Address—Bob Thonney
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Next meeting is breaking of bread and I was thinking talking something of that related to that, not not directly about that.
You see, I put a chart up there and the offerings really, that's not my main.
Desire to talk to you about this morning. I'd like to start with a verse in Psalm 34, please, Psalm 34 and verse 3.
O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name.
Together.
Just that first part magnify the Lord.
What happens when you magnify something?
I used to work at Bible Truth Publishers and I never got involved too much in the printing part of it. But I noticed that people who are running presses often having a magnifying glass and as they're printing, they pull out a sheet and they will put the magnifying glass over it and they can see the defects.
Anything that we do as men.
If you magnify, you're going to immediately see the defects.
But I want to tell you this morning, if we magnify the Lord Jesus, all you're going to see is perfection, complete perfection.
And the more I get to know of the Lord Jesus, His glorious person, the more all I see is perfection. Sometimes people point out what are supposed fallacies in His person, but generally if you run up against something like that, if you'll look at it a little more detailed, you'll only find that it is.
Perfection and you just didn't see it completely when you looked at it and suppose that there was some fallacy there.
The more you magnify Jesus, the more you are going to see.
Complete, absolute perfection. And that's my desire this morning that, you know, I was thinking.
When Wally talked to me about having this meeting this morning of.
What the Lord asked us to do.
Before he went to the cross, let's look at Luke chapter 22.
Read those verses.
And verse 19.
And he took bread, and gave thanks, and break it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me.
Likewise also the cup after supper saying this is my is this cup is the New Testament in my blood.
Which is shed for you? What I want to draw your attention to is the end of verse 19.
This.
Do in remembrance.
Of Maine. Now I want you to compare that with what we have in First Corinthians Chapter 11.
And we have the same institution that Paul received from the Lord in glory. Verse 23 I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he break it and said.
Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you.
This.
Do in remembrance of Maine.
And when he had given thank excuse me, verse 25.
After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me.
For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show.
The Lord's death till he come.
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And what I wanted to draw your attention to.
Was specifically.
That little phrase this do in remembrance of me, you know, we refer to it that we're going to remember the Lord in his death. And I must say because I've been brought up in Christian home in assembly meetings as well, that often times as that was mentioned.
The focus seemed to be more in my mind.
On his death, which is a very central focus.
But you'll notice in Luke there and twice here in First Corinthians 11, he doesn't say this do in remembrance of me and my death. He said this do in remembrance of me.
Because he is a real living person.
And what I really have come to enjoy, even though I recognize wholeheartedly that we are doing it, and that bread and that wine we give thanks for, We break the bread and partake of it. We partake of the cup. It speaks of his death. In fact, it says here in verse.
26 You do show the Lord's death till he come. We show the Lord's death. That's why we say when there's a breaking of bread in a certain place, there is a testimony there, because we're showing something by doing that, and showing something is a testimony.
We don't say that there's a testimony in a certain place if they don't break bread exactly. There is a testimony in a certain way, but the testimony that God has ordained is in the breaking of bread. But what my point is this morning is.
What we need to focus on, dear young brother and sister, is more the glories of his person and I find in my own soul when I think of how great that person is that came to hang on that cross, it just fills my heart.
Worship is a word that I understand comes from worship. It's His worth that you're concentrating on. We worship the Lord for who He is. We praise Him for what He has done. So worship is the appreciation and the overflow of the heart.
When we are occupied with the glories of his person and I want to go over some of those.
Glories this morning, and I'm going to ask you to be thinking perhaps.
His glories are reflected in some of his titles, some of his names, and I'm going to give a few, but I want you to be thinking of some others, and maybe this will keep you a little more alert. If you can, a little bit later on in this meeting, I'm going to throw it open to you.
Suggesting some of his titles that show something of the worth of his person, of the glory of that person that we're talking about.
You notice that Wally had quite a bit of Colossians.
On his heart, when he had these posters printed up and Colossians, that was an awful lot about the glory of his person. Maybe we could just start there. But.
