Open—B. Imbeau, J. Kemp
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Bring one of my day.
Lovely all the way all the way.
Great.
Sins.
Great God and our Father will thank thee.
For the words of this hymn we have sung together.
Thank you for the provision that has been made for us in the pathway of faith.
Early our longing spirits cry, And this dry and thirsty land thou hast refreshed us these few days that we have been together.
From the living fountain of Thy word, and now for this meeting that lies before us, we ask Thee for guidance and help for the ones who take part. They may be a mouthpiece, and that we might be built up on our most holy faith.
Edified exhortation, Comfort. We have all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
So we do ask thy help these this final meeting, and the gospel to that will go forth.
We thank thee for the happy time we have had and the encouragement.
For our souls in the pathway of faith, this land of drought and dearth. So we thank the blessed Savior for Thy work at Calvary, the foundation of all our blessing. For the desire Thou hast put in our hearts to be here.
To hear Thy voice and to learn more of that blessed One with whom we shall spend eternity, and of the provision for the pathway that has been given to us in Thy precious Word, we commit all to Thee. Seek Thy blessing. Give thanks in the worthy and precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
00:05:16
I'd like to just talk a little bit about behind closed doors.
Subject that just came.
Recently to me and trust the Lord has something in it.
We read about an arc.
I'm with Noah.
And God told him to make a door in the side of the ark.
And when they got into it, into the ark.
Says God shut him in.
Doesn't say he shut the door necessarily, but that's the obvious.
Implication.
And so here was Noah and his family.
Inside the arc and outside is a storm.
And this often seems to be the thought with being behind closed doors.
There's a storm of some sort outside.
You know, the angels pulled Lot into his house and says and they shut the door.
And outside was this raging crowd.
Inside were the angels.
And.
A benefit to Lot, unfortunately. It would have been nice if the whole situation would have been benefit to Lot's wife as well, but.
And we find it really wasn't.
There's a situation in Second Kings, you know, where there's a lady.
Who had run out of money?
And she needed to protect her two sons and.
The Prophet told her to go into her house and shut the doors.
Lord Jesus came to his disciples at the end of or after his resurrection.
And the doors being shut.
For fear of the Jews, Christ came and stood. Jesus came and stood.
In the midst of them.
And perhaps the most dramatic of all, shut doors.
Scripture.
Was the darkness of Calvary.
Let's go back for a minute to the case of the Ark.
You know the Lord Jesus Christ, he said. I am the door.
I am the door.
And I don't know if it's.
Pushing things too far, but I've appreciated that.
You know, here's this arc and it's all solid all the way around the parts that are going to receive the beating of the.
Of the waves and the storm that was going to come with the flood.
There's that one vulnerable spot.
You've got to put a door someplace.
Well, the Lord says he's the door.
He's the one that can take thee.
Pounding of the waves and did the judgment.
On behalf of his people.
But.
I've also wondered about that door. It says, you know, basically, and it probably a boat that was shaped like that. There's no such thing as as anything but sides, you know, but.
Specifically says in the side.
And the Lord Jesus truly to protect his people.
You know, a soldier with a spear.
Thrust that spear into his side.
And forthwith came throughout blood and water.
What did the Lord endure?
00:10:02
On our behalf and.
Especially in the case of Noah, it's really an earthly family. We might remember, we might think of the.
Of Israel of a day to come.
And God will bring them through the storms of the tribulation and Noah representing.
Christ in that way bringing forth a new family to populate a new world.
Of the Millennial day.
That is dependent on the work of Christ, or will be dependent on the work of Christ, just like our salvation is dependent on the work of Christ, the salvation of Judah Israel.
And any of the nations that come into blessing in that day will be dependent on.
The work of Christ.
I'd like to turn to 2nd Kings 4.
Because.
There's a word.
There in the first part of the chapter.
That really.
Put these thoughts into my mind.
And that is?
Verse 7.
And she came and told the man of God that is what had happened. She'd got the oil, filled those vessels with oil, and we'll go back just for a few minutes and talk about that. But it says, and she told the man of God all of this and he said, go sell the oil and pay by debt and live thou and thy children of the rest.
