Address—Ron Klassen Jr.
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Before we begin, I have an apology to make when my when our local brethren asked if I would take this last meeting, they added with that that you can have the liberty to speak whatever you feel is the Lord is laid on your heart. So although it's scheduled as a gospel meeting, I trust you will forgive me that that is not primarily.
What I feel, the Lord has put on my heart.
And I would say in that regard that in the last two nights we've heard clear and faithful gospel meetings. I don't know what else I could say tonight in regard to the gospel. And yet I know that the Lord is able to use whatever he wants. And certainly if you're here tonight and you don't know him as your Savior.
I trust that something that the Spirit of God would use.
Could be for your salvation, as we've been reminded.
God is such a giver and to think of saying no to Him.
What you'll lose out on?
South. With that in mind, and because I would like to speak tonight or this afternoon on the subject of response, we have this paper.
Copied out and I just like to sing together Number 75. Maybe a brother could start that for us.
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I think we all enjoyed yesterday.
If I can put it in the words of the Lord Jesus, He spoke to that woman in John 4.
If thou knewest God is a giver, you would ask of him.
And he would have given to the living water.
What a subject that we ponder. God is a giver and the gifts that He is.
Poured out freely and in his matchless grace.
Recently at home, we've gone through the book of Romans.
And in those early chapters.
Being.
Realizing that if we were going to come into the blessing of God.
We were helpless to get it on our own. If it was by righteousness, we had none.
And yet to learn that God did have for us a wonderful salvation, but it was completely by grace and through faith.
And then we got to the 8th chapter and I was just overwhelmed as we went through that chapter.
Of now that he is free to bless us on his own grounds and we just come as beggars.
All that he wanted to pour out. So it really will be just for a few moments, something of really what we had yesterday just to recount.
What God has poured out to us as His own, freely, by His matchless grace, I've enjoyed.
Definition of grace that someone gave.
They said.
Grace is Love's indulgence.
Just it's love pouring out, being indulgent as much as it can. And I believe that that's what we find in this chapter. And we'll just touch on a few things because that's not primarily what's on my heart, but I think an important beginning we we were reminded yesterday.
Verse 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. And verse 9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be the Spirit of God, dwell in you.
A wonderful result.
Of salvation by faith is that God imparts.
To each individual.
His indwelling spirit to abide until the day of redemption.
Isn't that amazing? A very person of a Godhead.
He gives us to reside, to lead us, as we have later on in these verses.
To seal us because he's made us his.
And no one could take us from him.
Verse 15 for ye have not received the spirit of ******* again to fear that's what we.
Were helplessly in ******* to sin and to Satan. But ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ABBA Father.
Yes, this spirit of God that indwells us.
He tells us. He gives us to know in a most blessed way that God is our Father now.
God is our Father.
We're his children.
How can it be?
You know, you may desire to show kindness to maybe a boy on the street.
And I've, you know, given them a little gift, a little something and.
Spoken to them about the Lord and then I went on.
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But if you wanted to, really.
Show your love to someone in great need and poverty.
Imagine doing what God has done.
To not just give us many things and to give us a nice house that we could stay in.
Or whatever, but to make us his very own children. Can you love more than that?
And he's going to take his very own children to his very own house.
That's what he's purposed.
Verse 17 And if children, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be, that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.
If children.
Thin air.
Errors of all that God has.
Joint heirs.
With our Lord Jesus Christ.
Is striving for something today.
It was exercising.
What we heard yesterday in regard to riches, or some particular, as we just heard idle, that our hearts are pursuing after.
To be reminded that the danger in that thing is so much greater than we realize.
The power of it and how it will plunge men into.
To destruction and perdition. How it will blind.
And everything is ours already. Are we struggling so hard to get some particular thing?
And God tells us, you know, as my children, you're going to inherit all things.
Verse 28.
We know.
We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.
To them who are the called according to his purpose.
Imagine that in each and everyone of our lives as the children of God.
