Lawrenceville Conference: 2013
Table of Contents
Colossians 2
Reading
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Please, oh God, invite us. We look under the calendar.
Dial 0123200 and 32,000 and 12.
Thyrimightlersay.
Oh my heart.
Behavior.
My God.
What, What, what came? When's the squares you have? You can't.
Suggestion as to what we might take up, subject to the thoughts of others.
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We have had the glory of Christ before us in those hymns that were given out at the prayer meeting.
The first two lines of the hymn we have just sung said by thee, O God invited, we look under the sun.
Would the Brethren consider taking up Colossians Chapter 2?
The reason I suggest that is that, as most of us perhaps know already, in Colossians we do get the highest truth, I believe, as to the person of Christ in the word of God.
And.
Perhaps in the first chapter it's more the emphasis on the glory of Christ as to what he is in Himself, although you can't separate it from his people. But then perhaps in the second chapter it's more the glories of Christ as head.
With respect to you and to me, and in these last days, in the distress and the difficulty that seems to be increasing in every part of the world.
I would suggest that.
More than ever, we need to recognize that everything that the believer needs down here is to be found in him.
What would my brethren feel about that?
Amen.
Colossians, chapter 2.
Or I would that He knew what great conflict I have for you and for them. At least see us, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, Let their hearts might be comforted being hit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding.
To the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the Spirit, joy, and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
As he hath therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord.
Soul walk ye in him, rooted and build up in him, and established in the Faith as he had been taught, abounding therein with Thanksgiving.
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit.
After the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
And ye are complete in Him which is the head of all principality and power, in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
Buried with him in baptism.
Where it also ye are risen with him.
Through the faith, through the operation of God, who has raised Him from the dead, and you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has He quickened together with Him.
Having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross, and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in it.
But no man therefore judge you in me, or in drinks, or in respect of an holy days.
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Or the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come. But the body is of Christ, that no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and the worshipping of angels.
Intruding into those things which she has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly minds, and not holding the head.
From which all the body by joints and bands have nourishment ministers, and knit together, increase us with the increase of God. Wherefore if he be dead with Christ from the runnemons of the world, Why, as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances?
Touch not case not handle not which all are perished with the using.
After the commandments and doctrines of men, which things have indeed a show of wisdom and will, worship and humility and neglecting of the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.
Well, just a further comment on this chapter.
As.
Kind of a starting point and that is that.
I know this is going over familiar ground, but.
In Colossians, perhaps the emphasis, or not perhaps, but the emphasis is on Christ and what he is for the church. In Ephesians, it's the emphasis of what the church is to Christ. And so there we get much of our blessings and the enjoyment of our blessings and what Christ is to the church or what the church is to Christ, I should say. And that's very, very beautiful.
And we need that, and it's only right that we be brought into the full enjoyment of all that we have in Christ.
But here in Colossians, the emphasis takes a little different turn. It's what Christ is to the Church.
And in the practical side, I believe we need that more than ever in these last days because on the one hand, we are seeing man in his.
Supposed wisdom and he is making tremendous technological advances at all kinds of inventions and things that.
He is very pleased with, but in the spiritual side there is really nothing.
That can do anything for the believer outside of Christ. And so here in this chapter, the emphasis is on the fullness of Christ in every way for the believer. And that in the understanding and realization of that mystery, that secret that God has now revealed to us concerning His purposes in Christ and concerning Christ in the church as we get in the end of verse three there.
Or end of verse two. And then in verse three, in the realization of all of that are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That of course doesn't mean that we don't need education. It doesn't mean that man's wisdom and natural things as far as technology and building and business and so on is concerned. It doesn't mean that that knowledge is not valuable.
But in any moral and spiritual subject in that realm of things.
There is nothing that we need outside of Christ.
And I suggest that that is something that perhaps needs more to be emphasized today, perhaps more than it ever did, and to have our eyes directed to that Blessed One who first of all is the object of all of God's counsels, and then the One who is everything to us.
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Take some additional introductory remarks to the context or the subject that we have in chapter 2, If you go back to chapter one and verse 20, Speaking of the Lord Jesus having made peace.
Through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things, unto himself by Him I say, whether they be things on earth, or things in heaven, and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He, or yet reconciled in the body of His flesh through death.
Man.
In the flesh.
Is in a state of rebellion against God and His authority.
And man, when it says he's at enmity, it means he has a fixed dislike in him for the authority of God. And consequently it's a conflict between man and God. Man in his sinful condition wants his own way and he says I'm going to have it. And so he lives a self-centered, selfish, self oriented.
Life and when God speaks, it goes in contrast or in conflict with himself, because God says I have the authority. I am the ultimate head of right and wrong and righteousness. And so man lives out his life in a state of empathy with God.
But the Lord Jesus being sent here into this world and dying.
On the Cross resolves that conflict between man and God. For those who accept the work of the Lord Jesus, He makes peace. He makes a peace that man may have now with God. Instead of being at enmity, He can have peace with God on a righteous ground.
But it only takes place in each individual if the Christ is accepted.
And the death of Christ is accepted in what it means for us, and then we have peace with God. But having peace with God, we're brought into a new relationship with him through the Lord Jesus Christ, in which God has placed his Son as heaven.
Of having supreme authority over us, and uniting us together under that one common authority of himself as head. And in Christian life, in the measure in which we accept that and walk in that, we have the enjoyment of fellowship with God and one another. But very often if that character of the old life.
Is allowed to act in us. Then there's conflict and strife not only between our souls and the Lord, but between each other, because we go back to the old way of life, which is empathy with God. And so in the second chapter we have the apostle laboring with the Saints in colossi to bring them into the practical reality of the recognition of their new position.
As alive from the debt, and as in a new place in which Christ is supreme and head.
So in that sense, Paul is seeking to bring these dear Colossians.
Whom, he says here in verse, one had not seen his face in the flesh, as well as those in Laodicea, into the full knowledge of that.
Excuse me into the full knowledge of that position into which they had been brought, and.
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It's beautiful to see that it is not merely the understanding that is in view, but, he says.
Being knit together in love. And that's that ties in dawn with what you were saying. Because if you and I as believers acknowledge the head, which is brought out later on in this chapter as the danger that we may not do if we do acknowledge the head. And each one recognizes that head takes his or her direction from the head and seeks to walk in fellowship with the head.
It naturally follows that we walk in fellowship with one another, doesn't it?
Knit together in love, the love of God, not only enjoyed in your heart and mine, but enjoyed in fellowship together and then.
There are the riches of the full assurance of understanding.
And we might make a correction here because I feel it's rather necessary.
It says in our King James to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.
But if you look at the Darby translation, it nearly ends the verse with the mystery of God.
We don't get such a thing as a mystery of the Father in Scripture and the mystery of Christ. Perhaps not to be technical, but that's more the subject of Ephesians. That's a little different aspect of the mystery, although it's the same secret. But it should read to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, not in whom, although that's true, but in which.
Are hid all the treasures of wisdom?
Knowledge. And so God has in this dispensation of His grace, made known to you and me that secret of His will that was not revealed in past ages, in order that you and I through knowledge and understanding of that mystery.
United to a risen head in heaven.
Enjoying that love that has now been shed abroad in our hearts.
We have access to all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. What a privilege, what a place we're brought into, and what.
God has placed before us is absolutely unlimited in all that Christ is, and in all God's purposes in Him.
With a reference point is the mystery of God, isn't it? It's in that that are hit all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and how important it is to understand that mystery that was hid from generations past has now made known.
Uh, to the holy process and prophets in the Spirit.
That, uh, the calling of the church. Jews and Gentiles both united to Christ in heaven. But as you say, they'll hear the most more book. It is on the person of the Lord Jesus in his preeminence.
That's what comes out. So chapter one.
I'd like to make a comment here too. It's interesting to notice in the new translation, in the last verse of the last chapter, Paul says Where unto I also labor.
Striving according to the working which worketh in the mightily.
And that word in the new translation is combating. And then in the first verse of the second chapter, he says, For I would have you to know what combat I have for you.
To understand these things.
There is spiritual warfare going on to keep us from the enjoyment of it.
And then to connect it with one further verse in the 4th chapter of Colossians in reference to Epoch, who was a labor in prayer.
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He says I'm reading from the new translation says epiprax is one of you, the bond and the Christ Jesus salutes you, always combating earnestly for you in prayers. So that's the same word again.
There's combat involved with.
Bringing the Lord's people into the enjoyment of this relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is helpful to see.
Part of the mystery which is made known to us.
Is found in the first chapter in the 26th verse.
27 verse.
So he says even the mystery which have been hid from ages and from generations, but is now made manifest to his Saints, to whom God would make known. What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles? What is it?
Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
And other scripture we have particularly brought before us that in Christ we have a wonderful new relationship with God. And what we are in Christ before God is developed in other Scriptures. But here it turns it around and it's Christ in you.
Well, what is Christ in US?
As we have in Colossians 3.
Our life is Christ.
And so that new divine life which has been imparted to us, which we call eternal life, is Christ in us. That is our life. And what is that life? Well, in connection with the second verse and the exhortations in this second chapter, one of them is.
It says net to gather in love.
What knits us together in love? It's the activity of the life of Christ in his love acting in us that does that knitting. And so in the measure in which the life of Christ is working this morning, and each one of us, it's knitting us together in that love, which of which Christ is the source of that love. That love is not find its source in ourselves naturally.
In fact, if the flesh and the character of love that's found in the first man is active in US.
It's going to have the character of what have you done for me, brother, lately? Have you been loving me like you should? That's the character of the flesh. That's the character of the old man at work in us when we become occupied with how our brethren are treating us or how they're loving us, and so on. The contrast in it is the life of Christ, when it's active in US, is occupied as Christ was occupied.
In the free flowing forth of the love of God being manifested with its desire to see the good and blessing of another soul.
To just add, to make it practical, brethren, or practical to our conscience, we've many of us heard many times the comment, the measure of divine love active in the soul is the love that you bear toward the most.
Cantankerous and crossing grain, brother within the sphere of your acquaintance, let me simplify that a little bit and say the measure of divine love at work in each one of us this morning is the measure of love we bear towards the brother or sister in this room that is the most difficult for us to love.
That brings it down to a more practical, perhaps sense. What is my feeling this morning? What is the character of my heart this morning toward a brother or sister in this room? Or will enlarge it a little bit and say back home where we live, that that's where if Christ is active in our hearts, then we'll love that brother, that sister as God loves that brother or that sister.
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And the consequence is that Christ were knit together in love.
I find that often we don't understand in our present culture what divine love really is. We look at somebody and we see something that we appreciate in that person and we love that person and that's something real and but that's what really is.
Uh, spoken of in Scripture as brotherly love, and that's proper in its place, but.
Divine love is love that loves because God is love. There is no other reason for it and it is not natural. And sometimes we connect love with an emotion. We feel an emotion of love, and it does involve the emotions love does. But just remember brethren, why did God love us? Was there something lovable in us that He loved us?
No, why did he love us then? He loved us because God is love. And isn't that wonderful to realize that in all our failure, in all our needs, God looked at us and he loved us. Now that's the love that we are to be knit together with. And if that were operating in a what a difference it really would make.
Maybe there's a need for a warning and?
If I could pick on you, Don, you were talking last night a little bit about the dangers of so-called covenant or reformed theology. And would it be in order to make a comment or two relative to the understanding of the mystery and what it means? Not to sit here and seek to be critical of others, but a warning is sometimes necessary because that line of thinking among believers is.
Really gaining ground.
Not only in North America, but in other parts of the world too.
Uh, you have a comment on that, Don, you were, I'll just go back and comment on the verse in the previous chapter. I don't think we want to go down that road too far, but, uh, in the 27th verse of the previous chapter again, it's what is the price? What is the mystery in this particular passage? Christ in you.
The hope of glory.
Why do I hope to be in the glory of God in heaven?
What light do you or I have to expect down coming ahead in our future is to be?
In glory, in the presence of God, in the Father's house. Why do I hope that Christ is in me? And if Christ is in me, then his place?
In Glory is going to be my place.
I can't be separated from himself as to the purpose of God.
If Christ is in me, and so I'm brought into that relationship with God in Christ before God, Christ in me, and therefore if his place is at the right hand of God, so that's my destiny. It isn't something to do with for me. There are people whose destiny is earth.
But not mine, not yours. Christ in US is the foundation of our hope.
Of glory, Christ in you, the hope of glory. And so I'm assured.
In John's epistle in first John chapter, not sure whether it's two or three, it says we know that we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Where are we going to see him as he is?
In glory in the Father's house.
And so when we look forward, as John presents it to us, we look forward to being like him where he is. We shall see him there as he is. And when we're there, we will be in a condition that perfect condition of, of our eternal life with our glorified bodies will be in that condition in which we are morally perfectly like him as we see him as he is.
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And so any.
Present distortion of truth, which is becoming far more common, unfortunately, in Christian profession, is that which robs the Lord Jesus Christ and God of His purposes, His mystery of having Christ written upon our hearts in His presence in the glory.
And that is in contrast with the Saints of the Old Testament, would you say, Sean?
They have a destiny too, but it's not the same as ours.
Our position the, the believer is the, uh, that this generation or this dispensation is the only one whom God says, you are united to my son in this very special and unique way. You are related to him in Ephesians chapter one. He has to go back to the glory, enter into his place in the glory, and then the church is formed and then it's united to him.
Where he is because that's his character and that's his destiny.
The church isn't formed until it had is glorified in the right hand of God because that's the character that the church has in relationship to himself. And again, I say very unfortunately, there's a strong current.
That comes at the present time in in Christianity that is contrary to that truth, and robs Christ of His rightful place as that.
And the church's destined place as his body.
And as you said, Don, we don't want to go down that road too far. But just to point out a comment relative to what our brother Bob was saying, the reason it is so popular today or one of the reasons is that it takes the combat out of the spiritual realm and brings it down to the natural realm.
That's not our Co, that's not Our Calling, is it? We're combating in spiritual, uh, Bibles in heavenly places, not combating down here to try and set the world right that appealed to the natural man. And ultimately it is an effort of Satan to drag the believer down to the level of this world to make Christianity a worldly religion.
And to make it a force for the betterment of this world. Yes, Christianity ought to be a force in this world, but not in that way.
We are far more effective aside from.
Shall we say what Scripture gives us? But we are far more effective acting in the character of ambassadors as God has placed us here.
Than jumping into the arena seeking to try and establish a Kingdom that God says will only be established by judgments.
No, he is speaking here to see two assemblies. Yeah. Lyle is there. Ankles to the Saint there.
There must have been problems there.
Which had to do with their heart, that their hearts might be complicated being together in love.
Now from that I take that they were not.
Improper.
Standing with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because we all know that the Lord Jesus is full of love and be love every one of his own. So if they would have and that includes us.
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Proper relationship Personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ from day-to-day.
Yeah, alright.
Should be prompted and being made together, and that in the love of Christ. That's where it starts.
I would love to reach other.
Could be shown too, and that is therefore each other.
But it has to start with the love of the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts.
Then we wouldn't have.
Sometimes we hear that well, we don't feel love in the assembly.
Well, what is our love for the Lord Jesus?
That do we bring love into the assembly?
So what we enjoy in the Lord Jesus Christ now if people enjoy what we did.
Have to say about the Lord Jesus Christ.
We wouldn't want to.
And where they go, they won't find that.
That then we should make it through.
Red color is. What's wrong with this?
Because a lot is fairly, as the Lord says, by the course of your roof, borne out, get you out of my mouth. Umm, if we are lukewarm towards the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then we cannot expect.
That we can grow, but we can enhance together last.
Some of us, uh, who well, remember a brother saying, uh, among us many years ago, it's not what you know that controls your life, but what you enjoy. And, uh, it seems to me that this chapter.
Uh, has that thought in it quite a bit because it speaks, uh, we've been speaking about verse three and whom are in all the treasures.
Our wisdom and knowledge, you know, there's a lot of folks that are back there in the display.
And, uh, it's too much to take in.
And those books won't give answers about every situation that you run into in your life. And I run into it mine.
But it says in whom all are hidden, umm, in whom are hit all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So when we run into things in connection with our own personal life, family life, assembly life, the answer is to be sought by turning to the Lord. And it seems to me that what the apostle Paul was very concerned about.
In the assembly there at Colossi was and we find in verse eight he where lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit.
And philosophy.
Means, I believe, the love of wisdom.
Of, uh, the danger is for Saints of God to, as chapter McIntosh said in his writings, intellectually trafficking in the truth.
And so the apostle Paul, he wants us to live close to the Lord, it seems to me, in such a way that we come to him as simple children seeking answers to all of these various things in our lives. So that's what I get out of the first number of verses.
Well, I think that's very good, Dave. And as we said earlier, Christ is sufficient for everything, isn't he?
Uh, first of all, there's the acknowledgement of the mystery and the understanding of it, and then there's Christ himself, as it says in verse 9. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And so our whole outlook ought to be predicated on that man invents philosophy which.
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Perhaps when it was first.
I don't know how to say it. Word is say. The word devised or invented was perhaps not intended to be wrong in the beginning, because it was intended to help man realize how that his own experience fitted into the larger hole. But.
Man's vision is limited.
He can't see beyond himself unless he has reference to his creator. Man's horizon is this world. His thoughts are bounded by time. His thoughts are bounded by his own experience. And even if man seeks to try and fit his own experience into the larger experience.
It can never go beyond man's experience in himself. But when you and I find ourselves.
Associated with a risen Christ in glory. What a difference it makes when you and I find ourselves brought into the understanding of the full assurance of understanding of the mystery of God. And to the acknowledgement of that, we find that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are opened unto us.
And as you say, brother Dave, ultimately the solution to every problem is found in Christ. It's not a matter simply of going to some book of ministry and saying, well, what did brother so and so say about this? Or I turn to this book in chapter 2, subsection 3, part BI, find the answer to my question. No, the answer is found in Christ and in reading his precious word.
But at the same time, the Vista of truth, the place that God is bringing us into, is the understanding of that mystery that lifts us up to see all of God's purposes now, from a past eternity to a coming eternity. Does that show us how our experience fits into the larger whole? Far more than that, it shows us how the God in Christ has his purposes.
In Christ and He is bringing us into the good of all that he has purposed. What a difference that makes. Then we don't find man pulling himself up by his own bootstraps, which he has been trying to do for thousands of years. We find ourselves being connected to a risen Christ in glory and all the treasures that are connected with that person and God's purposes in him.
And all the wisdom that is connected with that position and with Christ is all made available to us.
So if you want to live in harmony with God as a preacher of God.
It's well to know what God's thoughts are and what He plans and what's important to Him.
And that's where the conflict is. God has certain purposes. God has certain things that are important to him.
But man, that enmity with God, at least like Cain, he went out from the presence of the Lord, and then he lived life with himself as the center of his life, and everything revolved around himself, his pleasure, his prosperity, his honor, his glory. And so man has developed under Satan's subtle control.
A whole world system of things where each man can be the center.
And each one can say my happiness, my glory, my honor, my success, etcetera.
But it's in conflict with God.
God's mystery, if you will, is I have chosen my son to be the center of everything.
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I have chosen my son to be the head over all my creative things in heaven and in earth.
And I have chosen him to be the focus, the object of man's interest and desire. I I appreciate the way a brother in a prison in Colorado said it to a fellow prisoner, he said. Willie, it's not about us, it's about him.
And to go into harmony with the thoughts of God.
Is to change the focus of the attitude of light, which can only be done in new creation and new life. Is to live the life of Christ, which puts the focus on what God focuses it on, and that is the exaltation and honor of his Son. And so it's the desire of God to write Christ upon our hearts, each one of us. And that's the purpose he's working out today in these meetings.
Is to write Christ on our hearts so that He is the center of attention and the center of life to each one of us.
It's himself.
And in Christ with life, we're constrained by that love, and we find our satisfaction in it. But the moment the flesh in us is allowed to work, no, I don't want that, because the flesh is.
Not constrained by the love of Christ.
I would like to mention, if I may, this little incident, sometimes little, uh, incidents like this help us to understand a verse. And this really did something that was said by our brother Armstead Barry many, many years ago in a Bible reading in connection with verse 3.
In whom are hid all the pictures of wisdom and knowledge.
I'm told of this incident where he was in Washington, DC and a brother, I believe it was there, a brother took him to the library. The American folk sales name of it, uh, that apparently is supposed to have a copy of every book that was ever made. And so, uh, this is the game way back before computers were around so much and apparently you could go and look up a certain title.
And then you could push that various number and then down a chute in a few minutes would come that book.
Well, they looked up one of Mr. Darby's books.
And sure enough, down the chute came that hook in the dark.
And Armstead very said he thought of this verse in Colossians 2, verse three, in whom are his all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the source that we have beloved to turn to for everything is wonderful. It's hidden in heaven, and that is where we get our answers.
Immerse life, he says.
Although I'd be absent in the flesh yet, and I with you in the spirit.
Drawing and fulfilling your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
Now, how do we proactively feel the steadfastness of faith in Christ?
We have people that grow up in the meeting, young people all over.
And.
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When they go away and which we see so much today.
Into one of those big.
But they call churches, I guess.
And where is the steadfastness in Christ then?
MTA excuse is always wealthy of saying.
I'm sure they're safe and they're not going to be lost. That's all that counts. Is that all that counts?
It is all that counts for eternity.
Yes, that they don't go to hell, but what? What is that fastness?
In Christ, that's more than that too. Live.
According to his word.
And if there is some problem within anybody as older or young.
What? Why are we not capable of finding out what allergies or says about our desires and our wants?
And then share it if we don't know.
It's beautiful in verse five, the spirit of the apostle Paul for.
The squash and although I'd be absent in the flesh and, and I'm with you in the spirit alcohol. It was not possible for him to be present amongst all that he had labored among, amongst those that he had umm, uh, nurtured as a father would his children. And yet, though he was not present with him, embodied.
They never left.
His heart They never left the affections of the Apostle Paul, and though he wasn't able to labor over them in body, he continued to labor in spirit.
And as we.
Seek the blessing of others. If it's truly in the power of the Spirit of God, it will stir our affection and we won't leave our brethren behind when they when they're rooted in our affection in our hearts. And so it's it's beautiful. I've I've enjoyed so much as I've as as I've seen the apostles affections for each.
Assembly that he rose to or he labored.
Uh, four. They never left this infection. They were fresh.
In his Spirit. And you know, sometimes we have to leave those brethren that we love, and we have to leave those brethren that we feel have a need of growth and establishment in the faith, but we never have to leave them in the Spirit.
We can be fresh.
In the in the Spirit seeking their blood in prayer.
The next verse said, As we have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.
We ought to be able to explain what it means to walk in him in the location society, walk in him.
Chapter one and verse three, the first thing the apostle when he thinks of the Saints in philosophy that he mentions that he gives thanks for them.
Because he says in verse four, is we heard of your faith?
In Christ Jesus and then in our chapter in verse five, he he rejoices in the steadfast of your faith in Christ and then verse six he says as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, they had received him and the only way that it's proper to receive him is in the simplicity of faith and there's a danger after we have accepted Christ and.
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Have that simplicity of faith that we allow the workings of the human mind to come into it and to add to it reasoning ways about how to live. But he's drawing them back to the manner in which they have received Christ. And it was with the simplicity of faith. And it's a wonderful thing to see a believer go on.
And have unspoiled in them that simplicity of trust between their soul and the Lord. But there's always the working of Satan to introduce again a fresh in some way in our lives, some element of unbelief. And when unbelief is allowed in some aspect or some matter in our life to come in, then we seek some other human answer to the need that results from it.
So the armor of God, one of the important characters of it was to have that faith and the apostle was thankful that as he writes to the Saints here, he's he's encouraging them to not get away from the simplicity of that faith in which they had accepted the Lord Jesus. And as you have received him. Why? And so it is with us, brother, and there's a continual need to.
Go on in that same simple.
True hearted trust in the Lord Jesus.
I think there's a, uh, thought here about, umm, progress in Christian life. Uh, this is, uh, I, I set the example, for instance, of a, you're in a dark room and uh, the light is on at the hall door closed, but some lightly extend under the door and around the edges. And so we are in light in, uh, in a, in dark surroundings a lot at the time.
But we get some light being a light coming to us. And as we look into the scriptures, then act upon it. That's the instruction of the scriptures to walk in what we see and learn of the Lord Jesus and glory and beauty. And then we'll get more. And so the, sometimes we, our young people get a bit discouraged when they hear us, uh, some of us around this, uh, center of the room.
Talking about the some of these things that are considered quite lofty in our experiences and we kind of say as young as young people, we might say, well, they've got it all and I'm so far away from that and how can I ever measure up? But it's little by little. It's a program, it's incremental to step at a time and it's it's all connected into following and as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord.
So walky in there.
When we first were brought to Christ, and every one of us who are saved would bear witness to this, we had to be brought right to the end of ourselves, didn't we? We had to realize that we could do nothing to save ourselves, but any efforts that we thought we could make were utterly unavailing, and we were dependent only on the grace of God and on the finished work of Christ.
Well, I would suggest that in that God is as it were paving the way for the Christian pathway too, because as we've had brought before us, it's so easy for Satan to get his wedge in. He did it to the Galatians. They were saying, yes, we have to be saved by faith. That's no problem. We have no question about that. But then there were those that were saying, but you need the rule of law by which to live. And I know that isn't Colossians line of truth, but it's the same principle that.
Satan, if he's allowed a chance, will seek to introduce human thoughts and human wisdom into the Christian pathway, which always, always drags us down, doesn't it? And so the thrust of this chapter is that it wasn't so much bad doctrine in colossi that was the problem. But are not holding the head turning aside, or at least the danger of turning aside.
Commands wisdom and seeking to walk the Christian pathway in human wisdom and perhaps not rejecting God's wisdom, but saying, well we need man's wisdom added to it. We need something mixed with it.
01:05:10
I can remember years ago reading in a magazine where somebody who was a believer went down the street and they asked about 10 people. They said, do you believe there is a God? And most of them said yes. Well, then the next question was, and in those days, this was quite a few years ago, they said, well, do you think God understands radar? Do you think he understands radar?
Oh no, no, no. I don't think God understands that, most of them say.
Well, we laugh at that, but as believers, Satan can, if we're not careful, get us to thinking, well, the world is getting so complicated today and life is getting so difficult, and the world is getting so much more involved than it ever was before.
That we do need something of man's wisdom added to the wisdom of God for our pathway.
No, that is not so, is it?
Can him dwell of all the fullness of the Godhead bodily?
And in the acknowledgment of that mystery, I hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And so is our brother Dave Hayhoe was bringing out. We can go to the Lord in every situation. God isn't surprised by the developments in the world today. God hasn't been, as it were, thrown off balance by what is going on in the world today. No, and everything that you and I need, even in this present age, is all found in Christ.
Send him #267.
4300003.
So all right.
I still doubt the.
Nothing. Hurdle waters. OK, Nuggets here.
When he saw him, the Lord's everywhere was a nightmare on everything he saw.
Her and everything in life.
And when we are anything, I am crying.
We brought him from the nation where we are in twice.
Where he'll work and turn on the grass and films what else was gone. And I was on the floor and I'd like to live in and.
For everything I know so that I can swallow my pictures say and don't want to come out of the trigger.
Let's sing once more.
In life, it's not raining here in you, all right.
Jesus Washes His Disciples Feet
Marriage at Cana of Galilee, John 2
The Love of Christ Constrains Us Psalm 42-45
Colossians 2
Reading
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Or I didn't hear our corn flows.
And my right hand on my.
Embrace, which is time to change from day-to-day.
Children's come on this year.
There's boutique on the garden where it makes me feel happy.
All that to your heart and then you cry. Never listen.
Every eye shall.
Behave.
