Lorneville Conference: 2014
Table of Contents
1 Peter 1:1-6
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166.
I'm thinking of the same that you have, just some.
Lamentations, chapter 3.
Starting at verse 22.
It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning.
Grey is thy faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him.
The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. Shall we pray together?
After our brother read part of this morning in our prayer meeting, first Peter one.
Out of the Brethren field, but.
First Peter chapter one.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout conscious Galatia, Capitacia, Asia and Visaya. He left according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit and obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. And that date is not a way deserved in heaven for you, for kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, the errant heaviness through the manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than a goal that cares just. Though if you try to fire, might be found under praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable.
And full glory receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your soul, of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you.
Searching what for what manner of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, it signified, when it testified beforehand, the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow, and to whom it was revealed.
That not unto themselves, but unto us, they administer the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into.
Where for gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, as obedient children, not fastening yourselves according to the former lust and your ignorance.
But as he which have called you is holy, so be holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy. And if you call the Father, who without respect a person's judges according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here and here. For as much as you know that you will not redeem the profitable things as silver and gold to your vain conversation received by tradition from your Father's.
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, who barely was foreordained before the foundation of the world, that was manifest in these last times. For you, who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God, seeing ye have purified your souls, and obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned as love of the brethren.
See that you love one another with a pure heart, fervently being born again, not corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass.
And all the glory of man as a flower grass, the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth there, a flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord endure forever. And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.
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Have, uh, in particular the, uh, body of Christ, uh, the truth in relation to the Church of God.
Here in the world, and perhaps particularly the Jewish believers are addressed here.
That were under, first under persecution and now, uh, separated from, uh, their land of promise and, uh, disappointed and you might say as to the, uh.
Hopes of uh, Messiah reigning, every Kingdom being established.
But Peter here, uh, gives, uh, encouragement for, uh, these believers.
Continue on.
Before them, the whole not of the being established here in this world in glory and power, but uh, being encouraged by the hope of, uh, an eternal heavenly inheritance and much better.
Uh, establishing through the work of Christ. So, uh, it has back to general character and it's, uh, important for us to, uh, see that we are now strangers in this world.
We don't belong to them. We're a heavenly people. Our hope is outside of this world entirely to be with, uh, Christ and the Lord.
It's nice to see also in verse one where it says Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ.
And then it gives us ministry. Today we're living in a very evangelical era.
A lot of the, uh, evangelistic outreaches by Christendom.
Bring a lot of attention to themselves or their work.
Uh, they speak in the name of the Lord.
And it in all appearance, it looks good, but after following or listening to them, uh, you find that a lot of attention is drawn to themselves. And it's sad to say to see that because.
Here Paul glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. This is his His stance, his object. Uh, his life is in Jesus Christ.
And this is wonderful to see that that we can take these Nuggets and realize that he's giving the Lord Jesus Christ the credit or the honor and the glory. And brethren, this is something that we have to keep in mind that we don't try to draw attention to ourselves or for the work that we do.
Peter had been used of God in the salvation of thousands of souls. Find it in the early part of the book of the Acts, don't we?
And now here it is, less than 30 years later. He's right into these Jewish believers that are scattered abroad. He sees the changes that have come in, and we have seen changes that have come in.
And so the word was meant for us as well.
An apostle is a sent 1A disciple is a follower. We need to be the followers.
1St.
But then the Lord sends us into the world. We're not apostles in the sense that Peter was because of an apostle is one who had seen the Lord. Scripture tells us that. But umm, we all have sent the Lord, umm, has sent us back in the world to represent him in this world that is getting darker and darker. And uh, uh, Peter had been hoping to see the Messiah and see him set up the Kingdom.
But uh.
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Uh, the Lord revealed to to those disciples that he had to die on the cross.
Show the he he writes to encourage these, uh, Jewish believers. The ground that the in the Jews in the Old Testament of their, uh, was in connection with uh, uh, umm, their blessings was on their obedience. But here we find in our chapter that it is in the second verse.
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit.
Under obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
What is the ground of our salvation? What do we rest on for all eternity?
The finished work of Christ, so the Jewish believers before were it was blessings based on their obedience and they didn't keep it. And God provided a savior that has been able to complete the work of redemption. It's nice to see him emphasize this is the start of the epistle, isn't it?
Computer addresses.
Persecution and, uh, found themselves in various parts of Asia Minor and elsewhere and, uh, and these were true believers in the Lord Jesus. And so he, uh, begins to unfold to them the umm, what their response to some of the responsibilities are and what they should rejoice in.
Through what they believe.
But it's, uh, interesting to me to notice how much of this chapter is taken up with what we might call a gospel message. You could, uh, well, use this chapter as a, as a gospel text for, uh, for preaching to souls. It, uh, it, especially the last part, it's, it's, uh, it's right from verse, from verse 2, but umm, umm, but then it goes in detail down from.
Verse 19 and on or 18 and onward, it's really a gospel, a gospel address and I take courage from that in the.
Continued presentation of the gospel, even to those of us who have already believed there's a, a requirement to keep coming back to the beginning to foundation and refresh our hearts about that, which is, uh, fundamental to what we believe. We can, uh, we can go on and uh, and examine, uh, the details of scripture, but it's, and it is always something new to be UN unfolded fresh for our hearts.
But the we need to keep coming back to that which is absolutely basic to what we believe. And here we have it. Peter doesn't mince words. He takes those true believers back to what they first trusted in. And it's a it's a word to me about.
Sometimes we may be asked to preach the gospel and we look around the audience and we say, oh, everybody saved. I guess I'll minister something about the truth that.
We've we've enjoyed, but I think it's if, if speaking for myself, if I'm asked to preach the gospel, well, I preach the gospel and make sure that the the message that was fundamental to what I believe first believed is presented afresh for the encouragement of us all can add things then that you know, enlarge on it, but it's make no mistake, don't miss out on giving the fundamental.
When preaching the gospel.
Wonderful to see how Peter writes this epistle and fulfillment of what the Lord spoke of in 22.
2231 we know that Peter was the one that denied the Lord and he was restored and that in John chapter 21 but here as as the incident where Peter speaks of.
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The Lord Umm as being a, let's say, more braver than he really is.
Umm, in Luke 22 verse 31, it says, and the Lord said, and notice the word you call he calls him Simon Simon. He doesn't call him Peter Peter. He calls him Simon Simon. That's his old name because he's acting in the old strength of of who he was. But yet in the epistle we read of him addressing himself as Peter, the name of victory, the new man in Christ. And because of that he's able to write his epistle. But we see him here. The Lord says, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan had desired to have you that he may sift you as we but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted, strengthened thy brethren.
As Warren mentioned, this is what he's doing. This is not He's writing his epistle to strengthen the brethren.
You notice, Brian, that in the second epistle he doesn't start out with Peter, an apostle. He starts out with Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle. That was written about two years later. Why the difference? Well, I think that we all experience in our own lives that.
What we are by nature.
And Peter never forgot who Simon was, Simon Peter. And he starts off with I'm a servant of Jesus Christ and an apostle, but a servant. So lowliness becomes us, doesn't it?
Twice in the last chapter of John's gospel, in the 1St 2 verses, we see uh, the 1St 2 verse 3 Simon Peter and verse 3 Simon Peter and said Simon said look at them, I go fishing.
As soon as the Lord had been crucified, he thought, well, I've got to go back to my old occupation. And he took others with me. And when they saw though they, they toiled all night, and they saw the Lord appeared to them. And as we go through the discourse, we see the Lord saying to Peter, feed my lamb.
And then feed my sheep. And again feed my sheep.
And then we have this wonderful epistle.
That we're looking at and to feed the the elect, the the believers of Israel, and not just to bring the gods home, but to those who are saved, to encourage them in the trials that they're going through and the troubles that they were having being scattered abroad from persecution.
Feed my sheep, feed my lamps.
Also interested to note in this chapter which is.
Again, written to a Jewish audience. Umm, I saved Jewish audience that would have.
Come from a very umm, monotheistic background, umm, not having a revelation of Trinity. Umm, Peter really drives that home in in verse 2 where he brings you for them to, to try and God, God's Father, the Spirit in Jesus Christ and, and really draws out their, their role, umm, of God the Father, his election, his will, Jesus Christ coming, you know, obedience to God, divorce and and redeem us. And then the Holy Spirit, which does the inner work of sanctification.
Doing dwellers here on earth, you get to the real roles of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit We're trying to drive brought out in this chapter as a reminder, I guess from the Jewish Christians, that there's some full revelation now of who God is.
So.
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The Jewish believers were positionally elect according to the purpose of God, but, uh, they had failed.
And they're calling so much so that it was transferred to the Gentiles, as we know in the book of Daniel. But now the AP, the apostle Peter says, umm, you are elect before the foundation of the world. Umm.
Israel is looked upon as blessed from the foundation of the world, but these believers in the purpose and counsel of God.
They were in the mind of God even in a past eternity. And so it is with us.
And the Spirit of God separated us from this world.
Even before we had believed the gospel. Of course, this is, uh, something in the uh.
In the foreknowledge of God, God's heart, we can enjoy it, but we don't know the, the uh, councils of God. So we don't, uh, preach election to the unsaved.
Because we don't know who they are, who who the elect are. We preach the gospel to uh.
Doctor Wolfenstein illustrates it. You come to the door and it says whosoever will let him come take the water of life freely. You come inside and on the back of the door you see the words elect according to the foreknowledge of God form. So that's a family secret. But and it's precious to know, but we in in preaching the gospel.
Yes, I enjoy too, that the election is not a national thing, like the perhaps the Jewish brethren felt at one time or in the Old Testament. But it is an individual call, isn't it? You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. What is election? I like what a brother said one time.
Election is God's selection.
When we ask a question like that, sometimes it's hard to give an answer because of the fullness of it. But to think that God in the past eternity elected you individually and me individually.
It's a marvelous, marvelous truth, brethren. How is it that God saves you and not your neighbor next door? Do you understand that? I can't understand that, but we thank him and praise him and that's the that's the ground that worship comes from. When we see the the how, how crisis everything and what he has done is everything and that we are nothing, it makes a hard overflow with praise. And I believe that Peter felt that and he got that across in his ministry.
Peter and Paul and most of the apostles in order to encourage the Saints, they shine a light on the very heart of God.
When you look at umm, the verses of uh, 2-3 and four and five, and then you come to verse six, it shows us how God prepares and provides for his own the most wonderful way in order that they can advance through whatever they have to go through. And I'm reminded way back in Genesis chapter 17 when God speaks to Abraham in verse 17, it says when Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him.
I am the almighty God, or else should I walk before me? Be Thou perfect. It presents Himself to his own with the strength and encouragement and all the love and care that he has for them before he enables them to go through any trial or tribulation. And that's the same with us. And I think that's what Peter's trying to promote here, as Paul does too. If you read through Paul's epistles, you see the same thing, how he presents God and all the strength and glory and light and wonder that he gives to us.
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To the perfect heart of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to prevent us to travel on in the pathway that he's called for us to travel on. He prepares us and provides everything we need for that journey. But he always gives that to us first. And it's just a matter of as we walk, we begin to appreciate these things and understand them only as we walk forward in the in the wonder of what he's provided for us.
Just like to mention something, Brother Perry, when you had mentioned the question of the gospel.
Uh were rather lacking in the fact that when the gospel is brought forth that in a lot of cases the blood is not mentioned in that hospital meeting.
There's a brother in our Smith Falls meeting who keeps on saying that. He says, was that the gospel? And I have to think back and say.
I don't quite think so because the blood is not ventured.
Yeah, that has crept in through, uh, uh, Krishnam at large where there's this feeling that developed some years ago about that the blood might be offensive to some people. It's a, a subject that you, uh, that the preachers kind of felt you could avoid and therefore not antagonize anybody and make it more effective. But the fact is that the blood is, uh, right through the word of God and it's.
It's absolutely basic and we we would we would do wrong to ignore it.
Rehab was to hang the scarlet line in the window.
The scarred line is the thread that runs from Genesis to Revelation in the Bible is Speaking of the blood of Christ, of course.
We have the, uh, the two docks struck before us here on obedience and.
So after the work of the Spirit of God in our soul.
Got great applied to our souls individually by faith and obedience to the work God. It's taking that much of hyssop, Speaking of humility and applying the work of Christ.
Appropriating it to our personal needs as a senator.
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So that we come under the value of that because of money.
It's mentioned here in that, uh, the, that portion of the first John of uh, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Uh, would you say it's the contrast Peter is bringing before them that, uh, the ground of Israel took in the Old Testament was all that the Lord our God has said we will do and that met on the ground of their obedience. But now what did Peter say? It's not on the ground of, of our obedience. It's in the ground of the obedience of one man the only.
What way that redemption could be accomplished? And he brings that before them forcibly, doesn't he? On the beginning of, uh, of this epistle. It's, uh, it's a ground of all blessings.
Parallel to what we have here for the Jewish believers.
Convention the gospel putting in in remembrance of what what they have in Christ might be just nice to look at a few verses in Ephesians chapter 2. We have their parallel what we have here in this chapter, but for the Gentile and it's it mounts in the same thing.
I'll read from verse eight. It says, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
Connection, Obedience. Here we have the obedience which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.
And now we have the remembrance of what we were. Wherefore remember that He being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh, made by hand, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
I hear we have the foundation of our blessing, but now in Christ Jesus.
In price Jesus, ye who sometimes will bar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ, the foundation for all our blessings.
Nsnoise.
It's lovely to see, isn't it in the?
3rd and 4th verse.
Where is our home center?
What's the hope of the earthly man living in a world like this?
Let's read verses three and four together. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto our lively or living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you.
Can there be anything better?
One thinks of those verses in First Thessalonians chapter 3. It's just chapter one about the.
Thessalonians. It says they turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven.
The Apostle Paul, as I understand it, was seen from the verses and Acts that he was only there for three weeks.
And they had come from that ungodly, idolatrous background, turned to God from idols to serve the living, true God and to wait for his Son from heaven.
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Or is that what we have before us? I think that's what Peter brings before them here.
Isn't it wonderful to be a Christian?
We had something now that the Israelites, uh.
We know and have that relationship with God, the same character as the Lord has.
Uh, we uh, have the same light, but when you have that same relationship as children, the father, this was not known in Israel and it will not be known in the, in the coming, uh, millennial day. They won't have that intimacy of knowing God in this character that we now have in Christianity. It's, it's characteristic. I think we all understand that and it's a living whole with Israel.
Their inheritance faded away, uh, because they failed to obey. It became defiled by their sin and idolatry and it was taken away from them. Of course, you might say, uh, postpone to the Lord is going to bring it to pass in the future day, but on the ground of their faithfulness, there was nothing. They were expelled from their inheritance.
But ours is of a heavenly character, and an inheritance incorruptible cannot be defiled or political. It's a heavenly character. Of course, in Ephesians there's also the inheritance that has an earthly aspect, which we will share. We will share the inheritance that the Lord will have the Son of man in its earthly character as well.
It's wonderful to know that not only is the inheritance kept for us, but we're being kept for the inheritance by the power of God. He strengthens us and encourages us. As Dave was mentioning. When you think about verse three, the lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What kept the early Christians when they were going through the trials and tribulations?
The the slaughterings and the crucifixions and the trials and the tortures they went through was the fact that there was a man in the glory.
That he awaited them, that's what gave them strength and courage to go through what they went through in the early persecution. And for us even today. What gives us that same strength? The fact that there's a man in glory. That someday, no matter what happens on this earth, we'll be reunited with the one who gave themselves and loved us so much.
And we will see him face to face. So no matter what we try, what we go through, the trials and tribulations of this world, the bottom line, if I can use that term, is that we'll be with him in glory.
I remember reading the story of an Iranian Christian.
Who was giving out the gospel as a real cost to himself?
And he said he used to go to the park or he regularly went to this park and, and passed out Christian materials to Muslims there. And, uh, he was asked, well, what happens if somebody gets upset with you? Well, they, they did quite regularly. So what did they do? Well, they chased me or did they ever catch you? Or yeah, how about half the time?
And, uh, say, well, what did they do? Well, they beat me up. And WW, what happens if they kill? You see, Well, there's always the resurrection. He, he went consistently, even though he was getting beat up fairly often and uh, could expect to die anytime.
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It didn't matter because he was living in view of the resurrection.
I wish I knew a little more about myself.
Sometimes there are.
Conventions or whatever.
Events that take place.
You may feel your children would like to take you to or something and it costs you money to go for an event that may last one or two hours of whether it be $10, a $100 or whatever it is. And when the event is over, that's the end.
What about this here? It says in this verse.
Four, that fadeth not away reserved in heaven.
For you.
It is beyond all I remember. Many of the older ones here will remember our brother Harry Hayle making this comment. Stan, you'll remember this comment. Every Christian breath, every, uh, Christian blessing is a mountain peak beyond which God could not go.
We couldn't ask for anything more to be a child of God.
You can't ask for anything more than the hope that is set before us forever.
And the fatherhood.
Nsnoise.
Salvation is looked at in different ways. I think we uh.
Are aware of that salvation of our souls. We now possess the apostles future that here in the chapter but umm.
Uh, there's also salvation, Uh.
At the end of the of the pathway.
Under salvation along the uh.
Along our Pilgrim journeys.
Accomplishments of salvation We now have the salvation of our souls.
The apostle mentions that.
Versus 9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, that's not something we look forward to, it's something that we haven't enjoyed.
But, uh, the salvation of our bodies, we have, we're saved from the.
Penalties of sin through the work of Christ.
There's no judgment for the believer. We're saved from the power of sin.
As we go on, independence.
On the Lord because.
We do have an old nature still, but we're not safe from the presence of sin.
Until we get to the glory, we still have that old nature, two things we won't have in the glory, that old hateful nature that we possess and will have till the end of the story.
And the body of humiliation.
Those two things we won't have in the glory. That will be the consummation of salvation, we might say.
The, uh, the fullness of it.
But even now, by God's grace, we have salvation too, in day-to-day through, uh, the intersection of, uh, Christ for us, God's right hand.
Is that what we have John in uh, in Romans chapter 5 and uh, verse?
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Verse 10.
Umm, well, let me start with verse 9, Romans 5, verse nine. Much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from raw through Him. That is the salvation of our souls, I take it. And then in the, uh, in the next verse, if when we were wrecked enemies, we were reconciled to God.
By the death of the Son, much more being reconciled. We shall be saved by His life. Is that not a, a umm? The apostle bringing before us the life of the Lord Jesus Christ as He now is in the glory. He's there for us. What would we do without Him? That's the present salvation. And then, as you say, the umm, we have brought before us the salvation of our bodies.
You know, it makes me think of I remember my, my father was was dying. I remember seeing him in bed.
