Maine Conference: 2016
Table of Contents
John 6:1-13
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#267 of fullness resides in Jesus our head. A fullness abides to answer all need.
Trust his protection. We lean on his might 267.
Perhaps we could read just a couple of verses before we play beginning in Genesis chapter 18.
Genesis chapter 18.
And verse 4.
Let's a little water, I pray you be fetched.
And wash your feet.
And rest yourselves under the tree.
Song of Solomon, chapter 2.
And verse 3.
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Let's ask his help.
Our God and our Father, we thank you this morning that we could sing of that fullness that resides in Jesus our head.
As we are gathered here this morning, we think of Abraham of old this how he would.
Ringo's messengers and.
Wash their feet, but seek to refresh their souls and have them rest. And we just pray, our Father, that as we are here together.
In the consciousness that that is thy desire for us to refresh us along this pathway and to cause us to sit under that tree.
In the shadow of thy protection of thy delight, and to have our souls ministered with that fruit from thyself.
We just pray that Thou is direct in order. Never be that Lord Jesus. That would be for the blessing of each of our souls. And so, as we are here to open Thy precious word, we pray that Thou must direct us to that portion which would meet our needs.
Would encourage us and sustain his father as we are passing through the wilderness scene. We thank you for those springs that we can draw on.
And just look to thee for that abundant supply here today. And two.
For others light gathered, we pray again for our brethren and Burbank that Thou hast minister to them as well. And for those Father we've been reminded that are not able to be here, we pray that Thou is minister to them as well. So we just look to Thee for Thy health, seeking Thy provision, our God and Father for us as we wait before Thee and the precious name of our Lord Jesus.
We sang together about the fullness that resides in Jesus, our head.
There's a fullness there that abides to answer all need.
And we had reference also to how in the wilderness God provided for his people in Nehemiah. Wonderful verses to see the goodness of the Lord in meeting our need in spite of what might seem to be impossible circumstances from a natural standpoint. So I'm just wondering, would John chapter 6.
The appropriate.
If somebody else has it.
Subject or chapter on the heart to.
I'm happy to get the place.
I know it's a long chapter. I think in particular perhaps in the first half of the chapter, but.
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The verse that really came before one was verse 35 where Jesus says unto them, I am the bread of life.
Either cometh to me shall never hunger.
I think it's one of the most beautiful expressions in all the word of God, the bread of life.
The first part of the chapter we see how the Lord met the physical hunger.
Which is a very wonderful.
Story in itself, but to think how he meets our spiritual need too is even more wonderful.
Gospel of John, chapter 6.
After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias, and a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles, which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples, and the Passover, a piece of the Jews, was an eye. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip.
When shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them. That every one of them.
May take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him. There is a lab here which has five barley loaves and two small fishes. But what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the man sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down in number about 5000. And Jesus took the loaves. And when he had given thanks, he distributed to the to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down.
And likewise of the fishes, as much as they would when they were filled. He said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gather them together and fill 12 baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is a This is of a truth that profit that should come into the world.
When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone. And when even was come, his disciples went down onto the sea, and entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum, And it was now dark, and Jesus was now come to them. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew so when they had rolled about 5 and 20 or 30 fur furlongs.
They see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship, and they were afraid, But he saith unto them, It is I be not afraid. Then they willingly received him into the ship, and immediately the ship was at the land where they went. The day following, when the people which stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was none other boat there saved that one where unto His disciples were entered, and that Jesus went not with His disciples into the boat, but that His disciples were gone away alone.
Albeit there came other boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they did eat bread. After that the Lord had given thanks.
When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping and came to Capernaum seeking for Jesus. And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, 1 Comest thou hit her? Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek me, not because you saw the miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled labor, not for the meat which perished perisheth, but for that meat.
Which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father sealed. Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he hath sent. They said Therefore unto him, What signs show us thou then, that we may see or believe thee? What dost thou work?
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Our fathers did eat manna in the West, in the desert, as it is written.
He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus saith unto unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me.
Shall never thirst. But I said unto you, that ye also have seen me, and believe not all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which has sent me. That all which He has given me I should lose. I shall lose nothing, but should raise it again for the last day.
And this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone would see it. The son and believeth on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
Of the day.
Tells us Jesus lifted up his eyes.
And so a great company come unto him.
You know the Lord Jesus, His heart was tender.
And he would not spare himself.
Could we say he was willing to leave his comfort zone in order to reach out?
To these folks that had come.
He had been there with his disciples in the mountain.
But now he sees.
A great company.
And so the Lord had a heart for his disciples, for those that were close to him, and he met their needs, but he also looked beyond the need of his disciples.
And we see that even though the disciples.
They weren't so ready to leave their comfort zone, the Lord Jesus.
He would minister to the need of this great company.
They were hungry.
Hungry physically.
And I'm not sure how many were truly hungry from a spiritual standpoint.
But the Lord indicated very clearly how our spiritual need can be met.
And it's all Christ.
As we often see, nothing but Christ is on we tread.
His gift on Christ, God's living bread.
There's so much in this chapter.
Yeah.
To engage our hearts, I believe.
With the person and the work.
Of this Blessed One.
It's a little comment in verse five that.
Kind of a hidden gem for me. In the scripture, we know that the gospel writers wrote a lot of parallel accounts. You know that this umm, story of the 5000 being fed is told in other gospels. And there are those that, you know, textual critics that will say that that gospel accounts contradict each other. But when you pull them together, they don't contradict. They add detail to each other and fill out what other umm books don't. So what I find interesting in this chapter.
Is that when Jesus saw the multitude, He said, uh, in verse five, he stepped on to Philip, When shall we eat bread or when shall we buy bread?
That these may eat that was still at the nearest one to them. I'm not sure, but if you turn back to.
Uh, loop?
Move Chapter 9.
And Luke Chapter 9 we find the parallel to this story of the 5000 and in in John six we were reading. It doesn't tell us where this took place, but in Luke 9 and verse 10 it says that and he took them and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called the.
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So this feeding of the 5000 took place in Now if you turn to John one, sorry, John chapter 2, I believe.
John, Chapter 2.
No, John chapter one, sorry, John chapter one and verse 43. And it says the day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee and find his Phillips and that's on him. Follow me now, Phillips.
The city of Andrew and Peter. The feeding of the 5000 took place in Bethsaida. The Lord turned to Philip to ask where he could buy bread filled with a native of Bethsaida and would have known. We're gonna buy red. There's just a little hidden gem that I think is so neat to show how beautiful the scripture ties together as inspired words are.
You mentioned, Wally, that you wondered how many, Uh.
Well, our savior wouldn't want to just seek after a sign, but come to know him, uh.
Thing to to come to know him as a savior, not just to get after a sign.
You turn back to the fifth of Luke's gospel.
Umm, similar circumstances there you we read the.
15.
So much the more went there of fame abroad of Him, and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. Notice verse 16. And He withdrew himself.
And into the wilderness and prayed.
So, uh, the Lord never sought popularity. Uh, they would have made him a king. They would have had him to heal their sick and to, uh, feed their hungry. Uh, the Lord didn't come.
Only to meet man's physical need, he came to meet his spiritual need. And what is prominent in the chapter before us is the Passover.
And the Passover brings before us the death of Christ and the Lord.
Expounds that in some detail later on in the chapter.
Umm, it was a formality with the Jews, the same as the Feast of Tabernacles in the 7th chapter, which looks on to the Millennium. It became a formality with the Jews. It was empty, they really did not see.
Who the Lord was?
They would have him, uh, to, uh, meet their physical needs, but the Lord had something much deeper in view. Not that he ignored the needs of the people here, though He well knew that they were following him for, uh, present advantage. He didn't, uh, shut his bowels of compassion from them, but he desired their spiritual blessings.
And that comes out very clearly, uh, as we go on in the chapter and the Lord, uh, is prefigured as the manna. And then, uh, he comes on to speak of his death, the Passover aspect. But it's wonderful to see the compassion of the Lord, that great company.
He, uh, would not, uh, he would not, uh, disregard the, uh, physical need of the people. In fact, his whole life was devoted to meeting people's needs, whatever it was, uh, sickness, sorrow, and so on. Uh, the Lord never was impervious to these. He always.
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Entered into.
The sorrel, in fact, when the Lord healed the person, uh.
Uh, when the Lord healed a person, he entered into the sickness himself. A scripture that is often misunderstood if you turn to Matthew, uh, chapter 8.
Just to make a comment on this, uh.
Chapter 8 verse uh.
16 When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick, all that were sick. No one was disappointed. Faith healers today can't do that. Uh, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. Now don't make the mistake.
That this is referring to the cross. That's not where the Lord took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. Pentecostals were replied. I'm not speaking disparagingly of that denomination, but Pentecostal groups will apply it in that way. Umm, but it's not correct. What is meant here is that the Lord entered into the sickness. He felt it on his heart. It was a burden before He healed the person.
He, uh, he sympathized or empathized with them in what they were passing through. I think it's beautiful to see that he took, he bore the sickness on his heart. Then he put forth his uh.
His power to heal, umm, the heal the individual of whatever, uh, malady it was. But first of all, he entered into it. And that uh, brings before us the, uh, the heart of the Lord. Here he was surrounded by the results of sin everywhere. Sorrow, sickness, death, tears, umm, uh, everything uh, was corrupted by sin.
Man included, but the Lord, uh.
Perfectly separate from the sin, he felt the results of it, and he met man in his in his need, both physically and spiritually.
I believe brother John, what you said is very nice and I agree. It seems that in these first 21 verses the Lord Jesus is presented to us first as the King who supplies our natural needs. But then when you come down to umm verse 15 where it says he departed again into a mountain, himself alone.
That there he takes the place of the priest and he's on high interceding for his own who are going through the difficulties, the spiritual difficulties of life. So I think it's nice to see that in these first 21 verses we have in picture form the Lord Jesus as the one who supplies our natural needs and those who supplies our spiritual needs in spite of all the difficulties that the enemy might put before us.
And also, as some have mentioned, regardless of what our state of soul will be.
He will, uh, he will meet our needs.
Apart from our performance or behavior or state of soul.
Sometimes meeting our needs to meet our state of soul.
In chapter 5, the subject of quickening is taken up, the Father quickens and the sun quicken, and then the necessity of the sovereignty of God coming in and giving life is really brought out first. It is an absolute requirement if there's going to be any blessing for anyone in this world, that God steps in in His sovereignty and then gives the life where there was not one before.
So that is brought out in chapter 5. In chapter 6 we get the miracle of the loaves and the subsequent discourse of the Lord through the rest of the chapter. And it's based on his brother John brought out the mention of the Passover in the beginning of the chapter where they would take that lamb and its blood was poured out and they roast that lamb with fire and they were to eat of it.
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And the Passover is given as.
Picture of the death of Christ on which communion really is based. And so it goes on from there. Not only, uh, is quickening needed, but there's some other things that are needed as well if man is going to be brought into blessing and communion with God. And so he presents himself as the bread that came down from heaven, the Incarnate Son of God. And man is willing to to a certain extent.
Except that the Son of God came down and became a man. We'll accept that, That's all right. But then he says, well, there's something else that's needed. Except to eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood. Have no life in you.
Not only do you need him come down and incarnation to become a man, but He had to give his life on the cross and accept you come into the value and blessing.
Of that you have no life. You have no basis for communion. Eating and drinking is the most common form of fellowship in this world. Eating and drinking together.
And they heard that and they said this is a hard thing, You know, man is willing to accept the Son of God come down Incarnate into this world. And they're celebrating Christmas this week. The incarnation. Walking through the airport in Chicago a few years ago in that Christmas, uh, Carol came over the loud speakers. I was surprised they even played it in the airport. God and Sinner reconciled.
And this song is about his incarnation. But his incarnation alone could not reconcile the Sinner to God.
He must give his life and accept to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man. You have no life, they said. We can't accept that, sorry. And many of his disciples at that point turn and walk away. The flesh profiteth nothing. It can come along a certain ways, but it really never can enter into communion with God. There must be a new life. It must believe that He is the sent one from God.
The Incarnate Son of God, it must lay hold in faith that he gave his life on that cross that must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God in that way. And so he says in the end of chapter 6.
And what verse 62 if he shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before, not only did he have to go into death.
But he was raised from the dead, and he's ascended now in glory.
Man in the flesh is incapable of laying hold and believing those truths. The flesh profiteth nothing. And so he says it is the Spirit that quickeneth. He starts in chapter five with the Father quickening and the Son quickening. And now we come to the Spirit, the whole Godhead.
Is involved in this matter of the communication of life. It's the beginning. He had to come down and become a man. He had to give his life on that cross. He's ascended now and gone back to glory.
And what did those truths do? It separated the mass of profession of belief in him from those who really believed in him. They could only go so far.
And then they walked away and the Lord says to his own, will ye also go away? All Peter says we have believed. He says not, uh, you've gone too far, Peter, as one of you, as a devil.
Even you don't realize, Peter.
How extensive this issue of Profession without Reality is.
One of you is a devil, he weaves out through. This whole chapter starts from this great crowd all the way down to 11.
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Chapter 7 He retires, he takes the hidden place, and that's where he is now ascended up where he came from before, and there our life is hid with Christ and God.
When we, uh, read versus 5 through 9 of this chapter.
It's the Lord's desire to draw the hearts of his disciples so that they really and truly know who He is.
Let me read in the.
First five of them, there's five here, uh, part way through you say it's under Philip windshield. We buy bread that these may eat and I'm thinking the first six and this is that to prove him for he himself what he would do.
Philip answered him, 200 penny worth of bread, not sufficient for them, but every one of them they had take a little.
So what Philip was saying here?
It's going to take a man's annual salary to provide a little with this company of people.
And one of his disciples per SE, Andrew signed, Peter's brother, set unto him. There is a lad here which have 5 barley loads and two small fishes. For what are the bunks and many?
When the Lord is here and we want to improve to his disciples, drawing of their hearts, and realize truly who He was, Son of God, Son of man.
Could you say, Paul, if there is a very practical lesson for us here because the Lord allowed a difficulty to arise that seemed absolutely impossible?
And yet what he was doing was, umm, testing their profession. And sometimes the Lord allows difficulties in our lives that seem absolutely impossible to deal with, but it's just testing us to see whether or not we believe the Lord is sufficient. It's interesting to see here that Philip and Andrew, they lack the faith, didn't they? Yeah, we know it's with Philip, he says, umm.
200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient.
And then Andrew says, what are they among so many? So their faith was was really pretty small. But where earth's resources are small, heaven supply is inexhaustible. Absolutely.
I think that, uh, we can apply this in an evangelical, uh, character as well as, uh, for believers turn to, uh, second kings, uh, chapter 4.
That's a familiar passage.
Uh, verse 42.
There came a man from Alicia, and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits.
20 loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people, that they may eat.
And the servator said, Watch, should I said this before? And hundred men.
He said unto them, He said, again, Give the people that they may eat, For thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof. So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof according to the word of the Lord. Well, I think we can apply it evangelically. We are surrounded by multitudes who do not know Christ. We feel our weakness, we feel.
The, the paucity of the, uh, uh, little resources that we have.
Often lacking courage, often lacking spiritual energy to reach out. We need to depend on the Lord and put what we have into His hand. This little boy here was willing to part with his lunch to put it into the hands of the Lord, not knowing what would happen. And uh, he was.
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Surprised, he was rewarded abundantly.
The Lord multiplied that small amount which seemed to be insignificant. He multiplied it to three 5000 men. There must have been more than 5000 because uh, at these meetings the women are usually umm, in the ascendancy. But anyway, everyone was filled and uh, there was lots leftover. Now coming to.
The passage we read in Kings, I think there may be a lesson, a lesson there for us. What do we bring to the assembly?
Well, you say I'm coming to get some food for my soul. Well, that will be the case if we depend on the law. But, uh, it should be the exercise. What are we contributing to the gathering where we are? Are we bringing something it, it may seem very small, it may seem insignificant, but you know a word spoken in season, how good it is.
And it may be just a small contribution in your assembly. You say I don't have a gift as a teacher. Not many of us have. But you can make a contribution and it can be a tremendous help, tremendous help. You know, one word can turn around your life completely. I think of, uh, Jonathan, uh, when he was going to, uh, ascend the rocks there.
Uh, to, umm, to encounter the Philistines on the top of the, uh, hill there looking down, uh, making fun of him. There was only two Jonathan and his armor bearer behind him. Maybe we should, could look at that verse, uh, First Samuel 14.
Does it look like an impossible situation? Uh.
The uh.
The the forces of evil, the forces of the enemy, far outnumbered.
Two people, Jonathan and his armor bearer. Verse four. And between the passages by which Jonathan sought to go over onto the Philistines Garrison, there was a sharp rock on the one side and the sharp rock on the other side. In the name of the one was bosses and the name of the other Senna. Well, I'm going down. Umm.
Verse six And Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armor, come and let us go over unto the Garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few. That was a courageous statement to make. He didn't know the outcome. Uh, you might say, uh, that was foolhardy. Uh Jonathan, look at the uh.
The forces of the enemy, uh, looking down on you.
So, and it was a case of supreme weakness on his part, wasn't it? And his armor bearers said unto him, Do all uh. The armor bearers said unto him, do all that is in thine heart turn thee. You know, I believe that when Jonathan saw the odds that were against him, he was ready to turn back. I believe he was ready to turn back. And perhaps we.
We have been in that situation often as well. It's too great. We can't meet this situation. It's beyond our power. But behold, just at that moment the armor bearer, we don't know his name, it's not recorded. But he said, Behold, I am with the according to thine heart turn thee Then said Jonathan, Behold, we will pass over unto these men, and we will discover ourselves unto them.
And so on you read the rest of the passage there. It was a marvelous victory, but it was in abject weakness. And just at that moment the armor bearer give gave that little word of encouragement that turned the tide and resulted in a in a marvelous victory for the Lord and and Jonathan, you mentioned two Spears where the bread is shared.
Both in the assembly and out in the multitudes in the world. But I think there's a third sphere also, and that might be the family. We have families here, young children. They need to have the bread of life as well. And brother Matt, he said here in verse five about Phillip, the Lord talked to Philip because Phillip was from that area of Basaya. And so Philip might know where they could buy the bread. And so I think it's important for each of us to know where can we find the bridge to feed our families.
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Where can we fly? And I'm not talking about literal food, I'm talking about spiritual food. Where can we find the bread of life to feed our families? Where can we find the bread of life to feed the assembly or to share with the unbelievers out in the world? It's in the Word of God. And so sometimes our children may have questions. We may need to know, where can we find? Are we at home with the Word of God? Are we at home with the bread of life? And are we able to share?
And answer the questions. Share the bread of life with our children.
They need to know how to be saved. Do you have a verse to help your children understand that they are a Sinner, that they need to believe on the Lord Jesus, on the person and the work as we have been talking about? Do we tell the children?
Ask Jesus into your heart. So what scripture do you have for that? Or do you tell your children to believe in the Lord Jesus? He died for you because you are a Sinner and you need to be saved. And so we can make it very simple with Scripture, but we shouldn't add things. We should just give them the bread of life. Don't add add things to the to the bread that's going to weaken the bread or make it not nutritious for us. And so it also tells the the men to that the women are to ask their husbands at home.
And so the the as we as brothers, we need to know where we can find the bread to feed our wives when they have questions. And if we don't know the answer, then we need to have resources where we can go to find the answer and maybe ask others or search the scriptures or but we need to be able to have the bread to feed our families as well.
I don't need to be facetious, but Brother Tim, you mentioned about, we don't need to add to the bread, we don't need to put butter on it.
Peanut butter jam.
And you know this bread, it never grows stale.
Spread of life is Christ.
And he's the same yesterday, today and forever.
And we really need more of the same.
Sometimes when you talk to somebody and you ask, well, how did your day go? Oh, it's just the same old, same old, other day, same old.
Well, we know what he's talking about. Same with the small.
Can be very boring and dull.
End.
But same with a capital S.
Is not the same as with the small S.
And so when we find our delight in Christ, we find that.
He meets.
Every need that confronts us, no matter what it is, whether it's in the family or the assembly.
And this world has big problems.
And I don't think this world.
Is going to enjoy peace.
Until the Lord Jesus Christ assumes the government of this world is gonna be on his shoulder.
And the effect of his reign, it's a righteous reign, is gonna be peace.
And what a wonderful day that will be.
Bye.
I believe we see in this chapter that the Lord Jesus Christ alone is to be the object of our heart, and when there are those that this has been pointed out, they leave as we head at the end of the chapter.
Apparently they couldn't accept the teaching because it was that which.
Really didn't put the 1St man on an elevated scale.
Thought it was that which exalted.
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The person and the work of Christ.
But we see that Peter, Simon Peter, he says thou hast the words of eternal life. And isn't that really what we want? You know, eternal life is that which isn't only forever and ever, but it's a quality of life.
That we can enjoy.
And we enjoy more and more and it fills our hearts.
In an intimate way.
That is really life.
And it's eternal.
It's a quantity, but it's also quality.
I think there's another interesting little thing here that's encouraging. We don't read very much in the Scripture about Andrew doing, but you'll notice here in this chapter that he he brings a young lad to the Lord Jesus. Verse nine, There is a lad here which has five long barley loans and two small fishes. So he's encouraged and and spite of the fact that his faith is small.
He brings this young lad to the Lord Jesus, knowing that the Lord can do something with what this little boy has. But turn back to the first chapter of John and we see Andrew again.
In verse 40 it says one of the two which heard John speak and followed him with Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, he first findeth his own brother Simon.
And says unto him, We have found the Master, which is being interpreted to Christ.
So here we find him bringing his own brother to the Lord Jesus. You know, we never read about Peter, uh, Andrew being a great gospel preacher, and yet here he is bringing his own brother to the Lord. And we all know that Peter was used for the salvation of thousands. And yet it was, I believe, through Andrew that Peter came to know the Lord. And then another example in John chapter 12.
And verse 20.
And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to the to worship at the feast. The same came therefore to Philip, which was a Bethea of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.
Philip cometh and telleth Andrew, and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. So what's Andrew doing here? The same thing that he did with his brother.
And what he did with the young lad, he brings these Greeks to the Lord Jesus. And so I believe there's a lesson there for us, isn't there? We can, we might not have much of A gift and we feel the Lord can't use this very much. But isn't it wonderful that we have the privilege of bringing, bringing someone to Jesus? And I think it's nice to see here, Andrew was used over and over again to bring some money to Jesus.
In one case.
Connection to what you you just said uh, fill point. You said 3 words. Come and see.
The Lord can multiply a very little, as we see here, and you know it says in Proverbs.
There is that scatter it and yet increases.
And there is that which withholds more than its meat, and it tends to poverty.
So I believe if God has given to us.
A little word to share.
We need to give that out, we need to share it and it could be a blessing.
To others.
I think it's gonna be a blessing to the one who shares it.
But first of all, it's gonna be for the Lord's honor and glory. And so I believe that, uh, this little boy, he wasn't reluctant to give up his little lunch. And I'm sure that little boy, he had plenty to eat for lunch that day himself.
00:50:17
I think of him, that's a pretty big one. You know, I think he saw that crowd go by and he said.
Mom, give me everything you got in the house. I'm going to make some money. And he grabbed 5 loaves of bread and the two fishes and he went out as a little entrepreneur. But you know, it all gets turned over to the Lord in the end. And to me it makes it all more precious. I got thinking of boys. I've got a few that's still a big lunch even though there's hollow legs to fill 5 loaves. I thought I know something else about little boys. I love to make a little bit of money too.
But it's all turned over to the Lord's use, and I think it's just a precious thing. And he, he loves, he says to Moses. What is in my hand? A rod? Not much. To the widow woman. What's in my house? A pot of oil. Just enough to anoint yourself.
What is this among so many? Just a little, but he'll take even you, boy or girl in this place, and he'll take what little you have if you're willing to turn it over to him. And he'll make it for blessing. And you might not see it ahead of time. You might have to look back and say, oh, the Lord did that, but if you're willing to turn it over to him.
I wonder if there are any thoughts if it's significant that when we see the.
Distribution.
In verse 11 it mentions both the loaves and the fishes, but when we see them gathering the fragments verse 13 it only mentions the loaves.
