Address—C. Kohler
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General Meetings Wheaton, August 1960, addressed by brother Kohler.
4184.
There is a name we love to hear.
We love the thing. It's worth it. Sounds like music in our ear. The sweetest name on earth.
It tells us of a Savior's love who died to set us free. It tells us of His precious blood, the sinners, Perfect please. And Jesus, the name we love so well, the name we love to hear.
No St. on earth is worth can tell, no heart can see how dear this name shall shed its fragrance. Still along this thorny Rd.
Shall sweetly smooth the rugged hill that leads us up to God, and there the whole triumphant strong, our blood bought Saints on high shall sing the new eternal song with Jesus ever 9, number 184.
There is a name we love to hear.
We lost.
It tells us.
How I say you're the Lord.
Who died? True circle.
Play Jesus.
Name we love so well.
All the day we love God.
Here.
No. Say no. No.
There's a world counter.
This name shall choose.
Shall see for the hero.
00:05:16
Shall we turn to Malachi?
The last book in the Old Testament.
And the third chapter.
Which will do well to get us started on what we have for us, beginning with the first verse. Behold, I will send my messenger.
And he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple. Even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.
But who may abide the day of his coming, And who shall stand when he appears? For he is like a refiners fire.
And like full of soap.
And it shall sit as a refiner and purifier silver, and it shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer.
Unto the Lord and offering in righteousness.
Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
And I'll come near to you in judgment, and I'll be a swift witness.
Against the sorcerers, and against the adulteress, and against the swearers false wearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages.
The widow, the fatherless, and the turn aside the stranger from his right, And fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.
For I am the Lord, and I change not therefore ye sons of Jacob.
Are not consumed.
And from the days of your father's you have gone away from mine ordinances.
And have not kept them.
Return unto me, and I will return unto you.
Saith the Lord of hosts.
But ye said, wherein shall we return?
Will a man rob God yet? You have robbed me.
And what you say? Wherein have we robbed thee?
In ties and offerings.
You're cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that they may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, If I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it, and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes. And he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
And all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be at the light some land, saith the Lord of hosts.
Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet you say, what have we spoken so much against thee?
He has said it is vain to serve God.
And what prophet is it that we have kept his ordinances and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?
And now we call a proud, happy Yeah, they that work wickedness is set up. Yeah, they that tempt God are even delivered.
Then are they that feared. The Lord spake often one to another, And the Lord hearkened and heard it. And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and had thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, In that day when I make up my jewels or treasure, and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him, then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked.
Between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not.
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Now this is a closing scene of the history of God's earthly people, the Jews.
Under, as is always the case when God sets up something in its beauty.
It's very shortly corrupted and brought into ruin by man, man led on by his vain thoughts, and also as prodded on by Satan, who does not hesitate to bring before him things which are subversive. Well, Malachi tells us.
Of those evil days that came upon Israel.
Under.
And yet it's the last word that God has to say to his ancient people.
Until the fulfillment of the coming of the messenger of the covenant.
It tells us here he was going to send his messenger and he was going to prepare the way before him and the Lord whom they were looking for, and they're still looking for.
He should suddenly come to his temple.
And how suddenly we find he did come.
For a matter of 400 years elapsed between Malachi and the first chapter of Matthew.
And the Lord never said another word for the 400 years to them. And suddenly the messenger of the covenant was there, the one they looked for, the Lord whom they looked for was there, and they were altogether unprepared to receive him.
I mention this because.
God predicts so long beforehand what he's going to do.
Under man just falls asleep, forgets all about it, goes on his own merry way.
And that way leads him away from God.
And suddenly, to his dismay.
The thing is realized, it's brought to pass. God is faithful. And we read in Second Corinthians one of that blessed Lord of whom we've been singing, that all the promises of God in him are yay and are men to the glory of God. What does that mean to me? That means the fulfillment.
Of those promises, literally.
The fulfillment of every promise that God has made and He's given to you and to me.
The Holy Spirit.
Are they earnest of the inheritance, or of the earnest of the promises? In that case, and the earnest of the inheritance? In the first chapter of Ephesians and the earnest of the reality in the 5th chapter Second Corinthians of that house that God has prepared for them who are his? In these three places we get the earnest of the Spirit. In each case, it's the evidence given us internally.
Of the truth of what God has promised.
And here we find.
That the promise of God was to send the messenger.
And it had, to some extent, an awakening effect, however.
We find that the coming of the Lord must necessarily be accompanied with rebuke to his earthly people. Who should abide the coming of this Messenger? Who may abide the day of his coming in the second verse, and who shall stand when he appears?