Here it says He's the image of the invisible God. Just think, dear young people, our God is so great that there is no way that you and I can measure him. Everything in this present creation we live in, we can put a measuring stick to.
In some way or another, I'm amazed at how they can figure distances as they look out into the universe.
Hundreds of millions, even billions of light years.
Light year I understand is somewhere I'm not mistaken, about 4 trillion miles. Is that right?
Somebody checked me there. I think I figured it out one time. Is that right?
Anybody remember? Anyhow, they're talking about billions.
Of light years that they can see out into the universe. I don't understand how they can even calculate that. I guess it's.
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Something to do with science that I don't understand about Dean, You're a little bit better knowledgeable about that. Is 4 trillion miles a light year?
It's so immense that it's really beyond our ability to grasp the greatness of the universe, and we're talking about a person who made it all with the word of his power.
Necessarily, young people, the person we're talking about this morning, the Lord Jesus Christ, is greater than the universe, necessarily greater in his power, in his wisdom, in his understanding.
There is no way you can put a measuring stick to our God.
He is infinite. He is eternal. Eternal means that not only does he not have any ending to his existence, but he never had any beginning. And that's almost beyond our ability to take in. But that's what.
Eternal means God never had a beginning. He will never have an ending.
But God wanted to reveal himself to his creatures. He wanted us to know him. So God became a man in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
Have we seen God?
I think when we say when we see Jesus, we can say we have seen God because he is the image of the invisible God. To me. It is incredible. You want to get to know what kind of a God we're talking about in the Bible.
Get to know Jesus.
As he walked here as a man. Because in Jesus is our God in the fullest sense of the word. There is our God, you know.
One of his disciples said, Show us the Father.
And that will be sufficient is really what it means. It suffices us, he said. That will be sufficient. Yeah, that's true. That would be sufficient.
Jesus said to him by been so long time with you, Philip, and you have not known me.
He that has seen me has seen the Father. So you want to get to know God, you look at Jesus and I love to just go through the gospels and think about this in my thoughts. Let's go with the Lord Jesus. That time he was invited to the Pharisees house. You know this Pharisee kind of looked down on Jesus.
He didn't really have a whole lot of appreciation for him, but he.
Invited him to a meal anyhow. He's going to be open minded I suppose, he thought.
So he invited him to a meal, and there the Lord Jesus was, sitting at the table.
Reclining. It was the way they didn't sit it with chairs at a table and reclined kind of on the couch by the table.
And into the room comes a poor Sinner woman.
She was despised. I'm amazed that she had the courage to even come into that Pharisees house because that Pharisee really looked down at that woman. She's a sooner in a city. And that woman came up behind and started crying and those tears as they trickled down her face fell on his feet.
And she washed his feet with her tears.
And she took what is the woman's glory, her hair, and she wiped his feet with her hair, and then she anointed him.
I'm amazed the Pharisee looked at Jesus and said this man if he was a prophet.
He would have known what kind of woman this is. She's a Sinner. So the concept of this Pharisee of Jesus went down.
And you know.
Sometimes we are so conscious of way people think of us.
That we gear all our activities, all our actions. By what?
How they think of us. Jesus wasn't that worried about what people thought about him.
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And so the concept of this Pharisee went down as to who Jesus was.
But the Lord Jesus knew his thoughts, and at the same time He knew this poor woman's thoughts. How is He going to handle this complex situation? I've tried to put myself into that picture and I'm afraid I would have really messed it up.
But here's complete perfection under scrutiny.
Put the magnifying glass on it and all you're going to see is perfection. And so the Lord tells a parable.
And immediately puts the Pharisee where he belonged. He had him sized up. He knew exactly where he was in his soul.
And before God, that woman, that poor Sinner woman who never said one word at that supper, all she did was weep.
And clean his feet with her tears, and wipe them with the hairs of her head, and anoint him.
She got the biggest blessing.
That's the savior.
Oh, I tell you, there's perfection. You take another case I like to think of as when they brought that woman taking an adultery and John ate to the Lord Jesus.
Necessarily, there had to be man involved.