Because we are the children of God. God is working. I love that we just heard. I will, I will.
He's working so that everything in our life is working together for our good.
Everything what?
A consolation. What an encouragement to know that as we pass through and we were reminded that we don't know what's ahead, it doesn't look good.
But whatever is ahead, and however the power of Satan forges forward in the in the powers of evil, we can know because God is God and because his love never changes, that everything that is in our life that he allows in our life, that he works in our life is for our good.
Verse 29 For whom He did foreknow, He did all. He also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren.
You ever wanted to be someone great?
Something great? Well.
If you're one of his children, he's dusting you for the the greatest thing.
And that's to be just like his son.
Have you ever heard this quote before?
Every spiritual blessing.
That God has given us in Christ.
Is an apex beyond which even God himself could not go.
Every spiritual blessing that God has given us, He gave us. If I could say this to the Max.
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Not even 3/4. It's the highest that he could go, and then he poured it out on us freely.
Verse 34 in the middle of verse, who also make us intercept. Well, let's look at verse 32. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, How shall He not with Him also freely give us?
All things.
God and all the richness of his heart didn't hold back His greatest treasure.
That's the kind of love we're loved with.
He did not spare his son, but he delivered him up.
For us all.
And he says to us, isn't that a proof that he's going to give you everything that's the best for you?
Then he speaks about the verse we read God who also makes intercession for us because in our pathway home we do fail because there are many dangers and pitfalls. He didn't just die for us, He lives for us. And when I think of him being a servant forever, I think of Him constantly.
Hebrews puts it he lives. What does he live for? He lives to make intercession for us.
You know, as you go through Romans, I think just once or twice, it speaks of the love of God.
He come to this chapter and he keeps pouring out on us and you say ha.
Another another wonderful blessing. Another wonderful place.
And then at the end he says this.
Verse 35 Because we don't have to question now whether he loves us.
He didn't say it, he proved it.
But again it says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written, for thy sake we're killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
This is very real to the apostle and to the disciples they faced.
All the day long, every day, they were their life was endangered.
But the question will any of these things distress famine, Things that, you know, we fear?
Nakedness or peril or sword, Will that separate us? Can it separate us from that love?
No.
If we could lose that love, we could lose, we would lose everything, but just the assurance that none of these things outward. I would say things in situations.
None of them can separate us from his love. And then there are these other things and they're, they're more fearful, I suppose.
Nay, verse 37 and all these things were more than conquerors through him that loved us, for I am persuaded that neither death.
Nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Death.
Can happen a moment.
Angels, principalities, or powers were reminded that spiritual.
Powers are having their day and will no doubt increase as the time and the day gets darker. And you know of ourselves, we can't even see them, let alone prepare ourselves for them. We're no match for these spirits.
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But this comfort to our hearts, they will never separate us from that love. Never.
If we went over to chapter 12, because there's a little parenthesis of chapters 9:10 and 11:00.
The apostle says in the light of all this.
I beseech you, by the compassions of God.
Let you yield your bodies a living sacrifice.
In view of what I've just told you, In view of all that God has poured out upon you.
Could you respond? You can respond this way.
You know the thing about love?
Because it does love its objects. It delights.
In a response.
And our God is no different.
It doesn't change his love, but it does delight his heart.
What is our response?
To this love.
These superlatives, so these mighty glorious.
Stupendous blessings.
That are ours irrevocably.
Let's go back to the minor prophets.
Very last one, the Book of Malachi.
This was Israel's response to all that God did for them.
Perhaps as we read a few of these things and I just want to pull out a verse here and there.
We can identify.
With his people of old, he begins in verse two of chapter one. I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us?
You know the book of Malachi is unique.
In the Book of, Havoc said I'm going to go and stand on my watch and hear what he says to me and what I shall answer him.
But when you get to Malachi.
The Lord answers for them.
The omniscient God.
Answers for them and you know, it's very searching.
If God has the omniscient God who knows me through and through as we had, he observes and he hears, and he knows me.