You look so shriveled up as an old person you only lived a few days after being there.
And I said to him, Dad, the shepherd carries the sheep all the way home.
And, you know, it couldn't take much in, but I remember him kind of getting a hold of it just for a second or two and, uh, and just enjoying the thought. That's the, that is the, uh, picture of the, when he took the sheep and he put it on his shoulders rejoicing and he took it all the way home. So here we have the end of our salvation, that is, uh, uh.
Brought before us who are kept by the power of God through faith under salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
It's good to remember, isn't it, that we're kept by the power of God or not. We don't keep ourselves, do we? We're often failures, and we see failures in our presence, but who is it that keeps us? It's the power of God. I think that's important to see.
And maybe a little summary is helpful, Like these verses I've enjoyed. Uh, we noticed in the first verse that these Christians that Peter was writing to were strangers. And why were they strangers? Let's just go back to Acts 8 for a moment just to see these things. Acts chapter 8.
We know that umm, uh, Philip was preaching the Gospel. Uh, he was one of those early evangelists.
And it says there in the UMM.
Umm, the same.
And at that time there was a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. So they were scattered and I would take it they were even, they went into haunt us and all these other places that we mentioned and they were probably feeling a little bit discouraged.
They were in places they didn't know the people. They felt that they were strangers. And Peter is telling them, yes, you are strangers.
There are strangers on earth and really that is our position, is it not? Peter mentioned again in the second chapter that were strangers and pilgrims, strangers away from home and children's on the way home, and even though they were strangers on earth.
They were elected as we had before us. The Father was the source of that election. We were chosen again before the foundation of the world.
The spirit was the power and the sun was the means by which we have attained salvation. So we're no longer strangers on earth. We're now looking forward to a home in the glory. And that's what we have in the 3rd and 4th verses. To an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that defeats not a way to deserve in heaven for you. So these dear believers were being reminded that their home was in heaven.
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Not on earth. And then finally, in the fifth verse, that they were kept by the power of God. No doubt there was persecution facing them. They were going to be tested in trial, but they could be confident in the fact that they were kept by the power of God. And that's how we're kept, aren't we?
You know, standing converts to look at Mr. Darby's translation. It has a little bit more to it. It says we are kept guarding by the knife garden.
I'm often intrigued by the little words of Scripture, and I wonder if we could take a look at that one in verse 3.
Hath begotten us again.
Unto a lively hope.
Umm, I don't know. I don't have a Darby. Does anybody know that said the same thing in a in a new translation order? If someone could explain what that means to be begotten us again, I suppose naturally speaking we just should say just begotten us into a lively hope. But that little word kind of intrigues me why it's there.
The same in Mr. Darby.
It would have the same meaning as being born again. In that sense the.
Would it bring their poorest, uh, Brian, the the thought that there was a promise that was made to the, to Israel?
They if they had kept the law.
There they would have received the blessing.
And the loss of blessing because they didn't keep it.
And but God had promised them with us.
So now the fact that they didn't keep it, God found a way in which they could be blessed. They were begotten again, blessed with that.
See what he's bringing before them here.
Yeah, I think that's the thought they gave it, that, uh, they had lost their earthly.
Inheritance because of unfaithfulness. They were God's chosen people in a very privileged position, but.
Old, uh, eternal life in heaven.
Non faith fund. That's what we're saying, not based on on keeping the law, but based on the, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the uh.
Another little thought that that occurred to me is that Peter was a faithful person, uh, to the Lord through the Lord's ministry time. But after the Lord had died and gone to heaven and risen, risen and gone to heaven, there was a whole new dimension to what Peter believed. And it's as if, umm, there was belief, but then there was again, there was something far more.
That came into his life.
234 We're not in the world which stays away, We're not in the night, But children of days. The chains of one's boundless by Jesus are ribbon Were strangers on earth. Our home is impelled. 234.
01:00:15
We're not of the world.
With sail away.
OK. And I'm sure.
I made it exclude our standard furniture, still our garden and wildlife 384 on the real world and cross the line the screens and rain.
Address 1
1 Peter 1:7-9
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Hearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen, He loved, in whom though now ye see him not yet believing, He rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, of which salvation the prophets have inquired in church. Diligently you prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, searching what or what manner of time and spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.
When it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ.
And the glory that you follow, unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto what they administer, the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into. Wherefore gird up the lines of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you.
At the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
It's obedient children, not fastening yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as he which have called you is holy, so be holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. And if you call in the Father, who without respective persons judges according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here and here, as much as you know that you were not redeemed the corruptible things.
That silver and gold in your vain conversation, received by tradition from your Father's, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world that was manifest in these last times for you.
Who by him to believe in God that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God?
Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart, fervently being born again, not a profitable seed, but of incorruptible.
By the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grasp, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. And this is the word which by the Gulf War is preached unto you.
When we get saved, why? It's a result of faith, isn't it?
For by grace are ye saved through faith.
And that changed our life forever because.
Uh, the whole principle of the Christian life is a life of faith.
We walk by faith and.
Not by sight.
I always think of my mother in connection with these thoughts because.
She said one time to me maybe she felt I needed more of the rest of the children, she said. David.
It takes one look of faith to be saved. After that, it's a lifetime of looking, and I believe that with all my heart.
So here we have.
Verse 7. The trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perishes.
It's the trial of our faith that produces.
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Umm, the strength to go on being much more precious than of gold that perishes. And then it may be found they'll be tried with fire, might be found under praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
I'd rather have others speak on this more than myself.
Because I know there are many here in this room have gone through deep trials and, uh, but the Lord wants, uh, he tests us, brother, you said years ago, God gives faith and then he tests faith and then he rewards faith.
And that's the whole theme of Christian life and the manifestation of the reward. I would say myself that it's it's more for a future day than now.
We go back and chapter, look at chapters, uh, probably verse six, uh, Darby writes.
The Lord never attached this above that which we are evil. It's not something that He expects to go on for a very long time. He knows how much we can stand. The other thing is that it says if need be. So I remember Brother Halo years ago saying if trial comes into our life, there's always a purpose of love on His part and it needs to be on our part. So I sort of enjoyed that with that sixth verse for a season.
If need be.
I agree with that stand. There's three things, the season and reason and the purpose. And this isn't that we see that like you say, the season it's for it's a limit that God puts on that just tries forever. But there's A and there's a reason it needs to be. Sometimes, umm, we like to look at things in a personal way, but sometimes the trial that we go through is not through us personally, but for those around us as we go through this world. Many times as Christians, we're put through trials in order to test our faith for ourselves personally.
But an option is that is how the world watches us as we go through these trials. And many times perhaps we can see that the effect of of faith working, our faith working in them as they watch us go through these trials.
And they asked us like, why? Why are you this way about it? Or how did you take that so calmly? Or whatever the situation might be? And it's because we can answer them with the because we have the strength of the Lord to care us through these things.
I remember an old brother used to always say God only tries gold.
And what he meant by that was he only brings out what He's first placed in US. And that's why the trial comes to show us exactly who we are in Christ and all the strength that he's given us to go through these trials and those things that He's placed in us in the 1St place. And that's why He drives us. So we'll come to the realization of how dependent and how immediate we need to be in the Christian life because those are the things that represent His Son the most. And that's what he's trying to do, is to conform us to the image of His Son.
And often there are things in our lives that must be dealt with in the form of trials in order to bring those out to our own attention, that we can deal with them on our own level, but also on the level that we can deal with them in His marvelous grace towards us.
It's also interesting, is it not, to see in this particular little epistle that suffering is really a theme that goes right through the whole little book and this first chapter. It seems to be the trial of your faith. And we know that there are many Christians today who are suffering because they're Christians. We know that over there in Iraq, there was a large number of Christians that were herded up into the top of the hill.
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Well, why were they suffering? Because they were Christians. And uh, in the second chapter, it's suffering for conscience sake. I believe in the third chapter, it's suffering for righteousness sake. In the 4th chapter for his namesake, and in the, uh, last chapter because of the devil's attacks. So Peter brings before us in many ways, does he not? Uh, how?
We are passed through various tribals, but here in this chapter, I believe it's for our faith, isn't it?
Perhaps we have a good example of this seventh verse in the story of Shade Rock, Meshach and Abednego. Do you think they certainly knew what it was to stop it from their faith?
When we compare the trial to the Lord.
Trying with the gold.
No Mon, no refiner will refine a a an ore to get dross. That's not the product. The product is the gold.
When the Lord brings us through trial, it's not to obtain the dross, it's to get the dross effort. The waste of the product was no good.
Sometimes, uh, we look at the trials through which we're going as being very grievous and difficult to, uh, to, uh, handle. But, uh, we have a resource that the world doesn't have because the Lord has promised that he will never leave us. Don't shake us. And Isaiah, he says, when I go through the waters, I will be with me. And so, uh, we have the promise.
The presence of the Lord. Now sometimes we may forget that, so maybe our prayer should be that we would have, umm, uh, a sense of his presence because we, we tend to forget it. But uh, I'm reminded of how in, uh, First Thessalonians 4, the loss of a loved one, we do not sorrow as those that have no hope. So we have a hope of the resurrection.
So there are many resources that we have that, uh, the world doesn't know about or can enter into. And there's, uh, a piece and, uh, and, uh, enjoyment in our own hearts, even in trials. And that goes deeper than the kind of peace that the world can give.
I was also thinking in, uh, Second Corinthians chapter 4.
Now that when it talks about.
Afflictions here in verse 17.
It says our life affliction, which is but for a moment.
And there's, uh, that little season that was, uh, mentioned before because it works for us, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. So in comparison to.
The glory that will follow.
In the trials that seem so grievous, here are but, uh, a light affliction.
Faith overcomes, isn't it?
And, uh, an Acts chapter 16 well known story that we use in the gospel Philippian Geller story that.
And the apostle Paul Silas were put into prison.
Is they sang hymns even though they were beaten and and put into the prison, they, they could rejoice in the Lord. And it the Lord used that faithfulness to that trial to uh, Risa Philippia Gillard.
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In his household.
And so faith enables us to, uh, rise above circumstances that we encounter in this life. And so we're, we need faith in the Lord puts us through trials to increase our faith that we might be able to use us in ways that he that he has for us, he has our path marked out sometimes.
Perhaps in my own life.
Wanted to use me for something and perhaps I wasn't ready and.
Trials that we go through prepare us for things that that the Lord has has for us.
Certainly a nice story there with Paul and Silas, how their faith were tested and how they overcome.
I think too that sometimes in our trials the world looks on and see how we react.
And in Clippy, it's chapter 4.
It'll be four and verse six. Be careful for nothing but everything by prayer and supplication. Thank Thanksgiving. Let your requests be made on the God. This is the worst I had in mind. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ's team.
Anybody in that pain that he says he is in would be so grumpy. Well, he had the teeth. All understanding she was able to bear up under it and sometimes I believe that the rolls around. Can't understand how the believer can go through such a trial and not be discouraged.
A question about.
Umm, is there a distinction between like having some troubles in your life that aren't maybe necessarily connected to being a Christian, uh, you know, being tested as a, whether you give out the gospel or the moral issue or something like that. Maybe it's the.
Financial thing or emotional thing because these verses seem to apply to the trial, to your faith and are we, am I missing, excuse me, am I misapplying this if I try to apply these to things that aren't specific to Christian trials or these for basically anything that goes wrong in your life?
So if we look back at verse six again, Darby writes, instead of manifold temptations, various trials.
All things work together for.
Trial of his life, and they weren't necessarily connected with him being a a Christian or you might say even a godly man, except for the fact that Satan instigated them. Umm. But you find too, that God spends far more time looking at that particular little section of his life than he does looking at the earlier part of the later part, when he was doing so well.
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And then so it's in the middle of the trouble that God can manifest, which really is him, whether it's a trial that has anything to do with you being a Christian or just one of the normal troubles in life.
You know a lot of.
I do believe that.
A trial can can make us or break us.
Uh, once you went through a refinery, a mining refinery in Squamish, BC and the mine was into the mountain and eventually they brought the cars out of the mountain to the top of the mountain and the product was dumped at the first highest stage of the refining system. And as we stood looking in this fast mining operation.
There was at least 2025 steps before from the raw material to the product that was being produced, and that's sometimes saying that if our faith isn't as strong, we find it hard to take.
A certain picture in this mining situation, we can either have a long process before with the goal is met by.
Our faith and strength in the Lord or to take those 25 steps in our life to find that final product.
And we have great trials and we are tempted. I also want to say this. There's a difference between what I would say, what the Lord allows, or sometimes things that we make of it ourselves get ourselves into trouble, deep trouble sometimes. And I think it depends upon our faith and our strength in the Lord as to how long it takes to take that process, that mining process for that final product. Some people never reach that final product product.
We have in our families, some of us have children who have left home, who have left the meeting. They couldn't meet that final process, could they? They they couldn't handle it or their faith was weak. And we've got to pray for these young people and those that are blessed us is because they found it too great.
And it's it's just something that we have to really pray about because we're not perfect.
I might not be able to go through that whole mining process at the bottom and see the final product. I may be halfway or three quarters the way, but I'm not there yet. And we never will be the final product until the Lord takes us home. We're not perfect and don't pretend to be. We are. Where are we in that mining process, in our life, in the trial?
Allows or that we make ourselves a trial for our own lives. It's just an exercise that I I have in my own heart and speaking for myself is how far does it take for us to go in that mining process from the top or it's dumped as raw and coming out fine in the bottom. It's just a a word picture that I just want to share.
There's another a bit of an aspect to that also in that.
And I doubt if that was totally that process you're talking about was totally mechanical. There had to be people at every stage who were monitoring, helping, ensuring that it was going on and so on. And I think sometimes we stand by and let people let brothers and sisters work on their processes, them all by themselves, whereas we can often be a great help in that process. And there's if we're observant and if we're attentive to their situation.
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We can sometimes make a contribution to what you might say, accelerating the process.
It returned to Hebrews chapter 12. You'll see a little bit of a, umm, an example of this. It speaks about chastening, uh, and there are two, uh, chastening is like a trial. Perhaps there, there are two possible results from that, uh, chastening, umm, in umm, verse 11. Now no chasing for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous.
Nevertheless, if we're willing to learn from the Lord under the lesson.
Afterward it yielded the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them, which are exercised thereby. But that isn't always the results, because it we're not necessarily exercise or we're not submissive. And so if you look at verse 15, it says, looking diligently lest any man fail the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be depiled.
So that is another possible outcome from a trial or a testing if we're not exercised thereby. And then in thinking about what, uh, what you have, uh, said brother Lauren, if you look at verse 12.
This is how we can be helped and encourage those that who are going through.
A trial, it says in Hebrews 12 and 12. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the people knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. But let it rather be healed.
The three Hebrew servants that were that we have the account of Daniel, they had a very severe trial of faith. Uh, it was tried with fire. They were put into the furnace. Umm.
For their faith and.
I think when we get to the glory and we speak to.
Avendi Gulf and say that was an awful difficult time in your life.
And Nebuchadnezzar put you into the fiery furnace.
How was it? Or they would say, that was the, umm, the best time of our experience, That was the best time of our lives because in that trial we had the company of the Lord with us.
So, as we've been reminded, let us take our circumstances from the Lord. Are difficulties to the Lord, Peter began to think when he allowed circumstances to come between him and the Lord.
And doesn't that happen in our lives too? We.
This eighth verse I was thinking of when our brother read these verses in the prayer meeting.
Whom, having not seen the love, in whom, though now ye see him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
I would think of those that Peter wrote to, that perhaps none of them had ever seen the Lord, but he had.
And he says to them whom having not seen ye love.
He saw that even though they hadn't seen the Lord, that they loved him, and it affected him whom having not seen ye loved, in whom though now ye see him not yet believing.
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Game Peter had seen the Lord, and it must have thrilled him to see and these others that what faith produced.
In their lives the joy and looking for the Lord's coming, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Going on to the next verse, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your soul. So they were looking for the coming of the Lord, weren't they?
Trials that we have in, uh, First Corinthians 10 is a couple of verses there that.
We go through a trial. The Lord is putting us through it for.
Perhaps to be more conformed onto our Savior's image.
That might be more useful in service.
But two, I think perhaps when we go through a trial and often times know perhaps what the Lord is seeking to teach us.
I was thinking of UMM.
13th verse.
Uh, there's no temptation taking you such as common demand, but God is faithful you will not suffer let you to be tried or tempted above that you're able, but with the trial and temptation make also make a way of escape.
That you may be able to hear it.
'Cause God has to put upon us something that we're unable to bear.
Ourselves, he's in the trial with us and makes a way of escape for us that we can gravely buried.
We may not do our own stubborn wills.
Umm, submit. But yeah, it says here that he makes a way of escape and maybe Elephant Bear through the trial.
Joel, chapter 37, verse 13.
I think not.
Was it for his land? I believe so.
Season there to want the pressure to be removed rather than uh.
And I'm saying now what has reward to teach me in this, uh, the circumstances trial that he has allowed, He wants the Lord to remove the trial and he is able to do that, uh.
Or, umm, or he can give us a brief.
But it should really, as rather Bruce brought out that verse in.
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On another person's trial that, that, that is, umm, something that we, uh, tend to do, uh, of course, if a person is going on in a willful.
Sinful. Course, I don't think we are wrong on that in.
Concluding that the Lord is speaking to him through this circumstance. Umm.
The two ones may have occurred. There's a government of God and, uh, in the Corinthians, there were many that were sick and weakly among them and many slept. That was a governmental dealing, a God in the Corinthians because of their careless, uh, uh, careless ways, uh, that they were, uh, sewing. But we need to be exercised ourselves. We're gonna see that trial in a different light in the glory of the judgment seat of Christ because we will.
See the Lord's purpose in what He allowed in our lives.
2nd Corinthians, chapter one.
This is something I think weren't addressed and so did Ruth.
2nd Corinthians, chapter one, verse 3.
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercy, and the God of all comfort, who comfort us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort where we we ourselves are comforted of God, whereas the sufferings of Christ abound in US. So our consolation also abounded by Christ, and whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
Whether which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer, or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation, and our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings.
So shall he also be of the consolation? The wonderful thing about trials is that the more we are tried and our faith is tried, the closer we become to God, the more He reveals Himself to us in a fuller, richer and deeper way. And because of that, that allows us of the, if I can use the term, overflowing of this to share that with others who are going to the same trial and same tribulation in a way that no other person could, because we can come alongside them as the Spirit of God can come alongside us.
It shared with us in this time, you can come alongside them and offer them some hope and comfort that comes from the heart of God through us to them.
But have we not gone through the trial? We wouldn't be able to do that.
