we are quickened with Him, then we are raised with Him, and it takes us all the way to the place where it can say we're seated with Him and the fullness of His present glory.
So in Colossians chapter 3 and verse one it says Christ who is our life and our life is hid with Christ and God. And so the life that we now have is his life and it is identified and in fact it's sources with a man in the glory. And so it says I guess I'll have to look at it to get the exact expression and Colossians 3.
Verse four. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear.
We shall also appear with Him in glory because that's where our life is. That's where our conversation is, That's where our position is. It's hid right now with Christ and glory. But when He appears in His glory, we have to appear with Him because, well, I can't be any other way because that's our life and that's our place and that's our conversation. Our conversation now is from heaven, as we have in 2nd Corinthians 5.
And so we can have an enjoyment of heaven before we get there.
As a result of this wonderful work and the position and blessing we've been brought into is illustrated perhaps with the children of Israel. It's true that the night they ate the Passover lamb, they were redeemed and it met the claims of God and the first born was spared and so on. But with God going to be satisfied to leave them on the Egypt Bank of the Red Sea? No, they were still in a land where the authority of Pharaoh.
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Was owned a Pharaoh, being a picture of Satan, the God and Prince of this world. No God was going to do something else. He was going to deliver them through the Red Sea. And so they were, but without enough to satisfy the heart of God just to bring them through the Red Sea, and there they sang as the redeemed and delivered people. No, in time he brought them through the Jordan. He brought them into that which pictures the vast panorama of heavenly blessings and position that we have here in Ephesians.
And that we've been Speaking of in this reading this morning. God wasn't satisfied until he brought his people into that position. And God's desire for us was not only to save us from hell, to not only save us from this world that was under judgment, not only to bring an end to the first man. Because in the Red Sea I see the end of my sins, but in the Jordan, I see the end of myself. And I'm brought up on resurrection ground. And it's the position in type of being raised and quickened with Christ and raised and seated and so on so that there can be an enjoyment.
Of those heavenly blessings and our heavenly portion. Now, Canaan is not a picture of something that we have to wait to enjoy in a future day. Canaan is a picture of something that God desires for us to enjoy. It's ours now. And His desire is that we would walk in the good and blessing of it and enjoy it. And so, brethren, what a position. We're forgiven sinners, that's true. But we're far, far more than forgiven sinners.
We're the recipients of mercy, that's true. But we're far, far more.
Then the recipients of mercy by his love and grace and that sovereign work, we are quickened together with Christ. We're we're raised together. We're seated together. Now the question is, are we really walking?
As a heavenly people in the enjoyment of that which we are going to enjoy unhinderedly in a future day.
That's why it's so important to let these things sink into our souls and enjoy them, brother, because it's what you enjoy that will have power in your walk down here, not just merely the understanding of the enjoyment of it. Is this real? Are you talking about something real, Jim, or is this just the doctrine? It's real. They our time is up and we have a beautiful picture of this. And David choosing Mephibosheth to sit at table with him.
And then you think about that illustration, it wasn't just a desire to bless you, it's just their souls. Household. David had a desire to have him at table and enjoy the fellowship there.
Faith
Address—Don Rule
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John, Chapter 20.
And verse 27.
Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hit her thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach, hit her thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless.
But believing.
And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed.
Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.
Before making comments on this this passage, turn over to Habakkuk.
Chapter 2.
Jonah, Micah. Naam Habitat.
Abacus Chapter 2.
And verse 4.
Behold, his soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in him.
But the just shall live by his faith.
We're going to speak for a little while about the subject of faith.
Really, I don't know that I could say it's on the subject exactly beyond saying we're gonna make some remarks on the subject of faith. Because if we started in Genesis and just read verses, we could read till the end of the hour and not exhaust all the verses in Scripture in which that particular very important word is found.
So it's just very gonna not be very comprehensive. It's not gonna be very complete.
Uh, it's just gonna be remarks on the subject of faith. I believe it complements what we had in the reading meeting this morning.
As to what the reading meeting this morning ended up talking about?
Enjoying and living in the good of the position that we are in, of having been quickened and raised and seated in heavenly places. But to enjoy it.
To live, it requires faith. We're going to talk about that faith.
The verse in John 20.
Speaks about Thomas. We all know about Thomas. And Thomas said unless I see and him and I see those Marks and I put my finger in my hand there, I'm not gonna believe.
So the week later, the Lord Jesus is present.
And Thomas sees and Thomas believes.
What I want to remark on is the next words of the Lord Jesus, when he said, Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.
You and I, as part of the Church of God, are the most blessed creatures that God has ever created or will ever create. We have a blessing that exceeds that of angels.
And we have a blessing, a future to be enjoyed now by faith which exceeds that of God's earthly people in the coming millennial day and in the coming eternal day.
And there's something connected with faith that distinguishes us from God's earthly people.
And that which distinguishes us from God's earthly people is something that God has chosen.
To I don't want to say necessarily reward, but has chosen to give us a more blessed place because of it, and that is with respect to the earthly people.
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It is.
See and believe, and the Lord Jesus will present himself in a coming day, as he has already presented himself to them in a way that they could see him. And he says to them, Believe me.
And upon their belief, they enter into a blessing from God. But God has reserved the richest of blessings to all the creatures.
For those who lay hold of him first without seeing.
And so, God, none of us have seen the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who is the visible expression of God to us in a coming eternity? But we lay hold of what we believe or what we have by faith, without seeing today.
And we might say that's hard, that's difficult. I wish something else I wish I could see, and then it would be easier to believe and so on.
Don't be sorry you don't yet see.
God is using it in his ways and according to his counsels to bring us into the greatest of all blessings. And we will look back when we're home in glory and say, I'm glad God did it that way. So enjoy the fact that you must now live out your life on the ground of faith for that which you do not yet see.
Here in Habakkuk chapter 2 and verse four, we're gonna make some more remarks. It says the just shall live by his faith. This verse appears four times in the Bible.
And each time it emphasizes something a little different about what the text of the verse is. It's introduced to us here and have a caulk. And I I read this particular verse because there's one word in it that's not found in the other three places.
And that word is his.
It is right. That's something we all have to deal with.
Every one of us in this room has to have his own faith. I can't have your faith, you can't have mine. It is extremely important to God.
That faith be found in US individually, and so here we find the just shall live by His.
Faith. We would love at times when we're parents to be able to open up son, daughter and pour some faith in. And it doesn't work that way, but it's our heart's desire. And we look to a God that can open them up and pour some faith in. And we thank God for that. But our faith has to be in the God that can do it, not in what we can do. And God is honored in that.
Let's turn over to the first place in the New Testament, where we have.
Umm. This word repeated in Romans chapter one.
Romans chapter one.
And verse 16.
I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.
To everyone that believeth, to the Jew 1St, and also to the Greek.
Where therein is the righteousness of God revealed, revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith.
Before we comment on this, let's turn over also to John's Gospel Chapter 3.
John's Gospel, chapter 3.
Verse 31.
He that cometh from above is above all.
He that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is above all. And what he has seen and heard that he testifieth. And no man receives receiveth his testimony. And he that hath received his testimony has set to his seal that God is true.
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1St we just read is the definition of faith.
And what we see in Romans chapter one and here in John chapter 3.
Is that?
The faith work, the kind of faith we're talking about.
Is that faith which receives a report about something?
And accepts it as true.
So when God speaks.
He expects he has the right to expect that what he says will be accepted.
100%.
That's true.
And that's what faith is. It accepts the testimony given to it to be true.
If I say it's gonna rain tomorrow.
You can either accept that or reject it.
I'm not saying it's going to rain tomorrow. I have no basis to know.
But that illustrates something that's pretty important, isn't it?
We aren't characteristically, we have learned to be very unbelieving or skeptical in our lives. And when it comes to God, it's so important that we put that aside because the testimony of man, when man speaks, when man says something, when man demonstrates something, he fails sometimes in two areas.
One, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Completely. He's got ignorance in him. And the second reason is because man has learned a lie and he can't always be trusted because sometimes he lies.
But in contrast to that, God expects us to absolutely accept everything he says to be true, because he also says I never lie and I know everything.
So accept it, believe it if you will trust it. Those words mean the same to me.
The God who speaks.
Chose to speak through the Lord Jesus Christ and when the Lord Jesus Christ was here on earth, he said if you've seen me, you've seen the Father and everything I'm telling you, the Father has given me to say to you. And so if you won't accept it, you're rejecting the one that gave it, which is God. Same thing is going to happen on this platform. If we're left here tonight, there's going to be someone I don't know who walk up, stand where I'm standing right now.
And.
God is going to speak to us by that person.
They are God's mouthpiece for us and they are going to read the very words of God to us, and God is going to hold us accountable.
For every word that comes from himself.
Through that person, his instrument, and we are to accept it.
We are to believe it as from himself.
So here in Romans chapter one and a quotation of this first the just shall live by faith.
The emphasis actually on that little phrase here is just.
What it is, is man. Romans is about unjust man and how unjust man can be made right with God and right in the beginning. He says I have I'm not ashamed of God's message and God's message says the way to be right with God.
Involves a message that you are to accept concerning God's Son, and when you accept it, God makes you just.
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And so faith is involved. The just shall live.
It could even say the just shall receive life through faith.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And so it gives emphasis to that here.
The believing that of the message of the gospel and God's gospel includes more than just getting saved from hell. God's full gospel includes what we had this morning in the Reading meeting. That's part of God's good moves, God's message to us to be accepted and enjoyed by faith.
And so it's revealed.
Is it says in that verse, it's revealed from faith to faith. That is, it's made known on the principle of faith to those who receive it that way.
I'm going to interject something that's not perhaps quite the point here, but.
Umm. It illustrates something that I've had to learn over and over and over and over and over again in my life. And I'm still learning it, so maybe some of you are too.
So I'll repeat it.
For its benefit to us. It's a reminder to us when I was a little boy.
I learned that you could ask God for things.
And he'd do it. So one night up in my room, I decided I wanted a bow and arrow set.
So I asked God. Bow and arrow set.
And I had faith that I would get it.
I even told God where to put it.
Here is to put it in the.
Sort of a study we had in the house and there was a toy box there that my grandfather had made and God was to deposit my bow and arrow set behind the.
Toy box and I'd go down early in the morning and pick it up before one of my brothers found it.
And so the next morning I went down with complete confidence. I had faith, really I did, that it was going to be there. And I went down and I looked.
And it wasn't there. I opened up the toy box. It wasn't there. I started to think, who am I going to ask that's taking it? And my brothers beat me to it or something. And.
I was very disappointed.
Now that it took quite a few years to get anywhere on my disappointment.
But I want to say.
In a matter of faith.
What I was doing was.
I believe God will give me what I want.
That was the root of what was going on there. I wanted something and I believed God would give me what I wanted.
I had to learn.
Not only know that we sometimes say sometimes God says yes, sometimes God says no, and sometimes God says, wait, that wasn't in the principle of what I was doing.
I had formed within myself something that I wanted and I was going to use God's power to get it for me, and I was disappointed because God didn't do it.
I just say I've had to go over that lesson countless times in my life, brethren.
God gives the testimony from Himself, and that's what we're to lay hold on, not our wants, not our choices.
Not.
What we would like the outcome of something to be.
And our so-called faith, real as it may be, is going to find itself disappointed if we don't.
Seek God's mind and his choices and God's will in them. Even though we sometimes say, I've said many times, I'm just going to say, Lord, if it's your will. And then on the matter. But when he turned out not to be as well, I was pretty disappointed with him that his will didn't line up with mine.
00:20:17
And so it caused some.
If I can be human about it, some strain between us.
Between my God and I, may we learn in the matter of faith that it is when what God says.
Not simply what's in our hearts that we want, we desire.
OK.
Wanna turn over Continue the remarks.
To the Old Testament.
To Isaiah, chapter 40.
We're gonna spend some time in this chapter.
It's I don't know that the word faith even appears in it. I'm not sure. I never stop to actually look at the verses with that thought in mind, but in my own heart it has a lot to do with the matter of faith.
In an important, extremely important way. It's very foundational to me. On the subject of faith, there are three.
Different, I'm going to say persons in this chapter.
That are taken up.
Man, idols and God.
And they're compared to each other.
And I believe that there's what I want, that I believe God wants out of it this afternoon is we're going to look at man, we're going to look briefly at idols, we're going to look at God, and God is pleading with us.
He was pleading with Israel here, but in principle he's pleading with us.
Trust me.
Trust me, believe me.
Aren't I worthy of your complete trust?
Notice first slide. We won't read the whole chapter, but I will say verse one. So I'll just make a comment on verse one. Comfort Qi. Comfort Qi, my people say it.
Your God, God is here restoring the relationship between himself and his earthly people. And, uh, it was given to them in the time of Isaiah and it had application then and it's gonna have application again during what we call the tribulation. And if your heart and mind lay hold of the, what's the principles in this chapter, we will find it is a comfort to our souls.
In the present circumstances of our lives that require faith.
So he says comfort she, comfort she my people and he then presents these thoughts to them as a means that will result in their comfort.
Verse five. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
Just to comment, everything God does ultimately is to be done for his glory.
Of him, through him, to him are all things, everything God does, everything God has ever will do, has at the bottom of it. It's to his glory, it's for his glory, it's for himself, it's for the display and our seeing of it is his own excellence of his being. So he says the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and, and what he's going to say, he reveals himself in glory.
Not in the glory that the New Testament brings before us in the personal Lord Jesus. He's dealing with earthly people, but the principle of it is here. He says all flesh shall see it, so let's see it together. Let's look at it together this afternoon and see something of the glory of God as expressed here in this chapter.
Now, a kind of rhetorical question is asking verse six, and he first starts with man. Look at yourself here.
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Gonna get a little chance to see yourself at least as God sees you.
So the question is.
The voice said cry, and he said, What shall I cry? What are we gonna say about ourselves? What's somebody going to say about us as creatures? Well, here's what it says. All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof, as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the spirit of the Lord blows upon it.
Surely the people is grass, the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever.
Not very big, is it?
Not a whole lot of glory there.
This little grass.
It fades, it comes, it goes, it's gone.
That what mankind thinks of himself.
Not very significant, just it doesn't talk even about sin here, does it? It's just just man in comparison to God because things are being compared here. So we're going to see God in a moment. But if we're gonna compare man to God and what man is compared to what God is.
He says, well what should I cry? All flesh? This is grass.
The goodness thereof is the flower of the field.
Pretty for a little bit.
There's a certain beauty. It's so temporary, it's so passing. It doesn't last.
Such as man.
Now look at God first, skip down to verse 12. Now we're going to compare. God is going to compare himself to us and he says.
Who have measured God verse 12 Who have measured?
The waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out to heaven, and the span, and comprehended the death of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Who had directed the spirit of the Lord, or been his counselor, and taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment? Who taught him knowledge?
And showed him the way of understanding.
It's gone.
You know.
Suppose they put a balance here and I wanted to weigh 1 speck of dust.
Uh, I don't know if there any balances. I can say strongly they're none in a Allendale that could weigh it. It's too insignificant. Probably the surface of any balance in Allendale would have whole hundreds, maybe thousands of little dust specks on it.
And even if you could clear it off, you couldn't put one on there with any instrument that's sufficiently precise. I don't know if man has one, but anyways, it's pretty insignificant.
But God can take the earth and say it's like a little bit of dust. It's just a tiny little thing to me.
Who? Who instructed him? Who helped him design the universe? Did he have to take counsel of anyone? Did he have to say, hmm, I need a little help on this? This is a pretty big project. Somebody's gonna have to help me.
Notice verse 15.
I will read it.
Umm, behold, the nations are a drop of a bucket.
Commenting this morning at breakfast about this verse and saying I thought that was a pretty new expression. So sometimes we're surprised, aren't we? Determines little expressions like that. A drop in the buckets been around for a while. So he says here, behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket and the counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the aisles. There's a very little thing.
Lebanon is not sufficient to burn. It's all the trees of the grandeur of man that were found in Lebanon and Solomon's time. He says they're not enough of them to be bothered to burn from God's perspective, nor the beast thereof. Sufficient for a burnt offering. All the nations before him are as nothing. They are counted to him as less than nothing and vanity. I'm going to read that last verse again in the new translation.
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All the nations are as nothing before him. They are esteemed by him as less than a cipher.
In Vanity.
Interesting because sometimes we talk about man and we say he's a zero and you put a bunch of zeros after and then you put a one in front of it and it gives it all its value.
God doesn't quite give man the zero. It's that man individually here. Actually, God doesn't treat man individually as a zero. He treats man as so precious to him that he will give his son to die for him. That's what man God esteems a man.
In a site and its desires for him. But and when you look at the nations when you look at mankind in general and God looks at all that man's grandeur has done and produced and so on. He says he doesn't measure up to the cipher. That's a zero. He he doesn't even count. He's less than one of those.
What is man? What is man that God would be mindful of him?
OK, let's look at the third contrast here, verse 18, The idol.
Verse 18 To whom then will you liken God?
What he's saying and, and, and what he's going to say here to us is.
If you don't give me the supreme place in your heart and in your faith, what are you giving it to?
It's a practical question. If God is not your God, something else is. What is it? And are you going to? How are you going to measure what you have instead of God?
Compared to God.
And God is here saying to Israel and says to our hearts, what are you replacing me with?
That you're gonna put your and this is interesting, I think are important too. If something else is your God in a practice, that's where your faith is.
The unjust shall live by his faith too.
The just shall live by faith, but the unjust is going to live by some kind of faith.
And his faith is going to be in his God, his idol.
Some people's faith is in their money. That's their God and that's their faith.
If they run out of money, they're worried because that's their trust.
Some people's faith is in themselves to accomplish some great thing and they try and sometimes successfully get it, and that's what they've got for their faith. God here says this is idols. He says in verse 18. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness will you compare to Him?
The workmen melted the graven image. The Goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold and cast a silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation, chooses the tree that will not rot, does the best he can with the idol he's going to make. He tries to get one that won't rot. He seeketh unto him a cunning Workman to help him build it, prepare it, make it a graven image that shall not be moved.
That's what God says people do instead of himself, instead of faith in God, they they find something that replaces him.
And they say, this is my God.
God, please, she says. Have you not known?
Presents himself again one more time here he says, have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told? You haven't? Hasn't there been a report of myself for you to accept is true?
That is, believe. Have you heard? Hasn't there been a report from me? Verse 2221 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Have you not told you? Have you not understood? From the foundations of the earth, It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof, or is grasshoppers.
Yes, ma'am, that stretches out the heavens with a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in, and so on, and we won't take more time. Verse 25. To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal, sayeth the Holy One?
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May we?
Heed the Apostle John's last words to us, the Spirit's last words to us through the Apostle John.
Keep yourselves from idols.
If idols take hold of your life.
It's a pitiful substitute for faith in the true God. It's a sad, it's a pitiful thing really, that any one of us would turn to idols, that is, to not physical things that can be seen, but something that takes control of our lives and substitutes the Lord Jesus for it. And it becomes that which is really.
Satan is behind it, but he's the God of this world and he becomes man's God. The things that he puts before man become man's God. So sad.
Before we leave Isaiah, I want to turn over to read another little bit in chapter 49.
Hopefully before we're done, we'll be able to connect what we read here up a little better with the New Testament, but we'll read it while we're here in Isaiah.
Isaiah chapter 49 and verse 13 saying, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth, and break forth with singing, O mountains, for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy.
Upon is afflicted. Now here's the Lord speaking. He says sing, I'm going to have I want to comfort you. I I want you to sing you sing when you're happy and faith can lay hold of God in a way that gives comfort to the soul.
He said. I'm going to have mercy on you.
And what's the response of the ones that are being addressed Verse 14?
But Zion saith, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
That sometimes happen with us in the life of faith.
We our hearts say at least. Maybe our mouths don't. But the Lord's forsaken me.
The Lord's forgotten me.
How does the Lord answer that here?
You know, at the moment in those circumstances, it was black. It is gonna be black. There's nothing to the natural eye when these verses are gonna have their future application to these people. At that moment in time it is.
I dare say blacker than any of us will face in outward circumstances. I don't know. I wouldn't say that in the inward things like sickness that comes in our life, but as far as our outward circumstances, nobody is going to face what these people will face in that day. So what does the Lord respond to that He says in verse 15? Can a woman forget her sucking child?
This is God speaking to the heart.
Can I forget you?
Can a mother?
Forsake her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the center of her womb.
He said yes.
They may forget, in fact, a, a mother can forget her sucking child. She can go to that extent, but it's, it's the great expression of, of compassion of a mother. And he said, yeah, mother can even go that far that she'll forget her sucking child. But the Lord says.
I will not forget thee.
My eye is on that circumstance. I see it perfectly. I understand it. Will you trust me? And he gives not only.
His expression of power as we had in the 40th chapter. But there's the 2nd tremendously important thing that we need in our relationship of faith with God. We need to not only know His power.
We need to know his heart, and that's a little bit of what we have here, the heart of God.
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Umm, God can do it.
But Willie? Willie, is he willing?
I believe that's why the often repeated statement all failure, whether in Saint or center, springs from unbelief in the goodness that's in the heart of God.
Unbelief not only doesn't always come from the matter of God's power or limitations to it to be able to solve a problem just because we can't figure out how to solve it.
We sometimes tend to limit God and say, how can he do it? What really is saying is I don't know how he can do it because I can't figure out how he could do it. And so we limit him that way. But often our faith will go beyond that, Say, well, God can figure out a way that I can't, but the tests, the greater tests really is.
Willie and Willie comes the goodness that's in the heart of God. That's where the unbelief sometimes comes, the goodness that is in his heart. And so it says here I will not forgive. And he says, verse 16, Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before me. And so the one we might question the goodness of his heart, he says.
You're written right on the palms of my hands.
I don't say it's exact, but it's an application. He can look at the nail prints in his hands.
You're graven and those nail prints in my heart.
And what I the extent of my love for you?
I won't forget you. I have not forgotten you.
OK, let's turn over to Hebrews chapter 10.
We're not gonna go there. The second place in the New Testament where the just shall live by faith is found is in Galatians chapter 3. It's used there in contrast to law, the just.
Shall live on the principle or be saved on the principle of faith, not on the principle of law. And in that place it's called that verse is used to contrast to what man can do for himself under law to be made just with God. Uh, we won't further comment on that here in Hebrews chapter 10.
And verse.
35 Cast not away, therefore your confidence, which have great recompense of report.
For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, you may receive the promise for yet a little while. And he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back to perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. And then we have Chapter 11 as a cloud of witnesses to us of people who endured by faith.
Through the whole path of life to the end. And in chapter 12 and verse one, it says, Wherefore, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, the people of Chapter 11, let us lay aside every weight and sin that so easily beset us, and let us run with patience or endurance.
The race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher or completer of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Or consider him. So here we won't go over the details of this, but just a reminder to us this what's at stake here is giving up.
Giving up the just shall live. That's not the hear the salvation of their souls. That's in view. It's the fact that faith is that that has to be kept in place through the whole of life to get all the way to the end. And wonderful isn't it that there's not too many places that talk about the Lord Jesus as a man of faith, but in chapter 12.
We're, we're reminded, we might think he didn't need faith, did he? He was the Son of God and so on and so forth. But as a man, he lived by the same principle that you and I have to live by. He did it perfectly.
00:45:13
He was the beginner and completer of a path, a life of faith.
Did anyone face more tribulation? Did anyone you know there in Isaiah, he says. In the some of the chapters where we just were in chapter 49, I think it is, he says. I spent my strength for not.
I spent my whole life and I spent it as it were, as a man it would appear for not. It ended up with a life with nothing to show for it. And Daniel, he's cut off and has nothing.
So from a human perspective, he had to endure all the way to the end and not give up his faith, and he didn't. He's perfect and He's a perfect example to us. So let's remember the Lord Jesus. He went ahead of us. He went through all that we might ever go through in life, and he didn't give up. He looked beyond it to that which was the other side of this life.
And saw the joy of it and went through and persevered to the end.
Just a couple of remarks here as time is passing on as we certainly don't have time to take up this whole chapter, but I just like to notice a couple of things that I've enjoyed. Verse three, through faith, we understand. We're just going to look at maybe three or four little things here that faith gives to us. Through faith we understand, man wants to understand and then decide if you believe.
That's no honor to God very often in Scripture.
Faith comes first. It's it's the horse if you will, and the cart is apprehension or understanding that comes after.
Uh, eyesight in Scripture is very often connected with faith, and to have sight is connected with faith and unbelief produces blindness. And so sometimes people say, I don't understand, so I don't believe.
May we not go down that road. Let's by faith we understand or apprehend. Let us accept what God says first, and then depend on Him and His time and way to give us the understanding of that which we have accepted as true.
Umm verse 6. Without faith it is impossible to please him.
We all know that.
Know if there's anybody in this room that's without faith toward God?
Your life's one continuous.
Expression of sin and rebellion. Without faith, it's impossible to do anything that honors God. And if you can't honor God by what you do, your motives aren't right. The end result and the eternity won't be right.
Accept him that's true. Believe him.
Umm, chapter verse 8.
