Open—A. Scharf, R. Klassen Sr., E Staggs
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Kind of laid upon my heart as a result of it.
In regards to the Church of Laodicea.
Yesterday we spent much time really discussing the church that we would all like to be a part of Philadelphia. We would all like to be Philadelphia. And yet I think when we search our hearts, we find we do not find Philadelphia.
We finally had a seal.
We look at the world around us, at the church around us, in we see Laodicea.
The story is told of a professor who, the first day of every semester, wrote one word upon the upon the board Apathy.
And one of the students leaned over to the to his fellow student and said, what does apathy mean?
And he replied, I don't know.
Who cares?
That's apathy. I don't know who cares. My brother this afternoon mentioned that we really have take it or leave it Christianity.
And sometimes we have the tendency of saying that that exists in Christian circles around us, but forget to point the finger to ourselves.
To say yes, we are part of Laodicea, yes, we are lukewarm.
Why was this, uh, this pronoun or this adjective here rather lukewarm used?
Well, historically speaking, Laodicea was fed by an aquifer, the water supply for the city.
And it was that water had to travel quite a distance before it arrived at the city. And so the water that the inhabitants of Laodicea drank was lukewarm. They knew exactly what this, uh, epistle was telling them when they said that they were lukewarm. They hated it. They hated the water that they had to drink.
In the days of Laodicea, they did not have refrigerators where they could freeze the water to have iced tea. It was difficult for them to heat it to get hot tea, and so they had lukewarm water.
And there's one thing about Laodicea that I think is very striking.
And that is, is that nowhere in Laodicea as it mentioned, to keep what they had?
Most of the other churches had something to keep and they are exhorted to do just that. No matter how small or how weak they were, they were exhorted to keep what they had. There's no mention of that in Laodicea. In Laodicea, it says rather in verse 18I counseled you to buy of me. Gould tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich. We know why they had to do this, because they were weak and miserable and poor and blind and naked in the previous verse.
So they had nothing to hold onto. They had nothing to keep. They had to buy it. They had to buy something and it was gonna be costly.
Our brother also mentioned that what cost that man to purchase the truth and it will cost us something, it will cost me something, it will cost you something.
It will cost you everything.
Isaiah 55 One says, Ho everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money come ye buy any Yecom buy wine and milk without money and without price. Well how can you buy something without money?
You have to trade everything.
Now the question is, if any one of you in this room were given a guaranteed lottery ticket for money that you could never spend and could never count, but you only had to give one thing in exchange for it. You had to give up all your earthly possessions that you have at this present time. And you would be in return given that that lottery ticket that you could never spend and could never count. Would you do it? Would I do it?
That's what.
The Spirit of God is telling us in this in this epistle, the short epistle to Laodicea.
Are you willing to give up the paltry little, uh, temporary?
Pleasures that we have today.
For something that you can never count and never spend.
I counsel the Tobias me gold tried in the fire. This is not fool's gold. Fool's gold. You apply it to the test of fire. It melts into nothingness gold. You can turn up the fire as hot as you want and it remains the same. You will have the same amount of gold before as you do after.
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Gold tried in the fire.
That thou mayest be rich.
In that verse in Isaiah that I quoted, it says to buy of me.
Uh, wine and milk.
Wine, might suggest, speaks of joy and milk of contentment.
How many times in this world are we lacking joy and lacking contentment? And yet that's exactly what Isaiah holds out to us in that in that 51St, 55th chapter. And when we read through Isaiah, we can't help but notice that the day that Isaiah wrote of was very similar to the day in which we Live Today. Discontent, unhappiness.
Miserable.
So where must we go to find that wine and milk? Come ye to the waters.
Come to the waters.
The water throughout the Scripture speaks of the word of God, and that's the only place where we can find that wine and milk, that joy, that contentment.
And so it is at the at the end of the New Testament here in Revelation.
I counseled the Tobias Miguel tried in the fire.
And white raiment covering.
Covering for our sin and degradation. Covering for our failure. Covering for.
