Open—D. Brinkmeyer, L. Ludvicek
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28 I am a draw down. Thou art seated high upon thy father's throne. All thy gracious work completed, all thy mighty victory won. Every knee in heaven is bending to the Lamb for Sinner slain, Every voice and heart is swelling worthy is the Lamb to reign, #28.
All my.
Everyone.
Hurry in heaven, do all I'm forced in her spring.
Every voice and heart is light.
What are you?
All thy all right glory.
Till I thought as I started.
Watching the environment something.
Till thy grace.
Our hearts are here.
The water started.
Her life's being is my love.
All my surplus preferred in our father's house.
A full.
Promise step in the whole life, quickly come.
And our hearts do I respond and write our Lord and make us home.
Oh, our capture that always.
Life will make me feel.
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He held out where we are in vain.
Our God that we see, we merge our pain, I wins, I suggest in our spirit. That's right.
It answers all questions.
Word of his grace shall come for us through.
No Fear anymore without him, and I fall outside.
You may feel high.
Or will roll hard.
Learn to make days ago secure Chapter 3.
When we started our meetings yesterday.
Expression that just mentioned the word.
That connected is something that I have.
Many times been.
Enjoying and considering.
Let's in chapter 3 we'll take a few verses there and the fifth verse we'll start with.
And Moses barely was faithful in all his house as a servant.
For a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after.
Then we go down to the 10th verse.
Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said they do always air in their heart.
They have not known my ways, so I swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest.
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.
And here's the verse.
But to exhort one another daily.
Exhort on them mother daily.
Why it is called today?
Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
For we are partakers of Christ.
I feel beloved that.
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The need to exhort one another daily.
Is essential and vital.
And that is not.
We sometimes think in our own meeting that.
Labor is coming through, which we always welcome.
And he'll come and insert us.
Well, that's good.
But you dear sister, you dear brother.
Young people.
Exhort one another tape.
It's essential. It's needed.
There are so few left.
The testimony is shrinking.
We haven't exhorted one another, apparently.
Or else there's not been a response.
Exhort one another daily.
Let's turn to Timothy 2 Timothy.
Third verse. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
No man at war.
Entangle himself with the affairs this life.
That he may please him who had chosen him to be.
A soldier.
One was thinking about this and hesitated very much about.
Coming up here, but I believe it's.
I have a sense that it's essential.
And it crossed my mind about the soldier.
I was thinking come to mind that I was mercifully spared of having been in service, but I know some who had and were in infantry.
And in their training.
In certain times of their training, they had to crawl under barbed wire.
With live ammunition flying over their heads.
Beloved, I think that's a good example for us as soldiers.
You can't get any lower than crawling on your stomach to stay away from the ammunition of the enemy.
I think that's where we belong as a good soldier.
Keeping.
We can avoid the attacks of the enemy.
And not only saw.
But.
You don't get involved with the affairs entanglement. That's a wonderful word. You know, think about it. What does entanglement mean?
It means that it hinders your movement. It hinders your operation.
Entanglement, beloved.
We've been exhorted time and again by others. Don't get entangled with the affairs of this life.
You got something more important to attend to?
You've got the King's work.
This world that you get involved in, you're going to leave it behind.
The best you can do is help it for a time, but you know, I was thinking of it in this way.
Especially those who have families. And that's not excluding those who are single or whatever, but.
You think of being a father. What are your responsibilities?
You have a family.
If you own your home or rent it even, it needs maintenance.
There are the mundane things that you have to do.
And then you have your job.
And cares the children, cares of your partner.
And then you have the assembly running.
To have the things of Christ we had there in Hebrews with your Christ.
You don't have time for the things of this. The moral?
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And several matters.
Your time ought to be occupied with the things that are truly necessary. You're going to leave this world, and whatever good you're civil or moral involvements are concerned will be left.
And if you failed, or if I failed in the ministry or exhortation of one another?
It's too late.
And I want to say a word in regard to this.
And it's rightly what has been brought before us, especially in a reading the moral condition of this country of humanity.
