Pella Conference: 2015
Table of Contents
Need
Address—Don Rule
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111 Want to make a couple of comments about it before we sing it.
By thee, O God, invited, we look unto the Son.
In whom thy soul delighted, through all thy will hath done, and by the one chief treasure thy bosom freely gave.
Thy own pure love we measure, Thy willing mind to save. First comment is notice in verse one that God has a treasure.
We all treasure certain things, and I just want you to notice here that God Himself.
As treasurer and uh, we'll talk a little more about it later. Lord Welling second thing is.
So far in this conference, every single hymn that has been sung and the one we're going to sing follows the same pattern in the hymn. Part of the hymn is a prayer.
So you have.
If you were conscious of what you were doing, you have prayed four times in the opening for hymns of this conference.
We're gonna comment on that a little bit more later as well #111.
Just turn with me to Matthews Gospel chapter 6.
A week ago today I was driving down a street called Roosevelt Rd. in the Chicago area.
On my way to a hospital.
To visit some young men that live there that I try to visit on a regular basis.
I was almost to my destination.
And the streets three lanes wide in both directions and has turn lane as well, so it's really four lanes wide. And as the traffic light turned red as I approached it, there were already a number of cars in front of me in each of the lanes, and I saw a man.
Step out between two lanes from the.
Curb and start walking along between the cars.
And he had a piece of cardboard approximately this wide and this high, and he was holding it up to his chest as he walked along between the cars.
Because the cars were in a way that I I couldn't see what was written and he was in a different set of lanes than I was in.
Umm, I couldn't really see what was on his cardboard until the light changed and when the light changed.
I was able to just see 2 words, the 1St 2 words at the top of his cardboard.
Those two words were these.
I need.
I need. And so here was a man that was walking along between these cars, holding up in front of him.
The sign I need and I'm sure that what followed.
Was a statement of his need.
I'd like you for a few minutes, not a few minutes. Maybe I won't give you that long, but for a few moments to stop and imagine that at this moment you have in your hand on your lap.
Piece of paper and at the top of the piece of paper are the two words I need.
And I want you to list in your mind.
Your list that follows those two words I need.
I'm just gonna be quiet for a few moments and let you think about your list.
OK.
Now suppose.
I asked the person sitting next to you or someone that knows you real well.
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To make a list that says about you, you need.
Is your list and their list gonna be identical?
I'm assuming if they sit next to you, they have some relationship with you. And there are lots of husbands and wives sitting here together. There's some brothers and sisters, there's some close friends.
Does that person's need list or for you equal your need list?
One more list.
Suppose.
God.
We're to make out your need list.
This is list not your list.
Suppose God this afternoon were to make out your need list as he sees it, and the two were to be compared.
Your list and God's list.
Is it the same list?
I need.
Having seen that sign, I went into the hospital, sat down with these young men.
And I asked them the same questions.
I'm very thankful for one of the young men named Ricky.
He commented on his list and God's list.
He said my list and God's list wouldn't be exactly the same.
Because.
My list would be my needs and some of my wants.
But God's list would be just my needs.
I don't know how long your list was, if you made one, or you just sat waiting.
But is it per chance that if we were truly to sit down and spend some time making out a list, we might end up like Ricky said? Our list was a need list and a want list, and sometimes commingled in a way that we might not even be able to distinguish at times one from the other.
He further had good insight that I will share with you.
Goodfella knows Lord Jesus, I would guess he's about 17 or 18 and Ricky said furthermore.
Some of the things that I want.
If God, actually, he wouldn't give them to me.
Because they wouldn't be good for me.
Is it possible that we've got some things on our need list?
That God says no.
Not gonna give you that one because it wouldn't be good for you.
Might be very harmful to you, so I I I won't supply that one.
Look here in Matthew's Gospel chapter 6.
It says verse seven. Well start in verse 8.
No, I'll back up. We'll start in verse 7.
But when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of.
Before you ask him.
Here is a matter of meeting need.
And, uh, the Lord Jesus is teaching.
Some how to get need met. It's applicable to every one of us in this room that's old enough to pray, and as long as we can still pray no matter how old we become.
Listen, a matter of need, and here we find it introduced by the Lord Jesus.
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He says.
The heathen.
What's a heathen?
He is somebody. The Gentiles and the Word of God were often looked at as people that had no relationship with God. They were the godless people, the people without God.
In contrast to the Jew, to those to whom he was speaking, who were people who had at least an outward and a real relationship with God, at least outwardly to them. He had spoken to them, He had communicated many times, and they had a covenant relationship with him, and so on. But the Gentile was the person without God.
I'm speaking to you as knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
This afternoon.
But I'll make this passing remark to you if you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Your real need list is very short.
You know, dead people don't need a lot.
In fact, there's a lot of things if you're dead, as to this world.
No matter what was provided to you.
It doesn't do anything, doesn't satisfy any need.
Steve Jobs, before he died, was asked about his money and in recognition of it, he said, you know, money doesn't matter much in a cemetery.
If you don't know the Lord Jesus this afternoon, I suggest to you, you only have one real need. That's life. You need life.
Living people have need.
But in this life, as to this life, if you have died, you no longer have any leads, needs, connected with life here at least.
So I just say to you in passing if you're not a believer.
You've got a big need. You need life, and God is able to meet that need.
Lord God, it says, and John speaks to dead people, and he has the power to meet the need. Lord Jesus said I have the power to give life. God said I have the power to give life. He can meet even that need.
And that's your need.
But here he's referring to people who, at least in profession, would recognize God and will say recognize themselves as we would call it. Not heathen, but Christian or Jewish here.
First statement and about it I want you to notice is your father Noah?
Your father knoweth. Do you have a need? Your father knoweth.
It's based in a very significant and important way on having a relationship.
I never knew Steve Jobs, but if I needed money, I wouldn't have gone to him. I would have said that he doesn't know me, I don't know him. I don't have any relationship with that person. I know they have lots of resources in that department of resource, but they're not there for me.
And so.
I wouldn't go to such person to meet a need like that. But here when it comes to needing need, it's related to relationship your father knoweth.
Think about that for a moment. All of us at one time were children. Some of us still are children. All of us as children.
Whatever age we're at have childish needs.
Or the needs of a child.
And who do we did we go to when we were little? Went to our mother or father or somebody in the family?
To meet the need. Somebody we knew and we had a relationship with.
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Your father, Noah.
It also says what you have need of.
This may seem a little hard, but I'll say it anyways because it applies to me at least half the time. I don't have a clue.
What I really need?
When it comes to specific things.
But my father knows.
My father not only knows what I truly have a need of, but he knows whether I need it now.
Or next week, or next year, or somewhere farther down the road, your father, Noah.
Before you ask.
Because since God created man as a dependent creature, He wants his creature man to ever and always live in that relationship.
My father is my father.
But he knows.
My need and not only does he know my need, but he wants me to depend on him to meet it.
Many needs my Father, God, my Father can meet that no other person on this earth could ever meet.
No one else in this audience could meet those needs that need, but my father can.
And so here he says.
To us.
He knows.
Even before we ask. But He wants us to ask because it expresses dependence. It puts us in a proper relationship with himself and helps to maintain that relationship in his proper order. Notice what comes next.
Verse eight or verse.
9.
You pray because you have need. So let's look at the need list that the Lord Jesus is presenting to us here. What we need. Maybe some of these things would be on your list or mine, and maybe some not, but they all should be.
So it starts out.
Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.
As it is in heaven.
Whoa wait a minute, I thought this list was I need.
And I first three items that I find on this list.
Don't talk about me.
They're about somebody else.
Well, have we not heard? I wish I could help you, but I gotta take care of my needs first.
So sorry I'm otherwise occupied.
What does it say though? It says.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done hallowed, Hallowed be thy name.
Honored, set apart, given its right place, God.
Your order of things, your way of things be done.
Your will, in the way that you've ordered things, be done.
Number one.
On the perfect prayer, needless.
I've meditated on it a little bit in the last week, gonna suggest this to you.
If these three things had their right place in every soul in this room, there would be no sin taking place in this room.
We'd have a room without sin.
Is that a good need, Matt?
If Adam and Eve had kept in proper perspective these three things, they would not have sinned.
They would have acted without sin.
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Maybe we didn't think about that when we said I have a need.
Maybe our maybe wouldn't be quite as crass as this. The next evening I was with another young group of young men.
Ask the same questions.
And uh, one of them said to me his list, I need money.
He's in prison. I'm not quite sure why he needed money at that moment, but he was at that moment in a detention center and he and he said I need money. Perhaps in his mind, if I had money, all the other things that I need I could take care of because I now have what I need, which is money.
It's at the top of the list.
Or is sin?
Higher on the list of need.
The need to walk.
Hallowed be thy name that is set apart in honor be thy name. Do I need to give God that place in my heart?
Is what he's doing and carrying out to bring about his Kingdom.
Important.
In my thoughts.
In my actions in my life.
Thy will be done.
Who lived it out, this prayer?
Person that spoke it to others, the person that was teaching it, Lord Jesus perfectly lived out in his own life that which he was teaching others and the principles of it to pray.
Mm-hmm.
Verse 11 Give us this day Our Daily Bread.
After I got home Saturday morning, I came back to the house and my son, his wife and my grandson Paul here were at the house, and we're gonna be there at lunchtime. And so I asked Paul. I said, Paul, what do you need?
It's good, straightforward and simple, he said. I need D.
It's about lunchtime.
Does God recognize everyday things? Yes, He does.
Was that a right response? Yes, it was.
Yes, it was had its right place at the right time.
Give us this day Our Daily Bread.
There's a priority. We'll see it a little later in the chapter, hopefully, if there's time.
To the order of need.
But this is a daily need. In fact, if you go back to Exodus, you find with the children of Israel manna.
Is referred to as the daily need.
They needed it every day and it was called the daily need in Exodus. In one place, something that God recognizes we have. Yes it does.
In fact, if we want to talk about daily things in another scripture, it says with food and raiment, let us be there with content. As to daily life, Mr. Kelly suggests that the word Raymond includes not only the clothing on your body, but a shelter over your head. That's adequate, that's sufficient to meet daily needs. Food and raiment.
There's really nothing else that is essential.
To daily need with those two things.
So it has its place.
I'm very surprised. I still am not quite sure I can get my thoughts around it very well, but in terms of being taught to properly express need.
Notice the next verse.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And then notice in verse 14, skipping over a little bit, if we forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. This is not talking about the salvation of the soul here. It's not talking about being righteous before God in Christ. This is everyday life and God's ways with us in everyday life. We sometimes call it the government of God.
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In our lives and here.
We're told we need.
A forgiving spirit.
Do you do I?
Much as we do.
And at first glance in everyday life, I don't find it very easy to practice. Notice how it says it.
Forgive us our debts.
As we forgive our debtors.
As we forgive our debtors.
Another words. Lord, forgive me.
As you see me forgiving others.
Do you ever hold anything against somebody?
One brother, these kinds of get togethers used to say, never go to bed with an unkind thought in your heart toward any person.
Never go to bed with an unkind thought in your heart toward any person. Is there somebody that's wronged you that in your heart you're holding it?
And then you go to God and say to God, forgive me my trespass. Oh yes, but mine are mine are little. There's a big or some such rationalization.
Well, it says if you don't forgive men, you won't have yours forgiven. And that's true in this government. Let's remember it.
Verse 13 Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Let's always remember we have a need that we live in a world where there's somebody against us who is far, far, far more powerful and clever and smart.
In deceit, deception and sin than we are, and that's Satan.
We need.
Protector.
Whether we're conscious of it or not.
It's a very high need on God's list for us is to recognize and so it said here, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from the evil 1.
To lead us not into temptation has a certain sense of we need to be careful never to start take the first step down the road of temptation.
The human hearts deceives itself all the time and it thinks it can satisfy something that's in it. That's really a lost and not a need. But to the heart you can be a sense I need it. And so it wants to go a few steps down that road, but stop.
At a certain point.
And in truth, when we take the first step, all is lost. We'll keep taking. That's the hardest one to take. But once it's taken, we'll just keep going until we go off the Cliff eventually. And so he's saying, lead us, not protect us. Help us not to take the first step down the road of destruction and temptation.
Well, to pray that each day.
Also says.
Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. It ends with Himself. We have need, but ultimately the fulfillment of our need goes back to the fulfilling of His own purposes with respect to us.
And that's where our needs truly get met in their bigger sense.
OK.
Turn to verse.
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and raw stuff corrupt, and where thieves breakthrough in steel, But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, And where thieves do not breakthrough or steal, or where your treasure is, there will your heart be. Also said in the hymn that we sang, we would get back to it. Here it talks about having a treasure.
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And, uh, couples with it, The fact that whatever my treasure is, my heart's gonna follow.
My heart follows my treasure.
They said there was another thing and I'll mention it. It's not related to this, but in passing in the hymn we sang for hymns.
That all were partially prayers.
We wouldn't like it but this umm if anyone said what we did was vain repetition. He then used vain repetition and in connection with meeting need and talking to God in this prayer it started with they think they will be heard for their much speaking or their vain repetition. This is not to say that anyone did vain repetition, but I want to encourage each one of us.
Let's not just sing.
Without a conscious sense of what we're doing.
We were speaking if we were conscious of what we were doing. In each of those hymns, we were consciously speaking to God or the Lord Jesus.
And if we can habitually sing a hymn as only a hymn.
It may not be vain repetition, but it isn't entering in properly to the intent of what would satisfy the heart of God.
There's some very challenging statements that we said to God, if we were saying it to God.
Umm, in some of those hymns that we say we bowed at his feet in awesomeness, did we?
Did we consciously bow at his feet with an odd, awesome sense of his person? We said we did.
Didn't we So the vein repetition that I'm applying it to hims, but it can apply to prayer too.
Very, very easy.
To have a language of prayer that goes through a set of statements that we know to be true in themselves, without any conscious connection with the person to whom we're saying.
May the Lord help us. That's a need in itself.
Go back to the treasure.
God has a treasure.
For himself.
And what he really wants and says to us, I believe is.
You make your treasure my treasure, and we will share the same treasure.
And you will find in it every single need will be met.
Every single need that you have as a human being in time and for eternity, will be adequately met in and through that treasure.
Do you need help?
Treasure gives hope Need comfort. Treasure gifts comfort. Do you need guidance? Treasure, gifts, guidance. Do you need peace of heart? Treasure gives peace of heart.
Do you need understanding to act? Treasure gives that.
Hot treasure does.
He's made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
The treasure says.
David, who knew him as Jehovah in Psalm 23, begins. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, I shall not lack anything.
