Lawrenceville Conference: 2024
Table of Contents
Luke 21:25-26
Reading
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Right, so thou gracious Savior Ill.
Thrust in hand in the straightforward.
Change in every.
Voice, Lord and soul.
From you.
Joy.
Then we shall be wherever we want it. Then we shall begin what we should be grateful.
Luke's Gospel chapter 21. I don't think we need to consider the whole of the chapter.
I would suggest that we make the emphasis on verse 25 to the end of the chapter, but we might read from verse 20 just to get the connection and make a quick comment or two on that.
A set of verses between 20 and 24.
But the reason I suggested is that.
As we know.
Luke's Gospel and Clarence Lundin used to remind us of this is perhaps more connected with the introduction to Paul's ministry than any of the other three gospels, and what we get detailed here was.
An indication of what is going to take place after we are called home.
Yet is put together in such a way that I suggest it's a real voice to each one of us and speaks to our hearts as to what we are seeing already beginning to develop in this world.
In events and setting the stage for those events that will find their complete fulfillment after we're called home.
Would that be something we could take up? What do my brethren think of that?
I suggest that in the chapter there is both exhortation and some warnings.
But real encouragement, too.
Know that the desolation thereof is not. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountain. Let them which are in the midst of it depart out. Let not them that are in the country enter. They're into.
For these being the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days.
For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be LED away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down in the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
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And there should be signs in the sun, and in the moon and in the stars.
And upon the earth distress of nations and perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring.
Men's hearts failing them for fear for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. For the powers of heaven shall be shaken, and then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power great and glory.
These things begin to come to pass. Then look up, lift up your head for your redemption draws knives.
And he speaks to them a parable. Behold the fig tree and all the trees when they now shoot for it. You see and know your own cells. That summer is now not at hand.
Likewise Ye, when you see these things come to pass.
Know ye that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Early I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away.
They'll all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your heart be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, so that day come upon you unaware.
As a snares shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
Watch ye therefore, and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.
In the daytime he was teaching in the temple, and at night he went out in a boat in the mountains called the Mount of Olives. All the people came early in the morning to him in the temple for to hear him.
As I mentioned earlier, we don't need to spend a lot of time on these first few verses, but only to get the connection.
When the Lord Jesus was crucified.
We know that was in our calendar approximately AD 29.
Or thereabouts, our calendars about four or five years out of whack, as we would say, so that the Lord Jesus was really born about four or five BC.
But if he were crucified on in the year 18.
AD 29, sorry.
Then the destruction of Jerusalem occurred approximately 40 years later under the Roman general Titus, and the Lord Jesus had predicted that in a figure when he gave the parable. I think it's in Matthew 22.
Concerning the vineyard and how that eventually when the.
Husbandmen of the vineyard kept persecuting and even killing the servants that were sent to receive the fruit of the vineyard.
Eventually, the king would send forth his armies and destroy those murderers.
And burn up their city. And when they crucified God's beloved son, Israel's trial was over. And ultimately, of course.
Man's trial in a general way, but God allowed Israel one more chance, as we know.
To receive the gospel, not this time from someone.
Like the Lord Jesus preaching on earth from a risen Christ in glory.
Through the apostles and sad to say, the nation at large rejected that too. So then this is what is described as the day of vengeance, when God allowed the Roman general Titus to come and to destroy Jerusalem.
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And those who paid attention to this prophecy.
Realized what was coming.
Because when Titus surrounded Jerusalem with his armies, there was plenty of time for anyone that wanted to to get out of there and save themselves. And many did. But the large majority, of course, of the Jews were content to stay there, never thinking that they were going to be, as it says, here, taken captive into all nations and.
Followed by the edge of the sword and eventually the city destroyed and so on.
And God makes a prediction here that the city of Jerusalem would be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled.
And you and I know that it is Even so today.
Yes, Israel has military control over the city, but.
They can't do just what they want. The Mosque of Omar occupies the temple site.
And in that sense, the Gentiles have jurisdiction over it in a real way.
And it won't be until the times of the Gentiles are completed that all of the things that we read next year will be fulfilled. And once again, the Lord will give that city back to His beloved nation of Israel.
The times of the Gentiles is an interesting time frame and I think it's very helpful to understand that it began with Nebuchadnezzar.
Coming and taking away the descendants of the House of David, who God promised would have.
Son sitting on his throne and took it away from the House of David and gave it to the Gentiles.
And the person of Nebuchadnezzar. So I still remember our brother Clem Buchanan saying you could put over the book of Daniel, the title, The Times of the Gentiles. And that's a very helpful thing to think about because.
Then it takes up that time frame and at the end, in chapter 12, we have the time when the Lord Jesus is going to come back at the end of the great Tribulation.
And take back the authority, the government of this world into the lineage of the House of David, and the Lord Jesus is going to reign supreme in this world. So all the time between Nebuchadnezzar and the end of the great tribulation is the times of the Gentiles, the times of Gentile domination.
And so, like you say, Brother Bill, Israel is there in the land.
But you're only there because of the sufferance of Gentile powers. United States has been a big help to them, and I don't know which way that's going today. It's very interesting to see what God is allowing. And I sometimes say God is promised blessing to the descendants of Abraham, but the children of Judah, what we call the Jews.
2 tribes were there in Jerusalem when the Lord Jesus came the first time.
And they said his blood be on us and on our children. They have never repented of that. And so they can't have peace.
Until the Lord Jesus comes back and they recognize him, and they repent, and then the Lord is going to raise them up as number one in the world again #1 authority. But today it is not that way.
So it's very helpful you young people to understand what is the times of the Gentiles begin.
With Nebuchadnezzar taking away the lineage of the House of David and reigning instead, God gave it to him. And then we have in the whole book of Daniel the character of the times of the Gentiles. Get that into your mind and that helps to understand.
It's not going to end until, like it says, verse 24.
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Till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, when the Lord Jesus comes back.
In person at the end of the great tribulation in power and glory. And this is what we have in the rest of the chapter and it's going to be brethren, the most glorious event that ever was in human history. I really believe rather than there will be no other glorious event like the one when Jesus comes at the end of the great tribulation and.
The last time the world saw him, he was hanging in that mangled body on the tree.
And the next time they see him, he will be coming in power and glory, and God is going to vindicate him fully in that day. What a tremendous day. And you and I are going to be with him. We're going to be eyewitnesses of that glorious event. What a tremendous thing.
MMM.
Greatly helped by an expression that the older brothers used about the times of the Gentiles.
And they said it's a great parentheses.
I think by around 8th grade by our member right, it's been a while. You start to learn algebra and you have these long mathematical expressions with a bunch of parentheses, and sometimes you have parentheses inside of parentheses and you're smiling. You know this, right? And and you do the math inside the print. Then you move out.
And so the brethren used to say that the Church of God.
Is a parent. It's it's time here on earth. It's a parenthesis inside a parenthesis.
And so most of us are pretty well schooled on the church, and we know it started in Acts chapter 2. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down and united the believers together into one body. It was a while before they realized that, but it was so. And that parentheses will end of the Church of God on earth, perhaps today when the Lord descends into the clouds of heaven and calls.
First, those which are asleep in Jesus up he raises their bodies.
So that they are spirit, soul and changed body with the Lord, and we which are alive and remain caught up with them.
So that's the inside parentheses. But the times of the Gentiles as Bob has been referring to started back around, and I've always rely on Bill for these dates around 600 BC plus or minus.
When through the failure of God's earthly people, of the two tribes that are carried away captive, and God gave the authority and power in this world to a series of Gentile kingdoms. Really.
In the book of Daniel we see that great image, that head of gold, Nebuchadnezzar. And so that's when the times of Gentiles started. When will they end? Well, after you and I are up in heavenly glory, when the Lord Jesus, as Bob has described, comes visibly into this world in power and great glory, and he puts down the Gentile power and removes it.
And establishes himself.
In his Kingdom.
With Israel at the head of the nations then.
As the Kingdom of God upon earth, so that's the end of the.
Out of parentheses, and it's been going on now for over 2500 years.
And it will go on after we're gone for a little while, until the Lord Jesus.
Whose right it is overturns it, overturns it, overturns it.
And then takes up the Kingdom himself. He returns the headship and the domination of this world and its government to the line of David, because he is the son of David, and also in a broader glory, the son of man. So I found it helpful to think of it in those parentheses inside a parentheses.
Just to get an expression for that, would you agree, Bruce, that the inside parenthesis is what is referred to as?
The fullness of the Gentiles in Romans 11. The expression is slightly different from the times of the Gentiles. Isn't it excellent? Yes, very good.
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Good. So the fullness of the Gentiles, which you say ends at the rapture? Yes, I believe so.
Very good.
Something else is noticeable here too. In Luke. We just mention it by the way. But it's important to have clear in our souls.
And that is that at the end of verse 24, the Spirit of God says.
Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
But then, even though Luke's gospel introduces perhaps more than any other, Paul's ministry.
Yet you find that immediately the Spirit of God jumps.
Right over the church period and begins to talk about what is going to happen.
Essentially after we are called home. And of course that is very, very typical of prophecy and important to realize.
Some brother once told me when I was young, he said, Bill, remember in reading any prophecy.
God stops the clock of prophecy at the beginning of the church period.
And does not start it again until after we are called home. Why is that? Because prophecy concerns the earth and the churches of heavenly company. We are not the subject of prophecy. And so it's often very difficult to understand that. And it does make prophecy, if I can say it.
Very hard and almost impossible for the natural man to understand.
Because the church period is totally left out.
I don't want to take a lot of time on it, but it's a bit of a almost amusing story where a brother called me several years ago and referred me to something written on the Internet.
Where a man of the world was trying to make some sense out of the 11Th chapter of Daniel.
And of course, like most men of the world, he refused to believe that Daniel wrote what is in that 11Th chapter.
As prophecy, he concluded that Daniel must have lived afterward and written it as history.
But then he commented, he said I don't know what happened to the man. He said everything he wrote up to verse 35.
Everything is perfect and relates absolutely correctly to what takes place in history, but from verse 36 on it doesn't make any sense at all. Nothing corresponds to it that ever took place in history. I don't know what went wrong with his mind and I guess I and the other brother had a good chuckle over it because of course what happens.
The dear man didn't realize. I shouldn't say the dear man, the poor man didn't realize.
That the church period occurs between verses 35 and 36, so everything from 36 on is future.
Very simple to the spiritual mind to understand, but the man of the world can't make any sense out of it. We just mentioned that and so here.
It talks about the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and then immediately jumps right over everything since then to talk about what is going to happen after you and I are called home. But it's written in such a way that you and I can look at what is around us in these last days and say.
Oh yes, everything that we are seeing in the world seen today.
Is setting a stage for what will happen after we are called home.
And the exhortations even though.
In.
Actual fact do apply to the godly ones of the Jews who will, I believe, be able to be intelligent as to those prophecies and to those exhortations. You and I can take them up and apply them to ourselves in a very real way, both the warnings and the encouragement that God's Word gives us. And I believe they're meant for us.
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And I believe that's what we should try and take out of the chapter more than anything else.
So what you're saying, Brother Bill, is that from verse 25 forward, we have what relates to what will happen in this world after the rapture takes place, But we can see things moving in that direction, and that's what makes us realize we must be getting close. Is that right? Yes.
In the news if you play a little bit.
When's the last time since the days of Mr. Darby and the early brethren it was in the news? Something about the red heifers.
Recently when Hamas attacked Israel, some of the talk and conversation that they had recorded amongst the terrorists, they were actually talking about that, that they can't be allowed to do that. You know, it's been.
Brought out that they had five red heifers that qualified according to the rabbis, and that they're down to I think 2 now that they think they're qualified.
And there are people who want to offer that red heifer and mix the ashes and begin to do that.
When those things become a conversation in the news, something's going on and they're paying attention and people are at, well, what's that guy? Why are they? Why are the terrorists talking about the red heifer? What? What do they know? Well, then they start inquiring, well, what's that about? And get the experts in their Bible scholars, and they start explaining to them how the Jews need to have a perfect red heifer. They can be sacrificed and the ash is mixed with water.
To purify the instruments of the temple, the priests, all kinds of things. Well, whoever heard of such a thing? Now people are asking questions about it, searching on the Internet. What's this about? Another one I think in the news that's pretty interesting. Is Euphrates River drying up?
And all of a sudden Google search and the search engines are filled with people searching the drying up of the Euphrates. And then they're asking Bible scholars and people what's it about?
Yeah, there are things percolating. The stage is being set. We're right at the door.
Well, this 25th verse I believe is.
Again, being fulfilled to some degree, not totally, but the stage being set.
Right. In the world seen today, generally in prophecy, the Sun represents supreme authority or higher authority, the Moon perhaps derived authority, and the stars.
Individuals who in this world have a place of influence and maybe authority as well.
And it says there shall be signs in all of those areas.
Are we seeing that today? Indeed we are, without wanting to.
Isolate anyone situation.
Look at the kind of and I'm a Canadian by citizenship, but look at the kind of an election.
That the United States is facing in a few months later this year.
Who would ever have thought that we would be looking at that kind of a situation?
In a country like the United States.
And look at the difficulties in other nations. Look at what is happening in Russia.
They thought they had a democracy 25 years ago. How quickly that changed over.
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But it has to in order for Russia to become the kind of power and to exert the influence that it will have.
After we are called home and signs in derived authority, the breakdown of morality, the difficulties and problems that are occurring at every level of government. We thought that at least in many nations that we are aware of that governments would be continue to be reasonably stable, but.
Here we're finding all kinds of problems and difficulties in the world today.
And individuals who have an influence in this world and might be thought to be.
Stable in their influence and then all of a sudden you hear that they have been discovered to have committed some fraud in the past and there they are being hauled up in court and taken to jail or.
Maybe they've been guilty of.
Crimes in the moral sphere, sexual immorality and so on, of such a nature that they're being called up in court, all kinds of things going on in the world and an interplay of economic and political and other forces that are totally unable for men to control. We're seeing all of that, aren't we? And in a widespread way, not just in one area, but.
Pretty near everywhere things are going on like that.
And then at the end of the verse it says the sea and the waves roaring.
I don't have the Darby with me, but it reads a little differently and perhaps a little stronger in it. Have you got it there, Bob? Yes.
The stress of nations and perplexity at the roar of the sea and rolling waves.
And that's what we're getting today in this world. The sea is a picture in scripture of the nations in turmoil, the nations in turmoil. The sea is always in motion, waves one size or another going this way and that way. Sometimes severe storms, sometimes not so severe.
But we are seeing more and more of that today. Aren't we in the world?
And everyone is being filled with fear today, wondering what's going to happen. Oh, men may gloss over it and say, well, it's we can still live a reasonable life. You and I in North America can still go to the grocery store and fill our cart with groceries and go home and eat. We still have relative.
Peace and quiet. But it's very precarious, isn't it?
Very precarious and everyone is wondering which way are things going to go? How are things going to turn out?
With the polarization.
And it's happening in our country where I live in Canada, happening here in North America.
Happening just about everywhere, and Ben's hearts already are beginning to fill with fear, as they say. Where is it all going to end? What is going to happen?
Waves of politics, waves of religion.
They strongly move the population of this world. Even in our country, we're kind of in a divided state.
It's so evident that these are taking place.
And so the result, like you say in verse 26, men's hearts failing them for fear.
They have reason to be afraid.
When we consider the awfulness of the judgments.
That will fall in that great tribulation period. The Lord Jesus himself says there is no time.
Before or after that will equal the severity of the judgments that will call.
Fall in this world, they have reason to fail for fear their hearts.
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But oh brethren, this is a challenge to us.
Let's live in view of that calling whereby wherewith we are called that heavenly calling. And the scriptures are so clear about not fearing it says in first John chapter 4. I just better read it to get it straight, but I I love this verse when it comes to.
Fear, brethren, and I think it's something we need to meditate on.
First John chapter 4 and verse 18.
There is No Fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Another verse two Timothy, chapter one.
That is beautiful to keep in focus.
Versus 7.
God has not given us the spirit of fear.
But of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Oh, brethren.
Is there fear? I must say, brethren, it was a challenge with the COVID.
Thing that came on us, how much fear was expressed even by God's people.
Lord, help us brethren, to keep our focus right. There is No Fear.
A lot.
I almost hate to bring this up, but.
I'm going to.
When the older ones here when we were young if we wanted to.
Read about prophecy.
The older brethren in our home meeting had plenty of books.
Or if we went to a conference, we bought them.
And we read and we we gained understanding of these important things.
But today?
Most, and I noticed this when I was still working, young people rarely read on a piece of paper, they read on screens and.
The young people in this room that are interested in spiritual things will get online. And I know they do because I get emails and texts and they listen to meetings, conferences that they have not been to. They listen to talks online by by Bill, by Bob, by Don and and that's good.
And and I do too.
But my computer is pretty clever. And if I get on and listen to these brothers, then the next time I log on to listen to a brother it, it has this program in it that says, oh, he likes Christian things. So, you know, while I'm on my way to listen to the Europe Zoom meeting or whatever, up comes all of this, all of these talks.
And.
And so I've become more aware than I ever was of what's being taught throughout Christianity.
And it is sobering. And one of the things that that you will read is a form of of error. I have to call it that, that basically says that.
These times of of tribulation and wrath, and that that Bill referred to especially in the beginning of our reading.
In verse 21 and verse 22, days of vengeance, they say well.
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Titus came in in 70 AD and he devastated Jerusalem, and all of these prophecies were fulfilled right then. They're all behind us.
There's no tribulation ahead of us, it's just going to be more of the same.
Peter and his second epistle says that that error will it will be dominant at the end of the Christian era era. There will be mockers amongst Christians who say where is the promise of his coming. For since the fathers fell asleep, things have just been this way. And so this, it's ironic, isn't it, that even amongst the Lord's people.
We are removing.
What hungover the heads of even the unbelievers?
50 to 100 years ago in this country. And that is that there is wrath, that there is wrath ahead, that there is judgment ahead, not just individually for us after we die and are raised at God's Son's great white throne, but there is judgment coming on the living.
And so even amongst Christians today, there is just, well, the gospel is just going to spread and everything is going to be good and it's just going to go on. And they measure how many people are evangelized in countries and they say, we'll see the gospel is going to spread. And when when we're all done with this wonderful work of evangelizing, the Lord will come and, and put his seal of approval on the whole thing.
I don't think I'm wrong in expressing this.
But one of the ways they do it is to say everything took place in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem. But if you go back to Daniel, I don't want to take any more time on it. But if you go back to Daniels prophecy or to Jeremiah, let's just do one or two. Go to Jeremiah 30.
I just want to plant the seed in your mind.
That there are passages throughout the word of God that are real.
Key verses.
To negate that idea that there that judgment is all past.
70 AD or any other period of time because of this kind of language. Jeremiah 30.
Verse seven speaking about.
The travail of judgment coming verse seven, Jeremiah 30, alas, for that date is great.
So that none is like it.
It is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. None like it.
Was it a million people were massacred in 70 AD? I'm, I'm not very good in history, but it was something like that. It was a devastation. But no historian, I don't think would ever say that what took place in 70 AD in Jerusalem is unmatched in human history if you go forward to Daniel, which again was before.
The time of the Lord Jesus coming into this world, Daniel.
Chapter 12 I think it is.
Similar language.
Daniel, 12.
I'm going to jump in the middle of verse one.
There shall be a time of trouble such as never was, since there was a nation even to that same time, and at that time by people shall be delivered. Again, it's language that points to the extremity, to the difference in character of this judgment that is coming. If you turn, and thy people shall be delivered.
I'm not aware that anybody in any that the nation of Israel was not delivered in 70 AD. Far from it.
And they are not yet today.
Go to Matthew 24.
In verse.
21 Matthew 24 and 21.
We then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, nor ever shall be again. I I don't want to keep repeating these scriptures. When you go to the Book of Revelation, you read about that time of great tribulation, and you read of Gentiles being saved out of it.
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You read of elect Israelites being saved through it and there is great rejoicing in deliverance of which the prophets, all the prophets have spoken. And so whether you look at the Old Testament prophets looking forward to it or the New Testament prophets looking forward to it, it is not yet come. And when it comes, it will be of a character that is incomparable to anything that has ever happened in this world as a as a young.
In school we read about the Holocaust that was surrounded the time of World War Two, and we were just, we were overwhelmed with what we read.
But as you get older and have more time to read, at times more history, sad to say, this world has been stained with so much blood and so much sorrow.
Mr. Lundeen, Clarence Lundin used to say if you knew the sorrow in the hearts of the people in one city block, he said it would it would drive you insane. Something like that is what he said. This world has seen incomparable suffering and sorrow, and it's going on today.
There's nothing new under the sun, but the character of things that are warned about in the prophetic scriptures are unparalleled. We need to keep that in mind. Plus the basic and simple passages in the New Testament that there is wrath these young Thessalonian Christians who were only saved at the most three or four weeks.
And Paul writes back to them. Let me just close my remarks by referring to one verse in First Thessalonians, chapter one.
I.
First Thessalonians, chapter one.
Babes and babes in Christ being addressed here.
Middle of verse nine you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God.
And to wait for his Son from heaven. They had been instructed in the blessed hope to wait for his Son from heaven.
Back then, just like we have been.
To wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus.
Which delivered us, or I think another translation has it, our great deliverer.
From the wrath to come.
Its future. Sad to say, its future.
If you put your trust in Christ.
Young boy, young girl, you'll not see this time of horror. The Lord will catch you up and take you out of this world before those waves burst upon this world.
Just want to assure you of that.
But if you decline God's offer of salvation.
You'll be here and you'll be more intelligent as to what's going on than anybody else, but it won't bring you any deliverance.
Very solemn.
Want to encourage?
Our younger brethren, especially to get an understanding of the prophetic picture. It is so helpful and gives you understanding of the times that we are passing through now.
I must say brother and IE when we translated Bruce Anstey's book.
Future events.
Into Spanish. Well, I read it to make sure that it was.
Understandable, and I got my understanding through other authors.
But I was astounded at how what he had to say in that book was so clear, and perhaps even more clear than my understanding. And so I encourage you to read Bruce Anstey's book Future Events. It probably is over there in the book display, but.
It's worth well worthwhile reading and I think it might even be online. Don, is it online? Yes, it is.
OK, so you can get it online if you want to do it that way, but read it. It is a resume of future events that is very helpful in understanding what's going to take place in those times of the great tribulation and as the Lord comes back to establish His Kingdom. It has been a very helpful.
00:55:13
Thing to me to understand that and it's been as as we view things where this world is going.
You know where you belong and it is extremely helpful. I want to really encourage you to get into the study of the prophetic picture. Those of us who are older too, but I really recommend that book.
Bill, you mentioned.
The Lord Jesus came into this world and he was rejected.
And the overwhelming sentiment was we will not have dismantled.
Away with this man.
And so.
The Lord was crucified.
Rose from the dead and we find early in the book of Acts.
The Spirit of God coming in and the church, period.
Being ushered in. I appreciated your comments, Bruce, about the parentheses. That's where we are today. There is a false understanding. I believe in general Christian circles about is the Lord reigning right now?
The Lord will reign. It says that in First Corinthians 15. He must reign. He came into this world and they said we will not have this Mandarin over us kill him. And that's exactly what happened.
Now, brethren, it is.
It leads to a great deal of error and frustration.
To think the Lord is reigning right now and it's our duty and responsibility to.
Get things fixed and get things right and get things on the right trajectory and track. It's a mess.
And I would I want to be corrected or if this isn't right, I don't believe in that sense that the Lord is reigning now. Now obviously God is in control of everything, but the time is coming when the Lord Jesus will set foot back on this earth and he will reign and set things right. So you look at the political scene, the economic scene.
You know, for those of us here in the States, you know.
Donald Trump is not going to make America great again, folks. Is that going to happen?
Or anybody else?
The Lord Jesus, when he is reigning, we'll do that. And to say, well, the Lord is reigning now. It looks like a big mess to me. And I, I don't believe the Lord is reigning per SE now like he's going to when he comes back and is appearing in the Millennium is ushered in. So I hope I haven't gone too far in that. But young people.
Don't be frustrated by falsely thinking that it's on your shoulders to fix it.
It's not. The Lord is the one that is allowing this to happen. And as we have mentioned before, the seas and the waves crashing together, the masses of philosophy and people.
Striving to find peace in this world without the Lord Jesus? Not going to happen.
I hope that's not.
It's resumed in Hebrews chapter two. I think is beautiful what you say.
In verse.
Verse eight it says it's talking about the Lord Jesus as the Son of man.
And it says, I'll reverse. 7 Thou hast Thou makes them a little lower than the angels. Thou cronest him with glory and honor, and it set him over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet, that is now, or in that He put all in subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put under him.
But now.
We see not yet all things put under him. That's what you're talking about, right?
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Brethren of the former day, who knew more Latin than we do?
Said it is his desire. It is his by right. He bought the whole field.
And he has brought, bought back to God that inheritance that is forfeited by a fallen man.
But when he comes out of heaven with 10 thousands of his Saints, he's going to take it. De facto, it'll be his.
In in practical reality, he sets his feet in this world. I know you get they try to petrify you in school about how the world is going to come to an end by fossil fuels or oil or climate or whatever, whatever it's been. But I was taught in my first year as a believer, God is going to present and he's quoting Peter.
God is going to keep this world together for the most important reason.
That he's going to vindicate the honor of his son. Like you said, Bernie, it's vital to God. It's vital to you that you'd be born again. You must be born again. It was vital to God to righteously bless you and me. He must be lifted up than he has been. But now the other shoe was going to draw. He must ring, and he must ring here.
Because if that didn't happen, then it's as if there's a perpetual, everlasting loss to God.
Well, he wanted to reign, and he wanted to have him reign here. He wanted to have a willing people under him, and he wanted to bring peace and prosperity. But no, it never happened. But he has them all in heaven now. He's going to fill heaven with children, and it's going to be full of blessing and delight, as we sang in those early hymns this morning. But it's imperative to God that he reigns here, and God is going to see to it that it happens.
And if you look forward to that in your soul beyond the rapture, Paul said, there is a crown to all those.
Who love his appearing, and that's the sense of the delight and the satisfaction we get.
By wanting to see that man who was spit upon him received a crown of thorns. Come into this world, and every knee shall bow.
To God the Father's glory and delight.
So I think you're exactly right on. Would you want to be in charge of this world right now, Bernie?
Everything that you walk around from country to country, since all Bernie's, Bernie's in charge. No, it's a dishonor to the Lord to think that he is reigning now in that way. He is behind the scenes. When he reigns, we all know it's going to be very different.
Didn't mean to get the reading off track to build, so maybe we can get back on it this afternoon.
Well, the odd off track is often very good as long as it doesn't get too far. So that was a good comment though because this Reconstructionism or Covenant theology is sweeping much of Christendom today in North America.
#40 in the appendix.
To take away transgression and rolling back.
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Went from the.
Down like.
Showers.
Upon the new moon.
Christ and joy and of light flowers.
Spring up where it goes out.
From Hell to.
Holy, oh, we shall all now be for him and.
Psalm 16
Open—B. Prost
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Right from the.
Word is it or no lifting.
Here it is a body.
And suddenly from everyone.
Yes.
All.
Right.
Could we turn for a few minutes to Psalm 16?
What I have on my heart is just one verse in that Psalm.
The 16th Psalm is a very beautiful Psalm.
A great deal of interest in it because it brings before us.
The Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect dependent man.
And ultimately, of course, you and I can follow in those steps.
In perfect dependence upon the Lord for everything.
But what I would like to look at is particularly verse 5.
The whole Psalm is enough for a whole meeting in itself, but verse 5 is what I had before me.
The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup.
Thou maintainest my lot.
3 words in that verse that I believe all have real significance for you and for me.
And first of all it mentions inheritance.
I've lived long enough.
To see some real squabbles over inheritance.
Just up the road from us, where I lived for many years, where we lived for many years.
Just outside of the city of Hamilton, there was.
A farmer.
00:05:01
And I had gone to high school with him, so I knew him fairly well.
And in the course of time.
His old father, whom I also knew well and who was a believer, and the son is a believer too. But the old father passed away, went to be with the Lord and left the farm. But he left a rather unusual will, and I won't go into the details of it, but it resulted in a terrific disagreement within the family that was never healed.
Inheritance.
How much it means to so many people in this world.
I was at a funeral some years ago where I happened to be talking to the undertaker who was a believer.
And he said it is so nice to be at a Christian funeral. He said most people in this world when they come to a funeral.
All they want to do is get it over with as quickly as possible, get that death certificate in their hand so that they can go out and lay claim to the inheritance.
What do you and I have?
Let's turn to first Peter for a verse.
First Peter chapter one.
Verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again.
Unto a lively or living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
To an inheritance incorruptible.
And undefiled. And that fadeth not away.
Reserved in heaven for you.
Now, that does not mean that the inheritance is in heaven or is heaven. That's not the thought. It's reserved in heaven.
But the inheritance, I believe is what we will share with Christ all created things.
Do I need to fight over an inheritance down here? It's all going to be ours very soon, isn't it?
Do we need to struggle to obtain things in this world when it's all going to be ours to share with Christ very soon?
Let's turn back to Hebrews for a verse. Hebrews chapter 8.
Just go back a few pages.
And it says there.
In verse 15.
And for this, 'cause he the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is the mediator of the New Testament or New covenant that by means of death?
For the redemption of transgressions that were under the first testament or covenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
The nation of Israel had forfeited their inheritance down here for the time being.
They had forfeited what they desired, and when the Lord Jesus came into this world, they thought immediately, at least those who recognized Him as the Messiah, that He would bring them into the good of that inheritance.
And when that didn't happen, they were very disappointed. But this epistle to the Hebrews is designed to bring them into the good.
Not of an earthly inheritance, but of a heavenly inheritance.
Will there be an earthly inheritance for them? Indeed there will be in a coming day for those godly Jews in a coming day that recognize that the Messiah is coming back to lead them into blessing. But for any one of the nation of Israel today that will listen to the gospel and respond to it, they can have what we have here in Hebrews, the promise.
Of eternal inheritance.
All created things that you and I will be able to share with Christ.
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I say to my own heart, as I say to your heart and mine.
That ought to wean us away from the things of this world, shouldn't it? It ought to make the things of this world less attractive to us.
I say it calmly.
You and I, who live in North America, have been used to what we can call.
In common terms, the good life we've been used to being able to grow up.
Get a job.
Get married, own a home, raise a family.
And when I was growing up, that was relatively easy.
Anyone, even a person who didn't have an education, could go and work in a factory and that was all something that they took for granted.
Times have changed, things are different. It's not the same as it was before.
We'll talk about that in a few minutes.
But let's remember our eternal inheritance.