All right, Glory.
I.
Be.
The last Nestor it's a little dying who died upon.
Stop.
For those that weren't here this morning, we were reading in Colossians chapter 2.
Would verse six be alright to begin with? Is that about right?
All right, Mr. Chapter 2 and version 6.
As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walking in him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith as He been taught, abounding therein with Thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy, vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
00:05:01
For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.
In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
Buried with him in baptism.
Wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead.
And you being dead in your sins, and the uncertain statement of your flesh has been quickened, together with Him having forgiven you all trespasses, rotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross, and having spoiled principalities and powers.
He made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in it.
Let no man therefore judge you in me, or in drain, or in respect on the holy day, or the new moon, or the salad days, which are shadows things to come, but the body is of Christ.
Let no man beguile you of your reward and a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.
And not holding the head from which all the body by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered, and yet together increase us with the increase of God.
Wherefore if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world?
Why is those living in the world are you subject to ordinances?
Touch not, teach not. Handle not.
Which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men, which things have indeed a show of wisdom and will, worship and humility, and neglecting of the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.
We ended the meeting this morning more or less on the basis of.
What we have been brought to in Christ.
God brings us to the end of ourselves when we come to Christ to get saved. But then sometimes we have to learn through experience that the whole of the Christian pathway is one of being totally dependent on the Lord, of exercising faith in Him for every step of the way, and not depending on human wisdom whatsoever. And so here.
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord.
So walked he and him. That is the whole of the Christian walk involved.
Drawing on all the fullness of Christ, all of the wisdom that is in Him, all of the resources that are in Him, and not seeking anything that comes from the natural man.
And so on the one hand, we're rooted in him. On the other hand, there's the need continually to be built up in him. On the one hand, there's the need to be established in the faith. On the other hand, there's the need to be abounding there in with Thanksgiving. So it all brings before us the.
Fact of a proper standing in Christ.
And then our living and walking in the good of it. And as we get later on in the chapter, the danger is not holding the head, not realizing that everything has to come from the head. That head is a risen Christ in glory. And it's so easy to think that somehow, some way, we can get something from down here. But it all has to come from him up there, doesn't it?
00:10:22
Comment 2IN verse 6.
Ye have received who Christ Jesus the Lord.
The expression here the Lord is quite significant and important.
That's part of coming to him.
Is the acknowledgement that he is Lord is also confessed with thy mouth Jesus as Lord?
When Peter was saved the day of his true conversion, he had known the Lord Jesus as a master, that is a teacher. But when he comes and is truly saved, he says, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord.
When the Apostle Paul is converted.
The question is, his first words out of his mouth are Who art thou Lord, followed by What wilt thou have me to do?
And Justice, by way of the same thought, go back to John 13 that was read in the last meeting, and see something of the order that was given there that shows how we sometimes receive him.
Umm, or have to learn to receive him?
In John 13.
Jesus says to them in verse 13.
You call me master.
And.
Lord, Master, meaning Teacher, ye call me teacher and Lord.
And you say, well, or so am I, But notice verse 14 when he speaks about it, the Lord speaks about it. He says in verse 14, If I then be your Lord.
And Teacher, he reverses the order of the two terms, the two expressions. And very often when we come to the Lord, it's easy to come to Him as Teacher, and we would accept Him as Lord as well. But the preeminence in walking with Him is first Lord, and then Teacher. And the Lord reverses it to give us the right order, in which, as He have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.
We need to walk with Him with the very first and prominent sense in our soul. He is Lord, He is supreme in His authority over me, the individual, and then I can learn from Him and walk in the enjoyment of what He teaches.
Can I ask a question regarding a, a doctrine that's somewhat puzzling today, and that is Lordship salvation, umm, I I believe that that's a doctrine which umm.
Indicates that unless there is a.
Continual owning the lordship. There may not be salvation. Umm, can someone give us a thought that that there's a balance?
Our salvation doesn't necessarily depend upon our ability.
The obedience after you're saved does it.
Our salvation depends.
100% on the work that was done on a cross.
Our acceptance of that work and recognition of that work and faith would bring us into the position in which we recognize that He is Lord.
The truth of our salvation and the enjoyment of it, and whether we walk properly in it. Every one of us has to learn, and so no one perfect.
Perfectly walked in under his lordship in every activity of their life. Even the apostle Paul failed in that Peter failed in that record is given, but the moment we start to make ourselves the dependent point of our salvation.
00:15:19
We'll never have any peace with God.
Peace with God comes from looking away from self to say God has done a work.
To make me righteous in his sight. And my response is to be thank you Lord.
But it is characteristic of a true believer to own his lordship.
And so perhaps that's the balance that we need.
Notice in verse 7 rooted.
And build up, it's interesting Rooted is going down.
Build up is going up. There's growth in both areas. It's interesting the root system of a tree is not visible.
Generally speaking.
But it is extremely important and often.
When?
That, uh, tree is amongst a lot of other trees. They don't develop as much root system as they do as when they're standing alone and get.
The winds are blowing from One Direction to another. That's when they develop good root system.
And sometimes we might feel like we're alone and the Lord puts us through.
Real difficulties.
But it's because he wants us to be rooted.
And it's interesting it repeats the same.
Yet different but in Ephesians chapter 3.
It states in verse 17 that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love there is not doesn't fill up, but it's rooted and grounded. It's important to be have convictions about things. Being grounded means that you're not moved from one place to another easily.
So it's important to be rooted.
And I appreciate the word, uh, about getting into the word fill the water pots with water.
Read the good ministry about it. Oh how important that is. There are lots of winds of doctrines blowing around. If a person is not rooted and grounded, they get blown all over the place.
You need to have conviction about things, and conviction is based on the word of God.
Important those two things are rooted and.
Then build up as well that's going on.
And I would suggest that when it says built up, that perhaps has more the thought of.
Having a full knowledge of the truth of God, as you say, Bob, reading the word of God. And if the Lord has provided good ministry for us, and he has, I believe it's a mistake for us to neglect it. On the one hand, we have the Spirit of God. We have the word of God.
But if God has provided ministry from those who were especially gifted to give it to us.
Then it's a good thing to avail ourselves of it and so there is the need to be built up and that keeps us, as you say, rooted.
But Christianity is not just the body of head knowledge, it says abounding therein with Thanksgiving. What does that mean? There is joy in the things of God because the Spirit of God gives us that joy in Christ. Now you don't get the Spirit of God mentioned much in Colossians. In fact, I stand corrected on this. But I think it is mentioned only once in the whole book, and that's in the first chapter.
00:20:02
Where Paul talks about the Colossians love in the Spirit. Why is that? Because the Spirit of God is as if we're putting the focus, putting the spotlight on Christ. Go back to Ephesians where our enjoyment of these things is much more prominent. And there you find the Spirit mentioned much, but not here in Colossians because it is Christ that is brought before us. And so the Spirit of God and I think it was good what Don mentioned.
Takes us right out of ourselves and puts our thoughts toward an object.
Our late brother Clarence Lundeen made a remark once that I never forgot and said the man, the woman also that is occupied with himself, is never happy. Why? Because man is not sufficient unto himself. And yet it's the effort of Satan to get man occupied with himself, to get his thoughts turned in on himself, to get man's wisdom into the picture. That's the danger warned against in this chapter.
But true Christianity takes me out of myself and gives me an object outside of myself. And so there is the abounding therein with Thanksgiving. There is that joy in the believers life. I don't do it to get joy. But if Christ is really before me and I am rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith, and will be abounding therein with Thanksgiving, it will come as a natural thing.
Because the Spirit of God will have that liberty to give me the enjoyment of the things of Christ.
I think it's really important, Bill, to realize that Christianity primarily is objective.
Some object outside of ourselves to which we are to look, somebody has said it and I like the illustration too, he said. The anchor doesn't do any good to the boat. As long as it's in the boat, it needs to be thrown out and then there is stability.
So we have something outside of ourselves rather than I can look away from the what I see in myself and it gets kind of discouraging to you looking at yourself all the time. Scripture does show some subjective things and we need to realize that there is necessary.
The reflection on Am I walking in the truth of God? In fact, that is not the primary.
Thing in Christianity it is an object outside and oh, to get that firm into the soul that we are called to occupation with a man in the glory of God, and that man is completely perfect. I start examining my life here. I get all this scurries, but when I look up into the glory of God and say there's my life.
It's complete perfection the more you are occupied with that object.
The more it's going to have a transforming effect on your life as well.
There is only one foundation to be rooted on.
And that's Christ himself. And as the foundation, there's just one, and it never changes. Once we're rooted there, we're rooted. Uh, we don't seek another foundation. There is no other. It's upon himself.
And, uh, I like to think of it as a little bit in this way. Many of us, one of the earliest songs we sing is Jesus loves me. This I know.
It's part of the foundation, and many a soul gets to die with the same song on their their heart, their lips. Uh, Jesus loves me. This, I know, is often a very favorite for a soul at the very end of life as well as at the very beginning.
And so in that way, there's a foundation and it it's stable, it's himself. But he wants us to grow in the enjoyment and knowledge of himself. Umm, some here are.
Fairly newly married and you have a relationship of husband and wife. But if the Lord leaves us here, which I hope he doesn't, but just for the sake of the illustration, for 50 years.
00:25:04
I'd be disappointed if you don't know each other better than you know each other now. And if we have come to know the Lord Jesus every year of our life, every day, His desire is that we get to know Him better and we get built up in himself. Did the apostle Paul finally arrived and could say, well, I've got it all now? No, just to look at the illustration of his own life in Philippians 3.
His desire to grow is shown in Philippians 3, where he's presented to us as the object that Bob has been talking about. And so he says of himself.
In Philippians 3, eight Yeah, doubtless I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. And uh, he says in verse 10 that I might know him.
And the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings and so on. He wanted practically in the experiences of his life to get to know him better. In fact, he says in this sequence of verses, you know.
If knowing him better.
By shared experience, then it's all right, I'll die. Because if I die, he went through death. And if I go through death.
Then it's an experience that we will both have shared and by that common experience, I trust I'll know him better. And so his heart in wanting to grow was to say he's everything to me. And whatever way through the experience of life, through the word, through fellowship with himself, I want to know him better. I want to be built up. And in doing so, what could be the in other. The only possible result of that when it's practical is increased Thanksgiving.
Hmm. There has to be an increased Thanksgiving as there is, uh, an increased appreciation of the wonder of this person.
But in verse 8, the moment you introduce man's thoughts, you start to spoil it.
So he says beware.
Lest any man spoil you, because the minute I seek to find some other solution or key or secret to life in anything else than the one that God has given, which is His Son to be the heart object.
It starts to spoil.
The result that God is working toward in US.
Philosophy is neither subjective nor objective.
It's rain this evening.
Man's teaching by man for man.
With outdoor.
We see a desk here all over the place in the libraries.
Pictures.
Wherever you look, Fiction. Fiction.
That is man's story, written for man for entertainment.
That's all that is.
Well, I'm absolutely worthless.
And in terms of the books you're causing the romance, the royal movement, that's true. Of course it's a made-up storage, usually love stories, so.
Anything made-up by men for men's entertainment.
Has nothing to do with God, although they may mention God in it, but not as a living person, but somebody who.
Andrews implement.
To their association with religion.
All the thoughts of man are limited by what man is, and man in himself cannot look beyond this life.
You can't see into death and what's beyond death, so all the thoughts of man are limited by philosophies and ideas that connect him with his present existence, this life. He may imagine, he may talk about something beyond life, but he has no knowledge of it in himself, he's never been there, and so on, and so he can't reason, or he can't speak about things from the perspective.
00:30:33
Of what's beyond.
And as a consequence he takes everything and adapts it, even so-called Christian things to the present life in some way that in its root will leave out the issue of death. But for us everything begins properly on the other side of death. Christ died for us. And in this chapter and the one that follows, he says to us, if he be dead with Christ, if he be risen with Christ.
And so on. And it's the fact that I am dead with Christ.
And my life in Christ begins on the other side of the cross, in his resurrection. Then I am taken into, if you will, a whole new realm of existence and relationship with God which the philosophies of men know nothing about. And consequently, if I allow myself to start listening to man's ideas, I'm going to be spoiled.
I'm going to be corrupted because it's going to take me back into the realm of things of this life. And man, anything he can say beyond it is his imagination. And as a consequence it he says to us, no, don't go there, don't listen to it. Don't entertain man's way of looking at life.
Come to the Lord Jesus Christ and let God teach us what life really is.
Just to make it clear so that there's no misunderstanding, it does not mean that some of the philosophies of men do not make valid observations as far as they go. Some of the well known names in the philosophical world such as.
Kierkegaard and even people like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and various others like that, all of their observations that they made were not wrong. What was the difficulty? Well, as Dawn said, man's mind can never rise above himself. And worse than that, man is a fallen creature. And when man seeks to.
Intrude.
Into divine things with a human mind. He always goes into error because his mind, as someone has said, becomes the placing of the devil. I can well remember, if you'll permit a personal incident. I can remember when I was in university quite a few years ago now. I did not study philosophy, but some others who were in my class did, and I well remember their coming one day from a lecture.
And saying, well, Bill, what do you think of this one? The prop said today, if there is a God, what kind of a universe did he create where everything had to die?
Mm-hmm.
Well, that opened the discussion to a good many things, as you may well imagine, because the Word of God gives us the answer to that question. But that professor couldn't go any further than that. All he could think of, what kind of a universe is this? If God created it, where everything eventually has to die, and he couldn't get his mind around that, To him, that showed that whatever kind of a God it was, he didn't want to believe in him. Well, that's only one example.
He made an observation. It was plain before him that everything died, but his whole view of it was skewed because he wouldn't accept divine revelation. And so you and I have been brought into such a better position. Again, I say, it's not that everything that man observes in the natural realm is wrong, but it's all bounded by man's mind, and not only by man's mind, but by man's sinful mind.
00:35:06
Which, as we had this morning, is that enmity with God. It's the enemy of God. And so whenever the things of God are in question, man's natural mind will always go in the wrong direction, never in the right one. Well, you and I have been brought into association with a risen Christ in glory, and human philosophy can only lead us astray and drag us down.
I had a friend years ago, perhaps with the Lord now. His last name was Von Rose.
A German name.
The family tree that uh.
The Family Shield, I guess you call it.
Coat of Arms Coat of arms was an upside down tree with the roots in heaven.
And the I couldn't help but think here of a of a bond size. You know, we get these tiny little miniature trees. I can't remember not the word fun thigh means shallow dish or something. Anyway, they're they don't allow the roofs to get very they don't go much place. You take it out, you prune the rich continually pruning the road to make this beautiful shaped little tree. Some of this.
Form of art is hundreds of years old. Hand it down to one generation of the next.
But was that what God intended with evidence See, you know the the fact is you and I, we're rooted and built up in him in him verse 9 gone with all the fullness of his God had bothered you. We have infinite source.
In the person of our Lord Jesus, by which we can grow. It's infinite. You know, It's not like a bonsai continually blooms. You throw in these other things, you get the roots cut to form something man can contain within his own thoughts.
In a certain way, that's what philosophy is trying to explain, the truth of God. And with human rights, and necessarily, necessarily, we are extremely limited in our understanding. The best is extremely limited, and those that know more truly know more.
Realize how limited they really are.
So are we going to give attention to that which is very limited, or are we going to be drawn after Christ the man, a real man that we should know that in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily? It's a statement that just boggles our minds. How can we explain it in a human body, the Lord Jesus Christ?
Dwell the fullness of the Godhead thoughtfully.
It's something that I accept by faith, but human philosophy can never explain it properly.
The mind of man would never have dreamed.
Never would enter in to man and all his Phil philosophy the way that God chose to work.
God in all the greatness of his being.
In the comparison to us, his creature, who are so small and so little.
In capacity compared to himself, they were not even measurably comparable. He is so infinite and we are so limited.
And yeah, is that God unable to make himself known to us?
Because of the greatness of the difference between us, now God says come to you.
As a man and the person of this country.
In the fullness, not a limitation of it, but the fullness of all that God is dwells in a man in.
His sons. And in that way God has come down to us and into the condition of our existence to make himself known to us and to bring us into a relationship with himself that goes far beyond the imagination of anything that man would ever, would ever dream of. And he says, I'll come right down among you the fullest of all that I am. And so the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us.
00:40:23
And so God in all his fullness has come down to where we are. But then he reverses it in the 10th verse and he says you're complete in him. That is, all that we need to be with respect to God is in the same person. All that God is to us is made known in the person of the sun. All that we need to be to have an eternal close relationship with God, to even be to calling him our Father.
Is to be found in the same person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so as he says to us, you're complete in him. He's everything you have to be to have this relationship with God. And as we enjoy that it takes us totally out of the realm of philosophy and into the realm of God's revelation of himself and our hearts are taken up with it and we say I wouldn't want the paltry ideas that man has.
They're so infinitely inferior to that which God has made known and and brought us into the enjoyment of.
They couldn't understand the Lord when He came down and showed that fullness here on earth, and they stumbled over Him and who He was, where He came from.
But he's he's gone. He's gone farther now. First he came Incarnate as a man. Now he's gone through death and as a man in resurrection ascended up much less. Can philosophy figure that out?
How could God bring good out of death? This is the way He's done it. Without death, there's no resurrection. Without resurrection, there's no life and glory.
In heaven with him. And so we are livingly linked with a resurrected man.
This is this adds meaning to going through those experiences. Even death itself has meaning for a believer that understands where it takes us.
Do you think that these?
I'm thinking of, uh, first date. Sometimes these expressions are a little bit difficult for me at least to understand and think. So philosophy, uh, I have written in my Bible was, well, wisdom and it speaks about the tradition of men.
Is this is umm, the introduction of, uh, of?
Human eloquence, that sort of thing into into Christianity that the Apostle Paul is warning against.
Well, I would suggest that anything that has to do with man's wisdom can never improve on what God has given in Christ. And that's the danger. I believe ultimately not to get complicated about it, but the real problem here was an age-old.
Difficulty that persists down to this day.
We might call it Gnosticism, which simply is man seeking to know something in himself about moral and spiritual matters that are ultimately beyond him. And on the one hand, it makes man realize that he is a moral creature, that he is a moral being, but on the other hand, he thinks that somehow he can.
Figure things out for himself.
And so it ends up being the traditions of men.
00:45:04
Some someone once asked a well known philosopher who was no Christian, you'll recognize the name Bertrand Russell, they said. Mr. Russell, uh, how do you distinguish between right and wrong?
Well, he said, by feeling.
Same thing I do. I have a pair of eyes and I can distinguish between blue and yellow with my eyes and I distinguish between right and wrong by feeling well. Is that going to work?
That's no basis for right and wrong, is it? You could offer some very good suggestions of right and wrong, which would be an opposite directions, and both might be on the basis of feeling. And that's where man's natural mind takes him in the realm of moral things.
And so the traditions of men, I believe are.
Uh, ultimately, what man has developed to try and get around the effect of the fall, Now it's more than that, but it's one thing that man has developed. It's all of those things that man has brought in to try and get around the awful effect of the fall. Someone said something once and it may be going a bit too far, but it has a grain of truth in it, he said.
Culture is merely a good embalming fluid to keep the corpse of sinful man from becoming too objectionable. Well, the truth in that because man is a sinful fallen being, his moral sensibilities are totally corrupted and as we said earlier, he cannot get beyond himself. The man develops traditions, man develops ideas, man develops things which govern his relationships with others and govern society.
And as we say again, it may not be all wrong in itself, although it often is, because it takes man away from God generally. But it can never lift man above himself, never answer the question of sin, never answer questions, never made anyone happy. All it does is puzzle your mind. And as someone has said, that gets into a big debate that never has any good answers to it.
Is that is that right?
I noticed brother Dave that the word tradition in.
New translation is the teaching of men and I think that's what those insane and then after the rudiments of the elements of the world so that man can't get above himself in his own thinking and and expression of his thoughts. So you don't get beyond that, but how far beyond we have now the revelation we have in Christ.
We are told not to go.
In that direction of the philosophies, the teachings of men, the elements of the world.
But we're to go after Christ.
God in all His fullness came down among men, and the person of the sun, the fullness of the Godhead, dwelt in Him bodily. He's presented to mankind. What's the result?
He crucified.
And crucified that was man's answer to the fullness of God coming among men was be crucified him.
What does that say about man's thoughts? What does that have to say about the best that man can come up with as to the understanding of himself and his universe and all the rest of it? Here he has presented to him?
The fullness of the Godhead in a man and his his response to it is we will not have this man crucify him. And so Peter, when he's preaching in the beginning of the Acts, he says he crucified him. What was God's answer to it?
But God raised him from the nest, but God raised him from the dead man, crucifies him. He takes the fullness of all the God is and he puts him to death as far as his life here on earth is concerned. God's response to that is he raised him from the dead and he raises him all the way to his right hand and says to him, I'm going to put.
00:50:11
All the created creation.
Heaven, earth, everything that has been brought into existence by creation under you.
And so, as it says here, umm, he has made him head of all principality and power, and that is his plan for us to be brought into a relationship with him as head. We have in the next verse what in the verses which follow, what's essential?
We too have to be identified with that death.
We cannot be brought into relationship with himself on the ground. On what man is the man that re that rejects him and puts them to death? Man puts him to death. So then our place with him is.
You're crucified as well with Christ, Romans 6. Here you're buried with him in the baptism connected with death. And what is then our result of that in verse 12?
Well, then you're also risen with them.
So where do we stand now in respect to the elements of the world and the philosophies of men? We stand in a totally new and different position that has nothing to do with it. We stand as those who, when the world says we crucify them. We too, by faith in Christ, go through that same position, and we're buried with Him in the baptism of death. And as it says for us now in verse 12, you're risen with him.
And we stand on his side of death, the resurrection side of death, and as he has been raised to the right hand of God, according to the mystery of God and the purpose of God, he says, and I'm going to have you right there with me as my bride. That aspect of it isn't developed so much here, but the position is ours as at.
Does he stand? He sits at God's right hand and he said, you're going to be with me at my side as my bride. And that's our place. And so we need to practically apply the truth of the fact of our death and resurrection with him to our everyday life. And he develops how we do that in the verses of this chapter and the one that comes.
Maybe it's good to remind ourselves here in connection with the title that was over the cross of the Lord, just in Jesus the King of the Jews that was written.
In Hebrew and Greek and Latin.
Hebrew Speaking of a religious world, Greek of the educational world and lack of political world.
When is this year? You are complete in here.
Now the Lord Jesus.
Boss without saying.
So again, I put my lead in here.
We have our sins forgiven.
Which is the head of all principalities.
This is what the world doesn't want to acknowledge, that he is the head of our principality. That means all the governments.
And all the power that exists.
In the end.
And he will come forward.
As the one who has all the power in his hand, and he will prove.
But in the meantime.
We have to set forward his position.
And who he is and what he is.
Usually when we say we.
We do not plan and we cannot, we actually cannot stand behind him. This is usually not received by people.
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It is, but the scripture says.
The reverse John.
Is that rules righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous?
First John 3.
One of the things you mentioned this morning, the bill about the difference between covenant theology and dispensational teaching.
Is the difference between Israel and the church and the church and the church was is a heavenly people, whereas Israel is an earthly people and covenant theology does not distinguish between.
If that is the case, and I think it is.
Good for us to realize that many believers sit under that kind of teaching. Then it naturally follows that there is no distinction between the Church and Israel. Then it would be proper for.
Uh, believers today to involve themselves in politics?
Wasn't Daniel high in the Kingdom of Babylon?
With Joseph I in Egypt and influenced things for God and why shouldn't we? And if that was the case, you could understand why there was that kind of thing. The point is, is that we are now in a completely different position. We are called for heaven and here it says he we are completed and which is the head of all principality and power.
And I sometimes say how?
What is the best way you can have influence government?
By getting involved in political processes.
And doing what you can amongst people down here. Or perhaps another way would be to go straight to the head and speak to him about things. Which would be more effective, brethren?
If we get down on our knees and pray as we're told to, to pray for those in authority, we will have far more effect than involving ourselves in some political agenda.
Far more effective, the Lord give us to understand and enjoy the position that we have in relation to the Lord Jesus.
Head of all principality and power.
It's also brought out in another sense of it, as it says here.
Umm, very first 12 with him in baptism.
It's pretty hard to part, uh, participate in a government that after you die.
It's difficult to be part of the political process in depth.
But we who are identified with for Jesus or Jesus doesn't presently participate in the political process as a man on earth because he's dying.
We aren't left in the state of death. We have been raised with Christ and we belong to a Kingdom. The Kingdom is described in the first chapter, but it's a Kingdom which is not of this world.
So our associations and our loyalties are connected with.
A Kingdom which is not of this world.
The Lord Jesus, when he was faced with death, as to this world, he said to Pilate, if my Kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight?
But it's not, and so he died to it. And now we do belong to a realm where there's authority and power and so on as it gives us in chapter one. Go back to it, he says, verse 13.
Our verse 12, giving thanks to the Father, which is made of me to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in life, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness. That's what the Kingdom of this world are, the power of darkness, and it translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love. We belong to that Kingdom. That's a Kingdom which is connected with a world that is the other side of death, and that's the Kingdom we live in. It's also here on earth.
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The Kingdom of God is here on earth, and we live on earth with our fellow man, but we participate in and we are connected with a separate Kingdom that is not connected with this world and its politics and its activities. We are to live in the Kingdom to which we belong and, uh, we are to seek to reach souls, to take them out of the system of darkness through death, through life in Christ.
That they too might participate with us in the Kingdom of God.
And that's our place with respect to this world and its activities. We do live here, we do participate in the Kingdom, but it's totally different than the Kingdom of this world. And our ministry, our activity for our fellow man is not to straighten out his Kingdom.
It has written on it this the when the Lord Jesus died, God said about that now is the judgment of this world.
I have judged all this world systems and all its activities. What did it do? It crucified my son. It hasn't carried out that judgment yet, but the judgment has been pronounced upon it. And if I go participate in it, what am I doing? I participating in something that God has said. I have judged that because of the crucifixion of my son.
And so he says to us, I have something for you to participate in. And it's my Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Son of his love, which is connects it with heaven, but it's also as the Kingdom of God here on earth. And we live in it, we're part of it and we're to be care occupied with its interests.
So as you said a moment ago, Don, there is.
There is a necessity of being dead and risen with Christ to be identified with and isn't there? Here we find the circumcision that says made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh. That is that everything that has to do with that old sinful self, and that includes the philosophy and vain deceit, that includes all of those things by which we can be enticed away from Christ.
As well as those gross sins that anyone would recognize as being wrong. It includes all of that. We put all that off because we are, as it says in verse 12, buried with Him in baptism.
Well, we've had baptism brought before us previous to this in the Word of God. It's brought before us perhaps most vividly in the book of Romans. And there we find the truth of baptism clearly presented in chapter 6 of Romans. Know you not that you which are baptized were baptized unto his death, and so on. Reckon yourselves therefore to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. But.
In one sense, if we could say that this is.
Could we say a little deeper thought here, and to illustrate it we might use the journeys of the children of Israel in the Old Testament.
When they came out of Egypt, they went through the Red Sea, and it tells us in First Corinthians 10 that all our fathers were baptized there unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
But were they really free from Egypt? In one sense, yes. The domination of Pharaoh was no longer there. Their enemies were all dead in the Red Sea or on the seashore, and they were in that sense, free.
But if we could use the expression, they were in a position, a position to go into the land, but not in the condition to go into the land. And so there had to be the wilderness experience. And then at the end of that experience there was the Jordan. And what happened more than once in the wilderness, there was the desire to go back to Egypt.
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Somebody has summarized it and I appreciated the thought. In English, both the words begin with C There was the calf and there was the captain.
