Address—Bruce Conrad
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
We start our next meeting this afternoon with part of him #316.
316 We could sing.
Verses two and three so brother could start that please.
Well.
Looking to the Lord about this responsibility.
Bringing a few loaves and a few small fishes forward to him.
I have it upon my heart to take something up I've never taken up before, and I don't know that anyone has that I've ever heard.
If you've been gathered to the Lord's name for a fairly long time, I'm happy to testify that I have. I've probably.
Listened to.
100 or 150 addresses to young people.
And some of them, of course, very, very memorable.
I've never heard an address to old people.
I see in the agenda.
For tomorrow there's some YP addresses, so with the Lord's help, I'd like to have an OP address today.
I'm not fully qualified I admit, but I am in my 7th decade of life.
And so if if we're afforded 3 score and 10 then I'm in my last 10.
So that's up to the Lord.
So I only feel marginally qualified in looking around the room, there are many that are my seniors.
But the Lord laid this on my heart. And then sitting at lunch today, Lemoyne was kind enough to give me an exposition out of the new translation of the verse I had in my heart. So I.
Continued to feel that perhaps it's something that we should consider today. So if you'll turn with me, please, to Psalm 92.
Reverse.
Psalm 92 and verses 13 and verse 14.
Those that be planted in the House of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still.
00:05:04
Bring forth fruit in old age.
They shall be fat and flourishing.
No one likes to be called fat nowadays, I think. I think the, uh, force of the word there is fertile or fruitful.
It's a wonderful thing to have the sense that we've been planted in the House of the Lord, that he's made us his own.
We know from the New Testament that we're part of the House of God. We're members of his body.
And we're in a very privileged and special place and are the recipients.
Of special cultivation from God who's now our Father, and from the Lord Jesus himself.
And so in old age, we we know we tend to think that our.
Our energy runs down and, umm, maybe it's our tendency to think that it's OK to just coast.
And I'm sure you've had conversations in nursing homes or with older ones on death bed and and they've often people will say, Saints will say, I don't know why the Lord doesn't take me. I don't see the point of me being here anymore.
And #1 it's our times are in his hand.
And there's really we can sympathize with how one would feel that way. But the Lord is at work in you and me, and though our outward activities may diminish, there's something very precious that is intended to continue in our hearts and minds till the very end.
In uh.
Observing some dear ones that have gone home to be with the Lord and.
And.
And my own parents and mother recently going to be with the Lord.
You know I as I increased my visits and tried to have spend meaningful time.
No thought just came before me that growing old is not for cowards.
And I know that for decades and decades, brothers have stood up here and, and addressed the young people and, and sympathized with you and empathized with you.
And so, so have sought to encourage you about that special time of life. And it is a special time of life. It's kind of like the place where two paths meet and decisions are made without the benefit of, of, of the wisdom of years.
But at the, as I've observed in my mom and dad and other older Saints, as a friend after friend moves on and the ability to get around and to and to move and to do the things you've done all your life diminishes and diminishes. It's it's, it's not an easy thing.
So.
It's a wonderful thing to lay hold of the fact that as believers, there's a whole layer of reality that is overlaid against our natural lives. There's a glory in natural things still, even though sin has come into the world.
The lion is the spoken of as the chief among the beasts and the great leviathan in the seas, and the young man's glorious his strength.
Woman has her hair for her glory.
It says that.
Children's children are the glory of old men, the hoary head to crown.
For those that are found in the way of righteousness, there are all these glories.
There's all this natural propriety, and if it's observed even amongst people that do not know the Lord, there will be orderly, more orderly life lived.
And we're warned in the scripture about.
About when things get out of order, the prophet Isaiah comes to mind where he warned and rebuked the nation that their state was so bad that children were going to rule over them. Babes were going to be their rulers and children were going to be their oppressors. And you don't have to be an expert in sociology to look around if you're out in in the world and doing your business and.
00:10:25
In a restaurant or wherever, there are old and young around to see that this seems to be happening more and more.
But for you and me and the assembly we have, we have such an unusual experience.
You know it, it struck me. I, I wasn't, if you'll permit a, a personal reference or two, umm, I'll make that apology for the rest of the half hour here, but, umm.
Was saved in a, in a in a rural Maine, uh, almost 40 years ago and, uh, it was like heaven on earth.
And though my mother, I believe, is with the Lord, if you understand what I mean here, I really wasn't raised in a Christian home, so to speak.
And so.
Being saved and quickly after that a neighbor took me to the Lord's table and.
And.
This. This is it. This is it. This is the way it is meant to be.
