Open—C. Roberts, S. Stewart
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.
Could we sing hymn #166?
Heart, you know, whatever it is.
I felt our home. I saw.
You in time.
200 and 500.
Miles and hours here.
No worries and $1000 and $1000 here.
Alright, can I get anything? But I don't have any training. I don't know why. We're having some parts left around on the other line. 2 numbers here. Uh-huh. I can't breathe.
Oh, my brain. I can't Shame. I understand. I understand. I'll go.
Nsnoise have anything like a Nsnoise?
I don't know.
Pass thy house as we start another hour with uh, my word open and My Spirit free to lead. We trust the devil instruct us and guide us and teach us in the way that we should go and bring glory, Lord Jesus to Thy name. And we ask it, Father, with Thanksgiving in Jesus name, Amen.
I'd like to bring a few scriptures before hearts this afternoon.
Hoping and praying that.
God would touch our hearts and bless us, but before we do, could we just unite our hearts and prayer together?
Our gracious garden and our loving Father, we are so thankful that we have been able to come apart a while to be together over Thy word. And especially we are thankful, Lord, that we can and had the opportunity of remembering our blessed Savior once again and to unite our hearts together in worship and praise and adoration on to that blessed One.
00:05:16
Whoever lives seated at Thy right hand in the glory. So this afternoon, Lord, as we open up thy precious word.
We pray that thy Holy Spirit.
Would take it and open up our hearts, Lord, and that we might find instruction whatever the need might be comfort.
Encouragement. Whatever Lord, thou does, see each one of us have various needs, and so we look to Thee, and we commit ourselves to Thee, and we pray that that would undertake and lead and guide us and speak to our hearts and also our conscience as Lord, and may we profit from Thy precious word.
This afternoon we asked these things, and we give thee our thanks now. And that ever worthy name of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
I'd like to bring us a few thoughts.
If you turn to Matthew the 6th chapter and we're looking at verse 5.
And I'm gonna read down, I believe, until.
Maybe verse 8. Verse 5.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as a hypocrite Tsar, for they love to pray.
Standing in the synagogue and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men, verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret.
Shall reward thee openly.
But when ye pray, use not vain repetition, as a heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask him.
The Lord says when you pray and then it tells us in Chapter 9 of this book, we won't look look for it right now, but it says pray ye.
And there's three commands that I'd like to bring our attention to.
And it's one of them is here. Prayer the Lord commands us, pray ye.
Then there's another text in which we had before us this morning. When remembering the Lord, The Lord says in the 11Th chapter of First Corinthians, Do ye?
Then if we turn to the end of Matthew's chapter, which we won't do, and you're very, very familiar with it, the Lord gives the Great Commission. He says all power and heaven and earth is given unto me. And he tells them, go ye. So I want to just focus in this afternoon on those 3 words. Pray ye do ye go ye.
The first one is the Christian at the Lord's throne, pray ye. The second one is the Christian at the Lord's table where he said do ye. And the third one is a Christian at the Lord's service and work. He says, go ye. Now I suppose I've never looked these up, but I suppose they're in the imperative mood.
Which is the, uh, mood of command, even if they're not well.
That to me they are, You know, you've heard of that saying, I suppose, that sometimes men say to their lady folk, uh, your desire is my command.
Well, this is what we can feel here. The Lord says, pray ye, but it warns us here. Now this is a really the words of the Son of God on the face of this earth with his disciples gathered around him. And he says here when you pray, do not pray as a hypocrite. They put on a false front. They pray for the ears of men and may the Lord give us grace never to do that.
00:10:19
You know, a hypocrite basically is a person who plays a part. He's not sincere. I think the the image comes from the Greek place when they used to put on a play. The key actor in that play had a mask on. He was the hypocrite. He was hiding his true identity.
