Address—Bill Prost
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Could we begin by singing together Hymn 274?
274 Oh, Lord, thy rich, thy boundless love. No thought can reach, no tongue declare, and so on.
I've always enjoyed who wrote hymns. This hymn you'll notice in the back, little boy. Now it's double s or nothing. Thank you very much.
This hymn was written, if you look in the back, by a man by the name of Paul Gerhart, who lived in Germany back in the 1600s. And life was tough in those days because the Reformation was just beginning to have its effect.
And true Christianity and the true Gospel was not popular.
And so he had to learn the hard way what it cost to follow Christ.
And one day with he was a man with a young family and a wife and children. And one day he was ordered by the government in his area of Germany just to get out. I don't want you here.
And he had to go out of the area with nothing but the clothes on his back and what they could manage to carry. And he had a rough day.
That night he got to an inn. His wife was tired, his children were crying.
He really got a little bit discouraged.
But while his wife was putting the children to bed and he was kind of asking the Lord what to do, he went out into the.
Garden there to be alone with the Lord. And I don't know that this was the hymn that he wrote at that time, but he wrote a hymn at that time and I'm not sure which one it was. Later on his wife came out and he tried to comfort her. He said don't worry, the Lord's going to look after us.
Well, they went to bed, went to sleep in the middle of the night, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang on. The indoor innkeeper got up and went to the door. And what's wrong? Who do you? Who are you? What do you want at 3:00 in the morning? Said I want Paul Gerhart.
Well, he sound asleep in bed. I don't care, get him up.
So Paul Gerhart roused himself, and of course, thinking it was going to be the worst, that more trouble and difficulty was going to await him. But it was just the opposite.
Another ruler in another part of Germany had heard what had happened.
And he sent this messenger, he said get ahold of that man, whatever you do, and tell him that if you'll come to where we live, to my section of Germany, I'll give him a house and I'll make sure he's well looked after as long as he'll preach the gospel.
And that was the story of the rest of his life. He preached the gospel. I don't think he lived to be that an old man. I forget now how old he lived to be, but this is one of the hymns he wrote from experience.
274.
Oh, Lord, thy re.
Ed.
S next time.
Let's ask the Lord's help. Our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for the precious words of this hymn, written so long ago by one who experienced many of the trials and difficulties of the Christian pathway. And now, our God, we look up to Thee this afternoon.
In very different circumstances and yet needing.
God, the same grace, the same help, the same guidance as did Paul Gerhard and those of his age.
And we look up to the particularly for the beloved young people here for whom this meeting is especially designated. And we ask our God for help that they especially may be encouraged with what we have before us this afternoon.
But we do not leave out others our God, for we know that we all need grace and help.
And above all thy strength, Lord Jesus, in these last days.
So we commend ourselves to the now and pray for Thy help, looking to the independence and asking all Lord Jesus, in Thy precious and worthy name, Amen.
Well, this is a meeting for young people.
And whenever I'm asked to have a meeting for young people.
I'm always, if I can be quite blunt about it, a bit concerned.
Because so many things have changed since I was a young person.
And you young people know that just as well or better than I do. For those of us that went through life a while ago and grew up in a very different age, sometimes find it very hard to understand and realize the difficulties and the problems that you young people are experiencing today. And usually I try to get down to that level as much as I can and to understand.
And what you're going through?
I trust it's of the Lord, but I'm going to do something a little different today.
You'll get a smile out of this, but I'm going to act like what I am, an old man.
Is that all right?
Because what older ones have?
That others don't have is experience. When I was young, I always appreciated an older brother who spoke to us either in a young people's meeting or a reading meeting and told of some of the things that he had had to learn and some of the struggles that he had gone through in order to go through the Christian pathway.
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And have some of the truths of the Word of God hit home?
I'd like to do some of that this afternoon if that's OK. And there are a number of things that I have on my heart this afternoon that I'd like to share with you and maybe an experience or two, although I don't want to talk about myself, but at the same time, sometimes it's helpful.
So let's turn first of all to where we were in our reading meeting, but one chapter further on Matthew chapter 6.
And here we'll find the first thing that I'd like to emphasize.
To you, dear young people.
And the reason I emphasize it is, and it's to do with all of those things we're going to talk about.
