Open—B. Prost, D. Rule, D. Mearns
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The name of it was called Mara.
And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
And he cried unto the Lord, And the Lord showed him a tree, which, when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.
There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them.
And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and will do that which is right in his, in his sight, and will give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon you thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee.
And they came to Elam, where were 12 wells of water and three score and 10 palm trees, and they encamped there by the waters.
It's often been mentioned before that in the first verse of this chapter is the first recorded singing in the Bible.
What a wonderful deliverance God had given to his people.
There they were under that terrible ******* in Egypt, and yet God had by degrees in various plagues 1 after the other, that He brought upon Egypt clearly shown that He and He alone was the true God.
And finally He had delivered them first of all from his own wrath, by the blood on the door, and they inside eating the roast lamb. And then he had delivered them from the power of Pharaoh, destroyed all their enemies in the Red Sea, and brought them through on the other side, so that now they can sing those wonderful words. I will sing unto the Lord.
For he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
And they talk about the Lord being their strength and song and their salvation.
My God and I will prepare him in habitation and so on.
And if we went on and read more of that song of Moses, we would see that it carries right on to the point where the Lord was going to bring them into the land that He had promised to give them.
What a wonderful song it was.
How could there ever be a negative thought in their hearts again? How could they ever doubt the Lord's power? How could they ever doubt His goodness after what He had done for them?
I suppose you and I can relate to that, can't we?
We can go back, perhaps to the time when we were first saved and what joy there was bubbling over in our hearts as we realized that all our sins were gone, as we realized the fullness of the work of Christ, as we realized all, perhaps that was ours in Him. Although of course that is a matter of learning too. We don't realize it all right away. And perhaps there have been times in your Christian life and mind when we have felt like singing.
Just as we have here.
But when they get into the wilderness, they go three days, which I suppose is a typical time, showing us that it was not merely a quick experience, but rather three days, if we could use the expression. They come right back to earth with a thump.
Things aren't going so well.
No water.
Have you and I found that too in our Christian pathway? Perhaps we have. Perhaps we have found that amidst that new found joy which we thought would never leave.
We suddenly have to realize that the Christian pathway is not quite as easy as we thought it was going to be.
I read something the other day that.
Struck me.
It was actually in a secular magazine, but I believe written by a believer.
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He made this remark and some may have read it too.
He said that is the quotation said it is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but rather that it has been found difficult and left untried.
That may be true in some cases for those who are not saved, but does it strike a chord sometimes?
Does it strike a chord sometimes with you and me as believers?
Does true Christianity end up being untried?
Because it's difficult.
That's the way it appeared to Israel.
That's the way it appeared to them as they looked at that wilderness, because immediately.
There was a test and I'm not telling you anything new, but I think we need to be reminded of it.
Because if you and I are going to walk the Christian pathway, we are going immediately to be tested.
As to where our hearts really are.
They had sung about the Lord, they had sung about his power, they had sung about what he had done.
But now where is their trust in the Lord? Where is their faith?
And instead of trusting the Lord, they cry to Moses and say we don't.
Have any water?
That was bad enough.
But then finally, when they do come to water, they find it better.
And how often have you and I in the Christian pathway found that somehow the water that we had hoped would refresh us was bitter?
I say to my heart, as I say to yours, what is the problem? What was wrong with Israel's outlook here? Uh, they were looking for refreshment where it was not to be found.
And if you and I think the Christian pathway is going to be an easy one, we are going to be greatly disappointed. And I say without any fear of contradiction that it does not matter whether you and I live in a land such as we referred to earlier in the prayer meeting, where there are those who are being severely persecuted for Christ, beaten for their faith, in some cases martyred, or whether you and I live in favored lands like Canada and the United States.
Where we can meet together like this in peace and liberty, and where we don't have to worry too much about where our next meal is coming from or whether we'll have the ability to go from A to B and so on. Know you and I materially are very blessed.
But is God going to let you and me in these favored lands lead a quiet, easy life?
Is he going to keep us from all of the difficulties of the way? No, that is not going to be the case. You and I are going to find that the waters are better if we look at circumstances that are around us, and we know that there are many ways in which those waters can be very, very better.