I shall not want, I shall not lack anything that is necessary for my life. He will lead me to food.
He will protect to me.
He will guide me. He will restore me.
If I haven't.
And so here it speaks of the treasure and, uh, he says wherever that treasure is.
That's where your heart's gonna be.
If he's not the treasurer, something else is, and I can guarantee you that that whatever it is will neither fulfill your needs or your wants.
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Neither one, because there is absolutely nothing in any other treasure that permanently satisfies either need or want.
One of the richest man some years ago in the United States was, I think his name was Kirby in the East. And he was worth billions and billions of dollars and he never had enough of it. He put at a mansion with 50 or 60 bedrooms and we had guests. He put a cell phone, I mean, uh, umm, payphone in for his guests to use if they want to make a call. That was how I'll say avarice. He was for money. And someone asked him, how much do you need Mr. Kirby? And he said.
Oh, I always need one more dollar than I have.
In other words, neither the need of a true need of us being or His want was never satisfied by His treasure, and there is no treasure except the Lord Jesus Christ as treasurer, that will satisfy.
Time's running along. Let's go down to verse 33. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take.
Therefore no thought for the Morrow, for the Morrow taketh thought for the things of itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Take no thought, for tomorrow is. Don't be anxious about tomorrow's need.
It'll take care of itself. But here it says CT first. I suggest to you there's some sense of need that first priority in it.
And we sometimes have real need, but we reverse the priorities and we mess it all up. I need daily food and raiment, yes I do.
So do you, but I need the Lord Jesus more and I need to put First things first. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God. I need to put very first those things that.
Pre preserve from sin as we had in the model prayer.
And so we need to make sure that we get priorities straight, otherwise we claim need and we focus on need. And it may be in itself something real, but.
Lord Jesus and his temptation was had hadn't hadn't had food for 40 days. And they said well.
He said man shall not live by bread alone. He had his priorities correct and uh, there's things more important than life itself or bread alone.
That have to be met first. Let's close with one last verse in Philippians.
Chapter 4.
Philippians chapter 4 and verse 19.
My God shall supply all your need.
According to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Got a need?
Apostle Paul had confidence that.
For these Saints to whom he was writing, he could say, My God shall supply 100%.
Of your need 100%, I say to you, God promises to meet 100% of your needs, and in fact, He is meeting them whether you're aware of it or not. Whether I'm aware of it or not. Take a little example. Do you need patience?
He's working on it. He's meeting that need.
He may take a lifetime to finish His work with it, but when He's done, you'll have patience. It doesn't matter what it is, if it's a need, God is diligently working on it. And when He's done, what is His in product in view?
As it says here, supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. God says if I could speak for God, I hope I can. In this way. God says I need you to be like my Son.
That's what I need. I need you to be like my son, and I'm going to do absolutely everything that's necessary to meet that need for me.
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And.
God's perspective is not just daily life, although he takes care of daily life, but he has a far more wonderful objective in what he treats his need. And uh, it has for us. God said, I made, when I gave you life, I made you a heavenly person. And so your true needs connect you with heaven. You're just passing on earth, but everything I'm doing is connected with.
A need to make you like my son.
And suited to my presence forever. And that's the need I want to meet in your daily life here on earth. I'm working on it and I'll supply everything that is needed according to my riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Hebrews 10:1-8
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Saints within the veil and raise your happy song. Your joys can never, never fail. For you to Christ belong, oh happy Saints, forever freed.
From guilt and every care, dwell. Dwell with your exalted head and let your life be there.
#217.
Our place within the veil.
Hebrews, chapter 10.
For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of things, can never with those sacrifice which they offered year by year, continually make the comers thereunto perfect for them, were they not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins. But in no sacrifice there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.
Or it is not possible that the blood of bulls enough goats should take away sins.
Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not.
But a body has all prepared me, and burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin.
I had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, and in the volume of the book is written of me to do thy will, O God above, when he said, sacrifice, and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin, Thou wouldest not, neither has pleasure therein which are offered by the law. Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, he taketh away the 1St, that he may establish the second, by the which will we are sanctified to the offering.
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Of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all, every priest standeth daily, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifice, which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting until his many enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified.
Where the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us for after thee he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after these those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts and in their minds while I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now we're a remission of these is there is no more offering for sin, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
My new and living way, which He has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.
Having a high priest over the House of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith.
Having a heart sprinkled from the evil conscience, and our bodies forced with pure water, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. For He that's faithful that promise, let us consider one another to provoke unto love.
And to good works not forsaking the assembling ourselves together as a matter of some, is but exhorting one another so much the more, as you see the day approaching. For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for a of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despise Moses Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses.
Of how much sore punishments disclose, ye shall be thought worthy, who had trotted under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith He was sanctified a holy thing, and has done despite under the spirit of grace. For we know him that has said, Vengeance belongeth unto me. I will recompense, saith the Lord, and again the Lord shall judge his people.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. But call to remembrance the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions, partly while you were made against them, both by reproaches and affections, partly wise you became companions of them that were so used. For you had compassion of me, and my bonds took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you have.
In heaven a better and an enduring substance. That's not a way. Therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward. For you have need of patience, that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise for yet a little while. And he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the judge shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto petition.
But of them that believed to the saving of the soul.
When Adam sinned, he was put out.
God's presence prior to Adam disobeying God and sinning. God would be with Adam. He would come down and visit him and they would have fellowship together.
But after his disobedience he was put out of the garden, and the entry to the garden to God's presence to meet him there, was broken, and he could not approach God in his sinful condition.
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In the way that he had before. And so later on when God established a relationship with the people of God through Abraham and his family, leading on to the days of Moses, Moses said to the Lord, well, we're going to go from Egypt to Canaan, but we're not. We don't want to go. I don't want to go unless you go with us.
And so the Lord said, I'll go with you. And he established a.
Tabernacle in the wilderness, where his presence was to be among the people.
But and also sacrifices were established for them, but they still couldn't approach God.
The people came to the door with their sacrifice, but they didn't go in. They weren't allowed into the presence. And later on the priests themselves served in the outer room of the Tabernacle, but the inner one, that where the presence of God was represented by the ark, no one went. God, man as he was, could not approach God.
And so.
Aaron, the high priest, once a year, he went in with fear and trembling and probably was very glad when he got to go back out, uh, after fulfilling his annual responsibility. And so we learned from Hebrews that the way into the presence of God in a way that was holy and acceptable to God didn't exist under the law of Judaism.
In this chapter that we enter into shows us in the previous chapter that lays the foundation for it.
Says now there is a way through the Lord Jesus Christ and his work that God can say to us, Now you come near, you approach me, and you can come into my presence, and we can have fellowship together as I wish, and you can do so without fear.
As it says, let us verse 22 is where it leads the chapter leads us to is let us draw near with a true heart and the full assurance of faith and so God had through the Lord Jesus and as the book of Hebrews develops for us has made a way in which we can come into his most holy presence.
In without fear and have fellowship with him there.
With Thanksgiving, with common interest and joy in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so on. And this chapter is giving us, you might say, the last step in explaining to us how it is that we are at liberty now to come into the presence of God and ultimately will live there. And that's that's a step beyond even what we have now to enjoy in spirit and in truth. But we will also look forward to.
The coming day when we'll dwell in God's presence and glory.
Class of people that have this privilege done? Or is this uh.
For like it was in the Old Testament, just certain ones.
Body and everybody who is redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.
Cool. I think that's so amazingly wonderful.
There is no special class. We are all priests, brothers and sisters alike, and when we pray or when we praise the Lord.
Might be in assembly meetings, or it might be at our home or wherever we are exercising our priesthood.
Like Don says, that applies to every true believer.
I I just an exercise, brethren, when I see in these conferences sometimes somebody, dear young people here, thank God for them being here. I'd sure love to see you stand up and pray you young people, or praise the Lord or give out of him. It belongs to you. It's not a matter of age or experience.
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But it is being led by the Spirit of God to be exercised to be led by the Spirit of God.
So be exercised as you sit in meetings. It doesn't mean that you will always take part. But this chapter really deals with that question. And there's a tendency this book was written to the Hebrews or the Jewish people.
And there is no author mentioned.
In fact, it's the only book in the Bible that starts with the word God.
That interesting?
God and you have an apostle in chapter 3, but it's not the Apostle Paul that we think probably wrote this epistle. I would guess that maybe because of the prejudice of the believers in Jerusalem towards Paul that he suffered not to put his name on the epistle.
That's a a suggestion. I don't know, maybe there is other thoughts about that but.
The Jewish people have like Don was showing that in Israel there was only one tribe of the 12 tribes, the tribe of Levi that was appointed to the service of God. Of that one tribe only one family.
Could enter into the holiest or into the holy place.
And of that one family, only one person only once a year could go into the very.
Immediate presence of God.
But now look at this. Don's mentioned verse 22, but let's look at verse 19.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness.
To enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. That's a strong word.
Boldness.
Oh brother, if we would appreciate properly what the work of Christ has done for us in the presence of God.
I don't think I have to say for myself, I only can only confess for myself, but I don't believe we appreciate properly that wonderful privilege of going right into the immediate.
Presence of God in praise and in prayer.
And the Jewish people had that idea that certain ones had that privilege.
Today in Christian circles.
The same principle, they want to apply it again. It's called in our day, the clergy.
There's certain ones that that qualify, others don't.
You have to stay further at a distance.
And I fear we profess, brethren, that we don't hold that those principles, but I fear that sometimes we fall into that tendency.
The Lord help us exercise this that we would enjoy and appreciate and I think the truth of this chapter we can go through it briefly gives us to understand the wonderful privilege that is ours of coming.
Right into the presence of God, you know, God is a personal God. He's a God that communicates.
And that's why he wants us there in his presence. That wonderful.
It Moses had to say, so great was the sight thereof, that I exceedingly fear and quake. And it tells us that if a beast so much has touched the side of the mountain, they were slain. And we might read that and say, Well, I could never stand by Moses. Moses, that great servant of God, raised up to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness. Moses, who is so often a picture of Christ to us in the Old Testament.
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I could never stand by him. But isn't it wonderful, brethren, that we don't come into the presence of God or the presence of the Lord Jesus with fear? I remember a brother one time praying at a conference like this on Lord's Day morning, and he mentioned that we came into the presence of the Lord with fear and trembling. But when someone spoke to him afterward, he thought very clearly, We don't come into the presence of the Lord with fear and trembling.
If there's something on our conscience, we're not going to be comfortable if there's unjudged sin. But when sin is judged, we come into the presence of the Lord, as we've been saying, with confidence and holy boldness.
And I think of the high priest when he went into the holiest of all on the great Day of Atonement.
As was already said, I doubt it was ever with a feeling of real confidence.
As he entered that dark room, behind the veil, in the thick cloud, in the presence of God, I'm sure that he was going over in his mind, had everything been done properly? Had the animal been slain properly? Did he have the blood with him and all those things? It was, I don't believe ever with a feeling of real confidence, but just to get a little further context as to what we have here, we know in the book of Hebrews, it's a book of contrasts.
God often teaches us by contrast, and that's what we have in this chapter, isn't it?
If we were to go back and to begin at the beginning, we would find that the apostle, the writer, takes up every part of that which they had under the Jewish or Levitical order of things in the Old Testament.
He takes up the question of angels. The law was given by the dispensation of angels.
And angels played a very important part as God's messengers in the Old Testament and with God's earthly people.
He takes up the question of Moses. He takes up the question of Aaron and his sons.
The Levitical priesthood, the worldly sanctuary, the building of God on earth where he dwelt amongst his people.
But here he take the old covenant, but here he takes up the question of the sacrifices.
And we're going to notice as we go through these verses that there's a contrast now, the law with a shadow of good things to come as our chapter opens up.
And those things that were laid down by God in the Old Testament.
For his earthly people, Israel, they were good and right and proper in their place.
And they were given by God, but they were only a shadow of what was really in the mind and heart of God.
And though the priests and the Levites and the children of Israel in the Old Testament.
Didn't understand it fully or see it clearly. The sacrifices that were offered from day-to-day and year to year.
Spoke to the heart of God of what was coming when His Son.
Would go to the cross and offer himself as that supreme sacrifice. And every offering offered in a different way, and different things had to be done with different offerings, and so on. We go back and we see it in the light of the revelation of the New Testament, and we see how those things correspond with various aspects of the person and work of Christ. Because, brethren, we have an intelligent service in Christianity.
That's what marks Christianity. But in the Old Testament, why did they carry out these sacrifices and do these things according to the way God established it? Well, if you had asked a priest, well, why do you do this? And why, when it's the bird, do you have to pinch the head off and the crop and the feathers have to be said? I don't know exactly, but this is the way God has ordained it. And we saw what happened to Nadab and Abihu when they didn't follow.
God's instruction and they were slain at the altar, and there's stiff penalties, even death.
Connected with not carrying it out. They couldn't have told you exactly why, because theirs was not an intelligent service and to some degree it was motivated by fear. Who? Through fear of death.
Where their whole lifetime subject to *******. But brethren, isn't it wonderful, as Bob said, that we can see it all now in the light of Christianity and to see that that shadow of good things to come is our It's pictures and illustrations that help us to understand very clearly what we have in the person and work of Christ and what our position and relationship is now to God and to the Lord Jesus.
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And we get the doctrines in the New Testament, but those pictures and shadows are very wonderful, but they never made the commerce perfect. They never brought a person into the relationship and nearness to God and to the Lord Jesus that you had in the Old Testament.
Perhaps we should refer to the 16, which is the, the Day of Atonement. I wouldn't want to, uh, uh, I just want to remind us of it. I don't want to, it's a long chapter and there's a lot of detail in it, but umm, what we have is, uh, the 9th chapter and the 10th chapter refers back to the.
Day of Atonement In the 9th chapter we have UMM reading from verse 6.
Now when these things were not ordained, the priest went always into the first Tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God, but into the second, when the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people. Now notice this. What happened there was the high priest. If you go back to Leviticus 16, he had to go into the holy place twice.
He had to go in with a great big offering, a Bullock for his own sins.
Because until he dealt with his own sins, there could be no question of him acting as an intercessor for the people of God. He had to go in and deal with his own sins. And so we find in that, according to that seventh verse, the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself. That was the first time he went in. And then he came out again. And then he went in and offered the goat for the, the, the people. Now in contrast to that we have.
But Christ being come, I read from the 11Th verse, and high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats and cars, but by His own blood He entered once.