While the I suppose we could, uh, note that, uh.
Every part of the word of God is precious.
From the uh.
From the temporal standpoint here, nothing was, nothing was wasted and.
The believer certainly should not be a waster of material goods, whether it be food or anything else. Umm.
Umm, that is umm.
A very umm.
A bad habit to waste anything that the Lord has given to us.
But I was thinking also the, uh, the fragments, uh, there's a book written by Mr. Potter gathering up the fragments. It's very interesting to read that volume. And, uh, little, little thoughts, uh, little, umm, expressions in the word of God, which, uh, we might pass over a fragment can be, uh, very encouraging and very edifying.
Every part of the word of God is needful.
So we read the Old Testament, we gather up the fragments there.
There is profit in all the word of God for us. We need the whole scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. We don't just specialize in some area, but uh, there's profit for us in every part of the word of God. Umm, you read the Old Testament, uh, stories of the kings and so on. You see there, uh, the moral, uh, result of following the Lord.
And the opposite of those that forsook the Lord, there's, there's profit in all of that for us. So, uh.
Uh, it's wonderful to uh, know that, uh, every word of God is pure and, and we need the whole re revealed mind of God.
Well, I believe the bread really spoke of Christ. He speaks of Himself as the bread of life.
And if indeed this is the case, why would we want to leave crumbs on the ground? Because every aspect.
00:55:02
Of Christ is so wonderful, and even as we begin to examine this person.
We find that there's nothing that really we would want to reject. It's also beautiful.
Use altogether love.
And I think of the Syrophoenician woman. She came to the Lord on behalf of her daughter.
And sought his help.
She was ill and the Lord said, well, it's not.
Really need to take the children's bread.
And to cast it to dogs. In other words, the Lord was telling her from a natural standpoint, she is not entitled to any help at all.
And many would listen to this and be so offended and would walk away from the Lord. But you know what she said? She said truth, Lord. But the little dogs, they eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table.
She didn't become offended and walk away, but she accepted what Jesus had to say and that is so important. No matter what He says, we need to accept it, even though it cuts across our own will.
And makes us feel so little.
But what I enjoy is the fact that.
And she's thinking about the crumbs and if she can get a crumb.
As a little dog, she'd be very happy.
So I connect that with this portion here. I'm sure there were a lot of crumbs on the ground, but the Lord wanna make sure that they were all gathered up.
And there's.
Nourishment and crops.
I might suggest too, that the fish in a certain sense represents the freshness where the bread represents that which is processed through. You know, our brother mentioned that we might know where to go get bread. It's not like it's a tree that you just go and shake a little loaves of bread fall off or, you know, you go plant the seed and then pops up and you rip off a fresh loaf. But instead you have to go on your your plant and you gather, you work it. And that's kind of what we do with the word of God.
And we prepare those lows in a certain sense ahead of time.
But the fish is something which is fresh and taken that you don't necessarily prepare. You have to go out and gather it, but you don't prepare it. It's prepared by God for your consuming. And so I would suggest that perhaps when things are presented before for food, that oftentimes there is that which you have taken in through your course of life, but there is also that freshness that comes in. And what your brethren take in is both the freshness and also the consistency.
And that the freshness has to be renewed. It doesn't. There's no fragments there. It's all taken up and and consumed. But that which is prepared through your life and consistency, there's always some fragment left for another day.
You read another parallel account, but this is a desert place. And yet we read in verse 10 that yet Jesus said make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. If you read a mark, you re you read that it's not only grass, but green grass. So let's get some of other spots on this thought of, uh, much green grass in a desert place that makes you think of the 23rd song to make it lie down by green pastures.
It's not only fed with the bread and the fish, but we're in a place of refreshing and a place of peace and comfort, and I'd like to hear some thoughts on that.
We will never understand or appreciate the epistles.
Until we come to understand and appreciate the Gospels. And so you see the heart of the Lord.
He would not have those ones who came to him. He wouldn't have them uncomfortable. He wouldn't have them.
Unhappy in his presence, he provided even in little details.
Some somewhere comfortable, somewhere refreshing, where they could eat.
01:00:01
An almost impossible scenario, you could say, to be in a desert and still provide in that way. And we we turn to the epistles after enjoying the the character of the Lord and his care for his own, and we see that that same principle over and over and over again.
And so just those little, little treasures as we trace through in the Gospels, just the Lord's tremendous care for his own, and he he delights to to provide and.
And to richly, richly provide.
Not sure about the grass, uh, brother Matt, but umm, I was thinking the same thing. It it, it caused you to think of Psalm 23. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures and here it's make the men sit down.
Umm, and you know, there's some applications here to our own individual, uh.
Enjoyment of Christ.
Sometimes, you know, you're just so, uh, busy with the things of this life and cares and so on that, uh, he might have to lay you aside.
For a bit so that you can enjoy some of the, the bread of life, right? I mean, I think many have had that experience and the Lord has forced you to be laid aside because you've been so busy and occupied with the things of this life. Not necessarily bad things, but the Lord can lay you aside so that you're made to, uh, to sit down or to lie down.
Where you can enjoy the things of the Lord. But it's also a Some have been alluding to the fact that the Lord is not.
The Lord is not uh.
Wanting us to be uncomfortable or.
To suffer in order to enjoy spiritual things, you know, that's the thought of religion nearly, I believe nearly every man made religion has an essential element of asceticism. That's, uh, suffering, purposeful suffering. And uh, and that's just the natural religious man that thinks that, you know, uh, it's spiritual to have natural suffering. Uh, and so in order to be more spiritual, we add some natural suffering, but that's not.
That clearly is not the Lord's character at all.
Umm, he desires that we be in the best condition, even physically to receive His word. And, uh, whereas sometimes that may be that we're forced to be laid aside with an illness or an injury, umm, other times, you know, making the Saints comfortable, umm.
There's nothing spiritual about making the Saints uncomfortable in order that they might receive the word. That's not the Lord's character. That's the natural religious man that has that kind of thought.
See that further on down in our chapter in verse 28. They came to him and said, what shall we do that we might work the works of God. They wanted to do something. And what does Jesus say? He says believe in Him and he has sent a man's natural heart is to go the hard way, so to speak. And yet in Christianity it's a simple, simple belief.
The desert.
You might want another way to say that word might be exerted.
It's not a desert where there's no grass, it's all all sand, but just a deserted place. A a desert place where there's no other people, there's no influences of the world. And so the Lord takes them to a a deserted place where there's no other influences around, where he can have their full attention.
Just make one other little comment. Umm Matthew, you were wondering about the green grass. I think the thought in green grass is prosperity, isn't it? Umm, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures. Any of us that have ever been in Israel know that it's a very dry and thirsty land where no water is. And so, so to sit down or to be made to lie down in green pastures is something that great luxury.
I just point out one other verse in that regard.
In Revelation chapter 8, when it's looking at the terrible trumpet judgments that are gonna fall in this world, it says in the seventh verse all green grass was burnt up. So all the prosperity that man enjoys now is one day going to be destroyed. And it's referred to in Revelation chapter 8 as the green grass being burnt up.
01:05:27
So I was just thinking what a beautiful thing it is in our chapter if the Lord made his people.
To sit down on the grass He delights to bring us into a place of blessing and prosperity. And that's what He did in this chapter.
It's a land that is completely dependent upon the reign of heaven to produce, though today, through man's efforts in irrigation, they try to, uh, get to the blessings that are promised Israel in the coming day through man's efforts. They're never going to get there.
That land, when it gets the rain that it needs, produces abundantly, and the testimony of the spies that went in and brought the fruits of the land show that.
When it doesn't get rain, it's barren. It's the way God has made that land where the people would be dependent. There's green grass here. Must have been rain. Who did that come from? He provided that green grass. It wasn't just that it happened to be there. He provides the meals, the loaves and the fishes multiplied throughout that whole crowd. What's remaining?
12 baskets full, one for every one of his tribes. It looks on to a coming day of millennial blessing.
That he alone is going to bring in. It won't be brought in by man's efforts. He's going to bring it in. They want to bring it in by their efforts. What shall we do that we might work the works of God? That would be a Kingdom of man. We'll make him a king. That would be a Kingdom of man. But it's going to be God's Kingdom, and he's going to bring in the blessing. And so that's what he's doing here in this little small scope.
A picture of what is going to be in a much larger scope in the coming day. And so there's 12 baskets reserved. Israel is yet going to be brought into blessing. There's a basket reserved for each tribe.
I was thinking of those verses in Second Corinthians Chapter 9.
Uh, along this line here, uh, the Apostle is exhorting them as to, uh, liberality in, uh, the distribution in particular here of their monetary resources. Umm, and, uh, he speaks at some length of this. Umm, we're familiar with these verses, but I think, uh, uh, it's good to be reminded.
Uh, verse 9 as it is written, He hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor, His righteousness remaineth forever. That's what we had in our chapter. Uh, now he administered a seed to the sore, both minister bread for your food and multiply your seed sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness.
So, uh, we have seed for the sword and we have bread for our own food being enriched versus UH-11 in everything to all bountifulness. Doesn't it show us God is a giver? That is his character. Nothing, uh, about the way in which God works. Uh, it's his heart of love that, uh, is so bountiful.
Which causes through US Thanksgiving to God, for the administration of this service, not only supply us the want of the Saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God. So, as our brother pointed out, if we are an instrument, uh, of blessing to others.
We receive the encouragement ourselves. Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
So the Lord is no longer here to, uh, multiply the loaves and fishes, but uh, we are left here as His representatives and we have that same power available to us. Uh, last, we don't always draw upon it, independence upon the Lord. And I noticed another thing in the parallel passage. There was order here you go into some of these foreign countries that, uh, I work a little in.
01:10:18
One of the difficulties is, put it plainly, mobbing.
I tell my dear wife, I say don't get involved in a mob in India, it's dangerous. But there wasn't that situation. I noticed there was order another place. They were sitting down in, uh, they were sitting down in companies of 50 each. Everything seemed was in, uh, very good order before there was the administration of this, uh, of these, uh, supplies.
So I think that, uh.
That's important that, uh, when we give out the gospel and just make that, uh, practical comment, we, we need to, uh, seek to do it in an orderly way. I was noticing that, uh, parallel passage, I think you're referring to.
John, how they sat down in ranks tells us in Mark's Gospel chapter 6 and verse 40 by hundreds and by 50s.
And God is not the author of confusion.
And I noticed in these large conferences that were privileged to attend from time to time.
How on Thursday morning, the bread.
Is passed in a very orderly manner and I know it's here this morning. We've got 4 quadrants. Well, this I believe is orderly.
It facilitates the passing of the bread.
And I just, I'm interested in these, uh, details. Perhaps it's not a detail when you contemplate how many were present, 5000 men plus women and children could have been up to 20,000.
But I was noticing too, and I don't mean to take away at all from what Brother Al said because I enjoyed it, but it does say in verse 43.
He took up 12 baskets full of the fragments and of the fishes.
Did you ever notice that, uh, Ethan?
I actually didn't think of it until I just looked at this passage here.
So I'm wondering if there were fishes, fragments of fishes?
You know, I don't think that, uh, these accounts.
That we find in the Gospels are contradictory.
I talked to a woman. She runs a bookstore in the community not far from where we live.
And she said I can't accept the Bible.
Because it doesn't add up. I mean, there's contradictions, I said, is that so? Well, she said. If aren't there four different stories about the crucifixion?
Four different people writing about the crucifixion. Well, I said that's true, but.
Have you read the four stories?
No.
The fact is, when you read the four accounts, you see how one author or one evangelist, he gives something that the other doesn't speak about. But it's not contradictory, you know, it's that which can certainly be reconciled.
And I'm thinking of this portion that we're reading today, I think, is this not the only miracle, the feeding of the 5000 that's recorded in all the Gospels?
The only miracle?
This other miracle is recorded. What did you mean, Brother Long?
There's other miracles recorded, uh.
Maybe I didn't follow well with respect to.
The Lord's.
Performing Amerigo.
During his lifetime.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think while you just meant that it's the only miracle you can think of that all four gospels mentioned.
Exactly. Yeah, that's it.
Setting.
01:15:03
I guess you could say the four gospels descend 4 different vantage points or perspective of the same thing, and so that's why you see the differences between the gospel depending on what the perspective is in that particular case, right?
You know, when it comes to differences in accounts.
Umm, sometimes we we assume that the accounts are of the same incident. Uh, Most notably is when, umm, the woman comes in. In one case she anoints the Lord's head.
In another case, there's a woman that anoints his feet.
Umm, if you read the details of those accounts carefully, it really appears that there are three different accounts. They were three different incidents. There is no reason to think that they were one incident. Umm, if you read them carefully, they occurred in different places and under different circumstances and at different times. Umm the Spirit of God can take the three.
And put them together to show us things we could not otherwise see. Umm, but sometimes we just make assumptions and that's why sometimes we have trouble. Umm the other thing is there are no divine mistakes in the scriptures.
Uh, if there are human mistakes, and I don't say there are, but if there are human mistakes in the writing of the scriptures, they were divinely authored and uh, they can show us truth that otherwise could not be shown to us.
Anything that exists in our three-dimensional world has at least two sides. If you take a coin the, the, uh, American quarter and you show it to somebody, on one side there's uh, an image of Mr. Washington and on the other side there's an eagle. Well, if I hold up the coin and you're looking at it and I'm looking at it, we can argue all day as to what's on the coin. We're both right, but you can't see both at the same time, can you? You can only see one side at a time.
And so in many I it's true of anything that's true. All truth is that way. And so the scriptures will show us two sides of something. It may seem like a contradiction, but what's really happening is the Spirit of God is showing us the truth, both sides of it. And so I hope that helps in any time you come across something in Scripture that seems to be a mistake. If it is a human mistake, it's divinely authored with a purpose.
To show you a particular truth that could not otherwise be shown to you.
Could we see #303 three, 103?
We pray our gracious God and our Father, as we've been reminded, as thou didst feed thy people in the wilderness of old, and even as of its fine bread.
Uh, for the hungry and provided in a desolate place. Thou has provided food for our souls today. And we thank the indeed our Father, we pray that we may take the things that we have heard today. We may meditate upon them.
We may profit by these things. We pray, too, that our fellowship between the meetings may be sweet and be an encouragement to one another. And so we thank the Our Father, and we thank thee, Lord Jesus, too, for that atoning work on Calvary's cross, which has provided us a way, uh, to stand before a God who is holy. Because thou hast, umm, paid the penalty for our sins.
In dying on the cross. And so we thank the blessed Savior and thy worthy and precious name. Amen. Amen.
John 6:14-40
Reading
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Sing aloud to God our strength.
242 He has brought us hitherto.
He will bring us home at length. This the Lord our God will do.
242.
Great, our God and our Father we.
Thank you for this opportunity once again to have thy precious word before our souls. We know all the ingredients are here and uh.
Yes, we are, uh, cast only to, uh, take those things and make them into, if it were a loaf, something we can get a hold of, something we can take with us, something to nourish our souls, to build us up, to sustain us in the wilderness. And so we look to thee for the guidance and direction leading of the Holy Spirit and this, uh, 6th chapter of the, uh, book of John.
And, uh, we pray that the Lord Jesus might be ever more exalted in our hearts and our thoughts and, uh, that, uh, thy love and thy grace and all thy ways, uh, that shine out so perfectly and might be brought home, uh, more closely to our souls. And so we just, uh, commit this time to the now and just looking to the expectations.
Our God and our Father, and the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask it.
Reading in John chapter 6.
Do I begin at first? Go ahead, go ahead. Would it be in order to perhaps read the entire chapter? Because I noticed this morning there was reference quite often to later in the chapter.
Especially with respect to the work of Christ, the fact that He's our Passover.
You up to that John, starting at verse 15 or I would start at verse 14 if that's OK.
John chapter 6, starting with verse 14.
Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said this is of a truth, that prophet that should come into the world. When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king.
He departed again into a mountain, himself alone, and one even was now calm. His disciples went down onto the sea, and entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum, and it was now dark, and Jesus would not come to them. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they had rode about 5 and 20 or 30 furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing nigh unto the ship. They were afraid. But he saith unto them, It is I be not afraid.
Then they willingly received Him into the ship, and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went the day following, when the people which stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was none other boat there save that one where unto His disciples were entered, and that Jesus went not with His disciples into the boat, but that His disciples were gone away alone. Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberius nigh unto the place where they did eat bread. After that the Lord had given death.
When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping and came to Capernaum seeking for Jesus. And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when cometh thou hit her? Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek me, not because you saw the miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
Labor knob for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures unto everlasting life.
Which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father sealed.
Then said they UN. Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the work of God, of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the true work of God, that you believe on him whom he hath sent.
They said therefore unto him, What signs show us thou then, that we may see and believe thee? What dost thou work our fathers to eat manna in the desert, as it is written? He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
00:05:22
Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, that ye also have seen me, and believe not all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out, for I came down from heaven not to do my own will.
But the will of Him that sent me, and this is the Father's will which He had sent me, which had sent me, that of all which He had given me, I should lose nothing. I should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone would see it. The Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him off at the last day. The Jews then murmured at him, because He said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
And they say it is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know.
How is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them.
Remember not among yourselves, No man can come to Me except the Father which hath sent Him. Draw with except the Father which had sent Me. Draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets, and they shall be taught of God. Every man, therefore, that had heard, hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. Not that any man hath seen the Father, say he which is of God, he has seen the Father.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your Father's did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh.
Which I will give for the life of the world.
The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus saith unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is Drake indeed.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in Him.
As the living Father had sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your Father should eat manna. And our Dad, he that eateth of his bread, shall live forever. These things, said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? But Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it. He said unto them, Thought this offend you?
What and if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the Spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profited nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not, For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were, but believe not, and who should betray Him? And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except that were given unto him of my Father.
From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus, unto the 12 Will you go? Will you also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?
Thou has the words of eternal life, and we believe in our shores that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you? 12 And one of you is a devil, he spake of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for here was that should betray him, being one of the 12.
00:10:09
Uh, no doubt we have a picture here of the.
Of the Lord, as was mentioned this morning in his priestly service, we departed into a mountain, Himself alone.
Well aware of what the disciples were battling with on the uh, on the Sea of Galilee, encountering uh.
Contrary winds and storms.
The Lord was aware of that. Uh, and, uh, the picture of the Lord's intercession for us at God's right hand. He's our great high priest.
Umm, serving us there in, uh, ironic character. That's an intercessory priesthood which we need every step of our earthly pathway down here. We won't need that priesthood in the glory. It will come to an end, although the Lord will continue a priesthood of a Melchizedek pattern throughout the Millennium. But here I think it's a picture of the the Lord's service as.
High Priest, It was dark, it was contrary to them. They were, uh, might say, at their wits end and, uh, the great wind blowing and, uh, they thought they would be, uh, shipwrecked, but uh, in the time of their crisis in the.
Man's, uh, extremity as God's opportunity. And the Lord came down and walked on the water and draw and drew night to the ship, and comforted, exhorted, uh, met them in their deep need. Well, the Lord does the same for us. He is, umm, there at the right hand of God, exalted, glorified, but He is in manhood there. And, uh, He carries on that priestly work for us.
Not to restore us from sin, that's his advocacy, but to support us in our weakness, our infirmity. He understands fully about us and He's able to, uh, strengthen us for the journey.
He understands us perfectly.
And sympathizes too, as our great high priest, not with our sins, we're not, we're not, we don't want sympathy for that. We want to judge that unsparingly. But, uh, the Lord's, uh, intercession is to, uh, support and to strengthen us, uh, in the wilderness journey.
I just think it's lovely to see how the Lord Jesus, he has, uh, a great compassion for the multitudes and seeks their good. But we find too, that He had the disciples on his heart and He could see them in their adverse circumstances in the midst of a storm.
And it's wonderful to contemplate the Lord Jesus at the present time, as you say, as our intercessor, the ever lives to make intercession for us.
And we find ourselves in difficult circumstances. Let's not forget the Lord Jesus knows all about what's taking place.
And he intercedes on our behalf.
It's often been said, but I think it's worth repeating, that he does have our best interests at heart.
All the time.
And the fact that he comes to them.
Walking on the water.
Shows that he has everything in his control.
It's not limited by the forces or of.
Nature. The laws of gravity.
Because of who he is, Son of God.
They knew that, uh.
There was a coming day.
And a coming Kingdom that was going to be set up from the Old Testament prophetic scriptures. And in a certain sense, this crowd is more intelligent than many Christians today who deny that fact that the Lord is going to come and set up his Kingdom and power and glory in this world. And Israel will be restored and be the head of the nations and not the tail. And they knew that, but they didn't believe.
00:15:22
He was the Christ.
That's the difference. Looking back in Deuteronomy in the 18th chapter, we find who they did think he was.
Deuteronomy chapter 18.
Moses speaking to the people.
In verse 15.
The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thy brethren like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken. And so they knew there was.
A profit coming who is going to be like Moses? Well, Moses had, uh, as they looked at it, fed them in the wilderness, provided for them. The Lord brings out that it wasn't Moses, but it was God the Father that had provided. So they had that expectation, the other, uh, scripture, uh, that might go along with that, that they would have known as 132nd Psalm.
Call 132 and verse 13.
For the Lord hath chosen Zion, He hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest forever. Here will I dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless your provision. I will satisfy her poor with bread. And so they were surmising. Well, look at this miracle.
There must be time for the Kingdom to be set up. This is that profit that Moses talked about. Let's make him the king.
And they would have taken him by force and made him a king. You know earlier in John's Gospel they come to John's the Baptist, and they say, art thou to Christ? He said, no, I'm not. Art thou Elias, I Elias? Art thou that prophet then? No, not the prophet. They didn't see that the prophet Moses was Speaking of was the same person as the Christ.
They thought it was a different person and so, and they're saying this is that profit. They're really denying that he's the Christ.
One might suppose it's an abundant honor to be going on on him, but really they're they're not believing who he really is, who he's been saying he is.
And so they wanna take him and buy the their own force and power. They're going to put him at the top of their system. And you know, that's just how it is in Christianity Today. They've taken Jesus Christ and they've put him at the top of their system and said this is the perfect man. And Christianity is all about getting us to the place where we can be like this perfect man. And we're all capable of getting there because we have a perfect example of humanity.
Crowning our system to aspire to.
The flesh profiteth nothing, and he would not take that. They'd love to make him an ornament on their system, even if it was the chief one. He would not take that place. The Kingdom is going to be the Kingdom of God, not man. That Christ will be the center of it and will reign over and will establish in this world, and God will bring it in. No effort.
Of man is ever going to bring in that Kingdom. Another great fallacy of professing Christianity, to think that through the force of men, Christian men and women in this world, that the Kingdom is going to be brought in. No, that would still be a Kingdom of men, not of God.
It was so easy for us to allow circumstances to, uh, be cloud the, uh, presence of the Lord and uh.
To look at circumstances.
In our lives, we're getting that the Lord orders our circumstances.
Circumstances do not produce our state of soul, but they surely manifest it when a difficulty comes into our lives. And, uh, we're not in communion with the Lord, we're not depending on Him. We, we cannot understand the dis dispensation in our lives.
00:20:17
Everyone, I'm sure, in the company here this afternoon has circumstances that you cannot understand. You have an answer to that.
Uh, you must look to the Lord, He is, he is behind the scenes, moving all the scenes that he is behind. And if God be for us, who can be against us? But you know, we're unbelieving believers and no matter how many times the Lord has delivered us, you come to another, uh.
Crisis in our lives and we go down, we don't realize that the Lord is ordering, uh, those circumstances if we turn over to, uh.
Uh, Psalm 32.
32.
Verse 7 Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.
I will instruct the and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine. I ye not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle. Thus they come near unto thee.
Well, sometimes the bit and bridle are used of God to umm, to speak to us and umm, we need to, uh, take our.
Circumstances from the Lord, our difficulties to the Lord and if we're in communion with him, we, uh, we can see that he is doing the best for us every day of our lives according to our state of soul.
So before the Lord does set up the Kingdom, before He brings it in, what takes place in these few verses must take place before that day.
And so it's been brought out. The Lord is on high right now at this place of intercession.
And what is the yet unfold in this world is a storm called the Great Tribulation.
And there is going to be a little company of the faithful that, uh, battle through that storm and they're going to roll hard.
A little company, a little remnant of Israel, and they're going to roll hard in that storm and they're not going to make very much progress at all.
But there's gonna be progress in their souls.
Even though there's not progress in an outward way, they're going to be very afflicted, they're going to be poor, they're going to be persecuted. In many martyr Satan is the Prince and power of the air, and he's the one that stirs that storm up all ordered of God and what he's doing and preparation to bring that Kingdom in.
Lord has his eye on that little remnant, but they don't see the Lord.
They're unaware He's hidden. We have some scriptures, uh, that were brought before us from the Psalms. We apply them to ourselves, but they're really the echo of the remnant, asking why is the Lord forsaken and when will I see the Lord? When will I come into his presence?
Where is the Lord? They say unto me continually, Where is thy God? And that's going to be the taunt to the remnant going through this storm. But the Lord has his eye on them and all that they pass through.
And finally, at the end, he's going to appear.
For their salvation and their blessing. But you know at first his appearance as the lightning shines out of the East, even unto the West, and is a confirmation for the whole world. It's going to be for that little remnant at first too.
Disappearing is going to almost seem to add to the trouble. What is this that's going on?
But you know he's going to make himself known to that little remnant. And so here the Lord comes after they had made so little progress.
00:25:07
Their long-awaited Messiah appears. They see Jesus walking on the sea drawing now, but they are afraid the glory of his appearing just adds to their situation that seems to be so against them.
He saith unto them, It is I be not afraid. And he is going to make himself known to that little remnant. And the moment He does, they're going to arrive at the place that they have been so struggling to come to and could never get to by the their own efforts. He's going to bring it in and they're going to be safely at land.
All that has to take place before he is reigning on the throne? Asked King.
I was just thinking too, it's kind of a sample of the two different ways or a contrast, I guess I should say, the two different ways of the Lord coming here. Because these people thought, well, we can take the Lord and through force that through violence and through overthrow of a government, we can make him into a king. And umm, as you were saying, Mr. Stewart, to make him the head of their organization or their system. And that was not going to be the way that the Lord, uh, came to his people. He was not going to come.
And make a big crowd and a big violence and overthrow the government that was there so that he could reign. As you said, that would not be of God. But when he does come, what a contrast in verse 20. But he says unto them, it is I be not afraid. And so such a difference, not him coming and raising up a bunch of of angry citizens disgruntled with the government and trying to overthrow it by violence, but simply coming to his own and saying in his eyes, be not afraid.
It's important to see that the Church is not a moral force to build a better world. As our brother mentioned, this is the character of things in Christendom today, that umm, we are here to improve the world.
But brethren, we are completely separate from that whole system socially, uh, politically, religiously. Satan is the Prince of this world politically.
God of this world religiously.
And, uh, he, umm, controls things socially too. And so, uh.
Are the path of the believer is to be present from this, uh, uh, separate from this present evil world, not isolated were sent back into the world to be a testimony, but not to, uh, mix ourselves up with it and, uh, part of the, the system which, uh, God is going to judge.
Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the Prince of this world be cast out. And so, uh.
Umm, we are umm, left down here.
To be ambassadors for Christ. It's man's day and man's time of exaltation.
Umm and uh, where God is allowing man to uh, pres to uh, exalt himself.
And, uh, the whole, the whole, uh, principle is we don't want God in the system. We can do without him. And, uh, this is the, the character of the world that we are, we are in, it started with Cain and it's gone on and developed, uh, remarkably now, but we don't wanna get away from our chapter here too far. Umm.
The Lord.
Wasn't the time for the establishment of the Kingdom here the Lord goes on to speak of his death and his sacrifice. It's not a time for the, uh, establishing of the, the royal rule of Christ. That will come in its own time in the Millennium. But now the Lord speaks of, uh, of his death and, uh, what he must go through, uh.
In the uh.
The vanity of the flesh, the real the real condition of man and many of the disciples. You know, being a disciple doesn't mean that you are a genuine child of God. There were disciples here. A disciple is one who follows the teachings of Christ, but not all disciples are true believers. The Lord speaks of disciples indeed, because many of these in our chapter here.
00:30:22
When they heard these things.
That the flesh profited nothing, as the Lord says later on in our chapter. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. They didn't want that truth. They still thought there was something good in the first man and uh.
They re refused their Messiah. They refused that truth. Uh so that uh.
The Lord here and he's Speaking of the true, uh, the true nature of the of man and uh, his death eating his flesh and drinking his blood is really appropriating the sacrifice of Christ to my own need as a Sinner.
You know, we feed upon Christ in three ways, really. The manna is presented here, uh, in the Passover. So Christ is presented in those three ways as the Passover lamb, which is, uh, brought before us in this chapter. But he also mentions the mana, which is a picture of Christ in his pathway down here. Umm, we feed upon the manna.
And the Passover at the same time, because as we contemplate the perfect life of Christ down here, we are feeding upon the manna. We get that in the, uh, Gospels, especially its wilderness food. We don't need the manna in the glory, but we'll have the remembrance of, of walking with the Lord down here like the Whitestone. But then it comes to the old corn of the land. When they entered the land of Canaan, you remember the man has ceased. They no longer had mana in the land of Canaan.
They had the old corn of the land.
Now that comes out clearly in Joshua chapter 5. It doesn't mean that we no longer need, uh, the example and pattern of Christ before our souls as a man down here, but we are to know him in a different character now. We are to know Christ as exalted at the right hand of God. We are to feed upon him in that glorified condition. We know I'm now in a heavenly character.
That, uh, was not even known to the disciples at, at this, uh, time, this juncture here, they did not, uh, weren't able to apprehend Christ in that character. Remember that Mary was told not to touch the Lord.
Uh, touch me not, for I'm not yet ascended unto my father. Why was she told not to touch the Lord? Where the, uh, the women of Galilee took him by the feet and held onto him. But Mary, because in the Gospel of John, you see the character, it is introducing us now into a heavenly position, especially the upper room ministry from 13 to 17. It's bringing us into a heavenly character of things.
And therefore we don't dwell upon the Lord.
As a man down here to set up the Kingdom, we know I'm now in, in a, in a heavenly character, uh, by the Spirit of God, which uh, is developed in this book. And so the, the character of John's gospel is to bring us into the enjoyment of Christ in his heavenly character and our position with him there. That is the, the theme of the, uh, gospel of John.
And so, umm, all is the result of the work of Christ. But uh, just mentioning that the old corn of the land, uh, is Christ in resurrection. And they fed upon that when they got into the land of Canaan, the land of Canaan.
Is often referred to as a as a picture of the heaven.
Sometimes in relation to death, but really, uh, that is a very restricted view of Canaan. Uh, we now have the privilege of, uh, of entering into these heavenly things. This, uh, new position we have in Christ. We are in him before God. Brother mentioned this morning, eternal life. It's a different character to the life the Old Testament Saints had. It's a.
00:35:13
It's the same life, but it is a life in the intelligence of, uh, of our position as sons of God and our heavenly position. That is eternal life. Now that we enjoy the very life that Christ himself has and, uh, connected with, uh, our, uh, our position before God, which the Old Testament St. did not, uh, he did not enjoy. And so, uh.
The old corner of the land is a picture of our heavenly blessings and that, uh, that took place when they entered the land of Canaan. And the point is, I believe that we can enter into those things even now. God would have us to enter in and to enjoy heaven before we get there.
And you could see that because when they entered into the land of Canaan and there wasn't just the enjoyment, there was war.
Yeah, it was when they entered into the land of Cana Canaans when the battles began. And so it's a picture of heaven. Yes, but our enjoyment of it is now because we're not gonna be fighting battles when we're actually taken there. Correct. That's the, the, the conflict in the, uh, in the believers life actually, uh.
The old corn of the land would correspond with Ephesians chapter 6, where we have the conflict in order, not in order to possess those blessings. We have them already, but the conflict is to enjoy them. And Satan is, will oppose us at every step. And so Ephesians 6 is important to see. It's not the struggle of the flesh and the spirit. That's uh, Galatians, uh, five, but it's as our brother mentioned, the conflict to possess and enjoy.
What is ours, uh, in price as as raised with him?
We might see that.
Also in verse 21, because you know, as soon as they allowed him or welcomed him into the ship, they were immediately at their destination. So again, I can speak an application to me and be made to our experience that when we, uh, when we enjoy communion with the Lord, when we welcome into our ship, so to speak, we are immediately in the enjoyment of heaven.
I was thinking about the same point here and if we look at verse 16 to verse.
2021.
Uh, if we think about it about every verse verse 16 says and when even was now come the disciples went down onto the sea 17 and entered into the ship and went over seat over Capernaum and it was now dark and Jesus was not come to dance First we were entering and achieved and the Lord was Washington wasn't with them. And then it says and the and the CRO's by the reason of a great win that blew. So when they when they had wrote about 5 and 20 or 30 furlongs.
Which I was talking with Aaron here and it's around 4 miles. I mean, that's a pretty long distance to be rowing in the middle of the dark in the ocean. And if we see that they start rowing after the great wind chain. So they went to the to the to the sea when it was dark without the Lord, they entered the ship and then the wind came.
When they were already there.
And instead of saying, OK, let's go back, they kept growing like trying. I imagine what was happening in their minds were OK, we have a a storm here, we've got to get get out of here. And these are rowing and rolling for four miles. That's that's a pretty long way to go. And if we follow it, continue reading test.
And drawing light into the chip. And they were afraid.
But he said that to them it is I be not afraid. I like to think that all those four miles that they were rowing in the dark without seeing anything and with that storm that came after them before they before they start rowing. The Lord was working with them besides them all the time. They just didn't see them. They they just didn't see him because in verse 21 Says.
00:40:02
They, uh, then they will receive him to the ship and immediately the ship was at, was at the land, whether they went. So I was thinking and trying to associate with our life, with our or our own life. And he's in this, this early world. Uh, sometimes we go to the sea. We, we know that we don't supposed to go even even more if it's too dark and then we start.
It would get involved in a journey or some travel that we ourselves put in that spot to begin with, and then the trouble start to come. And instead of turning back to the Lord and asking for His health, we tried to, for our own means, get out of that, of that problem, of that situation. And the Lord is with us all the time. We just don't realize that He's there and we don't turn back to Him to ask for His help. And it's like a long way after we have been.
Struggling with that or with passing with that trouble, that 4 miles, I don't know how, how long in our life could be like days, weeks, months or years traveling with something. And then at the end we said, OK, Lord, I can do it anything. I, I just put this in your hands. And we receive the Lord and our chief in our life and we call him, we welcome him again and we asked him to take care of the problem and immediately.
We we can see that the Lord start asking our lives and all the problems even though the problems are not solved.
But we have a piece that we don't know how we how we could have gotten that piece in that situation just by leaving everything in the Lord's hands. You know, I probably we are passing through many problems. I know by my own experience, I have had problems that have lost months, weeks that I was just trying to get out of those problems by my own means. But as soon as I turn to the Lord and I started like praying on my knees.
Just putting everything in his hand, He gave me the piece and right away, right away I felt the peace and justice left it. No caring about anything else, but the Lord my Father will take care of me and things start aligning in the right place and going towards the right end. And it's just amazingly how when we trust the Lord enough, like to put everything there and no care and more about our problems, the fees that we can find with Him.
Well, Susan, Isaiah 26, I will keep him in perfect peace.
Whose mind is stayed on deep?
And I I believe that peace isn't necessarily the absence of trouble.
But it's the absence of fear in the midst of troubles, realizing that anything that takes place in our lives, God is in it. God is in everything.
And I do believe that.
As I said earlier, he has our best interests at heart.
He wants the very best for us, and how can we question that this is not true if we recognize the love that's been displayed to you and to me?
In that, God the Father would send his Son to be the Savior.
He would not spare his son, but he delivers him up for us all.
And the Lord Jesus the Son, goes to the cross, and there he lays down his life, sheds his blood in order to redeem us.
This is love that we can only begin to talk about. We'll never Plumb the depth of it.
It's infinite.
So we've been redeemed. I believe the Lord Jesus paid the price.
To deliver us from the curse of the law.
To deliver us from the power of the enemy, Satan.
Uh, to deliver us from.
Our students paid the price. It's a ransom.
But I believe the counterpart you know to redemption is purchased.
And so he's purchased us with his own blood, and we belong to him.
Somebody has said.
That redemption makes us.
Christ's freed man.
But purchase makes us Christ's bondsman.
00:45:03
And I always enjoyed that.
Or at least seem to make it clear to my own soul.
That we're not redeemed just to live as we please and do our own thing.
We've been purchasing. We belong to Christ.
And I believe our happiness is to submit to him.
I just noticed and also a little.
Verse 23 it says.
These boats, they came from Tiberius Nyan to the place where they eat bread. Now notice it says after that the Lord had given thanks. That's in verse 23.
It just seems to me emphasize the importance of Thanksgiving now we noticed earlier in the chapter.
Maybe we didn't say too much about it, but in verse 11 it says Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks he distributed to the disciples. Well, if the Lord Jesus plays importance on giving thanks, how much more should we?
And appreciated the conference here. Somebody gives thanks for the food.
Well, it's so nice, you know, when we sit down at home and give thanks for the meal.
But many don't do this.
They got the idea that.
They deserve to have a nice meal. You know, they just take it for granted. Well, this is what's coming to me. We don't deserve anything. We need to be thankful, and I believe a thankful person is a happy person.
Because we realize we're getting what we don't deserve. Hey, sorry, go ahead.
I was just wondering if these people in verse 23.
They heard that the Lord had given thanks and had distributed this food, and they thought, well, we're gonna come and get some of this food for ourselves. So they all bring their boats over and they expect, uh, to have a big dinner along with everybody else. But you notice what the Lord says? He says in the 26th verse, Ye seek me not because he saw the miracles.
But because you did eat of the lows and were filled labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures unto everlasting life. The Lord was teaching them that sure, it's nice to have your stomach filled, but you know that's just something that will last temporarily. What you need is something that is good for your soul, that will last for eternity. And I think this is a very important lesson for all of us because we're.
Very anxious to go to the Lord and have them solve everyday difficulties in our lives and we forget about the spiritual lessons that we have to learn. And the Lord, I believe here is telling them that, uh, you've got to be concerned about your spiritual soul as well as your physical. And so they say to them in the, uh, 28th verse, what shall we do that we might work the works of God. So they thought well.
If we're gonna get to heaven, we're gonna do some work. And what if the Lord answered them? He says This is the work of God that ye believe. So salvation is not a question of work, is it? That's what the natural heart thinks.
What is really important is believing what God has said. So I think the Lord was just trying to teach them here some spiritual lessons when they were only interested in, uh, filling their stomachs.
The Lord is faithful too, because they come with a pretense. How did you get here?
Their curiosity as to how we got there was not what brought them there.
They wanted their belly filled.
You know, we don't perhaps feel it in the same way much of the rest of the world does, but most of the world 50% or more of their incomes used to buy food, very small percentage of our income by food.
But for the rest of the world, food, the struggle and the thought of someone that could just provide you meal after meal and they could be like the children of Israel in the wilderness and every day there'd be manna and never have to worry about anything again.
Would be tremendous. What a luxury. And so like, how did you get here?
00:50:05
And he just strips away their pretense and he says, This is why you're here. You want your belly filled. You know, man doesn't like his pretenses stripped away. But the word of God does that, doesn't it? It lays bare of the soul. And that's what the Lord is doing here. He strips away the pretense and he says, This is why you came.
This is why labor, not for that meat that perishes, that's what you're working for. And they say, well.
Look, if you're not going to give it to us, tell us how. Tell us how to do this trick.
Tell us how to do it.
If you're not gonna cooperate.
That's really the attitude behind what they're saying.
Tell us how to do the works of God to make those loaves multiply and those fishes multiply and like what we've read in the Old Testament.
And the Lord again, he brings it right back to their conscience.
As to what they should be laboring for.
Believe on him who he hath sent, and that was at the root of it. They didn't really believe who he was.
And that's what he is bringing them and really stripping away every pretense and getting down to the issue. They didn't really believe who he was.
It's wonder, wonderful to see the Lord's provision throughout this chapter, and I believe that in a certain sense, for the natural man, it is not so difficult to recognize God's power.
But to Noah's heart is quite a different thing, and so we see here towards the end of the chapter.
In verse 67 then Jesus said unto the 12, Will ye also go away? He desired to bless them. And we also see his desire to provide. I believe for the practical needs when he feeds the thousands with the bread and for believers.
Maybe it's easy for us to remember God's power.
But it's also easy to forget that not only can He bless us, but He will, and He wants to, and that is his desire to do that.
Man wants the blessing.
But he wants it apart from God.
He wants the benefits, but he doesn't want God.
And that's really in this part of the chapter. The Lord speaks. He's exposing that fact in the hearts of this crowd. They want the blessing, but they don't want the Son.
He just had to do it. Give us this bread, you know, teach or teach us how to do it. But they really don't want him. But, you know, life and blessing is only had in the sun. It's not something given out of the sun or something we can gain apart from the sun in any way. We have life and especially brought out in John's ministry.
In the sun, except the corner of wheat fall into the ground and die to buy this alone. But if a diet bringeth forth much fruit, and you and I are like those kernels of wheat on that stock, and they have their life because they're on that stock that sprung from that kernel that went into the ground. They have their life and virtue of their association with that feed that went in the ground. And you and I have our life.
In the sun.
Not apart from Him, not outside of Him, even given from Him. It's in the sun, it's in that connection with Him. But they wanted the blessing, but not the Son.
Because the heart of man is that enmity with God.
Sing 312.
312.
Our God and Father, we just come before thee and thank thee for this time together. We thank thee for thy beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, that one who is now on high as our great high Priest, and that is care for us. Lord Jesus, as we walk through this world, we know that there are many storms that come along in our lives. But Lord, we thank Thee that thou art greater than these things and that we can trust Thee whatever comes along and.
We think of that terrible storm that is on the horizon for this world, and yet we think, Lord, of how thou will preserve our testimony of those who love thee through it all. And, uh, they'll come into that place of blessing in the Millennium. And so, Lord, we would just pray that thou encourage us here. Uh, we pray that we might not be just concerned about everyday matters for we know it's only for a moment, but Lord, that, uh, we might be more concerned with those things that are for eternity.
And we might be building ourselves up on our most holy faith. And so we would just continue for the ask, meaning for thy blessing on the meetings to follow. And we ask in the worthy and precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
I Am - Be Not Afraid
Being Sure of Salvation
I Never Knew You
Gospel 1
Gospel—John Kemp
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.
So we open our gospel meeting tonight by singing number.
Umm, life at best is very brief #2525 like the falling of a leaf, like the binding of a sheath.
Be in time.
OK, I'm surprised he talks to me in time.
Mm-hmm. OK. Respond to the PayPal and units and Unity Palace domain following your hands on 1/6 day and time. I'm not scared. I tend to come together. You'll not want your phone. Let's give me the your home just to move in time.
Day and time, day and time.
Get along their way, you're doing the same, probably a couple of things and get it and your pride becomes too late in time.
I decline quickly by God and judged with God through the allowance of being a subscriber in time.
Oh my friend you pass the call, they have the face aligned me cross and your priceless All the belongs to be in time being in time.
We entertained somewhat learning products in today's the water you're having the employees that have a lot of highlights in metallurgy and from darkest things to light from the way by seeing the bride come and sorry for having you night in time.
Being in time, beginning time. Wow, it's not like a voice of jeans that's called you've been in the.
And then you can send you a longer way. You may find no decay and your pride is up to the end in time.
Shall we ask the Lord's blessing our God and our Father, and how thankful we are that at the outset of this gospel meeting we can look up to Thee and seek Thy help and blessing, owning our dependence upon Thee. Blessed God, for the going forth of the glad tidings of Thy grace and mercy toward a perishing world.
We thank thee.
For this privilege we thank Thee for the One who made it possible through his death and suffering on the cross of Calvary, our blessed Savior. May he be exalted to night.
And if there is one soul who is a stranger to thy love and grace?
Who is still in his sins, without hope, without God in this world?
That thy spirit might convict and open the eyes of the blind, blinded eyes to see and hearts to respond, while we still have an opportunity in this day of grace.
We seek Thy help, we commit the meeting to the gospel going forth in California likewise, and ask, uh, thy direction, that there might be joy in heaven over one Sinner that repenteth in the name and for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
00:05:02
Witnessing another hymn.
#26 #26 There is life in a look at the crucified one. There is life at this moment for thee #26 If some brother would start it, please.
There is life in the Lord, and hath thus premiers did hide one. There is light by the small and 40.
I'm breathing for his life now, can make me quite cold.
Blood flow, slow blood flow, camera and fire depth lights and all the bums have done through the nervous bikes by plants barely slight practice moment for a day.
There is a life and none of them have done through Truth in Five One Therein's life at this moment for me.
And thou not thy welcome St. God has been cleared, there remain and so forth to become.
UH-110 1,000,012 Thou Ferrell being out there and completely left the word he did become.
A long time.
There is life and all the songs that concludes his eyes on. There is like that, this moment for being.
But they with rejoice sink from Jesus that one, but like that her life thinking again, and no make such a friend, thou never can't die.
And give us thy right Christmas Day.
So we turn in our Bibles to, uh, Isaiah chapter 45.
A well known verse to most here, perhaps verse 22.
00:10:04
Isaiah 45.
Look unto me, and be ye saved.
All the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. So, dear friends, at the outset of our little gospel meeting tonight, we are inviting you to look to Christ.
We are presenting to you not a new religion, but a person, the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. It's not a new message. Perhaps you have heard it many times.
The old story of God's love. The way of salvation through faith.
In the finished work of Christ, we're not asking you to turn over a new leaf, it'll just get as filthy as the other. We're not asking you to clean up your life or join a church, but we are inviting you to look to Christ.
There as the sacrifice, as the holy victim, lifted up between heaven and earth.
A spectacle to men, to devils, to angels.
God's beloved Son.
Who has salvation for you, full and free and eternal?
Will you look to Him? I know many of my audience here have already taken that look of faith to the Son of God.
And know with assurance thou never canst die, since Jesus thy righteousness lives. This hymn that we sung was written by a woman whose name was Amelia Hall. He lived in England. Her father was a respected captain in the army.
She was from a fashionable home.
She had everything that heart could wish.
Beautiful, uh, surroundings.
Umm, riches, uh, education while everything was at her feet. But she felt in her soul an emptiness, a longing for something. She went to a gospel meeting and heard the message of salvation and how we can have peace with God.
It affected her, it it moved her soul, she says. This is what I need. I've been seeking for pleasure and satisfaction in the things of this world.
And to be honest, I am disappointed. And she came home and told her father.
Who, uh, was, uh.
A man of the army.
And held in high respect with honors to his name, he said. Young lady, I don't want anything of that nature in my house. You understand? Get this out of your mind because I'm not tolerating this in our residence here in your home. Well, she was disappointed.
Greatly by the attitude of her father, but there was still that longing in her soul, and again she went to that little Gospel hall there in the South of England.
And again she heard a stirring message from an evangelist who really loved souls and presented the truth in a simple and earnest way to her heart. And there that night.
She passed from death unto life. The joy that filled her heart she had never experienced before. But she had to go home. She had to go home to the same house. She had to face her father.
That night. And she did. He entered the door and she shared the good news with him. Of course, he flew into a rage. He said. Didn't I tell you, young lady, that we're not having anything of this nonsense in our house?
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Listen.
I'm giving you an ultimatum. Go up to your room.
And if this is not if you don't get rid of this nonsense by tomorrow morning.
In the library there is a horse whip. I am going to use it on you. And he wasn't fooling. I'm going to use that horse whip on you tomorrow morning if you don't get rid of these ideas in your mind.
Well, this greatly grieved his fashionable daughter. She went up to her room. She didn't sleep much that night. She was in prayer and, uh, in sorrow for her father.
But during the night she wrote this hymn.
There is life in a look at the crucified one in the dark hours of the night. She indicted this hymn.
In her room alone. I don't think she got any sleep that night in prayer for her dear Father.
And in the morning she came down.
At the foot of the stairs, her father was there.
To meet her and he said what's your decision? Amelia, young lady, what's your decision?
She didn't speak very much, but she passed him a piece of paper that had this hymn on it. There is life in a look at the crucified One. He took the paper and he read.
Each stanza, you know, the Spirit of God worked in that proud man's soul and he sank into that chair and the Spirit of God had convicted him. Needless to say, he didn't use the horse whip. He became a true believer. Captain Hall, many years he was gathered to the name of the Lord.
In the assemblies in southern England.
Highly respected and preached the gospel and uh.
Told others of the deliverance that he experienced by the power of the word of God that night. Well, dear friends, the message hasn't changed for you tonight and uh.
We are inviting you.
To that same blessed One.
Who, uh, has the power to give you true happiness, peace with God?
Salvation, pardon, forgiveness of your many sins.
Your sins are countless. Mine were like the hairs of my head.
I couldn't count them.
But by the grace of God, as far as the east is from the West, they have been removed.
They've been thrown into the depths of the sea when I was in Brazil this summer.
I saw one of the largest rivers in the world. Never before had I seen the Amazon River.
My wife feels you know is from Brazil and we were visiting the assembly in Manaus.
Up in the north of Brazil and as I looked at that mighty torrent of water.
The force of it is incredible. Incredible. The power of the current in that river is so strong that it it pours out fresh water 100 miles into the Atlantic.
And I saw the confluence of the tributaries of the Amazon River. We passed over it and, uh, we were right on the edge of the rainforest. You boys and girls want to see something from the rainforest? I'll show it to you tomorrow.
You know, in the rainforest you have these big Python snakes. You probably have studied that at school. I'll show you one wrapped around me, but we won't talk about that now. But if you want to see it, maybe tomorrow. Anyway, there's the story. A ship was, uh, out in the out in the Atlantic. They had run out of water. They sent up a distress signal.
To another ship that was nearby.
To the captain, Sir, he said we're running out of water, we're dying with thirst here and the captain said don't worry, let down your bucket, let down your bucket, you're in fresh water. They were in the outflow of that tremendous Amazon River there at the mouth of the, of the tribu of the, uh, huge.
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Torrent of water pouring out there into the Atlantic.
Let down your bucket, dear friends.
We are inviting you to partake of the Water of Life tonight.
The water of life that the Lord Jesus is offering to you from His great heart of love. We think at this time of year of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus.
That's starlit night in Bethlehem there. You know what Bethlehem means? It means a House of bread.
And hasn't it been a marvelous House of bread for sinners for the last 2000 years?
If you still have not tasted the Living Bread, it's being offered to you tonight.
Christ was born in Bethlehem, and there, for the first time in the world's history, the angels who were the creation of the Lord Jesus looked down from heaven. The heavens were filled with praises. They were in an ecstasy as the angels came trooping down from heaven.
To announce the coming of Christ. For the first time, the Son of God entered man's world.
Not to the great religious men of Jerusalem. They didn't know anything about it. Boat is coming. And when they did, they sought to slay him. But to those simple shepherds, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward man. What a marvelous event that took place that night when the Son of God became man.
A body hast thou prepared me, We read in Hebrews.
He took a body, a human body, perfect in every sense of the word, body, soul and spirit. He was a human being, sin apart, sin apart. But uh, there the Son of God assumed manhood, took it into union with deity. He didn't give empty himself of his deity.
But he became a man in order that he might die.
A body capable of death, but not subject to true death. And there the Creator of the universe. At that very moment, that babe in Bethlehem's Manger was upholding all things by the word of his power.
Think of the galaxies I've been hearing lately of the, uh, the billions, billions of galaxies in our, in our, uh, in the universe. Here was the creator of the universe. He calls all of those stars by name. His hands formed them.
The billions of stars and galaxies. Milky Way is just one of them.
Yeah.
You know what light travels that, uh, what's it? 100 and 8086 thousand to miles per minute? The light that started when Adam was brought into the world.
It has not gone a tenth of the distance across our Galaxy, the Milky Way. To this day, it hasn't gone more than a tenth of the distance. And light travels at what is it, 180,000 miles per second. Think of the immensity of the universe. And there was the Creator.
Created all things by the word of His power.
The brightness of the eternal glory shall his praise unuttered lie. And that person in manhood. But as we were reminded today, it's not His incarnation that saves your soul from hell.
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die at abideth alone. It's not the incarnation that was necessary.
It's the suffering and the death of Christ, His precious blood. Otherwise he would have been alone for all eternity. Up there in the glory He returned to His home where he had came from.
There he was in the bosom of the Father from a past eternity, and he returned there in manhood.
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But uh.
If He had not gone to the cross, there would be no gospel meeting here tonight, and every one of us would be doomed to a lost eternity. But God had devised that plan in a past eternity. I believe that the work of Christ on the cross was before His holy soul from the time.
From time immemorial, because Christ never had a beginning. The work of redemption.
Was before the soul of the Lord Jesus Christ and.
In in process of time he came into the world, glorified God in his life down here heavens broke asunder. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And then.
He went to the cross to accomplish the will of God.
And the will of God tonight, my friend, is for your eternal blessing and salvation.
You know John 316 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him.
Should not perish, but have everlasting life. Richard Weaver was a miner in England. You may have read his biography.
He became a very powerful gospel preacher, but he was a tough character in his youth. He was a fighter and, uh.
He lived a life of misery and shame and uh.
He was, no one wanted to, uh, encounter Richard Weaver because they knew they would come out, uh, defeat it. But you know, Richard Weaver, though he was such a rough repulse of character, he had a soul. And his mother was a praying woman. And when Richard would come home at night bleeding and bruised and wounded.
She would patiently.
Wash his scars and bleeding back and put them to bed. But before she said good night to her son, she quoted him John 316. Every night. John 316.
And God began to work in the soul of Richard Weaver. He had an appointment with a man to fight the next day.
But God had another appointment with him and, uh, in that old sand pit.
There, Richard Weaver.
Uh had the greatest struggle of his life. Satan was bidding high, he had a battle with the devil which was not to be compared with a fellow mortal, and he was tormented by 1000 doubts.
Uh, as he encountered that terrible adversary, Satan.
But you know, he came through victorious. He came through victorious. And it was through that verse that his mother had quoted to him night after night there in that sand pit, in that deathly struggle with the enemy, with all the doubts, he says it's impossible. I've lived a life of misery and shame, God.
I've sinned away my day of grace.
No, God had mercy on him and.
There in that sand pit, he bowed the knee to Christ. And, uh.
The love of the Lord conquered him and he became an earnest evangelist. You young people, I recommend that you read the, uh, biography of Richard Weaver. Uh, it's very interesting, very, uh, inspiring, uh, maybe a little difficult to obtain, but, uh, he became a powerful, uh, servant of the Lord in the, in the years that followed. Well, dear friends.
Want you to know this this evening that God has a deep interest in your eternal blessing and salvation. Turn with me to Luke's gospel. Want to look just for a few moments at.
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One, uh, question.
Uh, the question.
Uttered by a man of the world.
Perhaps we're familiar with this story.
The Lord warns in this chapter Luke chapter 12 of three things, hypocrisy, covetousness and carefulness.
The cure for hypocrisy. Everything is going to be revealed verse uh, two, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. So you cannot hide anything from God. Everything is going to come out if you do not accept Christ as your Savior. The books will be opened at the great white throne your life.
Will be exposed.
Every thought, every word, every deed, and you'll have to meet God, meet Christ there. We'll be the judge on the great white throne and you'll have to meet him. Uh, not as a savior. It's a great white throne. No blood to cleanse you from your sins. You'll hear that word depart from me. I never knew you.
You may have a profession. Profession is not going to save you. Have you put your faith and your trust in Christ's finished work? Have you repented of those sins that have blotted and ruined your life?
It says here, uh verse UH-16HE spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do?
I will, uh, what shall I do Because I have no room to bestow my fruits.
Here was a gentleman farmer. He had undisputed rights over his land. He was prosperous. The earth had brought forth by handfuls. And he said that night, I believe it was during the night, you know, in the middle of the night, sometimes your mind is quite clear.
And he thought, Here I've got the dimensions.
My barns are crammed to the roof, the store houses are overflowing. I've got no more room and, uh, I'm getting older. I'm going to retire, eat, drink and be merry, but I've got to pull down these barns here. I've got an architect. We have to make plans for the future because I just haven't got room to bestow my goods.
Verse 17 he sought within himself.
Saying, what shall I do? What about the poor that were around in the neighborhood? He didn't think about them at all. He thought of one thing himself and his own pleasure.
And his future which he looked forward to a happy retirement much goods many years. But you know, I would put one word over this scene. One word I think is the best description that I know of for this scene that we are looking at. Do you know what it is?
Miscalculation. He left out of his umm, he left out of his plans. God.
He didn't have any thought of God. He didn't want God in his life. That was not in his calculation at all. The many years and the much goods and the eating and drinking and making merry, having a good time.
But he had a a visitor that night, an old preacher that speaks very loudly, and he didn't, uh, expect to meet him that night.
He had no idea that he would enter the room uninvited and lay his icy hand upon him and call him a fool.
Death entered that room there in the middle of the night, and all his plans were frustrated. They never came to pass, and God called him a fool. He heard the voice of the Lord that night.
And dear friends, that's what we want you to listen to tonight is the voice of the Lord. I'm only a messenger, and a poor one at that. If you will hear the voice of the Lord, deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. The work has been finished. What more could God do in order to win your heart?
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But this man had no thought of eternity at all.
Just this life.
Nothing beyond And do we not have people that talk that way now? And yet life is so uncertain. To lose your health is much to lose your to lose your wealth is much to lose your health is more. To lose your soul is such a loss as no man can restore.
My wife is from Brazil, as you probably know. She's down there now. A few weeks ago there was a top soccer team from Brazil. They had been the underdog and they had risen up to a place of notoriety.
And success in their career. Brazilians are soccer mad, you know, And here they were, uh.
Re They reached right to the top and, uh, everyone admired them and praised them for their, their success in this world. They were taking a trip I saw, I suppose it was some sort of a tournament, uh, in another country in Colombia and they were traveling from, uh, Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
To uh, uh, Medel Medellin, Colombia.
And uh.
Expecting to arrive and perform and, uh, expecting to win the game, I suppose.
There were, uh.
See, there was about 70 of them.
It was 76 on the flight, but a number of them, there were about 20, uh, reporters with them. So probably there was 56 or so. They never arrived in Colombia. That plane for some reason either run out of fuel, we don't know, it plowed into the Andes. Six people survived.
76 went UH-70 went into eternity.
Without a warning isn't that solemn? Without a warning, 70 people find wholesome young Brazilian men. I've often met them. They're respectful, They will gladly accept the Gospel tract. But their opportunities for salvation are gone now. I don't know anything about them. They came from an area that my wife knew well, in the South of the in the South of Brazil, near where her family lives.
Came from that area apparently, but they've gone into eternity now. How solemn that is for each one of us. We have no lease on life and uh, life is uncertain. And so God speaks once, yet twice, yet man perceiveth it. Not this man here. He had a rude awakening in the middle of the night.
The next morning, everyone was talking.
The rich man passed away. How much did he leave behind? Everything.
He lost his money and he lost his soul the same night. Not prepared, no concern for eternity, gone beyond the reach of mercy. And so, my friend, if you die without Christ, if you pass into eternity.
Without the Lord Jesus.
You will not have another opportunity to hear the gospel.
Life is uncertain. These catastrophes happen all the time.
I hesitate to speak about myself, but uh.
I, uh, went to a school in Ottawa.
Uh, I think our brother Stanley would know the school very well when I was in grades seven and eight.
It's called Glashon School. It's an inner city school.
But by God's grace, I try to go back every year and give tracks and calendars to the pupils. They come out different exits, you know. So I have to go a few times. Few years ago I went and I gave out calendars and tracks to those that were coming out of this. This exit going into the center of Ottawa Brothers. Stanley would know it well towards Somerset. This is the.
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These were foreign. There was a lot of foreign students, Vietnamese, Chinese. You meet all sorts of nationalities. A few days after I had been giving out the tracks on Somerset St. there was a tragic fire.
This Vietnamese family, a candle overturned I think during the night and uh, it caused an inferno. The whole property, one of these older houses in center Ottawa, the whole property went up in flames. Not one survived.
Those children went to that school, they would have been coming out that ex that exit that day.
So perhaps they received.
A last warning of the gospel. I don't know them. I didn't know them personally, but they were all ushered into eternity.
That it's about two years ago. I think our brother Stan would know the area anyway. What a solemn voice that is. Do any who are still without Christ turn with me to Luke 20?
As time is going here, I just want to make a few remarks on another question.
That, umm.
Has the same words in it.
Luke.
Uh, Luke 20? Just read a few verses here.
Uh, to get the background.
Nine then began he to speak to the people, this parable.
A certain man planted a vineyard and LED it forth to husband men, and went into a far country for a long time. And at the season he sent a servant of the Hus to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard. But the husbandmen beat him and sent him away empty. And again he sent another servant, and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully and sent him away.
Empty.
And again he sent a third, and they wounded him also and cast him out.
Then said the Lord of the vineyard, notice the same words. What shall I do?
I will send my beloved son. It may be they will reverence him when they see him. But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him. Let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. What therefore shall the Lord of the vineyard do unto them? Well, this has a dispensational character, we know, but I'm going to.
Apply it in an evangelical sense.
After all that man had done, the nation of Israel greatly privileged. They had the temple, They had the oracles of God.
They were separate from the nations. They were God's special people. God nurtured them. It was his vineyard. He had every right to expect fruit from them. But what was the result? We have read it.
They dis. They disregarded his rights. They insulted his servants. Finally he said, What shall I do? He had every right to bring down the acts of judgment on these characters.
But no, he says, I will send my beloved son. Think of that expression, the heart of God, the grace of God. After all that treatment, we wouldn't do that. But God said, I will send my beloved son. And that's what God has done. And we're guilty. We're just as guilty as the Israelites of the way we have treated Christ.
Because umm, if we have not accepted the Lord as your savior.
Our brother Doug and I were speaking on the way down here and he said, uh, sometimes he tells people if you don't accept Christ as your Savior, you're really guilty of his death.
Some don't like to hear that, but it's true anyway. These people were verily guilty and, uh, in the government of God, judgment finally fell upon the nation. But the point is that God's grace was reaching out to them. What shall I do? God did not want to judge them. He doesn't want to judge you. He wants to save you tonight. He wants to deliver you even though you've been at enmity against God and.
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All were enemies by wicked works. God has a desire to bless you, to save you, to deliver you from so great a death. Deliver him from going down into the pit. I have found a ransom. Are you willing to come to Christ tonight? Are you willing to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus in repentance and faith? Or are you gonna go on?
Without Christ and without hope.
Turn over with me to Acts chapter.
Chapter 2 We're gonna find that word again, this time in a different context.
Because here we have Peter preaching the gospel. He had a good response.
A good haul of fish that day as he brought home to the nation of Israel their guilt, what they had done. They had murdered their Messiah. They were guilty of having crucified the Son of God, and he brought home to them in power.
Their, their true condition. That's what the word of God does for you, dear friends. And, uh, it convicted them. It was like, uh.
A red hot iron in their souls and they were brought into the presence of a holy God. And read here in verse Acts chapter 2.
They asked the same question that the rich farmer asked. Look here in verse 37. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart. Their conscience was awakened. We hope that your conscience will be awakened tonight.
And said unto Peter, and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren.
What shall we do then? Peter said unto them, Repent.
And be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ.
For the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Well, that was a message of pardon to these guilty people. Two things they received umm the forgiveness of sins, remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost. And 3000 believe the message and fast from death unto life. What a marvelous.
Haul of fish Peter had that day. The Lord said to him, I'll make you to become fishers of men.
And this is what he was here.
When I was in Ottawa as a boy.
We used to have open air preaching in different parts of the city.
Many years we preached on Bank Street.
But there's another brother who was not gathered to the Lord's name, but he was a very earnest evangelist. I knew him very well because he often visited our home.
And I would stand with him on the street corner as he would preach the gospel.
And he loved souls. He was a.
Quotation marks Ordained minister, but he really loves souls.
In fact, toward the end of his life, his name was Mr. Ollie. He had a tragic accident.
Before the end of his life, he was coming to our assembly.
He enjoyed the word so much. He was never gathered. He had the tragic accident. I visited him in the hospital, but he was on life support system. He's with the Lord now, of course.
He came from Ireland.
And he often told this story, which I'm just going to relate very briefly in closing this gospel meeting.
When he was a young man, Mr. Ollie preached the gospel in Ireland faithfully in the northern part of the country.
He was an earnest evangelist. His whole heart and soul went out in the message. There was a young man, his name was Jimmy Moore. Rough character in his youth, in and out of the police station, tough.
And he joined the, uh, the Army, the Air Force, I guess it was and, uh, pretty rough life, you know, But, uh, one of his comrades in the same regiment, I don't know his name, but he was different to the others. And Jimmy Moore asked him, he said, what makes you different? You don't, uh, smoke and you don't drink and you don't go to the.
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The Shoals and women and so on. You, what's your your different. Well, he says I have Christ and he satisfies my heart. Wasn't that a nice answer? Well, Jimmy Moth thought about that. He said that sounds that sounds good, but I don't know what he really means. Well, his friend said, I'm going over to Ireland on leave and I want you to come with me.
Uh, my parents would be glad to see you, so come over. So Jemima accepted the invitation and he went to Northern Ireland and was looked after by the parents of this comrade.
And this friend said, I'm going to the gospel meeting tonight. Jimmy, will you come with me? Yes, I'll go because I'm your guest here and at that night.
Mr. Ollie, whom I knew, preached a gospel on the verse Ye must be born again.
It so stirred the soul of Jimmy Moss, he said. This is what I've been looking for.
He felt his need and there in that little gospel hall in Northern Ireland.
He bowed the knee to Christ, and he was born again that night. But he didn't hide his light. He went out into the aerodrome, the mess hall. Wherever he was, he was a burning and a shining light.
He got persecution, but he didn't give up. He preached the gospel wherever he went, among his comrades. This was the time of the last World war, 1939. He was on an aircraft carrier. On that aircraft carrier, huge ship, you know, there was 1100 brave men.
It was called the HMS Glorious British ship and Jimmy Mall was assigned to that ship.
With all those others.
But did he let his light, uh, go out? No, He asked the captain of the ship, can I preach the gospel to these men? Well, yes, if you have something to say, go ahead. So he got up and he preached the gospel. 500 men said they wanted to accept Christ as their Savior the next day at close quarters.
HMS Glorious was torpedoed. It was quite obvious there was no hope it was going down out of that 1100 men.
Only six survived.
But one of them told the story in the very jaws of death. Jimmy Moss stood up.
There on the deck among all those men with death before them. And he preached a stirring gospel. Jimmy Mall went down with the ship.
And as has been said, those men, many of them, I think, will meet in the glory with Jimmy as fruit of his laborers did they pass from life unto death.
No, I think they passed from death unto life and they went down and so did Jimmy. But what a harvest, what a glorious, uh, day of, uh, recompense for brother Jimmy. So may the Lord help us brethren, uh, to, uh, use the time and the opportunities I was going to, uh.
Turn to uh, Luke chapter.
16 But we really don't have time. But I'll just make a comment on Luke chapter 16 because there you have the same words by the unjust Stewart. What shall I do? I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to be out on the street.
Uh, and he had a clever scheme. Just come along here. You owe some money. I'm the steward here. Uh, you're 100 lbs. Never mind.
We'll settle it for 50. You owe 80.
Bags of oil or something. Never mind, we'll just settle it for 40. Of course, he made a lot of friends, so he says I'm gonna be out on the street.
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I'm not going to have a job. I can't beg, I can't dig, but I'm going to have friends.
He was a dishonest steward, but you know he was commended for one thing.
He acted in the present in view of the future. He knew he was gonna lose his job, he was gonna be out. He was a dishonest steward, but he had a clever scheme there in order to make friends.
So his master commended him for doing that. And I just leave a word here for those of us who are believers.
That, uh, are we using the present in view of the future?
You know all the money that we have, it belongs to another man. Our time, our energy, our abilities, they all belong to the Lord. What hast thou that thou hast not received? We can't glory in it. It's been a given to us. But the way in which we use those things will go on into eternity if we use.
Put it plainly. Plainly, if we use our material resources.
For ourselves and for our own comfort, our own pleasure and so on. God's not going to give a reward for that. He can't.
Mr. Hale, years ago when I was young in Ottawa, he would say he was sort of facetious. He said, now if is God, is the Lord going to say at the judgment seat of Christ, I'm going to give you a reward because you've been so good to yourself? Well, no. The point is we can use the present what the Lord has given to us.
For the Lord's interests, for the furtherance of the Gospel.
And for the, uh, blessing of the Lord's people, I had a, uh, little poem that I wanted to, uh, I wanted to quote in closing. I just can't put my hand on it.
Just a moment, a reaping time. Here it is here you just bear with me while I read you these words. Take courage fellow Christian, and hail the light of day. The Lord will come to take us to be with him. Alway the night will soon be over with its with all its sorrows vest the morning, the morning of joy is coming with Christ will be at rest.
Our efforts may seem fruitless.
Whatever means employed, the seed is ever precious. His word returns not void. That day will soon declare it. The fruit springs forth in light. A reaping time is coming after the dark some night if we go forth in weeping God's precious seed to soul.
Will surely gather precious sheaves, rejoicing as we go.
So courage, fellow Christian, and labor, while you May is well done, will requite you the sufferings of the way. Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, we faint not. I'd like to sing A1 stanza here in closing.
#19 Shall we stand?
Some brother would start asleep.
Umm no, no, no. My God can't die if I don't know other name. Lord him that Lord and life and life and joy. Lord is unbounded.
Saturday morning.
I never last 40.
Celebrates my life. That's fine. Great fit my love enough to see.
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Now none, but I can't satisfy not undertake more.
As long as I'm saving joy, Lord is thus found in deep.
Shall we commend the Word to the Lord? Our God and Father, we thank Thee for this opportunity to speak well of thy beloved Son. We thank You for that unspeakable gift. Heaven's beloved one came down to reveal the heart of God to us and to accomplish that mighty work of redemption, shedding His precious blood.
Our only.
Titled to eternal glory. And we pray that as the gospel is still going forth in this late day of grace, thy long-suffering mercy our God not willing that any should perish. Bless thy word, we pray here this evening.
Uh pray for any soul, young or old boy or girl or older one who is still not sure of their eternal salvation, that they may tonight, uh, repent and close in with God's offer of mercy. We thank Thee that we still have the open door to spread the blood tidings to whosoever will. The time is short.
For Lord Jesus, thou art coming soon.
But meantime, thou say to each one of us, Occupy till I come, we ask thy blessing and thank Thee for the happy day we've had over Thy word here in Bangor, and commit each one to Thy care in keeping this night. Pray for the remainder of the conference Thy glory and praise. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we ask it. Amen.
God's Way to Heaven
Children—Wally Dear
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.
Well, we wanna welcome everybody to the Sunday School this morning. Sunday School is especially for boys and girls, isn't it?
And it's so nice to see boys and girls here today.
And you know what?
The front seats are especially for boys and girls, so if there's anybody sitting in the back that's a boy or a girl would like to come to the front, you're more than welcome because we do have something to show you.
You know when I was in school.
I think that.
And one of the most.
Interesting times in school. It was called Show and tell.
Does anybody here do show and tell at school? Do you? Good for you, Sam. What's the last thing you showed at school?
A bell.
Well, that's interesting.
Did the bell ring?
Well, that sounds very interesting. I would have liked to been there that show and tell, but.
This morning.
We're gonna sing before show and tell.
So we're gonna ask you to give out a song and we're gonna sing.
You know, there's gonna be a lot of singing up in heaven.
And.
Yes, What number would you like?
Number one. Alright, let's see #1.
Well, I think it's nice if we can do what we're gonna do in heaven.
Beforehand here on Earth. So let's think.
Number one.
Go and dare, and go thy way.
Some Lord has been unplanned.
On me in the house and all.
All of the translation.
Come to the same.
Almost Prince, We're in the necklace and.
Umm.
10 * 10 * 2 hands.
Let him his client stop clear now going on by him.
