Open—D. Rule, L. Smith
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.
Psalm 37.
And verse 4.
Delight thyself also in the Lord.
And he shall give thee the desires of thine part.
We have in Philippians chapter 3 the expression that I might know him.
And I'm sure that in our hearts, every one of us has a thirst given of God.
To know in a personal individual, intimate, really not familiar in the wrong sense of the word, but a close relationship of heart to the Lord Jesus.
So in my heart, before the Lord, to give three thoughts.
In connection with that, that is the development in our own relationship to the Lord Jesus.
A closeness.
That satisfies his heart because it's his desire and it satisfies our hearts as well.
The first one is found here in verse 4.
Delight thyself also in the Lord.
And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
We know. I think we have some sense in US of that word delight.
We say I like that, we I find pleasure in that and there are certain things we delight in and other things that we just assumed we didn't have to do or weren't occupied with or didn't want in our lives.
I think most of us realized that man is not a self-sufficient creature that can live apart from things outside himself.
And the Word of God, I believe, would teach us that every man has an object or objects of things outside himself.
That actually his life is centered in.
Just a simple example, some person starts to find their delights in money.
And their life is characterized by it. Everything in their life is sort of that which is going to bring them the thing that they found their pleasure in, the thing they've chosen to find their delight in.
And, uh, someone else. It might be their children.
Whatever it is, if it comes between their soul and God, God says yes, that thing you delight in is your idol. It has replaced me in your life. It's more important when an actual practical decision is made in your life and you have to choose between two things. We choose our items in nature, not in not in a Christian being, but in our natural way. So here, King David.
In some simple exhortations that he's giving.
He says, find your delight in the Lord.
You'll get to know him better. I get to know him better if I have that desire in my heart to find in Him.
My joy.
My delight if you.
Some of you very young, Well, very young. I'm getting older, I guess when I say you're very young, some of you teenagers.
May at a certain point in your life you see some young lady and you start to find some pleasure.
And being around that person and it leads to wanting to know them better, to enjoy them.
And so the first of these thoughts is delight.
Myself and the Lord.
There's a consequence of it.
The consequence is, He will give thee the desires of thine heart.
We first say how the desires of our hearts, we immediately have a certain set of thoughts in US of what we like and what we want. And I know what I like. I know what gives pleasure to me. But I don't believe that's the intent of this little message here in this verse in in the way I desire to apply it for us.
00:05:16
If I delight myself in the Lord.
He will form in me the desires of my heart.
And fulfill them.
I'm gonna repeat it.
If I find my delight truly, I say I'm going to, I make that choice. I'm going to find my delight in the Lord and it's real in me than finding my delight in the Lord. He will form in me the desires of my heart and fulfill them.
He shall bring it.
Give the desires, may the Lord help us to realize it in everyday life.
Second one.
It says in verse three trust.
Or the new translation says Confide, confide in the Lord.
And.
The thought in confluence is.
We trust some people, we don't trust others.
We think certain people are have integrity and we respect them for that.
But it doesn't necessarily make us want to have a close relationship with that person.
Confide has the sense of wanting to draw near and share with that person.
What's on your heart and to tell them about it.
May the Lord help us.
To develop more of that confiding relationship with the Lord.
He wants it, He says to us in Matthew 11, Come unto me.
Joseph desired it with his brethren, when he said, come near.
On to May.
The Lord Jesus desires it with us that he would say to each one of us, Come near to me.
And confide in the.
Share with me what's on your heart.
Verse 5.
Commit thy way unto the Lord.
Trust also in him.
And he will bring it to pass.
This goes beyond.
At least in my own heart.
The idea of going to the Lord for guidance.
That's part of it that I wanna emphasize.
We very easily say.
Well, I've gotta make some choices in line. I've gotta find some level of education or learn a trade and get educated in how to do it. There's the matter of where I live and if I go on to school, what school do I go to? And life seems to have an unending number of.
Choices that are necessary in themselves.
But I want to suggest to you that we can get a thought out of this verse. Commit thy way unto the Lord is this.
Lord.
My way is in your hands.
In other words, it's not Lord help me to decide this or that or the other, but the thought in it, I think is to getting close to the Lord in a way that.
One entrusts to him.
All the choices.
00:10:01
Lord, you take over the way of my life.
He will.
If given that place.
Committed unto the Lord, trust in Him for it. Trust that He will provide the direction of His way.
And when he does, he'll make it happen.
Sometimes the way we plan, the way we choose doesn't work. And so we get so far in something and we gotta stop and give up sometimes on that path that we're on because, well, we've tried it, we're sincere in it, but it didn't work and so we have to give it up.
But if it's his way of his choice from the beginning, no matter what the obstacle is in it.
He will bring it to pass because he chose it and he has the means and the power to make it work out. Whatever.
The difficulty of the way may be.
The perfect example in most.