Into the holy place. Why did he not have to enter twice? He didn't have to deal with his own sin. So we have the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ contrasted with the failure of the old dispensation insofar as it was weak through the flesh. The high priest had to go in twice to deal with his own sins. First, the Lord Jesus Christ went in once and we get that term once, three times in this passage, the 9th and 10th, because we get it again in the in chapter 10 as we've read.
Verse 10 we will first of all we then we have the the.
Once again, a reference back, I believe, to the great Day of Atonement, for in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins every year. If I can turn back to Leviticus.
Leviticus 16 so I can find the chapter verse Leviticus 16.
Verse 21.
An errand shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, and in all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. So here again this the.
The same question has to be thoroughly dealt with. Everything has to be enumerated in the presence of God. And so we have that. There's a there's in those sacrifices, there's a remembrance made of sin every year, and it happened once a year.
We have.
Then said, Hey lo, I come in the volume of the book, it is written of me. He takes away the 1St, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
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So in the 9th chapter we advance contrasted with twice. Here once is contrasted with something that can be done every year. Then last of all, of course, there was a problem with the ecclesiastical the the levitical economy. The day after the the great Day of atonement, I could sin.
What would happen then? Well, according to the 4th of Leviticus, there was a sin offering to be offered. And that's what I believe we have in verse 11 and every priest standard daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down on the right hand of God and verse 14 for by one offering he had perfectly forever then sanctified. I like Mr. Darby's.
Translation there. I think it's perfected in perpetuity. Then that are sanctified so we get the Lord Jesus Christ contrasted with.
Once contrasted with twice, once contrasted with once a year and once.
Contrasted with the many, many sacrifices of the Old Testament times, in every way the person of the Lord Jesus Christ exceeds that which there was no doubt very valuable to the godly Jew. But the Lord Jesus Christ, in His excellence of His sacrifice, exceeds all that the Jew could enjoy through.
Through the the whole what the Holy Spirit had given to them at that time.
That's beautiful. Yeah, that it is. All those Old Testament figures were shadows.
But the Lord Jesus came, and he was the glorious reality.
That's why in the book of Hebrews you have apostasy addressed.
An apostasy is after the Lord Jesus had come the glorious reality.
And there were Jewish people that joined into the movement. There were so many thousands that were being converted.
They joined in, but then they went back again to their system of religion, which was in effect a negation of the efficacy of the work of the Lord Jesus. Extremely serious sin. For an apostate. There is no salvation.
So it's it's serious. This is God's answer to the same question.
And so it is so important to understand it and to enjoy it. And I just want to say to young people, seek to get an understanding of it. Let it sink down into your hearts and enjoyment because that's what's going to give you liberty to go into God's presence and praise and in prayer.
And just like to say that.
All these things are beautiful in the Old Testament. We go back like Jim said, we see the figures back there, but we don't go back to the figures. We might go back there and read them and enjoy how they reflect some of the perfection of the person and work of the Lord Jesus, but we don't go back to the sacrifices.
And that's important.
Sometimes say.
Shadow is something that is cast by the sun that shows that there is an object near.
Sometimes give the illustration to my Latin brethren. Suppose he and I have told my wife I'm coming home a certain day.
And it's getting close to the time when I should be home, and all of a sudden she sees a shadow coming across the porch.
What do you think she's going to do?
Come out and examine the shadow? I don't think so.
She's going to grab on to the reality.
Oh brother, the glorious reality has come. Do we appreciate it properly?
I'd like to use another illustration in that regard, because I think it's important and I was glad Brother David went back to the Old Testament.
To give us some of the picture that helps us to understand what we have in our in our chapter and here in the book of Hebrews.
Because we want to be careful and not give the impression that the Old Testament pictures and shadows are not important for us today. They're the illustrations, as we've been saying, that help us to understand what we have as to that which has been fulfilled in Christ. I just say in passing too, that you have in Hebrews the word better 13 times. That's a lot of times, isn't it? Brother David mentioned a couple of them, but thirteen times in contrast.
00:35:25
And So what we have in the Old Testament where pale reflections and foreshadows, as we've been saying, of what was in the heart of God. But I sometimes illustrated it this way because when I was engaged to the one who later became my wife, there were several months between our engagement and our marriage, and there were many miles between us. I lived in Smiths Falls and my wife was from Newfoundland and back 30 years ago, travel wasn't as prevalent in communication wasn't as.
Easy as it is today. And so there was AI had a large photograph on my desk in my room of the one who had promised to be my wife. And for those months between the engagement and the marriage, that photograph, that picture assumed a very important role in my life because I believe, if I remember correctly, between the engagement and the marriage, I only saw my wife, my fiance, once.
And when we talked on the phone in those days, you had to wait till after midnight when the rate dropped and you made sure it was well after midnight and it was different time zones. And even then you timed it and you didn't talk too long because it was expensive.
And so this photograph assumed a very important part of my life. But suppose after we were married, you came to my home.
And you found me more occupied with the photograph than the one who was now with me as my wife.
Oh, you'd say. That's very strange. You'd say, Jim, you have, if I can put it this way, you have the real thing now. This is just a picture now. You have your wife with you. Now, you'd also be surprised if after the marriage I had torn up the picture, thrown it away or put it through the shredder. No, the picture is still valuable to me. I still have the photograph. And it still is on my shelf in my in my room. But perhaps that helps us in a feeble way to understand what we're talking about.
The types and shadows, the pictures are still important. We don't go back and keep the sacrifices and the rites and ceremonies of the Levitical or Mosaic Law. No, we have the better thing now. But it's important. And I want to encourage all of us go back and read the Old Testament, go over those sacrifices, those offerings, and there's some very helpful books that Bible truth carries.
That help us to have an insight into those offerings in relationship to what we have now in the New Testament as to the person and work of Christ. So the Old Testament is important for the pictures and illustrations.
But we have it all fulfilled in Christ, the glorious sacrifice.
And remember this, the sacrifices in the Old Testament are plural. But when it comes to the sacrifice of the New Testament, the one who was in God's thoughts and mind all through those, the Old Testament of which those sacrifices were but feeble foreshadows, it's singular. We're going to find by one offering he has perpetrated forever them that are sanctified, and he's offered himself as the supreme sacrifice.
And God will never now require another sacrifice as He did in the Old Testament.
Toge today about the law.
And that means people who are not safe.
They right away come up with the 10 commandments.
And we know that all those of us who came out to systems, they experienced the same thing.
But we also know that God gave the 10 commandments when they were in the wilderness and they needed something to go by. So He called up Moses up into the mountains to give them 10 commandments, which are called the 10 words.
And Moses spent 40 days up there.
When he came down with it immediately had to break the tablet with the 10 loss or the 10 commandments.
00:40:09
So God was.
Very gracious. He is very gracious.
After proper retribution had been made as to the evil, he sent Moses up again.
Into the mountain and give them the same loss.
Only.
He had to chisel him in there.
But they were the same laws that he gave them, and Moses took them down.
But what happened?
They were too much permitted.
With what they had learned in Egypt, idolatry.
Idolatry came in instead of studying and finding out what God really wanted them to do by giving them the 10 words.
They forgot immediately, forgot all about it and started idolatry making a golden calf.
And from there on, we see that God gave him more things to hold, like the seven feasts. We all like feasts and we have usually a, a, a picnic and something like that. And there's nothing wrong with that.
But why did he do that, given more things to hold? Because that's what people want. They want to have something to do.
While they are waiting, what's going on and.
Is their life further? And God fast said he gives them more things to do, but it always comes back to idolatry. Go back to idolatry.
Worship their own gods, worship their own ways.
And many people know that, that it went on and on until to the the Ferris came in and they had, I guess 611 or more commandments set up. And the Lord Jesus never addresses that kind of a thing.
When they asked him, By what authority does thou do these things, The things which he did in the temple when he drove out the merchants?
And they asked him, who gave you the authority to do these things? He just asked that one question.
And that question again.
Concerned.
What? John the Baptist?
Had brought in.
Which was directly from God.
But they would not respond to that. They would, they would not respond to that. What God has brought in.
They wanted to keep their own ways and they got the results of that.
And we still have that same thing going on today.
Our own will sin.
That thing has to be done away with.
And we had heard a lot about that, how that is done.
In verse two we have the expression the worshippers.
The worshippers, that is, those who are going to approach God.
To worship and to present the Lord Jesus Christ to God. And so I'd like to go back in connection with that expression, the worshipper to John's Gospel, chapter 4, when the Lord Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well.
And.
He says to her.
00:45:04
John chapter 4 and verse 22 you worship, you know not what.
We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews, but the hour cometh, and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such.
To worship him.
It's important, brethren, to understand that God has chosen you to an occupation called worship.
You, you might, someone says to you. What's your occupation?
Well, I'm a a banker or a farmer or a retiree or something or other. I'm a student.
But have you ever answered somebody? Well, God gave me the occupation of being a worshipper.
We are, and it's a one of the most important occupations that any of us will ever be occupied with.
In the children of Israel.
As has already been mentioned.
11 tribes didn't have anything to do with that occupation.
The 12Th tribe, only a very small fraction of it, was directly involved in the sense of presenting anything to God from the door of the Tabernacle onward. Why?
Because as it presents it to us here in the 10th chapter, they couldn't, they weren't fit for their occupation. Have you ever presented yourself for a job or an occupation of something and someone says to you, well, what are your qualifications?
For this job, This job requires certain qualifications. Well, what are yours?
Well, I don't have any.
Sorry, we'll have to find somebody that's qualified to do the work that we need done.
Sometimes we incorrectly disqualify ourselves, which seems to be part of Bob's exercise in taking this matter up. We incorrectly disqualify ourselves from being suited to the occupation for which we have been called.
And in the chapter we have it presented to us as the Old Testament case was they came those that were chosen of God for that particular responsibility.
But to approach God, you must approach Him.
Without sin.
And the Levite and has already been brought even all the way up to the High Priest.
I can't approach God. I've got my sins.
And the provision was made in the picture, the shadow of the Old Testament to deal with such a case. But as to the individual.
Even.
Aaron or anyone else that came to present something.
As scripture calls it, worship for them. Anyone that came to present it, he had to do so without a purge. Conscience, that is. Has Have you ever been responsible for something and your conscience is bothering you because you know there's something not quite right?
I very well remember one time when I did something wrong in my own household as a child and I was approaching the dinner table and I was afraid that my father, my mother were going to discover.
What it was that I had done and my conscience was guilty. And so and yet I approached uh Sharon, the fellowship of the meal with about conscience.
And sometimes it is with us. We say, well, what right do I have to approach God in this chapters showing us in the very beginning of it actually that while they didn't couldn't approach with a clear conscience, purge conscience. We can we can and we should properly, unless there's a an unconfessed sin in our life to approach unto God with perfect liberty and say I can worship.
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I can fulfill the occupation that God has chosen for me. I can present the Lord Jesus to him with liberty, with joy.
Because the Lord Jesus has removed the whole matter of sin between God and myself and said that when I see you, I see you and the Lord Jesus Christ and I see you and all the value of his work. And in that I see you as perfect and you may approach me and we don't have to talk about sin in that approach. You approach me and we were and you may worship, you may fulfill. There's been the whole time on this, but it's it's the point is God seeks worshippers and you're one of them if you're the Lords.
And he has fitted you with the proper robes of salvation. He has removed the issue of sin from the approach. And now he says, come near and worship. Fulfill what I've chosen you to be. God seeks worshippers.
I mean, all of us can work there every day. We're not just time together here. We can worship God whether it be driving in our car or in our room alone at night. It says in chapter 13 by him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise, conduct to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. And so when the door in heaven is opened in Revelation four and five, what do we see them engaged in?
Worship and praise to the One who alone is worthy.
The law was given by Moses for grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And so those offerings in Leviticus one through 5 we see them fulfilled. And Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the trespass offering, the sin offering, the peace offering, the burnt offering.
We see those pictures in the Gospels, and so in Luke 24, when Jesus himself drew near and went with the two on the road to Emmaus, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures that things concerning himself it says in verse 7.
And the volume of the book it is written. You can take every single book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
And we can see the revelation of Jesus Christ, the reflection of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We find in Genesis chapter 3 that He came to Adam in the cool of the day. In Genesis chapter 18, He came to Abraham.
In the heat of the day, in the afternoon in in Genesis chapter 32, he wrestled with the Angel of the Lord, wrestled with Jacob until the break of day. So whether it's the cool of the day or the heat of day or until the break of day, First Corinthians one and nine says we are called into fellowship of God and his Son Jesus Christ.
And so in John 21, when the disciples went fishing and they couldn't catch any fish, and he told them to turn their net on the other side, and their Nets were full and they came to the shore. He had the coals, he had the fish, he had the bread. He said come and dine.
He wanted fellowship with disciples. It was the third time that he appeared to them, not just once or twice. It was the third time there. And so there he communed with his disciples there on the shore after his resurrection. And so the heart of God for his children is to commune with us, to have fellowship with us, and we can return worship and praise and adoration to the one who alone is worthy. Sometimes it's been said, and it's helpful that we worship God for who he is.
We praise Him and thank Him for what he has done and it is amazing. That's why in that verse that uh Don read in John chapter 4, it says that worship is in spirit and in truth. It's the Spirit of God that opens up to us who God is.
Oh, the amazing.
Wonder of the fact that we can know God through the Lord Jesus. And in truth, according to the revelation that we have now in the Old Testament, the revelation of who God was was not complete as it is now in the person of the Lord Jesus. We have the complete revelation of who God is. And so we can revel, brethren, we can enjoy.
We can praise Him, We can worship Him for who He is.
00:55:00
Oh, the wonder of it, the the amazing privilege of worshipping God.
In this chapter, I'd like to show here twice.
4 sacrifices are mentioned in verses 5 and six the first time, and then in verse eight again it mentions the same four. They are the basic sacrifices of Leviticus.
Notice it says sacrifice. That's the sacrifice of peace Offerings of Leviticus, chapter 3.
And offering. That's the meal offering of Leviticus chapter 2.
And burnt offerings, that's Leviticus chapter one. And sacrifices for sin, that's chapters in Leviticus chapter four and five, perhaps where we have the trespass offering. But in general it's the four offerings. And in those four offerings the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross is figured. Sacrifice of peace offerings was a communion offering.
Where there was part of the animal that was sacrificed, taken and burnt on the sack on the altar for God, and then the rest of the animal was for the people to eat. You remember on the dedication of the temple.
Solomon offered sacrifices of peace offerings because all Israel had congregated there. 22,000 bullocks.
120,000 sheep were slain for that, offering incredible amounts of animals.
Because it was for the people to enjoy that sacrifice. And I love to think rather than that is our privilege. Tomorrow when we come together into the Lord's presence, we're enjoying the same person that God enjoys, has enjoyed forever, but especially displayed in the work of Calvary, so you and I can have fellowship with God.
About his son wonderful privilege and then the meal offering was not anything connected with blood, but it signifies the.
Complete perfection of the Lord Jesus and his humanity. And in that sacrifice the high priest took a handful of that meal and put it directly in the fire.
Because that we complete.
Perfect.
Was evident even on the cross.
In the midst of the fire.
Beautiful meditations, brother.
And then it says burned offerings, The burnt offering was something that was for God. It was all consumed for God. The only thing that the sacrificer could take away from the burnt offering was the skin of the offering. But the whole animal was consumed in a certain way, like somebody has said before, that then it helped. To me we say Christ died for our sins. That's the sin offering.
But Christ died for God, brethren.
That's the burnt offering, and they're both very true, very important.
But how, in a practical way, do you explain people now what worship is?
The so-called churches all got to sign out worship meeting at such and such a time.
And when you tell them, well, we have a rebirth at the breaking of bread, well, what is that truly asked, Well, what is that? How do you do that? We come together, we praise the Lord Jesus Christ and in doing that.
We do that what he requested from us to remember him in his death.
But how you do that? Well, we do it just the way, simple way of bringing bread and bringing wine. Put it there and partake of it.
01:00:04
Yeah, that sounds good, but that isn't done today anymore.
Well, where are you going to tell them about? Start doing it.
Is that going to help you?
Yes, it would be right.
But we have a pamphlet. So we have several pamphlets. They explained with many pages what worship is. I have them to I read them.
And I understand them.
But you can't just give him a pamphlet and tell him how you read that pamphlet.
And a couple of weeks later, you you meet him again. Did you read it? They say no, didn't read it.
It see the scripture about the glories of the person of the Lord Jesus.
Perhaps afterwards he praises the Lord for it. And that's the way we worship. It's led by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the worship leader. So often you hear about men that are appointed or worship leaders. There already is a worship leader, brethren. It's the Spirit of God and we wait for him to guide. Somebody may give out of him. And it's beautiful to think of our hymn book, brethren.
Lot of hymns that are worship hymns I like to think of if you look at 150 and that hymn, of course nothing is the void of the work of Christ, but that hymn really speaks majorly of the glories of the person of Christ. Not much about his work so much as his person. That's a worship him, but there's so many hymns that have.
Lots of worship in them. So through that means we worship, didn't you say, Jim?
Important to see too, that we are only collectively what we are individually, and if there isn't an appreciation of the person and work of Christ in our souls, an occupation with himself individually during the week, there's not going to be that collective worship that he desires. Because I think maybe you or someone else said that worship springs from an appreciation in our souls.
Of the person of Christ, based on the work that he accomplished at Calvary's cross.
And why is it, brethren, so often we come on Lord's Day morning and we might read some scriptures. We can even give out some hymns and sing them.
But why is it that there often doesn't seem to be in our souls that worst true worship that He desires in spirit and in truth?
I suggest, brethren, that it's because we have an individually been in the enjoyment of the Person of Christ during the week, walking in His presence, enjoying communion with Him.
Reading our Bibles, having Christ before our souls from the word of God.
And if I can just make a very practical remark in that regard, brethren, it is too late on Lord's Day morning, as we're getting ready for meeting, to try to conjure up some feelings of worship and praise in our soul if we haven't been occupied with the person of Christ during the week. And I know that there are many things that take our minds and occupation during the week that are necessary to survive in the workaday world in which we find ourselves. But, brethren, there are many things that the enemy uses.
To keep us too, in our free time, from enjoying the person and work of Christ.
Now in the Old Testament, worship was connected with the natural man to a great degree.
I'm not saying there weren't those whose hearts didn't truly respond. There was. But you think of the Tabernacle in the wilderness and later the temple in Jerusalem, the beautiful goal, shimmering gold, the silver, the incense, the curtains, and all the things that appealed to the natural senses. I dare say you could have walked into the temple and there would have been some real feeling of awe and the spiritual side of man would have been been stirred. But that's not what we have in Christianity.
Philippians 3 says we're not. We're those who worship God in the spirit, not in relationship to what appeals to the natural senses. And so there's only going to be that true worship in spirit and in truth. I say again, in the measure in which, first of all, we are individually in the enjoyment of the person of Christ and in the measure in which that appreciation deepens from week to week.
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Then and only then will there be collectively, truly the worship that he desires. One more little comment about praise and worship. Praise is always audible in Scripture. Worship often is, but it's not necessarily. Worship again has to do with the heart. And as to praise, the Lord said, this generation draws nigh unto me with their lips and honoreth me with their mouth, but their heart is far from me. That's not what he wants. He doesn't want us just to come on Lords Day morning.
And sing some hymns and read some scripture and give some nice words of what might seem like worship and praise. That's just lip service. No, brethren, He wants the true response of your heart and mind.
Pride with the Lord Jesus and God and worship when you watch TV.
It takes everything away from you. I know I would do that.
I couldn't worship on Lord's Day, just impossible because there's too many thoughts that I have been exposed to and I watch TV. I don't watch TV, but when I used to, I could never shoot.
And it's true that it's, it's true. I had a neighbor man, Washington, uh, visiting me a few days ago.
And we talked about these and you said, yeah, but look what what they do. There's preachers out there and then and, and I watch them on TV and they speak so wonderful. They have great congregation. There's a there's a colored man now on TV he's asking of everyone of his members and there are 18 thousands, $350.00 so he can buy himself.
A jet airplane for $240 million and eventually is gonna get it.
Well, how about that have to do with Russia? Nothing.
Hymn #8.
Old People
Address—Bruce Conrad
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.
We start our next meeting this afternoon with part of him #316.
316 We could sing.
Verses two and three so brother could start that please.
Well.
Looking to the Lord about this responsibility.
Bringing a few loaves and a few small fishes forward to him.
I have it upon my heart to take something up I've never taken up before, and I don't know that anyone has that I've ever heard.
If you've been gathered to the Lord's name for a fairly long time, I'm happy to testify that I have. I've probably.
Listened to.
100 or 150 addresses to young people.
And some of them, of course, very, very memorable.
I've never heard an address to old people.
I see in the agenda.
For tomorrow there's some YP addresses, so with the Lord's help, I'd like to have an OP address today.
I'm not fully qualified I admit, but I am in my 7th decade of life.
And so if if we're afforded 3 score and 10 then I'm in my last 10.
So that's up to the Lord.
So I only feel marginally qualified in looking around the room, there are many that are my seniors.
But the Lord laid this on my heart. And then sitting at lunch today, Lemoyne was kind enough to give me an exposition out of the new translation of the verse I had in my heart. So I.
Continued to feel that perhaps it's something that we should consider today. So if you'll turn with me, please, to Psalm 92.
Reverse.
Psalm 92 and verses 13 and verse 14.
Those that be planted in the House of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still.
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Bring forth fruit in old age.
They shall be fat and flourishing.
No one likes to be called fat nowadays, I think. I think the, uh, force of the word there is fertile or fruitful.
It's a wonderful thing to have the sense that we've been planted in the House of the Lord, that he's made us his own.
We know from the New Testament that we're part of the House of God. We're members of his body.
And we're in a very privileged and special place and are the recipients.
Of special cultivation from God who's now our Father, and from the Lord Jesus himself.
And so in old age, we we know we tend to think that our.
Our energy runs down and, umm, maybe it's our tendency to think that it's OK to just coast.
And I'm sure you've had conversations in nursing homes or with older ones on death bed and and they've often people will say, Saints will say, I don't know why the Lord doesn't take me. I don't see the point of me being here anymore.
And #1 it's our times are in his hand.
And there's really we can sympathize with how one would feel that way. But the Lord is at work in you and me, and though our outward activities may diminish, there's something very precious that is intended to continue in our hearts and minds till the very end.
In uh.
Observing some dear ones that have gone home to be with the Lord and.
And.
And my own parents and mother recently going to be with the Lord.
You know I as I increased my visits and tried to have spend meaningful time.
No thought just came before me that growing old is not for cowards.
And I know that for decades and decades, brothers have stood up here and, and addressed the young people and, and sympathized with you and empathized with you.
And so, so have sought to encourage you about that special time of life. And it is a special time of life. It's kind of like the place where two paths meet and decisions are made without the benefit of, of, of the wisdom of years.
But at the, as I've observed in my mom and dad and other older Saints, as a friend after friend moves on and the ability to get around and to and to move and to do the things you've done all your life diminishes and diminishes. It's it's, it's not an easy thing.
So.
It's a wonderful thing to lay hold of the fact that as believers, there's a whole layer of reality that is overlaid against our natural lives. There's a glory in natural things still, even though sin has come into the world.
The lion is the spoken of as the chief among the beasts and the great leviathan in the seas, and the young man's glorious his strength.
Woman has her hair for her glory.
It says that.
Children's children are the glory of old men, the hoary head to crown.
For those that are found in the way of righteousness, there are all these glories.
There's all this natural propriety, and if it's observed even amongst people that do not know the Lord, there will be orderly, more orderly life lived.
And we're warned in the scripture about.
About when things get out of order, the prophet Isaiah comes to mind where he warned and rebuked the nation that their state was so bad that children were going to rule over them. Babes were going to be their rulers and children were going to be their oppressors. And you don't have to be an expert in sociology to look around if you're out in in the world and doing your business and.
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In a restaurant or wherever, there are old and young around to see that this seems to be happening more and more.
But for you and me and the assembly we have, we have such an unusual experience.
You know it, it struck me. I, I wasn't, if you'll permit a, a personal reference or two, umm, I'll make that apology for the rest of the half hour here, but, umm.
Was saved in a, in a in a rural Maine, uh, almost 40 years ago and, uh, it was like heaven on earth.
And though my mother, I believe, is with the Lord, if you understand what I mean here, I really wasn't raised in a Christian home, so to speak.
And so.
Being saved and quickly after that a neighbor took me to the Lord's table and.
And.
This. This is it. This is it. This is the way it is meant to be.
And the brethren there were all my, my dad's age, 3030 years and up, and they became my close, close friends. Matter of fact, I, you know, chums growing up, I never had friends so close and who looked after me and who challenged me and who at times corrected me and comforted me and, and all the everything you could hope for from a friend.
And it was just a thing after work. I could just say, well which Rd. should I take? And I was single. Who can I stop in and visit tonight? It's not a meeting night.
And then I found out that when I went to my first conference that somehow someone should feel sorry for me because there weren't other young people in my gathering.
Now I don't wanna.
I know it's an issue if you feel that it is. And I don't mean to, to take away from the importance of natural and spiritual camaraderie amongst young people. We, we have a bunch of children and we've seen the the value of that.
But what I want to just one point I want to touch on here, is the tremendous value that we enjoy as believers going in and out amongst each other like today with those of all different ages and levels of spiritual experience. It is a rich, rich blessing. And I can't explain to people who I just meet casually who are not gathered to the Lord's name. You know, let's say where are you going this week, I'm going to Des Moines.
Oh, well, you know, where, where, where, where were you last weekend? You say? Some place that they probably never heard of. Well, how do you know people in these places? And it's hard to explain.
And it's hard to explain the depth of the of the relationships we enjoy. And it's a rich, rich legacy. I feel just so pathetically rich.
As I get older, I don't need as much sleep.
I got up earlier, still dark. I have my chair, my books and things and.
Read there for the heat of the day.
And sometimes, you know, you read, so you just put it down and you just kind of musing on it and pondering it and.
Like my late close friend **** Gorgas, I I'm just one of those people that I often attach a verse with who I first heard it from or who I learned the truth from. And sometimes I sit there and I'm just going through this.
This.
Rehearsal.
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Of brothers and sisters.
That my closest friends that are now with the Lord.
I'm so thankful for these rich, rich relationships.
In rural Maine, we live near a highway called Route 2 and back before the Canadians used to go as they call it, over the top main for the those that are Midwesterners not as familiar, it shuts up into the Canadian, the country. And so Montreal is kind of to your West and the Maritime is over here to your east. And you can go from Montreal and kind of shoot right through Maine and and go to the Maritimes back when there was a lot of gospel tent work going on and.
And as time went on, there were more of us younger ones that were were.
Gathered there and and and the older ones in our local gathering were 1 by 1 going to meet off to be with the Lord and how we valued.
When Norman Berry and his wife and brother Blennerhouse at Ernie Wakefield and all these names that young people you've probably never never heard what a rich, rich legacy it was and how we we stood and we hung on their words of the brothers and the sisters. We had them to our homes and and visiting in the meeting room.
One in particular conversation I I have never forgotten was when Brother Blenner Hassett from Montreal, we were fairly all poor in Palmyra. He didn't seem poor. He drove a nice car, had a nice suit and he was a fairly distinguished brother and he had ministered to us in the meeting and we really enjoyed it.
And so we're in the little ante room where you put your coats on and, and his son Stan was with him and helping him on with his coat and, and brother Blenner Hassett is getting the coat on and he's still pretty big man in those days. And we're all standing there listening and soaking this in. And he said, well, he said, you brothers have, uh, have got a good start.
Got the other arm in and then he got his hat on the fedora that that generation used to wear and kind of straightened himself up and he says but it's even better to end well with that he opened the door and off into the into the main winter and I I have never forgotten that brother Blenner Hassett I I don't know if it's gonna really occur to us to have these conversations in glory. I think we're gonna be preoccupied with with with a certain.
Uh, a primary individual there, but, uh, I, I just think it'll just take kind of a look between each other and, you know, we just.
So, so there's one could go on with these kinds of of appreciations of these relationships between older ones and younger ones.
Turn with me, please, to Titus Two, Titus chapter 2. Don't want to spend long here.
OK.
There is a a line of things in the New Testament which speaks of of elders or overseers.
Those that are given a special responsibility in a local assembly.
And it's really not my thought to get into that this afternoon.
But in Titus chapter 2 it really speaks in a general way of aged ones, aged men, aged women.
And so in chapter 2, if you pick it up there, but speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
There was only one as the brother was referring to in the Reading meeting.
In the meal offering only one who was altogether displayed every perfect virtue.
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Always at the perfect time and in the perfect manner.
If it required anger, he gave holy, righteous anger.
If it required gentleness and compassion, that's what there was.
You and I tend to be.
More lumps at times in our meal.
And tend to be specialists, don't we?
And so it's good to be exercised about the things that are not in a spiritual sense, natural to us.