Umm 130,000.
Yes #44.
In sheet #44.
Into the 10.
1000 you do some salvation with terrorists and he nobody ever had sold it to me now when I am now in life again.
Validation story. Did you really see it or handle the heart yell Thine can't stand out of the children of men. Nobody ever has told me before.
They don't like me out over there. So for my life and nothing to me, not because I think of joy. Need I not perish? My hand will behold.
No, I didn't have her, the story has told.
And I can't tell then I can.
00:05:01
Outrage him sorry maybe you know I'm alone yelled at you can't stay out of the gentleman's house and nobody has a very has told me please hold on for.
Then we caught the last word of his friend just as he answered. On how he answered. God sent his Son to so have her adversity and I am sure that I am intended him for being.
Hell, and I can now that I can.
Uh, patients or maybe do you know?
The night and stay out the children of men. Nobody ever had something before.
16.
Oh so ever hear a shout? Shout it down back and hiding all the world around right and joyful neighbourhood wherever my son.
Will come. Everyone will come.
Leaves collaboration.
And the population of the rail until till the passing father of no wonder alone through the labour will make come.
So whatever, it must not be made now. The door is so bad. And answered while you may be, she insisted. The truth is living way.
You still have your will may come whosoever will whosoever will have an approximation over there land hill.
Is the loving Father of the wonderful.
Through the laughter will take come.
Yes. Umm.
32.
32.
Yes, I know.
OK.
Alright, well, let's sign the course when we get to it.
We come here that know how to sign the whole song.
Jesus loves me.
So let's go on to him.
He's not from me.
Yeah, she's not. Loves me.
Yeah, she loves me.
Help me some.
Help me, maybe I'm not. I've been getting through all of them like you will watch away my sins that God echoes out. Come again?
Yeah, she's not lost me. Yes, she's like lost me.
Yes, she does love me.
And I'll buy the motel, please. So.
00:10:10
Yeah, she's, uh, trust me. Yeah, she runs last week. Not Vital, tells me so.
Hello.
And then verse five, we'll ask the boys to see. So we're gonna sing it in parts, OK Alright girls, can you go ahead please?
Verse 4.
Teen.
Where I live.
Yeah, I don't like you. Don't love me, you guys. You don't like me.
Yeah, she comes from me, not by both tells me so. She is. God loves me, He is well stay close beside me all the way. If I trust him, should I die?
Yeah, doing well. Take Me Home on time. Yeah, she starts like.
Yeah, she's lost. Plus me.
Love. I don't tell me so.
I think we've got time for at least one more. Yes, Sam.
32.
#32 Tell you what, let's sing the first and last verse on this one, and that'll give time for another. OK, so the first and last verse #32.
What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole? I can't. Nothing but the blood Jesus.
Oh, crushed up in the floor. That makes me like that song. No wonder some kind of.
Nothing but apology.
From my right chestnut, nothing but the blood Jesus.
Oh, righteousness of all thy makes me white. That's no, no wonder. Outside, no, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
So we get the point.
All right, let's point as we sing. So we're singing about our eyes, our ears, our feet, our hands.
Tongue.
Heart.
Wonderful time to speak. It's true. One little heart warrior now is my children. Make them 13,000.
Feet always broken and truth to me.
Very nice.
Just saying about 10 parts of our body.
Didn't we 10 parts?
00:15:00
And every one of these parts.
Yeah, that's so wonderful that, you know, the Lord Jesus gives us bodies that we might serve him, and that's a happy thing. Well, let's look to the Lord in prayer. We might have time to sing another one later, but let's pray. Our God and Father, we thank you this morning for the wonderful message of the gospel.
The glad tidings of great joy.
We thank you that Christ has been born into this world.
Savior, we thank you, dear Father, for sending Thy Son to be the Savior.
Of the world.
And we thank you, Lord Jesus, that at the cross of Calvary thou was willing to suffer.
And to bleed.
And to die for sinners.
We thank you that we can sing with assurance that nothing but the blood of Jesus can wash away our sins. We thank Thee, precious Savior, for shedding thy blood, that we might be cleansed and that we might be made perfectly fit to be in a happy home in heaven. So we thank you for this time that the boys and girls.
We seek thy help as we continue this Sunday school. We pray, especially if there's a boy or a girl.
Who is yet not washed in the blood of Jesus, that they might call out to Him this morning. They might be saved, and know it with assurance and enjoy it. And so we ask this as we.
Thank you for all thy many mercies and Thy kindness to us. Our Father, we seek thy health, thy precious name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
Did anybody learn a verse here today?
All right, that's good enough.
OK, see I got this little device that helps us here.
I don't want to scare you.
You want to try to say it act 16/1.
Thank you.
Very good.
Anybody else?
Yes.
Romans 8/31 What shall we say to these things of God before us? Who can be against us? Thank you, beautiful.
Did I see somebody else?
For it.
I really enjoyed.
00:20:02
Hearing those verses.
And.
The couple of the boys.
Said a verse that talked about singing unto the Lord.
And making a joyful noise unto the God of our salvation.
That's exactly what we were doing, I believe We were singing unto the Lord, and the Lord, he listens, and he has given us a tongue.
Not only to speak his truth.
But to sing his praise, and I know it delights the heart of Jesus to hear you boys and girls sing.
And some people don't think they can sing.
But we can all make it joyful noise.
And that's a good thing, you know.
God does not.
Judge us.
On how well we can sing, I'd like to hear people that sing good.
But you know, our salvation does not depend on how well we can sing.
Well, what does our salvation depend on?
Now that's something I wanna talk about here this morning.
How many here would like to go to heaven?
Oh, even the older people raise their hand. That's good.
I think everybody in this hall here today wants to go to heaven.
And of course, to go to heaven means to go to be with Jesus.
And we've heard about the father's house, too. The father's house.
I believe is another name for heaven.
Who lives in the Father's house?
If I were to say.
I'm planning to go to Ellie's house.
Who lives there?
Yell. That's right. If I were to say I'm going to go to Max's house.
Who lives there next?
And so if I say I'm going to the Father's house.
Who lives there?
And it's so wonderful to realize that not only is Jesus gonna be in heaven, but the Father's gonna be there too. God the Father and all how much he loves us and he wants us to be in his happy home.
Up there in heaven.
And we like to talk about heaven.
We like to think about it. We can read about it in God's Word.
And these conferences are really a wonderful time.
I know a little girl, only three years old.
And she was at a conference recently.
And she said I believe it was to her mother.
Due to a recording software malfunction and unknown amount of the messages missing here.
I got some other signs here but what I want to.
To right now is I'm gonna turn to a a verse in the Bible.
This is from judges.
OK, now I'll tell you this reverse, OK?
Stretches Chapter 2.
And verse 19.
00:25:13
Following other gods deserves them and to bow down to them, and she is not from their own doing nor from their stubborn way, thank you very much.
You really read about those that?
Read a lot from the word of God.
About the way of man.
May I ask what? And you know, there's a way that seems right Uncle man, you don't have time to turn to it. Let's see Proverbs chapter 14. It also in Proverbs chapter 6 and I believe the verse is almost word for word. There is a way that seems right unto a man.
This morning.
We're gonna talk about man's weight.
And in order to illustrate this.
I brought.
There's one piece of wood right there.
This is going to be like a bridge today. See that?
It's like a bridge from earth up to heaven, and this will be working.
Work.
Where'd you wait ahead?
And you come in the start.
So.
You know what he told me? He says. Well, I'm trying.
I'm trying to be She basically thinks that he has to do something to be rich.
Idea about.
Some way that, uh.
By being good. All right, so we're going to put this right here. That's very good.
This one is working, this one being good.
Another sticker.
Somebody think of another way?
You can agree to get. Well, yeah, people receive.
00:30:05
Salvation.
OK. Alright. Then I'll put that right down there, OK.
Trying to be saved by myself.
Now is there something?
That may be.
Boys and Girls, 6:00.
That will get into heaven.
That's God's way right there. That's really good. I'm thinking about a way that maybe boys and girls.
Think they can get to heaven, but it's a big mistake. Now you're God's way. What do you think? If their mom and dad are saying if their mom and dad are safe, OK, I'm going to put that right there. So your mom and daddy stays? Well, then I should probably be safe too. I'll get to heaven. What were you going to say?
Uh, by like giving things to other people and thinking that they're like, so fine, OK, yeah. In other words, if I am very kind and I give away and I share.
So.
OK.
Can anybody speak very well? I gotta see. I'm going to stick some.
I got two sticks.
Yes.
Jason They can go to church. Very good, I find that.
You know.
Putting drugs out in this room on the church.
Me. Go ahead, put sticker.
OK.
Umm.
OK, we're well. Yeah, we had working right there. I think that was working.
Oh, just but not doing anything.
OK, well that's about as bad as trying to do something.
OK, so now we we got all these.
And he was the here man that loved the Lord. He wanted to preach the gospel.
And to spread the goods. So he went down to Ireland. It's called the New Hebrews. And this was in the Southwest Pacific. I believe it was Canada sometimes.
No, he went there.
And he was able to get the gospel.
He did some translation work.
Lazy deck. I don't know whether it's in.
It would work. Could not.
00:35:02
And he just threw himself into the.
Seat and it's just.
Instead of work.
Not sure where it was.
5 John stinks, but that's the word I want because the word actually means the rest. Your full weight to put your full weight on something to lean on it fully.
And so I wondered if somebody has faith.
I tell you what I'm going to go do.
Now you just sit right down.
Stop.
Your feet lift, your feet lift your feet.
Like this?
Yeah, absolutely. You have to put your feet up.
That's not working.
What we're trying to tell you for boys and girls.
This is not God's way to get to heaven.
God has another way, and it's His way. This is a way, but I'm going to show you the way.
Yeah, you feel secure on there?
You don't think it's going to break? OK, Thank you very much.
Now, boys and girls.
See what I got in this time?
The Lord Jesus Christ said.
Ahmed.
Skype went to his happy home.
Is by putting your trust in the Lord Jesus. I believe Sam he quoted the verse believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and everyone who is on this way.
Is on the right way.
And you're going to find yourself in heaven to be with Jesus because the Lord Jesus, he has paid the fare, He paid the price so that you could go to heaven his way. And what did it cost him? His precious blood.
He pierced his hands and his feet.
But then a soldier pierced his side, and forthwith came their out blood.
In water and boys and girls.
This is the only way we sang in a little song here and I enjoyed this so much.
00:40:07
In verse.
Two of #16.
Jesus is the true, the only living way. He's the only living way.
And this bridge is never going to break. You know there was a bridge.
It was I think in 1883 that it was opened up between Brooklyn and New York, expand the East River. Apparently there were two cities. I'm not sure the history, but anyway.
I believe it was the longest suspension bridge in the world at that time and when that was opened up.
People were reluctant to go across the bridge, but some did.
But there was a man, he had a circus. His name was Mr. Barnum. PT Barnum and PT Barnum said I will walk my elephant across that bridge.
And then you can know it's safe.
And they said to Mr. Barnum, no, we don't want that.
But you know, people, they continue to be scared about going across the bridge. So a year later, he made the offer again and they said, OK, go ahead. So he backed up his big trailers to the bridge.
And 21 elephants came off the trailer.
And I believe it was.
This troop is led by Jumbo, huge elephant. And so they begin to cross the bridge and then there was I think 7 camels and about 10 dromedaries and they all came behind and they all went across the bridge and they made it safe across. And you know after that took place, people said I think this is a safe bridge. And so they begin to go more and more across the bridge and people feel secured.
Well, I want to tell you about this project. This bridge is secure, you don't have to worry.
You're on the right way, and Jesus is the way Jesus died.
For our sins he was buried, he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and Jesus lives and he's coming again. Those that reject God's way through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, you're going down, you're going to end up.
You know, lost eternity in hell. So sad.
So today is your opportunity to go Jesus way and put your trust in the Lord Jesus.
And in his precious blood and the work that he did at the cross to save your soul in mind, there's a little song about heaven, and it ends up Jesus.
Is the only way and I think maybe we can sing it here because it's quite simple.
But it starts off Heaven is a happy place. Does anybody know this song Heaven is a happy place?
I have it on the poster back at the.
Out, but I don't have it here. But it goes like this happy heaven is a happy place and then it ends up Hallelujah. So let's we'll sing the first verse and then maybe you can come in on the second, OK?
Heaven is a happy place, happy place, happy place. Heaven is a happy place.
Hallelujah. Now the next verse goes. Heaven Street is paved with gold in that city.
Heaven Street is paved with gold, paved with gold, paved with gold, Heaven St. paved with gold.
In that city now, the next one, no night ever shall be there in that city.
No night ever shall be there shall be there shall be there. No night ever shall be there in that city. The last verse. There's actually many verses, but this is the last one we're going to see. Jesus is the only.
Wait. And it ends up come go with me. Jesus is the only way. Only way. Only way. Jesus is the only way. Come, go with me.
00:45:12
So we're gonna pray, and as we pray, you can ask the Lord Jesus to save you, and then you'll know for sure you're on this one.
Dear Father and gracious God, we thank Thee this morning.
For the Lord Jesus, we thank thee that he could say I am the way, and we earnestly pray.
That each boy and girl here today.
Might be on Jesus way.
We ask that each one might put their faith, their trust in the Lord Jesus.
And not in works.
Or doing anything or.
Thinking that because mom and Dad is saved, they're gonna be saved too.
We thank you, Lord Jesus, that Thou has made salvation so simple.
That even a child.
Of seven or even three or four can enter into heaven through Christ the open door. So we ask thy blessing on thy precious word here today and wherever it's going forth. And so we ask and give thanks.
The lone, precious, and most worthy name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Doctrine of Election
The Sovereignty of God
The Sovereignity of God Brought Me to the Assembly
John 6:41-71
Reading
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166 Lord, thou hast drawn us after thee. Now let us run. Never tired.
What in thy love possess we not are star?
Hour by night, our sun by day number 166.
Our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for this hymn that we have just been singing about Thy tender mercies.
That pursue us and close us in on every side. And truly we do feel that at times our father just overwhelmed by how richly we're blessed and we, we thank you for this. So we would ask for help for this further time as we have thy word open this afternoon that there would be a fresh portion for our hearts that we would continue to be fed on Christ that that finest of the wheat and just that there would be strength given for each one of us to continue on a little bit longer. So it asked for help reach 1 to pay attention to the alert and, uh, just receive the portion that that would have for us this afternoon.
We would ask these things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
In the mind of the brethren, do continue in uh, John chapter 6. There's a lot more for us in that chapter.
Well, we read through verse 40 in the first meeting. Perhaps we could read from 41 to the end. But this chapter is got a lot of connections throughout so we would not restrict comment either verse by verse or only to the portion we read. But perhaps we could read from 41 to the end.
The Gospel of John starting UH chapter 6.
Starting with verse 41.
The Jews then murmured at him, Because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose Father and mother we know? How is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent him, brought which hath sent me. Draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
It is written in the profits, and they shall be taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. Not that any man has seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your Father should eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven.
That a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. And I will raise him up at the last day, For my flesh is meet indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in Him. As the living Father had sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your Father should eat manna and our dead. He that eateth up his bread shall live forever. These things said He, and the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What? And if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?
It is the Spirit that quicken it. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore I said unto you, that no man can come unto me, except that were given unto him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.
00:05:19
Then said Jesus unto the 12, Will you go away? Will you also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and assure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you? 12 And one of you is a devil. He spake of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he that should betray him, being one of the 12.
I might take the liberty of doing what uh, brother Porter suggested and go back a couple of verses, umm, and make a comment if I could. We had yesterday at the open meeting the the topic of eternal security. And today we have the topic of predestination or God's sovereignty in salvation. And if you go back to verse 37, it says all that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will no wise cast out for if I came down from heaven.
Not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which He has given me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up again. So here we have the Father giving to Christ certain ones. And if you could turn over to Ephesians chapter one for a moment.
Season chapter one and.
Starting in verse 3.
His blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us. So that's the work of God the Father and my Father. He has chosen us in Him in Christ for the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us on the adoption of children by Christ Jesus to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.
So it was the desire of the Father in eternity past to redeem to him a bride, a Church for for the Lord Jesus Christ.
May the Lord Jesus Christ coming down to earth as a perfect servant to do His Father's will and drawing all those as a Father umm, gave to Him. Umm so that our our when I think of eternal Security question.
God knew from the maternity past.
We are going to bring salvation and Christ came down with in perfect harmony with his Father's will went to the cross in light of redeeming those people. But we don't just have God's sovereignty here in verse four. We have the balance of man's responsibility and that is still responsible and it says this is the will of him that sent me that everyone which seeth the sun and believeth on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up to the last day. So the Father giveth the Son purchased and yet it is still.
This man is still responsible to believe and.
May I'd like to turn to Romans chapter 3. It's a difficult subject, the sovereignty of God and man's responsibilities like two parallel railroad tracks. They never meet in the in our human mind. We never bring those two rails together. God's sovereignty and advance umm responsibility. God can reconcile those two things, but what helps me understand it is when you look at Romans chapter 3.
And let's start in verse 10 as is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that understand that there is none that seeketh after does they're all gone out of the way. They are, uh, together become unprofitable. There is none to do with good. No, not one. The state of every man is that there's none righteous. No, not one says none that seeketh after God. They've all gone astray. That includes everyone from the beginning. So we're all responsible, uh, for action.
And if someone may think that.
Well, it seems unfair that some UMM elected for salvation and others weren't best thinking that there are people out there that actually wanna be safe that aren't safe. So I've heard this analogy before, and it's helpful for me when you think of a boat overturning upriver from Niagara Falls and there's a bunch of people floating down that river towards the brink.
And suppose God could reach out of heaven and save those people, and he called out to them.
According to Scripture, according to Romans 3, none of those men have raised their hand up for help. They may even bath the hand away. No man wants God. Everyone rejects me. But in His grace He pulls some of us out of that condition and puts us on the road to salvation. So it may be difficult to reconcile that sovereignty versus our responsibility. They have to remember that no man in their natural mind and natural state as a Sinner.
00:10:27
Whatever, look up to choose God.
All of sin, God in his grace.
Umm, pull some of it there to that condition. I also like to think that it, you know, at the in the eternal state when we if we could witness those going into health will be no one, no one there saying it's not fair. I don't deserve to be here. We all deserve to be there. The only ones that will be able to say I don't deserve to be here. But those of us in heaven, we can say we don't deserve to be here. It's only through God's grace that I'm here.
So I just wanted to add those thoughts, like for me, we had internal security yesterday and God's sovereignty and salvation. And for me, my security lies in God the Father's hands if you chose me from eternity past, and I can rest in that knowing it did Grace alone, nothing of myself.
I was thinking about what you were saying in connection with those that were in the water approaching the breaking of, uh, Niagara Falls in, you know?
God, your sovereignty will bring things into our lives. I was thinking when you were talking about that, I was thinking of Romans 10, verse 13. For those two hours shall fall upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
And that's only because.
The Lord has just brought something in our lives that we have come to an end of ourselves and and we there's nothing and we know there's nothing that we can do to save ourselves is to call out to him.
Romans 312 I noticed in the Darby translation says there is none that doeth good. No, not even one, no exceptions. So apart from God working.
We're doomed.
And uh, is with respect to internal security, I believe we have in our chapter.
In verse 39, that which would indeed, uh, reinforce the thought that we are secure because it says here.
And this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all which He has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again.
At the last day, now to suggest that.
One can lose their salvation.
Is a reflection in a very negative way on the Lord Jesus Christ saying that He is not able to fulfill his Father's will. His Father's will is that he would lose no one, not even one.
And so are we trying to say that you can't accomplish his father's will. It's a terrible insult.
To the Lord Jesus, to the Son of God to suggest.
Anything of this nature?
No, we, we want to be careful with people that have been taught poorly and, uh, some of us were there and, uh, but.
Yeah, I've noticed in, in my experience over the years that those who hold the doctrine that you can lose your salvation, the same ones tend to hold that the Lord Jesus could have sinned, you know, and it's an interesting, I found it interesting. It always seems like the same people hold back doctrine as well. Uh, so, you know, the whole notion of a, of a free will is always just trying to elevate man to.
To God's level and we know where that comes from, or to bring God down to our level as if we can, uh, ask that question that's asking Romans 9. So I just put that out there. You, you may find the same thing. It's a subtle attack. It's a subtle attack on the character of God and on the person of Christ.
Just want to say uh.
The end of verse 37.
If your soul is troubled and.
As to the doctrines of election and God's sovereignty, remember this.
00:15:05
Nothing can ever take away from the truth of these words. He that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Just car, just go.
He won't cast you out. Nothing can take away from the preciousness of those words.
Or God's desire that all be saved and it it's just. It may be another way of putting what's already been said, but the fact that God has elected some does not prevent the rest from coming. Remember that.
I mean, we may say that we know because of man's nature that they won't come, but if you're hearing those words, you need to understand that God in no way prevents anybody from coming.
You question, well, am I elected and am I not just come?
He will not cast you out. It's one of his glories. This man receiveth sinners beautiful. The outside of the door. Whosoever will may come.
We present the gospel to man as responsible, accountable on the inside, elect before the foundation of the world. So we don't preach the, uh, predestination. I don't know who's predestinated when I take the gospel out, uh.
I I give them the message that, uh, whosoever will may come and take of the water of life freely. We present the gospel to people as responsible creatures, don't we? As responsible to accept the message when they stand before God at the great white throne, Christ.
None will be able to say, but you did not elect me.
They will be there as a responsible, accountable individual.
That had the opportunity to receive Christ. I know I'm I'm putting the emphasis on the other side because I'm looking at it from the evangelical standpoint, but.
As Brothers mentioned, there's a balance there that we've got to keep.
It was set as an incentive and encouragement to the apostle Paul. When the Lord said to him, I have much people in this city. How do you think he went out the next day preaching the gospel after the Lord said to Amaya much people in this city? It was with expectation.
That the precious Word of God was going to reach those souls.
Why would anybody not want to come?
To Jesus.
You know it tells us in verse 35, I might back up just a little more here. Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger.
This is beautiful. I believe this.
Negative here is the strongest negative in the Greek language. We could put it this way. I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never, never, or say never ever. Hunger, you know Jesus is enough. We sing it into him, don't we? Jesus, thou art enough, the heart and mind to fill thy patient life, to calm the soul.
Thy love this fearless spell.
And he that believeth on me shall never, never, or never ever thirst.
So this is a wonderful verse. And you know, our hearts are way too big for this world to fill them up. It doesn't work that way. And God didn't make our hearts that way. He made our hearts, I believe, so big that there's only one who can fill that heart and that's Christ, and He can fill it full to overflowing.
Is that which the world cannot do for you.
Or for me.
As much as there are many pleasures, many attractions, distractions, and I speak to myself as much as to anybody.
It's only Christ that's going to fill the heart and satisfy. He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness.
00:20:13
And uh.
Verse 24 it says the people.
And so the people come.
And the Lord, as we had before, strips away their pretense, wondering how we got there.
And tells them to, uh, to labor, not for the meat that perish it. Well, how can we do this? You know, they wanna know how they can do it.
And, uh, the Lord says to them that that work is really just to believe. That's all that God is looking for from them.
And then he presents himself.
The people say, well, what sign do you show?
Moses, uh, fed us with man in the wilderness. What are you gonna do? And their unbelief is coming out. And he says to them that he is the bread of God, which cometh down from heaven and giveth his life unto the world. They say, Lord evermore give us this bread. They thought he was talking about what had happened the day before.
With the low, well, we don't understand what you're saying, but if you're gonna give us spread, yeah, give us credit. Keep doing that. That's fine.
And then he goes on to say, I am the bread of life.
And it himself, it's not an actual loaf of bread, it's himself that is the bread of life. And.
That came to give his life for the world and then verse 41 it says the Jews.
Then murmured, not the people.
This scene is got two groups.
There's the people and there's the Jews, those who lived in Judea and Jerusalem, in that area, and they're the ones that begin to reason and connection with him, saying he was a bread that came down from heaven. And they murmured because they understood better than the people, the crowd, what he was saying, that he came from heaven.
That's what he was saying. I'm the bread that came down from heaven, they murmured. And they reasoned.
