Lowry Conference: 2000
Table of Contents
Hebrews 10
Reading
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High above our grave.
Made me think brethren, and had on my heart a lot the reason times Hebrews chapter 10. I don't know if that would be a suitable portion.
And also speaks of our Christian position as you mentioned in your prayer.
For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers there unto perfect for them, would they not have ceased to be offered. Because if the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins, but in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year, Or it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin.
Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body has thou prepared me in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. Thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written of me to do thy will, O God above, when He said, sacrifice, and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin, Thou wouldest not, neither has pleasure therein which are offered by the Law. Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.
He takes away the 1St, that he may establish the 2nd, but at which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that he had said before, This is a covenant that I will make with them after those days of the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Now her remission of these is, there is no more sacrifice for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, And having an high priest over the House of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promise.
Consider one another to provoke unto love and to good work, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. Or if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despise Moses Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses.
Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye, shall ye keep ye thought worthy?
Who have trodden under foot the Son of God, and have counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith you are sanctified and unholy thing, and hath done despite under the spirit of grace. For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me. I will recompense that the Lord, and again the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, but call to remembrance of former days in which after ye were illuminated.
He endured a great fight of affliction, partly while she were made a gazing stock, both by reproaches and affliction, and partly whilst he became companions of them that were so used. For he had compassion of me and my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourself that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which has great recompense of rewards, for ye have need of patience.
That after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. For yet a little while. And he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
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It the Lord using Paul the writer of his epistle.
To free the Jewish Christian.
From the Jewish system, the Old Testament order of things, they were permitted for about 35 years to go on to quite an extent.
With the Temple and the Jewish system.
When the Gentiles were thought to be brought under the law, we know from Acts 15 how firmly that was resisted and the Spirit of God LED them to declare the liberty of the Gentile believers, but not at that time of the Jewish believers. Paul circumcised Timothy in the very next chapter and in chapter 21 verse 20 when Paul came to Jerusalem.
Told how many thousands believe we're zealous of the law, but.
In his conversion, when Paul was conversed, Ananias was pulled the order in which Paul would be used to spread the truth at the very end it says into the House of Israel. I believe that was referring to what we have here in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
And the whole pistol chose that whatever they so valued in the Jewish system had its fulfillment in the Lord Jesus. They were only types and shadows. The better things we hear again and again. Better, better, better, greater.
What we have in Christ. And then at the end of the epistle after he had shown them that there was no more value in the type, since they had the reality in Christ.
He says we have an altar of which they have no right to eat, that served the Tabernacle.
From now on there has to be a clear break. Go unto him outside the camp. That's Judaism bearing his reproach is understood that this epistle let the Christian Jews or those who were Christians from among the Jews to leave Jerusalem. They were no longer in Jerusalem when Titus destroyed at their 70 after Christ. So that's just in a general way.
Gives us an understanding. Why is it important that we get into the understanding of Hebrews? What we find in the Christian profession is that people have introduced principles from Judaism into the Christian profession. Take for instance when it comes to the sacrifice, the mass.
As it is celebrated in the Catholic Church, they're offering up Christ over and over again.
That's the way it was in Judaism and the clergy system, the musical instruments, an earthly sanctuary, and even earthly blessings presented as the end for the Christians. Well, at this chapter we read they had lost everything, but they had in heaven a better and abiding substance.
You know, there's no longer perfectly blessing, blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places and their practices of the heavenly calling. But that is just in general an introduction to Hebrews. And it's very important for us to get to understand Hebrews because it will free us from Christendom. That has become a camp. You know, they have taken the principles of Judaism and introduce them with Christianity, and thus Christendom has become a camp.
And we have to go outside the camp at the time when his epistle was written.
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Jerusalem and Judaism was the camp, but we do believe that it has been pointed out by others. Christenedom has become a camp by introducing Jewish principles into the Christian profession. And we go on to him. He isn't in a beloved Saints of God. Dear young people, the Lord Jesus is not in this camp that man has built up.
Even under the name of Christianity. And we go on to him outside.
Go back to.
Types of the law after the reality had come and the person of the Lord Jesus is what is called apostasy, and it means to turn back from Christ to Christianity to Judaism again. And I think what is important for us to understand is that Judaism was a religion adapted for man in the flesh that God gave himself as a test.
To see if there was anything good in man, but if a man failed totally. And so you will see in the in the religious systems around something that attracts naturally our flesh. And I think we have to recognize that that is not what we are called to. We are called out of that. Like you said, we are called the heavenly things, not anything down here in this world now.
And Christ is the object that I think it is good to see that those Old Testament scriptures, those the law had a lot that figures Christ. It was types and shadows.
But sometimes it gives this illustration to the Latin brother. They say sometimes I go on a trip and I come home and my wife knows I'm about to get home.
And all of a sudden, she sees, across the porch, a shadow gun.
And she knows I'm close.
What's she going to do? She rushes out the door. And does she start examining the shadow?
If that would happen, I'd say something was pretty wrong.
No, she grabs the reality. And brethren, the one who's fulfilled all those beautiful types and shadows of the Old Testament, we can go back there and see how God had that in mind all the time. But now we have the reality in the person of Christ. And in Christianity there's nothing exterior visible to attract the human heart. Can you see Christ? No.
Is there a special building that we're attracted to? No. Is there special music that should attract us? No. Sometimes our singing may not be that great, but if we understand what Christianity is, that's not what attracts us. It's the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son, is the reality of it all. And so those are beautiful types of shadows, and we can go back and we can enjoy them in the Old Testament.
But to for the Jewish believers, as you mentioned, to have Christ that come and for them to turn back again to those what is called in another part of this epistle. We can beg early elements is apostasy and that's the tendency of our hearts naturally. I mean, we can look around at Christendom and see like Heinz said, all those elements are incorporated into Christians.
Systems, the elements of the camp, the Judaistic principles, and they're attractive to our hearts naturally. And sometimes young people say, well, boy, there's a lot of things that are attractive out there. OK, yeah, I admit that they're attractive to my heart, but that's not Christianity. They're attracted to my heart in a in a earthly way, as it was in Judaism. But if we understand what Christianity is, our object is in a place far different now.
We're called the heaven, Brethren were called to nothing impressive and outwardly visible down here in this world. We're called to heaven.
Now it goes.
The camp in Hebrew is not a corrupted camp. It's that which was ordained by God and given by God for His people, Israel after the flesh. But you have two expressions in this chapter that were read that have been helpful to me in the first verse. I'm just going to read part of the verse to get the force of the verse.
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For the law.
Can never.
Make the comers there unto perfect the law can never make perfect and then down in verse 11 and Speaking of the sacrifices and every priest sent a daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifice which can never take away sins. It was never in God's thoughts the thought that the.
Camp that he established.
Judaism its ordinances. He never he knew that it could never satisfy his heart and that we read that our chapter. He was not he found no pleasure in them, but they were have been brought out shadows of a coming Christ and that's the only delight God had in that camp that he set up that system of things and the reason why they couldn't suffice. God is because it depended on.
Those who offered these sacrifices, keeping the law and man in the flesh, can never without faith. It's impossible, Hebrews says, to please God. And so it isn't a corrupted camp, but it would be it would have been true of Judaism in in its perfection as given by God. It could not satisfy the heart of God, and so it just a typified Christ, a coming Christ, a sacrifice Christ.
And that sacrifice, Christ, brethren, make us perfect. And you know, a little indication when you're turning back to a religion given to man in the flesh by God, you'll know that it will have this effect on you. And it has had its effect on many, many, many millions of Christians. There is an insecurity as to their relationship with God, millions believing.
I can be lost after all, others say, oh, you're too old to say you are a son of God. This all stems from giving ourselves a place in the things of God and instead of accepting the place God has given us in the acceptance of his Son.
The corrupt system in Fisdale, you know, Brother Henry said the camp in Jerusalem was not a corrupt system. But by bringing these things into Christianity, it's a corrupt system. It corrupts Christianity. But.
The more important point is not so much that we get delivered from what attracts so many people in the religious.
Systems. If we enter into the teaching of Hebrews, the person of the Lord Jesus becomes precious to us. That's more important than to be delivered from the wrong ideas that are around in the Christian system or the Christian profession.
But we also have to recognize that many who grew up in these systems need time to be delivered. And I believe we have to make a distinction between them who don't know because they're grown up with it. And it requires patience on our part to allow them to be taught by the Spirit of God to get delivered. Hopefully we can be a help to them.
So I think we have to make this.
Distinction. There are many souls who don't know any better. They're very sincere, godly souls and the Spirit of God is able to teach them. How has it been in our lives? You know, we have to be freed from some ideas and the Spirit of God has been able to help us and lead us on. There are still things that I believe we need, still need to learn each and every one of us. We don't know at all, do we? So.
Patients need it in dealing with such souls and.
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We have confidence, do we not, that the Lord, the Good shepherds, and the Spirit of God is able to lead them on for His own glory?
Anyway, it's Christianity, totally the opposite of Judaism. Many times I speaking to souls, it seems like in their thinking that they think that Christianity is kind of an extension of Judaism, but it really it's it's opposite in many ways. I like to think of Judaism as more the focus on what man was to God, whereas Christianity the focus is what God is for man.
And.
In Judaism, it was man's responsibility and they stood on the ground of responsibility. And in the New Testament, although we have responsibility, we don't stand on that ground. We stand on the ground of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the cross of gallery. So that it's totally in contrast, really Christianity and Judaism. Judaism was earthly. Christianity is heavenly.
So there's many ways you can contrast it completely and it really helps to see our physician if you understand that difference.
At the end of the verse. That makes that very clear. There is no extension there. If you take it away, the person taking it away, they established the same.
Very important too, for us to remember that when we talk about the systems that we're not talking about the Saints of God that are there. We're not talking about the people this kind of disturbed. I've talked to some that that it disturbs them when we talk about the systems because they think we're talking about the people. But we need to differentiate between the system and the people. We're not talking about them. It's a system that man has set up that is corrupt and that the Saints of God have many Saints of God have been connect are are connected with.
And we're not saying that they do not get something of Christ there and we're thankful for that. God is able to feed his people regardless. But there is we read that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for them that believe. And so all that is connected with law is is not Christianity. And so we need to I just point this out for some that perhaps the younger ones that that don't have this clear that it is a system.
That Saints of God are connected with that is condemned of God.
Not the people. The point is, is this.
When he came, the glorious Son of God presented himself to the builders of that system, the Jewish leaders, and they, as Scripture says, rejected that stone. They basically said when Jesus came, because he was there for the glory of God, we don't have any place for this stone in our building out, and they rejected it. They took him outside of that city and they mailed them to a crime.
And brethren, if there's a heart for Christ, where can we find a place in that religious system that has no place for the Lord Jesus?
Years ago when I was a young man, a brother amongst the veteran where I was said when you look at Christendom as a profession.
They're not all you might say in the center of the camp, you know, some might be more on the outskirts. They don't necessarily have all the principles of the camp, but they all have some principles of the camp. Take the clergy system.
You know, but some he says they are like under fringes of it. You know, there is much fundamental Christianity among those that are not gathered through the name of the Lord Jesus and 1 can be thankful for that. But.
The sacrifices we read here in verse one.
Could not make perfect to people who brought them. What does that work perfect mean?
That means to give them a perfect standing before God. That is the point in question. And in verse 14 we have by one offering He has perfected, made perfect.
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Forever them that are sanctified, not that are to be sanctified as it is in the NIV. You know it is a positional truth.
By the work of the Lord Jesus, by his sacrifice, we have been given a perfect standing before God. Now people might say, since these sacrifices couldn't make perfect, ignore them.
No. By us looking into the typical teaching of what these sacrifices typically represent, it even helps us to a better understanding of the work of the Lord Jesus.
You know, we have many sacrifices in the Old Testament and they all point to Christ, but they do not all bring out the same truth of the death of Christ. Just to speak of the burnt offering and the sin offering. And I would encourage every young believer, including the older ones, if they haven't done so yet, get familiar with the teaching, the typical teaching of the sacrifices that will help you to a better understanding of what the Lord Jesus did.
On the cross and it will help you even to participate intelligently.
At the breaking of bread, you will realize what hymns or what passages of scripture present him as the bird offering, what Scripture presents him as the sin offering. And we don't jump from one thing to the other and get all kinds of confusion. But.
It's very important to get into these teachings, typical teachings. Christ is made more precious when we lay hold of these things. He is the subject of the whole world of God.
And the Passover, you know, and all these various offerings that they brought, what a wonderful thing it is to get a hold of the teaching and what they convey. And they all present a different aspect of the death of Christ.
What you say about that?
Embraced all the principles, the camp, I'd like to extend that a little bit more rather and say that we need to be exercised too, that we don't embrace those principles and and it's not something that we can say here. We're outside the camp. I trust we are brethren, but let's be exercised about this position when I see sometimes in our local meetings that we leave the praying and giving of thanks to the breaking of bread meeting or in the prayer meeting.
To a certain few and others are never exercised to take part. That's the principle of the camp that's starting in on their practice, brother, then we need to be exercised. Everyone is a priest to God and should be exercised about interceding, about giving us thanks. It belongs to us. So what happens in practice? First of all, the practice.
And then the doctrine comes in is that we leave it to a certain few and it scares me sometimes at a conference rather than those are sitting up front are the ones that train those in the back rows back there that have the same liberty before God to participate.
There's silence. That's not right, brother. Let's be exercised about.
Making use of the priesthood that belongs to everyone of us.
Don't allow that principle of the camp to come in in that way. So we need to be exercised, everyone of us, about it.
Before its 11Th verse speak volumes to one who hears the voice of the Spirit. Here we have the camp as we're in verse 11.
And verse 12 Says, But this man.
Jesus Christ.
After he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down. That's the direction.
What the occupation, general occupation is of those.
Now we're looking for activity.
They're looking for something to appeal to the intellect to.
Vision senses.
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But we have here.
Jesus, God would direct our thoughts to.
Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Jesus baptism. What voice do we hear from heaven? This is my beloved son here. Here God's focus was on his beloved son. Does God want our focus on his beloved Son? And if we see him, what else do we need? We don't need anything to satisfy or appeal to the flesh. And then as we read in verse 14.
For by this one offering of himself.
He has perfectly forever then that are sanctified. God has already sanctified us.
We are sanctified in His sight already, but He would have us to be practically sentenced. Sanctified and sanctified simply needs to be set apart as in picture of the holy vessels were taken and set apart and they were not permitted to be used for anything other than the service of God.
First verses after that verse 10. It's interesting and.
What you say rather that God seemed to be thinking. I should say he was thinking of that. Even in the Old Testament he quotes the 40th song and it's quoted twice in these first 10 verses.
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not. Didn't he ordained that that should be offered? Yes. That was not really what he wanted. It was just a figure for the time present.
Until the one would come who would fulfill it all. Sacrifice and offering though which not but a body has self repaired me.
Inferred offerings and sacrifices for sin. Thou had no pleasure then said I lo, I come to do thy will, O God. So it's the Lord Jesus in that vast eternity in those eternal councils say lo Ike up. But I'd like to mention here that in these these four general sacrifices of the Old Testament, the book of Leviticus are.
Mentioned in.
Verses 5:00 and 6:00, and then again in verse 8, just to point it out, sacrifice is really the sacrifice of peace offerings that we have in Leviticus 3. Offering is the meal offering that we have in Leviticus 2.
Bird offering is the offering that's presented in Leviticus 1 and sacrifices for sin.
There's what we have in chapter 4 of Leviticus. So the four basic sacrifices of the book of Leviticus are included in here. And like Heinz said, they beautifully, typically in some way or another, the completeness, the beauty of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, sacrifice of peace offerings. It's interesting that it starts with that here, but it is really a communion.
Sacrifice Part of the animal when it was sacrificed was burnt for God. The fact and certain parts of the animal and the rest the meat was given to the people to enjoy. I like to think of it M 57 God.
Is satisfied with Jesus, we are satisfied as well. We enjoy the same sacrifice that God enjoys. We have fellowship with God about his Son. That's the piece of me. The meal offering is more the thought of what the Lord Jesus was in his life, the perfection of his life. So it was me and there was no blood in the meal offering. It was meal fine flour, no.
Imperfections there.
And on that fine flower was poured oil. In the power of the Spirit of God was ever his life, and frankincense the sweet savor that always ascended to God. And when that was taken to be baked, and then given to the priest to eat, a handful of it was taken out and put directly into the fire. It's not what he was in his life that made atonement for us, brethren.
But that he, in his perfection of his humanity, was seen in all his life here.
And even on the cross as a perfect man.
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Later.
Without one. Perfect.
God and he tend to always say of what he is for us, our God, we both all the time things of the sinoff even.
But the birds offering represents what it was God and then his armor important than what it is for us. As we said, the third offer is the acceptance offer when accepted in the beloved and.
What he means to God in the faces that he can take on paper.
Author of our broad contact with the altar be connected with the key Alt.
And then he decided his husband returned to his head.
Go on forever.
And in the sin offering the Upper laid his hands on the head of the offering.
That's a way of identifying, and somebody has put it this way that I really enjoy. In the case of the bird offering, all the acceptability of that offering was transferred to the person that offered it.
In the case of the sin offering, all the sin of the individual that was offering it was transferred to the that sacrifice. Both were necessary. My father-in-law puts it this way sometimes that I think is helpful. In the bird offering, Christ died for God. In the sin offering, Christ died for us. And those two things are important, both of them. But like you say, so often we only concentrate on the fact that Christ died for us. It's part of it, brother.
But let's get to.
What it means to God, to you.
Remembrance of the Lord we come with the idea that we're going to receive something from the Lord and we'll hear some make that comment. Well, what what am I going to give at that meeting? That's not why we're there, is it it's a meeting that we are gathered to to give to God, to give to the father. We have the.
Other meetings, the open meeting, the reading meeting, where there may be blessing that comes from God down to us, but at the remembrance of the Lord, we have the blessed privilege of offering up to God that which is acceptable to Him, and that's what He desires from us. I like to think of the offerings as they're presented to us in Leviticus.
First with the burnt offering, then the.
Meal offering.
Offering and the sin offering, I believe they're presented to us in that order, because that is.
Be careful in saying this, but I believe that that is the order in which their preciousness is to God. The.
The Father views each one in a precious way as we look at as he looks at the work of Christ.
But it starts with the burnt offering and it ends with the sin offering from the believers. From our standpoint, we tend to look at it in the reverse order and truly without the sin offering, without entering into and evaluating that, we cannot appreciate the other offerings. So from our standpoint.
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The sin offering is very important and that is our approach to God, but I believe when we are found remembering Him in His death that it's important for us to keep that order in place and not limit our thoughts and our praise to just sin offering.
But look, I think many times when we're in the remembrance of the Lord.
Many times there's a theme that one of these offerings is carried through in the meeting and I sometimes like to look for that to see what that theme is.
You start by saying we get later into Leviticus. We'll find many times that the drink offering accompanies these offerings and that, I believe, brings before us the joy that we can have and the joy to the Father.
In connection of the offerings in general, they burn the sin offerings was not a sweet favorite offering. I made the statement in blanket that it was not a sweet saver offering one time and a brother came up and showed me the one place where it is. So that's why I say in general it's not.
But it's in the case of an individual that is poor and he offers his offering and it does mention there that it is a sweet stay here. So there's many believers rather than who have gratitude in their heart that the Lord died for their sins. And that's a sweet savior to God if they don't get beyond that. But what is desirable is for us to understand what a tremendous work was accomplished in Calvary.
That work, the burnt offering like you were mentioning, all burned for God. It was cut up, the inner excellencies of that animal were made manifest, and then the whole thing was burned. There was only one part that the priest could keep of that offering.
It was the skin of the offering which shows that we are accepted in all the acceptability of that office, that all the rest was burnt for God. And there on that cross there was something that was a complete, full sacrifice to God.
It glorified God in the very place of sin, that there was no sin in Him.
That shows the burnt offering aspect of the death of Christ and that is in verse 14. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God. See that's the burnt offering aspect hurt your conscience. Some dead works to serve the living God. Also in John's Gospel. Remember when the Lord Jesus said that the world may know that I love my Father and is the Father has commanded me so I do let us go ahead. He was going to Jerusalem.
To be offered up that these verses speak of the burnt offering aspect, but sometimes you have the burnt offering to sacrifice and the sin offering brought together. For instance in Ephesians chapter 5, I believe we have these two things brought together.
Yes.
And there's two and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given him self for us. An offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour. There you have given himself for us and given himself to God. So we shouldn't be.
Too legal and say you can never.
Bring in one other aspect of the sacrifice of tithe, when one aspect predominantly is before us during the breaking of bread. But I think it will be felt whether it is of the spirit or whether it is of.
I like that him, so I want to give out that hymn, but that fits in or not, you know, that is what sometimes happens, you know, but even reading the scriptures.
That fit in.
With what has gone before or leads on leads us further. This is all what as we are occupied with these things, even with the sacrifices in the Old Testament, it will help us intelligently participate. And what a thrill it is to sit down and see how everything fits in nicely. You know, harmoniously fits together. And because we don't worship as individuals.
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When we come to the breaking of bread, we worship together, you know, but we're priests individually. And I like to add to what Bob has earlier said.
The exercise for priesthood is not the exercise of gift.
You don't need to have a gift to thank the Lord and make intercession. There is such a thing as the exercise of gift as to teaching and evangelizing and shepherding, and we ought not to try to do that when we are not qualified for that. But as far as prayer and praise goes, everybody has their privilege, and I believe this is where normally a young believer begins.
To open up his mouth in the assembly, taking advantage of his priestly privilege.
And the Lord might well lead that person on and make him realize he's more than just a priest. He might also have the ability to teach and do other things. And then?