He has to answer for me.
Why? Perhaps it's because I'm not being honest.
Perhaps it's because I'm so blind, but I don't really realize.
And so he says, ye say he's answering for them.
Ye say.
Wherein how Saul loved us? How have you loved us? Can you imagine that after what we've just read in Romans 8?
How have you loved us?
You know when Jude writes, he says keep yourselves in the love of God because he knew the closer the day of apostasy becomes, the greater the danger of losing a sense of the love of God and that makes you vulnerable for the at least to be affected by the spirit of apostasy.
And that day is come drawing near.
If you begin to feel.
Let the Lord you're questioning whether he loves you.
Back in His presence, Go back to Romans 8 and cry out to Him as we just had. What idol is is robbing the Lord of my heart? How could he show any more how much he loved us?
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First, let's start in the middle of verse 6. All priests that despise my name. And ye say we're in, have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar, and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? And that ye say the table of the Lord is contemptible. And if he offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if he offer the lame and sick, is it not evil?
Offer it now until thy governor, will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person, saith the Lord of Hosts.
He says offer to me.
Offer to the governor what you're offering to me. Will he accept it?
Brethren, are we so careful to make sure the government's requirements are being given to him and then leaving the rest whatever's leftover for the Lord?
Verse 9 says, And now I pray you, beseech God, that you will be gracious unto us.
We say, well, we got to make sure the governor is satisfied and then we say the Lord understands. Yes, he does.
Understands very clearly.
What our priorities are.
The table of the Lord.
Polluted.
Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naughty?
Neither do ye Kindle Fire on mine altar for not.
I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of Hosts. Neither will I accept an offering.
At your hand.
You won't go and open the House of the Lord.
And then close it again.
The Lord's presence is not virtual.
And neither can it be adopted to that mode.
You know, the equivalent of Malachi for the Christian dispensation we know is the Church of Laodicea.
And again, really the Lord.
I said to his sister one time, I've never heard anyone say I'm rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.
Maybe we don't live in the time period of Laodicea, she said. I'll tell you how we say that. We say that we come to the prayer meeting and.
And we there's a few things expressed of needs of our brother and that's very proper in its place. And then we pray for that and maybe a thing or two more and then a brother says Amen. And there's a few Amen, she said. That's how we how we say we're rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. You know what really?
Affected my heart. I don't think Leia to see has said that verbally.
But again, the Lord who knows our hearts and who cares?
He says it for them.
Is it possible, beloved, that?
We like Laodicea.
You can find out a way.
To go on without him.
Maybe there's more attendance that way.
I know there are some of our brethren that drive almost an hour to get to meeting and then you turn around and drive almost an hour to get home.
I feel for that, I do.
But who's there and what did he do for us?
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The table of the Lord is polluted.
Did they say that? He said you did by what you're offering me?
Verse 12. Verse 11. For from the rising of the sun, even to the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the heathen.
God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the Saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are about Him. He's worthy of the best offering of a pure offering, one that comes truly from self judged hearts.
But ye have profaned that ye say the table of the Lord is polluted, and the fruit thereof, his meat is contemptible.
Ye said also behold what a weariness it is.
Not very long ago a sister said to me, we don't travel much.
But the few times that we have.
We go to another assembly and she said, Lord, stay mourning at the end of the meeting. I'm overwhelmed.
The sense of the Lord's presence and the leading, the precious leading of the Spirit of God, she.
She said. Then we come home.
And I have to say, it's dead.
And she was weeping and she didn't have a critical spirit.
And I've been there.
And I know what she's talking about.
The table of the Lord is polluted because of what's being offered there. You know, in the chapter two he says it starts out and now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you.
If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts.
I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yeah, I have cursed them already.
Because you do not lay it to heart.
The priests. The priests were to represent God to the people, and the people to God.
And you know, the sisters, they can't speak up and change that.
They're just there.
But to see her weeping?