So the Lord warns here that we need not be as as a hypocrite, but also he says that be not as a heathen. Now the heathen thinks they could be pray for their much speaking and you and I are both familiar and I am not going to go over that. But you know there's some people who just pray over and over and over with their beads, the Hindu and so forth. And they think that does the more they speak, the more God will hear.
Well, that's not true. Now on the word, pray you hear the Lord gives us.
So I'm pretty good instruction and I think it would do well if we take it to heart. He says that when you pray, enter until I closet.
Or until your secret compartment, whatever it might be, and that's important for you and I.
To get a loan with God.
The public prayer and the prayer meetings is nice. Your prayer and family motion is nice. But this is what the Lord tells us here. The secret prayer, get along with God.
Talk to him.
You know, a man that I once knew, it was a Pentecostal brother and a lovely brother. And he, I was teaching him a little bit about Greek grammar. And one day he come to me and he said to me, he said, can you get me a book on prayer?
I said, where do you wanna book on prayer for? Oh, I wanna learn how to pray.
But you know what prior is? It's talking to your heavenly Father, to your God in heaven is talking to the Lord. That's what it is. So what he's saying here is shut the world out, get along with God.
Talk to him.
That's the most secret thing. It's not the length of prayer, it's getting alone with the Lord.
I heard of a case where now Chris we don't believe in a one man ministry, but I I heard a preacher one time was saying that when the church.
Was choosing its minister they asked them a lot of questions because they want to get a good godly man there a man that walked with God, a man that knows the word of God and they asked him a lot of questions. He said, but there's one question they don't ask him and they they should ask him. He said you should ask that man how long do you?
Spend a day in prayer.
That's important.
As important, he said that he felt that if a man didn't spend 2 hours in prayer, he wasn't a very good person to have as as in as their pastor or whatever. But that's, that's something we don't believe in a one man ministry.
But anyhow, the Lord here tells us about getting a loan with God.
Get to shut the world out. Shut yourself in with the Lord. That quiet time. How many times that we, we, we don't do that. How many times that we have rushed out in the morning? I have done the same thing, but take time as we, we spoke about establishing priorities. Now you might say, why should we pray?
Why should we pray?
We got asked a few questions. We could say when should we pray, if you want to put it that way. Well, I think the better question is when should we not pray?
A secret prayer with God and what it does, it brings us into a relationship, communion. Now it tells us in other places in Scripture. I think it's in Hebrews. Let us therefore offer the sacrifice to praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name, but to do good and to communicate. Forget not for such sacrifices.
00:15:14
God is well pleased with.
We don't just come to God, I don't believe, to get things.
We come to the Lord first to praise Him. Praise and worship is a vital part of your prayer. I think we should feel bad every time we come to the Lord. We want something. We ought to come to the Lord to give Him something and give him the worship and the praise of our hearts. Uh, I remember, I think that prayer, sometimes it can be looked at.
In, in a way that it, it's mechanical, uh, like a lot of people in a prayer meeting will say, well, how long should I pray? How much scripture should I bring into prayer? And do I have our pray long enough? I don't think that's the point. I think the point is we should be brief in prayer. We should pray often.
But we should be brief in prayer. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said that he only spent one night, all night in prayer.
He said. But uh, I think he said he put it this way, he said. Then when he did pray, he said I never spend more than 10 minutes in praying.
He said but, but on the other hand, he said, I never go without 10 minutes without praying. So pray often, pray brief.
But pray in a secret and I think one of the things that we should pray for.
Well, if you say what should we pray for, well, there's many things, tangible things perhaps the Lord does tell us, and later, later on that we should pray for our daily needs and we should pray for the ministry of the gospel.
Uh, but one of the things that I wanna focus in on today is what we had.
In Philippians, where Paul says, and I think I mentioned this, I might have to repeat it, it's good to think of it, that Paul was a mighty servant of God. Here was a man who was an enemy of God on the road to Damascus with papers in his hand. He had just held the the clothes of somebody that killed one of the greatest servants of God that ever preached.
