YP Talk—Stephen Rule
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#9 in the appendix.
That's great.
Our God, our Father, we do ask that our time together, that sense that despite what things look like and despite how things sometimes feel, that we would just ask our God, that our sense of Thy deep and abiding love and care for us would be strengthened. We'd ask it. Lord Jesus, in thy name, Amen.
Is my subject my, uh, not the best easel, but I think it worked. You can all see the R unimaginably. Good God. That's the subject that the Lord laid on my heart a couple of months ago and has given me a good opportunity of living for a couple months and I hope for the rest of my life. And uh, that's really the, the subject that's on my heart. I'd like to go through 8 aspects, but there's an infinite number. I just happen to have 8 written down.
To five, if I get through 678 doesn't really matter so much because the impression I hope gets left on your heart is God is outside your imagination good.
Beyond what your brain and your heart can take in good. Our God is unimaginably good. And I'll give you a first part in a moment, But I want to give an illustration to kick things off, to show why I think this subject is important. And I need a show of hands. How many of you were born since June 1997? Raise your hand if you were born since June of 1997.
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Well, over half the room. Great. I want you to give a little. The rest of you can fit yourself in here, alright. But, umm, I want you to give yourself a little thought experiment. Suppose you have an Uncle Louie, and Uncle Louie is kind of Yeah, you don't know him too well. Uncle Louie is the kind of out there and somebody says he's rich and. But Uncle Louie calls you up on the phone and Uncle Louie says, you know.
Back before you were born, uh, there was an IPO and I bought you 10 shares.
Thanks, Uncle Louie. That's, that's good news. But in Uncle Louie's hand, or kind of up next to him is, uh, he's got a Snickers bar and you're hungry and, uh, after all, all of you know, says it right there on the package in fake bold letters that it satisfies.
Uncle Louie's talking about the IPO and how it's performed since, and you're nodding off because in his hand is what you really want, as you kind of bug your sister said. Please. Yeah, that's gonna go away. You can just pass that one over.
And, umm, but your sister's older than you are. She's a little more sophisticated. No, I mean.
Umm might be a little more sophisticated. I think she's a little more sophisticated and so she's.
They used to have those five years ago. They never sell that kind anymore because I know that they don't take Snickers on them anymore.
Because she's more sophisticated, she knows that the good kind say out of bounds.
And who are you when you're hungry? And Uncle Louie keeps on going and he's telling you a little bit about stock performance and that he's deposited in your name and that he has a little, uh, kinda, I didn't have one, but you know, the savings books that you get when you, uh, get.
Uh, savings account and get a little savings book. I don't think they did them anymore, but we got one savings account not that long ago and they still did them.
You sit there as an older brother and he's part of the conversation, and your older brother is much more sophisticated than your sister. He's sort of the epitome, the Acme of intelligence, and he knows much better than your sister that this out of bounds stuff is just Snickers repackaged.
The lady at the store told me that, by the way, so I know that's a fact without opening it. This is this was something to make you lust after it written well.
On the cover.
But there are in your older sibling, it's very aware of it. There are.
The real stuff and Uncle Louie's still going on and on and on and he's still talking to you and he's still trying to make a point about what he has deposited in your account and, and uh, I'm a long way. He mentioned something about Amazon and you're busy looking at 4. Absurd.
Uh, peanut butter. The real thing says real, so it is real peanut butter, and that's what your brain is filled with.
And finally he finishes and he passes through the little savings account book and he says, so that's yours. And you say, but Uncle Louie, can I have the four absurd real peanut butter Snickers bars?
How many of you recognize that you've lived your life that way?
OK. My analogy is very simple and it says in roughly June of 1997, Amazon.com had their initial stock offering called an IPO initial public offering and Uncle Louie bought you 10 shares. Any idea how much is that's worth now? 10 shares?
Over $1,000,000.
What Uncleuli was saying was I, I'm giving you over $1,000,000, It's deposited in your account and it's right here. And the only thing you can think about is I know what's really important and my dumb little brother only thinks this is important and he's been handed $1,000,000. Well, it's a weak analogy, but what I wanted to convey, and I hopefully will make it so it'll be memorable for you, is that throughout our lives we're so very concerned that somebody might notice.
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Got a little, we didn't know her foot. See, when I was at, uh, Barracl around your age and I was about 19 and, uh, somebody ran their head into my mouth and they cracked the bone up here and they drove MY2 front teeth in and they're now Gray. Some. How many of you noticed that, by the way? Yeah, exactly. But they are Gray and you're gonna notice now. But my, my point is this, the little things that we think are so vital and important.