Our natural man.
And anoint thine eyes with isav, that thou mayest see.
We look around the world today. There is everything except sight blindness on every hand. Discernment seems to have been lost on the on the social stage, on the environmental stage, everywhere in the world, we look around us.
Nobody seems to know what to do.
They can't see the solution.
Because they are blind and the church is jumping on the same bandwagons that the that the world is following after. Because they cannot see either.
They are covered with the same blindness as those around around them and are not we umm, in danger of that same thing. To have our eyes covered with scales, to look around us and see the failure around us. To look around us and see the.
Weakness.
And not look within and see the same.
But here it does not have to remain that way. The Church of Laodicea was in a bad state, and the church today is in a bad state.
And we all want to return to Philadelphia. And in a collective sense, as it has been said, it's not gonna happen.
The church, collectively, is not going to return to the days of Philadelphia.
And yet individually, as members of the Church of Laodicea, perhaps we can find that place, that blessings of Philadelphia.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent. What must we Rep, What must we repent of this lukewarmness?
This idea that we are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.
Until pardon express, if you'll pardon the expression, We have the writings of the brethren, and indeed we do a great treasure. And yet if we place our faith, if we place our standing upon them, we are saying the same things as a church in Laodicea, because we have not bought it.
The Church of Laodicea had the truth of Paul's doctrine, had the truth of the other apostles doctrine, the epistles written to them.
But the council given to them is to buy it, to buy of the Lord this gold, this treasure.
That they would never have without purchasing it, without giving everything.
For.
Behold, I sound at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and we'll stop with him and he with me. Here again we have this individual, any man, if any woman, if any child. You don't have to be old to heed the voice of the Lord. You don't have to be old to realize that.
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I need something done in my heart.
My heart needs to be changed.
If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will Sup with him and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and I'm sat down with my father in his throne.
As was mentioned in the readings.
Overcomer and Laodicea has the greatest reward of them all.
To be Co Regent, so to speak, with the Lord himself. To sit upon the throne with the Lord who is on the throne of his father.
The throne of the Kingdom of Heaven and Earth.
Once again I come back to that analogy of the lottery ticket that you cannot spend and you cannot count, and all you have to give is everything for it.
Are we willing to give everything?
For that, am I willing? Are you willing? So many times we count the cost.
And we overestimate our present wealth and underestimate future glory.
That is really the failure of the Church of Laodicea. They said I am increased with goods and have need of nothing. They overestimated their present condition and underestimated future glory. And so the the note to the overcomer in Laodicea is to forget everything that they think they have and they hold on to something that they will have, something that they do not have now, perhaps something that they will have to give up a lot to attain.
But something that really if we think about it.
With a heart led by the Spirit, we cannot help but realize that it is worth it.
It is worth it, but are we willing?
To give up what we have now for something much better.
So appreciate what our brother has brought home to us, and I believe that he, with others of us, readily admit that the overcomer and lay to see us does have the richest blessing of all the overcomers. But it's just in such few words where you turn to Philadelphia and there's something like 61 words.
To show what a Philadelphian overcomer has, but here is just a 14 words.
And yet sometimes the smallest gem is the richest, isn't it? And so the Lord Jesus as a man overcame in his day apostate Judaism. And to think of that tremendous tide that was against him every day, the blind Pharisees and their attacks, and to follow him into the regions where he went to try to break him down, He overcame as a man.
Well, we're not living in those days, but we're living in the days of apostate Christianity, and there is a tremendous tide that is rolling, and we get a look at that tide once in a while. We say, can we survive?
And as we look around, we say, well, I don't see how we can until we focus back on the man who overcame in his day. And we might say, well, he was the Lord. We would expect that, but he did it. Independence and direction of his father taking that.
Place of dependence to receive daily instruction as to what he should do.
Each particular day and there had to be blessing. There will be blessing when there is dependence and guidance day by day.
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And so I would like to just amplify perhaps what it means to be an overcomer and lay it Asia if we turn back to Exodus Chapter 33.