Sometimes it can be problems in our personal lives, it can be problems with our health.
I just heard yesterday about a dear brother in Christ whom I have known for many years, who has been diagnosed with a very miserable chronic disease. And he's not the only one. And many others are suffering. The waters can be bitter. There can be problems and difficulties in family life, in our work lives. Sometimes things are very difficult on the job or in whatever life.
Work we have, whether we are working for ourselves or working for someone else and perhaps, and this is where it hits very close to home, there can be problems in our local assemblies that cause the waters to be better.
Well, the children of Israel, they cry to Moses here.
And we want to make a point of this. Was it wrong in one sense to look to Moses? In one sense, no, because Moses had been the one whom the Lord had used to bring them out of Egypt. Moses had been the one who had gone to the Lord, who had gone to Pharaoh, who had been the instrument the Lord used first of all to bring those plagues on Egypt, then to be given the instructions about the Passover lamb, and finally he had been the one to stretch out his rod over the Red Sea.
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And lead them through and then stretch out his rod again and bring all their enemies to an end.
It wasn't completely wrong.
But I say that the seeds of a wrong outlook are here.
Because it seems that there was the beginning of getting their eye off the Lord.
And on to a man.
And we see it exemplified not too far down the road.
When Moses goes up into Mount Sinai to receive the law, and the people say to Aaron, As for this Moses, we want not what has become of them.
Suppose something had become of Moses. Had the Lord changed? Absolutely not. Could the Lord not lead them even if something had become of Moses? Of course he could. But here they had, perhaps very easily and subtly.
Got their eye off the Lord and on to a man who had been much used of the Lord.
And as a result, they cried to Moses.
The waters were bitter.
But you know, the Lord was using this as a test. We read further on and we won't turn to it in the word of God, but it says there he proved them. Why? Ah, because the Lord was going to see if there I would be on him if they would be dependent on him completely Again, those verses, those words from the hymn. Oh, keep us love divine near thee that we are nothingness may know.
And if we think that somehow we're something, the Lord is very quickly going to show us.
That not only we are nothing, but neither is anybody else.
Yes, the Lord may graciously use others to be a wonderful help to us, but they are a help only in so much as they minister Christ to our souls and bring Him before us.
What does Moses do when the water is bitter?
Moses has the right idea. He cries, it says in verse 24 or verse 25 rather unto the Lord. Oh, what to God? There were more like Moses today who would cry to the Lord when there are difficulties and problems And don't think that I'm pointing the finger at anyone else except right back here because I am guilty too. And all too often we look at others or perhaps look into our own hearts and say, what can we do about this?
Whereas what the Lord really wants is for our hearts to be directed upward to Him and to say, Lord, you have brought us into this wonderful place, and your purpose is to take us all the way through this wilderness into the land of Canaan. Was God going to fail in his purpose? Absolutely not. And I say to you and to me, will God fail in his purposes? For you and me? Never. All the promises of God in him are yay and in him Amen.
It says unto the glory of God by us, God will never fail in what he is going to do. And if the waters are bitter by the way, oh, it is a test for your heart and mind.
The Lord leads each of us different ways. The bitter waters may be of different kinds from different sources. Perhaps you and I look at someone else who seems to have an easy life, someone else for whom things don't seem so very difficult. And we may say, why did the Lord allow this to happen to me?
Have you ever thought like that?
It's not a right way of thinking, but I don't mind admitting that I have thought like that. I have, I am afraid, more than what's in my life thought. Why did this have to happen to me? I don't need this. I could live a much better Christian life without it. I could do much more for the Lord without this.
The children of Israel no doubt felt the same. It would be so nice to have fresh water. It would be so nice it were if it were all readily available. But all the Lord had something that He wanted to show them here.
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What happens when Moses cries to the Lord?
Verse 25.
And he cried unto the Lord, And the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had.
Cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.
There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them.
I said that word was in another scripture, but it's right here too. There he proved them. But what was the answer to those bitter waters the tree cast into those waters?
What did that mean?
It does not require a great deal of insight or a great deal of spiritual understanding to understand what that meant, does it?