By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should have to receive for an inheritance, obeyed. Wonderful faith, promotes, leads to obedience.
Unbelief leads to disobedience.
Adam and Eve allowed unbelief to come into their heart of the goodness that was in God's heart toward them, and that led to the act of first act of disobedience, the first sin. So faith is important because Abraham believed and what came from it was obedience. If we believe God, we're promoting, we're going down the path that will also result in obedience.
To him in our lives.
Just one other comment along that line though, and that is that.
There are things.
That we know, that we believe are true.
That we still disobey God about.
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Because there is rebellion in flesh. Flesh does not want the will of God, so there's unbelief there. But a companion of unbelief is self will or rebellion against God.
Just one more here, verse 11. Through faith, Sarah received strength. Brethren, trust in God.
Produces strength to go on. If there's unbelief, there's gonna be weakness in the circumstances of life. OK, click Go to John 5 for a moment.
John chapter 5 and verse 4.
Whoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
Oh, sorry, let's read it again. I should have said First John chapter 5, not the Gospel of John. Thank you. First John chapter 5.
Verse four. First John 54.
Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. And now over to Galatians chapter 2.
Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me in the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. What we have in these verses is this in first John chapter 5.
God is speaking about giving us a nature, a life which is perfect. It's the life of Christ, it's eternal life, it's the life that comes from God to us and.
Sin can't touch it.
Nothing of this world that's wrong is attracted attractive to that life. It loves good, it's holy life, it loves good, it hates evil. And he says, you're born of God, you have it and you get the victory over the world. And then he says, what is it? Your faith? And the very next verse he presents the Lord Jesus Christ as what that faith is in.
And it's the same principle here in Galatians 2. I live by that faith which has as its object the Son of God. I know, Paul says, whom I have believed. I know in whom I have believed.
And so the Lord Jesus is presented to us as the supreme object of our faith, and it overcomes.
If it's in place in our heart and in our life, according to the new nature, idolatry and sin have no claim. It overcomes them.
And uh, it's when the eye gets off the Lord, it's other things that come in and communion is broken. And then the victory isn't there in practice, but it overcomes the world. And I want to conclude with this.
Comment about it or these thoughts about it.
We spent a whole hour on faith.
But it's not.
The greatest thing?
It is not the greatest thing.
These shall abide in First Corinthians 13.
Faith, hope and peace.
But the greatest of these is love.
The greatest thing is love.
And God presents to our hearts the greatest thing as that which will motivate our faith.
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To lay hold of himself.
As my wife's grandfather used to say, if God hasn't won your heart and mind, what more could he do to win it? Some of you might remember that statement. God comes out and he says I'm great in power and you're little. Don't take up with an idol. But then when it's all said and done to motivate that in us to direct us.
He presents something that is the greatest of all, himself in love in the person of the sun, and he says be occupied with him.
You'll overcome everything. It's the greatest thing.
And your faith will take care of itself.
You don't have to worry about faith.
It'll be faith if that love is in place where it should be in heart spray.
Our God and Father, we acknowledge that there's really absolutely.
Ephesians 2:6-12
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Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 7.
These two stuff, but in the ages to come you might show the exceeding riches of His grace, and His kindness poured us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus on the good works which God has before ordained, that we should walk in them.
Wherefore remember that He being in time past Gentiles in the flesh.
We are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel.
Strangers from the covenants of drama, having no hope, and without God in the world, but now in Christ Jesus, ye sometimes were far off, or may die.
By the blood of Christ, for He is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition between arms, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, or to make himself a plain 1 Newman soul making peace.
And they might reconcile both unto God and one body, by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them there were nine. For through Him we both have access by 1 Spirit under the Father.
Now, therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners.
But fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the buildings fitly framed together grow up onto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are building together for an habitation of God.
Through the Spirit.
738.
One is in connection with the Queen of Sheba.
She came stalled, and concerning the names of the Lord.
It says.
That when she saw everything, he said that, ha.
Does not go.
Is that a little picture for us of what to come? The second scripture I was thinking of, I think it's in law school with the Lord and.
LED into the wilderness and tempted of the devil, that it tells us about how the Dayton showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them in a moment of time.
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Garrett says that in the ages to come, he might show the exceedingly Richard.
To me it's just saying that's how long it takes the enemy to show all these guys.
In a moment of time.
What we've seen in this world around us.
Glitters.
That is put before the souls of men and women.
To to, uh, attract them away from Christ and distract the Christians.
Is all fleeting. Is all for a moment.
But here we have this beautiful, beautiful bird that tells us beloved me.
These words every word of God is pure. He chooses the language that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace.
Oh me, we could revel in of what is before our soul.
And umm, it strengthens us to go on in the population.
Apostle Paul, who wrote this was a specimen of that very thing. And as the chief of sinners who God took and made thee his chosen 1 to reveal right to us in him. And so it's beautiful to see that he is an example of that. I I like to contrast Mr. Compare this to that verse seven with the third chapter.
And the ninth verse, there are two distinct thoughts that actually the 10th verse of chapter 3.
Verse seven is the ages to come, how we are displayed.
Of the richness of God's grace exceeding richness of us. We become a public display in that age of God's power through Christ to save us and set us before Him in that place of blessing.
In negotiation with himself, but chapter 3 and verse 10 is talking about now.
To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be made be known by the church, the manifold wisdom of God and so on. So this is uh, right now that this present age, the Lord, the church is a display of the, the manifold wisdom of God in choosing us and blessing us. And so the angelic.
Hosts and so on look on us in that way as those favored ones who God has chosen to display His wisdom in blessing us and bringing us to where we are. So both are true right now and in the coming age. These two things are wonderful thoughts.
I think that's helpful. And it's not so much that it's a display to us, although we will observe it, but it's that He uses His work in and through us to display to the universe these wonderful things, the riches of His grace. He's doing it now, as you say, in connection with the heavenly hosts looking on. And they ought to see displayed in the church that which is the purpose of God and.
So on. Sometimes I wonder, brother, what do they see when the heavenly company looks down?
And they're the sea, the manifold wisdom of God displayed in the church. What do they see? But isn't it wonderful, brethren, that there's a day coming when he's going to display it as the riches of the trophies of his grace, and the world, the universe is going to look on?
And they're going to see it all displayed in perfection. He's coming to be glorified in His Saints and admired in all them that are about Him in that day. And brethren, then and only then, when we ourselves have a full understanding and appreciation of the grace of God, when we see what He can do, truly do with poor sinners that were the sons of Adam's fallen race and what He has done with us.
And the display that he puts on through us rather than what is it going to cause from our heart. We're going to realize finally the full import of that verse that says it's God that works in you both are willing to do of his good pleasure. We're gonna realize that any response in our hearts. Any work of God in our souls, whether it was to bring us to the knowledge of sins forgiven and salvation or whether it was to anything for his glory after we were saved. We're gonna realize that it was all his grace but.
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It's helpful to see, is it not, that this display here is to the universe?
Through those that He had picked up in His marvelous grace and wrought a work such that He can put us on display in that coming day.
That expression, the ages that come, I have wondered if that refers to the millennial day, because it does say in Revelation that the kings of the earth shall walk in the light of that heavenly city. So as they the it's interesting to think that we do not see that heavenly city now, but it will be visible from the earth in the millennial day.
And as they view it, it will be the display in those ages to come of the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
We did a, uh, we did the display to others or is it, uh, a display to us as to the grace of God that what, how has been, you know, in our lives what he has done for us? I asked that it was an honest question.
It's a display to the world.
Uh, you see it in John 17.
See both sides of it.
In the Lord's Prayer in John 17.
In verse 21 Well, verse 20 this connection John 1720 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also, which shall believe on me through their word, that they may be one, as Thou Father art in me, and I and thee, that they also may be one in US.
The expression I want to give emphasis to is this one that the world may believe.
Notice the word Believe that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Uh, reading on and the glory which thou gave us, me I have given them that they may be one even as we are.
Umm, I and them, thou and me, that they may be perfect in one. And now notice a different expression that the world may know, in contrast to believe that Thou hast sent me and has loved them as thou hast loved me.
Verse 21 is present.
The desire of the heart of the Lord is that we, the church that's talked about in Ephesians 2, would have a oneness that would be displayed presently to the world that the world might believe.
And all we can do is hang our heads in shame.
And humble our hearts before God that it is not so the world can't see in that sense of this 2420 first verse to believe because the church is shattered as to its public testimony and it doesn't display its oneness. And so the world doesn't see it. And consequently what you have in verse 23 is where it says that the world may believe.
Our verse 20.
Umm 3 Yes, that they may know. The world may know. When we, the church, as in this chapter in Ephesians 2 on the ages to come in the millennial age, are seen in our place with the Lord in glory, then the world will know. There won't be any question. There won't be any difficulty in belief in the world's heart.
The world's gonna say.
What marvellous grace of God that would take, and if I can use this expression, those people and bring them into that place of association with himself. And it's a day when in spite of what we were in our testimony here as to our present portion and as to what we're supposed to be enjoying this afternoon, and all of God's people are supposed to be in in the common enjoyment of it.
00:15:14
The.
The Lord is going to have the last word, and He is going to display that oneness on which will be the riches of his glory, that he would take what he did and produce the result that he produces. And the purpose of it again is the display of the riches of his grace. And in his glory God will be glorified in it. And the Lord Jesus says in his prayer, as the world sees it, they'll say.
Mankind on the Earth sees it, they'll say. That's his love.
That's His love and He will be honored and, uh, we will be absolutely thrilled and delighted. If I could put it this way, brethren in Ephesians 2 are and other places as well. We want to enjoy our blessings, but more than the enjoyment of what is for us, our hearts are enlarged. If we can say what's in it for Him. That's more important than whatever is in it for us.
And as great as our blessings are, our hearts are gonna be put more at rest and more enjoyment of it all if we rest on what He is going to get and what is going to be to His glory and the display of Himself in His grace and in His mercy and in His love.
The rich man.
Sees Lazarus so far off, comforted in Abraham's bosom.
Will there be some of this display that will actually be seen in hell?
Like people that rejected.
Testimony of God's grace on earth.
It certainly did not add.
To the rich man's comfort.
The last display of it really, I believe, will be at the great white Throne judgment, because there, when the dead, small and great stand before God to be judged, who do they see? They not only see the Lord Jesus on the throne as the judge, but they see the heavenly company with him. They're going to see the Church of God, and they're going to see where they could have been had they accepted God's offer of salvation and mercy.
I believe with the rich man in hell, it's that temporary state of Hades that is referred to there. And there was, seemed to be, there was communication between the two. And though Lazarus wasn't occupied with the, uh, torment of the rich man, the rich man to add to his torment, I suppose understood very clearly that Lazarus was in a place of blessing. But as we said this morning.
When the dead are eventually taken after their judge, the wicked dead, and cast into the lake of fire its eternal separation from God, never will an inkling of the love or grace or mercy of God ever penetrate the bottomless pit. It will be the second death, eternally shut out from everything that from God and everything that emanates from God and His, his person. But they will see this display, won't they? Momentarily, they will see it as they stand there.
And they look into the face of their judge, and they see you and I at His side, The wonderful trophies of His grace. Would you say that's right? Yes. And I also would say the emphasis there is on the glory of His Holiness. You'll see the others. But the great thing is His Holiness will be glorified in His, in what He does in that judgment.
Now it's the day of His grace.
But there's coming a day when his holy character will be manifested to all, and the final need of it with respect to the Lost will be at the Great White Throne.
Those on earth, many will not see what we have in our chapter because at the beginning of that millennial age, in Matthew 25, we have the judgment of the sheep and the goats. And so at that time, those that had rejected Him will be not part of the Kingdom, and they will enter into their eternal.
00:20:24
Place of separation from God and not as it were. And be very momentary, if it's at all.
Before they're forever shut away.
Having made the comments we've had, we don't want to take away from the fact that we need to have maintain a sense of grace in our own souls, don't we? By grace are ye saved? And we need to realize this at all times. And as we said earlier, though in the context here, it's a display to the world, yet I suppose there will be, as we've already alluded to, a deeper sense of the grace of God.
I suppose it will really come at the judgment seat of Christ for us when we see that which he commends for and realize that it was all his work. If I, if I can put it this way, we'll have finally a full understanding of his grace there, because if there's anything he can reward for, for instance, a cup of water given in his name, the Lord said would not lose his reward. And so if there's anything that he if we've given a couple of water in his name.
And He rewards for it. We're going to realize that He provided the cup of water. He put the desire in our hearts to give it. He provided the opportunity to give it. Well, isn't that going to give us a sense of grace like we've never had before? And to realize that when, as we were saying this morning, in coming to the Lord Jesus and the blessings that we have received through the work of Calvary, the salvation of our souls, the forgiveness of things, the heavenly blessings, the position we've been brought into, all that is displayed in that coming glory, that it was nothing of ourselves.
Well, brother, we're going to have that deeper and fuller understanding then, but I believe what is going to give us the proper spirit and attitude and proper character as a heavenly people now in this world.
Is to maintain in our souls at all times a sense that it's by grace we're saved and it's by grace that there's any response in our hearts as believers in A to his will and following him and so on. And I suggest that that's really why this second chapter of Ephesians is inserted here. You know, to the casual reader of this book, it almost seems out of place to have in the second chapter what we have in the midst of all the wonderful truth concerning the heavenly calling and position and seating of the believer and so on. And then all of a sudden he reminds us what we were and the grace of God.
But brother, if we lose sense of His grace, we can't enjoy His glory. If we lose sense of what we were, we can't really have a full understanding of what we are. If we lose sense of where we are now, we're not going to understand where we're going to be in the coming day. And so we need to keep before our souls that by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. It's all going to be displayed to others in the coming day.
But we need to have it maintained before our own soul, even now.
Explain what grace is, Jim.
Well, perhaps it would be helpful in that connection to speak of mercy. And mercy really saves us from hell. Someone has said that mercy is not getting what I deserve and I deserve help. I I deserved as a lost guilty. We value Sinner son of Adam's race. I deserve to go to a lost eternity. And mercy has reached out to me and saved me from hell. And for for you too, if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
And that's wonderful. We say, well, that's enough. Well, not really. That wouldn't satisfy the heart of God. It might save us from eternal damnation, but it wouldn't satisfy the heart of God. But grace brings us in and gives us a blessing or blessings that we don't deserve. I say that because sometimes I've heard people say grace is getting what we don't deserve. But that really far falls short of the thought.
00:25:05
I might have given one of my children a spanking because I thought on information I had, but maybe they didn't deserve it. They got something they didn't deserve. But it wasn't great. And when I realized afterwards, I had to go back and apologize and say Dad was wrong. I know you got something you didn't deserve and Dad was wrong. He made a mistake based on the information he had. And so grace is far beyond that. Grace brings me into a position and gives me blessings.
Far beyond what I ever anticipated. We sometimes sing a hymn trembling. We had hope for mercy, some lone place within the door. But there was more than that waiting for us. And so if grace saves us for hell, I'm sorry. If mercy saves us from hell, grace saves us for glory. Grace brings us into all the dignity and position of sons of God, the Church of God. Grace gives us all the blessings.
Mercy Save the Children of Israel from the ******* of Pharaoh in the Egyptians. Grace brought them through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. And mercy has saved us from Satan and his hosts and the eternal consequences of hell. But grace brings us through the journey here, gives us all the blessings to enjoy now, and a place where we're going to enjoy them unhinderedly in the coming day.
Grace gives all the glory to the giver God, and we can take no credit. There's no room for boasting these next 3 verses here. Uh, 8-9 and ten, uh.
Emphasize the point that Don mentioned earlier about.
Salvation to those who don't deserve it and bless them so exceedingly. If we hadn't got so far from God, His salvation in bringing us so close to Him wouldn't have been as great. But that's exactly what it was. We were the farthest, we were the worst, and He brings them to the highest of the best place.
So this is the greatest contrast you can think of. And if it's all to bring glory to the Lord Jesus, we often read this verse by grace are you saved? And think of the wonderful thing it is for us.
To be saved that easily, that freely, that abundantly, then that's all true, but there's a, we can rise higher than that. What's in it for Christ in doing all that? This is the point. Uh, we are his workmanship. This is all his plan is workmanship to take us and do that with us and bring us so close and so high.
There's, uh, another thing that we speak of in relation to God at times is.
His government.
And it is something that is true in Scripture. We give the verse, uh, whatsoever a man shall he also read.
And it's true.
Cannot deny it, but grace is a completely different principle that does not undo his government and his government does not undo his grace. And I must say in my own soul, I struggle sometimes because it seems like in my own mind.
And more governed by the principle of government.
You do bad stuff, you're gonna get bad results.
The grace is a totally different principle.
And.
I you speak, uh, brother Jim, about having a sense of grace in our souls and I think that is so important, but, uh, why is it, it is so hard for us to grasp this principle of the grace of God?
Let's say I don't think it really lays hold of our souls.
If it did, we would be willing slaves of God over the Lord Jesus.
So it's that little hymn and he sometimes saying, Oh, to grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter by my wandering heart to thee. It's in the sense of that grace. I don't deserve a thing except eternal hell, the devil and his angels. And God lifted me out of that position and brought me to himself and brought me into the full blessing.
00:30:18
Of all that we've been talking about in Christ.
What a tremendous thing, but it doesn't mean that his government is set aside because the full justice of God.
Fell on my sins on that fully sin bear on the cross of Calvary so it doesn't undo God's government.
His justice is holiness. They go together.
That a thing to try to grasp in our minds.
But in that verse six, I like to make a couple comments there it says by grace, are you saved? It's on that principle. But then it says through faith.
And I've been speaking about faith.
Principle of simply believing God, Where does that faith come from?
Is that something that just naturally is born in US? That's something that just kind of pops into our minds?
No faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So how important it is when God speaks in His Word to listen to what He has to say, that's where the faith comes in. It's not of ourselves. It is the gift of God. He gives us the faith to believe the message of the gospel and that faith.
Is because of the hearing of the word of God.
Through that means, we're saved. Somebody has put it this way and I have enjoyed it. Just to make a simple illustration, here's the train up front of the engine and behind the cars.
All the power is in the engine. The cars don't have any engines on them. How come they run the same, uh, velocity as the engine up front? Because there is a coupling and that couples them to the power. There's no power in faith in itself, but faith connects us to the power. So when you have that faith in Him, there is where is the power for salvation?
Important to have that simple faith in Him because that's where you will find salvation.
Is the principle of the law which freaks into our life. We take up this, this, uh, temple of law thinking that we have something to offer college, that we have the ability to merit something from him and whatever you have the thought of me marrying something, I'm off the ground. Great. What God has to do is he has to show us the 1St 3 verses in this chapter.
He has to show it.
Standards to to to bring satisfaction to him ourselves. And so we failed miserably when we were under the law. But when I go along because we think that we can offer God something and we do not grow in the race in those circumstances.
00:35:16
We grow, embrace, and we realize we have nothing to offer to God with all of what we are likely enjoy and bring in that is pleasing to Him is all because of what He's gonna do in the past.
To present to God something that will please him. There's just going to be failure and we're not going to grow into great because we think we have something across the board. And so we grow in grace.
As we realize we have nothing but we are nothing, and that everything he's gonna make, not what he's gonna do and so.
That principle of law that treats into our lives it has to be recognized.
It's something that's just an agree failure into our lives and when we realize it, all the work that he is going to do, well, it brings peace, doesn't it brings it brings us a liberty to the soul.
This is what God is going to work. I like the thought that you brought up bombs on government.
There is a government, but if we're if we can be growing, great. If we enjoy the grace of God, then the government that he brings in our life is gonna be Hanford by the grace of God. And so it's gonna be so much easier for us to.
Except God's government, when we understand His grace.
Might be helpful also to comment that.
Under law, God is under obligation and man is under obligation. It's an agreement established by God between the two parties. And God is under the obligation to man as he says to him, this do and thou shalt live. And if man keeps the law, God is bound to maintain that person's life according to the agreement.
And if man fails and his responsibility, God is also bound by the agreement to put him to death. He must die. In contrast to that type of arrangement between man and God when grace is introduced, grace is something that is sovereign. It is sovereign because God is under no obligation to express it.
He has no He's not bound by anything. It is his own will, his own choice, without any obligation to express his love in acts that are what we call grace. And he does, and he glorifies himself.
In acting in that way without any reason within the object of it.
Without anything there that's even not only deserving, but not even lovely in what he acts. And so he glorifies himself in His grace, because he can act sovereignly in it.
We're not like that. We may be gracious to one another, we may express the grace of God, but we are not as creatures the source of grace because we are never free of obligation in our relationships to God or to one another. If I love you, that's not grace. That is a responsibility given to me of God in the life of Christ, that I have to love you. I'm told to. I'm into command.
To do so, it's not an expression of grace toward you, but God in his grace acts totally sovereignly and it magnifies the greatness of his person in so doing. And so we when we enter into it, we delight because in it not so much, although it's wonderful the results toward us, but it it brings the worship from the soul.
00:40:07
To a God, that would be that way.
I believed on that. That principle comes out beautifully in the story of Joseph with his 10 brethren who came down to buy drinks from him and he wouldn't sell a smoke. He he would give it to them on the basis of grace, but he wouldn't solve to them on the basis of them deserving them because they didn't deserve food from him. They sold him as a slave and so on. So he governmentally deal with them in that way.
And so that so that he can give to them according to his sovereignty. And when he gives according to his sovereignty, he puts the money back in their sacks and gives it to them because he's a good king, he's a good man.
And Malik, and it took a lot of breaking down with the Tim brethren before Joseph. They were afraid that if the whole truth came out, then he wouldn't, he wouldn't give them grains anymore. They distrusted him and so on.
But he, he pours out, letting, uh, when he can do it on grid.
And before they were restored, all the goodness he showed to them only troubled them that much more. Isn't that amazing? I think a little. We understand Grace.
But that was the best news because he was a wonderful brother.
Yeah.
Well, the bottom line is that when we get home to glory and we see all this, we understand it. We'll have nothing to boast in, will we? And nobody will be able to look around heaven and say that they deserve what they got more than somebody else. No one will be able to look at someone else and say, well, I have more faith than that person, or I had the faith to believe, or I took one step in response to God. No, again, we're going to realize that it was all His work.
So I would like to go back for a moment to something Bob said earlier because I believe it is very difficult sometimes for the human heart to show grace and mercy to others. We love to be the recipient of grace and mercy. We revel in that and we revel in it to some degree in this meeting as we consider what we have received and the glory that is brought and going to bring to the Lord Jesus. We love to be the recipients of grace and mercy.
But I suggest that one of the reasons we don't always love to to show grace or mercy, or to see others receive grace and mercy when we think it should be justice in government, is because we don't always enter into the heart of the one from whom mercy and grace flow. And as we said earlier in these meetings, there are three very important elements earlier on in this chapter. And between mercy and grace, we have his great love.
And brethren, I just suggest that if you and I entered in more to the heart of the Giver than it would be easier for us. Yes, we understand to a certain degree what mercy is. Yes, we can. We understand what grace is. But do we really enter into the heart of the One from whom mercy and grace has flowed so freely to us, to whom much is forgiven the same love as much? I just tell you a little story that kind of impressed this upon me.
And what human nature really is like several years ago, I had a car load of boys and we were traveling from Walla Walla conference to Lassen Pines. And the young man that was driving had a rather sporty car and, uh, with a new car and he was interested in seeing how fast it could go and hold the road. And I was in the passenger seat in the front and there were several in the back. And this young man was driving and anybody who's crossed from the Oregon border, from the Washington border into the O into Oregon at that point.
00:45:04
Knows that the speed limit suddenly dropped and I don't think it's fair. There isn't much warning and it's quite a drop in speed limit at that point. But the speed limit does drop. And we came flying over the the state line. We were probably going too fast for the Washington side, never mind for the seat zone that we had just hit. And sure enough, it wasn't very many moments until there were blue lights behind us. And I said to the young man who was driving, I said when the police rolled down the window, let me do the talking.
A few Gray hairs and a little age won't help, will help the situation perhaps. And so I explained to the officer of what was happening and that I was responsible for these boys and I was very sorry for what had happened and so on. And he went back to his car and took the young man's, uh, license and insurance. And the young man was in a sweat because he knew if they threw the book at him that, uh, the government of the country wouldn't, uh, be very lenient if they went by the book.
But the officer came back in a few moments and he looked me straight in the eye.
And he said, Sir, I'm going to show mercy to this young man. And he said, uh, and I said, well, I'm thankful I said, and I'll, I'll be responsible, that there won't be any more trouble today. And so we went on our way and we were the recipients of mercy or perhaps even grace. We didn't enter into the heart of the officer and he probably didn't even think about us again, or not very much anyway. But you know, we got into California, we were on I-5 and all of a sudden we heard this terrible noise behind it. And there was a car coming down the road weaving and he was traveling.
At a tremendous speed and I thought he was going to hit us.
He he went by us and everybody in the car drew a sigh of relief. And we got up over the next hill and sure enough, he'd been pulled over by the police. And the four guys in my car said, oh, yes, there is justice in this world. Yes, there is righteousness. And I said, whoa, wait a minute, guys. Back in Oregon, we were thankful when mercy and grace was shown to us and we escaped what could have even been losing a license.
