Michigan Family Camp: 2023
Table of Contents
Worshippers
Address—Michael Conrad
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
So the first thing that might jump out is.
Why I I chose worshippers instead of worship?
And let me see if this can get this to work.
The let me read first, the first passage. I'm going to be coming back to this a little bit, but I'll, I'll, I'll read it first. John chapter 4, starting with verse 23.
But 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.
So it occurred to me when I originally had thought about taking up the topic of worship.
That it seems to me that there's more emphasis.
From God's side of the equation on the worshippers and the worship itself.
You know God has.
God has has essentially manifested will not. Essentially God has manifested himself.
In His fullness, in the person of his Son, and he intends to bring worshippers with him to enjoy the things he enjoys with him, which.
Is why I felt like talking about worshippers was perhaps.
More what I had on my heart and I, I think that one of the elements that I wanted to bring, bring forward tonight is the side of things where he's preparing us to be worshippers. And on that, on that note, I, I was enjoying Luke chapter 5 by the way, I, I put a deck together and there's a lot of verses on there that I'm not actually going to read. And there's a lot of verses.
Decided to read that are not on there so I trust you'll bear with me. So Luke chapter 5.
I'll just begin with the first verse. And it came to pass that as a people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of genocret, and saw two ships standing by the lake, but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their Nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land.
And he sat and taught the people out of the ship. Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let your Nets down for a for a draft. And Simon answered and said unto him, Master, we have toiled all night and have taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes, and their net break, and they beckoned under their partners.
Which were in the other ship that they should come and help them. And they came and filled both the ships, and so that they began to sink.
When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down.
At Jesus knees.
Saying department from me.
For for I am a simple man, oh Lord.
We see here, I believe Jesus preparing Peter's heart for worship.
To make a worshiper out of him. And if we.
Trace his life, which we're not going to do tonight.
I think we see that play out in his rejection of Christ and his beautiful restoration and you know how how he continued on for the Lord after that. Take another good example would would be the life of Jacob, you know Jacob.
Didn't take an easy path, you know. He was seeking that blessing with his own strength, but we see.
In Jacob, a heart that was prepared for worship really pretty much his whole life until the last 15 or 17 years there. But you see a man and I think it's Hebrews 11 Chapter 4 it says was found worshipping.
At the end of his life. And so God seeks worshippers and he's, he's creating worshippers. He is creating those who can appreciate the things that he appreciates.
I think another thing that that I that I appreciated, you know, in, in really meditating on this subject was, was a, was a quote that I saw and I originally thought it was Nick Simon, but he got it from Don Rule who got it from whoever, whoever knows so.
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He said, he said, we praise God for for what he's done, but we worship him for who he is. And I think that that really resonated with me and I think you'll see why as we go through these scriptures.
I think this might be too small for anybody to read, but.
I, I think, umm, one of the things that really stood out to me in looking at the worshippers, and there's a lot of examples of them throughout the Old Testament, was that one of the things they were characterized by was worshipped by revelation or, or what how God had revealed himself to them. And we see that first with, with Abel says in Hebrews 11/4 by faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice in Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous.
The the revelation that that Cain and Abel would have been under was was really the curse. The ground had been cursed and Cain brought fruit fruit out of the ground and but Abel took that humble place, recognizing what he was before God. God had revealed to them very little compared to what obviously we know now, but in that.
He responded to God with what was revealed to him.
I'm I'm not here to tell you what is or isn't worship, but that seems to me that the heart of a worshiper.
The the rest of this slide, which part is part of the reason so small you can't read it is because I put a good portion of Hebrews 9 on there, which talks about the first covenant, the ordinances, the Tabernacle, the holiest of holies, a figure.
You know, says that which was a figure for the time. Then present the.
Revelation to the Old Testament Saints during the times of temple worship was fairly limited. You know, the access to access to God was was limited. The high priest could go in to the holiest once a year and he could bring in the blood to sprinkle and there was not a a great the sense that we have now.
You know it didn't, they didn't have the position that we have now, certainly.
Or the light. God hadn't revealed himself in the way he has to us now, and so there was fear.
Through the faithful knew that God was merciful and then he was good, but that was about as far as they could get and and so when we turn to the examples in the Old Testament, the if I could say this Reverend reverently the the bar is higher how a worshipper can worship.
It's changed because the revelation of of who God is has been made in a much bigger way. And I think one of the passages which you know comes from Acts, it was more of a transitional period.
Was from Acts Chapter 7 talking about Steven and a stoning. But he being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
And said, look, I see the heavens open and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. The glory of Christ was was revealed to Steven and he was able to worship.
Very briefly there, but he was able to worship.
And you know, we have a few more passages here that that that talk about some of those revelations and, and how worship has changed and the worshipper has changed. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Oh, sorry, John chapter one, verse 14 and then 16 to 18. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
And of his fullness have all received, and grace for grace.
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. So we have in Christ the declaration here of the Father. The Father has been revealed.
And then in John chapter 20, I am ascending to my father and your father, my God and your God. You can see through these passages there's more being revealed. Your father, my father, your Father, God, our Father, that is, that is new, that is a revelation.
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And that is something that a worshipper will enjoy and.
And we'll and we'll, we'll enter into.
And the last one I have here is Galatians chapter 4 and verse six. Because you are sons, God has set forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out ABBA Father. And so we have the the spirit now which helps us to to enter into these things.
I shouldn't get that. I should keep track of a time. I'm not sure if I'm going to go 10 minutes or 50. I'm not really very experienced with these things.
So.
The the the next slide that I have up here is a priesthood of worshippers.
I think that the the nice thing about about priesthood as it pertains to worship is that it's something that's common to us all. Says you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation of peculiar people.
That you should show forth the praises of him who have called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That's first Peter 29 and then if you back up a few verses to first Peter 25 we have he also has lively stones are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And so we have this a priesthood.
The the things that we discussed in well, I, I kind of skipped over for the most part, but in the Old Testament that were conducted by the priest, which is a wide range of things and a lot of things now that we.
Think of this as you know, the common occurrences in the assembly are are priestly, you know, things like prayer and intercession worship. You know the assembly is responsible to receive, there's to judge, to hold truth. The vast array of things. Those are those are bottom shelf things. Those are things available to all in the priesthood and the priesthood.
Probably the highest order of the priesthood, I would say was to.
Was to provide worship and and so that's why I titled this priesthood of worshippers and we we have in Hebrews chapter 10 beginning with verse 19. Therefore, our brethren having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh and having a high priest over the House of God.
There's several things that instructs us to do.
With that in mind, drawing near with a true heart and full assurance heart sprinkled from an evil conscience and bodies washed with pure water. That's a vital aspect there. I'm, I'm, I'm not necessarily going to focus on that tonight, but that that's, that's a very important aspect.
To have boldness, you need to have your heart sprinkled from an evil conscience and and you need practical sanctification bodies washed with pure water.
And and stir up love and good works and assembling of ourselves together.
And I, I'm pretty I for the most part here I'm focusing on on collective or corporate worship and worshippers.
I'm, I'm not exactly sure whether or not exactly how individual worship goes, but I, I, I think most of the passages that I've read referred to more and more are being a collective activity that that's done with the church and, you know, in the House of the living God, the new temple. So.
I focused on that aspect tonight.
And so the the worshippers now are are assembling and. And that was that first verse I read.
You know speaks of that in John chapter 4, when when Jesus is talking to the woman, Powell says the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father.
And also in Hebrews 13. Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.
For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come and, and and perhaps one more. In Timothy chapter 3, the House of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth.
So so we have here the the worshippers are are assembled together.
And we have the well, I really can't skip this one, Matthew 1820. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them, with the assembling of worshippers we have.
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The introduction of of the Spirit as the is really the divine gatherer there of of these this assembly of worshippers.
And we also have.
We have a picture there too of of of Christ and and that as the head of the church and how he is, we are in him, He is in US and that relationship.
That privilege that we've been brought into.
So the the worshippers, another aspect of that verse in John four that I read at the beginning says true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and truth for the Father for also the father seeks such as his worshippers. There's an element there of of of proximity and and adoration. That is it is is pictured there when we have.
God as as the Father.
It says in, you know, first John 213 I run into little children because you have known the Father, that divine life which we now have connects itself in the in that manner and enjoys the benefits of that relationship that we have. It's an it was a very also a very important aspect of of worship and worshippers.
I I think one thing that really stood out to me was the there's a couple of passages in Hebrews where it talks about boldness. I didn't put them on the slide, but but I do think I will read them just because there's a couple elements there. Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 16.
Hebrews 4 and 16 says, Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy.
And find grace to help in time of need. So there's there's the 1St.
Come boldly or boldness. Well, I don't know if it's the first one, but it's the first one that I'm reading. So the you know, there, there's an element there where.
And this is somewhat what's on my heart where?
When they in the Old Testament, when they?
Sought to worship, they would essentially saddle up towards Mount Sinai with all the terror and the fear there, and they knew about the mercy, and they were seeking that mercy. But you see a different side of that boldness in Hebrews 10.
And verse 19, Hebrews 10, verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. And having a high priest over the House of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
We see here a different type of boldness.
And a boldness that we need to press on for it's not enough.
I shouldn't say it's well, it's not enough. It it is wonderful, but it's not enough to recognize what God has done for us.
He has done a lot for us and we are in a wonderful position, but to me that it's clear in Scripture that that's not enough.
We need to really take the position of worshippers.
That is to appreciate God.
For for who and for what he is.
Not just for the benefits, but to really enter into the goodness that he has for us.
And the the passage that I was referring to when I mentioned the the Sinai and Zion comment is in is found in Hebrews chapter 12. For your not common to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor under blackness and darkness and Tempest, but your come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, into an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the first born, which are written in heaven.
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And to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. And perhaps most importantly, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
So there has been a wonderful revelation of what and who God is that's been made to us, and we are responsible for that. Since it says to whom much is given, much is required, we need to press on.
To really enter into the enjoyment of what God enjoys himself and to take the position that we now can as those who have that divine life and then divine nature.
That can look at the work of his Son and in sheer agreement really, perhaps not saying it the right way, but just to agree with God's thoughts about His own Son is to me the the spirit of worship and the spirit of a worshiper.
So I mentioned that.
You know self judgment.
Is an important aspect.
Of worship, we need to maintain our communion.
And you know, it's, I don't know if folks know the term, but I call it table stakes. You know, it's, it's not more important than communion. And certainly I would say not more important than worship. But it's table states it's necessary, not an end in itself God doesn't seek.
Holy acts. He seeks those who love holiness. That's what he's looking for. I I believe so.
The, the, the, the worship leader. I, I'm not gonna spend too much time on on this, even though I do think like the sanctification aspect, the self judgment.
Aspect. I think this is also extremely important, but not really what I have in my heart tonight.
But you can't really talk about, you know, you can't really talk about worship and worshippers without acknowledging that the, you know, that the Holy Spirit is, is the is the leader of worship. And the reason I use that title, and perhaps I shouldn't have is because I had a few people talk to me about what their worship leaders were encouraging them to do at the places where they were going. And I.
Had almost a guttural reaction to it because.
It's, it's, it's, it's, that's a sad state of affairs. If we are thinking that, you know, we have something to offer God that is the opposite of, of, of what the part of a worshipper is programmed to, to, to, to be attuned to. So I won't spend too much time on that. But I do think the practical element of that is when we.
Gather together.
And and I I I don't say necessarily to worship, I think.
To say that we're gathering together to worship might be a little presumptuous. I wouldn't be mad at someone if they said that. But.
It's just my, my take on it. I hope that we're worshiping. I hope we're worshippers. But you know, we, I think they're in the in the offering. You know, there's, there was a lot of different offerings. I think one of them was a, and I'm pardon me, I'm not well versed on them, but I think one of them was a bird.
So, you know, you got to you got to bring what you got and better to do that with sincerity and you know, in truth.
But that, I would say, is not necessarily ideal.
But I do think that when we come together, we do need to acknowledge that the Spirit is uniting the one body.
To, to, to praise them. We're instructed to praise him, we're instructed to remember Him. And those are things we should do absolutely.
They're not necessarily conditional.
And hopefully there's worship that occurs in the process of that. But we need to acknowledge that the spirit is is leading that. And, you know, we can't come in, for example, to the breaking of bread and give out a hit because it's our favorite song. Or, you know, we need to be sensitive to that, sensitive to the fact that we're united together as worshippers.
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We want.
There to be a sweet smelling savior to God and you need to check yourself at the door.
So I I.
Added a few a few of the the instances of of worshipping our worshippers.
That I personally enjoy the most. I think the one I I enjoy the most is.
Mary, I believe it was Mary of Bethany in Luke chapter 12 who anoints the Lord's feet.
With her tears and with very expensive oil, we could turn to Luke chapter 12, starting with verse 44.
Do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head.
You gave me no kiss.
See that in this woman, we have a lot of these subjects we've been discussing. You know, we have revelation intelligence. She knew what she was doing. She knew she was worshipping him in a manner that was bringing honor to God. She worshipped him in a way that was not putting herself forward is with humility.
It was adoration. She adored him and it was clear.
That is the heart of a worshiper.
And you know, I just noticed and I've been studying a lot of these worshippers, or at least who I think are worshippers.
Could could be wrong on a couple and open to open to other thoughts there, But there's some characteristics that I I found that are somewhat consistent with with worshippers. You know, we have, as we we've already talked about a decent amount the revelation.
Intelligence. Intelligent worship.
God seeks those to worship him on the grounds that he's established and and in the way that he is established, in the manner that he's established. And He is, as we saw with Peter and Jacob and with others, preparing our hearts for that worship. So we have.
Potentially a whole lifetime to to become.
Those worshippers that he seeks, and you can tell that's important to him because you can see what we're going to be doing into a future eternity, so.
That type of intelligent worship.
We've talked a little bit as well about holiness, self judgment, humility.
We we saw a couple of examples, you know, the one in in Luke 58I, I think I added that kind of late in the game here, but I think that's a wonderful example. Just that expression that Peter makes depart from me. It's that acknowledgement. And I don't know that it's enough to stay there. I mean, we don't want to necessarily just overly dwell on.
I'm so awful where Miss I, I mean, I'm not trying to say that dismissively, but I don't, I don't think we stay there forever, but that needs to be there. I mean, that acknowledgement needs to be there.
Or or we really have nothing and I think the example that I put up there, Second Samuel 6 David dancing for the Lord.
As you might be asking yourself, that's kind of an odd example for humility and I was second guessing myself and putting it on there as well. But I think the the fact that he.
He lost himself in that whole situation. The the hymn I gave out earlier, I kind of had that in mind. I think the last line here.
Been to worship and adore the lost in wonder, love and praise. I mean, he just lost himself. Like he wasn't worried. Like I was coming up here. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty nervous. I'm still a little bit nervous, but.
I mean.
He just he just lost himself and it's beautiful. And and you know, you think even though it was subsequent of some of the things he said in that beautiful Psalm 51, you know, that the bones that that was broken may rejoice. You know, it's it's just just lost himself. I mean, we need to be willing to get outside of our comfort zone to potentially even humiliate ourselves.
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And you know, I, I, I don't necessarily need to bring out dwell on the my call side of it, but.
You can see in in the way that the Lord dealt with that situation and his government and his wisdom. It was important to him what David did there. And David established a pattern of being a true worshipper, not because he did everything perfectly, not because he was, you know, strictly, as we would say, wholly, it was because he delighted.
In Holiness.
And I I think another one let me see how I'm doing on time. Like I said, I'm not.
Not exactly.
Sure what I'm gonna see when I look down every time. So I I think courage and energy I put on there. You know the I I love Second Samuel 23. It's one of my favorite passages. I think it was one of my dad's favorite passages because he used to read it disproportionately.
Yeah.
Let's see here. I think it was somewhere around 18.
Oh, here it is, David. I'm sorry. Second Samuel 23.
And verse. We'll start with verse 14.
And David was in and hold, and the Garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David longed and said, Oh, that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate.
And the three mighty men.
And the and the Three Mighty Men breakthrough the host of the Philistines.
And drew water out of the well of Bethlehem.
That was by the gate and took it.
And brought and brought it to David.
Nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. He said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this. Is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it.
So we see that.
That worship that occurred, there it was.
I talked earlier about a lot about David losing himself. You see the the mighty men here, there's zeal to serve their master broke through the host of the Philistines to get water.
Right. I remember when I was younger, like I said, my dad loved this passage, so I used to read it all the time. I remember thinking to myself, man, like.
If I was the guy who broke through the host of the Philistines and brought back David that water and he poured it out, I'm so mad.
Why would you do that? But now it's, it's just beautiful, you know, and I've already confessed to you guys that I'm not a, a master of, of, of the, the feasts and the sacrifices and, and, and a lot of the I, I need to, I need to study that next, but.
No, I think in there, I think in that one you have a picture of the drink offering really that I think that David was pouring that water out, you know, to God and you know, in a, in a sense, you know, a picture of Christ there so.
I, I think the last one here that I'd like to hit is, is the boldness and confidence.
I I think the the passage that that I thought of, that I think illustrates this point is.
Chapter 50.
Genesis chapter 50. Let's begin with verse 15.
And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will pair adventure, hate us, and we will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a messenger under Joseph, saying, My father did command before he died, saying, So shall you say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren and their sin, For they did unto the evil, and now we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father.
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And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
Joseph had already forgiven his brethren. At least I believe he had.
And in this I think we see Joseph, as he often is, a picture of Christ.
We see that.
He's gone before them to spare their lives.
But they're not approaching him with boldness.
And when we do that?
If we do that, I think one of the passages says we something that effectively we we re crucify Christ. I don't know if that's the exact language there, but it's I might be mixing scriptures and if I am, I apologize, but you know, they're the work that Christ has done is sufficient.
For us to have full boldness.
We can't approach him.
Just just from the standpoint of His mercy, we need to approach Him with full assurance of our of faith.
We need to approach him.
Recognizing that He has given us a new divine nature that can appreciate and enjoy all the things that He wants us to enjoy, and we need to be careful.
Walk carefully so that we don't in our carelessness.
Get ourselves into a position where we cannot enjoy that we're 840 here, we have a few minutes left. I didn't didn't necessarily intend to talk about this, but I.
You know, there's a lot of of young people here.
I've I spent a few careless years of my life when I was younger.
And.
You know, you, you really don't get those back and.
Lord has been gracious.
But you need to be careful.
He's desiring worshippers. If you're careless, you'll lose communion with him and you won't have that heart that desires to worship. So I encourage you guys to to really to really pursue.
The spirit, those characteristics of those worshippers.
And so that's, that's all all I have for for tonight.
Opposites
Bible Geography 1
Bible Geography 2
The Person of Christ
Gospel—Bob Thonney
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 everybody.
I'd like to start this meeting by reading 3 verses.
First of all, in Acts chapter 2.
And verse 36.
Therefore.
Let all the House of Israel know.
Know assuredly.
That God has made.
That same Jesus.
Whom ye have crucified, both the Lord and Christ.
Acts 10.
And verse 36.
The word.
Which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ.
He is Lord of all.
One more verse in Romans chapter 14.
And verse 9.
Or to this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living.
Let's pray.
Our God and Father.
What a privilege to open Thy precious Word and to read it, and to talk about that glorious person of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask that Thy Spirit may have liberty to bring home these scriptures.
To each heart present this evening.
We pray, Father, because we are concerned that there are perhaps.
Some that have not truly accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior and their Lord. We pray that thy word might penetrate. We give thanks, Father, for these moments together in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
When I was in the 7th or 8th grade.
We had a popular singer come to our school and we had an all school assembly in the gymnasium.
It was a popular singer and he sang a lot of the popular songs of that day. But at the end of his program, he got up to the microphone and said.
I've asked your principal permission to sing my favorite song.
And he got up to the microphone. It was one of these guys with a great big belly, and they can really pump it out. But I had never forgotten it. He sang How Great Thou Art. The first two stanzas of that song speak of creation.
The last two speak of redemption.
So I'd like to sing that tonight. I think perhaps we know it well enough that we can sing it together.
Oh Lord my God.
When?
I am.
In.
I can see the last time.
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And I have to change my.
Soul, my mistake.
I want to pray.
The Lord.
Of the grave.
Power.
Oh, I see the gods with me.
And Sainsbury's my soul, I say goodbye to me.
I'm praying about the heart.
Great, now the hands Sainsburys, my soul, my savior God should be.
A heartbreak of honor of our grace.
Cloud.
You know what Steve made when we were talking about worship? It came to me that you have to know Him to be able to worship him. And so I want to speak about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is he?
00:10:17
And how does Scripture present them to us? There's three specific places in the New Testament.
That speak of the glories of his person. John, Chapter one.
Hebrews chapter one and Colossians chapter one. We're going to go to John chapter one this evening to read.
There about this glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's read a few verses here.
John 11 in the beginning.
Was the Word, and the Word was with God.
And the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
Verse 6 Just want to comment that this is not talking here about the word. This is talking about a man sent from God, John the Baptist.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light, that all men might through him might believe he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by him.
And the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and His own received Him not, but as many as received Him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born not of blood.
Nor of the will of men of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
Full of grace and truth. So here we have the person of our Lord Jesus Christ presented and it starts in the beginning. You can understand something properly. You got to start from the beginning.
And in the beginning was the Word. He was there. Whatever beginning you want to talk about, He was there because He is the eternal Son of God.
And the word was with God.
In other words, he was a distinct person in the Godhead. God is Father, Son.
And Holy Spirit, the Word was not the Father, the Word was not the Spirit, the Word was the Son. And so it says He was with God, but at the end it makes it clear that He was fully divine. He was God himself, manifest in the flesh. The same was in the beginning with God. You know, there's bad doctrine that teaches that there was a point.
In which the Jesus became the Son of God. No, in the beginning he was the Son of God. He always was that. And then it says all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. So He is the creator of all things that are made. I think that is fascinating.
I find that so fascinating to study the universe.
Incredibly.
00:15:02
Amazing.
To see the vastness of it, even the Milky Way Galaxy in which we are situated.
You know, and I, I have a book at home that my children gave to me because they know I enjoy studying the stars. And in that book it says it's been published several years ago now that in the Milky Way Galaxy, there's approximately 100.
Billion stars. I don't, we don't grasp the number. It's there's about 8 billion people on planet Earth right now, but it's not 8 billion stars. It's 100 billion stars, it says.
And I think I've told this before. You'll excuse me if I tell it again.
And the young people sing in California. I was speaking and I mentioned that figure and young brother came up to me afterwards and says, you know what, it's closer to 200 billion now that they're talking about.
And then it was a few years ago, I was in California and a friend of mine let me see a video of some astronomers.
And he said the number is now close to 300 billion. The numbers just keep going up and up. That's our God. Do you have any idea of the vastness of the universe? I I don't think we do. I think it is helpful sometimes.
So it's on the Alta Plano at a conference some years ago and.
Go out at night before the moon comes up.
And, you know, out there on the High Plains of that Bolivia, there is not a lot of pollution. And to see the vastness of the Milky Way Galaxy, it's so clear that you can actually see other galaxies with the naked eye, little clouds of light here and there outside of the Milky Way Galaxy.
And I stood there and just looked at it.
How is significant is this poor guy standing here? I don't really count.
But God said he was interested.
Oh, what a God? Do we grasp the vastness? This is why we worship. You know, worship is not merely expressed in words. Sometimes we use words to worship.
But you find those wise men that came.
To look for the Lord Jesus after his birth. It was sometime later because they found him not in the stable.
They found them in the house.
The wise men people always paint them with three wise men. Nowhere does it say there were three wise men.
Talking to a friend of mine, he said I think it probably was closer to 20 or 30 wise men that came from that distance because it was only three. They would get robbed on the way. There's a lot of thieves in those times, so it had to be a good better number and so here they come.
That day, probably close to two years, a little less than two years after the birth of the Lord Jesus.
And here's Mary with her first born son the Lord Jesus Christ in that house. And here comes in those wise men. I don't know how they must have been dressed, but it says they got down on their faces to the ground.
Before that little child.
Oh, they recognized who he was. Do we understand who he is? We're living in a day that people make everything of man.
Your world, your life, your decision.
Come on, let's get beyond it.
Let's see our God as He is revealed in the person of the Lord Jesus. You know on that first verse it uses the word, the title, the word, and sometimes I say, what does that mean?
I stood here without saying a word.
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For 5 minutes.
You look at me and say, what in the world is he thinking?
You wouldn't know until I open my mouth and use words to express what I'm thinking. And the Lord Jesus is the word of God. He's the complete revelation of all that God is. You want to know God?
Look at the Lord Jesus. He is the word of God.
And he is the creator of all things. But notice in verse four it says in him was life.
And the life was the light of men, light. Interesting.
Look at the light bulbs we have up here.
Are they making any noise? I can't hear anything.
Are they saying anything? No, but because of these lights, I can see you all over there and over on this side too. Everything is made manifest by the light and you can hide things sometimes from your mom and dad.
From your brethren.
But you can hide nothing from this person who is the light of the world. And it says verse five, the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
You know why the darkness didn't comprehend it?
Says in Second Corinthians chapter 4 that the God of this world, that Satan has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them.
You can shine a spotlight into the face of a blind man. How much is he going to see? Nothing. Because he's blind. The light is on him, but he doesn't see a thing. Oh, how sad it is that there are people that are blind. You know, I, I'm really concerned this evening.
Because I see that there are those.
Who say they're Christians who have not really surrendered to the Lordship of Christ? We read those 3 verses at the beginning that He is Lord of all. What does that mean? It means He has supreme authority. Have you surrendered to the authority of the Lord Jesus?
Have you repented of your sins? That is so important. Without repentance there is no salvation.
Repentance is important for salvation, but repentance in itself does not save. What saves is faith in Christ. But it's important to repent, and repent simply means to change your mind. We all have a sin nature. We like to do our own thing. We like to have our own way.
No, there's a boy. I was naughty sometimes.
And I got spankings.
And I'll never forget one spanking my dad gave me.
They called me Robert, then said, Robert, I want you to come back and admit you were wrong. You know what? When I came back to admit to my dad that I was wrong, I bawled more than I did when I got the spanking. It hurts so much to to to admit.
I was wrong.
And that's what we have to do. And then to recognize the Lord Jesus is Lord of all. It's not a matter of what I want. We live in a world that tries to get us to think that we have the right to do what we want.
We don't have rights to anything except judgment.
But the Lord Jesus came to save us from that, and now he has all the rights. You know what? I just want to say this to the young people, as I said to myself.
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I find that those people who live to please themselves.
Are empty. They are not happy people. They are not satisfied.
You want to be happy, I want to ask you to surrender to the lordship of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's go on here in this chapter, verse 6-7 and eight talks about John. He came to bear witness of the light. Isn't that interesting sometimes I.
Said it this way.
What if I go downtown Grand Rapids?
On a sunny day.
And everybody I meet in the street, hey, the sun is shining.
In the world are you talking about, you crazy guy? Everybody can see that the sun is shining.
But you know what? When Jesus came the light of the world, this world is so blinded that God had to send a man ahead of the Lord Jesus to say this is the true light.
That came into the world and there were a few that believed. Says he came into his own and his own received is not the Jewish people.
Was in the world and the world knew him not and that tragic to think about. There was that little baby boy born in Bethlehem. His mother wrapped him in swaddling clothes in a stable, laid him in a Manger.
Nobody knew that the creator of the universe had come into his own creation.
Oh, how tragic.
So the angels, when they came down, remember the angels had never seen their Creator before. For the first time they see that little baby, they knew that it was their Creator. And they say what happened to these people? Don't they know what's happened? So they went out into the countryside to tell some shepherds that were out there.
And the shepherds were the first to come.
And to see that newborn baby. So he says, he came unto his own. His own received him not, but as many as received him. I want to ask you, have you received him?
Still remember?
Young man came who was a student in university, law student, and he was under conviction to tell and he was in tears, he says.
I want to know what to do to be saved. What do I have to do?
The brethren tell me I have to repent. I don't understand what to do. I said, well you're a law student, you should be able to figure this out in verse 12. Please read it to me.
As many as received him, to them gave he the power, the right to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
What do you have to do?
What does it say?
Did you catch it your children? What do you have to do?
Exact though that's that's right.
Came out in Spanish. Sorry, but that's all you have to do is believe I'm listening. That's the way you receive him. Doesn't say you have to pray. You want to pray. OK and so I got that guy to read it for me I said.
That's what it says just to believe on his name. I says if you want to pray it's OK, but it doesn't say you have to pray. Says that you have to believe on his name. And it's belief not merely with.
The mouth, it's belief with the heart, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and believe.
In thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. As always believing in the heart. There's so many that don't believe in the heart. Yeah, they make a scent to the fact. Yeah, I believe.
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And this is what concerns me, knowing the challenge you young people as well as the older ones.
As to how real?
Your believing is.
When we first moved to Bolivia, we built a house right next door to the meeting room in Montero, Bolivia, and one of the young men who was subcontracted to help in the construction of the house.
Seem to be a real believer and he.
Went with us and some of the trips and the weekends we did to visit some of the other meetings out in the jungle areas and seemed like he was a real believer. When we got down building the house he went off to some other area and I lost contact with him. One day I met him in the marketplace in Santa Cruz. Where have you been?
Oh, I'll come back to meeting. I'm going to come back to meeting.
I said no. Are you reading the word of God? Oh, come back to me. It's not about the meeting, it's about the word of God.