But they were so hypocritical that they didn't bring them in. Maybe it was one of them that was standing there, who knows?
But it was a hard situation. And they said to Jesus, Moses and the law told us that we should stone this kind of a woman. What do you say? And that's true. That's what Moses had said.
That the Lord Jesus doesn't answer. You know, it's not always necessary to give an answer to curious questions that people give to us. Sometimes I have to stop myself. I like to give answers immediately.
But it's not always necessary to give answers. Finally, the Lord Jesus, when they insist on asking him, stands up and says.
The one that's without sin here among you. Cast the first stone at her.
And they were all convicted of their own conscience, and they went out one by one, until it was just the poor trembling woman and the Lord Jesus standing there. There was one man that would didn't have any sin. He had the right to pick up a stone and throw it at her, but he hadn't come to condemn.
He had come to save and he said, where's your accusers, woman?
No man condemned you, and she said no.
He said neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. He didn't make light of that sin she had committed. It was a very serious sin.
But he told her that he had not come to condemn, he had come to save, and that.
To say neither do I condemn thee was going to cost him.
When he went to the cross to pay for our sins, he paid for that sin then.
Oh, that's the kind of God we have. And so when we talk about the Lord Jesus being the image of the invisible God, you look at the Lord Jesus and you'll find out what kind of a God we have, a God that does not want to condemn, not one person.
Does that mean that he accommodates your sin for you? He allows it. He's gracious. No, that doesn't mean that at all. He is holy.
When Isaiah saw the Lord Jesus in Isaiah chapter 6, there were seraphims flying around the room. Seraphims have 6 wings. With two they were occupied with covering their faces. With two they covered their feet.
And with two they were flying and they were crying as they flew around the room.
Holy, holy, holy.
I think we need to understand that our God is holy. Young people, sometimes we goof around and play with God as if we could get away with just anything and tell you you can not with God every single sin that has been committed upon the face of planet earth.
Must judgment from the hand of a holy God?
There is no options to that. It's going to happen.
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It's going to happen. Our God is a holy God.
And so you never seen the Lord Jesus make light of sin. Too bad sometimes we get so used to sin we make jokes of it.
Don't make jokes when we speak of the word.
Or of the Lord Jesus. Sometimes I hear lightness when we're talking about the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't do it, young people. That's what is called profanity. Maybe you don't think of profanity that like that, For profanity is treating sacred things as if they were common.
The Lord Jesus is holy. When he was born, the Angel that came to announce his birth to Mary said, That holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
When we're born, none of us are born holy. We're born sinners.
We may not have sinned right away, but we still have that sin nature and as that nature.
Starts to develop.
Sins are what are produced because we are born sinners.
Somebody has said there's three kinds of humanity in the Bible. Adam was innocent humanity, then there's sinful humanity. And that's what you and I find ourselves right there.
And then there's holy humanity. The Lord Jesus could not sin.
Because he was God, but because he was wholly human flesh, that's why he could not sin.
To talk a little bit more about the glories of the person, let's go over to the book of Hebrews.
And the first chapter.
Here we have.
Something about the image of the invisible God as well.
But here we have a lot of other.
Terms that show something of the greatness of this person we're talking about.
Says in verse three, Who being the brightness of his glory, Excuse me, I'm going to have to go back. I missed two and verse two, God hath in these last times spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed error of all things, by whom also he made the world.
'S who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of His person.
And upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. I just love the array of glory we have in these two verses. The first one is he's appointed heir of all things. You know, I don't know. Is anybody here seen Prince Charles?
Anybody in this room seen Prince Charles in person?
You have where.
OK, interesting. Did you find it interesting to see him in person? I think we would all like to catch a glimpse of him.
To see him and yet he is only heir to the British throne.
We're talking about one who is appointed heir of all things, not only this world, but the whole universe and its entirety. He is appointed heir of all things.
He is the one who made the world. It's kind of interesting that it talks about being heir of all things before it talks about the creation, isn't it? I find that kind of interesting. Why is it that way? Does God put things in reverse order? No, and I think the the reason why it's put in that order is because before the world was ever made in God's eternal councils, God had already determined that his Son.