Christ is pleased to share with you and me everything that God has given to him.
God has, and it was brought out this morning in the readings. God has before him the honor and glory.
The vindication of His beloved Son, and the honor and glorification of His Son.
The Lord Jesus says, but I'm not going to take it alone.
I am going to share it with those whom I have chosen to be my bride. That is you. That is I God is going to share that with all of us. We're going to share that eternal inheritance.
But there's another thought in connection with inheritance that I'd like to pass on to you.
It carries me back when I first heard the thought expressed.
Over 60 years ago, as I stood in a Funeral Home at the viewing of the body of a brother that I had known not well because he was old enough to be my grandfather.
But I certainly knew who he was and I had known him most of my life, although he was not in my local assembly. He lived in Toronto, ON, but I lived in Hamilton, only 40 miles away.
So I certainly knew him well.
And that as I stood in that Funeral Home.
An older brother happened to be my father.
Walked up to the casket.
Where the brothers Bible was sitting on top of the casket.
Took his Bible off the casket and turned to the book of Joshua. Let's turn to the book of Joshua and I'll see if I can put my finger on the verse that was read.
I think it's the last chapter of the book of Joshua.
Yes.
Last chapter. Chapter 24 of the book of Joshua.
And verses 29 and 30.
My father read those verses aloud to the widow of this brother, whom I also knew.
And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua, the son of None, the servant of the Lord, died, being an 110 years old, and they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath Sierra, which is in Mount Ephraim on the north side of the hill of Gay Ash.
Then he turned to her and he said, calling her by name.
He said your husband in one sense is going to be buried in his inheritance. He had a good inheritance. What did he mean? He meant that that brother had fully enjoyed the fullness of all the blessing that God had given us.
And that he lived in the good of it all his life. And now that he was lying there in a casket.
00:15:08
He was in that sense, taking with him the enjoyment of that.
Of Christ and all the blessings that Christ has given us.
He had lived in the enjoyment of them.
He was going to enjoy even more in the coming eternity.
I say to myself, I say to your heart. And it echoes what Brother Bob was emphasizing this morning.
All of us sitting here have a rich inheritance, not necessarily something that's in the future.
Because all the blessings that are ours in Christ, it says in First Corinthians chapter 2, I hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man.
The things that God has prepared for them that love Him.
And we often think of that as future, and there's nothing wrong with that. But then it says, But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.
But you know, the children of Israel did not get the inheritance just by saying it's all ours.
Everywhere that the sole of your foot shall tread upon shall be yours.
They had to walk on it, they had to take it, they had to possess it and live in the good of it. You and I are privileged to do that.
In that sense, to think of the inheritance in that way.
Yes, in one sense the inheritance is all created things and its future.
In another sense, it's all the blessings, all the enjoyment of that.
Which God has given us through Christ, and you and I are privileged to enjoy them. Now to walk.
In the good of them.
I don't like to quote my own father too much.
But I remember once he said to me as a young man, he said, you know the truth of God and all the things that we enjoy.
Or we could enjoy have been left to us much like a large estate.
But he said if we're not careful, we're in danger of letting the greater part of it grow up to weeds and live in a small part of it.
Ouch.
There's a danger of that.
We need diligence in order to be able to walk in the good of all that is given us, and that is more than ever necessary today.
And more than ever, important to us.
Let's go back now to Psalm 16.
Psalm 16 because we have something else mentioned here.
The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup.
What is my cup? What's different about that?
We had some of the 23rd Psalm read to us this morning and it says in that Psalm, my cup runneth over.
My Cup.
My cup, I believe, would take us to the point of saying.
That is what I enjoy.
I may have a large inheritance.
With how much of it do I enjoy?
And I would say to your heart and to mine, how big is your cup?
An old brother now long since with the Lord used to remind us, you and I can have as much of Christ as we want.
And our live show how much we want.
My cup can be as big as I want it to be.
But that reminds me of something else. Remember once reading in a secular magazine?
I picked it up in the dentist's office while I was sitting there one time.
00:20:01
And an article kind of caught my eye.
Again, written by a secular journalist, but he made this remark, He said if you want to do anything well in your life, in this world.
You will have to let a lot of things go that you might otherwise have done in order to do that one thing well.
He recognized that.
Anybody who has ever trained for the Olympics knows what that means.
Because in order to train for the Olympics, you don't start two weeks before the Olympics, do you?
Or a month before the Olympics. Or two months before.
You start probably four years before.
And your whole life is centered on that because your eye is on that gold medal.
You hope.
And everything else is subservient.
To training for that event, whatever it might be, and winning that gold medal.
You and I.
Have an object that God has put before us, and that's why I believe it says here.
And I know in our Old Testament here, it's really Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. And once again that brings Israel into the picture. But we're going to apply it to ourselves.
And so you cannot have that inheritance, that cup.
Excuse me for a moment.
If you're going to have the portion a large cup of that inheritance.
As we said earlier, it takes diligence. You will have to let other things go that you might otherwise have done.
And I would say.
Not trying to talk like an old man that's reminiscing or talking down to the young people. I hope it doesn't come out that way.
But I say to you.
If you.
Due diligence now, when you're young in those things, it will pay big dividends.
I can still read. I can still enjoy.
And if I put my mind to it, I can still memorize things.
It's a lot harder than it was 60 years ago. A lot harder.
I see a few people smirking. Yes, maybe some of you can relate to that.
You can remember things when you're young.
I can still remember our late brother Gordon Hayle giving an address when he was about my age, or maybe even older.
And he said to the young people, you know, if I quote a verse to you, he said, I didn't learn it yesterday.
I learned it a long time ago.
You can remember when you're young.
My Cup.
That is what you enjoy in your life.
And remember, it is not what you know that governs your life as a Christian, it's what you enjoy.
It reminds me we won't turn to it. It's in Deuteronomy.
Where the children of Israel were reminded not to try and conquer the land too quickly.
Because, it said, the beasts of the field will tend to multiply upon it. What does that mean? It meant that if they conquered that land and took it away from the Canaanites too quickly.
And yet didn't have the wherewithal and diligence, the energy.
To farm it and to look after it and use it. Then the beasts of the field would start to creep in.
And that's just what they do if you leave a piece of land.
Uncultivated and I have seen it happen.
Then pretty soon the weeds start to grow up and depending on what part of the continent you're living in, trees start to grow up.
00:25:05
And then if there's no human beings much there, the wild animals just move in and start taking over.
Which in some ways is a good thing. But what does that mean? To conquer the land too quickly as Christians?
It means that if we take in too much up here.
And not enough down here.
There's a discrepancy between what I know and what I walk in.
And I hasten to say that there always is, there was always. There was only one.
Who, when he was asked who he was, could confidently say.
Altogether that which I say unto you.
Everything the Lord Jesus said, he walked in perfectly. Everything, if we could say it with all reverence, that He knew was the mind of God. He perfectly walked in. That's what this Psalm is about.
With you and I, to some degree, there's always a discrepancy between what I have up here and what's down here in my walk.
But that discrepancy?
If it gets too big.
That's what the beasts of the field are. The beasts of the field are the activity of the flesh.
Which results in the discrepancy between what I know and what I live and walk in.
And saw my cup.
Needs to be that, not only which I happen to know.
Paul refers to it in Second Timothy chapter 3.
Timothy, The things which thou hast known and been assured of.
I know something when I have learned it. I am assured of it when I walk in it.
My Cup. The Lord wants to give you and me a cup as big as possible.
And he's willing to fill whatever size cup you want to try and fill.
But it takes energy, it takes diligence, it takes laying aside things that really don't matter, I really don't need.
Yes, we need to make our way in this world. We need to earn a living.
And I have never been in any way against a young person getting an education.
If I were, I'd be condemning myself.
But the point is, what is our point of view? What is our end in view? What is our motive in getting it? Is it to get a good income? Is it to live the good life?
Or is it to use it for the Lord?
That is where it comes.
Well, let's go on.
Thou maintainest my lot.
Wonderful to have a good inheritance.
Nice to have a good sized cup that we happen to enjoy because none of us ever enjoys the whole inheritance.
But we have a cup that we enjoy.
Then my lot.
Oh dear, how many problems are concerned with my lot? And we have often heard that expression.
My lot in life for his, lot in life for something like that.
What is my lot?
My lock refers, at least I believe, in the context here, and I'd like to apply it that way.
Are my circumstances.
Oh my, that brings things right down to where the rubber hits the road, doesn't it? My lot.
I will say it right out loud that I feel very sorry in some ways for many of those that are much younger than I.
For my grandchildren and those in that age bracket, because you have a rough time in this world of today in North America, and not just here, but many places in this world.
The manufacturing in North America is not what it was.
People now call much of that wonderful.
00:30:02
Era back 60 plus years ago. Now it's turned into what's they refer to as the Rust Belt.
Very difficult.
And many young people can't afford a home today, can't hope to own a home unless they have two incomes.
Or have a rich uncle that leaves him an inheritance or something like that. Or a rich grandparent that gives them money, or something along that line. It's a very difficult world out there.
My lot.
Sometimes other things come in illnesses come in setbacks.
Difficulties of every kind, and it's not just young people.
Seems every time we turn around the day we hear of someone else that has gotten really ill or faces a serious problem in his or her life. My lot.
What do we do about all those things?
I love the wording here.
Thou maintainest my law.
I thought about that a number of times when difficulties came into my own life.
And they do.
And never look at someone else and think that they have an easy time of it.
Never look at someone else and say they have it going pretty well for them.
They've gotten into something.
That farmer I told you about a while ago in connection with an inheritance that lived up the road from me.
His sister didn't get what she thought was her share of the inheritance and there was bitterness and anger in the whole family until she passed away.
His son.
Who's the same age as my daughter? I knew him well.
Very, very well. He would often complain to me about, oh, he didn't get his fair shake and all the rest of it.
Now everyone looks at them and says how they use the word out in the world, how lucky they are, what happened?
A big developer came along, wanted to buy the farm.
$22 million they got for it.
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
Pretty good lot he has, but does he have a good lot?
His health is failing.
He's my age, starting to His health is starting to go downhill. What's he going to do with $22 million? What good does it do?
Now that he's got it all.
And so it goes.
What can you and I say as believers thou maintain us my lot.
Is that going to be true right to the end? Indeed it is. Does that mean we'll always have an easy time? Does that mean we won't suffer here in North America?
Some of our brothers and sisters are being persecuted in other lands. Others have a terrible time even putting food on the table, making a go of it in any way, shape and form. And it's widespread.
You and I may have a little rougher as time goes on.
Thou maintain us my lot, we can count on the Lord, and I would encourage each one.
Whatever comes along to remember there is an inheritance ahead.
There's a cup to be enjoyed right now.
And there is one up there in the glory that says, and he promises to do it.
I will maintain your lot.
The Lord's Delight in You
Open—D. Rule
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Turn with me to Psalm 16.
We'll look at a few more verses of Psalm 16.
Verse 3.
I.
Well over you verse 2O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord.
My goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the Saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent.
In whom?
Is all my delight.
What's the Lord Jesus thinking at this moment as he looks upon this company?
What are his thoughts?
What are his desires?
As he looks at you and sees you sitting in your chair.
What does he desire? I'm not asking what you desire.
What you hope to get out of this hour.
I want you to turn it around.
And stop and think. What is it that is of interest to him?
And is his desire.
Concerning this hour.
Well, I'm not going to say I can answer completely for him.
But I will say I think I can partially answer at least.
A little bit of what is there is in the verses we just read.
The psalmist David speaks to the Lord first.
And he says.
O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord. And so David has something to say to the Lord, and he does.
He expresses something that's in his heart to the Lord, and it's developed in what has already been before us some of his thoughts and some of those things that he responded to the Lord about.
But notice.
What it says in verse 3.
But.
To the Saints that are in the earth.
Who's speaking in that sense? It's the Lord. And what's the Lord saying?
Is of importance to him.
To the Saints, in whom is all my delight.
The Lord Jesus this afternoon values.
Desires looks for on you.
As the object of his joy and his delight.
Is that?
Encouraging to you and to me, I'm sure it is, that the Lord Jesus wants to find in you and your relationship with Himself.
Is joy.
We think about having things. We think about knowing things.
But at the essence.
The essence of life in many respects is relationship.
You fly and you sit down at the dinner table this afternoon and you probably, some of you at least, were probably very taken up with having to look after your kids and so on. But at the same time, there is that sense of sitting down at table.
Yes, you enjoyed your food.
But I would say to some of you, long after you could no longer say what you had for lunch.
You will be able a day, a week, a month from here, be able to come back with a certain sense of appreciation and joy in the fellowship, the conversation that you had with the person that you were eating with.
00:05:02
The relationship that is there, you know what it's like.
I find it wonderful sometimes when I've been at a gas station, I've been in a store and some word is said and suddenly I realize I'm talking to a brother or sister in Christ.
And there's an instant relationship.
It's right there inside you and it's instant. It's spontaneous. It's you feel like you've known that person sometimes all of your life because of that character that God has put in you.
In knowing a brother, a sister of the family that you belong to, the family of God. And so here to me, I just want to emphasize the Lord's side of it, he says.
My delight, my delight.
I don't know exactly how to give her the emphasis I want to it, but I'll say this one thing that's encouraged me a lot in the last several years.
Is when it's in your heart, no matter what you're doing.
Be spontaneous with the Lord.
Be spontaneous, oh Lord, and speak to him. You don't want to have to be formal. There's a place for kneeling in prayer and being before the Lord, and it's very important, and don't neglect it and to be systematic even in that which you bring before the Lord in your daily prayers.
But at the same time.
Sometimes spontaneity of the relationship is very important.
Maybe something comes up.
And you're in a certain situation and.
It's all right in your heart to say, Lord, what should I say?
What should I say?
What do you think, Lord?
About this matter, this situation, it doesn't have to be huge, it can be everyday things of life. And so here again the words is in whom is my delight, the Lord Jesus wants to find in you.
And it's an object of his heart.
So let's look at the same thought farther down.
At least somewhat the same thought.
In chapter verse 11. I'm going to read it in the new translation.
Thou wilt make known to me the path of life.
Thy countenance is fullness of joy.
At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore thy countenance.
Is fullness of joy.
What's going to?
Satisfy your heart when you get to heaven.
Is it?
A perfect environment.
Is it that there's no sin there?
There's nothing that will produce, at least in the eternal state. There's nothing that will produce sorrow. You'll have some sorrow in heaven as you look upon what's going on on earth during the awful tribulation that we have alluded to in Luke 21, and as you see the Lord Jesus going through that.
But here it is thy countenance.
Is fullness of joy. What is it that's going to absolutely completely?
And without exception of anybody in this room, there won't be any exceptions to it. Every single person in this room who belongs to the Lord Jesus is going to look upon his face, his countenance.
And it will fill the heart.
With absolute inexpressible joy.
00:10:01
You are going to.
Find in his countenance.
A perfectly satisfying eternal joy.
So what's my last word?
Don't wait.
Don't wait.
In your heart enjoy his countenance.
Enjoy his eye of the light upon you.
And respond to it with pleasure.
And you'll give his heart.
Pleasure this afternoon.
What Path Are You Walking In? Do You Know?
Open—J. Grinton
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Him and trusting in Him, and surely he brings us into pleasant places as we walk with him.
As we receive counsel from him and we go on in his way.
It wasn't very long ago we took up the book of judges in the Sunday School adult class in Stellerton.
And in Judges 5 there it speaks of the highways being unoccupied.
It speaks of the byways which in my margin speak of crooked ways or crooked places.
If you seek out.
A path for yourself.
Without the help of the Lord, you'll end up on those byways.
But if you go to the Lord.
And look for counsel and guidance in His word.
You'll recognize the pleasant places that He has placed you in. You'll recognize those boundaries that surround you. You'll recognize the path that He has laid out for you so that you can enjoy your time here and that surely your cup may be full and running over as we often sing in the children's meetings.
Turn to the 119th song.
You know, we have a blessed portion that is ours while we're here in this world to be like.
Lord Jesus when He was here, and He left an example that we should follow in his steps.
Remember he was here and without sin. Verse one it says Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk.
In the law of the Lord, blessed are they that keep His testimonies, and that seek Him with the whole heart. They also do not iniquity. They walk in His ways. Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.
It is our responsibility as His own to walk in His ways and the example that He left for us. Dear ones, what path are you walking on? What direction are you headed in? Do you know? Have you asked Him for guidance and help in your life that you might be like Him?
105th verse I believe it is.
Says, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
This is our instruction manual. This is our guidance book from him.
00:05:05
Do you dig into it every day?
So that what you see is Christ, so that what you see is the pathway that He has marked out for you. Or do you design it yourself? We just sang this beautiful hymn.
It says, Oh, fix our earnest gaze, so, holy Lord, on thee, that with thy beauty occupied, we elsewhere none may see, We elsewhere none may see.
Oh how he wants us to have our eyes fixed on him.
It is.
Our It should be the joy of our hearts.
To bring homage to him, to bring glory to him, That one who went to that cross of Calvary for you and I that hung on that cross.
Led and died.
Was that verse that we often.
Read in First Corinthians 10 and 31. It says, Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. Is that the desire of your heart?
Dear ones, to bring glory and honor to Him.
It seems like we can leave so many of those aspects of our Christian lifeout each day.
And be taken up with ourselves in the things of the world, but that our gaze would be wholly on him.
There's a verse that if you had turned to Isaiah chapter 35.
And you could read this whole chapter.
And get much enjoyment out of it.
I'm really not certain where to begin, but the verse I was thinking of is verse 8.
But maybe we could start at verse three. It says, strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them.
That are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not, behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense.
He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf.
Death shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as in heart, and the tongue of the dumbest thing in the wilderness shall waters break out in streams in the desert, and the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.
In the habitation of Dragons, where each lay shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
And in highway shall be there and away, and it shall be called the way of holiness.
I enjoyed this verse in so many different aspects when I consider it though for our daily walk. He tells us in first Peter, be holy, for I am holy. And the path that he has put you on here is one of which we should walk in holiness. It is a highway.
It shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those the wayfaring men.
We are strangers and pilgrims here waiting to be called home to be with him.
And all but just for a moment.
We walk here in this world.
Says, though fools shall not air their inner enter in. We are sitting in that reading meeting this morning and Bernie asked that question and I couldn't help but think of the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And I thought of the path that the Lord had put them on in that day and how they ended up in that fiery furnace. What a place that would be. Would you and I wake up this morning and say, oh, today I'm going to go and be in a fiery furnace.
I don't think so, but the Lord put them there, and you know Nebuchadnezzar.
Or he allowed them to be there. I'm sorry. And Nebuchadnezzar.
I'm sure he thought he had some kind of power in it.
And when he looked, he didn't see three, he saw four, and he saw that one, the Son of God. And he walks with you and I every day by our side. And He loves us so much. And he wants us to keep us from any Oz, any bit of defilement that possibly could enter into our life. But we need to trust Him and we need to learn more about Him.
And it needs to be the desire of our heart, our whole heart, not only please Him, but to glorify Him on the earth.
Oh, thou hast redeemed the whole.
And made us love my grace thing.
Luke 21:27-32
Reading
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230.
We wonder at thy lowly mind and fame would likely be and all our rest and pleasure find in learning Lord of the 230.
Oh Lord, when we love a three trains, which I wonder.
As cold.
As I'm grace God.
Grateful.
Good.
We wander.
Out of the light.
And they would like.
Me.
We didn't get too far in our chapter. We talked a lot in general terms, but.
I suppose we.
Talk pretty much about chapter correction verse 26 set for the last phrase in it so.
We could read from verse 27 perhaps, but maybe say a word about the expression The powers of heaven shall be shaken. Before we go on to verse 26, verse 27, I suggest we read from 25 to get the connection. Well, it's all one sentence, so yeah, I guess I'll be all right.
Luke's Gospel chapter 21 and verse 25.
There should be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity to see, and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. For the powers of heaven shall be shaken. They shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power.
And great glory.
When these things begin to come to pass, then look up.
00:05:00
Lift up your heads for your redemption. Draw at 9. Can you speak to them a parable? Behold the fig tree and all the trees, and they now shoot forth. You see and know of your own selves. That summer is now nigh at hand. Like why he when you see these things come to pass, know ye that the Kingdom of God.
Is not at hand.
Early I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away.
To all be fulfilled.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Take heed to yourselves, lest at anytime your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unaware.
As a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things.
That shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.
In the daytime he was teaching in the temple, and at night he went out and abode in the mountains called the Mount of Olives. All the people came early in the morning to him in the temple for to hear him.
You know, the first time that I guess I had enough courage to stand up and read the chapter.
For the Lawrenceville reading meeting, that was when it was in Bridgeport school. I read it and sat down and when Buchanan asked me to stand back up and read some other verses that related to it, I don't know what the portion was.
Oh, I read those, sat down, and he asked me to read some more. Well, I'm going to do that to myself this time, although I talked to the brother that suggested this portion.
I'd like to read a few verses in Romans 11. One verse there was.
Mentioned the 25th verse this morning and I just thought that it fit in so well with what was being said. And I know we're not going to cover everything and I'm sorry to take this extra time, but I would like to read there in Romans 11 from verse 16.
For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou being a wild olive tree, where graft in among them, and with them partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree, boast not thyself against the branches.
But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
I'll say then the branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou stand us by faith. Be not high minded, but fear where God spared not the natural branches. Take heed lest He also spare not thee. You hold therefore the goodness and severity of God.
On them, which fell 70.
Toward the goodness.
Thou continue in His goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not, still in unbelief, shall be graft in. For God is able to graft them in again, where thou Wert cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and work graft contrary to nature into a good olive tree.
How much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graft into their own olive trees? For I would not rather that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceit. That blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles become in.
That didn't get expressed from Luke 21 This morning, and I don't want to.
00:10:05
U rail the train.
Well, just to make a comment or two, I believe we should go on with Luke 21, but.
What we read in Romans 11 explains a bit how that.
After the church is called home, God is going to bring Israel back into blessing.
And of course, the olive tree speaks of God's testimony in the earth.
And we all know that Israel was not a good testimony to the Lord.
But the church in what it has represented for the Lord on earth has not been any better, in fact probably in many ways worse than Israel, considering the far greater blessing and revelations that we have had. And so eventually God will take the church up to heaven, but He will remove them as a testimony in the earth.
And as it says in Romans 11, bring Israel back into blessing by.
Grafting them back in again.
But there seems to have been a little confusion about the expression the times of the Gentiles and the fullness of the Gentiles, judging by the number of questions that arose over the noon hour. And I don't think we need to spend a lot of time on it, except just to explain once again that the expression the times of the Gentiles.
Which is contained here in Luke 21.
I believe our brother Bruce brought it out pretty clearly, and brother Bob did too.
It started with Nebuchadnezzar after God took Israel out of the way as being his testimony in the earth and turn things over to the Gentiles. And so you had a series of a number of kingdoms recorded for us, but the times of the Gentiles really continue right on.
Until the Lord Jesus Christ appears and brings Israel back into blessing.
And so the times of the Gentiles refer to this world, and they refer to the rule of the Gentiles in this world, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar and going right on to the time when the Lord Jesus comes into this world and executes judgment.
But the fullness of the Gentiles in Romans 11 is a different term that refers to the bringing of the Gentiles into blessing when Israel was set aside. And so it really represents the church. Or I would suggest, if you want to be, shall we say, technical about it.
The fullness of the Gentiles begins with the stoning of Stephen.
Because that was really, you might say.
The last call for Israel in that blessing that could have been theirs through the preaching of the gospel by the apostles and others in the early church. But when Steven was stoned, that was the messenger sent up, as it were to heaven, saying we will not have this Mandarin over us. And so that began.
The turning to the Gentiles, Saul of Tarsus is saved.
He becomes the apostle to the Gentiles. You don't hear anymore of Peter after the 12Th of Acts and essentially while Jew and Gentile, it's true, according to Ephesians 2 are brought together in one body by the cross. Yet the church has been largely Gentile and the blessing has been largely going out to the Gentiles during this dispensation.
And that fullness of the Gentiles will not end.
Until the Lord comes and calls us home. After that, then the Lord once again begins to take up His earthly people, Israel, working toward bringing them back into blessing.
00:15:08
And.
I hope that's clear, maybe others have a comment or two to make on it, but I would suggest that we not get too sidetracked on that or we will miss out on much that we have here in Luke chapter 21.
Mm-hmm.
Well, if everyone is OK with that.
I'd suggest we go back to the end of verse 26 in Luke 21.
Because we didn't talk about the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
And I hope this is OK, but.
We were kicking that subject around at the lunch table, some of us, and rather Don Rule gave what I thought was a good explanation of it and I would like him if he would repeat that for everyone's benefit.
The general travel trend or thoughts of this chapter is that.
Man left to himself.
Situation gets worse and worse and worse, and so in the world today it's getting worse and worse and worse.
At the time of the flood, after Noah came out of the ark, God established government, as we call it, to restrain man.
Because without government.
Earth was filled with violence and corruption.
And now there is government in the earth.
But because of what man is, it is getting again, in spite of government being filled with violence and corruption to the point where people are afraid to live daily life. And it's becoming more and more dangerous and more and more parts of the world, including the United States.
To live daily life without fear of what man will do and.
Hear the chapter shows that.
This condition gets worse and worse until the point that even.
The administration affairs from heaven by angels is not even.
That which is restraining to the need of what man is. And God has used the angelic host to administer his government behind the scenes on the earth to correct, to restrain, to control what's going on on the earth. And the whole picture here is to show us.
And to show to mankind.
That there is only one possible solution.
So the problem of today.
Absolutely only one.
Angels aren't going to correct it.
Government's not going to correct it. Great leaders are not going to correct it. It's gotten to the point where there's only one and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is absolutely the only answer to the need of this world today as to not just salvation.
But to live daily life under control?
Of one sort and another and so what's looked for is in immediately following the powers of heaven be shaken verse 27 they shall see the son of man and that's what's to be looked for we don't look for government to get better we don't look for countries to become more stable the light of Christianity has been brought to the.
Once when I was a kid they talked about dark Africa, but that's not true anymore.
00:20:03
The light of the gospel has gone, generally speaking, throughout the whole world, and there's a harvest for the Lord Jesus in grace, but at the same time, when it's looked at in its primary look, if you will, that is coming to the point where it's recognized that.
Only the Lord Jesus Christ can set it right.
But I want to add this solemn point to it. Though the heart of man being what it is, the world still says, no matter what, we will not have.
And so he will have to take it by force.
And he will the Lord Jesus and power will establish as creator rights and as Redeemer rights the claim the earth for himself. But he will have to take it in power because no matter how bad the world gets, it's still true as in Romans one it says did not want to retain God.
In their knowledge. And so the heart of man is so.
Opposed to all that God is that even when the Lord comes.
To set things right, there will be a large number who will oppose it and end up coming under his judgment at the time of his coming.
We know, of course, that when the Antichrist appears.
The godly ones in Israel in a coming day will be able to recognize him, as we read in Matthew, The Abomination of desolation. When you see the abomination of desolation, stand in the holy place, and I believe they'll be able to recognize the beginning of the great Tribulation.
And know that they have 3 1/2 years to go until.
The Lord appears for them, but here the Lord appears.
And they immediately know that their redemption draws nigh. Some of the judgment will have fallen on Israel by that time. The King of the North will have come down and wreaked his havoc on Israel, and so on. We don't need to go into those details now, but ultimately, when they see the Lord appear, what a wonderful thing it will be for them.
Well.
I suggest that the application that you and I can make, we are not seeing the Lord appear. We will not in that way at the appearing from the vantage point of being on earth. We will see it, of course, from the heavenly side. We'll be with Him, but at the same time we will not be here to see the rise of the Antichrist.
But what we are seeing now, as we said earlier.
Is the whole stage being set for all of these things to take place?
Men's hearts failing them for fear. Everything being set for what will happen in that tribulation week.
And I suggest that the joy for our hearts ought to be We too can lift up our heads. We too can look up and say our redemption draw.
Now we know that there are no clear and definite signs that we look for that tell us that the Lord is coming. If there were such, it would take away, in years gone by from the present hope of every believer, to expect the church at any, or expect the Lord's coming at any moment for His children, for His church.
So God never gives the believer any definite signs that have to happen.
Before the Lord comes to take us home.
00:25:01
But we are entitled.
Quoting Hebrews 10 and 25 that we are not too. Well, let's read it together. Hebrews 10 and 25.
Because it's a very good verse for what we're talking about.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more.
As you see the day approaching.
I suggest that that is the day of judgment and we are entitled to see that day approaching.
And we're seeing we are entitled to say we are in the last days because the character of the last days is given to us. We are entitled to look around us and say we're here, this is where we are. But then we are also very much entitled to, as it says in our chapter.
To look up and lift up our heads.
And know that our redemption draweth nigh. It's not a day to be discouraged, not a day to be cast down.
Yes, circumstances may be difficult.
The condition of God's people may burden our hearts. It ought to.
Do we care about the condition of this world? We ought to care. That is totally different from being discouraged.
So we are told in the scriptures of the New Testament that are written to us.
That our expectation is for the Lord to come for us.
People call that the rapture, the snatching away.
And that is brought before us in many places in the New Testament for the comfort of our hearts.
The appearing of the Lord Jesus, which will be at least seven years later.
As you say, we will be with the Lord Jesus when he comes triumphant out of heaven. He comes with 10 thousands of his Saints.
And he will put down all that is opposed to him. As Brother Don has mentioned, we'll go out to battle with him, but we'll be clothed in white garments. It's kind of a funny, funny outfit to wear to battle. But the Lord is the one who, with the with the sword of his mouth, will accomplish all that needs to be accomplished in power. And it doesn't speak of us that I'm aware of, having the sword we are.
Along as accompanying him.
But I remember brother Bill your wife's uncle speaking years ago, he was lived in Ontario and he used to talk about driving down SW Ontario towards Windsor and Windsor is on the Ontario side and across the rivers Detroit for those of you not familiar with the geography. And he used to make that he I heard him at least once make this comment. He said when I Windsor.
Much smaller city, he say. When I see the lights of Detroit, I know I'm getting near Windsor.
And his point was that Detroit, being a bigger city, brighter, was beyond Windsor. But that's what he was seeing, the lights of Detroit, and he knew his destination was Windsor. And so as believers, when we see things starting to take shape and the rumblings and the preparations that seem to be apparent all around of what's going to happen after we're gone, it does strike us that though we're not looking for signs ourselves.
That the coming of the Lord draws near for us.
The blessed hope of being extracted from this world, it says in our verse.
28 when these things begin to come to pass.
Because there's a process that will unfold, and they will be.
