Address—R. Thonney
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Eight and maybe to get the circulation going a little more, we can stand up and sing #8.
Oh Lord, we adore thee.
Oh Lord, we.
Adore.
You.
Forever.
And grow.
Let this God our daughter.
Like to read first of all a verse in Ephesians chapter 5.
To start this meeting.
Ephesians chapter 5, verses one and two.
Be therefore followers of God as dear children.
And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us in offering, and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.
Yesterday in the reading we were speaking something about love, divine love, brotherly love. Very much related.
Brotherly love is divine as well.
But there are different aspects to it. But something that perhaps was not mentioned was that love, when it's spoken of in scripture, is always mentioned in connection with sacrifices.
For God so loved the world that he gave the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it, and here we find that Christ loved us and hath given himself for us, and offering in a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour. My desire this afternoon is to speak a little bit about the subject of sacrifice.
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It's I feel my own limitation in it because I'm afraid I don't know enough what that word means.
And so please don't focus on the speaker this afternoon. We want to focus on that glorious person we were focused on this morning, the person of the Lord Jesus. It seems like this morning the Spirit of God especially directed our attention to the sufferings in a very special way of those three hours of darkness.
Oh, the sacrifice that he made for you and me. And who was it that hung on that cross?
Dear fellow believer, it was number mere man that hung there. It was God in the fullest sense of the word manifest in the flesh, the one who was the brightness of that eternal glory. He was the one that was taken into Pilots judgment hall that was judged to be worthy of death.
That was delivered to those Roman soldiers.
He was the one they stripped. He was the one.
That pilots took.
And scourged him. He was the one that those soldiers.
Hit directly in the face.
Can you imagine it? God, our Creator God, the fullest manifestation of all that God is that it was ever made in the person of the Lord Jesus. They took him, they crowned him with thorns, they took sticks and beat those thorns into his brow, and then they let him out.
I marvel at the everlasting God let out of that city of Jerusalem.
Led to that hill of Calvary.
His hands stretched out and nailed there to that cross, the only one that ever had a right to live.
Because he was completely sinless.
Spotless, perfect Lamb of God allowed them to stretch out his hands and nail to cross.
Oh dear brother and sister, in the Lord Jesus, that sacrifice was a complete sacrifice. There was no reserve there. He went all the way.
In those awful hours of darkness.
Something will never fully be able to understand. We stand in awe as we view that Mount Calvary and everything gets dark and it's silent for three hours.
No utterance from that middle cry.
But in those three hours?
Is when God laid on him.
The iniquity of us all and the fury of God's judgment broke on His blessed head.
There's no complaint through those three hours, at the end of those three hours.
There's a cry. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
There was one whose meat whose drink was to do the will of God.
And now God himself forsakes him, as he does to the full the will of God.
Oh, what an object for our hearts to feast upon, that roast lamb.
Then he died. He gave up his life.
No man could take it from him. He gave it up of himself to let you, and I know.
Just how much he loved. He loved all the way young people He loved without reserve. Dear brother and sister and the Lord Jesus. No reserves there.
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That was the sacrifice he made for us. Like to read in John chapter 12 what the Lord Jesus himself.
Speaks of his death.
John chapter 12, beginning with verse 23 to get the context. Remember that there were some Greeks that had come up to Jerusalem to worship at the feast.
Philip and Andrew come and tell Jesus about it and then the Lord Jesus says in verse 23.
Jesus answered them, saying the hour is come that the Son of Man should be.
Glorified. Isn't that interesting?
You would think that immediately after it would say something about.
His glory.
But I think it's such a tremendous lesson for us to learn and something perhaps that we're learning all our life long.
Path to the glory.
Leads to the cross. And so the Lord Jesus immediately follows it, not Speaking of his exaltation, but of his death. He says in verse 24, Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. It abideth alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth.
Much fruit, very evidently referring to himself his death. He had every right to go back into the glory, but he would had to go alone.
He didn't want to go alone. He wanted you and me to be included in that. And so instead of going back to the glory alone, he went to the cross and there he was, alone.
As no one ever has been alone before.
No, there he was alone, says in Hebrews chapter 3. Having made the purgation of our sins by himself, he was alone there on that cross, making the purgation of our sins.
So he died, that corn of wheat.
Died. And through that death there is.
Much.
Now notice verse 25 and 26.
He that loveth his life shall.
Lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me and where I am.
There shall also my servant be any man, serve me him.
Will my father honor? Oh what a precious privilege to serve the Lord.
And every believer in the Lord Jesus is a servant of the Lord. Don't think that that brother that gets up on the platform, that's the servant of the Lord.
You if you're out digging ditches.
