Open—R.K. Gorgas
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Let's turn to the 17th chapter of Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy chapter 17.
And verse 18.
Deuteronomy chapter 17 and verse 18.
And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his Kingdom.
That he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests.
The Levites and it shall be with them, and he shall read therein.
All the days of his life.
That he may learn to fear the Lord his God.
To keep all the words of this law.
And these statutes.
To do them.
That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turned not aside from the commandment to the right hand.
Or to the left to the end that he may prolong his days in his Kingdom.
He and His children in the midst of Israel.
These few verses, beloved brethren, are very heavily on my heart.
There are instructions that were given with regard to the Kingdom.
To the man who would sit upon the throne of Israel.
They're not all the instructions, there are some that precede it.
But I have before me, especially starting with verse 18.
And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his Kingdom.
That he shall write him.
And I'm going to change it a little bit.
All the reforms that have been upon his heart.
All the things that he wanted to straighten out in Israel.
That what it says.
No.
I think that's a tendency that perhaps men have is that.
When they get into a position where they can do something about something, they want to do it. They want to do it right away.
But that's not what the king was to do.
His first act was to be was to sit down and write him a copy of the law.
In a book.
His own personal copy doesn't say he shall employ a scribe to do it, it says he shall write him.
A copy of this law.
Now I realize that there was a very limited amount of scripture that they had available to them at that time.
But they were he was to make his own personal copy of it.
Sometimes my heart is touched as I read of.
Places where Bibles are scarce, where Christians will actually sit down.
And instead of using the one Bible that they have, they will take paper and copy.
The passage of scripture that they have before them.
And put the Bible back in a safe place, having written out what they want to do.
Read.
And I remember when I was a boy.
And had trouble with.
Discipline. Sometimes, yes, I did.
That they would give me a card of long division problems to do.
As punishment.
I learned how to divide.
And I didn't like dividing when I first started, but I learned how to do it.
What you write out and what you copy for yourself, you retain.
And so they were required to write a copy of the law.
And where were they to take it from?
They were to take it out of that which is before the priest, the Levites. There was an original that they were to take it from.
00:05:02
Not a fallible copy, but an original.
What's my point in mentioning that?
Well, there are many shortcuts you know to going.
To getting truth.
You go back to this one or that one that wrote it out.
That had a good grasp of it.
But that's not what we're to do. We're to go back to the original, to the Word of God, back to the Word of God.
And I just like to suggest that writing it here is a word to you and me to make it real and good to our own souls.
To make it good and real to our own soul.
There's a somewhat amusing story I sometimes tell, and I hope if you've heard it before you'll pardon me for repeating it, but I recall.
In wood shopping school.
They taught us how to make rulers.
I don't even know if they do such a thing today, but we learned how to make a ruler.
Cut a piece of wood and mark it off.
Send it first, mark it off and then varnish it. And we had a ruler.
And I thought that was fun. I thought that was a nice thing to do.
I said wouldn't it be fun to make more of them?
And so I took the ruler that I made, and I made more rulers.
Gave them away.
Always kept one of the production, made another one.
Well, you know what happened. The last one I made was short.
The last one I made was short.
Why? Because I was going from my copy rather than from the original.
You and I, beloved brethren, are not going to get the truth of God the way God wants us to get it.
Unless we go back to the Word of God.
Back to the Word of God, Am I putting down the written ministry that we have? Not by any means.
My shelves are full of it and I love to go back and read it and I thank God for it.
If you haven't had the joy some of your younger brothers of of picking up a book of ministry and reading it.
Try it, but if you really want to get the truth in its full and pure and.
And perfect way you've got to go back to the word of God.
Back to the scriptures.
Not even back to, although I esteemed them very, very highly, men like JMD and Wigram and those you've got to go back. How about the Reformers? Now we've got to go back to the word of God, to the word of God.
Verse 19 says, And it shall be with him.
I think that's important.
How many times I see, and it sometimes grieves me to see someone leave his Bible in the meeting room.
Now I know sometimes some people have one for a meeting room and some for home. I'm not talking about people like that, but the working copy of their Bible they leave in the meeting room.
It shall be wisdom.
It should be our companion, what we work with, what we live with.
Some of you know that when I was in Chile a few months ago.
I was in a place getting copies made and I put my Bible case down next to me.
And within 5 minutes after talking to the man about the copies, I looked down and my Bible case was gone.
Believe me, that hurt.
I've asked the Lord to bless the man who took it.
And it might read, but I lost 4 bibles, 2 hymn books.
My tickets. My plane tickets.
And another thing that I missed very much was a little fork that Charo Adama had given me that.
Said Horn and Hardard on it.
Had a special meaning to me because when I was a boy I stole one of those from the restaurant and my father made me take it back to the manager.
And I had been using that with children to give them a little lesson. I don't have that anymore.
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But what I missed most is that Bible.
It shall be with them.
Well, I have my Bible.
