Open—B. Imbeau, B. Prost, D. Rule
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.
Call Carlisle Bridge.
We also sing hymn #78 in the back of the book.
I'm waiting for thee, Lord, thy beauty to see Lord.
I'm waiting for thee, for thy coming again, and number 78 in the back of the book.
I'm waiting for the more I believe.
Morning or night?
1100.
And 99.
I agree there's been a lot of.
Coming again?
He is now signed by Grace Lord.
May be quiet when thy grave born.
Or greedy are nothing.
Ever my father.
We pray together.
Our blessed, loving God and our Father.
00:05:01
Do now enter the last, uh, half day of the.
Here at Saint Thomas for this conference.
Under the independence, blessed God and the dear Lord Jesus, with ours ahead over all things to Thy Church, which is thy body. It is so precious to thee, Lord Jesus.
And thou dost know where we are. Thou dost know all about us, individually, collectively.
And they seek to be our God before thee this afternoon, that thou would fly thy Holy Spirit.
Minister.
To thy dear people.
We thank you for the open meeting. We thank thee for thee scriptures that encourage us to have the open meeting.
And now, our God, we seek the leading of thy Holy Spirit, by whomsoever thou wilt to open the Scriptures to us, to point us to Christ, and, uh, to speak to us, we pray.
Whether it be for exhortation, edification, or comfort our God.
Young and old alike in this room we pray for those of our number who have already left and we pray that thou would give them journey mercies and that they may be encouraged in the Lord as a as a result of being at the beach. Thus our God, we look to the independence for this hour that is before us and give thanks in Jesus name, Amen.
Turn with me, please, to the book of Ezra.
The book Book of Ezra, chapter 3.
Before I read.
I'll mention what.
Topic is because we won't actually get right to the topic for just a couple minutes here.
But the topic is the Holy of Holies.
And for anyone who's been around me recently, that's they're probably not surprised.
At that topic.
But Ezra chapter 3 this is the return after the captivity.
Of which there were.
Several phases of the return.
But in the seventh month and the 7th month has come, and the children of Israel were in the cities. The people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem.
Then stood up Joshua the son, Josadeck and his brethren, the priests and Zrovels and Sheltiel and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. And they set the altar upon his bases, for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries. And they offered burnt offerings there on unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening.
Uh, let's see here.
And you want to go to verse verse 6, verse six, and halfway through where there's a new sentence, it says, but the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid.
Seems like an awkward situation where there was no temple. You know the temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and this is many years later.
Umm, approximately 70 years later, it's actually less than that.
But here they're going to build the what we would think of as the Brazen altar, the altar for sacrifice. And there's no temple associated with it. It would have been in the place, no doubt, or close to where Solomon's temple was built. But, umm, still no temple.
But they had the heart. They had the strength to build the brazen altar and offer sacrifices on it.
00:10:03
I'd like to suggest and I hope that it will in a minute make sense.
That maybe things look.
Out of order? Maybe Things look incomplete, obviously.
Maybe even things look like, uh, there was some neglect that they didn't do things in a proper course of things.
Because in my mind, which isn't worth a whole lot mind you, but in my mind you think of setting up the temple and getting the arc in place.
And then building out and and maybe a little later on getting the brazen altar in place.
But that's not what happened.
I'd like to lay out.
A little something.
That will be the topic.
And that is that if the temple had been built, OK, which at this point it wasn't, it was built later, at this point it wasn't built. If you remember the layout of the temple, there was a border around it and there was the brazen altar. And if you go in, you did, you then went to the temple and it's always temple. There were doors and you went into a place called the Holy Place and in the Holy Place.
It was like the lamp stand and the table showbread and altered incense.
And if you went and bought beyond, that was the holy of Holies.
A holy of Holies, and in there was the ark.
And then that on that arc was the blood that was put there on the Day of Atonement.
Turn with me please to.
Uh, First Chronicles.
OK, now we're going to go back in time to when.
Actually second Chronicles sorry, when Solomon built the temple.
And you know when Solomon built that temple? The Second Chronicles, chapter 4.
Covers the previous chapter and this chapter.
When Solomon built that temple, he did things in a grand way. Everything was large. There was lots of gold over a place you can imagine. That's why one reason why the Babylonians were happy to get that temple, put all the gold out of it.
But.
In chapter four of Second Chronicles, verse one, moreover, he made an altar of brass, 20 cubits the length thereof, and 20 cubits the breadth thereof, and 10 cubits the height thereof.
Now a cubit is about a foot and a half and so this thing was massive, 30 feet One Direction, 30 feet another, and 15 feet tall. Now this is this is big.
If you go back.
I think it's the previous chapter, chapter 3.
Yes, chapter three of Second Chronicles.
And.
Verse 8.
And he made the most holy house.
The length whereof was, according to the breadth of the house 20 cubits, and the breadth are of 20 cubits.
And he overlaid it with fine gold, according to 600 talents.
And then verse 10 and in the most holy house he made 2 Cherry bombs of image work and overlaid them with gold.
So in chapter 3 we have a description of the Holy of Holies, as we commonly call it.
And you notice the size of it. It's 20 cubits by 20 cubits.
And the altar that was made.
Chapter 4 verse one was 20 cubits by 20 cubits.
