Open—Sam Ludvicek
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Turn with me to Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 8.
I.
Brother exhorted me to sometimes tell stories that make me look bad.
When I was in my 20s in the work that was going on at Harnischfeger and there were people starting to visit Bible studies we had at the time.
I have returned to Lords Day morning to break bread.
In one Lord's Day morning, Brother Carl McCoy said to me. Brother Sam, why don't you come Wednesday night?
And I said to him.
You really want to know.
Says yeah, be honest with me, I say, because the prayers here don't get answered.
Brother Carl McCoy was pretty wise on that moment.
And he says, what do you mean?
And I said there's brothers at work I pray with and prayers get answered that day, next day, next week. They get answered, a lot of them quickly.
Here we pray and we pray and we pray, and nothing gets answered.
And the reading meetings are boring.
Quite a conversation to have a 20 year old to be having with a older brother.
But he had asked me and I told him honestly how I felt.
He was very wise.
In what he said next, he said, well, brother.
I guess I had also said something's hindering things here.
And I said, well, he said, well, brother, I guess then that's what our prayer meeting should be about next Wednesday. Would you come? I said, I'll be here.
And Brother Carl McCoy opened that prayer meeting with that prayer Lord.
What's hindering the prayers in our prayer meeting? What's hindering things here?
Turned out it was a brother.
Next prayer meeting, this brother stood up and said.
This place is a sinking ship. I'm leaving. And he left, but he had developed in his spirit.
A bitter spirit and it was troubling people. It was causing problems.
Kind of unknown. I wasn't aware of it, and others weren't either. On any given Lord's Day, there were six people there, and then seven sometimes, and when visitors would come, we'd have the extra and so forth.
But that prayer went on at prayer meeting and the reading meetings got better and the prayers started getting answered like people started being gathered.
Wow.
Prayers being answered. Imagine that. And we had a lot more prayer meetings where we were thanking God for the prayers that had been answered.
Encouragement like that.
I got before the Lord.
In my own exercise about what I was doing learning as a young man in my 20s and I had an exercise about souls that I was seeking to win to Christ, not only being accurate with the gospel and clear.
But how do I disciple somebody or teach them? And this is something that I think this verse everyone here should pay attention to, everyone here should think about, everyone here should seek to develop in their life. And I know that many already have.
But let me read this verse.
So they read in the book of the Law distinctly.
And gave the sense and caused him to understand the reading.
00:05:05
The background is, is that they hadn't had the word of God for a long time and this was fresh to them now this morning in our reading meeting, John.
Read distinctly from this book.
Now the next thing many, many people do. Many brethren do it. Many Christians do the next part. They give the sense.
Of the reading.
But the last part.
Too often we fall short.
And caused them to understand the reading. I heard somebody say there are different stages of people in this room, different down the path of faith, the race that's being run. Some people are way down the road. Different levels of understanding, different levels of maturity. Yes, that's true. I remember being in a conference where brother Ron Reeves and Brother Lundeen were there and brother Ron I remember saying, brethren, we need.
Well, he said, he said two different things at two different times. One get the get the branches down where they they can nibble on the leaves and another one was bring the hay down to a lower shelf. And Brother Landin says, well this she need to stretch their necks a little bit and reach. I think both things are true.
But if you cause the people to understand the reading.
There is something there that even a younger child will get.
So if I'm in a Bible study or something and there's different ages there, my desire before the Lord should be that a young kid.
Whatever subject it is is going to have something from that that they get, that they understand, that they enjoy and can go away with and not just leave there. Well, I didn't get anything.
A sister was just talking about it at lunch that she likes to ask her children on the way home from a conference or a meeting. What did you get?
She says the girls take notes and they have a lot they can look at. Her boys are alive, enjoyed it all.
But if you really think about it, there should be something that got through to you because somebody took the time to cause them to understand the reading.
The Spirit of God is the one that takes and nails those things down right deep inside. But the ability to speak clearly and read the word of God don't just make sure they understand it, understand the words and then give this sense, you know, that's expository kind of teaching the sense of things and and kind of stitching them together, unpacking things.
But causing the people to understand the reading might actually you might have to tell a story.
Are an illustration, and maybe it's even personal.
And sometimes, maybe you should tell stories that make you look bad.
And if it makes you look good when you tell a story, give God the glory, because it's really Him.
Any story that I've ever told where I look good, you know who really did it, who really looks good? It's my savior. We talked earlier about faith.
If you really believe the things that we teach and talk about.
Like, for instance, that the Lord himself is in the midst.
Of any assembly meeting like this one.
Then I should think about that. And he really is. He did. He showed up here. He's here.
Lord's Day morning.
That he's there. He really is. It's not just some doctrine. The Lord himself has showed up.
And the Spirit of God, do we really believe it?
Well then, our words, our actions and how we express ourselves should show that.
