Address—R. Klassen
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Let's begin tonight by saying hymn #296.
Bob Devine, all praise excelling. The joy of Heaven to Earth. Come down 296.
Joy.
Comes down.
Where?
Alight.
Meeting this evening, I was just thinking of how.
Wonderful it is to be able to meditate in the Word of God.
As it is suggested in the book of Isaiah.
How that it's line upon line, precept upon precept?
And here a little and there a little. That's how we learn. We can't just have a crash course in the word of God because the word of God is not taken into the soul that way. And so consequently because of this order of things that we have in Isaiah that.
We're learners for life.
Every day, regardless of our age, we're learners learning the wonderful ways of God, learning of His grace, His goodness, His mercy, and the truth that sustains our hearts in a world that is marked by lies. Satan is the God of this world and he's the father of lies and how he throws that counterfeit out and dispenses it.
And sometimes we're very unsuspecting.
That it's not the truth of God. And so we have to come to this book.
To give it the task and the test is does it glorify God?
Does it honor the Lord Jesus Christ, or does it honor man whose breath is in his nostrils?
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It was perhaps early this spring.
Meditating on the Word of God.
And just being struck with a verse that had the word unfeigned in it. Unfeigned.
And it's something and you've experienced how you will read in the Word of God, and something will cause you to stop and think about it. And then you say to yourself, I wonder how many more times this comes in the Word of God.
Well, that's what happened that morning.
Because I sat there thinking about it.
I just my impression was off a little bit as to how many times the word unfeigned comes.
And so the good old concordance, Young's analytical pull it down and to look at it and find that it comes this many times, four times in the New Testament.
And so I thought we would read the four times that it comes and meditate on it a little bit.
And we might think tonight that, well, you know, it's we need exhortation from the word of God. And sometimes the feeling is that, well, the speaker is kind of become cognizant of the shortcomings of the Lord's people and this, that and the other thing. But when it comes to exhortation, our brother Harry Hale gave such a beautiful setting to what exhortation really is.
He says exhortation is not trying to attain to something, but the true thought of exhortation is.
Possession.
Possession what we possess. And he says God uses exhortation to show us what we possess.
And so maybe it's not an exercise, but it's there. The power is there.
To respond to the exhortations of Scripture. And so the language of the New Testament is not thou shalt, but rather let us, let us, we're going on together as the Lord's people. We've been brought into the oneness of the body of Christ, and we're a joint of supply.
And we don't dare try to get on without one another. It doesn't work.
And oh, when we lose some of our company, it brings grief to us because we're losing joints of supply for the nourishment and building up of the body are very bodies are expressive naturally that we need those nutrients and vitamins and things to give us energy to go on to fulfill our responsibilities.
And I wondered, has God created our bodies in a natural way to help us to understand what it means spiritually?
So we'll read these scriptures and consider them, and 1St we'll turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 for the first one. Yeah, six Second Corinthians 6.
And verse 6.
If you have a new translation, you would be and reading this verse you would be using the word in.
In pureness, in knowledge, in long-suffering.
In kindness, in the Holy Ghost, in love.
Unfeigned.
Now what we want to notice as we read these portions to find out what unfeigned is connected with.
Very instructive as all the word of God is very instructive to us will notice.
What it's connected with the second reference is found in First Timothy chapter one.
First Timothy, Chapter One.
And verse 5.
Now the end of the commandment is charity or love out of a pure heart and have a good conscience.
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And of faith unfeigned.
Second Timothy. Chapter One.
Again, verse 5.
When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith.
That is in thee which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois.
And thy mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that in thee also.
Now the third reference is found in First Peter chapter one, First Peter One.
And verse 22.
Seen ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit.
Unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.
As I had the Young's Concordance.
And looking at it.
My eye went.
To the word just above unseigned.
And it shocked me.
Because I was focusing on this word unfeigned. What does it mean unfeigned?
What it means is without any pretension.
Is without any alloy added to it. It's just that pure.
Trustworthy.
Transparent.
In this world, there's this kind of thing.
It's a word that we don't use very much, hardly ever. In conversation, we would hardly ever use that word.