It's not good.
But just a word of caution.
If, where is the assembly?
Get involved.
With the moral.
And civil and social matters of this life.
I can go to the camp and find that.
They'll do that. They take care of those things generally. I'm generalizing now. There are exceptions.
But if I want Christ.
I'll have to stay outside the camp.
Beloved, we don't realize blessing.
And the privileges we have in the position we're in.
We have that verse, you know, seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.
All these things will be added on to you.
That has to be true. It's God's word.
If I and you seek the King of God.
You don't have to worry about the moral and spiritual things of this life.
In the assembly, it's going to take care of itself if you are properly and if I am properly occupied with the one in whom is God's delight.
You don't. They don't get involved, beloved.
And when you and I do, it's going to be an entanglement. You cannot argue the point. It's going to be an entanglement.
Well.
What I wanted to turn to for just a minute is Deuteronomy 26.
This is Moses business.
So to speak.
Just a few verses that I take out of there.
And it shall be when thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
For an inheritance and possess it. And to our Australian.
That thou shalt take the first roots first of all the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring in thine hand, that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shall put it in a basket.
And go into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there.
Young brothers and sisters and older ones.
We had that verse before us and Matthew this morning. It's true.
There is a place.
How do you want to be there? He wants you there.
And dear young believer, young boys, young sisters and meeting here.
Are you at the large table?
If not, why not?
There's a place there for you.
He has brought us into the land.
He's taken us out of Egypt, 11 out of the world.
But you know what the children of Israel did?
They were looking back, looking back and looking back.
And what did they do? When they looked back, they ended up murmuring.
We have no business murmuring. We have a blessing before us that.
No one can compare.
If the things that are brought before us here in these meetings.
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The truths that we've been enjoying.
If they are true.
We have no business looking back.
You know the little scripture says when a man putteth hand of the plough and look at the bath, he's not worthy of the Kingdom.
It's interesting one can identify with that because on the farm.
In the fall.
My dad taught me to look for the what we call the dead furrow. In other words, that was the furrow that was preceding the established in that ground when the ground was plowed one way in the spring of the previous year. And so you look for that spot and then you mark it out, and then you go to the other end and you put a mark at the other end of the field.
But you start out, but you know, sometimes the ground may not been worked up too good and you would end up looking back to see if things were feeding through the plow.
And then you turn around and say, where's my mark?
Where's my mark? The neighbors are going to drive by and see my first line through the field, and it isn't going to be very straight and they love it. The world is going to look at us.
Has our line been very straight? Have we been looking back?
And we look back in on it.
It doesn't work. We have to have our eye. We have to have an object before us. Beloved. It's Christ.
It's our object. It can't be anything else.
Well, you know there is a place.
It was Jerusalem.
And I like that expression and we had were referred to that in Peter this.
Morning.
Who they gave us an example that we should follow his steps.
He did leave us an example.
But Jerusalem?
Was laid waste.
They made a House of merchandise.
Christianity is becoming a House of merchandise.
And so that place was.
Laid waste to the foundation.
Well, we're identified with something beloved that cannot be. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
We're identified something with something that cannot be laid waste.
And may the Lord keep us, you know, I was thinking that.
When my wife.
Would take me down to Des Moines and we'd go to some of the meetings there and.
I know I was young and I'd make.
Statements that would seem perhaps?
Perhaps thoughtlessly or so or whatever, but I remember saying that when we'd be going home, I'd say to her.
I can't believe that anyone would leave a place like this.
Can't believe anyone would leave it.
It's tying the way on. I found out it can happen.
I found out and I realized that it could happen to me.
It can happen to you.
Just to give you a couple of examples, what I was going to say in our Hebrews has a peculiar attachment to myself.
Because I would tell some brethren that say, well, you know, I think Hebrews has more bearing upon some of us who've been taken out of the system, but to the Lord's table, to his place outside the camp.
But.
That's not.
A fair statement.
But I I do think sometimes there is an element there that those who have been in the system.
For a period of time, and by the grace of God brought to the truth.
That.