You are told to do everything that you do as unto the Lord. You're serving the Lord digging ditches.
If you are an attractor going through the field.
Weary hours. Do it heartily as unto the Lord. You are serving the Lord doing that just as much as anybody that's on a platform.
Oh, I think the idea that to serve the Lord we have to leave our secular employment and go and preach the Word has done tremendous damage to the Christian testimony.
Because people think that if they don't do that, they're not serving the Lord. And so they get sloppy in their Christian testimony at their regular jobs.
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Now wherever you are, you are serving the Lord. Do it horribly as to the Lord. But what I want to point out here in this verse is that the same figure that the Lord Jesus uses as to himself going into the ground and dying is now what He applies to you and me who want to follow Jesus.
He says in verse 25, and I want to draw your attention to it again. To me it's pretty strong language. He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that.
Hated his life in this world, shall keep it into life eternal. Pretty strong language hating your life.
Or loving your life. Which is it?
And I think it comes as a severe challenge to me.
Living here in the United States of America and brethren, please don't get the idea I'm pointing a finger at you. If I want to do anything, I want to point it right here at myself.
I feel that I've been affected far too greatly by the spirit and the current of living in this country. That is self pleasing, doing your own thing, doing what you like and telling anybody else. Say no to me. This is the spirit of life here. And maybe we don't go all the way up, but I think we have to recognize, brethren, that we have been infected by the Spirit.
Of self.
Pleasing. It's the whole current of life and I personally don't know if we can live in the society without being affected by it in some way. It has affected me. I have to confess before you. I cannot speak for you, but I can speak for myself. I.
I confess that I've been affected by the spirit of self pleasing.
The Lord helped me.
The Lord is putting here before His disciples, those that want to follow Him, His own example.
If his way to glory was by the cross, is there any other pathway for the servant of the Lord? He that loves his life shall lose it.
It's tragic to me to see oftentimes young people.
In the vigor and freshness of their youth, strength, intelligence, sharpness. And yet they're directed in this direction of self pleasing.
I want to point out that there's another direction that the Lord Jesus is showing us here. It's the direction of self sacrifice.
It's not pleasant, naturally speaking. Sacrifice. Why? What need is there a sacrifice? Everything's put right there at your hand. It's available. You don't have money in your pocket. You can get it on credit.
Why sacrifice?
Dear young people, dear older brother and sister in the Lord Jesus.
This is the pathway to the Lord Jesus is pointing out to us here.
He that hates his life in this world, I don't know that I can understand that very well, but that's the word that the Lord Jesus uses and they're pretty strong word evac hate his life in this world shall keep it until life eternal. Tragic to me to see people sometimes ending their lives.
In an old folks home, people who have had it all in their life.
Been doctors, Lawyers.
Wealthy people, they've lost their minds, they're sitting in a wheelchair. Nothing, absolutely nothing before them but the blackness of darkness forever. They have been directed in the pathway that this world shows itself pleasing. God grant, we might be able to turn around and go against the current dear young brother and sister in the Lord Jesus.
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I challenge you to turn around. You may not even find too much sympathy for it amongst those who are fellow believers. This is an individual matter you must determine between yourself and the Lord.
If you think that, I'll wait till some of the other young people want to do it and then maybe I'll consider it.
It won't work. This is a matter you must determine between yourself and the Lord.
Keep it into life eternal. I'd like to turn to three scriptures this afternoon.
That speak of sacrifice.
And touch on them because they touch on practical areas of our lives. First of all, a well known verse in Romans chapter 12.
Romans chapter 12. In fact, we're going to read the 1St 3 verses.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God.
That you present your.
Bodies a living sacrifice.
Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
That you may prove what is that good and acceptable.
And perfect will of God, for I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you.
Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.
But to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man, the measure of faith.
Not going to read any further here. I'd like to point out though that further on in this chapter it deals with the truth of the one body of Christ and the gifts that are given in that one body.
And I really want to challenge each one here.
As to the place the Lord has put you in the body, any gift he may have given you for the good of the body of Christ.
But there's not this wholehearted rendition, surrender to the Lord Jesus first, presenting our bodies in as a living sacrifice. We're going to find that we probably won't be very useful in this way.
But all the need is great and I want to encourage each one here. God has given you something.
One day we're going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and we're going to have to give an account of how we use.
That something the Lord gave to you and to me. We're going to give an account. Now is the time to wake up. Now is the time to use what He has given you for the good of every other fellow member of the body of Christ.
Here we're told that Paul exhorts, I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God.