Anyhow, we lost contact again.
If you ever in Montero, Bolivia, you know that they use motorcycles for taxis there. Instead of hiring a taxi, you just signal a motorcycle taxi and you get on the back and they take you where you want to go.
Well, in Montero, while we were living there, these motorcycle taxis, the guys kept appearing out in the country dead.
And I couldn't figure out who's doing this.
Until it came to light.
One guy they found out in the country with a bullet through his head, but he hadn't killed him and they took him into the hospital.
And he got better and he told who it was. It was this guy.
And he confessed it was a military regime in Bolivia at the time and they are fairly hard and so they probably tortured him, but he confessed have killed 12 People.
And other things that he did were just shocking.
Well, since it was a military regime, what they did to take care of this criminal was under the guise of doing an investigation out into the countryside, because he would sell the motorcycles at a cheap rate to somebody and take the money. It took him out into the countryside to investigate and all of a sudden here he takes off from the jungle.
And they cry out to him, stop and he didn't stop. And so they take out their pistol and boom boom.
He went into a lost eternity.
It totally shocked me. I broke bread with somebody who is in hell fire right now. How can that happen? Is that happening now? I fear it is because you know, there are a number of young people that used to break bread that are now atheists.
And I say what happened.
Because people make a profession with their lips without being real in their hearts. Where are you? Over there or over here? Are you real with God? You can fool me, you can fool the brethren. You can never fool God. Be real with God.
Oh, I plead with you. It's way too important.
To mess up on this issue.
And so the Lord Jesus.
Is the Word of God just one more verse here about His person? In verse 14 the Word was made flesh. This is the only reference in John's gospel to His birth. And dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.
The glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
Full of grace and truth. Oh, that's wonderful.
00:35:03
It was a glorious person will never comprehend the fullness of His glory, but it is our privilege to think about it, to read about it. And the more we understand His glory, the more we will be worshippers.
But then it says, full of grace and truth. You know, some of us might be gracious.
But we're not full of truth at the same time. And there are those who are truthful, but they're not gracious. But this person was full of grace and truth. I think it is so amazingly wonderful how he handled every situation he came up on.
You remember one day in the temple they brought a woman.
Taking in a serious sexual sin, adultery and said Moses said we should storm this woman. What do you say?
The Lord Jesus didn't answer anything, He just stooped down and wrote on the ground.
They kept on asking him.
The hypocrisy of those Pharisees was pretty evident. For adultery you need a man as well as a woman. Why didn't they bring the man to?
The Lord Jesus was full of grace and truth, and so he's finally says, he that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.
And they were all convicted.
Those Pharisees, and they got up and they went out from the oldest to the youngest, because the oldest had more sins.
And finally, the Lord Jesus stands up again and sees only the woman standing there.
Woman, where are your accusers? Has no man condemned you? She said. No man, Lord.
Wait a minute. There's one man there that has never sinned. He's without sin. He can condemn her.
So, Lord Jesus.
But he did not come to condemn, He came to save. He's full of grace and truth. Oh, how wonderful to know that glorious man, but to be able to say to that woman.
Neither do I condemn thee. Something was necessary. There was a sacrifice that needed to be made. And so let's go over to John chapter 19 where we have the Lord Jesus.
His work of redemption talked about.
Pilot, the Roman governor stated Three times, I find.
No fault in this man, and yet at the same time he said that he commanded him to be scourged.
And then he commanded him to be taken and crucified.
Verse 16, Chapter 19 Then delivered He him therefore unto them to be crucified, and they took Jesus, and led him away.
And he bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.
Where they crucified him and two other, with him on either side, one and Jesus in the midst.
Pilot wrote a title and put it on the cross, and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
Verse 23. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts to every soldier apart, also his coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top, without throughout. They said, Therefore among themselves, let us not rend it, but cast lots for it whose it shall be.
That the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith they parted my raiment among them.
And for my vesture they did cast lots these things there for the soldiers did. So the Lord Jesus was crucified outside the city of Jerusalem. You know, when we think of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus.
00:40:14
What he had to go through to redeem our souls. There were physical sufferings, there were emotional sufferings, there were sufferings for sin.
Those physical sufferings, I can't imagine what it must have been to hang with nails through your hands and feet.
Hour after hour, to be mocked, to be spit upon. You know, one of the things they said to him was he said he was the Son of God. If he's the Son of God, let God come and deliver him.
Did God come and deliver him?
No.
Why not? Didn't God love his son? Yes He did. But you know what? He loved you and me as well, and there was no other way that you and me could be saved.
Then God would leave him hanging on that cross. But those were suffering.
Which he says in the book of the Psalms. Reproach has broken my heart, and I'm full of heaviness, and I look for some to take pity. And there were none and comforters, but I found none.
But the most awful of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, where it's not recorded in John's Gospel, but it's recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke, that at the.
6th hour which is 12 noon the way we calculate time until.
The ninth hour, which is 3:00 in the afternoon. For three hours there was darkness over the whole earth. It was so awful that now human eye could contemplate the awfulness when God laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all.
And God took the the rod of His judgment and punished His own beloved Son for the sins of this guilty Sinner that stands here. Do you see why I cannot insist on my own rights or my own desires anymore? There's only One who has all rights in my life, it's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. God is way too holy and righteous to be able to pass over one of our sins.
However light it might be.
And so the Lord Jesus paid the price in full. In those hours of darkness, we'll never understand the awfulness of what it meant to Him.
You look closely in Scripture, you won't find him saying anything in those three hours of darkness.
Until the very end.
When he cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
You know, he always addressed God his Father in his life. This is maybe the only place that he addresses God as God. Why?
Because God was dealing with him as to the character, the holy character has been and it had to be satisfied that you and I are going to be forgiven our sins.
Thank God he paid the price in full, because here in John's Gospel notice in verse 30, Jesus therefore had received the vinegar. He said it is finished and he bowed his head, gave up the ghost. The price of redemption was paid.
In full.
God's holy character was.
Fully vindicated in that sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, what a wonderful redemption He accomplished there for us.
So notice.
Verse 2032 This then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first, that's the first malefactor, and of the other which was crucified with him.
00:45:10
But when they came to, Jesus saw that he was dead already. They break not his legs, but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side out.
And there forthwith came there out blood and water, And he that sight bear record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.
The Lord Jesus paid the price of redemption with His own precious blood. Oh, what a cost was paid to make us the His and.
So the Lord Jesus died and the rest of the chapter we hear how he was buried.
And then the first day of the week was buried on a Friday afternoon, and the first day of the week they went to the tomb to anoint him because they weren't allowed to go there on the Sabbath day. It was a day of rest, and they see the stone rolled away.
From the door of the tomb, and Jesus was not there.
He had risen from the dead. Oh, the triumph of the resurrection. Jesus died, He was buried, and he rose again. This is the story of the Gospel. On that basis, God can offer free and full salvation to all who simply believe.
We say this evening, repent.
And believe repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is the recipe for full salvation.
Oh, how important that is.
To understand and to take seriously again, I say, I look over this crowd. I cannot see your hearts.
But I am concerned that there is one who has made a profession without being real. After this meeting is over, I want you to feel free to approach me or some other brother that's responsible to talk about it if you have doubts. It's way too important.
To not be sure about, but before we close I want to go over to.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 to read a couple verses there that are such a challenge to my own heart.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.
For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge.
That if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all. That they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
What are you living for?
You profess to know the Lord Jesus as your Savior. I want you to seriously consider this. I see so much in today's world where human rights are stressed and people can do what they want. They can think what they want, and nobody should judge another. It's not a matter of us judging, it's a matter that we have.
Absolute truth here in the Word of God, and that's what we have to go by. But people think that they can make their own judgment calls.
Listen to this what it's saying here. Love of Christ constraineth us, if he being the eternal Son of God, the creator of the vast ends of the universe, if he gave his life for me.
00:50:01
And now he has saved me. What is life about? Is it living for ourselves? Scripture says that they which live should henceforth not live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.
And This is why I read those verses at the beginning about the Lord's Lordship of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is Lord.
Even though he may not be recognized as Lord, he is Lord of all. He is Lord of dead and living.
Of things in earth and things in heaven and things under the earth. That means infernal beings. Even the demons of hell are going to have to bow their knee and recognize that the Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
I just want to encourage you.
Dear young brother and sister in the Lord Jesus, to make him the Lord in your life, It's not what you want, it's what He wants that is worthwhile living for.
You know, in my life I've seen quite a few people, some that have been very wealthy.
But I've found that in general, wealthy people are not that happy people. I've seen those that are very poor in this world, and let me tell you, I must say, to witness their happiness in the enjoyment of the Scriptures has been an impression that I can't shake off.
It's not about having stuff, it's about having the Lord Jesus before you. What did he have in this world?
The only thing I can come up with is the clothes on his back that they took off of him and they crucified him. Why wasn't he interested in having a house or at least a donkey to ride on? Why wasn't he interested?
You know what, I have come to the conclusion that the Lord Jesus came from the Father's house in heaven. And in this world He could find nothing that could compare with that, and he wasn't really interested. It wasn't that there was something prohibited, it was that he wasn't interested. And so it's not a matter of having things prohibited.
It's a matter that your heart has been captured.
By this one who hung on that cross to die for us and to rise again. Oh, he's worth living for. And I just want to say the measure that I've been able to recognize, that it has led to fulfillment that I sense will last for all eternity. And that's my desire for you, dear young people, too.
Forgiveness
Talk—G?deon Muluzi
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Praise God, brothers and sisters.
Are in Michigan.
I thank God for giving me this opportunity to speak to you today for those who don't know me.
My name is Maluzi Rugenabanga Gideon from Goma Assembly, a very young assembly in Goma from the Democratic Republic of Congo. We are living in the eastern part of our country. We say thank you for your prayers. Thank you for everything you brothers and sisters you do for us.
Here in Goma.
And for my family and all the sons from my local assembly, today I am going to speak about forgiveness.
Yes, I know that maybe some of you will not encourage maybe all the message because of my accent. You know, our accent is some sometimes different from yours.
But I hope God, this, the Spirit of God, will help us to understand the very message that He wants His people to know and to understand.
Today we are going to speak about forgiveness and our main structure is from the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter 6.
All the 1St 12:00 and we look after also verse 14 and 15 as well.
It's about the Lord's Prayer as he was telling his disciples, and he said in verse 12 of Matthew 6.
And forgive our debts.
As we also forgive. As we also have forgiven our debtors.
This is our Lord speaking.
Showing his disciples how they should pray and he mentioned this. Telling them they should pray and ask for forgiveness.
But there is a particular thing that I see in this scripture that they are asking for forgiveness. Forgive our date as we forgive.
Those who are our doctors.
Normally I often start this speech with a question, the question that maybe you will not be able to answer right now, but maybe you will answer it later and feel free also to ask.
Me Some questions about my speech according to what the Spirit of God will enable me to speak.
My first question is.
Have you ever?
Did wrong to someone?
It may be your parents, your neighbors, your wife, your husband, your children, your boss, your employees. Have you ever did wrong?
And maybe the person tells you that you have done wrong to me.
Or yourself.
Within your heart, you recognize that you have done wrong.
To somebody.
That is my question, Have you ever done wrong to somebody?
And if yes?
What was your attitude?
How did you feel?
After.
Have you have done wrong to somebody? How did you feel? What was your attitude? Did you go to ask for forgiveness?
00:05:12
Or you just let it pass.
And the second question.
Have you ever been?
Offended. Have someone ever wronged to you?
And when that person has done wrong to you, how did you feel? What was your attitude?
I want.
You to think about when someone has done wrong to you and you did not forgive him or her.
What will happen to you?
And what happens to you when someone does a bad thing, sins against you and the person did not ask for forgiveness?
Are you free to forgive someone who did not ask for forgiveness?
And if someone asks for forgiveness, what is your attitude? Are you free to forgive him or her?
For if we read.
The next verse is the verse 14 and the verse of 15.
The Bible is telling us something very special, something that is going to.
It it's telling us something.
Let's read the verse for if we forgive the people.
When they seen against you.
You Heavenly Father.
Will also forgive you. That's verse 14 and verse 15 says.
But listen to this.
But if you don't forgive others their sins, your Father will not.
Forgive your sins.
If you don't forgive.
The things that people have done to you, if you don't forgive them, your Father in heaven will not forgive you also.
Do you hear that? Do you see how dangerous?
Is when you don't want to forgive people. Do you see the danger you are crossing when you don't want to ask for forgiveness to the people whom you have sinned against?
And sometimes I do look on this issue, on this matter of forgiveness between married people. I don't know how about your country, how about your farm, your town or your village where you're coming from. But for those who know Africa and those who have visited Africa.
And know about the African cultures.
Sometimes it's too hard. It's too difficult to people to man married man to ask for forgiveness to their wives because they think that they are above.
Their wives, they are above the women, and a man cannot ask for forgiveness.
In front of a woman, yeah, that's the culture. But our culture is not above the gospel.
You need to ask for forgiveness and you need also to forgive.
Even to your children. You can ask for forgiveness to your children. Your children also can ask for forgiveness to you. Yeah, you. It's a must as a Christian. Remember the Bible says that if you don't forgive, you will not be forgiven as well. I know it's a hard thing to do.
00:10:00
But since we are Christians, we need to obey the word of God. I want to tell a special man, especially those who are married.
It will not cost you something to ask forgiveness to your wife.
It will not cost you something you will not lose.
Your power of being man, being father or husband, you will not lose something, but forgiving or asking for forgiveness heals your heart.
And it gives you a good place, it gives you the self-confidence, it gives you all the power, it gives you the security in our Lord because you respect His words, you respect His commandment. That is my brother who are listening to me.
Please, being a man does not give you the right of not.
Asking for forgiveness.
You ask for forgiveness and this will happen in two ways.
What you recognize yourself say that something that I have done to my wife, something that I have told my wife was not good and this is not fair. You just go humbly as a son of God and ask forgiveness to your wife. You tell my dear wife, please.
I have done 123. Please forgive me.
And she will forgive you, she will feel better, she will feel good, she will feel loved when you ask for forgiveness at the man.
Think about your children.
Despite the age your children have, one of your children can be three years or five or something, but if he sees or she sees you, ask for forgiveness, although at the age he has or she has, this will help.
In two levels. The first one it will help her to feel.
Like.
He or she is healed from something that you have done to him or her and have offended the person in question. The child will be healed and the second level it will be like a teaching. The child will learn how to ask forgiveness because the child will say OK if adult.
People can humble themselves and ask for forgiveness. So how much more for me, the child underage, How much for me if I can ask for forgiveness? And this will be the best teaching because it's a teaching that is done by action. Thank you very much.
If my brothers who are married can consider this and from this time start asking for forgiveness.
To their wives and children. I want to tell also my sisters, my married sisters who are listening to me. You also you don't really. You will not lose something when you ask for forgiveness to your husband or to your children. It will build up your faith. It will build up the love.
To your husband or to your children?
When you ask for forgiveness, sometimes married people, especially sisters, sometimes they don't also have that free will of asking for forgiveness. Sometimes they, they recognize really that I have offended my husband or my children, but they don't directly go and ask for forgiveness, but they will show actions.
The action and I want to tell you that.
Maybe there are not all people who are able to interpret the action that you are making for asking forgiveness. So as a child of God you also you better go straight to the point and ask for forgiveness. It will not cost you something.
00:15:24
You tell your husband, please I have done wrong to you, I have offended you when I did 123 please forgive me.
Oh, Can you imagine how happy will be your husband or your children when you ask for forgiveness? When you humble yourself to ask for forgiveness, this will make a goodwill create a good way to.
Build your face to build the love in the family and this will also be done.
To the neighbors, to the colleagues.
Working place in your fellow Christian, in the local assembly, in your house, maybe the people you employ. You know everywhere. You need as a Christian to ask for forgiveness and to forgive your people. Remember that the Bible is telling us that if you don't forgive.
The scene that older people have.
Done to you. Your Father in heaven will not forgive you as well. It's not my saying, it's the Word of God, and it's a word spoken directly from our Lord Jesus Christ, not this.
If you don't forgive or ask for forgiveness.
Nor that you are disobeying.
The word of God.
You don't respect what God have said.
You need to know that.
Our God and Father.
Has a particular intention.
Intention in this issue of forgiveness, remember that you don't forgive someone because he is good you don't forgive someone because you just forgive but it's a must remember the Bible says that when we were yet.
Seen as Jesus died on the cross for us, don't wait people to be good. Don't wait your neighbors to be good, your fellow Christian to be good, your children, your parents, your husband and wife to be good so that they can deserve your forgiveness. No, our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for us when we were yet sinners.
And if we look at this week.
We understand that.
Although.
Sorry, despite the.
Situation in which this someone who have done wrong to you is you need to forgive him or her because of the love of Christ in you.
We don't forgive.
Because of what people have done to us, we don't forgive because of the attitude that they show us, but we forgive because of the love of God that He showed us through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Love people. Although they have sinned against you, you love them and that love will take you to a high place where you will not only see what the people have done to you, but the love will. You will show love and that love will push you.
To forgive people. Amen. And this will be a good.
Way of seeing things.
00:20:02
Forgiveness is very important that if you can read the structure from the book of Matthew chapter 18, chapter 18, verse 21 and 22. Let us read.
Verse 21 and 22 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who seems against me?
Up to seven times. Then our Lord Jesus Christ answered in verse 22. Jesus said, I tell you not.
Seven times, but 77 times, you see. Oh, thank you, our Lord Jesus Christ, for giving us this light of.
Your words think that we don't even count the times that we need to forgive the people who have sinned against us. Because as Peter is asking.
Is really seven times, but the Lord is saying not 7 but 70.
Seven times.
Oh, this is wonderful. So don't say that. Don't tell your wife, Don't tell your husband. Don't tell your children or your parents, your colleagues, your boss, your employees. Tell them that you have seen.
Against me two times and now you come again to ask for forgiveness. No don't count. Don't please count. You just love people despite how many times they have seen against you. But the love of our God and Father will help you to forgive.
These people, God loved us so much.
When we were yet seen as St. Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son. Yes, you see.
Although you are, you are having pain in your heart. You are really crying day and night because of the bad things that people have done to you. You are really offended. You are somehow maybe depressed.
And although you are in touch, a situation.
Love people, and the love will help you to forgive the people.
Dear brothers and sisters.
Please pray God so that he may help you to have love towards people and the love will help you to forgive people who have done wrong to you and this will give you security. This will heal your heart and this will.
Make God be happy, and once God is happy, you are happy as well and.
You will be happy with people and people will be happy to you. Remember as I finish that if you don't forgive people who have sinned against you.
Your God who is in heaven will not forgive you as well. Thank you very much. And I will ask you to listen also to my testimony because these teachings, it's not just a speech, but it has also helped me so much when I read these verses.
And there was people who have done terrible things.
To me and my family and my tribe. But by the grace of God, by the love of God, I have forgiven those people.
Praise God, brothers and sisters.
I thank you for listening to my speech about forgiveness.
As I promised that I will share my testimony as well.
00:25:01
Now this is the time for sharing my testimony, my personal testimony.
Of things that I went through.
Things that made me hate the whole tribes of duties.
Though it's not all of them who killed my family members, but I hated them all.
A short story of my country. My country is DRC. The Democratic Republic of Congo are located in the central of Africa. Now my village is at the eastern part of my country. My country has more around 400.
And 50 tribes.
And there is a tribe which is called 30 tribe. They originally came from Rwanda, a neighbor country to DRC.
And what the truth is did to my family made me like wherever I saw them. I mean the people from that tribe of Tutis whenever I saw them.
I felt like I want to have revenge against them.
I remember those days.
When I was 12 years old.
My mother were coming from the farming field at lunchtime. We were ready at the table eating beans and pumpkin. We were not eating it because we like it, but it's the food that we often afford.
To the village, Yeah. We were eating pumpkin and beans and suddenly people came in.
Those were duties from the tribe.
They came in, they had guns, they had knives, they have cans, so all kinds of weapon they have.
They came in and commanded us to lie down.
We lay down.
As they commanded.
And.
On the ground, my father, my mother, my sisters were all there, and all other some relatives as well.
The truth is, obliged my elder brother to stand up, told him to defend the family. He couldn't.
He just started crying, so we did. After that they took a knife.
And slaughtered him.
We were there seeing but could not help, he cried.
Cried and he died as a goat, slaughtered.
We cried, begging their mercy and beauty.
They did not even want to listen or to answer to our requests.
After that.
They took my two eldest sisters, one was 16 years old and the other were.
14 years old.
The tortoise raped my two sisters in front of my parents and me and the rest of the people who were in the house.
On my sights I saw everything my father saw, everything my mother did. So it was very sad.
After ****** them.
They slaughtered them.
00:30:00
Two, it was very sad.
That same time they killed 7 people in my house.
Two brothers.
Two sisters and three relatives who were living with us in my father's house. Can you imagine?
You are laying down on the ground.
In the mists of seven dead people.
Your own people who were not sick but killed by other human being using knives.
It was very sad.
Seven people, seven dead body.
The blood is spread all over the saloon, in the house.
Like water?
You are lying on the ground as if you were streaming in the blood of your own people, people who are not sick but killed.
Not thick. They had their projects. We were eating together.
We were laughing together, but sometimes later killed by their fellow human being.
The only faults, the only thing that they did that made them be worthy of death.
Was being in a different tribe. They were killed because they were. They were not two thieves killed by knives. Can you imagine?
Sometimes, some weeks later, my father passed away. I think he was affected by what we all see and witnessed about the death of my four people, brothers and sisters.
And.
The other relatives who were living with us in my father's house.
We stayed helpless, often no one to pay school fees.
For me.
Later on.
One of my neighbors in the village.
Decided to help me.
Paying school fees and other expenses for me.
Very sad, very sad.
The same people, people from the same tribe.
Killed that man who was willing to help me, to pay everything for me. And that happened when I was studying in Uganda, a foreign country.
Far from my village, far away from my country.
It was very sad.
And that.
Made me hate them more and more. I could not eat meat for more than five years.
Whenever I saw meat, I remembered how many people were killed.
Wherever I saw a duty.
My anger grew.
Up the more I hate them.
Later on, I.
I get saved.
Started living a Christian life.
Oh glory to God, I thank God for sending Jesus Christ.
Who died on the cross for my sins?
As a forgiven Sinner.
I tried to forgive people who hated me.
00:35:04
But the more I tried, the more I failed.
The more I tried to forgive people, the more I failed.
Until I prayed God the Father.
And he created.
A love in my heart.
To love my enemies.
I also read.
The verse from Matthew chapter 6, verse 15.
For if you don't forgive people who sin against you, your Father in heaven will not forgive you as well.
And this verse and the prayer that I made to God the Father, who created a great love in my heart.
The love for my enemies changed my life.
I thank God I was able not only to forgive them but also love them. I forgive them and I love them.
As human being, as people like me, I have love for them and nothing.
Can't take away this love.
The Holy Spirit.
Help me.
To continue in this kind of love.
And God made me pass through things that was like the exercise of love towards those people.
Like during COVID-19 lockdown.
Here in Congo.
Were leaving a very hard situation.
The country which?
Is at war, fighting tribes among tribes and countries. Attack the country, this country and those people.
Were.
Living in a hard situation during lockdown. COVID lockdown.
And what happened? Because I used to be the pastor of a denomination before I knew the truth.
Before I read also the book of God's order and brother Tim came several time and sent me some of the teachings and now I am a gathered brother.
But during the local COVID-19 lockdown.
Those people from the church came to live in my house.
They expected to get food in my house.
They thought that I was rich enough to have much food for my family and for them and I could not just put them out. We just stayed in my house and I thank God, through the love He created in my heart, I was able to sell my.
How's my own house? I sold it just to get food for feeding people who came to have a refugee in my house. And among those people who were living in my house, there were three.
Duty families who were living with me, with my wife and my children in the same house.
And we?
Exercised love towards them and my wife and I have decided to put those three families first at the queue waiting for food.
Meaning we could not serve all the people before those three dirty families I met. Sure that those three families are served before we can serve next people.
00:40:09
And I thank God that the people were fed, although we have lost some of the brothers.
Passed away, died from starvation cause of the lack of food but.
God spared us and those three to the families.
From now until when Jesus Christ will come back.
I will be at peace with these families, with this tribe, have nothing against them. I love them, I have forgiven them and in any way if there is a danger.
On the side of toothis and I am able to spare even one of them. I will do it for the love of Christ, for the love that God created in me. I thank you very much for listening and I pray that God help you and I to forgive the people who have sinned against.
US.
Remember, you don't lose your things, you don't lose your personality when you forgive somebody or when you ask for forgiveness. Your questions are welcome. If there is any question, any advice please.
I am ready for answering question and listening for recommendations or advices God.
Bless you all.
Hello, Gideon. We see you now. Yes, hello. I can see you as well.
Praise God, I do have a couple questions.
Your Tootsie neighbor who helped you to pay school fees and other other expenses.
You said they killed him. How did they kill?
That man.
OK. Well, thank you, brother Tim for the question.
It was.
During the the rain here in my village, so my my neighbor the the man who was willing to pay school fees for me was driving his car.
He arrived at a certain point where they set a barrier, but it was not seen like a barrier. He just crossed with his car driving.
And what happened? At about 15 metres they stopped him and told him why did you not stop at the barrier?
Then he said I could not see any barrier here. They said there is a barrier and you should stop, but you did not stop. They took him out of his car.
They commanded him to sit down.
On the ground, he sat down.
Then they they made a queue of about 20 or 25 soldiers.
From the Tutti tribe, they asked him to open the man. He opened the month and one by one passed and speedled in his mouth.
They, they, they, they asked him to open his mouth, and they were spitting into his mouth. Yes, and they did it, and they obliged him. They commanded him to swallow.
Everything and he had no choice. He shall load it. Then they free him and told him to go, but he could not survive.
A few days later, he passed away.
Yeah, the doctors could not help him. That is how, in brief, how he was killed.
00:45:02
Why did they not kill you or your father or mother in the house?
OK, they did not kill us.
Just they were discussing about themselves and they say that they are tired and they will come later, maybe another day to kill us. Yeah. So we were living in Thatcher.
Fear. Anytime when we hear somebody knocking at the door, we say, oh, they're coming. Today is our last day. Yeah, it was terrible.
They just paid Arsenal, I don't know. And the man, they did not kill him in the car because they just want and they say that they cannot use guns because they are going to spoil their magazine and they need to use knives and they cannot use other means to kill them. They just, there is a saying that they say we will kill you slowly, will kill you slowly.
We don't want to kill you at a sudden.
Oh my.
How long did it take after you realized you should forgive the Tutsis before God gave you his love for them and you are able to forgive? Was this something you had to pray for daily for some time or did God just miraculously give you the power one day to forgive?
It took, it took time, it took like one year praying, one year praying before praying. I was trying as a human being to forgive them. But as I said in my my testimony that the more I tried as a human being.
To forgive them, the more I failed to forgive them.
Then I said, OK, I will try, I will start praying. I prayed and every day, every evening before going to bed, I was asking God the Father to give me the love towards those people so that I may forgive them. I pray that it took me like one year or ten months like that, something like that.
And then God created a love, a kind of love in my heart, and through that love I forgive them. And after the forgiveness, after forgiving them, then the Lord gave me now some opportunities.
And in everything that I was doing, God directs some to describe people to come in my things, in my life, in my neighborhood.
And in the church where I was praying, God just brought those people so that I can exercise that love, so that I can exercise that forgiveness, to make sure that really I have forgiven them from the very bottom of my heart.
When is the last time you and your family ate breakfast?
Yeah.
The last time I think that now next to.
Next September.
Will Will.
Will reach five years without eating breakfast, five years my family, my wife, my children and I5 years next September.
Here at our camp, we have 250 people.
And breakfast, lunch, supper and then before we go to bed we eat again. So we have a lot of food here.
While you are suffering, we're sorry for that. Yeah. Another question, are the two, are the two still continuing these killings even now?
And are they still? Are they still holding the city of Roma captive?
Yeah, exactly. They're still doing the same as I told.
00:50:01
They, they, they are fighting, you know, they, they are in a group, A rebel group which is fighting even now, right now. The time I'm telling you yesterday's, yesterday it was Sunday at about 17 kilometres. They were killing people yesterday before we, we went to the.
To the meeting to remember the Lord in his death.
A friend of mine gave me a call and told me that they attacked a village at 17 kilometres from away from where we are living and killed people. Yeah, so they never stopped.
Well, how many of those in your assembly died of starvation during the lockdown?
We have lost.
33 brothers and one kid.
A total four person died of starvation. How did you hear the Gospel be saved?
That there is a friend of mine who invited me to the church. He was trying inviting me to the church. Then I heard the gospel and I got saved and I started going to the church and listening to the gospel then.
After a while that was in Uganda and when I came back in, in Congo, my country.
I backslided, I backslided, I could not go to church again and I start living the normal life and which does not please God.
Then after that.
Somebody else invited me to church and they started praying to me.
And.
Teaching me the the word of God. Then I went back in the church, in Christian life and.
Because I am an interpreter, I do interpret for.
People from English countries to interpret them in Swahili, in French and other local languages.
So through this I met Brother Tim in Kigali for the first time. I was called there to translate for a pastor from Congo.
And I was interested in the things of God, how to being gathered under the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now I am a gathered brother that is in breath. How old are you brother?
I am now.
39 last June 17 was my birthday.