Steven But here he is on the road to Damascus, and a light above the brightness of the sun strikes him down on that road of Damascus he hears a voice from glory, and that voice is, is Jesus. Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus whom thou persecuted. And Paul, as I mentioned before, had the greatest revelation that a man could ever have. He heard the voice of the Son of God, the Jesus who was on that cross of Calvary that he tried to wipe his name out.
The Lord of glory from heaven spoke to him and you know he was caught up to the 3rd heaven.
And heard things that no man had ever heard. And Paul was given all kinds of revelations. But why did he say that? I might know him. There was more to knowing Jesus than just accepting him as one Savior. And you know, we read this morning when our brother was reading in that in the Samuel that the Lord revealed himself to Samuel. I'm gonna read that. That's in First Samuel, the third chapter.
And the last verse, I believe in that chapter, it's a precious verse. The Lord appeared again in Shiloh.
For the Lord revealed himself to Samuel.
And Shiloh, by the word of the Lord, you know the Lord can reveal himself to you. The Lord can be more precious to you than anything.
Would you like the Lord to come up to you, throw his arms around you like He did in the little children that we read about? He held him in His arms, and I was noticing that in the original language is that He folded them in His arms. He folded them.
He drew them close and I think we clips translation way back in the 13th century, he said he scissors. Then he brought him in.
The Lord loves you and He loves me.
00:20:02
Equally, eternally, there's no respect to persons with God.
The myriads of the those who've been redeemed with Christ, He loves the mother and eternal love. What would you think if you met the Lord and he put his arms around you and says, I love you?
It's wonderful to think about. But anyhow that I may know him is not knowing about him. And I remember my dear brother, Don Hindley, must have been 50 years ago. I heard him tell the story. You probably heard him tell the story about this young boy who was a baseball fan and he told all of these little companions about Joe DiMaggio.
And he got to the point where they assumed that he knew Joe DiMaggio. So I guess he did not tell him any different. So when they went to the the the big league ball game, all of his little companions, they kept saying, hey, introduce us to your friend Joe DiMaggio. And I remember that Don giving this illustration many times. And the boy said, well, he said, I know all about Joe DiMaggio.
But I really don't know him.
And you know, there's many Christians, I think professed Christians, they know all about the Lord. But did they really know him?
I had an embarrassing situation one time I, I used to have, I used to make Nets for commercial fishermen. I had AI had a net shop before they in impose laws and all when I, I no longer could do it. But I was at a flea market one time I was walking along and just a vendor had some net down there. I, I, I feel net maybe 100 foot long. And I looked down and I had it, you know, and I said, what do you want for your net? And he told me and he said that at, at that I gotta give you a little background.
But the newspaper had run in quite a bit of articles about me having a nut shop, so my name was pretty well spread around that I made fishing Nets and so forth. So I asked this man about this and that and he said, yeah, this is a good net, he said.
Clyde Roberts made it here. I'm standing like this. He's sitting here in the chair. I never will forget it. I said, do you know him? He said, yeah, I know him.
It's an embarrassing situation. I did not have the nerve to tell that man that I was Clyde Roberts. I recognized the net.
I recognize it because I know the other netmaker. I know, I know the what he made, how he made his net. But you know, there's some people be like that they're gonna say, you know, uh, I know I know Jesus, but you know something and you've heard the text. It's been many times before you when the Lord Jesus and the glory he says, not everyone that says unto me, Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
Then it goes on to say, many shall say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Have we not cast out devils in your name? Have we not done money, good wonderful works in your name? Get the picture? Here's a judgment seen in in the glory. These people are before the Lord and they're saying, Lord, we, we taught the Bible in your name.
And Lord, we cast out devils. We did everything we could, the betterment of of the society, whatever they had, whatever they meant by casting out devils. And we did many wonderful works. They may have given money, they may have done a lot of good things with their money.
That's the sad thing the Lord said, depart from me. I never knew you. That's a solemn text in Scripture. I know of no other scripture. So Solomon, so sad.