And so is a brother that's one of the older ones in my gathering. This is good for me to be to consider this.
Am I sober or vigilant?
So gravity.
Is there?
Am I temperate? Self controlled?
My sound in faith.
Or am IA specialist in faith and ignore love. Am IA specialist in love and.
Not so much in in faith.
Patients could be. I think it's kind of a word like endurance. I think I read one place where it's kind of the thought of cheerful continuance, right? Maybe that's Vines or someone.
But it's good older brothers to be exercised about these things because we set the tone in the local assembly.
And we're responsible for that.
I I I often repeat the story I from I heard it from Heinz first. Heinz Brinkman.
And I and I, he used to tell it about a young brother and he was newly into the gathering and he was a little professed to be a little confused. And he said, why is it this older brother here is always talking about order and everything is order, order, order. And this brother over here, everything is love and warmth and love. And and the older brother who who was asked the question, he said, well, if you didn't have this brother here.
You wouldn't have order in the assembly. She says that wouldn't be good. But he said if you didn't have his brother over here, you wouldn't have an assembly. And now he's, you know, in his way, he would have that big hearty laugh. But it was a, it's an illustration. We, we don't need to be the specialist guy. And as we get into smaller and smaller situations in many of our gatherings, how needful for us to be exercised to not just have a some pet virtue that we put above the others.
But to let the scripture.
Talk to us, wash us, affect us. The favorite ones that we all tend to talk about in reading meetings and the other ones that we a little more quiet about.
And the sisters too, the aged women likewise that they be in behavior has become a holy women holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers of the home, good, obedient or in subjection to their own husbands.
The word of God be not blasphemed.
I'm not so sure that the scripture has in mind here that.
That there would be a night in the assembly on a Wednesday night or something like that, that there's a, a woman up here, umm, instructing the other women in that way.
I suspect that would not be according to the mind of God, but we did experience in our household when there was an older sister who's not only her children were raised, but her grandchildren were pretty well raised. And she would come home while I was at work and just come in and just say, Christy, I'm here to help you today. And she would just spend hours just helping with the kids and their schooling and all the rest.
And along the way.
There were just little handfuls of purpose, so to speak, just little little Nuggets or little comments that were yeah, I would hear about them when I got home from work or the next day and and still remember them decades later. But how? How important? Older sisters.
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To take to be mindful of these opportunities and this responsibility.
Because the world and all of its influences comes in over washes over people like a flood. And how helpful it is when there's an older sister who has survived all of that, that still has her bearings straight spiritually to be able to graciously and in a side by side manner to be able to instruct the younger mothers, the younger sisters in these practical things that you're not going to hear explicitly.
In a setting like this today.
We encourage the young people.
By the truth and sell it not. I think that's Proverbs 2323. I I think as a young person I got that address fixed in there if I'm not mistaken.
But it's more exercising to me as I get older. Other verses.
Like there's a verse that says.
That a good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children.
I don't think it's talking about our 401K.
It's an exercise, isn't it?
And it's one thing to be able to gobble in the truth because there's a certain thrill and joy of the hunt. It's another thing, year after year, to put one foot in front of the other and seek, with God's help, to walk in it and to retain it, to not sell it.
Says wise men retain riches.
We've been exposed to.
Just I don't know how to what adjective to pick, but we have been exposed to such riches.
Ought to be our exercise to retain it.
Brother Blenner has its comment. It's good to end well.
We read about a king named Esau.
We read that ASA did. I think it says there in the first chapter he's taken up. I think it's in Chronicles, not not the Kings.
And it says he did that which was good and right in the sight of the Lord. ASA did a lot of really good things.
He was very faithful.
And I think he reigned for 41 years, but if I remember right.
But in the 39th year, right around the 38th, 37th year, somewhere in there.
He had.
He had made some decisions which were not according to the mind of God.
He ingratiated himself to the Syrians and he said, hey, we're buddies. I'm paraphrasing. Obviously we're buddies.
You know, here's some things and let's just let's just be, you know, at peace.
And the Lord sent a prophet to him.
And basically reminded a son, he says. He says the eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the whole earth.
He's just looking over the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those who put their trust in him.
That that is, is.
Kind of a would be a kind of a zinger, as we say to ASA. But ASA didn't take it well and he persecuted that profit.
And so we had all those years of going on. Well, it's free exercising.
And it's right after that it says when he was old, he got a disease in his feet.
And he sought, not to the Lord, but to the physicians.
It's kind of sad. There was so much of such value in his life, and then when he got old and his walk and his feet, he broke down. It's a sad addendum to his life.
Not what you and I want.
Want to be exercised whether our feet are still walking one in front of another or we're putting them in a wheelchair or behind a Walker.
That we're walking, in a way to the end that will please the Lord.
Let's turn to Hebrews 12.
A pretty well known passage.
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And it speaks about one of our privileges as having God as our Father.
And being children in God's family and the privilege is called chastisement. And I it, it sounds kind of harsh in the English language. It's not a word.
That I suppose people use in a very friendly way. But in the Scriptures we know what chastisement is. It's to teach through discipline.
And this is one of our privileges. Matter of fact, if we are without chastisement where it's proof that we're not even God's children, then are you ******** Not sons or not children?
And it's just so humbling that the God of glory.
Who spoke and sustains all the worlds?
Would interest himself.
Not just in the outward aspects of our life.
But even with our our moral fiber, our our, as the brother read in Psalm 19 this morning.
The meditations of our heart and the thoughts in our mind, it's important to him.
It's really important to him.
And he is willing to go to such great extent.
To put us through our paces, to put us through a customly designed curriculum in his school. My course is different from from yours because he's so invested and interested.
In our spiritual growth and then what goes on inside of our hearts.
And so in Hebrews 12 as as I I know it's often been taken up, but there that I have seen three possible responses to this chastisement amongst a child of God.
And in verse five it says, You have forgotten. The exhortation which speaketh unto you is unto children, My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, or faint when thou art rebuked of him.
So we can.
And though it says I think in job that.
Man is born under trouble like the spark. Fly upward.
And affliction is our portion. It's not just the older ones, but as we go on in life.
Clearly, there are so many disappointments.
There are so many things that come our way that left to ourselves, we wouldn't check that box. We wouldn't choose that affliction. We wouldn't choose that restraint. We wouldn't choose what took place in our family in that situation or in our work or in our health.
But in verse, in verse five, the Tennessee is just a faint under it just to just oh, I just can't.
No, that's not what we wanna do.
And further on down.
I'm sorry in in verse 5, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord. To despise chastening is isn't so much to hate it, it's just to think that it's just an everyday occurrence.
These kind of things happen.
Sometimes the Lord will speak to us through a circumstance He allows in our life and He wants us to listen. And we saw all those kind of things happen to everybody, and we just counted a small thing and ignore it.
But down further on in the chapter.
It says in 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. This is such a wonderful verse. Then it says, Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down. Don't faint, lift up the hands which hang down.
The oldest brother in our in our gathering in Maine for many years was a man named Ike Withy.
Like at one time was about 6 foot tall, about my height as I understand it. About the time that I met him he was really stooped over and much shorter and just wrapped his body racked with leukemia and he lived in almost a constant fever.
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And sometimes we would go and break bread at Ike's home with him because he couldn't get out. And then he was in the hospital. And I, I, I realized after some time that different ones of us would go and we'd sit kind of by his bedside and we'd put issues before him and they were of a concern. And he gave us counsel from his bed. Sweet and gracious man. But he used to joke. Not so much joke, but he used to laugh.
Like was a little manner when he laughed, he's laughed with his whole entire body.
And his mouth would just go wide and he would just shake all over. He was a happy man.
And he would say, you know, one of his sayings was, I'm not looking for the undertaker, I'm looking for the upper taker.
He loved say that, but in more serious times he would speak about the after yield. He says, brother, I'm looking for the after yield. That was an intelligent thing to say. He was exercised about why the Lord had laid him down like that and put him through that. He was not bitter. He didn't excuse that. It's just Oh well, you know, I'm just one of the people that gets it. He didn't faint under it. He was exercised by it. And one of the beautiful things about this scripture to me is that.
It doesn't say. You need to figure out the answer.
We've had some things take place.
Amongst brethren we've known.
It's just the most I cannot begin to understand why the Lord allowed such a thing to take place.
But I look forward to the time when the hidden things will be brought to light. And in the meantime, as Wisdom's children, we justify him because Wisdom is justified of all her children.
And I say, I don't know the answer yet, but there's an answer. There's a reason the Lord allowed this. I don't have the answer to that situation. I'm exercised about it. It was another family, another place, a close friend. And it's so beautiful that you get the after yield, not necessarily when you say I've got the answer, but you're exercised about it.
Beautiful thing.
The waves come through our lives.
In the assembly.
Maybe in our marriage, maybe with our children.
Maybe in our work, our health.
The waves that come and they come.
And you maybe don't know another person well, but you know that they've had their their waves have come crashing across them too. And more and more is when I have a chance to visit and you see someone who's older, who's been in the pathway and stayed at the Lord's table and seems to be going on as a happy in the Lord. You just, you just say, man, that's you just have an appreciation for the spiritual battle and warfare that goes on. And you appreciate that person, whether you know him very well or not.
As a survivor, you go up high and you climb in the mountains and you get a bound tree line, you know, in places like Colorado and so on. And you'll see a tree out there and you see it was a sunny day because that's why I'm out here. It's a nice day that trees out there 365 days a year in the horrific weather. And it looks a little gnarled, you know, and, and that's, that's the way we can be, but we don't have to be.
Unhappy.
We don't certainly want to be bitter.
And if it's a tendency that all those of us, if I include myself in the senior number that need to be specially mindful about, I feel it's the horrible weed in the human heart of bitterness.
And there aren't many that I can think of, many places in the New Testament where it tells us to look at our brethren diligently.
But it says in Hebrews looking diligently. It's later on the same chapter, as a matter of fact.
In verse 15, looking diligently, lest any man fail or fall from the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.
If you know older people in your extended family or.
For whatever you're visiting a nursing home, this is such a common, common condition. Older people, you know, when we're young and things aren't working out in middle school, we say, well, next year I'll be in 9th grade, I'll be in high school and be a whole different deal. Umm, I'm OK, I'll be in high school soon. And then you go through high school and oh, I'm not happy now, but.
00:40:19
I'm gonna go off and get a job or I'm gonna be in college soon. Be a new deal.
And then you just people just keep playing that forward.
And then your spouse dies, and then your health goals, and then they will you into a place where you don't have control anymore. And it's a sinking feeling that this is the last place I'm ever going to live.
And there's no more next. There's no more earthly hope.
And how do we take that? How does a person take that?
And you can see sometimes that the human heart absent from the softening and sanctifying effect of the Spirit of God and a believer. It just gets harder and harder and bitterness sets in.
Can happen amongst us as Saints too. To fall from the grace of God. I worked as a Carpenter when I was young and the boss used to say.
You'd say, oh Brucey, I don't want to hit my thumb with a hammer. I might fall from grace.
In other words, he would he would lose his immediately lose his temper and, and and swear or something to say a bad word that's I learned later on. It's not what it means to fall from grace. The fall from grace is to lose the sense of my soul that God is for me. God is for me. He's for you too, and he's for you with all that he has all the wisdom and love. God is for me and to lose that sense that my circumstances and my days, the curriculum.
That he puts before me in my in my life. School is not orchestrated by someone who knows me, loves me and has nothing but the best for me is to fall from the grace of God and bitterness comes in and it's defiling.
And we see that a disappointment.
And I'm in my 60s and and my child is in their 30s. And then they get discouraged and something happens and they leave the Lord's Table.
And then this happens and that happens in.
And what happens in the parents? The older ones sometimes follow the younger ones out.
And that's just one example of many things that happen where we don't just absorb the wave and look past the foam, so to speak, and just say, well.
This is this. This is the Lord's mind for me. It was the Lord's mind for me before. It's the Lord's mind for me today. And humility press off.
Brethren, there are, our time is up. There are closing. Second Corinthians chapter 4.
There are prerequisite prerequisites.
In the word of God for oversight in the assembly.
And sometimes I think that in some gatherings in their zeal.
Those prerequisites for oversight are applied to every brother and every sister.
Because failure has come into someone's life.
In Romans 12 and I, we don't have time to develop this, but it says if any man prophecy and whether it's a sister prophesying to the younger sister in the home, it doesn't say let him prophecy according to the proportion of success or the proportion of gift. It says according to the proportion of faith.
And it's an extremely valuable thing to have failed in something and judged it and owned it and understood it and pondered it and gotten the good out of that. And to be able to speak from that place of brokenness and humility about that thing, just leave it. Leave it there. Otherwise there will be complete silence.
Oftentimes in the assembly in Second Corinthians chapter 4 just to close.
Verse 15 All things are for your sakes.
That the abundant grace might, through the Thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God, for which 'cause we faint not, but though our outward men perish.
The inward man is renewed day by day, old and young.
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For our light affliction.
Which is but for a moment worketh for us far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
The things formed in a Jacob in those last 17 years in his life.
The exercises formed in David when he gave his last words.
The exercises of you and me, when we ponder things that are 30 or 40 or 50 years ago and get it right in our hearts and minds before the Lord, it has moral value. It's a value to Him.
And these things, this work that goes on inside our hearts, because it's the councils of the hearts that are manifested at the judgment seat of Christ, among other things, the council of Lahar, but it works for us in exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Tim Roach
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I want to welcome everyone to the Gospel Meeting this evening, and let us start by seeing Hymn #10.
There's a Savior on high in the glory, a Savior who suffered on Calvary's tree. A Savior is willing to save. Now as ever, His arm is almighty, his love great and free. Oh come now to Jesus. That dear loving Savior receive him this moment and peace shall be thine verse 2.
That dear, loving savior.
Lived in the glory this world wants, Rejected and Nathan.
Some weeks ago I was in the accountant's office and I went in to sign some papers. And when we went into the office, the accountant's wife, who was the receptionist, was at the at the desk and she was on the phone and she was talking to her insurance company and she was this lady was suffering from cancer and she's had it for some time and they've tried different.
Medications and treatments. And this was her last hope of this medicine for the insurance to to approve. And she was talking to them on the phone and getting the message that they would not approve her for this new drug. She hung up the phone and she was sobbing and crying and she says, I think God just wants me to die.
Over in Africa.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the DRC.
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There's a family. The army came into their house and started shooting. The parents and the children, two boys aged about four and six, hid under the bed.
And they escaped the the killings. One of the soldiers came back in and checked and found them.
The soldier took them to, the commanding officer said. What should I do with these two boys? He was told. Take them out and shoot him.
He took the two boys and handed them off in compassion. He handed them off to.
His friend and his friend took them down to Malawi, to the refugee camp there, and abandoned them.
Two boys, young children.
We had that verse quoted today. Surely as the sparks fly upward, Even so, man is born to trouble.
If there is a God, why does he allow suffering?
Before creation, God chose to create people with whom he could have fellowship, and fellowship is important to God.
And will find that suffering and fellowship will find that they go together. And we know from Ephesians chapter one and verse six that God chose certain ones to be holy and to give praise and to give glory to God. God wanted to have fellowship with man.
Before that, one of the first things that God created.
Was the angels and the angels were created to serve God.
And in Job 38 we find that after God created the angels, he laid the foundations of the earth.
And while God created the heavens and the earth, all the angels were there, and they rejoiced.
At that time.
After this.
The suffering began.
Maybe we think that we are the only ones who suffer, but God knows what it is to suffer as well. He has suffered disappointments. He has suffered discouragements. He knows what pain is, and rejection and sorrow.
This God who created the universe.
Began to suffer.
Second Peter Chapter 2.
We'll read a verse here if you look back in Isaiah chapter 14.
We find Lucifer.
If you go to Ezekiel, you find the King of Tyrus.
And both of these personalities represent Satan.
And Satan was the chief of the angels, and he was going to attempt to overthrow the power of God. Satan wanted everything for himself.
And at some point in time, God was disappointed.
With some of the angels that had sinned, and we read about them in Second Peter chapter 2 and verse 4.
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell.
And delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment. Here some of the angels have sinned, and they were cast out of heaven. They were cast down to hell, and they were delivered into chains of darkness, and they reserved there for their day of judgment.
The devil got started early.
There was a Christian girl.
She grew up in an assembly.
And we were at. We went to their home every summer with the gospel tent. We were in that area. We go to their home. Her family was, I'm not sure if she was at Lord's table or not. But she was very accustomed to coming to the meetings. She was there all her life when we were growing up, as as young people. Well, it started to be that she when she came into the meeting room and she'd sit down the chandelier above her.
Would start to sway.
This girl had been dabbling in the demonic in the occult.
Later on, she left home and she got deeper into the occult.
And she started calling up the dead and speaking to the familiar spirits, and she called up her dad, who had died, and she was talking. She thought she was talking with him, She told her mother, Come and I'll call up dad and you can talk to him.
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The mother refused, obviously.
Seton.
Can attack you.
If you come to the meetings, you're raised in a Christian home. You've heard the gospel so many times.
If you return your heart against God, Satan will take over and he will control you.
I don't. That girl was never saved.
God suffered with the angels way back and where we read about in Peter 2.
And he still suffers today as a result of all sorts of demonic activity. Genesis 1.
Let's read Genesis One verse 2 and in this verse we find that the earth was without form and void.
And darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face.
Of the waters. In this verse we find that the earth was without form and void, or you could say it was waste and empty darkness covered the face of the waters which covered the earth.
We know that God did not create the heavens and the earth in a chaotic condition as He found it in this verse, because we know that in Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 11 we're told that He made everything beautiful.
The earth wasn't beautiful at this time, but he made it beautiful. But something happened. Isaiah 45, verse 18 says he created it not in vain, that is, he didn't create it waste and empty like is found in Genesis one. Verse two, he didn't create it that way. He created it to be inhabited. And so we can't imagine what the spirit of God must have been thinking as he was moving through the darkness over the waters of judgment.
And God was surveying.
The state of confusion and chaos and emptiness into which the world had become.
God was suffering and God suffered all the way up to the time of Genesis chapter one and verse 3.
Where we find that God was working on his plan and he was going to.
And in six days we find that he fixed up the creation that had fallen into chaos.
And on day one in Genesis one verse 3.
God said let there be light and there was light.
God was preparing the earth again so that man would have a place to live, a place where God could have fellowship with man.
Let's read in Genesis chapter one verse down to verse 26.
God said, let us make man an hour image after hour likeness. This is God, but he's using the plural term of us and our How can that be? Well, God, that word in that verse, it's plural.
There are three persons, 3 distinct persons that make up one God.
There's not one God that is revealed in three different characters.
The three Persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
And these three persons are one God. And so on day six, God made man in their own image. And we know, we know that God made man with the Spirit, because God was going to have fellowship with man. We heard this afternoon, thank God he came down into the Garden of Eden in the mornings, and he could enjoy a time of fellowship with Adam.
And Eve. And there was a good fellowship that he had, and God was glorified.
In that fellowship, well, Satan was looking on. Satan saw the fellowship that God was having.
With man and it was a good fellowship, and Satan became jealous. He wanted that glory.
To himself.
And Satan, he came into the garden with his own plan, and he was planning to destroy the fellowship that God had with man. Well, Satan deceived the woman. She disobeyed God, She ate the fruit that she was told not to eat, and she gave the forbidden fruit to Adam. And together they disobeyed God.
From that moment on, sin reigned in the heart of man.
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By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.
And so Adam's sin brought death to the human race.
The fellowship of God with man was broken.
And Adam began to die, and the suffering of God was increased.
As man was separated from God because of his sin, Let's go to Genesis chapter 6.
Well, the sin of man was intensified, The violence grew, grew worse and worse. And God, this God who suffers, he looked down from heaven.
And in Genesis 6 verse five God saw the wicked that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.
And it grieved him at his heart.
For the suffering of God was too much, and in his grief God said, I am sorry I ever made man.
I'm going to destroy him off the face of the earth.
And so it was in the days of Noah. The waters of judgment once again covered the earth.
Now the long-suffering of God.
The long-suffering of God is not willing that any should perish.
And so God made a way of escape, he told Noah. He says go build a big boat.
Big enough for all the people.
And then all the people were invited.
To escape the judgment that was coming on the earth with the flood.
Hebrews 11.
After God told Noah to build the boat.
Noah took him 120 years to build the boat. And I believe during that time of 120 years he was telling people, warning them about the the judgment that was coming. And and he was, he began to tell everybody the good news of salvation from the coming flood that was going to destroy this wicked world. And we're told that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Well, and what was his message? I'm sure he was telling them, you have a wit, you're a wicked.
Sinner you have a wicked, sinful life, but whosoever believes may come into the boat.
And be saved.
The offer went out to everybody.
But Noah and his family were the only ones.
Who took the needed steps of salvation?
They simply walked up the plane and got on the boat.
They believe God. They obeyed God who is simple and they were saved. Hebrews 11 verse 7.
By faith, Noah being warned of God, of things not seen as yet.
Moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by which he condemned the world.
And became heir of righteous of the righteousness which is by faith.
God is not willing that any should perish, and so God really suffered when mankind rejected His offer of salvation from the judgment.
And he had to destroy this man off the face of the earth.
Oh, how God suffered at that?
The love of God that is rejected will ignite the wrath of God.
Which demands God in his sovereign righteousness to send the lost Sinner into the lake of fire.
Genesis. Let's go down to Genesis 11.
The Creator God. When the flood was over, he put Noah and his family back on the earth in a new beginning.
But the heart of man, it continued to be at enmity with God and.
And after many years, man turned away from God and began to worship the sun and the moon and the stars. They began to worship the creation rather than the creator. And so they went out and they built the Tower of Babel to reach the creation that they were worshipping. And we can read about this in Genesis Chapter 11. We'll read from verse 6.
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And the Lord said, Behold, the people is 1.
And they have all one language. And this they begin to do. And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to let us go down. There's the US again, that's God, let us go down. And there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city, therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord therefore confound the language.
Of all the earth. And from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth, the Lord did scatter them abroad upon the face of the earth. The heart of God was suffering again as he mixed up the languages of man and dispersed the people throughout the world.
See, Fellowship with God cannot happen in the presence of sin.
And so man was separated further and further and further from God.
Sin continued to grow, and it continued to control man. So God was going to test man in another way. And so out of this sea of wickedness and idolatry, he chose a man, Abraham.
And his seed Isaac and Jacob, and the nation of Israel. He chose them to be his special people. And God gave the nation this. He gave this nation of Israel. He gave them every opportunity. He gave them every advantage to be blessed with having the fellowship of God.
God even instructed Moses and told him to build a Tabernacle, a place where God could dwell with his people.
And but they didn't want it. Israel didn't want the fellowship with God, and they turned away from God. God had just given them a few commandments to keep, and he gave them some rules for their worship to be in fellowship with God. But Israel turned away from God.
They couldn't keep those laws.
Romans 323.
And we know that man man in his own strength and in his own efforts, man cannot please God. In Romans 323 says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
With this test of Israel, God proved the futility of man being able to approach to God.
By good works.
God suffered much during this test with his people, Israel.
They did not appreciate God's love, and they didn't appreciate God's will until they turned every man to his own way.
And So what was God gonna do now?
It was at this time that God decided to send his Son, Jesus Christ into the world to become a man and to be with his people, Israel.
And he came to be a man on this earth. He came unto his own.
And his own received him, not they didn't want him.
God suffered again when his the people of Israel rejected his son.
Jesus Christ. Then he suffered as a baby when Jesus.
Came into the town and there was no room for them at the end.
He suffered during the temptations by the devil when he was in the wilderness and he suffered hunger because he would not obey the commands of Satan and and then and we know that Jesus suffered, we're told he suffered for righteousness sake.
They accused him of blasphemy.
They tried to stone him to death.
They spit upon him.
They put thorns on his head. They beat him with a stick.
Then they put that stick in his hand, and with that crown of thorns on his head, they mocked him, this man who had been beaten brutally and hung on the cross. And they mocked him.
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And they said, this man, look at him. This is the king of the Jews.
God suffered.
When he saw sin at its worst, they hated his son.
They rejected him.
And at this point the long-suffering of God was about finished. And so God was ready to pour out his indignation and His wrath and the judgment of damnation on the heads of sinful men and women.
But who are these sinful men and women?
I'm afraid.
With a group of this many people.
There's always at least one.
Are you listening?
There's always at least one.
Who has turned away from God in his heart.
And I'm afraid that's you.
You are that sinful Sinner.
And your sin has raised the anger of an holy God. Let's go to first Peter chapter 3.
Up to this time, God was suffering because sin had separated man from fellowship with God.
But now now a change was going to take place, and the time had come for Jesus Christ to suffer 4 sins in first Peter 318. For Christ also hath suffered 4 sins, the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God.
God has prepared a way of escape for you.
John 14 Six Jesus is the way of escape. John 14-6 says, Jesus says I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man comes to the Father but by me. Will you come to the Father tonight? Will you come through Jesus Christ? Jesus is waiting for you to come to him tonight. He's waiting.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
What will you believe?
What are you going to believe?
I can see some people still aren't listening.
Trying to ignore the gospel.
What is it that you're going to believe? Why is it that you are ignoring the gospel? Why is it that you want to leave your family and run off to some other place where you don't have the influence of Christianity?
You need to believe on the Lord Jesus, believe that you are a Sinner and believe that Jesus suffered and died on the cross as your substitute because of your sin and believe that God hath raised Jesus from the dead and you will be saved. It's so simple. It's as simple as Noah walking on the boat obeying God, believing God and his family was saved. That's all you have to do is believe God.
Accept what he says, believe that you're a Sinner, and accept him as your Lord.
And your Savior. Now if you do believe on the Lord Jesus, there's some things that you can have assurance of. And maybe you are here tonight and you you think you're saved, but you're not really too sure. And but if you believe on the Lord Jesus, you can know that you have eternal life. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So you can know that you have.
Everlasting life. And you can know that you're a child of God, and if you're a child, you're not going to be disposed of when you sin. God loves you. You you may come under His discipline, but He loves you. You will not lose your salvation. And you can know that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, has washed away all of your sin.
You can know that you will never perish, You will never be punished by the wrath of God for your sin because Jesus took all the punishment. And now you are free to enjoy the fellowship of God because the sin which had separated you from God.
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Has been taken away.
And the sin which has caused God Southern much suffering has been taken away and been put as far away as the east is from the West. It is no more. You are forgiven, you are justified, You are on your way to heaven. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and your minds. And we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
You can have peace tonight.
I think we need to realize that.
When you are saved.
You are not promised. We are not promised a life without suffering.
And as you go back home after these meetings.
You, you you're you're going to need to face the trials and suffering that you left back at home.
Some of you perhaps have some marital disputes.
And you just can't get along with your wife or your husband. You can't agree. And you're always at each other.
Maybe you're gonna go back to some financial suffering and distress. Your credit cards are built up too high. You don't know how you're gonna pay them off. But you still need to eat. You still need to feed your kids and and clothe them. And you're you're having troubles. Maybe you're suffering from some injury or disease that nobody knows about and you're suffering.
And then there's the pain, the daily, never ending pain. And you can't get away from it.
Everyone's here today and everyone looks healthy and happy and most people are.
But many are suffering.
Many of you know all too well what suffering is, and so I want to encourage you to remember to pray, as David did in Psalm 23 verse four. I will fear no evil because you are with me.
Then we're reminded in Isaiah 53 and verse four that surely Jesus has borne our griefs and has carried our sorrows. Jesus is the man of sorrows, and he's a Quincy with grief.
The Lord Jesus as he goes through your trial.
He'll go through that. As you go through your trial, the Lord Jesus will go through that trial with you. And as that that process goes on, you will get to know Jesus better. And we're told in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 10 says that I may know him.
In the fellowship of his sufferings, and so as we said earlier.
The fellowship and the sufferings they go together.
Jesus, Jesus has suffered so many things.
That he's able to identify with you and your sufferings.
And so, if you have suffered with Christ, you can be sure that if you suffer with Him, you will also be glorified together with Him.
The suffering of redeemed man.
Will not cease until God stops suffering.
When will this be?
After sin and death and hell and Satan and all the unbelievers have been cast into the lake of fire. That's when the suffering will cease. Where will you be? Will you be one of those who are with Christ in fellowship with him, without suffering? Or will you be the one who walks out without Jesus?
And you will suffer for eternity.
Well.
There's some good news that we've had.
Christ is the Savior of sinners, the one who has suffered on the cross.
Has taken your suffering for you.
But this good news comes with a warning.
Jesus is here tonight looking at you.
He's looking for you.
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He's looking for the lost Sinner.
You can whisper.
You can ignore what I'm saying.
But Jesus is still here looking.
That's you. He wants to save you tonight. Will you trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior tonight?
If you go out that door without Jesus, his eyes are looking at you.
Jesus eyes will be looking at your back as you turn away.
