Lawrenceville Conference: 2017
Table of Contents
Ephesians 1:1-5
Reading
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.
Can we see him 78 in the appendix?
7-8 in the back of the book.
I waiting for the.
More daughter.
Wonder if we could read Ephesians chapter one, Brethren, I know it's a chapter we go over quite a bit, but it seems to me that.
So much need of being reminded of our heavenly calling and the blessings that are ours unconditionally. I just suggest that, and if there's something else, you could consider that too.
Sounds very good, Bob.
Ephesians, chapter one.
Ball and Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the Saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
00:05:21
According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
Having predestinated us under the adoption of the children.
By Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.
Wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace, where any other bounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself.
That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth even in Him.
Also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the council of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory. Who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted. After that He heard the word of truth.
The gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that he believed, he were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of his glory.
Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the Saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us word, who believe according to the working of His mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised from the dead.
And set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
Far above all principality, and power, and light, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body.
The fullness of him that filleth All in all.
Well, as you said, Brother Bob, it's very, very good and very important to be reminded of our heavenly calling and our heavenly blessings, isn't it? And here is an old brother used to remind us, every believer is equally blessed. God doesn't have any favorites in his family. And so it's not as if in this first verse that there are Saints in Ephesus and then there is.
A special class of those who are faithful. It's really all inclusive to the Saints and faithful ones which are at Ephesus. It could read.
It makes it clear, I think, yes. And so it's good to remember that and good to remember that, as we said a moment ago, every believer is equally blessed and we need to lay hold on that, we really do.
00:10:16
Pardon this comment, but it's true. I find sometimes that there are those who feel that certain believers have been blessed more than others. Certain people have more than others. And as to gift, no question that's true.
God is sovereign and He in his sovereignty can give gifts to whomsoever he will. That's a different thing. But as to the spiritual blessings we have and the.
Capacity for the enjoyment of Christ. I don't believe there's any difference between 1 believer and another. Would you agree with that Bob?
Are the faithful ones, that really means those that have faith, doesn't it? That's what it really means. So to be a believer, you have faith and so you're one of the faithful ones. Another comment too, I think goes along with your comment, Bill, that ivory believer is equally blessed, is that you will not be more blessed in heaven than you are right here and now.
And justice to lay hold of that is what's going to give us power to walk properly as heavenly citizens through this world.
And let's remember that they are heavenly or spiritual blessings. In the Old Testament we find that a person was blessed for their faithfulness in a temporal or an earthly way. We see that with Abraham and so many other of the Old Testament Saints. But we need to be careful because there has been a great deal of teaching afoot in Christian circles to equate monetary and temporal success with spirituality.
That is not what we have in Paul's ministry, and maybe just a comment in connection with Paul's ministry, that which we refer to as Paul's ministry, in other words, that which was given to the apostle Paul to record by divine inspiration such as this epistle we have before us. It's really Paul's ministry that detaches us from this world in every way other than the fact that we are still physically here on planet earth.
But brethren, it's important to realize that in Christianity, our hopes, our goals, our blessings, Our Calling are not connected with this world in any way. We are detached from this world and connected with the Lord Jesus where He is now.
Important to understand that we are we are connected with the man in the glory.
Not the man on earth, not the way he was connected with his disciples and his own when he walked here. Not the way he will be associated with his earthly people in a coming day. But we are a heavenly people, as has been said. We often say it our our whole, Our Calling is heavenly.
And that's why it's important to read, meditate and enjoy.
What Paul was given because Paul detaches us from this world in a way that none of the other New Testament writers do.
I know the new other New Testament writers bring in Christian truth and the Lord's coming in various ways and so on, but we will never understand our true position as believers are and what our reaction and action should be in connection with the world, what we are as a heavenly people, what we have as spiritual blessings. If we don't go to Paul's ministry, never give it up. It's vital, it's important. We need the whole Word of God.
But to understand Christianity, who we are, what we are, and where we're going and what is ahead, we must take up the epistles, like the Epistle to the Ephesians.
To confirm what you said about our being united to Christ in glory right here and now, go to the end of the chapter in Paul's prayer in verse.
19 He says, What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us? Were to believe, according to the working of his mighty power, the might of his power, which he wrought in Christ.
When he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
00:15:05
Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in also that which is to come. And have put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth All in all.
So there is the connection in the apostle Paul learned that truth when he was still Saul of Tarsus, when he was still unconverted and on his way to persecute the believers in Damascus, and he met with Jesus and he called to him out of heaven.
Saul saw why persecutest thou me? I think it was a joke to him to realize.
Me touching somebody in heaven, what is this? And he had three days without sight to let that sink in. But it did sink in touching believers here in this world. He was touching that man who has the highest position in the universe. Brethren, that's a wonderful truth to get a hold of. We as believers in the Lord Jesus have a lot more clout.
In the political processes of a country, by getting down on our knees and praying than we do by getting involved in political causes, Lord help us that these would be realities to us.
Just another introductory comment to the book of Ephesians. In this chapter 2, we find that in the Old Testament there's a parallel to this book, and that's the book of Joshua and Canaan, which is often thought of by many as when we get to heaven. And something that comes after death, after the Jordan, is really a, a, a picture of the vast panorama of spiritual blessings that are laid out for us here.
It's that which we can have an enjoyment of now because brethren, not only are we associated now with Christ in heaven, but we can have an enjoyment of heaven before we get there. And so when the children of Israel went into possess the land, they went in under the guidance and direction of Joshua, whose name actually means Jesus, and he's a picture of the Lord Jesus. But I want to go back and read 2 verses in the book of Joshua.
In connection with a comment that was made a few moments ago, because and before I do that, let me just reiterate what I think, I think it was Bob said that every believer is blessed equally. We all have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. But the question is not of our how we've been much we've been blessed, but what is our enjoyment? What is our appreciation? What is our apprehension of those blessings.
It may vary considerably with different believers, and I want to show that how this is illustrated by reading two portions. The first one I believe is in the 11Th chapter of Joshua. Yes, Joshua Chapter 11.
And when I read this, remember what I said, Joshua is a picture of the Lord Jesus. He's the captain of our salvation, bringing many sons to glory. And in the last verse of the 11Th chapter of Joshua, it says, so Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord said unto Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel, according to their divisions by their tribes, and the land rested from war.
So Joshua secures for Israel the whole land, because it's the Lord Jesus Christ who has secured the blessing for us, the Lord Jesus, and going to Calvary, laying down his life, glorifying God as to the question of sin, shedding his blood, rising again, triumphant from the dead, and seated at God's right hand has secured the blessing for us. Brethren, it's nothing to do with us. Again in the Old Testament, if they were faithful, they were blessed in measure.
But our blessings are not dependent on our faithfulness. They are dependent on the fact that our Joshua has secured the blessing for us. But now go over to the 13th chapter.
00:20:06
And verse one Now Joshua was old and stricken in years. And the Lord said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years. Now notice this. And there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. You say, Now how does this correspond to what we just read in the 11Th chapter? I thought you said Joshua. It says Joshua took the whole land. And now it says there's very much land to be possessed. I believe what is illustrated to us here is the fact that yes.
Our Joshua, the Lord Jesus, has secured the blessing for us, and it's all ours in Him. Every one of us blessed equally at all spiritual blessings, as we've said. But what about the possession of it in our souls? What about the practical side of it? And we know what the children of Israel, they to this very day have never possessed near all what God intended for them.
Joshua took it all but how little the children of Israel went in and set their foot on it, because they were told that wherever they set their foot.
It had been given to them and in as an inheritance And brethren, in the measure in which we walk, in the enjoyment of what we have in Christ and possess it in our souls, appreciate it in our own souls, then we're going to have the enjoyment of it. But it's all there, and it's all for the enjoyment of every believer, young and old.
The first chapter of Joshua in verse 3, every place that the soul of your foot shall tread upon that have I given you, as I said unto Moses. And so the enjoyment of it is only at least as far as they walk in it. And so with the Christian today. And that's why Paul prays in the end of our chapter and verse 18.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of your calling and so on. And so he prays for that enlightenment. There has to be that willingness to walk in it, and then that that part varies in this, doesn't it? We don't all walk in all the truth that we know in our heads sometimes.
Things too, wouldn't you say, brother Doug, that?
There are many believers who don't know these things, and that's important too. And I like that. What you mentioned in verse 18, the eyes of your understanding, being enlightened, that you may know. And He asked for three things that they would know. First of all, what is the hope of His calling? That's the spiritual blessings we get in from verse three, maybe down to verse 9. The second thing, what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the Saints?
So what we have in verses 1011 and 12 and then.
What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to believe and that's what we have in verses 13 and 14, the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of God that works towards us who believe and in chapter three he prays it's in US who believe the power of God works in US, works towards us and works in US who believe wonderful things to if you don't really know these things, you can't enjoy them.
So it's important to know them, but it's more than that, like you say, Doug, it's really enjoying them to the point where you really walk in the reality of what we're talking about.
And I believe, Bob, if I read you rightly, that was one of the burdens you had in suggesting this chapter.
And it is important for all of us, isn't it?
I look around the room here and most of the people I see could probably remember at least one other time, and maybe more than one, when this chapter has been taken up at a Bible conference.
And we have been over these things many times. But I asked my own heart, how much of a present living reality is it in my soul from day-to-day?
00:25:07
What are those spiritual blessings? I believe, as we've heard, that they're enumerated for us in the first chapter here, in the second chapter, some of them in the 4th chapter. They're enumerated for us in Ephesians here. And we won't have more blessings in heaven, as we've already heard. We've got them now. They're ours now. The enjoyment of them is another thing. And Satan in these last days is doing his utmost.
To prevent you and me from enjoying these heavenly blessings. He knows, and we ought to know too, that while He can't take away our salvation, I trust we're all clear on that. But He knows that if He can bring the Church down from the appreciation and enjoyment of its heavenly calling, then, humanly speaking, the Church has lost everything.
Everything. Everything.
And it goes back to what Bob said a few minutes ago, because the minute the believer comes down into the arena of this world and seeks to work with the world, then it must work on worldly principles. It must work with those who can never rise up to heavenly things. And Christianity becomes a worldly religion. And it has. We need to hang our heads because we can't point the finger. We're all, to some extent, part of it.
But Christianity is not a worldly religion. Christianity takes me right out of this world, up to heaven, and then sends me back into this world, but as a heavenly man, a heavenly woman, to bear that heavenly calling and to be a witness to this world. That's a total difference from jumping into this world and seeking to make it better. And yet it's so prevalent today, and it's grabbing hold.
Of so many people today, so many dear believers.
And the heavenly blessings as such, are they ours? Yes, they are. But they're not enjoyed. They're not appreciated.
We are ambassadors for Christ, aren't we? And an ambassador is not allowed to get into the politics of the country he is sent to. He is only there to represent the country he has been sent from. And that's our position as believers in the Lord Jesus.
I think we have to recognize and brethren, the lack of teaching has resulted what you're saying Bill and many real believers being sincerely. We have to understand that sincerely involved in the political process. But I think it's important to realize why we don't do that and this is the chapter that really gives us to understand Brother Jim was mentioning how the.
Blessings of the Old Testament believers were material things. We go back to Deuteronomy chapter 28. I'd like to give this so our young people realize this and are grounded in the scriptures. Deuteronomy chapter 28.
From verse one. And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God.
To observe and to do all his commandments, which I command thee. This day Jim was mentioning how the blessings are conditional.
That the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all the nations of the earth, and all these blessings shall come on thee and overtake thee. If thou shalt hearken into the voice of the Lord thy God. Bless it Shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, and increase of thy kind and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shalt thou be, shall be thy basket and thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shall be thou be when thou goest out. So it's all.
Material things, and it was God's blessing in that time. It was a proper thing.
For Israel, but it was like Jim Lynch and conditional upon their obedience.
But now look at the 1St chapter of Ephesians and verse 3.
00:30:03
To see the contrast, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ? Any condition there?
It's done. It's already done.
But it's all in Christ, isn't it?
And they are not material blessings, they are spiritual blessings.
Oh brother, we could not be more blessed than we are right now sitting here in this room. Like Jim said, we don't understand that. We don't enjoy it properly and so sometimes we get down, we get discouraged.
My brethren, let's let the words of this verse sink down into our souls. He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings.
Not in earthly places, in heavenly places, in Christ. And so the list of the blessing that comes, the blessings that come in the verses that follow are all spiritual. They're not something you can look at with your physical eyes.
You have to appreciate them by faith.
This is what God has said, and you lay hold of the reality of them by faith, wonderful, wonderful privilege. Another contrast to is that in the Old Testament, God called Abraham, gave him certain promises, and told him he would build from him a great nation, the children of Israel, the Jewish nation. And they were given those promises and blessed in a certain way. But in Christianity it's not to a certain nation.
And it's always been interesting to me, significant that in Pauls epistles, when he opens up, he all invariably in his greeting gives two things, grace and peace. And grace was in those days the Gentile greeted way of greeting, and peace or Shalom was the Jewish way of greeting. And it's just to me very beautiful to see how the two things are brought together. And in the second chapter of our epistle it's explained very carefully.
That the church, now, those that have been brought into this position of heavenly blessing are not from a specific nation, but they're from Jews and Gentiles who have been saved on the ground of the work of Calvary. Those who have come in repentance and faith and avail themselves of what God has provided. So in the coming day, we're going to sing out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.
And I must say it's been a joy to my own soul for the last few years to be able to go to various parts of the world. And the gospel we preach in, in one country or on one continent is the same as on another. The the, the brethren we share fellowship with, you know that we met some brethren recently. They have nothing of this world's goods, dirt floor, few little sticks of furniture to put together, you know.
They're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, just as much as we are here enjoying the mercies of this facility.
And rather, not that we want to despise the mercies we have this weekend, but it isn't. It isn't dependent on what nation or family we're born into, and it's not dependent on what we have in a material way. Every believer, whether they're in prison for their faith today, whether they are hungry because they don't have enough to eat, or whether they're like us who have abundance, they have been blessed equally spiritually.
And they are connected with the same head as we are.
In fact, Brother Jim, I sometimes find that having more material things can be, not necessarily, but can be a hindrance in our enjoyment of these spiritual realities. I'll never forget, and I've mentioned it before, but it was so impressed on me one time with Brother Clem Buchanan in the Dominican Republic, going into the home of a brother who was extremely poor, like you say, dirt floors.
Only place we had been invited there to have the new meal and the sister wasn't ready yet, but the only place to sit was at the table. So we sat down there. And that dear brother, you didn't have anything else to talk about except get his Bible. And he sat at the head of the table with his face glowing, that dear black face just glowing. And I thought he was reading out of the Bible and found out later that he didn't know how to read.
00:35:24
But the enjoyment of the reality.
The spiritual blessings, I just had to bow my head there and say, Lord, please help me that material things don't impede my appreciation of spiritual realities. May the Lord help us breath.
I'm sure you found that too in India, haven't you? Bear the bill.
Yes, I have.
And it's sometimes difficult, I freely admit, to know how to balance these things. We can only do it in the Lord's presence.
I don't know about others here, but half the time in my life I'm very thankful to the Internet, and the other half the time I wish it had never been invented. And Ditto for a few other modern technology things that we cope with. Wonderful for us. And yet I resent the fact that sometimes I spend half a day trying to get the thing to work properly for me and calling up people that know how to do it and so on, instead of spending my time on more profitable things.
And the answer is not to turn the clock back the way the Amish do or people like that and pretend that the automobile had never been invented or the phone or anything like that. The answer is to say, yes, we have these things, we're thankful for them, but how can I use them for the Lord? And yet, as the scripture says, not abusing them, or as the Darby reads.
Not disposing of them or of this world.
As our own. And that's where the problem comes in, isn't it? It's the having of these things, disposing of them as our own, and living our lives without that horizon of our heavenly calling. And the devil wants to bring that horizon down to the level of this world so that I concentrate my efforts on the things of this world. And if there's any time left over, Lord, then I'll dig into some of these heavenly blessings.
And you know, and I know that if I take that attitude, the devil will make very sure there's no time leftover. And so it's important, isn't it, to seek to make these things a priority in our lives and to enjoy them, and not simply to be going on in, shall we say, an outward way, because that is what happened to this very assembly at Ephesus.
I can still remember my late father-in-law, Albert Hale, whom a good many here will be able to remember. And I can well remember his standing up to give an address at a conference. And he said, I would like you to turn to the second Epistle to the Ephesians.
And after there had been a few blank looks and one or two people wondering if he was losing it. But then he explained what he meant and turned them to Revelation chapter 2, where there is an address to the first of those seven assemblies to Ephesians.
And we all remember what had happened. They were going on outwardly with everything. They were judging evil. They were preaching the Word. They were being faithful in an outward way. But the motive spring of it all had gone. The first love had gone, the connection to Christ himself, that one in.
Heaven, who's there for us, was not there anymore and the Lord had to warn them. This can and will result in the Candlestick being removed if you don't deal with it. It's a good point for us all to remember, isn't it?
In that connection, I just like to read a portion in First Peter because it's interesting that when Peter writes to the believers, they were believers who had been saved from Judaism. They were those who had been brought into the Church of God, but they were from a Jewish background and they were used to an earthly and a promise of an earthly inheritance. And before I read what I want to read in the first chapter, just to put it in context.
They might have They were suffering what Peter calls fiery trials, and they had been driven from their homes because of their faith in Christ and their faithfulness to Christ. They had lost everything as far as this world, so to speak, and they might have wondered what has happened. We were in the Old Testament under the Jewish order of things. We were promised that if we were faithful to the to the Lord, we'd be blessed and so on, and we'd have peace with our enemies.
00:40:30
Now what's happened? And Peter, I believe, writes to them to bring out some of the things that we've been Speaking of. And I'll just read from verse three of chapter one. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now notice this to an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you.
Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, which.
Ready to be revealed in the last time and so on. And this must have been a great comfort to these believers to realize that now they had an inheritance that would never fade away and could not be touched. And brethren, we have an inheritance. It's the unsearchable riches of Christ. It's all the things that, as Brother Bill has said, are outlined and brought before us in Ephesians and other places too, these blessings that we have.
They'll never fade away. Not only that, but you know you inherit an earthly inheritance.
No matter how careful you are with that inheritance or how well you invest it, every time you go down and draw on that inheritance, the inheritance becomes less. But we can draw on our heavenly blessings, our heavenly inheritance. We can enjoy the the what we have in Christ all our lives. Does the inheritance become less? No, and it's reserved in heaven for us. We're going to have an even greater enjoyment of it in the coming day when the.
When the hindrances and the distractions are taken away. But brethren, He wants us to have an enjoyment of it now. And I think we need to stress that, as we said earlier, we can have an enjoyment of heaven now before we get there. We are connected by the Spirit of God, which is the earnest and the unction and and so on, to give us that enjoyment now in our souls of what Canaan represents to us, that inheritance.
It's reserved for us, and we're preserved for the inheritance. You know, someone might promise to give to leave you some money, an inheritance when they die, but you might predecease the person, and when the person does die and the inheritance becomes available, it has to be passed on to someone else. You weren't reserved for the inheritance. But brethren, in either way, it's reserved for us. We're reserved for it, and we can have a present enjoyment of it now.
Just going back to our chapter before we get away from verse 4.
I think there's something again that's significant in regard to what we've been saying. Just notice verse four. According as He hath chosen us in Him. Now I want you to notice this little expression.
Before the foundation of the world. Go to Matthew 25 and again you'll get a contrast.
Matthew 25, I believe it is.
Yes, Matthew 25 and verse 34.
Then shall the shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you. And I want you to notice this in contrast, not before, but from the foundation of the world. What's the difference? Well, in Matthew he's speaking about the coming Kingdom and millennial blessing for Israel. When the Lord comes back to reign, restores Israel to the land.
And there's the shout of a king amongst them, and there's earthly millennial blessing. You know, Jerusalem is going to be the center of the world by and by. It's going to be the capital, not Washington or Ottawa or Beijing or Paris or London or any of the celebrated capitals of the world today. It's going to be Jerusalem. It's going to be the center of everything here on planet earth. There's going to be a Kingdom. But it's been prepared for God's earthly people from the foundation of the world.
00:45:03
Because their blessings are earthly and they will yet be blessed in that way. But when he speaks of the Church and their heavenly blessings, it's not from the foundation of the world, it's before the foundation of the world. Again, I believe it's the Spirit of God. So very careful to guard brethren, lest we think that our blessings are aspirations are in any way connected with planet earth.
We were chosen and blessed before the foundation of the world. And so I just say that again in connection with the comments that have been made, brethren, we're not connected with this world in any way other than the fact we're here physically and still to represent Christ in heaven.
But we're only here as pilgrims and strangers, aren't we? And isn't that wonderful to realize that before there was any universe in existence, God's thoughts were about us? Another thing I think is important to mention in verse four, We have election chosen in Him. That's election.
In verse five we have predestination. Those two words are connected, but they are not exactly the same.
When it's election, it's talking about persons. When it's talking about predestination, it's talking about a position that those chosen persons were to occupy. And so it's beautiful to see that He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
Isn't that amazing to think about it, that in Christ we are holy and without blame?
Now if you ask.
Some of the people around me, they would probably mention a few things to blame me for, and they're probably right.
We are not talking here about our condition, we are talking about the position God has chosen us to fill, and it's fully and without blame and it's unconditional because it's in Him. O brethren, it's so wonderful. Holiness is not something I strive to attain.
It's something that I am put into this position and then I'm exhorted to walk in it.
And I've often given the illustration of a young lady that's going to get married and she puts on this beautiful spotless white dress.
And she goes out to the car that's taking her to the place where she's going to get married. And a lot of cars along the street are kind of dirty. Do you think she's going to be careful how she walks?
She sure will. Why is she so careful? Because of that white dress she has on. And brethren, in the measure that we enjoy, the fact that God has set us in a position of complete holiness before Him in love in Christ ought to make us so very careful how we walk in this world. It's not to attain something. It's because He has put us in that position.
Lord help us to enjoy that brother.
Could we go back just for a moment to the comments that were made about the inheritance?
Not to find fault, but just to keep our thinking straight. What was said about the inheritance is very true. I would only point out that the inheritance and our spiritual blessings are not the same thing. We need to be clear on that.
Our spiritual blessings were won for us by Christ with his work on Calvary's cross. And as our brother said, we don't work for them either. They're all ours because they're blessings that flow from a risen Christ in glory, and they're heavenly, and they're enumerated for us in.
The book of Ephesians here the inheritance is all created things and strictly speaking the inheritance is not in heaven. Our brother Lundeen used to point that out clearly to us. It doesn't say unto an inheritance undefiled and so on reserved in heaven. He said don't leave out for you.
00:50:19
It's reserved in heaven for you, but it's not reserved in heaven. It is all created things. And the the sense of what we get in verse eleven of our chapter has to do with verse 10, that God has in his purposes to exalt Christ as head over all things, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. And then you and I are going to share that inheritance with them. We don't have it yet. We have a title to it.
It's absolutely sure.