And so the word before this made me really appreciate what unsane means, and perhaps some of the young here have an idea of what it was, but it was simply that word unfaithful.
Unfaithful.
Tonight, we live in an unfaithful world.
A heartbreaking world when the morals are going, and some are, it's gone.
To go to town, to look at the mall, in the mall, the sea, what is taking place?
The fear of God is gone. I had to try to speak of something spiritual.
Is ridiculous.
There's no heart for it.
The impact of unfaithfulness.
You know, I have to say tonight.
We are sometimes conscious of the golden wedding anniversaries that are taking place among the Lord's people.
I say what a beautiful landmark of 50 years together, of fidelity to one another and that love that is bound that union together. And you've gone through deep valleys and had some pretty hard blows that have come that Satan meant for it to shatter that union.
But fate and love were there.
What a landmark. What a beautiful landmark of faithfulness to God.
And so as I speak of it, I feel it's more for me than anyone else's.
Wonderful word, unseigned and you notice connected with two things.
Faith and love.
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And whenever you have faith, you'll find that love isn't very far away from it.
And on that particular morning as I was.
Pouring over this.
And knocking at the door.
Someone had come to see me.
Someone that I love has a love and respect for the Word of God.
I posed the question to him, How many times do you think the word unfeigned comes and the word of God?
Missed it by 1.
I said, why is this word connected with faith and love? And then we went on with the subject that was on his heart. I could see the wheels turning.
And after that side of the conversation was over with, I said, do you have an answer for my question?
He said I don't know if I'm right or not, but he said this is what comes before me.
He said that faith and love.
Are two things that we can fake probably more than anything else.
You know, that was just like a stab to my heart.
Why doesn't it have faith with unfeigned with peace? Or why doesn't it have it with humility or other of those adjective words? And it just seemed like it hit it right on the head.
And so here we have faith and love.
And perhaps you wouldn't have noticed it in the reading.
But in both situations, those two words are turned.
Either way.
It's an expression that you can use either way and you don't lose any strength of meaning.
Faith unfeigned or unfeigned faith.
Unseigned love or love unfeigned makes me think of the 19th chapter of Revelation where it says that the Spirit of Prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. You can turn that around and say the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.
It's wonderful to have those expressions that you can turn and they hold the strength of their meaning, and so it is here.
And so is the apostle, Peter writes.
He touches.
On.
Obeying the truth.
Through this Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren.
Unfeigned love of the Brethren.
By God's grace, many of us in this room.
Have been born in a rich Christian heritage.
And we've been brought to God's divine center.
By grace alone, we had no made no decision in this matter.
And I remember as a boy coming a meeting that, you know, I just kind of wished we could get out of it. We're going to have a special meeting. Why do we have to go?
You know, I'm ashamed to think of that kind of behavior tonight when I think.
What God and His grace has done.
And to find the father's family at that center.
Chosen for us and I have to say tonight, what a family.
My father has.
To be able to look at one another and say that we were in the world, we wouldn't be friends with one another. You could bank on it.
A sovereign word for the Spirit of God has come. The testimony has been marked by the love of Christ.
I have heard it said.
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And it grieves my heart to say there isn't much love among the brethren.
I say, where have they been?
Where have they been?
Just let a trial arise in your life and mind and find how quickly.
Our brethren of our sign.
And if they can't get there, they'll be by telephone.
By e-mail.
By letter.
If I have a feeling toward my brethren that there's a lack of love.
Perhaps I haven't put anything into the bank that's the problem.
You know, you put put it in the bank and here comes the interest.
You've experienced it in showing of hospitality.
All here comes a return 10 times.
What you've shown, oh, the interest of God is rich, isn't it? An interest this world does not know anything about?
To love one another with a pure heart, fervently, you know.
I think of Judas after he had sold the Lord for 30 pieces of silver, led the mob out there.
That he goes up to him and he throws his arms around him and he covered him with kisses.
And the Lord said, if you notice in the new translation, he said, my friend.
Hath lifted up his heel against me.
Oh, it's awful to be betrayed by love and to think that we have hearts that can do this.