Through the Word of God and their teachers in those days, these intelligent, faithful Jews will be more or less instructive in the sequence of things. And it's not going to be a moment for them. It's going to be quite the thing to go through 12160 days or 42 months and plus some time at the end. And so it says when these things begin to come to pass. But for you and me.
00:30:02
A blessed be God that it's going to be.
We're going to be changed in the twinkling of an eye. It's not going to be a begin to happen.
Will we go up into heaven in a twinkling of an eye? I don't know that and I don't know that the Scriptures say so, but we'll be changed in a twinkling of an eye to be like Christ. You'll be glorified and we shall join him in the cloud. So the distinction between these godly ones that are primarily in view here in this chapter versus the portion of the of the believing.
Christian.
It's interesting we've been reading My wife and I say recently, and how often.
Uses that term in that day.
Which of course, is the day of the Lord.
And that day of the Lord begins.
When the Lord Jesus comes to exercise his authority and take back.
The kingdoms of the world and reign supreme. O brethren, that is the focus of the believer. Nothing down here should attract us or distract us. We need to be focused on that day, thinking of what Timothy says or Paul says.
In Second Timothy 4 and verse 8.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me at that day. Of course, I think that's with the judgment seat of Christ, isn't it? But it's that day when everything is going to be set according to God's standard. Oh brethren, let's not.
Lose the focus of that day. Young people don't get distracted with this world's.
Objectives. Keep your focus on that day.
Day of his appearing, as I said this morning, I don't think, brethren.
That will there will ever be a day of such glory.
As that day when the Lord Jesus comes back in with his people.
To reign supreme in this world. Often think of Enoch and he lived before the flood. He lived when there was no Bible to read. But Enoch walked with God, and God must have told them, because Enoch prophesied. Behold, the Lord cometh with 10 thousands of his things. It's in the plural, isn't it?
It's myriads.
Just think of it, Oh brother, in the glory of it, how many of the redeemed will there be?
I think we can easily say there will be billions of the redeemed that will accompany him. But not only that, Second Thessalonians chapter one says that he will be accompanied by His mighty angels. How many angels are there? It will be 1 huge mighty.
Invasion from outer space into this world.
And that's the way God will vindicate the glory of His Son. Oh Lord. Lord, help us to not lose sight of that day.
Is the powers shaken?
Powers of heaven shaken at the end of verse 26 refer to warfare in heaven that will occur between Michael and and Satan and his angels. Or what? Am I too specific on that?
I think that will be part of it, but I would say that it includes more because Satan is going to do all he possibly can to avoid the confrontation and the powers of heaven will be shaken and that will be the time when Satan will be cast out.
Woe to the earth.
00:35:14
Well, then, in verse 29, we see something that.
We can all relate to.
Behold the fig tree and all the trees.
Israel got its independence in 1948 and became a sovereign state once more.
An amazing fact when you consider as we had brought before us this morning.
That they ceased being a sovereign nation over 600 years before Christ.
And now they are a sovereign nation again.
They have their problems, they have those that are trying to get rid of them. But behold, the fig tree. You and I have beheld the fig tree, and it's there. Yes, they're throwing their weight around a bit now, and it would seem with some justification. We know, of course, that many things have to happen before they will.
Be brought back in the fullness of blessing that God intends for them.
But the fig tree in Scripture generally represents Israel nationally.
The vine, perhaps more Israel spiritually. And so behold the fig tree and all the trees.
All the trees, that is something we've seen too, just to give a little bit of an idea of how far things have come.
I was always a bit of a history buff and.
In the year 1900, I think we could safely say.
There were maybe 50 recognized sovereign nations in the world today.
In the world of that day, I mean fifty nations who may be in 1900.
When I started university in 1962.
There were about 120 or 121.
How many are there today?
Over 190? Am I right in that 193 maybe or something along that line?
Between 1900 and 1962.
There were seventy nations added.
Between 1962 and 2024, there have been another 70 added.
Every little group, every little ethnic group, every little tribe, every little place in the earth.
Wants its own sovereign state, wants to have its own say, wants to be able to operate on their own and have a place in the earth to be recognized. And that's one of the signs that God gives us here, not just the fig tree, but all the trees.
And that, I suppose, is part of the reason why back a few verses.
In verse 25, we find the sea and the waves roaring because every little nation wants to have its voice, wants to have it say.
Who would have thought, even a few years ago?
That North Korea would be giving ammunition to the Russians.
To try and use against the West or that North Korea would have the capability of firing.
Nuclear rockets that could hit the United States.
Unbelievable, and yet there it is.
All of these things are a sign of this 29th verse coming to pass.
Behold the fig tree and all the trees.
I.
Force. The Lord's parable was talking about the coming of spring, but when they shoot forth, it says in verse 30, See and know of your own selves, that summer is now nigh at hand.
So likewise ye, when you see these things come to pass, know ye that what?
War is about to break out.
00:40:00
That's true. That's not what God's mind is looking at. That's not what the eye of God is on. The eye of God is on the ultimate coming of the Kingdom of God.
Beautiful.
Small comment about the Kingdom of God.
It's an expression that gives emphasis to moral.
Behavior.
The fig tree and all the trees has already been well explained. Has to do with individual nations having their own identity and characteristics and government and so on.
But God, when he looks at the earth, looks at it far more with the intent that it be as it says elsewhere in Romans, the Kingdom of God is righteousness.
And peace and joy in the Holy Ghost is that it be a place.
That is morally consistent with what God is.
And so his intent in establishing the Kingdom of God.
In that character, when the Lord Jesus comes, it will establish all the kingdoms of the earth under one supreme head. He will be supreme. There will be nations, they will have individual governments, but all will be under His.
Direct authority throughout the world, and there will be, if you will, insisted upon by God.
That the governments operate in righteousness.
Morally, not just restraint of evil itself.
But that the mankind be governed in a morally upright and righteous way, and the consequence of such will be peace, and as a result the earth will enjoy 1000 years of peace as long as the Lord reigns in that way, and so there will be a joy.
That is not experience. It won't be meant hearts failing for fear, but there will be an order to all things such that man will not be afraid anymore. And Luke, particularly in his gospel, maintains the thought of when it's the Kingdom of God, it's a Kingdom of.
Righteousness in contrast to the kingdoms today.
Which are anything but righteous.
How do we?
Understand this generation's on that pass away. They'll all be fulfilled by.
Was mentioned earlier that if all these things were 8070, it wasn't long enough.
We tend to think of the word generation as, you know, a.
Have children and that's a generation, and maybe it's 40 or 50 years of time.
My take I miss my sense is that it's really referring to the nation of Israel or the the family of.
Of Israel, the race, if you will, but I'd like to hear somebody's comment about this generation so that pass away.
It speaks some place of this unbelieving generation. So it's not only.
A lot of measurement of time. That's the characteristic of the generation. It will be that unbelieving generation that will last until the Lord comes and puts things right. That's the way I have looked at it.
Can you get an expression in Psalm 12? It's like that.
Psalm 12.
Thou shall keep them, O Lord, Thou shall presume them from this generation forever.
00:45:05
And there can't really mean the generation of time.
It's speaking about something else.
So essentially the character.
Will be no different from what it was when they rejected the Lord Jesus.
And when they rejected the preaching of the apostles and the message of the gospel that they obtained in that day.
The character of the nation, morally speaking, will be no different. They will.
In a large measure.
Still, as Dawn has brought out.
Antagonistic so that the Lord Jesus, as Dawn has been saying.
We'll have to take that Kingdom by force. Yes, there will be some godly ones that we'll be looking for him.
But they will be savagely persecuted during the Tribulation, driven out.
Martyred in many cases and ultimately driven away, having to leave the land of Israel. They'll have to.
Get right out of the worship of God in Israel, because the Antichrist will be there.
And the bulk of the nation, sad to say, will not in any way be looking for the Lord to come, but rather will have put their faith in the Antichrist. And as the Lord says, the.
Lord said when he was on earth that the.
Evil spirit, departing from the man would walk through dry places, seeking rest and finding none.
And he says, I will go back to my house from whence I came out. And he findeth it empty, and swept, and garnished. And he takes to himself 7 spirits more wicked than himself. In the last state of that man is worse than the 1St. So essentially the moral character of Israel will be no different, even though thousands of years have gone by.
That's Matthew chapter 12 and verse 45, and it's interesting right at the end it says, Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation?
So it's a moral characteristic in the character of the generation.
Isaiah 3310 Now will I rise, saith the Lord. Now will I be adulted, Now will I lift up myself. You shall conceive trap, you shall bring forth stubble. Your breath and fire shall devour you. The people shall be as burnings of lime as thorns cut up. They are burned in the fire here, either far off what I have done, but you might need ye that are near acknowledge my might.
The sinners in Zion are afraid. Carefulness has surprised the hypocrites. Hypocrites.
Full of us shall dwell with the devouring fire. Fool among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings.
So there's there's that fear in that moral generation inversion, the first part of the verse.
And.
The righteous remnant who can dwell in everlasting burnings.
Hebrews 12 ends our God of the eternal fire.
He that walketh up, that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly, He that despiseth again of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes, that stopeth his ears from the hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil, he shall dwell on high. His place shall be a defense of defense shall be the munitions of Robbins. His bread shall be given him, his water shall be sure.
By Nice you'll see the King in his beauty.
It shall behold the land that's very far off. What a wonder for the godly remnant.
Awaiting that moment.
00:50:01
What a contrast with those centers in science.
It's really a secular nation that's fighting, isn't it?
Know there's godly remnant somewhere. We know there's many deer Jews that have turned to faith in Christ.
They're in Israel at this time.
One group called one for Israel, reaching out.
With the gospel by Internet.
Umm, And yet they're in great contrast to those who pursuing this war in the midst of it all. Here's.
Saints redeemed to God by the blood of Christ, Suffering in Gaza and in Israel from the countries roundabout.
God is going to bring His purpose out of all of it, isn't it?
It will be a wonderful day when that Kingdom of God appears and.
It's an interesting study. We don't have time for it this afternoon, but to see how the Kingdom of God is brought out in Scripture and the far reaching impact that it will have. We see anything but the Kingdom of God gradually being exhibited in this world. Rather, instead, every man is doing that which is right in his own eyes.
And not even that in many cases.
But men deliberately and willfully doing wrong because he'll do whatever he can get away with. And so men are committing fraud, committing crimes, telling lies, doing things morally wrong in everyday life which some of us that are older never dreamed we would see in our lifetime.
When some of us were growing up, the world, at least in which we lived and moved, was relatively.
Morally upright and if.
Someone was willfully and deliberately doing something morally wrong.
And it was exposed, it was, it was dealt with and we can be thankful for the extent to which it is still being dealt with today.
But it happens so frequently now that men are, just as I say, doing what they think they can get away with. But there will come a day, as dawn was bringing out during the millennial day, when all that will change and when the Lord will rule in righteousness and governments will have to operate in keeping with the Kingdom of God.
But I would just suggest the thought too that the Kingdom of God.
It even goes beyond the Millennium, that vast moral Kingdom.
That will begin in the Millennium, will extend right on into the eternal state.
Forever there will be that vast moral Kingdom with Christ at its head.
That would exist for all eternity, when evil will never rear its head again, when sin will never exist again.
Never see it again after the end of the Great White Throne Judgment.
For that vast moral Kingdom, where everything is according to God's mind, will continue to exist.
Our late brother Harry Hajo used to make the comment. I thought it was rather a good way of putting it. He said the Millennium will be a wonderful time, but it is really only the front porch to the eternal state.
And that is not what is before us in this chapter particularly, but I just mentioned that for completeness.
It will be a wonderful time. The Millennium will introduce it. Righteousness will dwell.
Or will reign rather in the Millennium, in the eternal state. Righteousness will dwell. Righteousness will be insisted upon during the Millennium. Righteousness will dwell in the eternal state. There will be nothing to oppose it ever.
00:55:07
Papa, you had mentioned generations.
The characteristic? Well, isn't it sometimes used like we when we speak of baby boomers?
We are Speaking of a Democrat demographic cohort of people that were born in 1946.
And up until 1964. So if we refer to them referring to a specific group of people that lived at a specific period of time, if if that's what it means in this chapter, then I've heard the thought suggested that those who see the trees budding and shooting poor will not pass away.
In the sense that die off until all of these things are fulfilled.
Heard in these years.
Wait for the microphone. Sorry. Oh, thank you. And so we see that right now, never as we have seen it before. And today, truth is under attack. Christianity is under attack. What is being held as right and true by Christians as being attacked, as being evil and hate and all these things. And so this is all a picture of what we've been talking about. And what does this mean for us as we sit here?
In this setting.
Is some of what Bruce brought out earlier this morning that we need to be careful what we take in today? It said that there is about 200 more times pieces of information brought before us in these days than at 25 years ago. And so we're encouraging Timothy to rightly divide the word of truth study to show thyself approved. Approved of who?
Approved of God.
And we see Christianity, sadly, in some cases setting aside truth and compromising, but we need to study to show ourselves approved of God. And we can take courage too, as was talked about in the open meeting, that the word, the lamp into our feet and light unto our path and to direct us through these dark times. And so young families do take courage. You see what's going on around us, but we see that we have a hope set before us.
And in the meantime, if we stay the course, the Lord promises us in Peter, right, That he will give us all things that pertain to life and godliness. And every time you look around and consider the path of the world and the path of darkness, I have, I'm an old person now. I have never seen anyone who's followed an earthly path, who's resulted in a life that they look back and say, this has been amazing.
Instead, you see strife.
Over inheritances you see terrible things happening you see suicides of rich and famous people Why because the thief comes but to steal to kill and destroy. John 10 but I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly so we can take courage as we consider these things. There's a great portion that's been set before us but there are some very practical things that we can take into our hearts here too because James.
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways and so we need to really adhere to the truth of the word of God, not let all this noise around us take us down because Satan's goal is to steal, to kill and destroy. But we have a very blessed path we can take courage. You fortify your home, you fill your heart with the word of God and you'll be amazed at the joy that goes into your.
Compared to the sadness, strife and darkness in the world I work in healthcare, we are so overwhelmed with with behavioral health issues because there's never been depression in in existence like there is in the world today. So that is the path of the world today. We are not missing anything. We're blessed beyond measure. We have the instruction manuals have been talked about everything that pertains to life and godliness. And so we can really take courage.
01:00:06
Verse 33 It says heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. A wonderful brethren, we have something that is solid and upon which we can base our confidence, the precious living.
Word of God, they will not pass away.
We can be short of it.
Sam, you didn't get an answer to your question really, but.
I would suggest that that viewpoint is really.
A misapplication of what we have in this chapter. I don't believe it's saying that the generation that sees these things starting to the stage being set for them.
Will necessarily be here for the Lord's well for all this to be fulfilled. I because how long has it been now since the nation of Israel appeared 75 years or more and.
Many have gone to be with the Lord or many have passed away in that time, so I would suggest that's not really what it means.
Sure you would agree with that. I've thought about it because somebody writing about it was suggesting the thought and said that the passing of a generation is 120 year. When they die off, people don't live. You know, every now and then you'll hear about some person just died, that's 118 or 120. But I don't know that I've heard anybody dying away.
At much older than that, but Even so.
Of generation passing away about 120 years. That still leaves some time.
I believe if you trace the term this generation through the gospels.
At least in the Gospels, you'll see that, as the brothers have been saying, it's a moral generation.
For example, in Luke Chapter 11.
Verse 49. I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute.
That's future that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation.
From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zechariah, which perish between the altar and the temple.
Clearly, I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation, so he's not going to heap on one particular generation that was alive at that time.
All the, all the, the punishment are the results of that kind of moral failure. But it's a moral generation that the Lord points to. Similarly, you see when the Lord was on trial before the Jewish leaders.
They they pressed him and said, Tell us clearly, are you the Christ? And he said, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand and coming in the clouds of glory.
Would they see it in their lifetime? No, but that generation is going to see it.
On the other side, it's helpful to see that when the Lord spoke to his disciples and you picture him there sitting on the bank overlooking the city of Jerusalem in Matthew, it's presented that way, I believe also here in Luke 21.
And he says to them they and he says to them, ye, you all, in other words, English you plural. And so it's clear that those particular disciples wouldn't be the ones that would be discerning, you know, the abomination of desolation set up or pray that your flight is not in the Sabbath, because those things are yet future. But the disciples in a sense represented the men and women of faith.
Who will be in that experience in the coming days? What we often call the Jewish remnant? And so the Lord looks upon those disciples who were men of faith in that day and looks upon them as morally the same entity, the same people that will have to respond. And we'll do so by faith on His word in the coming day from their intelligent Jewish teachers.
01:05:02
1.
Attending.
From the trial.
Of history.
Comes and comes to rain.
Israel's strange shall now be holding.
And told him it's the building.
To the country.
Now glory.
Show Merry Christmas.
Gospel 6
Gospel—B. Roossinck
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good evening.
It's a privilege to be able to share the gospel with you tonight.
So glad to see so many faces.
A most hearty welcome to each person that's here.
Let's begin the meeting by singing Christ as the Savior of sinners #4.
And I think it'd be nice if we stood up to sing this song together. Christ is the Savior of sinners.
Christ is the Savior for me.
#4.
Christ is the Savior of.
Sinners crisis the savior for me. The guy was shaking since darkness.
Now, by his grace, I am praying.
Say God sinners.
Sinners like me.
For my ransom, this is the savior for me.
Now I can say I am pardoned, happy and justified.
Free, saved by my blessed Redeemer.
This is the savior.
For me.
She had in his blood for my ransom.
This is the savior for me.
Just as I was erasing.
Shaking from judgment to flee.
Malarish, no condemnation.
This is the savior for me.
Save your upstairs sinners like me.
Should I begin? What for my grandson?
This is the singer for me.
Love with all of my sunshine.
Flesh with all blessing so great.
How shall I tell you this is a savior for me?
Turn on us in years.
Sinners like me.
Straight against blood for my grandson.
This is a savior for me.
Where we sing another hymn.
Want to tell you kids, young people?
Something that's on my heart.
I think that there are a number of you that are in the valley of decision.
You got it up here.
You know, sometimes we talk about.
The gospel hardened Western world.
And many of you have heard.
The gospel, the preaching of the cross many times, and you got it up here.
You're about 16 inches short. Some of us were talking about this at lunchtime.
It's not in your heart.
And my exercise and my burden for you, friend, tonight is not that you would just know about Jesus.
But that you would know him personally, that you would surrender your life.
To say yes, Lord Jesus, I accept you.
You know, I often think of a verse, it's I think it's first Peter. And to you, therefore which believe he is precious.
00:05:02
You know, there was a time kids in my life.
I grew up listening to the gospel lots.
There was a time in my life that.
When I heard the gospel preached, I didn't want to hear it. I knew all about it and I can answer all of the questions.
But if somebody would said to me.
About you, Bernie, do you know the Lord Jesus as your savior? I didn't want to answer.
And the reason was I had him up here, but I hadn't gotten to my heart.
Now you boys and girls, you young people, some of you that are in the valley of decision.
That are wrestling with God.
That know about the gospel but don't know.
The man of peace, you don't have that peace in your soul, that your sins are gone.
I want you to listen.
To what the word of God is saying.
Never mind the people that are sitting around you. Never mind messing with your phone.
Listen to the Spirit of God and the words of God.
As we present this message to you, please.
I like to sing one more hymn before we open God's word.
Umm.
#19.
You know, there's a lot of people striving for satisfaction in their lives and they're not finding it.
Oh Christ, my soul and thee have found, and found in thee alone.
The peace, the joy, I saw it so long to bliss, till now unknown, now none but Christ can satisfy.
None other name for me. There's love and life and lasting joy.
Lord Jesus found in thee #19.
Oh Christ, my soul. And they have found that found.
In the alone.
Joy I saw so long loveless, still now unknown.
But Christ and satisfied.
Their name for me?
Indeed.
Eyesight for us and.
Happiness.
Fire for them? Nothing.
But I passed my.
Standard by heaven's love, they will love me.
Joy, Lord Jesus.
Found in the.
Ancestors.
Are by the water spell.
Being as I sleep.
It rain, they play.
I mark it as I will.
Love, love, but Christ can satisfy.
Their name for me?
00:10:03
And I must be told, Lord Jesus now.
Church is taught I something more, but now there's 40.
Embrace the spike racing.
I love realness to see.
And I'm glad I see.
Joy, Lord James does.
One of the songs that we could have sung tonight was Tell Me the Old old Story.
Of Jesus and his love.
As this I mentioned this verse a minute ago. And to you therefore, which believe he is precious the Lord Jesus precious to you friend.
Somebody talks about being saved. That brings joy to your heart. Or does it bring something that makes you want to?
Don't bring that up to me. I'm not interested.
Friend.
The old, old story is Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and all of us are sinners.
I thought about some of you young people.
And the decisions that you're making.
And I know the pressure that you feel.
And I understand the onslaught of this world.
To derail your life and to make you walk away from the Lord Jesus.
Read a verse in Jeremiah 6 to you.
This is not often used in a Gospel context, but I'm going to use it that way tonight. Jeremiah 616.
Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see.
And ask for the old paths.
Where is the good way? And walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls.
But they said we will not walk therein. Friend, the old, old story that I'm speaking about is the story of God's love for lost sinners, the story that brought the Lord Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son, into this world to go to the cross of Calvary and take upon himself.
The penalty and the payment of sin.
That a sin hating holy God demanded somebody had to pay that debt.
And friend, if you're still in your sins, everyone of us shall give an account of God to God.
Friend, you will confess the Lord Jesus as Lord.
I hope that you do it with joy.
With happiness and love and delight.
You might do it with bitter anger and hatred. I hope that's not true.
Are you going to say to God?
I will not walk in that old path. My way is good enough or better. I reject that. Don't do that. For instance, don't do that.
You know, there are so many people in this world that are striving to find peace with God.
So many thoughts crowd into my mind as I stand here, brethren.
There's a verse in Proverbs that says there is a way that seemeth right unto a man.
00:15:02
But the end thereof are the ways of death.
Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness.
You know, so many people today are trying to get satisfaction and get peace in their lives, and they're trying it in ever so many ways.
And the way may seem right for a while. You know, it speaks in about Moses that he he left the pleasures of sin for a season so that he could.
I guess I have to turn to it to get it ready. Surprisingly, brother. And you get nervous when you're standing up here.
Don't you, Jonathan?
Hebrews 11 Says this about Moses.
By faith Moses when he was come to years. This is verse 24.
Refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, that to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
Steaming the reproach of Christ. Greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. You, dear young people, if you think that the treasures of this world are going to satisfy your soul, they're not. They don't.
And I plead with you if you're contemplating today, tonight.
Deciding what will I then do with Jesus, which is called Christ?
Accept him, believe Him, surrender to Him. You know it's there's so many people that know intellectually about the Lord.
But they're not willing to say Lord. The word Lord gives the thought of authority. You know the Apostle Paul when he was struck down on the Damascus Rd. by a bright light, What did he say? Lord, what will you have me to do? He surrendered.
Many others, I think of the thief on the cross too, right here's the Lord hanging on the cross, these two thieves on either side, and they're mocking him. Hey, if you're the Son of God, come down and save us. And then the Spirit of God got ahold of one of those men, and he says to the other one.
He We're getting what we deserve here.
But this man, that's the Lord Jesus friend, has done nothing amiss. Nothing.
Lord, Remember Me when you come into your Kingdom and.
The Lord turns dim and he looks over at him. He says today you'll be with me in paradise. And that man on the cross. She admitted he was a Sinner. He knew he was getting what he deserved.
This man has done nothing amiss. Remember Me, Lord, Remember Me when you come into your Kingdom and the Lord said to him, today you'll be with me in paradise. I just want your young people to impress upon you that way that seemeth right. It's going to end in disaster. You know, somebody mentioned earlier in the conference here, Satan is the father of lies.
The murderer from the beginning, he doesn't have your good and blessing at heart. He wants to destroy your life.
And take you into a lost eternity apart from God, lost in your sins. That's what His goal for your life is. You know, friends, the wages of sin is death. That's it. That's what you get. That's payment for sin. And without somebody dealing with our sins and we could never do it on our own.
We need a Savior, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, are you willing to submit to him to give him your life?
Like to turn now to.
Well known story in Luke 10.
This would be almost hardly need to turn to this story, but we will and read it here together.
Luke, chapter 10.
And.
Let's begin with verse 30.
Jesus, answering, said a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Stop right there for a minute.
Jerusalem. Those of you that know the geography of Israel know that Jerusalem is a very high elevation. So when you read in the Scripture, they went up to Jerusalem, They went up physically to Jerusalem. They also went up spiritually and morally to Jerusalem because that was God's center.
00:20:17
The Lord says, my eye was always on that place, and as we had earlier in their meetings, there's a day coming when the Lord Jesus will rule in this world that he's going to do it from Jerusalem. And anyway, here's this man and he's leaving the place where God had placed his name, and he's going down to Jericho. Now it's physically down.
I can't remember the exact numbers, but I think it's about 1800 feet.
Elevation difference or more?
And it's about 12 miles to get from Jerusalem to Jericho as the crow flies, but 15 to drive it.
And it's because it's switched back, right? It's steep. Here's this man, he's walking away from God and he's going down to Jericho. Now, kids, Jericho is a city that when the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea and were brought into Canaan and Joshua was leading them, the first obstacle they had was Jericho, right?
And they, Joshua, met the Lord there.
And there is an unknown man in front of him. He says, who are you? I'm the captain of the Lord's host.
I believe that was the Lord Himself.
And.
He gave Joshua instruction. They they marched around the city blowing the trumpet once a day, I think it was, and then the last day seven times around and God destroyed that city. It fell. And then God told his people, I don't want this place rebuilt. Jericho is a place of a curse and that is the end result, young people, kids, of going away from God.
Is the place of a curse. And this man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thieves. Friends, Satan is a robber. Sin is a robber.
It's.
It's there to destroy your life and to steal your soul and take it to hell.
That's what Satan wants for your life.
To hear this man fell among thieves.
And they stripped him of his raiment.
Wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead.
What a place. Perhaps I don't know anything about this man.
As he made this journey, maybe he had relatives down there, maybe he had business down there, whatever. And he starts out this trip and someplace along that journey is accosted by these thieves, these bandits, and they robbed him, They beat him up and they toss him in the ditch and leave him there to die.
That is the end result of the way that seemeth right to a man.
You young people don't believe me.
Go into some of the homeless shelters in big cities and ask people about what happened. How did you get here?
Addiction.
Family problems.
Violence.
Crime.
This is the result of walking away from God.
So here he is, friends laying in the ditch.
Half dead.
Verse 31. By chance there came down a certain priest that way.
When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. I find that so sad.
You know the priest in the word of God where the spiritual leaders, these were the ones the Levites, that of Aaron's family that had been specially called.
To serve the Lord and to a.
Take the sacrifices and to perform all the duties of worship and and I don't know where this priest was going, but along he comes, looks down there in a ditch like this.
And he crosses the road and gets on his way on the other side.
00:25:02
There are people that are trying to.
Get their sins forgiven by trusting in religious ritual. Religious tradition. You can't get to heaven by trusting in. Tradition by trusting in.
Sacraments by trusting in.
Maybe to illustrate this, I'll just tell you this story. There is an old lady kids who was dying in the hospital and everybody knew that the end was near for her and so they called the priest to come and talk with her.
And she was confused about it, she said. And who are you, Sir?
He said, well, I'm the I'm the priest. I'm here to forgive your sins.
He says, oh really?
Let me see your hands.
So he holds out his hands like this, and she's peering at him. You know, like this, she said. I'm so sorry, Sir.
The man that forgave my sins has holes in his hands. I love that story. That's the Lord Jesus.
You know, to try to get to God by, hey, I go to church on Good Friday and Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve and all this stuff, you know, reading the Bible, listening to different podcasts that are somewhat Christian based. That's not going to save your soul. Even Nicodemus was a very godly religious leader among the Jews. And the Lord Jesus had to say to him, Nicodemus, it's not enough.
You must be born again.
You can't.
Obtain forgiveness of sins by being religious.
Friend, you need the Savior of sinners. It's the Lord Jesus. So here this experience passes by on the other side.
Where's?
32 Likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked by him.
Pass by on the other side a Levite.
They were from the tribe of Levi, obviously, and their role, Aaron's family line was the priest. All the rest of the Levites were involved in the the service, and they were the teachers and they were the servants and they were the people that they were involved in judiciary judgments and things like that.
No amount of good works, friend, that can get you into heaven.
Even if you could turn over a new leaf right now and live perfect life from here forward, the Scripture tells us, friends, God requires that which is passed.
And not only that, there are a lot of things that maybe we haven't done, but we thought about doing them.
And the Lord brings out that he considers that as good as done right. If a man looks on a woman to lust after him in her heart, after in her heart he's already done it.
There's no amount of turning over a new leaf, no sowing fig leaves together. That's what Adam and Eve did, right? They disobeyed God, and immediately they knew.
They were ashamed. They were naked. They're like who?
This.
And one or the other of them said, we better get covered up here. And here comes God walking through the gardens. Adam, where are you?
Adam is busy sowing fig leaves together to hide from God, right? That's what Zacchaeus did too. You know, the the Lord met him there in that tree says, hey Zach, he has come down. And so down he comes and he says, hey Lord.
I've been doing a lot of real good things.
And the Lord says.
Nope, a salvation is coming to your house today. It wasn't by all these big leaves that we sew together telling God, well, hey, I'm I'm pretty good guy. Actually, you know I'm there's a lot of worse people out there. Sin is sin folks. God can't have one single sin. A holy God can't have one sin in heaven. It says in I think it's revelation. There will be by no means anything enter in that defiles.
Nothing 0 So we have a problem, friends, and that is, we're sinners, and God cannot have sin in his presence. How can God have fellowship with a Sinner? How can God be well disposed to a Sinner? The answer is Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and God sent his beloved Son into this world.
00:30:15
The perfect, spotless, holy Lamb of God.
In him was number no sin. He did no sin. He knew no sin.
Some people would say, well he could have, but he just chose that to Nope, he was God's. He was God in the flesh.
And God sent his son.
Go to the cross to be the propitiation for our sins, kids. That means in a very simple way, the fixture of a broken relationship and so that.
When, when sin came into the world, because Adam and Eve sinned and that was passed upon all of us, right? Every one of us descended from Adam. We all have it, the disease of sin.
In a certain way God was offended, and he had to drive Adam and Eve out of the garden, right? And it says he put a cherubim at the entrance of the garden with a flaming sword that turned every which way.
There's no possible way for Adam to sneak around and come in the back.
There's no way for you to come into God's family.
Except through the Lord Jesus, Cherubim speaks of God's righteous holiness.