00:15:05
So there's an obvious connection, at least in dimensions, between that all through that without front made out of brass.
And the inner sanctum that we call the Holy of Holies.
Just simply in the size of it.
Now if you want to turn back to the end of Exodus.
And.
Uh, chapter 40.
Yes, that's the last chapter.
We'll notice another connection.
And that's in verse 10, Exodus 40, verse 10, and this is Moses. Now this is going back in time where Moses made the Tabernacle and he made the instruments of it, including the altar of burnt sacrifice, which was the brass altar.
And it goes like this in verse 10. And thou shalt anoint the altar of the burnt offering and all his vessels, and sanctify the altar, and it shall be an altar most holy.
In every instance in the King James where you have the phrase Most Holy, it is the phrase Holy of Holies.
It is actually.
Two identical words put together. Holy, Holy.
I call it a double word. It's designed apparently for emphasis in Hebrew. In English we'd say it like this, most holy in emphasis on the holiness. But in Hebrew, apparently they didn't have that. And so it's holy, holy.
And there's a few other words that.
We found that also our double words scattered throughout the Bible, but this one.
Holy holy, The same word used twice, except the second word is always plural.
And the first word is usually singular. And so we have the phrase Holy of holies. That's a very excellent translation of that.
So you and I, we think of the inner part where the arc was and the chair of him over the blood on the mercy seat. We think of that section as the Holy of Holies.
God looked down.
And he saw that section of the temple or the Tabernacle, and he also saw the brazen altar.
Because it's also Holy of Holies.
It's actually a lot of things in the Old Testament that are referred to as the Holy of Holies.
In fact, as we go through the Bible, we find that that term gets expanded and we find that it's a portion of the priests in the millennial time and and is even the whole section of land.
That is given to for the priestly service, which was a very large section of land in the future Ezekiel's temple, and that's called the Holy of Holies also.
So there's the inner part.
There's the brazen altar.
There's the land around at least around Ezekiel's temple, and then way out land around Ezekiel's temple. It's all called the Holy of Holies.
God claimed a lot, didn't he for his own?
So when the people in Ezra's time, all they had the energy to do was to build that brass altar and they and they used it, they sacrificed on there.
And even though the temple was not rebuilt yet with its inner sanctum of the Holy of Holies.
God would have looked down.
And he would have seen the whole story laid out.
Just from having that altar there.
00:20:00
Also called a Holy of Holies.
You know, we might consider ourselves as being inappropriately so, as being pretty wimpy.
And doing things in incomplete ways and maybe just doing the quote UN quote best we can. I mean that in a good way.
And we wonder what God sees.
God sees more than we do.
Whatever is presented to him.
Is really bears the title of Holy of Holies in God's view?
And we should never be ashamed.
Of being like the people in Ezra's time and only being able to do one thing.
To set up that one altar.
And I'm sure that we know that when they did set up the the foundation of the temple that some shouted and some cried.
They probably cried. I imagine that they probably cried also because.
That foundation that they're going to build in the book of Ezra wasn't nearly as big as what Solomon had, but you know, God had his hand in it and he blessed it.
Mention there's other things that are called Holies holies.
And I'd like to turn to Leviticus.
And I.
Trust I can get the right verses here. Leviticus chapter 6.
Well, there are some verses there, but.
Yeah, uh, sorry, let's go back to Leviticus chapter 2 for a second.
And the remnants of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons. This is verse three of Leviticus.
Verse three. And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons. It is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire.
So even the offerings, bringing a meal offering wasn't even a sacrifice with blood. It was, you know, grain. Sometimes it's a sheaf of grains, sometimes it was ground, sometimes it came in different forms and cakes and whatever, but it was bloodless.
Maybe. I might imagine that wouldn't have been so significant, you know, in God's or as significant in God's view. Of course this represents Christ. They all represent Christ.
But God gives it the title.
Holy of Holies.
And a part of that I was given to the Lord, was put on the burnt.
The brazen altar in a place that was holy of holies also.
But this does not stand alone and I hope I can find the verses if not.
You might have to find them on your own here. I think it's.
Yes, chapter 6.
Again, it's talking about the meat offering.
And as verse 17.
It shall not be bacon with leaven. Now this is the meat offering the meal. Offering meat is not as in animal meat, but meat is in food.
Maybe one exception, but I'll use the word always anyway. Always uses the word oblation for meat offerings. So if you're reading from Mr. Darby and you run across the word oblation, it's a it's a meal offering.
OK, verse 17. It shall not be bacon with leaven. I have given it unto them for their portion of my offerings made by fire. It is most holy. It is holy of holies, as is the sin offering, and as the trespass offering.
00:25:19
As far as I know.
The Ark of the Covenant is never called Most Holy.
And the burnt offering is never called most holy.
The brazen altar is called Mosuli.
And these that we sometimes consider the more lowly offerings are called Most Holy.
God's view is not our view.
Imagine the thrill in God's heart when they did set up that altar.
Because God could see the big picture.
And he saw what it meant to his heart.
And he refers to it, God refers to it, as a holy hope. Those people Ezra did.
Now, of course, this all looks forward.
To the ultimate, doesn't it?
And so we can turn to Daniel Chapter 9.
And.
If I'm leaving.
It's for a reason because they're loose ends in my mind too so.
