Pella Conference: 2013
Table of Contents
Scriptures to Encourage Us
Address—Jim Hyland
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I'd like to start this afternoon with 312.
Lead on, Almighty Lord, lead on to victory. Encouraged by Thy blessed word with joy, we follow thee. 312 If someone will please start it.
Turn with me first of all, please, to First Samuel, Chapter 30.
First Samuel, Chapter 30.
And verse 6.
And David was greatly distressed, for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters. But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.
And then I want to go back to a verse in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter one.
Deuteronomy chapter one and verse 28.
Whither shall we go Up, our brethren have discouraged our hearts saying.
The people is greater and taller than we. The cities are great and walled up to heaven. And moreover, we have seen the sons of the Anakims there and then one more portion for now in the New Testament in Second Corinthians.
Chapter One.
2nd Corinthians, chapter one and verse three. Blessed be the God, be God, even the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of mercy, and the God of all comfort. Or perhaps another translation, the God of all encouragement, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves.
Are comforted of God.
It's on my heart this afternoon.
Not to speak of some line of doctrine, or bring out some outline of a certain portion or subject.
But to take up some scriptures in a very simple way, brethren, that I trust we will find for our encouragement.
I have on my heart that word encouragement. You know we all need encouragement, don't we?
I've been struck in attending conferences recently and visiting amongst the Lord's people and hearing different circumstances in connection with what the Lords people are going through to realize that these are difficult times and there is much to discourage us today if we just look at present circumstances, if we look at the thing that the condition of things outwardly amongst the people of God and the testimony.
There's plenty to discourage us if we let it, but I believe also there's much to encourage as well. And I believe that every heart here, including my own this afternoon, needs encouragement. Yes, we need the truth of God before us. We need the outlines of Scripture. We need to have sound doctrine, sound teaching. But we need to be encouraged and refreshed in our hearts and in our spirit if we're going to go on for the Lord's glory until he comes.
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In these difficult times, and in meditating on this subject recently, I've been struck.
With how many times through the word of God, particularly in difficult days for the people of God?
God encourages his people because God is greater than our failure.
God is greater than our circumstances, and so we need to be encouraged.
And I was thinking first of all of David here. You know, when we read the life of David from his introduction to to us, when he was brought from feeding those few sheep of his father's to be anointed to be the next king over Israel in place of Saul. From that point on, it just seemed like he had one problem and difficulty after another. And even after he got his Kingdom, it was a Kingdom that was plagued with upheaval of every kind.
He had wars from his enemies around him. He had domestic problems, He had family problems.
He knew what it was to lose loved ones in death. And when you read the Psalms of David, you find sometimes David did get discouraged when you read his life. Sometimes he did get pretty down.
But you know, it's wonderful to realize that at those times, David always eventually came back to what he had.
In and of the Lord and if we were to read the context here of these chapters.
In First Samuel, we would find that's exactly what happened. If we were to back up, we would find that David had become discouraged.
And David had got away from the Lord, and he had done some things and gone some places he ought not to have gone and done.
He had made some been in some associations that he had not ought not to have been in. But we find here that in this very extreme situation, David finally turns back to the Lord. He realized if there was going to be any blessing for himself and the people that were with him, that it was only going to come from the Lord himself and brethren, that's a good point for us to come to.
Again, the Lord is allowing many things amongst us, many things in our personal lives.
Often in the family, sometimes in the assembly, things that perhaps we have to say in the language of the word of God.
We've not passed this way heretofore, but if those things drive us closer to the Lord, if those things restore us when we get away from the Lord, they'll be true blessing following, because He doesn't afflict willingly, and there are many reasons why He causes various circumstances in His life, in our lives. I realize it's not always in our His chastening, but sometimes it is, and even in His chastening.
If we profit by it, they'll be true blessing and encouragement following. And so we find here David was in a very tight spot. Their wives and their children had been taken captive. Victoria had been burnt with fire.
The Amalekites, it seemed, had got the upper hand, but David knew where to turn in his extremity. I just make a comment or two in connection again with the setting, because we find that when they come to Ziklag, the Amalekites, as I say, had got the upper hand. And Amalek in the Old Testament is invariably a picture to us of the enemy. The enemy is working on the flesh and seeking to hinder our walk with God.
Through this world. The reason I say that is because Amalek was a grandson of Esau, a man who sold his birthright for momentary gratification, and I believe it follows through the history of Amalek that its Amalek is the enemies working on the flesh. Not only that, but we find that it was with Amalek that the children of Israel fought with in the wilderness. Amalek came and sought to hinder their progress.
Their walk with God through the wilderness. And so this is the work of the enemy.
The enemy is seeking to discourage everyone of us. We have a powerful enemy, and I don't want to underestimate the work of the enemy, because not only do the circumstances of life perhaps drag us down and discourage us, but it says your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. I realize that often when we think of the roaring lion character of Satan.
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We think of persecution, and certainly that's been true and is still true of many of our brethren today.
There are many dear believers who are passing through physical persecution this very hour.
Those who are in prison for their faith and testimony, and those who are facing martyrdom as well.
But for us, I believe, at least in application, we can apply the roaring lion character of Satan to discouragement.
If you're a discouraged Christian here today, you didn't get that from the Lord.
You got that from the enemy. He's walking about seeking whom he may devour. Or if I can paraphrase it for our purposes, he's walking about seeking whom he may discourage. That's what the enemy wants us to do. He wants us to let the feeble, the feeble hands hang down. He wants the feeble knees to tremble so that we just give up. We say it's not worth it. I can't go on, because natural strength isn't enough to go on in the path of faith. And for the Lord. David had to learn that in his in his life.
David was a man of war. He was a mighty man.
But that in itself was not enough for the battles of life, it says in Isaiah, even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall.
There's a lot of youths giving up today. There's a lot of young people who are saying I just can't do it. The battle is too great. But as David found, there was one who was greater than the enemy. It's interesting too that you find with the work of Amalek. It is to weary and discourage those who are faint hearted because in connection with that battle that I mentioned in the 17th chapter of Exodus.
In the book of Deuteronomy, I think it's the 25th chapter, there's a further comment made about that battle.
It says that Amalek smoked behind her, most of them, and those that were faint and weary. And that's what the enemy seeks to do. He wants to wear us down. He wants to weary us. I believe it's a great work of the enemy today to weary us, and not just with that which is sinful in itself, but just with the daily grind of life. Again, there's a lot of people who are saying I just can't do it just to survive in the work, a day world or at school or in business.
It's just too great. I know it's a little different thought, but it says of the man of sin. In a future day, he will wear out the Saints of the Most High, and that's what the enemy is seeking to do. You ever watch a cat with its prey? You know, a cat with its prey doesn't usually kill its prey right away. It will play with that mouse or that bird, let it go a few feet, let the mouse run off, and then it'll pounce on it again.
It'll torment that mouse till finally that mouse or bird just drops with sheer exhaustion. And I say again, that's the work of the enemy today, to wear out the Saints of the of the Most High. And that was what Amalek sought to do, to get those who were weary and faint when they went out to battle in the 17th of Exodus. And then it says he smoked behind her, most of them those that were farthest from the Captain Joshua. There is a picture of the Lord Jesus.
As the captain of our salvation, bringing many sons to glory. And it was those that were out on the fringes, those who were farthest from Joshua, that the enemy got. And if you're not walking close to the Lord, the enemy is going to get you too. He can't take your salvation, of course, thank God, that's secure in in Christ, but he can get you discouraged. So you just give up. And so we find that David, What does he do? He first of all encourages himself in the Lord.
And that's the first thing, isn't it? Maybe there's someone and you've come to these meetings and you say, well, I've been discouraged. Life has been pretty tough in various ways. Well, our prayer is that during these meetings, as the word of God is before us, you'll be encouraged that you'll get back in company with the Lord. Maybe you've been like Peter. Peter followed a fire off, and the enemy had a temporary victory in Peter's life. Peter was real and there was restoration, but the enemy got the upper hand, and Peter denied his Lord three times with oaths and curses.
Oh, I want to encourage you. Don't follow a far off. Don't Don't follow the Lord, but leave those things that you want to do something between you and the Lord. No, David got into the presence of the Lord, and he encouraged himself and the Lord.
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And then what was he able to do? He was able to encourage the men that were with him. Many of them were faint and weary as well, but he was able to encourage them. But he had to encourage himself first. You'll never be an encouragement to your brother or sister in Christ.
If you're not encouraged in your own soul, it starts with the individual.
Why is it sometimes we're together? Maybe it's just a visit in a home. Maybe we meet another believer somewhere. Maybe it's sad to say even in me in uh local meetings and we say, well, it just doesn't seem to be much encouragement. You know, we can be no more collectively than what we are individually. If we're not allowing the Lord to encourage our souls, we're not going to be able to encourage one another. And so I want to exhort my own heart especially, but yours too. Get into the presence of the Lord.
Be encouraged. You can't help but be in the presence of the Lord and be encouraged. He's the great encourager, as we we will notice in a moment. But I want to, before we pass on, just mention what we read in Deuteronomy chapter One. Because in contrast to David who encouraged himself in the Lord and encouraged the men that were with him, and there was a great victory in Israel as a result.
What did the 10 spies do? Isn't it solemn to read they discourage the hearts of their brethren?
Isn't that solemn? When those spies came up it with Joshua and Caleb, and the 10 spies brought an evil report and stirred up the people and discouraged their hearts, little did they realize it would be recorded in God's eternal record for you and I to read today that they discourage the hearts of their brethren. You know we either at this moment are an encourager or a discourager. You know when you put the prefect prefix EN in front of a word, in English it means to put in.
Or to put on what Are we putting in or on our brethren? Are we putting courage? We need courage. Are we putting that in or on our brethren? We need injections of encouragement of courage, don't we? And so it's one or the other. We're either encouragers or we're discouragers. And I believe everyone of us need to examine our own hearts. Which are we today? Are we those who seek to encourage the people of God?
You know, there we don't have to look for things to discourage. Today, there's plenty on every hand, and we can get together and we can talk about that which discourages now. Brethren, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying there aren't times when things need to be taken up and discussed and dealt with for the Lord's glory. And we see that in Scripture. When there was sin allowed and so on, things had to be taken up and discussed and dealt with. But when we're together, we're going to have a number of opportunities this weekend.
To commune one with another during the breaks and over the meals and in the evening.
Are we going to talk about those things that discourage or encourage? You know, if we were to go to the 64th Psalm, I think it's the fifth verse, we would find there another very solemn statement. And there we find that they we can encourage in an evil way. I think that's very solemn too. You know it. It says of those in Isaiah, I know sometimes it's taken out of context, but it says that they encouraged one another in certain ways.
But if you read the context, it was not in a good way. They weren't encouraging one another in the proper godly way. They were encouraging one another in evil and forming their idols and all that kind of thing. And the Lord had to deal with them in His governmental ways because of it. We can encourage in a bad way, and to encourage in a bad way is going to end up completely discouraged in a good way, in in in a in a wrong way. But.
Discouraging in that which we ought to be encouraging in and so we want to be very careful and as I say, even in our conversations.
And interactions one with another. Let's pray to the Lord that we will be encouragers.
And not say and discuss those things that will discourage There was an elderly sister at home.
And she used to say this, that when we speak of something, there's some criteria that we need to consider.
Is it true? Is it? And is it? Is it necessary? Is it true And is it necessary? You know, sometimes things are true, but they're not necessary. And if it's not necessary, the best thing is to say nothing at all. And then we found, where we read in First Corinthians, that we have the God of all comfort. But I would like to point out that often in the New Testament the word comforter, consolation, is perhaps better translated encouragement or to encourage.
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If you notice Mr. Darby's translation in this chapter in Second Corinthians chapter one and other places.
That's the way he often.
Often translates it, and I know the 2 words comfort and consolation and Encouragement and courage. They're very similar. But I want to look at it in the light of what we're taking up this afternoon. We have the Father of mercies and the God of all encouragement. And if you go through these verses from verse 3 to the end of verse seven, you will find. And again, if you go to Mr. Darby's translation, you will find the word courage or encouragement.
Uh, ten times in these verses, 10 times. In contrast to that, you'll find suffering or tribulation or some derivative of the word only seven times. Because there's a lot of suffering, there's a lot of trials, there's a lot of difficulties, but there's more encouragement than there is trials. God is greater, as I say, than our trials, or greater than our than our failure. And so we find here the Apostle Paul speaks of the God of all encouragement.
Isn't that wonderful? Again, you can't be in the presence of God or the presence of the Lord Jesus and not be encouraged and refreshed. You can't be in the presence of God and not be strengthened to go on.
In the path of faith and service. And so we find that he encourages them. And he says, who verse four who comforteth or encourages us in all our tribulation. So a lot of tribulation in our lives and amongst the people of God there is but notice it says in all isn't that wonderful? In all there isn't a trial. There isn't a difficulty that you and I pass through that we can't find some encouragement.
In it. Well, I'd like to move on now, and I would like to just look quickly at a few other scriptures.
But bring before us this thought of encouragement and what it is that really God uses to encourage our hearts in the path of faith. Let's go back for a moment to Romans chapter 15.
Romans, chapter 15.
And verse 4.
And whatsoever things were written before time were written for our learning that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.
Or if you notice that word patience and comfort, it could be translated endurance.
And encouragement. So we, through endurance and encouragement of the scriptures, might have hope.
I want to stress this for a moment because we have a book in our hands.
That is going to encourage us. We have the holy scriptures. We have the complete word of God.
And I want to ask a question to all of us this afternoon. If we were to go back over the past week, how much time have we spent reading the Word of God? I'm not at this juncture going to ask you how much time you read, you spent reading written ministry, how many block calendars you read, how many meetings you came to. That's all good. I don't want to take away from those things. Good to read. Good written ministry. A block calendar is sometimes helpful.
To give us a little spoonful before we go out the door in the morning or when we come at home at night, Wonderful to be at meetings for ministry of the word. But what I want to ask our hearts this afternoon is how much time did you and I spend reading the word of God? Because if our hearts were encouraged this week, it's going to be at least partly in the measure in which we spent reading the word of God. It's the encouragement of the scriptures.
This book we hold in our hands this afternoon is a living book.
It's the only book in this world that's living. That's why you'll never exhaust it.
Just a comment or two on that regard. In that regard, it's a little aside from our subject this afternoon.
But you know every other book written by man you can eventually exhaust.
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No matter how deep or profound it may be, and it may take several readings. But after a while you set it aside and you say we've got everything we can.
Out of that, but we have a book in our hands that we can take up every day of our lives.
And we're always going to get something fresh. We're going to get if we're, if we are walking in the Spirit and allowing the Spirit of God to have its proper place in the power of the Spirit.
We're going to be fed. We're going to be encouraged. We're going to have Christ ministered to us.
We're going to be corrected and admonished as the as the need may be, We're going to be taught by the spirit of God. It is the only book that's living. Some of us were at a conference last weekend and we took up a chapter at that conference that we've often taken up the weekend before somewhere at a conference. And there again, a very familiar chapter was taken up. But, you know, it seemed that there was fresh ministry and things brought out that perhaps hadn't been presented quite in that way.
The truth of God ever changes, it remains the same, but from a living book He ministers to us according to the need, according to our state of soul, and according to the day in which we find ourselves in it wonderful to have the word of God. Do we really value the word of God?
I was in a country recently with a young brother and when we left that country, a very, very poor country in South America.
When we left that country, this young brother turned to me with his first time in that particular part of the world.
And he said, Jim, he said, I could hardly believe it. He said I believed it because you and others have told us.
But he said it really shook me to be in a country in 2013 where Bibles haven't been accessible to believers who've desired their own copy of the word of God, he said. It really shook me.
And yet we sit here this afternoon and if we were to go home from these meetings and go through the bookshelves at home.
How many Bibles, How many copies of the word of God would we find on our shelf? And Bibles can be purchased at a very reasonable price by our standard. But how much of the word of God do we really read with prayerful exercise? And so Paul exhorted the Saints at Rome that it was through endurance and comfort of the scriptures that we were going to have hope. And you know, it's remarkable too, that this book that is living.
Is as relevant today as when it was penned by divine inspiration. This book is actually more up to date than the daily newspaper. If we were to back up a day and go to the newspaper stand and pick up a copy of the of USA TODAY or the New York Times and read it a day late, we'd say, well, much of that is out of date. We've moved on. There are other things that the media is focusing on now, but this book we hold in our hands, I say is more up to date than the daily newspaper.
I'm not that old, but I'm getting older. And if I were to pull out some of the school books that we studied when we were young people, why you young people? You'd laugh. You'd say we've left those things behind long ago. We've moved on. Men change their opinions and their methods of teaching. But this book is relevant. It fits what's happening today, and if we're left here tomorrow, it will do the same. And so I want to encourage you. You want to encouragement, You want encouragement. You've got to read God's Word, meditate on it, take it in, and then seek by grace.
To be doers of the word and not hearers only. Now let's turn to 1St Thessalonians.
First Thessalonians chapter 4.
And verse 17.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.
And so shall we ever be with the Lord, Wherefore comfort, or again wherefore encourage.
One another with these words. Let's notice a verse in Second Thessalonians, couple of verses, Second Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 16. Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God even our Father, which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and Good Hope through grace, comfort, or again encourage your hearts.
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And establish you in every good word and work.
And in this regard, I would like to read one more portion in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 6.
Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 18.
That by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we may have strong consolation, or again encouragement, who have fled for refuge, to lay hold on the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.
And we're generous into that within the veil wherein the whether the forerunner is for us entered. Even Jesus made an high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Well, here we have something else to encourage our hearts, and that's the hope of the Lords coming. Paul was writing to these Thessalonians believers. They were going through some very difficult circumstances, and not only that, but they'd lost loved ones in death. Some of their number had passed away.
In the first chapter we find that they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven. And then some of their number had died, and they wondered how all this was going to play out in the purposes of God. And the Apostle Paul writes this epistle.
And leaves nothing unexplained as to how it's all going to take place. And in the end of this chapter, if we had backed up a little bit, we'd find.
That he explains very carefully the truth of the Lord's coming, what we often refer to as the rapture.
And explains that those who have died in faith, they haven't missed out in any way.
But that they're going to be raised 1St and then we, which are alive and remain, are going to be caught up together with them in the clouds.
To meet the Lord in the air. And we're ever going to be with the Lord, you know, I like that little expression ever with the Lord.
When he's in the Father's house, we're with him. When he comes back to reign over the earth, we're with him. We're going to be ever with the Lord. We're never going to leave his side again. And then he says, Wherefore encourage one another with these words, Brethren, what encouragement would we have today in the world in which we live if we didn't have something beyond the horizons of planet Earth? This world is in a sad condition. It's an absolute turmoil politically, socially and morally.
People in high places are realizing they're dealing with an interplay of economic, political and social forces.
That are far beyond their control. They know the elastic is being stretched further and further and further and it's got to snap. Something's got to give somewhere.
And men's hearts are failing them for fear. If ever there was a proof that were in the last days, to me it is to watch those that we rub shoulders with of the corporate and political world look at the fear written in their faces. Their their, their struggling. Their hearts are failing them for fear. They know something's got to give. But you and I, we can sit here this afternoon in perfect calm.
Not that we're callous or indifferent to what's going on around us. No, we need to be aware.
But I often have said aware but not overwhelmed. How can that be? Because we have this precious truth of the Lord's coming. We're looking for him at any moment. And you know, when Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, he says here we which are alive and remain, you know, he was looking for the Lord's coming. He was including himself. I realized later on he realized that he was going to lay down his life for his testimony and for the truth he had.
Been getting the ministry he'd been given, but at this point he says to the Thessalonians We which are alive and remain because it has been the proper hope of the believer all down through the ages. And if Paul could say we which are alive and remain, how much more you and I?
You know we are. We have never been closer to the Lord's coming than we are right now. Never have we been closer. And I believe it's about to take place. We're just on the eve of the return of the Lord Jesus. And can't we echo with the Apostle Paul? Wherefore encourage one another with these words? Again, it is so easy. And again, we don't want to be indifferent to what's going on about us. But it is so easy to talk about the news and what's going on in various pockets of the world and right here.
In North America, in the United States and Canada, and certainly things are deteriorating and deteriorating fast. But if that's all we talk about, we're going to get discouraged. If that's all we talk about, we're going to be cast down. And so it's if we talk about those things, let's remind our hearts before we separate before the subject changes that we can't have the Lord's coming. That's what's going to encourage us. And when Paul wrote the second epistle.
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To the Thessalonians he re echoes this. He reminds them that they have not just a hope, but a Good Hope.
Don't we have a Good Hope? You know, there's a lot of people that have hope in this world. There's a lot of people that have.
Hope for the betterment of things down here. But it's not a Good Hope. And if they're honest with themselves, they realize that their hopes are fading, and they're fading fast. But we have a Good Hope. When I read this expression, Good Hope, I'm always reminded of something we learned back in history when I was in high school. And that was about an explorer by the name of Bartholomew Diaz. And in 1488, Bartholomew Diaz was the first European explorer on record.
To round the southern tip of Africa, the Europeans were looking for a trade route to India and the Far East, so that they could bring the teas and the silks and those things that they thought would add to the comforts and nicety of culture in Western Europe. And Bartholomew Diaz. When he rounded the tip of southern Africa, he rounded it under such adverse circumstances that he aptly named it.
The Cape of Storms. But when he returned and reported to King John, two of Portugal, under whose auspices he had sailed.
King John felt that the Cape of Storms was a name that would hinder and not encourage further exploration, and so he renamed it the Cape of Good Hope. Even so, it was nine years before another European, Vasco da Gama, attempted to round the tip of southern Africa. But I've often thought of that and if you look on a map today, the southern tip of Africa still retains that name, the Cape of Good Hope. But was it really the hope that the Europeans had anticipated?
