Michigan Family Camp: 2014
Table of Contents
The Song of Solomon
Address—Josh Stewart
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Pin #170.
I just like this in the first core versus #170 and just in the last, last. So he comes from.
Saturday burns in the World is Lines.
Telling him about.
Thank you.
Joy, right now I have taken.
Number of times we just pray it would be something tonight that would be reached heart and each consciously and we just confess our our weakness and our need of dependence on the Lord Jesus. We know that.
Know that we don't know what's best for the audience but for Jesus we know that by heart and heart of love and it has a desire for us and we know that just what we need down to every last part so we just pray that I'm going to be something and brought up to him and very.
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Now we just ask this and pray for him. Am I working on his name or please?
Just like to walk around here to the meeting tonight. I'm also you cannot tell me my name is Josh Stewart and I like Andy and I have some Jack through the rest of New York and so why don't be here.
Just like to bring out something tonight that I really enjoyed.
You will enjoy it and it'll be incredible. I'd like to start with one verse in the Romans chapter 15 and the very wrong numbers, Romans chapter 15 and verse 4.
It says for whatsoever things were written full time were written for our written that lead through visions and comfort other scriptures. My husband.
Have to look at the Old Testament we don't often read and it's sort of like to go through and give an outline of the book. And I think there's a lot in there for our learning. There's a lot in there that will encourage us with a lot in there about the Lord himself and something too that will revoke her stir up on consciousness.
So before I come to the book, I'd just like to mention that one of the books I'm going to look at this evening for all the focus one of the poetical So you know, the Old Testament can be broken down into something 55 different sessions and the first time looks at Moses Tennessee.
Joshua through pastor was indeed a historical book. They did a history of people died of Israel and the boy meeting with Joe is on Tom and then after that comes of the major prophets. They have the Daniel and then the minor prophets, Joseph so some more they folks are very interested because they're poetic needed. He's been looking.
Paragraph highway. You can see that.
The the songs for example are into the song. The problems are written in the poetic media or something like the wise man does this, but who is man does that?
Song.
The reason I bring that out is because I know for myself, I often reflects, but they're really important. And and the reason is in the Old Testament we have the history of Israel and we had a lot of prophecy in the Old Testament in connection with Israel.
And in a timeline of events is laid out, but the poetic books give us the thoughts and the feelings of the people that are in those competitiveness, whether it be the Lord or these people. And so it's kind of like like a picture, like a color with lines, and you're supposed to fill in the lines of colors.
So the prophetic folks sort of give us those lines, right? The events. It's really nice that it would go back in to the the what it looks and, and, and here what these people are doing.
So now you're not calling in those lines. So they're they're really helpful.
So with that, we could turn back to the Song of Solomon.
This is a book that I really know what to do. And so maybe six months ago and I started to read through it and I wasn't really ordered up to me and really, really jokes.
So.
I wonder how many years you can do the raise your hands. I've read this book and come across in verse.
Quite a few. It is really helpful to have an outline of the book because once you sort of understand the flow of the book and what the subject is that it really helps you understand the verses that are that are kind of confusing them are to understand what they are. So the workshop will do that.
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So I'm going to.
Have a poster board here that has an outline.
It would be helpful for us to have this so we can refer to, so I'm just going to take this here.
I know I'd be hard for some people that are sitting on the sides to see. I hope. I'm sorry about that. Hopefully I can explain it almost to you if it's just a SO. As you can see here, I have 3 columns.
Two are part of, so we're going to uncover those details.
I'd just like to mention that the Song of Solomon, as we mentioned, is a song. It's really a dialogue between a slide group and a bride to a man and a woman. And as we go through the song, we hear their voices back and forth.
Once, weeks ago.
And it's really hard to know what's going on unless you know when the riser is speaking when the rising. So if you can sometimes go through this on the column, the reduced translation that has both paragraphs broken out and follow through and determine from who's keeping at this time, it's really helpful thing to do.
There's a couple other voices that you hear. This is a, this is a song sort of meant to be somewhere on stage almost where you have a man playing Solomon and a woman playing the bride, who's named, I believe she's called the Shoe Light. And of course, and the chorus is the daughters of the school. They're also called the virgins, in other words. So they're the course and you hear them at various times.
So. So this is a dialogue that goes back and forth between the bride and the bridegroom and tells a story of their love for each other, starting with the very first stage, which would be what we would call a dating relationship or as they used to call a courtship.
Maybe some people still have that from portrait and it goes right on through their their map, through their wedding.
And these are very one and it kind of needs them.
I don't try to recommend My wife lost.
We've been going off into the sun. It's just a beautiful.
So with the Lord's help, we'll just sort of trace this this through this column.
So as you can see.
We have broken down your progression from chapter one, verse two, through chapter 3, verse five, and down the fortune and the fortune.
The man and woman, what do you call him? A boy? The boyfriend and girlfriend? And he thinks what? Tell each other?
They tell each other how little communities are. They actually do want to be, and they do various things in support so we will feel what we can learn. That's not the primary thing I want to focus on, but that's that.
And then there comes a time when there's actual marriage already and there's wedding succession marriage. And then they they have.
I'm not going to go under too much detail under because I want to keep the family.
But then there's something that I have called post fighting period.
And this is something that.
And I don't want to get you getting marriage advice here. So I don't have a lot of experience. There's, there's something that I've heard, which is where after a honeymoon, it might be a month, it might be six months, it might be a year or two years that something comes into the marriage.
Into marriage, into marriage. And it's it's a really wonderful happy thing.
So after that, we have a deeper state of marriage that comes in the life of this couple.
So we see in the Song of Solomon.
The one who wrote it and by the Spirit of God really knew a lot about marriage. So a lot of things in here that might be helpful for you if you're married or about to get married, but but there's more than this and I'd like to mention that.
There's something in Scripture that we call inspiration and.
And it's this fact that the Spirit of God used the writers that wrote the Bible, and he had a message that he wanted them to confray. And there's something called an interpretation, which is when we understand what the Spirit of God was trying to say. And it's not always right on the surface. The Lord used parables where he tell a story, but he was really trying to say something. There was a message underneath, right?
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And this is one of those examples. This story is not just.
About a man and a woman and they're getting married and going into married life. So I think, I hope you can all understand that there's this is an allegory and there's something deeper than this.
So I'd like to, with the Lords, help talk about what that is, what that interpretation is.
And, and, and many have thought of the interpretation of the Song of Solomon is about the love of Christ for his church, for us as his heavenly bride. And, and I think that that's, that's a nice thought, but it's not the, it's really not the interpretation of this book, but it's a it's a nice application. And we'll talk about an application in a minute. I believe that the interpretation of this and, and we'll, we'll see it. And I think that you'll come to the same conclusion yourself. And if you don't tonight, maybe as you as.
On your own, it's really speaking about the love of Christ for his earthly bride, the Jews.
So we're going to have to talk a little bit about prophecy in order to understand this. If you don't, and I'm, I'm, I wish it could be, it could be simpler, but I'll try not to lose you. And I know that when we hear words like the remnant, sometimes we just turn off our minds and, and go to sleep. But see, it's really important to understand that first of all, this bride is, is, is the Lord's earthly people, but it's not all of his earthly people. It's not as earthly people in the Old Testament.
It's not as earthly people now, it's as earthly people in a future day, OK, sort of during the tribulation events and the peering of the Lord and the Millennium during that time that's coming in the future. And it's not all of his people. It's it's this group that we call the faithful Jewish remnant. So I know, resist the temptation to turn off your minds. What what is a remnant? Do we have any carpet layers in this room?
Anyone that deals with carpet. Anyone. No one. Oh, OK, Steve. All right. We got a few.
So a remnant, if I'm not wrong, is what you have when you get to the end of a roll and you need to cut it off.
Correct. It's a leftover piece, right? So it means you had a big piece and you cut a piece off. So that's what that's what this group of people is. They're a piece that's cut off from the rest. That's what I think of em. It's when you want to put carpet in your basement and you don't want to spend a lot of money, you buy remnants and you throw them on the floor.
So that's what these people are. They're a group that separated off from the rest. What happens to the rest of those people? Well, they're going to actually be judged and they're going to be killed, many of them, and punished. But there's a small group that's cut off. Usually we cut off the piece and throw it out, but this time they're going to be that piece is going to be separated off and they're going to be preserved. And they're the one that's pictured by this bride.
And I know that it's sometimes that can be hard to understand, but really?
A huge amount of the Old Testament, and even some parts of the New Testament are written with those people in mind.
And I believe that there's going to come a day when they're going to pick up this book, this the Bible, and they're going to read through it. And they're going to read in places like Matthew where it says he that hath an ear, let him hear. And they're going to understand this is for me, right? So I think a huge portion of the Bible, the book of Ruth is another example. There's another.
Marriage kind of story, Ruth. There is also a picture of of the Jewish remnant. Sometimes we apply it to the church, but that's really what the picture is of.
So I don't know if that helps you at all, but it really was a big help to me to understand that.
Umm. And so I'd like to, with that uncovered the second column.
Which I believe will sort of layout for you the what the interpretation might be and and this is sort of again is to the exact details of this.
You know, I'd appreciate others thoughts. This is what I've enjoyed as I've gone through it. And and there may be other ways to look at this, but this kind of weighs out for you sort of the breakdown of it. So the courtship phase that we talked about where the man and the woman are getting to know each other and they're they're growing in their love for each other. What that's really a picture of is the Jewish people in the Tribulation. So we know there's going to be a seven-year period of judgment.
That's going to come on this earth and the Jews are going to be back in their land. Some of them are already there.
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They're going to be back in their land and the Lord is going to start waking them up. It's going to start waking them up. And for those of you who are prophecy buffs, this corresponds to the Feast of Trumpets in Leviticus 23. But that aside, he's going to start waking them up and it's pictured by this bridegroom and his love, and he's drawing them, drawing them towards himself, and their affection is to start to ramp up, up and up as you see through these first couple chapters.
And they get to the point where they.
They can't live without each other anymore. And then we have the wedding. And so that's really what this is a picture of. And and then once we, when we have the wedding, the wedding procession and marriage, this really is a picture of the, of the Lord's appearing. Just like when the woman in this, in the Song of Solomon sees Solomon coming with his, his huge wedding procession that he has. That's like the Jewish people looking up and seeing the Lord come down and he's united with them.
And then there's this post honeymoon phase. That might seem kind of strange to you, but it'll make sense when we talk about there's going to have to be a time when the Jewish people come to full repentance for crucifying their Messiah. Although it's not the same literal people that were alive 2000 years ago. The Jewish people as a nation have crucified their Messiah. They rejected him and they don't.
Believe that he was there, that Jesus was their Messiah. But when they see him, they're going to realize.
We crucified our Messiah and they're going to have to repent from that. And that has to happen before they can go into the Millennium, right? That's got to happen 1St. And, and so that will happen and there's going to be a process of restoration and, and then they're going to be restored. And you know, they're going to be stronger in the relationship with the Lord after that than they were before that. And, and that's a really wonderful, wonderful truth.
And then and lastly, what corresponds to marriage deepening?
Is is the Jews are going to get even closer to the Lord than they were before, and you're going to see them do things like they're going to. They're going to view their relationship with the Lord in a different way. Instead of focusing on how much they love the Lord, they're going to focus on how much he loves them. That's a big difference, isn't it?
And they're going to start to do things like care about other people, which they hadn't done previously.
And you're going to see things that show us that their marriage is actually deeper than it was before.
And so with that, we're, I'd like to talk now about an application. And this is really, and I have it written in red because I feel like it's the most important thing. This is really my burden is that we would understand this, this application, okay. And, and really what it is, is instead of instead of the bride being the Jews, the bride is us as individuals. Now the Lord loves us as individuals and he works with us.
Sometimes in similar ways to the way he works with, he's working with the Jews.
And there's a lot of really important lessons that we can get from the Song of Solomon.
So the Lord in the face that corresponds now back again to the courtship.
He doesn't work of warming up our hearts, and he does that in many ways.
But he does it through his word. I think primarily he tells us about himself. He tells us about his love for us, what he's done for us. And you know, if we have the new life from God, then we're going to, we're going to respond to that and we're going to hear those things about the Lord and his love for us. And it's going to do something to our hearts and our affections for the Lord are going to ramp up just like the bride in the Song of Solomon.
And then there's these times that correspond, I think, to marriage where we have these.
These times of communion with the Lord, He's been drawing us. He's been drawing us, and then we come into His presence and we just sit with Him in His presence. And you know what? There's no higher experience than that on this earth for the believer than communion with the Lord. We're not there with Him yet, but we're there with Him now, and that's wonderful.
And then unfortunately, this doesn't have to happen, but coldness sometimes comes into our hearts. That corresponds to the post honeymoon Phase I was talking about. Coldness comes into our hearts through various reasons. And we're going to talk about those a little bit if we have time. And you know, it might just be spiritual laziness, but we.
For some reason, when the Lord knocks on our door, we don't answer, we say.
You know, I'm, I'm just, I'm happy doing the things I want to do, enjoying the things of the world, whatever it is, or just earthly things. And I don't want to answer. And that makes the Lord very sad. But he has something called restoration in 23rd Psalm. One of the things David said was the Lord restores my soul and the Lord will restore our souls too. And, and the interesting thing is.
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After we're restored, we're closer to the Lord than we ever were before. And you know, it's like when you break a bone, when you break your your wrist or your arm.
Now, can you ever break your arm in the same place again? No. Why? Why, Savannah? Do you know why?
It's stronger there, right? It's stronger in the place where you broke it after it's healed than it ever was before. And so once we're restored to the Lord.
Our relationship with him grows even deeper and, and, and that last phase corresponds to just just a happy life of the believer walking in communion with the Lord. And that's what he wants for each one of us. But oftentimes we have to go through this process.
So with that, with that aside, I'd sort of like to go through each of these, these four sections of the book. And and it's it's 830 almost. And so I'm just going to touch on a few things. I'm not going to go through every verse. I'm not going to go and tell you every time where the voice changes from the from the masculine to the feminine, but just touch on a few things.
By the way, I added up all the number of verses in the masculine voice in the man's voice and the number of verses in the in the woman's voice. Can you guess who talked more?
It was it was 60 to 40 for the woman.
Well, I think it's nice because the Lord wants to hear our voice. He wants to hear our voice and.
I don't think there's any sense in which that's improper. Sometimes women are more commutative than than we are as men.
And I think in the picture, the Lord wants to hear our voice, and we do hear her voice a lot in the Song of Solomon.
OK, so with that, let's go to chapter one, Song of Solomon.
In this courtship phase that we talk about here, you could kind of look at it in in two sections, subsections. I'm not going to get too much into detail with this outline, but the first one would be chapter one through chapter 2, verse 7.
And then the second one will be chapter 2, verse eight through chapter 3, verse 5.
And then the first one there, it's what you would call the assurance of love. They're assuring one another. They're kind of saying I love you, do you love me? Oh yes, I love you. So we hear that from couples that are engaged a lot.
And and that's normal, I think.
And then in the third section, it's really their affections are waking up. She actually has a dream in the third in that section. And she's she's looking for her husband. She doesn't find him. She and she goes out to look for him. And when she finds him, she doesn't let him go. And it's like she's she's at the point where it's time for us. It's time for them to be married there. And you know, there's such a thing as pacing yourself and.
Some of us didn't do such a good job with that, but.
It's important, you know, in a, in a relationship to to pace yourselves. But anyways, they get to that point and I don't want to, I don't want to go down that path into giving advice, but.
But they get to a point where their hearts are just knit together and it's at that time that the wedding occurs so.
Let's just let's just jump into.
Verse 2.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine, because the savour of thy good ointments, thy name is his ointment poured forth. Verse 4 Draw me, we will run after thee. So here he's this is the this is the bride speaking and she's saying she's talking about the love of her bridegroom. And I think you know, as the Jews read about the Lord's love for them.
They're just going to be amazed at it.
As they start to wake up, this is real, he loves us and they're going to read their history in the Old Testament and they're going to see that the Lord loves them. And I think that the first sign of life, you know, if I'm looking around at these, all these young people here and I remember.
We had this, this, this reading at a Palmyra conference a long time ago and there was a young brother there and I wasn't really sure if he had made a decision to go on for the Lord.
And then we were reading and just sharing what each one had enjoyed. And he said, the Lord just loves us so much. And he said, I can't wait till the day when I see his face. And I, I knew right then that this this person had decided to go on for the Lord. And I'm not saying that that's that there can never be, you know, backsliding. I'm not saying that, but it's a good sign when someone is occupied with.
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Lord's love for them.
Verse 5. This is one of these verses that sometimes we wonder about.
I am black, but commonly, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon, looked not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.
So the word black here should really be translated dark. So what she's really saying is, I've been in the sun for a long time and I've gotten a tin. That's really what she's saying. Now. It's kind of funny because in the day that this was written, having a tan was not a good thing. It didn't make you look better.
It was considered an ugly thing to be to have a 10. Now women pay to get a 10. So it just shows you how much things have changed. But the reason the reason it was considered bad was because it has the thought of exposure. You know, you're out there and you know, it has the thought of of the exposure to the rays of the sun. We know it's not good for our skin to be in the sun for a long time. And and she's saying, I know, I, I know, you know, I'm a little darker than I should be because she.
With these details, right, she's, I know I'm not, you know, as fair skinned as I should be, you know, but she says, but I'm comely and she knows that despite, you know, these imperfections that she has, she's still beautiful in the eyes of her bridegroom and.
You know, that's really nice when a woman can be secure in a love of her, of her future husband. But what is this talking about? You know, the Jews can look back and they can say the sun hath looked upon me. That is through their own self will and their, their, their, their rebellion and refusal to obey God's word. They have experienced so much persecution.
It's hard to imagine that they're going to experience more, but the sad thing is, is what they're going to see is going to be worse than they've ever seen.
You know, I was reading recently the population of Jews in the world today has still not reached that, that the population was before the Holocaust, 2014, and the population is still not recovered to the point where it was before the Holocaust.
We can say that the Sun has looked upon them, but you know, in an application to us, can't we say the same thing?
That the sun has looked upon us. Do you have stars and your life? Do I have scars in my life that are a result of me not obeying the word of the Lord? He's told me the way to walk and I've disobeyed and as a result something has has happened and I have scars and it's true and and humility is a big part of this first section and yet.
We're still beautiful in his eyes, and to me that is just a wonderful truth.
And his eyes were beautiful.
Well, let's jump down verse 11. Here's another one that that you might not have understood before. This is the chorus. This is the Daughters of Jerusalem speaking. We will make the borders of gold with studs of silver. So in a wedding, oftentimes you have the bridegroom and the bride, and then you have these bridesmaids. And that's sort of what these are like in this chapter. And they're offering to make her jewelry for her wedding. This is fairly normal, we would say.
As you know.
If we if we take this as an application to us, there are those times of communion with the Lord, but then there is.
That preparation for that. And we have friends. We ought to have friends that are going to help us. They're going to make jewelry for us for that time when we're in the presence of the Lord. And I hope that today you have friends, young people that are sharing the word with you and sharing thoughts that they've enjoyed. That's sort of like filling the role of these daughters of Jerusalem. And, you know, and the Jews also are going to have friends of the Gentiles, I think that are going to encourage them.
And seeking the Lord and they're going to, as it were, make jewelry for her wedding. So again, I'm just skipping down here, but jumping touching on a couple things. Chapter 2 and verse 2.
This is this is an interesting portion. Song of Solomon 2, verse 2. As the Lily among the thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
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So this is the man speaking 1St and he's comparing his wife to be to all the other girls and he's saying basically she's the best looking girl on the block. And then the next verse as the apple trees, apple tree among the trees of the woods. So is my beloved among the sons. And then she says about her her husband that he's the best looking guy on the block. So.
We hear this too, right? From those who are hopefully still from those who are married, but especially from those that are engaged and and and so on.
It's interesting though, that he initiates it. He says it first and she follows. It's kind of a nice a nice order to things I.
And it's also interesting that.
When it's talking about him, it's more his stability and his character that I brought out and so much his looks. And I know as as guys, we, we do appreciate good looks and I think I'm sure girls do as well, but especially, you know, stability and, and character. So I think that's interesting, you know, and prophetically speaking, the Lord looks down on his people, the Jews.
And compared to all the other daughters, all the other nations.
He says.
As a Willy among thorns. And to him there's nobody like them. And I think the Lord looks down at us as individuals and he says, you know, to each one of you, He says, you know Caleb, you know, and Scott, there's nobody like you. I won't take anyone else. I won't take another one to substitute for you. It's got to be you. He wants you. He wants your fellowship. No substitute will do.
And then she turns and says to him, This apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons.
And we have to, we have to compare the Ward to all those other things in the world that could have our attention, all the idols, all the attractions, and there's nobody like him.
And we find one of the things of this book is.
Her telling others how much she thinks of her bridegroom, and that's something that we can do too, is tell others how much we think of the Lord.
Umm so now down in verse 10, my beloved spake chapter 2, verse 10 and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo the the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of a turtle is heard in our land. So on.
So this is what you would call a date. You know, he's coming to her house and he's saying, arise, come with me, let's go for, you know, a drive or whatever. Much more poetic and elegant. But that's that's the essence of what he's saying here.
And it's the Lord's invitation to love.
And I think this really brings out the Lord's deepest desire is to have us with him more than anything. And we know as as his heavenly bride, there's going to come a time when we're going to be called out, raptured out. And and that is his greatest desire. But you know, it's looking forward to the wedding too. You know, if if you were, if you're going on a date with your, you know, fiance.
It's a happy thing, right? But if you, if you didn't know that it would eventually ended marriage, it would be kind of sad, right? Well, it's looking forward.
We see this here, looking forward to the day of marriage. And, you know, and the Jews, you know, as they experience the Lord's love, are looking forward to that time when he's going to come and he will come too. And we're going to get to that. And I want to keep moving here.
Verse 14.
This is the bridegroom speaking. Oh, my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, and in the secret places of the stairs. Let me hear thy countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice, and my countenance is comely.
Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes. The Lord, you know, is saying here, come aside into this little crack in the rock, you know, out of the traffic. Come aside and let me hear your voice.
He says take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines so.
As we know, if any of you here have studied prophecy at all, you'll know that the the vine is a picture of Israel in the Old Testament, right? And we're going to see a beautiful ending to the story because in chapter one, she said, I have not kept my own vineyard. I've been keeping the vineyards of my neighbors. I haven't kept my own vineyard here. He has to say, you know, let's catch these little foxes that are running around because they're spoiling the vines.
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And.
A vine speaks of fruit because grapes grow on vines and these foxes have to be caught. We have to come into the, into the crack in the rock just this, this, this place out of the busyness of the world and catch these little foxes that are going to spoil the grapes. You know, there's, there are lots of little things in our life that if we don't judge them, we'll, we'll steal that joy of the Lord and will rob us and rob the Lord of the fruit that he's looking for.
So we need to, we need to catch those little foxes. And you know, the Jews as well, they have a lot of baggage, don't they? And we know that today. There's a lot of things that have gone on over a long period of time. And they're going to have to, they're going to have to judge those things.
Well, let's jump down to chapter 3, verse one. By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth. I saw it in, but I found him not. I will rise now and go about the city and the streets, and in the broadways. I will seek him whom my soul loveth.
I saw him, but I found him not.
The Watchmen that go about the city family, to whom I said, saw ye, him whom my soul loveth. It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him.
Who my soul loveth. I held him and would not let him go. So she she wakes up and you know, in a cold sweat, where is he?
You know, there are times when we're in the world and, and we wake up and we say, where is the Lord? And I was at a conference this past week and for work and it was, you know, all this stuff where they're trying to teach, teach you how to be a better leader. And, and it's just man's wisdom, you know.
And you know, it sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
But there are times when you wake up and you say, where's the Lord? I need the Lord, I need his presence. And we're so happy to be here this, this, this weekend and this week, however long we can be here because the Lord is here and we can enjoy his presence and enjoy his word together.
But she realizes that she can't live without him. She risks an expedition in the streets. You know, the Jews are going to risk persecution to find their their Lord. And you know, we're going to risk something too, to find the Lord. We're going to have to step out in the streets to, to seek him and to find him. And, and sometimes that might just be speaking up, you know, at at school or at work and saying, you know, I don't agree with what you just said.
Or, or when someone uses the Lord's name and a swear word, we we just say, you know.
I don't, I don't, I don't accept that. You know you don't. You would be. It wouldn't be OK if I use your name in a swear word. Why are you OK? I'm not OK with you using my Lords name on a swear word. It might be as simple as that. But sometimes when seeking the Lord we need to we have to risk an expedition in the streets.
Well, let's let's move on here. So now we're coming to the wedding, the second section here and.
It's interesting that.
Let's start with verse six. Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the powders of the merchant? Behold his bed, which is Solomon's 3 score. Valiant men are about it, The valiant of Israel. Stop there. I.
What is the Speaking of? We see. Who is this that's coming out of the wilderness with clouds of smoke around them? Who? What is the Speaking of? Well, Speaking of the Lord, what does it say? Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him speaking about the Lord's appearing. And and his bed is there, which is the place of fellowship for those who are married. And around this bed are valiant men.
And these men are there to make sure that Solomon gets what he's coming to get and the Lord.
Is he wants the fellowship of his people and nobody is going to get in his way. And what does it say when the Lord comes out of heaven in Revelation 1911? That's his appearing, it says. And all the armies which are in heaven follow him. Isn't that beautiful? The Lord's coming to have fellowship with with his people is coming to rescue them. He's coming in fellowship with them and nobody is going to get in his way. I don't care if it's the largest army that the world has ever seen and I think.
Probably will be. They're not going to be able to stop him. And you know, the word wants fellowship with you and with me. And if we want it too, we know he wants it. But if we want it too, I think that there's nothing that can stop that. That's a wonderful thing. That's a wonderful truth. If you want it, he'll have it.
00:45:10
So let's let's go on now to.
Well, I won't, I won't talk much about it, but chapter 4 is really the consummation of the marriage. And I'm not going to go into detail about it, but each of each of them, the man or the woman, they have a garden in picture form and.
Really there's, there's, there's something in that garden which is reserved for the other one alone. And you know, you know, if someone else takes that, then the other one misses out on it. And it's very important that that be reserved for the other one.
And.
And I'll just say that you know at the end.
The spices flow out of her garden and and then she calls for for him to go into his garden and enjoy his pleasant fruits. And I think it's beautiful to see how the bridegroom puts the interests of his bride 1St. And I think that's a key. I think that's a key to marriage. But but how beautiful to think of the Lord here he is.
Enjoying this fellowship that he's been looking for for what, 3500 years?
And he's finally going to get it. But he puts the interests of his people first.
And then when he, when he has that that he is desired in verse in chapter 5 and verse one, I am coming to my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk.
Eat, O friends, ye drink abundantly. O beloved, you know when the Lord is united with his people as earthly people, it's going to be like.
A curse is lifted from the world and he's going to say eat, O friends, and all the nations that love the Lord and his people are going to be blessed as a result. He's going to and socially sprinkle many nations. It says in Isaiah. And you know, I think this is illustrated too in the application to us.
That when we enjoy communion with the Lord.
That everyone around us is sprinkled with blessing, isn't that? Isn't that true? When we're in communion with the Lord, it's a blessing to everyone, and I think that's a very instructive thing for us.
In chapter 5, now we have this post honeymoon stage that we talked about. We're going to see how did this come about? How did it get so, so bad? Well, what happened was.
She was sleeping.
But her heart was awake, and there are times in our lives when we're asleep.
But we're we're conscious and the Lord knocks.
It is the voice of my beloved, that knock is saying, open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. For my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. And she says, I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on?
She's saying I've taken off my coat and it's just too much work for me to put it on again. And then she says I've washed my feet. How shall I defile them? I'm all, I'm all clean, you know, I don't want to get dirty just to go and answer the door.
And the Jews are going to have to look back, and sad to say, they're going to have to look back. And they're going to say that they let Luke warmness and ritualism keep them from answering to answering the Lord when he knocked the first time.
You know when he came, He was born in Bethlehem. He came into his own, and his own received him not.
And, and, you know, they should have answered, they should have recognized him, but they let these things get in the way. And as a result, he went away and he is gone now today he's not on this earth, but he's coming back again. And, and, and before that happens, they're going to have to seek him. OK, what happens, my beloved? Verse four put in his hand by the whole of the door and my bowels were moved for him. So he he drops his.
And there's a little opening where the string goes through the door to lift the latch. He put his hand right where that hole is. And she caught a glimpse of his hand and that touched her heart. And you know, this, this speaks to me of, of when we're, we're not, we're cold towards the Lord because of lukewarmness or whatever it is. And we see his hand.
You know, it says in Revelation, they shall look on him whom they pierced. And I think that when we see the Lord pierced for us, when we see what he suffered for us, so that he could have fellowship with us.
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That touches our hearts. There's no remedy like thinking on the Lord and His sufferings.
That will that will bring us to repentance and begin that process of restoration.
So she sees that and then she goes to the door and and my hand dropped with myrrh, my fingers. He he left us sent by the door. I mean, this is something that we, you know, don't do these days. This is something that they did. They would have a scent that they would leave and and, and her fingers are covered with this scent and she opened.
But my beloved in verse six had withdrawn himself and was gone.
And I'd just like to say that restoration is a process, you know, the moment that we say I'm sorry.
Things don't immediately get better again, do they? There, there is, there is a process and and the Lord wants to make sure that the work of repentance is deep. It's not just, you know, oh, I hurt you, I'm sorry. And then everything is better again right now on our part, when someone offends us, we need to be quick to to forgive and restore. But the Lord wants to make sure that it's deep and that it's real.
And so when she opens the door, he withdraws himself.
And so she goes out. Verse 7. The Watchmen that went about the city found me. They smoked me, they wounded me. The keepers of the walls took my veil away. In these days, if a woman was walking out in the street at night by herself, it was only for one reason. It's because she was up to no good. And so the watchman wound her. Their job is to protect the city, to keep it clean. And so they wound her.
You know, and that, I think is like when we go through the word of God after we've had a failure.
We go through it and we say, you know what, I'm taking away all the Shields and I'm just going to immerse myself in the scripture and it and if my conscience is pricked, then so be it.
And the Watchmen are like are like the word of God. They're to protect us. But if we get off the path, it will gently but but surely wound us and touch us and say no, He aggrieved the Lord. You know what you did wasn't all right and it cost the Lord something and we need that.
OK, so I really need to pick up the pace here. Let's jump down to.
Well, let's jump down to still in chapter 5, verse 9.
This is the daughters of Jerusalem saying, speaking again, and they questioned her, and they say, oh, you're repentant. What is thy beloved more than another beloved? What is so good about your husband? What's so special about him?
And you know, it's beautiful to see her response. What is thy beloved more than another beloved? Her response, my beloved is and she goes on to tell all these wonderful things about her beloved. And you know, there's nothing I think more beautiful to to see that repentance has been done when someone is just wants to talk about the Lord, you know, when repentance isn't really deep.
We kind of talked about ourselves, don't we? We just tend to talk about ourselves. But here this one just says, you want to know about my beloved? I'll tell you about them and she talks all about them. And this is this is beautiful. And and you know, there are hours and hours we could spend on all these pictures in the Song of Solomon, but they speak of Christ and all of his characteristics. But I just want to give an give an overview today.
Umm, so they, they're, they're confident the Jews are confessing Jesus as their Messiah. And that's important. We're, we're, we're willing to confess Jesus as our Lord. Well, beginning in chapter 6 and verse 13 through chapter 8 and verse 4.
We see an interesting characteristic.
We're we're down here now, we're after the the post honeymoon phase. We're down in this this section now where marriage is is deepening and we're going to see several things.
That are a result of this process one is that she views marriage differently than she did before and she views the love of her husband differently than she did before, earlier, she said.
I am, let's see, she said earlier, before I am my beloved. No, she said, my beloved is mine and I and I am his. So she started off by saying the Lord is mine and I am his. Let's jump down to verse. Let's see ten, she says. I am my beloved and his desire is toward me.
She doesn't even talk about her love. And I think that's that's the sign of growth, right? She's talking less about her love for the Lord and she's just thinking about him and the fact that his desire is toward her. So this really shows that she's growing.
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And then in chapter 8 and verse five, we see that starting in verse five down to verse 7:00, we we find that she has a, a deeper understanding of love. And this is something that we we grow to learn more and more about as we as we go on in, in life.
Verse six set me as a seal upon thine heart, and as a seal upon thine arm. For love as strong as death. Jealousy is cruel as the grave. The coals thereof are coals of fire, which have the most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods ground it.
And.
When we understand what the Lord did for us.
I think that we understand, although we don't fully understand it. It passes knowledge, but we understand its character, and that's what she sees here. It's cruel, it's strong as death, and the Lord would go all the way to death for us.
As cruel as the grave, the Lord would go all the way to death and then down into the grave for us.
Many waters cannot quench love and we might apply that to the the waters of judgment on Calvary where the Lord suffered for sin and and that would not stop him.
And she realizes that all she wants is to have herself set as a seal upon his heart and upon his arm. She realizes that, you know, all she could really want is to be set as a seal upon his arm, which speaks of his strength, and on his heart, which speaks of his love.
And well, I wanted to touch briefly on the last couple of things.
Verse 8. This is another one of these things that you may have wondered about. What is this talking about?
We have a little sister. She had no breasts. What shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? If she be a wall, we will build on her palace of silver. If she be a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar. So what is this talking about?
Well, she's returned home and she has a little sister.
And her little sister has a problem. And you know the Jews when they are restored.
And the restoration, by the way, for prophecy buffs is corresponds to the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 23. But after she's restored, something happens, a major event in prophecy. What is it?
It's the 10 tribes that were scattered, returned to the land.
And that's her little sister, those 10 tribes. But they have a problem. They have matured the way she has. Why? Because they weren't in the land, they were scattered. They weren't there when the Lord was crucified. They were not the ones that said away with this, away with this man, although they are still guilty of idolatry, which is why they were, which was why they were scattered. So they still have repenting to do, but they they have not gone through this whole process that we've been talking about.
And so they're not matured yet.
But she says what will we done for her in the day? She said I want her to have the same relationship that I have And isn't this a nice thing when you see this in a in a young person or or anyone that's a believer that has enjoyed communion with the Lord when they say when they find another person that is younger in the faith.