And now we're thankful that there's justice and government shown to this, whoever the driver of this vehicle is. And I use that to show to these young men that we like to be the recipients of mercy and grace ourselves.
But we didn't enter into the heart of the officer and he probably really had no heart for us.
And so we must appreciate it of when there was no or we weren't sorry, when there was no mercy of grace shone to somebody else. But I just said at least smile at a story like that. But rather the more I say we enter into the heart of God and that great love that was the motive behind the mercy and the grace that we have been the recipients of. I say the more that is going to help us in our relationship to others.
To show and appreciate that same mercy and grace that has been shown to our brothers.
In this verse 9, not of works, lest any man should boast. The more we understand grace, the less there will be boasting, and when we get home, the glory rather than we're going to see it all in the light of God's presence, says the judgment seat, and it will be glory in the Lord and not in ourselves. Well, how important that is not of works.
Salvation is not of works.
But it's interesting to me rather than when Scripture makes it so clear about salvation not at work that shortly after it does speak of works and how important they are in the Christian life. And sometimes we forget about this side through the gratitude of our hearts. How in the world am I going to show my gratitude to God for all that He's done for me?
And that's where we get works.
Not to gain any favor with God, but to show my gratitude to Him. So that's what we get in verse 10. We are His workmanship.
Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God had before ordained that we should walk in them.
00:50:01
They was talking about the walk. Here's the second time. The thing it isn't today that walk is mentioned.
Any anyhow, it's uh, it's interesting these good works were.
Before ordained that we should walk in them. And I like to think that God in his eternal purposes knows everything beforehand that he purposes to do. And he purposed that there would be good works that would come out of our gratitude to God. And if you and I are in fellowship with God's thoughts, then we can be instruments in doing.
These good works, they are very much a part of the Christian faith. Good works. May the Lord help us, brethren. It's interesting. There's one other place that comes to mind immediately, but there's a number of places where it speaks about this. Look at Titus chapter 3 where it makes a very important point that salvation doesn't come by works, but.
That works are definitely.
In the pic in the picture for Christians, notice Titus 3/5.
Not fireworks of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. She shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord. Verse 8. This is a faithful saying these things I will, that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain.
Good works.
So brother, may the Lord exercise our hearts. This is the way we can show our gratitude to God. And in the measure that there is a sense of grace in our souls, we will be occupied whatever the work the Lord gives us to do. And there is so much to be done in this world to do good works to show the working out of His grace in our lives.
When we do the work with the sense of this dream, then I believe, uh.
It glorifies the Lord. It's easy to do good works with the sense of what's in it, what's, what's gonna be for your own account, uh, for, for having done those good works. And that's a poor playing field to do good work on. And it will Peter out. It will not last. What will give us to be good workmen will be a sense, a greater sense of God's grace to us in choosing and calling us to that.
And I I believe this is the real secret.
Umm, uh, to learn in your Christian pathway, uh, not to be thinking so much about what I can, you can do for the Lord, but turn around and say what has the Lord done for me?
And how can I respond to that and show my appreciation of it? And I believe then the the the credit will all readily be given to the Lord, and we will be a right display of this purpose that God has called us to, to display not our own glory, but the glory of the Lord Jesus who did all this through us and in US.
I'd like to expand a little bit on the expression created in Christ Jesus and connected as well with what's been said. To do so, go back to chapter one and.
Verse nine will read, Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him. It has been said that this tenth verse of chapter one is the key to the whole Bible.
It's a tremendously important statement about God's purposes concerning creation, concerning everything, and it is that he would gather together and one all things.
In Christ, Rather, Clem suggested what we take up that resulted in Ephesians 2 by reading the verses in First Corinthians where you have the contrast between the 1St man and the last man. In Adam. There was nothing that resulted for the glory of God and His pleasure to rest in it. And so God has started a new creation.
00:55:19
And everything in that new creation as it relates to us is connected with the expression in Christ.
When you see Christ as the name, or Christ Jesus is the name in Scripture, it's going to connect itself with the new creation particularly but also.
Are bringing all that we are brought into association with himself before God.
It's not in Jesus the man, it's not in the sun, the divine person, but it's in the man, Christ Jesus, that God has purposed all that he is going to do, because the purposes of God are to glorify himself.
In Christ Jesus and all of prophecy and everything else of scripture works things out.
To that end, that God glorifies himself in a man, the man Christ Jesus. And everything that we have in that big picture is our place before God in Christ Jesus. So in Adam there's nothing for God, but what we have is created in Christ Jesus. In this chapter can be seen in 2nd Corinthians 5 to look at it for a moment.
We see how we get there.
Umm, we get to be put in this place where we are a creation, creation for good works. In 2nd Corinthians 5 it says verse 14, the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all, then all were dead. That's the condition we're talking about this morning. We can make the judgment that.
If Christ had to die, then the condition of all men was being dead.
And it was the love of that person Christ that died. And So what did he die for? He verse 15. He died for all the things which lived. So who lives? Those who put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody else stays dead. But it says that they which live should what not henceforth lives them to themselves. That's Adam.
That's Adam's creation, every man for himself. Man lives for himself, he's self-centered his whole, and there's nothing for God in it, but in Christ. Those who have died with him, it says, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Same expressions we had this morning.
Wherefore henceforth know we know man after the flesh? Yeah, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more, that is.
We don't know him on the other side of the cross anymore. We don't know Him as a man who came among men. We know about it, we learned from it, we're blessed by the reading of it and learn him his person. But we don't have a relationship with him in the old creation anymore.
We are related to Him in a new creation and so yet now know Him no more that way. So what does it say?
If therefore any man be what in Jesus in the sun know in Christ? If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation.
And all things are passed away. All things are become new in the new creation.
We're creatures created for good works, and those good works are the manifestation of the very life that was given to us to be part of new creation. If you go to John's first epistle, you see that the good works are the very evidence of the life of the new man. And so we obey, which is a good work, and we manifest that we belong to the new creation.
We manifest in that way that we are.
01:00:02
Creatures created in Christ for God's glory, because God is glorified in creatures that do good works. And those good works are good not only because of the acts themselves, but because the motive for those actions is now according to God. And so in the past we might have done what man would call good things.
But God looks at the motive of those so-called good things and he said, that's not being done for me. That's for man's glory. That's for the doer's glory. But now, brethren, we can, if I could use the expression we can without benefit to self or without the glory to self as a creature of good works, we can express the heart that has been given to us, the life that's been given to us, even without pride and to in a way that gives the proper respect to glory to God.
And he's glorified in Christ. When God sets all things and display, then there'll be all these creatures who do good work, and it will be all that's the fruit of new creation. That's the glory of the One who is the head of it all. That's the honor and the glory of Christ.
Before we were saved, it tells us that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags or the best things that we can do. And I sometimes say that tomorrow morning there will be many who present to God a pile of filthy rags. They'll do something that on the surface seems good. They may pray, they may sing some hymns. They may join other believers that need to perhaps even partake of the Lord's Supper. But if they're unregenerate men, it's just a pile of filthy rags to God.
Any good that man does, if that's the way God, uh, esteems it and estimates it. But it's interesting that, uh, the marriage suffer of the lamb. It speaks of the really the results of the judgment seat of Christ. When the bride comes forth, she's arrayed in fine linen, which is the righteousness of Saints, that beautiful and those righteousnesses that are displayed there, those things that were for the glory of God in our lives.
As believers and those things that he could commend and reward for and say well done for, they're gonna be displayed there for our glory. No, brethren, they're gonna bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.
They're going to bring glory to the bridegroom. They're again simply going to be a reflection of himself. And So what a display it's going to be. But I think it's so beautiful to see that again, as Dawn said, it's not for our glory so much, but those righteousnesses of Saints will be brought into full display for the glory of the one who again worked in us to will and do of his good pleasure, implanted the desire to do good in our hearts, gave the opportunity.
Another little thought connection with it in Galatians, I think it's chapter 5 speaks about the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, and the fruit of the spirit is Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering and so forth.
It's a wonderful thing also in connection with what we're talking about, but there's not only the actions or the works themselves, but we, the creature, we, the new man in Christ Jesus, the Spirit of God works in that vessel and produces something that God looks at and says, isn't this wonderful fruit? Look at, look at this vessel, that of mine. Look at this creature of mine. Look at the love, the joy, the peace, the long-suffering. They're more, you might say, character traits almost.
Than actions. And he said I by the Spirit produced that and we are that. The result is that which God produces in the creature that he has created. It has nothing to do in that sense with what we can produce. We can't produce that in ourselves, but God does and He does by taking the life that he is given, which is the life of Christ.
And working in it to display that character which is like Christ.
01:05:07
There's not only the works themselves, but.
It's good to see that God changes by new birth and by the working in the vessel, the character of the person.
Umm, the Apostle Paul started out as in nature as an insolent, overbearing man. That was his character. But after he got saved and after God worked on him and the Spirit worked in him, then he was could say to others, I am among you as a nurse which cherries their children.
That's a tremendous character change. Man can't really do that for himself. The Apostle Peter starts out as an impetuous.
Non thinking, but sort of this personality. And yet when the Lord is done, he's solid. He's he's a rock. He he, he has a personality that shows the working of God in him. And all we can do is is that we're thank God, he's at work. God is presently at work and he's at work and each one of the lives of us in this room and he's working away.
Not only for the honor of the Lord Jesus and the display of good things from our lives, but when he's done, he's going to say, isn't that a nice fruit? I produce that fruit now. I'm going to enjoy it.
This discussion has been very good because I've I've had people tell me.
That you're you're doing too many good works. And then there's others who say you're not doing enough good work. And so there needs to be the balance. But just to go back to verse five, you see, it says by grace, are you saying it says he has quickened us together with Christ, he's given us his life.
And by grace that he did on his life and in verse 6, this is a present possession that we have here.
Interesting in that connection that you have a beautiful example in the Knights of Acts of a sister who it says was full of good works. Wouldn't you like to have that after your name? You know, she had passed away, she had died and the she was remembered because she was full of good works.
01:10:11
If you were to draw your last breath and people were to stand around at your funeral this afternoon, would they be able to say, well, that sister, that brother, she, ** *** was full of good works? Because Titus really is the book of the epistle of good works. The number of times, as Bob pointed a couple of them out to us, we have good work. And it's interesting in the end of the second chapter, it speaks of a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Can we really do too many good works for the after we're saved? You know, brother, brothers, sisters, there's no shortage of good work. There's no shortage He's for ordained that we should walk in them. And there's no shortage of good works that you and I can perform for the Lord's glory and for the blessing of others while we're here in this world. And when we look into his blessed face and we finally sit down in our eternal rest. Won't if if I can speak this way, I know there's not going to be regrets in heaven. But if we have any regrets, won't it be that we weren't more zealous?
Of good work that we weren't more full of good works there's so much to do you know brothers, sisters there's somebody needs a little encouragement there's somebody needs a little help somebody needs you to take their hand and help them over a difficult spot their souls to be saved and the gospel to get out in so many open doors and opportunities don't ever sit back and think there isn't something good you can do for the Lord today the there's no shortage of opportunities the shortage is often on our part in the diligence and the energy and the faith to take up and do those perform those good works but.
Let's covet the commendation of Dorcas. She was full of good, good works.
First Timothy 2 It tells the women to adorn themselves. Women like to adorn themselves with what?
With good works.
Interesting.
Good works of believers life. But one thought has crossed my mind. Won't heaven be happier when we are thanking the Lord for the US? And won't it be especially precious Anything we can do in this life because it's just that cup of water which was a living sacrifice to the Lord Jesus, where we allow Him to live life through us and did that as a love offering to Him. We will be happier with His presence because there's any small things that we have done for Him.
So what I'm blessing it is to think of this with racist saves us is great.
That rewards us as if it was our work and really it is nothing we can do in our own constraints. So it's just grace upon grace. You know it gives to us. And a wonderful blessing Attorney again, it will be joy for us. Anything you can present you can. But the most wonderful thing, he will see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.
A little bit louder, Dave. It's interesting here. That goes back to remember.
Started with the 1St 3 verses where we're reminded of the pit from which we've been dug, and now we've been taken up to see the highest place in heaven where the Lord has seated us in Christ. God has seated us. I should say that's an interesting thought too. It's always been dwelling on from verse four down to the, uh, end of verse nine in God's work, isn't it? Is God doing this in Christ?
Then it goes on.
Verse 10 it should be anyway in verse 11 Wherefore remember.
Where were we? Well, the apostles bringing these Ephesians back to realize.
The pit from which they have been dug remember the evening time in time past can tiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision.
In the flesh made by hand, That at that time ye were without fright, being alien.
From the Commonwealth of Israel and so on, and having no hope and.
01:15:09
So there's a reminder again of where we were.
And it's important, isn't it, to remember that because.
We always tend to start thinking that we are something important and in the measure that we do, we cease to value what the grace of God is. So may the Lord help us rather, and sometimes I feel that twice, sometimes we have to fail is because we think we're something pretty good.
Because it's only in the measure that we sense is great.
His abounding grace is exceeding grace that we realize that, uh, I should say, I should put it in different ways. When we remember what we were without Christ, without hope, without God, that we realize it's only His grace, the only standing we have before God.
God says to us.
And where we are reminded of where we were.
We remember the Lord, don't we? But.
Certainly that is part of it. We should never forget.
Scripture says of God their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. God alone has the conscious power to decide not to remember something. Sometimes we say I don't want to remember that and it only makes us bring it more and more to our memory. We can't always block out of our memories, umm, things of the past.
But God, when He says that he says their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. It is particular emphasis on the deeds.
And I believe for myself that when we're home to glory, we are not going to remember our own sins and our iniquities anymore. It's not for our good and God will. And that in that place in heaven, it won't be for our good and God will still work, that we don't have them to pester us in eternity. But there is another aspect, and I think there is something that we will always remember.
And we will always know what we were.
Not the actions themselves, but what we were. Because in eternity there is going to be only one physical reminder that sin ever existed. There will be absolutely nothing in your body or mind that will ever give any evidence that sin or its consequences ever existed. In in creation, the heavens and the earth will show. The new heavens and the new earth will be without any evidence that sin ever once existed or that there was a creation that was ever once spoiled.
The exception to it all is in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Will be the marks in His hands and feet and side of the work that was necessary to remove sin. And when we eternally look upon our Lord Jesus, there will be the thankful, eternal, fresh reminder of what it was that had to be done that resulted in those marks. And it will.
'Cause our hearts to be eternally grateful and in worship to the One who.
Took it all away, but there'll never be any pride, there'll never be anything like that lifted up in us, because the wherefore remember will be ever our privilege.
And any remembrance of what we were is always to be in that light, because the children of Israel remembered things, but they desired to go back and get some. We remember the melons and the leeks and the garlic, but it was a hankering to go back and to get some. But for us, in remembering in time past what we were, is always to be in the light of the grace of God and what it cost Him to bring us into the position that we're in.
And when there is that a remembrance in that light, then there's true blessing in the soul.
Acts 16
Gospel—Norm Hiebert
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
We want to extend the warmth welcome to each one of the Suns of the gospel meeting of the evening. Maybe you can never be to a gospel meeting. Maybe your first time. We're going to introduce you to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who is the Savior of sinners?
So we're glad to have you here and under our bendy here who asked her birthday gospel message time and time again. And you're here again to listen. And maybe you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
So tonight we were together praying that if there were someone in the room that wasn't saved, that they would be saved tonight. Not because of Maine, but because the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking and he's using a weak vessel to speak that gospel message. I wonder if we could start this meeting by singing hymn #20 behold, the Savior at the door. He gently knocks, has knocked before.
Has waited long, is waiting still.
You use no other friend, so I'll open the door. He'll enter in and Sup with you and you with him. Let's stand and sing #20.
Behold the Savior.
At the door.
Yeah.
That's great anymore.
Nsnoise schedule Nsnoise.
Nsnoise.
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Nsnoise.
When I get born here in my eyes go to silence.
Nsnoise.
I talk with you and you.
Should we pray, ask God's blessing on this meeting? Our blood, older ones, but for the children. So let's think Jesus loves me. It's on the Backpage #40 and we'll remain seated this time. This is for the children. So I expect that the voices of the children will rise above the voices of the adults. That doesn't mean that the adults stop singing though. Please, Jesus loves me.
00:05:41
Yes, please. I love me. Yes.
CWC.
And the bolt of lightning bodies did well on some way in mind feelings where the Father is most of the time. God made him that. I believe that the last day. Yeah, He knew the last one's amazing. Yeah. He's not lost me, but I'm fine. Ankles that I hold down. Sleep. Don't sleep, don't.
3005 million dollars is making their own wireless minds better in the way we can be done once they're shining home on the heart. They don't watch me where I lie. You haven't seen that last day. Yeah. See, that's what I've made. Yeah. I have to ask you anything, but I don't know why I'm talking about and I don't know anything about.
You so much.
Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you make it, yeah.
Well, I think it's God's father. It's normal without me because I don't know, I wanted you to do the agony for us for some reason, because I'm a nice story. As we were driving out here yesterday, we stopped for the day before we stopped and I hotel and uh.
Next morning we're checking out, there was a man who was cleaning the floors and I greeted him and he went this way.
So anyway, I I said good morning anyway and carried on in my room, but he didn't hear me. He didn't hear me.
When I went back to my room, I was a little bit under conviction. I felt that I needed to talk to this man. So after we checked out, he was out there cleaning his floors and I said to him.
And he went.
And then he said to me, I did the rest of the actions and he agreed again. And finally in the closing comment to me silently, he said.
I knew what he meant. I'm praying for you. I'm praying for you as you're driving. Well, that was a wonderful thing. I was so pleased that I was able to communicate with him. I had learned the sovereign language. Jesus loves me and this man had a huge smile on his face. I believe he's the Lord. He was praying for me and my wife as we were driving. Wasn't wonderful to know that, to be able to talk to somebody even if he can't hear you. Well, let's take the word of God.
And the Word of God speaks to our hearts tonight. And I trust you can all hear what's being said. If you want, I can maybe turn the volume up a little bit. Let's turn to the book of Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16.
00:10:15
And we'll start reading at the 16th verse. It came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination.
Met us, which brought her Master much gain by soothe saying the same followed Paul and us and cried, saying These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation.
And this did see many days, but Paul being grieved, turned and said to the Spirit.
I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when her Master saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, and brought them to the magistrate, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive.
Neither to observe being Romans. And the multitude rose up together against them. And the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging this jailer to keep them safely, who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight.
Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's hands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awakened out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed him self, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.
But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm.
For we are all here. Then he called for light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in my house. I'm going to stop there for now and go back to the earlier part of the chapter.
And uh.
It tells us there that in the 61St where it says, and it came to pass as we went to prayer. I want to tell you all here sitting in the room that before we came up here, there were a lot of brothers in the room that were praying and they were praying for you young child. They're praying for you young people. They were praying for you older ones who may still not know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.
They were praying for you earnestly. You know, I come away from these prayer meetings and I find tears in my eyes to see the earnestness of the prayers that went up on your behalf. And you're sitting in this room tonight. You're going to hear the gospel message.
And we trust it's of the Lord. And there have been prayers that have gone up to the Lord asking him that you will turn to the Lord Jesus Christ today. They came from prayer. So what did they do?
They went out to preach and as they were preaching there was a woman there who was possessed and she was saying some very interesting things. Is there something wrong with what she said it? She said it says yes. She followed Paul and us and cried, saying these men are their servants of the Most High. God would show unto us the way of salvation. She thought that she must introduce these people as showing the way of salvation. You know, that's the way we operate in the world. We like to introduce people and tell them how wonderful they are and what wonderful things they've done and they're going to do and all the things they've achieved. And it's all fluff, all fluff.
This woman was being directed by somebody else, and it was a demon.
00:15:00
As you know, the enemy is whispering perhaps in the ears of some here this evening and are saying don't listen to that or they may even say something favorable. My friend, if it isn't the word of God, don't listen to it. Don't listen to it here. He came to this gospel meaning to hear the gospel message. And she did this for a number of days. And I often wonder why it took Paul so long.
Well, may I ask you the question, why does it take so long for you?
To come to the Lord Jesus Christ. What's holding you back?
Is it your friends? Is it your boyfriend? Your girlfriend? Is it your mom or your dad? What's holding you back?
You know, when you enter into eternity, if you don't accept Jesus as Savior, you'll go in there alone with nobody to support you, nobody to hold your hand, nobody to do anything for you.
If we find here that Paul was grieved, and so there are many here that are grieved today.
That you, my friend, may still not have accepted Jesus as Savior.
Paul was preaching the Lord Jesus Christ. He had a remarkable conversion on the road to Damascus when the Lord Jesus struck him down with a bright light. And he said, Who art thou, Lord? Who art thou, Lord? Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, whom thou persecute us.
You know, Paul was a very intellectual type of an individual, highly educated, and he had a hate for the name of Jesus, but there was an about face. There was an immediate change in that man when the Lord Jesus spoke to him. And you know, if you accept Jesus as Savior, there's going to be a change in your life. If it's real, if you really want to do it, you're doing it before the Lord and not before those that are sitting beside you or around you.
If you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, there's going to be a change.
But you know, the end came. It tells us that Paul, being great, turned and said to the Spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ. I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.
Is that power? Sure is. Was that Paul's power? No. They got that power in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where the power came from.
And we find then that.
The ones that were working in the background, the ones that had all the spin things and all the things they did to get to earn money. And we see that today too. They were upset. They were upset and they said here we they realized that their hope of their gains was gone and that they brought them to the magistrates.
These men, being Jews, do exceedingly troubled our city.
My wife and I went last, uh, fall, went for a walk along the shore of Lake Ontario on the north side and uh, we met, we saw a Barbadian man sitting there and we said nice evening, great evening, isn't it? He said, yes, yes, very nice. I said, well, this is the day that the Lord has made. Yes, yes. And we carried on and we met another man, big, tall, lovely, great looking man. And we had seen this couple sitting at the picnic table and, uh, this man, we talked to him and I said the same thing to him and I only got halfway through the verse and he called the rest of it. Well, we had a wonderful time.
And he told me, he says, you know, I was just downtown here in Burlington, ON. And he said I was, I just go around along the beach and I, I stopped somewhere and I preached the gospel. And he said I was downtown preaching the gospel. And finally one of the bartenders there phoned the police and I wanted him removed. And a kindly police officer, who I believe may have been a Christian said to him, hey, Sir, what you're doing is wonderful. It's just wonderful. But the bartender here is upset because he can't sell any more.
Drinks. Would you move away a little bit? I said I just walked away and started somewhere else. He was a delightful man, but he was not intimidated. He was not intimidated by the words of these people. Besides which he was a pretty big man, but he was but didn't bother. But didn't phase on him. And then his wife was sitting there and she came over and we had a delightful time and ended up praying in the park just the four of us. That is a man who was on fire for the Lord and didn't care about what people thought about him.
And he carried on preaching in various places.
Well, he brought them to the magistrate, so they said these men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city. Oh yes, you haven't seen anything yet. So I was at this stage. It's gonna be more to come as we read the story. So they told them that this is what happened and there was bias. They went on to the teaching customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe being Roman. God's word tells us that all of sin and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous. No, not one.
00:20:29
God's word tells us, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. There's gonna be a time coming when if you haven't accepted Jesus our Savior, no amount of knocking is gonna change that. Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, I never knew you except ye repent. Ye shall all likewise perish. And my friend, that is the reality. That's the absolute truth of the word of God. There's no fine print that says there's a condition that that's if you do certain things, you'll be alright.
That may be the case in things that man set it up. It doesn't work with the Word of God because God looks on the heart and He knows what you're thinking here, each one in this room. He knows what's going through your mind and he knows that you're either saved or lost. And if you're lost, you're a broad Rd. as the Bible teaches us, a broad Rd. that leads to destruction.
Is that where you really want to go?
I know what's going to happen. You say, well, but, but God, why would he do all these things that are happening in Haiti and and the earthquakes and so on?
Well, God is overall. God knows that there's been a rejection of him.
Why do you call on God when you're in trouble? He wants us, He wants you. He wants everybody all the time. And does that mean that it's going to guarantee you and me that nothing will bad will happen to us? No, that's not what he's saying. But what he does say that he'll take, I'll take your sins away. And God's word tells us that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sins. Not some sin, all sins.
I had a call from a neighbor about two weeks ago. He walked over, he had a, he has a beautiful dog. He walked by our place and he stopped and, and I thought he looked a little under the weather. And I said, uh, what's what's the matter, Dave? He said, I just lost my wife, just lost my wife. She died.
And he said it's pretty tough. I couldn't even get to imagine the agony that he he was going through. He's not a, he's not a Christian. He's a man of the world. So anyway, we talked a little bit. We invited him in and chatted with him and he came back and the next day and he had three pictures. He says my wife had no relatives. Her mother and dad died within the past year. I have two sisters that haven't talked to me for five or more years. I'm all alone.
I'm all alone.