There is a difference I think that we need to draw a line. Can I say between what is a trial that the Lord allows in in this chapter here it says a trial of your faith. It's not the question of chastening like we have in in Hebrews chapter 12 and not sometimes when things are going through trials. The Lord is allowed and the thought is what have I done that is wrong and we need to be careful ourselves that we don't attribute.
Umm, that they must have done something wrong or whatever.
Here it is, the trial of your faith. Abraham was tested.
And, uh, and we get tested in connection with our faith.
We brought had brought before us to discipline our government of God in connection with things in in Hebrews chapter 12. But I I would suggest that that's not quite the same thing as we have here in our verse.
God said to Abraham that he was going to make him the father of many nations.
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And then he told them to offer up his son. Was that a test of his faith? Indeed it was.
I think that's the type of thing that is that.
God tests our faith, doesn't he? The reality?
But he doesn't disappoint it.
I was talking to our brother who had a family and the girl was 18 years old.
Uh, didn't come to the meeting anymore.
I found a boyfriend who wasn't a Christian.
And it was a great trial for the family.
Now, the father wasn't gossiping and this is where there's a difference between gossiping and prayerfully considering the situation. He asked me can you pray for my daughter in a situation that she's in her home? We're afraid we may lose her. Now, as Brother Perry was saying, it goes through those process of the mind if we can know about something that is happening to a family or an assembly.
We may not.
No, the trial, but we can pray for that trial or for the people involved in it. All I can do for that family, I, I knew them not too much, not personally, but one thing you could do isn't pray about it. And, and that makes a difference, brother, we may not enter that trial ourselves, but don't we here?
Of trials in families, in our assemblies, of our daughters or sons who are wayward or who you've left the meeting. Whether we can all pray.
We may not go to the trial ourselves, but we can be exercised.
There's a bit of a comparison too, expressions that are common in the world of and, and certainly in language testing, language training, one of the instructions is use it or lose it. If you don't practice what you've learned, pretty soon you won't have it anymore. And uh, and it's a little bit like that with faith.
You have to put it into action in order for it to be real for you. And it also works in, uh, muscle building too. You can, uh, train hard to build muscles, but if you don't maintain what you've gained, it'll all wither away again. And, uh, and so it's like that with faith that we are, are given it by the Lord if we'll take it.
And then it has to be.
We have to make it effective in our lives. We have to.
Work with it to to produce what he wants produced in our lives. We just say, well that was an interesting experience and put it on the shelf and we won't have any lasting benefit.
In spiritual things, Hebrews 11 tells us that without begging, it's impossible to please God.
And here in our chapter where it speaks about, uh.
Whom, having not seen you love, reminds us of the, uh, little episode in, uh, the end of John's Gospel where umm, Thomas worked for present.
On the occasion of the Lord showed himself about eight days later he was, and it's interesting what the Lord says there.
Because uh, Thomas then believe about in verse 29 of uh, John 20.
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Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because that was seeing me, that was believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. And so I believe it brings a lot of honor and glory to God when we believe what He says, even though we may not have the direct evidence.
As these disciples did, they saw the Lord. But we don't, only by the eye of faith.
I believe, too, there's such a thing as hate being strengthened in our pathway.
The disciples at one point said to the Lord, increase our faith. They realized that it was small. It was it wasn't very much.
And when you think of, uh, Abraham, he wasn't tested to give up, uh, his son, uh, right at the very beginning, when he was first called, it was after he'd walked with God for a while. And so, uh, uh, faith, uh, when it's tried and, uh, and it produces the effect of, uh, being like gold, well, that also causes it to be strengthened, I believe. And another trial comes along and we have more confidence in God.
As a result, and so it grows and I believe that's why Umm John writes to those that are little children, those who are young men and those who are fathers.
Them because they differ in the amount of faith that they've had experienced and so on. And, uh, as a result, I find personally that those that are older have gone on in the, in the, uh, Christian pathway for a longer time, tend to be more, even, even though there may be trials in their lives. Whereas we who are younger and less experienced may be up and down a little more.
And not as, even as those who have experienced these things and, and, uh, seeing the hand of the Lord to help them.
Just one final comment, it is so essential that the faith not dissipate. As we've been saying, it should always be exercised and I think the word make sure that it is with the trials and things that come our way. But I was noticing in second Peter chapter one that it is the dairy Foundation.
And everything else is built upon faith.
You'll notice that in verse 5, second Peter one verse five. Beside this giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity. So the very foundation.
Of our Christian pathway is begins with faith and to carry us all the way through.
I was thinking of the uh, the reference the apostle makes in Ephesians 6 to the shield of faith.
Verse 16 where with we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. So umm, in a time of trial, Satan Exactly.
To, uh, to insinuate, uh, doubts in our minds as to the goodness that is in the heart of God. That's the reason for our failure. He, uh, tried that and successfully in the Garden of Eden and he's still doing it. Uh, those fiery darts which are dealt as to the wisdom of God's ways with us. Doubts. Why the trial has come into my life.
I sought to please the Lord and this trial has come, but, umm.
I thought also of those verses in Hebrews chapter 10.
Where the apostle says, Cast not away, therefore your confidence, which have great recompense of reward.
Uh, we think of reward in connection with, uh, some active service for the Lord, and that is, that is, uh, the truth. The Lord will reward every little act of devotedness, but here it is in connection with.
Having confidence in the goodness of the Lord in the trial, the Lord even sees that confidence which Satan would like to shake in the trial, that the Lord is doing the best for us every day of our lives according to his our state of soul. But Satan is always active to, uh, to seek to break down that confidence in the goodness of the heart of God.
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The Lord intercedes two dozen before us.
In the trial when he didn't appear.
Estate bill Not so. He's with us in a trial.
Interceding for us as we go through it.
Think of the great example of the Lord Jesus to read in Hebrews chapter 12.
Looking unto Jesus, the authoring finisher of her faith, and for the joy that was set before Him, enjoyed the cross.
Spiding the shame and it's just down at the right hand of God or consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest he be wearied in faint in your mind, and oftentimes you read in the breading of bread.
Lamentations chapter three-part of it with red umm previously, but when you think about the things that the Lord had to suffer. His faith was based on the the willingness and obedience that he had umm in doing the will of the Father and he had faith in the Father's plan and purpose of salvation for mankind through the work that he did. But I just think it is implemented. Lamentations chapter 3 it says and I said my in verse 18 and I said my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord remembering mine affliction and my miseries. The word word in the gall. I so have them still in remembrance of this humbled in the need this I recalled in my mind.
Therefore I have hope.
He has hope because he remembers these things, but this is the reason it is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed because His compassion fail not. They are new every morning, rated by faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I open him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, the soul that seeketh him. It is good that the manager both hope and quietly waking the salvation of the Lord. And then in verse 31 and 13, the Lord will not pass off forever.
Verse 32 But though he caused grief, yet he will have compassion.
According to the multitude of his mercies, for he does not afflict willingly nor dream the children of men to crush under his feet. All the prisoners of the earth turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High. The subvert a man in his cause of the Lord to prove it not. You can see how this is sort of in a in a sense the pathway of faith follows a non. It's because of the Lord's mercies we're not consumed.
He gives us trials, but he gives us mercy, and He's 89 to go through them. And when we think of the Lord Jesus and what he had to go through, all the trial of his faith, and what an example he is to us, because it tells us that He committed himself to him who judges righteously.
In all the things and and especially going to the cross or to please the father and to perform that wonderful work that he did. But yet there was joy in the second form. And even in that in doing that, because I believe we saw the the fulfillment of the father's plan. But he also, I think he looked in time and saw each one of us who had received him as as as I've seen here.
Return to song online meeting.
Verse 92 Unless by law has been by delight, I should then and perish in my affliction.
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Verse 107 I am acquitted very much quickly, O Lord, according to my word.
Amber 153.
Discipline. He has more confidence. I believe in the Lord.
David Amanda has lost on her.
Consider my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget thy law.
Is very much comforting these these words.
And we're going to try that.
I think our time's up.
65.
Two way cloud store but.
Pasadena.
Go.
Ahead.
We pray, Most gracious God our Father, how we thank Thee and bless thy holy name, O God, for the wonderful privilege of being able to open.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Mike Campbell
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.
One, I see by the clock that it's 7:00, so it's time to begin. You have your him seat. Let's turn to #35 #35 Oh what a Savior that died for me from condemnation. He hath made me free. He that believeth on the sunset, He hath everlasting life #35.
Oh what a savior that he died for me.
Right before we look at God's Word, let's have word of prayer. Our Father, we thank Thee for that wonderful message and that it is true. He that believeth from the Son hath everlasting life. And that is what we are here to share this evening. Perhaps if there is someone here in this room that does not know that wonderful Savior who died for them, and tonight that they would come to know Him, to accept Him, and to know us, to know life eternal.
And Father, we come.
And our weakness and our inability. But we thank Thee, that's our table to save us all. The Thou art able to reach them with Thy truth and do far more above than what we could ever ask or think. And we thank Thee that Thy word has promised that it will not come back unto Thee void, but will accomplish the purpose that Thou has sent for him. So Father, we pray that in this meeting, we pray that thou give clarity and thought, clearness and simplicity in the message.
And that Christ would be honored and glorified through what is preached this evening. We just ask this and his precious and holy name, Amen. Amen. Let's turn in the book of Exodus, the book of Exodus, Chapter 9.
I want to reach you 13 verses starting at verse 13 going down to verse 26.
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Chapter 9.
And the thought that's kind of on my mind is how do we respond to God's word? How do people respond to the message of the gospel? And I think we see a wonderful picture of that in Exodus Chapter 9, starting at verse 13.
Exodus Chapter 9, starting in verse 13. And the Lord said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, that my people go, that they may serve me.
Try well at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart and upon thy servant and upon thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. For now I will stretch out my hands, I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence, and thou shalt be cut off from the earth.
And then very deep for this cause have I raised thee up for the show. Indeed My power and that My name may be be declared throughout all the earth, as yet exalted, thou lies up against my people.
That thou will not let them go. Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof, even until now. Send therefore now and gather thy cattle, and all thou hast in the field. For every man and beast which shall be found in the field and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die. He that fear of the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses.
He that regardeth not the word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the field.
And the Lord son of the Moses, stretch forth thy hand toward heaven, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, upon man and upon beasts, and upon every herb of the field, throughout all the land of Egypt. And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven. And the Lord sent Thunder and hail, and the fire ran along the ground, and the Lord reigned hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail and fire mingled with, mingled with the hail, very grievous such as there was none.
Like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.
And the hail smoked throughout all the land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast. And the hail smote every herb of the field and break every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hand.
Back during the days of the Soviet Union went basically atheism was the state religion. There was a matinee idol, a star movie star and also a play actor who played in many Broadway productions. His name was Alexander Rostovich and Rastevet was playing a new role. He was going to play Jesus Christ in the blasphemy miss play called Christ in a Tuxedo. And what he was supposed to do is Ross the bed was to come out beard with the long road kind of like Solomon's head of Christ, that kind of picture that they have. And so he was to come out in that long Rd.
He was to take a Bible, open it to the Beatitudes, read a couple of verses, and then after he did that he would rip his rope off and say give me my tuxedo, my top hat, and start to sing and dance and all kinds of blasphemy with stuff.
Well, the day of the first performance, he came out looking very solemn, you know, as he was to be an actor and he was going to try to be dramatic.
And he got his Bible and he read, blessed is the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. And at that point, Roth, the web began to tremble. And it was they were wondering, people looking on backstage, why is he trembling? And not only did he begin to tremble, but he kept reading the Bible. He didn't stop. And then backstage there were, you know, like that trying to say, mom, move along, get back, get into the production.
And then people started stomping their feet saying, come on, Rasta Bev. And then that's what they're saying, Rasta Bev, come on, you gotta move along. Stop reading the Bible. But he ignored them and he kept reading. So finally the stage manager was bringing the curtain down before they could get the curtain down, Rostovibs that he remembered when he was a young boy. Lord, Remember Me when thou comest unto thy Kingdom. And that night Rossave became a believer. Now you wouldn't think that reading a few verses from the Beatitude now.
I've I've heard a lot of gospel messages down through the years. I'm sure you have too.
I've never recalled hearing anybody preach the gospel from a few verses in the Beatitudes.
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Goddess versus the preacher preached on Isaiah 1/3 the ox knoweth his owner and the ***** master's crib, but Israel does not know my people, does not consider that's what he preached on and the man, you know, just kind of laughed it off, went his own way. The next day he was working his animals, his oxen out in the field and.
At one point he was getting frustrated and he was beating his ox and beating them and at one point he saw one of his oxen looking up to him with such.
And he realized that what that preacher said was true about his own soul, and he came to know Christ from that verse.
And that shows us the power of the Scriptures. The Bible tells us that the Word of God is quick. We're living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword.
And what a wonderful thing that we have this message to preach, this book to preach, and we know it's true.
And tonight, when I consider this passage.
I can say from the standpoint of that powerful word, that fact that this Bible that we have is a powerful message is wonderful. It's amazing. It's the only true message that men have and that men will hear, though many of them scoff at it and laugh and jeer and say it's full of, you know, contradictions and all the rest, it's still the most amazing message that man will ever hear, a message of redeeming law, of the Savior who shed his precious blood, that men would go to heaven.
And as I was concerned this passage, I saw a wonderful parallel between the message that Moses has to give to Pharaoh here and the message. Look at how people respond to the message of the Word of God, how people respond to us when we preach the gospel number. We even hid out a track how people respond because we see that picture here in this passage. And I want to know this three things. First of all, the receiving of the passage, then the response of the receiving of the message, the response to the message and the results of the message that we find here.
Now look at the first part. Receiving the message. Well, message where? Where did Moses get this message? Did he have a dream one day and say well?
I got a great idea. Let's tell Pharaoh, let my people go. No. Did he decide, well, I'm gonna look up on the latest psychology book or the latest philosophies of the land of Egypt because Moses had education and learning. Did he look that up and say, well, I found this wonderful passage in this latest philosopher telling me to tell you, Pharaoh, that my people go, no, he did not. It says, let's go back to verse 13.
So and the Lord said unto Moses.
So this message that Moses received is not a man made message. It's not a message that he dreamed up or had a bad dream some night after eating too much hot and spicy food or whatever. No, it's a message that he received from God.
It's a message that came from heaven.
And that's important because that is the same message that we have to share with you this evening in the gospel.
It's not a message that we thought up and thought it would be a good idea to present to you tonight. It's not a message that in fact, it's not a message any man would come up because it runs counter to everything that men believe. If you look at all the predominant philosophies that exist in the world, they start with the spaces. Man is basically good and he somehow has to come to this idea or this understanding, and once he understands and accepts how good he is, everything will be wonderful. We'll have utopia.
Well, paradise from your and yet this message runs counter to every other human philosophy because every other human philosophy has a basis. But what does the Bible say about us as individuals? The Bible says there is none good. No, not one. The Bible says for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God includes every person in this room.
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So it's not a man made message, it's not something that.
Sounds like a good idea, and we'll just preach it. No, it's a message that runs counter to what the world wants there. People want to be tickled and told in their ears that everything's gonna be wonderful and they're gonna be have prosperity and they're gonna have this and that.
But the Bible declares the truth about you and about me.
That we are sinners, that we are laws and there is nothing we could ever do to save ourselves, and that the only way you and I could ever know salvation is through that wonderful man Jesus who died on that tree tree and shed his blood and paid the price. Jesus paid it all to him. I owe sin had left the Crimson stain. He washed it with his snow. So how wonderful that we have a God-given message to share with you that we don't have to come up here and try to figure out some way to entertain you.
That may some sometimes Christian groups, people do they come up with entertainment that we don't have to come up and try to find some way to tickle your ears. No, we can share with you what God has given to us to share with you, just as God gave to Moses. Go tell Pharaoh this.
And so we stand here this evening giving you an authoritative message, a God-given message.
You know, that's important to establish because I perhaps there's someone here that's not saved this evening and you've heard over and over again that the Bible's full miss Bible's just, you know, imaginary tales or wonderful little stories we tell children. But the Bible's not true because after all, scientists prove this and they've done this and they've done that. And we hear this over and over again. I work in the public schools in, in Maine. And I mean, some of the things you hear.
It grieves your heart that you hear teachers telling their students.
But I'm thankful that I don't have to share that Milwaukee with anyone.
For with you that I can preach to you the word of God. Now I I just want to take a quick moment and share with you why I believe the Bible is the word of God just quickly and because we could do a whole message on this alone. And I don't have time to do that. I have to keep on and watch because I cannot see that clock from here. I don't want my glasses on.
So if I go over, you'll have to forgive me, but anyway, let me just quickly give you 5 reasons why the Bible is the word of God, because it's, I think it's important to establish that in your mind that this is God's message for your soul. First reason, these are all based on the on the word Bible. The first one, the letter B stands for. I call this because of the three CS. The three CS are claims, consistency and continuous. What do I mean by that? First of all, the Bible.
Claims to be the word of God over 2000 times in the Old Testament. It says thus saith the Lord. We read one of them here. The Lord said the Moses, what thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews. Let my people go over 2000 times. Now if the Bible didn't claim to be the word of God, we couldn't say it was the word of God, but it says it's the word of God. We're told that all scripture is given by inspiration of God or God breathed into it life and power. And so we have a book that comes from God. So claims to be the word of God.
And of course, it is the Word of God. Consistency means that. Consider the amazing.
Composing of this Bible, you have 40 different men writing a lucrative about 106,000 or 1600 years spread out over time, 40 different individuals, different walks of life. You had kings, you had shepherds, you had farmers, you had fishermen. And they write a book that's consistent all throughout that same threat of redemption, that same wondrous message.
Of Gods love. Sometimes you can't get two people together and have them not you know have not have a fight. People will disagree sometimes even this we as brethren sometimes have disagreements over things, but forty different individuals over 1600 years of writing as as it says in Peter that gods that God speak through holy man who gave them his words and then continuance continuous just simply means look at the wonderful preservation of this book.
You know, it's interesting, Voltaire, before he died, he was a he was an atheist and he was a noted writer and all the rest. And people respect him. But before he died, he said he made this prophecy. He said over 100 years after my death, Christianity will be no more. There will be no more Bible. People will burn it and be gone.
You know, sometimes I think the Lord has a sense of humor in the sense that the 100th anniversary of his death, the Bible Society bought his house and we're printing Bibles.
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So, so much for his prophecy.
And then the letter I stands for the insurmountable resurrection. You see, if you study the Bible, the Bible tells us First Corinthians chapter 15 that what is the reason why we can stand here so confidently and tell you that saith the Lord, because of the resurrection. The resurrection in Acts 17, God said he is guaranteed that every man will be judged. Why? Because he raised Jesus from the dead.
We're told in First Corinthians 15 that if Jesus had not rose, you and I would be yet in our sins. Our preaching would be vain, our faith would be in vain. There would be no reason to be here. There would be nothing to share with you.