Things that are good since the Lord Jesus himself he's the ultimate example of.
Of these things.
Figuratively speaking, the Lord Jesus caught up every morning of his life.
And could simply begin the day I delight to do thy will, Oh my God.
And so.
Did he choose the path of his own life?
No, we didn't.
You did not. He didn't make a bunch of choices in life as to this way and that way, but every single day, in a very simple way, really, he waited morning by morning for the instructions from his father.
For the carrying out of whatever responsibilities were given to him by the Father for that day.
Sometimes others couldn't understand it.
When Lazarus was sick, natural ties, the love between them would have dictated that he immediately go.
The disciples could immediately counsel them. Don't go. You go and you get killed. They hate you. They're going to put you to death.
And so looking at circumstances didn't guide him.
But the will of the Father.
And so it can be that we should desire a more ever more intimate, personal, daily relationship with the Lord Jesus in confiding in Him, committing the way to His choice, and allowing Him by delighting in Him to form the desires of our own parts.
I wanna turn to one more thought.
Umm, to introduce it, go down to verse 19.
They shall not be ashamed in the evil time.
This is called This is here, and this is on the righteous and in the days of famine.
They shall be satisfied, and in the days of famine.
They shall be satisfied. I wish to connect that to Philippians chapter 2.
After two.
In diversified Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant.
00:15:07
And was made in the likeness of men.
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Spirit of God, we believe, has brought before us significantly in the last this weekend.
The greatness of the person.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Beyond our capacity to really lay hold of it, but in every little bit that we've been able you might say to scratch the surface of it. The Spirit of God has would lift up our hearts and our thoughts to the wonder of.
Himself.
A man now in the glory.
And we delight to look upon Him there in the glory and anticipate seeing that glory physically to participating in that glory, and so on.
We're not there yet, though.
We think this world is a wilderness.
Scripture says it's a wilderness. More important than a song saying so.
And we are in a wilderness.
But like the children of Israel, the wilderness tests us.
We may be in it in one sense, but our arts may be in the world.
As the children of Israel hearts where they were out in the wilderness, but their hearts lusted for each other.
They wanted to have the things that they left behind in that land. And they hadn't laid hold of my faith, that which was ahead of them in truth. And so instead of living by faith, they wanted what their eyes had seen and they they went back to live.
In the world, in their hearts, even though physically they were not there.
What I'm leading up to, brethren, is that.
We need.
In daily life.
Another aspect of the person of Lord Jesus.
We need every day.
Fees upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
As mana.
We will not be sustained only by what we've had this weekend.
That is.
Wonderful. Essential.
Encouraging. Necessary.
Take our hearts out of the world.
And to fix them on himself.
But I want to stress.
That we also need him.
This man up.
Manna was uniquely the food.
That the children of Israel were given in the wilderness.
They look forward to the food of the land cannon of the Old Testament, the old corn of the land.
We have in picture form something we've had in in anticipation and the present enjoyment the old corner of the land this weekend.
But if we go out of this room today.
And forget or neglect.
The necessity of our souls.
To feed every day.
On the Lord Jesus.
As Mano.
We're going to have trouble in daily life.
The manner aspect of his person is that which brings before us.
00:20:03
The lowly.
On the.
In this world.
In Philippians chapter 2.
We see him taking the.
Position.
We talked about position and condition this morning, and the fact that the position that is now ours in Christ, we haven't yet entered it fully into the condition corresponding to it. Hopefully we will grow each our own measure and our own way with the Lord. Little by little the two be more equal, be the same.
Here's a man.
Started out in the glory.
He empties himself his official glories.
Takes on that place in manhood.
And manhood requires and in his proper relationship to be obedient.
So he takes the place, he who sustains the whole universe.
In his sonship.
Our But as Jesus, he's here.
Among men, we might say in his early life as a nobody.
Observant.
He takes manhood's place of obedience.
Takes the lower place some all are responsible for obedience to God, but.
There are some masters among men, and there are some servants among men.
As he goes down to the low place.
Unconfounded my unsolved.
Honored it now for weeks and weeks.
The fact.
That the condition of his soul corresponded to the position that we talk.
It's one thing for a person.
To serve in some capacity or other that people would say that's wonderful, they're doing this charitable work and they're helping these people or bad people in some way or another, and maybe in a humble way. I mean a humble activity itself.
One thing to do.
But in a general sense at least.
That person never loses sight. They are.
If it's an honorable price, if it's an important place that they occupy.
If I could put it this way, a king.
They go and serve in the food kitchen.
I'd be very unaware that this king.
Yes, he put aside his kingship for the day so that he might go and serve in that holy rally.
But he may in itself retain.
That sense of his own dignity and absorbance and charity and love and grace. If we want to use those words and.
He was a man.
Who is big?
00:25:00
Not just in a big place.
He was a man who was humble.
