Mt. Tabor Conference: 2008
Table of Contents
2 Timothy 2:1-4
Reading
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Our Lord, when we have passed, and the grace when thou on earth and abroad.
Demand thy wondrous love and grace thy faithfulness to God. Verse three says, Faithful amidst unfaithfulness, amidst darkness only light Thou didst thy Father's name confess, and in his will be like 230.
The Lord won't be.
But then I can't hear you.
12578.
Umm.
Rhode Island. Rhode Island with me.
Oh.
Right, Godfather, we just give thanks again for the privilege that we have to be here and that thy mercy to us again. We thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ and we.
Just, uh, think of how we've thought a little already as I faced on it. Lord Jesus, we've sung and thy faithfulness to us, and we just count on thee to uh.
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Lead us to a portion suitable for us, we do.
Pray that each one of us will have hearing heart and willing heart to hear what they'll have to say to me. And we just give thanks again and count on me for thy health, Thy worthy name, Lord Jesus.
I wonder if we could read Second Timothy chapter 2 brother.
And talking about the Lord's faithfulness. And in that chapter it talks about.
Faithful men as well.
I was thinking of exactly the same thing, Brother Bob.
Why didn't you say so, brother?
I'll read the chapter.
Second Timothy, chapter 2.
Thou therefore, my Son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warth entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier, and if a man also strive for masteries.
Yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully?
The husbandman that believeth must be first partaker of the fruits. Consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding in all things.
Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel, wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even in bonds, even unto bonds. But the word of God is not bound, therefore I endure all things for the elect sake.
That they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. It is a faithful saying. For if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful. He cannot deny Himself of these things. Put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no prophets, but to the subverting of the hearers.
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat, as doth a canker of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth have heard, saying that the resurrection is passed already, and overthrow the faith of some.
Nevertheless the foundation of God stands ashore. Having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor, and some to dishonor. If any man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor.
Sanctified and meet for the master youth, and prepared unto every good work.
Fleeing also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender strikes. And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all. I have to teach patience in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves.
If God per adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
And the first epistle and the first chapter, the apostle Paul could say in verse 12, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has enabled me for that He counted me faithful.
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Putting me into the ministry so we can thank, thank the Lord for that faithfulness on the part of the Apostle Paul. Uh, if you have, I was thinking likewise of just a few other verses.
One in the 20th of Proverbs.
And it says in verse six, most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness.
But then there's a question that is asked, but a faithful man who can find. And then we have also in the third chapter of Hebrews, uh, Moses brought before us as an example.
But before that we have the wondrous example in verse one. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful.
In all his house.
It says for this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses. So we have that prime example before us, the Lord Jesus Christ, don't we?
All wrote many of his epistles to assemblies, but these two epistles are written to an individual.
According to the 4th chapter of First Timothy, he evidently was a young man, because Paul tells him, Let no man despise thy youth. In other words, if Timothy would lead a life of exemplary conduct.
They could not despise his use. There wasn't that Timothy could flaunt himself and say, and Paul says you've got to pay attention to me, No.
But it was his testimony that was to command.
Uh, respect and so.
It necessarily reflects on our conduct.
And I really think there is a tremendous message not only for young people, but for us all.
In Second Timothy, it is individual faithfulness in a time of outward ruin. And you look around and you see a lot of young people around you, and that's encouraging.
That young person, young brother, young sister, you've got to learn to be faithful yourself to the Lord on the individual basis. It is extremely important and uh, that's what we have focused in on and especially the 2nd chapter, although the whole second epistle is very important, seems to be that it is the last epistle that Paul wrote because in chapter 4.
He says in verse.
Six. I am now ready to be offered in the time of my departure.
Is at hand.
So probably the last written words that we have from the Apostle Paul in this book, Second Timothy.
First one and two, we have uh, this statement thou therefore, my son, thou.
Therefore, refers to that which had gone before in the that would have been written before in the first chapter, to find in the first chapter that there were those that had turned away from Paul.
Paul's doctrine, and it says in verse 15 of the first chapter this Thou knowest that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me.
And then you can say therefore.
What should we do?
Uh, there was a great need when that was occurring that there was that there should be more grace. Therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And secondly, there was a great need for teaching.
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And that's that is.
I think what's needed and in the face of difficulties and.
And those turning away, we might say is to have a lot of grace, faithful teaching. And, uh, that's, that's what, that, that's why we have the word. Therefore here now, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace in Christ Jesus.
What is Grace, Brother Paul?
Well, the easy answer is unmarried favor, but, uh, there's much better answers than that.
There's, there is one, there's a few, few answers. One would be in Ephesians 417 and that has to do with grace of, of, uh, gifts given. And so there's an exhortation to.
Exercise gifts.
And other.
Thought there I think is that.
By the unmerited favor of God, he gives. He gives gifts.
Umm, this side.
NO47, not 417 But unto everyone has given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. And so it is a umm, it is uh, is a favor shown that is not deserved.
So these people here that turned away from the T, the doctors that Paul really didn't deserve favor, we might say.
What they're they're called upon to show some.
And and and, uh, so that's.
And just as we don't, we don't deserve any gift that God has given to us, whether it be any ability or whatever we're called upon to use it.
You probably have some more thoughts on it I'd like to hear.
Well, nothing exactly there, and hence that, except to say that grace is in contrast in Scripture with law, the principle of law. Man was tested on the principle of law in the Old Testament and he completely broke down.
And there is a tendency, I find it in my own heart, brethren, to go back to that principle.
Law basically says.
You do what's right, you're going to get good consequences. You do what's wrong, and there's gonna be bad consequences.
But, brethren.
In Christ, in this present dispensation, we've been shown God's.
Abounding grace when we deserve nothing. When man did the most awful thing possible, taking his creator and nailing him to a cross.
When God did his best, man did his worst.
God would have been just in wiping the human race off the planet at that time.
But God in effect says you've done your worst. Now I'm going to take that same act and I'm going to show my abounding grace. And he turns it around and he shows us his unmerited favor.
Oh, brethren, we stand before God on that ground that we don't deserve one bit of what we have. In Christianity, God gives us everything because of what Christ has done on the cross, and that touches the heart. And in Christianity that is the main spring of Christian activity. It's not.
Holding a stick over your head and saying if you don't obey, you're gonna get it. That's the principle of law that does not work. And that's why I think it is. When you say Paul, that in first chapter all day that Indonesia had a forsaken him. It was a sad situation.
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They probably said to Paul, I don't think they left off being Christians.
But they probably said you're just a little bit too radical, Paul. Look, you got yourself in prison. They're about to cut your head off. Can't you just be a little bit more conciliatory?
Must have been tough for the for Timothy to go on knowing that his spiritual father was going to be taken away.
What's gonna keep them going on, Timothy?
Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Oh brethren, to realize we have a God who gives all because of His own heart of love. And even as a Christian I fail and I have to go to Him as the God of all grace. Oh how much grace we need to go on in a day like this.
But he's the God of all grace, and if he needs some more grace, brother or sister, you think you can't go on any longer?
Go to him, ask for some more. Since he's the God of all grace, He'll give you some more. He'll give you enough so you can go on even in days like we live in.
To me, that is the point is to be strong in that principle of grace.
To understand that's what will keep us going on, brother, and it won't be the spirit of law. Sometimes you think things are sliding so bad, we gotta put the brakes on somewhere somehow. Let's keep see if we can keep these young people under control.
You can't do it in the spirit of law.
Young person, if you do not heal the love that the Lord Jesus has towards you to go to the cross, nothing is gonna keep you. There's the door, there's the world out there. Go ahead.
Did you know that love that he loved us with all the way to death? The Creator of the universe, the eternal Son of God? He went to that cross.
Supreme obedience to his Father's will.
You won my heart. Now there's no desire to go out that door and go after a world. No desire there any longer. Why? Somebody standing over me? No. He's done something on the inside. He's touched his heart of mine, and I want to place him more than anything else. That's great. That's what's going to make you strong in a day of ruin.
For myself, I've enjoyed it. The definition of great because all the character and glory of God poured out on a Sinner.
In that sense we we get to know who he is and we live as he lives in that glory and in that that that character of who he is, Paul said. For me to live is Christ.
He was living in the grace, the, the, the, the sense of the great of God, you know, and the same opportunity here. He's strong and great.
Is in crisis live Christ when we get to know and God wants to reveal Christ to our soul. Every circumstance that we go through God is revealing Christian creating Christ in us, creating that character within be strong at what God has given all that's great. All the glory of and and character of God poured out from the Sinner. There's a sense in which the, uh, question of merit.
Drops out.
With the, the definition that Paul gave is, uh, is a good win. And we've often heard that unmet grace is unmerited favor, but there's verses like this in the Bible in Luke chapter 2 in verse UH-40.
And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit. This is the man Christ Jesus.
Filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him. Well, there I have to move beyond the definition. That's a good definition that Paul gave. And the issue of merit crops out. I can't say it's unmerited favor now, but I can say it's favor. And I heard, uh, an older brother once in a reading meeting give a definition that grace is God being for me in all that he is.
And so as we think of this, this, this, this youth, we think of the eternal Son of God taking manhood to himself. And there he was as a youth. You can just imagine the delight and satisfaction as God looked down upon him. And the God couldn't have been more thoroughly for his Son as he watched him walk through this world.
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From a youth on so sometimes it's nice to.
Move beyond, I would suggest the question of merit for every one of us we know is unmerited and enjoy that God is for me.
And that, that changes my attitude and buoys me up because we tend to be pretty hard on ourselves, as Bob was saying. And we can, if we're not holding the tape measure to our brethren, we can hold it hard to ourselves.
And not that there isn't a place for us to judge ourselves. There is, and it's important.
But we have to, after our head hangs down sometimes lift up our head, lift up our hands and realize that in spite of how weak I am and how often we fail, God is for me, is for me, and and this energizes me in my pathway. And I think that's the thought here. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. How I do that? Isn't grace something he does? How do I be strong in it?
It's almost like, how would you do that?
But I, I was thinking as I was sitting here listening about this colleague that I used to have where I worked here in, uh, up in Maine, and he took me out on a sailboat. He was a sailor and uh, the whole idea of sailing was, it just was mis mysterious to me because he could sail the boat into the wind. And I always thought you put a sail up and you kind of aim it so that the wind blows in the sail and along you go. And maybe sometimes that's true.
But it's more subtle than that he was telling me and he could sail into the wind by going back and forth. And what actually happened is he explained to me is that you put the sale up and the wind kind of draws it along from the other side. It kind of sucks it along. And so, you know, we, we learn as young believers that when we try to be strong and it's all us, we have to learn that in me. That isn't my flesh wealth, no good thing. And we have to learn that painful lesson sometimes over and over again. Without me, the Lord said you can do nothing.
And after a while we learned just to try and put this big sale out. We try to learn just to yield ourselves to the Lord, and to learn to be dependent upon him which is unnatural to us, and then unmerited in our case, the unmerited favor of God being for me.
In that strange way that that the Scripture calls state, it draws me along. It's an unnatural thing for us to walk by faith, isn't it? But that's what we're called to, to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. God is for me. That enables me to get up in the morning and enjoy spiritual food and lift up my heart, my hands and press on. Wonderful.
Raised his presentation too in this verse of energy, I believe.
That was found in the Lord Jesus and that is required.
To be a faithful servant, as Timothy was called to be.
So verse 3.
And your heartlessness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Or take thy part in the sufferings for the Lord Jesus Christ who wants to have suffering.
I don't wanna have suffering.
Here's the search. There are circumstances. If you go there, you're going to suffer.
How can I help? Unless you have the grace of the Lord Jesus, this is what has to be done.
And then it says any man going to war, doesn't it, you know, encumber himself with the things of his life. There are the things of this life, the comfort, the opportunity, the money, the traveling, whatever the world has to offer. Yeah, You enjoy that.
Turn her away from that and say no, that's not what I'm gonna choose. I need grace for that. I'm not gonna take these things in my life because they're gonna burden me and slow me down as I wanna follow the Lord.
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And then he speaks of the one who?
Wow, the husbandmen, that labourer.
There's a seal right there.
Nothing growing out of there. It's gotta be months and months and months and sweat and a lot of work and I got to plow that ground and work that out.
We need grace, we need grace, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that could go in their suffering and let everything aside just to do His Father's will and work and work and work and see no fruit. I just enjoy these thoughts and connections being strong in the grace which is the right of Jesus.
In connection with the thought of God being for us, grace being God being for us, I'm not.
Their definition an acrostic definition which perhaps some of her GRACE, God's riches that Christ's expense.
And, uh, that applies to to us God's riches.
At Christ's expense.
There's a confidence that, uh, Paul wanted Timothy to have in being strong in that grace, that as he took up the ministry that God had given him as a servant.
Paul departing from the scene, no longer having the wise master builder there to, uh, labor under his tutelage and, uh, care and oversight in that way. He was going to have to go on alone without Paul. And he had to be confident that the Lord was going to use that ministry for the blessing of the Saints in spite of all outward appearances. And so, as you mentioned, the, the gifts, uh.