Everybody else is looking at them are minuscule compared to our unimaginably good God. So let's go through as many of these aspects as we have time for. And I'll turn to the first one. In fact, I'll put it up just as a way of keeping track and keeping me on track. And the first two, the second one I want to spend more time on.
The first two are God and their Father and the Bridegroom. So God is our Father. First, I'd like you to flip over. We're going to read just one verse in John 20 and verse 17 since I.
Meditating on the subject a little bit, I just kind of collect all my thoughts and dump them and put them in an outline form. Most of them are just verses, and most of them are Mr. Darby's translation. So I may read to you, and if I'm reading to you and it doesn't match up with what you have in front of you, coming from my notes is probably Mr. Darby's translation. If you'd like it. Just because you want the verses and it's easier for you, you're not going to want to read every reference in there.
I have a reference in there to a former colleague by name and that basically it has his name and very little next to it. It's a reminder to me.
But all the verses, are there some nice ministry? If you'd like it, maybe I could steal a sheet from Miss Mr. Mark's, uh, pad there and give me an e-mail address. I'll just copy and paste. I'm not going to clean it up. But that way you'll get all the verses we cover and a whole lot more. So if you turn, and I haven't turned yet, so I'll just read it from what I have here. John 20 and verse 17.
Jesus says to her, This is on the resurrection morning, and in the garden there where the tomb was, Jesus said to her, Touch me not speaking to Mary Magdalene, for I have not yet ascended to my Father, but go to my brethren and say to them, I have sent to my Father and your father and to my God.
And your God. But explain this in a moment. But before I do, I want to tell you a short little story to try to.
Give an idea of why I think this is very hard to deeply understand.
I've got a suggestion for you in better understanding our unimaginably good God, and I'd like to give it to you in a little bit. But first of all, I want to show to you an extreme example of why this is a very, I think, difficult subject to really, deeply appreciate. And to do that, I'm gonna give you an extreme example and maybe you can shorten it down to your own life. But we have a next door neighbor.
Whose grandfather used to beat up on his father.
His grandfather was a giant of a man, apparently about 68, big and strong. And when his, his father, our neighbor's father did something wrong here, really got some severe physical correction. And so when our next door neighbor was growing up, he was, uh, somewhat of a rebellious son. And so his parents put him in a military school.
He got kicked out, so they put him in another military school and he got kicked out.
So they put him in. He didn't tell me how many, there were multiple. So I asked military school, he got put in. His father put him in the school and got on an airplane and flew back to Florida. The school somewhere up near Washington DC dropped them off at the school. Fathers plane landed in Florida and he got a call. He got to go back and pick up your son.
He's kicked out within two hours because.
When he got to the top of the third floor landing of the school, the upperclassmen that was leading him in kind of insulted him and slapped him. It was the hazing of a younger classmate and when he slapped him, my next door neighbor turned around and punched him down. The first flight of stairs came down to the blanding at the end of the first flight of stairs. Kicked him down the second flight of stairs, got down to the lightning at the bottom. The second flight of stairs kicked him down to the lower floor.
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When he hits the lower floor he had two broken legs and a broken arm and my next door neighbor was kicked out.
Father flew back to Washington, DC, picked them up, took him to a hotel room and.
UMM finished them off.
Beat him so badly that when the father woke up in the morning, he was gone and he never didn't see his parents again for multiple years. His father was a Navajo. He fled to the, uh, Navajo reservation. Uh, they sent the FBI and the FBI was told without a search warrant and nobody was allowed on the reservation and was governed. And so they didn't get him back.
My point is this. That's a very extreme example of a really violent problem.
But how many of you have physically known a father that's like the one we just read about?
You've known a Father who loved you absolutely, totally and completely with perfect wisdom every single man in your life.
You've got one, you've got one, but you haven't met him physically yet. And that's my point. And so I was strongly encouraged. I'm going to go through a little bit more in this verse and another section on the Father, and I wanna spend more time on the bridegroom and then a couple other aspects. But I would encourage you to take the book of John and read the book of John from John 11 all the way to the end of the book and look at the relationship between God the Father and God the Son.
How often did they talk? What did they talk about? Was there any friction? Obviously you know there wasn't, but observe that there wasn't.