So anyway, he says, would you do something for me? I said I'd be delighted. What do you what would you like me to do?
Could you take these pictures and do something with them so they look better and that I have something that I can look at of my wife as she was? We were married. He said when I was married I had to go and pick my wife up. Parents wouldn't have anything to do with it. I don't know what his background is, why it was so awful, but anyway, that's not the point. I brought the pictures to him and he was absolutely delighted he said it and I had to do it by computer to enhance them.
He went away to uh, Ottawa where his uh in laws host was to.
Settle all the different things that matters involving, uh, his wife's death. And when he came back a week later, he thanked me so much. He's, oh, you don't know how much I appreciate what you've done for me. I said, well, it's nothing. I didn't do anything. And then he says, and thank you so much for the gems that you sent me. I said, what? Thank you so much for the gems you sent me for you, Those of you who don't know what that means, I send out a ministry every day called gems for my reading.
Somehow.
That computer of mine picked up his name and transferred his name into my mailing list for gems. I think the Lord allowed that to happen. He was touched by that. Isn't it wonderful how the Lord works? And Dave isn't the Lord? Well, the next day I was speaking to our neighbor, a young fellow by the name of Chris and his wife Cheryl, and I said, did you know that Dave's wife died? Oh, no, no, we didn't know. You know, we had a falling out. But no, we didn't know. I feel terribly bad about it.
So anyway, I talked a little bit as he was driving. My son. I remember, I remember he got to be prepared and he kept on driving. He says I'll never be prepared. Once the paperwork's done, I'm gone.
00:25:09
What an awful thing to say. I'll never be prepared.
You should all that may not be an unusual statement. There may be some in this room that feel the same way. I'll never be prepared. I'm having a good time.
Time is running out. The Bible tells us at the last phase, difficult times shall come. They're here. They're here. We all feel it. I feel it. I feel it. It's very near. It's very serious. And we get an account of that here back in about 8053. Until they, they rent off their clothes. They were so furious that they mentioned the name of Jesus. And then they beat them. They beat them.
Well, none of us have had that treatment so far.
But you know, sometimes when we're not included with the group in school maybe, or in a youth group maybe or in an assembly setting or maybe in your church setting, there's something that troubles you and you feel really bruised. My friend Jesus is there. Jesus loves you. We were singing that Jesus loves me. He tells us that John 316 for God so loved the world.
That He gave, He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.
But have everlasting life, for God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Would you like to be saved tonight? I would recommend that you don't wait till the end of this meeting, because I read in God's word of the coming of the Lord draws nearer, draws nigh. That could happen before the hour if you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
You can accept them where you are, wherever you're seated. You can ask the Lord Jesus Christ to come into your heart, to wash all your sins away. You'll do it. He promises that. That you have to admit that you're a Sinner, that you're bad. All bad. Totally bad. We all were. But all. What a wonderful thing for those in this room who've accepted Jesus as Savior.
These bruises that we may get at work, at school.
Maybe even in the Sunday School fire. Sometimes they hurt, don't they? Turn your eyes to Jesus, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith.
Well, it tells us that after they had beaten these guys up to pulp, they were told to take them to prison. And, you know, these guys weren't exactly gentle. That tells us here. Let's read it again in verse.
23 And when they had laid many stripes upon them, did they lead him into prison and put him down gently? No, it says cast them in. I get an impression that they just picked them up and tossed them into the prison cell.
And charge the jailer to keep them safely. I don't think these fellows were going anywhere anyway. They were pretty badly beat up. And he cast or thrust them into the inner prison and put their feet, feet in their stocks. They couldn't move. They had, they were under guard. There wasn't anything they could do to save themselves from the awful pain that they were experiencing and the bleeding from their back.
There wasn't anything they could do.
Who was happier there? Was it Paul and Silas, or was it the other prisoners? Or was it the jailer? Or was it those that were beating him, those that stirred up this controversy? You know, these two brothers with their feet in this, in this, in the stocks and the inner prison, bleeding and painful at midnight. One is paying the worst the midnight, isn't it?
What, you're gonna paint it in in the morning? It may not be all that bad, but midnight is the worst time.
They were singing, they were singing. I was thinking about that this morning when, uh, the hymn was given out #156 Praise ye the Lord. Again and again the Spirit strikes the chord. Nor toucheth he our hearts in vain we praise, we praise the Lord.
00:30:00
Verse 4. Clean every wit thou saidst it, Lord, shall one suspicion alert? Thine surely is a faithful word, and thine a finished work. Forever be the glory given to thee, O Lamb of God, our every joy on earth and heaven. We owe it to thy blood.
Can you do anything about it? Can you work through your salvation? You may well say yes. Some do. I go to church, or my grandfather or grandmother sang in the choir. Beautiful, lovely. I like music too.
It. But what about you? Did you sing in the choir? No, No. Well, then what does that have to do with it? Well, I didn't. I don't put it quite that way. I don't want to get into an argument with these people or I might be beat up too, you know? So anyway, you you raise these things with them and you know what they're saying.
I am good. I'll get to heaven my way. I'll do it my way. Oh what a sad awakening to find out that you can't do it your way.
Well, you know, there was a.
There's a, a young fellow, well, he's my grandson. We like to play hockey. He loves to play hockey. And every once in a while some of us get down there and watch them play hockey. Maybe a couple of dozen or so parents and grandparents are there. And he's just, he's only, I don't know, 8 years old or younger, seven maybe. And he's got all his equipment on and, and he's a real tiger on the ice. And, you know, after he came off, there was a little bit of, you know, giving, giving him the, the go ahead, move on, move on, move on, move on, move on get. And so when he came off, I said to him, uh, could you hear the, see, here's some of the people calling you.
The only one.
The only one I can hear is my daddy.
The only one he heard was that why is that? He was listening for them. He recognizes dad's voice. Do you know and hear the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to you or do you just hear the crowds cheering and urging you on saying, oh, you're a wonderful guy, you're playing wonderful hockey player and all this kind of stuff that is that what's burning you on?
My friend, you're gonna have space, God.
But you know, if you set Jesus as Savior, he's going to deal with this because when he died on the cross of Calvary, his blood was shed. He would. He took away all the sins of those that accept him as Savior. God's word tells us that he has removed my transgressions as far as the east is from the West. He's buried them in the deepest sea. Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
No, Wonderful. Would you like to do that? You say? But but, you know, I've done some pretty bad things. Yeah. So why so is everybody in this room? So we're all in the same boat, except that there are those who said I'm lost, I need a savior. And for those who have done that, they're now safe.
They're still in this world, and God's Word tells us that the wages of sin is death.
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
People are dying every day.
In the last few years I've got the white hair, the wrinkles, the eyeglasses, and a metal valve in my heart and sore knees and all these kinds of things. We're in a world that's full of sin, and we as Christians are also affected by the sin. But would you like to have somebody who bore those sins for you and know with assurance that when he comes, you go with him? The Lord Jesus said if I go away, I will come again.
I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. God's Word tells us that the Lord Jesus is going to come back and the clouds very soon.
And it tells us the dead in Christ shall rise first. My father, my mother, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, my little brother. And friends of yours who belong to Jesus, never rise 1St And.
The rest of us are gonna better say they're gonna be caught up to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the air, and God's word tells us so. Shall we ever be with the Lord? And then there's another little verse that says, comfort one another with these words. Are you comforted with this reality? Has it laid hold of your hearts? Are you happy that today is the year 2 two thousand 2010?
00:35:12
And you're still OK. You thought that the year 2000 would be the end of time with 10 years passed. The Lord is is coming, but he's got the date set. God's got the date set. You don't know what it is. I don't know what it is, but he's coming. And I say that with the authority of God's Word. Let's get back to Paul and Silas. They were singing. I would like to have heard them saying.
I'll tell you when I'm hurting, I don't feel like thinking. My wife's a nurse and she says I'm not a good patient. I don't think I'd be singing. I'd be probably complaining. Oh, wrap up those sores on my back. They were singing. Why would they sing? Wouldn't that be peculiar to all the prisoners that were there that saw the condition that these two men were in bleeding?
Wouldn't that have some impact on them? And they say this, there's something different about this man.
There's something different about Batman.
And then to sing, oh, they had something in their hearts that probably most, if not all the other prisoners didn't have. They had Jesus there. That's who they were talking about. And that's when they were tossed unceremoniously into the prison. It tells us the prisoners heard them.
The prisoners heard them. Well, now let's go back to that.
20th verse.
These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city. OK, you watch the trouble now. And suddenly there was a great earthquake.
I've often wondered how scary that must be. An earthquake such as was experienced in UH, in UH, these islands, the the the South Islands and Chile and a few other places, and the threat of a tsunami in the whole, in Hawaiian Islands, in Japan, and even off the coast of Vancouver and Canada where the Olympics were being played, there was danger.
But nobody seemed to pay any attention to it, and God in his mercy spared a lot of people.
But you know, man is so absorbed with what they can do and what they can put on the programs they can put on and the and the thrill and the joy of of all these things. Yeah, I like to, I like sports too. I like to go out walking, although slow down a little bit. You know, when you pass that three score and 10 years 4, you, you slow down that there's a switch seems to go on and and you're not going quite as fast as those Olympic sports people did. But anyway, here they were. And there was an earthquake, but that wasn't the end of it.
It tells us something more.
The foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bands were loosed. Now this is uncanny. How could that happen? How could the how could their bands be on loose? How could they? They're, they're light their their legs come out of the stocks. How could the doors be open?
With God, all things are possible and he can bring in an earthquake. He could bring it right into this town. He shook them up because.
I believe they attacked.
His people all in silence, His faithful witnesses. They attacked him and the doors were open.
Well, the the jailer, he was sleeping, but he got what you would call a rude awakening when he saw this happening. And he knew very well when he saw the doors open that he was in deep trouble. Deep trouble because if one prisoner escaped.
He would have to pay with his life.
My friend, if you reject the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you're not saved before you die.
No hope for you, so the Bible tells us.
That's serious. But while you're sitting here today, you're breathing, you're hearing the word of God being quoted. You have a responsibility.
You have a responsibility because you've heard the Bible being read to you.
Like Paul and Silas knew what they were doing, but then Paul noticed something. He saw the jailer pull his sword out and he was going to end his life. And you know, that's what's happening today with a lot of people.
00:40:09
They're ending their life because they cannot face the reality of what's going on around them. They want to put an end to it, forgetting or not knowing or not caring.
It's just the start of eternity.
That's not going to improve anything.
You know, I had a brother-in-law who is 82 years of age. He was a professional football player in the Canadian Football League.
You Americans may not think it's very professional, but it was. He was a good, he's a good football player and he played for many different teams and he was a macho type. He got an Olympic award in swimming. He was a big fellow and he married my sister many years ago.
And two years ago, I think it is, you got very, very sick. 82 years of age. He had never, as the saying goes, darkened the door of a church. My sister was the Lord she saved.
And she lived with this man. He was kind to her and everything, but he was a macho type, you know, and, uh, and he got a lot of attention when he was playing football and, and when he didn't get it, you know, he, you get into kind of a funny mold, you know, I'm important. Come on people, I'm important. Let's hear the cheering. That's what he wanted. Well, as he realized that he was dying, suddenly there was a change in him. I'd written him a couple of times and, and outlined the plan of salvation for him. And, uh, but we had no indication that he.
Had accepted Jesus as Savior, and my sister phoned and she said, well, you know.
Spoke to him about the Lord again and he said well you know, I have read what Norm is written.
That is all on the Lord's hands now.
He confessed, the Lord, his granddaughter said to us. I didn't think this would ever happen. Whatever happened to Dad? It was just around the time when they were playing the Grey Cup and the nurses were bringing in television sets for him to watch the game. You know what he said, Take it away. I don't. I don't want that. I just want my wife here.
I just want my wife to be sent. He realized that he had spent too much time on those things.
And he's now in glory and a wonderful thing. Don't you wait for 82 to roll around. That may just not happen with Ernie. It happened and he's safe with the Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful thing to know that that he accepted Jesus Christ as Savior.
Well, it tells us here then, that.
Saul cried out. Don't kill yourself. We're all here.
Well, first of all, how did he know that they were all there? How did he know that you know?
The Lord Jesus gives the Christian an insight into what's going on.
But I think he had a loud voice. I might have had some competition with Paul. I think he had a loud voice. And when he and Silas were singing in unison, they heard the words that were being stung.
And he was giving a message and he knew that the people were there. But there's one more thing. God kept all those prisoners from running away. What would happen if the prison in this province or this state or or not one of our provinces, the doors were opened. I guarantee you most of them make a run for it. Most of them make a run for it. They all stayed. They all stayed. You know, I'm glad to see nobody running out of this room.
I hope it's because you're either a Christian.
Or I hope it's because you're under conviction. They didn't run away. This man was so struck by this.
That he called for a light. He sprang in. He came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas. A different man. Something had happened. He was changed. He saw that these men had something that he didn't have. And he saw all the prisoners there. He knew that committing suicide wasn't the answer. And he made a good choice. He made a good choice.
He saw what was going on and he cried out and he said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
You say. What does that mean? Saved. Well, let me tell you.
00:45:01
Many years ago it was a beautiful garden called the Garden of Eden. And God created man and put him in there and created a woman and put him in there. God said I want you to enjoy this. I want you to enjoy this lovely garden. There's only one thing I don't want you to do. There's a there's a tree in here that I don't want you to eat of. It's one tree, don't eat of it.
And you know, these two walked in that cool of the garden and God was there and he enjoyed. He wanted that companionship of his creation.
But one day as they were walking and looked up at that tree and said, oh man, what a beautiful tree. I don't kind of fruit. It was. Well, let's say for argument's sake, it wasn't apple tree. Oh, that those beautiful apples and voices.
As God told you that you're not supposed to eat of this. Oh, they put a doubt in their minds.
He's holding something back from you, because if you eat from this tree, you'll get wisdom and you'll get ABCDEFG. And they couldn't resist or didn't resist. They didn't think about what God had said for them not to do. Don't eat of that fruit. All sort words, nothing complicated.
So the 8 of it you may say if you're not unsafe, did you say what's the big deal? I often go and eat food off a tree.
Disobedience is the great deal, which means they sinned.
No Sinner will get into heaven unless they accept the Lord Jesus Christ. Before we get to that point, we find that they were told to leave the Garden of Eden and there was a guard set up so they couldn't get back in And God said you're going to be having trouble. Let's I won't go into the details, but you know, it was at the end of the story. God said can't have anything to do with you, you send.
God and sin are can't go on together.
But God had a plan, and we read about that plan long before it happened.
God sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ into the world. A baby born of a virgin, a baby in a Manger. The Lord Jesus Christ, no room for him when he came into this earth. They didn't want him. Even then they tried to kill him. Many babies had to die. Oh what a sad thing. Poor babies, dying because the King.
Was so jealous of that one who was born who was.
Considered to be the king of the Jews, and he was.
The Lord Jesus worked in his dad's workshop, carpentry shop, and then for three years he went out and he ministered to the people and the Jews.
He ministered to them, He healed people and he did all those wonderful things that go on and on and on and on.
But you know something? There were people there that were just like these people here. He's turning the world upside down.
They didn't want Jesus.
And finally the day came when they caught him, when Jesus allowed himself to be caught and they bound his arms and they let him away to pilots home. And they had a a, they had a, a, a judge there. And he was, he was listening to all the arguments he had.
They had no evidence, no evidence.
And they were looking for someone to come forward, the high priests and, and and so on. They were looking for someone to come and say what he had done that was wrong. Finally he said, Oh yeah, he said he could tear down the temple and build it up in three days.
How would that wash the US court or a Canadian court? It's the most unjust trial that ever occurred.
The governor tried to release him in some what he thought to be a legal manner. Didn't work. Didn't work. They said crucify him, crucify him. We do not want this man to reign over us.
Let His blood be upon us and our children. That's what they said. And so finally.
Pilot said that he couldn't find any fault with him. They crucified him. You can read that in the in the Gospels that we have here. The first four books of the New Testament about what what happened to Jesus, the trial. They spit upon him, they put a crown of thorns on his head. They beat him about the back, They hit him with their hands. They did everything despicable. Then they took his clothes off and they put her all on him.
And they put a reader's hand, and they bowed and mocked him.
00:50:03
And then they rip the clothes off, that bleeding back. Oh, the pain that he endured at the hand of man. Then they took the Lord Jesus, and they led him to Calvary. He took his cross partway, and then someone else took it from there.
They laid the cross on the ground and they stretched out his hands and put cruel nails through both His hands and through His feet. Can you imagine the pain that was experienced just at the right point where it would weaken the muscles so that He would have to put all His weight on one nail? Jesus suffered, He suffered.
And what happened to all his accusers?
And sitting down, they watched him there.
Is that what you're doing? Is that what you're doing? You hear the gospel message and you're sitting there watching, hearing, knowing.
You go through about it, we can do about it. Well, Jesus is on the cross and suddenly everything went dark and for three hours there was darkness. Jesus hung on that cross in three hours and something happened during those three hours. Nobody knows all the details, but one thing we do know that God.
Turned his back on his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He could not look upon sin because.
Jesus died so that the incident in the Garden of Eden could be dealt with and that sinners could come to Him. He died, His blood was shed, and after the light came on again.
We find that the lower we hear the words, read the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, Eli, Eli lambasted. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
I know why He was forsaken. Many in this room know why the Lord Jesus was forsaken. He was forsaken that you would not be forsaken if you accept His pardon.
Of salvation. This is what? How much does it cost? Is that what you're asking? What does it cost? I want to pay for it. You're too late. Too late. It's paid for. It's a gift. It's a gift. He's giving it to you. The gift of God is eternal life.
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord Jesus hung on that cross.
And they gave up the ghost. They gave up the ghost.
And then?
Is getting close to their their uh, ceremonies, you know and said, well he's gotta come off the cross and he had died so a soldier came and put a spear in his side and blood and water came out the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanseth us from all sin. Would you like to claim that as your own Jesus was taken from that cross. He was bound in all these linen clothes and he was taken to.
A A2.
He was laid gently in the tomb by those who loved him.
And they rolled a big stone in front of this tomb, and the governor put his seal on it, and he posted guards around it so that the disciples wouldn't steal it away and say the Lord had risen. Oh, their conscience was pregnant. They had remembered something.
Have you remembered what you learned in Sunday school? Have you remembered what you heard in the gospel meeting? These men understood or understood something about it. Make sure.
You know, they were, they weren't very smart because they were all there and the Lord Jesus rose. Nothing could stop it. He had paid the price. He was untouchable from that moment on. Jesus walked in the scene and was seen of many of those that loved him. And then one day he went out of the city and he went to heaven.
And there were people observing this, and the angels said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? The same Jesus who has gone into heaven will come again.
He will come again. Jesus, the man who was man and God. He is a real person in heaven this moment. Jesus is coming and he's coming.
00:55:00
For all those who have been redeemed with a precious blood of Christ.
You know, we see many scary scenes and you know, the other day, that was on the 17th of March, which is Saint Patrick's Day.
My wife and I went out for a bite to eat in the evening with our son, invited us to go out to him and he had something to discuss with us. And, uh, I have a young son. My youngest son is a police officer.
And we'd call them too. So if you can join us, it'd be nice. And so we came in and we were sitting in a corner and, and he came in and he was in his uniform. And suddenly everything went quiet in the restaurant. There was a conscience there, conscience there, because the police were checking all these establishments to see if there's anybody with doing things they weren't supposed to do. But anyway, I said to my son, you know, I think we're gonna have some excitement in our, in the place where we live, because it looks like there's some very young people that are.
Starting to gather for a storm. But when we came back home, we saw about 4050 of them and they were didn't break anything, but they were sitting there and they were drinking on the street. And in about 20 minutes or no less than that, maybe 5 minutes also. And I noticed the car coming up the one side and another one on the other side, another one from this side and they were cruisers. They were cruises. They closed in on them. And then I noticed an unmarked car coming in, a dark blue one and it was my son.
And his little boy is three years of age, calls him, My daddy's using his sneaky car tonight. That's a car, you know, ghost car. They came in and they cleaned up on these people. And I was kind of watching between the curtains to see what was going on. And I heard my son say, get down there and clean up all the glass of the garbage. Well, we didn't do that. I don't care whether you did or not, you're here. Clean up. Those guys all obediently went cleaned up. They knew what was going to happen is they didn't listen to them. He booked all of them.
You know what happened? He didn't book any of them. He allowed them to go away.
He had mercy on them. He loves young people. He likes to sit down with them when he catches them with drugs and with alcohol and doing things. He sets them down as they get a little lippy. He says go ahead and run. My partner sitting out there and he talks to them about things in the future. He talks to them about their occupation. What you would like to be, Oh, I'd like to be an accountant. If I book you tonight, you're not going to be an accountant. They won't allow you in or I'd like to travel. So I cross the border in the United States with a, with a police record.
Like to lay it out for the His mercy on them. He gave them a chance.
Gave them a chance. We were talking earlier how some were rejoicing when they booked somebody else for speeding and Jim was telling us about that.
Sometimes you feel that way, but he has mercy. He had mercy on them. Well, anyway, about 15 minutes everything was cleaned up. In fact, I walked out the next morning there was this sign of any problem, but they all disappeared. He phoned us. He said I think the homeowners home now everything's fine now everything was fine. But if everything's fine with you tonight, you know I.
I have a sense that there's somebody in this room that is still putting off making a decision. I felt that in the prayer meeting before we came in here. I think there may be someone still isn't saved. Is that you?
Young people.
You older one, is it someone who hasn't heard the gospel before? I'm warning you, the Lord Jesus Christ is coming. He ascended into heaven. He said I'm gonna come again. And when he comes in the cloud, only those who've accepted Jesus as Savior will rise from the dead and those that are alive will go up to meet him and that's when things will be turned upside down because.
The Prince of Peace God will deal with the evil in this world.
You'd like to stay behind for that?
Terribly sad thing.
He loves you, He wants you, He died to redeem you. Let's pray.
Of God.
YP Sing
Acts 12
Children—Tim Roach
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I also, unworthy, still am a child of his care, for his word teaches me that his love reaches me.
Everywhere.
So we also have a song like a sing.
4141 OK, we'll sing first and last #41.
Glory. Glory. Glory.
Because the Savior shed is what you want to wait and see.
Let's pray after the Lord for His help. Our God and Father give thanks for the wonderful love of the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks that he came down to suffer for our sins, to have our sins laid on Him.
We just give thanks now for this time. We can come together to sing hymns about the Lord Jesus. We ask for help to understand the gospel message this morning. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. There was a man named Sergey Kordakov. He lived in Russia and he did not like Jesus. He hated Jesus. He went into meetings like this and he would beat the people and he would arrest them.
And put them in prison.
Sometimes she would kill the people.
Does somebody have a song you'd like to sing?
#46
Thank you, thank you, man. Let's come. Do I save me?
And he calls and he falls home, and he arrived. And he wants all three of the three always do.
Tuesday I feel him and I am on their sins washed away.
In a country called Vietnam.
There was a little girl. She was about five years old.
Her daddy likes to preach the gospel.
One thing every day Daddy would go out and he would come back home for lunch.
One day, Daddy didn't come home for lunch.
The mother She went into the police station to find out where he might be.
And there she saw Daddy.
Being beaten by the policeman.
The kick.
The mother out, They wouldn't let her in there.
They killed Ben Padok.
Because he loved Jesus.
Did someone else have a song you'd like to sing?
How about we sing #40?
1St 2 verses.
Jesus loved me this night.
When I reach my dear strong, yes, he comes from sleep and he's like one thing.
00:05:09
And he's unplugged. He's not. My whole tells me so.
She does love me here tonight and get to open one. He will watch away my sins.
Where it's old children.
And she's some fun tree. Yes, Jesus must be. He asked me. Yes, she's like 1/3, 951.
OK, so in.
In Malawi there was a little 4 year old boy.
Last time in November when I went to visit there.
He was excited that there was a visitor.
The meeting had begun and some people came in late and they had some children about his age, and he points to them, He says. Lochi is here.
And everybody, laughs the poor little boy.
He was so embarrassed he cried in his mother's skirt for the rest of the meeting.
Two months ago, that little boy's grandpa.
The village came to him and asked him to be the village headman, the chiefs of the village.
Now the chief of the village has to do something that dishonor the Lord Jesus and so the the the, the grandpa, he said no, I I'm a Christian, I can't do those things.
That night, the villagers came.
To Malaga Ali's house and they burned his house.
He lost everything.
All his clothes and his bibles, he lost everything.
Let's sing #42.
A7 year old A three or four year old child can be saved. I'm going to tell you another story about a 10 year old a girl in India from Orissa province. Her name was Namrata. Now she was 10 years old and she was a Christian and the Hindus were coming to kill the Christians. And so she ran to hide.
And the mob of men, they came and they were searching the house trying to find the Christians, and they burned the house down and they put a bomb in the house. And the little girl, Namrata, the bomb exploded in her face and her face was all burned.
Her 16 year old sister picked her up and they ran into the forest to hide.
The poor girl was in pain the whole night. The next morning they went to the hospital. The hospital says no, we're not going to treat you.