To see the Lord say to these people. So I just want to take the occasion. I don't know everyone in this room. I hope that everyone here has been born again. I hope that you'll put your faith and trust in the precious blood of Christ that was shed, which can cleanse from everything. But I don't know. None of us know. I don't know your heart, but God knows your heart. Have you ever come to that place?
That you have asked the Lord Jesus Christ to be your Savior.
00:25:01
And asked him to save your soul from a lost eternity. Well.
I, I, I wanted to go a little bit further on that, but I, I just wanted to touch on another subject too.
I said that one of the things that we should pray for and that that's what we had in Philippians that I may know him, we might know him better as we go along here in in this journey here below. Introducing to Jesus the Savior is one thing, but to knowing him and realizing and then he also says in that text and the power of his resurrection, the power there is 2 words in scripture used for power. One of them is more of authority.
The other is an energizing force. So I think that's the one right here. The energizing force, the power. Other words, the power of the resurrection may grip your heart, as we mentioned in the Reading movie. It might not just be a head knowledge, a doctrine. It might get down into the heart. And you know, someone has all said that the longest journey ever mapped out was from the head to the heart. People know many things in their head.
But they haven't made them a vital part of themselves. And you know, I would say the second longest journey is from the heart to the feet. The only truth that you and I know is the truth that we walk in we walk in the truth. Now that's something we can pray for. And another thing I just wanna mention briefly. It tells us the Scripture that we we might know the the breadth, the length of depth and the height and the know the love of Christ, which path us knowledge.
Oh, have you ever prayed that? Lord, help me to know the love of Christ? That path is knowledge. Have you ever prayed, Lord, help me to know Thee better?
To know the Lord.
Is to love the Lord the more you know the Lord, the more you love the Lord. The more we realize of the love of Christ to us, the greater will be the capacity of our love to to to Christ from our hearts. May God and give us increase the capacity that we might loving more deeply more sincerely more in reality. I mentioned a few other scripture here. I just wanna know. I don't wanna take too much time, but I wanna just wanna just touch on the other the the subject that I mentioned in first Corinthians 11/25.
I mean, I'm sorry, umm, First Corinthians 11 OK, verse 24 I'm sorry. And when he had given thanks, he break it and said, take it. This is my body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. How wonderful it is the Lord's Supper the first day of the week.
The churches, the denominations do not have the Lord's Supper the way it should be. They remember the Lord's Supper. Maybe they'll have it every two weeks, maybe they'll have it every month, maybe they'll have it every three months. And they tell me, well, the Lord hasn't said exactly how often you should have it. Well, history tells us that the Lord's Supper, even though it was in corruption.
Was from the 1St century all the way up until the Reformation period. Now in the Reformation period, the reformers were so liberated by the gospel of the grace of God that a man is justified by faith alone, without the the law, that they set aside the Lord's Supper as a central worship service and they brought in the preaching. Now preaching is wonderful.
Instruction is wonderful.
But it's not worship. Worship goes from the heart up to God.
Ministry comes from heaven down to the man. So there's a distinction there. Now it's wonderful to be able when we come together the Lord's Day. It's not primarily I mean sometimes you have a word spoken, but are the the Christian should come together.
A script it's it's the first day of the week to do what obey what the Lord has said this do Remember Me. I cannot think of any reason other than a greater reason for Christians to come together on the Lord's day than to remember the Lord where worship may go up to him and praise go up to him and you know we had this morning when you think of the Lord at at when you look at the ambulance on the table.
00:30:14
You think of his body and his body was shed. There's other things that we can think of. We can think really of the wonderful salvation that the sins that that would have condemned us and placed us in an, uh, lost eternity have been forgiven, have been cleansed. That's wonderful. You can think of that. But you know what the Lord said, Remember Me? So what we remember not only the price he paid.
Not only the great salvation he has accomplished.