And that flaming sword turned every which way. You know, people would tell you today there's a lot of ways to get to God as long as you're sincere about it. No, friends, the Lord Jesus said I am the way, just one way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.
And so when the Lord Jesus died on the cross, he on God's side of it, he settled that demand of us in hating God against sin, so that God could look at you and I and be merciful. Sometimes the word pro propitiation is translated mercy seat and what would happen in the Old Testament is.
On the top of the ark there is the the mercy seat. It was a flat piece of.
There is a flat cover and it had two golden cherubims like this facing each other. Their wings were up like this and the priest would go in there and sprinkle blood on that mercy seat and God could see that blood and their sins would be atone. But it all pointed ahead to the cross of Calvary friends, and the Lord Jesus was there on that cross because of my sin.
Because of your sin.
And he paid that fully.
So when it was all done, you know, I think of the.
Three hours of darkness when God poured out upon his Son.
All of those waves and billows of.
Of wrath and punishment. He was thinking about you and me.
And he paid it all.
When it was done, he said, it is finished.
Bowed his head, gave up the ghost.
That, friends, is enough to satisfy God forever totally as to the question of sin.
Let's go on with our story, verse 33.
Certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was.
When he saw him, he had compassion on him.
And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in the oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, brought him to an end, and took care of him.
On the Morrow when he had departed, when he departed, he took out 2 Pence and gave them to the host and said it to him. Take care of them.
Whatsoever thou spend this more, when I come again I will repay thee. Well, here now comes the Samaritan. You know, the Samaritans in the in the land of Israel were despised people. They weren't true Jewish people.
The history on the Samaritans were.
When the people were carried away captive, there were people left put in charge, if you will, to keep some order in the land of Palestine, and they had a mixed religion of partially Jehovah, partially idolatry, and all kinds of.
00:35:07
Polluted beliefs and the Jews and the Smyrdans would not associate with each other. When the Lord Jesus met the woman at the well in John 4, the Samaritan woman.
We see some of the reactions that she says are you talking to me? Don't you know I'm a Samaritan and the Jews never talked to Samaritans and that's why now a Smarthan when the Lord told this story would be immediately recognizes this person is no good.
What does he do?
The sign down there in the ditch and he went down there came to him where he was. You know, friends, the Lord Jesus came into this world. We had this earlier and mankind said we don't want them. We're doing we're not interested in this guy even when he was born the night he was born, right? Says there's no room for him at the end and he had to be born out in a stable.
It all through his life.
I often think of a night like any night really. A night like tonight. We get done, All of us go off to our places where Jesus had nowhere to go.
Like he said, the foxes have holes.
Birds of the air have nest, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay us out.
Quote this little song to you.
That I enjoyed as a kid.
The foxes have holes where they go home to rest.
The birds of the air can fly back to their nest, but Jesus had no place to lay down his head.
But on his own breast, when at last he was dead.
Yes, though he was rich, yet he became poor.
All that he owned were the clothes that he wore.
And he who once ruled in the palace so grand, died with nothing but nails in his hands. Brenda was for you.
It was for me, it was for you.
There he is, hanging on that cross, nails through his hands and feet.
And he paid fully.
Price for our sins that we could never pay for ourselves. That mean anything to you that thrill your soul to think about it? Or are you indifferent to that? Don't you care that Christ Jesus came into the world in love for a year? Never dying soul friend.
The day is coming when you will have to give an account of your life to God.
Where Jesus mean anything to you? I hope that you love Him. I hope that you accept Him. I hope that you would surrender your life to Him.
Here's the Samaritan and he comes down and he has compassion on him. I often think about the lovely Lord Jesus.
Says in one place when he saw the multitude.
He was moved with compassion.
Because they were scattered as sheep, having no shepherd.
And here he is, the Good Shepherd in person.
Full of compassion.
I think too, about the Lord standing and looking out over Jerusalem, weeping over it, right?
How often would I have gathered thy children?
As a hand gathers your chicks under my wings and you would not.
People, is that your answer today to the offer of salvation? I will not.
Says in Proverbs, the fool has said in his heart, no God, are you a fool?
Are you saying no God, I don't want that. I reject it.
I hope not.
I love that compassion went down to him where he was. You know, the Lord came and met us where we were. The Lord often in his earthly pathway met people where they were at, you know, and I've been impressed by that. You think about the the woman at the well, right? He didn't jam her up about being a Sinner. She already knew that.
He said, hey, call your husband. Well, don't actually have one because yeah, I know you've already had five of them and the one you got now is not your husband, right?
00:40:11
She knew that the Lord meets people where they are friends. Will you let the Lord Jesus meet you in your need, where you're at right now? Maybe you're discouraged, maybe you're disgruntled. Maybe you're have felt like something has gone wrong in your life and and you're you're angry, you're disappointed, whatever it is.
The Lord Jesus wants to meet you where you were.
With compassion, with love, with forgiveness, with joy, with peace.
You know, kids like history.
Years ago, my wife and I, Becky here, we went to Richmond, VA, and then we traveled around a bit and went to a few Civil War battlefields.
And we got to Fredericksburg.
And Fredericksburg, there's a river at the bottom of the town, then a long slope up to the top of this hill. And about 2/3 of the way up the hill, there's a, a, it's called the Sunken Rd. So it's down dug into the side of the hill and there's a Stonewall along that. And the Confederate soldiers were behind that Stonewall and the Union army was advancing up the hill and they got absolutely slaughtered.
Brutal battle.
It was in December, but it was hot.
There's a statue, kids of a man there that really moved, moved my heart.
The statue of a man named Richard Roland Kirkland. Some of you have probably seen this.
It was a Confederate soldier.
And he could hear all through the night, the screaming and the groaning.
Of dying men. And he said to his commanding officer, I'd like to go down there and give him some water.
And his commanding officer told them, don't you dare.
While later he couldn't take it anymore, he gathered up all those canteens. He went down there.
And was giving water to all these dying men, you know, Not one single shot was fired at him. None.
And both Union and Confederate men called him the Angel of Mary's Heights. You know what I thought about kids when I saw that statue?
Of this man kneeling on the ground, pouring water into the mouth of a dying man, I thought about the blessed Lord Jesus.
Coming down into this world in love and compassion for you and for me.
And bringing us what we need.
You get the chance to go see that you should do that.
And but think about the Lord Jesus. History, profane history is interesting, but friends, the work of God and your soul is so valuable and precious.
It just says an aside that happened in December.
The following July, Gettysburg.
The tables were turned and now the union men were at the top of the hill behind the Stonewall.
And we generally had what's called Pickett's Charge, and up the hill they went and made you southerners and know about this Rob. And those Union men behind that Stonewall, they didn't have the attitude that the Angel of Mary's Heights had. You know what they shouted to each other, remember Fredericksburg? And they just kept firing.
And slaughtered so many thousands of men. Friends, that's what the enemy wants to do to your soul, the Lord Jesus says.
I am come that they might have liked.
And that they might have it more abundantly.
Are you willing to say yes, Lord you?
You did it for me. Lord Jesus shed his life's blood for you, friend. Are you willing to surrender? I know that you know about it. Up here in your head, I ask you, please open your heart's door. You're the blessed Lord Jesus, that man of sorrows acquainted with grief, that one that the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
And there the the Lord Jesus paid that price.
So the Samaritan goes down.
Where he's at, he brings him up, finds up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine.
00:45:08
Set him on his own beast, took him to the end, took care of him. Friends, the Lord Jesus isn't all the way home, Savior. He's taking you from the depths of sin, laying there in the ditch, half dead, naked and wounded, bringing you up, binding up your wounds.
I think of that oil and wines of the joy and the no doubt he did it for probably the medical reasons. I I would say Bill, but I would for you friend, when you think about the Lord giving you his spirit, giving you joy in your Christian life, setting you on his own beast. He's not going to leave you there and say, hey, I took care of the big part. Now you're on your own.
Yeah, you can take care of the rest. Nope, that snapped away. The Lord Jesus deals with us, friend.
All the way home, Savior brings him to the end, right Isn't to the innkeeper gives him money, so say take care of him. And if you spend anything else, when I get back, I'll pay you back. You know, brethren, I think about how beautiful it is to sit in a conference like this and it will have the privilege tomorrow morning of remembering the Lord in his death.
The Lord doesn't just bring us up out of the ditch and leave us. No, He brings us to the end. The innkeeper taking care of us. He's in all the way home. Savior, we sit there and and think on praise and worship the precious Lord Jesus. Does it mean anything to you? You sit in a Sunday morning meeting kids and wish that it would get over quicker. I hope not.
I tell you rather in some of the most precious moments on this side of.
Sunday morning gathered around the precious Savior.
Remembering.
Lord Jesus and his death worth, what a privilege. I hope we never give it up.
You know, it might get down to ones and twos and some places in this room. It probably already is. Rather than don't quit, the Lord Jesus would bring us to that end and take care of us.
And whatever is needed, he provides it.
What a beautiful thing, kids. I often talk too much. We're almost done, I hope.
That you understand how the Lord Jesus loves you, how He wants you to submit, to give, to give your heart to the to Him.
Couple weeks ago.
Back and I got a call from Becky's sister Sarah, She said. Hey, have you ever heard of?
Even know if I want to mention the guy, I guess they will doctor Jordan Peterson.
Some of you know who that is. He came to Grand Rapids a couple weeks ago and he was giving a talk on the title of his talk with those of us that wrestle with God.
So we went with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and listened to Doctor Peterson Todd.
I'm somewhat familiar with him. I know that he has gone from a place of atheism.
Agnostic.
To acknowledging God.
Still seeking, brethren?
Intellectually brilliant man.
I just wanted.
Could do this, of course, I wanted to go up there and sit there beside him and say, Doctor Peterson, it's all done.
Finished all you have to do is submit, say yes, Lord, I believe it. That's it. There's no kind of mental gymnastics that have to be done. You know, I appreciate this comment from you, brother Bruce. When I was younger, some of you kids might say I don't understand all these things that you talk about in meeting.
Doesn't matter. Well, Lord knows what he did.
And what he did was absolutely suited and perfectly right.
Just say, Lord, I take it, I accept it. I believe it. You did it for me. He knows what he did, kids. And as you grow in your Christian life and you begin to understand more and more, oh, how beautiful it is. It's like the Lord pulls back the curtain. He goes, let me show you what's next. I also did this and I did this and oh, what up, It's beautiful.
00:50:12
The kids don't feel like you have to understand it all, just know.
You need to be saved and the works done and you just have to say, Lord, I'm a Sinner, I know I need to be saved. I accept what you did. That's it.
Now let's talk about quickly the alternative.
Tell your kids another story.
There was a young man that was traveling. This is back in the days of trains.
He's a Christian and I'm that in that train car there were five other young men and they were having a card game and the game they wanted to play needed pairs so.
Can't get 3 pairs out of five people right? So they asked this young man, hey we need a partner so come and play with us.
Well, he didn't want to join the game.
And he wondered if there might be an opportunity to give him the gospel.
So we said to those young men, no, I'm not going to play your game, but if you give me the five of spades card, I'd like to tell your fortune.
That's pretty interesting.
If the man the card so outcomes the five of spades card and they handed it to him.
That he held it up to these five young men, he said men.
Two spades at the top, one in the middle, two at the bottom.
Here's your fortune.
Every eye shall see him.
Excuse me, this is Revelation 1. Every eye shall see him. They also which pierced him. Friends, your eyes right now that you're looking through are going to look in the face of the man. Every eye shall see him. That's going to happen.
He said pointed to the spade in the middle.
Men, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
That's going to happen.
Every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. I hope, friends, when you're standing before God, that that confession comes out of your mouth with joy and happiness, because you love the man Jesus Christ.
The alternative is you're going to confess him as Lord and then be shown outer darkness.
In a lost eternity, but your mouth will confess the Lord Jesus.
The bottom two spades.
Every knee shall bow. That will happen. Those two knees, you got kids. Just look at your knees right now. Look at your knees. Those knees are going to bow to the Lord Jesus. It's going to happen and I hope it happens with happiness, joy and love for your blessed Savior. The alternative is you'll be cast into a lost eternity. The last part of the force and that he gave those.
By many SUB men, there's five spades on this card.
Is appointed on the men once to die, and after this the judgment.
And if the Lord doesn't come, friends.
Really, one of two things is going to happen if the Lord doesn't come, you're going to die someday, and some spade will dig your grave.
Or as we've been talking about earlier in the conference, the Lord just promised us in His word, He's coming back. And if He comes back and we're expecting that imminently, and you are yet in your sins, too late for you.
I hope kids.
You love the Lord Jesus, take it out of your mind and get it into your heart.
Somebody asked you, is the Lord Jesus precious to you? I hope it makes you well up in tears and say yes he is.
Oh, the Lord loves you.
He died for you. He gave up his life. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.
I'd like to read if I can quote this properly, so we'll try to read this off of a.
Maybe I'll just quote it. We used to sing this at the Gospel 10th a lot.
00:55:04
Our key, though, is that choose the pleasures that this wretched world in parts.
There you call this satisfaction from your deepest, inmost heart.
Is the world of worlds confusion so engrossing to your mind after thoughts of deeper import you can not a moment find?
Thoughtless one in error, you ponder, or you're standing towards your God.
Have you ever questioned deeply what the goal of paths you've tried?
I wonder if you could answer that question. Have you ever questioned deeply what the goal of as you've tried? You're either going to heaven or you're going to hell, folks. That's the way the Word of God presents it. I hope you're going to have thoughtless 1.
It air you ponder, or your standing toward your God.
Yes, I just quoted that, didn't I? I better find it on my little list here, I'll get it wrong.
Here we go, he is waiting for acceptance.
Last one, will you pass him by?
Rush along, unheeding, as your ears ring with his cry.
Don't delay as Paul's accuser till a more convenient day.
God with open arms will meet you loved one. Come while yet you may.
The doors open right now, kids.
There's a revelation. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
The Lord Jesus wants you to open that door. Any man open unto me, I will come, come in and stuff with him and so on. I ask you friend.
Lord Jesus, your Savior, she presses to you.
Want you to ponder that? Let's close by singing just as I am.
#12.
Saying #12 together.
Just as I am without one.
That I was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
01:00:49
Friend, you don't know the Lord Jesus. You come tonight.
Condemned
Children—T. Roach
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good morning.
Does anybody have a hymn they like to sing? You know what, I think we're going to maybe sing maybe just one or two verses of each song. Then we can sing a few more and have time for Sunday school. So Benji, what number would you like to sing?
#50.
There's only 47.
We have a different book today.
40 Jesus loves me. You like that one? OK. Jesus loves me. This I know.
Let your weak body is strong.
Yes, Jesus was dreaming. Yeah.
And why he will wash away my sin. My little child come in.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me. Yeah.
Jesus loves me.
The Bible tells me so.
You know, I I like to stay behind this podium because I don't like nervous to walk up and down South. I'm going to stay back here most of the time. So, you know, the Sunday school verse for today is John 317 for God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
Condemned. You know, when I we lived in Malawi, there was.
We went to preach at the prison and after we finished talking to the men, one of the men came and kneeled down in front of me and he said, do you remember who I am?
I said yes, I remember who you are. The last time I had seen him was several years before. We were remembering the Lord together at his home. He a little mud Hut out in a primitive village. And I said, what happened to you? Why are you in here?
He says, well, I borrowed some money.
And when it came time to pay it back, the man came to collect and I beat him up. And so he was condemned to be in prison. I don't know how long he was there, but he was there long enough to get tuberculosis and to get sick.
Someone else have a song you'd like to sing? Yes.
OK, we'll sing the first verse of #8.
Shall we gather at his?
Home.
Yes, well, your eyes call me.
Gather with the same time.
It plans by the same Another time we were another story about being condemned. We went to a cattle auction to buy.
2 Cows for the brothers there so they could pull.
So they could pull a plow for their farm. Well, when we got there, there's a big commotion over on the other side. And some man was trying to steal a bull, and they caught him and they tied him up by the feet. And they tied the other end of the rope to the horns of the bull. And they chased the bull down the street and they dragged the man and they went out of sight.
00:05:06
I don't know what happened out there after that, but that cow thief was condemned to being tied up behind that cow.
Condemned.
Does someone else have a song they like to sing?
Yes.
I'm sorry, I don't, I don't know your name.
What? What song? What number would you like?
I'm sorry.
Oh, did you have your hand up?
16 Thank you.
#16.
Whosoever heareth, shout out the sound, send the blessing tidings all the world around, spread the joyful.
Wherever mine is found.
Aside, it will be gone.
We'll start the world. Who's our everywhere.
Stand the rock.
For me in Malawi.
They made it out of bottle caps and he made it into a cross. Does anybody know what it says on here? What kind of caps are they?
Can you read that? Oh, I'll put it right side up.
Carlsberg. Does anybody know what Carlsberg is?
What kind of a drink is that?
Yes.
A strong drink? Yeah, it's beer.
Yeah, he made it at a beer caps. I said to him, why did you make it out of beer caps? He said because Christ died for our sins.
Isn't that good?
His He, the Lord Jesus, paid for our sins, and so he made that cross. You know, when I was in the Bujumbura airport, a couple of porters helped me with all my luggage and I gave them a nice tip with their Bujumbura money. It kind of looks like this.
And from Burundi. And so these are called Franks Burundi and Franks. Well, that night I paid for my meal at the restaurant. They came back to me and said.
They were very apologizing, said this money is not valid, it's no good. This money has been condemned. So my money was condemned. I was paying, I gave a tip to the to the porters. Well, the next day the airport porters, they were calling complaining that I had given them condemned money. The government printed new money in just two months or a couple months earlier. They condemned this money and they gave out new money.
And so I have all of this money and it's worthless, but how? How much is that?
How much? No 10,000, Yeah, that's a lot of money.
I have almost 300,000 Burundi francs in here. That's a lot of money. It's about $100.
Well, someone else have a song you like to sing? Yes.
#10 OK, let's sing #10 the first verse.
There is.
To say.
His arm is almighty.
00:10:02
And free.
All time.
He said and love me saying.
OK.
One day.
We met some people.
He was at the Children's Crisis nursery where they took little babies that were born. They had nobody to care for them and they when they reached about 18 months or two years old, they would send them back to the village. Well, this one day somebody brought them a baby to the nursery. The mother didn't want the baby, so she condemned that baby to be put down into the toilet. The toilet's there. They're just like a big tank in the ground and there's a whole in.
Ground and it's all the all the sewage is in the toilet. Well, the mother didn't want the baby, so she put the baby down into the toilet and left it there to drown and to die. Well, the neighbors, all the people around heard the baby crying and so they dismantled the toilet and dug it up and they saved the baby.
They rescued the baby, but the baby had gotten so sick from being in the toilet.
It didn't live very long. The baby died.
Another mother, she could not care for her baby, so she took the baby and put it in a cardboard box.
And she took it to the crisis nursery and in the middle of the night she put it up on top of the security wall. And the next morning.
When the people from the nursery, they woke up, they heard a baby crying and they went and they found the baby.
On the wall and they brought the baby in and they they took care of that baby. They fed the baby.
And that baby grew up to be a healthy child.
Will you sing one more?
Yes #3.
When you start that.
No one Elaine when we lived in Malawi, Elaine, she liked to go for walks and there's this madman some days he would bother Elaine when she went for her walks. Elaine has vivid remember memories of this man acting out all sorts of.
Karate moves that he learned from a movie that he saw well.
Some of the citizens around, they would see this man harassing Elaine, so they would tackle him and they'd hold him down while Elaine was able to get away.
The same man, he was also breaking into another missionaries house and when she came home she would find him sitting in her house.
We eventually we eventually had to.
Give help the police with some money so they could ship the man down, transport him down to the to the institute where he could get help. The man was not condemned, but he got help.
And this is a good example for you because you are getting into trouble with your sin. You know, sin starts out real little when you are little, but as you get big, your sin gets big. And so you are close to being condemned. But Jesus, he came to get you help.
And so our memory verse God sent not his Son into the world.
To condemn the world, but that the world through him, might be saved now, everyone in this room, including you.
00:15:08
Was born a Sinner and you need to believe in the Lord Jesus.
And ask him to save you. And I ask you, are you a Sinner?
I ask you, are you a Sinner?
You might say no, because right now you are not sinning, you're being good.
You're sitting here in Sunday school. You're dressed nicely.
And you're singing hymns about the Savior, about the Lord Jesus.
But when you're home?
And you are screaming.
And you're fighting.
Or you're biting.
Or you're pinching your brother or your sister.
Are you still a cookie when your mom's not looking after she says don't touch the cookies?
That's not good.
When mom tells you to clean your room and you wait and you do other things and she needs to tell you again, clean your room 123.
Why do we not do what we are told to do and when we are told to do it?
Is because we are sinners.
Because we sin. Because we were born sinners.
I was talking to a group of men in Malawi. One man, his name was Petros, and I asked the men to list some sins that they had committed.
And I asked Petros what verses made you realize?
That you were a Sinner. And he wrote those verses down, and those verses described his life and he some of the verses he wrote down.
Take heed and beware of covetousness, Petros. He wanted to be rich and successful and powerful. He was covetous. Another verse he wrote down. Honor thy father and the mother.
Petros had dishonored his father and mother and he knew he was a Sinner. And there's another verse. It says he that curses his father or mother let him die the death.
He had gone to the witch doctor and put a curse on his father and his mother.
Another verse he wrote down. You are of your father, the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning.
Killed his father and his mother.
Another verse he wrote down.
A false witness shall not be unpunished.
So patriots lied about his sin. This man wanted to be rich and successful and powerful, and he went to the witch doctor and had a curse put on his parents. And as the witch doctor told him, you go and kill your parents and you will be rich and you will be successful.
He had one last verse that he wrote down that put all of his sin together in one verse and in Romans 13 verse 9, Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet.
This man was a big Sinner. He wanted to be rich and powerful, and he dishonored his parents. He cursed his father and his mother. He killed his father and his mother, and he lied about his sin.
He was a lying, cheating, stealing, jealous, disobedient and cruel man.
He was a Sinner, he was a bad man. He was condemned already.
I ask you, can a man like this go to heaven?
Some of you say yes, some of you say no.
But what does the Bible say? What is our memory verse John 317 God sent his son, not God sent not his son into the world can to condemn Petros, but that patriots through him might be saved. Jesus didn't come to save good people, he came to save sinners. And if you think you're a good girl or a good boy.
00:20:17
Jesus can't help you.
But if you admit that you are a Sinner and you need help, then Jesus can help you. Well, this man, he knew he was in trouble with God, and he knew that he could not go to heaven with his sin. There was nothing good in that man. He knew that eternal punishment in the lake of fire.
Was his reward for being a Sinner.
He was in trouble.
He was condemned, and so he called on the Lord in that day that he knew that he was in trouble.
And the Lord Jesus answered him, I asked Petros, Petros, how do you know that you're going to go to heaven? And he said, I wrote it down what he said, as I am a Christian with faith in God, I believe that Jesus is my Savior and through him I will get to heaven.
Isn't that nice? That is the only way that Petros could get to heaven.
There's no good in that man, so he cannot get to heaven through anything good that he did himself. And you boys and girls, you cannot get to heaven through anything good that you do.
Petrus had to put his trust in the Lord Jesus just like you. You need to put your trust in the Lord Jesus. Well the Spirit of God gave Petros faith and Jesus saved him that day and then he was baptized to make him a follower of Jesus.
We can't call Petros a liar, we can't call him a cheater, we can't call him a thief or a murder anymore.
His guilt is gone and he is justified through the blood of Jesus.
You can have the same blessing for you. You can be justified from your sins.
So then we won't be able to call you a screamer and a a cookie thief anymore because you can be justified from your sins.
You are sitting here now.
You're not sinning.
But you have sin inside of you.
And that's why sometimes your mom has to say no, Don't do that. Stop being naughty.
Mom and dad, they don't like to tell you children you are a Sinner. They like to use nice words and say you are naughty.
But naughty means you're bad, it means you are a Sinner, and naughty means you are in trouble.
The Bible says the wages of sin is death.
As you sit here in your sin and you realize you are in trouble and you are in danger of being condemned to the fires of hell, you need to know that Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you. He wants you. He died to save you from your condemnation, but you must come to Jesus.
The gift of God is eternal life.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let's let's sing a hymn. And while we sing in hymn, I want somebody to hand out pencils and paper to everybody. Can you help me? You give every boy and girl a paper.
And you give everyone a pen. There might not be enough pens, so you're going to have to share. And while they're doing that, we're going to sing another song.
The girl beyond you, Gabe.
2141, Thank you.
Will sing until they're finished handing things out around the throne of God.
00:25:07
In shining roads, as one less white beach, one will be arranged.
Will be never lost in life and joys. I've never been singing glory.
Glory.
Glory to God.
And there save me. Glory, glory, glory to God.
Now I want you to take your pen and your paper and write down one sin that you have done.
In your life, don't put your name on it. I don't want to know who did it, but write down one sin on the paper that you have done.
We'll give you a minute to think about that.
And if you can't think of one, give the pen to your neighbor so they can think.
Well, while they're.
Writing that down will sing a verse of #4.
Christ is the Savior of sin.
OK, you have written down a sin that you have done on the paper.
Where will you find Jesus?
Ricky, where can you find Jesus in heaven? But what if you want to be saved? Where can you find him? Where do you need to go?
The Bible will help, yes. What is this?
A cross. You need to go to the cross.
And when you go to the cross?
You can say, Lord Jesus, I'm a Sinner.
And Jesus needed to die for me on the cross.
I want those of you who have written down a sin on your paper to come up and you just stick it here on the cross.
If you we'll put it down here so you can.
And if you can't, if you can't write, or you didn't think of something to write, you can still put it on the cross.
You might have to put some on top of some others too, because there's a lot of sin up there.
Now I can say I am pardoned, happy and just in my dream.
Stay by my glass every day.
This is the same upon me.
Say.
My grandson.
This is the sacred for me. Wow, there's so much sin it's falling off. But the Lord Jesus, he was able to wash that sin away to justify you so you would not have sinned to take with you to hell.
00:30:10
Now you can go without sin, you can go to heaven. Now putting his name of a sin on the cross today here, that's not going to save you. You need to believe on the Lord Jesus. You need to understand that you are a Sinner and that you need to have that sin washed away in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. And when you have done that, when you believe on the Lord Jesus, there's a verse in Romans 81 it says there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, so the Lord.
Is taking can take away your condemnation?
Does anybody know the verse?
Let's if you can.
The world but.
To the world through him. Might not, Might be. Yeah. And where is it found? Yeah. John 317. You can come up and you can take one of these Franks. No, no, no. You have to say the verse first.
OK, we're going to go right down the the aisle.
Did did you want to say?
OK, go ahead.
For God.
Forgot.
Show me.
Wow, that was a good job. You can get yourself some Franks.
OK.
For God.
No, no, for God's sake.
Oh, OK, OK, go ahead.
Oh.
Nobody can hear you. How about you try this?
If I can figure out how to turn it on, how do I turn this on?
Thank you.
Just say the one verse because there's lots of people.
For God's sake, for God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. John 317.
For God, so for God sent not his Son into the world to come down the road.
What that what that the world through him but that the world through him might be safe jump through 17 Good job for God so loved to work for God sent.
Not his son, Not his son. Into the world. Into the world.
To control the angular, but that's a word for him shall be saved. John the 3/17 thank you as you lifted up this river in the wilderness so much the Son of man do lift it up.
It was whoever believed in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God so loved the world that he gave his only God and Son, that whomsoever believed in him should not but have everlasting life. God said not a sudden to the earth to condemn the world, but that the worlds of him might be saved. On 3/14 to 17. Thank you.
For God said not his Son to the world to come down the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
John 317 Good job.
Got set nor ascended to the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him must be saved. John 317 Good job, for God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world.
But that the world. But that the world.
You might be saved on 3/17. Good job regards it. Not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved, John 317. God said not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. John 317.
00:35:09
OK.
Not his Son into the world to condemn the world, and that the world through him might be saved. John 317. Very good. Go and get a Franks for God. For God sent not his Son into the world, but to condemn the world, that the world through him might be saved. John 317.
All right.
God sent not the world, God sent not his son. God sent not his son to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. John 16 three, 3/17 Thank you. OK, do you want to get a do you want to get a Frank? Anyway, go ahead.
Do you want to see it?
To the world to them the world within the world knew him might be saved. John 317 good job you can get a frank. Do you want to say it? Do you want to say it okay.
Good for God, for God sent not his Son, not his Son into the world, into the world to condemn the world, to condemn the world, but that the world through him, and that the world through him. Good job, John 317.
Want me to help you?
OK, for God sent, not his son. God's a lovely world.
To condemn the world, but that the world.
Might be saved, Might be saved. John 317-1717 Good job. You want to go get a Frank.
Do you want to say that God said not to send to?
Into the world. Into the world.
That the world, That the world.
Through him, through him might be safe.
John 317 Good job, God said not a son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. John 317 Thank you. God said notice on each the world to condemn the world, but that the world to him might be saved. John 317 You guys are all doing a good job.
God sent not his Son to condemn the world, but through.
Through him might the world might be saved. John 3/16/17 Thank you, need a little bit of help.
What's that?
OK, God sent.
Himself to him download, but the whole world, the whole of the whole world might be.
Be Saved John 317.
Very good. Forgotten.
His son.
Not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. 10317 Good job, for God said not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be safe. John 317 Excellent.
Lord sent his Lord sent his son not.
In the world who come down the world, but that the world might be saved through him. John 317 good job that was great.
You guys did a really good job of saying that verse.
And I think we can sing another hymn before we pray. Yes, 47.
When he cometh, when he come.
00:40:36
Like the size of Lord again and Friday.
Right.
Joy
Address—B. Conrad
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.
Like to Good afternoon. I'd like to start our meeting today by singing in #13 in the appendix.
Before I do that, I will give you my best.
Crack at a definition of what the word repine means, because it's not a common English word.
I looked it up a few minutes ago and it means, at least in normal English Dictionary, to express or to feel dejection or discontent.
You and I might say discouragement. And so when we get to that part, you'll, you'll catch the drift of the of the hymn writer's thought there.
If somebody could start #13 in the in the back of the book.
Love of God by Christ. Salvation.
Rise our sin and fear and care. Jordan still in my military expansion. Something's going to do the Lord and.
Pray for us children. Cross breath and make me wild.
I think that Jesus died to win me.
You know.
Well, I'd really like to speak this afternoon for the minutes that we have.
On.
The subject that I am.
Not in any means an expert on.
Or display any more of it than anyone else.
And that is the subject of joy.
Recently.
At some general meetings in California, a brother, brother, friend, I call him.
Read those nine aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians chapter 5.