From him and walk out that door without Jesus Christ.
And you walk out of his presence.
Don't leave this room without Jesus. Don't make him suffer anymore.
Because of your sin, if you make Jesus suffer like that by walking out.
On him.
His sovereign righteousness demands that you must be put into hell and cast into the lake of fire, where you will suffer forever and ever in torment. And we read the smoke of your torment will rise up forever and ever.
There is no end of suffering in hell.
Right now, there is still a way of escape for you.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, will cleanse you from all your sin, and you will have everlasting life.
That's the gospel tonight.
Believe on the Lord Jesus.
As we why don't we sing in closing?
First, I want to sing #13.
Man of sorrows.
Man of sorrows, what a name.
For the Son of God who came ruined, sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah. What a savior.
Jesus is the man of sorrows. He was acquainted with grief. He suffered so much all through time he suffered.
And he suffered for you.
Teen.
We have time. Maybe we could sing also #4 Christ is the Savior of sinners and as we sing this hymn.
I want you to recognise that Jesus, the man of sorrows, was crucified for you. I want you to ask the Lord Jesus to save you tonight.
Nsnoise.
To let anyone know that if you are uncertain of your salvation, maybe you're not saved, or maybe you're not sure, come and talk with me. I'll be glad to discuss salvation with you.
Communication: Talking and Listening
Children—John Kaiser
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.
They're waiting for that clock up there.
I'm gonna go by mine. Good morning.
That didn't sound very convincing. Good morning.
That's better. It actually is a good morning, you know that? How many, how many this morning when you woke up you felt like getting up? Hold up your hand. If you felt like getting up this morning, you know, that's good. There's a lot of mornings I wake up, I don't feel like getting up at night. This morning I went to bed early last night and this morning I actually felt like getting up. And that's a good thing too. And then you looked out the window this morning and how many felt like going outside this morning?
Different story.
It's raining, but you know, I like to some sometimes when I have Sunday schools like this, I like to start.
With a hymn that I remember from my childhood. It's not on the hymn sheet and it's not in the hymn book we normally use. And some of you may have never heard it before, but I'm gonna start singing it, and I'm gonna expect those who remember it to sing it with me.
But before I sing it, I want you to think about why it's a good morning. You know, I was thinking about this morning. I was looking out out the window and thought, well, it is a good morning.
Because I think about the rich man that says he died and he lifted up his eyes.
In hell, Was that a good morning?
No, that was not a good morning for him.
There's nobody here.
That lifted up your eyes in hell this morning. We're here in a day of God's goodness and grace.
Heavenly sunshine. Heavenly sunshine.
Heavenly Sunshine.
Our weather beyond Jesus is mine, blessed Lord Jesus.
You know, I think of another morning.
There was a man one morning.
Maybe he didn't sleep very well.
But he woke up, he got up anyway, and that was the day he was doomed to die.
And they let him out to crucify him.
Beside the Lord Jesus.
And he said to the Lord Jesus, Lord, Remember Me when you come into your Kingdom.
And Jesus said today you'll be with me in paradise.
And all of a sudden, that man's day was changed.
It was a bad morning, but it was a good evening for him.
It's wonderful to know the Lord Jesus.
So let's sing off the back of the song sheet.
It says right at the top children's hymns and choruses. Let's sing a few of these.
And and we'll proceed with some other things. They went here on the front row. Have a choice, yes.
#40.
All right #40.
Jesus also loves me, This I know, for the Bible tells me.
So little one to give me more. They are being fine.
Let's stop for a second. Some people here aren't saying yet this morning. I don't know if they're awake yet or not. So on. The next time we sing the chorus, everybody here who's over 50 drops out. OK, The next time we sing the chorus, Jesus loves me. Everybody here who is over 50, I hope you don't mind my making this little distinction. We'll do. Everybody over 50 drops out and we'll hear the younger folk sing. Alright, doesn't it? Nice to hear you're younger and you're under 50.
All right, verse 4.
Jesus loved me, loved me now when I married me, well watch me where I see some plus me.
Neither are people this thing this morning who were singing that I couldn't hear.
But the Lord Jesus could hear them. Remember that even if even if the speaker in the up front can't hear you, the Lord Jesus can. And he's listening. All right, I have another choice from the back seat back, the back of this hymn sheet. Anybody else here have a choice? Yes. What number?
That 1 #46 #46.
Glad TIDINGSIBRING glad tidings. This word tidings that big word tidings just means news, Glad news or good news. I bring that Jesus has come to save me.
#46.
Now that kind of goes with a verse that we sung earlier.
So I enjoy and and this we sung #40 and verse three says Jesus loves me though I'm bad. Does anybody here who's ever been bad? Hold up your hand, please.
00:10:07
Yeah.
Sometimes we don't wanna hear hold our hand very high.
But the fact is the older, the older we get, the higher we feel like holding it. We know Jesus loves me though I'm bad. And then this, this hymn we sang, it says and he wants all the girls and he calls and he calls all the girls and he wants all the boys to, to trust in him and have all their sins now washed away. Wonderful to have all our sins washed away.
You say, how does that happen? Well, the Bible tells us the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleans us from all sin.
And we have to take God's word for it because it's God's work. He, he, he figured it all out. He provided the Savior, the Lord Jesus, and he takes care of the sins that we can't take care of. Now we have time for one more.
Any more choices on the front row?
You already already chose one. Anyone else?
I'll give a choice to someone else where no choices on the front row.
Anybody else have a choice? This is your chance.
41 all right.
You know this was.
I had a son, his name was Joseph.
And he went to be with the Lord Jesus when he was six years old.
And this was his favorite hymn.
#41.
Let's pray.
Now.
There was.
A memory verse in the Sunday School paper last week. I wondered if anybody here knows what that memory verse was. Anybody in the front row know what that verse was?
Do you know what is it?
Very good. Can anybody else repeat that verse? Anybody on the front row? Do you know that verse?
Go ahead.
You want me to help you? I get my Bible because my memory is not that good.
I'm glad that I'm glad that we agree what the verse was. That's always a comfort to me.
Umm Psalm 86, verse 7.
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Now do you want to say the verse all right in the day?
Very good. Anybody else? Go ahead.
Very good. Anybody else?
Behind me. Oh, you say the verse. Let's go in the day.
Very good.
Very good. Anybody else OK?
All right, very good. Anybody else? I got bad eyesight. So if I need if I need to see something, people are welcome to help me. Anybody else want to say the verse? OK, I'm going to give you 1 little inducement here.
I brought along some ribbons and anybody who says the verse this morning gets to come up to this table afterward and pick up Choose a ribbon.
Anybody else wanna try?
Anybody else wanna run a rabbit?
All right, we're gonna talk about this verse now. It says Psalm 86, verse seven. In the day of my trouble, I will call.
Upon.
Thee call upon thee. Who's the the person here.
Who is it? God. Yeah. Just think of that calling God now I've got here in my pocket.
Something that I don't own. I had to borrow this. I'm a free man, but I've got a cell phone here.
Can I call God on a cell phone?
So, well, you know, if I spoke into the cell phone, you think God would hear me. Yeah, he did. God hears everything. But this is not how you call upon God. You don't need a cell phone for that. Isn't that nice?
You pray, absolutely. That's what we're talking about. Praying very important, it says here.
In the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee. I will pray. Yeah, anyone who here ever has trouble. You ever have trouble?
Boy, some people have awfully good lives here.
You know, if you have an ex, if you haven't experienced trouble or recognize trouble, you will given any time in this, in this world, because we as we heard the meeting yesterday, man's born into trouble as the sparks fly upward and we have days of trouble. We have good days. We have days where things seem to go OK and then days when we're distressed, we have trouble. Says on the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee. Now what is the use?
Of praying to God.
What?
To wash away your sins with his blood. That's a good reason to call upon God. But let me ask you another Let's think about this.
Why do we talk to God? Why do we call upon God? Why do we pray? It's because he.
He saved us. There's more to it than that.
So that he can help us. You're getting close.
I see people with these all the time and they they pick it up and they start punching here and they say hello and what happens?
Sometimes. Anyway, what happens?
Someone calls them. OK, well, that's true. But what when they call somebody else? What is this? Somebody else do? Yes. What's that answer? You know, it's very frustrating when and that happens to me quite frequently, I pick up a telephone, not usually a cell phone. I don't like cell phones. I I have trouble with them. They're too smart for me anyway. But I can I can manage an ordinary phone, but I sometimes I miss dial or I get a busy signal. It's frustrating when I call somebody, I want their attention and they don't answer.
You know, it's wonderful that God always answers. God always answers.
And that's why it says here in the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee, and thou wilt answer me, this person who wrote this, by the way, if you look in your Bible.
00:20:09
Umm, let's turn back to Psalm 86 here, verse 7.
It says Here in the day of my trouble I will call upon thee, for thou will answer me. Anybody looking at your Bible, can you do you know who said these words? Right at the top of the Psalm it says, Who wrote this Psalm?
Who was it? David. Yeah. We know him as David the Giant killer, or King David. David the shepherd boy. David wrote this Psalm. He had a relationship with the Lord.
And so he, he can say in the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee, and thou will answer me. It was two way now. I had thought about earlier about.
Asking somebody what are cell phones for?
Calling.
Is that all? What else?
Playing games.
You know when people invite, When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, I don't think he ever had the thought of playing games with the telephone.
By the way, I don't know you if you're even aware that in background 1876, it's hard to believe the cell phone, the the telephones have been around that long. Over 100 and almost 150 years telephones have been around. In 1856, Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone and he wasn't thinking about playing games. What was the telephone originally for?
And something else.
No, no, Alexander Graham Bell didn't wasn't thinking about texting. What else?
Leaving messages.
Well, sort of. We're still getting not getting the other side here.
Asking for help no, what what's there's there's you know the the these phones here they they're not so distinct as the old phones but the regular telephone if you remember what a regular telephone looked like sometimes they illustrate it this way because you.
Talk into this part and what you listen. Telephones were for talking, speaking and listening.
Which is more important, talking or hearing?
Which is who? Who? What's more important, talking or hearing?
Hearing. I am so glad to hear that. You know, I've actually asked adults, some adult, I can name some names of people I've asked over the years. What's more unto important hearing or speaking? And I've had at least two people tell me, well, they're equally important, no.
Umm, how many ears have you got? 2?
And how many miles have you got? One. Yeah, God gave us two ears because hearing is more important than talking.
We need to remember that.
Hearing is more important than talking. Matter of fact, I'm gonna give you a verse that I think is very significant on this subject. I think I'm done with this. Thank you, David.
Turn to Proverbs chapter 18.
Proverbs, chapter 18.
And verse.
Two.
This is a verse about.
And what we're talking about this morning is a subject called.
Communication. That's a big word, but communication just means talking, listening and talking. It's communication is 2 way. It's something like another word we use.
00:25:01
Something like this other word?
What's this top word on the board here? What is it?
Conversation. But you know, I've, I've been in places where where there was conversation, there was more conversation than communication.
I'll give you an example. This morning I went down to the breakfast room when my little granddaughter was joining in the conversation.
She was in the conversation, but she wasn't communicating too much. We knew she was alive and apparently happy. That's nice. But I I've been in conversations where people are actually speaking the same language and they weren't communicating.
Because neither one was listening to the other person. There's a difference between conversation and communication. And so often we go to God and we tell him what we want, but we're not listening to what He wants.
So that's not communication, that's just conversation. And conversation is good, but communication is much better. Now I'm gonna read this verse and and Proverbs 18.
Proverbs 18 verse two says a fool has no delight in understanding.
But that his heart may discover itself. Now, if you consult another translation, I think it will be helpful to know that this last part of the verse means reveal himself.
A fool has no delight in understanding but that his heart may reveal itself.
Here's a person who just wants to talk. He's not interested in listening. He just wants to.
Express himself and God says that's a fool. You know, this world is full of fools.
You know there, there are a lot of these people that are so-called artists, they want to express themselves. They don't communicate anything worthwhile, but they want to express themselves, says here. A fool has no delight in understanding. Let me ask you a question. If I don't listen, am I gonna understand? No.
You're right. How old are you? That's a great lesson to know when you're four years old.
We don't understand if we don't listen, and we need to listen more than we talk. But what we have in this verse here is a person who is not interested in listening. He just wants to talk. And you see a person who talks more than they listen. What is God saying? That person is a fool.
That hits most of us pretty hard.
It's important to listen.
Now.
I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna start telling a story and see who can tell me who I'm talking about. There was a boy once who lived in a temple, and God spoke to him. Who was he? Yes. No.
Good guess, but it was just a guess.
I don't see the hand, but who is it call out, Samuel. Thank you. I'm glad to hear from way back there, Samuel. Now think about Samuel.
Who was the first person that Samuel ever heard you suppose?
Who do you think for the first person Samuel ever heard? Nope.
Sorry, you had a lot of good answers this morning, but that wasn't one of them.
Who was the first person you ever heard? Probably.
Parents. Which one?
Both. Well, I'll bet you heard your mother before you heard anybody else. Because.
Bible tells, or excuse me, not Bible. The science tells us that babies, before they're born, can hear their mother's voice. And Samuel heard his mother, and I'm sure he heard his parents. And after he hurt his parents, who else did he listen to?
Yes, God. But who is somebody between his parents and God even?
The priest Eli members Samuel lived in the temple. I should probably have asked over here, would have got the answer. Samuel lived in the temple with the priest Eli, and we know that Eli spoke to him.
What I'm getting at is.
God speaks to us, sometimes through other people.
You know, I wasn't able to read my Bible until I was about six years old, but my parents told me about the Lord Jesus. God spoke to my heart through my parents, and God spoke to me through other people, and God speaks through his word. God speaks a lot of different ways. We need to learn to listen. God speaks through circumstances. He speaks through our feelings. He sometimes speaks through dreams. He speaks through events. Romans chapter one tells us that he speaks through creation.
00:30:26
And our big job down here is to learn to listen to what God says. And so when when you have.
Conversation. That's a good start, but communication is better. And there's something even better than communication.
Glad I brought 2 markers.
Alright, I'm, I'm sorry you young people are sitting so far back. What's the third word I wrote up there? Yes.
Communion.
Conversation is good. I heard my granddaughter doing that, but she hasn't got to the point of communication yet. But you know, something even better than communication is communion. When we hear, we speak and we hear and we agree, that's community communion. And God wants us all to come into communion.
Now I'm going to tell you about another person, another person in the Bible. God says God spoke to him.
And he ran. God said go east.
And preach to Nineveh. And this man ran, went, decided to go West. Who was that man?