Throughout the book, look at how intimate that communion was all the way along the way. Look how much the sun was in complete trust and confidence in His Father, how He brought all kinds of things to him, and so on throughout the book. It's a wonderful figure, but here's what I enjoy about this verse in John 20, verse 17. It was so important to the Lord Jesus.
That the first thing he says to a human being in resurrection. Well in this first verse where he speaks to them he says touch me not first thing.
But I actually said Mary, but one of the just within the first minute of his conversation with somebody in resurrection, he says I ascend to my father and your father. Here's what he's saying.
I'm putting you in my relationship to God. Yes, there's a sense of God the Father in the Old Testament, a father that cares for needs. But he's saying to them, I'm taking you and I'm putting you into.
That closeness of intimate relationship with my father, my father and your father.
I only get home at night after being gone for the day. My favorite kind of greeting is to open the side door and you can see the kitchen from there fairly often. Uh, Renee's in the kitchen may not come over the door or whatever, but if I get greeted with a big smile and a welcome home, that's a that's a wonderful way to arrive home. My favorite kind.
The Lord sees us when he met Mary on that resurrection morning.
He says, in essence, welcome to my home.
You are going to enter into that same nearness of relationship that I've always had with my father. And because of what I just did at the cross, I'm putting you right there.
It's hard for us to understand in a deep inside level because even if our your father was way better than Steve Ingraham's father and my next door neighbor.
Even if your father is a world better than that, your father, I will guarantee you, isn't as good as this father in John 20 and verse 7. So I strongly encourage you to come to know him well. There's another AS as father, but there's another verse. And if you turn to Hebrews chapter 12, here's another reason why maybe it's a little bit tough sometimes to fully appreciate.
Who God is, our Father is.
Hebrews 12.
And.
We'll read from verse, I'll read from verse five. I'll read from verse 5 to 12. The whole section. I'm only going to comment on just a little piece of it. And you have quite forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as the sons, my son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when approved by Him for whom the Lord loves. He chastens and scourges every son whom he receives.
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He endure for chastening. God conducts himself towards you as towards sons, For who is the Son that the Father chasing is not?
But up here without chasing, which all of them may partakers. And are you ******** and not sons? Moreover, we have had the fathers of our flesh as chasteners, and we referenced them. Shall we not much rather be of subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed chase them for a few days. That seemed good to them, but he for profit in order to the partaking of His Holiness.
But no chastening at the time seems to be matter of joy, but of grief. But afterwards?
You know the peaceable, peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised by it. Wherefore lift up the hands and hang down on the failing knees.
1St 10 Let's just focus on that for a brief moment and.
And then we'll get to the bridegroom. The 1St 10 says they indeed chastened for a few days. That seemed good to them.
Your father.
For most in the room.
Knows or new the Lord is his Savior. It's not for all but for many of you does the Lord or do the Lord is because he's now with the Lord as Savior and chastened for a few days as seemed good to them. Doesn't mean it was all that they corrected you because they were doing it for their own pleasure, although that can happen.
But that wasn't perfect wisdom in it, but it says our Father does it for profit in order to the partaking of His Holiness. There may be things in your life at the moment that don't feel like.
A father who loves.
I don't feel like how you might do it if you were in his shoes. And that's why I wanted to start with the analogy of Uncle Louie, because there are things we can see, and then there's a whole pile of stuff that we don't see and appreciate. And your father may be working in your life at the moment, and he definitely is working in my life at the moment in ways that I can't see and don't understand. But I know that his correction, his chastening is for profit. It's for a purpose down the road.
That's for good.
Now let's go to the bridegroom. There's some beautiful things in the Song of Solomon chapter 5. So if you turn there.
We'll just go through them one by one in the Song of Solomon as you turn there.
Perhaps the biggest single picture in the book is the Lord with his earthly bride, Israel.
There's a wonderful lessons that can be learned from marriage between a man and wife and life here. There's wonderful lessons there. But.
The figure or the figure we're going to read in chapter 5 is a beautiful figure. Whether you look at it as Israel with the Lord, it's still the first one we're going to look at. Here is the Lord. I want to look at what the Lord looks like.
In a moral sense, verse 10.
My beloved.
Is white and Ruddy the cheapest among 10,000?
My beloved is white and ready, the cheapest among 10,000.
And what's that word white means?
It's not really primarily referring to anything the way we use it with people. It's nothing to do with skin color as far as I know. It has to do with Dazzling.
My beloved is dazzling.
I don't know about, I'm not going to embarrass anybody here for a show of hands, but, uh, when you walk into a room somewhere where there's someone we'll just say that you're very interested in and you kind of look around and, uh, yeah, they're over there.
