Pella Conference: 2012
Table of Contents
Grace
Address—Don Rule
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Grace is the sweetest sound that ever reached our ears.
When conscience frowned and justice. When conscience charged injustice, frowned. Towards grace removed our fears.
His freedom to the slave, to his light and liberty It takes its terror from the grave, from death its victory.
Grace is a mine of wealth laid open to the poor.
Grace is the sovereign spring of health. Tis life forevermore of grace. Then let us sing #10.
Nsnoise.
Check me for a verse in Luke's Gospel chapter 2.
Luke's Gospel, Chapter 2.
And verse 40.
And the child Jesus grew.
And wax strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.
I'll turn over to the first chapter of Revelation.
Revelation chapter one and verse 4.
John to the seven churches which are in Asia.
Grace be unto you, and peace from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne. Now over to the last verse of the Bible, Revelation 22.
Revelation chapter 22, the last verse, verse 21. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
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So in my heart to make some remarks this afternoon on the subject of grace.
We opened with the grace.
That we see upon the person of a child.
That little child growing up in his household and God has chosen to say the grace of God was upon him. I start there, brethren, because we very often when we think about grace, refer to it as undeserved favor.
It's true in us. It is undeserved. But that little expression, true as it is, if used rightly, come short of the true sense in Scripture of what grace is.
We would never dare say that that little child was receiving undeserved favor.
That was Jesus.
And on the other hand, we don't want to say that that intent there is to say he was receiving deserved favor either.
If anyone deserved favor, he did, but the thought and grace is upon the giver more than upon the object of the giving, and the God of grace looked upon that child.
According to his own heart with favor.
With pleasure.
Did he have an easy life?
We know the answer. He did not.
He had a comparatively quiet life until he was about 30 years of age, but from that point forward.
His life was tremendously difficult.
Did the grace of God leave him?
Did he have 30 years of the grace of God and then three years and 1/2 or so without it? No. We know that the grace of God was just as full and complete upon him the last 3 1/2 years of his life as it was in the 1St 30.
We live in the day of grace, we call it.
We are recipients of the message of the gospel of grace.
We say it's a time that is in contrast to the law and the day of the law. And so in contrast to that, we're in the day of grace. But the point I want to make in the second and third places where we read about grace is this.
It's important for us to distinguish between the grace of God to us or toward us.
And the grace of God with us or in US. And this afternoon we're going to concentrate on the second of those two aspects of grace.
The grace of God with us and in us, in contrast to the grace of God to us and for us. It's interesting to me that most of the New Testament epistles begin with the grace of God to us as the wish of the writer to those to whom he was writing. Grace be unto you in peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
But almost all of them that begin with Christ end with the other aspect of it.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
And so we have in the book of the Revelation a book of judgment in a large measure, and yet the only two times in that whole book where grace is mentioned is in the beginning John says to them, grace and peace be unto you, and the very last words of Scripture for us, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you in order to see the difference.
And the time that we have, we're going to look at a few places, particularly with the grace of God with us or in US. Turn now to first Peter, chapter one.
First Peter chapter one.
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Verse ten. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired in search diligently.
Who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you?
And then down in verse 13. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, and be sober, and hope to the end for the grace which is brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's the time of His appearing.
To make the contrast between the two aspects of grace, we're gonna start with a few words about the grace of God toward us, which we're all very familiar with, I believe.
The word of God says by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. That is the gift of God.
Here in Peter he talks about the prophets had spoken that the time would come when God would act in grace toward man, and that time had come in Peter's day. And now the gospel of the grace of God was going forth, and it had reached those to whom Peter was speaking. We read in the book of Romans in chapter 5 that God acting toward us gives to us in His grace the gift of righteousness.
He also gives to us the gift of eternal life and so.
We who are in this room will put our trust in the Lord Jesus. We sit here in our seats.
With some sense in our souls of the wonderful working of God toward us.
That has saved us and given us peace with God and that we because God just chose to love us and to act toward us in that way. And so because of his great love, he is given. And grace is particularly connected with the thought of giving something because of the heart of a giver. And so God, with the greatness of his heart as the giver, has given us gifts, salvation.
Eternal life, righteousness with himself, and so on. And so it had come to them.
When we recognize that, we sit here with the enjoyment of that as a present possession that we have. We're not looking forward in that sense to some those aspects of grace. It's ours. It's ours to enjoy. It's ours to feel the love of God in our souls that is shining upon us.
Then in the 13th verse, he looks on to the future.
Not now, not today, not the day after our salvation.
But he looks on and he says, you know, we look forward to some more grace.
More work of God in his giving toward us that we haven't gotten yet. It's still future.
We're gonna see it. We're gonna experience it at the his revelation, the day of his appearing and so.
This world will look on this company in this room, all of us, I speak to you is belonging to the Lord Jesus. And they'll look at us right at the side of the Lord Jesus and they'll say, wow, what a tremendous gift of God to those people to make them the bride of Christ.
And to display them as His bride before a world. And so that isn't true today. The world doesn't look upon us that way today. And we don't yet experience the full truth of what is ahead of us yet. It's a hope, but it's a sure hope. We know that. But still it's future. And so it will be brought to us. It's the grace of God that will be brought to us at that time.
But what about between now and then?
What about the present life? This morning in the prayer meeting, several times in the hymn, and sometimes in the prayer in the opening hymn, the thought was this world is a wilderness. Why?
We don't always try to treat it that way, but we find it's that way anyways a lot of times. And so we have from the day of our salvation to go on through the experience of life to its end, or until the Lord comes and Scripture does say.
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It is a wilderness.
And Peter, particularly in the New Testament.
Is very parallel to in one Peter the Journey.
That began in Egypt for the children of Israel and took them through a wilderness.
And the end of the wilderness journey was Canaan.
For us, we can enjoy Canaan. Now, we're not going to get into that line of thought or truth, but it's seen in many senses as the end of the road, the end of life, when we are at home in heaven. And so there is the experience of passing through what's called the wilderness, experience of life. And Peter is occupied with that, particularly in this letter.
And I want to take up some remarks that he says about the experience of Grace.
If I could put it this way, the grace of God with us in the wilderness. So turn over to first Peter.
Chapter 5.
First Peter, chapter 5.
First Peter 5 and verse five. He says likewise, Ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yeah, all of you be subject to one another, and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him.
For he careth for you.
To go back to the children of Israel for a moment.
When they left Egypt and they went into the wilderness in Deuteronomy chapter 8.
He tells us why he did that.
Why he took them there, They had to go there. It was part of their life's experience.
He said I took you into the wilderness to humble you.
To prove you.
To display what's in your heart.
That's part of the wilderness of life.
We I believe in the wilderness. There may be many things but two I would just comment on. God presses your life and mind through the will so-called wilderness to show us what's in our heart.
And even more important, to show us what's in his heart.
To humble you.
Is there any pride in this room?
Part of the wilderness experience is to bring to our own realization and our own lives where there's pride.
Pride tends to make a person independent.
And in this case, independent of God.
Humbleness tends to make a person dependent, and in this case dependent upon God. And so as we pass through the wilderness of life.
Pride, if it's in US, gets exposed.
And so, he says, God resists the proud.
You know, there were times in their wilderness experience when.
God, if you will, resisted them.
And.
At the same time.
He says that journey. He says I suffered you to hunger.
I suffered due to hunger. I brought hunger into your life experience. God brings hunger into the life experiences of us in this room. God brings us through the experiences of life in our individual lives, whether we're young or middle age or old, into situations that are determined by himself that are going to bring us into a situation of hunger.
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Not necessarily physical hunger.
But a hunger of soul, of some character.
Anxiety. Uncertainty.
Hunger.
Why does he do that?
It's part of his grace.
This part of his grace.
Oh, we say grace.
In the way that always, not always, but tends to have the sense of escaping from difficult things, hard things. But the grace of God with us is not to cause us to escape.
It's to be with us in.
That through which it's necessary that our lives pass.
Here he says.
God resists the proud, but gives what to the humble grace Christ.
That is, to put it another way, brethren, there are things that can keep us from enjoying or experiencing the grace of God in our lives.
There are hindrances to walking in the sense of the grace of God and one of them's pride, and so there needs that God uses things to humble us that we may what cast our care upon him, for He cares for us.
Independent spirit of spirit that has self-reliance in it.
A spirit that may say, if all else fails, try God. God will sometimes make all else fail.
Just so we'll try him.
And then he says, cast all your care upon him. Well, we know what the words mean, but the experience of life is not always the same. And sometimes we have to go through a lot of learning, growing in grace if you will, before we really experience it. Because very often in a certain sense we say, I went to God in prayer. That's a dependence upon him to cast my care upon him. But I don't feel.
Peaceful about it after my prayers over and I go on. I still have anxiety about it and so on.
He's teaching, He's teaching we haven't perhaps learned in its fullness yet. Maybe none of us have completely, but the soul that stands in their own experience in the enjoyment of what the Scripture says, the grace of God and the grace of God with us is able enabled to leave the care there with confidence. So let's read the next verses more about it.
Verse 8 Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil is a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who have called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that she have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish strength and settle you.
To him be glory and dominion, forever and ever. Amen. Verse 12 by Sylvanus, a faithful brother unto you. I suppose I have written briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein you stand.
Few minutes ago.
Out there I noticed on the one of the tables a coupon book for Pella.
And the coupon book for Pella is you open it up.
There's a restaurant, you can use that coupon and you'll get 10% off your next meal. And if you use another coupon, you can enjoy a golf course somewhere in the area at some reduced rate and so on.
What about God's coupon book?
As soon as I saw that book, I thought, what about God's coupon book?
I suppose if we were to write a coupon book for God, we might write one that had a coupon in it that said I got sick. 1 Coupon and you'll get well.
I've got another coupon that says you will avoid some form of difficulty in your job.
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Just turn in the coupon and we would look at life that way. If we wrote the coupon book for God, that would exempt US1 exemption from a difficulty with your son or daughter and so on. We could, we could make a pretty lengthy book, I think, at least if we've been on the path of life a while.
But God doesn't have a coupon book like that.
Brethren, he has one, though.
Maybe has multiple ones, but the one I want to emphasize this afternoon is it's a coupon book and each coupon in it says, I'll give you grace for that trial.
I will give you grace to sustain you in that present circumstance in your life. I don't promise to take you out of it.
He says to them in their journey after that and maybe sometimes the after that is afterlife is over, it'll be a little while when it's all over. In some cases it may be temporary and it'll only be for a week or a month or whatever.
Umm, but it says.
Establish, strengthen, settle you the work of the grace of God in our lives is that work of God in its present form that would.
Establish, strengthen, settle our soul, not exempt us from sorrow and suffering and temptation and pain.
But rather the grace of God the Lord Jesus Christ on those two to the way to Emmaus.
He came along with them, they didn't recognize His presence with them, and He started to minister to them. His Grace.
His compassion, His care for them until their hearts had the need that they met and could meet that need. And so I believe here, that's the grace of God in which we stand.
Some have suggested those words are really an exhortation in the grace of God stand.
And it's in the sense of the present grace of God stand, not in the sense of the grace that has been brought to us or the grace that will be brought to us at the appearing, but in the present circumstances of our lives. OK, let's turn over to 2nd Corinthians.
Chapter 8.
Two Corinthians, chapter 8.
Verse One. Moreover, brethren, we do you to wet the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, how that integrate trial of affliction and abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For to their power I bear record day, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves, praying us with much entreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the Saints.
And this they did not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.
Insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also. Therefore, as ye abound in everything, in faith and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that you should abound in this grace also. I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love.
For you know, ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. We'll start with the last verse first, verse 9.
Here we see the Lord Jesus Christ, grace and truth subsists by Him. It says John One.
The Lord Jesus Christ is seen here as a giver.
He takes of the resources that have been given to him or are his by right eternally, but he takes his own resources and he dispenses them.
That's the activity of Grace.
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He dispensed what had been given to him.
Till he was poor.
Till he was poor.
Tilly didn't have, as it were.
Here in Macedonia, where a group of believers who were.
Poor. They didn't have much. They were poor.
And the apostle Paul says they were giving.
In their poverty they were giving.
And what was it it was the working of the same spirit that was in the Lord Jesus that God had worked out in them to be dispensers of that same character of grace.
Everybody in this room has resources given to them of.
It calls the spiritual gifts that are present in this room as expressions are results of the grace of God.
First Peter Four was read in the closing of the morning meeting prayer meeting and he spoke of the manifold grace of God. What is that in its context? There it was spiritual gifts that were given to the Saints.
What was the intent of them? To use them to dispense them for the blessing of others?
That's a present work of the grace of God. He is not exempting us from trial and difficulty in the normal experiences of people who pass through a sinful world, But He has entrusted to us by His grace things to give.
To one another, to our fellow man, and in the measure in which we are entering into the grace of God in our souls, practically with us, we'll be givers. We won't hoard, we won't save for the rainy day, we won't say after I this or that, then I can think about somebody else. But rather, as the Lord Jesus did, he thought about somebody else rather than himself, and he became a giver.
And he was a dispenser of the grace of God. And so with the Macedonian Saints they had received, and now they were giving. And Paul said to the Corinthians.
I look count on you, brother, and I trust that you too will manifest that same grace, that same spirit in your hearts.
Let's go over to UMM chapter 12, Second Corinthians chapter 12.
Verse seven. Unless I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and necessities and persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
It's actually these. This portion is what brought this subject before me before any other.
My grace is sufficient for thee.
My grace is sufficient. This is the present provision of grace. This isn't the salvation of the soul. This isn't the glory that shall be revealed in a coming day in the presence of the Lord Jesus. This is a grace that is necessary to get through the wilderness and for the Christian and the Christian era.
Paul, if I could go back to the coupon book, if he had a coupon that said remove one affliction, he would have used it. If he had three of them, he would have used them in this circumstance in his life three times. He said, Lord, please deliver me.
Take away this affliction in my life and the Lord gave me an answer.
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The answer was my grace is sufficient.
For you.
Paul, I'm going to leave you with that affliction, and by doing so, I am going to sustain you by my power.
And that is the expression of my grace, Paul. That's my grace to you. I will sustain you in that affliction the rest of your life by my power.
That grace that I'm going to give you to bear with it.
Will be sufficient.
It's tremendous really, how Paul responds, isn't it, brethren?
He then made the catalogue list of things that he could take pleasure in.
If this grace of the Lord Jesus would sustain him without affliction.
He could broaden it out in his thoughts and he could say, well.
Then I'll take pleasure and infirmities.
I'll take pleasure in reproaches.
I'll take pleasure in necessities.
The Lord suffered the children of Israel to hunger.
Why? Well, to teach them things, but at the same time.
Their only answer to that need was himself.
Nothing else he had to sustain them. They weren't going to have in the necessity of the bare essential of life anything that they could sustain themselves in it. And he immediately says in that same Deuteronomy 8 chapter, I fed you 40 years with manna.
I fed you 40 years with manna. That was my heart toward you.
When we look back upon life and if we enjoy it in the grace of God that is for us in our present lives, then we'll look back and say God sustain me by His grace. From the first step to the last. He provided every single resource His own grace to sustain me in whatever it was until the end.
I praise God forever for that and so there will be that spirit of praise and worship and when we are in His presence as we look back and say the manna never failed.
Never failed in all the experience of the wilderness.
And so it was here.
The experience of the apostle Paul or times quickly going by. I want to look at two more passages, the first one in First Corinthians chapter 15.
First Corinthians, chapter 15.
Verse 10.
Or verse nine will read first, For I am the least of the apostles, that I am not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
That was a present grace to the Apostle Paul. He took a man, yes, he didn't deserve the favor of God. He made him a Saint of God. He gave him great gifts.
Perhaps beyond the gifts that most of God's people will ever have in one person in this period in which we live, but.
And in fact, he had such to me, I'm really impressed with what he could say here. He had such a sense that the source of everything he was came from God, that he could without pride compare himself for the sake of the Corinthians need and say.
I labor more abundantly than any of the rest of the apostles. We would, if we heard words like that, we'd say, wow, that's a pretty high statement of pride. But it was not. It was not. It was the recognition of the work of grace and his soul that was with him that made him realize that the more abundant labor was actually the work of God in his soul, in his grace, to give him that work and to sustain him in it.
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As he did, he said I'm the least and he looked at himself, but at the same time he could say the grace of God, which is with me. I labor more abundantly than they all. Oh, brethren, there's really a complete provision for everything that God gives us in this life to do. Even though it's a wilderness experience on the one side, God has not left us here without responsibility.
To live for himself among our fellow men. To be shine as lights in this world.
And he has given to each one of us those things that he would have us use.
So Paul could say I gladly spend and be spent.
Where the grace of God isn't having its true place in our hearts, we get weary with service.
It can become a grind, it can be some something that I don't feel appreciated.
My brethren don't love me for what I'm doing for them, and so on, and we turn inward.
About it and lose the sense in our souls, we as is said in Hebrews chapter 12, lest any man fail of the grace of God, we can fail of the grace of God. And it's connected very often with bitterness. So may the Lord help us to be overcomers, to serve, thankfully, willingly spend and be spent.
As trophies of the grace of God and the salvation of our souls, but also as recipients of the sustaining grace in that which He has given us to do. OK, one last portion in Second Timothy chapter 2.
Second Timothy chapter 2. We'll just read one verse verse 2, verse one. Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace.
Which is in Christ Jesus.
This verse comes after verse chapter one. In chapter one we have the picture of the Apostle Paul toward the end of his life speaking to Timothy. His one that he had nurtured in the faith, one that had traveled with him, one that had been blessed under his ministry and so on and used by through the of the Lord through the apostle Paul. And now where's Paul? He's in prison.
Anticipating death, he has to say to Timothy, yes, we labored in Asia and they've all turned away from me and so on. Not a very encouraging situation for Timothy. Timothy was naturally timid, we learned, and he said Paul had to say to him in the first chapter, fear not, fear not.
Keep the work, Timothy. Go on.
And what's been entrusted to you and go on to the end. I think most all in their experience of life of every person in this stage that passed through it has seen decline during the period of their life in the testimony of God and the earth. And so it gets harder for the next generation to keep going. Timothy was a young person. It's going to be harder, not easier for those of you in this room that are younger.
Than some of us who are older, it's not going to get easier.
It's going to get greater weakness, greater mixture, less separation, and so on.
Name it, it probably will get worse.
But listen to what God said to Timothy through Paul. He said be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
That strength that comes from walking in the assurance of the pleasure of the Lord Jesus Christ shining upon you give strength to go on, but the connection of faith between your soul and the Lord Jesus is essential.
If anything comes between you and your daily walk with the Lord, you won't be able to enjoy His pleasure. They'll be there. That those on the way to Emmaus didn't enjoy it at first. It'll be there. You'll go with you to bring it back to your soul so you can enjoy it again. But you'll miss it on the journey until He does. And so be strong. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
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Let's pray.
1 Corinthians 10:1-10
Reading
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3-4 occasion spotless 1.
Our hearts and meekness trained to bear thy yoke, and learn of these, that we may rest obtain Jesus. Thou art enough the mind an art to fill, 174.
It's been on my heart for the last couple of days.
1St Corinthians 10.
It's rather a serious chapter.
But we're living in serious days.
And there is much in it.
That is a warning to us.
But also there is much in it for real encouragement.
We know of course that, and I won't go on about this, but the latter part of the chapter brings before us the Lord's Table, and if there's time, it might be.
If, if as we go along, if time permits, it would be nice to talk a little bit about that would be nice if we had time to go into the 11Th Chapter 2. But I dealt with three reading meetings. We'll get that far. But at least it could be referenced in connection with the subject.
What do my brethren feel about that?
Corinthians, chapter 10.
Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
And it all eat the same spiritual meat, and it all drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.
But with many of them, God was not well pleased.
For they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now these things were our examples to the intent we should not lust after everything's evil things as they also lusted neither be idolaters as were some of them as it is written. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed and fell in one day. Three and 20,000 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer.
Now all these things happened unto them, for in samples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.
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There has no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.
Behold Israel after the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
What say I then? That the idol is anything, or that that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything?
But I say, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice.
They sacrificed the devils and not to God. I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. He cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. He cannot be partakers of the Lord's table.
End of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?
Are we stronger than he?
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.
Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth whatsoever is sold in the shambles that eat, asking no question for conscience sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, then ye be disposed to go whatsoever is set before you eat, asking no question for conscience sake. But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols.
Eat naughty for his sake that showed it, and for conscience sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. Conscience I say, not thine own, but of the other. For why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?
For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken of? For that for which I give thanks.
Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God, give none offence, neither to the Jew, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God, even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.
Introduction If we could say it, we know, of course, that in the assembly in Corinth there was on the one hand a lot of blessing in that city. When Paul went there. The Lord could say, I have much people in this city.
It was a wealthy place, it was an intellectual place, but God had much people there.
And as the Lord chose to work in that area, there was evidently a relatively large assembly with a lot of gift.
But sad to say, they were mixing it, as we well know, with worldly wisdom and with the character and practices that they had been associated with before they were saved. And as a result, there was a lot of disorder, a lot of confusion, a lot of things in that assembly that needed straightening out.
And here the Apostle Paul.
Shows them, I believe, primarily in the first part of the chapter.
By reference to Israel.
He shows them the seriousness of taking an outward position without inward reality and without a walk that corresponded to it. And so there's a serious warning to them here for what they were doing, and I suggest that it's a warning that we need today.
Of course, in the case of those in the wilderness, no doubt there were many unbelievers there. There were many that, as we would say in modern language, simply got on the bandwagon when Israel left India or left Egypt and.
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Kind of were part of the blessing there. They saw the miracles, they saw things that happened which were evidences of God's power, and they went along with it.
But I believe we have a case here where God shows what happened, perhaps largely to unbelievers.
