Lawrenceville Conference: 2022
Table of Contents
Revelation 5:1-5
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Revelation chapter 5.
And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within, and on the backside sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong Angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof. And no man in heaven nor on earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much.
Because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not, Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld. And lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes.
Which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth? And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and 20 elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of Saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, where thou was slain, and hast redeemed us to God.
By thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.
And has made us unto our God, kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and of the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 * 10,000, and thousands of thousands.
Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing in every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth.
And such as are in the sea, and all that are in them heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen.
And the four and 20 elders fell down and worshiped him that liveth forever and ever.
As the name of the books suggests or says, it's the revelation of Jesus Christ, and it tells us how.
The Lord is going to be eventually revealed and judged in righteousness. This chapter, of course, takes up His place as the Redeemer. Chapter 4 is as the Creator.
In those two ways the Lord Jesus has right entitled to.
To appear and put things back in order.
I feel it's beneficial for us to look at that because the closer we get to the Lord's coming, the rapture, which will be what we believe will take place first. But the closer we get to that moment, the more we see the lack of justice and righteousness in this world.
And how things are deteriorating and it makes us long for righteousness.
It's sometimes it's difficult to sit back and do nothing and wait for the Lord to come and intervene and set things right. And so this chapter presents to us this the Lord Jesus as the Redeemer, and how he assumes that place.
As the Redeemer.
To see the.
Both chapters four and five and chapter four in the second verse and chapter five in the first verse. It mentions a throne.
Even before notice in verse two of chapter 4.
Immediately I was in the spirit, and behold, a throne was set in heaven.
And once sat on the throne.
Why the throne? First, it's because God is establishing.
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The basis upon which he will judge this world and.
Like was said that chapter 4 and verse 11.
It's clear it's thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
But creation fell under the ******* of sin and its results.
And so it took the Lord Jesus to come, the very one who created it all.
Is the one who came to pay the price to buy it back for God?
The Redeemer and so in chapter 5, like Doug says that in verse nine we have.
Redemption. And so he's paid the price. The price is already paid, but he's going to come back to set it free. Redemption includes paying a price, and it includes the power to set it free. Remember the children of Israel? They were.
Protected from the judgment of God in the land of Egypt, from the blood of the land.
But still, they were in Egypt and they needed to be set free.
And so it was not only that, but going across the Red Sea.
Through the power of God that they were completely set free.
Well, the price has been paid, brethren, but creation is still struggling.
Under the effects of sin and wowie do we ever as we look around.
We ever see the awful consequences of sin in this world?
And it's going to be that way until the Lord Jesus comes.
To take it back for God. And that's what Revelation deals with.
One John the Baptist looks upon the Lord Jesus.
And as he looks upon him, he says, Behold the Lamb of God.
Which beareth away the sin of the world.
And the focus and the emphasis of John's gospel is the Lamb who goes to the cross.
To pay redemptions price to redeem us to God, and in so doing He bears away the sin that stood between US and God, the sin of our lives that made us unfit for being in God's presence.
And so the work of redemption on the cross, he could say.
As in that gospel, I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do, and he had finished the work for which he came, as recorded in John's Gospel, to deal with the question of sin and our sins and become our Redeemer.
The hymn 28 that we started with the very first line is Lamb of God. Thou now art seated. The emphasis here is the word seated.
The Lamb of God is presently seated at the right hand of God in heaven.
But there's two parts to the work of bearing away the sin of the world.
The first is accomplished, and he couldn't say of it. It is finished, but the second part of the work is that part that has just been brought before us. As to the Revelation. John was also given to give us the second part, and it's a book of prophecy. Prophecy always, and its emphasis has to do with earth, not heaven. It has to do with the matters of earth.
And so we see the next step of bearing away the sin of the world.
In chapter 5 when the Lamb of God is seen as not seated.
But standing, he stands up, because the father has said to him.
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Now go on and finish the work that is necessary.
That not only those thine own now in heaven with thee.
But those on earth that are thine are going to be brought into their place as well. And the earth that suffered for thousands of years of unrighteousness has to be established in righteousness according to God. And so the Book of Revelation tells us how that is done and brings before us. We see ourselves later on in the book.
When the lamb's bride is brought to him, and there is the marriage supper of the lamb.
And then He, after we are with him and have become his bride in heaven.
He comes to the earth to fulfill that which is necessary to.
Bring about what's already been described, and consequently, having shown that he's fitted in verse chapters 4, has already been said as Creator in chapter 5, as Redeemer in chapter 6 verse one. What does the Lamb do? And I saw the Lamb open one of the seals. And so they start the process in chapter 6 of opening the first seal of judgment.
For there will be a necessary set of steps.
That will bring about the full result that we have in the end of the Revelation, as well as often in the Old Testament prophets.
Told us this book is the title deed to the Earth. It's the requirements that are necessary to set this world back in order. And so it's full, it's written in on both sides. It's it's it's full. It's sealed with these seven seals. These seven requirements have to be met.
In order to accomplish redemption and so you have this situation in heaven and you have this weeping because nobody can nobody's worthy to take up this thing We've been living 2000 nearly 2000 years since the Lord died and rose again and we've gone through many different kinds of governments in the world while.
The grace of God is told out and souls are saved.
To be take on a heavenly portion after that is finished, there's going to be this.
Time when the Lord then will it will be time to open this book.
And one by one the seals are open, and they contain these judgments necessary to put this order, this world, in order.
I want to say, though, there's something far more important than setting the world in order.
That is the honor and the glory belongs to God's Son. That is supreme, and it's accomplished in part in setting the world right. But the more important aspect of what Revelation and many other Scriptures give before us, it's alluded to in chapter 4 in the last verse, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor.
And power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
And then in chapter 5 verse 13 and others it says.
And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea.
And all that are in them heard I, saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto him.
That sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, wherever and ever.
We have in the end of John's Gospel as well as Matthew, Mark and Luke.
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This man as he left this earth.
Shame and dishonor.
And God holds the earth responsible.
For that place that was given, and still is among men in the state of the earth, the man.
Saved thyself. Come down from the cross if you're able. And so he dies.
And on a cross of shame. And that's the place that he still has publicly.
Collectively in the Earth.
And God's purpose in setting things right goes on to the point of.
Heaven, we just read it, all the creatures, not mankind in view, they're particularly, but rather all the heavenly creatures, the angels and so on, would give him his honor, his glory, those who have been redeemed from the earth.
And you and I are in that verse. We'll be giving him at that point his honor.
His glory, but the revelation is that.
Every knee on earth.
As well as heaven.
Will be brought to bow before the majesty and the honor.
That is due to the Son of God and God.
Purposes.
That his son have that place of supremacy.
Both on heaven or in heaven and in earth and forever?
It would probably be good to connect this chapter with Psalm 110 one.
Just a reference.
This is prophetic, of course, of the Lord Jesus.
Psalm 110.
Verse one the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. And then it speaks of the judgments. So this is where the Lord Jesus is now seated in heaven and he's he's this was told that he would do this way back in the Old Testament. That's where the Lord is.
And he's waiting in patience. It speaks of that patience of Christ in chapter one of Revelation. It's so it's so good to look up and see the Lord Jesus there patiently waiting.
To have his own with him there and then, of course to take up this the the matter of judgment.
Patiently waiting. So we should be patient too. This, this reference to a throne here in these chapters brings to mind the form of government that will be.
Instituted in that coming day, and I'll use a term that describes that form of government.
It's.
I miss it now.
There are a theocracy. Theocracy. That's right. Thank you, Bob. And.
It's one individual that's in that role and there's only one individual that can fill that role. And the characteristics of that rule will be peace and righteousness, and it's going to be filled by the Lord Jesus. And you mentioned Doug, it's hard to sit back and see the the failure.
In the hands of man, even Christians. And yet none of us can fill that role. And if we were we we had the reins of government in our hands, we would fail too. And so.
Patience is needed to await God's time and the appearing of the Son of Man.
When he'll take that place, autocratic theocracy, that's the term that I was trying to get a hold of and all the forms of government that man has has put in place.
The democracy, that's the glory of this land, it's the will of the people, and what good can come of that? And any other form has failed as well.
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Yocracy means God, grace.
He was God.
I find it interesting in this chapter that.
John weeps much.
There's a void, and that's exactly what we see today.
Where is the answer to all this conflict?
Is there any answer at the present time?
We know, brethren, that the only answer is this one that's sitting on the throne. And to me it's interesting that it is one of the elders that comes up to John to tell him, don't we?
And we have the 24 elders mentioned in chapter 4 and verse 4.
And of course, they're mentioned in chapter 5, two and other parts, but it's taken from the Old Testament. There were 24 courses of the priesthood. So it's the priestly company, all the redeemed from all times, from the heavenly, from the Old Testament and from the New Testament times. But it's one of these elders. And to me it shows that he's passed the judgment seat of Christ now.
He understands the mind of God, and so he is the one that comes up. And so you find it through this Book of Revelation that often it's one of the elders that comes up and says this is what this means.
And so it's interesting, we will have, brethren, when we stand at God's, at the judgment seat of Christ, everything is going to be reviewed, Everything. Nothing will be left.
Unrevealed.
You know, there are sometimes when we have disagreements and maybe we get it straight for most of the part, but there's still a little bit of doubt in our minds what was real there.
Whether that's going to be all cleared up completely.
And so those that have stood there at the judgment seat of Christ have the mind of God.
And they come up and tell John don't weep.
Oh brethren, isn't that wonderful? People think that we are indifferent. Why don't you get involved in the political system and do your part as a Christian?
O brethren, we know that there cannot be any resolution of the problem of human conflict until this one.
Takes up the matter and settles it, as he does in this book.
We often focus.
Probably it's fast from some of our lips in the last weeks of the Russia and Ukraine, the failure of government.
But I think there's something that we easily miss.
And fail in by focusing on that and I want to bring it out.
Go back to chapter one of Revelation where we have the person of the Lord Jesus presented to us in His Majesty.
And when he is so presented, John the beloved one who lay on the bosom of the Lord Jesus.
Is brought before us. Is he laying on the bosom? No, he's not here.
Look at them chapter one and verse.
12 and I turned to see the voice that spoke to me.
This is the one we're talking about this morning. And I turned and I saw verse 14. His head and hair were white as wool, white as snow, His eyes were as a flame of fire and so on. We won't read it all. And verse 17 and when I saw him.
I fell at his feet as dead. This is John, the one who in the gospel is closer to the Lord Jesus than any other person that we could read about.
In the disciples, and he says I fell at his feet as dead.
And he lay his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not.
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I am the 1St and the last and so on.
Why is it in that state?
Because he's seeing the one who's going to judge.
He's going to see the seals and the further judgments. But whose failure? And this is the point whose failure is looked at first the world.
Governments, no.
Yours and mine.
As the testimony of God in the earth.
In chapters 2 and three, he takes up the responsibility.
Of the Church of God.
As his life bearer.
When he was here, he said I am the light of the world.
He's not here. And what did he give, what did he put into the hands of his own as the responsibility for the period of time when he was going to be absent? He said to them, Ye are the light of the world.
Have we been it collectively as the Church of God? Chapters two and three are a review.
Of whether or not the Church has fulfilled its responsibility.
Not talking about the nations or the governments or anybody else. He's talking about the role, the place of the church as the light of the world in his absence. And what is the conclusion of those chapters?
Failure. Failure to the point where he has to say I have to put you aside.
Because you completely failed in your responsibility. And I will have to take it up myself. In chapter four he does. In chapter five he does. And then it goes on. And I say that, brethren, because we do well.
To recognize not the failure only of those and say why this and why that and why can't they be righteous and so on.
Yeah.
Recognize and feel with John that if we see the holiness of God.
We would take the same attitude that John takes in chapter one and say with humbleness when the Lord says to us, fear not, fear not.
That we would also have the present time that attitude, rather than a judgmental one, with respect to the failure of others.
Is it not true that the assembly today?
In this world want to be a preview of the coming Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. The reason I say that is because when the Lord Jesus establishes His Kingdom, there will be submission to His authority.
It's gonna be a wonderful day. You know, it tells us that the work of righteousness.
Going to be peace.
And the effect of righteousness will be quietness and assurance forever. You cannot have peace without righteousness.
And so the assembly today.
Is those who are gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We ought to be in submission to Him and to His word.
And to acknowledge his authority, and that's a privilege that is ours in the world today.
To exalt no other name but the name of the Lord Jesus, and to be in submission to him. And the effect of this in the assembly is going to be quietness and assurance. And there ought to be peace in the assembly. It ought to be a place where we come and we enjoy being there because.
We feel this is where the Lord is and there's a submission to His Word and to Himself, and it really brings joy and happiness into our souls.
To be so gather.
Well, I just mentioned that because the world is watching.
And do they see as has been pointed out?
We are indeed in submission.
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To the word of God, submission to the Lord Jesus.
And the Lord Jesus, he said plainly, If you know these things, happy are ye. If you do them, you want to be happy.
Don't just read the word of God.
Dude, you know it's faith. I believe it brings salvation, but obedience to the word of God is what brings happiness into our souls.
I was sitting in the Barber shop just recently and.
Of course, it got the TV going in the barbershop and the Ukraine conflict that's all over the news today.
Can't help but see it. But then the president came on. He indicated that there's a good possibility there's going to be a cyber attack.
On this country.
And the man sitting next to me.
He made a comment and I think it was rather sarcastic, he said.
Isn't it great to have?
This person at the helm, steering our course.
And then he said something depreciating about the.
Well, I said, you know, I'm thankful to live in a country where there is a measure of peace and tranquility and a measure of law and order.
And then I turned to him and I said, and I looked him straight in the eye and I was happy to be able to say this from the bottom of my heart.
There is a man.
That has a solution to the.
Problems of this world and he will set this world right, and his name is Lord Jesus Christ.
What we said, I believe that, but in the next breath, he mentioned.
The denomination.
That it was connected with.
So I'm sorry to hear this in a way, because it's nice to exalt Christ and Him alone.
But as soon as we introduce another name.
We take away from the Lord Jesus.
Well, I think perhaps he was a believer.
Because there was a spontaneous and happy response to the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was mentioned.
But I would just say that maybe we keep our eye on the Lord Jesus, and may our desire be to magnify no other name but His, to magnify the Lord together and to exalt His name together. What a privilege is ours at the present time to do this.
Interesting in verse five that when the Lord Jesus is introduced.
It's as the lion of the tribe.
Of Judah.
The root of David.
I think that's the only mention of the Lord Jesus as the lion in the Book of Revelation.
Which is interesting.
Proverbs says the lion turns aside for none.
And that will be his character when he comes. He will not turn aside for any.
But it's in the next verse that when John looks.
He says, I beheld and lo in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts.
And in the midst of the elders stood a lamb.
Animal quite different than a lion.
But, and you'll find in the Book of Revelation mentioned the Lamb many times.
Back to the end of chapter 6, it says the wrath. Think of a lamb having wrath.
That's interesting to think about, but it's because as a lamb, he has.
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Paid the price.
Of redemption to take back.
This creation that has fallen under the ******* of corruption.
And set it free and so as the lamb.
He's standing in the midst. It's interesting. In verse 5-6, it mentions in the midst twice.
In the midst of the throne, and of the four beasts, and.
In the midst of the elders.
Now remember John Bunyan I think made the comment.
About the first time he mentions in the midst it says God.
He occupies that central position.
And the second time, in the midst of the elders, it says man.
He is the one who occupies that central position. Certainly is interesting.
To go through scripture and find all the places that in the midst that expression is used.
And the Lord Jesus is the one who occupies.
The central position in all God's thoughts and purposes.
When the Lord sets things right.
Does it?
Working first with those that are nearest to himself.
And then spreading outward from that point.
Here we find in chapter 5 those who are supremely happy and unhindered in giving worship and praise.
And from what did they come?
To redeem Saints from the earth.
And.
Everyone has been of them had been set right. They were the closest in place to himself.
And so at the rapture, every single detail that would hinder.
Them was instantly transformed at that point, the matter of sin taken care of at the cross.
Any loss of relationship enjoyed because of failure.
Is all taken care of and those nearest to himself.
Are brought into the place that is described for us in chapter 5, when the work as to the earth begins. Who are the nearest to himself?
It's his brethren.
It's his brethren.
First, the two tribes.
That were there on the day of his crucifixion. Who were part of those who put him to death.
Represented by the Jews there. And those are the ones that in what the work of setting things right, he works with first. And the description of that process in the emotional side of it is seen in Joseph restoring his brethren and himself to their place together. And so there's a period of weeping.
I wept much because I found no one worthy.
But the Lord himself who sets things right is going to go through a period of weeping, and he's going to weep in the process that he goes through to see his brethren brought back into relationship, to judge the sin that had been theirs in rejecting him. And it's important for us to see that He does that, and then we find him setting the nation's right.
The important nations are those who were there at the time of the crucifixion.
And they are the ones that are going to be judged first, and those that are farther from them.
Will be judged later until the whole earth is brought back into its place.
But it's well for us to recognize that sometimes, even in a practical application.
We already.
To judge at least verbally or in our minds and in our hearts. Our brethren are in the assembly where we are the individuals in the family were part of or whatever. But let's remember that the Lord has to work with us 1St and have us in a proper relationship with Himself or not able to be a help to others in what might be needed in their life to be set right. So this principle is very general.
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And it can have its application to us today, as well as the picture that's given in the revelation.
Doug, you mentioned that this book.
Chapter Brown had spoken in some of the terms. It's a title deed to the earth.
Could you expand on that a little more as to what exactly is in this book? Is it judgment as well as blessing?
Written in the book here. Well, I take it as their in order to when you buy a piece of property, sometimes there's things that happen in the past that were not settled right. So you have to go back and and straighten out those irregularities or or mistakes or things. Otherwise you won't have a clear title to your property if some if someone else has a claim to it. And so there's a process of.
Getting the title deed or an abstract and so on, and clearing all those things up. So you'd eventually have title to a good piece of property that nobody can come and say no, that I own part of it or have some debt or some lien against it. And so as to the earth here, there are certain things that have been done and are wrong that need to be corrected in order for God to be justified.
As to this world, God created it good.
Man has ruined it and continues to abuse and ruin it. And so this is what needs to be straightened out. And so that's why there's weeping whenever we see injustice, we, we feel that we, we have a nature that feels those things. And so a lot of people think, well, I can straighten it out. And that's what that's what's going on. The sad thing is that even Christians get involved with this, trying to set up a Kingdom for the Lord to come and reign.
Here on Earth. And so that's the way I take it, Wally.
In in chapter 4 verse one I was going to comment.
That this I'll read the first verse there chapter 4. I don't think we read this or if we did I'll reread it after this. I looked and behold a door was opened in heaven and the first voice which I heard.
Was, as it were of a trumpet talking with me and said, come up, hit her and I will show the things which must be hereafter. So these chapters here that we're going over are in heaven. And the 24 elders that were commented are are symbolic representatives of the Saints that are in heaven. The rapture will have gathered the Old Testament and New Testament.
Saints into heaven, and so they are in heaven, and this.
These verses that we are reading about are in heaven and their but their judgments are going to be poured out on the earth. And so you have the scene here in heaven.
And and we, and so even the heavenly Saints, the 24 elders and so on are are.
We feel, we feel the injustice and the earth will not yet have been cleansed. And so that's my long answer for maybe you, somebody else can give.
It's very helpful. Thank you.
I'd add this.
When you establish the right to something, sometimes there's still opposition. And so there has to be a times force of law, some other means used to have that which you have established your right to. And so, as mentioned, we have the Lord having the right to the whole earth, but there are those who claim that right.
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And even though his rights to it are established, as we have here, we have in the Revelation those who make false claims, who have to be dealt with. Perhaps most important of all is Satan. He's the Prince of the world, and Satan would claim the earth for himself and is the primary opponent man who thinks he can set things right. If he really could, you'd have to set Satan right, which is ridiculous, really, and thought.
And yet this one does. First of all, he's expelled from heaven.
Where he accuses and so on. In addition to that, when the we are gone, that is we who are true leave the Church of God, There still be a profession of a church on earth who will make a false claim to its place of honor and glory, and the Lord will have to deal with it.
In Babylon the Great.
As it's called, and further than that, there are all kinds of.
People on the earth in power who make a claim.
That the land that the Lord says is my land.
The land of Israel will be the center of the conflict for Earth.
And those who make a false claim to it will fight the Lamb for it. And So what we call don't have time to explain all the details of it, but what's called those who were in authority over the land when the Lord Jesus was put to death was the Roman Empire. And that's why it'll be revived, will be revived, because God is going to deal with the earth as it was on the day of the death of His Son.
And so the revived Roman Empire will be there, making its claim to the land.
And the people of the land, the apostate Jews.
Make a pact. And so the very ones that were there when the Lord was crucified, well.
Say we, this is ours and we'll fight for it, and the Lord will have to put them down.
We also have others.
That will want to take the land, including GOG, which is the name for Russia, which will want to take the land at that time and will try to and their claim will be rejected by the Lord they will be.
Until every single false claimant will have been put down, and then there will be righteousness and peace in the earth with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords over it all.
I think it would be good to go back and reiterate what was said earlier about John the Baptist saying, behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.
That verse is all-encompassing as regards sin, and of course the first part of it was to die on the cross to be the sin bearer, but it isn't just that part of it.
It really includes a future day when sin will no longer exist and the Lord Jesus will give back to God, the earth and heaven, everything, no sin allowed ever, for all eternity. That is so wonderful to think that we can look forward to a day when sin will no longer exist. So we live in between those times, as we mentioned earlier when the Lord died and he's sitting in heaven.
He finished the first part of the work, but the second part of removing it.
As from the presence of the world in general, the whole world.
That part's still future, and that's what it's talking about here, when the Lord will assume.
The throne and finished the last part.
Like to make this comment too about it.
That is.
As we've already had and we see in the 5th chapter.
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Worthy is the Lamb, and God will see that the Lamb who was rejected when he came the first time.
Is given his rightful place of honor and glory in the.
Cleanse Earth of the Millennium.
That's not the fullness. As Douglas said, it goes beyond the Millennium.
When Satan rises up again and is put down in the final, rebellion of man is dealt with at the end of the Millennium, and sin is removed not only from people, but the earth itself has to be replaced. There'll have to be a new physical earth, because the earth on which we're sitting at this moment has been spoiled by the effect of sin in it, and so there needs to be a new earth.
And there will be a heavens in which there's no sin, and it will all be done.
But the point that's precious to my own soul in it is not only does God.
The Father glorified the Son, but the work of the Son.
Is to glorify the Father. And so he says, I have glorified thee on the earth.
I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, and it's the Son's joy and privilege in what he's doing and going to do that's described in the Revelation.
Is to bring everything into.
A state of honor to God, and then when he has done so by removing all sin.
From the creation to God's honor and glory, the Son presents it all to him and says.
Here that God is ultimately perfectly glorified in it.
And we talked earlier about peace. God's never rested.
Since Adam sinned, and perhaps even before that when Satan rebelled.
But there will come a day when the sin is all that's come into God's universe is totally, completely removed. And then finally, the day of rest for God will come and be permanent. You will rest, as it says, in his love.
And said that at the present time righteousness suffers.
During the Millennium reign of Christ, righteousness will reign, but beyond that, in the eternal state, righteousness dwells.
But the basis for all taint of sin being removed in the new heavens and the new earth.
Is the work of Christ at the cross of Calvary His sacrifice?
Behold, the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.
His redemption, his work at the Cross of Calvary, provides the basis whereby all things have seen will be removed.
It's interesting that's the Lamb as it had been slain or as just slain.
There's no time there in heaven.
And so it's not scars that he has wounds.
Freshly slain and brethren, it should never be anything but.
Fresh in our souls to think of the awfulness of the cost that it took to redeem us to God. That's important. That would be fresh in our minds, and I think that's what's indicated here in verse 6.