I believe anyone here who can understand the Word of God, even in a limited way, can understand the picture that God is giving us. No doubt Israel at that time didn't understand the significance. But the tree cast into the waters brings before us the cross, doesn't it? It brings before us the cross. And although they perhaps didn't understand the significance of it, they knew.
That what Jehovah had said to Moses and what he instructed Moses to do.
Was the answer to the problem and what was the result? The waters were made sweet. Oh how beautiful.
And we want to dwell, if we could, for a couple of minutes on the significance of that tree cast into the waters.
We want to talk about it first of all from God's side and then from our side.
And if we look at it from God's side.
We say it with all assurance.
Do you and I even deserve Sweetwater?
We don't deserve anything, do we? We live to some extent in North America.
In a world of entitlement, many of us have grown up to expect certain things.
I don't suppose very many here have ever had to worry about had to worry about where their next meal was coming from. Maybe some have. Most here probably don't have to worry about having a roof over their heads, or clothes to put on, or the usual necessities of life.
We live in a world of entitlement, and perhaps we have gotten the idea that we are entitled to certain things. But when we get into God's presence, we realize that we don't deserve anything. We don't deserve anything. If we had what we deserve, we deserve bitter water. And if the children of Israel had had to endure that bitter water, they could have said we have been redeemed. We don't deserve anything any better. But when we get to the land of Canaan, things we'll be different.
Oh, they were going to find out that the Lord who had brought them out of Egypt was not going to leave them just to fend for themselves in the wilderness.
And I say to your heart and mind, the Lord isn't going to leave us there either. And so here we find that the tree was cast into the waters. Oh, in order that those waters might be made sweet.
My Savior, Your savior had to go to Calvary's cross.
The people found those waters bitter, and you and I no doubt find the effects of sin in this world very, very bitter. And they are.
It's not nice to get along miserable chronic disease.
It's not nice to have something happen to you in this world that set you back financially.
It's not nice to have problems and difficulties of various kinds in our lives.
But my blessed Savior had to come down into this world.
He had to endure a bitterness that you and I can never understand.
2nd Corinthians 8 and nine says that you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.
That ye through his poverty, we, through his poverty, might be rich.
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And the poverty that he endured went far more.
Then physical poverty in this world, It's true, he was poor. A brother read that scripture this morning from Ecclesiastes referring to the Lord Jesus as that poor wise man. But his poverty was far deeper than anything that you and I can conceive of. That poverty took him into those three hours of darkness with a bitterness that you and I can never understand.
That's why there were bitter herbs in connection with the Passover. That's why it says in Psalm 45, All thy garments smell not merely of myrrh, which is a beautiful perfume, but of aloes, the bitterness of the cross.
He had to go all the way down.
In order that those waters might be made sweet.
What does it mean for you and for me then? Is there something for you and for me in it?
Yes, first of all, there is the realization of what he went through and sometimes, shall I say it, the going through trials and difficulties. It is not in that same sense.
I want to be careful how I say this. It is not necessarily.
Suffering because he suffered.
But there is such a thing as suffering with Christ.
There is such a thing as feeling what he felt.
Now I want to be clear on this.
I don't believe the Lord Jesus ever suffered physically from within.
Because he never sinned the Lord Jesus. We say it reverently.
Never had a cold.
He never had a stomach ache. He never had any of those diseases.
That you and I suffer from. But he suffered all the effects of sin from without. He suffered it all and ultimately the ultimately.
At the cross he suffered the penalty fork.
And if you and I suffer somewhat in fellowship with him?
We do see the fact that He went all the way down to those depths for us, and we want to make it clear that He suffered much that wasn't necessary to put your sins and mine away. He didn't have to be hungry and thirsty to put your sins and mine away.
Again, we see it with all reverence. He didn't have to be scourged to put your sins away or to have a crown of thorns on His head, and all of those things that man did to Him, because the sufferings that put away your sins and mine could never come from the hand of man. And so when it says in Isaiah 53 by His stripes we are healed, those were not the stripes laid upon Him by man.
They were those stripes, figuratively speaking, that he endured in the three hours of darkness.
But when you and I.
Taste that bitter water.
The Lord, as it were, says you are going through it now, not merely as those.