Here.
To encourage them to take part in the breaking the bread meeting, because that's what we're called to brethren, is to praise him. And it's grieving when you sit in a meeting with us, plenty of brothers, able brothers, and we sit there for a long painful silences.
Oh, brother.
We understand who's in our mix.
Don't we understand something of the eternal glory of that person? And what I find in my own experience has hindered a free flow of praise is when we get occupied with what we are.
Rather than being occupied with what we are.
Is never going to produce praise. It's being occupied with who here, and so there will be a theme. But we shouldn't get occupied with a theme just for the theme.
But because it occupies us with the Lord Jesus, and so there may be some brother.
There, that doesn't understand as much.
That if he's led by the Spirit of God, it's not going to be contradictory. And I want to encourage you to take part. The Lord lays on him, on your heart. Another thing I'd like to say, make it a practice to praise the Lord every day. Brother, it says let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God. When? Thursday morning, Mr. 6.
Continually.
That means Monday too, Tuesday, Wednesday all the way through the week. Is that a practice in your heart, in your house? I'm afraid in my house it should be a little bit more heard the phrases of our God, but I like to try to make that an exercise in our household to praise the Lord. Oh brother, what a God we have. What a glorious Savior.
Does it mean something? I was in a home some time ago in South America, a little girl.
I don't know, I think she was three years old, but she was trying to sing what she could of Jesus left me, she added. All kind of messed up.
Better when she came to that name of Jesus, it really touched me brother. She was singing the matches and the very mention of that name is like boring when toward for it was a sweet savory going up to God in the mouth of that little girl. Is that the custom in our home to praise his name? Lord help us brother to have our focus more on him. It's evident when we don't praise him in her.
Public meetings, brethren, that we're not focused on him like we need to be.
Latin America in places, brethren, they get to the other extreme. They need some exhortation like Heinz has given us that he led by the Spirit. But I must say, brother, we go to the other extreme way too much times down there. There's three or four, and I give thanks to the Lord before the bread is broken. Thank the Lord for that. Thank the Lord for the free flow of appreciation of the person of Christ. So we need to be exercised about these things, brother, not just a few.
00:50:06
Every one of us.
M129 once in a while. I remember being in a meeting when.
It was like you said, painful silence and that him came to mind. 129 and a little flock awake each soul awake each tongue. The subject is divine. The saviors love demands our song, that all his people join the Savior. This Savior is the mighty God, the God of heaven above, revealed in flesh. He shed his blood. Blessed truth of endless love, and so on. Read it and.
It fits what we're saying. I remember in connection with giving God his part to I believe it if we would think God's thoughts about everything, we would appreciate what we do have more. I remember old brother AC Brown coming to me once and when I was younger and and he pointed this very thing out to me because, you know, we need to be occupied with God's thoughts rather than our own and giving God his portion first before ours and.
And he said, try it and you'll see what a difference it makes. And it's true. If we can have God's thoughts concerning everything, then we appreciate what we do have. And we appreciate rather than thinking about just what Christ has done for me and saving me from my sins and so forth, which is wonderful, but think what God's thoughts are concerning his Son. What was his purpose just to save me from my sins? His purpose was to glorify his Son. And and so we get that in Ephesians one. You know that in the dispensation of the fullness of kind, you might gather together in one all things one.
In Christ, both which are in heaven, which are in that was his purpose and and you and I rather than having privileged to be brought in because this wondrous blessing and we are part of God's thoughts concerning his Son. That's true and to think that we are going to spend eternity with him but get God's thoughts 1St about things and and give him his portion first like what we have mentioned in the burnt offering and the other we will appreciate more.
What he has done, it's true.
Two things been touched upon here. I think we.
Ought to he's in mind. And what's been mentioned about taking part? There's the difference between worship and ministry.
Because.
Worship really has to do with affection.
And ministry ought to also. But we'll find in Scripture, I think particularly of Mary's annoying. There was affection brought out that.
Knowledge wasn't up to the disciples weren't up to do what she did. They weren't in that position. Well, they ought to have it, but worship is a matter of affection, and that's where every priest is around. The Lord's table ought to exercise that privilege.
Of affection to the person.
And the other thoughts think this to me is important as of the offering and I'll be corrected if this is wrong, but I think we're finding scripture that the sin offering is directed. It says where the burnt offering was you.
Offer the skin offering where the burn cost and I do not believe it's reversed in order to do something and so it sets in order, doesn't it? Which in a sense is really most paramount in God's mind. It's the burnt offering, but the skin offering is the burn where the burn off you want in the Old Testament before the Levitical priest toward.
Offerings forgiven, but they're always called, I think I'm correct, Bernard. So it showed that from the beginning that was in the mind of God, the burnt offering aspect.
And to add to what our brother just said, in worship we give to God. In ministry, God gives to us.
He uses failing, imperfect instruments.
To contribute towards our edification. But when we come together to remember the Lord Jesus in His death, we bring to Him and to the Father. When I as a young believer got ahold of that verse in John's Gospel that the Father seeketh such to worship him, to me that was overwhelming. That there is a desire in the heart of God that can only be satisfied by the redeemed people. You know, it's tremendous, isn't it? Should we not?
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Feel exercise to give him that which he's looking for when he has done so much.
For us, and how wonderful He in his grave has not only given us his Son as the deliverer from our sin, but also as an object for our hearts affection. And we used to sing a hymn. We don't have it, unfortunately, in our hymn book. Father, how precious unto thee is thy beloved Son, in whom thou doth perfection. See thy well beloved Son, and it ends like this.
He preciousness itself to thee, to us, is precious too. We every beauty in Him see, and thine own glory view Beautiful, isn't it? And he, as much as he's saying, I want you to share in that object that has been the object of my heart, joy and affection from all eternity. He shares Him with us. Do we enjoy Him? Are we entering into it? He wants us to.
Wonder if they've had worsened?
Changing and what he is. We worship God for who he is, we praise him for what he has done and they're both encompassed increasingly activity but over others is just meditate on the glories of the person of the Lord Jesus.
Like to think in the book of Hebrews that we have here, the majority of the book is occupied with the glories of his person. Really up until you get to Chapter 9 all those chapters are take up in a different ways the glories of the person of Christ.
You get to chapters 9 and 10. We have more as work, focused in on. It's important as work, but what gives value to the work is the glory of this person. And so it's the appreciation of the glory of his person that really deepens, isn't it? It's the worship that he is so worthy.
To receive it was Clendicon and I think said down in Kentucky and.
Worship is a contraction. If I remember it right, it used to be used in old English. Worthy ship. Instead of saying worthy ship, they just omitted the middle part. They said worship. It's the work of that person. Oh what a tremendous God we have in the person manifested in the person of the Lord Jesus. Oh brother, just to fall before him, let the.
Worship, flow and appreciation of all that He is, God seeks worshippers to worship Him.
Something that should be exercising to serve.
Brother Bob used him.
He said when plenty of able brothers are present in well, I think I'm not so far removed from youth that that would have excluded me, but I would like to define an able brother to give an expression, an audible expression of Thanksgiving after remembrance meeting. Remember when the Lord instituted it. And I think in each case.
The loaf. This is my body, which is given for you. That isn't for an offering necessarily.
The object of that body being given, this is my blood, and speaking to the cup of the cup, this is my blood which was shed for you and for the remission of sin.
You are the object of the shed blood there in that cup and why I say this is this?
That some of us may have learned.
A little deeper perhaps than some others. The difference between the two general characteristics of the burnt offering and the sin offering and all of the offerings come under those two characteristics, sweet savor and concealed offerings.
But if you can say Christ has died for my sins, the Lord Jesus has gone to the cross for me. You're an able brother and I just, we don't want to discourage you because.
It was strike there in my heart. I might even find myself very hindered Lord's Day thinking that have I discerned the theme of the don't don't spend a lot of time thinking about whether what the theme is or it isn't that we want disorder, but.
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I think everyone of us who've ever expressed ourselves at the breaking of bread and Thanksgiving will find that not all of it got up to the Father, that there was plenty of feathers or plenty of bra, no matter how instructed we might be or might not be. But I just would encourage you. Don't be afraid of us who are older and none of us know very much anyway. And I just would encourage you if you know.
Christ has given his body for you. You know His blood was shed for you.
You know that he wants you to give him the fruit of your lips giving thanks and his name. I would encourage you to do it and I don't think anyone.
Will come forward and say you need to, you need to be correct and I hope we would recognize that all of us have.
Had a lot that we've said that had to be sorted out by the Spirit of God.
Time is up.
Remember the bird dropping for the bullets and?
Then smaller and smaller down to a pitcher.
What it suggests, doesn't it, not every Israelite was able to bring a bullet. And if he only could bring a pigeon, bring the pigeon because the pigeon speaks to God of Christ like a bulletproof. And so I'm saying that to support what Henry said, bring whatever you have. And as time goes on, you might grow richer in the things of God and you can bring more, but he's looking for.
Even something that would answer to a picture.
Nice to add this week's review.
I love the tensor races they told us to consume. It's not encouraging for anyone to.
No matter how people and how weak, what's acceptable to God is the Lord Jesus Christ. He adds to our prayers and praises.
Hebrews 10
Reading
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Hebrews 10 For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the thing, can never with those sacrifices which they offer year by year continually make the comers there onto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshippers once purged, should have had no more conscience of sin. But in those sacrifices, if there is a remembrance again made of sins every year, what is not possible, that the blood of gold and of ghosts should take away sin?
Therefore when he comes into the world, he said, sacrifice and offering, though what's not but a body has not prepared me in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, Thou has had no pleasure. Then said I, Well, I come in the volume of the book, it is written of me to do Thy will, O God above, when He said sacrifice, and offerings, and burnt offerings and offering for sin, Thou what's not neither has pleasure therein which are offered by the law. Then said he low, and come to do thy will with God.
He taketh away the 1St and then establish the 2nd.
That which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one offering he perfected forever them that are thankful for all. The Holy Ghost also is a witness to us.
For after that he had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds while I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now we're remission of these is there is no more offerings for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil that is to save his flesh, and having an high priest over the House of God.
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Hold fast the profession of our faith without waiver, for He is faithful the promised. And let us consider one another to provoke unto laws and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as a matter some is, but exhorting one another so much the more, as you see the day approaching. For if we stand willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, a fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.
He that despised Moses law died without mercy, under two or three witnesses. Of how much sore punishment suppose ye? Shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and have counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done desperately into the spirit of grace?
We know him that has said vengeance belong with unto me. I will recommend self the Lord, and again the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But call to remember his former days, in which, after you were illuminated, He endured the great fight of affliction, partly whilst you were made a gazing stock, both by reproaches and affliction, and partly while she became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion of me and my blondes, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods.
Knowing it yourself that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance, cast not away, therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise for you a little while. And he that shall come will come, and will not carry. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto tradition, but of them the belief of the saving of the soul.
I'm not suggesting that we repeat.
Things that we have had in the morning, but verse two has a statement that we have not touched upon and that is.
That's because that the worshiper, once heard, should have had no more conscience of sense. That's a tremendous statement. What does it mean?
That means that five days.
We enter into what the work of Christ has accomplished. Our conscience is not only heard, as we have added in Chapter 9, we have no conscience of sin, you know, and the Christian profession, many Christians still refer to themselves. I'm a poor Sinner.
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Well, I don't think that that is an indication of the soul having entered into the boundary of the work of Christ for them. The work of Christ has so completely settled that sin question. If we do not stand identified with that sin any longer before a holy God, and ought not to trouble our conscience, we have no more conscience of sins. We are completely set free.
God looks at us not as sinners, He looks at us as Saints. That's how the word of God addresses us. And that even in the epistles to the first, the first epistle to the Corinthians, where there were a number of things that were off and were definitely wrong, yet they are addressed as Saints of God. We have to learn to look at ourselves the way God looks at us in virtue of that shed blood and the Atronic death of Christ.
And so if the devil tries to trouble your conscience or my conscience as to anything that I have or you have committed in the past, we can say it's all under the blood. And we do not allow him to travel our conscience. We have no more conscience of saying we're completely separated from sin in the size of God. And we have been made new, holy, sanctified. That's how we stand before God.
I hope it helps to understand how this might be able to contribute to that. No more Conscience of Sin, the 9th chapter.
A perched conscience from dead works. You know what is connected with the law? They always try to satisfy their conscience by doing good works. You know that's not the Christian way of life. We know that we are accepted on the basis of the work of Christ, not on the basis of what we do.
When it comes to our standing, our acceptance before God is entirely based on the work of the Lord Jesus. It is no longer every time to make ourselves acceptable by what we are doing. Hopefully we do what we do because we are accessible that Christianity.
There's four says it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin. So necessarily the consciousness of sin was still there, and the fact that it had to be repeated again and again and again was never done. Show that the work was never done.
But notice in verses 1012 and 14 it is interesting Speaking of the will of God in verse 10. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Verse 12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right end of God. Verse 14 Four by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, the fact that it is one.
Necessarily implies that the work is done.
It cannot be repeated. It is done forever. And oh the blessedness of understanding that. Like you say, there are so many souls and brethren, we need to, I need to say to our young people, let this sink into your soul. We stand before God on the ground of a sacrifice that was done once for all. It cannot be repeated. God accepted it. They said God had not been satisfied with the sacrifice that Jesus made.
On that cross you would never have raised him from the dead. The fact that Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.
And Jesus now sit to God's right hand is evidence that the word is done and done forever. Fact in verse 12. It's beautiful.
Is this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins? Mr. Darby's translation puts the comma right there.
Forever sat down on the right end of God. In other words, He will never again get up.
To take into consideration the question of sin. It's done. He sat down forever in connection with that question. He will never again rise up to that question.
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It's done. Oh, isn't that wonderful, brother? We look up into the glory by faith to see a man, a real living man, a flesh and bones sitting there at God's right hand. The man that took into consideration, that took on the question of sin for us. Where is he now?
He's there in God's right hand. The fact that he sits there means that you and I as simple believers in the Lord Jesus.
Are accepted without any possibility of a question ever, ever arising for all eternity.
Verse 10 is I think we all understand that we're talking about our position in Christ and these verses positional sanctification, it's complete. We are sanctified. It's not we are being there is there are verses in the word of God that speak about practical sanctification, which is something that we need to continue to be exercised about it says.
In 2nd Corinthians 7 Perfecting holiness.
In the sight of God and that's something that we need to continue to be exercised about. But I say if a person doesn't understand that you occupy because of what Christ has done, a position of complete sanctification. That's the position you occupy. I can use illustration that sometimes has helped me is when Noah.
Built the ark, he finally was told by the Lord, Come thou in all thy house into the art. And in they went, and God shut them into that arm. And you might have asked people outside, might have asked, Where's Noah?
After he was in there and they would say in the ark, and they would point in that direction. And as they looked in that direction, all they could see was that huge arc with all its ability to spare them from that coming judgment that was going to fall. And the judgment fell on that arc, but not one drop fell on Noah and on his family. They were set apart completely. You say, well, no, it wasn't that perfect yet. Yeah, that's right.
Because he got drunk after the flood. Wasn't that perfect yet? We're not talking about that. We're talking about positional sanctification. And I think it is vital that we understand that through the work of Christ, you and I occupy that place and enjoy it in our souls. And in the enjoyment of this soul is going to give you the power to walk in practical sanctification. But there's so many people that think that they have to attain to holiness through their own efforts.
Rather, we will never attain into holiness by our own efforts. It's through walking in the enjoyment of the fact that this is the position God has brought us into. And if we enjoy that, why in the world are we going to want to get into out into the world and get our garments?
Staying with all sorts of things out there, No, we're going to want to walk in holiness of life as well.
It's rather helpful to me to.
Grasp this truth, that in Hebrews it's our acceptance and that of necessity it has to be totally on Christ and His work, and in our chapter it's a contrast between Him doing it one work.
As to the Day of Atonement in under the law, which took place every year.
And one day of the year they had this day of atonement to reestablish Israel as a people with God. That never has to be done for you and me. We cannot lose our relationship with God because of the work of Christ. He forever sat down. Then beside that a once a year that they have atonement.
And there were other sin offerings in the beginning of Leviticus.
That related to misconduct, but those were misconduct of typically misconduct of the people of God who were in relationship established at the end of the year by this Day of Atonement. Now all of us have conscience of sin in our life, but it's good to remember that consciousness of sin.
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Relates to our communion, not to our positions. So even though there have been times when I've grieved over.
The believer has never caused me to doubt that I was a believer. And so John takes up that first. John takes up that aspect where it's communion. There is confession of sins and you don't say we don't have any sin because the question is communion and that can be broken at any time, but our relationship as children.
Are being brought in to acceptance with God. That is fixed.
Relationship can never be lost and it's very important to rest our souls on this.
What? You're saying we might sometimes have a bad conscience?
Hopefully we do. Maybe there's something wrong, but that is not the same as having no more confidence of sin. That's the position of truth, you know, And we have to confess our sins. But the practical sanctification is even mentioned in chapter 12.
Why is chastisement our portion is sung?
That we might become partakers of His Holiness. You know, that is bringing us practically into what we are positionally. That is what God is working out in our lives. That's what he's working towards that end and tremendous to get ahold of these things. And we often hear that sanctification is being set apart for God. That's the truth that is certainly involved.
But there is more involved than just being set apart. That means having been made fully.
That is, what is the blessed part of sanctification? In chapter 2 it says that the sanctifier and the sanctify are all of one. What does it mean? It doesn't speak, as has been pointed out by more able teachers than any of us here, that doesn't speak of awareness, which writes like it in connection with the truth of the body of Christ. One incentification.
That's why he is not ashamed to call us brethren.
You know, if we would not have been made perfectly holy, he would be ashamed to call us brethren. You know, we might sometimes be ashamed of relatives that conduct themselves in a dishonorable way. But you know, the work of the Lord Jesus has made us so perfectly holy that he is not ashamed to call us brethren. These are truths that we can enjoy. But the practical side is, what am I practical?
Exercise. If I act contrary to what the grace of God has made me through the work of the Lord Jesus, that should be that way in all of us, and we fall short many times. That's why discipline or chastisement is so necessary in all of our lives.
And we are sons, that's why he chastises us. We would be ******* not legitimate children if he wouldn't be chastised us and so. But we must not allow our shortcomings to question what is true of us position.
You'll find that those who deny eternal security are more occupied with their experiences and almost never do they speak of the work of Christ and the present position of the Lord Jesus. And that's, that's important. Our experiences are important, but they are never the basis of our salvation.
The places of our salvation is the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross of Calvary. Remember meeting with the brothers. Drew hadn't seen him for some time. Says are you still saved?
I said, if Jesus is still on the throne, I'm still saved and the.
That's what it depends on, brethren and man, The glory of God. I'm still saved. Thank God, because he's still there.
Chapter one we have that he sat itself down after having to make purgation for sin. He sat and proud now at the right hand of God that is in virtue of this person. That's the point in chapter one. In chapter 8, he's presented as the minister of the sanctuary, our high priest who said at the right hand in virtue of his losses.
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We have here in this chapter that the high priest standard daily. The Lord Jesus doesn't have to perform that kind of service that the high priest had to do with the people of Israel. He's sitting there as high priest in virtue of his office because there's a finished work behind it.
And then here he is sitting himself down as a result of that finished work, you know, atonement having been accomplished. And in Chapter 12, we find him sitting again here based on him having completed.
The faith, not our faith.
His heart of faith is completed. He's the only one that really is sitting here as a result of a completed fact of faith. So it's wonderful to be occupied with where he is now and to enjoy the truth.
And the effects of him sitting there for our lives, our souls.
Verses 11 and 12 go together and their contrast with the old Judaistic system and what we have in Christianity. Complete contrast.
Embarrass sister from the Dominican Republic before she got saved she was Catholic and she.
Thought she would. She was always very energetic. She thought she would convert these.
Evangelicals to the right faith. And so she thought, well to do it I'll have to read what they read. And she started reading and she got to these two verses and of course she applied it to the priest of the Catholic Church. Verse 11. Every priest and of daily ministry and offering oftimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. And like you say, that is basically what they say in the Roman Catholic system, that the Mass is a sacrifice for sin.
And.
If that's the case, I think that would, we would say is one of the most serious errors of that system that really negates completely the efficacy and the completeness of the work of Christ. But then she came to verse 12. But this man of course, referring to the Lord Jesus.
After he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God.
She could not understand that and she took it to her local priests and asked her him for an explanation. Of course there is no explanation coming, she said. Those verses took me clean out of that system. Oh, isn't that wonderful, brother? We stand before God not on the basis of anything that we are or have done. We stand before God on the basis of the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's a work that is done.
He said it is finished.
God, Amen, was raising him from the dead, and there He sits at the highest pinnacle of glory in the whole universe.
That's our savior, that's our savior. That's your position. That's my position, to let it sink into the soul and enjoy it. Then there will be power to walk in the in the good of it too in our lives practice.
Verse 14 One by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
Perfect forever, tremendous. Think of it, you look at me and say you're not quite perfect yet, brother, you're right. If you're going to look at my condition, my practical condition.
That not God himself can see one flaw in the position that the believer in the Lord Jesus.
Occupies right now. Isn't that wonderful? God looks at you, brother. God looks at you, sister, and he says I can't find one flaw in the position you occupy. Doesn't that give peace in the soul to realize that that's where we stand, brother?
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The thought is forever. It's not necessarily eternal, but in perpetuity that it's in the continual, continuous in opposition to what? The sacrifice of the law foreign. So he sat down in 32.
Make this fourteen birds there, but we find in Kalashnikov.
That the work of the Lord Jesus has made us holy, unblameable, irreproachable in his side.