Uh, we'll perhaps pick up the divine recipe.
Of what it means to overcome in the darkest day.
Exodus 33.
And verse 11.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.
There it is.
There's the spirit of overcoming.
To be able to enter into the presence of the Lord, and to speak to Him as a near and a dear friend.
And to be able to unburden our hearts and to have his sympathies.
And so Moses was in a very difficult situation here.
And he has this access to speak with Jehovah, the God of Israel, face to face.
No distance there is there.
And so he says in verse 18, and Moses, he Moses said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory.
You know this is an amazing request from Moses.
Prior to this, he had been up in the Mount Sinai, been up there for 40 days and 40 nights, and he didn't have to take time out to eat or drink or to sleep. Here was this sweet communion.
And during part of this time at least, the Lord gave him the whole spectrum of the Tabernacle and all the different material that would go into it and how it would all fit together.
Marvelous intricacies.
And if we turn to the 29th Psalm, it would tell us that whether it be the Tabernacle or the temple, that every wit of it uttereth the glory of Christ.
Isn't that something?
And so here's Moses saying, Show me thy glory.
You know, as Moses viewed all this and saw all the material.
He had a feeling that it was fragile. Here's the possibility of the gold becoming dim, the silver tarnished, the curtains dirty with the sand and the ropes breaking as they strap them down with the stakes.
And so he felt like, you might say, there was a glory that was missing.
A living glory.
That's marvelous, isn't it? And that's what we have to have, is we have to have that which is living or we can't overcome.
The Tabernacle is such a beautiful picture of Christ in so many ways.
And so the Lord says to him in verse 21. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon not a rock, but the rock.
And it shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock.
I will cover thee with my hand while I pass by, and I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen.
Well, here's the rock.
And Moses obediently stands on that rock, and he puts him in the cleft of the rock.
The Lord does.
And as he's in this.
Place he has a look down the avenue of time.
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To the time that this rock was going to be smitten at Calvary.
What a revelation to his heart. What an answer to his desire.
To think of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we read that that rock was Christ.
And that it followed them through the wilderness.
Let's turn to Deuteronomy Chapter 9.
Deuteronomy Chapter 9.
I'm sorry, before we read that, I would like to look at the 34th chapter of, uh, Exodus. The 34th chapter because.
We get to something here that's very special. Exodus 34 and verse 29 And it came to pass when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses hand. When he came down from the mouth, that Moses face Moses whisked, not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.
Verse 32 And afterward all the children of Israel came. Nine He gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai.
Until Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. And when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out, and he came out and spake unto the children of Israel.
That which he was commanded, and the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses face shone, and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him, that is Jehovah.
Well, the question comes up here is a man whose face is shining. It didn't shine when he came down the first time, even though it was such a glorious experience to be up there and to receive all that he received there. But this time it's shining.
And perhaps there's two reasons why his face was shining now just uh, bearing that in mind will not be labor things that others might speak another. But back to Deuteronomy Chapter 9.
Verse 25.
Thus I, Moses, fell down before the Lord 40 days and 40 nights.
And as I fell down at the 1St.
Because the Lord had said he would destroy you.
You know, when Moses came down from the mouth, there they were worshipping a golden calf up.
Most pathetic sight, and he's got the 10 commandments in his hand and he breaks them there at the foot of the mount, lest that.
Those stones be brought in and the camp of Israel be destroyed. They deserve to be destroyed. And Moses is anticipating 40 years with this murmuring people. They just had got out of Egypt and their behavior was really disconcerting.
And so the Lord said to Moses, Moses, why don't you just get away from this people, and I'm going to make of you a greater and a mightier nation.
How would that affect your heart to hear the Lord say that to you, to get away from these these folks here in Richmond at this time, and I'm going to just make a better nation out of you.
Oh, Moses had been on the road long enough.
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To know they wouldn't be any better.
Throws himself right in the breach and pleads.
Brought me out, but not thy people, Lord. My own words in essence.