A lamb freshly slain. We'll have all bodies there that are perfect. No, nothing to indicate any of the effects of sin. Only one in that eternal day will bear.
Wounds so that we never forget.
Awfulness because.
We see #40 in the appendix.
#40 in the bank.
00:55:01
Hail to the boredom.
Straighter swallow.
Went to heart. I love all your death on all the failures.
It comes to brave and consider brave.
And joy I am.
Above.
And shall praise for errors.
A Mind Set On Things Above
Open—Bob Thonney
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.
#212.
I'm from my phone.
I spilled out fears.
We see God.
My favorite?
So I don't really.
Close.
As for all.
Exceptions by God.
00:05:20
Who will praise me?
I cross the slows.
I can wear it down around here.
Thinking, brethren, of what we had in our morning reading.
In Revelation 5.
And.
The glory.
Of heaven.
Notice a verse to begin with in first Peter chapter 5.
And verse.
10.
But the God of all grace.
Who?
Hath called us.
Unto his.
Eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen.
Certainly just that expression.
Who has called us?
Unto his eternal glory.
It's amazing that writer think about it and I suppose it's beyond our capacity.
In the flesh to grasp it very much, but.
It's wonderful to look at some scriptures that talk about.
The glory.
We know that there's going to be glory in this world.
In the coming day, when the Lord Jesus reigns.
The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
It's incredible to think about. No one shall say to his neighbor, no the Lord, for they shall all know me.
From the least to the greatest.
It's hard to imagine that millennial day when the curse of sin will be lifted from this creation.
Think of all those things that were placed on the human race at the time of the fall in.
Genesis chapter 3 being renewed, being removed.
And I have heard it said quite a few times that.
Mankind will probably live more than 1000 years if they go into the Millennium.
Saved, really saved. Why there's and they lived through the Millennium. They'll be over 1000 years old.
The end Women will give birth to children without labor pains.
And there won't be the curse and the blight of sin on the creation that there is now.
And the glory of the Lord is going to be evident here in this creation.
But I like to think of the Lord Jesus, not only.
As the center of glory in this creation. But notice in Ephesians chapter one.
And we'll read verse 10.
Here's God's eternal purpose.
That in the dispensation of the fullness of time, he might gather together in one.
All things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him.
There we have that there's two distinct spheres in which the Lord Jesus will be supreme heaven.
00:10:04
And Earth. And we've been talking about the glory that's going to be evident here in this world.
But oh, brethren.
Try to think of the glory of that heavenly sphere.
We've had a little bit of it this morning in Revelation Chapter 5.
Where John tells about what he saw.
And I like to just stop and try to think about it because.
I believe that in general, the glory of the heavenly sphere is far beyond.
Our ability to take in notice what Paul says.
In Two Corinthians chapter 10.
I'm sorry, in chapter 12.
About the experience he had when he was caught up to the 3rd heaven.
He calls it here as well. Paradise.
3rd Heaven is generally considered to be the dwelling place of God.
Eternal glory that we've been called to.
Does that grasp us at all? Eternal glory?
The glory of men in this world lasts for a while.
And then it's all over.
But eternal glory.
We're called to that. You take that call in seriousness, you young people. Is there something else that attracts your heart?
But notice what Paul says when he was caught up to the 3rd heaven.
Which I take, is that eternal glory.
Verse one, it says it is not expedient for me doubtless to glory.
I will come to the visions and revelations of the Lord.
I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago.
Supposedly speaking about himself.
But he doesn't talk about it as it was himself.
Because when we get a glimpse of that glory, brethren.
What we are is not really the focus at all.
It's who he is.
It says whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth.
He didn't even know it was in my body or not. I don't know. And that's the way it is. When you see something that's spectacular, you're not thinking about yourself. So he didn't even remember if he was in the body or out of the body.
Very interesting.
Of that, he was caught up into paradise and heard.
Unspeakable words which is not lawful for a man to speak or not possible, it says in the margin.
Of such an one I will like glory, yet of myself I will not glory, but in my infirmities.
So here's the possible giving his testimony as to being caught up into that.
Eternal glory.
He says the visions.
And revelations. A vision is something you see.
And he heard unspeakable words. Not interesting. He saw, he heard. He doesn't say anything about what he saw. He does say something about what he heard.
Unspeakable words.
I've just tried to think about it, brethren. I know we're limited in our thinking as human beings.
Our thoughts are so centered on earth and earthly things.
But the Apostle Paul, what he saw, what he heard.
Rousseau exceedingly amazing that if he would have said something, there had been.
No ability on our part to comprehend what was said.
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We've been called to heavenly glory, brethren, eternal glory.
And it just is incredible to see how in general.
The church.
And I'm speaking about the whole.
Church of God as basically lust.
The thought of eternal heavenly glory.
Now they are striving for something down here. Where?
I can be excelling or get something that's worthy.
Of name.
But there is eternal glory, heavenly glory. So the apostle Paul, when he speaks about it, says.
That actually he doesn't say anything about what he saw.
We go to Philippians chapter.
I'm sorry.
Colossians, chapter 3.
We have exhortation.
About our thoughts.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.
Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection margin is your mind.
On things above, not on things on the earth.
For ye are dead in your mind, your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.
So there we are told to set our minds on things above.
What things above?
I just.
By this extremely challenging.
We know about things down here.
And most of our days are spent in thinking about.
Things in this world.
But things above.
The Apostle Paul evidently got a glimpse of it.
You know there were others who got a glimpse. Let's look at.
Acts Chapter 7.
In reference to Abraham.
Verse 2 This is Stephen speaking, he says.
Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken the God.
Of glory appeared unto our father Abraham.
When he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt.
In.
It doesn't say I don't believe anywhere.
About this appearance of the Lord to Abraham.
It just says the God of glory appeared, but it does seem.
That there was something connected with heaven.
Let's go over to Hebrews Chapter 11.
And see what is written about Abraham there.
Verse 8. We'll read from there forward a little bit by faith Abraham when he was called.
To go out into a place that he should afterwards receive for an inheritance.
Obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country dwelling in tabernacles.
With Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
Notice this, where he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder?
And Maker is God.
Where did he get the idea of a city?
I don't know, brethren, but putting it together with Acts Chapter 7 perhaps.
00:20:02
It was when the God of glory appeared unto him that he saw something of a city.
So Abraham, even though he was a wealthy man, he had 318 servants.
Never lived in anything more than a tent.
Because he was a pilgrimage stranger. A little bit further down, notice what it says of him too.
Bruce Well, let's read from verse 9.
Excuse me a little further down.
Verse 15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
But now they desire a better country that is in heavenly.
Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them.
A city There is a city mentioned again by faith. Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac.
He that had offered up his promises.
Offered up His only begotten Son.
I meant 3 verse 13. Excuse me. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them.
Afar off, and were persuaded of them and embraced them.
And confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims.
On the earth? Why were they strangers and pilgrims on the earth?
Why did he live his whole life in tents? Because he saw a city, a heavenly city. We have a description of that heavenly city in Revelation chapter 21. We're not going to go there now because.
I'm sure there's others that have something to give brethren, but my desire is that.
We we stirred in our souls.
And especially I'm thinking of our dear young people. We're living in a world that is very volatile.
Things are changing fast. Are you? Do you have your objectives on something in this world?
Or are you with your objectives in another?
Area completely in that heavenly sphere where we have been called.
To eternal glory, Lord help us, dear young people, and we who are older too.
To have our minds set on things above.
The Lord help us in this. I want to leave room for others to.
God Delights to Restore Broken Relationships
Open—Stephen Rule
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Trust this is properly digested food. I didn't come. This is my morning reading I have to share with you and I trust it's of the Lord.
Tie it briefly to the reading this morning as well on a very different line, but ties in, I think, in the Book of Revelation.
I was enjoying the reading this morning that God had to bring in judgment to restore relationship.
And there may be relationships in this room here that are broken, are broken because of sin, but God delights to restore relationship in the Book of Revelation ends with the marriage supper of the Lamb. It ends. You know, we had in our chapter this morning the root of David, but in the last chapter it's the root and offspring of David when the bride is calling for her bridegroom.
There's the not just the eternal God, but the eternal God become flesh.
Wanting to be in a relationship with those people. My personal readings have been in the Book of Judges.
Personal reading this morning was in Judges 20. I'll give a very brief context for it. And then that theme of broken relationships that God delights to restore, and maybe just a little bit of how he does it in the book of Judges. Of course, there's this moral decline throughout the book. A chronological part of the book ends with chapter 16 at the end of Samson's life.
And in Samson's life, the last of the judges.
Is life is characterized by that mixture of failure and the Spirit of God working but there's those moments in his life when he calls on God there's the moments in the life and the Spirit of God comes on him. But the last five chapters are grouped morally to create that moral appendix to the book they're not chronological and so in chapter 17 and 18, the story of.
The Levite of of Ephraim, whose.
UMM used by Micah and Micah uses him as his priest.
And in that story you have a graven image created, and God's name is associated with a graven image.
God himself isn't coming on in power as in the life of Samson, but his name is there connected with idolatry. His name is there in chapter 19, the next step in the moral progression. It's totally dark. There's nationalism. There's no calling on the name of the Lord. There's not even an acknowledgement of the name of the Lord. And with a graven image or an attempt to associate his name with anything, it's gone totally black.
And the moral character of that chapter.
As awful, every person in that chapter is totally black.
Then you come to my personal reading this morning, Judges 20, and it's black too. But God is stepping into that black scene to restore relationship. That's what His delight is. And no matter where you are in your local assembly, in your home and personal relationships that you have with others, it may be that it looks like it does if you read it on your own later and Judges 19, it may look totally black.
May look like there's absolutely nothing left, not even the name of God to call on what's empty. And then you have the moral outrage of others in Judges 20. Just a notice of a few points. There's a lot in the chapter.
I know I haven't fully digested it, was enjoying it this morning, but just to notice a couple things. The children of Israel are stirred up.
By the sin of Benjamin, And so they come up ready to.
To Judge Benjamin. Benjamin comes to defend those that have done so much that was wrong in the prior chapter.
And there's war, and the children of Benjamin are numbered and so on. There's many details there. Just give a couple points on the moral theme here. Verse 18. Children of Israel arose and went up to the House of God.
Asked counsel of God and said, which of us shall go up first to the battle against the children of Benjamin? The Lord said Judah shall go up first.
So here they're stored up, stirred up with moral outrage. They go up to the House of God. Good place to go.
They asked God and they get an answer. Looks good, doesn't it? And maybe in our own lives, there's a situation and we're stirred up about it. We've been stirred up about it. Maybe it's with a child and things aren't quite right with that child. Maybe it's a relative or a brother or sister in Christ, and we're stirred up by it and we have our plan and we have our sense of how to deal with the matter.
00:05:06
And we go and we.
Present our solution to the Lord, and we present it as a question, Should I do this? Our hearts are so subtle, they're so clever, they're so unaware of what's going on down inside, and yet God is at work. That's what I want to bring out here. And this blackest spot in man's moral history. Just about certainly in the book of Judges, God is at work.
And so he answers them. It's beautiful. They came to the right person.
They ask their solution, who shall go out? They don't give God the option as to whether they should go up. This had to be dealt with and they were going to do it. And his answer, God answers them. I've often wondered, why did God answer? Why didn't he explain to them?
No, you're in the wrong place. You need to be humbled first. That's not what he does, he says to them. Judah gives them an answer. Judah shall go up first.
Why?
Wasn't the one Judah the one closest to them to to Benjamin? Judah was the tribe right by Benjamin? Who was it that had had the chance to see what was going on with Benjamin? Go back to the book of Genesis.
Look at Judas heart and Genesis when it's Benjamin, he's willing, he stirred up in that process of restoration. Who stirred up there to be surety for the little brother? It's Judah and that whole process of restoration that occurs in Genesis. Who is it there? Who is it 2 to here? The one that was closest?
Who does God start the work with? Not with Benjamin. He starts to work with the one closest to him that had watched him drift off. And if there's a child in a home and there's certain behavior and it's not right, maybe the Lord wants to start with the parent and deal with the parent, not because the child, because God doesn't love the child. He's going to restore everybody in this process. Those subtle hearts of theirs couldn't see the need in themselves.
And our subtle hearts sometimes only see the need in the other person.
But the Lord is there at work to draw out, to stir up, to restore all of them. And who does He begin with? The one closest to Benjamin.
And.
God's going to work in our life for restoration and our families in our homes. He's going to start with us. And so Judah and Judah goes up and perhaps you know the story. I trust you do Judah and the children of Israel that go up lose their.
Verse 21, the 20 and 2000 men, Verse 22 And the people, the men of Israel, encouraged themselves and set their battle again in array in the place where they put themselves in array the first day. And then the children of Israel, verse 23, went up and wept before the Lord until leaving that beautiful they wept. It's brought in here and it goes. It goes for a defined period. It goes until evening.
We'll see a change in the next.
Period of the Lord's working with them, and asked counsel of the Lord, saying, Shall I go up against again to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother?
Said Benjamin, my brother, with no real restoration, there is no real.
Bringing together the people of God until we realize that we're brothers.
There's no proper discipline. I don't know the wholeness of it unless there's a sense of what the relationship is. If it's in the assembly, it's my brother. It's my fellow sister or brother. If it's in the family, there's a sense of that relationship. It's not one against the other, but it's a relationship. They didn't say Benjamin, my brother, the first time.
She noticed they were already.
The battle was already set in array, they were still going to forge forward with their plan, but they do come up and they do sit before the Lord.
And the Lord says, go up against him.
Benjamin had more to learn, but so did they. They go up, there's 18,000 that die this time and then it says verse 26.
Then all the children of Israel and all the people went up.
And came unto the House of God. It didn't say all.
Before now it says all they all go up. Before they went up, I don't know who. Now it says they all go up. And in whatever situation there is, perhaps it's a matter. I don't know any matters in any local assemblies here. So this is not directed at anyone.
00:10:18
But if there is a matter all of something to learn.
Says it so clearly here, if there's going to be that full restoration of everyone together.
It says all go up to the House of the Lord and so they all must go. And all the people went up and came into the House of God and wept and sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until even and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. So now there's more elements added. They fast, there's the sense of their need to really listen to what God has to say and perhaps.
Maybe it's a matter in our own personal life and it's not been fully dealt with. Maybe it's because the Lord has more to teach. They've already learned a lot. They've learned a lot in what the Lord has to say and bring out for them. But there's more. And the problem hasn't been resolved because God wants to do a deeper work than they could possibly see. At the beginning they saw Benjamin sin. Then they saw Benjamin their brother, and now all of them that are there and now.
There's a personal fasting, a recognition they need to set aside everything and hear what God has to say. And they're sitting there and there are the burnt offerings and the peace offerings. God himself is now being honored. They were doing the right thing and going up to the House of God, but there was no comment about sacrifices earlier. Now there's the burnt offering who Christ is to God the Father.
And the peace offering, the offering of communion, there hasn't been that communion offering until now.
But now that they are concerned about Benjamin, their brother, now that all of them are there, now that there's a sense that there is a need to depend and wait and hear what the Lord has to say, says in verse 27, the children of Israel inquired of the Lord, the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days. We find out in these verses that this really occurred chronologically at the very beginning of their the time of the book of Judges.
But I'll skip down to or after the parenthesis in verse 28.
Shall I yet again go out to the battle against the children of Benjamin, my brother?
Or shall I seats? Or there's something wrong here, but maybe I'm not the one to fix it.
They still recognize that there's a need, but now Benjamin is their brother and now they're willing to stop and let the Lord decide whether they're part of the solution or not. There's a dependence in their hearts and the Lord God said go up.
He told Judah to go up first. He told them to go up last time.
But now he says go up for tomorrow, I will deliver them into thine hand. He actually tells them, now I'm here, now I'm going to give the result.
There was a lot to learn. There's more to learn in the rest of the chapter. There's more to learn in.
What follows in the next chapter? Those are the points on my heart.
The Lord is going to bring full restoration and a personal life.
And a home and an assembly, it's going to touch everyone. It's going to touch everyone deeply. It's going to bring about a full and proper restoration. And I just enjoyed as well. You know, in Genesis, Judah and Benjamin are brought together and they're individuals.
Here the Lord begins with Judah.
When were Judah and Benjamin separated again?
In their history.
Weren't they together all the way?
When while the Lord doesn't work, he can do a full work. I'd just like to apply it that way. When the Lord does the work, as he does here in this chapter. When the tribes are broken apart later due to the idolatry that Solomon had brought in, and in the days of Rehoboam, they're split. Judah and Benjamin are still together. It may be an incredibly black moment in your personal life or wherever you're at, but when God does that work of restoration.
He delights to do it properly and thoroughly, at least in the application sense of it.
Judah and Benjamin are not split. They remain together as far as I know. Correct me afterwards, please. They remain together as far as I know, to the end of the Word of God. The Lord can and delights to fully restore.
Sharing About The Future
Open—Sam Ludvicek
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.
First Corinthians, chapter 2.
And verse 9.
My brother Bob was talking about.
Having our minds on things. Heavenly things.
And I take it you were looking at Revelation earlier?
We are in revelation in our local meeting, and I was struck as we've gone through Paul says that he wasn't permitted to speak to some of those things, some things she couldn't put into words.
But John tells us some of the things that he saw because he was told to.
He was told to see it and to write it down and tell us.
So we can look in there. Can we understand that, as our brother Bob was saying?
Get your head around that, but here's something that I've noticed.
In some of the dear old Saints that grow up in the systems.
Men have that are truly the Lords. They don't know much.
And there's a Bible study in Washington, IA now where?
Where most of the folks there are.
Old, in their 70s, eighties and pretty down trodden, beaten down.
Were recently oppressed by a man who was the director of the.
The maintenance facility and got away with it for a long time was abusive to these people.
Well, young man in his 30s has been coming to a Bible study Bernie Breck's place for about 6 months. Got a job there.
And he was told about it. He met some of these people. He came to Bernie's Bible study and he said.
They're so beaten down.
There's like a cloud over the place.
I want to help him. I don't know anything about. I want to help him. I want to have a Bible study there. I'm going to ask the owner if she will allow it. He did.
And there's a Bible study there.
Two weeks ago.
I showed up there with his name is Zach, Zach Moore.
And there were 20 people sitting in this room in a conference room. Half of them had Bibles. The others didn't. There were donated Bibles. A police officer who is a friend of Bernie Rex had a box of Bibles from a motel that had closed down and brought all those in there.
Oh, a hungry these folks were came to realize that most of them are the Lords.
It's a mixed company, but here's what I wanted to get to about this verse.
Talking about this many tough lives.
Wrong choices, alcohol, drugs in the past, divorce, all kinds of things. But some of these older people had gotten saved in their youth. Maybe they were Lutheran or Presbyterian, Episcopalian or something. And now that they want to learn, they want to know more.
And they want to go to a Bible study.
But when you start talking about these things.
You know that God has prepared things for you that are beyond your imagination.
That's what that says. Now the next verse says that God has revealed some of those things to us.
That much of it is beyond our thoughts, human beings.
Are pretty good at imagination. I watch my wife been doing artwork pretty good Hollywood movie makers, special effects, all the things they could create spectacular things.
Amazing things from the imagination, but this verse tells me that I can't even dream up.
Cannot imagine how spectacular those things were, so you start talking to one of these.
Dear old Saints, about these kinds of things, the things God has told us.
A little bit of a picture in Revelation, even reading as Brother Bob did what Paul said, It's so spectacular, couldn't put it into words. Dear Saints of God, do you know that's what's waiting for you? You've had a tough life, you've had a difficult circumstances. You just went through something here where there was an abusive person that was taking advantage.
00:05:16
And causing harm.
Oh, they soaked it up and they wanted to hear more question after question. What else?
What is there? Do you know that God has prepared a place for you? A mansion, a dwelling place? And he's been doing it for 2000 years. Pretty spectacular.
You look at Revelation, some of the things that will be during the Millennium, as her brother brought up.
Pretty spectacular, this world and the things around, and as you get older and difficulties come, it can get pretty weary. I know that there are brothers and sisters in Christ in Ukraine right now that are pretty weary.
And there are others in this hemisphere too, in other parts of the world where it's getting pretty weary. And we look on the horizon and we wonder what's coming, what dangers are coming. If the Lord tarries, what will we?
Have to face here in America and in Canada on this hemisphere of the world.
Is God going to allow persecution to wake up the church?
Could it become more and more difficult? Perhaps it would be like our Savior.
In love and grace and mercy to gather out one last group.
Out of this country before he comes, he's certainly doing it all over this world.
You hear stories about it.
But as we were talking about these things with these folks.
It's it's simple stuff. Some of it are things that we have known most of our lives and they're hearing it for the first time. Some of these things and the joy that came across their faith talking about these things. We should talk about these things. We know that the glory of the place.
And the glory here on earth.
Is himself, but he tells us about our part in some of that.
So when you read that verse in John that says to as many as received him, to them gave the power to become the sons of God, and you read the epistle of John about sons.
You were talking about it one day recently and I said, Do you know dear ladies?
That's you.
What do you mean I'm a woman?
That's talking about being brought into a place in the days of old of that time.
There was one guy who got most of the inheritance and it was the oldest son and the rest maybe got a little bit. And if there was a very generous and loving older brother, he might share more with you later.
Jesus.
Has told us he's going to share it all with us.
And when we are called sons, we should enter into that.
That we've been brought into a place.
Just like a first born son.
Women, men into a place rare occurrences back in those days and.
Times of Abraham and even during the time of Christ there might be a strong powerful man who only had a daughter who might with the force of his power and will give an inheritance to his daughter, but it was rare that the Lord Jesus has said I'm sharing it all that I have.
All my inheritance I'm sharing with you. So trouble comes in, life is weary, and you're reaching the end of the line.
Dear brother Bernie Breck back home.
As.
People have found out in Marengo, IA that this man will pray with you.
That he will hold your hand and pray with you. And people are showing up at Bernie's auto repair shop out of the balloon because this man will pray with him what I need.
Recently, he's had the opportunity to lead two older gentlemen to Christ.
00:10:00
One died very shortly after. There's one right now who trusted in Christ about a week ago.
And Bernie's going and sharing some of these things with him and showing him what's coming. There is hope. You go to meet the Savior.
People ask questions. Will I see my mom? Will I see my dad? Will I see others in there? Yeah, but it might be a while before you can tear your eyes away from your savior's face.
When you're looking at that face, you close your eyes here and you open them up, and it's him himself.
Steven saw.
The Lord Jesus opened up, however far that is, out to where He is. You let Him see it. He stood up to receive him well. When he passed from this scene, he was face to face.
So Paul does tell. He does tell us some things.
That we can lay hold of like it says here.
He says to depart us to be with Christ.
There is no waiting around.
You hear all these stories and fiction writers and that talk about waiting rooms in heaven and Saint Peter at the Gate and all of this nonsense and having to wait and maybe even go back because you're not ready.
You got to do more good deeds, all these terrible things that people come up with because they think somehow works will get you in Well, that there's no comfort in any of that. But there is comfort in sharing those things that God does tell us about and when we.
See John describing what he's looking at.
When we see him talking about what he's looking at going on the earth.
Well, hasn't Matthew 24 come alive a little bit more recently?
The first night of that Bible study in Washington.
Zach opened it up. Introduced.
Me as a friend.
And.
Said if anybody has any questions, we'll start with that and then we'll turn to a portion of the Word of God.
A little old African American lady, I could barely understand her, but her friend who was helping her, I think she must have had a stroke or something, repeated to me what she said. You know what she wanted to know is the end of the world close?
So we got to go through a bit of Matthew 24.
When you can share those things, what is just over the horizon for some of these dear old Saints?
That have been starved to death their whole lives and we have this.
