Mt. Tabor Conference: 2010
Table of Contents
1 John 1:1-4
Reading
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The Wilderness.
Our dwelling is a camp.
With fellow pilgrims meeting as Through the Waste we Roam 231.
Where?
That Which Cannot Be Shaken
Address—Bob Thonney
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Let's sing number 99.
On Christ salvation rests secure. The Rock of Ages must endure #99.
On Christ salvation.
Grazing your love into the world, You must serve your Lord.
Nor can thy face be no more very strong.
Who is grace upon?
Living.
No.
God in your grave.
Are one day shall we let's go. I feel like Christ.
And rise.
The.
Grace of God I was.
I want your heartbreak.
I love you.
The.
Heart of God.
He's gone.
Let's pray, Father.
We're thankful for our Lord Jesus, that living stone.
And for the fact that.
None who trust in him will ever be put to shame.
We live in a world where there's a lot of uncertainty, Father.
And we do pray as we open Thy word this afternoon, that we would be strengthened.
In those things that will last for all eternity, pray for blessing Father.
As we open thy word, grant that thy spirit may have liberty.
In speaking.
Listening to thy word, we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
Let's turn to.
Hebrews chapter 12 to begin with.
And we'll read from verse 25.
See that ye refuse, not him that speaketh.
For if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him?
That speaketh from heaven.
Whose voice then shook the earth.
But now he hath promised, saying yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
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And this word yet once more signify, it signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace.
Whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.
How many here have been in an earthquake? Please raise your hands.
Oh, not that many. I thought there would be more.
Interesting.
You know, we've been having quite a few of them in recent times.
Went down in Haiti was pretty devastating.
Probably because there were no building codes in that country and so.
230,000 people lost their lives I think it was.
And millions are without homes.
Permanent homes, anyhow.
Was interesting to me because we have been in Chile quite a few times, to hear that the quake that struck Chile a little bit later was 500 times more powerful than the quake in 80.
Hard to believe it was 8.8 on the Richter scale. Shelley evidently holds the record for intensity of shakes. They had one.
A few years ago that was 9.5 on the Richter scale.
We live in a shakable world and God has said here he's going to shake not only the earth but heavens also. I don't think we grasp properly in the world that we live in how unsteady everything we count on is.
Not even the ground you walk on is steady any longer. I was down in El Salvador several years ago with some brethren. We've gone down to help some of the brethren rebuild their houses.
After they had an earthquake and I was happened to be in the morning in a hardware store.
And was going to buy some stuff. I had it in my hands and all of a sudden.
The floor of that hardware store, just like it was waves, and I rushed out into the street without even paying for my stuff. I guess they realized that I had a reason to do that, but it was pretty scary, I must say, to watch the walls of those buildings wobble. Thankfully nothing fell there, but all the traffic stopped.
The women started wailing terribly, and probably with reason, because they've had some pretty devastating shakes in that country.
What impresses me?
Young people and older ones too, is that we live in a world that is not to be trusted. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, and we are beginning to see the beginnings of that shaking today. God is giving warnings in those earthquakes of how terrible it can be, and I really believe it's going to be far worse.
And what's ahead for this world, this present civilization will not continue. We look at it and we say, Oh well, the economy will get a little better and we'll come out of it just like we have other times.
That's not the picture that the Word of God paints for us if we read the Word of God.
We are coming down to the end of this present civilization.
And everything that can be shaken will be shaken. But what is encouraging here is that there are things that can not be shaken.
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To me that is a tremendous consolation for my soul and I want to encourage you young people and older ones to to lay hold on those things which cannot be shaken here. It speaks of a.
Kingdom which cannot be moved. Isn't that wonderful?
There are things that cannot be moved. There are things in which if you put your trust, you will not be put to shame. I must say that sometimes I thought my trust was in the Lord only, and I have been shaken and I stopped and stepped back and I say, hey, what happened? I thought I was trusting the Lord. But I do believe the Lord showed me that there was a lot of trust in myself and therefore.
He allowed that to be shaken so that I might learn to trust.
In those things that cannot be shaken, let's go to.
Psalm 62, I believe it is.
Psalm 62 and verse 2. There's two verses in this chapter I want to read.
They are just about exactly the same. There is only one additional word in one of the verses. You can notice that word as we read these two verses. First verse is verse 2.
He, referring to God only, is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be greatly moved.
Now verse 6.
He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be moved.
You probably see the word that's added in the verse 2.
The psalmist says I shall not be greatly moved. It seems like there was still a little bit of reason that he was not fully confident. But further on in the Psalm he says simply, I shall not be moved. Isn't it wonderful that that our confidence is in God? We will not be moved.
But you know, faith is an interesting thing. It is an intensely individual thing. How does faith come?
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. That's why in this morning's meeting we put so much emphasis on the matter of hearing.
Do you listen when God speaks? That's the way that the Word of God can get down into your soul and produce that faith that is of God. That is so important. Listen to God. As I said before, there have been areas of my life when I feel in those areas that I've been shaken, and I think the Lord has allowed me to be shaken.
Because I was not in those areas fully leaning on the Lord, there was a lot of self-confidence. You know, it's the current of our culture is humanism. Trusting in yourself, you've got it in you, you can do it.
That is humanism and I sometimes say the Christian should be a confident person, but not self confident, confident in the Lord. How important that is in the world we live in. You know why I'm making an emphasis on this? It's because.
Just this month.
On a trip I stopped to see.
A man, I think I could say I still consider him to be a friend.
That.
For 30 years.
Was in the meeting.
And spoke the word.
He seemed to have a real grasp of the truth of Scripture.
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And as I sat down, I asked him.
Where are you in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ? Know what his answer was? Says Bob.
God is not my life.
This totally blew me away.
God is not in my life.
Come on, what you talking about?
And I fear that there are others perhaps here they're going along with all that you've been taught. And I think that's proper way to do. But what I want to challenge you to do is that faith lays hold in an individual way on what God says.
Remember, I was raised in the meeting out in Walla Walla, WA.
18 years old, I came to Chicago to work at Bible Truth Publishers.
After.
Six years of working at Bible Truth Publishers. I got called to do my service for the country. That time the draft was in place, so I had to do service and I did alternate service in a hospital in downtown Chicago.
And in that place I found others that.
We're professing Christians and they asked me about my beliefs.
And when I told them of my beliefs, they laughed square in my face.
And I felt myself shaking.
And like I say, I think the Lord allowed it so that I myself, if I would have been asked, what do brethren teach, what do brethren think about such and such, I would have been able to say all the right answers. But it was not my conviction. And God allowed those challenges so that I would go and say, I believe God because He says it here and I rest on the word of God.
Sometimes my understanding of scripture is faulty and so I need to be challenged.
And if I pretend to base my faith on the precious, living, eternal Word of God, I should be willing to be challenged by the full light of Scripture and not get uneasy about it.
Young person and older ones too.
Do you believe God?
Or are you here because?
Your parents brought you or your friends are here and you enjoy being with them. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.
But if that's the only thing that means that you're here, I want to challenge you to go back to the Scripture. Seriously, get back to it, because we're living in days when everything is going to be shaken. And if you don't have it from this book, you're going to be shaken.
I've heard about.
Not counting the man I was telling you about, I am not sure where he stands with the Lord. I've heard about four other young people who?
Used to be so-called in the meeting.
That now professed to be atheists. They deny the very existence of God.
And that's why I say we need to be real with God. Is what we are saying cleverly devised fables like Peter says in his epistle? Or are we speaking? What is the truth of the Word of God?
I must say I've been challenged and I've come to the conclusion that they are not cleverly devised fables. The person of the Lord Jesus Christ, he was an historical man that was born into this world. He lived, he died, he rose again and he ascended into heaven.
Of his resurrection Sam was talking this morning about is it Greenlee?
Simon Greeley, I remember Mr. Bowman used to talk about the book, and since he was a lawyer, he used to use that book in their arguments. It's a book of facts that lawyers argue from and said one of the best established facts in human history is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, even if you want to ignore the testimony of Scripture about it.
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You still have to face human testimony and God is going to hold you responsible because.
Of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Oh, it's wonderful to realize that we have a foundation that cannot be moved. But I want you, dear young people, to be established in that foundation that cannot be moved. Not be going on. Just what dad and mom says. Thank God for dads and moms that teach their children.
Truth from the Word of God.
But you need to believe God yourself and I'd like to go to.
Matthew's Gospel chapter 16 to speak about.
The only place in the four gospels that the church is mentioned.
Actually, it's two chapters of Matthew's Gospel that we're going to go to the first chapter.
Chapter 16.
And speak about this, the importance of being, of knowing where you stand before God.
Matthew 16 and verse 13 When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, him? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, and others Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.
And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Here we have the first mention of the Church in the Scriptures and.
It's interesting that the other three gospels don't mention it.
Why Matthew?
I liked what an older brother said one time, he said. Matthew is the introduction to the New Testament.
And the main theme of the New Testament is the church, so you get it in the very first gospel.
Gospel of Matthew. But it's interesting the way the Lord poses the question to his disciples. He says, whom suit say whom do men say that I, the Son of Man am? Notice that title Son of Man. That's important.
And there were a number of different opinions. Some said John the Baptist, others said Elias.
Or Jeremiah's, or one of the prophets. You know, there's a lot of human opinion.
About the Word of God.
And if you're going to be occupied with what one denomination or another denomination thinks about this particular thing, let me tell you, young people, you're going to get all confused.
Try to avoid that if you can.
Come back to the Scriptures. This is the reference point. This is the truth of God.
He says in John 1717, Sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is truth. Here we have truth in its absolute form.
What do we mean by absolute? It's that bit beyond which there is no appeal.
It's the final word.
Isn't that wonderful to know, dear young people, truth?
But human opinions may be interesting.
To talk about and to debate.
But then the Lord turns to his disciples and says to them, whom say he that I am. And notice Peter, who is always out front, is the one that responds, and he gives a beautiful confession as to who Jesus is.
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Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
In verse 13, the Lord Jesus spoke of Himself as the Son of Man.
But here we have the Son of the living God and those verses. We have the truth as to His person. How important to be clear as to who Jesus is. So much false teaching as to who He is. Make sure you understand what it means when He says Son of Man and Son of God. Son of Man is his humanity, Son of God is his deity.
He is both. He is Son of God, He is Son of man.
Like the way Chuck Hendricks used to put it, and it's been a help to me, he said as man.
He had a mother, but no father.
As God, he had a father, but no mother.
He is completely unique in human history. There is no one like him.
He is the touchstone of all.
How important to be clear as to who Jesus is. You know why it's important?
Notice verse.
18.
I say unto. I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and Peter means a little stone.
And upon this rock, that word, it's related to the word Peter, but it is a different word. It means a huge, immense stone, so that when he says upon this rock I will build my church, he's speaking about his person. So anybody that attacks the truth of the person of Christ is attacking the very foundation.
Of the Church of the Truth of God.
It all rests on him, and that's why it's so important to be clear as to who Jesus is.
Are you clear on that? Can you show verses from the Bible who he is? Son of man, Son of God, son of the living God. I love that.
Anyhow, it's interesting the way he puts it here. Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. He doesn't say I have been building it because he hadn't started building it yet this time. You know, some people say that the church existed in the Old Testament.
Here's a verse that kind of shows you pretty clearly that he hadn't started building it at this time. He was going to build it, and it started to be built on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down from heaven to form what is the Church, the body of Christ.
And notice I love this part. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
I love that that's the security of the person that has come to rest on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hell's gates cannot shake it. Oh, it's wonderful.
To listen to the testimonies of people around the world, people that are challenged as to their faith, people that are persecuted and how steady they are because they are resting on this rock.
You know, Peter was the one this was spoken to, and I'd like to go over to Peter's epistle to show that he really refers to this incident.
First Peter, chapter 2.
And verse.
For it says to whom coming?
Who's that whom you look back in verse three? It's the Lord is gracious.
To whom coming as unto a living stone.
Disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, wonderful, this building, this spiritual house. Because when we talk about the church in the Scriptures, it never refers to any building made out of brick or stone or wood or whatever you want to make it out of.
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The church is.
A spiritual house built of living stones. You know, stones, naturally speaking, are dead.
You can kick a stone and it'll move across the floor, but it'll just come to a stop again because it's dead. That's the way we were until we came to him. And when do we become part of the church?
Verse four says, To whom coming when you come?
To Jesus in simple faith, He makes you part of his church.
That's how simple it is. It's not an organization that people make. It's God's work. And I must say, I really enjoy as I travel around seeing the different ones he puts in this spiritual house, this building, tremendous to get to meet a few of them.
And I sometimes wish I could share more of the enjoyment of meeting.
Those different living stones that are put into the building.
You know, not one stone is just like another. They're all different.
Least I'd like to ask Bill you. Bill, you've been around the world a bit. Have you ever met anybody like Sam?
I'm not saying that negatively, Sam.
But everybody's different, isn't it? Isn't that amazing?
When man builds, at least when he builds in the Old Testament, the Tower of Babel, he didn't use stones, he used bricks. You know how you make bricks? You put them in the mold, and they all have to be the same size. They all have to conform to the mold. God doesn't use bricks in his building. He uses stones. And in case you might think you could push.
Stones into brick molds. It's kind of hard work. Don't try it. God uses stones. I've seen him build houses of stones in Bolivia. It's a real work of art, really and generally.
People that are building with stones, a stone Mason will have a hammer and a chisel. And sometimes when he's trying to fit a stone into the wall, he will stop and use the hammer and chisel to take off a few edges that are not suitable to leave there. And sometimes the Lord in his building has to do that to me and maybe to you too.
Take off some hedges that really are causing distress.
Let's not get upset at other brethren if they have some things.
They need us to attend to let's.
Try to understand that it is God building his building.
Oh, it's it's a wonderful way that God builds. I just wanted to go back to verse four again and speaking about this stone, the Lord Jesus upon which the church is built.
You know, like we said in the Old Testament.
When they built the Tower of Babel.
In Genesis Chapter 11.
You remember what was the purpose of the Tower of Babel?
Sometimes people say is to get to heaven. That's not the purpose of it.
It was to reach to heaven, it says, but the purpose of it was to make.
Us a name.
United States Sears. The company Sears had a name for themselves.
They built the Sears Tower, the tallest building in the United States. Understand it's different name now.
I don't remember what it is.
But Sears got a name for themselves. And, you know, we live in a religious world where people like to have names for themselves. The best preacher, the most humble person, they like names for themselves. But in the measure that you're striving for names for yourself, you know what's going to happen, Going to happen just like it did back there in Genesis 11, going to result in confusion. Don't go that way.
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And that's why when Jesus came, he was this living stone that God had provided the Jewish leaders who were builders in that building.
Were there to make a name for themselves, and when they saw Jesus and he presented himself to them.
They said we don't have any place in this building for this stone.
And they cast him out.
He didn't come for it to make a name for himself. He came to glorify his father's name.
And so God takes that stone that the builders rejected, and he makes it the foundation of a completely new building, which is the church.
And oh, it's a precious thing.
To see you, dear young people.
There's faith in the Lord Jesus. If you have come in simple faith to Him, you are part of that building. It's something that He is building and when he builds, he does it right. When man builds, and we have that in First Corinthians 3, there's a lot of false material that gets in. I'm afraid I've done some of that. But when he builds and hear it in Matthew chapter 16, it says I will build.
When he builds, it's all true material.
You know why I say this? There's a lot of confusion in Christendom today, one of the expressions I hear a lot on the mission field in different parts of Latin America.
Has that, they say. We've come to plant churches.
We were in the Amazon basin of Bolivia for about 10 years and then we moved to Cochabamba, Bolivia.
And in Cochabamba, it's a nice climate up about 8000 feet into the Andes and beautiful climate. There's a lot of missionaries there.
And we were one of them.
Anyhow, they asked us what did you come here for? You must have come here to plant churches.
I said.
I hope not.
There's way too many different groups as it is if I do anything I want to gather.
Simply recognizing the church that Christ began to build on the day of Pentecost and continues to build to this day. I've not come to plant more churches.
No, just come to recognize that and meet in that simplicity how important those points are, he says. I will build my church.
So many people say my church. It's not our church, brethren.
That's his assembly, it's his church. Thank God I came to Jesus, I'm part of it. And if you've come in simple faith to the Lord Jesus, you are part of it too. But it's not our church, it's his. Oh, how important these points are. Let's go on here just a little bit. So the living stone in verse 4 refers to the Lord Jesus.
Disallowed indeed, of men rejected by those religious leaders of his day.
But chosen of God and precious ye also now in the same character as lively means living stones, stones that have life are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. So in this house it's for priestly service.
Now you know, you sisters, that you are priests just as much as the brothers. I hope you know that.
Don't you?
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Because you are.
Sisters sing in meetings just like the brothers do, and that's a priestly activity, elevating praises to God.
Yes, the sisters don't take the lead. You don't hear their voice in prayer.
It's the brothers, but the sisters are praying in the prayer meeting when they listen to what the brothers saying in his prayer.
Brother should say in his priestly activity.
Our Father.
He doesn't say my Father, he says we ask or we praise thee, speaks in the plural because he's representing the whole group. And so and he says Amen and we all say Amen. It's the whole assembly that prays. Sometimes people have the idea that assembly prayer is everyone out there doing their own individual little prayer. That's not assembly prayer, that's individual prayer.
Assembly prayer is 1. Voice is heard and all those that are present are represented in that voice. Important those principles are, but that's part of it. And I sometimes am afraid we are losing.
This truth of as to our priesthood, and I want to speak especially to you young brothers.
Don't get.
Uneasy. Want your attention?
You are a priest.
In this spiritual house, and it's not a matter of gift, this question of priesthood when it comes to the prayer meeting or the breaking of bread, meaning when we praise the Lord, it's not a question of gift, it's a question of priesthood. And it makes me uncomfortable to tell you the truth, brethren, when I sit in prayer meetings at conferences and all you do is wait for their brothers up in the front rows to take part.
That's not right.
We're getting away from what Scripture teaches us and we need to be exercised. And it really encourages me sometimes to hear a younger brother thank the Lord. You don't have to be complicated or long. Be simple about it, but do it from your heart.
So we are priests, holy priests in verse five to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Spiritual house spiritual sacrifices.
Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion.
A chief cornerstone elect precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded unto you therefore which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same as made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling in a rock of offense, even to them that stumble at the word, being disobedient, were unto also they were appointed.
So here we have another thought as well that I'd like to finish with. It's not only the foundation upon which the church is built is the chief cornerstone, or I think in the new translation is just simply the cornerstone.
They used to when they were building buildings. They don't do it so much today, I don't think, but they used to take a large stone and put it in the corner, one corner of the building, like say over there, and that was the reference point for the rest of the building, building it. How wide is it going to be? How long is it going to be? How high is it going to be? All was referenced to that stone.
And Jesus is not only the foundation stone, he is the he is the cornerstone from which all measurements should be made. You know, sometimes we measure things. That's how people treat us. They didn't treat me very nice.
Maybe that's right, maybe they didn't. But are you the cornerstone? Are you the reference point?
In this place, that's not the point. You are using a reference point that God does not use, so it's important.
To use the right reference point in connection with this building. I remember an old brother.
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Some time ago this story was told about a problem in a certain place and.
There was a lot of complaints voiced against this particular brother and he was sitting there in one of the chairs and he didn't say anything afterwards.
One other brother said to him, Do you have anything to say about this? He says.
They haven't said anything against the Lord Jesus yet. I don't really have anything to say.
And the problem kind of dissolved from then on.
You know, if we weren't so intent on defending ourselves, so many problems would just vanish. It's because of the humanism of our culture. We think we have rights. How can I have rights? They're in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. And he left. He gave up all his rights so that there could be salvation for us. How can I claim my rights? It's because we've been affected by.
The culture we're passing through, may the Lord help us, brethren, because if we give place to that kind of thinking, we are going to be shaken. And it's scary to see the way we are being shaken.
May the Lord give us the grace to go back to the Scriptures, go back to the person of the Lord Jesus, to have those things clearly in our souls and to make it personal. You young people, you young brothers, you young sisters, get it from this book, make it serious, study the Word of God. I know sometimes we take it up and we read a chapter hurriedly. Come on, give a little time to the Lord.
Little bit more time. Don't just do it hurriedly and then just set it aside and run off.
Give the Lord some time to speak to you. It's so important. If we're not going to be shaken, we need to have our faith firmly grounded in the precious Word of God.
Let's just pray, Father, bless thy word, we ask.
That these dear young people, and older ones too, and myself included, Lord, would be grounded in that which cannot be moved. We thank the Lord for Thy precious word and commit the rest of the afternoon in Thy hands. In the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
1 John 1:5-10
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.
For this moment.
The person of my son with us.
Sorry.
We're about to open my word testimony. They are the ones that give testimony of the meeting.
That may help us to.
Know my life with all of us equal comes the different versions that we're about to read. Well then Italy we may keep that our hearts may be strong, close and Lord Jesus, other than their word, no other things in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen. Amen.
Where should we start, Brother Bob?
5.
First John chapter one. We'll start down with verse 5.
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This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness.
We lie and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light and see us in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in US.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in Him.
They're speaking this morning about fellowship.