And they say I want you to know and enjoy what I've experienced.
That is a really nice.
Sign that this person is is the Lords, they, they have a concern for others. She comes home and she says, wait a minute, I have a little sister. What will we do for her? And what does she do for her? She says if she'd be a wall, we'll build on her palace of silver. If she'd be a door wheel and close it with boards of cedar, we'll do whatever we can to help her.
And and, and you know what, your friend might be a wall, they might be a door. Do whatever you can to build them up spiritually. That's something you can do for the Lord. And I think it's a really nice, really nice work for for those of us who are believers, we all have those that were friends with some younger in the faith and we can do what we can to encourage them.
And lastly, in verse 12, this is talking now about what Israel will be to the Lord and the Millennium. My vineyard, which is mine is before me, O Solomon must have 1000. So this is talking about the Millennium. We hear the the word 1000. You know it's talking about the Millennium. Thou that dwellest in the gardens. The companions hearken to thy voice caused me to hear it.
And finally, sorry, skip verse 11.
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Is talking about the fruit of her vineyard was to bring 1000 pieces of silver. Finally Israel is a fruitful vineyard after all this time and and in the millennia of Israel finally after 3500 years, it's going to produce fruit and be fruitful to the Lord and that's going to go on into the Millennium.
And lastly.
Now that dwells in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice. Cause me to hear it now. Is it any surprise to us that the wife has the last word?
But you know, it's, I think this is really special because.
The Lord wants us to have the last word, and I think in a way, throughout all eternity, our praise.
Is going to as brother Darby put in that him throughout creations vault. It's going to echo those praises are going to echo and and in a sense we do have the last word and what it what is it? It's our voice being heard by the Lord. And I think this is this really summarizes his desire is to have fellowship with us to enjoy communion with us and to hear our voice.
And praise and worship, that's what he wants to hear.
You know that Him says the Bride is not her garment, but her dear bridegrooms face. I will not gaze that glory, but on my King of grace, not at the crown he giveth, but on His pierced hand. The Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel Lamb.
Another hymn says we'll see thee soon, Lord Jesus, amid the ransom throng, His glory, joy and beauty.
His never ending song, Oh day of wondrous promise. The Bridegroom and the Bride.
Are seen in glory ever. Forever satisfied. You know we're going to be with him forever.
And we're going to be satisfied forever. And it's just a really wonderful way that this book closes.
And so maybe we could sing the last two verses.
Of #170.
Verses 5 and six of 170.
Tis thy heavenly bright and spirit.
Jesus, Lord.
Thunder Beyond.
All thy glory to inherent and to take home.
Oh, Christian. All Christian.
Travels till I shall come.
Travel mills Groves Hill downstairs Come.
Here, all men's let's all our joy.
Well, maybe there's someone here tonight that, you know, has had difficulty understanding some of this. But, you know, really, it's, it's the story of two hearts.
And we've seen it in picturing the Lord and his earthly people, Israel.
But it's really the story of your heart and the Lord's heart and his efforts.
To draw you to himself.
And my burden tonight is if there's someone here that's had a coldness that's come in due to whatever it might be, that we would follow this story through. We see his hands pierced for us, our hearts should be drawn out with love, and that we could be restored to happy communion with him.
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We're going to, we're going to be with him forever, to enjoy his presence forever.
Let's close in prayer.
Our loving God and our Father, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee for the fullness of thy word. All these pictures that we.
So feebly understand, but we just pray that we would take something away from this, maybe not the whole thing, but just something to encourage our hearts. And especially think of many young people and young families here. Just pray that if there's something that's come into our hearts.
Some coldness where we haven't risen to answer the knock that tonight we would just.
Put whatever that is aside and get up from our beds and see His hands Pierce for us and that we would be restored to happy communion with our blessed Lord Jesus. We just pray for a blessing on my word, and we ask this in the worthy and precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
1 Timothy 4
Reading
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#39.
On his father's throne, his day.
Christ.
All his work quarters.
Eternal Sun.
In the glory. In the glory.
Sin, God bless us.
Everything is above it.
Every time. Compassionate.
Cry so fearless child. Adore him.
Good, endure the day.
Glory from the glory.
God shut down His word from play.
From the glory from the.
Glory.
God.
This world judgment stands to equal order.
God, don't just.
Hide.
The Glory by the.
Glory.
Rise by blame on her do die.
Make glory. Well, make glory.
Crying into the order of place.
Well, make glory shall make glory.
Around him and place.
I'm looking more for his help.
Our God, our Father, we've had the privilege this morning.
Coming around that blessed one.
Thine only sign the Lord Jesus Christ to remember him in death, and to think on the depth of his suffering, what he went through there at Calvary's cross. And now we've been singing about the results of that marvelous work. Every need, every knee shall bow before him.
And what a glorious time is coming. So we just thank thee for that prospect that we have. And now as we gathered here after a few moments to spend some time over that work, we looked at the guidance as to a subject abortion chapter or whatever.
00:05:02
Thy Spirit would have for us and the needs of each one of the rooms. So we just commit this time to the brilliant, precious name, Lord Jesus, Amen. Amen.
Our thought is to have a reading meeting.
And I don't know if there's a section of a chapter or a shorter chapter, but not to just get bogged down in a verse or two, but to to to go through and see what the Lord has for us in the chapter.
If anyone has some thoughts that might be helpful or a chapter to go through, appreciate the the suggestion.
I was wondering if we could.
Maybe read First Timothy chapter 4.
Like you say, Tim.
Not get taken up with details.
But get through the chapter possible especially.
The middle and the end of the chapter.
So I don't know whether and feel that would be good.
Read the whole chapter you say yes.
Go to the Young Brothers. Like to read for us? Stand right next to a mic.
First Timothy, chapter 4.
Now the spirit speaketh expressly, but in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lives in high frequency, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidden to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God has created, to be received with Thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be.
Received with Thanksgiving.
For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer, if thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things.
Thou shall be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, where unto thou hast detained, but refuse profane and old wise fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.
For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, for therefore we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe.
These things command and teach.
That no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in Word, in conversation and charity, in spirit and faith, in purity.
Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto this unto the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself.
And them that hear thee.
Well, we've often heard that in Timothy, Paul is writing to his son in the faith Timothy, and he's addressing him as.
Things that should be done.
Among the believers where Timothy was and as such Timothy is occupied. The epistle to Timothy is occupied with taking up the House of God the House of God is God dwelling among his people by through the Spirit and we are all in the House of God as believers. First Timothy we see the House of God in order This is in verse 15 of the previous chapter we see if I carry long that thou mayest know how to.
Thou oughtest to behave myself in the House of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And so Paul is laying out these things as to behavior, what belongs to the House of God. And so this is important for all of us.
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First Timothy is that time in the House of God was still in order. Second Timothy is written at a later date, but things are no longer in order. We see that there is further instruction that may be even more in many ways applied to us today. But here in chapter four we find that he's speaking about what is going to happen in the latter times.
And the Spirit speaks expressly. He wants us to know. Very important.
And he says, well, some are going to turn away from the faith and all these things are going to happen. It's going to get back. In Second Timothy, we find it gets so bad that that was professed as the name of crisis like the world. And of course, after the Lord comes, it will be even worse yet. And so these warnings that we have here in First Timothy chapter 4 are very important that we understand that in Christendom.
That was professed as the name of Christ. There is going to be a giving up of the truth and in general turning away, and yet there is a path for you and me as believers to walk in as the Lord is looking for from us. So that is taken off and laid out in large measure in this chapter.
Like it's mentioned mentioned that in First Timothy it's the House of God in order and.
I was thinking how important it is for us to understand what is in First Timothy because I was thinking of a verse in Psalms Chapter 11.
Verse 3.
It says if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
We need to understand the foundation which the church is built on.
Realize that we're living in in the days of Second Timothy, but there's still the foundation and it doesn't. The Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So if we desire to please the Lord in our lives, we can act upon the principles of First Timothy.
Though we would acknowledge we're living in the second Timothy, but like you said, the principles of living and the foundation is very important for us in these last and closing days.
Some of these verses are such a part of this chap are probably really not good to the Second Timothy about the deflation failure that's taking place, giving heed to seducing spirits. What are we listening?
Are we like the brains searching the word to see if what we hear is in the word, correct? Just because somebody stands up in front or somebody speaks and they're reading me? Is he speaking from the word?
What are we listening to? It's important to know what we're listening to. And that's that's what we have in these first few verses. And there's some various things that are mentioned specifically that are being taught in certain places.
Well, we need to be sure that what we're listening to is from the Word of God.
That foundation that Dave mentioned?
Well, we find 2 in these first verses, that there were certain things that God had given to man, mercies for man while on the earth, and as believers we have those too. And there are those who come in who forbid to marry and forbid thee.
And that was wrong. He speaks about what nature of people these were in the 1St 2 verses that that speak this way. But for us it says that.
These were things that God made to be received with Thanksgiving. The end of verse four and as believers that's a critical issue to understand when you go to Romans chapter one you see there that.
00:15:17
When they the world knew God at the beginning from creation, they knew him, it says. When they knew God, they glorified him not as God.
And then it says something very.
Interesting. It says neither. We're thankful.
That was the first step of detention for man in the world and so it is for us even as believers. When we get away from the Lord, our first step generally is that we become unthankful. The Lord has given us things, spiritual things, but also mercies for our lives and we need to take those and be thankful for them. Then it says verse five, what is sanctified or set apart by the word of God?
And prayer, and so the Word of God is our guide is to exactly what it is that the Lord would have us to do. And of course, prayer is our resource to go back to him independence and express our needs of guidance.
And so this brings before us the life of the believer as to how it is we know what the Lord wants from us. And to avoid these wrong teachings, we need to stay in this position of dependency for the Lord, in this position of getting His mind from the Word of God. And then we will have that instruction that we need.
He says in verse six, If I'll put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister, servant of Jesus Christ.
These things are what we just had before we have.
The reminding about that these things are sanctified by the word of God in prayer. But it's more than that. I believe it really goes back to the end of chapter 3.
And if you haven't read First Timothy 313 and understood it, it's a great verse as a Christian to get a hold of.
Says without controversy. Great is the mystery of godliness.
So he's talking about godliness or piety. He's calling a mystery, and it's a mystery because read what it says next. He's not going to say, well, now you have to be do this and this and this and look just like this way.
No, he says. Here's the mystery. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit scene of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, perceived up in glory.
What is that? That not the whole life of our Lord Jesus Christ.
His whole life is a man here on earth, from his incarnation to the ascension and glory, but he is there now, at the right hand of God.
And So what is laid before it is the mystery of godliness, is occupation with the Lord Jesus Christ and his Person and His work, which is really this whole secret of Christianity.
And so Paul is saying to Timothy, you put the brethren in remembrance of these things.
Not just the direct instruction of the Word of God, but it's that remembrance that.
Occupation with Christ in his work and his person, all that he is even now at the right hand of God.
Then he said you'll be a good servant and for us to be occupied with that, That's what the Lord has for us as believers.
There's nothing beyond that. That's a secret to all of the power in the Christian life. That's what the Holy Spirit would take us and occupy us with to give us the power to walk in that light that we have.
There in verse six, it talks about Paul putting or about Timothy putting them brethren in remembrance of these things. It's not just something that Timothy learned from a textbook and he had them all, all this head knowledge, but it says it goes on to say.
Put the brethren in remembrance of these things. Thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, where unto thou hast attained so first He, He was nourished up in these things. He, He studied them, He learned them for himself.
00:20:06
And then he attained to them, he was able to practice them and apply them to his life. And so if you want to be a help to to your your friends to be able to help teach them something or encourage them and the word of God or in their Christian life, it's good to that first that you are nourished up in these things, in the words of faith, in a good doctrine. There's a lot of bad doctrine around, but we need to be nourished up in good doctrine. And so we need to compare what we, what we know and learn with the word of God.
To make sure that what we have is true, then we can share it with others.
Timothy we find various examples of ways that we can bear a testimony to this world that we have a savior God and you get an expression of Savior God or God our Savior mentioned several times in Timothy. And every chapter brings out something different on what we could be doing as those in the House of God to bear this testimony out. And in Christianity we have 3 distinct fears.
We have our priesthood which is from man to God returning thanks, worship. We have gifts which is from God to man and then out to man. And we have administration which deals with the temporal and spiritual needs of the Saints. And in chapter 2, we have our priesthood brought out. So prayer is brought out. Chapter 3, we can see we have administration, our chapter here. We have gifts. What we can be doing in the House of God to further the testimony of God our Savior.
And somebody might be sitting here and thinking, well, you know, I don't, I don't even think I have a gift. But first, Peter 410 says that every one of us has received the gift. And as we have received this gift, still minister one to another. That's what our job is to do.
And somebody might be sitting here also and saying, well, I'm a lady, I'm a girl, I'm a woman, what am I to do?
You're to do exactly what the guys are to do, to use their gift in the sphere that God has given you. And in our chapter that's before us, Paul presents to Timothy that he he's got work to do and we'll see a little bit further. He kind of fell asleep on that that gift and Paul absorbs them to stir it up to get it going and to use that gift and.
The expectation is to you and I, everyone in this room has been saved by grace, sealed by the Spirit of God as a gift. And we need that gift as an assembly. We need that group gift as a group, as a company, and we need that gift to bear truth to this world that we have a Savior God.
If we all just sit back and.
Don't use our gift, don't exercise it, and the fear that God has given us, then we're not going to bear a proper testimony to this world.
Chapters verses 6 and seven. Two things are brought into contrast.
Verse six we have the words of faith.
And good teaching.
And there it is, the.
The teaching is the body of thought that we have in the New Testament, really the whole Bible.
But the words of faith are the very individual words by which they're expressed. Both are important if they're emphasized in Scripture, in a number of places, distinguished from one another, but always put together. It's not like here's a concept and just express it the best way you can, but the words themselves are mentioned as being important, so.
We want to get to know the actual words of scripture.
And pay attention to them. They're important.
In contrast to that in verse seven, we thought.
Old wives sables, he says refuse profane and Old wives fables.
00:25:01
And exercise myself rather into godliness. There are many thoughts that are out there.
And when I stay out there, I mean just all over the place, even many that have come in among Christians and.
Thought as to what might be proper to the Christian life books filled with that.
And yet it's not here in the Word of God.
And people are taking up with that not challenging. And he's saying don't do that. You hear something, you need to come right back like we already heard in this meeting, like the Bereans and say, oh, is this in the word of God or not? I'm not going to accept it doesn't matter who told me. I'm not going to accept it unless I can find it is in the word of God. I don't need to be cantankerous. You know, let's see somebody says this is what the word says, then you want to listen to what they say, but you need to go and find out is this truly from the word of God is just the thoughts of man or even worse doctrines of demons.
Are where a lot of this comes from. That's what it said back there in in verse one the doctrines of devil.
Has gone abroad, abroad widely among Christians. The Spirit speaks this expressly, so we need to be aware of it and listen. But he says instead.
Occupy or exercise yourself unto godliness, for bodily exercise confidence little. The godliness is profitable for all things, having promised of life that now is, and that which is the common so.
I didn't like this for so much when I was younger but.
Exercise, I think profits a whole lot more than what it looks like this verse is saying. And it does profit. Thankfully the verse says it profit and so it's really nice to go out and have a good time.
And I think the young people should, as we can those who are older too. But let's not neglect the spiritual things.
Already the profit that I had from bottle the exercise is being lost.
But the spiritual things you're going to take with you forever.
Never lose that. It goes on, it gets better and better, and you get it through eternity. So there's really no comparison between the food. He's not saying the one is worthless. It has some value, but let's not take it. Put an undue value on the body and the exercise of it and things that aren't going to last for eternity because we might dissolve. Substitute this for any of a number of other pleasures. There are things that are eternal. There are things that are temporal, and the things that are eternal are important.
Or more important, I should say.
It's interesting that he uses this example of bodily exercise.
The way we exercise is a repetitive motion.
A workout is a repetitive exercise. Repetitive using muscles and whatever.
And.
Just in the verse six there, but I mean speaks of playing these things in remembrance.
Well, where God is.
Like that a little bit because it's not work does not a book that we read and then cover, cover and then put on the shelf and say, well, I've read it, that's it. No, we go back and read it again and there's always something new.
We covered this chapter in Grand Rapids on Sunday evening.
Just a little bit ago, but it's wonderful to cover it again. New things are coming out this evening.
Afternoon that's valuable have to see and have so it's I'm in remembrance so we can repeat and it's not it's not not burdensome, but we're like a the Bible. We're like a novel that we find in the library somewhere or whatever we read it over two or three times. It's boring. We'll be able to get through it, but the word of God is not at all like that is it?
Paul says to Timothy in verses 11 and 12 These things command and keys.
That no man despised by you.
Timothy apparently was shy. But why would Paul write this to him? Well, because it wasn't the word of Timothy. It's the word of the Lord.
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And that's the key.
We should never command and teach our own thoughts, and any fear of the Lord has put us into.
Trying to be a help to another mothers with their children, fathers with their children and the assembly. Whatever sphere we're in, it shouldn't be to go and command and teach our ideas about what God has said, but it needs to be God's Word.
And when it's God's Word, if somebody comes and says, well, how can you say that I don't like what you said? Well, it's if it's my word, they have every right to say that. But if it's God's words, it doesn't have to be about me or the one who says it at all. You can go back and look and says, well, because this is what God's word says. And you can turn to the Word and go through it together with that person. And then the ultimate authority becomes God in his Word, not the one.
Who spoke it?
It's very important. And so I think it's helpful to understand that as younger brethren, especially perhaps tend to feel shy about this kind of thing, but and and sisters as well, you know, but if you get yourself out of the way.
And let it be God that's speaking, and you're simply saying what God's word says.
Then don't have that problem.
You can look past that and point the person to the word of God itself.
Hebrews 4 is helpful too, because verse 12 it says the word of God is quick or living, powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, have the joints and marrow Turner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
Roger was just mentioning about how wonderful it is to be able to go over the scriptures time after time and and not be.
Loathsome to us, something we don't get sort of used to. It's something that we just continue to enjoy. And for the young people that are here, this is something that's going to help. To me, somebody told me that when we read a novel or even one of our textbooks at school, we say.
Oh, that was good, or that was boring, or that had a neat line of thought thought through it, or the climax was too soon in the novel, or we make a judgment on the book, but when we read the Word of God, it judges us. And that's why people don't want to read the Bible. And if you're talking to people about their souls, you never go wrong bringing the Word of God before them and encouraging him to read the word of God.
Because it's quick, it's living, it's God's work and it judges and it's going to help to me just to be able to, like Tim has said, just to present the Scripture. They don't like what God says. It's not you, it's God that says that. And that's it's such a resource that we have that when we our lives are based on his word, when our thoughts are based on his word, we can't go wrong.
In regards to our especially those of us that are younger.
Let no man despise that you.
I think that it's been mentioned before that we should be.
Willing to be used by the Lord if you're young, but I would present this as well.
It's a sad thing when our conduct.
Leads somebody to say.
That's the way it is. I'm not interested.
So.
I just want to encourage all of us to be mindful of what it is to be an example of the beliefs.
00:35:05
And we're.
Conversation in love.
I think we can very easily cut off people's ears in the gospel by.
Maybe not even intentionally, but you know.
In our conversation or lack of love for somebody or.
Things we allow in our lives if we think, well, it's you know, I'm at liberty to do this or that, you know, you're we're not at liberty to do whatever we want to. The word of God is our guide and let's not live our lives in a way that people do despise our views and say as the young people today are.
You know what I mean? I just want to encourage it with your life in a way that brings other and glory to the Lord and His Word. And the Lord can use you in a lot of ways. So.
Let's not have people despise our youth. OSP examples of godly Christian living.
When your conduct or your your words or your purity or or whatever it may be.
When it's it does not honor the Lord.
We just other people can despise us, as you've been saying, and it's not only in the world, but it's also our peers perhaps here in this room too.
If a brother is speaking in the assembly, but he's everybody knows he's worldly.
You're not going to listen to him. They're not going to accept what he has to say if they know. If they know he's very legal, they're not going to listen to what he says either.
Worldliness and legality are both the same thing in the in the fact that it both pleases the flesh. And so we need to be careful in in how we act in our words we say.
The spirit in which we receive take things.
In our faith and impurity, all these things need to be honoring to the Lord and then when we're able to to speak to others, then we're not going to be despised. Whether we're young or old, we're going to be listened to and respected to a certain extent.
Paul says, let no man despise thy youth. There are several.
Young people here, and I remember when I was a young person, there was a brother, this old man then, he's long what the Lord used to.
Speakers about this verse quite often and.
Remembering you. I don't remember exactly how we put it, but it was.
Something to the effect of don't ever let yourself get into a position where others around you will say, well it's just that you can excuse that.
You can see why that kind of behavior is just a young person. He's just a youth.
Out young people, we need to be very careful that we don't find ourselves in.
Type of situation or that kind of behavior that others will say, well, just a kid, just a young person.
We can expect that now.
Be very careful that we don't get ourselves into that kind of position.
How it just leads to one thing?
Couple of examples.
So one of the Samuel where it says.
00:40:01
He didn't let any of his words fall to the ground.
His parents, you're searching for women here. They might a couple of days go by, they think about that as a parent watching their kids for two days mechanics. That would be here's the Lord Jesus in the temple talking with the teachers.
I wizard there, he certainly wished he that I must be about my father's business. So even at a young age, the Lord has something for you to do and it can't be.
Very important. So health things that just because you're a teenager.
You're not important, you are. The ward has worked for you.
Say another example, Bernie mentioned those two, I was thinking two of David went out against Goliath and they said it's observed there that he was by the youth well.
Young people here this afternoon, perhaps we'll never find yourself in a situation where you have to face a situation like that that David did.
Coming face to face with this giant, but yet he was ready because he said he could come against that giant in the name of the living God.
Well, we're left here. Times are getting darker in this world.
And.
Left here you don't know what you may face.
You may find yourself coming up against going to be ready going to be prepared to come against the adversary or against.
Tremendous give a call situation in the name of the board. I don't know what we're going to face before this. We're caught up out of this world, the Christians today in the Middle East that are being given a choice, perhaps as we speak. Either renounce your Christianity or off with your head well.
How would we face something like that? Could we come against that?
The name of the Lord.
So it's an important thing.
To be in our youth so that no one would despise that you.
Here in our chapter, we have one of maybe there's more than two, but here's one of the places where it says till I come, you know?
Mentioned how?
A lot of the truth is being given up today and and there's it's being very difficult for many Christians throughout the world, but here is this till I come, The Lord has a path for each one of us.
In 2014, it's not. The Lord has never given a time where.
In our history.
Where we cannot have a path to please him. So here we have till I come.
And some instruction as to how to live. And I was thinking of another place where we have till I come. And of course that's in in First Corinthians Chapter 11.
Again, we have.
This is the remembrance in 11 verse 26. As often as ye eat this bread and drinks this cup, ye do show the Lords death till he come. It's something that there will be instituted.
Till He comes back to take his own. It may be a difficult path, but the Lord still will have his own to remember him till he come, just as we have in our chapter instruction as to how to live till I come. That means in the year 2014, every one of us, wherever we find ourselves, mothers, fathers, young people, children, whatever it is, servants, masters.
00:45:15
Till I come, it's for all of us.
I think the doctrine is important in this chapter and it brings it out several times.
First, there's a warning against the doctrine of devils in chapter 4. I mean verse one. And as we get to know other Christians, you're going to find that there's a lot of people who have different beliefs. Some believe that the Lord Jesus could have sinned but chose not to.
That is obviously a wrong teaching. It's not coming from the Spirit of God. If it's not coming from the Spirit of God, who's it coming from? It's a spirit of, of, of devil. Some people say Jesus is not God. He, he, he's, he's a God. Well, that's a, a doctrine of devils. And there's, there's other things like that, but then we get into verse six and we have good doctrines.
So it's good for us to be occupied with goods often, if we're occupied with a good doctrine and we understand and we learn it.
And we read it. Then when we hear the false doctrine, we're going to be able to to recognize that. And then you go down into verse.
Verse 13 where Dave was mentioning till I come give attendance to reading to exhortation to doctrine. So it's give attendance to that it's important. Doctrine is important and then in verse 16, take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine continue in them. So it's good for us to know what we believe. You're going to be challenged from time to time by other Christians.
Why do you believe that? Why don't you come and worship with us?
Why not? Why do you go where you go? Why do you worship where you worship? Is there a reason? Is there a verse or is it just free for all where man can do what is right in his own eyes or go to the Church of your choice. Is it my choice or is it God's choice? Well, doctrine is very important. Then verse 13 it says till I come give attendance to reading.
To exhortation and to doctrine. I have a question about this. Is this public reading? Is it private reading? Is it reading in the assembly or what? Where? Where do we give attendance to it, and how? How does it apply to us?
Seen by the context.
Comparing with verse 12, verse 12 is what's done in the personal life as an example.
Verse 13 May be more the public side of it, the reading, the exhortation, the doctrine.
But I hate to limit it to just public reading.
We ought to continue on reading the Word of God as well. But I think properly speaking, perhaps in verse 12 it is, it is the public reading verse 13 and then in verses 15 and 16 we have the going on and continuing it to meditation on whatever was read, whether private or publicly. And so there's no question we need to take up the Word of God for ourselves and read it and make it our own.
And spend the time in it. These verses make that very clear.
Meditate on these things. Give thyself wholly to them.
It says in verse 16, Take each of thyself unto the doctrine, continue in them.
We need to do that and we're not really going to get ahold of it and we're not going to be able to help either ourselves or others. It says in verse 15, you're profiting will appear to others, hopefully with the purpose of helping them. That's a verse 16 says in doing this thou shalt see both save thyself and them that hear thee. Save from what? For salvation, for eternity. No, you know very clearly from Scripture can't be talking about that. But what we can be saved from is what these verses are talking about.
Why stables, doctrines of demons, all the false teaching that is coming in, it's going to come in. We can't stop it.
You will be exposed to it. I will be exposed to it, and there is a salvation that is needed from that. And that salvation comes from continuing in the Word and the meditation on it and helping one another by exhortation and going on in the truth of what we find in the Word of God.
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And not allowing those things to come in on challenge. And so that's important. We'll be able to see first of all ourselves if we spend the personal time reading and the personal time meditating. And then others as we spend time together encouraging one another in the truth of not just meetings like this, but the conversations that different ones are having in between the meetings. So they say, hey, what do you think about this person? Do you have a thought on this?
Question that I have in my Christian life and then somebody says.
Considered that before and you go and try to open up a little bit of what the Lord has given to you about that. Well, that's what this is talking about. You can help.
The Lord already preserved you, perhaps in a measure by his word. Now you can be a help to another person. It's very important. And so it's a tremendous ministry that we have. And I hope also that we notice that in this there's not the slightest thought of being so occupied with service that we don't have that time, that personal time with the Lord. Instead, these verses are quite the opposite. You meditate, you take that time. It's important. God doesn't need my service. He doesn't need your service. He please, He's pleased to use us.
And we should desire to be used by him on whatever he sees fit, but the first thing he wants is our hearts.
And he wants us to occupy with him and spend time with him.
And when that's right, then the other things will be set in order, in the proper order and be right in our own hearts, and we'll be able more to be used by Him to help others.
That's what all water for Kennedy at verse 414, isn't it too neglect, not the gift that is in the though they had to be stirred up a little bit. Actually, it's kind of telling, a little bit shy perhaps, but he had something to serve the Lord somewhere in which he was to serve the Lord.
That's true of everyone here. We have something to do.
May not be very public.
But there is something each one of us has to do. It's not just to fill a chair in A room.
We have something to do. Each one of us should be exercised as to what it is.
But each one of us, I certainly believe, has something to do.
And the body of Christ, we're all members one of another.
Like on our natural body, every part as a function.
That's true.
The body of Christ.
Unless somebody has a final comment, time is up.
I would say #1 is great, Mayor Russell, at first we'll signal Holder, you know, telling calls will keep us steady, keep us walking in thy ways and thy calls. We may we be ready on the more joy table and the glory same time our lasted praise #183.
People pray.
It ain't long wisdom maintenance.
And we see like a sweet day.
00:55:07
In my protest and I crashes.
My picture of Facebook.
In my presence.
As I come here, we be ready.
On the Lord with joy to gain.
And glory.
And in glory.
Sing I have breakfast.
Praise.
And glory.
And in glory.
Sing my heart. Bless you, grace.
Pray our God and Father, we just give thanks for these practical instructions that we've had today and help us to live our lives, to give glory and honor to the Lord Jesus and that we would walk in the the truth that we know and that we would not let anyone despise.
Our youth and our and Father, we just ask for care and blessing the remainder of this day. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Hezekiah
Address—Mark Allan
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.
Maybe we could open our meeting this evening by singing #44 in the appendix.
God.
Moved.
September.
Saints.
And right up on the storm.
He's been on the path of the sun.
I've never.
Failing skills.
Immature.
Bright design.
And.
Purchased Sovereign.
I.
'M sorry to hear and stand into working.
Things.
God is his Son.
Interpreter.
And He will make it way. Maybe we can just ask the Lord for His help.
Our God and Father, we come before thee this evening, and Father, we would just ask for Thy help in this hour. With Thy word will be opened. Our Father, let us know the needs of everyone here in this room. Let us know where we are.
Spiritually, Father, thou dost know.
Any brokenness, any pains, any problems, any struggles that we're having. And our Father, we just thank thee that thou descend the Lord Jesus to die so that our sins could be forgiven, that we can have a hope beyond all other hopes. And our Father, we just would pray that as we read the stories this evening, that the needs of each year would be met and that there would be food and there would be water for thy people.
Pray that even the youngest child would be able to glean something and we just would ask this. And thank you for thy many mercies. We just thank you that we could remember thee this morning.
Phrase. There would be something that is precious to each one of us. We just ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
00:05:06
This evening I would just like to share a few thoughts that I've enjoyed.
On Hezekiah and I have to admit Hezekiah is probably one of my.
Favorite stories in the Word of God and has been for some time now.
And I'll be honest, when I I this time reading through in my personal reading in Chronicles, I went back and.
Reread the stories in the other places that occurred and the Lord just has given me and has given me a number of little things to enjoy and this evening I just want to share a few of those things with you this evening. Now I really appreciated last night Josh putting the book of Song of Solomon in context and.
Last week actually in Rio Ferry and talking to the young people, I asked them I was speaking about Hezekiah.
And I asked them, well, who is Hezekiah and.
There weren't two too many. Who knew? There were a few. And so I asked that question to you this evening, who is Hezekiah? You know why there are a number of things that may come to your mind when we think of this king. You know, I've heard people sort of play a joke and ask somebody to turn to Hezekiah 316 and realize that it's not a book in the Bible and.
You know, as someone who took a lot of science and math courses in university.
I've often wondered in the story of Hezekiah, how on earth?
Did God turn back the shadow of the sundial 10°? It seems like it would be almost impossible to reverse the rotation of the sun. You know, as a child when I was thinking of Hezekiah, I thought.
Some of the strongest language were used in the word of God is in the story of Hezekiah and Isaiah and turn to it and maybe giggle a little bit. You know, there's many things in the story. More recently I've been very encouraged by.
How Hezekiah is one of the first people in the Word of God.
To reverse the destruction of division in Israel in a mighty in a very nice way. And so this evening I just want to go through a few points on Hezekiah. Hopefully it won't take too, too long. I'll have to cover it in fairly quickly because it actually covers quite a quite a bit in the Bible, Hezekiah. And just to give background to those of you who may not be 100% familiar, he was a king in Israel.
And as most of you know.
Saul was the first king, then David, and then Solomon, and then the Kingdom divided. And there was a northern section and a southern section. The 10 tribes were in the north section of Israel. The two tribes were in the South part of Israel. And God had brought them into this land of Israel and had promised them that if they followed him, there would just be tremendous blessing. Well, we know the story very well. And they didn't follow the Lord. And there's a whole.
Succession of kings who in the northern part of Israel didn't follow the Lord hardly at all. And in the southern part of Israel there were, it was sort of spotty and sort of 2/3 of the way through. In the southern part is this king Hezekiah? And I just want to open up by reading what the word of God says.
Specifically about Hezekiah as a king, because I think it's beautiful.
It's in Second Kings 18, so the story of Hezekiah is.
Three books in the Bible. It's in Second Kings, it's in Second Chronicles, and it's in Isaiah.
And it's a little bit different in each one of the cases, but we're going to turn to 2nd Kings.
1St.
Chapter 18.
And verse one.
Now game to pass in the third year of Hoshiya, son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. 25 years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abby, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David.
His father did.
He removed the high places and break the images, and cut down the Groves, and break in pieces the brazen serpent.
00:10:05
That Moses had made for under those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it and he called it Nahustan. And specifically the next two verses are the ones I wanted to note. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel.
So that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he claimed to the Lord, and he departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him. And he prospered whithersoever he went forth. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not.
And he smoked the Philistines even to Gaza. And the borders are off from the tower.
Of the Watchmen to the Fence City. So here we have a king, and what does God?
Know him for he trusted God like no other king before him and no other king after him. He kept the Lorde commandments and this was at a very difficult time in Israeli history as a matter of fact, we're going to get into this a little bit it was basically when God said I had enough and he was going to just.
Take them out of the land.
Other thing I want to note here is 25 years old, he reigned for 29 years. There's a lot of people in this room between the age of 25 and 54. There are a lot of children in this room that this also applies to equally. So he wasn't a particularly old man when he became king, 25 years old. There's a beautiful commendation that the Lord gives them. And you know, be nice if it could be said of us in a time when.
Everything around us is crumbling. That it could be said that you trusted God.
Like nobody before or after, you know, that's a very powerful thing to be able to say. Hezekiah trust, you know, he failed in trusting the Lord too. And we're going to see that a little bit. But so I just want to start with that. So now I'd like to go over and look at the book of Chronicles. And in the Book of Kings, we have primarily the attacks of of Hezekiah Chronicles we have a little bit earlier.
In his in his reign. So let's turn to Second Chronicles.
Chapter 29.
In verse one.
As Akaya began to reign when he was 25 years old and he reigned 9 and 20 years in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah, he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done.