You know, I like to look at words and see what they mean and quite frankly, it was a in my mind, it was a bit of a fluke.
That I looked up the word pay because I mean, pay is not exactly a difficult word. We kind of get the idea.
But it's not the word pay.
I was a little taken aback.
It's the word to make a covenant of peace. It comes from the word Shalom.
Peace.
This woman had a husband can read the first verse. One of the sons of the prophets.
Man had set forth to be an instructor, the people of God, and to serve God in some way.
They had gotten themselves into trouble.
Not so unfamiliar known day they got into debt.
And when he passed away, she was stuck.
And the creditor was going to come and going to take the sons as payment.
And what was she going to do?
Verse 2 And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid, hath not anything in the house save a pot of oil?
All I have in the kitchen is.
Some Wesson oil. That's it.
Well, she was a wealthy lady.
She just didn't know it.
They got stuck there in the corner of her cupboard.
This oil.
And we know this story. Go gather vessels. Bring them in.
But shut the doors of the house.
And there in secret.
The power of the Spirit of God Spirit of God is often represented by oil in the Bible.
Has an effect, has a work to do, has the power to bring a benefit and a blessing.
And they obeyed.
And my mind went forward to a future day, a future day even to us.
When Israel, who's found itself in debt?
Dug itself a whole.
00:15:01
Cannot seem to get out. They'll be surrounded by their enemies. They behold up apparently in the city of Jerusalem. Christ will have returned in part then, but will have come to his people.
And there's going to be a work that will go on with his people.
There will be an outpouring of the Spirit of God.
For blessing behind those closed doors, behind those city walls of Jerusalem, in the closed gates, while enemies, probably the Assyrian will be rampaging outside, just like the waters of the flood, pounding against the ark. But there's someone who stands on their behalf.
And the work of the Spirit of God would be in power to bring them into blessing, to bring them to repentance. They'll go into that city as the people of Israel, and they'll come out of that city as the nation of Israel.
They'll be formed.
Through the power of the Spirit of God into.
Unit.
That has gone through repentance and have borne the fruit, the value, the blessing of repentance.
And will emerge.
As the nation that belongs to God, that will then bring blessing to the rest of the world.
And that's the thing.
Go and take of the oil and sell and then pay.
There's a covenant of peace. Shalom.
For them.
And for the world around them.
And Christ, of course, himself will come out of those gates.
Speaking peace to his people.
Mike.
More to Ki of a day gone by.
And like a Melchizedek.
King of peace, King of righteousness.
Never underestimate the power of the Spirit of God in your life.
Do we ever feel like the waves # around us?
Whoever feel like we don't have an escape.
Frustration. Despair.
God has his way.
He's the one who makes a way through the seas, paths in the seas, he calls it. He's the one who opened up the Red Sea and brought people into blessing, or at least preserve them, and ultimately brought them into blessing to the good land and he wanted to bring them into.
God can make those ways out.
It'll be behind closed doors though.
That God will bring that to pass. Let's turn to John.
Chapter 20.
John chapter 20 and verse 19.
In the same day, at evening being the first day of the week when the disciples were, excuse me, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus.
And stood in the midst, and said unto them.
Peace be unto you.
Pay.
The covenant of peace shallow.
And when he had so said, he showed them his hands and his side.
Evidences of the waves of judgment that had come upon the Lord Jesus Christ three days earlier.
00:20:00
And he could minister peace to his people behind closed doors where they were there for fear of the Jews. The storm raged outside, but Christ was with them on the inside.
And as you might imagine.
Verse 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said in them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.
The oil.
Ready to be poured out.
In Blessing.
Turn back to Isaiah.
Isaiah 53.
And verse 5.
Isaiah 53 and verse five. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace.
Was upon him, and with his stripes.
We are healed.
You know.
We had some very nice thoughts this morning at the Lord's death and especially the part of the three hours of darkness and what happened there, the transaction between the Lord Jesus Christ and God and the satisfaction of God with respect to sin that Christ took that punishment against of a holy God against sins.