But because of that fact that Jesus is alive.
We stand there confidently this evening.
We have God's message to share and of course, this could take hours to go over all the evidence. I just wanted you to consider one thing. A lot of people try to explain away the resurrection of Jesus Christ and say this or that. You know, they say that Jesus simply swoon. He didn't die. Now when you think about that's pretty stupid because Jesus obviously was pierced through the heart. The only way that they could have saw blood and water, there's a vessel around the heart.
That when there's increased stress, fills up with water. And so when they Pierce them in the side with the spear, it says, I'll blow blood and water. And the only way that could have happened is if Jesus was pierced through the heart. And if you get pierced through the heart, you're not going to swim, you're going to be dead. It's that simple. And so they say he swoon. Some people say, well, they went through the wrong tomb. Well, that's pretty much stupid because somebody could have said, hey, go over here, you know, that would have been solving that pretty easily.
And so they all have these theories, but what is the Common Core of each one of those theories that there is an empty?
That's a Common Core. They're all trying to explain why it's empty, but they have to mend. It's empty. Even the Roman soldiers, they came to the Jews, and the Jews said, well, go ahead and tell everybody. And they said, well, we can't do that because we'll be put to death. And they said, we'll cover it over with your bosses. You'll be OK. What were they trying to do? Explain that there was an empty tomb?
There was a man named Frank Morrison who wrote a book called Who Moved the Stone.
And then he tells in the first chapter, he meant to write a different book because Frank Morrison was an intellectual, he was a great writer and he wanted to write a book that the resurrection wasn't true. But he said in the first chapter that as he studied the evidence, he had to write a different book because he said the evidence is overwhelming at the resurrection is true. So once again, support the fact that this book, this message we share is the word of God, second letter being it stands for Bible prophecy.
And that's just simply, we could go on and talk about that for a long time. Consider the prophecies about Jesus Christ, over 300 different prophecies about Jesus and about his birth and where he would be born. When the wise men came to find out where is he this morning, King of the Jews? Where do they find the answer in the Bible? They said in Bethlehem, Africa, and they had to. And that showed you how precise the Bible because it was another Bethlehem. And so it says in Bethlehem, Africa, telling them exactly where you would find him. They found it in the Bible because the Bible predicted that thousands of years.
The government, it's interesting, there is a man named Peter Stoner. He was a scientist and a mathematician. He wrote a book called Science Speaks and he wanted to apply mathematical principles to the Bible. And so he had himself and the students figure out what it would be for a man from the time that the prophecy was given to the time it was fulfilled to be able to fill just 8 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ, concerning, you know, his birth or whatever. They just chose 8 prophecies. And he said the odds of that happening was one in 10 to the 17th power.
In order to understand that if you had one and 10 to the 17 silver dollars, you could cover the whole state of Texas 2 feet for that. And that would be like taking one of those silver dollars and marking you next with and then stirring the whole state up and then sending someone out belonging and say go find that X. How would that be? And yet there are over 300 prophecies fulfilled about Jesus Christ.
That's why we confidently preach this book. That's why we have a God-given message to share. Because the Bible prophecy as well.
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And then something I call the legacy of history, just simply to start with, now rhyme with the word Bible.
And that simply means that over the years, scoffers have tried to say this and that the Bible can't be true because we don't have any other historical records about. In fact, it wasn't long ago that scholars so-called said that David was just a mythical figure, King David of the Old Testament, because they said we don't have any other historical evidence that he existed outside of the Bible. So we're not going to accept what the Bible has to say. And of course, recently in the last couple years, they found descriptions that spoke about the House of David.
From other kings and from other historical sites. And yet all the time they said David was mythical Belshazzar in the book of Daniel. They said, no, there's no Belshazzar in the Nabatonius was the emperor of of battle on that time until he found inscriptions. They just have to dig a little farther. And they found inscriptions that said that Navidonis had a surname Belshazzar. And they were cold regions for a while because Navidonius went out and fought some wars and he left Belshazzar there.
And so once again, history archaeology proves the Bible to be true over and over again.
And then the last one. And of course, to me, this is one of the most powerful. The letter E is the evidence of changed lives.
Only this book that we have, only this message of the gospel can transform people that were down and out with the dregs of society and change their life drastically. In fact, someone atheist came to Harry Ironside and said to him, let's have a debate.
And hindsight said, OK, I'll debate you on what condition the condition is this? He said you need to bring 10 people that will come up and testify that atheism changes their lives. The fact that they didn't believe in God transformed them from being in the gutter and brought them up into being a.
Good citizen, our King has transformed their life. He said. I'll bring 100 people that were at the bottom of society, that were drunkards, that were harlots, and they will testify to what Jesus Christ did for their life. And they said, well, I'm sorry, I'm busy that day. He turned it down.
This interesting man, his name is Jim Tucker. Jim Tucker at the age of 10 saw his mother beat by another man killed. So Jim Tucker had no other relatives. So he went into the other homes. Eventually juvenile hall, eventually reformed school prevention prison.
In fact, in 1956 or just probably 1956, he was on the FBI's Most Wanted list. In that time, he had over 600 counts of robbery and other criminal acts, but they eventually caught him In 1956. They sent him to 90 years in prison.
And Jim Tucker was a tough guy. He was determined he wasn't going to back down from anybody. In fact they called him the animal in prison. They say he could he could have bench pressed over £400. He was just a big strong guy.
In fact, in those days when they put you in solitary for a while, they wouldn't leave you any more than 29 days because they said if they left you longer it would drive you crazy. Jim Tucker spent three years in solitaire in one stretch.
He was that kind of a guy. He was so violent, so vicious.
That they had to keep leaving salt here because when they leave them out, he would hurt somebody and that come back in again. So they left it at one stretch, three years in solitary and never enough to anybody longer than 29 days.
Well, after many years.
Jim Tucker, the animal, was released from prison. He got paroled after many years, and as he got back out, he started getting more trouble and started to have more of a situation, and he realized that his life was not good.
He realized he was older. In fact, in 27 years of being in prison, no one ever wrote or communicated or visited 27 years in prison. No one ever cared about it. In fact, the only time he ever got to communicate in prison was when the guard came with the telegram to season that his brother died. And of course he couldn't go to the funeral, but.
So he was going to jump off a building, he said that's it, I can't, you can't handle it anymore. He said. Yes, I'm a tough guy. Yes, I can handle lane thing, but I have no one. No one cares for me.
And he went to jump off the building and he looked out over the precipice and he just couldn't jump.
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And so he went back to his room.
You didn't know what he was gonna do, and he opened a drawer and saw a Bible.
And he read the message of Christ's love for sinners.
They got saved and he set out. He said afterwards, he said no one wanted me but Jesus. No one wanted me but Jesus. That book that we preached, that's the message we have for you. It could change your life. It could take you from being a sitter on your way to a sinner's house and put you in heaven.
That sounds like a good idea.
It came from God. Now, secondly, what was the message that Moses got? Well, to simplify, to break it down into two to two things, the message was basically two parts. He said Hail's coming, or we could say coming judgment. And the second part is there is a way of escape. What was the way of escape? He said, take your animals, put them inside. You go inside, stay in there. Don't leave them out in the fields. If you leave them out in the fields, they'll die.
That was a message, the message of just judgment coming. I'm going to judge the land. And we read that God said he was doing it for a purpose to to convince them, to show them that he was the true God.
And also message of a way of escape. And of course, that's the same message that we have to share with you tonight. There is coming judgment. It's not popular to tell people that, but it's true. It's what the Bible says, Hebrews 927 says, and as is appointed to man wants to die. But what but after this judgment?
Revelation 20/11/15.
Tells us of the final destiny of men outside of Christ. Let me read it to you can turn there too if you wish. Revelation 20, starting verse 11.
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God. And the books were open, and another book was open, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in them, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever is not found written in the book of Life was cast in two. The lake of fire. That is the final destiny, folks, for you if you're outside of Jesus Christ.
That is your final destiny and justice, as sure as this Bible is the word of God.
God said that this is where the soul that rejects Jesus, whose name is not found in the book of Life, will end up. I wish that I had a tongue of an Angel or some way to describe to you the horror that awaits.
The last soul to wake up in a place like that.
The Richmond Foundation lifted up his eyes, being a Chaldean torment as the scripture says.
I wish that I could describe that to you.
Play.
I don't know if I could. I wish I could.
Did you see the wonderful thing is I can describe to you something that's wonderful, just as that is terrible, just as that is tragic, just as that is sorrowful. The beauty is that second part of the message. There was coming judgment for them. There was hail. There's coming judgment for you, dear friend outside of Christ. It's called ending up in that place called the Lake of fire. But the beautiful message tonight is there is a way of escape for you. There's a way. There was a way of escape from me.
I want to reach you. Romans chapter 5, verses 8-9. But God commanded his love toward us.
And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us much more than being now justified by His blood. We shall be saved from wrath through him. That's God's way of escape. Jesus died for you. He paid the price in Calvary for you. He shed that precious blood for you. What can wash away my saying nothing but the blood of Jesus? What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. All precious is the flow that makes me want to snow. No other fountain.
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I know nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Justified by that vote because Jesus loved you enough therefore, to die for you to take your place, to suffer what you rightfully deserve, what I rightfully deserved on that cruel tree.
But you know, man tries to find what they trying to find other ways to escape. They try they say they know better than God. In fact, Proverbs 1625 says there is a way that he was right into a man. But the answer over what our death the answer of the ways of death. But men think that they have the solution. They say well just do some good things, you know, be good to people, be kind, be loving and that that'll be all right. God will just kind of gloss over.
Everything else.
The bottomselves of God is holy. In fact, the only way that God could provide salvation for you and for me is to send his blessed Son to come to this earth and dine across that perfect one who did no sin, who knew no sin. He died for you in Calgary. That's the only way God could forgive your sin and mine. He can't just say, Oh well you're a bad boy Mike, but I'll let him anyway. No, no, no, Jesus had to die. He had to stop. His Bible says that God would be just in Romans and to justify.
Of him who believe the conscience.
People say, well, just do some good things.
Ephesians tells us. For by grace are you saved? Not, not of yourselves.
It's it's not of works with any man Chipotle, nothing you can do. There's no good work you can do. There's no trying you can do. There's no effort that you can make.
It's already been done for you. Stop trying to do something. Look to the one who did it. Look to the one who hung in the cross for you. He's already accomplished the work and completed it. While some people turn and they think the way of escape is religion. So they go to church, you know, and it's like someone said, going trying to go to church to make yourself Christians, like trying to go to McDonald's to make yourself a hamburger. It doesn't work.
And so they think that they do these little duties, if they, you know, bow on their knees or follow the observances of their church, that all will be well for them to have them.
But the Bible says what? Acts 412 Neither is there salvation in any other. They're not salvation in your religion. There's not salvation in some other thing that you're trying to do. There's neither is there salvation out there. But there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
It's not salvation and going to church is not salvation and getting baptized. There's not salvation in doing religious duties. It's not salvation anything but the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son.
Of course, some people go the opposite direction. They say, well, I'm just going to ignore the thing altogether. I'm going to save my mind. There is no God. And of course, we're told the fool is said in his heart, there is no God. And they're just going to deny and say, well, I'm just going to disregard it because, you know, the atheists in Great Britain put up signs and the buses few years ago saying there's probably no God, so don't worry. No, they said there's probably no God. Of course, what happens if there is a God and there is, they're in trouble.
But there's probably no God, so don't worry. That's what they're doing. They're trying to bury their head on the sand. Say we're not going to worry about it because the Bible says you have this life to prepare. This is your time. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. This is the time for you to consider your very soul.
And it was him that says, where were you spending eternity? This question comes to you and me. Tell me, what shall your answer be? Where were you spending eternity?
Where are you gonna spend eternity, Fred? You have to decide in this life, this is your time. Jesus provided the way escape for you. But if you just go on your merry old way and refuse that way of escape.
It could be eternally too white for you.
So I mean by the grace of God.
Than any of us have reached heaven.
And we don't have the time to dilly down, because the time is drawing here. At any moment the Lord could come and things will be drastically different upon this planner.
You know, they say in Stroudsburg, PA, in one of the graves there, there's a man's name who died in the Civil War day of his life and his birth. And below that are the words Abraham Lincoln substitute. Abraham Lincoln chose randomly someone who died in the Battle of Gettysburg and put Abraham Lincoln substitute different. Who's your substitute? Who took your place? Who died for you? Let me tell you who did Jesus died for you. He suffered for you. He endured the agony of Calvary for you.
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That you could go to heaven so that you could have that way of escape.
As wonderful as it was, Lincoln acknowledging that man's sacrifice doesn't no good if he ended up in the center as hell.
How wonderful that you can say this evening Jesus is my sister.
You took my place in the tree and because of that I can go through.
So that's the message.
It's a God-given message and it had two parts coming judgment.
In a way of escape.
Now let's look at the response to it.
And go back to Exodus Chapter 9, verse 20.
Exodus Chapter 9, verse 20.
Says.
He that feared the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses.
And he that regarded not the word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the field.
This right here is a picture to me of how people respond to the word of God.
Notice there's two responses here.
Those that fear the word of the Lord went inside as they were told to do. Those that regarded not the word of the Lord just lived another day, as if there was no coming judgment, as if there was no reason to fear, as if there was nothing to worry about.
Now that word fear there means to reverence or or of course the idea of fear. In other words, these people saw God at work, they saw his power they got they saw that the Lord could do things that even the the magician so-called and Egypt couldn't do. And they realized they better be smart and put their animals inside and stay inside themselves.
Of course, fear can be an excellent motivator to to sinners in the book of Jude we read and others say, with fear pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh.
Yes, we've reached a message of love and mercy and grace, but sometimes there you need to know if you have a reason to fear that there is a holy God, and if he was willing to send his Son to die for you because that was the only way he could provide salvation, then what is he going to do with you when you reject his Son? When you say no to Jesus and say I'm going to do it my own way, I'm going to find my own way of escape, but your own way of escape ends in destruction. Jesus talked about what the two roads there was a broad road and many to be defined.
Many to be that go down.
You know they say all roads lead to heaven, but they don't. I'll tell you what, all the roads on the Broad Rd. will lead to hell. There's only one Rd. that leads to heaven, Jesus. And I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me. But if you're on any of the roads that leads to hell doesn't lead to heaven. The only Rd. that leads to heaven is through God's precious Son. That's it. No other.
There was a Welsh minister one time who was preaching on the pulpit and he said friends.
I have a question to ask, so I cannot answer it. He said you cannot answer it. If I brought an Angel from heaven down to us, he said he would not be able to answer it. And his people were looking at and wondering, what is she talking about? He said the question is this, How shall I escape if I neglect so great salvation?
The answer is you can't escape.
Scott is guaranteed that judgment is coming to the center at 17, as we said, to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He guaranteed that. He's guaranteed that one day you will stand before Him in judgment. But if you stand in the one who took the judgment for you, that's a different case. You don't have to worry about judgment then, because he already bore your judgment. He bore the wrath of God in Calvary. You need to stand in him. You need to be in Christ.
But the question is, how are you going to respond to them? You know, you go out and hand out things to people and they throw them in the trash or they laugh at you and scoff at you. Or they say, well, one time passing out, the guy says, I'm too busy, I got a ball game to watch.
People can react that way, but what? How are they reacting that way? What they're reacting that way to their own structure? Saddest thing?
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Because they're too responsive. You can fear the Word, you take God's way of mistake, or you can regard not the Word. And you don't even have to do anything. Just go on your way, continue to live your life and say I don't wanna have anything to do with Christ, go on your way. And the Bible says that he that believeth on the Son, John 336 hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
So if you regard not the word.
Go your own way, says the wrath of God abiding.
There was a Chinese businessman that was fascinated with microscopes and so he bought his own because he had the money and he started to study things under the microscope and.
One day he took some rice he was going to cook for dinner and started studying it under the microscope. And he saw to his dismay that there were tiny little, little creatures, little, you know, microscopic creatures crawling on his rice, and he was going to eat for dinner.
And since that was basically his staple, his main staple, he didn't know what to do. So he decided the only way out was he destroyed the microscope. That's the way a lot of sinners are. Get rid of this book. I don't want to have to listen to what you have to say. I'll throw this out and just ignore it. Don't regard what the Bible says. But friends, you can try to burn this book, but you're not going to be successful because people tried that down to the ages, and the Bible's still here. The Bible stands like a rock undone.
And the raging storms of time, its pages burned with the truth eternal, and they glow with the light sublime. And people have tried that before. You can try to disregard the message. You can try to destroy the message, But the message is still true. The message is still God's message to your soul.
But if you'll accept Jesus, that will change your faith. If you'll trust in him, that will change your faith. If you'll stop trying to do all these religious things or believing that if you just are good enough, things will be all right, stop that. The Bible is clear. It does not save your soul, but Jesus Christ alone, Ken.
So how are you going to respond to this message this evening?
New choices.
I'm thankful as I see some cases. I know they responded the 1St way. They feared the word of God. They obeyed it. They went to the way of safety.
But I don't know everyone in this room. Maybe there's someone here that's saying, wow, that sounds good.
But I still might completely. I'm still not going to go my. I'm still going to do things my own way.
Dear friend.
You're playing with fire.
You're playing with fire if you regard not.
The word of God, how much more wonderful to say that I'm ready. How much more wonderful to be able to say that Christ is mine, that I'm saved. I heard a preacher one time tell that he read one of Billy Graham's books of his biography. And Billy Graham said that he was asked that when Dwight Eisenhower, the former president, was dying to come to see him in the hospital on his deathbed. And he came to Eisenhower and of course, he started trying to chit chatting with him. And Eisenhower said, no. He said, I, I don't need to chit chat right now. He said, the only thing that's important for me is to hear how can I be ready for heaven?
He was explaining the gospel to him. At one point Eisenhower says, OK, you can stop now. He said, I'm ready. I'm ready. Dear friend, how wonderful it is to be able to say I'm ready, that I know that Christ is mine, that I know that I feared the word of the Lord and so I came the way of safety and I don't have to worry about the wrath of God and the judgment of God.
How sad it is.
I'm going to smash the microscope. I don't want to see it anymore.
I'm going to just disregard what what the Lord says.
And so we've looked at so far the receiving the message, what kind of message it was.
It was a God-given message. It was looked at how the individuals responded. There was one of two ways. They either feared God and so they took all their animals in, they put themselves in, they stayed out from the open.
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Or those that didn't left everything out, did everything the way they wanted to. And then lastly, let's look at the results of the message. Let's go back to our passage.
Starting at first.
23.