Going to be the heir of everything that was going to be made. So the time came. I used the word time because it was an eternity fast and there's no time there. But the moment came when God.
World to existence, he speak and it was done Imagine the tremendous power they talk about the power in the universe, the tremendous physical powers at play and to think that our God is the author of it all He spoke and it was done he.
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Put it all out there and wherever you look in the universe you look, you find complete order, because our God is a God of order.
You can look at the minuteness of the atom, you're going to see order. In fact, it's quite destructive when they try to split the atom and and knock it out of its real order. But the Lord Jesus is the one who created it all.
Says in John chapter one that without him, nothing was created that was created. In other words, he is not a creature, he is the creator. He made everything.
And that's why I enjoy so much coming up to the mountains to see more of what God made because.
Everything God makes, it displays the glory of His person.
I tell you it is just.
Never ceases to be amazing to me to look into creation and to see His glory. It's part of the display of the glory of God. But then we come to verse three, who being the brightness of his glory, God is glorious. And somebody has said that glory is.
Of Excellency.
Its Excellency manifested.
The Lord Jesus is the brightness of his glory, of all God's glory. You want to get to know God in His glory, look at Jesus.
You step outside there. I'm not going to suggest you do it.
Try to take a look at the sun for a few minutes.
Don't do it.
And you children.
You won't be able to look at it hardly at all. You might take a glance at it, but if you look at it, it's too bright for our human eyes to look at. We're not talking about the glory of the sun now. We're talking about the glory of the person who made the sun. And not only the sun, which is a smaller star in the universe, because there are far greater stars, but he made the whole universe.
He is the brightness, the full out shining of the glory of God is seen in the Lord Jesus.
Is the brightness of His glory. And then we come to that word image again, the express image of his person. In other words, knowing Jesus. And that's why it's so important to get to know Jesus more. To young people, I guarantee you, if you get to know him more, your heart is going to be filled with worship and praise.
I want to encourage you young people to sing to the Lord. Sometimes I see young people.
In meetings and they're not singing, you'll have a very good voice. I want to encourage you to sing anyhow.
Is the person of the Lord Jesus. Let it fill your soul, the glory of his person, and you're going to find that you're going to want to praise Him. That's going to be the overflow.
If you take a glass of water, fill it up and it's getting full and it's getting fuller and it's getting right to the top and you keep on pouring, what happens? It overflows. That's what worship is, getting your soul, soul full of Jesus that you can't hold it in any longer.
Got to express the appreciation of his glory.
And that's what my desire is for you remember he said this do in remembrance of me. I sometimes think when we sit around Lords Day morning to remember the Lord.
That there's an awful lot of silence, even though there's a lot of nice young brothers sitting around and they.
Don't open their mouths.
To praise the Lord.
I tell you, I say, do we know our God yet? I think it's partly because of the world we live in. This society we live in is so man centered. They turn every thought in on yourself. How are you feeling? What would you like?
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You know you owe it to yourself and it's so man centered that when we come and sit down, we kind of bored in meeting.
Maybe some are bored here today.
I confess I can be quite boring. Ask my kids.
But I say, if you really get your heart full of Jesus, you will never be born.
It won't happen.
It is so glorious.
Forever and ever and ever, my heart is going to be filled and overflowing with Jesus. That's what Christianity is. It's not what I am. That doesn't count any longer. That doesn't make any difference about me so much any longer. That's what Jesus is. That's Christianity. And we got to get our focuses turned around to Him if you're going to know what Christ.
He really is.
Notice upholding the next phrase is upholding all things by the word of His power.
Just think, not only did he make everything, but he upholds it by the word of his power.
When he was just born in Bethlehem there.
And his mother, Mary, wrapped him in swaddling clothes.
And put him in that Manger where the cows eat.
There he was, seemingly a helpless babe, but at the same time he was laying in that Manger, he was upholding the whole universe with the word of his power. Can you understand that?