Allow me to say, Bob, that I would say this not only positionally, that's how he looked at us personally. You know, in Christ we are a new creature in Christ and that's how we looked at us. You see these 12 Stones that were put in the Jordan.
When they crossed the representative, these 12 tribes, and that means typically for us that we have found our end in the death of Christ.
We cease to exist and sinners in the sight of God. The waters of the Jordan River flows over those stones and has put them out of God's side. But then there are the 12 Stones on the other side of Jordan representing the 12 tribes and a picture of us in resurrection as a new creature. And that's how we looked at us. And, you know, we feel ashamed, I believe, when we realize how perfect the work of Christ has made us.
Our imperfections practice, that's how we should feel, but by being more occupied with the Lord Jesus and the things of heaven and the things of Christ, that is what is going to make us different. You see, Christianity is not being changed by submitting to rules and regulations. We're looking at glory as we have in Corinthians, and we've changed Second Corinthians versus 318.
Change from glory to glory. That's the way it works in Christianity.
Being occupied with that person and with his work and the things we have in him, death, bringing about the change in our lives. And that's what God is working at and the Spirit is working towards that end. God's purpose is to make us like this Son, and He's going to accomplish that.
You know when He stands there, everyone will see, and not only His floors. You know, there's nothing going to be left of this ugly flesh that is still with us now that troubles us so often. We will be entirely only that which the work of Christ is made of. And what a relief that will be to stand there, being brought into full conformity through it.
And it's important.
That's what we are now as new creatures in Christ Jesus. We're not going to become a new creature. We are, and we're God's workmanship.
Created into good work. It's God's workmanship. And I just enjoy those words of Balaam's prophecy concerning Jacob here, not in Numbers 23 verse 21.
He hath not beheld iniquity and Jacob, neither hath he seemed perverseness in Israel. The Lord is his, God is with him. Then it ends with this explanation. What hath God brought in? Our rest of soul depends upon our resting in the truth, and not our experience of it. But it's true, because God has said it, and will never get rest as long as we judge the truth by our experience of it.
And now, sometimes young believers struggle with doubts about their salvation.
And the comment was made.
Quite a while ago that I enjoyed that. The anchor never does any good as long as is in the boat. You have to cast it out into the sea. There's where it holds you. And brethren, don't look inside for assurance of salvation.
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Look to the Lord Jesus in the glory of God. That's where you're going to get assurance of salvation. Sometimes you find that. You'll find if you have doubts about your salvation, it's generally because you're looking in. Sometimes, like hindsight, we have failed and we sin, and it's too bad. There's no excuse for sin in the life of a believer, but we have to confess that that's what happens in our experience.
And sometimes that's when the enemy comes. So what we need to do is judge ourselves. But after we judge ourselves, God never authorizes being occupied with ourselves. He, he wants us to be looking to the Lord Jesus outside of ourselves.
And that really is deliverance, isn't it? Not to be occupied with ourselves.
And I remember an illustration that's maybe a homeless illustration, but it helped me.
Some children who had a pet cat and they one day they lost their pet cat and died. They put it in the shoe box and in the end of the shoe box they put a hole. They put the tail out and when they buried it they left the tail out of the ground so that once in a while they could come and see how their cat was doing. But every time they came they found it was a sadder story.
And brethren, if you're going to be occupied with what you are yourself, you're never going to get any peace that way at all. You've got to look away from yourself. Like you said, it's interesting that those stones that were put into the middle of the Jordan, they're out of sight completely. Who put them there? It was not the men of Israel, it was Joshua. The Lord Jesus has put away forever all that we were as men in the flesh. That does not exist before God at all, not recognize it. So if you and I look back at that, we have no authorization to do such a thing.
And we're going to be disappointed if we do. Let's look away from ourselves to the Lord Jesus and the glory.
That's our life. Christ is our life. That's what the Scripture says. We are authorized to be occupied with Him.
When he died, then he died with him buried in his grave. Relay to him rather expresses this beautiful, but that's not the end of it. We have part in resurrection in that new day and that's what we are already raised with him, not only buried with him. We are new creatures and this new life is to be enjoyed by us. Now we won't have a greater measure of life.
In the glory than what we have now, you know there won't be any hindrance to the enjoyment of their life in their glory, but we won't have a greater measure of it.
Necessarily, the question of sin had to be settled before God and on God's terms.
There had to be a righteous basis for taking care of the whole question of sin and that's what the Lord Jesus did at the cross of Calvary. On that basis, there could be relationships. God could have a relationship with the people down here and as we go down these verses, there's.
But if your verses that verse 17 says their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. I love this verse brother just to meditate on it.
Doesn't say he forgets our sins. Sometimes we use that in hymns. Forgotten, forgotten forever. Henry Susol is him. It's a beautiful hymn. But God is inflicted with human weakness of forgetfulness. He makes a positive promise. I will remember no more. So he's never going to bring up that question again of our sins. But somebody pointed out to me recently and I thoroughly enjoyed it, brother.
That when he says I will remember no more, it means that every one of those sins was remembered once at the cross of Calvary. Everyone laid on Jesus there and taken care of forever. And now he says I remember them once, but now I will remember them no more. Isn't that beautiful to realize our sins are gone?
00:35:08
We have to touch on.
The covenant in verse 16 said I will make with them after those days.
There are those that are dear Christians who love the Lord, who are covenant theologians. They believe we are in a covenant relationship.
That's not Christianity. If you read the 9th chapter you will find that that reference is made to both the houses of Israel of Israel and Judah, that he will make a covenant with them. The covenant has not yet been made.
The blood of the covenant, that's how he was proper rendering is when it even comes to the institution of the Lord's Supper. It's not the plot of the New Testament as it is correctly rendered the blood of the new covenant, and he's the mediator of the new covenant, and we come under the blessings of the blood of the new covenant because what is different for Israel?
In contrast to the old covenant is not only that it is following.
Behold that it is new in that way, that is new in character. The Old covenant refers to the covenant of Sinai. There were other covenants made with Abraham in the Old Testament Saints. But when the Word of God speaks of the Old covenant, it refers to the Sinai covenant, which became a conditional thing based on the faithfulness of Israel. The Israelites, they would be blessed. The new covenant is based entirely.
Even for Israel on the finished work of Christ, it's unconditional and sword is with the blessings that we have. It's based entirely on the world. So in a certain sense we have the blessings without being in a covenant relationship. From Chapter 9 it is clear that He will make that with Israel and Judah in the coming days. And we also find in Romans Chapter 9.
That's chapter 8 in Hebrews rhythm.
Speaking of Romans 9, there are the covenants the other way to Israel, verse 4.
Hebrews Chapter 9 is where the covenant is mentioned that he's going to make with the two houses of Israel, of Israel and Judah. But in Romans 9 we read who are Israelites to who entertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenant.
So.
We are not in a covenant relationship. The covenant is going to be made in the future, not yet made at this point when the two houses of history are held and He will fulfill the promises that He had made unconditionally before Sinai. You know, all you have to do is we. Exodus 6.
How often God says I will, I will, I will all unconditional, promising them to deliver them and bring them into the promised land and bring them into a relationship with itself. It's all unconditional, a change that Sinai has. But Gordon, you might have heard me refer to that story before and it's worth repeating, has given you this story. He said he is a father that has a boy and he says, son, I'm going to buy you a bicycle.
The sunset, I want to hear that. And all right, the Father said if you want to earn it, he said the conditions, Needless to say, the boy doesn't keep fixed efficient, so he forfeits the bicycle. But then somebody fulfils the condition and the father gives him the bicycle. That's Israel. You know, in the coming days he will get the blessings, but not based on their faithfulness, based on the work of the Lord Jesus. But then he is another son and he says, Dan, I'm going to buy your bicycle.
And that part of the Son also says I want to earn it. Father said we tried that before, we're not going to try that again. You see, that's Christianity. He will not accept the legal approach as it was under the law to bless the Christians. It's all entirely based on the work of the Lord Jesus.
Going on in communion and fellowship with him, there are blessings that will come our way based on obedience, but our position are standing and everything like that is entirely based.
Underworld for the Lord Jesus. I think it's important enough. We should read that in Hebrews 8, I think, and verse 8 because it is a strong movement in Christian circles today. The covenant theology that here is the verse that shows very clearly that it does not apply to us. We're not in a covenant relationship. Hebrews 8 and verse eight, you're finding fault with them. He set behold the days come set the Lord.
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When I will make a new covenant with who? With the House of Israel and with the House of Judah. So it's a it's with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. That's what the new covenant is about. So never is made with the church. We are under the blessings of the new covenant that not are in the blessings because of the blood of Christ on the same basis of blessing is that we're not under covenant relationship.
Congratulations to the verse that these people use. Paul says that we are New Covenant ministers. They say you see here.
They have called himself that we are New Covenant ministers. I believe the correct understanding of that verse is that the ministry and the service, even for Christ, is not.
Like in the Old Testament.
That people were in obedience to the law serving God. So it is the character of ministry, not as those who are under the cover.
The New Covenant The principle of the new Covenant is that he writes the law in their hearts. That is, they will for the first time.
Have life from God and a capability of being in relationship to Him. They will be born again as individuals and they will be born again as a nation. The principle of the first covenant of Sinai was it dealt with the obedience of the flesh. It didn't require new birth and consequently it failed because it was the law this week.
Because of the flesh, the flesh couldn't keep it. And so that covenant left them estranged from God. The new covenant will bring life to them, and it will be on the principle of mercy that He had brought life to us too. And it's something that's been a little help to me. If you turn back to the X chapter 17, there's two wildernesses there.
There's more than that, but these two if you notice them.
When you're leading up to this the next time, you're kind of remarkable. In Chapter 17, all the congregation of the Children of Israel are jarring from the wilderness of sin.
During that wilderness, you know, they did a lot of bad things, but God was very gracious to them.
Chapter 19 They lose the wilderness of sin, and God doesn't take them up as under the law in the wilderness of sin, but they come in Exodus 19 to the wilderness of Sinai, and it's there that Israel enters into this old covenant, the covenant of the Law, and down verse 18.
All people answered and said All that the Lord has spoken we will do.
And so God takes them up on that word and they said he gives them those 10 commandments. He said this do and thou shalt live. Well, the principle of the New covenant is live and do. The principle of the old Covenant was due and live. And that's the sense in which we have been blessed on the principle of new covenant, all of our doing.
Close from relationship that we already have by the grace of God with God. It isn't to earn anything and that's important to see in the wilderness of sin. It was a wilderness of grace and you need and God didn't deal with them severely like he did once they came to Sinai and said no, we're going to do everything you said then their disobedience brought us leaders surge a just recompense of reward.
00:45:07
Because they had placed themselves on the basis of their responsibility, not God.
And it brought death. And so it says in principle the the letter killer and spirit feels like.
I will put my loss into their heart.
In their minds that is still referring to Israel when the new covenant is made. That is not the case with us as Christians. It is not the law that is put in our hearts. Christ is put there. We are the epistles of Christ. So there are things in Hebrews that we have to understand as applying to Israel.
They are. In their case, the law is put into their hearts and into their minds.
In our case, Christ is put there and we are his assistant to be read of all men. That's a much higher privilege than what they will enjoy even in that coming day under the blue cover.
In the first covenant meant by that behind says.
As soon as God gives them those words, he said would that you had a heart that you would do it and they didn't have that heart. But when the new covenant is enacted, they will have their heart. It can be written not in stone, but in the heart. And in that aspect the Christian does have that in a in a far higher way a year.
Our army missiles.
I've not written in the tables of stone, but in the fleshly table of the heart. It isn't the laws of point out, but it is that same principle. The Word is written in our hearts. There's life, a life we have that can now, by God's grace, be strong, and that never existed under the Old Covenant.
Now, in view of this, we come down to verse 19 rather than seeing that all this work has been done for us.
The perfect standing before God in Christ. The work is finished forever.
His promise?
To never remember again our sins and our iniquities. Verse 19 says, Having therefore brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
Tremendous privilege of our Christian positions to go right into the very presence of God. What word does it use? Boldness to enter. Isn't that tremendous?
In the Old Testament of the several million of Israelites that were in the wilderness.
Only one tribe was chosen to do the service of God, the tribe of Levi. Of that one tribe, only one family was allowed to go into the holy place.
As Aaron's family, the priests of that one family, only one person could go into the holiest of all, and not only once a year, because the land of the holiest was not made manifest. But now the way is open. Jesus died, that veil was rent, and we find ourselves in the very presence of God. This is Christian position, presence. This is the place of worship.
And we go into worship, Lord, brethren, or in prayer. This is where we go. We really go into heaven itself. Notice in Chapter 9 and verse 24 it tells what this place is, this holiest of all.
Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God. For us there's the holiest of all. That's where we are told we can come with holes, but a tremendous privilege and how few understand that.
Somebody has said that probably wasn't too long after the Lord died that this priest had that veil all sewed up again. And that's what they want to do, brother.
00:50:12
Be at a distance from God. Oh heaven, that's not Christian position. The veil has been wrecked by God's own hand. It was rent and we can come in with gold instances. Holy grass.
Another word for boldness is without fear.
And the plot to me is overpowering, and you and I want to be sinners, can be comfortable in the presence of perfect holiness, and will be comfortable for all eternity in the presence of perfect holiness. And already now we can come over without fear and because we know God is for us, and we can come not with this.
But by this blood there is quite a difference in stating it one way or the other, because evil doctrine developed even amongst us present from saying, With his blood, he answered, He couldn't be high priest until he was in heaven, not on earth. So atonement was not accomplished till He with his blood entered into the holiest. No, he entered by his blood. In virtue of that blood. He entered, and we entered in virtue of that blood.
Boldly and can be comfortable in his presence because we know the same question is settled and we don't have to fear facing a holy God. We know even he looks for us to come there and bring our sacrifices. But another wonderful truth is it was touched upon this morning. We bring upon him, we offer spiritual sacrifice. So we must be very perfect and lucky expressed, but don't worry about that.
The magic will pull the ex personal things wrong, just lack of understanding. Nothing imperfectly, nothing imperfect will ascend and reach them and close to his hands. And he presents that which we imperfectly, utterly, perfectly in the presence of God. And he will even be the minister of the sanctuary in that coming day. The thought has been expressed, we don't need the Spirit of God anymore.
When we in heaven, well that's not true because we worship by the Spirit not only now even in that time of day, you know and he will be there to assist us and the Lord Jesus himself as the minister of the sanctuary and.
How important it is then that we are reading where He's in the midst, what we can draw that conclusion if we have to present that by Him, you know, so that he would be the one that can present that which we interpret the other to Him perfectly. That's what it means in verse 21. Isn't having an high priest over the House of God when there is imperfections in the way we express our praise to God?
He is there as our high priest and if you look back at chapter 5, you see what the high priest was for in verse one and two.
Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for God, and the things pertaining ordained for men and the things pertaining to God, that He may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. Who can have ignorant compassion on the ignorant and them that are out of the way? For that He himself also is compassed with infirmity. We make mistakes in our expressions and like you say, our understanding. For that reason He's there as our great High Priest. And that should be an encouragement to those who are younger too.
You say, well, I don't want to get up, I might make some mistakes.
Yeah, you might make some mistakes, and I might make some mistakes too. And if we're going to be worried about making mistakes, we may never get up to praise the Lord, but that's why he's there as our great high priest. We have a high priest over the House of God.
The truth that Jesus is now appearing in the presence of God for us His manifold in three ways basically, and that is it ended. Hebrews 6 we get which hope we have as an anchor of the soul for assurance, steadfast for chances into that which can within the veil, whether the forerunner is for a centered even Jesus.
00:55:05
So he's there as our hope.
And then we have in our chapter here, he is there as our access to God. And then we have the fact that he is there as our high priest.
He said also he might say as our intercessor, so that we might not fail.
By a new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, that veil made of those colors, blue and scarlet and fine twine linen intermingled with gold, spoke of His person that was rent. And so as we go into the holiest of all brethren.
Nevertheless, forget there on one side, on the other side is that rent veil. Think of the awful, awful cost it was to open that way through guilty sinners now purged and made holy, made fit for his presence. Never let's forget the cost it was to open that way for us.
Sometimes people.
Take this 22nd verse and think that that expresses the same thought You have an incursed Corinthian 11. Let a man examine himself. In other words, self judgment.
Before we remember the Lord. But I believe the right understanding here is that it's a positional thing having our heart sprinkled from an evil conscience.
That is all in connection with the work of Christ, of course. Let us not in any way set aside what we have in the 1St way of 11 That we should examine ourselves. But we have to understand that this 22nd verse does not present that side of things. That means that the work of Christ has strengthened our conscience, you know, as we come into new and living the way that He has opened up for Him.
We are perfect, the kids, for drawing knives through the work of the Lord Visa, our bodies washed with pure water. You see, we are new creatures and so we can draw nigh boldly.
Yeah, verse 22/23/24 and 25 are exhortation based on the tremendous position that we now ossify. And the first one is let us draw near with a true heart, full assurance of faith. There's confidence within that we're talking about.
At first hymn we sang this morning.
Sweet as the confidence thou give us, though high above our praise.
And, brethren, confidence to go right in.
After seeing all that God has done, the terrible price that was paid by the Lord Jesus.
Are we going to hold back?
That's what he's encouraging these Hebrew believers to do. They have never had the privilege of going into the holiest of all, and they had to be instructed about it. And there's a tendency on our hearts, too, to hold back, to say I'm not worthy. It's not a matter of my worthiness.
Sometimes say people that say they're not worthy. I say if you want to know something, I never have ever been worthy.
But it's not a matter of my words. It's a matter of the worthiness of that man who's on the throne of God. And to hold back now is to insinuate that there's something lacking still. Are you going to do that? Be careful. Be careful. Oh, brethren, the blessedness of the place, that is one for us.
Meant to mention it, Heinz said. I think that's really important.
The sprinkling of the blood and of the water. There is both things, not only the blood.
Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience by the blood.
And our bodies washed with pure water.
What relates to?
Titus 35, where it says by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, the Old Testament, and the consecration of the priests.
In Exodus 29 I think it is, you'll find that before they were consecrated they were given an all over bath.
01:00:03
And that's what relates to this. It's not the washing of the labor every time they came into the Tabernacle to do the service of God, but it's that all over bath that was given to them when they were consecrated for the service of God. That's what we have here. It's something that is done, isn't it? Having been sprinkled from having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with clear what?
It's done. I hope I haven't missed a comment here, but is there a connection between this verse and John verse in John 19 where it says the blood and water flowed out of the side of the road? Jesus that typified there, Well, Dang, His first job, He came up by water. Only by water inside blood. You know, in the Old Testament there was new birth. That's what the water speaks of. Even here, you know, to be made a new creature.
But the Lord Jesus came not only by water, but by water in blood. He's too cleansing agents are necessary. The blood propagation from sin and the water for cleansing, you know, and making us a new creature. So I think that fits in. So that's normal that we are guilty sinners and the only way that the sick can be washed away is to a lot of the Lord visa. That's why we have a good conscience.
But we also need to be made a new creature and it's very important that picture that.
Our brother Bob mentioned.
There's more than the one. There is also the sprinkling of the blood, and then the oil is the flood. I think it's important to understand that that is even there in picture illustrating how God works in our lives. The first thing that takes place is new birth.
That gives us the capacity for divine things, even to recognize our condition and then?
Faith it can lay hold because we have capacity for divine things of the atoning death of Christ. That's what took place in Acts chapter 10. You know he was born again, but I have made, please do not thou make unclean. Peter is prepared to go to this Gentile and must fall again. But then when he presents the person and work of the Lord Jesus.
And he lays hold of that by faith. Then the Spirit is here. So first new birth, then laying hold of the atoning death of Christ and the personal Lord Jesus, and then the Spirit of God is given. So it's very possible that even today somebody might be born again without being sealed by the Spirit of God.
Now that is difficult for some people to understand, but Mr. Darby, I recently got that paper in my hand again.
In German that was translated and I sent it to his sister in Munich, where he said he himself believed that he was for seven years in that state. You know of Roman seven born again without being in the enjoyment of salvation, without being indwelt by the Spirit so, but that verse in Philippians. He that has begun the work with you shall complete it. God will not halfway stop, you might say.
But new birth is not the ultimate of Christian blessing. It's the beginning. The crowning work is the indwelling of the Spirit. And that, beloved Saints of God, makes you and me a Christian. That makes us different from every single God that ever lived before. They were born again, but they weren't Christians. But we are Christians not only because we're born again. We couldn't be Christians without being born again.
But what makes us different is that we have the Spirit of God dwelling in these bodies.
The indwelling of the Spirit in the Old Testament he came upon, but in the New Testament he indwelt the body of the believer, and that makes us Christians, and that gives us power to live pleasing to God. Romans 7. The man doesn't have it, but Romans 8. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ has made me free from the law of sin and death. The law of the Spirit of life does not mean a rule and regulations or it means a fixed principle.
01:05:03
That has set me free from the law of sin and death. That's not the law of Sinai.
That's the indwelling sin. So how wonderful that you can understand the types. Help us to illustrate New Testament truth. As Mr. McIntosh says, the Old Testament is a picture book that helps us illustrate New Testament truth. But in the wonderful, He has come under the blood and we have to explain by the water. You know, we have been a new creature and it's all the work of God. We cannot seek credit for the fact that we have spawned again and that we are saved.
All glory, all praise goes to God.
I hope your comments brother minds don't undermine this. The conference is some in the room who may think that they can be born again and not a Christian.
I know you have problems with that before Brother Lawrence, but better generally understand that we need more than new birth in order to be a Christian. The public security. Well, I don't want to either with you. We can do discuss that later, but to be a Christian you need more than rubber. You can be born again without being nutritious. Yes, I think there are difficulty is because we try to tack things down to time and God operates from eternity rather.