You appreciate it. You can understand Hebrews a little better. But that's not necessarily true, because I certainly am not very intelligent in there older brethren here that have been raised in the truth and much more knowledgeable and been going on faithfully.
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But just to give an example of the danger that there is in leaving it.
A few years back was visiting in a home.
Dear couple I love very much.
Know very well and.
The lady of the house we're visiting in their room, in the living room and.
They asked me about the position and so forth.
And she says, you know, I don't believe the things that I.
Believed once years back.
Says I don't. I don't believe that. Don't hold it as dear as I did.
The only thing one could say is that my dear sister.
I don't know.
But I know that there is one place.
I know there's one place.
And her husband.
I'm not sure it was the time element. A little bit before or after visiting with him and he had his Bible open and he was. He just told me he says I'm looking in here.
To see where there's another place.
Have been tempted to ask him afterwards if he had found it.
Verify inappropriate. But then another illustration I want to give you is.
Another young brother was brought into the assembly.
And there is trouble. There always is, you know.
If you think it's going to go smooth in the assembly, you're kidding yourself because.
It's a difficult path. There's not opposition.
And the enemy is very tenacious.
And you and I are not up to it.
If we don't have our eye on Christ.
He's going to get us.
But this young man, there's difficulty in the assembly and he had come out from the system.
And if I have the story straight, and I presume I do, he made the statement, he says. Well, he don't bother me to go back into the system, he says. I missed it. I was raised there.
Do you think the Lord's table was very?
Uppermost in his mind? I think not.
But I want to get back to something that was touched upon here in our reading. I mentioned earlier and I got away from it, but I think it's important rather than.
That.
If I want to be involved with moral things, I can find that in the system.
But if I want to be occupied with Christ.
You'll find that in the assembly.
For the most part I won't be dogmatic, but.
It's true, dear old brother used to say. We see these.
Very beautifully constructed buildings around.
And he would say the impure it is on the inside, the more glorious it's going to be on the outside.
The anchored is on the inside. The fan shears. The stones are going to be that they put on the building outside.
Well, beloved, we have.
Called upon to bring the first fruits in the basket.
We were privileged to do that this morning.
Christ, the first fruits.
If you and I had him in our hearts.
That's who he brought to the table this morning.
That's the one that God divides in Christ the first fruits.
And you know, we bring the basket full of first fruits. In other words, that's.
Sacrifice of praise from her lips, giving thanks to his name.
Christ the Firstfruits.
Christ takes the basket.
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Christ presents it to God.
God is delighted.
And there is joy.
Nothing of itself.
All up here.
I won't take any more time that I just feel delivered.
It's so important.
I don't have the strength in myself.
God graciously has preserved one through the past trial. There's another one coming if we're left here.
Dear brothers and sisters.
You're going to have to be a good soldier.
To meet the Wiles of the enemy.
He's going to tempt us. And you know, the next time it's going to be even more difficult because the lines are going to be so close together that only by the Spirit of God will we discern the path that we should be in.
We better be attuned to it. We better have our eye on the right object.
There will be caught.
And Saul Belavan, I just leave you with that exhort one another.
We need it, sisters. You're an exhort visiting with a brother.
Brother exhort the sisters, children exhort one another.
We need exhortation, we need encouragement. The soldier at the front, he needs someone next to him to say let's go forward.
Just keep the banner. Let's hold forth the one to whom we are called.
May the Lord keep us.
I would like to turn to First Peter 5.
We had earlier in the conference the time when it was told to Peter what he should do about feeding the sheep and feeding the lambs, and here's Peter.
And first Peter 5 And I'm thinking about exhortation and that we would exhort one another. And I also think of Philippians, the book of Philippians.
But here in this first Peter 5 and verse one, it says, the elders which are among you I exhort, who who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed, feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither being Lords over God's heritage.
But being examples to the flock, and when the chief shepherd shall appear.
Ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise ye younger, submit yourself to the elder, Yeah, all of you be subject 1 to another, and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him.
For a carrot. For you be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
Well, I'll stop there. There isn't much time left.