And so he carried, you might say, a tremendous burden. The Lord was going to destroy his people, and righteously so.
But now in chapter 10 of Deuteronomy.
He's up there a second time and he says in verse 10.
I stayed in the mount according to the first time, 40 days and 40 nights. Going to quote the new translation, it is touching.
It says and the Lord listened.
To me at that time period.
Jehovah.
Would not destroy his people.
He was in the cleft of the rock.
He saw the work of redemption, that God had a platform upon which he could turn and say, I will not destroy.
Israel.
You know.
This costs God everything to make this statement.
Cost him everything the brother was speaking about. What would we give up?
Give up everything for Christ. Well worth it.
I need my him. I'll get my hemlock here just that.
I love the thing that we.
Uh, him that we, uh, sang. And I'd just like to read a stanza which expresses what made Moses face to shine.
He got to see the glory.
And that had effect upon him, but he also had the assurance that he would not destroy his people, as he would pour out his grace. That was all, and that was everything. And so we have these words here. Thy bright characters known. Nor dares the creature guess which of the glories the brightest shone.
The Justice.
For the grace.
Don't ask me which of the glories shone the brightest. They stand united and sublime.
We have Israel go out before us, God taking them up. We read their history and we just grab our heads.
Say what a sad history.
But our brother was bringing before us the condition of Laodicea, having every advantage to be spiritually healthy and strong.
And living for Christ. And here is this deplorable condition.
He had to say.
Thou art de wretched, and thou art.
I wanna go back and read it quoting it from the new translation.
Yes, thou art the wretched and the miserable.
What a way to be addressed and does God have a remedy?
Yes, we have the remedy carried out after the crucifixion and there are those two that are walking away from Jerusalem.
Just giving up.
Say it's gone, no hope. Here comes a stranger that draws alongside of them. What does he do? He goes in and he sucks with them, restores their heart. Open their heart 1St and then their eyes. Then they knew who he was and he vanished out of their sight. Why? So that they could come and Sup with him.
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I believe that's the highest.
Demonstration if I can put it.
Of peace and rest, having our natural restlessness taken from us, and we're on the lookout for something better than what we have.
It's all taken away. We sit down. We did it this morning.
And could I say as we did it?
Sephora taste.
Of what it's going to be like to sit with him on his throne together.
I'm not Downing activity but I'm just saying this.
Is what is the essence of the best love, that love that sits down and drinks of the fullness that is in Christ Jesus our Lord?
So to think of being raptured home to glory as overcomers.
And just sitting down with him.
We might say we'll at least be excited.
Well.
Whatever excitement is, did we come here this morning with excitement as to what we were going to do?
No, I believe that we came in holy reverence, with a sense in our souls that we're carrying out his dying request.
And to sit down quietly and reverently singing him together.
Praise the Lord.
Worship Him in the beauty of holiness.
And so he's not going to take us into.
Unfamiliar things that we have enjoyed here, it's more of the same.
Brethren, may our priorities be where they should be. If any man open the door, I will come in and Sup with him. What a marvelous thing this is. He might say, Well, if you open the door, then you've got to come with me. No, it's going to Sup with us. And to think of those two in the effort that they made, they might have looked at one another and said, well, we'll wait till Daybreak.
Went back that night.
It was a difficult walk in the dark, but it didn't make any difference.
And so sometimes this up with him the way is like that.
But the heart, the values are right. We make the journey back.
Let's turn to John, Chapter 11.
John Chapter 11 and verse 49.
And one of them named Kifas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perished not.
And this may he not of himself, but being high priest, that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation, and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.
You know this, high priest?
He got in there into this office by money.
Not there. According to the mind of God, He's akin to Balaam, a wicked prophet. We heard about him during these meetings.
And how he gave us some amazing prophetic scriptures, I guess, as I think of the knowledge that this man had.
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And he said that he was the man that had his eyes opened.
But he closed them against the light.
Here's another man akin to this.
There's a lot of tension in the air. There's a realization that things are coming to a collision course.
