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And close.
Every song.
Step early.
And close us in all the heavens light.
We ask Lord's blessing.
Our loving God and our Father, we thank thee for our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee, Lord Jesus, for thy love and that thou hast acted our God in sovereign love, to draw our hearts after Thee. And now in our responsibility in this scene, we long to follow as those that are disciples, true disciples indeed, and that have the person of our Savior before us. So we pray that thou make him precious to us this afternoon.
Give us that instruction that's necessary and stir up our hearts, our consciences, that we might follow undistracted and with affection for the blessed Savior. So we ask you to bless thy precious Word, and that we might be encouraged and refreshed this afternoon. We ask it and give thanks in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.
For those that might not have been here this morning, we had Matthew 5 before us and we didn't get very far. Would verse six be about right?
Or yes, first six is that, is that about right?
I just might make a suggestion that we've heard the whole chapter read once and it's a long chapter maybe if.
We could read maybe down to the end of verse 26 rather than reading the whole chapter again. Is that would that be OK?
So Matthew chapter 5 and verse six. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted. It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
You're at the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, neither do men Light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a Candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass one jaw or one title.
Shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of heaven.
For I say unto you, that accept your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother, Rocca shall be in danger of the council.
But whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger of Hellfire. Therefore, if if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remembers that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst our in the way with him, lest any time the adversary deliberately to the judge, and the judge deliberately to the officer.
Officer and they'll be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by number means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost Farthing.
Brother Vern, can you hear me?
Yes. Was it your purpose to take up the entire chapter of possible? No, no, it wasn't OK. I think we're doing fine. Some of these things are worse for when the Lord was on earth with those disciples offering the Kingdom of heaven in manifestation. Now that's that's not what we're as Christians. We're not looking for that. But this thing is kind of segued over into.
The Kingdom of heaven in mystery. And all of these things apply now, except we're not going to. We're not looking to be raining on the earth. I think maybe.
This would help the 15th of John. It's the Lord says I am the vine, you're the branches. Well, we know that Israel at one time was the vine.
And when the Lord was on earth, he said, I am divine.
I heard not. I read not too long ago in an old reading meeting where Mr. Darby was there and Mr. Walston and Mr. Walston asked, He said, when he says I am divine, how long does that last? Mr. Darby said 24 hours. But the principal remains. The Lord was going to be crucified.
And he would no longer be the vine of the earth. But the principle of the fact that without me you can do nothing abides. So maybe that helps.
In applying this to.
What we're our our situation today. We have every right to do that right. There's some things here that.
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Like the 25th or as he's really talking to the the the remnant.
And some other verses that he using like 21 and 22.
But the principle remains that this is the character of the Lord Jesus and it's to characterize us in this day. And, and somewhat my exercise was we're not, we're not all the believers, the Christendom and then the real believers in the world. They've been taught to fight, to resist, to be a rebel.
And the word of God.
Condemns that and I I think we were all born rebels, so it's natural for us to do that, but the word of God would say submit to the powers of E submit to the will of the Lord, not.
Act in the flesh, which the flesh wants to, and if one can speak for others, that's the first reaction. I want to resist this.
And I would suggest, Vern, that this sixth verse is a very after fold of what you're saying because.
Doubtless there were those at the time the Lord said this.
Who had life and who hungered and thirsted after righteousness? But if I could say it, perhaps you and I as believers even more so because we have a new life in Christ. And when we see the unrighteousness and it's increasing rapidly in this world, we want to see it straightened out. And what is going on today, and it's been mentioned before.
There's a very strong movement in Christianity, in Christendom, if we could say, and we're part of Christendom. But there's a very strong movement that we can call either Reconstructionism or covenant theology, which is sweeping North America and not only North America. And it says the very thing that you've been describing, that believers need to jump into the arena.
And in so many words, get the world ready for the Kingdom.
And so the word Kingdom is what we are hearing, and it is distorting the whole truth of being strangers and pilgrims here with a heavenly calling. And Satan knows very well that if he can destroy the practical sense of the heavenly calling of the Church, that we have, humanly speaking, as believers, lost everything.
And we've lost our ambassador character. We've lost our Pilgrim and stranger character. And.
We are no testimony in the way that we should be, and so to hunger and thirst after righteousness is right. But it says they shall be filled. Shall they be filled? Indeed we shall. We read in second Peter three that has already been referred to, that there's a day coming.
In the Millennium we're in dwelleth, or when righteousness will reign, and there's a day coming in the eternal state wherein dwelleth righteousness and new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. So righteousness will come. We need not fear, but it will be brought in, not by the gospel, not by your efforts and mine, but ultimately by judgment.