And he said, I'm going to speak about one that you never hear anybody speak about. And he did. You can, you can find it online. He spoke about fidelity of faith. I can't remember whether it's #7 or #8 or it's in there.
And I'm sure the subject of joy is more common.
And I would like to speak in the context of of our growth as believers.
Because in a certain sense, as we've mentioned before.
Your joy. And there's more to joy than your joy. His joy. But your joy is like we used to call the.
The Canary in the coal mine.
In the old days, the miners, before the men, would go down on their shift, they would send a little bird in there or carry one in. And that little bird was more sensitive to the lack of oxygen than the humans were. And if the Canary went down in the cage?
You know, everybody out and nowadays we, we have professional people in minds and in our tunneling work that I used to be involved in and there's, we call them sniffers. I don't know what the right nerve term is for them and they go in and sniff it out.
Make sure everything's good.
In a certain sense, the way I look at my own soul.
00:05:00
Is when I'm not happy, when I don't have a sense of joy in my heart?
Then it's the Canaries.
Not doing well in the cage. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. And our tendency, at least mine was for I think much of my Christian life was that, you know, if I'm not really exceedingly happy, it's, you know, it's just, it's just all me. It's just.
You know, it's kind of like a bonus. It's like dessert or something.
Like in our home, we really don't eat dessert. We eat food. And when we're done with food, we that's it. But so I had a tendency to think of joy. It's just kind of an added thing, like a bonus, like optional.
I've come to see it's it's not that way at all. It's not that way at all. Isn't it? Striking and pondering it this morning.
That when the Queen of Sheba went all the way up across North Africa to Jerusalem to see King Solomon, who she'd heard about, that one of her comments after she digests what she had seen was that happy Are these thy servants?
It was a real testimony. I feel I'm a bad testimony when I'm not happy.
And so I would like to read just a little bit in John 15 and then maybe touch on some few other places.
And I want to attach it to connect it with our spiritual growth, because happiness isn't just, it's not like the weather.
You know, you get up in the morning and a lot of you folks work outside. I worked outside most of my life. You get up and there's weather and you just deal with it. You don't really control it.
You can't control it.
And yet isn't it interesting that when you connect anything with growth?
Let me just back up. So I'm pondering things just at breakfast and just two of us now. And so I'm just lingering at the breakfast table after everything's finished and a brother friend text me a little, a little write up that he had enjoyed brother from way back East.
And.
And so I read the maybe two paragraphs and it was about growth. And the interesting comment is that in, in natural things, you know, none of the parents in this room take their children off to, to, to to a side room, or I'm going to take you into the kitchen or I'm taking you out in the garage. And you stare at them and say, now grow.
You folks that you know, you make your living growing things.
You know that it's not like that, but in the Word of God, think of the verses that come to mind about growth. For example, the very last verse of Second Peter 3.
A verse that was repeated to me by older brethren in in in the assembly where I was first gathered.
Over and over and over again.
These brothers would repeat, I needed it apparently clearly grow in grace.
And in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so there is in spiritual things.
A certain responsibility, a participation by us in our spiritual growth. And since spiritual growth really is the work of the Spirit of God in US, what does it do? It produces love, joy, peace, and you go down through the line. So I like to touch firstly on in John 15.
As I take it at the end of chapter 14.
The Lord says arise, let us go. Hence they are leaving the upper room and the scene of the supper, and they're starting to walk. And I picture the Lord saying these things while he's walking along with his disciples.
And so he says in verse one, I am the true vine. My father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purges it, that he may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself.
00:10:12
Except it abide in the vine, no more can ye.
Except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches.
He that abideth in me, and I in Him the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch in His withered. And men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified.
That ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you.
And that your joy might be full.
This passage will raise questions in your mind for the younger people or older ones too.
If you connect it with the salvation of our souls and I don't believe that's the that's the real thrust of the passage has to do with the salvation of our souls, because that's if that's the case, then a vine that doesn't abide as it says there in verse six. If a man abide not in me, he's cast forth as a branch and is withered.
And they're just thrown out and and burned.
So it really has to do with discipleship, it has to do with the walk of somebody that's already relation, relationship with the Lord.
And so when we take it that way, we say.
We get the distinct impression that God is very much interested in something from me. He's brought everything to me and done everything for me, and now he's looking to produce something in me. It's very beautiful and so.
And so I remember in a in a in a reading meeting.
I was in with a bunch of brothers from the Dominican Republic and from Mexico and and hosted by a brother back east and my Spanish is terrible but I understand enough at times to to catch the drift of what what we're reading and studying and I heard this younger Dominican brother.
And I my Spanish is good enough to know what he said. He said fruit, more fruit.
Much fruit.
And I haven't forgotten it. It was a very helpful thing for him to say.
Dear brother. And so it is that.
God is invested in your life.
And in what goes on in your heart and mind?
It's a place where he's presently bearing fruit.
And that fruit is for His glory.
And you'll notice here it doesn't say the sun, it says my father is the husband. Men.
And when you read in Hebrews 12 and other passages like that, you see.
That God takes the place, having taken the place of Father to you and me. He's the Father of spirits, and He's working in your heart to produce that which is for His glory.
To abide.
Is a word I understand and I get this from my dear brother Nick Simon, who I, I, I'm on the readings with a lot. He's a great wordsmith and he has pointed out to me a number of times that this word abide is translated abide, remain or continue. It's the same word and all three different ways are used in English for the same word and so you can substitute it in according to the text.
And so when you're abiding, you're really remaining in the place where you should be.
And the thought is you're continuing on in the place where you should be.
And we see in that passage, without going through adverse by verse, if you abide in me, and my words abide you.
00:15:00
You shall ask what you will.
And it shall be done unto you.
John continues this theme in his epistle, saying that if we have a good conscience.
And we're in fellowship with the Lord, and what we want is what he wants.
And what He wants is what takes place in our heart to want and when we express these wants and desires in prayer.
They're they're aligned. It's quite a thing to think about that and we see examples of it in the scriptures in different Saints.
But it leads up to verse 8. Herein is my father glorified, that she bear much fruit.
And then in verse 11, these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy right might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
What dampens the joy in our lives?
If we look at it this way, that joy in my life is the fruit of the Holy Spirit indwelling in me.
If we look at it, that this divine person and it's amazing how we can go through an entire day and not even think that we have a divine person indwelling us, isn't that amazing? I do it all the time. Guilty.
What a thing though, to have a divine person in you.
And if the Holy Spirit is not grieved, then he does what he does, if I could put it this way.
He does what he likes to do best.
What he likes to do best is to bring before us the precious things of Christ.
Because.
You know.
God says we had in John 317 repeatedly this morning.
He didn't come, didn't send his son to condemn the world. The world by him might be saved. He could have sent his son to discharge your sins and mine and left us right where we were.
You're forgiven, but please, I hope I never pass you on the street.
You're forgiven, though you have the forgiveness of sins.
But more than that, more than that, He has justified you through His blood. You're justified by faith. Justification is beyond forgiveness because it takes the forgiven Sinner.
And puts him in a new place and a new condition.
And This is why it's so fascinating to me in the Word of God that justification, yes, it's through faith and through his blood is the foundation of it, but it's connected with his resurrection.
I I'm a terrible one for digressing, but I want to digress a SEC. 1St Corinthians 15 I want to read you a verse for you to think about.
1St Corinthians 15.
Verse 17.
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain. Ye are yet.
In your sins.
And you say as a young believer, as you're starting, you're learning. We spend our lives learning the gospel.
Of the grace of God, different aspects of it. It's a joy.
You say, well, I've been taught and I believe and understand that the work that the Lord Jesus accomplished on Calvary's cross was completed by him.
He bore the wrath of God During those three hours of darkness. He died.
Integral part. He shed his blood.
Isn't that all there is? Yes, that is all there is and ever could need to be.
With respect to the pardon and to the glory that he's brought to God.
But beyond that, on the third day, he took his place.
In a place where men had never been before in resurrection.
And he having taken his place, he having been the forerunner, the pioneer, to take a new place on the other side of death in a risen life.
That's the place He is assigned to you and me and Grace and so.
00:20:01
I believe that's why I'd love to hear the thoughts of others later. I believe that's why that language is there in First Corinthians 15. You are yet in your sins. It's where you would have been but now Christ risen. Justification crowns the work of finished work of God's Son on Calvary's cross, and it's in that new place that we join Him there.
So to continue, we're not just.
Saved Sinners.
And I keep going back to Tim's grandfather, whose ministry I sat under in my early days, Adrian Roach.
And if somebody, and it was a large gathering of about this size and somebody gave out a gospel hymn.
Only a Sinner save my grace. I just knew that as soon as Sam was over, Adrian was going to speak up and say, well, you know, he's, he was a New Yorker. He spoke even faster than me. He said, you know, that's not really true. We're not just the same Sinner. And he would give a little paragraph on it and it it was helpful. You're not just a safe Sinner. You're now a St.
You're now identified with him. You're justified.
And you have a life which in places is called resurrection life.
Through which sin has never been attached, nor ever could be.
How about that?
Justified.
But still forgiven. Hope I don't see him again, but he's forgiven.
Justified has a new place, but now we're reconciled.
And that it just adds to the blessing because reconciliation shows that he wants our company.
And that the forgiveness and the cleansing and the justification and and bringing us into His place.
In reconciliation, normally two parties have to move to come together.
He he's the same. He's never moved. He always loved you.
And he doesn't need to move, and we would never want him to, and He never will. We're the ones that move all the way from that position we were in to now be reconciled to God. And to be reconciled to God includes.
Not no longer having a mind that is at enmity with God, no longer having a nature that is alienated from God. We could say now we are on the same page with him. We speak the same language. We're capable of thinking the same thoughts. We all like it when we're with an old friend or a relative that we grew up with and we see something in on the street or whatever and we form an opinion in our mind and we look to our friend.
Wife, our relative, our brother. And you know that they're thinking the exact same thing.
You're having fellowship. That's fellowship. That's the oneness and God. God has acted in the sending of His Son and the creating of this whole planet so that it could be accomplished, so that that could happen.
So that he could bring.
US into fellowship with him, thinking his thoughts.
And having a capacity to know him and to love him.
But I think I'm digressing big time here.
And So what holds us back from the joy, as we were saying?
It's usually.
Something.
Careless in my life. The Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit.
Barbara Ann's father used to tell us when he visited, and he visited all the time.
Late brother Norman Berry, He would say communion is like a spider's web.
It's easily made for the believer, but can be quickly broken.
Those older brothers in that generation.
Continuously spoke about.
Communion.
They weren't referring to partaking of the loaf and cup as that that word can be applied to that. They were speaking about the state of soul in which you are in the enjoyment and oneness in our measure with God's faults, God's affections.
Quickly made, but quickly broken.
00:25:03
And So what?
What do I do then?
If I ignore it and I just let things snowball in my life.
Which we're all capable of doing. We can go through the motions.
Guilty.
Go through the motions.
Gotomeeting read the word.
Formality in prayer.
Occupied with work, you know.
Guilty.
We're sleepwalking.
We're sleepwalking.
And This is why the word in Ephesians 5, I believe, is to believers. Awake thou that sleepest. It's not It's fine. Use it in the gospel all you want.
You guys use it in the gospel day after day. Fine. What really? It's addressed to believers awake thou that sleepest and arise from among the dead.
Christ shall give thee light.
And so we find this beautiful.
Process that we have.
Again by the Holy Spirit, which has a kind of a stern sounding name.
And we'll call it self judgment.
Self judgment.
There is a little tiny pamphlet, one of the first ones I ever owned many years ago. I can't remember the exact title, I know Bill would.
Self judgment.
The inescapable condition.
Of a walk or life in communion with God.
Is that close?
Thank you.
Made me nervous there for a minute.
What does that mean to younger people? What is self judgment?
It means when it becomes apparent to me that I'm thinking or acting in a way that is clearly I can recognize in myself that is not.
That is not the thought, the affection, the.
The action produced in me by the Spirit of God.
Impatience. A short and angry word.
Of foolish talking or jesting, whatever it might be that, you know, sacrifices someone's feelings or you know, all the all those kinds of things.
Does it mean I have to run home?
And close the door and get in my private place, not necessarily at that moment.
But I recognize it.
I know what the Word of God says about it. I step over here on God's side and I look at it.
And I say, that's not of God.
I'm judging it. I'm.
Reinstalled in my thoughts are the way he thinks about it.
And I have judged it.
When I was young I used to read because Adrian Roach told me it would be a good foundation for my soul and he looked like he had a good foundation.
He said When I was young, I read CHM's Pentateuch 5 volumes, you know, on Genesis X's.
Laid a good foundation from my soul, I said. It looks like it worked well for him. So I started through. I didn't get all the way through.
But I do appreciate one of the things that stuck with me all these years.
And he was actually speaking about David. He said a Saints life, a believer's life is 1000 fallings away and 1000 restorations.
And that can take place during the space of a work day.
Not quite 1000, but you get the point.
How wonderful.
That.
Our relationship with God is fixed and eternal. We have eternal redemption and eternal salvation and eternal inheritance, eternal life. Nothing can break. That's not like a spider's web, but the present enjoyment while we're here in this world of Himself and the things which concern Himself.
Is the spider's website and how wonderful that we can say like in Psalm 23, you restoreth my son.
00:30:12
I learned a lesson about restoration when I was maybe a saved a year and I was staying in a home in Dorothy, NJ. A bunch of us, some of the the boys in the family were my age. We slept in the cellar and we're up in the kitchen in the morning. And this older brother, like he was like my grandfather's age, I thought, and not quite.
And he comes in out of his bedroom. He had a bedroom. He comes in out of his bedroom in the morning.
And says to the sister that was cooking for us all. He says, ah.
He restoreth my soul.
I don't know if my jaw dropped or not. I'm like, this is like a 30 year, 40 year, 50 year believer. He needs restoration.
I knew how he lived. He's a godly man.
But no doubt he had felt that in his heart he was a bit away from the Lord.
And the Lord worked somehow in his heart that morning or overnight, I don't know.
In his morning prayers and he really felt refreshed and restored to the Lord.
And he's still living that brother. And he came out and shared it. And I'm so indebted. It's not just what I thought. There's a lot of you here that are in your 20s still thought it was just us in our 20s that get astray and restoreth my soul.
So communion is restored.
There may be situations where in our sleepwalking or in if we allow carelessness to be in a chronic condition.
That the Lord may allow us to really make a mess of some things.
Think of David in his life.
We were noticing in Philippians 4 lately in our readings back home. How Paul.
Could say I have learned.
Whatsoever state I'm in there with to be content. I've learned how to be abased. I've learned how to abound. In other words, it didn't just come natural to him. It's not like here come right out-of-the-box and you've got all that. No, he had to learn it practically.
David is an example of someone who didn't learn it well.
He didn't learn how to abound very well.
There were times when he was a base when he was running like a like a flea on a mountain.
I think he said, running from Saul, where he.
All of a sudden you turn the page in the account and he says I shall one day perish at the hand of Saul. And it's like you were doing so well. I remember the first time I read it, the young person, you're doing so well.
And then he goes back. Isn't that when he went back to to Gath and scrabbling on his beard? That's what we can do. We can act like an unbeliever and be so, so in type scrabbling on our beard like like a crazy person. There's there's nobody. I was thought nobody is difficult to deal with or as intractable as a Christian that's out of communion.
The old brothers used to say.
Better an upright unbeliever. You know you've got them on your crew or you're working with them in your work or whatever. Boy, a believer that's out of communion with the Lord. That's a rough ride.
And so David didn't know how to abound very well either.
And at the time when the kings go forth, the battle he was up in the night, and the rest caused the enemies of the Lord to blasphemy for centuries to this present hour, because of David's carelessness leading to that sin, and he reaped the government of God in his life.
But the thing I want to point out is not so much the government of God in his life, but the fact that he had a restored soul.
And many of the sweetest psalms that David wrote and the sweetest experiences and affections that he communicated or after that period of time.
00:35:04
Who's like God that can do that?
Beautiful that David was brought to that place of sweetness, the sweet psalmist of Israel.
But painful that it came at such a cost.
So young people.
God is not mocked.
Remember Mr. Lundin saying decades ago to us, you always lose through sin?
You remember him saying that when you were a little You always lose through sin. Always.
It may not seem like it's right tomorrow or the next day, but you always lose.
So we need to walk carefully.
But as we read in Psalm 51, Psalm 32, and these other Psalms.
Where the psalmist goes through and experience where the Lord intercedes in his life and his carelessness.
And brings him around.
And causes him to judge himself. And you see the evidence of it. I think it's in Psalm 51.
Make me to hear joy and gladness in the bones that thou hast broken. He felt the dryness, the brokenness, the as it one of the prophets says, Thine own backsliding shall correct thee. God loves us too much.
To allow us to be happy.
In a careless path, as believers, He loves us too much. God is faithful.
And so he allows these things just like the purging of the similar to the purging of the of the of the.
Branches.
You're bringing forth fruit in your life. You have a disappointment. I thought I was pleasing the Lord. What's going on here?
He wants more fruit.
And by purging, he's going to bring forth more fruits in your life. And you say, OK, we got that behind us.
On we go. We've dealt with that situation, then you have.
Even more purging say I don't understand.
He wants even more food. He wants much fruit.
So it is that he, as the Father of spirits, works in our lives like a Potter with clay.
To enable us to be brought back into communion and fellowship with himself.
Say well, OK.
I've been able, as the old ones used to say, to keep short accounts with the Lord.
I feel like I'm walking with the Lord.
I have a prayer life that's real. I enjoy the word.
I'm walking along happily, but my circumstances are so difficult. Brother brought that out in the open meeting in Psalm 16. My circumstances, they're rough.
Not what I would have chosen.
Let me just briefly touch Well, it's going to switch to the Apostle Paul in Second Corinthians chapter.
Chapter.
Chapter six of Two Corinthians. I just want to extract a verse. Well known verse verse 10.
Well, let me read verse 9 as unknown and yet well known as dying. And behold, we live as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing. How does that work?
How does sorrowful?
And yet always rejoicing work.
Because we naturally would think that sorrow and joy are upsets and they can't inhabit the same.
At the same time, the same, the same soul.
A believer understands this. I think you've understood it in your Christian life, in your spiritual life.
There are times when you feel sorrow because there are difficult situations. There's babies that are in the critical care unit, your daughter, your granddaughter.
There's a close brother, friend, sister, friend that has taken home to be with the Lord. You missed him terribly. These are sorrows we sorrow. It's a feeling. It's not wrong.
The Lord was the Man of Sorrows.
00:40:02
But at the same time.
We're in communion with the Lord. As we experience these sorrows, we have joy.
I can't explain it.
I trust you've experienced it. It's our portion and it shows.
That the circumstances of life don't determine our happiness.
Our state of soul.
Or negatively impact our growth. Matter of fact, it's probably just the opposite.
These purging experiences, these sorrows that the Lord allows, produce fruit in our lives.
Go to the next chapter, Chapter 7. We see another joy if I can find it quickly.
Verse 4. Great is my boldness of speech toward you. Second Corinthians 74.
Great is my boldness of speech toward you. Great is my glory of you. I am filled with comfort. I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation.
Another circumstance? Tribulation.
Can I be happy in tribulation? Yes, you can.
The next chapter, Chapter 8.
Verse two. How that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joys. Referring to the Saints in Macedonia.
The abundance of their joy and their deep poverty.
Abounded unto the riches of their liberality.
Beautiful.
As you travel around and you have Christian friends, brethren, that you know in all different circumstances.
Some are fairly wealthy by world standards here in America, some are pretty poor by American standards.
If you travel overseas like like Tim was mentioning in the early meeting this morning.
You see, what poverty is is really like. Does it have to dictate our state of soul? We all know it does not.
We've had the privilege, my wife.
And I have had the privilege of living in seven different gatherings as my work transferred me from places to build things and.
So we've seen, we've seen a lot of lessons, assembly lessons.
Because assemblies have personalities like people do.
In my opinion, they have their strengths and their weaknesses and we've appreciated.
Some assemblies just. They do certain things so well.
He's digress. If I get on that subject, I don't want to.
But my point is this is that the first assembly we were in, the Saints there were poorer than any of the rest poorer.
But very much richer.
No education saved in midlife.
Grave clothes and baggage, yes, but.
The poverty seemed to only just draw them closer.
The distractions were less.
And they taught, some of them taught themselves to read by reading this Bible and by reading written ministry in the English language.
And you knew that the words that they were reading in the English ministry written in a previous century, they had never worried a human, they had never heard a human say those words because they had no idea how to pronounce them. And so they just took a swing at it. And I.
I was young in the Lord, but I had had a different background. I had had a tremendous.
High school education, they, they really pushed us. We're hard on us. And so I, I knew the word but and so, but there was a desire in there.
To learn, and it was a desire to learn because it was joy to them.
And then get up the next morning and do horrific jobs that nobody in this room would want to do.
And they were happy in the Lord.
And they grew.
Their growth, their happiness.
Developed and grew.
00:45:00
And so.
Indebted.
I've been in other gatherings where.
PH D Medical Doctor pH D.
That's fine. His medical doctor right here.
But that doesn't necessarily necessarily mean there's going to be understanding of the things of God in the Word of God.
And sometimes it's just the opposite.
So whatever it is, whether it's the sorrows of life, whether it's the tribulations of life, whether it's just the ongoing.
Situations we can't escape, like poverty. It doesn't have to rob us.
Of communion with the Lord and of our joy.
Let's turn for a few minutes to Ephesians chapter 4.
On the subject of growth.
In Ephesians 4.
We read.
That the Lord Jesus.
Having risen from the dead, ascended far up above all heavens. Verse 10. That he might fill.
All things.
And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.
For the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
Till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
Unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
That we henceforth be no more children or babes. Literally it is.
Tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking are really its holding the truth in love.
May grow up.
Into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.
From whom the whole body fitly joined together.
And compacted by that which every joint supplier according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.
Maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
Now, of course, there's a tremendous amount there. Tremendous amount.
But we see.
The desire and purpose of God for you and me.
To avail ourselves of nourishment that comes down from the head through various.
Joints of supply, if we could call it that, through the different brothers and sisters that the Lord brings us into contact with.
That we might receive nourishment and that it would have the effect of bringing each one of us.
Into the unity of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man.
So isn't that a bit much to think that I'm going to be perfect?
When you look up, I know all you young people, you've got all these phones, you can look up these words in Greek in five seconds.
And what the younger brothers do in the readings nowadays, it's I'm fine with it. I think it's great.
And you can see how the word.
For perfect can be translated complete or full or mature. It has these various meanings according to the context. It's not as if he's saying by availing yourself of good spiritual teaching and pastoring that you're going to be perfect. Like Like you take a spelling test and you get 100 because you didn't miss a single word.
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How did you do? The teacher says it's perfect.
Single mistake. That's not perfection as it applies to our state as believers. A perfect Christian, as Paul refers to it here in another places.
Is somebody that has, you might say, mature enough to realize what they're about?
They've laid hold of what life is really about. They are a mature Christian. They know that their object is Christ in glory.
They know that they have adversaries, the world, the flesh and the devil. They know they have a fallen nature that they need to be watchful about.
And they know that they need to keep themselves steeped in the word.
They need dependence on the Lord, which is often expressed in prayer.
And they need to meditate on the word.
The older brothers back where I was from.
Were equipment. A lot of them were equipment operators.
Loggers and equipment operators.
And heavy trucks and they're always, you know, to them an RPM is part of their life. And so they would always tell me, brother, you're going to need to keep your RPMS up. I said, what's the RPM? I can see the tachometer reading, prayer and meditation.
And this is a word to all of us.
To fall into the pattern.
And I haven't been to the local assembly here so.
I'm just shooting from the hip.
But if you come here and you and this brother over here is there, so you say, well, I don't need to even read the chapter in advance. I he'll carry it. He'll carry the reading or so. And so is there this brother there. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.
That's like just one one source of God has a bundle of avenues that the nourishment comes down South that we all might grow up.
And so it is as we read.
Verse 16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together.
We feel like at times like an odd collection of humans together.
But we're fitly framed together, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplier, if you are a joint of supply.
And when Paul wrote to the young Thessalonians who were saved maybe three or four weeks in the first epistle.
I believe it was that epistle where he said edify each one the other.
I get a lot of edification.
These things are taped. I need to be careful about naming names, but I get a lot of edification after a reading meeting by an older sister.
We're just maybe having a bunch of us having coffee and she'll say, did you ever think?
Did you ever notice?
And.
She's edifying me.
And.
There are other brothers who, for whatever reason, are very quiet in the meeting.
But in between or over at the house, Oregon having coffee, they bring out thoughts so beautiful that none of us who are walking through the chapter verbally.
Thought of or mentioned.
So take your responsibility seriously, not just for your own growth.
But for the growth of the brethren in your assembly.
Young and old.
I'll put in a pitch for reading Written Ministry.
Most of us, English is our first language.
So we have a better.
Better shot at understanding convoluted.
Old English syntax, we were talking the other day while we were walking at you read a sentence. You say this was a lot in that sentence, but there's like 5 negatives. So a double negative I can get pretty quick. Triple negative goes back, you know like in math plus minus plus minus and after a while you're worn out trying to you, you almost have to.
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His brother said you got to diagram the sentence.
But with the English as our first language, we have a good chance at that.
And there are other brothers more in our generation who have really done excellent job at at compiling a lot of this good ministry. Avail yourself of it. You're not going to get everything you need in the local assembly, no matter what assembly it is or who's there.
You're not, in my opinion.
Because of what Ephesians 4 tells us.
These gifts were raised up and there's nothing that I've seen in the word of God that says that I only should avail myself of gifts that are living right when I'm living and where I'm living, say call it North America. I haven't seen anything that says that. It doesn't mean I sit home in my study, which I love to do. If I'm home and read all day and and don't go to the meeting, that's not.
Obviously the point either, but.
There is nourishment for us from the head through all these joints of supply, and you're one of them, and that which you enjoy and the communion you have personally with the Lord can enable you to help someone else. Lift up the hands which hang down in the feeble knees, and as we make straight paths for our feet, it can help those that are not as.
What? What's the word you used yesterday?
Agile as you may be.
And so.
Digressions and all, we are through. Umm.
How richly we've been blessed, and the best is yet to come. May we avail ourselves of the little time that's left.
Would be jealous to pursue and follow hard so that our practical state, our experience, our thought life, our prayer life.
Our everyday life just aspires to be as excellent as our standing. Are we going to get there? Most likely not.
But that's what the apostle Paul expressed in Philippians chapter 3. That's what he says. Everything else is done. That's what I wanted. I want my practical life to be as pristine and glorious as my standing. Because all of us, the youngest believer here to the oldest believers here.
Are standing can never be improved.
And no one else is any better than yours. You've been accepted in the Beloved.
And now it's our exercise to seek to be acceptable, agreeable to Him and how we spend our days. Let's just commend ourselves to the Lord.
Luke 21:33-38, 1 Thessalonians 5
Reading
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Is not our resting place #9.
What are we looking children?
Blessing.
All.
So, so, so blessing. We can dance.
Now our Father and our love.
No, no.
Single one has.
Created us.
Hasting awkward to us.
Cruel desert.
With thy gloss and favor.
Spirit God.
Still wants to go.
And with daily strength, grow up.
Resting.
Please.
Show me all the way.
When we see our masters.
No, sorry, now and disappear.
So our souls rejoice.
And it is promise.
Waiting.
Soon shall hear his voice.
I believe there are a few helpful thoughts still left at the end of Luke 21, but on the other hand, if some other brother has something else for us.
I want them to know that I would be very happy with that too, so we don't have to go on with Luke 21. And what is the mind of the brethren? I'd like to suggest that we read those verses.
And then perhaps go over to 1St Thessalonians 5, which has some of the same exhortations, and it has a lot of practical exhortations too. If we put that together. I don't know if we'll get through it all, but we can read it anyhow. Is that all right? Sounds good. Bob Woodward verses, would you read in First Thessalonians 5 or the whole chapter? The whole chapter, OK.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So to hear it.
As a blessing, right?
Even we don't get through it all.
Starting at which worse?
In Luke 21, I would suggest we read from verse 33.
To the end of the chapter and then Bob suggesting the whole of First Thessalonians 5.
That's the way and take yourselves.
Cares of this life until that day come upon you unawares as a snare shall it come on on all them to dwell on the face of the whole world. Watch you therefore, and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. And then, and then the daytime he was teaching in the temple, and at night he went out and abode in the mount that was called the Mount of Olives.
00:05:20
And all the people came early in the morning.
To him in the temple for to hear him.
First Thessalonians, chapter 5.
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you, for yourselves Know perfectly that the day of the world.
For the night, for when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. You're all the children of life and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober to me. For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they.
Be drunken, or drunken in the night, that let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wait for sleep, we should live together with him.
Wherefore comfort yourself together, and edify one another, even as also you do. And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very, very highly in love for their work sake, and to be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly. Comfort in the people minded, support the weak, Be patient with all men.
See that none render evil for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and to all men.
Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing in everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit, the spy is not prophesied. Prove all things, hold fast that which is good, Abstain from all appearance of evil, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.
President, pray for us. Greet all the brethren within. Holy kids, I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren. Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
While in verse 32 at the last Reading Media, we considered what it meant.
About a generation that would not pass away until everything that the Lord has spoken here would be fulfilled. And it was mentioned that the character of the nation would not change, even though it would be a matter of a long time before all these things would be fulfilled.
But I would suggest the thought with in connection with verse 33.
There's something else that won't pass away either, and that is the Word of God.
And it's both an encouragement, but also a warning.
Those.
Who were to be the godly ones and those who followed the Lord?
Could recognize what it says.
Going back in our chapter to verse 31, they could recognize when they saw these things that the Kingdom of God was nigh at hand.
You and I can recognize that too, in a slightly different way.
You and I can recognize that the Lord is coming soon, and shortly after that, at the end of the tribulation, He will set up that glorious millennial Kingdom. On the other hand, what an awful thought to be involved with some of these things that are spoken of here, men's hearts failing them for fear.
The powers of heaven being shaken by the advanced wickedness that this world will experience.
It's a very solemn warning, isn't it?
And God assures us that His Word will never pass away. Men would like to discount it. They'd like to carry on this world as if it were going on forever.
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They talk about what might happen and what could happen and what probably will happen in their eyes in 2050, and what shape the world will be in in 2100 and so on. All these things as if the world were just going to go on and on the way it is today.
No, God has his plans and purposes, and His Word will never pass away.
And I've quoted this before, but it has often impressed me.
Giving credit where credit is due. It's a quotation, not word for word, but approximate from JN Darby's ministry.