And out of all this pressure, he says it is expedient that one man should die for the nation. Those words came from uncircumcised lips, but they were true what the Lord had told Moses in the mount that made his face shine.
There would be a man that would die for the nation of Israel.
It's one of the reasons that the Lord Jesus went to the cross was to carry that out. That was said to Moses in the mouth.
And say this afternoon he died for the nation of Israel. But it doesn't stop there, does it? No, the apostle John says the 2nd chapter first. Johnny said he died for the whole world.
And here we have for the, uh, for the children of God, which are scattered abroad.
Marvelous that he would give an uncircumcised man to say this.
To all, every person in this world responsible.
To hear what their own people say. Should I say ungodly people?
He was an ungodly man, and this was a powerful testimony and it was a true one.
Let's turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter 3.
There's so much here and, and, uh, I would be.
On End of Time, but I'd just like to make this comment that the apostle Paul.
Went over the scriptures in the Old Testament.
Far more than what we did.
And he gives his evaluation of what happened to Moses in the mount here, and the giving of the law, if we were to read it from verse 7.
To the end of the chapter we would find this word glory and glorious 12 Times.
Sometimes when we think about what glory is, we say, well, it's something that hurts our eyes.
Because the heavens declare the glory of God and we can't walk outside and justice stare at the sun. The glory of it is too great for us.
And so when Moses face Sean, he had to put a veil over it while he talked to the children of Israel. He just couldn't take it.
But you know, if they would have looked at them and said, take the veil off your face, you know what they would have seen? They would have seen the love of God radiating from his face.
But they were so unworthy and so naked and so guilty.
It was just better for him to cover his face while he talked to him. You know what happened? That veil went over their hearts and it's there to this day as a nation. Nevertheless, he died for that nation. And that's the only reason, the only foundation upon which Israel will be restored in that coming day. They are going to go back to to Calvary.
And there will be that fountain to wash them.
And to deliver them and to unite them with our Lord.
Glory.
Someone made an effort.
To try and tell us what glory is.
I'm more glad as courage. I have not committed it to memory.
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But I'm just allow me to read it the attempt that he made.
We beheld His glory.
John, 114.
Glory is almost indefinable.
It signifies honor, majesty and dignity.
Effulgence, magnificence, radiance, and light.
It is splendor.
An excellent beauty.
And bliss.
John had seen it all in Christ. He had seen glory that was personal and essential.
And glory, that was moral.
He had seen glory. That was ministerial.
And glory, that was me tutorial.
And on the Mount of Transfiguration, he glimpsed glory that was official in Regal.
These 4 words.
Sum it up.
We beheld His glory.
Majestic sweetness.
Sits in throne upon the Savior's brow, His head with radiant, glorious crown.
His lips with grace or flower.
Brethren, that's what we have.
That which cannot be described, that which soon shall be our part.
And you know if you want to overcome.
The recipe as simple as it, not.
Yes, it's complex.
So what makes it simple is to look into the blessed the face of the Lord Jesus, to be able to commune with Him.
Behold His glory.
And just live for him.
In simplicity of heart, just being a light and attraction to others to link up with His blessed man.
We are in late to see in days. We might like to go back to Philadelphia, but as I mentioned, it's like a field for.
Philadelphia is like a field of grain, and maybe it's come up this high and it's all lush and it shows a promise of a great crop. But you know, adversity has to come so that the Lord is able to.
Have what we call a bumper crop. It's going to fill his barn with the fruit.
Of the riches of his grace.
To enjoy the riches of his glory forever. What a savior, what a Lord we have.
We've had a a lot before us in the last two brothers that were up here in connection with Laodicea.
And, umm.
It's solemn to think of of what those who've been given such great privilege and responsibility have evolved too.
And I think we can all own that in a measure. These tendencies are in our own heart.
And, uh, in a difficult day, when we see the ruin around us, there's a a tendency to wanna give up.
To say what's the use? Why?
What we have before us in our reading meetings that umm.
That Israel parallels the history of the Church.