Who are lost, guilty sinners. What does the natural man do when he suffers bitter water? Two reactions. The natural man going through bitter water in this world has two reactions. Either he becomes hardened or he becomes crushed. And you have seen both. You have seen those, first of all, who have built a hard outer shell around themselves.
Like that man who wrote that poem concerning himself as being the captain of his soul, as he called himself. And he says my head is bloody but unbowed.
I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul, and so on.
That may not be strictly accurate, but you know the poll.
A hard odor shell that says, all right, I can take it. Whatever I get, I can tough it out.
And then there are others who are totally crushed, who dissolve completely, who fall apart.
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Can't handle it. Sometimes they end up.
Totally burned out. Sometimes they end up in hospitals and so on. Sometimes they end up physically and mentally completely destroyed because of the bitter water.
For you and for me as believers. What does that bitter water mean to you and me? Ah, first of all, it takes us back to the cross, and we realize first of all that if our blessed Savior went down into death, became man typified by that tree.
Went down under the water. That's where we Bill Law we belong under the under the that bitter water. That was where we were. And it was only because he went down into that bitter water and came up out of it that you and I.
Can taste that Sweetwater.
But when we come into that bitter water with him, what do we find? Oh, we find that in going through it with him, the waters are made sweet.
Now does that mean that all the effects of sin are taken away in this life? No, they aren't. Does it mean that a dear brother who has a long standing incurable disease is miraculously going to be cured?
Not necessarily. Does it mean that the problem that is in your life and mine is suddenly going to go away? No, it does not.
But what it means is that that bitter water.
In being tasted in connection with the cross.
There is a sweetness with it. Why? Why is it?
Ah, because I learn something of Christ that I can never learn in any other way.
Mm-hmm. I won't be able to learn Christ like that up in heaven, will I? I won't be able to learn Him as the one who can meet me in every difficult circumstance, because there won't be any difficult circumstances up there. I won't be able to learn Him as the God of all comfort up there, because there won't be any need for comfort up there.
There may, in one sense.
Be tears in heaven for you and for me, but there'll be tears in sympathy with Christ perhaps.
Because in the coming day, as God's earthly people go through that awful tribulation, Christ, in sympathy with them, will share in all that they are going through. And I believe in that way, that perhaps you and I, as one with Christ and as his bride, we'll be able to share in those tears. But they're not on our own account. They won't be tears for ourselves. They'll be tears on behalf of others, perhaps.
But there are things concerning ourselves and experiences down here that we'll never be able to learn in the glory.
That's why the apostle Paul could say I glory in tribulations. Why glory in tribulation, Hmm.
That's a mouthful to swallow, isn't it? Glorying in tribulations.
How could we glory in tribulations, O Paul says. And you know the verses well in Romans 5, because there's a process through which the Lord puts me that eventually causes the love of God to be shed abroad in my heart in a way that perhaps it could never be shed in any other way.
The bitter waters are made sweet.
I say to your heart and mine, these things are not easy. In some cases it wasn't easy for Israel here to have that bitter water.
But the Lord made them sweet for them by in tight casting that tree into the waters. Unhealed dew. The same for us.
And the wonderful thing is, and we want to mention this.
There wasn't bitter water everywhere in the desert. There was not always bitter water. Sometimes if we're not careful, we can find some fault with everything in our circumstances, can't we? Things are never going to be perfect down here.
But what did they find when they got to Elam at the end of the chapter here?
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They find that there are 12 wells of water and 70 palm trees. Oh, how beautiful that is. The Lord is not going to.
As it were, always give us bitter water. The Lord gives us that which tests us, but then he gives us the wonderful tokens of his goodness. And here are 12 wells of water and 70 palm trees. Those numbers are not just random in the word of God, are they 12 I suppose, would speak of 12 months in the year 70, as we as we've already heard in these meetings.
Is the normal life span in years down here and so we can say that God is going to give that refreshment all the way home, not merely water, but those palm trees they speak of rest and these no doubt are the date palm which provides not merely water but food to the Lord is going to provide that and I say to your heart and mind.