And the brethren there were all my, my dad's age, 3030 years and up, and they became my close, close friends. Matter of fact, I, you know, chums growing up, I never had friends so close and who looked after me and who challenged me and who at times corrected me and comforted me and, and all the everything you could hope for from a friend.
And it was just a thing after work. I could just say, well which Rd. should I take? And I was single. Who can I stop in and visit tonight? It's not a meeting night.
And then I found out that when I went to my first conference that somehow someone should feel sorry for me because there weren't other young people in my gathering.
Now I don't wanna.
I know it's an issue if you feel that it is. And I don't mean to, to take away from the importance of natural and spiritual camaraderie amongst young people. We, we have a bunch of children and we've seen the the value of that.
But what I want to just one point I want to touch on here, is the tremendous value that we enjoy as believers going in and out amongst each other like today with those of all different ages and levels of spiritual experience. It is a rich, rich blessing. And I can't explain to people who I just meet casually who are not gathered to the Lord's name. You know, let's say where are you going this week, I'm going to Des Moines.
Oh, well, you know, where, where, where, where were you last weekend? You say? Some place that they probably never heard of. Well, how do you know people in these places? And it's hard to explain.
And it's hard to explain the depth of the of the relationships we enjoy. And it's a rich, rich legacy. I feel just so pathetically rich.
As I get older, I don't need as much sleep.
I got up earlier, still dark. I have my chair, my books and things and.
Read there for the heat of the day.
And sometimes, you know, you read, so you just put it down and you just kind of musing on it and pondering it and.
Like my late close friend **** Gorgas, I I'm just one of those people that I often attach a verse with who I first heard it from or who I learned the truth from. And sometimes I sit there and I'm just going through this.
This.
Rehearsal.
00:15:08
Of brothers and sisters.
That my closest friends that are now with the Lord.
I'm so thankful for these rich, rich relationships.
In rural Maine, we live near a highway called Route 2 and back before the Canadians used to go as they call it, over the top main for the those that are Midwesterners not as familiar, it shuts up into the Canadian, the country. And so Montreal is kind of to your West and the Maritime is over here to your east. And you can go from Montreal and kind of shoot right through Maine and and go to the Maritimes back when there was a lot of gospel tent work going on and.
And as time went on, there were more of us younger ones that were were.
Gathered there and and and the older ones in our local gathering were 1 by 1 going to meet off to be with the Lord and how we valued.
When Norman Berry and his wife and brother Blennerhouse at Ernie Wakefield and all these names that young people you've probably never never heard what a rich, rich legacy it was and how we we stood and we hung on their words of the brothers and the sisters. We had them to our homes and and visiting in the meeting room.
One in particular conversation I I have never forgotten was when Brother Blenner Hassett from Montreal, we were fairly all poor in Palmyra. He didn't seem poor. He drove a nice car, had a nice suit and he was a fairly distinguished brother and he had ministered to us in the meeting and we really enjoyed it.
And so we're in the little ante room where you put your coats on and, and his son Stan was with him and helping him on with his coat and, and brother Blenner Hassett is getting the coat on and he's still pretty big man in those days. And we're all standing there listening and soaking this in. And he said, well, he said, you brothers have, uh, have got a good start.
Got the other arm in and then he got his hat on the fedora that that generation used to wear and kind of straightened himself up and he says but it's even better to end well with that he opened the door and off into the into the main winter and I I have never forgotten that brother Blenner Hassett I I don't know if it's gonna really occur to us to have these conversations in glory. I think we're gonna be preoccupied with with with a certain.
Uh, a primary individual there, but, uh, I, I just think it'll just take kind of a look between each other and, you know, we just.
So, so there's one could go on with these kinds of of appreciations of these relationships between older ones and younger ones.
Turn with me, please, to Titus Two, Titus chapter 2. Don't want to spend long here.
OK.
There is a a line of things in the New Testament which speaks of of elders or overseers.
Those that are given a special responsibility in a local assembly.
And it's really not my thought to get into that this afternoon.
But in Titus chapter 2 it really speaks in a general way of aged ones, aged men, aged women.
And so in chapter 2, if you pick it up there, but speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
There was only one as the brother was referring to in the Reading meeting.
In the meal offering only one who was altogether displayed every perfect virtue.
00:20:02
Always at the perfect time and in the perfect manner.
If it required anger, he gave holy, righteous anger.
If it required gentleness and compassion, that's what there was.
You and I tend to be.
More lumps at times in our meal.
And tend to be specialists, don't we?
And so it's good to be exercised about the things that are not in a spiritual sense, natural to us.