But we remember Him in his suffering and our brother read that chapter this morning, precious chapter about the Lord Jesus Christ going on the cross and went to Psalm 22. And let me tell you, that will draw our hearts out to worship and praise Him. When you by the eye of faith can look back to Calvary's Hill and you can see those 3 crosses there.
And you can see the blessed Son of God hanging in that middle cross with those nails in his hands and in his feet. And you can see all of the physical sufferings that we want one of you over them this morning in Psalm 22.
There was something deeper than that. You and I both know what it is. It's the Lord Jesus Christ when he was made sin. The word of God tells us that he hath made him sin. Who knew no sin.
That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He knew no sin. Only one person in this world knew no sin. And I sometimes I tell people that when I'm talking to them, witnessing to them.
I tell them the only man that ever walked a perfect life in this in this world, the only man that ever did it could say, I do always those things that please the Father.
He died for me and he died for you.
He lives the day and the Lord's Supper.
This do ye?
And then I wanted to just touch upon briefly up on the last chapter that I mentioned to you, not only pray ye, not only do ye, but in Chapter 28 it tells us here.
Go ye therefore. Well, let's read that whole verse.
Chapter 18 Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Now this word power here basically could be translated all authority. There's two words for power. And this word here means all authority is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you alway.
Even until the end of the world. You know, I've been re recently exposed to some of the, uh, the, uh, bookmarkers and the calendars that the, some of the sisters in the meetings are making and I've learned to appreciate what they have done. They're carrying out something of this Great Commission. Go ye. How many people have we ever spoken to about the Lord and his salvation?
That's what we're to do.
Now, everyone can't go out and be a missionary. Everyone can't, uh, preach perhaps, but everyone can have a part in the Great Commission. I think of those, uh, bookmarkers that go out with our personal scripture on them. And we have a brother in our meeting. Dear brother Ruben, you Fast forward his day. He went out with 400 of the little pamphlets that said this was your life.
Put them on the windshield of those cars. That's a service that can be done. There's many ways that we can fulfill what the Lord says here. Go ye therefore, and preach, and we shall preach the gospel. Spread the news that others might come into the reality. That's the wonderful thing about our salvation. We'd love to share it with other people. We see other people who are perishing. We see people in this as a sad thing when you think.
00:35:06
Of an eternal hell and there is there is an eternity for every soul our brother was bringing before us here. Everyone passed into eternity. You'll either meet the Lord Jesus as your savior and Lord, or you'll meet him as your judge to be cast into hell and and one of the saddest things with me is I know people who are what much, much better than I am have lived a more a a better life than I have perhaps.
And I hate to see these people it it breaks my heart to see the no that when they die.
They're not going to be go to heaven and you know where they belong. They belong in hell. Anybody, anybody who hears the wonderful message of the love of God.
And looks at the cross of Calvary and rejects it.
That's the only place God can put him, and that's the place where he belongs.
I'll close with just a little story I was witnessing one time in a nursing home, and usually people in nursing home are very incompetent and sometimes very senile. I might be moving on to that direction myself pretty soon.
There was a man in a wheelchair and he looked pretty spry, so I went over to him. I began to talk to him.
And he, he wasn't senile. He had a very active mind. He was incapacitated physically. And when I began to talk to this man.
And that's the love of God.
And he looked at me in very, very bitter, bitter.
He said where's the love of God? You're telling me about the love of God? He said, look around you, look at these people in a wheelchair, some of them can't even lift their head up and you're telling me worth of the love of God. Where's the love of God? Well, the love of God is on Calvary's cross. You look at that crucified man that hung on that cross. There's the love of God. He did that in order to bring you and to bring me into a relationship with himself.
That's what He did it for. And so when we think of the Great Commission, let's get active. Go ye, let's spread the word. I'm not telling you how to spread it, what to do between you and the Lord. You might want to give out tracks. You might have a different motor doing it. But I'm saying one thing. Let us try and listen what the Lord says. Go ye. So these 3 words I think that we might just take to heart this afternoon, pray ye.