39 You have one wife? Yes, I have one wife and four kids. What are their names?
My first my wife is called Crystal.
Crystal and she's now 29 so I am 10 years older than her and my first born is called Albert.
Albert is 15 years now. My second born is called Armani or Peace.
He's 12 now and my third born is a girl is called Faraja and malas born is seven months now is called Hashima. What does Hashima mean?
Hashima means dignity. How many wives did your father have?
My father had.
Two wives and my grandfather has.
67 wives.
I can't count that high.
00:55:01
OK, our time is about up. Gideon, thank you very much for joining us today.
Thank you also for listening. Thank you for your prayers.
I love you so much. You are my brothers, although we are at a distance. Thank you brother. Greetings and family. Yes, thank you. Bye now. Bye.
Questions
Address—Darren Kulp
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
So I mentioned I'd like to talk about questions. I think it would be too broad to call it a topic and possibly broad. And I'm sure that as soon as it said questions, a lot of you had ideas in your mind already. Maybe it would be better to call it a theme, just very narrowly. I want to talk about what we might observe in the Word of God about what would make good, productive, fruitful questions and maybe see some counter examples as well.
So we'll go through some examples, some.
Very quickly, maybe in the in the Word of God.
But.
Perhaps it would be ironic if I had a meeting about questions and didn't allow someone the opportunity to answer a few. So maybe just by way of giving some perspective on the questions in the Word of God, I'll ask a few questions that anyone can shout out the answer to if you feel you know. First of all, how many verses are in our Bible approximately?
Anyone have an idea? 1010 thousand 100,000?
Go ahead.
It's very close to 3033 thousand, and it probably depends on some of the versifications. I have 31,102 in Our King James. By itself, that's not a very important number of those verses, with the exception of a few places in Psalms and Ecclesiastes, I think aren't inspired delineations. But the reason I ask is does anybody know how many verses have questions that we've got?
It's about 2539, but there are some verses with more than one question. So it makes 3297 questions the word of God, which means that there's a question for every 10 verses in the Word of God. And then and they aren't evenly distributed when we talk a little bit about that more later. Anyway, I just think that's notable because I think one of the things I hope we'll touch on tonight is that I don't think that we use questions enough in our speech and I think that we'll be able to observe.
The Word of God and the Word himself made flesh using questions in a way that could be instructive to us. Does anyone want to suggest which book of the Bible would have the most questions? I wouldn't necessarily have guessed this one. Go ahead. That's not bad. Psalms has a lot of questions. My God my God Job is correct. Answer about 329 questions and you can imagine that perhaps you could put over the whole.
Of Job, the question of why, why God? But the chapter with the most questions in it in Job is in Job, and it's actually God asking questions of Job, rhetorical questions. So I'm not going to tell you that rhetorical questions are bad because Jesus used them while he was on earth and God used them.
Significantly in many places, although I do so I don't really want to deal with rhetorical questions tonight, but in any case.
Just by way of contrast.
Again, maybe these seem statistics seem a little unobvious. Why would it be relevant? But there's a book that has there are several books, short books in the Bible that have no questions at all. But there's one book that has eight hundred 859 verses and yet only three questions in it.
And I'll just tell you that book is Leviticus, and I'm not going to go deeply into that, but I just think it's interesting that that might go along with the character of of Leviticus in a direct contrast perhaps from Leviticus being direction and if I could say it reverently, cold hard rules and contrasting that with the Gospels where there's a question every six verses.
And then final question, I just this is just something that I observed. I didn't know this, I didn't know these facts when I.
Started looking and these aren't the things that I hope you remember after tonight if anything, but does anyone know of a book of the Bible that ends with a question mark?
Go ahead. What's that? Oh, sorry, I'm referring to one of the 66 books in the Bible. At least one. Does anyone know of one that ends in a question mark? Go ahead.
Not Revelation, but Jonah does, and interestingly enough, another book of the Bible. Another book of the Bible ends in a question mark.
And it's also about the same city and empire that Jonah was about from a completely opposite side point of view. Jonah's about mercy being shown to net of a Nahum about judgment on Nineveh.
We'll go deeply into those anyway.
Perhaps we can see that at least from those those few facts, there might be things that we haven't considered about questions in the Word of God.
And about questions in our ordinary communication about what questions can be and what we don't realize they are. I'd like to suggest three things to look at tonight. Things that I don't know if I should call them principles, because I'm not arguing that they are.
00:05:11
Exclusive.
There are certainly other ways to look at questions. I hope that they are useful to us tonight and maybe maybe beyond tonight, but.
I think that in my study of these questions, the most fruitful questions I think have three elements, at least three elements, maybe more, and they're kind of interconnected, but the question being ready to receive even an unexpected answer.
I'm going to attach the word genuine to that just for memory mnemonic. Second thing is that they're aimed at shedding light rather than wounding.
And we'll see a lot of examples. I think of the opposite, and I'm going to use the word artless there. Artless isn't the word we use often, but it basically would mean without guile or deceit. Guile and deceit seem like strong words, but I think we might see examples of how we are artful rather than artless in our speech more often than we think. And then leaving space for answering.
You could have both of the first two things being genuine and artless and still be impatient and not get the benefit of a fruitful question. And we'll use that word patient for that third attribute. So genuine, artless and patient. And I'll come back to those and we'll see examples of some counter examples of of others and and hopefully that will that rubric will help us understand at least.
Some things about questions that we might not have understood before.
I just like to read a few passages.
Quickly first in Luke chapter 20.
These are, to begin with, probably very familiar passages, but maybe we can see them slightly differently on how we have 4 and perhaps not. I'm not claiming to have anything new to to say tonight, but maybe just bringing a few things together. I'll just quickly read through Luke chapter 20, most of it anyway, and just try to notice the questions when we go through a couple of these chapters and then a few verses after that.
And it came to pass, Luke chapter 20, verse one, that on one of those days, as he taught in the excuse me, as he taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes came upon him with the elders, and spake unto him, saying, Tell us, by what authority doest thou these things? Or who is he that gave thee this authority? And he answered and said unto them, I will also ask you one thing, and answer me, The abdomen baptism of John was it from heaven?
Or of men, And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven, he will say.
I then believed ye him not but. And if we say of men, all the people will stone us, for they be persuaded that John was a prophet. And they answered that they could not tell whence it was. And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things so.
Already we we see that.
This is the first of several instances just in this chapter alone where people thought that they could trap him with a question and they thought they knew all the possible answers to the question and that all of them would result in in trapping him even more specifically. We'll see that in another case in this in this chapter. Let's go down to verse 21, Luke chapter 20, verse 21.
And they asked him, saying, Master, we know that thou sayest, and teach us rightly. Neither accepts thou the person of any, but teach us the way of God truly. Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no, but to perceive their craftiness? And said unto them, Why tempt ye me, Show me a penny whose image and superscription have it? They answered and said, Caesars. And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be gods. And they could not take hold of his words before the people. And they marvelled at his answer, and held their peace.
So I think in particular that here.
They they had patience. They definitely wanted to get an answer.
But the questioners here lacked heartlessness. They were artful. They they had guile and deceit in their hearts, and they were completely unready to receive an unexpected answer. They thought they had all their bases covered. They could determine the outcome just by setting up a question that was proposed in such a way as to to trap the Lord.
So they they had at best one of those those attributes and.
They ask, then they go on in verse 27 and ask about 77 husbands to one wife. Who's whose wife? Whose whose wife is the woman in the resurrection. And again they're trapped. And I think what's notable in the end of this chapter.
Excuse me is verse 40 and after that they durst not ask him any question at all.
00:10:05
It does not ask him any question at all because.
They recognize that.
Their questions, fundamentally, were not real questions, they were not genuine, and they were not artless. They wouldn't have had any fear to ask him questions if they had been asking genuine questions to which they actually wanted answers that they didn't expect.
And so there this is, this is a couple of examples of many things that we can do with with questions and hopefully we aren't trying to entrap people.
But you know, I I found examples of of many different things that you you maybe you could boil these down into fewer categories but casting doubt. The first question in the Bible is is Genesis chapter three Yeah. Hath God said you shall not eat every tree of the garden of denial and John Chapter 7 will be maybe just a moment who go with about to kill thee. They definitely were going about to kill him, but.
Thought they could deny it by a question.
Probing, comparing, contrasting, ridiculing. See that again in John Chapter 7. Challenging, showing disbelief, shock of marvel, incredulity. Not all these things are bad. Being marvelling is not bad. But even ending a conversation? The exact opposite of what on its face the question is supposed to do. When pilot asked what is truth, he wasn't looking for an answer. If he waited around for an answer and asked in a genuine and ardolous and patient way, the Lord.
Would have told him, could have told him and would have told him, but it wasn't. He wasn't trying to find an answer to that. So let's just look at a few more questions in John Chapter 7 and then maybe a few specific examples more to the point, but let's look at John, John Chapter 7. John Chapter 7 in the New Testament has the most.
Highest density of versus that have questions in it, have any words in the New Testament just by way of perhaps eliminating that? There are a lot of questions here and there are a lot of questioners.
So we'll just read part of John chapter 10. Sorry, John Chapter 7 starting verse 10. But when his brethren were gone, up then went he up also up onto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought him at the feast and said, where is he? There was much murmuring among the people concerning him. For some said He is a good man, others say said nay, but he deceiveth the people, albeit no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews.
So the first question there was in verse 11. Then we'll start coming thick and fast.
Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught, and the Jews marveled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned, He's just answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctor, and whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself, that's because of himself seeketh His own glory. But he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him. Did not Moses give you the law? And yet none of you keepeth the law. Why go ye about to kill me?
The people answered and said, Thou has the devil who goeth about to kill thee. There's that denial. Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marble.
Excuse me, I'll verse 23 and to verse 23. Are you angry at me because I have made a man every whithole on the Sabbath day? There's 25. It is not this he whom they seek to kill. Verse 26 in the middle, do do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ?
End of verse 31. When Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done?
Verse 35 Where will he go that we will shall not find him? Will he go into the dispersed among the Gentiles and teach the Gentile? I think it's notable about that example that the Jews were asking each other what Jesus meant. I was going to be pretty unfruitful.
Asking each other when they didn't have the even the desire.
To to know his history, To know the truth he was presenting.
And then I think I could go through more, but another one that is in particular stood out to me.
At the end there's a sequence here from verse 45, a few that stood out and came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees. And they said unto him, Why have you not brought him yet? The officers answered, Neverman spake like this man. Then answered them, The Philistines, are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers of the Pharisees believed on him appealing to authority?
But the people who knoweth not the law are cursed. Nicodemus sayeth unto them, he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them, that our law judge any man before I hear him, and know what he saith, what he doeth. Excuse me, They answered, and said unto him, This is ridicule. Art thou also of Galilee?
00:15:01
Search and look for out of Galilee arises. No prophet and every man went into his own house. So maybe at best that serves as a kind of a survey. We haven't really looked into any of these in particular, but I I think that there are different categories we could we could put these into. Like I mentioned, there was an insult to the Galilee was considered a backwater and.
It would, it would be, you know, we could think of analogues in our day.
To to suggest the kind of ridicule that they were trying to to put on the one who was asking who was making a very fairpoint about their law. They didn't. Their eyes were blinded to that because they couldn't accept the truth there. So ridicule and insult in the end of the chapter, disbelief.
Marvel. There were just a few questions. Maybe verse 11. Where is he?
Verse 45.
Why even that brought him that that were on their face actually seeking to to learn something and so.
What I'm failing, what I'm struggling to to get across?
Is that questions are, perhaps, at least to me, in my mind.
More apt to be.
Artful to have guile, to have deception than perhaps the rest of our speech. Partly because on their face they appear to be doing something good. There are many good things that a question can do, and then maybe we'll get into a few of them, but they appear to be.
Offering the floor to another person or asking for information.
Showing humility and but in many cases they really are not. And I think of Matthew chapter 18, verse four. I hope I'm not resting the scriptures here. I just want to make a slight application here of the verse that's familiar to us about.
Humbling yourself as a little child in Matthew chapter 18.
Starting verse one at the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?
There's another question, and I think they probably were thinking about which one of them it would be, as we know another place. And he gave an unexpected answer. And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, barely, I say unto you, except you be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as his little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. So I know this isn't I'm not claiming.
But this is the primary application of this verse. But if we think about the humility of children.
Children don't start out using questions the way that I've described adults as as using questions in a guileful way. I don't think I'll be happy to be corrected on anything I say tonight. And certainly our children have sinned natures and and don't have to be taught how to sin, but their questions are, I would say, genuine.
And artless, they're not always patient, but I would say that the vast majority of the time they do actually want to know the answers to their questions. No, it's true that sometimes they.
They might say why 16 times in a row and you don't know how genuine that question is in our house. This is just a side. I'm not. I don't know if this will work even for all of my children, but we ask our children, have our children ask complete sentences which can help sometimes you're asking you're answering the wrong why too. Or sometimes. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make a small point there for children.
That perhaps part of the problem we have as adults.
Is just a problem of pride when we use questions, if we may be in first of all afraid to use questions. We talk about dumb questions as adults. I don't think the children know until they're taught or they learn by observation what a dumb question is because everything's new to them. But as we become older and more prideful.
We start to think that we got to get our egos involved and we think if I, if I.
If I ask that question, I'm going to look foolish. I'm the only one in the room who doesn't know the answer to that question. Or maybe I should have been paying attention more. And maybe some of those things are true. But but if we could reframe that as humble questions, maybe it would be it would be more productive for us to take on that childlike aspect of being willing to learn something.
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And to to to show that we were learning something and.
So I've already said a couple times, I feel that we don't as adults ask enough questions. I certainly don't want to suggest that there isn't a ditch on the other side of the road. There is. We all know that some questions that could.
Theoretically be factual inquiries.
Will never be perceived that way. Questions like what was I supposed to do or why don't you care or what did you expect?
And we, we get those habits of, of both of using questions that aren't genuine, that aren't artless, and then of hearing questions in that way such that we, we talk past each other as spouses.
His brethren, his parents and children, and I don't have a panacea for that, but perhaps by looking at a few more examples more in depth, slightly more in depth in a moment, might see some examples of of how good questions can be can be more fruitful.
So let's turn.
To some specific examples.
For each of the the three points that I'm the headings that I'm trying to to talk about, let me let's just turn briefly to the first Kings chapter 22.
This is a question that.
Excuse me, this is a story that my son Graham really enjoyed acting out many times is the story of Ahab and Jehoshaphat going to war, but more specifically what happens before that. I'll just maybe read through a few verses skipping through a bit, but first Kings chapter 22.
And they continued three years without war between Syria and Israel, and it came to pass in the third year that Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah.
He was a good king, came down to the king of Israel, Ahab, and the king of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye that Ramoth and Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria. And he said unto Jehoshaphat, Wilt thou go with me to battle to Reemoth Gilead? Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses at thy horses as thy horses, and I'm interpolating here.
But perhaps Jehoshaphat realized when those words went out of his mouth that he had gotten things a little bit out of order.
So he said, And Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel, Inquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord today.
So Jehoshaphat shows ostensibly I desire to ask the both of the Lord of Jehovah. He's saying Jehovah here. We'll notice in a moment something different. Then the king of Israel, Ahab, gathered the prophets together, about 400 men, and said unto them, Shall I go against Ramoth Gilead to battle, or shall I for bear when they said, go up for the Lord? That's Adonai, not Jehovah.
Shall deliver it into the hand of the king.
Well, that sounds like a pretty resounding yes. 400 profits.
But Jehoshaphat knew something was wrong.
Ahab was never a good king. There were no good kings in Israel. 400 prophets doesn't mean anything if they aren't prophets speaking the word of the Lord. So and Jehoshaphat said, is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides verse seven, that we may inquire of him and the king of Israel? I imagine him.
With a heavy sigh said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Makaya, the son of Amla, by whom we may inquire of the Lord, But I hate him, for he does not prophecy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said Lot, not the king, say so. Then the king of Israel called an officer, and said, Hasten his or Makaya the son of Imla and the king of Israel. And Jehoshaphat the king of Judas sat each on his throne, having put on their robes and avoid placing the entrance of the gate of Samaria. And all the prophets prophesied before them, though the prophets had already given their word, but now it seems they.
They felt more perhaps that their message was being threatened. Seems that they got out some props to to try to drive the point home. Verse 11 and Zedekiah, the son of excuse me, Kanayana made him horns of iron and he said thus saith the Lord. Now he is using the name of Jehovah. He's realizing maybe that's an important part of this false prophecy. With these shalt thou push the Syrians until thou have consumed them and all the prophets prophesied so saying go up to Ramoth Gilead and prosper, for the Lord shall deliver it into the King's hand and the messenger that was gone to call Micaiah.
Him saying, Behold now the words of the prophets, declare good unto the king with one mouth, Let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good. And Makaya said, As the Lord, as Jehovah liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak? So he came to the King, And the king said unto him, Makaya, shall we go against Ramothelia to battle, or shall we for bear? And he answered him, like the other ones, go and prosper, for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.
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No, I don't claim to be able to expound on this chapter very well. I would be happy to be taught about it.
But it is interesting to me that the king, I'm sure in verse 15, is referring to King Ahab. And the king said unto him, How many times shall I adjourn thee to thou? Tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord. Somehow King Ahab knew that even though this man was agreeing with his other 400 yes men, that Makaya was actually not telling the truth.
And he said, as Makai, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills as sheep that have not a shepherd. And the Lord said, They have no master, let them return every man to his house in peace.
And then the king of Israeli Habs says it basically, didn't I tell you? So he only prophesied evil. Now, it's not particularly surprising that Ahab wasn't asking a sincere question here. He did have 400 yes men, 400 prophets that would tell him what he wanted to hear. But what's disappointing, but perhaps is more even a lesson for us, is that Jehoshaphat.
Said he wanted to hear.
The answer? So I would say that Jehoshaphat had patience.
And maybe you could say he was artless. He wasn't using guile or deceit here. He was asking a question to which he really wanted the answer, as long as the answer was what he had already decided to do. Jehoshaphat said to Ahab. When Ahab said, Will you go to battle with me? Joshua said, I am as thou art. We're all one army now let's ask the Lord.
Then they asked 400 men that Joshua knew that wasn't really the word of the Lord coming.
And then the word of the Lord comes, and Micaiah says that he had a vision, and there was a spirit that said there would be a lying, lying spirit prophesying through the 400 men. And what does Jehoshaphat do? Does he change his mind?
He didn't change his mind at all.
Then subsequently, King Ahab says Jehoshaphat, you wear your kingly robes and I'll disguise myself and go into battle on Jehoshaphat, does it?
And it's just, it's only through the the, the Providence of God that Jehoshaphat was saved and and Ahab was killed that day.
Graham, would you like to say how Ahab was killed that day?
Somebody with a bow and arrow.
Drew a drew an arrow at A at a venture and it came down. And of course that arrow was directed by by God himself. But anyway, I'm not.
Really talking about that part of the story, just to point out that Jehoshaphat had perhaps we could say two of the the the properties that I think would make the most fruitful questions. He was.
He was trying to shed light on the on the actual question that needed to be answered. And he was patient. He was very patient.
He asked the question several times, but then he disregarded the answer because it didn't match his preconceptions.
And, and perhaps we we're a victim of that ourselves. We know what it looks like. We know what we should do. We know, we know. In other words, we know that we should be asking the Lord or getting talking to our brethren. And maybe we even do those things go through the motions, but we we are not ready to receive an unexpected answer. We have already predetermined the answer or the set of possible answers that we will accept.
And and something else. The Lord put something else in our way. Maybe we're we're not ready.
To take it and the Lord providentially preserved Jehoshaphat but there are other cases you know maybe with Hezekiah or is that where maybe the question wasn't asked or it was asked in disregarded and there were there were consequences severe consequences for that. Let's take an example we already looked at Luke chapter 20 verse 40. They didn't they just not ask any questions at all they those questioners lacked genuine.
Genuineness. Let's look at.
Matthew chapter 26, verse 62. This is just a brief example that we're all familiar with. Probably all these are familiar to us. Matthew chapter 26, verse 62.
Of course, this is really at the end of.
A series of questions that aren't all we're not going to go through, and that aren't all necessarily in this chapter, but maybe this one will represent them. And the high priest arose and said it to him. Answer as thou nothing. What is it which these witness against thee?
00:30:11
When Jesus held his peace, and the high priest had answered and said unto him, I jury thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.
So.
This man.
Was patient. He, if you can put it that way, he definitely wanted an answer. He was willing to wait for it. He was adjourning for it. You could perhaps, I'm not sure whether we should give him credit for for being genuine in many cases that those who were asking the questions did.
Think that no matter what the answer was, they would have, they would have something to accuse him. But but this was completely aimed at at wounding. There was no semblance of justice here. It was not trying to find the truth, it was trying to find a way to wound. And of course, this is an extreme example.
I struggle to to to connect it well by analogy with our lives, but.
I think that for myself.
I need to catch myself asking questions and say is it is this question?
Intended to to enlighten or is it intended to score points or to to win or to just to to put someone else down and.
Also, on the other side, the listeners have a responsibility. Not I'm not making an analogy to this case, but it's very easy when we have been.
Adults hearing questions that are barbs and and are directed at us as weapons to perceive questions as threats. And this can start when we're children too. Someone very dear to me grew up with quickly achieving the understanding that it was not safe to ask questions.
Of her parents because.
They would the questions would cause more problems than they than they would resolve. And and that's something I I pray that I will not an environment that I will not create for my own children, but that we're all perhaps unwittingly, many of us perhaps are are are subject to not realizing how.
We create an environment of of making questions unsafe. And I think we all realize when it's stated that way that that would be, that would be a terrible thing for relationships, but it can become invisible because if we were used to not having questions as part of the fabric of our conversation, if we're used to.
Dialogues Our dialogues being effectively 2 monologues aimed at each other or past each other.
Then then we won't maybe recognize that the the missing the missing part of the genuine are less patient questions and and how they how they need to be brought back.
I want to look at another an example for patients. I don't have a lot of in all these cases I you know, I'm sure there I would be happy to hear all of your thoughts in the audience about.
Either different ways to look at questions or examples that you've thought of because I I I could certainly have had a lot more, but a positive example in First Samuel chapter 23.
I I don't know.
How to understand this passage? The particular verses in? I'm not pretending to interpret them, but I think there are a few interesting things that just jumped out at me when I read it. Some of you ever heard me?
Talk about it before and maybe, maybe there are a couple of applications that could be made.
But in First Samuel 23.
Just to set the stage, read first first few verses.
Excuse me? And they told David saying.
Behold, the Philistines fight against Keila, and they robbed the threshing floors. Therefore David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and smite those these Philistines? And Lord, send them to David, Go and smite the Philistines, and save Kiala. And David's men said unto him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah, how much more than if we come to Keala against the armies of the Philistines.
Then David inquired of the Lord yet again. This isn't actually the case that I want to look at first, but that's at the stage. David goes back and asks the Lord again. He got a positive answer the first time with his men were afraid. He went back and asked again. Well, this was a genuine question and he was patient and Lord was patient with him and he was, you know, he was artless, if you want to put that way. He wasn't trying to. This was not a trick question. His life depended on it.
00:35:21
And the Lord answered him, and said.
Arise, go down to Kiala where I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand. So it was a success. But in verse seven it was told to Saul that David was come to Keila. And Saul said God had delivered him into my hand for you to shut in by entering into a town that hath gates and bars. Verse nine And David knew that Saul secretly practiced mischief against him, and he said to Abayathar the priest, bring Heather the aphod so.
I think the ephod is used. That word is used to refer to mostly usually a vestment or a piece of clothing, but sometimes something that looks like it could be a figure.
In any case, my understanding of it, I'd be happy to be corrected, is that it was a an authorized way to to discern the will of God, which is why it was brought here. But here are the two verses or three verses that I found interesting. Then said David, Oh Lord God of Israel, thy servant has certainly heard that Saul's secret to come to Keila to destroy the city for my sake will the men of Key Isla deliver, deliver me up into his hand. Will Saul come down as thy servant hath heard, O Lord God of Israel.
Tell thy servant, and the Lord said he will come down.
Verse 12.
Then said David, will the men of Kiala deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, They will deliver thee up. So if you read over it, you might not even notice. But.
David has to ask the one question twice.
And again, I don't pretend to be able to and give the, you know, the the right interpretation of these verses. But maybe an application, maybe you could look at it in a couple of ways. Maybe the 1St way David, maybe he was too impatient. First he was asking 2 questions and I don't know how the FOD worked. Maybe it gave.
Simple answers. There's some indication, some some suggest that you were looking through stones that anyway.
The point was, maybe David was a little impatient. He asked two, he asked two questions and wasn't patient enough to get an answer to one first. Or you could look at it perhaps another way. He asked two questions, he got an answer to one, and he was patient enough and he needed to answer enough to ask again. And there's no, I don't see any evidence of any.
Any reason for David to have been reprimanded by any prophet of the Lord for this? For this second asking so?
I guess just in the most simple in the simplest way.
It's a it's a reminder to me to be patient, not to give up. Sometimes the Lord, even even here when David had an ephod, which was the way of discerning the mind of the Lord. You didn't get an answer right away. You know, I'm sure sometimes we wish we had enough of I thought that we could consult and.
Or through which we could consult the Lord, the will of the Lord, and we don't.
But asking again here, when we didn't get a clear answer, continue to ask, having that patience, that's a necessary component. You know, we could be genuine. We could be ready to receive an even an unexpected answer. We could be artless, really trying to find the truth, shedding light, not wounding anyone. But we could have missed out. David could have missed out. He could have said well.
The Lord chose not to answer my question.
I'm just going to have to do my best with the information I have available to me. But he went back and asked again. And perhaps just in a small way, that's another one of the lessons for us.
I want to talk just a short while maybe about questions that that God asks or questions that have a divine source.
I mentioned earlier that Jesus used a lot of rhetorical questions. God used a lot of rhetorical questions in Job and and many other books of the Bible.
You know why it might be. I don't pretend to be able to answer this question, but we might ask ourselves the question Why would God ask questions at all? He knows.
What we're thinking, we read in John chapter 2.
Verse 25 I'll just read the verse needed not that any should testify of man for he knew what was in man. Maybe just a couple verses in John chapter 6 we know that when Jesus performed the miracle, the feeding of the 5000.
00:40:12
He first asked Philip in verse 5. John chapter 6. Verse 5. Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? Verse 6.
And this he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do. Of course we take this for granted that Jesus knew, but it's put here very explicitly. So why does God ask questions?
Well, it says right here why he asked this question in this case, and I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said on that. I just think of the the second question in the Bible in the same chapter where we saw the first question. The first question was a question of of casting doubt from the serpent.
To Eve, the second question, at least as I read it, maybe I missed one, is Where art thou?
And God knew the answers the answer to that question.
Jesus knew the answer, knew what Philip would say. God asked questions to Elijah and 1St Kings. I'll just briefly turn to that First Kings chapter 19.
We know this story, but I think it's worth noting noticing after Elijah had performed the miracle in Mount Carmel and after he'd been given miraculous feeding twice and then in verse 8 went in the strength of that meat, 40 days and 40 nights until horrible amount of God. Then he's asked in verse nine, what doest thou hear, Elijah?
And verse 10 is in the King James I think identical except for one word which is just changing 4 into because same meaning for the verse 14.
God asked the same question twice. What doest thou hear, Elijah? And Elijah doesn't really say what he does here. He gives excuses and he says I'm the only one left. And I'm sure this has been spoken on many times much better than I have. And I'm not trying to make this my main point but.
Just to note that God's questions are of course, exceedingly weighty. And if God asks something twice of us?
I dearly hope that we.
Are walking.
In in the spirit, in the way that we don't answer the same way twice.
There are many other examples of the Lord asking, and maybe in a more more positive light.
In Matthew chapter 20.
Well, no, let's let's look at the one at Mark first. It's just it's just the first verse or two, I guess I will turn to it, but in Mark chapter 10.
We know these.
Mark, Chapter 10.
I'll read.
Verse 46 And they came to Jericho. And as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus sat by the highway side begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, I was son of Excuse me, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And many charged him that he should hold his peace, but he cried the more a great deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they called the blind man, saying unto him, Be it could good comfort rise, he calleth thee. And he, casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus.
And here's the question. And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?
The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.
And it seems like everyone.
Would have known the answer to this question, and yet the Lord still asked it of him. And I don't pretend to be able to explain it except that the man showed.
Faith just by stating.
The the exact answer, the factual answer to that question that he was asked. Not a bunch of excuses or or reasons that he was worthy or any other kind of long winded explanation, but that he gave. He gave the answer to what he wanted and the implication was clear that he believed he could receive it.
From the Lord. And and so that passage is also in Luke. It's repeated in Luke chapter 18, verse 41, I think. And the answer was verse 452. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus on the way.
00:45:19
So.
I don't have a well formed thought to put with this these questions that the Lord asks, but I would just ask us myself mostly.
To remember.
To to stop and think when we see questions in the word of God.
To ask ourselves who's asking? Who's being asked is that question?
A rhetorical device it can be. The Apostle Paul used a lot of rhetorical questions.
First Corinthians Chapter 9 has higher, more questions perverse than any other chapter in the New Testament.
Am I not free? Am I not able to take a wife sister at the wife, etcetera. Those can be useful. I'm but I'm I'm trying to get at as I believe that questions are meant to be in the word of God, a place for the listener and for us, the reader to to stop and think and and not just to read it as.