I don't pretend to have learned them the way I should, but many of them I think I can honestly say I have learned to a degree. And as you may guess, some of them I had to learn the hard way.
I remember my mother telling me once when I was young, she said experience is a hard teacher, but is it ever a good one?
She was right.
And so we'll read there in Genesis, sorry, Matthew, chapter 6, verse 31.
Therefore take no thought saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek? For your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Here's the verse.
But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
And all these things shall be added unto you.
You young people haven't had an easy time of it the last few years, and believe me.
Many of us, including myself, have earnestly prayed for you.
And we continue to pray because you were growing up in a much different world than some of us had to grow up in. And I won't start talking about what so many older people talk about the good old days, because that's that gets pretty boring after a while.
But you are having a much rougher time than some of us had and it is not easy. Many young couples today are finding it extremely difficult to own a home. That wasn't a big problem when I was young. Many of you have had your education interrupted by COVID and other circumstances. You have perhaps had your careers interrupted.
Some people, and I have high respect for them.
Have not felt free to take the COVID vaccine and as a result have been denied travelling privileges and sometimes jobs in certain areas.
It has not been easy for you.
But what is so good is that this verse holds true for all time.
And I have found it to be true in my own life.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Now, does that mean that God is going to give us everything we want? No, it does not.
Does that mean that God is going to give me the kind of lifestyle that a lot of other people have? No, it does not. But what it does mean is this, and this is what's important if you set out in your life to put the Lord first.
You will never be the loser, even in temporal things. That is blessedly true.
I have seen those in my day who felt that they had to give up some of the things of the Lord in order to get an education to have the career they wanted. And I don't mind mentioning that I knew a medical doctor.
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And I won't mention his name because some of you might know who I'm talking about. He was a very, very clever doctor, and I knew him fairly well. But at one point I had an opportunity to spend some time with him and it became very clear that medicine was his mistress, if I could use the term.
But he knew very little about divine things, and I'm not pointing the finger at him because he knew everything about medicine. Very, very clever.
Remember once when I was in practice and I had a sticky problem, I called him up once and in 5 minutes on the phone he settled the whole problem for me and told me what to do. Amazing.
What is going to count for all eternity?
Whether someone was good in his or her career. Now don't get me wrong.
We should be the very best that we can be in our careers.
But I have also known those.
Who put the Lord 1St? And they knew far more about divine things than they knew about their own career.
And yet they were still exemplary in what they did.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Give the Lord the first place in your life.
And you will never be the loser, even in this life down here.
You will find that the Lord will bless you in a way that you never could have realized.
And make provision for you in a way that you never could have thought of.
One time when I was in medical school.
Again, this is a personal note.
And an exam was coming up.
And there was a very tragic car accident in the United States.
And I knew the individuals involved and I badly wanted to go to the funeral.
And the Lord seemed to say, Go.
Lord, what am I going to do about that exam that I'm going to miss? You go. I'll look after that.
I missed the exam.
When I got home I went and told the Prof I said I had to miss the exam because of an important funeral. What can I do to make it up?
Oh, he said. Really what happened? I told him about the accident and how four people had been killed instantly in it. That I knew.
Oh, he said really. Well, he said don't worry about it. He said. We'll just sit you down here and we'll just conduct a brief oral exam to see if you know your stuff.
Well, you know, you can't fake it on an oral exam. They they'll get you, you. It becomes very evident whether you know your stuff or not. But he gave me a quiz and thankfully I was able to answer the question. He said that's OK, don't worry, you're all right. The Lord looked after it very easy way.
And I don't say that in a boastful way, I just say it give the Lord the 1St place. Because true Christianity is not about you and me, it's about Christ.
Let's go on.
#2 And we're going to have to go through these a little bit quickly because we only have an hour.
#2 That I would really like to stress, and I stress it mostly because it is one that.
I confess to you I have probably found.
It's at least one of the hardest that I had to learn, if not the hardest.
To go back many years ago.
Long before my time or the time of anyone else here.
Well over 150 years ago, there was an older brother gathered to the Lord's name who had a lot of experience and was very well taught in the word as well. And some will recognize the source of what I'm going to say. But a younger brother who is just starting out on the Christian pathway came up to him and engaged him in conversation and among other things he said to him.
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Pardon me.