He's not in the realm of time, but he does operate in the realm of time. So we try to tack it down too much and sometimes we're getting the difficulties in doing that. And you just take the Scripture the way it is and it's simplicity. I like to just leave this thought because our times up in this chapter we have three things. First of all, the will of God.
There are seven and then the work of Christ, verse 12.
And the witness of the Holy Ghost in verse 15. Beautiful to think about it then.
300 and 22322 There is a stream of precious blood that's closed between the same considers washed and not flooded flood 222.
There is a steam hall. Precious long time.
All else done for us marvel and we think of the work that has been in Congress organisers that lay down my life for us and historic my God and doing so love us and blessings. Thank you that that same one.
He lives for us who come for us, and you will have to lift Himself whatever go with his thanking our God, our Father, that we can meditate upon His Sinner God.
Are better than that which is under the law of Moses.
And we thank you, Father, that blessed morning that we see in pipes and shadows the Old Testament has has been here in this world and Christmas and He has glorified you. The satisfied was redeemed to God by his God. We thank you, Lord Jesus, and that my Spirit is here in this world today and He is.
Seeking souls that were comfortably already closed, you have been ordained and determined.
Thank you. That is.
Here also as the one who will occupy our hearts will be, and as a word like it was with.
Rebecca.
The accompanied her across that desert.
And spoke to her about the the glories of that man. And she was God through the Standard Life.
And so for Jesus, we thank you for that spirit announcement here. You occupy understand in a measure the glories of that person. And we are waiting now for Jesus to step into our presence.
And there to behold all that we have been told along the street. So we decided for this time and he was raised the gospel. Now this evening, bless the fellowship together do again. We thank you for our brother, and that has invited us here to be together over that Word. And we ask to provide undertaking for them and all the needs here. We give the archives, your Father and the Word, the impression and your worship. Amen.
Hebrews 10
Reading
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Clearly reading 23.
Maybe we'd start with 22 just to get the connection.
Hebrews 10 and verse 22.
Let us draw near with the true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, or he is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as a matter of some, is but exhorting one another in so much the more as you see the day approaching.
For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but of a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye? Shall he be thought worthy, who have trodden under foot the Son of God, and have counted the blood of the covenant, that wherewith He was sanctified?
An unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the spirit of grace. For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me. I will recompense, saith the Lord, and again the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But call the remembrance the former days in which after you were illuminated, He endured a great fight of affliction, partly while she were made a Casey stock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly while she became companion to them, were so used.
For ye had compassion of me and my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourself that ye have in heaven a better and enduring substance. Cast not away, therefore your confidence, which have great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. Forget a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back under position.
But of them that believed to the saving of the soul.
We've had our relationship with the Lord established in verses we've been considering.
Now in the tight, you might say, we're now leaving the land of Egypt and going to cross the wilderness and in the wilderness.
Those who came out of Egypt, it says they were a mixed multitude and so.
And the verses we'll be considering, we will be considering our wilderness pathway and.
That wilderness manifested an evil heart of unbelief and many of those who took the place, as identified with the Lord, coming out of Egypt.
And so down in verse 29, it speaks about those who were sanctified by the blood, and yet they perished. That is, they have this outward positional relationship with the Lord at the blood of Christ dropped them into but.
They really weren't real. And so we begin our wilderness journey now.
Having our hearts sprinkled and our bodies washed, that affixed eternal relationship. But now we come to the subject of a profession. Let us all pass the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful. That promise. We have, you might say, the equipment to make it through the wilderness pathway. We've got the high priest there, accessing to the holiest, and now we begin our journey.
That little parentheses at the end of verse 23 is so tremendous, Brethren, to get ahold of not a matter of our faithfulness, it's a matter of His faithfulness. He is faithful. When you go around and you hear the problems that God's people have from place to place, what a set of problems we have. Sometimes I call them brain Busters and they are hard to figure out.
00:05:28
What's going on?
But brethren, God allows problems, so we have the opportunity to prove that he is faithful. And so nothing. I give up the profession of our faith. And it's, it's helpful to understand, like you were mentioning, that there were those who had made a profession of Christianity and were in danger of turning back from that profession of Christianity only in the outward sense, because a real believer can never.
Become an apostate. Only one who takes an outward position of being a Christian without being real is in danger of becoming an apostate. And so it's in view of that. And we say, well, we have never been Jews, and so we are not in danger of turning back. Perhaps so. But if there is a person here who has only made an outward profession of being a Christian, that's the kind of person that can become an apostate.
And that's a very real danger.
In the book of Hebrews here, it really refers a lot to that condition that if you look down at verse 26, the verse that sometimes troubles believers says if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth.
There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. Was that referring to? It's referring to the sin of apostasy. What did this person receive? Did he receive the truth? It doesn't say that. What he received was the knowledge of the truth. And a person who is not real can receive the knowledge of the truth without actually receiving the truth. And so Judas Iscariot, perhaps as an example of this, he had knowledge of the things of the Lord.
But he had never made it real in his own soul, and when he turned from the Lord, he went to his own place. Awful, awful end to that man.
He had said repeatedly in the Epistle to the Hebrews, while the Epistle is addressed to the Hebrew Christians again and again warnings are made beginning in chapter 2, the first verses, and we have it again we repeatedly a very well known passages. Chapter 6. It is impossible to renew to repentance well people.
Have said that is when a Christian sins.
And know that he isn't able to be let back to repentance, but it is again apostasy and there are quite a few things mentioned there of what the person has been exposed to in chapter 6.
And once enlightened, have tasted of the heavenly gift, and where must make particularly the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world come if they fall away. That's an apostate, you know.
Someone has explained tasting of the gift.
This way, which helps, I believe you're invited to a home.
For suffer, you know, you walk into that house and here a beautiful smell reaches you. The lady is preparing the meal and you say, boy, if that meal tastes as good as it smells, it must be good. You see what I mean? That's how somebody explains that.
And we can be in the presence where the activity of the Holy Ghost manifests itself without really benefiting from it. They were all exposed to these things.
And they were only outwardly among the Christians by profession and they are in danger of becoming apostates. Now this passage in chapter 6 begins through the earlier that they had become dull of hearing and the believers, those who are truly believers on the Lord Jesus, they're stunted in their growth through.
00:10:07
The adherence to the old order of things, to the times and chatters.
But the mere professor is in danger of apostasizing, turning completely back, abandoning the Christian profession, crucifying for himself the Lord Jesus. Now for us, it's very important to see that those of us who are truly believers, if we are not delivered from what is wrong about us, which is really introducing Judah is a major Christian done.
It stands our growth. We are not making progress. According to the time process, you should be teachers.
But they needed to be taught again what was the what were the elements, the beginning of the message connected with the coming of the Lord Jesus. And so we had to go beyond even what is connected with the beginning of the coming of the Lord Jesus as he comes for Israel. You know, there is no truth introduced now in Christianity. You cannot even cling to the truth that was prominent when he was here on earth with his decisive.
And a relationship that we are in now, even if we should have known Christ after the flesh, it says in 2nd Corinthians 5, we don't know him in that way any longer. There is a new relationship. There is a new creation.
So we have to go even beyond what was true at the time when the Lord was here on earth, moving there with his disciples, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. And there is further truth now, and that is what applies to us as Christians. So.
We have to lay hold of these things in order to grow and.
The apostasy is really abandoning Christian Christian altogether. And in the case of the Jewish professors who were only professors, they went back to Judaism by others in the Christian profession might go to Islam or some other religion. They are apathetic and there is no hope for an apathetic. They cannot be renewed to repentance very serious.
I had a conversation with an individual that I think fits that category a couple of years ago.
We were just a visit at a family event and somehow we got onto a spiritual subject and topic and I was puzzled by some of the comments he made and and I kind of questioned him about his his background and his upbringing and he acknowledged that for 25 years.
He was part of a Christian group. It was, I believe, a Mennonite group, but part of professing Christendom. And he was telling me that you had to go outside of Christianity to get a full definition of who God was. And I was kind of stumped as to how to answer this, this man and his his question that he raised as to a definition of who God was.
And I, I couldn't help but think of John 316 by definition of who God was. And I began to quote that. I said, what better definition than for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever. And he cut me off right there. He said, no, I've heard that before that.
That is not a definition of who God is. And I I travel to this day for that man and the position he's in because I think that he's.
Here and this person, this state.
Falling away and Hebrews is always fated. I believe in Hebrews it's fatal.
And I don't know that we can definitely pronounce on who is an apostate, but definitely there are cases like you mentioned that appear to be one who has given up Christianity completely and turned from it. But it's a solemn fallen thing. A real believer cannot become an apostate, but a real believer can be affected by the apostasy that we see in every side. And that's where we need the exhortation of verse 23.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. We hear these things.
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These questions raised about Christianity.
Brethren, we have a God who is faithful. We can trust Him. He has proven himself again and again, and that is a bulwark to my soul. Brethren, He is faithful. That's promised. If it depends on your faithfulness, It depends on my faithfulness. It's all gone. Every hope is gone. It doesn't. It depends on His faithfulness. That's beautiful, you know, Hold it in our souls, and it will prevent us from wavering when we hear.
So much that is confusing. Doubts presented about Christianity don't give them place. While a Christian cannot become an apostate, the principle of apostasy might manifest itself even in a Christian. But I mean to say is anytime you turn away from the truth of God, from any measure of the truth of God, it's the principle of apostasy. And that's a serious thing. If it doesn't end, where does it end? You know, those who have been gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus.
We recently were told a statement by one who grew up amongst the gathered things. So we have a pastor and you don't. So what does that mean? What difference does it make, You know, embracing the clergy system and whatever else, I don't know, where does it lead to? Where will they end up? And the sort of principle of apostasy, the spirit of it, I should say, can manifest itself in the believer anytime you turn your back on any aspect of the truth.
That's the spirit of the past. They need that the life that is in thee be not darkness, for the light that is in thee be darkness. How great is that darkness? I think that's the principle. And the day of apostasy is strong, although all around his brethren. And that's why we need these exhortations in verse 25. Notice one of the things that it exhorts us about is not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another.
And so much the more as you see the day approaching.
Years ago, I remember hearing Mr. Armstead very commenting on this verse and he says the day that it speaks up there is the day of apostasy. It's not the Lord's coming that is mentioned there. It's the day of apostasy. And the day of apostasy is ripening fast and it's evident in every side. We need to be aware of it. Brethren. What is one of the ways to not come so much under the influence of that spirit of things around?
Is not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of sun is brother and the public meetings don't give them up. It's so easy to just stay at home and one excuse and another to give up the meetings. We need to be assembled together. We need to exhort one another. Doesn't say one exhort all the rest. No, I need exhortation. You need exhortation. We need to exhort one another when we see these things beginning to affect us.
Believe that word in verse 23 is the hopes rather than the faith yes, let us hold fast the profession of the hope without unwavering Mr. Garvey put it and the faith our faith it tells us about the hope and so faith to some might become kind of.
Just kind of a negative thing or a not something quite real. But if we have a hope before us, like I said earlier, a hopefully which hope we have as an anchor of his soul will sure instead that.
And so there are those that we read off in thesimonium that speaks about it says those who have no but we have a hope, and this faith tells us about the hope. And sometimes if we have fine things find the world creeping in and our face is waving a little bit to think about the whole.
To think, think of what is ahead of us, think of what is ahead of the unbeliever noble. But we have the hope. And so it's hope. You're other than faith. And I think it makes it, it's a little more to the heart.
It's not forsaking the assembly.
I like to say not forsaking the assembly. Look at how close it is to for if we sin willfully.
And one brother is writing.
He said nothing more willful than choosing my own church.
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You know, is that being true hearted to Jesus?
Who paid so much that we might?
Enter the holiest, as it were. You know, by the blood of Jesus and the way.
George, what is so bad about forsaking the assembling of ourselves together? Is it because we're not coming together with our brethren?
We're coming together around the Lord Jesus and we're despising His presence. Do we remember when we stay away from the meeting carelessly for any silly excuse?
That we are really despising the fact that we have a meeting with the Lord of glory. A lot of privilege that is, and we brethren disappoint each other at times. But there is a verse here that we must not pass over provoking each other to love and to good works. You know, we should. That kind of provocation is good, you know. And He can do that.
Each other and one of the things that shouldn't be by my example of being there every time, you know, instead of letting some silly excuse keep me away, maybe I have a little slip out or whatever, you know, and then stay home. Well, we would occupy my seat till the Lord comes. Occupy till he comes. Yeah. And this.
True hearted but.
True hearts, true heart into Jesus one writer book.
It's so long to neglect and to go back and turn from these things. I think we should emphasize that Jude is and brings before us apostasy. Apostasy too. And there we're told, keep yourselves in the love of God. You hear some people pray sometime and maybe we do it ourselves and say ask the Lord to keep us in his love, But we are told there to keep yourselves in the love of God. How do we do that? He's the one that keeps us as neat, but we're told there to keep ourselves.
And I think this is like just as a as a suggestion to my own soul is to to be there at the assembly meeting whenever possible is helping to keep myself in the love of God. It's one of the ways.
It's I enjoyed the illustration the brother gave one time and winter time up here in the north and and you're walking down the street and do you like to watch them the shady side or do you like to walk them the Sunnyside? I think we all picked the Sunnyside in the cold weather.
That's keeping yourself in the love of God, isn't it? It's in the consciousness that we have a God who loves us, but in the assembling of ourselves together is where we can be a help to one another. And brethren, none of us are sufficient in ourselves. We all have needs for as much as we may know, none of us know enough to be balanced. We need our brethren to help us. And so it's a very important thing, just like to say in connection with verse 24.
What provokes love?
Me and my brother. How can I provoke you to love Brother Ken? Love him?
He said. That's what I was going to say.
Love provokes love, doesn't it?
To I think that's important to realize that the love that it talks about is divine love. It's love that loves when there's nothing lovable about a person. And so often I noticed, I've heard in traveling around complaints, my brother will say there's no love in this medium.
And I say the person that complaints is the first one guilty because the kind of love we're talking about in Scripture is love that loves when there's nothing lovable. Well, if there's no love here, you start. And love provokes love. Brethren, we need really to be exercised about this. What characterizes Christians more than anything else is love one to another and.
The command that the Lord gives. It's interesting in John's epistle, John's writing in his Gospel, and in his epistles, there are 7 distinct times when.
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Commands us to love one another and it's not as we had in the Old Testament where it said love your neighbor as yourself. The reference point in the Old Testament was myself. How do I love myself? Well, I got to love you the same way.
That's not the reference point anymore. The reference point has changed and that's why it's a new commandment. As I have loved you. So we're not looking at ourselves anymore, we're looking at the Lord Jesus. It's a totally different motivation now. But to love one another is so important. Sometimes our my brother may irritate me. What he does irritates me. OK, we all have those fleshly things in US.
But love, brethren.
Loved in spite of all. When you think of the Lord Jesus, how they hit him in the face, how they spit in his face, He never turned aside in his pathway of love towards us. There's our example. How did he love us? We are to love one another, to provoke, to love and to good works. It's really interesting in the New Testament to see how often good works are exhorted about running. We need to be occupied more with good works. We need to be known.
By good works to do things for other people. Show our love through the good works.
The Lord help us to be provocative rather than not to anger, but to love and to good works.
There's a great similarity between provoking and beginning. Love begets who I love so.
It's like fathering, it initiates that.
Well, I've covered the multitude of sinus. It doesn't say that it covers evil, but it covers a multitude of sins. And I believe, or thought there too, is that we can that that love manifesting itself to our brethren will overlook those things that irritate us and about about him or they about us. And if that's divine love, only they can do that, not naturally.
Sorry, sorry, I was thinking going back just a step or two about this, keeping ourselves in the level of thought. I was thinking of what we get in John's gospel too, but where he says that the father have loved me, so have I loved you continue ye in my love. And I, I, I've told the story before. I know about old brother tolerance. And it's maybe embarrassed telling again because I thought it was so unique. But someone saw him sitting in his chair and with his eyes closed, his head down and decided he wasn't well. And they said, brother Kohler, are you not well? And he said, Oh yes, I'm fine. I'm just sitting here letting God love me.
Well, that's what he was doing. He was keeping himself in the love of God, the love that the God had to him. He was occupied with it and just letting it, like you say, sitting on the sitting on the sunny side of the street.
In the 13th chapter of our book here it says by him Lord Jesus Christ.
We offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. And the next verse says, But to do good and to communicate, forget not. Now here's the highlight of this verse. It says, For with such sacrifices God is well pleased. So you see, Romans and Romans were told that to beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Well, sacrifice is always cost.
And we're willing. If we're really in love with Christ because he's of His love for us, then there's no price that we're willing to not pay to become a living sacrifice for Him.
But to do it in a simple way, to do good in the communicate, share, give, God's people ought to be known as a giving people, a loving people. And when it's done for his name and his name, then it's a sacrifice, well pleasing to God.
In Ephesians 2 we have been not based by words.
But goes on.
For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has prepared, which God before ordained, that we should walk in there. Now I have gone to Ephesians after that and noticed how many things are mentioned that we can classify as the worst alerts mentioned about.
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Contributing, you know, to the need that exist and that certainly part of it. But you read Ephesians for yourself.
And with that in mind, to see how much is mentioned there, especially in the latter part of the epistle of good works that can be so classified, you know, keeping the unity of the Spirit in the United front of peace is one of them, right? That's how somebody thinks begin so.
We who understand eternal security and that it isn't by works, that it is all great.
We sometimes perhaps neglect to emphasize the need for good works. And so it's important for us to take notice of that, that works are mentioned over and over again in the epistles, and not just in the Gospels, you know, but in the epistles as well. And we do and should allow that to touch our hearts and our consciences.
Not that we do what we do like under the law to gain God's favor. We do what we do because we have it. And we prove that the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And that we can do these things not so much with the idea of getting credit for it, but to prove that He has loved us and has brought us into favor.
And that we are now in this relationship and in our weak way can reflect what is perfectly demonstrated by God, the imitators of God as beloved children. You know, these are all things that come under good works, somebody has said.
The faith that saves is a faith that saves without works, but that same faith that saves is a faith that works, and it's true. Rather, it works. If you've got the true faith of God, it's going to be a faith accompanied by works. It's going to be evidence. It's interesting. In the book of Titus you have 3 chapters, and I found it interesting. In chapter one you have works mentioned once. Chapter 2 you have works mentioned twice.
Chapter 3, You have works mentioned three times, but it's important, like you say, it's mentioned a lot. And brethren, it should be characteristic of us. We should be occupied in good works.
Like you say, it's not because to gain any favor with God, but it is to it should be in gratitude for all He's done for us, to do all we can for Him. James takes out a promise reading his book too. Doesn't he show me that faith by that.
I want to draw attention to one little item here. You notice in the end of verse 24 it's not a period.
It's a colon, therefore that means the thought is not complete, so therefore provoking to love and for good works is finalized and expressed in the not forsaking of her thinking of ourselves together.
Is that accidental? I don't believe so. Is it by the assembling of ourselves together that this?
Activity for God's glory is exercised. What better place is there to provoke unto love and to good works other than the assembly?
That's where we can learn together how to provoke into love, into good works.
Close proximity.
But exhorting one another, and pretty difficult to exhort one another if we're not with each other, like the safety in connection with those that nurse 24 the first part of it said, let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.
It just seems like this is a there's a real need rather than our little gatherings to consider each other. Because sometimes there's a brother maybe that I don't get along with.
Maybe I just shun him. Maybe I just say I can't. I can't stomach that brother.
The scripture says let us consider to provoke to love and get it worse. You know if you do a certain thing that it's going to provoke a negative reaction. Don't do that.
That, you know, you think about it, you put it in the presence of the Lord. What can I do that would create a positive reaction? My brother, lay it before the Lord, and perhaps it's going to be like Lord instead of sacrifice. But consider, put it in the presence of the Lord because it's not proper. It's going to be a problem if you leave a situation between two brothers in that state of affairs, it's going to be a problem further on. Satan knows how to capitalize on that situation.
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We need to consider to provoke, Don't leave things like that, but get into the presence of the Lord. Consider what would be something perhaps that I can do that would provoke in the right direction.
I like to read Romans 15 verse 14 because I think it fits in here. I myself also am persuaded of you, my brother, that he also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able to admonish one another. You know, if we are characterized and known that we're characterized by goodness.
And by true knowledge, not knowledge that pops up, you know, but spiritual, intelligent. But especially I want to emphasize goodness. You have been known for that. People more readily and willingly accept admonition from such a person, you know. And I think that is what should exercise us. Are we known by being characterized by goodness, by true knowledge, spiritual knowledge?
That we can intelligently apply the scriptures to situations.
I'm sure we all have to come admit that we tumble around many times very poorly, don't we? But that should exercise us because that makes us able to acknowledge.
I'm thinking now that what Paul says to us in Romans 12, it says it has expression, they're given to hospitality that needs to be committed or dedicated. That's that's what your bent is. That's what you're known to do. Given the opportunity to do something, you're given to it. You'll take advantage of every opportunity.
There's no verse 25. There's so much. The more as you see the day approaching. What is that day referring to? I think Bob already mentioned that.
My brother mentioned that it's not the coming of the Lord Jesus. That is the day of apostasy approaching.
I have to admit that I used to think that that was the coming of the Lord in connection with rewards, but it helps me to hear what for the answer that very felt. Some thought it could refer to the appearing as well, but this I suppose.
I believe it is honestly in this context here, certainly the Lords appearing will come shortly after the day of apostasy. But what I think is the thing important to see is that we see things developing in the world around and this humanism that you see today rather, and it's scary, the glorification of the will of man that precedes the coming of the willful king, the Antichrist and the.