Wow. Hmm.
I'm not going to embarrass you, but I may embarrass my wife. I don't know.
I sometimes and I bipolar this before I just haven't told you. I called her. I sitting at the dinner table and there's people there and there's a conversation going on and I glanced across the table and and her eyes are sparkling and she's excited and in the conversation over there and I think that's my wife.
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It didn't happen today, but it did happen on Saturday. I looked across the canoe and we were canoeing and I thought, wow, that one.
Now here's my point here.
The bride is looking the bridegroom a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, and she says that one is dazzling. I can't see anybody else in the room because he's here.
And I believe that the Lord Jesus really is that, you know, we can get so wrapped up in, I wonder if, yeah, they're here at this conference or whatever it happens to be. And that is normal and it's natural. I don't demean it.
But what I wanna say is this is better.
Because the Lord Jesus is in every room where you are, and if he is dazzling to your heart, and as you read the word of God, it's not just sort of uh-huh, OK, good. Now I can pass my Sunday school test, or I can, and I remember that fact so I can tell mom afterwards, or that's just the kind of thing you're supposed to remember.
That's not what the Word of God is. It's because God is an unimaginably good God that He communicates who He is to you and me so that we can enjoy it together.
I believe that's by the way, why the verse ends with umm, the chief. That's among 10,000 Ruddy, I think has to do with red cheeks. It has to do healthiness. I have meditate a little bit. I don't have anything special to share with you on why healthiness is important in the figure of the Lord Jesus.
Umm, so you probably have share it with me afterwards, but I have something I wanna share with the next one. His head is as the finest goal.
Remember that statue that had a gold head? Where's that in the Bible?
It's a statue with a gold head.
Daniel, that's right. The vision that Nebuchadnezzar had had a head of gold and it had chest of silver, and it had legs of brass and feet of iron and clay, right? And they were figures of four governments that were coming. It's a beautiful prophecy. But the head of gold that was gold in Scripture is a figure often of divine righteousness. It's real prominent in the temple, it's real prominent in the Tabernacle. It's used in other places.
It's a figure of divine righteousness, but this is ahead.
This is the person running everything. This is the Lord Jesus in figure, and it's saying about Him that everything that he thinks toward you, remember, it's the bride appreciating this in her bridegroom. Everything that He thinks toward you, every way that He acts is perfectly right and with absolute complete integrity.
Imagine you're a young female in the room and there's a husband the Lord has chosen for you. Who is?
Absolutely. Perfectly. Umm.
Righteous in every way that he acts. You know you have children. He's going to treat them all perfectly right, and he has integrity. You know you'll walk into the room and his phone won't vanish into his pocket. You walk in or you look at the Internet history and there's no need to see anything other than your birthday gifts that are that you're looking for.
Because there's absolute integrity, Williams. The Lord may or may not have a husband for you in the future, but I will guarantee you that he will not be perfectly.
This head of gold but whether the Lord has for you to marry or not for me to marry, there is a person who loves you with that intense love whose actions toward you are always perfectly right with absolute integrity for your total good is never going to mess up Nebuchadnezzar the head of gold. He finds out that he's the head of gold and what's the next thing you find out about Nebuchadnezzar just about we're almost immediately.
Got long fingernails like a bird and he's crawling on the ground eating grass, right?
And hopefully that head of gold husband you may marry one day, umm doesn't go through that same process, but there may be something analogous to it. There may be a moment of disappointment. Remember that. And then everything else gets restored, right?
But that doesn't happen with the Lord. We get disappointed with the Lord because we think he should be handing out this poor absurd, real peanut butter Snickers bar that we want, and he hasn't. And he should know that we want it.
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But it's because in his perfect ordering of things as the head, he's got a better result for us. The next one, it says his locks are flowing black as the Raven.
OK. So spot somebody in the room here that's 40 or older.
You don't have to look around and and don't look at your parents.
I'm 40 year older. Are my locks black and flowing?
I didn't think I had any problem with baldness. I don't think I'm going to go bald necessarily, but, uh, someone where I work pointed out, I think your widow's beak's a little bigger than it used to be. Thank you.
But certainly you couldn't say it's black and flowing, could you? This is a figure of a person who is in their youthful figure. They haven't lost anything of what they used to be.
Beautiful vigor, just as strong as they were on the day you met, just as young, just as energetic, just as you know the Lord Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Your friends go up and down, you know, you call them and they're excited to do something with you. You find them the next day and.