But we don't have it yet. The blessing says Bob has pointed out we have now and will never have more of them than we have right now. So just when we're reading Scripture to be clear on those two things, I think is a bit helpful for us. Yeah, that's a good point, Bill. And to go to Psalm Two, I think helps to see that.
We do not impossess the inheritance every created thing, yet we have the earnest of the inheritance, which is the Spirit of God. But notice Psalm 2 and verse seven. He says to the Lord Jesus the Lord, I will declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
When will that take place? Is that the end of the Tribulation, when the Lord Jesus comes back?
In power and glory, to take his inheritance and to free it from the ******* of corruption that now lies on it. That's when we too will possess the inheritance with Christ. So in that sense, the inheritance is earthly. It is really like it says in verse ten of our chapter that they're all things.
Which are in heaven and which are on earth. Every created thing is part of our inheritance with in Christ.
Good point, Bill.
Well, it's wonderful to have been chosen, isn't it?
Why did the Lord choose you and me? We don't know. And of course there has been.
I suppose more argument and more misunderstanding of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility than.
Almost every other precious truth in Scripture, but man cannot understand the ways of God.
We can only appreciate them and enjoy them in the sense that we walk with the Lord and enjoy them with Him.
But we are, as we've had pointed out to us, predestinated. That's predestinated unto something.
Unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. Nothing to do with your will, nothing to do with my will, was His will. That did it all. And I think we need to lay emphasis on the fact that it was before the foundation of the world, because that raises us right above everything to do with this world. Yes, we're bounded by a scene.
That works and lives in time, and we can't think outside if we could use the expression outside of that box at the moment, the box of time. But at the same time, in every one of us there is that which recognizes that there's more than simply what we experience in this world. Man seeks for it, man wants it, and yet doesn't turn to the very place where he could get an understanding of it. And that is in God and in His Word.
But all this has been given to us by the will of God.
To the praise of the glory of His grace, because that's all it is, is His grace, isn't it?
Feet, something that I really enjoyed, was given out at a Bible conference many, many years ago where a brother said.
00:55:03
If I am born into a family by birth, I have, in one sense, the wonderful advantage of being.
What we call a blood.
Relative I have a living connection with my parents.
I am their own flesh and blood, and I am part of the family in that sense.
And many people today who grow up as an adopted person.
Find that very difficult. I remember reading just not too long ago, the story of a man who grew up in a very loving family and became a very brilliant medical doctor and had a wonderful career. And yet he knew that those parents were not his birth parents and that his mother had given him up when he was born and given him up for adoption. And it bothered him greatly as an adult that here he was part of a family.
Where he had been adopted.
Eventually he did contact his birth parents, but then suppose a child is adopted.
That child generally is chosen, isn't it? It's chosen in one sense. If you have your own child, what you get, shall we say it bluntly, is not really your choice, is it? It's the Lord's choice, and we're thankful for that. But when a child is adopted, it is chosen. And the brother pointed out that you and I in that sense, have the best of both. In our relationship with God, we are born into his family.
By new birth, but we're also adopted, and we have the enjoyment of the sense of being chosen. Now the analogy falls short because it's not as if God looked down on the very best of this world and picked us. Didn't.
Rather, according to First Corinthians, one the opposite.
He hasn't chosen the best of this world, and it's rather humbling when we think of it. He magnifies His grace through picking up those that are sometimes the worst of this world but still were chosen. Does that commend itself? John? Do you have any?
Bought on that.
There he knew. He knew what I was going to be like. He knew as David said, my down sittings and my uprisings, my failures, my weaknesses and so on. You know, 5657 years ago my parents went to the adoption agency and they chose a 2 year old boy. But they had no idea what he was going to be like. They chose him and they loved him. They loved him till the day the Lord took them home and that young boy.
As a man has been very thankful for it and brought up in a Christian home and amongst those gathered to the Lord's name and and so on. What a wonderful heritage. But they had no idea and the grief and the tears that they had when that young boy was growing up. Perhaps they often wondered had they really made the right choice? I don't know, they never said. But isn't it wonderful to think that the Lord that God chose us in Christ and knew all about us?
And yet he has, he presents us without blame, wholly and without blame before, before him in love. And as Bill said, we have the best of both because in John's ministry, where children by by birth, but in the dignity of sonship we are, we're adopted. And that's what Pauls ministry brings before us, isn't it? John's ministry, like you say, it's a new birth because we participate with a very nature.
Of God we have that very nature and that's what he deals with in his ministry. But Paul's is this of choosing and so it's a matter of adoption. It really is the thought is being brought into sonship or the full understanding of God's thoughts. I often think of the prodigal son. When he came home, he thought to say to his father, make me.
As one of thy hired servants.
But the father had no desire for more hired servants. He had enough. What he wanted was a son that could sit down at his table and enjoy his thoughts in fellowship with him. That's the thought we have here. It's being brought into that place of sonship before him. That's the place he's chosen and brought us into.
01:00:23
Means at the end of verse 5, isn't it according to the good pleasure of his will? Remember asking a newly saved brother in Canada?
Why do you think the Lord shows you? He said. I have no idea. The only verse I can give you it is according to the good pleasure of his will.
And it's true. Rather, it magnifies God in His grace.
All right, personally enjoy.
This diversity predestination to adoption of children is not so much of how how we aren't like him, but how he is going to present us that way exactly like children that he wants everyone that listened to me. This is so wonderful that.
God is going to He liked the Lord Jesus so well. He wanted more children like him. And so he's going to do that with every one of us, and he's going to present us as children that adopted just like he wanted.
I particularly enjoy verse 1617 of 139th. And I should see my substance, death being unperfect. And in thy book all my members were written, which continued her fashion, when as yet there was none of them. But it's the next verse, verse 17. I really, really enjoy How precious ulcer are my thoughts unto me.
God, how great this is, Some of them. Now this.
So I think when I read that verse, that's his thoughts are were upon me before I ever was, before I was even conceived, before the foundation of the world.
He sent 214.
248.
All blessed is our portion when we love.
Lord, my brother and Lord, and our life is.
Our names are written.
For us have made us sit with him.
And.
All glory is great.
Things That Ought to Change
The Eyes of Our Understanding Enlightened
Malachi, the Unchanging Love of God
Ephesians 1:6-10
Reading
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.
#141.
Ephesians chapter one and verse 6.
Through the praise of the glory of His Grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace, where any other bounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to the good pleasure which He had purposed in Himself.
That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth even in Him.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the council of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory. Who first trusted in Christ, In whom He also trusted. After that He heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also after that He believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
00:05:21
Which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of His glory.
Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the Saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us word, who believe according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised him from the dead.
And set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
Far above all principality, and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and to put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church which is his body.
The fullness of him that filleth All in all.
That expression accepted in the beloved.
Has a depth of meaning that.
For myself, I wonder if I really understand it.
We're not only accepted.
On the ground of the finished work of Christ. But it's a revelation that Paul got from a risen Christ in glory.
One of the precious revelations that only he got that the believer now is in Christ.
Peter, John, others that preach before Paul came on the scene.
They didn't teach that. They preached the forgiveness of sins.
Be it known unto you, therefore it says, men and brethren, that's Acts 13, that through this man is preached under you the forgiveness of sins. That's what Peter and John and others preached. But then Paul comes along and adds this to it, and it should read in him all that believe are justified from all things, and so on.
The believer today is in Christ. That is, we could not be more fit for the presence of God, more fit for heaven.
More highly blessed than Christ himself.
But we're not merely accepted in him.
Were not merely accepted in Christ, although that is blessedly true.
We're accepted in the beloved.
That is not merely as God's, if we could say it reverently, God's sense of justice involved.
His love is involved, isn't it? We're accepted in the beloved because Christ is beloved.
And as we sometimes sing in one of our hymns, the love we're with, He loves the Son. Such is his love to me. So what a wealth of preciousness is in that little phrase, accepted in the beloved. Something not merely to be known as truth in our heads, but something to be.
Enjoyed in the heart, isn't it?
In the beloved, that's the why, the way God looks at us in a position of unchanging favor. It's it's amazingly wonderful, and we need to let it sink into our souls.
00:10:15
God looks at you with unchanging favor.
And that's why.
When we get willful and out of the way.
He will discipline us. Why? Because we occupy a place of unchanging favor. He loves us too much to let us go our own way. And so I know I have a father that if I get out of the out of bounds, he's going to deal with me. It's it's something that is so amazingly precious taken into favor in the beloved.
The same way he looks at his own beloved son, he looks at you and me. That's the position you and I occupies. Not pleased sometimes with our actions, but because of this position we occupy, he looks at us in unchanging favor.
Where's Beloved? And Mr. Darby is capitalized showing us exactly who it refers to. So it's one of his names or titles. And there's two things in the 6th and 7th verse that are so beautifully brought together. Brother Bill has alluded to it, but I want to just mention them and then use an Old Testament illustration that I think brings it out so beautifully in the sixth verse. We're accepted in the Beloved, as we've said, we're we're seen in all the perfection of Christ. Stand in all that favor before God.
As seen in Christ and then in the seventh verse, we have redemption because it's based on the work of redemption and the blood of Christ that was shed on Calvary's cross, and we have the forgiveness of sins. And I thought of it, and it may be a bit of a feeble illustration, but I trust it will be helpful. I thought of it in connection with the boards of the Tabernacle, these two things, because you remember those boards of the Tabernacle. Well, they went to make up the collectively the dwelling place of God amongst His people in the wilderness.
Yet individually, I believe those boards represent individual believers in in figure in their standing before God. And there were two things that characterized them. One was that they stood in two sockets of silver and silver, as we well know. I suppose invariably in Scripture is a picture of redemption, and that's the seventh verse. And Peter brings that out. We're not redeemed with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.
And in the Old Testament there was the redemption money and so on. It's the our standing as far as redemption. And it was two sockets of silver. And there are applications we could make, but there was something else that characterized those boards, and that is that they were covered completely with pure gold.
And I believe that would represent to us in application at least, the fact that we have been made the righteousness of God in him. In other words, when the eye of God rested on the those boards, what did he see? It wasn't to see the rough cut lumber that was underneath, but it was to see that which spoke to the heart of God of divine righteousness. And you and I have been brought into that position, accepted in the Beloved where we are seen, as I say.
We've been made the righteousness of God. In Him we have more than just redemption and more than just the forgiveness of sins.
As wonderful as that is, it's more than that. I'm more than a forgiven Sinner. I am a forgiven Sinner, but I stand in all the favor of God, accepted in the beloved. Just like those boards were covered with pure gold as they stood in those sockets of silver.
Redemption is the basis of all blessing, isn't it?
And the result of that, it's interesting, it says we have redemption, present possession, brethren.
But as a result of that redemption, we have the forgiveness of sins.
According to the riches of his grace.
Go back to Romans chapter 3.
00:15:04
You'll find something else that.
Bill mentioned that we have because of that redemption.
Romans 3 and verse.
24.
Being justified freely by His grace.
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, there's the redemption mentioned again.
But here it is more than forgiveness, it is justification. You know, it's wonderful to be forgiven, amazingly wonderful to think that before a holy God we have the forgiveness of our sins.
But justification is going beyond that. It is declaring to be righteous. It is not only being a forgiving Sinner, but being put in a position before God of complete righteousness. Like Jim was mentioning the boards covered with gold. That is the righteousness of God in Christ. Wonderful realities, these are brethren.
That I find and justice mention it that so many people I hear praying at times, not so much those gathered the Lord's name, but other otherwise you hear them ask the Lord for the forgiveness of sins.
And you know that was proper before the Lord went to the cross. The Lord taught his disciples to pray.
In what is called sometimes the Lord's Prayer, it's really the disciples prayer to forgive us our sins as we forgive our debtors that was given to them before the Lord paid the price of redemption.
After the price of redemption was paid from the book of the the Gospels and in the book of the Acts and the Epistles, you can look everywhere and never again does it say that we have to ask for the forgiveness of sins. It has been freely offered and it is solely for a person that is not a believer if he hears the message to accept.
The forgiveness that is offered to him to ask when it's being offered is really not understanding.
That the price has been paid and you can have it as a free gift.
I can still remember in a penitentiary one time speaking about this.
And there was an older man in the back of the crowd of the convicts there and we spoke about this. You don't need to ask for it. All you have to do is to accept it and thank God for it. He came up after the meeting and said, all these years I've been asking God for the forgiveness of my sins. Today I accept it, Thank God for it. Oh, the wonder of it, brethren, to know that we have it.
Present Possession.
Isn't that wonderful, to be able to look up into the heavens and realize before a holy God, I have the forgiveness of all my sins, don't you?
Acts 10 and verse.
It's a knit very interesting chapter.
Peter verse 34 says he opened his mouth.
And he says, Of a truth I perceive, God is no respecter of persons.
But in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him.
So he begins to say, well, read on the word which God sent under the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all that word I say ye know, which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him.
Where we are witnesses of all things, which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. To him give all the prophets witness that through His name.
00:20:16
Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
Well, Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on them which heard the word, and they of the circumcision, we believe were astonished as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also has poured out the gifts of the Holy Ghost.
They, it doesn't say they ask for forgiveness of sins. And it's interesting that they, Peter declares we are witnesses. We are witnesses of his resurrection. You know all the story of his life. But it comes down to this faith in the person.
They believe that they will see you. That's right.
Just notice to what Bill mentioned already, but I'd like to.
Give it to you, for especially young people get it before you. What Paul preached in chapter 13 goes that step further that we were mentioning. Notice it Acts 1338 and 39. Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things.
From which he could not be justified by the law of Moses.
There's justification.
And that goes beyond rather than it's hard to explain the wonder of it really. I remember a story that was told and it helped to for me to understand justification story was told of a young boy that was extremely disobedient to his father and his father was at his wits end to know how to get through to his boy. And so he had in the backyard a post that was.
In the ground. And he said, every time you disobey me, I'm going to drive a nail into that post. And it wasn't too long till that post looked like a porcupine. It was all full of nails.
And one day the boy looked at the post and said wow, I'm that bad?
And he felt it. And he.
Acknowledged that he had been very disobedient and his father seen that there was a change of heart in his son said I'm going to forgive you I'm going to pull all those nails out and he pulled them out and when he had pulled them all out his son said but dad the nail holes are still there and that's what justification does it not only forgives us our sins but it completely.
Brings us before God.
As righteous, wonderful, wonderful reality.
We would never really be comfortable in the presence of God or the presence of the Lord Jesus. We'd always just feel like forgiven sinners. And I know you, and I've used the illustration before, Bob, but let me repeat it, if you will. Let's suppose I break into your house tonight after these meetings and I steal some valuables and I get down the road and the you've called the police and they arrest me. You don't know who it is.
But they call you and they say, Mr. Tony, come on down to the police station and we've caught your thief and he's got the goods on him and come on down and press charges and get your goods back. And so you come down and as you're about to approach the counter, you look over on the bench and you see me handcuffed to the bench. And you come over and you sit down and you say, now, Jim.
What you did was absolutely wrong, but I'm going to forgive you. And not only am I going to forgive you and not press charges, but tomorrow night after the conference is over, I'd like you to come over and have dinner with with my wife and I and we'll just, we'll just go on like nothing's happened. Would I really be comfortable to come over to your house and have dinner? I might come over to your house and have dinner, but there would always be in the back of my mind and on my conscience that you remember what I had done. I never really would be truly comfortable in your presence again.
Even though you assure me that you've forgiven me. My grandmother had an expression, I've forgiven, forget, but I always remember. And isn't that what human nature is? But you know, it's beautiful that it says in Hebrews by sins and iniquities, not I'll forget. That's human weakness. God doesn't forget, but he says I will not remember. I will remember no more. Only a divine person can choose not to remember. I remember the things I want to forget and I forget the things I should remember.
00:25:19
But God, while he doesn't forget that human weakness, I say there are things he chooses not to remember. And one of those things is my sins when they're taken care of by the work of Christ. But we're brought into this position, as you say, so we can be perfectly comfortable now, accepted, not just washed in the blood of Christ, not just forgiven sinners, but accepted in him, seen in all the righteousness of Christ before God.
Beautiful beyond what we can really take in, isn't it?
That's it.
In whom we have redemption through his blood. He paid the price to redeem us. That price was His blood, His life. He gave that to to to save us. And when we're saved, it's good for us to know that when we're saved, we only need one application of the blood. The blood was shed. I believe the blood takes my sins away. The blood has done its work. When we get to to 1St John 17, it says.
The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin, and so my sin is gone. But then we come to verse nine and you say, brother Bob, that we don't, we don't confess our sins. Well, we don't confess our sins for salvation. We confess our sins after we're saved and we fall into sin. Then it says if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We don't have to get saved over and over again. We don't have to have the work of the blood over and over again. The blood is done once, but then the Lord shed his blood and water. The water would speak perhaps of the word of God. And if we if we find that we've examined ourselves and we find sin in our life, we need to confess that sin, not to get saved, but to restore the fellowship with God that's been broken by that sin.
And so the Lord Jesus, he's willing to forgive us. How can he forgive us after we've already been saved? And he, well, he's, he can forgive us because we are accepted in the beloved, because what the Lord has done, he paid the price with his blood. Not only does he forgive us, but he cleanses us, us from all unrighteousness. And I like to think of that as part of being justified. That takes our guilt away, not just the sin, but the guilt of the sin. And so maybe you have some sin in your life that you've confessed, but you're still feeling.
Terrible about it. You can accept the forgiveness of God. You can accept that God says you are forgiven and you can accept that and you can have peace that that is not going to be brought up again. You're not going to have to stand before God for that sin. It's gone. It's gone because the Lord Jesus has taken that for you.
First Tim, first John 19 and it needs to be explained and you've done good job. It's a confession that is needed. Doesn't say if we ask for the forgiveness of our sins. No, we already have that. Says if we confess and confess goes deeper to ask for the forgiveness of sins. I'm not really thinking of the bad thing I did. I'm thinking about the disposition of the person I've sinned against.
But what I need to do in this case, like you say, it's a question of restoration. First, John 19 is to confess. And to confess I have to recognize the bad thing I've done and to say so to God. And when we do, He's faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse, and that's not.
Judicial forgiveness there, that's governmental forgiveness in the family of God. I think that's helpful to see that. I trust that's clear.
We let someone in that is wrong and very often we try to justify it. We try to pretend it's not what it is. And so in the first John 19 is I confess, I admit that it's sin. I admit that it's wrong. You might say it puts me into agreement with God, puts me on the same page and that's what the Christian man is. God says that I am accepted in his Son, cleansed from sin. If I do living in sin, I'm denying that truth. On the other hand, if I refuse to really accept the grace of God and if I think I'm on some kind of probation, then once again, I'm not on the same page of God. So here's the all important thing is the work of God that we've done for us in Christ. We accept that by the work of the Holy Spirit in us now we are in agreement with God now we're on the same page with God now our life should walk in dream again now.
00:30:34
I think it was Brother Quinn Buchanan that used to say, be what you are. What's the Christian life?
Put in the verse remember the pit from whence you were dig.
I don't think it's wrong for us to remember that it keeps us.
In our proper place of humility. But God has, like Jim said, has promised never to remember it again. And actually, the 2nd chapter of this epistle we're taking up is a reminder to the Ephesians Saints of what they once were and the work of God, the grace of God and the work to bring them from what they were because He wanted them never to forget. And I believe that in the measure in which we realize what we were, then in that measure we'll have a sense of His grace.
And the power that brought us from what we were to what we are by grace.
Just a practical comment before we pass on from the subject of the blood. I just want to say, especially to those who are younger, as we have opportunity to present the gospel, whether it's in a public way or whether it's with your interact, in your interactions with your fellow students or coworkers at work, your neighbors, whoever the Lord gives you opportunity with, always bring in the blood.
It's the basis of everything without the shedding of blood is no remission. I grew up under the preaching of an evangelist by the name of Ernie Wakefield and Ernie Wakefield used to often tell us when you present the gospel, present Christ and make much of the blood that was that stuck with me. And so I don't believe really any gospel message is complete without the stressing of the importance of the of the blood of Christ.
It's the blood of Christ that cleanses from sin. It's the blood of Christ in whom we have redemption. It's the blood of Christ that is the basis of our justification. We're sanctified by the blood of Christ. As we get in the end of Hebrews, we're washed in the blood of Christ. So I just want to encourage you, always make much of the blood. Bring it in because it is the only remedy that God has for sin.
Without the blood, we would have nothing. That's it.
Well, God has done much more than that for us, hasn't He?
Not that that isn't wonderful, I don't mean to take away from it, but it says in verse 8 wherein that is referring to the riches of his grace He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, or perhaps more accurately, intelligent.
And what a precious thing that is, to have divine intelligence.
Man in this world knows by nature that there is more than what this life has. He has a God conscious part to his being. And I suppose it's no profound statement to say that much of man's literature, his poetry, his artwork, his music and so on, is a celebration, or perhaps lack of it, of what he has lost through the fall.
He realizes that. He realizes that there is something to be grasped at. He wants intelligence as to what What is more?
To you and me as believers, God has abounded toward us in all wisdom and intelligence.
The infinite God who has sent his beloved Son to die for us says.
Now I want to bring you out of your sins, identify you with my beloved son, justify you all the things we've been talking about.
00:35:06
But more than that, I want to outline to you everything that I have in my purposes, in my plans.
Concerning my beloved son, I want you to know that I want you to understand that I want you to live in the good of it.
What a precious thing that is to us. Do I enjoy it? I speak to my own heart? Or are these just words that I read over because.
I think we all realize that the life that is lived today, especially in Western Europe and North America, is very, very busy and getting busier. And if we're not careful, our lives, our focus tends to be down here, doesn't it? All the things, necessary things in many cases. But that takes up so much of my time and my outlook.
The Lord says I've got eternal realities concerning my beloved Son, concerning.
All that I'm going to do with him, and I want you to know all about it.
Beautiful.
So verse eight goes with verse 9, doesn't it? Having made known unto us the mystery of His will.
According to his good pleasure which he had purposed in himself. And it goes on to verse 10. But it is amazing to think that God has opened to us the mystery of His will.
And.
Hard to know how to illustrate it so we can get a proper evaluation of it. But supposing some morning the you get a knock at the door and you find it's the president of the United States at your door. And he comes in and he says, I have chosen you because I want to share with you all the plans I have for this country. Well, that would be a tremendous thing. Say, why in the world did he choose me?
But we're not talking about the president of the United States. We're talking about the God of the universe.
His eternal purposes he has over abounded. It's interesting in the Spanish translation at verse eight, He is super abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, He's laid it out for us. And I sometimes say, rather like Bill was saying earlier in this day, there is a gift.
For teaching the word Scripture clearly shows that.
There is no special gift for learning the Word that is for all of us. This is one of the spiritual blessings. And if I don't understand God's eternal purposes, who's at fault, me or Him? It's my fault. I didn't have the desire to really understand these things. And I've been amazed, brethren, sometimes in different parts of Latin America, that.
There are sisters in our meetings that don't take part naturally in public meetings, but they are listening and they are reading the scriptures and they OFT times understand, sometimes more than the brothers. It is not a special gift to learn these things. It is a special gift to give it out. But may the Lord give us the desire to understand properly.