The Lord tells Moses, verse 22, to stretch out his hand that there may be hail in the lands of Egypt. Verse 23 says in Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven, and the Lord sent Thunder and hail, and the fire ran along the ground, and the Lord reigned hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail and fire mingled, mingled with the hail very grievous such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt, since it became a nation. And the hail smote all smoked throughout all the land of Egypt, all that was in the field.
Both man and beast and the hail smote every herb in the field and break every tree in the field. Only in the land of Goshen where the children of Israel world was there no ham. So what is the result of this message now?
This message that God gave to them.
Well, it's simple, number one, what God said happened, happened when the Lord said it. You stay inside, you'll be safe. But if you leave anything outside and you stay outside, Hell's going to come down. And it will be unlike anything that you've ever seen and that Egypt has ever seen since it became a nation. And exactly what God said could happen, happen.
Many that were outside that regarded not the Word of God paid for that regard, that disregard with their eternal soul.
And they died as that giant hail came crashing down upon them, killing them, killing anything else that was left in the field.
But also what happened is what those that fear God, what happened to them, they were safe.
Those people, even amongst the Egyptians that took all their animals in the barns and stayed in the houses themselves, they were saved. The only people that died were the people that God said would die if they stayed in the field.
And of course, that is the way with the gospel.
There's only two results, dear friend.
What God says is going to happen is going to happen. When the Lord says that you will die one day and you'll stand before him in judgment, that's going to happen. It's a certainty. George Benoit Shaw said that there is one statistic that has remained true and throughout all time that one person out of one person dies. Of course, we know as Christians there is an exemption that possibly if the Lord were to return and take His bride home, that we wouldn't die, but we would be transformed and taken up. But if the Lord doesn't come back.
That statistic one out of one dies is still true.
And that could be you.
I know of course, like Paul, if I were to die, can say for me to live as Christ, to die is gain.
I trust that you'll be able to say that this evening. I trust that you'll be able to say that I trusted that want bled for me. He died for me. He suffered me in Calvin. But I realized that I was a Law Center and couldn't save myself in any way. But I look to him. I think I trusted him as my Savior because when God says something, it's true, you can count on.
You know, people try to, umm, deny, people try to disregard, people try to mock and scar, but the ultimate reality is that God says that it will happen. Mark it down.
You know, I heard a preacher one time tell about out in the Midwest.
They were selling this new irrigation system.
And they advertise it that you don't even need to pray. Put this new irrigation system in. You don't even need to pray. You'll have all kinds of water.
So that year when springtime's game, they have all kinds of water, they were flooded and not a crop group. You can't stop a God, you can't mock God. You can't say you don't need to pray and expect that everything is going to be all right because the Bible says that God is not mocked. What sort of man sow that? Shall he also remark it down, dear friend?
What you sow, what is, what you'll read, unless you go to the one that took your sin, your judgment upon himself.
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John said and was a preacher he was traveling in a train and someone asked him. They said well you know I've heard you preach the Bible and everything but I just don't understand how can I, God of love send a man to hell and send said that I'll I will answer your question by asking you a question and and way of reply.
And he said my question is this, how can a God of righteousness take a Sinner to heaven? You see man's got it all backwards. They think, well how can God do this? But the real question is how can God take you a Sinner into heaven? Well, the only way he can do that is if you are plans by the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the only way he can take you to heaven.
But people think, well, God's sending people to hell. He's not sending you there, dear friend, you're sending yourself. You're making a choice. You're deciding your eternal faith. If you reject Jesus Christ, it's possible you could walk out of this building and go off into your eternity. We don't know. Proverbs 27. One boasts not thyself tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. We don't know. None of us. Here's no.
But what we do know is God's word is true. As Roman says, let God be true and every man alive.
So the question is, how are you going to respond to this book if what happens?
Will happen if this Bible is the word of God. We try to establish that point just simply so you realize that your eternal destiny is at stake.
How are you going to respond?
What are you going to do? Are you just going to go leave this place and say ha ha ha, very funny?
You know there is AI may have told this story another time but some of you may have heard it. But I read this little.
The little book that sold back there called Coming Home has historians. It's a really powerful story. There was a young man who who worked for a Christian and.
Christian lawyer decided that he was concerned about them in the Gospel, so he paid the employees to stay and read the book by Robert Laidlaw called The Reason Why.
And this young man didn't want to do it. He had a party that he wanted to go to and he really didn't wanna do it. But he didn't wanna turn down the extra money because he was paying them for an hour to stay and read it. Or, you know, he would pay them for the whole hour whether it took them an hour to read it or not. So he stayed because he wanted the money. And at the end of Robert Laidlaw's book, the reason why there's a place that says On this date you put the date, you put I, you put your name, either accept Jesus Christ or reject Jesus Christ. And he thought it was a lark. So he brought on this day he wrote the day he wrote his name.
Under I rejected some drugs Hannah the booklet in got out early, happy because he could finally go to his party went on his way.
Well, he had to drive away to his party.
And.
You know, you could be like that young man. You could say what alarms, I'm going to go out and have some fun. I'm not going to buy into this whole, you know, salvation stuff.
But dear friend, what about your eternal soul? What about your eternal destiny?
You see the Agatha people in the in the Philippines, they refer to the word of God as Ma da God and ma de GAT means two things in their language. First of all, it's the stinging venomous poison of certain snakes.
But it's also that same poise is also used as a healing compound, and they believe the word of God can either heal you or can be like a poison if you're rejected.
And dear friends, I trust this evening that we've been able to establish to you that there is a decision you must make tonight.
And there are two choices that you have before you. You can either.
Be got, disregard the word of God, regard it not and find out.
That is true. And wake up and eternity too late.
Or you can hear the word of God and receive the wonderful message of love and grace found in Jesus Christ. I want to read you a poem, and then we'll have prayer. And then we'll close with the hymn. Poems called What then? When the great dizzy plants of our city shall turn out their last finished work? When the merchants have sold their last order and dismissed every last hired clerk? When our banks have raked in their last dollar and have paid out their last dividend? When the judge of the earth wants a hearing.
And ask for a balance. What then?
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When the choir sung its last anthem and the preacher's voiced his last prayer, and the people have heard their last sermon and the sound has died out in the air. When the Bible lies closed on the altar and the pews are all empty of man. When each one stands facing his record and the Great Book is open, what's that?
When the actors have played their last drama and the mimic has made his last simulation. When the movie is flat, this last picture and the Billboard displayed his last run. When the crowd seeking pleasure has vanished and gone out into the darkness again. When the trumpet of the Aegis has sounded and we stand before him with that.
When the bugle call sinks in the silence and the long marching column stand still. When the captain repeats his last orders and they have captured the last Ford and hill. When the flag has been hauled from the mast head, and all the wounded, the field have checked in, and the world that rejected his savior is asked for a reason. What the hell, dear friend, I beg with you.
Don't believe this for me tonight without knowing Jesus Christ.
Our Father's evening #26 #26 After we have sung this song, meeting will be over. There is life and a look at the crucified One. There is life at this moment for thee. Then looks in her. Look unto Him and be saved unto Him. He was nailed to the tree. Someone start that place #26.
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Remember Now Your Creator While You Are Young
Children—Bry'n Ross
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.
Perhaps we can start.
By singing number #43.
#43 one door and only one, and yet its sides are two, inside and outside. On which side are you? There's a question to be asked.
We ready. Everybody got a hymn sheet, OK.
One door and only one, and yet it signs are two.
Inside and outside? On which side are you?
One door and only one, and yet its sides are two. I'm on the inside. On which side are you?
It's a very simple song, but a very important question, isn't it? On which side are you?
How about?
Number 42 #42 you have a little child of seven. How old are you?
Are you 4-5?
Bye. Alright, cool. OK.
A little child of seven, or even 3 or 4.
May enter into heaven through Christ the open door.
For when the heart believeth.
You know, in the little children's Sunday school hymn book, there's a lot more hymns to choose from that appeal to those who are younger in heart. That you guys and some of them too, you know, even though people are old, they have, they're young and hard.
They enjoy the things of the Lord in a very simple way.
Perhaps we can sing an old favorite #32.
#32 it's one that although it's, it's an older hymn, I'm sure the the children know the know it #32 What can wash away my thought, Jesus?
No, no other founds. I know nothing but the blood of Jesus.
For my cleansing this I see nothing but the blood of Jesus.
For my part in this, my fleet nothing but the blood of Jesus.
There's nothing can force sins at all. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Not of goods that I have done nothing, but the blood of Jesus.
Oh gracious, is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other found. I know nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my hope and peace, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
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This is all my righteousness, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Do you think the blood of Jesus is important?
Yeah, in this song, it's almost every second line. It says that nothing but the blood of Jesus. It tells us how important it is in the eyes of God and in our own lives. Because what does what does the blood of Jesus do? Does anybody know?
That's right, it washes away our sense. Is that important?
Yes, very important, isn't it? We heard the good gospel last night and it told us how that blood of Jesus washes away our sins so we can go to heaven and we can see him face to face. Won't that be something to be able to see the one who died for us face to face and thank him for what he's done? Yeah.
Let's see if we can sing one more here.
Umm, how about #45 two little eyes to look to God, two little ears to hear his word, 2 little feet to walk his ways, two hands to work for him all my days. If someone could start that, please.
Too little art is too long to go to walk his ways, two hands to work for him all my day.
God has given us many things to work for him and to see things and to do things.
You know, I want to talk about one scripture verse in the book of Ecclesiastes. You have a Bible.
Turn to the Book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 12.
And there's one verse there that, uh.
When someone asked me to to do this, the verse just flashed up like a big screen and said Ecclesiastes 12/1.
So Ecclesiastes the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 12, verse one says this.
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth.
And when I thought of this, there's three things that we can talk about.
Two of them are kind of already looked after, so I don't have to say much about them.
For example in the days of value.
Most of you here are already in that stage here in the days of your youth. You're young, you're kids, you're out having fun and enjoying life. And there are many things that the Lord has to show you in your life that you can enjoy and have fun with one another. And when you come to a conference, you can learn many things we trust. So that thing, I think we can just put the one side because we know that you're in your youth. So we'll consider that done.
And the second part is thy creator. Who's thy creator? Do you know who the creator of the whole world was?
Yes, God, That's right. It tells us in Isaiah 45 that God himself formed the earth and He made it. And if you read the book of Genesis, it tells us that God created the earth and he created the sun and the stars and the moon and the plants and the animals and all the things that any created man. And then He created woman and He created all things for his pleasure. It says He and He was to enjoy all those things, but something happened.
Somebody was disobedient and they brought sin into the world, and because of that, God can no longer look at those things in the way He did before.
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So we have in your youth looked after and the Creator. But there's this word, the very start of the verse. It says, remember.
Remember.
So how many of us remember what happened before we were born? Put up your hand.
Nobody remembers what happened before you were born.
Oh dear, I know somebody who does.
Your parents do, but somebody even bigger and better remembers before your parents were born.
Jesus does, That's right, He remembers. He knows all these things. And you know what? He sent the Spirit of God into our hearts and minds when we accept them as our Savior, to bring things to remembrance from the Word of God. And that's why it's important to read the Word of God. So we'll have things that we'll know. But you know what He can't bring to our hearts and minds what we don't have there.
Kenny But I asked you the question, do you remember before you were born? You can't do that because you don't know. And if you don't read the word of God, you don't know what's in there, do you? And he can't use that to help you grow and strengthen.
You know there's dangers of not remembering things when your parents tell you tie up your shoes.
Do your parents ever tell you that? Tie up your shoes? And what happens if you don't tie up your shoes?
You could trip and fall, couldn't you, And hurt yourself? So it's important to remember things.
It's important to remember things. You know, in on November the 11Th, most people wear a poppy in Canada and it and it's a sign that we remember those people who died in the war, that died to bring freedom to this country, that we would be able to enjoy the freedom that we have to even meet like we do today and read the Bible openly and things like that. So it's important to remember, but it's even more important to remember certain things, isn't it?
When I need to remember things, you know what I do. I have a poor memory sometimes.
Are you sticky notes?
Sticky notes. Everybody knows the stick. Have you ever seen sticky notes? Yeah. If your mom and dad use sticky notes, sometimes they stick them on the fridge and say go to the store, buy this, buy that, do this, do that. They call it a do list.
You know what happens when I forget my sticky notes? I write it on my hand.
But you know what? I can't put my hand on the fridge. It doesn't stay there very long, just falls. And you know what other happens when I wash my hands?
It washes away and then I go, what was I supposed to remember and wash my hands? So I remembered to wash my hands, but remembering to wash my hands, I forgot what I wrote down.
So when I need to remember, I do those now. Do you think God uses sticky notes?
Yeah, no. Why wouldn't God need to use sticky notes?
That's right. He already knows everything it tells us in the Scripture. It says he says I have, for example, he doesn't have to write on his hands either, but he has written something on his hands. He says I have engraving you on my hands, on the palms of my hands.
That he won't forget us, and he also tells us that he will remember our sins.
No more, no more. And it's not because He's forgetful like we are. That's why I have to use sticky notes. It's because He chooses not to remember them because they were covered by the blood of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that a wonderful thing? To not be able to remember our sins? Because sometimes we do sin, even nowadays, don't we? And it's good to know that if we confess our sins.
He's faithful and justice tells us to forgive us our sins because.
Of the blood of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
They're put away by his blood.
You know what I I find helpful to remember these things because I made some big sticky notes and I find that when I see a color, sometimes if I can't find my sticky note, sometimes there's scriptures that the Lord has put in my head that when I see a color, it reminds me of that verse.
And that's a good thing, isn't it? When you see a color, you can remind you of Scripture verses. In that way, everything you see can remind you of the Lord. And that's a good way to be. So I had put some big sticky notes here. I've got some big sticky notes here to remind me. And here's one that we sang part of the song that says Isaiah 118.
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And it says, Though your sins be a scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
Though your sins be scarlet, they shall be white as snow. So diverse that we could remember. Yeah, maybe you could say it with me. You ready? Though your sins be it scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Isaiah 118 Now you've got it in your head.
And the Lord will put it in your heart, and maybe you'll need to diverse sometime in your life. And the Spirit of God will bring it right to your remembrance. But just like that, you'll remember it. So that's a sticky note. Now another one. And this is red. Why do you think this is red? What does red remind us of? Yeah.
Jesus's blood, right? And because of that, the sticky note says first John 17, which says the blood of Jesus Christ.
His Son cleanseth us from all sins, right? Can we say that one, the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sins? How many sins?
Oh, oh, oh.
Oh, since isn't that wonderful to know that there's not one sin that doesn't imply and that's found in the Epistle of John first John 1/7?
So when I see red, what do I think of?
Jesus blood. That's right. It reminds me that he cleanses me from all sin. And if there's a sin in my life, I can confess that to the Lord and remember that I'm cleansed from that. It doesn't stop me from sinning, said to say, but it helps me to remember that there's one who loves me and died for those sins, and it keeps me from sending as much as possible. Now this one's brown.
What's brown the color of?
Yeah, dirt. Yeah, Browns dirt. Except when you're in PEI, then it's red.
What's usually brown color? Yeah, wood. That's right, wood. So this reminds me, because it's a wood color. It's Colossians 120, it says having made peace through the blood of his cross.
And that's how he made peace, wasn't it? He died on the cross of Calvary.
He died for us there. He hung on the cross and bore our penalty. We were supposed to die for our sins because that's what God says. If you sin, you will die. And the Lord Jesus took our place on the cross of Calvary. So let's do this one. This is Brown. It says Colossians 120 having made peace through the blood of his cross. Can you say that with me having made peace through the blood of his cross? So you see how important the blood of Christ is?
In the scheme of things, Oh, here's another one.
Green.
What does green reindeer stop? Yes.
Growing in the springtime after the winter. The winter is all white and everything gets covered and and that and it looks just Gray and blue. And all of a sudden the snow goes away and you start seeing the trees having nice green leaves and things like that, and the grass starts growing. Then we have to mow it and it grows and we mow it and it grows and mow it. That's what summer is all about, mowing lawns. But it's a wonderful time because everything's fresh and new and the birds start chirping and you get to see new life.
Growing up from the old dead winter. And that's why Green reminds me of this verse which is Second Corinthians 517. It says if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
Wait, a new creature? When we accept the Lord Jesus as our Savior, he changes us and makes us a brand new person that we can do things and and see things and enjoy things with the Lord in a new and better way.
So let's let's say this verse together. It's Second Corinthians 517. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
Ready. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. A new creature. Something formed in Christ. Now here's 1 blue.
A blue sticky note. What does blue remind me of? Yes.
Water. Yes. What else? Yeah, The sky. What about the sky? Who lives in the sky? Yeah. Jesus. He lives in heaven, right? Tells me he's sitting at the right hand of God even now. So he's in heaven. But you know what? When the Lord was on the earth, he told his disciples. He said I have to go away, but I'm going to prepare a place for you in heaven. Isn't that a wonderful thing to know that we have a place prepared for us in heaven?
00:20:24
That is all ready for us.
So when the Lord comes and calls us home, we'll be there to spend eternity with him in a wonderful place because it's more wonderful because He's there. So let's look at this one. It's John 14. Two, it says, I go to prepare a place for you.
Can you say it with me?
I go to prepare a place for you, for you and me. Isn't that a wonderful thought, that the Lord Jesus himself would prepare a place for us in heaven to be with God?
Now the last one.
While we're waiting to go to heaven.
In the meantime, the Lord asked us to do something, and you know what it is?
After hearing all these things, all these sticky notes and all the verses, what do you think he asked us to do?
Yeah, preach the gospel. Yeah, that's one of the things he calls us to do. Yes, that's right. He calls us to remember him.
Because sometimes we get so busy in our days and the Lord knows our hearts and our minds and sometimes we tend to put them aside. Don't we put them in a a corner sometimes because we're so busy and focused on certain things? I mean, I need sticky notes to remind me of even the littlest things that I need to do and the most important things at the same time. So the Lord has asked us to remember Him.
And so after this meeting, we'll gather around a table with some wine, a cups of wine on it, and a loaf of bread, and we'll remember the Lord just as he asked us to do. It's not big, a big ceremony. It's a very simple way of doing things because he was a simple man and he tried to bring the truth of God in a simple way so that even a child could understand it.
And it pictures His sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. The cup represents the blood that He shed for us, the price that had to be paid for our sins, right? The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. It was that blood that paid the price for your sins and my sins, that we could be free, that we could become that new creature, and that we could go to heaven and be with Him.
And that loaf on the table represents the body when he came down. He came down as a man. And it's a wonderful thing to think of, but it's hard to think of when you think of the very one who created the entire world came down as a man walked among his creation.
And died as a man.
It's a wonderful thing to think of, but He did that for you and for me so that He could once again pay the price for our sins on the Cross of Calvary.
So that's why we remember Him, because of that wonderful work that He did to bring us to God, because our sins had kept us away from God. And so He brought us back to God in that way. So there's a verse when I think of yellow.