Just another part of a story and then.
For us in our in our lives.
To remember.
To catch ourselves when we ask questions and to to to listen for opportunities to ask questions because.
Just in closing, I know this has done a bit of.
A rambling, but there are many things that we can do with questions we.
One of the most important, I think is that we we give a gift to the person that we're talking to. The gift of time we give, we yield, we're yielding.
We are.
Showing humility, hopefully you can you can misuse questions of course, as we already seen, we can just asking questions doesn't doesn't give you any new power that you didn't have before if your if your motives are wrong, then you can ask questions that wound even more than statements would but.
I think there's a real power in in them in when we use them to show that we care what what what the other person is trying is thinking about and when we genuinely want to know. And on the on the flip side, if we always use questions.
Or if we always hear questions as used as weapons, there can be such a gulf that gets created. This is a short anecdote. Some of you have heard this, but a few months ago now I was on the Washington DC Metro train.
Coming back to work, I had gone to the Bible Museum in DC with some visitors, so I was alone. I was wearing my work attire. I wear a necktie. I was carrying my newspaper, so I probably looked like I had.
Some extra money to to spare. Sat down on the train and I got on. Two young men next to me asked me.
If I could spare some money, they were. They said they were homeless and just rode the Metro train all day. And so I sit down on my newspaper and turned toward them and said.
What's your story? And I started asking questions, factual questions.
It became very clear almost immediately that their story, they tried to maintain the story. Well, I should say the one person who was talking to me maintained his story and was trying to, to keep it up for a little bit. But it became clear that it was it was not the the truth. And very quickly the other young man who hadn't been speaking actually became angry with his his friend.
Among other things, they warned me in very foul language that they were both.
Intoxicated on some drug and as apparently as some kind of warning, but.
He was, he was afraid that I was an undercover policeman.
And now you could attribute that to paranoia perhaps from, from whatever they were they had taken. But as far as I could tell, the main reason that they thought that I was a policeman was that I was asking them questions. And it could be that in their lives, anybody who asked them factual questions was really.
Trying to either in their minds trying to get them or was bad news for them in some way.
And and that's a, that's a very sad thing for them.
I think that I hope that nobody in this room will ever be in that situation of being like those young men in in such need of real help and yet unable to even recognize the ability. I I, I don't say this in any way to aggrandize myself, but I I am not averse to giving.
00:50:16
Money even on a metro train to people who need it. But that's why I wanted to start asking them questions first was to find out if they if they were who they said they were and if they needed it and.
If, if in only a small way, maybe we.
In our in our interactions with parents and children as spouses, if we use questions to wound more often than to shed light, if we don't ask genuine questions, artless questions, patient questions, we may be pushing pushing each other apart with questions instead of drawing each other together. And on the other hand, if we are afraid to ask questions.
Then the very presence of a question may itself be so strange in a way, and so unusual that it seems like a threat to us. That's something people off I, I, I use an extreme example and I don't have a good example of of it in our everyday lives. But well, I do have one example. And permit me this. I don't pretend to be a good communicator as a spouse.
But I did one maybe the only thing that I've done.
Well, in my marriage, and maybe I my wife can tell me otherwise, that that doesn't help that much either. But.
I realized that the question when will supper be ready? May be perceived as a threat.
And so I try to ask, what is your timeline for supper?
And I don't know, you can ask her if that actually helps or not, but I just give that as an example because I think that there are many questions that either we avoid asking.
Or that we ask without realizing that that have that have overtones and and I don't pretend to see them all, but but that caused us to withdraw from asking questions because we're afraid to. Anyway, I'm almost to my 59 minutes and I haven't really concluded well, but I'll just turn to a final passage in Job chapter 25. Here is perhaps an example of.
The ultimate need for patience. This man asked what he thought were rhetorical questions.
This is the. This is.
The if you want the statistics, it's the chapter in the Bible with the most questions perverse at one question perverse.
6 verses I'll read Job chapter 25. Then answered Bill Dad the shoe height and said dominion and fear are with him. He maketh peace in his high places. Is there any number of his armies? And upon whom does not his light arise? Clearly rhetorical questions we can answer them but here are the questions he thought rhetorical but had an answer but not for another few 1000 years.
How then can man be justified with God, or how can he be clean? That is born of a woman, Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not. Yeah, the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man that is a worm. In the son of Man, which is a worm, they'll add the shoe height. Didn't know the answer to those questions. He didn't think there were answers to those questions. But we have.
The wonderful privilege of knowing the answer to those questions and if we had the Echoes of Grace hymn sheet tonight.
In #14 on the hem sheet we'd see a song that is composed entirely of questions. I think we know the first verse of it well enough to sing together. I'll just read it and the and the refrain and then we can close with that.
It's Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Let's sing It is the first verse of #90 in the Echoes of Grace if you want to open it up that way.
Have you been to?
I am calling, trust me and his grace against himself. I need to watch in the blood of the land.
Q&A 1
God's Refining Work in Our Lives
Address—William Hayhoe Jr.
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Tonight I would like to speak about God's refining work in our lives.
If you don't know what refining is, that's the process by which, uh, metal mixture that's impure is placed through the fire and the impurities are burned off and you're left with the pure metal.
And to start with, I'd like to turn to 1St Kings chapter 17.
Over the last few weeks, I.
We're certain that this is what I should speak about, but I wasn't sure exactly the right way to go about it.
I've been thinking about the story in this chapter, but it's an Old Testament type and as far as Old Testament types go, I wouldn't put it in the top ten easiest to understand or even more explain. So I was questioning that a little bit and we could go express that to my wife and.
She panicked on my behalf.
But on Thursday morning I got in my truck to drive to work and I randomly started listening to a meeting. I didn't know what it was about, and the person started the meeting by saying that I've been thinking about what I'd like to talk to and I'm not. I wasn't sure if you should use an Old Testament type, but I've been convinced that I should. And I said OK, I guess that's what I should do.
And that person then turned to 1St Kings 19. We're going to 1St Kings 17.
This is the story of Elijah visiting the widow woman in Zarephath, and I'm going to start by reading only the first half of the story and then talk about it a bit, and then we'll get on to the second-half of the story, where the real substance of what I have on my heart tonight is.
So before we even read the first part, I'll just tell you a little bit about the types and, uh, the name of the place where this happened. So first of all, the name of the place is there a fast that name means a workshop for the refining of metals.
And every single one of you here, if you know the Lord Jesus is your Savior, you are in his workshop for the refining of medals, and he is doing a refining work.
In your life. And the question that we have to take up with tonight is are we yielding to that work or are we resisting it? And as we read this story.
I'll just briefly point out what the key figures in it speak of, and perhaps as we read it, some parts of the picture will already start to come into your mind. If not, that's OK, we're going to talk about it after.
First of all.
This story, Elijah, is a picture of the Lord Jesus, the one who is doing that refining work in our lives, and the widow woman is a picture of the person with whom the work is being done. So think of that as you tonight.
But then there's the sun. The widow woman had a son, and at this point in the meeting this might be a bit difficult to understand, but I hope by the end it will make sense. But the sun in this story is a picture of what the Bible calls our old man.
That person that we were born with, that has all its hopes and dreams in this earth.
And God has to deal with that old man. And we're going to learn a little bit about that tonight, Lord willing, as we go through this story. So that brief introduction or perhaps I'll offer two more things that really.
Really, as we go through it, there's two things that I hope we can really see from this story. One is the real end of God's refining work in our lives, and the 2nd is the thing.
That often gets in the way of that work taking effect.
So with that introduction, let's read the first half of the story first Kings chapter 17 and verse 8.
In the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zaratha, which belongeth to Zaiden, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain me. So he arose as much as therefore. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks. And he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
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And as she was going to fetch it, he called her and said.
Bring me, I pray, the immoral bread in my hand. And she said, Has the Lord thy God liveth? I have not a cake, but a handful of me on a barrel, and a little oil on a cruise. And behold, I'm gathering 2 sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.
And Elijah said under here, if you're not, go and do as those said, but make me to have a little cake 1St and bring it into me.
And after make for thee and for thy son. So thus saith the Lord God of Israel, the bearer of me. O shall not waste, neither shall the cruise of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah, And she, and he and her house did eat many days.
And the Bay of meal wasted not. Neither did the cruise of oil fail.
According to the word of the Lord, which you speak by Elijah. I'll stop there for now.
So Elijah has a picture of the Lord Jesus comes upon this woman.
And what is she doing and what is her condition when Elijah comes to her? She's there in verse 12.
Gathering 2 sticks to go in and eat and die.
Perhaps, if I put it this way, to help on the picture in our minds, what prominent thing in Christianity is made-up of two sticks or two pieces of wood?
The cross and I believe here we have a picture of someone who does come to faith in the Lord Jesus. They find the cross and they are saved forevermore.
But that's as far as they get. They're so saved. But as far as there being any life and fruit for Christ, it says to this remind her hopes where she's gonna. She got that. But after that it was just there's gonna be death. There's death and that is a picture of what does happen to some Christians. You are saved.
You are going you're you're future in heaven is secure, but as far as life for Christ and fruit in this earth, there's nothing.
But uh.
I hope. I suspect there's something like that right now in this room. You may be saved, but as far as actually making a decision to follow Christ, your life has been nothing but.
One of the key ingredients of life in Christ is reading His Word and praying every day.
15 years ago when I was down in that year.
The number of young men that got up and read the Bible and prayed in the morning morning was in the minority.
I don't want to be too harsh. I understand that perhaps, maybe at home, some of those, it would have been a pattern at camp. You're tired and I don't wanna be too harsh and critical. That's not the point. The point is, if you are not reading and preparing and having that relationship with the Lord, your spiritual life, you're the destiny of your soul may be secure, but your life down here is dead. You don't eat and drink, you die.
It's that simple.
And.
One thing my wife sometimes tells me is that when people get up at something like this, they tend to always direct things at the men or the boys because we're men and so that's what we're maybe more comfortable doing. So recognizing that I just did that, I'll quote a verse that more directs the point of issue to the girls. I think it's First Timothy 5/8 and it says she that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.
I've spoken of a specific group of women, but it illustrates the point that you can be have eternal life, the dusty of your soul for heaven secured, but as far as the life down here, you can be dead.
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And the Lord Jesus would not have you live your life in that way. And so here in this story, this woman wasn't looking for anything else. She had no hopes beyond that Elijah came to her unlocked for an unexpected.
And if there's anyone like that here, the Lord Jesus would not have you live your life like that. And he is going to come to you and speak to you. He's speaking to you right now at this camp that he would not have you live the rest of your life like that. And so Elijah comes to this woman and he just, there's one little thing.
Just make this this morsel for me first before you and your son.
And that's a picture of the Lord Jesus coming to someone in that condition and and speaking to you in a personal way and saying, will you put me first? Will you just put me first? I died for you.
And perhaps you're experiencing that voice of the Lord Jesus coming to you in that way right now. And I hope you respond. This woman responded. She went, perhaps not realizing what she was doing, and she went and did it. She made for Elijah 1St. And perhaps that's the point you're at. You've gone and you have responded to the work of the Spirit of God in your life.
And you have started to put them first in some areas. Perhaps you have started reading the word of God every day.
You have started building a relationship with him. Perhaps the Spirit of God is.
Convicted you of some things in your life that are not right.
And recognizing you need to put the Lord first, you're seeking to get rid of those. And the Spirit of God has spoken to you about some things that you need to put in place and in practice, and you're doing that. I hope that's the case. And that's the picture here at the start of the story of this woman who as far as life down here, it was death, but she came. And it's a picture of starting to put the Lord first in our lives. And that's the start of his refining work.
In our lives. And what happens when we do that? What happens to this woman?
She experiences far more than she expected. Verse 14 says the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruise of oil fail until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. You start to put the Lord first in your life. You're going to experience what this is a picture of.
The oil is a picture of the Spirit of God. You honor the Lord and put Him first. You'll start to experience the power of the Spirit of God in your life. You'll start to experience the leading of the Spirit of God, Him speaking to you, guiding you in some direction. You'll start to experience that. You'll get a taste of it, and it'll be a wonderful thing.
Bear with me. Oh, it does not waste. That's a picture of the supply of grace that we have in the Lord Jesus. It's put in John, one like Bob read on Sunday night of his fullness of all we received and grace for grace.
It's a river of grace, the supply of grace for every day. And you'll start to get a little taste of that and you'll want more praise to meet your circumstances. And so at this point in the story, we have a picture of someone who has started to respond to the call of the Spirit of God in their lives. They started to put the Lord first in certain areas. They started to experience a little bit.
About supply of grace and the power of the Spirit of God. That's a good thing.
The Lord is bringing you along in this process.
But there's still a problem.
If I could put it this way, when we are at that point in our life, the problem is this. We want to follow the Lord.
We have that license that wants to please him.
But we want to bring someone else along for the ride. We want to bring some of that old man with us.
And how is the Lord going to work with us on that? And that is where we come to the second part of the story. I'm going to read it now and perhaps again you'll see a little bit of the picture here being formed where the Lord would bring us to and His refining work in our lives. Let's read the second-half of the story.
Chapter First King 17, verse 17.
And I changed the path after these things. At the son of the woman, the mistress of the house fell sick, and his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee? O thou man of God, art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?
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And he said unto her.
Good me thy son.
And he took him out of a building, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord, my God.
Hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourned by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord, my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again.
And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came unto him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother. And I just said, See thy son liveth. And the woman said unto Elijah, Now by this I know.
That thou art a man of God, not the word of the Lord in thy mouth, is truth.
So, as I said, as the Lord begins to work in our lives.
And we wanna put them first and we wanna follow him. But we have a problem.
We want to bring some of our old man alive along for the ride.
It's perhaps a little bit difficult to understand what I mean by the old man. Think of it as just.
So part of you that you were born that finds all its hopes and dreams, attempts to find all its hopes and dreams and satisfaction in this earth apart from God.
And as God works with us, we find that we have a tendency to want to believe, bring some of that along with us. We want to do it halfway. Yes, I want to follow the Lord. Yes, I want to put him first here and there, but.
There's some things in this world that I hold dear and I want to keep them.
And the Lord, in his work with us, would not leave us there.
And so Elijah came to this woman once and brought her to that point of taking those first steps in, in a, in a figure form of putting the Lord first. But now it's a figure of the Lord coming again and he wants to do a further work, a deeper work.
What happens in verse 17?
The sun falls sick. Maybe a bit hard right now to see how a widow woman's son could be a picture of old man. I'm going to speak about that a little bit later as to why I believe that is. For now, I just asked that you accept that that is he what it is in the picture here.
So the sun falls sick, and this, I believe, is a picture that God, in his work with us, often has to let us experience.
The dissatisfaction and the fruitlessness of that old man, it's not the way that he will. It's not his first desire of his way to work with us. He would rather have us learn that at the cross that our old man is crucified with him. That's how he would have us learn it. But often times.
Due to our own hearts, we won't learn it that way and so we have to learn it. What I'll say the harder way. And God and His work with us has to let us feel.
A little bit of the dissatisfaction.
And the soil that comes with living, even a little bit, trying to find satisfaction with the life that is attached to this earth.
And that may involve some sorrow, and that may involve some hard things that God allows you to experience. But we have to see the end of this work that He's doing in our lives. And God, in his infinite wisdom and His perfect grace, is working to bring us to the point where we will come to the end of ourselves.
And then can you see in this picture?
Elijah coming to this woman and holding out his hands and saying, give me your son. That son is a picture of all our hopes and dreams in this world.
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That's a picture of the Lord Jesus as he works with you and me, bringing us to the point where He comes to you personally, holding out his hands, hands with nail marks in them of what he paid for you, and you put your name in there. I'll just use mine because not for the sake of you, put your name in there, the Lord Jesus.
Is working to bring you to the point where he's holding out his hands and he's saying William.
Well, you give it all.
Will you fully yell to me? This is a little bit different than the matter of putting the Lord first here and now in our lives. It's a lot different. This is surrender.
This is fully yielding to the one who loved you and died for you.
Perhaps some of you, no doubt the Lord has done that work in your life and you can look back with fondness after work that He did to bring you to that point where you would say, Oh Jesus, I surrender, I yield, I will give you everything and you can look back with fondness at the way that He brought you there.
Perhaps some of you are at this point right now. Perhaps you've been there for years, feeling it, feeling the Spirit of God speaking to you in this way that you have not yet yielded. Do you see the picture here of your Savior holding out his hands? Dang, will you give me all? And perhaps some of you.
Have not quite got here, and that's OK. God doesn't work to bring us to this point. And perhaps you had an earlier step in this work and you'll get here at some point in the future and perhaps the Spirit of God can bring this back to you.
And as he brings you to that place, you'll remember this. And as you sense him holding out those hands and asking him to yield.
I trust we will all say yes.
This woman.
That's Elijah. Take her son out of her hands and what happens?
Elijah takes the sun.
Is that?
And stretches himself upon the child three times.
The child comes back to life.
This is a picture of the end goal of the refining work that the Lord is doing in our lives, that we would learn the truth that we are dead and our life is hid with Christ and God. Death and resurrection is the theme of Christianity.
Yes, the Lord Jesus died and rose for us, but it takes the work of God in our souls for us to learn.
So we died there as well. I am crucified with Christ, but nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. It's not a matter of knowing the head, knowledge of those verses, it's not even a matter.
Of believing that it's true, but it's yielding to God for him to work out the good of that truth in our lives, in our lived reality and this.
Is where God is leading us and His refining work to us, and to get there and experience the good and to really learn this lesson, we must yield fully to Him.
Why does that not happen as it should?
Why are there many questions?
Who never experienced that live reality in their lives I'm not talking about.
People in this room right here.
Why is it that we so rarely?
Have this reality and learn it and have it lived out in our lives, and experience the power and the love and the joy and the peace that comes with life in Christ.
That is why I believe in this picture, that old man attached to this earth is pictured by a little woman and her only son. Because.
Because it presses home to us that there are things of that old man that we hold very dear that we do not want to let go of, just as a widow woman would not want to lose her only son. And so we have hopes.
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And dreams tied to this earth that we do not want to let go of. We have thoughts of how we would like our lives to go or how we wish our lives had gone in the past.
Perhaps thoughts of our brethren, thoughts of God.
That we do not want to let go of and it gets in the way.
Of us learning this lesson and experiencing the full power of the work that God would be doing in our lives. And so as God does this work in your life, will you yield to him? Will you give up everything tied to this earth, to your Savior that is required to experience the good of this lesson?
What happens at the very end of the story?
This woman in picture form learned that lesson. She yielded all. It's a picture of someone who has yielded all, is experiencing the power of death to that old man and life in Christ.
Philosopher says, And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.
She experienced peace.
She experienced a satisfaction and a security that no one else in the whole land of Israel had at that time that is available.
In the life in Christ that we can have if we'll yield fully to Him and learn what it is to be dead to ourselves and alive in Christ.
That's what I would call the first part of what I have to speak about tonight.
The picture that I hope is clear, the work that God is doing in our lives to bring us to the point that we would yield and learn the truth of death to that old man and life in Christ.
Now I would like to briefly go over to six specific ways.
That God uses in his refining work in our life. The first the two groups of three.
The first three are connected. You might say they're in our experience.
In the last three have to do with Christ.
The first one.
Is in our failures. Let's go to first Samuel.
Chapter 30.
I briefly considered making this story the entire theme of the Chalk. Tonight, we're only going to look at a little bit of it instead.
This is the story of David.
When he reaches rock bottom in his life.
First Samuel, chapter 30. I'll give a little bit of the background because we can't read it all.
David, after a long time of running to solve, lost sight of the Lord, gave up trusting in him, and went down and joined himself to the mortal enemy of his own people, the Philistines.
And he went wrong to the point. But there he was, marching in the Philistines army, leading his own men with the enemy of the people of God, into battle against his own people.
And God in his goodness, arranged that he was sent home, the Philistine said. You can't fight with us. Go home.
And David returns to his home home, a city that the Philistine king of God had given him, Ziklag.
And the First Samuel 30.
Verse three. What does David find there? So David and his men came to the city and behold it was born with fire and wise. No sons and their daughters were taken captives. When David and the people that were left and lifted up their voice and rapped until they had no more power to weep and damage, two eyes were taken captive, and Abigail the wife of Nabel the Carmelite.
David was greatly distressed.
The people speak of stoning him because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters.
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And so David fails, not just a little bit, not just for a short time, he he fails. Could I put it this way, hard. And he fails long and he comes to rock bottom.
He's going with the enemy of Israel.
His wife and his children are gone, perhaps never to be seen again, and his own men that had stuck by him for years are contemplating killing him. He's at the bottom.
And I should have mentioned that I'm going to go through these six in the order of what I will say the order God would least prefer to use up to the highest. And so we're starting with the when he would least prefer to use, but often because of our own hearts, it's one he has to use our failures.
So David comes to this point. God had to let him come to this point.
Before the last half of verse six, but David encouraged himself and the Lord his God. He's reached the point God had to let him fail and come to the end of himself. Now put it this way, he's saying to God, I yield.
I.e. LTO And what does that do? Well, you feel pretty bad. So there's going to be a time of, you know.
Gotta prove yourself. Is that how it goes?
David calls the priest, verse 8 And David inquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them?
And the Lord answered, Pursue, for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.
So under verse 19, let's leave the last three words. David recovered all.
He got to the point where he yielded to God. It took great failure to get him there, but he yielded and as soon as that point was reached, where he surrendered to God immediately.
Recovered all.
Was it just recover all, got back his wife, children, belongings, lots of extra spoil. What else happened? He spent years running from Saul. He gets to this point where he yields to God. God not only recovers all, but in a matter of days God puts him on the throne of Judah.
That's what God does for one who yields. Now he can be useful for the Lord.
Don't get me wrong if you fail as I have, sometimes failures have consequences and scars that we carry for the rest of our lives. But.
If we yield to God, yes, we still carry those consequences and scars, but it will not be in a burden of guilt or an anguish.
Life in Christ is fully available and is fully there and fully true for even one who has failed. And those consequences and scars, when we feel them and experience them in our lives, will not be in a in a pain way if we yield it to God, but instead we'll look back with a fondness.
You'll remember, yes, I failed, but God used that to bring me to the end of myself. Well, I would yield to Him.
No, we know it's something to bear and start the rest of our lives, but if we really yield to God, it'll be something we can look back to and say he did a working me and he gets the credit and I can be thankful that he did that work.
So that's the first one. God works with us in our failures. If we come to the end of ourselves, yield to Him. The second one is in our service.
Let's go to Hebrews chapter 12.
That might sound strange.
God's working or refining work in our lives in the service.
Let's read Hebrews 12, the 1St 3 verses.
Wherefore, seeing we also accomplished about we're so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking into Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame that sat down on the right hand of the throne of God.
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But consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest he be worried and faint in your minds.
Here we have some verses to encourage us to follow after.
Lord Jesus, and it's a little bit like that first call when we're first responding to our Jesus. We're going to follow after him and we want to serve him.
And we want to do things that please Him. And so we start off on this journey. And that's a wonderful thing. But now let's read verse 4.
You have not yet resisted unto blood. Striving against sin. What's this striving against sin? Here we are starting out wanting to follow the Lord.
Who won to follow him and serve him?
And there's sin that comes up in our life that we strive against. And where is this coming from? It comes to the surface.
Anyone here who has kids or had kids? Even if you're in the very first part of having kids?
I think you'll be able to relate with one of the most common ways what I'm speaking about here happens. You have kids, you have all the desires to love and care and cherish and nurture them. You love them, and you have these ideas in your mind how you're going to be a wonderful parent to them.
What happens?
Probably happens late at night.
When you're really tired, things haven't been going well.
And some things like frustration and anger.
And bitterness and come to the surface. Where is this coming from? It's not what I thought would how I thought it would go. Becomes the surface.
Often times in our desire to follow after the Lord, we don't realize it, but there's still that flash mixed in in our desire to serve the Lord and in our service and our following after Him. God allows it to come to the surface and He allows that so that we can judge it for what it is and get it out into the light and deal with it and confess it.
It needs to come out so we can acknowledge it for what it is and have it be dealt with. Another very common way that this happens is when you go out and you want to serve and follow the Lord and you start to experience that first bit of the leading and the power of the Spirit of God. And God uses you to do something, uses you to do something for someone or speak in some way. That's a wonderful thing.
But you have not quite learned that lesson about that old man that's still in you yet.
And he's paying attention.
And other people notice that you've done something for the Lord and encourage you in that. Well meaning perhaps it's good that they do so. And your old man notices and says, I like getting credit for that. I'll step right in here and I'll take the credit for that.
And the pride of our flesh comes to the surface often in our service for the Lord, and God is allowing that to happen so it can get out into the open and be judged for what it is.
Soon attached to that flesh can be dealt with.
When those things come up, the next verse warns us about two wrong responses that we can have when these things come to the surface.
Verse five says You have forgotten the expectation, which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.
Yes, the Lord is doing a chastening work in our lives, even in our service for Him. And here we're warned about two long responses we can have when that happens. We can despise it, or we can faint under it.
One of the common ways we despise it is we make excuses percent. And so if I'm genuinely trying to do something and service the Lord and some things come out in me that are not right, I push it aside and I justify it because while I was trying to do something for the Lord, don't do that.
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Lord is allowing those things to come to the surface so they can be judged and dealt with.
Don't make excuses for it. I was tired, I had a hard week at work or whatever it is.
It's never a justification for anything of the flesh coming out. Don't make excuses for it. The 2nd way that we can have an improper response is we can think under it because it can be discouraging. You're genuinely trying to do something for the Lord and you find some things in you that you perhaps were not even aware that come out, and that can be discouraging.
Don't get this good when that happens, but recognize that God is allowing it to come to the surface so that it can be judged in His sight for what it is and be dealt with. Recognize that this is a far better way for those things to come to the light than to have them come to the light by really failing in those things. This is a better way for how those things to come to the surface. So as you step out and your desire to serve and follow the Lord and those things come out.
Judge them for what they are, get them out into the light, and ask the Lord for help to overcome them.
The next the 3rd way in our experience that the Lord does our finding work in our lives. Let's go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5. This is circumstances.
You can find this thing all through the Bible of God using circumstances to do a work in people's lives. And no doubt, perhaps many or all of you have already know that in your life. You just have the sense of things that God allow you to go through because He was doing a work in your life. But here's a verse that just spells it out. Second Corinthians 4, verse 11.
So we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest.
In our Moto flash, the God in his wisdom is going to pass us through circumstances that are going to have the effect of delivering us unto death. It's not literal death. It's that old man dying.
And often times you have to pass us through things to teach us that lesson. And I'm just gonna be brief on this one. Just to have that confidence to see that picture that we looked at in First King 17, to see the end of that story, that work that God was doing with that woman and that work that he's doing in every one of your lives. See the end of it. Sometimes those circumstances seem hard.
Trust to the end that God is doing your work in the circumstances He chooses to put you in. OK?
That's the first three. The next three I'll have to do with Christ.
So the first one is the cross backup one verse.
2nd Corinthians 4, verse 10.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
Learn to value and consider.
And never let go cold, let go cold.
What your Savior did for you at the cross, that has a refining effect in your life. The more you get a hold of that, don't allow yourself to forget it. Consider it. It has an effect. Here you see it in the verse, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. I already quoted it, but I'm gonna read one more verse in Galatians 2.
Patients 220. I am crucified with Christ, so there's the cross. Nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loves me.
And gave himself for me at the cross. Yes, we see that Jesus died for me, but we also see that that old man that we were born with, that finds all his hopes and dreams and attempts for satisfaction here in this earth, it died there as well. And if I go back to that and try and cater to it, I'm playing with something that is dead. And I'm only gonna get from it the products of something that it's dead and it's not gonna be satisfying.
So first is the cross.
Next is learning to walk with Christ.
Each day. Let's go to Colossians chapter 2.
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Again, there are many verses.
That could be referred to on this one. I picked this one because it ties it in.
To the theme of death and resurrection. Colossians 2 and verse six. You may not see it right away, but we'll get to it.
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.
How did any of us receive the Lord Jesus?
I think we all understand. I hope we had to come to the end of ourselves. There's nothing I could do to save myself and it's only Lord Jesus that could save. You had to come to that point to be saved. I think we all understand that when it comes to the saving of our soul. The secret in this verse is walking with Christ works the same way as ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so rocky in him.
To be saved you would be the end of yourself, nothing you could do and only Christ. To walk with the Lord, there can't be anything of self, it's only Christ. The things that we hold dear that we don't want to surrender and let go, they have to go and it has to be only Christ. Another verse perhaps one that some thought it might turn to for walking with Christ.
Matthew, 1129.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
So I am Nickelodeon heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
As we learn to walk through life with the Lord Jesus and yoke with him, He doesn't work in our souls we find that rest, that joy and satisfaction that we could never find in that old man. You find that as you walk through life with the Lord Jesus.
The last one we've had looking back to the cross we have walking daily with the Lord Jesus, and the last one is looking on to Christ in glory. Colossians chapter 3.
First one, if you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, and not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ and God. This is the secret, that picture in first kings, ye are dead.
In your life is hid with Christ, and God cannot find any satisfaction on this earth for that old man.
Dead. Try it, you'll never get it.
Our life is hid with Christ and God. When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. We need to be looking on to Christ in glory. That's the end of our life where it will find its true satisfaction. And the more we're looking on to the true end, the more we will find that satisfaction and and the more we will find the truth that we are dead and alive under Christ worked out practically in our lives.
Let's look at one other verse that brings that out in, umm, Second Corinthians 3.
2nd Corinthians 3, verse 18.
So we are with open face, beholding us in a glass. The glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Here you see that refining work, that changing work being done. As we are looking on to the Lord and looking on Him, we are changed into the same image.
Now I'm going to make a comment that for maybe two younger ones here.
This might not make sense now, but maybe you can tuck it away, and as the Lord passes you through this process, you'll learn what it means.
As we yield to this work that the Lord Jesus is doing in our lives, we more and more find the character of that walk being changed from trying and striving, and it changes more and more to just an effortless change you see in this verse.
00:50:05
I'll try and do something to maybe hit that home.
All of you imagine something in your life that if this situation happens.
The flash just comes out. You just you just know it's going to there. We all have these things. If this happens, I respond in the flesh and I know it's the flesh and I don't want to justify and excuses. I want to fix it. I don't want that to go away. And I try and I try and I try.
And I might see some improvements, but never a full victory. That's the striving against sin. But the more and more we yield to the Lord and have him work out this process in our lives, and the more we move on to looking to the cross and walking with the Lord and looking on to Christ and glory, the more you'll find the character of that service changing from that striving into just an effortless change.
And that same experience where when it happens.
That circumstance where the flash just comes out.
You find that one day it happens and something else comes out and you can't even explain it.
That flash didn't come out. Something else came out, and that is Christ living in you. And when we learn that we're dead, we won't let pride of that old man take any credit for that.
The humbling thing realized whoever your name is, William could never have done that. That was Christ living in me. Thank you Lord Jesus for doing that work in my life to bring me to this point, not as his power working out in you struck me. For any of you that were here on Monday morning and you listen to Gideon tell his story, you all saw an example of what I'm talking about lived out in his life.
When he got saved and he wanted to forgive and he used the word several times, he was trying, trying, trying.
And he couldn't do it.
But then he got into the presence of the Lord, and he prayed for one year.
And if you caught it at the end, he said, it was by the love of Christ.
And I don't know what happened, but I I just forgave them. That is what I'm talking about. Lived out in reality. You all saw it. And I know that in that year of praying, he learned that lesson that we're seeing in first Kings 17 because he he those words by the love of Christ. That's from 2nd Corinthians 5. The love of Christ constrains us because we just that we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, but he died for all that they which live should not.
I'm gonna just go read it because I'm messing it up.
2nd Corinthians 5 verse 15 And that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. He learned that, and the power that he couldn't get in trying harder and trying harder. It was there he learned to die to himself.
And alive under Christ by yielding to God a few final.
Comments here at the end.
Do not fake it.
I'm not talking about faking salvation. If you're doing that, that's even worse. Don't do that either. Put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus.
But there's a tendency in our hearts to hear these truths and perhaps see them lived out in others.
And we fake it and try and play the part and say the words that we have not really got into the presence of the Lord and have these things worked out between US and Him.
Don't fake it, I'm not old.
But I'm old enough to see several people.
Who faked it?
There's a story in Second Kings you can read about a man named Hazi. He's a type of someone who did this. He was faking it. He looked the part, He looked the number one servant of Elijah. But he did not have faith. He did not have the power and God and his goodness allowed to his side have an experience to make it undisputably clear to him that he was faking it. Lysha sent him ahead with the rod to put it on the one, and nothing happened. It was clear to the haze in that moment that he was faking it.
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But did he own up to it and change? No, he didn't. He went on faking it. Do not do that. The end of his eye is bitter and sad. And I've seen the end those who fake it and it's bitter and sad.
One more comment in Umm Philippians 3.
This refining work that the Lord is doing in our lives goes on all the way to the end. We never reach the point where it's the I have arrived and I have nothing left to learn. Left to learn. And this is expressed very well in this passage. I am really running out of time here. Wow. Umm.
So I won't be able to read it all.
Philippians chapter 3, verse 10, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection or fellowship, of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. This is Paul speaking here, the one who wrote many of these truths down, and he's expressing that he knew to the very end he was going to be being made conformable unto his death, that refining work was going to go on to the very end.
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained. He didn't say. I've got it. I figured it all out.
Although already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count myself not to have apprehended but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth into those things which are before. I pressed with the mark, with the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We never reached a point in this process. We've got it all figured out. We'd have this attitude that Paul expresses here.
They were pressing on, being made conformable unto his death till the end. I want to read one more place in Isaiah chapter 54.
Isaiah chapter 54.
And verse 16.
Behold, I have created this mess that blow up the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work, and I have created the waster to destroy. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue shall rise against thee. In judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.
And their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.
The Lord Jesus is the one directing that refining work in our lives. He's the one blowing the coals in the fire. And He is doing it to bring each one of us to be an instrument that is not for our own hopes and desires, but for His work. And in that process, they can express this here. There's going to be the waster to destroy. There's going to be things that He passes us through to bring the things to the surface that need to be.
And set aside, yield to him in it. And verse 17. Life in Christ is not really seen in the Old Testament, but you can see it in picture form here. The power and the peace and the freedom from guilt that comes to yielding to God in this work. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. They'll be victory over the flesh and over our enemies. Every time that shall rise against the judgment thou shalt condemn.
There will be freedom from the guilt and the sorrow of trying to do it halfway, trying to both follow the Lord and still catering to that old man. There will be freedom from that.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousnesses of me, saith the Lord. The question for all of us tonight is, are you yielding or are you and I resisting the work that He is doing in our lives? Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead.
Q&A 2
Depression
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.
So the subject I'd like to talk to you tonight about is depression.
And what's on my heart is that I feel and I fear the wisdom of this world coming into the church and the Christianity into the assembly man tries in vain to treat.
And to diagnose depression.
While keeping God completely out of it.
Sin is removed, actions are justified as we appeal to the authority of man. And so tonight, with the Lord's help, what I would like to do is to try to look into this subject and appeal to God into His word. I do want to make one comment up front that tonight's message.
Is not for the heart, it's for the conscience. I think that this subject should be taken up in regards to the heart as well. It's just not what's what the Lord has laid on my heart.
So I hope that through the message tonight as or if we struggle with depression, that will stir us up in regards to what God has said.
So what is I'm going to define what is mental health? You can look this up on Google. Mental health is just in a per a person's emotional well-being.
What is depression?
Depression, as I'm defining it tonight, is persistent feelings of sadness or apathy. So there's different ways that we can define depression. You guys might have seen me walking up here to the podium and said to yourself, well that's depressing or?
You might, uh, you might look at depression as just being like intense sadness over over something.
Depression can be used in those ways, but that's not how I'm using it tonight. I'm using it in the way that it's like this black cloud that's over us and we can't shake it. Our thoughts keep going inward to whatever is causing this thing, and it's like this cycle that we can't get out of. Persistent feelings of sadness.
I'd like to take up some baseline truths.
And I'm not taking up these baseline truths in order to pepper you guys with a bunch of verses and then go on to subjective thoughts on depression. And then if you don't agree with me, I'll gaslight you into thinking that you're just not spiritual enough to see it. These verses that we're going to take up, these baseline truths are critical not only to shed light on depression, but almost every.
Sphere and aspect and difficulty in life.
And it's critical, I believe, to get an understanding, a good understanding of these baseline truths. And as we run into difficulties, consider these truths in light of whatever it is that we're going through.
So the first one is creation.
The Adamic creation. What did God do? He created man. So let's look at a couple of verses in Genesis. The first one in Genesis chapter one.
Genesis chapter one and verse 27 says so God created man in his own image and the image of God He created. He created him male and female. He created them. And then Genesis chapter 5 and verse one.
And the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Just another comment I'm reading from.
In the new translation, it's a little more accurate than the King James version and a lot more readable. I'll read slow so that you can, uh, make sure you follow along, but it's very readable with the King James.
So these two things that are presented here are that man was created in the image of God, meaning he he was created as God's representative.
A representation of God.
Yeah, yeah. Pull out 1/4 and you see a picture of George Washington on it. It's a representative of George Washington. You wouldn't say this is, you wouldn't. You wouldn't say this is literally George Washington, but you would say this is George Washington because it's his representation.
He also created man in his likeness, meaning that when when man was created in the garden, he was like God, there was no sin.
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There was there was nothing that was contrary to God's nature when He created him. He created him as His representative and as His likeness.
What happened? Well, we all know this story. Sin came in. Let's look over at Romans chapter 5.
The serpent came. Eve took the fruit.
She was deceived. Adam with her took the fruit. He was not.
Romans 5 verse 12 Says Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all have sinned.
And so, as we heard Lord say, morning and the Sunday school Adam.
Sinned, and what Adam won as a result of that sin was a sin nature. And what we have received being from the seed of Adam is a sin nature. But it's not just a sin nature, it's also sinning. All have sinned. So it's that sin nature that produces sins. So into this epidemic creation that God created perfectly.
Send came in tomorrow.
2nd Corinthians chapter four. Another enemy we have. We have one that is sin. Now we're gonna look at Satan.
Who is Satan? How is he referred to? What is his character? Second Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 4.
Whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them?
If you read this, the chapter, the few verses before, the apostle Paul is stressing his desire not to be the cause for a belie, uh, for an individual to not believe the gospel. He wanted to live in a way that would not shine a bad light on the gospel. And if somebody was not going to believe, they were going to be, they were not going to believe as a result of the God of this world coming in and blinding them.
It wasn't going to be on the apostle Paul, but it's really just that phrase, the God of this age.
Or the God of this world. That's that's what Satan is characterized by. He is the God of this world, the God of this age. Let's turn over to First Peter chapter 5.
See some more of Satan's characteristics.
First Peter Chapter 5 Be sober, be be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil walks about like a roaring lion lion seeking whom he may devour.
This is what the God of this age is trying to do. He is trying to devour you and he is trying to devour me.
Let's look at yet another enemy that we have, First Corinthians chapter 3.
The world. And in the context of the message. Tonight, we're gonna be looking at the world and its wisdom.
First Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 19. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, he catches the wise in their own craftiness.
What resource then do we have? We have all these enemies. What resource do we have to look at a subject like depression and find light? To look at a subject like depression and find the truth? Well, we know what the answer is. We have the Word of God, something that far exceeds any of these enemies that we have. So just one verse on the Word of God, Psalm 119.
Verse 105.
For each one of these baseline truths, as as we know there are, there are myriad of verses that we could turn to.
And and add to and. It's a good exercise to do that.
So Psalm 119105, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
What is going to illuminate the truth about depression? Is it turning to the wisdom of this world and asking somebody who doesn't even believe in God? Or is it allowing the word of God to illuminate?
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Is depression real? Is it just in somebody's head?
Is it made-up?
Let's look at Matthew chapter 24. Sorry, Matthew chapter 4.
In verse 24.
Then his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon possessed epileptics and paralytics, and he healed them.
Now, if you look at that, that word epileptic, that that word, umm, was, was not even around when this was written. And if you look in this, uh, the strong concordance, he mentions that another thought is moonstruck.
And the the thought behind this, this verse is more the thought of mental illness, somebody having something wrong in their minds. And what this first tells us is that they just like a para paralytic.
Needed healing. They needed help.
So diseases of the mind are real. Depression is real. It's not just in somebody's head, though it is in the mind.
So I want to say that because probably at one point in my life when I was younger.
I didn't believe in depression, I thought.
I thought it was just probably people being dramatic or something like that, but the Word of God shines a light on that thought.
So now I'd like to talk to you about mental health and specifically depression. And what I would like to do is I'd like to go through a series of questions because that's how I look into the Word of God. I ask a question and I look to see what the answer is. And so I'd like to look at a series of questions and then see if we can find answers from the Word of God.
So the first one is, should I be concerned about mental health?
Is it something that I should be concerned about?
And the answer is yes, we are made spirit, soul and body. If I had my arm dangling off of my body, I would not be here right now. I would be at the hospital.
Why would I be at the hospital? Because something was wrong with me?
And so if there's something wrong with me physically, I'm not just a physical creation of God, I am also an emotional and a spiritual creation of God. And so we need to be concerned about our mental health as much as we need to be concerned about our physical health. God cares about our mental health. I'll just mention, umm, two places.
Where I believe God is concerned about our mental health. The first one we took up this morning.
It was in regards to, umm, prophecy. You'll remember I'll read the verse. First Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 29 says let two or three prophets speak and let the others judge.
I believe that the reason it is limited to two or three is because God is caring about our mental health. He is. He is limiting the amount of profits that would prophecy so that we can take this extraordinarily important message that God has given in small doses and not be inundated to the point that we cannot retain these important things.
And if God had other messages, they would come out at other times.
So God cares, he understands the, the, the frailty of our makeup. And then one more. We read this this morning, I believe Matt, uh, read it or Are you ready yesterday? I think he read it from Matthew Mark chapter 15.
And verse 15.
Then they came to Jesus and saw the one who had been demon possessed and had the Legion, the legion of demons, living in him.
Sitting and clothed and in his right mind.
God cared about this man and his mental state, and God brought him to the place where he was sitting there in his right mind.
00:15:14
Where does or did depression come from?
Proverbs chapter 12 and verse 25 says anxiety in the heart of man causes depression.
So this doesn't necessarily answer our question.
It tells us one of the one of the causes of the depression is that we harbor anxiety worry in our hearts.
Depression came from the fall from sin. We have no thought in scripture that God in eternity passed before any creation.
Had depression.
We have no thought or any scripture that would indicate in any way that man Adam in the garden with Eve prior to sin, would have ever in any way struggled with depression.
We have every evidence and see it.
That after the fall.
After anxiety, after whatever, there is depression.
Depression is a result of of the fall that has come upon this world, not necessarily because I have sinned and we're gonna get into this, but because there is sin, because it marred this creation.
There was no cancer in the garden.
There is cancer now because of sin, not necessarily because somebody sinned.
But because of sin.
And and you can add any anything to that.
Next question.
Is it sinful to suffer from depression?
So somebody is in the state of being depressed.
Is it is it sinful for that person to be in that state?
So the answer would be no and so much as it results from sin the route.
Living in a fallen condition.
And we'll explain this a little bit more.
Uh, the, the other aspects of depression, but think of it like that. Is it, is it sinful for somebody to be a diabetic?
It's a, it's a physical ailment that somebody has. And I, I would think that everybody here would say, no, it is not sinful to be a diabetic.
It might have been through sin that somebody became a diabetic, depending on what type, or it may not have been, but to be in the state of having diabetes because of the fall, because of sin, is not sin in and of itself.
So depression, I do not believe is to to be depressed as it deals with sin. It isn't to be actively sinning.
Is it ever sinful to suffer from depression?
And I think the answer to that is yes.
When my will is keeping me depressed, it is sin.
And I'm gonna give you.
A a personal example of this and I'm doing it for two reasons.
Umm.
One to to to give an example that I have and 2:00 so that you guys know that I'm not looking down on anybody here who might struggle with depression as if I'm above it, as if that's not me.
So my wife and I, I'll speak for myself, have a an awesome marriage relationship.
00:20:03
And.
Umm, I'm thankful to the Lord for it. However, there are times when we're not clicking.
And I have certain expectations.
And my wife has certain expectations.
And maybe I'm not meeting her expectations and she's not meeting my expectations.
And we're just not clicking and.
In those times I have gotten depressed.
And in those specific situations, the, the, the, the, umm, circumstance that I'm talking to you about.
My own personal experience when this happens to me.
I will be depressed. I'll have this cloud over me.
And I'm frustrated, sure, with my kids, probably with my wife.
And the Lord is convicting me that this is not Christianity, this is not me, this is not Christ.
And my will is saying she's not meeting my expectations.
And my pride is telling me when she meets my expectations, I'll snap out of it.
OK.
Now she might start meeting my expectations and I might snap out of it, but that does not take care of the issue of sin.
That does not take care of the issue of me getting into the depression or staying there or expecting her to Get Me Out of it.
And if she doesn't start meeting my expectations, sometimes I I stay in there for four days.
A week if you talk to her, maybe longer. Don't talk to her.
So for me to to have that depression, have that cloud over me, be in that state, know how I should get over it. I should go up to her and give her a hug, give her a kiss, ask her what can I do to help you start doing things that she doesn't even know.
And start serving, Start meeting her expectations. Stop thinking about me, what I'm not getting.
I would probably, that would probably help a lot, but it still wouldn't address that sin. And so it's important as we had umm, last night, it's important to address that sin.
It's not just snapping out of depression, it's asking what kind of depression was I in and dealing with that depression before God.
Can depression be the result of circumstance?
So.
We, we, we've all here. If you've lived long enough, you've had bad circumstances.
And yes, circumstances can cause depression. They can lead us down this path to depression, but it doesn't justify it. So yes, a circumstance could cause us to be depressed, but it doesn't justify it. So let's just look at a verse that shows this in Jonah.
Chapter 4.
Jonah chapter 4 and verse six. And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plan. But as the morning dawned the next day, God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered. And it happened when the sun arose that God prepared a vehement E wind.
And the sun beat on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said It is better for me to die than to live.
Circumstances.
As has been said many times in the past, do not make a state of soul, they simply manifest it.
We heard last night about David. David had that terrible situation happened to him. His wives were taken, his children were taken. He weeps, probably from the standpoint of believing they were dead, until he had no more energy left to weep. And then he encouraged himself in the Lord.
00:25:20
His the people that were with him didn't do that.
N.
We have to recognize God as the first 'cause when a circumstance happens, no matter how horrific and there are horrific circumstances, we we heard of one Monday morning with Gideon. I, I can't even wrap my mind around it.
And yet God is the first, 'cause God is the one who sent Jonah, God is the one who prepared the gourd, God is the one who prepared the worm. It's God. And so in every circumstance of life, what is going to provide help is when we recognize in that circumstance that God is the first 'cause we wanna say it's this and it's that.
It's my wife, it's my kids, it's it's the brothers, the sisters, the assembly, whatever. Whatever it is, God is the first, 'cause you're actually blaming God.
You're saying a different name, a different thing, but it's really God. He's the one who let it happen. He is God.
And so, yes, depression could come as a result of circumstance, but it is not justified. We can't be, we can't be, be, uh, overtaken by, umm, a circumstance to be depressed and then say I'm depressed because.
This. I'm depressed because God did this to me. No, I mean, you can't say that, but it's not right. It's not Christian, it's not Christ. It's not that new life.
Can depression be the result of sinning, not the fall of actually committing sins? Yes it can. We can get caught into in into sinning and get depressed over it. Let's look at again at Jonah chapter 4, the first verse.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly.
And he became angry because they never repented. This is this is so shocking. So he prayed to the Lord and said, ah Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish. For I know that you are gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abundant and loving kindness, One who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life.
For it is better for me to die than to live. Isn't that the craziest thing?
We can be just like Jonah. We can be no different.
Jonathan was being bitter against God.
Knowing that God was merciful, not wanting to go to Nineveh because he knew he was gonna forgive them.
And then being angry when he did.
He was depressed. He said kill me, take my life. I don't want to live because you forgave those people.
This is this is the heart of man.
This is what's in our our fallen hearts.
What do we have to do when we we fall into this kind of depression? We have to return to the point of departure. So we walk with God. Jonah walked with God, with his life. He's a, he's a prophet of God. And at some point in Jonah's life, he departed from God. It might, it might have been long before the call to go to Nineveh. That's where we we take up the story.
If that was the point of departure, Jonah needs to retrace his steps, get back to the point where he recognized God was a, a, uh, abundant and lo, uh, slow to anger, gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abundant and loving kindness. And the point that he departed from that thinking that God shouldn't be that he has to come back to that point, he has to confess it. That's sin.
And when he does that, he will be free from this depression that he got to as a result of sinning.
Not as a result of the fall of man, not as a result of like some hormonal imbalance, not a result of like postpartum depression or anything like that. This is a result of actually me committing sins and then falling into depression and then expecting to get out of it without ever addressing those sins.
00:30:04
That might happen. You might snap out of it. You might get out of that depression, but you're gonna have to go through another trial because God loves you too much. It might depress the depression. It might be something else.
God is the first 'cause He sends these things into our life to expose things as again we had last night, and we need to take those from God and take God up with them. Tonight we're talking about depression.
Can I excuse sinful behavior due to being depressed?
So I get depressed and I start doing things that are contrary to the word of God, however big, however small.
Can I do that even if the depression is not caused by me sinning? What if it's caused by some hormonal imbalance? What if it's caused by postpartum depression? What if it's caused by legitimate, umm, misfiring? In our mind, in our brain, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. It's a miracle that any one of us is here right now.
The things that have to have to go right.
Moment by moment, it's a it's a miracle. And yet here we are. We we're all here. So let's say that something went off and I'm in this depression and it has nothing to do with something I've done it. It has nothing to do with the circumstance. It literally is a, a medical condition. Something is something is wrong inside of me.
Am I justified in sinning?
Since I am in this condition.
Does does God or his word give license for us to do what is wrong because I'm depressed?
The answer is no. Sin is never justified.
Sin is never justified.
First, John.
Chapter 3 and verse four says whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
There's one situation that I can find in the Word of God.
Where and I and I'm not even sure about this.
Where somebody could say this?
Sin that was, that was done, was not me.
And that was is with an unbeliever who is demon possessed.
You'll read in mark of a boy who is demon possessed and what is presented is that the demon cast the boy in the water trying to kill him, cast him in the fire trying to kill him or harm him, and it's presented as if the demon is doing this.
That boy needed to be freed from that demon and needed life. You and I, having the Spirit of God in US, do not have a demon residing in this body with the Spirit of God.
Everything that we do is if it's sin, it is sin and we are responsible for it.
If we get so depressed.
However depressed we are, we can never justify any sin that we commit and say that was the depression talking, That was the depression acting, no.
That depression may remove the facade that we all have.
Facade isn't the right word. I'm, I'm struggling to come up with the word, umm, that tells us this isn't right or this isn't wrong. Some people who, uh, struggle with dementia have this, the, the character of the person is exposed. There's no more the ability to know what is socially acceptable or not. And it just comes out and the people who have had a, a tender heart.
It's it's the same person that you saw before.
But the people who kept the facade, oftentimes you see a very ugly picture of man. And when we get into a state of depression, we can have that.
That removed that facade amusement Facade removed. And we might act out in a way that we otherwise wouldn't, but it's not the Depression speaking, it's the flesh. And if we act according to the flesh, we need to judge it.
00:35:01
And we need to talk to the Lord about it. And when we come out of that depression, it can't be. Well, that was just the depression. That wasn't me, no.
Sin is sin.
Can a doctor heal me of depression?
Look at Luke chapter 5.
Uh.
Luke chapter 5 verse 31. Jesus answered and said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, so here's the Lord God of this universe.
He says that those who are sick need a physician.
So I think that the answer to kind of doctor heal me of depression, it depends what we're calling depression. If we're calling depression again, going back to the the beginning of the meeting, if we're calling depression sadness, just sadness, a doctor can give me something that makes me happy.
It also depends on how you're calling heal what you're calling healing.
What a doctor cannot do.
In regards to these different aspects of depression that we're taking up is a doctor cannot fix the route of sin.
For in our, uh, our assembly, Phil Algali and I was talking to him about the subject, uh, a year or so ago. And he was talking about at his practice, somebody will come in and they're, they're depressed and he has like 15 minutes with them. And he doesn't have the ability to take the time that is needed to drill down into the life to see what is happening and what is going on.
And so he does what, umm, he can do for the person.
A doctor cannot fix sin the route whether the person is a believer or not a believer.
A doctor cannot grant repentance for our sins if we are depressed and we have gone to that doctor because we're depressed and that depression is a result of me sinning and I'm depressed over this sinning, but I want a doctor to fix it. Is that doctor gonna be able to fix it? No, a doctor can't fix our sin. He's not like a, a, a, a go between, between US and God, there is one, the Lord Jesus Christ.
A doctor usually cannot change our circumstances. Usually. Maybe if we were depressed because we were poor and you went to a doctor and the doctor says I'll give you all my money and you became very rich, you could change your circumstances. That's very unlikely to happen.
A doctor usually cannot change our circumstances. So what kind of doctor do?
Well, a doctor can, umm, give us medication.
To help with the symptoms of depression.
And that medication will give us a feeling.
Of being free from the symptoms of depression. But what happens when the feelings or the feeling has worn off? What we have to take more of whatever the doctor gave us. What happens when?
The amount that we took isn't enough and we have to increase an increase, an increase.
Those are things we need to think about.
We need to think about before we go to that doctor.
We need to ask ourselves, what kind of depression do I have? Do I have a depression that is the result of me sinning? Do I have a depression that's a result of circumstances?
Do I have a depression that's a result of my will?
I can't answer those questions for you. I'm not a doctor.
I I can't, I can't look into your heart. I'm not God.
The the point of this meeting is not for me to be prescriptive with you, but to shed light on the truth that is in the Word of God in regards to depression in the hopes that all of us, me included, will allow this light to help us and our decision making.
I am not in any way, shape or form belittling going to a doctor.
If you have a difficulty with your mind and you feel that you should go to the doctor, go to the doctor. If you feel that that medication is is is needed to help you in the situation that you're in because you are so depressed, take the medication. I'm not saying not to, but also consider and think about God and His word and why you're there. Talk to the Lord about it.
00:40:25
Where does depression lead us?
Ultimately, depression leads us to suicide. Self murder.
That is Satan's ultimate goal.
The destruction of a life from being used for the Lord.
He wants you to be so depressed, to think that your only way out is not to go to him, but to just end your life and to murder yourself.
Are suicidal thoughts sin?
Now.
We have a flash, we have a, we have an, we have an old master. We have sin in US. And that old old master calls out things all the time, sends them into our mind. Do this, do that. Kill yourself.
What is imperative is that we don't dwell on anything, whether it's in the context of this meeting, self murder or fornication, adultery.
Railing anything, any time that he calls out, it is imperative that we do not dwell on that thought. The moment we stop that thought in our mind, here it comes and we bring it back and we start thinking about it.
That's him.
That is active sense. If we don't judge that active sin, another one's gonna come. Another one's gonna come.
And pretty soon we're going to be suicidal.
Even a believer.
Elijah.
Tremendous servant of the Lord.
Ask for the Lord to take his life. Jonah, tremendous servant of the Lord, ask for the Lord to take his life. Others in the Word of God.
We read about actually acted on it. How do I Co combat these thoughts? They come sinister is telling me to do something I'm depressed, I'm in a I'm in a vulnerable state already. How do I combat them?
Let's look at Romans chapter 6.
Romans chapter 6 and verse 11. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead, indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Here's the key. We talked about a dead man the other the other day on the table there and in scripture we get 2 illustrations of men who are dead. First we get the man who is dead in trespasses and sins, and he needs life from God to live.
The second one is that we see man alive to sin to that old master, and what he needs is death.
And So what we're talking about tonight, because we're talking to believers, is that second one. And when that old master sin starts calling out to you when you're depressed or whatever is going through your mind, how do you respond? Do you catch that thought as it comes? No, we respond as if we are dead.
A dead man laying on that table in the on the, uh, on the table there in the middle of the room and somebody called out and said, kill yourself.
Go commit self murder. How does that dead man respond?
What does he do? What does he do? Nothing. Why? He's dead. He's dead. He responds to that thought as if he's dead but alive to Christ Jesus, that new master who would never tell you to do that ever. No matter the circumstance, no matter the situation, no matter what you were in, no matter how bad sin the the because of the fall.
Has so messed with your mind he would never tell you to do that.
That is not the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the voice of sin, That old Master. Respond to it as if you are dead.
What is the key to overcoming depression? Not just snapping out of it until we fall back into it again. Not taking some medication that will wear off eventually. What is the key to overcoming depression?
00:45:03
The Word of God in prayer.
Now I know that probably if you have suffered from depression, you might be rolling your eyes right now and saying I've heard that a million times.
Let me explain the word of God in prayer through a verse in First Corinthians. First Corinthians chapter 10.
And verse 13 I don't set before you the word of God in prayer, as if, as if it's this special, umm, antidote that's going to free you from depression.
If it is the depression that is the result of me sinning, it will. If it is the depression that is the result of the circumstances, it will. If it's a depression that is a result of my will staying depressed, it will. But if it's actually what I'll call a medical condition, I don't have a a better word to talk about it. Something is actually wrong inside the mind. A depression that is is from from the mind.
I don't set before you some.
Umm, magical formula that's going to somehow mystically help you or deliver you from any thought of depression. But listen to what this verse says. It says no temptation and temptation here is is a trial. It's not like I was tempted to steal a candy bar. So no trial has overtaken you except such as common demand. But God is faithful who will not allow you to be.
Tried beyond what you are able but will with the trial, but with the trial will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it.
What do you do when you're in a situation that is a circumstance that is seems like it's hopeless, like it cannot go away?
Like there's no hope of getting out of it. It's quite possible that you're not going to get out of it.
It's quite possible that if if in the context of our meeting tonight, you have a depression that you're never going to be freed from.
But you have a God who is the first 'cause you have a God who gave you that trial. And it says in, uh, Romans chapter 8, it's for our good. It works for our good. And you have a God who won't give you anything more than you can bear, even if you think otherwise. We have to take God up at his word and say, let God be true and every man a liar.
If I'm saying this is beyond my my ability.