Like the Old Testament story where the lepers went into the tents and had abundance and finally realized, wait a minute, we should go and share this inside the city with those starving. Well, shouldn't we do that? Shouldn't we share these things, these treasures that we have come to appreciate and know with those that are starving? Dear Saints of God.
Dear ones in Christ.
Questions sometimes about assurance of salvation.
But wondering at things Is the end near? Do I need to be afraid of what's going on? Is Putin going to bomb us with an atomic bomb?
I don't believe that scripture allows for anything like that to happen.
On our near horizon, all of that stuff that happened when I was growing up in the 60s where they had us hide under the desks in the classroom and all of that.
It was all foolishness, but that's what they did, and people were filled with fear during that time and the Cuban missile crisis and all of that.
We've got precious things that we know and we've got precious things we can share and there are people starving all around us that are the Lords.
Now we all want to reach out to those that are starving to death because they.
They have no life, they don't know Christ and they need to know Christ, and their lives are filled with desperation because they don't know Him.
That here it is.
I hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, that things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
One last thing.
My dear wife asked me one day. She said. We had this conversation about the gifts of God.
Being without repentance.
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She said the Lord gave me the gift of an artist.
When I get to heaven.
What's going to happen with that?
I don't know.
But God says it's irrevocable. So some of the gifts that you have that aren't spiritual gifts.
What's he going to do with that? It's beyond our imagination what's coming.
That it will be all around him.
I told Zebo, I said.
She said well, we're not going to be married.
And that concerns a lot of people that not given in marriage in the same way.
That and others have asked that.
I said, you know what the best that a marriage can be if you have that privilege.
You work through it and you have a marriage that is really good, the best that it's ever.
The top, the best that it is, you'll have that with everybody. Beyond that, you won't lose anything. You'll gain at all. There'll be no flesh in anybody to interfere with the relationships we will have. Brother, I will love you perfectly, and you'll love me back perfectly.
There will be nothing to Morrow it interfere with it. The same with all the dear sisters.
Perfectly nothing tomorrow, nothing to interfere with beyond our imagination.
I said to my wife. I said, you know, it occurred to me.
The scripture says, Know ye not, ye shall judge angels.
That's not judging demonic spirits.
That's judging. Like the judges in the Old Testament. That's ruling.
We've been made lower than the angels, but do you know one of the things that's prepared for you sometime in the future?
You're going to be over angels doing something that God sends you to do.
Isn't that pretty amazing just thinking about some of those things that are on the horizon 50 years from now? Not one of us.
Will probably be here.
If the Lord should carry that law, we'll be on the other side and we will know, as we are known, what a wonderful thing that awaits us to have that event take place when we pass to the other side and we see our Savior face to face. And we will be, we will know as we are known.
But while we are here, we can share the riches that we have.
And that we know with starving people that are all around us.
#5.
Unto him who loved us.
He must.
Everyone.
Dream of nature.
And his life.
And grace by a little bit.
Day before yesterday, I had a nice conversation with brother Daniel Brimlong.
And we were talking about how the God gives the song in the night and there are many nights, dark nights of the soul, difficult times. If people go through this. Life is filled with suffering, and indeed it is. I don't know how people do it without Christ.
I wouldn't want to try it.
I said, you know, brother.
I've been reminded recently that for you to get a song in the night, it has to be night first.
And I said, God does give a song of the night, and he said, what song does he give you often? Is that 1 #5?
Revelation 5:6-14
Reading
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#80.
Inevitable.
Living in that where is the followers stand by.
I love you, I love you.
Creepy.
It was the same and lost and.
Never knew.
My favorite word I saw in the fall.
Revelation chapter 5, starting with verse 6. And I beheld and lo, in the midst of the throne.
And of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of Saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof.
For thou was slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred and tongue, and people and nation.
And hast made us unto our God, kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.
And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 * 10,000, and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, blessing.
And honor and glory and power be unto him that.
Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen.
And the four and 20 elders fell down and worshiped him that liveth forever and ever.
It's good to remember that these sevens here, the seven horns, seven eyes and seven spirits, if this is symbolic language like the first verse of the Revelation 1.
Where it says he sent and signified or symbolized it by his Angel.
That's very common throughout the whole Book of Revelation.
To use symbolic language to represent the mind of God.
And so the seven spirits here, not to be confused with the Holy Spirit.
But it's a perfection of, of, of spirit and discernment here.
Seven is a complete number, isn't it? And let's see completeness that there is in God himself.
I enjoyed.
What somebody pointed out to me one time in.
And Isaiah 11 Perhaps it shows a possibility of the seven spirits which are before his throne.
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Says in 11 verse two, Isaiah 11 verse 2, The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.
One, the spirit of wisdom, Two, an understanding, 3 Spirit of counsel 4 and might. 5 the spirit of knowledge, 6 and the fear of the Lord. 7 So it gives you an thought as to the diversity, and yet the completeness, the unity.
One thing to be worthy is another thing to be competent and have power. A person might be very worthy and the sense of having personally lived in a godly, pious way, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have the capacity to do a certain task that requires competence to do it. And so we just sang a hymn.
That talked about.
Alone he bare the cross.
Alone, its grief sustained. There never has been and never will be a man, another individual that was competent to do what He did. He did it alone. There was none other that could do it but Himself, and He did it. Praise God and will worship Him eternally as the one who did a work that none other but himself could do.
And so here when it comes to judging and setting things right as we had this morning.
There's a needed capacity to do this aspect of the work. And in verse six, while the language is symbolic, it also brings before us his competence. He discerns, he sees, he differentiates. And when the work of judgment takes place, there will be differences. It won't just be a mass extermination of people or something like that.
But even down to the individual that is going to suffer in under the judgments of God, whether by military action or by earthquakes or whatever the means used, it will be with the discernment is represented in the spirits here of every single situation and case and need. And he will act with that competence that when the work is done.
Unlike things we often do, we make mistakes because.
We don't discern. At times we do something and we don't understand.
What it is exactly we're doing or our soul is not in fellowship with God because of our personal state. And so we we do what we do and sometimes we make a bigger mess than when we started of a situation, but not so here.
There have been multitudes of people that have tried to set things right in the country in which they live, in their personal lives and others that have not done it.
But here, if this one who opens the seals is going to be able to do it and does do it with a tremendous capacity, that there will be no mistakes. The power is there to overcome every obstacle that it might he might face. And by his grace he associates others with him in what he's doing. But the source of the competency is not in them, it's in himself.
00:10:26
Verse 7.
He that sits on the throne that's seen there is God looked at, and here the Lamb comes and takes the book.
And there is a recognition, I believe, that the Lamb knows what God wants.
And he desires to fulfill that. And so he takes the initiative, if you will, as confident to do so and as knowing the will of another becomes. And he does it. We do well to get a personal application of that as well. A lot of these things can be individually applied, even though they're not the purpose or the primary intent of the passage.
Then that is, God has something for everyone of us to do.
And he would desire that we do it willingly, that we not be, if you will, forced into it.
But He would put it on her heart to do it and would desire that we not say, Oh, I can't do that, Lord.
Oh no, no, that's not for me. That's for brother or sister. So and so that's somebody else's thing to do that that's there are things that for somebody else to do and we ought not to meddle with what God has given to someone else. But there's also the sense, as there is in verse seven, I think of the spirit of pleasing the Lord in doing what he has put into our hands to do.
The Lamb doing the will of God has been constant.
For all ages, hasn't it? We can go back to the first record of anything.
Whom shall I send, and who will go for us here My send me. And when he took up manhood, I come to do thy will, O God, and here at the close.
There's that one purpose and one mind continuing.
I can't help but think of the contrast you have here of how the Lord Jesus the Lamb takes the book at the appropriate time when it's given to Him to do that. So many, so many examples of those in the Old Testament that when they were given an opportunity to take a throne of judgment, they were so eager to do it, and yet they failed so miserably in it.
Because they were not competent and I think it can be a lesson to each one of us. You know, don't take up something until the Lord gives it to you really from himself. If we take up something thinking it in our own time frame when it is Steven referred to the the ones in Judah about going up and straightening out their Benjamin brethren and all they thought they could do it and and the Lord had to deal with them.
Tremendously.
So many examples of that.
The Lord Jesus, when he was here, one came to him and said.
Speak to my brother, He divides inheritance and the Lord's answer was simple. Who made me a judge and a divider over you? It wasn't the time to to settle scores.
Here it is.
00:15:00
And he takes his position as a man, doesn't he? And I was looking at that verse in John 5 and verse 22, it says, For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.
And then a little later in the same chapter.
He says.
Verse 27 and have given him authority to execute judgment also because.
He is the Son of man, so here is God's man.
And he comes and takes the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne.
Speaking of God's time.
In the Old Testament.
God very patiently.
Spent 1000 plus years.
Giving man the opportunity to see whether he could live righteously before God under the law.
And there was quite adequate time given and finally the last Test of man as to whether there was any good in him that could keep and live righteously before God was surely they will reverence my son. It was the last and supreme test of man as to what is in man was given the opportunity to accept the perfect man, the Son and.
The.
Of man was failed, he said we will not have this man. That was man's response to God. We will not have this man and the Lord Jesus at that point said now is the judgment of this world. The world was judged. There's no further such test to be given to mankind. He's proven the ultimate test. He failed as to what's in his heart. But on the other side, we are now in a different period of time.
That was what the time to see what man could do for God. Now we live in a period we call the Day of Grace.
And it's a period in which we see what God could do for man, and we might like it to come.
The Lord to come today or tomorrow, and it's a proper hope for us what we ought to have also. The other side of it is it'll end when what God can do for man has fully fulfilled the purpose of God for the blessing of man.
There, I doubt not as we have been here in the last 24 hours. Throughout the world there have been souls that are eternally blessed.
By what God can do for man in his grace. And so it is in God's hands to decide when this.
Day has fulfilled its purpose of grace. And then we have the judgments that we're reading about starting in the revelation.
So there again, as Doug says, we need to wait and we wait for God until.
This time to finish his work is complete.
But there's also another work going on in your life and mine, and I'm going to relate it.
To verse.
8:00 and 9:00.
They sing a new song.
And in verse eight, it says the four and 20 elders, every one of us in this room is represented in that symbolic language. If we're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament there were 24 courses of priests that did the service of God. And symbolically it's also recognized that it includes the Old Testament since the New Testament Saints, but here in 24.
It's a service being rendered, and that service is a service here of worship and praise and your life and mine is.
Being worked on to prepare you and I to properly and fully fulfill this service, the trials of life, the experiences of life, our teaching experiences ordered of God, and in the result you and I will be fully fitted to fulfill the ministry, the wonderful worship.
00:20:17
Ministry, we have to offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.
And give thanks and the capacity to do it. And the fullness of it is being formed by the pressure through which our lives are passing and the experiences in which we gain the knowledge of the heart of God as well as our own heart. And so we can also be thankful that God's time is perfect. And as in service, sometimes before service there's a period of preparation of the vessel to fulfill that service.
That's true throughout the pattern of Scripture that.
People God was going to use, He put them through a period of time in which he taught them.
By their own life, to be prepared to do the work that he was giving them to do.
These 24 elders, they fall down.
Before him just because he receives the book.
Or when he receives the book, they are glad that this man is given the book.
Why are they glad?
Will you read through the Gospels and?
Notice the perfectness of the Lord Jesus, how he treated everybody.
And the glories and the fairness, the sympathy, the mercy, all his virtues that he showed. And you can readily say, oh, no one better fit to do this job than him.
Think of Peter.
The night before the Lord went to the cross, Peter thought he was prepared.
He was fit. He was going to go with the Lord, even if it meant his death.
Peter's going to be one in the eighth verse and he will be prepared. The work will have been done and was done in his soul, but later on the Lord enabled him to give his life.
And die as the Lord died in that way. But.
It's a wonderful thing that God knows how to prepare the vessel for the service and.
Our eternal service is going to be one of worship and praise.
Just a brief comment on the four beasts and the 24 elders. I don't.
I don't remember us commenting on the distinction of them. The four beasts are in the chapter 4.
Largely.
As well, and I believe they represent the attributes of God in creation.
Maybe someone can explain that better. Whereas the 24 elders are are the.
Are the believers of all times.
Verse seven of chapter 4. The first piece was like a lion.
Mentioned this morning in that verse in Proverbs he turns aside for.
None other words. When he takes up the matter of judgment, nobody will resist him. Absolutely no one second beast like a calf. Stability.
00:25:07
Or stability in things of this world. Governments may be stable in some measure, but.
Here he will be at stability, the third beast, like the face of a man intelligence.
And the 4th beast like the was like a flying eagle swiftness.
Those are the attributes which God will take up the question of judgment.
So towards the end of verse eight in our chapter.
Having everyone of them harps.
And golden vials full of odors.
Which are the prayers of Saints?
Here's that.
Our prayers that are taken or is that we will have an intercessory role in that coming day with the Saints that are on the earth that will be crying for help. How do you understand that, Don? I don't think we'll have to intercede. That's my own thought for those that are on earth. But I believe in another sense of it that.
Every prayer that we've had, that is.
In tune.
With the mind and heart of God with respect to what's going on today, we'll find its answer when this work is being done. In other words, if you.
Have in your heart the desire to see peace on earth with righteousness, Not just peace, but peace and righteousness. If you see the suffering and you enter into it as the Lord Jesus saw the suffering at the tomb of Lazarus and wept because of what He saw that sin had brought into the world, and He felt it. All of those prayers that are ours will have their answer at this time.
They're not forgotten, they're remembered. And the answer may not have come yet, but when the time comes, in God's time, all that which has been raised before Him is remembered and will have its perfect answer. And I believe we will recognize that and appreciate it in our own souls as well, and it will give us 'cause to praise Him.
As in Song of Solomon does not die, his name is as ointment poured forth, so every mention of the name of Jesus is a sweet savour to God.
It's beautiful to think of those files full of odors, which are the prayers of Saints.
I was in Bolivia one time and inside of a home and outside the window, the house where I was, there was a little child trying to sing Jesus loves me and he got it all messed up. But one of the things that came across clearly is the name of Jesus, Jesus. I just thought that must be a sweet savior to God, the lips of that little child to hear that wonderful name.
Stand to be corrected, but I don't believe you have any reference to singing in the word of God and tell the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea and saw their enemies destroyed in the safe and then they sang.
00:30:14
And singing.
Is, particularly in Scripture, connected with in the spiritual way, often with redemption.
In the work of redemption, they had something that so stirred their souls when they.
Saw their enemies and their what was in figure, their own redemption.
And then they almost immediately sing. Here we have also the others that are identified in verse 13. Every creature they praise, but we don't have them singing. There are created beings. I believe angels, for example, will praise. But I think it is our privilege to be the ones that sing that we have that special.
Relationship as the redeemed people of God that we can sing. And yes, I know the world's full of song and people sing about lots of things other than this subject, but in the character in which it's given here, it's a special privilege and it is a work of God in the soul that has made it appreciate.
To the point of the overflow of singing. And God calls it a sacrifice, even though He's the one that did the work in the heart that produced it.
God works in our hearts and produces something and then He gives us credit for it.
Presenting it to himself, that's God.
At such a privilege, isn't it to sing? I don't know. I must say, rather than I've been impressed that in Latin America they do a lot more singing than we do up here.
The first part of a meeting is singing, and it's often 345.
Hymns that are sung before the meeting starts, of course. They're not so controlled by the clock like we are.
But.
It's a blessing to sing. It's different than just simply reading something, but it's something that involves the heart and the enjoyment, and that's where it has its real effect in the soul and you sing. And I just want to encourage us to do more singing, not only when we're together, but in the homes.
Let's sing more than we are accustomed to do. Seems like we used to sing more, had to sing more, but just wanted to encourage us to do that and the homes to sing.
For the Apostle Paul, he speaks about speaking to yourselves.
And sounds.
Hymns and spiritual songs, Ephesians 519.
Singing and making melody in your heart.
To the Lord.
So as you point out, singing is an expression of what's in our hearts, and if our hearts are right with the Lord, we can't help but sing as we contemplate.
His love and his goodness.
It's a wonderful thing to be able to sing from the heart.
Speaks here about the new song. I was wondering is there any connection between what David says back in Psalm 40? He says he brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, set my feet upon a rock, established my going and put a new song in my mouth. Even praise unto our God.
David had something to sing about. He was down in a pit and it was misery. But you know, he says I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined unto me, He heard my cry and he brought me up also out of an horrible pit. Well, if that don't give somebody something to sing about, I don't know what would. And so we've all been in a horrible kid of sin.
00:35:11
And yet we find here that we've been redeemed.
Delivered from the power of Satan.
Redeemed by the precious blood of Christ and how we ought to be singing. But I just wondered about the new song.
There's some thought us to a new song as opposed to an old song.
Isn't that the song of redemption? Because he'd been brought up out of a horrible pit? You can sing before you've been rescued, but when you're when you've been rescued or redeemed, then it's that's the new song. That's the way I've taken it.
And that will always be new.
So it's in connection with redemption.
Angels at home.
2:00 and 3:00.
No after 38.
But the morning stars sang together all the time.
Creation. They have no part in our farm.
Well, in verse nine, it's also a wonderful.
Comment if you will, that the work of redemption is universal in his character is not limited in the Old Testament, God took one people, the children of Israel, and he worked with them individually as a nation without giving, although others could be brought into their blessing. But here in verse nine it says redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every every kindred.
And tongue and people and nation. And so the present work of grace and redemption.
Is universal in its message and in its character. And God is working and has worked throughout the globe to draw souls into the blessing from every kindred and tongue and people and nation. That was recognized in the Acts when Cornelius came to Peter, that the work Peter recognized wasn't limited to the Jewish people.
But it was a work that every soul would have the blessing.
That God was number respecter of persons in that way, and the work was now.
On God's terms, not on man's. It was a work of grace and so.
You and I, regardless of what kindred tongue people or nation may not be a huge number, but there's a multiple such represented in this room, a sampling of the fact that God's wonderful work and the praises are.
Embrace all without distinction.
Question came up looking at these.
7 It's the gospel the same.
Preacher.
OK, well.
Preach Jesus Christ and crucified. Billions been crucified.
The apostles are the.
God, the Baptist priest, Gospel of the Kingdom, the Lord Jesus did, disciples did. They couldn't preach Jesus Christ, He crucified know that it happened.
Maybe there's a sense in which the new song has more information because we're down the road a little more.
We can think about it, anticipating what's coming.
The gospel you're talking about. And I said well.
00:40:00
If you had just gotten saved and you're in the middle of the tribulation, you didn't know Christ and one of the 144,000 shared the gospel with you and you got saved, what would you say once you study the word of God?
Once you begin to preach Jesus Christ in truth, spy, and then you say to them, you know, and all those people disappeared back there. That was the rapture here. Let me show you First Thessalonians, you know, these events here that are coming to pass.
Martin can clock the time. Hang on, brother. Our time is short. The Lord is coming. He's appearing. He's going to put an end to all of this.
While that information is, we talk about it, we can preach it and say this is coming, but when you're in the middle of it, you're going to be breaching. We're in the middle of it, those who are there.
Modern United States but today about racism real problem I was thinking here.
The end of verse 9 thou.
Speaking of the Northeast was slain and has redeemed this to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people that they.
The Lord Jesus.
Something that might be worth pointing out.
We often meet this transfer of breaking a thread. In a general sense, we think of the floor being worthy.
It reminded me of the word faith. A person can say I have faith and you would sit there and expectation for them to finish the thought. Think then what or on whom? Well, worthy is the same thing as simply says he is worthy. You should be sitting there wondering, OK, what's the rest of your thoughts being locked up where it is born worthy of praise. And so in this chamber we have the word worthy of the make 45 and the first three.
Worthy to open the globe?
And then the last time that we have it explicitly mentioned in the first 12 to receive power, riches and so on. So when we look at the portion, you know, it's good to keep in mind that you know, which worthy is it making reference to, you know, worthy of what you know, to just notice the details. And I'm supposing we've answered the question more than once. Why is the Lord Jesus worthy to open that quote?
And will loose the seals thereof.
Somebody could answer that yet again, that would maybe be helpful. Again, it's good to notice. Worthy of what and why? Why is he worthy to open that book? Three of the four times in this chancer is again, we're going to open that book and open the seals there.
He was the only one qualified to do the work of redemption, and He did it fully for the glory of God and for our blessing. There is no other person that could have done it as He has done it now. He is worthy of our praise.
So he's made this unto our God. Kings and priests sometimes read a Kingdom of priests.
And this is our place is to.
Our priesthood, we're priests. Not only the brothers, but the sisters are priests.
That's why when we sing, we all sing. That's a priestly activity.
00:45:04
It's lifting up the sacrifice of God, of praise to God continually at such a privilege to do that. I love to hear praise singing going on sometimes.
The cars going down the road and her sometimes when a sister is doing her work in the house, singing. It's beautiful to do that, to exercise your priesthood. It's our privilege, brother. Then it's something we have been chosen for.
Sometimes it gets to the end of the day and I stop to think if I we really.
Stopped to praise the Lord at any juncture.
I really encourage.
US doing that more, it's a blessing.
I recently enjoyed this Kingdom of priests or kings and priests.
Seeing that pictured in the Old Testament in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem.
There's two places that are spoken of in the in the word regards Jerusalem, there is.
Mount Zion, which was the stronghold that David took hold of from the Jebusites.
And conquered it and made Jerusalem then a center.
Or the temple and then you have right beside it or in the same area.
Mount Moriah, the Temple Mount where the Temple was.
Eventually built and they're right together there. I think you have a picture of the distinction of the two.
In that there was a battles had to be fought in order to make Jerusalem a divine center. It had to be taken out of the hands of the Jebusites and David did it through his men. And then you have the place of peace, which Solomon eventually built the temple there and for the function of the priesthood. And so they're together.
Without.
A. Without a king, you can't have you. It wasn't possible to have a place of peace and quiet where the the priest could function. So you have them both together there.
I I just appreciated that because, and I'll just make an application of that brethren, in our assemblies, you know, sometimes we have to fight for things.
We have to defend the truth of God and problems will be come in, in assemblies and it costs something. The enemy wants to take away from us truth and so you have to fight for it. And we may go through times of turmoil in the in assemblies or in our families. You can apply this in different ways, but when the word of God is upheld and the truth of God is upheld.
There becomes then that place where priesthood.
And worship and praise can be exercised freely.
Another function of increase is prayer.
And I think that's an important part, intercession, that's a priestly activity, and that's very important to encourage as well.
I appreciate Mr. Darby's translation of verse 10 in the King James. It says Thou hast made us and.
The focus of this chapter is not on us, it's on him and.
Consequently, in I shouldn't say consequently, but in the Darby translation has made them.
The redeemed unto our God. It's more passive. It is us, but it's not the emphasis or the thought pattern that's really the better one here. It is the fact that by redemption there have been made kings and priests who shall have the function of reigning over the earth.
Sometimes I like A1 brother's statement, sometimes, he says.
00:50:03
It's not about us. It's not about us, it's about him. And we do well sometimes.
Even in looking at the Rapture and many other subjects.
Unconsciously, very often at the bottom is what's in it for me, and we're looking at the blessing and benefit that we're going to have. But it's a higher note of worship and praise when we can completely forget ourselves and our role and our place in it all. And rather, if we have a place, we're fulfilling it by worship and service, which isn't thinking about self, but thinking about Him and his interest.
Lord Jesus, every day of his life, every waking moment of his life.
Was focused on the desire to do and please the will of his father, not himself.
Until the work was done and then in John he expressed his personal desires. But it it's the the note, the higher note of praise really comes when self is forgotten. And he is the one that is the focus of one's thoughts. And I think we have a little suggestion of that here. Even in the giving of himself and redemption.
In the record of it for us on the 1St breaking of bread, if you will, the night before his.