I think of this verse in Luke chapter 22 verse 19, a very simple statement that the Lord said to you and to me to remind us and it says this do in remembrance of me. Very simple statement. It's a very simple thing we do, but it has very great meaning because it reminds us that the Lord Jesus died for our sins. So maybe we can say that Luke 2219 this do in remembrance.
Of me, let's say it again, this do in remembrance of Maine.
So that's important that when we the next meeting that we remain in a state of mind and heart, that we can worship the Lord who bought us and brought us back to God by his precious blood.
So perhaps we could sing and then pray sing a song that everyone knows.
Giving Him thanks in a way for what he's done in the short time left #40 Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong. And though it says little ones, I'm sure each one of us here can associate with the fact that we are all weak. But he is strong, the strongest of the strong ones.
00:25:22
Who by his precious blood died to save us and bring us back to God? If someone could start that, please #40.
Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.
Because Jesus loves me.
The Bible tells me so.
Jesus loves me who died.
Yes, Jesus.
Loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loved me.
Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus.
Love me, the Bible tells me so.
Jesus loves me, loves me still when I'm very weak, and I'll from his shining place on high come.
To watch me where I lie.
Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.
Jesus loves me.
We'll stay close beside me all the way. If I trust him, should I die, he will Take Me Home on high.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes.
Our Father and our God, we do thank Thee for Thy great and gracious love to us and thanking Thee especially for the Lord Jesus Christ and that wonderful work on Calvary. We trust that everyone here can sing that song. Yes, Jesus loves me. And we thank you, Lord Jesus, for that great love that was shown to us on the cross of Calvary, How you died to take our place, to be our substitute.
And the sacrifice for our sins, from the youngest to the oldest one. Here we give you thanks and praise for what you have done for us. And though we don't always understand the consequences, we don't understand the way it was done, and the beauty and wonder and majesty of your glory. We thank you that you went willingly to the cross of Calvary for us, that your blood bought us and brought us back to God. And now the remains for us a place in heaven.
00:30:07
With you that we'll see you.
Face to face and be able to praise you and give you the glory for these things. So we trust that this message has.
Stop. Place in our hearts reminding us that there's so much to remember. We're so forgetful. Lord of You in the little daily things that we go through. We just pray that You would keep us in remembrance of Your great love for us in every aspect of our lives, from the youngest to the oldest. We thank you especially for the upcoming.
Meeting.
If the Lord carries that, we'll be able to remember the Lord Jesus in his death.
And that we will give him all the thanks and praise and honor that is due to him. Father, as we worship him, the one who loved us and gave himself for us. So we thank you once again that we commit this meeting into your hands for grace and memory. In his most precious and worthy name, we pray the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
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1 Peter 1:10-on
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Can you forward?
Me.
Your name to go and fall on my hands and flies.
Nsnoise.
Diligently we prophesied of the grace that should come under you, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them, did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should fall. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but under watch they'd administer the things which are now reported unto you by then that have preached the gospel unto you.
With the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, and be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former, lost in your ignorance, but as He would have called you as holy, so be holy in all manner of conversation.
Because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect a person judges according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here and here. For as much as you know that you are not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, in the vain conversation received by tradition from your farmers, both depressed blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world.
Those manifest in these last times for you, who by him to believe in God, that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God, that you love one another with a pure heart, fervently being born again, not a corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all fleshes is grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.
But the word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
00:05:12
Well, there's an awful lot to cover in one meeting here. The rest of this chapter, which is very helpful to us, but where we started here, verse 10, it shows the marvelous inspiration of the scriptures.
And death. And, uh, resurrection.
And here they prophesied of these wonderful blessings that would come not only to the nation of Israel, but, uh, even to those outside that, uh, sphere. And they searched to know what the meaning of these prophecies were if they and they, they did not really know what they referred to.
They, uh, were the sole under the power and the.
Direction of the Spirit of God that they have to search their own prophecies to know what they referred to. Uh, and the Spirit read.
Showed them that it was not unto themselves all these blessings, but.
There was UH-4 scheduling there, uh, of what would come.
To, uh, bring forth the truth of God centuries before the Lord's incarnation.
Join the authenticity of the Word of God the the inspiration of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament Scriptures which speak of Christ from Genesis to Malachi.
And we can range through those scriptures and receive much longer. That speaks of the sufferings of Christ, not only his sufferings. That came first of all, and then the glory that should follow.
Well, we, uh, remember the sufferings of the Lord this morning were not yet in the glory, but it's going to follow.
And we have these, this wonderful hope now as believers with the full revelation of the hearts of God to us.
I wonder if we, uh, I was gonna ask where we started from here as to, uh, an example in the Old Testament where the Lord gave a prophecy and the, and the one who gave who, who gave it to didn't understand. And I'd like to ask if we have an example of it in Second Samuel chapter 23.
Second Samuel.
23 and verse one. Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse.
And uh said and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel said.
The Spirit of the Lord speak by me.
I take at that, Speaking of inspiration, the Spirit of the Lord speak by me and His Word within my tongue.
The God of Israel.
00:10:00
Said the rock of Israel speak to me. He that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God. Now verse 4.
And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds, as a tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.
Now does that a is that a a verse of inspiration that God gave to David telling of the future when the Lord would come, that he shall be of the brightness of the morning? And would that be an example of what we have in in our verses here and verses 10 and 11? I ask this as a question.
It's not the sufferings here so much, it's more the glory that you'll follow.
Brother Stan, how do you feel about that?
Yes, I would agree. I was thinking too, umm, it says in that tenth verse of the of which salvation the prophets have inquired, uh, and searched diligently, Who prophesied the grace unto you. I was thinking of Isaiah 55 where it says, umm, pull everyone that thirsted come to the water. He that has no money come by and eat. He come by wine and milk without money and without price.
And so on. The wonderful prophecy of really the grace of God was going to be revealed in the coming days.
Umm, I've enjoyed that.
Is lovely the placing of it too, isn't it? Pardon. I say it's lovely the placing of it because it's after Isaiah 53 where we have a picture of the sufferings of Christ. It's, it's just beautiful, isn't it? To think of how God has arranged his word that way and so open up the fountain to heaven through words like that in the 55th chapter.
I've enjoyed two Brother days in the end of the 11Th verse that talks about the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. Do we not have a wonderful picture of that? In connection with the story of Joseph, we find that it's sold by his brethren in Egypt. He found himself in prison for years and everything seemed to be wrong.
But it all ended in Him being exalted to that place of supremacy in Egypt. A good example, is it not, of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.
I wonder too about an Ethiopian unit. He reached Isaiah 53. Who is he talking about? I wonder? When Isaiah Roller does he know who he was writing about?
David It pierced my hands and my feet. Never happened to David. He must have had a clock. Why is this? Why? Why is he not doing the Spirit of God? Bring that before.
The thoughts were the thoughts of God.
But man's hand was used to, uh, indict them.
For the boys and girls, we, I mean we.
On the earth the illustration, we have a piece of chalk in the hand of the teacher.
Or in the hands of the boy, but the teacher is uh.
00:15:06
Guiding the hand. So, uh, of all, the child does the actual writing.
The hand is controlled and directed by an another force. So holy men of God were fake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
If, if not, they would have made a complete mess of it.
We couldn't write a book on astronomy. We didn't know anything about the heavens. But God ordered me.
Controlled the indicting the writing.
The Scriptures, although they had little intelligence of what the their prophecies referred to.
I believe that there were collections of light that did.
That it was Speaking of of the suffering of the Messiah.
And we have many scriptures that speak of the glory of the follow that our brother referred to as a 53. And there are other scriptures the number that refer to the suffering of the Messiah.
What do you think, Brother Darryl?
I was thinking of the case David a portion was read about the spear thinking how in First Chronicles the moment you can find it. But when he was giving a charge to Solomon about the building of the temple. It's interesting what he what he says First Chronicles 28.
In verse 11.
David, Keith, and Solomon his son, The pattern of the Fort, she never houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the inner harlars thereof, and of the place of the mercy seat, and the pattern of all that he had, by the spirit of the courts of the House of the Lord. And then in verse 19. All this, said David, the Lord may be understanding, writing by his hand upon me.
Even all the works of this pattern.
So we see the working.
In the Old Testament, and I believe we understand that the Spirit of God lean upon those in the Old Testament but did not remain, which is quite different than this day in which we live. The Lord has found us that upon believing we're sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise and He will indwell us forever.
But.
We see too that there was inspiration, no doubt, in the Old Testament Scriptures and.
A lot of those prophecies.
They wrote down and probably had little understanding in many cases what they were really writing.
It's wonderful, isn't it, that, uh, the Lord could point out to those going to Emmaus in Luke 24?
All those things in the scriptures concerning himself.
But there's another expression there.
In Luke 24 and 25.
He says unto them, O fools and slow heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
There is always that order of suffering and then the glory. And that's true also for us. There is a suffering of of this time and this world with this glory to all. And so we we have that here in Peter.
Where it talks about the sufferings of Christ and the glory that you follow. And we have to believe also in Hebrews 12.
Where it says for the joy that was set before him, he endured the crowd. So there was a suffering first and then the glory that followed.
00:20:25
Also in the 69th Psalm would be some 93. It speaks there of the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ in a very vivid way. We had read this morning some of those things. I just read a couple of verses in the 20th verse there it says reproaches broken my heart, and full of heaviness, and I look for something to take pity, but there was none. And for comforters, but I found none.
They gave me also golf for my meat and my thirst. They gave me vinegar to drink.
Speak to the sufferings that the Lord suffered there for us on the cross.
And uh.
Is glory we read in the 29th verse of that song. Song. But I am poor and sorrowful. Let life thy salvation, O God, set me up on high. I will praise the name of God with the song, and will magnify him with Thanksgiving.
And so on. So we.
Not sure the psalmist knew knew he was writing about or not, but we know now that it was the Lord Jesus.
I think Psalm 22 Compares that out so vividly. It's a graphic description of crucifixion. There's no doubt about it really. And uh, it would be something I, I'm sure that David did not experience or even know about, but he could say they pierced my hands, my feet, and uh, and so on. Understand that a lot of these expressions would apply to one who is crucified.
And the great thirst and so on. And, uh, David was writing, no doubt, uh, about his own experiences to some extent.
But in such a way that they're prophetic of what the Lord was going to go through and the very words that he said on the cross. My God, my God, why is thou forsaken me?
Do you think, uh Darrell, that uh, David ever experienced even those first few words in the song?
Forsaking himself, being forsaken of God.
There were times when he was discouraged and he went to the Philistines, you know, uh, times like that, but, and maybe he felt that, uh, he was forsaken of God. He didn't know exactly what to do. Where were like that, Of course, Umm, but uh, I believe that in most of the Psalms you see, uh, David in his affliction.
But rejoicing at the end.
And, uh, so I think here in Psalm 22, it's the same kind of thing. He, he felt forsaken at least.
Not to the extent, of course, that the Lord did after those dark hours, but he maybe felt that way. But at the end, uh, he gives praise to God in that same song.
Well brother, we can apply this to ourselves as we look at, uh, Romans chapter 8.
The well known verse Romans chapter 8.
Verse 18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in US. It applies to us today. We can apply that as we did to them.
Just one person, uh, job, uh, chapter 23.
00:25:00
N.
But you know what? The way that we take.
Wednesday, Friday, I shall come forward and go away.
The only US is that.
He speaks of David, of Moses, doesn't it?
Suffering from a broach of Christ rather than enjoying the pleasures of the Finn.
So there was that.
Some understanding of that.
Of the truth in the Old Testament. But it was partial because God was not revealed fully. It was a partial revelation.
But there were, uh, there were, as it were, flashes of light. You know, at, at night, you'll suddenly see a, a flash of light, lightning, which brightens things, brightens things up for a few seconds.
Calling to, uh, really, they looked on to the establishment of the Kingdom and the Messiah coming as, as the one who would deliver them from their enemies and establish the Kingdom and all its glory and power. That's why the disciples had such a problem during, uh, the Lord's ministry here on earth when he spoke of, uh, being rejected and suffering. They looked upon him and the Messiah, of course, and expected him to establish the Kingdom.
That comes out in different scriptures. We thought it was he that would bring in blessing to Israel.
But, uh, they were disappointed in that regard.
And God, God had purposes of blessing for us, the Gentiles, who had no claim upon that.
The promises at all, but we are brought into this wonderful place of privilege and blessings and how much do we enjoy it? The angels want to look into these things. They're spectators. They're looking on and seeing the truth. Wonderful blessing that the Church of God now has. They desire to enter into these things. They they cannot, they don't have a divine life. They're not redeemed. They can.
Look on with wonder in the basement.
Umm, they're even in the looking on in the order of the assembly. They desire to look into these things. Sometimes when it's been said, they have more interest than some of us have in, uh, in understanding these wonderful deep things of, of golf, like the apostle. Then it goes on to exhort, gird up the loins of your mind and be sober and hope to the end. You need to watch, uh, our minds because they can travel into.
All sorts of.
Evil things and that.
And get away from the war. And what we think about controls our lives. What we pursue after is an object. So the apostle exhorts us to gird up the loins of our minds.
00:30:49
Oh.
Someone is coming at Bill in connection with those verses, that it is the greatest light that is broken through in the whole of the Old Testament.
The job in the midst of his trial that he suddenly breaks out in this, that that God reveals this to him. It's a marvelous statement there in that 19th chapter of Jude.
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.
Whom I shall see for myself and not another.
Uh, and mine shall behold, and not another, though my rains be consumed within me.
Sometimes we think that, uh, those in the Old Testament had very little light as to some of the things that, uh, we now know from writings of Paul and so on.
Uh, I was thinking how that David could say I'll be satisfied when I awake with my likeness.
And that had to be revealed to him by the Spirit of God. And I was thinking of Hebrews 11. It was mentioned there about Moses and how he endured the sufferings of Christ.
But there's a little passage in that same chapter about Abraham in verse 8.
Hebrews 11, verse 8, By faith. Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should have to receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whether he went by faith. His sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
Look at verse 10. For he looked for the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
He was promised the land, but he was looking for heavenly portion I believe.
And, uh, so even though the promise was, uh, an earthly one, uh, he realized that there was more, more than that. And, uh, so he was looking for that city that was heavenly.
So we wonder sometimes, uh, how much was revealed to some of these Old Testament worthies, Uh.
Maybe more than we realize.
We have that corroborated also in that same chapter in verse 16.
But now they desire a better country that is in heaven.
So yeah.
Apparently had access to writing of the profit prior to 97 verse two of Daniel mines in 3rd year as it ran I Daniel understood by books the number of years.
Jeremiah the prophet that he would accomplish 70 years of desolation of Jerusalem.
You go on later verse 25.
The board is very clear and providing Daniel with a description of time and Avaya, the Prince would enter Jerusalem and cut off and send to the people.
00:35:07
So would it be fair to say that Daniel and Kanye existed, would have had access to the other profit ratings and and therefore a clear issue to UMM, the revelation that would come with the UMM incarnation of the Lord Jesus?
I think that's very interesting that, that prophecy because, uh, the 483 years from going forth with the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem, surely those, uh, at Jerusalem when the wise men arrived must have realized that that time was up.
And not only should they have known where the Messiah was going to be born by the land.
Because, uh, it's pretty clear here as to when he would be, uh, on the scene.
I was thinking about another Old Testament St. that had knowledge to, uh, of things coming in the future, uh, in June, the work, you know, off our record, it says it's been used up Circuit 1St 14 and, and eating off also the 7th and five of these things. Behold, the Lord comes to the 10th outfit of the Saints to execute judgment upon all and convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds that they have ungodly committed.
And of all their hearts and beaches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
That's one of the first prophecies in the Scriptures and.
It's one of the first cursed prophecies that we have in the, I think the first one of the scriptures.
There was a a foretelling of.
Of the blessing of the nation.
And in some cases there was some, some, uh, intelligence, but, uh.
When we think of the revelation that we have now.
And the Spirit of God is dwelling within.
Your God works in the in the lives of these Old Testament worthies. He had revealed things to them, but he didn't abide in the believer, as now is the case in Christianity.
So we are greatly privileged.
The divine life and the Spirit of God to abide in it.
So up to this part we are now with really is bringing before us the position and portion of the believer and then and the rest of the chapter is green before us the conduct associated with those who occupy the position.
So we have verse 13. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. You can see that Peter wants to encourage those scattered Saints to go on.
And expecting the Lord's coming, the revelation.
Of Jesus Christ.
As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts and your ignorance.
But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy.
In all matter of conversation, because it is written, be holy, for I am holy.
I've enjoyed thinking about this a little bit and.
00:40:03
This is written here. It says that the verse 16 it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.
How are we to do that?
It is written in the Old Testament, which the Jewish, uh, people of God were to be holy. Did they? No, they didn't. So on what ground is it that the Spirit of God can take and address it in the New Testament here to be holy? If it didn't work in the Old Testament, how is it to work in this age you and I live in? How is it that you and I can walk?
Holy before God. Well, I enjoy thinking of it the way that Peter brings it out in verse 14.
As obedient children.
Not fashioning yourselves according to former lusts in your ignorance.
I think of it just uh, this is a little example as obedient.
You think of uh, uh, a young boy or girl being brought into this world and raised in a family.
Uh, what do you see that the the child tried to do? They tried to imitate the parent they try to.
Teach me back to my own children when they were young. I remember taking and having a push more and pushing them. And then you can buy these little plastic mowers and they want to do exactly what Daddy was doing. There it was as obedient children, they wanted to do it because they had a nature inside them that wanted to do exactly what the parent was doing now.
What happened?
To us, well, we got a new nature and we have the Spirit of God indwelling us. So on that ground and that ground alone, can we live a holy life before God. Seems to me that that's that's what God would bring before us with these verses.
Usually, very often wore a long row and if you wanted to, uh, engage in any energetic activity, you had to pull that up and tuck it in around your waist so that it didn't interfere with running or, or other kinds of activity like that. And so it has to do with getting rid of hindrances. If we're going to run, it's, uh, we're going to be obedient. We have to get rid of that, which would hinder us to be able be in and soberness.
Has to do with not allowing that which would interfere with judgment. Good judgment and good judgment is guided by the Word of God and the Spirit of God. So we want to be not allow that which would in our lives which would interfere with with that activity of the Spirit of God to guide by His Word.
These are things that would help the scattered Saints and indeed help us now if they reference back to verse 7, the trial of our faith, to, uh, get through these trials of our faith. Their apostle now in this part of the chapter is giving us no tools which would help us in our pathway in, in the trial of our faith. As you said, brother, learn to gird up the loins of her mind to, uh, raise up those things. Get those things out of the way. They're going to hinder us.