They're well, they would call us this.
They would blame it on that.
But.
It's not really that they had the flesh. Maybe they're a believer, but they've got the flesh and they go up and they go down. They go up and they go down. The Lord, when we come to Him, is that freshness of vigor, of love for you that's never changed and never will change. It's absolutely as much true this minute, whether we feel it or not, as if.
Umm this was the day we met him. Verse 12. His eyes are like doves.
By the water Brooks wash with milk fitly set.
Again, I guess I'm I'm consciously using contrast here with people we know because the Lord Jesus goes so far beyond this, but.
Umm, to try to get across the idea of this bird, how many of you saw? I I very much enjoy nature photography. I don't do very much of it anymore. I haven't for the last couple of years, nor do I pay a whole lot of attention to it. But maybe two months ago or so I was looking at a little bit of nature photography and I saw.
This, it just happened a couple of months ago. There was a video of a wildlife photographer out in the state of Washington, and it had a fox, a rabbit and a bald eagle in it. How many of you saw that photo? OK, two people from my family because I showed them the video. All right.
Basically there, there was a video of it. He took photos. The photos aren't publicly available because I suppose he's going to sell them for lots of money, but the video was and.
Basically a little fox was running in the field out in the state of Washington near the Puget Sound, and the fox spotted a rabbit. Rabbit was hopping along there, and so he was zooming in with his zoom lens. Take pictures of this rabbit getting caught by fox. Thought he'd get a good picture and the fox kind of zoomed in and I must have been on his tripod, a little video camera going so he could have some shots from that as well. Fox zooms in, gets the rabbit.
And then in the video, you see the fox kind of looking off to the side there and hesitating. They took off running and took off running. And in out of from off camera comes the bald eagle and with talons out and snatches the rabbit and goes airborne. The fox didn't let go. The fox went airborne too. That fox wanted the rabbit. And so they're both dangling airborne and they probably 4050 feet down, 20 feet up in the air. And finally the fox got shaken loose.
Loss is rapid. What's that have to do with this? Not a whole lot, except that I want. Well, it I, I I didn't tell it to entertain you, really. I wanted to you to retain an image in your mind. And that is there are days when you probably feel like your dad is the fox and your mom is the eagle and you are the rabbit. Because no matter what you do, their eyes, they're watching for you to do something wrong, and they're gonna correct it.
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It's probably been a day like that, right? That's not the spirit of your parents. And I'm not trying to get you to think negatively toward your parents, but this, what I wanna point out is this is not an eagle eye. Those eyes are fitly set, meaning they're just right. They're not big and aimed at finding prey, and they're not old and sleepy and closed. This isn't Isaac who's blind, and this is an eagle. Isn't an eagle who's out the spot the.
Problem and pounce on it. These are dozies. And it says by the water brooks, you know, by the water brooks. Mr. Miller, Andrew Miller says it was his thought on it. And I, I thought it was beautiful. I, I think it is the thought of scripture here. He says it's as though that water brook, the idea behind it is as though there is a tear of compassion in the eye.
So what he's saying is these are doves eyes, and they're watching you with a tear of compassion in the eye because that is the way God looks at you. He's not waiting to pounce on something that's wrong, and he's not blind to what's wrong. The eyes are fitly set.
And there's a tear of compassion in the eye and they're washed with milk. That is their cure.
You're being watched at the moment by the eyes of your bridegroom, and your bridegroom's eyes on you are not there to pounce on a problem. They're aware of the problem, just like the father we read about that needs to chase and incorrect sit there. But it's a heart of love, and it's the eyes of love with the tear of compassion in the eye that set on you the next his cheeks.
Are the beds of spices raised beds of sweet plants?
You think in the scripture of where someone's cheeks are mentioned?
Here. Thank you besides this one.
Uh, possibly I, I didn't look them all up and so I, I, you may be right there. There are multiple examples.
Your dad is doing what only you and he could suffer. He's going like this.
On a quote diverse mark.
Just give us the rough Mark Kapanowitz translation.
Oh, I'm sorry, Yeah, some something like I gave my cheeks into them that plugged off the hair. Right. So prophetically Speaking of the Lord Jesus.
There are also, I believe in scripture kisses planted on the cheek, and so the cheek I I take to be figurative of a person's response to these two things, affection or hatred.
You know, there's different kinds of people out there. There's some really wonderful people that just don't know how to respond to affection. For whatever reason, they don't know how to respond, so you give them a compliment.