With the apostles in verse 3, which is truly fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.
Now in the verse we have started with this afternoon.
We have this message.
Such an tremendously important message.
That's so simple a message. God is light, and if you're going to have fellowship with God, you're going to have to be in the light.
In him is no darkness at all.
Brother John was talking this morning. That John speaks abstractly. That's a word that maybe we don't understand very well, but he speaks characteristically, perhaps as a word that's easier to understand.
God is life. John speaks in black or white, no Shades of Grey.
Either it's this way or that way. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all you find in the first chapter of the Bible.
That God separated the light from the darkness. You can't mix those two things. They are separate. And so if we're going to enjoy fellowship with the Father and with His Son, absolutely everything has to be out in the open. You can't go around hiding things in your life. It doesn't work.
It will hinder your fellowship with God.
How important these principles are?
I think of the Samaritan woman who.
Came to the Lord and didn't realize of course, who he was at first.
And finally the Lord says to her, Go, call thy husband and come here.
And she thought she could just put him off by saying I don't have a husband.
But he said.
Asked rightly answered, I have no husband, because thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou hast is not thy husband. And she found herself completely out in the light, completely exposed.
But what is so beautiful about the Lord is that that woman did not feel repulsed. She felt attracted to him. You know, sometimes we think if we bring out into the light the truth as to our lives, we're going to be repulsed. You may be by some people, but not by God. Get it out into the light. If there's something that has to be confessed, young person. So often I see people that are really.
Miserable.
You can see it written on their faces. They're miserable. I don't know what it is.
But something they're hiding is robbing their joy.
You want to keep on living that way. Is that the way you want to live your life?
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. This is the message.
You're going to have fellowship with God.
It's got to be in the light, because God.
Is life.
And it's a rather frightening thing, isn't it, to be brought into that kind of light?
00:10:03
We read in another scripture, we won't turn to it, but it says men love darkness rather than light. Why? Because their deeds were evil. And that's been the history of this world, hasn't it? And even if it's not a case of evil work, that would perhaps get me in trouble with the law. Yet I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of people in this world and even believers.
Live in a world of pretend. Pretending about themselves. Pretending to be what we're not pretending.
As to things in our lives that, as Bob says, we aren't willing to own up to, and often it's a very, very frightening thing to have the old sinful self exposed for what it really is. Remember reading a case where a man was just as Bob's been describing? I don't know whether he was a believer or not. At least be professed to be.
And he was miserable, thoroughly miserable, and he spent some time with a fellow Christian who gently probed and probed and probed.
To try and get them to come out and confess what it was in his life.
That he wasn't having out before God.
And eventually when it got to that point.
Where that was about to be exposed.
The man who was interacting with him actually wrote what I read. He said that man just put his hands over his eyes and ran out of my office, half shouting, half screaming. Why? Because the exposure of the awfulness of the human heart is sometimes more than even we ourselves can bear.
But in John here we find that we have to do with a God, as we've heard that.
Is all light, and in Him is no darkness at all. But what is also there?
Grace, and not merely, if I could say it, grace that overlooks my sin because that wouldn't be true grace. It says grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
But what the light reveals the blood covers. Isn't that blessed? But the light reveals the blood covers. Let you let me be as bad as we may be.
Let me read 2 verses on the blood of Jesus Christ. His Son cleanses us from all sin. There's no need to pretend before God because as we've already heard, He knows it all. We only make ourselves miserable. But how blessed to be able to step into the light, knowing that the blood of Christ covers it all.
Gifts to get it out into the light. It really brings us into liberty and I think of that Samaritan woman. She went back into the city and said to the men of the city come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ goodness wasn't she ashamed of it all? No, she had it out in the light. Now there's nothing to hide and she could go out and there was liberty and conscience. I think I saw a tremendously beautiful.
And the Lord told her everything she'd ever done. I don't think so.
She felt she was in the light and she couldn't hide anything there.
There's a verse in Ephesians that tells us what the light is, brother, and I've enjoyed it and it's good to let scripture interpret itself. But Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 13.
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light.
For whatsoever doth make manifest His light.
So everything, brother, I've sometimes said to I get up in front of you all up there on that platform and I try to hide something behind my back all the time I'm standing up there. I'm going to be making myself that much more conspicuous. You're going to say, what in the world is he trying to hide?
So if you're going to try to hide something in the light, just remember that you're going to make yourself that much more conspicuous. Don't do it. Get it out, confess it, be done with it, and you'll find it'll bring you into real liberty.
00:15:10
There's a real good reason to do that quickly to that expression of revelation.
Jezebel says he gave her space to repent. The Lord doesn't deal with us all that we do wrong publicly.
But if we go on and keep going on and keep going on, He may have to bring something out in very public way that would not have been needed to be done if we had just run to the one who were running away from. And who among us would want all of the mistakes and sins of our lives exposed before everyone's eyes? Certainly not me. But if we would run to him instead of away from him, we listen to the enemy who tells us lies.
About being afraid to come to the Lord Jesus about something instead of running to Him right away.
And bringing it out in the open and dealing with it there and leaving it there and realizing the truth of what Brother Bob was saying, that the blood covers that thing and be done with it and go on.
Think of that verse. The Lord is my light.
My salvation, Psalm 27. I think we're familiar with that beautiful song and.
That's the way we were when we were unsaved. We were brought into the light to see ourselves really as God sees us.
Exposed in his presence, but then the psalmist says and my salvation a wonderful that though the Lord knows all about us and.
His Holiness demands a punishment for those sins, and the the exposing of them we see in the work of the cross.
Full salvation to put away those sins, according to.
God's holy demands, and yet, according to His marvelous grace, He didn't compromise any part of His character in forgiving us all those sins which the light of His presence exposes. And so we have in this sixth verse here, if we say that we have fellowship with Him, a person may say that.
But if they're walking in darkness, they're not telling the truth.
But the position of the believer is in the light. We we are there as to our position in the light.
And we have fellowship one with another.
That little expression at the beginning of verse six if we say.
Not I said verse eight if we say, verse 10 if we say.
Chapter 2 and verse.
For he that said verse six, he that said, you know, it's easy to talk, brother.
But it's not in our talk.
That the reality is it's in our walk.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness.
We lie.
The abstract that John was talking about, the position of the Christian is really in the light, but he's put it in this abstract.
And there's a lot in this world that pertains to darkness, brethren, morally speaking. Darkness. You trying to mix some of the darkness into your Christian life?
You think that will help you and your fellowship with the Lord?
There's something totally incongruous with it.
Don't try.
I suppose that verse six, really then, in terms of the way John writes, has reference to an unbeliever, doesn't it? It's another case of pretending. Not that you and I can't apply it to ourselves, but if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, what then? How serious a thing to pretend to be a Christian? How serious a thing to say we have fellowship with him?
00:20:08
And yet our walk betrays the fact that we don't belong to him it.
Say, Brother Bob earlier on, we only make fools of ourselves if we try to do that, because others look on and say, well, that man, he calls himself a Christian.
Remember, a man who was an unbeliever stood up to preach the gospel way back when my father was a young man in Germany years ago.
The man who heard him preach saw right through him, he said. That's interesting, he said. One heathen.
Telling another heathen that he ought to get saved, he said. That doesn't add up.
But you know that the Lord used His word, and the man who said that eventually did get saved, because even though the preacher was a heathen himself, the word of God had its effect.
But the audience wasn't fooled.
Man was pretending to have fellowship with God.
But his life told otherwise. And so it's a very, very serious thing. But we need to point out, just to be clear on it. And those that were at Dartmouth last weekend will bear with me if we make the same remark again, because there's a difference in the way that the IF is used in verse six and the if of verse 7.
And we understand this in natural language, don't we?
In verse 6 is what we might call the if of condition.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness.
Then we lie.
But the if in verse seven is more the if of argument.
It doesn't mean that if we walk in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and in that case then the blood covers our sins and washes them away. No, the thought is rather, since we walk in the light, every believer is in the light. Every believer walks in that light. And that's the way John looks at it. Verse 6 is really an unbeliever, but verse 7 is a believer, and so we could read it.
Since we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And what is the result? As we said earlier, what the light exposes, no matter how bad it may be, the blood covers. And how precious that is, as Bob was saying a moment ago, it gives liberty of conscience. First of all, it's liberty in God's presence, but then it's liberty before everyone else. Supposing someone comes to me and says, Bill, you were a pretty bad egg before you were saved.
What do I do if I'm a natural man? Start to argue with him or I point the finger back at him and say well you're worse than I am or some remark like that. But the believer simply says yes, I was, and you only know the half of it.
But what I was as a lost Sinner, the blood has totally cleansed total liberty. And that's what that woman in the fourth of John had, didn't she?
Remarkable to see the marvelous efficacy of the work of Christ on behalf of the believer. We don't enter into it that that work was so perfect before God.
Perfect work accomplished by a perfect person giving us a perfect standing before God and that's the thought I believe in the verse that we're looking at here. We're walking in the light as to our position are standing before God. Now my state may not be up to that standard, but that's because I am not walking in self judgment, but in God's sight. I'm in the light as the OFT repeated.
Incident.
In Mr. Darby's.
Answer to a question.
What about a believer who turns his back on the light?
And Mr. Darby said, well, the light will shine on his back.
So we are there in that wonderful position, justified from all things, but we should not use that as an excuse for carelessness in our lives. You should be exercised. I'm walking in the light. In fact, sin and the believer is far more serious than sin in an unbeliever. Because if I sin, I'm sinning in the light. And that's a serious thing. Communion is broken and.
00:25:07
And the Lord's name is dishonored so.
We can't have that fellowship or enjoy that fellowship unless we are walking in the path of obedience.
To the word of God, and in self judgment.
Santa is that with Cricks fellowship?
And God has provided at all cost himself that which hinders fellowship, so that it can be. He has provided that which cleanses.
Sin which hinders fellowship so that we can be in fellowship again. And it doesn't matter if it's fellowship with God or fellowship amongst ourselves, sin always breaks fellowship.
First of all with God, and then with our fellow brethren, to our fellow human beings.
But I'd like to make a point here. I think it is worth thinking about, brethren, that in verse three we have fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. In verse seven we have fellowship one with another.
What is first?
I really believe we get these things turned around in our.
Souls at times.
1St is fellowship with the father and with his son.
In the measure that there is fellowship with the father and with his son and I meet up with my brother Bill, he's walking in that fellowship with the father and the son. The automatic thing is going to be, there's going to be fellowship between the state. That's the order it should be. But I fear that sometimes we make more of fellowship with amongst ourselves and it's an important thing, fellowship amongst ourselves.
Not first.
1St is fellowship with the father and with his son. Oh, brother, and the Lord, help us to cultivate that fellowship.
To read his word, to let him speak to us, and then to pray, to speak to Him, to take time. What impresses me is how hurried our lives are.
You're going to have fellowship with the Lord. You're going to have to take some time. You're going to have to make some time, Better said.
It just won't happen automatically.
You've got to listen. Remember talking to a young man who professed to be a Christian in South America and I asked him if he is reading the word.
No, I don't have any time to read, but I pray. I pray every day.
I guess he thought I'd be impressed with that. So I say, yeah, well, it's good to pray, I said. But that's like saying to God, God, I want you to listen to me, but I don't have any time to listen to you.
Does that sound pretty good?
He says. That sounds kind of lopsided, doesn't it?
I said I think so, and if you want better results for your prayers I would suggest you do some listening.
And that's what we need, brother. We need to take serious time. I have to say for myself that sometimes in the morning when I open my Bible to read, I can often read through a whole chapter and my mind's been off somewhere else. I've not been listening.
Enough to stop and go back over the chat, read it until that voice comes through. It's so important, brethren, to cultivate that fellowship. And I fear that there are many who break bread and we say they're in fellowship.
But I don't know.
If they really are in fellowship with the father and with his sons, yes, they're in fellowship with us. They bring bread together. Remember, breaking the bread is the only is the way we show our fellowship.
But sometimes we're doing it kind of mechanically without there being reality in our souls.
You can fool me. You might be able to fool the rest of your brethren too, for a time. You can't fool the Lord.
And sooner or later it's going to come out that it was just a face, that's all. There wasn't any reality underneath. Lord, help us, brethren, to be real with God. We're living in the last days and we're going to stand. We're going to need to be real with God.
00:30:10
Just going back to verse six, I was just questioning in my mind in consideration of the subject here of fellowship.
Batman and Koran, who had his father's wife.
It seems what we understand in second chapter that he was a real believer and that he was brought to repentance and restoration.
But we couldn't say of that. Couldn't we not say of that man that he was saying he had fellowship with God, he was walking with the Saints and he was breaking bread and he didn't know the Lord, I believe yet. He wasn't walking in the truth. He was walking according to darkness.
I just suggest this thought that not that I don't want to get away from the abstract, but I wonder if the subject is not just here communion because the Lord knows the heart and if we say we profess something and our life denies it, then we are doing what it says here we are walking in darkness.
Lying and we're not practicing the truth. Does that say we're not safe?
I'm asking the question.
What Bill said earlier, I think is helpful on that, Michelle.
It's not the question of being saved. You're not walking characteristic of a child of God. You are walking characteristically about one that's that's in the darkness, an unsafe person completely.
That's not characteristic as a Christian.
And we sometimes find in the word of God that we have a warning given to us.
That is in its strictest sense intended for an unbeliever, but yet God gives it for you and for me, because we can fall into the same trap. For example, at the end of Philippians 3, it talks about those who are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose God is their belly, who mind earthly things, but it also says whose end is destruction.
But whom was he writing to?
To an assembly of believers. And I don't believe that we could just throw that verse aside and say, well, that's for unbelievers. No, a believer can be an enemy of the cross of Christ. He can mind earthly things. He can be self-centered instead of Christ centered. So I believe we can all take this to heart. But again, what John says is what is characteristic. So for John, everything is black or white. Either you're a believer and you act like it.
Or you're an unbeliever and then you act characteristic of an unbeliever. But it doesn't mean that what he says about unbelievers doesn't have a warning for you and for me.
Thinking of a scripture too and Genesis chapter 19 in connection with law.
Lot gives warning to his sons in law in verse 14.
Lot went out and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Pop, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city.
What he certainly said was true.
It was a warning, but then let's see what it says at the end of that verse. But he seemed as one that mocked onto his sons in law.
Well.
His word was not consistent with his walk, was it?
And so that that was a glaring.
Contradiction.
You're saying this, but you've done that. And so that's what we have to be.
Concerned with, isn't it?
And our walk and stumble, as I was mentioning yesterday to brother Sam.
Very significant remark that was made by Mahatma Gandhi and the remark was if it wasn't for Christians.
I would be a Christian.
Now he sought he saw inconsistencies there the.
Walk didn't.
Match up with the Talk.
Like to say to in connection with verse 7 when it says the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Say we're talking about what is characteristic, What is characteristic of the blood of Christ is that it lenses from all sin. I have seen that there is not clarity in the teaching sometimes about this. And people think that every time they sin they need the blood of Christ to cleanse them all over again. But if you go back to the Old Testament, you'll find that in the consecration of the priests there was.
00:35:26
Once we're all at his consecration, the blood was applied.
And after that, when he went in to do the service of the Tabernacle, he washed at the labor his hands and his feet.
For us, it's not a matter of our hands because the work is done, but it's a matter of our walk. So it's the feet, and that's what you have in John chapter 13. But the cleansing of the blood of Christ is once for all. I think that's an important point. What it's saying here is when it says it cleanses from all sin, it's talking about what is characteristic of the blood of Christ.
But it's once for all. We don't go back and every time we sin, we get a fresh application of the blood. No, what we need is the cleansing of the water by the word, the water, the word of God. It's the labor to cleanse us from those things that are wrong in life. So I think that's important to understand in connection with this subject that we're we have here fellowship.
I was just thinking too Brother Bob, you did refer to that 13th chapter of John, but might be nice to read that 10th 1St.
Jesus saith saith to him, He that is washed needeth not saved to wash his feet.
But it's clean every width and you're clean but not all.
And as you mentioned, the labor to there were no dimensions given to the labor were there. And so that's very significant.
Yes, that's an interesting place just to read that again carefully. Verse 10 of John 13 that he mentioned Jesus said to him, that's to Peter, he that is washed.
That word is really bathed all over.
Needeth not saved to wash his feet, but is clean. Every wit and ye are clean but not all. He's referring to Judas Iscariot. There was a all over bath given to him which relates to the.
Washing of of the water by regeneration.
But there was the application of the blood and it wasn't repeated.
So the work of Christ on the cross, that application of the blood of Christ is once for all. Then we need the washing of water by the Word.
And that's a daily thing that we needed.
But when we trusted in Christ.
How many of our sins were put under the blood?
All of them, past, present, future. You hear sometimes people asking for forgiveness over and over again too. Well, how many sins were forgiven when you trusted in Christ?
All of them, past, present and future that.
I was pretty young. I remember somebody bringing this home and making it clear and saying, you know, it's.
When we confess our sins, and we are, I thank God for the blood that cleanses from all sin that its effectiveness.
That was applied way back then.
Is as good as it ever was, and that now I have the present conscious benefit of peace and the release of it and the forgiveness that is applied presently right now because of a thing that I did in space and time today.
And I enjoy it now. But I was forgiven. I was covered with the blood.
To pass him it's affected. This is just as good as it ever was.
It's interesting, Sam. I think it's helpful to understand.
That in the Word of God, after the Lord Jesus accomplished redemption on the cross.
Died, rose again, and ascended to heaven. We never have in the scriptures that a Christian.
00:40:07
Asks for the forgiveness of sins. Not even an unbeliever, really.
Forgiveness of sins is to all those that believe on His name.
It's as if God was standing there with his hand out and saying, here's the forgiveness of sins to the unbeliever accepted. If they sit there, keep on asking the forgiveness of sins when he's offering it to him, it turns out to be really many peaceful. It's ignorance, but it's unbelievable. It could be unbelief too.
But once that work has been finished, you never find it in the epistles that we are to ask for the forgiveness of sins. We have forgiveness through His blood. We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins through the riches of His grace. We have something different here in these next verses, 10 or 8-9 and ten. We have what a Christian should do when he does sin.
And it's evident that there is such a thing as sin.
Says in verse 8 and 10, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in US. Verse 10 if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in.
I like to think of the last part of this chapter as the way of restoration when?
Fellowship has been lost.
And let's speak clearly.
Salvation can never be lost if it's truly possessed, but fellowship is something that is extremely delicate.
And maybe just the little white lie.
Here I am with my Lord, walking side by side, and I tell what's supposedly a little white lie.
How is their fellowship?
He's still there right beside me, but there's no fellowship.
How could he be in fellowship with a lie? Impossible.
OK, I lost fellowship with him. I'm still his child.
Salvation is not a question of salvation, it's a question of fellowship.
So what do we have to do in that case?
And in verse 8 and 10, it's interesting, if you look at it closely, there's a difference in those two verses.
Verse 8 says if we say that we have no sin.
I do believe it's talking about the nature that produces.
The acts of sin, whereas verse 10 speaks about the act.
You know, sometimes we are willing to admit we did wrong, but.
We don't like to admit the reason we did wrong because of this sinful nature insight.
So we have the root in verse 8 and we have the fruit in verse 10. And it's important, if there's going to be true restoration, to recognize the one and the other as well. Sometimes it's easy to say, yeah, I know I did wrong. But you know that that guy, he, he provoked me.
We like to pass the blame on to somebody else.
That's what Adam did. He blamed his wife. He really blamed the Lord the woman now gave us.
And Eve did the same thing. She blamed the devil. The serpent beguiled me and I ate.
You'll never get the blessing, brother. You'll never get restoration until that.
Guilt, that finger of guilt, is back at your own self.
Recognize I did wrong, Yes. And the reason I did wrong was because I allowed this sin nature to act. And that's what David comes to the point in Psalm 51.
Behold, in sin did my mother conceive me.
He basically said it wasn't.
Her it was this sin nature here that led me astray. I allowed it to act. So it's important to recognize that we've done wrong and also recognize the root that produced. I sometimes say if you go out in the garden to get rid of the weeds, you just pull off the tops, the leaves off the tops of the weeds.
00:45:23
They're going to start, they're going to come right back, and pretty fast too.
And the reason why we go over it and over it and over it and have problem with the same thing so many times as we don't judge the root. It's not that we can pull it out, brethren, but we need to judge it.
So that's what we have in those two verses. But in verse 10 or 9 we have.
Confession.
And confession is much deeper than asking for forgiveness.
Let me just put it simply, Sam, you're a good friend of mine. We're walking down the street together, enjoying fellowship.
All of a sudden I give you.
A hit in the face.
Now is there fellowship?
What happened?
I sin, didn't I?
Heading now, I see you're a little bit.
Cool towards me.
And I'd assume you'd be my friend. So I say, Sam, forgive me.
If I say that I'm not really thinking of the bad thing I did, I'm thinking about that you're not very disposed toward me right now and I just soon you'd be disposed toward me.
That's not what God asked us to do, brother.
He asked us to confess.
And confession goes much deeper.
So I come up to Sam and I say Sam.
I hit you.
I recognize that was wrong.