If you're gonna ask me questions afterwards, I'll probably shrug and say I don't know.
But it's good to get to the end point and kind of the apex of the whole thing.
Daniel 9 and verse 2470 Weeks are determined upon thy people.
And upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and the prophecy, or actually the prophet, and to anoint.
Here we go, we're at the top.
And to anoint the most holy, this is the Holy.
Of holies this reference using that little double word in Hebrew, Holy Holy. This is the only time it refers to the Messiah directly, Jesus Christ.
This is the end point of all of God's purposes.
This is where the Lord Jesus Christ, where God has been heading towards for centuries, centuries, centuries, centuries, where there's been in strength and glory like in Solomon's time, or whether it's been in weakness in Ezra's time, and whatever way you want to ascribe nowadays.
God's purposes are the same, and that is to exalt and to honor His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is called.
The Holy of Holies.
You may bring a simple sacrifice.
Appraise.
God just in that, sees the work of his Son in your heart and goes back to the work of the sun on Calvary's cross, the sacrifice that made it all possible.
The sacrifice that will forever bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly a sacrifice that we would call a most holy one, wouldn't we? Holy of holies, but in His.
He is the Holy of Holies and.
God looking forward as we are as well to that day when He will be anointed as the Holy of Holies in this world.
Don't hesitate. Never should we hesitate to bring our prayers and praises to Him. God values it even in weakness. Whether it's small or the day of weakness makes no difference.
Just think of the people as we're setting up that altar.
God looked at it and.
00:30:03
That message, I must say, struck a chord in my own heart.
Perhaps we could carry on in a similar way.
I don't think there's anyone here this afternoon that would deny that we're living in the last days.
And there are a good many of us as a result.
Shall we say it out loud that are hurting?
Maybe for various reasons, maybe from different circumstances.
But we're hurting.
It's a difficult day.
We're seeing events all around us.
In every way that are causing distress. First of all, outwardly in this world, things that are affecting all men.
And if you're anything like me?
We almost take to boot up your computer in the morning.
For fear of what else is going to have happened in the world.
What new natural disaster has taken place? What new?
War has started. What new difficulty has surfaced even in?
Favored lands like Canada and the United States and Western Europe.
And bringing it closer to home.
How difficult it is on top of all that to hear of serious difficulties among the people of God.
And I speak in a general way.
Because our hearts ought to ought to go out to every true child of God, and every member of the body of Christ.
But there are things, of course, that we don't know about.
As our brother Eric Smith used to remind us, he said God gave us limited eyesight and limited hearing, Otherwise we would be overwhelmed by the.
Shall we say the cascade?
The overwhelming waves of sorrow that are in this world.
And it is the attempt of Satan to try and discourage everyone of us.
Whether you're young or whether you're old, yes, he knows how to attack in different forms and in different ways.
Maybe you look at somebody else and say he doesn't seem to have any problem, at least not compared to mine.
Or maybe we see someone else who is appearing to be consumed with sorrow, and we say in our hearts, they don't know what we are. They don't know what real trouble is. They had to be in my circumstances. Then they'd really have something to cry for.
Could we turn in that connection to an Old Testament scripture again?
Job Chapter 28.
Job 28 and verse seven and eight verses 7:00 and 8:00.
There is a path.
Which no foul north, and which the vultures eye hath not seen.
The lions whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.
I guess I'm not very big on watching videos.
Occasionally it's interesting to see a documentary on nature.
And recently my wife and I looked at a documentary that had been made by the National Geographic Society at great expense and a lot of time involved too.
On life on this earth.
And it was fascinating to see the way wildlife lives.
They had taken tremendous pains to go into all kinds of situations, from one end of the globe to the other in order to photograph, sometimes on land, sometimes on water, sometimes underwater.
To show how wildlife interacts on this planet.
The one thing came through loud and clear, whether it was up in the Arctic, whether it was in the temperate zones in which we are right now, whether it's in the tropics, whether it's in the oceans, on the surface, under the sea.
00:35:08
Even down in the Antarctic.
One thing was common to everywhere.
Just about everybody, every animal of every kind.
That was, shall we say, capable of reasonable thought, if we could use that. That's not a very good term. I better rephrase that. That was capable of looking at its environment and reacting to it.
Everyone had to be on the lookout for a predator of some kind.
Even the Penguins in the Antarctic. Excuse me.
The Penguins in the Antarctic huddled together there amid the snow and everything at 70° below 0.
But as soon as it started to warm up and they took to the water, they had to be aware of this seal. Great big fellow that had been lurking around all winter, living off the fat on his body, waiting to nail them as soon as they went into the water for those beautiful coral reefs that you would see in the tropics.
Everybody was on the lookout because some kind of predator was out to get.
Him or her?
That's the way it is today with you and me.
The devil's got his predators out there. They're working overtime. And the whole effort of Satan, he knows he can't take away your salvation and mine, but the whole effort of Satan is so to reduce you and me.
That basically it'll be as the Lord Jesus said, and I know it's not in its essence referring to our day, but the principle is there. Satan's whole effort is to be able, if he can, to bring to fruition the words of the Lord Jesus. When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
But here in the book of Job, I believe we find tremendous encouragement. There is a path, and I would say that to each one of us here this afternoon, young or old, again, I'm going to reminisce a little bit. Some of us do that maybe too much. But I can remember how precious this was to my own soul when a brother stood up and ministered on it, probably well over 50 years ago now, and what it meant to me when he sat there.