As a warning to those of us who are true believers, because we are in the position, as it says at the end of verse 11, those upon whom the ends of the world are come. So we have much greater blessing, many more privileges than they have. God says you have a responsibility too. Now, of course, it's not all warning, it's not all negative. There's much that is very positive here too.
And we can dwell on that, but it is a chapter, I believe, that has real relevance for us, especially in, shall we say, Western countries today.
I appreciate it, if I may mention it, that Brother Bill Shane read that verse from first Peter, chapter 4, that we are to be sober and that we are to remember the day in which we live. Very, very necessary. And it seemed to tie in with what we have in this chapter. Again, not all as a matter of warning, but also there is much that is real encouragement for us here.
Who does it not? The importance of going back to the Old Testament for these examples and illustrations that are given to us. Paul begins this chapter by saying, I don't want you to be ignorant what happened back there in the wilderness. He ends the little section on this little summary of what did happen to them in the wilderness by saying, as has already been mentioned, all these things were happened unto them, for example, and are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the age have come.
And it shows the importance, as we say, of going back to those Old Testament illustrations.
And pictures, and especially in connection with what we're taking up, the history of the children of Israel in the wilderness, it's a very important part of the Old Testament. And those stories that are recorded in connection with their deliverance from Egypt, God's care for them through the wilderness, and eventually bringing them in to the promised land through the river Jordan, those are more than just interesting stories and historical facts.
It's true, they are interesting stories, fascinated me when I was a boy to hear them from my parents and my Sunday school teacher and at the meetings. But they're more than that. They're recorded carefully by inspiration for our learning. And we need to go back to them again and again because I think, as our brother Dawn alluded to in the address, there are two things that are brought out in the wilderness. One is our hearts and the heart of God.
Brother Gordon Hayhoe used to sum it up this way. He used to tell us when we were young people, there are two great lessons of the wilderness.
God is faithful and the flesh profiteth nothing, and that's what we really have summed up in these opening verses of the chapter, don't we?
We have on the one hand, the heart of man brought out the heart of the children of Israel, but on the other hand we have the faithfulness of God. He did feed them, He did give them water. He did lead them. He did bring them through.
Because of anything good in them, because of response on their part? No, because of his grace and His faithfulness. And so again, and I just echo what Bill said because I think it's very, very helpful to see on the one hand the warnings.
The admonition to see a reflection of what is in all of our hearts, but then to move from that and to see God's faithfulness.
And brethren, that's what's going to encourage us to go on in these serious and difficult times.
If we only look around, we look back, we look at the circumstances, we only look at if I can put it this way, the wilderness, we're going to get discouraged. But if we see his faithfulness and His desire to bring us through, that's what's gonna encourage us to press on.
These ones the apostle refers to chapter.
A warning to the Christian Saints.
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And I was wondering, as we use the term unbelievers or unbelief in there, that it's not a question here of putting in doubt the salvation of those who know the Lord Jesus. But there is the government of God, is there not?
And I don't believe, I couldn't say that that all those, that parrots in the wilderness that they were lost forever. I, I couldn't say that the Lord could see in their hearts some that had faith and followed the wrong person or the wrong leaders. And so in the Corinthian Saints and the 11 Chapters, some were sick and some had been put to sleep, you might say, And that was because of their misbehavior as, as believers. So I just wondered if this, this comment would be acceptable that it refers more to those that were responsible of, of professing to be part of the people of God.
And whether they were believers or not, and they're lack of being consequential in their walk brought judgment upon them.
Believe that's right. And I wasn't implying that they were all unbelievers that were overthrown in the wilderness. Doubtless many of them were. But it was quite possible that some, as you say, in following the wrong leader and being turned aside from the path, were overthrown even though there was real faith in their hearts.
The point here is I believe that they were all in a position of privilege and blessing when it says they were baptized unto Moses here.
I believe the thought is that prior to that point, they had been under Pharaoh's domination in Egypt, hadn't they? They had been slaves, they had been under Pharaoh's jurisdiction, and they had to do what he said.
But God in marvelous grace delivered them from all of that. And once they get on the opposite Bank of the Red Sea and see all their enemies overthrow them in the water, then for the first time in the Word of God we find singing. And in that sense they were delivered from a power that was oppressing them. And now they were looking to Moses no longer to Pharaoh. And so for you and me, when we were lost, we were under, as it were, Satan's domination.
But now, having been brought to Christ, baptism brings us on to new ground, into a new position, brings us under a new leader, if you like. But it shows very clearly, I believe, that baptism in itself does not confer new life. And so one could very easily be baptized and yet not have new life. And so it was with many here in that were connected with Israel. There was even a mixed multitude there.
Many took an outward position who weren't really aware of the solemnity of what was going on and the seriousness of having to do with God.
God always throughout Scripture that God is a giver and he gives blessing.
But all the blessing that he gives brings with it responsibility, and all the blessing that God gives it, the responsibility connected with it is always going to be tested as to how those in that responsibility carry it out. And so it is in Israel. So it is in the church and has been in every period of time and every soul of God, all of us in this room.
Have been blessed of God and carrying with it is the responsibility to live out in our daily lives those things that are connected with the blessing that's given to us and we will be tested. God does that with everyone. He tests the reality, whether it's real believer or whether it's an unbeliever. But if it's a believer, there's responsibility connected with it as well.
And sad but true in the end it shows that the flesh profiteth nothing. But at the at the same time, when God does bless, He always provides the resources necessary that we can be faithful. We had a little before in the grace of God. The grace of God is available to every one of us to sustain us in a walk that is in keeping with himself. But to me the tremendous solemnity.
Of this chapter and the example used is.
Of we don't know the exact number, but of the million or more souls that left Egypt among the men 20 years old and older, the most responsible ones in that whole company were only told of two.
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Two.
That entered the land of Canaan. Not even Moses, not even Aaron entered the land.
And went through the whole journey, if you will, from Egypt to Canaan, and they too died in the wilderness. There's absolutely no question that many of them were believers. But still it shows us the tremendous solemnity of the responsibility of walking with God by his power in the blessing that's entrusted.
But I'd also like in connection with that, to go back to Deuteronomy. 8I referred to it earlier this afternoon, but there's a verse there that I want to comment on in connection with this reading meeting.
Mm-hmm. And I think it's connected with this chapter.
It says in Deuteronomy chapter 8.
Verse 2 Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God LED thee these 40 years.
To humble thee and to prove thee, and to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no. The consequence of that 40 years. This is written for them just after the end of the 40 years, when the new generations of them who were going to enter the land, the young men that had been under 20 when the journey started, and women and children and so on, who were going to enter the land. He says, remember.
And verse three, he humbled thee, He suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, and so on. And he shows them that he did care for them, and took them all the way. But then his message to them is.
When they enter the land now, he says, uh, verse 11 beware.
That thou forget not the Lord thy God.
Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and a built goodly houses, and dwell therein, when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied, this is after they enter the land.
He's saying beware and so the new generation, if you will, that it was re entering into the results of the past 40 years. And then verse 14, beware that thine heart be lifted up.
And thou forget the Lord thy God.
That's a danger of every generation that we the world has the saying man doesn't profit from his own history. The thing we learn about history is we don't learn from history is a common saying among men and men just constantly says we have to keep going through the same things that our previous, our forefathers went through because we didn't learn their lessons and brethren, it's true of every generation. So it's a solemn chapter because.
We don't escape the same experiences of testing that they escaped in the fulfillment of whatever position and privilege and blessing and that has been brought into our souls by the Word of God and the Word of Truth.
Gone a moment ago, the grace of God was available to them.
There was no excuse for failure, was there? And so it ties in that sense, the experience of Israel together with our experience, because even though he wasn't known to them in that way.
It says, and I know it's going ahead of a verse or two, but it says they verse 3 did all eat the same spiritual meat and it all drink the spiritual that the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. And so God was there with them. He's there with you and with me today and everything that is necessary in order for us to be overcomers.
Has been and is being and will be provided for us.
And that's a wonderful assurance that we have. We know, of course, that things are getting, as Dawn mentioned in the address, things are getting more difficult both in the world at large and in the Christian testimony and for those that are growing up now and.
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Taking their places, you might say, and responsibility before the Lord. It's going to be harder rather than easier. But God's grace is going to be there all the way to the end, just as it was.
For Israel, and the sad part was that when they were almost at the end of the journey was when perhaps some of the greatest failure came in. When they started, for example, to get discouraged and said, as it were, our soul loatheth this light bread. Referring to the manna and things like that and complaining about the lack of water. All that happened not only all through the wilderness journey, but right at the end when they had seen.
The power of God on their behalf all the way through. Well, so it can be with us if we're not careful. But how wonderful to remember that the grace of God is there for us. The supplies are all there.
And how much more we have than what they had.
So I said to the people, in retrospect, he said, There hath not failed one word of all His good promise, wherewith He hath promised by the hand of His servant Moses. They had failed the wilderness, and even after they entered the land, every page is stained with murmuring and complaining, and fault finding and failure of every kind, and as a result often the governmental hand of God upon them, because, as we learn from the wilderness and from this chapter, the government of God is a very real thing.
In our lives, but he hadn't failed. They had failed, but he hadn't failed. And that's why Paul said to Timothy, he said he abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself if we don't abide faithful. He abides faithful and I believe it's good for us brethren, when failure comes in to yes, judge it to own it, but to move on to his faithfulness, go back to the promises. That's what Joshua at the end of the journey.
And after they were in the land was trying to encourage them. Don't dwell on the failure, own it. We need to have there needs to be repentance, but then to move on and to rest on his promises, to rest on his faithfulness, because that will never fail or change. And I'd like to just say in passing, in connection with the cloud that's mentioned here, we certainly don't have time to develop it. But just a little exercise that was good for my own soul. And I'll challenge you to do it too.
Go through the Old Testament, through the wilderness journey and some references in the Psalms and other places and follow out the description.
And the context of different times that the cloud is mentioned, I believe the cloud brings before us various aspects of the faithfulness of God and his dealings with his people. And it's very, very instructive. The cloud was not only to guide them, but it also has to do with His glory when he they saw the glory of the Lord in the cloud in the 16th of Exodus.
It has to do with protection. I don't believe it was just a straight up and down pillar.
Like we think of it because if you trace out the various references, I believe you'll find that it went out over the camp to screen them.
And any of us who've spent anytime on the Sinai Peninsula realize how necessary that is. There's hardly ever a cloud in the sky. I've been out on the peninsula when it was actually 130° last summer. When I was there, I thought I was going delirious. I thought, you know, even if a jet flew over, it would be a momentary shadow. But it also gave them light at night and no doubt heat. Sometimes there's a fluctuation of about 40°F between day and and night.
And so it gave heat and their protection. Various other things, but trace it out and see the faithfulness and provision of God.
And his dealings with his people in connection with the cloud, it's very instructive. And what it shows in the end is.
Again, just what we've been saying, His faithfulness in spite of our failure.
Right here in this chapter.
That very thing because when we think of the cloud and going back to the verse that Dawn read in Deuteronomy 8, it said they would look back all the way that the Lord had LED them, the cloud LED them, the cloud moved, they moved, the cloud stayed, they they stayed. But then it says here in verse 4.
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The spiritual rock.
That let them know that followed them.
I'd like to hear the thoughts of others on that, but I have enjoyed it this way.
The Lord has a path in which He leads us or seeks to lead us, a pathway that is of His choosing.
But do we also or?
Rephrase that. Do we always follow that path? No, we don't.
If we think, for example, of the two on the way to Emmaus, did the Lord lead them to Emmaus?
Oh no.
We could say, in a sense he followed them there, didn't He? He joined up with them, went with them. But if we could say it, the Lord didn't initiate that walk to Emmaus. And to me, it seems, I suggest the thought.
The one that says that rock followed them, it brings out, as Jim was saying, the faithfulness of God. Of course it brings Christ in because although they didn't know it at the time, in the sense that we know it, Christ was there and the faithfulness of God went with them.
Even when they failed, even when they went astray, it didn't mean that God approved of it. The government of God dealt with them because of it. But if God dealt with him, them in government, if he deals with us in government.
His love never changes and we need to remember that.
Is that is that the thought?
Expand even on that.
If you think about it, he completely surrounds us.
Go underneath, underneath of the everlasting arms. And so we, we have the cloud over us and, and protection and behind us and I will go before and lead and so on. And so God is at where it says you're mine and I'm going to be all the way around you. And if you fail, then I'm still there. Uh, and so on. So it's good brethren, to enjoy the positive side of the provisions of God above and in front of and behind and underneath and in every way.
For his love for us and His care for us. I'd like to make a comment on the the, uh, spiritual meet in verse 3 referring to the manna in this way.
The manna was perfect food, really. It wasn't spoiled in any way. It came from heaven.
The cursed earth was there below, but there was a mist that went so that the manna would fall upon the mist to separate it even from the pollution of a cursed earth.
That comes from what comes from the ground and so on. It was the perfect food.
It had all the nutrition that was needed for every single one among them.
But they lost it.
It says they loathe this light bread. They didn't like it, they didn't want it. Why?
Those same people got their appetites developed in the land of Egypt.
And when their bodies were delivered unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and they were separated physically from the land, we still see that their hearts remained in some measure at least some of them, in the land, and they wanted its food.
In our journey, we are unlike them. We don't pass serially, if you will, from Egypt to the wilderness to Canaan, but in our lives we are in all three simultaneously. We remain in one sense in Egypt as we're in the world. We're on a wilderness journey toward a destination at the same time, and we can enter Canaan now and enjoy it. And yet.
We face the same testing and danger that if.
We feed in part on the food of the world. It will spoil our appetite for the manna, and that's the danger for every one of us. We think we need to know this and that about what the world has to entertain us, to occupy us, and so on. Some of it may be necessary, but we justify it, I think, sometimes far beyond its necessariness, and feed too much.
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On the things of the world and the consequence in our lives is it has the tendency. In fact, more than the tendency, it will spoil our appetite for the Lord Jesus as manna. And so if we want to have unspoiled appetites for a perfect food, we need to put aside the food of Egypt.
I'd like to say a word about that too, because we find when Steven sums up their history in the wilderness in the 7th chapter of Acts.
He says in their hearts they returned into Egypt. Positionally they never got back there, and thank God they never did. And it's the cross of Christ that separates us from this world. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world, and I'll never belong to this world again. In that sense, positionally the cross of Christ has delivered me. But we can, brethren, return in our hearts into Egypt.
We can go back and we can crave those things in our hearts, and that's the great, the great danger.
But I believe in connection with what Dawn said, we need to cultivate an appetite for the things of God and the things of Christ. If we feed on junk food, I'm speaking naturally now, we're going to develop an appetite for that. And when good, wholesome food is served, we're not going to have a desire for it. But if we have cultivated a an appetite for good wholesome food, actually when junk food is passed, we're not going to have the same appetite for it.
Because we've cultivated that that appetite, and the children of Israel on occasion they took the manna, and they tried to do other things with it.
You know, in the way that God gave it, in the simplicity with which God gave it.
It tasted like wafers and honey, but when they tried to dress it up and beat it in a mortar and bake it, what happened? It tasted like fresh oil. Now I'd rather eat wafers than honey than fresh oil. It was palatable and sweet.
And as you say, path full of nutrition, all that they needed as long as they took it in the way God had given it to them. And of course, the man, as we have often, as has often been brought out, speaks to us of Christ as the man in the circumstances of life down here. It's what we have perhaps more particularly brought before us in the Gospels, the Lord Jesus in the wilderness circumstances of life.
And we need that, don't we? We need to feed on the manna and that's what's going to give us an appetite.
For the things of God. And so we might ask our hearts the question this afternoon, what are we feeding on?
What kind of appetite are we really developing? Are we developing an appetite for the sweetness of Christ? Are we tasting of the Lord that the Lord is good? Or are we developing and cultivating an appetite for the things that simply feed our lusts and feed the flesh?
Well, there were those things that grew on the ground. First of all, the onions and the leeks and the garlics and the cucumbers and the melons.
And from a natural standpoint, I can see why they wanted to go back and get some. The melons of Egypt are absolutely wonderful. I have never tasted melons like I have tasted in Egypt. The spices that they use to spice their food are wonderful. But they were those things that grew on the ground speaks of that which comes up out of the earth. And they were a lot of them were those things that perhaps I, I don't want to be crude, but.
They leave a bad taste in your mouth. They might not make you so popular with the person that's sitting in front of you or across from you. Now we use scope and all those kinds of things, but onions and leeks and garlic. They don't make you very popular with your neighbors, but they were the food of this world. I really believe is the point and the fish that which came from below and but God had given them the manna and I since you asked her, I just make another comment about the manner. There's an interesting comment.
Made about the manna in numbers that you don't get in Exodus 16 where you have it mostly described and that is that it says in numbers. I believe it's the 11Th chapter. It fell on the dew. Those little seeds, those they were, it was like coriander seeds. Those little seeds actually fell on the dew. They never touched the earth and it speaks to us of the Lord Jesus in his pathway as a man holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners.
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And the Spirit of God is very careful to guard that. And you know, yourself too. I just make this other connection with what? John, you take a handful of vitamins to get your nutrition. They don't taste very good, do they? You need some water or juice or something to wash it down. But these little seeds of manna, which was all they needed and was packed full of nutrition and vitamin, God made sure it tasted good. It was like wafers and honey. And in again, in the simplicity in which God gave it.
For 40 years, it was all they needed to sustain life.
I was wondering about Second Corinthians chapter 8.
Where the Spirit of God uses a reference connected with a manner.
For temporal things also, which all come from God for the believer.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 8.
There's 14, but by inequality that now at this time their abundance, I believe in temporal things, maybe a supply for their want that their abundance also maybe a supply for your want that there may be equality. As it is written. He that had gathered much had nothing over and he that had gathered little had no lack. This refers to the the men, I believe, and they were not to gather manna for.
Except on the eve of the Sabbath. And if they did, there were rooms that developed in it and it stank. And we read in genes that they're, umm, riches are rusted and there are worms in there and they're corrupted. So I just wondered if the thought of God's provision, not only in the spiritual food and the person of the Lord Jesus, that for the believer, all the temporal things that he allows us to enjoy.
Also come from him and that this this verse in 2nd Corinthians 8 brings this before us.
This is beyond the chapter, but it's connected and it's wonderful, really. It's a positive part.
We're going to eat forever.
God has given us.
A new life.
And that new life will feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ forever.
And will sustain that life forever. And will have no appetite problems and we'll have no junk food. And when that time comes, brethren, we will partake of the tree of life and its fullness without any hindrance. And we will enjoy the person of the Lord Jesus and all his glory and beauty. And it will be food of the new life. And we it will sustain that eternal life that we have eternally.
Not a physical food of course here, but that we're referring to about a spiritual food that our lives need so we have something to look forward to as well.
I'd like to say a word about.
To go back to it for a moment, and that is we find that the rock was with them during the whole wilderness journey, but the water didn't always flow. Interesting, isn't it? You remember that it begins. The history of the rock begins in the 17th chapter of Exodus where they came to refer them. The people murmured, Moses cried to the Lord, and there was instruction to go and strike the rock and the water flowed out.
And the rock there being struck speaks of the Lord Jesus going under the rod of God's judgment.
If the water was going to flow out, the rock had to be struck. And so it says prophetically of the Lord Jesus in the book of Lamentations.
I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. We sometimes sing, Jehovah lifted up his rod, Oh Christ, it fell on thee. And so we see the picture very quickly. But it is interesting later on that the rock still being with them, the water had ceased to flow. Sin had come in and it had caused the the rock, the water to stop up. The water, I believe is a picture of the Spirit of God.
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Running water, a river, a brook, a stream is usually a picture in scripture of the Spirit of God.
Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, and this he spake concerning the Spirit.
And what was Moses to do when the water was stopped because of sin that had come in amongst the people of God? He wasn't to go and strike the rock again. That spoiled the picture because the Lord Jesus will never come under the rod of God's judgment again. But He was to go and speak to the rock. And to speak to the rock brings before us the fact that when sin comes into our lives, we need to speak to the Lord Jesus. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And so if the we can quench the quench or grieve the Spirit of God by sin in our lives individually and even collectively amongst the people of God.
Someone has said to grieve the Spirit of God is to hinder the work of God in US.
And to quench the Spirit of God is to hinder the work of God through us, and it's when sin is allowed.
But we need to go and speak to the rock, and so I just say that the rock was always with them.
But the blessing didn't always flow the way that God intended it. But when there was real repentance. But isn't it interesting with Moses, Even though Moses failed and there were consequences in the life of Moses, the waters gushed out, It says in the Psalms. It didn't depend on Moses. It depended again on God's faithfulness. They were his people. And even though he struck the rock and called the people of God, rebels God in his faithfulness.
Pulled. Pulled through.
And gave them water, because where sin abounds, grace is much more abound. But I just say again, wonderful. The rock never left them.
Christ will never leave us, but sometimes we need to go and speak to the rock so that the Spirit of God can work in US and through us.
It it was got prerogative to.
Choose an age limit when he chose 20 years of age for those under responsibilities when they rebelled against.
Going and taking over the land now God knows better than any anybody.
He made man and he knew that at the age of 20.
There was enough intelligence developed in a person to make.
A decision.
So those who made a decision against God, they were fully responsible. They were fully responsible because they had seen what God had done.
It was only a few years that they were out of the land of Egypt and they should have been able to make a decision for or against what to do.
And that is the same with our young people. At the age of 20, they should be able to make a decision for the Lord Jesus Christ. We have instead of Moses, we have something greater than Moses, we have the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. They all knew, those young men all knew who their leader was. Their leader was Moses that had that had been fully established.
All the way through and we see it later on when the rod of Korra rebelled. What happened that Moses had the power and he had the word from God to say what was going to happen. And today is the Lord Jesus Christ in our lives where we have to make a decision at.
A age in which God has said we are responsible to be for Him, ought to be against him. And for the young people who get married now, usually around the age of 20 or a little later, they are to know whether they stay in the meeting or they go away. We see so many today going away here and there and we have an excuse. Oh, they've half seasoned that.
It's now an excuse. There is no excuse. We make the decision with God, with the Lord Jesus because we have His Spirit. And if we pray to him and ask him what to do, he will answer us and he will tell us what to do. And that is the big decision that our young people have to make today. Either I'm going to listen to Christ, the Lord Jesus.
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Our Savior, I am going to go towards the world.
And and let the world uh, uh.
Tell me where to go and what to do. It is still me and the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will make the decision for us and with us.
In the case of the Old Testament and Moses and so on.
That even though Moses failed in leadership, the Lord still made provision in the in his own heart for the people. And so it will always be, even though.
There's failure, you might say, in every level, uh, there the Lord will always make his own provision for the needs of his people and in fact, Moses.
A wonderful man that he was with the God, We were all more like him perhaps, but umm, he got tired of 40 years of struggle with those people and, and he eventually got angry with him. He was a man of patience, but he eventually gets angry with them and he fails in that and comes short. But one of the serious parts about it, the Lord said to Moses, as it were Moses.
You didn't represent my heart.
And we all need that, brethren. We may fail in many things, but there is one thing that we fail in two. But may the Lord help each one of us to not misrepresent the heart of God toward His people. It's such an important thing that we always point souls to the heart of God and to the heart of the Lord Jesus. And no matter how much failure there is, that heart remains the same and will make provision for.
In God's faithfulness to the end of the journey and.
We need to count on that and count on, I should say, count on God in that, even though we may see failure and responsibility and so on, not to make an excuse out of it, but look higher than that and see the heart of God in it and the heart of the Lord for His people.
When we say that the mana was the type of Christ and the rock was Christ, that's not left up to discernment by comparing Scripture with Scripture and so on. And I just passed this along. That was helpful for me to get a hold of in my study of the Word of God. And that is that there are a number of Old Testament illustrations and types that are left for discernment and comparing Scripture with Scripture and.
Sometimes there may even be more than one application, depending on the context in which it's taken up. But there are some Old Testament types that are so vital for us not to miss and so important for us to get a hold of, that the New Testament confirms what the type really spoke of. If we were to go to the 6th of John, we would find the Lord Jesus very clearly spelled out.
What the manner was a type of It was a type of himself as the bread that came down from heaven.
As we said, the heavenly man in earthly circumstances, here we find that he doesn't leave us in any doubt as to what the rock was. That rock was Christ. That is not an application. Even the crossing of the Red Sea, when we say it's a figure of baptism, that's not just an application that we pull out of the air. That's exactly what Scripture tells us. They were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
And so I think it's helpful as we go over Old Testament types to go to the New Testament and see so many of them.
Are confirmed to us as to what they actually typify because it's vital for us to get a hold of them. And those Old Testament figures and types are the illustrations that help us to understand the doctrines of the New Testament and what we have been brought into in Christianity. It's like the instructions. When you go to put something together, there's usually a diagram and there's written instructions.
00:55:13
And the diagram helps us to grasp what the written instructions are seeking to tell us. And both are very helpful. And so God has given us both. He's given us the doctrines in the New Testament, but He's given us these types and illustrations, these pictures in the Old Testament.
Do you eat? But with many of them, God was not well pleased.
There was many of them which God was not well pleased.
But there were a few, and if it's Even so, very few.
They are the ones with whom God was The others were overthrown.
And we can say truly that God's heart is with those who stay on his side, not to let themselves to be overthrown because of their unbelief. And later it says it was a lust.
They were examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted it is.
The evil sings in the world that 10 young people.
To go after them.
And to stay with the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that is also a decision of the heart. We cannot just say where God's heart will do this or that. And being so thoughtful, he's also, he has judged all those here. They were all over strong.
So we have to also think of him as not going along with evil decisions, with bad decisions, unscriptural decisions.
In connection with what we have here, that yes, there are some evil things that are laid out here very clearly, things like idolatry. That was no doubt a reference to the making of the golden calf, a most serious thing committing fornication, very, very serious, tempting Christ. That was right at the end of the wilderness journey when they.
Tempted the Lord and God, allowed fiery serpents to come among them, and so on.
But when it says they lusted after evil things?
There was a time, for example, when they said we want flesh to eat, we have to have flesh to eat. We're harking back to those flesh pots of Egypt and we haven't got any meat. Now we need some. Well, is there anything wrong with eating meat? Not per SE, but God hadn't provided it for them. It wasn't something that God had given. And so I suggest that the expression lusting after evil things.
Is not always lusting after something which in itself is positive and evil, but it is rather wanting that which God has not chosen to give me. And I believe we see that a little. When God did sometimes for the moment test them, what happened? In many cases they murmured. Now we know, of course, and we won't go into it in detail. There was a time at the beginning when God met their murmurings in grace.
But then, once they put themselves under law, God was obliged to deal with them according to the place in which they had put themselves. But leaving that for the moment, I just suggest that.
Evil things for you and for me in our lives are not always that which is possibly wrong.
Not that which perhaps many people even in the world would recognize as evil, but simply what God has not given us in our particular pathway, that is according to His will. And if we go after them.
Then we are guilty of lusting after evil things.
Make a general comment, it's easy to misapply I think the verses of this chapter.
01:00:01
That is this.
When the children of Israel on the night of the Passover.
They were sheltered by the blood of atonement.
They were safe from the judgment of God.
And when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are absolutely safe for eternity from the judgment of God.
They were in a normal sense, you might say, when they crossed the Red Sea in a certain way, God could look at it and say you're just ready to cross the Jordan at the same time and in the same crossing and enter the land. There's a certain sense in which the moment we leave Egypt, putting our trust in the Lord Jesus, sheltered by the blood, crossed the Red Sea, you in a certain way where it's ready.
Positionally, as we ever will be, to enter heaven.
But the wilderness is a way of the ways of God with us for our good, and so we have to pass through in our lives or most of us do. Thief on the cross didn't have to, but most of us pass through the wilderness experience and it has to do with the ways of God in government for our good. And so these verses have to do not.
To try to distinguish between believers and unbelievers and so on, but they have to do with God's governmental dealings with us and each one of us have to experience the testings of them. Do we lust as Bill has described it or don't we? When it says in verse five, many of them, God was well, not well pleased. That isn't to distinguish between believers and unbelievers.
But it is does my life? Is it a life being lived to the pleasure of God?
Not whether I'm going to heaven someday or not, but is my present life a life being left to God's pleasure? Is he finding his pleasure now in a divine sense of it? The love of God doesn't change. It is divine, and it is toward me, eternally toward me. And whether I'm a grateful for it or not, whether I live to his pleasure or not, doesn't change his love toward me.
But it does affect his ways with me and the Lord Jesus when heaven was opened and God declared of him, This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. He finally, after 4000 years of the history of man, found a man living on earth that was living fully and perfectly to his pleasure and his joy. And so he wanted he he has to open heaven to tell us.
And brethren, it ought to exercise us the sense in our own hearts. Is my life, a life in which God, practically speaking, can look at and find pleasure in it.
Is it a life lived independence and obedience to his will. Those are the two primary ingredients of it to be a dependent, obedient person. And I will be in the measure in which I feed on the manna walk in the enjoyment of the grace of God toward me and delivered from self occupation in a multitude of things that can hinder fellowship and communion with God.
But the Lord Jesus woke up every morning and he said that morning, I believe the Psalms say, I delight to do thy will, Oh my God. And he went through the day delighting to do the will of God. And God found pleasure in it, but in the children, the most of the children in the wilderness, as God looked upon him over the passage of time, he had to say, I can't find pleasure in this.
And they had to be, as it were, removed from that walk, because there was no pleasure for God in it.
These chapters here, these verses here are written for our warning.
And I think if someone is standing, you need to warn them because he might fall.
But there are those that have fallen and there are verses to have them lifted up and restore it also. We need to remember that. So when we read the Old Testament stories, we had events and you know the the actors in those events, they all, they all fell in the desert. They never, they never got up again. But in the believers life, there might be failures, but the Lord in grace is able to restore and teach and make us more like the Lord Jesus.
01:05:27
You recognize here these things, as we said a moment ago, that are rather serious and the warnings are very necessary for us too.
The idolatry.
Of the Old Testament, which perhaps in many cases we would say, how could they do that? How could they bow down before some kind of image that they had created? But the idolatry of the Old Testament is the worldliness of the new. The idolatry that characterized Israel is the worldliness of the believer. And so the apostle John, for example, can say, little children, keep yourselves from idols. And there is a danger, a real danger of that today.
Immorality is mentioned in verse 8.
A terrible problem today in the world, especially in the Western world, because.
In lands like Western Europe and North America where we have had the light of the word of God, we are far worse off when we give it up than he, the nations that never embrace that kind of light and never had it. And it's a terrible shame when he, the nations around the world, point the finger at us, for example, in Europe and North America and say, well, if that's Christianity, then we don't want it.
But then it goes on the things that perhaps we might not think of as so serious. Verse 9 neither let us tempt Christ.
It's a very serious thing to tempt the Lord. It's a very serious thing to complain, as they did about the light bread that God had given them, something that he had given. Could anything that God gave ever be less than perfect?
And yet they said, as Don has mentioned, and we mentioned it earlier, our soul loathe this light bread.
Murmuring. It's a serious thing to murmur, to complain about the circumstances in which God may have placed me. It's one thing to feel the burden of them. It's one thing to take them to the Lord. We should do that.
It's not wrong to groan under the difficulties of the way, but to murmur as if somehow life is unfair and God has not treated me right, that is a serious thing in the eye of God. And so all of these things happened unto them, as it says here.
In order that you and I who are in a position of privilege as it says at the end of verse.
11 upon whom the ends of the world are the end of the age are come, That is, you and I are at the end of all of God's ways with man. When this dispensation closes, it will close with judgment.
But God has brought you and me into the most marvelous blessing. But he says I've given you warnings in order that you don't have to fall into the kind of things that many of these people fell into hundreds and thousands of years ago.
200 and 76276.
Three Groups of Three
Address—Stan Jacobson
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Eating this afternoon with #18 in the appendix. I'll read it to get some of us seated. And we're gonna sing the 1St 2 verses of #18 and hopefully we'll have time afterwards to sing the last two verses. And is it so I shall be like thy son? Is this the grace which he for me is 1 Father of glory, thought beyond all thought in glory to his own blessed likeness brought.
Oh Jesus Lord, who loved me like to thee.
Fruit of thy work with thee, 2 There to see thy glory Lord, while endless ages roll myself the prize and travail.
Of thy soul.
18 in the appendix, the 1St 2 verses only.
31St to the 12Th chapter of Genesis.
And I have on my heart three separate groups of three that are mentioned. One will take from the old Test, from the New Testament and the others from the old in connection with association, attachment and fidelity. And we're first going to take up the story of Lot.
And let me tell you what you already know, that there was no attachment.
Between Lot and Abraham. Because there is never a word recorded that Lot said to Abram. Abraham and you you don't. You're not attached to someone that you don't talk to. And so let's read from the 12Th chapter of Genesis. Now the Lord has said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from my father's house, unto a land that I will show thee. I believe that the key, as it were, to the state of soul that we find Lot in.
Is that it doesn't say that God told him to leave, but he did. He left with his uncle Abraham Abraham, and he went with him to err from, err, the counties up to Heron and down through Damascus and down into what became the promised land. But we never find a word that Lot said to Abraham. He was associated with Abraham, but he was never attached.
And we're going to trace.
Two more. One that was us attached to David, but he was never associated with him. And then we're going to turn to the New Testament to find the story of Timothy, and he was both. So I give that as an outline of the first set of three, because I want it from my heart and for yours to not only be associated at the Lord's table and be at the Lord's table and associated with the Lord's people.
And association.
But there needs to be attachment, attachment.
And I I wondered sometimes what's going to keep me and going to keep you in a position of association if there isn't attachment to the person of the Lord Jesus. I'm not gathered to brother X or Y or Z, though some of us remember those of of 30405060 years ago, however valuable they were and however valuable brothers are today.
00:05:27
You and I are not gathered because of them, and if we are, we're going to be very disappointed and be tested now.
Let's turn in the story.
And let's find the first words that we find.
In the 19th chapter of Genesis, we find the first words that lot that's recorded in scripture.
19th chapter, first verse. And there came two angels to Sodom and Eve. And Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, and Lot, seeing them, rose up to meet them. And he bowed down himself with his face toward the ground. And he said, behold, Now my Lords, turn in, I pray you into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early and go on your ways. And they said, Nay, but we will abide in the street all night. And he pressed upon them. Now notice the end of the third verse. And he made them a feast, and did bake.
Unleavened bread.
And they did it. You have to forgive me for this comment I want to make about that. There is religious pretension, Religious pretension. Because if I hadn't been for what dear Peter tells us by inspiration in the book of Peter, we'd never know from the account in the Old Testament that he was a believer to think of it. And I hope by the grace of God that regardless of this meeting, which I suppose use.
Figure that he must be a Christian to speak as he does, but for each one of us to not be assumed that we're believers, but that there will be a witness that not only association, but attachment How important that is. Now let's go on to First Samuel.
And there is a story which is really enough to make you cry, because David did.
In the first Samuel.
UH First Samuel 20.
Now in the case of Jonathan, he's very definitely attached to David and this verse vividly shows it. Uh, first Samuel 20 and verse 41.
I'll have You'll have to forgive me. I've marked on my watch places where I have to go on to my next subject to ever get through in time.
First Samuel 20 and verse 41. And as soon as the lad was gone, David arose out of a place towards the South and fell on his face to the ground and bowed himself three times. And they kissed one another and wept one with another until David exceeded and Jonathan said to the lad.
Go and pee, said to David. Go in peace, for as much as we have sworn both of us, in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and my seed forever.
And he arose.
And departed.
And Jonathan went.
Into the city. Now I could make a comment about Jonathan and I would want you to correct me.
He wouldn't say with David, that is judging A motive that he wouldn't. And if I, if you say to me, well, you wouldn't do that, well, then you what you're saying is that you understand my motive better than maybe I do myself. But we can say he didn't stay with David. Not that he wouldn't. That's motive but he didn't is a fact. Now let's turn to a few chapters further on.
Chapter 23.
And verse.
16.
And Jonathan Saul's son arose and went to David into the wood and strengthened his hand in the Lord. Isn't that beautiful? I've been encouraged by some of you, and I trust that you're encouraged by what we will say today.
00:10:11
That's definite attachment. Jonathan was attached to David and here we find.
We'll read it and we'll find out.
Verse 17 And he said unto him, Fear not for the hand of Saul, my father shall not find thee.
And thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee.
That is definitely an attachment he wanted to be not only associated with.
David in the Kingdom he he he wanted to show even now that his heart was attached to David. But is that what happened? Where did Dave? Where did Jonathan meet his end on Mount Gilboa because he didn't leave his father's house even though he was attached to David?
I want for all of us to have the sense in our souls of attachment to him and association now.
Please remember that I understand that every child of God is a member of the body of Christ, but there is a divine center which is Christ in this world, those gathered to his precious name that.
I want for each of us to have not only association but attachment, attachment. And how does that come? It comes by meditation and prayer.
How? How important for us?
And so.
List So now what have we had? We've had lot who had association with Abraham, but no attachment, never a word. We've had Dave, We've had Jonathan who was attached to David.
And that they too made a covenant before the Lord and David abode in the wood.
I'm hesitating on purpose, not to be dramatic, but because of the seriousness of it. And Jonathan went.
To his house.
The attachment was not strong enough in and of itself to overcome the influence that his father had, must have had over him. And so we don't find that he stayed with David. But he said, oh, you're going to be king, and my father knows it, and I want to be right there with you. Beautiful, beautiful sentiment. But you know.
There are things that come before the glory and that suffering, and it appears, it appears, that Jonathan was not able to make the sacrifice. May you and may I, if there is to be a sacrifice in connection with continuing to be attached and associated with the Blessed Lord that he give you, and give me the grace to do so.
Now let's turn in connection with.
Timothy in the old in the New Testament. Let's turn to Philippians, the second chapter. There's a statement that Paul makes about.
Timothy that I think is worth reading.
In connection with our subject.
No, I take it that we understand that for a a a man like Timothy to be associated with the apostle Paul and to be the recipients of two epistles by your name and other epistles, that he's added along with Paul as an author, that we would take it from Scripture that he not only was associated with Paul, but he was attached, Definitely attached. So now in Philippians 2 and verse 19.
But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort when I know your state. Now if I remember correctly, this is the the Darby Translation, for I have no man like minded who cares with genuine desire how you get on, Lord, how are you doing in your soul? Timothy was concerned, and I would like to say that in some weak measure that there are brothers here, and maybe every brother has a concern for the Lord's people.
00:15:04
And I trust I do. And I trust the brothers that spoke uh, during the reading meeting. They have an interest. They have a desire of how the Saints of God get on for all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ. So now we've covered lot with association. We've covered Jonathan with attachment. And now we found that there is a a man by the name of Timothy that had both may the grace of God give you and give me.
That association and attachment. Now let's turn for the second set of three to the Book of Jeremiah.
Things are very, very serious at this time in what is recorded.
You remember this story it it is one of the more serious.
Apostate actions that I can think of that having been given a scroll of what Jeremiah had written down, that they they take it and they have a knife and they cut off a certain section and they throw it into the fire.
I remember as a boy my father was a florist and he was at a place arranging some flowers and he needed a little elevation and uh, they brought a big Bible and they wanted him to stand on it.
Now remember the effect.
Than it had in me.
As a young man that he refused.
To stand on that Bible and to think of the reverence that you and I have concerning the word of God.
What if there was a certain part of the Bible that was missing?
You would quietly close it up, put it someplace, and get yourself one that had the whole word of God.
But let alone cutting some of the pages off, now there were three men in the 5th, 25th verse never. Well it says let's read the 21St verse. So the king sent Yehudi to fetch the role and he took it out of Elisha was describes chamber. And Yehudi read it in the ears of the king and in the ears of all the Princess which stood beside the king. Now the king sat in the winter house in the ninth month.
And there was a fire on the hearth burning before him, and it came to pass. When Djuti had read three or four leaves, he cut it with a pen knife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.
You know, don't want to be dramatic, and you don't want to be either, but we can hardly believe it that it happened. Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king nor any of his servants that heard all these words.
Now the first word of verse 25 is very heartening.
Not disheartening, but heartening nevertheless.
L Nathan and Delia and Gemmaria had made intercession to the king, that he would not burn the roll, but he would not hear them.
And so we could pass this as as a story that involved three men.
Well, let me add this.
Proper names and proper place names are significant in the Old Testament. They have a meaning. So let's go back and let's find out what El Nathan means. And Delia and Gemmaria, and we'll see that in these three men who were Princess, that though they interceded their names put together is a beautiful picture. El Nathan means God is a giver.
Well, what has God-given? Well, the first thing you think of is his beloved Son, and then through that he has given us eternal life, no other source that God is the giver. Now what does Delia mean? It means drawn or made free several stories in the Gospels.
Where the Lord uh, heals someone, maybe both of them were women, and before they the Lord, left as it were.
His dealings with that person, he said.
Goal in peace. That's the point of Delia Drawn and are made free. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Now what does Gamma Raya mean?
00:20:12
It means completed, completed.
Is the work that God wants to do in you and in me completed? I remember being in a Bible bookstore in the area I live in and I was going down one aisle to get someplace else and I happened to notice. And I don't mean this humorously, but I I noticed a book and the title said something like this. Lord, leave me alone. I I like the way I am at the present time.
And isn't that just about what our hearts often say when there are trials, which we all have?
Tribulation. Lord, leave me alone. I'm just all right the way I am. But are we? Uh, didn't our him say something? Myself, the prize and travail of thy soul? God is so pleased with his beloved son that he, God, wants all of his children to be like him, and we're going to be in that conformity.
In that coming day. But now if we we've had it today that the Lord that Paul said, I you saw the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And what did the Lord say? My grace is sufficient for thee.
To be able to say it is merely to be able to quote Scripture, but to be able to have it as something in our hearts.
Is a different matter.
So what if we had? We've had a very apostate situation in Israel at this time, and the king, I'm assuming, is Jehoiakim.
He had no respect for the words that God had given Jeremiah for their conscience and exercise, because he had somebody, as he was reading it, to cut it off and burn it up.
Well, we find later that there are more words that were added and so they didn't get away with it, but there were three men and they were Princess in that time amongst the people of God and they really jeopardized their lives.
To stand up against the king.
Had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll.
But embedded in those names is the whole pathway of you and for me, God the giver.
Completed.
Made free. Oh, there's.
It's another subject, but it makes me think of the 7th of Romans.
And the story of these women that I mentioned, the Lord said go in peace.
And behold of thy plague, he didn't merely release them from their infirmity, but he wanted them to know.
From himself that they had peace.
The 7th of Romans.
Is not really the experience of every Christian. I don't think it was my wife. It never was mine.
But it's the experience of many.
They're they're on the fringes of Romans 7. But to be brought into the liberty of the 8th chapter is another matter. So that you can go in peace. That's what the Lord wants. Peace. I leave with you my peace I give unto you that may be peace of circumstances, but he wants you and for me to have that peace that passes all understanding.
To as we sit and remember the Lord if we're left here till tomorrow.
There's going to be an opportunity for those in fellowship, the males, the brothers, to take part. May God give us that liberty that comes from the peace that we have of knowing that he has said go in peace and behold thy plague.
For the last set of three.
00:25:00
Let's turn to Ezekiel.
There's probably a meaning to these men's names, which, uh, if someone knows it, feel free to tell me afterwards, But I didn't look it up in the 14th chapter of Ezekiel.
I'm looking I I I know the verse, but I'm looking yeah. Here it is. Uh, Ezekiel 1414 and Ezekiel 14. Uh 23 men.
Though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God.
You and I obviously accept this book as being the inspired word of God.
If you and I have been doing it, I'm not sure we would have chosen these three particular men, though we say they're they're venerable There, there. There's something about each one of them that that's very special.
I'm hesitating because I I know what.
I've had on my heart concerning job.
But let's take Noah. These three men, and and the three the same three are mentioned in the 20th verse, though Noah, Daniel and Joe were in it, As I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter. They shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness. What do we see as as as so obvious really Now we see deliverance from coming wrath.
Do you and I as believers have a deliverance in in the sense that it we're not afraid of it, uh, without turning to it, because our time is limited, we could find in Hebrews 2 That through fear of death were all their lifetime subject?
To *******.
There is nothing worse.
In a Christian's life and profession, to have fear of death when Scripture is so very clear of what it means.
And so, Noah.
They might turn to it. I I I don't want to misquote what it says about Noah because it says the same about Enoch, that he walked with God.
Well, I I I know that that's what it says about Noah and he he was like, uh.
The man I mentioned. Uh, the.
Forgive me my my mind is slipping. Uh, Enoch. Enoch was a man that walked with God and it says so did Noah. He walked with God. Now what circumstances of his life, Uh what was revealed to him? I can't say because scripture doesn't say. But God singled him out as the the savior of the world. Noah. So that's the first one.
No one is a deliverer from the coming wrath. And to think about the Lord Jesus is for us the coming wrath, you and I, thy acceptance of the Lord Jesus, our personal Savior, based on His work, not mine His work. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's Noah. Now what about Daniel?
In addition to association and attachment, there's another word that needs to be introduced at this juncture about Daniel is fidelity. Fidelity. I like that word.
I wish it were true, more true of the speaker, and I I see it in my brethren if I look for it.
Tell you a little story. Some of you know better than I that Brother Clifford Brown and Macmillan were building their house here in in Des Moines, and they were not too pleased with their own carpentry. So they went out looking for other uh houses that were being built and they found that that brethren and houses were very much alike. You could find what you looked for. They found houses that weren't very well done and they some found some that were very well done now in you.
00:30:04
And you and me, we can find what we look for if we want to find Christ.
I'm not sure.
That I can.
Continue with a story that that I.
Have maybe I should avoid it for the sake of emotion, but.
I'll try. There was a widow.
Some of you know her very well.
She called me.
She called me not too long ago and.
We if the two of us had decided ahead of time what she was going to say, that was of help. It couldn't have been more complete.
Than what she had to say to me under the circumstances that I was going, which she had previously gone through.
Fidelity. This sister just resonated. Fidelity concerning the things of God and the comfort that she had received and the comfort that she wanted to convey.
I I don't think it would be appropriate to tell you who she was.
Fidelity, Fidelity. Trueness to the circumstances, to to the things of God. In the midst of what we find all around us. What did Daniel do? He was thrown in the den of lions.
You say.
Remarkable. Remarkable. The three boys.
Were thrown into a fiery furnace.
We will not bow. We will not bow to that idol. And so even if we know that, God will.
But even if he doesn't, we're not going to bow. That is fidelity.
Now, probably the most difficult.
Of them is job.
And I I wanna, I don't wanna speak.
Off handedly. But I would have thought that if you have deliverance from the coming wrath, and you have fidelity as a Christian to walk until the Lord comes, there's nothing else that's needed.
In your own heart, you're saying if that's what you think, you're wrong. Because we had before in connection with what God was doing in your heart and mind. He doesn't like. And I know you've mentioned in my last name, most of you know it, and and I can mention your last name. There's nothing very much to be proud of about last names or first names, because the Lord wants to work.
In our hearts, so that it's like the refining of silver.
The pot and you can the the refinery can see his face in it.
Someone quoted me a verse. Let me see if I can quickly turn to it.
Forgive me.
Beholden as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed to the same image. That's enough. And so Job is brought in.
As that which is needed in your life and mine.
More than salvation doesn't add to it.
More than fidelity. Well, we need that working in the soul, so that whatever my last name is.
There are attributes of that family name that that I'm not too proud of. And if each one of you could could look at yourself in the same way. I don't want to stay this way. And some of us are are not 40, we're not 50, we're not 60, we're not 70. And so there's been an opportunity in our lives for the circumstances.
00:35:09
That God has brought us through.
To make a needed change.
In my attitude my.
Rebellious feelings towards others, whatever, just name them. The 1St 15 are pretty bad and so the Lord wants us to be different than we are and He wants us to be.
I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
Oh, that hurts, doesn't it? Well, our time is almost gone. We've had.
Lot, who was associated with Abraham but never attached to him. We find Jonathan who was attached to David, but he didn't.
Associate he didn't associate with him, and Timothy by the grace of God was a an example in the New Testament.
Of association and attachment.
And those three men in Jeremiah 36.
We're gonna meet them someday. I wanna talk to them.
And I want, and I mean I mean this seriously. I wonder if they realize that their names have such a a significant as far as the pathway of the Believer. I wonder if they did. And then we've had these three names in the book of Ezekiel, Noah, Deliverance, from Coming Wrath, Daniel and Fidelity and Job.
God working in the soul to produce an effect that at the end of his life or at the end of that trial, he could say I'm vile.
You know, you come to the end of yourself because no man ever yet hated his own flesh. And so we found these three. Let's repeat them.
Lot, Jonathan, Timothy and those in.
Jeremiah 36 and in Ezekiel 14 Noah, Daniel, and.
Job, wouldn't it be beautiful if in your life and mine, there could be the result of a work of God that he desires to do so? That not that we know it, but that it could be reflected, so that our brethren realized that what they have gone, you've gone through, produced a likeness to Christ, and we're soon gonna be with him.
And eternally like him, and I hope that.
With all my heart that each one of us can see that his work in US is far more important than his work by us.
This thing the last two verses of #18.
Let me read them first. This is him 18 in the appendix. To be very honest with you I'll I'll looking for a hymn of Darby's and I knew we wouldn't have much time for singing or for anything within 45 minutes. So I found this is the shortest Him by Darby in the Little Flock hymn book.
Some of them have 789101112 verses, so this one has four. So we chose it, not really because of uh default, but it is a very very significant uh him for each one of us. Yet it must be thy love had not his rest, where thy redeemed not with thee fully blessed.
That law that gives not as the world, but shares all it possesses with its loved coheirs, nor I alone, thy loved ones all complete in glory round thee, there with joy shall meet.
All like thee for thy glory like thee, Lord object supreme of all by all adored. Someone please start for the last two verses of #18.
Nsnoise.
Verses of Luke 7 and they that sat at me with him began to say within themselves.
Who is this that forgive his sins also? And he said to the woman.
Thy faith hath saved thee. Go in peace.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Michel Payette
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I'm meeting this evening by singing together the first hymn on our hymn sheets #1 Almost persuaded now to believe, almost persuaded Christ to receive. Seems now some soul to say, Go, spirit, go thy way, some more convenient day on thee. I'll call number one.
Nsnoise.
In the first second stanza, that hymn, it says almost persuaded. Come, come today. It seems like the, uh, the name of the person is almost persuaded is her first name is almost the second name is persuaded. And I wonder if there's anybody here tonight who's almost persuaded. It's a very serious thing to be almost persuaded. You better to be persuaded. We read in the word of God. I want to tell you about a man I know is going to be in heaven. Terrible character.
You did some pretty wicked things.
Luke chapter 23. I'm sure you've heard about him before. Most likely 23rd chapter of Luke.
Verse 39 Luke chapter 23 verse 39 and one of the malefactors that's one who did evil 2 words malefactor did evil doer of evil which were hanged railed on him saying.
If thou be Christ, save thyself.
No, you read in the other gospel, you will find that it was not just one who was waiting on him, but both of them were at one time. But here in Luke's gospel, it's a bit later on and one man has had a change of heart. Something has happened in this man's heart.
And he answers differently. Verse 40. But the other answering rebuked him saying.
Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest unto thy Kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee today that I'll be with me in paradise.
Well, here's a man. It's not detailed to us what this man did.
But he was brought to court to justice in Atlanta. He was found guilty of certain things and the penalty for this man was death.
He was a manufacturer guilty in that Society of death and that very day.
He entered into heaven.
And we've read, I'm sure many of us, and heard of testimonies of many people.
We were in jail.
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For the crimes they committed and in those days, they trusted the Lord Jesus and they're gonna be in heaven.
I don't suspect there are any malefactors in our midst this evening. Perhaps there are, while I would describe to you, to be honest, citizens generally and that that we're not in any fear of police barging in here and arresting someone momentarily.
But I have doubts.
About seeing everyone of us in heaven.
Yes, ma'am.
When I see him in heaven.
If I would ask him, what are you doing here?
This is, I have no business here, but this man called Jesus, he saved me at the last hour just before I entered into eternity. I called upon him. I said, Lord, I didn't know what to ask. I didn't ask forgive me my sins. I didn't know what to say. I just had on my heart to turn to him and call him Lord. And I asked him what I thought I could ask him. Remember Me when thou comest in thy Kingdom. That's all I could think about and here I am in heaven.
A guilty man, deserving not only the punishment from the justice of men.
But I stood before God with my sins. Those things I committed. I was on my way to everlasting.
Damnation and fire and weeping and waiting and gnashing of teeth. Here am I in heaven.
I'm gonna be in heaven.
I don't have to tell you those things that I've done.
But this man's savior, who took this male factor to heaven, is my savior. When he died on the cross, He died for me.
You know, this man didn't know very much.
And he went to heaven.
You know, we sit together somewhere with us here today for the meeting.
There's many things that we know about God, about the Lord Jesus, about the Scriptures. You know, boys and girls, older ones too. There are many things we can know about God, about the Lord Jesus, about the Scriptures. And if we die, we might still not go to heaven.
When I was 27 years old, I knew Jesus was the Son of God. I knew he died on the cross and rose again the third day.
I knew all these things.
You could have told me who made the world, God made the world.
And I died, and I died then. I would have gone into everlasting punishment because I knew about the Lord Jesus, but I didn't know Him as my personal Savior.
And tonight my friend, I know many of you, I've heard many times the gospel and I ask you tonight, do you know him as your personal Savior? Have you received him as your very own personal Savior? If he walks up to you tonight and showed you his nail pierced hand and he asked you, who is this for?
What would you say? Would you say that was to save sinners? Good answer.
But not good enough.
Because I know many here, if I walked up, if you walked up to them with their nail for your tent and ask them what was this for, they would say that was for me.
That was for me. It has to become personal. We have in the word of God this man here a perfect example of the grace of God. He's undeserving, was never baptized, never went to church or Sunday school, didn't know. Probably 1 scripture verse by heart.
Went straight to heaven.
It's good to go to Sunday school to learn Bible verses, to go to meeting, to pray, to read your Bible. These are good things. But none of these things can save your soul. The only person and thing that can save your soul is the Lord Jesus by his sacrifice on the cross. And you have to believe on that personally, not in your head, but in your heart. And if you believe in your heart, that's gonna happen. There's gonna something happen in your heart. You're gonna love the Lord Jesus back.
But you know.
We have in the scriptures some some questions that I'd like to look at.
And one is in the first kings.
Well, let's go to Luke chapter nine first of all, because we get some thoughts there in Luke Chapter 9.
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Verse 52, Luke Chapter 9, verse 52 and sent messengers. This is the Lord sent messengers before his face, and they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him, and they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elias did? And he turned and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit year of for the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
Well, I just like to draw your attention to part of verse 53.
Where it says there and they did not receive him.
Because.
You know there are millions of men, women and children who have not received the Lord Jesus as their Savior because.
They never heard about him.
They never heard the wonderful message of God's love and forgiveness through faith in the Lord Jesus. Millions have never heard.
Have you heard before?
Perhaps you've never heard before.
We'll give you that. This might be the first time you hear it. I hope I do a good job at presenting it.
But I know many of you have heard it many times.
And you answer in your heart.
They did not receive him.
Because.
They did not receive him here because there were some mountains and there was irritation between Samaritans and the Jews and he was going to Jerusalem and that upset them. They didn't want to have anything to do with him.
What is it with you?
You did not receive him because.
You know we find in scripture Peter.
A zealous man, energetical, energetic. And he took out the sword there, and he cut the ear off of Malchus.
Maybe you have not received him because somebody cut your ear off.
You know what the Lord did.
He took that man's ear and he healed it.
God does that, you know.
He heals our earring. Our hearing. Pardon me? Those HS are heard by the Frenchman. He heals our hearing so we can hear. Tonight, you hear my voice. I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand, but I know you hear my voice.
Are you hearing the words we're saying? Are we reading?
Is this thing in your mind or are they going to go down in your heart? You know, these men here, they were upset because they didn't receive the Lord Jesus and sometimes.
As Christians too, we get upset and sometimes we preach fire and brimstone and, and, and it is in the Scriptures. You know, there is a everlasting judgment and, and fire and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. And that's a warning. But it's not the message of the gospel. The message of the gospel is a message of love.
God wants you to be saved, and He wants you so much to be saved that when his Son was before him on the cross.
He forsook him in your state in my stead, instead of that man who was a manufacturer, so they could all be in heaven, so you and I could be in heaven. Are you gonna be in heaven? God wants you in heaven forever.
But he asks you.
To receive His Son as your personal savior, He asks you to trust him alone, to call upon Him. That's not very hard. This man, he just said that Lord, Remember Me. It's on his way to heaven.
Would you do that tonight?
Or do you have it because like in this version you have not received them yet because.
They did not receive him because.
They're upset at the differences there, you know, but sometimes.
We could reason in our hearts and perhaps there are things going on in our lives.
That we know are not pleasing to the Lord. We read that this afternoon in First Corinthians chapter 10. Those that were privileged to be part of God's people.
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And if you've been brought up in the Christian family, you've been going to the meetings, you're part of the privileged people. Yet what do we find in that privileged people? All sorts of things they shouldn't have been going on with Fornication, idolatry, murmuring.
Is there a because in your life that's there, if you can't get rid of that, you're ashamed of that others don't know about? The Lord knows about that. He knew about this man, all the wicked things that he did, and he called up on him and the Lord said, well, not you, because you're too bad.
This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.
How could the landlord take such a man in heaven? Because the Lord himself was going to pay for him, to have him as a trophy of his loving grace in heaven.
No matter what you're because it is tonight, but the obstacle is before you tonight. The Lord Jesus will take care of that for you because just come to Him. You just come to Him the way you are.
He'll receive you, him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.
The enemy of our soul says that don't go. You're going to have to give up tips, have to give up that all sorts of reasoning. You know, there's nothing you cannot give up with the strength of the Lord and most things you can't give up without this strength. But the Lord is going to help you. He's going to restore you. He's going to bless you. He's going to make you not only a new creature inside, make you a new creature outside. They're trying to earn salvation by being good. You'll never get there. So tonight I asked you, my friend, why have you not received him?
Answer this because.
Which because is it with you?
And bring it to the Lord, Don't put it off any longer. Well, these disciples said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?
And the Lord rebuked them, and he said, you don't know what kind of spirit you have.
You know when you're reading the story of of Elias or Elijah, the Old Testament First Kings chapter 19.
First Kings, chapter 19.
Elijah, a mighty prophet of God. He'd just done a wonderful work for the Lord and, uh.
The Lord answered his prayer, and the fire came down from heaven and consumed the offering that he had prepared.
And you know.
You've got to use it. God uses a man in any way.
Give me a snare for that man.
There was something in Elijah's discourse that kind of betrayed that he had thoughts about himself. And he's I alone. And the Lord says, well, I have 7000 men that haven't bowed to deed before Baal.
He wasn't alone. He thought he was alone.
And you know when the Lord asks him in the.
First Kings 19 And he came, hit her unto a cave, and lodged there. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. And he said unto him, What doest thou hear?
Elijah And he goes on, and he tells the Lord about all the situation there. And they wanted to kill him and he was alone and and so on. And then there was an earthquake, there was a fire.
And it was a mighty wind.
Manifestations of the power of God.
A mighty wind could blow everything over to render oxen too mighty. Some mighty wind, an earthquake.
What was it, 7.28 point six? I don't know. I know he can. No one can shake the earth, can shake the whole earth.
And fire.
But the Lord wasn't in the earthquake, wasn't in the wind, wasn't in the fire.
And after this it tells us.
After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire and after the fire.
A still small voice.
It was so when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entering in of The Cave.
And behold, there came a voice unto him, and said.
What doest thou hear?
Elijah.
Same question twice.
The word of the Lord comes to him with Dost thou hear Elijah?
And then the voice of the Lord comes to him.
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My dude's still here, Elijah.
Year ones tonight.
The word of God that we have in our hands.
Bears witness. Everyone of the gospel speaks of the Lord Jesus.
Being crucified.
Dying and writing again.
The good news in this book?
Is about one person from cover to cover, spelled out for us in the gospel. It's about the love of God to his creatures through the Lord Jesus.
And you can read about it.
And maybe boys and girls. Many verses you can read about.
But I've enjoyed this little portion here in connection with Elijah, that it was a still small voice on the second occasion. Not the word of the Lord, but the voice of the Lord.
What are you doing here? I don't think he asked him like that.
I think of the Lord calling out for Adam in the garden. You heard the voice of the Lord calling. What was the voice of the Lord like, Adam or Adam? Adam.
And I believe when the Lord asked Elijah here.
I think it was a sweet, small voice. What do we still hear, Elijah?
Didn't do anything for Elijah.
First question he answered, justifying himself, condemning others. When Lord asked him again, he did the same.
And the Lord says what? You're going to go and you're going to anoint a king over Syria, a king over Israel, and you're going to anoint Elisha is a prophet in your stead?
And he lost his job, you might say.
I think what the Lord was looking for, for Elijah to say that.
I shouldn't really be here. You, you, you didn't send me here, which the Lord hadn't done.
He'd gone on missions where the Lord sent him, but the Lord never sent him to go there. He went back there because he was afraid.
Well, you would know that.
Tonight, dear ones, I could be here till midnight reading you verses from this book, most of which perhaps you've heard already.
But I have on my heart a still small voice.
From the Lord Jesus, just for you. And I'm not going to walk over to you and tell it to you because that would make you really feel bad. And I don't really know who you are. The Lord knows who you are.
I'd like to walk up to you and have you here. What's on my heart from the Lord Jesus, I have you here.
I love you.
I love you. There it is in my hands.
My feet and my side, because I love you.
You should be in heaven with me forever.
Are you gonna be in heaven with him forever?
Boys and girls, older ones, young people.
Older ones too. Are you gonna be with him in heaven forever?
If you are, that's because He loves you and He loves you so much to die on the cross, and He pleaded with you in your life, perhaps many times, perhaps tonight on other occasions. If he leaves us here. Don't count on it though.
And he's asked you to trust him, to put your confidence in him.
Have you received them already?
Praise the Lord.
And if you haven't received them already, what does he have to do more?
What does the Lord have to do to win your heart over?
What is your Because tonight, if you have not received him, you have not received him because.
I can't think of it because.
That can be justifiable before God.
You know the Lord asked him twice, one with His word, one with his voice. What are you doing here?
I ask you tonight, dear one, what are you doing here?
I can tell you one thing.
What you're doing here tonight is making yourself responsible.
And perhaps you were responsible when you came in.
Well, you're making yourself more responsible every time that the Lord allows you to hear is invitation of love, is offer of forgiveness, it makes you more responsible.
And this is not going to happen. But let me mind something to you, somebody standing before the Great White Throne.
00:25:04
For the coming day. And that one sitting on that great white throne is the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
That one who has holes in his hands and his feet and his side.
What if he asked you? What are you doing here?
What are you doing here? I died for you. I was ready to forgive you. I had you hear it over and over and over.
Every mouth is stopped. Nobody speaks there. The books are open and there's judgment that fire is going to happen. There's a lake of fire. It's in the scriptures.
And God would not have you go there, or I or anyone else prepared for the devil and his angels.
God has redemption for all of his creatures. He has redemption for you.
To the offering of his son.
Well, you know.
Elijah a little bit later on.
In the second Kings.
Chapter One.
The Lord had told Elijah to anoint a king over Syria, a king over Israel, and a prophet in his stead.
He never did the 1St 2:00.
Elijah is going to do that. He goes and he anoints somebody to replace him.
And then in First Kings Chapter One, the captain and his fifty come to him.
And it says that he tells him to come down to the king verse.
Verse nine. And the king said unto him, That was King Isaiah. And the king sent unto him a captain of 50 with his fifty, And he went up to him, and behold, he sat on the top of an hill, and he spake unto him, No man of God, the king had said, Come down.
And Elijah answered and said to the captain, at 50, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven.
And consumed the in my 50. And I came down fire from heaven, and consumed him in his fifty. And again also he sent unto him another captain of 50 with his fifty. And he answered, and said unto him, Moment of God. Thus had the king said, Come down quickly. And Elijah answered and said unto him, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee, and thy 50 And the fire of God came down from heaven, and consumed him in his fifty. And he sent again a captain of the 3rd 50 and his fifty, and the third captain of 50 went up.
And came.
He fell on his knees before Elijah, and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God.
I prayed that my life and the life of these 50 thy servants be precious.
In nice sight, you know, there came fire down from heaven, and birth up to two captains of the former 50s and their 50s. Therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight. And the Angel of the Lord said unto Elijah, Go down with him, you're not afraid of him. And he arose and went down with him unto the king. You know there are many applications and perhaps other instructions and that we've enjoyed in connection with this. But you know, I thought of myself being Elijah and being upset, not losing my job.
And the Lord tells me to do three things. I do the third one, I'm replacing the third one. And here's they're coming me as a man of God. And I'm upset in my spirit. And I say, if I be a man of God at the park, come down from heaven and destroy you. And sure enough, twice.
How unlike the character of the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus took told his disciples you don't know what kind of spirit is about you. They wanted to imitate the power of Elijah and destroying.
The Lord Jesus not come to destroy God doesn't want to destroy human beings.
God wants to save.
It doesn't say here. And the Lord said call down fire from heaven. No, this was, I believe, his own initiative.
And this captain and his fifty, the third one, he had to plead with that man of God.
That he wouldn't be consumed in his 50s. He had to plead for his own life and the life of his men.
Tonight, my friend, you don't have to plead with the Lord to get saved.
He's the one pleading with you to save you. You don't have to insist with the Lord for him to save your soul. He's the one insisting and bringing to you again and again and again.
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Why is he doing that? Because he cares for you. Because he died for you.
And because he knows, because he tasted that for every man, because he went through the judgment that you and I deserve, and he knows what you're going to be going through.
If you postpone if you do not receive because.
Because.
Well, a little bit later on in his book of judges.
Sorry, King. Second Kings.
Second Kings chapter 2.
We find Elijah go up to heaven in a chariot of fire. He was taken up to heaven. This man Elijah, a man of like passions as us.
And I'm sure he was going to answer before the Lord. Perhaps those things that were in accordance with the mind of God, he was taken up with fire into heaven.
It wasn't set down into the fire. He was taken up into heaven with fire. You know, it speaks to us in the First Corinthians chapter 3 that at the judgment before the Lord, the fire is going to be trying our lives, not trying us. Because the fire that would have tried us, the Lord Jesus went through that on the cross.
But you're going to try our lives.
So there were people there in the time of Elijah, when he had Elijah with him, which are called verse 5, Second Kings chapter 5. And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elijah and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he answered, yeah, I know.
I know it holds your peace. That means be quiet.
And Elijah said at the interior, I pray thee here, for the Lord had sent me to a Jordan. He said, As the Lord liveth, and as I saw liveth, I will not leave thee. And they went to and on, and 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view afar off, and they stood by Jordan.
These men here mention they mention a bit also in Bethel verse three the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel.
So at Bethel they were the sons of the prophets, and Jericho they were the sons of the prophets.
There weren't the prophets, there were the sons of the prophets. You know, I know many in this room here.
They belong to the Lord Jesus.
But they have sons and daughters.
Them and their wives. They have sons and daughters. And there are some. Some are believers themselves. I know many of you have accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
Well, here the sons of the Prophet were in association with the prophets.
And they knew things.
And Elijah tells them be quiet.
They could talk about things. Don't you know that your master's gonna be taking up from you over your head today? They knew things. And when finally it happens, if you read on, you'll find that they ask Elijah to go around and, and perhaps the Lord threw him over a mountain somewhere in the valley somewhere, and they're gonna go and look for him.
You know, they're believers who profess to know the Lord, who never accepted him in their hearts.
When the Lord Jesus takes the other believers away.
They're gonna wonder where they went.
And they're probably gonna believe the lie of the devil about that.
And they're gonna believe Allah and God is going to allow them to have.
Evidence of power from the wicked one. Because they did not receive the love of the truth to be saved. Not they did not receive the truth. They did not receive the love of the truth to be saved. Because the message of the gospel is a message of love. It's a message of love from the heart of God. We quote that verse so often. God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Well, you know this man, Elijah.
He was taken off of this earth.
He was taken off and he went to heaven.
He was a real believer, He had faults, he had failures, and so do every one of us and our fathers have faults and failures. And if you say well, these things here that gather in Pella or Montreal or whatever, they did this and they did that often. This is the excuse that we have. This is one of the because, because, because that we see all the failure around and we are not conscious of our own peril before the Lord. Well, I trust the Lord tonight would call us as He does in Matthew Chapter 11.
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We'll just read that Matthew Chapter 11.
Verse 28.
Come unto me.
A personal invitation.
To him.
You know, talking to a brother before the meeting and we mentioned this this afternoon, somebody mentioned about the Lord's Table, 1St Corinthians 10 and subject comes up among us quite often, 1St Corinthians 10 but you know.
The gospel is so beautiful and so simple.
Come unto me.
You come to the Lord Jesus just the way you are, receive Him as your Savior. You receive the forgiveness of sins. He makes you fit for heaven by his sacrifice on the cross. And then he tells you in the Scriptures, He tells me.
Remember Me, Remember Me. Tomorrow morning will be gathered here and we have on the table emblems, a loaf and a cup of wine.
A loaf that speaks of his body and cups of wine that speaks of his blood.
Separated in death, a remembrance for those for whom he died. It's so simple. This malefactor went to heaven. Never, never was baptized, never had the privilege of remembering the Lord. But you and I were here. We can read the Scriptures. We can hear his voice calling us to himself. Come unto me if you come to him tonight.
Believing Him as you're taking Him as your own personal savior in your heart, you're gonna be on your way to heaven.
Absolutely sure, forever. Nothing is ever going to change that. By one sacrifice he had perfected forever, by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified, sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. Wonderful Savior, wonderful salvation belongs to us when we trust him. That's all that God requires of you and me to trust him. Well, it says here come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you.
Rest.
If you have any because in your life tonight. If you're hearing my voice tonight.
And you're not at peace with God.
You won't be resting. Your soul is not resting. You're wrestling, but not resting. The Lord wants you to come to Him tonight and find rest for your soul. Those things in your life perhaps that you're going on with, He knows about.
And it'll clean you from these things, deliver you from their power, by His power.
Let's go to Luke chapter.
13.
13th chapter of Luke.
Verse 25. Luke 13 and 25.
When once the master of the house is risen up and had shut the door, and you begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord.
Open unto us, and he shall answer and send to you, I know you not Whence ye are. Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you're not. Once ye are, depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, and the Kingdom of God.
And you yourselves thrust out, and they shall come from the east and from the West.
And from the north and from the South, and shall sit down in the Kingdom of God.
And behold, there are last, which shall be first, and there are first.
Which shall be last?
So the Jews that were living at the time that the Lord Jesus was here in Palestine.
00:40:02
They were very privileged.
Very privileged. The Lord was walking in their midst and He was performing miracles and doing wonderful things.
And addressing them in this course is.
But it says here that some of them would be outside and that he didn't know them and they were going to say, well, did you not teach in our streets? We at, we ate, we sat in ate and, and with you, you were there real close.
But they had not received him.
I think of many, you know, in Western lands.
Who have received Christian education and know about the Lord.
And even more specifically, those of us who've been exposed to the Scriptures and many truths from the Word of God.
None of this pleading has access to the Lord.
You mean in Matthew Chapter 7? Did we? Have we not prophesied in thy name? Have we not cast out demons in thy name?
They've done many wonders in his name and God honored the name that they used.
But you see, they're pleading with the Lord is about what they've done for him.
And the gospel is about what he's done for us.
And more specifically, what he's done for you personally.
It cannot be collected. There's gotta be individual is your name tonight.
Almost persuaded.
Why don't you change your first name?
How about change your almost really? How about being called really persuaded?
Well, tonight you can be really persuaded, you say. I confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus as my Savior, and I believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead.
Remember dear, Mr. Barry once told me about a young man after a gospel meeting where he preached on that part of Romans chapter 10 and verse nine. If thou wilt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
And this young man came to see him after the Gospel meeting and he said, you mean to say that if I confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus, and I believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead, I'm going to be saved? Brother Barry said yes.
And did you really want you mean that if I confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus, and I believe in my heart that God raised, I'm gonna be saved? Yes, that's too easy.
Well, Mr. Berry said.
There was a silence, and after a while, that's not that easy.
It's not that easy.
I'm gonna do it for you, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, He's my savior. He's the Lord of Lord, the King of kings. He died for me on the cross. And I believe with all my heart that God raised him through the dead because this book, the Holy Bible, bears witness to it. That's not hard when you believe in your heart. And tonight, if you believe in your heart, you can confess with your mouth what you know about him. Well, here, let's go to Matthew, chapter 22.
It's the invitation, you know that part.
Well, let's read that Matthew chapter 22.
Verse one. And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said, The Kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king.
Which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding, and they would not come again. He sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen, my fat things are killed, and all things are ready come.
Unto the marriage, but they made light of it, and when they went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise, and the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. When the king heard thereof, he was wrought, and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their cities. This is what happened to Jews. And they then said He to his servants, The wedding is ready. But they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found.
Both bad and good. And the wedding was furnished with guests. When the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. And he said unto him, Friend, how comest thou in hit hit her not having a wedding garment.
00:45:07
And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, bind him hand and foot, and take him away.
And cast him in outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.
You have to forgive me for.
Perhaps interpreting this portion differently than many, but I believe what the Lord is telling us here.
But his house is going to be full.
And his house is going to be full because he called him in, no matter who they were, bad or good, and they all had a wedding garment which he supplied.
And there was one man. He was there. He didn't have a wedding garment. And I believe in the parable that's presented to us there have us realized.
We need to be fit for the presence of the King of the Lord.
Of God himself.
What garment can you and I wear to be fit for the presence of God Himself? With a garment of God's righteousness which He puts on you and me when we believe on the Lord Jesus.
And if I could put these words here, when the king saw him, he said to him, What are you doing here?
He had no business being there without that garment. You cannot buy that garment. Nobody can lend you His garment, but God will supply to you that garment of His own righteousness, which He paid for by the sacrifice of His Son on the cross. It's something that God provides to every believer. He has made us fit for His own presence by the work of His Son on the cross if there was anything missing.
Jesus would have done more if it was required on the ground. He did it all. God is satisfied. Heaven is going to be filled. Bad or good does not matter. They have to be at the benefit of the work of the Lord Jesus and those that respond to God's invitation, they're going to be there. Heaven is going to be full of criminals, of drug addicts, all sorts of people saved by God's grace. And if they give God kind and if they're not taken to heaven right away.
God will transform their lives and show his power and their lives, but they're not going to be in heaven because God transformed their lives. They're going to be in heaven because one pay for their sins by his sacrifice on the cross. Oh, May God keep us dear ones from every thinking that we have part in that salvation. The only part we have in that salvation is the sins that we've committed that required of God that he gave his only begotten Son and punished Him in our said one who had no sin.
Who could not sin? There was number sin in him, so he could save sinners.
And make you and I and that malefactor on the cross, and millions more which cannot be numbered, fit for heaven.
You know the reading Revelation Chapter 7.
There's a great company that come from the Great Tribulation. Last seven years, 3 1/2 years for the great great tribulation. You might say, why doesn't God just terminate it like she's like this and turn it over to the Lord? Just shake the earth and establish the Kingdom of the Lord. Well, I believe in my heart that during the great Tribulation, God is going to save.
1,000,000 cannot be numbered. He's going to work in the hearts of men and save them through the blood of the Lord Jesus. I throw thee to God's grace and forgiveness and patience.
If you read Revelation 7A, great company which cannot be numbered, you're not going to be part of that company.
There are many, many Saints in the Old Testament that God had patience with. I want the Lord Jesus came their sins one were on his account and he paid for them by his sacrifice on the cross. And you're not gonna be you're not gonna be part of them either.
There's a company now.
In the time of God's grace, where He calls us by His Spirit, He puts in our hands His Word, and He has as us here plainly, clearly about His Son and His love and simplicity, one name given among men under heaven, by which we must be saved.
The name of Jesus.
00:50:00
It's the work that's been done. It's the work that's probably announced every week from where you go at gospel meetings. It's the work that you've heard about before, and I trust in simplicity you've heard about it tonight.
What's it gonna be with you?
You're being made responsible tonight.
They did not receive him because.
Would you receive them tonight?
Would you allow him to have you here? His still small voice to your heart tonight? Say these nail prints in my hands, it's for you.
When I groaned upon the tree was for you.
I was forsaken.
For you, I died so I could save you. I shed my precious blood so I could cleanse you.
Will you have me tonight? Would you have him? He's worthy. Put everything else aside. Every objection, every time you've heard something that's cut your ear off or disappointed you and those around you and the believers and the preachers, doesn't matter.
Won't you just come to Him tonight? Respond to Him? You don't have to tell me or anybody else. Don't tell Him in your heart tonight as we bow our heads in prayer.
Why don't you just tell them, Lord Jesus?
I receive you.
I've been bad. I deserve punishment. I believe you receive my punishment because you love me. I want you as my Savior and in time, give me the energy, the power, the courage to confess you as my Savior with my mouth and help me to change my life. Deliver me. Perhaps of those things that are there, that would be the obstacle. That's been the obstacle for me. Well, before we pray, let's see #2 on our hymn sheet.
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Nsnoise.
00:55:27
Yeah, so he had the opportunity to have a change of heart.
That's what repentance is about, you know, a change of heart. And tonight if you hear His voice calling you, come unto me, we'll have a change of heart. Open your heart to Him tonight and receive Him as your Savior. Come, all things are ready.
Pitch bar heads.
I Didn't Get Mad, Bit I Got Even. I Needed Jesus.
Children—Tim Roach
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Let's let's begin the meeting this morning by seeing #40 Jesus Loves Me. We'll sing the 1St 2 verses of Jesus Loves Me.
Jesus loves me.
And I'm fine today. I know that she's not possibly changing. Ya, ya ya.
Father, we give thanks for the Sunday school. We give thanks for the children here. Today we just ask for for guidance and sing the first verse and chorus of #41.
Around the.
World.
Your brother or your sister, they hit you.
You don't think that's very fair, do you? It's unjust.
But when you hit them back, then you think, oh, that's fair.
And then you can start a just war, a fair war.
Remember when I was a kid?
I used to get my brother.
So angry I get him as frustrated as I could so he could hit me.
So I could have an excuse to hit him back.
And then I'd hear my mother downstairs in the kitchen, rifling through the the drawer, looking for a wooden spoon.
She knew how to use it, too.
I was a Sinner.
I was a Sinner on my way to a lost eternity in hell.
Let's sing #42.
A little child.
But I feel like I'm right on, on, on.
When I was a little older and I knew better.
I was. I was staying with a friend and she would flick water at me at the table. Well, I had to get even.
So I threw a cup of water at her when I had the opportunity.
And then later that night, when I was sleeping, she had a big bucket of ice cold water.
And I got wet.
Well, they had a pool.
And when opportunity arose, I was able to push her in when she was all clothed and dressed.
You know, we can do some fun things, but after a while it can get mean.
And it can become sin.
00:05:02
Let's sing #43.
1.
Second, I want him. I want grits. I got you.
When I was in school, I don't think I ever had a fight.
Umm, people would chase me around. I remember one one time there were three kids, they were chasing me around for a week. They chased me every day. But when they chase people chase you, you learn to run fast and they never caught me. Well, on Friday that week we went on a trip into the city with all the class, the class trip, and we went to a big field and we were playing some games and stuff.
And they chased me around the whole time we were there. They couldn't catch me.
So when we got back on the bus, I was sitting up towards the front, they were towards the back and one of those kids came up behind me and slugged me on the side of the head so hard.
The teacher looked at me to see what I was going to do.
I did nothing.
I didn't get mad, but I got even.
And that's the motto I live my life by for a long time. Don't get mad.
But get even.
And that's a that can become a problem because after a while you get older.
And it changes from not getting mad to not forgiving.
I'm not gonna forgive you, but I'm gonna get even with you, and that's sin and it's in our hearts. Let's sing #44.
First verse and last verse.
Hmm.
Nsnoise.
No, I can't get out of American Times, so.
As you as you young kids, as your kids get older, you start to do bigger and bigger sins.
I want to tell you a story about a a man who grew up in a Christian home just like you. You're sitting here today. He went to many conferences.
This man, he decided he was going to join the military and he said I want to go and I want to kill myself, some Iraqis.
And he joined the war as a sniper.
And he killed many men.
He could look through his gun a mile away.
He could see a man inside the scope on his gun.
And he could sit there and wait and wait for hours.
Until the man he was looking for, they call him a target. Until his target came into view.
He could pull that trigger and shoot him.
One of those snipers.
00:10:00
He got himself set up one night before daylight. He got himself all in under the brush and hid himself.
And he was there, waiting, and there was a.
A car was gonna come up the road. The man was gonna get out of the car and he was supposed to shoot him, and he was a long distance away. Nobody knew the sniper was there under the brush.
The car pulled up. The man got out.
He was holding a little child.
The man figured nobody would shoot there. Shoot him when he's holding a child.
The sniper aims.
He took his time.
He didn't want to shoot because he didn't want to kill the child.
He had good aim. He was able to account for the wind. He was able to account for the heat.
In the bullet, it hit the man and killed him.
When the bullet hit him, it exploded.
And the concussion killed the child, too.
That man has a lot of guilt.
When you're in war.
You have to kill people.
God does not want us to kill people.
He wants us to give them the gospel of the Lord Jesus. You, you young children, you're young. You don't do many bad things. Well, maybe you do. Your mom probably thinks knows more what you do, but they're little things. But as you get older, they get to be bigger and bigger things and you get to have hatred in your heart if you don't be careful. I want to ask you, some of your kids are in school. What do you do when someone hates you at school?
What do you do?
You'll learn in school that you can be somebody.
You can make something of yourself in this world.
They'll tell you you can make this world a better place.
And you can fight for your rights in this world.
Let's go to Matthew Chapter 5.
There's a verse in in the book of Peter that says Christ suffered for us and he left us an example that we should follow in his steps.
Well, when a Christian goes to war or he has fights at school.
That's not that's not what Jesus taught. That's not what Jesus practiced. Listen to what Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 5, verse 38.
You have heard that it has been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. What's that mean?
It means if you hit me, I'm gonna hit you back. An eye for an eye. You put my eye out, I'm gonna put your eye out.
We we go to a refugee camp in in Karonga in Malawi and we get people coming down there from 2 fighting tribes from Burundi and Rwanda in the Congo.
One of them will kill somebody's brother and then that family will come back and kill off that guy's whole family. And then that guy will go back and and it escalates and gets into a big war and then they run for their lives and they come down to a place where they can be a refugee.
Lord Jesus says.
You have heard it said, This is how it was under the law, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But the Lord Jesus says unto you in verse 39 that you resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him also the other.
So if somebody comes up to you and hits you in the face, what are you going to do?
What does God say you should do? He says. Turn the cheek. Let the other, let him hit the other side. But you know what? It works. When I was a kid in school, probably grade four or five, we all had to line up outside the school in front of the door after the bell rang, before we could go into the school and after everybody was lined up quietly, then we could go in. Well, I was up near the front of the line and this bully, he came up and he, he, he got in front of us for me and a couple others. And so I said to him, you can't **** in front of us.
He says, Oh yeah, what are you gonna do about it? And he hauled off and he punched me in the side of the face.
I thought about this verse. It says turn your other cheek. And so I kind of chuckled a little bit and I turned my other cheek and he hit that one too.
But then he left and he walked and went to the back to the end of the line.
The Lord Jesus tells us things that may be hard to do.
00:15:02
But it works.
Let's go to John 15.
As believers, we have been called to follow the example of Jesus, who turned the other cheek.
Jesus did not return evil for evil.
And he warns you.
He offers you salvation and when you're saved, then he warns you.
And he warns the believers that we're going to be hated by the world.
And in verse 17, Jesus says these things. I command you that you love one another. You know when we have enemies at school or or at work.
God tells the Christians you need to love one another to help one another.
Then he says in verse 18, if the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.
We might suffer for Christ if we're a Christian. There was a man.
I'm a lady. She was in a in a meeting. They were having a Bible meeting over in one of these other countries, the Islamic countries, where they killed Christians. And she was in the, she was in the meeting and they were quietly singing and praying and they were teaching. And then the Islamic radicals came in and they started beating and killing the people. And the one man picked up his club and he was ready to club this lady on her head, but she was down there on her knees at that point.
And she was praying and she was praying for this young man who was about to kill her and as he raised that club above his head to kill the lady.
He heard she was praying for him.
And then he got down on his knees, and he accepted the Lord as his savior.
Verse 20 The greater the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. Jesus. Before the Lord Jesus went to the cross. He was in the garden of Gethsemane, and he was praying. He had a quiet time with his father, and he was praying to his father and saying.
Oh, Father, he didn't want to have to go to the cross, but he says, if this is your will, I will do it. And so the Lord Jesus finished praying in the garden, and he goes to his disciples and he says, come on, let's go, it's time to go. And so they get up and they start to leave the garden. And as they went out into the night, Judas, he wasn't with them at that time. All the other disciples were with him, but Judas wasn't there. Judas had gone to talk to the rulers of the Jews.
And he said to the rulers of the Jews, come with me, I know where Jesus is. You can arrest him, You can apprehend him today, tonight. And so they went, and they found Jesus. And Judas came up to Jesus, and he took Jesus.
And he gave him a kiss of death.
The Lord Jesus said to the group of men who were around him trying to arrest him, he says. Who are you looking for?
He said Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus says I am.
I am He that is the name of Almighty God, Jehovah, the Creator of the universe.
And these men, when they heard that they could not help themselves, because God says every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And so all those men, the rulers of the Jews who hated Jesus, they couldn't help themselves. They stepped back and they bowed down before Jesus. They fell down before him.
Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess. A little time after that the Lord Jesus is standing before Pilate, and Pilate was asking him about his Kingdom.
But just before that, Peter did not want these rulers of the Jews to get the Lord Jesus. And so he took out he had a sword, Peter had a sword and he took his sword out.
Well, I don't know what kind of sword Peter had, but I'm thinking it's probably something like this. They use what they don't use these things for killing people. They use these things for digging holes, burying things, uh build putting fence posts in. They use it for digging up rocks so they can get a rock to throw it at A at a bird so they can have something to eat. They use it for cutting off some fruit out of the tree so they can eat some bananas or some mangoes.
00:20:13
That's what they use these for, and they also use them to protect themselves from the wild dogs. I don't think the Lord Jesus meant for his disciples to have swords to kill people with.
Well, Peter, he had this sword. What was he going to do with it? And so he took that sword and he went, tried to kill the servant of the high priest Malchus. And he he missed, he had bad aim. And he he got the ear, the right ear.
Of Malchus.
The Lord Jesus said Peter, don't do that.
That's not why we're here. My time has not yet come.
And the Lord Jesus reached out and healed.
Malkus ear.
Peter wanted to protect the Lord. He wanted to fight for his rights in this world.
And to fight for his values. The Lord Jesus came to be the king, but Peter was going to protect that. But there was nothing he could do. There was nothing he could do to make the system of this world a better place.
Let's go to John, chapter one.
You kids are going to learn in school that you can change this world.
But the Christian We can't change the morals of this world.
Sometimes Christians try to get together and vote. There's a presidential vote coming up. They try to vote.
And get out the man that they don't like and try to put in the man they do like.
Well, the Lord Jesus came into this world. He was going to be the king of this world.
The King of the Jews.
But his own people didn't want him. They didn't want him there in the garden of outside the garden of Gethsemane. With Judas they arrested the Lord Jesus. They didn't want him. And in verse 11 it says he came unto his own and his own received him not.
They didn't want him. The Lord Jesus did not force himself on them.
I don't believe that you or I should chase a position or try to vote some man into position.
That crate into a position that Christ did not accept himself.
Am I better to go than God to think that I can go against his example? Remember boys and girls, Jesus left you an example to follow.
And do I think that do we think that we're better than God, that we can go and try to vote in the best man when God says the basest man is the worst man is going to be in power?
The Lord Jesus said to Pilate after a while he was talking to Pilate.
About his Kingdom and he says to Pilate, my Kingdom is not of this world.
If my Kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight. You know what, boys and girls?
If you go over to Iran or to Iraq, where some of those Muslim countries, even in Canada and some some schools in the United States, they take young children like you and they teach you how to kill. They teach you how to kill Christians.
And they send their children off.
With suicide bombs, and they die in the name of their God to send other people into a lost eternity.
The Lord Jesus says my Kingdom is not of this world.
He doesn't want Peter to fight for his rights in this world. He doesn't want you boys and girls to fight for your rights at school.
He doesn't want us to be fighters of men or shooters of men. He wants us to be fishers of men.
He wants us to tell others about the Lord Jesus.
Let's go to Ephesians 6.
00:25:05
You know we should not get as Christians.
We should not get involved in the affairs of this world, trying to make this world a better place by voting, by going on campaigns, by UH, going to war, this verse, Ephesians 612 Says. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but that's what happens when we when we fight at school, we're trying to fight for our own things that we want for myself, things that make me feel better. We try to beat that guy up so he doesn't.
Have control over me.
And it says we don't wrestle against flesh and blood.
But against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Boys and girls, even in your school, in grade school.
Their spiritual wickedness there. And you have things you got to fight against at school. Spiritual Warfare.
How many kids in your school know about Jesus?
Some of them do, but some of them don't.
I know a man.
He was raised in this in the assembly.
He remembered the Lord in his death.
Now he has two children.
They have never heard about Jesus.
They don't know who Jesus is and if you meet those two children in school.
There's a spiritual warfare because they don't know Jesus and you do.
And there's a difference between you who know Jesus, and a difference between the person who doesn't know Jesus.
Because your eternity is in heaven with Jesus. Their eternity is in hell.
Without Jesus.
And so there can be a warfare in school.
Some boys and girls have trouble with telling lies.
For flighting or cheating on tests.
For stealing.
Satan wants to get that into your heart.
Trying to get you to get something that takes you away from the Lord Jesus.
And so we have a spiritual warfare while we're here in this world. God hasn't told us.
Nowhere in God's word does he tell us to have a fight or a war.
He wants us to tell people about the savior of sinners. He wants you to be fishers of men, to tell people how to be saved.
And so, but you need to know that when you, when they when you were taught to try to make this world a better place, try to change people. You can't change people, God says in Romans chapter three, he says. There is nobody that seeks after God. Nobody's looking for God.
There's nobody who does good, not one, not one person. If any of you, boys or girls or young men or women, are here today and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, there is nothing good in you.
You may sit here and think you're pretty good because you came to the meeting, but there's nothing good in you.
Even the good things you try to do, it's sin against God because you're doing it for yourself and your own glory. You're not doing it for the glory of the Lord Jesus. There is none that doeth good without the Lord Jesus. Go to First Timothy 6.
And so I asked.
What does God want us to do?
And our verse here in First Timothy 6 verse 12, it tells us what God wants us to do. It says fight.
Fight the good fight of faith.
How are we gonna do that? How are we gonna fight the good fight of faith?
In Mark, it tells the book of Mark, chapter 16, verse 15. It tells us that Jesus wants us to go into all the world and preach the gospel.
But you kids that are in second grade or 4th grade or 8th grade, you can't go into all the world and preach the gospel. So what does this verse mean?
It means that you need to preach the gospel wherever you are. That could be at school, that could be on the playground.
00:30:05
It could be.
Where you work.
People need to know about the Lord Jesus.
We can maybe try to vote, we can maybe go to war, try to kill people, we can fight.
But it won't change the bad hearts of people, the only way the hearts of people will be changed.
Is by Jesus Christ and when they confess their sins.
And they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and they turn away from their sin, and they have everlasting life. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
If you believe you will have everlasting life.
God does not want us to go.
Into war.
To kill the wicked sinners. Oh, I know. Sometimes our our hearts, when we're being frustrated at school by some friends that that just they hate us. Oh, we just wanna kill them. Sometimes we even say that.
But God doesn't want us to kill the wicked sinners.
That's not God's way.
God wants us to go out and tell the wicked lost sinners.
About the Savior and the way of salvation so that they can be saved, so that they can become a worshipper of God, so that they can give glory to God.
There's only one way for you kids to be saved. We're talking about being fishers of men so you can go out and tell others about the Lord Jesus. But you know what? Before you can do that, you need to be saved yourself.
How? How can you be saved?
Some people say, Oh, I asked the Lord Jesus into my heart.
But.
Is that how you get saved? Can the Lord Jesus come into a sinful heart? Something has to happen before the Lord Jesus can come in.
You need to admit that you are a Sinner and that you are going.
On a lost road to hell.
You're lost and on your way to hell. You need to admit that. And you need to admit that Jesus had to come down very God, the Son of God himself, came down into this world to die on the cross because of your sin. And while he was on that cross, God punished Jesus for your sin and for my sin until the Lord Jesus could say it is finished and there was no more that needed to be done for you to be saved except for you to have faith.
To believe.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And as you are saved, God wants to send you out to tell others about the Lord Jesus. How are you going to tell others? What's the message?
First thing you need to do.
Is to live a life like Christ, to follow his example, so people can see in you that you are different from the world, that you are different from the people who party every night or they go home and they and they cheat on tests or they they do many bad things. They want to see that you're different, but if you go to school and you're fighting with those kids, they're not going to see a difference.
So first thing we need to do is to act.
Like a child of God.
And then people will see us, and they will ask us what makes you different.
When I was in high school.
There is a young man.
He came and and spoke to me, he said. I don't know what it is about you, but I like you.
I had an opportunity to tell him.
About the Savior.
But I didn't.
I was shy.
I was afraid to mention the name of Jesus.
I failed. I don't know where that young man is right now.
Let's go to Matthew 5.
The Lord Jesus talks about love.
00:35:02
And war and fighting.
And trying to get the best for ourselves. It does not go together with the love of God.
Matthew 5, verse 43 It says you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
That's that's that's natural for us to love her, to enjoy our friends, love our neighbors and to hate our enemies. And God said that's how it used to be. But now as a Christian, it's changed.
Says But I say unto you, verse 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.
That's a challenge. That's a challenge. How can you pray for somebody who's doing bad things to you?
When I was in in in Africa.
There was a Somalian man.
And I was driving out of the driveway and he was standing with a whole big group of other Somalians. Now the Somalians there, they in Somalia, they are the number two worst country.
For hating Christians and killing Christians, North Korea is the worst. Somalia is the second. Well, there's a whole group of the Somalis standing there in the road, so I couldn't get by. He was standing here like this.
And so I pulled up next to him.
He put his hand inside the car, right in his hand, right in my face and said Christian.
And all the other Somalis, they were staring at me.
I said you're right, I am a Christian. I know the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior. He loves me.
And he loves you, too, he said. Get out of here.
And the crowd of Somalis parted like the Red Sea, and they allowed me to drive through. Those people hated me. If I was in their country, they would have killed me. Because they were in Malawi. They had to let me go.
They hated me.
Can I pray for those people? Can I give them the gospel? Can I tell them about the Lord Jesus?
Or do I wanna join the army and go over and kill those people? What does God want me to do?
Some of you young men.
You're having a big decision time in life.
It's a great thing to join the military because they pay for your education and they you get a lot of benefits and they afterwards they pay for your your uh medical.
There's a lot of benefits.
But it's a challenge.
The Lord Jesus prayed for his enemies.
When they persecuted him on the cross, as he was hanging there, they had spit on him, they had punched him in the face, they had whipped him on the back.
They nailed him to the cross.
The Lord Jesus had to be punished for their sins and at that time the Lord Jesus could say Father forgive them.
They don't know what they're doing.
Let us follow the example of the Lord Jesus as you go back to your homes.
I was gonna say back to school, but it's gonna be your summer break pretty soon. But as you go back home and you meet with your friends.
Try to be an example of the Lord Jesus and follow in his steps.
And we can love our enemies, and we can pray for our enemies. We can pray for their salvation. But remember, you need to be saved first. You need to know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior first. That's the most important.
Let's sing #46.
Uh, can I get a new station in the community? Uh, if you give me a call, I'm getting a call on the day by hour. I was like, I've been on all the day, all I am to do together to see how are you. I'm getting him and I've always been so much of what's the word?
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47 First verse and chorus when he comes.
Home.
Like the fire song from all of your chains and crying.
Umm, I don't know what you're saying.
Difficulties in Life
1 Corinthians 10:11-14
Gospel 2
Gospel—Jim Hyland
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
In the Gospel Meeting this evening with Hymn #7 on the Gospel Hymn Sheet.
God loved the world of sinners lost and ruined by the Fall.
Salvation full at highest cost, he offers free to all. Let's stand up to sing this number 7 and if someone could please start it.
Nsnoise.
A verse in the book of James.
James.
James Chapter One.
And verse 17.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. I have it on my heart this evening, in presenting the Gospel, to look at some scriptures that bring before us an age-old subject, a subject that has been often taken up on an occasion like this.
And that is the subject of the gift of God, because tonight we present a God.
And we present a Savior who desires to give, and a God and a Savior who desires to give the very best.
And so we're going to look at a number of scriptures tonight that bring before us various aspects.
Of what God gives and what God has given. Before we do that, I'd like to just say this.
That we need to perhaps tonight take stock of what we're trying to give God.
You know, God doesn't want us for what we can give him. He wants us for what He can give us.
And I'm afraid there's many people in the town of Pella and perhaps in this very room and certainly around the world.
Who today have offered to God that which is of no account.
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That which may have been offered very sincerely, that which may have been offered.
With a motive that desired to give God something but that which was offered.
In a wrong condition.
You know, it tells us in another place that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And I would suggest that there have been many people today who have offered to God a pile of filthy rags. What do I mean by that? I'm not saying that they literally offered to God a bunch of dirty rags that you would find in the corner of a mechanic shop or in the corner of the laundry room waiting to be washed.
Or in the corner of your garage where you use those rags to wipe up and mop up things, spills and oil and things like that. No.
But there are those who have perhaps today gone to a place of worship.
They have perhaps sung some hymns. They have read some scriptures.
They have perhaps offered up prayer, they have perhaps done things that are very good and charitable in themselves.
But if they have done it in their unregenerate, unsaved condition, they have offered to God a pile of filthy rags. Because God says that all our righteousnesses, or the best things that we can do before we're saved, are just a bunch of filthy rags. They may be wrapped in ever so nice a wrapping, but underneath that is simply what they are.
And so tonight, it's not a question of what we can give God. It's not a question of what we can offer God.
I'm not even going to tell you to give your heart her life to Jesus tonight, because what God wants to do is give you a new heart.
He wants to give you a new life if you will come in simple faith.
And receive him as a repentance, say a Sinner as your savior.
And so we find here that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.
And cometh down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variableness.
Nor shadow of turning. God has given many gifts to man.
He's given good gifts and he's given perfect gifts and we're going to turn throughout the word of God and we're going to see some of these gifts.
But let's impress upon our souls before we do that that God is the giver.
God is the source of everything that is good and everything.
That is perfect. Let's turn first of all back to the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes, chapter 3.
Ecclesiastes, chapter 3 and verse 13.
And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor.
It is the gift of God. I'm going to read a similar verse in the 5th chapter.
Chapter 5 and verse 19. Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth.
And hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor. This is the gift of God. You remember what our verse said in the book of James? Every good gift. And God has given to man many good gifts. It tells us in another place that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. When the rain falls from the sky, it doesn't just fall on the field of the farmer.
Who recognizes God or knows the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior?
No, it's going to fall on the next field as well. It's going to fall on the field of the ungodly as well as the field of the godly. God gives many good gifts to man. And I suppose in a country and on a continent like this, we little realize how many wonderful benefits and gifts God has given us. In fact, just the profession and the light of Christianity means that we receive many mercies and blessings at the hand of God. You know, it's interesting, if we were to go back to the book of Genesis, to the story of Joseph.
Joseph being a picture of the Lord Jesus when Joseph came to the House of Potiphar.
It says that because of the presence of Joseph in that house.
The House of Potiphar prospered and I believe a land like this prospers because.
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Of the light of Christianity, because of the presence of the believer, because of the liberty there is to put forth the truth and to put forth the gospel. And yet we little realize what benefits there are they're trying to eradicate. Get rid of the gospel. Just close the pages of God's word. In a country like this, thank God we still have liberty to have a gospel meeting tonight.
You know, there are many countries in the world where this liberty is not granted, where the Gospel has to be propagated secretly and very carefully.
Where one will tell another quietly the story of Jesus and his love with perhaps even fearing.
For his life, or at the least imprisonment. But how thankful we are for the benefits we enjoy.
In a land like this and here, we find, Solomon says, for a man to eat and drink.
And enjoy the fruit of his labor. It's the gift of God. The fact that a man has strength and breath from God is a gift of God. Remember what Daniel said to Belshazzar, perhaps the greatest king of the day. He said, The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways? Hast thou not glorified? He was seeking to bring before Belshazzar that the very breath he breathed was a gift from God?
Because as we read in the New Testament, he giveth to all life and breath.
And all things. He's the preserver of all men. And so to eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of our labor, it is the gift of God. And yet, just go to a restaurant and look around as the food is served. How many people stop for a moment, bow their head, and give God thanks for their food, recognizing that it comes from his good hand? How many people stop at the end of the day and thank God that they got home safely?
That they had a job. That they were able to move about freely. That they had again, that they had the temporal mercies to enjoy and to sustain life and to whole body and soul together. Oh, how few they're they really are. And I would just say in passing to those of us who know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, let's never forget that the good things we enjoy, the mercies we enjoy from day-to-day, come from the hand of a loving God and Father, and let's stop during the day and thank Him.
For those mercies that we have. But you know there's more when it comes to the subject of the gift of God.
There's more than just those temporal mercies. If we had to stop with these verses recorded by inspiration by Solomon, looking at things under the sun, that is from a natural standpoint. We would have no good news to tell tonight. We'd have no gospel message if it just ended with the fact that good gifts come from God and that he's the sustainer of life and the preserver of all men. Now we're going to go on and we're going to find out.
There's far, far more from the heart of a giving God than just the good gifts.
There are the perfect gifts as well. Let's go to Two Corinthians.
Chapter 9.
2nd Corinthians Chapter 9.
And verse 15.
Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. Oh, this is where the blessing all starts. This is how we can have a gospel meeting tonight. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift, we sometimes sing a hymn, O gift of love, unspeakable, O gift of mercy. All divine for every gift a song we raise.
But this demands eternal praise. What is this gift that is referred to here?
I believe this gift is the gift of God's beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And those of us who were in this room this morning and remembered the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread.
We had before us, in one way or another, that wonderful gift the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him.
Should not perish, but have everlasting life. He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. In this was manifested the love of God, in that God sent his only begotten Son into the world.
00:15:09
That we might live through him.
I'm going to repeat the lines of a hymn. It may seem out of context, but I'm going to tell a story after I.
Quote these lines. It's a hymn that's familiar to many of us.
The Lord is risen, the Red Seas judgment flawed, is passed in Him who bought us with His blood.
The Lord is risen. We stand beyond the doom of all our sins.
Through Jesus empty tomb.
William Patton McKay was born in Scotland in the year 1839. He was brought up in a Christian home. He had a God fearing pious mother, a mother who brought the gospel before him, a mother who took him to Sunday school and gospel meetings. He heard the word of God from his youth, but he hardened his heart against the gospel, and at 17 years of age he left home.
He left home to go to school, he went to university and he became a doctor.
During those years of studying, he lived a wildlife he drank, he caroused.
He lived for himself. He tried to forget God.
Before he left home, his mother gave him a Bible.
And she wrote in the flyleaf of that Bible.
His name, the fact that it was from his mother, and the verse I quoted a few moments ago, John 316.
He forgot all about that Bible as he went through those years of school.
He went on to become a doctor.
He eventually found that Bible in some of his belongings, and he took it and pawned it.
He became an infidel.
Went on to be elected as the president.
Of the Atheist Atheist Society of Edinburgh.
Became the head physician at the largest hospital in Edinburgh. Became very renowned for his surgeries and his ability to bring people back from the point of death.
One day.
He was called to the emergency room an accident victim had been brought in.
He went to tend to this accident victim and realized that this victim was not going to pull through.
In spite of anything he could do, nothing was going to save this man.
This man said to him. Doctor, what's the prognosis? Am I going to pull through?
And as doctors usually are, in an optimistic way, he said, Oh, you'll make it OK.
The man said, Doctor, I want the truth, he said. I'm not going to make it, am I?
William McKay had to.
Confessed to this man that he didn't believe he was going to make it.
The man said. Doctor, I wonder if you would do something for me, he said. I wonder if you would send to my landlady at my apartment.
At my rooming house and ask her to bring the book. She'll know what I mean. Just send a messenger, if you will, and ask that my landlady send me the book.
The messenger was sent, the book was received and brought back to the dying man.
Sometime later, Doctor McKay was making his rounds and he came back down to the emergency room.
And he asked about the patient, and the nurse on duty told him.
That the patient had indeed died.
His mind went to the book that had been sent. He asked the nurse if the patient had got it, and yes, he had.
He said to the nurse, What was it? Was it his checkbook? Was it a date book? What was the book?
That he wanted so badly.
The nurse said to him. Well, it's still under his pillow. Why don't you go and see?
00:20:03
And so, curiosity getting the better of him, the doctor went reached unto the man's pillow.
And pulled out a Bible.
He opened the flyleaf and he was almost overcome with emotion.
There in his hand, after all those years, was the very Bible that his mother had given to him, the Bible that he had pawned to buy drink and to support his.
His wicked lifestyle was there in his hand, and there, as it almost jumped off the page, was John 316. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
Overcome, tuck that Bible under his arm, and he rushed upstairs to his office.
And he fell on his knees before God, and there's a repentance Sinner.
He confessed before God that he was a Sinner, and he received there the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior with that open Bible before him.
And he rose off his knees, a new creature in Christ Jesus.
The first thing he did was to contact his elderly mother.
Well, you can imagine the thrill that must have gone through her soul as she realized the fruit of her labor and her prayers.
William McKay.
Went on to become an ardent Christian and preacher of the gospel.
A hymn writer.
And if you notice the first verse of that hymn, I quoted #34 in the Little Flock hymn book, a hymn book that most many of us are so familiar with if you go to the authors index.
You'll find.
But he's the author of that hymn that so many of us have often sung. He also wrote that hymn. We praise thee, O God, for the Son of thy love for Jesus, who died and is now gone above. Hallelujah, thine the glory, Hallelujah, Amen, Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again, he wrote those blessed words. I often wonder if that hymn didn't come before him as he.
Looked at that scripture, John 316. There in the flyleaf of his Bible, in his mother's handwriting. But what about you tonight?
Can you look up to heaven tonight and with joy in your soul say thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift as we speak about the Lord Jesus Christ? Does it thrill your soul to think that God sent his well beloved Son into this world?
And when he sent his son, God knew exactly what the cost.
Was going to be. You know, we often say the Gospels free, and it certainly is free.
But it's not cheap. The Gospel is not cheap. It costs God his son.
It costs the Lord Jesus his life. It costs the Lord Jesus the shedding of his precious blood.
You know what? Gift always costs something, doesn't it? A gift costs the giver something. It may be some time, it may be some effort, it may be some skill or ability. It may be some monetary cost. But it A gift is going to cost the giver. But of course, what makes the gift a gift is that it's free to the recipient and all. Tonight, God has sent His beloved Son that great cost. The Lord Jesus went to Calvary's cross.
There he gave his life. There, as I say, he shed his precious blood.
The price has been paid so that you can be offered tonight a wonderful gift. We're going to look at it in a moment. But again, I want to impress upon our souls this gift of all gifts, the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. And for those of us who know Christ as our Savior, I trust that every day, more than once a day, we look up with thankful hearts that we never forget.
That wonderful gift of the Son that we thank God every day.
For that gift, when was the last time you looked up and said thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. If someone has done a great deal for you, you don't want to thank them just once. Maybe someone saves your life, gets you out of some extenuating circumstance, pays a great debt for you. Oh, you don't thank them just once. Every time you see that person, you say thank you.
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I'll never forget what you've done for me. Oh, let's never forget to thank God for his gift, the gift of his son. But let's go on now to the book of Romans.
Romans chapter 5.
Romans chapter 5 and verse 15.
But not as the offense. So also is the free gift, for if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ.
Hath abounded unto many, and then notice the 23rd verse of the 6th chapter.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, I also want to read a verse in the book of Leviticus.
Leviticus, chapter 17.
Leviticus chapter 17 and verse 11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls.
For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
We spoke of that unspeakable gift, the gift of the Lord Jesus.
Not just a good gift, but a perfect gift. But the other perfect gifts that God.
Is offering to man tonight are based on the gift of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is no other basis. There is no other way of blessing, no other way that God can offer.
These gifts that we have now read about the gift of eternal life.
And isn't it interesting that in the 5th chapter it uses the expression the free gift?
That is an interesting expression to me, because what makes a gift free is the fact that it is free to the recipient. I'm going to repeat a little story sometimes told, but it rather impressed me in this regard. I remember one time we were holding some gospel meetings in an area of northern Maine years ago, and one night a brother was seeking by the grace of God to present the gospel as simply and clearly as possible.
To a room of people who had rarely heard a clear gospel. Perhaps there were some there too who D never heard the gospel.
Presented before.
And in seeking to impress upon the audience.
What we're seeking to impress upon our hearts tonight, and that, is that the gospel is free to the recipient.
He used an illustration that I thought was very helpful, he said. Suppose I bring to the front of the room here.
A bicycle. A brand new bicycle. The best bicycle money can buy.
An expensive bicycle, No expense has been spared to provide the very best.
In cycling technology and he said. I bring this bicycle to the front of the room.
A bicycle that I have purchased myself and will suppose that I say to one of the boys on the front row.
This bicycle is free. It is a gift to you if you will simply come and receive this bicycle.
And soon the boy gets up off his chair, somewhat hesitantly, but nevertheless he gets up off his chair.
And he comes forward to receive the bicycle. But he said we'll suppose that through his mind.
Is running the fact that this bicycle is very expensive. I know this man has gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to secure this bicycle.
And I'd like to help him out just a little bit. And so the boy reaches into his pocket and he finds that he has one penny.
One cent in his pocket.
And so as he approaches, he says Sir, now I appreciate this, but I'd like to do something. I'd like to do my part to help out.
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And I only have one penny. But Sir, if you will just receive this one penny, I would be grateful.
The preacher said if I received that penny from the boy, the bicycle no longer becomes a gift, It becomes a bargain. But it's no longer a gift. And the gospel tonight is not a bargain, It's a gift. You can do nothing. You can't offer God one thing. All you have to do is come and simply receive as God's free gift the gift of eternal life.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. But for a moment I'd like to impress upon our souls. The first part of the verse we read in the 6th chapter for the wages of sin is death.
You know there are wages.
And those wages are death.
You know death passed upon all men for that all have sinned and I think everyone of us, if we're honest tonight.
Have to confess that we realize that the wages of sin are death. We don't have to go very far from this building to see death and sorrow and the results of sin on every hand. Every town, every community of any size has a graveyard. There are hospitals, there are nursing homes, there are all kinds of clinics and facilities.
There are funeral homes.
All giving testimony to the fact that the wages of sin is death. But more than that, not only is the are the wages of sin death, but after death the judgment there is that which is referred to in the Book of Revelation as the second death, and the second death is eternal separation from God. The second death is to be bound hand and foot and cast into the lake of fire.
The second death is to be in a place of torment for all eternity.
Where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. But let's make no mistake about it.
Hell was never prepared for, man. Hell was never prepared for the Sinner.
It was prepared for the devil and his angels, but one who refuses God's gift of eternal life.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Is going to go to that place. God, as it were, will have no choice.
But to send the unrepentant, unregenerate Sinner who passes out of this world lost.
He will have no choice but to send them to the lake of fire.
It's very serious. It's very solemn tonight and my heart is stirred in the heart of many are stirred here in this room tonight to realize that there may be those in this room who have perhaps even sat in these meetings today and yesterday and are on the Broad Rd. that leads to destruction.
My heart was stirred a few moments ago when we were in a room in a building across the way and there was a prayer meeting concerning blessing for this gospel, and a young brother prayed and he prayed for his fellow young people who are in this room and still lost in their sins.
It's not just older people who are concerned about you tonight.
But if you're a young person in this room tonight and you're lost, you don't know Christ as your Savior. There is at least one, and I have no doubt more, but there is at least one of your peers tonight who's praying for you, who's concerned.
Because if you pass out of this world lost, you're gonna go to hell.
I want to stress for a moment.
The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, we often in the gospel meeting stress what comes after death.
And certainly it needs to be stressed. None of us have any lease on life. None of us know how much longer we have.
None of us know how many more breaths we're going to take.
But there is another event that is imminent. There's an event that's going to take place at any moment, and that is the coming of the Lord. And the New Testament leaves us in no doubt, as we go from Scripture to Scripture, just how that event is going to take place. We're not told when, but we're told how. We're going to take, told. We're told what will happen. We're told who is going to be involved.
00:35:25
And who is not going to be involved?
If the Lord Jesus were to come before this Gospel meeting is completed.
Every person in this room who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Who has thy faith received the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord?
Every person will vacate their seat immediately. Every person who knows Christ is going to be caught away.
To be with the Lord Jesus. And I know there are just many people in this room who thrill.
When we speak about the second coming of Christ and when we quote a verse such as the coming of the Lord, draweth nigh.
But the coming of the Lord is going to mean different things for different people.
Because for those who are not saved, it's going to mean that they are left behind.
Someone in this room to look around and see all the empty chairs and realize.
What has taken place? It was already mentioned in these meetings about the fact that when Elijah was raptured to heaven in a whirlwind, a chariot of fire, it wasn't the general populace in Israel that missed him. It was the sons of the prophets.
And who will miss the believer when they're raptured to heaven at the second coming of Christ?
I don't believe it will be the general populace, Impella or Iowa or the United States or the world. It will be.
Initially at least, the sons and the daughters of praying parents and grandparents, the sons and the daughters of those who have had loved ones snatched out of this world to be with the Lord Jesus for all eternity.
In the Father's house.
It is so very, very serious.
At the end of a gospel meeting, a young lady was leaving and she was asked what her impression of the gospel meeting was.
She said, well, at least the the preacher is passionate about what he believes.
And we are tonight. We are passionate because these things are real and they're going to happen. They're going to take place. They're serious and they're eternal. The consequences are dire. They're final. They're eternal. There'll be no reversal. You have a problem now. There's always a remedy. We're so used to a 1800 number. We're used to 911. We're used to insurance and all those things. And I'm not saying.
We shouldn't avail ourselves of those resources.
But when the Lord Jesus comes, so when a soul leaves this world.
There's no reversal. There's no insurance. There's no one 800 number in a lost eternity. There's no 911 in hell.
It's fixed. It's over.
So Lord Jesus is coming.
You know, the Lord Jesus not only died on the cross, but he shed his precious blood.
The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But there's another gift, and that's why I read in the 17th of Leviticus.
Because I want to stress for a few moments the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and those sacrifices that are referred to in the book of Leviticus.
Where the blood was shed where just pale reflections and feeble foreshadows of what was really in the mind and heart of God.
God was looking forward to that time when his son would go to the altar.
When his son would go to Calvary's cross and lay down his life and shed his precious blood.
The blood is a gift from God himself. And that blood, it tells us the blood of Jesus Christ his Son, cleanses us from all sin. Have you been washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? It is the only thing that is going to take away your sins. It is the only thing that is going to save your soul, the blood of the Lord Jesus. It's through that blood that we have forgiveness.
00:40:10
It's through that blood that Peter tells us we have redemption. We are redeemed not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. Some of us have travelled in countries where their dollar is completely worthless or severely devalued, and sometimes the value of a dollar changes overnight or even during the day.
And not only that, but even in countries where the dollar is stable.
Or gold and silver is somewhat stable. Yet if you go from day-to-day and week to week and compare the value of the US dollar against the Japanese yen and the euro, the value of gold and silver and other precious commodities, it changes.
But I'm thankful that my redemption isn't based on something that changes in value.
Something that is going to fluctuate one way or the other and when it says the precious blood of Christ.
I'm thankful that that isn't my estimation of the blood. That's God's estimation.
God says the blood of the Lord Jesus is precious. It's as precious to the heart of God tonight.
As when it was shed so long ago at Calvary's cross, and that value is never going to change.
It will be precious to the heart of God for all eternity. Is it precious to your heart tonight?
Has it done its work? Have you been washed in the blood of the lamb? The boys and girls so often, And those of us who are older sing that hymn? What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood.
Of Jesus.
But there's something else we need to stress in the gospel before we move on, because the apostle Paul, in referring to the gospel that he presented to the Corinthians, said.
That the gospel that he preached was that Christ died, That he was buried.
And then he rose again the 3rd day according to the Scriptures. And when we present the gospel, we must stress though a resurrection of the Lord Jesus, It is a vital element. It is a vital part of the gospel because if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain and ye are still in your sins. But thank God he was raised again for our justification. You know, it's interesting that when you read the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
And you read the circumstances surrounding the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus.
In various of the Gospels recorded by inspiration.
We find various details. For instance, in John's Gospel, he's the only evangelist that records the fact.
That a soldier with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came their out blood and water.
And there are things that are unique to each gospel, but at the end of the story of the crucifixion.
Everyone of the four Gospels brings before us the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So vital is it as far as our blessing and salvation.
That not one of the four evangelists leave it out by inspiration. They record some aspects, certain details of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and oh what a victory was won at Calvary's Cross.
You know, they talk about the great victories that have been won in various battles around this globe through the centuries. And certainly we don't want to belittle those victories that have been won for the peace and the stability of mankind in one way or another. I've been to Trevor Fogger Square not long ago. I was at the Arch of Triumph in Paris. I've been to Passchendaele. I've been to the great monuments to different wars. I've stood at Eep and Eepers at the meningitis and seen those 56,000 names.
Engraved in stone.
Of soldiers they never found to bury in Flanders fields. But all the victory tonight that we're Speaking of.
Is far, far superior, and the consequences of that victory are far, far greater than any victory that's ever been won on this planet apart from the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just about 5 weeks ago, my wife and I visited the Louvre in Paris. The Louvre is that vast building that houses many of the art treasures and artifacts.
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Of this world priceless treasures and artifacts.
The Louvre is so big that you'll never see it, even in two or three days. And when you go to the Louvre, you need to have a list of things that you particularly want to see. And they have maps that will guide you on certain route routes, to see the things that you've come to see. And one of the things I had on my list was to see the statue of Nike. I suppose when we speak of Nike, most of you young people think of a brand name of clothes.
And on that brand name of clothes there is a check mark called a swoosh.
But I wonder if you really realize what the name where the name Nike comes from and where that symbol comes from. Nike was the goddess of victory.
Back in 1863.
The statue of Nike was excavated on the island of Samothracia by a French archaeologist. It was found in several pieces. In fact, some of those pieces were never some of the pieces of that idol. That statue were never found, but she's displayed very dramatically in the Louvre, the top of a grand staircase.
With a with a glass Dome lighted, very dramatically displayed. And there she is with her wingspan in the shape of that swoosh. That's where that swoosh on the Nike brand name clothing comes from.
You know, it's interesting if you were to go to Acts chapter 16. Paul spent one day and one night on the island of Samothracia. I often wonder if they were worshipping the goddess of victory, that very statue, when Paul was there, But there she is displayed for all to see. I wanted to see that statue simply because Paul had visited that very island where it was excavated from and perhaps saw that statue.
And as I gazed at that statue and my wife took a picture of Maine standing there with it.
I thought again of a far, far greater victory, not a victory won in this world.
But a victory won? Yes, it was won in this world, but not a victory won by any other.
But the Lord Jesus Christ, the man Christ Jesus, when he came forth triumphant from the grave, rose again from the dead.
The third day, and after, remaining on earth long enough to give ample and complete testimony to his own that he had bodily risen from the dead, even saying, handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bone, as ye see me, have he ascended back to the to the right hand of God. He seated there tonight as the Savior of sinners, and the resurrection, the ascension, and the glorification of Christ.
Our gods. Amen to the work of Calvary. They are the proof that God is satisfied.
With the work of his son and that there is a savior tonight for all those who come.
And receive that wonderful gift. I'd like to look at another gift now. It's in the 4th chapter of the book of John's Gospel.
John's Gospel, chapter 4 and verse 10. Jesus answered and said unto her.
If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, give me to drink.
I would have asked of him and he would have given the living water. I suggest that the gift that is mentioned here in this chapter is the gift of the Spirit of God, because usually in scripture a a well or a spring, a river, a brook, running water, is a figure of the Spirit of God. In fact, later on in John's Gospel the Lord Jesus said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
And this he spake concerning the Spirit. And the reason we've read this near the end of the Gospel Meeting is because.
Maybe there's someone sitting here and you're saying I'd like to become a Christian. I'd like to get saved.
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I'd like to receive eternal life through Jesus Christ the Lord, but I could never live the Christian life.
I could never live like others who know the Lord Jesus, but that's not the question tonight.
Because when a soul gets saved, when they receive eternal life, then there is power given.
For that life and that power to live, the Christian life is the spirit of God. We don't have to live the Christian life on our own power. We never could. I remember some years ago an individual coming to some gospel tent meetings.
And after the meeting, he stayed behind. I believe he was really exercised, really burdened about his sins. The spirit of God was working with him. But he looked at the elderly brother who had preached the gospel that night, and he had known that brother for some years and he said, oh, I'd like to be a Christian, but I could never live like you. I could never meet up to the standard to which you seem to live. And all this elderly brother sought to impress upon him.
No, you never could, and I never could either.
Apart from the power that God gives, the power of the Spirit of God.
And it's the Spirit of God too that refreshes our souls and brings before us the person and work of Christ in one way or another.
How thankful we are that those of us who know the Lord Jesus as our Savior.
Can enjoy every day something from the pages of this book concerning our precious Savior.
And not only that, but through the Spirit of God, we can have a little foretaste of heaven before we get there.
We can enjoy that which is ahead, albeit in part, but we can have a little foretaste of what we are going to enjoy in a fuller and deeper way in the coming day. I'd like to look at another gift though. It's in Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 8.
For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God.
Maybe there's someone here tonight and you're saying, well, I find it hard to believe that the scriptures have been read and quoted.
We've sought in some measure to explain as simply as possible the good news of the gospel, and you say I find it hard to believe that.
Well, perhaps you'd be more honest to say I find it hard to believe God, because as we read and quote the word of God, it's God speaking.
That's why it's referred to as the word of God. Do you find it hard to believe God tonight?
It's impossible for God to lie.
Not only that, but maybe you said, well, I just don't have the faith.
But the gift here is the faith that God gives to believe, and it's not the quantity that's important. You say I just don't have enough faith. It's not the quantity. If you have the faith of a grain of mustard seed, you could move mountains. If you had the faith of a grain of mustard seed, if I can paraphrase it this way, you can get saved tonight. It's not the amount of faith, it's the person and whom you put that faith.
Are you going to come to the Lord Jesus tonight? God is giving.
He's offering eternal life. He's given his son. He's given the blood. The blood has been shed.
He's He gives his spirit, He gives the faith.
It's all provided, like those who were invited to the Supper that the Lord told about.
All things are ready. Come. There was nothing to do. There was number preparation to be made. The preparation had all been made and everything was being offered freely. They wouldn't come, They wouldn't take that which was being offered so freely.
Oh, tonight, come and don't try to pay. Don't try to do something.
It's not of works. Lest any man should boast, you know there was a man.
In the book of Acts, I think it's the 8th chapter he tried to pay for the gift of God.
It was the Spirit of God there again, and when he saw the mighty things that were being done.
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He offered the apostles money, and they said to him, thy money perish with thee, because thou thoughts that the gift of God could be bought with money. It can't be bought tonight. It's already been bought. It's already been purchased. God would be unrighteous to charge us now, when the price has been paid by his beloved Son. But it has been paid. It's been fully paid.
Written across my debt of sin is paid in full. What about yours? Paid by the blood of the Lord Jesus?
No. Tonight we point you at the end of this gospel meeting to the Savior of sinners.
Are you going to walk out of this meeting and refuse God's gift?
What would a parent think?
If they went to a great deal of expense and trouble to secure a gift for their son or daughter for their birthday, a gift that they knew would please them very much, perhaps a gift that had been requested and desired. And they went to a great deal of trouble to secure this gift. And then they came in on your birthday and they offered you that gift and you refused it.
Or you tried to pay for it. Oh, they'd be insulted. They'd feel bad. They'd be distressed. They'd say, Well, it's for you. It's a gift. The price has been paid. Here it is. We know it's something you wanted and you hold up your hand.
And you refuse it. But what are we doing to God tonight? Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning. And you're going to go out of this room tonight and refuse the gifts that God is offering to you. Are you going to insult God tonight? But oh, worse than that. Are you going to seal your doom and go to a lost eternity?
All tonight come come to the Lord Jesus.
Say yes, receive him this moment and peace.
Shall be thine. Let's pray our God and Father.
1 Corinthians 10:15-on
The Covenants
Open—Steve St. Vincent
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Glorious mansions of.
We say no, go around 10-4 oh, 10-4 oh, 10-4 01000000 oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Drains no problem, I can't go forever.
Blah blah blah, glory of God does the problem.
515338000003.
I pray that.
My brethren will have some confidence in me this afternoon.
There's a subject that I believe the Lord has laid on my heart that I would like to bring our attention to.
And it ties in with uh.
Scripture.
That her brother Dawn ruled. Read in First Corinthians chapter one.
First Corinthians, chapter one.
And reading in verse nine, God is faithful.
By whom?
You were called unto the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
I'd like to take a moment and look at the subject of covenants, specifically covenants of blood.
And they have a particular meaning and characteristic in the scripture that I believe that we can learn from and we can profit by.
And so beginning in Gen. or Jeremiah chapter 29.
Jeremiah 29 and verse 11. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Dear ones, God cannot deal with man unless there is a mechanism by which He can righteously pour out His mercy onto.
His people and a mechanism by which he can righteously judge. And we see this carried out in the types of the blood covenants. I believe Scripture brings before us five blood covenants.
Uh, Abramic.
The church, the new covenant, we have the covenant of birth, the covenant of marriage, and there's a covenant of freedom in Jeremiah 34 where.
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There was divided asunder the sacrifice, and the covenant makers passed between those pieces of the sacrifice and that covenant. There was to set freedom to the slaves of the land, an aspect of a jubilee that the children of Israel had failed to keep.
As we know this that expectation of Jeremiah, that covenant was broken. Those that were set free from their slavery were called back by their masters, and so God, characteristically with Jeremiah, deals with them accordingly.
Covenants for a covenant to exist, there needs to be two parties with which can enter into an agreement. We see contracts around us, contracts of covenants. If we buy a home, there's a contract that we will purchase that home and that we will make payments on that. There is an expected end to that. That home will have certain qualities of standards that meets, uh, expectations to be a safe abode for you to dwell in. And then as the obligation of the one making that covenant, there is the.
Requirement to make payment when that obligation is broken, while there are penalties that come into play, you may lose your home, it may be foreclosed. Well, so it is with covenants that there is the expectation of obligation and responsibility between the parties that make that covenant.
But when we look at this with respect to God and covenants, it is a blessed example of seeing the character and nature of God. God, when he makes a covenant, He is able to carry it out to the fullest extent.
When He makes a covenant, there is nothing that will prevent him from fulfilling his obligation. But to each one of us there is the opportunity that we will fail in meeting God's obligation. Of course, that is what happened under the Mosaic covenant where the Talbots of stone came down from the mountain. And of course the children of Israel said that which God had commanded that we will keep. But what happened? They failed, and so they suffered the consequences of that.
To show this, uh, turn with me to Isaiah chapter 44.
Isaiah 44 and.
Verse 8.
Fear not, neither be afraid. Have I not told thee from that time, and have declared it? You are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Yeah. Is there is no God I know not any. This really takes us back to Hebrews chapter 6, when we see Abraham there, discussed by the writer of Hebrews about the covenant that he had with God, and that God by two immutable witnesses, by swearing he could swear by no greater than himself.
And so we see God. There is no greater than God, and so God is able to.
Uh, carry out and do what he has purposed and then in the 21St verse, remember these, umm.
The 21St verse of Isaiah 44. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel, for thou art my servant. I have formed thee, Thou art my servant, O Israel, Thou shalt not be forgotten of me. I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins. Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee. Sing, O heavens, for the Lord hath done it. Shout ye lower parts of the earth break forth into singing. Ye want mountains, O forest, and every tree therein. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.
Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord.
That maketh all things, that stretches forth the heavens alone, and that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself. And so here we see the the Lord as the as the king and the dominion of all that is created. And we see associated with his creative, his creation aspect, his character of salvation as well. That is that he as he has formed the heavens and the earth, he also has redeemed Jacob. And so it is with us that God.
As the character of, of the ability and the, uh, the strength to redeem us just as we redeemed Isaac and Jacob and then another character of God that we see that is borne out in covenant in Isaiah 48.
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And verse 3.
We see it in the prophetic aspect of of Christ and how the Spirit of prophecy is Christ.
Isaiah 48 and verse three. I have declared the former things from the beginning and they went forth out of my mouth. I showed them, I did them. Suddenly they came to pass. This is an awesome thing to think that.
We are on the verge of seeing.
This earth move into a new prophetic age of where God will carry forth these things that He has promised and prophesied from old. There is nothing that is going to restrain God from carrying out these prophetic aspects, and So what a wonderful thing it is to know that too our salvation, our Redeemer, as He will carry forth His prophetic word, He also sustains.
And keeps us by His power. It is the avenue for God to show mercy. Turn with me to Deuteronomy in Chapter 7.
Deuteronomy 7 and verse 9.
Know, therefore, that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy. It is fascinating as we.
Look at Scripture and we look at the term covenant. We find often times associated with covenant mercy. And so God in his aspect of covenant nature, He has the covenant with us so that the avenue of mercy can come forward. Without mercy or without the covenant. God cannot bring forth His mercy and we see this in the New Testament.
Uh, in Ephesians I think chapter 2. Just quoting it here about umm.
That we were without the Commonwealth of Israel as Gentiles, we did not have access to that stream of mercy that God had with his covenanted people. And so we were outside the realm or the stream of mercy from God. King Solomon, who he dedicated the temple, he called forth, thou art a God of mercy and covenant. And So what a wonderful thing it is that again in the character of God we see mercy is able to come forth through.
That of of of the covenant. Then turn with me to Psalm chapter 89.
It's a beautiful song. We sing many prophetic things about the Lord Jesus Christ and his and His person, His character and suffering on the cross of Calvary.
So I'm 89 at verse 20.
Verse 28 My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him.
In verse 34, my covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips?
There's another aspect of this about a covenant that when it is broken, you see this in the 31St verse, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then I will visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. What is fascinating about this, uh, portion in Psalms is it doesn't necessarily couple this, this punishment with the people of Israel, but it certainly came upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
As he had to bear the punishment for our iniquities.
Now I'd like to look at specifically the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis chapter 15.
There's a few things that we can learn here.
Reading from verse one after these things, the word of the Lord came on to Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? And the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, Behold to me thou hast given no seed, and lo, one born in my house is mine error. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bells shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars that thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall they seed be.
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And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness.
And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give this land, to inherit it.
And he said to the Lord, Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take me, and heifer a three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And he took him in all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece against another.
But the birds divided he not. When the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo, a ***** of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them 400 years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterwards shall they come out with great substance.
And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, and shall be buried in a good old age. And verse 17 It came to pass, when the sun went down, and it was dark, Behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those people those pieces.
In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying unto saying, unto thy seed, will I give this land from the river Egypt unto the great river, the Euphrates, etcetera. And so we see this really strange passage of, of where Abram queries of the Lord and asked him about his inheritance. But you know, it is really interesting to see that God is a rewarder of those, uh, that diligently seek him. He is a rewarder of faith.
And there's a curious aspect of the Lord's rewarding and, and, uh.
Ezekiel chapter 29 at the end of the end of the chapter there we see this where, uh, the Lord rewards Nebuchadnezzar because he waged war against the king of Tyrus. And so the Lord gives on to, uh, King Nebuchadnezzar, the land of Egypt as a wage for his service. And so the Lord is one who diligently keeps track of that, what we do for him, and He will reward us according to the measure of faith that we have.
Some have.
Appropriately suggested that in this passage, we see that Abraham was perhaps a bit faithless in his, in his, uh, uh, communication with God. But I think there's another aspect that we can learn some beautiful truths about going back to a time and distant past before the creation of time that we can see into the very presence and counsel of God. We know certainly that Abram in many ways is a type of the father.
Eliezer is the type of the Holy Spirit, but I would suggest that in this passage we see that the Lord is the type of the Father. Abram is the type of the son perhaps. And, and uh, Eliezer is that of the Holy Spirit. And so we see the Lord Jesus in the type aspect here asking what is mind inheritance? Now we get to the New Testament. What do we see in Hebrews 12? Yet for the joy that was before him, he endured the cross.
And so the Lord Jesus had a goal and a purpose for him. And we know that all the seed of Abraham, more than the stars of the sky, that we too are the children of Abraham because of that of faith we have been brought into.
That sphere of blessing we see that Abraham goes into a deep sleep that is too indicative of the type of the Lord Jesus Christ going into a deep sleep for us upon that cross of Calvary. And it shows here that a great horror came upon him. What a horror it was for our sins to be laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ as He bore the punishment for them. And I believe that when we see in this too.
The dividing of sunder of the of the calf.
A heifer of three years and verse 9A she goat of three years and a ram of three years. And as we see, the servant nature of Christ perhaps associated with that of the heifer and the she goat, that of uh.
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That of the substitution, the substitutionary nature of the Lord Jesus Christ sacrifice for us upon that cross of Calvary, and in the Ram we see that perhaps of submission and devotedness to His Father.
And so they were divided asunder. They were all three years of age, perhaps bringing to mind too, the length of the Lord's ministry.
But we see too that there was a turtle dove and a pigeon.
And I think that if we, uh, look at the type of the turtle dove, it and the pigeon, they're heavenly animals. They're that which speaks to that belonging to God. And so it was not divided. And perhaps the turtles speaks to us of that, of the Holy Spirit. And, uh, and the pigeon, the pigeon was that common animal that anyone could offer, would have the ability to offer a burnt offering unto the Lord. And so salvation perhaps is available to all in this type here.
And so we see that in this covenant that God has made now this, this promise to Abram that he will give him this land. But you know, when we look around us and we look at the world and the things that, uh, the political nature of the world that is about around us, what do we see? We see that the world is at, is at enmity against this promise. The whole nature of the global politic. It really is and, and challenge to this promise that God had made Abram.
And it is not something that is trivial or lightly, lightly discussed. Just a little over a year ago as we were traveling up to this conference here, we drove through Oklahoma City and up on Interstate 35 and as we looked out.
To our door left there was the city of Oklahoma. We saw these huge building clouds that were building over that city and lo and behold, it was that very storm system that developed into the most massive tornado swarm that has occurred in this country.
Well, what does that have to do? This Abrahamic covenant? Well, it was that very day.
Within a 24 hour period before the President of the United States and his cabinet had made an official policy to recognize Palestine as a nation and as a nation that was continuous from Gaza up to Eastern Jerusalem. It would have completely cut Israel off as a nation and would have driven the country back to its pre 1967 borders. Dear ones, God is not mocked. He is this promise.
To Abraham.
Is real God?
Does not tolerate.
Those that would despise his covenant with Abram and just as a coincidence, those that have looked at natural disasters in this country from Hurricane Katrina and others that typically within a 72 hour period of the government making a stand against against Israel, there is typically a major natural disaster. It is not without coincidence.
And then we look prophetically. What is happening going to happen in the future?
We look at all the nations that are around Israel. There is it is that there to destroy that land, to wipe Israel off from being a nation.
And and I in Psalm 83 we see that the nations conspire together.
We read in Deuteronomy 7 going back there, uh, just as.
We see that God will repay to the face in Deuteronomy 79. This is not something that God.
Takes too kindly those that would break his covenants.
It is ironic just So before we move on to the next aspect here in the about the church, looking at the nations that surround Israel, they're all Muslim and Islam, We see really the perfect heretical religion against Christianity. Everything that we as Christians hold wholly and sacred are those values that the Muslims despise, what we hold as Christ.
Come in the flesh, they deny. They deny that Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary. They deny that God begets. And so we look at first.
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John chapter 51 he that loveth just turn to it briefly.
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone that loveth him.
That begat.
Loveth Him also, that is begotten of Him. When they talk, I even hate to use the name of their God, because it is blasphemous in its own nature. It is a blasphemous creed in and of itself, because they deny that God begets. And so as such they deny the Son, they deny the Holy Spirit, they deny His redemptive power. It is quite interesting that if you look at what they claim of their own and of who their God is, He claims that He is the God even of the demons.
The God of everything that is abhorrent and nasty. The God of deceit. What a contrast to the God that we have.
And so I'd like to now take it the subject of quickly of the Church turn with me to Genesis chapter 2.
Genesis chapter 2 and verse 21 of the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.
And he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh of their oven stead, and the rib at which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman, and brought her unto him. What a wonderful thing to see here back.
In the very earliest part of scripture we see the prophetic type of Christ in the church. I am sure that.
God designed it so that when Adam went into the sleep, we see Adam being again the type of Christ going into death for us and coming out from his side, his bride, his church. This speaks to us, of course, of the bride of Christ.
But as we look at Adam, I'm sure God could have created Eve from the ground just as out of what's creative. But would Adam have had the same heart and affection toward Eve? I doubt not. And I'm, I'm sure that Adam bore that score in his side to remind him of what his bride cost and what, where, uh, she came from that he would be knit towards his wife in that way. And so it is with Christ.
Ephesians chapter 5.
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 25. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water.
By the word and so here we see in the type in atom, uh, the church born out of.
Out of umm, or Eve born out of Adam's sight. It was not a blend, a bloodless thing, but it was blood was shed there. And so as we see in Hebrews, uh, chapter 12, we see clearly that the church too is under a new covenant. Now when we looked back in the Old Testament, we see the covenants there. There was an obligation between both parties. But under this new covenant, you might say that there are two aspects of the new covenant, that which.
Is assigned to Israel by grace in the coming millennial day when they will enjoy a new covenant that replaces the the umm Mosaic covenant that God made with them. But now there is a new covenant too that we are under. We are under the blessing and perhaps it is maybe characterized as the everlasting covenant. God knew us before the foundation of the world. God's thoughts were towards you and I before the heavens and earth were even created. We were on his thoughts. But what makes this covenant different is.
We have nothing to do to obtain it except by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And So what an, what an awesome position it is that we have as, as this covenanted relationship with Christ. It is a great mystery. And, and in this, uh, what we find where as the bride of Christ, where do we find ourselves? We find ourselves as joint heirs with Christ in Romans chapter 8.
And verse 29.
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For whom He did foreknow, he also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate them he also called.
And whom he called them, he also justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified. This is incredible to think of what it is as a position we have before the Lord Jesus Christ that we have, uh.
We are now seen by God as being seated in heavenly places. This is not something that we came by our own natural right or inheritance, but that because the Lord Jesus Christ was surety for us and brought us into that blessed inheritance that was His.
And so he breaks us from the bonds of sin.
First or second, Peter two and verse one. It says that we are partakers of the divine nature. Again, incredible thing to think what it is that we've been brought into that the very thoughts of God are the thoughts that he will share with us.
And that we will have that communion one with another. Hebrews 9 speaks about two of a purged conscience. You know, we could not enjoy this position of being glorified if it was not for the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Purging our conscience from sin so that we can come, without any hesitation or restraint, into the very holy presence of God Himself.
And that is our place in this in in glory in the future day. And then we see too that we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, which enables us to carry forward the works of the Holy Spirit.
I have a number of friends on Facebook that are tied up into.
Uh, covenant or not covenant, but I would say picking up the old things that the Messianic Christianity, if there can be called such a thing, and they're trying to go back into the Torah and keep the Torah and these things. On the one hand, there is almost a sympathy towards them because in that they're starting to see a little bit of what the Passover meant in terms of the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ and the lamb and the type there or the, some of these things. And so we can appreciate why they may be going into these things. But you know, the, the law only takes us to a certain point.
But the Lord has called us to be filled with the Holy Spirit, which takes us way beyond.
To something that can never have been done under the without the power of the Holy Spirit. And so we do have that blessed hope and 1St Thessalonians 4 of the Lord Jesus Christ is soon coming to take us home again to be with Him.
But there is too that aspect of judgment. There are those that who will deny this relationship, this covenant that God seeks to have with us. They deny that the Lord Jesus Christ is their Savior. And so there is a corresponding eternal damnation that is set aside for them. This is not to be trifled with, young people.
That if you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, there is a very real, uh, a very real judgment and separation for God that cannot be denied. And so as to we see in the covenant nature of, of Christ in the church, we see also in type many of these characters brought forth in the covenant type of marriage. Now marriage is the covenant that.
There is the tokens of virginity when the husband and wife come together and so it is a it is too a blood covenant. And as we look at what the marriage stands for, the marriage is the first institution that was established by God. We can go back to Genesis chapter one and verse 28.
Genesis 1 gives us a topical outline of his creation in the order that he has established in his earth, and at the very end of chapter one we see a.
And God bless them. And God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply.
And replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it. And so we see that there is this this responsibility as a husband and wife to be that which is.
That institution that that really subdues the earth, it is that institution that righteousness is passed from one generation to the next.
And it is too that universal symbol of humanity that speaks of Christ in his church. Isn't it interesting to know that the that no matter what culture you go in, that there is an institution of marriage? This is something that really speaks to us of, of the.
00:35:06
Umm of the created order as being a witness of God. We certainly look at the created things and and the invisible things that speak of God, but here too in this institution of marriage, the fact that it is a universal human experience.
Speaks to of its source from God and as an institution.
As an institution, it is, it is the, uh, the source of really of, of earthly blessing in our own in, in our own nature. It is the light of Christianity that has.
Really recovered and brought what we know today in our western world as a cup, as a relationship between a man and a woman. But isn't it strange too? I guess it's not strange when we when we consider what Satan would do to this institution. He would try to destroy it. And so we see on every hand around us the.
The, the, uh, the culture and those that would communicate to the culture through advertising and media that are trying to break down what this institution is to say that is something other than what God has established. And so this brings us to the obvious point about our role.
As being gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and how we respond to this institution of marriage.
It is something that is transcendent really from that of civil authority. True, it is man. It's as a covenant. It is a contractual relationship between husband and wife and there are legal issues associated with that. But to it also as as the testimony of Christ in his church, there is that which is appropriate in how we as the assembly, umm, respond to this. And so I'd like to take our time attention real quickly to market chapter 10.
Satan in his effort to diminish and under.
Mine this institution.
From the very beginning, we see Lamech, he had two wives, and we see that divorce became something that God or that Moses instituted.
Uh, from the hardness of their hearts. Mark chapter 10.
And beginning at verse 3.
And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement.
And to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female for this cause.
Shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife? The twain shall be one flesh. So then that they are no more twain, but one flesh. Wherefore what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.
As we consider this, there are certainly those that would like to suggest that there are other.
Uh, grounds for divorcement, But what does the Lord Himself say but for the cause of adultery?
As we consider this, the Lord speaking.
It was the Lord Himself who put his finger in Adam's side. It was the Lord Himself that took that rib and forbid Eve. And it was the Lord Himself who created that union between Adam and Eve, and they too became one. And so as the Lord speak spoke here, he naturally spoke as His divine authority. Of course, we know that all Scripture is given by inspiration. The Holy Prophet says they were moved by the Holy Spirit. But I would say that here this is.
Perhaps certainly not any more weight of authority of God, but it is the Lord thought him Crea, the Creator, the one who have the purpose in the design that is speaking here and instructing his disciples. Some have suggested that we go back and look at Deuteronomy chapter 24 that there if a woman is found to be unclean in her husband's eyes that she'd be she could be put away. But really if we consider what the force of that Scripture is saying is that because the hardness of your heart and.
The and the giving of divorcement you have caused adultery to pro to profligate through the land of their inheritance. This is something that God did not want, he did not desire and so as a testimony those gathered to the Lord's name. How is it that we view this institution? How is it that we.
00:40:16
Respond to when we see trials and difficulties with dear ones in our midst that are facing these challenges.
And then finally, in closing, I'd like to turn to second Timothy.
Chapter 2 and verse 19.
Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure. Having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his. Let everyone that nameeth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel.
On to honor sanctified and meet for the Master's use and prepared for every good work.
We also use full lust, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. And So what? So what a wonderful blessing it is that we can.
Have fellowship with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart maybe. May that be our our exercise and and desire that we would be so responsive.
I can say I also have something on my heart. And as I was wondering whether I had the Lord's mind, I asked the Lord if he'd just give me a Segway. He'd give give a little bit of introduce, introduction to the thoughts that have been on my heart. They're not going to be exactly the same, but they do have to do with a covenant. You have to do with the Mosaic covenant.
The law and our relationship to it.
And, uh, I've noticed that, you know, I've, I've enjoyed 1 certain book maybe more than others and that's probably an indication that I'm a little imbalanced, but I've enjoyed the book of Romans so much. And in the book of Romans, we have a chapter that helps us to get free.
From.
The ******* of the law.
And.
I, as I introduce my thoughts, I also kind of like to introduce my dog. Uh, my dog is, is a dog about this size. His name is Nikki and she's a Rhodes, Rhodesian Ridgeback. And they used them some place to, uh, to fight to, uh, hunt lions. And one thing that's characteristic of our dog is that when she gets into a place where.
She has threatened the hair stands up on the back of her neck and there's a Ridge of hair straight up, and you know that she's worried or she's upset. And you know what? When we deal with the truth of God, we don't want to deal with it that way, to present it in such a way that it makes the hair stand up on the back of our brethren's neck. And so I have often found that when we bring up the subject of the law.
That there's a tendency for the hair to raise up on the back of our necks. Well, let me just help to put the hair back down.
Flat.
If you have a difficulty with legality.
You are no different than anyone else.
Because by nature we are illegal being.
By nature we will find ourselves under the precepts of law. By nature we will say, all that God says unto us we will do. That is our nature.
And as Christians.
We find that it's a little difficult sometimes to get out from underneath that tendency of thinking that my righteousness is going to be presented to God through my own efforts.
00:45:01
And that was what the law was for. God made a covenant with Abraham, uh, with, with Moses. And he said, OK, if you say all that that I say you will do and I will give you a description, I will give you a standard by which you can, you can live your life and it will produce righteousness.
Well, I like the comment that.
Brother.
Stan Jacobson made I think he's asleep.
He, I'm a good friend of Stan's and he won't mind if I, if I, uh, I like that. I thought that his statement about the law was very helpful in his meeting. He said his, his experience. He, he had never had the experience really of the depth of the searching in Romans seven that is presented there.
And I would just like to.
To give you a thought that came to me all of about last night and I'm certainly open for correction.
But some have said that they didn't think that was the Apostle Paul's experience.
That it was, I don't know the experience of well, and I won't go into that to what it might be, but I I just want to.
Give you something to think about. The Apostle Paul knew the law.
Better than anyone else, the Apostle Paul felt the effects of the law more than you and I do.
And Romans 7.
I've enjoyed the thought that Romans 7 is the experience of someone who is under the power of the law.
I'm thankful Romans 7 also gives total and complete deliverance from the power of the law as well.
The one who goes through the experience of Romans 7.
Doesn't get deliverance until the end.
When they realize.
My deliverance is in someone else.
I can say from personal experience I know what Romans 7 experience is.
And I'm thankful that God chose.
To not only bring me through that chapter.
Bring me into that chapter. Allow me to suffer to a certain degree under the influence of the law.
So that to a certain degree he could show me deliverance from law.
Let's turn to Romans 7.
I'm just gonna read a verse. We don't have much time.
Verse 4.
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ.
That you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead.
To me, that has been the key verse for Deliverance.
From the law.
Deliverance is found in no other place than realizing my position to it before God is that I'm dead to it.
If we had time, we could go into Romans 8 and we could find that the law hasn't really been abandoned.
That's what the Spirit of God is for in your life and mine.
To produce the righteousness of the law. That's what's characteristic of one who is in Christ.
He has the He has the Spirit of God.
Who, who, who pres? Who presents the things of of God working in the new nature?
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It's a completely new being. It's a completely new.
Preacher. But Romans 7 is still someone who is under this agreement with God.
That.
And they're saying, basically all that thou sayest unto us, we will do. Now I want to go back to our brother, our brother's comment about not having experienced the experience of Romans 7.
There are two sides there are two effects that the law has on the natural on on let's just call him Adam. There are two effects if Adam is as it were. If there is a conflict between the old and new nature, you will get the response that we get in Romans 7. The activity of the spirit of God producing the effects of life will cause a.
Conflict with.
The demands the law is placing upon us, but there is not the ability to do what the law is telling us is righteous.
But there's another effect that the law has upon us.
And this is the effect that I have also experienced in my own personal Christian life.
And that is that we, when we are under the law, which I think that we can all say at some point in time, we've been there.
That.
We have taken taken the law and made it a rule by which we pattern our life after.
We have decided that.
That we wanna, we wanna be obedient to the word of God, we want to please him. And so we we go into his word and, and we, we begin to create a.
A set of rules to live by.
And in this aspect of things, if we do a pretty good job at it.
It leads.
To pride.
I like to.
That it is.
I think some brothers have made this pretty clear. I like to think it's called spiritual pride.
But spiritual pride is an oxymoron. There is no such thing. The Spirit of God doesn't produce pride.
That's a that's a product of the flesh.
But when we take up the law in any manner, whether it's to condemn us or whether it's to lift us up in pride.
We're going to find that it leads to sad, sad results.
What is the?
What is the? What is the answer?
Our death.
We are not taking up God's blessing.
In relationship to the first man to Adam.
We are not going about our Christian life seeking to be everything that God has told us to be.
In The First Man.
We have to see that the 1St man, Adam.
Is done.
We have to see another man.
Christ, who is our life.
And so.
If we.
Allow the Spirit of God.
To teach us these things.
It will produce.
Life.
And piece.
I'd just like to.
I would just like to to to speak about what scripture indicates that the working of that the working of the law produces.
00:55:06
Galatians is not a very pleasant book.
Because Galatians is dealing with believers who are under the dominion of those who taught the principle of law.
And if.
If there's a place that I probably wouldn't have ever wanted to have been.
It would have been in the churches of Galatia.
Because the the law doesn't produce life and peace.
Let me tell you what the law produces.
The law produces strife.
And division. I'd like to just be able to explain that in a little measure.
If I, as a believer, am under the influence of law, I'm occupied with myself.
I'm seeking to be a Christian that God would want me to be.
By my own efforts.
And I'm seeking to maintain his standard of righteousness.
And in order to maintain the standard of righteousness around me.
I must, must not only enact the principles of law upon myself.
That I must enact them upon others.
And the result of that.
Is strife.
Just speaking from my own experience.
There was a time that I looked back in my Christian life.
When I tried the hardest.
And I did the most damage.
I tried the hardest.
And I did the most damage.
Because it was under the principle of law that I was seeking.
To not only.
Present a righteous walk before God.
That I was seeking to bring others under the same.
Dominion.
Well, time's up.
The Law
Attitude
1 Corinthians 10:11-14
Bananas - Read and Enjoy the Word of God
1 Corinthians 10:15-33