As the days are growing more difficult, and they are, the whole atmosphere of things in this world is becoming such that men's hearts are already beginning to fail them for fear and wondering what is going to happen.
I read in a secular magazine a few months ago that politically and economically.
This world is ripe for what they call the perfect storm. We know the term a perfect storm when we are talking about climatic and meteor meteorological conditions and so on. Well, the world is ready for a perfect storm in other ways.
And it's true. And the effect of all of that is having its fallout on believers, and we can start to get discouraged if we're not careful and say where are things headed?
Oh, I say to your heart and mind, they're headed nowhere but for you and for me. And if for the moment we are finding that the waters are bitter, let us remember that in casting that tree into them, the Lord will make them sweet.
And then we will find without any doubt, and I believe that while we can look at Elam as perhaps being up there in the glory, yet I would suggest that the thought is more related to down here. God is going to provide for you and me in every possible way all the way home. He cannot help but do it if you and I really look to Him and realize the truth of those words in that hymn.
Our own nothingness and truly look to him. I say it without any fear of contradiction. He cannot help but do it because he has given us his promise. But in saying that, just one final comment.
And we've heard this before.
And the remark was made at the recent meetings in Allendale.
It's not about you, it's not about me, it's all about Christ and the moment I get occupied with myself and what I've got and what I received.
My focus is wrong, but once the Lord directs your heart and mind to Christ in glory, I believe we will find that in going back to the cross, the waters will be made sweet and we will find that God will provide those 12 wells of water and those 70 palm trees.
All the way home.
First Thessalonians, chapter one.
And verse 2.
We give thanks to God always for you all.
Making mention of you in our prayers.
Remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the sight of God and our Father.
Paul's writing to young believers newly. That doesn't mean they're all young in age, but young in Christian faith.
And.
Paul, particularly in this letter and in the next one to them, brings before them what the character of a Christian is.
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People are known. We speak about people by their character. Some people have one kind of character and some people have another.
But we learn in this letter, and in his second letter to them, what God looks upon as the character of a Christian.
It's a character that is to be seen in the Christian life from the very beginning of that life.
It's not something that we wait for and say, well, I have to learn a whole lot and when I'm a little older, I'll be this or I'll be that.
But Paul spent only apparently a few weeks with these believers presenting the gospel to them, and then because of persecution, he was forced to leave where they lived, and he after that goes back and writes them a letter to encourage them to go on.
And so this character of the Christian is to be seen in every single person in this room who takes the place of being a Christian.
This character was seen by the whole area where they lived.
The people talked about it because they saw the change in the manner of life of this group of people, and in that way they saw what a Christian was in his practical character of life.
We find three things found I believe in every single, as we call it, chapter in the latter and brought out in the second letter as well.
Verse that we read in verse two it says remembering without ceasing your work of faith.
And labor of love.
And patience of hope.
The three things.
That give us the character.
Of a Christian.
Our faith in God.
Love.
Particularly love for fellow believers.
And hope IN the Lord Jesus Christ.
And his coming, I'll repeat that. Because it ought to be seen in my life, if you look at me practically. And I ought to see it and desire to see it in your life.
If someone were to speak about you and your character, what would they have to say about you?
You know.
We are talked about by each other whether we want to be or not. Well, there's the three things that the whole world in that area of the world recognized in this people was a faith in God, a love for each other, and a hope in Christ.
Would people speak about those three things if they were talking about our lives?
Faith in God.
Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and a love for each other.
There's particularly, I mentioned the hope or the love for each other because that's what's particularly brought out. We have the divine love of God for souls and in the world and see their salvation and so on.
But if where you live, where I live, people know us.
They may know what our what they would call our church or Christian fellowship is.
Would they speak about it as those people?
Have a faith in God.
They have a love for each other.
And they have a hope.
A hope, particularly in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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He speaks about how it manifested itself in verse nine. He says for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God.
That's faith in God. You turn to God from idols.
They serve the living and true God, and one of our services to the living and true God is to love His people.
In First John, when John is writing about the Christian life, he says the Christian life, the evidence that a person has it.
The city loves his brother.
It's a very evidence that life is even there in a person. It's seen in his love.
For his brother.