He's been meditating on the mercy of God in the last chapter, and he shows although that God was dealing for a time with his Jewish people and then with the Gentiles, and then he's going to return again to his Jewish people, but he's brought them all. Verse 32 of the last chapter says God has concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon us.
Oh, the ways of our God in bringing us down to nothing.
And now, if that's the case, if God has had such mercy on you and me.
Isn't there something due as a response from my heart, from your heart? Yes, there is something do. And he beseeches to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, All the sacrifices of the Old Testament.
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Were killed and then offered. They were dead, sacrificed. We are exhorted here to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. And then he finishes up that verse by saying, which is your reasonable service. I understand the word reasonable and original is the same word we get our word logic from.
In other words, we could say it's the only logical response.
Seeing that God has done what he has done for us.
In the sacrifice of his only begotten Son there is.
A logical response, a reasonable service that becomes this. What is it to present our bodies in living sacrifice?
Dear young brother and sister, and older brother and sister in the Lord Jesus as well, I want to address your heart as I would address mine.
That there are often in our Christian lives pockets of reserve.
I want a touch.
Your conscience a little. Please permit me.
About those pockets of reserve.
We want to serve the Lord. I have no doubt every true believer has that desire.
But what has impressed me in traveling around, especially in Latin America, I meet up with quite a few different Christians.
Sometimes those who are not gathered to the Lord's name, there is no doubt a lot of zeal and a lot of right desire before the Lord. But what impresses me is that everybody has their agenda.
Yeah, they want to serve the Lord, but this is the way I'm going to do it instead of simply laying themselves before the Lord as a broken vessel.
And allowing him to direct and everything. No, I have my agenda. This is what I'm going to do. And another says this is my agenda.
Do you have an agenda too?
I'm not going to judge your motives. I know you may truly want to serve the Lord.
But what God can use in a real way is a broken the.
When the apostle Paul, before he was saved, he was Saul of Tarsus was on the road to Damascus, he thought he was doing God's service.
He had to be broke.
And the vision of the Lord Jesus in glory.
Made him fall to the ground, and for three days, blinded by the brightness of that light in Damascus, he lays there.
In that town of Damascus. And then the Lord tells them what to do.
So often we have our own agenda. I want to encourage you to present your body a living sacrifice. It involves the will and I honestly believe that our hearts facility people at times that we persuade ourselves were doing God service, but the will is so involved that we maybe are doing more damage than we're doing good.
So it's important that there be this surrender of the will.
A presentation of our bodies, a living sacrifice. When something put on the altar and sacrifice, you can't fix percentages on it. You can't say that the sacrifice is going to be 60% for the Lord. You can say it's 95% for the Lord, 5% I'd like to have for myself yet.
It doesn't work that way and I suggest that it is an insult to the Lord Jesus and gave everything for us that we would have those pockets of reserve in our heart.
It hinders God from using us in the way He wants to use us. A vessel is given up to his sin, to him, to whatever he may then allow. And I've been amazed, your brother and sister and the Lord Jesus, how often he uses vessels that are physically broken up.
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Remember a brother out in Gresham OR that I had the privilege of getting to know, to know only once I was there to visit him. His name was Albert. Some of you maybe got to know him.
But in his youth, the doctors made a mistake and he was paralyzed from the neck down. And what?
He had control of his face was ******* and it was almost he almost felt ashamed to look at him, so contorted was his face. His limbs twisted as he laid there on a stretcher or on his bed.
That Oh, and a brother that went with us started talking about the Lord Jesus. What a testimony.
What a great testimony. Why does God have to sometimes break the vessel so drastically so he can get the glory? We don't do it of ourselves, dear young people. Hasn't got shown.
How much she loves? Hasn't the Lord Jesus made enough sacrifice? How much does He have to show it more to convince us that we ought to render our bodies in living sacrifice to Him? I say it's the only reasonable thing that you and I can do, seeing He gave everything for us.
For me to say to him, Lord 95% but I'd like to have a little pocket or reserve when I do my own thing over here.
That's an insult. Please don't do that.
Let your surrender be complete.
Jonathan saw David go down into the valley of Elah and defeat the Giants. Jonathans heart was one. And as David comes back, his heart was knit with the heart of David. And he takes his princely robe and gives it to David, his sword and his ball, his girdle. David, this belongs to you. I surrender.
But there was an area, a pocket of reserve, in Jonathan's life. He never could seem to leave his father's court.
And where does Jonathan end up?
Dead on the battlefield with the Philistine and when David comes to the throne, he laments.
The loss of Jonathan's companionship, oh, what a tremendous example of how important it is not to leave those pockets of reserve in your heart for your own pleasure.
Notice it speaks about the will of God in verse 2.