Is a path.
And it's interesting with what that path is connected here. Notice the imagery in verse one. Surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for gold where they find it. Iron is taken out of the earth and brass is molten out of the stone, and so on.
He that is the miner satteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection the stones of darkness.
And the shadow of death, the flood, breaketh out from the inhabitant. That is, he doesn't. If he doesn't watch it, he'll land in a gush of water that he didn't know was there. Even the waters forgotten of the foot don't step in those waters normally on earth, but go underground. And there they are. They are dried up, they are gone away from men. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread, and under it is turned up, as it were, fire. The stones of it are the place of sapphires and at half dust of gold.
Referring back to those videos.
Sometimes it made me feel a little sad.
Because there they had actually a helicopter with a camera attached to the underside of it, and that camera had lenses of such.
Magnitude that they could capture something over a kilometer away as if you were standing right next to it, so that they could photograph action without the animals even realizing that there was anyone doing it.
And there were those who tried to escape from predators.
Sometimes they made it, sometimes they had a narrow escape.
Sometimes they didn't make it.
All too often they didn't make it. All too often, whether it was a bird of prey or whether it was another animal on four legs or whatever it had or something that swam in the sea, it had the ability and the strength and the speed to catch up with whatever it was after.
00:40:03
Some of it was almost heart rending to watch.
Because those who were photographing in photographing it in no way tried to intervene with what was happening, they just let it happen.
But there is a place.
Of safety.
And I say to you and to me, God has a place of safety for you and me. Today there is a path.
Says here in verse seven there is a path which no foul knoweth.
Birds of prey, a hawk or an eagle that swoops around way up in the sky there. But they tell me they have tremendous eyesight and they can look down on the earth from that great height and see something even as small as a chipmunk or even a mouse.
And I have seen them do it sometimes out the back of our home where you'll see a hawk hovering around up there.
And then all of a sudden he pulls his wings in and comes down like a bullet. And you know very well he saw something and got it.
And usually there's no escape because he comes so fast and so silently that the poor animal on the ground pretty much has no chance to get away.
There is a path which no foul knoweth. You know the fowls in scripture are unclean.
The fowls in Scripture, Now I know there were clean birds. I don't mean to imply that there were not clean birds. But in general, the fowls in Scripture speak of that which is evil, that which is against the mind of God.
You'll remember that the grain of mustard seed grew into a great tree, and it says the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches of it. Those are those evil teachers, sad to say, in much of Christendom today, who are taking a place they never could have had if the grain of mustard seed hadn't become a great tree. And that's only one example.
You'll remember the good seed that was sown by the wayside. It says the birds came and devoured it up.
But there is a path which no foul knoweth.
And you know there is a path where that bird of prey cannot attack you. There is a path which no foul knoweth.
And I want to emphasize where this path is, because you say, well, do I have to go underground to get it? Is that the thought?
No, I believe the thought is here that in order to have the precious things of Christ, you may have to work for them.
A miner has to go underground and work to get that silver and that gold or even that iron out of the ground. It is a process that takes a good deal of effort and it takes spiritual energy. And I say to you and me today, it's wonderful to come to a conference like this. I enjoy it so much. It's wonderful to sit here, sit down and have fellowship with brothers and sisters from all over the country. And a number of countries, of course, are here.
Wonderful.
But then we go back home and all of the problems and the difficulties and the hurts and the things that are not right are still there. And as our brother Bruce has been bringing before us, you and I are living in the days when everything is not being done the way it should. And if we're not careful, Satan will use that and say, see that that isn't right. You can't go along with that or you can't have fellowship with that, No.
That's not right.
There are things that need to be stood up for.
If it comes down to the person and work of Christ as we have had before us in the readings, there can be absolutely no compromise whatsoever. There can be no compromise with what is due to our blessed Savior and to God our Father.
But we are living in days when everything we say procedurally is not being done the way it should.
And the devil uses that to discourage the Saints and to say.
You don't. You can't go along with that.
It becomes very difficult sometimes, doesn't it?
And I have had contact with a number of individuals in the fairly recent path, all of whom had decided that they could not walk with any group of Christians whatsoever on the face of the earth. One man I addressed very pointedly in an e-mail and he refused to answer me, but his actions and the way he walked spoke loud and clear. There is no group of believers anywhere on the face of this earth with whom I can be identified because.
00:45:14
They're all wrong.
There is a path. God will have a path for faith right to the end. Not only an individual path, but a collective 1.
And in that path that is described here, not only can the fowl not see you.
Not only can those eagle eyes not catch you, but you will find those precious treasures that God has for you. It may have to be more individual. It's wonderful to come to a conference like this. And if there were things that were said that sometimes were a little difficult and a little over the heads of some here.
I apologize on behalf of those of us that took part.
Sometimes we don't always put it out in a way that it should be, and we don't excuse ourselves, but the point is.
It's wonderful to come together and to hear Christ exalted.
And I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that when I was the age of some of you young people, I sat in meetings like this. And I have to confess to you that I watched the clock too.