The calf was the religious corruption that began immediately in making the golden calf. The captain is what they wanted to do. After the spies brought back ten of the spies brought back the bad report about the land. They said let us make us a captain and return unto Egypt. And many times in addition to that, they complained about the food and the lack of water and so on. Let's go back to Egypt where we ate bread to the full and so on.
But here in Colossians it really in tight brings before us what happened at the Jordan and if the Red Sea is Christ's death for me.
We might say that Jordan is my death with Christ. It's the realization that there is nothing good in that old sinful self, and it took the wilderness experience to bring them to that point.
And again, we don't want to make it complicated, but it helps to understand it by God's illustrations of all that in the Old Testament and.
So here, in order to avoid all that we have been warned about in this chapter, in the earlier part of it, in order really to be identified with that risen Christ in glory, he has gone into death and risen again. Morally, you might say we have to do the same thing. There has to be the recognition that that old sinful self didn't have any good in it. It didn't do me any good, except as we were saying a few minutes ago.
It was that old sinful self in man that rejected the Lord Jesus and crucified him. That's what the old man did. That's what man in the flesh would do and still would do. And so you and I have to recognize the truth of all this in order that we might be truly identified with a risen Christ in glory.
Another has commented along the very same thoughts that when the children of Israel went into the wilderness.
It took them physically out of Egypt.
But it didn't take Egypt out of their heart. And so they went through the wilderness and they still hankered for Egypt. They still had desires of their heart that connected them with Egypt. And so when we recognized Lord Jesus as our Passover, we're sheltered from judgment and we know that we're going to heaven someday, and we're thankful for it and appreciate it. But to make progress in the Christian life, we all go through the wilderness experience.
And when we're in the wilderness, we will often find that our hearts yearn for the things of Egypt that we left behind. But when practically we enter in our souls to the truth of the Jordan River, which is our death, that Bill just described his death and our death with him. And we come up on the other side when we realize we have no connection with the world that crucified him, but we are on the other side of it.
It uses the expression when they were circumcised at Gilgal, which is actually in tight verse 11. It's at that point at which the reproach of Egypt rolled away from them and they're rolling away of the reproach of Egypt in its practical application is it's necessary and that that which will in practice deliver us from the world in our heart.
And give us to the enjoy heavenly things in our Canaan, our our heavenly occupation, without constantly yearning to go back to Egypt.
At least a a thought for to chew on if you will if it's new to some.
I remember our thought that our brother brought forth an UMM Aberdeen, Idaho two years ago at the conference, and his remark bears out what brother Bill had done, he said rather than it was much harder.
So it was easier to get the Children of Israel out of Egypt than to get Egypt out of the Children of Israel. Mm-hmm. And we're like that, too.
01:10:03
Could we sing the last verse of #149?
Unto thy death baptized. We own the sea, we die with thee. Our lives were risen, and shall be glorified from sin. The world and Satan were ransomed by thy blood, and here would walk as strangers alive with these gods. 149 The last verse.
The Weight of Guilt
Gospel—Tim Roach
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I have spoken to people.
Who have guilt on their conscience.
And they're and they don't know how to deal with it, and they're worried.
Because the guilt, it eats away at them. Guilt is a terrible thing to live with.
Tonight I want to talk about guilt. Let's start by seeing #15 first verse. Oh blessed gospel sound yet There is room.
It tells to all around, yet there is room, the guilty major all near.
Though vile they need not fear with joy they now may hear. Yet there is room first verse. Only the guilty may draw on the earth.
Oh blessed gospel song.
And also there's no death together in the resolution.
No, they may draw you.
Oh my, May you not fear for a Roy?
Here.
There is room.
Our God involved again. Thanks for the gospel meeting. Once again the gospel will be proclaimed, Lord willing that we remain here for the hour while we could pass through your mercies. For anyone who in the room may be lost in their sins. Father, we just ask that the message would be spoken clearly and that the guilty might draw near and be saved. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let's sing #13.
Guilty, vile, and helplessly spotless lamb of Godless He full Atonement. Can it be? Hallelujah. What a savior. If you're suffering from guilt tonight, there's freedom from that guilt, the atonement of the Lord Jesus. The blood that was shed can take away the guilt that you are suffering from tonight. The guilt of your sins. Let's sing #13.
Man of sorrow.
And verse 9 says, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him. From the day thou shalt be saved. Confession confess and admit that you're a Sinner. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. Maybe you believe on on Jesus, maybe you believe in God, but he is he your Lord? That's the question. Is he your Lord? Have you turned your life over to him?
00:05:02
It says believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead.
Who is this person that can be raised from the dead? Who is Jesus Christ? God raised him from the dead. Do you believe that Jesus is gone or is he just some other man that lived here on this earth, lived and died? He did die, but there was a purpose for his death. He gave his life for you. He loved you and gave himself for you. There is a confession of a drunk when we lived in Malawi. There is a man.
Who came one morning about 3:00 in the morning knocking on brother Chuzu's door and says I can't sleep.
I have this guilt on my heart. I cannot sleep. There was another man who had come to him, and he was to this Wakilasta was his name and Wafilaso.
He was hiding something in his heart and he it was a burden on him. And there was guilt because this other man who claimed to be a Christian had done some very bad sin and he made moffil also hide that sin. Don't tell anybody because I will. I will give you money if you keep quiet. And so Mafioso kept quiet for many years, 810 years Mafilasso. He didn't say a thing, but this guilt was burdening down on his heart and he couldn't handle the guilt anymore. And he comes to brother choose who and knocks on the door.
Brother Chuzu, I'm hiding this sin, he confessed. The sin.
He thought that saved him. He thought he was saved because he confessed his sin to brother Tuzu and we talked to Mafilasso and said no, that doesn't save you. My philosophy was afraid to take the man's sin on himself. He said I have my own sin. I don't need your sin. I'll go to hell for my own sin. We said, well if you lost so you don't have to go to hell. You can be saved today. You can confess your sin and be saved.
And ask the Lord to save you. He's well. I already confessed my sin. I confessed it to choose him. No, that doesn't work. You can't confess your sin to the priest. You can't confess your sin to the new Pope Francis. It's not going to save you. You need to confess your sin to God.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. I want to talk about how to be saved. But before you can be saved, you need to be lost. You come to the Bible meetings, maybe you go to church and you and you learn a lot of the verses. You know some of the stories about the about the Lord Jesus and you think, oh, you're a good person, you're saved. You don't need to worry about this. So we need to get you lost before you can be saved. Because if you're not lost, you don't need to be saved.
But God says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You are lost in your sin. You need to see your sin the way God sees your sin, so that you know you are a Sinner so that you can be saved.
If you are struggling with the guilt of your sin, you need to see your sin.
As God sees your sin, so you can see the need for repentance. Let's go back to chapter 3, Romans chapter 3.
Before an unbeliever can be saved, before you can be saved, you must see your own sin.
Romans 323 All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That includes you. You have sinned. You have come short of God's glory. If you want to go to heaven, you have to be as good as God. But that is impossible. You cannot be as good as God except the Lord. Jesus takes your sin away and takes that sin off your record books and gives you eternal life. That's the only way you can get to heaven. And so but your sin, your sin, blocks you from coming to God, and God cannot receive you in heaven.
With your sin. Because God is holy, God is holy.
But your goodness, what you think is good, it's really Vadnais because your goodness and your vadnais, they're both filthy, they're dirty, they're disgusting to God.
Sin cannot come into His presence, and so you need to see even the good things that you do. You need to see them as sin that keeps you away from the presence of God. I want to give you a story.
As an example, there is a man named Peter and there was he wanted to buy a house, he wanted to get married, he wanted the good things in life and so he just bought a house for his family. He was able to get a mortgage at no with no money down.
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And so he bought a big house with low interest rates. And so he he was able to get it without any money down. But if he wasn't able to get the house with no money down and low interest rate, he couldn't afford the house. So after he bought that house, Peter, then he got a raise. And then when he got a raise at his job, he then qualified for a car loan. So Peter, he went and bought a car, a new car. So now he had a new house. He had a new car.
And he was feeling pretty good. And then the credit card company saw that Peter had a couple loans until they started sending him invitations for credit cards. And so he couldn't resist this. So he went and he applied for a credit card and he got one. In fact, he got 2. And so he started buying things with his credit card. And this was easy money. He couldn't afford all the furniture that he put into his house. But with his credit card, it was no problem, He just gives the cashier a card.
They they put it into the register and they give him a receipt, he's got it.
Didn't he didn't have to take any money out of his pocket?
Then you got new carpet for his house. With the credit card, it's easy to survive.
In this world.
Peter bought a computer. He bought a sound system.
But he was not able to pay the whole amount.
So he uses credit card and then when the bill time, when pain came time to pay the bills, he couldn't pay off his credit card every month, so he just paid the minimum balance. And so his credit card kept getting bigger and bigger as he's put his expenses on there.
Well, that was OK for a while, but then Peter's adjustable rate mortgage came due and it came up for renewal and the interest rate went up a couple of points and the payment stayed the same. But the payment wasn't enough to cover even the interest and so the principle of the loan got bigger and bigger each month.
Peter was in trouble. The house he bought was now. He owed more on the House now than what the house was worth, and the house was losing value fast.
It happens all the time. In the last few years people are losing their houses. Peter was in trouble and it became difficult for him to pay his bills.
And so he thanked God that he still had his credit card. So Peter, he was able to take his family on a vacation. Let's go to 1St John Chapter 2.
First John Chapter 2.
And verse 16.
For all that is in the world.
The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.
You see, Peter, he was living the life of sin.
He succumbed to his lust and his pride, and that became his sin.
He didn't know he was covetous.
But he was.
He started out with everything that he wanted. He wasn't willing to just work his way up and increase slowly. He wanted everything right away, and he could get more with finance and credit.
Now, Peter, he couldn't afford to pay his bills.
Peter's sin of covetous put a lot of stress on his marriage.
He started to argue.
Then the bank began proceedings to foreclose on his house.
Peter still didn't think he was covetous.
Because Peter did not see his sin the way God sees his sin. And maybe you think you're OK because you've got everything figured out in life and you're and you're living your life to please yourself and you don't think it's sin, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
God did not call the righteous. He came to save the sinners. Maybe you think you're pretty good, but you're still a Sinner. God did not come to call you if you're good. He came to call you. When you see your sin, you need to see your sins. Let's go to Second Samuel, Chapter 11.
00:15:18
Second Samuel, Chapter 11 I.
Ask you what is keeping you away from God? What sin do you have hiding in your life? Do you see your sin?
Your sin may be covetousness. Like Peter, it may be anger.
It may be sexual perversion or selfishness or pride. What is your sin? What is keeping you away from God?
People don't like to admit when they have sin in their life because they have the guilt and they don't want to admit that they have sinned because if they admit, they have sin.
They're gonna have guilt.
I want to talk here about David. David was a man. He saw his own sin.
But at first he did not see his sin.
David stole another man's wife. He committed adultery with her. Then he killed his her husband.
And he didn't see his sin.
Let's read two Samuel, Chapter 11. We'll start at verse one.
Then it came to pass after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabba. But David tarried still at Jerusalem. You see, David, he stayed in the city. He didn't want to go out and fight the battles on that day. Well, he sent Joab, the captain of the host, out with all the men, the fighting men of Israel, and they went out to fight the battles of the Lord.
But David, He should have been there. But he wasn't. He wasn't where he should have been. And he got himself into trouble. Verse 2. And it came to pass in an evening tide that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the King's house. What was David thinking when he was laying, sitting there on his bed? I think he had some impure thoughts. And he gets up and he goes off and looks on the roof of the house.
And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful.
To look upon.
Some of you maybe look on some beautiful women and you use *********** or you use the Internet to look on a beautiful woman, David. He was up on to the rooftop of his house looking down and he saw Bathsheba down there taking a bath and he was looking at her and he lust started to grow up in his heart. And in verse three he says, David sent and inquired after the woman and one said, is not this Bathsheba the daughter of Ilium, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite?
Well, David, now he knows who this woman is. He gets her address. He knows where she lives.
And he also knows that Uriah, her husband, is out at battle. He's not home.
And so he sends a message to Bathsheba. Come to my house. So she comes to David's house. He takes her to his bed when his wife wasn't around.
And he commits adultery with Bathsheba.
Bathsheba goes home.
David thinks it was OK.
Then a few days later, for probably a few weeks later, he gets a knock on the door. David, here's a message from Bathsheba.
I am with child. She was pregnant and it was David's child. Now what was David going to do?
So he sends a message out to Joab, the captain of the host. Send me back Uriah the Hittite. Tell him to come home. And so David had this plan. Uriah comes home. He tells Uriah, go back to your house. I'm giving you a leave of absence. Go spend some time with your wife. Take a vacation with your wife. He wanted to blame the child. Credit the wife, the child to Uriah the Hittite. But it was David's child.
Uriah, the Hittite who had more integrity.
Then David and he would not go home.
He knew that the armies of the Lord were out fighting the battles of the Lord, and he knew he should be with them. He knew he should not be home with his wife at that time. So he took his bedroll and he laid down at the King's house, at the King's door. David found out about this, and he was upset. And he calls Uriah, What are you doing? Go home, enjoy your wife. No, I cannot do this. So David had to have another plan. And he gets out his paper and he writes a note to to Joab the the captain of the Host.
00:20:28
And he signs it and he seals it, and he wraps it up and and gives it to Uriah. Says Uriah, take this message to Joab and go back to the battles of the Lord. And so he takes the letter. He gives it to Joab. Joab reads the letter and it says, put Uriah right at the front of the hottest battle. I want Uriah dead. And so Joab folds up the paper, puts it in his pocket, and he makes a battle plan.
And he puts Joe Hiraiah, the Hittite, at the front of the battle and says go up to the wall of this city and fight against the city. And now if you go up against the wall of the city, people are throwing things down and they're shooting arrows down from the top of the the wall. And he puts Uriah the Hittite right up there at the front of the battle. And guess what, Uriah? He gets killed. He was shot with an arrow and he died. Well, the messenger comes back to David to tell him all about the the battle.
So what had happened? And he tells him.
That the the battle, it didn't go very well for us. We went up to the wall here and it got shot and.
Your servant says in verse 21.
Says thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead. Verse 22. So the messenger went, and came, and showed David all that Joe have sent for him. And the messenger said unto David, Surely the men prevailed against us, and came out unto us in the evening into the field, and we're upon them even unto the evening, entering of the gate. And the shooter shot from off the wall upon thy servants, And some of the King's servants be dead. And thy servant Uriah the Hittite, is dead also.
David didn't like the fact that his men were killed. But when he heard the message that Uriah the Hittite was dead, also he had a little relief in his heart. Now he can continue with his plans with Bathsheba. And so there was a time of mourning when when they grieved for Bathsheba, grieved for her husband, the death of her husband and when that time was overlook in verse 26. And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead.
She mourned for her husband and when the morning was passed, David sent and fetched her to his house.
And she became his wife and bare him a son. But the thing that David did.
Displeased the Lord.
It was a terrible thing that David did. First, he committed adultery. First he looked on the woman.
Then he committed adultery and then he murdered Uriah.
Now he was. Now he felt he was free to marry this woman.
And so he married Bathsheba. And then it wasn't long after that.
Nathan the Prophet. He comes and knocks on the door of David. David answers the door and there's there's Nathan. And Nathan told David a story, a parable. A parable is a story that has a meaning to David. And so he told him this story and in verse one of Second Samuel, chapter 12.
Middle of the verse says there were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing save 1 little you lamb. So the rich man, he had many many animals, many sheep, many goats, many cattle. But the poor man had only one little lamb, And he bought the lamb and he nourished it up, and it grew, grew up together with him and with his children.
And so he had children, and he had this little lamb, and it grew up with the children, and they fed it, and it. It ate of the poor man of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. So he he appreciated this little lamb. It was like a pet. Some of you have a pet dog, or you have a pet cat, and you like that. Maybe some of you even have some some sheep. But this poor man had one little lamb, and that's all he had.
00:25:05
Well, there came a traveler in verse four. There came a traveler to the rich man, and the rich man he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd. He wasn't going to take some of his many animals to to feed this traveler. And so it says.
He to dress, dress for the weight bearing man that was come unto him. He took the poor man's lamb and dressed it for the man that was come to him. And so he takes the poor man 1 little lamb, and he kills it and he cooks it and he serves it to the visitor who had come to his house. He didn't use his own meat, he used the poor man's food. Now the poor man had nothing. When David heard this verse 5 David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan.
The Lord liveth. The man that hath done this thing shall surely die, and he shall restore the Lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.
David was angry. He was not happy that this man, this rich man, had done this injustice to the poor man.
And then Nathan said something to David. He said, David, you are that man.
David said what? At first he was shocked.
And then he realized that that story about the man and his poor, the poor man and his lamb, was a story about David and Uriah and Bathsheba. David was a rich man. He had everything he could want. But he lusted after another man's wife, and he took that other man's wife, and he killed Uriah. David realized the story was about him.
David said in verse 13 Second Samuel 12, verse 13 David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.
I have sinned against the Lord. David saw his sin.
Do you see your sin?
Or do you think it's just nothing? Maybe you haven't done something as bad as what David did?
But do you see your sin? David then prayed to God.
And if we go over to Psalm Chapter 51, we'll see the prayer of David Psalm 51.
And verse 3. And David he says here he's written this Psalm is about the time when he he was repenting from this sin.
With a with Bathsheba against Uriah. And he says, I acknowledge, for I know my my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. David saw what he had done. He saw that it was sin in the eyes of God.
David could hide this sin from the rest of the nation of Israel, the only other person who knew about it, and perhaps was Bathsheba.
But David could not hide his sin from God, and it may be that you have some hidden sin in your life.
And you think nobody knows about it? Your wife doesn't know about it. Your mom or your dad, they don't know about it. You have that sin hidden.
But you can't hide your sin from God.
When you open up yourself and you see your sin like David did.
If you do not hide anything from God, that is a big step towards forgiveness. Let's go to 1St John chapter one.
After you see your sins.
You need to admit it.
And to confess it, just knowing that you're a Sinner, it's not going to solve your problem. You need to admit that you're a Sinner. You need to confess your sin. There there was once a young man. He had a bad sickness, and it troubled him very much. And for a long time, this young man, he was afraid to tell his family about this sickness that he had because he was ashamed of his sickness. And one day he saw that his sickness was going to kill him.
00:30:03
And so he was dying, and he went to his family and told them about his sickness and told them that he was dying. And so his family, they took him to the doctor, took him to the hospital, and there he uncovered all the details of his sickness to the doctor. And the doctor had some medicine that that would cure him. So he gave him the good medicine and the man became well.
This is like confessing our sin.
We are ashamed of our sin. Our sin is killing us. Our sin is taking us to hell.
To the lake of fire. Can you imagine yourself when God says I don't know who you are?
And he says to his angels, take him, take her, and cast him into the lake of fire.
Can you imagine yourself being taken and tied up by the hands and the feet and being thrown?
Into the lake of fire, into the outer darkness, into the pit of hell that was prepared for the devil and his angels.
That's the sickness that we have, the sickness of sin. The Lord Jesus. He has the right medicine to heal you from your sickness of sin. First John one verse 7.
The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from every sin.
When we were in Malawi this last time, there were five of us there. And whenever, whenever somebody was getting ready to preach the gospel, they would always be told. Make sure you preach the blood, the blood. It's an important thing to preach about the blood of Jesus Christ. Why? Because of this verse. Look what it says. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from every sin. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus died on the cross. He shed his blood.
Because he wanted to take your sin away. But it doesn't just happen. You need to admit that you're a Sinner. You need to see your sin. You need to see your guilt. You need to confess your sin and say Lord Jesus, I am a Sinner, just like Peter when he came up to the Lord and said depart from me. I am a sinful man, oh Lord.
Do you admit, can you admit that you are a Sinner and you're guilty before God and that you deserve to go to the lost eternity in the lake of fire? For the Lord Jesus, He doesn't want that. He doesn't want you to go to the lost eternity in hell. And so he has sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this world to become a man. And he was born here as a baby, and they called his name Jesus, because he was going to save his people from their sins.
And the Lord Jesus lived here, and he grew up to be a man, and as a man he preached. And then when he became to be about 33 years of age, he went into the city of Jerusalem, and there he came to his own people, And his own people received him not they didn't want him. And so they took him, and they crucified him.
On the cross of Calvary they didn't want the Lord of Glory. They hated him.
They killed him.
Do you want him? Do you want the Lord Jesus tonight, or do you just want to crucify him to yourself again?
Lord Jesus, he loves you, and he was willing to come and die on the cross and to suffer for your sins there.
So that you would have a way of escape, a way for you to have your sins taken away, and the blood of Jesus Christ can take your sin off of the record.
And you can be free from your sin. Let's go to Hebrews Chapter 11.
So we talk about seeing our sin.
We talk about confessing our sin. We talk about turning away from our sin.
But none of this is possible without believing on the Lord Jesus.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You must have faith to be saved. And in Hebrews Chapter 11 and verse six it says, But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Are you going to come near to God today? Are you going to believe that Jesus is God?
Are you going to believe that Jesus went to the cross and took the punishment for your sin? Are you going to believe that if you will come near to the Lord Jesus, he will reward you? But you must come to him? You must come and seek him diligently. You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You cannot come to to to God without faith.
00:35:28
In Jesus Christ you cannot come to God.
Through Muhammad or Buddha or Hinduism or Mary.
For the priest, you cannot come to God with your own ideas.
First Timothy 2 and verse five. It tells us there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. You can only be saved through believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus makes it possible for you to be saved by faith.
Salvation by faith is a gift from God. We ought to like to get gifts.
We like to open them. Well, God has a gift for you. He has a gift for you. Ephesians 28928. It says by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Salvation by faith is a gift from God and it's a gift that's offered to you tonight.
And you can only get that gift if you come be leaving believe on the Lord Jesus.
Confess that you are a Sinner and you need him to save you. You need to realize that you cannot save yourself. It doesn't matter how good you are, you cannot earn your way to heaven. Let's go to Jeremiah chapter 31.
Stop.
Jeremiah chapter 31 and verse 34.
I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.
When you put your trust in the Lord Jesus.
God Forgives you, and then He takes away your sin.
God does this because Jesus paid for our sins.
His death on the cross is the sacrifice for our sins and when we believe on the Lord Jesus.
God washes our sins away with the blood of Jesus Christ. God Forgives our sins.
He remembers our sin no more.
When we were in Malawi, we handed out a lot of gospel tracts.
And I got a lot. I got a number of responses from those tracks.
And I get letters from pastors and from other people and they say.
We like these tracks. We want more of them. Can you send me, And I've gotten these ones, they want me to send them a a gospel message every day And somebody and some they want to know more, deeper gospel, more teaching from the Bible. So the first thing I write back to them and I say, OK, first I want you to answer a couple of questions. I want you to tell me how can a person be saved? And a lot of them answer that question fairly well. But then I asked them a second question and I say.
If you were if there's a man who is a believer, he knew the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior. He had eternal life. He was a child of God and he had an argument with his wife and he went off on the on the minibus and he came back and he and there was an accident and he died before he got home and he had not had time to reconcile with his wife. Where would that man go? Would he go to heaven?
Or to hell. And why? I always get the same answer. He would go to hell even though he was a child of God and he believed he would go to hell.
Is that the kind of a God that we have? A God that says if you believe you will have everlasting life and then he'll take it away from you if you sin again. That's not the God that I have. It is impossible for God to lie. If God would would take away my salvation because I forgot to confess one sin, this book is worthless. We may as well burn it in the fire.
00:40:08
But God cannot lie, and he has written these things in the Word of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
And when He gives you eternal life, he wants you to know that you will never perish. It tells us in John chapter 10. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. And nobody, not even yourself. You cannot take yourself out of the hand of God. You're in the hands of the Lord Jesus in your double safe, because you're in the hands of the Father and there are no greater hands in the universe. Nothing can take you out when you are saved. When he gives you eternal life, you can never lose.
Your salvation and God says in this verse here I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember.
Their sin no more. God will never bring your sin up again. It is sometimes difficult for us to understand. OK, I get saved on this day.
And so all my sin has been taken away, washed away in the blood of Jesus up until today.
But it's maybe hard for us to understand. How can God take away a sin that I haven't done yet?
Or if I sin tomorrow, is that sin covered by the blood of Christ? Or is it not? And do I have to get saved again? Does Jesus have to die again for that next sin? But so what's the story here?
The blood of Jesus cleanse that verse we read in First John 17. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from every sin. It doesn't matter when the sin was committed, today or tomorrow, that sin is covered. The Lord Jesus took them all on himself. How does God know what I might do tomorrow?
If I might sin, he knows the end from the beginning. We're told in Revelation. He's the Alpha and the Omega. He's the beginning and the ending. He knows the end from the beginning.
He knows your whole life. How did he know that I would even be born?
4050 years ago. How did he know that 2000 years ago he died? How did he know I was going to be born and I was going to be a Sinner and that I needed to be saved? But he knew that before he even created this world.
He is God. He knows, and he knew every sin that you would ever commit from the day you were born until the day you die in the future. He knows every sin.
And they were all put on Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ suffered and died for your sins. And his blood was shed, the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus says, I will remember your sin no more. They're gone.
He will never remember them. If God doesn't forget he's God, He can't forget, but he chooses to wipe them off with his blood to take them off your record so you don't have those sins on your record anymore. Let's go to Luke, chapter 13.
I want to talk a little bit about repentance, because repentance is an important part of the salvation experience. Because repentance and believing, they go hand in hand, believe and repent. And repentance I think is also part of the evidence that you are saved and so.
If you have not turned away from the habits of your sin, some of you may be are saved or think you're saved, but yet you go home tonight and you continue on in some of your sins. You don't stop them. You go back after the conference and you continue on with your sin, and it becomes a habit to you and the habit of sin. And so if you have not turned away from the habits of your sin, you have no guarantee that you are saved.
Some people say, Oh yes, some say, but their whole life dishonors God. How can this be? It is because they have not repented. And Luke chapter 3 and 13 and verse three it says, I tell you, nay, except you repent. You shall all likewise perish if you have not turned away from your sin.
You probably are not saved.
Whether a person is saved and has fallen into sin, or the person is not saved and he's lost in sin, repentance will follow the same pattern for either one, and I want to look at some of the points that give evidence of salvation or evidence of repentance. So let's go to Acts Psalm 51.
00:45:13
We have to go a little faster because we're kind of running out of time here.
OK, first of all, when when there's true repentance, there's going to be an admission.
Of guilt and in Psalm 51 verse four it says this is David again. And David says I have sinned, I have done evil. David confessed it all, he didn't hide anything and when a person holds back the truth.
Or he tells you only part of the truth. Or he makes excuses. Or he finds faults with other Christians. Or he then he or she, He is not repentant, But when a person is truly repentant, he will confess the full extent of his sin. He won't confess just the part of a sin in which he got caught. Go over to Proverbs 28, Proverbs 28.
And verse 13.
And this is another point when there's when there's true repentance, a person desires to make a complete break from his sin.
So repentance is turning around on the basis of truth and going in the opposite direction, Turning around on the basis of truth and going in the opposite direction. That's repentance. And in Proverbs 28, verse 13 it says he that covers his sin shall not prosper, but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy. Forsaking sin follows the confession of sin.
Both the confession and the forsaking of sin shows true repentance.
The desire to forsake the sin and to get completely away from the sin.
And to stay away from the places that cause you to sin.
That will be noticeable to other people. Some people ask, well, how will you know that I'm repentant? It will be evident in your life. Go back to Psalm 51.