I'm sorry for it. That's confession. That's what God wants. I've heard people say sometimes, Lord, if I did anything wrong, forgive me please.
That doesn't have any effect, brother.
I'm not saying we need to be. We need to be patient with people who don't have good teaching on these matters. But but what God wants is confession, and confession goes much deeper than asking for forgiveness.
So what He wants us to do is confess. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We don't know really what we did wrong. We're not really thinking about it.
You know when somebody is caught in a crime and they finally fess up?
The police make you sit down at a table and write out the details, everything. They don't want anything left out. What you told us, we want you to write it out and sign it. I think about it that way. It's a little bit embarrassing to come back again and again to the Lord and tell the details about what you did. It makes you look at it, and I think that's part of the reason why the Lord wants us to do that. It makes you look at this thing, really look at it.
And talk with him about it. Well then I ought to do that. And then I ought to, as you said in the verse before, Lord, I allowed my flesh to act. In my flesh dwelleth no good thing. That's where it's coming from. Now behind that is, how did I get to where this happened? So maybe so easily or what led to that. There's all all that takes place instead of just sorry, Lord, forgive me.
Or something like that, which sometimes people do. But the idea that I did this thing, I allowed the flesh to act Lord, and I was paying attention, You know, I've got drift away. I didn't read this morning. Whatever it is, how we got there, we should pay attention to that and talk to the Lord about it and then move on from there. And there's real release, real release in that, and restoration and peace and rest. And if we really take a look at it and recognize where it came from.
You know, some, you know, I remember hearing judging, judging and judging and judge this and judge this in when I was a kid and going, well, I don't really know what that means, but somebody once said that and I got it. It means agreeing with God about that thing. What does God think about that thing? If I judge it, I'm saying God, I agree with you about that thing. I agree with you against myself. That's an interesting thing to say, but if you get there, you're in the right place. I agree with you, God, about that thing. I agree with what you say about that thing. I agree with you.
00:50:15
I agree it is sin and I acted in this way and it was the flesh and Lord.
I repent of that. I turn from that. I turn to you. Come in by your spirit. You know that kind of conversation is what we should have when sins come in.
I sometimes appreciate.
The father's side of it too, having had children that do things that are not exactly according to how daddy might want it done or mommy want it done.
These things happen and there is there is a wall that builds up between parent and child and the child may not be aware of the pain that the parent is going through but once that confession has come.
And that wall has taken down. Then it's just a total freedom again, you know, between the parent and the child and to a sense of what God is feeling, what the Lord is feeling when when we confess, when we come forward and say, I was wrong.
Forgive me. Thank you.
It's just to enter into his heart. It's good that God has given us these relationships, isn't it? Because we can learn about His heart?
Through them the relationship, the fathers and children, children to fathers and fathers to, you know, husbands to wives. All these things are beautifully illustrated in the in the Fellowship, like Bob was saying, that was from before the foundation of the world. There was the father.
And the sun and these relationships give us a sense of who he is.
The greatness of who he is and of his character, of his love to us, because we began to feel some of these things ourselves.
And it's important as just before Nora time is going, but.
We can't emphasize too much the importance of getting at the root.
As Bob was saying, when we try to pull a weed out of the garden, it won't do just to pull the top off.
Sure it's easier, it doesn't take as much effort, but if I just pull the top off.
Then what's going to happen? The weed will grow again and if I'd lightly deal with something in my life.
I'll do it again, and sometimes the route takes a little bit of probing.
A little bit of being in the Lord's presence to recognize what the root really is.
An example from Scripture, and we've already alluded to it when David sinned with Bathsheba.
He didn't blame her.
For being out there in the open, washing yourself wasn't a smart thing for her to do. But he didn't blame her. He blamed himself. But what was the root of the problem? Was it really a lust and an immorality that embodied his soul? That was there? But the root was deeper than that. And when Nathan the Prophet comes to confront him, it's striking that he doesn't even allude to the original act of adultery, but rather focuses on the cover up or the attempt to cover it up.
Why? Because I suggest the real root of the problem.
Was ultimately the abuse of his power and authority as a king. Nobody could have manipulated people in events the way a king could, and that was perhaps the root of the problem. Yes, immorality was involved and that was serious, but sometimes the route is not exactly what the fruit looks like.
And the Lord wants us to deal with the root. Why? So that not only can we confess the sin, but then he cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Is that the blood of Christ that does that? No, it's more a sense of the fact that that sin, as our brother Sam said before, has already been paid for. But it cost what? The suffering of Christ.
I've sinned and added, if I could put it that way, to the sufferings of Christ. Now I have a new life that wants to please Him.
I have been bathed in the words of John 13. What have I done? I've acted characteristic of the devil's family. And when all of that really gets a grip on my soul, I won't be so likely to do it again, will I?
00:55:04
Just one more comment that I think is important in this verse nine is the forgiveness is not judicial forgiveness, brother. We get judicial forgiveness of our sins.
Time we accept the Lord Jesus as Savior and truth. What we have here is governmental forgiveness is forgiveness in the family of God. It's not a question of you being a real child of God or not. It's a question of fellowship. And until you confess, there will be no fellowship.
I remember when I was a boy disobeying my father and I knew.
In our household that I wasn't going to be forgiven until I came and admitted I'd done wrong.
I remember sometimes I cried more when I had to admit I'd done wrong than when I got the pattern.
But that was governmental, that was the government my father had in his house, and God has government in his house. And if you want to enjoy fellowship, you've got to confess. That's the only thing that is our part in verse 9. When we confess, then he does the rest. He forgives. That's the governmental forgiveness. And he cleanses. And I think that is important because.
Those characteristics of our.
Nature, sometimes we can't seem to get on top of it, but I've found if we will simply admit not only that we did wrong, but because of that rude insight. And the Lord operates and he not only forgives, he cleanses as well from all anyone.
Sing Happy Day, the first line of that song.
Oh, happy day, that thing.
When you're the one, I still go away.
He told me how to evolution.
Pray for every joy.
God and our Father, we thank thee for thy sovereign grace that saw that found each one of us and brought us into the light when we saw the not when we asked not for fellowship with the inside the tire alone. And now it's provided thine only begotten Son, the Lamb of God, that thou might have us in thy presence, holy without blame before thee in love, have us in thy presence in a way that was not solely that light that thou dost dwelling.
We pray that as we are in the light, we might walk in it in a practical way, day by day. Oh Lord Jesus, we think of that work in Calvary's cross like precious bloodshed that has put our sins away forever.
That has put that which we were by nature judged wholly in Calvary's cross and agreed never to rise again.
Lord Jesus.
We thank thee, all those ashes of a heifer sprinkling young clean, that we can go back.
When we have sinned.
And we can go back and have the remembrance.
Why so?
Offered once on that cross.
01:00:00
The memory of what was offered, the memory of without its endure. Lord Jesus for us.
To bar hearts and repentance. Our God, our Father, we thank Thee for thy restoring grace. We thank thee for the advocacy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We think of the full and rich provision now has provided in Christ in every way for us and we could be thanks. We thank you for this little chapter that we've had today. May it be used of thyself by the Spirit of God to reach the needs in our hearts as thou just see them perfectly and we do just commit ourselves to be now for the rest of the day at the gospel this evening and we think about.
Opportunity if we're left here.
A little longer for the precious blood of Christ to be proclaimed and all its value for sinners lost. And so we just commit ourselves to thee now, our God, our Father.
The Facts of the Gospel
Gospel—Bill Prost
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When I went to public school.
When I went to public school, we generally found that there was a need for a call to order.
And sometimes we need to.
Just.
What did your principal tell you when you went to public school?
So let's all just take our seats if we can just be quiet and I'd like to sing a very serious hymn together.
#25.
#25 life at best is very brief.
Like the falling of a leaf, like the binding of a sheaf.
Be in time.
Fairest flowers soon decay, it says in verse 2, Youth and beauty pass away. Oh, you have not long to stay.
Be in time #25.
Life at first.
And you're crying. Just delighted.
In time.
Thank you. Thank you.
In time begin time.
Great time.
For the voice of Jesus told you being time.
We have to send you all your ways.
00:05:25
For him tonight.
We can time bring it in, time to give you joy.
Why? The boy said. Jesus knows your being in time.
He had considered all the relations.
Let's ask the Lord's help tonight.
Our loving God and our Father, we look up to Thee tonight.
And we thank thee that there is still time.
But we do pray that the solemnity of what we have sung together, the solemnity of what is before us.
Might be before each one here tonight.
We know what we are to consider tonight, the issues of life and death and of time and eternity.
And we know our God that as we have sung together.
There may not be time indefinitely.
And so we pray that Thou wilt bless Thy word tonight. We pray specially for anyone in the room here tonight that is not saved.
Someone that may be pretending, as we said in the readings this afternoon.
Someone who may have grown up in a Christian home or God, we pray.
Let us reopen Thy precious word that thou use it in blessing to someone tonight.
We pray too, for the word of thy grace and other places, and ask thy blessing upon it.
And we commend it to thee, for we ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I'd like to sing part of another hymn tonight.
#40 I think everyone ought to be able to join in the singing of this hymn #40 Jesus loves me, this I know.
#40 will sing the 1St 2 verses and the last verse 1-2 and five number 40.
Jesus.
Loves.
You.
Did I know our mysteries? Christmas laughing.
Yes, Jesus.
Loves me, you're dead.
So.
00:10:43
Well, we'd like to welcome everyone to the Gospel meeting tonight.
I know most that are sitting here tonight as they look around have grown up in Christian homes and most here have already heard the gospel.
But we want to emphasize to each one of our hearts the seriousness of what we have before us tonight.
And I'd like to turn first of all to the book of Romans for a few verses, just by way of introduction.
We don't have very long, just a little over 1/2 hour, but that's plenty of time to present the gospel.
So let's turn to Romans chapter one.
Romans chapter one and verse one.
The Apostle Paul writing here to those in Rome.
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated under the gospel of God.
Which he had promised a four by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith.
Among all nations.
For his name.
Now going down a little further to verse 15.
So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew 1St and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed. From faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
Who will hold the truth in unrighteousness? And so on.
There are a number of things that need to be made very clear about the gospel.
And we're going to try and speak simply tonight so that even the youngest child here, we hope, can understand.
As we said a few moments ago, we want to welcome everyone to the gospel because the word gospel means good news.
But I want to tell you right at the outset that the gospel, and this may be a shocker to some of you here, the gospel is not primarily about you.
Not first and foremost. You know we live in a world today when everyone is saying me first.
When most people are thinking about themselves, and the world around us teaches us to do that. If you don't look after yourself first, who else will? And so you take care of number one first, as they say.
But I want to say this very reverently when God brings the gospel before us in Romans 1 here.
What does it say? It says concerning his Son Jesus Christ, and it talks about him as we read there in Romans one verse 4 declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the erection, by the resurrection of the dead. We want to say at the outset that the gospel begins with the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:15:13
Because God has His purposes concerning His beloved Son.
You know, as we look around in the world today, we read about men having their purposes and what they hope to do, what they hope to accomplish, what they hope to build. But we tell you tonight, whoever you are, whether you have grown up in a Christian home under the sound of the Word of God or whether you have never heard the gospel before, that God has his purposes concerning his.
Beloved son, the Lord Jesus Christ and that one whose name is used in mockery and swearing in this world, and that one whom man rejected and said we will not have this Mandarin over us nearly 2000 years ago. God says my purposes are centered in my beloved Son.
Is he going to be frustrated in all of that? No.
But coupled with that same precious truth, and that's the first one, is the second truth.
That there is a God to whom you and I are responsible.
Reminded of a story, and I've told it before, but it bears repeating. And this happened quite a few years ago now, back in the days when train travel was more common.
And a middle-aged man got into a train somewhere in the United States of America and sat down beside a girl who was in her early 20s.
And he noticed that she had her Bible open before her.
He said, is that your Bible? She said, yes, it is. He said, are you a Christian? She said, yes, I am.
Well then he said, maybe you can help me.
He said I grew up an atheist. That means one that doesn't believe there's a God. I grew up an atheist. My father was an atheist, my grandfather was an atheist, and that's all I heard all my life was that there was no God.
But he went on to say.
Just a few days ago, just last week, my father died.
And he didn't die in a hospital, he died at home.
And he died mainly of old age.
And he went into what we call in medical circles a coma. That is, he became unconscious.
And we were all just sitting around the bed, we who were of his family, waiting for the end to come.
And he said all of a sudden.
And I can't tell this without choking up.
Said all of a sudden my father sat up bolt upright in bed.
He said. I'll never forget it. Half shouted, half screamed.
There is a God, there is a hell, and I'm going to it.
He fell back on the debt on the bed and was gone.
All the man said to that young girl. I can't get that image out of my mind of a man who lived for over 80 years.
And everything I ever heard from him was that there was number God.
He said maybe you can help me.
Well, she did her best to preach the gospel to him.
She never saw him again, never heard whether he got saved or not. But tonight I say to you, on the authority of God's word, there is a God to whom you and I are responsible. And despite the headlong course of this world, Oh yes, you may say, well, I do believe there's a God.
But you know, there are many in this world who will admit there's a God, but they don't want to admit that he's relevant to their lives or that they have to be concerned about him and how they live and whether anything that God thinks and does has any relevance to the way they are. All, my friend, there is a God, a God to whom you are responsible.
But you know, the wonderful thing is that there is a God, a holy God to whom you are responsible, but a God who loves you.
And it's the most wonderful message that this world has ever heard, that there is a God who looks down in this audience tonight at every man, every woman, every child, every boy, every girl. And he loves you.
00:20:11
I think it's all right to speak about this, but we have a Sunday school back home where I live.
And a lot of those children that come to Sunday school come from pretty rough homes, and many times they haven't experienced much love in their lives. They've been kicked around from one place to another.
I remember one very touching incident.
Where a boy came to Sunday school.
And eventually we lost track of him and we said to his father, what happened? Where is he?
Oh, they said the authorities took him away from me for one thing or another. He wasn't being a good father. They took him away from me.
So we found out where he'd been taken, what foster home we'd been taken to, and we asked his foster parents would they let him come to Sunday school. They said they would. So he brought him to Sunday school.
And his father used to come to Sunday school, too, because that's one time when he could legally see his son. And then after Sunday school, he had to watch us drive away with his son to take him back to the foster home. Or the father walked down the sidewalk with his head bowed and his heart sad. Now, I'm not questioning what the authorities did. I doubt very much that they they must have had a good reason for it. I'm not saying anything about that. The point is, they don't know much about love.
And when we tell them that God loves them, they find it hard sometimes to relate to all of that.
And to recognize that there is love in this world. Oh, I say to each one here tonight, whatever your background, whether you've been brought up in a loving home, whether you've grown up with a lot of Hard Knocks, as the world says, there is a God up there who cares about you and he loves you.
And what kind of a love?
Did God show? What kind of a love did God display to you and me? Oh, do I even need to turn to the verse?
For God so loved the world.
That he gave his only begotten Son.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
I imagine if I went around this room, many people.
Could repeat that verse from memory.
But will that save you?
I can still remember being in Australia about 10 or 12 years ago and we went into a candy store there to buy something as a Hostess gift for a family we were going to visit.
And in the course of paying for the candy.
I offered the two girls that were running the candy shop, they were in their early 20s, a little wallet calendar that had a wallet calendar on one side and God's word on the other. Many here are familiar with them.
And one of them took it, looked at it.
And there was John 316 on one side, so she started to read it.
Then put the card down like this and finish the verse from memory.
I was so thankful to hear that. So thankful. Finish the verse without a mistake, just as I quoted it.
But, you know, the end of the story wasn't very good. I said, oh, I said, that is wonderful. Where did you learn that verse? I said, did you go to Sunday school? She said, yes, I did. But she had that kind of a smile, a kind of a look on her face that I didn't like. And her friend that was there started in and said, yeah, yes, so and so, naming her by name. And I hesitate to repeat what she said, but she said, oh, yeah, you didn't learn much else there, did you? And the whole time there just ended in an uproar of laughter.
Mockery.
And I couldn't get a serious word out of them.
Oh, she memorized the verse, but it had no effect on her heart. And I say to you tonight, what effect does the love of God have on you tonight?
Oh, God is reaching out to you in love today. Why? Because He cares about you and where you're headed.
What did we read here in Romans? It says in verse 5, Romans 1, by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations.
00:25:03
For his name.
All we say to you on the authority of the word of God, don't be deceived by things that you hear today.
God has only one way to be saved.
Remember well-being on a plane not too long ago and I got into conversation with a man beside me.
And in the course of our conversation, he wanted to argue that there were many different ways to be saved and that somehow it didn't matter what Rd. you went as long as you were sincere about it.
Well, it so happened, and you'll pardon a personal reference, It so happened that we had something in common, he and I, in natural things.
We were both medical doctors.
And so I ventured to put something to him on that basis. I said to him, let's talk about something very down to earth.
I said if I were to take a certain medication, and I named a medication that he could recognize very well, and I said, suppose I were to take that medication in all good faith. And I named an illness where I knew that that medication would have absolutely no effect. I said, would all the sincerity on my part make any difference to the fact that that medication does not cure that particular ailment?
Well, he had to admit that that was a true statement.
Oh, I say to you tonight on the basis of what God has given us in his Word.
We don't need to be in doubt about these things. We don't need to philosophize about it. We don't need to make all kinds of ideas up out of our own heads. God has given us in his precious word everything that we need to know how to be saved. And tonight we want to bring the facts of the gospel before you. We've mentioned two or three of them.
The fact that there is a God to whom you are responsible. The fact that God has purposes concerning His beloved Son.
But #3 the fact that God loves you and wants you to share in all of that.
Is that possible? Yes, it is. And God who has those purposes to raise the Lord Jesus Christ up His head over all things. He wants you to be involved in all that He is going to be doing with His beloved Son.
You know what's a wonderful thing sometimes? To gain the favor of someone in this world who's in a place of influence or who is in a place of power. It's a wonderful thing to gain the influence of someone who has the ability to manipulate people and events and get something for us.
I read some time ago about a man in a foreign country who was having a very, very difficult time. He held a high position in that foreign country, but things had come in, I won't go into the details to the point where he was struggling very much financially, but because he moved in some circles to do with government, he had a friend, He had a friend in Canada by the name of Roland Missioner, who used to be the ambassador at that time to India.
And he spoke to Roland Missioner about his problem.
Roland Missioner said, well, he said, I've known you for a long time, how would you like to immigrate to Canada? How would you like to immigrate to Canada? I know it'll be a struggle, but there will be more opportunities there than you can have. And this is not to speak disparaging of its disparagingly of any country.
Was it any problem for Roland Missioner to arrange all that? Did they have to go through all kinds of interviews and all kinds of papers with the consulate there in India and all kinds of waiting periods and talking to different people? No, Rule and missionary just opened all the doors for him and within a matter of a few weeks he was on his way to Canada. Very simple.
Oh, I say to each one here tonight, the God who made this universe.
The God who made you and me looks down this evening at you in that seat. He knows your name, He knows all about you, and he wants to bless you.
00:30:03
Could we turn over to 1St Corinthians 15 for a couple of verses?
I love this chapter because Paul here is writing to believers.
But he says in the first verse.
Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you, the gospel isn't that nice?
Even though many of them, and probably all of them, although we can't be sure we're truly saved.
Yet he brings before them the gospel, because there was such fullness, such blessing, such joy in giving it out again. And he says there in verse 3, For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
The fourth point I want to bring before you tonight is that man is utterly ruined and lost, and that is often the thing that you and I find the hardest to admit.
We don't need to turn to verses, we can multiply them. There is none that doeth good. No, not one, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Over and over again we could quote verses from God's Word which would bring before us very clearly the utter ruin of man.
I was very interested the other day when I was sitting in an office waiting for an appointment to pick up a magazine.
And it's a fairly up-to-date magazine.
It was a recent issue.
And in that issue, someone was looking into the whole question as to why the human race does so many bad things.
Well, I thought I don't need to read this magazine to know the answer to that question, but I want to find out what they say.
And they had actually gone to the trouble and maybe others recognized this article of running a number of studies on people where they set them up. And they even wired them through little electrodes put on their skulls to influence certain sections of the brain from what they know of that. And then they presented certain videos to those people of various kinds of things to see what the reaction would be.
And you know what the conclusion was?
I thought to myself, well, I didn't need this article, but I was, at least up to that point, thankful that they arrived at the right conclusion. You know what they said? They said we have to admit on the basis of these studies that the human race is hardwired to sin.
Hardwired to sin. We know what that expression means. It simply means that no matter what kind of individuals they were dealing with, no matter what their background.
When they presented certain stimuli to them of things that anyone would admit were sinful, there was a positive reaction. Even though it wasn't spoken. They could detect it. They could detect the brain waves that said that those evil thoughts were going on in their minds. Frightening.
O beloved friend, we don't need all that to prove. God has told us in no uncertain terms in His Word.
That man is lost, not only a Sinner, but lost. And I say to you tonight, if you're not saved, you're lost. Doesn't matter that you've been brought up in a Christian home. It doesn't matter that maybe you have been kept from many of the serious sins that this world does. It doesn't matter that you haven't maybe gotten in trouble with the police or spent time in prison or been guilty of the things that men and women are.