And what was the most disgusting was when it went on for 10 minutes after the hour instead of stopping on the hour. They don't do that anymore, but they did in my day.
But I remember what was said.
And if I quote to you from some of our older brethren, a lot of it I took in.
When I was still a teenager or in my 20s, and even though I didn't understand it, I remembered it.
Because I was there.
Some cases, of course, it wasn't my choice to be there, but I'm thankful I was brought there.
There is a path which no foul north in which the vultures. I have not seen vulture. What's a vulture? Nobody likes vultures. Ugly creatures, aren't they?
This may bring a smile to your lips, especially those who remember them. But when my late father-in-law, Albert Hayhoe was alive, he liked to go down to southern Mexico to the general meetings in Oaxaca.
And he loved the outdoors and he loved to walk, and so he would do his best to try and walk to and fro from the conference there instead of making use of some kind of a donkey or horse on which to ride.
But age caught up with them, as it is with some of the rest of us.
And one time when he had done his best to walk up to the top of a hill, he was just totally out of breath. And as he lay there on the top of that hill, sucking in great gas of air.
He closed his eyes because the sun was bright.
And when he opened his eyes, to his horror.
What did he see?
Down it was coming, this big black ugly Buzzard, closer and closer.
What happened? The Buzzard thought he was dead. He was coming in to get first, first take on it on the body. Well, as you may well imagine, he'd soon be stirred himself in. The Buzzard immediately decided that no, I have to go somewhere else.
That's what the devil wants to do with you and me. And I say to my own heart, as I say to each one here this afternoon, the devil is trying to make you and me appear as if we were dead Christians.
Because the vultures don't prey on anything that's clearly alive and well, they prey on something that's dead or well on the way to becoming dead.
And they're waiting to get in there. But there is a path where the Vulture not only can't attack you, he hasn't seen you. And that path is in the pathway of following Christ with a full heart.
Verse 8.
The Lions whelps have not trodden.
If you notice Mr. Darby's translation, I like the way he puts it, he says in a footnote. I think he says this expression the lion's whelps.
00:50:07
Could read the proud beasts.
Proud beasts.
Oh, this is another problem that's sad to say is liable to be in our hearts today. And allow me to speak very plainly, because everything I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that I am talking about this afternoon, I have had to work through in my own soul. I am not laying this on the conscience of anyone else or on your hearts as if I haven't had to work through it. And I'm still working through it.
Let's say it that way, the proud beasts have not trodden it.
If there is, on the one hand, the danger of Christians.
Going along so much with the current of this world that to all outward appearances.
They appeared dead.
There is the other alternative, which perhaps in one sense is even worse, and that is saying I can do it.
I will not be overcome by circumstances. I will not be overcome by the current of things around me. I will not be carried down by the condition of Christianity that is going on today. I can walk that path.
And coupled with that there is a serious error.
And it's not a new one and I've quoted this before.
George W Heaney, whom of course I never knew, and I suppose it's fair to say no one else in this room ever did, because he has been with the Lord. Now, for I stand corrected on the actual time, but it's getting close to 100 years, so I suppose it's safe that no one here knew him. But he said that when he was a young man he wanted to be a great man in the world, and after he got saved he wanted to be a great man in the Church of God.
He said I had to learn that both were wrong.
Oh, there is the tendency when there is failure.
For any spark of desire to go on for the Lord.
To be used in the wrong way by the devil who says get in there and straighten things out. You've got the ability, you've got the strength.
O the Lord values you young people today, and if I can speak to you for a moment, it does my heart so good to see you here this afternoon. It does my heart to see so many of you that put yourselves out, spent your money, took time off school or work to come to the conference, even if you could only make it for part of the time.
I can relate to that.
We did it too. We did it too. Sometimes, I'm ashamed to say we even made inquiries to see who would be at the conference depending on who was going to be there was that May Our efforts to get there were dependent on that. And I can remember a certain brother who is now with the Lord and some here can relate to it, that if Paul Wilson was going to be at the conference, we young people would break our necks to get there because we like to hear him.
Speak.
He related to young people.
But that wasn't a good reason to come. But I'm glad you're here because you want to go on for the Lord. I know you do.
We can't do it in our own strength.
And if you and I have any atom of pride in our hearts, and I've got plenty of it myself, the Lord's going to work you through it and take it out of you one way or another.
If you want to follow the Lord with a full heart, he's going to say to you, as it were, I can't use you.
Until you deal with that. Now, I'm not saying that we ever deal with it perfectly. Of course we don't. At least I don't.
But let's never think we can do it in our own strength. And if we think we can, the Lord will bring us right down to the bottom where we have to say, Lord, I can't, I can't go off. And then we find as the apostle Paul did, when I am weak, then am I strong?
That talks about in verse 8, the end of the verse, nor the fierce lion pass by it. The fierce line. What's the fierce line? Oh, the fierce lion is Satan. And the devil is out there to attack you and me today as he never did before.
We know there's a day coming when he will be cast out of heaven.
00:55:01
And it records there concerning that time that he comes down to the earth with great wrath.
Because he knows that he has for a short time. Oh yes, the devil is intelligent as to prophecy. And when it happens at that particular time, he knows very definitely that his time to go about and deceive people and carry on in that way is numbered. And he knows exactly how long he has. And he comes down with great wrath. And as a result, there is that time which Scripture calls the great tribulation, a time that will be so terrible that if God didn't shorten it.