Do you have any advice for a young man that is just starting out on the Christian pathway?
And the brother's reply was very brief and to the point.
He said learn well 4 words.
The flesh profiteth nothing.
Let's turn to that verse. It's in John's Gospel, chapter 6.
John's Gospel, chapter 6.
And here the Lord Jesus is speaking.
And in verse 63 he says John 6 and 63.
It is the spirit that quickeneth the flesh.
Profiteth nothing the words that I speak unto you. They are spirit and they are life.
We had it before us this morning.
That God's wisdom is not an improvement on man's wisdom, because that would imply that there was something good in man that could somehow be improved upon and as we might say, fanned into a flame that could do something pleasing to God, and it does not work.
And those of us that are saved have in one sense realize that otherwise we wouldn't be saved, because how did we get saved? We had to be brought to the end of ourselves, didn't we? We had to realize that we could do nothing to save ourselves. We had to realize that it was all of grace. We had to realize that in the eyes of God.
All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We had to realize that only by the finished work of Christ.
And the precious blood of Christ, could we be saved?
We know that, perhaps.
In a simple way.
But if we are not careful.
We bring with us certain things that are part of our character, part of our natural makeup, may be part of our genetics.
That are very hard to let go.
And I had that experience. And sometimes the Lord allows something in your life and mind and in our makeup to go on for a period of time.
But then there will come a point in your life, young people, when the Lord will lay his finger on that thing and say.
It's time to judge and deal with that.
And then you and I can do one of two things. We can say yes, Lord.
Yes, Lord.
Or we can get her back up and say, but I'm all right and that characteristic is OK and it's useful at some time and some places.
And so we don't deal with it.
Or we start blaming circumstances or blaming other people and all the rest of it.
And what we do by doing that is we really put the cap on our spiritual growth.
And maybe that goes on for a while until finally the Lord gets through to us. And sometimes the Lord has to put us through an awful experience in order to make us realize what we are capable of. One of our good writers back in the 1800s expressed it well. I think it might have been FG Patterson, but I'm not sure.
He said sometimes in order to get us to judge sin in our lives as Christians now.
Not as unbelievers, of course. The Lord has to, as it were, take us by the collar and hold us dangling over a Cliff to let us see where we're headed if we do not deal with that sinful tendency. And yet we may not see it as sinful.
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I remember a story told by my late father-in-law, Albert Hayhoe.
This was many years ago and I have absolutely no idea.
Who the brother was who was involved?
But he was visiting in a city somewhere in North America, and a brother had invited him out for lunch.
But the brother was in business, so Albert went down to his place of business at lunchtime and at the agreed upon time, perhaps 12 noon, he turned up ready to go out for lunch. Well, the brother in question was engaged in conversation with a business associate or from someone there in his office. So his secretary told Mr. Hey, oh, you just just have a seat here. He'll be with you in a couple of minutes.
And Albert told me afterward how that he could not help but overhear the conversation as it went on in the adjoining office. And there were some high words on both sides, and some strong expressions, and some things said in a way that were rather unbecoming for a Christian.
Needless to say, when the brother came out and saw Albert sitting there and realized that he had overheard the conversation, was somewhat embarrassed, but he covered it all up by saying, well, you know, Brother Albert, Christianity is one thing, but business is business, isn't it?
Was that right?
No, no.
The brother thought that's the way you had to deal in business. Somebody's rough with you, you rough them up back.
We have to learn that the flesh profiteth nothing.
Well, let's go on one other thing.
And I freely confess, this was something else that I had to learn the hard way.
Is dependence dependence.
To have a verse for that, let's turn to First Peter, chapter 5.
I.
First Peter, chapter 5.
And verse 7.
Casting all your care upon him.
For he careth for you.
Now that's one side of it, but then to see another side of it, turn back to John's Gospel Chapter 15.
And I know we're jumping around a bit with scriptures, but there's no other way to do it. John 15.
And right at the end of verse 5.
For without me.
Ye can do nothing.
Nothing. Nothing.
This is especially important for us to remember when we're young because when we're young we have energy and more power to it. I've always loved being among young people because I enjoy their enthusiasm and their energy and what they can do and accomplish.
And I still marvel at it, especially in the technological field today, the way young people can do things so easily and so quickly.