Work of redemption takes place. How does he refer to the body?
This is my body that I'm giving for you. No, he doesn't say that. He says this is my body, gives the passive form of it. This is my body which is given for you. That is, it was the will of God, and it was God behind it that that body be given as it was, and he recognizes it and takes that place of the servant.
Even in the use that God was making of his body, this is my blood.
Which is shed for you? Again, the passive form of it. And here we have the passive form as well. And it's well for us to enter more into the way the Lord Jesus looked at it, that we might look at it the same way.
We have two little words greater than expression for the joy of the 2nd forehead of joy of God, but it's not about us.
My brother from 25 years.
From his start.
OK, he takes pleasure.
His heart was filled with joy and he anticipated what was going to result from the suffering. We have an Isaiah, then we have that expression.
He shall see.
Village soul, that love is us, but it's him walking from his side, enjoying what the results are going to be from this side of it. Maybe we don't think about that falling enough. He's looking at us.
I was thinking too in.
The last chapter of Revelation.
Where the Lord Jesus in verse 20 he makes his wonderful promise. Surely I come quickly.
Amen. In response on the part of the bride, Even so.
Umm, Lord Jesus.
The word quickly is left out. It doesn't say Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus. And I'm wondering if that's.
Hearing out what you say.
You know, we'd like to see the rapture happening as soon as possible perhaps, but it could be a self esteem to be delivered from the trial of difficulties that we find ourselves in. But.
The Lord has a perfect timing and His work continues on. And of course, when the rapture takes place, the door of grace is going to be stupid Rose.
And so we need to be thinking about others too.
It's not like he knows that Waters could enjoy those jobs.
It's bold. You should see it from our side.
00:55:00
But First Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 13 through 18 say comfort one another with these words. Those are very real comforts for us. But if we look at his side of things.
Our precious Savior is waiting for the Father to tell Him to go come here.
And there is a joy from his side about all of that coming through it, all of the men and women that have been saved and all down through the years since Cross, up until that moment that shout comes. He's seen it all and we can enjoy looking at it from his side.
But we worship breaking the bread. We think about the benefits that we have. We have the emblems in front of us and show forth his death old. We enjoy so many things about that. And then we can get that song that says that we can share thoughts in common with the Father about the Lord Jesus. Well, that's a whole other thing. That's a higher thing we can do that we can see.
Who it was that did all of this, and that's astonishing when you start thinking about that it contemplating who this person is.
And you can be overwhelmed.
And enjoy the benefit it is to you.
You're recently saved, especially if you've been saved out of some horrible background, you're going to focus a whole lot on what the benefits are for you. And then slowly.
But as you learn, you're going to learn to appreciate this person.
Wow, this person.
You did that for me, but look who it is.
The Son of God.
If you have in First Thessalonians there where they turn to God from idols to wait for the Son of God from heaven.
Well, that was a real point for him.
That the Lord is anticipating that today.
Coming together, we can enjoy that thought. We can enjoy both. Well, I think that's really our strength is to be able to see things from His perspective, because it tells us that the joy of the Lord is your strength. And if we can appreciate the pleasure, the joy that He himself has in you and me as being His bride.
That's something that's going to give us strength.
Impetus.
So I think very good to speak about this, seeking to see things from Lord's perspective.
Comments were made about the multiple references to worthiness.
Make a comment along on that question.
In chapter 4, is worthiness is identified with. He's worthy because he's creator.
And chapter 5 and verse.
Who is worthy in verse two to open the seals? It then speaks of himself in his character.
And identifies him as a Jew in the seed of David. And he was the one and only one of those people.
Even apart from the question of redemption, he was the one who had the worthiness in his own person as a man.
To have something to say to any kind of judgment. The kings were raised up to be kings, but it was a work of God to raise them up, and they were prepared for it, but they didn't have the worthiness of the person that's identified in this chapter.
Lord Jesus Christ.
And when it brings up his worthiness in verse 9.
It's his worthiness as Redeemer that is in focus. He is worthy as Redeemer.
To do that which produces the worship and praise of his Saints in opening the seals. But he also has spoken of as worthy later in the chapter and it in verse 12 it says worthy is the Lamb and.
That was slain, but notice it doesn't, as it were, give the idea to do.
01:00:00
And that one is to receive and the worthiness of his person.
And his work is such that from God he is worthy to receive, and he will receive all that which God the Father would give to him.
In His place and doing the work of revelation He does it. But then He is worthy in His person to receive the supremacy of heaven and earth over all men. And so they're different ways in which His worthiness.
Is different aspects, you will of his worthiness that we recognize we don't want to be, as it were, a song of one note, but there are multiple notes, if you will, that we can sing that bring out different aspects of the wonder of the person that is only God can fully understand.
Fascinating to think about the myriads of angels around about the throne.
And the beasts and the elders. This is the 2nd circle.
And it says the number of them was 10,000 * 10,000. It's really 10 thousands times 10 thousands. It's myriads. Think of those creatures that are of a higher position in creation than the human creation, because the Lord Jesus, when he became a man, was made a little lower than the angels, the angelic.
Creation is superior.
In strength to the human creation and think of the.
Mighty angels.
And here they are.
They are sane. In verse 12 it's been mentioned. They don't sing, they say.
With a loud voice, Worthy is the lamb.
And then there's seven notes to their song. Power, riches, wisdom, strength, honors, glory, and blessing.
He was willing to forego all of that in his first appearing, wasn't he? He veiled it. He veiled his personal glory, his official glory. He couldn't veil his moral glory. But all of these things were hidden and and now they're going to be displayed.
Just enjoying the moral contrast with Moses in Acts 7.
Mentioned as a book, as a book, as the book of judgment coming from judge and to rule in Acts Chapter 7.
It says.
When he comes, Moses comes from his brethren. Verse 27.
But he that did his neighbor wrong, thrust him away, thrust Moses away, saying, Who made the ruler and a judge over us? Will thou kill me as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday? Then fled Moses at this saying.
In that particular moment came in his own wisdom. Later the Lord sent him after he learned his lessons, but the Lord Moses came in his own wisdom. They say who made thee a ruler and a judge and Moses pleased. And then our chapter, our chapter. What a contrast ending with forever and ever with the opposite of clean.
So the chapter ends with all creation, so it's expanding in its sphere, isn't it?
Well, I dressed up with Liberty for the next reading tomorrow to maybe take up something different. The Lord direct. I think we covered the chapter.
We're seeing #14 #14.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Wally Dear
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We'd like to welcome each and everyone to the Gospel meeting tonight.
And it appears to me that we have some nice new hymn sheets and you know, we all appreciate something new.
And a new hymn sheet is very nice, but infinitely.
Better than a new hymn sheet, His new life in Christ. And so I wonder here tonight.
Is there anybody who is?
In their sins. If you're in your sins, God sees you as dead.
Dead in trespasses and in sins.
It's an awful condition to be in before God.
But you know what? God desires that tonight.
You might receive life, and he that the Son has life.
He that hath not the Son of God has not life. It's just that simple. I ask you here tonight, do you have the Son? The Son you have Jesus?
It's all about him.
And tonight?
You can enjoy.
Life in the sun, life in Christ, new life, and you go out that door rejoicing, you go out a different way than when you came in, and you got a bright future before you now. None of us know how long our time is.
And if you're not saved here tonight.
You are on very shaky ground.
There's a serious matter because.
There's more than one reason why we ought to get saved now.
And I'll tell you one reason.
Is because before this meeting ends.
The Lord may descend from heaven with a shout.
The voice of the Archangel, the trump of God, the dead in Christ.
Are going to rise first dead physically but.
Spiritual life, they're going to rise.
And we which are alive and remain Speaking of the believers who have life in Christ, are going to be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air. Now that could happen before this meeting terminates. That's a serious thought because if that were the case, I'm going to let me ask you.
Would you be still sitting in your seat?
Would you still be?
Here in this hall, left behind with no further opportunity to be saved.
Too late.
Too late makes me shudder to think about the reality of such.
A possibility.
Now there's another reason.
What about?
The ticker inside.
You know.
Everyone of us, we've got a heart that beats. It pumps blood.
Through our body.
And it's amazing.
The heart, how it pumps blood day in and day out.
24 hours a day, seven days a week.
52 weeks in a year, year after year after year, the heart pumps blood.
However.
Your heart could stop.
Beating.
It could happen.
And heart attack, heart attack, nobody wants to talk about it, think about it, but it happens. And then time is gone. No further opportunity to be saved. If one's heart stops beating and that person is in their sins, no further opportunity to be saved. So you might say, well, I'm in good health.
00:05:11
That may be so.
But none of us know what a day is going to bring forth. You know what Scripture says. Boast not thyself, but tomorrow, for thou knowest not when a day may bring forth.
And with the world the way it is today.
We find that.
There is war and rumors of war.
And who knows when war might break out?
Closer to home than what we have ever experienced before war. It's a terrible thing, but you know, there are thousands.
Millions that have died in wars.
So it's so important that we realize time.
Is gliding swiftly by.
Death and judgment, they both draw nigh. There's something else to think about.
Every time you hear the way of salvation, you hear the gospel.
You hear about Jesus and you say no.
To him you reject the message of the gospel. Your heart is becoming harder and harder and harder.
And.
It's very difficult.
For older people to come to Christ.
Because they've rejected for so long.
And I must say, not to minimize the grace of God and his goodness of God, but people generally die the way they live, and if they live without Christ, that's how they die.
So these are things to think about and we're going to sing him here tonight.
In this.
Aisle Hemcita.
25 Let's see #25 life at best is very brief, like the falling of a leaf, like the binding of a sheep. Be in time.
#25.
Life at best. Despair like the falling.
Like the body of sins creates our.
And you're crying because you ain't gone.
I just like swiftly by the ground and just ripple from us in the arms of Jesus boy.
00:10:06
Oh my pray, you've got the call, and the Bradleys may cross, and your Christmas so belong.
In my heart.
I love once a day, that's called Heal me and I am.
And we can send you longer way. You may find no open game. And you're right, we don't feel like in the dark.
Need for the party voice. Break the Lord. Your house is ours. Land of heaven and glory to restore.
We're going to sing another hymn and this is about the bridegroom coming.
#22 The heavenly Bridegroom soon will come.
To claim his pride and take her home to dwell with him on high. You know, these hymns, they put the truth of Scripture so wonderfully. And I'm thankful for the hymn book that we have this little flock hymn book. And this is a.
Echoes of Grace Gospel hymn sheet is taken out of a book called the Echoes of Grace Hymn Book. These hymns are But you know these hymns are based on the word of God and we can learn.
The truth of God, I do believe from the hymns that we sing. And so it tells us here, the bridegrooms coming, who's that? That's Jesus and it's going to claim his pride. Who said are you part of the bride of Christ? Are you everybody that has put their faith in the Lord Jesus is part of the bride of Christ.
And the bridegroom is looking forward.
To that day when we're going to be united with him.
As his pride, but if you're not part of the bride.
You're going to be left behind when the bridegroom comes, so let's sing this number 22, the heavenly Bridegroom.
The Libra room, so welcome to play.
Your silence here I have you shrimp. Your glasses. We're at it. You're at your last place in the way for the breakthroughs. God.
Now we're going to turn.
To the Bible.
The word of God.
This book.
Has withstood the test of time.
This book.
Is with us today.
And it lives and it bides forever.
What a wonderful book the Bible is. We ought to treasure it.
I don't think I value the Bible enough. The Bible, the Word of God, is God's message of salvation. It's a message of love that's come down from above.
And this message.
Is an invitation.
To you and to me to come to Jesus and receive him as.
You're safe.
I remember reading about a little girl.
And she wanted a Bible.
And she wanted this Bible so very much.
And you know, her mother used to give her money to buy a lunch.
At school.
Well, one day she came home.
And she had a Bible and her mother said, where did you get that Bible?
She said I bought it, you bought it.
The mother had never given her money for a Bible, but you know what?
Rather than spending money on milk at school.
She saved up her milk money and she bought a Bible.
I'm not suggesting that we should drink milk. That's good. It's healthy.
But you know, there is the sincere milk of the Word too, and the Word of God.
Is so important. This is a girl.
I just find the faith of a child is so wonderful. We need to learn from the children.
You know the Lord Jesus, he used children as object lessons. And if you turn to Matthew.
He was chapter 18 you find out how much God.
Values the child, even a little child and you know the Lord Jesus could say except you be converted and become as little children that cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven. And so this little girl, she now had her Bible and I believe she continued to buy milk at school, but she was so happy.
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And you know, the Bible is written for children too, as well As for older people.
And there's so wonderful stories in the Bible.
Stories that will indeed last for eternity. Now tonight I was thinking to begin by turning to a verse is found in.
Romans. Romans, chapter one.
And.
It tells us here about the gospel of Christosis.
In Romans one and verse 16.
And this is the apostle Paul.
He says For I am not ashamed.
Of the gospel of Christ.
For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew 1St and also.
Through the Greek.
Paul, he found out.
That the Gospel of Christ. It works. It has transforming power.
And we see it in the life of the Apostle Paul. You know he was.
On the road to Damascus, he was breathing out, threatening.
In slaughter against Christians.
Against the believers and he would bind up Christians and take them to.
Jail to prison.
And he was so enraged.
At the gospel of Christ.
Being proclaimed.
His name is Saul at the time, but I think we know the story.
But you know what?
That man, he was on the road to Damascus, but he was also on the road to hell, and he didn't realize it until there was a light.
From heaven it struck him down, and he heard a voice.
And the boy said.
So so.
Why persecutest thou me?
It says, Who art thou, Lord?
He never met Jesus before, but now he meets.
The Lord Jesus and the next question. Lord.
What would you have me to do now? He was 100%.
Against Christ.
But now there's a change.
And instead of being against him.
He's 100% for Christ.
What makes the difference in his life?
You know Paul.
His name was changed.
You're just reading about how he wrote to the Corinthians.
And he speaks about how it was with.
Much anguish.
And with tears.
Yet he wrote a letter. It wasn't a letter of commendation, but it was a letter of correction to the Corinthians.
But.
He was concerned for their welfare.
And to see the change in the Apostle Paul from what he was.
The what he became. You have to acknowledge the truth of this verse.
That the Gospel of Christ as it tells us here.
Is the power of God unto salvation.
Understand that word power in the Greek is dunamis.
A word that means, well, I believe the word dynamite has been derived for that word, the power of God, the dynamite of God. And we see it in the life of the apostle Paul, but he had such a love and concern.
00:25:14
For the Lord's people.
And he was concerned, of course, in writing to the Corinthians that he might alienate them. But I believe they realized that Paul was.
Speaking the truth. He was writing the truth and they acknowledged they were wrong. There was repentance.
And for what? Joy is brought to the heart of the apostle Paul, but in another place I believe he speaks about being amongst them.
Saints as a nurse, A nurse that nurses their children.
It doesn't sound like he's breathing out, threatening and slaughter.
Anymore.
It's the gospel of Christ.
That's made the difference.
And there's so many cases that we could refer to.
And you know, it wasn't too long ago.
I came across the story of.
Mitsu Fuchida.
Is there anybody in this hall?
Never heard of Mitsuo Fuchida?
OK, I see. Steve. Anybody else?
All right, well, I guess there'll be a new story, but it's a true story.
And I must say, there's a lot of detail.
And I am concerned that I might not get the story altogether right, and perhaps you could correct me.
Later.
But here's the point.
Matsuo Fuchida.
Was perhaps the finest aviator in the Japanese Imperial Air Force, and he was the one that was chosen.
To lead.
The air attack.
On Pearl Harbor.
Back in December 7th, it was 1941.
And you know he was.
Elated at the thought that he was going to be able to lead this attack and he was going to drop bombs with his squadrons.
On Pearl Harbor. And that's exactly what happened. You know, he took off.
After shooting a green flare.
Into the air, indicating it was time for the first wave of aircraft.
To move out.
And over the harbor they went, and they dropped bombs. Bombs.
And you know.
It's interesting, it happened on a Sunday morning on a boards in the morning and I remember talking to Bill.
Roche.
And perhaps his brother Tom, too. But Bill said he and his family.
It seems to me they were.
Intending to go to meeting out there in Hawaii, but.
They saw what was happening and they just stood there and watched the bombs dropping.
And then another wave of enemy aircraft.
Wave after wave, there was 353 aircraft involved in that attack and over 2400.
Americans.
Were killed.
Or drowned.
And battleships. We went down.
But to cheated.
He wanted to.
Just make a wide circle and come back.
And do it again.
Do it again but apparently it's superior. Called him off. It was supposed to be more of a hit and run.
Attack and so.
They did their damage and back to Japan as he went. Well, the next day the United States declared war on Japan.
00:30:12
Matsuo Fujita.
Continued.
Service in the Air Force.
And was involved in the attack on Midway, but suddenly.
He had a bad pain in his abdomen and it didn't go away, it just got worse and worse.
And the doctor on board.
You got appendicitis, acute appendicitis. You got. You got.
To perform surgery immediately.
And so it was.
And so he was consigned to sending out the attack. But, you know.
In that particular battle.
Japan didn't farewell.
And it was at least that I believe 4 aircraft carriers that.
They went to the bottom.
And but Puccia, his life was spared and.
He was to take part in another attack on another island, I believe it was Guam, and this time it was to be a suicide attack.
And he would have been involved in a suicide mission, but apparently he was called off.
And he returned to Japan.
And you know.
He was to be in Hiroshima.
And he went to Hiroshima.
And while he was in Hiroshima.
He was directed to another location for an intelligence.
Activity of some sort and the day after he left Hiroshima.
You know what happened.
Atomic bomb, Trout and Hiroshima.
But his life was spared.
However, he was appointed with another group to return to Hiroshima.
I don't know if it was the next day or it was very shortly after.
And.
Uchida was to assess the damage.
That had been done in Hiroshima.
Well.
The party assessed the damage.
There was not one individual that survived.
Except for.
Everybody else was poisoned by that toxic radioactivity.
Fuchsia.
He thought to himself.
What is going on in my life?
My.
Life, it doesn't have any taste to it.
It doesn't have any meaning.
But here I've had so many.
Narrow escapes.
And I'm still here. And what is this all about?
Well, it wasn't long after.
That this man, he came in contact.
With one of his flight engineers who he thought had been killed at Midway, he was at least missing in action and he never expected to see again. But he crossed paths with his old flight engineer, and his flight engineer had been a prisoner of war in the American prison camp. Well.
Fujita was asking about the conditions.
In the prison camp.
And he knew what they were like in the Japanese camp, and he didn't think that they would be any better in the American camp. But you know what his flight engineer told him, He said.
And his name is something Kanagasaki.
00:35:00
Some of these names I find it hard to pronounce, but.
Man, said the Fujita. I want to tell you something. I was shown kindness.
In this camp, because there was a girl there and her name was Peggy Kogel, and she was serving the prisoners and she was showing kindness to us. And the fact is that her parents had been killed in the Philippines by the Japanese and there she was.
Helping the Japanese prisoners of war while this really sparked.
Cheetahs interest in Christianity.
And a short time later, he came across a tract.
Was a gospel tract written by a man by the name of De Shazer and Deshazer he was.
I believe present at the attack at Pearl Harbor. He was in a mess hall.
And the Shazer is enraged at what had taken place.
This terrible bombing, it was unprovoked, it was senseless.
And the Shazer was determined to retaliate.
Well.
There was a raid on Tokyo, it was called the Doolittle raid and I'm not sure how.
Extensive.
A attack it was, but anyway, the seizure, he was part of that attack and he had opportunity to drop bombs on Tokyo.
But is aircraft.
I believe it was shot down. Anyway, it came down and.
The shazer found himself in a Japanese prisoner.
Japanese prisoner camp.
But you know the Caesar, he came to Christ in the camp. I think he got hold of a Bible and you begin to read the Bible and he got saved and he wrote this gospel tract.
I was a Japanese prisoner.
And Fujita got hold of this track and he read it.
And preceded he said I need a Bible. And so he.
Found a Bible and began to read the Bible and Fuchida.
In Christ.
We got saved.
And it was a complete transformation in his life.
And he went from bombs.
To the Biden.
And he became a missionary.
And he preached the gospel all across the United States.
Of America.
It was such a.
Wonderful story of the grace of God reaching out.
To men like this. To Chaser. He went to Japan as a missionary at Fujita. Comes to the United States.
As a missionary and he did considerable gospel work. But I thought of this first as I thought of Fujita. The gospel of Christ is the power of God and the salvation.
To everyone that believes now, there are so many.
Stories that we could refer to.
I don't think there's anything better though than.
The stories in the Bible.
To learn about.
The transforming power of Jesus.
And with that in mind, I'd like to turn over here to.
To Mark's Gospel Mark's Gospel chapter.
5.
Mark chapter 5.
And we have this recorded in Luke's gospel as well.
But it says here in verse one Mark chapter 5. And they came over unto the other side of the sea.
00:40:09
Into the country of the Gadarenes, and when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man.
One man.
Comes to meet Jesus.
Jesus went this place to meet one man.
Now previous chapter. The first verse of the previous chapter.
It says, There was gathered unto him, unto Jesus a great.
Multitude.
A great multitude.
And.
So that he entered into a ship, sat in the sea, and a whole multitude was by the sea on the land. So we see the Lord Jesus reached out to the multitudes, but he also reached out to the individual.
And I wonder here tonight.
Is there one person?
That the Lord Jesus is reaching out to you and you feel in your soul.
That the Lord sees us, wants you, and he's saying to you, come.
Unto me, and you're resisting, you know, to resist.
Can be fatal.
And if we cross that fatal line?
Outside of Christ.
It's going to be forever too late.
And the destiny of those.
Who cross that fatal line outside of Christ?
Is hell.
A lake of fire.
And hell is a reality.
People like to.
Reason away.
The thought of hell.
But I believe that the Lord Jesus he spoke more about.
Hell about the Lake of Fire, about that.
Place that burns with fire and brimstone. He spoke more about that than he did about heaven. In order to warn you and I, you and me.
We need salvation and we need it now.
Well, we see here this man, he comes out.
To meet Jesus.
And where did he come from?
It says here.
He came out of.
The tombs you imagine out of the tombs. What does that mean? Well, I know what is Terry. A hole is dug to put a dead person into that hole. And a hole might be 6 feet deep.
It might be deeper, it might be more shallow, but does this mean that this man.
He went into the hall and he spent time in an open grave.
It says here that he met him out of the tombs. Maybe it just means.
Met him out of the cemetery, but notice what it says next in verse 3.
Well, it says in verse two, he had an unclean spirit. He had his dwelling among the tombs and no man could bind him. No, not with change. This man was in absolute terror. People didn't want to be around him. They wanted to tie him up.
Chain them up.
Fetters, I understand, have more to do with the chaining of the feet.
But this man tells us here.
He that had been often bound with fetters.
And chains. Verse four. The chains had been plucked asunder by him.
And the feathers broken in pieces. Neither could any man.
Tame him.
Now this, I do believe, brings before us the power of Satan.
We've been speaking about the power.
Of God. But the power of Satan, we had reference to it today, how that man today in his world, he tries to bind Satan.
00:45:13
But it's useless.
He's no match for Satan.
No, this man he plucked asunder.
The fetters and the chains.
And no man could you seem to be a hopeless case.
And it tells us over in Luke's gospel that he wear no clothes.
Now what else does it tell us here about this man, verse five. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself.
With stones so.
All day long he was on a move up into the mountains, down into the cemetery.
This man had a big problem.
He was.
Captive to Satan.
And.
Cutting himself with stones, I take it he would be bleeding and he was crying out. I don't know exactly what he would be crying out.
But what a frightful state to be in.
But it says here in verse six. But when he saw Jesus so far off, he ran and worshipped him, and cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of the most High God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying.
My name is Legion, for we are many. And he besought him.