And this is their Third Point. When there's true repentance, the spirit will be broken. It will be humbled. And look what it says in Psalm 51 verse 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, a contrite that's humble. The broken and a contrite are a humbled heart. Oh God that will not despise. When there's true repentance, you will find that a person will show emotion. Sometimes people are are in unemotional.
But I believe when someone has committed sin and they get saved and there's repentance, I believe that there will be some emotion. Because one time he will have grief about his sin and he'll be concerned about his sin. He'll be humbled about his sin. Are you concerned about your sin tonight? Are you grieved about your sin? Are you humbled about your sin? Do you have a broken heart because of your sin?
When you repent, when there has been repentance, there has been forgiveness. Why Then you will be happy because you will be released from the burden of your sin. Do you want that freedom from the guilt of your sin?
With true repentance, a person will not be defensive. He will not blame others. He will not be angry. He will not be bitter or proud.
A person with a heart of shame and repentance. He does not make demands on other people. He doesn't make demands of God.
He doesn't expect to be treated in a certain way if he's truly repentant.
A broken.
And repentant person, and a humbled person with a broken spirit.
He's grateful just to be alive.
Let's go to Romans chapter one, chapter 5.
Romans chapter 5.
Another point about repentance.
Is that when you are saved?
You will be able to accept God's forgiveness.
And this gives and maybe you are saved, but you have something in your on on your conscience and maybe you live with guilt. You are saved and you and you have difficulty to overcome the ability to overcome the guilt. But when you accept, when you have truly repented and you have accepted the forgiveness of God, this gives you the ability to overcome the guilt.
00:50:20
And there are some sins that leave a person with tremendous guilt. That's very difficult to overcome.
Especially sexual sins.
Or or some sins that might physically hurt somebody or emotionally hurt somebody. And so you need to claim God's forgiveness for yourself so you won't suffer from guilt.
Romans 5 verse one.
Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you want to have peace with God tonight? Maybe you're worried about your sins. You can have peace. You can have peace. When you come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you are saved. You are also justified. And that means that the blood of Jesus Christ has washed away the record of all your sin that you've ever committed. It's gone. It's covered with the blood of Jesus Christ. If the Lord Jesus were to look at my record of all the sin that I have ever done.
It would be covered with the blood of Christ to be wiped clean.
And when there's nothing on my record, I have no guilt. Yes, if you are guilty of doing something bad, you may be forgiven, but you still know that you did that thing and you still have maybe guilt when you're around the person and you and you shy away from them a little bit. But with God, he can justify you. That's what it means to be justified. He takes your guilt away. He takes the sin away, the blood washes the sin away, and he takes the guilt away with it. And he can't call you a Sinner anymore because you've been made the righteousness of God.
In him. And so we have been made righteous. The believer is righteous, so when your repentance is complete, you can claim forgiveness for your own if you still suffer from guilt.
If you're a believer and you still suffer from guilt.
Your repentance maybe isn't complete, or maybe you haven't. Maybe your faith has been slow to claim your forgiveness.
But when you claim your forgiveness from God, you will have peace with God, and that's what our verse says, being justified by faith.
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
When you have.
True repentance God permits you to enjoy.
Your righteousness and your justification. Let's go over to last verse in Psalm 64.
Psalm 64 verse 10.
The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust in him, and all the upright in heart shall glory.
One thing that the prophet Nathan told David his friend is this. He says the Lord has put away your sin, you shall not die. You remember David when he he proclaimed the judgment on that man who who ate the lamb of the poor man. He said he will restore fourfold and he shall surely die.
God was gracious with David. God knew that David had repented, and he forgave him. And the Lord has he. And so Nathan said to David, you shall not die. But you know what? With sin there is consequences of sin. You know there is a man in Malawi.
One day he had one day. One time he had an affair with another woman.
One time, 10 years later, sometime in there, he had gotten saved.
And ten years later, he was planning a wedding. He was getting married.
The Lord had forgiven him. He was saved. He was going to marry a nice Christian girl.
Before he got the marriage, he had to go get a blood test.
00:55:01
And it came back. He had HIV, AIDS.
The marriage was cancelled.
That man, he sinned in that way one time.
And he has to live with the consequences of his sin for the rest of his life.
All sins are forgivable when they are confessed.
And forsaken.
But some sins carry tremendous ramifications. You may suffer the consequences of your sin for the rest of your life.
David suffered the consequences of his sin. He suffered for the rest of his life, and he hated the day that he jumped into bed with Bathsheba.
To start with the child that David had with Bathsheba.
It died.
And then his whole life was filled with war and conflicts and deaths in his family. He had to suffer four of his children dying because he killed.
He murdered Uriah the Hittite and David suffered coup attempts.
On his Kingdom.
David suffered the consequences of his sin.
Until his death, the Lord didn't even let him build the House of the Lord. That was one of the consequences of his of his bloody, violent life.
But through all the consequences of David's sin, all the consequences that he had to deal with, David was at peace with God, knowing that he was righteous in the eyes of God.
David did not suffer from guilt. He was forgiven, he was justified and so he could write God. He had justified and God had taken his guilt away, and so he could write again. I'll read this verse. Psalm 64, verse 10. The righteous David's writing about about his experience here He says the righteous shall be glad in the Lord and shall trust in him, and all the upright in heart shall glory.
David knew that the God of Israel had forgiven him and had blessed him in grace.
Nathan had told him, David, you're not going to die at this time and so David was allowed to go on living.
Guilt free.
Would you like that? Would you like to live guilt free? Would you like to have your sin taken away off your record with the blood of Jesus Christ?
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You can do it tonight. You can do it right now, while you're sitting in your chair.
Say Lord Jesus.
I'm a Sinner. I've tried all I can do, but I can't be good. I can't do enough to save myself.
Lord Jesus, you have done it all.
Can you do that? Asked the Lord Jesus to save you.
If you want to be saved tonight, I'll be around for a little while. Come and talk to me. Or talk to the person who brought you here. Don't delay. You need to be saved tonight. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, will cleanse you from all your sin. Let's sing that. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus #32 What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And look at verse 2 for my cleansing this I see nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my pardon. This my plea. Do you want to be pardoned from your sin tonight? Do you want to have the guilt of your sin taken away?
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. What can wash away my tear loving my?
No longer found thine stone. Not because the wild dreams are.
Let's pray on Friday night.
To love you.
Must Fall crashed downstairs below.
That makes me white, I swallowed.
No other, no flying long.
You have a choice. We either believe on the Lord Jesus and be saved tonight. If you want to do that, speak with me.
4 You can forget that choice.
Walk out that door and take your chance.
If you already know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
You can pray that somebody who is convicted of their sins.
Our God and Father, we give thanks for the gift of your Son, the Lord Jesus. We give thanks, Lord Jesus.
For being willing to go to the cross and to die there.
To take our sins upon yourself.
And to suffer and to be punished for our sin. Lord Jesus, we give thanks for all that you have done for us.
And then to be shaped so glow.
The blood of Jesus took pigs to our sin. Thank you, Lord Jesus.
We just pray for anybody who's concerned about their sin tonight with the concern about the guilt of their sin. Just ask that they would be saved tonight. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.
The Light of the World
Children—John Kaiser
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Oh come on, it's better than that.
Good morning.
You know, it is a good morning. I know that around 6:45 I woke up this morning and and the drapes in our hotel room were slightly open and looked outside and and my wife asked me what time it was and the next comment was well it doesn't look like it's going to be much sunshine today.
But that's just what we see outside.
We this morning.
Enjoy the sunshine, God's love. So it's a good morning now. We normally begin by singing.
From the HEMSI and we normally focus on the Backpage but we'll take suggestions from elsewhere. Does anyone have a choice as the song is together?
What number?
Number six, OK, let's take a look. Number six.
Uh, we'll just sing the first and last verse of #6.
God in mercy and in unto our world, like in the dark Jesus Christ.
Christ was roofing by 1 forcing.
That was a good choice because it relates to our verse this morning. All right, here's another hand. Yes.
Remember.
He wants to sing the wise man. I don't think that's on the hip sheet, but we can sing it anyway. I hope everybody here remembers all the verses. Let's try it. Good.
The wise man built his house upon the rock. The wild man built his house.
On the rock, the wise man built is out upon the rock, and the rain is coming down. The rain came out and blood came up. The rain came down as the planet here is from rain every time as the flood, and the house falls in the rocks there.
The blood came on the rain came down at the blood came up. The rain didn't come back to flood gave and the house on the same belt right. So if you'll build on bright to meet the rock. So if you build on brighter in the rock, so which you feel like right here is the rock, you'll be free when the judgment comes.
00:05:10
You will get sick when the judgement comes. You will be saved when the judgment comes on. You will be sick when the child's a problem. If you build 1 price the wrong. All right, it's time for a girl to choose a song.
Any girls choosing?
All right, 14 #14.
All right, let's sing the first and last verse of #14. Have you been to Chief before the cleansing? Are you washed in the blood of the land?
***** woman.
Are you watching the one of the light?
God in the blood, in the whole cleansing blood of the love.
Or your garden on the early white. And so are you born in the blood of life? That's a very important question. Will your soul be ready for the mansions?
Right. Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? I see boys and girls and men and women who are who got ready to come to meeting this morning, all dressed nice, clean.
How about the insight? Are your souls? Will your soul be ready? Is your soul ready for the mansion? Right? You know the Bible tells us that man looks on the outside, but God looks on the inside.
All right, how about another song?
Yeah #11 boy, we're really avoiding the back sheet this morning. That's all right.
#11.
Well your Iron Curtain sorry I got that last tune still sucking my mind. Well some someone else please start #11.
All in the storms of life when the clouds are open.
When the strong mind lifts and the Gables reign, will your eye color dress or Fern remains?
Way high to hear that is the full.
Will your eyes be all through the morning light long city of gold, and the horror bright? Will you anchor safe by the heavenly shore, when my sword starts by forever more?
00:10:21
Well, I tell you, boys and girls, something.
The grown-ups here, many of us anyway, enjoy singing these songs more than you do.
Because we've learned.
Over the years, what it is to have an ink in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's our prayer that each one of you will grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. And as you grow in the knowledge, grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll your appreciation, your enjoyment of these hymns will grow too.
All right, we have time for one more.
Yes #10.
OK #10.
Again, the 1St and last verse of #10.
There is awesome.
Uncovered. Uncovery.
All right.
Our God and Father, we thank you this morning for bringing each one of us here. We thank you for your faithful.
Wonderful love toward each one of us. We thank you for your word and thank you for your Holy Spirit. We thank you above all for the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us. We pray that each person in this room this morning might have his or her attention focused on the Lord Jesus Christ and solely focused, but there might be a heart hunger.
To know him better.
To enjoy more of what he is.
And we ask this and his precious name. Amen.
Now we had a memory verse. I know, I know for a fact that some people learned it. Who can tell me what the memory verse was for this morning?
00:15:04
Yes.
Very good.
Now we'll try to be systematic. OK, let's try to be systematic. We'll just go start right here. Go ahead.
OK.
What's that?
Like John 812. Very good. OK, I knew why we were looking at pills. You should not looking better. But she'll have the light of his life from 85. OK.
You don't know it. OK, How about you? Oh, you said it all right.
I'm glad you were all he defaulted me to not walk in darkness but has a lot of life. John night 12, OK.
That shall have.
The light.
John Wright.
OK, and the light of the world, she that follows me to the networking darkness and with the light, light of life.
Very good. I am the one as a world. He that follows thee shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. John ate 12. Very good. OK, I remember learning this verse. The child.
When I was very young, I learned this verse too. A memory verse. I said it in Sunday school. So let's open our Bibles to John 812.
Pardon. Did I skip some? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
OK. Anybody else?
I'm not seeing real well on the end. OK, You fell. Yeah.
Considers I am the light of the world.
Neither followed me.
Shall not walk.
But you'll have.
The light of life.
8, 12.
Very good. Anybody else? I don't like to miss anybody. I remember and when I was in study school I learned the verse and I got missed once a week or twice and it bothered me. Never forgot it.
But you know who cares more than you do?
Cares more than your parents. Sometimes you wish your parents didn't care that much. I'll tell you somebody who cares more than you do whether you learn the verse, and that's the Lord. You know that God wants us to have His word in our hearts and our minds all right now.
Let's talk about this verse for just a minute. I want to give a very simple lesson on it. John chapter 8 and verse 12.
Notice what the the whole verse is. Then spoke Jesus again to them saying.
I am the light of the world. Jesus said these words. I am the light of the world. Think what it was to be standing in the presence of the Lord Jesus, a man who looked like an ordinary man, and he said, I am the light of the world. I wonder how many people when he said that, looked up to Winseck. There's the sun up there.
But Jesus was greater than the sun. Jesus said I am the light of the world. He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Do you know why the Lord Jesus said I am the light of the world? Because it's possible to be in physical sunlight and still be walking.
In darkness. Now I want to just, uh, just to help us understand a little bit about this. Some time ago I made-up this whole sign here. It's a little illustration of the effects of light, and you'll see why in a minute. Who wants to read this? Front side for me? Gotta read. Yeah, Good, good. Read the front side here. Jesus said I'm the lightest of the world, Jesus.
00:20:10
Followed me shall not walk in darkness, but shall but have the lifeline, right? You can read that because there is light here. Now, just to get the idea of the contrast You see, we're in the light. We can see things, we can comprehend things. We have communication. Who wants to read the backside of this sign? Who's going to volunteer to read the backside? OK, well, I'll try you.
I can't read it. Can't you? No, this is the difference between light and darkness.
Once called, we've got information, we've got communication, we have the word of God, and if you don't have that, you have darkness. Darkness.
You know, sometimes, you know, I learned this first when I was very young. I learned this verse probably 60 years ago. But some of the insurance, some of the importance of it, I'm still learning. For instance, it says here, whoever walks, whoever follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life, the light of life. What is the opposite? What do you suppose is the opposite of the light?
Of life. Think about those words. The light of life. What would be the opposite of the light of life? That's a hard question.
But we learn a lot by looking at words in scripture and thinking about what what the opposite might be. What is the opposite of the light of life? So try.
Darkness of what?
No, the the opposite of the light of light is the darkness of death. Death, yes. What an awful contrast.
The opposite of the light of life is the darkness of death. I want us to understand how important it is to have light from God. Now, why do I say it's important to have light from God? Because we all have light in this room. We Let me ask you a question.
Where does light come from? Where does light come from?
And the Bible gives us the answer, Where does light come from? Where does light come from?
Well, OK, yeah, it's interesting. You're right. The Lord Jesus says I am the light of the world.
But there's an interesting verse in the beginning of the Bible.
And I wanna S to think about these words Genesis chapter one, it says, umm, in the beginning, of course, the very the very first verse that God created the heavens and the earth verse two says, and the earth was without form and void. That means it was empty and shapeless and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved on the face of the waters. And God said God said, let there be light, light.
Comes from God.
Now, you know, we live in a world that has all kinds of life. We have sunlight, we have moonlight, we have incandescent light, we have, uh, electric light, we have candles, we have, umm, all sorts of sources for light. We have lights on our cars, We have some people carrying, uh, flashlights. There's all kinds of lights, but in the beginning, light came.
From God.
And it's possible to be in physical light and not be in morally. I'm going to make a statement here that's kind of interesting. I ran across a book recently written by a man who is.
A study of the universe. I'm trying to think of the term, he said. He's the whole of creation. He made an interesting statement. He says. We're interested, we we think in terms.
Of the universe being governed by.
Physical principles. But he says the universe is governed by moral principles. The universe itself is governed by moral principles. And there's such a thing as moral life as well as physical life. And all light comes from God now.
Umm, I want to illustrate further.
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The significance of having.
Life umm I need 2 volunteers.
Two volunteers. Well, umm, you've been a good volunteer this morning and, uh, I'll give you a try here. OK, You, you two come up here.
And what's your name? Your ****? And you are Julian. Now I need one person to volunteer to be blindfolded.
Oh, no, it's funny. You 2 Are you only been blindfolded? Oh, OK, good. All right.
Now.
I'll make it worth your policy, don't worry.
Now, can you see anything? You can breathe though, and talk. That's good. You can't see anything. Are you in a room full of light? Yes.
Yeah, now let's, uh, let's go for a little walk here.
Umm, now I'm gonna, I'm gonna turn you loose here. I want you to, uh, head for the door.
Are you sure you'll see?
OK, that's good. Is that is that the way you like to travel? No. Now let me ask you a question. You are in light right now, but were you walking in light or walking in darkness?
Yeah, that's because you see, it's, it's one thing to have light outside but not have light inside. We receive light through our eyes. And there are people who walk in darkness, but even though they're in the light, they walk in darkness because the light doesn't get inside. Now I'm going to show you one other interesting step over here. I want everybody to be able to see this here. Umm, I have something in my pocket here.
This is a another kind of dramatic demonstration, I think of umm.
The difference between having light and darkness.
You know what that is?
Oh yeah, you weren't supposed to say that. You're supposed to say yes or no.
Now let's take this thing off, Clint.
You see us holding in front of your face.
With with that of interest to you.
Great to see you.
Because you were blind and you couldn't say thank you very much for those illustrations. Both of you sit down. You got you're welcome, you got your reward there. Now want to talk? Just read some scriptures to help us understand when God said let there be light, he wanted every kind of light, not just physical light, but he wants us to have light in our lives. You know the verse said the Lord Jesus here says.
I am the light of the world. He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall now tell me if I'm reading, if I'm saying this right. He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall walk in light. Is that what it says? What does it say?
Have the light, you know, this amazing thing. We have the privilege of not only walking in life, but we have the privilege of having it. Just like Flint there has the dollar bill.
Just like Julie has the dollar building, it's something we can receive. We can have the Lord Jesus that he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Well, how does that work? Let's look at some verses and there's lots of verses we could look at, but our time is about up. I want to read some verses in.
First Corinthians The 2nd Corinthians, chapter 4.
2nd Corinthians chapter 4 it says.
Verse 3.
If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them who are lost. Now I have a Pennsylvania. I have an idea and Clint can tell me if I'm right or wrong. Right or wrong, Clint, what would you have done if somebody had yelled fire and you had that bandana on?
00:30:23
You probably would have run around in circles. Yeah, I think actually you might have yanked the bandana off. But if you left the bandana on, Yeah, you wouldn't you, You weren't. You obviously weren't sure where you're going. The gospel is hidden to those who are lost. I want to tell you something this morning. If what we're doing here, if what we're about here.
Doesn't mean anything to you. It's because you're lost.
It's a terrible thing to be lost.
And it is possible to be lost and not know. I I used to work in a department store and I saw lots of boys and girls get separated from their parents. Who do you suppose realize 1St that the child was lost? The mother and the child?
Who do you think?
Generally speaking, I think it was the mother.
The parent, yeah, the childhood, I remember being up in the toy department of of a Lazarus department store, big toy department, and the parents be walking through there and the kids would get focused on something. And the parent, the child didn't realize that he or she was separated from the parents. But the parent, which her own is, oh, Johnny or whoever, you know, Heron music conscious of it first, you know, God, God knew.
That we're lost. He says that the gospel is hid and hid to those who are lost, in whom the God of this world has blinded the mind of those who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. Where we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ the Lord and ourselves. Your service for Jesus sake, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness.
God can do that, and God can give you life.
God, and we need that money.
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined.
In our hearts.
To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the faith of Jesus Christ.
The light is something you can have in your heart. I want to ask you this morning, do you have that light?
In your heart, the light of the knowledge of God, you have that light in your heart. It's a wonderful thing to have that light.
In our hearts we can. That way you, you can be in a dark place and you're still lit inside. Well, our time is up. Let's just thank the Lord for this time. Together, our God and Father, we thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the light.
The world, the one who reveals your Lord.
His Love Constrains Us
Address—Don Rule
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254.
#254 Death and judgment are behind us.
Grace and glory are before all the billows rolled over Jesus.
There they spent their utmost power #254.
There they spent their utmost power.
First fruits of the.
Resurrection.
He is risen from.
The tomb.
Now we stand in new creation.
Free because.
Beyond our.
Jesus died, and we died with him.
Buried in his grave.
Grave we like.
One with him.
And presurrection.
Now in him.
In heaven's bright day.
Spray.
Our God, we're thankful to have a little more time to be together before they.
To have thy word open before us, and to we trust our God. Each one of us listen.
To what thou would have to say to us this afternoon.
For the good and benefit of our souls, most of all we would desire our God, that our Lord Jesus Christ.
Might truly be written upon our hearts by Thy word. And so we seek Thy blessing. We ask for it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen.
Turn with me to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.
For the love of Christ.
Constraineth us.
Because we thus judge that if one died for all.
Then we're all dead.
And that he died for all that they which lived should not henceforth live unto themselves.
But unto him which died for them, and rose again.
I feel constrained to take up the same subject that for which some remarks were made yesterday, a little more slowly and perhaps a little more completely.
So we'll be saying some things that were said yesterday.
The love of Christ constrains us.
It's a wonderful thing to have His love, and that's what's emphasized here. It's not my love to the Lord.
It's not your love to the Lord that's being brought out to hear, it's rather His love toward us that constrains us.
00:05:08
We'll look at a Old Testament example of a man that was not constrained by the love of the Lord.
And we see in it the illustration of the fact that in nature, that is, in the life in which we are born, man is not constrained.
By the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if in our daily lives, we are walking according to what we are in Adam.
Rather than what we are in Christ, we will not find him truly satisfying to our souls. We will not be in a practical way attracted in a a God-given way to the Lord Jesus.
As it says here, it speaks about immediately about death.
Then we're all dead. That is the point doctrinally here is that.
The Lord Jesus came and died because everybody is in a state of death toward God, not there are no exceptions to it. We were all, as it were, dead toward God in trespasses and sins. And that's why he needed to die for all, because there were no exceptions to it. And it's a tremendous thing, brethren, to recognize as we have in Colossians where we're having the Bible readings.
That the fact of our Christ's death for us but more beyond that our death with Christ that brings us is the song that we just sang brings us into a new creation. I've enjoyed recently and a few here not very many I think I've heard some of these at least before, but I recently started to make a list of some things that.
We were.
Once and now, through the Lord Jesus Christ, we are something else. So I'm going to briefly make a few set of statements that have to do with the fact that we were children of Adam.
And now in Christ Jesus.
We belong to a new creation which is the other side of death. Life for us truly began the other side of death. And so we see the Lord Jesus Christ coming into the world.
And he goes and ends his life here at the Cross.
And then he's raised from the dead, and it's when we go to the cross in faith and accept that death and what it means, it brings us with him.
As part of resurrection life and new creation. So here's a set of statements that I trust you will enjoy as to what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you.
First one is.
The Son of God.
Became the Son of Man.
That through death.
We the sons of men.
Might become the sons of God.
He who had life in himself.
Came into this world.
And died.
That we who were dead.
Might be made alive.
And that forevermore.
He who had his.
Home, His existence in heaven.
Comes down to Earth.
That through death.
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We who were creatures of Earth.
Might have our home in heaven.
He who was perfectly righteous.
Become sin.
That we who were sin.
Might be made the righteousness of God in him.
He who was everlasting.
Becomes mortal.
That through death.
We who were mortal.
Might be brought into everlasting life.
Key that was eternally free.
Becomes a slave.
A slave, even to the point of death.
That we.
Who are slaves of sin?
Might be made eternally free.
He who was rich.
Rich beyond anything we could imagine.
Becomes poor.
Even to the poverty of death.
That we.
Who were poor?
Might be made rich.
He who is light.
Comes into the darkness.
In order that and through death.
We who are darkness.
Might become the children of light.
He who was near.
Dwelling with God.
Goes into the far country.
And in depth.
That we who were.
Far from God.
Might be brought near.
As near as he we sang this morning as we remembered him.
It's a wonderful thing, brethren.
To recognize the tremendous.
Act of the work, but again I say.
Every one of those things, that was the contrast.
Are on the foundation of the death of the cross. There's not a single one of those things that we just briefly commented.
Would be true.
Without a step, and without our being taken from the state of our own death into the state of life.
In which now we are constrained by His love.
Mm-hmm. Want to make a few remarks. We're not going to take the time to turn to the actual scriptures. I think we're all pretty familiar with it in this room.
But I would like to illustrate.
The fact that in nature we are not constrained by His love.
By the example of.
King Saul.
MMM, King Saul.
00:15:01
And David? David is a type of Christ.
King Saul is a type of.
The greatest?
Development, if you will, or the highest place that natural man can get to.
When David was a young man.
Somebody knew that he was very good with musical instruments.
And when Saul.
Was troubled by evil spirits.
They said, and we know on that and we know a young man that he could help you.
And so David is called.
To play.
He goes from his home and he goes to the palace of the king, and he plays for the king, and he helps them.
The music that he played.
Soothed his spirit.
And gave him relief.
I don't know how long that process went on, but from the record given, David eventually goes back home and cares for his father's shape.
Later on, when there's the matter of Goliath.
David is sent by his father to see how his brothers are doing and how the battle is going.
And.
You know the story.
Of his going out to fight Goliath.
I find it surprising that I guess not surprising that when he goes out to do it and he's already had his interaction with King Saul and he, Saul has given him the armor and he puts it on and then he takes it off and says no. And he goes out. Saul turns, I think, to Joab, but not Joab. But Salt turns to one of his men and he says, who is he?
Whose son is he?
He had been in the Presence, spiritually speaking.
Of Christ that is in the person, typically speaking, of David.
He didn't know him.
He appreciated what he did for him.
But he had no knowledge truly of that person.
The record goes on to say that he loved him.
And it's possible for the natural heart to be attracted in that far to the Lord Jesus, that it might even be said in a certain sense.
That there's love there, and it says of King Saul that he loved David.
Doesn't say loved him like Jonathan did, but it it indicates that he he loves him.
Saul is taken into the King's army.
And there's battle.
And.
Trouble begins at that point between David and Saul.
Because.
Saul hears after the conflict that.
David is slain his numbers and Saul had slain his, and David was receiving a greater amount of honor and praise from the people.
And Saul is jealous.
He's angry.
And from that point on, it says he eyes David.
And, uh, six later to kill him.
That's man.
Man will accept the Lord Jesus Christ.
Up to a point.
Until there's conflict.
Between what man is.
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As it says in our anniversary started.
That we should not live henceforth to ourselves, but unto him that.
Died and rose again.
Saul lived for himself, and so does every natural man. He lives for himself.
And Jesus Christ.
It can be looked at, it can be honored even, can be loved in some certain sense of the word until.
What he is stands in conflict.
To what the natural man is.
So it was in the case of the Scribes and the Pharisees.
They couldn't deny what this man was doing among the people and the wonder of some of his miracles.
But they envied him.
Then they don't. Natural man envies when someone else receives some kind of honor, some kind of recognition that they feel should be theirs.
They were the leaders of the people. They were the important ones among men.
In religious Israel and here comes someone that is a threat.
To their honor, a threat to their authority.
And there's MV.
And V leads to murder.
And so they crucified the Lord of glory.
I say this, brethren, because it has practical application to our lives.
Sometimes.
Unconsciously perhaps, but nonetheless very real.
There may be something that comes up in our lives.
That we want.
That we desire.
But in our hearts, we know it's in conflict.
With the place that Christ is in as having died.
By crucifixion to the world.
Something of the world, something the world has to offer, something that we would like of its honour, its glory or its possessions for ourselves. And so we aspire to them. And in our our souls it creates a conflict.
Because in that thing that we want, we desire.
It's something that the love of Christ doesn't constrain us.
The moment we lust after it, we want it, we go for it. It takes our eye off the Lord Jesus, and as long as our eye is upon that thing.
Our conscience, on the other hand, is uncomfortable, is not at rest.
But we can resent it anyways.
And be uncomfortable by it.
So it creates sometimes a conflict in us that we have to recognize and, uh.