And so we have to recognize that, but at the same time to hunger and thirst after righteousness is something that the Lord Jesus did and the unrighteousness in this world certainly.
Was something that.
Reached, if we could say it, reverently into his soul. Very, very much.
I think there's a.
Online, a brother took this up and he used the illustration of lock, you know, lock.
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Pitched his tent towards Sodom and pretty soon he was sitting in the in the gate and his thought was to make Sodom great again.
And what happened, you know, he didn't. It didn't succeed. And that.
And that's not our place to seek to make this world great again. It's never been great. It still won't be great. And like we're waiting for that. I I enjoyed your thoughts with Mr. Hayhoe, that it's not the natural thought, just higher. It's a lot of Christian thought is absolutely opposite to that.
That you could you want to quote that again?
Well, he used to say, and it was.
In very strong language, as he often used, he said God's wisdom is not merely an improvement on man's wisdom, it is the direct opposite of man's wisdom. And and that is, that is absolutely true in every case.
If God's wisdom could improve on man's wisdom, it would mean that there was something good in the natural man.
And there is nothing good in the natural man because of sin.
I don't want to be misunderstood though, just to make it clear. And I don't want to do all the speaking here others in a minute or two, but something that is important to emphasize is it doesn't mean that.
That if we hunger and thirst after righteousness, that we don't amount to any influence in this world. No, I remember well a brother years ago, and I can mention the issue that was brought up to him. It was back when, sad to say, abortion on demand was just beginning to be legal, first of all in certain parts of the world and ultimately in North America.
And this brother was asked by someone, what's your opinion on this whole thing, this whole issue of abortion, what's your opinion on? And I thought he gave a very good answer. He said, well, if I give my opinion, it's not worth any more than your opinion or anybody else's. And there can be all kinds of different opinions, he said. But I'm here in this world as an ambassador, and I'll be very glad to give you my government's position.
On the whole matter and you turn to the word of God.
Carried weight because he wasn't just shooting off, if we could say his own ideas, he was supporting it from Scripture. And so the believer is to be a force for good in this world. But as an ambassador, and I've used the illustration, there's an ambassador from the United States to Canada, but supposing there were a demonstration on what is generally called Parliament Hill in Canada.
And some issue was at stake, and there were people there with placards and shouting and all the rest of it trying to make their voices heard.
Do you think the American ambassador would be up there with them doing it?
No, he might agree with what they were saying, and he might think that the cars that they were defending was worthwhile, but that isn't his place. But does he Clary clout? Indeed he does. Or she is the case may be. And if he or she were to approach the Canadian government?
They would carry not merely their own opinion, but all the weight of the American government behind them.
So that is the believers position in this world. It's not that there's they have nothing to say, but it said in the right way.
This is a very chapter tells us that this is the word of God. And the old brother used to say that when you say I think you think wrong unless it's according to the word of God. And that's some of these arguments, you know, even for that subject of abortion and things like that, they sound plausible. You know, well, this, this child doesn't he's not wanted. He'll grow up to be a criminal. We'll have to take care of him the rest of his life.
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All these things sound plausible, but this is I think the word of God says that life belongs to God, so that.
Illustration of a woman one time her her son was complaining about taking care of the animals and he said we don't need these animals, there are no good, we just have to take care of them it's just a problem and he went on and on and she said son.
You have, we have a problem here, he says, what is it? Your thoughts don't count. And the same thing is true in the word, in the things of God. Our thoughts don't count. The word of God counts. And so if our thoughts are not in In Sync with the word of God, they're wrong.
I mean, what a wonderful thing it is to stand up a brother. One time he he stood up for young people and he just said this is the word of God. I thought, boy, that's so simple, but it's so profound. We hold in our lap the words of God. That's no small privilege.
This verse six says that blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. So there is a God-given hunger and a thirst. And why would a man or a woman hunger or thirst after righteousness? It's because they have divine life. The natural man doesn't hunger and thirst after righteousness. He might desire the effect of righteousness in government and so on, but really he's thirsting after the corruption of this world.
He's hungering for those things that satisfy the flesh. But the reason you and I hunger and thirst for righteousness is evidence that we have divine life. And so it's really Ephesians chapter 2 and we need to remember it's the sovereignty of God that we do hunger says let's just read in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 5. Even when we are dead in sins.
Have quickened us together with Christ by grace are you saved, Has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places or in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. So the reason you and I, hunger and thirst is because we have divine life. It's evidence that we have divine life. Now we can suppress that by being occupied with what this world is occupied with. And so this word bless, it just means happy, doesn't it? Happy.
You and I will be able to walk through as those that are disciples of the Lord.