And so here it says, And to wait his faith brings him to wait for his Son from heaven.
And so that's the practice, if you will, the carrying out of what this character is seen in daily life as it's brought out to us here, turning to God and faith from idols.
The world is full of idols.
People are characterized by their idol.
That which controls their life. It's not generally hard to talk to a person, and if you ask them a little bit, you start to find out what they're interested in and what their life is all about.
And very often, sadly, there's something that's controlling it that's puts God out of their life. And if it's a replacement for God in the life, it's an idol. And so these people had all lived with idols.
Had idols that controlled their lives, but they had turned to God and away from those idols, and so their faith in God became that which characterized life for them.
It says here and I want to particularly apply it this afternoon to serve the living and true God.
You and I have the opportunity, the privilege, the responsibility to serve each other in love.
I say that because I believe it's a really important need.
For us.
To actively seek to serve one another in love.
It's true. We may serve God in the gospel. We may show love to our fellow man, but.
Sometimes it's the people you are closest to and know the most that are the hardest to love.
And yet the characteristic of the Christian, that which shows Christian character, is the activity of love for one another.
To wait for his Son from heaven.
The Lord Jesus is waiting.
Patiently.
For God, it's time.
When he.
Bring us to himself and have his own desires fulfilled. So too we have the privilege to have a life that's characterized by the patient waiting.
To be with him.
To be with himself.
Going down to the.
2nd chapter.
2nd chapter. We're not going to go into the details here, but in this second chapter we see the Apostle Paul.
Displaying.
His faith, his love and his hope for the Saints in Thessalonica.
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And.
As he says in his love for them in verse seven, we were gentle among you even as a nurse.
Cherishes her children being affectionately desirous of you. It's not a nice statement of brotherly love.
Here's a man that before what was his character? Before he got saved? He was an insolent, overbearing man. That was his character. An insolent, overbearing man.
Sarcastic. Probably.
Domineering.
Harsh.
But his character got changed.
Like God's work in them.
And now he's characterized as having that gentle, loving spirit as a nurse that cherishes her own children.
Verse nine. He laborers night and day for his brethren.
Saints in Thessalonica.
He also brings out in the chapter if you go down to uh.
Verse 14. Ye brethren, became followers of the churches of God and Judea.
Uh, verse. Also, he says in verse 12 That you would walk worthy.
But in part of what he expresses to them is.
They saw his life.
And it gave them something to imitate.
In A practical character of Christian life.
Is your life.
One that someone else would want to imitate.
Your number of young people in this room.
Who probably in this room influences you most?
Very possibly the person sitting next to you.
The person sits next to you, your friend, the one that you are enjoying here as a young person at this weekend.
That person next to you has a significant influence.
In many practical respects, more influence than sometimes the words you hear in the reading meeting, or someone standing up here and saying something to you, and so on.
It's not. It brings the responsibility on the person next to you, and it brings you a responsibility to the person next to you.
Is your life something that encourages them?
To have faith in God.
To love their brethren.
To have a hope that.
Keeps you direct shoe in this world.
Umm verse chapter 4.
Well, Chapter 3 bring another thought out of it.
In chapter 3 and verse 12 he says Lord make you to increase.
And abound in love toward each other.
And toward all men, even as ye do, we do toward you.
Verse Chapter 4 Verse one for the more than we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
We learn from Paul's letter.
That these things characterize the new believer, his faith, his hope, his love.
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But what also should characterize each one is a growth in faith, a growth in love, and an abounding in the hope.
It's a challenge sometimes.
But it's an important thing if I could be practical about it.
Some are younger here, some are older here, and those who are older here.
The younger ones should be able to see in them.
And greater perhaps, if I could put it that way, expression of faith.
An expression of loving care or fellow members of the body of Christ.
And abounding a greater increase in the Christian hope.
So that's a little thing that we who are older need to.
Stop and consider.
Do our younger brothers and sisters in the faith seeing us that which encourages them?
We say we need to encourage each other.
Well, in practice.
One of the great encouragers things that does encourage is to see the living example of Christian character in another, and so it's good for us to seek to grow in these things.
Turn over to Chapter 5 for another thought.
In chapter 5.