Need to be brought into the presence of the Lord that we might properly live in new creation and properly live with, uh, our eye upon the Lord Jesus so that we are truly in everyday life constrained.
By his love.
I wanna go back again to Psalm 42.
And again, perhaps a little more slowly, to go over the series of Psalms.
To see how.
In God works in our lives to teach us.
To teach us to be constrained by His love.
Just to make it easier to follow or I'm gonna again call him Levi.
And so we're gonna trace a little bit of Levi. Levi is a Jew who is living during the coming tribulation.
00:25:09
And during this period in the Tribulation, Levi has been forced to leave the beloved city of Jerusalem.
And find some style outside where the temple is the place where God is to be met.
And he's discouraged.
These costs down.
By the circumstances of his life.
But he's looking to the Lord in those circumstances, and he's going through a process of learning something.
That will bring him into a state of joy, a state of happiness.
And no, we're not in his circumstances.
But every one of us in our lives.
Experiences each perhaps differently and individually and uniquely to our own personal life, but we have to go through the process of learning that.
The happiness of our soul.
Does not have to. Should not depend on.
The circumstances in which we presently are.
But many of us. Perhaps most of us.
Find very often our lives are.
Extremely Our happiness of daily life is extremely influenced by circumstances we're in.
Whatever they may be.
I look out the window and I say, oh, look at the weather.
I'm supposed to start up the road in 1/2 an hour or so.
Is my peace, my rest, and my soul dependent on what I see when I look out the window?
That that's the humanness of us. That's the tendency of our souls and here.
It starts out in Psalm 42. Levi says my heart pants.
My soul pants after the Oh God, there's a thirst in them for God. I trust in every one of us. There's a thirst in US for God. There is that within us which is attracted.
To God, we want him. I trust we all do. I'm sure we do. If we're believers, we do. We have to, because we have a life which plants for God.
He raises. Then he raises a question with himself. You know, a lot of our lives are spent.
In daily life, talking to ourselves.
We all go through every day to some measure in our thought processes, talking to ourselves.
As we think our way through the day, and so here he's thinking and he says, my soul thirsts and verse 2 for God, for the living God, When shall I come and appear before God?
Now he's outside the city.
He can't go in, in his circumstances of his life. Umm, we find him at the Jordan quite a reasonable distance away.
And but he's saying to himself, well, when is it going to be that I'm going to be able to come and appear?
Before God.
When is it going to be?
That this thing that's presently in my life.
Is going to change so that I may come and enjoy the presence of God in my soul.
My tears have been my meat day and night.
While they continually say to me, Where is thy God?
Other people observe your life and mine. They look at us. We interact with our brothers and sisters in Christ, our husbands, our wives, our children, and so on.
00:30:06
And sometimes.
Maybe we feel like they're saying to us.
Why aren't you happy?
Where's God in your life?
Where is he?
Why isn't he or why aren't you?
Satisfied right now?
Well, he, he, he experienced that feeling. Levi does he, he's kind of thinking.
I know what people think.
And, uh, maybe your neighbor knows what you think.
If you talk to your neighbor a little bit, I use a practical example comes to my mind.
A few years ago I had the privilege with some of my brethren.
Of spending some time in Israel on a.
Tour.
And every morning.
On the tour bus, we sang.
And it we add a little song book we sang out of.
Jim and Lorraine House have put together and one of the songs was.
Based on this is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice therein and be glad.
And every day we sang it.
Well, it turned out there was a period of about 3 days in a row when it rained.
Well, that doesn't, that dampens the tour when you're going to have outside things you do and so on it, it doesn't enhance your opportunities when it's raining all day, what part of your day?
And so about the third day.
Somebody made some remark out loud.
Concerning the weather of the day.
And the tour guide?
Who watched and observed the whole process every day said.
You're the people that sing. This is the day the Lord hath made. We will rejoice therein and be glad.
In other words, where is your God, or where are you with respect to your God?
You're saying it.
And it's true on nice weather days.
But is it true, equally true? Do they see it equally true? And so this person's Levi's downcast and he's, he's feeling the pressure, if you will.
He says in verse four. When I remember these things.
When I think about this.
I pour out my soul in me.
He's going over it inside himself.
As we all do, thinking about himself and his life and his circumstances and and.
He's not happy, not cheerful about it, He said. For when I pour out my soul in me, I and remember these things. For I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the House of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with the multitude that kept holy day.
So what does he do?
He thinks back over previous times in life.
That, he remembers, is happy.
Oh, I remember that conference that I went to.
Oh, such a happy time.
I remember when we went here and we had a happy time. I remember when the assembly where I am, happy days and so on.
And uh.
That's what he's doing. He's he's going back over previous periods of life.
00:35:02
I remember when my child was this or my child was that compared to what they are that I'm struggling with today and so on.
So then he asked himself a question. Verse five. Why art thou cast down on my soul?
Why art thou disquieted in me, hope in God?
Isn't that the answer?
Why? Why do I feel cast out?
I need to hope IN God.
For I shall yet praise him.
For the health of his countenance.
He's not praising him.
He's saying I shall yet.
This cast down is in that condition of Seoul that he he thinks about the past.
And remembers happy days.
He says to himself, Hope, Indiana, God.
And then he says I shall, yeah, sometime in the future.
I'll praise him.
But verse six shows he still cast down. Oh my God, my soul is cast down.
Therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, from the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. This is where he is. He's at this distance from what he wants to be and have in the beloved city of Jerusalem, where he can approach the temple and go into worship God in his house, which he can't do. And so he's saying, well, I'll, I'll remember you.
I'll think about you, God.
Even though I'm cast down.
Verse 7.
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts all thy waves, and thy billows are gone over me.
We all.
I've enjoyed appreciated this verse in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's its highest meaning.
In connection with the Lord Jesus.
And particularly the Lord Jesus at the cross.
But in its connection here it applies to Levi.
As well.
Levi is going through a very difficult, painful process in his personal life.
And others with him.
It's not just Levi, really, it's the godly Jew of the remnant, but nonetheless is. We're applying it this afternoon. He's he's going through it.
Brethren.
We all mean, we all say.
That we wanna know the Lord Jesus better.
And the more we get to know him, the richer.
Will be eternity to our souls.
And I want to suggest to you that some of the painful.
Experiences through which you go through in your life.
Is part of God's way of teaching you.
What the Lord Jesus?
Felt as a man, not his atonement. Feelings on the cross. That's not for us.
But as a man who had a very difficult life.
As you experience, not just because of sin that you've committed.
But just because God has allowed it in your life.
And it's painful to you.
You are sharing.
A certain kind of experience that helps you to appreciate something of what he went through in the experiences of his own life.
00:40:09
And you will be forever grateful.
When you can look back.
On life in His presence that you experience that pain, that suffering, those difficult circumstances that God ordered.
In your life, not because you were doing something wrong or bad or a consequence of sin.
That brought his government upon you.
And that includes.
Going on with your brethren.
Or others in family situations which may be because of direct sin.
That has occurred in their life, but it affects shares.
The Lord Jesus was a godly Jew.
And he suffered in his life.
With the nation.
Because he was identified with them.
And lived among them.
And had a was part of a family.
And some of his family didn't understand him all the time.
In fact, none of them understood him.
Not a single one, including his mother, could fully enter in.
And so you may experience some of that, and it may tend to cast you down at that time, but when you see the end of the work of God someday, you will be profoundly grateful. We'll leave it at that.
He says here.
Yet.
God will command. He's still in the future tense here. He's saying, uh, hope Indiana God. And he thinks, well, I'll hope in God. So he thinks things he's going to hope in God. He's not enjoying it particularly, but at least he's got faith, which is essential. And he's looking at God and he's saying, well, hope and God, he's going to do something good in the future that's going to take care of this. And so he says in verse 8.
The Lord will command His loving kindness.
In the daytime.
Uh, my prayer is unto the God of my life, I will say.
Unto God, my rock. What does he kind of say? Oh, now everything is OK.
Now I I, I recognize God, my rock, and so I'm happy. I'm overcome.
This discouragement or depression that I feel, he says.
I say unto God, my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me?
I, I, I hope you're my grok.
Why have you forgotten me?
Why? Why do I go mourning?
Verse 10 They still say to me, where is thy God? Hmm.
And so he repeats where he's at and his soul in verse 11. Why are thou cast down on my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me? Hope and thou and God, for I shall yet praise him. It's going to be better somehow, some way, sometime. And when it is, I'll be able to praise Him.
From my heart with liberty, rather than maybe going through the words without the expression of my soul. OK verse chapter 43. We need to keep moving here.
Judge me, O God, and plead my cause.
Verse 2 For thou art the God of my strength.
Why dost thou cast me off?
Send out verse three, Thy light and thy truth. Let them lead me, Let them bring me unto thy holy hill. That's back to Jerusalem, to thy tabernacles, the temple.
Then will I go into the altar of God?
Unto the God, my exceeding joy. Yeah, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God.
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He acknowledges thou art the God of my strength. But he goes back. He's still thinking about himself.
He still is. Everything is respecting. If you'll see it, notice that it's with respect to himself.
Umm, didn't we read in 2nd Corinthians 5 that we should not live unto ourselves?
But unto him which died for us. But in this experience in which He's learning something, everything is in reference to himself.
And when we are in that condition of Seoul that's being described here, it's always that.
The center of our focus, the center of our attention, is ourselves.
That's natural, man.
He's always centered in himself and so here he's a believer, but his life is centered at this point. His thinking is centered this way and he says.
As it were, judge me.
If I could put it this way, what have I done wrong?
Look at me, Lord. I'm trying. I'm seeking to do right. I I'm trying to please you.
Chapter 44.
Verse One We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what work thou didst in their days and times of old. How thou didst drive out the hidden with thy hand and planest them. How Thou didst deflict the people and cast them out where they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arms save them, but thy right hand and thine arm in the light of thy countenance, because thou.
Hast a favor unto them?
Thou art my King, O God, command deliverance for Jacob.
Through thee we will push down our enemies, through thy name we will tread them under that rise up against us. For I will not trust in my bow, neither will I, neither shall my sword save me.
But thou hast saved us from our enemies. Thou hast put them to shame that hated us.
In God we will boast all the day long, and praise thy name forever.
He's looking at the experience of his forefathers and we could say we look at the word of God and we see how God delivered his people at different times in their history. And he could look at his people and see how they were delivered. And and he saw that the children of Israel didn't get from Egypt all the way to Canaan by their.
Strength of their army, by their power, by their own sword. They hadn't gotten through the wilderness. But he could look at the same record that we look at in the Old Testament and he could say.
You commanded deliverance for Jacob.
Umm, it's your power.
To do this.
I won't trust in what I can do. It'll be what you can do. There's progress in this, in this soul. There's progress with us when we do recognize that we're not going to be able to solve what needs to be solved in our own power, but there's needs to be the power of God and.
We are willing.
To let it be that way.
There's something in the human pride and desire that always wants to be the one that solved it and did it. But he's reached a point where he could see from the Word and so on that, well, no, we'll boast in God.
And what he does?
So it's solved, right? He's happy now, right?
Verse 9.
The Tawas cast us off.
Thus put us to shame.
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Thou goest not forth with our armies.
And the practical sense of it and his soul, he could talk about it. He could speak of it.
But that was them.
That that was Jacob, that was Moses, so that was Aaron, and so on. But me is me and.
You've put me to shame.
We're scattered verse eleven among the heathen.
Thou sellest thy people for naughty and thus increase thy wealth by their price.
You have to meditate a little bit on that verse, but.
And I'll leave it to you primarily to your own meditation, but.
Just this week got a fresh copy of.
Greet the friends.
Open it up, look through it. Particularly looking for one thing.
Particular place.
I looked down the list, a name is missing but I'm looking for.
Lord.
Lord.
Thou sellest thy people for nought.
That is, here's a soul that's lost.
To the enjoyment of collective fellowship.
In the presence of the Lord Lord, what did you get out of it? Did you gain by that?
It's a little bit of what this person is feeling.
Verse 13 Thou makest us a reproach.
To our neighbors, the scorn a derision to them that are about us. You ever felt that way?
For 17 All this has come upon us, yet we have not forgotten thee.
Neither have we dealt falsely with thy covenant. Remember, this is Levi the Jews.
Verse 18 Our heart isn't turned back.
Our names on the list.
Neither of our steps declined from my way.
21 Shall not God search this out?
He knoweth the secrets of the heart.
So he says in verse 23 he still.
Cast down? Well, you could say all that, but did it make him happy? Did it bring him into a state of personal enjoyment of the Lord himself? No, it doesn't. It won't.
So he says verse 23 Awake, Why sleepest thou, O Lord, arise, cast us not off forever. Why hideest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
Verse 26 Arise for help.
Redeem us for thy mercy's sake. Pretty discouraging.
He is poor Levi.
But the Lord changes it all.
In the 45th Psalm, Levi's heart has changed. Levi learned some lessons here that I trust each one of us learn that we might have a happy overcoming life.
Verse 40. Chapter 45. Verse One. My heart is indicting a good matter. I speak of the things which I have made touching the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the children of men.
Grace is poured into thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee forever.
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Say again a comment.
The brother and the Lord, Allen said to Willie.
Willie.
It's not about us.
It's about the Lord.
Levi finally comes to the point where he stops making himself the center of the reference point of his life.
And he puts his eye on the king.
For us, the Lord Jesus.
It's not about us.
It's about him.
And when he gets his eye on the Lord Jesus.
He finds something that gives pleasure to his soul.
He finds in his thought pattern that's changed from wire. Thou cast down, O my soul, and why are you asleep, O God? And I'll trust you. But what have I done wrong and whatever.
Uh, he has something good that satisfies him that he can think about and be occupied with, and he thinks about here. Levi thinks about the king. Thou art fairer than the children of men, he says. Grace is poured into thy lips, and his heart is constrained.
By his occupation with.
Someone else?
The Lord he looks in verse six. Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of the thy Kingdom is the right scepter.
Do you ever worry, do I ever worry that God isn't going to come out victorious, That the Lord Jesus is not going to have the last word?
That he is going to be overcome by the complexity of the problems that he faces, still faces, with respect to this world and its rebellion against Him. Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. Thou lovest righteousness, Thou hate us iniquity. He is occupied with what God thinks.
God's thoughts, God's purposes, God's plan, and he can say with that we should not henceforth live unto ourselves, but unto Him, while how's he doing for himself? Is it God doing all right today?
Is he managing the situation of what he wants to accomplish?
MMM MMM, that's 1/2.
In a few moments that are left, we see the other half.
Verse 11.
Roll verse 10, Harken O daughter, and consider incline nine year. Forget thine own people and thy father's house.
So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty.
For he is the Lord, and worship thou him.
Verse 10 Listen.
Hearken listen.
You've done enough thinking. You've done enough meditation on your situation.
You've rode and toiled over it by the hour, by the day.
And hadn't changed anything, but still, why art thou cast down on my soul?
He says OK.
Listen.
Let me talk, I want to say something to you.
Now you've had all your say and all your thoughts. Now I want to say something to you. Will you listen to me?
If needs be this afternoon, will you listen to the Lord for a moment?
Will you let him have the last word with respect to your life?
Your everyday life.
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You're beautiful to me.
You're beautiful to me.
I love you.
And you're precious to me. That's what the Lord Jesus wants to say to you.
I desire I.
Find desire in your beauty, in my sight, Your treasure to me.
Your clothing is rock gold.
He provided it for you. I love you. I provided that clothing for you.
You're clothed in divine righteousness. It's my work.
You're precious.
The love of Christ constrains us.
He wants to talk to us.
He wants us to wake up in the morning.
And enjoy his love.
To us, he wants us to know that we're precious.
Were important.
Makes all the difference.
And so time is up. Verse Psalm 46. I could put it this way. Circumstances don't change yet. They do change later, but not in the 46th song. The circumstances of life don't change. What changed? The state of heart.
The focus of the heart, the occupation of the heart. Levi changed.
Not anything else up to this point.
And generally, that's the big place where change is needed inside of us, not outside of us, in order for what God is doing to be realized in our lives.
And just to finish with one last statement.
The circumstances don't change necessarily, because the happiness of the soul doesn't depend on them.
Everything that the Lord Jesus brings out in the 45th Psalm is above and beyond circumstance, and there's nothing in circumstance that can take it from us if it's enjoyed in our souls.
Our circumstances can't take it from us. It's something that doesn't depend on them.
And it's wonderful. And so in Psalm 46 and verse 10, it says be still.
And no.
That I am God.
And I will be exalted.
Blessed be God, let's pray.
Our God, our Father, we just ask that the needed work in every one of our lives to make us more like our Lord Jesus Christ, that He might truly be written upon our hearts. Our God, that thou would take another step forward.
Not perhaps consciously so in us, but Thou knowest. And we just pray that that would work in every one of our hearts and lives.
That there might be an increasing appreciation of thyself.
And of thy love to us, Lord Jesus, that we with the.
Bridegroom.
Can say I am my beloved and his desire is toward me.
Thanks, Lord, my precious name. Amen.
Colossians 2
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Verse 13. And you being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in it.
Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink.
Or in respect of an holy day, or of the new mood, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come. But the body is of Christ.
Let no man beguile you have a reward, and a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment, ministered and knit together.
Increase it with the increase of God. Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world are you subject to ordinances? Touch not, taste not handle not, which are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men, which things have indeed a show of wisdom and will, worship and humility, and neglecting of the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.
Stop.
Well, we were speaking yesterday concerning versus 11 or rather 1011 and 12 That.
It is necessary to recognize our position as being dead and risen with Christ. There is such a thing as Christ's death and resurrection for us, but we need to recognize that that is our place with Him and thus in what we have in verse 13.
It brings us to realize that what were we before we were saved in? Both Colossians and Ephesians were seen as being dead.
Enrollments. It looks at us in a different way because there we are, if we might say it this way, alive in our sins, and we have the responsibility for what we have done. Well, that is very true. But in both Ephesians and Colossians we are seen as being dead. And what does a dead man need? There's only one thing that he needs new life.
And so we're quickened together here.
But it's beautiful again, same truth as we get in Ephesians where it quickened together with Christ. So it is not merely that God has given us new life in Christ, but its resurrection life. As Dawn mentioned in the address this afternoon, if you and I were dead and needed new life, the one who was life in himself.
And who did not need to die voluntarily went into death and came out of it again, in order that you and I might have not merely knew life, but new life in Him. And again, not to get complicated about it, but that's what distinguishes our wonderful position in Christ from that which the Old Testament Saints had. They had life, and there is no question about it.
They were born again, but they didn't have what Scripture calls eternal life. In that same way, they didn't have new life in Christ. And you and I are brought into that blessed position of having resurrection life in Christ. So if we are going to.
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Take the place that we have in verses 11 and 12. God has already brought us into that positionally.
But now, you might say, he wants us to take it practically and to live in the enjoyment of it.
The thought crosses my mind of the first Lord today, when the disciples were still so unbelieving and yet this great work had been done. They had died with Him, they were risen with Him, and now this blessing was totally done through his work, not with any cooperation of our own. And that I think that's the first thing to do in enjoying this place is, is to rest on the morning done and know that it is complete, even though in this lifetime we're ever.
Going to be failing to appreciate it as it would. This is a complete thing for the weakest believer that as the hymn was sung this morning, uh, breaking the bread. We're near, so very near. We could not be near. We could not be near to the heart of God.
The weakest believer could not be standing in a better place of favor than he has. And again, it's not through the slightest bit of work of our own. It's through his finished work. But that, that just, that's just the positional part that as we see now, uh, we're to live it out and enjoy it, but the first thing to do is to rest it.
I think it was mentioned before that light is quickening life that we receive takes on the character of the source from where it comes, and I would like to, just to illustrate this, compare the resurrection of Lazarus with the conversion of Saul of Tarsus.
When the Lord Jesus was here on earth and before the grave of Lazarus.
He stood there, a perfect man here on earth, a man that had not yet died, but had the power of of resurrection and life in himself.
And he could say to Lazarus, Lazarus come forth, and he came forth in a life like the source that he spoke the word. He was a life to live here on earth.
A little longer.
And that's the character of the life that Lazarus had. But when the apostle, when the Lord spoke to the apostle Paul from heaven, he was in, in heaven, in the resurrection life, and he could quicken a dead soul, Saul of Tarsus, and he would impart life to him. That's the character of the life that we have.
In Christ we're connected with a risen man in glory. I just mentioned as an illustration. They're both resurrection life, but there there's a difference in the character of them.
You can speak about resurrection, unless there's been death to begin.
Resurrection always takes place after there's been death.
And so there in our position in Christ, the life that we have is the life that's after that. It's a life that death can no longer touch.
Our bodies are still connected with the first creation where death ends everything.
But the light that we have in Christ is the light that death cannot touch. So it says, and it's interesting here. It's not exhortation here in these verses. We're thinking about in verse 13 and 12.
Good. Simply stating the fact of what is verse 13. We need death in your sins and circumcision of your flesh.
We're dead, I think.
You feel bad, not a matter of feelings, rather it's a matter of fact. This is regard to these now and then in verse 12, we're we're buried.
That's the way God sees it. It's completely gone out of sight.
But then comes the next part, you're risen with him through the face of the operation of God who raised him from the dead. So that the delight that we have now in Christ is the life and resurrection, wonderful, precious, true, done like you say, by the margin. If you don't understand that this is the case, how can you live in it? This is the case. And so many people, they don't realize this is my position right now before God.
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If you don't realize that, how can you live in it? So it's important that we understand that this is our position.
Hmm.
I remember Brother Glen Buchanan at a reading meeting saying the Christian life is to be what you are, to act like your position. I remember Brother Clem saying that.
Yeah. And as we had before us a little bit yesterday.
Sometimes we have to go through some difficult and perhaps very painful experiences in order for that truth to be brought home to our souls. In the Old Testament, Israel was positionally ready to go into the land as soon as they had gotten on the other side of the Red Sea. And there was great joy and there was singing, and there was a great deal of, shall we say, relief at the victory that God had won for them.
But then what happened? Ah, there had to be the wilderness. And to some extent, no matter who we are, the wilderness experience is part of our Christian lives. Yes, it's true that some have been taken home to be with the Lord very, very quickly after they have been saved and have had very little wilderness experience. Others have been left for a long time. But one way or another, it seems that all of us need some kind of wilderness experience.
In order to have it brought home to our souls that there is absolutely nothing good in that old dead flesh that we were born with.
It's well known, but I repeat it because it was a help to me many, many years ago now of an older brother was asked by a younger brother if you have any good advice for a young man starting out on the Christian pathway, what would you say? And some will recognize the source of this, but his answer was brother learn Well, 4 words and they're from John's Gospel chapter 6.
The flesh profiteth nothing, but it sometimes takes a very long wilderness experience, at least for some of us to learn that. And so Israel, as we said yesterday, had to go through the wilderness. And there were experiences they faced there which made them realize what they were in their own hearts, but thankfully they also learned what God was and then.
As we said yesterday, in type we have in Colossians.
The crossing of the Jordan, the recognition of my death with Christ, the being brought in to the land, but in association, as it were, with that risen man. And it's recognizing that in crossing that Jordan, I have really got a barrier between myself and the world. And so as Bob was bringing out what we have here in the 13th and 14th verses is what Christ.
Has already done in the 15th verse as well. It's the victory He's won for us. And by faith, you and I have the privilege of appropriating it. Not by trying to be something that we aren't, not by trying to do something that has already been done, but simply by faith saying, yes, that work has been complete and I am complete in Him.
Yesterday.
And we have considered by the word of God.
What Ross said about his beloved son. His word.
A person.
And I'm working day for.
And in verse 10 and we are complete in him which is ahead of the principality, all principality and power. And verse 13 he goes on to say, speaking to us.
And that's here I gather that this was the juice and the Gentiles. And he says a new being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh.
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Of course the Jews were circumcised, but the nation's law that he puts them all under in one category, he says.
Uncircumcision of your flesh. He put them all in the same condition. But he says then has he quickened. That means he has raised the mark. He has faith and forget about it.
And all have the same.
Thing given now forgiven you all trespasses. Later on he speaks more about the truth, but here he is just a bit dangerous. He thought that used hairdressers, Jews and Gentiles here.
I'm having the difficulty understanding the two umm these two expressions that have been used, eternal life and resurrection life.
Umm. And uh, I go back to.
John three first year. We all know well where it says about each.
Employee and have everlasting life, eternal life, and there it tells us about being born again.
And eternal place, as I would take it. From those verses comes the result of being born again. Correct me if I'm wrong and I hear those words that are.
When Umm Nicodemus says to the Lord.
Our, uh, our sentence to the Lord, how can these things be? And the Lord says, art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these things? Maybe he wouldn't do it for a minute.
Because it seems to me that in those words what the Lord is saying that being born a king was something the only way that a person could ever be saved from Adam on them.
Our cell. And don't you know, Nicodemus, that this is the way it is always mean. Jane, I need help on these things. So I'm just expressing my own what I see from, uh, from scripture, uh, show eternal life.
Is something that was obtained as a result of faith of any in the Old Testament.
Uh, am I right in that? And now, uh, from that we have, we've been talking about resurrection.
So in the Old Testament Saints and not have resurrection.
I don't believe so, Dave, at least not in the way that we have it presented. I just suggest that in John three the Lord speaks about being born again to Nicodemus, because here was a man who, being a master in Israel and who had, at least in an outward way, probably lived an upright life.
It seems that Nicodemus wanted the secret that somehow the Lord had, because deep down inside Nicodemus doubtless realized that in spite of his outward good life, everything was not right between him and God. And the Lord takes him up on the ground of the Old Testament Scriptures to the fact that as we get in more than one scripture, one is in Ezekiel 36 where it is very clear.
That God would have to give them a new heart before they could honor him and serve him. And so he takes Nicodemus up on that ground, pointing out that right from the beginning it was necessary for a man to be born again. And as you say, Dave, all of us need to be born and you are born again. But those, I believe what what he says to Nicodemus in the beginning of the chapter.
Are the earthly things that he mentions in verse 12 of John 3.
He says, if I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, that is the fact that man needed to be born again at anytime in man's history. The Lord says, how shall he believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And then He begins to outline heavenly things, not expounding them in detail, but for the first time in the chapter using the term eternal life. And I would suggest that eternal life is light.
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That is associated with a risen Christ in glory, and it is like that is lived out in the power of the Spirit of God.
And neither of those were true in the Old Testament. Now again, the Lord was anticipating, but if we come to the 20th chapter of John, we find the Lord Jesus as it were breathing into his disciples that resurrection life, as he breathed on them and said, receive ye the Holy Ghost. Well, we know that the Holy Ghost and actual fact didn't come down and indwell them until the day of Pentecost.
But he was communicating to them a new, a new kind of light that would characterize a new dispensation, a new way in which God was going to deal with man connected, I say, with the risen Christ in glory. No Old Testament, say, knew anything about that. And the indwelling of the Spirit of God, if we could say it on an ongoing permanent basis, no Old Testament sent you anything about that either. And so in that sense.
You never get the term eternal life applied to Old Testament Saints, but rather being born again needing a new heart. Very definitely. But it doesn't mean that you and I are not born again. We are because it's all a work of God that He begins by his Spirit and.
Implants that new life gives us the faith to believe and then.
When we appropriate it to ourselves, then Scripture uses the term that we are truly saved.
Is that right, Bob? Would you agree with that? Yes.
I find it helpful too to.
Realize that one expression is from John's writings, the other is from Paul's writings. And if you go to the first chapter, uh, I'm thinking about those that have received him.
It says in verse 13.
Which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. So that.
It's in contrast with natural light, and like Bill said, I could even have natural light because one of the people of Israel, the chosen race, but if he was going to be a relationship with God, he had to be born.