As He wants us to. That's why He's given us His Holy Spirit to help us to understand these things and to live in the enjoyment of them.
In that connection, we might make a remark that has often been made before, and that is the word mystery is not used here in the sense of something that only a few can get into and understand. It's a secret. That's the force of the word mystery in Scripture, a secret that is revealed that was not revealed before. And so in the Old Testament, if you had asked.
Godly men like Moses or Abraham or David or any of them.
What is God going to do in the future? What is the secret of God's purpose? For the ages? They would have had to say, we don't know. All we know is that what we are called to do is be faithful to the Law and to what Moses gave us, and then we can expect earthly blessings. And they had an idea that down the road there was one coming, the Messiah. But beyond that they did not know. But now.
00:40:14
You and I live in the time when God has revealed it all. The mystery, the secret of His will, it's all there for us, and it's in His Word.
You and I have nothing to do but simply enjoy the fact that we are the recipients of it. What a what a difference that makes to our outlook in our lives in this world. When I realize where it's all going. Reminds me about a dear brother back in the 1800s who made a comment something like this. He said do not be concerned about all the purposes and movements of man. They will only accomplish gods in the end anyhow.
I say it kindly, but how many dear believers are taken up with the movements of man and what's happening here and what this country is doing and what the president of the United States is doing and what Congress has decided and what awful choices the Supreme Court might be making and all these kinds of things? Yes, we can expect to see those things happen. But let's remember that nothing is going to hinder the secret of God's will.
That we have revealed here because God's purpose to in Himself. When God purposes something in Himself, all the forces of man and of Satan are not going to change it, are they?
And the Christian that's reading their Bible is more intelligent about what's going on in the world stage today than all the wise, intelligent politicians and statesman who are trying to figure things out by natural intelligence.
Lining up with allies and and accumulating armaments and peace pacts and negotiations and summits. And while we can be aware of what's going on, we're not isolationists. I want to be aware of what's going on. The difference is we don't need to be overwhelmed because on the one hand, we know that God is in full control, and on the other hand, we know that has been said. Whatever man does is only accomplishing God's purposes.
I like that scripture in the 76th Psalm that says the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain. We see it in the book of Esther. God is not mentioned by name. But you read the book of Esther and as you come to the end, is there any doubt of who is in control of the government and the circumstances? Is there any doubt of who put God's man on the throne next to the king by the end of that story?
No, it was God Himself that was in control. And this is a day, brethren, when men's hearts are failing them for fear.
Because they do not understand, they know that they're dealing with an interplay of economic, political and social forces that are beyond their control. And it's not if the elastic is going to snap, it's when what they, you know, I watch these men from the corporate world and the, the politicians, I see them in the business lounges of the airport every week. They on one end of the, the business lounge, there's a flat screen with a, a newscast from 11 Country.
On the other end, a continual newscast from the from another country. It's disheartening to say the least. And I see men and I've learned and women and I've learned to watch them. These are men and women in high places. They turn away. You see the fear in their eyes. They they'll comment, where is it going to end? What is going to happen? They don't understand, but they are afraid because they know something's got to snap. But we can be aware without being overwhelmed. Isn't that wonderful? We don't have to be overwhelmed.
By the events that we see going on on the world stage, as Brother Bill has already said, we can be aware, but not overwhelmed because there's one who's going to bring it all to fruition. And what is the fruition of everything? That Christ is going to have his full exaltation, not just in heaven. He has that today. He has been crowned with glory and seated at the right hand of God. He has his rightful place in heaven, but he's going to have it universally. And brethren, the heart of God will never be satisfied.
Till His Son has his full vindication and is glorified and recognized universally and is the center of everything, is anything going to frustrate that? Anything that man could do, any failure in the church? No, not for one moment. In the dispensation of the fullness of time. It's all going to come to fruition according to God's purposes concerning His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:45:12
You're talking about verse 10, aren't you?
That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, that's.
That word dispensation is administration in the new translation.
That's the last of the dispensations, the millennial day. He Christ might gather together in one, that God might gather together in one all things in Christ, but which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, that all things are going to be brought directly under the authority of the Lord Jesus.
And I just like to, you mentioned it a bit, brother Bill about dispensational teaching and the opposite, which is covenant theology. And I, I think it is helpful to understand what we're talking about. I myself have to say I was not aware of the conflict that there is between those two positions. Could you say some more on that bit of the bill?
Well, I'm not an expert on it, but covenant theology, as most are aware, also termed Reconstructionism, basically says that the Church and Israel are. They don't say they're one and the same, but they say the Church takes the place of Israel on the earth and that we as believers are responsible to get this world into proper shape in order that the coming Kingdom can come about.
And so.
It essentially takes away the heavenly calling of the Church.
And there are different stripes of covenant theologists so that you can't.
Put everything into one system of beliefs, but basically their attitude is that when we get the.
World into proper shape for the Lord to come and put everything in a position where Christ can set up his Kingdom then he'll come and set up the Kingdom and then the most of them will say after that then the Lord will come and supposedly take us home to heaven. But again there are variations on that and the difficulty is of course that if you embrace covenant theology then.
You lose the heavenly calling of the Church.
And that Satan's aim, you lose the fact that the believer is expecting the Lord to come at any moment. You lose the fact that he is not to be building this world up, but rather recognizing that only through judgment will it be brought into a place where Christ's Kingdom can be set up. When the judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. And so it's sweeping christened them today.
I didn't realize either, Bob, how widespread it was for a for a long time, but it's sweeping Christendom today and I have been.
Surprised in speaking to dear believers that I knew to find out how that the imminent return of the Lord Jesus and the expectation of His coming has been totally lost sight of in the efforts to put things together down here, of course.
I'll say a couple of things more because.
Some will say well.
How is it all going to workout? You say that there isn't a second chance for those that don't believe the gospel of the grace of God. And yet on the other hand, you say there's going to be a gospel of the Kingdom preached. And where are they going to come from that are going to preach the gospel of the Kingdom? And how are they going to appear so suddenly? And there are some unanswered questions that only the Lord knows how to work out in His own time and place.
But.
All of God's precious promises concerning Israel in the Old Testament, they'll come to pass.
All the glorious prospects that they looked for in a coming Kingdom, they're going to realize them in the Millennium in an earthly way. But thank God, you and I as the church are going to enjoy that which is far better. We're going to enjoy the Kingdom in the heavenly sense of the word. We're going to enjoy the heavenly side of it.
00:50:09
Covenant theology basically says that the Church has taken the place of Israel and God has no more place for Israel. It does not recognize two distinct peoples in the scriptures.
Earthly people and a heavenly people. Remember when God gave the promise of blessing to Abraham, He said it would be his descendants would be like the stars of heaven.
And like the sand up on the seashore, 2 spheres of blessing. And that will be forever rather than because even in Revelation 21, when we have the heavenly city in the eternal day, there is the heaven and the earth, there are the two spheres of blessing. And the church is part of the heavenly scene, not the earthly. And so if you don't distinguish those two.
You can understand why so many dear believers, and let's be careful.
Our spirit towards them, sometimes we get critical of them, but when they don't have the proper teaching, you can understand if there is no difference between Israel and the church, why they say a Christian should get involved in politics. Wasn't Daniel high up in the Kingdom of Babylon? Wasn't Josephi up in Egypt?
Why shouldn't a Christian get involved in the political thing to influence things for God?
And it makes sense if you're going to reason from that basis. The point is that Scriptures clearly teach us that there is a heavenly people and that there is an earthly people, a distinct people. And if you understand that, then you understand our proper position as believers in the Lord Jesus. We're part of the heavenly scene. And as we said before, in this world, here we are. But we are ambassadors for Christ, not to get involved.
In the political process, but to represent the Lord Jesus here in this world.
Question, Bob, sorry.
But Daniel was a captain.
And Joseph was a slave.
That's not brought out when they use that argument.
Question. Then tell us why.
Covenant theology is so popular. Why? Why is it sweeping Christendom today? What is there about it that has such an appeal to the believer? Wouldn't he rather have the heavenly calling?
Go ahead and answer it. Bear the bill.
I have thought about that a lot and I my only I just this what I suppose is that embracing covenant theology, you can embrace a broader spectrum of Christendom in their teaching, which is not right. That's that's the only thing I can come up with.
And I don't pretend to have the whole answer, and we don't need to spend a lot of time on it. But sometimes these things, it's helpful to try and see why it is. And to me, covenant theology appeals to the natural man and gives him a place of respectability in this world many, many years ago, probably 150 years ago, when the truth of the heavenly calling was.
Becoming widely known and when it was being brought out in the meetings and if we could say it, by those whom God raised up back in the 1800s.
The question was raised in a reading meeting once.
What if other believers don't want to listen to the precious truth of the Church?
And the answer came from a very godly man whose name you would all recognize if I named him, He said They will probably listen to you until you want to take them to heaven.
No, he didn't mean at the end of the pathway. That's not what he was talking about. He meant the heavenly calling because the heavenly calling.
Takes me out of this world and gives me no place in this world, no respectability, nothing. I if I could say it bluntly, I'm following a man who.
00:55:13
Was cast out of this world on a cross. And I say that's the one with whom I identify. He's now in heaven. All my hopes, all my aspirations, all my blessings are up there. And that's what I'm living for. That runs totally contrary to the whole current of this world. And it's not very popular and it's not new either. It's not some new teaching. It's really what the reformers.
Believed and taught they felt that they were a moral force to usher in the Kingdom and that's why when you read and God used them in a mighty way because light was being recovered. But that is why they felt they should fight state churches and governments and they would go into the cathedrals of Zurich and so on and smash the images of the Saints and the Virgin Mary. John Knox would go in and reason with Queen Mary till she all she wanted to see was his head role in the tower and and so on.
But they felt that they were a moral force to usher in the Kingdom. But God used them because light was being recovered at that time. And thank God, God raised up men later that brought out these precious things that we've been enjoying in connection with the fact that our goals and aspirations are not connected with the betterment of this world. This world is under judgment. But just another comment about distance, why it's important to hold dispensational teaching. We've talked a lot about the folly of covenant theology.
But now we might say, well, what is so important about dispensational teaching, brethren, if we wipe away dispensational guidelines or ignore them as they don't, as if they don't exist? What you're really saying is that all Scripture in its strict application applies to us now, and that's not true. All Scripture is for us, and it has an application, but it's not all about us. And in its strict application it is doesn't all apply to us.
As Bob has been saying, there's much of it. In fact, most of it applies in connection with God's earthly people, His dealings with them, and what is yet to be his dealings with them in in the Kingdom.
The translators of the King James Bible didn't understand this and that's why some of the headings in the Old Testament that they put at the top of the page.
Which are not inspired. They were added by the translators. They're a little bit misleading. Look in the book of Isaiah, sometimes it'll say the church such and such is going through such and such. It's not true. It's Israel. We can make a present application and enjoy those scriptures. But I believe when you take it up in the light of dispensational guidelines, you find that, as has already been said, God didn't deal with people the same at at at every time in their history.
And I believe what is helpful to understand is that at the beginning of a dispensation or administration, God gave light and responsibility to man to act on the light that was given at the end of the age. He brought in judgment because of man's failure and then introduced something brand new. He didn't just build. I know there's a sense in which things continue sometimes, but He introduced something brand new. And so at the end of the law, what happened? Christ came.
And Christ went to the cross, and he bore the penalty for sin. What's going to happen at the end of the dispensation of the grace of God? God is going to bring in judgment and introduce a new dispensation, a new administration of things called the Millennium. And that's a principle with God that I think is very helpful. The covenanters will say, well, God, just when man failed under one covenant, God just built on that and added to it, and so on.
We want to be very careful. That is not really how God has operated. So again, He gives light at the beginning. Man has a responsibility. Man always fails. God brings in judgment at the end and then introduces something brand new. And what a day it's going to be when the new administration of things is introduced, the Millennium. And then at the end of it all, there's going to be a scene, the eternal state where sin will never penetrate again.
Go back to the beginning, Genesis 11 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth shows us God was thinking about Israel and the church right from the beginning. He created the heaven for his heavenly people, the church. He created the earth for his earthly people, Israel. And then you come to Ephesians chapter one, verse 10 at the dispensation, the fullness of times, you might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven.
01:00:22
And which are on earth. There we have God's heavenly people, God's earthly people. Then you get to Revelation 21. In the eternal state you find a new heaven, a new earth. God's thinking about the church. He's thinking about Israel all through eternity.
Will be a heavenly and an earthly company. Even in the eternal state. We do not meld together as one, as one mass. It will remain distinct. I would just say.
In connection with heaven, there is a heaven that is not created, and that's the 3rd heaven. That's the eternal dwelling place of God.
It's so easy, isn't it brethren, to think of what things mean to us now. I trust that the work of Christ and what is ahead in glory means everything to us. But I believe, as has already been said, it's it's good to get the focus off us.
And to get the focus on Christ and God's purposes for his Son and his full glorification and and vindication.
Yes, we're going to be associated with Christ in that day. Yes, we're going to be with him. We're going to be like him. We're going to have a part in the administration of the Kingdom. But brethren, what is God really looking forward to? What is Christ thinking about as he sits at the right hand of God? You know, Hebrews 10 tells gives us a little idea of what Christ is thinking about right now.
Henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. And so to see it from God's perspective and Christ's perspective, I believe, brethren, this will detach us practically from the things of this world and the goals and aspirations that we might have otherwise. Like nothing else. Not so much to be thinking about what it's going to, what it all means to us and what we're part. We're going to have that. That's all part of it. I don't want to discredit that, but brethren, to think of it in relationship to the fact that Christ is going to be the center of everything in that day.
Where dispensation is also used in chapter 3 and I'd just like to mention it to it's talking about the present time period or administration. In verse two it says if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you word that my revelation he made known unto me the mystery as I wrote a four and few words whereby when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in.
Other ages. The Old Testament times was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed, and to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body.
And particulars of the promise of his promise in Christ by the gospel, verse nine, to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hit, doesn't say in the Old Testament, but hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. So but the other bill was mentioned. If you would ask Abraham or David or Moses, those Old Testament worthies, if they knew anything about the church, they have absolutely nothing about that.
Was a mystery that is revealed to the holy apostles and prophets in this present age that the Gentiles would be united to Jews in one body in Christ. And that's the truth of the church. And so it's it's helpful to see that we're dispensation used and that's what is being formed in this present day in which we live.
And there's an order here too, isn't there? And it's been alluded to.
The 10th verse is Christ. The 11Th verse is you and I.
01:05:00
It's helpful if we remember that when we're preaching the gospel. It's a wonderful thing to preach the gospel and bring man's need before him.
But I suggest that it's a wonderful thing. Even more so perhaps.
To bring before lost souls even the purposes of God in Christ. Oh, you say they can't understand it when they're lost in sins? Perhaps not. But they can understand that right from the get go. The gospel is not primarily about them, it's about Christ.
You find Paul preaches the gospel that way. The book of Romans doesn't start out with man's need, it starts out with the gospel of God.
Concerning what concerning his Son Jesus Christ and so on. And so here we have the what we could say are the two parts of the mystery or the secret, haven't we in verses 10 and 11, God's side is in Christ that God has in his purposes to.
Raise up Christ from the dead, and to make him the head over all things, both in heaven and which are on earth.
But then he also includes you and me in it, and that's the second part of it. Christ isn't going to take that position all alone. He wants you and me to be with him. And God wants you and me perfectly conformed to the image of His Son so that we can share that with him. That place, that inheritance, that wonderful position for all eternity. Well, it's really beyond our understanding, isn't it?
Really way beyond it, but.
It's important to recognize that it's about Christ first and foremost. I say that because there is a danger in Christianity. And I say this again very kindly because I have been guilty of it myself, in looking at God as a wonderful philanthropist who first of all was there to send his Son to die on the cross, to forgive my sins. And now He is up there so that I can go to Him with every need that I have down here.
Every problem, every difficulty, and he will be the answer to it. He'll hear me, He loves me and he'll help me.
All that is blessedly true, but it falls short, doesn't it? It falls far short of what we can enjoy if Christ has his rightful place. And if I'm lifted outside of myself to see things from God's standpoint, I see everything that He has in Christ.
It doesn't shortchange me at all, does it? I'm not shortchanged by seeing it from God's sight. I'm more blessed because I see all that God is doing and at the same time, everything that I need is provided for too, isn't it? So the order is important here.
300 and 13313.
Sun Righteousness.
Shrub.
Already.
Congressman.
Jesus.
Came all.
If I can fall.
Oh my God.
He.
Proved everything.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Jim Hyland
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I'd like to start the Gospel Meeting this evening with Hymn #4 on the gospel hymn sheet. Christ is the Savior of sinners. Christ is the Savior for me. Long I was chained in sins darkness. Now by His grace, I am free.
Hymn #4. Someone could please start it?
This is a savior for me.
Save you and save you. Save your sinners like me.
Shining is what for my grandson?
Mr. Savior for me.
Just as I was erased.
Switching from judgment to play now, there is no condemnation.
Listen to say good morning.
Save, You don't save.
Save your sinners like me.
Change. It's life for my friend.
Before we pray, I'd like to sing a hymn on the back, especially for those who are younger. It's hymn #42. I know it says children's hymns and courses, but I'd like to sing this little song, especially for those who sat in these meetings with your parents and other adults. And you know the gospel so very well. You may be very young, but this little song tells us that no matter how young you are.
You can tonight, if you don't already, come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. Hymn #42, someone started. Please.
The child of seven or even 3 or 4.
I swear. Open the door.
Lord, where am I?
Believe.
Like to read two familiar portions of the Word of God to begin with. The first one is in First Timothy chapter one.
00:05:03
First Timothy Chapter one, verse 15.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief, and then in Second Timothy, Chapter 3.
Second Timothy, chapter 3 and verse 15.
And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
My burden tonight in seeking to present the good news of the gospel, the glad tidings that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, is to make it as simple and plain as possible.
Not to try to present it in some new light this evening. Not to turn to some obscure portion of the word of God. Not to give some different kind of twist to things, but just to as simply and clearly as possible.
From the pages of this precious living book, to present the truth that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Because it's a person we want to present to you tonight. Tonight. We're not here to talk about trying to save the planet. We're not here to talk about regeneration. We're not here to talk about sociology or theology or turning over a new leaf. We're here to talk about a person.
The person of Christ, God's beloved Son, the one that God sent down from heaven.
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.
But have everlasting life, and my soul is stirred tonight as I look into the faces of an audience like this. And maybe there is someone here tonight who's never really heard a clear gospel message. Maybe you've come in tonight at the invitation of someone. But I suggest that most of us here, from the very early days of our youth, have heard the gospel message, and I look into the faces of boys and girls and young people.
And some who are not so young, who have heard the gospel over and over and over again from before the time they can remember, heard it from the Their parents around the dinner table, heard it at Sunday school from their teachers, were brought to gospel meetings from week to week.
Came to conferences like this, and yet perhaps you're still in your sins tonight. Perhaps you're still lost. And on the Broad Rd. that leads to destruction. I find it a great challenge to look into the faces of an audience that's heard it so many, many times. Recently. We had the privilege of traveling in South America and some of the Caribbean islands, and we have opportunity to go into places where perhaps the gospel has never been clearly presented.
We traveled miles and miles and hours into interior villages in Guyana, South America, just a couple of weeks ago. And at the little government schools, one room, school houses, when we told them we were missionaries with the good news of the gospel, they would welcome us in. They would want us to sing Jesus Loves Me. They'd want us to present the gospel. And how can't you stay a little longer? And when are you going to come back and bring us more?
Is that what you find in North America? You know, someone was we were reminded in one of the prayers that the prayer for the gospel that years ago when gospel meetings were announced, gospel halls and rooms like this would be sometimes filled to overflowing gospel tents and and community halls would overflow with the people that would have a desire to hear the glad tidings.
It's not like that anymore. Here in North America, thank God, there are places in the world where there's still a hunger to hear the gospel and the truth. And you know it is a real exercise before God to present the gospel simply and clearly in settings where you feel most have never heard a clear gospel before. But I wonder sometimes if it isn't even a greater burden and a greater challenge and exercise to present it to an audience like this.
00:10:08
Who have heard it so many, many times. A brother was preaching recently. I believe we were on the island of Grenada last week and he was preaching the gospel and he made an interesting comment. He said there are those in the audience who fall into one of three categories, those who are saved.
Those who pretend they're saved.
And those who think they're saved, I pondered that, especially that last comment and those that think they are saved. And maybe there's someone here and you've been brought up in a Christian home, and it's a wonderful privilege and heritage. I trust we all learn to value it. Those who have us who have had that privilege, we all learn to value it more and more. But maybe you think you're saved. Maybe you think you're not so bad.
Maybe you think because you've learned the Gospel verses and because you have sat quietly around the dinner table and listened while dad read the scriptures.
And you've obediently come to meeting and you know about the way of salvation and so on. Maybe you think you're saved.
But I want each one of us tonight to search our hearts in the presence of God. And my prayer is that God would search our hearts and our consciences, that we might really know for sure, that we might know that we have eternal life.
You're saved. You're pretending to be saved. Solemn thing. Or maybe even more solemn, you think you're saved and you're still on the Broad Rd. that leads to destruction. But oh, here we find a faithful saying. Paul recording these words by divine inspiration under the direction of the spirit of God, he pens. This is a faithful saying. The Bible is full of faithful sayings.
Every statement God makes is in His love and faithfulness. But here is something that the Spirit of God is seeking to draw our attention to tonight in connection with the gospel and salvation. This is a faithful saying, but it's not only a faithful saying. It's worthy of all acceptation. It's worthy of being accepted. Because you might say, yes, God is faithful. And yes, I've learned that verse in Sunday School. And yes, there's truth to it, But have you made it your own?
Have you appropriated it for yourself? And what is it that is the faithful saying? What is it that's to be accepted? It's the Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Before I comment further on this, we also read in Second Timothy chapter 3, because Timothy was one who had a godly grandmother and a godly mother.
He'd had the privilege of hearing the word of God. It would have been parts of the Old Testament that they would have had available at that time. But he had sat under the word of God. Not only that, but he had heard the truth from the lips of Paul himself.
And Paul reminds him that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures, which, if I can put it simply for our purposes, tonight he had known the word of God that showed him how to be saved.
And again, I realize there are so many here and this is my particular burden tonight.
For you who have heard the word of God from the early days of your youth, it has been used to show you the way of salvation. If I was to step down from this podium and speak to you privately and ask you tell me in a sentence or two how to be saved, I suppose that most of you, even you boys and girls, would be able to give me something in connection with the gospel and being saved.
Timothy had known the Holy Scriptures, the Bible, the Word of God, that were able to make him wise unto salvation. But then there's something else.
Through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Because the moment came in Timothy's life when it wasn't enough to have heard it from his mother and grandmother. It wasn't enough to have heard it from the Apostle Paul, but he had to appropriate it for himself. It was through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
And I would like, with the Lord's help, to go to a number of other scriptures tonight. And I would like to take up this subject of salvation, really under 3 headings. Why, how and when? First of all, we might raise the question, why is it so important to be saved? Why do they have gospel meetings after a gospel meeting? Very similar to this one evening, a man who had been invited to the Gospel meeting. Actually it was a lady. I'm sorry.