Before we leave that, I just want to note that in both Kings and Chronicles, his mother's mentioned, you know, his father, which was a wicked king.
Ahaz, his mother's not mentioned, you know, His father did not have a good influence on him at all, but his mother did.
And you know.
I can't stress that I'm not, I'm not a mother. I'm a father. But this mother had a tremendous impact on her son, and it reversed the course of Israel in a way that probably would not have happened otherwise. I just want to note that before we move on.
Verse three in the first year of his reign. In the first month he opened.
The doors of the House of the Lord, and repaired them the very first thing he did.
When he became king was he went into the House of God and he opened the doors.
You know, I'm not going to go into the history of this, but his father completely defiled the House of God. He went to Damascus. He saw in Damascus and idly, like he said, oh, I like that. He came back to Jerusalem. He said, let's set it up in Jerusalem, and he just totally defiled Jerusalem with idols. Everywhere in the House of the Lord was defiled and the doors were shut. Here we have Hezekiah. What's the first thing he does is he goes into the House of God.
And he opens the doors. You know, recently I've had.
A number of conversations with young people and older people, my wife, other brothers, you know, something that I realized if the door of our heart is not open to the Lord so that we can enjoy presence, His presence, our life is going to be.
00:15:05
At best, almost hypocrisy. You know, if there's not reality in our relationship with the Lord. You know if we don't spend time praying and reading our Bibles every day.
And it's a real thing, you know, as soon as the enemy attacks, there's.
We're going to be in trouble. And I just note that, you know, this verse in Revelation 5, I'm not going to turn because there's a lot of verses I'd like to turn to, but I can't. But in Revelation, sorry, it's not five, it says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and will open the door, I will come into him and talk with him and he with me. You know, our bodies, it says in First Corinthians 6 are the temple of the Holy Ghost. So the first thing I'd like to know to everyone here is.
The doors of your heart open to the Lord. You care about the fact if you're a believer, the Holy Spirit dwells inside you.
For those of maybe there's somebody here who's not saved at all, you know, normally on Thursday evening we have a gospel meeting.
Without the Lord you have nothing. And you know I you know that we sing that song. Behold, behold, I stand at the door and knock, knock, knock. You know, if you want joy in your life and hope.
Open the doors of your heart to the Lord. He'll come in, he'll wash your sins away. You know, that's where it all starts. As a young person, as an adult, that's where it's going to start. So the first thing he does is the first day. I don't know whether he was just waiting for the Kingdom to be passed to him. And then he decided the day I could become king, I'm going to open the doors. I was God. I don't maybe his. His mom seemed to be of the priestly line her her father was.
Zechariah, and maybe she was just completely disturbed by what had happened in the temple, but nonetheless.
What he does when he first becomes king, as he opens the door, it says there he opened the doors of the House of the Lord and repaired them. The next thing he does is he gives the command to the priests and the Levites to.
Clean out the House of God so that worship can be reestablished. You know, that is a beautiful thing, you know.
If we want to honor the Lord with our life, if there's to be praise coming from our hearts, if there's to be reality, if we're able to be used to the Lord.
You know there can't be garbage in our life.
You know.
I, and I'll just mention this this evening I was talking to my wife earlier and on the way down here we're talking about the necessity of the Internet, but the what a horrible thing it is as well. And she had asked me should I put a question in the box as to how do you control the Internet in such a way that you still can make use of what it's useful for, but not let it to follow you because it is a very difficult thing. You know, I've.
Been shocked and horrified and I realized in my own life I wasted time and.
How easy it is for us to become defiled and so that the Lord can't operate inside us the way that we should be able to operate. And you know, I just mentioned that these first chapters of Second Chronicles.
There's, there's actually like 3 or 4 chapters here about King Hezekiah and he basically is cleaning up the House of Lord. He re establishes worship and prays to the Lord and there's tremendous blessing from that. And I just stress.
Open the doors of your heart to the Lord and get rid of those things that are defiling Lord. You know, I know what's been talked about before and even made fun of. If there's *********** in your life, get rid of it. If you're not reading your Bible, read it every day. If you're not spending time with the Lord, spend time with the Lord. You know, I've been impressed reading George Mueller. He said if he didn't get off at 5:00 in the morning and spend time with the Lord, his day was basically.
Waste one time he got sick and he slept in until six and he felt bad. And just this last week I was feeling a little bit blue. I read a book on why Wham about a couple who went down to South America to start preaching the gospel. Exact same thing. A bunch of teenagers got saved. Things were so hard for them. The only way that they could make their lives effective for the Lord was if they got up early and spent time in his presence. You know, we need to spend time in the presence of the Lord. We can't have defile.
In our life and that's where it's got to start. I'm not going to go into this. I will read a few verses here in this chapter so maybe we could just.
Read.
Two Chronicles 29, verse 3.
00:20:01
He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the House of the Lord, and repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the East St. and said unto them, Hear me, Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the House of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place for our fathers of trespassed and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God.
And have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs, And they have shut the doors of the porch.
Put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor burnt offerings in the holy place under the God of Israel. Wherefore the wrath of God was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, to hissing, as you have seen with your eyes for law. Our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel. That is, fierce wrath may turn away from us, my sons.
Be not now negligent, for the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, and to serve him. He should minister unto him and burn incense. We'll stop there, you know.
If you know the Lord is your Savior, the Lord has chosen you to serve Him.
And you know, one of the things that impresses me about Hezekiah, we're not going to be able to get into this, is how much he cared about.
The House of God functioning the way that it should and that everyone was fulfilling the duties that they should. You know, everybody in this room has a function. We had that in the meeting this afternoon. Are you seeking to use it for the Lord? You know, it was done a little bit feebly at times. There weren't enough of.
The priests to do the sacrifices in in this case, and sometimes they weren't sanctified or.
As much as they should be, we're not going to get into that. But you know, it's a wonderful thing when we can use the ability that the Lord has given us for Him.
I'd like to go back. So this what we talked about was in the first year of the reign of Hezekiah. Now Hezekiah reigned for 29 years. I'm going to go back to Kings to the 4th to the 6th year of the reign of Hezekiah. So this is in second Kings 18 verse 9 to 12. Now time is.
Going quickly. So this was a time when Israel was wicked and God had said I had enough.
Hezekiah is the king of the southern part of Israel. The 10 tribes are in the northern part.
While Hezekiah is king, God marches the Assyrian army into the north part of Israel, takes them all captive, and marches them away now.
It's hard to imagine the impact that that would have to you, but let's just read what it says here briefly. This is second Kings 18 verse nine. It came to pass in the fourth year king Hezekiah, which was the 7th year of Hoshiya, son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria came up against Samaria, besieged it and at the end of the three years.
They took it even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the 9th year of Hoshiya, king of Israel.
Samaria was taken, and the king of Assyria did carry away Israel in unto Assyria, and put them Inhala and Hebor by the river goes in in the cities of the Medes, because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant and Lord had commanded them would not hear them, nor do them. So we'll just stop there. So this was like the.
Ultimate failure of the 10 tribes and God marches this army in takes everybody captive or not everybody.
Most of them captive and they leave. And here you have this little king in the South, Hezekiah. He's just trying to.
Follow the Lord and turn things around in the temple and He sees this happen. You know, there's a lot of things happening around us today.
I shudder sometimes. And I mean, I'm not that old yet. Getting there.
To think that even when I was in high school, things were significantly different than they are now. More children are being born outside of marriage and inside of marriage. There's less people married than.
Than unmarried. Now morality is gone completely out the window.
The world is wholesaling, accepting sin on a scale that we've never seen before. the United States of America, which was built on the foundation of God and the principles of its word, has largely turned it back on God, you know?
00:25:02
The implications of that are tremendous. You know, we're looking for the Lord to return.
To take us to be in heaven. But it shouldn't discourage us. Hezekiah. It's nice.
I'm going to flip back and see while all this was going on, and I can't imagine what was going through his mind when it was going on.
He is seeking to follow the Lord in whatever way he can. And so let's just turn back to two chronicles.
Chapter 30.
And I really enjoy this. Hezekiah does something that was never done before.
Israel was fractured into 10 tribes and two tribes. They hardly had anything to do with each other.
The 10 tribes are taking captive. There's a few that remain.
As a matter of fact, and I didn't even realize this till I was just spending some time trying to put everything into context that Hezekiah father. They were so much fighting between the 10 times and the two tribes that his father was so wicked that God allowed the kings of the king of the 10 tribes to come down and take 200,000 of the southern tribes captive and he just puts his hands in and stops them. But there was that much between them. So let's I.
Read. Actually, I'll read the verses quickly.
In Second Chronicles.
See if I can find the verse here. Chapter 28, verse 8.
In the children of Israel carried away captive of their brethren 200,000 women, sons and daughters, and also took away much spoil from them and brought the spoil to Samaria. So here, if ever there was a time to hate your northern relatives, if you want to call them that, it was now. And Hezekiah would have been alive at that time and seen all of that happen. But you know what, Hezekiah in this process of opening the doors of the.
Lord, cleaning out the garbage that was in it, re establishing worship and praise and Thanksgiving to the Lord.
He recognizes that God's heart is not just towards the two tribes, that it's towards all 10 tribes.
And he sends out an invitation, and we're not going to have time to get into this. He sends out an invitation to.
The 10 tribes to come down to Israel to celebrate the Passover.
You know, I enjoy that because you know, the Christian testimony in this world is totally fractured and continues to be fractured in God's eyes. There's one church and we know that. And when we sit down on Lord's Day morning and look at that loaf, we're to see every believer in that loaf. But from an outward perspective, it's completely.
Fractured I Even Kendall was telling me that his mom chuckled about the fact that a Brethren group was coming to a Baptist camp because she's a Baptist and you know.
We look at this in the testimony has been fractured and yet.
The Lord cares for every believer. You know, we, maybe we know the ones in this room reasonably well, but you know, it's nice when our heart goes out to all of them. So Hezekiah sends out an invitation.
In chapter two Chronicles chapter 30, I'll just read it quickly. Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah and wrote letters also to Ephraim Manasseh that they should come to the House of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep the Passover.
Unto the Lord God of Israel, for the King had taken counsel, and his Princess.
In all the congregation in Israel to keep the Passover in the second month.
But they could not keep it at that time because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently. Neither of the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem. The thing pleased the king and all the congregation. So I'm not going to read these verses, but you know, it's beautiful.
He sends out this invitation and as you might expect.
Some people mocked, but some of them did come.
And if we read down in verse 10, it says so the post passed from city to city.
Through the country of the freeman Manasseh, even under Zebulun, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. Nevertheless, divers of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. Also in due to the hand of God was given them one heart to do the commandment of the king.
And of the Princess, by the word of the Lord.
00:30:01
Well, they have the Passover.
And it's one of the most beautiful passovers that ever happened. You know, I was just thinking about the fact that here we have Israel under attack by the king of Assyria, 10 tribes are taken away, and here they are remembering how God rescued them.
In the land of Egypt and brought them into the land of Canaan. You know, it's a good thing for us to remember how the Lord died for us. It puts things so much into context when we do that.
And yet it's so easy for us to forget. It's so easy for it's easy to even be here when the theme maybe is remembrance, and for it not really to have a great deal of meaning in our life.
You know, it's beautiful to see how the Lord was working in Hezekiah and Israel and.
One of the things that I enjoyed, I'm not going to turn to it. You can look it up yourself. But there's a second time when the Lord brings a bit of a revival in Israel under Josiah. And when they go to repair the Lords house, it's actually the people from Manasseh and Ephraim whose money and was used to help repair the the temple. You know, the Lord and we read about in the New Testament, some from those tribes as well. The Lord brought tremendous blessing from what?
Let's just read what the Lord says about the Passover.
Here in verse.
Chapter 30 and verse.
26.
So there was great joy in Jerusalem for since the time of Solomon.
The king, so the son of King David of Israel there was not the like.
In Jerusalem.
And the priests and the Levites arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy dwelling place, even heaven. No, it's beautiful how the Lord did this. And you know, it's nice to see how in touch out wicked time God is able to bring such blessing. You know, we don't have this part of the story very much in kings, and we don't have it in Isaiah either.
But I appreciate just when you consider everything that was happening, how the Lord was able to work and blessing, you know, when everything in this world maybe seems to be falling apart.
If we trust in the Lord like Hezekiah did, if we open our our heart to the Lord, if we get rid of the defilements in our life, if we seek to bring praise and honor to the Lord and that his people would function the way they should, the Lord can bring blessing. You know, I appreciate it. Just somebody's thoughts. Whenever there's a true work of God, it's bringing it back to.
The way God intended it to be, and you know.
God brought it here back to what it was before Israel even divided. When in Josiah's day, when the Lord brings a bit of a revival there, he actually brings it back. And the sin that Solomon had committed that divided the country was dealt with by Josiah. It's beautiful to see that well.
Here we are sometime between the 1St and the 14th year of of Hezekiah's reign, so I'd like to go on and read what happens after that. So in Second Chronicles chapter 32.
So the first year opens the doors. The 4th year 10 tribes are taking captive, Passover's held.
And here we have in 32. The king of Assyria comes back this time.
It's not to get the 10 tribes, it's to get the two tribes.
He was coming to take him away captive and to wipe out Israel entirely. What does what happens? Let's just read it says in Second Chronicles 32. It says after these things and the establishment thoroughf Sennacher of king of hysteria, came and entered into Judah, and camped against the fence cities, and thought to win them for himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, he took counsel with his Princess and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains.
Which were without the city and they did help them. So there was gathered much people together.
Who stopped all the fountains in the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?
Also he strengthened himself and built up the wall that was broken, raised it up to the towers and another wall without, and repaired Milo in the city of David, and made darts and Shields in abundance. And he set captains of war over the people, and gathered them together to him in the street of the gate of the city, and stayed comfortably to them, saying, Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor.
00:35:12
Dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him. For there be more with us than with him.
With Him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us.
And fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah.
If you were to go to Israel today, one of the main tourist attraction is a tunnel that they believe Hezekiah built. To bring it was to not give water outside the city and to provide water inside the city.
This is these stories, by the way.
Are pure historical facts. You know this world mocks the Bible.
But not only can you get the story of Hezekiah in.
Physical infrastructure within Israel today you can get the story of the Assyrian attack written in their chronicles showing this conquest. In the result they hide what God did. They summarize it by saying we cage them up like a bird and don't say anything else about the fact that they 185,000 people died, but it's all there. This is this is complete reality.
You know, I just want to Hezekiah here, he brings water into the city and keeps it from people out. Back then, of course, the city was walled. They would surround the city, no food, no water could get in and out and they would starve you until you died. As this was happening, they would attack one city after another and it's 40 plus cities that fell in the attack of Israel in in the North and South.
The story of Lakeish, which is where we're going to get to shortly.
Is one of the most brutal stories of a city being destroyed that I've ever heard of.
And you know, Hezekiah recognized the need for water and didn't want to give it to the enemy, you know, do you recognize?
The need you know, the Holy Spirit is like a fountain that bubbles up within us. The Word of God is.
The Washington water by the Word is crucial in our life. The Lord's people need it. We talked earlier about today how important it is for us to test by the Word of God as to whether these things are really true.
Or not? Do you read the Bible? Do you read it every?
Single day. I'm not talking about your parents Bible readings, if they have them or don't have them and that is crucial. Do you as an individual read your Bible every day? You know, when Lindsey and I were married?
One of the only we were married by it was a pastor in Saint Thomas, very godly man who I very respect, very much respect. He took us through Ephesians 5 and what was written there and he said, you know one thing my wife and I try and do is read through the Bible every year.
And you know what, I can't say that I read through the Bible every year, but my question to you, you know, it's so easy for us to be critical of the systems, but.
Have you read through the Bible even once?
Answer that question to yourself tonight. Have you read through the Bible, Genesis to Revelation even once?
Do you know this story we're talking about tonight? Do you know it's chronology? Do you know what's in it? The word of God is essential to our life. Ron Mearns was telling me he's been sick all week. He prayed and he asked the Lord, do you want me to go to this camp? The Lord gave him a verse of encouragement. God speaks to us through his word. He wants us to read it. It's crucial.
Are you reading through the Word of God? And you know unless it becomes a habit, you're going to have a hard time?
Even getting through the books that these stories are in Second Kings, Second Chronicles and Isaiah, you know, the story in Isaiah is like a little bleep in the middle of a prophetic book, a very nice prophetic book, by the way. But you know, it is the word of God is important. Hezekiah recognized the need for water. The enemy wants to starve us of water. He'll put Facebook in our way. He'll fill our time with university and work and everything else.
And squeeze out anytime for the Lord.
Until we shrivel and he can attack us and conquer us, It's a real thing.
I struggle with it every day. I go to work at 7:00 in the morning. I'm not home typically until just after six. Then I have to get the kids ready for bed. We spent a little bit of time together and the enemy just wants to squeeze every oz out of a city can and leave nothing for himself. You know, Hezekiah brought the water into the city. He also repaired the breaches.
00:40:19
And.
Umm, to protect the city. You know, if there's breaches in our life, things that need to be repaired, it's nice and we can repair them. I'm not going to go into detail here, but.
He does that, and you know, our time is going by. We only have 15 minutes. But I'm not going to get into this up until this point. So this is the first 14 years of Hezekiah's reign. He's 40. I just turned 40 a week ago. He hits a midlife crisis.
And he gets it packed.
You know, the attacks of the enemy are real in our life, and if we don't prepare for them, if the doors of the Lord's house are not opened.
If there's defilement in our life if we don't have an opportunity to praise the Lord, he will conquer us. You know there's three specific tasks mentioned I'm not going to time to go into them of Hezekiah. They're not not given chronologically in any of the books of the Bible his thicknesses after the attack and.
If you look at the timeline, it probably just before around the same time of the attack, but.
He's he's tested with sickness, he's tested with the attack of the king of Assyria and he is tested with.
Answered prayer in success. You know his biggest failure was an answered prayer and success.
You know, this heat, up to this point, you would say his life had been totally glorifying the Lord. He is done all of these things. He's brought water into the city to protect it against the siege. He is.
He is fortified the city and then comes the attack and what does he do?
We don't read about it in Chronicles, and for those of you who know the difference between kings and Chronicles and Chronicles, the failures of the kings are very often overlooked. In Kings, they're more explicitly given.
He tries to pay off the king of Assyria. You know, I'll readily confess that you know the Lord, I was attacked this week and I before he can talk to my wife. I was not the nicest person to be around A couple days ago I was very grumpy for various reasons, which was completely wrong and I openly acknowledge it. You know the and the enemy would say, oh, Mark, why are you speaking? If there isn't consistency in your life, you know the enemy will.
Hezekiah here he he takes everything he can give to the king of Assyria and says here take this hoping that will go away. This is after he prepared everything and told the people to trust the Lord and the people were going to trust what he says. Let's just read it quickly. It's only in in kings. We can go back to kings first kings, sorry, second King's 18.
13 to 17.
No, in the 14th year of Hezekiah king did Sennacherib, king of Assyria come up against all the fence cities?
Of Judah and took them. And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lakish. And again I mentioned I saw a historical overview of what happened at Lakeisha and it was absolutely brutal. He sends to him at Lakeish.
Saying, I have offended return from me, I would thou puttest on me will I bear. King had said to pay an impossible amount of money. The king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. Hezekiah came to him, gave him all the silver that was found in the House of the Lord, and in the treasures of the King's house that time.
Did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord?
And the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.
You know, it's very easy for us to follow the Lord, but when the enemy attacks.
Who are we trusting?
I don't blame Hezekiah for a second. I think if you had been there and realized what was happening in Israel at the time.
And that you are one little tiny city stuck out in the middle of nowhere and the entire army of one of the biggest empires the world was attacking you. To think that God would save you would seem ridiculous.
00:45:12
Well.
Hezekiah, you know.
While they're fighting this other king, this other city lakeish, they send up this man Rob Shaka to Israel and he goes outside the city walls and just gives spews out an incredible rant about God not saving them. And the Hezekiah tore down the altars that were supposed to be to God and none of the gods of the other areas rescued them and.
Just absolutely blast Israel and says why are you trusting this king? He's just a fool.
And you know.
This was after Hezekiah failed, by the way.
Hezekiah, Where does he go?
He goes into the House of the Lord. Let's just look at it quickly. Second Kings 19.
1:00 to 8:00.
Came to pass when King Hezekiah heard it. The rent is closed. Covered himself with sackcloth and went into the House of the Lord.
He sent a lion which was over the household and shoving of the scribe and the elders and the priests covered with a sackcloth to Isaiah the prophet, the son of a laws. They said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, this day is the day of trouble and of rebuke and blasphemy, for the children are come to birth, and there was not enough to bring forth. I just, you know, I this that comment about getting ready to give birth and not being I said, why would that be in there?
You know.
I've been thankful to be with my wife when we've had our children. And you realize that that is a tremendous moment. But, you know, I was thinking, you know, Hezekiah had prepared for the attack, and here he was. It just seems like they got there and they don't have the strength to deal with it. Do you ever feel like that in your own life?
You know, the Lord comes in a beautiful way, just unbelievable, to rescue Israel.
Rob Shaka goes back to Lakeish. The king has actually left and gone to fight someone else because he heard that a king had come up.
From Ethiopia. And so there's a partial delay. You know, the Lord Hezekiah had to humble himself because he had failed and he cast himself to the Lord in the Lord's house.
You know there is no substitute for the Lord's presence.
Whether it's.
Our body, which is the temple of the Holy Ghost, or whether it's His collective presence.
Something that is essential, you know?
The Lord just allows the king to go away and you know, at Rabshak, I think was a little bit shocked at what had happened. He sends a letter back to he sends a letter back to Hezekiah and says, Hezekiah, don't you dare believe that your God rescued you. I'm we're still going to come and get you.
You know.
The Lord and it's tend to. Now I won't go into this in too much detail, but.
They come back and the attack is Jerusalem.
The middle of the night the Angel, the Lord, comes out, and he just 185,000.
Mighty men of valor dead.
Here you have.
One of the greatest kings in the world.
Coming against Israel, a little tiny city who's put their trust in God and God rescues them for not, you know, the Lord's power. We're going through the book of Daniel in our readings in Reno Ferry.
Nebuchadnezzar tries to bring the mightiest men in the entire country together to worship an idol and get them to bow down.
At the end, he sends out a decree.
That all peoples, nations and tongues need to honor or or shouldn't. The boss being their God, You know he totally turns the greatest power of the world is crumbled to nothing and changes the mind of Nebuchadnezzar was amazed ground the greatest man in the world. Here we have this Assyria and God just shuts them down and sends them home and he gets killed by his own sons.
A few years later, you know God won a complete victory. They go back, they write the story of the conquest of Israel. They get to that part where 185,000 people died and all they can write is we caged Jerusalem like a bird and God rescued them. You know, God's power is greater than we can imagine. You know, if it's not real in our life, we're not going to tap into it when we're attacked.
00:50:09
This was.
The first attack we only had 10 minutes. I'm not going to go into the next.
2IN much detail, but you know, I'll just tell them you can read them to yourself on your own, Hezekiah.
He gets sick around this time.
He's given 15 more years. This happened in the 14th year of his reign, so it would have been at the start of the 14th year that he gets sick for prophetic reasons. It's mentioned afterwards. As I said before, he cries out to the Lord.
The Lord heals them and promises them that he'll deliver them from Assyria, it would seem like.
If he hadn't healed them, they wouldn't have been delivered from Assyria.
A Hezekiah asked for a sign on a sundial that his father had made. He has, and he asked whether the sundial should go down or go up.
And as the guy said, well, it's an easy thing for the sundial to go down, but it's a very difficult thing for the sundial to go back. The sign is given to him. The sundial was back. He's given 15 more years of his life. What? Why do I comment on that? I enjoyed a thought when I was just reading some ministry on this that said, you know, Israel's sundial and it says this.
Had gone down.
God was going to come in because they had totally disobeyed the first commandment. Everything He had said about whether they would be taken out of the land, they'd done it. He was ready to take them and move them out of the land. But Hezekiah, in his desire to please the Lord and what he did, it's almost like the Lord turned that sundial back a little bit, Turn time back a little bit. Israel's given a little bit more time.
You know.
And.
The Lord heals him in a mighty way and.
After this he actually fails more. The Lord tests him with.
With.
Session #1
The Leading of the Spirit
Address—Tim Ruga
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.
Others are coming, but we can start the meeting tonight with Vice singing.
Let's start with hymn #9.
And we'll sing that hymn #9.
All right through the desert.
Now the sweetest when I.
Got in heaven.
But I drew that smears hiding.
And his promise?
I've been waiting.
Certain time in minutes welcome.
Let's pray.
Our God and our Father, we just thank You for this time when we can come together as some of thy people to look into Thy word.
We pray that Thou would encourage us through it. That would be with the speaker to bring out those things which are according to my mind, and that would be of a blessing to each one who is here and above all a glory to thee and to thy Son the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank Thee so much for Him. We long as we just sang to see His face and hear His well known voice.
We pray that it might even be tonight. And so we commit this meeting to thee in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Amen. And so in that hymn, we sang.
In the second verse.
Says by the truth and spirit guiding earnestly of what's to come. I want to talk a little bit about that, the spirit guiding and what that means. And in the meeting tonight, I'm going to do my best to take up, first of all, somewhat of a doctrinal foundation for that because.
Because we need to understand what the scriptures say about a matter before we can begin to apply it. And if I can, I'm going to try to get.
Through that and enough time to get to the application in the second part of the meeting.
And so some of you here, I just want to say that you've heard me speak on this before. I trust with the Lord's help, I'll bring this out freshly. And I do know from talking to many that this is a question on the minds of many. And so I'll also try with the Lord's help to share some experiences I've had with this subject of the leading of the Spirit, how it is as believers that we.
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Are LED in our lives who are when we come together collectively by the Spirit of God. How does that work?
So first we want to consider the scriptures and what they say about this.
In fact, all the way through, you want to do that, but I want to take up the doctrinal basis for it. So let's go to Matthew.
Chapter 3.
And we'll just read about the baptism of the Lord Jesus and what was said just before that happened by John the Baptist speaking about a divine person who had come to earth and was about to begin his ministry. He says here in Matthew 3 and verse 11, John the Baptist says, I indeed baptized you with water and to repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.
He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
Two things.
And so when the Lord Jesus is announced in his ministry on earth, a divine person come down from heaven living on earth among men for a certain period of time. At the very time when he was announced, there was also announced that there would be another event that would happen. And we'll learn that that's another divine person. He says he will baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
And with fire now the fires explain in the next verse. You can look at that yourself later. With us burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Those who would not listen to him.
And the ones who would listen? We're going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
And so I'm not going to go trace this all the way through, but I want to look at a few key verses as to the coming of the Spirit of God and what was said about that, where we tend to be much more familiar with the coming and.
Ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth, and I'll just emphasize this at the beginning, the Lord Jesus Christ God, this Donna divine person, came down from heaven and came to earth and he was here on earth as a man.
For some 33 years and then he left this earth divine person who went back to heaven. We understand that, we all know that. But what of the Holy Spirit? Let's go to Matthew 7. I'm not, I'm sorry, John 7.
The Lord Jesus speaking on the great day of the Feast.
He says verse 38, He that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living.
Water. And what was that? Well, it tells us in the next verse. But this he's this fake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified. And so in this verse we learn at least two things. One, that the Holy Spirit hadn't been given.
And two, that he wouldn't be given until the Lord Jesus Christ is glorified. We spoke about the Lord Jesus Christ as a divine person, God the Son. He was here at this time.
On earth and shortly he was going to go back up into heaven.
And they glorified there, and after that the Holy Spirit.
Was going to come, let's go to John 16, John, I'm sorry, John 14 and see what the Lord Jesus had to say.
Then about the coming of the Spirit.
Because this has everything to do with our subject of the leading of the Spirit, to see how the Spirit was introduced and what His ministry was to be when He would come to earth. So John, chapter 14.
The Lord Jesus is speaking to the disciples in the upper Room after he had instituted the this supper, the Lord's Supper, and just before he was about to go to the cross.
And He taught them a number of things, and one of the things that he taught them about was what was going to happen after He left and there was going to be this other divine person. And we'll just take a few of those verses and look at them. John 14, verse 16. He says, I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another comforter, that He may abide with you forever. Even the spirit of truth in the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him, but ye know Him.
For he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. Two things there, just want to notice them in passing.
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And the Spirit of God dwells with believers and in believers. The Lord Jesus said it right here in the beginning. This truth is expanded on by the Spirit of God Himself and the epistles. We don't have time to go into all that tonight, but every true believer who's here has the Spirit of God dwelling right within them.
And then as a company of believers coming together, the Spirit of God dwells with us as well. The Church of God is the dwelling place of God Himself by His Spirit. And so it's important to understand those two things, and the Lord Jesus introduced them here.
Just skip down for a moment to verse 26. It says the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit.
Whom the Father will send in my name. He shall teach you all things and shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. And so the Lord Jesus spoke about this divine person who is going to come, but I want to just back up and see how He introduced them. It's very important.
Back in.
16.
We just skipped right over. It says I will pray the Father and he will give you.
Now notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say he'll give you a comforter.
Doesn't say that at all, He says it'll give you another comforter. That word is paracletos.
It means one who takes care of all the affairs of another.
And this tells us exactly what the Holy Spirit was to be. The Lord Jesus didn't say He'll give you.
A comforter because he already was the comforter who was here.
And if you were to go over to 1St John chapter 2, you'd find the same word used about the Lord Jesus Christ. It says there if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, same exact word, Jesus Christ the righteous. And so he still is that one in heaven, He's still that one who takes care of our affairs there.
We sin our great High Priest as well, we know this. But the Spirit of God is the one who came here to do the work that the Lord Jesus had been doing. And what was that?
Well, the disciples as they were on earth, they had needs. They needed to know what to do, where to go, what to say. And if they had any needs, they would go to the Lord Jesus and they would ask Him. He was their Lord on earth and it was plain and there was no question about what they would do. And now he's saying I'm going away, and when I go away I'm going to send another one.
And this another is a significant word. It's another of the same kind, the Holy Spirit.
Was going to be sent to carry on that ministry that the Lord Jesus had.
And if you and I get that point, it answers most of the question.
Because we would not struggle at all if the Lord Jesus was here.
There'd be no question what we do. We go and ask them what we should do.
But he's gone away to heaven. We don't see him now. And he sent the Holy Spirit. We don't see him either.
And we accept by faith that this is what has happened, but we have to accept that by faith we take all the word of God by faith.
And because the word of God says that the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sent his Holy Spirit and that Holy Spirit has come to do that work that he himself had been doing. Then we need to understand that and accept it. And if we do believe that by faith and we understand that we need to give the Holy Spirit His place on earth is that one who is here to take care of our affairs and to lead and to guide us, as is said in the last verses that we read to hide us into all the truth.
Chapter 16, we have this repeated again and brought out in a slightly different way. And so if we were to continue on and look at the teaching regarding the Holy Spirit, you go to Acts chapter one, the Lord Jesus says you just stay here in Jerusalem until you and you wait until I receive that promise of the Father.
Which of course, was which. John the Baptist has said that he was going to baptize them.
And then you go to Acts chapter 2, you find the Holy Spirit given, and shortly after in verse 33, Peter says that He being to the right hand of God exalted, He hath perceived the promise, and he hath poured out this which you now see in here. The Holy Spirit had been given.
That's accomplished. He came to earth. First Corinthians 12/13 tells us what he did. He took all believers and baptized them into one body. And now we've been formed into that body of Christ, the Holy Spirit himself being the one who formed it. And we go and we take up the rest of the New Testament truth, which we don't have time to do tonight, but we find the very same things that the Lord Jesus said, that the Holy Spirit of God, when you believed you.
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We're still with that Holy Spirit of promise that tells us in Ephesians chapter one. And then we find that he dwells in the church collectively, brought out in several places.
He's here.
Now, given that he's here, what does that mean to us? I heard a couple of women speaking behind me one time when I was getting on the plane to go to Malawi and they were believers, but they didn't believe this. I believe something else. I'm convinced I'll see them in heaven. Thank God for that. But they one of them was saying to the other, he said, you know, some people say that the Holy Spirit came to earth and he dwells in the church among believers. But how can that be?
Because the Holy Spirit is God, and as God is everywhere at once, so how could you say he came?
To Earth, that doesn't make sense, it doesn't work. And what she was trying to do is deny that because she had a view of the rapture that wasn't right.
Anyway, without going into that, the fact of the matter is the Holy Spirit can do that. Think for a moment about the Lord Jesus Christ. He was God, wasn't He?
John chapter 3 tells us No man hath ascended up into heaven, and save you came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven. John 313.
Son of Man, the Lord Jesus standing there right then before them, he says he's in heaven. Oh, he's everywhere at once. God is not found. He's omnipresent, and that's your beauty of God.
And so the Lord Jesus as a man on earth was still God in heaven and God everywhere else in the universe, the Holy Spirit having come with his ministry.
To indwell believers and be in the church is still God.
Everywhere, and he is here now and he will be here until he is taken away with the church. And we get that in a number of verses, most beautifully in Revelation 22. I can believe it's verse 17 where we have that expression. The Spirit and the Bride say come, the Spirit of God is seen there with the bride.
Asking the Lord Jesus to come.
Longing for that moment when he will come and then the bride will be taken away out of this world to be with the Bridegroom. The Spirit having done its work to draw that bride and bring it to the heavenly Isaac. Beautiful. And so the Spirit of God is a divine person and He is here and we need to give him his place. Now I want to just bring out.
A few of the direct teachings regarding.
The leading of the Spirit. Before we go on to the application and 1St, I want to talk about the leading of the Spirit in our lives as believers individually. Let's just go to Romans chapter 8 and see one verse on that.
I hope we understand that every single person who is trusted in Christ as their Savior, they come to know that salvation.
They are indwelled by the Spirit of God.
That's not the particular subject here, although it is said very directly. If you look in the end of verse 9 says now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is not of his.
But I want to go over to verse 14. It says for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Now this is not how to get to be a son of God. Many scriptures make that clear. Galatians 3 near the end of the chapter, forget which verse, Think 13 says you're all sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ. We know the scriptures clear about that. It's by faith in Jesus Christ that we become the sons of God.