Much that he would not send them away out of the country. In other words, there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, yet we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave, and the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea. There were about 2000.
And were choked in the sea. And they that tread the swine fled, Told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done.
And this is the verse, verse 15.
That I find so remarkable.
It says And they come to Jesus and they see him that was possessed with the devil and had the Legion sitting in clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And so here we see this man that was continually on the move. Where is he now? He's sitting.
He's at rest. Where is he at rest? He's at the feet of Jesus.
I believe they're at the feet of Jesus. He wanted to hear what Jesus to say to him.
There was a change in his life, it tells us here.
He was clothed.
And in his right mind.
What a contrast to what we read about in the first part of this story.
And what's the difference here?
What was the transformation power? Is the power of Christ is the power of God.
You know Satan is no match.
For God.
Through the power of the Lord is greater than the power of Satan.
And of course we learn in Hebrews chapter 2 That it was through death.
That the Lord Jesus.
He vanquished.
Or he annulled the power of Satan was through death, he destroyed him who had the power of death. And it's not that he actually destroyed him, because we know Satan.
Is alive, he's on a move. Satan is real, but his power has been annulled because Jesus.
00:50:02
Went into his stronghold. He went into death. But now we know Jesus. He rose again from the dead. Yes, death cannot keep its prey. He tore the bars away. Up from the grave he arose.
Of Victor.
Or the dark domain.
And he lives.
And he's coming again. But he vanquished the power of Satan.
Through his death at the Cross.
And his resurrection now what else happened at the cross we find.
That the Lord Jesus He bore in his own body our sins.
He was made sin.
He who knew no sin, and as he contemplated what it would be to be made sin, He was the holy, spotless Lamb of God in the Garden of Gethsemane. He sweat, it tells us, as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. He was under such pressure as He anticipated.
Not only.
Being abused and brutalized by wicked men, but to be made sin and then to exhaust.
The fierce anger, the wrath of a thrice holy God during those hours of darkness.
He sweat great drops of blood falling down to the ground, But he was here in this world to do the Father's will, and he could say not my will, but thine be done. And so he went there to Calvary, and there he laid down his life. He suffered.
The jest for the unjust in order to bring us to God.
But that wasn't all.
After he expired.
We know a soldier with his spear.
He broke the legs of the first thief crucified with Jesus. He goes around, breaks the legs of the second thief that was crucified with Jesus. In the one case that soldier.
Sent one thief I believe to hell, but the other thief went to paradise.
What made the difference? Jesus. He put his faith in the Lord Jesus. He referred to him as Lord. Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom. By seeing that he acknowledged that Jesus was going to have a Kingdom. How is he going to have a Kingdom if he's going to die?
On that center cross, that thief knew that Jesus would rise again. He had faith in the resurrection of Jesus, and that's critical to salvation.
If there's anybody here tonight that doesn't believe that Jesus lives, that he's you believe that he died and that he was buried. But if that's all you believe, you're in your sins and you're on the broad Rd. leading to destruction, you know it tells us later in Romans.
Romans 10 verse nine. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth.
Jesus is Lord and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved.
That's exactly what that one thief did. He called Jesus Lord. He believed he's going to raise.
Rise from the dead.
But you know, when you come to Jesus, he sees he's already dead, He takes the Spirit and he buries the spearhead into the side of the Lord Jesus. And immediately it tells us forthwith, that means immediately came to our blood and water. And I just love that word immediately because it tells me about the heart of God.
The goodness of God, who desires the blessing of the Sinner, but it can only be by way of the blood.
Without shedding of blood, there's no remission, and so Jesus.
The Lamb of God, he shed his blood.
By which we are cleansed from sin.
All sin were brought near. We can enjoy a relationship.
Were justified, but it's all because of what Jesus did at the cross.
Of Calvary so this.
Man, you know, he wanted to remain with the Lord Jesus, but Jesus said to him.
00:55:02
In verse 19, Go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord had done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And he departed and began to publish in the capitalist how great things Jesus had done for him.
Eagle Minh.
Did Marvel there was a man that was willing to do?
But his savior told him to do.
This verse.
Romans 1/16.
How to say it one more time?
116 Book of Romans, for I am not ashamed.
Of the gospel of Christ, you know over in that.
The Gospels, the Lord has to say, if anybody is ashamed of me.
Him, he's my father going to be ashamed of that. The coming of the son of man. I forget the exact wording, but the fact is.
I trust that there's nobody here tonight that would be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ because it doesn't end well for such an individual. The Gospel of Christ is a power of God unto salvation through everyone that believeth. So the Jew 1St and also to the Greek.
Jeanette Marvelous to the Jew first. They were the ones that spearheaded.
The opposition to Christ, and yet it's to them the gospel is first preached.
It's the grace of God, dear ones.
It's favor that God shows that's not deserved, and that's why mankind today fights against grace. It's not natural to Him.
Men today, they feel.
That you need to deserve what you get, but the grace of God is.
Unmerited favor, I see our time is up.
More could be said, of course. I was thinking about the Philippine jailer. You know, there was an earthquake in the jail.
The foundations were shaking. The doors were flew open.
But I want to tell you something. There was an earthquake not only in the jail.
There was an earthquake in the heart and soul.
Of that jailer.
It's about ready to kill himself and.
From the inner prison years, do they self no harm? We're still here.
And he springs in. What an active word he just sprang into the prison, and without hesitation. Sir, what must I do to be saved?
There's a man that was shaking. The foundations of the prison were shaking, the doors were shaking.
The man's soul was shaking.
He was in earnest and without hesitation.
Saul, I should say Paul and Silas.
Believe and avoid Jesus Christ, then thou shalt be saved in thy house.
What happens? The prisoner believes, he goes into the house, he brings Paul and Silas in there. Now he's cleaning their wounds. He's treating them very gently. I'm sure he was a hybrid man without a cruel man dealing with prisoners. What made the difference? The gospel of Christ is the power of God, the dynamite of God. So dear. Once tonight. This ought to.
I know it's not perhaps the right word, but.
To me, it's exhilarating.
To think of what God can do and what he wants to do. And so here tonight you have opportunity, if you're still in your sins, to experience the power of God through accepting the gospel of Christ. And you'll become a new creature in Christ. He will.
Forgive your sins, He will save your soul.
He will make you whole.
That's what he wants to do, and that's what he can do. Don't trifle with salvation.
Don't be the one who's crying out.
Open, Lord, open. And the Lord has to say, I never knew you. You had opportunity to come to Christ, to be saved. The door is shut and you'll be there on the outside of that door.
01:00:10
Oh, it's too late, too late.
So it's only believing. That's all it takes. Simple faith. I see people on these chairs here tonight. You're resting your whole weight on your chair. You don't maybe think about it, but that chair is supporting you and you're putting your confidence in the chair. You're supporting you.
When it comes to salvation, let me ask you.
What are you resting on?
What is your support?
Is it Christ and the work he accomplished at the cross of Calvary, or is it something you think you can do?
It's faith believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Endow.
Shall be saved.
Saved for eternity.
And you should go out of that door rejoicing.
Knowing that all is well for time and eternity.
That you're part of God's family.
You're part of the bride of Christ, you have a relationship and there's so much more that could be said, but our time has.
Disappeared.
The Best Gift
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.
Odoran, Justice of love and see why that snow.
No water outside, no nothing but the body of Jesus.
Anywhere on the sheet, but I might shorten it so that others get a chance who would like to have the next one go ahead.
#11.
OK, we'll sing the first and last on that one too #11.
That was one of my two favorites when I was the age of those of you here. Another one.
Who else has one they'd like to sing?
Who else has one you'd like your mom to give out for you?
I suspect. OK, that's good number two, OK #2 let's sing #2.
00:05:53
Hey, good. We have time for one, maybe two more who would like. OK, go ahead.
#16 and then Jayden, you can have the last 1 #16.
Someone could start that.
OK. And for the last 135 #35, we'll sing the first and last on that one as well.
Let's ask the Lord Jesus for his help. Dear Lord Jesus, we do just ask that maybe one thing would stick in all of our hearts as we.
Hear verses from your word said and as we listen carefully to their message, we just ask it nine anymore. Jesus. Amen. OK, nobody is required to say the verse this morning, but anyone?
00:10:04
That's in the front couple rows that would like to, I'd love to have you say the verse. And if you don't want me to turn the microphone on for you, that's OK. We'll start with you, Abigail, Go ahead.
The Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world's first John 414 Very good. Thank you.
OK, who else? All right, we'll go here and then I'll just come down the row there. The Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world first. John 4/14. Thank you. Good. OK.
Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world First John 4/14.
The Lord the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world first shone 414 Good. The presence of the Son to be the Savior of the world first John 414 good. Thank you.
The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world first, John 414. The Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world first. John 4/14 thank you. The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the word world first John 4/14 Thank you very good.
Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world First John 4/14.
It wasn't something to be the savior of the world.
First, John.
444, yeah, 414 That's good. Thank you.
OK, who all am I missing? Would you like to see him? OK, anyone else over here? Don't want to miss anyone. It fathers into the sun to be the savior of the world First round 414. The Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world first on 4/14. Good. Very good.
And you guys all right follow something sought to be the savior of the world first on 4/14. Very good.
We have seen and do testify that the Father sent us unto be the Savior of the world first on 4/14.
Sin do testified the 1St and son to be serial 4/14. Thank you.
Anybody else I missed?
Oh good.
To be the savior of the world.
First John. First, first, John.
4/4/14 Thank you. Good job. OK.
This verse is really, really full. And you know, I kind of like the, I kind of like the reference first John 444 because in a way this verse just kind of goes and goes and goes. It's just so special.
And I can only share with you just a couple little things out of it. So I want to talk about just a couple little things out of the verse.
And I'm going to use something to illustrate it. And I want to talk, first of all about gifts. And the Lord Jesus Christ is in one way God's biggest gift. The best way that he could show you that he loves you is by sending a son. God couldn't come up with any better way of showing you that He loves you. How do you show somebody else that you love him? There's lots of ways. We're going to pick just one. But what's a way that you show somebody else you love them? Go ahead, have a go.
Yeah, give them food, give them a hug. How about one more thing? One more way? Go ahead. You can just call it out.
What's one way?
We'll start with you. We'll do a couple of them.
Let him into your house. That's a great way. How about one more?
Write them a letter. There's a lot of ways, and God has done all of these things. He wants us in his house. He's written us a huge and wonderful letter, and He's given us something, and I'm going to illustrate that giving us part. And I have something here. I found it impossible to come up with something that worked for everybody. So after going through a whole bunch of them, you're still going to have to ask your mom. I'll give you one of these when we're done, but what is this?
I really like these, so if you don't I'm sorry.
And sometimes I guess these get popped and then you've got a little brother or sister, so you're going to have to ask your mom if it's OK to.
Have one of these. Well, what is this? This is a blue. Of course it's a balloon, and you can do all kinds of wonderful things with a balloon. That's why I like it. I'm having a hard time tying it. Maybe I'll just hand this to somebody else next time. How many of you like playing with balloons? You don't have to. It's okay. All right. I like playing with balloons. I like to play volleyball with balloons. I like to rub them on my hair and stick them to the ceiling. It's kind of a it's not an expensive gift.
00:15:27
But it's kind of a fun gift. I won't plan on popping it. That's OK. But there's all kinds of wonderful things you can do with the balloon. And I want to illustrate something about gifts. Is this a fun gift to get? Right? Not very expensive. It'll pop and you won't cry, probably. But I want to illustrate something. There's different sizes of gifts, right?
So I'm going to illustrate. We're going to pretend. I know these are different colors and you might like small better than big or something like that. We're going to pretend that bigger is better with balloons.
So if I can get this tightened down, make this one bigger, this is a bigger kind of balloon and bigger is better.
We'll pretend that for this kind of gift. So we'll pretend this is a better kind of gift, and hopefully I won't break it there for you, Abigail. I'll try not to. There we go. All right. Now, how many of you would like a little gift or a bigger gift?
How many of you want the bigger gift?
Oh wow, just about all of you want the bigger gift. OK, I have lots of them and I think I have the amount of time. So I'm going to give you both. I'll give you the big and the little and you can trade colors later. I know you might like that, but I'll give you both gifts and I'll explain why in just a minute. You get both gifts and.
You're going to get a chance to do something with them later.
So you get both. There you go. I don't know what colors are going to come out, so you can trade later if you prefer a different color. But you get one big and one small. One's the big gift, one's a little gift and.
Let's see, there you go.
If I run out, I have more.
I think I have enough for all of you in my pocket already.
There you go.
All right, a big and a little gift. Now, while we're doing this, I want you to think about the biggest gift you have ever received. The biggest gift you've ever received. I can't get all of your answers, but I would like to hear a couple of them. And then I'm going to tell you I had to think and think and think about it. I thought of some nice gifts I've received, but I finally thought of other than the Lord Jesus.
Because that's the biggest gift of all. That's what we're talking about and the salvation it gives. And I'm talking about something you've been given in your life time. OK, now what's the biggest gift you've ever received that you can remember? The Lord Jesus is the biggest gift. That's what we're talking about and illustrating. But I'm just wondering something maybe your mom or dad or friend gave to you. OK, we'll just take a couple examples. OK, we'll start with you.
A hug. A hug. That's a wonderful one. Dirt bike. A dirt bike. That would be Lighthouse. Wow.
OK, maybe one or two more. All right.
Yeah, that's a wonderful gift. Maybe one more, OK.
A house. A house? Wow, that's pretty nice.
OK, I thought about it and I thought about a gift somebody gave me that I still have at home and it's gotten kind of dirty, but it was very special to them. They gave me, and this is going to be not the biggest one, was one of the ones I thought of. They gave me a pair of boots and now they're all dirty.
And the shoelaces, I've already had to replace the shoelaces on them, but those are nice boots. They're a good, solid, strong pair of boots, and I'm still wearing them. They're all scuffed up. Why do you think that gift was special?
If you have any idea, I like the boots, but what made it special? Yeah.
Because they gave it to me, you know, I knew that it was something special for them and they gave it to me because they loved me. And when I looked at those boots, I thought those are nice and I'm going to wear them. But what was more special was it was theirs and it was special to them and it was the best thing they could think of to give me. But there was something even better.
00:20:07
There was something even better, and I'm going to let you guess this one happened in.
Long before any of you were born.
In 1989? Wow, that's like ancient history, isn't it? That happened in 1989. I got the best gift that I could think of of this kind. Apart from what we're going to see again in the God's Word, who can guess what that might be?
Way back in 1989.
Can you guess, Abigail?
The Lord, you know, thankfully I got to know the Lord Jesus as my Savior, and I think it was 1974, so even farther back than that. And that is the best gift. That is the best one. But I'm talking about gifts we get in this life.
And one more guess.
All right, go ahead, Dad.
Yeah, my wife said that she wanted to spend her whole life with me. That sounds pretty good, right? This balloon, even if you don't pop it, I filled one up last night just to make sure I could use this thing. And this morning it was about half this size because it leaks a little bit of air and it just won't last. Even if you don't pop it, it won't last that long.
It only lasts a little while, but the gift that God gives is a gift the Lord Jesus the Father sent the Son. How long do you think the Father and the Son were enjoying each other? For Like 100 years.
Longer. I'll come to you in just a minute, Abigail. How about a couple other ideas? You can just call it out. You don't have to raise your hand. Forever. That's right. Is that what you're going to say, Abigail? Yeah. Forever. Oh, that it? I don't know what forever is. And I don't think there's anybody else in this room that knows what forever is. I've tried and tried and tried to think about how to describe forever, and it's just forever.
And then we forget about it. But you know what?
The Lord Jesus, God the Father, and God the Son forever enjoyed each other.
Everything was absolutely perfect and when God wanted to show you that He loved you, He sent.
His only son. So you have in your hands two balloons, two of them. And you're welcome to use this later to blow them up if your parents let you, but.
You've got two of them now, how many of you are ready to give a better one to somebody else?
Wow, that's good. You know this verse, when you find it and you read the verses around it in the Bible, it's all about loving one another. And God is then saying to you, I want to show you how I love you because that's the kind of love you have for one another. Did I give you my best balloon?
You're right, I didn't. I saved that one because I didn't have enough of them.
Yeah, that's the problem for me. You know, I, I would like to give you my big balloon, but I don't have enough to give all of you. I didn't find these until after I found all the other ones. But if I can get this one to seal well enough, I'll pump it up and you can see this is my best balloon and it's just so big and I can't even blow it up properly here.
It's about, I think, twice as big as your bigger balloon, and you'll have to take my word for it because I'm not going to puff on it here. I had a great big one, and I have two more, actually. See how big it is? That was my best balloon. Why didn't I give it to you?
Go ahead.
Yeah, I didn't have enough for you. I didn't have enough so that all of you could have one. So I saved it and one of you can have it. I'm not sure who.
We'll see.
But.
What I want you to know is the Father sent the Son to be. What's the rest of that verse? Go ahead. The Savior of the world. Is there enough of the Lord Jesus for all of you? Absolutely. There's enough of the Lord Jesus for everybody in this room. There's enough of the Lord Jesus for anyone who wants to trust him as their Savior. The Father sent his best.
For everybody. And then he gives us a life like his that says I want to give the best of what I have.
00:25:07
To my brothers and it says earlier I'll read you the verse and then maybe.
OK, I'm going to. Maybe this is a way to that you could earn. I can't give. Maybe you could earn the biggest balloon. I'm going to start the verse and anyone who can finish it, that'll be one way I could give away my biggest balloon.
OK, it says right here, just a couple verses before it says, beloved, if God so loved us, we ought. Who can finish that one for me?
Those are pretty close. I saw a hand down here. We'll see if we can get it exactly right. There we go. To love one another, but also to love one another so you can have my biggest one. Sadly, I don't have enough. I'm not enough to give everybody the best, but God gave the best for you. Let's sing one more song and then we'll pray.
OK, someone who didn't get a chance earlier.
Oh dear, we've got two. Maybe it'll be the same 1 Rosemary, Do you know what? What song?
OK, yeah, that's big. And you had the song you wanted to give out.
47 We'll finish with #47 We'll sing the first and last on that too.
God's Righteousness
Address—Don 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.
Let's begin.
The hour before us by singing together.
#200 and 62160 Lord Jesus, come and take thy rightful place as Son of man of all the theme, Come Lord Jesus to reign or all supreme.
Lord Jesus, come #260.
And we need somebody to start it.
Take my rightful place.
As Son of Man, as full of him.
Oh Lord, terrain or?
Also supreme.
Lord Jesus, come.
Lord Jesus, come.
The Man of Sorrows once.
A man.
Patience waiting now.
So ever thou.
Come, Savior, come.
Where Jesus come.
From with life.
Crucified, the Lamb was swaying.
To wash away sins.
Grandson's name.
Lord Jesus, come.
Lord Jesus.
Come and take my father's gift.
The people.
By thy cross made thy.
Trophy.
Of my love divine.
Lord.
Jesus.
Come.
Lord Jesus, come.
That lost in the our souls.
May bow and worship.
And adore.
And thy blast from the thy blast presence.
Evermore.
Lord Jesus, come.
Lord Jesus, come.
And let thy glory shine.
That quickly.
These change bodies.
May each one reflect?
A living rain.
Lord Jesus, come.
And every knee bow down.
And every.
Tongue.
They confess.
00:05:02
The Lord of all come forth to bless.
Lord Jesus, come.
Spirit.
And the bride.
With longing voice say come.
Yeah, Lord.
Is early, I will quickly come.
Blaine saw Lord come.
Turn with me to Luke's Gospel Chapter 23.
Thank you.
Luke's Gospel.
Chapter 23.
And verse 33.
And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary.
There they crucified him.
And then down to verse 44.
And then when it was about the 6th hour, there was darkness over all the land until the 9th hour.
And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.
And when Jesus had cried, with a loud voice he said, Father.
Into thy hands I commend my spirit.
And having said thus.
He gave up the ghost.
Now turn with me back to Deuteronomy chapter 21.
Deuteronomy chapter 21, the verses we're going to read.
Give us one view of what we've just read in Luke's gospel.
It's a very, very serious view.
And perhaps the center of what's in my heart comes from what we're going to read in these 4 verses.
Deuteronomy chapter 21.
And verse 22.
And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death?
Then he shall be put to death, and thou shalt hang him on a tree.
His body shall not remain all night upon the tree.
But thou shalt in any wise bury him that day.
For he that is hanged.
Is a curse.
Of God.
That thy hand be not thy land, be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Or inheritance.
I want you to try to picture as I do.
The sight that you just read, we read together in Luke's gospel.
Of a man.
In God's land.
Who has just been put to death?
Hanging on a tree. The cross.
That man hangs there, cursed.
As stated under the law.
That man hangs there dead.
Because it had been judged.
00:10:03
That he should die.
Because he had committed a sin worthy of death.
That man was to be taken down.
From that tree.
Before sundown or before 6:00 PM.
That day.
So that the land.
Would have been purged.
And not be defiled.
What did God look upon that and see?
What were the thoughts of God?
As he observed.
What we've just described.
It says if a man.
Have committed a sin worthy of death.
What was that sin?
That he was being put on that cross for.
He was quizzed in the courtroom.
He was examined.
And he was asked the question by the high priest.
Art thou the Son of God?
And he answers. I am.
The judge called that blasphemy.
And that was a sin worthy of death.
Let him be crucified.
And so it was.
He was taken out.
And put to death.
We have our perspective of things.
The real question is.
What was God's perspective?
As he looks upon earth that you and I are sitting on at this moment.
He looks at the whole system of mankind and all the people that were gathered together this day in that land and throughout His creation.
And he looks upon him, hanging dead.
Cursed.
As hanging on a tree.
It's a solemn thing, isn't it?
It's a painful thing to describe it.
It's a serious issue.
With God.
What was the righteousness of the matter?
Turn with me.
To Luke's gospel again.
Chapter 22 again.
MMM.
Luke's Gospel, chapter 22.
And verse one. Now the feast of the unleavened Bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover.
And the chief priests and scribes thought how they might kill him.
And then?
Also, we'll read verse chapter 23.
And verse one.
And the whole multitude of them arose and led him unto Pilate.
And they began to accuse him, saying we found this fellow perverting the nation.
And forbidding to give tribute to Caesar.
Saying that he himself is Christ a king.
Verse 12 And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together.
For before they had been at enmity between themselves.
00:15:05
These verses that we have read present to us the two main.
Visible.
Sets of people.
That were responsible for what took place that day.
The leaders of the Jewish people.
Who had presented to them this man as their king?
And had said no, we will not have him.
And further, for claiming to be Son of God, we must put him to death.
And so we have on the one side, if you will.
The.
Leaders of the land.
The other side, because the land had been conquered by the Gentile powers, and the Gentile power in charge over them at that time was the Romans. And so we have Pilate and Herod, representatives of the Roman Empire, who also were.
There in their responsibility.
Over what took place.
That day.
1/3 Very important.
Person.
That wasn't visible.
But had a serious role in what took place that day was Satan.
And so we have the Jew, the Gentile, and Satan.
United together, man is often in conflict with fellow man.
Herod and Pilot, two different province leaders in the Roman Empire that couldn't get along. They were in political conflict from time to time, but they're united when it comes to this matter.
Of the removal of the Son of God from the earth.
That's part of the picture.
To get another aspect of the same day and the same picture, turn over to Romans chapter one.
Romans chapter one.
Verse 16.
For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. For is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew 1St, and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. For it is written, the just shall live by faith.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth.
In unrighteousness.
Verse 23 concerning man.
Change the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man.
And verse 25 Who changed the truth of God?
Into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature.
More than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen.
This gives us an additional.
View.
Understanding of what God saw that day and what God was making known on that day.
Therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
Was it a righteous act?
Was the.
Or sin, perhaps, that ever occurred in the history of man that day.