So some missionary group found this girl and they treated her and they fixed up her wounds. But she still has scars on her face. I want to read you his verse in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 17.
I'll just read it.
I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
This girl was burned because she loved Jesus.
After she was burned, she said. I have decided to spend my life telling other people about Jesus.
We come to the meeting here today, we don't have to worry about somebody coming in with the sword.
00:10:06
Tequila.
We have privileges in this country.
God has been merciful to us.
Let's go to Acts chapter 12.
About that time.
Herod the king stretched forth his hand to vex certain of the church.
Herod hated Christians, and he was going to try to go out and kill as many people as he could that were Christians. But he wanted to make a point, and so he arrested James.
And he killed it says in verse two he killed James, the brother of John with the sword.
In James.
Had to get down.
And they cut off his head.
Why did they do that?
Because he loved Jesus.
James loved Jesus.
Because Herod saw that it pleased the Jews.
They were happy that James was killed. So Herod says, OK, I'm going to arrest Peter.
And when he had arrested Peter, he put him in prison and he delivered him to 16 soldiers.
Put them all outside the prison to watch over the prison so Peter could not escape.
And then inside the prison, they tied chains up like this to Peter.
Two chains, 12 and he had his two soldiers next to him, and they tied him to both soldiers, so Peter couldn't get away.
Peter loved Jesus. He was telling people about Jesus.
But they hated him for it.
And they put him in prison.
Meantime, the assembly.
They were praying. They had an assembly prayer meeting. They were praying for Peter.
Verse five says, Before he was kept, and therefore was Peter kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto him for God and verse 12. And when they had he had considered the thing, he came to the House of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying.
We don't often pray about protecting us from.
Persecution in our meetings because we don't have to worry about that. But back here they had to worry about that. This girl Namrata that I told you about, that was just two years ago.
It happens today. All around the world there are people being killed.
Because they love Jesus.
Well, verse 6, when Herod would have brought Peter forth.
That same night, Peter was sleeping.
He was tied to two, to two soldiers. He wasn't going to get out of there, but the Angel of the Lord came.
And he he shakes. Peter, Peter, wake up.
What? Wake Up where you're going to get out of here and those chains.
They fell off of Peters.
Peter was free, and the Angel took Peter right outside the gate. Those soldiers kept on sleeping. The 16 soldiers outside were sleeping. God did that.
00:15:13
And Peter walked right outside the door of the prison.
And he was free.
He was free. He didn't believe it at first. He thought he was dreaming, but here he was. And so where did he go? He went to the prayer meeting. He goes and knocks on the door.
And a girl named Rhoda. She runs over to the door.
And she heard Peter's voice, and instead of opening the door to let him in, she goes back. It's Peter. He's here. It's Peter.
And so you're mad. You're crazy. It's not Peter. He's in prison. No, it is. It's Peter.
No, it's his Angel. He's died. He's gone to heaven. It's just his Angel.
So they opened the door, and there's Peter, And Peter tells them about the wonderful salvation the Lord gave to him.
There's persecution in this world today. We can sit here and we can think of it. Oh, that's just something in another country.
But persecution is coming.
We need to remember to pray for one another. We pray for our brethren, our brothers and our sisters in these other countries because they suffer. Let's go to First Peter Chapter 2.
Once there was a secret prayer meeting. They had it secret because they didn't want the other people in the village to know they were having a prayer meeting because they would come in and they would disturb the meeting. Well, there was an older lady there too.
And she was happy to be at the prayer meeting. And before the meeting was over, a gang of men came in and they had knives and clubs. And while all the people from the meeting, they tried to run and get out of the building, but they couldn't get out and they were beaten, they were stabbed and they were clubbed. Many of them died.
One of the men, he picked up his club. He walked over to that Lady and she had gotten down. She didn't try to run out. She had gotten down and she kneeled down and she was praying.
She was praying for those men who were trying to kill her.
This man, he took a club, he raised it over his head.
To smash the lady's head.
But then he heard her and she was praying for him.
And that touched his heart. He dropped the club.
And he got saved that night.
He stopped and listened, and he got saved.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you will be saved. This man was fighting against God.
Maybe you're sitting here tonight. You're not fighting against God. You don't have a club in your hand to kill people.
But you have heard the gospel last night. You've heard the Sunday School many times. Jesus is saying, Come, I love you. Come to me. I will give you freedom from your sin. I will take them away first. Peter, chapter 2.
Here's a story about another man who suffered.
Verse 21 Even here unto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us.
Oh, this is Jesus Christ. Jesus suffered on the cross. He took that suffering.
The suffering that I deserve, that you deserve. You are a Sinner, you say I'm not doing anything bad.
But when you disobey your mom?
That's sin. Jesus had to die because you were disobedient.
Mom says take your boots off, they're full of mud and you run across because you want to get something quick and run back outside. Let's see.
00:20:07
Jesus had to die because of that.
Jesus says here in this verse that he left us an example that we should follow in his steps.
He's talking about persecution and he wants you to know that when you get saved, you're not guaranteed to have an easy life.
Because people hate Jesus, and if you love Jesus, people are going to hate you.
And so we are need, we need to follow in humility, to be humble like that Lady. She didn't try to run and be brave. She was humble and she prayed to the Lord. The Lord preserved that Lady and the man was saved.
Let's go to John, Chapter 5.
There was another man.
From Nigeria.
His name was Pale.
Peiul was a Muslim.
He hated Christians.
He went to the store to buy a video about Mohammed.
Muhammad is the leader of the Muslims.
And it was a video, a story of how Islam was established in Arabia. But the the film, it was not available at the store. But the storekeeper says, well, I do have this other film, it's about Jesus.
And so, Paul, he bought that film about Jesus.
Then he went to another store and he found the other film that he was looking for about Mohammed. Then he called his friends to come to his house because we're going to watch these together until they came. And first they watched the film about Jesus, and they were impressed about how much love Jesus had for people.
He saved people. He healed people. He loved people. He took little children into his arms, and he held them.
And he blessed them.
But then they saw.
How Jesus was taken by these wicked men and crucified on the cross, this very person who loved them, They hated him, and they took him and put him on the cross. And all those men, as they were watching this, this film, they began to cry.
They were touched by the love of Jesus.
Jesus died, but then the film went on to show that Jesus rose from the dead.
And all the men, they were happy. Yeah. Jesus rose from the dead. Hallelujah.
Mohammed Paul was saved after that.
He put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, he says. I know that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And savior? Well then, after they watched that film about Jesus, they put in the film about Muhammad.
And it was the story.
It started out with a picture of a man on a horse.
With a sword in his hand, and they were going through Arabia and killing.
And violence.
For anyone who did not believe.
In Allah, any Christians were killed. They wanted to kill the Christians, to kill the Jews, and to crush their children.
OK all. He confessed that Jesus was Lord and Savior. They could see the difference between the love of Jesus and the hatred of Islam.
Jesus loves you. We have a story of love. We have a story of compassion.
We have a story of Jesus who went to the cross.
For you.
After Paul.
Got saved.
He went home.
His wife was missing.
His son was missing.
That was 12 years ago. He hasn't seen them since.
00:25:05
He suffers because he loves Jesus.
I bare in my body the mark of the Lord Jesus.
John 5/24.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believes on him that sends me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.
Do you want to be saved?
Do you want to know Jesus Christ as your savior? This verse says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. What do you need to believe? Do you believe that Jesus was a man? He lived here on earth? That's part of it. Do you believe that you are a Sinner, That you disobey your mom and dad, That you do things that dishonor Jesus?
You're selfish. You don't want to share your things with others. You want to.
Play with that toy yourself. You don't want your friend to have it just now.
We are all selfish.
Believe that Jesus came into this world to die on the cross, to take your selfishness on him, to be punished for him, for you, for that sin, and he died instead of you. He was punished instead of you. And believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again.
And this verse says he that believes has everlasting life.
Our time is up. Why don't we sing one more hymn before we finish?
Somebody have a song you'd like to sing?
31, OK 31.
He will sing first and last.
I will sing of my.
Dream.
I'm like bro crawling in my life together.
Oh.
My God.
And it's my camera and I'm thinking of your breathing.
Nsnoise.
On the frog?
Heated on the marketplace.
And it made me flashback.
To me, crazy.
Before we pray, I just want I assume that these messages of love are for the kids to come up and take. There's a stack of messages of love here. You can come up and take one after we pray.
00:30:04
Let's pray our God and Father. We just give thanks for the.
Blessed Redeemer, as we have the Lord Jesus Christ.
Focus
Address—Jim Hyland
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
By way of introduction to the subject that I have on my heart this afternoon, I'd like to read a verse that was read to us this morning. It's in Ezekiel, Chapter 40.
Ezekiel, chapter 40 and verse 4.
And the man said unto me, Son of man.
Behold with thine eyes and here with thine ears.
And set thine heart upon all that I shall show thee.
Just that part of the verse, but this verse perhaps isn't, as I say, is an introduction to some further scriptures that we're going to look at this afternoon. Yesterday we heard something concerning the subject of faith, but this afternoon I'd like to speak on what we might say is focused, because I believe that the 2GO hand in hand we had some very necessary and helpful exhortations as to faith, and faith is a very practical thing.
We need faith in our Christian pathway, but we need focused coupled with it as well. And we're going to, with the Lords, help connect the number of scriptures that in some ways may seem sort of random, but I trust that what we have won't be too clouded or disjointed, but simply to encourage our hearts brethren to focus and to focus on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
How many times have those of us who are parents said to our children in connection with the job we gave them to do?
Some tasks around the house or in connection with their school work, we've said you need to focus. We tell them you're never going to get a good grade, you're never going to get the job done unless you focus. And I would suggest too that it is becoming harder and harder for all of us in the fast-paced world in which we live where things move so quickly, both in our lives from day-to-day and on a screen, everything moves quickly and it's becoming more difficult to focus.
Educators will tell us that because of those kinds of things, that it's hard to get young people. It's hard to get students to focus. Students aren't readers today. They're not focused the way they were perhaps a generation ago. And it's a detriment to us because the traits that we develop in our lives in a practical way and in a secular way, those traits carry over into our spiritual life.
If we're not careful. And so we were singing that hymn all fixed our earnest gaze. And here we find that the the prophet here Ezekiel, he is told really if I can put it this way, to focus. He's being shown a vision, a very important vision, and it might have been very difficult. There may have been things that the prophet Ezekiel didn't understand about the things that he was shown.
In these various visions. And it might have been difficult for him sometimes to focus on what the Spirit of God was bringing before him in these visions, these prophetic visions. And so there's an exhortation here in connection with this particular vision to focus, to listen, to look, and to listen, and to set his heart upon that which he was being shown.
I've never counted carefully, but I was impressed in going through the Psalms to notice that at least three times the Psalmist speaks of his heart being fixed. Perhaps I'm taking it a little bit out of its context, but I have thought about that because you fix on something, you focus. You fix your eyes on something, you're looking steadfastly. You fix your heart on something, You're focused on it.
And twice in the Psalms, David uses the expression in connection with rejoicing and singing, his heart being fixed on his God. What does it 'cause it causes singing? Why is it sometimes we're not the singing people that we ought to be as believers? Why is it there isn't always the joy in our hearts expressed then on our lips in song? Perhaps it's because our hearts aren't fixed upon our God.
00:05:09
And what he, who he is and what he is doing for us, and what he will do in that coming day of glory, On another occasion, in the Psalms, the Psalmist speaks of having his heart fixed. And there it's in connection with something a little different. It's in connection with not being afraid and trusting the Lord. Are you afraid in some circumstance today? Perhaps it's because you don't have your focus on your God. You don't have your focus.
On the one who we were just thinking about. Because if we're really focused on him, can we be afraid? I'm not saying we're going to see the absence of difficulties and problems, but he's not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And so I want to encourage our hearts to fix our gaze and our hearts on that blessed one and the things that he shows us from his word, the things that he has for us.
If our thoughts and our hearts are truly centered on himself and all that is ours in and through Him.
Then I believe it's going to make a difference in our lives, and this is what I want to show now by going to some other scriptures that would encourage us as to those things that we need to be focused on and focused with. Let's go first of all to John's Gospel, chapter 14.
John's Gospel, chapter 14 and verse one.
Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God, Believe also in me. Just hold your finger here. I want to read a verse in Acts Chapter 7 as well.
Acts Chapter 7 And this is of course concerning Stephen verse 55. But he being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, behold, I see the the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Well, I read this first because this brings before us the person of the Lord Jesus, in a very remarkable way to put this verse in John 14 in its context. We find here that the hearts of the disciples were troubled. They were afraid, you know, they had had the privilege, wonderful privilege, of walking with the Lord Jesus during his public ministry. And whenever they had a difficulty or a quandary, they could go to the Lord Jesus.
One incident comes to mind when John the Baptist was beheaded. The disciples were troubled. They had some questions about it, and they came to the Lord Jesus, and he drew them into that desert place to rest a while. They could go directly to him, but he had told the disciples that he was going to go away and leave them. He they weren't going to have the privilege of walking with him the same way as they had for the years of his public ministry.
Now that he was going to, after he went to the cross, rise from the dead.
And return to the Father. And the hearts of the disciples were troubled as they thought about the Lord Jesus going away.
And it's a little bit of side, but in these three first verses of John 14 we have three things that the Lord Jesus gives the disciples for their comfort and consolation at this time.
In the second verse he speaks of the Father's house. What a comfort it was to be able to tell the disciples that he was going to leave them here for a little time, but this wasn't their true home, that he there was going to be a home prepared for them through the work of redemption and the Lord Jesus returning to heaven as a man. And the other thing he gives them is in the third verse, and that is the promise of his coming to take them.
To himself in that place. But before he gives them those two things for their comfort, he gives them something else in the first verse. Because the two things that we've just spoken of were future the Father's house and the truth that he was going to come and take them to live with him in the Father's house. But they needed something for their present comfort and consolation, and in the first verse he steps before them.
00:10:16
Himself, but not himself, in the way that they had enjoyed the person of Christ.
As a man walking here in this world, because Christianity steps us in relationship with Christ, but not Christ like the disciples and others knew him in this world. It tells us in Corinthians henceforth know we know man after the flesh, though we knew Christ after the flesh. Henceforth know we him no more, and what he's telling them here in this first verse is you believed in God whom you've never seen.
Now you're going to have to believe or trust in me. In the same way. We know that after he rose from the dead and remained on earth long enough to give ample and complete testimony to his own that he had bodily risen from the dead, his feet left the mount of Olives, and the cloud received him out of their sight, and it says, and they saw him no more, that is, they saw him no more with the physical eye.
And that was what he was preparing them for. Here so Peter later on writes to the Saints, and he says, whom not having seen ye love, though now ye see him not yet rejoicing, yet believing, he rejoiced with joy, unspeakable and full of glory. And so you and I have never seen the Lord Jesus with the physical eye. But is he any less real to the eye of faith?
And So what he's telling the disciples is you're going to need to learn to look up by faith and focus on me. Be occupied with me the way you've been occupied with me physically in this world, but now occupied with me at the Father's right hand. Because it says in the chapter before that he had come from God and he must return to God and the Lord Jesus. This afternoon, brethren, he seated at the right hand of God.
And he's our object. He's the one that we were singing of, you know, we sang that little prayer together that I have sung with from the very early days of my youth in meetings like this. But, you know, I have to say that at least to my own heart, because I have to point the finger at myself and leave it there. But I have to say for my own soul that I sing these hymns so often that perhaps I have ceased to really consider the truth that is contained in them.
And I think it's good for us to stop once in a while and realize that many of the hymns that we sing, such as the one we sang at the beginning of this meeting, are really prayers. And when we sing those prayers, we need to again focus on what we're singing. Did that prayer that we sang this afternoon really come from your heart and mind? Did we really mean it when we sang? Oh, fix our earnest gaze.
So, holy Lord on thee.
Where are those just words that we have sung over and over and over again?
Or do we really mean it when we sing those words? And so the disciples?
He puts them in relationship with himself, as it was going to be after he returned to heaven. And then we have Stephen. What a wonderful story we have in Stephen. The courage and zeal of Stephen. We often refer to him as the first Christian martyr. And there he was, in his zeal and his courage, presenting the truth to those that he knew really had their hearts.
That against Christ and against the truth that he was presenting. And we find that before they stone him, and he lays down his life for his testimony, we find that he looks up steadfastly into heaven. I know there's a character of things here that's dispensational, but that's not what I have on my heart this afternoon. I simply want to encourage your heart and mind to be like Steven, to look steadfastly up into heaven by faith.
Sure, we don't see the Lord Jesus with the physical eye, but to look with the eye of faith above the horizons of this sad world, you know, if you and I look around and back, we're going to get discouraged. We're going to strip and stumble in our Christian pathway because what we see around and what we see when we look back is only going to discourage us. But when we look up and we're occupied with Him.
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Will we see any disappointment there? Will we see any failure there? Sometimes we look at Brethren and their dear brother. And we're thankful for our dear brethren, some of which we've had the privilege of spending these couple of days with. But you know David or the Psalmist said, I've seen an end of all perfection. You say that brother let me down, but I'm sure that other brother will never disappoint me. That sister said something, but I know that sister will never let me down. I'll be careful.
You're gonna see an end of all perfection if you're looking for it, even in your dear brethren. But you'll never see it in the Lord Jesus. It's often been pointed out that the bride, when she's awakened in Song of Solomon and her affections, are stirred. What is it that deepens her affections, its occupation? Not with her own failure, not with the daughters of Jerusalem or the others that no doubt are in her presence.
But its occupation with the bridegroom? And did she find, as she enumerated the qualities and glories of the bridegroom, any imperfections there? If she had started enumerating the qualities of the daughters of Jerusalem, she might have found many pleasing qualities, but she would have eventually found some little idiosyncrasies and imperfections. There a little failure, but not in the bridegroom at the end of it, she says. He's all together lovely.
And that's what you're going to find if, like Stephen, you look up and you're occupied with the man at the right hand of God. And so he looks up here and he sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And what was it that gave him the spiritual fortitude and courage to face martyrdom, to face the stones of those that he was desiring to present the Lord Jesus to? What was it? It was to see the Lord Jesus at the right hand of God?
To be occupied with him. Our brother Tim was telling us in the Sunday School this morning about those who have laid down their lives for their testimony. I recently reread a book about John Hoss and how he eventually faced martyrdom at the stake. You say. How could these people do that? How are people facing death today? And there are many of our brethren who do not sit like this in quiet. They come together in fear. There are many of our brethren, and we need to pray for them who are in prison and facing martyrdom.
Many being tortured for their faith, you say, How can they do it all? They have the Lord Jesus before them. They have something far better than the all the failure of man and the disappointments of life and this world. And so, Stephen, He saw the heaven open, and he saw the Lord Jesus, the Son of Man, there. Oh, get a fresh glimpse of him this afternoon. Get a fresh glimpse of him if you get a fresh glimpse of him.
As a result of being here at these meetings, then, it's all been worthwhile.
It's all been worthwhile, and I know that that was the prayer and desire of our brethren in inviting us together again, that we get a fresh glimpse of the person of Christ, that our hearts would go out more to him. Because you can't help but be occupied with Christ and have the heart affected. I say you can't help but be occupied with Christ and have the heart affected. And where the heart is, then the feet will follow. And so Stephen, he lays down his life here. Was it worth it when we see Steven another day?
We're gonna say. I'm gonna say to. I wanna say to Steven, was it worth it? Was it worth it? Oh, he'll say. To have that vision of Christ just before I drew my last breath. And then to be taken absent from the body and present with the Lord. And then all that we're sharing now here in this glory, in the glory. Oh, he's not gonna be disappointed that he gave up something here in this world. And I realized, brethren, that probably none of us in this room will ever face what Stephen did. Probably none of us will ever have to face.
Martyrdom. But there are many difficulties. There's much opposition to the truth in the day in which we live, those who are trying to get us to give up the truth. It's the work of the enemy. But what's going to preserve us? The very same thing that preserves Steven to look up steadfastly, not just to glance casually. I I want to speak carefully, but brethren, so often my own the tendency my own heart is to.
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Get a little glimpse of Christ in the morning and then go on with the day. That's not what's going to preserve us. Not just the casual glance heavenward. If if Steven had just had a casual glance heavenward, I don't know if it would have been the same result. I don't know what would have been the result, but he looked steadfastly. I know there are many things that take our attention and focus in the practical things of life, and I don't want to take away from that.
But oh, I do want to encourage us day by day to look steadfastly up into heaven, to see the glory there. Because it says where there is no vision, the people perish. If you don't have a vision of what's there and the person of Christ, you're going to stumble, I say, in the pathway of faith, and become very discouraged. Let's go on for a little different thought to the Book of Colossians.
Colossians Chapter 3.
Colossians Chapter 3.
And verse one if ye then be risen with Christ.
Seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections, or if you notice your margin and it's really a better rendering, set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. Now again, just hold your finger here, because I want to connect it with a verse in the book of Philippians.
Philippians chapter 4.
Philippians chapter 4 and verse 8. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true. Whatsoever things are honest. Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure. Whatsoever things are lovely. Whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise. Think.
On these things I want to speak now a focused and connection with our thoughts or the mind, because I really believe that's the context of what we have here In Colossians chapter three. We have been speaking in these meetings of how the Lord Jesus is at the right hand of God. And in Ephesians it tells us as we had in the readings that were seated together with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and so on.
And here we have an exhortation to seek those things that are above and to set our mind on those things that are above. What does occupy our minds? Now again, I realize for our children and young people and even those in the business world today, it just seems that it takes all our faculties to survive in the world in which we find ourselves. It's the information age.
In fact, it's one of the characteristics of the last days. It tells us that in the last days knowledge shall be increased, Not necessarily wisdom and understanding, but knowledge. And when has there ever been a day when knowledge seems to be so prevalent and so available as the day in which we live? And I realize that you children and young people, you have to take in a certain amount of that knowledge to get through your courses and your curriculum. It just seems to in the business world.
There's no end of reading and updating and classes and seminars that need to be taken to keep abreast of the fast-paced chapter changes in the technological and business world in which we find ourselves today. But when we have our free time, when we don't have to be occupied with those things that are first survival in the workaday world, what are we occupied with? You know, I have. I have young people.
And it is appalling to me how much the enemy has to fill the mind in our spare time, to take up the energies of the mind and to fill it with that which is not going to encourage us in the things of God. That which is not edifying, in fact, that which really corrupts the mind. I'd like to give another little warning to parents. I had children that came up through the public school system.
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And I was disturbed to find that there is a great movement in the public school system to teach children here in the United States and Canada to empty their minds. You know, it really goes back to Eastern religion and cult. And some of us have had opportunity to travel in countries where they empty their minds under the banner of of meditation and Eastern religion and so on. It's presented a little more subtly in this country.
It's presented as relaxation and so on, but it's a very dangerous thing. We never have a precedent in Scripture that would teach us to empty the mind. Because when we empty the mind, then the enemy has plenty to fill the vacuum. We're never to make our minds a vacuum for the enemy, we're to bring every thought into subjection under the obedience of Christ. David said, thou anointest my head with oil.
That's really the mind governed by the spirit of God. And so we need to fill our minds, and we need to fill our minds with Christ. We need to set our mind on things above. And how are we going to set our minds on things above? Well, one way is to pick up this book we have in our hands and read it every day. Because you know, when we read this blessed book, the subject is always Christ. It doesn't matter where we read. Every page of this book brings before us something concerning.
Person and Work of Christ and God's purposes concerning His beloved Son, We have it by type and shadow in the Old Testament. We have His life recorded carefully by 4 Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John at the beginning of the New Testament, and we need that as an example for our pathway. Here we have a pattern of things laid out in the book of the Acts we have.
The person of Christ brought before us in the Epistles. We have the fruition of everything.
In A coming day in Revelation, the full exaltation of the Lord Jesus and how everything is going to be brought into conformity around himself. But wherever you read, I say the subject is always Christ. And I might just say in that regard too, that it's helpful to read the scriptures with that in view, read Christ into every line. Someone was accused many years ago of finding Christ in every nook and cranny of the Bible.
Wouldn't you like to be accused of that? I think that's a very good thing to be accused of. And I believe that's what's really going to give us a blessing when we read the scriptures. That's setting our mind on things above, because Scripture occupies us with the one that God would always occupy his people with. You know, it was read to us this morning how the heavens opened up and heaven looked down at the Lord Jesus walking here in this world.
Oh heaven delighted on occasion when the Lord Jesus was here to open up and be occupied with the one that, as we were reminded of at the end of the breaking of bread, was the darling of heaven, Heaven's delight, and a voice that would declare, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. But you know the heavens are open this afternoon, not so much that heaven can look down, although in some, to some, in some regard that is true.
But heaven is open for you and for me now. So like Stephen, we can look up by faith and be occupied, I say, with the one that God would always occupy his people with. And we read in Philippians how that we are to think on certain things. Again, our thought process is it's very important to bring it into subjection to the word of God, and if we had time, which we don't this afternoon.