Man would begin and finish by annihilating himself.
The devil seems to be redoubling his efforts because I think he can see.
The Lord setting the stage for the judgments that are about to fall in this world and the devil is not stupid.
If man looks on the events such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
For all of the unrest in the Middle East.
Or the difficulties and problems that are occurring, Tornadoes, floods, droughts, tremendous problems of every kind.
Satan knows full well that God is speaking to man, and perhaps in an increasing way.
Now we hasten to say that what we see today is literally nothing compared to what will happen after the Lord comes, when the Spirit of God is taken away, and when the full unleashing of man's hatred and enmity against God with all the power of Satan and nothing to curb it.
Is released.
But nevertheless, I believe what we are seeing today, the devil knows full well that God is starting to work as the time of the end approaches.
And there are many dear believers that are being caught by that fierce lion.
An awful thing.
The lion is an apartment description of Satan.
Because they tell me those that understand and know lions that they're unlike most other beasts of the earth. There is just about no other animal that will ever molest a lion. And if a lion chooses to lie down under a tree, he can safely go to sleep because in modern terminology, nobody messes with him.
And he has an ability that is uncanny.
Back well over 100 years ago, they were trying to build a railway across what is now the country of Uganda and Africa.
The British were trying to build it, and they employed hundreds of workers of various kinds, and they had engineers and people there to supervise, and they were very capable. But they had a terrible problem with lions. They had a terrible problem because most of those workers had to remain in tents, and those lions were so uncanny they would surround those tents with huge rings of thorns.
Cut down thorn bushes with huge thorns on them. Not the little itty bitty thorns that we see here in North America, but huge things I understand. Surround the whole camp with these rings of thorns. Post guards of every kind.
Yet that lion would get through, and so noiselessly that nobody heard him.
And he would come right into a tent sometimes where a number of men were sleeping.
And that lion would come in.
Lay hold on a man, take him out of the tent.
Do it all so quietly and so swiftly that the poor man, the poor victim, never uttered a sound and the others in that tent didn't even wake up.
For even a husband and a wife sometimes would be in that tent, and the lion would come in, take the husband away, and the wife would wake up an hour later and look, and the cop beside her was empty.
The Lion had got him.
Very apartment description.
Those lions are now.
In the big museum there in downtown Chicago.
They got them eventually, but it was an incredible job to get them.
01:00:03
Those lions still have on their hides that have been preserved to a taxidermist the marks on them of having gone through those thorns. But they could do it. And I say to you today, that is an apartment description of Satan to day.
There is a path where the fierce lion, it doesn't say, can't get you, doesn't even pass by it. Oh, isn't that encouraging? Doesn't even pass by it.
You never yet saw a lion go underground, did you? He doesn't do that. No, that's not part of his game. Yes, there are animals that go underground after their prey, like a ferret go right down a hole after a bunch of rats. Because he can do it.
Lion can't do that. Go down underground, you can't get you. And I say to you and to me, God has preserved a path, not merely a -1 but a +1.
Because if we're in that path.
Not only are we preserved from these attacks.
But we're going to find those veins of silver and gold, those precious stones.
Or that iron, those wonderful things of Christ that are typified by these minerals that are underground. God is ready to reveal them to you and me. And as I have said before, no one ever in the history of the church had any advantage over you and me individually as to the enjoyment of Christ.
There is no reason why anyone in this room can't enjoy the Lord just as much as the Apostle Paul did, or as Peter did, or John.
Or any other one whom you care to name, any Christian that you can think of that walk before the Lord.
Some of us were talking at dinner the other day about some dear brethren that have gone before. We were talking about James B Dunlop from eastern Ontario, a man much used to the Lord, a man I wish I could have met.
There's no reason why you can't enjoy the Lord as much as he did, or any other brother or sister you can think of. The Lord is the same.
Remember.
One last comment.
It's wonderful to come together.
To have an assembly gather to the Lord's name, and I believe with all my heart that God is going to preserve that until the end.
But remember, Christianity is not characterized so much by what it finds as by what it brings.
If all you have are those coming to the assembly as takers.
That's like a bunch of dead Christians where the vultures have a field day.
God looks for live fish. God looks for live Christians. God looks for energetic Christians.
Who want to follow him with a full heart.
And then when we want that we have that desire, we find the Lord says, all right, you're living in a difficult day. You're living in a very hurtful days. And I don't take away from it, but there is a path. There is a path and the Lord is going to preserve it to you and me right till the end.
On my heart to bring together some thoughts connected with the reading meetings that we've been having together, to look at some of the truth connected with what we have in John One with a little bit of a larger perspective, perhaps that we might enjoy it in its context. Turn with me to umm, Exodus chapter 12.
We all know the story of Exodus chapter 12 about the Passover and the Passover lamb.
And John's gospel is about the Passover lamb.
Here in Exodus 12 as we read.
Verse three. Speak unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the 10th day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb according to the House of their fathers, a lamb for an house. And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls. Every man, according to his eating, shall make your account for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish a male of the first year. You shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats.
01:05:19
And you shall keep it up until the 14th day of the same month. And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts, and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.
So here we have the instructions to the children of Israel concerning the Passover lamb.