Bored in his person. And he has paid the price. He has established the covenant of peace through his own sacrifice. His payment.
It struck me this morning that just yesterday we had made a comment about the rapture that it seems in so many ways to be now kind of a little unknown thing to a lot of Christendom.
But you know, there's something else that was an unknown thing to Christendom before they seemed to drop the rapture, and that is the three hours of darkness.
That might sound surprising.
But in the main, the believers.
That live around us, our friends, the ones we associate and appreciate and encourage, and their encouragement to us.
There's no understanding of what the three hours of darkness is all about.
I consider it a privilege to have been taught very clearly Speaking of Noah's flood.
Been taught very clearly as a child.
That in that time was when God had closed the door to anybodies observation because of the seriousness and the incomprehensibility.
Of what happened in those three hours.
Now interestingly.
I wonder why this suddenly came to me, because this wasn't necessarily my mind, but you might notice that.
We may have a flood.
You might notice in various depictions both.
And things that that are, that are said and so forth that that for some reason the.
Christian profession has added something to the crucifixion of Christ which is not in Scripture and that is rain storm comes and that's a pretty frequent.
Suggestion.
And it's an add-on, though it's as far as we know from scripture. There was number rainstorm.
But I wonder if somehow or another.
That they know they're leaving something out when they don't have an idea of what's going on in the three hours of darkness and have put in a symbol of judgment in there.
Something that comes from the heavens.
00:25:02
I just don't know.
But.
There was a transaction behind closed doors that is shut off from the eyes of man is between God and Christ.
And without that time we do not have.
Salvation.
If there was #3 hours of darkness, there would not be a saved soul in this whole world. There would not be redemption for.
Judah and Jerusalem in a time to come and all of Israel. There would not be blessing to the nations. As a matter of fact, you would have to roll back time and there would not have been the verse in the Bible that says God created the heavens and the earth because if there was not going to be the story of redemption.
And the bringing in blessing from this creation God would not have created.
It is paramount to our understanding of the mind and the heart and the.
Program of God.
That there were those three hours.
When the Lord Jesus Christ.
From the hand of God, not from man, took judgment.
There would have been no Isaiah 53.
And verse 8.
He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people. Was he stricken?
He was cut off like the goat. Way back at the time of the people of Israel, when they had the great Day of Atonement, there were the two goats, you know.
But there's one that was called the scapegoat took the sins of the people.
And this actually the same word is used there in that passage in Leviticus 16.
That, really, that goat was cut off. Had to be.
Had to be.
That is the only payment.
For sins.
Now we get the idea back with the scapegoat that it was let go out in the wilderness and.
But it's pretty clear that it never it didn't survive.
Death came in there.
And the death of Christ.
We can never understand. It is fresh in our minds whenever it comes up through the week, certainly on the Lords day morning, when we pause, remember the Lord and his death, there's always, always a fresh.
Hopefully an appreciation, but certainly a fresh emotion.
Concerning the death of Christ, and well it should be.
Because of the infinite character of that.
The eternal God.
Laid on the Lord Jesus Christ, who is called the Eternal Son.
An eternity of punishment.
For the sins that we committed and would have had to have borne an eternity of hell.
To ever take it away.
And that's what happened in three hours.
It's not something that we understand, but God darkened it out.
He sent the judgment.
From above on the head of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so now.
We have peace.
00:30:00
Those doors were closed.
For all eternity, we will never understand what happened at Calvary's cross.
We'll get more and more appreciation of it, but you know, we're going to be in heaven forever, for eternity.
There's at no point that will ever come to the end of the understanding of those three hours of darkness.
Or appreciation either.
That's how big it was.
So let's think again.
These things.
The flood.
The ark took that punishment just like the Lord Jesus did. He was the door. He took the thrashing of the waves. We have the woman with the oil and it was good for a payment that made peace.
Lord Jesus Christ came to his own people behind closed doors. He says peace be unto thee, unto you. And of course, the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who made peace. He is our peace there. Calvary's cross in those three hours of darkness, totally behind closed doors.
I know the time is very brief here and I don't.
Want to prolong the meeting at all but I just have a thought brother has been speaking on.