And if you see Solomon and that wonderful day when the temple was there and the Shekinah glory was there and there was tremendous testimony, and the whole world could look at that scene and they could see that God had blessed and God was with this people in a unique and wonderful way.
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Isn't that really the way it was in the beginning of the church? It was a tremendous movement. Many souls were saved. God had direct intercourse with man, with those that had connection that that were close to him.
He spoke to the prophets, He spoke to the apostles.
There were healings. The Spirit of God, uh communicated through uh, with man, through tongues, that the gospel might go out further.
It was. It was wonderful.
It was beautiful.
But it doesn't take long, does it, for ruin to come in?
Doesn't take long for the flesh to have its way and we find the vision comes in in Israel amongst us.
And then we find it evolves into idolatry so solemn.
And those who've been so blessed with evolved to such a thing as idolatry.
And then we find it goes into the dark ages of the church.
Israel, uh, being carried away, Jerusalem, uh, Judah being carried away to Babylon. And we see those solemn years when there were these little lights like Daniel.
And others that caught it raised up, whose heart stood fast for the Lord in a weak and solemn day. They identified themselves with the weakness and the failure. And those that did, God blessed in the unique and wonderful way.
He unfolded his heart to him, gave him a view of the future and gave him a hope.
So did he, the church.
And then God raised up a faithful remnant. That remnant Days of Ezra.
Lept Babylon, and and by faith, not by some great movement of the Spirit, not by science of of miracles, not by the Speaking of tongues, not by the raising of dead. But they looked into the word of God, and in the Word of God they acquired God's thoughts for the day that they lived in, and they responded by faith.
To what God said.
And they went in, and by faith they went back to that divine center, that place where he had placed his name in the beginning and as feeble as it was.
There was rejoicing.
With about 140 years later, we come to Malachi.
And perhaps Malachi might speak to us of Laodicea.
Our brother spoke and we enjoyed what he had to say on Malachi.
So there's a few things that had really touched me as I've thought about this portion.
And it's these words, Malachi chapter one, he says the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel.
Could, could we say that the burden of the word of the Lord to the church now, what we've had before us over the last two days, last three days, it's the burden of the Lord to address the responsibility of those who have been given a place of the care, a given a place of who have a heart.
For the people of God in the day that they live in and it and it and it reaches out to each and every individual in this room. It's not just talking to the angels, it's talking to each and everyone in this room. And it's calling you to be an overcomer.
In a day of rolling.
You may look up and you might say, well, that brother, he's failed me. He let me down. He's a he's a ruler. That brother has been given to be a guide to me and look at he's let me down. I'm sorry.
It doesn't take away your responsibility.
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You are ultimately responsible for your own actions before your Lord and your Savior.
That's why it addresses the overcomer.
But think of these words.
In verse 2.
I have left you. I have loved you.
Saith the Lord.
Aren't those wonderful words? Where does it reach into your heart?
Where? Where does it? Where does it go when you meditate in your soul about the kind of love that this God has for you and had for you?
How far a blessing could he give us?
How much more could he have spent? How much more tender love could he have have expressed in the day that we live in that would give you the compromise in question, that kind of love. And yet you realize it's true. You can question that kind of love because what did they say?
And yet ye say, Wherein hath thou loved us?
Imagine those words, Wherein hast thou loved us?
You, you know, twice since I've been gathered.
I've had the occasion to hear two different believers make these make this comment to me. I am mad at God.
And I said, how could you be mad at God? What more could he have done?
If he hadn't done anything but saved your soul, you have no right to be mad at God. If He just left you in this world, you have no right to be mad at God. How could you say those words?
And yet, you know, I'm gonna tell you something. There may be somebody inside this room that does not publicly say that they're mad at God, but their whole action in their life dictate that they're mad at God.
That somehow God has let him down.
You become disgruntled.
I see it, I see it, I see it.
I have loved you, saith the Lord.
You know, I I have to admit that sometimes I get a little discouraged.
I maybe wish that things hadn't gone quite that way.