I can't do this. I need to end it. God says not so that's not true. That's a lie of the devil. That's a lie of sin. He is going to give you a way to escape that. You may be able to bear it.
I don't, I don't belittle it. I don't know what you're going through if you're in that kind of depression. I haven't struggled with that kind of depression, but I do know what God has said.
And you know what God has said? You just heard it.
And God is true.
What is the conclusion?
The conclusion is, again, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, you got a little bit ahead. If you're struggling with depression tonight, I don't know what kind of depression you have.
Of the different various kinds that we've taken up, and perhaps there's more than the ones that we've taken up. I'm, I'm not trying to say that this was a all-encompassing list. I can't diagnose it. I don't know your heart. God does God, God, the one who created everything, the one who's currently right now sustaining all things by the word of his power, the one who's giving you the very breath to breathe.
That God, you can go to Him, you can turn to Him and ask Him and talk to Him about it.
We must, as we struggle with depression, in whatever form, whatever capacity, whatever amount, we must first go to the Lord and talk to Him about it. If we think that we're going to somehow bypass the Lord and go to anything else, the wisdom of this world, whether it's the medical or Google or whatever, and we're going to bypass the Lord and what he's saying.
US as the first 'cause and his rights in our life in regards to what we are doing and what we are done. We're mistaken there. There are no shortcuts.
00:50:06
One final verse.
First Peter, chapter 5.
Final versus first Peter, Chapter 5.
Therefore, uh, verse six Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. But may the God of all grace, who called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while.
Perfect establish, strengthen and settle you.
To him be the glory and dominion, forever and ever. Amen.
Q&A 3
Lessons from the Life of Samson
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.
Good evening.
It's a real happy thing to stand up here and see all these faces, especially all you boys and girls, all you young people back there. Welcome. We're happy that you're here. My name is Bernie. I'm from Fremont, MI, and I think I know most of you. If I don't, I'd like to know you. So.
I'd like to take up, with the Lord's help, a subject that I've never spoken on before.
And it's always been a bit of an enigma to me, the story. Any of your kids know what an enigma is?
I'll just tell you it's a mystery kind of puzzling sometimes.
Maybe a little bit difficult to understand sometimes. Why did that happen and then something else happened, like what is going on? And that is, I'd like to have some lessons from the life of Samson.
So before I open to judges, I would like to read one verse from Hebrews 11 verse 32.
And it says, For what shall I more say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Verrick, and of Samson, and of Jeptha, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets now, kids.
Hebrews 11 is a list of people that God gives us in His word that are noted for faith, and we might call it the Honor Roll of faith.
Maybe if Jake was announcing this, he might call it the Hall of Fame of Faith.
But anyway, here Samson is in this list of people that God counted as faithful, and so I'd like to take up his life. And there's a lot that happens in his life. And we don't have a lot of time. So I'm not going to read or four chapters to you, but we'll refer to different events in Sampson's life with the goal of drawing some profit out for each one of us.
And so I guess the first thing I'll say is Sampson was the last of the judges that are listed in the Book of Judges.
And the character of the times that he was living in, it says in the last verse of Judges, there was number king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And you can well imagine that that day it was pretty similar.
To this day that we're in, at least not on a spiritual basis. Obviously we have cars and trucks and that he didn't have, but morally and spiritually speaking, it was not a good time. There was just, I think this and I'm doing that and no, no, I'm this. That's a terrible idea. I'm going to do my own thing over here and this a lot of problems.
And.
Samson was brought into this world and given a real mission by God.
And we're going to talk about that, so let's turn to Judges 13.
And we'll take up the story at his birth.
Judges 13 verse one. The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines. 40 years.
And there was a certain man of Zora of the family of the Dan Ice, whose name?
Was Manoa and his wife was barren and bear not kids? That means she couldn't have children.
And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold, now thou art barren, and barest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a son.
Now therefore be where I pray thee, drink not wine, nor strong drink, or eat anything unclean. For lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come on his head. And the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
Maybe a word or two about what the Philistines speak of in the Word of God. The Philistines were descendants from Noah.
00:05:09
Had.
One of his son's name was Ham.
Which is an interesting name. I just thought they should have named him Bacon or something. But Ham. We find in Genesis chapter 10 that the Phyllis Knights descended from that family. And I don't know if I could dogmatically say this, so I'll be careful. But they're also mentioned in their origins in Amos on an island or a place that when I looked it up in the maps that I had, it was creaked.
But I can't really say if they came from Crete or not. But anyway.
The Philistines if you can picture the geography or look in your map in the back of your Bible.
Right along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, toward the South, kind of between.
North of Egypt and South of where the land of Israel is, there's a plane, a flat valley, and that is called the Plain of Philistia. And that's where these folks lived, and they were in that land, and they were a constant source of problems.
All the way from Abraham and Isaac's day, right on through the story of the Old Testament.
And.
They're characterized by.
Striving to.
Deprive God's people of refreshment, of nourishment, of water. So think about Isaac. It says that he had to redig the wells that his father Abraham had dug because the Philistines had filled him in with dirt. So here he is digging these wells again, and he dubbed some new wells, and the Philistines were fighting them about that. And it's interesting. We're not going to get into wells tonight.
Although it is a really instructive study, some of the wells that he dug or called quarreling and the other one was called.
Bickering or something like that. But anyway, here they're filling in all these wells. But I would just say this to you young people.
Isaac was digging those wells because he knew that his father had found water there. And so it's important for you to be willing to dig.
In places where you know from experience, in your own family or your relatives, this is a good place and there's water here. Now it's also important spiritually that you dig your own wells. And so, if you will, the enemy of your soul wants to fill in all those wells that.
Loved ones that went before us.
And they found refreshments and they found.
And as you come of age, some of you kids here as you start to get older.
You start to understand more. It's good for you to dig into the word of God and dig your own wells and bring this water up.
Another thing that I would say about the Philistines is they were between Egypt and the land of Canaan, right there on the Mediterranean coast.
And God, they were there in that place. And God had promised that land to Abraham and his descendants. And here these people were in that land, but they had not passed through the Red Sea to come out of Egypt. They hadn't crossed the River Jordan. And so they were kind of there as.
A really just.
Representing the power of the enemy to.
'Cause problems for God's people. And so Samson's mission in his life was God was going to use him joy to begin to deliver his people from the Philistines. Now how many of you guys can think of a very famous Palestine?
Well, how about it? It's Molly, right? What? Molly. No. Oh, man. What's her name? Leah. Annie. Ha, ha. I won't have to ask you again, though, Annie. I got it. Goliath was probably the most famous Palestine, right? And King David killed him. All right, now let's find out a little bit about Samuel's or Samson's family.
Says he came from the tribe of Dan, the family of the Danites.
And if you look through Joshua and Judges, you find out that the tribe of Dan did not take their possession. And it says early on in Judges that the Amorites drove them out of their property and they had to live in the mountains and they were not able to take the possession that God had given them.
00:10:19
There was failure in that tribe and then we find that Manoa's wife was unable to have children, and that's a sad picture, if you will.
Of justice, general weakness and problems. And yet out of that, God could have chose a famous tribe, you know, like Judah, you know.
One of those other tribes that had gone in and strength, but he didn't he chose the the tribe of Dan and so.
The Angel of the Lord says to this woman, you're going to have a baby, and this is a special child.
God is going to use him in his life to bring deliverance to God's people and he's going to be a Nazarite from his youth up now a Nazarite kids was a very special.
Vow that a person could take and it is found in Numbers chapter 6 I believe.
And you could read the whole chapter, but we're not going to.
I just want to make a couple of things about what a Nazarite was.
Number six one, the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them.
When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite.
To separate themselves unto the Lord. You guys get that? This person, Samson was to be separated to the Lord for his whole life. That was announced before he was even conceived. That's the that's the goal. Separate it to the Lord. He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. Shall drink no vinegar of wine, no vinegar of strong drink.
Neither shall he eat any liquor of grapes.
For the sake of time, I'm not going to read this whole thing.
I hope that's not disrespectful, but I talk too much.
There were three things that a Nazareth had to do. They were separated to God.
And they weren't allowed to have any strong drink and wine in the word of God speaks about joy just like you right? And I love how you smile, Julie. So wine speaks of joy and Samson was not allowed to drink wine according to this vow. And I think the reason is.
That all of his joy was to come from the Lord, you know?
Another earlier in judges it talks about.
The.
Vineyard, a plant growing grapes, he said should I leave my wine that shears God and man to be king over the trees? I think it was. Can't quite remember what the story was. But anyway, wine speaks of joy and the Nazarite separated to God, supposed to get all your joy from the Lord. The next thing not allowed to touch anything dead, and that tells me of no defilement.
And young people, we're living in a world where defilement is rampant all around us.
And to have this before your soul to be separated to the Lord, to say Lord, I belong to you. And then not to be defiled. The last thing is he wasn't allowed to have a haircut. And my wife would tell you that there's a rule, I have a rule that if you can grab your hair.
Between your finger and the palm of your hand is too long.
And she goes already, like, yeah, can you cut my hair again? Sampson was never allowed to have a haircut.
What does that tell us? It tells me that he would be very visibly recognizable. Think about a 40 or 50 year old guy like me that never got a haircut ever. Leah, you think he would be like really bushy? And he would be. And it speaks to me about visible reproach. You know, it speaks in Corinthians about long hair being a reproach for a man.
And so those are the three things I want us to think about.
Separated to God, joy from the Lord.
00:15:01
No defilement. And to be willing to take that reproach upon himself all right now.
We're going to skip all of his childhood, so let's turn now to you, Chapter 13.
Verse 24 I guess we're not going to skip all this child that the woman bear a son and called his name Samson. And the child grew and the Lord blessed him, and the Spirit of God began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zora and Estol. Now I like geography, I like maps. If you look at a map, these two towns are only about two miles apart.
So, Samson.
Was operating at a pretty small circle and the Lord as he grew up kids, the Lord began to move him and to use him and to give him thoughts about things that he should do. And it says the Lord blessed him and the Spirit of God was beginning to move him all right now.
The first thing he does, we'll go into this in chapter 14, verse 1, Samson went down to Timnath and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up and told his father and his mother and said, I have seen a woman in tinnith of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore get her for me.
To wife. This is in a time when they had arranged marriages and Sampson went down here. To Timnath now.
Just to tell you a bit about what that's about.
Tim Myth is a place. It's a valley, an agricultural valley, and it was noted for grape growing. Now wait a minute, Samson, you're a Nazarite. What are you doing in Timnath? And why are you trying to find a wife there? That was a bad move.
Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of my brethren?
Or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines.
Samson said then to his father. Get her for me. She.
He pleased with me well.
But his father and mother knew not that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against the Philistines.
For at that time, the Philistines had dominion over Israel. Well, here's what I take from that.
The mission that the Lord gave Samson was to deliver his people.
From the Philistines, there's nothing wrong with the mission.
So the problem was he was seeking this marriage union that was not according to the Lords minds and he was attempting to create this union where there could, there should not be one.
He had the right intention, but he had the wrong method. You know, he could have just went down there and just started knocking heads together.
But he went down there and he saw this girl and he told his folks, get her. That's the one. Go line it up. Let's plan the party. We're going now. I want to say this to you moms and dads.
Sampson's parents knew that was not good.
And they spoke to him about it. And I want to encourage you parents.
Dear young people, and your children are starting down a wrong path, please.
Pour the love of God into them, but be faithful to what the Word of God says.
A wrong move that's against the word of God is wrong. Samson made a big mistake by going down there. He shouldn't have been down in Timnis. He shouldn't have been down in those vineyards. He shouldn't have been courting a fellow signed woman. But he was, and his parents tried to talk him out of it. Now, you young people, be as frank with you as I can.
Don't ignore the counsel of people you love when you're making big decisions, especially if you think they might be wrong.
This is serious, Samson told his dad. I don't care what you think, she's the one. Go get her. Make it happen.
00:20:05
I wish he wouldn't have done that, but he did it. So I'm not trying to jam you young people up, but I'm telling you in love for your life.
If there are people that are giving you advice and counsel about relationships, or if you are currently, right now, outside of the bounds of the Word of God, contemplating an unequal yoke, don't do it. You will live to regret it, and I tell you that with every ounce of sincerity that I have.
All right, we got to keep moving.
I guess one more thing about.
This in Proverbs chapter 6. If I was a really mean dad, I'd have my family stand up and we'd sing this first to you.
But we're not going to do it, Allison. Proverbs 620 My son, keep thy father's commandments. Forsake not the law of thy mother. When thou goest that shall keep thee. When thou sleepest that she'll. I better look it up. It's a good thing we're not singing today, girls.
Proverbs 620.
My son, keep thy father's commandment. Forsake not the law of thy mother. Bind them continually on thy heart, Tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, that shall lead thee. That's what I got wrong. When thou sleepest, that shall keep thee, and when thou will wakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and the reproofs of instruction.
Are the way of life very important? Moms and dads do that.
You kids listen to what your loved ones are telling you, but more than that, listen to what the word of God is telling you. You'll be happy. There's happiness and obedience. I was reminding Mrs. Tony.
On Sunday or Monday, that I was afraid of her dad. When I was a kid, Mr. Barry was pretty austere. Remember that to him and he would get you up against the wall and a young man. What's the key to happiness?
Money. No, it's not money. I'll be back later. And the key to happiness is obedience. OK, let's keep moving. So here they go. They're going to Tim this.
Verse 5. Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother at a timnath came to the vineyards of, and behold, a young lion roared against him, and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he read him as he would have rent a kid.
And he had nothing in his hand, but he told not his father or mother what mother what he had done. He went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samuel. Well, what about this young lion?
I believe that the word sent that lion.
This is where I I get into a bit of an enigma with Samson because part of me is like the Lord was stopping him from going to marry this girl.
The other part of me is thinking God sent it that lion, and he got a great victory over it. And I think the Lord was showing Simpson the mission is right, but what you're doing is wrong. But I'm going to give you a victory. And so here this young lion is attacking him. How would you guys like to fight a lion with your bare hands? I don't think I would.
And it says he had nothing in his hand. So here comes this lion leaping out of the bushes maybe. And he just had to grab it and just, I don't know how he did it, but he killed it just like he was.
Way smaller, a gentle little animal. And God gave him victory. So what I want to say about this is.
That the mission of fighting against the enemies.
Or the enemy in spiritual warfare needs downright flat out head on fighting.
Sometimes it takes that and here's this lion roaring against him and he took it on head on and he, the Lord, gave him the victory over it, but the unholy alliance he was on his way down there to get that was wrong.
I also think the Lord was teaching him the power of delivering from that kind of an enemy. OK.
00:25:00
We're not going to study a whole lot more about Sampson's Riddle because we don't have the time.
Basically though, I want to say this about marriage.
Here they are down there and there's, I presume, some kind of a party.
At least the seven day celebration. And so Sampson puts out this Riddle. He didn't have any friends there, by the way. He had to go buy some friends, basically.
They're having this feast and he gives them a Riddle assist. If you can solve my Riddle, I'll give you 30 changes of clothes. But if you can't solve it, you got to give me the same thing back.
And over the course of that week.
The Philistines were working on that Philistine girl. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Entice him to give up the answer. Get the answer, get the answer. Tell us what it is. And Sam says Nope, Nope, not telling you. And he says that he makes this comment and I just want to relate this to marriages in this room. He said to you, I'm not sure if this is his wife or fiance at this time. But anyway, he says to her.
In verse 716, Behold, I have not told it to my father or mother, so I tell it to you.
That's a dangerous place to be in a marriage. Lack of communication, Not good. And here's Sam says. I'm not telling you that. No, stop pestering me.
Men, women, that is not the recipe for happy marriage, and this marriage in a few days ends in major disaster.
OK, well it turns out he gives up the secret.
She tells the Philistines about it, he loses the bet and he has to go. Give 30 changes of raiment to this.
The young men in that town, So you know what he did, Leah? He just went to another town and he killed off 30 people, took their clothes, brought him back, said here you go.
It's pretty violent, isn't it? You know, that's what the Lord's.
Intent was for him in delivering his people from the Philistines.
That all this other business of finding a girl down there was wrong. All right now.
As a result of of that, there's escalating problems between the Philistines and Sampson, and I believe that God's mission for Samson was this.
And so he's stirring the pot. I find it really interesting that somebody could catch 300 foxes and tie their tails together. I got a pretty good idea that this whole room in here tonight would be hard pressed to put together 2 foxes by tomorrow.
But that's what the scripture said.
He he caught 300 foxes. This is chapter 15, verse four. And he tied their tails together, set them on fire and turned them loose across these ready to harvest wheat fields. And pretty soon all the wheats burning and the crops are burning. And as you can imagine, there was a massive escalation of problems.
And war breaks out.
Says that.
Sampson, I think he says he killed the.
Remember how many killed here?
Verse 80 smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter and went down and dwelt in the top of the rock. Eat them. Well, here he is. He wins another victory over the Philistines and then he retreats back to his home and he's up on this rock called Edom. Not sure what that rock means, but I would like to find out.
You know what happened, kids?
A whole lot of his countrymen, 3000 of them, came up there and said to him, what are you doing?
Once you know that we're slaves to these people and now you've burnt down all their crops and you've caused a big massacre in one of their towns.
We're going to turn you over to these folks.
And that's what happened. And Samson said to them, all right, I'll go, just don't you guys don't kill me. Just tie me up and give me to them. So that's what they did. You know, that makes me think young people about the Lord Jesus and says he came unto his own, his own received him not.
00:30:08
When it came time for the cross of Calvary, all these people a week before had been winding the streets, coming into Jerusalem, and putting their clothes down. And blessed is the Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. And.
They gave him. He was writing on that donkey a week later, you know what they were hollering? We don't want this guy. Let him be crucified. Kill him. And that's what happened to the Lord Jesus. And so this part of Samson's life makes me think of that.
Well, they tied him up with these ropes and.
He breaks him off like they're not even there. Samson had big muscles, but he had weak morals.
Yeah.
So he breaks those things off and he picked up the jawbone of a donkey. I have a jawbone of a Holstein cow in my and I meant to go get it today to show it to you kids because I've wondered what a jawbone of a donkey would look like. And I think a Holstein cow is pretty close.
It's bigger than your job, Paul.
Anyway, it's here he has this, it's kind of a boomerang shape thing about this long. And in verse 15 he found a new jawbone of an *** and put forth his hand and took it and slew 1000 men therewith.
Now in verse 16, he takes the credit, Samson said, with the jawbone of an *** heaps upon heaps with the jaw, and SI have slain 1000 men. Well, that was a he shouldn't have said that and he pretty quickly realized it because in verse 18.
It says he was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast given this great victory in the hand of thy servant. That was a way better answer. You know anything, young people, that you do for the Lord?
Give him the credit. It's not about me, it's not about you. It's about him and it's about what he's giving you to do.
And it's easy to want to take the credit, and it's not right.
So here Samson is giving the Lord the credit.
And I would just let's read about one more thing about this Jawbone and then I'll make a comment. So 1000 people die and Samson is very, very thirsty.
Says he was sore thirst. Verse 19 but God cleave a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came.
Water, they're out. And when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived.
Now that tells me that.
Doing a great service.
Does not satisfy the soul.
Only the Lord can satisfy the soul. You know, there's a lot of emphasis in this world about serving and giving back and all that. And I don't find fault with that except to say this, brethren, it doesn't satisfy. It must be for the Lord and then the Lord alone.
Can supply a thirsty soil. You know, I think about how many places you could go.
Right now in this county alone, to try to find satisfaction on a Thursday night and not find it.
The Lord satisfies the thirsty soul.
I like the gospel hymn that says I tried the broken cisterns Lord, but all the waters failed.
Ain't as I stooped a drink, they fled and mocked me as I wailed. Now none but Christ can satisfy none other name for me. There's love and life and lasting joy. Lord Jesus found in thee. Young people, find your joy, your refreshment from the Lord Jesus.
That is the only true source. Think of the woman at the well, right? She's out there and and the Lord is talking to her about the living water and she's like, well, great, I'll take some of that so I don't have to lug this spot out here. He wasn't talking about physical water. He's speaking about the soul, that living water.
I like what he said to her. If thou knewest who it was to talk to thee, I would say to him, Give me the drink, and I'd give you living water.
00:35:05
What a beautiful thing. Go to the Lord Jesus for that living water, all right?
Now we have a retrograde step. I'm going to spend the next 20 minutes on Chapter 16.
And we don't have time to read this, so I'm just going to walk you through it. The 1St 3 verses. Well, I guess the last of chapter 15 I.
Samson judged Israel in the days of the Philistines 20 years so.
I take from that that Chimneys and the Foxes and the Jawbone was the launching of Samson's ministry, if you will.
And 20 years go by and he's judging Israel. And I think that he traveled a pretty small circle, according to what we read before. And now at the end of 20 years, there's a retrograde step.
I mentioned a minute ago Sampson had strong muscles and weak morals.
This is a big mistake. Samson went to Gaza, saw there a harlot that's a prostitute, a woman selling her body for money.
Any hired her, he bought her service.
Big mistake.
And then the word got out in that town, hey, Samson is in that house right there. And they're like, all right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to you get over there, you get over there, you get over there. As soon as he comes out the door, you grab that dude and we're killing them. So it's kind of scary, isn't it, Joy? Imagine if when you walked out the door, there was eight or nine guys out there that were just ready to.
That's why the situation was for Sam. Do you know what he did?
He walked out the door. He took a hold of the whole gate of the city.
I'm not tall enough to reach that board up there, but I don't know how big a gate of the city was. But it wasn't. It wasn't like a regular door. He just grabbed it. The bars, the gate, the post.
Just walked out the city with it, carried it up to the top of the hill, set it down. Now God preserved him in this step. It was a bad step to take. God preserved him, young people.
The Lord is gracious.
And when we take a step like this.
There are consequences. There are. Count on it.
I think though, of the grace of God in this situation, that the Lord delivered him from it, but it was a downward course that kept going.
But I want to. I want you to think about.
Remember when Peter was telling the Lord though all men deny you, I'll never do that, Never. And then the same night he's like, oh Jesus, never heard of them. Nope, don't know him. Nope, Nope, you're crazy eyed. And Peter had a similar stuff.
It was wrong, but yet the Lord delivered him from it. Another one that I think of as the Apostle Paul.
And I hope I'm not pushing this too far. It seems like a retrograde step for him to go to Jerusalem when the Spirit of God was giving him messages that if you do that it's going to end badly. Now we know that all things work together for good and the Lords purposes aren't frustrated but.
Paul went, and exactly what the Spirit of God said would happen, did happen to him. Anyway, here's Samson in Gaza, and he's yielding to these temptations. Morality, young people, matters.
It matters. Now let's get into the story of Delilah.
I find this section of Samson's life to be one of the most pitiful and humiliating falls that I can think of that ever happened to a servant of God.
It really makes me sad, but it happened.
Verse.
I guess we'll start with verse four. It came to pass afterward.
He loved a woman in the valley of Surrey, whose name was Delilah, and the Lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her.
00:40:02
Entice him.
See, we're in his great strength.
Enticing really means to you.
Not very good at definitions, it really enticing means.
Be nice and kind and loving and and just get close to women and get the information we need. You know, I thought of what it says in Proverbs. My son, if sinners entice thee.
Which is what the devil wants to do to you every day as a Christian young person.
If sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
Consent thou not.
Another verse in Proverbs. I better turn to this one to get it right. This is Proverbs 4.
And verse 14 Enter not into the path of the wicked, going out in the way of evil men. Avoid it, Pass not by it, turn from it, pass away.
All right, avoiding something, turning away from it, getting away from it. I tell you kids a story that happened to me on Tuesday here at the camp, so.
I was taking a shower in one of the basement showers, but I'm not going to tell you which one so that you keep using the one you've been using.
And I had my glasses off and I can't see that good. And I got in the shower and it's kind of tight because I'm a fat guy. So I'm standing there like this and I pulled the curtain across and what do you think I saw?
I saw a great big spider crawling his way up the curtain and it was about from me to this microphone away. It was big too. I hate spiders. It's probably that big around.
So I avoided that thing. I got a shower. He and I coexisted for about 90 seconds.
And I'll tell you what, I didn't come anywhere near that shower curtain anyway. I don't want to make too much fun. The point is, kids, avoiding something means get away. Don't go anywhere near it. Move on, get out, go away. And the enemy of your soul wants to trick you into thinking that everything's fine, everything's good. Lull you into.
Complacency gets you comfortable and then destroy your life.
That's what he wants to do, Destroy your Christian life now.
Louise.
I appreciate your editing the calendar.
And quite some time ago.
You had in your calendar verse this. This is Judges 1615.
Delilah kept trying to get Samson to give up the secret, you know? And she said to him, How can you say you love me when your heart is not with me?
Now, rather than I want to ask you this with regards to the love of the Lord Jesus.
How can you say you love me when your heart is not with me? I'm not trying to equate the Lord Jesus and Delilah by any stretch, but I want you to think about that question for your own self. Does the Lord Jesus have your heart?
Or is it a facade? Is it a game you're playing A.
Play. You're acting in the you know, maybe everybody thinks you're a certain way and and when no one's looking, you're not. I want you to really ponder that. How can you say you love me when your heart's not with me?
This is a rabbit thrill, Louise, but thank you for your calendar work.
There has been many, many times that the verse that's in that is so suited to the day that can only be credited to the Spirit of God providing what's needed that day. So.
Thank you, Louise.
All right now.
The while it keeps chipping away at Samson. Hey, hey, tell me the secret. How come you're so strong? And and he keeps getting. First, he gave her a completely wild answer. Well, you know, if they tie me up with these green threads that have never been dried, you'll be able to take me. She's like, OK, I think I got it. So here these guys are hiding in the room and tie them up with these little green strings.
00:45:21
She's like, hey, Sampson, the Philistines are hearing us.
Then she keeps chipping away Chip. The secret of his strength was separation to God.
And that long hair that he had, that's the secret of his strength was separation to God. And that long hair that he had, that's the secret of his strength was separation to God. And that long hair that he had, that symbol that he was a Nazarite.
And he starts to get to the hair, right? He's like, well, you know, if they if they weave my hair into this loom thing, then they'll have me and say, OK, OK, this is it. Now we really got him this weave in his hair into the loom. Hey, Samson, the Philistines are here. Just like when he carried away the gates of the city. I don't know how big a loom is, but I think some of them can be big.
You just ran out the door with a loom hanging from his head.
But gradually, gradually, gradually, gradually, he was getting to the real story.
And finally.
She got to him.
And he says, all right, this is it if you cut the hair off.
I'll lose my strength. And that was the secret. That was the truth. And Delilah was like, okay, just one more time. I'm pretty sure this is the one come back. And I find this so sad. It says she made him sleep on her knees.
Young people, are you asleep in your Christian life?
I hope not. I hope that your dad right now living as close to the very edge as you possibly can be. Don't do that. Get as far away from the enemy as you possibly can. Always like the story of somebody hiring a carriage driver to drive. How close can you drive into the edge of this Cliff? Pretty close.
Next guy all this.
Very close well, but the person that got the job was the one that said I would drive as far away from that clip as I possibly could get. All right, you're hired. I want you young people to think about that where you're at your Christian life right now. Don't get so close to the edge that you're just one moment from slipping over. You know it it speaks in James about.
Enticement and thoughts become lusts and eventually if it's not dealt with.
That root goes down and lust will turn into action. That's what the Word of God teaches.
Don't do that. Stay as far away as you possibly can and here.
The secret's out. Delilah has Samson asleep on her lap. I think about what it says in Romans.
15 I think it is.
Awake.
I think it's also in the Ephesians and weight valve that sleepless.
Young people, with your spiritually asleep so dangerous of a position to be in.
Please take this coin with when you're surrounded by friends and surrounded by people that care about you and want your good and blessing, certainly go to the Lord about it and wake up. Wake up. The Simpson didn't wake up and they cut his hair off. And this is one of the saddest verses of the Old Testament to me.
This is verse 20, she said.
The Philistines be upon me, Samson, And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself, and he wist not that the Lord.
Was departed from him. He didn't even realize it. And he goes, oh, get up and knock your heads together. It didn't happen. He was just as weak as one of us would be and they got him and he didn't even realize. Young people over there, however long that took.
That the Lord had departed from him. What a tragic Sabbath. And they take him.
00:50:02
This verse 21, the Philistines took him, put out his eyes, brought him down to Gaza, bound him with batters of brass he needed grind in the prison house.
Think about what he lost. He lost his secret with God. He lost his separation.
He lost his spiritual discernment, his sight was gone, he lost his liberty, and he eventually lost his life. Here is a servant of God with his two eyes gouged out. I don't want to gross you out, but this is real. They probably took some kind of a spoon and just.
Popped his eyes right out.
Either that or they stabbed him in the eye. Whatever, he lost his sight, he lost his power, he lost his freedom, he lost his liberty. Young people, I want, we want so very much for you to have the liberty of Christ and to grow in your Christian lives and to be profitable in your assemblies and your families. And don't allow this to happen to you. Where?
Little at a time, you're just getting closer and closer.
To the edge and then bam, in a moment of time it's it's done and there's no going back. I just find that to be so sad and I don't want that for you guys.
Now.
I do like the rest of the story.
Before I read them experts, I mentioned Peter before and how he was sitting at a fire. I spoke to some of the European young people about this this winter, about different fires that you could be at. And Peter was at this fire in Pilot's Hall and he's denied the Lord and it says.