Oh, sure, they enjoyed the niceties of the things and comforts of the things that they brought from the Far East, but was it really the Good Hope that they anticipated? Later on, other overland routes and different things were discovered, and that route didn't become as important, became less important than it had been. But when we talk about the Lord's coming as a Good Hope, that's exactly what it is. And not only is it a Good Hope, but we found in Hebrews where we read.
That it's a sure and steadfast hope. And that's why he speaks of it as strong encouragement. Not just encouragement, but strong encouragement. Because we have a sure and a steadfast hope. You know, the hope of the Lord's coming is really the only hope that we can speak of as being sure. Instead, fast hope and connection with the first man and this life is uncertainty at best.
We hope to do many things after these meetings. We have hopes and plans. But wouldn't we be presumptuous if we sat in these seats this afternoon and spoke of some plan we have for the the for next week after these meetings end? And we said beyond the shadow of a doubt, we're going to carry out this plan. Why you'd say that's presumptuous. Anything could happen to interfere with that hope, to hinder it or cancel it altogether.
But not the hope of the Lord's coming, it says. It says here it's a hope that is sure and steadfast, because hope and connection with Christ and the new man is not hope. And as far as uncertainty, it is only hope in the sense that we're not in the full reality of it yet We speak of the hope of the Lord's coming because it hasn't happened yet, but not because it's uncertain, and so again at any moment.
The Lord Jesus may come, does that encourage your heart every man that hath this hope in him?
Purifieth himself, even as he is pure, in the measure in which the hope of the Lord's coming is a living reality in your soul. This afternoon it's going to encourage you and have a practical purifying effect on your life. I'd like in closing then, to look at one more scripture. It's back in First Thessalonians, this time in Chapter 5.
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First Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 11.
Wherefore, comfort yourself, or again encourage yourselves together.
And edify one another, even as also ye do. I want to, just at the end of this meeting, bring us back to what we have said a number of times during the last 45 minutes. And that is how necessary it is to encourage one another. We need that. You know, I've been struck in visiting various individuals that have perhaps been discouraged for in one way or another, to find that the natural tendency of the heart is.
When we get away from the Lord or we get discouraged, we tend then to separate ourselves from our fellow believer.
Or we don't attend the meetings for ministry and other things, the assembly meetings like we should.
When we get discouraged, that's the very time that we need one another.
We need one another more than ever. Yes, like David, we need to get into the presence of the Lord and encourage ourselves in the Lord. I don't want to take away from that, but perhaps there's someone here today and you haven't been coming out to the meetings. You have. You've been avoiding your brethren, you say I'm just too discouraged. Oh, I say there's nothing will warm you up like getting back with your brethren. Coming to the assembly meetings, sitting in the presence of the Lord. I know sometimes in the local assembly, things are carried on in a very feeble way.
It's wonderful to come to meetings like this. We have a large number, We look to the Lord for ministry and so on.
But when you go home, I know things are feeble. I know things are carried on in weakness. But the Lord is there. The Spirit of God is there. The word of God is the same. You're with those of like precious faith, other of the children of God and members of the body of Christ.
Isn't that enough to encourage your heart, to warm you up? And so I just as I said this afternoon, I just wanted to encourage our hearts that we might seek to press on. I don't want to minimize the days in which we live. They're difficult. But there's more to encourage than to discourage. You know, we don't have time, but there are two men in the New Testament who are particularly brought before us as encouragers and who were sent by the apostle Paul.
On occasion to encourage the Brethren One with Tipicus, and in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 22 we find that Paul.
Every confidence to send to the brethren in Ephesus because he knew he would encourage them.
He also, as we read in Colossians chapter four, I think it's verse eight. He also sent him to the assembly at Colossi and he said, I know when he comes, he'll encourage your heart. There was another man, Timothy, and he was sent to the Thessalonians. Why? Because as we have in first Thessalonians, chapter 3 and verse two, he'll encourage you. If if there was discouragement in a certain assembly and the brethren in another assembly, we're gonna send someone to encourage the brethren, would you be the one they chose?
Or would they say, well, we better not send that brother. He he won't be any help. Would you be the brother? Would you be the sister that would be chosen to go and visit someone who was going through a time of discouragement? Are you encouraging yourself and the Lord? Is there that spirit about you that encourages others? Well, brethren, I find these things very exercising to my own soul, and perhaps they'll exercise you. We need encouragement, and we do have the God of all encouragement.
Hebrews 12:1
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180.
First of 168.
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OK, consider that.
Hebrews, chapter 12.
The race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.
Lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds, ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.
Nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom this Father chasteneth not?
But if ye be without chastisement whereof all our partakers, then are ye ******** and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our prophet.
That we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees.
And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lain be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed.
Follow peace with all men, and holiness without which, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, lest there be any fornication, fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected.
For he found no place of repentance, though he sought it tearfully with tears. For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and Tempest, and the sound of trumpet, and the voice of.
Of words which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore, for they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart.
And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. But ye are come unto the Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels to the General Assembly.
In Church of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just man made perfect.
And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
See that you refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape not, who refused him that spake on earth much more Shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven? Whose voice then shook the earth, but now he that.
He hath promised, saying yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
And this word, yet one more, once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.
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Jim mentioned this chapter in his address a couple of times, but uh, I have been encouraged brother in in Chapter 11 That was read at the beginning of the meeting and that we have so many.
Witnesses, as it mentions here in verse one, the great cloud of witnesses, all those witnesses of faith men.
In the Old Testament, and women as well, who even though they didn't have the Scriptures like we do, we're men of faith. Faith is that which lays hold of that which is not seen. Faith is based on a report. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. How did they hear in the Old Testament? Well, sometimes God spoke to them.
Directly, sometimes it was through a prophet, but faith always acted on something, some revelation of God, and it is wonderful to see somebody like Enoch who before the flood by faith.
He walked with God 300 years. That is impressive.
We find it difficult perhaps to walk with God one day, 300 years. How did he do it?
A step at a time. And so we have great encouragement in looking at those witnesses of faith. But brethren, we're not called to focus on them. They are therefore our encouragement, but they we are called to be looking.
Unto Jesus. That's the focal point of Christianity.
Not what we are, but what he is. Sometimes I like to contrast the Old Testament with the new by saying that in the Old Testament the focus was on what man was and he proved to be complete failure.
In the New Testament, God is saying in effect.
The test for man is over. Now I want to show you who I am. And so, brethren, it is to be occupied with God's beloved Son. That's what Christianity really is. And so we're called here to look unto Jesus. But there's quite a bit to be said in verse one of our chapter, so I don't want to get ahead.
It says here we also compassed about with so glad great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight, and the sandwich does so easily be settled, and let us run with patience, or the word is endurance.
The race that is set before us, We're in a race, not a time to be laying down, taking it easy. We're not at the goal yet.
Is to keep on endurance is to keep on. It's a long distance race. It's not a 50 yard dash. The Christian life is a race the whole life long. And so we are encouraged to run with endurance, but there's things in our lives that hinder our running.
Waits things that in themselves perhaps are not sins.
But they just don't help us in our Christian pathway and sin as well. Those things hinder us. And so I'm sure there's many thoughts that can be brought out here. I think that will be for our blessing, our help.
So the cloud of witnesses is the list that has gone before of these men and women and young people who lived by faith for God's glory. And I've been encouraged to realize that God in his Word, not only has taught us by doctrine and precept, but by example. He has carefully, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, recorded the stories of men and women and young people to encourage us.
And to show us really that we can live for God's glory by faith.
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Against all kinds of odds and difficulties, I think it's good to go back over those stories often because.
Sometimes the tendency of our hearts, at least my heart, is to get looking around at the circumstances.
Both in the world and perhaps amongst the Lord's people. And to start feeling sorry for ourselves.
And to think, well, we're the only kind of people, that we were the only people that have faced these kinds of problems and difficulties, and it's so morally dark and things are so bad in the world and so on. How can we go on? But when you go back and read the stories of those individuals who live by faith, did they have it easy? Did Enoch have it easy in his day? He lived not long before the flood. I know Methuselah was.
There too, but and the flood didn't come till Methuselah was taken, but.
Enoch lived in a wicked day. It was a wicked world and he walked with God for a long time, 300 years.
What about us? We're only required to walk maybe 50-60, seventy at the most. Uh, but if you go back and read those stories and it gives import when you consider the circumstances and the darkness of the day that they found themselves in. But as I want to just echo what Bob said, because I think it's vital, and that is that our brethren are never given to us as the object for faith. The psalmist said, I've seen an end of all perfection.
And if you and I are looking for perfection in someone else, we're going to be disappointed.
But if we're looking for it in the Lord Jesus, we'll never be disappointed. And so as soon as He has brought before us this list for our encouragement, as Bob said, he immediately lifts our eyes away from that list into the open heavens to be occupied with the One who began and completed the path of faith and perfection. And when it says He's the author and finisher of faith, it's not so much our faith, but He's the author and finisher of faith.
He is the one and the only one that began and completed the path of faith in perfection. Even Christ pleased not himself. He did always those things that pleased the Father. He never departed from one for one moment from the path that the the Father had set before him, even in the hour of his greatest trial. And he bowed in the garden and said, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. He immediately says, not my will, but thine be done. And so the one who began and completed the path of faith and perfection, and as God's Amen to it, is set at his right hand.
He says now this is the object you want to be encouraged to go on, you want to be strengthened to go on and run with endurance. The race set before you. It's going to be in the measure in which you look to my beloved son, the one who began and completed the path of faith and perfection.
And God's answer for the Lord Jesus was not in this life, was it? It was in resurrection.
And I think that's helpful to see as well because.
The Lord's life at the end of it, those 3 1/2 years of.
Ardent labor. How many disciples did he have? 12. Isn't that kind of small number? One of them turned out to be a traitor. Another one who vowed he would never deny him, denied him three times. The rest took off and fled. Brethren, his life looked like a complete failure. But God's answer is in resurrection. Where is that man now?
He's at the highest pinnacle of glory, the right hand of God.
That's God's answer now, our pathways down here, and sometimes it gets pretty bleak looking.
In our life, it doesn't look good.
Are you willing to just count on God and go forward based on what is written in the Word of God? That's the path of faith.
And that's the way we are to be encouraged to go on persevere.
Don't give up.
That's important in a long distance race.
The context of this chapter really begins back in chapter 10. I'd like to read a verse there.
Uh, it's a verse that's quite emphasized in Scripture. We find it first in the Old Testament and then three different times in the new with a different emphasis in each case, but it's in chapter 10 and verse 38. Now the just shall live by faith from Adam onward, the just have lived by faith. It's not simply Christianity is a life of faith, but from.
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Adams day, Noah's day, Abraham's day, and so on. The path of life in this world of a just person is a life of faith. And so he introduces what he wants to say in Chapter 11 where he says without faith it's impossible to please God. And then he gives us to help us to understand it. A list of people and their lives, aspects of their lives that they lived in faith.
From Adam onward.
And they become, as chapter 12 has already been mentioned, they become a cloud of witnesses to us, of the path that we are to live, which is the just shall live by faith. But if you look carefully at every one of them that is mentioned in that 11Th chapter, you can go back and God has chosen to record about each one of them aspects of their lives which were not a faith.
Where they came short of living it so they can't become, they can become an encouragement and an example to us of what it is to live in this world in a path of faith. But then the Spirit of God says, yes, but there's one person that I can put before you.
Who did it?
And that's Jesus. It's not in the 12Th chapter, his work of atonement, it's not even the joy set before him as Redeemer that is in view here. But it is here's one that you and I can look at as a perfect pattern, and we can keep our eye on Him steadfastly as the perfect one to look at.
To see what it is for us to live the path of faith and as a just life. He also was given of God to have hope beyond this life.
And as Bob said, it was seen in resurrection, the same hope that is given to us was given to him. And so he lived that life. And he looked on beyond the life that he was living, just as we have to do, to see what is beyond this life. And he could say, well, I see a joy before me. And he lived in view of that. And he lived the perfect, just life of faith. And so, brethren, he's put before us this afternoon.
To examine his life and also to fix our eye upon himself as the perfect one of pattern and object for our lives to be lived in the life of faith.
Whose faith follow, not necessarily the person themselves, but whose faith follow. And we're thankful too, even in our day of those we've known who exhibited faith in their lives. And they're, they are in encouragement and an example to us. But as I said earlier, it's not the person that's the object. It's their it's, they're, they're the encouragement, but it's the faith. But I just want to point out at the end of the 11Th chapter in connection with what Bob and Don have said.
We have, first of all, in the beginning of the chapter, this list of people who live by faith, and, as we said, they triumphed in remarkable ways.
And he sums it up near the end of the chapter. Those who quench the violence of fire stopped the mouths of lions.
Women receive their dead to life and tremendous things. And you say, wow, what faith that, uh, brought out circumstances in that way. But then it says that it changes in verse 36 of the 11Th chapter and others. And what does it say about them? They didn't receive deliverance the way those that were previously mentioned did. Why? They had trials of cruel mocking. They were sawing asunder. They wandered about in sheepskin and goatskin. They were beaten. They were put in prison and you say.
Did they have faith? Yes. These all died in faith. They had faith. But God having provided, as it says at the end of the chapter, some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. They were living for another world. They had something beyond this life before them. Well, I realized that even though those earlier in the chapter, they looked for a city which hath foundation, tooth builder and makers. God Moses endured us, seeing him who is invisible and so on.
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But God didn't always deliver in the way that He did with.
Daniel and the three Hebrew children and those who received their dead to life and so on. And the reason I say that is because I think sometimes we get the impression that if there isn't some great miraculous deliverance from a difficulty, some miracle, so to speak, well, that person didn't have faith. But that isn't necessarily true. God deals in different ways with the faithful, and he sees that faith even though it may not be exhibited by some great outward show, as we would think of some confirmation of faith.
And those who didn't, who went through the fire, were those that burned at the stake. Did they have any less faith than Meshach and Abednego? No, not necessarily. But God had a different purpose in mind for them. And we see many of our brethren today suffering in various ways. We pray for a person that's sick. They don't always get healed. Sometimes the Lord takes them home. We think of our brethren who are in prison for their faith in other parts of the world.
Suffering, martyrdom. Do they have less faith than those that are mentioned in the 11Th of Hebrews? Not necessarily. And so I think we need to keep this in mind as we embark on this chapter, that God doesn't deal with us all in the same way. And we can't measure a person's faith by how we see God deal with us outwardly. But God sees that faith and he tries it. He tries us in various ways.
So that he there will be that faith and confidence in him in spite of the circumstances and in spite of what might seem like the end of the story here, realizing that this is not the end of the story for the believer, but God has some better thing for us.
Back to him when you look at the Old Testament scriptures and some of these.
Figures that are mentioned in Chapter 11.
You would would not come to the same conclusion as it does here. Sarah, for example, says through faith she received strength to conceive at that old age. You look back in the Old Testament when the Lord announced it, she laughed.
So how can that be? But I mean, we don't see any faith there, but the Lord saw the faith and that's why I think we need to be slow about judging other people. Brethren, we sometimes say, wow, he didn't appear like there's any faith there, but the Lord knows another one is I see when he blesses Jacob and Esau.
Well, he blessed them, but he wanted some of Esau is good and savory meat. That's what he wanted and seemed like pretty much of A fleshly thing. But by faith he blessed them. I often wonder if the faith is when he realized he had been deceived by Jacob and when Esau comes in and Esau weeps because he'd lost the blessing.
And he says when he realized that Jacob had gotten the blessing.
Uh, Isaac says yeah, and he shall be blessed. That was the faith part, wasn't it? The other was kind of the fleshly part. And so rather than there's a lot of flesh mixed with our Christian testimony sometimes that God sees the faith. I think it's beautiful. Another point I'd like to point out as to the life of faith is its individual character. And you find in this Chapter 11.
There are individuals, they walked by faith with God by themselves, Noah, Enoch. There might have been others of faith around that. Basically, it was a life of faith. And it's nice to be in a conference like this, brethren, but you don't really get the pathway of faith. This is for our encouragement, these meetings, but you don't really get the proof of the life of faith here.
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So when they get out to our everyday lives, do you walk by faith or by sight, as the rest of the world does? That's the great test. And so these were men who walked by faith. Sometimes they didn't have anybody else around, but they had a conviction. They believed God, and they walked accordingly.
We noticed two things in verse one that hinder.
Living by faith.
One is weights and the other is sin which entangles.
And if you go back to the 11Th chapter and verse eight, it says by faith Abraham, when he was called to go out to a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed. It's a simple statement of his faith. But if you go back to the Old Testament and read the story, you find it was far more complicated for Abraham than that. And in fact he had some weights that he didn't let aside at first that were a hindrance to him.
He was told to leave his country.
To go out to a land he had never seen. But part of what God said to him was you've got to leave the family behind. And he just couldn't quite do that. And so his father and others went with him and they get close to the land and stop.
And they stay there until his father dies, and after his father dies, they get into the land that is, in Abraham's life there were things which hindered him from fully carrying out.
That he had to deal as we had to deal with weights and sin that easily entangles us, and when it does, it hinders us from the path of faith that God has called us to. And so we can learn from that side of it as well. We also thank God and take courage that when God wants to bring before us Abraham in the simple way here, he leaves all that out.
In this particular chapter and says, well, he did it and God works in us sometimes, and sooner or later we give up the weights. Sooner or later we give up the sin that entangles us, and then we become free. And as Abraham entered into the land, he grew.
He got entangled again. There was a famine. He went down into Egypt.
And sadly in Egypt he got rich, which was a weight and a hindrance to his life because when he got back in the land, it hindered his nephew Lot, who was still tagging along with him and so on. And so in the details of some of these lives we see growth and difficulties that they had to overcome.
But at the same time, as Bob said, there's that which God wants to encourage us to take the same path and benefit from the lives of others, but then ultimately turn aside from them.
And look to Jesus and we see no such failure in his life, but we see from the cradle to the death that perfect unerring faith in God. And he had lots of things to tempt him out of the path of faith, including natural family and a lot of other things, special attacks of Satan, but he was unswerving.
In his testimony of life to the life of faith.
Are so prevalent in our lives. They I hope, brethren, you don't think I'm exhorting you because I feel that I feel greatly in the weight side of things, things that in themselves are not wrong. One of the things that has convicted me brethren, is our materialism. Nothing wrong with having things.
Abraham was a wealthy man. He had 318 servants, yet he was a man of faith. But the simplicity in which he lived, he never had a house that we read about. He lived in a tent. Why is it wrong to have a house? No, it's not wrong to have a house. But why did he always live in a tent?
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He looked for a city.
That hath foundations whose builder and maker was God. He was looking for something that was supremely more worthwhile, and he never found it down here. Have we found something down here that is worthwhile rather than sometimes?
Our material possessions, I shouldn't say sometimes I think that most of the time I have to say for myself, are a positive weight. We cannot.
Give the attention to the Lord's things that we might.
If we didn't have so many things, I don't think we're called to give up everything here. But the Lord. When that rich young man came to him and said, what shall I do? He said, Go sell what thou hast and give to the poor and come follow me. And that was just too much of A sacrifice. He could not do that because his heart was on it. And that's what our problem is. Our heart is in these things.
And brethren, may the Lord help us to evaluate things.
But Don was mentioning about the Lord Jesus, how unswerving he was in his pathway down here. What did the Lord have, materially speaking, when he passed through this world? You know, I, I marvel at the simplicity in which the Lord passed through this world. He didn't have a place to lay his head.
We didn't. We don't have any record that he had any money in his pocket yet. When there was need, he always had something to meet the need of others. But he didn't have anything for his own comfort down here. And I sometimes say, what would be wrong with the Lord having a house? I don't think there's anything wrong with it.
But you know the answer I come up with when I say, why didn't he have it? He had come from the Father's house and there was nothing down here to compare with that. So nothing really interested him down here. So he lived simply. And as he met those two on the way to Emmaus, they said to him, art thou a stranger here? Yes, he was just.
A stranger here.
There was not anything down here that attracted his heart. Brethren, may the Lord help us to hold on to these material things.
Easily. Let him go. We're going to, at a moment's notice, leave them all behind.
O brethren, our portion, our treasure is in another sphere. It's in heaven. May the Lord help us, brethren, to not be so encumbered with weights.
Just a little illustration, but before I give this illustration, it really is, isn't it, brother Bob, a question of the heart. And so where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. It's not money that's evil. It's, it's, that's the root of all evil. It's the love of money. Money can be used in a proper way for the Lord's glory and for the propagation of the gospel and the truth of God and the blessing of of God's people.
So it's it's really a question of our object and there are many things that can be weights, as you say, that are not sin in themselves.
But they become weights when we set our heart on them. It may be education. We need education to get through life and get a job and so on. We need a home for shelter and so on. Most of us in North America need a car so we can get around a vehicle. But again, it's a question of the object. But I let's just use a little illustration in connection with weights. Let's picture athletes going out to run in a race.
And so we have a dozen athletes, and they all line up at the starting line for the race. And before the starting gun goes off, the officials of the race noticed that one of the athletes is carrying on his back a heavy backpack. And so they hold the race and the officials go out and they talk to this athlete and they say, what are you doing? You've got to wait. How are you going to run the race properly? How do you expect to reach the finish line or win the race if you've got this heavy backpack?
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And the athlete says to the officials, well, I've checked the rule books, I've checked the guide book, and there's nothing in the rules that hinder me from carrying a backpack to run this race. And so the officials are astounded by this. And they, too, take the time and they check the rules. And they say, you know, there is nothing, there's really nothing in the official rules. We can't stop this man from running the race just because he wants to carry a backpack. And so they let the race go on. But I think we see the folly of it immediately.
