Talk—Bruce Conrad
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I'm afraid I'm going to have a challenge being heard in this.
For what little I'm going to speak.
So anybody who's in the back, if you stop being able to hear me, just wave. Can you hear me now?
OK, All right. Well, I don't intend to take up much time. Everybody's had a long day.
But we will speak for a few minutes and let's pray first, OK?
Our God, our Father, we thank Thee for the time to be together today.
We've had so much before us for us to consider and ponder. We thank you for this. And now for a few minutes as we open my word, we ask for just a few things. That would be for our help and encouragement. We count upon D for this and ask for Thy blessing, Lord Jesus, and Thy worthy and precious name. Amen. Amen.
So I want to read a verse first of all in Jude to point out what I'm not going to talk about.
I know that sounds a little backwards, but.
In Jude.
In verse 3.
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and to exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints.
So that verse is kind of a classic verse about the collective aspect of Christianity. It's called there the faith and you and I that have put our trust in Christ and and all the children and everybody who's been baptized unto the Lord Jesus, then you have been brought to the faith.
Scripture calls the faith. There's only one.
In God's sight, and he calls it the faith, calls it the common salvation.
And so when you and I are saved and we begin to learn the truth, as I did from a neighbor of mine, and sat me down at the kitchen table and started to unfold to me the the things of the Scripture, I was learning the faith which had been once delivered to the Saints hundreds of years before. And I was just amazed that that I had been selected to be part of this precious legacy or a spiritual inheritance.
That had been established by the Lord Jesus and built up by the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And it's called the common salvation, the faith once delivered to the Saints. And so there's very many aspects of our Christian life that are collective. Some of our privileges are collective. We're part of the body of Christ together.
Together we are the bride of Christ.
Together we're built up as living stones in the in God's house. We're the flock. And probably there's other things. There's probably seven or eight more that I don't have recall to to remind you or me of.
And all of that is really special and precious. And throughout all eternity we're going to have the privilege to be displaying the beauties of Christ to the whole created world that God has fitted to take in such beauties.
I used to work for a man and and he was, I considered him quite old. He's probably younger than I am now, but I thought he was really old and I got a kick when I was around his him and his wife.
And he would always refer to her. He probably was in his 70s. He'd say, well, I'll be right there. I have to call my bride.
And I thought that was so cool. He called her his bride. He'd been married at 18 or 19 in Germany. And he came over and she came over and they were there in their mid 80s now. And, and I could tell they had just that, that nice special relationship. And he called her his bride. Well, you and I together collectively as the bride of Christ, we're going to be that for all eternity. But there's another side of things that I don't think we talk about as much.
And think about as much. Maybe I'm wrong.
And that's the personal side.
And so I'm going to turn in read a verse in well, first in Matthew 7.
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Matthew 7.
Verse 13.
Enter Ye in at the straight gate.
For why does the gate? And broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, And many there be which go in there at Because straight is the gate, narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
So a straight, you know, a straight gate. That's not a word we use every day in English, right?
Except we mean straight like it's not crooked, but this kind of straight is narrow.
And so if you're walking together and you want to talk with your friends or your family, right, you like walking the street or you look for a broad sidewalk or something so you can be side by side. But if you come up to a narrow gate, then what happens? You could, you got to go through one at a time. And that's the way we come to Christ. We don't come in groups like these three boys here can't come together.
And these two can't come together. And this married couple, they can't come together.
We have to come one by one, one by one, and that's why the gate is narrow, because we come into this gate 1 by 1. And it's interesting to notice, for example, in John's gospel where it's been pointed out that the Lord Jesus chapter after chapter, he's alone with one person.
In John chapter three it was Nicodemus and he talked to Nicodemus about being born anew and he said except ye, you as a person are are born of water and of the Spirit, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That was a message to one person. And then in the 4th chapter he met the woman at the well and he spoke to her.
About worship.
In chapter 5, I can't remember who he spoke to, it was the.
It was the, the layman, the inputted man and he, he, he gave him to have power again in his legs so that he he could walk and so on. And in chapter 8, there was the the woman taken in sin and he he was left alone with her and so on through the chapter, through the the book, the Gospel of John.
And it's very important. It's, I think, you know, we're not like this very often.
At least I'm not come from a little small gathering and and my family is now smaller. Most of the kids are gone and and it's a very kind of a it's a happy life, but it's more personal and I spend a lot of time in the scriptures personally by myself and.
And and this is really it's the way it is and it's the way it should be.
And it's foundational.
And a matter of fact, I don't know about you. I have my own personal reading meetings. You go to a reading meeting at the conference and you may want to hear from Robert, but you get stuck maybe listening to me, or you may want to hear from Paul, and Paul doesn't want to say anything that day. Well, in my reading meetings, you know, I just pick who I want to be in my meeting and I get a book out on whatever I'm reading and I can.
