Address—Don Rule
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111 Want to make a couple of comments about it before we sing it.
By thee, O God, invited, we look unto the Son.
In whom thy soul delighted, through all thy will hath done, and by the one chief treasure thy bosom freely gave.
Thy own pure love we measure, Thy willing mind to save. First comment is notice in verse one that God has a treasure.
We all treasure certain things, and I just want you to notice here that God Himself.
As treasurer and uh, we'll talk a little more about it later. Lord Welling second thing is.
So far in this conference, every single hymn that has been sung and the one we're going to sing follows the same pattern in the hymn. Part of the hymn is a prayer.
So you have.
If you were conscious of what you were doing, you have prayed four times in the opening for hymns of this conference.
We're gonna comment on that a little bit more later as well #111.
Just turn with me to Matthews Gospel chapter 6.
A week ago today I was driving down a street called Roosevelt Rd. in the Chicago area.
On my way to a hospital.
To visit some young men that live there that I try to visit on a regular basis.
I was almost to my destination.
And the streets three lanes wide in both directions and has turn lane as well, so it's really four lanes wide. And as the traffic light turned red as I approached it, there were already a number of cars in front of me in each of the lanes, and I saw a man.
Step out between two lanes from the.
Curb and start walking along between the cars.
And he had a piece of cardboard approximately this wide and this high, and he was holding it up to his chest as he walked along between the cars.
Because the cars were in a way that I I couldn't see what was written and he was in a different set of lanes than I was in.
Umm, I couldn't really see what was on his cardboard until the light changed and when the light changed.
I was able to just see 2 words, the 1St 2 words at the top of his cardboard.
Those two words were these.
I need.
I need. And so here was a man that was walking along between these cars, holding up in front of him.
The sign I need and I'm sure that what followed.
Was a statement of his need.
I'd like you for a few minutes, not a few minutes. Maybe I won't give you that long, but for a few moments to stop and imagine that at this moment you have in your hand on your lap.
Piece of paper and at the top of the piece of paper are the two words I need.
And I want you to list in your mind.
Your list that follows those two words I need.
I'm just gonna be quiet for a few moments and let you think about your list.
OK.
Now suppose.
I asked the person sitting next to you or someone that knows you real well.
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To make a list that says about you, you need.
Is your list and their list gonna be identical?
I'm assuming if they sit next to you, they have some relationship with you. And there are lots of husbands and wives sitting here together. There's some brothers and sisters, there's some close friends.
Does that person's need list or for you equal your need list?
One more list.
Suppose.
God.
We're to make out your need list.
This is list not your list.
Suppose God this afternoon were to make out your need list as he sees it, and the two were to be compared.
Your list and God's list.
Is it the same list?
I need.
Having seen that sign, I went into the hospital, sat down with these young men.
And I asked them the same questions.
I'm very thankful for one of the young men named Ricky.
He commented on his list and God's list.
He said my list and God's list wouldn't be exactly the same.
Because.
My list would be my needs and some of my wants.
But God's list would be just my needs.
I don't know how long your list was, if you made one, or you just sat waiting.
But is it per chance that if we were truly to sit down and spend some time making out a list, we might end up like Ricky said? Our list was a need list and a want list, and sometimes commingled in a way that we might not even be able to distinguish at times one from the other.
He further had good insight that I will share with you.
Goodfella knows Lord Jesus, I would guess he's about 17 or 18 and Ricky said furthermore.
Some of the things that I want.
If God, actually, he wouldn't give them to me.
Because they wouldn't be good for me.
Is it possible that we've got some things on our need list?
That God says no.
Not gonna give you that one because it wouldn't be good for you.
Might be very harmful to you, so I I I won't supply that one.
Look here in Matthew's Gospel chapter 6.
It says verse seven. Well start in verse 8.
No, I'll back up. We'll start in verse 7.
But when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of.
Before you ask him.
Here is a matter of meeting need.
And, uh, the Lord Jesus is teaching.
Some how to get need met. It's applicable to every one of us in this room that's old enough to pray, and as long as we can still pray no matter how old we become.
Listen, a matter of need, and here we find it introduced by the Lord Jesus.
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He says.
The heathen.
What's a heathen?
He is somebody. The Gentiles and the Word of God were often looked at as people that had no relationship with God. They were the godless people, the people without God.
In contrast to the Jew, to those to whom he was speaking, who were people who had at least an outward and a real relationship with God, at least outwardly to them. He had spoken to them, He had communicated many times, and they had a covenant relationship with him, and so on. But the Gentile was the person without God.