And that's who he's speaking to in verse one. His disciples came unto him. If we're truly following the Lord, we're sitting at his feet as learners. We're traveling lightly through this world, forsaken all for Him will hunger and thirst after righteousness. And he did. He brought great sorrow, as was said this morning, to his heart as he walked through this wicked scene. And so you and I have the capacity, the spiritual capacity, because we're indwelled with the Spirit of God.
And we have divine life. We have the spiritual capacity to hunger and thirst after righteousness. We're not going to get it here.
But we will get it. It will. During the time that the Lord Jesus reigns, we are going to be filled.
I think, too, that it might be a help to young people.
To just elaborate a little bit on that, that people tell you, well, you just, you just think this way and the Muslims think this way and they worship a God and you know, Buddhism and all these other religions, There's one thing that sets Christianity apart from all others.
And it's this that it's the only religion that offers you a new life. It does not seek to overhaul the other. It does not seek to clean up the old man. It gives you a totally new life that cannot sin, that has never sinned. That's the difference. It's a great difference. God can't never be satisfied with anything of the old man and every other religion.
Just the things that they offer you, that they say in heaven, it's all fleshly things.
Because that's only no, they do not have. So Christianity is the only religion.
That offers you a new life.
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A new life and a new nature, yes, suited to that new life.
Hey.
I mentioned that the the lack of seeking after righteousness is what will bring the ecumenical movement together, isn't it? It's when there's really no fundamental differences that the great ecumenical movement comes together. We have to be very careful about that because in the world, the great principle today of toleration, but that's toleration of unrighteousness oftentimes, isn't it? And that's what's going to bring the ecumenical movement together.
And it's 11 Christianity. We have to be so careful about that. But the so much in Christianity they talk about unconditional love, but in the improper way. Unconditional love does not apply to the government of God. Grace does, that's true. But unconditional love does not apply to the government of God. It does apply when God is seeking out the lost Sinner, but that's a difference, isn't it? But it doesn't apply to the government of God.
And yet most of Christendom has accepted the the principle that you can have unconditional love with regard to sin. And that's what's going to bring the ecumenical church together. So the remnant will stand apart from that. And Vern, you mentioned earlier about Lot. I think we should bring in the other side of that. It's Abraham, isn't it? Because you're right, Lot was the wrong position. Abraham's was the right position, wasn't it?
That's really the Christians position. He was in Hebron, the place of communion, and he was communing with the Lord himself and he was given, he was called the friend of God because God gave him the secrets of what was going to happen in the future. That's the Christian position, is it not?
Ye that cometh to God must believe that He is.
That He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
Solomon, when he wrote Ecclesiastes, tells us as far as man can go in his own efforts of wisdom, and how to live, and how to satisfy the desires of his soul.
But God does work in man.
To have that thirst to know Him. But if we come to know God, we must know him as He is, according to the way he reveals himself. The only possible way to know God.
The only way you know anything. Everybody in this room only knows things in two ways. You either know it by personal experience, or you know it because God has revealed it.
And.
A personal experience will never bring you to know God, but God has revealed himself by His word and through His Son the Lord Jesus, and any other way of seeking to know truth, to know how to live. But that way is going to lead to eternal death, to eternal separation. And so when God made himself known to man.
The sad result when?
For man was I don't want him.
He does not want to retain the knowledge of God, as Romans one says. And so the thirsting after righteousness is comes after that the person who truly wants to know God. And it's a work of God that he does want to know him. And God worked in you and I.
Is God that worketh in you both to will and to do his good pleasure, that we would want to know him, and then he reveals himself to us.
In the person of his Son, who is the living Word, and he's given to us the written word as well. And consequently, as has already been said, the the revelation of God by the Word is the only way to know him. There is no alternative way to know truth, as the Lord Jesus said is the living word. I am the way, the truth and the life. And so anyone in this room that truly wants to know the Lord.
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You know him.
By the way, God has chosen to make him known to you by His Son and by the Word. Any other way is going to end an eternal separation from God.
Appreciate an example that we and McDonald gave in this regard. I think you're talking about what the fact that we're lost, and I appreciate this example, he said during World War 2.
They wanted to impress on the pilots that when they're in the rarified air where the oxygen level is very low, their senses deceive them. They can't believe their senses. They have to believe their instruments. And so they would put these men in a decompression chamber and they give them some mathematical problems. And they warned them ahead of time. They said, you know, nobody has ever successfully answered all these mathematical problems, but we're going to give them to you and put you into the decompression chamber.
And, and see how you do. And he said the pilots would go in there one after another, and they would make a mess out of the mathematical problems because their thinking was all wrong. And I mentioned that once to her brother, Tim Clark in Oakland, and he said, yeah, we did the same thing when I was in Graduate School. We did it to Stanford medical students. We put them in a decompression chamber, gave him simple mathematical problems, and they failed. It's the same thing.