00:15:24
A lady who had been invited to the Gospel Meeting. She was going out the door and the preacher was shaking hands with folks as they exited the room.
And she was asked what she thought of the gospel message. She said to the preacher, At least you were passionate about what you preached. And we are passionate tonight. We're sincere. These are real things. These are eternal issues. We're not fooling around tonight. We're not here for Entertainment Tonight. We're here in the presence of God and the Word, to present the reality of eternity. Because these things don't just affect us for a little time.
They don't just affect us for this life, but this has to do with where you're going to be in eternity forever and ever and ever and ever.
This is serious. That's why we don't want you to be texting. We don't want you to be looking at your gadgets. We want you to be paying attention, listening to what God has to say from His word. He that hath years to hear, let Him hear.
God wants you to listen because faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, and we're born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever. But let's turn to a couple of verses to show why we present the gospel and why we're in earnest, and why we really are passionate about it, and why God desires that you would listen and respond to the message.
Again, these are very, very familiar verses, but let's turn to them and see them written, recorded on the pages of God's Living Word, Romans chapter 6.
Romans chapter 6 and verse 23.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Just turn back a page to the third chapter.
Chapter 3.
And verse 23 for all have sinned and come short.
Of the glory of God. This really takes us back and thought, does it not? To the very beginning of man's history.
When Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, and they were given their everything to enjoy at God's disposal. But there was one thing they were told not to do. Adam was told that he could eat of every tree of the garden, but that he was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Adam disobeyed God. Adam refused to recognize his responsibility to God.
And he reached out and ate of that tree, and gave to his wife. And it tells us by one man's disobedience, sin entered, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, and sin came in to separate man from God. And man needs to be reconciled to God, not God to man, but man to God, because sin has come in, and sin separates, your iniquities have separated between you and your God.
And furthermore for those who reject the Lord Jesus as their savior.
Reject God's offer of salvation and pardon and forgiveness from sins. God will have no choice but to send them to the lake of fire to a lost eternity where they will be in torment, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And the memory of gospel meetings like this for all eternity. The memory of of scriptures to nag at their conscience and remind them that they had opportunity. That's why the Lord Jesus said.
The word which I have spoken the same shall judge him in the last day.
Have you ever heard John 316 before?
00:20:03
You probably have, and you've heard it again a moment ago at this meeting. But it will be a very solemn thing to lift up your eyes in hell and remember John 316 But not remember it, to have it as a point of refuge and salvation for you, but to have that very scripture rise in judgment. Because if you remember a verse like that in a lost eternity, that verse that was spoken will judge you and make you realize that you had opportunity.
And you refused it.
We spoke about 3 categories of people in this room, and there are different ways that we can divide people, I suppose in a room like this, there are three other categories. In this room. There are those who are acceptors, those who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, those who can sing Savior of sinners like me, those who rejoice to know that they're on their way to heaven.
To be with the Lord Jesus. Those who rejoice. To know they've been blessed with all spiritual blessings, as we had in our reading meetings. Those that rejoice. To know that they have an unchanging friend, a guide, one who's caring for them, comforting them, loving them all the way home to heaven. All our hearts rejoice. I know I look into the faces of dozens and dozens like myself who rejoice. I rejoice To know the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior and confess him to you.
Once again tonight, those are acceptors, those who have accepted. But there are rejectors as well. There are those, I'm afraid, who've heard the gospel, and they have said, no, they don't want it, they've rejected it. But there's still another category. There are neglectors. There are those who, like Felix, say, when I have a more convenient season, I will call for thee those who put it off. And Scripture says, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
I know some of you are watching the clock and you're thinking this meeting will end around 8:00. Yes, it probably will end around 8:00. But I'm not going to tell you to wait till 8:00 to get saved because this meeting may end long before 8:00. This meeting may end before 7:30 because there's an event going to take place at any moment that is going to change everything as far as the gospel goes. And that event is the coming of the Lord Jesus.
And This is why, again, we're so in earnest, Because we're sinners without Christ. We're sinners, and on our way to hell, all have sinned. There's no difference.
I was just in Grenada recently and it brought back to mind when I had been there in 2008, I believe it was, or 2004. It was in September, just after Hurricane Ivan went through.
In September 2004, and we went in to take Bibles and literature, and we went in on a humanitarian pass to help out with the disastrous situation. Hurricane Ivan was a #5 hurricane. That's the highest number, and it staled over Grenada and actually churned the island like an egg beater. Then it left and then it turned around and came back. I have rarely seen devastation like I saw at that time.
But when we were there, this time, a brother, we were reminiscing a little bit about that time.
And the local brother we stay with in Grenada, he was telling me a little bit about that aftermath and how there were shortages of not only food but hardware and things to rebuild. And he said, Jim, I stood in line with millionaires to get a loaf of bread and a pound of nails, he said after Hurricane Ivan, it didn't matter your social class, it didn't matter how much money you had in the bank.
It didn't matter about anything concerning your standing in society, he said. I stood in line, shoulder to shoulder with millionaires and poppers. We were all in the same boat. I thought of that in connection with sin. It doesn't matter who we are. It doesn't matter the family we were born into. It doesn't matter the race we were born into. It doesn't matter what we've achieved in this world. How shall a man?
What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? No, Every one of us are born into this world as sinners. It's the great leveler, isn't it? It brings us in on the same ground. And furthermore, not only are we all born into this world as sinners. No difference. There's not a man on the earth that doeth good and sinneth not, Solomon said.
00:25:26
But we all must come and receive salvation.
In the same way and on the same ground, it doesn't matter again, your social class, it doesn't matter you're standing before man. It doesn't matter how much money you have or how little you have. You know, we were talking about this a little today. I have to tell a little incident. I remember one time when one of these very poor countries, Brother Garvin and I were approaching a little house, little clapboard, one room house.
We were going to visit an older sister in that home. She didn't realize we were approaching, but she was sweeping her front step. Little little piece of wood she had in front of her house. She was sweeping it off, I suppose, anticipating our visit, and at the top of her lungs she was singing, I have Christ, what want I more?
You know, that really spoke to my heart. She was full of Christ.
She was not only a saved soul, but she was in the enjoyment of Christ, and she didn't have very much of this world's goods.
She arranged a few sticks of furniture. We sang some hymns. We read the scriptures. I think she gave us a little cassava bread and some local papaya juice or something she had squeezed from the fruit of a tree Outback.
It was a wonderful time.
And what about you? Do you have Christ?
If you only had Christ, you wouldn't want more as your Savior and as the enjoyment of your soul. I'm not saying again, we despise the mercies we have. I'm thankful for this facility. I'm thankful for a good place to lay my head tonight. But all those things are not the bottom line. Do you know the Lord Jesus? Do you want real satisfaction, real joy in your soul, A joy of which it says?
Your joy, no man taketh from you.
Oh, it's only found in my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. But again, to get back to this.
You know, in John 8, the Lord Jesus said if you die in your sins, you can't come where I am. You can't go to heaven in your sins. And what is the other alternative? It's the lake of fire. It's no fooling matter. It's not something to smile or laugh about. People joke about hell, but hell is a reality and it is a place where there's no getting out.
And no let up.
The Lord Jesus told about a man who lifted up his eyes in hell being in torment.
And you know, it's interesting that when that man made requests of Abraham, who he saw far off, he never asked to be released from that place. I believe he understood his destiny was fixed, but what he did ask for was one drop of water for momentary relief.
I have been out a number of times on the Sinai Peninsula in July or August and some of my brethren will confirm it's 100 and 2030° and that big sun blaring down with not a cloud in the sky. And sometimes I've wished that I could open one can and get one blast of cold air for momentary relief. At least I know in a few days I'll be back in Cairo and I'll be back on an air conditioned plane and back to North America.
But I have often wished, and when I'm in the tropics too, that you could open something and get one blast of momentary relief. That's what that man wanted in the form of a drop of water. He wanted momentary relief. You know he never got it and he never will. You know that man has been in that place of torment for over 2000 years because he was already there when the Lord Jesus told the story. And it was not a parable because Lazarus is named by name, and when the Lord told parables, he never named names.
But when he told real stories, sometimes he named names. And that man has been there for over 2000 years. And you know, it's just minuscule compared to the eternity that is ahead. Is that what you really want? That's not what God wants for you. God wants you to come to Christ. God provided A savior. The Lord Jesus has provided a remedy for sin. Why? For his glory. He wants to have.
00:30:16
Heaven filled with those who are not only with Christ. But like Christ, He wants to display you in a coming day when he comes to be glorified in His Saints and be admired in all them that are about him in that day. That's what God wants, that's what the Lord Jesus wants. And He loves you so very much. He desires your blessing and he desires that you would live in this life for His glory and be to his praise and His glory.
For all eternity in heaven. And when he comes back in the coming day to be vindicated on this planet and to reign in righteousness, we're sinners. That's why we need to be to be saved. But you say, how can I be saved? You know, sometimes I think when we present the gospel, we perhaps fail to really bring it right down.
To.
Boil it down to the level of how can I be saved? Is it complicated? The preacher talks about sins forgiven. Christ died on the cross. He was buried. He rose again the 3rd day. He's in heaven. His blood is what cleanses from sin. But how do I make it my own? How do I get saved? Let's turn to a couple of scriptures. First of all in Acts chapter 16.
Acts, Chapter 16.
And verse 30.
Let me back up to verse 29 then he called This is the Philippian jailer for a light and sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? I'm going to stop there for a moment, because maybe there's someone here. Maybe there's a young boy, a young girl or someone not so young. And you're saying, but how can I really be saved?
You know this man, this jailer? I believe he already recognized that he was a Sinner.
That's what we have to recognize first as we've sought to impress upon our souls already in this meeting. And we have to realize that not only are we sinners, but that there's nothing we can do to get rid of our sins in ourselves. And this man came in, and he asked a very great question, and he was he was sincere. He thought he was going to lose his life physically, and he had heard Paul and Silas perhaps preaching on the streets of Philippi.
Heard their testimony in the prison, and now he was in earnest. Oh, would that there would be souls tonight in this room as earnest as this Philippian jailer, this man who was in charge, this man who was the warden in the jail so long ago in Philippi. And he asked sirs, what must I do to be saved? And Paul and Silas gave him an immediate answer. Notice what it says.
Verse 31 And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That wasn't a very long sermon or explanation, was it? Sometimes we have long gospel meetings, long explanations, but that's not the gospel message that this man got. He got a short, one sentence gospel message. And you know, that's all it took because if we had time we could go on and read.
How that he believed in God rejoicing with all his house. He recognized his need.
He asked the question as to how we've spoken about why. But this is how. How do I get saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Go over to the 20th chapter of the book of Acts.
This is Paul Speaking of having gone publicly and from house to house with the truth. And in verse 21 he says, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Why didn't they tell the Philippian jailer to repent first? Why did they just bring out the faith side of it? Because I believe that they recognized, and the Spirit of God recognized that this man already knew he was a Sinner.
00:35:08
And he was in earnest to turn from his sins, and he wanted to know how.
But this is how its repentance toward God. That is, to recognize that I am a Sinner.
And that God is right in what he says and to turn around.
To have a change of mind, which is what repentance is, and to take sides with God, and then it's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. It's not complicated. Tonight. I want to try to put this in words that are so very simple that even a little child of seven or three or four can grasp this if you want to be saved tonight.
And you realize you're a Sinner and you need to be saved. Here's all you have to do. You just have to speak to the to God, to speak to the Lord in your heart. You don't have to say one word aloud, because he knows when you speak in your heart, he knows what you're saying. And you just need to come to him and say.
Yes, Lord, I know I'm a Sinner, but I receive you as my savior. It doesn't have to be exactly those words, but just to come in faith and say yes. There was a man, another man, in the days of the Lord Jesus, that he told about. He went up to the temple to pray. Well, there were two men. One says he stood and prayed thus with himself. In other words, his prayer never got above the temple roof. Why? Because he tried to tell God he was a pretty good fellow. He said, I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. He looked at the other man standing there, the publican. He said, Oh, Lord, I'm not bad like that man.
I'm not like him, but you know, it tells us men measuring themselves by themselves and among themselves are not wise. He measured himself not by God's standard, not by the word of God. He measured himself by his fellow man.
But the public And it says he wouldn't so much as lift up his eyes to heaven, but smote himself upon his breath, saying, God be merciful to me, a Sinner. That's all it takes, a simple prayer like that. And the Lord Jesus said, I tell you, I like that. I tell you how definite that language is. You rarely read language like that. I tell you this man went down to his house saved rather than the other. Was it some long complicated process?
Oh no. It's wonderful, after we're saved to confess to someone, to tell others because it confirms it in the soul as well as gives testimony for the Lord's glory. But oh, it is between you and God. It's between you and the Lord Jesus. I say it's so simple. You can just talk to him in your heart right where you are. I'm not going to ask you to come up front and make a public show. I'm not asking you to do something great or complicated.
It's like the servants of Naaman. So long ago when Naman was told to go wash, the servants finally came and said my master, if the if the prophet had asked thee to do some hard thing which thou not have done it, he was only to wash. It's not some hard thing that God is asking us to do. It's go wash not in the river Jordan like Nam or not in the pool of Siloam like the blind man was told to do.
But it's to wash in the blood of Jesus. Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour? Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? Oh, we sometimes sing. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
In connection with how that's we've talked about our part. What about God's part? Oh, he's willing and ready to save.
It's the blood of Jesus that cleanses from all sin. I've often told about a young man who was listening to a preacher preach the gospel, and the preacher was seeking to impress upon the audience the need for being washed in the blood of Christ that that was the only remedy for sin. And finally this young man stood up and he heckled the preacher and he said, listen, I don't understand how can blood cleanse sin?
Well, the preacher thought a moment.
And then he said, I'll ask you a question. There was some water on the podium and he lifted the glass of water and he said to the young men, my question for you is how does water quench thirst?
00:40:09
Well, the young man thought a moment and he said, well, I don't know, but I do know it does. So said the preacher. I can't tell you exactly how blood cleanses sin, but I know it does, and I know there are so many here tonight who will testify.
To the cleansing power of the blood of the Lord Jesus. We delight to quote those verses. We have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sin, as we had this afternoon. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. It's the it's the the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you as a token upon the altar. It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. And on and on and on we can go. What a theme, the blood of Christ.
Again, we want to make much of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the only remedy. It's the only cure for sin. There's nothing else, no substitute for the for the cleansing of sin apart from the blood. Oh, I know many of us have pictured so often in our minds eye that scene on Calvary's Hill where the Lord Jesus after those hours of darkness when he bore my sins in his own body on the tree.
He cried, It is finished. And then he said, Father, into thy hand I commend my spirit. He bowed his head and gave up his life like no other ever could or ever has, he could say of his life. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. And then we have all pictured how that soldier came. He came to the malefactor on one side of the Lord Jesus.
And he broke his legs to hasten his death. He came to the thief on the other side, and he did the same.
And when he came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, he break not his legs, but the soldier with a spear pierced his side and forthwith came throughout blood and water. I sometimes said, if it just said there came out blood and water, I would rejoice, and that would be enough. But there's a little word inserted there by the Spirit of God forthwith. It's just to me as if God said, this is the moment I've been waiting for.
And forthwith came out the blood and the water. God was in a hurry to bless his son had died because there had to be the death of an innocent victim. But there had to be the shedding of blood, the proof, the separation of the blood from the body was the proof of death. And without the shedding of blood is no remission. And the crowning act of man's hatred against the Son of God was the spear to plunge into his blessed side. And God said, this is the moment.
Forthwith came throughout blood and water. Oh, that blood is so precious to the heart of God.
And I trust it's precious to every heart here that we can say we're redeemed not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.
God has provided the way of salvation. All we have to do is accept that provision. The gift of God, as we read earlier, is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We've spoken under the heading of why and how, but for these few moments that are left to us, if they really are left to us, I want to speak of when. And again, I have a special burden in connection with those that are younger.
And in that regard, I'd like to go back to the book of Ecclesiastes.
Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes. It's a book that when I found younger I found hard to pronounce and hard to find in my Bible. But if you open your Bible about to the middle, you should come to somewhere in the Psalms and then just go over toward the New Testament. Proverbs and the next book is Ecclesiastes. I want to read a verse in the 12Th chapter.
1212 Chapter of Ecclesiastes in verse one. Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh. When thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them, I'm going to come right back to this verse, but I want to read another familiar verse in Second Corinthians chapter 6.
00:45:07
2nd Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 2. For he saith, I have heard thee in the time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I suckered thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
When I read this verse in the 12Th chapter of Ecclesiastes, I'm remember, I'm in. I'm put in mind of when I was a boy. I suppose I was seven or eight years of age, but I've never forgotten it. When I was growing up in The Smiths Falls Rita Ferry area of the Ottawa Valley in the summer, we had Sunday school outside in the meeting room at Rita Ferry. There was a reading meeting in the after Sunday afternoon.
For the older folks and we children sat on logs and benches out under some big trees and someone would come and sing some gospel choruses with us, go over some memory work and give us the Bible's story and a simple gospel message. And I remember a man one time by the name of Dawn, he came to give us a gospel message and he told us a very interesting story about a time when he was a young boy.
He said when he was a young boy he had a very nice kite and he liked to fly a kite. I used to fly a kite back in the open fields behind my parents home on a windy autumn day and enjoyed flying a kite. But Don said he had got a new kite and it had a nice ball of string tied to it. And 1:00 Saturday morning there was no school and he got up early. It was a nice windy day. He could see the trees blowing outside his bedroom window. He got up and he grabbed his kite. He wasn't even going to wait for breakfast.
He was heading out the door to fly his kite and his mother stopped him, she said. Don, I've got to go out for a while and I'm expecting a very important phone call that I cannot miss and I would like you to stay in this morning and I would like you to listen for that phone call and take the message when it comes. Well, Dawn was very disappointed, but he loved his mom and there was no no other option and so he agreed to stay in that morning while his mother went on her errand.
But as he was there, alone in the house, he got thinking about certain things. He got looking at that kite and the ball of string on the end of it. Now, some of you boys and girls might find this a little hard to relate to, but back in the day that the telephones that sat on a table had a base and a receiver on top that you lifted and usually a dialer, and you prayed there wasn't too many zeros or nines because you had. If your fingers slipped on the 6th or 7th number, you had to put the receiver back on top, listen for the dial tone again, and then start over.
I know that's not the kind of phones you use today, but that was the kind of phone that was on the hall table in the home where Don grew up, and it was in the table where I on the hall table when I was growing up as well.
But Don got looking at that phone and looking at his ball of string, and he got thinking, I wonder how many times I can wind that string around the base of the phone and the receiver.
Before the phone rings. Well, the more he thought about it, the more he decided he wanted to try it. And so he united the string from the kite and he picked up the phone and he started to wrap the string around 1 Chord, 2 Chords on and on he went. The phone never rang and the ball of string kept getting smaller and smaller and more chords around the telephone. And all of a sudden you know what happened? The telephone rang.
But what Don hadn't thought about.
In his childish game was how am I going to answer the phone? How am I going to pick up the receiver with it bound with those cords to the base of the phone? And so he panicked and he started to unravel and the the pile of string fell in a tangle beside him and he unraveled and the phone rang and rang and rang and rang and rang and finally he got that string off the phone and he picked up the receiver.
And all he heard was a dial tone on the other end. He had missed the call and there were some consequences he told us about because he missed that call, and his mother was not pleased when she came home. But he used it to illustrate the point that while we are young, it is important to come to the Savior for many reasons. But one, and I believe is what is brought out here, is because as we get older.
00:50:18
And it tells us that Satan binds us with the cords of sin. We get that in Proverbs. And as we get older, the heart becomes harder and more cords of sin bind our hearts. And I am thankful for older people who come to know the Lord, because it doesn't matter how old we are, the Lord can save anybody.
But it says here to remember our Creator, I'm going to again put this in our language for the gospel. We need to get saved in the days of our youth, because the day is going to come when we're going to say, oh, I don't want to hear about that, I'm not interested anymore.
They have an outreach Sunday school in Smiths Falls that they've had for many, many years since I was a young boy and before and you know, there have been those over the years who have as young children come to Sunday school.
Learned the Gospel verses, always willing to give out a song, listen to the Bible stories, participated in the activities. Then they got a little older and maybe they didn't come every week. They still came, they still listened. They got a little older and maybe they only came when there was a Sunday school picnic or treat. And then maybe they got to be 1314 and you went to pick them up for Sunday school and they said, no, we're not interested anymore. You see what this verse is saying? They never. They didn't get saved. Their hearts weren't opened.
When they were younger and they got older and they said we don't have any pleasure in those things. And so it says, remember now. I want to stress that little word now and that's why I read in Second Corinthians, because it's more than just getting saved when we're young, because we can always find somebody older than us and say we're young compared to them. I remember one time at a children's meeting, I was trying to impress this on the children and I said to.
Young man on the front row of young boy, I said, do you think I'm young? Oh no, he didn't think I was young. But Clem Buchanan was sitting on the other side of the room and I said, brother Buchanan, you think I'm young? Oh, yes, he said. I think you're young. You see, it's all relative. And so it's not just getting saved while we're young, but it's now because we don't know how long we have. Again, we have no lease on life. As we've been saying, the Lord Jesus is coming.
Says, when once the master of the house hath risen up and shut to the door. In other words, when the day of grace is over, the gospel will no longer go forth. And if people come and knock and wand in it, says, they'll come, and they'll say, Lord, Lord, open unto us, will the door ever be opened again? No, depart from me. I never knew you. You know the gospel tonight is come unto me. If you refuse that the message will be depart from me.
Is that complicated to understand? Come unto me tonight.
Or in a future day, having rejected the gospel or neglected it, depart from me. It's one or the other. The invitation tonight is to come and to come now. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. There's always an urgency about the gospel, not just remembering in the days of our youth, but remember now this moment. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. You say the Gospel meetings over and you look on your schedule and you say there's another gospel meeting schedule for tomorrow evening.
There's a children's meeting for tomorrow morning. Yes, there is. But oh, it may never come to pass. It may never take place because this is the day of salvation. This may be the last opportunity. I know that many of us have heard that for decades. Perhaps.
I can't tell you when the Lord is coming, but I know one thing. We are closer to the Lord's coming at 4 minutes to 8:00 tonight than we've ever been before.
And I know one thing, The coming of the Lord draweth nigh, as the book of James so plainly declares.
Oh, tonight, this Gospel meeting is concluding.
What can we say or just again, echo in the language of Scripture? Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners a little child of seven. Let's sing in closing that song, that chorus again to impress it upon our souls. That little chorus we sang already #42 A little child of seven. Someone started. Please.
Short of the Glory of God
Children—Stephen 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.
OK, which 134? OK #34 we'll sing the first two stanzas of #34.
Precious, precious.
More standard. More.