And so on that we've had and being holy separated under the Lord.
And so on would help us to, in the pathway in the trial of our faith. It will certainly help the brethren that were scattered abroad and the reference to the prophets, they didn't have the Canada New Testament that we have. So these things would, uh, and they hadn't seen Christ. The Apostle Peter had seen him, but he said, you know, who are we having not seen? He loved. So it was really, umm, loving in, in faith, wasn't it? So the trial of our faith.
00:45:01
We have this thing that would help us.
Will there be a connection in the 1St 13 where it'll be in your mind? Come back to Exodus 12 and the password.
Select me to 12 and 1St 11.
Construction given fulfillment of Israel regarding how to shoot the Passover vector 12 verse 11 and thus shall be needed with your going period, your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hands and you'll eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. So would Peter be referring back to that in Berks 13. That is the having yourself ready for the coming of the board and and and being repaired to the parts at all times looking forward to that coming.
Replacing of the devil unless it is governed by scripture.
And.
To, umm, control what we think about.
By the word of God, to have everything coming under the uh.
The the umm.
Authority of God's word. We live in a a dishonest age and and immoral age and, uh, everything is calculated to appeal. Much is calculated to appeal to the old nature.
And if we're not careful, our minds will go in that direction. The news stands and everything is filled with it.
So we have to be careful what we think about that. It's going to format a habit and, uh, a character. Finally, uh, I think that's a good reference, uh, brother to the, uh, the Passover lamb there. Sometimes I think that on the Lord's Day morning, the enemy makes a special attack, umm.
To draw our minds away from the remembrance of the Lord. I guess Mr. Garvey had that problem because he said no infants changing pleasures like my wandering mind. But just a point on uh, uh, evil thoughts, umm, unbidden and uh, detested. We all have this uh, uh, being this problem of being a sailor like evil thoughts.
And.
It's not a question of *******. I don't think we can stalk and judge every evil thought that might go through our minds. Don't need to allow the birds to build their nests in your in your hair when? Mr. Darby said.
By turning away from that thought and not indulging it, turning it over in our minds and savoring it and so on, then it becomes sin. But by turning away from it and being occupied with the Word of God, or a hymn, uh, that we, uh, should be that we know in that way we are judging it. Mr. Downey makes that remark. By turning away from it, we are judging. I thought that was very good.
Uh, because we all are a sale by these, uh, evil intruders into our, uh, into our minds.
That's why we need the word of God. Is not that brought out and, uh.
The open meeting to meditate on it each day, to commit some time to the Lord.
Uh, looking at verse there in John's Gospel chapter 16.
We're unique in this day that we live in this Christian, uh, period.
That we are involved with the Holy Spirit. It's, uh, God has poured out to us all his blessings, you might say the Old Testament Saints, uh, they didn't have, but through the work of Christ, uh, our life is resurrection life. We're, we're with Christ on the other side of death. Death has put a end to.
Everything connected with the, the old Adam creation and God has poured out to us the blessings that we have because we are in him in Christ. And uh, here in John's Gospel chapter 16 and verse 13 and it says how be it when he, the spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever.
00:50:17
He shall hear that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come.
One thing I noticed in the for us in the New Testament that we see that word all mentioned quite a bit. It says guide you into all truth. We have all the word of God today and the Holy Spirit is able to take any part of it and reveal it to us. It's a marvelous thing. And then it tells us in Ephesians that we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
God has poured out every blessing that he could pour out to us in Christ. And then in second Peter chapter one.
We have there in verse three, according as His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain on to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue.
Whereby are given unto us exceeding grace and precious promises, that by these he might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
And and so we have a divine nature given to us by God, and the Holy Spirit works through that divine nature that we have to conform us more to the image of Christ is to take the precious things of of the word of God and reveal them to us. But it's been pointed out the failure comes in giving place to the old nature, the old man that has been put away by Christ in the cross. But we haven't has been mentioned before until.
We're taken from this scene, it's with us and our problems arise from that, and Satan knows that and so we have inner chapter there, but girding up the loins of our mind, he works through our minds to get us occupied with other things besides what we have in the Word of God, things that we are faced with day by day often times.
Not only become a care to us, they can become an obstacle to us.
If we allow them to occupy our minds to the point where we are perhaps missing out on the reading of the Word of God or prayer, they can become an obstacle. And so we need to cast those gears upon the Lord and keep our minds, you might say, swept out so that Holy Spirit can work.
There's a word that I have.
Remember, I, I think I read it somewhere in some ministry before of the number of times in this this book of first Peter, we have the word conversation. And if I may just point them out, umm, some of them. Anyway, it starts with our verse 15.
But as he which has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.
Then verse 18, for as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your father's. Perhaps that's referring to the old Jewish system. Now going on to the second chapter and the 12Th verse, having your conversation honest.
Among the Gentiles.
Chapter 3.
It says likewise, ye wise be in subjection to your own husbands, if any, if any, obey not the word, they also may be may without the word be won by the conversation of the wise, while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
And.
00:55:01
The third chapter in the 16th verse having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you as of evil doers, they may be ashamed that falsely accused your good conversation.
There may be one or two others, I'm not sure, but.
Umm, I sometimes it's hard to talk about versus that kind of hit home to us, but I take this for myself anyway, is just in general conversation that we have. We say speak one way when we come to meeting, but we speak another way when we, when we're away from meeting, when we're, we, we talk different ways, you know.
You hear the expression about talking out of both sides of your mouth and.
But here it says in our 15th verse of our chapter, But as he which hath called you is holy, so be holy in all manner a conversation. And there's such loose talk that goes on in the world in general today, that it really beholds us, I feel, to be careful when we're in the world as to how we speak.
I had always understood that that word conversation in this context is perhaps even a little broader than that. I don't mean to suggest that it doesn't include what you have mentioned, but it's our whole way of life or our conduct, and of course our conversation is part of it, definitely.
We look in Psalm chapter 93 and verse five. It reads, Thy testimonies are very sure, holiness becometh thine house, O Lord forever.
System owners are very sure, aren't they?
And the holiness?
Should be in the House of the Lord.
It's rather shameful sometimes when you are into breaking a bread meeting.
How sometimes we get caught eye contact with somebody, uh, maybe a woman with a woman or a man with a man or husband and wife or husband and children. How much we can be distracted even in any of the meetings, especially the breaking of bread and.
It it it does my heart. I feel sorrowful when.
There is this laxness of holiness.
In the House of the Lord.
I'm speaking for myself. I'm not wholly by any means.
But.
Let's be attracted to the Lord.
Let's not, you know, look at each other or giggle or try to communicate in some way. Let's just be occupied with him.
I see it in the meetings and I'm probably guilty of it too, but we must be serious in these things.
Because we are meaning the Lord, we are in the holy place.
And something that we should consider.
There is a sense in which we are made wholly because of the work of Calvary and, uh, that pertains to our standing Ephesians one and uh.
Verses there and verse three must be the godfather of the Lord Jesus Christ who have blessed us with all spirits and blessings in heavenly places in Christ according at he had chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. That's God's work. That's something that is true of each and every believer.
But I think what we have brought before us here in our chapter is the practical side of that where we should, uh, make that effort to be holy because the Lord is holy. And our conversation, our manner of life is brought out, uh, in, uh, Second Timothy 2, for example, it says, uh, but everyone that name it the name of Christ for the Lord.
01:00:12
Depart from Nicolas.
Where it says, uh, ifti, then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection for mind on things above, not on things on the earth. So there is that practical side, uh, to holiness, which I think, uh, is what we had before us here in our chapter, particularly that, uh, there's a responsibility, isn't it, uh, to.
That is the very point, General, I think that we had in verse 17 that uh.
You call on the father who don't respect his persons judge of according to every man's work pass at the time of your sort of leaves here in fear while we don't.
We don't.
Come under eternal judgment, the judicial dealing of the Lord with us that has been settled in Calgary once put off, but now we belong to a Holy Father where were children of of the Father were in a relationship that we never had before.
And every father knows that not only does he plant the kiss of affection, but sometimes he has to take the rod of correction down.
Uh, and uh, so our father does the same in love. Of course, it's always in wonderful love. But the point in verse 17, I think it speaks to all of us is really the fact that, uh, God is watching over what we do every day. I was upon that just because we have a, we've been brought up to in a Christian factory as we're gathered to the Lord's man.
We've been used in the work service. There's no guarantee that we're, that we're going to be kept. We need dependence on the Lord and, uh, that daily self judgment.
So here it is really I believe the government of God that sometimes has to be umm.
But sometimes we have to come under that, that discipline, that government of God, uh, because of our careless ways.
And so the judge is reporting to every man's work. That's not the judgment. See the price here. And it's not the eternal judgment, of course, but it is that day-to-day, uh.
Overview of the Lord in our walk and wait we get off with nothing and our brother standing can remember our late brothers hayhole Times without numbers this would be Gordon hale's father times without number he would press that upon us young people and.
It's got embraced into our souls. We get off with nothing. We get off with nothing because we're believers. Every African in our lives has its present and eternal consequences.
It's not something that we should be.
Grade of the board, but we should have a whole irreverent uh dear non upcoming judgment, but fear of displays in the Lord and uh.
Knowing that we have an old nature and knowing our weakness walking in the descendants upon the Lord.
You said I've been gone there, girl.
Very much so.
Our time's up.
202.
202.
1000.
01:05:08
Rebrands, I'm sure I have known when you don't play it long, you're sure I'll drive as long as.
Gospel 2
Gospel—Lorne Perry
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.
It's, uh, 7:00, so we'll begin this meeting and umm, uh.
Pleased to welcome anyone here who has come in responding to invitations that were distributed in, uh, this town in Laurenville. And, uh, you are entirely welcome. And I, uh, trust that with uh, God's help, we can, uh, convey something to you of the love of God and the answer to every man's personal needs.
And I'd like to start with him that's in this, in our hemisphere, right in the middle #25.
And it uh.
It is him that was.
Appropriate to my topic tonight, but also.
Several brothers in the prayer session that we had before we came to this.
7:00.
Several brothers mentioned that the time available for the gospel message to be presented and received is short.
So this hymn highlights that fact.
Beginning with the first line, life at best is very brief and the chorus Be in time, be in time.
So let's sing #25 somebody started, please.
All you'll be in time.
Everything along the way.
And and and all your way, you know, I know today and you're crying.
00:05:22
Well, I think you can probably tell from the enthusiastic singing here of this hymn that the majority of people in this room already know Jesus as their personal savior, the one who gives them the assurance that they're going to be in heaven one day soon.
What we want to address the message particularly to anybody who is outside of that category and still does not know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.
So before we begin with that.
Story in Daniel the book of Daniel chapter 5 and the.
The man that it concentrates on is a man named Belshazzar, who's a king.
At the time he was a Co Regent of his father. They were, that is, they were joint kings because the father wanted to leave the city of Babylon in his in his son's hands while he went off, while the father went off to fight approaching enemies.
This is found in Daniel chapter 5, and we'll just read a few of the verses there to begin.
Daniel 5.
And verse one.
Belshazzar the king made a great feast to 1000 of his Lords, and drank wine before the 1000. Belshazzar, whilst he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, that the king and his Princess, his wives and his concubines might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the House of God, which was at Jerusalem.
And the king and his Princess, his wives and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver and brass, of iron, of wood, of stone. In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man's hand and rope over against the Candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the King's palace. And the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the King's countenance was changed.
And his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees smoked one against another.
This was the most striking and unusual occurrence as described here. How could you have a disembodied hand, or part thereof?
Right upon the wall, some words.
Not to be easily explained.
And.
Uh, these were, uh, as I mentioned earlier about the approaching enemy, these were troubled times. There had been wars and, uh, and many of the people of Jerusalem were captured and taken back to Babylon by the grandfather of, uh, called his father here in Nebuchadnezzar. But it's a grandfather. That was a term that was interchangeable in those days. And, uh.
So Daniel the prophet lived in these times and was part of the those who were captured and taken to Babylon, and he he became.
The chief of the of the the those who steered the king gave him his answers to tough questions, and they were they used various means, those men's astrologers sooth Sayers and.
And various other kinds of foretellers of events. But Daniel was the one who had the year of God because he was a man of God and he had worshipped God from his youth.
And.
So he was in the midst of that, that community, that city, and though he was a captive, he had a position of quite some importance.
00:10:09
Well, this man, Belshazzar, the focus of this story is was a proud man.
Ignorant of God's claims upon him.
And the way people live, first of all, we live in troubled times.
You don't have to go far in the television news before you get the stories of the troubles that this world is causing itself.
And talk about pride. Man is today characterized by pride in his own accomplishments.
Cried in his education. Cried in his achievement. Pride in his accomplishments.
Pride in his looks, pride in his, in his.
What he's lived through.
All kinds of things that man is proud of and, uh, and just, uh, revels in well.
The thing is that people today just as in just as Bell Shatter was.
Are, by and large ignorant of God's claims upon.
We are people who are part of the God's creation. I believe that science tries to discredit that, but to keep coming up against great stumbling blocks.
They can't. They can't seem to get past the fact that before there was anything, what was there?
You ask the question whatever they explained to you, you ask the question and before that.
And then they tell you some more, and then you say and before that.
And you rack far enough and they stop.
They can't go any further. They don't know. They just have to say, well, we just don't know.
And, uh, what we're finding out.
If you read the some of the scientific discoveries and findings and uh, and studies that go on all over this world, curiosity seeking scientists, probing and probing.
Above the earth, into the atmosphere and beyond into the into the heavens.
Uh, all over the earth, into the earth, digging deep and unearthing all kinds of things and going into the oceans to great depths and finding that beyond the area where it's possible in the ocean for life to, to live as we know it. What do they find? They find life and they can't explain it.
How does life survive there? There's no light, there's no photosynthesis like the green leaves we have. There's, uh, it's, uh.
It's absolutely, uh, incredible pressure of water at miles and miles deep.
But their life?
And life that they can't even identify, never seen before. They keep finding things.
Well, God is, and God is the creator of it all.
And somebody remarked that umm.
They were diving, scuba diving, not all that deep but still on reef, and saw the marvelous beauty and the color of the of the fish that swarmed around in school by the millions.
And, uh, realized that until scuba tanks and diving equipment were invented.
The only person who knew anything about those fished out colorful fish down there was God.
It's remarkable how much of creation we don't know anything to speak of about.
Well, this story.
Takes us into the banquet hall of Belshazzar and he's whooping it up. He's having a grand time with his friends.
00:15:04
Thousands of people.
That's a lot more than were served at this conference.
But they were having a wonderful feast with ample to drink.
And they were using. He decided that he would mock God.
He would call up from the Treasury those golden and silver vessels that have been brought from Jerusalem years before by his grandfather.
And they would have them to drink out of.
These were vessels that were from the temple.
They'd been used in the worship of God.
And God still had, having instructed his people to make them in the first place.
He had an affection for them and saw what Belshazzar did.
As a provocation.
It was kind of the last straw, all the other things I mentioned, the ignoring of God and his claim, the pride and the and the way they were living.
God saw all that.
But this was kind of the last, you might say, the last straw.
And so he acted. God acted.
And, umm.
We'll read down a bit farther. I won't read the whole story, but we'll go down to where Daniel, when all these astrologers and soothsayers and so on and counselors to the king, couldn't figure out what the writing on the wall said.
They finally sent for Daniel. Somebody has, uh, says his mother. But it was, I believe, another generation. Anyway, uh.
She remembered Daniel because of Nebuchadnezzar's time and how Daniel was rewarded for his for finding for interpreting dreams in those days.
And uh, made into a, uh, in a high capacity in the country and uh.
So the king sent for Daniel, and he came, and he was offered riches and A and a third place in the Kingdom, if he just simply.
Interpret these words that were on the wall so the king could get some sleep that night. Well, Daniel said, well, your gifts, be yourself because I don't need them. And but I will interpret the writing. So we'll get down to verse 20. Umm.
Four verse 24.
Of Chapter 5 of Daniel.
Then was the part part of the hand sent from him, and this writing was written, sent from God. And this is the writing that was written many, many Tiktok ufarsa. This is the interpretation of the thing.
Meaning, God hath numbered thy Kingdom, and finished it. Tickle thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting.
Murphy.
Berries, thy Kingdom is.
Is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.
The key thing I want to draw attention to here is the one that deals with.
What God? That God has numbered thy Kingdom and finished it. Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.
Well, you can see that on the table here. I have a set of balances, amateur, not very precise, but still balances. And I think it'll do what we want to do.
I remember when scales of this type. I'm old enough to remember this. We're still in use in grocery stores.
My uncle had a grocery store in a small town and it was scales not unlike this that were used to weigh out things. Sugar arrived at 100 LB sack. And if you wanted to get into, if you wanted to 5 lbs or 2 1/2 Kilos, 2 1/4 kilos, you, uh, you have to ladle it out into the bag and balance it on the scale with a weight And uh, and when you had the weight right, you sealed up the bag and there and charged the appropriate price.
00:20:17
And that was the way merchandise was handled in those days, a lot of it.
Well, uh, my brother and I, when we were little, we used to go to my uncle's store and he would, uh, sometimes to get us out of his hair, he'd set us up working on the balances to pre pack sacks of sugar in the right quantity. I think a little bit got into our mouth. It was very good. And uh, and we would, uh, we would put a sack on one side and, and a, a, a brass weight on the other side.
And then put sugar in until we evened it up. Well, we'll suppose that this is I'm letting some coins here work as as if they were sugar, and I'm putting a weight on this side and.
They've got them pretty well, right. It's not exactly right, but close. And uh, I can take, if I can say, well, there's, it's a little too heavy. OK, take out a couple of nickels. Whoop, I've taken out too much, put in a couple.
Couple more and there she goes. And that's the way you level it up.
Well, you know this, uh, the weight on this side that I was using is a block of wood.
We'll take that as.
God's standard.
God has the standard.
Any measures US against it like Belshazzar?
You, Belshazzar, were weighed in the balance and found wanting. You came up short. You didn't make the test. You didn't measure up to the weight. Well, suppose we have the balance.
Like this?
How many sins do you think it would take?
How many sins do you think it would take to tip the scale?
That's where the expression comes from, tipping the scale.
Boom, down as she goes one.
How many sins in your life?
A lot of people say they like to think, you know?
A lot of people think.
Well, I'll acknowledge, yeah, there's sins in my life, things I've done that are not proud of, things I wish I hadn't done, things that well, certainly God wouldn't approve of.
But I'll tell you what.
If I just take.
God's standard.
And I put my good things that I've done on the other side.
It'll balance up.
No, the Bible says that all have sinned.
And come short of the glory of God, It can't put enough good stuff on this side to have any effect on the weight on the other side.
This is that's God's side and you can't do anything about that.
Your side is packed with sin.