But this verse is telling us that if we are the sons of God, we're going to be led by the Spirit of God.
Could read it that way and reverse this as well as the way it's written.
Every single one of us who has the Spirit of God is LED.
By the Spirit of God.
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Now you may say, I don't often feel the leading of the Spirit in my life.
But that doesn't change this fact. The fact is, if you've trusted in Christ, you are led by the Spirit of God.
The other question is do you follow? Do you hear his leading and do you follow it? But that doesn't affect at all the fact that he leaves.
This is a simple fact that the Spirit of God leads believers. Every believer you've trusted in Jesus Christ, you have the leading of the Spirit in your life. Whether or not you follow Him is a completely different matter. Now let's look not at personal leading of the Spirit, but let's look at it with regard to gifts, and we'll go to 1St Corinthians chapter 12.
1St Corinthians 12 verse one. Now concerning spiritual gifts, I'm going to stop right there. You'll notice gifts is in italics. It really shouldn't be there spiritual things.
Because as you go through these chapters, chapters 12/13/14, you'll find that it's not just gifts that are spoken of, particularly in chapter 14, you'll find other things that are brought out with regard to the Spirit of God. For instance, in the beginning of chapter 14, you'll find singing and prayer, and there's other things too. So these are spiritual things that he's talking about. That's the subject of these chapters. So he says.
Concerning spiritual things, brother, and I would not have you ignorant, you know that.
When you that you were gentiles carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. So he's talking about what they had been. And he said you were led by these dumb idols before they had the leading of idols. And he's drawing that contrast. And now what he's going to speak about in chapters 12/13 and 14, which is going to be, of course, the leading of the spirit.
Spoken of in terms of collectively in the Assembly, no doubt.
But that's his subject here. They had been led by demons.
The dumb idols, demons behind them. Now he says it's different. You're led by the Spirit of God and we don't have the time to take up this chapter. I'll just refer to a few key verses and we're going to move on. But in verse 11 it says that all these work at that one and the self same spirit dividing to every man severally as he will variously.
Giving as he desires. The Spirit of God is the one who's given that place to not only give out the gifts, but to give the exercise of the gift. If you have a gift, it's the Spirit of God who also gives you the way in which you're to exercise that gift. The words that you use, the way you do it, everything about it, it comes from Him.
And so he's the one who works that, and he divides it as he wills.
Very important. It's not left up to us, it's left up to Him. And we can usurp that authority just like we can usurp the Lord's authority, but we're not to do it. And if we understand the teaching of these verses, we'll know that this has been given to a divine person.
Not to man, not to an organization, or not to myself if we are to wait on the Spirit of God for the exercise of gift. Now, just a quick example if we go over to chapter 14.
There are a number of things spoken of, but just in terms of the prophets exercising their gift is a very clear example here to illustrate the point.
And it says in verse 29, Let the prophet speak two or three, and let the others judge if anything be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace.
For we may all prophecy 1 by 1 and so forth, but the point here is, if anything be revealed to another that sitteth by who's doing that.
Well, that's sort of being clear from chapter 12, right? It's this spirit that divides as he wills. It's not a person going saying, OK, now I'm showing you something that you go up and speak. No, the Spirit of God has that place and here's an example of how it was used. And so it's very important that in the exercise of gift, whether it's in the assembly or even out of the assembly, that there be that looking to the Spirit of God is to what it is that he wants.
Said or done, it's not left up to us. So.
So now we've talked about personal, we've talked about gifts and I just briefly want to go into.
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Our other area.
Priesthood and look at worship. Let's go to John chapter 4.
The Lord Jesus here speaking to the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman and opening up to her wonderful things. He spoke to her about God.
The Father and the worship of the Father. And this is what he says. He says in verse 23. The hour cometh and now is.
When the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Now these verses tell us something about what worship is that goes up to God. And it's not something that comes from the minds of man. It's not something that comes.
Having to do with the flesh and the enjoyment of our bodies.
But it's something that's in the spirit, and this verse is talking about our spirits. It's actually not referring to the Spirit of God. I'll get to that in a moment. But God is looking for worship that comes out of the spirit itself. And when we talk about spiritual worship, that worship needs to be guided. And I can guide my spirit with my mind. I generally do.
But when it comes to worship, we're going to see that that isn't the right idea at all.
And so let's continue on to see what this worship is. Hebrews 13.
Hebrews 13. We find out something more about it in verse 10. We have an altar wherever they have no right to eat, which serve the Tabernacle.
Verse 12 Wherefore Jesus?
Also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
Verse 15 by him, that's Jesus.
By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lifts.
Giving thanks to his name. And so now we find that that worship which is in spirit goes up to God by.
Jesus Christ.
And if we were to turn to Psalm 22, quoted again in Hebrews chapter 2, we find that the Lord Jesus.
Consequent upon His resurrection, takes up that place and glory of being in the midst of the assembly leading out worship and praise to God.
And so that is his delight, to be in the midst of the redeemed, leading their praise and their worship. And we know that the Lord Himself is in the midst leading that. But what of the Spirit?
What is his role in all of this? Let's go to Philippians chapter 3.
Philippians chapter 3 verse three says we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Now this is not a good translation. If you look in J&D or another critical translation you'll find that.
It says we have a circumcision which worship by the Spirit of God. And this is the point. Just like in my personal life, I'm to be led by the Spirit of God. And just like as the gift unto be led by the Spirit of God, so it is when it comes to worship to God himself, it is to be led by the Spirit of God. We worship by the Spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ himself takes up the leading of that worship in the midst and then he uses the Spirit of God to go around.
Go around and draw out our hearts in worship to Himself. That is His role, that is His place. We don't have another one that is given to do that, but we wait on Him for that. Now, a few more scriptural thoughts and then I want to try to go into the practical application of this.
When it comes to that worship, there is liberty and we need to see that and what it means.
How it works. So Two Corinthians chapter 3 brings out this thought of the liberty.
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2nd Corinthians, chapter 3.
We'll just take first 17 now. The Lord is that spirit.
And with the spirit of the Lord is there's liberty. Now this is very interesting.
It means a number of things.
First of all, it means that wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. He is free to work where and when and how He wants. He's not limited by our thoughts or anything else we may want to do.
He is, however, as we will see shortly, limited by the truth. He can't deny himself.
But there's liberty. The Spirit of God, within the bounds of the Word of God, has complete liberty to work where and how and when He wants. However, it also means that when we come together and we're waiting on the Spirit of God, there's liberty. Now, what does that mean? Does that mean that you and I have liberty to do whatever we want because the Holy Spirit is there?
I hope the answer to that should be obvious. It certainly doesn't mean that.
It's his liberty. He has the liberty. You say, well, that sounds like ******* if you're speaking about liberty. But I can't do anything. It's only what the spirit wants to do. It sounds like ******* to me. It isn't ******* at all. The reason why is because.
As a believer.
You and I have a new life, the life of Christ, and that life has one motive, and that motive is to do the will of God.
And that life desires to know the will of God, and it will look to the Spirit of God to get guidance as to what that will is and to that life that I have, which is Christ. When it learns the will of God, it absolutely delights in it. That's liberty to it. Anything else is *******.
And so with the Spirit of God is there is liberty. And so when we come together as the Saints of God, waiting on the Spirit of God, there is liberty there. And it's His liberty to act and use this in whatsoever way he will.
Now the scriptures do show us that that liberty is hindered, and those are the final two things that I want to look at.
And before we look at some practical applications of this.
There is what Scripture calls the quenching and the grieving of the Spirit, and that can be a real hindrance to the liberty of the Spirit. Let's look at those important we see where they are First Thessalonians 5 through the quenching.
Verse 19 says quench not the Spirit. Now for the other one, Ephesians chapter 4.
Verse 30.
Says grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, we're by your sealed unto the day of redemption. And so there are these two things.
They're really the opposite side of each other. We've got the quenching of the Spirit, and this comes in when the Spirit of God.
Wants me to do something and I say no.
And so he wants to say speak to me. And I don't allow it. I quench him.
The grieving of the Spirit is the opposite side of that. He doesn't want me to do something. I go ahead and do it.
We may do either of these things, and we may do both in the same act.
But they both hinder the free operation of the Spirit of God, whether it's in my life or in the exercise of my gift, or when we come together in worship.
So it's very important that we see that Scripture clearly presents these things. This is the truth of God, and it tells us that this is how it works with regard to the operations of the Spirit of God.
As the divine person right now on earth.
Now, having seen that, the question is how do I put that into practice in many different ways?
Of my life, and I wrote down earlier a number of things that may give example to some of this. And I just wanted to go through some of those things point by point. And perhaps I won't cover everything that's on your mind. And if I don't, no problem, this question and answer, right? So go put a question in the box, but I'll try to cover at least the things that came to my mind.
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First, I want to talk about the Remembrance meeting.
So we come together to remember the Lord and his death. Wonderful privilege that we have as believers, right? And say, well, how does this work with regard to the remembrance meeting? I'm going to just suggest this for all those of us who are here and come to that wonderful occasion. Come with something. Come with something on your heart that the Spirit of God can use.
It doesn't mean that he will use it. He may use something else entirely.
But you ought to bring something, and there are scriptural grounds for that. There's the type in the Old Testament about the males that were to come up three times in the year to worship the Lord in Jerusalem. And it says very specifically in at least two places that they were not to appear before the Lord, Empty. It means they were to bring something there. Very important. The Lord is worthy.
Worthy of honor and praise, and we are to bring.
To him, what does this do?
When we get there, the liberty is the spirit. So I don't just come and oh, I got this. I'm going to share it here today.
No, that's wrong. But have something in the spirit of God may choose to use it, or he may choose to use something else entirely.
Now here's a question that I often had when I was younger. How would I know when the Spirit of God says I want you to say this or give out this Him or pray, How would I know that? You ever wonder that?
Well, I can't tell you exactly. There are things that you have to learn experimentally with the Spirit of God. They're not laid out prescriptively in the Scriptures. But I can tell you in my own experience that there have been many times and I felt something come up in my heart, and it was there very strongly, and I felt it more and more until I thought I needed to give expression to that thing. And there have been other times when I have felt that I had something in my heart.
Was ensuring that the Spirit of God wanted me to express it. And so I committed it to him and waited. And in time, the Spirit of God, who actually is God, has the ability to make his mind clear. Let's not forget that He's not limited. His arm isn't shortened. He can make himself understood very well.
The point that we find over and over in Scripture is dependence and waiting on Him.
There's no problem on His side. The problem is our hindrance on our side, and we need to get ourselves out of the way so that we can hear the Spirit of God. So that's just a few hints on that, but this is something that we all have to learn somewhat experimentally in our own lives before the Lord is part of our own individual walk with the Lord.
Now I want to give something that has been a big help to me because there have been times when I've come to the meeting and I haven't brought something like I said before, and I have sat there in the meeting in the presence of the Lord.
Cold and silent in my heart. Stoning. Has that ever happened to you?
I hope not, but if you're like me, it has. So what do you do? You just sit there the whole meeting like that. And there's one thing at least I found that works very, very well, and that is that I've started out in that meeting. Just confess it to the Lord. I should not have come this way. And I start to think.
About what was going to happen to me. As a spinner, I deserve judgment, but that is never going to happen. Why? Because Jesus Christ paid the price for my sins. He died for me. He suffered for me.
Nothing new. Don't we appreciate that thought? You don't have to go look for some special thing from here or there. Just getting into the very basics of what the Lord did for you. And then the next step is very important right there. Turn around and thank Him.
Pray to the Lord and thank Him from the bottom of your heart for what He did for you and then keep your train of thought on what He did for you and you watch and see what happens. The Spirit of God is going to start from there and work and work in your heart and He's going to bring out that praise. You know, in John chapter 4 when the Lord Jesus spoke to that woman at the well.
He told her about the He says the water that I will give him if he drinks, that he won't thirst again.
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And he said this water will be in him, a well of water springing up. And then he goes on to introduce to that woman all about this worship to the Father. So he's talking about the Spirit of God with respect to worship. And that indeed is how it is.
You take up with the Spirit of God and let Him work with you right at that time, and you'll find that.
It becomes like a well of water springing up. And if your brother who has the privilege of expressing what's on your heart verbally in the meeting, you'll find that this comes right welling up inside of you until the point where you say I have to give expression to to my Lord and Savior about this that the Spirit of God has given me to say and you'll say it without any thought of self and give glory to him.
Well, there are many who say.
The Spirit of God didn't lead me to speak. This is important because sometimes you get into a meeting and you go through this meeting and you get a lot of Stony silences and you say, oh, something seems wrong and you find even for yourself, you say, well, who am I? You know, I'm just a brother here. Why should I stand up and speak? Or what about that brother, right? And the problem is there's a whole lot of spouse involved and we're forgetting about the Lord.
And who he is and what's due to him.
And because of all these thoughts, sometimes the Lord gets robbed.
Right, left and center of his glory. It's sad.
You know, I thought of it this way. Consider this for a moment. Let's suppose we're in a meeting. We've come to remember the Lord and give Him. What does this do?
And while we're there?
It's silent and nothing's happening.
And I say I don't feel the Spirit leading me.
But you know what might be happening in that meeting? First of all, I assure you of this. The Spirit of God did not bring us together to be cold and silent.
He brought us together collectively to express that God, with our voice, prays to Him. That's what we read.
Hebrews chapter 13 The fruit of our lips giving thanks to his names, not the fruit of our hearts. Our hearts should be there, but God's looking for the fruit of our lips there. And to have the cold Stony silence is not from the Spirit of God.
And here's what I imagine might be happening sometime. I don't think I'm wrong.
Spirit of God comes to someone and he says, I want you to get up and say this. That person says no.
Spirit of God is clenched. He doesn't have liberty there. He goes to another brother.
Says I would like you to do this. The brother says no.
Spirit of God is clenched again. He goes to another brother. Brother says no.
Spirit of God comes to you, what do you say?
Is it no.
And so the Lord Jesus gets robbed.
These things are very practical.
Well, let's go on. I want to talk about the role of sisters, talking about brothers here. What about the sisters? I want to suggest the sisters have a very, very important role when it comes to the leading of the spirit. Even though they don't have this privilege that the brothers have of expressing verbally what's on their heart, yet they are there and they're part of the assembly and they're part of what is happening.
I'll try to illustrate that by a few examples, but one thing is that the sisters can sit there and they can pray for the brothers and they can pray about the meeting.
And they can be before the Lord as to what is happening.
It's very important and it can change the tone of everything.
For us brothers, we need to think about that too. Remember, there are sisters sitting there, many of whom are very gifted when it comes to gifts of teaching and other even gifts like that, that the Lord has given them as well. And all of them are priests, but they're not permitted to speak.
And if they're sitting there longing to express what's on their heart, and they know they can't, they're subject to the word.
And no brother is speaking. Then what anguish are we causing the sisters?
Brothers, this is very serious for us to consider what our role is in this matter, but the sisters can take that all to the Lord, and they have much to do with the tone of the assembly. A sister told me recently that when she.
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Is led by the Spirit of God to a verse, or to a hymn, or a certain line of thought, and then a brother gets up and expresses that very thing that the Spirit of God had put on her heart.
And it just causes her great joy because she feels that there we are collectively giving expression. The Spirit of God is leaving us out together.
And common thoughts of his son? Wonderful.
And she told me how much she appreciates that. But how often do we rob the sisters of that opportunity?
And sisters, don't be discouraged.
To take your own place before the Lord in prayer, in waiting on Him and entering into all those things, and trust that He will in His own way bring out that suited praise to Himself.
You know.
There is a case that I heard about a while ago, probably told me this about himself. Won't tell you who he is, but he said I went to a meeting once and I was the only brother there and I had to take all the part. He said I was not in a good state before the Lord. My heart was cold.
And yet I went ahead and I took part in that meeting and I gave out hymns and I prayed, I read scripture verses. And when it came time to break the bread, I broke the bread. And we had that whole meeting. And I ended up the meeting. I got something out of it, but I was pretty much cold all the way through. And he said after the meeting was over, his sister came up to me and she said, brother.
What you said was exactly what the Lord put on my heart.
She said. You expressed exactly what I wished I could express.
And she was so happy for it, he said. I was rebuked. The Lord used my mouth, he said. But he used his sister's heart. He was only speaking through me.
Well, brothers, are we willing even?
To be used by the Lord as a mouthpiece.
At least that probably was willing to speak. And sisters, are you willing to be used by the Lord in a case like that?
You may use just the mouth of a brother, but he's using your heart. Is your heart there for him to use?
Say something about the assembly when we come together for all of us.
If we believe this truth that the Spirit of God is acting in the assembly and he's moving and using as he will.
A similar idea to the whole, to the Lord Himself being in the midst. Do we actually believe that? And if we did, would we act like we believed it?
And come in a way that we believed in and showed that we believed it, not careless and indifferent as to things. And that leads me to another subject. We don't often talk about this, but what about coming to the meeting late?
All right now so.
We come to the meeting late sometimes, right? And I'm thinking that perhaps a lot of Christians haven't really thought through what that means.
But if you come to the meeting late, this probably goes without saying. If you're not there, the Spirit of God can't lead you to give out of Him, can he?
You actually have points to spirit can't lead you to pray.
The Spirit of God can't use you at all because you're not there.
Not only that, when you do show up late, you don't know what the Spirit of God had already been.
Bringing out an amazing.
And so you've also quenched a spirit in some sense from that.
And there's more, too.
You know, when we really want to recognize the spirit and give him his place in the assembly, it's a good thing that we're not even just on time, but to come early and wait on him, get in the right state of quietness before him. As to allowing him to even use us in that meeting. You can't just show up in the moment and have that happen. Brother was just reminding us from.
Luke 22 how it speaks there about.
When the hour was come, the Lord sat down, 12 apostles with them. He sat down. He was there, and they were there too.
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It's important that we pay attention to those things and not be careless about them. And think too, if you come late, the distraction that you make to others who are already there and maybe distract away from the Spirit of God trying to focus us on something that He's bringing before the assembly.
Lateness is actually not so light a matter as we think, and it's something that we need to be exercised about.
Well, in the few remaining minutes, I want to talk about the personal leading of the Spirit of God in our lives. We already referred to that verse in Romans chapter 8. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. And so let's just talk for a few minutes about what this leading means. And it's important that we understand at least something of that in our lives.
I would say first just to introduce this.
Among Christians generally, there's a range of thought on this, and I believe there's two ditches on this subject.
Number one, you've got the charismatics who teach that the Spirit of God just works in a completely free, wide open way with people such that they often walk around saying the Spirit told me this, the Spirit told me that. And usually you'll find that whatever or a lot of what they're saying isn't even in the Word of God, it's contrary to the Word of God.
And so they they seem to go way too far on the one end. On the other end though, there are.
The ones who are tend to be of the reform group, and if you know something about the Reformation, there were two major principles that guided the Reformation. One of them was sola fidelis, which means by faith alone wonderful the recovery of the truth that salvation is by faith in Christ alone, and that was recovered at that time. But the other one was also wonderful, at least in part as far as it went, and that was.
Sola scriptura, which means the Scriptures alone. And so at that time the Roman Catholic Church had been teaching that the Scriptures were not sufficient, but we also needed the traditions of the Church and the interpretation.
Of the fathers and then the teachers of the church to even know what it meant. And these ones said no, the scriptures alone are sufficient for faith and practice.
But when you go and listen to these ones today, you'll find that they take it too far.
They say that the Spirit of God does not work personally in the lives of lives of individuals.
Other than to teach us the meaning of Scripture. And so they say that the Spirit of God is given to just guide us into the truth as far as it says here in the Scriptures. And after that we are left ourselves to make our own decisions the best we can within the parameters of what's laid out there in the Word of God. And that's part of what they mean, sadly, by sola scriptura.
As they deny the personal presence and working of the Holy Spirit right now as the Divine Person on earth.
That's wrong.
We don't deny that we need to look to the Spirit of God and wait on His leading and guidance in our lives. Now I just want to say a couple things is bring out a few final thoughts here. People say, well, I would obey the Lord if I could hear him say plainly do this. Spirit of God would say this. Let's just look at a verse. I'm going to just turn to a few verses at the end of the meeting here.
First Kings, chapter 19.
And so give just a bit of the.
Idea of this that the Lord gives right through scripture but first Kings 19 verse 12 actually verse.
11.
The Lord is speaking to Elijah, he said, Go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord, and behold, the Lord passed by in a great and strong wind, Wren the mountains, and break in pieces the rocks before the Lord. Oh, you say, Well, that's impressive.
If the Lord would speak like a loud rushing wind, I could hear that, and that would impress me and I would do that. Well, it says here very plainly, the Lord.
Who is not in the wind?
And then it says after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in an earthquake.
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And after the earthquake of fire? But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire what?
A still, small voice. And this we get repeated over and over in Scripture. When it comes to the leading of the Spirit, we're going to find two things. It's not going to be the loud voice. It's going to be the still small voice. And that voice is going to be heard in the path of obedience.
And there is no other way that we can actually effectively have a leading of the Spirit.
In our lives. And so let's consider some other verses about this, some well known verses in Proverbs 3.
Verses 5:00 and 6:00.
You see, I'm not seeking anything new here.
And trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thy own understanding. Now this fix first.
And all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path. It's talking about obedience in all of our ways, not to some of them. All of our ways, acknowledging him, giving him his place, giving him the 1St place, giving him the last place, and everything in between.
And he will direct bypass. God doesn't lie. This is what he says. He will do it.
We need to take it up by faith and trust and that is so and say I don't know how he will do it. I don't know why there's still small voice sounds like.
Take it up by faith. Our whole Christian life is a life of faith. We act in faith.
Simply trusting that the Lord is able to show us what that means. Guess what? He's going to show us what that means.
Psalm 32.
Verse 8.
Says I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee.
With mine I.
We'll read verse 9 two because it goes along with it. Be not as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding and so forth. Now we find something similar to the still small voice, but even closer. If you're going to be able to be instructed by someones eye, you have to see where that eye is looking. You've got to be close enough to that person and it's tentative enough to know where that eye is directing you to go.
It's talking about a very close and personal and attentive walk with the Lord.
And then he says, specifically, you don't be as a horse of the mule. What were they? Well, the horse wants to run ahead and the mule wants to drag behind.
He says no, you need to be attentive to go when the Lord wants you to go where where He wants you to go. You need to be that sensitive to Him. And that requires a will that is broken, not my own will, but completely yielded to Him.
Why don't you just go to Second Timothy chapter 2?
Just a few verses and we're finished.
Does this in large part.
Answers the charismatic.
Second Timothy chapter 2 verse.
13 Just the end of the verse that says he cannot deny himself.
Another characteristic about the Spirit of God when he leads, and we'll see more about how he leads, when he leads, it will always be in accordance with the Word of God. He is the Spirit of truth, He is the Holy Spirit. He cannot deny himself. And so you, if you think you've heard something, if you think you've had some direction in your life.
Make sure that it's in accordance with this word. If it's not, then it did not come from the Spirit of God.
Sure, test. And we need to do that. The Spirit and the Word are always found together in the Scripture, and we can't separate them either. Now let's go to Romans chapter 12.
Romans chapter 12, verse one.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world.
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So B transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Period. Well, that's how we might like to make it, but there isn't a period there, is there?
There's not a period there.
All those things we had up to that point are very important for what follows.
That ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And I'm going to suggest this, we will never hear the still small voice of the spirits leading in our life if we will not obey.
It's not going to happen. I'm not saying that he can't somehow overrule in our lives. Thank God that he does. I can say that from my own life.
But as to getting his leading and guidance for going forward, we are not going to hear it if we're disobedient. And this these verses plainly tell us that we need to take our bodies.
And yield them as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.
Will you do that?
Will I do it? Say no. I want to use my body for myself.
The second thing was here, don't be conformed to the world.
My soul desires the world.
My flesh, I might say.
Wants to go out after those things he says no, don't be conformed to the world. Finally there's a says be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And I'm going to suggest that that's the Scriptures and the mind may bring in more of the spirit. And so the body of the soul and the spirit here are all dedicated to the Lord. I pray God, your whole body, soul and spirit be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul says in First Thessalonians chapter 5.
That's the desire. But we ourselves have to yield our bodies, and we have to stay separate from the world and not be conformed to it, and we have to have our minds transformed by the Word of God.
And when we do that, then we're going to know what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Final verse. Those of you who know me knew this was coming, but Psalms 143.
And verse 8.
Caused me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning, for thee do I trust.
Caused me to know the way we're in. I should walk.
Before I lift up my soul into thee.
And you want to hear the leading of the Spirit of God if you haven't started out and given the Lord the 1St place.
Today.
Maybe you've blown it for today.
I'm not saying you still can't.
But starting tomorrow, why don't you give them the 1St place?
Caused me to know thy loving kindness in the morning. Don't stay up so late tonight that you can't get up in the morning. And before anything else, give place to God.
Give him the first part of your day. Take out His word and read it before you do anything else.
And pray to Him before you do anything else and seek to know what He wants for you.
Before all the rest.
If you're not going to give him the 1St place, how do you expect that he's going to come and make his good and his perfect acceptable well known to you?
He says, 'cause me.
To know the way we're in, I should walk.
And I submit to you that that comes from giving him the first place in our lives, as we said before, the last place as well, and then all the other places in between.
Let's close this prayer.
Our God and our Father, we thank you for that divine Person who has come.
What a privilege it is to have him here to teach us thy word and to lead us in that right way.
We thank You for the Divine One who came before that that one was given as the object of our affections, our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the Spirit of God is leading us home to Him. We pray that each one here would allow Him to kindle our affections for that one. It was so worthy of them all that we would go on and lead our lives in greater devotion to Him in praise and worship and service to as He sees that.
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We commit this time to Thee for Thy glory, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Session #2
Faith
Address—Tim Roach
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.
Good evening. Maybe we could start our meeting tonight by singing #13 in the appendix.
Hasty on from grace to glory, armed by faith and winged by prayer. Heavens, eternal days before thee. God's right hand shall guide thee there. #13 the appendix. Somebody start that one, please.
Something still to do or there?
My faith and with my friend.
And his little painting.
I'm trying to bear.
Students come across lighter.
I want to speak a little bit about faith tonight, and we're armed by faith and wing by prayer, and we want to talk about faith as we go through our Christian life. Let's pray.
Our God and Father, we give thanks for this chance again to be together and give thanks for the activities that we've had today. And we give thanks now for the time to think about the Lord Jesus. In our our walk of faith, we just commit this evening to Your hand. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Let's turn to First Samuel, Chapter 16.
I want to talk about beautiful people and faith. There's a number of beautiful people mentioned in the Bible and we'll look at some of them, and some of them had faith, some of them did not. Now in First Samuel chapter 16 and verse 12, now this David, he was ready and with all of a beautiful countenance and goodly to look to.
David was a man of integrity.
Most people liked him and he had faith in God, and he had a beautiful countenance.
He was called a man after God's own heart, and many people knew he had been anointed as the next king of Israel. But Saul, the king Saul, was chasing David through the mountains, in the wilderness and like an animal and trying to destroy him. And in Rome, let's go to Romans chapter 5.
Romans chapter 5 And I believe that we will see David in heaven one day because David had faith. He won't be in heaven because he of his good works. He won't be in heaven because he led God's people well. He won't be in heaven because he offered so many sacrifices and animals in worship to God. He will be in heaven because he was justified by faith.
People from the Old Testament times and people of the Church dispensation today we'll all get to heaven the same way We are all justified by faith. Romans 5, verse one.
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Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Justified by faith peace with God.
Most of us have faith. But you know, sometimes tough things happen and our faith can be shaken. And then it is that our peace seems to to somehow dissipate and we become anxious and we become frustrated and confusion. It settles down into our soul.
Faith is to believe.
To believe that even when times are tough and that you when you see no possible way out of your your difficult situation faith is to believe that God has the best for you, He intends the best for you, and regardless of the human results, God has the best for you.
Faith is to believe something that you've never seen yourself.
How many of you know who the President of the United States is?
Everybody.
Obama. How do you know that? Have you ever seen him? How do you know he's the president?
Oh, you hear it in the media, Is that right on television, newspapers, Radio.
Do you believe everything on the media, most of its lies?
A lot of it is lies. Do you believe it? How do you know he's the president? By faith, because we know how the system works. Have you ever seen God? How do you know God exists? You may say, well, I saw Jesus in a in a movie, in the Jesus film or in the Miracle Maker, and I think there's a new one called the Son of Son of God or something like that. And you can see Jesus in the movie. Is that Jesus? Can you believe by faith that that's Jesus because you can see it in the movies?
Or is it because we have the word of God, we have faith that the word of God means what it says in Jesus is God. He is real, He exists. We have Sometimes we like to say I don't believe in God anymore because if I believe in God then I have to give up what I want to do.
Have you ever seen Satan?
Satan is very real. He's the God of this world. He has a lot of power. But have you ever seen him? How do you know he's real? How do you know he exists? By faith, we know that Satan is real. We have the word of God, and it tells us all about Satan. There are two gods that we have to deal with.
There is Satan. Satan is the God of this world. And then there's the Lord Jesus. He's the God of heaven. And both Satan and Jesus are battling for your soul. Jesus wants to save you. He wants to raise you up, to be with him in heaven. And at the same time, Satan wants to torment you and to drag you down to hell and to destroy you.
Do you ever have bad things happen to you in life?
Maybe you haven't yet. If you live long enough, you don't have to live very long and bad things will happen.
And who do you blame for the bad things? Do you blame Jesus?
Do you blame Satan?
You blame yourself.
There was a young woman, and I'm going to call her Sarah. And Sarah was about 18 or 20 years old or so, and she had done some bad things in her life. But then she confessed her sin and her life changed and she began to live a life of faith.
Well, one day Sarah was driving her car. She came up to a stop sign. She pulled out to on a busy road and as the truck came along, the truck couldn't stop and he slammed his brakes on and he swerved and the truck tipped over and the truck and the load crushed Sarah. And Sarah was dead. Whose fault was it? Was it God's fault?
We say God is sovereign and God has power. He could have stopped that from happening.
But are we puppets?
Who do not even have to think for ourselves. No, we are not puppets.
We live by faith.
Well, maybe it was Satan's fault. Was it Satan's fault that she was crushed in that accident? Could be. Satan does not want you to live by faith.
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He does not want your life to give glory to God, and so Satan will eliminate you.
If he can.
Satan is the God of this world.
But we can't blame Satan for everything.
On the other hand, was it Sarah's fault?
God gives us freedom to make our own decisions, to make our own choices.
We cannot forget about man's responsibility.
Yes, there is God's sovereignty and there is also man's responsibility. And when we look back through Scripture, we find right at the beginning in Genesis that Adam died and Noah died.
Abraham died. Jacob died. All these were men of faith. Whose fault was it that they died?
Let's go to Ephesians chapter 2.
I have a sister.
She had a little daughter. The daughter wasn't wasn't even 2 years old and the little girl, she got sick. They didn't know what was wrong. Eventually they found out she had, I think it was leukemia and it wasn't long before the little girl died. Whose fault was that? Was it the girl's fault?
No. Was it God's fault?
Was it Satan's fault?
Or was it because of sin?
Because of sin, people die.
Not necessarily seller, not necessarily their own sin, but we are all born with a sin nature and after Adam sinned we all inherited the source and the effects of sin.
Is this it is this disease of sin that makes people sick and it makes them die. And whether you can think of a sin that you have done, or maybe you can't think of a sin you have done, it doesn't matter. You are a Sinner and you need to have the remedy for your sickness of sin. You need to have the blood of Jesus Christ to take away your sin.
To take away the sentence of sin of death.
And judgment. And Jesus will give you a new life, but you will have the effects of being born as a Sinner in your body until you die or until Jesus comes to take us to heaven.
This blessing of life.
Eternal life in heaven with Christ.
It's good for you only if you know Jesus Christ as your savior. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 9, verse 8. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God.
Were saved through faith.
It is the gift of God. Let's go to Genesis 29 and we'll look at another beautiful person. First we looked at David. He had a beautiful countenance and we'll get back to David. But now let's look at beautiful Rachel and in Genesis 29, verse 17.
Says Leah was tender eyed, but Rachel was beautiful and well favored. Well, she was well favored. That means she had a nice figure. Rachel. She was outgoing.
She was beautiful. She was everything that Jacob wanted in a woman.
However, he was only looking on the outward appearance, but on the inside. Rachel.
Did not have faith.
Rachel.
She followed Jacob. Jacob was a man of faith in God, but Rachel she was an idolater she left she when she left her home and to travel. She hid her idols in the luggage.
She was the kind of she was the kind of person who would go to a Bible conference and she'd hide A deck of car playing cards in her purse.
Or she'd have some rock music on her iPod that was dishonouring to the Lord. Or maybe she she maybe she would hide A joint in her purse along with a Roach clip.
Yes, I know what Roach clip is.
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That was one of my nicknames in school, along with many others.
Names can be fun sometimes, but.
Leah. She was more introverted and plain, but she really desired her husband. She wanted to love him, wanted him to love her, and she wanted to spend time with him, and he wanted him to spend time with her. God had a special blessing for Leah.
She wasn't as beautiful as Rachel, but God had a special blessing for her. She was the mother of Judah, who is the patriarch of the Kingly tribe. Jesus was a descendant of Leah and that is why God allowed Laban to cheat Jacob, to give him Leah for his wife.
There's so much intrigue in the ways of God, and it's just so amazing to read the word of God and see how everything fits together.
So nicely.
Let's go to Proverbs 31.
Guys.
When you look for a wife.
Look at her faith.
Does she fear the Lord? Will she be a proper helper for you? Does she have the same ideals and the desires as you do to live a Christian life? Does she have the same devotion to Christ as you do?
Have you discussed your spiritual beliefs?
Do your beliefs match the word of God? Have you discussed your financial backgrounds?
And your financial expectations. If you're going to blend each other together, you need to have similar ideas.
Do you both conduct your finances with godly integrity?
What about the headship of man and the subjection of women? Have you discussed these things? How can two walk together except they be agreed?
Jacob found out that there's more to married life than Rachel's beauties and her favorable body. Proverbs 31, verse 30.