You know what that makes me do in my heart? It makes me. It just fills my heart so much. It just makes me fall down and worship Him.
What a glorious person we're talking about. The next phrase is when He had by Himself, purged our sins. Think of it when He was hanging on that cross, going through intense agony for the sins that I've committed. At the same time, He was upholding the whole universe with the word of His power.
He held it together. He gave those soldiers the breath they breathed.
As they took those nails and pounded them through his hands and feet.
Oh, what a God we have revealed in the Lord Jesus.
But notice this phrase again, when he had by himself purged our sins.
Sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. When He was there on the cross, it was by himself. Even God forsook him there. It was a work He did all by himself. But what I want to draw your attention to that in these verses. His work is comprehended in that last two phrases of the verse 3.
But in the other phrases, really deal with the glory of His person. And that's what I want to occupy you with this morning. Your young people. Our time is going way too fast here.
I'm going to ask if anybody has come up with some title of the Lord Jesus that shows something of his glory. Just give it out.
Majesty.
OK.
What does majesty mean?
Kind of a word, I guess we don't think about that much, do we? We use that word.
With the Queen of England or the Prince Charles that we're talking about, or other royal peoples, it really is something that deals with with royalty, but it shows his royalty.
I want to turn to a verse, perhaps that will reflect it in Second Timothy chapter six or First Timothy chapter 6, talking about the Lord Jesus as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That certainly is majesty.
Notice at the end of verse 14, First Timothy 6, our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his times He shall show, who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of Lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach, unto whom no man hath seen, nor can see, to whom be honor and power.
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Amen.
Oh, what a glorious person.
What does it mean here?
Whom no man hath seen, nor can see.
Nobody ever see Jesus.
It's talking young people.
About the fact that there is that glory of His person of our Lord Jesus Christ that we will never be able to understand. He is what is. Sometimes the word that is used is inscrutable. In other words, there is no way that we can understand the full glories of His person. And that's why we sang in that hymn.
Higher mysteries of thy fame. The creatures grasp, transcend. He is inscrutable. That's what it means. Sure, we've seen Jesus. He was seen as a man down here in this world.
But when it says whom that no man hath seen nor can see, it means that part of his person that is totally inscrutable.
Now what I want to get to, dear young people.
Is this fact that when the Lord Jesus said Remember Me?
That it includes when we remember him.
Not only do we think of his death, which is very proper and right, but we remember all the glories of his person.
What a tremendously glorious person it was that came into the world, that went to the cross, that allowed his hands to be stretched out and nailed to that cross that was the sin bearer.
He took my sins.
God laid on him the iniquity of us all.
That, that boggles my mind. If it were some other person about my own stature, why I could understand that more or less. But it was no ordinary person that did it. It was God's holy, eternal Son that came here that went to that cross.
Do you know him?
Dear young person, do you know him?
An older brother said not too long ago.
Is one that travels around visiting the brethren from place to place.
He says. I wonder how much we really know.
Our God.
And I have to say myself, how much do I really know him?
Have you stopped to think about how glorious he is?
Now I want to encourage you young brothers.
To open your mouths to praise the Lord.
Even though you might not think you're very able to do so, but to read some verses that deal with this praise and the breaking of bread meeting or to get up and just simply express your gratitude to God for such a glorious Savior.
Or to perhaps give out a hymn too.
Your capacity to do that if you are born into God's family.
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you have been capacitated to do that.
And you're going to find that.
Very, very happy activity to be engaged in.
I did put these on the board here and our time is going fast the different offerings of Leviticus and I just want to go over it briefly.
Because as you see that I haven't taken too much time on it the 1St.
4 chapters of Leviticus deal with the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering and the sin offering and I just want to.
Briefly go over what they mean because our time doesn't allow us to go into it in detail.
The burnt offering was an animal that was taken and completely burnt for God.
It all went up as a sweet savor to God. So that offer completely forgot I would like to say that.
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Him 150 is a burnt offering him. If you look at it again, I say you're going to find that it deals mostly of what he is in his person hardly touches the matter of what he did.