How beautiful, then is the exhortation of Scripture? It shows that we have the power to do this. It's a matter of whether there's the engagement of it. You know, it doesn't take much water to prime a pump, does it? Run the handle up and down and nothing happens. You pour a little water from a vessel and up comes the the water.
Let's kind of retrace our steps back to Second Timothy, chapter one.
All to think of the day.
That the apostle Paul entered this home. Grandmother there mother.
And Timothy?
And then to write back.
And to think of them, of Timothy receiving this letter, talking about the domestic circle that we all have, the Christian home, no home like it.
I remember my dear father and mother would take us children up to Spokane.
You know there was 160 miles and an old car and figure on a flat tire or two before we got there to have fellowship with the brethren at an all day meeting.
And there was an old brother there that had led many to Christ, faithful evangelists.
And there was hardly ever a time that we visited up there that somewhere in the day we would hear him say, isn't it wonderful to be a Christian?
His face shining and you know we got so that when we're going to Spokane, we wanted to go just to hear him say that with his face beaming and those in the room that were saved by his testimony of Christ.
How much more tonight in my soul to say, isn't it wonderful to be a Christian?
To know you're on your way to heaven. Your sins have been removed.
Not just covered, but removed and put away to never be brought up again.
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All if we could have some of our ancestors here tonight.
We could have great grandfather here tonight and say to him.
What was the blessing of your generation? Can you tell us?
Or to see them.
Say, with a happy countenance.
The blessing of our generation was the Lord Jesus Christ.
To bring grandfather in and say what was the blessing of your generation.
Was the Lord Jesus Christ.
What about our generation? Is it different?
Still the same one.
What about the next generation that's in this room tonight? What is the blessing? Who is the blessing of your generation? It's the Lord Jesus Christ, and it will ever be until the end of the generation of this most favored dispensation that we live in, the dispensation of the grace of God.
Well, you know the domestic circle.
The home circle.
And the assembly are connected together.
Wonderfully connected together.
What you bring out of your home to the assembly.
To be dispensed.
Like bees that come to a hive, they bring their nectar to the hive and it's processed into honey.
All his words are sweeter than honey. Are they not the words of our Lord Jesus Christ? And so we have that remarkable exchange that we take from the assembly what has been brought, and we take it home.
It's a marvelous.
Operation of the Spirit of God.
The Christian home.
And Satan hates this. He does everything.
Throws everything he can in there to break it up, to ruin the wonderful exchange of fellowship that our poor hearts are crying out for.
Unseen love.
Uncain love is behind this.
My dear wife and I have so enjoyed being here with our dear brethren to see this wonderful exchange, to get in on it.
To be blessed by it, to have God write the record.
There in glory of all this exchange.
It's not unrighteous that he forgets.
No, he dare not. He's the author of it. There's been obedient, willing hearts to carry it out.
Won't heaven be wonderful as we see the record?
And the tapestry of heaven.
Bearing us all out in the open.
Showing the riches of his grace and his kindness toward us.
In verse 13 of this same chapter. I just want to read it.
It says, Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me.
In faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus.
Or if I could put it this way, that faith and love are like two mighty pillars in our lives.
Two of the mightiest pillars.
Faith and love.
Let's turn to the first Timothy.
Chapter One.
Verse 5. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience, and of faith on fame.
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Well, I believe that that has to do with our lives in the world.
You know this world is dying for lack of love. Very obvious.
Here are these poor dear souls deluded.
And marking up their bodies, trying to decorate their poor bodies to get a little attention, to get something that is real.
They're living on this unreality, on this unfaithfulness. Trust. What is it? You can't trust anybody.
They may act like they're your friend, but just let somebody else show up on the horizon and out you're out.
What a privilege we have of being a light in this world. You know a light doesn't make any noise. Lights are quiet in this room. Let me tell you, the Christian is a light of this world that gives a soul that may be an observing to come and ask you of the hope that lie within you.
You know it's wonderful when a person gets saved by a manner of life.
Wonderful to be ready to tell them how to be saved and that will follow. But how wonderful if they say you have something that I don't have and I know it and I don't know what it is for sure. Oh, what a wide door swings open. Just say come and let's sit down and visit a little bit together. Be able to reach that little Bible that we may have or part of the New Testament and just to read a little bit out of that book.