Do you and go ye. May God bless his words for horse.
I'd like to read a couple of verses, one in Hebrews.
Hebrews chapter 12, verse 14 Follow peace with all men.
And holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Looking diligently lest any man fail.
Of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. And then first Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19. What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you would you have of God, and you're not your own, for ye are bought with a price.
Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
I'd like to turn over to first Second Samuel for a little account there Second Samuel and Chapter 11 verse one. And it came to pass after the year was expired at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him in all Israel.
And they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.
And it came to pass and an evening tide, that David rose from off his bed and he walked upon the roof of the King's house, and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. You know the rest of the story.
David fell into fornication.
00:40:02
And.
We might look at this account in David's life.
And say, well, it was the time that kings ought to go forth to battle, and.
And David ought to have gone out and to have fought the Lord's battles, and he tarried it home, and.
And you know, that's how we got into this trouble.
We might say you went out and you know you allowed his eyes to wander where they shouldn't.
And, uh, instead of judging those thoughts, he he allowed them to, uh, bring them into sin.
But when God is going to deal with David, he sends a prophet called Nathan named Nathan.
And Nathan?
Brings before David.
Something different.
Then those two things turn over to Chapter 12.
Verse seven. And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. I anointed the king over Israel. I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul, and I gave thee thy master's house, and my master's wives, and to thy bosom, and gave thee the House of Israel and of Judah. And if it had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee.
Such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and has taken his wife to be thy wife, and has slain him.
With a sword of the children of Ammon.
Just.
In the ways of God, he does not take up the outward things. There's not a rebuke from Nathan by the Spirit of God that oh, you didn't go out to battle when you should have. Oh, you shouldn't have been out walking on the rooftop looking around in that way. Oh, you shouldn't have sent someone to fetch Bathsheba. No, he said. You forgot.
Something so important, David.
And it's at the root.
Of the sin you fell into, David, you failed. You fell from grace.
You forgot that you're not your own, that everything you are and everything you have.
Everything you owe to God.
And when he forgot that.
Then he began to live for himself.
And then he fell into sin.
It's been a burden on one's heart that.
Much of what we see in our lives when we look.
And amongst us, I believe collectively is gathered to the Lord's name.
Has that.
A falling from grace. A falling from the sense that everything we have.
And everything we are.
Is from the grace of God alone. We bring nothing to the table. We add nothing to the transaction.
It's all of themselves. We're not our own. Why does the apostle says, say to the Corinthians, know ye not because they were living as if they didn't know. They knew they were bought with a price, but they were living as if they didn't know.
But they owed everything to the one who bought them.
I just want to bring those thoughts out as a little background to another scripture.
In the book of Titus.
And another Old Testament account.
There are in chapter 2.
Exhortations to Christians and all different areas of our life, Stations of life that God has put us in, and in the end he says in verse 10 that we may adorn.
The doctrine of God our Savior in all things, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men.
Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous.
00:45:24
Of good works these things speak and exhort, and rebuke with all authority, that no man despise thee.
Just would mention this briefly.
Two men I know that I'm recalling scripture that were sent to straighten things out.
And a local assembly, Timothy and Titus, and I don't think any of us could ever claim that. And so as I read these, that verse at the end, rebuke with all authority that was for Titus. We can seek to encourage one another, but Titus and Timothy were sent to straighten things out. None of us were ever sent to straighten anything out in any assembly.
And if we thought so, then we'd be as much as saying we were sent by one one of the apostles themselves, or the Lord himself commissioned in that way. But nonetheless, we can take these exhortations to our heart and profit.
Buy them now. I'd like to turn to an account in the Old Testament in the life of Elijah.
And seek to apply.
The verses in Titus.
To that account.
First Kings.
Chapter 17.
Verse 8.