We could go down these things that are listed, these things that we are to think upon, and they are really all attributes of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ we find here. Just for instance, it says whatsoever things are true, well we think of the Lord Jesus as the faithful and true in revelation, and whatsoever things are honest, the Lord Jesus could say I am altogether what I saith unto thee.
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And so if we were to go down these things and justice, compare different scriptures concerning the attributes of Christ, we see how what the apostle is really telling us here is that in our thoughts we need to center it on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. How much every day do we spend time thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ? I'm not asking you now how long you spend in the morning reading some scriptures.
I'm not asking you how long you spend in a little prayer time, or how long you spend at the end of the day, maybe reading a verse or two before you fall into bed.
I'm asking you now, how much time do you spend in a 24 hour time frame?
Thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ, you know, someone has said, and I believe it's true that to a great degree meditation is a lost art today. You know, it's good to read the scriptures as we've just been saying, But then to take those scriptures concerning the person of Christ, David said there the Psalmist said, oh how I love thy law, It is my meditation all the day. Could you honestly, could I honestly say that?
How much I love the word of God and that it is my meditation all the day. Do you and I stop during the day? Do we discipline ourselves to think a little bit concerning the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Again, it takes all our faculties, it seems, to survive at school, to drive down the freeway, to run that computer, to conduct that business seminar or whatever it is. And I believe that it is a day.
When like never before, we need to discipline ourselves to think on these things. You're not going to find time to think on these things if you don't take time, you know. It's a little hymn. We used to sing it when we were young. People take time to be holy. You'll never have time if you don't take time. I don't believe they'll ever be such a thing as saying, well, I had plenty of time to focus on Christ. I have had plenty of time to focus.
On the scriptures, no more and more. We're going to have to take time. But oh how well you'll be rewarded, how encouraged you'll be in your soul. And so again, it does take that focus to focus on the word of God, to focus on those things that we read and learn from scripture, and to set our minds to it. Again, it's not just casually thinking about something, it's setting or fixing our minds.
On those things that are above. Now let's just back up a little bit here in Philippians. I want to read a portion in the third chapter.
Philippians chapter 3 and verse 13.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth under those things which are before I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, and then a familiar portion in Hebrews Chapter 2.
I'm sorry. In Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews chapter 12 and verse one.
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us. And let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross.
Despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Well, I read these verses because though they have a similar thought as to what we have just meditated on. Yet we often find that in the New Testament the Christian pathway is looked at as a race or an athletic event. Just recently in Western Canada, we've had the Olympics and you know, those athletes that went out to participate in the Olympics.
They were men and women who were focused, and not only were they focused during those few days of the Olympics, but for the past few years they've been focused on the moment when they were going to take to the slopes of the ice or whatever it was and participate in their event. They were very focused. They went out to train every day. They had to discipline their body and their mind.
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In anticipation.
Of the event because they knew that unless there was real discipline and focus for those four years of training, they had no hope of walking away with a medal. They had no hope of going to the winter stand and being lauded for their achievement. But the Christian race path I say, is likened to a race because we understand, don't we very clearly, that when the athlete goes out to participate in the event.
They have that focus before them. And so we find here that the Apostle Paul in Philippians, he speaks of running a race and he has the prize, the goal in view. I've often told about my younger brother who when we were growing up was a very picky eater. He really didn't like vegetables and especially things that were green and leafy. But you know, he was also very athletic. He's a big guy and he went out one semester to try out for the high school football team.
And he disciplined himself to eat green salad and vegetables every day for several weeks. Why did he do that? Why did he bring his body into subjection to something that wasn't according to his natural taste or bent? Well, he had focused. He went out with going out to train. He wanted to get his weight to a certain level, hopefully make the team. Hopefully they would win their season and there would be a trophy in the front hall of the.
School with their names on it and their names splashed across the local press in Smiths Falls. I don't know whether they did win their teams I know win their games that year. I know my brother did make the team. But whether they want one or not is now insignificant. Because if they did, their names have long been replaced by others and they've been forgotten. And Paul, in another place, spoke of striving for a for a incorruptible crown.
An athlete does it for a corruptible crown, a moment of glory in this world. And then it's gone. It fades.
But we do it for something of eternal value. And so he speaks here of pressing towards the mark. He had the prize in view. I'm going to do something now at this juncture. I'm going to read a hymn. I'm just going to read it. It's a very well known hymn. But I'm going to read this hymn because this hymn perhaps expresses the thoughts that are on my heart concerning these scriptures that we have just read.
Perhaps better than can be expressed otherwise, Little parentheses, you know. That's why it's good to familiarize ourselves with these hymns. You know, sometimes these hymns express things in a way that can be expressed in no better language, and I believe that's one reason it says admonishing one another in hymns and psalms and spiritual songs. That's why sometimes you hear hymns quoted in ministry, because maybe there's no better way to say it than has already been expressed in the lines of some him.
You don't have to turn to it. It's 46 in the appendix. I'm going to read this whole hymn.
And again we sing these hymns so frequently. But let's in just listening to the words, without singing it, let's seek by the grace of God, to let these words sink down into our souls and have the effect that no doubt the hymn writer desired that they would have on the reader and the singer. Have I an object, Lord below, which would divide my heart with thee, which would divert it to even flow in answer to thy constancy.
Oh, teach me quickly to return, and 'cause my heart afresh to burn. Have IA hope, however dear, which would defer thy coming, Lord, which would detain my spirit here, where not can lasting joy afford from it. My savior, set me free to look and long and wait for thee. Be thou the object, bright and fair.
To fill and satisfy the heart, my hope to meet thee in the air, and nevermore from thee depart.
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That I may, undistracted be to follow Sir and wait for thee. That's a prayer too. I trust it's the earnest and sincere prayer of your heart and mind. And Paul here, he had one thing before him. You know, we talk about multitasking and I love to multitask. I suppose I'm what they would call a multitasker when I'm home and sometimes drives my wife a little bit crazy, but I've got a lot of projects on the go.
And I like to go from one to another and get everything accomplished and eventually all the loose ends tied up. But you know, this isn't multitasking that Paul is talking about here. This is focus, this one thing, one thing. And what was that one thing? It was Christ before his soul and running with the prize in view. Now again, there were many facets to Paul's life, many facets to his ministry. But no matter what Paul was involved in today, whether it was preaching the gospel.
Whether it was ministering to his brethren, whether it was walking or sailing to the next assembly, or taking care of some practical matter in his life, or visiting his brother individually, it all had the focus of running the race with the prize with Christ in view. But I read in Hebrews as well. I just want to point out something there, because here we're told to run with patience.
Or really, the thought is endurance. Often when you have the word patience. In our Bible, the thought is really endurance. And here we're exhorted to run with endurance. The race that is set before us. Because, you know, as we've often said, the Christian race is not the 100 yard dash, it's not the 50 meter dash. No, it's the marathon and it takes endurance. The marathon runner trains very different than the sprinter.
The marathon runner is taught to endure. The sprinter is taught to put everything he has.
Into those few moments because the race is over in a few seconds or minutes, but the marathon runner has to learn to pace himself, laugh after lap, mile after mile. And I realized that there are brethren here this afternoon that have run a lot more laps than I have in the Christian pathway. And if we were to step down and to talk to our brethren who've been in the past the Christian race for many years and asked them, how have you done it? How have you been able to go on for the Lord and run with endurance the race that is set before you?
You know what they tell us? They tell us if there's been any measure of faithfulness in running the race, If the result of looking unto Jesus, that's that's the key. It's looking unto Jesus, the one who began and completed the path of faith and perfection. And he's the only one. It's not so much that he's the author and finisher of our faith. The hour is an Italic, but he's the author and finisher of faith. He began and completed the path of faith and perfection.
You know the Lord Jesus, and again I want to be very, very careful in speaking about the Lord Jesus. But you know the Lord Jesus when he was here, he was a man who was very focused. He said, I have a baptism wherewith to be baptized, and how am I straightened until it be accomplished. On another occasion we read he set his face as a Flint to go to Jerusalem. Nothing was going to dissuade him. He had come to accomplish the Father's will.
And nothing was going to turn him aside or dissuade him. Why? Because of that focus. And what was the focus? I believe the focus was returning to the Father. Have it with the joy have a having accomplished the Father's will. You know, when we read of the joy that was set before him here, I don't believe this joy was so much the joy of having his own with him in a future day. Although no doubt there was that joy before his soul.
But the joy here, I say again, was the joy of a of returning to the Father, having accomplished the Father's will. What a joy there must have been when the Lord Jesus returned to the Father and sat down at the right hand of God, thought God on the one hand satisfied with his Son, and the Lord Jesus with the joy of knowing that nothing had been left undone of what the Father had given him to do.
Having said I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
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What a joy there was at the end of a pathway that was so focused that I say nothing would turn him aside from accomplishing that which the Father had sent him to accomplish here in this world. Go back to 2nd Corinthians for a moment.
2nd Corinthians chapter 3.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 3 and verse 18. But we all with open face, beholding us in a glass the glory of the Lord. If you notice Mr. Darby's translation, looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled faith are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Well, this is what we might say is the effect of focus.
We've spoken at great length in this meeting of the need to focus, and every aspect of focusing really brings us back to being focused in some aspect of things on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But here we have the results, or the effect of being focused on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because what this verse is simply telling us is in the measure in which you and I are focused on the person of Christ.
In the measure in which we are occupied with the man in the glory, there is going to be a reflection of Christ in your life and mine. You know, sometimes people talk about generating A testimony for Christ, but I don't believe we need to worry so much about generating A testimony for Christ as being focused on his person, because in the measure in which we are focused on his person, there will be an unconscious testimony.
And reflection of Christ in your life and mine, it says of those in the early days of Christianity. They took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus when they came out from the presence of the Lord. There was an aura, there was a radiation of the person of Christ. As a result we often use the go back to the example of Moses. When Moses came down from the presence of the Lord on the mount, he had to veil his face. The children of Israel couldn't look on him.
Because of the reflection of his face. But you know, it's interesting what it says. It doesn't say he tried to make his face shine or generate some testimony or reflection of Jehovah. It says he wished not that his face shone. It was the unconscious reflection of being in the presence of God on the Mount. And when I see a brother or sister who reflects something of Christ in their life, I say there's a brother, there's a sister who's come out from the presence.
Of the Lord Jesus, there's one who's occupied with himself. And so we're to be lights in this world, but we are. It's reflective light. You know, the moon has no light of itself. It reflects the light of the sun, but it only reflects the light of the sun in the measure in which the earth does not come between it and the sun, in the measure in which the earth comes, between the sun and the moon. Why, There's not going to be that proper reflection. That's why the moon waxes.
And Wayne's. And so in the measure in which things of this earth come between US and Christ, we're not gonna shine. We're not gonna reflect like we ought to. And you know, the children of Israel couldn't look on Moses without a veil. But for us the veil has been removed. We used to sing that hymn when we were young. People, Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. Why is it the things of earth mean so much to me? Often? Because I'm not looking full in this wonderful face.
Why is it so often I don't reflect Christ like I should? Because I'm not looking in full in this wonderful face, and the things of earth are coming in.
And so we need to look up and be occupied with him, that there might be a reflection of him, of him in our lives. Turn with me now to Hebrews chapter 2.
Hebrews Chapter 2.
And verse 8. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. I want to make an application in reading this verse.
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And I trust that it is an application that is relevant and applicable. But, you know, we read in the eighth verse that we see not yet all things put under him. You know, I trust, brethren, that there's no thought, even in corners of our hearts today that the Lord Jesus is outwardly reigning. The Lord Jesus is the king in rejection. He's the noble man that has taken his journey to a far country, and he's waiting for that day when he's going to receive his Kingdom.
And he's going to come back and it's going to be a wonderful day for this world. When the Lord Jesus reigns in the outwardly in the Millennium, we see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus. And the reason I read this is to encourage our hearts not to become overwhelmed with the condition of things that we see in this world around us today. You know, it is so easy even as believers to be over occupied.
With the political, the economic and the social condition of this world. Now don't misunderstand me. We are not isolationists and we need to be aware, but we don't need to be overwhelmed. I I like to be aware of what's going on on the world stage, but we don't need to be overwhelmed. You know, this is a day when men are overwhelmed. Men's hearts are failing them for fear. And if ever there was a day to my own soul that whenever there was a proof in my own soul.
That this is the last days. It's the fact that you read fear in people's faces as they are occupied with what's going on in the world because they realize that there is an interplay of economic, political and social forces, that it's like an elastic being stretched. It's got to snap somewhere and they don't understand what's going on and they don't recognize that God is behind the scenes and that the most high rules in the kingdoms of men. And they don't realize that there's a day coming when God's man is going to put it all straight.
And so we need to be aware but not overwhelmed. And we're not going to see things get better in this world as long as we're here. The Scriptures, in a sense, prepare us and show us that the last days described are indifference to the claims of Christ and the breakdown of everything economically and corporately. And.
Physical, socially and politically. And so on. But, brethren, we need to look above that and see Jesus.
We see Jesus. He's above it all. He's in control. He rules in the kingdoms of men. Read the book of Esther for your encouragement. Seemed like everything was out of control. Seemed like the people of God were even going to be annihilated. And though God isn't mentioned by name in that book, as you come to the end of the story, is there any doubt in your mind who is in control? Not for one moment you realize that God was in full control.
Though outwardly things might have for a time seemed out of control, and things may seem out of control, in this world they may seem out of hand. But remember, they're never out of God's hand. And what a comfort it is to look up we see Jesus, oh to see Jesus, to see him, to let him fill our gaze, to let him fill our hearts and satisfy us, and to give us the courage to go on even in difficult days.
But in closing, I'd like to turn to one more scripture and it's in Revelation chapter 5.
Revelation chapter 5 and verse 6. And I beheld and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders stood a Lamb as it had been slain. You know, I have to stand here this afternoon and confess, but the things that we have spoken of this afternoon are not always true.
In my own life and in my own soul, my vision of Christ sometimes is pretty dim.
The things of this world come between myself and my Lord. So often I become distracted. So often I become discouraged. So often I wander from the path. So often I don't have that focus on Christ that I ought to have. But it thrills my heart, brethren. It thrills my heart to no end, to think that there's a day when I'm gonna be focused on the person of Christ, the Lamb in the midst.
00:55:21
And every other believer is going to have the same focus and everything is going to be centered around him.
And the praise and the worship is going to be one. What a day that's going to be.
When our focus is together on that person and I suggest that when you and I get one look at his lovely face.
We're not going to take our eyes off him for all eternity. Oh, I know there's going to be many facets to eternity and and before that to the Millennium and so on and. But I believe that everything in relationship to the reign of Christ and all those things that we often speak of, it's all going to be focused on the person of Christ.
I say nothing else is going to matter in that day we speak of. We think of meeting one another in that day, and no doubt there will be discourse with one another like Moses and Elijah on the Mount and so on.
But I say again, when we get one look at his lovely face, I suggest that our focus is going to be on the person of Christ for all eternity. He is so going to fix our earnest gaze in that day. He's so going to enrapture our hearts that that, I say, will be our focus. But, brethren, in the meantime, may our hearts be encouraged to focus on that blessed person. He's Heaven's delight, and Heaven's desire is that He would be our delight and our focus as well. Let's pray.
Our God and Father How?
Ephesians 2:13-22
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But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances for to making himself obtain. 1 Newman.
So making peace.
And that he might reconcile both unto God and one body, by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you who were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through Him we both have access by 1 Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints, and of the household of God.
And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.
In whom ye also are builded together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit.
It reminds me a lot of the of the story of the Good Samaritan.
Because that man was left half dead in the Good Samaritan came down and he poured in oil and wine and he took and set him on his own beach and took him to an inn and said to the innkeeper, take care of him whatsoever they'll spend this more when I come again, I will repay. So we have in this chapter a picture of the those of us that were far off, particularly brought before us.
Dead in trespasses and in sins and uh, and uh, here we're brought nigh by the blood of Christ. And it goes on to the end of the chapter where it brings, if you like, before at the end. In other words, uh, God wants his children to have fellowship one with another.
And there is a ground for fellowship and that's himself. And so, uh, uh, it's lovely to see. And you get these beautiful pictures in the Bible. You know, in that story of the Good Samaritan, it says that he set him on his own beast and said and took him to the end. Now, what's the picture there when it says he set him on his own beast? Well, I believe that that beast.
Was what carried the Savior along or carried that Good Samaritan along? And he got off and he took that other man and he put him on the beach. He set him on his own beat. Now when we got saved, we got a new life, and that new life is a very, very life of Christ Himself.
And every believer has that life and the Lord wants us to enjoy.
One another, his children. When you go somewhere and you meet somebody who's a believer, what does it do to you? I'm sure it thrills you inside when you meet somebody and you've never seen them before.
You might find there are differences that you have because maybe they don't see things exactly the way you do and so on. But remember, we have that same life inside than the life that they have. If they've been born again, we've been set with a very power that carried that man along with the life of that beast. And so the life of Christ has been placed inside, and the Spirit of God is the power of the new life. And then we have dropped before us about near the end of the chapter. You're no more strangers or foreigners. Verse 19.
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But fellow citizens with the Saints, verse 20, and are built upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the buildings fit the frame together. So the Lord has brought his people into a fellowship, and He wants us to enjoy fellowship together. Isn't it lovely to see that from the moment that we've been picked up from being dead in trespasses and in sins?
That he has a pattern for his children to go on to his work.
And at the position now where there are no national distinctions.
That's what's so beautiful, brother. I'm going from country to country, as some of us do sometimes, to find that same spirit that unites in Christ.
Lots of different customs of different countries you go to, but to experience the reality of the fact that we are made one in Christ now. So in these verses from verse 13 on.
You have that focused on, especially here in context, uh, the difference between the Jews and the Gentiles.
Now in Christ Jesus Yebu, sometimes we're far off, that's the Gentiles are made nigh by the blood of Christ, for he is our peace, who hath made bold human Gentile one. And then broken down the middle wall of partition between us there was a very distinct wall.
Of partition, the Jewish people were supposed to be separate, but now in Christ that all those distinctions are gone. Yes, we are from different nationalities, but we are part of one body. We have one spirit that unites. What a precious reality revenue in our relationships together.
That's why it was so hard for Peter in the book of the Acts, wasn't it? He really struggled with that. And when the sheet was let down and he was told to arise and slay and eat, he said, well, I've never eaten anything that's common or unclean. But the Lord was bringing before him how that there was not to be national distinction now. And those Gentiles that were without hope and away from the covenants of promise and so on, God had a wonderful place, the blessing that he was going to bring them into.
But it was difficult for Peter and even Paul struggled with it too. And the Lord had to deal with Paul. He kept going back to the Jews and so on. He had a real love and affection for them. But as you say, it's all been removed now. And so that there when it says He is, he is our peace. It's not so much peace with God. He's talking about his peace between the Jew and the Gentile. Now think, think of of Paul.
Writing to Jewish believers and, or to Gentile believers, but it would have been unheard of before the day of Pentecost and, uh, Peter, uh, ministering in Gentile assembly, so to speak. But they had to recognize that the barrier was gone now and that God saw them not so much as save Jews and save Gentiles. That's true. But he sees them now as the Church of God.
And that's why the redeemed in the coming day will then sing, uh, redeemed out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.
Again, files are spoken out here as far off. That is, Gentiles didn't even have a religion that acknowledged God, the true God, Jehovah. The Jews did, and God had laid out in the Old Testament a a means of approach to them. It began in the book of Exodus when God said he would come down and dwell with them.
And there he instituted the Tabernacle. He gave the Tabernacle its plans and the way of approach. The thought was that God wanted to have fellowship with his people. And so all of those things given there in Exodus, in the other books of Moses to follow on.
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Are pictures of the what is necessary for approach to God? How God and man could be brought together in fellowship?
But they never really were able to meet with God on that basis because of the failure of the people of Israel. And so they were nine. They had the means, they had the approach.
And God was there close, but it was never, uh, a perfect way for God and men to get together. But it is a beautiful picture of what the New Testament way has opened up for us. And that's true. The Lord Jesus Christ, and so his blood is what brings not only the Jews who are not, but Gentiles on the same basis.
And so we Gentiles are a greater demonstration of the power of God to bring us near, so close and so, so near in fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Paul emphasizes this, how the Gentiles were, as we noticed earlier, they were dead in trespasses and sins. Here it's the thought of being so far away.
Uh, having no, no God without hope and so on in in the world.
And it's all based on the blood of Christ. And brethren, we never want to forget that. And so whether it was access for the, uh, Jews or access for the Gentiles in Christianity, it's all on the grounds of the blood of Christ. Because I was thinking when Doug was speaking about the access that they had in the Old Testament and how it was really imperfect. And that's in certain ones could only come so far and others could come a little further.
And yet, and, and it was never with real confidence. But when the apostle writes to Jewish believers in the book of Hebrews, he tells them that they have boldness. Now, why? Through the blood of Christ. That was the base. That's the basis of it. They never had boldness. They did have access, as Doug said, to a certain degree, but it was not with real confidence, but on the braces of the blood of Christ. Now there is boldness. And so here for the Gentiles, if they were going to be brought nigh, what is the basis for it? We're brought nigh by the blood.
Of, of Christ. And brethren, we never want to forget that. You know, this morning we had two things on the table, a loaf and a cup, and the cup is given separate. It's the way the Lord instituted it and it's a reminder of his precious blood. And we never want to forget. Yes, it's wonderful to go over the inheritance and the deep things of God, so to speak and so on, but we never want to forget what the basis of it all is.
And Brother Dave was talking about fellowship and how God desires fellowship with His creature. And I suppose we have it illustrated with Adam too. As soon as he sinned, there had to be the death and the shedding of blood of an innocent, of an innocent victim.
But I was thinking of it too, in First John, in first John, he takes up the subject of fellowship with the Father, with the Son, and as a result with one another. And we have been, has been said, brought into this wonderful place of relationship. We can have fellowship with the Father. We were brought into fellowship with the Father, the Son, and with one another. And what's the basis? The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sins. I used to read that verse that we so often quote that part of the verse in the in the gospel.
I wonder why it's inserted there. It used to seem almost out of place to me until I realized what he's really saying is the basis for fellowship with the Father, the Son, and with one another is the blood of Jesus Christ that has cleansed us from all sin. And so you often find that in the New Testament when he takes up the access and the fellowship that we have with God and with the sun and with one another, he always brings in the grounds, the basis for it, and that is the blood of Christ.
It is a wonderful experience and I just wanted to stay on a practical level rather than if you young people, especially if you get a chance to go to other countries, ask around if there's any that are gathered to the Lord's name there and take your time to go visit them. And you may not be able to speak their language perhaps, but just sitting down where they said and showing some interest.
00:15:09
Is a very real encouragement to them and I must say.
It has been a tremendous blessing to my own soul and I, I have to say, brethren, when I started traveling to Latin America, I was brought up in the media and I knew doctrine pretty well. But the practicality of what doctrine is has been brought home in a very real way to my soul by just being with those friends. It may not be able to explain it very well, but they know it in a way that perhaps we don't know it. So take time to go look for him and enjoy that fellowship.
We've been brought into it, and sometimes we take trips into other countries just for a vacation. I say if you want something that will really enrich you, take time to look at your driver and enjoy some fellowship with it, whatever level it may be. I often think of one of the richest experiences I think I've had in Latin America, the Dominican Republic, with Brother Clint Buchanan, one time in the home of a dear.
Black brothers zoom it was extremely poor. His house is just some stick stuck in the dirt and some banana leaves for the roof. And when you when it rains, you have to be careful with that not to get a brain done. But he invited us for a meal and the meal wasn't quite ready when we got there. We sat down on the benches at the table as N to sit.
Didn't have anything else to sit on. The dear brother didn't have anything to show us anything that was of any significance in the house. And he got out his Bible. Now you'll visit. And I wish you could see how that black face shown with joy. I didn't realize that at the time that he didn't even know how to read, but he quoted from memory scripture after Scripture of what was dear to his heart. And I just had to bow my head right there, brethren, and say, Lord.
Please help me that material things in the United States don't blind me to the reality of our spiritual heritage. It does, brethren. It does have that effect on it. It doesn't need to, but it does. So I must say I've been tremendously blessed by looking up some of those breath in. I'm sure you've had the same experience in the West Indies Gym and other places too. And let me just say this too, that it doesn't take great things to encourage and have fellowship.
Think sometimes young people are a little intimidated or afraid to go because they said, well, I don't have a great lot to offer any great ability or gift, but these brethren are glad just to see anybody else that's a believer and washed in the blood of Christ and just to sit down in their home. And maybe it's maybe it's the simplest things that from the scriptures that you enjoy, but just to sit there and enjoy a glass of juice with them and something of the person of Christ. I don't think we realize how it how.
What a blessing that is.
And let's realize too, that a lot of our fellow believers don't enjoy things like we've enjoyed this weekend. Think sometimes and and don't misunderstand me, young people, but I think sometimes as young people, we get the feeling that all you Christian young people have the same amount of fellowship and the ability to go to conferences and weekends together and so on. You realize that there's a lot of your fellow young people.