In some cases executed for no.
You have a sinful nature and you're a Sinner before God.
But what does it say here? That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and it says he was buried.
00:35:00
And that he rose again the third day.
We had a little bit of that in the meeting this afternoon, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and I say to you this evening.
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is probably the most important fact.
That we want to bring before you tonight, because if the Lord Jesus didn't rise from the dead.
Then I might as well sit down. We have no gospel. We have nothing to tell you unless the Lord Jesus rose from the dead. But as we had before us this afternoon, even from a natural point of view, even from the evidence of a legal mind, there is nothing that is so absolutely sure and beyond the shadow of a doubt as the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
You know, men have contested that. And again, I have told this story before, but it bears repeating about a man who once again was an atheist.
Way back, 75 or 100 years ago. But he wanted to appear at least educated. And so he visited the land of Palestine in order just to have an intelligent mind and to be able to speak about what went on there. And in the course of time he went to what is known as the Garden Tomb. Now, I've never been to the land of Palestine, so I'm only speaking from what others have told me. I've never been to Israel, but that garden, to my understand, is in the hands of the British.
And everyone that conducts the tours, whether or not it's the actual tomb of the Lord Jesus doesn't matter.
But everyone that conducts those tours is a believer, and it has been so for at least 100 years and maybe more.
And as this man with a small group was led into the tomb.
He looked around in mockery and ventured to voice his opinion. He said, well, what did you bring us in here for? There's nothing to see here. There's nothing in here. What's the point of bringing us in here?
Of course, it wasn't that big. Only a handful of people could go in.
Well, the guide was a believer and that man, he had said one thing too much at that time for an atheist. The guy drew himself up and without any hesitation said, yes Sir, you are absolutely right and I'm glad you do. Attention to that fact. He said there is nothing here because the tomb is empty. The one that lay in this tomb rose from the dead, and Christianity can show you an empty tube.
He said if you want to see a religious leader who's still in his tomb, there are many of them around the world. But we in Christianity can show you an empty tomb because the Lord Jesus rose from the dead. And if I may say so in the manner of speaking, he laid it on. He laid it on good and thick. That man went out of there. He couldn't get it out of his mind. Could it be true? Is it possible?
Did he rise from the dead? He went home, read the account, got a hold of a Bible and read the account.
He said it has to be true. All these people, they couldn't have conspired so many people to tell a lie for that period of time.
But what does the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ mean? Oh, we could refer to many different verses, but in Romans one, it brings before us that he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection of the dead. What does that mean? That means, beloved friend, that God is satisfied with the work that the Lord Jesus did.
Or you say maybe, have you got trouble with it? You say, I can't believe I had a college friend many years ago who said I can't believe I want to try and figure it all out for myself. I said something to him like this. I said, if God is satisfied with it, surely you and I don't need to argue with it. And when you're dealing with God himself, it says how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out your responsibility and mine is to accept it.
Beloved friends, tonight we present to you the Lord Jesus Christ who has finished the work on Calvary's cross to the full satisfaction of God, and God has attested to that by raising him from the dead. And as a result, that wonderful verse that we had in first John one and seven reads the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
00:40:10
And now I throw out the challenge, if I may, to you here this evening. Where do you stand with the Lord Jesus Christ?
I don't think the Lord is going to leave us here that long, but if the Lord were to leave us here, we'll say 100 years, everyone in this room.
Would be an eternity and it would not matter much whether you were rich or poor.
It would not matter much whether you were raised in a happy home or an unhappy home. It wouldn't matter much at that time whether you had a lot of things in this world or had literally nothing. But what would matter a great deal would be whether you knew the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. And I'm speaking, as I said earlier, to many here who have heard the gospel many times. I ask, is it real with you?
Or are you like those girls in Australia I mentioned a while ago?
Who could quote John 316 as well as any of us, and yet who did nothing but make a mockery of it. Where does that leave us? Oh, our time is nearly gone, but let's turn over to the book of the Acts.
Because we're talking about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
And in Acts 17, it tells us there in verse 30.
And the times of this ignorance, that's back in the Old Testament.
God winked at or passed over.
Doesn't mean God wasn't concerned, it doesn't mean men weren't responsible, but it does mean that you are more responsible and God deals in responsibility.
I may say that the fact that you are here tonight makes you more responsible.
It says in the latter part of verse 30, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
Why? Because He hath appointed a day in the which he will judge this world in righteousness.
By that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead.
You know, men don't want to believe the resurrection. People want to deny it because if the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, oh, what a frightening thing it is.
Up in our local area in Canada.
About 20 years ago or so.
There was an awful man, terrible man, who abducted an 8 year old girl and abused her in every possible way, which I will not soil your ears by going into the details of and eventually took a knife.
Slitter throat.
And thought he'd murdered her and left her there.
He vanished into the woodwork, as we'd say.
She was found.
Got medical help and she didn't die.
Long time to recover, but she recovered all her faculties. She hadn't lost anything, including the ability to speak, which they all thought she would not have.
And over the years, that case was kept open as they continued to try and find.
The individual that had perpetrated that awful act, eventually with modern methods of evidence and with DNA evidence that they had caught up, that they had saved from.
The time when she was.
Supposedly murdered, they caught up with the individual 20 years later.
Who had done it?
And the evidence was incontrovertible. There was no way that he could wiggle out of it.
And so a court date was set.
You know, that man couldn't face it. That man couldn't face the fact that he would have to stand in that courtroom and across the courtroom would be not the little 8 year old girl that he had tried to murder 20 years ago, but a woman who was capable of testifying about everything that he had done.
In front of a judge and a jury and a crowd of people and so on.
That man committed suicide in his cell. He never made it to the courtroom. He couldn't face it.
00:45:03
This world, this girl was alive. In the meanwhile, that man had thought he could get away with it. He'd gone away, he'd gotten married, he'd had children, living a normal life. Terrible shocker to his family when the police arrived on his doorstep and arrested him. But there was no question that he was guilty. Oh, beloved friend, how much more serious for you to have to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ in the coming day if you're not saved? And know that the very one whom you refuse to believe, the very one who died on Calvary's cross.
The very one who suffered in order that you might be saved, that very one is going to be sitting on the throne of Judgment.
He doesn't need books, but God keeps books just to show that He's just and everything about you will be brought out in that day.
Our time is gone.
Oh thank God, there's wonderful blessing for those that are saved, wonderful blessing for those that come to Christ.
As we said earlier, the Lord Jesus wants to share everything that He has with you. He wants to share everything that He's won, not only what he has by nature of his being the Son of God, but all the inheritance, all the purposes of God that God has concerning him. He wants to share it with you. Do you and I deserve that? Not one little bit. Nothing but loss, Guilty sinners. That's what we are by nature.
But God's love flows out to you tonight.
What are you going to do?
You don't have to answer that question to me.
But just in closing, I'd like each one here to answer that question before you go to bed tonight. Don't put it off. Don't say I'll settle it tomorrow. Don't go down to the bonfire and have a happy hymn sing or whatever you're going to do. And just think, well, there's time. No, behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the way of salvation.
Let's sing the 1St and the last verses of #12.
#12.
Just as I am without one plea.
For that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. But don't sing it unless you mean it. OK, don't sing it unless you really mean it #12 The 1St and the last verses.
Just as I.
Was.
Born.
Like to close with one more story? That's all right.
Every time I sing that hymn, and I've known it since I was a boy.
But every time I've sung that hymn in the last 20 years.
It reminds me of a gospel meeting we had in Romania in Eastern Europe.
And this was right after the communist government had been overthrown and people.
00:50:02
We're hungry for the gospel, and if a gospel meeting were announced, all kinds of people would come in, sometimes hundreds.
On this particular occasion, I would suppose they were between 3 and 400 at the gospel meeting.
And of course I had to speak through a translator.
But after that meeting.
Someone from the audience suggested this hymn.
It's been translated into Romanian.
But before they did.
A boy put up his hand and nobody called for, nobody said if anyone wants to be saved or anything. A boy put up his hand, 11 years old, and he said I want to be saved and I want to be saved right now.
Well, I couldn't speak Romanian, so several people who were near him, who were believers asked him a couple of questions. And right there in the middle of that audience of people, he confessed Christ as his Savior.
And then they struck up that hymn in Romanian.
There must have been a good number of Christians there.
I couldn't sing, I just sat there with the tears running down my face as the note swelled louder and louder. Just as I am always say to each one here tonight if you're not saved.
You need to come just as you are. Let's pray. Our loving God and our Father, we look up to Thee again this evening and how we thank Thee for the precious truth of the gospel and how we thank Thee for each one here in this room tonight that has come just as they were.
But all we know that there may be someone here tonight that is not saved and we pray that they may not go to sleep tonight without settling the question.
We pray that they may.
Get before thee, our God and Father, about this serious issue.
And as thy word tells us, to repent and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
We commend Thy word to Thee for Thy blessing and ask all this in Thy name, Lord Jesus.
Amen.
Before They Call, I Will Answer
Children—Tim Ruga
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Now I don't see many children sitting up here so.
Come on. Evening, William, come on up. Anyone else too? If you don't come up here, I'm going to be really lonely, so.
You can bring your parents too if they won't let you come alone.
Anyone else?
Good through a few here.
Now I'm not scary.
As a matter of fact, I'm scared, so I'm glad you're all up here with me. So let's start with a hymn and I think we'll just sing a few off of the back of this hymn sheet here. Does everybody have one? We'll sing. We'll start with number 42 and.
I don't want to just sing this hymn, but now it's early in the morning. I know we just got up and maybe we're a little slow still. I was just talking with someone who said he's having trouble waking up and probably like a lot of us here. So let's get going with some gusto here and sing this hymn really well. So try to keep up. I'm going to start it.
A little child of seven.
OK, let's sing the next one. So we'll also try to sing that one quickly.
A little energy, one door and all.
The.
OK, well, that's good. Let's pray.
Our God and our Father, we just thank Thee for this morning. Thank You that so many of us can be here on a bright sunny day because we think that this was the day when our Lord rose from the dead. And we thank You that we can be here and open Thy word on that very same day of the week. We pray that Thou would use this time for blessing and the children here would be encouraged that we would all learn something from Thy Word, and those of us who are older too, that we would each one of us be encouraged on.
In our faith.
And above all, Lord Jesus, that we learn more of Thee and be drawn closer to Thee. We just pray for the gospel to even here in the Sunday School, as we think that some of the younger ones here may not yet know Thee. We just pray for Thy help now and ask it. Lord Jesus and Thy alone precious and worthy name, Amen.
OK now the next part we might get back to singing but I want to see if anyone knows the verse.
Now, if you're like me, this was the scary part that I never liked.
So you don't have to say it, but if somebody who learned the verse brave enough to stand up and say it.
Looks like all no?
You know, usually there was somebody who would stand to say it.
OK. Oh, Brad, you're going to volunteer. I'm going to like that. All right, go ahead.
Very good. Now how many other people learned that verse?
People don't learn verses anymore. OK? I didn't leave North America that long ago. People used to. I was. One person learned it. Other people aren't learning the verse well.
I guess I hope you learned some other verse and that's why you didn't raise your hand and I'm not going to put you on the spot, but this is a lovely verse. Isaiah 6524.
Before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. Now I want to talk a little bit about this first, and before we close the Sunday School today, I want to read you a story.
That has to do with this verse. But first of all, I want to ask a question. Let me see. I need a victim.
00:05:09
Everybody's looking away, all right?
This isn't hard, don't worry about it. Do you have a friend here? Any friends at all you do up here in the front row somewhere?
Where?
OK, good. OK, no problem. I'm not going to be scary here, but I'm just curious. I want to ask you another question. Let's suppose you had a question and you wanted to ask her your question. OK, I don't know what the question is, but you think of a question in your head and you want to ask her. And now you're going to go over here and you're going to get ready to ask her this question, right? You can stay there. It's OK.
And you come to her and you say, I'm just going to ask you a question. And before you get a chance to ask this question, she tells you the answer.
What would you think about that?
That's pretty amazing, right? Would you expect her to tell you the answer before you even ask the question?
Now, anybody else? We wouldn't expect that, would we? None of us. OK, now she answers the question. Before you ask, he says something's wrong. Here. She could read my thoughts. This, this isn't what she's supposed to be doing.
But you know the verse says exactly that. Before they call, I will answer.
Now who's the one who can do that?
OK. Go ahead, Ethan.
No. OK, another Who can do that? Who can answer a question? OK, William. God, yeah, the Lord can do that.
And that tells us right away who we're talking about in this verse, doesn't it? We're not just talking about your friend. I mean, that'd be quite a thing. But if she did that, you know, something isn't quite right there. Or maybe she was able to think by somehow you were looking. But God can answer any question that we asked before we even ask it. You can answer it. And so we are talking about God in this verse.
Now I'm not even going to ask how many read the Sunday school paper.
But I hope you did. And if you didn't, there was a really nice story in here. It was a story about a car that was stolen. And there was a lady who came out. She had this beautiful little yellow car. And she went out and looked and it wasn't there. And it was on a morning just like this. My Lord, stay morning. And so she went out and said, oh, what am I going to do now? My car is gone. Well, I'll have to report this to my insurance agent.
You know, you have to do that when something goes wrong. If you have an accident or if it's stolen, you've got to tell your insurance agent right away. So she went to do that and then she said, no, no, I won't do that because maybe he is going to come to a place like this and he's going to worship the Lord and I don't want him thinking about my car. Oh, she was a nice Christian lady, wasn't she? In fact, she went to some place like this and she and then worshiped the Lord and then afterwards when she went back home.
She called up the insurance agent and said my car is gone and she called the police too and they said, oh, don't worry about it.
There was a photographer along the tracks and he found there he was taking some pictures and he saw this brake car put in a place where they didn't want anyone to see it. So we figured it was stolen. We already have the car down at the police station.
And so they had it already there even before she asked. And not only that, he said when we find a car like this, we have to take it and we've got to clean the car. We've got to change the oil and make it very nice. And so we're going to give your car back, but it's going to be very clean and very nice and tip top condition. And while you don't have your car, we're going to give you another car while we're cleaning yours.
That's really nice, isn't it?
Wouldn't you like to have your car stolen?
That's really good. That's what was in the paper. If you don't read these Sunday school papers, it's not a bad idea. There's some really good stories in here, OK Isn't just something that comes out every week and you put somewhere. So that was the story, and I hope you can see how that story went with this first before.
00:10:06
They ask, he says. I will answer, and while they get speaking, I will hear it.
And so we want to think about this verse for a few minutes this morning, and if we have time at the end, we'll sing a few more hymns.
But first of all, let's go and look in the Bible. So some of you have some Bibles.
We want to look in the Bible and see what this verse is talking about.
All right, so Isaiah 65.
There's only 66 chapters in Isaiah.
And so just go to the end if you can find Isaiah, and go back one chapter and you'll be right there.
And verse 24.
Is the verse that we had. Now we're going to come to verse 24, but usually it's good. When you go in the Bible, you want to get to the beginning of the story. Oftentimes it's a chapter, not always, but in this case, we want to go to the beginning of the chapter and just see what it's talking about.
And there it says in verse one, Isaiah 65, verse one, I am sought of them that asked not for me. I am found of them that sought me not.
Verse two, I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people that walketh in a way that was not good after their own thoughts. And now if we skip down to verse 12, it says this. Therefore will I number you to the sword, and you shall all bow down to the slaughter. Because when I called, you did not answer. When I speak you did not hear.
Now there's many more words in this chapter, but I want to just stop there and talk about just those.
First of all, I'm going to tell you that these verses are speaking about Israel, and you're going to have to bear with me for just a minute and listen to what I'm saying, OK? There's a nation in the world called Israel, and God called them out of all the other nations of the earth, of the earth, and He made them his own special people.
And he put them in a very special place of blessing. And this chapter is telling us what happened. The Lord was speaking to them and they didn't listen. And so in the end, the Lord said that he was going to number them to the sword and they were going to be in big trouble. Now that has happened. Isaiah was written many, many years ago. And then after that, sometime later, the Lord Jesus came to the earth. And then the Lord Jesus died on the cross, right?
We all know that story. And then he went back up into heaven. And now, 2000 years later, here we are today, sitting in a room all together talking about these verses.
And Israel.
Is what we read about here. These things have happened, now we're going to skip right down.
To verse 17, and I'm going to just read a few verses only here, but verses 17 to the end all go together and it says in verse 17 for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered.
Nor come into mind. And so the Lord says, and it's going to come a day in the future, I'm going to do something new. There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth and all that. This that we see today is not going to anymore come into people's minds, OK? So keep that in your mind.
And then if we go down to verse 24 and it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer. And while they are yes speaking, I will hear.
Verse 25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the Bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountains, saith the Lord.
Does anyone know what these verses are talking about?
Now this is a hard question for young people.
But I'm going to tell you it's a coming period of time when the Lord Jesus is going to reign on this earth. We call it the Millennium because it means 1000 years. And the Lord Jesus will reign and he is going to take Israel and he's going to bring them into blessing, just like we read about here. And you're going to have a wolf and a lion together, or I'm sorry, it was a wolf and a lamb together here. And they're not going to hurt. They're not going to destroy. Everything's going to be wonderful. That's what the chapter's talking about.
00:15:07
Now.
What does that have to do to us with us today, OK.
We aren't Israel. We're all here. There might be somebody from Israel here, but we're not Israel.
And we're not in the past when they did that. We're not in the future when the Lord is going to bless them. We're sitting here right now. What does this have to do with us?
I just told you this is a whole chapter that has to do with Israel, but here we had it as a memory verse for us today.
Well, I'm going to try to explain that part. And if you didn't understand what I was just saying in the last five minutes, don't worry about it. I hope you will someday. Don't worry, It's OK. What I want to say now is what I want you to listen to. OK. At the first part of this chapter, the first verse we read was.
It said there that.
I am sought of them that asked not for me.
I am found of those that sought me not.
That sounds like Old English, and it is.
The Lord is saying there were people who weren't even looking for me, and now I'm found of those people. That's what this has to do with us today.
Sometime when you're reading, you're going to come to the book of Romans and you'll come to the 10th chapter and you'll read there almost these same verses because it's quoted from here and it shows that now, today.
These verses are talking about us because.
Israel was God's people and they did not accept Him. It says in John chapter one that the Lord Jesus, when he came to the earth, he came to his own people and his own received him not. Does anyone know the rest of that verse? Maybe somebody learned it?
No. OK, even if you do, it's scary to say it isn't.
It says as many has received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God.
And so the Lord Jesus, he came to Israel and they said we don't want him.
And so instead it says now the grace of God goes out to everyone, as many as received him to them, gave he the power to become the children of God. And so here we are. We're not Jews. There's a whole room full of people. And we are people from what we call Gentiles, all different kinds of people. And the Lord Jesus came to save us.
And so whoever calls on his name today, that's also in Romans chapter 10. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
And we're here because of that.
Now.
That's where we fit into this chapter. What does that 24th verse have to do with us?
Can anybody think of how?
Before they call, I will answer. That might even begin to apply to us.
OK, I'm going to give a hint.
Everybody in this room has a very great need above all else.
And that is to be saved. Is that right? We all agree. Yeah. OK now.
When you call out to the Lord, when does he answer you?
Can anybody tell me when does the Lord answer you? You helped me before.
Yeah, if you ask them right, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Yes, He'll answer you right then, right?
But you know, when we read the Word of God, we find out there's even something more wonderful.
And that is that he really answered long before Now. Who's got a Bible up here? You do. Can you read OK?
OK, I want you to turn to Romans chapter 5.
Oh, I'll keep going past Acts. That's good.
Oh, a little too far. You're very close.
Romans 5 Now anybody else have a Bible? You turn to Romans 2, the young ones, But just one more book and you'll be right there.
00:20:02
OK, one more Romans 5.
And verse eight, can you read that verse for us?
God command us.
But God commanded his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
OK.
That's a verse that tells us about before they were asked. I will answer. You know, it says while we're still sinners, Christ died for us. Know the Lord Jesus paid for all of my sins long before I was born. He knew everything I was going to do. He knew what you were going to do. He knew what everybody in this room was going to do. He knew just what kind of people we were going to be and he knew that was bad and.
He went 2000 years.
Before I was born and died on a cross, before I ever called, he answered.
OK, now who else found Romans 51 of you? OK, can you read?
Let's see, make sure I have the right one. Romans 5 and verse.
OK, you're on the right page. Good first 10.
For if we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. Much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Very good. OK, This is that. We were enemies when we were still enemies. We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. God knew all about what kind of people we were going to be, and knowing all of that, He put his Son on the cross.
Now I want to ask a very serious question, and I don't want you to answer me just the same question that was asked last night. Have you yourself trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?
Each one. And it doesn't matter what the person next to you did. Doesn't matter what they think, only matters you, what you think, and what you've done before God.
And you know he wants you to call on him, He wants you to ask, and he has already provided that answer.
The Lord Jesus 2000 years ago, as we said.
He was on the cross and he thought about you then as he let those men.
Put nails into his hands and he let them hang him there even though he had the power to come down. He knew about every single one of us in this room, and he loved us so much that he wanted to stay there until he paid for all the sins.