I was thinking of the word submission. I was thinking of the word exhortation. I was thinking of Yodius and Syntheke in the 4th chapter of Philippians and the second chapter let it where it says there look not man, every man on his own things, but on the are the qualities of others. And the thought of looking at one another and getting along and the thought of submitting one to another.
We often talk about love and the glue that would hold or that would hold ones together. Love would work. We can see what love will do in First Corinthians 13. It suffers long and it's patient and is kind. But the word I'm thinking of is submission.
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And to submit to where the Lord has placed us. I even think of that to the older ones. It says that they are to take the oversight. And in Matthew it talks about when the Lord Jesus talks about.
Who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of God? I think it's Matthew 20. I can look.
What?
18 What did you say? What's the verse, Matthew?
Yeah, that's not the portion I'm thinking of, but it is a similar to where they're asking who would be the greatest and this is where he sets a little child in the midst of them.
And whosoever shall receive a little one in my name, but the thought is given out here in Matthew 18. But the part that I am thinking of it, where it says amongst the Gentiles, exercise dominion over you, and amongst you it shall not be so.
And.
What?
On.
Matthew 2025. OK. That's probably the one I was thinking of. Thank you.
Yes, it says. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, You know that the Princess of the Gentiles exercised dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister servant. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.
In the thought of taking the place or even when I think of a family and the head of a house, and some I've even had heard it said that this scripture applies, but in a marriage it doesn't apply that they see the head of the house as some sort of dictatorship. But I see in the Lord Jesus from John 13, a servant leader, he's going to wash their feet. He's going to exhort them and he says what you do, you know not, but afterwards you're going to know.
What I am doing and you think about I think about it in marriage and not who I am and who the Lord made me to be and.
Someone person might be in the assembly a strong personality, another one might be a weak personality, and husbands and wives are. There's that sort of thing too. And sometimes they would say.
Like I am a milder personality.
And someone might say to me that, well, I wish God would have made you a stronger personality. Well, really, if I am mild and I am who I am, and God has made me that way, and you don't like the way God made me. Your argument is not with me, but with God. I am his creature, and we may think that others should do things the way we think they ought to do them. They, everybody should be like me. That's not true.
Yodiath and Synthiki some. I heard it said you ought to do this and soon. Touchy well.
Giving the opposite of who people are in the assembly, we need to lay a lot of things lay ourselves aside and the thought of submission, submission to roles that we should play. Someone who would take the leadership we like to see someone who takes the leadership but if their God gives somebody a leadership role then it is for us to submit in that role and if some you know and to work out.
Our own salvation. Thinking of an assembly. I think of our own assembly where I am back home and the things we need to workout. There are problems that arise and there are things. There's trouble in every assembly and the enemy is busy at work and there needs to be a course that is taken, that is marked out in the word for handling problems. And there's love, yes. There's submission, yes. And there needs to be. And who is it ultimately to?
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It's that to the headship of Christ.
It's to the headship of Christ. And I often when I talk about these things, I often go back and attribute it to like a household. Because in Timothy says, if you know not to rule in your own house, how shall you rule in the Church of God? And when it's talking about an elder and those, So I think of husbands and wives and how they get along and their roles and the wife's role to submit to the husband and the children.
To their parents and yet in it all.
What I see is that they are all equal in value. There's different places.
And in America, in a democratic society, I think a lot of things are getting all mixed up. And the assembly.
The gathered Saints often.
Are being so effective. I know I am. I get affected by it. Are we're getting affected by our society around us and it's getting hard for those to take a lead in the assembly. There are those that should that should take a lead and it's getting hard to know what that is. Should they be dictators in the assembly? No, they should by example. They should by serving but their word.
If they are an older brother, we best be careful. Tells us about elders. What does it say about them against elder? Receive not an accusation except by two or three witnesses. Be careful how you treat your older brother and where you know.
There used to be this. Yes, ma'am. Yes, Sir. And when we were in school and when we were younger, you were to call the teacher by her last name. A lot of those things are being given up. There was respect to older ones and rebuked not. An elder sharply didn't say not to rebuke him. If somebody is old, you best not yell.