That are given in Ephesians and in other places that the word grace is brought in because it's his grace to use that means to build up and minister to his Saints. And so Timothy needed confidence that he would take what he had and use it. You know what has cell in my hand arrived? We became the rod of God. What hast thou in thy house? Ohio little pot boil. Oh, it filled the vessels.
One after another.
And So what hast thou in thy hand? Be strong in the grace. He'll use what He's given you and fitted you for, for the blessing of His people, if you seek to take it up and serve Him.
It's often.
Go ahead, Rob. I was just gonna say, could we say then that being strong?
To be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus is to make full use of what God has given. That's how we that how we would be strong in our lives.
And it's things in our lives that sometimes we think they're so terribly insignificant, like you mentioned, a rod or a little pot of oil.
Or, in the case of the Lord Jesus, feeding the five thousands.
5 loaves and they say loaves. They were little rolls, they weren't big loaves like we have. And two fishes, what are they amongst so many?
Brethren, God takes the little insignificant things in our lives and if we put it into his hands, he can make it a blessing. Some despise the little things in your life, use it. Put it into the Lord's hands. You'll be surprised the Lord can use it's like it's been said, it's.
Not what we are, it's what our God is. I've often wondered how it was when the Lord fed those 5000.
Imagine 5 little rolls. What did he do? He says he took them and broke them. You must have just kept on breaking them.
To 5000 people I I don't know how it happened the point is it just magnified the fact that God is for his people and he's going to supply the need even in 2008 when we live look around and when I think of when I used to sit in conferences and some of the.
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Old timers that were.
Gray haired men then and I enjoyed so much their ministry all gone. Doesn't seem like there's anybody like that today. But as our God changed, it's not what our brethren are, it's what our God is. That's the focus in Christianity and that is beautiful to get that focus right.
So these are things that Timothy was going to need to serve and that's that's really what the apostle has before him is that he was going to have to continue on after the apostle was gone. So we're left here to continue on. God has given us a responsibility and I think especially gathered to the Lord's name. He's committed to our trust truth that our brethren in the camp often have not heard the Old Testament Israelite if he found something lost by his brother, he was to lay it up in store.
And to have it ready to restore to Him when the opportunity came. And I think we have a special responsibility to carry on in the truth that has been ministered to us by those who are now with the Lord. They gave it to us as the Lord enabled them and the purity in which they had received it. And now we're responsible to carry it and to commit it to others as well. That which has been restored to us by by God's grace. And these points that unfold in these following verses are all things that are going to be needed by us.
If we're going to carry out our service to the Lord, uh, faithfully and to his glory and for the blessing of others and grace is the first one, but these others follow very needed as well.
In verse two we have 4 generations mentioned it. It is interesting.
To say that what God is going to use to maintain his testimony from generation to generation.
He doesn't talk anything about ver in verse 2 about eloquence or good preachers.
No. What does he say? What kind of men? Faithful men.
Just to notice the four generations, it says here the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses. So the Apostle Paul and then Timothy, the second generation, the same commit, thou, Timothy was responsible to commit to faithful men. That would be the third generation who shall be able to teach others also. That's the 4th generation.
So it's the truth of God is to be passed on from generation to generation.
He doesn't say to Timothy, Timothy, you go and look up some good preachers or some eloquent men.
No, what is important is faithfulness. I I'd like to ask the question, what does that mean? What does that word mean? Faithfulness.
Brother Stan, you had this on your heart this chapter. Would you explain it?
Well, uh, I would say it would be someone who.
Uh, first of all, puts the Lord first in his life, one that, uh, spends time and meditation over the word. And, umm, I was just thinking, you know, that we've been handed down, uh, a wonderful treasury of truth, umm, and, uh, the ministry of various ones like Mr. Darby, Mr. Kelly and others, uh, are we availing ourselves of the opportunity of.
That ministry that has been handed down to us and, uh, you know, sometimes I think the world is so attractive to the young people today. They, there's magazines and everything to attract the eye. But we need to spend that time, don't we, in meditation on the word, personally spending that time alone with the Lord, uh, morning and evening and, uh, then, uh, perhaps spending that time to reading what others have written.
That would be for our encouragement and then we can hand it out to others. If we're not faithful ourselves individually, we'll never be able to hand down to others, uh, what we have.
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We're thinking too, in connection with what our brother Steven brought before us, the fact that, uh, this is passed down from one generation to another. We have a similar exhortation given in the 4th chapter of Deuteronomy, and I'd just like to read a few verses.
There beginning with verse four, it says, But ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive, everyone of you this day.
Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me that He should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Then verse nine, only take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently. And that's part of what we have brought before us, the keeping of our souls diligently.
Says, Lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, unless they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life, but teach them thy sons, and thy sons sons. So we have a continuum there as well. So this just reinforces the need to have it passed down from generation to generation.
But as our brother Bob has brought before us, each one has to buy hold for ourselves. We don't like hold, so to speak, of our Father's faith or our grandfather's faith. But we have to make it our own, don't we? And we have to walk personally in the good of what the Lord has brought before us.
Romanians chapter 4 says what is required of a steward is that a man be found faithful.
You understand it simply in temporal circumstances, you hire someone to do a job and say, well, you come in at 9, you put the lights on and you start the computers and whatever and you give them a list of things you want them to do. And then so if he's a faithful steward, that's what you committed to him, he's going to carry out. You ask the man, So what, what, what's your job? I, I'm supposed to come in in the morning at 9 and, uh, turn the lights on and put the computers on and whatever it was, you know.
That's knowledge of what he's expected to do. But the faithful man not only knows what he's expected to do, but he does it. So he's an example when he's training somebody else to fill in the job for him, he says this is what you do, not just give him a list.
He shows them how to do it and he goes through the the emotions with him. So a faithful man I understand would be one and only. Who knows but who does?
Obedience.
There is an example in Ezra. Ezra was a you would say a faithful man. But notice what it says in Ezra Chapter 7.
And verse 10.
For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord.
And to do it, that's what you're talking about, Obedience. Faithfulness is obedience.
And that's what God values, brethren.
Obedience to the Word of God Walk.
In obedience to the Word of God, that's a faithful man.
In that same verse and to teach.
Another example in connection with Abraham's servant in the 24th chapter of Genesis.
Uh, that says in that second verse. And Abraham said unto his elder servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Could I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh? While Abraham could have confidence in that man, in that man in that service says he ruled over all that he had. That was a responsible position, wasn't he?
And we can see, as we read through, uh, this chapter, one Abraham entrusted to this servant something that would certainly not be entrusted to one who didn't in the past carry out the wishes of the master. And so it was done faithfully, wasn't it?
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I wonder if we see an interesting correlation between faithfulness and truth. If we look at uh verse 13, it says yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself.
What is given us in the Word of God is truth, and you cannot destroy truth. Umm, it's the same today as tomorrow, the same 2000 years ago as 1,000,000 years from now. Truth will stand and whether we believe it or not doesn't mean that it's not the truth. We might be deceived into thinking something else is, uh, is correct. But what God has said is true and it will stand and it cannot be taken away. It cannot be destroyed. What we have is absolutely solid God.
Is faithful, he cannot deny himself. What he has given is the truth. And so.
Very importantly, in the second verse, we have, uh, faithfulness, and we've been speaking about the necessity of thought, and it certainly is necessary.
But it's not just.
Our faithfulness that keeps us. It's what we're being faithful about, if I can put it that way.
And that was the things that Timothy had heard from Paul.
What had Timothy heard from Paul?
In uh, second in first Corinthians 2IN chapter First Corinthians chapter 2 and verse two, this was written, Sir, the Saints in Corinth, not Timothy. But he says here I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. So the things that Timothy.
And others had heard from Paul. We're all about the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified, and that's what we need to be faithful about. Sometimes we I fear we're more concerned or counting on our faithfulness rather than.
Just our employment of God's faithfulness to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Our faithfulness will is necessary.
But that alone will not keep us.
Our enjoyment of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We need to learn to read the Bible to do it.
Not merely to teach it or to know, but to do it. That's what faithfulness is. I think that's really important. The Old Testament, the Lord gave the, uh, King Saul a command to go and destroy the Amalekites.
And he saw some that.
Look pretty good so he saved him.
He lost everything because he was not careful to obey what God said.
Young people and brethren at large, we need to learn that lesson that God means what he says. Maybe I don't understand it very clearly, and that's why we have to have meetings like this to help us sharpen understanding of Scripture. But once you understand it.
Obey it. Sometimes we think we know a little bit better than God, and so we put our little twist on it. You remember Peter?
When the Lord used his boat to preach from and afterwards he says to Peter, launch out into the deep and let down your Nets for a haul.
Well, Peter had been working all night long and he hadn't gotten anything. And maybe Peter thought, well, the Lord is a Carpenter. He's not a fisherman. He doesn't know that we were laboring all night and we didn't have get anything.
But he said to the Lord, at thy word, I will let down the net.
Is that obedience?
Lord is gonna stop because Peter didn't let down the Nets.
No, he filled Peter's net, but he had problems because he didn't fully obey. His net broke and then they had to signal to their companions and they came and they filled up both boats and they started to sink.
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If you were to let down the Nets like the Lord told them to, you wouldn't have those problems. So let's learn to diligently read the Word of God to do it. That's what faithfulness really is.
Faithfulness is, I believe, a fruit of the Spirit. I know it says faith in Galatians chapter 5, but in French it's the word faithfulness and it's not being full of faith. It really is faithfulness to carry out as the Lord Jesus did.
We see that exemplified, uh, brother Michelle, in the very first verse of the book of the Acts, don't we? In connection with the Lord Jesus. It says the former treatise have I made, Oh Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to both do and to teach. So the doing came first, didn't it? Then the teaching.
I have enjoyed too, on this particular chapter that we have the believer brought forth in seven different ways. I just mentioned that in passing. First of all, Timothy is referred to as the Son. No doubt he was saved through the apostle Paul.
Uh, when he went through Derby and Lystra and, uh, Paul had a special affection for this, uh, young man, I believe his son. But then he refers to the believer in the third verse as a soldier.
And then in the fifth verse as a runner.
In the fourth verse as a husbandman.
And in the 15th verse as a Workman and in the 21St verse had the vessel and in the 24th verse as a service. So it's beautiful to meditate as we go through this chapter on the seven ways that the believer has looked at first mentioned in the first verse as my son.
There's a practical side to faithfulness. Too often, you know, we we might think, well, when I've read all the ministry and, you know, studied it and it maybe then at one point I'll actually be.
Considered faithful, the Lord will look upon me as faithful, But in Luke 16, there's a very small way in which we can be faithful. And one of the things that impressed me the most years ago was somebody telling me about being faithful in the small things and Luke 16.
Verse 9 says, uh, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail, but it really means when it fails, we're not going to fail. We are. We know where we're headed. We know the Lord's going to bring us there no matter what, but everything around us is going to fail. The whole system of things is going to fail. So when it fails, he might be received into everlasting habitations, He that is faithful.
And that which is least is faithful also in much.
He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If he therefore have not, If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if he have not been faithful in that which is in another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? So there's really not a thing that we do that we can't learn and practice faithfulness in it, in it, no matter what job I'm doing.
If I treat it as the Lord's school to teach me faithfulness.
There's not a minute of my life that's wasted. I don't have to be sitting reading ministry or my Bible. That's certainly.
You know, the ultimate in faithfulness. But I can be doing whatever I do during the day.
And it can be the Lord's way of teaching me faithfulness. And if I make a mistake, I make a mistake.
It doesn't matter because it's all gonna be burned up anyway. So if I do something wrong at work or whatever it might be, or if I blow a bunch of money that I shouldn't have spent and there's a lesson to be learned in it, it's not gonna count. The money is not gonna count in the end, but the lesson learned will. So we can be faithful in very, very small and seemingly insignificant things, and they have an eternal value in our lives and for eternity too.
00:55:18
Well, the faithfulness is obedience.
Then we have.
A lesson in that in verses 3:00 and 4:00.
The soldier.
Is given to us. These are examples in everyday life that we know something about.
And Paul says in verse seven, consider what I say and the Lord give thee understanding in all things. So he's not just giving us these examples as something to think about, but to be encouraged. These things in natural life that we know about have a spiritual lessons.
For us.
I've never gone into the Army as such. There's some that probably have here, but I suppose if I'd ask somebody, what do you learn? Learn in boot camp.
Probably the number one lesson is obey.
Unquestioning.
Obedience. You don't say. Do I really wanna do that?
You don't say. I don't think that Sergeant knows what he's talking about. You learn to obey, and that is drilled into them.
And you have to learn it, and it's gonna take some hardness.
Suffering. It's not easy.
Don't expect the Christian path to be easy, and it's not that.
Endure hardness, the new translation says. Take thy share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
When it comes to.
Our own interests.
How we are right there to take care of our own interests, my car, my house, my family.
What about the Lord's interests?
Is that first in our mind? What kind of soldiers are we anyhow often think of, uh.