Have you trusted him?
You know he didn't come down until he said the words. It is finished. And the Lord Jesus, when he said it is finished, He said those words because there was nothing left. Every sin had been paid for, everything was done, and then he bowed his head and he died.
And then they came and they put a spear at his side, and he shed his blood. We've been talking about that in these meetings. And that blood cleanses every sin. They're all gone. The Lord Jesus completely answered 2000 years ago. But what have you done?
Remember, we just read about Israel and what they did.
And the Lord tried to speak to them, but they wouldn't listen to him. I want to just look at a few more verses in Proverbs chapter one.
So if we go just to Proverbs chapter one, I'll read these verses.
Proverbs one and verse 24 says because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand.
And no man regarded.
But ye have said it not all my counsel, and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity.
And so on. In verse 28 it says then so they call upon me, but I will not answer.
They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me now. This is what it says in the word of God.
And the Lord Jesus answered a long time ago, but now today he's actually calling you. We're talking a lot about calling this morning. We're talking about us calling on the name of the Lord. That's what it says in Romans 10, verse 13. And that's what we have to do. If you haven't done it, you need to do it this morning.
00:25:11
Whosoever shall call in the name of the Lord shall be saved. But here we find something a little bit different.
We find that the Lord has called. The Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth 2000 years ago. That's true. But today he's still here and He's calling.
He's calling every single one. He's calling you and you and you and you.
Everyone. He called me, He did. He called me. He's not calling me today in that way because I answered the call. And I think some of you here have answered the call too. I hope so, but have you? The Lord Jesus is calling everyone who hasn't yet answered to come right now today.
You know, I do have a story to tell you in a minute. There's another side to this verse.
But I have nothing more important to say than this, because if you enjoy good stories and you enjoy the conference and all the children and everything else that's going on here, but you miss this one thing, you've missed it all, OK? This is more important than every other thing. And if you miss this, you've missed everything. All the rest of it is worthless compared to this. So you need to listen to this. Jesus Christ is calling you.
And he wants you to answer.
Have you answered him today? Have you said, Lord Jesus, I accept you to be my personal Lord and Savior. I trust in you. I believe in the work that you did for me on Calvary's cross. Have you done that?
If so, then you are saved just like it says in Romans 1013. But here in Proverbs one it says I have called and you refused.
Now, This is why we preach the gospel at these conferences, and we preach the gospel every Lord's Day, and we like to come to the Sunday school and preach the gospel again. You say we had a gospel last night and here I am preaching it again. Well, I've lived long enough to know many, many children who are sitting.
In these chairs, just like this.
And they smiled, they said the verse, and they even shook their heads up and down sometimes and said yes I believe. And then off they went.
Today, if you find them, don't even know. Is this one even a believer? They don't live their life like a believer. I can't tell. Or maybe they're just out and out against God. They say I want nothing to do with that. How could that happen?
What happens like this? It happens by sitting in a meeting like this and the Lord Jesus calls you and you don't answer him. And so we're talking about a verse that we all kind of like the thought of this before they call, I will answer, Oh, that's wonderful. I like it if the Lord answers my the things that I asked him for. But what about you? He has called you. Have you answered him? And then he says here, if they don't answer.
What does this say in verse 28 then? Shall they call upon me? But I will not answer. And so that day is coming, that many, many people are going to come and they're going to call on the Lord. It tells us in Matthew Chapter 7, Many are going to come to me in that day. And you know what they're going to say? They're going to say, Lord, Lord, have we not done many wonderful works in Thy name and cast out demons? They could say we've done all these things.
And you know, he's going to turn around. He's going to say I will profess to them.
I never knew you depart from me you that work inequity.
I never knew you. They're going to call, and it's possible some people in this room today are going to yet call on the Lord and He will not answer. And so we want to tell that part of the story that the Lord is calling today.
You have an opportunity today. He will answer. He's already answered a long time ago, but there may come a time when they'll no longer be opportunity.
Now let me go to the story that I brought.
Because there's, oh, I guess I have it here.
There's a whole other side to this.
We find that in the future day when the Lord Jesus comes and He sets up this wonderful place on earth that before they call, I will answer and while they're yet speaking, I will hear the Lord is going to be so close to them and just speaking back and forth. Well, you know that part is true today as well. If you've called on the name of the Lord, if He is your Savior, then you can have a living day by day.
00:30:28
Relationship with Jesus Christ. It's the life of faith. You know, the Christian life doesn't only begin with faith. It continues in faith and it tells us four times in the Bible that just shall live by faith. And so we go day by day living by faith with the Lord. And when we do that, many times we find out what happened in the Sunday school paper story that before they call, I will answer. The Lord is answering us in wonderful ways that we didn't even think about.
And that is what my story is here today. I just found a story that I enjoyed so much. It is from Africa and not from the part of Africa where we're living. My family and I, we live in southern Africa, and not S, but southern in Malawi. But this is from another place there. And there was a missionary lady who had a most remarkable thing happened to her. And I want you to hear this story. It's called a little girl's prayer.
And this lady who was a doctor, this is what she said.
One night I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward, but in spite of all we could do, she died, leaving us with a tiny premature baby and a crying 2 year old daughter. This happens a lot in Africa. So you have this little tiny baby that's not going to have an easy time living and a little girl and no mom anymore. And so that's what they had here. We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive as we had no incubator.
We had no electricity to run an incubator, OK, That keeps the baby nice and warm, OK. And we had no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly. OK, do we all know what the equator is? Right around the middle of the Earth? And when you get close to the equator, it usually gets pretty warm. And as we get further and further away up here, we're down South too, and it gets pretty cold. And so these ones were on the equator, but still at night it was gets very cold.
And so they said.
They were afraid that this baby was going to die, so one student midwife went for a box that we had for such babies and the cotton wool the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to soak up the fire and fill a hot water bottle.
OK, now maybe nobody here knows what a hot water bottle is. The older people do. Some of us actually probably still use them. I have to admit I have. But anyway.
I used to use these a long time ago. It was a rubber bottle that you would unscrew a little thing at the top and take it off and then you pour nice hot water in there and then screw the the cap back on. And then you would use this and you could stay nice and warm for hours with it because water doesn't cool down very quickly.
And so these hot water bottles used to be very useful even here, but they're still useful in a place like there Africa and so.
They went to fill up this hot water bottle and this one came back shortly in distress to tell me that in filling the bottle it had burst rubber perishes easily in tropical climates.
And it was their last hot water bottle.
Now they didn't know what to do. And so now they're here trying to figure out how are we going to take care of this baby. And she said, OK, put the baby as near you to the fire as you can. And you yourself, she, the doctor told this intern, she said you stay between the baby and the fire and block any drafts that may not between the baby and the fire, but between the baby and the door where all the drafts are coming in. All the cold air was coming from the door. So she was to block the cold air and keep the baby nice and warm.
And try to get through that night. And that's what they did. So the job of this girl was to keep the baby warm.
Now the following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with any of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby. I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle. The baby could so easily die if it got chills. I also told them of the two year old sister crying because her mother had died.
00:35:13
During prayer time, 110 year old girl Ruth prayed with the usual blunt conciseness of our African children. Now listen to this prayer.
Please God, she prayed, send us a water bottle. It will be no good tomorrow God, as the baby will be dead, so please send it this afternoon.
OK. Do you pray like that?
Honest boy. OK, I'm going to be honest too. I don't either.
I should, I think, but I don't often pray like that. But a lot of young ones often will pray like this.
So she went on.
Well, the doctor said, I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer. And she added to that prayer, she said. And while you are about it.
Would you please send a Dolly for the girl so she will know you really love her? OK, she didn't stop there. I mean God didn't do anything so might as well keep going, right?
Right, so.
Has often with children's prayers I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say Amen?
I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh yes, I know that he can do everything the Bible says. So, OK, there's where we all can get into trouble. Any true believer, we know this. God can do anything. But I don't think he's going to this time. And that's why when we pray, we need faith. OK, so.
She was thinking about what happened. She's saying there's limits to what God can do in this, aren't there? The only way for God to answer this particular prayer would be by sending me a parcel from the homeland. I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time and I had never, ever experienced a parcel or received a parcel from home.
Anyway, if anyone did send me a parcel, who would put in it a hot water bottle? I live on the equator.
OK, so there's no reason for a hot water bottle to go to Africa. It's the way people think.
So here's what happened. Halfway through the afternoon while I was teaching in the nurses training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door. By the time I reached home the car had gone but there and the veranda was a large 22 LB parcel. I felt tears pricking in my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone, so I went for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string carefully on doing each knot.
We folded the paper, taken care not to tear it unduly. Excitement was mounting. Some 30 or 40 pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box. From the top, I lifted out brightly colored knitted jerseys. I sparkled as I gave them out. And then there were knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children looked a little bored. Then came a box of mixed raisins.
And some other fruits, Well, that would make a nice batch of buns for the weekend.
Then as I put my hand in again, I felt the could it really be? What was it?
I gasped. I grasped it and pulled it out. Yes, a brand new rubber hot water bottle, she said. I cried.
This lady just cried.
I had not asked God to send it. I had not truly believed that He could.
Ruth that was the little girl who prayed. She was in the front row of the children and she rushed forward and she cried out and said if God has sent the bottle, then he must have sent the Dolly too.
And so she went way down to the bottom of the box and Rome is in there. And she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed Dolly. Her eyes shone.
OK.
She never doubted looking up at me, She asked, Can I go over with you, mommy, and give this Dolly to that little girl so that she'll know that Jesus really loves her?
OK, now I'm telling you children.
If you doubt my word. If you doubt this story.
00:40:02
God answers prayer and He answers it before we ask. I can tell you stories. I'm not going to do it. They're in my own life. But you can go around this room and you can ask other people's stories. You can ask Mr. Tony, you can ask Mr. Lovacek here. They will tell you stories about how God did this in their lives. And they're not the only ones. You can go all the way around this room. If you live long enough in the life of faith, this in one way or another is going to happen to you. This verse means all of what it says is not just salvation.
It's talking about how the Lord.
Wants to walk with us day by day in the life of faith.
But will you trust Him to do it? And I'm going to tell you there's only one way, and that is by staying as you are right now, a little child. It's very hard when you get like me, when you get older. It's very hard to take God up in simplicity like a little child. But simply take what that verse says before they call. I will answer.
When you get older, you will come in to experiences of life, you will come into all kinds of things and all kinds of reasons why that verse doesn't mean what it says.
Believe me.
I've done it.
But that verse means what it says.
Yes, it's written about Israel on the coming day, and it has a special meaning and a special application to them, but it means what it says to us today. Talking to believers now you've trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't stop your life of faith just because you believed on Him for the forgiveness of your sins. Keep walking with Him day by day, trusting Him for everything. If you have a need like this, ask Him for it. This lady was stunned.
She said that.
There had to have been somebody in that Sunday school that sent that box that put that in there, not even knowing why. There's no reason why they would put that hot water bottle in there. And then the same with the child. But that was five months earlier that that box was sent to that place and it came in answer to that little girl's prayer that very afternoon. Now, will you believe God like that?
OK, it's easy after you hear a story like that, it's easy to say, Oh yes, I'll believe. I'll go on, I'll go from this point and believe. But it gets hard and things come up and suddenly we don't want to believe anymore. We want to turn back and take the safer out, which is just not trusting God. Sometimes it seems safer in our hearts, but the Lord wants us to come to Him in simple faith and trust Him and ask Him for those things day by day.
And I also want to say if you yet have entrusted him as your Savior, that is number one. All the rest of this has no meaning until you've done that. And so you must start there. While our time is gone, let's just close with prayer.
Our God and our Father, we thank you so much for the Lord Jesus Christ who came into this world and loved each and every one of us in this room.
So much that he would give his life, that he would give everything that he had.
In spite of the fact that we were still sinners.
And when we were born and came, became old enough to know would be enemies, in spite of all of that, His love was so great that he gave all so that he might redeem us to thee. And we thank thee, our God, that Thou has called us now in the time of our lives, that here today Thou are still calling, still working in hearts. And we pray by Thy Spirit that that would work in the heart of each one of these children here, and each one of the ones who are older to any who is still lost and in their sins, that they would come.
To know that wonderful savior.
And two, we pray for those of us who know him that we would not forget that childlike faith, but go on day by day.
Walking with the Lord and just simply seeking to trust Him for everything in our lives. We ask for help with that Father, because we're weak and we often simply don't ask, and we don't receive because we ask not. We know these things. And so we ask for Thy help and we commit this time to Thee.
And the remainder of this day, to the meetings to follow, we thank Thee again for this time. We can be together and pray that it would all be for Thy glory and Thy honor. And we ask it in the precious and worthy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Stewards Faithfulness
Address—Bruce Imbeau
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
278 Savior, we long to follow thee daily, thy cross to bear and count all else, whatever it be, unworthy of our care. Someone start that, please.
We are not.
Done on my point. The world so the.
Oh, Jesus soul.
Are you all?
Commit our time to the Lord.
Our God and our Father, just do look to Thee for guidance this time blessing as the very Word of God is open.
They'll just encourage us, build us up, that we might have a heart to serve and to honor thee, Lord Jesus, in this world, the world where thou was taken out, rejected, crucified.
We pray that we might shine his lights to Thy glory and my honor. In my name we do pray and give thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
So kind to turn with me to a verse in First Corinthians chapter 4.
First Corinthians chapter 4 and it's verse 2.
Moreover.
Is required in Stuart's that a man be found faithful?
Our topic this afternoon will be Stewards.
Coupled with stewardship, is this word faithful?
So we're going to spend a bit of time.
Talking about faithful.
And also the word will pop up throughout the meeting.
What does it mean to be faithful? Well, actually the word seems to have several.
Aspects to it.
The way that it's used in the Bible.
One of them, very obviously, is full of faith.
Faithful forward.
00:05:01
And it certainly makes me think of a man like Abraham.
He's called the Father faithful.
And we know that he was very much.
A man of faith.
As a matter of fact, one of the ways in which the word faithful is translated.
In our King James Version, is believing or to believe or believed.
So that's pretty obvious what Abraham did. He believed God and it was counted to him.
For righteousness.
But you know, that isn't the only way we seem to use the word faithful.
There's another way that it's used that.
Reminds me of Caleb.
The Old Testament Caleb's name means dog.
And I know that dog is not presented very positively in the Bible, but let's take the positive side.
You think of a loyal dog.
And certainly Caleb was that, wasn't he? He's very loyal to his God. He stood up against 2 million people because he had a different.
Thought than the other two million had. Now you try that someday.
That's pretty rough.
Loyal.
But we think of faithful in another way also, and sometimes we talk about a faithful translation.
Like a translation of the Bible.
A faithful translation. And first of all, we need something that's accurate.
But we also mean something that's like dependable.
There's obvious overlap between some of these meetings, so don't think I'm categorizing too closely here.
But who would you think of?
In that kind of way, would you think of Moses? I would.
He was given the oracles of God. Those were to be delivered.
Faithfully to the people of God.
He was given the pattern of the Tabernacle. Those things were to be followed accurately.
Translated into real boards and gold and silver, it had to be done right.
I would think of the apostle Paul and the revelations that he received from the Lord, and they were to be delivered to the people of God in the way that they were received.
But you know what?
Who would really be a real prime example?
Of a faithful translation, while the Lord Jesus himself.
And the Lord Jesus himself in the Bible is referred to as faithful at least 10 times.
You say, well, he's not.
You know, I, I need to be full of faith, but Christ doesn't need to be full of faith. He's God himself.
But he absolutely accurately portrayed who God was because he was God.
And so he brought those things forward in his own person.
As that faithful translation of who God is.
And His love, His kindness, and His grace to us.
So we go to the scriptures.
Again, turn over to Hebrews chapter 3.
And we'll get two of the those last examples.
Kind of brought together Moses and Christ. Hebrews, chapter 3.
Also, in this passage we will also get a very good definition of what a steward is.
Hebrews chapter 3, verse one. Wherefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful. There's one of the times when crisis refers to his faithful who is faithful to him that appointed him as also Moses was faithful in all his house. Now his house is God's house.
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And verse five. And Moses verily, was faithful in all God's house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were be spoken after, but Christ as a son over his own house.
The definition of Stewart fine right there in verse five and very similar up in verse 2. But verse 5, Moses verily was faithful in all of God's house as a servant.
That is your definition of a steward.
A steward comes from the word house and is taking charge and taking care of the affairs of the house.
And that's what Moses did. And so he was, he's not called in Scripture a steward, but that's really what he was. He was a steward.
The Lord Jesus Christ and I want to make this distinction.
He certainly comes across as a good and faithful steward, but he's never really called that. And there is a particular reason, of course, we might imagine there might be because he's a son.
He's not steward. He came in the form and fashion as a man. He came as a servant in this world, but he is the son.
And the sun has a different position.
Than a servant or a steward.
And so during this meeting, even though I'm going to be kind of crossing.
Back and forth a bit referring to Christ and then referring to various scriptures having to a stewards.
Keep this in mind.
That.
Our usual St. level definition of a steward is not fitting to the Lord Jesus Christ because he is Son over his own house or over God's house.
Now, as a son, it's an ownership position.
And so there's really 3 levels that I have found in Scripture that have to do with with stewardship.
Or that idea of taking charge and managing a house.
And the first one is the ownership position.
And so you have.
Mentioned several times in the Bible about the Goodman of the house or the householder.
That's the person who who owns the place and that's why they have the authority to take charge of it. So yes, they do function as a steward, but they're not in the servant capacity, they're the owner capacity.
And that's really where Christ is. He functions as a steward, but he's in the owner capacity.
There's another one which.
Is translated Stuart.
In the Bible and that is more of a personnel manager.
Kind of cares for the needs of the employees, the people.
And they have a pretty high-ranking.
And they have authority to make decisions. Again, there's overlap between these different categories, but but there is a particular decision making capacity there. And maybe in our own existence, we do think of at work, there's people who are personnel managers and there's HR people and you know, they are to be looked up to because of their role, their position. Well, they are that type of steward.
One of the ways it's translated. Maybe this will help.
One of the ways this particular word is translated in the New Testament is Tudor. That's in Galatians.
Because this person who is a servant, he had a particular.
Role in the household of developing the children's spirits and intellect.
And that was what they were supposed to do, dealt with the children as a tutor and to direct them. So that's one of those levels.
00:15:01
The third level is the one that will basically be talking about today.
Is more having to do with.
The physical things of a household taking charge of the inventory. If you're at work, it'd be inventory control type person, production control type person.
Quality control, quality assurance person and that is kind of the steward that we will be.
Talking about mostly today.
Let's do talk about because it's very important, obviously, because things flow from the top. Of course, God is always at the top, but in the human realm. If you will turn with me, please, to First Timothy.
First Timothy, chapter 5.
And verse 14.
I will therefore that the younger women marry bear children. Guide the house. Now that's our expression right there is guide the house.
Now before we get any further, just for.
Interest sake.
It says here I will therefore that younger women marry. And really the thought here is younger widows. It's a particular word to those that are widowed. And it's an encouragement that if there is the opportunity to be married, take the opportunity. It's it's an OK thing to do. And when they do, then they will bear children and they will guide the house.
And this is again a stewardship position, but it's the ownership position.
It's it's not not a servant.
There to guide the house as the owner of the house.
And that's very important. This is really generally the woman's.
Role, and this is what they are to do. Very, very important.
It's not a servant position, it's an ownership position.
Now for men, if you go back a couple chapters, yeah, a couple chapters, First Timothy 3.
And verse 4.
It's speaking about bishops.
And it says one that ruleth, well, his own house.
Having his children in subjection with all gravity. For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church?
Of God.
And so here was position for the man. He was to take charge of his house.
As a servant, no. But is the ownership position just like with the wife. So the husband and the wife, they work together, both function in guiding the house.
Now you say.
The first verse is about the women was the young widows and these verses here are two bishops.
And like I don't follow neither one of those categories.
Well, you do.
You see the things that are laid out.
For those women or laid out for this for these men.
Are what is generally required of God for men and women.
OK, it's not us, it's not a strata thing. It's not certain people, certain levels of society do this or do that. This is what God is laid out for men and laid out for women. And if.
If you are a Bishop, you will come under a certain scrutiny.
To see to it that you are living up to the general standards of a man or a woman.
These are not additional, These are not special standards. This is the general standard. It's just if you're going to take a position of oversight among the people of God, you better.
00:20:02
Be up to snuff on your general standards that God is required of us.
And that's a very, very important thing. As a matter of fact, if you want to just on your own, go back to the verse one of this chapter and read through and just say to yourself, well, I'm not a Bishop, so this doesn't make any difference. And then go to the next little phrase and go, well, I'm not a Bishop, so this doesn't make any difference. And about the, you know, pretty quick, you're laughing at yourself because.
It's pretty obvious that it all makes a real difference.
Don't think for a minute that among God's people that God has different standards for us.
We're all part of one body. We all belong together. We're members.
And God has his requirements for us as people.
Very, very important. So as I say, just just challenge yourself, go through some of those things and say, oh, well, I guess that's not important for me and that's not important for me and.
Pretty soon you'll you'll get the idea what I'm talking about.