Go to find it.
Verse 8.
Let us who are of the day.
Were children of the day, it says in verse 5.
Were children of light.
Let us who are children of light and children of the day, let us who are of the day be sober. Doing what? Putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope.
Of salvation.
Those very things which are to characterize us, faith and hope and love, we also see here are what protect us.
They're what protect us. It's interesting that the very thing that should characterize us also acts to our protection.
That faith, that love.
Guards.
And in fact it expresses it in this short epistle that the proper activity of that love for one another would keep us.
From the false expression of fornication and things like that, the very proper activity of love protects the soul in holiness if it's lived out.
One who truly loves another would never defraud, that is, improperly treat them.
Through lust.
And so these things that not only characterize the Christian, but God uses them also for his protection.
For his keeping.
So that he might go on and please God.
Well, it's often been said that.
Two legged stools aren't stable.
3 legged ones introduced stability. These three things have to be kept. You can't have just two of them and leave the third off or you become an unstable. And that's what happened to concurrent in a very short period of time. Turn over to Paul's second epistle for a moment and see what happens when one of these things is lacking.
2nd Epistle.
And verse three of chapter one, we are bound to thank God always for you brethren, as it is me.
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Because that your faith, What do we want to see in it? That faith groweth exceedingly.
And the love or charity of everyone of you all toward each other aboundeth. Well, there's the 1St 2, isn't it?
Lovely growth.
In that which should characterize every young and old believer it says your faith groweth exceedingly Paul was happy about that he also says your charity or your love for each other.
Abounds, and that brought joy to him.
We won't times to its close but sadly something had come in and their hope had been distorted.
It had they weren't able to exhibit that hope as.
It some had come in and give them wrong thoughts and so their, their hope. He couldn't talk about that. He had to teach them. He had to bring them back to a proper understanding of their hope, which he does. He cares for them, he loves them, and so he teaches them again, uh, to bring them back to.
That third part of what should characterize them so that they could have a proper hope and enjoy it together.
Just one, perhaps brief added comment about it.
In Paul's, not not Paul's, but actually John's.
Remarks to the seven churches. The first Church.
That was addressed was Ephesus. Ephesus received the gospel after Thessalonica. Ephesus saw Thessalonica's faith and love and hope.
And it was made known to those in Ephesus and they enjoyed it. Ephesus was given some wonderful instruction in the letter to them. But also we see later on in what John has to write to Ephesus or the Spirit of God directs to Ephesus in the letters to the seven churches, He says to them, you left your first love.
The Church was placed in the world to be a Candlestick for God to the world.
And as a Candlestick of God to the world it was to display.
God is light.
And God is love.
And if the activity of love to one another.
Fails.
It won't be a light to the world either.
And if it's not a light to the world, then as the Candlestick for God, it has failed.
And he says if necessary I will remove it.
It's a word for us to remember.
That we have a responsibility to one another.
To love one another.
In the face.
And.
If we fail in that, if we fail to live out the divine life of love that God has placed in US, then we're not going to display it to the world either. And if we don't display it to the world, then we're not a Candlestick to the world.
And that's sad.
So may the Lord help us to each grow.
In living by faith in God.
By loving each other.
And by living.
In the abounding hope.
That is ours by the promises of God.
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We just have a minute.
When I was a boy.
My father impressed upon me.
Faith in God, He had it.
And I saw it.
And he impressed me.
If I could turn you back.
50 some years in our household.
On Saturday mornings, children would gather into my parents bed. My mother would be squeezed out.
And my dad would tell us stories of his boyhood.
We always wanted him to tell us stories of the war.
He was reluctant to do that.
Uh, most of us here haven't had the experiences that that generation has.
On this one Saturday morning, he decided to tell us one of his stories.
Of his wartime experiences.
He was in the Navy.
His portion was to umm.
Was to be on the the battleship, the Nelson.
It was the sister ship to the Hood, for those of you who've done any, umm, any, uh, homework on the Navy, the British Navy.
Both those ships at one time were were sent out to do battle with the Bismarck but the Nelson.
On which my father was.
UMM was on.
They were stationed outside the Orkney Islands, which is just north of Scot, Scotland. There's some islands there.
