Open—David So
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 have a little bit.
Different burdens, as if it were.
I was thinking we saying that him.
In the beginning of this meeting, I'm just going to quote a couple of lines as a reminder. That was him 225.
Attach What struck my heart was this phrase mid scenes of confusion.
And creature complaints.
Now we're often seeing.
And perhaps I shouldn't use the what we I know for myself. Often we sing many hymns without looking at the words or understanding the words. Here the hymn writer Pandy's words mid scenes of confusion. Are we in a scene of confusion?
And to make matter words and creature complaints.
Is that us? Is that me?
And the third stanza start off by saying.
While here, not anywhere else here, while here in the valley of conflict, we stay.
Does that appears to be?
The circumstances before us I'd like to turn to.
Luke chapter one just read a short portion. This is this is a ver very well known story and I trust that through the Lord's health perhaps we can glean some encouragement from it. The Gospel of Luke, chapter one beginning.
Umm, at verse 5, Luke chapter one, verse five, there was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea.
A certain priest named Zachariah.
Of the cores of Abia and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. Now let's just stop there.
And take a look at the conditions.
That they were in and that in those states.
This is roughly.
Six months before our Lord was born.
So that was quite a while ago. Now let's go back a little bit. Even before the book of Luke.
It would be the book of Malachi.
We know the conditions in the day of Malachi, don't we? Terrible conditions.
Man Israelites.
Have forsaken God. They had the outward form of worship.
They will go and offer sacrifices, but not what God desired.
You know, we go all the way back to history and we saw Abel.
And KE we know that often within slew his brother Abel. But why?
I believe it was because he knew that Abel's offer a sacrifice. Not just a sacrifice, but a sacrifice acceptable to God.
Do we offer any sacrifices that are acceptable to God?
We find in the book of Hebrews it tells us that we now can offer the sacrifice of praise continually. Can we?
Now let me not digress too far from that.
What came to my attention is that the days just before our blessed Lord Jesus came into this world, His first coming in another word.
It's very similar to a second coming that's.
What I really have my heart. We are sitting here, we say one to another. The Lord's coming is so ever near, do we not?
What are the conditions like that we the days that we are in?
Our brother prayed in re regard to the Internet. I trust that what he meant is the wickedness that can come to the Internet.
00:05:08
Wickedness was always abound.
You know, when we were younger, there was no Internet, right? Didn't even have cell phones. I know some of you will look at us and say, how did you ever survive? No Facebook neither.
With a wickedness abound. Oh yes, in our days you walk into a corner store to buy candies and they would have a rack. 4 magazines that are filthy.
Satan is always there. Try to take man's heart away from heavenly things.
But one thing we have to remember is that the Lord always reserved for himself a testimony, regardless of how dark the conditions are or less. Something that's interesting too is the darker the time, the brighter the testimony. So don't just say the little things that we can do for the Lord doesn't matter.
I don't know how many of you have been in a very, very dark room.
So dark that you can't see the fingers in front of your face. Perhaps you do photography in a room called the darkroom where no light comes in. Perhaps some of you being visited caves where they take you away underground. I see some head noddings and often they will show you by telling you turn your lights off and darkness can be felt. And I remember war in one. All this man did was he lit a match.
That's all.
As that match was lit, that little bit of light from that match lit up the whole room. The darker the time, the brighter the testimony.
There's also the outward testimony in the day of Malachi, the offer of sacrifices. And today we'll say we'll go to church, we'll go to meeting.
Why are you here? Why do you come on lunch day morning?
Are you here because of your friends? Are you here because outward appearance?
Let me share with you this.
The OfferUp lanes and sick, you say? Well, we don't do that today. I'm not very well versed with the city Of Montreal, but I'm quite sure you have Chinese restaurants here. You do, right? Yeah, I know we have lots in Toronto area. You know, a lot of Chinese are superstitious. If you look carefully, they probably have a tiny shrine with their gods in it.
And there to offer incense and fresh fruit and meat. And you know, if you look at it carefully.