You know, I have my own full deal there. I, I find it very, I've been doing it many years then I, I think it's profitable.
But my point is this is that it's we need to pay attention, even when we're young, to our personal relationship with the Lord. It's the way we started by faith. We started and we came in one by one. We're usually baptized one by one. We asked for our place at the Lord's Table 1 by 1.
And at the end of our course, let's turn to Romans chapter 14.
Romans 14 just to read part of one verse.
Well, part of two verses, Romans 14, the end of verse 10. We shall all stand.
Before the judgment seat of Christ, that's everybody.
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But then we read in the next verse, verse 11.
For it is written as I live, saith the Lord. Every knee shall bow to me.
And every tongue shall confess to God, so that everyone of us shall give account of himself to God.
Keep account of himself.
And this is an important side of things.
Each of us has the Spirit of God and dwelling.
Each of us has a conscience. Most of us can read. Can you read? It can read. So probably all of us can read the scriptures. We've got the whole package.
And God is going to and does hold us responsible and accountable for what He's committed into our trust.
And it's good to kind of think of the end.
Before we get too far along and to realize that personally, I'm accountable and responsible for how I've traded with what the Lord has given to me, and you're going to have to trade and answer for how you have traded with what the Lord has given to you.
And if we turn to 1St Corinthians 12, we read, following up on Tim Ruga's talk today. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man, every person.
For the common profit.
And it says to one is given this and to another and to another, into another, into another.
And it uses the word diversity. It's kind of funny to me in the business world.
Where now it's politically correct that big companies are just kind of old fashioned, but but in big companies, they have a vice president of diversity and that's a person that's supposed to be occupied with having the right ethnicities and all the different departments of the company. And just to make sure that that white people aren't running amok and and you know.
Messing everything up and oppressing people from other ethnicities, people of color, as as we might say.
And they think, well, this is a new thing. We've invented diversity. God was, God was into diversity thousands of years ago. And it's a beautiful thing in the Church of God. And not only do we come from different races and both genders and we come from all different countries and walks of life, but he fits it all together perfectly and.
And there is diversity in the Church of God well.
I want to say this.
And the reason I emphasize this is because you know, a lot of a lot of you younger brothers and sisters, you look like you're going to go on well with the Lord.
And and you look like you like to be together.
And you look like if there's enough of you together in one place, you're going to be together collectively and you're going to go on together. And that's a happy thing.
But we need to be careful that we don't kind of lose our individual sense of responsibility and our individual conscience before the Lord. We need to maintain that side while being active on the collective side. And I'm not encouraging you to say, well, I, I don't get that much out of the reading meeting. So I'm just going to stay home and, and do what Bruce does and have his own personal Bible reading, No.
That is not that would not, that is not the Lords mind. It's a collective path, but it's made-up of individuals that each of us needs to have and we do have, whether we are cultivating it or not, a personal responsibility for the Lord. One of the biggest mistakes I speak at at our company's university.
And my call once a while, my colleague, where are you going? Well, I have to go speak at Kiewit University. It's a company university.
What do you talk about? I say, well, it's easy. I said. I just go and talk about all the dumb things I did and all the mistakes I made, and I tell all these young leaders, these young managers, not to do what I did. I said it's simple.
It's actually a little different than that, but that's the thrust of it.
And we we that are older, it's humbling to to think back about some of the.
Mistakes and dumb things.
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That we did, sometimes well meaning and sometimes just asleep at the wheel and.
Fall asleep.
But one of the mistakes that then I felt feel really humbled about raising a family of kids. And sometimes I just, I kind of substituted what I thought other people thought we should do as a family.
And I substitute that for what I should be getting from the Lord and putting into practice in my family. And I don't fault the brethren for that to say you, you brothers and sisters, you look like you really want to go on well, and that's good. But remember, you need primarily to get your instructions from the Lord himself.
And seek to carry that out.
With the Lord's help and guidance from his word, and yes, you're going to get, you know, as iron sharpeneth iron, so does the man, the countenance of his friend and our brethren in the assembly, especially the local assembly, that where where I was first saved and gathered. They used to call it the rock Tumblr. Because you put in these rough little rocks into one of those things and then you plug it in. It goes round and round forever and it takes off the rough edges.
And they called the, I don't know why they thought I had rough edges, but I guess I, I do and did. And anyway, that's, that's, that's a needful aspect. But the other side is important. And so I'm not going to have to give account before the Lord of what, how the Saks family raised their children or what decisions they made.
For the gorgeous family or the Porter family?
I have to give account for myself and to do that I need to be fresh and straight and open before the Lord is so important, so important. And I, I didn't do a good job at that. I really confess. I, I guess I was so zealous for, for the collective side and I just thought, well, you know, whatever everybody else is doing is going to be right.
And it's not necessarily so.