By the way, the usual Sunday school songs are on the back of the sheet, but pick from anywhere you'd like. I remember when I was your age, my favorite songs didn't come from the Backpage, and I was always disappointed when I was told that I had to pick from the Backpage. So you pick from anywhere you'd like, Emma?
#39.
Number.
39 Let's sing the first and last stands of that one, so we'll get more chances for hims.
Through the Lord in prayer.
Do my friends and spice.
Me take you to the Lord in prayer. Who?
Good. How about some more? We have time for a few more. OK, well, you can choose the next one and I'll get yours next. Go ahead.
#45.
#45.
Two little eyes.
Too long to fall to little years to hear everything's worse.
The new legs off the key to on this way.
Hands to work Oregon all my days.
One day so time to speak to Spirit, one breath of the heart for him. Now in my view, take the Lord Jesus come to life. Thank you.
OK, which one would you like?
#35 OK, we'll sing the first stanza and the chorus of #35.
00:05:14
Never believe, never believe, I said unto you.
Where you live? I said. Ever do?
We love, believe us on the sun, it is good.
Time for maybe two more, at least for now.
OK. What would you like?
#20 OK #28 will sing the first verse and the chorus of #28.
Jesus.
Skype for me.
I think we've had lots more boys than girls, so I'm going to give you the chance, Laurel.
#29 Let's sing the first and last verses with the chorus.
OK, let's pray and then you'll have a chance to say your verse. OK, who's memorized the verse and would like to say it for us, or at least a verse, OK.
There's.
There's no difference of come short of glory of God.
We're all have sinned in there too, OK?
There is no difference.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 322 to 23.
There is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. More than 322 and 23. OK, all right.
00:10:09
I'll come back.
We're all cynical short of the glory of God. Long, 2223.
All right.
There is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3022 and 23.
There is no difference for all of sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Romans 322 and 23.
OK.
Oh, thank you. Go ahead.
When 322 and 23 for all, there is no difference for all. Have to take the short of the glorious 232223. Excellent, thank you.
Whoops, sorry.
OK.
There is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 322 and 23. Excellent.
You guys want to see it?
There is no there is no difference for all sending. I'm short of the glory of God. Romans 323 and 22.
OK, there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3. Romans.
3322 and 23.
All right.
There is no difference for all sin and come short of the glory of God. Romans 322 and 23. Excellent.
OK.
There is no difference between.
There is no difference.
Fall of sin and come toward the Glory of God. Romance 323.
22 and 23, Excellent. Thank you.
Anyone else for now?
OK, a couple more. There is no difference for office. And then come, Sir, of the glory of God, Romans 322 and 23.
There is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 322 and 23. I suppose lots of you know it because there may be one more that would like to say it. Okay, we'll let you be the last one here.
There is no difference for all of sin to come short of the glory of God. Romans 322 and 23.
I'd like to just think about these verses and the next one after it, and there's so many wonderful things in them. I want to try to focus on just one or two that we'll remember. So I'm going to need a few volunteers to help me. We're going to illustrate the verse that most all of you have said so far.
OK, got various volunteers help me out here. OK, we'll start with you, Adam.
That others of you will get a chance.
I'd like to see if Adam can reach up and touch as high as that sign on the wall.
OK, you can jump if you'd like.
You want to reach as high as you can reach anyway, Do the best you can, OK? Oh, got it Mark. There's his mark. Anybody else think they could do it now? You could do a little better than that. You can reach now at least. Maybe if you can't reach the sun, you can reach closer. Okay, yours is the first hand I saw. I'll mark it for you.
OK, I'll mark you right about there. I may not be totally accurate, so I'll take several more. Okay, you can go ahead.
All right here, about right there.
OK, a couple more.
Wow.
We'll have time for we'll have time for several. That would be good for you. OK, you can come on up. And the rest of you that want to, why don't you get in line right behind here and I'll try to give everybody a chance at 10. All right, this will work out well. All right, go ahead. Oh, all right, we got you next one.
OK, I gotcha. Next line.
All right, Wow.
All right, gotcha. More.
All right, good.
00:15:02
Whoa. All right, Thank you. OK, You want to jump touch the wall? OK, fantastic. Thank you. Next one right about there. All right.
OK.
All right. Thank you.
All right, good. Got a couple more. Want to come on up here?
All right, here. You want to take this back to her? Oh, thanks. Oh, yours all right.
All right, all right, fantastic.
That'll be great.
Thank you, that'll workout well.
Now I'm going to get one other that I volunteered. And he kindly agreed. Tim, would you come up?
I, I don't know that I'll be able to reach up to where you mark so.
All right. Thank you.
All right.
Now.
Who succeeded?
Nobody. You sure?
I think Mr. Tim Roach did. Did he?
Oh.
Who came short?
If you participated and you came short, raise your hand.
Oh wow.
See, all of you had a nice platform to stand on. I didn't say you had to go up on the stage, but Adam did that first and that was a good idea. And that maybe helped get a little closer, don't you think?
And.
One of you had assistance from your dad. That was good.
And Mr. Tim, he's had a lot more experience. He's probably jumped more than any of you.
Even though he said last night that's not his favorite thing anymore.
But none of you made it, did you now?
I need somebody to say the verse for me again.
Say the verse for me again, somebody that didn't get a chance yet maybe I wanted to and I.
OK. Well, OK, somebody that said it before because I think I recognize all those hands. All right, go ahead.
There's no difference.
Austin, come short of the glory of God.
Thank you.
Now.
I want to see your hand in this room. If you can honestly say that by your own efforts you came short of the glory of God, raise your hand.
Wow.
I'm looking there's some adults that apparently didn't come short of the glory of God, but most all of you children did.
Hi everybody Did the Bible verse here that we read is talking about absolutely everybody in this room. Isn't that sad?
Everybody in this room has to admit they've come short. Some of them had maybe some good training when they're younger. Some maybe had a mom and dad to help them. Some had lots of years of learning. All of us have come short of the glory of God. Now I want to read the next verse in the Bible. Some of you can quote it. I want to make sure that I get it just right. So I'm going to turn to Romans chapter 3.
And verse 24.
Romans chapter 3 and verse 24.
Being justified freely.
By his grace.
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. There's lots in this verse.
But I'm going to only talk about part of it.
And I was thinking about one of you.
Before you came short.
00:20:00
There are a lot of you that came short. How many, by the way, in this room? Think just in this illustration, they could stand on that stage and jump and touch about as high as where that sign is.
Raise your hand if you think you can do it. We'll give you a chance. Some of you are taller, Some of you can jump. You think you can do it? I'll give one last chance.
OK. Did you get a chance before? No. OK, come on up. We'll give you one last chance.
Because, you know, sometimes people need a lot of opportunity to decide that they really don't. They're not able to do it.
OK, Well, I think that's fits in with a lot of the other ones. That's a little short though, isn't it? You know what? I was thinking about one of you, and I was thinking about one of you before you fell short.
And I had a plan for you. I want to give you something that you didn't learn.
You didn't succeed.
You didn't earn anything extra, but I was thinking about you before you fell short. And I'm going to ask you, Adam, would you would you come with me? OK, you come on up. And then we're going to leave here for a little bit.
So I'm not going to let the rest of you just sit here. You're going to sing #28 the first verse and the chorus again. You already say it once. First verse in chorus, and #28 you sing it again. Adam and I are leaving for a little while, but we'll be back this way, Adam.
That's fine.
OK, see, Adam and I had or Adam didn't have any plan. He didn't know what was happening. We had a reward up here that was planned out long before he fell short. I'm going to give it to Adam, but before I do, I want to ask you children, what did Adam do that you didn't?
To earn this, what did he do that you didn't?
No.
Good thought, but no.
What did Adam do that you didn't turn this?
Emma, he came with me. That's right. Does he deserve credit for that? Was that his idea?
No.
I went and asked him.
You know, Adam doesn't deserve this from anything he did. Didn't he come short? I think I remember Adam jumping and I think I remember Adam coming short. But I had a plan for him and I'm going to give this to Adam. We'll come back down real quickly here. But that's and I want to talk about a couple other things in the verse.
Sis, you've learned on Sunday school before a definition for grace. What's grace?
OK.
OK, that would be mercy, and that's an important part of the Word of God. What's grace?
Yeah, and there's a lot to it. What did Adam do to deserve the gift he got?
Nothing. To receive it, he had to come with me, right? To receive it, he had to come with me. But to get it, to earn it, he didn't do anything. It wasn't his idea. He didn't plan it out. He didn't earn it. By the way, notice that window over there? Isn't that about as high as that? Did I say you had to jump up and touch this? No. You just had to jump up that high.
And Adam got that high, didn't he? Now let's notice another thing in the verse.
I want you to think about one other thing in this verse. We'll keep it simple. There's lots of wonderful words, justified and redeemed. But we're going to notice one other thing in this verse. It says the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And there's lots of wonderful parts to that, but we're going to focus on one of them. But I want to tell you something first.
00:25:19
Out of Saint Louis Conference quite a few years ago maybe.
Nine or ten years ago, I walked into the McDonald's that's right near where they're have. They have a conference in Saint Louis.
Anybody been there?
OK. And on the way in the door, I saw maybe eight or ten, I can't remember how many gold, silver dollars. I call them gold, silver dollars. That's not right. Little gold dollars, right. Wow. How would you like to be walking in the door and see maybe 8 or 10 gold dollars lying on the ground? And so my son and I, we were together, we scooped them all up, and that was kind of exciting.
But in the back of my mind, I was wrestling a little bit.
Because see, this wasn't a wallet, there was number license with it. There was number way to find the person who lost it.
Except I saw Mr. Daniel Junot in the McCombs, and I couldn't think of anybody that I know in the world that would carry gold dollars, and lots of them in his pocket, except for Mr. Daniel Junak. So he went over, we checked his pocket hand, there was a hole in it, and all his gold dollars had fallen out on the ground. So he gave him back to him and I think he kindly gave us a couple of them as a thank you.
How many of you have lost something?
Yep, anybody here has never lost anything.
Wow, you know, everything that I've been given, I could lose. I want you to notice something in the Word of God when you're reading it in the future. If it says it's in Christ Jesus or in Christ when you're reading the word of God, that's not something you can lose because it's not in you. I know that's a little bit tricky, but when it's talking about the redemption in this verse, when it's talking about all these, wonderful.
In this verse, at the end of the verse, it says in Christ Jesus, that's a place where a place is maybe not even the best word, but we'll use the word place. That's a place where nothing can be lost. So remember, everything good that we received from God, we received by his grace. We have to receive it. We get it by grace, but it's in Christ Jesus.
Where it can't be lost.
Let's finish that #28 second and third stanzas in the chorus of #28.
There are many Christians in this room. No, I'll change that. All the Christians in this room that still have the flesh. That means all of us. I think sometimes we find ourselves jumping up against the wall and checking out how high our little blue piece of tape is compared to other Christians.
00:30:10
Let's just remember that grace isn't just what we need to be saved. It's grace all the way until we're home. And let's not compare ourselves among ourselves. The Bible says it's not wise. Let's pray.
Truth, Joy, and Eternity
Address—Bill Prost
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.
Could we sing together part of hymn #79?
Hymn #79 Be nice to sing it all, but it's a bit long, so let's start at verse 9. Hymn 79, beginning at verse 9. Called by that secret name of undisclosed delight. Blessed answer to reproach and shame.
Graved on the Stone of White, number 79 beginning.
At verse 9.
Oh boy.
My soul experience.
This morning, it's going to happen.
By siren, the Lord accepts you, my Lord.
I'd like to talk this afternoon about 3 rather basic things, all of which have been much on my heart lately.
Truth. Joy.
And eternity.
Truth, joy, and eternity.
We might wonder how those three are connected, but I believe they are.
And let us look first at the subject of truth.
Turn with me, please, first of all, to John's Gospel.
John's Gospel.
Chapter.
22.
Sorry.
Getting mixed up. John doesn't have 22 Chapters does he? Chapter 18, John's Gospel chapter 18 and verse Well we won't read the whole thing but verse 37.
00:05:05
John 18 and verse 37.
Therefore said unto him, That is to the Lord Jesus, Art thou a king? Then Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king, or as we would say it, what you say is true.
To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth, hearest my voice, and Pilate Seth unto him. What is truth?
And then if we could turn back to the 8th chapter of John. John chapter 8.
And verse 31.
John 8 and verse 31.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him.
If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.
And here it is, and ye shall know the truth and the truth.
Shall make you free.
And then one more verse in Ephesians book of Ephesians.
Ephesians chapter 4.
And.
Verse 17, Ephesians 4, and verse 17. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.
Who, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
But ye have not so learned Christ, If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him.
As the truth is in Jesus.
Man went away from God.
After the fall back in the book of Genesis.
And we remember that Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, founded a city, called it after the name of his son, and then established, in essence, the whole world system that we have about us today.
And in that world system, man has been seeking for truth ever since. You have it right here in the university in which we are. There's the model right up there, Vince University.
And underneath in French it says to the freely translator to be instructed in order to serve. Man is seeking after truth.
And man has discovered much with his own abilities and in the technological sphere, in the universe in which he lives, in the planet on which we are, man has discovered many things.
We're thankful for many of those discoveries.
But in the moral and spiritual realm.
That phrase that Pilate spoke echoes down through the ages.
What is truth?
Because what man has done has been to seek to find the truth concerning himself, concerning his existence, concerning his future, concerning where he came from, but he has been seeking to do it apart from the Word of God.
00:10:07
And all down through the ages.
He has had to say to himself, what is truth?
The popular line of thinking today is there is no absolute truth.
You may have your truth, and I may have mine, and even if they contradict each other, well, that's all right, because you do what works for you and I do what works for me, ignoring, of course, the definition of truth, which by its very, very definition excludes what is not the truth.
But what it really brings us to is that I cannot know the truth on any moral and spiritual subject.
Without divine revelation.
And we want to emphasize a few things this afternoon in that.
And I hope this doesn't tread on anyone's toes this afternoon or insult anyone's intelligence, because this is an address for believers. But allow me to say, perhaps from a perspective of one who's getting a little older and who has had the opportunity, as many others here, to have observed the way the world is gone.
Throughout a lifetime of 50 or 60 years.
I am concerned that.
The thinking of this world, at least in some cases, overtakes us.
In Christianity.
And instead of that precious truth which comes through so clearly in the Word of God.
Which comes not from man, but from God himself. There is the tendency to seek to mix it with what man has been able to find out.
Let us always remember that in the first place, in any sphere.
Man is a discoverer, never a creator.
Man is a discoverer, never a creator.
And man gets himself all puffed up by what he has discovered.
Not realizing, of course, that what he discovers is only scratching the surface, probably of the depths of knowledge that could be obtained.
And in a moral and spiritual realm, what happens when man tries to use his own mind?
Oh, we won't turn to it, but it's given to us in Romans one, it says, professing themselves to be wise. They became fools.
What is truth?
All I see to each one of us here the truth about everything.
Every moral and spiritual subject, and ultimately the gateway to truth in any sphere is found in this precious book.
The Lord Jesus came into this world and he could say of himself, I am the way, the truth and the life and I want to say to each one here, and this is not a gospel meeting, but there may be someone here that is not saved. If you are not saved, there is only one Ave. to the truth concerning who you are and perhaps more important, who God is.
And that is through divine revelation. You cannot know where this world came from. Except by divine revelation, you cannot know where you came from. Oh yes, man postulates the theory of evolution, which is so ridiculous that if it were not having to do with the moral and spiritual realm, no scientist of any sort would even believe it for a moment.
But because it gives man the opportunity to persuade himself that he doesn't have to answer to God for his conduct.
Intelligent men grab hold of it and make absolute fools of themselves by latching on to something that never had any basis, and if there were anything that they could even point to as a possible basis that perhaps have been totally knocked out from under it in the last 20 years.
00:15:01
Man will believe anything if he can avoid his responsibility from God.
But does a man know what the future holds to go in the other direction? No. Only a revelation from God himself will tell us that. And more than that.
Whenever anything vital is involved, either for you who may not be saved, or for those of us here that are believers, God never refers us to experience. He refers us to His Word.
There is a great deal of emphasis being placed today on experience.
I was in a Christian bookstore the other day and where my wife, my wife was picking up a few things and I ventured to take a look at some of the books that were available there. And yes, there were a few books that fell into the category of what we might call exposition, but by far the greater number of them were taken up with experience.
Your experience? My experience.
And there is a place for that, I don't deny that at all. But once again I repeat what I said a moment ago, when anything vital is involved in your life and mine, God never refers us to experience. He refers us to His word. Are you not saved? You can be saved, but the assurance of salvation does not rest on feelings.
It rests on God's precious word.
But there is much more than simply being saved in the Word of God, and that's why the Lord Jesus could say to His disciples in what we had read, to what we read there in John chapter 8 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Now I quoted that, but I left out the verse that is before.
Let's read it again, because it's extremely important.
And often, if I can speak of myself forgotten, let's read it again in John's Gospel, chapter 8.
And verse 37, verse 31, I should say.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him.
If you continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed?
Oh, the truth of God is found in his Word, and then the Lord says, And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
I've said this before.
It amused me at the time, and it happened more than once. Probably many of you know that I did surgery for a good part of my medical career, and there were various people at various times who needed surgery and who desperately, desperately did not want to have a general anesthetic.
Some were afraid that something would happen to them, but most of them that wasn't the problem. Most of them would say because if I'm under an anesthetic for that period of time, I'm not in control of my life.
And usually whatever I did could be done under local anesthetic and I would smile and say that's no problem. Of course, what they did not know was that sometimes the.
Rigors and sound of an air driven bone saw and a few other noises.
During bone surgery were a little bit disturbing and the anesthesiologists would slip little goodies into their IV so that they really weren't very much in control of things anyway. But the point was they felt they had control of their lives.
Does a man really have control of himself? No, he doesn't. His man really free? No, he isn't. Oh yes, you and I may see we're say we're living in America. We are free. And America was founded on that watchword of freedom.
And it is a wonderful way to be able to live where we have liberty. Yes, indeed it is, and we thank God for it. But when it comes to the kind of freedom that the Lord is talking about, man is bounded by time. First of all, man is bounded by his sinful tendencies. Man is bounded by all kinds of things that are part of a world in which sin has done its sad work.
00:20:25
And Satan manipulates man like a puppet with all of those lusts and pleasures.
And leads him down a broad Rd.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. You know, it's a wonderful thing to be free from the course of this world, but only God can do it. And only the liberty that God brings you and me into as believers will bring that liberty. What liberty is it? It's the liberty of seeing things from God's side.
And many want to see things from God's side.
But here is the catch.
I have had people say to me.
And this has happened more than once.
And we're talking now about believers, and we have sat down together sometimes.
And opened up the word of God and looked at the way that Scripture presents the truth. Now it may be at one time this aspect of the truth. It may be at another time that aspect of the truth.
And more than once, the question has arisen.
Well, if that is really the truth.
You say this is the word of God. You say this is the truth. Why are not more people following it? And more pertinent, why are not more believers walking in it? Why don't people want the truth?
Hard question sometimes, isn't it?
Hard question why do not more people want the truth?
Several reasons. One of them comes to mind.
Remember, while reading a story about a man, and we don't need to go into detail, but he believed in all kinds of charismatic teaching, that the gift of healing and the gift of tongues and all those things were just as extant today and just as available to believers as they were in the days of the apostles. And evidently he met up with someone.
Who knew his Bible well and.
A friend of his listened to them talk and by the end of the conversation.
The friend thought to himself. Well.
That other believer certainly finished him off from Scripture as to where he's at. He doesn't have a leg to stand on, which he didn't.
But on the way home in the car, the man who had been totally backed into a corner with scripture was just as upbeat and justice as happy.
And just as confident as he ever was until the other believer ventured to say to him, what about what happened tonight, What that other brother said from Scripture totally blew everything that you're saying right out of the water, so to speak.
What about all that? Oh, he said. That kind of thing doesn't bother me. Whatever he wanted to say. I just go by experience. I can't deny experience.
And when experience is the benchmark by which things are judged, the imagination of man's heart can take him anywhere.
Don't let us fall into that category.
But there's another reason why sometimes the truth is not more popular.
And it's a reason that makes me bow my head.
Because.
In order to have that precious truth as a living reality in my life, I have to have the walk that goes with it.
If what does the Lord say in John 8 and 31? If He continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed? Ah, there is a catch.
00:25:01
And then we go on to the book of Ephesians, and we have a list of all those things that man does and his ignorance.
And then it says, But ye have not so learned Christ.
And even the true believer can say, yes, that's written about fallen man, but there's a lesson for you and me in it.
If you and I.
Want to follow the ways of this world? We can't do that and still have the truth of God. Many believers want that today. There is a real desire to know truth.
But I wanted on my terms and in my way and don't let it upset my lifestyle.
And the devil's done a good job today of persuading people you can be a Christian, but you don't have to change your life. You don't have to be any different because after all, God is a forgiving God. And God understands the difficult world in which you live. He understands how hard it is in school today, in college, in the world you live in. He understands the moral environment.
In which you have to live and move in the work scene or wherever you are.
So you don't have to change your lifestyle too much. That's that's not what's critical. And he has dragged Christianity down to the level of this world.
And many dear believers, sad to say, have bought into it so that open sin in believers lives is being tolerated right alongside of the truth of God, as if it didn't matter anymore. Because after all, God is a forgiving God.
One of the words used there in that 4th of Ephesians is lasciviousness, a long word, but what it means is simply using the grace of God as an excuse to sin.
And what does it say there going down a little bit to verse 21?
If so, be.
That ye have heard him.
And have been taught by him. And notice this expression.
Does it say referring back to verse 20 as the truth is in Christ? No, it doesn't. It says you have not so learned Christ referring to what He was in his perfect manhood. But then it says as the truth is in Jesus.
It's an interesting study if you have the time to look at the number of times in the New Testament that the name of Jesus is mentioned without his titles.
Now it's important to give the Lord Jesus his titles.
I believe that with all my heart, especially his title as Lord.
I said I didn't want to step on any toes.
And I don't quote someone else in order to avoid that.
My late father-in-law, Albert Hayhoe, used to say to us as young people, young brothers.
Close your prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus, not just in the name of Jesus or in Jesus name. I just leave that with you, but going back.
To what we have here, the truth as it is in Jesus, what does that bring in? It brings in the fact that the truth is not merely an intellectual body of knowledge that I keep in my head up here. It is all of that, but much more. It is the truth connected with that blessed man who came into this world.
About whom, it could be said.
And thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save.
His people from their sins.
That blessed man who walked through this world in every way as an example for us, who met every difficulty.
Yes, with the truth of God, but also with love and with grace. Take the woman at the well in John 4, for example. Did the Lord Jesus mince words with her or somehow gloss over her sin? No, He did not. He brought it before her.
00:30:04
But did she run away and say, I don't like this man, I don't want to be around him, He knows too much.
I don't want to be around somebody that exposes my whole.
Sad lifetime.
She stayed there. Why?
Ah, because there was something there that attracted her. And that brings us to the third reason.
As to why the truth is not sometimes walked in as it should be.