They're kind of maybe somewhere deep down inside they appreciated what you said, but they don't know how to receive that kindness.
And then there's people out there. I'm going to go back to my next door neighbor, umm.
A next door neighbor, the one that knocked somebody down three flights of stairs, prior owner of the house, I guess you could say we're still in in the process of selling. And the next door neighbor was son was building a porch and he was arguing with my current neighbor Steve about it. And he grabbed Steve right around the head right by the neck. And Steve recent reaction was to begin to pound them in the face with his fist.
Instant self-defense.
And uh, the police got called and I, I have my.
Steve's account of what they thought, which was very positive towards Steve. But the point is this, the moment somebody touched him, he responded like that.
With anger and self-defense.
The Lord Jesus, when he was mistreated, responded with absolute meekness.
And when he was shown affection, he returned it. John says refers to himself as the one who leaned on Jesus bosom.
He expressed affection to the Lord, and he delighted in the fact that he could call himself that. The Lord received that affection. And so no matter what you are like, maybe you're a little too uptight and not quite sure how to receive that love and kindness, although you appreciate it. Or maybe you're a little touchy, a little irritable. Somebody mistreats you, you're ready to defend yourself. The Lord was right down the middle, perfect. Whatever his cheeks were treated as, it brought out a beautiful fragrance of his character.
00:40:24
Affection. He returned it.
As a man, he responded to that horrible shame, spitting the plucking off of the hair with absolute moral, pure meekness, his lips lilies dropping liquid myrrh.
His lips Lily's dropping liquid from her.
I think it's nice that it goes in the verse. I think it fits with some of the thoughts I've just given. Mirrors often. It's kind of got a bitter flavor apparently, and there has to be cuts made in order to get the liquid out. But.
Umm, what comes out is something that's very fragrant. It smells beautiful and it says his lips Lily is dropping liquid mirror. I won't try to prove it to you, but if you add fix your e-mail address for lips, tongue and uh, lips, tongue and mouth, I'll send you a bunch of verses from Proverbs that I think support.
The following that lifts where Solomon uses them and he's their author's song and Solomon right and Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. And when he writes about lips, tongue and mouth, we talked about lips. He's talking about the idea, the way, the way something is expressed. When you talk about the tongue, it's connected with the mind and the thought. When he talks about the heart, it's connected. I'm sorry. When it talks about the mouth, it's connected with heart. So what's in the heart comes out the mouth. What's in the head comes out the tongue and the way it's expressed.
Are the lips.
And so here's a person who, when he's mistreated, what comes out of his mouth, that myrrh, that mistreatment brings out fragrance.
Not going to embarrass either my wife or my son, but I will guarantee you that if I were to ask them in front of you the question, uh, will you always hear beautiful? If we say something to you in a kind of an angry or maybe not the most polite way? Well, you always respond with absolute beautiful kindness. They would have to say regretfully, no doubt. You know, I, I'm not, not all the time.
Unfortunately, probably all of us would have to respond that way about ourselves.
But his lips? Lily is dropping liquid mirrors. I am not for a moment suggesting that we should speak to the Lord in any form that's disrespectful or angry. But if you've spoken in your heart, maybe not with your lips to the Lord in an angry way, How did he receive it? He responded with lightning.
Not at all. And if you express affection and love for him.
That he kind of embarrassed and turned from it. Not at all.
The delight to his heart, with a delight to his heart to find that the other.
Other beautiful things here I'm going to skip over.
I'll I'll I'll give you just a tip that I'm 14 his hands gold rings. I'd like you to think about everything done toward you by God has been done with perfect love and his belly bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. That is all those inward hidden affections toward you are pure and heavenly. You can think about why is like pillars of marble perfect stability and we could enjoy it, but I wanna finish this section with 16 verse 16 his mouth.
Is most sweet. Yeah, he is altogether lovely. I don't know if you noticed before, but the list that comes before verse 16.
From verse 10 down to verse 15, do you notice the order of it just.
Him back over in your Bible, if you haven't noticed before. What's he doing?
Yep, working top to bottom. Michael did it with the hands, Anna told me with the words he's going down work at top to bottom, head to foot.
And then it's as though the bridegroom steps back and looks at the big picture and she says his mouth. Now the mouth comes in, right? Everything else is what you can see on the outside. The mouth expresses what's in the heart, what's on the inside. And when you see the Lord Jesus in action in your life, when you see him in the ways that he acts in these verses here and you step back and you look at it, you can say.