I'm old enough to have grandchildren that are in their 20s and it just amazes me what they can do in modern day with things that I just well I don't mean to make a pun out of it, but they try to teach me how to text and I finally tease them. I said I'm just all thumbs when it comes to doing this, meaning I'm awkward at it.
When we're young, especially if we're in good health and everything is going for us, we think we can go out there and look after ourselves.
And ultimately that energy is good. Nothing wrong with it. I'm not speaking against it, but we have to learn even when we're young. Without me, ye can do nothing.
It's a very hard thing to learn sometimes, and I've really confess that I had a hard time learning it.
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The story was on my heart before I got up here, and I very much hesitated to tell it.
Because it could be taken the wrong way.
But I'll tell it anyway.
When I was in medical school in pre Med second year.
I had to take a course in psychology, a whole year's worth of it.
And I hated it.
I couldn't get interested in it. I didn't like it and I thought, well, come on, Bill, you can lick this course. Just work hard at it and you can do it.
And I just couldn't seem to do it.
And I was just barely passing all year long.
I don't know if you've ever had that experience any of you. This is a true story.
Toward the middle of the year, the professor said, I'm willing to give six extra marks on the final exam out of 100 to anybody that will volunteer for an experiment.
And it will be a simple one, just involving helping one of my graduate students who is working on a doctorate in psychology.
With an experiment which is very simple and it will mean one hour for three nights.
And.
Or two hours rather, each night for three nights for a total of 6 hours. And you'll get 6 extra marks on the final exam. Well, I thought, I don't know, every little bit helps. I can do that, so I volunteered.
And it involved looking in an apparatus that had lights in it and could flash across a screen a word only for a split second and to see whether you could recognize it or not. And sometimes you knew that it was one of 10 words, and sometimes you didn't know what kind of a word it was going to be.
But all fairly simple English words.
And I did fairly well at it.
But on about the third night, as we were halfway through it, all of a sudden there was a **** and the whole apparatus went down and the lights all went out in it.
Well, the woman who was administering this and who was working on her doctor was in her late 20s, I would suppose I was about 18 or 19 at the time. And she was literally panic stricken. Oh, my experiment. It's all just going to go down the tube. This is terrible and it's probably lost all my data in it. And so on and on and on she went.
Well, I said just a minute, let's wait and see.
Maybe it's not as bad as we think. Having grown up on a farm, I was roughly familiar with a few bits of electricity. So I pulled her apparatus to pieces and found out that it was nothing more than a bulb that had burned out. But it was a rather unusual bulb. She said, well, where are we going to get that in the evening? I said, that's probably not hard. We'll go out and get in my car. And there's a big lighting store about a couple miles away here in downtown Toronto.
Have the bulbs for. Down we went. Sure enough, they had. The bulb came back, I put the apparatus back together, she flipped the switch and low everything was back to normal.
As you can well imagine, she was so grateful.
I know what you're going to. You're already anticipating the end of the story at the end of the experiment. I kind of grinned at her, and I was honestly joking. I said, well, now does this get me a pass in psychology?
You know, to my surprise, instead of joking, she turned immediately sober. And she said, oh, really? You're not doing very well. I said no. I said I just can't get interested in this stuff, and I'm working hard at it, but I'm just barely passing.
I said I want to be a doctor, not a psychologist.
Oh oh.
Well, I can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do.
The final exam was an absolute nightmare. Hopelessly long, hopelessly hard. I saw some of my classmates who were good students tearing their hair out and going berserk in the exam room. I had an awful time with it myself, and when I handed in my paper I thought, well, there it goes. I'm going to be writing a supplemental exam in August for this.
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When the grades came out.
People that had A's and B's all year long went down to C's. People that had B's and C's all year long wrote supplemental exams.
And I ended up with AB.
Did she have something to do with it? I had no idea.
Dependence.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should try and cut corners on our courses and pass it by doing things on the side and getting someone to pull strings for us. I'm not saying that at all. All I'm saying is learn to trust the Lord in every circumstance, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you and it works.
Let's go on now.
There's something else that we need to learn.
And this is more on the opposite side of things, more for the heart than for the conscience.
And to see that, let's go back. Well, we're right here in John 15. It's right in this same chapter.
John 15, verse 9.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love.