And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to which belong to Zaiden, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. So he rose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks. And he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
Now she was going to fetch it. He called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruise.
Behold, I am gathering 2 sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die. So the prophet of God, he sent to this place Zarephath. It means the place of the smelting furnace. It was in this terrible drought that God had brought upon his people the land of Israel, and it even spread to the land of Zidane.
Where Zarephath was.
God was judging his people because they had taken up the worship of Baal and those 10 tribes in the northern part of Israel, and the worship of Baal came from this very land of Zaiden came through Jezebel Mary. They have that wicked king, and God sends the prophet to the very place, the source of where that wickedness came from. All everything is contrary to nature here. And a widow woman would sustain and reason would say it's impossible.
But he obeys and he goes.
And he comes to that place, the last place one would expect the Prophet to go.
But God had, as he had earlier commanded the Ravens to feed him at the brook chair, so he had commanded this water woman to sustain him. What her intelligence was in that command we don't know.
But God had put it in her that when this man of God appeared, she would receive him. And Elijah appears in this time of drought, and what kind of a condition does he find her in? She's outside the city and she's gathering up some sticks. She's gonna make a little fire in her oven, and she's gonna take that handful of meal and that little bit of oil that's left and make a cake and bake it, divide it between her and her son. And that was the end.
She's going to die. She's facing death.
Going to get 2 sticks.
Two sticks. You know what I put before you? That this is a picture.
Of a believer.
00:50:04
In a certain sense now, the grace of God has appeared to all men. We read in Titus, not just the Jew, but to all men.
And so the grace of God was going to go out beyond the bounds of Israel.
And it reached this poor woman. But I'd like to present it in a picture.
Of a believer. The grace of God has reached you and I where we were unasked for. We didn't ask for it. You didn't ask to be born in the family you were born in, to bring you out to meeting to hear the gospel, to have parents to give you the gospel. You didn't ask to be brought to a gospel meeting. You didn't ask for the grace of God. You didn't look for it if you didn't want it.
But it appeared to you.
Like the Prophet just sort of appeared out of the blue.
But now what have you done with that?
Oh, you know, she was going to get 2 sticks. You know, if you were down in a hole you wanted to get out, you could put a ladder up the side and that reminds me of those two sticks, like those two rails on a ladder. You know, sometimes Christianity, salvation is nothing more.
To our souls, then, a fire escaped from the pit of hell.
Just enough to die on.
Just enough so if I die I'll go to be in heaven. I won't go to hell just to get 2 sticks. Make that cake and we'll die.
That's it.
Is that all it is for my soul? For you, the grace of God? Just two sticks.
How much more?
He has for us.
Then two sticks.
And so the prophet says to this woman.
Fake me thereof.
A little cake first.
And bring it in to me.
When we're first saved, I suppose we really have ourselves in in view and it's the way of the Spirit of God. He presses the need of the sin of our souls on our hearts brings before us God's answer.
Atonement, Rod on Calvary's cross by the Lord Jesus Christ.
But you know, there's an aspect of the cross of Christ in which God was satisfied, and it comes first.
Because unless the throne of God was satisfied, could you and I ever rest with any security on the work of Calvary? No God was satisfied 1St. And therein we truly find our rest Gods.
Demands of His Holiness and His glory, of His nature, come before the need of the creature, no matter how great that need.
And so on the work of the cross, there was, as it were, that little cake for God first, but now for you and I as believers, there is really no blessing.
For our soul to continue to grow in the path of faith unless it is a little cake first for the Lord, unless he has the 1St place.
And so it might be looked on as a selfish thing that Elijah sang, but the lesson here is so important. There is no real blessing for us except the Lord has his rightful place first.
But when he presents that request to her, he also says something else.
For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meals shall not waste, neither shall the crews of oil fail till the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. She was the first one.
Not even of Israel, outside of Israel to hear that rain was going to come that that awful.
Famine would be brought to an end by blessing from heaven. She heard the secret.