All ye priests, a brother told me just recently. He said I was listening to an old meeting.
Reading meaning and he said a brother just said a simple thought, but he said it really stuck with me. He said, you know, when the the light of testimony goes out in a place, it's not all at once, perhaps it begins to flicker like it did in Samuel's day.
And then perhaps goes completely out.
He said who's responsible for bringing the oil for the lamb?
The people are.
Everyone of us.
As we have the privilege to go and be where the Lord is in the midst, you know, he says here I'm a great king. We know he's even more than that as the Son of God.
So Brother Wally said, is there anything more precious than just simply meeting around the person of the Lord Jesus gathered to just his precious name? Why does it seem to lose its luster?
Why do we feel we wouldn't say it, but it's a weariness?
It's because.
There hasn't been that being before the Lord and how the Spirit of God, that oil given and then and then we take it and there is led by the Spirit of God, it comes out and there's that light reflected on the Candlestick and that's what will sustain our hearts and that's what will feed our hearts.
That's missing, but it's from the people. The priest didn't supply that.
But again.
As priests, everyone of us, what are we bringing?
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This commandment, O priests, is for you.
Our time is going quickly. I want to go on to chapter 3 and verse eight. Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But you say, wherein have we rocked thee? Entice and offerings.
You are cursed with a curse, for you've robbed me even this whole nation. Now this verse bringing all the ties into the storehouse.
That there may be meat in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive that, doesn't that touch our hearts?
He can. He speaks of their state and their attitude and their weariness and their.
Sad response to his love but he said prove me now.
Prove me.
It's still good. It's still good if you just bring from your hearts.
The Tide into the storehouse. I'll give you what you need and I'll.
I'll open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing. Brother prayed before this meeting.
Thanking the Lord for opening the windows of heaven and pouring us out a blessing if we're unfaithful. He abides faithful, but all does not touch our hearts.
Verse 16 Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it. And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my special treasure.
You know, these ones obviously didn't have computers, they didn't have Zoom, they didn't even have phones.
They didn't even have cars.
But they spake often one to another, and the Lord so valued it, he said. I'm going to write it down because I want you to know in that coming day how much it meant to me that there was a response.
To my love.
I just want to thank the brethren here for providing such an occasion.
Thank you.
Last year.
The Lord closed the door, but.
Even the letter that you wrote was a blessing.
A beautiful spirit.
Let's go to.
The first verses that were read at the beginning of this.
Our meetings in Genesis chapter 24.
You know I have enjoyed.
The pictures of the bride and the Old Testament, there's a number of them. They're beautiful and I, I have enjoyed it in this way, Revelation 19 says.
The marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
Now we cannot make ourselves fit for the presence of God.
But we can give expression to what?
His coming means to our hearts. Albert Hayle put it this way. He said, you know, if my wife was coming down the aisle on the day of our wedding and she had sort of a tattered, he called it a house coat, something looked like she just maybe pulled off just in time for the wedding. And Lord that he said, I would have loved her just the same, but I would have wondered what that day meant to her.
And I just have enjoyed it in these different brides that.
He's giving us a hint as to how we can make ourselves ready.
How we can let him know how much his love means to us. And we don't have the time. But if we went to the book of Ruth, we would see a bride there that that the night before the wedding, she goes down to where he is. She's cleansed, she's anointed herself, and she gets as near to him as she can as is proper.
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And as a result of that night.
During his conversation, when he realizes she's there, she says you know you have, you've, you've been.
You've done more for me at the end than at the beginning, Lord Jesus had to say to Israel. I remember for the.
The love of thine is but the kindness and the love of thine espousals when the One is after Me in the wilderness. I remember for you when, when you didn't care, you were going in a land where there was nothing but your heart and your your souls on me as your Redeemer. But you're not that way anymore. They didn't show more kindness at the last and in the beginning.
And we often don't either, But it should be. It should be like the children's verse, the path of the just as a shining light going on and brightening until the day before he come. Well, you know, I don't know if if Boaz was a little bit reticent because afraid that if he asked the near kinsman, you know, do you want to redeem Ruth, that he would say yes.
I like to think that that that night, that visit, that night when she let him know how much she meant to him.
That he wasn't going to wait, Naomi said. He's not going to wait any longer. He's going to make sure.
You know, I, we've had a number of weddings at home and I enjoy this to go up and and ask the bride to be here, the bridegroom to be well, you know, how's it going? You're pretty close and always to see their response.
I asked one today here. Well, you, what do you think of that day? He responded. I'm ready for it. I asked him why, you know, he didn't tell me. He didn't say, well, things are getting so rough at home that.
The day, that day can't come soon enough, he told me, He said. For one, I don't like saying goodbye to her, and for two, I can't wait till she's all mine.
But can I ask you this question? How many times have you heard the?
The Rapture.
A time when the Lord Jesus, our Bridegroom, is going to come and take us. How many times have you heard it referenced in this way? You know things are really getting bad.
I just heard whatever and at the end of that it's the Lords coming. Must be very near.
I sometimes wonder what he thinks.
Again, Brother Albert Hale used to say.
When did you last ask him to come?
Is the father waiting?
Because the times and the seasons are in his hand, is he waiting until the reception that his son gets will be a worthy 1?
Petersons looking for and hastening the coming. Can we hasten his coming brother?
Can we, like Ruth, make it so irresistible?
That moment is only going to happen once.
We're out of time. I was going to go to Rebecca.
This thing about Rebecca, as you look through her, you can say it's response from the very first moment the servant's picture of the Spirit of God comes to her. He says, could you give me a drink? And she said sure. And then she says I'll give your camel's drink. He said, is there any room at your house? She said there is and we've got straw and provender and you know, here's the servant, a picture of the Spirit of God delighting in that response.
To lighting.
Because he loves his master, he loves his master's son. And there comes a time when he says.
The family says, well, just at least 10 more days. And he said, let's ask her. They said, let's ask her, wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go, I will go. And so off they go.
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Let's just read the end of it.
Verse 61 of Genesis 24 And Rebecca rose and the damsels, and they rode upon the camels and followed the man, and the servant took Rebecca and went his way.
Verse 64 And Rebecca lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel, or she spring sprung off the camel. Why? For she had said unto the servant, What man is this?
That walketh in the field to meet us, and the servant has said It is my master. Therefore she took a veil and covered herself. They went many miles, no doubt. And she had been asking, what is he like?
And her heart was more and more attached to him.
Did you see him all of a sudden quickened? I'm sure they passed many people, but suddenly there was one that was very much an object of his interest. And so she says, who is this man? He says that's my master.
We're waiting. Are we watching?
You know, when he got there, she sprang off of the camel.
Into his arms.
Will there be spring with us? It's right now that that's being formed.
And a response to his.
I want to close with two verses.
Chapter 8 of Genesis.
Chapter 8.
And verse 9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him, and to the ark, skipped down a little bit. Then he put forth his hand and took her, and pulled her in onto him.
Into the ark and then in Isaiah Chapter 11.
Isaiah Chapter 11.
Verse 10. In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for the Ensign of the people.
To it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be should read glory. His rest shall be glory.
We've spoken of how the disciples, when that cloud enveloped them, they feared.
But you know.
When he, like Noah, when the Lord Jesus, reaches out and takes us as his bride to himself.
And takes us to his rest that we had.
He'll rest, he'll rest in his love, He'll joy over thee with singing.
Will be completely at home there in that glory.
His resting place shall be glory, and that will be our resting place too. But all, beloved, what spring will there be in our step?
He's so worthy.
May we like revelation, says the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. What will it be when the Spirit of God presents us to the Lord Jesus?
And we see the delight of his heart, of that which he paid such a price for. And as we have this morning, he still remembers what he paid for it. He takes it to himself, like Isaac did that day, and into his glory, and loves us forever.