And you can't put enough on that side of good.
To balance anything to have any effect at all unacceptable to God, God says in God says that in Isaiah 64 that all our righteousness, even the good things we've done, are as filthy rags.
What's the value there? Not a bit, not a bit 0.
So what's the answer?
Well, how are we going to get rid of those sins when God's standard is.
So perfect.
And.
And we need something to balance the scales. Well, the answer is The answer is found in God's way of balancing the scales. Very neat.
00:25:05
What he does?
What he does is he removes all the sins. How? How could he do that when not one sin can exist in heaven? God is of two holy eyes and to behold evil can't be there, Incompatible. Can't be any sin in God's presence, can't exist there, can't get there.
But God takes the sins away.
How can you do that?
Well.
The truth is that it says in First Corinthians chapter 15 and verse three Christ died for our sins. Let's I'm going to turn to it because it's a very important verse section of the Scripture.
1St Corinthians 15.
And verse 3.
The end of the verse, the last part of the verse, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
This is very important for several reasons.
First of all, Christ died, and we know that the story of the death of the Lord Jesus of the cross, he suffered terribly.
Not for anything he had done.
He was perfect.
But He suffered because He was carrying your sins and mine. Anybody who will receive in the Savior can be covered by His precious blood shed at Calvary's cross.
Says also in the Bible that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us, cleans us from all sin. It's the blood that washes away the sins.
That we have upon ourselves.
Let Jesus take them off.
And then there can be a place that is God is satisfied with. Why?
Not because of anything we've done.
But because of what Jesus Christ did, we come under the shelter of his work at Calvary to the blessing of our to the benefit of our souls.
Now I mentioned that the when we're going through this hymn at the beginning that it we're there's an urgency to this message.
I can't say. I can't say that we'll get to 8:00.
Tonight before the Lord Jesus comes and it's the end of gospel preaching, when Jesus comes to the clouds and calls everybody who knows him, the Savior, to be with him, lead this world, then there'd be no more opportunity to receive the gospel, and nor will it be the people around to preach it.
So there's time now.
In the verse that is of course very important in that regard is Second Corinthians 6:00 and 2:00.
And it's the verse upon which this hymn we were singing is based.
First Second Corinthians six and two. For he saith, I have heard thee in the time accepted and the day, and in the day of salvation have a Socrates Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
God doesn't offer you or promise you opportunities tomorrow to receive Jesus as Savior.
He says now is the time.
Now is the day of salvation.
Well.
We can.
We can look at other ways in the Bible, other places where there were measurements give us I've I've enjoyed looking for them various points through the Scriptures and.
00:30:06
They make an interesting little study which we'll spend a few minutes on, and they're all related to what we a general topic tonight.
About just before we get to that.
I just wanna say what sort of close the chapter on, uh, Daniel the historian Daniel.
The very night, that very night that the hand wrote on the wall.
The, uh, the medium, the meats, it's the enemies overtook the the defense forces and crashed into Babylon and killed King Belshazzar that very night.
And fulfilled.
The Scriptures, the word of God that was written on the wall.
Your Kingdom is divided between 2 Kings, The Persians they were together fighting.
Your Kingdom is divided and finished.
And Belshazzar, who should lose his life, which he did that night.
So Daniel, Daniel had an idea, I'm sure that God was going to carry out that promise and not far off. And there would be no point in Belshazzar rewarding him for discovering the secret.
Belshazzar had gone ahead right after the banquet and umm, from what I might add, it was suddenly a very sober crowd.
Right after that.
Belshazzar did reward Daniel and made him the third ruler of the Kingdom.
Close them in purple robes and so on. Well, Daniel didn't need that. He was the man of God, and he was prepared to do God's will. And he had an eye. He certainly knew what was coming to that Kingdom.
Well, to go on.
Uh, there are measurements given for God's love.
Look at Ephesians chapter 3 and verse.
17.
Ephesians chapter 3.
And verse 17.
This is speaking about folks who have trusted in Jesus as their Savior and have experienced the love of God have accepted these, the Lord Jesus as Savior.
And it says in.
Verse 15. Verse 17. Rather that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend. With All Saints here comes the measurements red and length, and death and height.
And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.
OK, how big is God's love? The love of Christ?
Can't be measured beyond measurement.
That's the only.
Evidence we have, I don't understand, of measuring the love of God.
It's measured as being without measure. You can't come to the end of it, you can't exhaust it, and you can't put dimensions on it. It's imponderable, it's unlimited, it's price.
The love of God. Wouldn't you like to have the experience of knowing directly the love of God come to Jesus?
And accept the gift that God and His love has offered.
And accept the Lord Jesus as Savior.
There's another measurement given.
And that's measuring.
The exaltation or the stature of Jesus?
Philippians 2:00 and 9:00.
Just a couple of books over.
00:35:04
Philippians 2.
Verse 9.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him Jesus, because of his crosswork, that you see in the previous verses, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Through the glory of God the Father.
Wherefore God hath highly exalted him? How high can we measure it? Do we know how high, how prestigious, how marvelous, how exalted the Person of Christ is? No.
It's beyond It's one of those supporters of God that we can't figure out because our minds are limited.
'Cause it's not.
He has resulted Christ to glory to his own right hand in heaven, and there he waits till he calls all believers to be with himself.
Can we?
Measure this.
Can we measure?
The peace of God.
Philippians 4 verse 7 just a couple of chapters over.
4:00 and 7:00.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding.
Shall keep your hearts in mind.
There's an unlimited resource passes all understanding. You can take as much of the peace of God for yourself through Jesus, through knowing Jesus as you want.
And you can't exhaust the supply.
It's measureless.
Beyond putting dimensions upon.
Then can we?
Ever measure the sufferings of Christ? Well, there are lots of hints about the scale dimensions of the sufferings of Christ.
But they don't tell us the full story.
Jonah chapter 2. There are many places in the Old Testament. I'm just going to pick one.
Jonah.
And right next to Daniel, where we were.
You know a little further on Joel in Obadiah.
Jonah Jonah Chapter.
Two.
Jonah was a prophet who had a message from God, but he decided I don't have the nerve to go and deliver that message, so we'll go the other way. And he was stopped in his tracks. He was on a boat going in the wrong direction.
And when the storm came up, that threatened the boat, the ship.
And the superstitious people aboard thought that the man of God was probably.
Doing something wrong and if they threw him out of the boat they would probably be OK. Well, Jonah was thrown overboard.
And he came pretty near to drowning.
But as we know from the story, a great fish, a great fish followed him up and he was then put up on dry land a little later.
But in that process.
Of justice approaching drowning. We have the words of Jonah recorded, and it's interesting that how much of A parallel this gives us to some of the feelings and experiences of the Lord Jesus at the cross of Calvary.
Jonah chapter 2 and verse six. I went down. I'll read verse five. The waters compassed me about even to the soul, the depth closely round about.
00:40:06
The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever.
And then he goes on to say, Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, Oh Lord my God.
Well, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Umm, in the field of medicine.
By the people in the field of medicine, it's often described, uh, what happened to him on the cross was that he ultimately drowned.
Brother Mike, preaching from here last night, said that the umm.
There's a sack around the heart, and when the heart is terribly stressed, as it would be as it was indeed in the case of the Lord Jesus dying, anybody dying on the cross, that sack filled with liquid that the cart, the heart can't pump away as it normally would.
Because it's so stressed and eventually that impacts on the lungs and you can't. Your breath gets shorter and shorter and you perish. You die as Jesus did.
Jonah didn't die.
He was put out on dry land.
And he elected them to go and do what he'd been asked to do originally.
Of the Lord Jesus died.
And suffered immensely.
Can any of us?
Uh, imagine.
Do we have any experience close to what those sufferings are as described as?
And there are other many other places we could look at where the the language of people who were suffering in their time.
Is descriptive in parallel to what the Lord Jesus suffered.
Very, very graphic.
Umm, other psalms and other places.
Can't measure. Can't measure beyond measurement.
And to conclude.
God operates on the principle of.
Just balances, which means that the scales.
Are honest.
You start off with even balance.
And uh.
And that's the way.
God handles judgment. It's always on an honest and direct and, uh, unpolluted manner.
Says look at Leviticus chapter 19 where the principles.
For some of the principles are given. Leviticus is a book of rules.
For the children of Israel of the principles are in there, and this is a good.
A good verse. These are good verses for anybody.
Today.
Doing business. Particularly look what it says in verse 35 of Genesis of Leviticus chapter 19.
Just balances.
In the verse 35, it says Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment.
And verse 36 just balances. Just waits that is.
Your standard weight is very carefully calibrated for scales.
Skills have to be inspected wherever they occur and they're all over the place in, in the merchandising field. All, everything you buy practically at a grocery store has the, uh, kilogram weight on it. And those, the, the machines that set that are all very carefully calibrated and have to be checked by government inspectors to make sure that they're just.
That what they say is in the package is actually there.
You'd have to take away the packaging because what you do is you put. If you put your weight on one side and your empty sugar bag on the other side, you have to put an empty bag on this side with the weight in order that you can. You won't be cheating the customer by putting a little less weight because you're figuring the bag in the purchase.
00:45:23
You give away the bag, but you want to give them the honest weight of sugar.
Well.
Umm.
Judgement is often pictured in the court system of the world.
As a lady standing there.
With a set of balances like this in one hand.
And but her eyes blindfolded. And the point of that is that the judgment of the courts is supposed to be unbiased.
The judge is not supposed to have an opinion except by the law.
And so.
The difference is with God is that He sees all and knows all. He knows far more than any judge in any case, especially in our case with respect to our souls. He knows who we are and He knows what we've done. He knows all we've said. You know, we live in an age where there is a tremendous amount of information being generated.
And stored every day, there's a thing that the computer world has called a cloud. Well, I remember asking and of course once, OK, so where is the cloud? And they told me, the instructor told me, well, if you really want to know, it's actually a very, very large computer in California. But it what it is, is a storage device for information. And it's enormous.
And the information is being stored every day and it's being more and more is being found out. More is being recorded all the time. You can make a move apparently in England. Now, whether the camera picking you up and tracking you. Now who looks at those, those images? Nobody, unless there's a need. But when there's a need, they have the images and they go back and track through them and they can plot the moves where a potential terrorist or a bank robber or whatever.
Is what he has done and who he meets.
They don't. They don't know what he said. Can't read that yet, but God can. God knows it all, and you are not exempt from his observation in anything that you ever do or say.
Solid and serious.
The bottom line is.
Is you can only meet God on God's terms.
People try and invent ways to justify their existence and figure that God will overlook this or that and make allowances when God does not.
He's holy and demands holiness.
And you say me Holy well, in Christ God sees us as being cleansed.
And we can come onto his ground, holy ground.
It's remarkable. That is true, and I've lived 70 years knowing that and believing it and finding that it works. And I command this person, Jesus Christ, to you tonight.
Let's close in prayer.
Nsnoise.
Open Mtg. 6
Open—S. Allan, J. Kemp, S. Hallowell
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.
1076.
Our gracious Savior children to his barren life.
While we tread the bill of sorrows, and may we in thy love, why keep us ever gracious Savior, pleading closely to thy side, 276.
Guide up for the gracious Savior, Pilgrim. Proven barren we are, we above our mighty. Hold on.
In the back of the book.
I'm waiting for thee, Lord, thy beauty to see, Lord, I'm waiting for thee for thy coming again. 78 in the back.
All I'm waiting for.
I'm ready to see Lord Murderer all.
Nsnoise.
Oh, oh, oh.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
00:05:43
Two.
The book is Hebrews chapter 2.
San Diego.
For the subtle freedom of death.
Download glory and honor that he thought the grace of God should face death.
For every.
Man, now just a few comments.
Brethren.
That save Lord that came down to take our place is going to come again and take us to Himself in the glory.
Are you looking for him? Either are you? He's gonna come, perhaps today and call us away. We don't know when he's coming, but it must be very soon.
That saved Jesus.
They'll come and take us home. It's wonderful being here and to be able to share all the precious things of the Lord Jesus Christ.
To keep us going to come.
Privacy seeing that yeah I mean I I just wanna buy on the phone book and I'm gonna Make Love to gave us every question love you.
I think to all of us here, but I think we need to be reminded of it.
You know, a week or so more than that, a couple of months ago someone posted on the Internet this little thing that I want to read.
And it's been an exercise to me, and I think it should be to each one of us.
00:10:00
It says this What if we began to treat our Bibles the way we treat our cell phones?
What if we carried it with us everywhere?
Turn back to get it if we forgot it.
Check it for messages throughout the day.
Used it in a California in case of an emergency.
Spent an hour or more using it each day.
Don't you think that's something we should think about? How much time do we spend with our cell phones?
I'm not criticizing cell phones. I have one in my pocket.
But you know, I think we need to think about this. We recognize there's a great deal of weakness among us these days. Why is it? I think it's because we're not spending enough time alone with the Lord. And I want to say that what I'm saying today, I need to speak to this person right here too.
It's so tempting to take out a tablet or something and use it to waste time rather than use it in a way that's for the Lord's glory.
But you know, I was thinking of a verse, several verses actually the first one in Leviticus Chapter 11.
I don't want to take up too much time.
But just remind us of these things, this verse and Leviticus Chapter 11.
I often heard we heard you in Ottawa. I know Brother John mentioned that we sort of grew up together and I'm quite sure that he remembers.
This verse being referred to and in connection with what we've been saying.
Within 611 and verse 3.
Whatsoever part of the hoof and his cloven footed, and choose the cut among the beasts that shall eat, that shall ye eat. I'm sorry, I'll read that again. Whatsoever part of the hoop and is cloven footed, and chew with the cut among the beasts that shall ye eat.
You know, I remember hearing the story of a young brother that went to a conference like this.
And after the conference he went home, and he began to discuss with some of his local brethren what he had heard.
And.
He mentioned how he particularly enjoyed the ministry of a certain brother who was there.
And this older brother said to him, you know, I'm not surprised that you enjoyed the as the ministry of that brother because, you know, he chooses the cut and he has the cloven foot. And, you know, he was quite young and he had never heard of this verse before. And he thought, my, I feel so sorry for that disabled brother.
He said, you know, I knew that brother well enough that there must have been something special that he was trying to convey to me when he said that. And so he said, I went home and I began to search the Scriptures and I came across this verse and I realized that there was something here for us.
And you'll notice here there's two things that are mentioned, the cloven foot and chewing the cut. And I just want to say to some of the younger children here that there is a group of animals.
That are well known. They're called ruminants and they include the cow or the cattle. It includes goats and sheep and camels. And they're part of a group of animals known as Romanus. And what is it about them? Well, as I understand, these animals have up to four stomachs.
You know, we only have one stomach, but these animals have 4 stomachs. And they'll dwell in the pasture. Excuse me. And they'll eat, uh, the grain, or at least the, umm, grass. And it'll go down into the first stomach. And then they'll go out and sit under a tree or somewhere and they'll chew and chew and chew and chew. And this is referred to here as chewing the cut.
00:15:02
And I think this is a very important lesson for us all. Why does the Lord make those animals like that? I think he's trying to teach us a lesson. It's very important to spend time alone with the Lord. You know, we live in a very busy world.
And we have 1000 things that we want to do every day, but do we spend that time just reading the word and then just going by ourselves and thinking about what we read? We often refer to it as meditation, don't we? And you know, I think that that is something that's lacking today. I think we need to spend time thinking of the offices, the titles, the works.
The ways and the work of the Lord Jesus, we should discover him. You know it says there in Luke 24 we are reading this morning and says that he opened up the scriptures and expounded to them the things concerning himself and you know the whole word of God would have us attracted to his glorious person, the Lord Jesus. How much time do we spend chewing the cut just thinking about.
What we have in the Scriptures, going over it, thinking about it and so on. Well, you'll find here that that was what was going on with the one, the clean animal that chewed the cut. The other thing that was noticed here was that they were cloven footed. And of course that just means that instead of having just a hoof, it had a parted hoof. And I think that speaks of separation.
And, you know, I think that's very important, too. And I have to say that I think more and more the world is creeping in and there isn't that separation that perhaps there should be.
But you know what's been often said, and I believe it's true that it's no use chewing the cut and not having a cloven foot.
And it's no use having a cloven foot and not chewing the cut. You know, we can meditate on the scriptures and enjoy what it has to say. But if we go on, excuse me, in the world enjoying what the Lord the world has, then it's not going to do us any good. Or if practically, outwardly.
We seem to be separate from the world and all that has, and yet we don't spend time alone with the Lord. That's worthless too, and what I wanted to show here.
Is that all? Through the Scripture we have that principle brought before us. Here it is in Leviticus. Let's look up another place where it's found. Joshua, chapter one.
Joshua, chapter one.
These are not new thoughts, but they're ones that I gleaned and enjoy. We'll just read a few verses here. The first verse Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses minister, saying, Moses, my servant is dead.
Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan.
Thou and all this people unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel, every place that the soul of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses, verse seven. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the laws which Moses my servant commanded thee.
Turn not promise to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou boast. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then shalt thou have a good success.
Well, here we have a umm.
Jehovah the Lord speaking to Joshua, Moses had led the children of Israel.
Moses had led the children of Israel out of Egypt. They had been led by Moses through the wilderness.
00:20:07
But God had not seen since for Moses to take the children of Israel over into the land of Canaan. We could go into that, and we won't take time today.
It was now up to someone new who was Joshua, and you'll notice here that God told Joshua that Canaan had been given to the children of Israel as their title.
And yet they were to go over and possess them. You'll notice that third verse. Every place that the soul of your foot shall tread upon. That's how I given unto you.
And so it wasn't enough just to have it given to them. They had to go over and possess it. They had to take possession of it. And you know, that's a very important point. The Lord has given us many blessings, but he wants us to appropriate them, to make them our own. And he was going to give the responsibility of leading the children of Israel into Canaan to Joshua.
And, you know, it's very interesting to to study the history of Joshua and Caleb.
Because, you know, it says of Caleb that he wholly followed the Lord and those two men were the only two spies that recommended that the children of Israel go ahead and the Kingdom and take over the land. But what is interesting here is what kind of leader would be qualified to take the children of Israel into the land of Canaan? Well, I think we have the answer there in verses.
Versus 7:00 and 8:00.
You'll notice first it says, the Lord says to Joshua, Be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn my front to the right hands, or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou doest.
So what do we see here? That the person who would be a leader?
To lead the children of Israel should be someone who observes to do according to the law. Isn't that the clothing foot?
Is not this referring to someone who was willing to walk in a path of obedience to the Lord? And not only that, but in the eighth verse, I believe we get the chewing, the cut, because it says this book of the law shall not be part of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. You know that word meditate means to inwardly consider, to dwell upon. And so I believe this is the chewing of the cut.
And uh, what is the reason?