I'm speaking to you as knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
This afternoon.
But I'll make this passing remark to you if you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Your real need list is very short.
You know, dead people don't need a lot.
In fact, there's a lot of things if you're dead, as to this world.
No matter what was provided to you.
It doesn't do anything, doesn't satisfy any need.
Steve Jobs, before he died, was asked about his money and in recognition of it, he said, you know, money doesn't matter much in a cemetery.
If you don't know the Lord Jesus this afternoon, I suggest to you, you only have one real need. That's life. You need life.
Living people have need.
But in this life, as to this life, if you have died, you no longer have any leads, needs, connected with life here at least.
So I just say to you in passing if you're not a believer.
You've got a big need. You need life, and God is able to meet that need.
Lord God, it says, and John speaks to dead people, and he has the power to meet the need. Lord Jesus said I have the power to give life. God said I have the power to give life. He can meet even that need.
And that's your need.
But here he's referring to people who, at least in profession, would recognize God and will say recognize themselves as we would call it. Not heathen, but Christian or Jewish here.
First statement and about it I want you to notice is your father Noah?
Your father knoweth. Do you have a need? Your father knoweth.
It's based in a very significant and important way on having a relationship.
I never knew Steve Jobs, but if I needed money, I wouldn't have gone to him. I would have said that he doesn't know me, I don't know him. I don't have any relationship with that person. I know they have lots of resources in that department of resource, but they're not there for me.
And so.
I wouldn't go to such person to meet a need like that. But here when it comes to needing need, it's related to relationship your father knoweth.
Think about that for a moment. All of us at one time were children. Some of us still are children. All of us as children.
Whatever age we're at have childish needs.
Or the needs of a child.
And who do we did we go to when we were little? Went to our mother or father or somebody in the family?
To meet the need. Somebody we knew and we had a relationship with.
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Your father, Noah.
It also says what you have need of.
This may seem a little hard, but I'll say it anyways because it applies to me at least half the time. I don't have a clue.
What I really need?
When it comes to specific things.
But my father knows.
My father not only knows what I truly have a need of, but he knows whether I need it now.
Or next week, or next year, or somewhere farther down the road, your father, Noah.
Before you ask.
Because since God created man as a dependent creature, He wants his creature man to ever and always live in that relationship.
My father is my father.
But he knows.
My need and not only does he know my need, but he wants me to depend on him to meet it.
Many needs my Father, God, my Father can meet that no other person on this earth could ever meet.
No one else in this audience could meet those needs that need, but my father can.
And so here he says.
To us.
He knows.
Even before we ask. But He wants us to ask because it expresses dependence. It puts us in a proper relationship with himself and helps to maintain that relationship in his proper order. Notice what comes next.
Verse eight or verse.
9.
You pray because you have need. So let's look at the need list that the Lord Jesus is presenting to us here. What we need. Maybe some of these things would be on your list or mine, and maybe some not, but they all should be.
So it starts out.
Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.
As it is in heaven.
Whoa wait a minute, I thought this list was I need.
And I first three items that I find on this list.
Don't talk about me.
They're about somebody else.
Well, have we not heard? I wish I could help you, but I gotta take care of my needs first.
So sorry I'm otherwise occupied.
What does it say though? It says.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done hallowed, Hallowed be thy name.
Honored, set apart, given its right place, God.
Your order of things, your way of things be done.
Your will, in the way that you've ordered things, be done.
Number one.
On the perfect prayer, needless.
I've meditated on it a little bit in the last week, gonna suggest this to you.
If these three things had their right place in every soul in this room, there would be no sin taking place in this room.
We'd have a room without sin.
Is that a good need, Matt?
If Adam and Eve had kept in proper perspective these three things, they would not have sinned.
They would have acted without sin.
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Maybe we didn't think about that when we said I have a need.
Maybe our maybe wouldn't be quite as crass as this. The next evening I was with another young group of young men.
Ask the same questions.
And uh, one of them said to me his list, I need money.
He's in prison. I'm not quite sure why he needed money at that moment, but he was at that moment in a detention center and he and he said I need money. Perhaps in his mind, if I had money, all the other things that I need I could take care of because I now have what I need, which is money.
It's at the top of the list.
Or is sin?
Higher on the list of need.
The need to walk.
Hallowed be thy name that is set apart in honor be thy name. Do I need to give God that place in my heart?
Is what he's doing and carrying out to bring about his Kingdom.
Important.
In my thoughts.
In my actions in my life.
Thy will be done.
Who lived it out, this prayer?