The rooster crowed and it says the Lord turned and looked on him, wondered what that look was like.
And Peter?
He sees the Lord just looking at him.
And he says he went out and he wept Betterly, that fire rescinded. Been at it.
Samson had no business being here.
But after the Lord arose.
Peter said to six other of the disciples, Hey, the Lord's gone. I'm going back fishing. And they're like, all right, we're in, we're going to. So they're out there. At least four of them were commercial fishermen. They knew what they were doing. And you know how many fish they got? None, not one. And the morning comes and there's a man over there on the shore and it's kind of dusky and you couldn't really say who it was.
And the voice comes across the water. Children.
Have you been successful? Have you any meat?
How's it going without me? And the answer was not very good.
And the Lord says.
Casting that on the other side.
And in the meantime, John is whispering to Peter, Hey, that's the Lord.
And Peter's like, what? What do you say? Yeah, that's the Lord. And he goes get out of the way and he takes off his Newfoundland. McCullough, the oil skins. I don't know what the Galilean fishermen call it in the water. He goes, he swimming through the Lord, and there on the shore is this fire with fish and bread. And the Lord says come and die.
Really. Peter just denied you a couple days ago?
Swore cursing oath and cursing that he didn't know yet. And yet the Lord is like Peter.
Come and dine, You're not going to be successful without me. You're not going to get anywhere in your life without me. And then at the end of that little fire there on the shore of Galilee, the Lord asked him three times. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord. Peter, do you love me? Yes, I do. Peter, do you love me? Yes, I do, Lord. And then the Lord gave him a beautiful restoration.
Now I told you all that to say this young people, really all of you, brethren.
This is not the end of the story. It says in verse 22. Howbeit, the hair of his head began to grow after he was shaved.
And the Lord had one more job for Samson. Now, you young people.
00:55:04
Maybe you think right now I have blown it so badly, there is zero that I can do to be of use to God. So I'm just going to go eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. The problem with that philosophy is we don't die tomorrow. We eat, we drink and then we're hungover or whatever else. That is not God's plan for your life. Samson's hair begin to grow again.
And at the end of his life, they're having this big party to celebrate how they're afflicting their enemy.
And some little boy, let's say your size, joy was walking Samson along and he says, could you help me find the pillars like these upright posts that are holding the building up? And the little boy took him over there and he prays to the Lord. He says, Oh Lord God, this is verse 28. Remember Me, I pray thee.
Strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once.
And the Lord answered that prayer. Samson took those pillars and he just, I don't know if he was pushing or pulling, but he pulled down, tore down the whole building. And it says the number of enemy that were killed at that time was more than all the rest of his life put together. And so young people, I just were going to close with this. Don't think that if you're in.
The prison house grinding with your eyes, put out that your usefulness for God is over.
It's not. Don't stay there. God wants your blessing.
And you're good, so. But I'll tell you this.
It's a lot easier not to take the route that Sampson took.
We're out of time. I want you young people to know.
We love you. I know there's a lot of adversity, there's a lot of headwinds, there's a lot of enticement, there's a lot of messaging.
Being thrown at you. Love the Lord Jesus, get into His word.
I repeat myself too much. I'm just going to tell you, don't do what Samson did. Do what the Lord wants you to do Love Him, follow Him, serve Him. You won't regret it.
Q&A 4
Lessons from the Life of Moses
Address—Josh Stewart
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Well, please turn with me to the last chapter of Deuteronomy for an introductory passage.
Deuteronomy.
Chapter 34.
And we'll start with verse one.
And Moses went up from the plains of Moab.
Unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah that is over against Jericho.
And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead unto Dan, and al Naftali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea and the South, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees unto Zoar. And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I swear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed. I have caused thee to see it with.
Eyes. But thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth Peor. But no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day. And Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was not dim.
Nor his natural force abated.
Well, this evening as I look over this room, there's a lot of young people here. That's primarily what I had on my heart is I considered what to speak on.
I would say.
With.
Bernie, that we love you very much.
We want you to have a wife that is full.
I would say with the Apostle John, my desire is that your joy might be full.
With the Apostle Peter that your life would be neither barren nor unfruitful.
With the apostle Paul that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.
And so.
What I would like to speak on this evening, with the Lord's help, is the life of Moses.
Moses is an individual whose life to me is a tremendous example.
Of faith.
A life of sustained faithfulness over many, many years. You know there are individuals.
In which we see mountain peaks of faith.
But with Moses it was his whole life through a tremendous example of steady following the Lord. I would like to just set before you some lessons from Moses life.
Looking over these rows, I would say for many of you, you're not too young to begin a serious study of the Word of God, and I hope that you are studying the Word of God.
You know my my go to would be. I guess my default would be to take up a passage of scripture.
And dig into it and really try to get ahold of what God is saying, the interpretation, you might say, of that passage. But over the last year or maybe two years, I've been doing supplementing that with character studies where we follow an individual through the word of God and we learn lessons from their life. And I tell you, it has been a rich field for meditation.
So I encourage you, what we're going to have tonight is just like we have the life of Samson last night. It's just a few of the points, but to look into these individuals, we can learn so much from them.
So.
Here we have in Deuteronomy 34 the end of Moses life.
Somebody said this, Let me die the death of the righteous.
And let my last end be like his. Does anybody know who said those words?
Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.
It's an unusual.
Speaker. Does anybody know?
00:05:04
Bruce.
Balaam, that's right, numbers 23.
You know, it's a, it's an amazing thing to see someone at the end of their life.
And to see what they were like at the end. Here we have the end of Moses life.
A tremendous example.
Balaam, I think was talking about Jacob. Jacob ended his life worshipping, leaning upon the top of his staff and he said I want to end my life the way he ended his life. But you know, it didn't happen for Balaam. Balaam's life ended in a terrible way. Here's the end of Moses life and you know what it says?
He was 120 years old. Who here wants to live to be 120?
I see a few young ones that are raising their hands, but none of the older ones are.
But you know what it says that his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. He was physically strong to the last day of his life. He had his eyesight. Incredible how the Lord sustained him through 120 years.
What was his secret?
You know I would. I'm going to make a lot of applications as we go through this and I want to try to get the.
The spiritual good out of the life of Moses and apply these things to our lives I would suggest.
That the secret of what sustained Moses through all those years is what we get in verse 10.
And there arose not a prophet since in Israel, like unto Moses.
Whom the Lord knew face to face. It was a personal knowledge of God. Now, Moses lived in the Old Testament. The Father had not been revealed. The Son had not come to reveal the Father. We can have far more of a personal relationship with God than Moses could have. And yet Moses is a tremendous example to us. He pursued that.
Relationship. We're going to hopefully touch a little bit on that, but I think that it's so important that we cultivate a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not enough to know doctrine.
It's not enough to even to serve Him. What He wants is our hearts, and He wants a relationship with each one of us. I've just finished a study of Second Peter. There's a verse in Second Peter that begins like this, according as His divine power have given unto us.
Someone finished the verse.
All things that pertain unto life and godliness.
It's an amazing thing. Everything that we need for our spiritual path, God has provided. But you know what? The rest of the verse is very helpful. He's given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who have called us by glory and virtue. In other words, all that we need, it comes to us through a personal knowledge of the One who has called us.
That was an eye opener for me. That was a huge revelation to me and.
That the only way we're really going to get those things that we need for our Christian walk.
Is if it's with a personal relationship with God our Father and with the Lord Jesus Christ. I would say that's probably the number one thing I would hope that you take away from this.
Little talk tonight.
Well, Moses again, a tremendous example. The one who God raised up to deliver Israel from the slavery they were under in in the land of Egypt. The one who led them through the wilderness for 40 years, who put up with so much for those 40 years. The one who gave us the first five books of the Bible.
And through all of that, he displayed a remarkable character.
Of what the Bible calls meekness, Humility of character in Numbers 12.
Aaron and Miriam, his brother and sister, were murmuring or complaining against Moses, mumbling under their breath against him. It says of Moses now Moses was.
00:10:06
The meekest man. That's not quite how it says it. Let me just briefly read it. You don't have to turn there. It's Numbers 12 verse.
Three, it says now, the man Moses was very meek above all the men.
Which were upon the face of the earth. Imagine that through everything he went through with all that he accomplished. You know, it usually takes some really tough characters to accomplish great things. If you look at the leaders of Fortune 500 companies, they're they're tough cookies.
If you look at people who have to be around large crowds for long periods of time, they develop a thick skin. Moses maintain that character of meekness through his whole life. What was it that sustained him? What gave him the strength? What gave him the endurance?
I believe it was his relationship with God.
And that's what I think we all pray for each one of you dear young people here tonight.
Is that you would grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Well, we are going to look at a couple different scriptures tonight.
I'll probably reference Hebrews 11.
I'll probably reference Acts Chapter 7 where Peter where I'm sorry where Stephen speaks about Moses and we might refer to them. I apologize if I I've been looking at these passages and they might get a little bit mixed up in my mind since that I.
We're in one and I'm quoting from the other, but I would encourage you to look at those. But we'll begin with Exodus Chapter 2.
I probably don't need to remind you of the terrible situation that the children of Israel were in at this time and how.
There was no hope for them, apparently.
Slaves in Egypt under the lash of the taskmaster.
And then the king of Egypt makes a decree that every male child that was born should be cast into the river.
It was a way of controlling the population, a way of weakening the slave populations such that they could maintain their control over the slaves.
And that's where the story of Moses begins is with that dark backdrop.
I don't know if I could title this meeting lessons from the life of Moses, but it's maybe incidents from his life that I think we can learn some practical things from.
It really begins before Moses is even born with his parents, and that's the 1St.
Thing about Moses that I want to bring out is that his parents were married in the Lord.
At least in type.
What does God do?
With such a dark backdrop, He begins to raise up a deliverer. Our prayer is that you, each one of you, would be used by God for the blessing of His people. But the way He goes about doing that is first by bringing together a man and a woman.
Verse one of Exodus chapter 2 And there went a man of the House of Levi and took to wife.
A daughter of Levi.
So there might be some of you here.
That are in relationships, there might be some of you that are contemplating getting married.
Maybe contemplating asking someone to?
Enter into a relationship.
And I just want to make a few points about this. The first thing we see here is that Moses, father Amram, his name we later find, and his mother Jacobed were both of the tribe of Levi.
You know, I don't believe that we really get a commandment of the Lord that they were to marry within their tribe.
But here they do.
This man marries within his tribe. He finds another.
Of that tribe of the family of Levi and I want to encourage you dear young people. You know marriage is not for everyone. Paul in first Corinthians 7 verse seven, he says that.
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He wished that those who were unmarried would remain as he was.
That is unmarried, that they might serve the Lord.
And there may be some of you here today that have an incredible gift.
The gift of singleness, the gift that God gives to certain ones such that they do not.
Need to be married and if you have that gift.
And you choose to use it for God. It could be a tremendous blessing to His people.
If you choose to waste that gift.
It's a tremendous loss.
But if you have it, I just encourage you.
To devote your life and service to the Lord, you have, as Paul brings out in that wonderful chapter, an opportunity that the rest of us can never have. To serve the Lord totally free of natural commitments, but for the rest of us.
Most of you probably in this room will, if the Lord doesn't come, be married. And my comment this evening is that I want you to marry within the tribe. Now that sounds a little cult like and.
I will explain what I mean by that.
In one Corinthians 7, I'm just going to read the verse. There's a very important principle.
One Corinthians 7.
And it's at the very end of the chapter verse.
39.
Speaks of the wife whose husband dies.
The wife is bound verse 39 by the law as long as her husband liveth. But if her husband be dead?
She is at liberty to be married, to whom she will only in the Lord.
And I think that applies for anytime.
We are before the Lord about who we should marry that it is in the Lord. And what does that mean?
Does that mean that we should marry a believer? Absolutely, Absolutely. But that is the bare minimum that this one that you would seek to.
In the presence of the Lord, be before him to marry that they be a believer.
You know who you marry.
Is the choice of who to marry is probably the second most important decision that you will make in your lifetime?
It will have perhaps the largest effect.
On the quality of your life and on the ability for you to serve the Lord.
I have seen young people get married and the person they and the match, the marriage that was formed, the union that was formed was a tremendous help to them.
The wife in the case of a man was a compliment to them. She balanced his weaknesses. She she, she complimented him. She was, as the Bible says in Genesis chapter 2A, help meet to him a tremendous blessing. Not that marriage is always easy and it's it's far from that.
But a tremendous addition.
I have also seen young people get married and their life completely go off the rails.
Even when marrying someone who was a believer.
And so to marry in the Lord is more than to marry a believer. To marry in the Lord, I believe, is to marry someone who is in submission to the Lordship of Christ. You know, someone recently asked me for some advice when they were considering.
Getting married and I prayed about it and answered with a few.
Suggestions of things to think about. And I thought maybe I would just bring those out before you. The first one was, are they actually a believer? Is there evidence in their life that they are truly the Lords #2 do they submit to the Lordship of Christ?
If you marry someone who is not subject to God.
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You are walking into a disaster.
Does she submit? Does he or she submit to the word of God?
You know, you have no idea what life is going to throw at you, but we have something that God has given to us. He has commended us. The apostle Paul prayed, I commend you to God into the word of his grace. He has given us something that we can have with us. We can read it and it will help us through those challenges and for both of you.
To submit to the word of God.
A tremendous.
Important thing to consider.
How did the local ones in his or her assembly feel about her?
Or him? Do they commend this young person?
Are your parents happy with it? Are their parents happy with it?
And there are so many characteristics to look for in someone you know. Marriage is a natural relationship and sometimes we try to over spiritualize it and we get ourselves into trouble with that. There has to be physical attraction.
Very important.
But you know.
There are other characteristics to look for as well, and I would suggest one to you kindness.
Marry someone who is kind.
Like I said, you don't know what life is going to throw at you. I shouldn't say that. I should say you don't know what trials the Lord is going to bring into your life. That's a much more scriptural way of putting it. But you know what? If you're married to someone who is kind, who emanates the love of Christ and reflects it.
Marriage, which is already difficult.
Isn't going to be made tenfold more difficult by bitterness, by anger, by competition. Someone who is kind. I just suggest those things to you.
But you know, even if we are in a relationship that isn't.
In the Lord.
The Lord can still use.
Those and there is room for that relationship to be healed and I just present that to you, not to go into that really any deeper.
But you know, even if we make a mistake and it's a it's a big mistake to marry someone that the Lord would not have us to marry, it's not the end of the story. So pour out your heart to the Lord.
And he is gracious.
Well.
That was the first thing, number one, that his parents were.
Married in their tribe. The next thing. The second thing is that Moses parents raised him for the Lord.
Verse two. And the woman conceived and bear a son. And when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an arc of bullishes, and daubed it with slimming, with pitch, and put the child there in. And she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit, what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walked along the river's side.
And when she saw the ark among the flag, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child. And behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrew's children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?
And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go, And the maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter stood under her, Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it. Well, here we have the incredible story of Moses birth. You know it says in Hebrews 11. Maybe I'll just refer to the verse.
That Moses parents.
Were not afraid of the King's commandment.
If they had been, and they had loved themselves more than this little baby.
They would have thrown the baby into the river. But you know what? They were not afraid of the King's commandment.
You know, it took tremendous courage for this couple to even have a family, given what the king had just decreed. Tremendous courage.
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You know, we're living in a difficult day as well, and, you know, unbelief might rise up and say it's too hard. What's the point? We're just going to be raising children in a world that is.
Getting worse and worse, but faith rises up and rises above that. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.
It says here she saw that he was a goodly child.
It sounds as if she looked at the baby when it came out and said this is a good looking one, let's keep it.
But I don't think that's exactly what happened.
In Acts Chapter 7, there's a very helpful note concerning this. It says and.
Acts 7, verse 20 it says in which time Moses was born and was exceeding fair.
And nourished up in his father's house three months. But in the margin it says for fair it says fair to God. In other words, the translators suggest that there is a there's a correction here that it really should be beautiful or fair to God. In other words, Moses parents saw that this child was valuable in the sight of God.
You know this world does not value children witnessed by the thousands of abortions that are committed.
Every day across this country and around the world. But God values life. And these children saw the value of this. These parents saw the value of this child to God, that in his sight he was beautiful.
And so they did not. They were not afraid of the King's commandment, and they preserved him. They hid him for three months. That must have been very difficult to hide A newborn for that long. Eventually they could no longer hide the child.
And.
They put the child in the arc of bulrushes and they put it in the by the edge of the river. They put his sister to watch what would happen. I take it by that that they were expecting something to happen. They were expecting God to intervene.
And we know the the rest of the story.
You know.
The river of Egypt was the source of how that great civilization was sustained Canaan was watered by the the reign of rain from heaven, but Egypt by the river and it really speaks to us of.
That which keeps the world moving in independence from God why do we need to depend on God when we have the Nile where you can just.
Get out the foot pumps and start pumping water into the irrigation ditches and water the fields. We don't need to. We don't need God. We can operate without God. We've got the Nile. That's what the river represents, you know.
They didn't drown the baby in the river.
They had to put the baby in the river, but they didn't throw it in and have it drown. You know, this speaks to me of how Christian parents can raise their children and not throw them into the river of this world to drown them.
God can give Christian parents the wisdom to know how to raise them such that they're in the world but not of the world. And it's going to be different for each one. But God can give us that wisdom as to how to do that. And, you know, children and young people here, maybe your parents treat you differently from the other children that you go to school with or that you see at the playground.
Young people, those you go to college with.
High school with and you think my parents don't let me do that. And maybe you think of your parents as strict, but you know what? Just maybe it's because they want to preserve you from drowning in the river of the world. So instead of thinking it as thinking of it as a hardship, think of it as my parents are trying to save my life and that's why they're doing what they're doing.
And as parents, we don't always have perfect wisdom and the way we do things, but.
It's wonderful to see the care of Moses parents and you know Pharaoh's daughter was there to wash herself and she seized the ark and picks and goes over and.
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Looks inside and sees the baby, and then the very worst possible thing happens when you're trying to hide.
The baby begins to cry.
But you know what? That was exactly what God used to touch her natural heart.
And to touch her heart in such a way that she would love that baby with natural human affection, that the baby's life might be preserved and just the Providence of God to.
Have Miriam there another point. You know they could trust this girl to watch her younger brother. That is the the atmosphere that God wants to see in Christian homes is not children smashing each other's heads off and competing with each other and hating each other.
God wants to see that love fostered there in the home, and she could be trusted to watch in this perilous situation.
And she spoke up at just the right moment and she said, do you want me to call a nurse? And we know that God allowed it, that Moses could be raised in his parents home. And you know, it says he was nursed by his mother. But we read the verse in Acts 7 that says he was nourished up in his father's house. It takes two. It takes a mother and a father.
Paul says Fathers provoked not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Fathers, it is our responsibility to set before our children the things of God, to raise them up. That's the love, the discipline, the teaching, all of those things, even natural enjoyment. We need to set before our children in such a way that we raise them up to know the Lord and to have a relationship with the Lord.
But it's not just fathers, it's mothers.
And how mother gives and gives and gives of herself.
You know, John Wesley said. I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians in England.
I learned a tremendous amount from the Word of God from my mother sitting around our dining room table as she would have those readings every morning.
And I'm so thankful for that.
Teaching our children is not just words, but it's by the example that we set.
And you know, we need as parents to be careful that we set a consistent example before them. And I speak to you as someone who has failed in this, but it is so important. Paul, when Speaking of himself as a father to the Corinthians, speaks about and to others the Thessalonians. He speaks about that consistent example that he set before them.
Someone said this.
To give children good instruction and a bad example.
Is but beckoning to them with the head to show them the way to heaven, while we take them by the hand.
And lead them in the way to hell.
Consistency is so important.
But again, I will say this if we failed in this.
God's grace can overcome, and so I just put that before you for those of you who are parents or soon to be parents. And now we move on to the lessons that Moses learned in his life.
Let's look.
At Hebrews 11 now for something that happened when Moses was 40 years old or around that time.
A tremendous turning point in his life.
Because it says in Acts 7 that he was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, Says there in Exodus that he was raised in the the House of Pharaoh's daughter, but something tremendous took place in his soul.
We find it in Hebrews Chapter 11. It says in verse 24, by faith, Moses, when he was come to yours, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures.
In Egypt.
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There came a time.
When Moses realized who he was, I'm sure the instruction that he received from his parents stuck with him.
But there he was, for years, raised in Pharaoh's house. How those?
Things he was taught might have faded in his mind.
We don't know whether it was a sudden thing or where or whether it was a gradual thing of the Lord working in him that he got to the point where he said, I refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Why? He realized who he was. He was not an Egyptian. He was one of the children of Israel and you know.
It's possible and I think very common for us.
We can grow up.
We can believe the gospel, we can be saved when we're young, and yet we can just go on almost like we're in a coma spiritually.
Without realizing who we are.
When he does that, two things happen #1.
He has a care for his brethren. I need to protect these ones who are being beaten by the taskmasters. The other thing was is that he separated from the world and he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and he would rather have the reproach of Christ than the riches of Egypt.
Moses left behind a tremendous career. He left behind probably a tremendous tomb that he could have had in the Valley of the Kings or somewhere like that.
And he walked away from that because he realized who he was. Young people, maybe you haven't realized who you are now.
Dakota, who are you?
Dakota Good. All right.
We think we know who we are.
But do we really?
I want to just read a verse.
From first John chapter 3.
This hit me the other night when we were reading it and our assembly.
I, John. Chapter 3.
In verse one, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved now, are we the sons of God, or the children of God? And it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see him as he is.
You are a child of God.
And you know what? To realize what that means that God is your Father.
When you're walking down the street with a bunch of other people, you are different.
God is your father. You are no mere person. You are a child of God.
The world doesn't see it yet. We are in disguise right now. We are disguised as regular people, but we are the children of God. When he appears, that disguise is going to be taken away.
And we are going to be glorified, our bodies are going to be glorified to be like his glorious body. And the world is going to see it and say.
He was a child of God. They don't see it now. Maybe we don't even see it now. The tremendous love that the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God. And so we muddle along sometimes like earthlings, but we are citizens of heaven. We are the children of God. And there comes a time in your life.
I hope when you wake up and you realize that and it's going to have tremendous consequences, suddenly, Moses said. I'm an Israelite and my people are slaves. I've got to do something. And he went out and we know what happened. He loved his brethren.
And that's something that I encourage, that each one of you is the love of the brethren to realize who you are and then to realize who the rest of us in this room are, that we are children and the family of God. And the love that is in that family is a powerful love.
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And then to realize that the world hates the family of God.
How can I be an Egyptian when my people are being beaten? And so he esteemed the reproach of Christ. He esteemed that that persecution that he would receive to be worth more than the treasures of Egypt. Do we realize the treasures of Egypt and what Moses walked away from tremendous wealth beyond.
Probably our wildest imagination. And he left that on the table and he walked away from it because he said it's worth it. It's worth it what I have.
I can't say in Christ because he wasn't a Christian, but in type, what we have in Christ is worth more than if we gained the whole world. It's worth more than that, and it justifies walking away from it all.
Well, I need to keep moving here. I'm not going to get through all of these, but we'll go until we have to stop or until you all tell me you're you're done.
He came to grips with who he was. One last thing about that. It's not that Moses, that Moses was trying to be something he wasn't. He was realizing who he already was.
Sometimes.
Young people.
Maybe we give you the wrong idea that we want you to try to be something that you're not already. That is not the message in in Christianity. That is not the message that God has given us. He put he gave us the life of Christ. He made us his children, the children of God. And then he says, I want you to realize who you already are. And then that is going to change you.
OK, let's move on from that.
Moses experienced #4HE experienced failure and restoration.
That's verse 11 of chapter 2, when Moses was grown.
That love that he had for his brethren that I believe God had put in his heart propelled him to do something about it. And so he did.
We know he went out and he smote the Egyptian. He slew the Egyptian and he hid him in the sand. I think it's in verse 12 he says he looked this way and that way, which would indicate perhaps that what Moses did there wasn't exactly was not right and.
It was for perhaps he went out there for a good reason, but he tried to do something when God had not asked him to do it, and he, you might say, fell on his face.
I won't ask everyone in this room to put up their hand who has tried to do something for the Lord and then fallen flat on their face.
OK, people are putting their hands up anyways.
You know.
God is so gracious. He's so gracious. The desire that Moses had in his heart.
God was going to grant to him to deliver his people, but it was going to be in God's time when Moses was ready. It wasn't God's time. And perhaps there was something of self in this. And so Moses had to flee, or he fled, let's put it that way. And I believe it was part of the chastening hand of God in his life. So he experienced failure.
And where he went was the Sinai, was the desert the land of Midian.
And you know, the wilderness in Scripture often speaks to us of a time where we learn God's heart and where we learn our own heart. And Moses needed to learn that at the on the backside of the desert. Very few details are given to us about those 40 years that Moses spent there, 40 long years learning.
That he was nothing apart from God.
Growing, emptying himself, learning.
Very few details are given to us. It's private. It's between US and the Lord. Maybe you've tried to do something for the Lord and failed.
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Take the discipline, the chastening of the Lord.
As his love, whom the Father loves, he chastens, encourages every son whom he receives.
I think this would later prepare Moses for their own Wilder, or later prepare Moses to lead Israel in their own wilderness experience another segment of 40 years where they too would learn.
Who God was and who they were.
Well #5.
Moses learned a shepherd's heart. These are things that we pray for each one of you.
Starting in verse 15, it talks about how Moses fled and he came to the land of Midian sat down by a well.
And then in verse 16, we read of the priest of Midian, his seven daughters, how they were coming to water their father's flock. And these shepherds, who ought to have been far kinder, were driving away the flock of.
The daughters of Jethro.
And we know what Moses did. He stood up and he helped them.
And, you know, Moses later on went on to marry one of these daughters, and he kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, and he learned to do the work of a shepherd. I love this subject because it's so needful.
You know, not all of us have the gift of a pastor, but I think we can all benefit from learning the heart of a shepherd.
You know, Paul told the Corinthians that you have many teachers, yet you have not many fathers.
You don't have many of those who care about you who love you enough.
And have a close enough relationship with you to draw alongside you and tell you something that might be hard to hear.
That's the heart of a shepherd.
The shepherd nourishes and protects the sheep. Moses learned to do both of those things. He drove away the shepherds and he watered the sheep. He watered the sheep.
And you know, I'm just going to give you 1 little anecdote to encourage you.
In Shepherding.
There's a brother that I know and that most of you in this room know who has a tremendous heart.
He told me earlier this year.
That he learned the Shepherd's heart from another brother years ago. And that encouraged me so much.
I know that there are those who have the gift, but.
I believe that we can learn to have a heart like that.
And God wants us to, and I believe he said to Moses, he said, as it were, Moses, you're going to have to learn to have a heart, the heart of a shepherd, if you're going to lead my people. So for each of you young people here to spend time with others, to listen, to develop relationships, to feed those who look up to you, to feed them with Christ, you can learn these things even at a very young age. You can develop that character.
And if you do, God can use that for tremendous blessing.
Number six.
He came to know and fear God. Let's go to the burning Bush now.
And we're just going to in the last two or three minutes.
Talk a little bit about.
Moses first personal encounter with God in the invisible form.
Verse one of chapter 3 Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a Bush. And he looked, and behold, the Bush burned with fire, and the Bush was not consumed.
And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the Bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the Bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh, hit her, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where on thou standest is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God, and then just.
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Read verse 13. And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel.
And say unto them, The God of your Father's has sent me unto you. And they say unto me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you.
Well, we're just going to stop there. But you know Moses.
God revealed himself to Moses in this burning Bush. A tremendous thing to see.
Fire the judgment of God and this Bush that somehow was not consumed. How could this be? Moses said. I have to turn aside and see it.
You know.
There's so much here, but God was going to judge Egypt the fire, but Israel was going to be spared. The Bush was not burned.
But you know, I just want to mention this here, that God says something to Moses when he says, Who shall I say has sent me? I am that I am, you know, Moses has said, Who am I?
That was going to be my next point. Who am I that they would listen to me? And God says it's not about who you are, it's about who I am. It's one of the great lessons of the wilderness.
But when God tells Moses who he is, he uses this name. I am that I am.
When I was a child, I did not understand that at all. I heard it talked about and it was just like going over my head.
But what I believe God is saying to Moses is I exist just because I exist. I am that I am. Nobody caused me to come into existence. I had no beginning. I have no end. I just am because I am. I'm the self existing 1. The eternal 1.
And you can ask, well, why? Why are we here? Well, we drove here. Well, why did we drive here? Kids like to ask why and you can ask why and they're good questions, But eventually you come back to a question when you ask why and there is no answer. And that's why God, he is the absolute. He is the effect that has no.
'Cause he is the rock on which everything is built.
The one who has no beginning, who has no end. And he just is, because he is. And this I believe.
Grabbed Moses heart and Moses pursued a relationship with him in a deeper way. Later on he would say, I beseech thee, show me thy glory here. The holiness of God. Draw not nigh. Hit her.
You know the beautiful thing is the first thing that God says to Moses when he shows, when he shows himself in the burning bushes. Don't come close to me. Stay where you are. And we need to learn to fear God. But what is Moses response?
He spends his lifetime getting getting closer to God. I love that.
It's beautiful to see later on in Moses intercession for the children of Israel how the Lord says I'm going to destroy them, move out of the way, I'm going to consume them and I'll make a view a great nation. Moses wanted to be would rather be blotted out of God's book than.