I don't know if this was talking about Rachel, but she our verse earlier said she had beauty in the favorable body. Here says favor is deceitful and beauty is vain. But a woman that fears the Lord she shall be praised.
Let's go to Second Samuel, chapter 14.
And we'll look at another beautiful person.
And this beautiful person is Absalom.
And in Second Samuel chapter 14 and verse 25.
It says, But in all Israel there is none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty. From the sole of his foot, even to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him. Absalom was a wonderful looking man, but what kind of a person was Absalom? He was deceitful. He was full of pride. He was rebellion. There was murder. I mean, he led an insurrection and tried to kill his own father, David.
The King of Israel.
Girls.
Don't decide on your man by his looks, for his strength, for his abilities, or his humor, or his devotedness to you at this moment.
You also need to consider his faith, his honesty, his character, his devotedness to Christ. You need to consider his subjection to Christ as His head if you are going to be subject to him. Wouldn't it be nice for him to be subject to Jesus Christ?
In First Corinthians 11 verse three it says But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. We each need to be subject to our head in our in the sphere in which God has placed us.
Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 32.
Deuteronomy, chapter 32.
We've spoken about Rachel.
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We've spoken about Absalom.
And we're going to talk about Nabal now. These were three people who were surrounded by faith most of their life.
But they were, as it says here at the end of verse 20, Deuteronomy 3220. They were children in whom there is no faith.
As I look around this room tonight.
I see many, many beautiful people.
And I'm just so thankful and privileged to have all You Beautiful people come to my camp.
It's a real honor to Elaine and me to have you here.
Most of you here tonight are all people who have been surrounded by faith most of your life.
And when I get to heaven, I'm going to look around for all You Beautiful people.
And will you be there?
I'm afraid that I'm not going to find some of you there.
But why?
Why? Is it because that our bodies are going to be changed and I'm not going to recognize you?
Why will I not find you in heaven?
What is the problem? You are a beautiful person, but you're not going to be in heaven.
Have I offended you to think that Christianity is not real? Do you think that some of the Christians you know are just big hypocrites?
And so you can just forget about God.
Don't think that way. You can't blame anyone else for your rejection.
Of Jesus Christ. Everyone of us, that includes you. You will give an account of God.
You will give an account of yourself to God. You have to get past Jesus Christ to get into heaven. There is no other way. But if you have rejected Jesus Christ, he won't let you in. He will only let you into heaven if you ever believed on him for your salvation.
But if you do not commit yourself to the lordship of Christ, you will be damned.
In the lake of fire forever.
Endeavor and ever.
Endeavor.
There will be no end.
God doesn't want that for you. He wants He offers you everlasting life.
Not everlasting damnation. He offers you life. Don't reject it. There's another beautiful person.
Her name was Bathsheba.
The beauty of Bathsheba got her into moral trouble.
So be careful guys and girls, that you do not misuse your body.
Your beauty to get yourself into trouble.
Remember that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and everywhere you go the Holy Spirit goes with you. Even when you go out into the lake after curfew, the Spirit of God is with you.
So watch your eyes, your ears, your lips, your hands, your feet. Watch what you do. Watch what you say. Be careful where you go, because you are taking God into every situation with you.
There's another beautiful person.
Her name was Esther.
God used the beauty of Esther to be instrumental in saving the nation of Israel from annihilation in the days of King Hazueras.
King of Hazir, he reigned from India even unto Ethiopia. He had a large area under which he controlled.
So as you see, beauty can be beneficial or it can be detrimental.
And so I encourage you to use the qualities that God has given you wisely for his honor, for his glory, and to glorify God in your body. Let's go to First Samuel 25.
And we'll look at another woman.
She's the main woman we want to talk about tonight. Her name is Abigail and Abigail had a beautiful countenance. And there's two people in the King James Version Bible that it says they had a beautiful countenance. We already spoke of David. He had a he had a beautiful countenance. Now we'll see this verse that Abigail had a beautiful countenance. First Samuel 25, verse 3.
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Now the name of the man was Naval in the name of his wife Abigail, and she was a woman of good understanding.
And of a beautiful countenance. But the man was churlish and evil in his doings, and he was of the House of Caleb.
Nabel's name means dolt. I don't know if you've ever heard of that word or used it. We used to use it quite a bit when we were kids. It was kind of a an insult or an offensive term that deliberately insults somebody'd intelligence. Something like you might say, you big dummy or you imbecile or you moron. Things that your mother would probably wash your mouth out with soap if you said them, if you called somebody that. But that's what Nabel's name was.
And it says that Naval was a churlish man, and a churlish man means he was cruel and hard hearted. And later on in the story we find that Naval was also called a son of Belial, which means he was means he was ungodly and he was a wicked man.
Nabel was likely a man who would spend hours in front of an online video game.
And he'd be fighting and killing people without a conscience.
That's how Naval was. He was dumb. He spent more time partying and drinking than he did building a relationship with his beautiful wife.
Many marriages are in trouble today.
Because some husbands.
Are becoming addicted to these video games.
You probably don't want to name your your child navel.
But Abigail is a nice name. Abigail means source of joy.
And Abigail was beautiful to look at, and she had a beautiful spirit within her, but it seems like she married the wrong person.
Maybe you feel like that sometimes you feel like you married the wrong person. But you know what? If you marry the wrong person, you're still married to them and you're still required to love them and to respect them.
And you need to stay with them, except in the case of fornication where they have committed adultery.
First Samuel 25 and verse 2.
There was a man in Mayon whose possessions were in karma, and the man was very great.
And he had 3000 sheep and 1000 goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
Nabel was a very rich man and he lived in prosperity. He had 3000 sheep, he had 1000 goats. His sheep were in the wilderness with the herdsmen, and when they were out there, David and his men were also out in the in the in that area in the wilderness, and David and his men, They helped these herdsmen care for the sheep and they protected them. David and his men, they helped protect neighbors, men and the animals.
David was very kind to these people.
And later on.
David was over in Carmel, where naval was shearing his sheep and David and his men, they were in trouble, They were very hungry and they had nothing to eat.
But David had faith that God would feed him in the wilderness. And Abel had the food that God was going to use to provide for David. And so David sent his men. He said, you go speak to Nabel. Go talk to him and ask him for food and ask him in my name. Tell him that David sent you and asked him for food. And so the men went and they went and talked to neighbor. And they asked very nicely. They talked to them. But Nabel refused. Naval pretended not to know David.
Nabel said bad things about David. He said bad things about his men. And in Proverbs 15 verse one, it says grievous words stir up anger. While the grievous words of Nabel made David angry, made him very angry. And he he got 400 of his men together and they prepared themselves to go down and kill every last man in Nabal's household. Let's look in First Samuel 25, Let's go down to verse 13.
David said unto his men, Gergie on every man his sword, and they girded on every man his sword. And David also girded on his sword. And there went up after David about 400 men and 200 men abode by the stuff.
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So while God's promise was to raise David up to the throne of Israel, Satan was attempting to destroy David because Satan knew that David was God's man.
Satan knew that great blessing was going to come to this world through David, and so Satan tried to destroy him.
David.
He was distressed, discouraged, when everyone was turned against him.
It must have seemed to David.
As if God forgot about him, that God didn't care about him. God had anointed David to be the king of Israel, and here he was running for his life from the government of Saul and then naval people like Nabel. They reject him and Davids Out there discouraged in the wilderness, it seems like no one cared for his soul.
Don't we feel like this sometimes when life gets tough? That's how Satan works. First he gets us down and he gets us discouraged. Then he starts to throw fiery darts at us. Let's go to Ephesians 6. And I want to look at one of the fiery darts that Satan throws at us.
He throws fiery darts at us. We need to have our shield of faith. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 16.
Says above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
One of the fiery darts that Satan throws at us is the idea that God doesn't love me.
God is not good.
There are some things in life.
That traumatized people and they and it causes them to doubt God's goodness.
Just recently in the news, there's a man named Robin Williams.
What is it that traumatized Robin Williams?
He was one of America's funniest comedians. He could make people laugh.
But he had an emptiness inside of his soul.
His humor did not satisfy him.
He went through drug rehab twice.
Because the drugs didn't satisfy the emptiness in his soul, it just made the whole bigger.
He tried alcohol that didn't achieve peace or freedom from his from his depression.
And so he turned to suicide.
I don't know, Williams spiritual State.
I don't know if he accepted the Lord at some point in his life, but I believe he lived as an atheist.
But what a shocker it is for an unbeliever to wake up in death and to find out that death does not end the emptiness. It does not end the pain and the emptiness of the soul.
It's only Christ that can satisfy. It's only Christ that can give peace. It's only Christ that can fill the emptiness in your soul. And maybe you are traumatized today and you think that God is not good.
And you think that God does not love you?
What is it that has gotten you depressed? What is it that's gotten you confused?
Have your parents divorced?
Or maybe they have died.
Maybe you lost your boyfriend, or you broke up with your girlfriend and you say bad things happen to me? I've had an accident. I've got physical problems. My baby died. Does God really care about me? He doesn't care about me. If there's a God, how could such a disaster happen? I know God doesn't love me. He doesn't care about me, I say to you.
You need to go and get your shield of faith and turn to Romans chapter 8. Let's go to Romans chapter 8.
And we'll read verse 38 and 39.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers.
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Nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus wants to be sure that no amount wants you to be sure. He wants you to be sure that no amount of traumatization can separate you from the love of God. And God proved his love to us and He proved us and he tells us in in first John 4 verse nine. He says in this was manifested the love of God toward us because God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. God proved His love. He manifested His love toward us.
When He sent his Son, the Lord Jesus, into this world to be punished because of my sin to be my substitute. And Jesus bore my sins in his own body on the tree, and He died for me and He shed His blood for me, You and I, we deserve to be punished in hell. But it is the goodness of God that brought you to salvation, and it is the goodness of God that will keep you as the believer today.
In your distress and in your depression, and in your desolation, your loneliness.
Satan is trying to drag you down. He's trying to drag you down to despair. While Jesus is trying to hold you up, He's holding on to you and who is going to win the battle?
Thankfully, we are kept by the power of God, and Jesus can never lose.
You don't have to go outside and commit suicide.
You don't have to turn to drugs or alcohol or homosexuality. You need to accept God's goodness to keep you during the tough times in your life.
Jesus offers you freedom from your depression. He offers you forgiveness of sins. Please, please accept His forgiveness.
Proverbs 15/1.
Says.
A soft answer.
Turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.
Satan's fiery darts of grievous words that Nabel said to David stirred up anger in Davis''s heart.
Let's go back and look at the story in Samuel 2125, First Samuel 25.
And we'll start at verse 14.
Naval had gotten David angry.
Got his men together to go down and slaughter navels people.
Verse 14 But one of his young men, one of Nabel's young men, told Abigail, Nabel's wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master, and he railed on them. But the men were very good to us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything as long as we were conversant with them when we were in the fields. They were a wall unto us both by night and day.
All the while we were with them keeping the sheep. Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do. Remember. And the first verse we read about Abigail said she was a woman of good understanding, and so his neighbors men. They knew that Abigail was a woman of good understanding, and so they say to her. Now, therefore, no one consider what that will do. For evil is determined against our master and against all his household, For he is such a son of Belial that a man cannot speak to him.
The beautiful Abigail was about to have her whole household destroyed by David.
She knew her husband was an unreasonable and an overbearing man. She knew he was a son of Belio, but she was faithful to Nabal.
And so Abigail sent out. She set out to be a peacemaker between David and Nabel. And Nabel, if I can call it a peace offering, she brought a peace offering, a gift of food to give for David's hungry men.
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And then she came to David, and she took the sin of David, of his ignorance. She took it as her own, and she took the guilt of his offensive behavior as if it were her own doings. And she apologized to David for not being there when his men came to ask for food. And she gave a soft answer that turned away the wrath of David.
And that is what our verse and Proverbs said. A soft answer turns away wrath.
You know, Abigail's stepson Solomon wrote that a soft answer turns away, right. I wonder if she had any influence.
On on Solomon.
Let's go back to verse 18, First Samuel 25, verse 18.
Then Abigail made haste and took 200 loaves, 2 bottles of wine and five sheep ready, dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and in 100 clusters of raisins, and 200 cakes, and of figs, and laid them on *****.
There's a lot of food.
A big piece offering there's a lot of men to feed their 600 men plus David.
Get a lot of mighty men in there. I'm sure they had mighty appetites and they could eat a lot. Well, Abigail brought them a lot of food. And when Abigail saw David, she bowed down before him. And she says in verse 28, she says, I pray thee forgive the trespass of thy handmaid, for the Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house, because my Lord fighteth the battles of the Lord and evil has not been found in thee.
All thy days.
Abigail gave David the honor that is due to the man who is going to be the King of Israel, and it was the honor that her husband had refused to give David.
It wasn't long before Nabal had a heart attack. 10 days later, Naval died.
And so David, he moved in, and he took Abigail to be his wife.
I want to encourage all of you.
To have a beautiful spirit and to live by faith.
And to speak to one another with soft words. Sometimes you're going to have people arguing with you and trying to stir up strife.
But speak to one another with soft words.
Man looks on the outward appearance and sees beautiful countenance.
But it is the beautiful spirit of faith.
That's going to help you get through life.
We've been Speaking of faith.
And at the end of Paul's life, he said. I have fought a good fight. I've finished my course. I have kept the faith.
Do you live by faith in God?
I was just thinking if you were to die.
And you were to have an epitaph written on your tombstone.
What could be written there of you? Could it be said of you? Like Paul, he kept the faith?
That would be a nice saying on your tombstone.
Or maybe, like David, he was a man after God's own heart.
Or like Esther.
She obtained favor in the sight of all.
Or was it like Abigail?
Says she was a woman of good understanding.
These are nice things about these beautiful people in the word of God.
Don't give up.
Don't let Satan's fiery darts destroy your faith.
Continue to keep the faith.
Let's sing #246.
Read verse 5. Thither by faith we upward soar.
And time and sense seem all no more.
Freely God our souls can greet.
For glory crowns the mercy seat.
Scene #246 Somebody start that please.
Let's pray our God and Father we just give thanks for the mercy seat that we have that when the host of of hell and Satan come and surround us and try to destroy us and discourage us and depress us and and cause us to turn out turn aside from following the Lord. We just give thanks that we have the mercy seat there that we can go to.
And by faith we can.
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Enter into communion and fellowship with the Lord Jesus and to have that emptiness in our soul filled.
We know that even as a believer we can get depressed and and have an emptiness in our soul when we don't fill it with with Christ and we just ask for help as we walk and live this life of faith we just commit ourselves into thy care. O God, in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Session #3
The Path of Purity
Address—Bernie Roossinck
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.
I guess there's still a few people coming, but.
It's been a big day and we'll just go ahead and sing and maybe when you were done singing, they'll all be in here.
Let's begin with singing hymn number 334.
334.
Through the love of God, our Savior.
All will be well.
#334 through.
Let's ask for the Lord's help tonight.
For loving God and Father.
It is with.
A great deal of dependence.
That we come before the.
This evening.
Father, we thank thee for.
Supplying everything that we need.
Here in this life.
We thank Thee for sending thy Son, the Lord Jesus.
Into the world to be the Savior of sinners.
We thank thee for settling forever the question of our sins.
Father.
In a special way tonight we think of the Van Holstein family.
And the sudden loss of Mike.
And Lord, it seemed so tragic and so.
00:05:03
Perhaps even unfair. But Father, we rest that thou dost know best.
And all must be well.
Lord, we look to the independence tonight.
We pray that the message would be useful and helpful.
And that Christ would be honored. Help us, Lord, to walk the last few steps of the journey, leaning upon our beloved.
We just cry out today for help and guidance and wisdom tonight in Jesus name, Amen.
I had a subject before me.
And before we get into that subject, I would just like to read a passage or two that came before me.
This afternoon.
I have known Mike.
For his whole life.
And in fact, Becky and I were just talking yesterday with Becky about Mike. How's Mike doing? What's Mike? How's it going?
And Mike had a very soft heart. Mike was a tough guy. Mike fought in Afghanistan and saw and did things that young men shouldn't have to see or do.
But Mike had a soft heart and I know I'm very confident that Mike is with the Lord Jesus right now.
Many years ago? Sounds like a long time ago. A number of years ago we were having some gospel meetings in Fremont on Saturday nights and Mike came to know the Lord Jesus.
I don't know how old he was, eight or nine maybe.
Tonight, Mike is with the Lord.
And a question came before my heart that's asked in the second Kings. So let's turn the Second Kings.
Chapter 4.
Here's a case where.
The prophet of God had.
Given.
He had been blessed in the House of the Shunammite woman, and they had made him a little cottage there, a little room on the side of their house. And and he said to his servant, What should we do for her?
So they called her in and she's very modest and very.
You know, he said. Well, would you like me to mention you in the King's court? Oh, no, no, I'll just dwell here among my people. Anyway, she had no son, and the Lord gave.
Her son. But then the little boy died.
And let's read verse 34.
Yes, afterwards I was thinking of it's further up. She's the the the woman is coming and the man of God sees her afar off his Hey, look, that's the that's the sooner might woman and she comes up and he says says is it well with thee?
Is it well with thy husband?
Is it well with the child?
This is verse 26 and she answered.
It is. Well, was it well.
The boy was laying out of bed in her house, dead. But she could say it is. Well, it is well. So I just wanted to say that about Mike.
It is well with the child and are certainly it's our hearts are sad and we're broken hearted by the loss.
To Dave and Becky.
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But what a joy to be able to say it is well with the child.
It is well with the child.
Well, I'd like to turn please to Daniel chapter one.
It's been my exercise to speak to the young people.
From Daniel chapter one in regard to the path of purity.
We're living in a world today, young people, where Satan wants to ruin.
And destroy. And to pervert and to twist.
Everything that God has for your blessing and he wants to take it and and counterfeit it and say, oh, this is God's plan is no good you, you really ought to be on my plan. And there's an attack. And Daniel is a great example and some of his friends and was just going to spend a little bit of time thinking about some of these things that happened to Daniel. And I hope that we can be encouraged by it and I hope that we can.
Find strength to go on in our pathway. You know we're almost home.
It's that long, young people, and we'll be home. They look forward to that.
Might be tomorrow.
It was for Mike when he got up and had breakfast today. This is his last day.
They ask you, boys and girls.
Is it well with you? Do you know the Lord Jesus? See the Lord of your life.
If he's not, today is the day of salvation.
Let's read here in Daniel.
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar.
King of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it.
And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand with part of the vessels of the House of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar, to the House of his God.
And he brought the vessels into the treasure House of his God.
And the king spake unto espionage the master of his eunuchs. They should bring certain of the children of Israel and of the King's seed, and of the Princess, children in whom was no blemish, but well favored, and skillful in all wisdom, and cunning, and knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the King's palace.
And whom they might teach the learning.
And tongue of the Chaldeans.
And the king appointed them a daily provision of the King's meat and of the wine which he drank, so nourishing them three years.
But at the end thereof they might stand before the king.
Now among these were the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Michelle and Azariah.
Unto whom the Prince of the eunuchs gave names, For he gave unto Daniel the name Belt, the Schezer to Hananiah, of Shedrick to Michelle.
Mishek and Azariah Abednego.
Well, let's stop right there for a minute.
Here.
Mark touched on this the other night, going to touch on it. Mark spoke the whole meeting on this.
This event, the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. This had been foretold to Hezekiah.
About 110 years or so before the Lord, Isaiah had come in by the word of the Lord, and said to Hezekiah.
These people are going to come and they're going to carry away your sons into captivity.
And it's, I guess let's turn over to 2nd Kings Chapter 20. There's a few things I want to notice there.
That Mark didn't speak on that are instructive for us.
Second Kings 20.
Verse 18 And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt bigot, shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
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You know.
I want to speak just for a minute to you moms and dads.
Hezekiah had been given a message from God that says set your house in order, you're going to die.
And Hezekiah, although he was a godly king and a dear man.
He didn't want to get that news and he turned his face to the wall, it says in a Wept store. And he begged God for more time.
And God gave it to him 15 more years, right?
Bill.
He had a son named Vanessa.
Who started to reign when he was 12.
Manasseh reigned a long time in Israel, 55 years. Some of us that probably like following politics more than we should.
I think that eight years is a long time.
55 years.
Manasseh reigned in Judah, and he was one of the most wicked kings that they had ever had. That's it. He practiced witchcraft. He sent his children through the fire. Sorcery. It says about him that more blood flowed in the city than ever before.
Sometimes you always study history. You think about Stalin and the purges and stuff. That's what Manessa's day was like.
And you know what? He was born three years after the.
15 year extension God gave him and I'm afraid Hezekiah didn't pass the test that God sent his way, that Mark talked about where he sent him. Lord sent Hezekiah prosperity, right? And he shows these men all the things he's got in his house and he got his eye, if you will, off the Lord and the result was his 12 year old son.
Didn't get the direction that he needed.
He didn't give the guidance that he needed.
Hezekiah was focused on something else. Now, I don't want to be Hezekiah too much. It was a dear godly man. But moms and dad, let's be careful about what we are allowing to go on in their homes, what we're allowing to be read, what we're allowing to be watched in Manassas case.
Was a terrible thing.
But you know what I really like the verse in Romans. It says where sin abounded.
Grace was enough to cover half of it. Is that what it says? No, Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Isn't that great to think about? And Manasseh, it says in Chronicles.
He at the end of his life he repented and God saw his heart change and God began to bless him.
He dies and his son Ammon reigns. 2 years. Wicked king murdered. You know what's cool though?
Is that the next? The next guy in line was Josiah. He starts raining when he's 8. Anybody here? That's 8:00 tonight.
Think about it. Imagine being the king of a country when you're 8.
His dad had reigned for two years. You know what that tells me? He did the math. But NASA had six years grandpas and grandmas 6 years to influence his grandson.
It doesn't say Manasseh did that. I'm speculating, but I trust you'll pardon me connecting those dots that Josiah.
Manasseh was wicked and was wicked.
Josiah was influenced by his grandpa for six years of his life. Some of you in here are 6.
Did you know that God has a plan for your life when you're 6? When you're 4?
Think about that, kids, God has something for you to do and he loves you and he wants to take your life and make it useful and make it fruitful. And here Josiah was a great king, a very godly man. And I I just wonder if, if Manessa in the last six years.
Took his grandson on his knee and he said, son, I really blew it. This is bad. But here's what you need to do. And God honored that. So be encouraged. Grandpas and grandmas and moms and dads. The final chapter isn't written yet.
00:20:16
And there's influence and help that you can have for your grandchildren.
Well now it says in Daniel that this Nebuchadnezzar, he said. Now I want you to take the good ones and bring them back the well favored ones.
You know young people, most of you have been raised in a Christian home. A citizen's son, 16.
The lines are falling unto me in pleasant places. Yeah, I have a goodly heritage.
Yes, thinking back over your life, I do sometimes and think about the times of encouragement and the times of of.
Seeing God work and I grew up in a home where the gospel was preached a lot and we, I, I stepped through gospel meetings in the gospel tent probably thousands of times. And I look back sometimes we'll sing a, a gospel song and I can just close my eyes and see my dad.
Out there.
Good heritage.
You young people have a good heritage. The lines are falling to you in pleasant places.
What are you going to do about that? Does it mean anything to you?
Here, this, Nebuchadnezzar said. I want you to take the best ones because I think they could be useful for me. Bring them back and we're going to fix them up a little bit, tweak them. That's what the enemy wants to do to you, young men and young women. He looks at you. You're raising a Christian home.
Many of the.
Children in our assemblies and young people.
They're by and large upright, godly young people, and the enemy wants to take you.
And to use you to take you out of God's service and put you into His service. So what does he do?
He says he turned back to it.
He says I want no blemish well favored, smart understanding. So we're going to teach them our ways, we're going to teach them our language, and we're going to change their names, basically, he said. I want them to forget about who they are.
And that's what the enemy wants to do with you young people. He wants to, he wants you to forget who you belong to. He wants you to turn your back on the heritage that you have as a, as a Christian young person. Now, if you're not the Lords right now, I'm not talking to you.
You're already property of Satan, and on the current course that you're on, if you're not the Lord's, you will end in a lost eternity.
Serious thing to be raised in a Christian home and to say no.
It says in Psalms the fool has said in his heart, no God.
I'm speaking now to those of you that do know and love the Lord Jesus in your heart. The enemy wants to take you and to make you forget who you belong to. He says, hey, never mind that, why don't you try this? Try that, and here's Daniel, okay? I don't know how old he was. He's probably in his teens. Maybe we'll say he's 16. I don't really know.
And he's 16 year olds in here.
For almost 16 I know I got 116 tomorrow.
Feels like we just brought her home yesterday, right, Shannon? OK, The enemy wants to take you, Brayden. And.
Make you so you're not any use to the Lord.
Change the language, change the name, and then he's going to give him this education. You know, I'm not against education. I went to university.
And I know many of you did. If you didn't, maybe you want to or have thoughts about that. I meant against that, but I will tell you this.
The much of the goal of the enemy is to take everything you know and everything you've been taught and to turn it and twist it, change it. Be careful. Here's Daniel, a 16 year old, and he's just been yanked out of his atmosphere.
00:25:20
His comfort zone hauled hundreds of miles or more.
Away to a new place, doesn't know the language and he's imposed there. Stuck into this school.
And Daniel could have said.
All right.
It is what it is.
Guess we'll just deal with what we got and there we go.
Is that the right path?
No, it says Daniel purposed in his heart.
Let's read this here.
Verse 8. Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the King's meat, nor with the wine which he drank.
OK, what does it mean when we say he purposed in his heart?
Usually an air assembly. I'll call people out by name, but I'll try not to do that here.
Purposed in his heart. Somebody holler it out.
Not very good at definitions. Can I call on somebody ET what does it mean?
He decided.
Right to me, purposing in your heart means.
You have an intention. He made a decision. He he had something that he aspired to.
He he had an objective in mind, a goal, and he decided this is the this is the way. Now here he is.
A stranger in a strange place as an adolescent young person, and it says they made Unix out of them. I'm not going to get into the details of that, but it probably wasn't that pleasant.
You would think that Daniel would say.
Why even bother this?
Forget about it. Here we are in captivity.
Who cares? But he didn't says he purposed in his heart that he wouldn't defile himself.
And young people at takes a tremendous amount of.
Purpose to walk in this world for the Lord today. Everything you see, every message that the enemy is sending you is to tell you you're not on the right track. You can't possibly be happy unless you're eating this, or unless you bought that, or unless you're driving this or drinking that, or unless you've seen this movie or whatever.
All those messages are telling you.
You should do that.
It's defiling and Daniel had this strong.
Objective and his intent and his aspiration was not to defile himself and it's worth it young people to have purpose of heart to want to honor the Lord in your life. The Lord will honor that and we're going to find out in Daniels life he did in an awesome way.
Now you might let's ask ourselves, You think Daniel had a verse?
For his decision.
What do you think? Do you think Daniel had a scripture to back up what he decided to do? Yeah, he did. I'm sure he did. If you go over to Leviticus 7, there's and they had the writings of Moses. I don't doubt he could have known from Leviticus 7 not to eat fat, blood or things offered idols.
Let's turn back to Leviticus for a minute.
There's a few things that are helpful here in Leviticus.
He could have probably knew a lot about Leviticus 11, where we have the clean and the unclean. Let's just read a little bit about this verse one. And the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, these are the beasts which he shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth, whatsoever part of the hoof in his cloven footed, and so on. I'm not going to read the whole chapter, but Daniel did have a verse.
He could turn to the Scripture and say this is the way that God has wants me to to live my life and he could do it with confidence. But you know why He knew that? Because he knew what the scriptures were. He could remember and that the Spirit can bring that to your mind today in a time of decision, what would the Lord have me do?
00:30:23
In this circumstance and the Lord will bring a verse to your thoughts.
Art and I've had that in my life a number of times where I've been at a fork in the road and you're not really sure what to do and the Lord will give you a passage. This is the way walkie in it, right? So I want to encourage you young people.
Here, Daniel knew what pure food was.
And then he might have known about number six, where we have the.
A person that was separated themselves to God, right? Samson was a Nazarite and one of the.
Parameters of that separation to God was they were not going to drink strong drink. So here's Daniels looking at this banquet table perhaps and he's going, man, that looks good.
But it's unclean food. It's not pure food.
And I I can't drink the wine.
What to do right and he has this purpose of heart and.
He could have went along with the rest of them. I'm sure there was a number of other people that reading of that food and maybe they.
And in fact, I think all four are, all of them were eating of that food except for these four.
It brings the mind of verse in first Peter chapter 3 that says sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer right? And here Daniel could give an answer, so he goes to the.
Prince of the Eunuchs, by the way, just as an aside, am I going to get into this, but Leviticus 11 gives us pure food.
Leviticus 13 Pure bodies. How important.
Chapter 14. Pure Homes.
Moms and dads.
That's the goal. Pure home, right?
Chapter 15. Pure Habits. Oh, that's so difficult.
Some of us were speaking last night about pure habits. It honors the Lord, it pleases the Lord, and the Lord will honor you in purposing in your heart to have pure habits. Chapter 16 pure worship. It's a day of atonement, and I'm looking forward to the day when we.
The offerings and the sacrifices are are.
Over I mean, they're over for us as Christians now, but to see our.
Savior and those hands and his feet.
And to know that our sins are gone, we know it now. But to see him face to face, and that'd be I'm just so looking forward to that.
Pure worship. Chapter 18. Pure morals.
And chapter 19 pure customs so God's word gives us.
Guidance, young people, and don't blow it off. Open it up, read it, have it before you get your guidance from it. This is our food. This is our road map. This is what we need so open your Bibles, young people and.
Let the Word of God speak to your soul, sink into your heart, and the Lord delights that bless and unfold. You know it's it, doesn't it? I'm not asking you to be Jay and Darby.
It says line upon line, precept upon precept. Hear a little there a little. Oh, what a great thing. Cultivate the habit of having the scriptures open every day. Have them. I I, I remember hearing an address by a brother who said.
Read the scriptures until your thoughts are formed by the scriptures.
Good guidance.
So here we have Daniel and E got this dilemma.
There's all this food and he can't eat it.
00:35:00
So what does he do?
Choice A Go to the Prince of the eunuchs. Say I'm at plan, man. You can't make me do that. I'm out.
Is that the way Christians speak? Is that the attitude and the spirit that we should have?
No here Daniel here it says he requested.
It's fine. Let me get it right here.
Therefore, he requested of the Prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Turn over to First Peter, chapter 3.
Going to take this verse a little bit out of context so.
If you're thinking about nailing the after meeting, I know it's out of context, but it is the word of God.
First Peter, chapter 3.
And verse 4.
This is speaking to wives, but here it says a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
You know, even in our assemblies, brethren.
Wouldn't it be good to have a meek and quiet spirit?
Instead of hey man, you offended me, he said. Just back off.
I'm right here, wrong. No, that's not the way Daniel did this. And God will bless that meek and quiet spirit. You know I I'm guilty of this a lot and my wife will smile at this.
Because she said to me, it's not what you say, it's how you say it.
Guilty.
Is that true, Lindsay, at your house? It's not what you say, it's how you say it. And here, Daniel, he has this exercise. So he goes and he requests of the of the Prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now God brought him into favor with the unit. What the Prince of the eunuchs? And you know the Lord will work for you too. When you have a desire and an exercise to please the Lord, the Lord will work for you.
And the Lord will open up the pathway and the door for you. You may sit there and go, you know, in my situation, no, it's no good. Forget it man. No, the Lord will open the way for you. So here Daniel is requesting.
The other verse that came to my mind is the servant of God must not strive.
So let's just be careful about our attitude and our spirit. Yes, we want to strive.
To.
Live a godly life, but in our interactions with our neighbors and our friends, our bosses.
It's not a debate. It's not a hey, I beat you, so I'm the winner and you're the loser. It's not a it's using the word of God to as the sword to cut and to.
Get into people's souls. The word of God can get into someone's heart and, you know, striving it. I want to be a little bit careful about saying we shouldn't strive, but.
So let me give you an example. Last week a guy in our shop said to me, you know, this guy asked me to go to his church, and I would never go to his church ever. Really. Why not? He called me a thief and a liar.
Now the guy that asked the asked him to go along with him is a good Christian man, but he ruined he cut off that guy's ears by accident.
He didn't mean to do it. They were looking for a lost set of ratchets is what happened. And anyway, the guy was supposed to bring it back and he didn't and found it in his pickup later. It wasn't intentional, but you're a thief and a liar. Guys. Years are cut off to the gospel. So that's that's kind of what I'm getting at is just be careful in dealing with with people.
OK.
Verse nine Now God had brought Daniel into favor, and tender love with the Prince of the eunuchs. And the Prince of the eunuch said to Daniel, I fear, my Lord, the king, who hath appointed your meat and your drink, why should he see your faces worse whitening than the children which are of your sort? And you see that he shall make me endanger my head to the king.
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Then said Daniel de Melzar, whom the Prince of the eunuchs have set over Daniel.
Hananiah, Michel and Azariah proved thy servants, I beseech thee 10 days, and let them give us pulse to eat and water to drink.
Well, this seems to be Daniel's exercise.
But his three friends are there with him.
How important to have friends that can help you in your walk?
To be accountable to help you be accountable to just.
Sometimes it's just to hang on to you and cry with them. It doesn't seem like a manly thing to say, but I've done that.
We had some dear friends of ours that had a late miscarriage. A sad thing to be able to go to them and just no words just.
Be there.
Friends, think about. Some of us talked about this last night. Think about.
Jonathan and David, right? It says the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David. Think about how close that was, that love, that bond. And here's David in the woods, right? And it says Jonathan went to David in the wood.
And strengthened his hand in God.
You know, young people, some of you are in middle school, some of you are in high school, college, out of college, have friends that will strengthen your hand in God. So important. And I would, I would just say this again. I, I, I know I mentioned this to the young men last night, but you ladies weren't there. You may say, I wish I had a friend like that.
Well, so does the person next to you.
OK.
Be that friend for somebody, and here these four friends, they have this exercise together. It says in Proverbs, He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion, a fool, shall be destroyed. Be careful, kids, who your friends are.
It also says iron sharpeneth iron.
So the face of man, I better turn to that.