And the the development of that is what we're seeing in the world around that willful king, that Antichrist cannot be manifested before we're taken out of this world. But the development is taking place. And if we don't?
Assemble ourselves together. We're bound to be affected by that spirit of things. That's the point.
Is it true that the day of apostasy is terminated by the day of the Lord?
I'm thinking also here in Ephesians there are another benefit to not to assembling ourselves together. As we well know these verses in Ephesians 4 verse 16 that says Christ from whom the whole body by simply joined together by and compacted by that which every joint surprise according to the effectual working. Then the measure of every part maketh increase of the body into identifying of itself and love. Now that seems like a lot of of difficult words to follow.
But what it really presents to my soul is that everyone of us is a joint of supply. And like the members of our own body, we are joined. Our members are joined together under the control of our head. And whatever one part of the body needs, then the other part of the body joins in and and tries to supply that meet that need. But when we're assembled together, then we have that effectual working of the edifying of the body itself and love by the contribution that each one of us makes as we are together.
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Now if we're not together.
There's a loss.
And each time we.
Miss the appointment with royalty, shall we say? It's never gained back. It's like taking out a loan and you may pay back the loan, but you'll always be behind by the amount that you borrowed.
Do the sisters.
Contribute in the meeting by all means.
I think that's important to you to remember sometimes more than the brothers. Sometimes I think maybe the sisters think, well, I can't say anything any more than a nod on the log. It doesn't matter if I sleep or no. But I've noticed so much. Rather than that. When you go around and you see sisters sometimes that are more alert and more eager to learn the word, it has a definite effect on the spirit of the whole meeting.
I can point you to a meeting down in Bolivia.
That I say it's going on today because of the faithfulness of two sisters. I can't point to any specific brother there, but because of two sisters, I really believe the Lord is preserved to testimony there.
So your sister is put you give us some help on this verse 29 some reference already has been made to.
Countered the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified.
This might well be taken by somebody, you see they have come under the sprinkling of the blood and that can only refer to a safe person and so on. But it is obviously not what their teachers. Can you help us to get a proper understanding? Well, I think, I think it was Henry that mentioned it, wasn't it? It's just the outward position that was taken and I think what you mentioned.
Henry is a good illustration of the children of Israel coming out of the land of Egypt. It's because of the blood of the lamb that was shed that they were sheltered from the judgment of God in the land of Egypt. But a mixed multitude went out of the land of Egypt and in the wilderness there were tests, and some of them proved that they were definitely unreal.
Say they occupied a place amongst the people of God outside.
Of Egypt and amongst the people of God there they were looked at as the people of God. And yet you have the rebellion of Korah. No evidence to believe that those people that went alive down into the pit were ever saved. No evidence to believe it. Awful thing. They were amongst the people of God in an outward way, but they were not real.
That's the way I understand today. Maybe we can even get some help from Jude 2/5.
I will therefore put you in remembrance, though He wants to do this. How that the Lord having say, notice that the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed them that believed not even the word saved you, not the way we use it as to the salvation of our souls. That is in connection with deliverance. You know that that is used that way in James here. I think that helps even as to the understanding of that verse here in Hebrews 10.
So I think it's helpful to see in our chapter in verse 26.
Down through 29 is really Speaking of a person that's not real. He's one who has made a profession of Christianity. And again, it's it's an apostate one who turns back and is not real.
Lots of people read a verse like 26 and it is and they become fearful and.
And don't want to lessen any exercise a careless person may have.
True Christianity, the true grace of God, never leaves a person to be careless in their Christian testimony. The person is careless. You need to really think seriously about your position before the Lord. Are you real? If you're not really real, you need to get straight with God right away. But that a person who is not real is a candidate for being an apostate. Be careful.
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Where you are.
Would it be right to think that Judas was among those number? Is he a representative of those?
Having associated close association with the Lord.
Although Judas wasn't in the time of the Christian profession like we are today, but still he knew that the Lord Jesus in an outward way and he turned back.
Called the son of Perdition, but he didn't turn back to Judas. No, you know, he betrayed the law and became manifest by his action that he was never saved. And Scripture never refers to him in any other way than that he would be the one that betrayed the Lord all along. So he was never real. So in a, in a, in a strict sense, you cannot call him an apostate.
But because he didn't turn back to something other than.
You know he best just manifesting himself to be false.
So does a person, an apostate have to turn back to something or he just give it up?
Well, we explained earlier, Lawrence says there is the principle of apostrophe and that even the Christian can be affected by that. But abandoning truth, So giving up with the. Yeah, but in a strict sense, you know?
It has been explained, I think you mentioned it in your ministry, that he thought that the Lord would deliver himself. You know, he was just at the money and then he.
And he found out that that was not coming that way, that the Lord would be crucified, you know, be repented, but not in true repentance. You know me. It was just regrets and but there was no restoration or there was never any real relationship anyway. But there was no true repentance. I'm just thinking of of Christians, even those whom were once gathered the Lord's name.
Where are they now? They're just doing nothing. They don't make a profession of anything. They have no fellowship with anybody. That's just as if they're lost in the world.
But a true believer could never be in a possible no, no, but the the effect of giving up is, I mean it always be the Lords if they're always, if they've ever been a Christian.
But the fact that they just give everything up as if there was no more value in it, that's why we have to leave the final judgment of that was the Lord, don't we? The Lord knows them that are his that we can say. It appears that that person has given up completely. But you would not say a person that leads the Lord's table is an apostate unless he gives up Christianity completely. And you would ask them if they're still Christians, they would say yes, and they're not apostates giving up.
It comes from the word. I think in Latin word that post means to go back. It's really what it means. Let's go back.
It's a fearful thing.
Falls into the hands of the living God. I think that is the judgment of the apostate. It's a fearful thing. And this is the God that we know as a God of law, of peace.
But His Holiness.
Demands that such wickedness is going to be unfairly judged.
And just think that this so-called Christian world, which is a myth anyway, but where so much of the truth has been known, and look what you find. Look in England, look in Germany, the land of the Reformation. How much is there left of two fundamental Christianity?
And we will be judged. These nations will be judged more severely than those who had never had the light of Christianity. It's humbling to see how we, those who are in the Christian profession, have not been faithful in handling that which has been entrusted to us. And I even go so far, and I'm sure you'll agree with me, we as brethren have not been faithful in handling.
That which has been entrusted to us, we have failed as brethren. I have been to myself, myself fully with the failure of brethren, with that which has been entrusted to us. The highest truth, the very thing we have failed here, you know, and the proper place is that we acknowledge this and cry to the Lord for mercy to keep us and preserve us. That is still a collective path, but it begins with acknowledging our failure, like Daniel.
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You know, after Henry has pointed out in Chapter 9 by Daniel identifies himself with the failure of God's people, that's where.
Spiritual exercise begins identification with the failure, acknowledging it, and then looking to Him for grace to be preserved in the past. That is still left in spite of the rule. Second Timothy teaches that as well.
Need to walk an exercise of heart in the truth of God. Brethren, never should it become lackadaisical about the truth. It should be something that always exercises the ministry of the truth of God. Makes me go to sleep. It's not right ministry. It should stir me up. And we need stirring up in these last days. I can think how the enemy takes this over the course of time to a position where we can actually oppose the truth we profess to hold.
And we always see the errors somebody else faster and we see it in ourselves. I'm going to use an illustration of the Lutheran denomination which professes, which was begun by Martin Luther, tremendous instrument that God used in Germany to recover the truth of justification by faith. Today much of that denomination that all but much of it has no idea what the truth of justification by faith means they would oppose it.
If it was presented to them, isn't that amazing how the enemy can take, over the course of time, people around in a circle to where they actually oppose the truth they profess to hold. And so we profess to hold the truth of the one body, brethren, tremendous, beautiful truth of the Word of God. Let's walk and exercise. Let's be stirred up to make it a practical reality in our lives, not just we talk about it.
But it be something that is visible in our lives practically.
I'm impressed with what appears to be the apostles great awareness of who the God was and is with whom we have to do. Because not only do we get this expression in our chapter that is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But if you look over the last verse of chapter 12, we get the thought there for our God is a consuming fire.
These verses that follow are a real encouragement to true believers that especially to these that were going to lose everything they had as they were used to in the Jewish economy, to relating material prosperity to the favor and blessing of God. That's the way it was in the Old Testament. You live faithfully for God. Why God prospered you economically and and materially.
And when the Lord Jesus said it is hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God?
Why? The disciples all wondered. Because that was a person who was favored by God, a rich man, and but here we find that they're losing everything.
It was certainly I'm afraid we can't like playing too much of this rather, but there are parts of the world where the Lord's people and I would say the majority of God's people in this world are severely persecuted Muslim countries. We don't know what's going on. There's no press allowed in there to to reveal the persecution. Some leaks out and well, brethren.
Our prosperity sometimes is a hindrance to us to to make us realize the reality of what is really ours. But what impresses me when you have something about reproaches, afflictions, persecutions, the spoiling of your goods, is that word joy.
And I have known a few in Latin America who have lost because of their love for the Lord Jesus.
00:55:00
Oh, the joy, the deep joy that there is there rather than we're missing out. Maybe a little bit on that. Maybe the Lord will allow us to be tested up here. I don't know. But but it was to be an encouragement to these Jewish believers who thought that this was the favor of God, and now they're losing everything. But God gives real joy in persecution.
Spirit of glory and of God rested upon you if you're persecuted for His namesake.
Ahead in heaven, a better and abiding substance.
That's two of us, an inheritance incorruptible, and that passes another way, preserved for us in heaven. That's what Peter says, again, encouraging these Jewish believers. And the problem is for us living in a land of prosperity, that our hearts become attached to these things. There is nothing wrong in having things if you have it with the right attitude.
If we look at whatever He entrusts to us and it's not belonging to us.
That it is belonging to another earth. What do we read in Luke?
We're not faithful in death, which is another as stewards. The material things belong to another. The true riches cannot be entrusted to us. And if somebody is characterized by covetousness and trying to get more and more, more than what he really needs, way beyond, he loses out spiritually. He can always observe that, you know, that just does not go together.
And.
Young people do well to even early in life, except that as a warning because you have the possibility by getting good education, get good jobs and so on. But remember one thing that we noticed is taking place in the working world is that they demand more and more of your time. The companies cut down on personnel and others have take over jobs that others said they have ousted so that they make more profit.
You know, so they drained you of every ounce of energy if they can. So you better be careful that you don't lose out spiritually, that you get so entangled in these things that you lose out. You know, there was a time in my life, allow me to make reference to that, when I thought that I had to provide continued employment for my people because competition has moved in and I was in danger. I was afraid I couldn't continue to employ them all.
And I want us to reach out, you know, by another business. Somebody was dying of cancer. I'm so thankful as I look back, as the Lord prevented me from doing this because I would have been so entangled in it. I would have been up to my ears in work and wouldn't have time for the things of the Lord. I was thankful to have my own business. I could take time off for the things of the Lord, which I couldn't have done if I had worked for somebody else. But at the same time, there was a real danger.
To get entangled to a point that I would lose out spiritually. And that danger exists for you, for all of us. And the more capable you are, the more they want you, you know? And really.
Want to milk you? Make profit on you, you know. So be careful. Our purpose in life is not to make the buck. We have to work in order to make a living. But the purpose in our lives is not our jobs.
The purpose in our life are the things of the law, and if we are in danger of getting entangled to the point that we don't have time for the things of the Lord.
For a way out, even if it requires another job, the.
We may not have persecution, but the Lord definitely allows trial in the life of God as people. And I'd like to really draw attention to this verse 35. It seems to be such an important verse.
We mentioned that. I think it was in him you gave out Brother Lawrence at the beginning of the conference. Sweet as the confidence, thou get us to go high above our praise. Confidence in God. So vitally important, brethren. And any of us who are God's people are going to experience times that are hard, that are not easy. Maybe we don't have persecution to deal with directly, but we live in a hostile world.
01:00:16
And the Lord Himself, when we feather our nests, puts real thorns down in the feathers so that we don't get to settle down down here. But brethren, when those trials come our way, here's the verse that really is an exhortation to us all. Cast not away your confidence, which have great recompense of reward. Maybe you have something that's really oppressing you, your spirit.
Take it from the Lord, Trust him no matter what, He's faithful. He's always proved himself faithful. He is nothing less. He cannot be anything less than faithful. Notice a verse in Second Timothy chapter 2 That I so much enjoyed.
Paul is trying to encourage Timothy in these days that we're.
Perilous times. And here's one of the things he says in chapter 2 and verse 13. If we believe not yet he abideth faithful, He cannot deny himself.
Why can't he? Because he's God and God is faithful. He can be nothing less than faithful. And I may fail and the enemy is quick when I fail to come to my ear and say, hey, you can't go back to the Lord. You failed. And that's the very person we need to go back to because he's still faithful even when we fail. He's faithful. Oh, what a bulwark that is, brethren, in these days when we when we're living here.
Everything crumbling on every side to realize we have a God who is faithful, always faithful. Cash not away. Your confidence has great recompense of reward.
Hebrews 3 and six has a very encouraging word along that it speaks here of the Christ, the Son over his own house. Whose house are we if we hold fast, the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm onto the end, the end of our pathway. And that's just nearby. It's fast approaching.
Today could be the day.
I'm not going to give his name. You all know him. One of his last statements to his wife was disrupts cast, not the way to your continent. You know, even in such a painful experiences, you know, she knew she would be losing her husband. To be reminded of that, that would be a very painful thing to go through that.
Don't castaway your confidence. He's going to be with you. I have to leave, but he's going to be great. You know, that's what he was implying. And So what a wonderful comfort it is to have him with us. But.
He has need of patience.
You know how beautiful that is. I certainly need that definition to be patient.
And then, after we have done the will of God, he might receive the promise. You see, it might look many times as if our confidence is placed wrong.
But be patient, you know we do not doubt that he will make good his promise.
So patiently continue.
And he is going to.
Give us the promise in due time.
Sometimes when brethren faileth, sometimes when our friends fail us, I find that we have a tendency to doubt the Lord. Why did the Lord allow that to happen?
And I say, if you want to doubt me, you probably have a reason to. If you want to doubt other people, you may have reason to. But never allow a question mark when it comes to God and His word. If you allow question mark, it's just the way Satan operated with Eve. He came up to her and he put a question mark as to what God had said, and Eve entertained that question mark.
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Don't hang any question marks on God or His Word.
Hang them on me, please, but don't hang them on anybody or anything to do with God or His Word, because He's completely faithful. So we need to challenge ourselves about that. Satan is trying to ruin us, get us away from that simple confidence in the Lord.
I think it's important to see here too that it says after you have done the will of God.
We can perhaps set ourselves in the all searching eye of God. Have we done the will of God? Is there something there that that we know we have not?
We we have been going on with perhaps it is not the will of God and yes, we don't judge it. Then where is our confidence? I I believe if we if we have something there in our life that we are going on with it is not a God, We will not have that confidence. We will not have on that breast that righteousness. There will be that the enemy is going to use to shake our confidence. But if if there is nothing between.
Then and we know we have done the will of God.
And then we look forward to that for that coming day when we will meet the sure reward of it. But our confidence will remain permanent. At the end. We can look forward to the Lord's coming. Hold on to that which you have given us.
I have 3 verses that go through my mind. Be still and know.
That I am God.
And then God is our refuge and strength, a very present help and trouble.
The other is Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteousness to be moved.
The just shall live by faith. It's good to mention something on that. You know we have it three times in the New Testament quoted from the oral and the emphasis is always on a different part of the verse. I believe here the emphasis is on faith right in Romans under just because justification.
And inhalation that is living, you know, we are living by faith, not by submitting through the law. But.
Faith is to be characteristic of our life. We living by faith and our faith is not resting in circumstance. Faith always rests in the Word of God and in the Lord Himself. That's where our faith is placed. I hope it is.
Always.
And he's promised, he keeps his promises, and we will not be left to ourselves.
And the outcome, the end, I should say, of our life is glory. You know, difficulties might be apportioned here, but the end is glory. And that for eternity. He has promised it. He will keep it.
We've seen 288.
288 Will thou whose mercies far exceed all we can do or say, as in Thy people thou indeed us daily more display, Let for our happiness of God on us, while here below, by virtue of Christ, death and blood thy richest blessings flow preserved by flock most graciously.
Within thyself and the full 288.
I urge you all right.
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Now and what thy grave transplant explore.
Gracious daughter, Father, we're so thankful for the light and instruction of Thy precious word.
And our hearts could then search.
By this portion and we would ask that we would be given grace.
To walk in the light of it, we see the apostasy getting more and more pronounced on every side.
We confess, Lord Jesus, we can't trust ourselves, not for a man.
But we look up to the Lord Jesus as that one who is always faithful.
We're thankful, Lord Jesus, for thy keeping power, but help us, as has been mentioned, for us to keep ourselves in the love of God. So we thank Thee, Father, for these moments together. We pray for the rest of the day and the gospel that goes out this evening in a special way, not only here but everywhere where it goes out. And Father, we're thinking of a lot of our brethren on the roads now. Take care of them too, and give them.
A real sense of Thy love where they are, and all thy dear people. Father, on the face of the earth, we know that so many are scattered and confused in different systems of men. We confess our part in the awful ruin of the public testimony that has taken place, but thank thee at the same time, Lord Jesus, that we have found thee to be one in whom we can always trust. We thank thee, Lord Jesus, commanding ourselves in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Father. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen, Amen.
Gospel
Gospel—R. Thonney
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43 again left.
In this chapter we have the story.
Of the crucifixion and death.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not going to read a whole lot.
But I'd just like to say before we begin reading, I think everyone here is acquainted with the fact that Jesus.
Is the Son of God.
The creator of the whole universe.
When I think of the tremendous power that he wielded in speaking into existence.
The universe that we know around us today, I marvel at the fact that that same God came into this world in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, when he came into this world, It's the story of it is recorded in Luke's gospel and it is one of the most wonderful things I can think of that the God of this universe.
Into this world he came into his own creation.
But you know, people were so asleep that nobody seemed to.
Realize what had happened. There were a lot of religious people in.
That time they had the word of God, as far as they had it at that time, in their hands.
They could answer the questions, but they had no idea.
That Jesus had come into this world, had no idea. Is it possible that there's somebody that has the Bible in their hands?
Here tonight.
That can give the answers from the Bible.
But doesn't know Jesus.
You know what scares me and scares me badly in a company like we are here tonight?
Is the fact that amongst those 12 apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ?
That he had following him for three years and a half down here in this world.
One of them was a fake.
And none of the others realized who it was when Jesus spoke about that fact.
They all looked at each other and they all said to the Lord, Is it I, No one?
Realized that Judas Iscariot was false.
No, He had pulled the wool over everybody's eyes. Everybody's eyes but Jesus. Jesus knew.
And I can't tell if there's anybody like that in this room here tonight.
But the Lord Jesus's eyes on you and knows exactly where you stand in relation to Him. You can fool me, not too much trouble. You can fool your parents. Maybe you can fool the brethren around you.
You can't fool the person before whom you stand tonight. He knows just exactly where you stand. Are you real with God? I just want to say, my friend, get real with God. If you haven't gotten real yet, get real with God.
It's not worth fooling around this vital issue we're living right at the end.
Of a time period known as the grace of God.
And at any moment, those of us who are believers expect the coming of the Lord Jesus.
And as soon as the Lord comes to take his own out of this world judgment.
The most severe judgment this world has ever known is going to begin shortly after.
And I really believe that there's a good possibility that there's somebody here who isn't ready yet. And if you are going to be left behind, it will be for judgment, Awful, awful judgment.
So we ask you to pay attention tonight, please. We're going to read a few verses here in Luke 23.
And let's read from verse 33.
When they were come to the place which is called Calvary.
There they crucified him and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left.
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Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
And they parted his lorainment and cast lots, And the people stood beholding, and the rulers also with them derided him, saying he saved others.
Let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, and saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. One of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, Thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
The other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?
And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, But this man hath done nothing.
A mess. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom.
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
And it was about the 6th hour. There was a darkness over all the earth until the 9th hour.
And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was red in the midst.
And when Jesus had cried, with a loud voice he said, Father.
Into thy hands I commend my spirit in having said thus. He gave up the ghost. Here we have the story of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Terrible to think of how men treated their Creator, but do you know that what we see here, the way they treated is a true reflection of your heart and mind? My heart is no different, naturally speaking.
Than these that took the glorious Son of God, that one that never sinned in all his life. And they took those hands, and they stretched him out, and they pounded those spikes through his hands and through his feet, and they hung him up on that hill outside the city of Jerusalem to die. His face was running from the spittle of those Roman soldiers.
It was disfigured from the blows of those soldiers. He was crowned with thorns. That's the treatment man gave to their creator.
Oh, what a story. And as they were pounding those nails through the hands and feet of Jesus.
What did he say? Was there threats as they pounded those nails through there? The terrible?
Excruciating pain it would have been to have nails pounded through there. Goes right through the area where the nerve passes to the hand.
Would be an excruciating Jesus said Father forgive them. They know not what they do. Oh what love and our Savior, he came to save. He came not to condemn. And if you are here without Jesus tonight, you are what scripture tells us condemned already because you have not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Condemned already.
And so they left him hanging there on Calvary. And, you know, some of the insults they heaped on him, some of the pain, physical pain perhaps people say, is not so bad as the emotional pain, the pain of abandonment that he felt. He says in Psalm 69. Reproaches broken my heart, and I'm full of heaviness.
And I look for some to take pity and there was none and for comforters but I found none.
A pain of a broken heart is pretty hard.
But there was another suffering that Jesus suffered as he was hanging on that cross.