Earlier in the reading meeting, some of us, at least I was mentioning.
Our late brother, Harry Hajo. I say our late brother, he's been gone more than 60 years, so you have to be old to remember him. But at the lunch hour, I overheard another brother quoting him. He was old enough to remember him, too.
And he used to tell us, memorize this verse and say it over to yourself every day of your life.
I can't say that I've done that, but I've done it frequently, maybe not every day.
Why is it so important?
Because the love of God is something that never changes.
God's ways witheth may change. His ways may change.
We were talking about the government of God this morning and this afternoon too, and God's government in your life and mind doesn't always, how shall I put it, seem very pleasant.
God's ways with us may have to change, but never His love.
And sometimes when we have failed, sometimes when things have happened between US and the Lord that put a distance between us, perhaps we doubt the Lord's love. Never do that.
Whenever we have to do with the Lord, we have to do with love. And even if you have failed, and we'll talk about this a little more in a few minutes, but even if you have failed.
If you come to the Lord in honesty and uprightness, He will always meet you where you are in love.
But here's the key, and we'll talk about this more later on. We have to admit where we are. We can't pretend with the Lord. I can't come to the Lord and pretend to be what I'm not. That won't work. I may be able to, excuse me, I may be able to fool other people. I may be able to fool even my brethren, but I can't fool the Lord.
I have to admit where I am, I have to admit my failure, but then when I come to the Lord, I have always to do with love.
But.
Suppose that I haven't particularly failed. Suppose that I haven't particularly put a distance between myself and the Lord.
Do I allow?
The cares of this life and things in this world to disturb that enjoyment of God's love for me.
God wants you and me to go out into this world, to earn our living, to witness for Him.
With and here's how I even enjoyed it, with that warm blanket of the Lord's love wrapped around you all the time.
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He wants us to enjoy His love.
Do we love the Lord? Yes, we do. But Scripture never occupies us with His love or with our love for Him. It mentions it, but it's always based on His love for us. And so we should never try and love the Lord any more than we do. Rather, just think of how much He loves you.
And so here the Lord says those wonderful words. It's almost more than we can understand.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.
The same love that God the Father has for His beloved Son.
Is the love that the Lord Jesus has for you and for me.
Well, you say, I know that. I know that God loved the world and sent his Son.
I know, John 316.
Blessedly true, but here it says, Continue ye in my love, continue ye in my love. How precious indeed that is, and we so easily forget it in the.
General Millet of circumstances that we have to go through and it is a difficult world we live in, very difficult because we process, we process so much information.
I read some time ago that the average individual in business in the United States of America, and it's probably much the same in Canada too, the average individual in business.
In North America.
Probably processes.
As much information in one week.
As the average working man did in a lifetime in the 1800s. Mind boggling, isn't it?
But let's always go out there wrapped in the sunshine of God's love, because that's the only way.
That we can grow about our Christian pathway and have that warmth and love that protects us from everything that's out there in the world.
But then there's something else and that scripture was brought before us this morning, but I want to emphasize it again and to see that turn to second Peter.
Second Peter, chapter 3.
And the last verse, verse 18.
But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.
As was mentioned earlier, I think Brother Bruce Conrad mentioned at Peter's ministry.
Tends to take up the government of God, a very necessary thing, and Peter brings before us in that sense, the House of God, in which responsibility is important, very necessary.
And toward the end of this third chapter, we are given some exhortations.
Seeing ye know these things, seeing ye look for such things, and so on.
What manner of persons are ye to be responsibility?
But how do we get there?
How do we get there in responsibility before the Lord?
Peter, I believe, sums it all up in this last verse.
Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
He goes right back to what he starts off with in the first chapter, and we won't turn to it, that in the knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
We never need anything more than the knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
To be able to go through this world and live for God's glory down here.
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Of course, that knowledge eventually comes through the Word of God, but we don't get it simply by reading the Word of God as if we were studying a textbook.
And again, I speak for myself when we're young, we can sometimes do it that way.
Don't read the book of God simply to *** **** knowledge. Read it as if it were the Lord Himself speaking directly to you from the vantage point of all that He did on Calvary's cross.
If you see an older brother or an older sister that seems to be enjoying the Lord.
And I used to see that when I was young. And I used to think, why? I don't think they ever have had any real problems in their lives. How little did I know?