He is like a refiners fire.
Have you ever seen a refiners fire?
Under of this brought to a great heat.
And a little earthen.
Cruise is there, is put up on that fire.
And the metal that is to be refined is put into that vessel.
And that vessel becomes quite heat.
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And the metal which is in it begins to run like a liquid.
Until the refiner who sits by or stands by, as the case may be.
With a little skimmer in his hand, removes all the.
Foreign matter which was included in with the metal until there's no foreign matter left.
And that's the way in which he purifies the silver and when he's able to see in this silver in that little vessel.
Himself.
Properly.
Rear it back.
He knows then that all the scum is gone. There's no more slag.
The metal has been purified, but what a hot process this is.
That's brought before us here in order that we might realize that Israel in its.
Condition at the moment that God was speaking to them was such it must be passed through.
The furnace of affliction, in order to purify it of this extraneous matter. Well, it tells us here, or that he you approach, are the sons of Levi. Those who had there are the word of God in their hand, those who instructed the people they themselves were to be through this purging process.
Under it tells us of that when the sons of Levi.
Perched as gold and silver. Then they'll be in a fit condition to approach God with a suitable offering.
Well.
We find that the words of excitation here have only partially stirred some.
Under the nation as such seem to go on as it had been just temporarily checked, or they still pursue their own way and were the result that they are.
Planning their own purposes and devising their own thoughts.
And turning away from God and saying it doesn't pay, it isn't worthwhile serving the Lord. And isn't that comparable with what we have today? Is that not exactly what Christendom is saying today? They're saying, oh, we're not interested in heavenly gospel, we're not interested in a crucified Christ for sinners. We are interested in.
Reforming the world and making it a better place in which to live.
And therefore they are turning aside from the things of God.
And having a Christ of their own, not the eternal Son of God.
Under having a gospel of their own and it is not the gospel of the grace of God.
And they're going on their own way and they are not willing to listen.
And the modernist of today says.
It's all right to read the four Gospels. They will bring you to Christ so you get saved. After that, you use your own judgment.
But the word if God doesn't say that, and every word of God is pure.
As silver tried in a furnace of earth seven times.
It is as though every single possible test that has been given could be given.
Was given and the words of God are pure, nothing that God ever has to take back. Not like man who puts forth his thesis, his ideas and promotes them for a while and the next generation throws them in the scrapheap. They're no good and things have got to change constantly. But the word of God has lasted all these thousands of years since God gave it, and no word has had to be changed.
It's true that perhaps a translator might have used a better choice of the word to express the thought he sought to convey under another edition might correct that to some extent. But the word of God you've got in in all its particulars, and you can stand by it. It will stand every test there is, and it lives and abides forever.
00:20:05
Let it always be our guide, the word of God.
Well, here we find, as I said, only a partial recovery.
And then we come to that 16th verse. We see how very small that recovery really was. Those that fear the Lord, that tells us.
Spake often one to another.
And did the Lord despise it? No, No, indeed, he did not despise it.
But he hearkened, and he heard it, and he thought so highly of it that a book of remembrance was written.
Before him for them the thought upon.
His name that feared the Lord and thought upon his name. And I have often thought of this in connection with what is true today. We are living in remnant days.
When are the whole of Christendom seems to have turned its back on the truth, and they do not want it. It's too plain for them. It proves too deeply the conscience and they don't like it.
It does away with, perhaps, the highly paid salaries of those who are leaders of the modern thought.
Under they just don't like to be interfered with. They have their own plan, their own thought.
Under their church ideas is told forth in those beautiful edifices erected, on which they call the Church of God. But we do know from the Word of God that the Church of God is not an edifice of that kind. The Church of God is not a grand cathedral.
No, indeed, the Church of God is made-up of living stones that are built up upon.
Jesus Christ, are they a living stone, The cornerstone?
The elect stone. The precious stone, The stone that is assured foundation. Well, that's God's thought. You and I are built up up on that blessed one, and there can be no question of the solid foundation on which we rest, the blessed Lord said to Peter on this rock.
I will build my church and those who read.
In Deuteronomy, especially the 32nd chapter, have no difficulty in discovering.
Who the rock is for we're plainly told there that God himself is that rock.
And then in Isaiah, we're told that he's the Rock of Ages, the rock on which the people of God have always built their faith. And that's the rock on which we rest. And that rock is Christ, How secure the foundation on which we build.
And to what shame will come this other thing?
This pseudo church which men are advocating today.
The Council of Churches and other large organizations which turn away from the word of God.
And substitute therefore their own thoughts. How sad this is. Do not let.
Anyone turn you away from the word of God, it is only there.
That you can rest in safety. And you know that when the day comes and you appear before that judgment seat of Christ.
And if the question is raised at all, he will never say You shouldn't have believed everything I wrote. You should have used your own judgment.
How sad it is to find what you build or may be brought into total ruin. It may be the wood, hay and stubble, or that people are building into the church. Whereas what we speak of as precious, the gold, the silver, the precious stones, these are things precious in God's sight. They speak of what is heavenly. They speak of what is full of redemption.
They speak of everything that is precious to the heart of God. These things are going to remain.
00:25:05
Yes, indeed. But you know, the Lord foresaw that we would have.
This same kind of difficulty for Satan would come in and seek to ruin the church.
Just as he came in and ruined Israel.
And so in Matthew 18 and 20, we read all that.
Where two or three are gathered together to my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Two or three? Is it possible it might decline to such a small, feeble testimony? Well, it's sadly true today. I've been in places where there were possibly one or two Saints.
Or three, and the testimony has been very weak and much to discourage. And don't let us get discouraged. Let us remember that God is the God of all encouragement. Let us remember that Satan is the great discourage as well as the great corrupter.
And seeks to ruin all their testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And let us remember that we are here too to bear.
Testimony. Witness of himself, Just as the Spirit of God is here to testify of Christ, and just as when the Lord Jesus was here, He came to bear witness and manifest forth his Father. You and I today are the vehicles that God is using to tell this world of the wonderful things that God has done, that Christ has done. We are the testimony I don't mean.
Just as little company, I don't mean that you know.
Please don't think I mean that we are the people. No, indeed. But we are supposed to be. The Church is supposed to be the testimony that has been set up by the Lord Jesus underwear. There's a condition of lethargy and sleepiness and heaviness, and there's no energy and no operation of the Spirit of God. It's too bad.
Can you call that a testimony? I can't call it a testimony. That testimony is a living, vital thing, and it's everyone himself filled with the Spirit of Christ seeking to make it known everywhere else, shining as lights in the world. The Lord Jesus put it that way for us, you know, he said, first he said I am the light of the world, and then a little later on he says ye are the light of the world.
So you and I are taking his place now in his absence. And through us the world reads the Bible. Let us hold fast that precious word and let us go on in the energy and strength of it, encouraging one another as we have been having before us in our little meetings such as this, encouraging one another. I think that's the value of meetings of this sort. A number of us get together, we see one another. We look into one another's faces.
We rejoice together. We share with one another other bright and blessed hope that is before us the coming of our Lord Jesus and the glories are which are to follow the season of rejection.
We're content to have his rod and his staff down here. We're content to be despised and disowned by the world. Are you prepared for that? You should be. The world will look down on you. Never mind.
Ah, the Blessed Lord will have us look up to him. The world may look down upon us, but we look up to him and we see him and like Stephen of old.
Her face shining with the glory of God. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you were and I were constantly that Christian, going around with her face lit up with a glory light?
On the happiness of our heart that is occupied with Christ.
Well, that's what we should be.
That's as it should be.
You and I should not be content with anything less than that.
I know, of course, that we will have difficulties. We will have trials, and God wants us to feel these things too. But they should drive us to himself and not away. They should drive us to that source of all comfort and of all blessing himself.
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Well, I've thought of this.
That oftentimes when we come together in our own little home assemblies.
And we feel, as we look around, how few we are. But don't get discouraged. It's true we have fuel in this place and few in another place. It's true that we feel weak. But you know what the Lord said to Paul when He had taken him up into the third heavens and made known to him an abundance of revelation?
And then he had to give Paul a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble. And why was this? Because when Paul prayed, please take away that thorn three times? He asked. The Lord says no, in your weakness my strength is made manifest.
And so Paul learned to say, Most gladly, therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Which is better for you, a large company?
That goes on indifferent to the truth, and half heartedly.
Or a small company with Christ in the midst. I think of that dear woman that went to a prayer meeting.
And she found nobody there. It was a stormy night.
And when she came home after the prayer meeting, she was asked for who were there, she said.
There were two of us there.
Two there, while she was there, all alone. No, she wasn't alone.
The Lord was with her, Oh, she said. There were two of us there. Oh, have we the faith for that?
Just to see himself there, regardless of the fact that you may be all alone.
Well, these little companies that meet together and that might feel discouraged, but don't let discouragement come in. The Blessed Lord is there with you.
Isn't he worth a gradient more than large companies would be?
Oh, that's the secret of it all. Just to have himself.
Before your eyes, before your heart.