It tells there about the fact that the 6th hour and verse 44 there was darkness over all the earth.
Till the 9th hour, for three hours it was dark and nobody could see what was happening on Mount Calvary.
We know from the prophet Isaiah what took place in those awful hours of darkness.
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It says in Isaiah 53 and verse five he was wounded.
For our transgressions he was bruised. For our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him.
And with His stripes we are healed. I am the guilty Sinner. But Jesus and his love for me when he was hanging on that cross took my sin on him. He took the righteous judgment of God that necessarily had to fall on those sins that I've committed. He bore it all in those awful hours, for three hours, no sound.
Comes from that place of Calvary.
And at the 9th hour he cries. It tells us in another gospel.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why did God forsake him? He was doing the will of God in dying for us. God wanted to save you, and there was no other way that you and I could be saved except somebody paid the price for our salvation.
Why did God forsake him? Because he was dealing with Jesus.
About your sins, my friend, About my sins. He was dealing with Jesus about those sins of ours.
Says in Isaiah 53, All we, like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.
And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
And justice before he died, he cries out. It is finished.
And he bows his head and gives up the ghost, and the soldier comes up that hill.
And before I talk about this soldier, I want to talk about.
Two others that were crucified with Jesus on one side and another on the other side.
Matthew's Gospel, I believe it is, tells us that the both of them were keeping insults on Jesus.
They were dying too, but they were dying for their own guilt.
They were dying because they were sinners, just like you and I, my friend. The wages of sin is death, and because we have sinned, we deserve to die. People talk about human rights. You know what a Sinner has a right to for his sins. He has a right to death and judgment. That is your right, my friend. That is my right. We want to claim human rights.
We have a right to death and judgment because of our sins.
But Jesus hung on their cross so that you and I wouldn't have to go that route.
He hung there so you and I could be saved. God cannot pass.
Over sin lightly impossible. This world makes fun of sin today.
But God doesn't make fun of sin. God punishes sin, and every sin that has ever been committed by any member of Adam's race will receive its just punishment from the hand of God. Either you accept what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary, or you pay your own price in the Lake of Fire forever and ever.
That's the choice you have to make.
There were these two malefactors on either sides of Jesus there.
They did that to heat more ridicule on Jesus, to make it look like he was a malefactor too, but he wasn't.
And those two were heaping insults on Jesus when all of a sudden there's a change in one of those malefactors.
And he turns, and he rebukes his companion, and he says.
Dost not thou fear God? Know that, knowing that we are in the same condemnation.
We reached indeed justly, for we received the due reward of our deeds. There's a change. This is what is called repentance, and without repentance there is no salvation. I want to be clear. Repentance in itself does not save, but without repentance you cannot be saved. What's saved is what saves is faith in Christ. It says by grace.
Are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves? It is the gift of God.
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Not of works, lest any man should boast.
That's the way we're saved, by faith in Jesus. But if you haven't repented.
There is no real faith in a person that hasn't truly repented.
And that's why God commands all men in every place.
To repent. He knows what's ahead for the unrepentant Sinner.
And I want to probe the hearts of those present here tonight. Like I say, I don't know your hearts.
You know them, and we're sitting here in the presence of God. Don't.
Fool around with the eternal destiny of your soul. Before we go into that, I want to speak a little bit more about these two thieves that were nailed on either side of Jesus after he recognized that he was getting what he deserved.
Why? He said this man has done nothing. He missed. He recognized that there was a person that was totally different.
And he turns to Jesus in verse 42 and says unto him, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom. Now there was real true faith, because he saw on that center cross a man hanging, dying.
And he recognized that he was going to come later on in his Kingdom. There was faith in that he was going to rise again. God gave him that faith, I'm sure, at that time.
But has Jesus come in his Kingdom yet? No, not yet.
It's been close to 2000 years that Jesus hung on that Christ.
And he hasn't come in his Kingdom yet. Is that thief still waiting? Because that's what he asked for.
To be remembered when Jesus came in his Kingdom, what did Jesus say to him?
Oh, our God is so great, so good, he said today. Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
That very day, he wasn't going to have to wait nearly 2000 years until Jesus came into his Kingdom. No, he was going to be that very day with Jesus in paradise. Oh, tremendous blessing to believe in the person of the only begotten Son of God.
But what about those sins? How can that thief that has done such rotten stuff in life? How can he go directly into the presence of God? Impossible, we say.
Isn't God just? Doesn't he require what a person does?
Yes, he certainly does, and that's why Jesus paid the price in full for that poor thief.
And the time came, after Jesus had given up his life, that a soldier came up that hill. He had orders to make sure the three that were crucified that day were dead. And that soldier took his spear, which was an iron rod, and he broke the legs of the first thief.
And that thief that had trusted Jesus.
Died and went into paradise with Jesus.
What a triumph, what a triumph. That's the salvation that God offers to whosoever will believe. The soldier came to the other side and broke the legs of that thief. That thief had never repented. At least we have no record that he had ever repented. And when he died, he went directly into hell. Torment. He's been there ever since, in torment.
Unrelenting torment. God punishes sin. There is no way around it. God punishes sin.
And then that soldier came to Jesus on that center cross and saw that Jesus was dead already and took his spear and plunged it into Jesus side and out flowed blood and water. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. That's the testimony of the Apostle John. Oh, the tremendous glory of knowing.
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That the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from every sin.
And I was working in Chicago.
Downtown at a hospital. My boss on the job was a man who had been a veteran of the Second World War.
And he had fought the four years of the conflict in Europe.
And at last he got his legs shot off and he.
Hobbled around on a wooden leg and before.
I left employment there. He took me out to lunch one day and I said Mr. Tucker.
Have you ever thought about when you have to leave this world?
And about your sins, he says. Bob, I've done some awful things in war.
But Mr. Tucker, the Bible says the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.
I don't know if he accepted it, but a few months after I went back again to see some of the books I used to work with there. Where's Mr. Tucker? He died just a few weeks ago.
Life is uncertain, but here is a remedy that's sure it's a remedy that God accepts the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. Told the story before, but.
It was a real privilege to me.
In visits in southern Mexico and the state of Oaxaca.
To meet up with a brother a number of years ago whose name is Synovio Ruiz and Synovio and his unsaved life had been abandoned and he had killed 21 People in his band retreat.
Just roaming the hills of southern Mexico, killing people, robbing, burning houses.
That was what he was doing and he was so bad that they had orders in that area to take him dead or alive.
Down there, they make their little gospel halls out of sticks stuck into the earth.
And because it's hot and they put a roof on it. And when they have a gospel meeting at night, they have a kerosene Lantern inside. And so people outside can sometimes stand around without being seen and and listen, since it just sticks and they can see what's going on inside. And Synovial evidently was standing outside one night and he heard that verse. The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanses us from all sin.
He realized he was accountable for an awful lot.
But he couldn't believe his ears to hear that verse. When he had a chance, he asked one of the brothers of that area, a place called Okatlan.
If that was really in the Bible and the brother opened it up and read it to him, yes, here it is.
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Synovial believed the gospel and.
Wasn't too long after that that he turned himself into the authorities. They were pretty shocked when he walked in and they took him into custody. They examined him but after holding him for a little while, they said this man is not abandoned.
And they let him loose. Sanovia lived out his days and the hills of southern Mexico rest of his life, and I got to know him. You wouldn't guess that he had been such a awful criminal.
A couple times ago when I was down there, I asked where he was and said Synovial went home to be with allergies.
What is right? What a triangle. A man with a blood stained of his fellow man on his hands, washed in the blood of Jesus, going directly into the presence of a holy God. How is it possible? It's because of what Jesus did. It's because of the price he paid. It's sufficient. God has accepted it. And now all that's necessary is for you, my friend, to accept what God has done for you and the work.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'd like to read a verse in Acts chapter.
20.
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Because I want to probe.
I feel really a serious responsibility to speak.
As directly as possible.
To each one present.
Children, young people, older ones, too. I don't know your heart. It scares me to think there's going to be someone that's set in these seats during these conferences. And we didn't speak plainly enough. And you slept spiritually through a conference and never realized you weren't straight with God.
Acts chapter 20 and verse 21. Paul is speaking and he says testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks. Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
That thief that died on one side of the Lord Jesus repented. There was a definite change in his thinking. Repentance really is from a root word that means to think.
Pen in Spanish. It's Pennsylvania. It's very close. Repent means rethink. It's to change your way of thinking. A person loves the pleasures of this world. When he repents, he says no, no more of that for me.
There's other people that love drinking and carousing. When they repent, they say that's not for me any longer.
The prodigal son wanted to get as far away as possible from his father's house.
When he repented, he said, how many hired servants in my father's house have bread, and up in despair I'll go back there.
I will rise and go to my father. That's repentance, a change of mind.
Have you repented? You know, I think it's a very serious thing for those of us who have been brought up in Christian homes. I was brought up in a Christian home.
And I really didn't think I was that bad.
I've never gotten the messy stuff of this world.
I'm not that bad, surely not as bad as that criminal down there in the prison.
I had to repent. I had to learn that it was ever much as bad as that criminal down in the prison.
God says there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Simple illustration has been given sometimes.
You know how bad a rotten egg is when it opens? When it cracks?
I've got two rotten eggs in my hands. Just one fell on that floor. Wowie. Wow, that's awful smell from that. This one in my hand isn't that bad, but I can say there is no difference. The awful things that come out on that person in the prison, they haven't come out of my heart, but God tells me there is no difference. Have you accepted God's testimony?
As to your natural condition.
There's a danger that you and I are being brought up in Christian homes and being sheltered.
Thank God, sheltered from this world of perdition that we think were just a notch above everybody else.
If that's the case, I want to tell you to repent. That's what God tells you to do.
Repent, That's important. And so he spoke repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. That man on that cross repented, and then he turned in faith to say, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest in thy Kingdom.
He was saved on that cross by simply repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now I'm going to talk briefly about 3 persons that we have the testimony in scripture about them.
One who it says repented himself.
But did not believe in the Lord Jesus and as far as we know.
And we know very certainly that he is in a lost eternity burning in hell tonight. The next one I want to draw attention to is one who the Bible says believed. And he was baptized, but he had never repented.
And as far as we know, he too is in a lost eternity now And then the third one, a person who repented and believed the gospel just like that. See, let's go to Matthews Gospel chapter 27 to speak first of all of Judas Iscariot.
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When we've already spoken briefly about.
Verse three of Matthew 27 Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself and brought again the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, and that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? See thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went.
And hanged himself.
Awful, awful end to Judas Iscariot, somebody that had accompanied.
The Lord Jesus for 3 1/2 years had heard those wonderful words of life that came out of his mouth.
Had seen the miracles that he had done. But you know what Judas Iscariot had in his heart? He loved money.
And it says in the Bible the love of money is the root of all evil. He loved it. And one day from the Lord, Jesus was in Bethany, the House of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and they fixed them a supper.
And Mary came out with an alabaster box of ointments and sweet perfume and poured it on Jesus. Beautiful act of devotion.
And Judas is there. Hmm, that's a lot of waste.
And the Bible tells us that it wasn't he was interested in.
Selling like he suggested. He suggested that we could have sold that and given it to the poor, but the Bible tells us he wasn't interested in selling it. He was the treasurer for the disciples and he had that bag of money and when it suited his purposes, he put his hand in there and took out for himself. He loved money. And Jesus rebuked Judas Iscariot for saying that. He said let her alone. She's wrought a good work on me.
And Judas couldn't stand it. He decided on an alternative plan. He was going to go off and sell Jesus, betray Jesus to those he knew wanted to get ahold of him. And they made a contract for 30 pieces of silver. And Judas probably fact, Jesus has walked out a lot of their traps.
I suppose this time when I betray him, why, he'll just walk right on out of there.
And I'll have the money in my pocket, no problem. Nobody will ever know anything about it. It didn't turn out that way.
Judas realized after he saw that Jesus was condemned.
That things were looking bad and it looked bad what he had done.
And Judas felt bad because of the way it looked. And maybe you've done something that looks bad and people look down at you.
You know, it wasn't her true repentance with Judas. It wasn't a true repentance.
God gives true repentance if there's faith in Him. It says it is the goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance.
Says in Two Timothy 2 if perhaps God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
But Judas wasn't of that mind. He didn't want to go back to Jesus.
And what he did?
Instead, to escape the shame of what he had done, which went out and hung himself.
That was the end of that disciple of the Lord Jesus. Not only did he hang himself, but we don't know how he fell down when he hung himself and he burst in the middle awful end of one of the disciples of the Lord Jesus. Nobody realized that Judas wasn't real.
Are you real with God tonight?
It's so easy to slip along without being real.
Don't let it happen. Be real with God. I think I may have told the story but.
Something that happened in Bolivia that really shook me to the core when I lived down there.
In the city of Montero, where we used to live in the eastern Amazon basin.
00:35:05
It's a city of about 40,000 people.
They had motorcycle taxis. Instead of taking a taxi, just get on the back of a motorcycle. It would take you to the market or wherever you wanted to go.
While we were living there, we started hearing that these guys turned up dead from time to time. You couldn't figure out what was happening.
When finally they picked up a guy that had been shot in the back of the head on the road, but it hadn't killed him, the bullet had gone around the edge of his brain.
It brought him into the hospital and he got better and he told who it was that had done this thing. It was a man that I knew personally that it helped in the construction of the house that we built when we moved down there, Barb and I.
And he had made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus.
He had been baptized. He had been Breaking Bad at the Lord's Table.
I couldn't believe it when I heard it was Hiney Martinez that was in prison downtown Montero. The people just about mobbed the prison because he confessed to having killed 12 People.
That way.
And they had to bring in the army.
To take him off to another area of the country.
And later on.
They took him out to do investigations in the jungle.
As to where he left those motorcycles?
And when they were out there, the police evidently not being real careful.
All of a sudden he was running for the jungle.
And the police shouted at him stop. And he didn't stop it.
Got their pistols poo poo.
IMI Martinez went into what I believe fully believed because I saw no evidence of any repentance at all into Hellfire.
Shook me to the core.
Somebody that I broke bread with.
Hell now.
If you say I've accepted the Lord and you say I've been baptized, maybe you say I break bread. Those things mean nothing.
If you're not right with God.
Please, I ask you to be serious on this score tonight. Don't goof around with the welfare of your soul.
That was a man.
Who had made a profession but wasn't real. And I'd like to talk briefly about another man in the book of Acts chapter 8 that was like that. His name was Simon the Sorcerer.
Acts chapter 8 and verse 5. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them.
And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
Verse 9 But there was a certain man called Simon, which before time in that same city used sorcery.
And bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one.
To whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest thing. This man is the great power of God, and to him they had regard, because that of a long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. When they believed Philip, preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also, and when he was baptized he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God.
They sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come down, prayed for them.
That they might receive the Holy Ghost, for as yet He was fallen upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw that through the lane onto the apostle's hands, the Holy Ghost was given, He offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
00:40:16
Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.
Then answered Simon and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me that none of these things.
Which ye have spoken, come upon me.
Here's the sad story of this Simon Magus, Simon the sorcerer. He had been a great one in the city of Samaria, but a greater power came to the city of Samaria, the power of God and the Gospel.
And Peter and Simon said, well, this power is greater than the power I've wielded. I better join up with this new movement.
And it actually says that Simon himself believed.
Verse 13 and was baptized.
They probably said, have you heard the news? The sorcerer of the town got saved. He was baptized.
Probably everybody thought it was real.
And it wasn't until a little later Peter and John came down that Simon came up to them.
I said I like to have some of that power too. Will you please here's some money if you give me some of that power?
Simon had never repented. He had been a great one in the city of Samaria as a sorcerer.
Now he wanted to be a great one amongst the Christians. Is there anybody that wants to be a great person amongst Christians?
Like that?
Simon had never repented. He believed, it said, but it wasn't a true faith because there was no repentance there.
Is there anybody like that? Say you believe that you've never repented?
You think you're all right? You think you're good enough?
You'd better think again. You had better repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
As far as we know, there is no true faith in Simon. When Peter rebuked him, when Peter said repent, you know what Simon said? Pray to the Lord for me. He couldn't even pray for himself.
There was number real faith in Simon, even though in an outward way he had believed.
How solemn to think that there are people that fit in this category. Never repented. They say they believe they're not saved.
Let's go over to the 16th chapter to see a hardened man.
That was in charge in the city of Philippi of the jail, the prison.
And into that prison that day that it tiles us about.
Came two men who were apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They were preaching the gospel.
And they had beaten their backs.
And that jailer wasn't any too nice to them. He thrust them in to the inner president, and he put their feet into the stocks in the lock there in that enterprise.
Paul and silence. They must have felt pretty bad for quite a while.
It tells us that there wasn't any response from them until midnight.
Sometimes we think they started singing right away. It doesn't say that they didn't start singing until midnight.
But when?
Let's read a little bit here. I think it's good to read it. Verse 25. At midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, everyone's bands were loose. The keeper of the prison awakening out of sleep, seeing the prison doors open, he drew out of his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.
But Paul cried out with a loud voice saying, do thyself no harm, for we are all here.
Then he called for a light, and sprang in, came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas.
Brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
00:45:04
And they speak unto him, and the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.
And he took them the same hour of the night, voiced their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.
So here we have this rough jailer man.
And I suppose under those Roman regimes they were rough men.
He didn't treat those apostles that night.
But that night?
When Paul and Silas sang and prayed, God shook the prison and everyone's bands came off and that that jailer woke up and he realized he was in serious trouble. The Romans had the custom that if any prisoner escaped from somebody's charge that was in charge of them, that that person's life was for the prisoner. And so he thought instead of.
Meeting up with the shame of the occasion, he would just end it all himself and he pulled out his sword. He commits suicide.
And Paul cried and he sprang in trembling before Paul inside us. What a change in that matter, no doubt of the truth that he had repented. And let me tell you, if a person really repents, it's not easy, not hard to see. It's not hard to see. When a person truly repents, you don't have to say I repent.
They'll be evident in your life if there's repentance.
And he came in and they said they saw he was repentant, and so they don't say anything about repentance.
They merely talk about faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. If you're repentant of your condition, your sinful condition before God, and you need to listen to this verse, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. And that man took him out of there, took him to his house.
Washed their backs, set a meal in front of them, and that same hour of the night was baptized. He didn't even wait for the next day to get baptized.
Right then and there.
If this jailer was baptized with all his bones, that's a beautiful story. That's repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what saves, my friend. You want to be saved. That's the way God has shown to us in His precious word, how we plead for each person present here to be serious with God. God commands all men.
Everywhere to repent, because He is appointed today in the which He will judge this world in righteousness.
By that man whom he hath ordained, giving assurance to all men, and having raised him from the dead.
Jesus not only died, he was raised from the dead, and because he was raised from the dead means that God is going to send him back to this world to judge this world in righteousness.
The judgment today is appointed. The judge is appointed.
God is simply waiting in the meanwhile for souls to come to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Where do you stand tonight? Dear young people, dear children, dear older folks too, I look at you.
Far as I know, you're believers. I don't know. I've been fooled.
By Jaime Hermanes It shocked me. It totally shook me to the core.
I can be fooled again.
You can fool me again, I say, but don't think you can fool God. Impossible. Get right with God tonight, Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead.
Thou shalt be saved.
Let's pray, Gracious Father, bless Thy word only. Thou dost know the hearts of those listening tonight. We ask Father, that there would be true repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus. We ask thy blessing, gracious Father, and for the for help the rest of the evening in that most worthy name of the Lord Jesus.
Gospel
Gospel—T. Johnson
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.
At 1:00, then judges, you know, so there is going to be a consequence.
For not receiving or rejecting the Lord and it says.
The word that I have spoken to the same subject in the last day and I want to make an application.
Kind of that the word and year one tonight you heard the word of God time and time again and brethren and the brother came to prayer meetings. They pray for you, your children that have parents that have gathered to the Lord that they know and you know.
You heard the word of God, the words many years that you've been old, whether you're six or seven or five or ten. And if you come to meeting, you cut the gospel meetings and the desire of the Lord Jesus is saved. That's what he wants. He wants to save. He doesn't want you to reject him and he doesn't want you to turn away from Him and he doesn't want you not to believe and not to hear because he wants you to hear, hear his words.
That's what it says is going to judge.
The word of God now it says in another scripture pointed a day even in the which we suggest the world and righteousness by that man whom we have for things. That's the word Jesus is going to charge. But when the word Jesus was on earth, You know, I think about this this afternoon and there was an example of it. I think he might say there was a woman who had to stand greatly.
And there was these Pharisees and they took this woman and they grabbed ahold of her and put her in, brought her in where the Lord Jesus was and they threw her when I stay in front of the Lord. And they said it started acting, putting accusations on her, said she was caught in a terrible stand right in the act of it. She told, they told the Lord Moses says she should be stoned. What do you say?
That's what he says in the word of Jesus. They canceled the Lord. They didn't like the Lord. They hated the Lord. They wanted to find a reason to get rid of Him, that they could say it was legitimate, that they wouldn't have to have a conscience except for her. And So what did he do? He didn't say a word. He stood down on the ground and he started to write. You know that story. He started to write in the sand or in the dirt with the finger.
And they kept talking. They probably began to wonder what he was doing.
And maybe they saw what he wrote on the ground.
I think he may have stood up and made him stupid hearing about, I can't remember, but I think he might have wrote twice and then he stood up and the Oracle work said to them, he said he that is without standing, let him pass the first film.
I.
That where there's consciences, it's more right to the core of the heart, because those men that stood there were sinners to send this earth.
Maybe that the same stands?
And instead they went out from the oldest to the younger.