And so man, left to himself, is lost. He needs a savior, and that Savior is the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want to add a comment to on perspective that in the morning reading.
A little bit was talked about about the having a perspective. That's right.
But this is a different application than what was given this morning about disembodied spirits and so on. And that is, when the Lord wanted to communicate with John about what's coming in the future, he had to have the right perspective. And so the Lord says to John, come up hither.
And I will show thee. And so in vision, he's taken up to glory in Revelation chapter one so that he can have God's perspective on what God is going to do. And if we want to know the mind of the Lord.
And to have his perspective, then, if the thirst is for that, God will bring us into seeing things as he sees them. And God's perspective always begins from a heavenly view. Ours, naturally, even as believers, begins by looking around and checking the newspaper or the Internet news or something to see what's going on and then try to interpret it.
But the only real way to interpret what's happening now or what's going to happen?
Is when we are able to see it as God sees it and he can show it to us as he sees it. But we need to be like the apostle John, the apostle Paul taken up to the third heavens was given the vision that gave him to see what the church was because it was a heavenly.
A heavenly body. And it's from that perspective that the truth of the church was given to Paul.
And for the truth of what's coming on the world in a prophetic sense and on to the end. John likewise needed to get to heavenly vision so that he could see it from the come up. Hit her perspective. And so it's an encouragement to us to seek to know God's will and mind about things by asking Him. Lord, let me see it as you see it.
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God is merciful.
It's part of his nature that will never change.
And having brought us to himself, he reproduces that in you and me. And so blessed are the Merciful.
You and I are vessels of mercy. Individually, we are that. We have been shown mercy when a Israelite was brought into the land.
I think it's in Deuteronomy 26 he was to offer the first fruits of the land.
And he was to bring it in a basket and give it to the priest, and he was to stand before the Lord God.
And he was to retrace his own, his National History, as if it was his personal history. For you and I, it's a personal history. And he was to say a Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he brought me out and brought me into this good land. And then it goes on to say, you shall rejoice before the Lord your God. You and I are vessels of mercy, and it ought to be natural to the new nature, and it is to show mercy to one another.
And so in Matthew, if you keep going through Matthew, we went through these 10 similitudes of the Kingdom, Kingdom of heaven in Matthew with a bunch of Saints back east over the past year, year and a half. When you get to the, I think it's the 7th one of the 10 in Matthew 18, the Lord puts before them the parable of the man who owed 10,000 talents.
Which is, in today's terms, I'm sure, millions and millions of dollars. It's a figure for a debt that could not be repaid.
And he asked for mercy, and he receives it.
And he's happy to have the mercy. And he goes out and you know the story. Somebody owes him, what, 100 pence? I think it is 100 pence.
Which is a very achievable debt to repay and in in in.
In hardness of heart, he goes and grabs him by the throat. Pay me that thou owe us and so on. What happens is the other servants, they see this. It's interesting how it says that in Matthew 18, the other servants were think it says they were, they were very unhappy. They're very displeased. And this spirit is, it's ugly when we, if we descend into that lack of mercy towards towards others, especially towards our brother, and they come and tell it to the master and you know the rest of the story.
The forgiveness that that man had was revoked, no longer forgiven and he was held accountable because of his hard and harsh spirit. Eric referred to the government of God and these are issues of the government of God that we all happily.
Are the recipients of takes a personal interest in US, whether it be chastening that is hard and difficult to receive.
Or other kinds of training that he gives us. But this was a this was a training that that man had to receive. And so to be merciful is to be like him. And says here, and as we move on to that seventh verse, blessed are the merciful, they shall obtain mercy.
We have become so accustomed in Western countries to the showing of mercy.
That sometimes I believe we don't realize how much of that is due to the external influence, if I could use the term of Christianity.
Some of us have had the opportunity to travel to foreign lands where false religions are in the majority.
And you do not see mercy exercised in the same way. It's more or less that's your, that's your, that's what's happened to you. That's your karma, if you want to use their term in some cases. And I'm not picking on any particular nation, only pointing out that mercy in a general way is because of the influence of Christianity. And we can be very thankful for that. We can be very thankful for the existence of.
Places like public hospitals and things like that.
There are countries in the world today that never had a hospital until Christianity arrived. Why? Because if you got sick, you were on your own. Your close relatives might look after you, or maybe the odd good friend, but the whole idea of showing mercy to people was just.
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Not common in one country today, and I won't name it, but it would be well known to you if somebody's in trouble and you're driving along on the road.
You would hardly dare to stop and give them any help, because if the police came along, they would probably arrest you and accuse you of being the cause of the problem. You and I say how utterly ridiculous. If somebody in a Good Samaritan type of mode stops by to help someone in trouble, to arrest them and charge them with having gotten the individual into trouble. Is that early ridiculous? But that's man's natural heart and so.