Person that spoke it to others, the person that was teaching it, Lord Jesus perfectly lived out in his own life that which he was teaching others and the principles of it to pray.
Mm-hmm.
Verse 11 Give us this day Our Daily Bread.
After I got home Saturday morning, I came back to the house and my son, his wife and my grandson Paul here were at the house, and we're gonna be there at lunchtime. And so I asked Paul. I said, Paul, what do you need?
It's good, straightforward and simple, he said. I need D.
It's about lunchtime.
Does God recognize everyday things? Yes, He does.
Was that a right response? Yes, it was.
Yes, it was had its right place at the right time.
Give us this day Our Daily Bread.
There's a priority. We'll see it a little later in the chapter, hopefully, if there's time.
To the order of need.
But this is a daily need. In fact, if you go back to Exodus, you find with the children of Israel manna.
Is referred to as the daily need.
They needed it every day and it was called the daily need in Exodus. In one place, something that God recognizes we have. Yes it does.
In fact, if we want to talk about daily things in another scripture, it says with food and raiment, let us be there with content. As to daily life, Mr. Kelly suggests that the word Raymond includes not only the clothing on your body, but a shelter over your head. That's adequate, that's sufficient to meet daily needs. Food and raiment.
There's really nothing else that is essential.
To daily need with those two things.
So it has its place.
I'm very surprised. I still am not quite sure I can get my thoughts around it very well, but in terms of being taught to properly express need.
Notice the next verse.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And then notice in verse 14, skipping over a little bit, if we forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. This is not talking about the salvation of the soul here. It's not talking about being righteous before God in Christ. This is everyday life and God's ways with us in everyday life. We sometimes call it the government of God.
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In our lives and here.
We're told we need.
A forgiving spirit.
Do you do I?
Much as we do.
And at first glance in everyday life, I don't find it very easy to practice. Notice how it says it.
Forgive us our debts.
As we forgive our debtors.
As we forgive our debtors.
Another words. Lord, forgive me.
As you see me forgiving others.
Do you ever hold anything against somebody?
One brother, these kinds of get togethers used to say, never go to bed with an unkind thought in your heart toward any person.
Never go to bed with an unkind thought in your heart toward any person. Is there somebody that's wronged you that in your heart you're holding it?
And then you go to God and say to God, forgive me my trespass. Oh yes, but mine are mine are little. There's a big or some such rationalization.
Well, it says if you don't forgive men, you won't have yours forgiven. And that's true in this government. Let's remember it.
Verse 13 Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Let's always remember we have a need that we live in a world where there's somebody against us who is far, far, far more powerful and clever and smart.
In deceit, deception and sin than we are, and that's Satan.
We need.
Protector.
Whether we're conscious of it or not.
It's a very high need on God's list for us is to recognize and so it said here, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from the evil 1.
To lead us not into temptation has a certain sense of we need to be careful never to start take the first step down the road of temptation.
The human hearts deceives itself all the time and it thinks it can satisfy something that's in it. That's really a lost and not a need. But to the heart you can be a sense I need it. And so it wants to go a few steps down that road, but stop.
At a certain point.
And in truth, when we take the first step, all is lost. We'll keep taking. That's the hardest one to take. But once it's taken, we'll just keep going until we go off the Cliff eventually. And so he's saying, lead us, not protect us. Help us not to take the first step down the road of destruction and temptation.
Well, to pray that each day.
Also says.
Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. It ends with Himself. We have need, but ultimately the fulfillment of our need goes back to the fulfilling of His own purposes with respect to us.
And that's where our needs truly get met in their bigger sense.
OK.
Turn to verse.
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and raw stuff corrupt, and where thieves breakthrough in steel, But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, And where thieves do not breakthrough or steal, or where your treasure is, there will your heart be. Also said in the hymn that we sang, we would get back to it. Here it talks about having a treasure.
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And, uh, couples with it, The fact that whatever my treasure is, my heart's gonna follow.
My heart follows my treasure.
They said there was another thing and I'll mention it. It's not related to this, but in passing in the hymn we sang for hymns.
That all were partially prayers.
We wouldn't like it but this umm if anyone said what we did was vain repetition. He then used vain repetition and in connection with meeting need and talking to God in this prayer it started with they think they will be heard for their much speaking or their vain repetition. This is not to say that anyone did vain repetition, but I want to encourage each one of us.
Let's not just sing.
Without a conscious sense of what we're doing.
We were speaking if we were conscious of what we were doing. In each of those hymns, we were consciously speaking to God or the Lord Jesus.
And if we can habitually sing a hymn as only a hymn.