But it's what he is to God, and that's the burnt offering. The meal offering in Leviticus chapter two was not an animal. In fact, it's called the meat Hawking. But it's not meat. Meat was the power of the Spirit of God.
And then it was anointed with frankincense. In other words, there was always, through all his life, the Lord Jesus, a sweet savour to God.
I think there's him that corresponds to this. I like to go through the hymn books sometimes to think of the different offerings that are reflected in in the different hymns we sing. If you look at 230, you'll see something of the meal offering #230 and verse 3.
Full amidst unfaithfulness.
Mid darkness, only light. Thou didst thy father's name confess, And in his will delight.
That's something of the meal offering and that has part in our praises too. We think of His complete perfection because if you notice in the Old Testament reading through it that OFT times when they offered a burnt offering or a sin offering, the meal offering was right there with it offered too.
And after that offering was offered.
There was a handful that was taken out of that meal offering and put right into the fire because Jesus was perfect.
Even.
Best.
And that's why it's important for us to meditate on the glories and the perfections of the Lord Jesus. That's our food. That will make you strong, dear young people, to live a life of separation to the Lord, To feed on the Lord Jesus as the meal offering.
The next one is the peace offering Chapter 3, and really that word peace, you could put it the Communion offering.
In other words, there was a part of that offering, if you'll read it with some of the IT was the kidneys and the fat and certain parts of the animal after it was killed that were burned on the on the altar for God and the rest of that animal was taken and given to the people. That's why on the dedication of the temple.
Your first solemn 120,000 sheep.
And 20,000 oxen, tremendous quantities of animals because it was for all the people of Israel to participate in. In other words, we enjoy the same offering that God enjoys. There was a part for God and there was a part for us in that same offering.
If you turn to him 57, I think we have the.
Communion or the peace offering?
Notice verse 2.
Sweetest rest and peace of Phyllis the first one is on the Lamb. Our souls are resting but verse two says sweetest rest and peace of fill this sweeter praise than tongue can tell God is satisfied with Jesus. Here's God's part. We are satisfied as well. There's our part.
That's the communion of freedom, the peace offering.
And then we have Leviticus 4 is the sin offering. Leviticus Five kind of fits with it in a trespass offering. There is a little bit of difference there. We can't talk about it right now, but that is the sin offering. And perhaps that's where we understand more. We thank the Lord for having died for our sins. That's very proper too, in its place, but it's only.
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Of the offerings that were offered, I just want to give you one.
Him where we have the sin offering, although there are a number in our hymn book, 327.
And verse 3.
Our sins, our guilt. In love divine.
Confessed and born by thee, the gall, the curse, the wrath, were thine to set thy ransomed free. There we have the sin offering mainly that him deals with a different topic. It talks about our union with the Lord Jesus, but it.
Touches the sin offering in that verse.
And so our hymn book is full of hymns that correspond to those different offerings.
And it is for us to offer those different offerings in figure.
By singing, offering praise to our God and to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our times gone, but dear young people, my desire is for you that you would get your heart filled up. You know, Bruce Anstey at the conference in Walla Walla talked about consecration. And sometimes I think that young people have the idea that concentration simply means.
Get a whole lot of things of the world.
I just want to say.
The primary thought and consecration.
The primary thought and consecration, the word means in the original Hebrew to have your hands full. And here was this priest when he was consecrated, he had his hands full of the offering and he waved that before the Lord. That's what it means in Christianity. It's not so much a matter of the hands because the work is done.
It's a matter of the heart.
But a consecrated person, young people, is a person that has their hearts so full of Jesus they don't have room for anything else. That's a consecrated person. It's not a matter of asking you to give up things.
But when you see the infinite value and worth of the person of the Lord Jesus, you are not going to want the rest of this world offers you.
It will be your own choice, your own decision. It will not be somebody standing over you.
With a web saying you shouldn't do those kind of things.
You will come to your own decision about it. Jesus so fills the heart.
The glories of his person that you will want, nothing more.
That's consecration.
Let's pray.