And if you speak to any older one.
Who really seems to know the Lord?
You will find that they had to go through experiences to bring them to that point.
And they had, above all, to grow in grace.
What does it mean to grow in grace? It means I suggest two things. Number one, that I realize more and more.
Not how bad were all the things that I have done.
But how bad my old sinful self is and how much I've been forgiven?
A believer was once asked, what's 1? What's the worst thing you've ever done in your life?
He said. It's not the things I've done that bother me so much, it's the things that I thought of doing and never carried out.
Not true. Most of us have thought of many worse things than we ever did.
Thank God we didn't do them, but it shows what we are by nature and we realize that more and more as we go on.
But then we realize more and more the price that was paid for our redemption. We realized the grace of God that reached out to us in love and that took our Savior to Calvary's cross, the grace that takes as Him 77 in the appendix says a poor, vile Sinner and brings him or her into his House of wine.
And where are we going to end up?
In the Father's house. Unbelievable. And the more that wonder takes hold of our souls.
The more we grow in grace and the grace of God understood properly.
Is the strongest force to keep us from going into sin wonderful.
Well, there are a couple more things that I wanted to talk about and our time is going so we won't, we won't go on with too many more things here, but.
There are two more that I specifically want to mention.
One thing is I have a hard time keeping them all straight and I want them in the right order.
One thing is.
Take a long term view.
You know, it's hard when we're young to take a long term view.
Because everything looks so bright and so sunny and so good, and we're in good health and this world looks so bright and so nice.
It's not easy to take a long term view.
But you know God lives and moves in eternity, and everything in this world is limited.
By the horizon of time.
And you and I were made for eternity, not for time.
To see that, let's turn to another verse in Second Peter. Here it's found in the.
1St chapter.
And Peter talks about in verse eight, chapter one of second Peter.
The knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But then he says, But he that lacketh these things is blind.
And cannot see afar off.
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And have forgotten that he was purged from his own sins.
What was it that made the unfaithful servant?
Go out and fall into sin. It was saying, My Lord delayeth his coming.
And if you and I don't take a long term view of things.
We are going to fall into sin.
Turn back two to First Timothy. No Second Timothy, chapter one.
Paul says in verse 12.
For the which 'cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed.
For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
What's that day referred to? It refers to the judgment seat of Christ for believers.
It refers to that time when God is going to review your life and mine.
When rewards are going to be handed out.
Is it going to be worth it in that day to have lived for the Lord's glory? Is it going to be worth it to have taken the long term view?
Or are we going to be like those to whom Peter referred?
When he said they cannot see afar off.
If you and I live and move in this world, you find that the horizon of this world's thoughts.
Ends with everything down here.
And when I have spoken to people about that, sometimes they will admit in an outward way that it's true.
But most of the time they just dismiss it.
I have a neighbor whom I know not too well, but reasonably well, and I went down to talk to him for a few minutes several months ago because I knew that his wife had been very sick and he was very glad for me to chat with him. And thankfully his wife was improving and she's back home now.
But I ventured to hand him a gospel tract and to talk to him about the Lord.
Oh, he said. I don't put much, don't put much emphasis on all those things. I don't worry too much about that. I'm not a religious man.
Well, I said, and I addressed him by name because I knew him well on a first name basis. I said, you know, the Scripture says that this world and this life is not the end of everything. And it tells us in the Word of God that it is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment. And I couldn't get any further. He said, I don't believe that. I don't believe that. No, no, no, I don't believe a word of that.
Very sad.
A neighbor I had a number of years ago was just the same. This was back probably 20 years ago. He lived right across the road from me and he was a good neighbor, Very good neighbor.
There were farmland around them and some of his family owned part of it.
And they were very much afraid that it was going to be taken over by some other people in the family. And he told me one day, he said, Bill, I got it all sewed up. Our family's got this property all sewed up. We're going to get it. We're going to get it.
Did he ever get it? No, he didn't. He never got it.
Old age and disease overtook them long before he ever got that property.
Anyone out of this world, I'm sorry to say, as far as I know, without Christ.
He had that property all sewed up.
But eternity he didn't want to think about.
And I could have multiply stories like that and you know them as well as I do, and you've had the experience yourself. But sometimes even as Christians, we don't take a long term view.