We can be very thankful for the atmosphere which pervades most Western countries, but let's be clear about where it came from. It came ultimately from our blessed Lord and Master and from those who have by grace followed Him.
This is a little contrast as well with Judaism, isn't it? Under the law, a man sinned, he died, it says, without mercy. But the Lord Jesus here was bringing in this principle in connection with divine life and principles that would characterize them in the Millennium and in the as they go through the tribulation period, there'll be a period of time of judgment and there won't be mercy shown. They'll be cruelty and father betraying son, mother betraying daughter, so on, so forth. What sin does?
Is it hardens the heart, it hardens the affections, it cools the affections for Christ even.
And so we need to bear in mind that the grace of God, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And so we live under the influence of the mercy of God and we are recipients of the mercy of God. And that scripture that Brother Bruce Conrad mentioned in Matthew 18 shows that if we are not merciful, if we do not reflect the moral features of mercy in connection with others.
That we could come under the governmental dealings of God. And so it says in that 18th chapter of Matthew that in verse 34, his Lord was Roth. Lord was angry, it says, and delivered him to the tormentors. It doesn't mean that he lost his salvation, but rather that he had a tormented conscience. He had.
A wrong spirit towards someone and because of that he had the Lord allowed his conscience to be tormented every time he thought about that person it just.
Tormented his conscience. Tormented him. Didn't want to think about it. And so.
So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses. So what a mercy it is of the Lord that we have. We can cultivate a forgiving spirit and a merciful attitude towards those that perhaps we might consider wrong. They wronged us, and that's not be injustice collectors.
And injustice collector, somebody wrongs them and they have an unforgiving spirit. And they, you crossed me in July the 20th, 1969. I remember the time and I put that I collected in my little bag. And then I, I have another injustice and I you, you, you did me wrong that I've got that injustice in this bag. You carry them around and it's, it's not happiness so blessed.
Are there merciful? It's a happy course to have mercy and have a forgiving spirit towards our brethren, towards others that might wrong us.
In the parable that Bruce mentioned it says the man that had owed him 100 denarii which I believe is 100 days wages which would be like $30,000 forty $1000.
And it's not that we aren't hurt. And I think that we look at 10,000 talents, we could never repay that. When we understand that people do hurt us, we can be hurt by other people. And what God is calling us to do is to forgive.
It says he frankly forgave him. He just wrote it off. And somehow in our flesh, we think if we forgive, then they get away with it. Whatever happened happened. It's it's history. You can't change that. But you can be free. When you forgive, the person you really free is yourself. As our brother was just saying you, you take that injustice and you take that injustice and you put it in a bag and you put it with other injustices and pretty soon you got this whole bag.
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That's slowing you down. And God wants us to be free. He wants us to walk in love and in peace and in joy. And it says blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. This universe is a universe that's an echo. Whatever we sow, we're going to reap. And the law of the harvest is we're going to reap more than we sowed. And we want to be that people. And it's not like we feel like doing it.
Somebody says something bad about us, what we want to say something bad about them. Somebody cuts us off in traffic. If somebody hurts us, what do we want to do? Just naturally in our flesh, we want to get back. But we understand. You know what? That's God's department. My job is to forgive, and forgiveness is not reconciliation. Reconciliation is being right with that person that takes two parties. Forgiveness is my determination that I'm going to let go and let God take care of it.
And it sets me free and we get to obtain mercy.
What's just been said a little bit and repeat, making sure a little easier that we get it.
God has natural laws. We're all familiar with something. God works in a certain way in the natural realm, and man even understands a lot of them and calls the law of gravity the law of gravity and so on. And that's the way it works in the moral realm. God works like that as well. And one of the moral features, just like gravity in the physical realm, is you reap what you sow.
And consequently, in verse six, it's an illustration of it, or verse seven, blessed are the merciful.
And how does God work in that realm? Those who are merciful receive mercy.
And it's there are many other moral ways in which we reap what we sow in moral things, because that's the way God is and that's the way God works. And so verse 7 illustrates one of those ways.
God is merciful to those who show mercy, and that extends to all men.
Not every I remember from the conference one time or brother commenting. Not every man is cantankerous and cross grained. There are naturally speaking nice people in the world even though they're not a believer. And sometimes they are kind to their neighbors. And there's the law of kindness, those which are kind. God in his moral ways shows kindness to them in his government in the earth. But to expand just a little bit on the opposite.
Side where we suddenly say yes, but I know somebody that was kind or merciful and you know what happened to them Well, let's look ahead a bit and get the other side of it and verse 10.
Verse 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Oh, then what?