They'll say we're, we're too busy for that. So the little incense, by the way, I'm not saying that's right. I'm saying this is man's heart. You see it. Incense has been replaced by little yellow tube with an LED bulb at the end. So it looks like incense that's burning. That's convenient, isn't it? The fresh fruit supposedly got beautiful plastic apples and oranges that look fresh. Is that the heart of man? Is that our heart that want to put on the outward appearance?
And wholly in the meantime, we forsake the God that we ought to follow, the Savior whom we were presented, the One who loved us, the One who died for us.
There was there were 400 years that God did not even speak to Israel. Then come the New Testament time.
This is how dark the time they were. But yet for your encouragement, the verses we just read is that something very special, in this case about two people. First of all, it was the man named Zachariah. There was something special about him. He was from a priestly household.
And you know, as I look across the room, I don't know everybody. I know a lot of you.
And I would have to say many of you have a very godly heritage. Your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents seek to raise you up before God.
Yes, I do know many who are saved in the later eight years, and we know God our blessed Savior does wondrous works to raise you up for His glory too. But here, Zachariah, please leave from the priestly order. In fact, is so specific it tells us which course.
00:10:05
Of the priest heard he's in.
He's from the priesthood of Apia now. There were 24 courses of priesthood that David has set up so they can take turns serving in the temple.
If you look at Ezra, the time when they return back, I believe only is it 4 courses that came back. A lot of them didn't come back to work. The work was short and needed to be filled by many others. And then his wife, she too, she was the daughters of Aaron. Oh, you know, as I read this passage, I think of many of you.
I think many of you who was raised in a godly home.
With your parents praying.
That you would be raised to serve the Lord.
Now there's something very interesting. Not only were they from the godly home and we know we are friends and sometimes ourselves too, that are raised in a godly home, get distracted and become worldly. Can we? But let me read that verse again, verse six. There are two words in here that really caught my attention and there is an A phrase, 2 words in a phrase and they were both.
Righteous.
Do we talk and use this word much today to be righteous, not just to be righteous, but righteous before God. You know, we find sometimes politicians, they talk and they try to give the impression they are righteous, but are they really righteous, righteous before God?
And here's a phrase of action walking in all the commandments.
And ordinances of the Lord. Can we say that I do know, many of us know what those ordinances and commandments of the Lord should be?
Many of us can quote versus well.
But do we walk in the good of it, especially when we find there's partly others outside of our circle even believe in righteousness?
Uh, we're walking.
Before God.
And then there's one more word we didn't end the sentence with.
Blameless.
Not only were they righteous.
They were blameless. How precious to think, these two.
Let's go on.
Verse seven. And they had no child because Elizabeth was barren. And they were they both were now well stricken in years.
As a Jew of old, having children is a sign of blessing before God.
They were, in a sense, despised by their friends. No children, not a single child. And they're old in scriptures, often old man.
Seeks of weakness, doesn't it? We see young men often mention the sticks of energy, but more so fleshly energy. So these two, we can look at them and say they were righteous, they were blameless before God, walking before God, but they were despised by their own people.
And there is no outward strength to display to a world who perhaps are looking for something more in the outward form.
I'm gonna skip the following few verses. I'm just gonna comment on it the that.
Zachariah was performing his priestly duty, and his job at this point was to OfferUp incense. Let's jump down to verse 11. And there appear unto him an Angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the Angel said unto him.
Fear, nod, Zechariah, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.
And thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth.
For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb.
00:15:12
Verse 17 And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
What a wonderful thing that Zachariah saw the Angel Gabriel, the same one who went and spoke with Daniel and showed him what's to come in the future. The same one said you're going to have a son.
It's gonna be great.
John, we know, is the forerunner. It's interesting. We won't turn to that. In the book of Isaiah, the 40th chapter, it says there's gonna be a voice coming out from the wilderness. He's the one that's gonna be crying out. It's interesting that you'll find a 39 books in the Old Testament. The 40th book, in essence begins the New Testament and there is a voice crying out from the wilderness.