In what way are you a steward?
And obviously you knew I'd be getting to this point. This is kind of the core part of the meeting.
Well, first and foremost, you are a steward of yourself, of your own person.
In the book of Galatians, in the list of the fruits of the spirit, the last one mentioned is temperance. Temperance means self-control.
And self-control is obviously very important.
For certainly if you cannot control yourself.
How can you really function as a Christian?
And certainly, how can you be of any help to anyone else?
And so that is really first and foremost. Now I'm going to emphasize.
Because there's all kinds of things that you could put in this category, but I'm going to talk about moral issues.
Because moral issues are very, very important. And when I'm done there were in just a minute, I will mention why it's so important. But let's take a look at.
First Corinthians, chapter 6.
No, that's where that maintenance what order? But that wasn't the first one to want to look at. I want to look at First Thessalonians 4, sorry.
1St Thessalonians 4 is sometimes referred to as the Enoch chapter.
Enoch walked with God.
That's the first half the chat and then he was not because God took him and that's the second-half of the chapter.
So we're to live in the presence of God and will be taken in the rapture by God, and that's First Thessalonians chapter 4 is how we live and then how we'll be taken.
The Enoch chapter.
But there's quite a bit said about moral things here in First Thessalonians chapter 4.
Let's read verse three and four for this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication.
That everyone of you should know how to possess His vessel and sanctification and honor.
Now let's go to 1St Corinthians chapter 6.
First Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 19. What?
Know ye not that your body is the temple, the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and you're not your own, for you're bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.
You're to be a steward of yourself.
Now, why do I emphasize this?
Occasionally you hear some things that are really pretty pathetic.
Such as this statistic.
That among evangelical Christian young people.
The rate of immorality is approximately what the world is, which is 50%.
00:25:04
If you there, if you also looked at statistics and I think there's a relation.
At failed marriages.
Failed marriages in the world are 50%.
Among evangelical Christians, it is very close to 50%.
Are there a connection between those two statistics of immorality and divorce? I would suggest very strong.
Just as an aside.
If you like statistics.
And my kids know what three things I'm going to mention next.
But how do you want? Do you want to have a better marriage?
What are the three things that move the rates of divorce from one out of two?
One out of 400.
Three things.
Eat meals together.
Hey, look, you're going to eat, so eat together.
OK, I mean, you know, it's that easy. We all eat, so just eat together.
Read the Bible together. Some people call it family devotions or family altar, whatever you want to call it.
Read the Bible together. You're a Christian, you're going to read the Bible, so read it together.
Third thing is.
Quote UN quote Go to church together.
You know you're going to do something on Sunday morning, whether it's a football game or otherwise, but you're going to do something.
Go with your family to meeting.
It's that easy. Three things will move the ratio of of failed marriages from one out of two to one out of 400.
Over in First Corinthians chapter 12.
And.
The last part, yes, the last part of verse 25, First Corinthians 12, verse 25, the last part. But that the member should have the same care one for another. Here's another Ave. of stewardship.
And that is to care for others that are around us.
We need each other, we belong to each other and we are to cure for one another.
Let's go to John.
The last chapter of John.
John, Chapter 21.
And this has to do with the Lord and Simon Peter.
And I'm just going to read the last part, verse 15 and the last part of verse 17.
The Lord had asked, Lovest thou me? And Peter answers, Yes, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. Then Jesus saith unto him, Feed my lambs.
And in verse 17, at the very end, Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
That word.
Feed kind of means to to pasture the animal. They'll give them something to take them out and feel give them something something worthwhile.
And of course, the Lord Jesus is referring to Peter.
Feeding God's people spiritual things.
You know we're going to feed each other something.
I'm going to kind of repeat this a few times.
00:30:01
But we all have an impact on each other.
And there's something we're conveying.
It's just the way life is.
If you go through the gospels and you pick up the same word.
In Matthew, Mark and in Luke use the same word is in connection with feeding pigs.
In the Gospel of John it's used twice right here. It's a connection of feeding lamb's and sheep.
And there is a difference between sheep and pigs.
When dad sends Johnny out and to feed the.
The pigs, he says, slop the Hawks.
Well, you don't slop the sheet.
There's a whole different technique. It's a whole different approach.
It's different.
But we're going to be influencing each other one way or another, so we might as well treat each other sheep.
And do it right.
There's a verse in the Old Testament that talks about looking well after your herds.
And that's very important, having that care one for another.
There's plenty of other verses that you can put in this category.
You probably think of several of them right off the bat.
What other things might you have an interest in?
Stewardship, and I'm just going to list a few, we work. You want to look after the interest of your employer. If you're an employer or business owner, you want to look after the affairs of your employees. It is absolutely A2 way St. That's the only way that that the system runs. But do the things in the presence of God to care for your employer, to care for your employee.
We have time. Use your time wisely. Be a good steward of your time. Don't waste your time. You're going to be doing something with your time, so do something useful.
It's that easy.
Money. Money is a big issue. Speaking of issue, that was an issue last summer and the Christian magazine right Stewardship of money.
Now, don't be afraid of money.
Because first on my little list here is make money.
And you know I want you to make money.
Don't be afraid of money.
Money is really just a simple translation of your labor.
All income ultimately or all money ultimately comes income. If you want to discuss economic theories, we can do that later, but.
All money is ultimately income.
And it is nothing more than a translation from your labor into a unit that can then be traded off for someone elses labor. Say no, I don't want someone elses labor, I want things. OK, but somebody had to make the thing.
So you're really paying for their labor, and what you're doing is trading off in society your labor with someone else's labor.
That's what money is, so don't be afraid of it and get out there. And the Lord teaches us to work. And in this society, when you work, you get money.
You want to give money?
Be a good steward of your money.
And to do so, you give away money. That's a good thing to do. What are you doing? You're taking your personal labor.
You're translating it into a greenback. You hand it off to someone else, and now they can buy someone else's labor and get things that they need. Because presumably you're giving money to people who need it or can use it maybe more wisely than you can. And that's good too.
Don't wait. We don't want to waste. Nothing wrecks an economy or wrecks a family or wrecks a person more than wasting human labor. Money is but a translation of human labor. Don't waste labor.
00:35:01
Save money.
Should I have a bank account? Is it the right thing to do?
Yes, it's taking your labor and it is storing it up.
So that you can then get something else like a down payment for a house.
Quite appropriate. You need to buy a car.
All you're doing is saving up your labor. You decide to get get a car. You can't go out in the next two weeks and work hard enough to earn a car. At least most of us can't.
And so you store up your labor ahead of time.
Debt is a completely different issue or very difficult issue and there's good debt, there's bad debt. If you don't know the difference, please talk to me afterwards.
Going into debt is not wrong in and of itself.
Keep that in mind.
But there is such a thing as bad debt.
There are the things of God, in fact, right where we started in First Corinthians.
4 You talked about the apostles, who were stewards of the mysteries of God.
And to them have been committed various things having to do with the Lord Jesus and His work here in this world. And you are given things too. Do you know about salvation? Well, of course you do, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting in this room. Well, that it belongs to you. It's information that you can use.
As a steward, you can. You can allocate those resources, you can.
You can tell others about the gospel. You know very well about God's purposes in this world. Those are things that belong to you, and you're a steward of those things. Make use of them. Enjoy them yourself, enjoy them with others. Things can do you with the church, things having to do with the breaking of bread.
Christian ministry, all these things.
Are involved and they belong to you, but don't just sit on them. Be a good steward. Use them well. Don't forget that a steward is one who has inventory control, production control, quality control.
And these are things that are involved in spiritual things as well.
We're going to turn to the best known story in the Bible about a steward.
And that is in John, excuse me, that is in Luke chapter 16.
And this man is called the unjust steward.
The unjust Stewart.
I'm going to tell the story The Unjust Steward as I understand it, and this might be a little different than.
But then sometimes relate but.
Related.
Here's a man who is a servant to a large landowner.
And as a steward is supposed to do, he took control of the items that this landlord had, and he was responsible.
Well, it says that he wasted his goods. And to waste doesn't necessarily mean to fritter away, but it means to to to make it disappear, to destroy it. To like you, like an army will lay waste of land. And that's really the meaning of the word.
And one way to to destroy things as far from the point of view of the landowner is to take them.
And it appears that this is what this steward did. He took items he stole from his employer.
Well, these things came to the attention of the.
Of the landowner, the boss, and he says you can't have your job anymore.
OK, tie up loose ends and then you're out of here.
And so this fellow had a smart idea.
And even the Bible, even God commends him for his smart idea, and the smart idea was to find people that owed his master some money.
00:40:00
There wasn't necessarily money. It was, you know, bushels of wheat and and, you know, commodities.
So he sat him down and said, how much do you owe?
And it says here.
100 Measures of oil.
And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write, 50.
OK, so he wrote down the account by half.
Well, how can you get away with that? I mean, even the person who was paying back the money, he knew that there would be something wrong and the owner, that the business owner was still going to come after him for the other fifty. I mean, come on. Because something is done under the table doesn't make it legal.
Or binding. So what was the deal? What what really happened? Because this unjust steward was not interested in getting those people in trouble. No, no, no, he was not interested in getting those people in trouble. He just wanted those people to think that he was smart and that he was helpful so that when he got kicked out of his job, they would hire him and they wanted a smart person. So he put himself forward as a smart person.
Now catch this.
100 measures of oil, he says. Quick write down 50 Sign your name to it that is paid in full.
What was paid in full? The 100, of course. That's the only way it could be paid in full.
The unjust Stewart then took his hand. Dolly.
And went charging over to his own garage.
Took the oil that he had stolen from his master, 50 measures of it, and carted it back into his master's warehouse. And so it was all accounted for.
And that's how the system worked.
God commends him for this cause, not because he was a thief, which he was, but because he took what he had.
He took what he had and used it.
Wisely in this world, as far as this world's dealings are concerned.
That's the story of the unjust steward.
Verse 2.
I really well.
We're going to make a contrast. We have 4 minutes in which to make some contrasts.
You're going to finish it off yourself, I guess.
But we have read or we have heard the Lord Jesus Christ being a faithful one.
And this unjust steward stands in dramatic contrast to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
First of all, Jesus is the faithful and the true. This man was unjust.
So that's a pretty solid contrast between the two right off the bat.
Verse two he called him and said, How is it that I hear this of thee?
What do we hear of the Lord Jesus? Do we hear bad things or good things?
Oh well, you know, like the folks, it's all through the Bible, but we hear the good things of the Lord Jesus, the back in this time the Samaritan lady and people came out to see Jesus and, and when they came and they, they told her, I said, it's, it's great that you sent us here, but we, we didn't necessarily believe your word. But when we heard him, we acknowledge now that he is the Savior of the world.
So there's things that we hear about the Lord Jesus that are very, very positive. What this man heard was very negative.
Give an account of thy stewardship.
Well, he had a sad story to tell if he was very honest about how he was going to.
How he functioned, but the Lord Jesus Christ, what does he say? He says.
I have come to do thy will, Oh my God.
That's his accounting of his stewardship, that he came to do the Father's will.
Verse three in the middle, My Lord taketh away from me the stewardship.
God has given everything to the Lord Jesus Christ. Things are not going to be taken away from him, but everything is given to Him, All things in heaven and earth given to the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:45:06
I cannot dig.
Because he thought it was below him.
But when it came to Israel, the Lord Jesus, if you go back a few chapters, there was a fig tree.
That wasn't bearing and there was someone who is willing to dig around that tree.
And say look, I'll just give it some help.
It wasn't beneath him. And the Lord Jesus Christ, when he came, he had that principle also. It wasn't beneath him.
He came to stir up the hearts and the consciences of people of Israel, bring them into blessing.
And to beg. This man was ashamed. But the Lord Jesus Christ, he cries out, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, he pleaded with them, He wept over the city.
And.
There's the Gethsemane.
Where the Lord Jesus?
Says he fell on his face.
And the dust.
It wasn't beneath him.
Very Son of God to plead in that way.
Begging in that way.
Hebrews tells us of another part of that where he was heard.
In that he was delivered later.
In resurrection.
This unjust steward.
He had the wherewithal, don't worry. He made off like, abandoned, quite quite literally, but.
He had their wherewithal to pay off all these people's debts. Probably he had plenty in his own garage could have carted over.
But he says here, pay half.
Well was the Lord Jesus do when it comes to us? We're the people that owe.
We owe lots and lots. He paid it all, didn't he? He didn't say, oh, you just pay half of it.
He paid it all.
And are you that?
But the Stewart, the unjust steward, he took things that he had already stolen and paid them back to the master.
But the Lord Jesus Christ, he says in the book of Psalms, he says, I restore that which I took, not away.
He didn't pill for something so as to give it back to God. No, says I restore that which I took, not away.
So it's just the absolute opposite of this unjust story that is our Lord Jesus Christ.
Again, something else that you should be keeping.
Just in closing First Timothy.
First Timothy, last chapter and verse 19.
Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life. Oh Timothy keep.
That which is committed to thy trust.
Be a good steward, Keep that which is committed to thy trust.
Back in the book of Proverbs you can read Keep by heart with all diligence.
We're all stewards.
Be a good steward.
Because you're going to either be a bit bad, steward a good story. You're all responsible for something.
So be a good one.
In honor to our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's good. Thanks our God and our Father, we do thank thee.
For another day of the grace of God, another day that we can serve thee and honor Thee. We just do pray that we might not be wasters, but we might keep.
Those things that have truly been committed to our trust, spiritual things certainly, and even physical things that thou has given us family, time, money. We just do pray that we might.
Seek to be an example and a help to those around us. In thy name we give thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Suffering
Lessons From Animals
When I Sit in Darkness
A Suffering God
Gospel—Tim Roach
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good evening. Let's start tonight by seeing him #13 man of sorrows.
What a name for the Son of God who came ruined, sinners to reclaim Hallelujah. What a savior. Maybe we could stand and sing #13.
Man of sorrow.
And standard, glorious glory. Glory forever.
One day when I was visiting in Malawi.
I went to an assembly. They were expecting me.
We had a meeting. We sat down.
We were there for several hours.
And then we left.
I hadn't been there for over a year.
Later on I heard that they were hungry.
They had said that when Roach comes, he will bring us food.
I didn't know it.
They were suffering.
Suffering from hunger.
Let's pray.
Our God and Father, we give thanks for your Son, the Lord Jesus.
We give thanks for all his suffering that he went through on the cross for sinners.
Tonight we have some suffering souls.
In our presence, Father, we just ask that you would reach down and touch their hearts.
We think of any who might not yet know the Lord as their savior that they might be released.
From their sins.
And to have eternal life, we just ask for help this evening. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
I want to speak tonight about a God who suffers.
There is so much suffering in this world.
The human heart cannot.
Is not able to be able to handle all the suffering that is in the world.
But yet the Lord Jesus.
He is able to identify with the sufferings that we go through. He is in all points tempted like as we are.
There are some refugees that came down through Karunga where we were staying.
There is a war in Rwanda and quite a number of years ago, but they're still fighting among the tribes. I think they're called the Hutus and the Tutsis.
The fighting is still going on and one man from one tribe married a girl from the other tribe and they lived happily. They had some children.
Then the tribe of the girl found out that this foreigner tribe was living in their neighborhood.
They came to kill him and they beat him.
Severely with machetes.
And they left him for dead.
00:05:02
He recovered.
His father gave him His father-in-law gave him some land and a place where they could build a house.
And so they moved over there.
And they lived there for some time before the tribe found that he was still living in the area. They came and they beat him and they tried to murder him and they left him for dead. They took him to the hospital. He was in there.
For several months.
Regaining consciousness when he woke up.
His wife was beside him in the next bed. They too had attacked her. The whole gang abused her and she had been pregnant with child and they took their machetes and they stabbed her in the stomach and they killed the baby.
These two people, they ran from their country without anything.
They brought their children.
They're escaping for their lives.
They suffer.
If there is a God, why does he allow suffering?
God himself suffers.
Before creation.
God chose to create people with whom he could have fellowship, because fellowship is important to God. And if you looked in Ephesians chapter one, verse four to six, we find that God chose certain ones to be holy with whom he could have fellowship and those ones would have fellowship with God and they would give praise and glory to God.
God wants to have fellowship with man.
One of the first things we find Let's go to Job Chapter 38.
One of the first things we find that God created was the angels.
And the angels were created to serve God.
Job Chapter 38. We'll start with verse four, and he's talking to Joel.
And he says, Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundations of the earth? Verse 7 Where were you when I laid down the foundations of the earth? When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Here, before God laid the foundations of the earth, He had created the angels. These are the morning stars who sang together.
And they rejoiced. The sons of God shouted for joy when the foundations of the earth were laid.
We're told in Colossians one verse 16, all things were created.
By him and for him and so God created the angels, He laid the foundations of the earth.
It was after this that the suffering of God began.
We think sometimes when we are going through a trial.
That we are the only ones in trial and we block out everything else.
But God knows what it is to suffer as well.
He has suffered disappointments and discouragements. He knows what a pain is and rejection.
And sorrow.
This God who created the universe began to suffer.
Let's go to Genesis 1.
If you were to look back in Isaiah chapter 14, you would find that Lucifer who is the chief of the angels.
He attempted to overthrow the power of God. He saw what it was for those angels to rejoice when God laid the foundations of the earth. He wanted it all for himself.
And the whole creation was thrown into chaos.
In Genesis One and verse 2, the earth was without form and void. The darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. We find here that the earth was without form. It was out without and void. It was in the state of confusion, in a state of chaos.
Yeah.
00:10:02
God did not create the heavens and the earth in this way. If you were to look in Ecclesiastes, chapter three, you would find that he created all things beautiful. But when the Spirit of God was moving across the darkness of the waters, he didn't find beauty. He found darkness. He found the judgment waters.
Isaiah 45 and verse 18 says he did not create it waste and empty.
Like it was here in Genesis chapter one, verse two, God did not create the world in that condition.
He created it, Isaiah says, To be inhabited.
God did not create the world in darkness.
John tells us.
God is late, and in him is no darkness at all.
But we can't imagine what God was thinking when the Spirit of God was moving across these waters.
He saw the darkness in the waters of judgment. God was surveying the state of confusion and the emptiness that the earth was in in that condition that it had become. God was suffering at that time. God suffered all the way up to Genesis one verse 3 where it says, God said let there be light and there was light and so.
God starts.
To fix up the earth and he says let there be light and we find that God is starting to work on his plan.
And in six days, God fixed up his creation to prepare a place so he could put man, so he would have a place where he could have fellowship with man. Let's go to verse 26.
God said let us make man, He says let us.
Make man. This is God, God. There is one God, but it's a plurality of God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And he says, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He Him, Male and female created He them.
On day 6.
God made man in his own image.
That means that God made man with the Spirit so that God could have fellowship with man, and we find that God came down into the Garden of Eden and he was able to commune with Adam.
He came down in the mornings so he could have fellowship with man, and it was a good fellowship, and God was glorified. Through that fellowship with man, Satan saw the glory that God received.
In his fellowship with man and Satan became jealous again, and he wanted that glory for himself.
So Satan came into the garden with a plan to destroy the fellowship of God.
With man.
Satan came in, he saw Eve there, and he came in, and he deceived the woman, and she disobeyed God. And together with Adam they disobeyed God. And from that moment on, sin reigned in the heart of man, and the fellowship with God was broken.
The suffering of God increased.
As man was separated from God because of sin.
Buddha Chapter 6.
Here with Noah, we find that the sin of man grew worse and worse.
And the violence grew, and this God who is suffering looked down from heaven.
And in Genesis 6, verse five and six says, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
Oh, the suffering of God was too much. And so he says in verse seven. He says, I will destroy man, whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beasts, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for repenteth me that I have made them.
00:15:06
So God was sorry that he had ever made man.
And so, so it was in the day of Noah that again, though rains came down in the waters of judgment, again covered the face of the earth.
Now the long-suffering of God is not willing that anyone should perish.
And so God made a way of escape. He called Noah. He said to Noah, Go down and you build me a boat, a big boat, so that all who will may come on to that boat. And so Noah built that boat, and all were invited to come and escape the judgment of waters that was going to come on the earth and destroy this wicked world.
But we find that Noah and his family were the only ones who were saved.
Let's go to Chapter 11.
And God the Creator.
He took Noah and his family, and he put them back onto the earth in a new beginning. And then after many years, man continually turned, turned away from God again.
And they began worshiping the sun, the moon, the stars. And they built this Tower of Babel in an attempt to reach heaven so they could worship the stars. They attempt to reach the creation that they worship. They worship the creation instead of the Creator. And here in Genesis 11.
Verse 6 Down through nine. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is 1, and they have all one language. And this they begin to do. And now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence, and upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did confound the language of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of the earth.
The heart of God was suffering again as he mixed up the language and dispersed man throughout all the earth.
Fellowship with God cannot happen in the presence of sin.
And so man was separated from God because of his sin, and man got further and further away from God. And man was by the difference of languages. They spread out over all the world. And so sin continued to grow, and sin began to control man some more. And so God was going to test man in yet another way.
The whole world was a sea of wickedness and idolatry, and God reached down into that sea of wickedness and idolatry, and he chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the nation of Israel.