On the inside, his heart toward me with the mouth expresses his heart toward me.
00:45:01
Is most sweet. He's altogether. Everything about him is lovely.
We have an unimaginably good God. These things are learned in the difficult circumstances of life, but we have an unimaginably good God. I want to finish this part. I would rather do a few things thoroughly than it's all eight, 'cause all eight is just 8 out of 800 or 8000, or however many really things there are about God. And it's words that show how unimaginably good He is.
Were you aware?
That if you're feeling a little lonely, you can get. I think it's an app for the phone, but it's certainly a program, which is a friend bot.
You can text your friend bot.
Go back and forth and you know, they've tested it. Some people feel a little bit better. Uh, they have a friend bot and there are older people that are lonely and they're shut in. They don't have the same needs you do. So for them, there's a care bot.
That's right, they can interact with their care bot and the care bot will give them a certain pseudo intimacy.
And what they found about them so far.
What they found is and and there's more, right? That's just sort of the ties of all that they have. You know what they found that there's a certain temporary pleasure that people get them. There's a certain temporary benefit they get out of interacting because it feels sort of like you're talking to somebody.
And that kind of makes you feel good. But it doesn't last. And here's why they think it doesn't last.
If you're in a room with somebody talking to a real human being, there's either the metaphorical or real chance that they could kick you. But the.
Because there's a sense in which that person could have hurt me, and they didn't. They spoke kindly to me.
And it has this natural human psychology. Apart from the Lord, it has a positive emotional benefit.
Every day you're in the presence of a person who holds your breath in his hands.
I mean the person that's described the Song of Solomon. Silence.
It's the third and 4th. I don't know if we'll get to four. That's alright. Umm, holy God #3 nothing hidden. God of perfect wisdom, direction and guidance.
We'll finish with #3 we're not going to get to #4 There was a person I read about recently. Actually, it was somewhere in the.
In the last few months.
Umm, some cold case investigators figured out something about a man who died in the Cleveland area in 2002. I've been working on it for a long time, and here's why they were working on it. They were working on it because this man.
Always kept the suitcase ready so you can leave at any moment from the apartment that he was in.
Men frequently made remarks about thinking that they were closing in.
And so when that man took his life in 2002 and was found a week later, that's how many friends he had that he allowed in close a week to find him. They began an investigation that lasted for 16 years.
And several months ago, they finally got a piece of his story.
A piece of a story was that in 1964 he changed his name and they used some pretty clever techniques with DNA and so on the track down and whatever, that doesn't matter. He changed his name in 1964 to the name of a then eight-year old boy who had died and completely changed his identity. So they took the identity he had before they traced it back to 1956 when he walked out the door of his home.
From his wife, from his three children.
And he walked out and left them and his words to them. I don't know if it was in a note or something he said before he walked out, but his words to them were. You'll know someday why I did this.
Well, they absolutely believe that there was something he did that merited all that behavior. Well, I want you to think about for a moment that suitcase.
00:50:11
He always had that suitcase packed. It's already ready to leave at a moment's notice in case somebody found out a secret. Would you like to live like that?
Wouldn't that be miserable? An awful way to live? But I would suggest that many of us have maybe some little walled off area inside. It's not necessarily too. Maybe it is soon. Maybe you're hiding something in your life and it's hidden from everybody else, but you know about it.
Between you and everybody else, and you're the only one that knows about it. But it might not be that. Perhaps for most of you here, it's just a thing that hurts.
I was, we were talking about a little bit at lunch. There was a, a lady you were reading about on her way here to Ohio and from missionary in the Congo. And bottom line is she was trying to help somebody who had lost their baby said, I know how you feel. And they said, no, you don't, you've got everything. And she said, I do know. And she ran off crying because.
Many years before and by law, or multiple years before anyway, and Bible school. She'd had a child and the child was, we don't remember, maybe about 10 months old. That's how it died.
She lost that child, and she walled up all the grief and all that. She didn't understand about why the Lord would allow that here. She and her husband had left everything. They'd gone to Bible school. They're going to be missionaries. They've done all this for the Lord, and the Lord took their child. And somebody down the road who was an unwed mother would have had a child, and they took her child. And maybe you're in a circumstance where there's something that's painful. Everybody else has this.
But you don't.