They would say to that man, they or that athlete, they'd say, OK, yes, you can run the race. And there's nothing in the official rules that say you can't carry a backpack full of weights on the back, on your back while you run this race. But you're a foolish athlete. Do you realize how it's going to slow you down? You're not going to be able to run properly the race that is set before you. And so I think we see what the Spirit of God is bringing before us. Very clearly there are things in our lives.
That are not wrong in themselves, in fact, they may be very right in their proper perspective and place. But it's a question of our object. We understand that when an athlete goes out to run the race, he has the goal in view. He has the object. That's why so often in the New Testament the Christian pathway is brought before us as a race or an athletic event because the athlete goes out and trains. He works toward the the.
Day of the event, he takes up the event when it comes and puts all he's got into it because he has the goal, the prize in view, Paul said In Philippians he was running a race and he said I pressed towards the mark for the prize.
And what is the prize in the Christian life? It's Christ in glory. And if we have that before us?
It's not going to become difficult to set aside those weights. It's not going to be difficult not to entangle ourselves with sin. We, if we try to set aside the weights, if we try to not entangle ourselves with sin, without Christ before our souls, it's going to be tough. We're really not going to be able to do it. But when Paul got saved, does Saul of Tarsus, he had something now before him that was far greater than the things he had said his heart on before.
Was it hard to give up the aspirations he had in life? And he had a lot of opportunities and goals and aspirations before he got saved. Was it difficult to give those things up? No. When he when he got Christ, he said it wasn't hard. I count those things as lost that I might win Christ. He had Christ now as the prize. And it wasn't difficult to give up the goals and hopes of this world. And in the measure in which you and I get a fresh glimpse of Christ as the man in the glory.
As the object for faith at these meetings this weekend, we will go home from these meetings if the Lord leaves us here, not struggling to lay aside the weights and sin. But we will go away having unconsciously laid aside those things because we have something better and brighter before our souls.
When I look at verse one there.
I see the two words lay aside.
And I see another word with that is between.
Run and patience.
The race that is being run.
It's for the believers, the way of faith.
And it is a superior way.
If you turn back to chapter 10 and look at verse 35 together.
We was brought back here by Don in verse 38, but I'm gonna look at 35, six and seven together.
35 starts out with cast not away. That would remind us of lay aside. There are some things that we are to lay aside, but there are other things that we are not to cast it away. We are not to castaway our confidence, which has great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience. Let me repeat that, please. Ye have need.
Of patience, that after you've done the will of God, you might receive the promise for yet a little while. He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry. We need to maintain the confidence, don't we, and not cast that one away.
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We need patience if you turn back to the book of James for one moment.
Verse Chapter one. Verse 3.
Knowing this.
That the tempting, which is actually the testing.
Knowing this, that the testing of your faith worketh patience. Now look at the wording in verse four. Let patience have perfect work.
Let patience have perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire and lacking nothing.
That's why we need patience. What does patience produce?
Produces verse 12. Blessed is the man that endureth right back to 10.
And 36 again. Or 37 again.
For yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry. That's where we started our meeting off with, wasn't it about the return of the Lord and being with him? We see this patience that we need so we cannot be entire, so we are entire and lacking in nothing and that we can endure through our walk here below, you know, superiority walk of faith.
Go ahead.
You're, I think Brotherville, they uh, send that so easily besets us and suggested that it's the sin of unbelief. It can be other sins that entangle us that especially here in Hebrews, it's the sin of unbelief, I must say, rather than that in the Lord's own dealing with my own soul.
He's revealed to me a lot of unbelief in my heart.
And that really does hinder God. And so we need to judge it when the Lord brings it to our attention. It really is a hindrance. You know, we all say we're believers, but I find in our culture, our humanistic culture.
We're taught in our schools to evaluate everything.
And that's all right to do that. But sometimes in doing that, we think sometimes we know perhaps a little bit better than God and what he's allowed in our life. And we think, why does God allow this? This doesn't make any sense at all.
Yeah, it might seem that way, but brethren, how much do we know of what God is doing?
We know so small a percentage. How can we form judgment as to what God is doing in our life? Often think of Joseph for when he left his father's house at 17 years of age for 13 solid years, everything seemed to go wrong until he was 30 years of age and he came to the throne of Egypt.
Everything went down, down, down, down.
I am amazed that Joseph kept on and he lived an exemplary life even in prison. But sometimes things don't go our way and sometimes we start doubting God. Satan comes along and says see you believe in God and look what he's allowing in your life. How can you do that?
And he throws those fiery doubts darts. I should say they're doubts.
And he wants us to get to doubt God, because if he gets us to doubt God, he has us down on the battlefield of faith.
Keep that shield of faith up, brethren. Believe God even though you don't understand what He's allowing, how important it is. That's the I really believe the Lord has dealt with me about it and is continuing to deal with me about it. Do I trust Him no matter what? Do I trust him? Like Jim was mentioning those at the end of the 11Th chapter who didn't get deliverance. They were killed.
Did they trust Him? They trusted him, and that was faith. May the Lord help us, brethren, to not give place to unbelief.
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Like in that connection that turned back to Deuteronomy chapter 8 for a couple of verses.
Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse two children of Israel are just about ready here to enter the land of Canaan after 40 years in the wilderness.
And it says in verse 2, And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God LED thee.
These 40 years in the wilderness, to humble thee and to prove thee, and to know what was in thy heart, whether thou wittest keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hang hunger, and fed thee with the manna which thou knewest not so on.
I'll read the end of that verse. Neither did thy fathers know that he might.
Make thee know that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord that man live.
God had made a promise to these people.
When he took them out of Egypt.
He gave them a promise as to their destiny. They were going to a land of Canaan.
And he took them in when there was the evidence of unbelief in the very beginning. Then he took them into the wilderness, and they spent 40 years in his training camp, if you will, to learn their own hearts.
And.
Often times in the path of faith, it's what God withholds that is the test.
He withheld food.
Why did he do it? It was a test. Go ahead and made a promise to them. Would they? Would they act in faith or would they accept what had been withheld from them?
As from God and brethren, it's the same in our lives. Very often God withholds things.
In our individual lives, and they are tests, many times will we live by faith or will we not?
In the case of the Lord Jesus, he went into the wilderness and he was in the wilderness 40 days without food. He was tested in a similar way. What was withheld from him was what we all say is basic necessity of life. Who argues against the need for food and yet in his life it was withheld from him.
He was taken there by the Spirit of God, and he had no food.
Satan comes along and tries to tempt him out of the path of faith.
And he answers exactly what's in this chapter in Deuteronomy. He says man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The definition of faith itself found in John chapter 3 is what is said there. Is he that hath received his testimony. God's testimony has set to his seal that God is true. That's what faith is when God speaks.
And I accept it as true in my being. That's really what faith means. The Lord Jesus perfectly accepted the testimony of God as to the sustaining of his life. And he said I must have a word from God to the sustenance of my life. Bob just used the example of Joseph.
And how it was hard for Joseph to endure. What was the test?
At the age of 17 or thereabouts, he had a vision, and his vision was that his brethren, his Pennsylvania family, and so on were going to bow before him.
And in the Psalms about it, it says in recounting that, it says the word of the Lord tried him. He had to live those 13 years without any visible sign or evidence. He could have said many times as he was a slave. Did God really mean it to me? Is he really going to make good?
00:55:08
The promise that I was made in front of my father, my mother, my brethren.
The word of the Lord tried him without any evidence. God withheld from him.
And that's where the endurance comes in. That's why this chapter sucks about endurance is because God withholds things many times in the path of faith. But he says, will you believe my word?
Will you accept what I have promised you?
And lay hold of that and live by that. And so the Lord Jesus, he went all the way. And in his case, it says in our chapter about him, endured the cross, despising the shame, tremendous tests of what was withheld from Him.
He could say in in the Psalm.
102nd Psalm I think it is, He says, Take me not away in the midst of my days.
But it happened. He was taken away in the midst of his days. He was tested to the ultimate question of would he leave, or would he live by the word of God? And he lived by the word of God. And the very basic, even greater than food sometimes is the necessity of the human soul to be accepted.
To be loved, as we say to. And yet what was his end? Why was he tested in the end of his life? He was tested by the shame of the cross. And yet it was the the response of other people was withheld from him. Pity was withheld from him. Would he go to the end? He finished it. He's the completer of it. And he went to the end. And now he has the joy.
So faith counts on God.
Not knowing the end of the story as far as the circumstances of this life, looking onto a future, uh, something beyond this life, of course, but not knowing the end of the story down here. You know, we read the Old Testament stories and we read them with confidence because most of us have heard those stories from the very early days of our youth. You read the story of Esther. You know, when Esther went in to see the king who was her husband, she didn't know the end of the story.
We read that story because we know that he did hold out the scepter. But before she went in, she said if I perish, I perish.
When the three Hebrew children, Shejack, Meshach, and Abednego, spoke to the king, they didn't know the end of the story. Fact. Just go back there because it illustrates what Dawn and Bob have said. Go back to Daniel chapter 3. There's a couple of little details that if you read this quickly, sometimes you miss, but I think they're very important. Maybe just before I read this, I'll say too, that growing up under the ministry of Gordon Hayhoe, he used to tell us as young people.
You know it's possible to be unbelieving believers. What did he mean by that?
Well, we've put our trust in the Lord Jesus for salvation. We are what Scripture would call believers. We're on our way to heaven.
But there are times in our lives, are there not when our hearts become full of unbelief?
We're not counting on God for the circumstances of life like we ought to.
You know, it's interesting with Thomas. We talk about doubting Thomas, but it's actually even stronger language.
Thomas said. Unless I see, I will not believe you know Thomas was real.
Judas was not real, but Thomas was real. But there was a moment in the life of Thomas as a believer when his heart was filled with unbelief. He didn't have that faith to to count on what the Lord had told him before he went to the cross and what the disciples had said in seeing the Lord in resurrection. But this notice here in Daniel chapter 3 in connection with these three men, verse 16, we know the story well of the fiery furnace.
Verse 16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar.
We are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If so, be now. Notice this. Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace. I'm gonna stop there for a moment. They said that their God was able to deliver them. They didn't say He would because they didn't know the end of the story. But they had the faith to live for the Lord, for their God.
01:00:16
In spite of what would happen, they were not going to compromise the truth.
They knew that if they bowed down to the idol that had been set up in the plain of Dora, that they were disobeying the Word of God, the 1St and greatest of the commandments, that they were to have no other gods before them, and that they were to worship the living God and none other.
And they weren't going to compromise that no matter what. So they said, our God is able to deliver us. But then notice what they say. And he will deliver us, not necessarily from the burning fiery furnace, but he will deliver us out of thy hand, O King. In other words, what they really were saying is we don't know what's going to happen. We may perish in the fire, but either way, it doesn't matter. We're going to be delivered from your hand, and we're not going to bow down.
And worship the idol. And we know they're not named by name in Hebrews, but they are no doubt included in that list of those who quench the violence of fire and so.
I think when you see this, it gives import to the stories. And brethren, are you and I willing to live by faith and to rest on the Word of God, not knowing the end of the story as far as this life, but realizing that there is an end?
Beyond this life and the Lord Jesus when it says who for the joy that was set before him?
It was really, I believe, the joy of returning to the Father.
Having accomplished the Father's will, having lived the path of faith in complete perfection.
And having glorified God on the earth and finished the work that he had given him to do.
Knowing that he was going to at the end of it, return to the Father and sit down at the Father's right hand. Having a having accomplished what we turn the joy of returning to the Father. He could press on. He could rise from the garden, from his agony in the garden. He could wash the disciples, rise from supper and wash the disciples feet. He could leave the garden. He could look out from Pilots judgment hall and go forth.
To the cross. How could he do it? He knew the import of the verse that says weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
He was looking beyond, as the hymn writer said, the long dark night. He was hailing the coming day when he would return to the Father.
And sit down as a glorified man and in perfect confidence. And you and I, we can go on in spite of what happens down here. We can go on with glory before us and Christ as the object, if there is that confidence that is unwavering. Because the the opposite of of faith is unbelief. And that is, as Bob said, the sin in this chapter that so easily besets us. And it was the sin.
That plague the children of Israel for 40 years. In fact, it was the sin that kept them wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.
They didn't believe God. Then they sent the spies. They didn't believe the spies. God said because of their unbelief they were going to have to wander. And when there was unbelief, they murmured in their tents. They believed not his word, but murmured in their tents. May it not be so with us.
Yeah, yeah.
In connection with the, uh, friends of Daniel in the furnace, God didn't deliver them from the furnace. He delivered them through the furnace. And I don't suppose that ever entered their mind that that would happen. And it's been interesting to me, brother. And when a brother or sister so often is has a tremendously difficult trial and we look ahead and we think of the ways the Lord might come in.
I find so often He comes in in a way I never ever thought that he would do. That's God, and God is showing how great He is. He wants us to prove that how great He is, brethren, and that's why He does it the way He does. But may the Lord help us not to mistrust Him. There's a verse in the Gospels that says He could do in reference to the Lord. He could do no mighty works there.
Because of their unbelief, there's anything that hinders the Lord working. It's our unbelief.
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Isn't it a better thing for the soul to deliver through something with the Lord than to be delivered from it?
Umm, I worked, I had a fellow back home tell me once he, he lost his wife quite young with a brain tumor and umm, he said to me, I wouldn't have missed it for anything. So his desire no doubt at the first was that she might be delivered from it, it would be far easier for them. But he got a blessing in his soul because he went through it.
And don't you think, Ken, that when we talk?
Meshach and Abednego in the coming day, if we were to if we asked them what was the best experience of their life that they will pinpoint them going through the furnace. Why wasn't very nice to think that they had to go through it, but they had a special sense like never before of the presence of the Lord in in the furnace. They would have missed that and they'll look back and say, oh, we wouldn't have missed that for the world. That was the best experience. And I know everyone of us here.
Can look back on times in our lives when we didn't get delivered from it, we got delivered through it, but we looked back and we said, oh, we had a special sense of the Lord's presence, those everlasting arms about us, his love, whatever it was. Those are the best experiences of our lives. So if the Lord is allowing a special trial and then he won here their lives be encouraged. When God allows a special trial, it's because he wants to.
Communicate something very special to you. Think of the tremendous trial that Abraham had of having to offer up his son and how he went forward. Brethren, when we look at that, I don't know how much Abraham might have understood of the picture we see there, the beautiful picture. It was God who wanted to talk to some communicate something to his friend Abraham. And how much we, Abraham understood, we don't know it says Abraham.
Your father saw my day and rejoiced. We don't know how much he understood, but.
Brethren, remember, if he allows a specific, specifically heavy trial in your life, it's because he wants to communicate something very special. 35 in the appendix.
Three Things God Will Do With Your Life
Address—Don Rule
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.
84.
We hear the words of love.
We gaze upon the blood.
We see the mighty sacrifice and we have peace with God.
We change, he changes not.
Our Christ can never die.
His love not ours, the resting place we on His truth rely. We know He liveth now at God's right hand above. We know the throne on which He sits. We know His truth and love number 84.
00:05:04
Let's turn first to Hebrews chapter 13.
Hebrews, chapter 13.
And verse 8.
Jesus Christ.
The same yesterday.
And today?
And forever.
Back to Hebrews chapter one.
And verse 12. Hebrews 112.
As the Vester, thou shalt fold them up, and they shall be changed.
But thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.
And uh, back to the last book of the Old Testament to Malachi chapter 3.
Malachi Chapter 3.
And verse 6.
For I am the Lord.
I change not.
As an introductory remark, I want to comment that.
God's doing a work in this room.
In each one of us.
And I want to encourage you.
To make the work as easy for him as you can.
He's been at work for several thousands of years.
And at times the work has been very difficult.
But God is very persistent. He doesn't give up.
And, umm, he's not gonna give up, whether it's easy or hard, but at least I wanna give you the encouragement this afternoon to.
Give God, uh, as easy as it can be.
Uh.
So try to keep that in mind.
Couple of days ago came across in my in basket the following postcard. Probably you can't all see it, but some of you might be able to see it.
Make a change for good.
I misread it. It was lying there at an angle to me and because much of what comes on my in basket has something to do with spiritual things, I misread it to read Make a change for God.
Make a change for God. And that was the germ perhaps that the Lord allowed as to what the remarks are going to be this afternoon started to muse on that a little bit and what came before me is given in the verses that we read.
And that has to do with the character of God.
He never changes.
He has been the same forever.
He is the self existent unchanging one and in fact the name of God in the Bible is the same.
Thou art the same.
Totally never changing.
Solid complete the same.
If you're dealing with God about a matter and somebody has to change.
You might remember that.
He is unchanging.
Unchangeable.
Forever the same.
And his son also, Jesus Christ the same.
Yesterday, today, and forever.
I trust we will see why that's an encouragement.
So and it says make a change.
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That's you.
That's me.
There's change needed. There's change going on. In contrast to God, man is a constantly changing creature.
You were not the same this afternoon as when you came in this room this morning.
And you will not be the same tonight when you go to bed that you are right now.
Your life is constant change.
Like it or not, it's the fact man is a changeable creature and he is constantly.
Changing.
And I want to encourage you, since you're constantly changing and God is affecting some of that change, again, I say make it easy for them.
Don't make it difficult for God.
I want to put before you three things.
That God is going to do with your life.
Absolutely going to do with your life.
Whether it's hard for him or easy for him, he's going to go to the end. He doesn't change. He purposed these three things before he ever created the world.
And in the end, he's going to have the result of what he says purpose concerning you.
We'll look at them.
Those three things are this.
Number one.
You are going to trust God.
Absolutely, completely without the tiniest amount of unbelief.
#2.
You are going to love your brethren.
That may seem strange, but we'll look at it.
The number 3.
You are going to be like Christ.
You wanna call it your destiny? It's your destiny.
You're going to trust God.
You're going to love your brethren.
Perfectly is what I mean by that.
And you're going to be like the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you want to call it a joy, set before you. If you St. those things as joy, I do.
Think of what's set before you.
Is that not a joy to your heart? Is that not encourage your soul? I'm going to trust God.
I'm going to love perfectly those in relationship to myself, my brethren.
And I'm going to be like the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the joy in one sense that I'm going to this afternoon say God sets before you.
Let's turn to Hebrews again, Chapter 11.
Hebrews Chapter 11 and verse six. But without faith it is impossible to please him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
Faith is necessary to please God.
God created you and me as creatures that he could have fellowship with, and the only way that relationship can be maintained properly is by faith.
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Without faith, it's impossible to please God.
Adam and Eve.
The route.
Beginning of the problems that God had with man was unbelief.
Satan tempted them.
To undermine their faith in God.
Successfully did it.
And as a consequence.
They disobeyed.
And they had to be separated from God, and man became a wanderer and a Vagabond in the earth.
He was lost without God. There is no guide. No, he's not capable of directing his own steps in a meaningful, profitable way. The world is full of lost people. Not just lost in the sense that they aren't saved, but they're lost, period.
They have no moral center to their lives. They wander from this to that, to the other, to seek to find some kind of satisfaction, something that endures, something that makes life worthwhile, and so on. But their very nature, by the very nature of their condition, their loss. Man is lost because of what he is. He's a Sinner because what he's done.
Without faith, man's lust because only God.
Can direct his steps.
In a path of O happiness, obedience, satisfaction to God and man.
And God has been working ever since.
On that problem.
And I speak to you as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ when I say these things are your destiny. If you're not a believer, then these words, this message in that sense can't apply to you.
But it is the intent and purpose of God that everyone of His creatures who remains before Him for eternity is put into that state of perfect.
Unquestioning faith and obedience.
About it.
If I can put it this way.
You wanna go this way and God says we're going that way.
I encourage you.
As the world would say, let go and let God, or not the world. But people often say let go and let God. This is the way it's gonna end up.
Trust in God.
The encouragement of us is.
Let's get in the program.
Let's not make it more difficult for God. Let's not resist His work.
Let's accept it. Let's embrace it.
Let's leave it.
We don't. We ought to be growing in it.
We may say I'm imperfect. We are.
But life is more difficult.
When we're struggling against the purposes of God.
It makes it harder, it makes it more difficult for us and for God.
But it's a happy thing, if you could, to use the world's way of saying it, if we could get on the same page.
In our hearts and in our lives and God says this is where we're going with this matter. And when we know the finished, the product is done, the work is done with God, then he will have brought us into that condition in which we trust him absolutely, completely and never mistrust him again.
00:20:03
He will sustain us.
In that condition, we thank him for that.
Turn over to 1St John.
Chapter 3.
First John chapter 3 and verse 9, whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.
For his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
In this the children of God are manifest in the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
For this is the message that ye have heard from the beginning, that ye should love one another, not as Cain, who was of that wicked one and slew his brother.
And wherefore slewing him, because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous?
Marble knot, my brethren, if the world hates you, we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.
He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.
Whoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
When man sinned, he became a selfish, self-centered creature.
May 1St.
Life's about me.
And when Cain saw his brother do something that was acceptable to God, and he did something, and God did not accept it.
There was a jealousy there, an envy there perhaps.
And when there is jealousy and envy, it leads to anger.
Anger is often a manifestation of hidden sin. You see somebody angry, it's often the manifestation of something at work in their soul that is not of God.
And he slays his brother. He didn't love him, he was his brother, but his anger of himself having the greater place resulted in.
The death of his brother.
That characterizes man. He doesn't love his brother in the way that God wants.
And God has stopped seeking love from man for his brother.
The fact that he doesn't do it is proven by the law. The law had two basic foundations to it. If you did these two things, you would fulfill all the commandments of the law as it the moral commandments of the law.
Love God with all your heart and love your brother as yourself.
Van isn't capable of that in his natural condition.
And as part of God's answer and part of God's purpose to the matter, is he.
Sent his son into the world.
Sun dies on the cross.
And as a result of that, God is free to start giving gifts according to the gifts, the desires of his own heart, and to accomplish His purposes. And one of those gifts is the gift of righteousness. Another of those gifts is the gift of eternal life.
Which is the life of Christ.
Which is a life that loves.
One's brother.
And in fact, the way John presents it, it's the very display or evidence, if you might say, that there's life there.
When one truly, properly loves his brother, it's a it's an evidence that he has life, eternal life.
00:25:11
But it's hindered.
By the flash, and so it isn't always manifesting itself.
And God doesn't want us to wait until heaven.
To live it out properly.
And so I encourage you.
And myself.
Make it a point.
To love your brother.
I sometimes wonder news why it's his brother versus your neighbor.
Under the law, it was loving the neighbor.
But the commandment to you and I is love your brother.
And I think one of the reasons is it's one of the more difficult tasks of a believer's life.
It's a real challenge the closer you are in relationship to someone else.
The more challenging it is to live that truth out.
Sadly, sometimes people find it so difficult they separate.
For that very reason, they may give some other reason outwardly, because that isn't a very acceptable one, but the truth of the matter is sometimes their separations between brothers in the faith.
Because of coming short.
And loving one's brother.
The root failure of the church is that.
God left the church in the world to display his own heart.
Of love.
An emphasis.
Failed to display that love.
And God said as a testimony for me in the world, if you fail in that, I will have to put you aside as a Candlestick. And all other failures in the church came after that. And from that really.
So I want to encourage you this afternoon.
Yes, we might say, of course I love my brother.
But do you love him? Does Christ loves him in the full measure?
If not.
God's working on you.
God's working on you.
He's going to maybe make your brother rub you the wrong way.
He may put you in a position where your brother has a need.
Because he wants to develop in you the practical reality of what it is.
To love your brother.
And when he finishes his work, you will.
Perfectly, completely, and forever.
But let him, let him have an easy way with it in your life now.
Turn over to Romans chapter 8.
Romans chapter 8 and verse 28. For we know that all things work together for good.
To them that love God.
To them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.
To be conformed to the image.
Of his son.
We don't always couple the two verses together.
Let's think about them a little bit together this afternoon.
We say all things work together for good.
God has a purpose in all things that are working together in your life.
He wants them to work together.
To make you like his Son, like Christ.
Do we accept all things?
00:30:03
Do we embrace the difficult, the trial, the persecution, the whatever it may be? That's on what we think of as negative in contrast to the positive, the good things?
God's a perfect Workman.
You aren't going to be like Christ if all goes well.
In your life.
That isn't going to fulfill His purpose concerning you and me. He is working those things of life.
With an object before him, with an intent to fulfill the desire of his own heart concerning you.
And me.
And so he says I'm working everything out for good.
Because I have decided.
Back in the past eternity that I was going to make you conform to the image of my son.
I'm satisfied, perfectly satisfied with him. I find delight in him.
And as I love to say, it's enjoy it every time I think about it. Brother Clem Buchanan used to say God is so satisfied with his Son that he wants heaven to be filled with people that are just like him.
And so he's working on that.
Are you?
Are you is that what are you working on that too?
Are you and God working together toward the same end? Turn over to Back to First John chapter 3 again.
John chapter 3 and verse 2, beloved.
Now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be.
But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him.
For we shall see him as he is.
Every man that hath this hope in him.
Purifieth himself even as he is pure.
In other words.
We're conscious that we aren't there yet.
We're conscious in ourselves that we're not perfectly like him.
But if that is honestly and sincerely and truly the hope of our life, we are exercised as we use that word. We are active in our lives to do that and not to do the other, which would contribute to being more like him.
He that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he Christ is pure. And so there is that exercise.
To produce that end result.
Are you, can I say, a fellow laborer with God on the matter?
Is it a project that the two of you have together? We know the end of it. We know the result of what's going to happen. Are we making it more difficult or are we making it easier for God to accomplish that purpose, which He will without question is going to accomplish in our lives?
Mm-hmm. God has ways of working with us to.
To accomplish these purposes, we're not going to go very far down that, but I'll make a few comments about them, two of them.
Are discipline and government.
Discipline and government.
We have in the chapter before us, which we'll get into in its details and.
Hebrews chapter 12 is discipline.
What does he discipline us for?
00:35:03
He wants to make us practically partakers of His Holiness. He wants us to be like Christ.
And we all who have been parents or our parents know what it is to train our children to a certain end result. We're not very good at it sometimes. We're not like God in his perfection, but nonetheless, at least in desire and objective and activity, it's toward that end. A parent has a certain desire for a child to produce a certain end result in them, to train them.
And uh, so there's discipline.
Not appreciated very often by the child until later, but nonetheless necessary. And so it is in our lives.
It's a lot more enjoyable to train an obedient or child that will listen than a child that's constantly fighting. So I just put it before you. It says you're a child of God, are you fighting?
Or are you submitting?
To the training.
He's not going to give up on you.
He's not going to change his mind about you. He's not going to say you're worthless. I give up on this one and put it aside. He will not do that. He decided on your future before he ever created the world.
And he's going to stick with the project, if I can call it that, until it gets to its proper and full and satisfying end.
But you can, you should, I can. I should desire that the process be a straightforward as possible.
God introduced government.
To control a world, there was no government in this world, and from Adam to Noah, government wasn't instituted in the world till Noah came out of the ark.
And, uh, he said. I, I'm, as it were, I'm putting government into the world to restrain it.
And if you kick against God in the training program?
And to use an athlete's expression, no pain, no gain. You, you, you're gonna go through some pain in growing to the conformity of God's will. But at the same time, there is a government of God. And if we refuse the training?
We will find ourselves under the government, the restraint of God, and that's even more painful.
Comment. We're passing it in Hebrews 12, but it spikes about in the new translation sin that entangles us, and it was commented particularly the sin of unbelief.
That makes the job of God more difficult sometimes, but necessary if necessary goes that way with us.
Sin entangles the life.
It entangles the life. It makes it more difficult.
Don't entangle your life and make it more difficult for God to fulfill His will.
But we we get entangled.
Abraham got entangled when his faith failed him and he went down to Egypt.
And his life was more complicated, really the rest of his life in many ways because of that.
Just, uh.
Few more remarks really.
Umm.
Look at First John chapter 2.
Verse 14 I have written unto you, fathers, because you have known him, that is, from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men.
Because you're strong in the Word of God, abideth in you, and you have overcome the wicked one.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but as of the world and the world and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
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This very briefly gives before us three things that hinder and make difficult the work of God.
And that we need to recognize our hindrances to this path that we are on that God has put us on. There are three things particularly that are working against God and His purpose.
One is the world, one is Satan.
And one is your flesh.
They all oppose.
Man, in his natural condition, constantly opposes God's. Whatever God wants to do, man doesn't want it. That's why it says he's an enmity against God. And the flesh in US. Well, we're not at enmity against God as beings anymore. The flesh in US will never conform.
And Satan uses it.
He set up a whole system of things called the world, and he manipulates man.
Through it, to hinder, to stop if he can, the purpose of God.
So be be aware, be aware. I can put it this way, the Lord says to you.
I have a yoke for you.
He's a more experienced one in carrying a yoke than you are.
Either yoke, you have to learn. Will you accept in your life? My yoke, Let's go through life together. I'll never leave you nor forsake you.
But except my yoke, and let's go through life together in a common yoke. And when there is the tests that come from the world, the flesh and the devil, let's go through it together.
As yoked together.
Don't. Don't fight it.
Embrace it.
Don't say I gotta have my way.
It's it's just doesn't do any good.
It just makes life miserable.
And it doesn't stop God from his purpose, it just makes his work harder.
And as to this life, it makes yours more miserable.
Then if anything else.
And so I encourage you, be encouraged with God's purpose for you.
To make you fully trust him.
To make you love your brother without any failure in it.
And to make you like his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's your destiny.
That's his present work for you.
And uh, I just encourage you.
Let him do it as easy as possible.
They'll make it hard or then it has to be.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Bob Thonney
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.
Good evening.
Like to begin the meeting by reading 3 verses? You don't have to turn to it.
Just listen.
Being born again.
Not of corruptible seed.
But of incorruptible.
By the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.
But the word of the Lord endureth forever.
And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.
Let's sing #29 on our hymn sheets.
#29.
A ruler once came to Jesus by night.
A ruler once came to chase.
My husband called what I guess it was. It's more now that I am.
Nsnoise.
Let's turn to John chapter 3 in our Bibles.
And we'll read from verse one.
There was a man of the Pharisees.
Named Nicodemus.
A ruler of the Jews.
The same came to Jesus by night and said to him.
Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher. Come from God.
For no man can do these miracles, that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old?
Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
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The wind will oath where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof.
But canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth?
So is everyone that is born of the Spirit.
Now go down in your Bibles to verse 14.
And he says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.
Even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have a eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Verses 1:00 to 8:00 that we read, we read about God's work in us. In verses 14 to 16, we read about God's work for us. And I want to speak about those two things. But first of all, we'll address what we read. First, the matter of being born again. Here the Lord Jesus is found.
In a scene at night, and this man, Nicodemus, a religious man, a man that seemed to be quite sincere, and he was a man of stature, he was a ruler among the Jews.
He comes to Jesus.
We don't know why he came at night. Maybe he was ashamed, He didn't want people to notice him coming to talk to Jesus. But the good thing is that he came, and that's what's so important, to come to grips with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And so here he is, and he starts out talking to the Lord, and he says something that's fairly nice.
No man can do these signs except God be with him.
Very good religious talk, Nicodemus. But the Lord Jesus and what he responds to him says in effect.
Nicodemus, all your religion has nothing to do about seeing about getting into the Kingdom of God.
If you want to even see the Kingdom of God, you.
Must be born again.
This was strange to Nicodemus.
What's he talking about?
Me a grown man, how can I be born? And he tried to reason about the natural way. The Lord is not talking about natural birth here. He's talking about spiritual birth. And so he says in verse five, notice, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit.
He cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
Two things, water and the Spirit. Did you notice when we read those verses at the beginning of the meeting, Peter the apostle says, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.
You know this is a beautiful time of year.
Last weekend we were out in Seattle, some of us, and I am amazed at the display of flowers out there. Beautiful flowers this time of year.
How long do those flowers last?
Not very long.
And here in this room, there's a lot of youth in the flower of your youth.
Strength. Beauty. How long is that gonna last?
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Not very long.
Sometimes you see pictures of people on their wedding day and then you see a picture 50 years later.
Quite a bit of difference.
Yeah, we don't last that long. Why? Because we're born into this world of corruptible seed.
I've known Gordon Sester sitting out there for.
I don't remember, probably at least 50 years. Would you say Gordon?
About 60. OK, quite a long time.
You are quite a bit different than when I first knew you, brother. And that's the way it is in this world. We are born of corruptible seed and so we don't last that long. You know, I like to say sometimes you remember how old Adam was when he died.
Remember Jonathan?
Pretty close. 930 years old.
Have you ever seen a man 930 years old today?
We have a hard time getting up to 100 after you make it. Whatever has happened to the human race.
Corruptible seed. We don't last that long, you know. Sin has a degenerating effect.
And you see those who live in drugs and alcohol.
And illicit sex they are prematurely.
Hurried to the grave.
Sin corrupts, it destroys. It kills.
That's what we're made of, incorrect, incorruptible seed. And so that is why it is necessary to be born again. And when the Lord Jesus says this to Nicodemus, he says.
By water and by the Spirit. The water is as we've already said. Peter tells us what it is, the word of God. It's a figure of speech. So God uses his precious word. It's not so important what I say about this message tonight. It's important that you listen to what God says. Sometimes what I say might help you understand it a little bit, and that's the value of preaching.
But it's not what I say that's important. What I what is important is the Word of God, the incorruptible, the living, the abiding Word of God. Oh, how precious it is. And it's wonderful to me to see sometimes that the Word penetrates the lost souls.
Several years ago when we were living in Bolivia, the Lord led me into contact with a man who was a mechanic, and I took my Toyota Jeep to him to get it tuned up once in a while or other repair work.
And one day after I had.
Gotten done with, uh, paying the bill. I said I paid my bill with you, but remember that we have an account to settle with God.
Oh, we're all pretty good people.
I haven't done that much good. Bad. I said well, you can talk to yourself, but you can't talk for me. I'm not that good. Well, I I'm not really that good either, he said.
And it's true, if you really come down to it, you and I don't have a chance to measure up to God's standards. Don't have a chance. Anyhow, I left him a New Testament, and another time I met him at the shop. He says that book you gave me, I can't understand it. Why don't you come over to my house and explain it to me sometimes? So we made an appointment to go over to his place.
Can still remember that evening we sat down and we started with John's gospel chapter one. We got down to verse four and I read that verse. In him was life and the life was the light of men. That beautiful verse, all monosyllable simple words. In him was life.
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And the life was the light of men.
And I said to him, Alfonso, what is light?
And he looked at me the longest time and he didn't answer me. He didn't say anything. But it seems to me in that moment the light entered his soul. You know what he said to me sometime later when I went into the shop again? He said, you know that book you gave me? I can understand it now. Now it makes sense.
The light came on and that's what's so important, you young people.
Listen, I don't say you're going to understand everything I say tonight, but listen.
Because it's through the word of God that God imparts life.
And the Spirit of God is the one who takes the Word of God and pushes it home to your soul. Oh, the wonder of it. When God works, it's not my work. I only talk about it.
It's God who by His Spirit is here, present and working in your soul and mine. I don't know how you stand before God. I see young people sometimes sitting in meetings, sometimes even older folks.
And it seems like they're zoned out.
They don't know what we're talking about.
Is that you?
Is it all Greek to you? And brethren are talking the word of God. I say let your ears be open even though you don't understand very much. I remember growing up in meetings like this and I must say not much of it made too much sense to me when I was younger. Little by little I started picking up on different things and in the course of time God used His precious word.
To bring me to new birth, to a new life in Christ. Oh, it's wonderful when it happens. So the Lord Jesus says in verse six, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.
This flesh.
This life that I was born with is a life contaminated by sin.
I can fix it up, but it's still flesh. Just fixed up flesh. That's what people do all over the place in religious circles. Fix it up, improve it.
That won't work. You need something completely new. Completely new.
You know, we're in Iowa and I know that here in Iowa they grow a lot of hogs.
Supposing we go out into the countryside, we're not going to go into these big buildings, they have to grow hogs. We're going to go out into the field and they're rooting around in the mud is an animal. And ask any child, what kind of an animal is that anyhow? Would that be a sheep? And they always say no. What kind of an animal would that be?
A pig. How do you know it's a pig? Because that's what pigs like. They like to root around in the mud. And so it is.
Let's grab a hold of that pig out there and let's drag him out and let's bring him inside and wash him down. And besides washing them down and getting them good and clean, we're going to tie them to this railing up here so he doesn't go back out into the mud.
Boy, that pig is nice and clean, isn't he?
But he's just a pig. As soon as he gets loose, he's gonna go right back out where the mud is and start rooting again. Why? Because he hasn't been changed inside. He's still the same. And so there's people that come into meetings like ours and they think they're being religious, they're being really nice. They're they're very courteous to everybody and they say the right things.
00:20:01
Maybe the children learn the verses, but they have never let the word of God into your heart and soul. You've never been born again.
It's just the same as that pig.
I'm gonna put a little.
Example. This is impossible, naturally speaking, but let's do an operation on that pig.
Let's put them out and let's operate. And we're going to put into that pig the nature of a sheep and.
Sheep doesn't like mud. When a sheep is not careful, sometimes they might fall into the mud. But if you watch him in the mud, they're going to be pretty uncomfortable animals. That's just not the nature of of sheep.
So we're gonna put this sheep nature into the pig.
And now let's wake him up.
Now we let him loose. Where is he gonna go?
Out into the mud again.
Not if he lives his sheep life that he has in him. He's not going to go that direction any longer. Is somebody prohibiting him from doing going out there? No, nobody's prohibiting him. He's just living the nature of the new life that he has now.
And that's what happens to believers in the Lord Jesus, and not that there's a bunch of rules and regulations how you have to live the Christian life.
No, I have a life now that wants to please God, that delights to do his commandments.
That's the life that I've been given when I was born into God's family.
Oh, it's a wonderful thing. It's not a matter of trying to do better, of turning over a new leaf. That's not it at all. When you are born again and this is God's work in you, it says in the light to turn back to the first chapter, which also tells about this new birth.
In verse 12 and 13, listen.
As many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God.
Even to them that believe on his name.
Look at that verse. How do you receive him? What do you have to do to receive him?
Remember asking that to a young man that came to my house in Bolivia one time.
He was a student at the university. He was studying law.
And he said, I asked the brethren here what I have to do to be saved, and they say I have to repent. He says I don't understand, what do I have to do?
I said sit down, let's read.
John One, verse 12.
As many as received him to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. I said you're a law student. Come on, read that verse. Tell me, what does it say you have to do to be born into God's family?
He looked at it and he said believe on his name. I said you got it. You wanna pray, that's all right. But just know that it's not through praying that you're born into God's family. It's by believing in His name that you are born into God's family. God gives you the report from the Scriptures. The Word of God, Spirit of God takes it.
And applies it to you. And if you receive that message, God gives you a new life in Christ. Wonderful. That's what it means to be born again. And it's wonderful, you know, the transformation it makes in so many people's lives when they come to living faith in the Lord Jesus.
Some here have gone down to Oaxaca, Mexico.
For the conference at times, and there was a man that I got to know a number of years ago. He's with the Lord now, but in his unsaved life.
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Zenovio Ruiz was his name was abandoned and he had killed 21 People.
It was so bad that the Mexican army was told to get him dead or alive.
Down there in those parts of southern Mexico, the people are very poor and so the hall where they were meeting, the brethren were meeting, it's made out of sticks stuck into the ground, held together by cross sticks.
And, uh, appropriate place the door and a roof on it so that people on the outside can listen to what's being said on the inside. Synovia was too afraid to go inside because there was a warrant out on him. And so he stood on the outside and he heard the gospel.
He knew he was guilty before God. There is no question in his mind.
And he heard that verse, the blood.
Of Jesus Christ, God's Son cleanses us from all sin.
Is that possible? When he had a chance, he asked one of the brothers, is that true? That verse, The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. The brother opened his Bible and said, here it is, listen to it. The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Synovial received the Lord as his Savior. The word got through.
And he was born into God's family.
You know what he did next? He went to turn himself into the authorities. He knew they were looking for him, so he turned himself in to the in that place. It was the Mexican army that was after him.
And they took him into custody for about two weeks.
And examined him and I can't figure it out.
But after two weeks examining him, they let him loose. They said this man is completely changed. We're not going to even prosecute him.
And he lived out the rest of his life in liberty. I'm amazed that some of the people that were killed, their relatives wouldn't come and try to finish him off in vengeance, but that didn't happen.
I got to know Synovial. I would never ever guess that he was that kind of a violent man that had done those kind of deeds because he got a new life, a completely new life, a life that is from God. He was born into God's family. And that's so important. If you're going to see the Kingdom of God, if you're going to enter it, you must be born again. There is no question about it.
You can sit in meetings like this, and it's great to sit in meetings like this, but if you don't have that living faith in the Lord Jesus, you are not born again. You are not ready to meet God. Oh, how important it is to listen to God's Word. You must be born again. Marvel not that I say unto thee, you must be born again.
But I want to go on down then to the verse 14, and it says here, here's another must As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Here is the work of God for us and this took place.
Many years before I was born again.
Many years before I was ever born the first time.
This took place.
About 2000 years ago.
When God sent his own Son here, it speaks of him as the Son of man. The Lord Jesus is the Son of God, but as God, he cannot die. And God sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. To be able to save us, He had to die.
00:30:09
He had to make a payment for our sins, and the wages of sin is death.
And so he became the son of man. A man can die.
And so that's what happened. The Lord Jesus came into this world, was born.
Of the Virgin Mary he in contrast with us.
Never sinned even once. In him was no sin. When the Angel announced to the Virgin Mary that she was to be the mother of the Son of God.
He said, That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
He was holy from birth. None of us are holy. We're all sinners from birth. We're born with a sin nature and it doesn't take long before we start sinning. And the older we get, the more sins we commit.
What are you gonna do about those sins?
God cannot Passover your sins.
I don't know how many times I've sinned in my life, but it's scary when you start calculating. Supposing you send 10 times a day, who knows how many times a sin? But in one year that's 3650 sins. 10 years, that's 36,500 sins.
Wow, that gets pretty heavy.
What about those sins God cannot allow righteously? He can't allow not even 1 white lie into heaven. It won't happen.
There needs to be a purging of sin.
And how is that going to take place? The Lord Jesus came for that specific purpose.
And when at the end of his 33 1/2 years in this world?
They condemned him to death, the most awful death possible, the death of crucifixion. They beat him. Pilate declared his innocence again and again, and then sent him to scourge him.
They crowned him with thorns, they hit him in the face, then they led him outside the city of Jerusalem and they stretched out those arms and the Son of Man was lifted up.
You know here in verse 14 it speaks about Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, and the Lord Jesus says Even so must the Son of man be lifted up.
The figure here a serpent lifted up. Serpent is the animal that had a curse on it. Why is that a picture of Jesus? Why does he use that?
For my friend, this is the wonderful story of the gospel. God cannot Passover sin. Every sin must receive. It's just punishment from the hand of God.
No sin will go accepted. God is going to punish every single one.
If one little sin could get by, it would call into question God's holy character.
Won't happen. Can't happen.
Every sin must receive its punishment, but where? Where Jesus was hanging on that cross?
You know he is crucified about 9:00 in the morning. He died about 3:00 in the afternoon.
After three hours of men mistreating him and and hurling insults at him, God at 12 noon caused it to get dark.
For three hours of darkness, nobody could see what was taking place, but it was in those three hours.
That God laid on him the iniquity of us all.
One after another of my filthy sins. I wouldn't want you to unders know all about my sins, but God laid them on Jesus.
And God punished him.
The full judgment of a holy God fell in all its fury on the head.
00:35:05
Of His beloved son on the cross.
Macy's Amazing. Incredible.
But he exhausted divine judgment. He vindicated God.
About the whole question of sin, so that now when God comes out.
To forgive the guilty Sinner. He's not compromised.
In his character.
Preaching the gospel in prison, sometimes I like to say to the prisoners.
What would you think of a judge that every time a criminal is brought before him says?
We're just going to forgive you. We're just going to forgive you. What would you think of that kind of a judge? You know, at first, the imprisoners, they think it might be all right.
But as they think about it a little bit late, uh, more, they say, no, I don't think that would be very good.
He would be merciful, but he would not be just. If God Forgives the guilty Sinner, how can he be just? It's because of what Jesus did on that cross. He did the work for us and just as he died, he said it is finished. All the judgment of God that was against me as a guilty Sinner and that would have sunk me into hell forever.
Completely paid the price of my redemption. Thank God for it. Thank God for.
Oh, what a tremendous work he accomplished on that cross. Jesus died. The holy sinless Son of God died in place of the repentance Sinner. You will repent of your sins and come by simple faith to the Lord Jesus. God has a righteous way to forgive you all your sins.
You know this part of the work of Christ is so important.
I find so many people thinking.
Increasingly here in the United States, that at the judgment day God's going to put our good works on one side and our bad works on the other.
And if maybe all our good works weigh a little bit more than the bad works, then maybe he'll let me into heaven.
That is not true. That is false.
All the good works we can do does not wipe out any of the sins that we have committed.
Just let me use a little reasoning.
Supposing I'm a citizen of Pella, Iowa and I'm well known for doing a lot of good deeds here in this city.
One day.
I get really angry at somebody and I take a swing at him and I hit him so hard I kill him. Oh, here comes the police.
Sirs, Please wait a minute. You know, I'm known here in this town of doing a lot of good things. And I'm really sorry for what this that had happened, but I'll keep on doing a lot more good things. Do you think they're gonna let me go?
It won't happen. I'm going to prison.
For my deed. And you think God is less? Just doing good deeds does not wipe out any bad deeds. That just doesn't work. You're gonna be good for God. You have to be perfectly good, and that's only for a life on earth. And that's why the Lord Jesus said if you're going to see, if you're going to enter the Kingdom of God, you must be born.
Again. So the Lord Jesus died. He paid the price in full.
And then the third day after he was buried, the third day he rose again. Wonderful, wonderful story. Jesus is a living person of flesh and bones. He presented himself in the midst of his disciples that day He rose.
And he said, handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have. Yes, He is a real living person. You know, sometimes young people, sometimes even older people talk about Jesus. They kind of talk about somebody's way, way, way off in heaven. I don't really know if he has anything to do with me down here. And it seems like it's a distant relationship. That's not the way the Lord wants to be in your life. He is a real living man.
00:40:31
He wants you to talk to him.
And he wants to talk to you. You read his word. Do you pray? That's the way we do it. Well, we talked about Nicodemus in chapter 3. We've talked about the work the Lord Jesus accomplished on the cross. I'd like to go over to the next chapter now to read about a woman.
You know, it's interesting.
Both of these people the Lord Jesus met individually.
And you're all sitting there with your friends maybe.
But you know, you're going to have to deal with God on an individual basis.
You cannot come in on the shirt sleeves of somebody else. It won't happen. You've got to have dealings with God himself. And so in chapter 3 it's Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. But in chapter four we have a Samaritan woman.
And very interesting story this I'm going to read a few verses here from verse one. When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees.
Had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized not but his disciples.
He left Judea and departed again into Galilee, and he must needs go through Samaria.
You wanted to go through scenario. Generally, I understand that the Jews went across, they're going from Judea to Galilee or vice versa, from Galilee to Judea. They would grow across the Jordan River and avoid Samaria because they were not legitimate Jews. And so Jesus had to go through Samaria. He had somebody in mind that he had to meet.
Is there somebody here tonight the Lord Jesus wants to meet? Have you a relationship with him, a personal relationship. The Lord wants that. Well, he goes and he says verse five, he cometh into a city of Samaria, which is called psycho near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey.
Sat thus on the well, and it was about the 6th hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink, for his disciples were gone away into the city to bind me. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him. How is it that thou, being a Jew, asked this drink of me, which I'm a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
Here comes the religion problem again.
You're a Jew and we're Samaritans and we don't have any dealings. What is this that you are talking to me this way?
It's wonderful that the Lord Jesus how he responds. He doesn't really answer her question or objection. He says 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, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman said unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw within the wellest deep.
From whence then hast thou that living water art thou greater than our Father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.
But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Isn't this wonderful? Here is a poor woman.
00:45:03
A thirsty woman. You know, thirst is not something that we only feel in our bodies. Yes, we get thirsty, we look for a place to take a drink, but there is another part of our being, our souls, that thirst.
For satisfaction, so many people in the great United States of America, where we have so many things.
Our thirsty souls.
Their drinking of the wells of this, of the world's, uh, the world's wells, and they're not satisfied. Jesus said, whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water that springeth up to everlasting life. Wonderful.
She says, Sir.
Give me this water that I thirst not neither come hit her to draw.
Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband.
And come hit her.
To me, it is wonderful to see how the Lord Jesus deals with this poor woman.
And she says I have no husband.
That was kind of 1/2 truth.
And people like to say little statements that make them look decent when the truth is something terribly different. I don't know what the story of your life is. Sometimes even young people that come to meetings are involved with bad stuff out there.
I don't know if that's your case.
But here is this poor woman who thinks she's going to cover it up. And the Lord says in verse 18, thou hast or at the end of verse.
17 Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that says thou truly.
Poor, thirsty, unsatisfied woman.
5 husbands she had had and the one she had at the present time wasn't really her husband.
So to say I have no husband was kind of true, but kind of not true as well.
And all of a sudden she's in the presence of somebody who knows exactly every detail of her life. Let me tell you, young people, older ones too, Well, if you're going to deal with God, he knows everything about you. And if you try to cover up the messy stuff of your life, it won't work.
He knows about it all. He knows about it all.
I often say if I stood up here during this meeting and you're watching me and I have something behind my back hidden, and I say you're looking at me kind of suspiciously, what is he trying to hide? I only make myself that much more conspicuous trying to hide things in the light. You can't do it. You only make yourself conspicuous that you're trying to hide something and it won't work, especially when you're dealing with God who knows every detail of your life.
Poor woman, she didn't know what to say.
She said, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Well, that sounds like kind of nice thing to say, isn't it?
And then she goes off into the subject of worship in the Lord. Jesus talks about it too. But notice what happens a little bit further on.
Verse 25 The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ. When he is come, he will tell us all things.
Jesus saith unto her.
I that speak unto thee.
And he isn't that wonderful, the revelation he made, This poor sinful woman, this poor thirsty woman, I that speak into thee am he?
And she doesn't seem to respond. The disciples come and it says in verse 28, the woman then left her water pot.
00:50:09
She wasn't gonna need that water pot to satisfy her thirsty soul any longer. She had found somebody else that satisfied her. She went into her way into the city and said to the men, come see a man. That which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?
Then they went out of the city and came unto him.
Did he tell her everything she had ever done?
No, just a particular area about her marriage lives.
That's all. But she felt that she was in the light and there was nothing she could hide from his.
I said he knew everything about her, and there's somebody that knows everything about you, all those things you've tried to hide from the brethren and from your parents and from anybody else.
You know what? He still loves you.
And he wants to clean up your act. He wants you to come into his family. He wants you to be born again so that you won't have that kind of a life that desires that messy stuff, so that you will have a life that wants to do his will. Oh, it's wonderful when a person truly is born again. I believe, truly believe that this woman was born again. The words got into her soul.
She realized who it was and she says to those men, men perhaps that she was ashamed to even look at because of her history in that city. She says to him, come see a man that told me everything I ever did. Wow.
That's saying a lot.
But that's what she felt. She felt she was in the light of his presence. And there is nothing.
That could be hid from his presence, from his eyes. Oh, the wonder of it, To know that God knows everything about us and at the same time loves us. You know, we're speaking about love today, and the love of God is love that loves not because of the object, but because of the source. God loves us not because of anything that he sees in us.
But because of who he is.
I'd like to ask the men in the prison sometimes, why does God love us?
The first answer I invariably get is because we're his children.
I say, well, if you're not a believer in Jesus, you're not one of his children, but he still does love you. Why do you think he loves you?
After a bit they'll say, well we're we're his creatures. OK, I can accept that he does love us. But I said I got a better answer. God loves us because God is love. It's not so much a question of what we are, it's a question of who he is. Wonderful to realize it. He loves me.
If you'd really know a lot about me, you might not like me very well.
Because of what you see that God's love is love that loves, because God is love. It's not a question of what I am, it's a question of who he is.
Oh, wonderful to understand that love.
But before we come to the end of our time here, I want to warn each one here too tonight that we are getting in this world's history down to a time when Jesus is going to come back to this world in person to judge in righteousness this world. And so if you do not accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
If you have the word of God blockaded, I see some people.
Listening very respectfully, but it's evident the way they're listening.
Their ears got the roadblocks up.
Remember a woman when I first came to Oak Park, IL to work at Bible Truth Publishers at that time who came in from the neighborhood. Very respectable lady.
00:55:02
But it was evident that that woman.
Was trying to avoid the issue. She I don't know that she ever let the word of God come into her soul.
Oh, yeah. She was very nice, very respectable, listened, very respectful. But after the meeting was over, she said, oh, that sister had a new pair of shoes on and that sister had a new hat on. It's evidence she didn't want to listen to the message of the gospel. That's why I say tonight, where are you, you that are not ready?
Are you still blocking the word of God out of your life?
Let the Word of God penetrate into your heart and soul. God means to bless you exceedingly. He wants to impart new life to dead souls, dead in trespasses and sins. But if you refuse to do with the Lord Jesus as Savior, you cannot avoid Him. You will meet Him too. It will, it might be.
At the.
Throne at the judgment of the nations, when the Lord Jesus establishes his Kingdom, and all those that have rejected the Lord Jesus are gathered before him.
And the judgment is made and those that have not accepted the message.
Are sent into everlasting punishment.
Prepared for the devil and his angels, God never prepared everlasting punishment for man. He didn't want anybody going there. And if you're on the way there, God doesn't want you to go. Not one step further. He wants you to be saved.
But if you refuse.
You will have as your company for all eternity the devil and his angels in everlasting punishment.
If you don't survive the Great Tribulation period to meet up with Jesus at the end, then you will meet Him at the Great White Throne Judgment where all the dead are going to be raised from all time, because every cemetery of earth is going to be completely emptied of its bones.
They're gonna be resurrected and and stand in space before a great white throne. On that throne sits the same one who wants to be your savior tonight.
And the books are opened. God keeps records.
I've forgotten so many of my own sins. God doesn't have the problem of being forgetful.
No, he has records and if you refuse him, the books will be opened and the record of your life is going to be read out and you will have to give an account to God and then that man on the throne will say cast him into everlasting fire. He doesn't want that. For you. Now is the day of salvation.
He wants to save you. And we, I say we, I mean every true believer in this room, plead with anybody here who's still not a believer in the Lord Jesus to not put it off any longer, to get it straight. God knows your life. There's nothing you can hide from him but to simply in true repentance, turn to the Lord Jesus as Savior.
And accept him by.
Be leaving in his name.
Dwell in This Land - Go Not into the Land of Egypt
Jesus Wept. He Knows How You Feel.
Children—Caleb Buchanan
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.
On the clock in the front of the room, it says Sunday school starts in 2 minutes. So in the next two minutes I'm gonna invite the kids to go ahead and come on up to the front of the room if you would like.
And while they're coming up, why don't we look on the back of our hem sheets while people are coming in and we'll start singing on the back of the hymn sheets. We're gonna start singing with #40 I know we're just a little bit early, but we can sing while people file in #40 on the back of the hem sheets.
Jesus loves me this.
Oh man, yeah.
It's, uh, one day. Yeah, it's a monthly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I will tell you.
She doesn't want me to go and I did waste to make me laugh. Way to call me in his arms.
In pain sight from everyone.
Yes. The inside. What do you mean? Yeah, I don't know. She's nice. Love me. Yeah. I'm not being honest with you. I'm glad.
Umm, I will tell me so.
Jesus loves me, loves me so well I never really can do rundown shining on my mind. Be well, watch me where I lie.
Yeah, she's not. Love me.
Yes, I love me.
Yeah, it sounds like.
Lot of people.
She's not love me, he will say. Love me I see all the way and I like him to die and I die. He will make me home on time.
Yeah, he does love me.
And he is like blood may not be done. It is not lost me. I'm fighting for my hotel. Help me so.
Who else has a song to sing? Which one do you want to sing?
Number 42 #42 Same page.
A little.
Bit right?
Or whatever one heart is doing.
Do you mind if I ask you how old you are?
6 1/2 very good. So that's fits into.
7-3 or four, that's in between those, isn't it? Anybody here?
00:05:02
Uh, three or four, maybe not in the front row.
I'll bet there's some three or four years old there. There's a, you know, three or four. Three. OK all right, good. In a little bit, I'm going to tell you a story about a boy who is three years old, and this song reminded me of it.
Somebody else have a song to sing #38 OK.
Turn back one page #38.
I know not why God was great to me.
I'm quite representation, I have no problem. I am seeing your way to meet one of our potatoes.
All I know.
I'm really into that. And that's the rest. Where you've got any better?
Nsnoise.
Who generally knows more, kids or adults?
In general, what do you think? What do you think? Adults usually. Usually that's true, sometimes it's not, but usually that's true. We were singing, I don't know why. God's wondrous grace to me He hath made known. I don't know how this saving faith to me He did impart. I don't know how the Spirit moves convincing men of sin. That's the thought the author of the song is saying. There's a lot of things that I don't know.
But there's one thing that I do know that's in the course, right? I know who I have believed. OK? You said adults generally know more than children. Can children know the Lord Jesus?
Yeah, they can. And you know what, Of all the things that there is to know, that's the most important.
There's a lot of things that there are to know in this world, and you know none. Nobody can know it all. Only God knows it all. But there is one thing that is important that we all know, and that's the Lord Jesus. It's important to know God and to know the Lord Jesus as our Savior. And we were singing before a little child of seven or even three or four, even a child of three or four can know God, can know the Lord Jesus.
Their Savior. And so that's who we're going to talk about this morning. Why don't we go ahead and sing one more here before we pray, and I'm going to give you a chance to say some verses. How about one more song?
00:10:05
Looking for hands anywhere in the room. OK, go ahead.
46 OK.
#46.
Gladys.
Berejiklian.
And recall and recall all of you.
All right, at our Sunday school, each Sunday school is a little bit different, but at our Sunday school we give a chance for the kids to save verses. And I know this is kind of a big room and maybe.
Maybe you learned that, maybe you didn't learn it. Maybe it's a little intimidating saying that verse, but I'm going to give you guys a chance to say.
Your Sunday School verse, anybody that would like to go ahead You you want to tell me your Sunday School verse?
Is it the one on the Sunday school paper? Because that's the one I learned.
846.
OK, thank you. OK, anybody else want to say the verse?
Thank you, Luke.
Thank you. Go ahead, Paul.
Thank you.
OK, go ahead.
OK, great.
Very good.
OK.
Yes, very good.
Alright, I'm gonna look a little. May have to wave your hands if you wanna say it.
Anybody over here?
Go ahead.
Very good.
OK.
Alright, so those of you that said that verse, what do you think? Was that a hard verse or was that an easy verse to learn? It was an easy one, wasn't it? Because it was short, right? You think you understand what it what it means? It's pretty, pretty clear, isn't it? Is there anyone that doesn't sin? What's the verse? Tell us? There's no man that sendeth not right? Pretty easy to understand.
You know, I was thinking about this verse and I think.
Maybe those of you that said a verse in Sunday school last week, was it another short one last week? Does anybody remember what the verse was last week? 4 words I think.
Thou God sees me. Another short one, huh?
I remember when I was a kid and I would get the Sunday school paper, I would open it up and I would look at the verse and, and you could measure you just with one glance, you could see whether it was a long verse or a short verse. And if it was a short verse, sometimes it may be only three or four words like thou God sees me. I think, wow, good. We got an easy one next week, right? Easy verse next week. And that was like, sometimes they're long and there's a lot of black and they're think, oh, that's a long one. And maybe you're going to have to work a little harder to memorize that one if you don't.
Know it so but that's that's good. And I like short verses and I was thinking about short verses because of the the last two Sunday school verses and I thought I would see if you guys knew any other short verses in the Bible. I know this is a this is a pop quiz. You didn't have time to practice, you didn't have time to warm up, but we've said two. I wonder if you guys can think of any other short verses in the Bible. Go ahead, Paul, Jesus wept. I think that might be the shortest one, isn't it?
00:15:14
At least in English, that's the shortest verse in the Bible. OK, anybody else?
Go ahead, God is light. That's a nice one, isn't it? I like that verse.
God is late, who else? Can anyone think of something else?
Go ahead, they go together, don't they? Those two verses, God is late and God is love. 3 words.
Anybody else think of a short verse?
I could probably start a few and you might be able to finish them. If I started a verse that said pray without. How does that I heard somebody say it would say it, say it out loud. See seeing. Thank you. OK.
If I started a verse that said Praise ye the.
Go ahead.
The Lord thank you and.
And several others written them down, written down. And I can't, my mind is blanking out. I can't think of them right now. But we're going to talk a little bit about some short verses. In fact, we're going to talk about some of the shortest verses in the Bible. And we'll start with the one that you said. And let's, if you have a Bible, just so you can see it, I think we all know it. But just so you can see it, let's open it up to John, Chapter 11.
John Chapter 11, verse 35 and Paul. Can you read that to us again? You said it already.
Jesus wept. That's what it says there, doesn't it?
Why did Jesus weep? We know weeping means to cry, right? Weeping means to cry. Why did Jesus cry?
Why was he crying in this verse? Do you know where he was in this story?
Where was he?
He wasn't at the cross. No, that that comes a little bit later in this book.
Luke.
He was at the grave of Lazarus. He was, we might call it a funeral. He was at a funeral.
Have you seen people cry at a funeral?
Yeah, he was at a funeral. He was at the grave of a friend. In fact, the very next verse says the Jews said, behold, how he loved him. They saw Jesus crying and they said he really loved Lazarus. And here he is crying. He's weeping at the grave of Lazarus, you know.
A funeral or a grave is a place where we come face to face with death, right? Where does death come from?
What do you think?
Death comes from sin, and the Lord Jesus was at the funeral, was at the grave site, and he was face to face.
With the results the effects of sin.
And he felt that, and he was sad and he cried.
You know.
The world that we live in is full of the results of sin.
Not just death, but we see other things, we see pain, we see different ways we see distress, we see things that are out of order. We see disorder and we see all these things. And if we know the Lord Jesus, we look at those things and we should say that's not right. That makes me feel bad when I see those things. Maybe you see, maybe you've noticed that you, you'll, you'll hear a story about.
Maybe you hear a story about a family or or some some kids that don't have enough to eat.
They're hungry and there's no food and you think that's sad?
Or you, you maybe you've maybe you've been confronted with a situation at at school or at home or in your neighborhood where somebody who didn't do anything wrong gets in trouble and you think that's not fair.
00:20:01
Or maybe you've seen the opposite. Maybe somebody who has is always getting into trouble and they just seem to get away with it all the time, and you think that's wrong. And if you think those things, you're exactly right.
And you know what? I believe that this verse and other verses in the Bible tell us that the Lord Jesus sees those things and he recognizes them as not right too, and it makes them sad. Just like here in the face of death, He was sad. He felt that.
And he was sad, and he shared in the sorrow of Martha and Mary. OK.
Have you ever seen an adult cry? I know we've seen children crying. Have you ever seen an adult cry?
It makes you stop and start, doesn't it? I remember when I was younger, every once in a while you would come across an adult crying and it would startle me, would surprise me.
Because, you know, we think it, that, you know, adults don't cry. You know, kids, sometimes they'll fall and they'll hurt themselves and they cry. And we expect it more from children. But every once in a while, you'll see an adult cry and you start and you think something's not right.
I'm going to tell you a story about an adult who cried. That adult was me. OK? I'm going to tell you a story about me.
There's a boy, I told you I was going to tell you a story about a boy who was three years old. There's a boy who's here who's a lot bigger now, but at the time that this story happened, he was three years old.
This boy was playing out in the yard having fun, and he fell and he cried. And it wasn't just a little cry, it was a big cry. It was a holler. And I wasn't there, but his mommy was there and his grandma was there. And they immediately knew that something was wrong. And so they went to him and through a course of events, they found out that he had fallen and he had broken his leg.
And so he was in a lot of pain.
So they took him to the doctor, they did X-rays, they put them in the hospital, in a bed in the hospital.
You know, sometimes when you break a bone, the bone comes apart and clean. Sometimes when you break a bone, it's very jagged and very sharp. That was the situation here.
And the way the movement happened.
It had caused a lot of cutting, a lot of damage inside of his leg, and he was in pain. You know, it's wonderful that we have medicines nowadays that we can give to children or to adults that are in pain. And so they gave this little boy, they gave him some very, very strong medicine. But because he was so small, he was only three years old, because he was so small, they would only give him a little bit and they would space it out.
And so when they gave him the medicine, the pain would go away, but before they could give him the next little bit of medicine, it would come back and he would have to wait a certain period of time before they would give him more because there are some side effects to this medicine that are not good. And they also knew, and I knew as the Father that he was going to get better. You know, a broken leg is not a fun thing, but it's not life threatening. Most of the time it's not life threatening. Bones heal. We know how to heal bones. God has given us wisdom to be able to learn how to heal bones well. And we all knew.
That he was going to get better, but he was going to have to be in the hospital for a long time without moving, and that was very hard for this little boy.
During the daytime.
His mommy was with him and during the night time I was with him.
And in the night time, another thing that the medicine did to him is it made him so that he wasn't quite, uh, aware of everything going on around him and so you couldn't explain to him. And besides, he's a three-year old boy. There was a lot of things he didn't understand.
And so he was in pain, and I was there with him. And you know what? I cried. There were times when I cried.
I remember.
Laying there looking at him in the bed and thinking Lord Jesus and praying. Lord Jesus, if you could just give some of the pain to me instead, I would take it. Just give him some relief. You know, that's a sad story. That's a result. That's an effect. This pain that we feel, these things that we feel that are hard many times are the result of sin. This boy hadn't done anything wrong, This boy.
00:25:14
Wasn't disobeying when he broke his like he was just having fun. But you know, we live in a world where we suffer the results of sin, even if it's not directly our own sin. Sometimes we disobey and we have consequences, but that wasn't the case here. We live in a world that sin has affected and it makes us sad and it makes the Lord Jesus sad. So sad that we have this short verse that says Jesus.
Jesus wept. Jesus cried.
You know many.
Weeks, perhaps months later, that boy healed up. They put a cast on him and he came home and eventually the cast came off and it took him, he was kind of had to learn how to walk again a little bit. But you know, he's fine. And he grew, he grew up through that. And you know, that result, that or that, that incident changed him and it changed his mommy and his daddy too. We learned things through that. And I think the Lord helped and the Lord taught us some things that we wouldn't have learned any other way. But there was a time several weeks later and I was driving along.
In my car and I was kind of thinking about things. I was by myself and I was thinking about things and I was sort of praying and sort of justice thinking.
And the Lord brought that back to me, that story, and he said to me, and I remember exactly where I was when this happened. The Lord, it's like he just reached down and he went and he said, Caleb, that's what I did for you.
What do I mean? You know, I was laying there by that bed and I was willing, if it was possible, it wasn't possible with modern medicine. If it was possible, I would have taken all the pain, all the suffering that he was going through. I would have, I was willing to do that, but I couldn't do that. And the Lord Jesus was telling me, Caleb, that's what I did for you. You deserve punishment. And you know, every single one of us in this room deserves punishment.
We can't just say we live in a world that is full of sin. We have to recognize that we are part of the problem. We are part of the brokenness of this world. We are sinners. We disobey, we are rebellious. We go our own way. Like sheep, we turn everyone, each one of us, to our own way. We are part of the problem.
That includes me and the Lord Jesus, said Caleb. That's what I did for you.
I took the suffering.
So that you didn't have to. And you know what? Everyone of us in this room that knows the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we can say the same thing.
The Lord Jesus took the suffering so that I didn't have to.
But there was something else that I learned there too as a father, and I hadn't thought of this before, but I learned something there.
You know, as a father, I can tell you it was a very difficult thing. And others in this room, I'm sure have been in the same situation, maybe even more difficult, more challenging situations where they have seen a child suffer and have been unable to help even though we want to. More than anything, we want to be able to help our children. Sometimes it's just not possible. There's just no.
Way for us to do that, It's just outside of our control.
I was thinking about that. You know what?
I don't know if I can say what it was like for God the Father at the cross.
But as a father, I can imagine.
Watching his own son suffer.
Watching the Lord Jesus suffer on the cross.
And it wasn't that he was unable to help. Maybe not sure how to how to say this, but who was it that punished the Lord Jesus for my sins?
What do you think?
Who was it that put the punishment on the Lord Jesus while he was on the cross?
You think it was God the Father?
00:30:05
He it says there was three hours of darkness and he did not reach out and help his son.
He let him suffer because that was the only way that we could be here this morning.
Thinking about the Lord Jesus and telling this glad story, you know, this is kind of a sad story and we'll get, we'll turn the corner here, I think in a little bit, in another minute. But I just wanted you guys to think about that.
There is sin in this world. Are the results of sin and the Lord Jesus.
Feels that and he shares in that. You know, we were talking the other day about a high priest. We don't have a high priest who doesn't feel these things. Somebody read a verse about that. We have the Lord Jesus is our high priest. He does feel these things. He shares in these things.
OK, let's move on and let's read another verse. Turn to 1St Thessalonians 5.
There's a few different short verses in this one, but we're only going to read one of them.
First Thessalonians chapter 5 and I'm going to ask.
Somebody to read the verse to for us here. It's in First Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 16. If you find that verse, raise your hand and I'll let you read it. Go ahead, Luke.
Rejoice evermore.
This is another short verse, isn't it? In fact, if you look in your Bible, there's several other short verses there that come along right after that. But we're just going to talk about this 1-2 words again. Rejoice evermore. OK, we've talked about weeping, Jesus wept. And now this verse is almost like the opposite, isn't it? Weeping and rejoicing are kind of opposites. And this verse says rejoice evermore or for always. Rejoice for always.
How can we have a verse about weeping and a verse about rejoicing?
Are both some of the shortest verses in the Bible?
How can we have a Can we do both of those? Can we do both of those sometimes maybe even at the same time? It's hard to imagine, but it's true. And I think maybe like a funeral, like where the Lord Jesus was.
That's one situation where we might rejoice and we might weep at the same time because especially if it's, well, maybe only if it's we know that the person is was saved. The person who's died was saved. And we rejoice because we know that they're in the presence of the Lord Jesus. And we wouldn't, we wouldn't want to remove them from that place. We wouldn't want to take them out of heaven. We wouldn't want to bring them back to this earth that's full of weeping. We don't want that. So we rejoice that there was the Lord Jesus.
But at the same time, we can weep and we can be very, very sad because we're going to miss that person. We know we're going to see them again, but for a time we're going to miss them. And so we can rejoice and we can weep at the same time. You know, there's a verse in the Bible that says rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that. So we can do both. As Christians, we do feel both things, and sometimes even at the same time.
Let's talk about rejoicing. There's two verses that I was two situations that I was thinking of two verses. One of them is in Luke chapter 15, actually 3 verses in Luke 15.
About rejoicing.
Luke 15 and let's see overread verse.
Uh, six. Somebody find it there and can read it for us.
Go ahead, Adrian.
And when he cometh home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.
Read one more verse.
Verse 7.
OK. And we're also going to read verse 9 and 10. Somebody else want to read that somebody?
Go ahead, Paul let you read those.
And I'm going to read one more verse that I have to turn the page in my Bible. It's the same chapter and it's.
00:35:14
Verse 24 I'm going to read verse 23 two and bring hit her the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry for this my son was dead.
And is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to be merry, or they began to rejoice. You know, our verse says to rejoice ever more. In that last verse that I read, it says they began to rejoice. It doesn't ever tell us that they stopped rejoicing. It's kind of like that verse. Rejoice forevermore. And that's kind of what happened here. They began to rejoice. OK, We read three of those. One of them was when a shepherd found a lost sheep. One of them was when a woman found her lost coin. And one of them was.
When a father had his lost son returned to him.
And all three of those people in this parable rejoiced. They were happy. And then it tells us the first two times, it tells us likewise. They're in the same way. There is joy in heaven over one Sinner that repents.
And I don't think that that joy ever stops.
That joy starts perhaps when one person receives life, when one person repents, but that joy goes on evermore, you know, and those of us that know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, that is a wonderful reason that we have to rejoice. No matter what happens, no matter what sadness happens in our life, we have a reason to rejoice. And that's something that we can rejoice in. That's something that we that makes us happy. We can rejoice and we can not only rejoice because we're saved, but we can rejoice because.
Our friends that were sitting next to know the Lord Jesus, if we know that they know the Lord Jesus, we can be glad that they know the Lord Jesus. We can rejoice that.
There's so many people in this room that know the Lord Jesus as their savior, and God is rejoicing about that.
But before we move on, let's make sure that we have accepted the Lord Jesus as our Savior.
You know, in this story, there was a period of waiting before there was a period of rejoicing. Rejoicing never stopped. The waiting did stop. The shepherd was looking for his sheep, and there was a period of time where he was looking, and then he found it, and then he started to rejoice. I wonder if there's someone in this room that's like that sheep that's lost.
And God, the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit are waiting.
They would like to start rejoicing about you, but they're waiting.
Let's not make God wait any longer. Let's repent. Let's accept Him as our Savior.
One more verse. This is in John. Another reason to rejoice evermore.
John, Chapter 16.
Verse 22, John 16, Verse 22, I'll read this verse. It says the Lord Jesus is talking to his disciples. And he says, ye now therefore have sorrow, Ye now you have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. What's the Lord Jesus saying there? He's saying he's talking to his friends, He's talking to his disciples and he says.
Right now you're sad, you have sorrow, but you will see me again, and you will rejoice, and that joy that you have, no one will ever take away from you.
Rejoice evermore. What was he talking about? He was talking about going to the cross.
Were the disciples sad when the Lord Jesus went to the cross? Yes, they were. Were they maybe a little bit afraid and not sure what God was doing? I think maybe that's true. But the story ended in resurrection. This, this, the Lord Jesus rose from the dead. We know the story, don't we? We've all heard this story before, haven't we? The Lord Jesus rose from the dead. He came back to the disciples and he stood in the middle of the room where the disciples were like this. And he said, peace be unto you. And the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. That's what it tells us. The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. And that joy no one was ever able to take away from them, you know.
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I think all of the disciples, all of the 11 disciples there.
Suffered.
In their lives, many of them were put to death, many of them were martyred, some of them very, very painfully.
They were put to death, but no one ever took away that joy. They could say, We have seen the Lord, we know that He lives, and we know that no one can take that joy away from us.
And you know what? Maybe in the disciples, in the same way as the Lord, the Lord Jesus, in the same way as the disciples have, but we can rejoice that he, the Lord Jesus, is a man that is risen from the dead and that he is in heaven and has gained the victory over sin and over death. And we can rejoice in that. And you know what? That's a joy that no one can ever take away, because the worst that man can do to us, the worst that anyone can do to us is probably to put us to death, right?
That would be the worst that anyone could do. And that still can't take away that joy because all that does is send us into the presence of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. So rejoice evermore. And there's so many, so many other things that the Lord Jesus has given us to rejoice about. We've received many blessings. We receive his care. He says I am I, I will never leave you or forsake you. All these things the Lord Jesus tells us that can make us happy.
And I hope that we.
As boys and girls and as grown-ups too, I hope that we think about these things and I hope that they have an effect on our lives.
I hope they do So 2 short verses. I know there's a lot more, but our time is just about gone.
So what were the two two verses?
Right. And what was the second one?
I gave you the first. Which one was it? Rejoice ever more. Yeah, there's a lot of other short verses in the Bible, but those are the two that the Lord gave me this morning to talk to you guys about Jesus wept Jesus and feels.
The sadness, the sorrow of sin. But we can we always have reason to rejoice. Rejoice not just for a time, but rejoice forevermore.
Continue in a Life of Faith
Hebrews 12:2-10
Ask God to Bring Someone to You Who Needs Help
Hebrews 12:11-on
Reading
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TV and all our rest and pleasure find in learning Lord of the 230.
Oh Lord, when we.
On my brain.
Dusty start there because that gives the context for the following verses.
Verse 12 and verse 11.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down on the feeble knees, and make straight pause for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. But let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you.
And thereby many be defiled, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau.
Who for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright for? You know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing?
He was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
Where you're not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto the blackness and darkness, and Tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which, which voice they that heard entreated, that the word should not be spoken to them.
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Anymore, for they could not endure that which was commanded, and if so much as a beast touched the mountain.
It shall be stoned or thrust through with the dark. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake.
But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
And to the an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the first born.
Which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of justice, men made perfect.
And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape not, who refused him that spake on earth much more Shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven? Whose voice then shook the earth? But now he hath promised, saying Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Wherefore we receiving it, we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved.
Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
For our God is a consuming fire.
To build on the preceding verses in connection with the chastening that we receive in God's family, and we're all subject to it, brother, in this sense, we are all under discipline.
Not talking about assembly discipline, it's talking about the discipline of the family of God.
He loves us and we need his correction, but sometimes it falls rather heavily.
And when we see that happen in our brethren, what is our place? Brethren, are we going to do what?
Job's friend did come, and you have to hand it to those three friends of Job, they sat there for seven days.
In silence.
I think that is says a lot for them. But then they started and they.
Had different opinions as to why God had allowed it.
And they were mistaken.
And So what we need to realize, brethren, is that God knows what He's doing, and sometimes we don't understand what He's doing.
What should we do?
Lift up the hands which hang down.
Evident the picture of discouragement here, and the feeble knees.
I just can't take it any longer. I can't go on. What are we gonna do? Lift them up? Brother. Sister. It's the Lord. He only means good for you. I don't understand what he's doing. But don't be discouraged.
And encourage him with the scriptures. I think this is what.
This verse means.
Am I right?
Is that lifting up your own hands or their hands?
Said that we have a responsibility to lift up one another's hands the Lord or the father is the one who chastens his children but when we see that in the lives of others or any discouragement for that matter, or failure, we do, as Bob said, have a responsibility. Do we seek to be in a help and encouragement sometimes I believe we can hinder the work of God in a soul by trying to do what we think is.
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Our part in it in perhaps further chastening or correction or scolding, whatever admonishment.
But often we do more damage than. And with Job's friends, many of the things they said were true. When you read what they said, many of the things they said were true, but they really didn't have the proper spirit in dealing with Job. And we need to seek grace, brethren, that we would have the proper spirit in dealing with one another. It's the Father of spirits, as we notice, that deals with us. Now, do we seek grace to have the proper spirit in dealing with one another?
We need to be faithful. It's true there are times when admonishment is needed, but are sometimes said that we can admonish one another without scolding one another. I believe there's a difference and sometimes we there needs to be admonishment and sometimes God uses our brethren in our lives to in correction and admonishment. But if it's done in the proper spirit, faithfulness in the proper spirit is not going to cast down.
But it is going to lift up the feeble hands, it's going to strengthen the feeble knees.
Just say 2:00 on the other hand that if a brother comes to me and what are a sister and what they say seems harsh.
Maybe isn't done in the proper spirit, then I'm responsible to get before the Lord and take it.
In the proper spirit, my reaction is as important. I can't look at that brother or sister and blame my discouragement on that. Brother and sister say, well, they didn't deal with me in the right spirit and just throw things over and and get discouraged. So we all have responsibility, don't we? Whether we're the ones that the Lord is dealing with and is chastening or correction or trial training, whatever it is, whether I'm that one or whether it's my dealings with one who perhaps.
I see going through those circumstances, we are both responsible to take it in the proper spirit and to be exercised and to learn from it. And chastening or discipline in our lives, brethren, has two purposes at least, maybe more, but two purposes in this portion we're taking up. That is that there might be practical holiness and the fruit of righteousness. Practical righteousness. And brethren, if if those things that are allowed by our loving Father have that effect in our lives.
They'll be true blessing following because it is possible.
In even in the days in which we live, where there's so much, as we've been saying in these meetings, to discourage and cast us down.
So much failure and weakness. It is possible to exhibit practical holiness and righteousness. You know, David came under the discipline of God in his life and in the 23rd Psalm he was thankful to say restoreth my soul. But he didn't stop there. He said he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness. Interesting that that's the very next statement, isn't it? And in connection with the advocacy of Christ, if we confess our sins, he is faithful.
And justice, to forgive us our sins and what else, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, to lead us in right paths.
So there will be, as we have in the 11Th verse, the fruit of righteousness in our lives. That's practical righteousness.
Steve was talking about driving the car. What are those rumble strips for? What are those bumps in the middle of the road for? It's to keep us on the right track. It's to keep us in the right lane. If we get into the wrong lane or over on the shoulder, it's going to make a rat. We're going to have a rat. And so it's the the correction of the steering wheel and those guides on the rope, they're to keep us in the right path. And I believe that's really what is disciplined for us in our lives is it's not discourage us.
But to keep us in the right path, and if we can see that in one another, then we're going to, I believe, have the proper spirit, as I say, in holding up the feeble hands and strengthening the feeble knees. In connection with Job. There was another friend that was there who spoke later who did come in the right spirit. And really it is interesting and reading the last part of the book of Job to see that.
Eli Hugh, What he says kind of fades into the Lord speaking, and so he.
Was direct, He directed him to the Lord and I think that's what we need to do. Brethren, when somebody is going under trial is is to real help them to realize and to accept the situation from the Lord's hand. I remember a particularly difficult trial the Lord sent into my life.
00:15:09
And a statement that was made that was a particular help to me that every situation in the life of a believer comes directly from the hand of God. And that was a big help to me because you know where you look at second causes, We look at this brother and this person over here, They were the ones that really caused me to get into this situation. As long as we're looking at others.
We're not gonna get peace in our souls. It's when we look to the hand above.
There's somebody that saw a needs be and it was the Lord and sent this trial in my life. If there wouldn't have been a need to be on my part, it wouldn't have come this way. And so we need to lift up the hands, say take courage, don't be discouraged. That's what it is in verse.
Five, it says, don't faint.
When you're rebuked of him, there's a tendency to faint. And we don't get the blessing if we faint. We don't get the blessing if we despise it either. And so it's to be a help to one another, to encourage that God only means good for his people.
They mentioned yesterday particularly about in the previous seating verses. The one who chastises and disciplines is from the Father.
But there's another very important relationship mentioned and I'd like to go back and mention it in connection with where we're at this morning. And that is in verse five it says despise not the chastening of the Lord.
And in verse six, whom the Lord loveth, he chasten it. Uh, the word Lord involves authority.
And yesterday when Tim was speaking and challenging the question, do we accept?
Fully 100% the authority of the Lord Jesus in our lives.
And one of the things that we can despise or ignore sometimes when the Lord puts his hand on us is that it's the Lord.
That is, it's the one who has the authority to do so. And if we don't acknowledge in our souls his authority when he puts his hand on our lives for our good, it creates conflict. Conflict between ourselves and the one who has the authority. And yet it's very easy to do that.
I say that in recognition of these verses where we started this morning, because.
What's been before us has been the Father.
Who has a responsibility and a love to exercise His place as Father and authority for correction. We also have the Lord, the same person, but that aspect of the authority that He has over our lives to correct and discipline us.
Then we come to verses that have to do with us, and it's well for us to recognize we're not the Father.
And we're not the Lord. That is when it comes to helping one another, we are not the Father. And we should not in these this way it's presented here. There are other situations where we're literally fathers and so on, and there's father aspects in the assembly, but that's not what's the force that God is giving us in this particular passage. But it's what comes to us who are not the Father and not the Lord.
How do we help? How do we participate in the process in this way? Well, if you have two people and their hands hold each other, we're like that. We're brethren, and in a very important way in our lives, we ought to walk with our hands, held with each other. If my hand is falling down, but I'm holding my brother's hands and his is going up.
Is going to be beneficial to my soul. If my hand is up, but I start to faint and my hand goes down, it's going to have the tendency to pull my brother's hand down. So he goes on to say, make a straight path for your feet. You and your brother are walking side by side down the road, and if you start to swerve off the road, you're going to tend to pull your brother off the road with you. If you walk with a straight path and your brother's going down the road with you, it's going to tend to keep him on the road.
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Because of the nature of our relationship to each other. So it's it goes both ways, the lifting up or the letting down of the hands when we recognize our mutual relationship with each other. And also it goes on to say in the things that follow watch in certain matters that we'll get to because if I'm walking with my brother down the path of life.
I'm to be watchful for my own sake and for my brother's sake. And so there is this aspect here in which we don't take the Lordship role, we don't take the Father's role, but we do have a place to be a help to one another that we go on together in the discipline and admonition of the Lord on both of us and on us individually.
Brother said to me once years ago, he said if you want to be a help to your brethren, then you walk with the Lord. And I think that's the thought there. And that was my thought too. And asking that question, do we hold up his hands or our hands? And I, I feel that our responsibility first is to make sure that we make straight paths for our feet and that we are in a position where we can hold up the hands and encourage our brother.
And.
So I know it like he says, it works both ways, but I I think first of all we have to be in the right state ourselves to be able to be a help to our brother.
The other way is would be a harm to him.
And that's solemn to think about because at this moment, our lives are having an impact on others.
As we go home to our home assemblies, our lives are going to impact our brethren and those we know. It's either going to be a help to them in the path of faith and service, or we're either going to be a discouragement and a detriment to them. No man liveth to himself and no man dies to himself. And there are two things in these verses we're considering, the hands and the feet. The hands would speak of our service for Christ and the feet would speak of our walk for Christ.
Are we a help to our brethren in their service for Christ and their walk for Christ?
As Brother Ken said, if we're not in a proper state of soul ourselves, if we're not learning from the correction and the discipline that our Father and that the Lord is enacting in our lives, we're going. We're not going to be able to be a help to others if we're not, as Dawn said, holding up our hands. We're not going to be able to hold up the hands of others. And the enemy's desire when there's discipline in our lives is to have us.
Faint, despise or faint or fall.
Get weary under it so that not only are we affected, but we affect others. Again, no man lives to himself and no man dies to himself. And everyone of us here have a path of service. Everyone of us here have been have a path of faith put before us. It's an individual service and it's an individual path, but there is a collective side of it too. And let's be exercised, brethren, as we leave these meetings. Wonderful to be together and encourage one another.
Easy to encourage one another, perhaps in a setting like this.
But it's going to be quite different when we go home, we go back to the daily grind of life. We go back to the Lord's dealings with us in our individual lives and in the assembly. Are we going to be walking in such a way that we will be able to hold up those feeble hands? There are a lot of feeble hands today. And there are those that, as it says here, are lame. Not interesting how the Spirit of God puts it. You know a Christian who's lame. I'm not talking about physically lame.
But a Christian who perhaps has fallen down spiritually broken a leg.
You know, the Lord Jesus as the shepherd carries his sheep. Do we know how to carry one another as well? You know, there may be some who just aren't up to walking right now, spiritually speaking. Do you and I know how to come alongside of them. Do you know you and I know how to lend a crutch, so to speak, to help that person out over that difficult spot and through whatever, whatever they're going through. If we, if we seek to do this, brethren, I believe it will not only make a difference.
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Individually, but collectively, and there is a very collective side to what we have in these verses that we're considering.
Yeah, and I was thinking too, that the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians that the, that the the purpose of their afflictions, his and the other apostles was, was for the comfort of the Saints. And I was thinking of Second Corinthians chapter one in that, in that respect. And when he says blessed be the God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them.
Which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. So forth.
Sure, any way I am the the the councils of God he he lists us above. Sometimes to see a big picture. I was thinking of Israel in the valley fighting Amalek and Joshua with them and on the mount was Moses. They set him on a rock and his hands were held up by two different people.
Because when he got tired and his hands started to go down, Israel started to lose the conflict.
There was a big conflict going on today. The enemy of souls is seeking to hinder those who are hinder most and and weak.
And to.
Make them ineffective for the Lord's glory. And it's that intercession, that holding up one another's hands that is going to bring the Lord's strength into the battle. And we're a little slow to get a hold of the big picture. It's going on, isn't it? I was thinking a little bit today and yesterday of the tornado in Oklahoma. Well, now we get a lot of.
People trying to help clean up.
But among them there are those who are brethren in Christ that have gone there for the Lord's sake, and they're wanting to.
Reflect something of the goodness of God in the midst of the chaos.
And you and I may not be able to go. In fact, they probably have too many volunteers. But isn't it something we can come before the throne of grace and strengthen our brethren in prayer that they might?
Shine for the Lord in the midst of it all.
Here in verse 15 of the lame, you spoke about that Jim.
And a person that's lame just can't walk very good. And there are those that are that way, brethren, and it is the purpose is that they be healed. And as we think somebody is lame, that's going to be their condition all the time, no.
If we make straight paths for our feet, if we are engaged properly for the Lord, the purpose is that they be healed. I think it's beautiful.
I was thinking, Bob, of the man that was in the ditch in Loop 10 in that regard, because when the Samaritan came to him, and I know it's a picture of the Lord Jesus and so on, but I think there's something for us to consider too in our responsibility. When the Samaritan came to him, he poured in oil and wine, put him on his own beast. He brought him to the end. His desire was that not only would he be picked out of the ditch, but that he would be healed, that there would be healing and strengthening for him.
And when he brought him to the end, he said to the innkeeper as he was about to depart, gave him some money and he said, and whatsoever they'll spend this more when I come again, I will repay the. And again, just on a practical note, you know, if we're going to be used in healing and help to those who are lame and have been turned aside, it's going to cost us a little bit, little time, a little energy, maybe something in a monetary way. But is the Lord going to be our debtor?
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He said if you have to spend a little extra, he might have brought him to that inn and the innkeeper might have said, well, I provide bed and breakfast and meals, but now you brought me a sick man and you expect me to take care of him. I've got enough to do. Oh, he said, if it takes a little extra, you have to spend a little more. Said when I come again I'll repay you and the Lord will repay you. If we seek, it takes energy, spiritual energy. But if we seek to help others, to lend a shoulder, lend a hand, so to speak, to those who are discouraged or turned out of the way.
The Lord won't be any man's debtor. He'll make it up to you in the coming day.
The young brothers and sisters.
There's nobody that can encourage, uh, another young person like you to be exercise. I must say in my own life when I was young. And I remember times when perhaps it was easy for me to go in the wrong direction and the Lord used a young brother to steer me in the right direction. And let me tell you, if it would have been an older brother, I don't know if I would have taken the same way. But this is something for us all to be.
Exercised about brethren.
There's sentiment arises in our hearts or in our mouths. I'd like to help.
But I can't. I've got my own problems.
And that's a very common phenomena in the lives of perhaps many of us in this room. I'd like to help, but I can't. I have my own problems. Like to comment on that a little.
What's presented to us here in these verses is.
A commonness of walk and life. We're not. God has chosen to bring us together in a way that he wants us to walk the path together with mutual dependencies connected with it. And sometimes that path involves the willingness to accept the weakness.
That's in ourselves or in our brethren, even sometimes to have to be in our measure identified with the failure.
That's not only in ourselves, but in our brethren.
And if we try to have a path of life that avoids.
Having to walk with weakness or avoids the willingness in its right place, there's wrong place for it too, and we get out of balance very easily as to the matter of failure.
But a good example of what I'm saying is found in Caleb and Joshua in the Old Testament. The children of Israel came to the edge of the land after leaving Egypt, and they went up and the spies went into the land and they gave the report. It was a fantastic land and everything was great about it except the people that lived there, the giants. And so ten of them said we're not, we're not going to go up.
Caleb and Joshua said the Lord gave us the land. Let's go.
But what happened? For the next 40 years, Caleb and Joshua identified themselves, submitted to walking with their brethren for 40 years in weakness and failure.
And the Lord blessed it, and it's the path of faith. The Lord Jesus is another example when he came into this world.
There came among a people who were not walking as they should before the Lord.
And so the forerunner, John the Baptist, went ahead, and there was the baptism of repentance.
What did the Lord Jesus perfectly godly man do? He said he was to be baptized. John the Baptist didn't want to do it. He recognized the perfection of his person and least in measure and he no, you don't need this. He said suffer it to be so. And he identified himself with the repentant remnant at that time and went on with them. Brethren, it's the same with us and these verses bring that some of that out for us.
It doesn't mean giving up the truth of God. The verses which follow say pursue peace.
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And that's an active activity to pursue it, to seek to find peace with one another. And it says and holiness, it doesn't. What's being said in no means is intended to say truth is put aside or holiness is put aside. That's not the point. But we get out of balance and we we try to avoid. And so in many cases what happens to us is we're not a help at all.
And nor are we in the path of faith or in the path of our own choosing, to avoid those very things that are unpleasant at times and very difficult.
I have two questions. The first one is.
Is what we're speaking about here the.
And collect in the Southeast and the way in which Tim asked the question, which was assembly discipline. But as we were saying before, we're all under discipline, aren't we, in in the sense that we have here and in that sense, yes.
And this chapter bothers this not about the assembly and I would suggest him that if a person is under assembly discipline that we should encourage.
Such a person to bow to it and to recognize that yes, it's assembly discipline, it's not what referred to specifically here, but we need to encourage them to recognize it and about it. Even if it would be unjust still in that God is working and if we can take it in the right way, it will be for blessing.
Lameness in this.
It's not sin either.
That's why it says, lest it be turned out of the way or turned aside.
I noticed that in the margin there for make straight paths for your feet, it says even and I believe that would that would bring the force consistency, would it not? And how important it is for to be consistent in a walk as well. Remember chapter Brown used to say that we don't want to be like like some that they go up like a fire like a like a firecracker on the 4th of July.
And they go up in all sorts of colors and come down to dead stick. So that isn't what that that isn't what really encourages anybody. But if I see a brother who has been consistent in his pathway and then he speaks to me about about something in my pathway, I believe I'll, I'll listen to that brother.
I I don't want to since it's not necessarily part of the chapter. Umm if.
I'd be happy to talk about it more afterwards, but I'm curious then umm.
How would we this doesn't work. This is talking about reaching out, lifting up the hands and hang down for someone that they not be turned out of the way. So I I guess if someone is disciplined, I think it was said that they have been turned out of the way and this is now assembly discipline.
Allowed by God, but not part of God's chastening, per Southeast, is it's put it's put forward here.
I think that's what I've I've gotten, but still.
Then how would we?
What what practically can we do? Are those that are spiritual among you do to restore such a one? I realize that's not then the the subject here, but let's just go to a portion in 2nd Thessalonians 3 for a moment.
Which goes right along with what we've been saying and I think with what Tim is is bringing out Second Thessalonians 3 and verse 14.
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And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.
Now notice this. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
And I believe if we would carry this out in a practical way and our interactions with one another.
It would spare us from many things, because the person that the Apostle Paul is referring to here in Second Thessalonians.
Is not a person that is under assembly discipline at this point. The reason I say that is because he still referred to as a brother when one is put away from the Lord's table, like in First Corinthians. He wasn't put away as a brother, he was put away as a wicked person and he was never referred to as a brother again until there was restoration in the second epistle. The fact that there was true repentance and restoration confirmed that he was a brother and they were to restore him as such.
But here we find there's one who perhaps has been.
Not going on according to the Word of God and whatever it may be. I know it's a little different than our chapter, but what is the apostle Paul say to do freedom as an enemy, just to scold him? No, there needs to be admonishment so that he'll realize that perhaps he's not following on in the way he ought to be. But if there's that admonishment done in love as a brother.
That's what's really going to lead back and keep him from eventually falling in the ditch. That's what's going to be keep him between the yellow lines like Brother Steve used the illustration the other day. And so if we would have that watchfulness for one another, we see a brother stumbling, a sister who's stumbling in their Christian pathway. Maybe they've become lame in some way or another. Do we seek grace to go to that person, admonish them as a brother, admonish them as a sister?
Encourage them speak the truth, but to speak it in love so that they won't be turned out of the way, so that the assembly wouldn't have to come in eventually.
Down the road and that there wouldn't have to be discipline or excommunication from the Lord's table.
I believe, brethren, it would spare us from many things. I would like to go to the 28th chapter of Acts for a little illustration 2.
In connection with some of the things that have been said and what Don mentioned earlier.
Because again, I think the dawn is right. The tendency of our hearts is, well, I've got my own problems.
I'm discouraged myself. If you just knew the burden I was bearing and so on. I wanna notice something in connection with the Apostle Paul here. It's a physical illustration, but I believe it illustrates a spiritual point. The 28th chapter of Acts I'm gonna start reading at verse one. And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita. And the barbarous people showed us no little kindness, for they kindled a fire and received us everyone, because of the present rain and because of the cold. Now this is what I want to notice.
And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, there came a Viper out of the heat and fastened on his hand. I want to notice what Paul does here. You know, Paul had been through a lot, hadn't he? He'd just been shipwrecked. He was. He'd been a prisoner on this ship. They'd been through a horrific storm. He'd been shipwrecked. He'd been in the cold waters of the sea. Now he was washed up, and there's a fire burning. And these people, they show them kindness and invite them around this fire.
Paul might have said, well, it's time for me just to sit at this fire and relax and I've been through a lot and it's somebody else's turn to gather some sticks and keep this fire going for our warmth.
Is that what Paul did?
Paul got up from this fire and he moved away and he gathered some sticks to help keep this fire going for the warmth of his of his fellow travelers. They were cold too. Those who were with him could be, would probably be tired and weary and discouraged. And Paul didn't just sit back and say, somebody needs to take care of me now. He went and got those sticks and helped keep that fire going. And brother and I believe this is what we need, not to just be sit down and wallow and self pity and say it's time somebody else served me a little bit. I've been through a lot.
No, these are days of spiritual cold and rain, aren't they?
With physical cold and rain here on this island, but there are spiritual cold and rain everywhere.
What are we going to do, say it's time somebody warmed me up? No, the Apostle Paul wanted to keep his fellow travelers and his those who were with him warm as well.
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And if everyone of us would be exercised to do this, brethren, it would spare us again from many things. It would keep, it would help the lame to be healed, and it would help those who are going on a wrong path to come back and not be turned out of the way. So that further discipline and action on the part of the assembly, if we would all recognize his discipline and correction in our lives, it would spare us from that which you refer to.
I think.
It, uh, is a challenge for shepherding in amongst the PPE people of God and there's no easy answer in those situations. But I look at the Lord Jesus and how he dealt with dear Peter.
When Peter was so adamant that he was not going to deny the Lord, and the Lord told him again and again.
Careful, Peter. The Lord could see that there was self-confidence with Peter and that that was going to lead him to failure. But then he let Peter go ahead because Peter didn't really listen. And so Peter failed and his failure was public failure. And it was serious, denying the Lord three times with oaths and curses. But what touches me is.
That after his resurrection, we know the first one he appeared to as Mary Magdalene.
But in the in Luke's gospel, when the two that had gone to Emmaus and had seen the Lord there come back, they are greeted with the news the Lord is risen indeed and has appeared unto Simon. That's all we know about an individual encounter with the Lord Jesus and that that disciple that had gone astray and that was necessary. We don't know anything about what was said.
But I think if there was exercise in pastoral care, shepherding, going after, it's not showing fellowship with someone that has gotten away, but it is going after them to seek to turn them in the right direction and be a help to them in their need. That there could be a making straight paths for their feet that they could be healed again. And so it's a matter of those.
Who the Lord gives this shepherding ministry to be exercised to go and to be a help in the right direction. Sometimes you just let them go, and sometimes they just go further astray. I think there's real need of shepherding in such cases.
Like to make a couple of comments relative to what doesn't at first seem to be connected, but I think it is in Psalm 19.
In some 19 and verse 13.
Verse 12 There's a progression here of of a person concerned about getting away from the Lord in their life.
And uh, so it says in verse 12, who can understand his errors? That is, God alone really can see the true nature of our state. And there may be things in us that we're not conscious of that are not in conformity to His Holiness. But then it says, cleanse thou me from secret faults.
There are things that do become we become aware of, but nobody else sees them. They're totally within us and they're they're hidden. They they don't manifest themselves to anyone else by behavior, but their secret. They're known in our own souls with God. And so the desire here is cleanse me from secret faults. And then it gets more progressive in verse 13. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.
There, if allowed, if not dealt with in the soul, then things start to manifest themselves in our spirit, in our behavior, and there sometimes only a another spiritual eye will be able to detect what's going on. But it's there and it can be seen. If it's not judged, it starts to take dominion, that is.
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Actions become habits and people become under the control of sin because it's gotten a habit over them. They tried it once in a secret way, and then they go back to it and back to it. They can't get free of it, if you will. It takes dominion over the soul. And then that if that's continues on in that direction, it says I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
And so sin can lead to disastrous consequences once it takes dominion over the life.
What we have in our chapter is particularly connected with keeping it from going down that road to that end. And the pattern of Scripture is that when we walk together and in the assembly, God had so constructed the assembly that it was to be, you might say, a safe house. It was to be a place that had its holy separation from the spirit and character of the world.
And as such, it was a good place to be. The children of Israel had light in their dwellings, where the Egyptians had darkness. We live in a world that is full of darkness. And so the character of the Christian home is to be one of light and love. The character of the assembly is to be one of light and love. So when these things start to come out, if there is the proper activity, then there's going to be the help of one another.
So that.
A soul doesn't progress to the point where there's the great transgression that would require separation from that place of light and love.
The apostle Paul said to Timothy in the first chapter of his first letter. He said of Hymenius and Folitus, I've delivered them unto Satan, that they might learn not to blasphemy.
What he was saying was with his Apostolic authority, and it's similar in its character to the assembly's authority, He said. I've had to put these two outside the sphere of light and love in the assembly, into that sphere of Satan.
The scourging in our chapter in spirit, the scourging that was necessary because the lesson wasn't learned in the gentle speaking in the assembly. It has to be learned in the more harsh character of having that person be under the influence of Satan's world. And so it is the pattern of Scripture. But I say the pattern of Scripture, brethren, because very, very sadly, if you trace the history of the seven churches.
It is the history of the world taking over the church, and we now live in a time and in a period when in its general way, I'm not Speaking of any specific gathering of believers, but in the general picture of it. And it has its effect on us as well as anybody else. In the picture of the seven churches, it's a picture of the world taking over the church. It comes in gradually, and then it starts to teach, and then it starts to form the spirit of things.
Until finally the Lord on the last instances on the outside knocking, can I come back in, if you will, into that place? Why is that? It connected with what we're saying. It's very connected in the sense that very often today, for a soul to be separated, they can't see the difference. They don't recognize what they that they've lost something, if you will, that they once had. But if the assembly has its true character.
Of light and love within and the shepherding care and so on isn't effectual in the life of a soul than to be separated from. It is a mechanism that God uses to many times wake a soul up to say I've lost everything that's really worthwhile. I want to find my way back. And then they become one that will repent and be restored. But whoa when the person doesn't have any sense of being restored to anything.
It doesn't produce any thirst or desire to be back in that. So again, it's important for us to feel the responsibility to help one another lest it get to the point that Tim is referring to, which in itself, if it's working properly, would indicate that the help of helping one another was not accepted and so on. Then the Lord says, well, I'm going to have to deal more.
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Forcefully, and more harshly if you will, to bring about the desired result.
In verse 14.
Follow peace with all men.
And Holiness?
Without which no man shall see the Lord. And the Scripture came to mind in Ephesians 4, which I believe bears this up. Ephesians 4.
Paul says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy.
Of the vocation wherewith your call.
With all loneliness.
And meekness.
With long-suffering.
Forbearing one another in love. This was the main verse I had on my heart endeavoring.
To keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Next line says there is one body.
So this would be to the assembly, but we had an old brother many years ago when I first came to Minneapolis.
He would be our leading brother.
And he used to say this often, brethren, the word endeavoring means.
You're trying to get it, but you don't have it yet.
Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace is something we have to work at.
We have to be conscious of the fact that it's not an automatic.
If we get careless.
And lackadaisical thinking that God is just gonna bless us and and keep us. Umm.
In the unity of the Spirit, without us even making an effort toward that.
Umm.
It it probably won't happen endeavoring.
Trying to.
Praying for our brethren, lifting them up, encouraging them.
The emphasis is to and the exhortation I believe is to keep that unity because it is a unity of the Spirit, but to keep it in the bond of peace. And so our relationships with our brethren in general should be of peace. When the Lord Jesus presented Himself the 1St 2 Lords days, first of His resurrection and then the next one as well.
His first words were peace be unto you, and so the Lord speaks peace. What brings conflict is our fleshliness, and that's why we need exhortations like those first verses of Ephesians. One, there's a verse in Romans 12 That says.
Verse 18 if it be possible, as much as life in you live peaceably with all men.
Follow peace with all men, it says here. And holiness. You can't divorce true peace from holiness.
Without which no man shall see the Lord.
Forgive me brother, I'm going to go ahead a little bit because we're getting close to the end of our time here. But look at verse 15. There's something so important there, looking diligently watching lest any man fail of the grace of God. New translation says lack the grace of God and whole brethren, how important it is to have a sense of grace.
In our souls, how can I stand before God only on the ground of His sovereign grace, without any merit of my own, He took me into favor.
In the beloved oh what grace it is in the sense that that's what God has done for me that will now in my relations with others color the way I deal with others. If there is not that grace it gives place to what it says here in verse 15. Roots of bitterness that spring up and trouble you.
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Oh brother, And how we need grace.
To go on together.
There's things that are fleshliness that crop up. The Lord give us grace, brethren, so that there will not be roots of bitterness. Roots of bitterness spring up in the soil where there is not grace.
And bitterness is a terrible thing. I mean, it's God's people just holding way down in the soul. They did me wrong, and I can't forget that.
If there is any of that in my heart, remember Mr. Hey Hossein, if there is any hard feeling against any brother or sister in the realm of your, uh, acquaintance, let it loose. Leave it alone because it will bring trouble amongst God's people. So how we need.
To, uh, look diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God. And sometimes you can detect that a brother has lacked of the grace of God. May the Lord help us in this, brethren. It's not looking around suspiciously, but it is detecting we can only go on together in grace.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
These thoughts are I believe that pursuing peace and the holiness and the lacking grace of God are are really connected.
Man is the creature.
Wants his own way.
And the animosity that man has against God is God says this is the way and then says I don't want it, I want my way.
And the very fact that God insists that His way is the way makes man have a determinant ill will toward God.
And man is that enmity. The whole human race, naturally speaking, has enmity against God. For that reason, I want my way. I don't want somebody else telling me what's right and what's wrong. I will decide that for myself. And the consequences and enmity between man and God that actually could not be reconciled, could not be resolved.
Except by death.
He made peace.
That is, He dealt with the matter of the enmity and made peace through the blood of his cross. And the Lord Jesus Christ in dying and being raised from the dead, has settled the matter for God with respect to the enmity. Because anyone who accepts the Lord Jesus Christ is brought into a new creation, relationship with God, having a new life, and that life is not at enmity with God, but has peace with God.
But the weed of self righteousness is still part of the human heart.
And to lack the grace of God is the result of my feeling like I stand righteously on my own terms with God.
I don't accept.
In the bottom of my heart that I am what I am by the grace of God.
But I am what I am because I'm, well, I'm not like you. I don't do what you do. I do it right. That's the weed of the human heart. And it as such, why does it get bitter?
It gets bitter because when I stand before God on those terms, when I lack the grace of God in my own soul on those terms, then God doesn't do things right.
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And I get bitter with God. Why did God allow this to happen to me? I've lived right. He didn't live right. And look what God's doing in his life.
And so it's a tremendous tendency of the human heart. The whole of the book of Galatians was to help the brethren get delivered from that spirit that, if not delivered, produces that sense of a lack of the grace of God. And the inevitable result that follows from that lack is bitterness of soul toward others and toward God because.
I'm not getting treated right, I'm not being given the right amount of attention for my needs. And that person is getting something that they shouldn't get because they're not living the way they should live. But I'm I'm him, and when I get into that pattern of thought and feeling, it leads to bitterness and it leads to defilement of others.
I will defile my brethren, I will defile my fellow man as I spew out that which is in my own soul, in my own bitterness of soul, and in.
Job. The problem that job had was that.
God made Job something. He made him a righteous man. It was a work of God in Job and he was what he claimed to be really as as among men. He was a righteous man, but his problem was.
He took the credit for it. He didn't treat it as the grace of God working in his life, but he took the credit for it. And once he took the credit for it, then he became a bitter man. And it was his life was up to a point. His language became sinful and defiling it before his trial was over, until he got into the presence of the Lord and recognized in truth that what he was, was according to the grace of God.
And then his life was greatly blessed and we all have to deal with it. And we need to recognize what's working against us, in US, and that is that sense of self rightness or self righteousness. And whenever it gets a hold in us, it's going to result in a lack of grace and bitterness. May the Lord help us to recognize, as Paul had learned, by the grace of God, I am what I am.
You know, Donnelly, you were.
We could be entertaining thoughts that we shouldn't be entertaining, uh, which if those thoughts, they're not judged, we all know will result in and it will manifest itself. And I suppose if we're thinking thoughts, uh, about our brother, oh, I shouldn't be treated this way and we're entertaining that kind of a thought. I suppose that in itself could be a secret fault until it manifests itself.
I was thinking of the verse and proverbs, Umm, as a man thinketh, so is he. So if we keep entertaining that thing, then we're going to end up manifesting, manifesting it. Now that's an that that of course, that's a negative thing when you're you, when you think about that as a man thinketh, so is he. What we should be doing is.
Umm looking to the Lord and and to him and to meditate on him.
And and just bask in his love that he's had for us and what's going to be resolved when we do that as a man think it so is he, you know, that's that's the positive. That's the positive aspect of that verse that we read in Proverbs. My brother used to say read the word of God.
Until your very thoughts are formed by it. And that's why when it says reduce, as Bob used the the Spanish, reduce your thoughts to him. We need the source of that which is our thoughts is going to come from God outside of ourselves. If we simply try to generate them within ourselves, it won't work. And so it says, looking sad fastly unto Jesus.
That's what changes us, transforms us, is to have our eye fixed outside of ourselves on a pure.
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Thought a fewer person and uh, we all be holding the glory of the Lord in 2nd Corinthians 3 are changed. And so I need to be occupied with that which is pure, the one who is pure. And if I am truly occupied with himself and not myself, then that will form in me right thoughts and right.
Uh, pattern that God will use for my own purification. So he says in first John three, he that hath this hope in him, that is to be like him.
Uh, purifieth himself even as pure. If you want to be like the Lord Jesus, well, you better know what he's like.
If you want to be like him, get your eye on him, and then you'll know what he's like. And as you get to know what he's like, God says I'll take care of changing you to be like him. You won't have to do that part, but you need to have your eye on him and you need to learn what he's like, and I'll take care of you.
See the Lord. I was thinking of Isaiah 33.
Verse 14.
This coming day in Israel, it'll be an awful day, but there will be a remnant, it says. They're the sinners in Zion are afraid.
Fearfulness has surprised the hypocrites.
Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? In Hebrews 12 we learn our God is a consuming fire. There's going to be some there at home.
Their spirit with one was a God. That is a consuming fire then, it says.
He that walketh righteously speaketh uprightly. He that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, shutteth his eyes from seeing evil. I wanna read 1St Corinthians 13.
Love thinketh no evil. You know our God is the God of love, but he's also consuming fire. Then it says he shall dwell on high. His place of defence shall be the munition of the rocks. Bread shall be given him. His water shall be sure. Thine eye shall see the King in his beauty. They shall behold the land that is very far off. You know the the if. Just think of a remnant in a day when Israel's going through such horrible tribulation.
But there's going to be some Behold the King in his beauty. And when you think without which no man shall see the Lord, we think of Stephen in Acts 7 as he's there in the midst of all these highly religious men. Who's he occupied with?
You know, and his his face shines.
He sees the Lord as the stones are flying.
He leaves a testimony in the heart of Saul of Tarsus.
It's amazing, isn't it?
Be in Subjection and Live; Looking Diligently Lest … Bitterness
God's Grace Sets Free From the Slavery of Sin
Open Mtg. 12
Open—J. Kaiser, R. Thonney
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.
Of all thy grief and pain. And let our hearts with joy confess, But thence comes all our gain, 172.
Nsnoise.
Let's turn back to Hebrews chapter 12.
We've had some very full meetings.
I wasn't able to absorb everything that was said. I hope I was able to absorb what I needed to absorb and I pray the same for each of you.
Like to touch on just a couple little things that.
Stood out to me in this chapter.
1St is in verse nine we have a parallel phrase.
A parallel phrases I should say. So read verse 9 together. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 9. Furthermore, we have had fathers in our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather?
Be in subjection unto the Father of spirits.
And live and we there was quite a bit upset about subjection and the our need to receive what God gives and receive what God gives as from himself. First of all, we're so prone to look at means and so often the things that we receive we because God gives them and God's nature is different from our flesh. A lot of the things he gives are not appreciated as they should be.
And are not well received.
But I'd like to draw your attention and I pray that my own attention will will be fastened on this as well to these parallel, these two parallel phrases.
Be in subjection and live.
Be in subjection and live.
God is the source of our life.
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It's only enjoyed in subjection, in submission to him.
Back in Isaiah 55, God said to his people here.
And your soul shall live.
One of the biggest, if not the biggest, lessons in life is submission.
Subjection. Submission to God, Submission to authority, Submission to one another, Submission in all things.
Be in subjection and live.
We might say that's command with promise.
Be in subjection and live.
Then we get down to verse 15. We ended our meeting on this verse pretty much.
Our last meeting and I'd like to go into this verse just a little bit more.
Verse 15. Looking diligently.
Lest any man fail the grace of God, Lest any root of bitterness springing up.
Trouble you and there by many be defiled.
Now, of course, the beginning of the chapter were directed to be looking at Jesus.
But the writer of this epistle also directs our attention to be looking diligently less. In other words, we're to be on guard. We have our go, we have our our sites fixed on Jesus, but we are to be on guard, says looking diligently lest any man.
Fail or lack the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.
I think many of us are conscious that bitterness.
Is a real problem.
We hear it in other people's speech.
We know they're better because of the way they speak. They complain about their brethren, about their husband, about their wife, about the boss.
About their circumstances.
And it doesn't say we're supposed to be looking for bitterness in others. It starts in here.
In our own hearts.
We need to be on guard against bitterness in our own hearts, lest we.
Should be the source of defilement for others.
Bitterness is very destructive.
And it's very subtle.
And I think it helps to understand the source of bitterness. We spoke about that a little bit.
It's in the flesh, but it's more than that. Let's turn to Deuteronomy 29.
Deuteronomy 29 and verse 18.
Lest there should be among you.
Man or woman gets down to the singular, just like it did in our chapter, lest there be any in any of you, a root, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness. It's it gets very personal.
Lest there should be among you, man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from.
The Lord our God to go and serve the gods of these nations.
Lest there should be among you a root that beareth Gaul and Wormwood. That's bitterness, Gaul and Wormwood. Gall is.
We've got we have gallbladders. Gall is the bitterness that comes from inside. Wormwood is a an herb that's something that's consumed that comes from the outside. But there's a root that bears them both.
In our own hearts, in this idolatry.
Idolatry.
That's what they were to be aware of.
And it's turned to, just briefly, a verse that's race striking in Ezekiel 14.
00:10:11
Ezekiel 14 verse three Son of Man These men have set up their idols.
In their heart.
Bitterness is linked to idolatry, to secret a secret idol in the heart. It may be our reputation, it may be our feelings. It may be what we think we deserve. It may be what we consider to be our rights. It may be our family. It may be our self-image.
I'm reminded of a brother I love dearly.
Who's gone astray?
And one thing that stood out in my mind and as I think back over the years, is he liked to say I'm offended.
We do take offense.
We don't have to take offense. We're responsible for how we receive as well as how we give.
An offense is a choice.
Taking offense is a deliberate choice.
And bitterness is a choice.
You know, you think of Job, you might have said to Job, Job, you're bitter. And he says, I can't help it. I don't know. He never, I don't know that he ever said that. But he might well have said it and we might well understand why he would say it. But brethren, bitterness is a choice.
That's why it says here in this chapter.
That we should.
Look diligently and looking in ourselves lest this should happen, because it is a choice. It's a matter of responsibility. Bitterness is a choice. You hear bitterness in the voice of a brother or sister. You hear bitterness in your own voice, and you know you've made a wrong choice.
Bitterness is a choice.
And grace is a choice.
So before we get to talk about the subject of grace, I want to show you the consequences. Let's read this chapter again and then go jump ahead 600 years. Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 18 again. Lest there should be among you, man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations. Lest there should be among you a root.
That bareth gall and Wormwood here is a supposed case, shall we say, turn to Jeremiah.
Chapter 9. Chapter 8. Jeremiah. Chapter 8.
We're going ahead 600 years and we find the result. The children of Israel didn't heed this warning.
And verse.
14 Why do we sit still?
Assemble yourselves.
And let us enter into the defense city, and let us be silent there, for the Lord our God hath put us to silence and given us.
The water of Gaul to drink.
Chapter 9.
Verse 15.
Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Behold, I will feed them even this day, this people.
With Wormwood and will give them water of gall to drink if we choose to harbor to cultivate this root of bitterness.
We're going to get more.
We're going to get more.
They're brother or sister.
If you know.
You have it in your heart, some bitterness.
Get rid of it.
You're only asking for more by cultivating it.
Now let's turn to the alternative.
Back in Hebrews 12.
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Hebrews 12.
Verse 15 Looking diligently. Let's not be casual about this. Let's be diligent. Looking diligently lest any man fail or lack the grace of God.
Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. Sister called me a couple of years ago, or maybe less than that.
Problem and she well she didn't call me about it necessarily, but we got talking about a problem that I was aware of in her assembly.
And I suggested that she consult a brother who I knew visited there occasionally, a brother whom I respected. And she says, oh, he's a hypocrite.
He's not here today.
Uh, and that sister's not here today either.
She got discouraged and left because there was bitterness in her own heart. That brother, yes, I didn't argue with her. That brother is a hypocrite, just like you and me.
A brother I highly regard whom the Lord uses. But I'm not going to deny that if you can't. If you're going to call him I, I'll accept that title too.
We all are in a measure hypocrites, but this sister was occupied with that brother and her problems instead of turning to the Lord.
There by many be defiled. Her whole family is gone too.
There by many be defiled. What is what's the alternative? Well, it's a matter of lacking grace. So let's turn to chapter the end of this chapter verse.
28.
And ahead of this chapter, we're told of all the blessing that we've been brought into ahead of these verses. I mean, the last latter part of the chapter we didn't discuss.
Describes wonderful things.
Verse 28 says Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved.
You know, we get so occupied with circumstances, with offenses, things that bother us that are going to pass.
Says here whereby we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, Let us have grace. Oh, you know, we can have as much grace as we want. We can have all the grace we need. You say, well, I've we've already received grace. Yes, we have abundantly. But this is the practical side. This is the practical part of the epistle. Let's make it grace in our own hearts, not just grace in our standing yes, we're accepted in the beloved. Let's.
Enjoy that?
That's a choice, too.
Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably.
With reverence and godly fear, I just want to close on these two things that characterize.
Grace reverence and godly fear Reverence is acknowledging who God is.
And his authority and his right to order things.
And godly fear is acknowledging his power.
And his ways and accepting those two.
With that, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear, acknowledging who He is, that He is Lord.
And he has a right to order our lives.
And he has power for all things and his ways.
Are wonderful.
Like to speak a little bit more about that grace too brother, and is on my heart. I wish we could have gotten down in our readings a little bit further into this chapter but.
Time has a way of limiting us so.
Anyhow, perhaps we can make some further observations here I.
Do believe that this matter of grace is such an important matter? Go back to Romans chapter 5.
And verse one begins.
00:20:02
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
By whom also we have access.
By faith.
Into this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
We stand in grace.
You know, we know that grace is unmerited favor.
But sometimes I don't think we really let it sink into our souls what grace really is.
And come to grips with the fact that's the only way we can stand before God on the grounds of His sovereign grace.
I remember a number of years ago the story given, and probably some of you have heard of it, heard it, I'll tell it again, But back in the days in the United States, when there was slavery in the South, there was evidently a part of the town.
In slavery territory where there was an auction block and they went on a certain day auction off slaves.
And evidently, this one day this.
Uh, person brought to be auctioned off a young black lady.
About 20 or 22 years of age and.
She was put up there on the auction block and people started giving price as the price went up and up and to the surprise of everybody, an Englishman. Now English people were not allowed to have slaves to practice slavery, but this Englishman steps up and bids on this particular slave and.
This slave looks at this new bidder, realizing who he was and with quite a bit of contempt.
I wonder what he wanted her for.
Anyhow, they kept on bidding until finally it was this Englishman that gave the highest price and he bought that slave and she was brought down and given to her new owner.
And she almost hissed at him, saying, What did you buy me for?
And he took the chain or whatever it was that bound her and undid it, took it off and said I bought you to set you free. You're free. You can go now.
The poor girl didn't know what to do.
After a few minutes, she fell at his feet and said, oh, thank you Sir, I'll serve you forever.
What provoked such a tremendous change in that woman?
It was Grace. She had received something she did not deserve.
And it made her willing to serve that man forever.
Let's go back to what took place at Calvary Brethren.
Who is that man that hangs on that center Christ?
God's eternal Son, the brightness of the eternal glory.
There he hangs, crown of thorns, thorns on his head.
His face.
Mard has no one else. I did mard.
There he hangs.
And it gets dark.
And it's silent for three hours. Nobody knows what's taking place. They know it was in those three hours that all the waves and billows of divine judgment that would have sunk us into hell rolled over him, and he exhausted those that divine judgment forever.
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At the end of those three hours, he cries. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken?
Oh, the cost. The awfulness of the cost.
That's paid for us to set it free.
Now we're set free.
Do we think we have the liberty to harbor roots of bitterness now in our hearts? How can we ever give thought in that direction? It's because this was brought out in the reading. We think we have a right. Our culture we're passing through impresses that on us. You have your rights. Nobody can tell you what to do. And we think there's something to that.
And we start absorbing that type of thinking. Let's go back to the cross.
When the only one who was free from sin went into death and paid the ultimate price he gave himself.
Entirely 100% no reserves in his sacrifice to save us.
Oh, brethren, that's grace.
When I stand there.
The cross. They come away a captive.
Not outwardly, not anybody standing over my head saying you've got to do this and that and the other thing.
But my heart is captive.
To the man that died there.
He bought me with his precious blood. It's not what I want. It's not what I am any longer.
It's who he is.
Oh, we stand in grace. What a wonderful thing to get a hold of.
You young people think there's somebody better out there that attracts you. Go ahead.
There's one who's gripping my heart.
And I cannot ignore it.
Another thing I'd like to say when it's a connection with bitterness like our brother was talking about.
Sometimes brother and others.
Can't deny that.
But like brother was saying, it's a choice whether we're going to harbor those offenses. That's our choice.
But stop a minute.
Think of how many times we've sinned against our God.
Hundreds, thousands, 10s of thousands of times.
And a brother offends me twice, three or four or five times, maybe 10 times.
Putting it into the balance, brethren, does it make any sense that I should hold a grudge or bitterness? It doesn't fit the picture. Let it go.
The Lord help us, brethren, we stand in grace.
We rejoiced in hope of the glory of God. You know, when we understand this, it's wonderful because look what it says in verse three. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations.
Also.
What?
What is this word lowering in tribulations?
Is that right?
When we understand our position in grace, brethren, I suggest we can glory in tribulations also, realizing that God has set us in such a position of favor before Him in Christ that even the things that seem to be against us are only working for our own good.
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Can't be otherwise.
Oh brother, and what a wonderful place is ours.
Another verse in First Corinthians chapter 15. I think brother Don mentioned this this morning but just like to go and read it.
Paul is speaking about those that saw the Lord in resurrection.
And verse eight he says, and last of all he that's Christ was seen of Maine also as one born out of due season.
For I am the least of the apostles, and not meet to be called an apostle because.
I persecuted the Church of God, but by the grace of God I am what I am. And His grace 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 this beautiful. By the grace of God, I am what I am.
He doesn't say I'm what Peter was. No, we can't go around comparing ourselves among ourselves, brethren. That's not wise.
But I am what I am.
And His grace was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they are. What is it that makes us labor for the Lord? It's grace. It's a sense. He did so much for me. How can I ever, ever recompense Him for all that He did for me?
The idea of gaining merits with God is so prevalent in the world. Remember in the time of hyperinflation in Bolivia?
One year it reached 40,000% inflation rate.
Hardly has any meaning so terribly high.
But people were hungry and there wasn't money to buy food.
We with some of the help sent from the north, we're able to buy bags of rice and sometimes corn and take them up to the Alta flannel to help out.
In areas where they had need.
And the lady seeing me do this stepped up one time and said to me, you must gain a lot of favor with God doing these works of mercy.
I said, lady, let me tell you something, I don't do it to gain any favor with God. I already have favor with God because of what Jesus did on the cross. It's just because of the gratitude I feel in my heart to Him. I want to do all I possibly can to show how thankful I am. That's all. And brethren, that's what really makes this labor for the Lord.
It's the sense that we are debtors. Debtors. Will we ever, ever be able to pay the debt?
Never, brethren, never.
Let's go over to.
First or Second Timothy, chapter 2.
Verse one.
Thou therefore, my son.
Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
What is it that makes us strong? You know, Paul was writing to Timothy, and it's probably his last epistle that he wrote.
In chapter three, he talks about the perilous times that there would be in the last days.
And we're in those times.
There were those who had departed from the faith.
And he is writing to encourage Timothy.
And the next verse he talks about faithful men.
And though that they should be able to teach others also.
But what is it going to be, brethren, that will make us strong?
In days of outward ruin and failure.
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It's being strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
It's realizing what great debtors we are.
To God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And going on because of the gratitude that we feel in our hearts toward him, it's not a sense of obligation.
Are there obligations? Yes, I believe there are, but it's not an overwhelming sense of obligation that's going to do it. It's.
A sense of the debt we owe to him, Grace. And he says to Timothy, Timothy, what's going to make you strong is not rules and regulations.
It's the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Another verse in first Peter chapter 5.
And verse 10.
But.
The God of all grace.
Who hath called us unto his Eternal?
Glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
By Sylvan, as a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose I have written, briefly exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein you stand.
There it is again, we stand in grace. I wanted to draw attention to verse 10. God is presented to be the God of all grace. Sometimes we feel that our wit's end and our resources.
We're at the end of our own resources. Just remember this verse. He's the God of all grace.
You need some more grace, brother and sister, to go on in the particular circumstances the Lord has called you in. He's the God of all grace, and you can ask some more. You'll never have to be ashamed at going to him and saying, Lord, I need more grace because He's the God of all grace. Wonderful. And He's called us. Notice this.
Into his.
Eternal glory by Christ Jesus. You know we talk about our callings in life.
Talk to some here this conference I've graduated.
With a certain calling.
Good.
Nothing wrong with that, but don't forget this calling.
Called to his eternal glory, Oh brother. And when we get home to glory, I think we're going to look back and we're going to be amazed that we were so tremendously distracted by our toys down here.
Remember, we're called to His eternal glory.
I think I mentioned that the other day, but it's interesting to me that on the Mount of Transfiguration.
The three disciples Peter, James and John were quite interested in seeing Moses and Elias, but there is no record in the account of the Transfiguration that Moses and Elias even noticed the presence of Peter, James and John.
I thought about that. I said why not?
How could they when they were in the presence of the Lord of glory?
Realized who he was.
Who are Peter, James and John in comparison to them?
O brethren, may the Lord give us to realize to what we are called. Do you have a calling? Good. Thank God for it. Use it for the Lord. But remember, your primary calling is not your earthly work down here. Your calling is that eternal glory. Going back just briefly now to the verse there in Hebrews 12.
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Brother John was talking about looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God. So easy to get off that ground of grace. We live in a world where people operate on.
A different principle entirely. They do not know the principle of grace. And there's a tendency, there's a danger that we get off that ground as well. And so that's why we need each other to watch diligently that we don't get off that ground. Brother and sister in the Lord Jesus, if you see me getting on to the ground of my own desserts, please come and give me a shake.
We're not on that ground before God at all. We're on the ground of His grace.
And then it goes on in the chapter. We didn't have time for it, but it gives us two tremendous figures. First of all is Sinyon. We have not come, he says, to a mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and normant of blackness and darkness and Tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, the voice of words which they that heard and treated, that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.
For they could not endure that which was commanded, and if so much as a beast should touch the mountain.
It should be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said.
I exceedingly fear and quake. We have not come to this, brethren. Then where are we then?
Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and we have.
Eight things mentioned here if you want to see them, it's. They're all divided by that little word and.
Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly, and.
Church of the First Born, which are written in heaven.
Hmm. And to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. That's where we've come. Oh, what a tremendous place we've been brought to. We don't have time to go over those things, but they're interesting. And then he speaks about, see that you refuse, not him that speaketh. For if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth.
Much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, Whose voice then shook the earth. But now he hath promised, saying yet once more I shake not earth only, but also heaven.
And this word yet once more signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken.
As of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may.
Remain.
Brethren, we are living in times when everything is shaking. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken.
And we certainly see it in in our world today.
Nothing stable about things down here. Nothing.
But there is a Kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom with cannot be removed. Let us have it doesn't say zeal. What does it say? Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God.
Acceptably, with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.
Encouragement Belief Decisions
Y.P. Address 7
Hebrews 12:1-10
Come Unto Me