He said do not be concerned about all the purposes and movements of man.
They will only accomplish gods in the end and the rest will fall to the ground. And how true that is. God is working through all the maze and interplay of forces in this world to accomplish His purposes and anything that doesn't further that will fall to the ground. But God's word will prevail.
That's why it's so important, isn't it? To have our souls resting on the Word of God?
I say as I go around that people express their concerns and their feelings and they're very real. You can't deny that.
A Brethren, we don't base our faith on concerns and feelings.
Base it on the Word of God.
Remember, our young sisters said to me one time.
The Lord has left me.
I say, where did you come on that? I just feel like he's left me alone.
I say, do your feelings ever change? Yeah, they say. Does the word of God change?
No.
Then what should you believe?
Well, the word, the word says I will never leave thee, nor for safety.
And so sometimes, brethren, our feelings are very strong, and I don't deny that we have them. But don't base your faith on feelings.
Base your faith on the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So how important that is. Heaven and earth will pass away. My words shall not pass away.
Important to have on our own.
Daily schedule.
Time to read the scriptures. And I say, don't just skip around. Sometimes people go over here for one day and go over the other side another day. Pick up a book and read it through and we'll start with John's Gospel. It's a good place to start. Read a chapter and mark it and go back to the next day or whenever you have another time, I say.
Try to do it daily and continue to read through the scriptures. It's so important.
Last year I was having a conversation with a dear sister at the kitchen table, and I made the remark that she was kind of an emotional person and talking about her feelings and in a negative way. And I said, you know, sister feelings aren't fat.
What do you mean they're real? No, that's not what I meant. Of course they're real. That's why they're a problem. But I said they aren't facts, and you need to find out if the feelings you're having are based on some facts. Well, the Word of God is one of the ways to discern that well. And as soon as you find out that how you're feeling is based on maybe a lie or a misapprehension.
Your feelings change, and the wonderful thing about the word of God is.
It produces feelings that follow on after different kinds and stable feelings. And this was a total new concept. We had a wonderful conversation just visiting about it and how that both men and women, I think women are more guilty than others, often have a sense of kind of an overall shadow of guilt.
00:15:13
And maybe about their children. Or I could have been a better mother. Could have been this could have been that. Could have, would have, should have.
And men do it too. Well, OK, there may have been things like that. And we were talking earlier about judging oneself and you can do that and it's OK. I don't think there's a parent in here that would say they were perfect and they have some regrets and have learned things when they got older. They wish they had known when they were younger. Well, that's just fine to to examine yourself and look at those things and then.
By the word of God, put them in their place.
You know, back home, brother Carl McCoy, when he got older, said he would say.
I know things now that I wish I had known as a young father, I would have done it differently. And he was gracious in his communications with some of the young families in our assembly to tell him, don't do what I once did. But he had a wisdom that had come to him by experience and then bringing it under the word of God.
The verses that follow in our chapter. Here we have some of the practical.
Exhortations, take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with Serpentine and drunkenness, and the care cares of this life, so that that day come upon you unawares, for as a snare shall it come upon you that.
All them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, and impress brethren so many places in the scripture that it speaks about.
Watching and being sober, Watching in contrast with sleeping and being sober in contrast with drunkenness. Drunkenness not so much not merely with alcohol, but drunkenness under the influence of the affairs of this life. It says here in verse 34, the cares of this life. Every one of us have cares in this life.
But do you get under the influence of that? Is that what dominates your life?
That's drunkenness in the spiritual sense of the word. And so we're exhorted not to give place to that, to be alert, awake. And somebody was mentioning that verse awake thou that sleepest with you, Bruce, I think it was and.
And that that's in Ephesians 5, right? And.
So it's it's a being asleep is not being alert.
Yeah, you're there in the meetings, but you're not really alert.
Awake, the Scripture says we're living right on the edge of the time. The most awful judgment of this world is going to fall, brethren, and are we asleep? Are we aware where we are? That's so important, these two things. I know there's others, but there's drunkenness and verse 36, it says watching.
That's in contrast with sleeping. So in in First Thessalonians 5 where we read, we have those same two things in verse six. It's speaking about us. Therefore not let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober, for they that sleep sleep in the night and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
So it's a real call to us to.
Be exercised, brethren, that were not asleep and not drunk.
Maybe.
Maybe everyone doesn't know what the word surfeiting means.
It may have varied origins, but I like to take it from the French here in French means on, and the French word for a feast or a festival is fete, FETE, and so this is derived from that and it has to do with enjoying the good life, feasting, enjoying good food.
00:20:06
And generally living it up. And it's a real voice, may I suggest, and I speak to my own heart.
To some of us here in countries like Canada and the United States where we don't lack for food and generally, even though sometimes things can be more difficult than they used to be, I don't discount that, but we can become occupied with those things. And so it's mentioning that here and it's very interesting and I like the way you brought it out, Bob.
The cares of this life are mentioned 2nd.
In this verse.
First of all, it's surfeiting and drunkenness.
And then the cares of this life.
We go back to Matthew 13 and we don't need to turn to it. The cares of this life are mentioned first in connection with the thorns and the thistles that grow up, and they are a very real thing. But here I believe they're mentioned second because there can be a tendency on the part of some, and our own hearts are not immune to it.
To be just having it a little too good down here.
I remember while talking to one of my neighbors, I went to high school with him. I knew him well.
And he was a believer, and I brought up the subject of the Lord's coming to him.
And I was so disappointed in his reaction. He said, well, Bill, that's that's all true, he said, but I got a good many things I need to do here in this life yet before the Lord comes. And so I don't want him to come too quickly. Oh dear. What a what a reaction. And he meant it too. He really meant it.
Well, you and I are to be expecting the Lord to come and as Bob has been bringing out.
The Lord wants our full and undivided attention, especially at a time like this.
I've learned a little bit, recognize the practical aspect of this chapter and the things that you're saying and the warning.
The encouragement that you mentioned across in verse 33.
And it takes me back even further to verse 26, men's hearts failing them for fear. And I would consider that to be a man of the world, one that's lost in their sins. But in reality, there are even those that belong to the Lord Jesus Christ that you can say their hearts are failing them and it's because they're caught up with the cares of this world.
And not to say it in judgment, but it's so easy to be interested in the news and, and all the things that are on there and the world politics and different things. And before long you can convince yourself that you're not interested in these things anymore because you're so overwhelmed with all the other. And so the encouragement in being taken up with God's Word and reading it and knowing it, as Brother Conrad brought out in his meeting, that communion, that word, how important it is that we have it.
Is such that we can be reminded that you know, the Lord said to Joshua.
As I was with Moses, so will I be with Thee. I will never leave thee nor forsake Thee. And so we have that encouragement as we're here in this world. And we don't have to be having our hearts failing and we don't have to be in fear of all these things because we can trust in the Lord. We can trust in Him for all that He tells us in His Word. The warning now comes in these next few verses and what was mentioned in First Thessalonians 5. And so therefore, we do need to be watchful. We do need to be in prayer before Him.
Surely we can get taken up quickly things in the world and it's no fun anymore being a believer like that.
I was thinking how that during the tribulation.
Those people who come to Christ.
First, probably through the preaching of the 144,000.
What they would think as they read these verses.
You're a saved person. The gospel preached to you was what we hear, plus a Kingdom flavor like was before the cross, but after the cross, and part of it will be I can. I've thought about if I were there and I hadn't gotten saved, now, what would I be thinking as I thought to share the gospel? I would say you remember when all those people disappeared. Let me show you that and turn to Thessalonians and turn to portions like this.
00:25:14
They look those who went before, they didn't know when the Lord was coming, the first part or the part one of His second coming.
But we do, and here's where we're at. The Saints during that time who read the scriptures will be able to.
So it's seven years, it's six, it's five, it's four, it's three, and count it right down. And the exhortation will be hang in there, brothers, sisters, if you endure to the end, you'll be safe in the Millennium. You'll get in there. And we know that it will. It will cost a great deal to those who come to Christ during the tribulation. Many of them will die and be killed for their faith. But I believe what we see is.
Millions will come to Christ during that time if it's true that there are about 700 million real Christians on this planet right now.
It's a sad thought to think that there are almost 7 1/2 billion people that are not saved.
Are close to that.
But we know that during this terrible time, that's called the time of Jacob's trouble, and trouble I've never seen.
We know that God's grace still reaches out. We don't call it the day of grace because it's not. But his grace is as real as it's ever been. And those who preach the Gospel 144,000 the two witnesses and all those that are converted, they will know that it probably will cost them their life. And when they read these, they will take it very personally and.
To be awake, stay awake.
And to be conscious of what is going on and what's each step that's marching down to the end of that time. But they will know that they only have to hang in there, stay alive, be faithful for whatever period of time is yet in front of them.
You're talking about the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom, isn't it? That will be during that great tribulation period.
Yeah, it will be based on that, but I say it's it's interesting that it's like the Lord Jesus preached at the beginning of his ministry and also John the Baptist repent, get ready, the King is coming and the axe is going to be late at the root of the trees and so.
It's going to be some real preaching, but it should be clear too. I think that those who have heard the gospel and have refused it during this time are going to be deceived. It's very clear in Second Thessalonians chapter 2 That they won't have another chance, and I say God is the judge of whether that is the case.
But I say.
Those that have never had a real chance, they will be, I think in many parts of the world like China and those parts of the world that there's going to be many that come to faith in Christ.
And this makes you comments about the fact that in its context, a little bit of what this chapter is emphasizing.
Lord Jesus.
Was at the end of his life here and the Lord Jesus now had followers.
There were those who had accepted Him and become His followers as disciples, and the Lord is preparing them, a moral generation, as we had already, as to how they were to go on when He was separated from them.
And during that period of time, that period of time we've already had, is called the Kingdom of God.
And the emphasis of taking heed to yourself here is it's not talking about the rapture, it's not the presentation of the gospel to souls in the day of grace and so on. That's not that's all true. But that's not what this chapter is bringing about when it is exhorting. Take heed to yourselves.
It is those who were followers of the Lord Jesus, and now He prepares them, for He's not going to be with them anymore.
00:30:03
But they are going to continue on in that which began with his time here concerning what we call the Kingdom of God. And the Kingdom of God was a character of life that was to be lived with God's acknowledgement as we I think had another meeting.
It was characterized by righteousness and peace.
And joy in the spirit. And he's exhorting his own.
That while I'm not here, I want you to continue on and and I'm going to use the words this way, the lifestyle that I have introduced to you as following me.
And so they were to follow on in a character of life that had been like.
His character of life while here he had lived in a certain way among men and they had become his followers. And he's telling them, I want you to go on and continue to live in that character of life that you have seen in me.
But I'm not going to be physically here with you to follow me in that way, and yet you are to follow in it. So, he says, take heed to yourselves.
That you walk in that way, and it looks on beyond the rapture and so on to what he says to him in his exhortation to them.
Watch.
In verse 36, that ye be accounted worthy.
Worthy. Worthy what?
He was going to come back.
And when he came back, they were going to have to in that sense.
Before the Son of Man, and when they stood before the Son of man, that moral generation.
Were they going to? Was he going to be saying to them, you have walked in a way that is worthy of me while I was not here? And morally we should apply these things to our own lives. Is our character of life the same?
Moral character that these people.
We're being exhorted. Are we walking as a moral generation?
That will be accounted in this sense of the word, of a responsibility, accounted worthy when we see the Son of Man come back to this earth in his glory. Or in contrast, will we have become like the earth dwellers that are taken up with everything but himself and not worthy?
The world's not worthy of his coming, even though he will come.
And so he presents it to us that way that we, if I'll summarize it all this way.
If we're walking worthy as presented in these exhortations.
If the Lord were to come back to earth tonight.
We would not need to have a lifestyle change.
We would not need to change the objectives or the character or the moral behavior of our lives.
If we have to, it means we're not walking in a way that is consistent with being a follower of the Lord Jesus in the Kingdom of God.
Sometimes when I hear a story of a dear St.
Who's?
Displayed remarkable faith in their Savior and sacrifice.
The kind of stories you hear that stir you and make bring tears to your eyes and maybe a lump in your throat.
And I've been driving long before, maybe listening to the radio, and I hear a story like that.
00:35:04
And I just go, Lord, you're worthy of such a servant.
That servant.
Is living the life.
That Don just spoke of, because it you can just see and rejoice in something like it. Lord, you are worthy that such a servant should serve thee in this way.
And glorify you.
I suggest we go on over to 1St Thessalonians 5, if that's all right. If there's more to say, why, that's fine too, But could I just make one? Go ahead.
It's interesting that verse 37 is tucked in here and we don't need to spend much time on it, but it shows us, I believe.
By example, the character of that life that Dawn has been talking about. There is a time to be out in the public eye, to be out before the world, and there's a time to be alone with the Lord.
You and I are not called to be recluses. We're not called to be isolated from this world, but we are called to be separated from it. But separation does not mean isolation.
The Lord Jesus was not isolated from this world. He was right out there.
Mingling with the crowds, mingling with the people, preaching to them, interacting with them. Sometimes in large groups, sometimes in small groups, sometimes one-on-one.
Whatever the Lord.
The Lord leads. That's what we should be doing. But equally true.
There has to be a time alone with the Lord, and if the Lord Jesus could not get it, we speak with all reverence.
If he couldn't get it any other way, he went out to the Mount of Olives.
Spent the night there. It's always been interesting to me that up in the Sea of Galilee area.
If the crowds knew where the Lord Jesus went, they would follow Him, even if they had to run around the shore of the lake while He went across in a ship.
But it doesn't seem, at least not that I can find, that the crowds ever followed him to the Mount of Olives. It was a secluded place. It was a place of olive Groves. It was a place where there were burials carried out. It was a place of peacefulness and rest. It would seem that the Lord and I I think this is probably quite reasonable to assume.
That there were nights that he spent the whole night there.
In the Mount of Olives, to be alone with his father, have time of prayer.
To be apart from the crowds and we need both. I just mentioned that it's a wonderful example for us.
Go ahead, lark.
OK. I was thinking of that very thing the other day before the prayer meeting on Saturday. I was thinking of, I think it was Jim Highland used to read that verse quite a bit.
Come out apart to a desert place and rest a while. I think it's in Mark.
And I thought of how he would take his disciples or those ones that were with him, that desert place, and how he suggests same for you and I today. But that's a different place than when he would go into the Mount of Olives. That was a place that he would go by himself, that he would get before his father and pray. Is that correct? Yes.
And when he went out like that to come apart and rest a while, there's no record that they ever got it.
Because the followed them.
And the Lord had compassion on them and he served them. And there is no record. The only rest he got was.
Later on or falling asleep in the ship or that something like that. But when he went to the Mount of Olives, it seems there was, if I could use the term he was guaranteed to be.
Either alone or with those that he specifically took with him.
00:40:09
1St Thessalonians 5 Then we have mentioned in verse 2 The day of the Lord. We know that is the day when the Lord Jesus will come back in power and glory to reign, and it is. It will come as a thief in the night. In other words, that's not the way He's coming for us, brother.
And even the night you don't want him to come and you don't expect him, I trust that we all want the Lord to come.
And we expect them at any moment. So he's not going to come for us as a thief in the night says very clearly.
Verse four. Ye brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. You're all the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of the darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. I just wanted to mention in verse one.
Says at the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you.
When it's a question of the Lord's coming in power and glory, there are times and seasons connected with it and I like to connect it with the 1St chapter of the book of Acts where the Lord Jesus in his resurrection is talking to his disciples and they asked him in verse 6.
When therefore they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord.
Wilt thou at this time restore thee again the Kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times.
Or the seasons. There's that same expression, the times of the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power. So his coming as a thief at the end of the Great Tribulation is connected with times and seasons, the Rapture. There is no outward signs, times and seasons that we can designate when it will happen. It's going to happen at any moment.
And so I think it is interesting to connect that.
With these verses in First Thessalonians, Five Day of the Lord is connected with times and seasons, but we as the Church are looking for the Lord from heaven. When is that going to take place?
Let's be ready at any moment, even the Apostle Paul in talking about the rapture in the end of chapter Thessalonians chapter 4.
We which are alive and remain till the coming of the Lord.
Was the Apostle Paul mistaken?
Been centuries since he died.
No, he was not mistaken. It's always presented as the present hope of the believer through all ages, and we should wait as if it would take place at any moment now. Oh, how important that is. Brethren, think of that moment. I try, sometimes I stop and try to think of the glory of that moment.
The trumpet shall sound. He will give a shout.
And we are going to be instantaneously.
Transformed and the dead in Christ are going to be raised, and that's in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye like you mentioned the other day. But then we will all be caught up together.
Oh, the glory of that moment. What are you going to do the first moment you see Jesus?
Ever thought about Everest?
Yep. What do you say about that?
I don't say much, I just think about it.
A good thought.
I'd like to add this though, that since we're switching from, we've moved from a Gospel passage into the epistles. I think it's a common idea we can have when we're young Christians that we want to read like the more easy to understand passages of the word of God. And so we think, let's go to the Gospels.
And and the epistles seem more complex at first, but as as many of us in this room have been reading the scriptures for a long time, and for myself, I feel it's just the opposite. When I read in the epistles or in the latter part of the book of Acts, I know that it's in general, it's written to me. It's all for me.
00:45:15
Some of it is directly to me, and so as you go through Chapter 5, you see us.
Or the Paul writes ye and they. It's pretty clear we are the ye and the unbelievers are the they. And that's not hard. But when you're in the Gospels, I've been on a reading for about two years with youngish brothers working their way through the Gospel of Matthew, and it's not easy to discern. Just as as as Dawn helped us with the tail end of Luke 21. It's not easy.
To determine which aspect of the Lord's coming is being referred to which group of people.
Which unbelievers, is it the Jewish nation? Unbelievers, is that the the the men and women of faith in Israel? Is it the Gentiles? It takes it takes some time. And as we read through Matthew, the the younger brothers just always wanted to run right to the church and everything had to do with the church and I kept they mocked me after a while, I kept saying, brothers, keep your powder dry.
Wait, we're not there yet. This is a presentation to Israel. There are moral principles that are always true.
For us, wherever we read in the word of God, but when you're trying to understand the interpretation of it, it, the Gospels, the what we call the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, it takes time to sort out what's what and when's when and who is being spoken to. So again, I if you're if you feel a little bit lost by the comments about which aspect of the coming, you're not alone. We've all been there.
The epistles are are are are clearer to get an outline.
In my opinion.
You're all the children of the light and the children of the day.
We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch.
And be sober.
And I would like, brethren, that we could reflect a bit on the point of watching.
It means to be alert.
A person that's asleep as life, but he's not alert. You talk to him, he's not going to answer you.
And so often when it comes down to the Lord's things, we're not alert there. It's of our own interests and possessions. Ooh, we're right there. Take care of him at the Lords things, brethren. The Lord help us to be alert, awake. We are not of the night, nor of the darkness. In other words, there's a distinct difference between.
The people of the day and the people of the night.
Somebody has said.
Give this illustration one time they were talking about that verse in Ephesians that we talked about. Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give him the light. Employee of the hospital wants to take a nap at the middle of the day, middle of his shift. And so down in the morgue is a nice cool spot to take a nap. And so there he goes down there and.
There's several corpses laying out there.
And so he lays down there and goes to sleep. Another person comes along.
It looks like there's four corpses here.
But if you watch as close, you see some movement in that one.
And there's just not a lot of difference between a person that's asleep and a person that's dead. And if that's the case with me, brother, and if there's not that much difference between me and the world around, it's probably because I'm asleep.
Lord help us, brethren, if there's ever a time when we need to be awake, it's now.
00:50:19
And then the other one, brethren, is drunkenness.
May that be drunken or drunken in the night, but let us who are of the day.
Be sober. In other words, have your wits about you.
Be in your full capacity to discern things that come along A person that's drunk.
Is alive, Yeah, he's alive, but he's under the influence and you can tell it by the way he talks and by the way he walks. You can tell it.
Oh brethren, the Lord help us to be with it.
And not under the influence. I just fear rather than that our.
Materialistic.
Humanistic.
View of things here in the United States has affected us a lot more than we realize.
ABBA rights, don't judge me. I have as much rights as you do, so keep your distance rather than it's not about my rights, it's about the rights of that man who sits at God's right hand. That's the one. I need to be aware of his interests and to give him his place in life. There's so many things.
That dull our apprehension of what is due to him.
When I hear, brethren have.
Brethren over in other parts of the world that are suffering severe persecution for the Lord's sake.
And we don't suffer. They have to say for myself, we don't suffer hardly at all.
Brethren.
We need to be awakened. We need to be sober as never before. These things are practical in our lives. The Lord help us to give the Lord Jesus His place as Lord in our lives.
The word Terry is very long. We may see some of that.
This next election that happens, there are a lot of people warning you better have supplies on hand.
As of what may happen.
And those kinds of things could come here, and it doesn't take long. We've talked before and certainly thought about it, that that in the late 30s in Germany, we see a lot of parallels with what's going on in the West. You know, the Lord's in charge. But after this next election, whoever wins, there's a lot of people that are afraid of what's coming and what might happen.
We are encouraged here to be sober while we watch with expectation.
Expectation of the Lord coming for us whenever you read of the Lord coming as a thief in the night.
It's not for you if you're a believer.
Nobody wants a thief to come, let alone at night. Nobody wants to be suddenly awakened.
By someone who wants to do them harm. And so that figure is always the Lord coming for people who do not want him, didn't want him before and certainly won't want him to be coming in power to set things right. And so for the believer, it's it's yes, we're sober, we're hopefully watching and waiting, but it's the expectation of the consummation of all our hopes to be forever with the Lord.
And so in verse verse nine, God hath not appointed us to wrath. Wrath is coming upon this world. It's it's due.
And this upside down world is going to be rapidly turned right side up when the Lord comes in power and glory. But the believer is has been promised that before that day of wrath falls righteously upon this world, we will be taken from it. This is one of those passages that if you work or go to school with believers that have been taught that they're to expect the tribulation or to go.
00:55:05
Through it and all of that kind of thing. This is one of those passages that can be helpful to them. God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. The word salvation takes on a different context in different places. Sometimes it refers to the salvation of our soul, which we presently have, but in other places it refers to the deliverance that's going to come when the Lord takes us out.
And we're not saved in that way yet.
There's the older brothers used to say we're only partly saved, we have the salvation of our souls, but he's going to come for the purchased possession. He purchased us. And when he comes into the clouds of heaven, he's going to take us to be with himself. He's already bought us with his own precious blood, and he has a right and a desire to take us to be with himself. That's our appointment not to wrap.
I'd like to emphasize that as Paul presents it.
From the first chapter where he uses those words first. So go back to First Thessalonians 1.
And back to what was said earlier as well.
These are group of people.
Perhaps that only heard the name Jesus Christ for the first time for a month, they didn't. To get the picture in its context. These were Gentiles. They didn't live near Jerusalem. Probably the ones he's addressing had never been.
Or most of them had never even been to what we call Israel and where the Lord had lived and died and so on. But the message had gone forth, and in Thessalonica, this Gentile place, it was looked at as people living in darkness. And so he says.
Paul in his comments to them and as he starts his letter he says in verse 9.
For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you. And here's the three things that they had learned in a matter of weeks.
They lived in darkness, it says. You turn to God from idols. That's the first thing.
The heathen world was a world of idolatry, and that meant that anything but God was the controlling, important thing in life, and that they weren't always physical idols, although they sometimes had them. But it was whatever was controlling their life, and they lived in that darkness, that spiritual, moral darkness.
Of being a follower of an idol.
And so, he says, he turned to God.
From idols, prior to that they lived for the idol.
The and then he says to serve the living and true God.
Imagine hearing a month ago the name the Lord Jesus Christ for the first time in your life and having a message presented to you that you turn from the darkness of an idol to what now? What's your life?
To serve the living.
And true God, an idol, is not a living being.
It's not a true, it's a false thing. And so he's putting before them what they had turned from to what they now had a relationship.
With the true God.
A living God and then what connects with what has just been said, and to wait.
Or his son from heaven.
Ah, that was now the daily expectation and anticipation of these people Thessalonians each day they could get up in the morning with the anticipation of.
Waiting.
Or his son, God's Son from heaven.
And connected with it to know that he was the one that had been raised.
01:00:00
From the dead, that is, They had a hope that was beyond this life.
And beyond death.
Prior to this, they had no such hopes, no such thoughts. And further than that, he says even Jesus, and I'm going to quote it in the way it's in the new translation which delivers us from the wrath to come. They recognize that God was going to judge.
And when God came, or when the Lord came, it was going to be a day of judgment.
And fear. And that's how our fifth chapter starts as he explains more to them what's going on and amplifies on what he had started out with in the first chapter, he says.
You know perfectly well that the day of the Lord people aren't anticipating it. You didn't anticipate it. You lived in your darkness, but now that you have been brought into the light of day.
You recognize that for the West of people around you, what's going to come as a as a thief in the night, an unexpected person is going to be in the night because they live in the night. They're they're people of the night. And yet he says rather than that's not going to overtake you.
And so on. And so he brings it before them. And I'll just add one more word. It's a won't go back, but it's first introduced in chapter one, and it's repeated here as an exhortation in verse.
9 verse 8.
Putting on the breastplate of faith and love and foreign helmet the hope of salvation.
To simple new believers, these were the three pillars of Christian life.
Faith, hope and love, and they still are the three pillars of your daily life and mine in their simplicity.
Our faith, hope and love. And he remarks on the change that had taken place in them in chapter one that had given them faith.
Urban them to enter in for the first time truly the love of God.
And as a consequence as well, they had been introduced to a hope.
That they had never had before. And that becomes the three characteristics of Christian life. And if if I'm not living today and simplicity of faith and relationship to the Lord Jesus, I'm not living a Christian life the way God wants it for me. If I didn't have today the hope of even this evening seeing the Lord Jesus.
And I'm not living in normal Christian life. And if I'm here this afternoon with any uncertainty as to the love that God has in his heart toward me, then I'm not living in a relationship with God.
That is normal Christianity.
One thing I might mention in connection with what our brother Bob has been emphasizing about watching.
And I believe Brother Sam, you alluded a bit to it as well as to.
Keeping our eyes on what's going on in the world and what's happening here and what's happening there and so on, I only suggest that it is getting more and more difficult because life is busy now Yes, we sometimes make life busy for ourselves and I read something a while ago where a man who.
Was not a believer by any stretch of the imagination, but he lived in the secular world.
And one time he decided he needed to take some time out to, as we would say in common language, recharge his batteries. So he moved down to Cape Cod for three months, shut off his cell phone, there was no Wi-Fi there, told everybody he was going to be out of range for a while.
And just read books.
01:05:02
Took walks, did all kinds of things. Sadly nothing from a spiritual side.
But then when he got back to civilization a few weeks after, well, it was a week after the three months came to an end.
He turned on his computer and he found how few emails there were waiting for him. And he said, you know, emails, bigot emails and text, bigot texts. And these things multiply. The more we do them, the more we encourage them and the more other people do them back to us. And pretty soon our life is full and complicated and our lives are complicated. Today, to some extent, you can't get away from it.
About a couple of years ago, I finally succumbed and got a cell phone. There was number way out. I had to get one. I couldn't manage things without it. Sometimes I wish I'd never gotten it, but that's another story. But the point is, life is more difficult today and it takes real exercise before the Lord.
This morning we sung part of a hymn #227 that was written by a brother in Switzerland, a French brother, Doctor HL Rossier, a Rossier as we would pronounce it, and I remember reading how that he wrote much of his written ministry.
While he was riding in his carriage, visiting his patients, going from patient to patient and he had someone that drove the carriage for him. I don't know how he managed to write with the bumps and bangs. It must have gone with it. But he did it. And I thought many times I would as a doctor of have been glad to have that luxury. But I never had it and I went from A to BI, had to drive a car.
And I had to have my full attention on the road. I couldn't just sit back and let the chauffeur drive it or something like that.
Life is more complicated today and it takes real effort.
And a real allotting of our time in order to have time to spend on the Lord's things.
To read our written ministry that Bruce was emphasizing in the address. To pray, to come apart as the Lord did on the Mount of Olives. It's much harder than it used to be, but it can be done.
One more little story, just to show you how it can be done. My father never had to cope with any of those things. He was a farm laborer.
But I remember when I worked with him and he never took more than 1/2 hour for lunch. He could have taken an hour, but he didn't. He took 1/2 hour.
But when I was with him, he always ate in 15 minutes and then out of his lunch box he pulled a book of ministry. When I wasn't with him, I imagine he read it to himself. When I was there, he read it out loud so I would get the benefit too. I never forgot it.
He used the time he had available even though he worked 10 hour days most of the time and it was hard physical work and when he got home he was often tired and it was difficult.
To sit up in evenings and read because your eyes would tend to droop and it was difficult.
But he managed to do it, and with only a grade school education. When I started reading Jay and Darby when I was in my early 20s, I ran into things I couldn't understand. And I would ask him. Like I said, I can't understand this. Without a moment's hesitation. He would tell me what it all meant, with all the three or four or five negatives in the sense that Bruce was mentioning.
How did he get it? Because he said.
Through himself. It's worth going after, and that's what we need, don't we?
It's harder today than it used to be.
But it's well worth the time spent.
I'll make a practical example as well.
Most here have probably cell phones and laptops and all the rest, and it only takes one button to get to Google. Get to Google News or some other news service. Sometimes before you press that button, it's well worth saying to the Lord. Do I need to know this? Lord Jesus, to please you today and do your will.
And then it'll have its right priority and perspective if you are willing to personally, individually say to the Lord Jesus before you press that button.
Lord Jesus, do I need to know what I will see.
01:10:04
In order to please you today, can I ask a question practically, Don?
Is there an answer? But you can ask the question.
Is there a balance between being an intelligent observer of what's going on in this world and being so much immersed in it that it eclipses what we ought to be spending time on?
Yes, there is, but at the other side of it, I'm going to offer an alternative thought and that is some of us are not competent to be intelligent observers. God has established some who have that capacity and can be used of the Lord in that way.
In my youth, and known to the older ones, here was a man named Paul Wilson.
And Paul Wilson was given of God a capacity to be an observer of what was happening in the world and give a spiritual interpretation of it. And the Lord used him for the blessing and benefit of many of us of a different generation, however.
We can also be of a character where we are really ourselves, do not have from the Lord a capacity.
To evaluate current events and what happens and come to a useful.
Understanding of it and in our case we are better.
To follow after righteousness and peace and joy, and be occupied in the positive.
Simplicity of daily life rather than being unnecessarily occupied with what we're not going to understand anyways.
Thank you.
Would you call them men of Issachar?
Hey Donnie, my brother was pitching another question at you.