I was sharing a story with a brother earlier when my dear wife was sick with cancer. I couldn't go too far away from home and I couldn't work. But I did go and volunteer at homeless shelter to sit there and talk to people that came in for the meal in the evening.
And I found some Christians that were there.
00:10:01
And we began to sit at the same table. There were eight of us.
And we would talk. An alert taught me something there that was very interesting. Over on a neighboring table on the corner, there was a young man that would always plant himself there. And I could tell he was listening and we were talking about all matter of Christian topics. Questions would come up.
One day one of the fellows lost his, Temperance said. You always have to be right.
Later he apologized and said I'm sorry about that because usually.
But this young man, after weeks and weeks of listening, this is what the Lord taught me in this. He came over, he squatted down next to my chair and he said, you know, you don't speak like anybody I've ever heard.
He said I've been listening to your table there talk about the Bible, about Jesus.
And spiritual things.
And he said you don't talk like anybody else. I said, what do you mean? He said. You speak with authority.
You speak like you really believe what you're saying, yes.
And I started paying attention to what some of the others were doing and how they talked. They would say things like.
In my opinion.
Well, I feel.
Well, OK, you feel. I don't care how you feel when we're talking about this. I do care how you feel if you're hurting or suffering. I do care, but not when it comes to talking about the truth and this book.
Please don't bore me with this book, My dad told me. When I was a young boy. I would say sometimes that was a boring or that somebody spoke and they were boring or this or that.
My father was wise.
He said the Spirit of God is there. Pay close attention and you'll get something. It's the word of God. But let's let's consider how we handle this book and these words and these things.
Let's not treat it lightly when we have conversations.
I'll be 70 next year. I still get excited about talking about these things. I mean excited.
In a conversation, because they're precious things. And we've been talking in our little assembly at home about Bernie Brecht, who's recently restored about a year ago, and what are dramatic things going on in the little town where he lives. Old men and old women in their 70s, eighties are getting saved.
Isn't that wonderful?
And the town Little Marengo, Iowa, is starting to think about Bernie as being the pastor of that little town.
And he has preached 2 funerals recently because the people asked him to.
Because he handles the word of God like he really believes it.
And here's a little repair shop in that town that he's had for 37 years, and people are coming there.
Because they heard that Bernie Breck will pray for you if you go and ask him.
Isn't that marvelous that someone would come to your place of business and say, will you pray for me? It's funny. They'll come in and they'll look around and I need a quote on tires or I'm going to need a battery sooner When when nobody's nearby, Then they'll say, will you pray?
And he talks about the word of God. Bernie's been saved a long time, but for 17 years.
He attracts there and if somebody asked he would witness them to him, but not like this.
Now the conversations are different. This is a treasure. So we've been talking back home about how much treasure we have. And as this world we talked about, we're in a wilderness and how starving it is out there and how dry, and there's a lack of food and people are starving to death. They're lost in their sins. Many of them, even real believers, are just starving. They're not getting anything. They may go to church.
But boy, do we have a treasure. We know stuff.
Thank God we know some things because we've been raised.
00:15:01
Among godly believers who have shared these things with us and have taught us to study this book for ourselves, shouldn't we act like it is a treasure when we talk about it and share it? And I'll tell you what, if we were a little more like that in our reading meetings at home and our prayer meetings at home, maybe sometimes people would be encouraged to compensate. You know what?
That was kind of exciting. That was very interesting. We can pray about that. We can have that. There have been days in our history where people really look forward to going to the reading meetings and the prayer meetings because there was some excitement there. I don't mean like emotional nonsense. I mean because real things were happening. Don't you want to be at a prayer meeting where the next prayer meeting somebody's telling you about a prayer that God answered?
And you're thanking God for that thing, and you're praying another prayer and that God answered that God answered the next day.
Yeah.
There's some excitement that comes with that. Not frivolous stuff, real thrilling things that have to do with real Christianity being lived out.
One brother cautioned me in a meeting that I had spoken about that one of the leading things among young people that are leaving evangelical churches is because what they see often in their parents is inauthenticity.
And a boringness. And the last thing was that their Christianity didn't cost anything.
Well, he said. Be careful that you don't encourage somebody to use that as an excuse. Don't you dare use that as an excuse.
Let's older ones, all of us younger ones too, seek the Lord's help. You have life.
You have life, you have a new life. Live it out in its fullness, in liberty.
Before your brethren and before the world, as this darkness encroaches around us, as we see it and you can see it. I don't care how old you are, You can see the darkest closing in. Any light you shine out looks all the brighter, doesn't it? Let it shine, Let it shine The Sunday School song, this little light of mine.
Let it shine, let it shine. Let people see it. Let your family see it.
Let your brothers and sisters see it. Let your young people see it. Young people let each other see it.
It's real. It's the only real thing in this world. Nothing will leave this world that is around us. Not one thing. You know what you get to take with you when you leave here?
From this room lead a soul to Christ.