Luke Chapter 9 of some examples of people that profess.
Profess to want to follow the Lord Jesus.
Others that the Lord called to follow him that notice their responses to me. This is searching verse 59 of Chapter 9, Luke Chapter 9, verse 59 and he said unto another, follow me.
But he said.
Notice this suffer me first.
To go and bury my father.
Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God.
Verse 61 and another said also, Lord, I will follow thee, but let me first.
Go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.
That's the culture we're passing through and young people, it is a tremendous challenge for you.
To challenge the system, you're being taught me first.
If I don't look out for myself, who else gonna look out for me? I gotta look out for myself, don't I? No, you don't.
You don't have to look out for yourself.
Uh, soldier has to understand when his commander gives the order.
Whether he agrees with it or not, he's obedient. And when the Word of God is very clear in Scripture about different things, there should be unquestioning obedience.
How easy it is, the scripture says very clearly not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is.
01:00:00
Sometimes when it comes to weeknight meetings, uh, got lots of homework.
I got something. I got a job. I had to do. For that, I'm sorry, I can't go. What kind of soldiers are we, anyhow? Do we treat the Lord's interests as less important than our own? You think we qualify as soldiers? If that's the case, these are important principles that we need to be challenged by.
When this commander speaks.
Soldier has to know.
Even if it costs him his life, he's got to obey. And we need to learn that, uh, that, uh, as well. That's why it says in the next verse, verse four, he that wareth.
Does not entangle himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who had chosen to be a soldier.
Can a soldier have a business on the side?
I don't suppose there's anything wrong with him having a business.
But when it's his commander who speaks, he's got to understand my commanders.
Will is my first occupation. He's got some time after that, while he might attend to some business, but he's got to know that his commander is #1.
Is the Lord Jesus number one to us? Is His Word what commands complete obedience?
Lord, help us to challenge our hearts on these important principles. There's one I believe that's brought before us in the 11Th chapter of Second Samuel that really understood what was becoming of a soldier, and that's Uriah A and when?
Uriah was summoned, it says in verse 9, but Uriah slept at the door of the King's house with all the servants of his ward.
And went not down to his own house. Well, he had the right, so to speak, to go down to his own house, didn't he? But he realized that he was a soldier. There was an important task that lay ahead of him. And so he couldn't let his guard down at all. We see, unfortunately, uh, David letting his guard down in this chapter.
But Uriah did not understood what was becoming of the soldier. Didn't he?
Our approach to David back to.
Faithfulness of that soldier Uriah, whatever approach to his soul, and you just see what sin does. He was blinded to that faithfulness and he just continued on and had a murder.
Entangle is a very colorful word, isn't it?
Umm, we can, uh, we can see ourselves caught up and stuck in something that we can't get out of. And, uh, we have to think of it in the sense of, of living a life that has not, does not allow us to get entangled. There's, there's things that we can do which are very good in themselves and very right in themselves. Umm, but it's going to keep me from doing that which God has asked me to do.
What the Lord has called me.
There is another, uh, situation in David's life, brother Bruce, that uh.
I enjoy where in The Cave of Abdullah David had a desire. It doesn't even say it was a command.
Said, Oh, that one would give me of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate.
You just had a desire. It wasn't a command. I don't. Three that were close to him heard his desire.
And those three mighty men at risk of losing their own lives, broke through the host of the Philistines that was there.
And they went to that well. David probably knew that well well, because he was raised in Bethlehem and probably had drunk that water lots of times. But there they go and they draw water out of that well.
And they take it to David.
01:05:02
What's some water? Is that worth losing your life over?
My commander desired this and I'm going to do it. That was the spirit that motivated them. I think that's so beautiful. And we think of the desire of the Lord Jesus.
Do this.
Until I come to remember him in his death.
It's a desire. He wants you to do it.
And if your heart is true to the Lord Jesus, I know you cannot be at rest until you two do it.
I think Brother Bob, we have an example too in connection with the Lord Jesus in John 14, he says there in the 15th verse, if he loved me, keep my commandments. So there are certain things the Lord has specifically asked us to do and there's a scripture in verse for them. But then when you come down to the 23rd verse, it says if a man loves me, he will keep my words.
It doesn't say commandments there, but words. And so if we're close to the Lord and we're enjoying communion with him, we will discern what he likes and what he doesn't like and will desire to do those things that please him, even though there might not be a specific commandment for it. And someone has given the illustration that, uh, there are certain things, perhaps my wife, uh, I know she likes me to do and I do them, but.
Uh, living with her for a long time, I get to know what she likes, even though she might not express it in so many words. And, umm, I think that's what the Lord is bringing before us there in John 14.
There's a difference between a soldier there and David's camp that said.
We'll wait until he gives us a command.
To those 3, David's word, just the breathing of as well had the power of a command. They couldn't lay it on anyone else. They were looking for a command.
Perhaps if I had been there. I just said, oh, we'll, we'll wait until we hear somebody blow the trumpet and give us some specifics here.
There would be no reason for them to, uh, to do that, except that they love David.
Here it says the no man that wore it, you know, there is a time for soldiers to go home. There's furloughs and uh, their three-year conscription comes to an end. But we're on a campaign that doesn't end until the Lord calls us to be with him. You can imagine a man in the trenches says, well, fellas, it's uh, 4:00 quitting time, time to go home and gets up and starts walking away in the middle of enemy fire. He'd say he's out of his mind. We're in a warfare, We're in a campaign now.
That last spiritual warfare until the Lord comes. So it's very specifically no man that Warren or is on campaign entangles himself with the affairs of this life.
Could we sing #312?
312.
Lead on Almighty Lord, lead on to victory, encouraged by thy blessed word, With joy we follow thee 312.
Lead unknown.
We need all the girls for me.
I'm pretty sure I'm gonna come out.
01:10:23
Umm.
OK, loving God and our Father, we do.
Pray that thy precious word might find its entrance into our hearts to have its, uh, practical effect and working out in our lives while we're here in the scene. Think of these, uh, words that, uh, faithful and wise master builder, uh, to his beloved son Timothy and the faith, uh, to encourage him to go on in that service that was committed to him. And so we know that each one of us are in that same services. So.
My own servants and we pray that the motivation of our hearts might be.
Lion love, our God, our Father, and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ to us of his condescension, how he came down from the heights of glory, how he was rich, became poor for our sakes, and how he yet, uh, condescends to meet us in all our needs. And in that service help us to place our confidence in him as we go forward in the path of faith, uh, looking for that, uh, blessed home.
When we will be called from the scene of conflict. And so we thank thee that the end of that conflict is that Satan will be cast out of the heavenly places that Hughes are of the brethren there for so long, finally cast out in our warfare. We'll see its wondrous conclusion. Lord Jesus now at that, uh, one who has defeated him in Calvary's cross, and we just follow the wake of thy wondrous victory. So we do, uh, commit ourselves to thee for the rest of our time together.
Asking if they'll continue the blessed Thy word to our souls, we might gather up the tenor of thy mind, the desire to walk in it. Do thy will my precious name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
Practical Lessons From Deuteronomy 22
2 Timothy 2:5-10
Reading
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276.
Guide us all down.
Please.
Of butterflies.
Oh no, Glenn, thy power of all hands.
Uh-huh.
Man can't cry. It's a vowel and a bowl of a lot of money.
85 73 shrubs down your legs and stuff. Rigid in the end close. We're in rainbows and flowers.
Umm.
No for your life.
So real hard here.
Long period as well And will it be all about?
No, OK. Oh, oh, oh, Oh my greatness that I have a style of God and I know.
Unfortunately.
Our God and our Father, we have your sons. This hymn together.
And we've asked for guidance.
So we go through this barren land.
When we think of how we've done with our character as a Pilgrim, but we own our God, that, uh, that doesn't always characterize us. We just would pray that it would more and now as we would, uh.
Spend this time in my precious word. We just earnestly pray our God that it would be for a profit for each one of us. We thank Thee for the food convenient that we've had before us this day and now as we would.
Uh, open thy word afresh and we just would have prayed that uh, the lips of each one that uh would take part would be anointed.
That is now the the need and the desires of each one here, our God, we just would pray thy blessing upon thy precious word of each of our hearts. We thank thee most of all for that blessed One, our Lord Jesus. And we just would pray that as we consider thy precious word, that, uh will be more and more conformed into the image that blessed one. And so we'd ask this our God giving you thanks in the worthy and the precious names of that blessed one, our Lord Jesus.
Shall we continue with Second Timothy 2 verse 5?
And if a man also strives for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strives lawfully?
The husbandmen that laborers must first, uh, be partaker of the fruits. Consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding in all things.
00:05:02
Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead, according to my Gospel, wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer even unto bonds. But the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure all things for the elect sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal life. Either eternal glory is a faithful saying, for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him.
If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, he will deny us. If we believe not, yet He abides faithful, He cannot deny himself of these things. Put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no prophets, but to the subverting of the hearers. Study to show thyself approved unto God, A Workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their UN and their word will eat as Duff. A canker of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth of Erd, saying that the resurrection is passed already, and overthrow the faith of some, nevertheless the foundation of God stand ashore. Having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver.
But also of wood in a verse. And some do honor, and some to dishonor. If any man therefore purge himself from these things, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work. Flea also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace within the calling the Lord out of a pure heart. But foolish and unlearned questions avoid.
Knowing that they do gender stripes and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all. Men have to teach patience in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God for adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
A lot of cheating going on in this world in sports and you hear sometimes people who have been recognized as world champions and this and that have turned in their.
Metals and they get disqualified because they didn't follow the rules. So the question is not finishing first. It's abiding by how the Lord wants things to be done and then we have a reward.
We live in a world where ethics are accommodated according to the situation, some sometimes called situational ethics.
People think they can vary things according to their thoughts.
They don't allow that in sports world even today. They disqualify like you say, and there's people that have been using.
Enhancing drugs and they get their medals taken back.
If that's the case in the sports world, how much more so when we're dealing with the question of the things that relate to God? You cannot ignore the principles of Scripture and prosper. It doesn't work. You may look like you're getting results.
But if it doesn't conform to the word of God, it will not stand.
Stan was talking about the mega church down in.
Texas, did you say?
16,000 you said yes.
Well I heard over in Korea there's mega churches that get close to half a million people. Incredible. Looks like things are working for them.
You people are so small you think you're right.
Brother, it's not a matter of us being right and they wrong. That's not the point. The point is that we have in our hands the precious, living, abiding word of God and we cannot ignore it and prosper. In the end it stands. It will stand forever. Let's respect it. Young people go by the book. Got it in their hands.
00:10:22
I'd like to connect the verse.
That we have later in the chapter to the few verses that we have just considered.
And the 21St verse speaks of a vessel unto honor sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work. I've just heard that there's no honor, and a victory gained unlawfully. And so.
I'd like to connect that thought of honor with this striving lawfully.
That if we go back to.
Well, let me see it says a vessel under honor. So that's driving lawful, sanctified. Now that makes makes me think of what we talked about without the soldier he wasn't entangled with.
The affairs of this life, he was set apart, committed to his, uh, his. That was his assignment.
Neat for the masters use that makes me think of what we talked about is the faithful as as the faithfulness that we spoke of in verse two. So he's he's.
Under honor sanctified meat, and for every good work prepared unto every good work. And that makes us think of the soldier also the second part of the the the training to go through endurance and suffering.
So we have a connection, I believe between verses 2 Through.
Five and verse 21.
Inverse 6 so I'd like to read it in the.
Translation it says the husband then must labor before partaking of the fruits. I think that's the sense of the Scripture, maybe not so clear in the King James translation. The thought is that you don't get immediate results. Those who are farmers have to prepare the soil. They sow the seed.
They don't sow it one day and go out to reap a harvest the next day. It doesn't happen that way.
It takes a lot of Labor for there to be results.
We are in a culture that wants immediate results.
Well, we have to learn that when God works.
Paul may sow the seed, Apollos may water, but it's God that gives the increase in his own time. So don't expect immediate results from your laborers. It doesn't happen that way. Real, true work of God is going to take time.
Somebody who sows a crop of corn.
I suppose, I don't know, I'm not a farmer, but yeah, what the labor, 5-6 months, I suppose, to get a harvest. It takes time. And so if you're going to go out and sow the seed in the gospel.
It will take time. Sometimes you see souls that get saved when they hear the gospel, but if you talk to them, you'll find that generally speaking, it was somebody that years ago sowed the seed in their heart.
And now you come along and you give them the gospel, perhaps, and they get saved. But it was because of the seed that was sowed way back a long time ago.
Let's not get discouraged if we don't see results. And I think that's the thought, the lesson we learned here with the.
Umm, husbandmen. What we call a farmer, I guess.
This is true not only as as you apply it to laboring with other people or communicating with other people, but also true of ourselves.
Sometimes a person may get away from the Lord. They may still be at the Lord's table, and they may still be going along in an upright manner outwardly, but in their hearts they get away from the Lord, and they lose their joy, and things become dry and routine and ritualistic and A and a.