Many people often speaking about the will of God say I want to know the Lord's will. I want to point out something here in this verse two, it doesn't speak about knowing the Lord's will.
What does it speak about?
It speaks about proving.
What is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God?
In other words, if your desire is to know the will of God, and then you'll decide whether it's convenient to do it or not.
You're not going to know what God's will is. God does not reveal it to one in that fashion, just merely to know it.
We prove God's will by rendering our bodies in living sacrifice holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service, the only reasonable thing that you and I can do for Him.
Time is going fast, just like to mention here before we go on.
That it speaks about not being conformed to this world. What is worldly not?
You look at verse 3.
The exhortation is not to think of himself to every man among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God is dealt to every man. The measure of faith we're only not is thinking high of oneself, and it can take a number of fashions. Sometimes we think that worldliness is merely worldly dressed. It may be manifested that way yet.
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But there could be somebody who wants to be so godly that everybody notices him.
And that having a high opinion of yourself, that's worldliness just as much as the other. The Lord help it that our focus might be on Him and not on us. When there's that surrender, it no longer matters what people think of me, it matters what people think of Him. There's the focus.
Lord help us like to go over to the chapter we've had in our readings to speak briefly about.
The other two areas of sacrifice.
Hebrews chapter 13, verse 15 and 16 please.
By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But to do good and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Notice that in verse verse 15 and 16 the word sacrifice or sacrifices.
Are mentioned.
Verse 15 is the sacrifice, God word. Verse 16 is the sacrifice.
Man work and in both areas there is room for us to be exercised, dear brother and sister in the Lord Jesus.
I really want to speak fairly directly about this matter of praising the Lord. We had the verse in the address yesterday. I will praise the Lord at all times.
I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall be continually in my lips.
Here it says, Offer the sacrifice of praise to God.
Lords de Mornin, is that what it says?
Says continually.
I really feel we need to be more exercised about this sacrifice, brother.
Praising the Lord.
Sometimes traveling around we get to meetings where maybe the numbers are not that large.
And sometimes there's long, long gaps of silence.
In the breaking of bread meeting.
Brethren, what's happening?
Our testimony is focused.
On the Lord Jesus, if we're looking at ourselves and thinking about our testimony, brethren, it's going to go down the tubes.
Because we're nothing.
Were just a bunch of big zeros.
Somebody has said the Lord Jesus is the number one up front that puts the value to everything.
But if we think that we're something, brethren, we're not.
We haven't learned our lesson very well yet.
The Lord Jesus is the number one.
We need to open our mouths and praise Him. Why is it that there's so little praise sometimes on Lord's Day morning?
Must say it's a challenge to me, brethren in Latin America. Sometimes the brethren go a little bit to the other extreme and they need to be instructed on the leading of the Spirit in their praise, but sometimes they stumble over each other and giving out hymns.
And many times have been down there. Three or four brothers get up to praise the Lord before the bread is broken.
If we profess to be in the very presence of the Lord of glory, the one who fills the universe with His glory, how can this mouth of mine be silent? We have a beautiful hymn book full of beautiful hymns. We can just sing a few old brethren. May the Lord exercise our hearts about it. I really believe we need to be more exercised about praising Him. Maybe it's because.
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We don't praise him continually, maybe only when we come together.
We sing. I want to encourage you to sing at home, to sing wherever you have a chance. Praise him.
In that day, his praise is going to fill the earth.
Oh, how we need to praise Him more right here and now.
When the Lord Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, you'll remember.
The little children were praising him, calling out Hosanna. Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.
And the Pharisees didn't like it.
Tell him to be quiet.
And the Lord says that these should hold their peace. The stones would immediately cry out. Brethren, God is going to have His Son praised, and if you and I will not open our mouths to praise Him, God is going to raise up others to praise Him. The Lord stir you, young brother, and the Lord Jesus. So often I go around and I see young brothers sitting there, fully capacitated to OfferUp praise to God.
As we heard yesterday, it's not a matter of gift, it's a matter of being a priest. It's a matter of understanding the way God has opened the way into the very holiest of all.
And that, we are told, to come with boldness. I say this if there's any reticence on my part to come before him. It reflects badly on the work that opened the way.
Think about it, dear young brother and sister.
Because the sisters are involved in praising just as much as the young brothers, they do not take the lead in the assembly meeting, but they are to be exercised every bit as much as a brother but the young brothers.
Who are to take the lead in praising? I want to encourage you.
So often what happens is that we start thinking about ourselves. Maybe I'll make a mistake.
Maybe somebody will think I'm doing it just to get attention. I'll tell you what.
The Spirit of God never occupies us with ourselves except to judge ourselves.