Who are very isolated in different countries and parts of the of the world. Young people who perhaps rarely if ever see any other young people apart from maybe their own family, who are true believers and that they can really enjoy something of the person of Christ with. You know how much it means to a young person to have you go and spend the day to go out of your way. Maybe you do have to make a little sacrifice.
Maybe you drink your juice and you will have to take a little medication tonight, but isn't that worth it? Wouldn't, wouldn't it be worth it? And when you get to heaven to realize that the few minutes you spent there and the little medication you had to take that night with something that helped the young person over a rough spot in their life or a family that was really struggling and discouraged. And you spent a day with them and you find out at the judgment seat of Christ, that was just the encouragement and the little word that they needed.
It's not gonna be worth a day out of your vacation or a trip over the mountain or a little trip hand to understand this. A trip on a speed boat that you think wonder is gonna get to the other side or something like it is worth it. It's a joy. And if it brings joy to your heart to do it because you'll be watered in your own soul, think of what joy it brings to their their heart. And above all that, think of the joy it brings to the heart of the Lord Jesus to have two of his own or more sit down and enjoy a little fellowship and encourage one another.
00:20:34
Those are cultural differences in classes of people that we, uh, experience in going from country to country that I suppose it was even more pronounced between the Jews and the Gentiles who had a God-given religion that did set them apart. And the sad thing was that instead of of giving them to act like the Good Samaritan, now they was Speaking of.
They were doing this like the office that the Jews were passing by on the other side. And, uh, and if it was a Gentile or a or, or, or a Samaritan, that's in that case, umm. And so when the Lord Jesus came and he broke that barrier down, that wall of separation that distinguished views from the other Gentile world and, uh.
That was a legitimate, up to a point, distinction that God had made between.
His chosen people and the rest of the world had to say that instead of using the, the uh, God-given religion of the law and its ordinances, uh, to in the right way, they began despising other people that didn't have that approach rather than being humble themselves by how they hadn't kept the law as they should have.
And so that's, I believe why that that story of the Good Samaritan house, the Lord takes the place of being that one who was compassionate and didn't separate himself as a better person.
He was a better person, but he put all that aside to reach out to the needy. And so that's what's broken down, this class distinction that existed at that time. And so how much more in our day.
Where we don't even have a God-given, uh, religion to keep us separate from other nationalities and cultures and so on. The spirit of that ought to characterize us in our outreach and love to souls.
We'll, we'll learn the subject of this talking about vacations and that sort of thing. I think that, uh, I, I really feel it should be an exercise about everything in our lives that what we do, we're doing because we want to please the Lord and, umm.
Even in going on a vacation to take a vacation, I mean the Lord said come to your part into a desert place and rest the wild. So that's what the Lord said. And it seems that there is a, a, can I say an opening like this that the Lord leads in his word for Saints that are going to need to have vacations. Now if you're going to take a vacation, I suggest that it's important for every one of us.
To ask the Lord about what we should do and where we should go.
And, uh, and I guess frankly that we be careful about putting ourselves in a position where we can't honor the Lord. And also if possible.
To go to a place where we can remember the Lord in fellowship with those that, uh, of like precious faith. So, umm, it's a, a tendency sometimes if somebody said one time, well, uh, I, uh, I go on a vacation and I, I don't take my Bible with me. Well, that's not a, that's not a good plan. So, uh, I was thinking of the 8th of Proverbs in connection with what Bob was talking about and.
There it tells us about the Lord who made the world look what a world he made look, how beautiful it was.
What was the Lord's desire in that world? As my delights were with the sons of man. And personally, I have found in my own life that they happiest time when going on a vacation is to be in a place where I can have fellowship with the Lord's people. So whether it's in a foreign country or whether it's in your own homeland and not very far away.
00:25:19
Umm, uh, to have a break in natural things. We're tying together spiritual with it as well is a good point.
What Paul wrote here too, in connection with this middle wall of partition being broken down and the enmity and so on really had impact and import when you consider the fact that Paul, perhaps like no one else does, all of Tarsus persecuted the Church of God. And Paul was above the I was a Pharisee of the law of blameless, touching the law of blameless. He was zealous and persecuting the Church of God. He did it thinking he was doing God's service. And there was that real hatred and enmity between Paul, as shall I say, a God fearing.
Religious Jew against those who were followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. But when he got saved as Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Rd. it was a complete turn around. Even though they were afraid Ananias didn't want to go and see him. I've heard many things about this man and but there was a complete turn around and he had such a wonderful care for the Church of God, not just those who had been saved of the Jewish nation.
But those like the Ephesians of the Gentiles, the Thessalonians, he cared for them as a nurse and as a father and so on. But a turn around there was because that enmity had been removed. Christ takes care of all that. So I just suggest that when he writes to the Ephesians and they recognize what he had been and then what he had become, what an impact. And it is interesting too in his epistle when he addresses.
Gentile assembly. He usually addresses them in two ways, grace and peace. And history will tell us that grace in Bible times was the Gentiles salutation and peace or Shalom was the Jewish salutation. And it's beautiful to see the two are brought together there when he salutes, salutes the things of God he learned the day he was converted.
The truth of the Body of Christ.
Saw smile wide persecutest thou me must have been a shock to him to think that he was persecuting somebody in heaven that that was the reality of it and touching those believers is touching that the head in heaven. So what a wonderful truth it is. I I noticed here that enmity is mentioned in both verse 15 and 16.
But in verse 15 it says having abolished or annulled.
Uh, in his flesh the enmity, whereas in verse 16 it says having slain the enmity thereby.
Interesting. That enmity, like you said, is a very real thing, and you see it in the book of the Acts expressed in a lot of different ways, but it's gone now, Completely gone. Wonderful.
To, uh, realize we've been brought together on the same ground, Jews and Gentiles.
And notice that he came and preached peace to you, which were afar off the Gentiles, and to them that were nigh the Jews.
Then verse 18, notice this is so beautiful because you have the whole Trinity in verse 18 for through him that's the Lord Jesus. We both have access by 1 spirit unto the Father and the whole Trinity involved in our approach to God. Does it matter if you're Jew or Gentile now? No distinction.
By 1 Spirit, through Him we have access unto the Father, that wonderful brethren, to know that you and I have access into the very holiest of all. You know, sometimes we sit in the meeting room like this, or in our own local meeting rooms and I don't know if we get the picture properly, but really?
00:30:04
In spirit we are entering.
Heaven itself into the holiest of all, right before the presence of God. Just like the high priest went in once a year, he pushed that curtain aside and went into the very presence of God. Now that the veil has been rented, God has come out into the light. And now we are told to come in with boldness into the very friends of God. What a tremendous privilege.
Belongs to it. I don't know that we appreciate it properly rather, and we've often mentioned it that I I think it's worthwhile going back to re mention it again is that when it comes to the question of approach to God either in praise and worship or in prayer in those two meetings in the breaking of bread meeting in the prayer meeting, We are not there exercising guilt. That is not the place for the exercise of gift.
It's the exercise of priesthood and there, brethren, we need to all be exercise. It concerns me rather than that sometimes at a conference we expect just brother up in the front row to pray. That is not right. Thankfully, yesterday I heard some from the little farther back pray too. But let's all be exercised, you young brothers, be exercised about trains.
Got to pray along.
Betray What a privilege it is to present petitions to the Father. By 1 Spirit we have access unto the Father and the Lord. Exercise our hearts in the privilege that is ours as priests. To approach to God doesn't mean that the sisters can't either. Sisters are there and they are represented.
In the prayers and when a brother gets up to pray, he prays in the plural. Our Father, he didn't say, My Father, our Father, we ask thee. We're at sustaining the floral because the whole assembly is spraying in that voice. And so you can say them too. At the end you are afraid and that's why the sister covers or hesitation because she's praying.
In the prayer meeting too. Not in the audible voice, but she's praying.
And the petitions that are being presented.
I have no no.
I'm sorry.
I had a question about verse 15 about the enmity. It's been mentioned has been mentioned already.
It says they're having abolished in his flesh the enmity.
Even and then it describes the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, and so on.
I assume that's the the Law of Moses. Why is the Law of Commandments presented there as the entity?
I suggest that it was the law, the Old Testament, that commanded the Jewish people to be a separate people. They were not to mix with the different nations. So it's only in Christ when He came that that has been annulled in his work on the cross.
The fullness of the Godhead has come out in the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is characteristic of Christianity that was never known before.
And no other religion that I know of embraces the whole Trinity, the three persons of the Godhead, like Christianity recognizes. And this, brethren, is.
Come home to me lately that the impact or the, the, uh, importance of it, that we know God in a much fuller way than ever was known before.
And that it as this commended in our 18th verse. The whole Trinity is mentioned. All three persons are mentioned in that verse, that one simple little short verse.
00:35:01
For through Him that's Christ, we both youth and Gentiles have access by 1 Spirit unto the Father. It takes the whole Godhead.
To be able to pray as we pray and have access to God. Wonderful. Think of the whole Godhead has been occupied with opening up this way for you and me to come.
Into his presence, he wants us there. And this is the fullness that has come out in Christianity of the revelation of God. And this is the fellowship that we're brought into, uh, and, and with our God, the Father, the Son.
The Holy Spirit and also it, it's not a, it's not a little insignificant thing.
It was there in the Old Testament too, wasn't it? Because Elohim, the Hebrew word, is plural. I understand it, and it's plural, which is in the Hebrew three or more in the beginning, God.
Pearl in three or more.
Created is singular. So there you have the Godhead from the very first verse of the Bible brought before us the the full light of it is revealed that you say in the New Testament, isn't it? But the secret of it is opened up to it. Now in this generation we can look back and see what God.
Umm, had there in the Old Testament. I know I've, I've talked one time to a Jewish lady and, uh, I asked her about that verse. Uh.
And they'll hardly repeat the word elohim. She was an Orthodox Jew. They'll hardly repeat the word eloquent. That so sacred. And I said to her, umm, what? Uh, what is that? Singular or plural?
And she said singular. And then she said, no, it's her.
And umm, I think he learned pretty quick, and I imagine she went and talked to a rabbi afterwards, but uh, there it is, right from the end.
It's important to understand too, in connection with these verses, that Scripture only recognizes one church. And sometimes when we approach a town or city, we see one of those famous signs that says the churches of Lawrenceville or Smith Falls welcome you. But that wasn't. That's not God's mind and it's in the book of the Acts when the church was formed. The Spirit of God is very careful throughout the book of the Acts to guard.
Lest we ever think there was a Jewish church and, or, and a Gentile church, or even a Jewish Gentile church with a hyphen. And so on the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God descended and baptized those 120 or so believers into one body, that was something that took place. I'm going to say this and then I'll qualify it. It took place never to be repeated in the same way. The church was formed on the day of Pentecost by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
But to guard lest we think in the 8th chapter there was a Samaritan church formed, and in the 10th chapter a Gentile church formed. And I, I hardly know how to say this, but perhaps you'll understand, there was not a repeat of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but a little extension of it to bring in the Samaritans and the Gentiles into what had already been formed on the day of Pentecost. And so the only time in the New Testament that you read of the churches as if the word church in the plural is when he is Speaking of local assemblies, like in Galatia, which was a province.
The churches of Galatia, he refers to them in that way, but they were the local expression of the truth of the one body of the church. But the church is looked at as one. And if I can just say this too, brethren, when we saw that loaf this morning on the table, I trust that every one of us saw in that loaf every believer alive on the face of the earth this morning. It didn't just represent those of us who were here in this room this morning.
Nor did it just represent those who expressed that truth in the breaking of bread today know that loaf to the heart of God and the Lord Jesus represented every member of the body of Christ, every believer alive on the face of the earth. And if we ever lose sight of that, we become narrow and sectarian in our view. Now it was very difficult, and Paul takes this up. It was very difficult for a Jew to accept this.
00:40:29
Now we have in these verses really that if there was going to be, if there's blessing and access. Now it's the same way for a Jew as a Gentile, he says it's the same way for those who were afar off. That's the Gentile As for those who are not very difficult for the mind of a God fearing Jew to get around this because he had been taught for generations that he was a peculiar people, a special people.
With the oracles of God and a special access and blessing that was for them as a nation. And you were born as a Jew or you were born as a Gentile. You were inside the circle of blessing or you were outside the circle of blessings before Christianity. And it was very difficult for a Jew to accept this. I suppose that's why the apostle in the book of Hebrews has to take 13 long chapters to go over with the Jewish believers that yet.
The law and the ordinances and the ceremonies and the the Tabernacle and so on in the Old Testament, yes, it was right and proper in its place. Yes, it was given by God for the time and had it significant. But that has all been set aside now. Those were just pale reflections and foreshadows of what has been fulfilled in Christ. And that if the Jew was going to receive blessing, he had to come in the same way as a Gentile. I think that was harder for a Jew to recognize than a Gentile to recognize that he had to come on the ground of faith. Wonderful for a Gentile to recognize that now.
Having been far off and outside in no hope that he could come, and by simple faith in Christ.
And the blood of Christ, he could be brought into this place of blessing. But I'd say it was very difficult for a Jew.
And Jim, while I add to that, I appreciate what you're saying, that we need to be careful too, that we treat those other Christians as the apple of his eye too, and we're going to have to give account for that. And so I think it's good for us to see that if we need somebody on the street, he's obviously not gathered as we understand it and believe in it, but he is the Lord, so we can rejoice with him. It would be wrong for us to cross the street and say, well, I can't talk to you. And yet you know that spirit of things sometimes.
Get into our, uh, our, uh, thinking and I'm not pointing a finger at anybody else. We sometimes wanna be a little bit apart. You know, he's talking to somebody during the break. And, uh, I didn't recognize them or the family and they used the expression from the outside. I said, please don't use that word to me. I don't like that. It's wonderful to see Christians who want to learn and grow on the face of the Lord. If you're a Christian, you're not outside. You're coming to, to, to be with, with the Lord's people.
And then the precious next step to be gathered to the Lord's name. So we can't, we've got to be careful about the hierarchy. We've got to be careful about levels of, of people in there. We've got to recognize that there are different, uh, understands. So, uh, when I set up my little ministry, for example, people are getting it who I don't know, I don't know their labels. So they don't really, that doesn't worry me, but it's nice to be able to communicate with other Christians and maybe.
Maybe we can be a little bit of help to them to, to move them along and the truth of the word of God, You know, Bill Frost's father used to say, let's be very careful about putting 16 year old or or 16 year, 16 year old head on a 16 year old shoulder. We need to understand that the that the comprehension and the truth of the word of God is not the same for everybody. But I think if we have something, the Lord has given us something we did first of all recognize that we've been talking about here and then showing that, demonstrating it. And if you will teach that to other Christians and to recognize them and not put them aside, you won't sit in the back seat. We don't, we don't want you to interfere with it. Be careful about that, don't we?
But that's why we need to see them in that lobe. If we sit down and see that person in that lobe on Lord's Day morning, it's, I believe, going to make a practical difference in my relationship to that person when I meet them on the street on Monday morning, or I sit at the desk next to them at school or at work or whatever. And gifts are given to the body, too. We need, I know it's not our subject here, but we need to recognize that too.
00:45:22
And in our recent trip, I said to Brother Hans, I said, Hans, many of these people that were visiting and ministering to and providing literature and Bibles to, I said, maybe none of them will ever be gathered to the Lord's name.
Yeah, we'd love to see souls gathered in the Lord's name. Don't misunderstand me. And as you have opportunity, we can present that aspect of the truth to them. But I said, perhaps none of them will ever be gathered to the Lord's name. But we can go. And as members of the body of Christ, we can encourage them. We can share Christ with them where they are, and we can provide good, sound literature for them, for their own encouragement and for the ministry that they carry on for other members of the body of Christ.
In their locality. But I say again, it all comes down to seeing them in the loaf on Lord see mourning. That's what's going to adjust our relationship with them otherwise.
Not to his name, but to his person because we will be with him at that time. I'd like to say on a practical level. And we send out letters.
We say sometimes from the assembly letters.
Uh, but we addressed the letter not to the assembly in Lawrenceville, but to those gathered to the Lord's name in Lawrenceville. That's why we use that instead of saying the assembly, you'd send a letter to the assembly in Lawrenceville. Where would you deliver it?
Why there are those who are part of the church, part of the assembly in so many different Christian groups?
Now we recognize that there is one ground, the ground of the assembly, one body, but it's to be gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus. And so that's why we don't, uh, address it to the assembly like Paul could do in that time, because there was no division at that time.
I remember there's one little town in Bolivia where Brother Lino Bueno, some of you remember his name, used to laugh. It's called Cheetah, and there are no other Christian groups in that town.
I think you can address a letter to the assembly because of that, because there's no division of Christian testimony in that town. But now because of the ruin of the Christian testimony, we address letters to those gathering to the Lord's name in such and such a place.
It's it's good to think through these things. They're they're real, but there's a lot in these last verses, these last three verses, last four verses and I think we need to touch on it. Brother, verse 19 Now, therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God.
And first Peter chapter 2.
Peter exhorts as strangers and pilgrims.
But here it says ye are no longer strangers and foreigners.
Because in Ephesians our place is in the heavenlies and.
And there we are, not strangers and foreigners, we are at home. Oh, what a wonderful thing to play hold of, brethren. We are fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God. Far better than the Jewish physician. Now Jews and Gentiles brought into this position of favor.
That makes it a level playing ground, doesn't it? Because that's what Ephesians all about.
But can I just back up a little bit, Bob, you made a comment earlier about, uh, the, uh, participation in the assembly meetings, uh, like this morning. And I, I agree with you on that, but would you, uh, accept this when it comes to teaching? Would you not, would you agree that there are teachers and that they should be the ones who, uh, uh, take that responsibility, not to take away from all any of the brothers who might want to say something, but for the younger ones.
00:50:16
Myself, we can ask questions and that creates an answer and that answer is a blessing to all of us so that they are not necessarily sitting there not paying attention or don't want to. They are learning that there's a teachers who share what they have. Would you agree with that? Well, you put that aside if you wish.
Yes, I I agree and I think we need to be sensitive as to those because every true believer has a gift.
And there's some of the young brothers down here that have a real gift. Maybe you don't realize it yet. You need to exercise it. I think those of us who are a little bit more advanced, uh, because there isn't such a thing as being advanced. Well, I think we need to be sensitive. Timothy was a timid person and Paul had to exhort him. Timothy, don't neglect the kids. That is in the.
And he had to stir it up, stir up the gift of God that is in need. So we say that to our younger brother here.
God has given you a gift. You need to be exercised. Maybe you said I don't even know what my gift is.
You may not.
The important thing is not to ask so much what your gift is, just simply saying, like the Apostle Paul said in the Davis conversion, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And be sensitive in your heart at the direction of the Holy Spirit in your life. He's a very real person. He lives within us and He's there to guide us into altering.
Every believer is a priest.
Not in the Old Testament, but in the new in.
New Testament Every believer is a priest, both sisters and brothers.
Sister is not to participate vocally in the assembly.
Keep silent, it says, but you still appreciate it.
And so a priest offers praise to God.
The sister can do and should do quiet.
There's no distinction between old and young when it comes to being a priestess. Am I right in that?
Yes. And so not to belabor it, but we need to distinguish always between three things. There's ability, there's gifts, and there's priesthood. And I believe they are very, three very distinct things in the Word of God.
When Ruth came to the land of Israel with her mother-in-law and she found favor in the eyes of Boaz, she said why have I found favor in thy sight seeing I am a stranger. She recognized that being a Moabitess that she really had no claim on the blessing. But we find that bike on the grounds of grace she's brought in. It's a beautiful picture there isn't it? And we often enjoy it in that regard.
But she recognized that as a Gentile, she was a stranger and had no right. And so that's what he's bringing out here. We've taken up how that as Gentiles we had no right. We were outside the circle of blessings that God had established in the Old Testament. But now he says ye are no more strangers. He says to these Gentile believers, these Ephesians, you are no more strangers. You're not outside.
The circle of blessings, because the circle of blessing in Christianity now, as we've been saying it encompasses both Jew and Gentiles who have come by simple faith and receive the Lord Jesus and on the grounds of the work of Calvary and the blood of Christ have been brought into the Church of God. So they did recognize, even a Gentile would recognize that in the Old Testament that they were a stranger. But here, what a wonderful thing that must have been to ring in the ears of these Ephesians. Ye are no more strangers.
You've been brought into the best place, the most blessed place that any human being has ever been brought into, and it was a far, far greater place of nearness and relationship than the Jew ever enjoyed under the Law.
00:55:00
I've really enjoyed that gym and connection with Ruth. And if I might just, uh, stay a little bit more on it that, umm, I used to puzzle like how Ruth could come in there and be blessed because it says the Moabite wasn't to come into the 10th generation. The reality is that Ruth didn't bring her Moabitish inheritance in. She came in as a stranger and she never claimed any blessing on the basis of being a Moabite.
She surrendered all that out.
And I believe that's a beautiful picture of what the church is to be to Christ.
In in Ephesians here we have over and over again the 1St chapter. In Him are our blessings, all our blessings.
The problem comes, brethren, when we try to bring our contribution to the table as Christians and we spoil it. It's like Ruth bringing going back to claim blessing on the basis of being a Moabite. She gave that all up, and the fact that she gave it all up and claimed only blessing through her mother-in-law on Jewish ground, which came to her through Boaz, she became the mother then.
Of a child that was better than seven sons she gave birth to that child and that child had no identity as being the mall by she did she surrendered up all her claims. I I think that's a beautiful lesson for us the the the we need to lay hold brethren of what is ours in Christ and then we'll then we'll let lay aside.
All of our own qualities and all of our own selves to bring add anything to our Christian position.
Verse 20 and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. So we have these last three real verses, the building.
And it talks in verse 20 necessarily of the foundation. Very important to understand what is the foundation work? You know, the foundation of the building is not very visible, but it is extremely important. And I think it is important for us to understand the foundations of our faith. What is it? The foundation here is called of the.
Apostles and.
Luke was not in the bottle that we read about, but he certainly was a prophet because he gave us something of the Word of God. But that is the groundwork of our relationship as the Church of God is important to understand that there are principles in the Word of God and when we act in assembly in our relationship together, there should be always some principle in the Word. God doesn't set aside the Old Testament.
But the Old Testament is a reflection and we draw pictures from there. But it is the New Testament Scriptures that are the foundation work of our position in this, in what we call the church or the assembly. That's why I'd rather you'll notice that you don't take out at a reading meeting in the conference.
Hardly ever have I heard it Old Testament scriptures that this happened once in a while. There's no logging, but it's.
Mainly New Testament Scriptures. Why we concentrating if the New Testament is just a small part of the Bible? Because that is the foundation and it is important that we understand it. I'm concerned that sometimes our young people are not getting very grounded in what is the foundation work of our faith. We need to be well grounded. We're living in days when everything is being challenged.
In the world that we live in, the very basics of the faith are being denied and openly denied by those who profess to be Christians and.
01:00:09
And we need to know where we stand. This is the foundation, and this will stand often. Think of the foundation of the temple In the Old Testament, when Nebuchadnezzar came in, he even broke up with the foundation work. And that had to be relayed at the time of Ezra when they came back to rebuild the temple. But in the New Testament, brethren, when we're talking about the truth of the church.
It says in Second Timothy 2, the foundation of God stands further. Oh, what a consolation. That is my soul. You might have to dig down through the rubble of men's ideas that you're going to find in this book. Solid ground on which to stand. Beautiful.
What is the material used to build this building?
Above the foundation.
We are built, aren't we?
Living stones, is that what you mean? Not bricks and mortar.
Of bricks and mortar, spiritual building. All right, thank you. So it's living stones that Peter takes up in his epistle, aren't they? I think it's important to see to this foundation and understand what it really is. I like your the verse you quoted in Timothy is really the answer to is it the 11Th Psalm that says if the foundation be destroyed?
What can the righteous do? But the foundation of the temple in the Old Testament might have been destroyed and rooted up, but the foundation that has been laid for us, the truth of God that has been laid for us, it'll never change. We might give up the truth, but that doesn't change the truth. I'd like to say this, that that's why in Acts chapter 2, and I know there in Acts chapter 2, it wasn't the Apostle Paul's teaching, I realized it wasn't the written epistles.
But I believe there's a good principle there in the order of the things that they continued steadfastly in after the day of Pentecost. They continued steadfastly in, first of all, the apostles doctrine. I know it was oral there, but the principle is there, isn't it? Because it's the apostle's doctrine that is the fellowship for the basis for everything else. The apostles doctrine was the basis for fellowship for breaking of bread.
And for prayers, those are the what we refer to as the collective or assembly meeting. And so if there has to be the foundation, it can't be everybody just deciding how they want to meet and what they want to do. No, there's been a pattern of things established for us in the act and the foundation principles laid down by the apostles and prophets. And Paul speaks of himself in First Corinthians 3 of having laid the foundation as a wise master builder.
Now, again, it includes, as you say, Bob, all the New Testament writers, because all the New Testament writers bring in some aspect of the church and principles of Christianity and so on. And so we need that whole foundation. But if we're going to really understand the truth of the church, what the church church is, it's calling, it's heavenly position and so on, where do we have to turn? We have to turn to the wise master builder because it.