Is that the principle of receiving mercy for being merciful? What if you show kindness to someone and present the Lord Jesus to them along with it, and the result is they persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake?
The next verse is the answer. Rejoice.
You naturally rejoice when somebody treats you that way.
Here is the instruction Rejoice. Why?
And be exceedingly glad.
For great is your reward in heaven. The other principle that is a companion to the moral laws of God is God always settles his accounts.
In the end.
So that he balances, as we would say, the books, and so the one that is persecuted in the present and receives.
00:50:01
Bad for the good can if he looks up to God and recognizes the character of God can say I rejoice in the realization that there is they persecuted the prophets that were before you and so on.
But there is the settling of the account, another way of saying it with respect to the perfect example of it, the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus was merciful to men, and there's a record throughout the Gospels of others responding, many of them positively to it.
But not all and some, as Peter says in the Darby translation, in first Peter 2, the Lord Jesus was cast away as worthless.
Think of those words castaway as worthless by men.
To me, I I can't hardly say those words without paying right. There is pain to think that this world castaway God's Son as worthless.
Will gods square the books?
Did the Lord Jesus?
Rejoice in any way, He said Even so, Father, for it seemeth good and thy sight as to what happened and was going to happen to Him at the cross. He accepted it, He submitted to it. But we look on to the day when God will square the right. Now He's not seen by man.
But he sits to our eyes at God's right hand in patience, and the day is coming when the Father says, Now, son, return to the earth, and the books will be squared, and the whole world will recognize what preciousness that he is to God and to his people, and that he will be recognized throughout the world and so everything.
Ultimately, God brings into balance so that His principle of justice is always maintained in the eternal perspective. We just have to be sure that we get the right time frame, which is God's time frame and not always our own.
As I hope, not too far of a digression, but.
This is a.
A reason why Peter says who Peter so taken up with the principles of the government of God is in his epistles in second Peter 3 verse 7, the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word the word of God, are kept in store.
Reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
And so on.
When I was a little boy in kindergarten and 1St grade, we had to line up and go down the basement of the school and sit in the concrete hallway and put our heads between our knees. And it was some sort of a practice for nuclear.
War, nuclear obliteration, or what? As if that was really going to help. But anyway, that's what we did.
And of course, that situation unfolded in the world of governments, God being behind the scene. But today it's not just an interruption like recess where you go down and sit in the, but young people's minds are filled with this.
Extreme fear that the planet is somehow going to become dysfunctional and it's not going to work and man is going to be able to blow himself up or pollute himself so badly that this world will, will, will not continue.
And so you hear even little children, my grandchildren are exposed to this coming home and and saying the most absurd things because they come from these crazy conclusions. That man feels that he's in control, that he has his hands on the lever. He does not. And I can remember my earliest days as a believer of the brothers in the meeting saying God will preserve this world as a platform until that day when he sends his son back into this world in power and glory.
And it's not just, it's not enough in answer to this, it's not enough to to God that he give him the highest seat in heaven. He's going to bring him here. And it's imperative with God that he come back here and that that same entity, 2 entities really that's fat in his face, will have to give a count and they will see the Lamb and want to be hid from his face.
00:55:26
As we were speaking yesterday, it's an imperative with God that that happened. I, I enjoy that, that God always closes accounts and we rejoice in the passages that say you must be born again. And we say, thank God, I have been born again.
And in order to give us life and righteously do so, the Son of Man must be lifted up later on in the same chair. And he was and God has been glorified by that work and the foundation laid for our eternal blessing. But then later on it says he must reign. It's imperative with God that he come back here. I'm not sure we have a guarantee on how the how the rivers are going to flow or how clean the water or the air is going to be, but it's going to be here.
Because God has an appointment with this world and with every entity in it, and his Son is going to come here and he is going to be honored and extolled in this very world where he was hated without a cause. And so we look forward indeed to the rapture, to the snatching out of us as believers, which could happen today. There's a crown, Paul said in his last epistle, for those that love his appearing.
And that's beyond that. That's when he comes back and there's a crown for the boy or for the girl. You walk through the hall at school. You walk home from school and on the sidewalk or in the green grass and you say, soon he's going to come in. This world is going to be filled with his glory from the river to the to the to the end of the end of the world, end of the sea. And you walk along with your hands in your pocket saying, this is going to be a wonderful day when the Lord Jesus reigns, the Son of man. We're all this thing.
That's loving his appearing, that's living in advance in the enjoyment of that day that is not yet come. And there's a crown connected with that. Yes, the rapture will be will be a result in our glorification, but the renewed heart looks forward to the full vindication of God's Son in this world, because it's here that his blood was shed and he was cast out.