Ahead of time that relief was coming and you know, the grace of God has appeared to all men.
And connected with that and Titus, we have looking for the blessed hope, glorious appearing of our great God and our Savior Jesus Christ that reign that is yet to come on this earth. A blessed hope to be caught up to be with the Lord, but the glorious appearing that time when blessing will come on this earth.
00:55:12
Like that him we sometimes sing.
About that day of glory appearing dawning upon the scene where darkness had been deepening still.
To bring relief.
She heard that before the day that it happened. But in between that we get this, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, godly. All that barrel of meal and that cruise of oil were not going to waste. Until that day a blessing came.
And day by day, she would go to that barrel of meal and reach in, and there would be enough for that day, and she'd pour out of that cruise of oil and there would be enough for that day. And that's how she was going to live.
And she and her household.
Verse 15 did eat many days.
In the company of Elijah.
You know, if Elijah would have asked her first, what would you like? I suppose she would have said, well, if you could just fill my back room there with barrels full of meal and, and vessels full of oil and pack it right to the top because I don't know how long this famine is going to last. And she did that and he did that for, you know, she would still be trusting. And what was going to fail eventually it would run out just like the first that she had ran out.
But what he gave her was something that would never run out. But she had to go by faith. She couldn't say. Open the door and say, look at the backroom. It's packed full. I'm set for a long time. Like that rich man that we had the other day whose barn was full. I have goods to last for many days. No, she'd have to reach in by faith. Oh, it's there every day. Pour out of that cruise. It's there every day.
That's how we have to live as Christians.
Is coming to the precious word of God and prayerful dependence upon him and find there every day that handful of meal. Christ, the Spirit of God indwelling us is the power of that new life that we have to live for him and live on that until that day of the blessed hope comes for you and I.
But I want to make one more.
Point here before we close.
She has a son.
And in the end of the chapter, her son dies.
Verse 18 She said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee? Thou man of God, art thou come?
Unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son.
Oh, she had a son, and that a son was the hope of every.
Godly Israelites She was not an Israelite, but a son would have nonetheless been her hope as a widow woman, one who would sustain her in her old age.
One who could care for her, and she had no husband. But when she comes to the man of God, she says, Art thou come unto me to call my sin, to remember my sin? Oh, the Scripture silent as to what that sin was but one.
Would take from these scriptures. It was connected with this son.
How did that son come into this world? Under what circumstances? What sin was connected with it? We don't know. But you know, there was something on her conscience.
Undealt with unjudged.
And she couldn't possess the blessing.
With a bad conscience.
She couldn't really enjoy what God had for her in the flesh.
In a carnal pathway. And so there's something there in her life that has to be brought out and judged, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, oh, we cannot possess the blessings that have been brought before us in these meetings.
And go on in a worldly pathway at the same time. We just cannot have both together.
01:00:00
And so this boy dies.
And.
The man of God.
Prays he stretches himself on this boy, and the child's soul came into him again.
He takes this child down to his mother.
Verse 23 At the end, See thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth. Oh, something had hindered her soul.
From a full embracing of the truth that Elijah had to present to her here and type, and it was that sin.
Now she has this son in possession again.
But if somebody said to her, where did you get that boy? Oh God gave him to me.
I have a possession now of the inheritance in a clean conscience.
In a clean path.
Sin is judged and behind. I'm living day by day on Christ and in the power of the Spirit of God.
Separate, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and she can possess.
That blessing?
That God had for her.
In a real way.
Way that she could not before.
#5 in the appendix.
Greensboro.
City.
I'd like to see anything.
Like the sun because of dragon.
Hey, Cortana.
Nsnoise.
01:05:23
All their paintings are great supreme questions about.
Sufficient and every trial and fibrillation of life. It's above our circles and thank you for our time together.
Over the words, our holy words.
Fellowship together.
So they continued keeping over us as the day progresses.
The name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and our freedom.