When's the last time you opened it?
Notice what it says here, and he shall read therein.
Every Lord's Day.
Is that what it says every Sabbath?
Lord, day is not the Sabbath, but I'm trying to relate it to the Hebrew culture here. It shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life, all the days of his life.
You ever get to a point where you don't have to read the word anymore?
I'm sure if I asked our brother Barry, who knows the word very well, are you at the point now where you really don't have to read it every day? I know what answer I get.
More than ever, He says he needs it. He shall read therein all the days of his life. This is our food, our sustenance, beloved. This is what our souls feed upon, is the Word of God.
It bothers me when some people ask me is there any scriptures that you should read every day that I have to read every day?
There's no commandment, so to speak, for everyone of us to read every day, but I think this is the closest that I've seen to coming to it. He shall read therein all the days of his life.
There wasn't a day to go by, but what he wasn't to open that and read it.
You ever been to a home, And I have, where you ask if they have a Bible? Oh, yeah, yeah, There's that one we bought. Remember the salesman that came around about five years ago? It's up on the shelf over there, I think. No, it's not over there. And there's a little argument goes by and pretty soon they find it and they blow the dust off it.
You know what good that Bible has done to them?
Don't let your Bible gather dust.
Reading it every day. Every day.
I know some of you young men.
If I suggested to you that you only ate once a week on a Saturday afternoon, I know what kind of an answer I get.
Because I raised three boys.
I was a boy.
Shall read therein all the days of his life. This is our food. This is what we are sustained by.
And then it says that he may learn to fear the Lord his God.
It's a terrible thing, but I believe the fear of God is something that is lost on this generation.
And why? Because we don't read in the Word. That's where we learn to fear the Lord.
Is reading the word.
And then it says to keep the words of this law, to keep them.
I suppose we might like it not to maintaining the doctrine.
Is that enough?
It says the last three words of that verse are so important and or just to do that, to do them.
There is no truth in Scripture that God gives us. That is just to hold as an intellectual doctrine.
Nothing.
Mr. Kohler used to tell us in Brooklyn.
That no truth is ours until it gets into our boots.
What did he mean by that?
Until we walk in it.
That's why it says to do them.
And it says in verse 20 that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren. All brethren, there's such a danger that our hearts get lifted up above our brethren.
It's a terrible danger.
It's a terrible danger to think we're better than our brethren. We have a better version of Christianity, a better kind of piety than they do.
The reading of the Word of God, the daily reading of the Word of God, is a safeguard against that because it let's me know what I really AM.
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I don't think there's anything more destructive than the ones heart be lifted up above his brethren.
It's destructive.
And when saying that, I'm not going to tell you that it hasn't happened to me.
But the remedy to it is the reading of the Word of God.
Then it says that he turned not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left.
It's a sad thing, but I'm afraid that we have a tendency.
To go up this way or that way when it comes to the truth of God.
What will keep us walking straight down the path that God has marked?
Out daily reading and meditating on the Word of God.
There's no way that can keep ourselves from deviating.
Becoming either.
Leftists or rightists and the things of God?
To the end that he may prolong his days in his Kingdom.
Now, beloved.
We're not kings in the sense that it's talking about here.
But everyone of us has been given a realm of responsibility, a realm of.
Of.
A place where God holds us accountable and we're to exercise that responsibility.
And if we go on with the Word of God following on with what's marked out here.
Will our.
Will be prolonged. The days of our Kingdom, of our responsibility will be prolonged.
And then it says he and his children.
Oh, I don't think there's anything that.
Touches our hearts, so is our children.
And our children, how we long for them to go on with the Lord.
The apostle John says I have no greater joy.
And to hear my children walking in truth.
But our children will not go on.
If we ourselves are walking carelessly with respect to the Word of God.
The word is to be.
Emphasized in our homes.
Now one more verse in Ezra.
I might say in preference and preface to this verse that.
When my father realized he was going home to be with the Lord.
He called those of us who could be there with him.
Two of my sons and.
Myself.
Perhaps someone else, I think a grandson.
One of my grandsons.
And he read this verse to us.
Ezra 7 and verse 10.
For Ezra.
Had prepared his heart.
That's the first thing, an exercise of heart. He prepared his heart.
To do what? To seek the law of the Lord.
Just to put it in a very practical way to find out what the word of God teaches.
To take hold of it.
In a doctrinal way.
And to what do it?
And to do it.
And to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.
It's a three fold responsibility.
God laid that on us very strongly in his last days.
Prepare your heart.
To get a hold of what this book teaches.
So you can teach it to others. No, not first.
And that's one of the troubles. Sometimes young people will ask is, well, why don't we have Bible schools and seminaries like other people do? One of the great dangers of a Bible school or seminary is just this, that people learn and teach.
00:20:12
And don't do first.
So God's order is that you learn what it says, that you do it.
And then teach it. May the Lord help us to do those things.