Umm, it's not hard to visualize. Suppose you were there and these instructions have been given to you as a father or a mother in a household, and your oldest child, a boy or a girl, is there with you. And you say to the child, let's go out to the flock and, uh, choose the lamb.
To fulfill this requirement upon us. And so you go out and you look at your flock to choose the lamb, to identify the one that is to be put to death and whose blood is to be put on your.
Door across the top and the sides.
You go out carefully and you look at each animal of the flock to find the appropriate one. They had to be a male. It had to be in the first year of life. It had to be without blemish. And you perhaps the one who's going to fall under the sentence of death if the appropriate lamb is not found. Look very carefully together, one by one through your flock, and you get to the end of the flock and you say.
Don't have one?
Don't have one?
We can't provide one.
Every single one of the lambs that are in our flock here fall short of the requirement that is given to us.
So you.
Caring about the situation, you say let's go next door to our neighbor and let's see if we can share with our neighbors lamb and you go next door to your neighbor and you.
Say, how's it going? Do you have your lamb identified?
And your neighbor says, you know, I went into the flock, my flock, and I've looked over it very carefully. And I, I can't find a lamb that meets the necessary requirements to protect. And there was the provision made that if the household was too small then for its own lamb, it could share it. But no lamb is found to be shared.
And in the type, the picture that is presented to us here, where does it finally come? It says in verse.
Eight or six, and the whole assembly of the congregation shall kill.
Yet.
It just one.
Just one.
In the what's presented to us here, there was only going to be found one lamb.
That matched the test to be the sacrifice.
I didn't have one. You didn't have one. Our neighbor didn't have one.
We weren't able to provide what was required of God.
When the Lord passed through in judgment, we couldn't say, well, we're believers, we're all right, we're not Egyptians. This was to shelter from righteous judgment that every single soul deserved. Really, the Egyptians were no worse, as far as that goes, than the Israelites were. They were.
The Israelites were no more safe than the Egyptians.
Unless they had the lamb, they all needed it.
I'll take Abraham and Isaac.
As we had it in Sunday school this morning, there was to be with Abraham.
01:10:02
The instruction given.
Go take Isaac.
To the mountain. And so they start out. And as we had this morning, Reggie presented, uh, Isaac says to his father. Well, where's the lamb?
And he gets the answer, and I'm going to quote the new translation God shall provide.
For himself a lamb.
For a burnt offering.
Oh, somebody can provide a good lamb.
Somebody's able to provide a good lamb.
God himself.
And no other can provide it.
We won't go into that side of things, but in a certain way it was necessary for God himself to have a lamb.
For his glory, and the satisfaction of his glory in a world that had dishonored Him by sin.
God shall provide for Himself lamb or burnt offering.
Will he share it?
Will they share it?
We know the answer.
We had no lamb.
We had no means of protection from the Holy judgment of God.
God provides the Lamb.
For the burnt offering.
And he shares it.
In John's Gospel.
Is the sharing of the lamb. Let's go to the chapter where we have been meditating together in first John. I mean, sorry, John, chapter one.
John 1 just introduced these thoughts. I hope you'll read John's gospel through and see the details of them. John one and 29. The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And verse.
Umm.
It's a little verse 36 and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, behold the Lamb of God. This is the identification of the Lamb.
Is he going to pass the test? Here he is. He's presented to us by God. Here's my lamb.
Look at them. Behold him.
It was then said that after the lamb was identified as he's identified for us here, he was to be kept alive.
To the 14th day of the month and from the 10th to the 14th today, they were to make sure that the lamb was the right one, the good one, the one that could pass the test, that it could be offered to as the sacrifice.
That's John's gospel.
As you go through John's gospel, you are beholding the Lamb from the 10th to the 14th day.
You are beholding Him to see for your own soul.
Is he without blemish?
Is he without spot? Will his blood shelter from the holy?
Righteous wrath of God.
If we have time, we'll go backwards and see a little detail, but go to the end if you will turn to.
Chapter 19.
Here's the final presentation on the 14th day.
John 19.
Verse 5.
Well, read verse 4. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, behold the Lamb, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.
01:15:12
It's as if we have the testimony even here of Pilate and he says I see no fault in this lamb.
Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and Pilate saith unto them, Behold.
Demand.
The Lamb.
Does he pass the test?
Can he be offered?
On the mount.
It's been commonly reported that the amount on which Abraham offered up Isaac is Mount Moriah, on which the Lord Jesus was crucified.
Be that as it may, hear the Jews say.
Verse seven. Here's their answer. We have a law.
And by our law, he ought to die. Why? Because.
He made himself.
The Son of God.
The Lamb.
Of God.
That's who he was.
That is the ground on which He is to offer himself and not other the Lamb.
God no other could be the Lamb in John chapter one when it says, behold the Lamb which taketh away the sin of the world. We have the person connected with the work.
The person, the Lamb of God, the work, that which takes away the sin of the world. And to do so.
It then says, behold the lamb, because it's the lamb. It's the quality of the lamb, it's the perfection of the lamb that can sustain the work.
If the Lamb isn't who he is, the Son of God, he could not be the sin bearer.
None short.
Of himself could bear the load of sin.
The Son of God.
To deny him that place is to deny him the right. Really.
The pro. The proper pro.