So I get it right. Proverbs 27.
Proverbs 27.
Verse 17 Iron sharpeneth irons. So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
OK, have friends that will help you in your walk. Now just one other thought about friends.
And this comes out of the book of Ruth, which is one of my favorite books. Here's Boaz talking to Ruth. Boaz means the name means in him is strength pictures the Lord Jesus to us, right? And here he's speaking to Ruth, who was never to come into the congregation of Israel, even to the 10th generation as a Moabites woman, she wasn't allowed.
What does Boaz say to her?
Going out to glean in another field.
Abide ye here fast by my maidens.
Have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? A safety in that right.
The Lord says to you, don't go find your friends all over the place. Abide here in my field.
There's safety in that. Abide here by my maidens.
Now, young men, you can't hang around with the women for the rest of the week, OK?
It's not the point, so let me change it a little bit.
Abide here with my young men too.
But think about the safety that Boaz gives her. Have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee So, friends, how important they are. So let's go back to Daniel because.
Time is going quickly.
So he wants, Daniel says. Well, just prove us try it out.
Verse 12 Proved thy servants, I beseech thee, 10 days. Let them give us pulse to eat and water to drink. Then let our countenances be looked upon before they, and the countenance of the children that eat the portion of the King's meat. And as thou seeth deal with thy servants, so we consent it.
00:45:11
Well.
When I was a kid, my mom made Cream of Wheat.
Hey, do you guys have your mom's make you eat cream of wheat? Maybe you'll like it, but I didn't.
And sometimes we broke the Cream of Wheat cycle with oatmeal.
Which was almost in the same class and we got to put brown sugar on that.
Pulse really is green is what it is. Can you imagine Brayden eating Cream of Wheat every meal for three years straight?
It sounds like my kind of food.
That's what Daniel Esper.
What are we feeding on spiritually? Young people?
This is our food. This is our food, it says in Psalm chapter 12.
Every word of God is pure as silver tried in the furnace seven times, pure food. You know, the garbage that the enemy wants to feed you will ruin your life, rob your soul.
Leave you. It reminds me of the Good Samaritan, right? The guy falls among thieves. They rob him, beat him up, leave him in the ditch half dead.
That's what the enemy wants to do with your life.
What are you feeding on?
Every word of God is pure.
Then in Psalm 119 it goes even further.
It says the word of God is very pure.
They get any purer than that.
So what are we feeding on? You know, Hezekiah, I'm afraid, at the end of his life got to be feeding on prosperity. Look at the cost in his life. Think of the awful consequences. Manasseh rot.
Turn with me to Jeremiah, chapter 15.
And verse 16.
Thy words were found, and I did know how to look them up on the computer if I needed to get to them in an emergency. Is that what it says?
No, Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.
Thy words were found and I didn't eat them. How do you eat the word of God? I remember Ron Reeves once coming to our town and he had, you remember paper candy? Remember that he had a bunch of that and he just wanted it up and pop in his mouth. And I thought he ate a page out of the Bible, but I don't think he did. But anyway, I never forgot about it is a good analogy. Tight words were found and I did eat them. Take it in, make it your own.
What we feed on.
Effects our bodies. It affects our lives. It affects our thoughts.
So important. Every word of God is pure. This is where we get purity, young people.
And it's our it's our desire for your lives that you have.
Pure lives that are fruitful and useful to God.
So what about the other young people that were on the other side of the dining room?
You know, they probably looked over there at Daniel and his three friends, man.
Who do those people think they are anyway? You see what they're doing? It's like, too good for us or what?
And that's a challenge, young people, it may come down to you being willing to be an assembly with ones and twos.
But to be found faithful to the Lord. But it's worth it. I'm sure some of those other young people said to them, hey, what are you too good for us?
No, I'm just trying to please and honor the Lord in my life. The Lord honor that, absolutely. But we may find ourselves to have to be willing to be part of the ones and the twos and the threes.
00:50:09
It's not an easy path, but it's a happy path. It's a joyful path, and it's worth it.
Now, Daniel and his friends may have said, you know, I should be able to do whatever I want. Ever think that as a Christian? Well, I'm saved, so I'm going to do whatever I want, and I'm still getting into heaven.
Now, young people, it says in First Corinthians 6, what don't you know? Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. You're not your own. You're bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are gods.
We don't have the liberty to do what we want, and if we take that liberty, God will have to speak to you very loudly, sometimes loudly enough where He has to take you right out of this world. We're not. Our own. Young people were bought with a price.
My wife and I have this I've had a chalkboard in the when you come in to wear a garage and you pull up, it's written the wall. Remember who you belong to. So easy to forget, right? Remember who you belong to. You're not your own. You're bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit.
Easy to do when all of the temptations of the world they're out there going.
They're getting ripped off, man. Girls are getting ripped off. Is that right? No, God's way is the happy way. God has a beauty and a plan.
A tremendous fulfillment for those that will walk in obedience to Him.
So we're not at liberty to do whatever we want.
And think about this, boys and girls.
You reach out and yank your sisters here and give it a good tug.
The Lord Jesus had to hang on the cross for that.
Steal a cookie out of the cookie jar. The Lord had to hang on the cross for that.
Young men, it's off the ante a bit.
You're out with the guys. Dishonouring behavior, dishonouring things to look at.
I'm at liberty to do this. I can handle it, no.
Hear that hammer on nail sound?
The Lord had to die for that.
We're not at liberty to do what we want to do. We're bought with a price.
So now I'm going to wrap this up with the result.
So after 10 days, what happens?
After 10 days, their countenance appeared fatter, fairer and fatter and fleshed. And all the children that that eat the portion of the King's meat.
Thus Melzar took away the portion of their meat and the wine that they should drink and gave them pulse.
As for these four children, God made sure they got ripped off at every turn and they had a miserable life.
Is that what it says?
And your father went along with me, young people.
God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. Now at the end of the days in which the king has said he should bring them in, then the Prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. Here's the test day now.
And the king commune with them. And among all that were found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Michelle and Azariah.
Therefore stood they before the king, and in all manners of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them.
He found them 10 times better.
God bless you in a path of obedience.
You absolutely will.
Yes, he will.
God promises that He will honor that.
It says in Samuel.
First Samuel, Chapter 2. Those that honor me I will honor.
It's a promise that the Lord gave. He will make good on that promise.
Now you might say to me, hey Bernie, you have, you don't know my life. And you're right, I don't, I don't know about your life.
00:55:07
You might say I have seen things, done things, heard things, been places.
Bad.
It is bad.
I say it, there's no use. I can't do that. Yes, you can. Yes, you can just by way of an encouragement to you and we'll we'll end with this. Think about John, Mark.
Here he goes to the ministry field with Paul and Barnabas.
And it doesn't go well.
He quits, goes home.
Little time goes by, Paul and Barnabas say let's we should go visit the brethren again. Yeah, we should do that.
Barnabas says. Well, let me call John Merrick at Paul's New.
That guy is no good. He quit unprofitable. And you might say that's where I am right now. I blew it and it's too late and there's no hope for me. Is that true? It's not true. The devil will tell you that. Don't change your life now. How can you give out a song in your home assembly or read a scripture knowing what you did last month or last week or yesterday?
I don't have to tell you. Just forget about it, man. There's no.
No, you know what Paul could say at the end of his life? He says bring Mark, for he's profitable. What happened?
Did the Lord throw Mark out with the bathwater? No.
It's not too late. The final chapter is not written.
Starting right now.
You have the opportunity if you've been walking in an impure way, living an impure life. Maybe you haven't been reading like you should be. Maybe you're not in communion with the Lord. Maybe you're I don't know what it is, can be lots of things. It's not too late. It's not too late. And so Paul could say bring Mark. He's profitable to me.
What an encouragement so.
I would just tell you young people.
We love you.
We want your good and your blessing.
The Lord wants it more than we do.
Do you need help?
Come and talk to somebody. Certainly talk to the Lord. Get on your knees.
Get into the word. Cultivate friends that are not fools, but companions of wise people.
The Word of God is pure, very pure. This is where we get our guidance. This is our food.
Now it's going to read one more verse.
Colossians, Chapter One.
This is.
Pat 2 verses here. This is our desire for you. It was Paul's desire for the Saints of colossi, but it's our desire for you right now. For this 'cause we also verse 9 for this 'cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will.
In all wisdom and spirits will understanding.
That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work.
And increasing in the knowledge of God.
That sound like a good target.
That's our goal for you. I don't have the emotional.
Fortitude tonight to sing this to you, but I could you know, singing the word of God is a great way to memorize things.
And in our family, we like to sing verses. In fact, when we sang last night, I think it was Psalm 25. Boy, I love that. And there's so many Proverbs and Psalms that you could sing. But anyway, ask me later and I'll try to sing you a Colossians 1, pain and 10. But I can't do it tonight, or at least up here. I probably have to borrow one of these Kleenex boxes.
01:00:07
Anyway, young people.
Your loved and your valued year of great value to the Lord, and He has things for you to do. Don't let the devil wreck it. Don't. Don't take and set us and settle for the counterfeit. Take the real thing.
So let's close in prayer.
Our loving God and Father, we just pray for each one of these young people.
Lord, we know very well the attack that they're under and.
The desire of the enemy to take their lives and to render them useless.
Oh, Father, I just.
Bear them up before they in a special way. Keep them in all their ways. Lord, show them your thoughts. Help them to walk in purity and in newness of life. Father, we, we look forward, all of us, to the day when we're all taken home out of this world.
And while we're waiting, Lord, just we pray that we would be found strengthening one another.
In God feeding upon thy word.
And being.
Useful and fruitful for thee again. Now, Father, we pray for the Van Holstings. We think of those that are going to be hearing the gospel.
In the next few days.
Lord, we just pray that your heart of love and your hand would take them in and that through this sad time there would be a tremendous blessing.
We ask for strength and help for Dave and Becky and the rest of the family.
Rather, we just commit these things into thy hands in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
Session #4
Assembly Administration & Decisions
Address—Joe Countouris
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.
Welcome to the meeting. Maybe we could start by singing #169.
If somebody could raise that tune.
Just ask for help.
Our God and our loving Father, we thank thee so very much for thy Son. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for this unspeakable free gift. We thank thee too, for the time that we have this evening to open up Thy word. We think of the subject that's before us, and we just asked Thee for the undertaking.
We think of the greatness of the Thy word and the weakness of the vessel, seeking to present it here tonight. And we just asked before help to speak well of Thee, to speak well of Thy Son, to speak well of Thy word. We just pray that if there's anything that is not from me that it would fall to the ground. We just asked this and Thy name we pray, Lord Jesus, Amen.
So tonight, the subject I have on my heart to talk to you about is twofold, assembly administration and assembly decisions.
Assembly administration has to how it affects you and I, what place we have in it, and then how assembly decisions are formed.
And the reason this is on my heart is because if you look at back in history and you don't have to go back too far, what you'll find is about once every generation there is a division among the gathered Saints.
And if we're left here and things continue as they are, very likely some of us in this room here tonight.
00:05:08
Will be swept away. Will be taken away in a division.
And oftentimes these divisions have their root and one main thing and is simply submission.
And I would like to outline from the Word of God what God's order is. And in every sphere of your life, one thing that you will find consistent over and over again is that God has an order. God has an order, whether it's you as a husband and a wife, whether you as a parent, whether it's you as a child, whether it's you living under a government.
In a land.
God has an order in which He seeks for us to live, in which He promises to bring about blessing. Might not be always what I want, might not be always what I see, but what He is seeking for us to do is to occupy a position, and oftentimes that calls for us to be found in submission, something that is often very difficult to do.
So I'd like to start tonight by turning to First Timothy chapter 3. Because we're taking up a subject, we're going to be turning to a number of verses.
Throughout the word of God.
To try to find out what assembly administration is and how assembly decisions are formed.
So what is assembly administration? We mentioned the other day in the reading meeting that in your Christian life you have 3 distinct spheres. 1 is gift, one is priesthood, and one is administration.
Tonight we're speaking about administration. And within administration you have two arms. 1 takes care of the temporal cares of the Saints, Those would be deacons, and the other takes care of the spiritual cares of the Saints.
Those would be elders or bishops or oversight. That's what I'm going to focus on tonight. So in first Timothy chapter 3, verse one, this is a true saying. If any man desire the office of a Bishop, he desireth the good work. A Bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apartment to teach, not given to wine, no striker.
Not greedy, a filthy lucre, but patient. Not a brawler, not covetousness.
Not covetous, one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.
For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God?
Not a novice less being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must have a good report of them which are without, lest he fall into reproach in the snare of the devil.
Now let's turn over to Titus.
Titus, Chapter one.
Chapter one and verse 6.
Sorry, Titus chapter one and verse 5.
For this cause, left eye the encrete that thou should have set in order the things that are wanting and ordained elders in every city, as I had appointed they. And then he goes on to list a qualifications against similar to what we had in first Timothy.
And So what we find here is that God has.
Ones in his assembly.
Who are set up in administration in the Assembly?
And what they seek to do is they seek your good and they seek your blessing.
And we read in Timothy that there were bishops, and we read here that there were elders. And somebody might ask, well, what's the difference between an elder and what's the difference between a Bishop?
It's Speaking of the same office, it's just looking at it from a different viewpoint.
When you read the word elder, it's Speaking of perhaps the characteristic of the person in that office.
And so Elder would would naturally focus our thoughts on those who are in our assembly, who are our older brethren, those who have walked in the path.
Those who have seen and experienced things that ones who are younger, like myself, have not.
Now, it's not necessarily everybody in the assembly who's older, because there might be somebody in the assembly who's 80 years old, but they've only been saved for two years. Does that mean that they're an oversight? I would think not. They're probably still in the position.
Of being a novice.
Even though they're older.
00:10:03
But normally what you have is you have older brethren in your assembly who have walked the path and these are the ones that we are to look to for leadership to guide us in our assembly life.
When we find the word Bishop.
It's usually speaking about the work. What is the work that these ones do who have been set up in administration over the assembly?
I wanted to mention too that as we go through here, what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask a list of questions. This is how I tend to look into the Word of God by asking questions and then looking into the Word of God to find answers.
So we just asked what is the difference between bishops and elders? So the next question would be are there elders or bishops today?
Let's turn over to Acts chapter 14.
Acts chapter 14 and verse 23.
And when they had ordained them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting, that commended them to the Lord on whom they believed. And if you'll just remember what we read in Titus chapter one.
How Paul had sent Titus to ordain elders in every city.
What we find out here is that, and I don't believe that there's anywhere else in the word of God.
Where this is spoken of.
For there to be elders and bishops officially appointed you need two things. You need an apostle or you need an apostles delegate.
Paul was an apostle.
Titus was an Apostles delegate.
Do we have apostles today? We heard from Tim, I believe this morning or yesterday that we do not.
Apostles are no longer Somebody might do Apostolic work going into an area of the world where they have never heard the name of Jesus Christ.
But no one has the gift or office of an apostle today. Since there are no apostles, there are no apostle delegates.
Since there are neither of those two things in the assembly today, we no longer have elders or bishops in an official capacity.
So the next question somebody might ask is, if we don't have officially appointed elders, how can we have oversight?
Good question. Let's look at First Corinthians 16.
I believe this question came up last year.
At this at this camp.
First Corinthians, chapter 16.
Verse 15 I beseech you, brethren, you know the House of Stefanus, that it is the first fruits of a Ki, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the Saints, that ye submit yourselves unto such, and to everyone that helpeth with us and laboreth.
The Epistle to the Corinthians was an epistle that was written to an assembly that had tremendous disorder.
I believe that there were at least 10 different specific disorders that they were going on with that the Apostle Paul has to address.
And you and you and I learn characters of the House of God and the church through the disorders that Paul writes about in this epistle.
But one thing you never hear Paul address in Corinthians is elders or bishops.
And it's been suggested, and I would suggest as well, that the reason is because.
Perhaps there was nobody in Corinth who fulfilled all of those characteristics that we read about in Timothy.
Or that we could have read in Titus.
However, what we find here in the last chapter of One Corinthians is that even though the apostle Paul doesn't address officially appointed elders.
There were ones who were doing the work.
They addicted themselves to the care of the Saints.
And the Saints were asked to submit themselves unto them.
Now let's look over at First Thessalonians.
Chapter 5.
First Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 12.
And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you and the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work. Seek and be at peace among yourselves.
00:15:05
I believe that this epistle to the Thessalonians, this first epistle, was written about three weeks after the apostle Paul had visited them. I might be off on that. It might be three months, but it was. It was somewhere in that time frame very soon. And you'll remember that when we read in First Timothy that one of the qualifications for an elder or a Bishop was that they couldn't be a novice. Now, what's a novice?
A novice is someone who has been newly saved.
So when the Apostle Paul went here to the Thessalonian Saints, and I believe he was there for a couple of weeks.
Could he officially appoint elders there? Well, he couldn't, right? Because they were still novices.
But what we find is a short time after he had left and he had wrote to them.
He had already heard that there were ones who were doing the work.
They weren't officially appointed.
But the Spirit of God had raised up ones who were over them, who admonished them, and the Saints were to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves.
Oftentimes.
Difficulties, unrest, not having peace in an assembly has its root.
And failing to understand God's order because we all think that we have a say.
And we all think that that, say, should be the same. And sometimes we look at our older brethren as maybe just a roadblock.
To our assembly road map that we see fit.
Well, the apostle Paul says here that peace comes through recognizing God's order.
Now let's look over at Acts 20 and verse 28.
The question.
Before us is if we don't have officially appointed overseers, how can we have oversight Acts 20 and 28?
Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock of God, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseer.
We find a very important principle here, and that is even though the apostle is the one that appointed or ordained elders and bishops or an apostles delegate, it has always been the Spirit of God who has raised them up.
And so as the apostles would go from church to church doing Apostolic work, saving souls, and they would cycle back through those assemblies and they would appoint elders.
What they would find are ones who the Spirit of God had raised up, similar to what we find in Thessalonica.
And they would choose them.
Wasn't random.
Today, that same principle applies. Today we don't have apostles and we don't have apostle delegates.
We don't have ones who are in the official capacity of elders. We can't as an assembly set aside the word of God and say we're going to appoint elders and we're going to appoint bishops, because the Word of God never instructs an assembly to do that.
But what we can't have confidence in is that the same spirit that raised up elders and bishops when they were officially appointed is the same spirit that's doing it today.
And it's our place, as we found in First Corinthians and in Thessalonica, to look at them, to submit ourselves unto them, to esteem them highly in love for their work's sake.
Next question, what is the work that they perform? What do they do? I heard a brother made a comment, I've heard it a couple times and I thought it was an unfortunate comment, he said.
A brother came up to him, a young brother, and said how do I know those in my assembly who are doing the work of oversight?
And the brother said to him, he said, well, you get in trouble and you're going to know real quick. And it was at a conference and the conference got a little chuckle out of it. And I thought that was unfortunate.
Because you should know the ones in your assembly who take the lead among you, not because you got in trouble, but because they love you, because they fed you. Let's continue with this verse. Acts 2028. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock of God, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves.
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Among you not sparing the flock also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears. Let's look over also at Titus chapter one and verse 9.
Titus one, and verse 9. Holding fast the faithful word, as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
So those in the position of oversight, the work that they do.
Primarily is to watch.
Watch for those grievous wolves coming in amongst the flock, seeking to scatter. They're to feed.
There are two know the Word of God so that when somebody comes into the assembly preaching something that is contrary to the word of God, they have the knowledge to be able to.
Counter it. It's not that they have the gift of a teacher, per SE, though they might. We get that in First Timothy 5.
Elders that teach receive a double honor. So some elders, some bishops may also have a gift of teaching. But all overseers, everyone in the place of oversight has to be apartment to teach. They have to know the word of God. And then first Peter chapter 5.
First Peter chapter 5, verse one.
The elders which are among you, I exhort, who am also, who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed, feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. Neither is being Lords over God's heritage, but being examples.
To the flock, and when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
So here again we find feeding, feeding the flock of God. Is it true that if you do something wrong and you get in trouble, you get away from the Lord?
It might result in one of these ones coming to you and talking to you.
It might.
If you really get away from the Lord.
It might even 'cause there to be further disciplinary actions, and these ones would come and talk to you. It might. So what that brother said was was accurate in and of itself. But we should know them first for their love, for their care.
For their feeding the flock of God.
Again, it's not necessarily that the ones who speak in the reading meeting or maybe stand up and present the gospel in your local assemblies.
Are in this position, they might not have a gift that is a public gift.
Remember, we're speaking about 3 distinct spheres, Gifts, priesthood, and administration.
The feeding that they're doing if they don't have a public gift like a teacher or a exhort or a prophet.
Is going to be perhaps after the meeting, maybe getting together with you?
How is the assembly to view them would be the next question.
How's the assembly to view them?
Well, we already read in First Thessalonians chapter 5 that were to esteem them highly.
We read in First Corinthians 16 that were to submit ourselves unto them.
And I'd like to add to those two portions. Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 13.
Hebrews 13 and verse 7.
Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation or manner of life.
Here again we have this class of oversight in the assembly.
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Again we have this class feeding the flock.
And it's not that we follow a man.
Who has been in our assembly? But we follow the faith of that man. Whose faith follow?
Considering the end.
Of their conversation.
Scroll down to look down to verse 17.
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief, for that is unprofitable for you.
Obey them.
Submit yourselves, they watch for your souls.
Tim Ruga often mentions to us in in our assembly when we're taking up something to do with oversight.
That they receive a crown of life, as we read in first Peter and he often mentions they receive a crown of life when they get to glory because.
They're mainly going to get grief while down here.
And the work that an overseer does often times is a shepherding work. And often times when we're in a bad state, I speak for myself. The last thing I want to do is talk to a shepherd.
And or hear a shepherd.
And oftentimes a shepherd.
Somebody who's in the position of oversight can get the brunt of somebody's fleshly attack.
But it's a needed work. It's a work they must do. It's a work that's not a choice.
For those who are in this position, for our older brethren, for the assembly to function properly.
According to what God has set up as to his order in the assembly.
These ones who are in this position one day will have to give an account to God for how they administered in that position.
And the Word of God exhorts you and I to make it easy on them.
I know when I was a young person.
How was your age? I didn't make it easy on them.
I didn't make it easy on them at all.
There were things that happened in the assembly.
In our assembly and at 15 to 20 years old.
I knew what should be done.
My older brother and who are 60 and 70 years old didn't have a clue so I thought.
And when things didn't happen the way I wanted them to happen.
I didn't have time for this.
I don't have time for these these brethren who don't know the word of God.
Who don't know what they should be doing.
It took a long time for God to penetrate the stubbornness of my heart.
To make me recognize that it wasn't my brethren who are the problem, it was me.
And that.
It was my.
Lack of knowledge as to his order.
And what he was doing that was at issue.
You see, when there's difficulties in the assembly, oftentimes we can see that difficulty with one perspective. How does this affect me?
What we don't realize is that.
God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and our ways are not his ways, And in any given situation or circumstance in life, whether it's in the assembly or not, God is dealing with a broad range of issues.
A broad range of people.
And he's orchestrating circumstances in the assembly in the context of what we're bringing up in such a way so that he will reveal what's in your heart.
And what's in my heart?
And he knows exactly what button to push. He knows exactly what circumstance to bring up.
And oftentimes, in the hardness of our heart, we don't see it for a long time.
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I would just beg you younger young people.
Don't make it hard.
On your older brother.
Don't make it difficult on them.
Don't make them stay up late at night praying.
For your spiritual well-being thinking that this guy is gone.
Make it easy on them, help them minister to them, love them.
Understand the work that they have to do.
How they addict themselves to your care and how that one day they're going to have to give an account.
Look also at verse 24.
Salute all them that have the rule over you and all the Saints they have. Italy salute you. Just another verse that speaks to us of this class of oversight that is leading.
From among the Saints.
So the next question I would ask is I see this this class in our.
Assembling. Do they have authority?
Do they have authority? Let's look over at Revelation chapter one.
Revelation chapter one I'm going to read from verse 9.
I, John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the Isle.
That is called Patmos, for the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the 1St and the last. And what thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia, unto Ephesus, unto Smyrna, unto Pergamus, and the Thyatira, and the Sardis, and the Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
And as I turn to see the voice that spake with me and being turned, I saw 7 golden candlesticks.
And in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like under the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to his foot, and gird about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hair, hair were like what were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were as a flame of fire, his feet like under fine brass, as if it burned in the furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters.
And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp 2 edged sword. And this countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead, and he laid his right hand upon me, saying, saying unto me, Fear not, I am the 1St and the last.
I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of hell and death. Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter. The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in thy right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks, the seven stars of the angels of the seven Churches.
And the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.
We're not really taking up this subject from the standpoint of those who are overseers, but in this room, no doubt there are ones who occupy that position.
And.
These verses that we have read present to us a tremendous.
Picture of the character that should occupy somebody in that position.
When dealing with difficulties in an assembly.
As we see.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
In his character as a judge.
But what I wanted to point out here was this 20th verse, the mystery of the seven stars in his right hand. His right hand speaks to us of authority, and the stars are the angels of the Church. The angels of the church don't speak to us of some mystical being that hangs over our church.
Hangs over our assembly to make sure everything is OK.
The word Angel speaks to us of a ministering servant.
And in the context of what we're taking up here, and in the next chapter and in the next unto the Angel on to the Angel, it's speaking to us of those who are in the position of oversight.
And Angel is singular, but as we read in Titus, he was to ordain elders plural in every city.
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And an assembly one person is not a.
And oversight.
It's a group. Might be a small group, but it's a group. It's more than one.
But here are these ones who are in the position of oversight, and they're seen in his right hand.
A position of authority. Now let's turn back to Deuteronomy. Old Testament. See an Old Testament picture.
Deuteronomy chapter 8.
Dude, sorry. Deuteronomy 17, verse 8. Deuteronomy 17, verse eight. If there arise in a matter too hard for the in judgment between blood and blood, between plea and plea between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates, then shalt thou arise and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, and thou shalt count. Shall come. Shalt come unto the priest, the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire, and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment, and thou shalt.
According to the sentence which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall show thee, and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they have informed thee, according to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do. Thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee to the right hand, nor to the left.
And the man that will do presumptuously.
And will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die.
And thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.
Presumptuously.
I think that word perhaps means rudely or arrogantly.
Imagine if perhaps some brothers who were in an assembly in the position of oversight.
Came to a brother and said we need to talk to you and that brother said you're not talking to me.
In the Old Testament, that individual would be cut off. They'd be killed.
Now that's the law.
But God's moral ways never change.
And if we think that during the Day of Grace we can act more presumptuously than Old Testament Saints did, then I believe were gravely mistaken.
Now, in light of everything that I've mentioned about overseers, oversight and an assembly.
Going to ask a question. Can oversight fail or is it infallible, meaning it can't make a mistake?
The Catholic Church, I believe, looks at the Pope as being infallible. He cannot sin.
God in his wisdom, not my wisdom, certainly.
Has decided to place administration into the hands of men.
What do we know about men?
We have the flesh, everyone of us.
Oversight is never viewed in Scripture as being infallible.
I'd like you to think back to King David. You know, as you go through the historical books, they provide a rich resource for assembly administration principles. As you go through the historical books, there are at least four different ways that you can look at them. One is the historical context, what was happening. We had some of that earlier this week. One is the moral context. We also had that.
One is administration.
And one is prophetic. Somebody might be able to come up with some more, but those are the four that I know. And the King would speak to us of the group and the assembly who are in the place of oversight.
And so when you read stories about David, David would present to us that character. Did David ever fail?
He failed terribly and the administration of his Kingdom.
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Did God stick with David even though he failed?
He did.
Even when there were ones who perhaps judged a matter better.
He did. He stuck with David.
What about those in this room tonight who are husbands?
Of a wife.
My poor wife.
And.
Lives with somebody who fails constantly in the administration of being a husband.
Somebody who lacks patience.
Somebody can be overbearing.
Does God set aside His order as to the husband and wife relationship because of my failure?
He doesn't.
What about those in the room who are fathers?
Have you ever spanked your children too hard? I have.
Have you ever yelled at them when they shouldn't have been yelled at? I have.
Does God?
Remove his order as to a father over a child because of failure. He doesn't.
What about the government that we live in?
What if this president, or the next one if we're left here, destroys the Constitution?
We're not living by the Constitution anymore.
We're going to live by military law, and he comes up with his idea of what law should be.
Are we willing to submit as the Word of God says?
Or are we going to?
Go fight.
Does God set aside his order with you and I?
As to our responsibilities to a government, because there's failure.
He doesn't.
It's still there.
What he seeks from us is submission, submission of heart.
Assembly decisions.
Let's turn over to 1St Corinthians Chapter 11.
Why are there?
Difficulties in an assembly.
First Corinthians Chapter 11, verse 18.
For first of all, when you come together in the Church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. For there must also be heresies, or it should be sex among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. Sex divisions would speak to us of difficulties within an assembly where you have parties.
These brothers over here don't like these brothers, and these brothers don't like those brothers sex would talk to us about.
Those divisions officially breaking off and they're no longer meeting together.
The Apostle Paul tells them that these divisions that were among them that he spoke about in the first chapter. I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos.
He says they're going to result in sex.
And the reason was that the approved may be made manifest among you. The Lord allows difficulties to come into the assembly.
Because when things are going easy, we can all play the part.
We can all dress up nice and we can all come to meeting and we can all look like we're going on well when things are nice.
But a difficulty comes in and what happens is it tends to take away the facade.
I know this is true in our personal lives as well.
And what we really are comes out.
It manifests itself.
And that's what the Apostle Paul is saying here.
How are assembly decisions formed?
Is there a place in the Word of God where we can find out where?
We have a picture or something that would indicate how assembly decisions are formed.
Or are they just simply up to human wisdom? Well, I think they should be formed this way. And I think they should be formed this way. Let's turn over to Acts 15.
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X15 presents to us perhaps the best resource for seeing how assembly decisions are formed. The character is a bit different because in those days they had apostles, they had official elders.
Official bishops, We don't have apostles, we don't have official. Elders, we don't have official.
Oversight.
But the principle that is laid out here is still applicable.
And I'm going to read verse one. And certain men came, which came down from Judea, taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved.
When, therefore, Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem under the apostles and elders about this question.
If you turn over to Galatians 2, I'm not going to read it now, we don't have time, but you'll find that there's a little bit more information on this, this time in Paul's life.
And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenix and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles. And they caused great joy into all the brethren. And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all the things that God had done with them.
The first thing I want to mention here is that.
They didn't spread the matter.
They're traveling from Antioch down to Jerusalem, where these different ones came from, and on their way, they bring joy.
What often happens today?
When there's a difficulty in assembling.
Is the matter gets spread? Why? It's Satan's work. He knows that if he can spread this matter, he can get confusion to come in.
And it doesn't just spread in the assembly, spreads to other assemblies. I'm going to call this laboring brother over here or this brother who's held in high regard, and I'm going to plead with him to see this way my way, Maybe I can get him to call back here, tell these brothers what to do.
Paul and Barnabas kept this difficulty very close. They brought joy to the brethren where they went. They didn't go to a conference and talk to people and gossip and say, you know what's going on down here?
They brought joy to their brethren.
Verse five. But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees, which believe, saying that it is needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.
And the apostle and elders came together for to consider this matter.
And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them, Men and brethren, or men brothers. Another principle that we didn't mention when we looked at First Timothy 3 or Titus, One is that oversight administration is only for the brothers.
It's not for the women in the assembly.
Is this because the women aren't spiritual enough?
Is this because the women aren't smart enough?
Is this because the women don't know their bibles enough?
No, obviously it's not that. I would suggest in an assembly, probably the majority of the women are far more spiritual and know their Bible far more than us guys do.
It's simply God's order.
It's God's order.
Aren't we interested in following God's order?
There's three things that I want to point out here. I don't have time. I'm going to go a little bit quick here.
That.
Are needed.
In formulating an assembly decision.
And the first thing I want to mention before that is it says and when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up.
Oversight deals with those who the Spirit of God has raised up. There are older brethren.
There's very few in an assembly who occupy that position. It's not for novices, it's not for women. But let's say that you're a young man.
And you have a care for the assembly.
Can you go to a care meeting and learn? You can.
And I would just caution you to be careful.
When you go to the care meeting, if you're a young person and you have a care for the assembly.
00:50:04
Be careful how much you get involved. I failed in this point.
I've pushed into areas that I shouldn't have pushed into. I've pushed into areas that were not given to me.
That cause difficulties, so be careful. If you have a care you can go. You might even be able to present something that can be used.
But after much disputing, Peter rises up and we have to know those of us who are younger when to just stop and let those who are in the position of oversight to take over.
Let them formulate.
The path that they feel the assembly should take.
So Peter here, he presents to us somebody who has experience.
And he speaks to us here of his experience.
And I'm going to skip down to verse 13. You can read this later.
He gives his experience and we need the experience of our older brother. They can tell us about things that have happened in the past.
And they can say these this is what happened. I remember this when I was younger or this is what happened to me. And that's what Peter did. Verse 13, James stands up and what does James do? He opens up the word of God imperative that we have the word of God. How can we make an assembly decision without the word of God? Well, are we just going to base it on?
I think this is the direction that we should go. Sounds pretty good.
Human wisdom. We must, must have the word of God. So James stands up and presents the word of God.
And then down to verse 28.
The Spirit of God, for it seemed good to the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God is needed in an assembly decision.
Now I'm going to go back a little bit here. How are they? How is this decision formulated? You have this, what I'm going to call a care meeting. Some might take exception to that. It's certainly not a brother's meeting.
Because not everybody in the assembly who is a brother necessarily has a care for the assembly.
And so you're not necessarily getting together as a brothers meeting, you're getting together as those who have a care for the assembly.
And they get together and they formulate a path that they should take. Peter gives his thoughts as to experience. James stands up and he gives his thoughts as to.
The word of God.
And what's 22 Saying?
Then pleased it the apostles and elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, surname Barsabbas and Silas, chief men among the brethren, and they write a letter.
The oversight determines a path that they feel the assembly should take.
And although the oversight has authority, they don't have authority to make assembly decisions.
They have authority to come to you and talk to you.
They have authority to speak to you.