Again. But when you come to Paul's writings, he shows us as our natural condition, as death. Now what does the dead person need but life? And he needs to be.
Umm, raised from the death that's resurrection light is.
So that's what you have in both the Ephesians and Colossians, that we're dead, we're seen as dead, and then in Christ we are risen.
It's interesting the way it puts it in Ephesians chapter 2, just to look at it, it's quite connected with what we have here, but there is somewhat of a difference. Ephesians chapter 2.
And verse one it says you have to be quickened to were dead in trespasses and sins.
Verse 5 War. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, worthy love, death, even when we were dead in sins, had quickened us together with Christ like Mr. Estate, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together and come to places in Christ. So it's not only quickened, but it's raised up.
Not only given life.
When we were in depth, but it is completely taken out of that position of death.
Uh, Lazarus, when he was raised from the dead, he didn't continue to live in the cemetery because that's not the place for a living people when God there you give us new life, you know, only quicken us. He raised this completely out of that position of death. So here in Colossians 2 we have.
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Those two things again mentioned. It's interesting and, uh.
There's uh.
12 varied within in baptism.
Uh, where in also your risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who had raised him from the dead, and you being dead in your sins in the uncircumcision of your question.
He quickened together with him as they get those two expressions again.
Quicken and raised up.
Then in those fourteen, he goes around the same blocking out the handwriting of ordinances.
That was given us, which was contrary to us.
So that would mean the handwritten Law of Moses.
This is against us because it couldn't be kept.
So that way.
Was contrary to us and is contrary to us. We are not used. We never knew it anyway properly.
If he may have learned it.
And he takes it out of the way.
And the Lord Jesus by dying on the cross.
Took it away through the.
Giving his blood.
I have, uh, encountered another interpretation on that handwriting of ordinances. And there's a note of the Darby translation that seems to back that up. He, he has a note that says handwriting obligations, which a man is subject, uh, by his signature. And I have read that the expression handwriting of ordinances in the Greco-roman world meant a debt or like an IOU. And it's, that's one view. And I don't want to get into controversy, but.
What would some of the other brethren say is to as to that and it's referring to the law of Moses? Or is it just referring to Dex as the principle?
Well, I believe it is a reference back to the Law of Moses and.
At the end of verse 13, it says having forgiven you all trespasses. Well, you might say, how can a dead man even commit a trespass? In one sense he can, and we're looked at as being dead in trespasses and sins. But on the other hand, a trespass is.
Something that is done contrary to a Nolan law, isn't it? Sin is one thing, and sin was imputed before there was a law because there was God's moral law and God required it of man. But it trespasses something that is done contrary to a known law. And when God gave the law, as you say, Martin, God as it were, put his, put his signature on it.
Israel said all that the Lord has spoken we will do, and so man, we say man. But in Israel they were a sampling of man. They, as it were, said, Lord, just tell us what we need to do and we'll do it. Well, what happened? We all know the terrible mess into which man got himself as a result of trying to keep God's law, failing so completely that not merely did he fail to keep the law, but turned his back on the Lord himself.
And so here, I believe we find that all of that stood against man. Here was a man in the whole of the Old Testament under responsibility toward God, God, as it were, seeing if there was any good in the natural man and finding him totally and completely a failure. Well, now what's going to happen? How's it going to turn out? Man deserve judgment, both by nature and by practice.
But God blots out that handwriting. It's gone. He blots out. He acknowledged, as it were, all of that. By what? By death. He nails it, as it were, to the cross. Here on that cross is a Savior that is dying. And you and I are beyond that law. God doesn't abrogate His law. He doesn't take it away. But you and I are not.
00:30:18
A debtor to the law anymore?
Because we are so associated with Christ that the one who died on Calvary's cross, that law was nailed to his cross and we are associated with him. If he is dead and risen, so are we, if we could say it reverently. If the law no longer has anything to say to the Lord Jesus, neither does it have anything to say to us. Not that the law ever, ever had anything to say to him. In one sense, because He kept it perfectly.
But now.
He is beyond that law. As Don mentioned this afternoon, he was a good Jew and he kept that law perfectly. But now no longer is he subject to it, and we, as in him, are no longer subject to it either. We are beyond it, aren't we?
Those ordinances were directed to man in the flesh or the natural man here on earth and.
A man that's died and risen again, it has no words to speak to out there. He's already dead to it and alive in a new in a new life. And so it has it has no application. The Lord Jesus suffered there on the cross. It's interesting. It was that the teachers of the law describes and so on that nailed him to the cross. Hmm.
Lord Jesus.
Separate on the cross, you know that when he suffered very much, but at the same time he was triumphing over them in it because the those who had were exercising with the power.
And we are posing as the principalities of the Jewish nation there. They had faith.
So the Lord leads us by dying on the cross. He triumphed.
Over them he put them to shape. He made a show of them openly.
The people that saw him die there.
They didn't actually realize what was happening.
They might have started that now he was put out of the way that he actually triumphed over.
That what happened all the way.
It's interesting how when the book of Acts after the Lord's resurrection and they were left here on earth to be a witness to the Lord's death and resurrection, there were a lot of opposition against the early disciples there. They were commanded not to speak and teach in the name of Jesus and so on, but the Spirit of God delivered them and they put them in prison, and then the Spirit of God let them out again and told them to go back and preach.
It, it was an evident witness to the power of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and his power and sending the Spirit of God down and, and, and having authority now to deliver people from ******* of sin through the preaching of the gospel. And So what a what a victory it really was, the Lord Jesus triumphing over sin and death and hell.
Satan's power has been broken.
And could we suggest too, that if we read this verse, perhaps with the, uh, shall we say the subject of the sentence says God, then it's God working through Christ to do all these things. What had happened when man fell? Satan and I believe that ultimately his fallen angels are those principalities and powers in view here.
Yes, as our brother has remarked, the Jewish leaders were energized by Satan, and in that sense they could be seen to be part of it. But those principalities and powers were Satan's emissaries. And when man fell, Satan had a hold on man. Satan had something that he could point to. And when man puts himself under law, Satan can say, see, now you didn't keep it, see what you did, see where you're at, and so on.
00:35:15
And there is the constant accusation of Satan.
There's the constant using of man's lust in a wrong way. Uh, well, using a man's lusts against him. And all of these were against man all the way down to the cross. So what does God do? Well, as we've already already had, it looked as if Satan had won the day.
The Lord Jesus is God's Son, comes into this world, and man nails him to the cross. It looked as if Satan had won, but what was God doing? He was really spoiling those principalities and powers, annulling their power.
Triumph triumphing over them, you could say in it, but it could also read in him that is in Christ. God triumphed over all of that in Christ. How?
By death and resurrection. And so is the law still there? Yes, it is. Are Satan's host still out there? Yes, they are. But they don't have a hold on those who lay hold of where they are in Christ. And the fact that they have a life that is connected with a risen Christ in glory, then all of that that has to do with the law, that has to do with the light down here.
That has to do when man was under testing. But you and I are beyond all of that now. Satan didn't win. God won the day in Christ.
That's why now he's going on in verse 16.
To tell man how to look at that.
Let no man, therefore.
Therefore, he says the chronological.
Judge you in me or I drink, or in respect of an holiday or afternoon or after Saturday.
He mentioned that what what was very important to the Jews, the seven, they stayed with them. That was the principal holiday that they were keeping.
And the Lord Jesus even said, had said to them that he was greater than the Father. Now that's being brought out again here, that all these things, therefore they could not be used to judge anymore.
These have been done away all these ordinances and the reduce made excellence, as the Lord Jesus pointed out when he was still among them, but and they were accusing him of not holding these things.
These were now completely, therefore completely done away.
They had become shadows of things to come.
That the body is of Christ.
So those ordinances do not apply to a dead man.
I'd say that those who notice, they can condemn to die in the prison.
Tomorrow morning at 8:00 he's going to be taken out and executed.
The guards go in tomorrow morning at 7:30 to lead into the place of execution.
And they find when they open his cell that he's died during the night. What are they going to do now? They're going to take him out and execute him.
The law does not apply to a dead man.
And that's our position in Christ. Like you say, Bill, the law is still in the back.
Satan and socialists are still there, but the truth is that we have changed in our positions at all and to start to apply rules and regulations again.
00:40:06
To control the flesh in us is a complete denial of the position that we now occupy. Interest.
It is moving back to staying over still fleshly people. You gotta control that flesh.
No, brethren, that is not our Christian position.
And it's so important. That's what religion in the flesh is built on, is controlling the flesh.
That's not where we are, Brevin, and it's so important that we understand.
But our position is completely changed.
Here now, I don't think I'll read that very, but the reason with him you're supposed to.
316 primarily.
Speaking of, uh, Jewish, uh, laws and ordinances, holy days and so on.
I believe it was at that time, because those were the things, if we could use the expression that.
Were commonly known about in the cities in which the gospel was preached. Among the Gentiles, they would have generally been some kind of Jewish synagogue, and people in a general way were aware of what the Jews stood for.
And there were certain gentiles that became proselytes of the Jews because.
They got, we might say, disillusioned and fed up with the idolatry that characterized, at that time, the Roman Empire.
But.
I believe they're mentioned here.
Because.
This is the trap. This is the.
Problem that has.
Uh, beset Christianity right from the very beginning.
Well, man couldn't keep the law. The natural man likes that kind of a line to toe. And if you put a natural man under some kind of law, the closer he can get to keeping it, the prouder he feels. And that's why it says later on in the chapter that one in that condition may profess a voluntary humility and appear on the surface to be taking a very humble place.
But what is the ultimate result of it? In the last verse of the chapter, it says to the satisfying of the flesh. It's to the satisfying of the flesh and your natural heart, and my natural heart loves to go back under a rule of law. And so it started very early on. We mentioned it yesterday. There were those in the Galatian assemblies who were teaching them that, yes, you had to be saved by faith.
Excuse me, but then, well, you can't live like that.
And it's still here today.
I can remember well quite a few years ago now, I was in a foreign country and I was talking to a dear man of God.
Who had been in prison for Christ, and I scarcely felt worthy to sit at his feet. But he couldn't see this at all, couldn't see it at all, couldn't see even eternal security in Christ. And we went over Scripture after Scripture together. And he finally just shook his head. And I'll never forget his comment. He said, well, that may work. That doctrine may work in North America, but it won't work over here where I live.
You have no idea what kind of lives people would lead if they thought that all their sins were forgiven, never to be brought up again, and if they thought they could never again be under the judgment of God, never had anything to fear, he said. You have no idea that kind of sin and wickedness that would be introduced into Christian lives. We, we, we have to keep people a little on the scared side. Well.
We try to speak about what grace really means and the effect it has on the soul, but the natural man likes that line to toe, likes to think that, well, I can do something to improve the old sinful self. And that's exactly what it is. It's really taking that old sinful self and saying I can control it with human energy. No, it will not work.
00:45:21
And I'll only become very, very disillusioned.
If I try it, But man still wants to do it. And that's why so many trappings of Judaism have found their way into Christianity all down through the centuries. And of course, here Paul refers to actual Judaizing things that were brought in. But it can be anything that brings man back under Old Testament law and it.
Please it says here are in respect of them.
Holiday on.
Now we don't have any holidays except the day of the Lord today. That's our holy day.
And that's the only one we have. And we saw the Lord Jesus on the cross.
The Jews today are evening don't understand that once in a while I get a letter from a Jewish rabbi.
To contribute money but that he mentions also that.
He had.
Jews who confess the Lord Jesus Christ, they still.
Do voluntarily keep their holy days, which is Hanukkah and.
Uh, celebrate and whatever gain us, they have Passover. The one. Yeah, that's one of them. And other others.
I don't know them because I've never learned them that I'm scared of them.
But the day is especially those who call themselves Juice for Jesus. They emphasize that you still have to celebrate those Jewish holidays to keep you happy.
And that is to use. They understand that the Gentiles cannot do it and don't have to do it. But they still try to keep a hold on the that we had fewer people just by these certain holidays, which they think will make them happy.
But the problem is that the Gentiles have copied those, those things, adopted them from the Jewish system of, of, uh, religion. These, these holy days and new moons and so on were things that God gave to help the natural man fulfill what God required. But that whole trial is over now. And now they, they are to be seen as just figures.
Of how Christ was going to do be the fulfillment of them. And now that we have the Lord Jesus and the new life in him, we're way past that. We don't go back to those things that are figures of what he was going to be. And it makes no, no point for us to observe those things. And yet sad to say, as it's been mentioned.
Even though this was originally written more for the Jews, God saw that the Gentiles were going to need it too. Because we have gone back and that is we in the Christian testimony in a general way, have gone back and adopted those things in many Christian circles. And that's it's a, it's a ensnaring thing because.
It it basically says that there's.
Still a possibility that the natural man can be helped by these things, when really that trial has already been proven to be false.
Hmm.
There's one question I have in verse 17 which are a shadow of things to come thus.
Does that mean that they are gonna do that again someday?
Well, they will take up those things in the coming day because as we said earlier, the life that you and I have is life in Christ, in a risen Christ. It's life lived out in the power of the Spirit of God. And in that sense, even the millennial Saints, I don't believe will have that same privilege.
00:50:24
They won't be indwelt in a permanent basis by the Spirit of God. They will not have, as it were, resurrection life in Christ. I don't believe. And so in that way I believe there will be a partial return to that kind of thing. But there will be a big difference, won't there? There'll be commemorative rather than anticipatory. And so there will be sacrifices in the Millennium. That's very, very clear from the latter chapters in Ezekiel.
And they definitely will have them as a memory of what Christ has done for them. But they won't have the place of nearness that you and I have. There will still be a temple there. There will still be a priesthood. There will still be those who, as it were, come between God and man as a mediator. And so in that way, they won't have the nearness that we have. But I believe this 17th verse shows us that what God did give.
As Doug was saying in the Old Testament.
Holy days Rituals.
Various celebrations and so on, they were a shadow of things to come. But the body, the reality is in Christ, no one here would look at a shadow of someone if they could look at the individual, him or herself. We'd say, well, what would you look at a shadow for? You would look at the individual himself or herself. And so now you and I have the substance of what God gave only in shadow.
In the Old Testament, and yet we say how sad it is that there seems to be the continual tendency to turn back to it. Why is that? Why is it that man has such a tendency? Why would he go back to the shadows when he can have the substance? I suggest that once again, to live in this world but connected to a risen Christ in glory has all the forces of Satan against us.
It has all that power of Satan in the heavenlies against us, and it requires real spiritual energy and real combat and warfare in order to be able to live in the enjoyment of those things. And man says that combat is too much, that combat is more than I can handle, that combat is too difficult. I would rather have a combat that brings me down to the level of this world.
Even if it means going back to the rule of law. Even if it means going back to.
Rituals and things that God had done with at the cross. Man still has that tendency. Well, it does take energy, it does take combat, it does take effort in order to enjoy these things in a right way. I'm wondering if relations four or seven might be applicable to what we're talking about in the area of non.
What we suggest back on, but the relations 4/7.
Call Scotland to them, and he was worth more. Thou art no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God for Christ. How did it then? Or how can this be, when he knew not God? He did service unto them, which by nature are to God. But now after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, I'll turn thee again.
To the weak and beggarly elements learning to ye desire a hand to begin ******* he observed days and months and times and years. He says, I am afraid of you, lest I have the soul upon you with labor and vain.
Umm, with that being that fit into what we're talking about here, because we know prison done and even the Jewish, Christian Jews and there are supposed out there, they don't quite let the goal of Jewish tradition.
It's normal, it's going to hang on to there and he decisions in the camp. Wonderful sweet people and we love them, but they still continue on with rituals and holidays and.
00:55:14
They've been delivered from all them, just like we did.
I hope that was helpful. I think that's the same thing in the bill. I believe so, yes.
There were those in the Galatian assemblies that were saying that have to live out the Christian life by the rule of law. And Paul says you, that is you gentiles, you were worshipping those that are no gods, that is, they were worshipping idols. But while they weren't in that sense part of Judaism yet at the same time I think it's fair to say that every false religion without any exception whatsoever.
On the one hand provides for a means by which man can indulge his lusts under a religious covering, but on the other hand it seeks to curb the activity of the flesh by some kind of rule and regulation. So even under idolatry the same principle was enforced. Is that right?
And in Judaism it was a recognition of man in the flesh. That's what the military's religion was built upon. And and that's what he's showing here, that we are now in a completely new position. A little further in the chapter here, it says in verse 20, wherefore if he be dead with Christ from the Ritimans in the world, why as though living in the world are you subject to ordinances?
Touch not. Taste not. Handle not.
If you have to control the flesh by rules and regulations, you are denying our positioning price, which is debt. There's a dead man laying on the floor out there. Maybe he was a drunk in his life. Let's give him a few rules. That dead man don't drink any longer. Don't get drunk. They're going to have any effect, absolutely no effect.
Wasted my time.
That's the way God sees us now. We are in a position that is completely beyond and to in state rules.
Then is a denial of the position we now occupy. I said my son had sometimes had people say to me, well if you say that boy, then you can do anything you want and get away with anything.
I say tell me, have you ever seen a dead man that gets away with anything he wants?
That's the answer.
And that's the way we are to think, brethren. We are dead with Him, and now our light is hid with Christ and God as we go on to the next chapter. That's our life up there in the glory.
And so we're not to give places to the flesh in any way. We're to recognize that it is dead. It's very what you do is something that's dead and bury people. Dig it up and see how it's doing once in a while.
Don't you leave it there.
And that's exactly what we are. Leave it there. Don't go in stating new rules and regulations to control it. That's a denial of where we are in Christ. So important that we enjoy that in our souls, brethren, because it's in the enjoyment of it that it has a practical effect on our lives as well. I was thinking of a John 10 where it talks about the the block of of the the fold, the shaping in a fold, which is an enclosure.
And the shepherd, uh, in the doorway to protect the sheep from intruders. And then the contrast is the flock, uh, following the shepherd's voice and, uh, being guided by him. And there's a great difference. There's no fence around the flock when they're on their way to, uh, pasture.
Let the the uh.
Well, there is a tendency amongst even amongst those God, the Lord's name is a tendency.
To want to build up a fence around an enclosure around what we believe to defend it, whereas we are following the shepherd of the Lord Jesus. And, uh, do we doubt that, that he is in charge and that he has control over the whole operation? He shouldn't have that one minute. Perhaps it might be helpful. I thought too of Paul from, uh, first Timothy chapter one. Uh, he.
01:00:27
Chapter verses 8:00 and 9:00 he says, but we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient. So when you start to get on the principle of law, you are departing from the whole position you have as being free from condemnation. You're no longer enjoying your place as a son. You're a servant. And it's just as if the prodigal son coming back home. You remember how he said, uh, he had his speech ready to say, father, I sin against heaven and uh, in a nice sight, I'm no more worthy to be your son making is one of my servants. And then when he was embraced by his father.
He started to give this speech and the father cut him off. The part about making is one of thy servants. He doesn't let him say it, but it's almost as if, you know, when you put yourself under law as Gentile Christians and we try to keep laws, we weren't men didn't didn't have to keep it as if the product says, no, dad, I insist I've got to become a servant. You, you're destroying your whole Christian basis. And uh, it's a little bit like the brother Bob was saying yesterday about Christians denying their position when they get into politics and which came first.
You know, is do we get into the political sphere because we don't realize our heavenly position, or by dabbling in politics, do we deny and as it were, quench the Spirit so we can no longer really enjoy our place in Christ? Anything we do to minister to the flesh, whether to enjoy sinful pleasures or to try to improve the flesh, either way we're catering to the first man. We're denying it today and we're denying our real position in Christ. We can't enjoy it anymore.
Well, several things happen when.
Man goes down that road and we see some of them in verse 18.
Satan is out there using those who want to.
Beguile us, deprive us of what God has given us.
They want to deprive us of that wonderful place, practically, excuse me, into which God has brought us.
And so often it involves man getting his mind into something.
That God has not revealed.
It involves, as it says here, the worshipping of angels, and the intruding into those things which he hath not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.
Sad to say that is common in the world, but it has happened even among true believers, where the mind gets active in the things of God, goes beyond divine revelation, delves into things that have not been revealed to us, and seeks to speculate on them and to have something to say about them.
All of that is the activity of the old sinful self. And what's the remedy for it? What is the answer?
Holding the head, I think the Darby Reeds, if I remember rightly, holding fast to the head. If we were to ask a believer whether he held the head and believed that he had a head in heaven, probably many would say so. But do I practically hold fast the head if I hold him fast?
Then it says in the previous verses of this chapter that we are complete in Him, and in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Can I have more than that? And if there are things that God has chosen not to reveal to me, if there are things that are beyond my understanding, I don't need to delve into them. I don't need to start worshipping angels. There are those today who make a great to do about praying to the Holy Spirit and praising and worshiping the Holy Spirit and so on. It's all in the same category, isn't it?
It's doing that which we don't find in the Word of God because it's misinterpreting the Word of God and using man's wisdom in the things of God. But if we're holding fast the head, that won't happen, will it? And everything we need we will find in him. Everything that is necessary to live a godly life for God's glory down here will be found in holding fast the head, and of course, ultimately in His Word too.
01:05:24
And we can check ourselves.
Right.
Using the scriptures.
To see what the 1St.
Questions.
That worship the Lord Jesus after he had gone to heaven.
For instance, uh.
There are people there do foot washing but first curse and never did that.
So why should we do that?
If they didn't do that, well, we can learn from them.
We're not. We're not supposed to do these things.
And other things, speaking in tongues, that's a great big subject.
We don't speak in tongues today.
I I think it's important for us to realize that when we hold the head, that is when we turn to the Lord independence and acknowledge His headship and that we seek to obey Him. He will always, brethren, He will always take care of us. He will never let us down. You know, that was the lie of in from the very beginning.
Umm, uh, of Satan was that God was withholding something and, and uh, unconsciously perhaps, but Eve and Adam, they kind of believed that they kind of took that for granted. God was not taking good care of them. Uh, holding the head got the Lord as our head will always take care of us.
Beautiful to see that in the Book of the Axes and the town in simplicity, the believers looked up to the Lord in all their problems. They were threatened by the authorities. I mean threatened to be killed. It had no effect on them because they were simply looking up to the head in heaven. And the Lord delivered them time and again. Well, there was times in the work delivered too. 12 Chapter James was killed.
And then Peter was miraculously delivered because they were praying they were going to the head. You don't have to go to intermediate race. We have a connection with the head and all through the book of the Acts in 16th chapter where Paul is in prison.
I suppose he had some in silence were kind of down moments in the first. It wasn't until midnight that they sang.
And praise God and.
I mean, the Lord does tremendous things that there was more simplicity, I must say, rather than traveling in some of those countries where people perhaps not quite as educated as.
I say it's amazing, but what kind of a God do we have any now there's a man in the right hand of God, a real man, rather than to whom we are united. And oh, to know what it means to hold the head in every situation of life. The difficulties, He allows difficulties.
Is that we can prove it is efficiency.
I can think of when the Lord was here and there was that multitude, 5000 men with women and children.
And the Lord says to them, to disciples, she gives them something to eat.
They didn't have anything.
They were in a predictably.
But there was a little boy.
5 blows. When you say loaves, it's just little rolls and two fishes. It looked ridiculous. It looked totally ridiculous.
01:10:02
But put those in the Lord's hands, and sometimes, you know, we don't have much.
Take what little you do have and put it into the Lord's hands, and you will find that your Lord can do great things. He fed the whole openly. They were all satisfied, and they took up afterwards 12 baskets of fragments that remained.
If they ended up with more than they had to start with. And that's the way our God is. The Lord Jesus now as man is in the glory of God and we are united to Him as His body. He feels what we feel. Let's not limit Him in our thinking.
Some time ago, Bob, you made a remark at a conference and I wonder if you'd repeat it again. Uh, I'll give you a bit of a hint so you know where I'm coming from. You mentioned that while there were problems and sometimes big problems in other lands that you visit, that sometimes in these favored lands, the Lord seemed to allow very complicated problems that.
Seemed to defy solutions.
In order, perhaps, that we might be more reminded to hold the head. Can you you remember that remark? Can you repeat that again?
MMM, yeah, I I think he said it pretty good, right?
Well, it seems too is to me that God is allowing in some cases very serious difficulties, not only in our personal lives, our family lives and other things, but even among the assemblies. The Lord is sometimes allowing very complicated problems and things that seem so difficult that they almost defy a solution.
And yet the Lord isn't restricted. The Lord's hand doesn't shorten the head. The head isn't, uh, if we could say it with all reverence, the Lord isn't up there in heaven wringing his hands and saying, Oh my, what are we going to do now? Oh no, no, the Lord knows exactly why he's allowed it. And in some cases, I believe it is in order that we might not rely on ourselves, but be willing to go to the head about it.
Not that it doesn't mean there's a time for action. Joshua fell on his face in the book of Joshua after Akinson and the Lord had to say Joshua get up, there's something to do. But he did it with the direct command from the Lord and with the direct guidance of the Lord as to how to deal with the situation. And so it is with us today, isn't it?
We live in a culture that is man centered and we've got some agency look at the Yellow Pages for somebody that can help you in this situation and that's the way our mind is geared.
But now, brother, we are in relationship with the men and the glory, and this is what it means to hold the head. I must say, the elements of your Bolivian brother have learned tremendous lack of simplicity of faith that I wish I knew better, brother.
I think I've mentioned this particular story that I repeated again that when we lived in Montero, Bolivia.
We used to do. There was a brother that lived across the street that used to get back as an attack.
And one day there was a cold S wind because the South wind is a cold wind down there in South Pole and.
His little son came running over to our house and said come quick, my father is calling you. And I ran over there to his house. He was sitting in bed gasping for his breath.
His little brother. What can I do to help you? Look, I'll go get my Jeep right away and we'll take you to the hospital.
And the brother between gasped his brother.
Please get down and pray.
Oh man, what a recruit to my North American thinking Into the hospital as soon as possible. As soon as possible.
Well, I did get down to pray and we did take it to the hospital, but we had it in order and I didn't. It was a real.
01:15:04
President, the Lord help us to know what it means to hold that every situation.
Is directly controlled by that man in the glory of God.
He's the head of all principality and power.
If something happens in my life.
He allowed it to happen for my own good and blessed.
And we can depend on the Lord right to the end of the journey for what we have in the rest of verse 80 or verse 19.
That is, he's going to look after his body, isn't he? He's not going to let it go. He's not going to neglect it. He's going to give that nourishment. Minister. Yes. Sad to say, we don't see the body of Christ outwardly manifested in its unity. The unity in God's eyes cannot be broken. There is one body. We bless God for that precious truth, and you and I are responsible in that way to walk in the unity of the Spirit.
The Spirit is that which, as it were, forms the one body and brings it together. You and I are responsible to walk in that unity, but we don't see the body outwardly operating in the unity that it should. But is the Lord going to let it go? Can we not depend on Him? Yes, we can. We can depend on that nourishment being ministered, that being knit together, if we seek that. And we can depend on the increase with the increase of God, and that'll take place.
Right until the Lord calls us home.
So I can't get so bad that the Lord can't control and minister because of all our problems, can it? No matter how we disrupt and problems we bring in, the Lord is still in control. And in the confusion even that exists, he's still able to minister.
What do the joints and bands signify? Is this dealing with human instrumentalities for work the board works through, or someone clarify that a little bit?
I was just going to ask you about that, Bill.
Well, I believe that joints are necessary. We all know we have them in the human body. Couldn't do much without those joints. But those bands are necessary too. Bands, I guess, are really ligaments, and they hold those joints in the proper position so that they can function well. And everybody here is probably familiar with what happens to a knee joint when, and this is well known in many circles. The young fellows here will all know what I mean when I.