And so there's that walled off section and it's hidden in the heart. Well, in her case, they all came out on that day. About a month later, the 15 year old came to her home and got in a conversation. She was able to tell the 15 year old why she could express love and sympathy. And the Lord used it for two things. One, it healed her because that suitcase got unpacked. It got brought out in the light. She realized all the pain that was walled up there. It came out. She could let it go.
The second thing was that 15 year old was saved. Lord had allowed that pain so that she could feel and act in sympathy with the other person. And that's why I say that our unimaginably good God, we can have nothing hidden in this presence and it's a good thing.
It's a good thing, because there aren't any packed suitcases waiting for a quick exit that no one discovers the secret that's inside. Let's read some verses that I think directly show that and we'll finish with them and maybe a couple brief thoughts on them. Hebrews 4. Umm, we'll read from verse.
12, I mean 12 to 16, but I just want to focus on one or two brief thoughts in here.
It says for the ver he was four verse 12, and Mr. Derry's translation. It says for the Word of God is living and operative, and sharper than any two edged sword, and penetrating to the division of soul and spirit, both of joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. There's not a creature an apparent before him, but all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes. With whom?
We have to do. Perhaps there's been a Gospel speaker. I'll keep going in a moment. Perhaps there's been a Gospel speaker. It's kind of put a period in there and brought you into the presence of a holy God with those verses. And that's a good application. It's a good use of them. That's not how this passage is being used in this section. Nothing wrong with that. The Word of God does bring us into the presence of God. Absolutely it does. It does act on the conscience, Absolutely it does. But notice the next.
14 Having therefore a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast the confession. For we have not a high priest not able to sympathize and with our infirmities, but tempted in all things in like manner cinepart. Let us approach therefore with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy.
And find grace for seasonable help.
It's gonna be wonderful when that secret came out in the presence of God, maybe and chastening us to deal with it. There's this government here on the earth, but I'm talking about his heart. His heart were displayed to you and you understood better how much he loved you. This goes straight from all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes.
00:55:07
To umm for 16. Let us approach therefore.
Let us approach. Therefore, let's approach God, because He does know everything.
You might not know what that little walled off section is. The missionary you're reading about on our way here to the Congo. She didn't even know that that part of her heart was all walled off and still blue thing. The Lord knew it was there.
And when he needed to use it for blessing, for somebody else and for her, he did both miracles in one day or another. Period. A short period of time, About a month, I guess. Umm.
Butino was there, and if it's in and the Finn has to come out, then there can be that clear conscience again before God. Otherwise there's the holding on to the pain and the uh.
The pain and the shame as well. Well, just.
A lot more verses here on the subject, but I, I'm gonna throw in one that I don't because I think it's directly related to that last little bit of subject, umm, book of Joshua. There's a chapter that maybe if you've read through it in your morning Bible reading, you blasted through it and got to the end of it and thought, what was that in here for? Uh, well, I'll just give you the chapter in a moment.
I didn't have it written down ahead of time. It's Joshua.
Yeah, Joshua, Chapter 12.
There's wonderful instruction in Joshua Chapter 12. I'm just gonna give you one beautiful thing directly related to what we're just talking about, and we'll finish with that.
Uh, I believe it's verse 17.
Oh, just the second-half of the verse. That's the beautiful part. The king of Heifer 1.
Isn't that beautiful? I mean, you just enjoyed that before the king of Hebrew one, yes.
Let me tell you why.
It is that beautiful.
He firm means gas Heat, for Hefer means pit of shame.
This king was conquered by Joshua, a figure of the Lord Jesus.
When the Lord Jesus won the victory at the cross, he conquered all the enemies that are listed in this chapter. But there's one of them. It's not just that the fin was put away, it's that the King of Shame was conquered.
You know, if we sinned against the holy God and they put away the sin, and the sin is put away, and that's the end of the story and it ends right there. And you can spend your entire existence here on earth far from him, but at least not now.
It wouldn't be the story of the unimaginably good God.
But the unimaginably good God took care of far more, I can say, than the sin, but all its consequences, the nature that came along, all that stuff and the shame.
And the shame in His presence when that sin is confessed and is put away between your conscience and God. There can be between your conscience and God in this sense of personal intimacy. I don't mean there's not law for us of reward or something like that, but it's a sense of personal intimacy and the sense of that relationship. There's not sort of that shameful. I gotta flunk around for a couple weeks until it looks bad enough that maybe other person will realize that I really do feel bad about that.
And then I can start to stand up straight again. Not it at all. King of Heifer was conquered. It's a beautiful thing that we're in the presence of a holy God with nothing hidden. Let's thank him for it.