Have to remember that we have two inheritances. We have a heavenly inheritance right now. The spiritual blessings we have as believers and there are many, we often read about those in Scripture, but there's also a material inheritance that we look forward to as they're not. And that's where we're heirs of God and Co heirs with Christ. So some people I know, my brother said to me once, he said I'm not interested in prophecy. He doesn't have anything to do with me.
Even if it didn't, it's important because it has to do with the Lord's glory as we've just been listening. But on the other hand, it does have to do with us because that's the inheritance we're going to have. We're going to inherit this world and this heavens. We're going to reign over both of them with the Lord Jesus. He is the heir and we're coheirs with Him. We need to remember that. So the Millennium is a very important thing to us as the believer.
The tribulation is an important thing because that lays the foundation for it in judgment. The only thing we would say we're speaking about the government of God with the accounts being settled, aren't we? In the Old Testament when it speaks of the government of God, if there's no redemption, that has to be answered. But if there's redemption, that's the end of it, isn't it? The Lord Jesus has answered and fulfilled the accounts, and we can be so thankful for that.
Mercy and truth are joined together, righteousness and peace of kissed each other. We can be so thankful we could never answer for our sins. The Lord has settled that account. But when it comes to the government of God, everything needs to be balanced out, doesn't it? It is balanced out and redemption, the Lord Jesus has answered for it. We can be so thankful for that. But as far as government goes, and we often see that in the Old Testament, why is judgment called down on people's head?
Because it has to do with the government of God. The only thing that can stop that is redemption and accepting God's proffered offer.
When you speak, the government of God does that. Something that just lasts until you pass out of this world is that.
01:00:06
Temporary goes on through the Millennium, doesn't it?
Well, if you're if you, I'm talking about individual.
What would you say, Vern? You tell us.
Goes on into eternity.
Like David, he David, he suffered the government of God but didn't last beyond his death. And so there were some people who the Lord healed and he said go and sin no more. Well that sin that they were under the government of God, it was alleviated then, but if it had, if he had not alleviated, it would go on to their death, but not beyond that.
I just want to clear some people don't understand that the government of God doesn't go on until eternity. Is that right? Correct that.
Yes, that's correct, Brother Vern. It's only for our lives down here, for man in this world. And so the Lord is dealing with us in a governmental way as a father, for those that belong to him. He deals with us in kindness and mercy, but as a father.
And he will discipline us. But that's during the time that we're here in this scene. I was thinking of Brother Bruce, his comment in connection with the prophets, you know, and Brother Eric, we have false prophets today. There are false prophets. Peter speaks of it in Second Peter chapter 2. But there were false prophets also among the people. I won't go into the whole passage, but this world has its profits and it's profiting the prophets are Speaking of.
Drought they're Speaking of.
Nuclear war, they're Speaking of all these things. That's not what we ought to be occupied with. Let's read the prophetic scriptures that the Lord has given to us. We have an opportunity to read the the book of Isaiah. We can read the different minor prophets and so on. We can see things from Christ's perspective. That's the prophecy that we ought to be occupied with. And so the Lord Jesus was desiring that they would.
Have His perspective as He brought these things before them. So verse 8 says, blessed are the pure in heart. They shall see God. And we ought not to be taken up with the impurity of this world and the impurity of its thoughts, the impurity of its prophecies of doom and gloom, and whatever, even in connection with the political scene in this country or any other.
Our prospect has to do with the man Christ Jesus.
His glory. The Spirit of prophecy is the testimony of the Spirit of prophecy or the Spirit. The testimony of prophecy is the Lord Jesus has to do with Him.
Well, we could say that I may do something in my life that the government of God is is on me yet.
It will and it will pursue me to my death. I mean, you can pray and everything you want, but the government of God might go along. You can repent and and and the Lord will walk with you in it. You can restore communion, but your circumstances may never change. It just says there about divorce. I was thinking about that being one thing, you know, and something that I do in my life.
And the government of God will follow me on that thing to my death Doesn't mean that he can't go on with the Lord. There's no, there's no reason why I can't repent. But that does not take away the government of God. And I might pray as much as I want, but he'll never be removed.
The government of God has to do with earth and life on earth.
To illustrate the point you made, that it can follow me if I commit a crime and it puts me in prison and in prison I get saved, I'm still in prison.
It's the government of God. I'm reaping what I sowed in whatever I had done.
On the other side of it, as Eric was bringing out.
When I come to redemption.
I come to a place of death.
And I can be, in regard to redemption, delivered because I'm brought into a new creation still as the government of God on earth. When I'm on earth it the principles apply, but in redemption I get to belong to a new creation. And that creation in heaven there is no government of God. It is a there won't be the government of God as we are talking about it.
01:05:22
When we get to glory and in the enjoyment of our position with God.