To have the children of Israel perish and Moses intercedes with God.
And God is pushing back in his and Moses intercession. He's pushing back on Moses.
And it's, and Moses is pushing and it's a beautiful picture. I wish we had time to go there, but we don't. But to see that God, that Moses knew the heart of God such that he could ask God to do what he knew God already wanted to do, Beautiful.
To see how he had come to know who God is. Yes, he is the God who is holy, holy, holy, holy.
And we need to never forget that. But he's also the God who is love.
And Moses came to know him face to face. No prophet.
00:55:07
Like Moses before or since?
Well, there were some other points we didn't get to, but I'm just going to read one verse in closing back in Hebrews 11.
And then we'll pray.
Verse 27 By faith he forsook Egypt.
Not fearing the wrath of the king.
For he endured.
Seeing him.
Who is invisible?
Q&A 5
Lessons from the life of Abraham
Address—Ted Allan
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Well, I've really been enjoying the life of Abraham, and as those from the Cago Falls assembly know, we've been taking up the life of Abraham in the adult Sunday school class. And it's just really been a blessing to me personally over the last number of months as I've kind of delved into his life. And I thought that we could take up some lessons from his life. There's really five primary aspects that I want to touch on tonight.
It seems like an overwhelming task to really think about his entire life and to.
Kind of pick out five different aspects, you know, that I feel would be a help. But with the Lord's help tonight, that is what we're going to do. I was really struck, you know, last night. And I feel in many ways the compliments what her brother Josh brought out last night with respect to Moses because for both of these men, the word endurance is mentioned in Hebrews Chapter 11.
It's mentioned with respect to Moses and the Hebrews chapter 6. It's mentioned with respect to Abraham because it says after he patiently endured.
He obtained the promise. So continuance and endurance in the Christian life is something that is of the utmost importance and characterized some of the patriarchs that we've considered already as part of this camp. I'm going to start our message tonight by reading through a number of verses. I'm just going to read through them quickly and umm, we'll kind of set, you might say, umm.
The subject matter before is umm this evening, so let's start by turning to Genesis Chapter 11.
We're just going to touch on some high points through his life.
So we're going to start in Genesis Chapter 11. We'll read through these quickly.
Verse 31 it says, And Tara took Abraham his son, and Lot the son of Heron his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law his son Abram's wife. And they went forth with them from Irv the Caldes to go into the land of Canaan, and they came unto Heron, and dwelt there.
And the days of terror were 205 years, and terror died in Heron chapter 12, verse one. Now the Lord had said to Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee.
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing, And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Heron. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and loved his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten inherent, and they went forth to go into.
Land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came.
Chapter 13.
Verse 8.
And Abraham said unto, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee for me. If thou will take the left hand, then I will go to the right.
Or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes. And behold all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.
And let's turn over to Genesis chapter 17.
Verse one it says, And when Abram was 90 and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect.
And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and I will multiply thee exceedingly. Verse nine. And God said unto Abraham, Thou shall keep my covenant. Therefore thou and thy seed after thee, and their generations, this is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you, and thy seed after thee. Every man child among you shall be circumcised. Verse 23. And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with money, every male among the men of Abraham.
James house and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin and the self same day as God had said unto him, Chapter 18 verse one And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of memory as And he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day, and he lifted up his eyes and looked and lo, three men stood by him. And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door and bowed himself toward the ground and said, My Lord, if now I found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee from.
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Servant, let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree.
Verse 16 And the men rose up from fence and looked towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him, For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him.
And they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he had spoken of him.
Chapter 21.
Verse One. And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. And Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bore bore to him Isaac.
And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him. Chapter 22 and verse one. And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham. And he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I.
We'll tell the uh.
Maybe skip down to verse 15. And the Angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said by myself, have I sworn, saith the Lord, Because for because thou has done this thing, it is not withheld, thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sandwiches upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess.
The gate of his enemies.
And one more verse just I'll read verse 18 an end. I see all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.
You know, this is a big topic, as I said. And you know, as I think about the life of Abraham, there's one verse that comes to mind. You can see it on the screen here. It says in Romans chapter 4. Now it was not written for his sake alone.
That's it. This is being righteousness was imputed to Him, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.
I apologize, I'm trying to.
Not finding the right one. Well, anyway, umm, I guess what I was going to say, just a few quick facts about Abraham. So just for the children, a few things we know about Abraham. He lived 175 years of age was a very long time. He was originally from ER, that called these, which is in, uh, southern Iraq.
We know that Abraham came from a family where they worshiped idols. We know that from Joshua chapter 24.
And you know, at that time on the earth, this was after the Flood. It was after the Tower of Babel, and things on the earth had degraded to such a point that idolatry came back in. Men and women on the earth wanted to make a name for themselves.
And this was the scene in which Abraham grew up. He grew up in a family where they worshipped idols. You can look, I looked it up today or, or just, you know, the other week as to the area where he grew up. You can actually go visit that area today.
In southern Iraq and there is a temple, a cigarette they call it, that dates all the way back to the time of Abraham. And I wonder perhaps, perhaps his own father even went there.
This was a world that was filled, you might say, with idolatry and wickedness, and God had his sights on one man and through the whole world that he was going to choose.
To call out and pour out through him, blessing to the entire.
World. And that was Abraham, and that is the man that we're going to talk about tonight.
And we are introduced to Abraham from Genesis Chapter 11.
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When he received that call, it's clear from Acts Chapter 7 that God appeared to him back when he lived in that area in southern Iraq.
We know that.
There because it was says there that was before he went to Heron.
And so he appeared to Abraham and he basically said, I want you to leave your country, your kindred and your father's house. And I want you to go a land that to a land that I'm going to show you. Now, I don't know what conversations happen between Abraham and his father and his family.
I'm sure that they had questions.
But it says there in Genesis Chapter 11 what they left, that there were those who went with him.
In fact, it says that Tara took Abraham. He's referred to as Abraham in the OR Abraham in these early days, but it says there that.
Uh yeah. In verse 31 of Chapter 11. And Tara took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Heron, uh his son's son, and they went forth.
Perhaps his father just simply, you know, said if you're going to go, I'd like to go with you. And of course, his nephew decided to go with him as well. So there were clearly others who were influenced by that decision to go. And we know that they traveled up the area of Umm through the Euphrates River along the basin. Let me see if I can get a picture here.
OK, well I'm going to show you this map 1St.
This shows the general direction of where they traveled. As I said, they started out from err and they headed northwest up along the, uh, Euphrates River and they traveled all the way up to Heron. It's my understanding that this is just across the border into modern day Turkey and it says that they dwelled there, they stayed there and it doesn't appear that they had any intention of leaving.
Until something sad happened and that was Abrams father died.
And it really wasn't until that time that they left that place, Umm and Abraham took a lot with him and traveled down into the area of Canaan where God really had intended for him to go.
So what does this mean to all of us?
As believers, we are also called by God.
It says that we are called out of darkness into his marvelous light. Like Abram, we are called to.
And for Abraham, unfortunately, there were in those early days things that detracted from his purpose to follow God's call fully, and that was from his own family.
For whatever reason, he, you know, was content to stay there, inherent until his father passed away, and it was only then that he left that place. And sometimes in our life too.
Perhaps it is family, it could be other things, relationships that detract us from really fulfilling the purpose that God has for us in our own life. And so sorrows had to come in really to prompt Abraham to leave that place. And we know that that is what he did as he continued down in the area of Umm Canaan.
And so as I think about this first lesson in Abraham's life, it's really.
A lesson in obedience.
When God first appeared to him, he said I'm going to show you a land. He didn't know exactly the final destination, but when he finally got to Canaan.
It says there in chapter 12 That the Lord then told him.
That he was going to give this land to him. Let me read it here, chapter 12, verse seven. It says, and the Lord appeared unto Abram and said unto thy seed, will I give this land. And they are billed that he and altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. And so it really wasn't until he fulfilled what God wanted him to do that further revelation was given.
And young people, that's how it is in our own life. To the extent that we are obedient in our own life and do what the Lord has asked us to do, then He'll give us further knowledge of him. You know, something that Josh brought out there is a maturity. There's a growing aspect, you might say. And the Lord began to further reveal himself to Abraham, but he had to complete really what God had asked him to do first.
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And so the Lord made it clear to him.
That he was going to give this land to his seed. We know that he was 75 years old.
Uh, when he left here and came into Canaan.
And when he came into Canaan, here we are introduced to what is commonly referred to in his life, and that is his tent and his altar.
Remember that his tense and his altar and these things really bring before us his Pilgrim journey.
And the altar really signifies worship.
And the question is really for us, is the life that we now live in this life characterize by a Pilgrim journey or do we settle down and get our roots, you know, deep? Sometimes we talk about our tent pegs getting deep in this life.
And as our life characterized by worship, this is something my wife and I have had many conversations about and something that we're concerned about.
When we come together to gather in Lord's Day morning, do you come as a worshipper? I don't say that just to the men, I say that to the women. When is the last time you truly worship?
So often, I think there's lack of worship in our assembly meetings. Why? Because we're taken up with the things of this world.
And have we spent time alone with the Lord in our own life? If we're taken up with the things of this life and don't spend time alone with the Lord, then it's no surprise. It should be no surprise when we come in Lord's Day morning that we have nothing to offer.
And again, I say that's to the men as well as the women. And I realize for the women it's, you know, that they are there silently, but their hearts can be poured out and worship to the Lord too.
And how is it that sometimes we seem so disengaged?
Think about these things.
Abraham was characterized by his altar and his tent.
Well, Abraham made mistakes too. He headed down into Egypt. There was a famine in the land and he got himself into trouble.
He told half truths which was really a lie concerning his wife because he was afraid.
And it was only God's goodness that delivered him there and brought him back into the land of Canaan.
I think for the believer as we think about the path of obedience.
There can be famines in our own life, perhaps the spiritual famine and the tendency is.
To really think about what makes the most logical sense according to human reasoning.
OK.
But would we be like Isaac, who a little bit later in Genesis chapter 26, when there was a famine, he was told to sojourn in the land? And you know what it says about Isaac? He reaped 100 whole.
Is there a famine in your own life? Is there perhaps you've seen or feel that there's a famine spiritually, perhaps within the assembly, and there are those who leave and say it's no use to continue going on.
This was a mistake that Abraham made and I think that we all make in our own life at times where we take it upon ourselves to do things that seem reasonable or seem right in our own eyes, but they're not right in the eyes of God, and we pay a price.
And Abraham paid a price for taking his family down into Egypt.
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When he came back into Canaan.
He came back to a place that was between Bethel and AI and we know that Bethel represents or stands for the House of God and AI stands for ruins or heap of ruins. And it has been said, I know I've listened to several talks by Gordon Hajo on this. And he, I don't, you know, take this, you know, I, I learned it from him. And he, he pointed out, you know, where does the sun set? It sets in the West.
We think of it as to where we're going. We're going home to the Father's house. We're leaving this world a heap of ruins behind.
But for Abraham, he had to come full circle really to get back to that place where he was really where the Lord had intended him to be. We don't read of the altar. We don't read of the tent in Egypt. In fact, the alter intent are only referenced when he was really walking where the Lord would have him to walk.
And so I just say this path or this lesson in obedience is important to each one of us. To the extent that we're obedient to the Lord in our own lives, He will give further revelation of Himself to us.
Give further instruction for the next step.
And that's really all we need to know is just what's the next step?
So the next lesson I want to touch on, I know that time is moving along, Is blessings and privileges connected with a separated life.
There came a time when there was trouble between.
The servants of Abraham and Lot.
And it was felt best that they had to separate.
And Abraham basically said to Lot, if you go to the left hand, I'll go to the right, If you go to the right, I'll go to the left. He was content to let locked aside. Or we could say to let the Lord establish the path as to where he would ultimately go.
And that was probably a difficult time for Abram to separate from him.
But really it was, you might say, the final straw. When the Lord had told him to leave his country, his kindred, his father's house. This was really the last piece, you might say, that connected him to his father's house, and he probably felt discouraged. But what do we see happened when they separated?
It says there.
Verse Chapter 13. Verse 14. Chapter 13. Verse 14. And the Lord said unto Abram, after that, that Lot was separated from him. Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, southward, and eastward, and westward, for all the land which thou see us. To thee will I give it, and should I seed forever.
Lot lifted up his own eyes, but the Lord directed Abram as to where his eyes.
Where to go? And he said, look all around you, all the land that you see, walk through it. This is the land that I'm going to give you. And he encouraged Abraham after he separated from Lot.
So as the story continues on with Abraham.
We won't. We don't know. We didn't touch on Chapter 14. I'm not going to refer to it.
But in chapter 15.
It starts that chapter by saying, After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
And uh.
Apologize, I'm looking uh, for the verse that I'm trying to find.
I'm sorry it's over in chapter 17, I'm not going to read it, but in chapter 17.
In connected with a separated life.
We're at the beginning of this chapter. He was told to walk before God and be perfect. He was told to be circumcised in the males that were in his household.
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Now there should be a reminder, but if it's not.
I'll just say that circumcision brings before us.
The cutting off of the flesh.
In her own life. There's a verse in the New Testament that says make no provision for the flesh and a separated life for Abraham.
A life that was connected or lived in holiness before God required circumcision.
And really, young people, if there is to be blessing in your life and in mine.
There needs to be the dealing with the flesh in our own life.
Not just the outward manifestation, we might say how the flesh is manifested, where that's lying or cheating or stealing or whatever it may be, but it's also that which is in Word and comes from within. There needs to be a dealing of those things in our own life.
And so it's referred to in the New Testament as a circumcision of the heart.
That is a very important aspect if we are really to enjoy the blessings and the privileges that God wants for us. And I don't say that as somebody who's perfect. I say that before you as somebody who's failed and failed miserably. But if you continue your life.
Living a life in the flesh.
We can't expect God's blessing in our own life.
We live in a society where the enemy is extremely aggressive at these things. He knows what young men want. He knows what you want, men and women. And he targets the carnal desires of our flesh aggressively. And if we let these things seep into our life, it's going to rob us of the joy and the blessings that God has intended for us.
Another aspect of a separated life was to the very simple fact that his lot settled down in the area of Sodom. Abraham was off in the mountains, in the wilderness, in his tent and with his altar.
Do you think that that was easy for him?
It was probably lonely in many respects. He probably thought lots down there in the cities got a very active social life.
Got lots of friends and I'm not saying it was only Abraham and Sarah there. We know that there were others with them.
Because we know that he gathered a fairly substantial army when he had to go fight against those kings, those 5 kings. But the point is that he lived a life of separation out there into the wilderness in his tent.
And we have to be thoughtful as to what this means in the day in which we live. What does it mean to live a separated life?
I think we touched on it this morning. I briefly made mention of it in my remarks.
But think about the contrast as a lot He was vexed by the things that he saw and the things that he heard.
And I think if we find herself in the situation, we're vexed by the things continually, day after day, by the things that we see and we hear.
Then maybe we have to evaluate are we where the we are we really where the Lord would have us to be? These are soul searching questions.
But you know, the world has crept so much into the church, if I can say that way.
And I say that to myself first and foremost.
Sometimes we can be critical.
And think about.
Our fathers and our grandparents and how they live their life.
But I think they understood in a much fuller way what it meant to be separate from the world than we do today.
These things come in gradually.
So I know that time is moving on. What were the blessings associated with this? They're, they're really wonderful to consider. I'll go over them quickly if they're really in chapter 18.
So one of the things was he was sitting there in his tent door in the heat of the day, and the Lord showed up with two angels with him, three men.
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Abraham got to enjoy out there in the wilderness the very presence of the Lord and that heavenly those 3 individuals that came to his tent and he was able to invite them in and serve them food and refresh them and to bring water so they could wash their feet. He was able to wash the feet of the one.
Who would later wash the feet of others in humility?
Who had the greater privilege? The one who lived in Sodom.
Or Abraham out there in his tent.
I want to read a verse in John chapter 14.
Converse.
I got to find it one minute.
Verse 21.
He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father.
And I will love him and will manifest myself to him.
One of the blessings that we can enjoy as believers.
Are there for those who keeps his commandments.
And if we love him, it says that he will make himself manifest to us.
I believe that that is one of the blessings that Abraham enjoyed.
Dear young person.
How long has it been since you really felt?
The Lord reveal himself to you.
This is a reality that God wants for your life.
And it can be had today.
This isn't pie in the sky fantasy. Things the Lord can reveal himself to us in unimaginable.
Wonderful ways and we can enjoy communion with him. What else did Abraham enjoy? God revealed to him his plans, he said in that chapter later, Shall I hide from Abraham that which I shall do? He gave him insights as to what was going to happen.
And he also later in the chapter.
He reaffirmed.
Or said I should say that he would bear a child and he made it clear it was a son in verse 14. So he revealed his thoughts and intentions to Abraham more clearly.
And then at the end of the chapter we see him and interceding with God directly for Sodom.
And the Lord listened to Abraham.
In Isaiah chapter 41, it says that God referred to Abraham as a friend. And so when Abraham was concerned about Lot and he pleaded with God if he would, you know, deliver those in the city for the sake of 50 that were righteous, and he, you know, continued on all the way down, as we know, the Lord listened.
And so for those who, as I say.
We're not making provision for the flesh, we're putting it to death, and we live a life that separated holy to the Lord.
Our prayer life will have power.
The Lord listened to him.
One of the things I enjoyed in this chapter and Reggie mentioned that earlier today.
In verse 19. I just appreciate this verse.
He said, For I know him Abraham, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he had spoken of him.
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He knew him. He knew that he would raise his children for the Lord.
He is acquainted with all of our ways.
What a blessing and privilege it is.
For parents to raise their children up in the nurture and admission of the Lord.
I want to move on to waiting for the promise. A lesson in patience. As I said at the outset of the meeting, he was marked by endurance.
He was 75 when he left Heron, and the blessing was to him and to his seed.
And how old was he when he had finally had Abraham, or sorry, when he finally had Isaac? Is one of the children, no?
He was 100 years old. How many years was that that he waited?
That's 25 years that he waited.
And of course we know that, you know, the Lord had appeared to him back in her, but when he got to Canaan, he made it clear it was to his seed that he would give it.
And for 25 long years he waited for the promise of the Lord as two seeds. And we don't have time to trace it through.
But eleven years into that, at age 86?
Sarah said Look.
Take Hagar, go into her. She was tired of waiting. She thought, well, maybe God intended if you go have a child through Hagar, that that's what God intended. But did God instruct him to do that? He did not.
And so he, or the two of them, it says he hearkened to the voice of his wife.
You might say they took man made measures.
To deal with what they were anxiously waiting for. But they went ahead of what the Lord had wanted.
And it was to their sorrow, and to the sorrow really, of the nations that would be formed as a result of the birth of Ishmael.
The other thing I'll just mention in passing, I mentioned there was a price to be paid with going down into Egypt. Where was Hagar from?
She was from Egypt. I would take it that they had acquired Hagar when they were there.
What was another price that they paid?
I know Brother Gordon mentioned this in his talk from years ago.
Perhaps it was when they went down into Egypt that lot acquired a taste for the things of the world, because we know that Egypt represents the world.
What a solemn thing it is to think about that That action that they took those years earlier really resulted in sorrow later on.
It's not my intention to dwell on that. My intention is this was a long time of waiting and I get it.
There are those in this room right now who've been praying a very long time for something specifically. And you know what it is? I don't know what it is. There's things in my life right now. I've been praying for years and I haven't seen fulfillment of it. And so it's very easy to say, look, they made a mistake. But how often do we do that in our own life?
Where we don't wait God's time.
And so they waited 25 years until that child was born. But one of the things I appreciate along the way.
Is how the Lord encouraged him a little by little along the way. He said, I am thy shield. I am thy exceeding great reward. He said I am the almighty God.
It's not like he left him in dead silence for 25 years.
And so there's a little encouragement along the way. I've experienced them in my own life. In one of those times where I was in a very dark place in my life, I received a text that random from my brother. I've never received a text from.
Or since and he said that things, and I'm not quoting the verse exactly that God is doing now. You don't. You won't know now, but you'll know later and that's all it said.
There's another time where my wife and I were in prayer together in the following morning. I very clearly sense the Lord saying thy prayer has been heard and so the Lord doesn't leave us.
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Without encouragement along the way, the Lord gave encouragement to Abraham and part of it is he wanted to show Abraham what he was in himself. I am thy shield. I am the Almighty God. And if there's one thing I would encourage you, young people and older ones too, in times of discouragement, get out a piece of paper and write down the attributes of God and think about them.
Meditate them on them. Think about the goodness.
Of God. He is for you, He is not against you.
Why did God wait that long?
He waited that long, I believe in part in Scripture makes it clear that he wanted it to be clear that all natural hope was gone.
He fathered a child when he was 86, but it's clear from, you know, Hebrews Chapter 11, it referred to Abraham as good as dead.
Another place that says that, uh, Sarah, her womb was, you know, basically dead. I mean, what were the chances of somebody conceiving a child at age 99?
God wanted to show really to get them to the point that when this child was conceived, it could only be said that God allowed this to happen.
And so sometimes the Lord has to do that in her own lives to get us to a point, to try us until we reach the point where he comes in and he he does the impossible to show that he's the God of the impossible and that it wasn't according to natural means.
That's why I believe that he waited that long for Abram, for Abraham.
A lesson in patience.
Don't take steps to go ahead of the Lord. It's so easy to act according to our own reasoning instead of awaiting God's perfect time.
Mount Moriah.
A test of faith.
I know that this chapter was taken up at Carrollton.
And I don't intend to say a whole lot about it.
But after they had the chance to see that little boy being born.
And I actually do want to read the verses quickly. I think time will permit.
In verse chapter 21. I just think this is so important before we reference chapter 22.
And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken, for Sarah conceived and bare Abraham his son in his old age.
At the set time of which God had spoken to him, and Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac, and Abraham circumcised his son, Isaac being eight days old as God had commanded him. What God said was going to happen, happened at the time that God wanted it to happen.
But now we reach a point. You might say that the pinnacle, the most difficult time in Abraham's life.
Or he was going to be asked to offer that which God had waited 25 years to give him.
I cannot comprehend.
How Abraham could just willingly without questioning?
Say here I am and not say anything. It was just willing to get up and do it.
What did he think was going to happen? We know from other scriptures.
He knew that the seed was to be through his own child. It was to be through Isaac.
And so the trial of his faith was such that he truly believed that God was going to raise up his son from the dead. He thought he would have to carry out this act.
His faith was that strong.
You know, I thought, I thought about, you know, the significance of this trial. It's, it's, it's almost incomprehensible to me.
Yes.
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You know I have one living son.
I love dearly and I can't imagine that the Lord would ask me to offer him up. I just I, I, I don't know how Abraham could do that. But you know, my is actually my son Ben, who said to me the other day, and I really appreciate it. So thank you, Ben.
He said one of the things that he believed gave him the confidence was what we had just read in chapter 21, that God had done what he said he was going to do.
God was going to be true to His word, and because he saw that God fulfilled what he had promised to him, surely he was going to be faithful with respect to the act of raising up His Son. And so he carried it out. He had three days as he traveled with his Father to that place.
To contemplate what was going to happen.
And he went to the top of that mountain, and as he lifted that knife, the Lord stayed his hand.
A trial, a test of faith. I don't think anyone of us will be called to have our faith tested like Abraham did. But you think of the immeasurable blessing that is important out to this entire world as a result of Abraham.
But even though his hand was going to be stayed, there was a hand that would not be stayed later on.
And this last piece I just want to touch on in the last 10 minutes is the remaining chapters in Abraham's life are beautiful because they give us a glimpse into God's purposes for man to the glory of God himself.
It shows the perfection of scripture.
One of the things I'll just say in passing is in chapter 15, you can divide Abraham's life up into three sections. In chapter 15, it says after these things. At the start of chapter 22, it says after these things. In chapter 15, I believe it divides that first period of Abraham's life because those were the trials that he went through in the sight of man.
His successes and his failures, but from chapter 15 up to chapter 22.
We really see the inner workings of Abraham before God as his soul was exercised as to what God had intended for him. And now in chapter 22, in chapter 23, in chapter 24, we now see God's purposes for the blessing of man. Chapter 22, we see that it was God intent, God's intent to.
To deliver up his son, to have him to be that perfect sacrifice by which?
We are blessed immeasurably through the death of his Son. At the end of that chapter, we see a glimpse into Rebecca mentioned, which I'll get to in a moment. In chapter 23, we see Sarah passes away and Sarah represents Israel. And we see in that chapter God's really intent was not intent, but rather that Israel would be set aside because of the because they crucified their Messiah.
And they've been dead spiritually now for 2000 years as a nation after 70 AD when Titus came in and destroyed Jerusalem as a country. I mean, they basically dissolved.
And today, even though, you know, the the country was reformed and 1948, they're still dead spiritually, they've been set aside. And then finally in chapter 23, we see Abraham asking his servant to go to get a bride for his son Isaac.
Which really represents God's intention to have a bride for his Son, the calling out of his, his bride, the Church out of this world.
And I know I said all that in just a few minutes, but those 3 chapters represent this side of the cross really God's intention to this world. You know, I, I was, it just moved me to tears. The other week I was driving home from work and I was thinking, here we are in 2023.
2000 years since the time of the cross. If you go back 2000 years prior to the cross, who lived at that time? Abraham. We stand almost equidistant, if I can use that expression from the cross as Abraham lived and we're given a glimpse into the 2000 years since the cross is to what God's really intention is for man.
00:50:01
One of the things I'll just mention briefly that I really enjoyed in Chapter 23.
As the servant went there to get Rebecca and she's asked that question that sometimes is mentioned at weddings. Wilt thou go with this man?
It's often mentioned in reference to the Lord Jesus himself, but really the servant represents the Spirit of God in this world.
And I would like to basically paint a very brief picture to you.
That really what is intended by that is really for us to compare to, for us to comprise the Church, the heavenly Bride.
That we are to follow the leading of the Spirit of God through this scene and through this life.
That's following a servant. It's going with that man.
Isaac was told our I'm sorry, rather the Abraham made it very clear to the servant.
That he was not to bring Isaac to where Rebecca was, or to where his bride was.
But rather, Rebecca was to come to where Isaac was.
And that really represents before us the bride traveling home to Christ himself. It's mentioned only as part of a very brief day. In fact, it seems if you look at, even though we know it's impossible that they left in the morning and arrived at night, because it says Isaac lift up his eyes and he saw them at even ties. It almost makes it seem like it's a very brief moment in time. But I think in God's economy and God's view.
This 2000 years that he's been waiting earnestly for the his bride.
Umm is short, but he is very much longing and desires to see his bride.
I just have a couple brief remarks here before we close.
First, here it says, therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace to the end. The promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
And I just wanted to put this one verse in here too that says by the obedience of one.
Show many be made righteous.
We are blessed immeasurably because of this man Abraham and his faith.
It says He believed God, it was appeared unto him for righteousness, but we are not made righteous because of the faith of Abraham, but by the obedience of one. It says here the Lord Jesus Christ, so many he made righteous.
There was only one man that walked in this world and perfect obedience to his Father that went to the cross and allowed those people to spit in his face.
To lift him up on that cross and nail him there.
I appreciated the thought that Michael shared Wednesday night. I'm sure he won't mind me, mind me repeating it, but I appreciate it. We were taking up in the book of Mark the crucifixion of the Lord and we're talking about.
Barnabas.
Umm, Barabbas, I'm sorry Barnes. And he made the suggestion that.
Part of the reason of that account of Barabbas was that the whole crowd would be united in their desire to choose Barabbas over Christ.
And to cry out those words, crucify him.
That it was really that which made them all guilty, because it was that account that caused them all to cry out. And so this world stands guilty before God.
But it was by the obedience of one that many shall be made righteous. And what about you, dear young person, tonight?
This verse is the last verse and what I want to touch on tonight. It says now it was not written for his sake alone. And I said this at the beginning that it righteousness was imputed to him. That's Abraham, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. And so I ask you tonight, where do you stand before the Lord? This isn't just about for Abraham. It's really for all of us.
00:55:06
We cannot take it for granted anymore, and I hope it was never taken for granted that a child growing up in a Christian home is a true child of God. I've seen far too many times, and I'm sure you have to, that children raised in a Christian home.
Have gone off into a lifestyle and made choices that are worse you might say, even though then the world makes.
And are really shown by their actions that they're not a child of God.
And so where do you stand before Christ tonight?
Choose Life.
It is on the basis of faith, the principle of faith, that really any one of us.
Have come to saving faith in Christ. It was really on the principle of grace that God could look down on this world and have his sights set on one man who lived in a household where they worshipped idols and say I'm going to choose that man.
And through him, the entire world will be blessed.
And so he calls us today out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Let's walk in the good of it. The life of faith is a life worth living. It's a happy walk. It's not an easy walk, but we can enjoy the blessings and the privileges that Abraham enjoyed too.
It's going to cost us things in this life, but it will be a life lived in devotion and service to the one who lived and died and gave himself for us.
Faith is really looking beyond the life that we now live to the light or to really the life that's to come. And I'll read these verses without comment, and then we'll pray in Hebrews.
Chapter.
Six and verse 18, it says that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both shore and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.
Whether the forerunner is for us entered even Jesus, made in high priests forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Children's 2
Thankfulness