Here is one that God's not choosing him to be a Nazareth from the very beginning to serve him.
And his job is to go out there and proclaim the good news that the Savior is coming. The way is he to proclaim the good news should be in the synagogue where the Jews are, should be in the street of Jerusalem.
No, we find John's ministry was in the wilderness.
His own people rejected that message, just like it would be today when we proclaim Christ as the Savior for sinners the world will reject. So John. John and Zechariah was told of him, of that wonderful son he shall have.
Verse 18 And Zechariah said unto the Angel, whereby.
Shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife.
Well stricken in years.
Here comes a big problem.
How often we like Zachariah, we pray.
We just had a prayer meeting this morning.
We said we will commit our time, our awe, into the Lord's hand before we begin.
Rayleigh saw.
And many attended the prayer meeting and many have added the Amen to the prayer that went up before the Lord.
And we should. Shouldn't we pray?
But sometimes we know we pray is for us. So when the Lord taught his disciples how to pray, he told them.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Do we remember that when we pray that we actually should pray that His will be done? The second thing back to this chapter would be this. Do we expect or do we believe that we ask of it? We are to receive it if it is the Lord's will.
We find Zachariah and his wife been praying for a child even though they are old. They pray that means they believe God is able to overcome human weaknesses.
Because the Angel said your prayer has been answered.
How many of us pray, perhaps earnestly?
And when the prayer is answered.
We didn't believe in it.
Oh, it's sad. I look at my own hearts more so than anyone else that do. We have the full confidence that the Lord is able.
Despite what we see, he is an old man how we see our father a child. Here is an old lady pastor age of bearing children. But yet they should know, just like we should from scriptures, that God is able. They had the story, I'm sure of Sarah and Abraham before them.
I'm sure they knew that. We learned in the Book of Hebrews that Sarah made this to that list.
For people, didn't she? She had the faith that even though she was old, she had the faith that God would help her carry that child to be that seed.
00:20:09
Here, Zachariah doubted. He doubted. How could it be so, Lord, when I'm old and she's old too?
Verse Verse 19 And the Angel answering, said unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings.
Wow. Where is the power coming from? The one who was sent by God? The one who is before God's presence?
I take it as saying to him say why are you doubting when the power is so great from above? But yet we see Zacharias response and you know sometimes he will say how quickly.
But I think we have to look at it and say, if I was Aquarius, I would probably say the same thing. We're not. Oh, ye of little faith. Verse 20 envy whole thou shalt be done and not able to speak until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believe us not my word, which shall be fulfilled in this season.
How sad. He is a man of God, the one who is righteous, the one who is blameless, the one who walked before God. But unbelieve sets it. And when we go through scriptures we find unbelief often is the source of all our problem.
Why did Adam and Eve ate of the fruit that they were told not to?
We can boil it down to unbelief. They didn't believe what God said is true unbelief. Now I have to be very careful how I make the next comment.
We see through scriptures often the result of unbelief.
We became dumb.
We can't speak.
And please don't think I'm looking at anyone pointing my finger at anyone.
Men like Zachariah, who served the Lord his whole life.
For a short moment, because of unbelief, he was made-up.
Let me digress.
Why are only so few of us willing to take part?
But yet so many of us have the answer of perhaps a better way to express something.
I, I'll share with you this, I never, I didn't take a lot of parts in my younger age. And I remember perhaps I was probably 4045 by then and I was like many others, I'd like to correct people and say, so I went up to Brother Bob Baumann. Some of you still remember him. And I said, brother Bob, you, you, you know, you should have said this and that.
And brother Bob Bowman was so gracious, he looked at me with a smile. And he says, brother, you could have said that, too.
And that touched my heart greatly.
Yes, often when one stand up to speak, we may not, the words may not come out the way it ought to. And I find for people like me, the more I try to correct it, the deeper I dig myself in the hole. So we are better off to leave it as from the Lord. So some might have to write along speech or paper to follow on. Well that's how the Lord leads you into doing so.