And so is a brother that's one of the older ones in my gathering. This is good for me to be to consider this.
Am I sober or vigilant?
So gravity.
Is there?
Am I temperate? Self controlled?
My sound in faith.
Or am IA specialist in faith and ignore love. Am IA specialist in love and.
Not so much in in faith.
Patients could be. I think it's kind of a word like endurance. I think I read one place where it's kind of the thought of cheerful continuance, right? Maybe that's Vines or someone.
But it's good older brothers to be exercised about these things because we set the tone in the local assembly.
And we're responsible for that.
I I I often repeat the story I from I heard it from Heinz first. Heinz Brinkman.
And I and I, he used to tell it about a young brother and he was newly into the gathering and he was a little professed to be a little confused. And he said, why is it this older brother here is always talking about order and everything is order, order, order. And this brother over here, everything is love and warmth and love. And and the older brother who who was asked the question, he said, well, if you didn't have this brother here.
You wouldn't have order in the assembly. She says that wouldn't be good. But he said if you didn't have his brother over here, you wouldn't have an assembly. And now he's, you know, in his way, he would have that big hearty laugh. But it was a, it's an illustration. We, we don't need to be the specialist guy. And as we get into smaller and smaller situations in many of our gatherings, how needful for us to be exercised to not just have a some pet virtue that we put above the others.
But to let the scripture.
Talk to us, wash us, affect us. The favorite ones that we all tend to talk about in reading meetings and the other ones that we a little more quiet about.
And the sisters too, the aged women likewise that they be in behavior has become a holy women holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers of the home, good, obedient or in subjection to their own husbands.
The word of God be not blasphemed.
I'm not so sure that the scripture has in mind here that.
That there would be a night in the assembly on a Wednesday night or something like that, that there's a, a woman up here, umm, instructing the other women in that way.
I suspect that would not be according to the mind of God, but we did experience in our household when there was an older sister who's not only her children were raised, but her grandchildren were pretty well raised. And she would come home while I was at work and just come in and just say, Christy, I'm here to help you today. And she would just spend hours just helping with the kids and their schooling and all the rest.
And along the way.
There were just little handfuls of purpose, so to speak, just little little Nuggets or little comments that were yeah, I would hear about them when I got home from work or the next day and and still remember them decades later. But how? How important? Older sisters.
00:25:03
To take to be mindful of these opportunities and this responsibility.
Because the world and all of its influences comes in over washes over people like a flood. And how helpful it is when there's an older sister who has survived all of that, that still has her bearings straight spiritually to be able to graciously and in a side by side manner to be able to instruct the younger mothers, the younger sisters in these practical things that you're not going to hear explicitly.
In a setting like this today.
We encourage the young people.
By the truth and sell it not. I think that's Proverbs 2323. I I think as a young person I got that address fixed in there if I'm not mistaken.
But it's more exercising to me as I get older. Other verses.
Like there's a verse that says.
That a good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children.
I don't think it's talking about our 401K.
It's an exercise, isn't it?
And it's one thing to be able to gobble in the truth because there's a certain thrill and joy of the hunt. It's another thing, year after year, to put one foot in front of the other and seek, with God's help, to walk in it and to retain it, to not sell it.
Says wise men retain riches.
We've been exposed to.
Just I don't know how to what adjective to pick, but we have been exposed to such riches.
Ought to be our exercise to retain it.
Brother Blenner has its comment. It's good to end well.
We read about a king named Esau.
We read that ASA did. I think it says there in the first chapter he's taken up. I think it's in Chronicles, not not the Kings.
And it says he did that which was good and right in the sight of the Lord. ASA did a lot of really good things.
He was very faithful.
And I think he reigned for 41 years, but if I remember right.
But in the 39th year, right around the 38th, 37th year, somewhere in there.
He had.
He had made some decisions which were not according to the mind of God.
He ingratiated himself to the Syrians and he said, hey, we're buddies. I'm paraphrasing. Obviously we're buddies.
You know, here's some things and let's just let's just be, you know, at peace.
And the Lord sent a prophet to him.
And basically reminded a son, he says. He says the eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the whole earth.
He's just looking over the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those who put their trust in him.
That that is, is.
Kind of a would be a kind of a zinger, as we say to ASA. But ASA didn't take it well and he persecuted that profit.
And so we had all those years of going on. Well, it's free exercising.
And it's right after that it says when he was old, he got a disease in his feet.
And he sought, not to the Lord, but to the physicians.
It's kind of sad. There was so much of such value in his life, and then when he got old and his walk and his feet, he broke down. It's a sad addendum to his life.