In a certain sense, like the people did, they just saw things on a natural plane. Well, just give us this bread. Like the woman at the well in chapter 4. Give me that water so I don't come again. She thought the Lord meant literal water. The words of grace didn't penetrate her heart. And same with the people. Lord evermore give us this bread. But the Jews perceive the saying that He came from heaven.
And they said.
We know his father and mother.
Who is this guy?
Saying he came from heaven.
But what is being brought out is the unbelief and opposition of the heart of man, and he judges by appearance, by what he thought he knew.
But he was so sadly mistaken. And so the Lord said, don't murmur.
No man can come to me.
Accept the Father, draw him outside of the work of sovereign grace, and the Father drawing to the Son. None were going to really enter into her understanding His words, and So what he's bringing out is the necessity of the sovereign grace of God.
And God's involvement in that way, if any, are going to be brought to him and understand his words and lay hold.
Upon it. Otherwise those words.
Become more and more a thing of that man opposes and sets himself against, and manifests his unbelief in a greater and greater way as we go through the chapter.
How does the father draw?
I think it's really through giving a life a capacity to know and understand his word that was never there before.
00:25:07
But also, who is the perfect manifestation of the Father? It's the Son to it. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. The very one that was speaking to them was the perfect manifestation of the Father.
And so the Father is drawing them, really being manifested to them through the sun, to those that God has given life and faith to.
What rule does the Holy Spirit play in the Father drawing?
We don't read it. Spirit. In this chapter, the Father and the Son is curious to hear what the Holy Spiritual is.
The scripture does tell us in more than.
One place I can't think of the references, ones in Thessalonians, one of the letters to Thessalonians and the others I believe in Peter. At least two places where it speaks of the work of the Spirit as being sanctification. Umm.
How that plays out in our hearts or in our circumstances or both, I don't know, but it says sanctification of the Spirit came and you have the Father's foreknowledge, which would we would say is predestination and set and then sanctification of Spirit. Perhaps we could find those references. But and then to, you know, believing. So there was this work of the sanctification of the Spirit setting our hearts apart.
Perhaps before we were conscious of believing in the Lord Jesus, there was a work going on in our hearts to separate us already from things of this world and from the influence of the devil. But those references, they're in first Peter chapter one, verse 2.
The eternity from eternity to eternity in a certain sense in that verse, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
From a past eternity through sanctification of the Spirit in time.
Born of the Spirit as we had in John three. Born of water and of the Spirit of God, using the Word of God to impart a life where there was none before.
Unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. And so it's really those who are born of God that lay hold upon the finished work of Christ. They have faith from God and apprehendedly hold of it. So the Spirit's role may be in our chapter.
And verse 63 it is the spirit that should be capital S is small S in King James. It is the spirit that quicken it. The flesh profiteth nothing. And So what is being brought out in this chapter is the incapability of the flesh, man and nature to lay hold of anything.
He he, his darkness, he does not apprehend the light.
He's incapable of laying hold of anything of what God says outside of the spirit quicken. Oh mean Well, yeah. Mr. Garvey capitalizes spirit and emperor.
What was that called? Mr. Darby capitalizes. Yes. The other reference is UMM Second Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 13.
Here you have that God hath from the beginning chosen you. So there's God's choosing our election.
Chosen you to salvation through this is the means through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth is the result. So we it was a sanctification of the Spirit and then we believe.
The next verse two brother Ted were until he called you by our gospel. So the gospel goes out in an effectual calling.
And there's space being given and at least hold of it.
20 here goes on from eternity to eternity.
To the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's where it's going to end.
We have uh in verse 63.
Spirit mentioned two times.
00:30:01
Now the first spirit capital S.
But I noticed Mr. Darby has lower case for the second spirit. Somebody have a thought on what is meant there?
Speaks of Hear the words that I speak unto you. They are spirit and they are life.
You might say they have a spiritual character.
Alright.
Well, there's also the fact that you have, uh.
You know the the sword comes out of the Lord's mouth and, uh.
He also says if I buy the spirit of God cast out demons. So you know the word and the spirit are one and the scripture pretty makes that pretty plain. The word is not one thing in the spirit of something out. The word of God is the spirit, and you might say it's the spirit in a form that is understandable to our intellect. But however you say it, the word of God in the Spirit of God are not separate, they're one.
The worship now is in spirit and in truth. That is the character. We don't worship now through, outward, uh, ceremonies or rituals or, uh, temples or ornaments or what have you. Now we have a divine life that loves to please God and, uh, the worship is of a spiritual character, umm.
In contrast to Judaism, which was very much of A temporal character.
But I was thinking in our chapter, we don't want to Passover, the Lord's reference here to the living bread. You know, we have a divine life, brethren. We have a, a divine nature now which we never had before. To put things in a practical, umm, context, what are we feeding upon day by day? What, uh, is our life?
All could say, for me to live is Christ.
To die is gain. Paul's whole motivation, his whole interest was in manifesting Christ in his life. Now we must partake of the living bread. We must, as has been said, we must feed upon Christ. But if our hearts are filled with the world.
If I have, the boys and girls can even understand this if I have a cup here on the table.
And it's got all sorts of rubbish in it.
And dirt and so on. How can I fill that with water?
While any boy and girl knows, get rid of all that rubbish first of all, and then you'll be able to fill the glass with water. And I'm afraid, I'm afraid in our lives sometimes there's a lot of rubbish and uh, we're not really feeding upon Christ, the living bread to sustain the new life and the new nature.
So let's bring down, bring things down to a real practical dimension here. Are we really in our practical lives, giving the Lord his rightful place, we feeding upon his word, which brings before us Christ, or are we occupied with the world? It might be, uh, the, the literary world or the musical world or the sports world or what have you.
There's just not room for Christ there.
Uh, there, there's, there's something else that is, uh, attracting us. You know, when I was young, I had a dog. You boys and girls have had a dog.
My, I had a nice dog, but boy, if he ever got a bone in his, uh, in his mouth, I could yank and pull and hit him and do whatever I wanted. He'd never give up that bone. I couldn't get that bone out of his mouth.
But if you dangle in front of his nose a nice juicy piece of meat, immediately you'll drop that bone and grab the meat. He's got something better than the bone. And isn't it so with us, brethren, that, uh.
We are holding on to the things of this world, trying to find pleasure in them and not really partaking of that living bread. It's a daily thing. It's something, uh, that, uh, the new life is a dependent life. We have that new life, that new nature, but what are we feeding upon? It's gonna show in our lives as sure as anything. What we feed upon is going to, uh, be manifest.
00:35:28
So just a few thoughts that maybe our brother can elaborate on it.
So he's a living bred to give his life and as you say to for salvation, we need to partake of that living bread. How is it that we're going to be able to partake of it? He's going to have to give his life.
First, well, we could not partake of it. So that goes on. He's a living bread. Any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. Verse 51 The bread that I will give is my flesh.
Which I will give for the life of the world. And so through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, Hebrews chapter 10, he gave himself on that cross.
He gave his life for a forfeited life. An Angel couldn't do it.
Why he's got an angel's life.
You couldn't sacrifice a sheep, really. They could only look onto the cross because it's a sheep's life.
The only one who could give his life for your life and mine is one who has a man's life.
But what man could do that?
Everyone is a center. It would just be a sinful life offered up to God. He can't accept that one had to come down from heaven and become a man, the eternal Son of God, become a man so that he could give his life as a man for our forfeited lives, men and women in this world.
There is only One who could do that, and that was him. So to partake of the bread of Putin, that one who came down, he had to give his life. He had to go to Calvary's cross and suffer and die there. And they strove. How is this possible, that this man would give us his flesh to eat? They didn't understand what he was saying, but the Lord reinforces it. Except eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life.
In you.
But then he goes on to what Brother John was alluding to.
The first verse, verse 53, is a one time thing. We receive Christ as Savior and we appropriate the value of His death to us, His body given on the cross, and His bloodshed to wash away our sins. But now what sustains our life as we go on as believers? Who so eateth? That is a continual thing.
It's not just once.
Fuso eateth my flesh. Now it's not eat and drink, but eateth and drinketh. One is a one time act, the other is a continuation. USO eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. Those who have appropriated and believed on the Son of God come down as the bread of heaven, giving us life for the world on Calvary's cross appropriated the value of that sacrifice to themselves.
They have eternal life, and that eternal life continues to feed on Christ. That's the force of whosoever my flesh and drinketh my blood hath. Those who have eternal life continue.
To have Christ.
As the bread of heaven, offering himself the food of their souls, of that new life that they have.
The, uh, people and the Jews.
They did not rise to the thought that the Lord Jesus was expressing because they look at everything in a material way. But the Lord was bringing out spiritual truth. And you know, I think man by nature is a spiritual sluggard. You know, we place great importance on our bodies and we see that in the world today.
00:40:09
Health programs, fitness clubs, and so on.
Uh, the body.
And then very little importance on the sole and the spirit. But really the apostle, I believe in writing to the Thessalonians. His desire was that the Saints would be preserved first of all in spirit.
And then in Seoul and in body.
Now just to look at things from a material standpoint, as far as the nano is concerned, in verse 49 the Lord Jesus says your Father's did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. Well, the physical manna, it kept him alive for a while, but death did overtake them.
But.
This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. Christ is the living bread.
And when you go down to verse 58.
This is that bread which came down from heaven, not as your Father's did, eat manna and are dead.
This bread should live forever, so you see the contrast between that which is spiritual and that which is material.
The material passes away, the spiritual it continues forever.
And we really, I speak to myself, need to be focused more on the spiritual perhaps than we are.
Products to spread here. Is he referring to himself in the resurrected state?
My question makes sense.
We're just thinking of the verse in, uh, Revelation, where it talks about the hidden manna.
It's chapter 2 which I believe represents Christ and resurrected state.
We're really just talking with Fred in this chapter. Is it looking forward to him in redirected state or is it him as a man on earth? I think it's as a man from the Son of God come down from heaven and taking manhood into union with himself to really become the bread of heaven. But he's a man in the glory now. And so, uh, we feed upon Christ, uh, as I said yesterday on in those three ways as the Passover, we had Christ before us as the Passover this morning.
And then the Manor in.
His pathway down here we meditate upon that perfect life of Christ, the the manna and then the old corn of the land. But it's all centered in Christ. He is the bread of life. So I would think it would take in both sides, wouldn't it? We continue to enjoy Him.
In that, in that character, don't we even now Christ our Passover which is sacrificed for us? Remember, this chapter begins with that.
Passover.
And so it's very much being alluded to here in his flesh and his blood given to the Passover. And so we continue to enjoy that food, don't we, all the way through our pathway here as Christ, our Passover sacrifice, and also in his pathway down here, giving us strength for our pathway.
Is that you know, when they talk about keeping the feast, it's the feast of unleavened bread, which right, which represents our our pathway on till the end. Once we partake of Christ as our Passover, then we eat the feast of unleavened bread that's feasting on Christ. But it also says with that defeating unleavened bread, they were not to have leaven the whole time in their house. So it wasn't just what they ate. There wasn't to be an 11 present.
So it it speaks of a separated, uh, walk.
And, uh, while we feed on Christ, we also, uh.
Walk A separated Walk 11.
That's keeping the feast.
Yeah, that's, that's important, Ted, that that, uh, sometimes it's applied to the remembrance of the Lord.
Correctly. It's not the remember, it's not exactly the remembrance of the Lord. It's our pathway down here.
After, uh, after the Passover, I was thinking, brethren, coming to the end of the chapter here, umm.
The Lord very clearly.
Enunciates the true character of the flesh. The flesh profiteth nothing.
00:45:04
We've often heard that story. A young man came to Mr. Darby and said, Mr. Darby, you have a wonderful knowledge of the word. How can I acquire this?
Tell me.
Well, he said, learn well this truth I'm giving you the flesh profiteth nothing. And you know, it takes us a long time to learn that, but it's it's a cardinal truth. There's nothing in the flesh that can please God. Anything in your life or mine that is going to glorify the Lord. It comes from the new nature that the Lord has given us. It's not from the flesh.
It's been put aside in the work of Christ. God is not looking to improve the flesh.
It couldn't keep the law and it can only produce evil. It's corrupt in its springs. So when the Lord spoke in this way, many of the disciples went back and walked no more with him. They said, we don't like this truth. We, we thought there was something in man that could be, uh, acceptable to God, but there, there's nothing there.
But I wondered also. I suppose we've, uh, perhaps I have. Anyway, ques uh, not questioned exactly, but wondered about the Lord's reply to Simon Peter here. Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. We believe in our shore that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. If I had heard that confession, I would have said Peter.
That's a lovely confession that you made. The Lord did not say that.
It might sound a little strange. Of course the Lord was perfect in his answers. Have not I chosen you 12 and one of you is a devil? He was saying to Peter. Don't get your eyes on man Peter. There's another disappointment that is coming.
There's a devil amongst us and he's going to, uh, manifest himself.
You know, brethren, we've been through some difficult times as gathered through the Lord's name. There may be further disappointments ahead of us.
God isn't making a promise that everything is going to be smooth in the future in the assemblies. And Satan hates the truth of being gathered to the name of Christ. He hates that truth. And in any way he can discredit or he can lead you, dear young people, away from the ground of the truth, and gathering you'll do. It doesn't matter what He brings into your life, if He can draw you away from the assembly and from the gathering center.
Uh, into a wider path, not being critical of that, but if you leave the Lord's table, I cannot see how you can prosper in your soul. So the Lord said to Peter, don't get your eyes on man. Keep your eyes on the Lord. There's another disappointment coming, and this could happen among the gathered Saints. We need dependence on the Lord day by day. We need to look to him. We need doorkeepers in the assembly.
Or else error will come in. Satan is active to bring in discord.
Uh, to bring in division, to bring in schism and so on. It's the work of the enemy and the pride of man. So how we need to be dependent on the Lord and to remain in the assembly gathered to the Lord's name. It's the greatest privilege on earth. And you dear young people, uh, you may look upon the fields outside the assembly and they look attractive. I know I'm.
Quite familiar with what's what's going on in evangelical Christendom?
And we can thank God for the gospel that is going on. But let me say to you, you don't need to leave the Lord's table and the ground of the truth in order to serve the Lord in the gospel or in the ministry.
I don't want to.
Ask a unlearned question. But we've had a lot before us about the Lord as the bread that's come down from heaven.
And you were appreciated what you were saying there, brother Steve, and the distinction between verse 53 and 54. There's a lot of young here. And you know, you think of little children sitting there in Sunday school and a questions asked, they can raise their hand. They have the answer.
00:50:14
But I wonder sometimes if as we take these things up, we know the answer, but we really don't know what we're saying. We know the answer is, oh, feet upon Christ, He's the bread that came down from heaven. But I wonder if someone could, just in a very simple way.
What does that mean? To feed upon the bread that came down from heaven?
I, I do believe I have the answer because it bothered me for many, many years and I was also under of mystical interpretation of these scriptures. And so at further far, uh, clouded my understanding. So I sought to the Lord quite deeply and strongly about this. What does it mean? I mean, this language is so, uh.
Detailed eat my flesh and drink my blood and you can just see them cringing. It's a hard saying, they said. This is just this is hard to listen to. So what was he getting at?
And I believe.
Uh, I, I, I like others, I hesitate to contradict what's been said. I think all that's been said is true. But he says, does this offend you in, in verse 61?
And then he says, what if you see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?
Well, I wonder if what he was saying was, you know, so I told you, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, but you're gonna see me going up.
You won't be able to, will you?
If I'm talking about my physical body being eaten by you, you're not gonna have a chance.
And then he says the spirit, it's the spirit that quickeneth the flesh profits nothing. Another way to see that is that I am, I am talking about something spiritual as Steve alluded to, we're we're talking about something spiritual here. And then he says my words, they are spirit and they are light.
And then he says, But there are some of you that believe not.
In other words, there are some of you that don't eat.
I believe that what he's saying here is that the way to feed on Christ?
Is to eat his word.
That's what profits is worth the spirit. But how do you?
It's by believing. And so we have a scripture that said that the Word didn't profit them. Why? It was not mixed with faith. It didn't profit them. They didn't believe it. And so when we have the Lord's Word and it comes to our ears or we read it, if we believe it, I believe that is what eating, you know, we can bring it down right down to practice. That is what eating, feeding on Christ is.
Is to believe his word. It assimilates in a sense, in a spiritual sense. It assimilates his word when we believe it. I sometimes ask people, how did you get saved? And they say, well, we Sunday morning we take communion.
They think they're eating the blood, the blood of Jesus. They're eating the flesh of Jesus and it turned somehow mystically into a into the blood and body of Jesus and they're eating that and but if you look in verse 47, it says verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me has everlasting life. Now look at verse 54, who soweth my flesh and drinketh my blood has eternal life. So it's believing. I I like this sometimes think, think about the the flesh as being a person of the Lord Jesus.
And the blood is being referring to the work of the Lord Jesus, so believing on the person who he is and what he means to God, what he means to us, and then and the doctrine of Christ and then the drinking the blood perhaps would refer to the work, to believing in the work of what the Lord Jesus did.
Jeremiah said, Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing.
Now there's reference in the world to eating our words. I don't think Jeremiah is talking about that.
00:55:01
He found the word of God, and he begins to read it.
And he begins to digest what it's saying, and as you say, it was mixed with faith, and the result is it caused joy and rejoicing in his soul. I just think it's a beautiful verse. Jeremiah 1516.
We sing #24 in the appendix.
Nothing but.
Right as unwanted.
Pride by everything crap when I'm in the past and being proud of the children. No is getting frightened by crying, but crying the crystal.
Everything was for him.
He came to prompt whatever the hell and everything from.
So no way to do all that. You're one, they cry.
Everything 2015 and 206 and five friends.
Are holding.
Something I have written in the front of my Bible here. Connection with all that's been before us.
The divine design behind all scripture is that God would make Christ great. God has not only set him in a position of greatness, but his thought is to give a right impression and apprehension of that greatness. To all who love him, give thanks.
Our God and our Father.
What can we say as we come to the close of this time together?
But to thank thee for those impressions that thou hast left upon our souls, as to the greatness of that Blessed One.
One who has come down into this scene.
Become a man.
Let's walk this scene.
Given his life in order that we might have life, that bread come down from heaven. And so we just thank thee, our God and Father, for thy grace.
Thy sovereignty that has picked us up and brought us into blessing.
We thank you, Lord Jesus, for thy love.
May be willing to.
Through the Father's will.
And go to such a cost to redeem us, to bring us to thyself.
You just give me thanks for this time we've had together our God and Father.
The consciousness of that love that is in thy heart.
Wants to impress itself upon us.
You want to be further for the remainder of our time together. Giving me thanks again, our God and Father, for that Blessed One in His worthy and precious name, Amen.
Open Mtg. 3
Open—D. Mossmon, T. Roach, T. Porter
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#276.
I'm gonna read some scriptures before we pray.
First Corinthians, chapter 14.
First Corinthians, chapter 14.
Verse 29.
Let the profits speak two or three. Let the other judge.
First Peter, chapter 4.
Verse 11.
Actually let's read verse 10. As every man hath received gifts, Even so minister the same to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.
And John Chapter 7.
Verse 18.
He that speaketh of himself seeketh.
His own glory.
Shall we commit this meeting?
Our father as we've sung, we would be fed, we would be guided through this scene.
And fed with the bread of heaven.
And our Father, we just would commit this meeting to the for this purpose and for the purpose that our Savior would be glorified.
And he alone.
Because he alone is worthy.
So we offer this meeting to the asking for my guidance through the Holy Spirit.
As we wait upon thee.
Desiring to be oracles of God.
That your word would be what is heard here, we ask it in Jesus name, Amen.
I would just like to bring before us, uh, a thought that came before me while we were considering in our reading John chapter 6. Might look at it there quickly.
I don't expect to take much time here.
But we have the account, we'll read it all, and we have the account of how the disciples were out in the ship and the sea arose because of the wind, and so on.
There are other accounts of, uh, similar circumstances.
And uh, some of them perhaps are the same occasion, maybe some that are different, but in this particular case, the Lord comes walking on the sea and they're afraid.
And he calms them really with two words.
I understand that when he says in verse 20, he saith unto them, It is I. It could be translated. I am.
When it comes to, uh, the Gospel of John, we have the Lord Jesus presented as the eternal Son of God.
And, uh, we have that expression many times given in, uh, this gospel.
And one occasion that comes to mind is when the crowd came to take him in the garden, he said to them, Whom seek ye? And they said, uh, Jesus of Nazareth, he says, I am. And they fell backwards.
Why was it that the disciples received him into the ship?
Because here was one that was the Jehovah of the Old Testament.
00:05:03
God who is omnipotent, a God who knows all things, who is ever present.
You know, if we apply this little story to the turmoils that sometimes come in our lives.
Then just those two words should be a great comfort to us.
If we have any appreciation at all as to who the Lord Jesus it really is.
Easy, I am. He's the God of this universe.
You know, it was mentioned how that, uh, this is a picture also of, uh, the believing remnant in the coming day during the Tribulation period when, uh, that uh, faithful remnant will recognize the Lord Jesus for who he is.
And it's interesting to look in the book of Zechariah and see how because of that revelation, they will mourn as if one that was mourning for the loss of his own son. You know, they're they're going to come to a realization that when he came here the first time.
They crucified the Lord of glory.
What a revelation that will be and when you read earlier in the book of Isaiah Chapter 9.
It is without doubt referring to the Lord Jesus Christ when it says unto us, a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called, wonderful counselor, the mighty God.
Mighty God.
What a name.
Emmanuel, God with us.
You know, I find it myself unable to comprehend really what that means, that God himself came into his own creation.
Passing angels by down into this world to rebellious, stiff necked, stubborn man.
And would seek to redeem us.
There's no love like that.
And, uh, I believe that in the coming day, those that are faithful of the Jewish nation will appreciate in a fuller measure, uh, that love of God and the grace that, uh, is shown to them and so on, because all is of God when it comes to our blessing, salvation, and theirs as well.
There's one thing, at least, that's common between.
What happens for Israel and blessing and for us, and that is that it's all of grace.
There's nothing that we can.
Uh, boast of.
We know that, umm, all glory goes to the Lord Jesus Christ and to our God.
But it's, uh, is this thought that I really had before me is simply this, that if we really knew what it meant that God is for us.
And as Paul says in Romans, who can be against us? Well, how true that is. If God is for us, who can be against us?
And we trust Him, don't we, for our eternal salvation?
Well, it should become us that we trust Him too, for our little pathway, the short time that we're here in this world in time of difficulty, remember that the great I am is with us.
The hymn that we sang.
In verse one of 276 says we are weak, but thou art mighty, Hold us with thy powerful hand.
I was always taught.
That once you're saved, you're always saved and you can never lose your salvation.
But I used to get saved every night.
He used to pray, Lord, if I'm not saved, save me.
00:10:01
And I I didn't have insurance. I wasn't sure of my salvation.
Some of you remember Norman Berry.
At the gospel tent, he took some of us kids. He took us down to the, the stream and we were swimming and they had some raw, big, big rocks and, and the IT hadn't rained much that summer, so the water was a little low. So I dove off the rocks and down and I landed in the on the rocks on my head.
And my neck snapped.
Well, thankfully Mr. Berry was downstream and he pulled me out.
And there is a big rock in the middle and he pulled me up on that rock and he didn't think it was a wise idea to drag me to shore. So instead we walked down the rocks. I had to hold my head up because it kept flopping.
Well, he took me to his car.
To my father's house.
My dad, not the father's house.
And on the way, he said, Tim.
If you had have died, where would you have gone? To heaven?
I said yes.
But I knew in my heart I didn't know.
Then he brought me to to my dad's house. My dad and mom got in the car and they drove me to the hospital.
My dad asked me Tim.
If you have died and drowned, where would you go? Oh, I'd go, I'd go to heaven, but I knew I wasn't sure.
Once you are saved, you are saved.
And you can't lose that salvation.
But first you got to get saved. You have to be saved. The Lord has to save you.
Well, later that summer.
I was able to get out of bed and I came to one of the gospel meetings Mr. Barry was preaching.
And I got saved that night.
I might have been saved before. I don't think so. But that night I knew I was saved. I made sure.