And reward turned to her and said where are lying accusers you know to the said that in mouth or not the two or three witnesses they were they could be put at the cast and I think it was even in our chapter one today Moses will find on down and he's in a different portion. But they died by the law by two or three witnesses.
And these men, they wanted to give the Lord to judge. But you know what? In a way, it's not working to suggest it was their time.
I used to say any Dell agrees with that woman and I think there was blessed, there was blessed.
You tell them grace and love, he warned her.
So there is some work with trust here.
But she didn't do me what those men wanted well.
What I have on my heart is a little earlier in the chapter in verse 24. I've been thinking about this a little bit and enjoying it, trusting my soul. John 12 and verse 24.
Is barely, barely, I say unto you, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. It abideth alone, but if it died, it brings forth.
00:05:09
I was thinking, you know.
Where Jesus is talking about he's going to die.
He's going to be as a bird. That corner, please.
That fall into the ground.
A picture of death.
But it says.
If it doesn't die, it's going to lie alone, but if it dies it brings close flashing through.
It brings forth much fruit, and you can.
There's fruit here tonight, and front lower, Jesus works on the cross.
We stand often he shall see of the travel of his soul, and shall be satisfied. Sometimes I just wonder how the word can be satisfied with us.
With me I should exercise, but the word God says to get.
He So I was thinking about we.
A little bit. And when we plant it, I don't know much about it, but I do know far as this, that when it grows and it has enough time, it grows up, it comes across and you harvest it. You harvest it and there's a fruit that comes off of that one kernel that was climbed in the ground. That one seed is planted and the sun comes in the rain and so on and grows in the process of time and it has a head of.
Across the stomach.
And I don't know how many kernels my one brother one time told us about before and you put one seat in the ground and I don't know how many there's so many rows of on a corn, how many pieces of corn is on the Europe corn and so on. And you think of that one kernel is where it's produced.
You know, got the fruit of the Lord Jesus.
Millions. It's millions. It's never been a work, it's never been something planned. I like it that that that has produced and is going to produce more fruit.
In Revelation it talks about 10,000 * 10,000 and thousands of thousands. Those are sent in here. Those are souls in heaven. That's from a group from the Lord Jesus the dear 1:00 tonight.
We want this to be straight. We want you to be part of that part of this, this truth that's from the work of the Lord Jesus dying on the cross.
Hey, go to John chapter 4.
Verse 34.
John 43034 Jesus saith unto them, My need is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish the work.
They not need to consider there are yet four months and then come harvest.
Behold, I say it to you, lift up your eyes and look on the field. So they are white already apart.
Dear one, tonight the filter one if I can apply it this way.
Unless everyone is safe here tonight.
The field is ready to harvest. The Lord Jesus wants, if I can say it foreverly, He wants a part of it tonight.
He wants some of that artist to come here, some of that fruit that he bore. So much for the travail.
What he bore from a from a hand.
Holy God.
Of what we deserve, he he wants to see.
He wants to stand here, he says. Don't wait for months.
The hardest is informative.
Nice to feel no one.
You go anywhere in the world and they'll be like, they'll be stuff ready. There are souls that need to be saved.
Begin where it goes.
Let's go over to.
First Samuel, chapter 12.
00:10:08
Read it first the other day and then.
1St Annual 12.
Part of her 17.
Is it not?
We harvest today.
Isn't it today?
Today, dear one, you know there's a verse that says today if you hear his boy, pardon off your card, pardon off your heart, the Lord visa. Today one kid to be said.
In your trust, can I trust that today for you, if you don't know the Lord, today is the day we are today.
Today we cannot, not four months when the artist can do, but today it says if not, we harvest today.
Why did Samuel talk about this?
I was wondering.
In connection as to why why this came up, why does Samuel ask that question? I think.
But if I got sort of wondering why did he say that to the children of Israel, Is it not Lee Harvest today? Now there was going to be a judgment that Sandy was going to bring on his knee hard, but there was a reason why.
And I believe the reason why was because of their state of soul.
With God, they desire the King.
They desire to seem.
Let's go back to Chapter 8 for just a minute.
We're going to find out a little, hopefully a little bit as to why Samuel said. We did in Chapter 12, but in first annually.
Verse 4 now the hour of the day they'll gather themselves together came to Samuel not to rain on that again holds our old my sons walking on my way now make us a king to judge us like all nations.
But The thing is please Samuel when they said give us the king to judge us and Samuel prayed unto the Lord.
You know you're on tonight.
Is your desire of pain?
We're going to find out about that. Maybe we should go on and then we'll be talking about that before.
The Lord said, Understand your hearken under the voice of the people and all that they say to me, for they have not rejected evil, they have rejected me that I should not bring over them.
According to all the work which they have done since the day I brought them up out of Egypt, under this day we're with their forsaken me serve other gods. So do they also underneath now, therefore parking under their voice. How we get yes, protest Solomon and them.
Show them the matter of the king that shall reign over them. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people that asked him.
And so Samuel talks about this king and the children of Israel said to Samuel, You're getting old.
And your sons don't care. And you know, we want a king. We want to be like the nations around us, and we want to keep.
And they the Lord said to Samuel, They protected you, they rejected me, and they served under God.
But he says protest. That means don't agree with them. Tell them you don't agree so that they are aware.
Of what they're asking. And you're one tonight if you're about the Lord Jesus.
You might say away you're the king of your life.
In the team, Israel said we were the king. We don't want to trust God anymore and we're going to go see that in this chapter 12.
That's what it boils down to is that they said the sand will feel. What they were saying is if we don't want God anymore, we want to keep, we want to be like the other year one tonight. If you don't want the Lord, if you say in your heart, I want to be like other people.
00:15:14
If I could save the other nations, I want to be like the other ones around. I want to have fun. I want to enjoy my time here. I want to maybe some days, then I'll consider and I'll think about it. The Lord said you don't have so much.
The hardest is for money and you can't wait. Is it not sweet harvest today? Isn't it today?
Today you need to be safe.
The Children of Israel says we don't want in their in their own way.
They said to one thing and this king would want him to go out fire battle for it. We want somebody to read it and the judge is going to tell us what to do. And later in that chapter, 12 Council says.
Don't you know what God has done for you? Don't you know what he's done? Then he reverses to them how that he took him out of Egypt and so on and he goes through a behind telling them, aren't you going to drive God?
Aren't you going to trust him? Why? Why do you want something else?
And you're one tonight. That's the question to you and to me. Do you want to Jesus?
Do you want us to be the word?
Or do you want to be your own Lord? Do you want something else to be your team? Do you want something else to try to retrieve Israel? So many times they got me into trouble. They send me into God, and they cried to God and God gave him a liver. And I think in chapter 12 sounds more televised. They're available. And there is 40. We'll look at it a little bit later.
But he tells him all these things because he wants them to understand they're turning away from God.
And you know, Paul and I thought of this before the apostle Paul details left to you, he said, and I intelligent and I just trusted me more in my soul. But he says to the Philippians, he says.
But my God shall supply all your deeds according to his written door.
Paul knew who God was. He knew, and he learned and he trusted.
She trusted the word, but he said to the blessing, but my God shall supply all your needs. And Paul is saying my God, because it was his. He made it his own and here one tonight. Can you say that in your soul, my God, you know Thomas said, my Lord and my God.
When he saw who the Lord does.
He could say goodbye. Yeah. It should have been more of my faith but there than Thomas. He saw the Lord in front of him and it just took his heart. He took his heart. That's wonderful. Can I do one? If you could see the Lord Jesus.
Like Faith tonight and you, that's where, how, how and that's how you got to feel. You've got to see him by faith.
Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. What a wonderful word of God. If you lay hold of the word of God, there is rest and joy and peace. There is security and satisfaction.
When you can rest your soul on the word of God.
Christ died for our sins. What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me half everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.
There's brothers. I could quote hundreds more of them.
But that is real. It's fact and it's real, and you can rest your soul on it. Dear one, tonight the Word of God is true. It's true. It cannot lie and it will not lie because it wants your blessing. It cannot lie. The Word of God is pure, it's holy, and it brings life. It brings life. Well, these Israelites, they said we don't want them, we want a king.
Down in verse 19 of chapter 8 it says nevertheless the people refused.
To obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us.
00:20:04
That we also may be like the nations and so on. Sam, you heard all the words, rehearsed them to the Lord.
And the Lord said to Samuel in verse 22, Hearken under their voice, and make them a king.
That's pretty solemn, isn't it?
Dear one, the Lord Jesus doesn't want to let you go tonight. The Spirit of God strives with you and you know it as well as I do. He does. He speaks to our hearts and our consciences to wake us up to the fact that we have a need. We have a need and the need can only be met and satisfied, like our song says, by Christ. That's it. There is no other answer. That is the answer, the Lord Jesus Christ and when you accept them as your Savior.
He's going to cleanse you from your fingers, He's going to make you fit for heaven, and you'll have a relationship with God as your Father that you never had before.
You're going to know God as your Father.
That's a wonderful thing well down in Chapter 9.
Samuel, this is the king coming.
There was a man verse 1 Benjamin, whose name was Kish. Verse two he had a son whose name was Saul, a choice young man in a goodly.
There was none among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he. From his shoulders upward he was higher than any.
Of the people.
In the ***** of Kish, Saul's father were lost. So there were some donkeys or some ***** that Saul's father had lost. They'd gotten lost.
Any Kish said to Saul his son. Take now one of the servants with the arise, and go seek the *****.
You know, I was thinking about it.
It makes me kind of sad.
You know it did this morning, but the breaking of red.
I was thinking about Exodus 34 I think it is. It's in a two or three different places, but it talks about the first lean of an *** a colt was to be redeemed was to be redeemed when Israelite when their their *** or the donkey had a had a baby, a first name.
They were to redeem it. They were to redeem them. Why? You know why? Because it's a picture of an unclean or it is the *** is an unclean.
Animal. It's unclean.
The cow, the Bullock, the sheep, the pigeon, those things, they were clean, they were called, they were considered, they were a clean animal, and they were used for sacrifices. But the *** was an unclean animal.
And it had to be redeemed.
Well, it says in Exodus, it says there if it's not redeemed.
What do you think was going to happen to it?
It says they would break its neck. They would have to kill it.
But if the person the Israelite didn't want it killed and he needed it for his work or whatever, then it said it had to be redeemed with a lamb.
For a kid, but I was thinking of it this morning in the breaking of bread, the lamb, a little picture of the Lamb of God taking the place of the unclean, you know, so that that unclean could be used. It had to be redeemed. And dear one, tonight we're all, we're born in sin. We're like that first lien of an ***. We're unclean, we're unclean. We've got to be redeemed.
And the Lord Jesus was that Lamb of God.
He was that Lamb of God that died in our stead that we might live.
But you know.
I thought about a little bit what God, if I could apply it this way, what God would think?
When he would look at that unclean, if I could say that man was maybe like God.
And he would look at that unclean, and he would look at that lamb.
He had to give one of them up.
He wasn't going to be able to keep both of them. He couldn't keep the lamb, and he couldn't keep the unclean animal if it wasn't redeemed.
And so he chose.
00:25:01
God chose.
He chose the lamb.
You know, and Luke, it talks about the coal. I think it's Matthew, Mark and Luke, all three, I think accounts talk about the cold. And you've heard little ones, you little ones, you've heard people, brethren talk about.
That cult that was tied in the Gospels that the Lord wrote into Jerusalem on.
Anna, you know what it says about that colt when those two disciples went to find that colt. You know what it says the Lord says to them when they ask you why you're doing that, when you go to and lose them and take them, when they ask you why, you tell them the Lord half need of him.
It does. And dear one, tonight the Lord hath need of you.
He has a need for you because he loves you. He loves you and he's got a need for you. He his heart, it says.
There is joy in heaven, I can't remember. There is joy in the angels of God in heaven over one Sinner that repent.
That repentance, there's joy, there's joy in heaven and it brings a joy to the heart of the Lord Jesus when a soul rests on him, puts their faith and trust in him and says I'm like that unclean animal Lord.
And he had died for me.
You've died for me. Just like that lamb in the Old Testament. It had to be offered in the stead.
Deliver Our Souls
Address—H. Short
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The Lord Jesus Christ.
Our Savior.
We thank thee, we have found in the stability and.
One that can be trusted.
One who can guide us through this wilderness, because thou hast gone through it and authored and finished the path of faith.
Now, as we open Thy Word, we pray for help in the Ministry and in its reception.
Lord, we ask.
For the blessing of the dear Saints of God here this afternoon in this room.
And for thy glory, Lord Jesus, we pray in thy holy and precious name. Amen.
I'd like to read 3 verses in the New Testament to introduce what's on my heart this afternoon. First is in Revelation chapter 3.
Revelation chapter 3 and is is written to the assembly. It's artist.
And we find in verse two this expression be watchful.
And strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die or are about to die. Here I believe the mystery of the seven churches we could conclude this artist would bring before us the Protestant movement that we are all familiar with.
That movement that began with life and had a name that lived and degenerated.
Into a condition of.
Death now half the name that thou livest in our dead.
And what marks the Protestant movement is I have my opinion and you have yours.
And we all have a right to our own opinions of Latex thoughts. I don't have a right to an opinion at all. Now I'd like to read the second verse in First Corinthians chapter 16.
Watch ye stand past in the faith.
You like men? Be strong. Now here this verse is written to those in prosperity.
He had taken a dreadful toll on the Corinthian St. but Paul concludes this first epistle by.
Encouraging them to watch and be strong, as we had there in Sardis.
Be watchful and strengthened. Watch and be like men. Be strong.
Now I like to turn to Matthew 24 for the third verse.
What is on my heart this afternoon is the strengthening of our souls in this last hour of our time here on earth. That.
In our weak condition, that God, I believe, would encourage and strengthen that which remains and is about to die. And he would encourage us individually to be men and women of God, not babes tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.
But to be strong and so here in Matthew 24 I'd like to read from verse 15.
When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken by.
Daniel the prophet, the end of that verse whoso readeth, let him understand.
I want to go to Daniel the prophet, and he was a dear man of God. That the spirit of God bears a remarkable testimony too. And before we turn finally to the book of Daniel, I'd like to turn to the book of Ezekiel, and that would be chapter.
14 for this.
Testimony to Daniel, the character of this dear man of God, and how he had a time in his life.
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When he was in very, very, very weak condition and we will see what brought him into that condition of weakness.
Unlike most of us here, we have lived our lives in a condition of weakness, but for a different reason.
Then Daniel was brought into a condition of weakness. But the spirit of God bears this testimony to Daniel and two others. But I have Daniel before me this afternoon.
Ezekiel 14 and verse 14. Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, Job were in it. They should deliver but their own souls. In other words, Daniel would just deliver his own soul and he is talking the spirit of God and prophet. Ezekiel is talking about those end times when God is going to bring a judgment.
Upon Israel, he said, if Daniel were to live in those days, he was be of such a character that he would deliver his own soul. Then again in verse 20, So Noah, Daniel and Job were in it. As I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter, but they but shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness. Again this testimony to Daniel, You know in their lives they stream in Daniel, Noah, and.
And Job, They were used by the spirit of God to deliver their peers and others that were in relationship with them. Noah saved his family, Job saved his friends and his foolish wife. And Daniel, I believe it was chiefly his exercises that saved all of those wise men of the Chaldeans when the interpretations were not able to be made known.
And I believe it was chiefly his exercises that stirred up his three friends and brought them into his exercises. And in his life, you might say he saved others. But here's a condition that's coming on God's people, and it says, Daniel, If you were there, he would only be able to save himself. Well, I'd like to think of it this way, beloved thing. We are getting weaker, no doubt for a different reason than Daniel.
Will get weak as we will see him, and without strength. But if it's just between you and the Lord alone, will you be able to deliver? Will I be able to deliver my own soul? Well, now let's turn to Daniel, Chapter 7. And I I want to talk about the enemies that will come against Israel in the last times these visions came to Daniel in later life.
And I want to look at him and his response to to those visions. We might say in Daniel in chapter seven, we have the part of the earth that you and I have our roots cast in the Western world. And I don't want to take this up prophetically in its prophetic bearing. So much might call attention to that. But what I want to bring before our hearts this afternoon is to see the forces of evil that these kingdoms were raised up with one purpose really in mind. The God of this world had marshaled his forces.
Against the beloved Saints of God. And these passages have referenced prophetically to Israel, but they have referenced Beloved morally to you and me here in Lowry this afternoon. And that's the burden on my heart, Not so much to take them up prophetically, but to see the forces and how they come forward against the people of God. And to see Beloved right here in Lowry today, these same forces.
Are marshaled against us to discourage us to weaken us.
And to cause us to turn aside that we don't deliver our own souls in these last days, Well, in Chapter 7.
In chapter 8, I want to look at these two Who will be the main instrument in God's indignation against his people? That is, and God is going to judge his people, and the West will be used not so much to judge them, but to give them a false sense of security, and the king the little horn of the earth.
Will be used by God to judge them and but beloved.
What I want to call our attentions to is that the means by which these corrupters of God's people, these weakeners of God's people, the means they use and to identify them in our lives. I want to say something about Daniel that you all know with a young Jewish man and in his youth, not because of his own sins, but sins of his father's.
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He ended up a captive in Babylon.
And there, being a bright young man, and the king of Babylon, made him a eunuch.
And you think of this young man. Here was a young man in his youth who was forever denied all possibility of ever becoming a father. He had been made a eunuch by men. What a discouraging, despairing thing it would be. It had something happened to him in his youth, over which he had no control nor was not the fault of. And here he is the eunuch, never, never able to be and have the joy of being a father in Israel.
But what a joy this young man is to our hearts, because he took that very thing that was inflicted upon him. And again I say, though he says he had sinned.
It wasn't. You might say he wasn't to blame for what happened to him, but he says that's not going to stop me. I'm not going to be a eunuch in the King of Babylon. I'm going to be a eunuch for the Kingdom of God's sake. I'm going to turn the very, very thing that I wished I could erase all of my life that I wish had never happened to me in my life. I'm going to use that very thing for the furtherance and edification and encouragement and strengthening of God's people.
You know, I dare say probably everyone of us here sitting this afternoon and the speaker standing, have things in our life that if I could take an eraser, I'd go over and blot it out. And if I couldn't blot it out, I would blot it out of my memory. But I can't even do that. And perhaps things have happened to you that have been very deeply hurting, and the enemy would bring these things before your soul and say.
You're done for. You're all through anybody. Perhaps in our case, we may have been.
The cause for these inflictions And we might hear a voice saying, if you're done for. No, beloved Daniel says, I'm not a eunuch for the king of Babylon. I'm not going to eat his meats and his dainty. I'm going to be a eunuch for the Kingdom of God's sake and so loved ones. Yes, there are things in our life we wish weren't there, but let's not let them discourage us and turn us aside and cause us to faint by the way we can turn. I've been enjoying it personally lately.
I was going into eighth grade. My parents moved from Richmond, MI, which I thought was paradise, and our little 10 acres, into the inner city of Des Moines, IA. And I hated it with a perfect passion. And I wished and begged. Mother, don't let me go to school, Let me quit the school. I hated it. She didn't let me quit. And today, God is using that very school experience, that very neighborhood experience.
To enable me to reach out to these souls who are lost in that old neighborhood that I would have erased and not brought into my life. Well beloved, you have things in your life that if you submit to them and accept them as being allowed by God in your life, that if they don't need to hinder your progress in the things of God. Well, here in Daniel Seven we have a vision and it begins with these 4 Gentile kingdoms.
Which are history now, but we're prophetic, some of them, at least when Daniel had these visions. But what I want to look at is what is the prophetic side that's still not fulfilled yet. And you know, it speaks of Babylon. It speaks of the in the beginning of Chapter 7, and it interprets it to us so we aren't left to our imagination. It speaks of the Kingdom of the Persians and the Medes.
Persians as a bear getting bigger on one side, that is the Persian and the Medes. The Persians became prominent. We'll see them again in chapter 8 in the figure of two horns, one larger than the other. And then we have the Greeks and the Grecian empire coming in and destroying them. And then that. Here we find the West the Roman Empire brought in, and it's under the 4th beast.
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In the first three, the four are mentioned in verse.
In the early part of our chapter verse 3. But then when it comes down to the 4th, there is a separate vision for this 4th 1:00 because.
It affords us a very, very special interest the Spirit of God has in this 4th beast because he has yet to run his course, he began. The Romans were in the land when Christ was here, but they're going to be resurrected to God's judgment for what they did to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the 4th beast I want to look at darling verse seven. He was dreadful and he was strong.
Any devoured. And then I want to go down. And it says in his resurrection he was diverse and verse 7 from all beasts that were before it, and it had 10 horns, that is 10 powers, 10 nations. I considered the horns, and beholder came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots. And behold in this horn.
Were eyes like a man.
Eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things. Now I want to talk about this little horn. There are two little horns in Chapter 8. There is another one. We'll talk about him. But he became great. He began his history as a little horn, but he overthrew other three. Of the Kingdom that he became the most notable one. And I want to apply it this way, beloved, there may be little things in your life that you're allowing this afternoon.
They won't stay little. You may be a little bit careless in this, or a little bit careless. And some of us were talking last evening of those who once embraced the precious truth that we consider and hold to be precious this afternoon, and how today they're in utter darkness.
Utter darkness and you don't decide where you're going to stop when you take a step away from the Lord. And this little horn came out little but it didn't stay little and it was a plague to the people of God and it will be a plague again. The West will be a plague to the little remnant, the godly remnant of Israel that God is going to take up with after the rapture. But I want to mainly apply this to our condition and 1St I would like to notice the character of this man.