Talk about the anterior cruciate ligament. That's one of those that easily get, well easily. You have to give it a good injury to do it, but it gets snapped in certain football injuries or something like that. And what happens to your knee? It's unstable. It doesn't function properly.
Thankfully, now they usually can do surgery to repair it, but those ligaments, those bands are necessary. And so I believe it shows that every part of the body of Christ is absolutely necessary.
The Apostle uses joints and bands here as an illustration, because the body can't move without joints, and it can't. Those joints can't function properly without bands to hold them in their proper place.
And if they those joints are places where there is a lot of stress at times due to what you say, yes, when the body is working properly and each one, rather each one of us needs to be exercised before the Lord as to what he would have us do the attitude. Well, there's the older brothers there. They're going to take all the meeting and they're going to do what's necessary rather than let's not get into that mentality.
Let's sit here in the Lord's presence in exercise, because I find He uses members that are at least expected at.
At times to be a real blessing to God's people, but we need to pull together and that's another point of the joints and balance that to me.
Five Words
Gospel—David Hayhoe
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.
Let us start the meeting this evening.
With hymn #29.
A ruler once came to Jesus by night.
To ask him the way of salvation and light.
The master made answer in words true and plain.
He must be born again #29.
A ruler once came to Jesus.
My life good luck in the way of frustration and by the spirit of many times where it means we're in thrilled and sprayed in love.
I have been there when you plan on the delay.
You must be born again.
Ye children.
And I strengthened our grace and all of the hungry, hungry heartily from the world. And let's not translate anything.
On our end.
3412.
Our God and our Father.
We fell this evening before they started this little meeting last.
Meeting of the two day conference here with God and we have this privilege of giving out the old, old story of Jesus and his love or God. We thank Thee for thy wondrous heart of love that yearns over this world. We look to the Father for thy help now.
To the thou is just undertake in through the little time we have together here. We pray about it, Lord.
We need thee, and we ask in thy name. Amen.
Let's sing another short couple of ones there in the back.
I like seeing children.
So let's sing a couple of these ones in the at the very back.
How about uh #41?
Around the throne of God in heaven.
Around the throne.
00:05:43
In the last quarter of 190593.
I wonder if you would take your bibles? Me.
21St First of all, in First Corinthians chapter 14.
I think this gospel is going to be a little different tonight.
I'll explain that in a minute.
1St Corinthians 14 and verse.
90.
Yet in the church I had rather speak 5 words with my understanding.
And by my voice I might teach others also.
Than 10,000 words in an unknown tongue.
That's what the Apostle Paul wrote down here for us.
I'd rather speak 5 words.
You have 5 fingers, 5 toes.
Two hands with five.
Now there are several little expressions in the Bible that are just 5 words.
I know some, I don't have very many of them. I need some help tonight.
I want to know if there's some others, especially younger ones, if you can help me find 5 words.
We're gonna turn to a few of them, and perhaps a little bit later I'll be asking.
We already sang about one of the five words in the Bible.
Who knows what 5 words we sung in the Bible that Jesus said?
Any of you young people or children, you can put up your hand and tell me if you remember?
What 5 words did we sing about that are found in the Bible?
00:10:05
Oh yes.
Right. Where do you know where that's found in the Bible?
Can anybody help me where that is found in the Bible?
I know a lot of the older people know, but what about the younger ones? Who knows where those 5 words are found in the Bible?
I see a hand.
John 3. Let's turn to it.
What verse is it?
Thank you.
Can you read it for us?
Model Mark by custody two months before I came. Who said those words?
Yes, Jesus did. Who did he say them to?
Yeah, sorry, Nicodemus. Yes.
You know when Nicodemus, he came to Jesus and he came at nighttime?
Every word of God is pure and God puts these things in his in this book for us. And I think he came at night time because he didn't want anybody else to see him, but he came to the right person.
And he and he had some things to say to Jesus, and the Lord went very direct to him, and he said those 5 words.
Ye must be born again. You know, I can recall when I was very young, we had these little little Sunday school cards that had placed for, if I recall, 1313 stickers to put on them.
And so the teacher would put these stickers on each each week. And one of the first ones that I had to learn was that verse John three and seven, ye must be born again.
What did Jesus mean when he said that to Nicodemus? Nicodemus was the man who was older. I don't know exactly what age he was.
Maybe 40, maybe 50, maybe 30 would. I don't know.
But what did the Lord mean when he said to him, Nicodemus, ye must be born again?
You know what I believe the Lord was saying to him? Nicodemus, you've been a pretty good man in your life for other people, but it's no good to help you to get to heaven.
What you need Nicodemus is a brand new life.
Ye must be born again.
Now we are going to turn to.
Two or three or more.
And I don't even know what order.
To do these in.
But I'm gonna I'd like to turn now to First Corinthians chapter 15.
There are many 5 words.
In the Bible, a matter of fact, I've never you know when our.
When our children were young, we put up a little paper on a bulletin board and.
And we asked them to when we when we discovered 5 words we asked them to take and write them down on the on the board. And it was surprising when we were going through why.
Little 5 words would be picked up here in there, and this is one of the five words in First Corinthians chapter 15.
Verse 3.
Who can find the five words that I want to bring out here?
00:15:06
Oh, aren't they nice words?
Christ died for our sins.
You know, I was in a in a store just recently.
Lady did their alterations. I bought a pair of pants and had to be short.
And uh.
I gave her one of these little Christian calendars.
Little wallet calendars and you know the verse that's on the little wallet calendar for God so loved the world.
Well, it didn't take long to find out she was a Christian.
So we talked about that verse a little bit.
And you know what she said to me was he died for our sins.
Always I so glad to hear her say that.
And there is a reason why we say that.
Christ died for our sins. Why did Jesus die for our sins?
Why did he?
Well, because the wages of sin is death.
When a person sins, the Bible says have to die.
Have to die.
And Jesus says I'll take your place.
I'll die for you.
And so he came into this world.
He walked here for 33 years. He showed who he was and man showed who he was.
And they took him and they nailed him to a cross, said we don't want you.
Hung him up between heaven and earth and were basically saying to God we don't want him.
We're sending them back, but Christ died for our sins.
He loved you so much he was willing to die for you.
You know, I know a lot of you folks have seen these three crosses that have been assembled in many places in the United States. I think it's about in 30 different states that they have them in. Now there's about 2000 of them. I phoned and I've talked to the people.
And it was a man started that about 1985.
And.
They go around and they ask people if they can this this man, he came to know Christ. He made quite a bit of money in this world. I think he lived in Tennessee.
Coal country and, uh, he may, he made quite a bit of money and he decided he was going to take and stop this work and he was going to, to uh, erect these crosses. And he did and had some people help him and ask people about taking and using some of their property in a place that was near the road. And so I remember the first time I, I saw this.
Going through some of the southern states, I couldn't believe it.
Saw a center cross a little higher than the others and a cross on either side.
And a little bit later there would be one would be set back a little bit from the road goes a distance more. And here's another one that was set up.
And they put those crosses up. You know why they put them up?
A silent message to the people who pass by of the three crosses of 2000 years ago. How Jesus came into the world and died.
Christ died for our sins. They had many stories to tell about what had happened when people had stopped. Told me one story about a truck driver.
I don't remember the details. They didn't get too much. It was on the phone. I was talking to this man and he told me.
About this, uh, truck driver that he'd lost his wife.
She died and then he just found out that his daughter had some serious illness.
00:20:06
And uh, he couldn't sleep. He was driving this tractor trailer. He pulled over the side of the road and he couldn't sleep. And he started down the road again 2:00 in the morning. And this particular 3 crosses that were erected there was.
Illuminated Dark Knight. He looks over on what's he see.
3 crosses.
Stops his truck at the side of the road and he kneels down there.
I don't know what its exact words were.
Does God speak through the cross today? Yes, he does.
You know when Jesus was on the cross 2000 years ago that he was thinking of you.
He was thinking of me. Somebody had to die for my sins.
And he said, David, I'll take your place.
And he did, and he died for me.
So Paul writes here to these people and he says.
Christ died for our sins. He was buried. He rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
Well, that's another five words.
Let's turn to John's Gospel.
Chapter 10.
Before I read.
Any verse? Before I tell you any verse, I'm going to ask if any of you young folks can see 5 words here anywhere in this chapter.
I'll tell you this much. It comes after verse 10.
All that girl's got her hand up again.
Oh, isn't that a good one?
Who said those words?
God's Son, what was his name? Jesus.
I am the Good Shepherd.
No shepherd like that shepherd.
Who gave his life for the sheep?
Did Jesus die for you?
Yes, you know what it tells us over in Isaiah and the Old Testament?
Oh, we, like sheep, have gone astray.
We turned everyone to his own way.
Oh, how much we know that. We know it more and more as we get older. That self will that's inside us. There's one thing that is characteristic, as I understand about sheep. I remember my uncle had quite a few sheep and you will find.
In most cases. Perhaps this isn't the case over in in some other lands where the shepherds are with them all the time, but you will find in most cases.
With sheep that there's a pretty good fence that's around the outside.
And the reason why they put a good fence around the outside where the sheep are is because if they get through, if one gets through, the others follow.
The others fall, and another thing is that they don't come back. They don't know their way back, their loss, they go astray. So we have the Lord Jesus tells us the story in Luke 15 about seeking the one sheep that was lost. He left the 99 in the wilderness and he went after that, that which was lost until he found it. And when he found the sheep, what did he do with it?
Oh, it's such a beautiful story because it says that he took it and he laid it on his shoulders and said, oh, what a naughty sheep you are.
Is that what he said?
No, it says he laid it on his shoulders, rejoicing. I found my sheep that was lost.
00:25:06
He didn't stop looking. Are you lost tonight?
Are you lost?
The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.
In this world, boys and girls, older ones here, it's going downhill.
It's going downhill.
It's going on to judgment.
It's being painted up to be such a beautiful place, and somehow the leaders in the various lands are hoping to escape from the various problems that perplex society today.
But it's going away from God more and more, and the only book that gives us an answer to the future of this world, to your life and mine, is this one here.
Oh, it's so wonderful to have this book, to have it open in our hands.
To learn verses from this book, you know, sometimes we go to to funerals, You go to a funeral of someone that that doesn't know the Lord as their savior. I heard somebody just told me within the last week or so of going to a funeral of a girl that died, a lady that died.
And.
There was not a word that was said about Jesus. There was not a word that was said about where she had had gone.
You know it's in here. God has opened up. He's, he's pulled the curtain back.
Who tell us of what's beyond this life. He tells us the secret for ourselves. He tells us the true condition of ourselves. He tells about the destiny ahead.
A man in general is refusing it.
But he says, here I am the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
Tells us here a little later on he laid down his life.
He laid it down. Nobody took it from him. Yes, they led him up to Calvary's Hill, where they crucified him.
But boys and girls and older ones, here he laid down his life for you.
He laid it down. He didn't have to. He gave his life.
You know when soldiers go to war.
They risk their lives.
They hope they're not going to have to give their life.
But Jesus came, and he knew that he's going to die.
Someone had to take your place.
If you were not going to go to the lake of fire, have you taken Jesus as your savior? Have you done that?
I remember a young boy. Let me see a young boy, 16 years old.
And uh, his name is Carlos.
And uh.
We were talking to him.
About salvation.
And, you know, he listened pretty carefully.
Now this thing may sound a little bit strange, but it was right at Christmas time and this is this is what we did.
Pull $50.00 out of our pocket.
Citadels.
This is for you.
Well, this shocked.
He didn't know what to do.
He didn't know whether to reach out and take it or whatever.
So.
I said to him.
Is it yours?
The children know what to say.
I said, Carlos, it's for you, but it won't be yours until you take it.
What do you think he did?
What do you think he did?
Yes. I don't know your name, but this first boy here, what's your name?
00:30:03
Was it Luke? Luke, What do you think he did?
I held that out for him. What do you think he did? He took it.
And then it belonged to him. I didn't take it back. It belonged to him. Now the Bible says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Oh, that was $50.00. That was an awful lot for him. He was surprised, very surprised. But God offers to give anyone who will take eternal life.
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.
Have you ever taken it? You know it's true, don't you? You know what we're saying is true because it's from the Word of God. But have you acted on it? Have you taken it? It won't be yours until you take it.
Are there any more 5 words in the Bible?
Somebody nodding their head there. I won't say who it is.
Tell me.
I see. Thank you. Oh, that's a good one. Oh my.
My sheep hear my voice.
That's the Lord again, my sheep here, my voice. Now let's turn to.
Psalm 23 and when you're turning to it without even looking at the place, I wonder if somebody can tell me the 1St 5 words of Psalm 23.
Without even looking, there's a girl at the back, yes.
Uh, how many words is that?
Five. I'm going to tell you a story about that.
Oh, that's the whole song. It's so beautiful.
The Lord.
Is my shepherd.
You know, I, I, I, umm, I may not have all the details quite correct in connection with the with this story, but this is about a boy that was dying.
And he had, I don't know if he'd ever heard about the Lord Jesus before. And he was just young and he was dying and weak, couldn't take much in. And a man who was a Christian went to visit him.
He was in. The boy was in the hospital.
And so this man, he taught him those 5 words.
The Lord is my shepherd.
And then?
The man said.
Can you say the Lord is my shepherd, and hold your hand, your whole other hand, around that one figure?
The Lord is my shepherd.
That he belongs to me.
So we just thought of that man. That Christian man taught him most 5 words. The Lord is my shepherd. And then he left him.
But it went back to see him. I don't know if it was the next day, a couple of days later or whatever, and the boy had already died and he was so sad that he missed seeing him again. So he said to the nurse or somebody, how did he die?
Well, she said it was kind of different because he died holding on to his one finger.
You see, he had been repeating to himself those 5 words and as he moved from this life into the next life.
He was holding on to that. The Lord is my shepherd.
Oh dear boys and girls, dear older ones here, it's so personal.
00:35:01
Have you ever taken for your own?
The Lord.
Is my shepherd. One time somebody said in connection with this.
Little girl was learning the verse and she said it wrong.
Lord is my shepherd, what more can I want?
Will you have him? He wants you.
He died for you.
Let's turn to.
Amos.
The Book of Emos.
I think I know the place. I think it's yes, a month, 4:00 and 12:00.
Anybody see the five words here that I'm looking for?
In Amos 4:00 and 12:00.
Who founded?
Yes, yes.
Sometimes you can buy Bible buy stickers to put on the back of a card. Did that. I remember when I was a, I don't know, teenager, early 20s, I had that on the back of a car and if I was, I was embarrassed if we were driving around with having that sticker on my car.
Prepare to meet thy God. Then I sold the car, and I sold it to a man who was a Christian.
And, uh, there's a little Morris Minor, if I recall.
Car and uh, so we ended up, uh, uh, making a deal in connection with the price of it and he said David, couldn't you put on a sticker or something like love thy neighbor?
Instead of putting on, prepare to meet thy God.
It's kind of a jolt, you know?
I don't think you find it too much on cars today. Prepare to meet thy God. But it's so necessary to.
To have the reality of it before, because everyone of us are traveling on this road of life and we're going to leave it someday.
And the scripture says be ready.
So here's another 5 words. Prepare to meet by God. Now there's another one I'm thinking of that's in the book of Jonah.
Anybody know what it is?
Turn to Jonah.
Amos, Obadiah, Jonah.
It's found in chapter 2. It's near the end of the chapter.
That's it. Verse 9 very last five words. Salvation is of the Lord.
What happened as soon as Jonah said those 5 words?
He was delivered.
God had that fish deliver him.
Out of the sea and he landed on dry ground.
All to think of the Lord Jesus dying on the cross.
I looked at that cross physically, of course I can't do it.
But I love to think of that cross, and though there think of the words almost above it. Salvation is of the Lord.
Now there's another one that's pretty close to that in the words.
And is found in Proverbs chapter 21 I think it is.
Some of us have seen this many times on a bus.
One particular bus.
Proverbs 21.
00:40:02
The last verse and the last five words.
Anybody find it?
Can you read it?
Yes.
You want me to tell you about that bus? That bus is in Newfoundland.
It's owned by a Mr. Cecil Rusink.
And that verse is on the inside.
And very dry he he picks up all these children for Sunday school. And there you walk in the door of the bus, you walk down and sit on the bus. And then you look towards the front and there inside the front, those 5 words.
Safety is of the Lord.
Safety is of the Lord.
Now those are 5 words. Our time is about gone.
Those are our 5 words that I was thinking of. Did anyone find any other 5 words that maybe we should have a look at just before we stop?
Anyone.
Oh, thank you. Why did I forget that?
Where's it found, brother?
Let's turn to it.
John 1.
29 and then also 35. Is it 36?
Oh, behold, the Lamb of God.
You know who said those words?
Right on John the Baptist.
Behold the Lamb of God.
What do you think he was thinking of when he said those words?
Oh, I believe with all my heart.
He was thinking, finally.
No more need for sacrificial animals.
The one Lamb that God has provided to take away the sin of the world.
Jesus.
And he says to the people.
Behold them. Look at them.
There on the cross.
Jesus.
I'll give you another 5 words.
Found in.
Oh, let's turn to it. Revelation 1.
Revelation 1.
And verse.
It's sort of it's in this verse. I'm thinking of these 5 words in verse 7.
Every eye shall see him.
Every eye shall see him.
Oh dear friends.
In this world.
Where people are going on to judgment and they don't even realize what's ahead.
Remember, every eye shall see him. They say you can have your religion. I will have my religion. I don't have to believe in Jesus. I believe he was just a great prophet. And they say all kinds of things. But you know, there's a verse, I believe it's in Acts chapter 10 that says he is Lord of all. Another 5 words.
He is Lord of all. Every eye shall see him.
And the last person?
That a man who leaves this world without Christ.
00:45:00
The last person he will see, I believe, is going to be the face.
Of the Lamb of God.
And then to be leaving, to leave this world and go into eternity.
Oh, is it serious? Is it important? Yes, it is.
May the Lord work deep. You know I can't sell the gospel to you.
I can't push it on you, only you can receive it.
As the Lord is your Savior, you'll hear Him if you will answer.
If you will answer the door, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. I think of it, you know, here 2000 years since the cross, the Lord gone back to heaven. Sit on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. And soon he's going to rise, and he's going to come, and he's going to take all the believers out of this world. Would you be left behind?
For the judgment of God to land in a lost eternity the lake of fire, and be there forever.
It's so solemn to think of. May the Lord bless His word now.
I want to I want to quote the verse in first John one and verse seven because it's so it's so important. Go to the verse about all have sinned. He mentioned about Christ died for our sins. First John one and seven says the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin.
All sin? Are all your sins gone? You know the last act that man did to Jesus, the last act in hatred that man did to Jesus, drew forth the blood to save.
The livestock. Does God love this world?
You know he does and he loves you. May God grant nobody will leave without Christ tonight. Let's pray.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee.
For thy precious word. Thank you.
John 13, John2, His Love Constrains Us
Open—E. Seichter, B. Prost, D. Rule
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.
Love it in the Lord Jesus.
There is an occasion in the scripture.
Where the Lord Jesus?
Practically.
Performed a service to his disciples.
Which is only recorded.
Once in the New Testament.
And only in one of the gospels.
And it took place when they had.
The Supper.
In the upper room.
And I would like to rehab that chapter.
Somewhat like half the chapter in round 13.
And now, before the phase of the Passover, when Jesus knew that this hour was calm, that His hour was come, that He should depart out of the world and to the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, He loves them until the end.
And supper being ended.
The devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot Simon Sant to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God. He rises from supper and laid side his garments, and took a towel and girded himself. After that he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples feet.
And to wipe them with a towel whereas he was girded.
Then come and see to Simon Peter. And Peter said unto him, Lord, thus thou wash my feet.
Jesus answered and said unto him.
What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.
Peter says unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I was she not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord.
Not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
Jesus said to him, He that is washed needeth not safe to wash his feet, but it's clean every width, and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him. Therefore said he, ye are not all clean. So after he had washed their feet and had taken his garments, and was set down again.
He said unto them.
Know what I have done to you?
Know ye what I have done to you?
You call me Master and Lord, and you say, well, for so I am.
Then your Lord and Master have washed your feet.
Ye also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you.
Just so far for now.
I thought this was.
So important. It was so important to me because I see the urgency.
That the Lord puts just on this fourteenth verse.
If then your Lord and Master have washed your feet, ye also.
Ought to wash one another's feet.
For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you.
So many of you might think, well, how we're gonna do this.
00:05:04
How is that done?
Are we going?
To make some kind of a rule how to do it?
Like the the religious systems do or have done with the Lord's Supper like in Matthew 6 where the where they call.
The Lord Sepa and repeated over and over again, and then have a a suitable song with it and do that every day, that every Lord's Day they come together.
And then?
That's the worship meeting.
Well, I have talked to a man one time. They said that they did that that way, but I could never figure out that. How could they have done it? Everybody washing everybody's feet. That doesn't make sense. It can't be done.
So there must be some other answer to this.
Some explanation of what did the Lord mean by this?
So we want to first look why he did it and how he did it.
Now, before the feast of the Passover.
That is the first verse and there we get the answer why he did it.
Having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them until the end.
That's why you did it.
Because he loved them until the end, and that includes us.
He loves them, and to the end to wear his disciples at that time. And so he does us. We are his disciples.
And he didn't just wash one disciples field.
And say, well, I'll show you, wash one of your feet and then.
That's it.
He didn't do that. He washed all of their feet, all of his disciples feet, and we went from one to the other and then we read and supper ended.
Being ended.
The devil having now put unto the heart of Judah as a scary assignment son, to betray him.
Now why is that put in here?
Most of its disciples didn't even know that what Judas had done.
But here we have John.
The one whom the Lord Jesus left, who was closest to him, he must have got also.
Sometimes some extra insight from him what was going to happen and that here he that's why John can say here now.
Simon, John, Simon's son, said.
Set this.
That it was put in Judas's heart.
And he mentioned it.
And then he mentioned something more, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things unto his hand, and that he was come from God, and went to God.
Most of them didn't know that either.
Not the way we know it today.
That John knew it, and he believed it.
It was the closest to the Lord Jesus. He lay on his bosom. The Lord had revealed things to him that He might have not revealed to others.
And we also read then.
He rises from supper, and laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded himself. Now that was the Passover supper.
I wasn't the Lord supper, of course they had the Passover supper there and as I have read and I got this for my Bible dictionary one time that the Jews had tried that.
00:10:16
A delicate way of doing things, like some kind of an extra way because when they had.
The pastor was supper at that time. They had us as much as four cups that they drank. The first one was mixed with water and the second one was another reason and there was a third one, though I believe that the Lord Jesus at that time, He rose up from in between those.
Breaks that they had because they took the food away and then brought it again so that he rose up.
And he laid aside his garments.
It's just that is a picture.
When we do as he tells us.
As service.
We lay away or put away the sinks of this world that we don't really need to do in that service. And it was a service which he do. He did, and he had three things put aside for him. We want to notice these three things that he took that he had to.
I don't know how, but they had them ready.
That's a towel.
And it was.
A Washington basin, like it says in the other translation, and water.
He had these three things.
And what I say now, I didn't read in a book. I did read Dial beyond this, but he had about seven or more pages on it and he didn't actually come out.
What actually this meant?
I believe that the tile is a picture of the Holy Spirit.
And then we have the washer and basin, the picture of the word of God and the water in it, the word of God itself.
These three things that the Lord Jesus had put aside for him, and then he takes those and he starts washing the disciples feet. There's one thing we notice, He took the lowest place, a very low place.
The lowest praise that we would always acknowledge that it is when we would have to wash somebody's feet. We probably never done it. Let the Lord Jesus did that. He had to get on His knees. You can't watch anybody's feet without getting on your knees.
So that's what he did, and he went around to every disciple, and he did it.
He washed their feet and he dried him with a towel.
And now what?
Does that mean?
When he washed his feet.
And he dried.
With a towel and he went to every one of them.
He used.
That's what we have. He used the scriptures.
Uh.
First of all, we should say that. I should say that he girded himself. That's the first thing he did.
And that couldn't have been just a small thing. That was a big tile and it was a linen towel. We know linen is made out of plants and it goes through a lot of process to get it to be a towel and be a soft.
Piece of garment or towel that he used there.
That's why I think it is a picture of the Holy Spirit.
00:15:04
Because somebody.
Uses the Word of God. He has to be guided by the Holy Spirit to use it.
Otherwise, how can he get the words of God?
That I've written in the book to tell him how to do it, and that's what it means here.
Because we don't make a ritual of this thing.
And we cannot.
Sure, the some of the systems make ritual out of these things, but we know it cannot work. It has. There has to be a spiritual meaning to it and that's what the Lord Jesus is showing us here doing to his disciples. He is used first averting himself, and He used the Word of God pictured by the Holy Scriptures and the Word.
These three things and then he gets to figure.
Nobody talked to that point, nobody said anything but Peter does.
And what does Peter say? Thou shalt never wash my feet.
Whereby did he say that?
Of course he used what we would.
Think or could say that that is.
Common sense. How can a person that is so much greater than himself?
Do the lowest job that there is.
That would be unsuitable to have him and have him do it. So that's where he must have thought because he said your shirt never washed my feet about. What does the Lord Jesus say?
Jesus answered him, If I were she not, thou hast no part with me.
That might have come as a real surprise.
For him.
Why would the Lord Jesus say that?
Well, if we don't let the Lord Jesus.
With the word of God out of the scripture.
Guide ourselves.
We cannot have a part with him. We cannot be saved.
That's what he means.
Thou cannot have part with me with me.
So.
That Peter couldn't take, that he didn't want to lose fathership with his Lord, the Lord Jesus.
Thou hast no part with me, Simon Peter says unto him, Lord, not me, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
Real wide, the hands on the head.
It's basically the same that Cane thought.
He never thought to take the sacrifice of that Abel had brought and bring a sacrifice to the Lord, because that was the only thing acceptable.
Peter thought, well, I have to do something too.
So I got to work. I have to do some work for you.
I have to think up of something, use my head.
Something outstandingly good I have to do?
Well, beloved, if we think of it that way.
We have no part with the Lord Jesus either.
Because we cannot work for salvation.
Nobody can work to get saved or they'll get half inspired with the Lord Jesus by doing anything.
So that's a fact.
00:20:00
He had to give up that thought.
That Jesus then explained that Jesus said unto him, He that is washed needed no safe to wash his feet, but is clean every width, every width. That means all, everywhere on his body, and ye are clean, but not all.
So he's, he is explaining that they all had received him and he knew that best because he knew the heart. He knows the heart of us, everybody's heart. If we have received him or if we have not received him in our hearts, he knows that.
And he could say ye.
He that is washed need is not safe to wash his feet.
That would that would mean.
To watch his walk, it has to do with the feet and with all of us. It has to do that. We have to watch our walk.
And if we work according to his ways, we have part with him.
And then of course, if we are saved, we are washed every bit.
And he could tell them because he knew their hearts. The others didn't know it. They didn't know Judas's heart.
In fact, they had taken it all wrong. They didn't even know what was.
His way of speaking. They could have detected something, but they didn't.
And then he says, ye actually, but not all.
He knew who was going to betray him and that was through this.
I don't believe that, Judas.
Was at the Lord's Supper because later on they did take. We read that in the same chapter here.
Later on they did have the Lord's Supper, and the Lord gave Judas the *** and he went out and was night.
I have heard people, they have arguments about it. They think, well, Judas had to take the Lord's suppers. Others say he didn't.
I cannot pronounce on that because I for myself think he didn't.
For he knew who should betray him. Therefore, said he, ye are not all clean.
But then.
And what he says.
After he had washed their feet.
He takes his garment again. He has to finish his work yet, although for him the work had been done already, he knew he was going to do it. He was going to die on the cross.