But they don't have authority to make assembly decisions. Assembly decisions are done are formulated or sorry.
They are.
Can't think of the word.
Stamped or approved by the assembly.
With the Lord in the midst. And we get this from First Corinthians five. First Corinthians 5 when the brethren had come together.
It was an assembly meeting, a special assembly meeting.
But.
Assembly decisions are not.
Based on democracy. Sometimes, because we live in a government that's based on democracy, we get an idea that everybody has a say or that if this were an assembly and we were going to formulate a decision, we have to get at least half of the assembly on board before we can make an assembly decision. But that's not what's presented here. What's presented here is that there are ones in the assembly who bear the moral weight of the assembly.
They're ones who have walked the path, who have walked with God.
And the assembly.
Seeing these ones who have been raised up by the Spirit of God to occupy this position.
00:55:02
They go along with that decision.
With the authority of the Lord in the midst, an assembly decision is formulated.
What if I don't agree with a decision? What is my recourse?
So the assembly just made a decision.
I recognize that God has raised up those to be in the position of oversight to guide the assembly.
They have outlined a path that they feel the assembly should take, but I don't agree.
What should I do? Well, you could go talk to them. Your brother would be happy to talk to you, I'm sure of it. Usually we don't want to do that though. We want to talk to everybody else, right.
About how wrong that decision is.
Who else can we talk to?
Could we talk to the head of the Assembly?
Can we talk to the Lord?
Is he not over that assembly?
Does he not control every aspect of that assembly?
Did he just allow that decision to be passed that I didn't agree with? He did.
And so my recourse is to go before Him in prayer, and if I feel that a decision has been wrong, what I would ask him is one to show me if I'm wrong, or to show the brethren if they're wrong.
That's my recourse.
For me to start telling my children.
This is what's going on. Get them riled up. Get them to go talk to the young people if they were that age.
Or start telling people in the assembly we get a little party together.
Is that from the Spirit of God?
Is that from the word of God? Is that God's order?
Is that what he would have us to do?
Is that orderly?
The problem is we don't believe in the power of prayer.
And we believe that we are right.
Go to the Lord in prayer.
Next question, what if the majority of the Assembly doesn't agree? You have a decision and the majority of the Assembly didn't agree with that decision. I heard it explained this way, and this is a democratic principle.
He said in my family.
Me, my wife and my five children. Let's say that every one of my children has a say. So that's five votes. My wife has two votes. That's seven votes. But I have 8:00.
I have 8:00 so even if the majority of my family feels that we should do something as a family.
As the head of the family, if I feel before the Lord we should do something else, I have to do what I feel before the Lord we should do.
Is it that I don't listen to them? No, of course I listen to them.
Oftentimes they're right, like Sarah with Hagar and Abraham.
And that's a democratic principle, so it's faulty. But we have to understand that God sticks with the oversight and the assembly. That's where the moral weight lies. That's who we should be behind.
Even if the majority of the assembly thinks otherwise.
I'd like you to think back to Absalom.
And David?
Who had more people, David or Absalom?
Absalom stole the hearts of the people.
David was left with a few.
Who did God stick with?
He stuck with David.
A picture of sticking with the oversight and difficulties and an assembly.
He didn't stick with somebody who tried to usurp the oversight.
Who thought that he could judge matters better than David?
He stuck with David and in time he brought David back.
Even though it wasn't the majority.
Last point, what if the conscience of the assembly is not reached? Is it still a binding action?
I liked what Bill wore.
Mentioned as to the conscience of the Assembly.
01:00:02
You'll never read about the conscience of the assembly and the Word of God.
And I think furthermore, it's not actually a scriptural principle, because conscience is individual.
Conscience is not something that is an assembly.
The Lord of the Lord wants your conscience and my conscience engaged in the decision, however.
So Bill War explained it like this, and I'm going to repeat it. It's not repeating it exactly, he said. The conscience of the Assembly is the Assembly recognizing who the Spirit of God has raised up.
And an assembly.
And having their conscience as engaged in what God is doing.
They follow those who occupy that position.
The difficulty today is that though we might say there's no democracy.
Sometimes, using this phrase, the conscience of the Assembly has been used to try to bring in democratic.
Principles.
My conscience wasn't engaged in that, so it wasn't an assembly decision.
Well, that's not quite right, right?
Our consciences should be engaged.
In God's order.
And our desire should be to be subject to what God's order is.
And a willingness to follow his order even when things happen that aren't.
Quite to my liking.
Or even very much to my liking, remembering that.
In every situation, every difficulty in an assembly, God is working in many, many different ways.
And He's got something for you and for me and for you and you and you. Everyone in that assembly, God is working with them. There's something that they need to see. And oftentimes an assembly decision happens. And the way I react to it, the Lord shows me that there's something wrong with me. Maybe that decision wasn't done entirely correctly. Maybe it was done really poorly.
But how did I react to it?
What is my part in it? How did I fail? What is God saying to me?
What has he revealed to me about my heart and that difficulty? So I would just encourage you, stick with the oversight.
Follow God's order.
Recognize that God does have an order in every sphere of your life. Let's just thank Him for the time.
Our God and our loving Father, we thank thee so very much for thy Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, we.
Thank you for that work on Calvary's cross to save us from our sins. We think of the subject that's been before us. We think of this by assembly, and we just pray that and whatever sphere of life we find ourselves, that we would be subject to thy word, subject to the order that thou was set up, knowing that this is the path of blessing. Help us in this and thy name we pray, Lord Jesus, Amen.
Session #5
Psalms, Hymns and Songs
Address—Mark Breman
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Good evening. By way of introduction to the subject that I have on my heart this evening, I'd like to read a few lines of a hymn. We won't sing it, we'll sing another, but.
Says how pleasant is the sound of praise. It well becomes the Saints of God for him who washed us in his blood.
Let us, our sweetest songs, prepare one string there is.
Of Swedish tone reserved for sinners saved by grace.
Every one of us has a voice. God has given everyone of us a voice to sing with.
And our voice will work in eternity. Think about that.
Of all creation, the human being is the only one that has a voice capable of singing. You know, in songs and poetry it speaks of Angel singing. The word of God doesn't indicate that, as they say, but human beings were intended to sing. God wants us to sing the song of the redeemed.
The sad thing is because if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, your voice.
Will work in eternity, too. It speaks of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and we trust that there's nobody here in this room this evening that would use your voice for all eternity in such a sad way.
Our desire is that if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, that this evening that the Lord Jesus Christ would touch your heart with His love and grace and you would come to know Him, and you would know what it is to have those praises on your lips.
Let's turn in our little flock hymn book to hymn #95.
Hymn #95.
Let's sing it together.
Break forth and say.
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We just bow in prayer and ask the Lord for His help this evening.
Our blessed God and loving Father, we thank Thee that Thou hast given us voices to sing praises to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank thee that with whatever.
Wavering our voices may have that those praises by the Spirit ascend imperfection to God the Father.
And we thank Thee that someday these stammering tongues will be loosed to praise Thy holy name as we really ought to, or Jesus we feel is right around the corner. But until then, we ask that that would give us guidance and direction from Thy Word as to how Thou would have us to sing. And so we just give thanks and praise for this opportunity to have Thy Word open before us. We can confess our weakness.
But we depend on my spirit for guidance and direction, that the things that are said might be helpful, and that nothing would be said that would bring a dishonor to the name of the Lord Jesus. If you prepare yourself with a song in your heart for the Lord, the Lord can use a song to help restore happy communion with Him. Verse three upon an instrument of 10 strings.
And a sultry and the sultry upon a harp with solemn song.
I would encourage you young people if you don't know how and you might say you're not musically inclined.
That's okay. There are instruments out there that are not really suited to just the best musicians. Take for instance, a simple thing like a harmonica.
In your own personal, private life, it is good to have some sort of.
A musical instrument that you can use to give honor and glory.
To the Lord Jesus.
After a stressful day at work, I enjoy the piano.
At our house, we enjoy lots of different musical instruments. I know some people have difficulty with that, but there's something special about doing it yourself. Pop out your earbuds.
Do it yourself.
There was a young man came to me and said, Mark, will you teach me how to play the guitar?
I said that young man, you first have to have a song in your heart to the Lord.
You know when we have a song in our heart to the Lord, it will help us.
I'm speaking on a very natural level here now when I'm speaking a musical instruments, it's something that will encourage the young.
If you use it for his honor and glory to take up with the praises of God. If you use it.
For that.
Verse four. For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy works. I will triumph in my works, in the works of thy hands. Oh Lord, how great is the hour. Thy works and thy thoughts are very deep. The Lord is interested in every detail of us, and as we think of that, it draws out our hearts in worship and praise to Him. Let's go to Psalms 40.
Oh.
Psalms chapter 40 and verse 2.
He brought me up also Ottoman horrible underlying that in your Bible if it's not already.
Then a horrible fit.
Out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings.
He has put a new song in my mouth. Even praise.
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Unto our God.
Like to take a little closer look at some of these verses that are maybe a little more well known to some of us and look in them just a little bit.
Says a new song. A new song.
That would indicate to us that there are.
Old songs.
Old songs.
The psalmist says he brought me up also out of a horrible pit. What do you suppose the horrible pit reminds us of?
Young people, do you not know some of some old songs that are suited for the horrible pit?
Let's turn to Revelation Chapter 9.
Revelation Chapter 9.
And the 5th Angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth, and lo.
And to him was given the key to the bottomless fit, and he opened the bottomless pit.
And there arose a smoke out of the pit.
As the smoke of a great furnace.
And the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
The Word of God speaks plainly about the pit.
It tells us of the pit.
There are other things associated with the pit. Verse three. And there came out of the smoke that ascended from the pit locust, verse 7.
And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle, And their heads were as it were, were a crown like gold. And their faces were as the faces of men, and they had hair as the hair of women.
Let's stop right there a second.
Don't tell me you haven't seen cover photos.
On some of these albums that are music from the pit, tell me not, do they not have the faces of men and hair of women?
What are they depicting?
These demons that rise from the pit. And if you look into the lyrics of those songs, dear young people, don't be fooled.
By the catchy tunes.
It's the path to destruction.
It's the path to the pit.
He had put a new song in my mouth. Young people don't turn back and take up with songs to the pit.
Let's go back to Psalms 40.
The new song is for the Redeemed.
And it is praise unto our God.
When enjoying happy fellowship with the Lord, those praises are wonderful. They flow, they add.
Think of all the things the Lord has done for us, that we might have that new song in our mouth. The middle of verse five. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than I can number.
Think of what we were by nature.
And the Son of God.
Loving us so much that He would leave the heights of glory and come down into this world for wretches such as you and I. In Romans we read of our total depravity.
Total emptiness.
But we read of something else there too.
We read that God provided a sacrifice, his Son, whereby we can be justified in His presence and what the Lord Jesus Christ did on Calvary Cross. We also find that no, it is not by the works of the law.
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It is by faith.
The apostle spends the 1St 11 Chapters of the book expounding on that.
And what happens when he has realized it in his own mind and he has shared it? Let's turn to Romans Chapter 11.
The same thing will happen to us when we think on what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. Romans Chapter 11 and verse 33 he breaks forth.
Like I said, it's spontaneous happy communion with the Lord and thoughts of what He's done for us bring for us spontaneous singing. I don't know that there's a tune to this.
But if there was, I'd be interested in learning it, because it's beautiful. This is a type of a strong here. Verse 33. Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counselor, or who hath first given to him, and it shall be reckoned unto him again.
For of him and through him.
And to Him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. Can you say that in your heart too, at the end of that? Amen. It's wonderful, isn't it, to be able to have that kind of a prayer of Thanksgiving and expression in your heart for what the Lord has done for you?
Yes, oftentimes our praise gets tainted. Young people, I'd like you to focus on what we do have sometimes. I know we had a lot of questions this weekend and this some of them were related to what we don't have or questions about why things are the way they are. But what you do know that you do have, we can focus on and it brings forth the song of praise from our lips.
Let's look at Ephesians chapter one.
Look at something that we have Ephesians chapter one and verse 7.
In two words.
We have, there's something we have, we have redemption through His blood. It's not wonderful we stop and think about that, that we have redemption through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Does that do something to your heart? If you know Him as your Savior, you're going to spend all eternity giving Him thanks and praise for shedding His precious blood on Calvary's cross for you.
It behooves us to daily bow our heads and thank the Lord Jesus for His blood.
That was shed for us.
It's wonderful, isn't it, to give thanks? It raises a song of praise in our hearts to think of what the cost the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross that we might be His.
Let's go back to Romans five. Another thing we have.
Down in the work, in the Versailles, little ways. This is my faith. By faith we have peace with God. Isn't that wonderful? Can you say that? Do you have peace with God tonight? If you don't have peace with God, I feel sorry for you. God loves you. God has provided every way whereby you might have peace with him in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Come as you are, receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
And find this joy that we're Speaking of and this peace.
We have that's something young people that you can sing about you if you know the Lord Jesus Christ your Savior, you have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. First John chapter 2 something else we have.
First on chapter 2, in the middle of the verse, we have.
We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Aren't you thankful for that? Aren't you thankful that when you don't step out of line, God just doesn't smack you down?
It's wonderful we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous in that hymn we sing, it said, Sing how he intercedes above for those whose sins he bore. We can sing about it that we have an advocate. It's wonderful, isn't it? It ought to bring praise to our hearts.
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That God can take wretches like us and put praise in us to Him.
Give us peace, give us redemption, Give us the tools to give Him honor and glory, our voice.
Let's also look at the 20th verse.
Ye have an auction from the Holy One.
Young people, we have been given the Spirit of God.
To influence us as we heard in these meetings, everyone who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior has the leading of the Spirit. The question is, do we obey or not?
It's there if we will only obey. Isn't it wonderful that God has provided that in whole and full to us?
We ought to be so thankful. Ephesians, chapter 3.
Another thing we have.
The end of verse 11. Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access.
Young people, you don't have to be scared to come into God's presence.
Does that make you glad? Does that make you rejoice that you don't have to have be scared to come in His presence? He loves you. What would make you scared to come in His presence?
A bad conscience, but guess what, You still don't have to be scared. He loves you. Go to him. Go to him about it. Go to him. He loves you.
Hebrews chapter 4 for another.
In verse 14.
We have a great high priest. For the sake of time, let's go to chapter 13.
Verse 10 We have an altar place to worship and shut out those praises.
Chapter 6.
Verse 19 we have an anchor for the soul. What's the anchor for the soul? The next verse tells us it's Jesus who's the forerunner already there for us.
You can't be lost again. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, does that make your heart well up with praise and joy? Thank Him. It's wonderful, isn't it? We have a forerunner, the Lord Jesus. He's already there, beloved for us.
It's sure that we're going to land on that shore.
Enjoy it, rejoice in it, let it produce a song in your heart.
Talk a little bit more about songs, music.
We're a three-part being body, soul and spirit.
There's.
There's a lot of things that are three parts, electricity, volts, amps, and ohms.
Water pressure flows and all that.
God is a three-part being.
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. You know music has three parts.
The three parts.
The melody, the harmony and the rhythm.
Those three parts.
I'll do something inside here.
Maybe you young people have a question as to what is good music or bad music.
Here it is. There's three parts to it.
Melody, harmony and rhythm don't let them get out of balance.
They get out of balance. You got bad music.
00:25:00
The body. Our body.
Associated with rhythm. You know, the stronger the beat, the more you want to, you know, our body is associated with rhythm, Rhythm. OK.
Harmony.
That's the soul.
So it's very soothing up and down.
The melodies associated with our spirit.
Melodies associated with our spirit. It's something you know that our body is world conscious.
Our soul.
Is self-conscious.
And our spirit is God conscious.
It's very much related to music. You want to know if you're listening to bad music or not. Make sure those things are not out of balance.
You know, with today's technology, we've had a lot about technology and the influence of it on us in these meetings.
It is so easy today to obtain an MP3 or to pop in a CD.
They're cheap and some are free. Just because there's Christian on the front doesn't mean it's going to.
Lead you in a way dishonored to the Lord Jesus.
We also had in these meetings we should weigh everything by the word of God.
I'd like to talk a little bit more about that a little later, but be careful.
Be careful that we just don't grab a hold of anything without testing it by the scripture just because it has a nice tune.
Look at the words.
Look at who's singing it.
Songs are wonderful.
On Lord's Day evening.
Brother James Ferguson down at the at the campfire, seeing down there. He talked about singing.
And he brought before us how Jehoshaphat brought the army and said, put the priest in the front and have them sing. And what happened? Remember the story? The enemy, the Lord came in and the enemy was taken care of by the Lord. He spoke about Paul and Silas who were in bonds in prison. Where's the circumstances? Not complaining.
Bound there.
And they were, they were, they were giving thanks to God and praising Him in those circumstances.
And the Lord worked a great victory that that evening, that night their chains fell off.
That was quite an evening.
Those are wonderful things, spontaneous singing. Some of us were privileged to be out here at the dock. Brother Nelson Santiago was baptized.
When he came out of the water, what did you feel like doing?
How many of us just felt like singing?
It was spontaneous, wasn't it? It was a joyous time to see our brother want to identify with Christian ground. It's wonderful. We all wanted to sing and we participated in that. It was beautiful. No handbooks. We sang. It was beautiful.
Now I'd like to say, OK.
How does this relate to singing in the meetings? In assembly meeting?
You know we had in these in these meetings here that that the Spirit of God is the one that guides and directs the ministry in the meetings.
What about the singing question? Psalms 22?
One other thing that Brother Ferguson mentioned down there at this thing was a song that was sung by the Lord Jesus and his disciples just before the Lord Jesus went to Calvary.
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And I wonder.
Don't mean to speculate. I almost wonder if Psalm 22, portions of it at least, weren't part of that song. In verse 22 it says, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation. Will I sing praise? Will I praise thee? You still have your little flock in book. Let's go to #35 in the back.
Maybe this hymn will help me express the truth here. That's on my heart a little bit.
Verse 3.
It says now he capital H, who is that? The Lord Jesus Christ. Now he praises in the assembly. You mean when we're gathered around him on Lords Day morning to show forth his death? Yes, he's there leading the singing the praises.
The fifth line yes, he praises Grace, recounting all the path already trod first four he we are invited now join the singing that he leadeth. Let's get this in our minds before we go too deep into assembly singing because.
Just like understanding that it is the Spirit of God.
That leads the ministry in the singing in the assembly. It's also very important to understand who and how the singing should be done.
Verse 5.
It is finished. It is finished. Who can tell redemptions worth? He who knows it knows what what redemption's worth was. The Lord Jesus Christ himself paid the penalty for our sins on the cross. He's the one that leads the praises in the assembly.
It's wonderful.
Proverbs.
Chapter 24.
I.
Young people, at this point I just want to give a little warning.
A little word of caution.
Along with this age of technology that we live in and the songs that we've been influenced by in it some of them.
Are nice songs for private singing or maybe some group singing and so on. But.
If the Lord Jesus Christ is truly the leader of the singing in the assembly, should I be looking to Him as to how the songs should go in the assembly, or is it my opinion?
Verse 21, last part of the verse says metal knot with them that are given to change. There's a reason why we sing the way we do.
If the Lord Jesus Christ is leading and everyone of us are looking to him for that leading, oh, it's too slow.
Oh, we don't like that tune. I'm not saying we can't alter a few things that would be more suited to his praise, but let us be careful that we don't try and draw in things to change what he should be leading if he's allowed to.
If everyone of our hearts are in tune with that, think of the praise that would go up in Unity heart engagement. It's wonderful.
I want to talk a little bit about reverence.
To the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and using His name in song.
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Let's look at Exodus chapter 20.
And you might say, well, this is Old Testament.
Exodus chapter 20 we also have Thou shalt not steal, OK?
Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Do we believe those things are good and right? Yes, we do. Then let's let's believe this is good and right too. And in application we can put it to singing.
For seven.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
For the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name.
In vain. What does it mean to take the Lord's name? In vain? Believe Mr. Darby's translation says something like this. Thou shalt not idly utter the name of Jehovah thy God.
Idly utter. You know, we were born and raised with these hymns. We know him. It's so easy just to open the book, set it on our lap and just sing the words and, you know, look around and something happens over their house.
Over there, across me. Yeah. And we just single in. Oh, yeah, Let's see. I forgot. Yeah, I didn't finish my test. Let's see. And close the book.
It gets us, doesn't it?
It gets us idly uttering. I'm guilty of it, my mind wandering when I'm singing praise to the Lord.
I'd like to just give another word of caution.
As to why we just don't embrace all the songs that are out there that attach the name of the Lord Jesus with them.
Believe we look into the lyrics of some of them. We know that the Lord Jesus himself couldn't have fellowship with those songs.
Especially when.
In regard to reverence.
I'm going to name a song.
And no, I'm not trying to be judgmental.
I'd like to draw from this something that would implant something in our souls that would stir us to be careful.
I don't want to be judgmental to anybody. I'm not trying to do that. Please understand that.
Many of us know a song or have heard of a song.
Called our God is an awesome God.
Millions and millions of believers sing that song.
It is in almost every modern church hymnal.
There's a kids version.
I'm thankful that the kids version doesn't have in it what the original version version has.
But sad story.
Um.
A lot of people think that the one who wrote that song is Mr. Smith.
No, Mr. Smith did not write that song.
Mr. Smith took up that song as a tribute to the one who did write it.
Why did he do that?
Because the one who wrote it is no longer living.
I don't know if you all know the verbiage.
Connected with some of the verses of that sorrow.
Go look it up.
I hate to say it because I am. I don't want to.
Say something that will dishonor the Lord.
However, I'm going to read some of the words of a verse of that song.
Speaking about God Almighty, God our Savior.
When he rolled up his sleeve.
He ain't just putting on the Ritz.
Do you know those words were in that song?
Is that a way to talk about God?
And the Lord.
Wasn't joking when he kicked him out of Eden. It wasn't for no reason that he.
00:40:02
I hesitate to say it shed his blood, young people.
Be reverent.
With the Lord Jesus in his blood. It's not a joke.
To insinuate that God could be putting on the Ritz, to insinuate he could have been joking, it's solemn, the man who wrote that song said in an interview. It was the lousiest song he ever wrote. He just threw it together and somehow when it got out, it went to the top of the charts.
So work of the enemy and that man was responsible.
For making millions and millions of people who really love the Lord Jesus who didn't give.
Thought to it, give, make words come out of their mouth that we're not honoring to God and that we've seen it happen before. I don't mean to be judgmental.
God deals with people. I'm not saying that this is, I'll just tell you what happened and I'm not saying no God did this, but God allows things, OK?
The man who wrote that song.
Was on the highway.
Just.
On Hwy. 39 N of Rockford, IL he was in the Jeep and he was headed down to do a concert in Wichita, KS.
And he was just rolling down the highway and a semi was following him. His Jeep for an unknown reason became out of control and the semi swerved to miss the Jeep.
If he was a brother in the Lord.
He was thrown from the Jeep and he landed directly in front of that semi at highway speed on the highway.
The man who is responsible for making millions of people who trust the Lord Jesus to take words of His precious blood lightly on their lips. Young people, be careful. Look into those things.
Ecclesiastes.
Chapter 5.
Verse 2.
Be not rash or fast with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God.
Before God is in heaven and thou upon earth. Therefore let thy words be few. We have to be careful. Yes, this is the Old Testament, that this is a principle of reverence to God. I had a friend and he was a believer.
And I love him. He's a dear friend. This when I was a kid and he had some favorite music that he liked and he tried to get me to listen to it. This one particular group that he liked was called the 2nd chapter of Acts. Fairly lively.
And these family members that staying in this group had a brother. I'm go ahead and use his name. He's going to check me out on it. That's fine. His name is Matthew Ward.
Matthew Ward.
And if you look at the front of his album, you kind of wonder.
Not to be judgmental, but remember what we read in Revelation.
The face of a man and the hair of a woman. Well, this friend of mine got tickets to go to a Matthew Ward concert.
And somehow he got passes to go backstage. This friend of mine had told me that Matthew Ward was filled with the Holy Ghost, and the Matthew Ward was moving in front of the audience in the power of the Holy Spirit. This young man got tickets to go backstage, and he met Matthew.
We found out.
Matthew Ward is not filled with the Holy Spirit. He was putting chemistry inside his body behind the curtains before he went out to stage.
And then he would go back for more at a break. And he asked Matthew, why are you doing that? He says, well, you got to do something to keep calm in front of the audience.
Young people, be careful what you listen to and who it's coming from.
00:45:09
Psalms 90. Let's see 89.
Psalms 89 and verse seven. Many of us have this verse upon our meeting room walls. It's appropriate to apply it to singing. God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the Saints, and if He had, in reverence of all them that are about Him. Let's turn to chapter 111 also.
Chapter 111 and verse 9.
He sent redemption unto His people. Young people, that's what ought to draw praise and worship out of our hearts and out of our mouths.
He hath commanded his Covenant forever.
Holy and Reverend is his name. Let's be careful how we take up the name of the Lord Jesus even in song.
Verse 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding. You want a good understanding, or an indication of it, a meter, a gauge, a good understanding have all they that do His commandments, His praise endureth forever. Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 28. Wherefore we receive a we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved. Let us have grace whereby we may serve God. And yes, singing is a way to serve God.
With three things.
There's three things here that is acceptable to you and me. No to him. To him.
And with reverence.
Understand who he is.
And what is due him and give it to him?
And godly fear, those three things. How to characterize genuine praise that comes out of our mouth?
To the Lord.
You ever read the preface in front of the Little Flock Handbook? It's very instructive.
Let's turn to page 4 of the preface.
Here again, I'm not trying to be judgmental.
Is trying to show that the heart must be engaged OK?
Page 4, the last sentence of that first paragraph. There it says you may often, doesn't say always. OK, so I'm not trying to be judgmental, but let it stir our hearts. You may often find the loudest singers where the conscience is the least reached.
Why?
Because he's not getting the glory. I want people to hear my voice.
Doesn't mean we have to whisper.
But what it means is if everybody is being loud, it's being loud too. That's unity, right? If everybody is subdued a little bit, be subdued with them.
Ephesians chapter 5.
And verse 19, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Again here, we don't always do this heart engagement what God is asking us to do here, but it's just so important trying to stay focused, try to have our hearts engaged in the praise and the worship that is going forward.
00:50:04
First Corinthians, chapter 14.
We have this person, our meetings. How many of you take piano lessons or have had them before?
Did your teacher use a thing called a metronome?
What the metronome do?
Go ahead. Anybody, Bill, your hand went up.
Gives you the beat. Gives you the beat and the timing, Yes.
This verse is the metronome for assembly singing. OK.
Last part of the verse, verse 15, I will sing with the Spirit. I will sing with the understanding also.
Don't forget, who you're singing with in the assembly is to be a united voice, as one to the Lord. There are children there. There are older ones there. There are ones who can't read quite as fast as those who just got out of college.
They can't. Don't force them. Please don't force them to sing without their understanding.
We're not seeing so slow that it's like meditating, No, but if you allow people to understand what they're singing in the speed of the song, you know what? You're also covering another bass. Those who want to keep God's name reverent.
It's wonderful, isn't it, that we have these guidelines and principles in the Word of God.
Colossians, chapter 3.
Verse 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing Now this ones a little different. With grace, with grace in your hearts to the Lord that's considering others too, Not just what God has done for us, but with grace in our hearts to the Lord. Now we have 2 scriptures.
That.
That refer to psalms, hymns and spiritual songs that we've looked at tonight. And the question might come up, what is a Psalm and what is a hymn and what is a spiritual song that we are being admonished to sing? Well, let's turn in our hymn books to 246.
We sang this in our meetings.
246 From every stormy wind that blows, from every swelling tide of woes there is a calm, a sweet retreat tis found before the mercy seat. This song bears the character of a Psalm.
The previous song.
245.
On that same night, Lord Jesus.
When all around me joined to cast its darkest shadow across thy holy mind, we hear thy voice. Blessed Savior, this do Remember Me. With joyful hearts responding, we do remember Thee. Young people, that's a hymn. Isn't that beautiful? That's a hymn. The one right before it, 244.
That bride and blessed and mourn is near.
When he, the bridegroom, shall appear and call his bride away, her blessing then shall be complete. When with her Lord, she takes her seat in everlasting day, that's a song.
That's a song. It's a beautiful song. See the difference character of them. It's a little different, isn't it?
Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. That's a spiritual song. It's wonderful. And notice the tenor of your voice.
That God would lead you to use when you read those words. Indication of it when I see our time is moving on.
Chapter. Let's see.
Let's go back to the preface of the Little Flock Hymn book again. Before we close, just a few more pointers that might help out.
00:55:03
Preface of the little flock him back first page.
I'm going to kind of break into some of this sake of time last two lines practical grace and truth. This is the first page of the preface last two lines practical grace and truth which set the soul in communion with Christ. Key keywords for assembly singing there and raises to to the father and yet this.
In such sort that it is not mere individual experience.
Which for assembly worship is out of place. We don't sing alone in the assembly. You have to remember that everyone united together to lift our voices to him. God of the down little ways. God alone can give this as to meet the wants of the assembly.
Let's go over the next page, the middle of the page, middle sentence. The singer must be there, but the singer associated in his thoughts with God filled from on high.
Yet not individualize himself and leave the assembly behind him. Stay united. See exercise of those who put this little book together.
The last sentence of that third page.
Abstractly, you are making people to sing as having certain feelings and then preaching to them because they have not.
We can't force people into a sphere that they are not up to, but if we allow the Lord Jesus Christ to lead the singing, it's taken care of, isn't it? It's beautiful if we let him be the leader. If I don't get an idea in my head that.
I don't quite think this is right. I'm going to make it go the way I want it. I think perhaps I've just lost the mind of what God intended for seeing in the assembly.
Genesis chapter 33 for a quick reference there as to the Spirit.
Of waiting on those who aren't as quick as some.
Jacob and Esau Esau type the flesh gotta go fast.
Jacob is taking it easy.
I'm just going to reason for the sake of time, I'm just going to read some expressions. Verse 13.
Then down the ways a little in the in the verse. The children are tender. Don't forget it.
Little ways. Further, if men should OverDrive them. There's a difference between men and children. The children are tender. Let's don't OverDrive the children.
14th verse. Here's a beautiful illustration of it in the middle of the verse. I will lead on softly down a little further and the children be able to endure.
Have to remember who is with us when we're singing Romans chapter 15.
Romans chapter 15 and verse six bears this thought out very very clearly.
That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why not do it now? We had in the meetings in Revelation 5 where we're going to spend an eternity giving praise unto His name and having Him be the center of our praise and worship and allowing Him to lead that.
Let's do it.
Together now just to summarize Psalms 34.
Individual, then casual collective singing and then the assembly.
Individual first, I will bless. Psalm 34, verse one, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall be continually in my mouth. I will, my soul will make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall heal thereof and be glad. Now let's have somebody join in with us a little bit, Okay, I'll magnify the Lord with me.
01:00:03
You know this next one is associated with his name and let us exalt His name. That's what we gather to let us exalt his name.
Look at this last word together.
Together, let's pray.
Our blessed God and loving Father, we thank Thee that Thou hast given us voices that could raise praise and honor to Thee. We pray for these young people, pray that would give them godly discernment as to what is good songs and what is not, what would lead them into a pathway of rejoicing in the Lord Jesus.
And giving honor and glory to him versus that which would be a hindrance in their life and their walk with thee. We ask for guidance and direction and two together as we sing with one another. May we be have take thy the fruitful praise of our lips. Thy name is a serious thing and as we join together in the assembly Lord Jesus, we just ask that we would give these thy rightful place. We appreciate the guidance and direction of thy spirit in.
And we pray that that would exercise our hearts about submission to thyself, as well as the Guider and director of the singing in the assembly and singing together in unity, that one mind and one mouth might bring praise and honor and glory to the Lord Jesus. We ask these things for thy honor and glory. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Session #6
Life and Death
Address—Bruce Imbeau
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.
We're going to sing part of Him 137.
And if we could sing.
Versus 1/3 and four, someone start that please.
Our God and our Father, we just do thank Thee that we can open up Thy word this evening.
We just do pray that we might have thoughts that are from thy heart.
And that they might be communicated to our hearts.
We might consider our Lord Jesus Christ the one who has died for us. So is to set us free.
We just do thank Thee that the whole theme of Scripture is Christ Himself. And we just do pray that we might learn more of Thee, and that we might be molded and formed by Thy love toward us and Thy thoughts toward us, Thy actions toward us, that we might be more in conformity to the image of the Son of God.
In Thy name we do pray and give thanks, Lord Jesus.
Amen.
This has not been.
What most of us would call a normal week.
00:05:00
And death has.
Affected our thinking this week.
Every Lord's Day, it doesn't necessarily have to only be on Lord's Day, mind you, and someone I hope will ask about that, but we have following a pattern that was established in New Testament times.
We take the opportunity on Thursday mornings to remember the Lord Jesus in his death.
And you might recognize that the two subjects.
Are obviously related.
Mike's there and the Lord's death are related.
If they were not related, I could not have said that last sentence and finished it with a smile.
But I could.
Our afternoon was not all smiles, as you might imagine.
There were quite a few tears this afternoon.
As we visited with the bill of Solis, with the with the van Holsteins who married a bill of salary.
And so these things are so fresh in our minds.
As they should be.
As they should be.
Before I get any further.
I would like you to make some observations.
Perhaps put them in your mind.
And.
Think of them later.
You know I am right-handed.
OK, not everyone in this room is right-handed. We have some left-handed people.
But if you watch a speaker.
A right-handed speaker will tend to go more towards their own right and to look more at the people on their right.
So if you like to be a little bit more invisible when you're in a meeting, sit towards the left because most people are right-handed and now that'd be the speaker's left. OK, so it'd be your right.
Also.
It is often very difficult, especially when.
A subject becomes very intense, such as gospel subjects often.
It's very difficult to make eye contact with your audience.
Because as a speaker, you absorb into yourself so as to properly, you know, get things across in a right kind of way.
You may have noticed that actually before the meeting actually got going, I tried to make eye contact with every person in the room.
To wire this little brain up here to try to do that, to try it doesn't work, mind you, all the time. But to try to resume that habit during the meeting.