Not just at home and position.
He was a man.
Who has a heart beyond comprehension?
But at the same time, he was globally.
He was a man. That was all those things.
And we could say.
Oh, pretty hard. I've been upset.
31.
The natural heart and beast.
Someone in some way has virtues or position or ability or place that they aspire to but don't have.
Natural heart injuries.
Pearson, lonely man.
Can you resend me?
For what it was.
Yes, they could say it's not this, the carpenter's son.
But the attraction of people to his person produced envy in others and he people were attracted to him, sometimes by food, sometimes by other reasons, but they were attracted to him.
We need.
To feed upon him.
As that man.
Every day.
And if we do?
It is that food.
Which sustains the soul.
In a wilderness.
If that food is not taken in.
In Seoul.
The heart lost factor each others.
It wants something else.
It misses something else.
But if the heart feeds upon himself in that way.
It is enabled of God.
Keep one's eye on the goal. Canaan 7 the glory.
And at the same time.
Walk in a daily way.
Absorbing by the work of God in us that same Spirit.
Otherwise, the natural heart wants something to glory in.
Something that itself makes self important.
And that's something that Self has to have.
Maybe it's knowledge of scriptural things?
Maybe it's influenced over other people in spiritual ways.
Maybe it's a sense of self worth, of doing good things, whatever it is.
It fosters in us the balloon of crime.
But the soul that lays seeks to lay hold of what I think is beyond comprehension really.
That in himself.
Oh, because one starts to realize.
How little one is?
Of that which he is.
And yeah, it's the desire to end of the soul. We like it.
And so I just say.
Let's be sure each day that.
We take a look at them.
In his life, in his life, in his path.
00:30:06
I'm starting to understand a little better.
At a conference like this, when I was probably.
20 years old or less.
Whether I'm still very is at that conference.
And, uh, he was an old man.
At that time.
And he commented and stuck with me and stuck with me all my life, he said. Every day I read the Gospels.
Every day, every gospel.
Now I can see it.
He was feeding on the man.
He was feeding on Christ.
His path of lowliness and humility through this world.
A follow up.
Sector 4.
Please ask this chapter 4.
13.
Better is a poor and a wise child.
That an old and foolish king.
Who will know more?
Be admonished.
I was pondering this verse.
I think, wow, these are quite the contrast.
Poor and wise child.
Let's turn to Luke's Gospel, Chapter 2.
Luke 2 and verse 21.
And when these days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus.
Which was so named that the Angel before he was conceived in the womb.
When the days of her purification according to the law Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.
As it is written law of the Lord, every mail that opened the womb shall be called holding for the Lord.
To offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtles.
Two young pigeons.
Here we have, I believe, one of the proofs.
04 family.
Johnson and Mary.
And a little bigger.
We've had before us about the Father.
He sent his son.
To be the savior of the world.
And as Brother Donald brought out.
Mighty high truths, but when we look back.
To his lowly entrance into our world.
The receiver.
Four steps by then.
By what is offered.
Fiddle doubts for two young bridges.
00:35:08
And we get.
Ian Simeon in the next verse.
A devout old man.
Waiting upon the Lord.
And the Holy Ghost, verse 26 had revealed to him that he should not see that before he had seen the Lords of Christ.
Interesting we get the bullet price.
His anointed one and yet.
They these parents.
Had brought him.
To the Lord.
Then.
When Simeon comes verse 27 by the spirit into the temple.
The parents brought in the child Jesus.
This.
Precious early glimpse of our manna.
God bless appearing.
We will pay.
Yet he takes him up in his arms and bless God, verse 28 he says.
Board, now let us thy serving departed peace according to thy word mine, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.
It was prepared before the face of all people.
To lighten to light, to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people, Israel.
The circumstances.
Wouldn't have displayed this to Simeon, France?
But it's the spirit of God, Spirit man is waiting upon and.
Here this parents are marveling. Verse 33.
At those things which were spoken of, and then Simeon blessed them. Verse 34. And seven to marry his mother. Behold, this child is set for the fallen, rising again of Maine in Israel. For a sign which shall be spoken against. Yes, sword shall pursue thine own soul. Also the thoughts of many hearts.
Can be revealed that we can end up here.
We spread in Ecclesiastes.
Better is a poorer and a wise child.
Verse 41. Let's see verse 39 when they performed all things according to the law of the board, they returned into Galilee to their own city, Nazareth, and the child grew and waived, strong in spirit.
Filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him.
Better poor and wise child.
Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.
So we know from that.
A little bit of what was included.
In his life from the time he was an infant.
One moment every year at the feast of the Fastener, verse 42, when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the beast, when they had fulfilled the days as they returned the child Jesus straight behind in Jerusalem.
And.
Joseph and his mother knew not of it, but they, supposing him, have been in the company when a day's journey, and they sought him among their kinfolk and acquaintance, And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.