For all of us and for them. He knew it. So he took his garments again.
And was set down again. He went back to the table as we would say. And then he says to them, Know ye what I have done to you?
He all called me Master and Lord, and you say, Well, for so I am.
That is true.
The Lord is master of all of us, and we acknowledge it.
So then your Lord and Master have washed your feet. You also ought to wash one another's feet. Now how we do that? We're just the same. The Lord Jesus had done it.
We. We are.
Exercised by the Holy Spirit when earth's problem comes in, or whatever it may be.
And what we use, we use the scriptures.
And refined the words in the scriptures to deal with that problem.
00:25:01
What else could that mean?
We have to do the Lord's way, and the Lord leads by the Holy Spirit, which He was guarded. He was guarded with that towel. And when we use things like that, we work softly.
Not a hard rash towel, nor a soft towel he had. He wiped their feet again with a towel. There's a problem that can be solved. What we're gonna do when we think it can't be solved.
We wait upon the Lord.
We got away at the Lord's time.
To straighten out things and to do things that have to be done, because that's what the Lord says here. He wants it done. It's urgent.
He wants us to do it, not just let it go.
Wait till it straightens out itself and then we don't know what's going to happen. It's got to be done the Lord's way. It's got to, it's got to be done by the Lords guidance, by the Holy Spirit which He has given unto us. And that's the only way I have. Just recently some brother told me when they had a division.
And it had to do with discipline.
And.
The SA as the assembly decided how to do it.
And two brothers development set.
No way. We don't go along with it.
We aren't. We're not going to have it, are we not? We're going to not. We're going to have our way.
So what do you do?
It has nothing to do but weighed on the Lord, and if we don't do that, we have a duration.
The division is going to come through and it's sometimes just my two brothers hang out, don't go along with it. That's it. We are not going to do that.
Well, then a disaster comes after that, whatever that will be, the Lord knows. We gotta go the Lord's way. We have to wait upon the Lord, and the Lord is gonna lead.
Whatever the Lord's way is will be known to us, and that's not just an assembly.
Actions. It's personal too.
In the assembly, we have to deal with each other and there's personal things coming up in the assembly. We cannot, not just one person or one brother or two brothers together and say, well, that's it, and we're gonna have it done that way.
It's not gonna work.
We have to wait upon the Lord. I believe this is what the Lord wants to teach us.
But another way he does it gently. He doesn't say you have to do this, you have to do that. But in that same chapter, we find another place.
Where he says you have to do it.
In that same chapter here I'm looking for.
He says in verse 33.
So now I say to you.
A new commandment I give unto you. This is a commandment now.
This he doesn't say. Well, I hope you're gonna do it. I want you to do it, he commands it.
And you, and that's a new commandment I gave unto you, that he loved one another as I have loved you, that he also loved one another.
If we do that, beloved Saints.
We're gonna solve our problem too.
We love one another.
00:30:10
There is at least one person here this afternoon that.
Has heard me speak on what I have on my heart already.
At one point not too long ago. But I feel the burden of it on my heart for myself.
And for all of us.
So could we turn please to John S Gospel chapter 2?
John's Gospel, chapter 2.
For the marriage in Cana of Galilee.
Just a short thought or two on this incident, which is the first miracle or the first sign that Jesus did in John's Gospel. A very interesting study as to the miracles in John's Gospel, we aren't going to go into that now, but they have an unusual connection. But here we find that it says in chapter 2 verse one, and the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee.
And of the mother of Jesus was there, and both Jesus was called, and his disciples to the marriage. And when they watered wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.
Stop there for a moment.
Wine in the Word of God, as I suppose most of us know, speaks of natural joy or earthly joy.
And how many times perhaps?
In your life and mine, we get to the point where we say there is no joy.
We live in an age of entitlement, or at least we think we have entitlement. In reality, we aren't entitled to anything. First of all, as lost sinners before God, we deserve nothing but eternal judgment. And then, as believers, are we really entitled to anything?
No, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
But that is through the goodness of God.
And the hymn expresses it well when it says trembling. We had hoped for mercy some lone place within his door.
But the crown, the throne, the mansion, all were ready long before.
But perhaps we have come to feel that we are entitled to joy.
And here at this wedding, it is evident that it.
Wasn't that they were totally without wine at the beginning? No, they'd had some wine, but it had run out. And that is the way with wine in the natural sense.
It gives us joy for a while. Earthly pleasures give us joy. Things of this world give us joy. But if they are not?
If we don't have that new wine, that old wine runs out.
But looking at it for the moment from the vantage point of view and me as believers, perhaps we say in our Christian lives, we have no joy.
And sometimes it becomes a real problem.
I have heard so many say to me, but I wasn't happy, I wasn't getting this, I wasn't getting that and all the rest of it. And we start blaming circumstances and perhaps blaming others, which may have something to do with it.
There is a responsibility on your part and mine to be a help to others.
But at the same time, here we find that when the mother of the Lord Jesus comes to Him, she is expecting something. They have no wine.
It would have been relatively easy. We say it with all reverence for the Lord Jesus immediately to said, oh, have you run out of wine? Well, all right, no problem.
00:35:00
Sometimes people have that same difficulty in this world and they go to someone who perhaps has wealth and they say we don't have this or we don't have that. Please supply it. You have plenty. Supply it.
What we notice here that the answer of the Lord Jesus seems at first glance to be a little abrupt.
He doesn't even address his mother as mother.
It's interesting that on the cross he refers to her as his mother.
He addresses John and he says, Son, behold thy mother. He doesn't say, behold this woman. But here when she comes to him in the character of a suppliant, wanting that which speaks of joy, the Lord says, Woman, what have I to do with thee in verse 4?
Mine hour is not yet come. May I say to your heart and mind that that I believe, speaks a wealth of information.
Our wealth on the one hand of encouragement, but on the other hand of gentle rebuke.
That is, if your heart and mind is set on joy in our lives. I say it with all authority on the word of God. You and I are going to be disappointed because as Dawn quoted this morning from one of the I think it was a prisoner in Colorado. He said to another prisoner, it is not about us and Christianity is ultimately not about us, the Lord Jesus.
In a gentle way is teaching that here. And yet if we are not careful, we twist.
The real truth of Christianity around to make it seem as if it is about us. Do we not have a right to expect this and that and the other thing?
From Christianity, do we not have a right to expect the joy that should be ours?
Carry it one step further. Do we not have a right, someone says, to expect that the Local Assembly will provide refreshment and encouragement and good teaching and good fellowship and help when I need it, And as our brother has been bringing out the gentle washing of my feet in the right way when I need it.
Thank God for the local assembly, Thank God for brothers and sisters who care. Thank God for that love which exists. And we had that in the reading this morning. Thank God for those who are able to be a help to us in every way, for happy fellowship, for joy that results from the ministry of God's Word to suit our needs. But I say to your heart and mind if I come, whether it is to the Lord himself or whether it is to the local assembly or other believers or wherever it might be.
And say I have no wine, I have to have it. Lord give it to me. I say the Lord in a gentle way is going to carry my thoughts to a higher plane.
But then the woman, the mother, and it says his mother in verse five, his mother sat under the servants.
Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
And I say that to your heart and mine this afternoon.
Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
Oh, but I don't know whether that will make me happy.
I don't know whether that is what I want.
You know, I've said this before, but if we were to go on a few chapters in John here, we would find a verse that says.
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.
And I have used this illustration before, but I have some very good friends.
If to whom? If I were to go and say, will you do me a favor, I know they would say, by all means, just tell me what it is and I'll do it.
I know some whose answer would be like that, and probably you do too.
But I also have a few other friends to whom, if I made that request, there would be a somewhat cautious and guarded.
00:40:00
What is it?
With the distinct idea that when they knew what it was, then they would decide whether they could do it or not.
And that is not altogether wrong, because sometimes I might make a request that would be out of order, or perhaps something that was unreasonable for them to do. I hope not, but it certainly could happen.
I say to your heart and mind, if we approach the Lord in that way, we will never know the Lord's will for our lives. I cannot go to the Lord and say, Lord, show me your will so that I can.
Mull it over a little bit and then decide whether I'll do it or not. No, the words of the Lord's mother were whatsoever he saith unto you, Do it. And I say to your heart and mind, that is the Lord's message.
For you and for me today, whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
Many years ago, our brother Harry Hayhoe used to remind us that obedience and happiness go together. Not that we obey in order to be happy, but that is the pathway of obedience. And so she realized that if there were going to be any blessing, whatever it was that the Lord Jesus said, that was the thing that needed to be done.
So what happens? It does not immediately look as if the wine is forthcoming.
Because the command to the servants there in verse six is, and they were set there, 6 water pots of stone after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. And I suppose that those water pots, this is one application. Others may have a different thought, but I have thought of these water pots as Speaking of you and of me as believers. And there are different degrees of the water which we've already heard speaks of the word of God.
There are different amounts of water in each believer according to our diligence and our upbringing and so on. But what is the command to the servants? Fill the water pots with water. In verse seven, Fill the water pots with water. And I say to you and to me, that is God's command for you and to me in these last days. By any standard, we are living in difficult days. And as we heard this morning, we are very thankful for the liberty we have.
In countries like the United States and Canada and others in the world where we can come together freely like this, where we can meet together without fear of outward persecution and so on. But the devil is overactive today, seeking to destroy anything that speaks of the name of Christ. He is working very hard to. It's the word I want. Demoralize perhaps describes it best. The Saints of God. Yes, he's working hard in outward and very, very active persecution in some lands.
He's working in other ways in certain places by.
The inroads of the power of Satan with false religions. And we're getting that here too. But he is demoralizing the people of God in such a way as to bring so many problems and difficulties into our lives that well, it reminds me of a dear brother, and this is many, many years ago, who when his wife said something about are you going to meeting tonight, dear? And I happen to be in that home. This was years ago when I was in university.
And his answer was something like this. He was a dear brother gathered to the Lord's name.
He was having trouble, his work was very stressful and he had some health problems, he said.
I'm having enough trouble earning a living, let alone go to any meeting. And I don't think he quite meant it the way it came out because as it happened I, I don't take credit for it. But I talked him into going to meeting but he did go. But he was feeling the stress and strain, the difficulties of the way.
And this is nothing new. You will remember that when the children of Israel were almost through the desert in numbers. I think it's chapter 21.
It says the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. What's the answer?
Fill the water pots with water. Why?
00:45:00
The Lord didn't immediately tell them what the end was. There had to be faith. Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it. There has to be faith that the Lord is going to bless Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.
What's the result?
And the Lord simply says, now in verse 8, the servants in verse seven fill the water puffs with water. They fill them up to the brim. They were obedient.
And then the Lord says in verse 8, Draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast. Ah, draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast. Again, there had to be the exercise of faith on the part of those servants. They couldn't say but, but, but, but Lord.
Water. This is only water. No, they had taken to heart what Mary said to them. Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
I say to each one here, and there are some young people here, a good many young people, and we're glad to see you fill the water pots with water, fill it on your own. Get into the word of God on your own.
And if I may say.
Get into the written ministry that we have. It doesn't matter how much you read, but read something along with the Word of God. Read the Word of God first. Form your thoughts on it, but then read something on it, and you'll often find that there will be another dimension that's opened up to you. Sure, it takes time. Sure it's difficult. Sure, Satan will do everything possible to say. But you don't have time. You have to do this and that and the other thing.
I don't want to be flippant or tread on anybody's toes, but take a little time that you might spend on Facebook and read some written ministry. Is that a fair comment from someone that isn't on Facebook? Is that OK to say that? I say it very kindly and I'm not saying not to be on Facebook, but read the word of God and you will find that as it happened here when they bear.
To the governor of the feast, and he tasted the wine. Oh, he says.
This is something usually men bring the new wine 1St and then when people have gotten a little bit.
Under their belt, they won't notice so much when it's old wine, but you have kept the good wine until now.
The new wine is what keeps us going. The new wine is what we need today because the old wine, so to speak, are the things of nature and they do bring pleasure. The pleasures of sin for a season, it says, And I don't mean that all the pleasures in this world have to do with sin.
I didn't used to like that verse in first John that says love not the world neither the things that are in the world. Ouch.
One thing to love the world or not to love the world, but another thing to have it. The things that are in the world, but they only bring pleasure for a little time. They don't bring lasting pleasure. And I'm not saying don't enjoy the good things God has given you. I remember well many years ago, our late brother Clifford Brown was in our home and we were eating a good meal. My mother was a good cook and someone at the table said to him, what does it mean brother Brown when it says in Timothy?
That he giveth us all things richly to enjoy. He looked down at his plate and he said, well, he said, I think this is one of the things he meant. And I think he was right. It was good to enjoy that food. God had given it to us. And so there are the good things that God gives us in this world, and they're wonderful, but they don't last.
But the things to do with Christ, the new wine, it lasts.
And I'm parroting someone and some here will recognize the source. This isn't word for word, but I say to your heart and mind, and I mentioned it a few minutes ago, that we are going through many trials and difficulties in these last days. Personal problems, work related problems, education related problems, family problems, assembly problems, you name it. Sometimes you say I've got them all.
00:50:01
I say to your heart and mind, it's worth going through any kind of difficulty that the Lord puts you and me through in order to see something more of Christ. It's worth going through anything in order to have a taste of that new wine.
And as the brother who wrote the remarks that I'm parroting said, and it lasts, it lasts.
Turn with me, please for a verse in Second Corinthians chapter 5.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.
For the love of Christ constraineth us.
Because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead.
And that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
Like to make a few remarks concerning the love of Christ.
Constraineth us.
And immediately after making that remark, it says.
We thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead.
I want to repeat a remark made this morning.
The love of Christ.
Does not constrain our flesh. The love of Christ does not constrain the natural man.
The connection here is the love of Christ constrains us if we're a believer and have life.
And the love of Christ constrains that life, but no other.
And if we find in our lives sometimes we're going this way and the Word of God and God himself is going another way and we might not enter into the love of Christ constraining us, it is because of the working of flesh in us that is pulling us in a different direction. And so it's connected. The love of Christ is connected with the new man. That's why it says if one died for all.
Then we're all dead.
Quickly turn over to look at it a little more and Isaiah 53.
MMM.
Here's the natural man.
Confronted with the love of Christ, let's read the verses and see whether he's constrained by it.
Isaiah 53 and verse 2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form or comeliness. And when we shall see him, oh, we'll love him, right?
Love him. His love will constrain us, control us. There is no beauty.
That we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men. That's us.
Mankind a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised. We honored him, were controlled by His love. No, we esteemed him not.
Shirley hath borne our grease, and carried our sorrows.
Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God.
Reflected, it's a very brief picture of natural man.
When confronted with the love of Christ.
In his condition now, since our time is very limited, turn over to Psalms 42.
Want to make a few very brief remarks with respect to the sequence of Psalms starting with Psalm 42.
00:55:01
Umm, it's a, a series of Psalms. Here is what's called the second book of the Psalms and it takes place, it's going to take place in the Tribulation when Israel is not yet owned of God and they're outside the city and not yet owned as Jehovah. But I want to make application. That's not my purpose to try to explain that, but simply to make application to the constraining love of Christ as seen in this Old Testament believer.
And just to make it easy, I'm going to call him Levi and here's Levi and Levi, I think represents some of us in the room this afternoon in the present condition of our lives. And he has a message that we can learn from him. He says in I Psalm 42, verse one, as the heart paneth after the water brook, so paneth my soul after thee, O God, my soul thirsteth for God. If you're a believer in the room this afternoon, that's the.
There's that thirst in the soul. My soul thirsts. The God has put it there. Thank God he has. And so there is that drawing power on the new life of the love of God in Christ on us. But then he says my tears have been my meat night and day.
Where is thy God? And so here's the believer in this sense, but he's, he's in, he's depressed and he says, where's my God?
I thirst for God, but where is he in my life? He says verse 4.
I remember these things. I pour out my soul, for I had gone with the multitude. I went with them to the House of God, to the voice of joy and praise.
With a multitude.
He looks back, he looks back to a happier time in his life and he says, oh, I can remember when life was happy and good and I could enjoy it and I could have fellowship with God's people. And we, we went together and we enjoyed things together.
But it's a memory. It's not the present state of his heart. And so he says in verse five, Why are thou cast down, O my soul?
Where thou cast down on my soul.
Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him.
Mm-hmm. He knows in his head, but in his heart, in his soul, in his emotions at this point in his life, he, he says, well, I know what you say, hope and God.
I'll praise him. He's God. He should be praised, but does he feel that way? He says, why are you cast down? Why are you cast down this afternoon? What is it that's depressing on your soul that you you would say, well, I, I pant for God, but I I and I remember the past when it was good and wonderful that not the present.
So he says, Oh my God, verse six, my soul is cast down. He's honest with God about it. We have to get honest with God sometimes about where we are in our souls. He's honest with God. He says, I will remember thee from the land of Jordan, from the Hermanites. In this particular case, Levi had been cast out of Jerusalem. He wasn't allowed to be in the place where God had said he would meet with the people because the Jews, the godly Jews at this time will be cast out and they won't be able to enjoy all the privileges and the place that.
Was given to them and so he's out at the Jordan, if you will, he's at a distance and he's.
Lord, oh Lord, please come into my life. I want to come back to where I once was.
And he has some sense that verse nine I will say to God, my rock. That's good, isn't it? God? He recognizes God was his rock. He didn't have something else. He wasn't trying to go off, if we would say, into the world to find the solution to the sadness and the grief and the distress.
Of a saw.
He says, I'll say to God, my rock, What's he say? Why have you forgotten me? God, if you hadn't forgotten me, I'd be happy this afternoon. I'd be in a good state. Everything would be going all right in my life. Have you forgotten me?
I want you.
01:00:00
Uh, well, other people look at me. Verse 10. They say to me, where's your God?
Where is your God? You. You claim you have a relationship with God. Where is he now? Where you are in your life and in your Mead?
Well, we can just touch for a quick moment in the 43rd Psalm and you can read it on your own and and meditate on it. And the next psalmist says, Judge me O God, and plead my cause. Thou art my God of my strength. He looks at himself.
And he examines himself and he says I can't see I'm doing anything wrong.
Yeah, I'm not perfect, but Lord, why are you bringing this into my life?
Judge me and see.
He says verse four, I'll go to God, my exceeding joy, but he doesn't. And I'll bring my heart with me. I'll sing, I'll pray, but he's not singing, He's not praising, he's not enjoying.
What God wants of him.
So then in the 44th Psalm he goes back and he traces history and he looks at the children of Israel and he said, Lord, I look at the children of Israel. And Levi could say you helped them. You brought them in a wonderful way from Canaan, and you took them all the way to Egypt and you took care of them and you provided for them and you did good.
And so he could look at others and he could look, you might say he could look in the word of God and see how God had taken care of all these people and done these wonderful things. Of course, if you'd been one of those people, you might have thought differently if you've been one in the wilderness and you've gone through the feelings. But he looked at it, he could kind of ignore all the pain and suffering of the of the wilderness, but he could see the end result of it and he appreciates it.
Umm.
Our time is really up, so I'm just gonna get to the conclusion of the matter. 1St Psalm 45, my heart.
Is indicting a good manager. I speak of the things which I have made touching the king.
My tongue is the pin of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the children of men.
Grace is poured into thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee forever. Brethren, the secret, the key, the solution to such conditions in our souls is to turn from self.
And the occupation of one with one's problems and one's difficulties.
And look at the love of God in Christ.
You know, that's not an obvious thing. As obvious as the words may seem, it takes real concentration to turn from God loving me in my circumstances to just loving God.
Just enjoying the person of the Lord Jesus.
Not simply saying, Lord Jesus, come into my life and do this and that and you love me and you will do this for me. But in the 45th Psalm, it's about him.
It's not about Levi, it's about him. And he looks at him and he finds in him what is a pleasure to him and who he is.
And in the 46th thumb, he gets to the 10th verse and he's he can say be still and know that I am God.
God takes us through these things with the intent that He focuses our attention on that man, the Lord Jesus, and His love in a way that we forget about ourselves.
The circumstances aren't changed necessarily in life. The circumstances may be just what they were.
But the heart is taken out of the circumstances and finds its satisfaction beyond anything that circumstance can touch of us.
And there's rest in that. There's peace. There's a stillness that we can say be still.
I know that I am God. Let's pray.
Our God, our Father, we do pray that thy word that has been before us this afternoon, Thou knowest just what each one here needs, each one of us, and that Thou would take something that's been said this afternoon from Thy word and apply it to us individually for the blessing of our souls.
01:05:04
Most of all.
Turn with me, please for a verse in Second Corinthians chapter 5.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.
For the love of Christ constraineth us.
Because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
Like to make a few remarks concerning the love of Christ.
Constraineth us.
And immediately after making that remark, it says.
We thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead.
I want to repeat a remark made this morning.
The love of Christ.
Does not constrain our flesh. The love of Christ does not constrain the natural man.
The connection here is the love of Christ constrains us if we're a believer and have life.
And the love of Christ constrains that life, but no other.
And if we find in our lives sometimes we're going this way and the Word of God and God himself is going another way, and we might not enter into the love of Christ constraining us, it is because of the working of flesh in us that is pulling us in a different direction. And so it's connected. The love of Christ is connected with the new man. That's why it says if one died for all, then we're all dead.
Quickly turn over to look at it a little more and Isaiah 53.
MMM.
Here's the natural man.
Confronted with the love of Christ, let's read the verses and see whether he's constrained by it.
Isaiah 53 and verse 2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form or comeliness. And when we shall see him, oh, we'll love him, right?
Love them, His C Love will constrain us, control us. There is no beauty.
That we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men. That's us.
Mankind a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him.
He was despised, we honored him or controlled by Islam.
We esteemed him not.
Surely hath borne our grease, and carried our sorrows.
Yeah, we did esteem him. Stricken, smitten of God, afflicted. It's a very brief picture of natural man.
When confronted with the love of Christ.
In his condition now, since our time is very limited, turn over to Psalms 42.
Want to make a few very brief remarks with respect to the sequence of Psalms starting with Psalm 42.
Umm, it's a, a series of Psalms. Here is what's called the second book of the Psalms and it takes place, it's going to take place in the Tribulation when Israel is not yet owned of God and they're outside the city and not yet owned as Jehovah. But I want to make application. That's not my purpose to try to explain that, but simply to make application to the constraining love of Christ as seen in this Old Testament believer.
And just to make it easy, I'm going to call him Levi. And here's Levi. And Levi, I think represents some of us in the room this afternoon in the present condition of our lives. And he has a message that we can learn from him. He says in Psalm 42, verse one, as the heart paneth after the water brooks, so paneth my soul after thee, O God, my soul thirsteth for God. If you're a believer in the room this afternoon, that's the.
01:10:30
There's that thirst in the soul. My soul thirsts. The God has put it there.
Thank God he has, and so there is that drawing power on the new life of the love of God in Christ on us. But then he says, my tears have been my meat night and day.
Where is thy God? And so here's the believer in this sense, but he's, he's in, he's depressed and he says, where's my God?
I thirst for God, but where is He in my life? He says verse four. I remember these things. I pour out my soul, for I had gone with the multitude. I went with them to the House of God, to the voice of joy and praise with a multitude.
He looks back, he looks back to a happier time in his life and he says, oh, I can remember when life was happy and good and I could enjoy it and I could have fellowship with God's people. And uh, we, we went together and we enjoyed things together.
But it's a memory. It's not the present state of his heart. And so he says in verse five, Why are thou cast down, O my soul?
Where thou cast down on my soul.
Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him.
He knows in his head, but in his heart, in his soul and his emotions at this point in his life, he he says, well, I know what you say, hope and God.
I'll praise him, he's God, he should be praised. But does he feel that way?
He says, why are you cast down? Why are you cast down this afternoon? What is it that's depressing on your soul that you you would say, well, I, I pant for God, but I and I remember the past when it was good and wonderful that.
Not the present.
So he says, Oh my God, verse six, my soul is cast down. He's honest with God about it. We have to get honest with God sometimes about where we are in our souls. He's honest with God, he says.
I will remember thee from the land of Jordan, from the Hermanites. In this particular case, Levi had been cast out of Jerusalem. He wasn't allowed to be in the place where God had said he would meet with the people. Because the Jews, the godly Jews at this time, will be cast out and they won't be able to enjoy all the privileges in the place that was given to them. And so he's out at the Jordan, if you will. He's at a distance and he's floored. Oh Lord.
Please come into my life. I want to come back to where I once was.
And he has some sense that verse nine I will say to God, my rock. That's good, isn't it? God? He's recognizes God was his rock. He didn't have something else. He wasn't trying to go off, if we would say, into the world to find the solution to the sadness and the grief and the distress.
Of a saw.
He says, I'll say to God, my rock, What's he say? Why have you forgotten me? God, if you hadn't forgotten me, I'd be happy this afternoon. I'd be in a good state. Everything would be going all right in my life. Have you forgotten me?
I want to.
Uh, well, other people look at me. Verse 10. They say to me, where's your God?
Where is your God? You. You claim you have a relationship with God. Where is he now? Where you are in your life and in your Mead?
Well, we can just touch for a quick moment in the 43rd Psalm and you can read it on your own and and meditate on it. And the next psalmist says, Judge me O God, and plead my cause. Thou art my God of my strength. He looks at himself.
01:15:01
And he examines himself and he says I can't see I'm doing anything wrong.
Yeah, I'm not perfect, but Lord, why are you bringing this into my life?
Judge me and see.
He says verse four, I'll go to God, my exceeding joy, but he doesn't. And I'll bring my heart with me. I'll sing, I'll prays, but he's not singing, He's not praising, he's not enjoying.
What God wants of him.
So then in the 44th Psalm he goes back and he traces history and he looks at the children of Israel and he said, Lord, I look at the children of Israel. And Levi could say you helped them. You brought them in a wonderful way from Canaan, and you took them all the way to Egypt and you took care of them and you provided for them and you did good.
And so he could look at others and he could look, you might say he could look in the word of God and see how God had taken care of all these people and done these wonderful things. Of course, if you'd been one of those people, you might have thought differently if you've been one in the wilderness and you've gone through the feelings. But he looked at it, he could kind of ignore all the pain and suffering of the of the wilderness, but he could see the end result of it and he appreciates it.
Umm.
Our time is really up, so I'm just gonna get to the conclusion of the matter. 1St Psalm 45, my heart.
Is indicting a good manager. I speak of the things which I have made touching the king.
My tongue is the pin of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the children of men.
Grace is poured into thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee forever. Brethren, the secret, the key, the solution to such conditions in our souls is to turn from self.
And the occupation of one with one's problems and one's difficulties.
And look at the love of God in Christ.
You know, that's not an obvious thing. As obvious as the words may seem, it takes real concentration to turn from God loving me in my circumstances to just loving God.
Just enjoying the person of the Lord Jesus, not simply saying Lord Jesus, come into my life and do this and that and you love me and you will do this for me. But in the 45th Psalm, it's about him.
It's not about Levi, it's about him, and he looks at him, and he finds in him.
What is a pleasure to him and who he is?
And in the 46th film, he gets to the 10th verse and he's he can say be still and know that I am God.
God takes us through these things with the intent that He focuses our attention on that man, the Lord Jesus, and His love in a way that we forget about ourselves.
The circumstances aren't changed necessarily in life. The circumstances may be just what they were.
But the heart is taken out of the circumstances and finds its satisfaction beyond anything that circumstance can touch of us.
And there's rest in that. There's peace. There's a stillness that we can say be still.
I know that I am God. Let's pray.
Our God, our Father, we do pray that thy word that has been before us this afternoon, Thou knowest just what each one here needs, each one of us, and that Thou would take something that's been said this afternoon from Thy word and apply it to us individually for the blessing of our souls.
Most of all.
Let Your Light Shine