Provision to be the Lamb. If he wasn't the Son of God, he couldn't do it.
Adam and innocence we before he sinned, He didn't have any sins of his own, but he couldn't have been the Lamb. He couldn't have sustained the wrath of God and his person as the Lord Jesus did.
Just time passes quickly, but just one more end of the story comment that's.
I feel in my own soul, and that is.
Verse 17 And he bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha. This is the only gospel that records it this way, and I believe it's necessary to do it this way.
He has to do it alone.
You can't have any support in it.
Every step of the way in John's Gospel is a step toward this point.
In the 12Th chapter of the Gospel, there's a very significant chapter in connection with Him as the Lamb, and we see several statements that he makes in that chapter.
Is it's by contrast, Sometimes there's similarity, wonderful similarity in Abraham and Isaac, and sometimes the story is seen by the contrast.
Isaac as a lad had no clue what was happening. That's why he asks his father the question. But this lamb, by contrast, knew every step of the way that he was coming one day closer and over half of this gospel is the last six days of his life, and he the intensity of the pressure upon his soul increases daily through the last half of the gospel.
And says Chapter 12 begins six days before the Passover, and here he is in Jerusalem to be seen, to be held for those of faith who would say, yes, this is my lamb. And he goes forward to it. But he says, now is my soul troubled and what shall I say? He had a full plea, complete knowledge of that which was before his soul. And so in our meditations, in the reading meeting, we're seeing him as the identification of his person.
01:20:22
But as you trace it through the rest of the gospel, you get the fullness.
Of the story.
One other thing that it's not time to go through all the parts, but another thing is so important to see in John's gospel is the connection between the Lamb and the Light.
The Lamb and the Light.
He's introduced to us as we had in our meditation, the light was the light of men. And then in that chapter it says.
He bears away the sin of the world. Sin is what brings darkness. Darkness is connected with sin, and men were in darkness because they were sinful creatures.
And the lamb is the light that comes into the place of darkness. And so just quickly to go to back to the 12Th chapter to at least introduce it to you for your own meditation in chapter 12.
Umm.
Verse 35 Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while as the light with you, walk, while you have the light, less darkness come upon you. For he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. Well, you have the light, Believe in the light, that you may be the children of light. These things spoke Jesus, and departed, and hid himself from them.
Here it's being brought to the crisis point and he is reminding them of a truth that is woven throughout the gospel and its She is light.
And it's the light that can dispel the darkness. It is the person who is light that can bear away the sin of the world. They, many of them were blinded to it because a blind person doesn't see the light. And they said we see. And he had to say then your sin remains in the case in the Chapter 9 where you have the lights and the darkness brought together in the blind man and how he's liberated.
And gets to see the lamb and in faith. But here it's it's brought out and and this lamb is the light and it's the light that is going to dispel the darkness of the whole world. And when the story comes to its conclusion, well, let's go to the conclusion to conclude of it. Go to revelation. The same writer to make the same connection for us. God is used.
Revelation chapter 21.
Here's the lamb again, taking us on toward the end of the story and its conclusion, and his connection with Light.
In Revelation chapter one.
This is our destiny, brother. It's our connection with the Lamb. He's born, He's SE, he's, he's delivered us from the judgment In John's epistle, which goes from the Gospel to the epistle to the Revelation and his epistle, he says in chapter 2, the light's passing. I mean, the darkness is passing.
It, it was going on toward the conclusion and John could see it. And he says the darkness is passing because the light was now shining in souls. The darkness is passing because there's light within the souls of we trust all but most at least of this room. And when that when all sin is removed, they're all darkness will be removed. There will be no night in heaven.
I don't believe there'll be night on Earth.
In eternity, but here in chapter 21 and verse 22 it says, and I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb.
01:25:06
Is the light thereof.
The Lamb is the light thereof. The Lamb is the perfect outshining of the glory of God for eternity. The Lamb is that light that you and I will gaze upon for eternity to the perfect overflowing satisfaction of the way God has made us as His children. We will gaze upon the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in perfect.
Eternal.
Light.
295.
225.
We were crying.
Tomorrow like one.
Nsnoise.
Well, we're going to do that.
Again of the land.
01:30:19
Son and our father, we just thank you for the time that we've had together. We just thank you for, umm, the privilege of looking at the land and how he just stalls the darkness.
We just think of that beautiful day that's coming and we're gonna be in heaven and enjoying his company forever.
And we know that those things, some things might go over our head today and that day everything will be as clear as crystal and we'll be able to focus and, and know for sure, Umm, as we are known, we just pray as, uh, we're here today and umm, tell others to come. We just pray that I'll keep us going on for thee. We just pray that we wouldn't be taken away with the course of this world, but instead we try to focus on me and.
Try to lay down our lives for our brethren.
Let's pray that we're gonna be taken away with the spirit of change either, Lord, and you know, Obama's going for that now and others. We just pray, Lord, that we just be humble in ourselves and Lord, that we'd have a real desire to.
Feed thy sheep and.
Have peaceful waters for nice sheep to drink.
We just pray for.
Blessing for the rest of the conference. We just pray for real food, for a little land, for the ones that don't really know, and we're the ones that need to be protected.
Just earnest, earnestly pray for this. We ask these things in Jesus worthy and precious name, our name, Amen.