00:15:19
And a chore? Well then, then the.
Then we might awaken and say, oh, I, I know what the problem is. I've gotten away from the Lord and they start to go back and do the fundamental things that we all were taught are basic things. We're going to be happy and fruitful as Christians, but the joy doesn't come back in one day or two. He does restore our souls, but it's like a person. We may let our physical body, we just may ignore our health. We may allow our weight to balloon into the point where we are are unhealthy.
And uh, etcetera, Well, we just don't go to the gym for a day or two and then expect something radical to happen. And so we need sometimes to humble ourselves as to how we can allow ourselves to get away in our hearts from the Lord and then just put our heads down and diligently seek his face again and go back to the first things, the the simple things, the ABC's.
When I was first saved, the brother who had a trucking business used to always talk about RPMS. You need to say you gotta keep your RPMS up, which he said we're reading and prayer and meditation. If you can't keep those RPMS up, you're just gonna bog down. And you would often remind us of that. And so it's uh, again, it's, umm, getting back is not easy. Uh.
Getting out of shape, it's not easy to get back so that you feel good again and umm, but the Lord will bless, uh, the diligent, uh, labor, whether it's with others in the, in the field around us or within our own souls.
James Chapter 5.
Verse 7.
The patient therefore, brethren.
That verse in Timothy, it certainly.
Speaking of preaching the gospel.
But there's increase in the field, you know, and if you sold Cornwall it it there it is. It starts and then steel starts getting green. But it'll be a while. It's gonna have to grow. And it needs rain, the first rain, so it gets moisture from the ground and all, and then it starts growing and then it needs rain for maturity, so.
Our laborers with one another include that, don't they? We want to see people say we want to see them grow. We want to see them mature and that is part of our dealings with one another and the ones around us and that the subject of our prayers that this would be true of each one of us. If we're not saying that it comes to the Lord to know the Lord is your Savior. If you know him, that should be growing and if you be, if you're growing, that should be maturing until the lightness and fullness of the Lord Jesus.
It's just a worldly saying, I suppose, but even men say that only in the dictionary does success come before work. And so the point is, is that Timothy is going to take work, you're going to have to labor. It's not going to be easy.
This, uh, chapter, this book, as someone was saying earlier this morning, may have been the.
And it ends with this verse. The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy Spirit, grace be with you.
We've been exhorted by older brothers that are now with the Lord. Uh, in the last days we suspect we're in before the Lord comes. Day of weakness and ruin all around.
To be particularly careful about the spirit that we approach one another in and in the assembly and also other Christians that we might meet wherever and Paul exemplified this when he in verse 7 where he says consider what I say the Lord give the understanding in all things.
00:20:10
You connect it with the end of the chapter where he gives a distinct exhortation to Timothy verse 24. The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all, have to teach, patient in meekness, instructing. And so it just doesn't work to try and force feed someone or ramrod them or twist their arm into accepting the things of God.
But it's beautiful that Paul displayed, even with his son Timothy, that same gracious spirit.
He felt what he was communicating. He had full confidence that what he was communicating was the truth, but he knew it had to be not just the Spirit of God giving out the truth from his lips or from his pen, but it has to be the Spirit of God enabling another to take it in. And so in peace, Paul can say, consider what I say, I put it before you. And then he as it were praised for him says the Lord give the understanding in all things. And you, you just have a helpless feeling when you speak to someone, when you give somebody the gospel, you may sit next to him on a plane or a train and.
It's highly likely you'll never see that person again, ever.
Unless they get saved and you put it before them and you just, you know, you have to leave it there. And whether it's, uh, the truth of the, of the Christian pathway or whether it's the gospel, we need to, uh, to have this spirit, as brothers have said, if the servants are proud and hasty.
Harrogate.
Overly forceful. How shall they know that the Master is meek and lonely?
I like to think of it as verse 7 as a definition of what meditation is really.
Consider what I say and the Lord give thee understanding and I'd like to encourage you young people especially. We all need to be encouraged in it is to.
Take your Bible, read a verse.
Think about it, these things that Paul has been talking about.
Faithful men in verse 2A. Soldier in verse three and four.
An athlete in verse 5A, farmer in verse six. There occupations were all well acquainted with and there's a definite lesson in each one of them to help us to go on in the last times that we're living in.
You've got to learn to get it for yourself, young people. You just can't sit in meetings like this and listen. It's good to sit in meetings and listen.
But you got your Bible in front of you with that brother's talking about. Check it out. Is that what it's saying there?
Think about it.
Consider it and the Lord can give you understanding in all things. I think it is really an important exercise. You don't read the word of God like you read another book.
Skimming it.
You read it and you consider it. It's like, uh, Stan was talking about the clean animals that chew the cud.
Cal grazing and then it sits and lays down under a tree and then it brings up its cut and it's chewing. No wonder it's got good milk to give because it's been chewing the cud. And you and I need to do that too. We know on our when we eat food, naturally speaking, there's a lot of food you don't just swallow down as soon as you put it in your mouth. You keep it in your mouth for a while, you're chewing it up.
That chicken we have this snow is pretty good stuff.
And I think we all enjoyed it. You chewed it for a while, and that's the way it does you good, by chewing it up in the same way with the Word of God. You're not gonna understand it. There's things that are very hard to understand in the Scriptures.
Chew on it. Don't force it if you can't understand it right away.
Consider it. Put it on the back burner.
Think about it a little bit longer. The Lord will give you understanding in all things.
00:25:05
It doesn't give us understanding of all things, but in all things. Is it so? He gives us understanding for what we need to understand.
We all know in part so.
We are showing things to know that we're ignorant here. We're not.
Verse eight of our chapter I think is a very important verse two, brother and I.
I'd like to see if we can get it across to our young, especially it's.
I didn't really.
Know for a long time why this verse? It seems like it's just kind of dropped in there. Didn't know what the purpose was.
Remember, Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel. What does he say that for there. This is what's come to my own soul, and perhaps others can help too. But.
The Apostle Paul was about to pass off the scene.
He was about to go.
It looked like the work he did was a complete failure.
All those in Asia had abandoned him. Here he is in prison. He's going to be taken out according to history.
Had his head taken off.
Doesn't look like.
His life was any success by any practical means.
But he says here he directs his attention to the Lord Jesus.
And was the Lord Jesus any different? Think of the arduous laborers that the Lord Jesus went through and His light at the end of 3 1/2 years of ministry.
How many disciples?
12 Is that all?
Couldn't you do any better than that?
One of them was a trader.
And another one said he would never deny him and he ended up denying him three times and the rest they all took off and ran away.
The alert failed it.
There he died on the cross. It looked like it was complete failure. But brethren, this is the point. Remember, Jesus Christ is the seed of David, raised from the dead according to my gospel.
God's answers and resurrection. Let's not necessarily expect big results down here. It may never happen.
The point is.
God's answer is in resurrection and all. What an answer it was for the Lord Jesus. Oh, what an answer is gonna be for the apostle Paul.
And you and I need to be encouraged.
You don't see much results in being faithful to the Lord and to the Scriptures. Don't get discouraged. Remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David according raised from the dead. According to my gospel, God's answer is in resurrection.
Notice you correctly left that word that out of the verse. You did that on purpose, didn't you breath, Bob? Well, I saw it wasn't in the Derby, but that's right. The point is that we are to remember him.
Not that we have to remember.
Not that we don't remember that he's raised on the debt, but that's not the point. The point is to remember him. And it's a very similar thought. And uh, in Hebrews chapter 12 where it says, uh.
Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. Let him be worried and faint in your minds. We've been having an exhortation in this chapter about.
Being patient as a labor, uh, as a farmer and, uh, having endurance like a soldier and so on. And now we're given an example. Consider him, remember him. And this is what happened to him. Uh, there the, he was raised from the dead, but.
It is his example that we follow. Not, uh, well, I shouldn't, I should leave it there. The point is to remember him.
00:30:08
There's a verse in the two verses in Isaiah.
To connect together with that, uh, verse and Timothy first one is Isaiah 49 and it, it's speaking prophetically of Israel, but also of the Lord Jesus.
And what they go through in the tribulation and it seems like all that they suffer is, is, uh, just coming for nothing but the Lord. The Lord's own thoughts are echoed in, uh, verse four of Isaiah 49. Then I said, I have labored in vain. I've spent my strength for not and in vain. Yet surely my judgment is with the Lord and my work with my God. Then he come over few chapters. Isaiah 53.
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. So there it is in resurrection. The laborer now is a partaker of the fruits.
1St Corinthians 15 verse 19 it says it's in this life only we have hope in Christ. We are of all men most miserable.
Not here it's there, but the next group says but now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept for only a Christian for down here we've missed the point completely. It's in resurrection and it's in eternity and it's in glory that all of this has its true purpose and and future and here it's only a very short period of time.
He sent out a receipt of David in connection with the Kingdom too that everything that the Lord was supposed to have, He didn't have it, but his resurrected from the dead and he's all going to have it. And here's the apostle Paul is a minister. He found the change. Is the Kingdom going to happen? Of course it's going to happen. He's going to rule and the the Saints are going to rule with him. But as you say, it's in resurrection. So I want to come.
That's his time of rejection. Now there's a connected thought with that brother you think of, uh, of, uh, Elijah, you know, after calling.
To go out and answer by fire on Mount Carmel. And that sacrifice was consumed. And all the people say the Lord, he is the gods in contrast with the idols that they had gone after. And then he sees finally that it's really going to come to nothing. And he he runs away and he says I'm not better than my father's. I have thought that God was going to use me in a wonderful way to restore Israel to himself. And it's not going to happen. And he said I'm not better than my father's. And he was cast down.
But you know, he appears on the mount with the Lord. The Lord had said there were those that were standing there that would see the Kingdom. And then they do. They're taken up to that mountain. They see the Lord transfigured who's there in that Kingdom to see it as well. That one who said I'm not better than my father's, everything's come to nothing. He's there to see the one who's going to make it all good.
Connected to verses, just consider what I say the Lord will give you understanding in all things.
Misunderstanding in Christianity that Christianity should be reigning on the earth. Apostle Paul says to the Corinthians that God will allow you to reign, that we reign with you. But that's going to happen when the Lord reigns. Not gonna reign now, it's future to come.
So we need intelligence for our behavior down here. We're trying to change the world to make the Kingdom happen. It's not going to happen that way. It's going to happen when the Lord comes.
He had the hidden key, he had the knowledge of resurrection. And as, uh, David was quoting from First Corinthians 15, he he could see it in the life of Christ as it was revealed to him sown in dishonor.
Raise in glory, sown in weakness, raised in power. You applied that to his own life, into his own ministry, and is here exhorting Timothy to do the same. Be content to be plowed under. Be content to labor. Be content to not see fruit now.
You're surely going to see it in the future. And, uh, in the book of Philippians, he writes in a similar manner. He expresses that he was content to be like a drink offering poured out on the sacrifice of your faith. And that's what he's exhorting Timothy to do in these next couple of verses. I suffer trouble even as an evildoer, even under bonds. That's me. What? The word of God is not found. And he knew that, that, uh, that answering glory.
00:35:14
For him, for others.
Everything redounding to the glory of Christ was going to happen.
You could see that it says of Moses in Hebrews 11. He endured as seeing him who was invisible.
Book of Proverbs says where there is no vision that people cast off restraint or the people faint.
So without that, as a hymn writer puts it, without that view of faith, to look beyond the long dark night and hail the coming day.
We need that. It's not just an optional thing for us to have that forward view to the way things are really going to be when God turns out, uh, turns right side up. All these things that today are upside down.
And the ability by faith to live in some measure in the enjoyment of those things.
Is sustaining to us now.
Take out those 5 loads and two fishes we're speaking about. There's the Apostle Paul.
We can't travel, we can't speak to crowds. He doesn't have the Internet. He can't send out emails on his mailing list. He doesn't have all his communication power. He can write little notes to some of the assemblies there. What has God done to that? God has done that. He's instructed and spoken the truth of what he's revealed to the apostle Paul, to millions and millions and millions, and that's the word of God.
To the Apostle Paul, who faithfully, while imprisoned, had a concern for his brethren and was led to write to them. He didn't lament, and he continued to labor for the Lord and the measure that he could.
And the Lord just made it prosper so much so I was encouraging for us and everyone in our little measure. Whatever we are able to do for the Lord, the Lord will make that prosper in His own time.
You know what you're saying, Bruce, about keeping our eyes on that coming day of glory. And it's so important, isn't it? It seems like Paul had that always before him. Look back to the first chapter of this epistle and then verse eight he says to Timothy.
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner.
Don't be ashamed, Timothy. Now notice what he says in verse 12.
For the witch gods, I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed.
For I know whom I have believed.
And am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day, that coming day of glory. We need to really keep that before us, brethren, things in this world are going downhill.
They're going towards their end and I really believe we're getting close.
To the time when things are going to change drastically in this world.
Things are not going to last, young people.
They are going to change.
And for the worst in major form. And we need to set our sights.