In spite of what man said and did, from God's perspective it was the crowning sin of mankind, and in fact John records it this way. Now is the judgment of this world.
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That was the last and ultimate hope of God.
That man would or could respond in any way to his love and his goodness.
But he proved himself to be dead indeed unto sin.
And so.
Here he says.
The righteousness of God is revealed.
How?
We had the picture in Deuteronomy.
Thank God it's not the only picture though.
Because other scriptures that we're very familiar with tell us.
But on that day and on that man.
My sins were placed.
On that day, and yours too, as a believer.
On that day and on that man.
He took.
Your place and mine for what we are.
Not only what we've done, but he took our place.
As to what we are.
We've had multiple times this morning and in the weekend. He hath made him to be sin.
For us, that means that He took what we are in our sinful nature and stood before God in that place.
You have within you a sinful nature, and in being made sin, that's what's in view in that word sin.
He was placed before God to bear God's.
Condemnation. There's no redemption of that, but there is condemnation of it. We're redeemed from the consequences of our sins, but being made sin for us caused him to be under condemnation.
And bear it.
And as condemned, he has to die. And he does.
And so.
That reveals.
The righteousness of God.
That shows us something that from that from Adam to that day and to that work that's been explained to us on that day. Until that point, God's fullness of being, his righteous character, had not been fully revealed. Man had seen God at work and doing things righteously and his consequences on man but the full measure of it.
Had never been revealed.
And tell them. And so it's revealed the righteousness.
Of God.
Likewise, as we just read here, it also says.
For the wrath of God.
Is revealed.
What does God think of sin? How serious is it?
What's the consequence of it?
We see the wrath of God against sin.
When that man on the tree goes into those three hours of darkness.
And we see the full payment of the wrath of God revealed, and the seriousness of the consequence.
Of what man is.
And what man has done.
Now turn with me.
To Genesis chapter 12.
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Genesis chapter 12 and verse one.
And the Lord God said to Abram, Get thee out of thy country.
And from thy kindred, and from thy father's house unto a land.
That I will show thee.
And I will make of thee a great nation.
And I will bless thee, and I will make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
Now we back up in time and go to a long, long time before the day that we've been talking about South Far.
To a man.
Who lived?
Over 2000 years before the day that on which Christ was.
Put to death.
And he has.
An exchange between himself.
And God.
And God chooses according to His perfect purpose and will.
To this man Abraham, he makes promises.
Without any condition put on them, he didn't say. I'll do this for you if.
You do this and so he simply says, I will make.
A promise he makes from his own choice and heart. To that man, he says, I will make thee.
A great nation.
He did.
Then that promise make him a great nation.
He didn't see it himself.
He was an example that God gives promises that we have to live our lives in view of where the gaining of the promise goes beyond our lifetime.
You sit in this room and you've got to live by faith because in this lifetime that is here on earth, you're not going to see the fulfillment of all the promises that God has made to you. And so the just shall live by faith. And here was a just man who had to live and did live with some weakness the rest of his life.
In faith.
But he's going to see.
And enjoy the fulfillment of this promise that God had made to him.
He then says to him.
In thy seed, in thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
On that day, going back to the day of the crucifixion, what was God going to do about this promise?
That he had made Was he going to abandon it?
Did he have any solution to it?
Well, I'm sure we all know the truth.
That God would not abandon any promise he's ever made, never abandoned one. That He's never failed and will never fail to fulfill any promise that He makes.
To anyone about anything.
He's always consistent and faithful in all such things.
But I bring it up in looking at.
The man hanging on the cross.
Dead.
And in that person who hangs there, these promises are to be fulfilled.
Than him.
All the promises of God are yay, yes and Amen.
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Because the price of redemption. While man did his worst that day, God did the best. And in that very same event.
God, in the immensity of his love, was acting.
To bring about the eternal blessing of you and I and all men and all nations of the earth to be blessed.
Blessing is through death.
There's nothing in this creation that God could use to bring man into the fulfilling of His purposes, because this creation in Adam will die, but in the death of the Lord Jesus.
And the wonderful result that comes three days later?
God couldn't leave him on the cross hanging. God could not leave his. That man in a grave, His glory, His honor, his worth demanded.
That he be brought out of that condition.
And God said come.
Sit at my right hand.
And that man sits this afternoon.
We sang about him as the man of patience in the song, that man that we have before us this afternoon he sits. We no longer view him on the cross.
The Cursed 1.
But we view him now as seated, the right hand of God in heaven, given his place of honor and glory.
Put his place on Earth isn't changed.
He still held here in the same regard by those that put him to death.
He's still regarded by those that were responsible directly for his death.
As the day he was put to death.
I bring up some of these things.
As it were to.
Take us on where we've been in the Reading meetings in the last couple of days.
We've had the Lamb of God.
We have had him in prospect as the one that takes away the sin of the world.
As a man of patience, he sits at the right hand of God this afternoon.
But and when we say Lord Jesus come.
Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing if later this afternoon we got to see him standing?
That is that this afternoon and this hour we were taken home into His presence where he is.
Even if we were, I don't say that this afternoon would be this afternoon in which He stood. God does things over a period of time, and He doesn't say that the moment the rapture takes place is the instant in which the earth will start to be set right.
But we know that that moment, that hour, is coming when we see Him stand as we've had before us in Revelation chapters 4:00 and 5:00.
But in the time that we have, I'd like to just give some thoughts.
As to how things are going to take place.
Not so much necessarily all the details of prophecy, but the number one one in my soul is this.
And prophecy shows how it is going to be, and it's this.
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The world as we see it this afternoon does not look exactly like it did the day that that man was put on that cross and put to death.
But I suggest to you that that's what's going to happen.
That God is doing a work.
And we can see that work in measure taking place.
And what he is doing is he is putting the world back.
Into a state that it was.
On the day that his son was cast out.
Satan won't be seen directly in it. He's at work every day to oppose, but we all know he's there.
God has started that work by placing back into that land and into the identity of that land the people.
That are responsible for having put his son to death.
We know in the details that there are 12 tribes.
The children of Israel.
And that the time came when ten of the tribes.
Were taken in out of the land.
By the Assyrian.
And they'll be there at the end, and the Assyrian will be brought back into a place to have his role when God sets things right.
In addition, there were the two tribes, the tribes of David, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which are the tribes that were there to to whom the Lord Jesus was presented as Messiah.
It's interesting and it's detailed to see that there was a time when they were all put out of the land. So who if he had come back?
And what if there had been no people there to present him? And so God, in his wonderful ways, in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, he brought back after 70 years of exile or discipline out of the land.
He brought some of them back into the land and gave them a place there that they continued to have so that when the Lord Jesus was born, they were there and they were there to have him presented to them as Messiah. And they're the ones that specifically were guilty of casting him out.
And so they're brought back into that place.
And then they.
Were again put out after the Lord's death.
In the days of Titus in 70 AD, they were again cast out of their land and disappeared for.
Almost 202,000 years until the Lord has brought them back now into the land.
That.
He is resetting the stage.
We see as well as Scripture tells us, the Romans that were present.
Will be present again.
Will have the same territory that they had, the same general land that was their land.
On the day the Lord Jesus was cast out.
And then God in righteousness is going to.
Bring about judgment on them. They are going to answer.
To God.
Or what they did that day.
They're going to come under his hand of justice.
God purposed and we don't really have time to turn to each and all the details, but God purposed.
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That there would be a people.
Blessed his family.
And so there they are. But what condition are they in?
What condition were they in when the Lord Jesus was cast out and crucified?
Not a good one.
It's not a good one. There were men and women of faith who accepted the Lord.
But the whole of the nation.
Was outwardly religious? Was outwardly acknowledging God, Jehovah?
And had worship of a sort, at least in custom and form and so on.
But what was the real moral condition of the people?
Well, I don't know that we can say exactly, but I will say this scripture makes it clear to us that when.
The Lord deals with those people over a period of seven plus years in the work that is yet to be done before He reigns in righteousness over the earth in that period of time.
Scripture would give us to understand that of the ones that are there of the two tribes.
Over a period of several years.
2/3 of them will die.
They'll die sometimes. They're called the apostate Jew. That is, they're they're in name, but not in reality. And they will. God will put them through the test and part of them will respond properly and repent.
And those who repent will be LED finally, when the Lord presents Himself face to face to them, to recognize that He is the Messiah that they as a nation had rejected, and they will trust Him as their Messiah and be brought into millennial blessing. That's a third of them. But the other 2/3 will lose their lives.
Later on, God will work in that period toward the end of the seven years with the 10 tribes.
And bring them back into the land. And it says that and some of them won't make it, but they'll be called to the land of the 10 tribes. There's a definite thought and scripture that one in 10 will come back and be brought into blessing and the other 90% of them will die.
As not having true faith, but the Lord will have all 10 tribes.
Terrain over in the day of the Millennium.
Just to make a few comments for individual study if interested, we are in chapters four and five of the Revelation, but if you go on to chapter 6.
And 7:00 and 8:00 and 9:00. You will, particularly in those six to nine chapters, see the work of God with the two tribes to bring about repentance by the His hand upon the land.
And so we see in the revelation the work that's given in a rather orderly way really, and he takes up first the two tribes and the work that he's going to do with them to restore them or judge those who will not respond to him.
In chapter 12, he takes up the matter of Satan.
The one that's behind them, the one that stirs the passions of man. And man is no match for Satan's.
Manipulative power over him, and in chapter 12 we see God's hand upon him.
Casting him out of heaven as he does that work and so he takes up.
Something of the devil and finishes that work later in the revelation of casting him into the lake of fire.
In chapter 13 of the Revelation, you have.
What's called the Beast?
00:45:03
And that is the man who is in charge of.
The Romans.
It's often called the revived Roman Empire because God has it was not, but it will be again.
It will be what we, if you have sense of schooling and geography a little bit, it's generally what we would much of Europe as it is today that was part of the Roman Empire and will be again and will have its place in the land.
Among the people of the land, the Jews that are not of faith, there will be a second. The head of the Roman Empire is called the beast in Romans 13 laid her down. In the same chapter of Romans 13, there's another beast. Beasts are people that represent people that act without reference to God. They act like a beast. The beast acts without reference to God. And so the head of the Roman Empire in that day.
Like a beast because he will act and do his thing without reference to God. There's another man who is also called there a beast when he's introduced, who will be the head of the Jews.
Just like the stage is reset.
As the head of the Jews, he has multiple titles. Maybe you're more familiar.
He takes whether he acts without reference to God, but he does take a title and he gets called the Antichrist.
As well.
Because he takes Christ's place as King.
But he isn't. He's a false. But nonetheless, he takes that place.
The Romans and the Jews really didn't like each other, but because of a common interest in the Lord Jesus, they.
Made agreements together and in fact the same will happen again. God resetting the stage. You'll see the two beasts and those they represent form of an agreement.
Between themselves as they enter that period of time and it's described to us in the revelation of them, particularly in chapter 13, but then in Revelation 14 the Lambs introduced.
Does not he have a stake in it?
Yes, he does.
He's the Lamb that's described to us in chapters 4:00 and 5:00.
And he has to go to war.
To claim what is rightfully his, then he will.
And so he does.
And in fact.
In chapter 17, when you go on in the Revelation, there's war and then your words use there's a war of the Lamb, and that's the way that righteousness can be established by Him.
Revelation adds 1 aspect to the picture of what's called prophecy that you don't see in the Old Testament.
And that has to do with prophecy. Always has to do with the earth. But.
You and I belong to the Church of God and the Church of God.
When the Lord calls us home to heaven at what we call the rapture, the true church will be gone. Does that mean there will be no profession of so-called Christianity on the earth? No, there'll be a false church left.
It'll be here. It'll have its headquarters in Italy, a place called Rome.
It will have throughout the earth people that identify themselves with it.
Because it's false in the revelation, it gets called the Harlot.
And it is. It's taking a place that is not its own and in fact, in the way that God does things.
You and I won't.
Have our marriage, our heavenly marriage.
It's late in the revelation. Why? Because God does the exhibit orderly way and until the false pride, the so-called church that still takes that place on earth has been judged. During those seven years when it's judged then in heaven, God could say as it were to his Son. Now you can take your bride.
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And the marriage of the lamb takes place in chapter 19, and it's not until after chapter in chapter 19 actually, that we find.
The Lamb coming back, invisible power and glory. He's been at work on earth already, but not in his visible power and glory until he can do so with his pride at his side and take his rightful place.
Make another comment. More of these are to just to give us a sense that the one we love will have his rightful place and God will establish righteousness on the earth in an orderly way.
And that is, we know that we don't have time to trace it, but in Daniels, the Book of Daniel, there's four world empires.
The first one, Babylon that took the children of Israel out of the land. The Medo Persian Empire came next and they're the ones God used to put some of the children of Israel back in the land so they had their place. While low am I was written over the people, that is where God was not and still does not publicly acknowledge them as his own.
Then came the Greek Empire.
And when you trace it out in Daniel eight, I believe it is, you see that in the Greek Empire there was coming from it a group of people called the Assyrians.
And their place will come back, and they will be judged again.
Further from them, from among that set of people, there will be those who occupy what today we call Turkey.
And they're identified in Scripture with what's called in Daniel, the king of the North.
And the king of the north comes down because he wants the land, the king of the South, which is Egypt, he wants the land and behind the king of the north. And this is the point I want to get to in this remark. The king of the North has behind him the power of somebody that in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is called Gog, which is a direct name for Russia.
We might be interested in Russia because of the Russian Ukrainian war.
And behind the King of the North. The King of the North is somewhat on his own originally.
But then he is backed by a greater power, it tells us, and that greater power is GOG.
I don't want to distract unnecessarily.
But when we look at the bigger picture of things from scripture, at least I think we have not much question that.
GOG because of its feet, where it was in its landmass. When the time comes for it to be judged, which is near the end of the seven years of the tribulation, whatever point along happens to Ukraine will be part of GOG.
Further than that, Romania will be part of GOG.
Further than that, Moldova will be part of GOG and so on. We may see things as they appear to us.
1960 places I just mentioned were part of the Russian Empire.
And they will be again. Whether it's now or later, I don't know.
But it will be.
Because God does things different, we only see things out of the short perspective of our our timeframes and we sometimes don't necessarily see things in there. A bigger perspective, but it will be.
And.
One other maybe comment that I'll, I'll read the verse. It's been really helpful to me over the years. So I'm going to actually turn to it and Isaiah.
Chapter 26.
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Isaiah chapter 26.
And verse 9.
While we're worried, verse 8.
Yeah, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for Thee? The desire of our soul is to Thy name and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul I have. Have I desired Thee in the night? Yeah. With my spirit within me, will I seek the early? Here's the phrase I want to comment on. For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world.
Will learn righteousness.
The Earth here is what is commonly called sometimes the prophetic Earth.
The prophetic earth is that part of the world that was civilized and connected with when the Lord Jesus was here.
The land, the promised land, the land of Egypt, the Roman Empire, and so on. That is what is referred to very often in Scripture when it uses the word Earth.
Not everybody all over the world is going to be involved in the conflict that is we have in the Revelation, but God is setting things right in righteousness and in this statement when thy judgments are in the earth.
And that's what we have in Revelation, in Jeremiah and Isaiah and Zechariah and so on, that which concentrates on what's the earth.
And the judgments that bring about the millennial right day of righteousness. But in that.
The rest of the world.
The rest of the nations that don't participate directly in it, it says the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness and so that everyone on earth will on planet earth will have their place even in that day of God's working. And some of them will be more spectators than participants.
And as spectators, they will see what God does in to establish righteousness, and then they will submit themselves to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords without conflict, without war, and will willingly recognize who is supreme on the earth, having learned righteousness and the consequences of unrighteousness.
By their observation of the work that is necessary for the Lord to reign, but all those that are directly involved are put down by war.
And in some cases they're completely destroyed and as a world system of things won't exist anymore.
John 1:1-29
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Can we see number 76? Number 76 on to Canaans rest still winding in thy wants and woes shall bring suited grace from high descending thou shalt taste of mercy. Spring number 76 when raised that to him please.
Rise my soul, my God.
It's a stranger.
Is my brother.
Must be born.
No one.
And his great children.
Restraint.
Lord, I can see why He's loved the ground by glory.
00:05:30
Our meeting started out with the Lamb of God.
With those two hymns we sang, I was wondering if we could.
Read the 1St 29 verses of John chapter one where you have the Lord Jesus.
Introduced by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God, but there's a lot of other.
Titles related to him that I find very.
Enriching.
Would that be suitable?
I was actually thinking the same thing.
Thank you.
The Gospel of John, chapter one.
In the beginning was the word.
And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light, that all men through Him might believe He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.
That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not, but as many as received Him. To them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John bear witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for He was before me, and of His fulness have all we received in grace for grace.
For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
No man has seen God at anytime. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared him. And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not, but confessed.
I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then art thou, Elias?
And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou, that we may give answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaias. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor liest neither that prophet?
John answered them, saying, I baptize with water, but there standeth one among you whom you know not. He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoes latched I am not worthy to unloose. These things were done in Bethborough beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing the next day. John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Of titles of the Lord Jesus in this chapter I find that.
Very enriching. The first, of course, is the word.
And then you have further down the true light that came into the world.
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And then you have in verse.
18 or 14 and then again in verse 18, the only begotten son that is a tremendously beautiful.
Title to Lord Jesus has.
Doesn't indicate that he was begotten at a certain time, but it was a.
Place of special favor that he occupied in the bosom of the Father.
And then later on in the chapter, well we have, we got down to verse 29, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world later on in the chapter, verse 41.
The Christ.
Then a little bit further.
Christ is the same, of course. I think we realize as the Messiah.
But then.
He meets with Nathaniel.
Nathaniel confesses him. Thou art the Son of God. There's another title.
Thou art the king of Israel. Another title. And then there's one further title at the end of verse 51.
The Son of Man so these are all titles of the Lord Jesus to.
Help us to realize.
Is different glories.
What a tremendously glorious person that we have been brought.
To know in the Lord Jesus.
But starting in verse one.
The word.
What does that mean?
Before the Lord Jesus came, God was known.
Partially through creation, because the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
But God was not fully known until the Lord Jesus came.
The Lord Jesus is the word of God.
And I've said sometimes if I'd stand up at the podium and just look at you and not say anything, you would say, what in the world does he have in mind?
But it's when I open my mouth and use words that you understand.
What I have in mind?
So the Lord Jesus is the full expression of all that God is.
And it's so thrilling to think about. We have the full revelation of all who of all that God is.
In the word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
So in this verse, it's speaking about him.
The Word isn't the Father. The Word isn't the Holy Spirit.
They're Co equal, coexistent, but the word is the sun.
Through him that there's been this revelation given of.
All that God is.
It's a wonderful thing to consider the source of God.
Where this expression of the manifestation of God comes from.
It comes from the bosom of God the Father, and the Son is the agent and He declares him makes him known to us. We we all look forward to future glory with the Lord in heaven. Well, knowing where He comes from helps know where we're going.
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I think we also get in the word there the sense of perhaps this is already spent and I missed it, but the full expression of God's purposes, chapter 8.
Verse 25.
That stepping unto him from ourselves, and Jesus saith unto them even the same think the better translation reads all together.
That I said unto you from the beginning.
Also St. Hebrews chapter one and verse one that God through its 100 times and diverse manners, faith and time passing to the Father's mind, prophets, path, and these last days spoken unto us by Son.
When you have the point of heir of all things, by whom also he made the world's, so it tells us here in times past, he spake.
Through the prophets. But now we find that God Himself and the person of the Son, God the Son, is here on earth speaking with us.
And as we know, He spoke through the prophets. They were inspired of God to speak, and we hear the prophets, I take it in the Old Testament.
But now we have God speaking directly from Himself.
In the person of his son.
And how we ought to be listening.
To what is being said, God is speaking to us directly.
Through.
Sun.
There it says the express image of his person. So you want to know God?
Look at Jesus, you will see God.
In every way possible. It's so amazing to think there stood that man Christ Jesus.
Before the chief priests, and in their condemnation of them, of him, they went up and spit right in his face.
Now we're going to see what reaction is there on the part of God to that terrible insult.
He stands there in calmness, with his spittle running down his face.
That's our guy.
As we are reading the chapter, it struck me how many times it refers to not knowing, not knowing him or not, not, not this and not that and just just to notice them. Verse 5.
Darkness comprehended it not.
Verse 10 and the world knew him not.
Verse 13.
Nor the will of man.
Verse.
18 No man has seen God at any time.
Verse 26.
There standeth one among you whom ye know not. In verse 33 it says I knew him not John.
We sometimes reason and think that we God makes things know, and then we lay hold of it as if we can know God.
Everything in this chapter about man is contrary and resisting it.
God chooses to reveal his Son in a place where.
There's no there's nothing of man that helps this revelation be known.
00:20:08
Not amazing that God reveals himself in that way.
The prophets never give you.
The mind of God for the moment.
There.
Verse one in the beginning was the word that says eternality.
Word was with God. That's his distinct personality in the Godhead.
The word was God. It says deity.
Important to be clear about those things. The enemy attacks those things. Another thing.
Verse 2 almost seems like a repetition, but it says the same was in the beginning with God.
There are those today who deny the eternal sonship of God.
In the beginning he was in that position with God.
He was already, He was the eternal Son in the bosom of the Father.
Always was, always was.
There are those that say that he.
Became the Son when he became Incarnate. That is heresy is wrong.
In nosotros, if we.
If we textualize this, what it says about the Lord Jesus as.
The word of God.
The word.
The word word in original.
Was something created?
That says in Psalm 33 Six.
Where they say La Quinta Inn close.
And be the fountain of the message of God.
By means of the prophets.
In Greek.
It can refer to the reason or the thoughts.
Of a person.
The philosophy of the Greeks.
Was the foundation the rational foundation?
That governed the universe.
In.
Difference, John.
Who knew those thoughts?
His description.
Refers to the Lord Jesus.
This reason the Jews.
That said that this man Jesus.
Was God.
It was a blasphemy for them.
For the Greeks.
That thought that the Word was made flesh.
Was inconceivable.
In difference for us and for John here.
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The word is the revelation.
Of the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You were saying?
Bob, that verse two seems a repetition.
Come to verse three, it seems the repetition is well, all things were made by him.
And.
Without him was not anything made that was made.
It seems like the second statement basically saying what the first statement says.
Perhaps it's for emphasis, but the fact is, how could the Lord Jesus Christ, how could the Son of God, be a created being, if all things were made by Him?
I mean to say that he made himself.
It's ridiculous.
And so if he made all things, that means.
He has to be before all things.
And if he didn't make himself?
Then you have to acknowledge that he's the eternal Son of God. You always existed.
But we can't wrap our finite minds around this truth, I don't think, and that's why it confounds the natural mind. And men wrestle with this and try to develop their own thoughts.
It's very sad to see how people rather than just accepting the word of God for what it says.
They have to subject it their own reasoning and thinking.
And it's fatal. It's fatalistic.
Our scientists are in a have a conundrum because once they discovered that time and space and everything had a beginning.
They used to be able to get away with saying the universe always existed. Something had to always exist.
They don't want to say it.
But the mind behind the universe as always existed, and it's the only thing that makes logical sense when you reason it out if you're a scientist. And some of them will actually say that.
Stephen Hawkings before he died.
Wrote a book. Very smart man, very intelligent man.
He said one of the dumbest things.
That a scientist could say, he said gravity explains the beginning of the universe.
He didn't think it through too well.
Because.
If you're saying that gravity existed before anything existed, you're saying all that's natural Before anything that's natural came into being, that something existed. You're talking about supernatural.
And it was pointed out to him that are you saying something existed that was beyond nature, that was above it supernatural? Well then that would be God.
Well, that's where the conclusions go to if you just use logic.
There has to be.
Einstein, one of the smartest men that we know in modern history.