Now I'm in the powerful hands of the Lord Jesus. Nothing can Take Me Out of His hands. Let's go to John chapter 10.
John chapter 10, verse 27. There may be some here today that you're not sure if you're saved. Well, this is not a gospel meeting.
I'm talking to those of you who maybe you have asked the Lord Jesus to save you, but you're not really sure because there's things in your life that you still do some things.
And, and the devil tells you, you know, if you do such and such a thing, you're not saved. And that's what the devil wants to do. He wants to put doubts in your mind. He doesn't want you to have assurance that you are saved because if you are not sure you're saved, he knows you're not going to live a life that gives glory.
To the Lord Jesus.
And so I just want to look at some verses that show us that we can know that we can have eternal life, that you can be sure that you are saved. And in verse 27, it says my sheep. That's the Lord Jesus speaking. He calls us sheep. I know we don't look like sheep.
We don't have fur or wool, Whatever they have, they don't. We don't have wool. We don't sound like sheep, but so sometimes we act like sheep. And the Lord, he calls us his sheep because he's the shepherd. He's the Good Shepherd, He's the great shepherd and he loves you and he's going to care for you in his powerful hands. And he says, my sheep hear my voice.
Do you hear the voice of the Lord Jesus?
Do you listen to what he says?
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them. The Lord Jesus knows you. He knows what you feel inside your heart. He knows that you sometimes have struggles to know whether you're saved or not. He doesn't want you to worry. He doesn't want you to struggle with those ideas. He says they follow.
00:15:01
Do you follow the Lord Jesus?
Maybe sometimes. Do you follow your own will?
I think we all do. I do sometimes.
But the Lord Jesus says, I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life. Here when you ask the Lord Jesus, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ says you'll be saved, you'll, you'll receive the everlasting life, eternal life. And the Lord Jesus says, I give to you eternal life. So if you believe that you are a Sinner, if you believe that Jesus is God, if you believe that Jesus died because of your sins and he took the punishment for you, he's your.
Institute if you believe that.
And you say, Lord Jesus save me, then you're saved and he gives you eternal life. You have it.
And you can't lose it, he says. I give unto them eternal life. Now eternal life isn't something that starts and stops, and it's not something that depends on how good of a life you can live.
It depends on the Lord Jesus and if the Lord Jesus went to the cross and died for your sins.
That's what God's looking for. He's looking for what did Jesus do for you? He's not looking for what you can do for Jesus. He wants you to trust in what the Lord Jesus did. And so you can depend on what the Lord Jesus says. And he says, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. And so you can know that you will never perish. You will never stand before God. And.
Judged and punished for your sins because the Lord Jesus was punished for all your sins.
And it says neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father which gave them me is greater than all. And no one is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. That him that we sang at the start. We are weak, but thou art mighty. Hold us with thy powerful hand. We're weak. There's nothing we can do to try to keep our salvation.
There's nothing we can do to try to get a better place in heaven.
There's nothing we can do because the Lord Jesus has done it all. And the Lord Jesus said on the cross, he says it is finished. And so he gives you eternal life and no one can ****** you out of his hands. He's powerful. He has powerful hands and no one's going to take you out of his hands.
Verse 30I and my father are one. And so there's the Lord Jesus and there's the Father. We're in the hands of Jesus and we're in the hands of the Father, and there's no greater hands in the universe. Nobody. You can't take yourself out of the Lord Lord's hands. You may think, well, I've done such and such a thing, and I struggle with that. You can't take yourself out of his hands. Satan can't take you out of his hands. Satan is a powerful being.
But he doesn't have the power over the Lord Jesus to take you out of his hands. You are safe. You can trust the Lord Jesus when he says no one will take you out of my hands, believe the Lord Jesus. I used to I I that that's one thing that the verse that says it is impossible for God to lie. And so I knew that I was saved because it's impossible for God to lie because God says you have everlasting life. John 316 for God.
Of the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And I said, God, if you're a liar, I'm not saved.
But if you can't lie, if it's impossible for you to lie, God, then I'm saved. And I didn't have to worry anymore. I had peace. I knew that I was saved.
Well, in John 524 we have another verse.
John 524 says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life.
Have you heard?
Have you believed? Do you believe on the person of the Lord Jesus?
Do you believe in the work that the Lord Jesus did?
You have everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is past from death unto life. This is These are such important verses that give us assurance that I am saved, and you can have that same assurance. John first John chapter 5 is another great verse. First John chapter 5 and verse 13.
00:20:25
And since these things have I written unto you, that believe on the name of the Son of God, do you believe? Do you believe on that person the name of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus?
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. You can know that you have eternal life and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. So you can put your full trust in the Lord Jesus. You can trust the work that He's done. You can trust the fact that He went to the cross and that he died for you and he took that punishment during those three hours of darkness, the Lord Jesus, he was hanging there.
On the cross, in the darkness, nobody knows what happened there. We can't see God turn the lights out, so no one can see the sufferings of the Lord Jesus experienced there. And during that time, the Lord Jesus took all the punishment for you because he knew you couldn't do anything yourself. That's why God gave us the law to the to the to Israel, because he wanted to prove to mankind.
But we can't keep the law. There's nothing we can do. We we fail every time we try to keep a rule. Maybe you can keep a rule or the commandments for a couple of days, but eventually you're gonna fail.
Lord Jesus knows that the the law is like a mirror. If you have mud on your face and you can't see, it doesn't matter how hard you look at yourself, you can't see your face. Everybody else can see how dirty you are, but you can't see your face. But then you get a mirror and you look in the mirror. Oh, and then you can you can wash the mud off your face. You can see what you've been looking like to other people and what you look like to God. And so when you look at the law, you.
It's like a mirror and it shows what you really are, and that shows us that you are sinners. But the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, and so you can know that you have eternal life.
Another verse in Romans chapter 10 and this is a good one to help you have assurance of your salvation.
Romans 10 and verse 9.
Says, If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Have you ever told somebody, confessed with your mouth and said, I know Jesus as my Lord?
Tell your mother, tell your father, tell your friend. I know the Lord Jesus as my Savior.
And it's and that that helps you. It gives you the understanding, yes I am. I've confessed the name of Jesus. Jesus is my Lord. And it says thou shalt be saved.
So it can give you a confidence, it can give you an assurance. I know that I'm saved. I don't have to worry. There's another verse about being justified.
Romans 5 verse one.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Justification being justified, that means the guilt is taken away. Maybe you've done some sin in your life.
And you know you've done it, and you feel bad about it.
But you can't undo what you did.
Maybe you've stolen something and you got caught.
Everybody knows you're a thief. You can't take that sin away if I invite you to my house and you steal from me and I know it and everybody else knows it and you know it.
Can you come and apologize?
I can forgive you.
But I might not trust you.
00:25:01
Because I know you're a thief and you might do it again.
We had a we had a man in Malawi. He worked for us.
He was even gathered at the Lord's table.
And he worked for us. He was a watchman. He was a good watchman.
He watched everything we did.
And one day when we weren't there, he broke into the house, he broke into the safe and he stole a lot of money.
We didn't know it was him.
We told, we told the police somebody broke in and stole from us, so they investigated and they said this man did it.
Until they put him into prison.
And I went to the prison. I said, well, I can't prosecute this man, so I guess you have to let him go. He says we can't let him go. He's going to do it again.
I said, yeah, but I can't prosecute him, so you gotta let him go. They said, OK, well, I went back in there two or three weeks later and he's still in there. I said, I thought you were gonna let this man go. Oh, I said, we can't let him go. He's gonna do it again. And just then the the district, the chief, district chief of the northern part of Malawi, he was in the office at that time. He said, what's the problem here? And so they explained to him. And he says, well.
If you want to let him go, you got to let him go. And so they released him. So he took this man.
And he was in a, in the prison where a lot of the Somalis were there at that time. And they were in there and they slaughtered them smoke. And as he was allergic to the smoke and he had, uh, breathing problems. So I took him out and I'd take him to the doctor and get him some treatment and then I released him.
I can forgive him.
But I can't trust him. I know he's a thief.
Well, some months later somebody broke into our house again and they stole money from us and the only person who knew where the key was was that man, and he was able to break the window and reach in and get the key.
He broke in and he stole again.
I'm not going to give that man a job. I'm not going to let him be my watchman again. He's a thief.
I can forgive, but I can't take away his guilt. Well, the Lord Jesus says, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Apostle Paul, before he was saved, he used to murder people and kill Christians and arrest them and torture them.
Then he got saved and he and he came, he came to join himself to the assembly in Jerusalem. They said no. And the assembly had that responsibility. They, they didn't have to receive him. They needed to know about him before they could receive him at the Lord's table. And so they said no, they would not receive him. They're afraid of him because he was a murderer. He was a thief. He was a persecuted. He wasn't a thief, he was a persecutor.
But.
Then they heard.
Paul, let's all get saved.
He believes in the Lord Jesus, he was baptized, and now he's preaching the gospel.
And so now they received him at the Lord's Table in Jerusalem.
They couldn't call him a persecutor anymore. They couldn't call him a murderer anymore. He had been justified by God. The guilt had been taken away. Now maybe you are suffering from something that you've done and you have guilt about it and you don't know how to handle it. You don't know.
And, and, and you feel bad about it and, and if you don't have peace and, and when you come into the Lord's presence, you can try to forget about what you've done, but you still have that guilt, and that guilt holds you back.
Maybe you are the Lords and you are at the Lord's Table, but you are struggling with some guilt that you have.
The Lord Jesus says being justified by faith.
You can have peace with God.
First, John 19 says if you confess your sin, he's faithful and just to forgive you your sin, So confess what you've done to the Lord.
Let him take it and he justifies you when with his blood, when he died on the cross, he took that punishment, even that punishment that gives you all that guilt. He's taken that and he's given you freedom from that sin, from the guilt. You don't have to have that on your conscience. The Lord Jesus does is he's never gonna accuse you of that sin.
00:30:24
Because you've been justified, therefore being justified.
By faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our brother has spoken to us about.
Assurance of salvation.
I'm going to read a scripture that might, uh, unsettle you.
No matter who you are in this room.
Turn to Matthew, Chapter 7.
Matthew Chapter 7, starting at verse 21.
Not everyone that said unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
That he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name on many wonderful works?
And then I will profess unto them.
I never knew you.
I never knew you.
You did all these things in my name. I never knew you.
Maybe you stood up at a podium like this.
And spoke in his name.
And he says I never knew you.
Well, I'm not intending to unsettle anyone.
Who is saved?
But I want to.
Help you.
To become more assured of your salvation. And this is the way. It's very simple.
If someone said they didn't know you.
And you were sure that they did. Why would you be sure of that?
Let me put it another way if you want somebody to know you.
What do you do?
So.
If you wanna be sure that the Lord Jesus knows you, you need to do that.
With him.
There are many.
Who may presume to pray?
But their prayer.
And I wouldn't.
I wouldn't presume to judge any individual.
But I think that most, if not all could agree with this.
And many prayers are.
A performance.
For a speech.
The word Jesus talked about this, he said, you know, they his vain repetition, they think that God's gonna hear them, you know, because they do these words and repeat these things.
But if you want somebody to know you.
You don't put on a show, you don't put on a facade, and when you speak to them, you speak from your heart.
If you want somebody to know you.
00:35:00
You opened yourself up to them. You're honest with them. You're truthful with them.
Is that right?
The Lord Jesus shed his blood.
And the scripture speaks of his flesh as a veil that was opened to give us free.
Free access.
To God.
When the high priest was to come into his presence, there was all kinds of.
Preparations Steps.
All had to be carefully followed and not one tiny thing could be missed. Or when he went into the holiest of all, he was done.
That's pretty scary.
It's not like that for you.
Because of the blood of Jesus, there's not a man on the earth that has to do anything except come.
Just huh.
And no matter what situation you're in, no matter what condition you're in, no matter what you've done.
No matter what state you're in.
You have free access right at the very moment.
You can talk to him.
So the question you should ask, we often ask people you know. Do you know the Lord?
You know the Lord.
Maybe ask yourself, do I know the Lord?
And sometimes you ask yourself that do I know the Lord and you're not so sure?
The better question is.
Does he know me?
Does the Lord know me?
And if you ask yourself that question, isn't it very simple?
You know, if I'm not sure whether the Lord knows me, I'm gonna tell him about me. I'm gonna make sure he knows me.
I hope this is a help to you.
We don't have to, uh.
Be so formal in our approach to God.
In, uh, many.
Evangelical or Evan, I'm not sure what the best term, many gospel meetings, we probably would call them, some of us were saved in those gospel meetings and they would have altered calls.
They would invite you down if you weren't sure you were saved. And they called it an altar call and we would go forward. And as we went forward, we sang a hymn.
And that him was one that many of you are familiar with, I believe it's called just as I am.
Within the little flock with the words changed a little bit, just as I was.
But we used to sing just as I am, without one plea.
That's eye blood was shed for me.
And that thou ******* me.
Come today.
He bids you to come to him.
All the time.
24 hours a day, seven days a week, Every moment he's waiting.
He wants to be involved in every aspect of your life. Make sure.
Make sure that he knows you.
And that this doesn't happen to you.
Our assurance shouldn't be in anything we've done for him.
We need to make sure that he knows us.
If you want assurance of salvation, you need to ask the question, Does he know me?
You need to make sure he knows you.
We've seen #193.
193.
Jesus, my Savior, thou art mine, Father's gift of love divine, all that is done, all thou art, and now the portion of my heart. 193.
$10 million, maybe 55955 and I did not give them together and all the women.
And we also sing #76 in the appendix.
76 in the appendix.
Uh-huh. All right. Joy. My God, my friend.
With things may make many times die.
In my life, Go home. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's all about it and it's unbelievable. And by my heart.
I got a friend as long as.
I don't know.
About the child account and I went to every day to my home.
00:45:36
And, uh, two.
My health cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth deep will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber.
And then in Hebrews.
Uh, Chapter 7.
And verse UH-24.
But this man, because he continuous ever has an unchangeable priesthood, wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercessions for them.
Great.
Father, we, uh, thank you for the time that we've been able to, umm, enjoy.
Your character and umm.
Your, uh, unchangeable myth. And umm.
Your the confidence we can have in, uh, our salvation to prove it's done. Who is uh.
Ever, ever was and ever will be and, umm, to help us to enjoy these things as daily in our, uh, in our lives on earth. And, uh, thank you for these things and pray and, uh, ask your help on the remainder of the time together here in Jesus name.
Good evening.
Open Mtg. 6
Open—S. Stewart, J. Sacks, P. Daplyn
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.
For take up the subject that uh.
Trust in the Lord's will to look at.
Just wanted to read a verse from First Timothy.
And chapter 4.
Verse 13 Till I come give attendance to reading, to exhortation.
To doctrine.
I suppose normally we think of an open meeting.
As we had scriptures read to us yesterday in connection.
With first Corinthians 14 character of ministry that brings us into.
The presence of God, gratification, expectation, and comfort rather than doctrine.
But there's a burden with one's heart that we have a real deep need.
Of sound doctrine and the day that we're in, I'd like to turn to Romans Chapter 9.
Romans 9 verse one I say the truth in Christ.
I lined up my conscience also, bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself were cursed from Christ. For my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, who are Israelites, soon pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law and the service of God.
And the promises, whose are the fathers?
And of whom is concerning the flesh Christ came, whose overall God blessed forever. Amen.
In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul brings out in the earlier chapters the doctrine that there is no difference.
Between Jew and Gentile, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is no difference.
And in chapters 9:10 and 11:00 he takes up and he addresses the question that would come up in the heart of a Jew. Well, if there's no difference, what about the special promises made to Israel?
What about those?
Isn't there a difference to be made there? And the apostle in these chapters brings out that if man is going to come into blessing at all, it is going to be on the grounds of His sovereign mercy, on the grounds of His sovereignty, and nothing else.
And so the Jews accused Paul, even the believers that and when we we, if we looked at acts, when he returned to Jerusalem, they said to him, brother, thou see us how many thousands of Jews there are that believe and they're all zealous of the law.
They still saw themselves on Jewish ground even though they had received Christ as Savior.
And they felt there was a difference between them and the Gentile believers, and that here Paul was going around and making as if there's no difference, and really taking from them the special promises that were theirs and denying the special place that God had given them and the special privileges, and that he was really.
Putting down Israel.
And the apostle labors in these first few verses.
That that's not true and he brings out his heart that it is really towards Israel. He had them as a continual burden on his heart for their blessing. So much so that he even could have, uh, wished himself a curse from Christ for them. Not that he actually.
Wished himself that it would be, but that was a passing thought through his heart, just like Moses when he interceded for the people of God.
00:05:08
And he said, and the Lord said, Moses, I'll take you and I'll make a nation of you. He says, if you don't go up with us, don't bring me either. You know, he, he really so identified with God's earthly people there in the wilderness. And Paul in the same way. It was a settled sorrow in his heart and the and so much so that this thought that you might say pass through his heart.
If he could only do something for his.
Berthin And then he acknowledges their special place. Who are Israelites? What does that name mean? A Prince with God. What a title they have Israelites, a Prince with God. For Jacob was given that name by the Angel as having power with God and with man.
Who are Israelites? Who pertaineth the adoption? That's the national adoption in Christianity we find we have individually.
A place of adoption, a place of sons in the family of God. They have a special place in the family of nations.
Out of Israel, out of Egypt have I called my son, God said of Israel.
They have that place nationally of sonship, having received the adoption and the glory. Oh, think of that cloud that overshadowed them, and that pillar of fire by night, the visible sign of the glory of God, the token of His presence with them all through the wilderness and.
The Covenants.
They had.
The special promises, blessings, covenants that God had, uh, made with them, that he made with no other nation on this earth, the giving of the law. They had the word of God. No other nation had the word of God in that way.
The service of God, the service of God, that wonderful Levitical service.
And all that surrounded it and all its order. And it's, it's uh, uh, sacrifices and ordinances, all that, uh, surrounded the worship of Jehovah, the service of God, and the promises.
Whose are the fathers they patriarchs were in? That's who they sprang from.
They were theirs.
Whose are the fathers of whom concerning the flesh Christ came? We have as Gentiles no such lineage as Israel had, and it was of Israel as concerning the flesh that Christ came.
Born to that favored nation.
Who is overall?
All as concerning the flesh. He came to Israel, but he's overhaul. He's not just their savior.
And so this goes out more broadly, who is overall God blessed forever?
Amen. He's not exclusively Israel. So according to the flesh, he came to that favored nation.
God blessed forever he is.
Though become a man, the eternal God, and worthy of eternal worship.
And so the apostle is reassuring them. He recognizes the special place that Israel had, the special blessings that they had, and fully acknowledges it and is hardest for them. He hadn't just thrown them off, didn't care anything about them. And this doctrine that he preached, there is no difference.
Verse 6. Not as though the word of God had taken none effect.
00:10:03
For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. Let's turn back to a little past where we were in John chapter 8.
Lord, speaking to the Jews.
Verse 37 I know that ye are Abraham's seed. Please seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with my father, and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If he were Abraham's children.
He would do the works of Abraham.
Not all that were Israel by lineage were really of Israel. And so the Apostle Paul in the end of Galatians uses a phrase, the Israel of God.
That is, those who were of Israel, who had put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ were truly of Israel, and he calls them the Israel of God. And so he's going to take up this.
Thought.
As to natural descent, if that indeed is what entitled them to blessing.
Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children. But in Isaac shall thy seed be called, that is, they which are children of the flesh. These are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for seed. For this is the word. For this the word is of promise.
At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son.
And so he goes back to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac, and he said if the promise, if the blessing is going to come based on natural descent, some natural thing.
Than Ishmael.
Should be a partaker.
Of those very things but gone. And his sovereignty had said that Sarah would have a son, and in him those promises would rest. And he would say, is he, is he saying to the Jews, if you insist that the blessing comes to you because of the family you were born into, because of your natural lineage in this world?
Then you must admit the Ishmaelites.
Into that line of blessing.
And Noju would ever, ever concede to that. But they might say, well, you know what? Ishmael was just the son of a slave woman.
And Isaac was the son of Sarah.
You know, through the book of Romans, we find that it's often a court scene and the apostle Paul, like a, uh, seasoned prosecutor, brings one argument up after another and deals with it before the bar of the court. And so he does here. He is a divinely inspired.
Reasoner here to bring up and deal with each argument that might come.
Well, he said, that's true.
Ishmael who acknowledge that foreign of Hagar she was a bond woman, but what about?
What about the next two that were born in that line? What about Rebecca's sons? What about Jacob and Esau?
And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by 1 even by our father Isaac. For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works, but of him that calleth, It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob have.
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But Esau have I hated.
Here's to They're born of the same mother. One's not born of a bond woman and the other of the free. They're both born of the same mother.
They're twins.
Same father.
For God and His sovereignty.
Chose one.
Or blessing.
And he said that the elder would serve the younger before they were born, before anything in their character had manifested itself, before they had done anything in their lives.
Whether evil or good.
Nothing to.
Nothing in their lives that would either not commend them or commend them.
It's the sovereignty of God.
That made that choice. And what about you and I?
The only way you and I have come into blessing.
Is through the sovereign choice of God that election might stand. God made a sovereign choice and a past eternity, and He chose you and me for a blessing, just like He chose Jacob before those boys were ever born.
Now there are those who hold the doctrine of election.
But they also hold something else. They hold what is called an eternal decree of reprobation.
That is, that God from a past eternity has not only chosen some for blessing, but he has chosen some to be cast into the pit, into a lost eternity.
From before they were ever born.
Eternally he has decreed their reprobation. That's what John Calvin held.
And that group.
Of believers that hold that doctrine are commonly called Calvinists.
Is that true?
Jacob have I loved.
Police saw have I hated when was that said, you know, they take this scripture up and they read that verse and they connect it with what is just said before and they say, you see God loved Jacob before he was born and he hated Esau before he was ever born from a past eternity, he hated Esau.
And that's a twisting of the scriptures.
Because that quote is from Malachi.
All the way at the end of the Old Testament.
Long after Jacob and Esau had manifested their character, and Jacob or Esau showed himself to be the inveterate enemy of his brother who he hated, and he still is an enemy of Jacob. And after their character is fully brought out into the open all the way at the end.
Of the Old Testament, God makes this pronouncement. Jacob have I loved Esau. If I hated he did not hate him from a past eternity.
That is God's pronouncement after his character personally as well as his descendants, His posterity had fully manifested itself.
What shall we say then?
Is there unrighteousness?
With God.
Satan wants to put.
A question in our hearts.
And this is the question, is God unfair?
And this truth of his sovereign election and choice.
His unrighteous man to set in judgment on righteous God? No.
God forbid.
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God forbid that man, unrighteous man, should set in judgment upon righteous God. He does what he wants to do.
And it is his right to do what he wants to do.
And then the apostle says, well, let's take you up on this question.
Of righteousness. Is God righteous? Is he fair in this choice? Let's take up the situation on this principle of righteousness.
He says to the Jews, Where would you be if we took everything up on the principle of righteousness, and where would you be, and where would I be?
If everything was on the principle of righteousness.
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
When was that sent?
Oh, let's go all the way back to that scene at the bottom of Mount Sinai.
As for this man Moses, we don't know where he is. Aaron, make us gods break off your earrings. Give them to me. And he fashioned the golden calf.
He set it up. This be thy gods, O Israel.
And they had a feast to Jehovah.
And they worship that calf.
And made themselves naked, dancing around that calf. And Moses comes down from the mount with the law of God in his hands. Those two tables of stone. There's the inflexible rule of righteousness.
You can't bend stone.
And he had to break it beneath the mound. He couldn't bring it into the camp that pure.
Perfect righteous standard for man.
Else all would have died.
There wouldn't even be a Jew left for the Apostle Paul to speak to.
Let's take it up on the grounds of righteousness. Where would you and I be?
Centers of the Gentiles.
Oh, how thankful.
We can be for the sovereignty of God that set His heart of love and grace upon us and picked us up.
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.
And I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then, here's a conclusion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.
It is not.
In the force of man's will that he is brought into blessing.
Why?
Because his natural heart is an enmity with God, he has no desire. The flesh cannot please God. It cannot do the will of God, has no desire towards the will of God.