Closed doors, which we have enjoyed.
I've been.
Encouraged by reading about the doors in Nehemiah 3. And I would commend this passage to every one of us. There's much teaching in the gates, the doors that are.
Given to us in Nehemiah 3, um.
Various gates. Sheep Gate, Fish Gate, Old Gate, Dung Gate, Fountain Gate.
Valley Gate and so on. There's much teaching for our souls in these various gates.
Just want to draw your attention to One Gate this afternoon.
Chapter 3 of Nehemiah.
Verse 13. The valley gate repaired Hannon and the inhabitants of Zenoa. They built it, and set up the doors thereof, the locks thereof, and the bars thereof, and 1000 cubits on the wall unto the Dung Gate. Now turn with me to 1St Kings, chapter 20.
We have an account here of the Syrians attacking Israel.
And the victory that Israel obtained on the hills. But notice in the 20th chapter in verse 28.
And there came a man of God, and spake unto the King of Israel, and said, Thus saith the Lord, because the Syrians have said, the Lord is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys. Therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord. Well, brethren, we often are in the valley.
Well, we've been on the hills, perhaps this these last few days. We've been encouraged. We've been built up, exhorted, edified, comforted.
But we cannot live on past experiences.
I have said before that we're never more vulnerable than after a conference.
We're going back into the world. There's going to be trials. There's going to be frustrations in the world. You shall have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. The Lord didn't promise us.
00:35:08
Smooth path, a bed of roses.
There are.
Difficulties to meet. We're going to go back to situations in our assemblies, perhaps in our business, in our work that have not changed.
But the Lord is the God of the valleys. It may be bereavement, it may be sickness, maybe disappointments. We're going to meet them.
That's for sure. You young people may.
Not realize as much as some of us who are older that the pathway of faith sometimes is a stormy pathway. But the Lord is there. He's the God of the valleys. And remember that we can confide in Him and find that He is sufficient for every circumstance.
In our lives, is there any circumstance that may arise in your life or mine?
That you would say, well, it's too difficult for the Lord to solve this one myself. We worry, we fret, where do it doesn't get us anywhere instead of.
In everything, by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known unto God. The peace of God, as her brother has spoken about, shall Garrison our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. That's the peace of God, not there, the peace with God. We do have peace with God through the finished work of Christ.
The peace of God is a little different. It means when these difficulties arise.
Do we take them to the Lord in prayer? That's the peace of heart and mind and soul that we have when we come to Christ with the difficulties. We came to the Lord with our sins, and we found Him able to meet our deepest need when we were lost and guilty on the road to hell. Now when we have these difficulties.
Are we willing to bring them to the Lord?
In faith.
Confidence.
They may be very beyond the reach of our fellow man. We can't even unburden our hearts to our nearest friend, but we can to the Lord. You know we sometimes we often seem to go to the Lord in emergencies. Yes, when the.
Problems are really very serious. Then we turn to the Lord.
Sometimes we turn to the Lord in prayer as a last resort, you know. Well, we've tried everything else doesn't work. Now let's pray about it. But that's what we should have done the 1St at the first. How often we get into difficulties because we try to solve these problems in our own wisdom and strength and we are disappointed. Well, God is the God of valleys. Brethren, let us remember that as we go back to our.
Our assemblies.
May we be encouraged.
By the truth that we have learned, it certainly lifts us up, refreshes us, but we need daily dependence upon the Lord in our assemblies, month after month, that little company, that little group, maybe not a lot of gift. And what the Lord is in the midst. And remember the joy of the Lord.
Is your strength. Most of us regard that as our joy. I have, and I don't object to that. But really, there it is, the joy that the Lord has, His joy in seeing you present at the meetings.
When there is much weakness, not like a conference here in Montrose, but where there's weakness day after week after week, but the Lord's joy in seeing you there.
Encourages us. The reward will be certain. Let us remember that God.
Is a God of the valleys, and we have that resource until we no longer need the priestly work of Christ. We won't need it in glory, but we need it now, and we have it in the person of our Lord Jesus at the right hand of God.