Came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions.
And all the territory were astonished at his understanding and answers.
00:40:03
Here, this precious young person.
12 years old.
They've been coming up each year to Jerusalem.
For the feast of the Passover.
Some think this was perhaps his.
Bar Mitzvah and the Jewish voice considered a man.
But whatever.
What's he gonna do?
Is he speaking?
That which is becoming to his age. And who is he keeping company with?
Here is.
This blessing.
Boy.
They sent the sun better is a poorer.
And wise.
We read of Him filled with wisdom in verse 40, and now we find Him in the midst of doctors hearing them.
And he was teaching.
But it does say.
All that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
Now there's some of you boys and girls here that are.
Young.
Some that are a little older, some are teenagers.
But here's someone.
We left us an example that we should follow in the steps.
And.
He is square.
He could learn.
And he's not.
Seeking to teach for the men.
As a teacher at 12 years of age.
Hearing them and asking questions.
When we look at our lives.
Do you take the opportunity?
To spend time.
With wise men.
If your time is with foolish.
Mm-hmm. That will rob something from your life.
But.
We can run this example of our Lord Jesus Christ Henry as a boy he is hearing.
Asking questions.
And his understanding shows Health how much they're astonished.
I remember a boy in my life.
That.
Somehow I've got to hide who he is. He's still living.
That caught my attention for the way he listened.
To the adults.
As a little boy.
We live in a world.
People love to have fun, excitement.
Sometimes do some rather higher risk things for the purpose.
But.
He ran old and rude as you can, you will not be in love.
All the foolish king.
Well, I don't know the fear of the King of Sodom.
Genesis.
Only to 14 or so anyway. He and four of the other kings are carried away captives.
Abraham.
00:45:02
Of men in faith.
Gets his 318 servants and overtakes the situation and delivers those kings act.
And the king of Sodom.
He says, give me the souls and take the good to thyself.
I don't, I don't think even though red or a shoe lamp from you.
And Abraham.
You know, somebody's got 318. Certainly seems like a pretty rich man.
But you know, you can be a person with a lot of money to be important actually.
You don't have some earthly riches can be afforded as a person who's before the period.
Whose desires to feed upon?
What comes from the war?
Abraham.
He wouldn't take any of those goods and you know, just a few chapters later.
That King Norbert lost his family and all that stuff he wanted to get. Abraham went up and smoked.
Under the dashes.
And that's what this world would do.
But here is a poor and wise king.
With a foreign wise child, wiser than a king.
Yet it came to bring.
The infinite telling out of the Father's heart.
An amazing this little child.
It says in the next person Ecclesiastes 4 four out of prison cometh to reign.
We are also he that is born in His Kingdom.
Returned from that battle where Abraham rescued him.
They really ultimately lost everything.
Abraham.
For experience.
We're there on the mountain for the Lord.
And the Lord told him his secret. He wouldn't hide from him what he was going to do.
And if we went to.
Genesis 19 we find that a lot is delivered. It says the Lord remembered Abraham.
And delivered loans.
Intercession. You and I as children of God have that privilege.
But we also have this privilege of looking upon.
This blessed man.
He was poor and wise child.
Who became so divine?
Let's look in Acts chapter four I think.
Became human, so human.
And he comes to the cross.
You say, oh, take me not away.
24.
Verse 23.
00:50:08
Peter and John Ben.
Before the rulers of the Israel nearly verses.
There let go in verse 23 and they went to their own company.
Their young people.
All of us.
Who is our own company?
Is it really?
The men of this world wanna be heroes in whatever way you wanna be.
Business being let go, they went into their own company.
And reported all that the $2000 and sent them to them.
When they heard that, they lifted up their voices to God with one accord, and said, Before Thou art God.
And so forth. Our time is gone. Now skip to the verse on my heart.
Brother Don touched on the verse thank the Lord choosing our way now he looks in verse 29 he says and now Lord, behold their threatening.
Grants unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, stretching forth thy hand to heel, that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child.
When they afraid, the place was shaken where they were assembled together.
They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.
And the multitude of them to believe were of one heart and one soul.
Neither said they any said any of them, that all of the things which he possessed and were told, that they had all things in common and with great power, gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace is upon them all.
So we have in the end of the 30th verse.
Name of thy holy child Jesus spares to the poor and blind child. And if you look this up, I looked up in the young, but it could be translated boy or serving.
But it's not translated to play.
This word child here.
And.
What a contrast.
That you would have.
For a wise child come into our world, and does he endorse the world system? Not at all.
And when someone.
Ask your question about rendering.
Text Mrs. Show me your pants.
We will carry on one.
Maybe the money was so important.
Judith Banks.
Well, there's there's a real world president.
Available to each one of us that know the Lord Jesus.
That world is not worthy heavenly that which.
This is a union with God and feed upon Christ and anymore.