Would you call them Manavisicar? There are, yes. I think that's a very scriptural example. There are those that are called of the Lord that do occupy themselves in a way that the Lord uses them to help their brethren to understand how to go in a as Bill said and increasingly.
Complicated and out of order world.
But at the same time, there is the Thessalonians.
And the Thessalonians?
Lived in the daylight of following the Lord Jesus.
And another example where I'll say it's this is a balanced matter. And that is when the Lord called the disciples in the Gospels and he chose the 12 in Mark's Gospel where we have them presented to us as serving him in the world. It says the very beginning.
That they might be with him. That was the beginning.
And direction of their service, that they might be with him. And they walked with him for months or a year or more, and then it says, and he sent them forth. And so the preparation for serving God, the number one preparation is to be in the conscious daily fellowship.
Himself that they might be with Him. And you can't substitute that for anything. There is no substitute for the daily personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. And if that is there, then as He chooses, He sends you forth to do something for Him.
And then what did they do? They went back to be at his presence again.
So whenever he's given a work to do, it's to be done. If it's to visit somebody in the hospital, it's to visit them in the hospital or whatever it is. But there's always the returning into his presence to be at his feet until he sends forth again to do something else.
I wanted to.
01:15:02
Say what Bruce mentioned earlier in verse 9, brethren, is one of the clearest verses in the New Testament that shows that we will not go through the great Tribulation. It is a day of wrath and God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Many people who think that the church will go through the tribulation.
If it's true that the church will go through the tribulation, we really don't wait for the Lord from heaven.
Because the Antichrist will be manifested in the great tribulation. And so they wait for the Antichrist. Really not for the Christ, but for the Antichrist. And scripture is very clear that we wait for the Lord from heaven. So God has not appointed us to wrath. Look at Revelation chapter 6 and.
This is the chapter where the seal judgments begin.
And the 6th seal.
Here the.
Verse 15. The kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondsman, every freeman, hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?
So that's the day of wrath, that great tribulation period, and God has not appointed us to wrap. This is very clear, I trust, and I think it's it's well worth taking notice of because there's so many that don't have clear teaching about this. And perhaps we can be a help to them. I can give you one more verse that I find is very clear as to the fact that we will not go through the great tribulation.
Revelation chapter 3 and verse 10 what he says to.
The church at Philadelphia, he says, Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth. There's another verse that is very clear that.
We will not go through that hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them of which dwell upon the earth. And so, our wonderful brethren, that Scripture is clear about this, and so it says in verse in our chapter.
Verse 11 wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another even as also you do. And then he begins with a list of exhortations that I find very helpful. Brethren, we don't have too much time left now, but it talks about.
Those that minister that are over you and the Lord, I take it that's over you and the Lord in a local sense.
And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake, and be at peace among yourselves.
And then he exhorts them in verse 1415. Then we have these short little exhortations, verse 16. Rejoice evermore. I'd like to hear what you have to say on that because of what you spoke upon Brother Bruce. But to me, it's interesting that there's two verses in the Bible that have two words in them. The other one is Jesus.
And this is rejoice evermore. Put those two together. Oh what a wealth you can get from that rather than these are exhortations, rather than these are really commands of the Lord Jesus.
You always obey that command, Brother Bruce. No.
To me, it's interesting that it's it's what's to be characteristic of the Christian life, isn't it?
And then comes pray without ceasing. Prayer is a characteristic of the Christian life.
And then verse 18 in everything give thanks and things go wrong, you give thanks for it. And then I found this is a tremendously helpful thing. I found it when something goes wrong, sometimes there's things that go wrong, very difficult in the life.
01:20:16
We don't understand what is going on here. I don't understand.
Yeah, you don't have to understand.
I still remember what a brother said to me when I had a particularly difficult trial come into my life.
Each walked up to me and said, Bob, everything that happens in the life of the believer comes directly from that man on the throne above. It was like a sledgehammer that hit me. I went home and got on my knees.
And it was tremendous, brethren, to realize that even in those.
Difficult trials we can give. Thanks.
Because God is so great and He has set us in such a position of favor in the Lord Jesus that even those things that are bad, even the mistakes we make, if we can recognize it and confess it, he takes that and turns it for blessing for us. That's how great our God is.
So in everything, in fact, what a tremendous thing it is.
Head over all things to the church, including not so pleasant ones.
Running out of time. I feel bad if we didn't at least touch on 1920 years quenched not the spirit. How do I do that? Or how do I avoid it and despise not prophesize?
Bruce Anstey has made this comment I found very helpful.
There's another exhortation in Ephesians 4 that says.
Grieve not the Spirit.
He said we grieve the Spirit of God when we do those things he tells us not to do. We quench the Spirit of God when we don't do the things that the Spirit tells us to do. So it's kind of a helpful comment.
But this?
Despise not prophesied. I must stay rather than my youth.
I travel around with Clem Buchanan quite a bit and he was kind of a spiritual father to me and some of the lessons I learned from him I treasure and one of them was after a particular conference years ago, there was a certain brother that had spoken in an open meeting that.
His life didn't exactly correspond with his ministry exactly, and so I mentioned to Columbia, Canada after the meeting with that brother, speaks a.
Can't hardly listen to him because of his life. Lamb looks at me and says despise nonprofit science. You may not like the brother, but maybe the Lord is using him to say something to you that you need to hear. Listen. That has been a tremendous help to me, brethren, he says.
God even used the donkey to reprove a disobedient prophet.
And he really, that disobedient prophet didn't listen to the donkey, did he? He talked back to him. I I don't think I would talk back to a donkey.
Prophesying is speaking to men, to edification, to exhortation, to comfort.
Quem could have answered you with the next verse. Prove all things hold fast that which is exactly.
Because not everything is said is profitable always. And so you prove it by the Word of God and the Spirit of God. John wrote to even the babes. He said you have an unction from the Holy One. You know all things. So the Spirit of God gives gives even the young believer, the babe in Christ a certain discernment. And with the Word of God we can prove things and separate the wheat from the child.
And the hold fast that which is good.
Yes, because that's why we all have our Bibles open and we're listening. And I hope we're comparing it with what we're talking about here because we can make mistakes. And that's why it says the prophets speak two or three. Let the others judge, Not judge persons, but judge. What's sad is that straight according to the Scripture.
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In that sense.
Can't remember the exact verse but it spoke of the character of the Bereans and the part we always remember is they search the scriptures to see if these things were so. But it's not the first thing. Who said the Greens was something more along the lines of help me out here receive these things willingly. In other words I would suggest had a good spirit about.
What they're hearing and we're open to searching it out rather than despising them and just chucking them out because they didn't like the speaker.
So there's good attitude to at least be ready to hear it and then search it out.
They received the word with all readiness of mind and search the scriptures daily whether these things were so good.
Blood to save us. It is my God, we might live.
Me, I live.
Alone and go near you and boring.
Gospel 10
Gospel—J. Grinton
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I've been looking at the hymn on the sheet #25.
This is a favorite hymn of my father's.
It says life at best is very brief, like the falling of a leaf, like the binding of a sheep. Be in time. Fleeting days are telling fast that the die will soon be cast and the fatal line be passed. Be in time.
Verse three says time is gliding swiftly by death and judgment both draw and I.
To the arms of Jesus fly, be in time. Oh, I pray you count the cost to air the fatal line. Be crossed in your Chrysler soul. Be lost, be in time.
One of the things my father liked to do is tell others about the Lord Jesus Christ and how to be saved.
And so I believe that's why he would give this hymn out probably nearly every time he gave the gospel.
But I couldn't help but think of it tonight, after the weekend that we have had, after the meetings we have had before us, after what the brothers.
By the Spirit delivered to each one of us sitting in the room, knowing.
Of the times that are to come.
And so we'll sing this hymn #25 together.
Life at best is very great.
At the Bible soon because.
The fatal light because.
In time.
Find his wife swiftly by death and judgment for drama do with the arms of Jesus Lord.
In the time.
Who I pray down the cross and the veil might be crossed, and in Christ the soul would be gone.
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From darkness into light, From the way you'll see the cry.
And sorry, torrent tonight.
Live in time.
I know.
The last verse of that hymn, said Sinner, heed the warning voice. Make the Lord your happy choice.
Then all heaven will rejoice, says Come from darkness into light, from the way that seemeth right. Come and start for heaven tonight.
Be in time.
If you don't have Jesus.
As your savior.
The way that seemeth right to you.
Is wrong.
And it might be difficult.
Sometimes to hear that the way you think is wrong.
But when you I look and I don't see anybody here that I haven't seen all weekend.
I hope I'm right about that, and I feel like I know a great deal of you.
But I cannot tell.
Your heart.
You know, it says in God's Word that man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart.
And he knows whether you are his and whether you are not.
And if you think you have figured out a way.
That can save you.
From this horrible world, from the sin that is in your heart, and from going.
To that lost eternity hell.
Then you're just wrong.
He says, I am the Way, the Truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
You know, I have to admit.
That when I look at this world that we live in.
If I was not a believer in Christ.
If I was not saved.
I would be petrified.
I would be scared to death.
To go much further in this world.
Than where I'm at now.
And if you are hearing your sins tonight?
And you are unsaved.
Then you are alone in this world and you are without hope.
Then you must just be petrified.
I'm going to read a verse in Revelations.
Revelations or.
Chapter.
19.
We have spoken many times this weekend about the wrath of God.
And if you believe that what I have said about this world is correct.
That it is dark.
Defiling evil and frightening.
And I just want to read these verses to you, Revelation 19. I will start at verse 11.
And I saw a great white throne in him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away.
And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works, And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.
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Verse 15. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
John, Chapter 3.
The last verse.
John chapter 3, verse 36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
The evil of this world is nothing compared to what will be in that day when you stand.
Before that great white throne.
And your name is not written.
In the Lamb's Book of life.
That's reality.
That's truth.
Look at the first part of that verse. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.
There's two options.
Why would there be two options? You know, we often.
Quote that verse in Romans 3 and 23. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But in reading recently I saw this verse in First Kings chapter 8 and I thought maybe it would give us a different perspective than seeing that same verse over and over again. So First Kings chapter 8.
Solomon praying.
Verse 46.
We read this and then there is not one that can sit here tonight and deceive themselves.
First Kings 8 and verse 46.
In brackets the second line for there is no man that sinneth not.
There is no man that sinneth not.
And so there is an option.
He that believeth on the Son hath life.
He that believeth not.
The alternative isn't very good.
And I merely wanted to point this out to put into perspective for you and for me of the great price.
That the Lord Jesus paid on the cross for our sins.
And simply made it such that all we have to do is believe. Why would he do that?
Why would he do that?
I have looked in the mirror myself in the past and I wondered.
How could he ever love me?
I should be the most unlovable thing.
But he loves me.
And he died for me and he saved me.
And dear ones, oh how precious you are to him that he wants you to be with him.
In the glory, so much so.
That he would suffer a death that you and I could never bear. He would suffer something on the cross for you.
That we could never endure.
And then there was the hours of darkness.
And I liken that to your heart.
If you are still in your sins, the thoughts and intents of the heart are only evil continually.
And we couldn't see.
Him at that time.
Because he bore the burden.
Of my sins upon himself.
He bore such suffering at that moment for you.
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And for me.
So that we could have an option.
Won't you choose to believe in him tonight?
He's calling you to him.
He loves you and He wants you to be with Him for all eternity.
John, Chapter 4.
I'm sorry, one little verse in John chapter 5.
I was looking for the verse in John chapter 4 and I.
Was scanning through in this verse, somewhat popped off the page at me.
And I wondered why, and I'm going to read it to you because it's very simple. John chapter 5 and verse 42, he says. But I know you.
I know you.
That you have not the love of God in you.
He knows your heart.
He can see it.
You can't hide it from him.
Chapter 3.
Verse 19 in this is the condemnation that light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved or discovered.
We are in our sin. We live in a World of Darkness.
And we believe that we can cover it and hide it.
But we can.
And he knows.
The only way to escape it.
Is to come to him for salvation.
To trust in him, to believe in him, to know.
That he died for you on the cross to save you from your sins.
You know, I think that one I love to tell this story about blind Bartimaeus.
You can see it in Mark.
Chapter 10.
Says then they came to Jericho in verse 46, and as he went out to Jericho with his disciples, a great number of people.
Blind Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus sat by the highway side begging, and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say Jesus.
Thou, Son of David, have mercy on me.
And many charged him that he should hold his peace, but he cried the more a great deal. Thou, son of David, have mercy on me.
If you are in your sins tonight, you should be crying. Have mercy on me.
Save me time is short, dear ones. We've heard it all weekend. It is truth.
Be in time.
It's running out. Cry out to him now.
Peter could see that light walking on the water.
And he could go to him.
But the moment.
He couldn't see the light. He began to fall into the darkness. And what did he do? He cried out. Lord, save me.
Cry out to him now, Lord, save me and believe in him, and be saved blind Bartimaeus.
He cried out, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they called the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, Rise, he calleth thee. And he, casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus.
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And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?
The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.
I just want to turn to Isaiah. Hold your place there 42 for a moment.
Isaiah 42, the end of verse. Sorry, verse 7.
To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
That is the state you are in. If you are in your sins, you are in the darkness.
The prison house.
I am the Lord, that is my name and my glory. Will I not give to another?
Blind Bartimaeus.
He couldn't see.
Was as though he was in the prison house in darkness, and he said that I might receive my sight.
Can you see him tonight? Can you see the Lord Jesus? That one?
Hanging on the cross for you in death, dying bearing your punishment.
He is that one who is the light.
And he wants to shine in your heart tonight.
That I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.
And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus in the way.
Immediately.
He received his sight, and he could see that blessed One, and oh, I can promise you.
If you are in your sins now and put your trust in Him, you will be overjoyed.
Instantly.
The fears of this world, that judgment to come will be gone.
Instantly.
Well, sometimes I tell this little story.
I don't know when the last time was that I told it, but.
It was about a man named Bert.
And Bert, he grew up going to meeting.
And he knew all the things about the Lord.
He knew all about the Lord Jesus Christ, the work at Calvary. He went to Sunday school. He learned his verses.
Books of the Bible. He could do it all, but as he got older.
Well, he decided that it wasn't for him.
He decided that Sunday school was too little for him.
And he got out hanging out with the wrong people. And before long?
He got into gambling and joined a nightclub.
You spend a lot of time drinking alcohol and playing cards.
In a dark room.
Such was his heart as he had not taken the Lord Jesus as his Savior.
Well, you know, as time went on.
He didn't have much of A life except for that.
And he was walking by the old building where the Sunday school had been.
And as he went by, there was a sign about a gospel meeting that night, and he could hear the singing and he remembered the hymns.
He said, Ah, you kind of need to go in and see the old place again.
So he went in.
And he sat in the back row.
And he listened to the man preach the gospel.
And the man told him.
All those things that he had already heard.
The man asked if there was any in the room that were still in their sins, and he knew.
Bert knew he was talking about him.
Am I talking about you tonight, dear one?
Bert knew he was on his way to a lost eternity.
And he asked the Lord to save him right there and then, right in that moment.
While the meeting was over and Bert walked back out into the street, I believe he did share his joy with those that were in the room. It's important that we do that.
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He went out onto the street and he looked one way and he looked to the other and he said.
What am I going to do now? He could see the club down the road that he was on his way to.
So he headed down to the club.
And he opened up the door and all his old buddies were sitting in that dark room.
But I'm sure Bert must have looked like a light walking into that room because they all started to jeer at him and call out to him and say, where have you been buddy, you're late.
And he said I have played my last game of cards with you.
And I have come to tell you that I've put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I'm on my way to heaven.
And I've come to tell you that.
I led many of you down the wrong path in encouraging this type of behavior.
And I just want to tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, he was taken from darkness and he was brought.
Into Christ, marvelous light, just like that.
Just like blind Bartimaeus could cast off that old garment.
He could receive his sight, and he could follow Christ.
Says in Luke chapter 5.
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Your ones repent of your sins tonight. Recognize.
That it is your problem, That it is you, That you are full of sin.
That you need a Savior. That there is only one way. I am the way, the truth and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
And that there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby he must be saved.
Put your trust in Him now and be saved.
John, Chapter 4.
Verse 42 it says now we believe.
I'm sorry.
Partway into the verse.
For we have heard him ourselves and know that this indeed, that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.
You have a responsibility.
You have now heard it. You have heard the gospel.
It is up to you to either receive it.
Or reject it.
He is the savior of the world indeed.
Do you believe it?
Will you receive it tonight?
We know this indeed is the Christ, the Savior of the world.
He gives a scripture like this I believe because.
I have heard at different times that.
Ones that may be accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
But then they weren't really sure.
And they questioned their salvation.
And at times.
I've even heard that ones wondered if they were really saved.
I didn't want that for you tonight.
I want you to know.
I really want you to know that this is the truth and that he tells you it is the truth.
Looking first John chapter.
Four. I believe it is.
Five First John, chapter 5.
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First John, chapter 5.
Verse 13 is the verse I was thinking of.
Verse 12 We could start at He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
These things have I written unto you, that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know.
That ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God, and this is the confidence that we have in Him.
And I want you to know it.
And I want you to be confident in it. I want you to be secure and have that blessed assurance.
That when he takes you home.
For when he comes in the cloud and you hear his voice, you hear that shout that you're going to be caught up together.
With all of his own.
We're going to meet him in the air.
And he's going to take us to that place that he's prepared for us, he says.
I have gone to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.
I want you to know it, and I want you to be confident in it, and I want you to have that peace that passeth all understanding. I want you to be happy, but it doesn't matter.
What I want?
What matters is that He wants you. What matters is that He loves you and He died to redeem you and He wants you to know all these things. He wants you to be secure and have confidence in Him. He wants you to be waiting for His return as one of His own.
I trust you will believe in him to night.
If I could.
I would like to read this little.
It's a poem, but it's really a gospel message. If I could.
And maybe you've read it. It's most certainly my favorite. It's called A Little Pilgrim.
My wife says I read it in a certain way but I'm a little bit nervous so I might not do so good.
A little Pilgrim, it says one summer evening ere the sun went down.
When city men were hastening from the town to reach their homes, some near at hand, some far by snorting train by omnibus or car to be beyond the reach of cities, din A streetcar stopped. A little girl got in, a cheery looking girl, scarce 4 years old. Although not shy, her manners were not bold, but all alone one scarce could understand. She held a bundle in her little hand.
A tiny handkerchief with corners tied, but which did not some bread, but which did not some bread and butter hide. A satin scarf, so natty and so neat, was o'er her shoulders thrown, she took her seat and laid her bundle underneath her arm, And smiling prettily, but yet so calm, she to the Porter said, May I sit here? He answered instantly. Oh yes, my dear.
And there she seemed inclined to make her stay while once again the car went on its way.
The tall conductor, over six feet high, now scanned the travelers with a business eye. But if that eye was something kind and mild, that took the notice of the little child. And a little after the man went round, and soon was heard the old familiar sound of gathering fares and clipping tickets too. The car was full, and he had much to do. You're fair, my little girl. At length he said. She looked a moment, shook her little head.
I have no pennies, don't you know? Said she. My fare is paid.
And Jesus paid for me.
He looked bewildered. All the people smiled. I didn't know. And who is Jesus, child? Why don't you know He wants for sinners died for little children, and for men beside to make us good and wash us from our sin. Is this his railway I am traveling in? Don't think it is. I want your fare. You know I told you Jesus paid it long ago.
My mother told me just before she died that Jesus paid when he was crucified, that at the cross his railway did begin.
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Which took four sinners from a world of sin. My mother said his home was grand and fair. I want to go and see my mother there. I want to go to heaven where Jesus lives. Won't you go to my mother said He gives a loving welcome. Shall we not be late? I want to go. Before he shuts the gate, He bids little children to come to him. The poor conductor's eyes felt rather dim. He knew not why. He fumble at his coat and felt a substance rising in his throat.
The people listen to the little child somewhere in tears, the roughest only smiled and someone whispered as they looked amazed. Out of the mouth of babes the Lord is praised. I am a Pilgrim, said the little thing. I am going to heaven. My mother used to sing to me of Jesus and his Father's love told me to meet her in his home above. And so today when aunt went out to tea and looking out, I could not bother see I got my bundle, kissed my little kid.
I am so hungry, I'd like to have a bit.
And got my hat. And then I left my home, a little Pilgrim up to heaven, to Rome.
And then your carriage stopped and I could see you looked so kind. I saw you beckon me. I thought you must belong to Jesus's train. And are you just going home to heaven again?
The four conductor only shook his head. Tears were in his eyes. The power of speech had fled.
Had conscience by her prattle roused his fears, and struck upon the fountain of his tears, and made his thoughts and sad confusion whirl at last he said, Once I had a little girl. I loved her much. She was my little pet.
And with great fondness I remember yet how much she loved me. But one day she died. She's gone to heaven, the little girl replied. She's gone to Jesus. Jesus paid her fare. Oh, dear conductor, won't you meet her there? The poor conductor now broke fairly down. He could have borne the harshest look or frown, but no one laughed. But many sitting by beheld the scene with sympathetic eye. He kissed the child.
For she, his heart had won. I am so sleepy, said the little one.
If you will let me, I'll lie here and wait until your carriage comes to Jesus gate. Be sure to wake me up and pull my broth and at the gate give just one little knock and you'll see Jesus. There the strong man wept.
I could think, I could but think, as from the car I stepped, I walked. The little one has found the road. The narrow pathway to that blessed abode. Through faith in Christ has read its title clear, while learned men remain in doubt and fear.
A little child the Lord ought us as such the stoutest heart, to break, or bend, OR touch.
Than by his Spirit bids the conflict cease, and once forever enter into peace. And then along the road the news we bear on our way to heaven, that Jesus paid our fare.
I generally don't make it through reading that, but.
Jesus paid that fare and he paid it for everyone that is sitting here tonight.
And won't you be like that?
Train conductor.
It's not that there are ones that have gone on before that we want to go and see.
It is that one that died on the cross for you and me. He shed his precious blood.
To wash our stains away.
That we might spend eternity with him one day soon, maybe today.
Believe in him now.
Could we decide for Christ today #21?
Hymn #21.
Rise from always satisfied.
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The art that we sue him.
Do you need somebody for Christ?
Life I can't stand.
Guilty and guilty. Heaven blind.
No longer judgement, Grace.
Praise no one can stay.
Pray the Father of sin.
Princess Work.
Praise the Lord can.
Say.
Break the power of sin.
Well, we're out of time. I'd only thought of.
One little thing that.
It might remind you of yourself and your sins, if you're still in your sins, in that pit, that miry clay. And I had thought of Jeremiah.
Back in the Old Testament, you know, he was cast into that pit and how dark it must have been.
Abid Malak, I believe it was, came along. He was a eunuch, a servant of the king.
And he cried to the king, and he said, you know, he will surely die.
He will surely die there.
And the king said bring him up.
Abid, Malek and a bunch of other men. I don't remember the number.
They went and they tied a bunch of rags together and they lowered them down into that pit.
Jeremiah put them under his arms, and they tide them. He held on tight.
Dear ones, believe tonight and hold on tight.
If you're in your sins, He wants to bring you up out of that pit of darkness into His light.
He tells us in a few chapters before that in Jeremiah 31 Says I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. He loves you so much, He wants you tonight. Please believe in Him.
Jacob
YP Sing Address—T. Allan
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.
The story of Jacob came to mind and I wanted to speak about when Jacob wrestled with the Lord. And I'm just going to read the passage. This will be brief here tonight.
Because I know everybody's waiting to get over to the rec center, so I'm just going to read briefly that account from Genesis 32.
It says and Jacob was left alone and their wrestle demand with him until the breaking of the day.
And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh. In the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more, Jacob, but Israel. For as a Prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said.
Crazy thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou hast asked after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel. For I have seen God face to face in my life is preserved.
I know that this passage can be considered really in two different aspects, one with respect to a believer and one with respect to an unbeliever. And primarily my thought is to speak to those of you who are Christians here tonight. But I also do want to touch briefly on the fact that there may be one who is.
Wrestling with God, who is not yet a believer. I know Bernie touched on that in this talk. If there's one thing I can be assured of young people, it is that I cannot take it for granted, certainly that everybody here is a believer. I see more and more people struggling with issues of faith, and I could probably rattle off 5-6 people right now.
In my own life, who I've seen walk away from Christianity entirely and with respect to just start there, just very briefly.
The story of Paul comes to mind in the book of Acts when on the road to Damascus, he was struck by that light.
And the Lord said to him, Why kick us, you know?
Kicks against the ******. I'm not. I'm not quoting it exactly right. It's in Acts 26. Let me just briefly read it just verbatim. Make sure I get it right.
Said Saw, Saw, why persecute us, Thou me, it is hard for thee.
To kick against the ******. And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecute us.
I can't imagine what it felt like for Saul when he saw Stephen Stone to death and they came and took those clothes and laid them at his feet. But I'm sure there was tart of Saul that had pricked his conscience to see the faith of that man that day. And yet he chose at that point still not to believe. And so there may be somebody sitting in their chair tonight that they feel that God is speaking to them and they know they're not a believer, but they're still resisting.
Those are the ****** that come to your conscience that I think is really spoken about there in Saul's life.
But again, my thought is to speak to you as believers predominantly, because I do believe that most of you are, I hope all.
And I have no doubt that there are some sitting in your chair right now who are struggling with God in your own life.
And this struggle is perhaps a different type of a struggle in that there's your will that can oppose God's will, and there's part of you that is not yet willing to say just simply, yes, Lord.
In this particular story, Jacob was found himself all by himself.
And the person with which he wrestled with that day, we believe, was the very Lord himself.
And he wrestled with him all night.
And you know, it was basically, you can say it this way, it was a stalemate and the one didn't prevail against the other.
And the Lord had to touch Jacob in the hollow of his thigh. It was really the place of his strength. It's considered one of the strongest parts of, you know, one's body. And I think about it this way, that the Lord had to humble Jacob and basically make him realize he could not do it on his own strength.
And so we did that.
And then the Lord's dealings in our own lives. I would say that sometimes He has to deal with that one thing in our life.
00:05:01
That we tend to take pride in or we think we're good at and there's part of us that makes ourselves lift ourselves up with that particular thing. And really before blessing can come in like the Lord was going to do with Jacob here, he had to address that one part of him. And so he touched that part to hollow of his thigh and it says that, you know, his thigh went out of joint.
And.
You know, at that point, Jacob, I believe, knew that he was not wrestling with an ordinary man.
And from my understanding, from what I have read further about this account, it says in verse 26. And he said, let me go for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. I think what was a physical wrestling match out of strength quickly became.
Jacob knew that he was not wrestling with an ordinary man, and he clung to the one who he was wrestling with.
And the Lord, or the one he was wrestling with said, let me go for the day breaks. But Jacob, that said, I will not let thee go unless thou bless me. If you go back in Jacob's history, it's the one thing he desired from his father was his blessing. And we know he did it by deception, in that he through fraud, pretended he was his brother Esau.
And then the next verse he said, you know what is thy name? And he said Jacob.
Jacob's name means supplanter. It really means to take the place of another by force, by deception, by trickery, basically by whatever means necessary. And that's the way that he lived his life.
But I believe there was significance I've heard one person say and I think it's good.
There was one thing there, right in his past when he lied to his father, what did he lie about?
His name?
I believe the Lord had to go back and address that with Jacob and he needed to hear it from his own lips.
As to what his name was, and so he said, Jacob, this really speaks of confession.
And young people, you know, we all want the Lord's blessing in our life. But before that can happen.
Perhaps there is something in your life that you know needs to be confessed.
And dealt with.
You need to get that out before the Lord and confess.
And so he said, what is your name Jacob? And he said, you know that we know it, but his name was number longer going to be called Jacob. He gave him a new name, the name Israel that really speaks of Prince of God. And you know, out of that I would say this was a pivotal turning point in Jacob's life.
And out of that it caused him to ask, well, what is your name? And it caused him to want to know.
Who he was.
Well, we know the Lord did not give His name at this time, but He did bless him and.
Jacob knew that he was in fact wrestling with the Lord and says he called the Nazis, Peniel said. For I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved.
You know, there's a song I think many of us know sung by Carrie Underwood, and the lines of that are song Go Jesus, Take the Wheel.
And I remember young people, when I was about the age of some of you sitting in your chair, probably 18 or 19, I didn't say those words, but I knew in my heart, in my own life, there was my will that was really trumping God's will for my life, and I needed to let that go.
You need to have the courage to just say yes Lord, to whatever he has for you for your life and just to will just you put yourself in that place to say yes Lord. But again, like Jacob, there may be something that has to be addressed in your life first before He can bless you. And with Jacob, it was the fact that he had lived his most of his life by deception.
And living life herself. And that had to be addressed first.
But you know, when he was able to do that and he recognized that the one he wrestled with was not an ordinary man but was in fact God himself, all of a sudden he had interest and he wanted to know. And he said, what is your name?
00:10:01
And that will produce within, within you young people, if you're just willing to say, yes, Lord, the desire within you to get to know him more, a deeper personal relationship with him. And I just trust that you will have the courage to do that. You know, there's another just verse and then I'll basically close in Job 33. I came across it today. It just resonated with me.
I'm just going to read a couple verses that are Job 33.
And verse 13 it says, Why dost thou strive against him?
Or I'll read the previous verse, Behold, in this thou art not just. I will answer thee, that God is greater than man, why dost thou strive against him? And then it says, verse 14. For God speaks once, yet twice. Yet man perceiveth it not in a dream and a vision of the night, when deep sleep followeth upon men in slumberings upon the bed. Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction.
I found in my own life that sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night.
And the Lord specifically put something on my mind that I know He wants me to deal with.
And when he does that, whatever that is, be willing to say yes, Lord, and don't resist it. Don't resist it. Don't be that one who resists God. And we can resist him with our will much of our life. But just be willing to have the courage to say yes, Lord, I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll go wherever you want me to go.
This was a turning point in his life where his name is chained to Israel. And I can guarantee you, young people, if you have the courage to just say yes, Lord, I'm willing to go. Maybe you want me to be a missionary. Maybe you want me to go to Africa. Maybe you want me to be single and serve you for the rest of my life with all of my being. Whatever that path leads, just be willing to say yes, Lord.
It'll be a It'll be a path that is filled with happiness, a path that's not live for self.
But the one who loved you and gave himself for you.
Faith
Address—B. Prost
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I'd like to sing a hymn that we already sung at the conference. Short hymn, but very, very nice #23.
Good is the God we adore.
Very beautiful hymn and yet not very long.
But if I may, I'll tell you a little bit about the man that wrote this hymn, and if you heard me say it before, then you'll bear with me. But man that wrote this hymn did not particularly get saved when he was young.