On something beyond something that's going to last. Christ and his glory, that coming day of glory.
And live for that day.
So often young people are presented with challenges of making good in this world for themselves.
Material things.
Brethren, materialism has been a tremendous bane of the Christian testimony in our time. It's not having a bunch of stuff that will make you satisfied or happy. It doesn't happen.
Traveling different countries around I I notice young people in the states in Canada are.
Unsatisfied.
Board, they often say.
Why they get so bored? I don't think any any culture has the entertainment as this. This one does is the one we live in the United States.
00:40:10
Millions and billions poured into entertainment.
It's not the answer. God is showing us eternal glory. Didn't it interest you? Are you gonna strive for something down here? It's gonna last a few short years at best and be gone forever.
The Lord challenge our hearts to live for that day might have to suffer down here and fall in these verses, verse nine he says I suffer trouble as an evildoer.
Even unto bonds. But the word of God is not bound. Our brethren in many parts of the world are suffering. Brother, we need to realize that.
Rather than in Muslim countries, in red China.
Are suffering.
We think we can live it up over here, be Christians and live it up.
Something's not right if that's the way we're thinking.
Not only in things too, but man not only likes the material part, but he likes his own glory. And you know, the danger for the believer and the service that the Lord gives him is to try and seek his own glory even in that. But there was only one who really deserved earthly glory and he didn't get it. Peter says God gave him glory, but he's speaking about on the Mount of Transfiguration where it wasn't before this world, it was shut off from the world.
But other than that, he did not get it. Here He was glorified in heaven, and so.
Part of remembering Jesus Christ raised from the dead is Timothy. You'll not get glory down here.
That waits for another day, and the Lord's first. First. There's only a safe place for us, you might say, to get glory or be in glory when the Lord hands out rewards. Not today, when there's no flesh left in US.
Dangerous for us to ever have that here.
All describes himself in another epistle as a nurse.
Or a nursemaid cherishing the believers like a nurse would little children.
But here it's more along the soldier line, his sense of enduring things for the sake of the elect.
I can remember when we were in university and had gospel meetings and Bible meetings and.
We get ever onto the subject of election. It was hard at first for people to take in.
But no one in this room today would be a believer would have laid hold of the hem of his garment.
The Lord didn't actively intercede in your life and say, left to yourself, you're going to continue down the Broad Rd. You're going to end in destruction.
But I'm God.
And it's proper to me, and it falls within my scope of authority and prerogative that I can intercede in your life. And so he puts his finger out and he arrests us, says, no, you're not going down that road.
He made that possible by sending his own son.
And so Peter and John and others in the in the New Testament write of God's prerogative to choose.
Uh, a member of Brother Adrian Roach used to repeat, at least I heard it a number of times from him, a way that was helpful to understand. He would say all may with respect to the gospel of the grace of God. He would say all may, none would, some shall. And then he would develop the scriptures for each of those things.
All may because that's important in accordance with the heart of God. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all men might be saved. And so it says in John 316 that God didn't just love the elect.
It says For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
But the sobering thing is that such was our nature.
Like the the leopard, we couldn't change our spots.
And a man can't physically pick himself up by his bootstraps. If he's real strong, he'll pull the bootstraps off of his boots, but he can't pick himself up that way. And so left to ourselves, none of us would come. And the Lord Jesus looked out upon men when he was here, and he said you will not come.
00:45:19
At that point God would have been just and righteous, so to speak, to just close up shop.
Said I have stretched forth my hand all the day. So Lord Jesus says prophetically in the psalms, and no man regarded.
But grace were sin abounded, grace did overabound.
And the grace of God comes in and has come in in my life. And many of yours said, OK, you're going to come with me. Some shout, my house shall be filled. And so it is that as Peter writes, so we were elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
We thought it was all something we did. And if you were older when you were saved, you can remember the, the, the, the moments of decision or agony or going back and forth. Shall I, is this right? Shall I not? And all of that.
But really?
Once you come inside, you realize it was.
He that drew you, and he that drew me.
And so when people hear this reality, this truth, sometimes they say, well, then why preach the gospel if if it's just gonna be, you know, God is going to just choose himself and that's it. There's nothing for us to do.
But this first illustrates that it had the opposite effect upon the apostle Paul. Rather than say, well, God is gonna choose and he's gonna elect, so I can just chill out here. And as as Steven was saying this morning, it's 4:00 time to go home. You know, I'm gonna have, you know, dinner and relax. Paul just the opposite, he said.
There's the elect out there. There are ones that God has his eye on. They must hear the word. And it inspired him it it motivated him to suffer the indignities and the humiliation and eventually even lost his life.
In bringing the Word of God to those whom He knew would be destined to receive them.
I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
Clearly the command is to carry the gospel to every creature, isn't it? God's heart is shown in that He is not willing that any should perish, and so the message is gonna go out in that way. But I love this verse 9. The word of God is not bound. Isn't that beautiful, brethren? They combine the servants of the Lord. They did fall. The word of God is not bound.
And the word continues to go out. They continue to oppose it. They do war in any way they possibly can to.
Get rid of the word of God.
I'm sure many of you heard that the atheist, the French atheist Voltaire, said he was going to do away with the word of God. In one generation it would not exist any longer.
Well, I think you probably heard what happened is very home turned out to be.
The uh, place where the one of the Bible societies function from sending out millions of copies more of the word of God.
Most published book in all time continues. You cannot bind it, you know. Wonderful to send it out to have a part in it, brother.
Alert. Encourage us to have a part in it. It challenges me, frankly, when I hear about the cries for Bibles over in China. You young people.
Have you ever put yourself in the Lord's hands and say, what can I do, Lord, what would you have me to do?
I really think that we need to be exercised. There's a world out there and the Word of God is not bound.
Get it out in any way you possibly can. The Lord can use it.
These verses in this chapter, uh, starting with verse 11, it says this is a faithful saying and it's interesting going through Timothy's 2 epistles.
00:50:10
How often that is, uh, mentioned? This is a faithful saying. I think it's four or five times anyhow.
We remember the one in First Timothy 1:15, but here is one of the faithful sayings.
If we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.
If we deny him, he also will deny us if we believe not. Yet He abideth faithful, He cannot deny himself.
A lot to think about in those verses.
Lot to exercise our hearts. It really hits me that one in verse 12. Brethren, if we suffer, we shall also reign with him.
Ask how many want to reign with Jesus. We can open up our hands.
But there's an if there.
If we suffer.
Like to suffer.
You were talking about that brother Michelle.
I don't think any of us naturally speaking like the suffering, but in the world that we live in, it's inevitable. You cannot escape it.
Are you interested in raining in that coming day? There's an if here that we need to pay attention to.
Philippians chapter one.
Verse 29.
Philippians one and 29.
Run to you. It's just giving it on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him.
But also to suffer for his sake, having assumed conflict, which he saw in me and now here to be in me, believe we suffer and we reign.
These verses look on to.
Time of raining and, and, uh, when he says in verse 11, it is a faithful saying, it's connected with verse 10, what he suffered for the elect's sake and, uh.
The desire that they would obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
And if we just, uh, refer back to a couple of verses in Romans 6 connection with it.
Romans 6 and verse.
22 But now, being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end.
Everlasting life.
Are the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord?
There's two aspects of eternal life that these verses illustrate. There is the end everlasting life, and then there's the present possession of it. The gift of God is eternal life. So the apostles desire and his labor for the elect's sake is not only to come to Christ, but it's to see them all the way home, you might say, in glory.
As was brought out earlier, preserved.
Spirit, soul and body unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so I think that salvation is that which encompasses not just the salvation of our soul, but the whole man and eternal glory that's connected with it. It looks all the way on to when we're with the Lord. It's future aspect, you might say.
Perhaps we could sing to gather hymn #226.
And then for a little bit.
00:55:02
Whoa.
I don't have to be able to run.
Whatever the car I get out of my computer.
I know I have to get it. I know how I can see it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
1217.
12 together.
0019.
Four may be the 2nd.
For all of those related issues.
17000.
Well.
I'm proud of my life.
And I'm afraid I don't know.
What would be a?
AM.
Glad that you're waiting for a financial Uh-huh.
3-1, 5.
Chance of eternity and glory in our souls, that in the short time that's left to us while we're here, we might have the joy of anticipation of what it will be to be there. And that in our lives the things that are so unimportant might find their place, and that the blessing of others might be uppermost in the gospel. And for thy people, Lord Jesus, we just pray for strength for Thy preserving care, spirit, soul and body, until the moment that we're there. We ask it, Father, in Jesus name.
Gospel 1
Giving Our Hearts to God
Paul's Ministry - Gospel and the Revelation of the Mystery
Testimony to the Name of the Lord
Be Filled With the Spirit
2 Timothy 2:10-26
Reading
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.
OK.
Right up right.
Oh my God, straight one place can be.
Umm.
And for ourselves.
The handsome die.
Without the joy's brain of his, life is going to be a life as I thought.
With no idea.
They are alive right outside.
And you're all.
Where you are.
The blood and my heart.
Shelly Price, our God and Father do rejoice and.
We know that thou hast raised thy beloved son now from among all the rest of the dead.
Glorified him and assigned to him a seat.
Thy right hand and glory.
We rejoice, Lord Jesus, Thou hast been crowned with glory and honor, and though we see not yet all things put under Thee by faith, we behold Thee there. And it brings joy and satisfaction to our renewed hearts to know that Thou hast been rewarded with glory. And we look forward to that time when Thou shalt come again into this world where thou was cast out and hated without a cause to see Thee owned in this very place.
And to see thee, Lord Jesus.
Coming and being displayed in this world is the one that, though the builders rejected, the Thou art indeed in the Council of God, the very chief cornerstone.
We thank Thee to our God and Father, that we know that we have an eternal connection.
With that man in the glory.
We thank Thee that we can sit here now in peace to know that glory awaits us and that we have the promise of Thy grace. In the meantime, we confess that.
00:05:05
We sometimes sing while bowered away. Lord, we stumble and stray. Oh, hasten the day of my coming. Again we look to Thee for fresh grace. And as we have this opportunity this afternoon to open Thy word one more time, Ray, that will direct us into that which would be for our encouragement, our blessing, our profit.
That we would receive Lord Jesus, a word from thyself. We commend to thee those that are already traveling for safety for them each one.
Pray for Mrs. Roshan.
Who had to leave early this morning and not feeling well And commit her to thee.
Now again, our God and Father, we just look to these thy children that Thou provide food in season for us. We ask it our Father, and the worthy and precious name of our God and our Savior of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
A Workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, but shun profane and vain babbling, that they will increase unto more ungodliness.
And their word will eat as stuff, a canker of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth have heard saying that the resurrection is passed already, and overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless the foundation of God's standard. Sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His, and let everyone that name it the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only method of gold and of silver.
But also of wood and a verse.
Some water, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor. Thank the blind, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work. Flee also youthful lots, but follow righteousness to faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But foolish and unlearned questions avoid.
Knowing that they do gender stripes.
And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to on unto all men have to teach patients in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves in per event, if God per adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. And the thing they recover themselves are the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
I have a question.
It's uh, the veteran will be happy just to give some thoughts on.
If we deny him, we also will deny us in verse 12. You know, this verse has been a difficulty to some and, uh, I'd like to perhaps if some had a thought on that.
Help us with that verse.
We know that Peter denies the Lord.
But uh, I've heard it said that connection with this verse it brings before us.
A subtle purpose of art or a course that is pursued.
I may be wrong and uh.
Excellent looking at this way, but we know that.
Uh, Peter did deny the Lord, but the Lord through his grace later to commend that one to shepherd the sheep.
So I think that we have to view this as.
Of course that's pursued.
Brother Michelle, would it be right to say that?
A true Christian could never deny the Lord in his heart. Peter denied him with his lips and he never denied him with his heart. I wondered if in this second Thistle to the Timothy, Timothy, but uh, we have like the church looked at as a great house that includes professionals and I was wondering if when it says if we deny him, he go off and deny on that looking at someone who takes the plane of being a believer.
00:10:07
But really doesn't matter. Christ in his heart, yes.
The thought came to mind that you were speaking too as I would just say I think he was going to spew it out of his mouth and that was lifeless profession really away from me. I never knew you so I would understand. That's good.
There is a verse in Matthew chapter 10 that somewhat relates to that.
There's uh, 32 it says, who's still ever there? For shall confess me before men, and will I confess also before my Father, which is in heaven? But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father, which is in heaven?
And it may be so I don't have a special thought about it. I have often wanted to get more clear on this part myself, but I think it's here to exercise this, brethren. And uh, so we need to take it just like we read in the previous phrase, if we suffer, we shall also reign with him. How much suffering do we do for the Lord in the United States of America?
I'm afraid I'm gonna have to say I don't do very much, brethren.
And am I gonna miss out on raining?
It's there to exercise this, brethren, and let's be exercised about it. And I agree with what you say, that Peter in his heart really never denied the Lord. But it was a real fall for Peter, wasn't it?
And I think he learned some valuable lessons by it.