And.
Umm, my dad at the time had a little, uh, three-year old girl.
And uh, just this week she turned 70. We've been talking about 3 score and 10.
Umm, they were stationed out outside the Orkney Islands and, umm, uh, for some time they were there and they had time in their hands. And sometimes the men would take the lifeboats and they go into the, uh, into the, uh, islands and umm, just for something to do. And it was my dad's portion to umm, to bump into an older couple.
That were very poor in the village, but they love the Lord and they took a shine to my dad. And, uh, one of the things they did was they burned peat in their, in their little, uh, furnace, umm, to keep warm. And my dad would help them go out and cut this peat like peat Moss, except it was, uh, in squares. They'd cut it and they'd stack it up in what we would call a woodshed, but it was a Peach shed. And then they would burn this, this peat. And while my dad was there and he was working with them, he, umm.
He asked the older gentleman. He was well on in years, just there, him and his wife and they had had circumstances that had uh, come across their pathway because of their unfaithfulness.
And my dad asked them, umm, asked the man, uh, do you have a bomb shelter in the village here? And the man said, yeah, we have, uh, we have two of them. We have two of them. Would you like to see them? So, umm, my dad said, yeah. So my dad and this older gentleman who walked along, he took him to the, uh, uh, bombs shelter. He says, we have two of them. We have one of them made of the concrete and another one made of feathers. And so they got to this one that's made of concrete and they went down the stairs.
Close the Hatch, went inside, turned on the little lamp and.
The older gentleman turned to my dad. He said. You know.
We have this bomb shelter here.
I don't have much faith in this concrete one. I really don't.
But I have a lot of faith in the one that we have that's made of feathers. He pulled his Bible out of his pocket, and he turned to the 91St sum.
Psalm 91.
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Psalm 91.
And verse 4.
He shall cover thee with his feathers.
And under his wings.
Shalt thou trust?
He looked my dad in the eye and he said Mark.
I don't have much faith in the shelter that we're in, but I have a law of faith in this shelter.
My dad went back to the ship.
Some months later, it was his portion to come back to be moored outside the Orkney Islands.
And the Germans had bombed the Orkneys.
And my dad took a little.
Lifeboat vacuum.
To where the little village had once lay.
And he got to the shore and the little village was devastated.
Except for the humble abode of the elderly gentleman and his wife.
So my dad passed on.
On that Saturday morning in bed, faith in God, thought I'd learn to appreciate a little bit. Could we turn, just for a few moments, to the book of Ruth?
The Book of Ruth, the 1St chapter.
And the sixth verse we read here of Naomi.
My brother Bill brought before us how sometimes the waters in our life are bitter.
And here is a woman, and the waters in her life were bitter.
And quite possibly because of her own doing, what we find in the sixth verse, it says, And she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab, For she had heard in the country of Moab, how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread.
And let's go on now to the 19th verse.
So they too went until.
They came to Bethlehem, they came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem that all the city was moved about them.
And they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi. Notice what she wanted to be called? The very same thing that we find in Exodus 15.
Call me not male my.
Connie Marra, For the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me, Naomi, seeing that the Lord hath testified against me in the Almighty hath afflicted me, so Naomi returned.
Erythromythis her daughter-in-law with her, which were turned out of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.
I can't help but think of this dear woman.
And how she could look back to the time in Exodus 15 when the people of God came to the waters of Mary and they were bitter.
But she knew, too, that the Lord could turn that bitterness into sweetness.
I think of how so often in my own life, the bitterness that I find.
Isn't it wonderful to realize that this woman heard?
How that God had visited his people and giving them bread and.
Faith always lays hold a blessing.
Faith always lays hold of blessing, regardless of how bitter the waters are, regardless of how low the point is. Faith lays hold of blessing and she says, call me Mara. Oh, did she have a sense in her soul? At the end of Mara was sweetness.
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We were to turn to the end of the book. Oh, we would find the sweetness that the only experienced beautiful to see. Well, may the Lord use these few thoughts to encourage our hearts.
Perhaps we're experiencing the bitterness that Bill was talking about, but the sweetness that the Lord can give.
Yes.