Beyond that, we're not authorized to be thinking about ourselves.
We're told to be occupied with the person of the Lord Jesus, and if you are occupied with Him, I guarantee your mouth is going to open and overflow with His praises.
Time is up but I want to touch one other.
Area that is in verse 16 to do good and to communicate to give.
This is sacrifice as well.
Dear brother and sister in the Lord Jesus, we live in a land of affluence.
And I really think we need to be more exercised about how we use our affluence.
We're told here.
To sacrifice.
One thing to give off the top, what doesn't hurt?
But it's another thing to sacrifice in giving. Christianity is known for what it gives, not for what it asks the people. We're living in a world of tremendous need, and I fear, as I stand before the throne of God in the judgment seat of Christ, that when?
The means that were put into my hands are measured there, that the percentage I used on myself, my own comfort in comparison with what I gave in sacrifice.
Is going to be something that will cause shame.
Someone mentioned some time ago, and I don't know where he got his figures, but he said that Christians in North America are known to give about 3% of what they earn.
I think that's a very sad testimony as to our giving. I'm not saying that I can point the finger and accuse anyone here of that, but I'm saying that we need to be exercised. We live in a world of affluence and there's people starving to death by the millions in other parts of the globe. There's people in China that are pleading for Bibles.
00:45:16
Believers.
For the gospel is spreading in a large way.
They're pleading for Bibles. We have Bibles.
Extra Bibles sitting around our homes, I'm sure.
But are we to feel the need? Are we going to just talk about communicating, giving? Or is there going to be something practical in our lives, a real giving? Everything belongs to him. In the Old Testament times, it was a matter of 10% that was tithing. But in New Testament times, it's not 10%, it's 100% that belongs to him.
We are only put there as administrators of what God has put into our hands.
That oh brother and the Lord help us to know how to be exercised more in what is in our hands as to giving to the need that is so evident in different areas of the world. I know I've gone a little over time, but I just want to end by.
Telling you a little story I read in the book not long ago that really impressed me.
As a man, a brother, and the Lord who had gone over to China, his specific purpose was to take Bibles into China, and he was at a meeting over there of believers. I don't know, they're over there. I don't think they have denominations. That's what they call house churches.
But he noticed in the congregation that was together that day, there was only maybe about 10 Bibles.
And that was to about four or 500 people that were present.
And he was sitting beside a lady, older lady, who had her fingers completely twisted up. They're all twisted and it looked completely deformed.
And you notice she didn't have any Bible either. And so after the service was over, he said to her, you do not have a Bible. And she said no.
And he said I have two extra Bibles in Chinese that I would be willing to leave with you. If you want to come and wait outside my hotel, I'll bring them out to you.
And so as they were walking towards the hotel, he asked her what happened to your fingers? Were you born like that?
She said no, I wasn't born that way, but during Mayo Tisang's Cultural Revolution.
The Red Guards were given full power to go into any home to search for religious literature which was counter revolutionary.
And their idea And the Red Guards came into my home one day and I had my Bible hid in the ashes underneath my little stove, and they ripped up my whole apartment, turned everything upside down, and finally they found my Bible in the ashes there.
And as they grabbed the Bible and were turning to go, she grabbed the Bible out of the Red Guard's hand and instead of knocking her down during her immediate harm, said, You foolish woman, why do you want that book? It's the only thing that tells me about my Lord Jesus Christ.
And I can't let it go.
And so instead of taking it away from her, they let her out into a large open area of the city, and there they made her stand on a.
Box the pedestal.
And they stripped her.
As she is holding that Bible and for three hours under a blaring, blazing sun, she is made to stand there, and the people passed by and spit on her and hit her and called her all sorts of names, and she just held her Bible tight.
00:50:01
And finally, the Red Guard, seen that she wouldn't be divorced from her Bible, came up and knocked her off the pedestal.
And.
Threw her to the ground.
And she lay face down on the ground, and she extended her hands with the Bible still in it.
And they took lead pipes and they started beating her hands. And she says, finally I couldn't hold the Bible any longer. And that's the last time I've had a Bible in my hands.
And she he said as he gave her the Bible, the two Bibles he had.
She was too overcome by emotion.
To say thank you, even she went out and was lost in the sea of Chinese humanity.
But that's how much they value a Bible. Brethren, our brethren are in need in other countries. We're going to just enjoy the affluence of this country. I know we look at others and say maybe they're wealthier. The brethren, it's not a matter of.
How much we give, it's a matter of what we do with what we have, that's what it's a matter of the Lord. Exercise your heart and mind as to what sacrifice really means.
Please excuse me for going over, we'll just pray.
Blessed God are.