Oh, that's what the soul that they have in their bosom is crying out for.
One dimension is that unfeigned love of the brethren.
Mentioned last night that this dear sister and I and I learned that Brother Leo were safe to the preaching of Brother Harry Hale. And it's so interesting that, you know, we sat under many a gospel meeting.
And.
The Spirit of God was doing a quickening work.
But I don't know how others felt about it. But when I knew that I was saved, it was a matter of having peace with God. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And if you would have asked me, well, if the Lord had come before you came to that point, you'd think you would have gone to heaven and I would have answered, yes, I think that I would have.
But what I didn't have was peace that I was.
And so this dear evangelist he was able to convey.
The effect of that word is to speak peace to our souls, that if I died or if the Lord came, all was well.
Wonderful piece.
You know, it tells us about the peace that passes all understanding. I was thinking about that the other day. And it brings us to the sovereignty of God. Sovereignty.
Oh, you say. I don't know. I'm not sure I know what that means.
Well, let me tell you something. We can't know what it means because sovereignty is beyond us. We do not have the mental faculties to understand it.
But if it's beyond us?
It's because it's sovereign.
Spoke a little bit last night about paradox and scripture and one of the sweetest paradoxes of scripture is this to my heart.
To know the love of Christ.
Which passeth knowledge?
Why does it pass knowledge? Because it's sovereign, but I can grasp it. A sweet sense that I'm loved tonight by heaven.
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By my father.
And so these paradoxes are unique, are they not? The peace that passes all understanding?
I have peace tonight, but the beyond understanding is takes us to His sovereignty.
That peace is connected to sovereignty. And so even though I don't understand.
Sovereignty.
Sometimes there's a confusion that comes in.
About well, yes, there's God's sovereignty, but we have our responsibility. And so here we are trying to balance on a scale and it's just about that tippy until we come to realize just what our responsibility is.
Our responsibility is to be in sympathy with God's sovereignty.
Well, it's easy to make the statement.
My reaction may be well, is that all there is to it?
You know, to be in sympathy with God's sovereignty is where the warfare begins in our lives.
Because we have the sovereign will of God and I have my will and they don't mesh.
They don't match.
And so how wonderful it is to have it brought to that point.
That my responsibility is to be in sympathy with that sovereignty, whether I know it or not.
There's one thing we know, and that is that God is sovereign and we are subjects.
What a span of difference.
And God can break that. Bring that stand to nothing.
That we can know the love of Christ.
Which passed knowledge.
Well.
When I got saved through the preaching of our dear brother Harry Hale, I wanted to tell him.
Didn't have the courage.
Became the next year to Walla. Walla, the conference, I gotta tell him.
Couldn't do it.
In the sand for quite a number of years.
And I was anticipating go walking into his present. I said I'm going to tell him this time in quite a few years on me. Then I kind of wondered what his reaction was going to be.
And I walked up till when I said, dear brother, I want to tell you that the Lord used you.
To bring peace to my soul.
He was shorter than I was and his arms came up around my neck and he pulled me to me, to himself, and kissed me.
He held my hands and he looked into my face. He said, Dear brother, I want to just leave something with you.
This is what he said.
Love all of your brethren.
Serve them faithfully.
Overlook all the fault you can.
But don't make any of them the model of your life. Make it Christ.
All you can imagine how that how those words were just branded right into my heart.
Coming from unfeigned love for me.
Oh, I passed that message on to you. Those words were spoken to me that are good for all of us. I'll say it again, love all of your brethren.
Serve them faithfully.
Overlook all the faults you can.
But make none of them the model of your life. Make it Christ.
We'll have testimony in the world if we carry that out.
Let's go to the last one in Second Corinthians chapter 6.
I'm sure.
That there are those that have read, enjoy reading their bibles. I know they're young here in this room that read their Bibles at home and their bedrooms alone.
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And you read what?
Verse beginning with verse four and reading down through verse 12.
There is a lot to meditate on and the value of this meditation is to realize that.
That Paul is describing the path.
Of the servant.
Of which were all servants.
Describing the path of the Saints of God.
And if I could just give you a little picture of.