But you notice, probably already, even though I've wandered back and forth, I've actually, if you've noticed, spent more time on this side of the podium.
Let's turn to Genesis chapter 2, please.
Genesis chapter 2 and verse seven. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
A living soul. You are tonight a living soul. You have inherited it from your parents and all the way back to Adam and Eve.
00:10:00
God breathed into Adam.
The breath of life.
And he became a living soul.
Now people spend a lot of time debating about evolution and so forth.
And.
Evolution is simply putting together components.
Of an animal.
Now think about that.
Mr. Darwin was actually.
Apart from being wrong, he was right in titling his thing origin of the species. He did not call it origin of life. In that he was wise.
But for those of us that deal with this subject on a regular basis.
Let me throw this out at you.
Since evolution is really but the evolution of components, putting things together in a bigger, perhaps more complicated fashion is the concept. OK, we all know that.
You take a sheep.
Where all the components are there.
And you watch that sheep come to the end of its life, either through slaughter or through natural death.
And when you feel that that animal has died just to brink of death, if you can do something to resuscitate it, if you can impart into that animal life.
Do so.
Try it.
You will find that you will be remarkably unsuccessful.
And all the components are there. Why write textbooks about putting everything together when you can get everything together and three minutes after death try to get life back into all those components? You can't do it.
You can't do it. You go, well, hey, this should be easy. This has got to be the easiest thing you could do in biology. If this thing evolved through millions of years and getting all the components together, then surely if all the components are together to start with.
I can certainly put life back in after two or three minutes after quote UN quote, death.
You can't do it.
There's something else.
It's this verse.
Breathe into his nostrils the breath of life.
And quite frankly, that's what God He didn't necessarily breathe into the animals, but he gave the animals life. Humans are special. We are specially God breathed, and he calls us a living soul.
Not just having a soul, but we're a living soul, so we're special. We're not animals.
And this is what God has done.
And this has become God's business.
To give life.
Now you say we're going to pass away, and this week we know that Mike passed away. There was no way to resuscitate him. There was no way in his case, he even put the components back together.
But.
God did something special in a human being and that is to give them a living soul.
There is a life that is in particular inside of us that has a connection with the Creator in a special way beyond the animal world.
So close, so close actually, that when the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world, he did not come as an elephant, He came as a person.
The connection is that you personally have a connection with your creator, and when he came into the world, he looked like you.
00:15:06
People struggle over race issues and I still have a question why in the world we do but.
Let's be helpful on that subject. If Poss.
We have a whole gamut of colors in this world, and if you take a look at what color the Lord Jesus probably was.
Was he's right in the middle of that color spectrum.
And so he can put his right hand out to those who are darker than he was and he can put his left hand out to those that were lighter in color than he was. And it is a crack up to me that if you've ever picked up a Bible that is sold as a Bible of color and they have pictures in it that that show.
People more accurately, quite frankly, and a lot of storybooks that I grew up with.
And they have more color. And lo and behold, I have actually picked up books with that title and they show the Lord Jesus Christ as basically Snow White. And I'm going, huh?
How did they do that?
The Lord Jesus is for all.
And he was, remarkably, born in the middle.
The breadth.
Of life and man became a living soul, and with that living soul, not only are you special in God's sight, but you are responsible.
Your little pet mouse dies and it has no responsibility towards God.
Mike dies and he had responsibility toward God.
Because he was a living soul, in particular a special infusion from the creator God himself, the God of love, who was not only interested in creating things, but he was interested in having a relationship with you.
And that relationship can only be generated through the Lord Jesus Christ.
The one who is mediator between God and men. He can put one hand on God and one hand on a human.
And he is a mediator, He can bring us together, and so he brings us to God.
Is that amazing? That's the gossip.
That's the gospel that's preached every day in this world somewhere.
That God has come into this world and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that he could put his hand on you and draw you to Himself.
And make a connection between you and your Creator and make you a worshipper and give to you an eternal life, just not a living soul that give you an eternal life in the presence of God forever.
Your pet dog.
Does not have that advantage.
But you do.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's how you can respond to the entreaties of the Lord Jesus Christ, who says, come unto me, all of you that labor nor heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
You can say yes, I want that.
If you are not saved tonight, tonight is the night to come to Jesus Christ. He loves you.
He has an arm around you.
To bring you to himself.
Come, is what he asks you to do. Just come.
If the Lord Jesus Christ were to come back right now and what we commonly call the rapture, this room would be empty.
00:20:01
What it?
Oh really? Would it?
Can you imagine how boring this camp would be?
If you were the last person.
To leave.
Because everyone else had disappeared.
Do not be left out in the cold.
Come to the warmth of the love of Jesus Christ who loves you.
Let's turn through the Gospel of John.
And we'll read quite a few verses from John.
John chapter one and verse 4.
Let's read verse 3, John chapter one, verse 3. All things were made by him.
And without him was not anything made that was made.
That's pretty specific.
In him was life, in him was life.
And the life was the light of men.
It's that life. Life has been infused into the human race by the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is the light of men. It's what gives you soul and a spirit, emotions. It gives you the ability to think about God.
Your dog does not think about God. Even though if you spell dog backwards you get God, that doesn't help the dog much.
In finding anything out about God.
But you do.
As a matter of fact.
Even humans that want to forget about God spend an extraordinary amount amount of time talking about God.
Strangely, if God is not real, why would people be writing these things?
About why there's no God. What a waste of time. I mean, do something constructive you might tell them.
But instead they go around giving lectures on why there's no God. There's people like Dawkins and you know, there's a whole list of people. They just waste their life trying to tell people there's no God.
Someone has even gone so far over in England, at least I haven't seen any such thing in the United States yet, and I think it's Dawkins or one of those people. They have ads on the side of buses and it goes like this. Relax, there is no God.
Now who would waste advertising money to put that on a bus?
To drive the streets of London.
I mean, really.
If he thinks Christians are goofy, you kind of wonder what makes him tick.
You can pull pictures down to that ad if you want.
Let's look at chapter 10, verse 10, John chapter 10, verse 10. These are all very familiar verses.
I am.
I'll get to that in a second verse. 10/10/10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and they might have it more abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
Well, I thought he already gave life, and here he says I am come that they might have life.
And that they might have it more abundantly.
You know, a dog dies, a squirrel dies, elephant dies and they're dead. I mean, they are dead, gone.
00:25:05
A human dies.
And soul and spirit continue on. Now animals have a soul.
But that goes along with its body, and when it's dead, it's gone.
But we have a soul in the Spirit that has a connection with God and when we die.
Those two things continue.
So depending on your point of view, you might think that's very special, or you might think, oh.
This could be a problem.
I trust tonight that everyone of you realizes that that is something special because God loves you so much, He's given you a life that goes on forever. But what He really wants to give you is what Bible calls eternal life, which is life with God.
And let's turn to chapter 20.
Chapter 20 and verse 22.
And when he had said this, that's when Jesus had said this. He breathed on them, and Seth unto them, receive ye the Holy Ghost.
At the beginning, the Creator breathed into the nostrils of Adam.
To give him a special life that was beyond the animal life.
Now the Lord Jesus Christ has come to give us.
Something even more than that.
And he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Ghost.
He wants you to share.
With himself.
So that we have a life and a nature that is in conformity is has a smooth transition, transition to God himself.
We will not become God.
Or, gods no, we will remain who we are.
As a matter of fact, I take it from scripture that will pretty much be distinguished.
Just like we are now, we look at each other and we say, oh, that's, that's Julie, you know, that's Nadine, that's you know, we.
Will still be able to do that. Apparently we will still be individuals.
But God has an interest in attracting us to Himself.
And so not only do we have a soul and a spirit, but now there's a spirit that has a connection.
Directly, in a positive way, with God himself.
And this we call salvation.
You say, well what a deal God made us. Did you do a bum job? They had to come back and he has to kind of give us something else to make us complete and whole.
This is a very.
Good question.
And what kind of answer would you give to someone who challenges you that way?
This is the approach I take.
Well, you know what God makes is outside of his person.
OK, so he creates a universe.
He said, well, where was God? I mean, if there's no universe, where the world does God live? You know, and that's exactly the point. He lives outside of what we call a universe. And so he created this universe, and in this universe he created humans. And all of this is outside of God. And so when Jesus came into this world, he came from wherever his home is. We call it heaven.
And he purposely came into his own universe that he had created, and comes into this world that he had made for his own glory, and he came to people.
00:30:17
OK, did that make any sense? In other words, because of what creation is, creation is not sitting around making new gods. No, creation is making things which are not God himself.
He did not make an extension of himself. That's not possible. He is who He is, but He made us with the purpose.
With a purpose that he could then bring children into his home.
Into his heaven.
And this is the joy of the Father, that he would bring children into his presence. And not only that, that this is also the joy of the Father, that we would become what is called the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, and that the Son of God would have companionship.
Forever.
With those of us that are called humans.
Wasn't God happy with himself? Wasn't the triune godfather, Son and Holy Spirit? Was not that totally sufficient for himself? How could you be more complete than being a God?
Think about that for a minute.
The answer is quite simple. It's called love.
And love is something that goes.
Out of yourself to someone else, to make that connection with someone else. And this is what God has wanted to do. He has wanted to shine his love out to you and bring you to himself. And so that's why he created the universe. Look up into the whole sky and look at those stars out there. And we have no clue how far those stars go, but they're sure beautiful. And if you get a telescope and you look.
Further out in space, there's more and more out there. We have no idea how big this place is.
And the goal and the purpose of all of that was, believe it or not, was to take you, who stand about 5 or 6 feet tall.
So that he could take you and bring you into His heaven.
That seems like an improbable thing that a God would do.
But the creation itself tells us of the nature of God, because if God.
Didn't care.
OK, that's impossible to think about, but OK, he wouldn't have made a universe to start with, because what would be the point of it?
But the fact that he did create shows the nature of God that he was looking outside of himself. He was. He wanted an object for his own love outside of himself so he could attract it to himself.
And bring his son a bride.
It's amazing.
So the next time you look up in the sky and you look at the stars, all those.
Neat things that are out there. Just remember God did it so that ultimately He could bring you into His heaven.
God wants to populate his heaven.
With his children, and they happen to be you if you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And death has come into this universe, and it comes through sin.
Sin was might sound odd to say, but sin was inevitable.
00:35:05
We might go Well, why did God let sin happen?
Now think about this for a minute.
Everything that you see around you is outside of God.
Only God is perfect.
Anything that is outside of God will sooner or later fall apart.
And really, that's what sin is. It's a falling apart.
Death by sin.
Certainly Ecclesiastes, Chapter 11.
Ecclesiastes, Chapter 11.
And.
Verse three and justice drop down. It's not quite halfway down the verse, but Ecclesiastes 11, verse three. And if the tree fall toward the South or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
That's a pretty serious reflection on death, really.
Man who'd been blind, he said. I see men as trees walking.
And there's other parts of the Bible like Nebuchadnezzar was shown in a vision as being like a tree, so.
God has that little picture that humans are sometimes viewed as treason. You know, as a tree follows, so shall it lie.
When you die when the tree falleth.
The direction that you die is how it's going to be.
Toward heaven or toward hell?
Job Job Chapter 14.
Job 14 and verse 14 it says if a man die, shall he live again?
All the days of my appointed time. Will I wait till my change come?
Well, Joe figured that he would live again. There's something special about the human.
And that had been communicated through God to man in that he came into that garden right to begin with, to commune, to speak with, to set up a conversation with Adam and then Eve when she came along.
God has had an interest in humankind.
But if a man dies, shall he live again?
And the answer is.
Yes.
Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 12.
Kind of.
Considering the dilemma of the lost.
That at that time ye were without Christ.
Being alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise. Having no hope and without God in the world.
And that was really the position of all people actually of Israel as well.
But for sure the Gentiles who had wandered off and they had gotten into their own thing and they built their own gods and they said we can do it ourselves. And it was the whole notion of Cain who went out from the presence of God. He built himself a city. He was going to make it on his own. And that is the position we are in.
00:40:06
We're without Christ, aliens from the Commonwealth, Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise.
Having no hope and without God in the world, that God was going to change, that He was going to come and preach peace.
To all and it was going to be through the death of Jesus Christ as the foundation, the shed blood.
That was going to bring in blessing.
And so if you turn to the Gospel of John and we'll read several verses there.
And they're all familiar. You probably quote them pretty much.
John 10 and verse 10.
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come.
That they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
Give us his life for the sheep.
Why did Jesus have to die? Not really. This is an important question. Why do you have to die? Why isn't God strong enough to just pick you up and say wow I want you in heaven, come on brother and put you in heaven.
There's a very strange principle that now that this creation has got going and it has fallen.
And it's falling apart.
The principle is this, that all blessing that comes from God.
Is on the other side of death.
All blessing, you cannot work your way to God.
Because if you die trying to do that, well, that's kind of the end of the story.
Or if you die before you succeed.
Just out of luck.
But you see, all blessing is on the other side of death, it so happens.
That it's not your death, but the death of the Lamb of God.
That's the only way. There is no other way for there to be blessing in your life except on the other side of the death of Jesus Christ.
All bless.
We cannot make New Year's resolutions. We cannot do this. We cannot do that. To attain or acquire blessing in the presence of God, it has to be on the other side of death. And our death is useless because as a tree falls, so shall it lie.
It's the death of Christ.
In chapter 14 of John.
In verse 19.
In John 1419 yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more. But ye see me, because I live, ye shall live also.
And so to get onto the other side of death is what we call resurrection. The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world. He died to take away sins, to be in atonement, to be the sacrifice, to be the Lamb of God.
And now we have this.
Because I live, ye shall live also. It's on the other side of death.
Make no mistake about it, you cannot attach yourselves to your parents. You cannot come to meeting, you cannot say the verses at Sunday school and decide that you're pretty good or good enough. Because it so happens that you have to have a life that's on the other side of death. And that's why we have to be seen in Jesus Christ.
Chapter 17.
And verse 24 Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, and that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world.
00:45:13
I'll read part of it again. I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me.
Heaven, that would be useless without the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's a funny little expression that goes like this. It seems like everyone wants to go to heaven.
But nobody wants to die.
Well, let me tell you, you don't have to die. Christ has died for you.
This is the blessing of the Gospel.
This is the purposes of God that we read about in Ephesians.
That Christ will be glorified in his people.
You are the fullness of him that filleth all things. That sounds like the most improbable statement in scripture. How can you take someone who fills all things?
And add something so that there's more of a fullness. How can you add to God who's infinite?
But the way it is.
God has brought blessing to you.
And in doing so, he has brought joy to himself.
And this is.
What we call the Church of God, this is the people of God.
Have you ever wondered if it's special at all that a Lord's Day morning, like tomorrow morning, some people are going to come together very quietly and remember that Christ died? Now think about it.
All blessing is on the other side of death.
If you feel that, you are blessed.
Through the salvation that God has given you, you would be very anxious to remember the Lord Jesus Christ in His death tomorrow, because there is no other way for you to be blessed except that there was death.
It is absolutely central. We say central Christianity, and for sure that is, but it is absolutely central in God's thinking, in God's thoughts. You want to think like God thinks, then remember the Lord Jesus Christ in his death, because that is absolutely central in God's thinking. It is not a peripheral thing. It's like, oh wow, how can we kind of fix things up? Oh, well, I guess we'll have a sacrifice of Jesus.
The Son of God.
Who died?
That's far more important to think about that than to think of some sort of lecture on how to live good for the next week.
Far more important.
This is absolutely the hugest thing in an already huge universe that we live in. It is much larger in scope than the universe that we live in. That the very Creator would come and bring you as a people to himself so that he could enjoy you and you could enjoy him.
Forever.
And so we get together to break bread. Can you break bread more than more often than once a week? You can.
You might inquire about that and just think about that a little bit.
If I remember right, story goes there were some brothers who got together and had to do with the translation. If I understand it, Mr. Darby translation.
And as they were pondering the scriptures and trying to.
And get things across in the right way into the English language. They would pause every morning, every morning, and break bread together.
So that their focus was correct, so that they saw the wonder and the magnitude of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that all glory belong to Him.
00:50:07
And that they would put down on paper with ink pens.
That they would put down the right words.
That communicates the mind of God to his people.
And they would spend time breaking bread every.
Morning.
Do you break bread even once a week?
You might go. I'm too young.
That's for my parents or my older sister, you know, She's 17 now and she breaks bread, so that's cool. But I'm not 17.
Are you a Christian?
Do you appreciate the love that God has shown to you? Do you see what a wonderful thing that God did in loving you and giving you eternal life?
You might want to think about Breaking Bad.
To remember the Lord in his death.
The most important thing that has ever happened in the universe, in the history of the universe, that the Son of God would lay down his life.
And we have the opportunity of remembering that event.
Because it is completely fresh in the mind of God and will be for all eternity.
The death of Jesus Christ, his Son, will forever be fresh.
In the mind of God and it should be fresh in our minds.
Skip, thanks.
Our God and our Father, we just do thank Thee.
For the wonders not only of this created universe, but the wonders of the love of God that would shine out.
Of darkness shine into our hearts. We thank Thee for a plan of salvation. And that God himself wanted companionship. He wanted a bride for his son. He wanted to populate his house with children.
And so Christ came into this world to die, to bring blessing.
To bring eternal life, to bring people into the very presence of God and into the Father's house.
And we thank.
For the way of salvation, we thank thee for the joy believing, we thank Thee for the opportunity that we have while we are still on this little planet Earth.
To pause, to relax.
To sick, quiet, and to consider the death of Jesus Christ and what it means and what it has done.
We just do pray that Thou must give us hearts that would flow forth in praise.
To the very Son of God.
Who would give himself a ransom for many?
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
The Lord Is Your Protector
Children—Tim Kaiser
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.
#11.
Before we sing another one, let's just ask the Lord's help. Our God and our Father, we just thank you for bringing us here this morning.
We pray that what's that here this morning would be from you and that we would hear.
And that it would be good for us. And we ask in Jesus name, Amen.
That song we just sang, I just closed my book. What number was that?
11.
You know, I've stung that a lot of times and.
There's some part that I just noticed.
As you journey through life many years.
Or but few.
You know, this is Sunday school and usually.
Direct Sunday school to the kids.
At least parts of it.
And you kids here on the front row?
You guys would be.
The few years, how old are you?
6.
Wow, how old are you?
Hear you 11.
Oh wow, let's see here. So we got the the few years. I'm not sure who I should ask for. I would try Tim Roach.
50 something, 50 something. Does that sound like that's only many years to you kids? 50 something years?
It started as to me.
How about how about Bill Gates 58? Wow.
Maybe I better stop there.
You know, some people here have been living for a few years and some have been living for many years. And you said that you're six years old. And when I sing this, we sang in living and in dying.
00:05:10
All else sledding glow, All else letting go, cling to the Bible.
What does it mean to clean? Who here are sitting full of your younger kids? Who can tell me what cling means?
We don't use it an awful lot. OK, Cameron.
To hold on to something that's right. To hold on to the Bible. And what does the Bible teach us about?
Somebody else. Cameron has already called him twice. What does the Bible teach us about in general?
OK, about God. That's right. Well, we're going to sing some more, so don't worry. And we're going to get to some verses.
But what I wanted, what I wanted to talk about anyways. But this song really brought it out. I want to talk about my brother.
I have a brother named Joey.
And about 20 years ago, my brother Joey was riding his bike with my brother Phil. My brother Joey was 6 1/2 years old, and so he's about about your age. And he rode his bike. He and my brother decided to race out. They started to race down the block to the corner.
And not too much longer before that, my brother Joey had accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior. He had heard what the Bible taught. He had heard about God. He'd heard about the Lord Jesus Christ. And he knew that the Lord Jesus died for him. And he accepted. He believed.
The blood of Jesus Christ cleaned him, cleansed him from his sin.
And there he was, 6 1/2 years old, racing down the block with my brother.
And I don't know who won. I never heard.
But my brother Joey went out on the street and he hit the side of the car.
Then he got thrown up in the air. He landed on his head.
And I remember seeing a little crowd of people down by that corner.
Nice. Remember a couple of neighborhood girls coming back and yelling that my brother was hurt.
And I went out and I saw my brother.
There he was lying. There wasn't very much blood, but he said lying there, it looked like he was asleep.
And I watched my dad.
Come running out with a first aid kit.
My brother had had massive head injury. His his his brain was damaged.
And he wasn't going to live. My dad came out with a first aid kit.
Which he couldn't do anything.
He couldn't help my brother and I saw him kneel down next to my brother and he couldn't do anything.
He loved my brother very much.
But my dad couldn't help him anymore.
My dad took care of him for 6 1/2 years.
And my mom, and they loved my brother.
God allowed. God took my brother home to be in heaven with him.
And this song we just sang as your journey through life, whether it be just a few years or many years.
Clinging to the Bible.
Learn about God, learn about His love for you, because this life is very short.
I know that sometimes six years seems like a long time.
But if we ask some of these older folks here.
The life that they've lived has gone by so fast.
And one of these days, they'll die too. The life that we're living here is very short.
But there's a reason for us to live here.
OK, who has another song? OK, I saw your hand up before, so I'll call on you next.
#8 OK #8.
Angry words, all that.
#29.
Hmm, maybe somebody else better start this one.
Dennis is actually Joshua, charges Ruth.
You already gave one out. Let's give somebody else a chance, OK?
#12.
At the heart, stop.
Who has a verse to say?
Let's just go ahead. You've got a verse. OK, You need help with it. You do. OK. Is it the one from the science school paper? Okay, let's see here. It's Psalm 34 verse.
Maybe I better look at it.
Let's see.
00:15:00
Hmm, I thought I'd marked it OK. Psalm 34, verse 7, The Angel.
Of the Lord.
In campus.
Round about.
Them that fear him.
And delivers them.
OK, did you learn more?
OK, all right, who? Who else wants to say the verse? OK.
You need help.
OK.
The Angel.
Of the Lording.
In Campus Roundabout.
Them that fear him.
And delivereth them.
OK, did you learn anymore?
Who else has a verse to say? OK.
OK, that's fine.
The professor, since he used people just to forgive our sins and cleanses from all unrighteousness first. John 19.
Okay, okay.
OK. Anybody else?
OK, Nelson.
The Angel of the Lord encamped all around those who fear them and delivered them.
Psalm 34. Seven. OK, All right, Manuel.
All right. Good job.
That's even better.
I.
OK. Thank you very much.
All right, is there anybody else that I missed who wants to say a verse?
Maybe I should stand up and make sure nobody's raising their hand like this, okay?
I was thinking about that verse.
Says the Angel of the Lord in campus round about them that fear him, and delivereth them, and next first is, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him, and.
So I was.
I like to visualize things and sort of get a picture in my head and I was thinking, so there's.
Says the Angel of the Lord camps around those that fear him. What does it?
Who fears the Lord? I mean, what does that what does that mean? And I'm asking somebody help me out. What does who is it that says the Angela Lord camps around those that fear him?
What does that? Who are the people that fear?
The Lord what's that mean? Can somebody help me out?
I need help.
I mean, if somebody came to you like I just said, hey, what does that mean? What would you say if somebody?
I mean, I'm asking because.
Well, I think I have sort of an answer. You think probably you think you might have too, and I want you to say it first.
So.
Somebody help me out?
Sort of stuck.
00:20:04
We'll start out with, OK, I'll make it a little more simple. What does it mean? The fear of the Lord. It's only a little bit more simple.
Perspective to respect him, OK. And I saw somebody's hand come up.
To respect. OK, so we're so to fear the Lord. We've got something started here is to respect the Lord.
Anybody else have anything else they want to add to that?
I don't know that I do. I that's the one word that sort of is in my head. But I'd welcome anybody that has anything more. Oh, OK, Nelson.
Fear also is.
In a sense, we're scared of what he could do to you. In a sense, yeah. And that's the way we use the word fear a lot, right? And so if we fear the Lord, does that mean that we're scared of him all the time?
Are we supposed to be scared of the Lord? Is that the way we're supposed to be? Is that a hand up or stretching? Okay, are we supposed to be scared? That's an easy one. Are we supposed to be as good? Does God want us to be scared of Him?
OK, Nelson, no, OK, Thank you.
But at the same time.
The creator of the universe.
The one who will be the one who is the ultimate judge.
There is some fear involved because imagine.
The one that created the universe.
If he has to punish us.
That is scary.
But isn't it wonderful that God loves us?
And that if we have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we've been forgiven of our sin.
Now the creator of the universe, the one that loves us.
Is.
We're on his side. He's not against us. In fact, even when even when we have sinned against God, he's not against us. He loves us. He's for us.
So it says, the Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him. So if we respect the Lord, if we know who he is, and we honor him.
If we've accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.
We have a protection.
That others don't. You know, there's a lot of people, probably you go to new kids, go to school people and some of you older ones go to school with people and work with people that don't know the Lord. They don't.
Fear the Lord, they don't respect the Lord.
It's wonderful to think.
The Angel of the Lord camps around.
Is around those of us that fear him. That means you can't see.
Here, but I am protected.
There's nothing that can come.
To me that God doesn't allow.
We can look.
Maybe you remember the story of Joe. Let's look at Job real quick.
Let's see, I didn't write down the verse.
But here we have Job and Job Chapter 2 and the Lord.
Is speaking to Satan.
Job chapter 2, verse three. The Lord said to Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job?
And you go down a little bit further.
It says.
One that feareth God.
And if you go down a little bit further?
00:25:06
Oops, I skipped first part.
Let's go back to chapter one, chapter one, verse 8. The first time it happened and the Lord said the statement has not considered my servant Job. There is none like him in all the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God.
And Satan said.
That Job fear God for not or for nothing hast thou not made and hedge about him?
And about his house, and around all that he hath on every side, thou hast blessed the work of his hands. And his substances increased in the land.
Satan recognized that Job feared God, and God had protected him. Now I want each one of you that's a believer. If you fear God, you've accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
I want you.
You're thinking about, I guess you could say you're imagining, but you're not making something up.
You are protected.
Around you God has put a barrier, says the Angel of the Lord. Camps around those that fear him, if you're a Christian.
You are protected.
By God.
Nothing can get through that, Satan even said right in here.
Satan says, of course Job fears you, you've protected him, you've given him things. But.
He said you go ahead, put forth thine hand, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. Satan said, yeah, well, if you take away the things he has.
He'll curse you.
We are protected.
And if you know the story of Job, God did allow Satan to go and take things away from Job.
And then Job still was honoring God. He still respected God. And then so Satan came back and said, well, if you just make his body sick.
He said you didn't let me do that.
Then he won't fear you.
I want to connect that to my brother.
My brother Joey was 6 1/2 years old. He was a Christian.
He was saved.
He had a protection around him.
Then why did he die?
Why did my brother Joey have that accident where he died?
If if God is protecting his own.
Why did he let my brother die?
I still just thinking my dad running out, he was the one that was my dad and my mom. They're the ones that are supposed to take care of them, right? They're the ones the parents are supposed to take care of their kids, right? And they tried. They'd even made a rule that my brother couldn't go to the corner because it was a busy St. and my brother disobeyed. My brother got on his bike and raced to the corner and don't know why he went out in the street.
But he died.
What happened to the protection that this book, the Bible says, is there?
Well.
This life is short, whether you look at it as six years long or four months long or 100 years.
00:30:02
We have been born into this world, and if the Lord doesn't come before we die, we die.
The length of our life is not the purpose of our life.
The purpose of our life is not to grow up.
And get a good job and get married and have kids.
Or.
As I thought for a while, get, you know, not get married and not have kids.
The purpose of our life is not to grow up and have a good job, or to travel and see the world or.
Anything like that?
Why does God have us on this earth?
Why does God put us here?
He says that we have a protection those that fear God. It says the Angel of the Lord.
Camps around those that fear him. And we saw that Job, Satan said, well, you have this hedge of protection around Job, which you have. And God said, OK, I'm going to take some of that away. And there was some bad things, as we call them, that happened to them. And then God took a little bit more away and more bad things happened.
But were they bad?
We don't understand God's purposes. The point of our life is not to stay alive, the point of living here.
Is.
To honor God.
To have a relationship with him.
To be a joy to him and to enjoy him God.
Wants us ultimately where Somebody tell me where does God want?
US. Does he want us? Does he want to keep us here forever?
Where does God want us?
With him, can you just say it louder? With him in heaven?
The point of our being here?
Is to honor him.
And.
To when God sees the time ready.
To take us home, to be with him. Life here.
Can be from days, hours, minutes, seconds to maybe a hundred, 120 years, maybe even we in the Old Testament up to 1000 years.
But God wants us with him.
It's very sad for us.
Physical body died, but his soul is spirit, the light that God gave him.
What could be that?
I can I miss you.
When I was governor.
When my brother first died, I was young enough to Well, I knew he was. I knew that I tried a little bit, but then.
Just as a little child, I I saw it clearer, the way you're going to see it now, because I knew that my brother died.
He was with the Lord Jesus.
I don't know, all these adults maybe such a big deal about them.
I understand. You're not. I understand.
I, my father and my first child born and I've been told that that baby is putting my arms.
Off your love.
I want to carry that child.
Now.
But we're here. I'm just heard.
00:35:01
Learn about them, learn about us, and now looking forward to being tired. I'll understand you before how long loves Nicky who cares for me. Let's just look at a few verses.
Oh.
Let's go to Clippings, chapter one.
Philippians, chapter one, verse 29.
For us, you on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on me.
But also to suffer for the sick.
God loves us.
God sends the Lord Jesus, God the Father said to his Son, If you come to this earth, die.
And we, everyone here has heard about the local organizations and I know this. Yeah, let's hear it.
We also here.
Are called to stop.
We read in our first in Psalm 34.
Oh, the Angel of the Lord can't respond about them.
And deliver them.
Now it says right there we have a height of protection and.
Well, it works delivered and we're staying we're delivered.
That sounds like I'm like a man.
I want to go.
Look at delicious chapter.
In verse 19 followers, he loves the people he's writing to.
He says, My little children, whom I travel and burden again, so Christ before me.
We read that the Lord Jesus Christ as our secret.
We have a new one.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
Is the one that.
It will legend not conscious too.
He's the one.
And I think when I was born again, I was I accepted for Jesus Christ when I was five years old.
If you look at me.
You wouldn't have seen much difference. I was a bad kid and as I grew up I didn't watch things, but little by little I am learning.
It says Paul says here.
High chart outburst is a price before an injury. I just want to look really quick. It's on my favorite verses. I take me a lot of times going so quickly is chapter one verse six being confident of this very thing that he which has done this good work for you will perform so David Jesus Christ.
We're here to honor God. We respect it. We know, we alert that He is, and He has begun to work on us. He will complete it.
Just let them quickly verse 11 be filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ. If we do good, it's him doing this. He's preparing us. He's He's turning us. He is looking for glory for us. He wants us to be an honor to His name. He wants us to have a good relationship with Him.
00:40:16
And just like with my own father, when I was being obedient and I was learning what He was teaching me.
I was enjoying him and it was a joy to be around here when I was not talking, when I was not obeying. My father was publicly or private.
I want to be around. I knew I was on. I knew I wasn't giving him the honor that he was, that he was doing. When you and I are not walking into the border, we are not. We're not honoring. We're not doing what we're doing for.
With these chapter 2, verse 13.
It is God's Word working things both to will and to choose of this good pleasure. God has begun to work with you. He is working in you and He's working in you for his daughter. That's what you're looking for. Your life will be as long as he seems quick. And I just pray that your life and my life will not be spent in chasing the next job, the next grade of school.
The coolest thing?
Trying to get away. Trying to get away from fear.
We are the training round. We are worried about our God. We're here to enjoy Him, to be a joy to Him. He wants that relationship. He wants us to realize that He is. He is just nerdy to take us home from human.
Mike just passed away. That's why I'm standing for you.
He is rejoicing the presence of his voice.
And his family is here.
Serious suffering.
What a joy to know that suffering will only last so long.
Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Had a point I was trying to get to just sort of.
And I'm going to do the rabbit trail.
But I do not want to. I know I just turned around and I do want to go back to the second part of the what was in this high school fever? I.
Psalm 34 verse three. All taste and see the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusted them.
If our eyes are only here on this earth, what God does will look awful. It will be completely incomprehensible.
What's the point of following but if we know?
The reason we exist is to be inhabited. He's going to work with us.
He is just girly to bring us to do with it.
Just makes me happy.
Who here knows how to how to harden steel?
You can tell me just quickly, how do you how do you make steel hard?
There you go. OK, that's who here to tell me how they.
I had a piece of once and I beat it up and bought some strings.
And I want to figure out we figured out the research and research research researched it because I love working with medical tools and I love figuring out how to make stuff working.
And so I had that little piece of copper and I I wanted to make that thing hard, so I took.
I went I researched it and found out that copper the only way to make a part is to stretch it or hit it, make it actually change. It has to it has to move and be stressed. Neither of these issues are informed and I if you bet back and forth to the times it would be hard to set and I finally found out that if I I took a little.
Vibrating table we had where I worked and I put a sheet of Stew on it and I took that piece of food out there and it sat there.
00:45:01
Bounced around for hours and just a jarring of it. The kidding that needs to steal actually made it flexed very very tiny way for hours when I was done. It was hard.
You and I, we.
As believers in Lord Jesus Christ, we have new blood. Christ is being born in us. We're all very different. Can't take you. If you take iron and heat it up and put it in water, you get hard, take half and do the same thing and turn soft. You and I were very good. God deals with each one of us. Typically what works with one person doesn't work with another, but He's doing it to bring us.
To go get back.
Because knowing how is what was his own knowing having no him we will praise.
Build him, we will enjoy him and he will have joy of having his love.
Dot com.
I just prayed it.
He would recognize your hands above.
In every situation question, we know that we trust.
That you are protecting us from what we should be protected from and then doing your wisdom are allowing in this very short life we have.
Things in that will make us recognize how weak we are, how strong you are, how evil we the evil we have done and is good that you are. Let us understand more of the glory and goodness and righteousness and righteousness.
Your faithfulness, your mercies that you're new every morning, Great is your faithfulness.
Our fathers trusted in you, and we're not she.
Pray our God.
Security.
In our thoughts, in our actions, as we learn, as we train us.
And we look forward to that date with this world of joy is the stars will be behind us.
Praise you are God and pray in Jesus name.
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