I'd like to stay here in this chapter 2. It's quite interesting. Throughout both epistles of Timothy, you get warning about those that occupy people with words and strife. And it says here in verse 14 of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no prophet.
But to the subverting of the hearers, verse 16 says, But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase into more ungodliness. Through both epistles you have warnings about words that lead to no profit, genealogies getting into questions that don't profit. We need in these last days to learn how to avoid those questions. Sometimes we're not real direct about it.
But I remember in Bolivia one time, a broth, a young brother who posed a question in the conference and another older brother just simply said, I don't think that's a profitable question. So we'll just go on with the Bible study. And, uh, down there, they don't take offense at it. Like we might do it up here, but I thought that was quite interesting. But we need to be occupied with things that positively edify brethren.
So if you're going to ask a question, and I encourage you younger brothers, sometimes that question can be very profitable. And if you have a question in your mind about something, there's a good chance that quite a few others perhaps present have that same question. So I encourage questions. I think they're helpful, but let's be careful to pose questions that are for profit.
And, uh, James has said growing the year to God and he will draw near to you. And, uh, I often take encouragement from little things that I see in my job or in my work. And, uh, if I'm using a torch at work and you bring that flame and that heat close to the metal, the metal flows and take the heat off. If the wind, you throw it away, it cools off. Things like us, if you take a piece of charcoal and you or a piece of wood and you move it close.
To the glowing embers, it also glows. And, uh, the Lord doesn't change what we do, you know, and we cool off and we move away. So I would, I would say that, uh, another way of looking at this versus the, you know, if we deny him our attention, if we deny him our affection, he doesn't lose affection for us, but we lose the benefit of, of the heat and the hormone flow again by being closer.
00:15:23
Call.
This is rightly dividing the word of truth, the end of verse 15, to put that in opposition with using the word of God deceitfully because we're not using the word of God, we're being taught by it and then the measure that we understand it.
Directly dividing a word of truth by exposing justly the truth of God from His Word.
That's a Workman, isn't it? That's another one of the figures you were mentioning, Stan, and I think it is an important one.
Study to show thyself approved unto God. Not approved unto the brethren, but approved unto God. Live before God, don't live before the brethren. You may give momentary approval from the brethren, but there's a good chance they might a little later on disapprove of you too. So if you live for the approval of brethren, you're gonna be disappointed.
Live for the approval of God.
But a Workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. That's that's a really important.
Thing that we need to be exercised about. Just like to read a verse in connection with this in First Corinthians chapter 10.
And verse.
32.
Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God.
The Jews or God's chosen people? Chosen earthly people?
Are distinguished in the Bible from the Gentiles.
The Gentiles were the rest of the nations.
The Church of God is composed of those who have been saved both from the Jews and from the Gentiles, but it is a completely different entity. It is a heavenly people. The Jews or Israel was an earthly people with an earthly calling. And when we read the Scriptures, we need to distinguish who God is talking about.
All scripture is written for our prophet. You read that verse yesterday.
In First Corinthians or not, it was Romans, right? There's a.
Another one in First Corinthians 10 that says about the same thing. But uh, in when we read the scriptures, we should ask to whom is God speaking here? All scripture was written for us, but all scripture was not written to us.
God told the children of Israel to go into the promised land and to put to death all the enemies, their enemies.
Are we gonna take that and apply it literally? No. We rightly divide the word of truth. So that was for an earthly people at that time. So we, when we read the word of God, we need to know how to rightly divide it. There's a lot of confusion because.
That is not done.
Scriptures that apply directly to Israel are taken and applied to the Church.
Just for some practical examples, the question of tithing. It was a command of God to his earthly people. Israel 10% for God. But when you get to the New Testament, do you find that principle applied in the church? Never. Why not?
Because in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus has purchased us and everything that we have, it all belongs to Him. So if I would say 10% for God and 90% for me, I'm robbing God of 90%. It's all his and I'm just.
00:20:03
A administrator of what he has put into my hands. So we need to.
Rightly divided tide does not apply. Now does that mean I can just give a little bit brother, We should be exercise that what we do under grace is not less than what was under law, but it's not a rule. Now everything is his.
The father has many children. He's responsible to provide for those children. That's what God has commanded.
And if he doesn't come provide for them, he's worse than an infidel is denied the faith. So if he uses all his money doing that, he's going to give a count, and that's what the Lord told him to do. So we need to be exercised, brethren, to rightly divide the word of truth.
Another question that sometimes comes up, and I'd like to mention it just for young people because.
It is, uh, something that is important to understand. Why don't we use musical instruments in our meetings?
Why don't we have an organ?
Why don't we have?
Uh, guitars to lead us in our worship of the Lord.
If you go into the Old Testament, it says to praise the Lord with every instrument of music, but who is it talking about there? It's talking about Israel, and it was proper at that time to use musical instruments. But when you come to the New Testament, you find that our worship is in spirit and in truth.
The character of Christian worship.
Is what comes from the heart. The instruments to be used are two that I find in the New Testament. One is the heart, the other is the lips. There's something wrong with musical instruments. It's not that there's something wrong with it, brethren, it's just not the character of Christian worship. I don't have any problem with using those instruments in other circles, but when it comes to the.
Worship of God, it's worship in spirit and in truth, and we need to rightly divide the word of truth. What is pleasing to God here is that which comes from the heart, in spirit and in truth. Musical instrument are not spiritual brethren. They do. They are for the enjoyment of our souls. But when we come together, we don't come to please ourselves.
We come to please Izzier, and that's why that we do not use musical instruments. It's part of rightly dividing the word of truth.
It runs very deep as well. It can overthrow faith because at the root of it, as you say, there's not an understanding of what Israel is and what the Church of God is. And what's happened in the Church of God, gone through many years until God graciously gave relief in the recovery of the truth, was that what the church thought as they were the spiritual extension of Israel?
And that Israel had no future blessing under the Messiah in the Millennium. And they appropriated all of Israel's blessings to the church. And they left them with all the curses, you know, in the Crusades that led the Christian Crusaders, when they got to the land of Palestine, out slaying Jews.
Why? They're just left with the curses. No future blessing for them. They're just the murderers of Christ. Let's annihilate them. And so those doctrines lead to bad practice and they can even overthrow faith.
You pardon me? I'll be a little bold. I don't want to.
Well beyond what we should in this meeting. But there's a little account that I actually pasted in the front of my Bible. Because at a time when I wrestled with these things that so impressed me as to the importance of rightly dividing the word of truth, rightly seeing dispensational truth and its effects on the very fundamental doctrines of Christianity, that I just put it there to remind myself of it.
00:25:17
If I could be permitted just to read that little account comes from.
Many years ago, when the truth was just being recovered and there were men who were evangelizing Jews in Egypt.
And they found because of their doctrines of denying the future promises to Israel that the Jews would not receive them.
You deny our future blessing. Why should we listen to what you have to say?
And this little account?
The fact happened in London after a sermon in a church in the Strand. Amongst the hearers were two Jews. A discussion took place in the vestry between them and the preacher on the subject of a Psalm which contained a prophecy referring to the restoration of the Jewish people. The pastor maintained that it could not be understood in the sense of a national restoration. The Jew who spoke answered him.
How then can you be surprised that we should deny what you call the Incarnation? What, said the clergyman, taking a Bible? Is it not written? And behold, thou shalt conceive and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the House of Jacob Forever, and of his Kingdom there shall be no end.
The Israelites then asked the minister to take up with him again the different parts of this passage, which he did accordingly, And after having read the two or three first sentences, the Jews were convinced that they were to be interpreted literally. But when they came to these words. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the House of Jacob, etcetera.
The pastor said this signifies that he shall reign in the hearts of his people.
If it is thus, replied the Jew, if it is not in Jerusalem, where David had his throne, where he reigned, then I deny that Mary had a son. I affirm for my part, that what is said on this subject signifies nothing else. Say that the Messiah was to be pure from his birth, and that this is the true meaning of these words. A virgin having a son. You see, I only follow your motive. Interpreting the end of the passage, I apply it to the beginning.
And by this means I deny the incarnation. But, replied the minister, we admit.
The literal interpretation of this part of the passage, because the event has proved that it was to be understood thus. I shall never forget with what an air of disdain and contempt. The Jew then said, Oh, you believe this because it has happened. As for us, we believe what is written, because God has said it. We ought therefore to take heed in what manner we interpret prophecies, for you see.
If we deny the privileges promised to the Jewish nation, we shake thereby even the foundation of our faith.
It's a big movement, and Christendom today is to deny.
That and then you do not distinguish between Israel and the church. And that's why today it is very popular for Christians to get involved in political circles.
Brethren, that is not our place, it is the Church losing the sense of their heavenly calling. We need to rightly divide the word of truth. It says very clearly that we are ambassadors for Christ and ambassador does not get involved in the politics of the country he is re he is living in.
He is there to represent the country He comes from. Yes, I am a natural citizen of the United States and I submit to the laws, but my real calling is a heavenly calling, and I am to represent the Lord Jesus Christ here. When did He ever take up the sword? When did He ever take up political movements? Never.
And so, brethren, let's rightly divide the word of truth. It's something that we really need to be exercised about.
00:30:08
The 212 him in our little clock expresses that truth, does it not?
Just wanna read.
Part of the verses there it's a fall from above, and heavenly men by birth, who once were, were but the citizens of earth. As pilgrims here we seek a heavenly home, our portion in the ages to come.
I think in the towards the latter part of Matthew 13 there's another.
Uh, expression by the Lord Himself about this.
Process of holding the truth.
In the right Places. Matthew 13.
Inverse, uh, I'll start at the end of verse 51.
Jesus saith unto them, Have you understood all these things? They say unto him, Yeah, Lord.
Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the Kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man, that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.
That last expression, things new and old was the name, I think of a periodical that CHM, uh, Mr. McIntosh published, uh, back in the 19th century, Things new and old. And it's not just that you have a, a bunch of things, even precious things all mixed in together. You have old things, you have new things. We have the privilege in our, in our privilege, uh, position.
To be in the understanding of both the new things that, for example, Stephen referred to in the open meeting today, the mystery which hath been hidden God, but is now revealed by his holy apostles and prophets, by the Spirit, those are new things. Those are things which were unknown, not revealed by God to Saints of old. But then there's old things we can read in the book of Galatians or in Romans or other places in the New Testament, that which is common to men and women of faith all down through the ages.
We have Hebrews 11, which is an example of things like that. And so it's our wisdom, it's our virtue, no matter how much we've been able to take in according to our spiritual, uh, development or age. But the things we have, we should have them in the right place. If you have a household and you have the chainsaw in the kitchen and the silverware out in the garage and you have, you know, stuff that you use in the lawn up in the upstairs.
Linen closet, your house is in chaos.
And so most of people, my generation, our, our parents were a very orderly bunch of people. If I wanted to use some of my dad's tools, I could go into these workshop and he had the tools painted on the wall, you know, so when you took it down, you knew where it went back. And he had this kind of tool here and that kind of tool there. It made it pretty simple. Didn't have a lot of tools. And he used to get rightly irritated with me if I didn't put him back. And so if you have a bunch of whole mishmash of all kinds of tools and sockets and wrenches all mixed up.
You know, you're not going to be a very effective Workman, which is really the subject here. So, you know, sometimes I think we do well not to be so occupied with how much we know, but to be sure that what we take in, we take it in rightly that our hearts are right, that what we receive is the truth and that we put it as a, as it says in Proverbs, all the by wisdom is in house building. I think it says by understanding are the chambers filled with all manner of precious treasures.
So we wanna have things in the right place and be able to to hold and to access, so to speak, these precious old things that we enjoy. I read in the Old Testament about the promises that God's earthly people. I rejoice at that. It'll be a wonderful thing to see the Lord as Joseph revealed himself to his brethren. The Lord is gonna reveal himself in that manner to his father, and it's gonna be so touching. We don't wanna.
Throw that out and assume that Steven has just read to us that that has been subsumed somehow in Christianity. It's a separate thing. And of course the precious things that we have, especially in Paul's epistles and also in John, are specific and unique to us. So we're to be like these, the householder that has his treasure things new and old.
00:35:07
Doctrine is important, isn't it?
Correct teaching. And that's what we get in these words that follow here.
Uh, it talks about two men, Hymenaeus and Phylidus, concerning the truth of air saying that the resurrection is passed already and overthrow the faith of some bad teaching. There's a lot of bad teaching that goes on and it's important to have correct teaching and that's why I believe that.
House of God is the pillar and ground of the truth according to God's thoughts. It's where the truth is upheld and maintained. I can make mistake in ministering the Word here.
But there's other people here with their Bibles open on their laps. They're listening. I hope you're measuring it by the word of God, the measuring stick. If I make a mistake, I hope somebody is going to say, brother, let's look at this verse and make it clear what the true meaning is. We can all be mistaken. That's why it says let the prophet speak two or three and let the others judge.
You don't sit there sleeping.
You sit there listening.
And measuring what's said, that's what it means to judge. Measure it by the word of God.