In our place before him, in redemption, we are free, we are clean, we are sanctified, we are justified, and so on. And those I have forever. They can never be lost. The government of God doesn't apply to them. They are mine, and they're mine because.
Of the place I'm brought into, and so it's a wonderful thing to be.
This may take the point a little bit too far. I hope not. But in any event, when we talk about the way things work in the natural realm and man gets all worried about what's happening and if the world's going to fall apart because of doing this, that, or the other. The way God has designed this world, He's designed it for a purpose, for His duration.
And in fact, when that duration is finished in what was read in second Peter.
He's going to.
He's finished with this world because even in the Millennium it will still bear some of the effect that sin had brought upon it. And so it's a ruined from God's purposes eternally. So for a people in the coming day, beyond the Millennium of glory, there'll be a new earth.
Wherein dwells righteousness and sin will never come, and never spoil it, but man's fears.
If from a believer standpoint about what's happening on the earth and man's messing it all up.
They have no scriptural foundation.
If I could illustrate it this way, suppose this afternoon God took everybody off the earth.
He just took everybody off the earth and you left the earth to sit for 10,000 years.
What would you find when you came back? The earth would still be operating exactly as God had organized it. There would be sea time and harvest and so on. In terms of the earth would be operating, the only thing that would be as everything man had done would be out of the picture. Everything that man had created, everything that man had brought unto the earth to make life a great place to live, would have begun.
None of it would be functioning or existing anymore, but the way God created the earth, it be gone along just fine.
It won't work that way. That's not going to happen. But that's the principle that we don't need to have any kind of fear that the earth is going to get all messed up and man's going to be able to destroy it. He will not. He cannot. God will sustain it until His purposes for it are accomplished, and then he'll replace it because it does have and will have the effect, if left of the sin that man brought into it.
I'd like to ask a question if I could.
We began the discussion this morning with the Kingdom of God, Kingdom of heaven, how his subjects ought to respond and, and reflect the character of that Kingdom or that king. And now we're talking about this government of God that comes and it's includes the earth and mankind.
Satan has a part in this something. Before man was put here, there was an enemy who was cast here with his company, if we understand scripture correctly. And somewhere at the end of this earth.
That Satan and that enemy or his cohorts are going to be.
Have a final judgment. Can somebody speak to more than man on the earth? There's this disputed right for who reigns here on the earth.
It's bigger than we are is what I'm trying to bring out.
There's something went on before and there's something that will go on.
After and if I can just say it that way.
Satan.
01:10:00
Creature of God, as you say, and his, as we call it His fault, appears to have taken place before the earth.
Was created and yet what we call.
Health was created for him, not for man. It was for Satan. Man will go there because of refusing the grace of God. Satan and those who fall with him are never offered redemption or any reconciliation to God, but rather again.
In in the tribulation period, God is going to say to Satan you can't be her anymore and those that are with him will be cast out and have no more access to heaven.
And that will be Satan's last great stand, if you will, of opposition to God. But at the same time, Satan will still be around during the millennial period.
But the time will come when, as we have in the Revelation, He will be cast into the lake of fire, and so even He has his eternal destiny. And after that will God will create a new heavens and a new earth.
In which everything connected with sin, Satan included, will be forever removed from before God and every man who did not accept redemption. And you and I will only have one evidence that sin ever existed.
And it'll touch our hearts to worship. And that evidence is we. The only evidence that will remain an eternity that that sin ever was will be when we see His hands and His feet.
Lord Jesus personally in his hands and His side will bear the marks that we will see forever, and it that work of redemption will have that one aspect to it that we will know that there had ever been sin.
And our hearts will be touched to worship the one who did it, as we see that.
His personal body.
I guess our time is up and I wonder if we could sing the last three verses of #170.
170 beginning with verse 4.
Israel's race shall now behold him.
Full of grace and majesty. And then our place in verse five. Tis thy heavenly bride and spirit.
Jesus, Lord, that did thee come #170 the last three verses.
Yeah.
01:15:47
Oh Lord Jesus, come over to his eyes.
But we also see.
Stanza #3 maybe stand and sing.
Same number, but the third verse.
The blessed God and Father, we thank thee for such an one as thy Son.
Who waited, and always did thy will?
We think the.
Here's our great example.
To reign when it is not our time.
Help us to be like Thee, blessed Lord.
To be patient.
Help us to.
Be thy disciples, look unto thee to see where you would lead us.
Help us to be interested.
And prophecy, because thou are God art interested.
We commit the time to Thee. We thank Thee for the blessing.
Leading of thy spirit in these things.
We give thanks and rejoice that we are thine blessed Father and thine Lord Jesus, thy most precious and worthy name. Lord Jesus Christ, we pray, give thanks, Amen.