It's not of him that Willis, nor of him that runneth, not of anyone that's doing anything. Our brother Wally well brought that before us in the Sunday school this morning. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done. It's not by any labor or anything that we can do. Not of will, not of effort.
But of God that showeth mercy.
Let's turn back for a moment.
I can't remember if these, uh, exact scriptures were read by my brother John this morning. I think so from John's Gospel chapter one.
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Some of these he read John chapter one.
Verse five And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
A strong. It's a stronger word than comprehend. It should be translated Apprehend. Comprehend means I understand the thing. Apprehend means I've got a hold of it. A thief gets apprehended, law lays a hold of him.
It didn't even apprehend the light, couldn't even get a hold of it.
The light turned on and the darkness didn't even go away. Didn't even realize there was light.
Didn't apprehend it.
So he sent a man named John, and what was his mission? He said there's the light.
There's the light. He had to point it out to the darkness because it apprehended it, not.
Verse 9. That was the true.
Light. Why the true light?
The light that is in thee be darkness. How great is that darkness? There's a lot that professes to be light in this world to day and its darkness. It's not the true light. He was the true light.
Which lighteth every man that cometh into the world? Or this is the true light, that upon his coming into the world has shed his light, or enlightened every man, not enlightened him in his conscience, or in his mind, or in his heart, but as shed light upon him to expose him in his true condition before God.
Lost.
Lost.
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. And so at the cross, when the Gentiles took him and nailed him to that cross, he said, Father, forgive them. Why? For they know not what they do. They knew him not, but his own received him not.
His own received and not all the darkness if we were to turn the lights off in this room won't hurt us.
It's passive, but this darkness was not passive.
It was energetic in its opposition to the light and is.
And it refused the light, but as many as received him to them gave he power or the right.
The privilege.
To become.
Should read the children of God, even to them which believe on his name.
The believers in the Old Testament were children of God, but they didn't know it.
When Christ came.
Then those who believed on him, he gave the right to know that they were God's children and to know one another as God's children and to know God as their Father and they as his children. That's what he gave them that believe on His name.
That's what he's given you and I that believe on his name.
But who has believed on his name?
The darkness didn't know him.
It refused him wouldn't receive who then who then believed on his name?
That he gave such a right to.
Which?
Were born.
Not of blood.
Those who believed on his name were born but not of blood, not of natural descent, not by any family they belong to or any family title.
Whether it's family or nation or whatever it was.
Not of blood. Not because you were born of Israel.
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Or is Brother Wally brought before us? I think one of those sticks was because my parents are Christians.
Not of blood.
Nor of the will of the flesh.
Not of any internal willing and desire that it would be so. As we already said, the flesh is an enmity with God. Romans 8.
Nor of the will of man, not by the exertion of anybody else's will upon you or upon me. No priest's absolution.
Nothing of anybody else's will towards me or for me in any way, but nor of the will of man, but of God.
Which were born, Oh God.
Those are the ones that believed on His name. Those were the ones He gave the right to know that they were God's children.
And relationship to him and to one another.
How were we born of God?
Let's just turn over Chapter 3.
Verse 5 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.
Of his own will. Let's just read it, James. I love this verse.
James chapter one.
Verse 18 of His own will begat he us with the word of truth.
That we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Turn over to Peter.
Chapter one, verse 23 Being born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God. Go back to Romans 9.
Dear ones, He has exercised His sovereignty towards you and me and imparting a life where there was none before in His sovereign. Will you?
Have been born of God.
And you didn't have anything more to do with it than you did your own natural birth, born of God. That's how you came into blessing and into His family, His sovereign action towards you. Why? Just because He did it. And He loved you and set His love upon you and upon me. We owe Him.
Everything.
Perhaps it's that we've slipped from this sense of the sovereignty of God and his election as to our salvation and eternal destiny that we become careless in our souls as to our walk because we think we have something to do with the matter.
We owe everything to him.
Back to Romans 9.
Verse 17 For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will, have mercy on whom he will.
He hardeneth.
You know, our thoughts really can't go.
Verse 18 brings us to a point that we just can't pass in our thoughts.
And the sovereignty of God.
Goes beyond our understanding.
But Pharaoh is brought up here as an example from the scripture.
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God told Moses.
That pharaoh was going to refuse to let the people go from Egypt.
He told him that he would harden Pharaoh's heart.
I would really recommend.
And studying this out that you read the new translation and that that account in Exodus.
Over and over again.
Until we get I believe it is Chapter 9 of Exodus.
It says a pharaoh.
That he hardened.
His heart. But when we get to Exodus 9 and verse 12.
It says, And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had spoken unto Moses the King. James. Translation.
Translated by men.
Who held the eternal doctrine doctrine of eternal retro reprobation and did not understand?
The scriptures that we're taking up this afternoon.
And there are mistranslations in connection with Pharaoh hardening his own heart, and it's translated as if God was hardening his heart.
But you'll find in the new translation that the first historical place that God himself hardened Pharaoh's heart is Chapter 9 and verse 12. Over and over and over, Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
Towards God.
And God then finally hardened her, hardened Pharaoh's heart, as he had told Moses he would do.
For this cause have I raised thee up. Those that hold the eternal doctrine of eternal reprobation would say God from a past eternity chose Pharaoh, and purpose that he would be born.
Destined to a lost eternity.
He hardened his fair, his heart from his birth.
It's not true.
It's not true. It's not what the scripture says. For this cause have I raised thee up? Is not for this cause have you been born.
For this cause have I raised thee up to a place of power and prominence in Egypt, that I might be glorified.
He was not born in the purpose of God.
For a lost eternity.
But God raised this wicked man up to a place of prominence and power, that he might show his might and his glory might be displayed. And that wicked man hardened his heart towards God over and over, and God finally.
Hardened it permanently.
There's a little thing heard from time I was young.
Omni.
Done well.
Some shell.
Whosoever will may come and take of the water of life freely, all may.
None will. Let's just turn to a verse again. And John for that.
John's Gospel, the chapter that we are in.
Pepper 6.
Well, let's actually the Versailles probably wants chapter 5, sorry John 5 and verse 40 and ye will not come to me that you might have life.
There's man's will all may whosoever will may come not, all may none will ye will not come to me.
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Some shall.
Who? Those who were born?
Of God, through His sovereign act of showing mercy, on whom He will show mercy, and having compassion on whom He will have compassion.
All may the work of propitiationists satisfy the heart of God, and free them to come out in love and grace to loss and ruin man. But man's heart so poisoned in all its.
It's springs by Satan's lies, prefer Satan's lies to God's truth, and will not come that he might have life, but God has purpose for the satisfaction of his own heart.
That some shall come, but he has to act. And so it's pictured in Luke chapter 14 in that House of that great man who sent that invitation out. All things are ready come. And it says in the new translation, without exception, they all began to make excuse without exception.
None will.
And he sends this servant out to compel.
To come in that this house might be filled, that's the Spirit of God.
Are you going to be in the Father's house? The Lord comes in a moment. We'll be there. You will be in the Father's house as one who has been compelled by the Spirit of God to come in and let's rejoice in it now. We're all here who know the Lord, compelled once, compelled sweetly.
Says the poetry forced me in.
Because I would not.
But his heart will be satisfied, his house will be filled with those he has compelled to come in.
But if God leaves you alone.
If He doesn't act in His sovereignty towards you and towards me, what would happen? We would go on in the hardness of our hearts into a lost eternity. And if God does not step in, in that sense, He hardens man's heart.
Because outside of his sovereign action.
That's exactly what happens to man's heart. It just gets harder and harder and harder by virtue of the fact.
That he does not step in. Man's heart stays hard and becomes harder, just as Pharaohs.
Wilt thou say that unto me? Why does he yet find fault? For who hath resisted as well? Why does God find fault then?
If it's only His sovereign action and he does what he wants to do, who can resist His will? You have, just like Pharaoh, resisted his will over and over again, and hardened his heart. Who hath resisted his will? Man is resisted his will, unrighteous man. Who would call God in question? If we want these truths settled in our souls, there is something we need as a foundation.
Settled in our own souls, and that is to give God His place. He's God, and for us to take our place as men, just creatures.
He is God, who art thou that reply us against God?
You must give God His place or you will never understand and enter in to these truths.
Shall the thing form say to him that formed it? Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel, and to honor, and another to dishonor? Yes, he has power to do what he wants.
He has power over the clay to do what he wants for the vessel he makes.
We'll mark this God never exercises His sovereignty except for blessing.
Let's give him.
And our thoughts? What is His? He has power to do what He wants, and none can call Him in question. But our God is a God of love, and He never exercises His sovereignty except for blessing. Ever.
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He has power.
And so he goes on to say, what if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, those who have opposed his will?
He's endured with much long-suffering.
These vessels fitted for destruction.
God has power over the clay, but notice the carefulness of the words.
Of this chapter it never says he formed a vessel for destruction.
They fitted themselves, just like Pharaoh fitted himself.
For destruction when he hardened his heart.
The only vessels that says that God prepared are those that He prepared for mercy. He never ever exercises His sovereignty that way, except for blessing, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He.
Had afore prepared unto glory even us?
Whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. For there is no difference. All have come short of the glory of God.
Oh, must be the objects of the sovereignty of God if they're going to come into blessing.
Your brother read, uh, yesterday regarding this meeting, but the prophet speak two or three and let the others judge and, uh, our brother Steve, he said that, uh.
Who's going to do doctrine? Not prophecy. I think he did prophecy. Umm, prophecy as I understand it. Perhaps I others can state it.
Better than I by prophecy is really taking the word of God and applying it to our present circumstance. Maybe that's an oversimplification, uh, but in that light, the Lord has a desire to speak to us. That's why we have meetings like this. Umm, and I believe that the Lord, uh, spoke to us this afternoon and so I have.
Really just I want to read umm, a few verses. Try not to.
Skip around too much but.
I wanna kind of go, uh, build.
Build upon umm, what our brother has brought before us regarding the sovereignty of God.
So, uh, Genesis chapter one.
In the beginning chapter one and verse one in the beginning God created.
The heavens and the earth.
And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, which I'm reading in the new translation.
By accident, I'll read it in the uh.
King James as well. Uh, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, let there be light, and there was light.
So we have at the very beginning of the Holy Scriptures.
We have these verses.
This is really beautiful. You know, it's been said, I, I enjoyed this thought, uh, given to me years ago when I was a young believer that Genesis is the seed plot of the Bible. And, uh, in the book of Genesis, we see seeds that grow up through the scriptures and develop.
And so here we have.
A seed.
My brother was speaking.
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Of the fact that is God's sovereign will.
That he has called us to himself.
And so we see here the earth was without form and void.
I don't believe it was created without form and void.
But it was in that state.
And you know.
I'm gonna apply this to us as individuals.
That's the state that God found us in.
When according to his sovereign will.
He interrupted our lives. He interrupted our course.
And it says the Spirit of God moved upon the waters.
But what to do in my life?
Spirit of God moved.
Without form and void.
You know we're in as as our brother went to Romans. It speaks of the flesh. The flesh profiteth nothing. The carnal mind is at enmity with God and that's the state we are in by nature.
The Spirit of God moved upon the waters.
So for us individually, the Spirit of God moves.
And God says, let there be light, and there was light.
The salvation of a soul, isn't that beautiful? Isn't that beautiful?
Let's go back to the Gospel of John, my brother read.
John, Chapter 3.
First one, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man, be born again.
He cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old?
Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except the man be born of water and of the Spirit.
He cannot be born.
Into the Kingdom of God. You cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
And that which is born of the Spirit.
Is spirit.
And so we have, uh, brother.
Read to us earlier, we have this.
Conversation.
Between the Lord Jesus and this man Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a religious man. He was a a well taught man.
He was one who knew the Scriptures.
And the Lord.
Things before him.
This truth you must be born again.
You know.
People will put these, uh, bumper stickers on their car. I don't wanna be critical. You must be boring again.
That's true.
You must be born again.
You can't tell somebody to be born again.
They have no control. We did decide to be born. We can't decide to be born again.
Not a command.
Is something that has to be true.
Before the word of God.
Can take root in the soul. You must be born again, and that's God's sovereign will. The Spirit of God moves upon the waters.
God said let there be light, and there was light. And so the Lord says to Nicodemus, you know, you're a ruler, you're a leader, you're a ruler. You should know these things.
It must be the sovereign will of God. He must intercede in our lives and give us eternal life.
And so.
We have the Spirit of God moving.
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And then God said.
What does the Spirit of God do?
The Spirit of God.
Is God.
Spirit of God is.
Is one of the persons of the Godhead and.
The Spirit of God is our brother again alluded to the servant who carried that, umm, vessel of water. The Spirit of God carries the Word of God to our souls, and that's so important and so, umm, without that work of the Spirit of God, umm, the Word of God really does not have an effect. I remember as a young man, not raised in a Christian home.
And getting to a point in my life where I realized there was something missing, I just didn't know what it was.
Umm, but I knew I wasn't happy.
And I even went out and bought a little Bible because we didn't really have them in my house.
Umm, well, we did. They were on the shelf. They weren't to be read. They were on the shelf in the living room. I went out and bought a little Bible and I tried to read it and I didn't understand it.
And I remember there was a, uh, another student in the college I was at, he kept on trying to witness to me and he gave me a little trap that uh, had a recipe for bread. And he said, Jesus said I'm the bread of life. I didn't understand it. I didn't make any sense to me. It was weird. I just didn't get it. But then by God's grace.
He brought me to my knees.
I realized I was a Sinner.
And again, it was the word of God.
That told me I was a Sinner.
And for the first time in my life, I was able to say.
I'm a center.
I hope this is true.
And I was able to ask him.
Actually, it doesn't say to ask them to just believe the word that was brought before me that I'm a Sinner.
That he loves me.
And that his promises are towards me.
And the next time, as I began to read the scriptures after that, I could, I could understand them. Isn't that amazing? So the Spirit of God bears the word of God.
We cannot understand the word of God except by the Spirit of God, and that's very important. And so I don't wanna take all the time, but I just wanna kind of close out, read a couple of verses and bring, I'm kind of talking about the individual aspect right now. I want to carry it, uh, to our collective aspect of in our present.
Calling if you will. So go to look at that.
2nd chapter.
Ask Chapter 2.
First, one-on-one, the day of Pentecost was come. They were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of the rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues of fire, like as of, uh, cloven tongues like as a fire, And it sat upon them, and they were filled.
With the Holy Ghost.
And so as we know.
Most of us in this room understand.
What this is about?
And so this is after the resurrection, the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.
Was with the father.
You've gone through the cross to the cross. You've gone through those hours of darkness.
He satisfied a holy and righteous God.
In the question of sin.
He gone to his father.
And as he told his disciples, he said, when I go, I'll send a comforter and he will be with you.
And so we have these, these people that were in this one place and what brought them there? They were there because they were attracted to the Lord. They were there.
In faith. But what happened at that point in time is the Spirit of God came down and united them into the body of Christ.
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And so today, that's Our Calling.
Man, that kind of wandered in here this morning. There was a, uh, individual that ended up coming here. He just thought it was a different group. He came and sat with us, seemed to enjoy it. Umm, but we, he asked questions, uh, about, uh, what do you think about the 2nd chapter of that? That's a good chapter. It's a good chapter.
Speaks about the birthday of the church.
We are now believers. You know, there's always been faith.
God has always interceded since the days of Genesis, but.
After the 2nd.
You know, after their Pentecost, believers now have been united into one body.
And the Spirit of God dwells within us.
And unites us in a way that has never happened before. And it's unique to this present calling. So I just wanna go.
Ephesians.
Ephesians chapter 4.
Inverse.
Four, there is one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling. 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all through all, know in you all.
And so.
We really have here.
Uh, a snapshot of of of what the earth is today. Umm.
We have 3 circles. Within circles we have.
Those who are in the body of Christ.
What characterizes us?
So we belong to Christ, we've been redeemed by His blood, where you and we all have the Spirit of God dwelling within us.
And we've been united into one body, head in heaven, body on earth, because we are the body of Christ.
But then we have the 2nd circle and I know there are probably different different ways of looking at these verses, but I've appreciated this.
This this way of looking at it, the 2nd circle speaks of the profession of Christianity.
And you know, we have in the Gospels.
Elsewhere, places where the Lord spoke, He spoke of the word going out and.
How, uh, this thing that would grow from, from the word going out from his disciples to grow into a great tree. There'll be all kinds of birds in that tree We have in Timothy how there's a great house full of vessels, clean and unclean. And I believe that and I, I certainly would be very open to any kind of correction on this, but I believe that this is the circle of profession.
This is that which calls upon the name of the Lord. This is the.
Baptism is the entry into it. But they're not. They're not all real.
They don't all have the Spirit of God within them.
And then we have the final circle 1 Lord, uh, one God, one Father of all. And so, you know.
Man was created in the image of God. God breathed into Adam and he became a living soul. And you know, we see even even with unregenerate man, we see, umm, things that they do that reflect their creator, both in terms of, you know.
Things they create and invent, things that they do. Kindness is even right. We're all children of God in that sense. We've all been created by God.
So we have all humanity really, uh, really encompassing these three circles today, but we, we have faith if we, if we're safe with the body of Christ.
So I just want to just final thought, trust the Lord by His Spirit.
Tie these together so they're not. Just don't come across as a rambling. I hope they're not Umm. I'll go to uh.
First Corinthians, Chapter 11.
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Strangely reading these verses but.
Umm First Corinthians Chapter 11.
And start with verse 8.
For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.
For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
And so Paul is speaking to the Corinthians of practical matters.
But the beauty of uh.
These things, as we read and, and, and, and we spend time in, in these epistles and, and on all the scriptures, you, you begin to see so much. And so when Paul brings a practical matter, there's always a spiritual truth behind it. And he's Speaking of the head covering.
That the women read where you know.
And I and I've meditated this. I think it's a beautiful thought.
You know we're not in a legal.
Situation some some groups are.
But we have a beautiful truth here.
We have, umm, that the women, first of all, it says the women are created for the man. Now in our day and age, people go, oh, that's way out, but that's what scripture says.
The church was created for Christ.
Eve was created to be a help meet to Adam.
Young brothers and sisters, as you as some of you may be considering.
Who it is here?
Maybe you're gonna.
Spend time with the rest of your life.
Pray about these verses.
Because I believe a marriage in the Lord is a marriage where the.
There's perfect, there's beautiful order, and as a unit you serve the Lord, and there's an order there.
This does not mean the man is to be selfish.
And that is his wife or his woman is is to serve him. That's not what it means.
Jesus, the man gave all that he had.
Beloved church, he gave himself for it.
That's the pattern.
The woman's for the man not to usurp headship.
Not to try to dominate or to leave.
But to walk and to help.
Fulfill the purposes really of God's, God's purposes.
Together.
And I and I love this little verse and and I think of the angels, you know, it says because of the angels. Well, what's that mean? Well, the angels look down.
Now the world is celebrating the birth of Christ. Beautiful thing.
Jesus Christ was born.
And you know, they have all these major scenes and three Kings and so-called 3 Kings doesn't say that in scripture but but you know.
The angels did rejoice.
They rejoice, they rejoice when the Son of God, as we sing in some of our hymns, he passed angels by, He came down, He was born as a baby. And what did they say? They said goodwill to men, goodwill to men. There's going to be blessing to men.
And, uh, just a beautiful thing.
So.
Jesus.
Passed angels by the angels, look down upon this earth.
And I and I just enjoyed the thought.
You know, perhaps a meeting like this, maybe I'm taking too much liberty with this thought. But he looks down.
01:10:06
And he sees, they see an order. They can't see their hearts.
They can only see the outward, God sees the heart.
But they see an order that comes out of a desire to please the Lord.
And that means something, you know, It's a powerful thing.
And that should be the motivation, you know, for a young sister perhaps that considering these things doesn't understand head covering before them the principles.
Not a legal rule. You gotta wear a hat.
Maybe for the principles bring the principles bring the Lord before it's a beautiful thing.
So I was just thinking of this so.
It has. It's all about submission.
Price submitted himself.
The man As men, we have to submit ourselves first.
And there's trouble in my family and perhaps there's some sparks flying. I have to in, in my relationship with my wife. I have to honestly.
Get before Lord and realizes probably right here by the reason maybe I'm not submitting, not her. It's really me.
His submission?
That's what the angels are looking for.
And so just to go back, just to refer again to that first verse.
The Spirit of God moved upon the waters, and God said.
So.
The Spirit of God.
Works in our lives.
It is very, very important.
That we give him his place. The Spirit of God will never glorify himself. He will always glorify Christ.
But when we have to, whether it be looking to the Lord for a meeting like this.
Is very important.
Much not the Spirit of God.
Whether it be decisions in our lives.
So I like this guy. Do I like that girl? Well, maybe you do, maybe you don't. What's the Lord say? It's just the Lord's will. How's the Lord leading in this matter that's so important?
And the Spirit of God always brings the Word of God. And so there are many things that we can find answers directly to the Word of God. There are other perhaps things in our life, in our lives that are that we're not going to necessarily see it written in the Word of God, but the Lord will lead us through his Word in everything by his Spirit. And so really what I said on my heart today.
I know the time is, uh, just about gone. I only wanted to make a couple of comments. I trust this of the Lord and our brother Steve was bringing before us the sovereignty of God.
And you know each one of us.
Fact. The very fact that we're gathered to Lord's name is truly the sovereignty of God. It's the Lord working in our heart. It's a sovereign. Will we come to the place where he's placed his name?
You know, we when we read Matthew 18 and 20, umm, we don't need to turn to it. It's the sovereignty of God and you truly lay hold of what that verse really means.
And uh.
He certainly worked in my life.
Is is the sovereignty of God that six weeks after I was saved that I was brought to an assembly in South fall?
And I can see I can see it working.
Sovereignty of God brought him to the place.
And I didn't know very much. For the first time, I sat back with breaking your bread, you know, watching these emblems being passed around. I didn't know very much, but I knew it was in the right place.
01:15:01
Indeed, the sovereignty of God.
As you know.
My son, my dad, was saved five years before I was and umm.
When I was safe.
I, I started coming to the meetings with Falls, uh, six months after I would say that I asked for my place.
I encouraged my dad to umm, to umm, go to the meetings in Toronto and uh.
I, uh, gave him some, uh, uh, tapes on the subject and I, I trust you listen to them. But, uh, he loved his brother and he was fellowshipping with and, uh, for that reason, umm, he never laid hold of that truth of being gathered to his name.
The Lord Jesus, it was his loss.
But the.
I just wanted to mention that each one is.
Are here because of His sovereign will, nothing else. Pure grace and His sovereign will.
Thing #42 in the back.
But we also sing #43 in the appendix, the next PM #43 in the appendix.
Our God and Father, it just thrills our souls this afternoon to.
See how the Taoists worked.
In the lives of others, and in our own lives as well.
To draw us to the Savior.
And we thank thee that Thou has seen us in our wretchedness, our helplessness, our need, and I was met that need in a marvelous way. We thank Thee that we find ourselves complete in him, in Christ.
But this afternoon we think too of that which not only satisfies our own hearts, but has satisfied die hard as well, For we know our desire is to bless. We thank thee.
For thy purposes and councils to.
To exalt thy dear Son, Lord Jesus Christ, and to bring us into blessing in Christ. And so we are so encouraged as we have been under the sound of Thy word here this afternoon. We do indeed thank Thee for the exceeding riches of thy grace.
And thy kindness to us, we know it's all sovereign grace from beginning to end.
And we thank thee that.
He that has begun a good work in US will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
So we do give you our thanks for that precious word, Thy Spirit, our God, to make it good to our hearts. We really feel so blessed and it causes our hearts to rejoice. We do pray for the gospel. We do indeed pray for feathers that are blinded by unbelief.
By the God and Prince of this world, we pray that they might be delivered.
From the power of darkness.
And they too would be translated into the Kingdom of thy dear Son.
So we ask Thy blessing and Thy Word wherever it's going forth this day worldwide. We thank You for the prospect that I soon returned, Lord Jesus, to be with Thee, like Thee, the one who has loved us and who has washed us from our sins in his own blood. We give you our thanks, our praise, our worship, our God in the most blessed.
Worthy name of my beloved Son, our Savior, Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.