And so there is a lot of bad teaching that's going on and sometimes it doesn't get challenged. We need to be clear on teaching.
The IT says in Acts 2 and verse 42 They continued steadfastly in the apostles.
Doctrine and fellowship. Our fellowship is based on the apostles doctrine. That's the groundwork of our fellowship. If you don't have correct teaching, your fellowship is going to go down as well. We need to be careful to have correct teaching. Lord help us in this, brethren.
It was a consequence of this, uh, bad doctrine. And we have that in the first chapter. In our chapter we have the heads that are wrong or turn. And in the first chapter, in verse 15, we have feet that are turned. But it was in consequence, I believe, of what we have in the second chapter. We read in the, uh, fifteenth verse of the first chapter. Because this thou knowest that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me.
And then the two individuals that we just read about in our second chapter are names.
So that wrong doctrine caused some to turn aside.
And when scripture speaks of wrong doctrine, I believe it speaks in a very serious way.
Uh, in Leviticus chapter 13 in connection with the vapor when leprosy was in the head, it says that they should pronounce that one utterly.
On screen, I don't believe that yours is so. It's worse in connection with leprosy, another on another place of the body, but where the head is involved and where human reasoning comes in. Scripture pronounces this utterly on Queen.
These ones mentioned in verse 17, Timeneus and Pallidus.
We read of Himeneus in the first epistle.
And then and another one called Alexander. First Timothy, Chapter one.
We could read from verse 18 This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before only, that thou by them might have swore a good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning fate, has made shipwreck, or have made shipwreck concerning their faith. Of whom is MNAS and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn.
Not the glass screen.
But it doesn't seem that they learn not to blasphemy. We read of Himeneus in the second chapter. Here he was going on spreading wrong teaching and error and something that the Saint needed to be kept from. And Alexander you read up in the 4th chapter.
00:40:13
Alexander verse 14. I believe it might be the same. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his work.
Of whom be thou? Where also for ye hath greatly withstood our words. So there was opposition to the sound teaching of the Word of God to the apostle Paul. And there was other teaching being introduced, and the Lord has mentioned these ones by name. What a serious thing to have our name mentioned in such a connection. So I started with not having a good conscience, being faithful.
In the little things, if we have a tender conscience. You were speaking yesterday, Bob, in Spanish, I believe. A little thing that's there, a little little lie, a little something that bothers your conscience, the Spirit of God brings before you. What are you gonna do with that? We'll confess it to the Lord and be restored to fellowship. But if you don't respond to that, you're just gonna accumulate more and more and more to a point where you're gonna have a shared conscience. I can put a ton of bricks on your hand. You're not gonna feel it.
You could feel a feather the first time just going by or a family landing on your hand, you'll feel it. But if you're insensitive to these signals from the Spirit of God, greater things are gonna come in and they're gonna go by. And here's this one. Him and auntie was in connection with the apostle and made shipwreck concerning the faith and he had become an instrument of the enemy just didn't go go away. You didn't hear about him anymore. He was saying things that were wrong and turning the fate of others away.
I'll wicked.
There's some verses to connect with.
This in First Corinthians 15, where the doctrine of the resurrection came up as well.
1St Corinthians 15 and verse 33.
Be not deceived. Evil communications, corrupt good manners. So bad doctrine has its effect on our conduct. And what was the bad doctrine? It was in connection with the denial of the resurrection. And so he goes on, and he says, awake to righteousness and sin not.
Why would he say that? Well, the end of verse 32 Says if the dead rise, not let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. That bad doctrine led to wicked practice. And you know, I think we come all the way perhaps to the end of Corinthians and we find one of the roots of the difficulty of the moral evil at Corinth, the doctrine of the resurrection overthrown. Doesn't matter what we do then, and it led to immorality.
And wickedness at Corinth. And so in our chapter.
He says with Hymenaeus and Philetus just in verse 16, for they will increase unto more ungodliness. Those bad doctrines are going to increase into more ungodliness. There's a bad practice that goes with that bad doctrine and you know it says they are saying that the resurrection is passed already. How is that? How could they say that? How did they get away with saying that? Have anyone believe it?
I think it's the same way many have gotten away with taking the spiritual, the, uh, literal blessings that are Israels and that belong to them and have spiritualized them and given them to the church and denied them to Israel. They took the literal truth of the resurrection. They didn't say there's no resurrection. They just said, oh, it's passed. They spiritualized it away somehow. Oh, you know, well, we're raised from the dead then.
We have life in Christ and you know, that's all past now. And somehow they, in a careful way, they just talked away the truth of the literal resurrection. And I believe that really they are an example of those who do not rightly divide the word of truth, take the literal interpretation of the word of God and spiritualize it away into something else and thereby deny the truth of God. And it leads to bad practice, increased ungodliness.
What a blessing it is to come to verse 19. The first clause there nevertheless.
The foundation of God's standard shirt. Oh brethren, that's a bulwark to our faith.
The foundation of God, that what which was laid by the apostles and prophets is called in Ephesians 2, the end of the chapter, the foundation of the apostles and prophets. They laid it out here in the New Testament Scriptures for us, and that's never going to be corrupted. It's here sometimes. Think of it in the Old Testament when ruin came into Israel.
00:45:27
And the temple was destroyed. Even the foundations were broken up. And when they came back, they had to relay the foundations. It was a thing that caused great joy when those foundations were laid. But in New Testament times, brethren, there has been a lot of ruin. But there's this difference. The foundation can never be corrupted. The foundation of God standeth sure. And that should be a real bulwark to our faith.
Sometimes I think we have to dig down through the rubble of our own thinking.
But you'll find that the foundation is there and it's sure it can never be moved. And so we can get back to what is foundational. Very important to understand where we stand in Scripture, especially as relates to the Church of God. We need to understand the apostles doctrine, Brethren, that is important to you young people to get to understand the form of the Church of God.
Go back to the Old Testament and we get beautiful pictures of things in the news, but understand the foundation that is very important. It stands sure having this seal and there's two parts to the seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his. That's the first part. So as we come to what is called in verse 20, a great house.
We know that this foundation has this seal on it. The Lord. First of all, the Lord knows them that are his. And as we come to this great house, there are times when we cannot distinguish and say this one is the Lord, this one isn't. No, we have to leave that in the Lord's hands. The Lord knows.
But there is the other side of the seal, which says, And this is our responsibility, let everyone that nameth the name of Christ. The translation says, the name of the Lord depart from iniquity if you name that name.
You are responsible, whether true or not true. You are responsible to not connect that name with iniquity in whatever form it takes. Moral, doctrinal, ecclesiastical. Don't connect.
That name with iniquity.
So there's those two sides to the seal that we have in verse 20 read.
Verse 19 I'm sorry, connection with that thought of iniquity brother. I was wondering if uh.
In Matthew Chapter 7.
Matthew Chapter 7, verse 21.
And everyone that said unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
This is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the will of the Father. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you depart from me, ye that were iniquity. I just I'm not. I'm asking this as a question, but would would the Lord be telling us here that association with such activity?
That was done here in his name, but wasn't commanded by him. Is actually being a work of iniquity.
I work in big inequity. He he charges them he that work in equity.
Is he telling us that what they were doing was actually iniquity, though He would answer that by passing out the devil or whatever, that the workers themselves were working in equity because they weren't safe.
That's what we have in this chapter. Now in these verses, uh, let's get on to it rather, because it's important instruction.
In the First Timothy we had read to us in the last meeting that the Church of the living God is the House of God.
00:50:09
That's God's thoughts about it in First Timothy 3, the way it should be. But here it's not the House of God. It's a great house. It's overextended the foundation. There's a lot that names the name of the Lord that does not have any foundation under it.
The Mormon religion speaks about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in the great house. But if you know anything about that religion, it is not on the foundation at all.
They're not on that foundation.
So it's a serious thing. And so you have here in this great house vessels of gold and silver, vessels of wood and of earth, all kinds of vessels. We are vessels. Every one of us is a vessel.
And then it adds verse 20 at the end, some to honor and some to dishonor.
Which are the ones to honor? Which are the ones to dishonor?
Naturally speaking, you say, well, it must be the gold and silver to honor.
And the wood on earth are to dishonor.
But we need to let Scripture dictate that question. And verse 21 tells us what is a vessel to honor. If Amen therefore purged himself from these, notice it's individual. You are responsible for your vessel. I am responsible for my vessel. We're living in a great house.
This is christen them what we say christen them. Brethren, it's important to understand it's where the name of the name, the name of the Lord is professed, whether it's real or not real.
But if a man therefore purged himself from these.
He shall be a vessel unto honor sanctified, and meet for the masters use.
And prepared unto every good work.
Need to purge ourselves from those things that are connected with iniquity, whether they are vessels or whether they are bad doctrines. They need to be. We need to be purged from them so that when the Lord comes into this house, he's still operating in this great house. The Lord is still saving souls and he comes in and he wants to use a vessel and blessing.
Am I gonna be ready?
Uh, vessel ready for his use?
These are things that we need to be exercised about, and I think when it says here a vessel unto honor sanctified and meet for the masters use prepared unto every good work.
Brethren, we can be encouraged, even though I cannot go into many sectors.
Of religious Christendom, because my conscience will not allow it. Still, if I will simply obey this scripture, purge myself from iniquity, I can be a vessel prepared unto every good work.
You need a wider sphere than that. I don't think you do, and I think if you do that you can be used by the Lord in a mighty way.
Rather remarkable, brother Bob, that you've been bringing up here. This is a great house. The language that he uses in connection with it, uh, in the 16th version and in the 21St, I'm sorry, the 19th verse departs. In the 21St verse, purge. In the 22nd verse, flee, and the 23rd verse, avoid. Very important words, aren't they in connection with the great house? Because there you have that.
Mixture that God hates. He wants his people to be separate, doesn't he? From that which is.
Contrary to his name. So he uses these words in connection with the Great House.
An answer to Brother Michelle's question just quickly Iniquity here is connected with the mystery of iniquity and it's man's will thrust into the things of God in the house.
Uh.
OK.
And I promise.
You all.
Whatever. You can't build anything in the world.
Remember ourselves, our loving God and our Father. We think of the mind about them that we sometimes sing walking and waiting. May we be as those that wait their Lord to see. We're reminded to in thy word to occupy the loudest time. So we would just think of that which has been for us this afternoon and throughout the past two days. We just pray that we.
01:00:03
May meditate upon what we have heard and may we uh.
Consider all of what thou hast done for us, and by law, we just thank Thee for having Thy word open to us. And we thank you for the privilege of being able us to come together, uh, without fear of persecution. And, uh, we know not how much longer that you know, allow us to meet in this way.
But we just thank you for these occasions.
And again, we would just thank you for my wondrous while giving thanks, Lord Jesus, and I'm alone worthy of precious name, Amen.
Gospel 2
Gospel—Bob Thonney
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#25.
Life.
And bring you along their way. You may find your whole thing dead.
And I can cry and be jealous to land in the sun.
Very good flowers soon repairs and you're surprised so bad all the three times. How long did you stay away?
Anytime.
All right, I was up here still to come together to build an alcoholic.
Rest you're still your boss next door.
Day and time.
When you're crying, you jump to the back. 3:00 AM sun.
It will be an honor associated with our lives in time.
Oh, I pray without so far and I'm very full of mine being proud and you can't find the trouble in the heart.
Beginning Sun.
OK, I'm so old together and you're right, it's just to do everything.
So I'm 45, and it's a lot of money to come back to your daughter's daughter, that you're from Ohio, and then for somebody and so on. Good evening and time. Come on, come on, come from God's existence to life.
Umm, no, that ain't working.
Next time we're having tonight.
In time.
095 fellows in gathering and you're crying out to the language.
And Sun.
It is true that life is very fragile.
We got attacked on 9/11, 2001, 3000 people into eternity in a matter of hours.
But.
Even though.
00:05:00
US reacted seriously. Seems like we've kind of forgotten about it. Other parts of the world. I don't think we grasp the awfulness.
Of that tsunami swept, I think it was 280,000 people into eternity.
In short order.
More recently in China.
I think the last number is 50, some thousand people.
Our confirmed dead, another 30,000 missing, presumed dead as well. We don't grasp those numbers.
Incredible millions homeless. God is speaking to this world.
Sentence ahead. That is serious.
Life is fragile and if you should pass to the other side tonight.
Where are you going?
These are questions we wanna face tonight in this gospel meeting. Before I pray, I'd like to read just two verses. Don't have to turn to it. Listen.
The Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword.
Piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and is the end of the joints in marrow, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are.
Are naked and opened.
And to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Let's pray.
Gracious God our Father, we're thankful for an opportunity to be here and to open Thy precious Word and to speak about it.
We don't know the condition of those that are here present. We do pray that if there is somebody that still hasn't gotten it straight.
That He has to do with thee, that tonight he might grasp the seriousness of the issue and come to faith in the Lord Jesus. Father, we ask in his most blessed name, Amen.
One more hymn we're going to sing #23 on your hymn sheet.