Not what you and I want.
Want to be exercised whether our feet are still walking one in front of another or we're putting them in a wheelchair or behind a Walker.
That we're walking, in a way to the end that will please the Lord.
Let's turn to Hebrews 12.
A pretty well known passage.
00:30:01
And it speaks about one of our privileges as having God as our Father.
And being children in God's family and the privilege is called chastisement. And I it, it sounds kind of harsh in the English language. It's not a word.
That I suppose people use in a very friendly way. But in the Scriptures we know what chastisement is. It's to teach through discipline.
And this is one of our privileges. Matter of fact, if we are without chastisement where it's proof that we're not even God's children, then are you ******** Not sons or not children?
And it's just so humbling that the God of glory.
Who spoke and sustains all the worlds?
Would interest himself.
Not just in the outward aspects of our life.
But even with our our moral fiber, our our, as the brother read in Psalm 19 this morning.
The meditations of our heart and the thoughts in our mind, it's important to him.
It's really important to him.
And he is willing to go to such great extent.
To put us through our paces, to put us through a customly designed curriculum in his school. My course is different from from yours because he's so invested and interested.
In our spiritual growth and then what goes on inside of our hearts.
And so in Hebrews 12 as as I I know it's often been taken up, but there that I have seen three possible responses to this chastisement amongst a child of God.
And in verse five it says, You have forgotten. The exhortation which speaketh unto you is unto children, My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, or faint when thou art rebuked of him.
So we can.
And though it says I think in job that.
Man is born under trouble like the spark. Fly upward.
And affliction is our portion. It's not just the older ones, but as we go on in life.
Clearly, there are so many disappointments.
There are so many things that come our way that left to ourselves, we wouldn't check that box. We wouldn't choose that affliction. We wouldn't choose that restraint. We wouldn't choose what took place in our family in that situation or in our work or in our health.
But in verse, in verse five, the Tennessee is just a faint under it just to just oh, I just can't.
No, that's not what we wanna do.
And further on down.
I'm sorry in in verse 5, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord. To despise chastening is isn't so much to hate it, it's just to think that it's just an everyday occurrence.
These kind of things happen.
Sometimes the Lord will speak to us through a circumstance He allows in our life and He wants us to listen. And we saw all those kind of things happen to everybody, and we just counted a small thing and ignore it.
But down further on in the chapter.
It says in verse 11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. This is such a wonderful verse. Then it says, Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down. Don't faint, lift up the hands which hang down.
The oldest brother in our in our gathering in Maine for many years was a man named Ike Withy.
Like at one time was about 6 foot tall, about my height as I understand it. About the time that I met him he was really stooped over and much shorter and just wrapped his body racked with leukemia and he lived in almost a constant fever.
00:35:01
And sometimes we would go and break bread at Ike's home with him because he couldn't get out. And then he was in the hospital. And I, I, I realized after some time that different ones of us would go and we'd sit kind of by his bedside and we'd put issues before him and they were of a concern. And he gave us counsel from his bed. Sweet and gracious man. But he used to joke. Not so much joke, but he used to laugh.
Like was a little manner when he laughed, he's laughed with his whole entire body.
And his mouth would just go wide and he would just shake all over. He was a happy man.
And he would say, you know, one of his sayings was, I'm not looking for the undertaker, I'm looking for the upper taker.
He loved say that, but in more serious times he would speak about the after yield. He says, brother, I'm looking for the after yield. That was an intelligent thing to say. He was exercised about why the Lord had laid him down like that and put him through that. He was not bitter. He didn't excuse that. It's just Oh well, you know, I'm just one of the people that gets it. He didn't faint under it. He was exercised by it. And one of the beautiful things about this scripture to me is that.
It doesn't say. You need to figure out the answer.
We've had some things take place.
Amongst brethren we've known.
It's just the most I cannot begin to understand why the Lord allowed such a thing to take place.
But I look forward to the time when the hidden things will be brought to light. And in the meantime, as Wisdom's children, we justify him because Wisdom is justified of all her children.
And I say, I don't know the answer yet, but there's an answer. There's a reason the Lord allowed this. I don't have the answer to that situation. I'm exercised about it. It was another family, another place, a close friend. And it's so beautiful that you get the after yield, not necessarily when you say I've got the answer, but you're exercised about it.
Beautiful thing.
The waves come through our lives.
In the assembly.
Maybe in our marriage, maybe with our children.
Maybe in our work, our health.
The waves that come and they come.