We're going to go over another verse in Second Timothy here, but.
The seventh verse of the second chapter, and we'll have it before us later on.
And I'm going to quote it as it is on the Darby translation.
Because it makes more sense that way. Second Epistle of Timothy, chapter 2, verse 7.
Consider what I say and the Lord give the understanding in all things, and then here's the verse.
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And here it is, as it is in the Derby. Remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David.
Raised from the dead according to my gospel.
It wasn't that Paul wanted Timothy to remember the fact of the resurrection.
But to remember that all of the reward.
For a faithful life is going to be in resurrection, and it was so for the Lord Jesus. What did he have when he was crucified?
His own nation had rejected him. The Gentiles took up the theme and abused him.
His own followers for suicom and fled. 1 follower betrayed him, rejected of his life, looked as if it were a total failure.
Where was the reward Resurrection.
You may not see the rewards of faithfulness down here, but take the long term view.
To someone else seem to be getting ahead, even another Christian take the long term view.
Follow the Lord faithfully.
As dawn was bringing out this morning, God always balances the books.
But it may have to be in resurrection.
Now our time is nearly gone. One more thing I want to mention.
And to see that.
First John, chapter one.
First John, chapter one.
Well known verse Verse 9.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And then connect that with another verse in 2nd Corinthians 2.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 2.
And verse.
11.
We'll read verse 10 to get the connection To whom ye forgive anything I forgive also. For if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes, forgave I yet in the person of Christ.
Now here's the verse.
Lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.
The message I want with these verses to give to you is.
Get up again and go on if you fail.
There are no qualifications or restrictions on 1St John 1:00 and 9:00.
If there's true repentance, and I emphasize that, not a glossing over sin, not a making of excuses, not pretending that it wasn't as bad as it was, Oh no, that won't work. But true repentance before the Lord brings full restoration.
Now once again.
God's grace does not abrogate or do away with God's government.
And there may be governmental consequences to sin. If it's serious, that may last.
But get up if you fail and one of Satan's devices.
And I don't mean to limit this 11Th verse to what I'm going to say, but it's one thing that Satan does.
If you fail, if I fail as believers, Satan will whisper in your ear. Look how badly you messed up. Look what you did. You can never walk the Christian walk anymore. You can never do anything for the Lord anymore. You can never be a credit to the Lord anymore. Look at the mess you've made of your life. You better just give it all up and go out into the world and forget about it.
And I have no and dear believers.
Who did that?
Very, very sad.
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Again, I say there are consequences to sin, and sometimes very serious consequences, and sometimes lifelong, but.
As we said earlier, God is always a God of love.
And if I came back to him and approach him?
Fully admitting where I am fully.
Looking to him and telling him where I am, He will meet me there in love and grace. Get up if you fail. And that is something that some of us have had to learn because I have certainly failed and had to realize the failure that went along with that and how serious it was.
But the Lord is willing to lift you up again.
And as one brother put it, and this is one of our old writers back in the 1800s, he said, you know, sometimes a broken vessel is even more useful to the Lord than one that is still in one piece, he said. Because when we have been broken, we learn not to trust ourselves any longer.
That is true because sometimes we tend to fail.
In the very thing that is our strong point, Abraham failed in his faith, Job failed in his patience, and so on. They failed in what was their strong point. But just the same, did the Lord continue to use Abraham? Indeed He did. Did he continue to bless Job? Indeed He did. Why? Because they got to the point where they repented and fully realized their failure.
And you know what is interesting in in Abraham's life is.
That there is never any direct rebuke from the Lord in spite of his failure because Abraham got back into communion with the Lord and that dealt with everything most precious. Well, our time is gone. May the Lord bless these remarks. I know they have been very real and definite, every one of them to my own soul, and I trust they will be to you young people as well.
Let's pray.
Loving God our Father, we look up to Thee this afternoon with thankful hearts for thy love and grace.
And we thank Thee for the way that Thou dost teach us as we walk through this world. Teaching us is in thine own way, and with an individual tuition for each one. And so we pray for all our dear young people, here again we say, who have a very difficult day in which to live. Blessed Lord, for thy glory.
Thy grace, we know, is equal to all that they may find themselves in, and we pray for Thy special help and encouragement for each one, for we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.