And it's a voice to my own heart, and a voice to each one of us.
Is my display of the truth of God in my life the truth as it is in Jesus?
We talked about entering into the truth of God in Ephesians chapter one.
And it's wonderful and verses were read during the reading meeting that referred us back to the Old Testament and to the land of Canaan and how it speaks of entering into that whole blessed truth of heavenly things.
But there was a verse we did not read and we won't bother turning to it. But it's in Deuteronomy.
Where they were told.
Not to conquer the land too quickly.
Not to take it too quickly.
Lest the beasts of the field multiply upon it.
What does that mean?
Oh, if they were to take more land than they were able to cultivate and look after, then of course the beasts of the field would start encroaching on it and make their homes there. And there was nothing wrong with that from the point of view of the beasts of the field. But what does it mean? I would suggest that the beasts of the field encroaching on the land that is not cultivated.
Represents the activity of the flesh in you and me.
When there is more up here.
Than there is down here.
More talk and not enough walk.
More knowledge and not enough of the truth as it is in Jesus and I am guilty of it. I would be the first one to admit and then others look on and say well if that's the truth of God, I guess I don't want it.
Course, that is what happens, and I say to each one here, if you are tempted to do that, if you say it's nice to have the truth, but I don't like the way some people walk in it and I don't like the slant they put on it because some people get out of balance with it.
It happens, it happens, and I am guilty of it too.
And I don't think you will ever look at anyone, any fellow Christian, and say he or she has it perfectly in balance. No, there is only one who does. But that's the one God points you and me too. The truth as it is in Jesus. And it reminds me of the verse of a poem concerning that precious truth.
And some will recognize the poem and where it comes from.
Free from myself, Lord Jesus, free from the ways of men.
Chains of thought that have bound me. Never can bind again. Oh how precious.
He shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. There is nothing like a believer that walks through this world in the full liberty of the truth of God.
That lifts him above this present world.
But if properly understood, it does not make the believer.
Unfit for any good in this world.
You know, I heard it from one of my uncles once who wasn't gathered to the Lord's name and he referred to a brother in Christ who was gathered to the Lord's name and he said something like this. He said that man is too heavenly minded for any earthly use.
It was his idea.
Was that true? No, it was not.
No, that man would not go down to the level of this world in order to do good. But the believer who has the truth of God before him, and on whose heart the truth has a grip, is the most useful believer that there could be in this world, because, as was brought out in the reading meeting, he comes to an as an ambassador.
00:35:13
And when he presents the truth, he does what one brother did one time when a moral question was put to him that everyone in the community was.
Trying to sort out and they asked him for his opinion.
He gave a superb answer. He said friends, my opinion is worth no more than anyone elses.
But he said.
I represent another country.
I represent God himself. I want to give you my government's opinion on the subject because that's what counts. And he went to the word of God. That carries weight.
Well, let's turn to something else because perhaps you say, but we do know the truth. But I want to have the present living enjoyment of it. Let's turn to Philippians chapter 4 for a verse.
Philippians 4.
And verse 4.
Rejoice in the Lord.
Alway.
And again I say, rejoice.
One more verse, Second Corinthians 4.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 4.
And this verse was also referred to in the reading.
2nd Corinthians 4 and verse 18.
The apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, For the things which are seen are temporal.
But the things which are not seen are eternal.
And then one further verse in John's Gospel again.
John's gospel again.
Chapter 15.
And verse 11.
But we're going to read verse 10, because once again, verse 10 has an important bearing on verse 11. Verse 10. If ye keep my commandments, he shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you.
And that your joy might be.
Full. And there's another old brother used to remind us. Not half full, brethren, full.
It's not the kind of joy that this world gives.
You can see the kind of joy that this world pretends to have.
If you watch the entertainment of this world.
But is it a present living reality in the soul? Does it leave that?
Wonderful joy and blessing afterward, no.
Each one will have to admit if he or she is honest with themselves.
That it only emphasizes what Solomon found out way back thousands of years ago.
That all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
We don't need to go and try it all. Solomon did it for us, and he had more than I suppose anyone will ever.
Oh, it's true. Solomon didn't have a car, Solomon didn't fly a plane. Solomon didn't have the Internet and a few other things.
But he had more riches, I suppose, than anyone of us can ever dream of having. Excuse me?
And if it was within his grasp, or rather if it was available, it was within his grasp, he tried it.
And have brought him nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit. Why? Because according to Ecclesiastes chapter 3, God has put the world in your heart and my heart. And you could translate that He has put eternity in their heart. Man knows innately that he is made for eternity and not merely for time. And there is a longing for that.
00:40:21
Which goes beyond this present scene.
Oh yes, he may try and deny that and say he's an atheist or an agnostic or something like that.
The more I go on, the more I am persuaded that man deep down inside cannot be an agnostic because he has a God conscious part to his being. And allow me to say that I have seen those from this country and from Canada and from Europe over in lands like India desperately searching for something to satisfy that longing because they realize there's more.
And somehow they are persuaded that the materialism and technology of the West.
Just doesn't have the answers and they're going to go over to a country that has emphasized the spiritual side of things and the mystical aspects of life far more than it has been in Western culture. And do they find what they are looking for? No, they don't They have may have all kinds of esoteric experiences and Satan getting into the ACT may provide the.
Kinds of things that make them think that somehow.
They are getting hold of that which is beyond this world when really all they are getting hold of is satanic influences and it's sweeping this country and Canada as well. It's a terrible thing and man is once again putting his faith in experience rather than in the word of God. I say to you and to me fellow believers, true joy comes through verse 10 of what we have here in John chapter 15.
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. A brother used to say to us many years ago concerning the ninth verse.
Memorize that verse and repeat it to yourselves every day of your life.
I can't say that I've done that, even though I heard that strong exhortation well over 50 years ago. But it's true. We have true joy when we abide in His love.
But here's the key.
True joy does not come from reaching for the joy.
Does that sound like a paradoxical statement that doesn't make sense? Maybe it does. After all, if you want something, don't you go after it?
In the material realm, it's true.
But in the spiritual realm, if we could put it this way, joy is a byproduct. And man in this world, when he seeks for happiness, never finds it. And the believer, if all you are seeking for is happiness, you will never find it. Why? Because your whole approach, my whole approach to the subject.
Is wrong.
Why is that? Because if I am looking for joy, I am occupied with myself.
And as we said yesterday in the open meeting, the Christian, or the unbeliever for that matter, who is occupied with himself.
Is never happy. Never, never.
And the Spirit of God never occupies you and me with ourselves except to judge sin and to deal with it. Yes, God does that and it's a needed work. But as someone has said.
The work of self judgment is not food for the soul, it's medicine.
And we need medicine once in a while, don't we? Yes, we do. Sometimes. When we're sick, we're in no shape to take in food. We need medicine so that our body will get well, so that we can take in food.
But it's not a normal state to be living on medicine, is it? No, God doesn't occupy you and me with ourselves. He occupies us with Christ. And when the apostle Paul said there in Ephesians, rejoice in the Lord alway and again I say rejoice. It wasn't saying go out and look for joy in order to rejoice. No, he was saying there is one up there.
And he had outlined that Blessed One in the second and third chapters of Philippians.
00:45:06
Because the 2nd chapter is Christ in manhood, the third chapter is a risen Christ in glory. And that's where Paul was pointing those Philippians believers for their joy.
There are many believers today that are not happy.
And I don't mean when I talk about happiness, that we always need to be.
I don't know what the expression is. I suppose in the modern jargon of the world we would say flying high.
I'm not always flying high. There's nothing wrong with it and I love to see that in a believer, someone who is just bubbling over all the time.
But there are times in our life when we have sorrow. There are times in our life when we are sober and we're told to be sober. In Scripture, there are things that burden us quite properly.
Notice being burdened is not the same.
As being wretched or being discouraged. They're different, very different. I can carry a heavy burden, the Lord Jesus did. But the Lord Jesus was never discouraged, nor did he ever feel wretched. No. Why? Because there was that calm peace that flowed. And we get that here in the verse that we read.
In John 15 and 11, he says that my joy rate might remain in you.
Did the Lord Jesus have joy in his heart in that sense when he wept at the grave of Lazarus? I believe he did. Why did he? Oh, he groaned.
He wept because of the sorrow and heartache that sin had brought in, but at the same time.
He looked beyond it all to the work of the Cross, and on the basis of that work he could raise that man from the dead.
There was joy there, in spite of sorrow.
And you and I can have that joy and that peace in our hearts as we go through this world, whatever the circumstances are. Why? Because to go back to what we said before, the truth has made us free.
I think her brother Jim was mentioning it last night in the gospel, how he saw people in the business lounge of an airport watching the news on different stations, on different screens at opposite ends and people watching them who are intelligent as to the world and then turning away because they didn't want to see anymore.
And man already is beginning to get into that mode.
Where his heart is failing him for fear, as scripture tells us, and are looking for those things that are coming upon the world.
He doesn't know what's coming.
You and I can have peace. Do we feel the burden of what's happening in this world? We should. Does it make us have more of a heart for souls? Yes, we should. But in order to have that heart, in order to have that largeness of heart, there has to be peace in my own heart and joy if I'm all mixed up and occupied with my own circumstances and cast down.
If I'm cast down.
Because of all the things I'm.
Concerned about in my own life.
For all the problems, let's say it in my local assembly.
Or someone else's difficulties.
Feel them, take them to the Lord. Amen.
Seek to be a help, absolutely.
But within, I need to walk in that love and in that joy.
That enables me to rise above it all and yet come down to meet those problems, those difficulties, as the Lord met them.
His joy fulfilled in US, the Lord Jesus prays.
In the 17th of John, that we might, he says that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
Now we want to talk about eternity.
00:50:01
And let's read those verses again in 2nd Corinthians 4.
I read them a moment ago.
Because our joy is connected.
With looking beyond.
Temporal things.
2nd Corinthians 4.
And we'll read verse 17 this time.
For our light affliction.
Which is but for a moment.
Worketh for us. Notice that phrase worketh for us, not against us.
Not even neutral works for us.
A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
And then one more verse in second Second Timothy chapter one.
Second Timothy. Chapter One.
And verse 12.
For the which 'cause that that's referring back to verse 11, the preaching and the teaching he was doing, the Apostle Paul, For the which 'cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him.
Against that day.
In the few moments that remain, we want to talk about eternity.
You and I can't understand eternity.
And I've said this before, but I'll repeat it how that I can remember as a small boy before I even was old enough to go to school.
Going out into the backyard.
And pondering what my mother had just said.
That if we knew the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we would go to be with him. And how long would we be there? I asked. And when would we come out? Oh, she said, We'll never come out. We'll be there forever. We'll never come out.
And I remember going out and trying to wrap my mind around that.
And I thought, I can't, I just can't get my mind around that concept.
And over 65 years later, I'm no further ahead than I was then. Why?
Because once again, although man was made for eternity and not for time, we are bounded by time and we can't think in terms of something that doesn't have a time frame attached to it.
But the devil is using that to make believers come down to the level of this world and to have their lives ordered.
And planned out and lived out as if time.
And not eternity were important.
The natural man does that and as he misses opportunities in this world.
As he finds himself or herself getting older and perhaps things have not been done properly.
There's a problem I read the other day about how someone got a hold of a good many people.
In Middle Life and beyond and ask the mall the same question.
Do you have regrets in your life, and if so, what is your major regret?
You can imagine what they were.
That job opportunity that I didn't get or that I didn't follow up, that was a big one.
That business that I should have started and I didn't do it.
That stock that I should have bought, how I should have bought in the Dell computers or bought into Amazon or a few things like that. 25 years ago my I would have been a multi millionaire today.
Others had regrets over a missed romance.
That girl that I didn't pursue, I wished I'd gone a little further and a little faster. I'd been on. I wish I'd been a little smarter.
00:55:02
That childhood sweetheart. That high school sweetheart that somehow didn't work out.
And a lot of other romantic illusions that never quite made it. And then there were other things, real regrets that would bring tears to your eyes. Things that had been said and done, that had hurt other people, hurt their own families, and had never been able to be made right. People who had passed on.
To whom they wish they could have said something or done something, but the opportunity was gone.
I suppose if I were to go around this room, there might be regrets in this room because all of us can look back on our lives and say I wish there were things that I had done differently.
But what Satan is doing, and he's reaching, sad to say, into the hearts and minds of believers, is pulling them down South that this world is the horizon of their thoughts instead of eternity.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's unimportant to have a career.
And I will tell you quite openly.
And I hope that's OK to talk for one moment about myself.
If I had my time over again.
And someone, someone said to me this the other day, would you go into medical school again? And my, my answer without a moment's hesitation was I would do it again in a heartbeat.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a good education, far from it.
There's nothing wrong with.
Doing what God has fitted you to do. There's nothing wrong with having a husband or a wife and all of the things that perhaps we look up, look forward to or would like to have.
But what I do say to you, and I say to my own heart, are all these things subservient to the will of God.
Am I willing to die to whatever my ambitions are in order to say, Lord Jesus, that thou mightest have the preeminence in my life? Am I willing to do that?
And they're willing to live in view of eternity.
That's what Paul did.
He said. I'm making a deposit toward that day. That's where the deposit counts. That's where it's going to mean something that's going to pay dividends for all eternity.
Again, I'm not saying it's wrong to plan ahead down here. Not far from it.
But let us all remember that it's a means to an end, not an end in itself. The things which are seen are temporal.
Many, many years ago, in a Bible reading long before my time, and I only read it, a brother raised the question concerning that last verse of 2nd Corinthians 4, What are the unseen things? And he looked around at those that were listening. What are the unseen things?
And no one could give an answer.
And he wouldn't answer it for them, he said. I'm not going to tell you. I leave you to consider the question.
What are the unseen things? I suggest that at least one of them is.
All of those spiritual blessings that we've been considering in Ephesians one and throughout the book of Ephesians in chapter 2 and chapter 3, in parts of chapter 4, and so on, all those things that are above and beyond everything in this world.
What else are unseen things that eternal home to which we are going?
Allow me to go overtime for a moment or two because it's fresh in my mind.
I was mentioning this at the home where I'm staying here but a few days ago.
More than that, maybe a little over a week ago, I bought a book that someone had said to me, I want you to read this book and tell me what you think of it was a book written by a medical doctor, a neurosurgeon, obviously a brilliant man, and he had had what is conventionally known as a near death experience, a most unusual one, one of the most unusual I have ever read about.
01:00:01
He was in a coma for one full week.
With a severe case of meningitis, where the chance of recovering from it, even to come out of it alive where?
Less than 1% and to come out of it with the faculties that he had before he got sick were pretty well absolutely nothing. And Eddie did come out of it and he's relating what he tells.
It's very interesting.
But I say to you and to me, to my own heart, the message in that book reminded me of the Scripture that says God shall send them strong delusion so that they shall believe a lie. Because Satan gets into the picture and persuades men of what eternity is going to be like, and he mixes enough truth with it that man thinks he's got a handle on the real thing.
And this doctor thought he had it, and he thinks now that somehow he's got a relationship with God.
And so on. Because he saw as he thought what heaven was like, oh, I say to each one here. And I don't think I need to worry about that in this company. But don't be misled by things like that.
All things that pertain unto life and godliness are in this precious book, But all those unseen things, those eternal realities, await that day when we will be within like Christ.
That is a wonderful prospect. Now I don't try and speculate about it, but can I enjoy in my heart what it will be like to be there, to be like Christ, to enjoy in its fullness all that He is and all that He has won for me, As was emphasized over and over in the reading meeting, I will not be more blessed up in heaven. I will not have more blessings than I have now. The only thing that will.
Will be my enjoyment of them well May God give you and me the grace. On the one hand, to appreciate what it is to know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Secondly, what it is to rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, rejoice, but to remember the conditions that are attached to that as well as to being free in the truth.
And finally, to live and to walk as we get near the Lord's coming.
In view of eternity and not for time, let's close in prayer.
Ephesians 1:11-23
Egypt's Plagues
Gospel—Tim Roach
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good evening, and welcome to the Gospel Meeting. I'd like to start this evening by seeing number one on the hymn sheet, almost persuaded now to believe, almost persuaded, Christ to receive.
I think many people here tonight will be almost persuaded if you have not yet accepted the Lord as your savior, almost persuaded. You've been sitting in these gospel meetings for so many times. Last night the gospel went out. What did you do with the gospel message that you heard? Are you almost persuaded? Almost isn't good enough? You need to be all together saved.
Let's sing number #1.
I want to speak tonight about the 10 plagues that happened in Egypt.
And it's good to notice that they begin with the blood and they end with the blood. And so the blood is very important to God, and the blood speaks of death and judgment for sin. And that is what we want to speak about in part tonight. That is the judgment of God against sin, because God wants to put away sin so that we can have fellowship with God.
Sin breaks.
Fellowship with God and the death of Jesus and the blood of redemption restores.
God's fellowship with man, and so the blood is important to God.
And the blood is important to you and I as well.
The people of Israel, they were. They were in the land of Egypt, and they were captives at this time. They were slaves. They were mistreated, They were beaten. And God used Moses at this time to rescue the nation of Israel from the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh didn't agree. He didn't want to go along with this idea that Israel would be freed from their slavery. He he, he liked to use them as his slaves to accomplish all his works.
But so far would not let the people of God go out of the land of Egypt. He did not allow them to go out so they could worship their God, and so they could have fellowship with Jehovah God. And so God. He began to punish Pharaoh and the Egyptians so that Pharaoh would allow God's people of Israel to go and worship God. And so God sent 10 plagues on to the land of Egypt.
To punish them and the 10 plagues, we said they start with the blood and they end with the blood. And the first plague was a plague of blood. Well, God told Moses and Aaron to go and raise. Aaron raised his rod up over the the river Nile. Now many of these plagues attacked the gods of the Egyptians, and one of them was the river Nile. They had a God for the river Nile. And so the river was turned into blood. All the water in the land was turned to blood.
And the magicians far as magician said, hey, we can do that. So that I don't know where they found the water that wasn't turned to blood to turn into blood, but they they said they could do it, so they turned water into blood. And Pharaoh said, well, this is nothing great. And so Pharaoh refused to accept that they should go out of the land of Egypt to worship their God. Well, the blood speaks of death and death for you and I when we're born in our sins.
When we're born, we're born in our sins. We're born with a sinful nature. We're dead in our sins, like it says in Ephesians. Well, with all this blood in the rivers, it started to decompose and it began to stink. I know when there's a dead animal in the summertime and it's hot and it's humid outside, and the dead animals laying there on the side of the road and you drive by, you can smell it. It's really bad. Well, that's what the land of Egypt smelled like.
It staying the whole land of Egypt is like, it's like this world, this world stinks because of sin. But Pharaoh, he would not listen to God. He would not allow the people, God's people, to go out and worship God. And so God sent yet another plague on the land of Egypt. He sent the plague of frogs. And so Aaron raised his rod over the river and out of the river came the frog. This is all in Exodus Chapter 7 and chapter 8.
But in Exodus 8, verse three, it says, the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the House of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading troughs. So the frogs came up, and they're in their houses. They were everywhere, and they couldn't get rid of them. They they worshipped the frog. They had a they had a a God that had the head of a body of a man and the head of a frog, and they'd worship that well, God's punishment against.
00:05:27
Egypt. Well, Pharaoh says to the magicians, can you do this? So the magicians, they raise their rods and more frogs come up and they just add to their misery. Well.
Pharaoh said, please take the frogs away and I will let the people go. Well, the frogs, they died. They they scrape them up into a big pile and they began to stink. The land stunk again. And Pharaoh saw that there was respite, and he hardened his heart, and he would not let the people go out to worship their God. And so God gave them a third plague, and it was a plague of life. And these light the Lord said to Moses in verse 16.
Saying to Aaron, stretch out their rod and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And so Aaron raised his rod over the land, and all the dust it turned into life, and the dust turned into life, and it was lice and these little bugs, and they started to disturb all the people well, the the priests of of the of the gods of Egypt.
They couldn't worship their gods when they were dirty with all these lice on them, so it was another attack against the gods of Egypt.
Well, these are magicians. They tried to create, turn dust into lice. And they tried and they tried and they couldn't do it. They couldn't do it. The lice, they they couldn't turn dust into life. They couldn't create life. And they realized this is the hand of God, this we can't do this. And so they go and tell Pharaoh, this is the hand of God.
Man, with all our good works, we cannot, we cannot produce.
Life. We cannot get eternal life by trying to be good. We can only be saved through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Life is only through faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. And so Jesus is the only way to life. You can't get there by just trying to clean up your life. Well, Pharaoh, he was not impressed. He hardened his heart. He would not let the people go. And so God sent 1/3 plague on the land of Egypt.
The plague of flies. There are swarms of flies in the land, but the fly Egypt had their land that was called the land of Goshen, And these flies did not enter into the land of Goshen. God says in Exodus 8. Verse 22 Says, I will sever in that day the land of Goshen in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there to the end, That thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. And so there came this grievous swarm of flies.
Into their houses and into the land. And we know that flies, they eat dead things.
Well, this world is fun. It's exciting. There's a lot of pleasures offered in this world, but the world only has dead things. It can't give you life. And if you're a Christian, there's nothing in this world to give you sustenance for your soul. We saw in verse 22 That there is a difference between God's people and the world, and today, the Christians, we are special to God.
And he wants us to stay separate from the world. If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, you don't have that special connection with God. But he wants to give it to you. He wants you to have that special connection with him and.
So Pharaoh, he refused to let the people go. And so God sent yet another the 5th plague on the land of Egypt. And this was disease to the cattle. Find that in Exodus Chapter 9, and we find that all the food died, All the cattle they died, and So what were they going to eat? The world reminds us of this world that has no food for the Christian we need to feed.
On Christ and unless you're going to feed on Christ, it says. It says in John chapter 6. It says I am the bread of life. That's the Lord Jesus speaking. I am the bread of life. If you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will have eternal life. What did the Lord mean by that? He means believe. Listen to the Word of God. Read the word of God, believe it, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will have eternal life. Well.
00:10:27
The heart says in Chapter 9 verse 7, the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.
And he did not let the people go. And so God sends another plague on the land of Egypt. This plague was a plague of boils and sores that spread on their bodies, and it infected other people, and it spread throughout the land of Egypt. And in Exodus 9 verse 8 the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take unto you handfuls of ashes from the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh, and it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt.
And shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beasts throughout all the land.
Of Egypt.
Well, sin. Sin is like a disease. Sin is like wounds that boil and fester like a disease and spread through your body and they infect other people. Sin hurts you and it leaves you in problems. We have the lust of the flesh, we have the lust of the eyes, we have the pride of life. And so sin, it's a problem for you because that sin is what you're born with. You can't just live a good life from the day you're born because.
You have that sin in you. It's a part of who you are. It's like your DNA. It's like you. You're born with hands and feet and you can walk.
You're born with sin as well. Just as sure as you have hands, you have that seed of sin in you. So sin is a problem for you because that sin will take you down into the fires of hell, where there's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and there is pain and screaming and hunger and thirst and darkness and useless hatred towards God. And you'll have a conscience that will always remind you that you rejected the love of God and his offer of salvation.