Pauls ministry that gives us the real meat of the truth of the church. And I suggest that the reason there's so many believers who are floundering as to their as to the truth of the church and their heavenly calling and their relationship to the world and their reaction to it and in it and so on is because to a large degree they are have given up Paul's ministry. I I've had people tell me real Christians. Well, I don't read Paul's epistles. I think the gospels are.
Prophecy is more important or something like that. And then you talk to them and they don't understand the truth of the Lord's coming. They don't understand that they shouldn't be involved in the betterment of this world. They don't understand what it is to be gathered to the Lord's name or have the privilege of remembering the Lord every week. Those fundamental precious truths that so often we take for granted, but it's the result of turning away or neglecting Paul's ministry.
01:05:11
So we need those foundation principles, and I want to stress they don't change. You know, God reveals His mind at the beginning of a dispensation, and the truth He gives at the beginning does not change throughout that administration. You see it illustrated in the Old Testament when there were revivals in Israel. It wasn't some new revelation. It was going back and finding a copy of the law that was in the trash of the temple or part of the law being read in the King's ear or something like that.
And going back and acting on what had been established at the beginning. And men were exercised in this dispensation to go back and act on what was laid down at the beginning. And we enjoy the fruit of their exercise. And they're digging those things out. And we have their writings. And we seek by grace to act in a feeble way on those things. It wasn't something new. It was recovered light or truth, but it wasn't fresh light.
So important to always go back to the foundation. Building may need to be renovated from time to time, but you rarely go back. If there's a good foundation, you don't go back and dig up the foundation. You build on what was already laid at the beginning. And it's interesting, Jim, that verse you put it in first Corinthians 3, it says other foundation can no man lay then that which is laid, that is Jesus Christ.
And in a certain way we can save rather than that our foundation is the person of the Lord Jesus. When you come to him, you are on that foundation. But here it's called the foundation of the apostles and prophets because they delineate, they give the order of things in relation to this building that is being built in our present day. But it's interesting. There is a detail here that.
Is interesting is that Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Perhaps we don't build in this way today when we build a building, but sometimes where they were stones used, they would begin with a cornerstone. They would put it right in the corner of the construction site and then every measurement had to be made from that stone. How long is this building going to be?
That's stone. How wide, how high. That was the reference point. How important that is if we follow the truth of the Word of God to make the Lord Jesus the reverence point, not ourselves sometimes as to the truth of being gathered to the Lord's name. I fear we cloud the true truth of the issue by making ourselves the reference point.
Thank God, if we are where the Lord wants to be, we are not the reference point in this end. If you're going to get the picture clear, you have to go back to that chief cornerstone. Well, for my limited experience, I find in talking to others that it, this is total foreign language to believers at large. And, uh, I find, and I'm sure others have, uh, that are here.
That one of the first questions.
People ask you when they find out you're a believer. Is this What church do you belong to?
No. You know, we've talked about a lot of things here.
Let's have what is the simple answer in view of the fact that people think that a church is a building, It's a denomination.
What is a simple answer that we can give other believers?
Who understand so little of really the truth of what the Church is.
And we have some help. And I lived in Bolivia. We made a change of Santa Cruz to Cochabambang. Cochabamba is an area where there are a lot of missionaries. And so you'd meet up front of them from time to time. And it was interesting they would ask that and why did you come to Cochabamba? You must be going to plant churches. That's a very common expression, plant churches, church planets.
01:10:05
I say no, I have not come to Atlanta church.
I have come and I want to recognize the church that began on the day of Pentecost by the descent of the Holy Spirit. And if I meet together with other believers, I want to meet together.
In recognition of that church that began on that day and God continues to build. And I think it's really important that we need clear on that. We are not starting new assemblies. There might be a new place where a new where there are believers gathering together through the Lord's name. Sometimes they say that's a new assembly. Well, not exactly a new assembly. I'd be a new gathering of the Lord's people to his name.
But to speak clear in our thoughts and our expressions of that precious truth, I don't know. I think there is a lot of ways you can answer that, I suppose. How do you answer, Dave?
I'll tell you what, a brother back home.
Was asked that question one time. What church did you belong to? And he answered this way by asking questions. Is there more than one?
And I think that brings out the realization that.
All the truth that we have here, it's, it's in this book, it's in God's Word. There aren't going to be any more truths brought forth by some kind of a revelation as some groups would think. It's all there. There's nothing new.
There may be something that's new to me that I haven't seen in the Word of God, and believe me, that's the truth. But we need to search it out. It's there. And so that will never change. I think we can't even get a hold of that. And then the answer to Dave's question is good, what he just said now there, is there another, is there another book that we should be considering? No, this is the only one.
And you see it, Christ loved the church and gave himself more. And that's a good verse that focuses on him. And you can ask, well, what church was that?
That's the church I belong to, and it of course includes every believer and it eliminates denominationalism.
And we can clear up our brethren all over the world. But a simple answer is often the best.
And perhaps the clearest scripture is the Lord added to the church, one church such as should daily, such as should be saved, and that work is still going on to that same church, as we said earlier, that was established on the day of Pentecost. We might have to add to our meeting room because we have bigger families and more come in. But it wasn't a physical building that the Lord was adding to or is adding to. What is He adding to the church?
It's those who should be saved who are saved as one and another get saved. He's daddy and he's still doing that work today, and he'll do it until the Spirit and the bride are called away. The very fact that we're still here today and the Spirit of God is still here shows that there's a work of the Spirit of God still to be done and adding to the church. So a brother is going to stand up and he's going to preach the gospel this evening, and another soul we trust will be saved. Maybe it'll be the last living stone placed in the Church of God.
But the loo, the Spirit of God is still working, adding to that same church, but it's not many churches. It wasn't a physical building there. It was a building composed of living stones. We had the end of the hour. I'd just like to say before we finish that we have two verses here that we haven't really touched, Verse 21 and 22, and verse 21 is all the buildings thinly framed together.
Bro I'm I'm doing fully simple in the Lord that is with a view to the future. We are growing towards being an holy temple in the Lord. But verse 22 is what we are at the present time. We are building together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit. So right now the Spirit of God dwells.
In the Church of God, we're talking about all the believers in the Lord Jesus. The Spirit of God dwells there. And that's why there should be a sensitivity in our lives as to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we do not recognize and we quench the Spirit of God. Lord help us, brethren, it's a reality, the Spirit of God.
01:15:18
Dwells.
Not only individually in the believers body, but collectively in the Church of God at large. And He's here to guide us into all truth.
Let's not look at a certain brethren as if they're the ones that are going to leave it. Let's look to the Lord the Head in heaven. By his Spirit may he be free to use any instrument that he sees that.
330.
What raised the wondrous thought, or who did it suggest that we the Church to glory brought, should with the Sun be blessed 330.
Grace
Gospel—Al Coleman
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Let's open the meeting tonight by sending him #23 under Gospel hymn sheet.
#23.
Great to the charming sound, herbodious, severe.
Helen with the echo will be found, and all the earth shall hear 28 out.
Sorry, 28.
#28.
Great land and drive away.
You play without your man.
Where?
Is God, and He's thus life for thee, for thee for.
Let's ask the Lord blessing on his word in the gospel tonight. We come before thee at the start of his gospel, a loving Father. And we pray that as the gospel goes forth tonight, that if there's anyone here in this room that doesn't know of thy sovereign grace, that grace that picks up the very worst dinner and saves them, makes them thine.
We thank Thee for that grace that is available to each one, and we thank Thee, Lord Jesus, for thy precious work on Calvary's cross. We thank Thee for willingly going to that cross and dying force and shedding our life's blood force. We thank Thee for bearing our sins there in thine own body in the tree. And we thank Thee too, that we have the wonderful hope of students seeing me face to face, being with the unlikely in that coming scene of glory. We know that Thou art coming again, coming to receive thine own.
And take us home to the Father's house. But we're burdened tonight for those that it would be in this room tonight that are still lost in their sins. The heavens found that matchless sovereign grace that that charming sound grace, great riches at Christ's expense. We thank you for it tonight as we ask the help us as we open our precious word tonight that we might glean something from thy precious word.
And that there might be something for those that would be in the audience that are still lost and in their sins. Perhaps there's one young person here tonight that has never confessed to his Lord and Savior. We pray that tonight they might decide for Christ. Tonight we ask this loving Father in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen, Amen, Amen. Grace, grace. And that's what I want to speak about tonight. Espionage out of my heart.
00:05:15
Great, great.
MMM.
Look at look at that Luke's Chapter 7 first of all.
Luke Chapter 7.
Verse 41 There was a certain creditor which had two debtors, the one owed 500 pence and the other fifty, and when they had nothing to pay he frankly forgave the most. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love the most?
Simon answered and said, I suppose he to whom he forgave most.
And he said unto him, Thou hast judged righteously. I want you to know tonight that there stands before you tonight one who is a 500 pence debtor, one whom God's sovereign grace saved. When I was a young man, I was a young man.
And I wonder as we look around the room tonight here and just before the gospel meeting tonight, I was watching all the young people scattering, stampering around the room here, running, playing, bouncing balls and having a good time. And that's good. That's good youthful energy. And you can spend those times between meetings and just play, and that's good.
But you know something right now, tonight, for this 3/4 of an hour that we're going to have and preaching the gospel, this is a very serious time, a very serious time for you. And I want you to listen closely.
Because you know, if if you're not saved, God wants to save your precious soul tonight, He does.
And you know what it says in the in the precious word of God, it says this is the faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners in that wonderful that we can say tonight that God.
2000 years ago sent his beloved son here into this world, and that blessed one came into this world.
The holy, spotless Lamb of God. God could look down as we heard this, as we read this morning upon that blessed water, and say, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
He never did any sin. There was no sin in his life. He was the sinless humanity.
But he went to Calvary's cross. Why?
First of all, wicked man, your heart and mind put the Lord Jesus up there in that cross.
But he became the Sin bearer.
We can say that who himself bore our sins in his own body in the tree. To think of those long dark hours on Calvary's cross when he was there and suffering suffering.
The penalty of my sins, he was there. It was an account of me that he was there.
Bury my sins. He did it all for me on Calvary's cross. Why? Why did he do that? Because he loved me. And the installation's 2 and 20. We should find those precious words, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And dear one, tonight the Lord Jesus Christ loves you. He loves you with an everlasting love, and he doesn't want to send you to a hell.
No, he doesn't. It's the last thing that God wants to do. He says in that he, umm, I think it's Ezekiel 33. He says, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked would turn from his evil way and live. And then he says, turn ye, turn ye, for why would he die? And so the, the, the plea of the gospel tonight is God is not willing that any should perish, that that all should come to repentance. And so it's wonderful, isn't it, that the gospel can go out again. God is giving you another chance to be saved.
00:10:06
Yes, he is and I, I, I am. I'm finding that in the last little while over and over again of how that we have met individuals where God, it seems, is giving them another chance to be saved, another chance to be saved. And you know.
A very solemn thing tonight. This may be your last chance.
To be saved. This may be your last chance to be saved.
Don't put it off. Don't do it. Don't wait.
Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Don't wait, Don't do like I did and wait till I was a young man before I got saved. Go out and sow my wild oats as it was.
When I was a young man, don't do it. This world has nothing to offer you, but Christ has everything to offer you.
The love of his heart to you. Wonderful. What a wonderful God it is. What a wonderful Savior. And I say this to you tonight, you haven't lived until you found the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Tonight I want to go back to you to the chapter that we've been taking in the reading meeting and I want to read some verses there. You think that we've gone through the, the, the 2nd chapter of Ephesians.
We haven't gleaned at all. No, you know, the Word of God will never get to the bottom of it. It's precious. It's precious. It's wonderful. And the reason why I want to read these verses, the first of all, I'll read them and then I'll tell you.
Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2 verse four that God but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved it. Think of that for his great love wherewith he loved you.
Even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ by grace, that beautiful word, grace. Grace, are ye saved? How did I get saved? Through sovereign grace.
And has raised this up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith.
And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
I want to bring before you in the time allotted tonight 3.
Uh.
Persons in the Word of God, that was outstanding grace, outstanding grace. And as we look at them, it's so precious. But there's another one, that outstanding grace.
That God showed.
And that's this person here, this person here, outstanding grace that God showed that he could save a Wretch like me.
I think I'd do that. How wonderful isn't it?
I'll I'll tell the story again.
You know, I grew up in a Christian home and we're going to come to that in a little while.
And I was a bad guy.
Yes, there was real bad. I did everything that this world could do.
But God saved me. It is matchless grace. I dear one tonight was a 500 pence debtor and he saved me and he can save you tonight.
My sister-in-law said this.
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Al, if the Lord can save you, there's hope for my son, the Lord say both of us, we've both been gathered and going on.
Your weakness fall these years.
I'm a trophy of His grace. How about you?
This man receiveth sinners and needeth with them. You can be just a 50 pence debtor or you can be a 500 Benz debtor but you need to be saved.
Unique Christ as your Savior. And so I ask you tonight, are you saved? Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior? Those sins that you have committed have separated you from a holy God. God cannot have sinned in his presence, but he's provided a way through his Son, the Lord Jesus and his precious work on Calvary's cross. And I'm going to tell you tonight that the Lord Jesus is coming.
Coming to take all his own that know him as Lord and savior of their life. And we're going to hear that shout that is going to take us out of this scene and into his very presence. Maybe that's very nice.
Exciting. How wonderful to think that we could be home with the Lord Jesus tonight, but to be left behind in your seat. I know what it's like. I was sitting in a seat like that years ago.
There was a man by the name of Stanley McDowell that came into our meeting and he would preach the gospel of tears were just flowing down his his face as fast as they they would come out.
And he would preach the gospel faithfully.
And I sat in so many of those and never confessed Christ as my Savior.
Thank God he saved me.
By grace, are ye saved? That's me. He saved me. How about you? He can save you tonight. You can be saved. Sitting right in your seat. Little boy. Little girl here tonight, sitting beside your mom and father. Are you saved?
Your mom, your dad can't save you.
Oh yeah, it's only the Lord Jesus can save you. All you have to do is bow your head while you're sitting in your seat and ask Lord Jesus, save me. I'm a Sinner. I need the Lord Jesus as my own personal savior. Have you done that yet?
Says decide for Christ tonight. Tomorrow may be too late. It says behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is a day of salvation.
Remember now thy Creator in the day of thy youth. The time to come to Christ is when you're young.
Have you done it yet?
By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God. Second Samuel, Chapter 9.
How many times have we been in the gospel meeting and we've heard the story of Mephibosheth?
How many times? I know I've heard it many times in gospel. Do you ever get tired of it? I don't get tired of it. It's a precious, precious chapter.
What is this? What is this all I can see written all over this chapter? Grace. Grace.
Here is a, a Mephibosheth it says. And in the first verse, and David said, uh, is there any, ye, uh, any that is left of the House of Saul, they might show the kindness for Jonathan's sake.
That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his kindness.
Towards us through Christ Jesus. Isn't that beautiful, you know?
To become a child of God, you know, he just blesses you every day of your life. What a God we have. And it doesn't stop there. It goes on for the ages to come. Beautiful, didn't you? What a savior, what a God we have. And this is the one that we're going to spend in eternity with. How I am so excited about.
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The future, and I see this and I ask this is that your future? It's mine and you can have it. It's through sovereign grace. Nothing that I've done not of works, lest any man should boast.
Only one way to heaven. Neither is there salvation than any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved the only Savior of sinners.
There's only one man that can save you, Jesus, the Lord Jesus. And here's this man, David wanted to show him kindness.
Now what was he? He was a cripple. He was crippled. He fell. His nurse picked him up.
And he fell.
And he was crippled, couldn't do a thing.
Now you say.
God, what would David want with a man like Mephibosheth? What would he want?
He said I wanna show him kindness for Jonathan's sake.
And you know God wants to show you kindness for Jesus sake.
It's all been done for you on Calvary's cross.
And here we find in this chapter, I won't go through the chapter, I don't have that much time. And we go through the chapter, what do we find? There's a man by the name of Zydel. What is he? If you look through, if you read through the chapter, you'll find this, that Zydel was always active. He was always doing something. He was always.
He was a man.
That did things.
He was a man of works, and you know that's what it says there in Ephesians 2, not of works, lest any man should boast. There's not one thing, dear friend, that you can do to merit your salvation. It's all been done for you on Calvary's cross. The Lord Jesus could say it is finished, everything's been done. All I have to do is come as a guilty, lost Sinner before a holy God.
And he'll save me. That's it. No, Wonderful how simple it is. God didn't ask you to do something complicated to get saved.
And that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And what does he do? He says, my favorite ship. I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring you into my house and I'm gonna sit you down at my table as one of the King's sons, no wonderful as one of the King's son. And we've been brought dear one that know the Lord Jesus as our Savior.
Into a family and here we are to, uh, this weekend, families brought together.
Wonderful how blessed this is. What a it's been. AI love this weekend. It's really nice to meet all of our brethren.
And there was Mephibosheth, and it said he sat at the King's table at eight of the King's feet.
As one of the kings sons.
I like that as one of the King's sons, there has often been said that if you saw Mephibosheth sitting at David's table.
You would wonder which one was Mephibosheth. You know what you had to do. You had to look under the table, and there you would have found that Mephibosheth was the one with the crippled feet. And let's see and see. When I see it myself, I say it's just like me. My sins are all gone. I've been brought into rich blessings. How wonderful that is.
But then something more.
Something more precious. What did he do? He brought me this morning to sit on that chair over there and eat at the King's Me to remember Him in His death for me this morning. How precious that is. What a wonderful privilege to be gathered to the precious name of the Lord Jesus, and to remember Him because it was well with us, and to think upon Him to praise His blessed day.
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Little boy, little girl here tonight.
You're sitting in your chair.
Have you ever done this?
Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on Calvary's cross for my sins. Have you ever done that? That's what the Lord Jesus wants to hear from you.
Grace fetched Mephibosheth out of a place of no pasture and made him sit at the King's table.
Grace has brought each one of us here today.
To sit at the King's table and eat at the King's name. Grace, Super Grace. Let's go to you know.
I'm just, I'm just going to put three of them. There is just many in the precious word of God that God showed grace to matchless grace.
But there's one that there's one that stands out.
Umm uh, second Chronicles chapter.
33.
Second Chronicles, chapter 33.
Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem. I'm just going to stop there. Manasseh reigned 55 years in Jerusalem.
He was 12 years old when he ascended the throne. I'm gonna ask for a show of hands tonight if this is all right. Is there a 12 year old boy or a 12 year old girl? There's one.
We got 1-2. Now just think of this 12 year old boy, 12 year old girl. Manasseh was 12 years old when he ascended the throne. He reigned for 55 years.
Manasseh was one of the most wicked kings that ever ascended the throne, and because of the sin of Manasseh, God had to carry away the children of Israel into Babylon.
Because of his awful, awful sins that he committed. And you wonder why.
God allowed this for 55 years.
There's a reason.
Would you turn with me, first of all, to, uh, just hold your places there and go to Jeremiah?
Chapter 3.
I hope it's Jeremiah 3.
Umm. Maybe somebody can help me, uh.
Wilt thou not from this time crying to me, my father, Thou art the guide of my youth.
Verse 4 Thank you very much Jeremiah chapter 3. I'm breaking in a new pair of eyes and glasses. Umm Jeremiah chapter 3 and verse 4. Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, my father, Thou art the guide of my youth. I love this verse. It's a it's an incredible verse.
What do you need?
What do you need in your youth? You need a guide. What do you need when you get old as I am? You need a guide still.
For every day of my life, I need the guide.
What else do I need? I need a father. I need a father. And dear young people, here's the verse for you tonight, will you not from this time, from this very moment on tonight.
Say my father. Can you say that tonight of a truth and say he's my father, my father?
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What is that? That's a relationship that you've been brought into.
If you're a child of God, you have a father, a father in heaven.
And the prayer is this.
And wilt thou not from this time?
Say, Anthony, my father, thou art the guy of my youth. Young man, young girl here tonight you're in your youth. You need a guide.
The Lord Jesus is your guide.
This precious book that we have here tonight, that we have opened before us is a guide. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and like a light unto my path. A guide. That's what I need.
When I was a young man, my Bible sat in the drawer again, gathered dust. Those were wasted years. Wasted years.
Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, my father, Thou art the guide of my youth.
The Second Chronicles, chapter 33.
Really, this is what Manasseh needed.
Manasseh had a godly father in Hezekiah. Think of it.
Is there one here tonight who has grown up in the Christian home like I was?
Manasseh grew up in a very godly home, Hezekiah.
And yet he said. I don't want to have anything to do with it.
And the wickedness that he caused the nation to go through.
You read it, read the account of it, and it's terrible.
It's terrible, I haven't got time to read it all.
But what happened?
God stop that man. He stopped and you know.
If you go on in your sin, God can stop you, and thank God he stopped me.
He stopped the NASA. Let's read it.
Verse 11 Because of his wickedness. Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. Would you like to be like our brother Tim? Did this morning have it all those changed. That's what happened to Manasseh. He was carried away to Babylon, this wicked, wicked king.
MMM.
And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself before the God of his Father. You know it says God speaketh one's day twice. God might have to speak to you as he did with me. He might have to shake you up like he did with a Philippian jailer.
He doesn't want you to go on that course. He wants you to be saved tonight.
What do you do?
Verse 13 And he prayed to him all friend, tonight, have you prayed to Jesus?
Here's a wonderful savior that he listens, a wonderful, wonderful stranger, our friend that you can talk to. There's a friend for little children above the bright blue sky, A friend who never changes, whose love can never die. What a friend we have in Jesus.
I couldn't do without him one day.
And he prayed to him that he was incredible of him, and he heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem, unto his Kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was his, was God. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord, he was God, God had to bring.
A great trial into Manassas life, this man, you might say.
The chief of sinners.
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Sovereign Grace.
In the Like I say, there's so many here in this precious book that God administered sovereign grace to.
Manasseh is one of them. Think of it. You think? No, I I can't even think of it.
Grace, grace, great riches that Christ expense. Let's go to the last one. Umm.
Genesis, umm 4646.
Genesis 46.
And verse 2.
And God spake unto Israel in the vision of the night.
And said Jacob, Jacob.
And he said, here am I. And God said.
Hunter, Jacob. Jacob. Jacob.
Oh, isn't that wonderful?
He's calling your name, your friend tonight, Jacob, Jacob, Peter, Peter, John, John, whoever it is, I like this because it says God speaketh one. She ate twice. This is one man of the seven in scripture that God spoke twice to.
And this is one man.
Now I'm gonna ask you.
How would you like to have your life history written down in the Word of God? And I counted it up this morning and it was 13 chapters.
13 chapters I I I give or take.
13 chapters of the History of this man Jacob.
A trophy of God's grace.
20 years. He was away from God, out of community with God. He was a cheater, he was a schemer, he was a supplier. He did all kinds of things.
He made deals.
Hey, says Jacob. Jacob.
What we find at the end of his life, there he is by faith, Jacob.
Worshiped, leaning on top of his staff.
13 chapters of failure in this dear man.
How'd you like to have 13 chapters written about you?
I I don't want. I don't want.
13 chapters written about me.
No. You know something?
All those things that I've committed are all gone. All 13 chapters on all of everything. God.
Washed in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
My sins are all gone. How about you tonight? Are your sins gone? The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, planteth us from all sin like Him are gone.
Amazing Grace. It's grace. It's grace.
Do you know this one? Do you know Jesus as your own personal Savior? Have you come as a guilty, lost Sinner tonight before a holy God? He can save you tonight.
Won't you come? God is pleading for your soul. You know, as our brother was saying last night there was a prayer meeting in those rooms back there, praying for souls that in this room might still be lost.
We can only let let leave the Lord Jesus out of your life. Are you going to wait for another day, another moment, another week?
And decide then are you gonna have that opportunity to be saved?
My wife and I visited a lady not too long ago.
She had something for sale.
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And the advertisement and the newspaper and we went to see her.
And she and she greeted us at the door and let us see him. She was very friendly. She was a nice woman.
And she was 90 years old.
She was Fry, she had a lovely apartment in the West End and she's very friendly and owe a Bon a bonus. She was the next Newfoundlander.
And we had a great time together because we were talking about home.
Where she lived and where I live. And then we got to talking about the Lord.
She was 90 years old and she says there's no God. There's no God.
Eternity was waiting for her, and she wasn't saved.
What a tragedy to live 90 years in this world.
Without crafts, I can't imagine one day without Christ. And she was a humanist.
An atheist.
She had, in her young life had.
Been in a church or something like that. She told us she had had a disaster in her life and after that disaster her husband was killed.
And she was robbed and everything else and, uh, since then. Oh God, oh God.
What kind of a God would allow this to happen in my life?
I'll tell you a loving God, just like Manasseh, just like Jacob, just like.
God wants to save her, wants to save you.
90 years old. What is the future for her in a lost eternity forever?
Pray, we pray for her.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that fade a rest like me I once was lost, but there I thought was blind, but now I see. Could we sing that?
Amazing Grace.
I'll speak to you.
Umm.
Wednesday.
Is why me?
I want.
I am.
So.