He chose them to be his special people, and he was going to give them every opportunity. He was going to give them every advantage to be blessed with the fellowship of God. God even had Moses build a Tabernacle, a tent where they could stay, where God could live, and so he could be with his people, so he could have a fellowship with his people. But Israel we find.
They didn't want it. They didn't want the fellowship with God. God gave Israel just a few commandments to keep. He gave them some rules to worship God in fellowship.
But Israel? They didn't want it. They turned away from God to go their own way.
Let's go to Romans chapter 3.
Romans chapter 3.
Israel was under this test, with these rules and these commandments in an attempt.
To honor God. But man in his own strength and in his own efforts, cannot please God. And we find here in Romans 3 verse 23, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. This speaks about you tonight, those of you who do not yet know the Lord is your savior. You are.
00:20:01
Falling short of the glory of God.
And so God had a test with Israel. And with this test of Israel, God proved the futility of man being able to approach God.
On his own works.
God suffered so much during this period of time in the test of Israel.
Most of the Old Testament that we read.
Is a history of the curses that came on Israel because they refused. The fellowship of God, they refused.
To obey the commandments of God.
They couldn't do it because man in his flesh comes short of the glory of God. And it was at this time that God decided to send his Son into this world to become a man, the man that we know as Jesus Christ.
He came to his people, Israel. He wanted to manifest himself to them. He wanted to bring them close to him so he could have fellowship with them. But he came unto his own people and his own people. They did not receive him.
God suffered when Israel rejected his son.
Jesus Christ.
When the Lord Jesus came into this world before He was born, Joseph and Mary came into Bethlehem. They were looking for a place where they could could stay because Mary was about ready to have this baby.
But there is no room for them in the motel.
They didn't want Jesus in their town, and so Jesus was born in a Manger.
Later on in his life when he was tempted by the devil.
Jesus refused the offers of Satan and because of it he suffered. He suffered hunger because he refused to do the commandments of Satan.
And then later he suffered the delay of his Kingdom because he would not fall down and worship Satan. Satan has all sorts of things to try to lure you into his net, to drag you down into hell. Satan thought he could defeat the Lord Jesus.
But he could not.
As Jesus ministered through the world.
Here on Earth.
Man blasphemed him. They did not like the fact that he claimed to be who he said he was the person of the Christ God himself who had become a man. And they rejected him, and they accused him of blasphemy, and they tried to stone him to death.
And then when they came, and they brought him closer to the cross, they spit in his face, and they put the crown of thorns upon his head. And they took a stick, and they beat him on the head, pressing those thorns down into his skull.
They hated the Lord Jesus.
They put those thorns in his on his head.
They gave him a stick in his hand. They put a robe on him and they bowed down to him and mocked him. They mocked the Son of God.
At the last, they crucified Jesus.
As we sang, Jesus was the man of sorrows, and he was acquainted with grief.
Let's go to John 3.
God suffered when he saw sin at its worst. In John 317 we see that God sent.
Not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
God sent his beloved Son into this world. He didn't come in here to condemn Israel to death. He didn't come here to condemn you to a lost eternity in hell.
But verse 18 says, if you believe you are not condemned. But if you do not believe, is there anyone here who has not yet believed on the name of the Son of God?
You are condemned already. God has signed your judgment.
Eternity in hell without God.
00:25:05
He But Jesus did not come to condemn you to hell. He came to save you.
But they hated the Lord Jesus. They rejected him.
The Lord was very long-suffering.
But his long-suffering of God.
Was coming to an end. Sin must be judged, and God was ready to pour out his indignation of wrath and the judgment of damnation on the heads of the sinful man and woman.
Who is that? Who is the sinful man and woman that is you tonight who has rejected the Lord Jesus up to now? You have not accepted him. That means you do not believe him.
Your sin has raised the anger of an holy God. Let's go to first Peter 3.
Up until this time.
God was suffering because of sin.
Because sin had separated man from fellowship with God. But now there was a change going to take place now instead of suffering because of sin, the Lord Jesus. The time had come for the Lord Jesus to suffer for sin. And here we read in First Peter 3 and verse 18.
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust.
That he might bring us to God.
Christ has suffered for sins. He only had to suffer once.
He doesn't have to suffer again.
He knew all my sins and he put them all on Jesus at that time.
Most of the sins that I've committed.
I committed them after I was saved.
I've done some pretty bad things and had some pretty terrible thoughts after I was saved.
But God knew them, and he took them, and he put them on Jesus.
And Jesus suffered.
For my sins.
God has prepared a way of escape for you. The judgment is very real, and the judgment is hanging over your head tonight. But God has prepared a way of escape for you, and God is waiting for you.
To accept his way of escape.
John 14.
In this verse we find that Jesus is the way of escape.
Verse four, Chapter 14 of John and verse 6.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father, but by me.
Jesus is the way of escape.
Man likes to think that he has his own way. If I can just be good enough, if I just make a decision tonight to decide to keep the commandments, decide to start a good life and forget those things that I did in the past, all it takes is a decision, man says. But that doesn't work because there is no power in and of yourself.
To please God.
Man like thinks that they can approach God through Mary.
Man thinks he can approach God through Allah or Muhammad.
Jesus is the only way. There is one mediator between God and man. It is the man Christ Jesus.
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father, but by me will you come to the Father through Jesus.
He's waiting for you, he says. Come unto me. All ye that labor you're heavy laden under your sin, come unto me and I will give you rest.
Jesus is waiting for you to come tonight.
Acts 16 tells us Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
Believe. What does that mean to believe? What are you going to believe? We are told that the demons believe and they tremble.
The demons, They know that Jesus is God and they're afraid of him.
00:30:02
So when it says believe on the Lord Jesus, it means more than just believing.
About Jesus.
How can you be saved?
First of all, you need to believe that Jesus is God.
You need to believe that you are a Sinner, that you have sinned against God, that there is nothing good in you that can please God. I know man thinks likes to think that there's something good.
That we can do, that we can attain some level of goodness, but it is impossible. You need to admit that you are a Sinner, and you must believe that Jesus had to come into this world, and he had to hang there on the cross, and he had to suffer and die and to shed his blood.
To take away your sins. Jesus had to die because of your sins and he suffered there. He suffered there stroke upon stroke of God's wrath as it fell on Jesus for you.
Romans 10 and 9 tells us that if thou shalt, confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.
And believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead.
Thou shalt be saved. This is what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And when you are saved tonight you can bring joy and glory to God the Father as you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. We're told that there's going to be joy in the presence of the angels over 1 Sinner that repents. And so if you repent tonight, you turn away from your sins. There's going to be a rejoicing in heaven.
Won't you come to Jesus tonight? Won't you leave behind your burden of sin? Confess it to Jesus? Repent.
And be saved. We read that verse in in John chapter 3 and verse 18 that if you do not believe.
You are condemned.
Verse 36 says if you don't believe, the wrath of God abides on you.
We're also told that if you don't repent and turn away from your sins, you will perish, so there must be that believing on the Lord Jesus.
After you are saved.
You can believe that Jesus has given to you the gift of eternal life. That life, we have learned, is the very life of Jesus Christ himself. Could Jesus ever sin? No. Why? Because he is God. Did Jesus ever sin? No. Jesus had no sin. He is eternal life, and Jesus wants to share that holy, righteous life with you. He's given to you eternal life if you have believed.
On the Lord Jesus as your savior.
You're a child of God. He is not going to allow anything to happen for you to get out of his hands, he says. I give unto you eternal life and you will never perish. No one can ****** you out of my hands. No one can take you out of my father's hands. You are forever safe when you have eternal life.
You can believe, as we mentioned earlier, you can believe that that must believe that the blood of Jesus Christ has taken away every sin.
Even the sins that you committed after you are saved, God knew them and he had already put them on Jesus. And so you will never ever be punished by the wrath of God for your sin.
Because Jesus has already taken that penalty and took that punishment for you if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Now that you have eternal life, you are free to enjoy a fellowship with God because that sin that separated you from God has now been taken away and the you have been reconciled to God by the death of his son. Let's go to Philippians chapter 3.
I have presented to you the gospel tonight.
You have been offered eternal life. You can be saved this very evening, but I want to give you a warning because if you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, I want you to know that you are not promised a life without suffering.
00:35:00
As you get, go back home to your home after this meeting.
You will once again face your trials alone.
Maybe you're having some marriage difficulties and you're suffering in your relationship with your husband or wife. As you leave these meetings, you're going to have to go back.
To that suffering.
Maybe you have some financial troubles.
You're able to forget about those things when we're here amongst everyone.
But you'll need to go back.
To your financial troubles, or to that disease that is eating away at you, or to that pain that is inflicted on you.
For whatever reason.
God allows suffering.
But I want you to remember a verse in Psalm 23 verse 4 where God.
Where there's a prayer there, and I want you to remember that prayer. It says I will fear no evil because you are with me.
The Lord Jesus is going to go with you.
As you leave the room tonight, if you know the Lord as your savior, he's going to go with you. He's going to be with you as you face your trials.
As the Lord Jesus goes through the trials with you, you will get to know him better.
Philippians 3 verse 10.
That I may know him and the power of his resurrection.
Listen to this next part.
And the fellowship of his sufferings.
Made conformable unto his death, that I may know him, and the fellowship of his sufferings.
Jesus suffered himself.
He suffered so much.
That he is able to identify with the suffering that you are enduring, that you may be called to go through.
And God encourages us in that verse in Romans 8, verse 17 that her brother quoted that earlier today. If we suffer with him, we shall be glorified together with him.
You may suffer for this present time.
But it's nothing compared to the glory that will follow.
I don't believe the suffering of man will cease until God stops suffering.
When will that be?
When all of sin and death and Satan and hell have been cast into the lake of fire is burning with brimstone.
At that time, when we go into the eternal state, there will be no more pain, there will be no sorrow, there will be no more death, there will be no crying.
At that time we will be able to enjoy to the fullest.
Our eternal life.
You can enjoy the eternal life today as much as you want.
We were speaking earlier, some of us that we have that eternal life. We have the power of the Spirit of God in us to help us live a holy life.
But don't forget.
Or maybe it's good to forget that we have that old nature and just keep it buried. But you will have that old nature.
Until you die, or until the Lord Jesus comes. And so we need to keep that old nature in the place of death and allow the Spirit of God to use us through the power of His Spirit to live.
With the turn, with our eternal life, the life of Christ, let's sing #11.
Will your anchor hold?
Through the storms of life.
Will your anchor.
Name.
On the right.
You can never have.
For your own.
Who they can live in, Jesus Lord.
If anyone is suffering tonight, maybe you're suffering with your sins. You're suffering knowing that the wrath of God abides on you and you'd like to believe tonight and you'd like to talk to me. I'll just be sitting here on this side after the meeting. Let's pray.
Our God and Father, we give thanks for the Lord Jesus. We give thanks for His perfect love.
That came down into this world to be a man.
To share with us in our sufferings, and then to go to the cross to suffer alone.
For our sins.
Jesus, we just give thanks for all that has done for us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Open Mtg. 7
Open—B. Prost, M. Payette, B. Christensen
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.
Can we sing together #225?
225.
It seems of confusion and creature complaints. How sweet to the soul.
His communion with Saints 225.
Ways I will straight through.
So it was like.
Joy.
All of you.
I don't cry.
Taste of all.
We go ahead.
Let's go over again now we do.
To shine.
Jesus.
00:05:53
When I read part of the first before we pray.
In Acts chapter 10.
Acts 10.
And the middle of starting at the middle of verse 33.
How therefore, are we all here present? We're God.
To hear all things that are commanded thee.
Of God.
Right.
God and our Father, we thank Thee.
For all that thou hast.
Given to us, and particularly this.
Weekend this yesterday.
And this morning, the early part of this day, thankfully for this sweet remembrance of the Lord Jesus this morning.
To enter into just a little of what thou just go through and the great price that that is paid for us.
For our redemption.
Glory of thy Father.
Now we're here, back in this building, and we asked the this open meeting.
That that was direct by thy spirit, our Lord and Father.
That only those with whom to whom thou hast given a message for us.
Stand up to speak.
That we might be ready as Cornelius was.
All his heads to hear the things.
And so.
Has prepared for us.
In this very meeting our garden father, so we commend this next.
Hour or so into thy hands.
Or the direction of Thy Holy Spirit, the Oscar, and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, Amen.
I'd like to take a few minutes and talk.
About the subject of suffering.
And to start off, could we turn to a verse in Second Timothy that is well known? Second Timothy chapter 3?
Second Timothy, chapter 3.
And verse 12.
Yay and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus.
Shall notice the verb. They're not simply a matter of the future tense, but shall suffer persecution.
And then if we could turn back to Romans 8.
Romans, chapter 8.
00:10:03
In verse 16.
Romans 8 and verse 16. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, And if children than heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. For the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared.
With the glory which shall be revealed in.
Then go down to verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Then one more scripture in Second Corinthians chapter 4.
2nd Corinthians 4.
Verse 14.
Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.
For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might, through the Thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God.
For which 'cause we faint not.
Though our outward man perish, at the inward man is renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment worketh for us of far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look at not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
None of us likes to go through suffering, do we?
And yet over and over again in the Scripture, the Word of God tells us that it is the common portion of believers.
And when God saved the apostle Paul, who was then known as Saul of Tarsus?
And when he was to be visited by Ananias, who was to baptize him, and as it were, to welcome him into the family of God.
We find that God told immediately Ananias. I will show him how great things he must suffer for my namesake. And Paul, as it were, was what we might say, the standard bearer for this dispensation. Not that he didn't make mistakes, but he marked out the pathway of a man who walks before God, who belongs to heaven, but who is sent back into this world.
As a witness and a testimony of what he has heard and what he has experienced.
And you and I know, and I trust it's well known, all of the sufferings that some of our brethren and other lands are going through at this very moment.
And I suppose it's a conservative figure, but I understand that probably close to 200,000 believers every year give their lives for Christ. And again, I say that's probably a conservative figure, so that there are probably more believers who are being martyred for the name of Christ today as to actual numbers, than at any other time in the history of Christianity.
I say to your soul and mine.
Are we going to get off Scott free?
Are we going to get off in North America without any suffering? No, it says all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. And while we are so thankful for the fact that we are not sitting here under the fear that some authorities will burst through the door and at gunpoint, force us to go to prison or force us to go into death or something more than that.
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Yet at the same time, may I suggest to your heart and mind that God in these last days is making us feel a little of what it is to suffer the reproach of Christ. Again, I say it isn't always the direct sufferings that some are experiencing in this world, but the Lord knows how to allow those things in your life and mine which will cause us to realize that we are not yet home.
That hymn we sung has always been a favorite of mine.
And everyone here knows, I trust in some measure what it is like to be at home. I suppose there may be those here who have had a very difficult time in their lives, and maybe you haven't known at every point in your life what it was to have a home. It's the most difficult thing, and I must confess that I have never experienced it.
But I rather think that the man who wrote that him. And if you look in the back of the Little Flock hymn book, you'll find it's a man by the name of Denim.
And if you go over to London, England, you can find his grave there in Bun Hill Field Cemetery on the outskirts of London.
Because he was an outcast, because he wouldn't go along with the prevailing ideas that the Church of England had, and he was what they called a dissenter.
But there's even more pathos connected with the antecedent to that him because some here and probably many know that it was based in its sentiments at least on a secular hymn known as Home Sweet Home that goes something like this mid pleasures and palaces, though you may roam, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. And on and on it goes. And that was written by a man who was an American by the name of J Howard Payne, who somehow fell into difficulty with the American government and was forced away from the United States.
And he wandered all over Europe looking for a place that he could call home. And he remembered with fondness.
The place that he could call home over here in America.
And he wrote that song Home Sweet Home.
But the story is told of how one day he was wandering in various parts of Europe and he found himself in London, England. And anyone here, if you know anything about London, you know that there is a very wealthy area called Hampstead. And it's been a wealthy area. It's been sort of the area of London to live in for many, many years. It was so way back in the 1800s. And one time Howard Payne found himself.
Homeless, cold, hungry in some of that miserable, wet, rainy weather that is common enough over in London, England. And he tried to take shelter under a large overhanging shrub under the Bay window of a wealthy home in Hampstead. And there he huddled, trying in some way to keep warm and keep out of the rain. And now you can imagine what he heard inside that house. They didn't know he was there.
There were people. There was a family, warm in the light, happy, well fed. They had a piano in the living room and someone was playing the piano and they were singing. What were they singing?
Home, Sweet Home, the very song that he had written. And there he was, homeless outside.
Huddled under a Bush, nowhere to go, and people right within inches of him.
Makes a big difference whether you're on the inside of the outside, doesn't it? Singing his song.
In the enjoyment of everything that home meant. And there he was, huddled outside.
I say to your heart and mind, I don't want to speak too long. There's time for others.
But these verses bring before us the fact that there are sufferings in this present time.
And there are different kinds of sufferings in the believers life which we do not have the time to go into this afternoon.
Thing is suffering for righteousness sake, and everyone who loves righteousness suffers. Today, in an unrighteous world, there is such a thing as suffering for Christ, and we find that expression among other places in Philippians chapter one, To suffer for his sake. That's a higher plane of suffering, because I suffer not merely because righteousness is being trampled under foot, but because the claims of the Lord Jesus are not being honored.
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But then there's a higher plane, if I could suggest it even more than that, that we get here.
In Romans, if we suffer with him, suffer with him. Oh, suffering with Christ is even a deeper thing than suffering for Christ, because it involves.
Experiencing everything that he experienced with thoughts that are in tune if I could use the expression in on track with his and we feel as he felt.
When God allows suffering in your life and mine, He allows it to come from different angles.
Some here know what it's like to be without a job.
Very, very difficult and something I must confess that I have never experienced.
People don't usually put medical doctors out of a job.
But it's a very real thing and it's hard to bear.
And yet the Lord allows it. Sometimes there are young people here that are going through various difficulties and hurts of different kinds that maybe you can't tell anyone else about. And maybe you say, why does this have to happen to me? And you look at somebody else, if you're anything like me, and say, oh, he or she hasn't made. They don't have the problems I have. They don't have to go through the difficulties that I have.
Sometimes there's a shortage of money, and Bruce was talking about it. Money is a commodity in this world. It can buy many things.
And it's very important here in North America, isn't it? Very important.
Suffering, and God allows suffering in your life and mine. Sometimes it's ill health.
And it can be very, very difficult.
Very hard to bear.
Very, very difficult suddenly to find out that that health that you took for granted is not there anymore. Or that the things that you used to be able to do, you suddenly cannot do anymore because old age is creeping up on you. And you suddenly find that the faculties that you used to have are not the same anymore. And it's not easy.
What is it all about?
Always say to your heart and mind, and we don't want to go over these scriptures all in detail.
But let's remember what it says there in Romans 8 and verse. What is it 18?
I reckon that the sufferings of this present time.
Are not worthy to be compared, not even worth weighing the one against the other. Why? Oh, because of the glory.
And I say most of all of my own heart, but I say to your heart that if there is suffering in your life of any kind, now there is that which we bring on ourselves. Yes, there is that which is the government of God in our lives. And often there's a mixture. Peter talks about the trial of your faith, but in the same chapter he talks about if needs be.
But nevertheless, whatever suffering the Lord allows, I suggest that it's for you and for me to have a little glimpse of coming glory. A glimpse of coming glory.
And it's a wonderful thing to talk to those who have been in circumstances where they have had everything taken away.
And what has it given them? A glimpse of glory. It has given them a glimpse into what we get in 2nd Corinthians 4 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. Oh, they can seem awfully important at the time, can't they? And we all know what that feels like.
But it's a marvelous thing to see those with whom God has taken much away and yet to find them absolutely rejoicing. Why? Oh, because there's a glimpse of coming glory. An old brother years ago, I never knew him. He's been long since with the Lord, long before I was born. A brother by the name of Crossley. He once made a remark. He said, Oh brethren, he said, if you and I had only the smallest glimpse of coming glory.
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We would probably be unfit to be here in the intensity of our desire to be gone.
When the Apostle Paul came back from the 3rd heaven, what does he say? Oh, I can't, I can't.
I just can't. I heard things, but it wouldn't be lawful for a man to utter oh, he recognized that what he had seen and what he is, well, I shouldn't say that doesn't say anything. He saw what he had heard and what he had experienced.
Was of such dimensions, he said. I can't, I can't relate it to you down here.
But sometimes God has to take away what we take for granted down here in order.
To get our attention in order to make us realize that everything down here is temporal.
What does he say there in Romans 80? He says.
Who shall separate us, and notice the expression there? In one case he uses the expression the love of Christ.
And then again at the end of the chapter he uses the expression the love of God.
Why the difference?
If you have time, and I suggest this to anyone, but particularly the young people, go through particularly the New Testament and see how many things you can find that are related both to Christ and to God. We get the love of Christ and the love of God.
There's one more in this 8th chapter of Romans, The Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. See how many you can come up with.
Then go and cheat and use the power of Bible or the online Bible or something like that. But do some looking 1St and see how many you can come up with.
Others may have a different thought or a deeper thought, but I suggest in a general way what the difference is.
When it talks about God, the thought is more nature and power.