Said very clearly that there is a mind behind the universe.
He couldn't deny it. Recent times. A man who passed away recently.
Who was one of the most famous atheists and most prolific writers?
Defending the position of atheism.
All the news conference and said I can no longer hold to my position as an atheist because science has shown that there's a mind.
Behind the universe, there's a design.
There's a mind, while this mind is the word of God.
This word speaks.
And things come into existence, the logos.
It says of the God we know.
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That he speaks of things that are not as though they were. How can he do that? Because he's God.
And when he speaks things that are not.
Come to pass as our brother was expressing in previous meetings.
Not one promise, not one thing that God has said.
Will not come to pass. If he said it's going to come to pass, it will come to pass because when he speaks, it's the final word.
Her brother dear was talking about how Hebrews begins. It's as though God says my son is the last word on the matter. The last and final word is him.
Is the word.
So we have some basic words in the next verses.
Verse four in him was life. What is life?
In him was light and then it says.
And the life was the light of men, and the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
Light. What is light?
We have these lights in here, they're not making any noise, they don't say anything.
But because of the presence of light, you can see and account for everything.
And so in him was life, and the life was the light.
Of men tremendously basic matters it's just so amazing how.
Basic these things are and how important it is, especially for young people, but.
All of us to remember how these basic things.
What they mean and what they are. God is light, it says in first John One.
And so the Lord Jesus in that life, it was the light of men.
A crystal of corridor.
The darkness exists.
All right, he says. That was a It was a question. Does darkness exist?
Genesis chapter one.
And this is Capitol. Oh, no.
Verse 2.
The earth was without form and void and darkness.
Was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light.
And there was light, and God saw the light, that it was good God.
Divided the light from the darkness.
It's been said that.
Darkness itself is simply the lack of light that it does not exist.
Just like cold does not exist, it's the absence of heat.
As soon as the lights turned on, the darkness goes away.
Here we have the light shineth in darkness.
The darkness comprehended it, not Lord Jesus. There he was, walking amongst men in this world.
And those that were in spiritual darkness.
Had no clue who he was.
Incredible to think about the awful darkness that.
Humanity was in the Lord Jesus came into this world.
They had the Bible, They knew what it said. They didn't have a clue that the God of the universe had come into his creation.
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So then it starts in verse six to talk about.
John the Baptist.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
He came the same came for a witness to bear witness.
Of the light.
That all men through him might believe.
He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.
Sometimes so sad and giving the gospel, I go downtown.
Then since walking down the street.
And everybody I meet on the street, the sun is shining, The sun is shining. You see you crazy guy.
Everybody knows the sun is shining, but when Jesus, the true light, came into this world.
People were so in darkness that God had to send a man before him saying this is it, this is the true light that is coming to the world. Isn't that incredible?
That witness of John we know was rejected.
So in verse nine we come back to speaking about the Lord Jesus. He what that was.
The true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world. The world was made by him.
The world knew him not.
Oh, what a story.
When the creator of the universe comes into this world.
They did not know him.
The fact that we come to know the Lord as the Lamb of God is all the work of God.
No, it's really wonderful.
If you have any doubts about your salvation.
What part did any of us have in the beginning?
Was thinking valid?
The Lord Jesus says in chapter 12 and verse.
44.
Jesus Christ and Sid.
Ye that believeth on me believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me, seeth him that sent me. I am a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness.
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All can hear about spiritual.
Darkness and, you know, physical darkness, it's something that.
And seeks to overcome. I mean, take this room here.
We couldn't be gathering for a conference here if we didn't have.
Lights to illuminate this room we couldn't see.
What we're reading and man wants to read, he likes books.
He wants physical light and he tries to come up with.
Better lighting.
And the technology, I believe in the lighting industry, it's absolutely phenomenal, you know, with these LED lights and so on and so forth.
But what about spiritual light?
We're only going to get this.
Through faith in the Lord Jesus.
And he clearly tells us here.
Whosoever believeth on me should not.
Abide in darkness.
As a wonderful thing to have the assurance of our salvation and to be able to pick up this book.
And to have physical light, to be able to read the scripture, but to understand what is being told us in this book requires.
Spiritual light.
And understanding and this only comes through faith in the Lord Jesus.
He truly is the light.
And he can illuminate our pathway.
And He can bring joy, peace into our lives through His Word.
We have the written word in our hands.
Lord Jesus.
Son of God, it's a living word, but he's the light.
Make His word good for our souls.
But on the other hand, it tells us too that men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.
That's the big problem. Man by nature and by practice is a Sinner, and he loves what he's doing. Although it doesn't satisfy, he wants to continue in that darkness.
But God's desire is to bring us out of darkness.
Into his marvelous light.
And thank God for each one here who has faith and trust in the Lord Jesus.
And enjoys the light.
Verse 11 Says He came unto his own, that was his own Jewish people.
And his own received him. Not so in the book of John, in the Gospel of John.
Is rejected right from the beginning of the book.
Book of Matthew. He's not rejected until chapters 11:00 and 12:00.
But here he's rejected right from the first. But then we come to verse 12, which is so beautiful, but there's a change.
As many as received him then he gave our to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
It's wonderful.
We become sons of God.
When we believe on his name.
Remember a young man who came to the house in Bolivia when we were living there?
And.
Said.
The brethren tell me I have to repent. I don't know how to do it.
I want to accept the Lord, but how do I do it? I said you just read verse 12 was a law student at the university and as you should be able to tell me what does it say you have to do?
00:45:06
To become one of those children of God, he looked at it and says.
Believe on his name.
It doesn't say anything. You have to get down and pray.
You can pray if you want, but what does it is?
You receive him. That's the touchstone. It's that person.
And then it goes on to explain in verse 13 which is important, which were born.
Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
None of us ever decided to be born the first time of our parents.
It was our parents decision.
And it's not.
Through our will that we are born again into God's family. It's God's will.
Through his word, he gives faith to believe.
And in that way, we are born again.
Not through our choice. Yes, we do make a choice. I don't say we don't, but it's not through our choice. It was God who desired to have children in his family. That's so wonderful that we are children of God born into the family of God.
And this relationship now that we can enjoy through receiving the Lord Jesus, which I do believe is synonymous with believing on Him, putting our trust in Him.
It doesn't come through a bloodline. It is not a blood just because.
My parents, grandparents, great grandparents were devout Christians.
That has nothing to do with whether or not I'm going to be part of God's family. It's an individual.
Faith that's required, and it tells us it's not.
Will of the Flesh.
We're going to set aside Christ.
And.
Seek, through our own effort to establish a relationship with God.
It's absolutely futile.
You know it's not by works.
It's by grace ye are saved through faith and that not of yourselves.
Tells us I believe the Lord says the flesh prophets.
And it also tells us here it's not of the will of man.
We find there are those that are exalted.
In the religious world and because of their particular lifestyle or what is considered to be.
A life of doing good.
They've become Saints, as though through.
Some special ordination the will of man one can become.
A child of God.
Or attain some kind of standing before God? No, that has nothing to do with our relationship with God as our Father. The coming part of his family is, as it tells us here, very simple.
Just through believing.
The name of his son.
It's very simple. So simple that many reject the truth that we're looking at here.
Too simple, I have to attribute something on my own.
There has to be some work involved, some merit of my own, but God sets us all aside.
00:50:05
And as you point out, we have nothing to do with our physical birth. Nobody here.
Has anything to do with their physical birth, and so I do believe that's true in connection with.
Our spiritual birth.
Chronologically.
Which were you could almost insert which had already been born.
Number six.
You read for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness.
As it shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels.
The Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
Just before the meeting, rather leaving, he said goodbye and he said, I wanted to talk to you about a book I got from the Billy Graham organization that says how to be born again. I said I've read it, He said. It seems like kind of got it backwards. Well, it's an emphasis on man's side of it. Remember this, Nobody ever yet has been born again without believing.
God's work from God's side.
Jeremiah.
Chapter 29.
Verses 13 and 14.
This promise has been true before it was written.
And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart, and I will be found of you, saith the Lord.
There are many people whose testimonies have been that something stirred them up.
And they may have cried out.
At some moment in their life and say God, if you're really there.
Show yourself to me. Reveal yourself. I want to know who you are.
That's a promise that if you really, sincerely seek him, you'll find him.
Now that's always doesn't discount anything that God is doing.
We know that if left to ourselves, without an extraordinary effort on the Spirit of God's part, no one would ever believe.
But these things are true and they are promising. You can say to somebody, look.
You're struggling. You have a spiritual search, you're on a journey. You're seeking well, here's a promise for you. You do that with all your heart. You'll find.
And there are people who read What's this business about being born again? I've been told that if I'm not born again, I can't go to heaven. Some people have started their journey hearing about that because they grew up in some main line denomination where they don't talk about things like that.
Well, it's a true fact. You can go to heaven unless you're born again. So they begin to search. What's that all about? What's that mean?
And of course God brings them along and shows them the truth of the gospel until they believe.
Verse fourteen of our chapter is the only verse in John's Gospel that relates to the Lord's birth.
The word was made, pleasure came flesh.
And dwelt among us.
Incredibly wonderful truth.
He didn't begin his existence at that time, but he became.
A man he was born of a virgin.
Into this world, and it's like somebody has said to be able to die, to be able to be the Lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb, necessarily he had to become a man. So there was a moment in time when he was born into this world. This is what is referred to here, the word.
00:55:07
Became flesh.
What a wonderful, wonderful truth, the incarnation of the Eternal God.
The person of the Lord Jesus and dwelt among us. Just think.
God Incarnate walked through this world. He was tired.
He was hungry, he was thirsty. He felt the betrayal of those who betrayed him.
Was a real man, but at the same time the eternal God.
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And I just marvel at this next statement. Notice it's in parentheses. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
Full of grace and truth. Full of grace and truth is the end is outside the parentheses.
But we beheld His glory.
O brethren.
What a privilege in our measure.
To behold his glory and His glories are many.
Are privileged to behold Him in His glory.
If this is isn't testimonial, that one OK El estubo congel Duke on LP's Agri, this is this is the testimony of John that knew the Lord Jesus and lived with him.
And we can say the same thing.
How would you define glory? I've heard it.
Defined as.
Displayed excellence.
Is that a good definition?
It's about the best I found.
There is His eternal glories, the glory he always had, and there are acquired glories He speaks of in John 17. The glory that thou hast given me, I have given them and say that's redemption, glory.
But it's an acquired glory.
Because he became a man and so there are particular glories that belong to him.
In his incarnation that he did not have before that beginning of chapter 17 of John's Gospel, he says, and now, Father, glorify thou me with that glory which I had with thee before the world was, which was that that's his eternal Godhead glory.
And it's the glory that he bailed.
You know, in this world.
There are glories, men have glories if you watch a superb athlete.
Do what they do at their best. You're just in awe. That's what you said, excellence on display. When you see that, you're in awe because you're seeing excellence on display. You're seeing something that is rare and anybody who is paying attention. We know that, that there were many, Most rejected the Lord Jesus, but there were some who received Him and those who had eyes to see and ears to hear. They saw that glory. You wonder how in the world could Judas be with Him all that time and not see it?
You did, but those who did were at all because they saw.
Excellence on display.
You see a beautiful horse that like Secretariat that's won the Triple Crown back when watched something like that run and you'd look at that in awe at God's creation at superb excellence. That's a glory. It's an earthly glory that any of those things about the Lord Jesus. You're looking at it from every angle and as our brother was saying, there were acquired glories that.
Came into being because of him becoming a man and then the work that he did on the cross and so forth.
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But we don't see all the glories that we will see one day when we see him there in glory.
That.
Expression in the parentheses in verse 14.
The only begotten of the Father.
John Kaiser pointed out an expression in Psalm 22.
That seems to relate to that expression and I found it helpful.
20.
Two verse.
Wendy, I think it is.
Deliver my soul from the sword.
And my darling, if you notice in the margin it reads my.
Only one. I think that is the essence of the only begotten Son is the only one.
That's that's been a help to me to see that expression. It's not that he was begotten at a particular time, but he's the one that holds that place of uniqueness. No one else could ever feel that.
Abraham, God, Isaac and Isaac and God Jacob and then told that Jesus is the only Pitocin son of the father. And then we're told that he's not created, he's eternal and and if we can have more on that because I mean I.
It's it's always been a I think I've heard good answers, but I would like to repeat. So if we could have more on that, I think would be helpful, at least for me.
Well, certainly one of the things that he's called is the the first Begotten.
And in a family, the first begotten is the one, and you can replace that and use the word preeminent One. That's really the thought about it, is that he's the preeminent 1.
He has a relationship of that.
Being the one that has the preeminence.
That you have in.
Well, I'm thinking of the expression you have in Colossians, the first born.
He's called the first born. It's really the thought of preeminence, like you say.
First begotten in relation to all other things that exist.
He has the preeminence in connection with it, but only begotten His uniqueness. There is no one else that could occupy this place, only begotten Son.
That is in the bosom of the Father.
Notice in.
Verse 18 it's repeated.
No man has seen God at anytime. The only begotten Son which.
Is doesn't say which was it is he was in this world, but he was in the bosom of the father. A certain sense. He never left the bosom of the father.
Notice later on in the chapter.
Verse 15 again the next day after John stood and two of his disciples and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God.
Your disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.
And Jesus turned and.
Saw them following, and said unto them, What seek ye? He said unto him, Rabbi.
Which is to say, being interpreted, Master, where dwellest thou?
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He said unto them, Come and see. They came, and saw where he dwelt, where was his dwelling place.
Verse 18. The bosom of the Father.
That was his eternal abode.
Enjoyment of the divine affections from all eternity.
And I really believe, brethren, that's why when he came into this world, he didn't have.
A house.
He really wasn't interested in that.
But the boxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Why didn't he have a place? It's not that it was prohibited that he came from the father's house.
The bosom of the Father. The place of the enjoyment of the Father's affections.
There is nothing in this world that compared to that, so he wasn't really interested.
How wonderful, brethren.
But we sometimes sing.
And that hymn 127.
Dwells in his bosom, knoweth all that in that bosom lies.
And came to Earth make it known.
That we might share his joys.
Brother Kaiser.
I've thought about some.
Of this matter in this way before that even in a slave could become like someone's son.
Yeah, even somebody that was of not a natural birth could be rise up to a place, maybe an adopted child and be have a relationship with a father as a first begotten son, although he'd never been begotten. It's the idea of this preeminent place. And as Brother Bob was saying, in in the sense of the Lord Jesus that none other could ever hold.
We know in the days which those days of old in a family you could have.
20 kids and the only one that really mattered was that first born one. When it came to inheritance and everything else that was Everything was put into that first born child and that first born child was groomed to take over everything. Everybody else was way down the list.
There's that thought in there that this, this relationship, a sonship, is from all eternity we have in John 8.
Verse 58 before Abraham was I am, yet he is the son.
As a relationship, as a father and a son that goes off, it's from all eternity.
So that preeminent special relationship existed.
The very idea of what sonship is comes from God.
He invented it.
Distinguished from all the begats and begotten to the Old Testament. It's a word, and you know, not a Greek expert, but it sounds something like monogamous or monogamous, which means you could put it one-of-a-kind.
And when you use the term matchless to describe the Lord Jesus, it's got its foundation in that term, I believe.
The Lord Jesus.
How his residence?
Was in the bosom of the Father. That was his dwelling place.
And speaking third chapter.
Verse 13. No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven.
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Even the Son of Man, which is in heaven. So even as He was here on earth, I believe that His dwelling place was in the Father's bosom.
And I believe this effects that which he has to say to us, because over in chapter 12 The Lord Jesus said the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment.
What I should say?
And what I should speak?
So he acknowledges that what he's presenting is something the father has given him. Or how can he know what the father wants him to say or to speak? I suppose the saying the father gave him the subject to speak on, but then he gives him the exact words to say.
And I believe it speaks to my own soul that there was that communion.
With the father.
And this affected his ministry.
And I think about the disciples. It tells us that the Lord.
He ordained 12 That they might be with him and that he might send him or to preach. But in order to have something to preach, something to say that's worthwhile, the disciples, they need to spend time with the Lord, enjoy His companionship, his fellowship. But that was true of the Lord Jesus. He was in the bosom of the Father, enjoying that place of communion even as he was here on earth.
Reaching out.
Mankind.
In the next verse is the focus goes back to John.
Verse 19.
Jesus sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?
And it's interesting they ask 3 questions.
First question is.
What he says in verse 20 it says and he confessed and denied not.
But confessed I am not the Christ, I've words.
And they said they asked him what then art thou, Elias?
And he said I am not 3 words.
Art thou that prophet? And he answered no one word. It's interesting how his answers just get shorter and shorter. He was not interested in talking about himself.
When they did say, Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us, What says thou thyself? He said, I am the voice.
Of 1 grain in the wilderness.
Mr. Boyce, that's all.
Brethren, when we get a glimpse of the glory of this person we're talking about.
Who are we? Are we somebody important? How can we even think that way in comparison with the glory of this person? Just doesn't fit.
And then he continues to talk about.
The Lord Jesus.
And.
Verse 25 They ask him, Why baptizest thou if thou be not?
That Christ and realize either that prophet John answered him, saying, I baptize with water.
There standeth one among you whom ye know not. It is who coming after me is preferred before me, for whose shoes latch it I am not worthy to unloose.
These things were done in Bethavera, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.
And I'd like to get to this 29th verse that we were talking about.
Where we have the title the Lamb of God.
Next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
I like to put it together with.
In Genesis 22 That we often read.
On Lord's Day morning.
Words Abraham and Isaac are on their way to Mount Moriah.
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To make that sacrifice, that burnt offering.
And Isaac says.
Behold the fire and the wood.
Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
That's a question that resonates through all the Old Testament Where?
Is the Lamb for a burnt offering? Here is the answer. God the Baptist sees Jesus and says, behold.
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
You mentioned that, Doug, the other day about taking away the sin of the world. You go.
Eat what you said the other day.
It doesn't just refer to the work on the cross. That's certainly the first step of.
Sacrificing himself.
To please God in order that God would bless, but it carries on to the future day when.
The Lord will put into effect all the results of the work on the cross, and empower will take away all sin out of the world, and the new heavens and the new earth will be sinless.
So it's the basis of all blessing, isn't it? Yes.
Bob, I'd like to ask you a question. When that young man you told about came to you, if he had asked you, what does it mean to believe on his name? How would you have answered that?
I would say that it's not a mere belief of the head that it's talking about, it's the believing of the heart. Thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart.
That God has raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. So that's not answering the question.
I'm sorry, I don't understand your question.
Believe on his name. What does that mean? Confidence in him?
Or his name.
Doesn't his name mean something? Definitely means him.
Be it known unto you, 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 relieve are justified from all things.
From which she could not be justified by the law of Moses.
And does that answer it? Well, kind of. But his name doesn't. It means savior.
Yeah.
Isn't that the beginning of it? That this is the savior, a blame on his name?
And the name is who he is. We know that the gospel message, but that that is an interesting way he puts to believe on his name.
Good. And people get hung up on those things.
Like even, you know, I struggled with what it means. I believe there's a God and there's people that do. What's the difference between that and believing in him and on him? While there is a difference, there's a difference between going to heaven and going to hell.
To point out it's so important is confidence in the Lord Jesus. I mean the what does it say about the demons?
They believe.
And tremble.
They believe. What does that mean? They have confidence.
In the Lord, I mean confidence is putting your trust.
It's like putting your full weight.
On somebody just, I really appreciate the illustration of sitting on these chairs. You know, we have our wheat on the chair. There was Don Payton. He was a missionary, New Hebrides. He couldn't find out a word or faith or believing.
01:20:02
Until one day one of the natives came into his house and threw himself into a chair.
And he uttered a word which means to put your full weight on something. And John Payton said, that's my word because I believe salvation comes from resting totally on the Lord Jesus Christ, believing that he is, but also we can't separate his work from this person and.
Trusting him in his work, that's the word cross, frost, frost. And my struggles as a young person reading Ephesians to those who first trusted in Christ, that opened my eye. Help me understand trust. I don't know how many people over the years that I've witnessed to when you start talking about the word trust their ISIL.
It's different because we we need to understand.
That words get watered down in our culture, what it means to believe and so forth and faith and things like that, and how people throw around words and they lose a lot of their meeting. But trust, you start talking about trust. People get it? You trust somebody you know, you can say to somebody you know.
And I often use this, you know, the last election for president was between.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
And if you were to ask people on the street, do you believe there's such a person as Donald Trump or do you believe there's such a person as?
As Biden, they would look at you like, why, yes, of course, they're on TV, they're everywhere. I went to a rally. I even shook their hand once, asked them, who do you trust in? You get a different answer. And when you're sharing the gospel with somebody, I think it's really, really important to zero in on that idea of trusting in this person, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you can sum it up by saying you're trusting in him and his finished work on the cross plus nothing. And that's as as summed up as you can get. Cry.
For sodium.
Let's read Ephesians 28.
Play 4K for gracias, soy salvos.
For Medio de la Fey.
For by grace, are you saved through faith?
This is not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God.
Out of works.
Lest any man should boast.
Because we are his workmanship.
Created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
God has before ordained.
That we should walk in them.
Grace is unmerited.
Favor. I think that's a good two word definition on merited favor and truth. It's been defined in two words, God's viewpoint.
And we find that.
Tells us.
The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
What more can we ask for then grace and truth?
About We end this meeting singing the first stands of Amazing Grace.
Are we the sound?
That seemed dark.
Like me.
I.
Won't swim.
01:25:05
Can I give that another one?
28 in the back.
Man to sing about, isn't he?
Gospel 2
Gospel—Sam Ludvicek
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.
So most in here have heard the gospel many times, and there are some that are younger.
And have heard it maybe since they were in the crib and their mother sang them hymns and they were brought to Sunday school and singing Sunday school songs.
So what do I say to you?
If you have not yet trusted in the Lord Jesus as your Savior and you've heard it again and again, what can I say to you if you haven't done that?
Why, if you're a young person in this room, a child?
I was about 11 when I trusted in the Lord as my Savior. I could have told you how to be saved and I was not saved. How is that possible?
Well, I didn't understand some things, but I grew up in a Christian home where my earliest memories were of my mother singing hymns. It was a safe place to be. It was comfortable. Everybody around me were Christians.
And they didn't have the bad things in their lives like many people do who abuse alcohol or drugs and other kinds of things. So it was a comfortable place to be. There didn't seem to be danger.
But there was danger.
Because what is the danger if I don't trust in Christ as my Savior? Then I can enter a lost eternity and end up in hell.
I didn't get that right away, but one night on the way home from gospel meeting.
In Iowa City was about 22 miles to my house. I was acting up for something in the station wagon and when I got home I got a spanky.
And my parents were pretty good at when they would discipline us. They would send us to our room and then.
They would come talk with us.
Help us understand how we misbehave. This time my father came in with tears in his eyes.
And he spoke to me about what I'd done. I don't remember what it was. And he said to me, son, tears in his eyes, your mother and I don't know that you know the Savior. And if you died in your sins, you'd enter a lost eternity with blackness and darkness forever.
And he left the room.
That night as I went to tried to go to sleep, it came in to my heart and mind and my soul that I was in danger.
That if indeed I died.
I would die in my sins and I would go into a lost eternity because I had not trusted in Christ as my Savior.
I knew.
It shook me.
Now, I had a couple of shakings up before, and I'll tell you about those in a moment, but I want to read a verse if I can read through the water on my page.
Isaiah, chapter one.
And verse 18.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
Though they be red like Crimson, they shall be as wool white.
Now, I had heard that verse. I'd heard many others.
And here I was in my room alone, and I was shook because I knew if I did die, I would go until lost eternity. Now, there were two other things that happened that scared me. And maybe that's sometimes what kids that grow up in religious homes or Christian homes, they need something to scare them a little bit and make them think because you can play and you can be involved in all kinds of activities and you don't stop to think about things sometimes.