At an older brother. If you're a younger brother, you best be careful. There's a lot of distinctions in roles put in the word of God.
And how you treat one another. There are things that are for our safeguard, and it's not for legality's sake.
What are we going to get to if some things, almost. If you just let everything go and there is no authority in the assembly, I know the Lord is the ultimate authority. What do you get? You get anarchy.
You could get anarchy in a home. You can get anarchy in an assembly too.
Because there's not the proper bounds or the exhortation and given in scripture to those who are older to take the lead, those who are younger to submit, and just to have a clear path. Sometimes it's nice to see where it is carried out. I'm not saying it's not always, but when there is a problem, what happens? Like for me, I can be passive if I am.
In my home is a head of a house. I know it drives my wild, my wife nuts.
If I don't take a proper leadership, it drives my wife nuts and she's waiting for me. But I can't use my headship. Say, hey, I'm a head, I'm the head of my house and I'm passive. So I'm not going to. I'm going to just put all this off on you. No, it comes back to me. I'm to take the lead. Well, I could be a dictator and say go the totally opposite way. I need to get my direction from the word of God and.
When I see a lot of problems and I want to learn, this is speaking to me in our assembly back in Cedar Rapids, where I come from.
When the Lord when those asked the Lord, they asked the Lord Jesus how to be great. He didn't tell him not to be great, he told him how to.
How to be great, Be servant of all, he said. I would want you young brothers and sisters to be great, not for yourselves, but to the Lord. I tell you how, be servant of all and in to be able to take that leadership role. It's not spirituality to be able to blend into the wall or the wallpaper sometimes. That's what we've gotten. I don't know. I think we've gotten some wrong ideas and what is right?
00:45:01
And the Lord knows that there needs to be some distinction from the word of God in the assembly, in the home are things get messed up. And they are, they get real messed up. And sometimes I got to go against what my character is, and sometimes I just need to do that. And by the grace of God just ask for his help and to say, well, this isn't, this is and the Lord can come in.
And bless. And my wife can be blessed. My family can be blessed. But now I need to carry it a step farther if I can be exercised for my home. How about the assembly? That's my next. I haven't taken much lead in the assembly, haven't taken much care in the assembly. My home, yes, but not there. And I've been looking in scripture. How do you do that in the assembly?
There's people.
Who are at odds with me in this assembly? How do I care for them? There are people who don't like me that much in this assembly. How do I care for them? And Philippians. The book of Philippians has been a real encouragement to me. A real encouragement. I think we could go over that book more And the Lord Jesus and all it says about the Lord Jesus and and.
About him being rich and becoming poor, but the second chapter and what he how he condescends.
And how far he comes down, how far, though he thought it not robbery to be made equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant. And being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient unto death. That's close, but not quite. But the idea is we see what the Lord Jesus did. And you call me Lord and master, and you say, well, that's what the Lord Jesus said. And if?
Dear Lord and master, wash his feet and does all these things and how he cares.
If I have a brother in the meeting who doesn't like me, I should still care for him. I had a brother that tell me that once, he says. I just don't like you.
Nice. Well I like you but that's OK and but he he still loved me that don't get me wrong he still loved me. He just didn't like the way I was he still loved me and but anyways I need to care for that brother and he needs to care for me sometimes you can be honest like that you can be honest and share things and but we need to get on together what's what's going to help us get on together. There's sometimes a racial boundaries.
There sometimes are cultural boundaries. You know, there's some people that they dress nice. I mean, they dress nice, and there's some people who don't dress so nice. You know, there's different things that separate people. How are we going to cross all these things? Believe a lot of instruction again, is in Philippians don't have time to go into that. But that's all I have to say.
And the fathers boundless love, but the Holy Spirit's favor rest upon us from above. Thus may we abide in union with each other in the world, and possessed in sweet communion, joys mature.
I am with each other and the Lord.
And possibly.
Thrice Witcher and hair out for?