Do some. I try writing some notes at one time and I found out I came with my own handwriting, so that's not good, but we need to be.
Listening to the Lord that is there a message to be delivered by him, but.
Brethren, we have to remember this dumbness affect us, this unbelief often said it. But you know, the nice thing is it's not a permanent condition, is it? But that won't take more time. I want to leave the other half hour for others, but let me just make a few more remarks on that. Zechariah. We find that when John was born, they asked what should his name be, and Elizabeth said John and his family said no.
00:25:02
It shouldn't be.
And Zachariah rode the moment he confessed, the moment he declared what God really wanted him to say in the 1St place, his mouth was opened. He can use anyone of us, even though it was stammering, whispering tongue. But here, back to the original thought. These were the day before the Lord came into the world.
Weakness abound. Who did the Lord choose as testimony for himself?
We just finished talking about Elizabeth and Zachariah. The one even doubted the words.
Weakness, people with weakness we find a little later. We won't turn to that right now. There was this older lady named Anna who served in the temple. The way I interpret that is nobody know who she is, just some old lady. What testimony is that? And here's another.
Old man named Simeon that he think he saw a vision that the Lord won't take him home until he see the Lord's Christ.
Who else?
Mary and Joseph, not our people, are renowned from Galilee.
As they say, there's no good thing came out from Galilee and perhaps a few shepherds. That was the testimony. But we know from the word of God all He needs are two or three witnesses for His testimony, because He does not need men to proclaim His greatness.
He turned weakness into strength. You know, in the Gospel we said it's not of works lest any man should boast. It's the same with the Word of God. It's not of words. We can go out there and say I did this and I did that. In fact, when we see the phrase I is used repeatedly in the sentence, we need to worry.
So here the days of the Lord when He first came.
It was darkness all around. What about today? Darkness all around? What about testimony? Not very bright, is it? To sum up us, perhaps in a very feeble way, you know, some would say, Well, you can stand up and preach.
This is easy, brethren.
Is the brethren that go one-on-one onto the street corners, seeking the loss, seeking to them to present Christ?
The Lord give us all different sets of abilities and gifts to serve Him. You know, I said to someone jokingly one day. I said speaking in front of a crowd is the easiest because the more people in the crowd, the lesser chance someone will say what do you mean by that? And question you part way. But when you're there on one-on-one, you need to be prepared to give the right answer as God would have for you.
The encouragement, the testimony that we give to this world.
This world is not waiting for the Lord to come. Where is the second coming of the Lord? But let me change that statement. What about your heart, dear brethren?
Never mind about the world.
This world is gonna pass away into eternal judgment. Where is your heart?
You know, I'm going to take the liberty for a couple more minutes.
This has been a great exercise in my heart. There is just something as you get a little bit older, it seems that you go to more funerals. You seems to.
Take on more of other people's burdens. I don't know what it is. And we often our natural desire is Lord, this brother or this sister is sick or he is the circumstance before them. That's terrible.
Please help them and get them out of it.
But there's more and more. I meditate on that.
Is that the right prayer? It's good that we pray one for another, but are we praying that is the Lord's will be done? Now then there's a second part of this thought. We say our home is up there.
How many of us still long to be here?
Is it because your new car is coming next week that you wanna make sure at least you drive it around the block before the Lord can come?
00:30:09
Is there a new iPhone coming that your parents gonna buy you? And you said it's coming next week because it's the latest, greatest model. I want to wait, at least touch it and feel it.
Or do we truly say that?
Our home now I'll be cheerful. Not in heaven. It's where the Lord is. Do we long to be with Him? And if so?
Whether we live here in this earth or we are home with the Lord, does it really matter? We do know He leave us here for reason that is deserved for Him. So I'm just going to read that hymn that I quoted. I won't sing it for you. I'll read it. That hymn 225.
Let's see if that touched our heart a little bit deeper.
Mid scenes of confusion.
And creatures complaints. How sweet to the soul is communion with things to find at the banquet of mercy? There's room to feel in communion.
A forte's of homes.