I had an experience.
Where I'd forgotten that my parents said they wouldn't be home.
And I got home from wherever I was at and nobody was there.
And I was looking on the farm for my dad or my mom or my grandmother, and none of them were there. My brother and sisters, no one was there. And all of a sudden I began to think, the Lords come and I've been left behind.
00:05:14
And I thought to myself, well.
Brother Carl McCoy is saved. I'll call him on the phone and if he's still here then I'll know the Lord hasn't come. So I called on the phone and when he answered I hung up.
Well, it happened again sometime. Another event took place.
And nobody was home.
So I called Carl McCoy. He didn't answer. Now I'm really scared. So I thought, well, wait a minute, I'll call my Uncle Howard.
So my uncle Howard, I called him.
And he answered, so the Lord hadn't come, so that scared me. Now we chuckle about that, but I here I am.
A young boy that around 10-11 years old. Are there some of you that are that age 9/10 8:12.
Yeah.
And if I would have died, I was old enough to be accountable for my actions.
I had heard the gospel many times and I had not trusted in the Lord as my Savior.
Now I talked about this with some friends as we sat and ate and I said and I talked about it in the meeting a little bit. I struggled with understanding some of the message of the gospel. What does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?
What I struggle with the idea, Well, I believe there's a God. And people do. They believe there's a God. Many people do.
Most people aren't atheists, even people who say they're atheists, a lot of them, if you poke a stick a little bit there, you can find out they're mad at God. They're, they're not really atheists, but they know God exists, but they're not going headed towards heaven. They're they're headed towards a lost eternity because they're still in their sins. Their sins are still on them. They're not forgiven. They have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible says.
That the demons, the devils believe.
They know God exists. He's their enemy.
They know. So believing that He exists, Scripture says you must believe that He is and that He's a rewarder of those who seek Him. Well, that's the beginning. I knew that much. I knew that God existed. I knew that He was a rewarder of those who seek Him. I knew a lot more than that. I knew that Jesus had died on the cross and that He loved me. So why didn't I trust Him as my Savior?
What was holding me back? I was having too much fun playing, being with my friends, whatever, I don't know, all that was going on.
I understood a lot of it up here.
You know, a lot of times they say that it needs to. Our belief needs to go from here to our heart.
You know, I had a pacemaker installed not too long ago and I found something out I never knew because I was researching on the Internet. Do you know that there are memory cells in your heart, brain cells in your heart, synaptic pathways in your heart?
I never knew that. And that's a recent discovery that there's actually memory stored in your heart. So that explains some of the stories of people who've had heart transplants who have these strange dreams and stuff and seem to have memories that aren't their own. Interesting.
Well, what's going up here needs to get down in here. And you think about it when you use the word trust.
As we talked in the meeting before, that's different than just believing about something, trusting, as our brother was saying, it's like when you sit in a chair, you put your full weight in it.
This isn't trusting, putting my toe on it or going like this. That's exploring. That's not trusting. But trusting is a whole nother thing. So let's let's turn to Ephesians chapter one.
00:10:03
This really helped me as a young person understanding.
And once I had trusted in the Lord as my Savior.
I wanted to be able to tell others and explain to them better than I understood, maybe help them get past some of the things that I was had struggled with. But if you turn down to.
Verse 12.
That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ. There's that Word in whom ye also trusted. After that she heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that she believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, trust.
Trust so if you hear the message of the gospel.
That Jesus died on the cross. He died for the sins of the world, and he did that in propitiation.
And that he offers you salvation, that he stood in your place for your sins, and that you can have your sins forgiven. And you believe that it's true. He's still asking you something.
He's alive now, I knew that too. And he's at the right hand of the Father and he's pleading, he's talking at the table back here we were talking about how there's a still small voice, how God speaks with a still small voice. Maybe in a dark night, maybe on a lonely Rd. maybe in your bed at night, maybe in the lonely moments that you go through, you hear that still small voice where God is saying.
Come to me, we have that verse in Matthew. Come unto me all the labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
You know, how is it that so many young people, very, very young people in this country and in the West, are committing suicide? How can you lose so much hope that you think that it's going to be easier just to die?
How is that possible? Yet it is happening where the wreckage of this world and the the effects of this culture on people's lives is such that they get to a place where they want to give up and they want to end their lives not knowing if they pass from this life into the next without trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, they're going to jump from the pan, the frying pan into the fire.
That expression is true.
To think that it's all going to be over and I'll be at peace. Know you all.
So a young person who reaches that point turned to Christ.
He will not let you down. Now, maybe there's a problem. You see somebody who claims to be a Christian who's a hypocrite. Maybe you have a friend who pretends to be all perfect and everything, but you know better.
They're not.
Maybe that's keeping you back. That can happen.
And I've had people tell me that, well, there's so many hypocrites. That's phoniness. And it might be a real Christian being phony. Shame on you.
You might be hurting somebody. You might be actually by your behavior, keeping somebody from being saved. Shame on you. You need to repent.
Well, if you're lost and you haven't trusted in Christ as your Savior, you need to do it now. You don't know if you're going to live tomorrow.
I have a good friend out West and maybe some of you heard about it, Matt.
Des Moines. What's his last name?
Richards Hagen, I I see his name and I can't pronounce it, but Matt, I love Matt. I got to know him a few years ago out at the camp, that Morningstar camp. And the guy is loves the Lord. He loves to talk to people about Christ and he's just on fire.
He got in an accident, a head on collision with a truck, and that truck was going 105 miles an hour, so he was going 50 or 60. You add that together.
100 and 55160 miles an hour into a brick wall, same thing, but he's not dead.
The other man or the other person, I don't even know if it was a man or woman, the other person in the other vehicle is dead. So that moment in time, eternity for one, moved on. I hope they knew the Lord as their savior.
00:15:20
But someones life ended that night.
I told brother Matt.
I said to him.
The devil wanted to kill you and God said no.
He doesn't know what he just did. The devil made a big mistake because he just said a man who's already on fire on more on fire.
I said, Matt, God's going to bring you forward to be one of Greater David's mighty men.
'Cause it won't set you back and it's a miracle. Step after step is recovery. But that night.
If he had died, he was prepared.
The other person wanted to eternity, I know not where, but if they were lost and not trusted in Christ, they went into hell.
And every mom and dad in this place.
If they think one of their children don't yet know the Lord as their Savior, they think about that and it scares them and they pray about that. And I guarantee you there's moms and dads holding hands by their bed at night, sometimes crying because they think one of their children doesn't yet know Christ as their Savior. And to think that a little baby you held in your arms.
Would grow up to an age and then pass away and go into hell is a terrible thought. So they pray and they pray earnestly. Those who prayed back in this room prayed earnestly tonight that if there's anyone in this room, stranger or child growing up in a home, that they would trust in Christ as their Savior tonight and not let it go any longer.
Because the fact is, if you live in America, it's hard not to have heard the gospel, at least sometimes.
So what do we know if you've learned and you've been to Sunday school and even memorized verses, you know?
That anyone at any time can turn and trust in Christ, no matter how bad a Sinner they are.
Somebody once asked me, he said. You mean Hitler could have gotten saved? Yeah.
But that coward took the easy way out and killed himself because he didn't believe there was a God he'd have to meet.
Guess what happened? He woke up in hell.
But he could have repented while he was yet alive. He could have. And when he stands before I, Almighty God on judgment Day, he's going to be showing that.
Even you, Hitler, having done all the wicked things you've done, if you would have reached out and trusted in Christ, you too could have been saved. But he did not, and he would not, and he will not.
I was sharing a story. I was with a friend of mine at the fairgrounds one day and they had a little booth there where they were sharing gospel tracks and they were talking to people and they had a little thing where if you could give an answer, they gave some prizes away.
And I was there talking with him, and there was a gentleman who came by, and I said to this man, why don't you stop over here? And it's pretty interesting what they have. All you have to do is answer a question, and if you get it right, there's a prize. I don't want that. I don't want that. This is why it's free. What? Yeah. What else you got to do? You're walking here looking at everything. Why don't you just stop by and look? He said no, no, no.
And I said, really tell me why. And it startled me, he said.
Because I might hear something I don't want to hear.
Wow.
That's like willful ignorance. I might hear something I don't want to hear.
I, I have to say that this kind of blew me away hearing that, but it did teach me something that there are people who willfully don't want to go anywhere near that. We were talking earlier about those.
Who? In John's gospel, they didn't receive him. They didn't know who he was. They didn't want to know.
Now think about this.
You remember the story The Nicodemus?
How he meets with Jesus at night because he's a little bit cowardly.
00:20:02
What does he say? The words that come out of his mouth. He says he's a Pharisee. He says we know you're a man, come from God. The Pharisees knew that.
But they told the people he was from the devil. Now they didn't believe he was a Messiah. I'm not saying that Nicodemus was wondering, but he says we know you're from God.
But he didn't come their way. He didn't come through them. He didn't come through their power structure. He wasn't part of the elite of that day. He was a nobody. So they didn't want him. Yet they knew nobody can do what he did and not be from God. But they lied to the people and they said he's from the devil. That's willfulness in the face of truth.
My mother used to say light received bringeth more light. Light denied bringeth night.
And if you push against it, the darkness will increase. The thing about it is, when you're young, maybe you're a teenager now and you're still not safe. What are you waiting for?
What are you waiting for? Really, I don't know what to say to you. What are you waiting for?
Brother Bob said earlier you don't have to pray, you can believe and most people who pray quote UN quote to receive Christ are saved before they bring them prayer. But go ahead.
Says in scripture, in Romans, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How hard is it to say Lord Jesus?
Save me from my sins. How hard is that? And to believe it, you know it's the truth.
Do it, don't wait, and then when you do it, go tell your mom and dad.
They'll probably dance, they'll be so excited. Go tell them.
Well, it took me a while before I told my mom and dad, but I finally did. And then.
I asked to be baptized. Didn't save me, but I knew that that was the biblical thing to do. But my mom and dad were very happy.
When I told him that I had trusted in the Lord Jesus as my Savior.
It's so simple.
So direct God didn't make it difficult.
You remember the story of Nahum? I was told to go dip in the water because he had leprosy and he didn't want to go dip in that river. Over in the Jewish land. We got rivers here. What did his servant say? His servant said if he if he had told you to go some do great escapade, go conquer something, climb a mountain, you would have done that. Why not just go do this simple thing?
Faith. Trust that he's telling you the truth. Well, he did, and he was healed from his leprosy.
God doesn't ask for that, in fact, he says.
That nothing, no great escapade can save anybody. No mighty deed can save anybody. There's not going to be one person in heaven going look at me. I'm here because of what I did. The rest of you fools had to be saved without doing anything. There's no such thing.
Every single person there is going to say I'm saved by the grace and mercy of God. I got here by the blood of Christ.
That famous old preacher John R Rice was being challenged by somebody once about what if you're wrong? What if you're wrong about the way you preach?
They were wanting to tell him that you needed to have faith, but you had to do works and mix it all together. Otherwise you had to work your way along with believing to get to heaven. So what if you're wrong? He says. Well, I'll tell you what.
If I am and I get sent to hell, I'll preach Christ there just like I'm here, till a hell spits me out. Thought that was a pretty good answer. He kept on preaching Christ, and he did till the day he died. That man led many many many souls to Christ through his preaching because he preached the faithful truth.
That salvation is by grace through faith. We read in one of the meetings how it's very clear that it's by grace through faith. Let's turn to that in Ephesians chapter 2.
Verse 8:00 and 9:00 For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, not of works lest any man should boast. Sometimes people get caught up in that.
They think, you know what, I'm kind of bad.
00:25:02
Maybe even a child will think that. And if somebody is so upset and thinking about suicide, they're thinking they're pretty bad or they've done things bad or they got involved in some things that are bad, well, maybe you think that.
And you think, well, you know what? I'll I'll get saved when I straighten things out a little bit.
So that would mean that if you could do some work.
To get straightened out a little bit and then maybe you'd get saved. You could boast about something that says here you can.
There's nothing you need to straighten out. God will straighten you out. How about that? How about Him doing what He knows how to do better than anybody?
Because one of the things that happens when you get saved is God changes your want to inside you know you have a want to.
They don't teach that in anatomy at any medical school, but you have a walk to inside and when God saves you, forgives your sins, and gives you a new birth, you have a new want to, a want to that wants to please the Lord. Doesn't mean you're perfect, but you have a new want to that didn't exist before.
So don't wait till you straighten some things out.
If you have gotten yourself into some stuff you shouldn't be involved in and maybe even.
You know, drugs and alcohol, other things too, can get people and their chains that can bind people. He's the one that can set you free from that. They're countless thousands, millions of stories around the world of people who have trusted in Christ have been set free from every imaginable thing under the sun.
That Jesus can do for you as well. So what can I say to you? I can reason with you. I can tell you that God loved you so much. He said He's only begotten Son to the cross. But you've heard that before.
So somehow, someway.
Because of the prayers. Because.
Because of the faith of moms and dads and others.
Reaching through.
Changing things behind the scenes.
God recognizing.
See if I can find this.
Marks Gospel.
Where the man is let down through the roof. Somebody help me out?
It's both in Luke and Mark.
Chapter 2. Mark Chapter 2.
And this is where I want to talk about moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles and others.
And again he entered into Capernaum after some days, and it was noise that he was in the house, and straightway many were gathered together in so much that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door. And he preached the word unto them, and they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy which was born of four, and when they could not come nigh unto him for the press.
They uncovered the roof where he was.
And when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of palsy lay. And he listened to this when Jesus saw their faith.
He said, under the sick of palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
Isn't that interesting? The Lord doesn't say because of the sick man's faith.
He says because of their faith.
Your God is works.
Our wonders, the way he works things out.
But he loves us being involved. He doesn't need us to do any of this. But why would he say that unless he wanted us to notice that? You know those grandmas, those grandpas, those aunts and uncles that are praying earnestly for the young people, the children in their families, and others that love the children in the local fellowship?
God sees that.
I once, years ago in my 20s, was the announcer at a conference in Des Moines. We were in Des Moines my late 20s, and I said before a prayer meeting for the gospel, I said, you know some of you who have unsaved children and been praying for them, they're out in the world. Or maybe some children that have just gotten away from the Lord. God notices whether you pray for others.
00:30:29
That was the biggest attendance to the prayer for the gospel he'd ever had.
Because people listened to that and said, you know what, I'm going to be there. God pays attention to that stuff. He just told me that he noticed the faith of the four and he forgave the man's sins.
Now the Pharisees and different ones, there question in their heart who can do this?
But in order to put on full display that he had authority to do that, he healed the guy. But he says because of their faith, God's paying attention to your faith, dear moms and dads, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters and families. He's paying attention to what you're saying and believing in your closet when you're praying and crying out.
You know how many grandmas and grandmas, grandmothers, grandfathers have prayed and long after they're gone?
One of those grandchildren they prayed for got saved. My uncle told me that my grandfather who died at 98.
Alzheimer's had taken away much of his mind, but he was still praying for his grand, his kids, his grandkids, his great grandkids by name, even though he didn't recognize them if they were in the room till the day he died.
And I know the Lord honored that.
My uncle said that he used to go into the room with him and he'd be depressed.
Because Alzheimer's can do that to you, affect you, where you get depression. And he said to him, Dad, you know, you shouldn't be depressed. You know, the Lord is your savior and that and he wouldn't say much. And my uncle had gotten saved by Mennonite. So he was part of the Mennonite group.
And they have some beliefs, obviously, that differ, so he said. I know what I'll do.
I'll start to debate with him about this. So he didn't even recognize him, that he's his son, but he'd start saying something to disagree with him on and away he'd go. The Word of God came back and he'd be laying it out there and his eyes would light up and joy would return in him because he knew the Lord and the Lord helped him with that.
When he died, he entered an eternity and went into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ after having lived.
A long life praying and winning souls to Christ and praying earnestly for His children, His grandchildren, his great grandchildren, and neighbors and friends and people all around. And I dare say that there are many who can say, maybe even in this room. I was prayed into the Kingdom by people who prayed and loved me.
You know, Brother Todd left here and justice. Before he left, he told me how that Mister Jennings from Saint Louis, who's with the Lord now, faithfully witnessed to him, was very firm with him. He said he had long hair, hippie like, and he was living the lifestyle. It wasn't right and he wasn't saved, but he'd been raised in a Christian home, so he was a teenager.
But he said, you know some of the things he said to me, like he'd always tell me when I come to his house for dinner, you need to cut your hair.
And he said I was a little bit insulted by that, but you know what? Not really, because I knew he loved me.
That man loved him into the Kingdom, was faithful in the Gospel, but loved him in the Kingdom. He knew he cared.
Bear.
Romans chapter 3 and verse 10. These are all going to be familiar, so we're just going to review this.
From God.
Point of view. Here's what he says. As it is written, there is none. Righteous. No, not one.
So as human beings come into this world and live their lives, God doesn't see anyone of them as righteous.
00:35:06
In Proverbs.
He says about those who don't know him. He says the plowing of the wicked is sin. Something is innocuous as your neighbor's farmer plowing his field who doesn't know Christ, God says it's sin.
How do you win with that? You can't.
God makes it clear what condition we're in without Him, and He is the answer.
Romans, chapter 5, verse 12.
Wherefore is by one man centered, entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men.
For all have sinned.
I LED a man to Christ that I worked with. He trusted in Christ as his Savior. When we were shingling his roof, I worked with him. We got to be good friends.
He's with the Lord now. He came to me one day and he says I've been witnessing to my mother.
And she says she doesn't sin.
What do I say to her?
She had a misunderstanding what sin was. But he says she's I don't sin, I don't, I'm fine. I belong to the church. I've been baptized. So we talked about that and he finally was able to get through to her somewhat.
Romans, chapter 6.
Verse 23.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Our Lord now sometimes when I do Sunday school because of the its children and of course everybody can hear the gospel.
I will take I've done it with a candy bar. I've done it with a $20 bill.
That verse I quoted earlier in Matthew, Come unto me all your labor, and heavy laden, and I will give you rest, and I will say to them.
I'm going to quote this a little differently, so listen carefully.
Come unto me.
All ye that have need of some money and I'll give you some and I hold that $20 bill out if it's candy bar. And then that's what I do and I'll hold it out and then I'll repeat it and I'll repeat it and I'll repeat it. You know who usually comes finally?
The young, one of the youngest people in the audience, except you become as little children.
That's the one who trusts me that I'm telling the truth, the little one.
I was with some friends. I was visiting a man who was a Christian. He was a veteran and he was at one of these.
I don't know, I guess flea market kind of things and it was a bad day and nobody was around, hardly. There were people walking through, just walking through. Nobody was buying anything and they had marked down their prices and the people, vendors were complaining and all of that.
Says, you know, if you mark things down too low, people will become suspicious.
And they think, well, it must be junk.
And they were arguing about that. I'm going to prove something to you. So I went to the cashier place there and I got a whole bunch of $1.00 bills, big fistful. And I stood in the middle of aisle and I said free money, Who wants some? Here's free money, here's free money. And people would go around me like, what are you nuts?
One of the vendors had a little girl.
About 50 feet down the way she was watching me and finally she came up to me.
And she took it.
Interesting, isn't it? A young child, She trusted me. That's what happened. Because these people are going, this guy's up to something. Nobody gives money away. That's there's a trick. There's got to be something wrong here.
But the young person, the young child says, well, I believe him, I believe him, and they come and take it. Well, how do you receive a gift?
If I'm offering to give you a candy bar or a $20 bill or something, how do you receive it? You believe that I'm being honest and you come up to me and you take it out of my hand. So Lord Jesus is saying to you, here's the gift of eternal life.
It's salvation, it's already paid for. All you have to do is take it from my hand.
00:40:07
John's Gospel chapter one.
We read this earlier today.
Verse 12 but as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even that to them that believe on his name. We mentioned how that the name of Jesus Jehovah saves. If you believe that Jesus is who he claims to be and you know that God exists and you believe that God is a reward of those who digitally seek diligently seek him. What's the next thing a living savior at the.
Hand of God is inviting you to trust Him today.
And He will do what He said. That's the point. He will forgive your sins. He will come into your life. He will change it. He will dwell with you. He will fill you with His Spirit. He will give you an eternity with Him. He will cast your sins behind his back into the sea of forgetfulness. He will say to you, You're my child.
He will tell you that you're going to come home with me one day because I'm preparing a place for you. All of that, you get it all.
You don't even have to say the right words because in your heart, when you believe.
Turn with me to Romans chapter 10.
Romans, chapter 10.
Verses 9:00 and 10:00 and also verse 13.
He says, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart, that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believe it's under righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Then verse 13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Somebody once asked me, what if you're a mute?
Well.
When you're trying to remember the tune to a song or something, don't you say something up here.
Don't you mouth out the words up here when you rehearse things? Don't you have conversations with yourself that nobody else can hear up here? Aren't you speaking up here? I said. You have a mouth in your brain because you talk to yourself all the time, and so do mute.
Said, you know, confessing Christ.
One of my favorite stories in the gospel is the the about the two thieves on the cross.
And we're going to end with this because it really declares how there's nothing you can do.
Two thieves on the cross punished. Jesus is innocent. These guys are guilty.
And early on in the evening, as all three of them are hanging on the cross, it says the crowd began to mock him.
And it says the thieves did too.
How in the world you're nailed there, just like he is, and you're mocking them. You claim to be this guy. Let's see if Elias will come and save him and all these things. They're mocking him, but something happens.
You know, everybody knew these things, knew everybody knew all this stuff that have been noise about Drew, so they knew about this.
Crazy miracle man Jesus and stirring up trouble.
They'd heard about the miracles and how he could feed thousands and all that stuff, but watching him right next to you on the cross and the things you say had an effect on this one man.
And what do we find? We find that one of the thieves starting to mock him again, and the second thief says.
No, in modern vernacular, shut up.
Don't say that we deserve what we're getting.
That man has done nothing wrong. We deserve it and he turns to the Lord. He didn't know quote UN quote the sinners prayer. He didn't know how to fill out a card to decide for Christ or anything like that. He just turns to him and he says first Lord, he bowed the knee. How could he? He's hanging there.
Between heaven and earth nailed he come bow the knee. But he did in here. You know you got a knee in here when your heart vows before God. You can do that on a sick bed. You can do that as you lay dying. I'm convinced there are many people who get saved in comas and at the end of their life when they can't talk. I just found something out last week.
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They've got a person in a coma who cannot even blink their eye or respond to outward stimuli. They implanted the chip in the brain, and that person is talking through a computer to the outside world. There are many people who have been in that kind of a condition who later have come out and said, I heard everything. I heard what you were saying. I tried to talk, but I couldn't. I'm convinced that in those last dark hours that death encroaches around people.
Gives you hope. If you have relatives, you're not sure how they died. That is that concroaches around them and it pushes in. They remember the gospel you gave them. They remember what you faithfully said to them. And as it comes in, they're there alone before God, about to enter lost eternity. They can't speak, they can't do anything but inside.
They can bow the knee and they can trust in Christ in those last seconds and moments. We're going to see people like that there.
In glory, he says, Lord, he bowels the knee in here. Remember Me when thou cometh into thy Kingdom. And the immediate response is today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.
Than he was and we'll see that guy, the other thief.
One day with lost, he turned. He had the same opportunity. Was he baptized? No. Did he do any good walks? No. But you know what he did? He trusted in the one who could do something about all that. And if you're a young kid, girl, boy, teenager in this room tonight and you haven't trusted in Christ.
Don't wait till tomorrow. You might not live that long. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, you might not.
And how sad it would be to think.
That you went into a lost eternity.
Don't wait. Don't put it off.
Call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ask him to save you.
Believe him, because that's what trust is. You're believing that he means what he says. You're believing that it's the truth.