Well, is this precious to the Lord? When his few that really love him come together, we come together without all the help of a fine organ, a grand choir.
Or great oratory, we just come together. For what purpose we come to meet the Lord.
I was struck with what our minister said. The only just recently we have a room in his house in Brooklyn and we have our meetings there.
And he would long ago have moved away from the neighborhood. But he said this as long as you president here, I feel this is the House of God.
Well, I think that's really wonderful.
Really wonderful. I feel this is the House of God as long as you present her here, and I wouldn't think of moving away.
Well, do you and I feel that though the numbers are few, it's the House of God?
We should.
We should You remember the Lord Jesus.
Speaking of the temple.
And they came out of that temple after having overthrown money changers tables and having driven out those who sold sheep and pigeons, he says. You shan't make my father's house a House of merchandise.
It wasn't the Temple that Solomon built, was it? No.
It wasn't the temple, either.
Ezra built. No, no.
Ever the temple in Herod built.
But he owned it as a father's house under where the people of God met in that way. That was the father's house.
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And where you and I meet together in this simple way, to meet the Lord and to be with him.
And to carry on according to the word of God, we have that noble character too, in his sight, the House of God.
Well, that's splendid. You and I, then, in all our feebleness, need not get discouraged.
In the fullness of our numbers, we need not feel as though we've.
Missed something that the others have. They don't have Christ in their midst. And you and I are peculiarly and and specially blessed by having the Lord's promise. Where two or three are gathered together to my name, there am I in the midst of them.
But you know, The thing is going to change. It's not going to be always like that.
Just two or three.
It's not going to be.
A cause for our getting discouraged. What will it be when the Lord comes to take His waiting people home?
When he catches the mall up to meet him on the cloud.
Will there be just two or three here on two or three there? No. No, dear Bradford.
There will be a myriad.
Around the Blessed Lord.
A tremendous host.
Are going to be with him when he calls them up to meet him in the cloud.
And it was that thought that I had before me particularly speaking to you this afternoon.
And I'd like to turn now to Hebrews.
The second chapter.
I've enjoyed a good deal for my own soul.
Of this portion, and I'm sure every one of us will be just sit down and meditate upon it and feast upon it. It will be a royal feast. Yes, it will.
What have we in that 13th verse?
He says, Behold, I and the children God hath given me.
We will say that winter is past.
Under the trees still are in their dull brown.
And the Bushes?
But suddenly you see the little green buds.
And almost as it were, overnight they burst out into beauty. The beautiful flowers which come on those trees and bushes.
A rare sight after the long, tiring waiter.
And what will it be when the Lord sees his own?
There on the cloud, will he see us in weakness?
Will, he says with discouragement.
Will he say to us, Well, you only did part of your job and you could have done a lot better.
No, no. When he sees us, how is he going to see us?
Every single sight of God, that vast host.
With faces shining.
In his own blessed likeness.
Oh, what has grace wrought?
Will that satisfy his heart? What do we read in Isaiah 53?
It tells us he shall see of the fruit of the travel of his soul, and shall be satisfied.
When will that be?
When he views this gravest host of believers, every one of them in his own blessed likeness.
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Arrayed as only God can array.
And he looks there's nothing more that could be added to make that picture perfect.
And he looks.
And is satisfied he is at where says oh, it cost me much when I hung up on that cross of shame.
But oh, it was well worth it. And you know, the Lord said of his own, and to his own.
If I go away, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. He was Speaking of the Father's house, where there were many abodes.
And now he is going to bring into that father's house.
This host of his children. That's what this 13th verse means.
He's going to bring all his redeemed in triumph home to their father's house and he says here we are.
Behold I and the children God has given me.
Oh, what a volume there is in just those few words.
Of what glories they speak.
Of what happiness?
God himself.
Having the children that he sent his blessed son to gather out of this world.
And now they're going to fill his house, and they're going to fill that house for all eternity.
The angels, in all their brightness, in all their glory, are not, are like these children.
Or that God beholds. You know the Lord Jesus brings that before us in the 12Th of Luke, and he says there consider the lilies, how they grow. They toil not, they spin Not yet Solomon in all his glory.
Was not a raid like one of these?
And dear brother and sister.
Oh, this Lily of which he spoke was only for a few days.
And yet it fully outclassed the best glory that a man ever had here in the world.
Ah, what will it be when he's gathered his lilies home, and when they were raised like himself, and all the glory that is his is put upon them? It makes me think of what we have in the 16th of Ezekiel, when the Lord Speaking of Israel, and how he rescued it from its miserable condition and developed it and said.