This beast, this horn, he had the eyes of a man. You know, that's a real snare to us, beloved, to go through life with the eyes of a man that is seeing things as man sees them, valuing things as men value them. It's a snare to us, you know, We get in with the world, our workmates or classmates, and they're pretty soon that they're saying, oh, this is really important. Maybe it's a football game.
It's really important and pretty soon you come away from it and you say, boy, that's really important. What is really important?
Of 22 grown up men who should be playing each other. What could be so very, very important about that? But it can get into our souls and it can become very important because we're looking at it with the eyes of the man. Well, this little horn from the West that grows big, that's what marked his whole being. His whole being is looking at everything as a man looks at it and looking at nothing.
As God looks at it, we live in a nation that does not have God in its mind. Characteristically, our dear president and I speak respectfully of him, thinks that he can say something about Israel as to who's going to get this piece of that precious land or who's not going to get listened. Beloved, that's God's land and God is going to give it, every inch of it to his people. And those who don't have God in their thoughts, who think that they can say what can be given to this people.
What can be given to that people are going to be brought to nought? Well, to begin with, we need to think as God. We need to see as God sees. And this man, this enemy of our souls, would get us to look through the eyes of a man and then a mouth speaking great things. Here's another snare to us today in this day, someone I met, my wife and I went to a restaurant last Lord's Day, I think it was. And it was a couple in front of us and he had.
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John I think it was John 14, six on his T-shirt.
I wasn't going to be his acquaintance. And then the spirit of God said, hey, you better make his acquaintance come down from your great haughty spirit. So I did, and it turned out to be very interesting. He came up to me and we spoke a little bit, and then later we separated. And then he came up to me and he asked me about the meeting and where I went and when it started, and I said, well, 1898, how many?
Well.
Boy, you've been around since 1898. You must have a lot of disciples, I said. Maybe 100 and now stretching it quite a bit.
Well, it's a day beloved of small things, but the enemy of our souls is in bombarding us with great things. This man is going to speak great promises big. Everything is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and that influence can come into your life. And you find yourself not content having food and raiment to be content there with. And you begin to get taken up in the spirit of this little horn that becomes great and you begin to think.
I need this, and I really need this and I really need this. And pretty soon your whole life is consumed by pursuing great things. But if a day of littleness, beloved the young friends, let me tell you, it's a wonderful thing to think and look through God's eyes, who values a day of small things. And you know there would be a lot smaller than it is if it weren't for God's faithfulness, if he weren't going to preserve two or three.
Then we certainly wouldn't preserve it ourselves.
But let's not be taken in by great words and great promises.
And then it says that this beast is going to be slain down in verse 11 and his body is going to be destroyed.
And then there was another vision. In verse 13. There were 3 visions altogether.
And in verse 13 we find the ancient of days, our Lord Jesus Christ being brought forward. And the end of verse 14 it says, and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. Beloved, isn't it wonderful to live a life for the Lord Jesus in a day of great weakness, with some thought in your soul, when you come to the end of your life, that you belong to a Kingdom that is not going to be destroyed, death is not going to take it away from you. Well, the ancient of days, our Lord Jesus Christ has this.
Now he Daniel is grieved in verse 15. I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body.
And the visions of my head troubled me. And then he wants the interpretation of the things in verse 16. Now we come not to the historical part, but the prophetic part of this vision. What is your future? And we read more, he says in verse 18.
And the things of the Most High should read places, shall take the Kingdom, and possess the Kingdom for ever.
Even forever and ever. Now the saying to the Most High Places are those dear Saints of God in the coming day who will be looking to God in heaven. They're going to say, I don't want the eyes of a man, I'm not going to listen to these great swelling words. I'm going to look off to heaven and they're called a thing to the most High places. Many of them, I suppose, especially those identified as the Saints of the most High Places.
Will be martyred and will be brought into a heavenly portion in that coming Kingdom.
But I want to apply it to us this afternoon, today, as we begin our days. As you begin your day, do you look to the most high places for your guidance? Give all your knee and ask the Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, help me to see through thy eyes. Help me to understand this place in which my lot is cast, that I not be deceived by swelling greatness, Great words that are not deceived by sight and not by faith. Well.
These Saints of the most high places, they're going to possess the Kingdom. And then Daniel had a special interest in this 4th beast because it's the final form. It's yet prophetic. It's yet future. Then I would know the truth of the forced beast. When you like to know the truth of what's going on around us here, the great men in our nation, the great men on this continent, the great men in this world are in a dilemma. They think that they want to know the truth. They can't figure out the very simplest things, but the very simplest things.
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Knows what's going on. And Daniel said, I want to know what's going to happen at the end of my dear beloved people. And you know it's remarkable. God doesn't call them his people. But at least twice I believe he tells Daniel he says thy people, that is as far as the book of Daniel goes. It takes up with the times of gentiles and the Lord is outwardly set aside his people. But Daniel said didn't let that hinder him, he said.
They're your people, and God says Daniel, they're your people.
And Daniel prays for his people. Do you look at?
All that declaration of Ruth, thy people shall be my people and thy God shall be my God. You look at the Saints of God, beloved as your people. If God looks at your life, would he say, Well, you know those dear things of God. They're Henry's people. He has them on his heart. They're his concerns. There is purpose in life.
Gonna be a wonderful thing. I think at least twice. They're called Daniel's people, Thy people, God says thy people. Who are your people this afternoon? Who are your heroes? You know, Are those old brothers that have encouraged us in the path of faith? Or is it those in the world and that this Gray horn, this little horn that turns into a great enemy of God's people who have set forth before your eyes, These are the heroes that you should follow. These are the men who are really important in your life.
Lovers, who is important in your life? Who is thy people? It says to Daniel. God says to Daniel. And then it says down in verse about this great horn he spake very great things whose look than his fellows. And that could be where it was looked was imposing. And that's another thing that hinders us in the path of faith. The world comes on and imposes its ways upon us, you know, at home my wife lets me answer the phone.
Sometimes I think I should tell it. Honey, if you answer the phone, we have a lot more money. This lady comes, and it wasn't a lady. It was a man. He called me, you know, and got me feeling like I couldn't hang up. I couldn't say. Look, Sir, you know you got it. You're supposed to be polite and kind and all that thing anyway, end up $0.85 apiece for garbage bag. You see what I'm saying?
Imposed himself on me and I wasn't able to say I don't need $0.85 garbage bags, but you know you help somebody and you don't know who you help.
I'll be somebody a lot richer than myself. That's the world, beloved. It's imposing on us. Some of you, man. You're out there at the workforce. Yeah. You got to do this. You got to do that. You got to do this. You can't go to meeting. Who says that? Who is telling you that? Is that the Lord telling you? You can't go to me. You'll have time that the Lord tells you you don't have.
Time to give to the Lord Jesus.
I enjoyed one time when I was a younger man, Mr. Barry Keen to Des Moines and he had meetings on the Tabernacle. I don't remember what he was talking about. I remember this message, he said. You know, people say, oh, I'm so tired, I can't come home from work. I'm so tired, I can't go to me, he said. You ever hear anybody say I've had a good time? A meeting last night, so tired this morning I couldn't go to work. No, no, we don't look at it that way.
But beloved, it's this world is an imposing foot, an imposing person. It takes away from you. It destroys our lives for Christ. And that's the character of the West in its enmity against God's people.
And then he made war with the Saints and prevailed against them. It's quite evident Beloved isn't in our lives. Oftentimes the enemy prevails against us in his warfare with us. Now I'd like to go down and call our attention.
Down to verse 25 and he shall speak great words. Notice how often these great words are brought before us.
Against the Most High, and shall wear out the sins of the Most High. Here it doesn't contain with the Saints of the Most High God, or the most High places rather, but now it's against the Lord Himself. And here is another character of the end day. And he shall think to change time and laws, and they those times and laws shall be given.
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To his hand he's going to be successful. Well, this will be true of Israel. That little remnant they will see it in in reason.
It's the against the Lord is because the Lord will be taking up His Jewish people again after the rapture of the Church. But in our application I would like to.
See that? We identify this is happening today, He's going to change the laws.
The word of God doesn't mean today what it does mean. You know, you get this book is forever settled in heaven, but you know our children in school, moms and dads. I know you're concerned about school and I don't think it's so much about evolution though that would change the word of God, but the the lack and decay of morals and teaching our children very subtly that what your dad and what your mother.
Thought yesterday is not acceptable today. You've got to allow a broader mind. You've got to accept all of these wicked, sinful lifestyles and patterns as being OK. We don't care whether the Bible condemns it or not, beloved. We do care if God's Word condemns something. You and I would be well do well to condemn it, but at the close.
Here in the West, the great enemy of God's people will seek to change.
The laws and the sacrifices and.
That change the laws and they shall be given into his hands. And then it says in verse 28.
Hitherto is the end of the matter. And As for me, Daniel, my connotations or thoughts much troubled me, and my confidence changed in me. But I kept the matter in my heart. He he had such an interest in the people of God. When he heard these things that related to the people of God, it was what weakened Daniel. It's what troubled him. It wasn't that he didn't get that job that he was hoping to get.
It wasn't that he didn't get the appointment that he was hoping to get for that account that he was hoping to get. It was what related to the people of God. That's what troubled Daniel. Is it? So in our lives, the great sorrows in your life, does it relate to the people of God? You know, the great sorrows, the great burdens in our life? I should be late to the great interest in our life. And they do. What you think about in the days, what you're troubled about in the days, You know, I can think of that. I can wake up in the night and think, oh, how will I ever get this dumb thing fixed?
What if? Who cares how I'm going to get it fixed? In order to help me get it fixed, I don't need to spend all night wondering how I'm going to resolve this faucet or whatever it is that's a problem for me is the things of God and their condition and God's thoughts about them, the great burden of our life. It was with Daniel. Now we come to the East and we see another little horn rising. And again we have a history related in the beginning of the chapter.
And you know, it's fulfilled perfectly. But again, I want to look at the last form of this eastern power or power from the east. Actually, I believe he will be empowered from the north, but it says about this.
I suppose it was the Grecian Empire when it was broken in verse 8 and therefore the ego waxed very great, and when he was strong the Great Horn was broken, and for it that is in place of the great Horn.
4 notable ones. Toward the four winds of heaven they came up and in verse 9 is this second little horn. This one is from the Eastern world. It's not the same one we read of in Chapter 7, A little Horn which waxed exceeding grave. Again, I caution our lives let's not be careless with little things in our life. It's good spirit to stay at home. I kind of like her. I said I like it because you're getting about trouble about as quick as I do and.
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But she said, yeah. And we were talking about the ways of God with this. And I say, yeah, see if I stubbed my toe, my first thought is, Lord, why has this happened? You know, if if you cultivate that in your life, you, you bang your thumb. I got a bang on my thumb. I don't know where I got it. So I must not have been too concerned at that time. But if you take up the little things in your life.
Difficulty finding a parking place.
The fat tire or whatever it is, if you take those things up and are exercised about, and the little horn will never get big and he'll never plague you. But this little horn did become great, and it became a great plague and will become a great plague for the people of God. And now we read about this little horn, and it says in verse 9 and out of chapter 8 and verse 9, and out of one of them came forth a little horn which whacked exceeding great towards the South, toward the east.
And toward the pleasant land without This is an expression identifying Israel. And again, the God of this world has an enmity against God's people. If he can't reach Christ raised from the dead, if he can't trouble things in the heavens, he's going to bend his energy against the Saints still on earth. And so this one comes forth, and he comes toward what is called here, the pleasant land.
Is the assembly.
For you.
Is it? You know, by God's grace, I can say to the assembly is not part of my life. It's not part of my life. It is my life by the grace of God. And everything else in my life has been ordered in relationship to it. It's been a pleasant land for me. The Lord is kind, you know. I think of all the people that he got out of the ditches.
That he bestowed upon me, and taking me to an end, and telling the dear Saints they're at home, take care of this boy, and they did take care of me.
And they've spent more on me, and it's been a pleasant place to be. But the enemy has marshaled his forces against the pleasant land, and it says, and it waxed great even to the host of heaven. Now here is another expression that may include the unbelieving Jews who at this time will be back in professed relationship with the Lord. But they're in unbelief. But still, God has taken his people up at this time.
And Israel will be his people, and they will suffer the government of God.
For their professed profession and relationship with God.
I want to make that simple, beloved, you know, it's our own thing for us to profess to be gathered through the Lord's precious name.
And have the Lord in the midst. That's a privilege. It is, but it carries the great responsibility.
And woe to us if we take it up carelessly and touch the Assembly of God, I sometimes thought. It's one thing for me.
To corrupt my family, that would be sad enough. But if I corrupt the Assembly of God, God is going to take me up. It's a it's a wonderful privilege, but with privilege comes responsibility. And so these people who take a relationship with Jehovah and who are in it, the enemy comes against them, against this host of heaven, and to cast down some of the hosts as the stars to the ground.
And stamped upon them there is light from heaven.
Brought down and exterminated. How many lights I'm flying it now to us. How many do we know in our lives? You know, the older they get, the more you know of those who were bright lights in their early days and they're gone. They got cast down. They got overcome by this Big Horn and discouraged, and they're no longer, like for God, cast down and trampled.
And then it says there is a parentheses. I believe in Mr. Darby's because up to now it's been really historical. But he says yeah, he magnified in verse 11. He magnified himself even to the Prince of hosts that is the Lord Jesus and by him. But it should read as the margin reads and from him that is from the Lord Jesus the daily sacrifice was taken away and the place of his sanctuary.
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Was cast down. Now it's looking at it as the Lord in relationship with his people.
Even though they're back in unbelief, these things are going to happen. But it's looked at as being against the Lord. And we need, you know, sometimes we say that was a terrible thing that person did to that person, but it isn't so often that we say that was a terrible thing that person did against the Lord. And here it's traced as a war, as an opposition to the Lord. And here's what it says he does.
He takes away the daily sacrifice. The daily sacrifice was taken away from the Lord that is these people. Instead of sacrificing to the Lord, this horn came in and he stopped those sacrifices. I don't know if it'll be by Muslims or what, but it's going to be stopped. God's going to judge this act of this great horn now in our application to our lives.
The enemy of our souls is seeking to stop the daily sacrifice in our lives.
We're too busy. As I said earlier, you know, I get frustrated sometimes if I take time and sit down and meditate on the word of God, pretty soon I begin to get a a bad conscience. And I hear some charging You don't do anything here. You are sitting around. All you're doing here is reading God's word. You don't do anything in your life. I get a bad conscience.
This and beloved, we don't have time to be alone in the presence of the Lord Jesus. The world in this last day is taking away the daily sacrifice, that time that you spend alone with the Lord Jesus. It's so precious. And when we allow these things to come into our lives and take this time away from us, you know the important things like I got to get the yard mowed as if it's going to die. If you don't get it mowed today, it'll be there tomorrow.
We need to spend time alone day by day with the Lord. But here is one of the efforts of the enemy to take out of your life and mine the daily sacrifice. And then there was the collective side to he took away the daily sacrifice and it says the place of his sanctuary was cast on. I'd just like to make that application to the assembly that it gets quite neglected sometimes in our busy lives.
There are important things that relate to the assembly, that give way to unimportant things that relate to our lives, and that was what was so precious about dear Timothy. Paul says he will naturally care for your state. He didn't seek his own things, but he thought sought the things of Jesus Christ. Well, I want to go down a little more about this man from the east.
And verse 23 we get it traced to the end. And in the latter time of their Kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fears, countenance and understanding dark sentences shall stand up. Here's a man in this element. He he seems to be very heady, very understanding, seemed to have a lot of wisdom. He has these dark sentences and understanding of dark sentences.
And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. That is, I'd rather than feel that this king as a military power, will be supported probably by the GOG of Ezekiel, Russia. You know that the kind of amuses me that we can be drawn into this, that, oh, rush is done for the poor little old wimpy thing. Now she's all destroyed and poverty stricken. It's going to be the last fight, he foes.
Of God's people. She's going to empower the last elements that come against God's people. No, she's not dead, beloved.
God says so. God says so and so. This power isn't by his own. And it's good for you to realize that when these things come into your life, they hinder you from your daily sacrifice to the Lord.
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That there is a power. It isn't the the broken car. It isn't the leaky roof. It's there's a force behind all of these things.
This war going on to fulfill your life, that you don't have time to be alone with the Lord. Well, he comes, and I want to call attention to another thing he does.
And through his policy in verse, Umm.
25 Through his policy also he shall cause Craft to prosper in his hand.
And he shall magnify himself of his heart, and by peace it should read.
Prosperity shall he destroy or corrupt many. He shall also stand up against the Prince of Princess that is the Lord Jesus.
And then when he does that, he shall be broken with thou hand. But I want to talk a little bit about corrupting by prosperity. Again, we can be so deceived. What is true? Riches? You know, if we look through this world, at this world, through the eyes of a man, and with a man's understanding, we're going to be deluded and we're going to value things that are of no value. We're going to fill our lives with the prosperity that's going to leave us bankrupt. And that's exactly the last condition we read of in the seven churches.
Thou art rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.
The very God who says that says that thou art poor, naked, wretched, flying, miserable. Oh, I wonder below it. If we got our eyes open this afternoon to see what our bank account really is, would we find that we're nearly bankrupt?
We may have a sense of security and all of that down here, but are we bankrupt to God? Well, this man, this force against God's people, he will corrupt many through prosperity. Well, Chapter 9, Daniel takes up the the book of Jeremiah and it says in verse two he comes back down to the condition of the the people of God under the power of the West.
And he says in the first two now we're going to come to the time of his being brought low and being discouraged and needing to be strengthened. But he says, I understood by books the number of the years. You know, I remember I'm talking about Daniel this afternoon because that's where I'm eating in my private reading. I remember as I read, I said, oh Lord.
I don't understand this book.
I don't know anything about it. I remember during the Gulf War I read about.
That ram that came didn't touch the ground. I said, Boy, that sounds like the United States to me, didn't even touch the ground and won this war. But I knew that wasn't what it meant. But I I don't understand these things. But beloved, we have a lot of helps. God raised up men.
Who were strengthened? They didn't succumb to the deadness of Sardis. And they came out of it men and women of God, and they were strengthened. And God gave them understanding and they wrote these things down in ministry. And we have books. And Daniel had books and he had a book of Jeremiah and he meditated on and God gave him understanding as to the 70 weeks that we're going to be fulfilled. But I don't want to talk about that, but I want to call attention about.
What effect this had in Daniel? Now it's one of the longer prayers in God's Word recorded in God's Word. I think Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple may be the longest, but this is a long prayer. In verse three I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession.
As you read this, you see fully identified with the saying to God. I remember those early years in the Gathering and it was like this in my mind.
I used the expression, I'm sure many times, the brethren. What are the brethren going to do? Have you ever heard that expression? What the brethren decide? Well, and thank God, beloved, today that expression is made in my mind. It isn't the brethren because I'm one of them. I'm one of the brethren. They're my people and.
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In their decisions are my decisions and not their decisions. Their condition is my condition. It's not their condition. I'm not separated from them. And Daniel makes these confessions, some of them. You wonder how Daniel could have said it for us. It's easy for us to say it because of most of us it would be true about our sins and our failures. But that's what he did when he found about these conditions of God's government on his people, it set him like it did Habakkuk Habakkuk.
He When he learned what God was going to do in his ways of government with his people, he prayed. He intercede for them. Moses did the same, And men and women of God we find in the word of God, they had no delight in the judgment of God's people. It shouldn't be in our thoughts, beloved. It should take us to our knees. And then he says in verse 13 that we might turn the end of the verse.
From our iniquities and understand thy truth. Verse 17 Oh our God, hear the prayer of thy servant and its supplication, and cause thy face to shine upon the sanctuary that is desolate for the Lord's sake. Is that our desire? Beloved, you say it's all over. It's so discouraging. No. Let's pray that the Lord will cause his face to shine on. The Saints of God strengthen that which remains is about the perish.
That's what was in Daniel's heart. He's looking beyond this time that has to come in the people of Israel's lives.
Is looking beyond to the time when they will have and possess their inheritance in peace. And so he prays that he makes supplication. And now in chapter 10 I want to spend here where we find this man of God so weak and so without strength, and see what it was that encouraged him with all of these discouraging things being marshaled against God's people.
It says in chapter 10, in the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a thing was revealed unto Daniel. His name was called Belshazzar. Now I've enjoyed this about Daniel. I know Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, but I don't remember their Hebrew name. But I know Daniel and I scarcely remember his Babylonian. That's what I mean, he said. You're not going to call me Bell Savage. I'm Daniel and the spirit of God that we'll call you Daniel.
He was not a eunuch for the king of Babylon. He was a eunuch. Dal Chazy was to name the king of Babylon gave him. Daniel was his Hebrew name. And he said, just call me Daniel. They ever asked you that? So I did. Where you go? Where are you anyway? Well, I just belong to Christ. I just belong to Christ. And so Daniel Hussein is Daniel. They call them Belshazzi didn't accept that name.
He understood the thing and had understanding of the vision. And then verse two. In those days I, Daniel was mourning 3 full weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till the whole weeks were feeling fulfilled. It was a man who entered into God's suffering thoughts concerning his people, and it put him in this condition. I want to go down. Verse 7.
And I, Daniel alone, saw the vision. Here is a man who knew how to prosper before God alone.
Therefore verse eight, I was left alone, and now come to these expressions, and there remained no strength in me. The end of verse 8 And I retained no strength. But look at verse 11. And he said unto me, This Angel, this messenger from God, Oh Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understanding the words that I speak unto thee, and stand up upright.
He been prostrated in the presence of God.
And God strengthens him with his word. And then we find that Daniels is very, very weak down in verse 15.
When he had spoken such words unto me, I set my face toward the ground, and I became.
Dumb and behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips and.
I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before me home.
Let Little Children Come to Me