When it talks about Christ, it's the practical realization and enjoyment of it in your life and mine.
And so it talks here in Romans 8 about the love of Christ. And what does it mention there?
Practical things. Tribulation.
Tribulation.
That word has its origins in the Greek in the word that is used for scourging someone.
Strong word. And sometimes the problems in our lives can seem almost that bad. Tribulation.
Or distress, persecution, famine.
Nakedness, perils, sword. But then what does Paul say? Quotes from the Psalms, as is written. For thy sake, we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Now that's Israel in the Tribulation, properly speaking. But Paul applies it to us. Why? Because he says, as it were. That is what we are to expect.
Many years ago, in the latter part of the 17th century, late 1600s.
There were godly people who lived in Scotland who were called Covenanters and they didn't do everything right.
And in some cases they took up arms in order to defend themselves, which wasn't the right thing to do, but there were many godly people among them.
And those who have enjoyed that him in the appendix, The sands of time are sinking. It's based on the ratings and on the life of Samuel Rutherford, who lived during that time in Scotland.
And those Scottish covenants stood firm for Christ, in many cases against overwhelming odds.
And what did they learn when their children were growing up? They learned to expect martyrdom. They learned to expect martyrdom.
We don't expect that, but are we that faithful to Christ?
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There was once a man who was a preacher among them who was out in hiding. And in those days there were plenty of places to hide if you didn't mind living in a cave and roughing it a bit. And this man was in hiding and everyday people that knew him would bring him food, and usually they'd send out young boys to carry the food to them because they knew how to take the shortcuts and go through the fields.
One day a young boy was taking a parcel of food in a bag to this man and he got caught by the dragoons.
And they tried to make him tell where the old man was. They said, tell us where he is and we'll let you go. Oh, he said, no way, no way.
They held him over a Cliff by the scruff of his neck, by his collar, and said, now are you gonna tell us?
The poor boy pleaded with them. Oh, he said. It's an awful long way down. Have you not got any children at home?
But they were heartless. They said. You've got one more chance. Tell us where the old man's hiding. And.
And when he wouldn't tell, they dropped him.
The old man didn't get his lunch that day and the little boy never came home. And his mother didn't have to ask any questions. She knew very well what had happened. They expected that. That was a fact of life. Those things happened every day.
What does it say in verse 37?
In all these things we are more than conquerors. How can you be more than a conqueror?
Oh, I like to think of it this way. If you were on a ship in the days of sailing vessels and you encountered a storm.
I never was on a sailing ship, at least not to get from A to B. Anyway, I was on them, but just for interest sake.
But I used to read lots of books.
And when a storm came, they'd let out the cry, all hands, shortened sail, and all the sailors would have to turn out of their hammocks down below and go up on the rigging there and out on the yard arms. And they do what they called shortened sail, take the sails in and tie them up, because the storm would rip them to ribbons if it was a really strong wind. And then they just had to let the ship go. And when the storm was over, they got out there sextant and figured out how far they'd been blown off course and how much damage had been done.
And when, if they survived the storm and they didn't have too much damage, they'd say, great, we conquered, we won.
But, you know, occasionally something else happened. They found that that storm, instead of being their enemy, was their friend. And instead of taking them way off course and wrecking the ship, it rather drove them even faster and further toward their goal than they would have gone if they'd had all sales sat in a good, fair wind, as they called it.
That's being more than a conqueror. When the storm works for you, you're more than a conqueror. And God says the storms work for us.
If you asked a sailor that, he'd say, well, huh.
I'll take my chances with the fair weather. No thanks. Don't give me the storm because they usually work against me.
God says they work for us.
And I say to you and to my own soul, they're working for us. The storm is working for us.
And then he goes on to say, I am persuaded. And this time he talks about things that are beyond this world, things over which men have no control.
Death, life, angels, principalities, powers. I suppose that would refer to fallen angels that are always against us. Things present, things to come, height, depth, any other creature, things over which only God has control.
They can't separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And I say to each one here today.
God wants you to enjoy him, not merely for his power. Yes, when God is in.
The picture, it is His nature and power, but here it's not so much, shall I say, his nature and power over all of those things, although that is true, but it's the strength of His love. Because God wants you and me to come close to Him as our Father. And the Lord Jesus Christ wants you and me to come close to Him, not only because of what He can do for us, not only because He's able to get us out of trouble.
Not only because he's able to order our circumstances, but for what he is in himself.
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Isn't that precious? And so if we go back.
To 2nd Corinthians 4.
For a moment it says for this, 'cause we faint, not excuse me for a moment.
For which 'cause we faint not, that means we don't lose heart, we don't give up.
Why?
Because though the outward man perished, the inward man is renewed day by day.
Some of the greatest encouragements that I had in my life or in the presence of an old brother from Scotland.
Who's still spoken abroad? Scotch accent.
And he'd had a number of heart attacks, and he was scarcely able to get out to meeting. But every time I went to visit him, I was reminded that though the outward man perished, the inward man was renewed day by day. And then it talks about our light affliction, which is but for a moment again, the same thought is more than conquerors, it works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
The word wait there I understand has the weight of a heavyweight.
Something that's almost impossible to carry.
It's the same word that is used in that expression.
Uh, those of us that have borne the burden and heat of the day.
Burden, heavy burdens. It's the same word that is used in Galatians 5, where it says bear you one another's burdens, a burden that's too heavy to carry.
Oh, I say, beloved brethren, God has such an eternal weight of glory up there for you and me. We're not going to be able to carry it. We're not going to be able to bear it. It'll be more than we can carry.
An eternal weight of glory.
What does he want us to do?
Look at the unseen things.
We can only do it with the eye of faith, but sometimes it takes suffering in order to bring us there. I don't look for suffering and we shouldn't look for it and I don't ask for it. We shouldn't ask for it. But if God allows it in your life and mine, may we be given grace quietly to bow our heads and say, yes, Lord, give me grace first of all, to humble myself, as it says in first Peter 5, under the mighty end of God. And then.
To recognize.
That in all of that, he's going to make me more than a con.
Isaiah chapter 40.
And verse 28.
Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord?
The creator of the ends of the earth fainted not.
Neither is weary.
There's no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increase its strength.
Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail, fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as Eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk.
And not faint.
But these verses come to mind in connection with what our brother was saying, the encouragement that we find.
In our God that fainted not, and it never wearies, and that he can produce in our lives those that consistency of going on.
And that these verses bring before us.
I don't have some deep thoughts to share this afternoon, but I would have you noticed that in the 31St verse it says that?
They shall mount up with wings as Eagles.
We only get the right perspective, you know, on things is when we see things from God's perspective and see them, see them from above.
The creatures of God has made in this world with wings are called birds, and he tells us in matches Gospel to consider the birds.
How they depend on God for their food.
And I'd like to talk about a few creatures this afternoon.
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Some birds. But before we go to birds, like to talk about some creatures in Psalm 32.
This is good for boys and girls and older ones too. You know all the creatures about us God has made in his intelligence and wisdom.
And just by observing those things that he made, he has put in those things.
Intelligence for us, things perhaps to imitate. We have in the Proverbs the act that we're called to imitate. Industrious, hard working, and others we're called not to imitate. In a 32nd Psalm it says.
Verse 9.
Be ye not as the horse.
Or as the mule.
Which have no understanding or no intelligence.
Whose mouth must be held in with bit and brittle.
Lest they come near unto thee.
If you read in a new translation in my French Bible, it's not lest they come near unto thee, but that they would come near unto thee.
I believe what the Lord is saying here, don't be like the horse.
And the mule come.
When I get a mule going, sometimes you have to push because it's stubborn. It won't go. Sometimes like that we're stubborn.
We don't want to go.
And sometimes we like the horse.
We got some instruction before we finished receiving the instruction.
Away we go. Whoa.
What does the Lord want from us? We had that yesterday in the Reading God Watch fellowship. He wants to have us.
Close to himself. He's going to have us physically close to himself when he comes.
But he will have it that way right now. So let's not be like the horse or the mule that we would be drawn close to the Lord. You know the Lord says in Matthew 11, learn of me, take my yoke upon you. But when the same yoke with the Lord real close by his eyes upon us, we can see his smile, we can feel his approval. We'll be walking in paths of righteousness for sure when we walk with him.
Well, there are other creatures we'd like to consider, and one I just like to get from this chapter because.
David had a serious fall, you know, and was after he went onto the roof of his house.
And he saw with his eyes a beautiful woman, which he coveted.
And he followed through with the covetousness of his heart that was provoked by what he saw with his mind. But it all began because he was on the top, on the roof, and he had a perspective on things perhaps other people didn't have.
Because he had probably a very nice house and a high house and a place he could look from.
And I think of animals that have a perspective like that. I think of a giraffe, you know?
They have long necks and they can see. They can see for.
And it's an advantage for them as they eat the brand food up on the higher limbs of the trees.
But how should I be? Not like a giraffe? Well, perhaps there are things I don't need to see.
Not to stretch my neck out to look at things, because perhaps if I stretch my neck out to look at things, maybe I'm going to see things that are going to provoke the covenants of my heart and I'll get in trouble like David.
In our province, they probably have those here too. It's like safari parks and we were in the car there one day and safari park and.
Those giraffes came along, Beautiful Creatures, long necks, friendly, and we had some fruit. I think it was maybe we had carrots or something, I'm not sure.
This giraffe bent down.
And put her head through the window.
Not only does she have a long neck.
They have quite a tongue.
She got ahold of that carrot and you had to wipe your hands and from all over who from that huge tongue they had, well, you know.
Our tongues. God says every creature man has been able to.
Not domesticate, but to dominate. You might say. I don't have a word in mind but the tongue.
Let's learn from the giraffe and not be like a giraffe. Let's not have a big tongue.
We're going to talk a lot.
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About people.
Let's talk a lot about people to God.
Let's talk to him about people.
And if we're going to talk about people, we should talk to the people we're talking about.
May God keep us, dear ones, from harming others with our tongues. Well, David was on the roof and he saw something.
And the covetousness of his heart brought him into trouble.
You know, body, soul and spirit. That's how men understand they're made. But the scripture says spirit, soul and body reverse the order.
In the world we live in today, serve the body.
Well, God says spirit, soul and body. And if we keep our spirits clean.
Those things will not get into our souls and become objects of desires or affections.
And our bodies will not follow through.
To get into trouble like David did.
You know, in the Colossians chapter 3.
Verse one. If he if he, then be risen with Christ. Seek ye those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth, for you're dead, and your life is hid with Christ and God. When Christ, who was our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are on the earth.
And so on.
It's interesting if you consider the end of the second chapter. It says. It speaks of religious prescriptions, you might say.
Chapter 2, Verse 20 Wherefore, if he would debit with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances? Touch not, taste not, handle not.
Which are all to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men, which things have indeed a show of wisdom in all, and will worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. Well, there could be ordinances, touch not, do not, taste not.
That's horizontal, It's coming from our minds. It's our religious minds, religious prescriptions. But when you go to heaven and your thoughts are things that are in heaven in fellowship with the Lord Jesus, you're not going to have these bad thoughts. You're going to have good thoughts and you're going to bring these thoughts into this life down here and mortify this body of sin that wants to do those things that are displeasing to God. So I just enjoyed this, that at the end of the second chapter, their earthly prescriptions, you might say.
But you get into the third chapter having your mind set on things above. Then you can come back down in practical Christianity and apply those things that you enjoy and what you are in Christ to your life practically well.
If I said an elephant, for example, what do I find with an elephant? What's remarkable about an elephant? Well, an elephant's got a pretty long nose, you know.
And we say, don't be like the elephant.
Don't be knows.
Let's not be nosy, dear ones. Let's be discreet.
They have big ears.
You like to listen to things you're not supposed to hear.
Well, I'd like to go to a verse in Job Quickly chapter 39.
Because if you're going to have wings.
You need to be a bird. God has made many birds.
There's one bird that's remarkable.
There are few of them of that similar species. I think they call ratites. I'm not sure if that's the right word in English, but in Job chapter 39.
In verse 13, you have to forgive me because I've enjoyed this portion in the French Derby and it reads a bit differently than the King James, but we'll read it in the King James and I'll suggest to you the thoughts that come from the French version. Gave us thou the goodly wings unto the Peacock, or wings and feathers unto the ostrich.
Which leave it her eggs in the earth, and warm it them in dust, and forget it, That the foot may crush them, and that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones as though they were not hers. Her labor is vain without fear, Because God hath deprived her of wisdom. Neither had he imparted to her understanding what time she lifted up herself on high. She's scoring at the horse and his rider.
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Well, the ostrich is a real particular bird, you know.
Because it's really a bird lays eggs.
Has wings.
But it can't fly.
Biggest bird ever? The ostrich. You can say the ostrich can say I'm the biggest bird ever. We could tell the ostrich, but you can't fly.
Birds are made to fly.
And Christians are made to trust and to live by faith.
We can know many things, but until we exercise our faith, we're not going to be flying.
Now the smallest bird I know of, I'm not sure if it's the Hummingbird in English, it's in French. It was a mush. It's a little, it's a very small bird. And this little, small bird, you hardly can see its wings because they beat so fast. But this little bird, maybe an ostrich was look at that bird. Say you're so small, you're really a bird. You look like, like a wasp to me, you know. But that bird can fly forward, it can fly backwards and it can be still when it flies.
I don't know too many birds that can do that, and the ostrich can't do that alone. This little girl we heard about this morning in Sunday school.
I was thinking of that little Hummingbird boy. She could fly. She had faith in the greatness of God. There were small things that she had, but they seemed impossible to us, didn't they? She asked for small things and she got those small things. We can ask God for big things and we'll get those things too. We ask according to His will. But the ostrich here, it says in the 12Th verse, she flocks her wings and she has beautiful feathers, you know.
But she can't fly, whereas the stork has beautiful feathers too. It can fly, but it makes its nest in the trees, not on the earth.
So the ostrich puts her nest as she leave it, her eggs on the earth, and warm at them in the dust, and forget it, that the foot may crush them, and that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones as though they were not hers. Her labor is in vain, without fear.
God tells us here that He has deprived her of wisdom and intelligence and understanding.
Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians. He says be, not, be not without understanding. Understand what the mind of the Lord is.
The Apostle Paul, when you write to Timothy, he says consider what I say. The Lord will give you intelligence, understanding in all things. We had a remarkable meeting before on stewardship.
Very practical on physical objective aspects of life and on spiritual aspects too.
Listening to the Word of God gives U.S. intelligence and wisdom.
In all things.
Now if I said don't be like the ostrich.
Not commit your young to the earth.
Give it your young to the Lord.
Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
It says she is hardened against her young ones.
Can we be hard on our children as believers?
Perhaps we can be.
My wife and I, when you brought up our children, we had some literature given to us and.
I would say it was one sided.
It was one sided. It had.
Multiple applications of the rod.
And I'm not against discipline in any way, but it was unbalanced.
When our children go up, are they going to remember?
The rod are they going to remember that we love them and cared about them and wanted what was best for them?
What we want from our kids is it what is best for us, that they behave in meeting and make us look good.
We want them to be happy and to know the Lord and to enjoy His love. And I think we know through us, the parents, something of the character of God. You know, when God made men, He made him in His own likeness.
And he made him male and female in his own likeness. Genesis, chapter one.
The Apostle Paul, the spiritual father. In Two Corinthians chapter two, he refers to himself how he cared for the Saints as a mother.
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Nourish it, her children, and as a father.
What beautiful characters to be imitators of if we have children.
Well, I can't proclaim a success story of my children, but I trust with the Lord with His help.
That my children know I love them.
And I trust that your children.
Know that you love them and that you have the heart of God towards them.
And that and the selfishness of our hearts and the pride of our hearts is not.
Sneaking its way into the way we treat our children. Well, this is what the.
Ostrich was doing. She was hardened against her young, as though there were not hers. Well, you know, our children are ours, and they're the Lords.
And we honor the Lord in the way we treat our children and what we do for them. It says her labor is in vain, without fear. God had deprived her of wisdom. Neither had he imparted to her understanding.
And then she runs up and she laughs at the horse and the rider said, look at me, how fast I can run.
I trust the Lord will give us dear ones.
As we consider the example of the ostrich, in spite of what it says here about her.
There is no humility here. There is no recognition of failure, of lack of wisdom and intelligence.
She has a mocking spirit.
May God keep us, dear ones, may we be true as we listen to ministry every, as we hear reproach, instruction and correction on our own failures, confess them to the Lord and look to him for grace, perhaps to do it better the next time, to correct these things in our lives, and that we would be kept from the blindness of pride.
One last word dear ones, before I close, I just want to mention.
As we consider the body of Christ.
We represent here the body of Christ, that loaf on the table. This morning our sister was remarking how big the loaf was. And I said, well thought in my heart, it's much bigger than that. You know, it's it's.
Represents every flawed thought God, every member of the body of Christ the brother was saying before 200,000 a year cross into eternity and their testimony for the Lord Jesus. We need to have enlarged hearts and keep our hearts enlarged not to go away from the narrow path that's set before us. Continue obeying, submit ourselves to the scriptures, but may the Lord keep us dear ones from having special thoughts about ourselves.
Special thoughts about ourselves not to despise a privilege that is ours. There's no greater privilege on the face of the earth than to be around the Lord Jesus and to show His death together, as we had this morning.
Momentarily Paul is on are going to be in his presence, and we're going to be with them equally in his presence. But may we be kept from thinking of ourselves as anything more than all the others who are so dear to the heart of the Lord as we are also.
That the spices.
Thereof may fall out.
Let's just look at another verse in the 45th chapter of Isaiah.
Wasn't too long ago that I noticed this first. I had never noticed it before. It's verse three of Isaiah chapter 45.
Says And I will give thee the treasures of darkness.
Treasures of darkness.
Well, we generally don't think of much good that comes out of darkness. We think of that darkness that sometimes envelops.
And sometimes it doesn't make us feel very comfortable.
Remember one of the first times I brought a brother from Woodbridge down to Dorothy and he had always lived in the town all his life?
We got down to Dorothy and it got dark and there were no St. lights.
And he said to me, Brucey, it's dark down here.
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It's dark down here and I could see he didn't feel comfortable, but here it speaks of treasures of darkness. Let's just turn to the Book of Micah.
Chapter 7.
Says in verse 8, Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy.
When I fall, I shall arise. That's confidence in the Lord, isn't it?
When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.
Not when I sit out in the bright sunshine.
But when I sit in darkness.
And I think of many of those that.
Suffered for the Lord Jesus Christ, perhaps put in prison and dungeons.
And when you read an account, perhaps written.
Some years later of their experiences.
You see how very real the Lord was to them in those circumstances.
And I believe that this can be described in those verses that we've just read. When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.
And just one or two more verses before I close.
Let's.
For a moment.
Go to the 28th of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 28.
Again, this is a wonderful chapter to read because we see God's handiwork our brother.
Was speaking about God's handiwork.
And those that know me realize that I.
Have a keen interest in birds.
I've probably seen over 1500 species of birds in my life and.
More I read about them and the more I study about them.
I realized the wonders of God's creation from the tiny Cuban bee Hummingbird to the large ostrich which is in the family reiformis, having cousins and.
Australia with the cassowary and EMU and South America with the RIA. You just.
Learn more of God's wondrous creation.
Might just give a brief account of a bird that's somewhat related to the ostrich.
Speaks about the ostrich laying its eggs. There's a bird family.
In the country of Australia called the Mega Parks.
And they will collect a mound of vegetation and dirt and sand.
They will pile it up and the female will lay the egg in that mouth.
They then abandoned the mound for a few days.
They let the heat of that rotting vegetation incubate that egg.
The mother will come back every few days and that mother has a heat probe.
In its bill that could tell the temperature within three degrees whether it was too hot or too cold.
And if the nest was getting too hot, she would remove vegetation.
If it's not hot enough, she would add vegetation. So.
We see the wonders of God's creation. Well, if we read this 28th chapter of Job says surely there is a vein for silver and so forth.
But we see in verse three, he setteth an end to darkness. An end to darkness. Well, what a prospect the believer has of being ushered into the presence of the Lord Jesus. And for the believer that certainly is an end to darkness.
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In 208.
#44 in the Appendix 44.
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You said for Saints press courage take the cloud is so much dread or big with mercy then fell great and blessings on your head 44.
So much stress.
Yes.
Why not?
That's why we pray and we like to read one more verse and Song of Solomon chapter 4.
Verse 6.
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Until the day break.
And that day is coming.
And the shadows flee away.
I will get me to the mountain of America.
And Hill of Franklin.
Thank you, our loving God and Father, we would thank you for thy goodness to us.
We thank thee that we have, so I promise that they will be with us for suffering.
We would think of many of our fellow believers this very time facing great difficulty in trial, so we would bear them up each.
Before provide sustaining grade, we thank You for the practical application of Thy word this afternoon. We would think of those creatures that thou hits created.
We would think of practice of the practical lessons that we could get from my word as a result of considering some of their characteristics. So we would not dancing for those that might be traveling through their several minutes this afternoon. Yeah.
Think of our fellowship together, and we think of the.
Gospel by grace going forth to because thank you in our seasons worthy and precious name. Amen. Amen.