Thy beauty was perfect through my comeliness which I had put upon thee.
But that was a thing to fade away. It was only for a short time. As long as they fulfilled the conditions and walked with God here below, God would walk with them. But what you and I are called to is heavenly. It's eternal.
Would we be like an Angel in the glory? No, dear friend.
Angels never had a song such as we have the same Angels never had a Savior such as we have.
They can look on as those who look upon the scene, but we are interested and concerned vitally in this person. And the glory which is Christ's glory is upon all his redeemed ones. And here's this vast post, an unnumbered host.
There in that bright glory, just like their Lord.
What will that change be that we are told of in Philippians? We shall be changed. Oh, you won't look like.
You do today, though there will be no question about knowing your personality, yet you won't look like you look today.
00:45:02
I would look like I looked today.
The glory of the Lord.
Shall be upon us in the truest sense. Israel claimed that.
But it didn't last. You and I have it upon us.
And shall never, never lose it.
Behold I and the children God has given me.
You know in Ephesians we're told of a coming glory that God is preparing, in which his blessed Son is to be the center of attraction. All things that have been gathered about him, the things that are in heaven, that are in earth and nearest to himself, is His bride. You are having in the gospel that we needed to be ready.
They have already went in with him to the marriage. I'd like to carry that a step further.
I like to carry that to the 19th of Revelation, and there we find.
The wonderful fact the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
In every way fit for that wonderful event.
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine abysses, the very, very choicest work of the loom.
Came from Egypt. It seemed that they were master Craftsman.
In the production of this fabric that was that was made-up of linen, but so very fine that perhaps it was as fine as half of the thickness of the finest linen we can spend a day under, it shone like silk. And what does that picture to us? The righteousness is of the Saints all down through the history of the Church.
There have been things which have been wrought in faith for the blessed Son of God, unheralded unknown by the rest of the world. But in that day it's all going to be displayed. She's arrayed in this fine basis, clean and white.
For the fine business is the righteousness in the plural, you know.
Of the Saints.
Now we have the righteousness of God resting upon us.
Not exactly the righteousness of Christ, though. Christ is our righteousness, it's the righteousness of God that rests upon us now. But in that day we're going to be arrayed in that fine basis, which is the righteousness of the Saints or the individual deeds, all the things that were wrought by his people who in secret oftentimes denied themselves and gave up a great deal.
And their loss they took with pleasure, because they serve the Lord, and they counted all things but dross and down.
Well, the Lord hasn't forgotten it.
And in the day when he has his own home, and resplendent in his glory.
They're going to be a raid in all the benefits of these things which they have wrought, or rather faith wrought through them.
Ah, there's a wonderful day coming, you and I, when the Blessed Lord fulfills these words in the second chapter of Hebrews.
Behold, I and the children God hath given me. We've got something to look forward to, something well worthwhile looking forward to. And we won't be disappointed. I suppose every heart will be filled with wonder and surprise. Or when they're there with their blessed Lord and they see the gain that faith is wrought.
You and I, everyone of us, are only seeing now as through a glass darkly, or, as the German puts it, as in a mirror. That is merely A reflected thing. But when we see him face to face, when we're with him and like him, and when there's the closest of intimacy.
00:50:02
And perhaps each one of us will be classed to his own bosom, as John loved to be. You and I will be so close to himself and so loved by himself, we'll say The path may have been rough, but it wasn't long.
And while we were down here, we cheated with hope and we smoozed it with song. Yes, we can go on that way down here now.
And rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. But that's what the glory of God is.
And it will be just as real as all the other promises that God has made.
And all the other predictions.
Which have been fulfilled literally, and others still to be fulfilled, but will be fulfilled literally, And this among them just as perfectly fulfilled as every utterance of the Lord would give us hope and make us rejoice.
Oh, let us then gather fresh courage.
And go on with himself.
In view of that wonderful day, when we're going to see him and be with him, and be like him, and when his own heart will be satisfied with the product of his own work, the work of grace in you and in me, shall we sing #217.
Look, look you Saints within the veil and raise your happy song. Your joys can never never fail for you to Christ belong.
Oh happy Saints, forever freed from guilt and every care dwell, dwell with your exalted head, and let your life be there, and glory in your Lord and God.
See. See him as he is.
Robes are spotless through his blood.
Your happiness is his.
Oh, think not of this world of woe, those subjects still to grief.
But seek your portion there to know, for this will give relief.
I trust forever trust in God for every promise given.
And well with him through Jesus blood within the veil of heaven, #217.
So.
I feel.
Oh, I.
Said.
For a free.
Prove.