Behold, behold the Lamb of crowd on the cross for us. He shed his precious blood on the cross. Oh, here the overwhelming cry. Eli Lama Sabachthani, draw near and see the Savior die on the cross #23.
May hold me.
Oh.
00:10:18
That's why it was pride and Sacrifice run by every 2005 globally, and you're very, very pleasant on it.
110 + 2012 o'clock.
Bye.
All right.
Umm, right on.
I'm.
I'm gonna need to bring all the ears and I want to stay at home.
Uh, uh.
I want to turn to Luke's Gospel chapter 23 this evening to read some verses.
About the Lord Jesus Christ.
And his death on the cross.
Luke chapter 23, beginning with verse one. And the whole multitude of them arose and led him unto Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a king. Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the king of the Jews?
And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it.
Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man. And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place. Pilate heard of Galilee. He asked whether the men were a Galilean. And as soon as He knew that He belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who Himself also was at Jerusalem at that time.
And when Herod said Jesus, he was exceeding glad, for he was desirous to see him of a long season.
Because that he had heard many things of him, and he hoped to have seen some miracles done by him.
Any question with him in many words, but he answered him nothing.
And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him.
And Herod with his men of war sediment not and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate. Same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together, for before they were at enmity between themselves, Pilot, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, said unto them, Ye brought this man unto me as one that perverteth the people. And behold, I having examined him before you.
Have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him. No, nor yet Herod, for I sent him to you. Sent you to him, Lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore.
Chastise him and release him, for of necessity must release 1 unto them at the feast.
And they cried out all at once, saying away with this man, and released unto us Barabbas.
Who, for a certain sedition made in this city, and for murder, was cast into prison.
00:15:03
Pilot therefore willing to release Jesus, spake again to them. And they but they cried, saying, Crucify Him, crucify Him. And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath He done? I have found no cause of death in him. I will therefore chastise Him, and let Him go. And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that He might be crucified.
And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed.
And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required. And He released unto them Him for that, that for sedition and murder was cast into prison whom they had desired, but He delivered.
Jesus to their will, and they led him away. Let's go down to verse.
32 And there were also two other malefactors LED with him to be put to death, and when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then said, Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
And they parted his raiment in cast lots, and the people stood beholding, And the rulers also with him derided him, saying He saved others, let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.
Soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar, saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.
And they, and uh, and the superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin, and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. One of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. The other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seen thou art in the same condemnation? We indeed justly before we receive the due reward of our deeds.
But this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord.
Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom, Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. And it was about the 6th hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the 9th hour, and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus had cried, with a loud voice he said, Father.
Into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave up. The ghost Now in the centurion saw what was done. He glorified God, saying certainly.
This was a righteous man. Here we have the story of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Son of God, the God who made the universe, who spoke it into existence.
We've been talking a little bit in recent times about the extent of the universe. It's incredible to consider it.
I'm fascinated out there last night under the stars to look up and see the stars.
I love to look at it on the High Plains of Bolivia, you're at 12,000 feet altitude and you're away from the cities. You can not only see the Milky Way.
Galaxy, but you can actually see other galaxies with the naked eye up at that altitude. And here is the person that we're talking about who spoke it all into existence, the power.
That was in his word. We cannot understand it properly. But those galaxies the Milky Way Galaxy I understand contains.
Approximately 200,000 million stars.
Only one Galaxy and they calculate that in the universe there are at least another 100 MI billion galaxies.
The person that spoke it all into existence is the person that came into the world. And why did he come into the world? He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
00:20:18
Tremendous to think about it when the Lord Jesus came into the world, loved to think about it. Where did He come? He came to a little town in Israel called Bethlehem.
And did anybody there wait, wait for him? Did they welcome him when he came into this world? You know, and.
The Prince of Wales has a son when he had his sons, while he had all the best medical attention possible in the United Kingdom to take care of the possible errors that were to be born.
But here we're talking about the God of the universe. Was there anybody that was waiting for him?
Absolutely nobody. Where were those religious people that had the Bible in their hands that could answer the questions? Where were they? They had no clue that he had come.
And when he was born, the place where his mother was relegated to was a stable out there with the animals. There he was born, and his mother wrapped him up and laid him in a Manger where the cows and sheep eat.
What a reception. You know, the angels had never seen their creator before Jesus came into this world. Jesus is the Son of God and he is the Son of man, but the angels had never seen him before he became Incarnate. And for the first time, the angels descended to look at their creator. And they must have wondered, They must have said, these people, where are they? Don't they realize what's happening, this tremendous event?
That the creator of the universe has come into his own creation. And they wander out into the field and they find some shepherds there. And the shepherds come. They're the first ones to see.
This tremendous.
Sight the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh what a story. God's eternal Son, that one who had existed from all eternity. He never had any beginning because he is God's eternal Son. But there was a moment in time he came into this world. He was born of a virgin, of a woman who had no relations with man.
Until after he was born. That's important because he was God's son. He was not Joseph's son. Joseph would be what we would call his stepfather.
The Lord Jesus, I'd like to put it this way, is the Son of God, and as God the Lord Jesus had a father, but he had no mother. But the Lord Jesus, as man, had a mother.
But no father. He is unique in human history. No other person has ever been born in the same way. We all have a father and a mother. The Lord Jesus is unique because he is the Son of God.
You know, I'm gonna stop here a minute just to say that every single human being that has ever lived on this planet has to come face to face with Jesus sooner or later. You cannot escape it. You may deny it. You may say I don't buy that stuff.
But it is the truth. You're going to come face to face with Jesus. Think about it. Consider it because it's gonna happen sooner or later. You can accept Jesus. You can get to know Him now in this time frame that we live in, because there's salvation. But if you choose to reject him, you're still going to meet up with Jesus. You cannot avoid him. You must.
Meet him face to face. He wants to save you, He loves you.
00:25:01
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.
But have everlasting life.
He gave his only son. There was no other way for you and I to be saved. I have two sons in my family. I'd find it a tough thing to have to give up one of my sons to die for an enemy. But God only had one son, and He gave him because there was no other way you could be saved from the consequences.
Of your sin. Sin has to be dealt with. God takes sin seriously.
It says in the scriptures all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
It also says the wages of sin is death. It also says after death the judgment.
These are realities of the world that we live in. Our culture likes to try to smooth it all over. When a person dies, they're put in a beautiful casket, They say nice, beautiful words over them, and they hope everything is all right. And they bury him in a beautiful cemetery.
The reality on the other side is far different. You need to come to grips with the issue of your sins. I know many, most in this room have been raised, perhaps in Christian homes, have been taught, but it scares me when I think of those who are perhaps sitting there listening like you've listened to so many other times.
And you still are not ready to meet the Lord Jesus Christ. You're going to meet him. You're going to see Him. You're going to meet him as your Savior or as your judge. It is impossible to avoid Jesus.
Think about it. It's serious. JAD takes sin serious. And when the Lord Jesus came here, we've read here in this chapter the story of how he was treated falsely accused.
His disciples first took him and fled, and then he was taken before the religious tribunal and condemned, and then taken before the political tribunal. Pilot was a Roman representative of the Roman Empire and.
He wanted to release Jesus, but they insisted that he be given the worst death possible and after he realized that he couldn't prevail against those Jewish people.
He accepted that he be crucified. The most awful, gruesome death. We sit in nice chairs here and we're comfortable. Sometimes we doze off to sleep. We're so comfortable. We don't realize how awful, how gruesome crucifixion was. Romans were known for their cruelty. They specialized in cruelty.
They took him, the glorious Son of God.
They crowned his head with thorns. They took sticks and whacked him over the head. Can you imagine how it must have opened up his scalp?
Pilot commanded that he be scourged and I don't know if you have ever heard anything about the scourging that the Romans gave was called the Living death. The points of the whip sometimes had sharp pieces of metal and glass and sometimes even hooks to rip open the back of the person that was scourged, the Lord Jesus prophetically says.
They made.
Long their furrows on my back.
Then they took him outside the city of Jerusalem, and they nailed him by the hands and feet to a cross and hung him up between heaven and earth for everybody to pass in front of him. Who is this that's hanging there? It's God's eternal Son.
Continues to be even Marvel above all other stories. That moves my heart when I think that God so loved the world. He loved this guilty Sinner that's standing here so much that he gave his only Son on that cross to die.
00:30:21
That some of his physical sufferings that he suffered there, he suffered in other ways to.
Says in the book of Psalms, Reproach has broken my heart and I'm full of heaviness and I look for some to take pity. And there was none and for comforters that I found none.
You know, they said, he said he's the Son of God. If he's the Son of God, let God deliver him.
Did God come to deliver him?
Why? Why didn't God deliver him? Didn't he love his son?
Yes, he did love his son, but you know what else? He loved you and there was no other way that you could be saved but somebody pay the price for your sins.
That was the reproach that broke his heart. You know, sometimes physical suffering is easy. You think of a broken heart. Some of you young, young people perhaps have had a broken heart. It's tough. It is tough.
Lord Jesus reproach broke his heart, but I wanna get to the most awful of the sufferings that the Lord Jesus went through on that cross. You know, Jesus was crucified approximately the way we calculate time at 9:00 in the morning and he died at 3:00 in the afternoon. That's six hours. He was hanging there in life the first three hours.
Men did all they possibly could to make him miserable, but at 12 noon, when the sun was high in the sky, everything got dark and nobody could see what was happening to Jesus on that cross. You know, I'm a guilty Sinner before God, and God cannot allow sin in his presence, absolutely cannot happen.
Not even one little white lie will ever enter God's heavenly home. And if you're gonna get there, you better figure out how to take care of that little white lie and any others you might have too. Because God takes sin seriously.
But you know what happened in those three hours when Jesus was hanging there in the dark. The Bible tells us in the prophet Isaiah it says this. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. I am the guilty Sinner and God.
So that he could forgive this guilty Sinner took my sins and laid them on Jesus. God is holy, and if he's going to forgive me, somebody has to pay the price for those sins that he's going to forgive. There's no other way about it.
And when Jesus was hanging there on that cross, all my sins were laid on Jesus.
And then God stepped back and took the rod of his judgment, and for three.
Solid hours. The fury of his wrath fell on the head of the Lord Jesus Christ. He went down to the bottom of the ocean of God's judgment. In those three hours. He paid the price for sin in full. At the end of those three hours, it tells us in John's gospel, he cried. It is finished.
The price was paid in full. Jesus finished the work of redemption.
Because of what He did there on that cross, now God can extend a full and free pardon to whosoever believeth in Him. Not necessary to do anything more. Quit doing anything more.
Stop.
00:35:02
No, that Jesus paid that price in full all the other sacrifices, because in the Old Testament times it tells us that there were many animals that were sacrificed.
On the altars of Israel.
All those animals were consumed by the flames.
But in this case.
The sacrifice consumed the flames.
There is therefore now no condemnation, no judgment to them who are in Christ Jesus. Where do you stand tonight?
In this story we've read, it tells us that there was on either side of Jesus.
A malefactor, a thief, somebody that society had decided we gotta get rid of. These guys. They were guilty of crimes to the extent that they were going to be put to death.
And one of them starts mocking Jesus and saying, if thou art the Son of God.
Come down from the cross, deliver us. Why did he want to come down? He wanted just keep on sinning.
There was no repentance with that thief.
And the other thief on the other side rebuked him and says, don't you know?
We're in the same condemnation, don't you know? We're going to die here shortly and we're going to have to go to give account to God for what we've done.
Says this man, referring to Jesus in the midst he says has done nothing amiss.
And then he turns to Jesus, and he said, Lord, Remember Me when you come in your Kingdom.
And the Lord Jesus immediately responded and said, Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.
Well, there was three that had to die that day. Who was the first to die?
It was the one who was in the middle.
And he paid for the price of the sins of this thief that had come in simple faith to him.
And after Jesus died and paid that price of redemption in full.
A soldier came and opened his side, and out poured blood and water.
It's the only thing that can cleanse a guilty soul of their sins.
The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.
There's Jesus hanging dead.
According to John's gospel, a soldier was dispatched to make sure those three that were crucified were dead. And he comes up to the thief on one side and he takes his spear, I suppose it was, and gives him a whack across the legs and breaks his legs. They were crucified. They could push up on their legs and get their breaths of air.
But when their legs were broken, there is no longer any way to sustain themselves. And he choked off and died.
Went into a lost eternity into hell fire where he's burning right now.
Soldier came over to the other side and whacked the legs of the other malefactor and he dies.
Where does he go?
He goes directly to be with Jesus in paradise. What makes the difference? Does God allow thieves in heaven?
Is that possible?
Yes, it's possible if there's repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there was that with that thief. And so as soon as he died, he went to be with Jesus. How is that possible? It's because Jesus, who had no sin, paid in full for his sins.
00:40:07
Now getting down to the end of this meeting, and I want to speak very personally. It scares me when I think sometimes how people sit unconscious of their danger. I don't know if you've heard the gospel before, but if you haven't, tonight is an opportunity to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Judgment is coming. This world is going.
Down. I don't know if this country realizes we're going down.
Open Mtg. 6