And you maybe don't know another person well, but you know that they've had their their waves have come crashing across them too. And more and more is when I have a chance to visit and you see someone who's older, who's been in the pathway and stayed at the Lord's table and seems to be going on as a happy in the Lord. You just, you just say, man, that's you just have an appreciation for the spiritual battle and warfare that goes on. And you appreciate that person, whether you know him very well or not.
As a survivor, you go up high and you climb in the mountains and you get a bound tree line, you know, in places like Colorado and so on. And you'll see a tree out there and you see it was a sunny day because that's why I'm out here. It's a nice day that trees out there 365 days a year in the horrific weather. And it looks a little gnarled, you know, and, and that's, that's the way we can be, but we don't have to be.
Unhappy.
We don't certainly want to be bitter.
And if it's a tendency that all those of us, if I include myself in the senior number that need to be specially mindful about, I feel it's the horrible weed in the human heart of bitterness.
And there aren't many that I can think of, many places in the New Testament where it tells us to look at our brethren diligently.
But it says in Hebrews looking diligently. It's later on the same chapter, as a matter of fact.
In verse 15, looking diligently, lest any man fail or fall from the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.
If you know older people in your extended family or.
For whatever you're visiting a nursing home, this is such a common, common condition. Older people, you know, when we're young and things aren't working out in middle school, we say, well, next year I'll be in 9th grade, I'll be in high school and be a whole different deal. Umm, I'm OK, I'll be in high school soon. And then you go through high school and oh, I'm not happy now, but.
00:40:19
I'm gonna go off and get a job or I'm gonna be in college soon. Be a new deal.
And then you just people just keep playing that forward.
And then your spouse dies, and then your health goals, and then they will you into a place where you don't have control anymore. And it's a sinking feeling that this is the last place I'm ever going to live.
And there's no more next. There's no more earthly hope.
And how do we take that? How does a person take that?
And you can see sometimes that the human heart absent from the softening and sanctifying effect of the Spirit of God and a believer. It just gets harder and harder and bitterness sets in.
Can happen amongst us as Saints too. To fall from the grace of God. I worked as a Carpenter when I was young and the boss used to say.
You'd say, oh Brucey, I don't want to hit my thumb with a hammer. I might fall from grace.
In other words, he would he would lose his immediately lose his temper and, and and swear or something to say a bad word that's I learned later on. It's not what it means to fall from grace. The fall from grace is to lose the sense of my soul that God is for me. God is for me. He's for you too, and he's for you with all that he has all the wisdom and love. God is for me and to lose that sense that my circumstances and my days, the curriculum.
That he puts before me in my in my life. School is not orchestrated by someone who knows me, loves me and has nothing but the best for me is to fall from the grace of God and bitterness comes in and it's defiling.
And we see that a disappointment.
And I'm in my 60s and and my child is in their 30s. And then they get discouraged and something happens and they leave the Lord's Table.
And then this happens and that happens in.
And what happens in the parents? The older ones sometimes follow the younger ones out.
And that's just one example of many things that happen where we don't just absorb the wave and look past the foam, so to speak, and just say, well.
This is this. This is the Lord's mind for me. It was the Lord's mind for me before. It's the Lord's mind for me today. And humility press off.
Brethren, there are, our time is up. There are closing. Second Corinthians chapter 4.
There are prerequisite prerequisites.
In the word of God for oversight in the assembly.
And sometimes I think that in some gatherings in their zeal.
Those prerequisites for oversight are applied to every brother and every sister.
Because failure has come into someone's life.
In Romans 12 and I, we don't have time to develop this, but it says if any man prophecy and whether it's a sister prophesying to the younger sister in the home, it doesn't say let him prophecy according to the proportion of success or the proportion of gift. It says according to the proportion of faith.
And it's an extremely valuable thing to have failed in something and judged it and owned it and understood it and pondered it and gotten the good out of that. And to be able to speak from that place of brokenness and humility about that thing, just leave it. Leave it there. Otherwise there will be complete silence.
Oftentimes in the assembly in Second Corinthians chapter 4 just to close.
Verse 15 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, but though our outward men perish.
The inward man is renewed day by day, old and young.
00:45:03
For our light affliction.
Which is but for a moment worketh for us far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
The things formed in a Jacob in those last 17 years in his life.
The exercises formed in David when he gave his last words.
The exercises of you and me, when we ponder things that are 30 or 40 or 50 years ago and get it right in our hearts and minds before the Lord, it has moral value. It's a value to Him.
And these things, this work that goes on inside our hearts, because it's the councils of the hearts that are manifested at the judgment seat of Christ, among other things, the council of Lahar, but it works for us in exceeding and eternal weight of glory.