His name was Joseph Hart Hart. He lived back in the 1800s. As far as I know he was not gathered to the Lord's name, although I can't say for sure, but he was what they called the dissenter in England. That means he didn't belong to the Church of England and.
He didn't get saved, though, until he was about 45 years old.
He knew the gospel, he heard the gospel, he knew he needed to be saved, but he never came to Christ. But when he got to be about 45, he got very depressed over something. I don't know what happened, whether something happened in his life or whether it was just a depression that came from inside.
But he kept he was feeling very, very down and he remembered all that he heard about the Lord Jesus and he how he needed to be saved.
And he came to the Lord and got saved. And then he said, you know, I don't know how much time I have left in my life, but I'm going to use it for the Lord and I'm going to preach the gospel. And he did. And a lot of people got saved through him. And he didn't live to be very old. I don't think he even got to be 60 years old. He was a little under 60 when the Lord took him home.
But he was so much beloved and I can hardly believe this, but apparently it's true that when he died and they had a funeral for him, it was conducted out of doors and he was so well known and so well loved that there were 20,000 people at his funeral.
Joseph Hart.
And he couldn't even be buried in the regular cemetery because he didn't belong to the Anglican church.
So we had to be buried in the cemetery where all the dissenters were buried, Bun Hill Field Cemetery. If you happen to be in London, England, it's worth a visit because there are a lot of others there. John Bunyan's buried there that wrote the Pilgrims Progress. The mother of John and Charles Wesley is buried there, and Joseph Stennett, another hymn writer, is buried there. And Jay Denham Smith and a wealth of.
Hemorrhages, none of whom belong to the Anglican Church. So, so much for Joseph Hart. He wrote this hymn. Let's sing it together.
How good is the God we adore?
Our.
Changer.
Who's love is as great as?
Power.
I knows neither.
Measure nor.
End.
Tis Jesus suffers.
And the last?
Who saves your life?
Will praise him for all.
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We talked a little bit at the Bible conference and some of it was mentioned at from time to time about what we get in Galatians chapter 5 called the Fruit.
Of this fear and last night Brother Dawn rule after the hymn sing for those that were able to be there, he talked a little bit about faith and hope and love and that was mentioned at other times during the meetings as well.
I'd like to talk tonight about the subject of faith in a limited way, because it's a very broad subject. We couldn't possibly cover it all in one meeting, but I'd like to try and make it practical for us.
Because I think we all would agree that we are living in very difficult days in this world. And we talked a little bit about that during the readings at the Bible Conference and how that.
We could see already in this world the stage being set for events that will take place.
After the Lord comes and calls us home.
And what is needed more than anything else today perhaps, although I don't like to isolate 1 aspect of those fruits of the Spirit or that it's really in the singular fruit of the spirit because it's all tied together.
One thing that's perhaps needed, I won't say more than anything else, but Paramount is fake.
Do we really believe God and believe all that He is, all that He is willing to do for us, all that He is promising and has promised to do for us? And to see that, I'd like to turn to Hebrews Chapter 11.
Which, as we know, was primarily written to Jewish believers.
Some of them truly saved others that perhaps.
Wanted at least the benefits of salvation, but weren't truly saved, were merely making an outward profession.
And so the author of the book of Hebrews, quite possibly and very likely the apostle Paul.
Although he does not identify himself, he goes through in this 11Th chapter speaking about faith.
And we are only going to be able to touch on part of it tonight, but let's read from verse one down to the end of verse 22. And I think that's as far as we can go.
So Hebrews 11 verse one.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his gifts. And by yet he being dead, yet speaketh.
By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death.
And was not found because God had translated it.
For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God.
But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is.
And that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
By faith, Noah being warned of God, of things not seen as yet.
Moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance obey, 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.
00:10:15
The heirs with him of the same promise.
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised therefore sprang there even of him, or even of one rather, and with him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable.
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.
For they say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country, and truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had the 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 of seed.
By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son.
Of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
Accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.
By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, and concerning things to come.
By faith, Jacob, when he was a dying, bless both the sons of Joseph.
And worship, leaning upon the top of his staff.
By faith, Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concern his bones.
We aren't going to say too much about the first part of this chapter.
Except to point out that we have faith, described here in the 1St 2 verses.
Your first three verses, perhaps?
Not a definition of what faith is, but what faith does.
The Jews had a difficult time sometimes with faith because they were accustomed to seeing things that were visible. They had a Tabernacle, they had a temple, they had sacrifices, they had a priesthood, They had a lot of things that appealed to the senses.
And having faith was more difficult for them. But then the Lord reminds them that all through the Old Testament.
Fate was necessary.
And so we find these first three men mentioned in the beginning of the chapter, and they, as it were, set the stage.
Why?
And we're not going to spend time on it, but able represents the only right approach to God.
Abel offered a blood sacrifice and it was accepted.
Cain offered the fruit of the ground, a cursed earth, the fruit of his own hands, and it was not accepted. And Cain wouldn't give in, he wouldn't repent. The Lord said, Cain, you can bring a sacrifice like Abel, you'll be accepted too. No way Cain wanted his own sacrifices. If I can't approach God and.
My way, I won't come at all.
Very sad.
And so it shows the only approach to God and these Hebrew believers had to.
Get that clearly in their minds.
But then we have two other men, Enoch and Noah, and I would just suggest there is a good reason why the Spirit of God picked them out to start this chapter.
00:15:09
Enoch is a picture of the church. Why is he? Because he was one of only two men.
In the whole Bible.
That never died. You'll remember that it says Enoch was translated, that he should not see death.
And he had this testimony that he pleased God.
And for a man of his time, he died relatively young. He didn't live to be really old.
Like some, but he walked with God.
A high compliment.
And then the Lord took him. Enoch is a type of the church caught up before the judgment falls, the judgment in this case being the flood. But Noah is a type of the godly Jews who will go through the tribulation protected by the Lord, and then end up in the millennial earth.
And so I believe that is why the Spirit of God puts these three men.
At the beginning of the chapter in order to introduce things.
But tonight I want to talk mainly about Abraham's family.
And I want to try and make it practical.
And if you're interested in numbers.
In Abraham's family that we read and you can count them up, there are 7 by faith, seven things that either Abraham did or his family that were done by faith. Very important.
Sometimes I think we look for sevens a little too frequently in Scripture and there aren't 7 we can.
Juggle things around to make them fit, but there are a lot of settings in the scripture legitimately and there are seven things that Abrahams family did. If you want to go beyond that there are seven things that Moses and the children of Israel did following that and then finally.
There are seven groups of people or single people mentioned in verse 32.
Three groups of sevens in this chapter. We don't have time for any but the first set.
And so we're going to talk a little bit about Abraham and his family. And here the first one in verse 8 says by faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing whither he went.
Would you ever start out on a journey like that?
I don't like starting out on a journey like that, not knowing where I'm going. And probably in today's world, as far as being practical is concerned, it would be rather a foolish thing to do to start out to go somewhere and not know where you're going. Of course there are people that do that and they just go out driving somewhere and we'll we'll stop wherever we happen to think it looks good and looks nice and then we'll go on and.
We can do that, but I don't believe that the Lord was leading Abraham to lead that kind of life.
God had purposes for Abraham.
And I want to say to each one here, sometimes it seems very difficult today to see where we're going in our lives down here. I don't want to sound like an old man, but I am getting older and I when I was growing up, things were relatively stable in Canada and the United States and the institutions and the things that were.
Solid and counted on in both countries. You could pretty well figure that they'll be there tomorrow and they'll be there next month, or next week, or next year, or in the next five years or whatever. Of course, we knew that God might introduce something unexpected, but generally speaking, things went along on a pretty even keel.
Young people could grow up, as I said, before they could.
Get married, raise a family and things pretty well progressed evenly.
00:20:01
That's all. Been upset in the last few years we've had a number of things happen which changed everything we had back in 2001, something we call 911.
And anyone old enough to remember probably can say exactly where he or she was and what they were doing at the time. I certainly can't. And then we had the COVID pandemic, and that's pretty recent, and that changed this whole world.
And a number of other things more recently, like the war in the Ukraine and the war in Israel.
And.
Now everything in this world is uncertain what's going to happen tomorrow. No one really knows. And everyone says I don't know where things are going. And I want to speak particularly to each one here, but especially to the young people.
You can launch out in this world.
And even though you say I don't know exactly where I'm going or where things are going to go.
They say that most young people today by the time they're 30 years old have had at least seven different jobs. Some have that many before they're 30. Things have moved get you get moved around a lot more and life changes and so on. Nothing wrong with that as long as it's done before the Lord and with his mind. But what I want to say to you is you can have faith that the same Lord that.
LED Abraham to go out, not knowing whither he went.
Can lead you in a pathway in obedience to God's Word.
And to count on him, just imagine Abraham in Irv, the colonies going out probably with camels and everything like that, having to camp every night where he went, set up his tent, feed his animals, look after himself.
And then go on and go on and go on. And we know that he stopped in a place called Heron largely because of his father's influence, which wasn't particularly of the Lord.
But he eventually got to where the Lord wanted him.
You and I can launch out and have faith that the Lord will lead us even in a difficult world today and provide for us in the same way that He provided for Abraham.
Verse 9. 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. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
That brought in something for the Jews.
That they, I don't believe, wanted to hear. And it's not easy for you and me to hear it either.
And that is if you and I are going to follow Christ.
We are going to follow a rejected Christ.
When the Lord Jesus came into this world, many rejected him, but there were a good number.
That admitted that he was the Messiah and believed in Him, but they expected that he would set up a glorious earthly Kingdom.
And when they found out that he was going to die and when he told them that they would be following a rejected Christ.
And that it was not going to be an easy pathway. And that it would split families sometimes and it would cause them to be rejected by others who did not believe on the Lord Jesus. And that they would be called up sometimes in front of kings and rulers and authorities and persecuted for their faith. They did not want to hear that.
And if I can say so bluntly, neither do people want to hear that today.
Abraham had to live a separate life and he had to live without a fixed dwelling place. Now, does that mean you and I can't own a home? No, it doesn't. Does that mean you and I can't have a fixed dwelling place? No. It would be impractical in much of North America to pitch a tent and live in it. There are parts of the world where you can do that would be It would be a little bit difficult.
00:25:04
Much of North America and it would be impractical. The point is.
We have to be ready to follow a rejected Christ as Abraham did in his own way now. Like was different back then and what he knew was not what you and I know.
But what kept him going? What kept him going? He looked for a city which hath foundations.
You don't put a foundation under a tent normally, do you?
I've always enjoyed sleeping in tents.
For a short period of time.
I don't mind admitting it that when I was younger I like to go wilderness camping and my son enjoyed it, my daughter enjoyed it, Don Ruhl enjoyed it. He wouldn't mind my saying that his daughter enjoyed it too and so did others that wanted to come along. And we would enjoy going into as wild a wilderness as we could find, like the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota.
Where they keep it looking pretty much the way it did 200 years ago.
Or more.
Great times roughing it, going around in a canoe with a 50 LB pack on your back and a canoe on your shoulders, cortaging from lake to lake when the Rapids were too rough to run, and so on.
But it's not an easy life. You have to pack up a lot of things. If you want to move, you have to provide for yourself. It's more difficult. No doubt when Abraham lived in the land of Canaan, many of those Canaanites had permanent dwellings, permanent homes, permanent properties, permanent farms, the only thing, as far as we know, that Abraham ever owned in the land of Canaan.
Excuse me? Was a burial plot, and so it wasn't an easy life.
I don't mean you and I should live like that, but the point is we are going to be following, as I said a moment ago, a rejected life. But what rejected Christ, but what we are to look forward to?
Is that city that hath foundations?
I don't believe Abraham.
Knew that that would be in heaven.
He knows now. Excuse me.
He knows now and that's why it says going down to verse 16.
But now they desire a better country.
Why do they know that? Because Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are with the Lord.
They now know they're going to inherit the Kingdom on the heavenly side.
But.
Excuse me, but at 8, when Abraham lived on earth, I believe all he knew was that he would get it in resurrection, whether it would be earthly or heavenly. I don't believe he knew that at that point. That hadn't been revealed yet. I don't believe he knew what was going to happen in resurrection. Would he inherit an earthly Kingdom with foundations? Would he be in a heavenly Kingdom?
That maybe wasn't clear, but that kept him going.
And it can keep you and me going too.
OK, let's go on verse 11.
By faith also sin.
Herself. And then it goes on to tell us where her faith was, and how that she received strength to conceive and to have a child when she was really, by any natural parameter, too old to bear children.
The comment I would make on this is.
I want to try and I don't want this to come out the wrong way.
But I read this even in occasional secular books, and I don't read a lot of them. For things that you can read from various sources, there is a concern.
00:30:05
About young people today.
Perhaps.
If I can say it kindly, predominantly young men, but sometimes young women too.
Who live at home with their parents.
And don't particularly take much interest in getting married and setting up their own home. And sometimes there are very practical reasons why they think that way. Housing, at least where I am in Canada, is extremely expensive.
And for young couples to break into the housing market is very, very hard.
You almost need 2 incomes and then if the wife wants to have they want to have children and the wife has a baby or two and she wants in a good Christian way to look after those children properly, then away goes that second income and it makes it very difficult.
Is that? Am I striking a practical note? I think so.
All I would say to you is.
God's order for man has not changed, and I am not suggesting that everyone should get married.
And some people are a little slow to make up their minds.
Many here are old enough to remember my late Uncle Ned dear. Affectionately known as Uncle Ned to many here, he took a really long time to make up his mind.
And why he and Aunt Yura couldn't have found themselves when they were younger. Left some of us as nephews and nieces scratching our heads. But he didn't get married till he was 62. Pushing things a little, wouldn't you say?
Anyway, they had 25 happy years or thereabouts and that was fine and that was OK, but a little bit steep if you want to have them raise a family.
I would only say to you young people here.
Don't let the state of this world discourage you.
It may be more difficult than it used to be.
But God's order is, and Paul speaks about it. Not that marriage is for everyone. Some are happy and contented and do well leading a single life. I'm not saying that. But if there's an opportunity to be married, to raise a family, to leave.
For a young man to leave his father and mother, a scripture says.
I believe God will provide the Sarah for you.
And if you're a Sarah, I believe God will provide an Abraham for you too.
Look to the Lord, leave it to Him. Ask Him to help you workout the details.
And I believe he will. It may not be easy, but he'll help you workout the details. It's far worse in some countries. Go over to Angola now and the local culture there is. You can't get legally married until you have a huge dowry. Huge dowry, thousands of dollars, which none of them can afford.
Maybe the young man saves up all his money and thinks he's got enough for the dowry. But then the girl's family, as we say in modern language, moves the goal posts. Well, you know, since you got engaged to her in that, she's now got a driver's license, so she's worth more. So that's another whatever to add to the dowry. And on and on it goes.
Bad business. It's difficult in many places in this world.
But I believe the Lord will show us away. Let's remember Abraham and Sarah.
Worked together. They didn't always agree. Sometimes Sarah had to listen to Abraham. Sometimes Abraham had to listen to Sarah when she gave him good advice. But they were one, and the Lord blessed them.
Verse 13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having.
Seeing them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth.
One time one of my children said to me, Dad, I think we're probably the 1St generation that isn't going to be better off.
00:35:02
Than their parents.
She was probably right.
Technically I'm not a baby boomer. I escaped it by one year.
But they called the baby boomers the privileged generation.
They grew up when everything was expanding after the Second World War, the economy was expanding, life was good. But by the time their children came along, things had changed a little bit, and now we've got all kinds of different.
Generation X and Millennials and Generation Z and I don't know what all meets with their particular characteristics and particular outlook and particular problems.
Remember.
Even if you don't have as much as your parents, don't worry about it. The whole point is, the reward for a faithful life before the Lord is always, always, always in resurrection. And if you don't believe that, as William Kelly once said, if you want the truth on anything, bring Christ in.
What did the Lord Jesus look like when he died?
I say he looked like what did his life look like? It looked like a total fade. His nation had rejected it.
Those that had been the recipients of all his love and grace, working miracles, speaking to them, feeding them, turned around and rejected them. His own follower and the person of Judas betrayed him. All the rest of his disciples forsook him and fled. One of them denied him with oaths and curses, and no one was there.
When he went to the cross.
His life looked like a failure.
Was it a failure?
Turn to Second Timothy chapter.
2.
I have to think of that sometimes where it is Second Timothy 2.
And I'm going to read this verse because it changes the meaning as it is in the Darby translation.
Look at your King James and tell me if this changes the mean.
Second Timothy 2 and verse 8.
Remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David comma raised from the dead according to my gospel.
Did it change the meaning a bit?
I put in one comma and took out two words.
But it changes the meaning.
Paul didn't want Timothy so much to remember the fact of the resurrection of Christ.
As to remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead according to my gospel.
What does he, what did he say? He's really saying, Timothy.
The reward for the Lord Jesus faithfulness was in resurrection, not down here. It's the same for you and for me. Now, some of us may not have to go through resurrection. We may be alive and well when the Lord comes. I hope so. I hope all of us are.
I hope he comes tonight, but whatever way it happens.
The reward is going to be in resurrection. We don't have to have more than our parents have. I have much more than my parents had.
But it's not always going to be that way.
The point of it all is not what we have, but whether we use what we have for the Lord.
And that Abraham did. Now the Lord happened to make Abraham a wealthy man.
And the surrounding Canaanites said, Thou art a mighty Prince among us. The Lord makes some Christians a mighty Princess in this world.
Sometimes when I go over and I don't mind mentioning the country, but if I go to India, for example, not only India, but that's one place. And people will say not so much the brethren that I know there, but other people, oh, where are you from? They always want to know where you're from, Where are you from, Where are you from? Recognizing white man's face and all that.
00:40:04
Stand out there in most cases.
And so I'll tell them from Canada. Oh, Canada. Oh, Canada, very rich country. Oh, yes, yes, Sir. Somebody that's with you. Oh, I'm from the United States. Oh, us, very rich country, very rich country, and so on.
And even some of my dear brethren will talk like that and they'll say, brother, you, you, you people in Canada and the US, you, you really have, you really have a lot.
And I usually talk to them this way. I say, well, then you better pray for us. You pray for us. We won't turn to it. But it's in Luke 12 where it tells us that the more we have, the more we're going to be held responsible for.
Sorry. So you pray for us because we're going to be held far more responsible than those who have less as to how we used it and what we did with it.
Abraham used his for the Lord even though he was a wealthy man.
Well, let's go on.
We won't go into everything here because our time is going verse 17.
One not another, By faith. By faith. Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac.
And he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten Son.
Of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called accounting, that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.
Can you think of any tribe more severe than having to do that? Can you imagine? There are a number of fathers here. Can any one of you fathers imagine?
Taking a son.
On a journey of several days, on the third day taking him up to the top of a high hill or a mountain.
Building an altar, laying him on that altar, tying him up.
And then lifting up.
A10 inch knife ready to plunge it into his heart. Can you imagine doing that?
I have only one son, as most of you know, and I remember going through that in my own mind.
At one point in my life and think, could I bring myself to do that?
Even if God expressly commanded me to do it.
How could Abraham do now? We know he didn't do it because God restrained him, but he was ready to. How could he do it? Because it wasn't the first thing that Abrahams faith was tested against.
Abraham had proven the Lord over and over and over again over a course of a number of years when this happened. I don't know exactly how old Isaac was when this happened, but he was a young man. He wasn't just a kid, if we could use that expression. He was able to help carry the wood and all that sort of thing, and he was intelligent enough to notice the fire in the wood and.
Say, where is the lamb? And so on.
Abraham had been tested before, first of all, as to his journey from Ur of the colonies to the land of Canaan. Then by the way the Lord kept him all those years. By the way Isaac's birth had taken place.
Contrary to nature. And then when God made him promises concerning that very son Isaac, saying, In Isaac, shall thy seed be called?
Abraham said In that case, even if I sacrifice.
That son of mine.
God can raise him from the dead, and I know he will.
What tremendous faith that was.
And I say to each one here tonight.
God is going to test your faith in mind.
He often tests.
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But he tests us in little things first and then bigger things, and if we respond in the right way, then will God will test us in bigger things.
That really test our faith, but God does it by degrees and it's a wonderful thing as you find your faith strengthened. But how does our faith become strengthened? By trusting the Lord.
And it's a wonderful thing to have proven the faith that God gives us.
Some have a higher degree of faith than others.
George Mueller, who lived back in the 1800s, was remarkable for his faith.
One time he was on a sailing vessel coming over to Canada.
And in those days, they didn't have radar or steam engines or anything, at least not on this particular trip. They certainly didn't have any of that. And they got into what's called the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, which is where the Saint Lawrence River that is at least part of the boundary between Canada and the US, flows out into the Atlantic Ocean.
And at that point, you get Arctic water coming down from the north.
And you get the Gulf Stream coming up from the South. And when that cold meets that warmth, that big Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where the Saint Lawrence River flows out into the Atlantic Ocean, often has a lot of fog. And they call it sometimes pea soup fog because it's about it's hard to see through, is trying to see through a bowl of pea soup.
If you've ever tried that, I don't recommend it, but anyway.
The point is.
The ship just couldn't go anywhere. And finally George Muter went up to the captain and he said, captain, I have a speaking engagement to Morrow evening in Quebec City and I've never missed a speaking engagement in my life.
Well, the captain was a believer, but he got a little irritated and he said, and Mr. Mueller, you have a speaking engagement, but we happen to have some fog.
And we can't navigate in fog because the Gulf of Saint Lawrence at this time of year is full of icebergs. We don't want to collide with an iceberg or we'll go down. So what do you expect me to do?
HUD, George and Hoodler said quietly. Captain, let's kneel down and pray about it.
Well, what could you say to that if you were a Christian? So they knelt down, and George Mueller prayed earnestly that the Lord would lift the fog.
And he finished praying.
Then he said, now captain, you pray. But the before the captain had a chance to open his mouth, George said on second thought, captain, don't bother, He said, I can see that you don't believe it's going to work.
As far as I'm concerned, it's already working. Let's get up there and get those sales up and get going.
Faith.
They walked out of the captain's cabin.
And the captain almost fell down the hatchway because it was just as if somebody was rolling up a stage curtain. The fog was just lifting like that, going up, up, up, up like that.
Faith, faith in the Lord that he would do it.
Sometimes faith works the other way.
Back in the late 1600s, maybe I'll tell too many stories, but they're interesting. We might go a minute or two overtime. Take all the time you want. It's from an older brother, too.
Back in the late 1600s, the Scottish Covenanters were savagely persecuted by King Charles the Second of England, who is bent and bound. He was going to force them into the Anglican Church.
They were equally bent and bound that they weren't going to do that. They'd heard clear a clear and definite gospel from men like John Knox and George Wishart and others of the Reformers, and they didn't want to go into what they felt was just one notch below Roman Catholicism. So they resisted, and they would hold their meetings out of doors. They called them conventicals.
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And.
Of course, the soldiers of.
Charles the Second. We're up there looking for chances to raid these conventicles and capture people, sometimes kill them, sometimes take them prisoner, sometimes torture them, and all the rest of it.
And there were godly men there who traveled around preaching to these people at these conventicles.
In fact, and they lived a rough life, very rough life.
Then Alexander Peden, who was one of them, died at the age of 60.
And he was lying in a bed that was provided for him, he said. This is the first bed I've slept in for 32 years, 28 years, 28 years. You said this is the first bed I've slept in.
Lived in outdoors life, lived in caves and anywhere he could and so on. And there were others like that. But anyway, to get on with our story, can't remember which one it was, It was either Alexander Peden or another man by the name of Huey Cameron that was preaching at that conventicle.
And the soldiers raided them and there they were, riding around on their horses, ready to try and capture people.
Well, Alexander Peden had bad arthritis and he couldn't, he couldn't get away even if he wanted to run and.
He just lifted up his hands and he said, Lord, Lord, please send some fog. Send some fog down.
And it's recorded that it was again, only this time it was like the stage curtain being lowered. Suddenly there was this tremendous fog that came down and you couldn't see anything. And all those dear believers that were a moment ago listening to a sermon just stayed exactly where they were. And all they heard was shouting and cursing and carrying on as the soldiers tried to find them. And they rode their horses around.
And the horses stumbled over rocks and fell into pits and.
Soldiers are throwing off their horses and bark their shins on rocks and finally gave it up as a bad job. Nobody was injured, nobody was captured, nobody was killed. All because of some fog that the Lord said faith.
You and I can have that same faith today in walking with the Lord.
Well, let's go on. We'll finish off quickly here.
What about verse 20?
By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
You young people and you children, here you've read about how.
Isaac.
Blessed Jacob and Esau, haven't you? Do you remember the story how Isaac was going to bless Esau?
And his wife, Rebecca said to Jacob, Jacob, you do what I say and we're going to get you the blessing. And you remember the story how she went and got Jacob to bring a couple of kids of the goats. And well, she looked after preparing savory meat and all the rest of it. She made it. She knew all the tricks. She made it taste as if Isaac was going to be eating venison from a deer instead of kids of the goats.
Cook and Jacob went in and had the skins of the goats on his arms and on his neck, so he seemed like his older brother Esau that had a hairy constitution.
And he deceived his father.
Does that sound to you as if Isaac was blessing Jacob by faith?
You look at that and you'd say by faith, that's really stretching a point.
You know.
Sometimes we do things in our lives with things that are added to it that have to do with the old nature, don't we?
But sometimes underneath it all there is that which wants to honor the Lord, even if we do it in the wrong way.
And you know, in Hebrews 11, the failure is generally left out. But what God sees the faith for, He rewards. Jacob realized deep down inside. He knew that the younger would serve the elder. He knew that God's purposes, as far as the blessing was concerned, were centered in Jacob's family, not Aesop's. Now, did that mean that Esau couldn't be blessed to? Yes, he could have.
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And he could have followed the Lord, but he didn't care. He sold his birthright to Jacob.
For one plate of food.
Jacob knew how to take advantage of Esau when he was really hungry. And when people are really hungry, you know, there's just about nothing you won't do to get a good plate of food. And Jacob said, hey, you want, you want, you want some of this food, sell me your birthright. Very kind of low down trick for Jacob to do. But Esau gave in to it. And it's mentioned in this same book of Hebrews.
In the next chapter that he saw for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. He didn't care.
About the things of the Lord.
And deep down inside, Isaac knew that Jacob cared.
Then the Lord looked at him and saw him that saw that faith. Remember brethren, some of us at least I can look back in failure in my life. And there are things you say, oh if I could only have that time over again.
But if God saw underlying it of faith that wanted to honor him, even if it wasn't done altogether in the right way.
God sees the faith He honors.
Verse 21 by faith Jacob, when he was a dying bless both the sons of Joseph.
And worship, leaning upon the top of his staff.
Do you remember what Jacob did when he blessed the sons of Joseph?
Joseph brought his older son, Vanessa.
And brought him toward his father's right hand.
Because the right hand was supposed to be the hand of the greater blessing.
And he brought his younger son Ephraim toward the left hand of Jacob. But do you remember what Jacob did? What did he do?
Crossed his hands.
Even though Jacob couldn't see, he crossed his hands and Joseph said to his father, No, no, no, no, no, father, this is the older one over here. Don't you know? Don't do that, Jacob said. I know, I know. Jacob had learned something. Jacob had learned something. He knew that once again, the elder was going to be.
A lesser man than the younger that Ephraim was going to be a more important individual than in the NASA.
Why was that?
Here's an exercise for some of the children here. See how many times you can find in the book of Genesis where a younger one in the family became more important than an older one.
Quite a few, the number of them, and there are more than one in some families. It's not always just the second one.
Very interesting, see what you can find. It's very interesting to see how many you can find.
Why is that? Because the older one speaks of the first man, which is Adam, who was a failure.
The second or younger son speaks of the Lord Jesus. Who is the 2nd man who succeeded and who?
Did what God wanted him to do.
In the stead of the first man who failed.
The first manners of the earth earthy it says in one Corinthians 15 the 2nd man is the Lord from heaven and there are multiple examples of that in the book of Genesis. So Jacob crosses his hands, but what?
Does it say about it?
What went along with that? He worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. Jacob had had his time with the Lord in the past.
He had wrestled with the Lord, you'll remember, over one in the fleshy way back when, and he was lame because of that wrestling match with the Lord. And also Jacob was an older man at the time and he had to use a cane maybe.
Probably most of you notice that I'm is not as steady on my feet as I used to be.
I was much encouraged the other day, though, and reading some history and reading how that JN Darby, when he was exactly my age, was going up to some meetings and there was an older brother on each side of him helping him to the meetings. So I thought, OK, that's, that's fair enough. It's not that I say I'm any much any much like him, don't get me wrong, but I just it's kind of encouraging.
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But anyway, the point is.
He learned something. He profited by the Lord's dealings with. Sometimes you're like Jacob.
Jacob schemed and planned all his life rather than trusting the Lord.
Her not all his life, but most of it. And he suffered for it because his family picked up on it and then they did it too.
Very, very solemn, but he profited by the Lords dealings with and that's the important thing.
And finally.
Verse 22 By faith, Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones.
You and I might wonder why he would do that.
After all, what does it matter? Some people think that Joseph might have been buried in one of the pyramids if he'd stayed in Egypt. No, that that that doesn't work. Pyramids existed long before Joseph. He probably saw them. In fact, I know he did. He must have, because they were there long before Joseph was ever there.
But the point is that why would it matter where Joseph was failed? Why couldn't he been content to be buried in Egypt?
The land of Canaan represented to him everything that God had promised to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and ultimately to him too. It represented all the promises.
Now it doesn't matter where we're buried in this world. As I've sometimes said to people, it doesn't matter where you are. When the Lord gives a shout, you will rise. No matter where you are. It doesn't matter.
But Joseph looked on, and if we could say in a how would we put it? Abraham represents the calling of God. He represents calling. Isaac represents perhaps sonship. He grew up in that privileged position.
Jacob represents discipline.
But Joseph speaks of blood.
Joseph took the under the glory for him. That land of Canaan was where God had promised he would take his people. Egypt wasn't their home. Joseph had an important place there. He was an important man. He was governor over all the land of Egypt. God had put him there, but he knew that that was not their home.
And he said, you take my bones and bury them up there in the land of Canaan. And that's recorded in Joshua that they did.
Just that they took them and buried them in the land of Canaan and so.
You and I are to look ahead to the day of glory, not so much to in connection with burial, but in connection with where are we heading?
And it comes out a little bit in what my father said at that brothers grave that I mentioned in the open meeting. He talked about Joshua being buried in his inheritance. You and I can have an inheritance and we do have it, but we can live in the enjoyment of it and.
Joseph said I want to be taken up there.