I believe that the Lord, because of the diversity and each one of us is unique and different in the body of Christ, that you need to look specifically for how the Lord would have you apply the principles of the Word of God which don't change. We're still part of the faith which was once delivered to the Saints and God is no respecter of persons and we all operate spiritually under the same principles. That will never change.
But the application of these principles in the New Testament is left wonderfully vague.
Oftentimes, so that you and you and I need exercise before the Lord personally with the Spirit of God indwelling to apply those principles in the way that the Lord would have us do so. And that's why heaven is going to be filled with all these bright gems. And that's why it says in First Corinthians 15 one star different from another star in glory. They're not just all the same or cookie cutters.
And as you display what you've gleaned from being before the Lord according to the principles of the Word of God.
Then you're going to have as it says in the Book of Galatians.
Then shall you have rejoicing in yourself alone and not another?
Because yes, we bear one anothers burdens. That's what we had today in Hebrews 12 when somebody is the man that wrecks got his car or the family that ran into difficult times. We circled the wagons. We bear one another's burdens. But few verses later it's a different type of burden and it's every man shall bear his own burden. You have a different burden than I have that I have to look to the Lord for wisdom and grace to carry my burden and you can't.
For me, that's the personal side. So in closing, just Revelation chapter 2.
And most of you are familiar with the seven churches there that are described, 7 assemblies in Revelation 2 and three, and they can be looked at in different ways. But what I just point out in closing here is the striking way in which the Lord would speak to the collective testimony there. But then He would sit, He would hold out encouragement for the overcomers.
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And so just to pick an example, I will pick I will pick Pergamos the third church in the end of chapter 2.
And there were some things going on there that were distressing the doctrine of Balaam, the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, and so on. And the Lord warns them about that. But notice what he says in verse 17. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches, to them that overcome, no, to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a whitestone.
And in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it.
The encouragement here to the overcomer is a token or representative.
Of your unique and special relationship with the Lord, I believe He's going to give the overcomer, the believer in that day, just a stone that's going to have a name on it, a new name. And it's just going to be characteristic. It's just going to, it's just going to, I think connect immediately. It just is out. And that's the Lord's acknowledgement that He knows. He has known our individual pathway all the way through.
Later on in Chapter 3.
To the last church, the Laodiceans.
There's not much that he can commend, and this church really is is a picture of the Christian testimony today that we're all part of.
We're all part of and sadly.
This church says I am rich and increased with goods and so on.
And yet it's characterized by not having.
By lacking everything.
That a Christian should have.
And so in verse 18I counseled thee to buy of me gold in the fire, that thou mayst be rich and white raiment.
The shame of thy nakedness not appear. Anointed eyes. All these things. Discernment.
Spiritual riches, all these things were lacking.
But what does he go on to say? As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. We had that before us today. Be zealous therefore, and repent. And here it is. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
And if any man, again it's individual, hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will suck with him and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and I'm sat down with my father in his throne.
Well.
Say there are.
The way the Lord has established the church as the collective entity is just sublime. The way you have local assemblies and local oversight and yet you have gift interspersed throughout the body. And the way order is established in a spiritual way, it's just sublime. And it's also a house.
And we have the collective and we also have the individual, and they're kind of woven together.
All of this is very supply, but as I say, I want to just leave you with one thought, everyone of us.
Young and old.
The Lord comes tonight. These little guys here, they're not going to have the opportunity to be.
Young people like you know what does young ones, young people start 16141313 OK, you're not 13 yet, are you? So you're a whole Christian life may be spent, you know, before you're 13. It's it's it's exercising.
And so so it is so we all need young and old need to be exercised before the Lord because every one of us, when we get home to heaven, we're going to be before the Lord. We're going to give account of ourselves before God. And our desire for one another is that that would be a happy and rewarding.
Experience one way or another is just going to be excellent. I really look forward to it.
All the hard questions will be answered.
And we'll see his value. Sometimes we're not sure how to value something. You're going to see exactly the perfect value that he's put on everything. And some things that we didn't value that much, he'll show that he valued it a lot. Some things we think are pretty cool. We want to put it up on our shelf.
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That's got to go. So, so be it. That's the way it's going to be, right? All right. Well, I've said what I wanted to say, so let's just commend ourselves to the board.
Lord Jesus, we thank thee, we marvel at the.
Wisdom of Thy ways with us. We thank Thee for the great privilege to have been brought to Thee to be members of Thy body, and to be called by Thy name.
And we thank Thee for the privileges we've enjoyed, these special privileges in these last days to be gathered together, Lord Jesus, unto thy worthy name during this time of thy rejection. But help us, Lord Jesus, to not lose sight of our individual privileges, our individual responsibilities before Thee, that we might walk here to please Thee. We might be a help one to another.
And we thank thee that we have every resource needed from thee and in thyself.
So we just commend this time to thee. We give thee thanks.
Praise thee, thank Thee for all I love, my worthy and precious name, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen.