Address—Bill Prost
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Good afternoon.
Could we sing together the 1St 3 verses of #168?
168 Very beautiful hymn.
Reading Verse.
Three What is loss?
In this world, when compared to that day, to the glory.
That then will from heaven be revealed 168.
Just the 1St 3 verses.
Turn with me, please, to the 20th chapter of the book of Acts, Acts, Chapter 20.
Before we read this chapter.
Perhaps I can make a few introductory remarks.
A few days ago, just before these meetings began.
Some of us had.
A rather emotional.
Conversation over the state of things in this world and perhaps more to the point, the state of things among believers.
And perhaps more specifically, the state of things among those of us that are privileged to be gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In that conversation, it was brought out and most of us didn't need to be reminded of it. How that the days are becoming more difficult for believers in every part of the world. In some places there is savage and.
Very real persecution for the name of Christ. It seems that Satan is doing his best.
To try and stop the spread of the gospel.
We thank the Lord that it's going forth perhaps as never before. But in these favored lands, as our late brother Eric Smith used to call them, we have different problems. We have the liberty to come together like this. We don't have any fear that someone's going to come in the door and stop us or take us off to prison.
But on the other hand, there are attacks made from other angles.
Life is becoming more difficult.
And it is becoming more and more difficult to stand for that which God has given us in His precious Word.
Young families are finding more difficult.
To raise their children in the fear of the Lord because of what is going on in the world around what is going on in the school system.
What young people and children are being exposed to not only in school, but through the Internet and every other form of social media.
The list could go on and on, and we who are older are not immune to all of this.
Because Satan is attacking us too.
I was so thankful that it was brought out in the reading the readings yesterday that there is a path for faith.
Through all of this because the Lord knew exactly what the last days were going to be like.
Let's read here in Acts 20 a little bit of background.
The apostle Paul had more or less come to the end.
Of his public ministry.
Oh, I don't say that he didn't have some ministry after this. He did and we are very thankful that when he was a prisoner in Rome shortly after this.
He wrote some of the epistles which we are enjoying today.
We know that after this he did appear publicly before Kings and.
People in positions of power and authority. But more or less, his ministry was winding down. He's on his way up to Jerusalem, and on the way there he calls for the elders of the assembly at Ephesus.
I've tried to picture that scene.
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Here was Paul he calls himself in one place, Paul the aged.
He was probably a fair amount younger than I am when he said that.
But he had been through hardships and difficulties that most of us have never faced, and he was probably, in that sense, physically at least, old before his time.
But here he is calling for these elders of the assembly, where perhaps he had.
Ministered more truth.
And in more depth than any other place.
And he wants to have one final visit with them because he doesn't think that he'll see their faces again, nor is there any record in Scripture that he did. So let's begin to read.
From verse 17 of Acts 20.
And from Melitus.
Not at all to be confused with the island of Melita, on which Paul was shipwrecked. This is a different place. He sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church, and when they were come to him, he said unto them, You know from the first day that I came into Asia after what manner I have been with you at all seasons.
Serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many.
Tears and temptations which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews.
And how I kept about nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you and have taught you publicly.
And from house to house.
Testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
And now behold, I go bound in the Spirit under Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there.
Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.
But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the Kingdom of God, shall see my face no more.
Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men.
For I have not shunned to declare unto you.
All the counsel of God.
Take heed there, for unto yourselves, and do all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers.
To feed the Church of God.
Which he hath purchased with his own blood.
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
Therefore, watch.
And remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears.
And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace.
Which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.
I have coveted no man's silver or gold or apparel.
Yeah, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.
I have showed you all things, how that so laboring ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said it is more blessed to give than to receive.
And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down and prayed with the mall.
And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him.
Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake.
That they should see his face no more.
And they accompanied him into or unto the ship.
It isn't my intention to go through this chapter verse by verse and comment on each one.
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But rather to look at some of the high points here.
That, I trust, will have a message for all of us, whether we are older or middle-aged or young people or young families or perhaps even the children.
Yes, you can get something out of an address.
Allow me to say, and I don't say it's any credit to me, but I can remember today listening to an address when I was seven years old, a young people's address, and how it took hold of me even at that age. Why? Why did it take such hold of me? Because the brother who spoke spoke on Josiah.
Who became king when he was eight years old.
And I remember thinking, wow, and I'm seven, I'll be 8 next year.
This man, this boy had to be king at 8 years old.
I listened.
But in this chapter we are talking about a man who is winding down his ministry for the Lord.
And I believe the way he ministered has a voice to each one of us in these last days.
And the first word Paul says in verse 19 is.
Serving the Lord with all humility of might.
We're not going to dwell on that except to call attention to it.
And to say.
And maybe I have been guilty of it.
That pride has done more damage in the Church of God, and especially in these last days.
Than perhaps anything else.
A dear brother once made this remark many years ago. It stuck with me.
He said, referring to those gathered to the Lord's name in these last days.
He said how inappropriate it is.
For us to be lifting up our heads in pride and boasting of the great things that we have done.
Just at a time when God has shone the light on everything in Christendom and made us realize how little we have done and how much we have failed.
May we all take that to heart. Humility of mind.
I know I'm quoting different brethren. Pardon that.
Someone else has said.
That to talk about separation without being humbled is to make fertile soil for one of the most noxious weeds in the human heart, and that is sectarianism.
Very, very sad. Let's remember that. And let's remember that when Paul said these things.
He said them not merely as a minister of Christ, although he was that.
He said them as the one whom we might call the standard bearer for the dispensation of grace.
That's why Paul could, say, be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. He didn't mean that he never made a mistake, and he wasn't suggesting that others should follow him into his failure. But the lifestyle and the pattern of Paul's life was a pattern for those who had a heavenly calling.
But who walked down the pathway in this walk, the pathway down here in this world?
Faithful to the Lord in the world, but not of it.
In all humility of mind, and yet in all the dignity that characterized one who recognized his place as a sun and air of God.
That takes real communion with the Lord.
Secondly, it says many tears.
I have seen many people shed tears.
I don't cry easily. Those that know me know very well that that doesn't happen very often.
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But do we shed tears?
For the right reasons. I've seen many people shed tears because of how circumstances affected them, and that's not wrong.
As long as those tears do not have my will involved in them.
Remember that, please, And I speak to my own heart. It's all right to shed tears for circumstances in your own life, as long as your will is not connected with them.
What do I mean by will connected with them?
Pardon a medical story. When I was on duty in the emergency ward in the hospital where I worked, I can well remember a man being brought in.
And he was beyond anything that we could do. He was dead on arrival. And it was no, there was nothing more we could do for him. But the story was pitiful. He had been on the side of the road of the Queen Elizabeth Way, which is a four lane highway that went right past the hospital.
And he had had a flat tire pulled over to the side. And he wasn't a young man, but he was capable of changing a tire, as most people in my generation knew how to do. And he was there with his wife, engaged in getting the spare out of the trunk.
And all of a sudden, he heard a blast on an air horn, apparently.
Turned around to see that there was what we call in Canada, a tractor trailer. What you call a semi down here, same thing.
It had lost a wheel and that wheel was hurtling straight for him at 60 or 70 miles an hour.
The truck driver knew what was going to happen and all he could do was blast his horn.
That man turned around, saw that wheel on top of him, gave his wife a tremendous shove, sent her head over heels into the ditch and smack and he was gone.
But what I could not help and I did shed tears that time.
Seeing his son who got a phone call that his father had been in a serious car accident, and seeing the tears flowing down that son's face. But were they tears of the right kind? I didn't blame him in one sense. I doubt if he was a Christian. I can still see him standing there in the emergency ward.
Smashing his fists against the wall in frustration and anger.
That such an event should have occurred, his father taken away so violently and so suddenly.
Why me? Why did this happen to me? Those aren't the kind of tears we should be shedding.
Why did Paul shed these tears? He shed them.
Because he knew what was going to happen. He saw on the horizon.
The giving up of that precious truth that he had labored so strenuously to teach.
He served with many tears. May we do the same.
And temptations.
Now the word temptation is used in two ways in the word of God. Sometimes it means being tempted with evil, tempted to sin.
But that's not the thought here. I don't think that's what Paul means here. The thought of temptation has more the thought of testing. Testing.
If you and I seek to follow the Lord, we are going to be tested on it.
And it's interesting here that Paul says, which befell me by the lying in weight of the Jews.
Yes, the Jews.
Were on Paul's trail, if we could say that, all his life. Many times they sought to kill him, which they, as far as we know, never succeeded in doing. It's very likely that Paul was executed by the Romans.
But they were always after Paul.
And.
We don't want to go into the details of it, but we will mention it later in this chapter.
Paul actually did fall into a bit of a snare that I believe Satan had set for him because those Jews were so fanatical and so attached to their religion. And Paul, having been raised in the Jewish religion, realized this and he thought he could reach them by accommodating them.
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And what happened? Paul went up to Jerusalem and those in Jerusalem said Paul, if you want to reach the Jews.
Here's what you need to do, and we won't go into it, but they said, Paul, they're all zealous of the law. So if you'll go along with some of them and purify yourselves with some men that have a vow and so on and go into the temple, everybody will calm down and they'll all realize that you're behaving like a good Jew even though you're a Christian.
Who are we?
To sit in judgment on Paul.
But he was wrong.
And it didn't work. It only caused all kinds of trouble, and the brethren had witnessed to him that way.
Are you and I in danger of the same temptations? Not quite the same.
But the importing of Judaizing principles into the church has gone on throughout the Christian dispensation, and it's going on today.
We are facing a different problem. We are facing covenant theology, and it's sweeping Christendom today.
And it's making Jews out of Christians. It's making Jews out of Christians because the Jews in the Old Testament were to lay claim to the world in the name of the Lord. And now Christians are being told that they are the extension of Israel today, and they're to go out and straighten this world out and get it ready for God's Kingdom.
It's Judaism being imported into Christianity.
John has some strong words for that in Revelation chapter 3 in the address to Philadelphia.
He calls that kind of thing a synagogue of Satan. Ouch. Strong words, but their scripture. Why? Because Satan knows that if he can bring the church down to the level of a worldly religion, it will lose its effectiveness. Let's remember that.
Well, as we go on here, we find that Paul in confidence could say that he had kept back nothing that was profitable.
He had been faithful in committing all those precious revelations.
From a risen Christ in glory.
Not just to Ephesus, but to other brethren as well.
And may I say that God and His goodness and in His grace has restored that precious truth to us in these last days. I ask my own heart. I ask your heart.
Do we remember it?
Do we value it?
And don't think that you can look at someone like me.
Who is getting older now and think, well, he's immune to all that kind of stuff.
Were never immune to the attacks of Satan and I can remember when I was young seeing another man and all reminisce a little bit. Another man who didn't shed tears very, very easily.
John L Erisman. Would you agree with that, Bob, that he didn't cry easily? He didn't.
But I saw him do it once.
When he was ministering on this very subject, not this chapter, but this very subject.
And he said I trust.
That if I'm left here till the Lord comes, I'll be found.
Faithfully going on with that which the Lord has committed to me. And there was a tear or two running down his face.
Never saw it happen before or after.
Anyway, the point is here that Paul says in verse 22.
And let's read it a little differently here, because this is not the Spirit of God about which Paul is speaking. It should read. And now behold, I go, bound in my spirit under Jerusalem.
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He didn't have the mind of the Lord in going there. It was Paul's spirit. He was so anxious to reach his own nation, the Jews, even though the Lord had told him to depart out of Jerusalem. And you go to the Gentiles, Paul.
He wanted to make, if we could put it this way, one last real attempt to reach his own nation.
We could admire that, even though it was not the Lord's mind.
But there was failure there.
His brethren had been admonishing him all the way up to Jerusalem. Paul, don't go. No, Paul, don't go there.
One man even took a piece of Paul's clothing and bound his hands and feet and said now this is what they're going to do to the man that owns this piece of clothing.
Paul should have listened.
And he didn't.
But it hits a big **** and this is what I want to emphasize. God wasn't finished with Paul. God was still going to use him in spite of failure. And many others continued to honor Paul. And when he was in Rome, he wrote some of those beautiful epistles that we have today.
I want to make a comment on this.
If I may, to some of the young people.
If you look at your older brethren.
You're going to see failure.
And it's easy to discount them on account of that failure.
Recognize the failure? Yes.
One time a young man said something to his father.
About an older brother who had obviously failed.
In his father's comment to him was good, he said Son.
It says whose faith follow, referring to Hebrews 13. It says whose faith follow, not whose failures follow.
That was good.
If you find young people that some of your older brethren fail, and maybe sometimes the way they minister, the truth doesn't really get home to your soul and they seem out of touch with the world in which you live.
Try and look for what is of Christ.
Because you can learn more than you think from some of those older brethren.
And you know what will make a big difference?
Reach out to them. Reach out to them.
Tell you a story.
Quite a few years ago now, there was a brother older than I, not a whole lot older, but he was older.
And more than once, I don't mind saying he roughed me up.
And not just a little bit either. He roughed me up well.
And as a result of that.
I did not. I'm very thankful to say, and I say it with I trust all humility. I did not react.
In a way to say anything back to him. I listened to what he had to say. I took it to the Lord.
And after a long time, came to the conclusion.
That about 90% of what he had said to me was wide of the mark.
He had misunderstood me.
Which was all right.
Maybe I needed the roughing up, but what he said to me.
He really didn't understand.
And I think he got the impression that as a result of that roughing up that I didn't like him.
And the time came when he got older and his health started to fail.
And I can well remember having a conversation with him and his talking about that and about how he probably didn't have any longer or much to very much longer down here.
And I said to him, and I really meant it. I said, well, I'm going to pray that the Lord will come in and strengthen you. I said, because we need you around a little bit longer.
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I wasn't expecting it.
But you know, it was amazing how his attitude changed after that. I couldn't help but notice the difference.
I had appreciated him and I did. I did, even though perhaps he had said some things that were the result of not really understanding someone who was younger and so on.
Reach out to older ones and try and understand, and if they say things, perhaps that isn't quite on the mark. Remember that they didn't grow up in the same generation that you did, and the world is changing rapidly.
Let's go on here.
It says in verse 14, none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself and.
Here's the phrase that I want to emphasize so that I might finish my course with joy.
Now if you look in the Darby translation, I believe the words with joy are left out.
It simply finished my course.
And we won't turn to it. But if we went to second Timothy, chapter four, we would find Paul saying, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Pardon me.
Why is it not necessary to put the words with joy in?
Oh, because if we finish the course, the Lord has set out for us.
It will be with joy.
May I say.
That it pains me.
To see how many dear believers are not finishing the course.
That the Lord has set out for them. In one sense, we all finish our course. I know that.
Every true believer will be in glory. Every true believer will enjoy the fullness of blessing in that day.
But there is a course that the Lord has set out for you and for me down here.
And it has been recognized even in worldly circles how important that is.
Maybe some of you have heard me quote this before, but it's.
A true quotation came from an English sea captain who lived back in the 1500s by the name of Sir Francis Drake.
Even though he was.
In some ways, a bit of a Rascal, he may have been a believer.
And he used to pray something like this. Oh Lord God, when thou giveest to thy servants to endeavor any great matter.
Give us also to know that it is not the beginning, but the continuing of the same until it be thoroughly finished.
That yieldeth the true glory.
Yes, God will reward whatever faithfulness there is in your life and mine, but how good to finish that course and not be turned aside from it?
How can I do that?
We're going to read on here and see.
There were three things that characterized Paul's ministry, and we aren't going to dwell on them. We'll just mention them here.
The first one is at the end of verse 24.
Did I say verse 14 when I refer to that verse before? Sorry, beg your pardon.
These are progressive bifocals, and once in a while when I look at the audience and look down, they play a little trick with me. So I beg your pardon, Verse 24.
It says the end of the verse to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
I say to each one of us here, if you want to be happy, give out the gospel.
I didn't say preach the gospel because everyone isn't called to preach publicly, especially sisters.
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But have a gospel testimony and remember this, and it's often not realized. The Scripture always presents the gospel as an individual responsibility, not an assembly responsibility. It can be collective in the sense that believers can come together with a mutual interest in the gospel and do it.
And for that reason, it's quite an order for there to be a gospel meeting.
Connected with the local assembly. But to think that that is enough and that if I attend the assembly gospel meeting, that's my gospel testimony, I believe that's a mistake. Each one of us should be.
Using every available opportunity being instant as we get in Second Timothy 4 in season and out of season.
Have a gospel outlook.
The second thing is in verse 25.
Paul goes around, he says here among whom I have gone preaching the Kingdom of God.
We had that before us yesterday, a moral state, a moral walk in keeping with those who honor and own who the rightful king is.
The world will be very quick to recognize if you and I don't exemplify the things of the Kingdom of God.
How important.
Very often believers lose their testimony in this world, and I have been guilty of it by not following the things concerning the Kingdom of God.
And finally, we have in verse 27 all the counsel of God.
Paul was the one, and we get it in Ephesians. He completed the word of God.
He completed it. What does that mean? It means in simple terms that there is no new revelation since that which God gave to the apostle Paul. Others wrote after Paul, like the apostle John and so on, and they filled in details, but there is no new revelation. Does someone come along and say I have a new revelation from God?
Does a Muhammad come along and say I have a new revelation from God?
Does someone like Mary Baker, Eddie, come along or Helen White, Ellen White or somebody like that in the 1800s and say I have a new revelation from God? Don't believe it. Paul completed the word of God and so.
We have all the counsel of God. God has told us everything that is going to happen.
He shared all his mind with us.
All the counsel of God.
And there are many dear believers. And I say this I trust again with humility. There are many dear believers today who love to enjoy.
Hearing about all the counsel of God.
But.
Then do I want to walk in a pathway?
Where all the counsel of God can be ministered.
Oh, that's another matter. It's a humbling place to be in.
Why is that?
Many years ago in a reading meeting.
And this is long before my time. I only read it.
A brother raised a question.
He said. Why is it that many dear Christians?
Do not want to hear all the counsel of God.
And a well taught brother gave a good answer. He said they will probably listen to you.
Until you want to take them to heaven.
What did he mean?
Did he mean that every believer wasn't going to be with the Lord in heaven when the Lord comes, or when we might be called upon to leave this world in death? No, that's not what he was talking about. He was talking about Ephesian truth. He was talking about the heavenly calling of the church. He was talking about the present enjoyment.
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Of the fact that we're already risen and seated in heavenly places.
That's not popular.
Why? Because it takes me out of this world. It takes me away from getting involved in the things of this world.
And if I tell this world that I am here as an ambassador, that I don't want to get involved in the things that are going on in this world.
The reaction is then we don't want your company. Oh, I don't mean that the world rejects the good things that a believer might do.
But someone who walks in the sense of his or her heavenly calling is not going.
To be popular.
All the counsel of God.
What a precious thing it is to enjoy and to walk in the good of it, and to be where that precious truth can be ministered.
Paul gives some warnings here.
And those warnings are needed more than ever today. Verse 28. Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock.
Over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the Church of God. And this last phrase is perhaps a little accurate. Again in the Darby it should read, which he hath purchased with the blood of his own.
Oh, the Church is precious to God. Why? Because it cost him the blood of his own beloved Son.
That's why the church is precious to God.
Someone has said if you want to be happy, preach the gospel and that is true. We just commented on that.
But if you want to shed many cheers, seek to serve your brethren. And that doesn't just apply to those that are so-called full time in the work of the Lord, it applies to all of us. If you are going to try and be a help to your brethren, whether you are young or old, it is going to mean tears and sorrow, yes.
And sometimes it's easy to wash my hands of that and say, why do people, why do the Saints of God need to get into so many difficulties in their lives?
Why can't they walk a better Christian pathway and quit getting into trouble?
And then the Lord may allow me to miss the path or do something and then I realize that.
Maybe I need the help and encouragement of my brethren too. No, none of us are immune to these things. And here was the Apostle Paul. Did he need encouragement? Yes. He missed the path.
But did the Lord say Paul? I guess that's it, You're finished. You went up to Jerusalem like that and I told you not to. I had multiple brethren warn you about it, and you were stubborn and you said you were going anyway.
Paul, that's it.
What does the Lord say to him in chapter 23? Just turn the page a couple?
To chapter 23.
And verse 11.
What's happened?
Paul's been arrested.
He's put in prison and he's not going to get out of prison for a number of years.
But what does the Lord say in verse 11?
And the night following, the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul, For as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
Maybe some of us have failed. I certainly have, and I say this to each one here. No matter what age you are, sometimes we have failed.
And the devil will come in and say to you, look at what you did, look at how badly you messed up. You can't do anything for the Lord anymore. You can't say anything. Everybody knows what you did.
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No.
Yes, there are consequences sometimes to our failure. There were with Paul's failure.
And there can be lifelong consequences from failure. But as I've often said before, there are no qualifications on 1St John 1:00 and 9:00. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And sometimes.
A vessel, if I could use the term that has been broken.
Is more valuable in one sense than one that perhaps is still in one piece. Why is that? Because we realize our weakness, we realize our failure, and then perhaps if someone comes along.
Who also has failed?
O that one who has also failed can go and be more of a help than one who has never been down that road. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that's a good excuse to go into sin and fail in order to be able to be a help to someone else who fails. That's not the thought, but sometimes a broken vessel.
Can be better than a one that's in one piece. Was Peter more useful to the Lord after his failure than before he was?
Because he realized what had happened to him and his ministry was characterized by the remembrance of how he had failed.
Verse 30, verse 30, or verses 29 and 30 bring before us what Paul said was going to happen to the testimony. And if you read church history, it is absolutely amazing.
How fast it happened. How quickly the truth was thrown overboard.
And how quickly.
The system of hierarchy and all the things that came into the church developed after the apostles passed off the scene. Paul warns about that. And I say to you and to me.
If we are not careful.
This same kind of thing can happen. It has been wonderful, hasn't it, what the Lord has given in blessing in the last almost 200 years. It has been wonderful to be part of that preciousness of being gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to know and to enjoy the precious truth of the one Body.
To enjoy the preciousness of the fact that the Spirit of God is here on earth, not only.
Every true believer, but dwelling collectively among believers as the House of God to realize that precious truth, and many others.
What a privilege.
But we could give it up. We could lose it.
If we're not careful Now don't get me wrong, I believe the Lord will have a Philadelphia right to the end. I believe as we get in Second Timothy 2 and 22, there will always be the with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
These warnings are needed.
But what is the remedy?
What is the remedy? How can I finish my course to go back to what we had in verse 24?
How can we avoid these pitfalls? Do we have to fall into them? Do we have to go into?
That attitude that says it's all over with, there's too much failure, too many things are happening, too many difficulties are coming in. Yes, Satan is active and sometimes we're, shall we say it, material that's a little too good for him to work on too.
What does he say in verse 32?
And we want to emphasize just a few things in the last couple of minutes.
And now, brethren, I commend you to the Local Assembly and to those dear brethren who minister to you.
That's not what it says, does it? I commend you to God.
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And of the word of his grace, two things that are never going to change.
Even the very best of your brethren can fail. Even the very best can miss the path.
The Lord will never fail.
And his word will always be there.
I say to each one of you young people, young families, the word of God must be our final authority for everything. Don't bend it, don't twist it, don't try and get out from under it. This world is corrupting the word of God and out in Christendom and we're part of Christendom. Don't let me try and isolate ourselves from them or don't let us try and isolate ourselves. We are part of the great House of.
Them. But in much of Christendom, that Word of God is being corrupted, and we can fall prey to it too.
By rationalizing our way around scripture. Oh yes, I know it says that, but.
My situation is different and well, it's just a complicated world today and this doesn't fit my situation.
Yes it does. We're never wiser than Scripture.
End of verse 35.
We wouldn't know the Lord Jesus had said this except that it's here in the Word of God.
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
That can have very wide ramifications, but.
I want to emphasize it this way.
Sometimes, as believers, we look for certain things.
That will minister to me and if it makes me feel comfortable then.
To use a common expression, then maybe I can be OK with it.
I remember talking on the phone to a dear sister. She wasn't gathered, but she was in a place where.
There wasn't, as far as I knew, an assembly gathered to the Lord's name and she was saying, well, I was just hoping there'd be a nice group of Christians that.
We're going on well and she had a bunch of things she wanted to see that had a good gospel testimony and had happy fellowship together and were going on in peaceful and quietness and enjoying the Lord together that I could be part of.
Nice desire, would God that we're always available.
But I said to her, you know, I said it has to start sometimes with individuals. It has to start with individuals. Now, I don't mind. I don't mean that she is a single sister could suddenly start forming an assembly there. But I was pointing out to her what God is saying to us here.
Christianity is characterized not so much by what it finds.
But by what it brings.
Are you finding things not quite the way you want them? Be someone who brings. That doesn't mean taking over the reading meeting and trying to shape everything the way you think it ought to be, but it means bringing Christ in it. Meanings means being a help in whichever way the Lord would lead. And above all.
Being more than doing. It's not so much what you do that counts, it's what you are.
And if what you are is right, what you do will always follow.
Be a giver.
And you'll always end up being a receiver.
And finally, one more thought here before we close.
There were other tears here at the end of the chapter.
Paul has to tell them that he doubts very much that they'll see him again. And as I said at the beginning, as far as we know from Scripture, they didn't see him again.
It would seem from the way scriptures written that perhaps Paul was released from prison after a while in Rome and was at large for a short time, how long we don't know, and perhaps was re arrested this time to be put into a much more serious situation and perhaps a more difficult prison life. But we don't have that.
Detailed in the Word of God.
00:55:00
And they sorrowed.
They really sorrowed most of all, it says.
Because they wouldn't see his face anymore. We can understand that.
We can understand some of those dear brethren who ministered to us and whom we valued.
I can remember very well getting choked up.
When a brother at the end of a gospel meeting at a conference in Montreal, Canada.
Back in 1966.
Just as a bit of an announcement said, I just heard that Brother Paul Wilson went to be with the Lord.
He was a brother I had enjoyed, learned much from, valued greatly.
Yes, I shed tears at that time.
Nothing wrong with that.
What was wrong with the tears?
The little phrase most of all.
They should have shed tears because of what Paul said in verses 29 and 30.
They should have shed tears because the grievous wolves would come in not sparing the flock. They should have shed more tears because of their own selves. Men would arise speaking perverse things. They should have shed tears because of the reality of the warnings Paul gave them.
Wasn't wrong to shed tears over Paul's departing. That was quite an order. But that little phrase, most of all, was perhaps where the problem was. And what happened? Did it happen as Paul had said? Indeed it did, because probably something like 30 years after all this was written or all this occurred.
The apostle John has to write to the assembly at Ephesus.
And tell them.
That the Lord had some things against them because they had left their first love, the very assembly whose elders were listening to all this.
None of us are immune to it all. How needful then to watch. But each one of us can do that at any age. And as I say again, without any question, we may be burdened in these last days. We may shed tears. Very appropriate we should be in all humility, but never discouraged, never discouraged.
Paul could have been a very discouraged man.
But you don't read one hint of it in anything that he ever wrote, including Two Timothy, the last epistle he wrote. Not a hint of discouragement. Why? Because he knew that what he had said and what he had done for the Lord was there as a deposit up there in glory.
And he knew, as he says in the last chapter, that he had.
He was going to or he had finished his course.
And kept the faith. You and I, I trust, will be able to say that too. Let's sing those last two verses in closing, not 168 the last two verses.
168 verse 4.
O pardon us, Lord, that our love to thy name is so faint.
With so much our affections to move.
168 versus 4:00 and 5:00, and we'll sing it to the same tune.
May I take 30 seconds to set something straight that I said in the address? And it's a small point, but I referred to the fact that Paul said that he completed the Word of God. And I think I said it was in Ephesians, and probably some of you caught that it's in Colossians.