Well, Pharaoh hardened his heart again. And so God sends yet another plague, a plague of hail.
And we see that the hail came. And as farmers, you know what hail does to your crops? It can completely wipe out your, your, your crop in a matter of minutes. Well, the crop, the hell came through the land of Egypt and destroyed the crops. God's judgment fell on Egypt again and again. The judgments kept on coming, one plague after another. And this reminds us of the punishment of hell. Because in hell there is no end of punishment.
Matthew 25 verse 46 says you shall go away into everlasting punishment, and so you will be in hell being punished for eternity, which never ends. But in but there was no hail in the land of Goshen, Israel was spared their crops and their animals. And so God makes a difference between his people and the people of the world.
It says we are a peculiar people. That doesn't mean we're a strange people, although so maybe some of us are. But a peculiar people means we're a special people to God.
And so in Exodus Chapter 9.
In verse 35 it says the heart of Pharaoh was hardened and neither would he let the children of Israel go as the Lord had spoken by Moses. Exodus 10, verse one.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, For I have hardened his heart. In this verse we find that Pharaoh had hardened his heart so much that now God says, I'm going to harden your heart. And so God hardened Pharaoh's heart. And maybe you are here tonight. And every time you hear the gospel you say, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you harden your heart. And the next time you hear the gospel it's easier to just ignore it. But God.
Hardened Pharaoh's heart. And if you continue to harden your heart against the gospel, against the love of God, against salvation from your sin, it might come to the point that God will say, that's enough, you've had enough chances. I will harden your heart.
The next plague that God sent because Pharaoh refused to allow the people to go. And so God sent a plague of locusts on the earth again. So after some weeks or some months all the trees and the plants had grown back again. We don't know how long it was between those plagues, but in Exodus 10 and verse 13, God had told Moses to stretch forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an E wind upon the land.
00:15:17
And the ceased wind, it brought forth the locusts into the land. And all these locusts they ate up all the crops and the trees throughout all the land of Egypt. And God gave He was giving Egypt so many chances, so many chances to repent. But again, Pharaoh hardens his heart. And Egypt they despised God. And so God had a more severe punishment to inflict on the land and the people of Israel.
He was going to inflict these haters of God, these rejecters of God. And this 9th plague is the Plague of Darkness. Exodus 10, verse 21.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even the darkness which may be felt, darkness which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven. And there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt 3 days. And they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days, But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
Well, there is no light in all the land of Egypt. Not even a candle would burn.
God must have done something to the atmospheric makeup so that not even a candle could light. They couldn't strike a match. They couldn't Flint a spark to light anything. There was no light in the land of Egypt but Israel? Israel had light in their dwellings. They had light in their houses. Well, this world is full of spiritual darkness. And I asked, what do you have in your house? Do you have some spiritual darkness?
In your home. Maybe you have some dark books or magazines or games in your home. Or maybe you have a deck of playing cards, or you wear amber beads on your children. Maybe your darkness is not spiritual like that, but it's drugs or alcoholism.
Or maybe do you? Or on the other hand, do you have light, the light of the Word of God?
In your home, do you have family Bible readings? In your home, do you have take time for a personal reading of the Bible?
Is your family a light so other people can see the light of Jesus Christ?
Now I want to talk about the darkness in John chapter 12 and verse 46.
John 12 and verse 46 Lord Jesus is speaking.
He says, I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
Jesus is always reaching out, and he's reaching out to you tonight. He's always reaching out to rescue people from the darkness of sin and from the punishment of hell.
In hell there will be darkness, there will be darkness that can be felt. And in Revelation chapter 16 and verse 10 we find out that in the darkness of God's wrath there is pain and and look at what it says in verse 10.
And the fifth Angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast, and his Kingdom was full of darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain.
Pain in the darkness. Sometimes you go to the doctor and you have an injury and they tell you to rate your pain from 1:00 to 10:00. Well one day I was out mowing my grass on the lawn mower and I was parking the the lawn mower in the garage and my foot slipped off the brake in the clutch and I ran into the trailer and my foot was crushed and I had never felt such pain before and as and the the tractor killer lawnmower kept trying to drive forward and crushing the foot even more and more.
And and the pain was so bad. I was screaming. I couldn't help myself. I tried to stop screaming.
And I could stop for two seconds and the screams came out again involuntarily. And I was screaming there alone. And I was there for 2015 or 20 minutes, screaming, and I couldn't get away from the pain. My family was in the house and they didn't hear me, and I was screaming.
00:20:05
Finally, after 15 minutes or so, the neighbor down the street, down the road, he heard and he came across his field and over the fence and into our yard.
And he was able to assist me.
But I was in pain, screaming pain alone in dark, in hell you will be suffering in the pain of the darkness alone.
Psalm 78.
And verse 49. In this passage in Psalm 78 there's a review of the plagues of that landed on the on the that came on the land of Egypt at this time of Moses. And in Psalm 78 verse 49 it says he cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, his wrath, and indignation and trouble by sending evil angels among them. I believe this verse is a reference to the darkness that could be felt.
The people were suffering in the terror of the darkness when the angels of God were sent into trouble. The people in the darkness, and I don't know what the angels did to the people, but the people could feel the fear and they could feel the pain of the darkness for three days.
And three nights.
In Matthew chapter 22, it has a story that illustrates a man who's trying to get into heaven by his own ideas.
He refused to get dressed in the clothes that were provided, the clothes of God's righteousness. And he he was happy just wearing his own righteousness. And when he tried to get into heaven, he was asked in verse 12 friend, how did you come in here without having on a wedding garment? And he was speechless. The man was speechless and so I asked why would anyone want to go to heaven if they don't want to obey Jesus?
This was a religious man. He tried to get into heaven by deciding to be good.
He did not trust Jesus to save him. He thought he could keep the commandments. He thought he was OK just the way he was, but nobody can keep the commandments. This man, he tried to cheat his way into heaven, and in verse 13, then said the king to the servants, bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing.
Of teeth.
As the Sinner is standing before the great white throne of judgment.
The Sinner will be silent in his anticipation of the approaching darkness of hell.
You will have nothing to say. You will have no arguments.
You have no defense and you cannot say I have no sin.
As you stand before a righteous God.
You will be speechless.
The Sinner.
The Sinner is guilty.
And the justice of God will be glorified as the sinners cast into the darkness of hell, which was prepared for the devil and his angels. I want to look at Luke 28, Luke chapter 8, at a verse in and in verse 28 we see that there's demons were there. There's a man that came to Jesus and he was filled with many demons.
And let's see what the demon said to Jesus in Luke 8, verse 28. And when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him. And with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of the Most High God, I beseech thee, torment me not, torment me not. This man was possessed with 2000 demons, and these demons know that hell is a place of torment.
Torment is physical pain and emotional terror.
The rich man and Lazarus in Luke chapter 16.
We read about the rich man there every day. He fared sumptuously. It says. That means he had lots of food to eat. He had everything very nice in his house. He throws his scraps on the ground. And Lazarus, poor man, he had no food. And he stood there and waited for for the rich man to throw his food. And he tried to get that food before the dogs got the food.
00:25:08
But in hell, Luke 16, verse 23, In hell the rich man, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and sees Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. For I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said.
Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things.
And likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted.
And you are tormented. Hell is a place of torment.
It's not a nice, fun place to be like you have sometimes here on Earth in this world.
That offers you pleasures of this world for a short time. It's a place of torment. You will end in hell. You will thirst after your good times and your good pleasures, but you'll never get them.
That's why we had the meetings. It's important to live for eternity, not to live for ourselves here and now. So from these verses we know that there will be no relief from the suffering in hell.
We know that this man was not yet in hell. He was. He was in a place called Hades, which another word for that is also hell. But it's a waiting place for the spirits of the dead. And they they wait there before they get sent to their final destination in the damnation of Hell. And so we see that he even here in Hades, there are torments that begin at your death, and the torment never stops.
On into Eternal Destruction in the Lake of Fire, James, Chapter 2.
James, Chapter 2 and verse 19.
Now believe us that there is one God. Thou doest well the devils also believe, and tremble.
As you sit here tonight.
I'm sure that you cannot deny that there is a God, and it is good for you that you believe that there is one God. But I ask, do you tremble?
Are you ready to repent?
Are you ready to trust in the Lord?
Are you ready to believe that you are a Sinner?
Do you believe that you deserve to suffer in hell for eternity because of your sin?
Do you believe that Jesus is God and that he sent his Son, the Lord Jesus to die as your substitute to take your punishment for your sin?
Lord Jesus says.
Where the Bible says in Acts says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you will be saved. The Lord Jesus came into this world to save sinners, and he suffered the anguish and the pain and the torment.
Of hell as he hung there, as he hanged there on the cross.
For you he did it. For you, Jesus suffered. He suffered so much as he endured the cross and the shame and the humiliation of having my sin put on him. As he suffered the punishment of God and the wrath of God against sin, he suffered against that sin against himself.
Many years ago there was a name a man named Placidus.
He had a wife and two children. And this family, they were Christians. Well, they were arrested and they were put into the Roman Coliseum and the Coliseum was like a big sports arena.
And they arrested these, this family, and threw them into the wild beasts.
The lions and so forth. But the animals, the wild animals, they refused to attack this family. And so when the wild beasts refused to tear them to pieces and to eat them, the family was then taken and put into a hollow, brazen bull. That was a metal, a brass metal that was formed into the shape of an angry bull, and it was all hollow inside. They put the family inside there and they shut the door and locked it.
00:30:10
Then they lit a fire underneath that that Raging Bull.
And it got hot in there and hotter.
And as the temperature increased, the pain increased. As the pain increased, the screaming increased, And they were in slow cooked inside of that brazen bull and they were in screaming pain. And the screams of the family echoed out of the brazen bull to all the spectators in the Coliseum, and it sounded as if the Raging Bull was alive while the Christian family was roasted.
To death.
In Isaiah chapter 52 and verse 14 it says.
Many were astonished at Jesus. At him his visage was so marred more than any man.
And his form more than the sons of men.
The visual appearance of the Lord Jesus when he was enduring the wrath of God against sin. His appearance was marred so more than any man's.
Our sin was put on Jesus.
And God punished Jesus for our sin.
All was in darkness.
During those three hours. And so we don't know exactly what happened during that time of suffering.
But out of the darkness.
Out of the darkness Jesus cried with a loud voice as my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Shortly afterwards.
Jesus commended his spirit to the Father and he died.
Then the soldier took that spear.
And he stabbed it into the side of the Lord Jesus, and immediately there came out the blood.
The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.
Over all the land for three hours.
There was darkness which could be felt. The Lord Jesus felt the anguish. He felt the pain. He felt the suffering. He felt the wrath of an holy God against sin in the three hours of darkness as he hanged there on the cross.
Back in Egypt, there was darkness that could be felt for three days and three nights. But Pharaoh, Pharaoh would not let the people go to worship the Lord God, Jehovah.
And so then, Jehovah God, He then declared the final and decisive plague.
That turned the tide of events into the favor of the people of God, the nation of Israel, so that they would be free to go.
Out of the land of Egypt, and to be worshipping the Lord God. And this brings us to the 10th and final plague, the death of the first born. Now remember we said that.
The 10 plagues They started with the blood and they end with the blood well this 10th.
Plague the death of the first born. We're now going to speak about the blood, the blood of the Passover, and the death of the first born.
And here's what happened in the land of Egypt that night in Exodus Chapter 11 verse 4.
And Moses said, Thus saith the Lord, About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt, and all the first born in the land of Egypt shall die.
The Angel of death was going to go from house to house that night of the Passover, and there's going to be death in every house when the Angel of death came through.
Because as the Angel of death came through the land of Egypt, the first born would die in every house, unless there was blood on the door. So either a lamb had died in that house, or the first born child had died in that house. And so as the Angel of death went down the road house by house, verse six says, there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it.
Anymore.
00:35:03
Are you ready to meet the Angel of Death?
Are you ready to meet the Lord Jesus?
He is the Lord.
And everyone of you will have your day of judgment to stand before Jesus Christ as your judge, and at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.
And every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, and so that at that time every one of us shall give an account of himself to God.
God wants everyone to know. In Exodus Chapter 11 verse seven, God wants everyone to know that the Lord does put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.
While this judgment was falling on Egypt, let's look in Exodus Chapter 12 and see what happened that night to the nation of Israel in the land of Goshen.
And Exodus 12 we see in verse 3.
We're not going to read all these verses, we just refer to them. But we see in verse three that every man would take a lamb and bring it into their house. And in verse five we're told that the lamb would be without blemish. It should be a perfect lamb without anything wrong with it. It was a perfect land, and that reminds us of the Lord Jesus, because the Lord Jesus was the perfect, Holy, spotless Lamb of God.
The Lord Jesus had no sin.
And so that was the picture of the lamb that had no blemish or spot. And then in verse six they would take that lamb and they were to kill it in the evening. And so the lamb had to die instead of the first born child.
It was a substitute sacrifice.
And that reminds us of the Lord Jesus again, because the Lord Jesus died on the cross.
He was crucified on the cross and he was punished for your sin. He was the substitute sacrifice for your sin. You know, the Lord Jesus doesn't hate you. All this judgment sounds pretty severe, but that's the the judgment is just a reality that's going to happen. And so the Lord Jesus and his love, he comes to you tonight and says, hey.
Come to me. I want to rescue. I want to rescue you from that judgment.
Because that judgment is not for you. I prepared the hell for the devil and his angels. I didn't prepare hell for you, since I love you.
I want to give you a new life. I want to give you eternal life so that you can enjoy fellowship with God. And so in verse 7 says they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door posts of the houses.
There was blood on the door, on the top of the door, on the sides of the door, so that the Angel of death when he came through the land of Egypt that the Angel of death would Passover that house. That reminds us of the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed there at Calvary's cross. And it also reminds us that the Lord Jesus said I am the door and so the blood was put on the door the Lord Jesus is the way to enter into.
Into eternal life.
To come to the Father and we need to go through the door of Jesus to be saved.
Jesus is not going to come into your door until after you have gone through the door of Jesus and He cleanses you from your sin with His precious blood.
And then Jesus will come into your life. He will come into your life By giving you his life. He will give you eternal life. And then you can begin to have fellowship with God. And in verse 8 and verse eight it says that that that night that they roasted the lamb with fire, they roasted the lamb with fire. That reminds us that Jesus he suffered. He suffered for your sins.
Jesus was roasting, we might say, in the fires of God's wrath.
While he was hanging there on the cross.
During those three hours of darkness and he took the punishment for your sins, He took it on himself. He doesn't want you to have to pay for your sins.
00:40:06
He took the punishment for you.
Well, the Israelites that night they were told to eat as much of that roasted lamb as they could.
And what they couldn't eat, they were supposed to burn the leftovers in the fire.
And they couldn't leave anything remain until the morning. And so that's what it says in verse 10. It says you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, and that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire. So the lamb was completely gone.
Why? Well, it makes us think about Jesus, who took all the judgment of God's wrath against sin and it completely consumed.
And punished the Lord Jesus. He gave everything. He gave everything he had.
Because he loves you. And at the end of that judgment on the cross, he said it is finished.
There's nothing more that needs to be done. It's finished. And so as they ate the lamb.
They had to be ready. They had to be ready to go at a moment's notice as they were eating that lamb.
And so look at verse 11. It says Thus shall you eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand?
And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover.
And so they were dressed. They are ready to go. They had their walking shoes on and they were ready to go, and they ate in haste.
It's not.
They didn't just eat slowly and take their time. They ate in haste because the the Angel of death was coming at any time. And so they were ready to go. And so I ask you, Are you ready to go? Jesus is coming anytime from now. It could be tonight. And if you, if the Lord Jesus came tonight and you're still sitting in your chair when everybody else goes to be with the Lord Jesus, what are you going to do? What are you going to say? Your friends of the the cooks and the other people from the other, they'll come in and say, oh, what are you doing here?
Where'd everybody go?
Oh, I think they went to heaven.
Well, why didn't you go?
I wasn't ready.
Well, what will happen to you? And you have to say, I guess I'm going to go to hell.
The Lord is going to say depart from me. I don't know who you are and you'll suffer forever in the lake of fire. Well, verse 12, Jehovah. He was going to pass through the land of Egypt this night and he will smite all the first born in the land of Egypt. I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. So when Jesus comes.
He will take the believers to heaven. You will be left behind with never more a chance to accept the Lord Jesus. Never more, never a chance again to be saved.
For you, we can say the Angel of death is coming.
But it's time to get saved.
We had that verse last night. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Right now is the time to get washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, to cleanse you from all your sin. Verse 13 says the blood that was the blood. It was put on the top of the door and on the sides of the door. The blood shall be for to you for a token upon the houses where you are and when I see the blood.
I will Passover you. And so if they had the blood on the door, they were safe. There was safety in that house.
And those people in those houses with the blood on the door, they saw, I can imagine that some of them had peace and some of them had fear. And maybe there was one house without blood and one house with blood. Well, suppose you were there that night, and the Angel of death was coming down the street, and it was coming closer and closer to your house, and you could hear the wailing from house to house where they had no blood on the door and.
The Angel of death was coming closer. And what will he do when he gets to your door, of your house? Do you have the blood on the door? You go outside to check on the door to see if the blood is on the door. You go out and you check and yes, the blood is there. And so you relax and you go inside the house and you start to worry again because you know you've said some bad things yesterday to your neighbor and you haven't reconciled yet with your neighbor.
00:45:04
Or maybe you've looked at some things that you shouldn't have looked at, and maybe you carry some guilt around with you.
And so you start to worry again and so.
You run outside again. Look at the blood on the door.
Well, you know that you've rebelled against your parents and you are worried and you start thinking, am I really saved?
I know, I believe, but am I really saved? And you start to worry again. And so you go back outside and you look at the door and yes, the blood is there. I think I'm saved.
But will I go to heaven?
And the Angel gets to your neighbor's house. And that kid, he thinks he's so good that he doesn't need the blood on the door. And so his dad doesn't put the blood on the door. And the Angel comes to that door. And then you start to hear the wailing, such as you've never heard before, that's coming from that house, from your neighbor who had the good boy.
And you know that he, the first born child, had died. And then you are next. And the Angel comes to your house and the Angel stops and looks at your door. And the Angel knows all about you. He knows your thoughts, He knows your feelings. He knows your actions. He knows what you're covering up. He knows what you're hiding. And the Angel, he sees the blood on the door and he passes over your house.
And you breathe a sigh of relief.
You are safe. The blood really works and you are amazed.
The neighbor on the other side of you, they had blood on their door and you know that their first born had done some pretty bad things. But you listen and you hear them singing. They're happy. How can they be happy when the Angel of death is at the door?
They're happy because they know they have the blood on the door, they know that they are safe.
And they know what the Word of God says, and they believe the word of God.
And so they are rejoicing in their salvation even before the Angel comes to the door. They don't have to wait and see if they're going to go to heaven before they can rejoice. They can rejoice now because they know they are safe and so they are worshipping God. Well, you too, You too can know that you have eternal life. You don't have to wait. Take your chances and see what happens when, when, when the Lord Jesus comes to see if you get to go or not.
You don't have to do that. You can know that you have eternal life. You can know now that you are safe. You can know now that you are going to heaven when the Lord Jesus comes.
Jesus does not want you to worry. He wants to save you. He wants to give you peace. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You will be justified by faith, and therefore, being justified by faith, you have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
You could look at at some verses in John chapter 10. It says I give I know who my sheep are. I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. That means if you have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you can take that verse as your own and say I have eternal life so I will never perish and you don't have to worry again about whether or not you are saved.
The Lord Jesus says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
Have you done that? Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?
Or do you still worry about your sin?
But sing in closing.
#13
bearing shame and scoffing rude in my place, Condemned. He stood.
Sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah. What a savior #13.
Open Mtg. 2
Open—B. Prost, R. Thonney, J. Hyland
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
God's Word, what we were enjoying this morning, the blessings that we have been given, All those things do not change.
But are there some things that do change and some things that should change?
I suggest that there are.
Let's turn first of all, to 2nd Corinthians chapter 3.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 3.
And verse 18, but we'll read verse 17 to get the connection. 2nd Corinthians 3 and verse 17.
Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
But we all with open or unveiled face beholding.
And leave out the words as in a glass. They really shouldn't be there and they don't help the sense of it.
With open face, beholding the glory of the Lord.
Are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
There's the first thing that ought to change, and that is I ought to change.
Why, as we were saying this morning, we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and what a precious thing that is. But as was brought out in the meeting, the Lord wants to make us more and more like Christ. And of course there's a day coming in the glory when we will be perfectly like Him, with Him, and like him. We know that.
But he's beginning the process down here.
And he uses everything in your life and mine in order to conform us as we get in another place to the image of his son. That's in Romans chapter 8, that we might be conformed to the image of his son.
Remember well, quite a few years ago now, there was a difficulty in an assembly.
And there was a brother who was perhaps not behaving the way that he should not, I don't mean in any really gross way that required assembly discipline, but in a way that made life difficult for his brethren. And he was spoken to. He was spoken to about it.
And his reaction was But that's the way I made, that's the way I am, that's the way I'm made.
I thought that one brother's answer to him was very, very good, he said. Brother, I know that's the way you are made, and there are some things in all of us.
That we are made if we use this expression in our natural state, there are there are not very good.
Well, the brother said, the Lord loves me in spite of all that.
Oh yes, the other brother said. That is true, but that's a half truth. He loves you too much to let you stay that way.
Yes, the Lord wants to see growth. He wants to see change in his children. To what end? To becoming more like Christ?
Speaking of myself, there are some things in my life I find it very difficult to overcome.
And they just keep coming up again and again and again. And I remember reading it years ago in our written ministry, and I found it over the years to be true.
A brother said, Every new truth that the Lord by his Spirit seeks to teach you will find its corresponding antagonist in some aspect of your old nature.
Very very true. So that the more you want to follow the Lord, the harder the old nature works to try and gain the ascendancy.
00:05:00
But greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. What a precious truth that is.
Change. Let's remember that. Let's remember that. The Lord wants to see that in you and me. Let's not be satisfied.
With the way we are naturally.
God wants to make you and me more and more like Christ down here.
Of course, I may say, well, why bother, when in a coming day, as soon as the Lord comes, I'll get a glorified body? I won't have an old sinful nature anymore. I'll be perfectly like Christ in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
Blessedly true.
But the Lord has left you and me here as a testimony for Him. And it's not that we should go out seeking to be a testimony, but if we follow Christ, we will be a testimony. And what a precious thing it is that He has left you and me here in his absence to.
Bear His nature, if I could use that term reverently, because we do have His very life, the life of Christ, and to show forth in this world His character. Do we do it perfectly? I surely don't, but that's why He has left us here.
Something else that changes? Let's turn to Luke's Gospel, chapter 22.
Luke, chapter 22.
And we have heard this so often that perhaps we don't need to say it.
But it's getting to be a bigger problem today and this scripture will illustrate it.
Verse 35, Luke 22 and verse 35.
And he that is the Lord Jesus said unto them, that is, to his disciples.
When I sent you without purse and script and shoes lackey anything and they said nothing.
Then said he unto them, But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his script.
And he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.
Why did the Lord Jesus give them different instructions before?
And now gives them instructions to the opposite.
What was the difference between the time they went out prior to this to the lost sheep of the House of Israel?
And subsequently when they would go out more to a lost world, which would include not only Israel but all of the world. Why the difference?
All God deals in different ways with man at different times.
There is a lot of talk today in the Christian world about, quote, dispensationalism. Are you a dispensationalist? People have asked me, do you believe in dispensations? And sometimes there's a happy agreement when I say yes, and sometimes there ensues a discussion.
The Word of God uses the word dispensation. It literally means a house law, that is a rule or a set of principles that govern something within a certain framework. And God reserves the privilege to deal with man in different ways in this world at different times in order to accomplish His purposes.
And His purposes are revealed to us in that very chapter in which we were this morning, Ephesians one. Because in verse 10 you have in a few words the key to the whole Bible, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him.
God had that before him from a past eternity and all the things that are going on in this world.
All the things that have gone on are working toward that point when God will exalt His beloved Son, his head over all things.
And part of God's ways in doing that.
Were to create this world, to create you and me and the rest of the creation and use it in His own way, to bring out first of all His purposes concerning His son, but also the love that was in His heart.
00:10:15
And so there are different ways in which God works at different times.
And you and I will never understand the word of God unless we can see that.
And so we need to keep Scripture in its place and understand how it fits together. And the Spirit of God is here to do that for you and me.
The other day I read an interesting.
Little point.
And it made me draw in my breath a little bit.
Because it said something to the effect that.
Those dispensationalists.
Who use a language that is so peculiar to them that unless you're initiated, you don't understand what they're talking about.
I mulled that one over for a little bit.
I thought to myself, is that true?
On the one hand, I hope not. I hope that we use the language of the Word of God.
But on the other hand, I can remember being in a private home, in a home in which I was very welcome and where people felt free to say whatever they wanted to me. And I appreciated that, and I still do.
And as I was talking, they were not gathered to the Lord's name, although they had once been. And as I was talking, the wife spoke up and said, Bill, you're using a lot of cliches.
I said, well, tell me what? Some of those cliches I'm not aware of that tell me what I am saying. That is a cliche. So the wife proceeded to rattle off at least three or four and maybe half a dozen expressions that I had used.
I must say I was very thankful.
No credit to me, but everyone of the expressions was straight from the word of God.
I said to her, addressing her by name, because I had known her for many years. I said, you know, you may call those cliches, but I am quoting directly from the Word of God. I hope that we don't call what the word of God says a cliche.
Well, she didn't say too much more because I think she realized that the road down which she had gone had taken her into a line of things where the truth of God did not have its same meaning and same bearing on her anymore. And what I quoted to her from the Word of God sounded simply like meaningless cliches. So there is a danger on both sides.
But let us remember that God reserves the right to deal in his own ways.
Whether before the cross or after the cross or during the Millennium or ultimately in the eternal state, and God's word gives a scripture to show us how to put everything together in the right way. What a precious thing that is. God reserves the right on his part to make change. But just a little added comment there. You know God is gracious because by.
Man is a paradoxical creature. On the one hand, his fallen nature wants change because he's never satisfied. On the other hand, if my comfort zone, as we call it today, is invaded, I don't want change. Isn't that right? Don't change something that I feel comfortable with.
I hate having to buy a new computer. I hate having to use the latest upgrade in Word or whatever Windows decides to do or something like that because I have to get, I know what's easy for you young people, you just jump right into it. But some of us that had to learn computers on the fly, we find those things a little annoying and we don't like that kind of change.
But.
God is gracious to his people, and for example, when God brought in the precious truth of Christianity, he gave the Jewish nation 40 years during which to leave off all the trappings of a religion that was only a shadow of the good things to come and to embrace that which was the very image of the thing. So God is very, very gracious and he is in your life and.
00:15:11
Two.
One more thing that changes.
And to see that, let's turn back to the Old Testament.
And this is.
A scripture that.
I won't say condemns me, but it hits me.
In one way which you'll see Second Samuel 21.
Second Samuel 21.
Verse 15.
Second Samuel 21 and verse 15.
Getting toward the end of David's life, now later in his life.
Moreover, the Philistines had yet war again with Israel, and David went down and his servants with him and noticed the order. There David goes and his servants with him. He takes the leading role for what happens here and fought against the Philistines, and David waxed faint.
And if you look in the Darby translation, if I remember rightly it says and David was exhausted.
And Ishbibinob, which was of the sons of the giant, all another generation of giants now.
The weight of whose spear weighed 300 shekels of brass in weight.
He being girded with a new sword, or again quoting the Darby new armor thought to have slain David.
But Avishai the son of Xeroy, suckered him and smote the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of Israel or the men of David swear unto him, saying, Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, that thou quench not the light of Israel.
And now turn over to the New Testament to a verse that corresponds with this in Acts chapter 13, Book of the Acts, chapter 13.
And verse 36, Acts 13 and verse 36.
For David.
And notice the wording here, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid under his father's, and saw corruption.
The expression served his own generation by the will of God takes into account that all of us have our generation.
We have a generation in which we grew up, in which we live and move, in which perhaps we can relate to the various things around us. And the time comes when, as the saying goes, times change. They do change.
There's an old proverb that says the old order change of giving place to new.
And some person who wanted to add to that put something on the end of it and said the old order changes and happy is he who changes with it.
There's a grain of truth in that statement.
But sometimes when we get older, and I'm pointing the finger right here, we find that it is difficult to change because our minds, our bodies, our outlooks, everything does not change the way it used to. And adjusting to things that are new is not that easy.
Young people, we need you. We need you.
Here was David.
And he was going out at the head of his servants, and it mentions his name.
But where was the man who had gone out single handed against Goliath and killed him? Where was the man whose entire lifetime was distinguished by the fact that he never lost a battle, and who inspired a whole group of men to follow him and emulate what he did?
00:20:14
He was exhausted, he was getting older, and the son of the giant was there, and David wasn't a match for him. The son of the giant Giant had new armor, new sword, something David wasn't familiar with. Oh, come on, David. Can't you use your sling? Stand off at a distance? No. Times change. You're not able to do what you used to be able to do.
And I like the way Abishai answered here. A Bishai had his faults, and if you read his history, there were times when David had, we might say, to rein him in a bit because he was impetuous and wanted to do things that weren't in keeping with the mind of God. But here I believe he did the right thing. He did two things. First of all, he came to David's help.
Sometimes we older ones need younger ones to come to our help, and it's good if we can recognize when we need the help. Yes, it is.
I don't like to have to be helped, but sometimes it's good to recognize when we need it.
And it's good to recognize those who are able to help.
But young people and especially young brothers, you won't be able to be of help unless your life is characterized by following the Lord with a full heart. Now I hesitate to say those words because which one of us wants to stand up and say I follow him with a full heart?
No, but if the heart is right, the Lord will teach you and lead you along.
Because the time will come and we don't. Excuse me.
We hope the Lord comes before that happens, but.
The Lord leaves us here.
Some of us are getting older and it's going to be your place to step forward.
And do what Abishai did.
So he helps David and he kills the giant. That's the first thing he did.
But then what does he do? He gives David some good advice, he says David.
It would be a good thing if you didn't go out to war anymore. He didn't belittle David. He didn't put him down. If I could use these words reverently, he didn't say, old man, you need to stay at home, you're not fit to be a warrior anymore. Or some kind of talk like that. Did he? No, he didn't. What does he say?
Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle that thou quench not the light of Israel. Oh, he recognized that here was a man whose faithful life and whose example and whose position as king were valuable, and he didn't want to see David get himself mixed up in something with which he was not equal.
And the late of Israel be quenched. He recognized him for who he was and what he could do.
But he said, when it comes to battle, David, you better leave it to some of us younger ones.
Those here who are older, let's recognize that change. For those who are younger, we need you in the character of an abishai.
One final thing that is going to change, and change wonderfully. First Corinthians 15.
We've already spoken about it, but it would be nice to turn to it. First Corinthians 15.
And.
We'll read a couple of verses, but.
Verse 22.
For as an animal die, Even so in Christ shall all be made alive, and then going on down in the chapter.
Verse 51.
00:25:02
Behold, I show you a mystery, or perhaps more recognizable to our language, a secret.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
How precious that is.
Do you and I not only look forward to, but long for that change?
We do, don't we? But do we long for it from his standpoint?
We can long for it, perhaps for selfish reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I couldn't help but think as we sung that hymn this morning, the brother gave it out. I'm waiting for thee, Lord, thy beauty to see. Lord, I'm waiting for thee for thy coming again.
Many years ago there was an old brother that used to minister the word and he liked that him.
I never knew him. I wished I had for those who knew him well told me.
That sometimes he would give out that hymn in an address and then he would request a verse that isn't in our hymn book. There are more verses to that hymn than are in our hymn book and.
He had lost his wife.
And I say this for the benefit of those here that have lost loved ones, and there are some and some that are not here, but whom we know.
And the verse goes like this, our loved ones gone or Lord.
They've gone on before, Lord. We'll see them once more at thy coming again.
The blood was the sign Lord that marked them as Thine Lord.
And brightly they'll shine at thy coming again.
How wonderful to look forward to that change.
I remember well when a cousin of mine was laid to rest in a cemetery and I was there in the funeral parlor.
I spoke to his son.
His father had died, his father, who was my first cousin, only by marriage, not a blood relationship. He married my cousin, so in that sense he wasn't really my full cousin. But anyway, he had died from cancer, and the disease had taken such a toll on his body that they didn't even consider it fit to have an open casket.
But I knew him well, and I said to his son, who was only marginally younger than I, I said, well, Rob, I said, when you see your father next, he won't even have Gray hair.
He looked a little shocked. He was a true believer. Oh, he said, Bill, I don't mind if he has Gray hair. His father had gone Gray prematurely, and he said I I don't remember him with anything but Gray hair, which probably was true.
I said, well Rob, I know you wouldn't mind, but when you and I see your Father again in glory.
He won't have one mark on him of the effect of the fall, the effect of sin.
Won't that be wonderful? Well, I don't think he'd ever thought of that before that when he saw his father next, it wouldn't be the man.
Who went to be with the Lord? I believe he was.
About 60 years of age, which is not old by modern standards. He would not see a man even of 60 years of age. He would see one who was in the full bloom of everything that God intended. What will the glorified body look like? I don't know, Paul says earlier in this chapter.
When you ask that question in so many words, he says no fool.
And then he proceeds to talk about the fact that when you sow a seed.
You don't sew what you're going to see when it grows, but it's characteristic of it. If I showed a kernel of corn to someone who'd never seen a corn stock, could they figure out from looking at the kernel of Cornwall a corn stock would look like No, they couldn't. But anybody who knows corn would look at a kernel of corn and say, I know what that's going to look like if you plant it. Of course they would.
00:30:06
It's characteristic, so it would be with you and me.
There will be individual characteristics that will be, I believe, instantly recognizable.
Glorified body, we shall be changed.
Well, may the Lord encourage our hearts with these changes. Thank God, I say again, there are many things that do not change. Praise God for those things that you and I can hold on to in a changing world and have the assurance that they do not and will not change. But there are some things that God changes and some things that He expects to change in US, and we need to be aware of them.
Like to go back to Ephesians 1, just to take a little expression we have.
Verse 18 at the end of the chapter where we have.
The prayer of the Apostle Paul for the Ephesians.
In verse 18 it says the eyes of your understanding. Being enlightened. I notice the new translation says the eyes of your heart.
It's interesting.
We see things physically.
But we see things otherwise as well.
We're trained in the world we live to appreciate the value of things materially, and it's necessary in a business context to do so. I don't say it's wrong.
But when we come to a portion like we've been meditating in the reading.
Of spiritual realities.
It's a different way of seeing.
And it's a challenge to me to.
This prayer of the apostle, that the eyes of your understanding, or the eyes of your heart being enlightened.
You know, light gives you to see things clearly. Without light you can't see things clearly and so.
It's, I suppose, through meditation of the precious Word of God.
Timothy was told to meditate these things.
What is meditation?
It's not merely the effort of the mind to comprehend them.
But meditation is comparing scripture with scripture.
And allowing the light to come through.
By the power of the Holy Spirit that's in US, and I find that very interesting to.
Think about it.
Yet if it was a matter of mere human.
Your mind understanding somebody something why a person that is not a true believer should be able to understand it as well. That's not the point.
The point of letting the Spirit of God bringing the truth of God to us.
Through meditating one scripture with another. And I'd just like to.
Speak about that. Let's go first of all to.
Second Kings chapter 6 to a story in the life of Elijah or Elijah I should say.
In verse eight we will read from there.
Second Kings 6 verse 8 then the king of Syria warred against Israel and took counsel against his servants, saying.
In such and such a place shall my shall be my camp. The man of God sent unto the King of Israel, saying.
Beware that thou pass not such a place, for thither the Syrians are come down. The king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there not once nor twice. Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore trouble for this thing, and he called his servants, and said unto them.
00:35:15
Will ye not show unto me which of us is for the King of Israel?
And one of the his servants said, None, my Lord, O King, but Elijah.
The prophet that is in Israel telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber.
And he said, Go and spy out where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan. Therefore he sent. Therefore sent he thither horses and Chariots, and a great host, and they came by night, and compassed the city about.
When the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold.
And host compass the city, both with horses and Chariots. And his servants said unto him, Alas, my master, how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord.
I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man whom he saw, and behold the mountain.
Was full of horses and Chariots of fire round about Elisha. When they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.
Interesting story of this.
King of Syria sending and his troops to Wales, the king of Israel and every time he did why Elisha would say to the king of Israel, don't go that way because they're waiting for you there until the king of of Syria thought there's somebody in my troops that is.
Is spying and telling the King of Israel.
We're not to go. And finally he was told, no, it's not that. It's just that Elijah the prophet, he knows. And he tells the king of Israel where not to go. And so the king of Syria said, well, go, look where he is. And they said he's in Dothan. He says, go surround that city with a great host. And they surrounded it.
And the next morning the young man who was the servant to Elisha comes out and says.
Alas, we're surrounded by the enemy host. No way.
We could be saved now.
And it's interesting that Elisha doesn't seem to be worried at all.
And he asked the Lord. Lord opened the young man's eyes that he may see. And when he opened his eyes, he saw that the holes there was a whole host of horses and Chariots of fire.
The spiritual realms of the hosts of angels, I suppose that were round about. And notice it doesn't say roundabout, Dothan, it says roundabout.
Elisha.
Oh, brethren, there is so much that we do not see. We're tended to be geared by what we do see. And Christianity is based on what we were mentioning this morning, spiritual realities. Spiritual realities are not things that you can see with your physical eyes.
Like to go back to the New Testament just for a brief moment, because I'd like to give place to someone else as well.
But go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 4.
For a couple verses.
2nd Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 17.
For our light affliction.
The apostle Paul, who was called specially to be a vessel for suffering, says our light affliction, which is but for a moment.
00:40:05
Works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
While we look.
Not at the things which are seen, but at the things.
Which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal that the things which are not seen.
Are eternal. Interesting. Very interesting. How do you look at what is not seen?
And I suppose it's very simple. The answer is by faith.
Faith is the evidence of things not seen. It's the substantiating. Are these things real?
Yes, they are, but everything you can see with your eyes, we're in a.
Nice building here with chairs and well dressed. Everything you can see is not going to last very long.
What is going to be the state of this building, this room, in 50 years? We don't really know. But what is here is temporal. And if it does continue, we have to be renovated constantly because we're part of a creation that is temporal, but everything that is not seen as eternal. And that's what we have in our chapter, brother.
And we need this prayer of the apostle that evening. The eyes of our heart should be opened to see them.
Still remember a place in my travels where we came to a family and we stayed the night with them, but they were a family that was occupied with quite a bit of business transactions and quite successful in them. And we that evening I didn't know exactly what to read and we did read Ephesians 1.
I can still remember.
The faces of those people as we read that chapter and spoke a little bit about the spiritual reality of it.
Blank. Complete blank.
And it was evident to me that they were not used to thinking on the level of spiritual realities. Really came home as a challenge to me. Brethren, what is real are those things that cannot be seen with the human eye. And we need to have our minds and our thoughts and our hearts.
Challenged What is my life about?
Is it about mere temporal things that are just for a moment, as this scripture says, or is it about spiritual realities that are for all eternity? Well, the Lord help us, brethren, I just wanted to lay those brief thoughts before us, and I'd like to leave it for others.
Just a couple of verses or portions in the book of Malachi.
Just a very brief thought or two in connection with what has been before us earlier in this meeting.
Malachi, chapter one.
And verse one.
The Burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
I have loved you, saith the Lord, and then turn over to the third chapter.
Chapter 3 and verse six. For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Earlier in this meeting we had some very helpful thoughts in connection with those things that change. But as was mentioned too, there are many things that are brought before us in the Word of God that do not change. One of those things, of course, is the Scripture.
Itself the grass withereth, the flower thereof fadeth away, but the word of our God shall stand forever.
00:45:00
But I was thinking in connection with these portions that we have read in the book of Malachi, how wonderful it is that in connection with the person of Christ, first of all, his love never changes. You know, if we were to back up in the history of the children of Israel, we would find that between the banks of the Red Sea and what we have here at the close of their history in the Old Testament, there was a great deal of change that had taken.
Place, but not change on the part of the Lord, change on the part of the people of God. When we go back to the 15th of Exodus, we find them a singing people rejoicing in the joy of redemption and deliverance, and they're giving glory to the Lord. They are Speaking of what He has done for them. What a scene it must have been when they sang there on the banks of the Red Sea.
But then there's a lot of history that follows, a lot of sad history that comes in, a lot of failure, a lot of murmuring and fault finding. But as we read the pages of Israel's history, whether it's in the wilderness or after they entered the land of Canaan, isn't it wonderful to realize that his love and his purposes had not changed?
It's been often pointed out and it's certainly not an original thought with me.
But it's often been pointed out that so often in the Word of God there's a confirmation of the Lord's love at times of real weakness and failure. In fact, it's very significant. I believe that when we come over to the 33rd chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, there he confirms his love to them. It says there, yeah, he loved all the people.
I find that a remarkable statement because that wasn't on the banks of the Red Sea when they were in the freshness and joy of redemption and deliverance.
That was after their wilderness history. That was after all that murmuring and fault finding, all that complaining, blaming Moses and God's servants and God himself for their their circumstances.
It was after the governmental hand of God had been upon them time and time and time again, and at the end of their history. Did He love them any less than He loved them when He looked down and delivered them by the blood of the Passover, redeemed them by the blood of the Passover lamb, and delivered them by a mighty hand through the Red Sea? All His love hadn't changed. They had changed. And in the book of Malachi we find that much had.
Inspired since then and again much failure in the government of God upon them in one way or another. And here they are at their lowest point morally and spiritually at the end of their history in the Old Testament.
Had his love changed? Did he love them any less than he loved them on the banks of the Red Sea or the banks of the Jordan? Oh no, Malachi confirms by the word of the Lord, I have loved you, Seth, the Lord. Oh, it's true. He had no pleasure in what they were doing. That's confirmed later on in the the 10th verse. He had no pleasure in them, that is, their actions only brought him grief, but his love was the same.
You know when we come over to the New Testament, we find at the end of the time when the disciples had walked with the Lord Jesus during their public ministry.
And they were gathered together in the upper room. There is again a confirmation of the Lorde love for them, having loved his own, which were in the world. He loved them unto the end. When we come over to the Book of Revelation and John writes to the seven churches in Asia Minor 7 literal assemblies that existed at that time in this world, you realize there's only two assemblies where he confirms his love to them. One is.
Adelphia And you say, oh, I understand that. I know why he confirmed his love to Philadelphia. They were going on in freshness and and there was a real fervency there, why they were seeking to keep his word and not deny his name. He said, I understand why it says he loved them there. But then in the next assembly, Laodicea, where there was indifference to the claims of Christ.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.
Did he love them any less in Laodicea than he loved them in Philadelphia? Not for one moment. All he had to rebuke them. He wasn't happy with what they were doing and the things that were that characterized them, but he loved them just the same. And I say that, brethren, because maybe sometimes we feel, you know, we're right At the end, we have to all hang our heads and admit that we're part of the failure and ruin that has come in into the public testimony into Christendom.
00:50:18
Last days perhaps we have to admit at least I do. There's been much failure in my life, but all I'm thankful that there's one thing that doesn't change and that is his love. And then later on we read where it's he says I am the Lord, I change not he himself doesn't change. And then it's very significant what he says. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Why doesn't it say?
Israel, because Israel is what we are. By grace, Israel means a Prince with God.
And He has indeed brought us as Princess from the beggars, from the dunghill, and set us among Princess Jacobs. What we are by nature. Often we find in the Old Testament those two names are brought together. Why sayest thou, O Israel, and speakest, O Jacob, my way is hid from the Lord. Why does He bring those two names together, showing that He sees us?
It by grace in all the perfection of what we have been brought into.
In Christianity by grace brought into the two we're seen in Christ and so on. But he says you don't always act that way. And sometimes he has to deal with us as Jacob. But isn't it wonderful that even when we act as men and and women in the flesh, He still takes us up? He doesn't forsake us. I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. How can we claim?
To go on for the Lord, how can there be restoration? How can we go on in spite of failure? Oh, it's because He doesn't change and His purposes don't change. If we had time, we could go back in Malachi and find that, as He says, I will be magnified from the borders of Israel. Nothing, no failure in His people was going to change His purposes. They were and will be all accomplished for the glory of God.
And the glory of the Lord Jesus and the blessing of his people. And so I say how wonderful. Thank God. There are some things that do change and will change as we've had before us. But thank God, there are some things that never change. And our God, he never changes. We sing, we change, he changes not our God can never die. And let's learn, brethren, then not to be so occupied with our failure and all the.
Things that are wanting. Judge those things. But then bask in the sunshine of the fact that His love never changes. Bask in the sunshine of the fact that in spite of our response, it may be feeble at best, but in spite of our response, He loves us just the same. Maybe there's someone here and you've been saved for many years. He loves you just as much as when you were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
He loves you just as much as when there was that work of grace in your soul that turned you to Himself, opened your eyes to see beauty in Himself, and brought you to the Savior. He loves you just as much today. And the day is coming, brethren, and it's not far off when we're going to sit down in the sunshine of that love in the Father's house. Oh, what love? We're going to enjoy divine, unchangeable love for all eternity. But I say He wants us.
To enjoy that love. Now don't get discouraged. I say judge those things, but go on. Don't get discouraged because though we change, though there's ups and downs in our lives, in our hearts and in our responses, yet his love doesn't change. He himself is the is the same and we can claim that no matter where we are in our Christian pathway.
Rejoices.
Rejoice, I pray.
For last spring glory.
I stayed hard for life.
All things crazy.
Strange turn.
Off.
Ephesians 1:11-23