Somebody that I've grown to love has gone a different direction.
I don't understand why, but you know what?
I'm not mad at God.
I'm not mad at God.
But I think we should weigh that in our own soul. I don't have a lot of time, so I'm not gonna draw much on it, but.
In verse six he says a son honoreth his father.
And a servant, his master.
If then I be a father, where is my uh, where is my honor? Do you have a a a something I can?
Where is my honor?
Do you, do you own the Lord? You know, brother? Thank you very much. A brother came up to me a couple of years ago.
He says, What does it mean when you when you say that he's your Lord and your Savior?
Well, you know, you know, I, I thought a little bit about, I kind of had an understanding a little bit, but you know, sometimes somebody asks you a question and you're afraid you're going to answer the wrong thing. And so you just kind of him and haul a little bit, but.
But you call him your Lord.
You know when you make the Lord Jesus your Lord, you put your place, you put yourself in the place of his disciple.
And being a disciple, you're the follower of that man in his teaching.
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That's what it means to call him your Lord. And you look at the path of that Lord Jesus, that blessed Lord Jesus as a man in this world.
You see the conflict in his own life.
You see the end of the road of that blessed man.
You see how God has glorified that man for his obedient path?
You see all of these done upon Calvary's cross.
Now why now do we compromise His Lordship in our lives?
Why? Why is it we wanna follow a different path instead of that man?
Why is it we wanna have our own thoughts about things instead of God's thoughts about us for our lives? Oh, we're all happy to go to heaven. We just don't wanna take the responsibility for the path that we have to get go through in the wilderness land to get there.
We find here later on that that the the priest now they they OfferUp lame sacrifice.
They OfferUp lame sacrifice.
And I wondered about that.
What? What would be equivalent to a lame sacrifice today?
Well, you know, I'm gonna tell you something that that sometimes I I come in and the loaf is there and the cup is there and I am, I am about as inconsistent as, you know, sometimes I look at just about all I can stand to remember the Lord in his love for me.
And sometimes I can, I can in a moment I can think, oh, that's so beautiful, how much he loved me. And the next moment I'm thinking about something far off in another part of the world.
But that's not a lame sacrifice. That's just what I am is as a man who's who's, who's in this world. And and I have things that go on in this world and I have there's a, there's a part of me that we're all inconsistent in many ways.
But when you come to this, this privilege with the Lord in our midst, and I believe He's in our midst, when we remember Him on Lord's Day morning, I believe He's here.
And he wants our hearts. He wants us to be occupied with him. And we do have the privilege when our minds wander off for a moment, to gird up the lines of the mind and get right back on track again and think about what's before us. We have that privilege.
One of these days I won't have this, this, this body of, of defilement anymore. And I'll, I'll have a glorified body and I'll have the full liberty without any hindrance, nothing coming in. And I'll just have Christ as my object in a perfect way. And we'll all have that, that know the Lord Jesus as Savior. And we're thankful for that. But we're still here. But what would be equivalent to a lame offering?
It's, I believe it's coming here without any heart at all, without any heart at all about what you're remembering.
And you're gonna, you're gonna remember the Lord, and you're not really singing the hymns. You're talking to the person next to you.
And and then you're not reading the scriptures and you're not praying. And all that's going on is, is.
Formality to you. And then what do you do? The emblems come and you take it and you put it in your mouth and and then you, you turn around and you week after week after week, it's become formality.
The Lord wants your heart.
I have more on my heart, but I don't have the time.
One of the things that I'm just really quick gonna say this, I was struck about Ruth when our brother was taking it out.
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When did na? When did Elimelech really leave?
When, when, When was he really gone?
He had already left in his heart before he ever went to Moab.
There was already, there was already a compromise of giving up.
That when the famine came.
It was the excuse for him to go.
Because what happens is that you can reach a part of a place in your life.
Where you're in such a sad state of soul that you've really in your heart already left the Lord before you ever left. And I believe that was the condition of a limelight.
Let's pray.
Our God and our Father, we, uh, are solemnized by what?