It may not be vain repetition, but it isn't entering in properly to the intent of what would satisfy the heart of God.
There's some very challenging statements that we said to God, if we were saying it to God.
Umm, in some of those hymns that we say we bowed at his feet in awesomeness, did we?
Did we consciously bow at his feet with an odd, awesome sense of his person? We said we did.
Didn't we So the vein repetition that I'm applying it to hims, but it can apply to prayer too.
Very, very easy.
To have a language of prayer that goes through a set of statements that we know to be true in themselves, without any conscious connection with the person to whom we're saying.
May the Lord help us. That's a need in itself.
Go back to the treasure.
God has a treasure.
For himself.
And what he really wants and says to us, I believe is.
You make your treasure my treasure, and we will share the same treasure.
And you will find in it every single need will be met.
Every single need that you have as a human being in time and for eternity, will be adequately met in and through that treasure.
Do you need help?
Treasure gives hope Need comfort. Treasure gifts comfort. Do you need guidance? Treasure, gifts, guidance. Do you need peace of heart? Treasure gives peace of heart.
Do you need understanding to act? Treasure gives that.
Hot treasure does.
He's made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
The treasure says.
David, who knew him as Jehovah in Psalm 23, begins. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, I shall not lack anything.
I shall not want, I shall not lack anything that is necessary for my life. He will lead me to food.
He will protect to me.
He will guide me. He will restore me.
If I haven't.
And so here it speaks of the treasure and, uh, he says wherever that treasure is.
That's where your heart's gonna be.
If he's not the treasurer, something else is, and I can guarantee you that that whatever it is will neither fulfill your needs or your wants.
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Neither one, because there is absolutely nothing in any other treasure that permanently satisfies either need or want.
One of the richest man some years ago in the United States was, I think his name was Kirby in the East. And he was worth billions and billions of dollars and he never had enough of it. He put at a mansion with 50 or 60 bedrooms and we had guests. He put a cell phone, I mean, uh, umm, payphone in for his guests to use if they want to make a call. That was how I'll say avarice. He was for money. And someone asked him, how much do you need Mr. Kirby? And he said.
Oh, I always need one more dollar than I have.
In other words, neither the need of a true need of us being or His want was never satisfied by His treasure, and there is no treasure except the Lord Jesus Christ as treasurer, that will satisfy.
Time's running along. Let's go down to verse 33. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take.
Therefore no thought for the Morrow, for the Morrow taketh thought for the things of itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Take no thought, for tomorrow is. Don't be anxious about tomorrow's need.
It'll take care of itself. But here it says CT first. I suggest to you there's some sense of need that first priority in it.
And we sometimes have real need, but we reverse the priorities and we mess it all up. I need daily food and raiment, yes I do.
So do you, but I need the Lord Jesus more and I need to put First things first. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God. I need to put very first those things that.
Pre preserve from sin as we had in the model prayer.
And so we need to make sure that we get priorities straight, otherwise we claim need and we focus on need. And it may be in itself something real, but.
Lord Jesus and his temptation was had hadn't hadn't had food for 40 days. And they said well.
He said man shall not live by bread alone. He had his priorities correct and uh, there's things more important than life itself or bread alone.
That have to be met first. Let's close with one last verse in Philippians.
Chapter 4.
Philippians chapter 4 and verse 19.
My God shall supply all your need.
According to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Got a need?
Apostle Paul had confidence that.
For these Saints to whom he was writing, he could say, My God shall supply 100%.
Of your need 100%, I say to you, God promises to meet 100% of your needs, and in fact, He is meeting them whether you're aware of it or not. Whether I'm aware of it or not. Take a little example. Do you need patience?
He's working on it. He's meeting that need.
He may take a lifetime to finish His work with it, but when He's done, you'll have patience. It doesn't matter what it is, if it's a need, God is diligently working on it. And when He's done, what is His in product in view?
As it says here, supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. God says if I could speak for God, I hope I can. In this way. God says I need you to be like my Son.
That's what I need. I need you to be like my son, and I'm going to do absolutely everything that's necessary to meet that need for me.
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And.
God's perspective is not just daily life, although he takes care of daily life, but he has a far more wonderful objective in what he treats his need. And uh, it has for us. God said, I made, when I gave you life, I made you a heavenly person. And so your true needs connect you with heaven. You're just passing on earth, but everything I'm doing is connected with.
A need to make you like my son.
And suited to my presence forever. And that's the need I want to meet in your daily life here on earth. I'm working on it and I'll supply everything that is needed according to my riches in glory by Christ Jesus.