How real this is?
Our real estate path is.
There was a boy going to school, I had to ride a bus to school and when the bus loaded, kids got to school. He had to stay outside even in the winter time and to the till the bell rang and then we had to line up and go to the class.
So it wasn't too good just to stand out there and do nothing, so.
You're full of energy and and wanted to do something that would keep us warm. And so we had a game that we called the Gauntlet. You run the Gauntlet.
Or two rows of boys lined up and one poor fellow was to run through and they took their belts off and their coats and their hats and they get a chance to hit you. You went running through there as fast as you could and try to get to the other end without.
Catastrophe.
And I remember.
The guy that was to run through there and I kind of sized up those two lines and find out where my friends were in that line so that I could brush over close against them that miss what was coming from the left side and swing over and so on. Well, you get through, get through and you're not interested in a second run.
And so it is in the pathway of the servant is like the gauntlet.
For an example.
It says as unknown, well known.
Think that Mister Darby has that on his tombstone. Unknown, well known.
Honor dishonor.
Talking about the same person, but some are willing to honor others.
Dishonor.
Evil Report.
Good report.
The contrast.
And that's the kind of path we run.
And we come to those intersections where we say.
All right, is this really worth it?
Is this really worth it to take this abuse because we're so sensitive to abuse that it was all OK? Why? Sure, we would be glad to run that, run the path, but it's not that night for any of us.
And what is it that tells us tonight to keep going?
In Love Unsane.
Oh, that makes love such a powerful thing.
What we won't do for the sake of love.
To run that second mile.
To accept inconveniences.
To accept this honor without retaliation.
I'm sure you've gone to your home, perhaps heated over a situation.
Figuring out how you can take care of this situation.
And we find it a waste of time, don't we?
I remember speaking to an old sister about.
Pretty deep grievance that I had in my heart.
And I kind of hide her as probably would be a little sympathetic with me.
Trying to try to put a Band-Aid or something on.
And this is what she said to me.
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She said call me by name, she said Ron.
You know.
It's a happy path to walk with an unoffended spirit.
I looked at her.
Wow, I didn't expect her to say something like that.
But again, those words just branded their way into my soul.
Walk with an unoffended spirit.
How can we do that?
My love unfeigned.
Well, I see our time is gone.
What I was thinking of love and faith and respect. If we were to ask the question what is the love chapter in our Bibles?
Probably all say in unison. It's the 13th to 1St Corinthians, the love chapter.
And in that chapter of love, we find just this point. I'll leave with you tonight. Maybe you've noticed it before, but there are eight things that love does in that chapter, and there are exactly 8 things that love does not do.
If we were to ask the question, well, if we.
Wanted to turn to the faith chapter.
Where do we turn in this precious book? Probably all say Hebrews 11.
There in that chapter, we have faith 25 times the word faith 25 times.
I'd like to ask you this question tonight. What is the opposite of faith?
What is the opposite of faith?
I know there's more than.
One way to say this.
But I'd like to just say the opposite of faith is pride.
Pretty weighty, isn't it?
Only by pride cometh contention. What a check to my soul. Here's a thing about to rise up and make trouble. And I say.
Is pride behind this?
You know it checks my soul.
And if pride is judged, it's the end of contention.
But a little acrostic of pride is this.
5 letters, middle letters, I both words.
Pursuing riches.
I decide everything.
I don't think that needs any explanation.
The beautiful contrast is.
Forsaking all.
I take him.
Well.
May the Lord give us to be more than conquerors as we have a few more moments in our Christian pathway and then it'll end in glory.
To be strengthened through the Word of God.
We sang of love at the beginning of this meeting. Love divine, all praise excelling.
About faith in the 161St kin.
161.
Forever with the Lord on them. So let it be.
Life from the dead is, in that word, is immortality.
And then in verse three, our Father's home on high.
Home to our souls out there.
In Now to face transpiercing eye, Thy golden gates appear, Let's sing from stanza 3 to the end of the hymn.
Our father's home.
Alone.
Oh dear Lord.
Now will they crystal?
Our closing.
Prostate.
Heart of all my life.
How big?
Are you?
Lord, keep her no peace.