Jonah, very good, very good. Jonah, it says the word of the Lord came to Jonah and Jonah didn't want to hear it. And it says he went out from the presence of the Lord. Look it up in Jonah chapter one, it says the word of the Lord came to Jonah and he ran from it. He went up from the presence of the Lord. I wonder, you know, we, we have Bibles and we're hearing a Bible conference where we talk about the word of the Lord and we sometimes forget how significant it is.
When God speaks, it says when Jonah turned his back on the word of the Lord, he went out from the presence of the Lord.
Because God's Word and His presence go together.
Maybe you've been sleeping here at this conference.
Maybe you've been indifferent.
What? God's Word and God's presence go together, And we've all been in God's presence because of His Word. God is very jealous of His Word. His Word and His presence go together. And so it says of Jonah that when he turned his back on God's Word, didn't want to obey.
He went out from the presence of the Lord. But there's more to the story than that. You know God.
He didn't forget Jonah. Jonah wanted to forget what God said.
And that's in the first chapter, but in the third chapter, Jonah chapter, uh, excuse me, the 2nd chapter, Oh, I better, better turn to Jonah, make sure I get my chapters straight.
Yes.
The beginning of the first chapter The beginning of the first chapter says the word of the Lord came to Jonah.
And Jonah turned his back, but in the beginning of the second chapter it says then Jonah prayed.
But a lot happened between those two times.
Jonah didn't want to hear the Lord, and So what did Jonah do? Who can tell me what Jonah did?
He went West, right? He went West and he got on a he got on a ship that was going a different direction altogether. And he went down the bottom of the ship and he ended up in the bottom of the ship in the middle of a storm. And the soldiers, excuse me, the sailors threw him overboard and he went into the ocean. And then a fish swallowed him and says then Jonah prayed.
You say?
00:35:02
You could never hide from God. You're right right down there in the belly of the fish. God saw Jonah and Jonah started to talk to God for you. They say, why did Jonah wait so long? I mean, he went in, he went into the boat, he went into the bottom of the boat, he went into the sea, he went into the fish. And it wasn't until he'd been there three days, it says, then says then Jonah prayed.
You think if you were in the stomach of a fish for three days, you'd wait three days before you prayed? I hope not.
I would hope not, but you know, that's the way we are in our hearts. Sometimes we're just so stubborn like Jonah was, that we don't pray when we should. Maybe we feel like praying, but you say no, no, no, I'm just, you say no, I'm not going to do it. Because you see, when we pray, we acknowledge that God is God and that we are not God. We're not in charge.
We are dependent.
We are helpless really. And finally Jonah realized he was helpless. He's in the fish here for three days and he couldn't see any future down there. But you know, he knew about God. He had confidence in God. And you know, the wonderful thing is that the the psalmist that we referred to earlier, David and Jonah, you can, by the way, if you look in in the Bible, you'll find Jonah mentioned in another book of the Bible.
Because Jonah had had previously a relationship with God, he was an established prophet. He.
Jonah, he knew there was a God and that he could pray to God and God would answer. And so it says. Then Jonah prayed. What happened after Jonah prayed? Yes.
The fish spat him out. Yes, I don't blame the fish at all. I wouldn't want any Jonah in me.
But.
God was over the whole thing, and God engineered, He arranged the whole thing because he wanted Jonah. He, God had a purpose for Jonah. Yet God had a purpose for these people, Nineveh, but he also had a purpose for Jonah. Jonah needed to learn.
Obedience and submission, those are the big lessons in life. And you know, no, there's no such thing as communion without obedience and submission. So we have three things up in this board here.
Conversation, communion, com communication and communion. And I'm gonna put one more word up there, but before I do, I wanna tell you, I wanna suggest a little something. We have about 5 minutes left here.
You know Jonah was on a boat.
Umm, anybody else here ever ever been on a boat before?
Yeah, would you like to go on a boat again? OK, now I'm gonna take 5 minutes real quickly here, ask you about a boat.
Now some of you here.
Have seen this illustration.
We're gonna talk about a boat.
You have a chance to go on a boat, on a cruise, on a ride, on a boat. And uh, I, I did that once. I remember the first time I ever remember being in a boat. And maybe it wasn't the first time, but the one is very memorable. I'll tell you why. My grandfather who lived not too far from here in Iowa, he had a mill pond on his farm. He had a windmill and he had a mill pond. And I was down by that pond one day and I saw a boat there.
And the boat was just sitting there on the edge of the pond.
And I thought, well, I'd be neat to get in there and take a little ride just across the pond. So I got I I got into the boat and pushed off from shore and the boat immediately started filling with water.
The boat was totally rotten, but nobody had ever warned me and I did nothing about rotten boats in those days. But I know one thing quick I soon as I saw the water start rising, that boat, as soon as I got it, I I didn't really push off from shore. As soon as I stepped into the boat, the boat started to go down.
And I immediately scrambled out of the boat. I knew that wasn't a trustworthy boat. So is it important to have a boat you can trust? Yeah. Suppose I said, well, you're gonna go first. A, a, a ride in a boat. And we don't know anything about the builder and whether he's had any experience building a boat before. And this captain, this boat, we don't know if he's ever.
00:40:13
Captained the boat before and uh, we don't know if he knows where he's going and we don't know anything about the crew that might be helping him. Though as far as we know they have no experience with boats.
Is that the kind of boat you wanna go on?
What do you think here?
How many Washington would want to go on that kind of boat? Normally speaking, I don't see a lot of hands. All right, we'll try another boat.
Here's boat B.
And we know, we know for a fact that the man, the people who built, the person who designed the boat and the people who built the boat, very experienced. They've done lots of boats before. They've been very successful, very experienced crew, very experienced captain. Oh, and one thing I forgot to say, Bode, far as we know, the captain doesn't even know where he's going.
Vote B. They they have a definite destination which would rather be on boat B.
Yeah, normally speaking. Oh, come on, These people aren't very enthused about cruises here this morning.
Alright, so.
Which, which of these, which of these boats appears more popular, Boat A or boat BB, Right. All right. Now some of you seen this illustration and you've been good sports and played along with it and you're going to be gratified.
To know the name of boat, Boat B.
What about Bode? It didn't sound very good.
The Titanic, you know, some of the young, young people don't remember the Titanic. Matter of fact, there's nobody here remembers the Titanic, but you know of hearing about it.
The Titanic was a boat that sunk on its first big voyage in 1912.
For the famous ship, a beautiful ship, people still talk about it because it was it was the best that man could do at the time.
And it sunk with a lot of famous rich people on it in its first big voyage.
And God told some man to build an ark, says the Lord said to Noah. Build an ark, a boat.
And Noah obeyed the Lord, and that made all the difference. What I'm saying is.
Boys and girls.
Men and women, brothers and sisters, we've got the word of God.
And it makes all the difference in the cruise of life if you trust in yourself, in your wisdom, in your knowledge and your experience. Experience is a great thing, but you trust that you're gonna end up like the Titanic. You can trust the Word of God. God told no what to do, and he did it. And was Noah's voyage successful?
Yes, it was.
Because Noah listened.
To what God said.
Let's listen.
Tools
Address—Jim Hyland
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Start the meeting this afternoon with 267.
A fullness resides in Jesus. Our head fullness abides to answer all need. 267 Let's stand to sing this and if someone could please start it.
We crawled, and production will be on his way.
We are destroyed in Thy rhythm, Willow God.
We know.
One time.
The graveyard.
Of introduction to what is on my heart this afternoon, I'd like to read a portion in Second Peter chapter one.
Second Peter chapter one and we'll read the 1St 4 verses of the epistle.
Simon Peter, a servant, an apostle of Jesus Christ. To them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God.
And of Jesus our Lord according as his divine power.
Hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
Through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises.
That by these she might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. It's not my thought to expound on these first four verses of this epistle, but I'm particularly thinking of this little expression, life and godliness. Yesterday we had a message in the afternoon to those who were older, and I think many who were younger enjoyed what was taken up as well.
This afternoon the message is particularly with a burden to those who are younger.
But you know, no matter where we are in our pathway, isn't it wonderful that God's word is relevant and timely for us?
And I've often thought of the children of Israel when they came to Elam. There were two things provided for their refreshment there in that little Oasis at the end of the 15th chapter of the Book of Exodus. Because we find there there were 12 wells of water. Because the wells in scripture are running water, often speak to us in figure of the spirit of God, and he doesn't give the spirit of by measure. And there was a well for each of the tribes, but there was also something else.
00:05:26
There were three score and 10 palm trees. Why were there three score and 10 palm trees? All the days of your life shall be 3 score years and 10. There's provision for the whole journey. And you know, I was once a young person sitting in meetings like this and I often wondered with all that seemed to be looming on the horizon of life, how I was going to get along through life. And though there's been many ups and downs in my Christian pathway.
I'm thankful that I can look back and say my God has been sufficient. The Lord has brought me through, and I'd like this afternoon as we turn from scripture to scripture to take up some of the provisions that God has made for life and godliness. But before we do that, just to make a couple of general comments on this portion we read, You know, it's often been pointed out, and I believe it's helpful to realize that when you turn to 2nd epistle.
It often brings before us days of weakness and failure, days when things have been given up, and often the truth that has been brought before us in the First Epistle has been given up, or to a great degree turned away from and there's been failure. And so we have Second Timothy. We have the 2nd Epistle to the Ephesians in Revelation chapter chapter 2.
Where they left their first love when the apostle Paul wrote to them, there was a great fervor in Ephesus, and they were able to take in the precious truth that Paul gives them by divine inspiration. But when John writes to them in the second epistle, if I can put it that way, there had been failure coming. Come in and we find here in Second Peter, Peter is writing to those in his day.
Who found themselves in the midst of Christian profession where there had been a great giving up. It's parallel to what we find today, where we have the present condition of professing Christendom and the world. And we find here that it's not so much the fact that we have life that's true. We have life, the very life of Christ. We're partakers of the divine nature if we know the Lord Jesus as our Savior.
But here it's more the life that we live, because we have that life given to us from God.
It's very practical here. And so he tells them that they have in spite of the condition of things.
In which they find themselves, They have all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
And I want to encourage our hearts, because we have all that's needed to live even in these dark, difficult days, young people, they'll never be such a thing as being able to say we can't live for God's glory because of the moral and spiritual darkness that we find even in professing Christendom. No no matter how dark things become, how no matter how difficult things are, no matter what the opposition or the circumstances may be.
The resources that we have in Christ today are the same limitless supplies that have always been available to the people of God. I've often thought of it in connection with when we were in business, because when we were in business we did a lot of field work. We would go out to industries and public buildings and we would service on site their Fire Protection and safety equipment as the law and the insurance required.
But you know, we never went out on a job without the proper equipment. And there were tool kits at the office that would be picked up by those who were going out on the job. There were checklists for the equipment that you were going to need to service those accounts that day. Sometimes, sad to say, we neglected or forgot certain equipment and it was very frustrating to get into the midst of a job and realize.
We didn't have the right tool kit or the right right equipment, but if I can speak in this way, I want to speak carefully. But if I can put it this way, God has given us the divine tool kit so that we can live for His glory here in this world and everything is supplied in that tool kit. If we just open that tool kit with exercise and avail ourselves of the resources that He has given us.
00:10:24
We're going to, very quickly this afternoon, go to a number of scriptures that bring before us some of these tools.
That God has supplied. And as we look at these tools, we can only mention a few things in the time allotted to us. But there are many aspects of each of these tools that God has supplied for us. Again, to go back to the illustration of the tool kits that we had when I was in business, you know when we went out with a ratchet set, it wasn't just one ratchet no or one size no. There was a whole set because we never knew what size we'd need.
You had several pliers, You had some vice grips for certain things, but you also had needle nose pliers. You had some heavy pliers, but some very fine ones. You had all kinds of different aspects of the equipment, sizes and shapes and so on. And God has provided again those things in a spiritual way. And so I trust as we look at these things that we will encourage our hearts and again, not just those of us who are young because you know, we never can say in the Christian pathway we're home free, as it were. In fact, young people don't look at some of us who are a little further along in the path of faith and think it gets any easier.
No. We face perhaps different situations, different temptations, different difficulties than you do.
But they're very real nonetheless. And as long as we're here, there's going to be those things, because we're in a world where Satan is the God and Prince of this world. We're under a world that's still under the effects of the curse, and we feel those things very keenly on a daily basis. And so we all perhaps need to be reminded in our souls of what God has provided in his divine tool kit for us.
Let's go first of all to John's Gospel, chapter 14.
John's Gospel, chapter 14.
And verse 15.
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever.
Even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him.
But ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. The first thing I want to speak of is the Spirit of God. Because, as I said earlier, we have divine life. We have the very life of Christ. But you know that life has no power of itself. The Spirit of God has given us the power for our divine life. It's sometimes been illustrated this way.
But we'll suppose that you have a vehicle out in the parking lot and that vehicle has the best engine that Ford or Mercedes or Chrysler can put in that in that vehicle. And you say, oh, I've got the best engine that money can buy. But you know, if you go out and turn the key in that vehicle, unless you have gasoline in that car, you're not going to have any power. No, there's an unseen commodity in that engine that's going to give it spark and cause it to Rev to power so that you can drive down the road.
And so we have divine life. But the Spirit of God, I say, has been given as the power for our new life.
I remember a young man who came to some gospel meetings that we were holding one time some years ago.
And in talking to some of us after he said, oh, I'd love to be saved, but I know I could never live the Christian life. But none of us could live the Christian life apart from the resources that God gives us. And so the Lord Jesus, in encouraging the disciples before he left them to go to the cross several times in these chapters in John's Gospel, in what we refer to often as the upper room ministry, he encourages them that he is going to send the Spirit of God down.
00:15:00
So that in his absence they can live to please him, live to glorify him, and have power in their Christian, Christian life. And remember this too, that it is the Spirit of God's main function to minister Christ to us. You know, none of us would understand anything of the Word of God apart from divine revelation, and so it's the Spirit of God that brings to us.
The Word of God, the Scriptures, applies them in connection with the circumstances that we're going through.
And makes it good and real at the time. And I want to encourage you in that way. We're going to speak a little later of the importance of God's Word in our lives. But it is important to not only read the word of God, but with exercise. Seek from the Lord that in the power of the Spirit He would make it good to you, give you understanding so that you can walk according to what we you, what He teaches us in His living word.
Why does the Lord introduce the Spirit of God here as the Comforter? You know, Because that's what the disciples needed at this time. You know, the disciples were afraid. We get that at the beginning of the 14th chapter. He had this very chapter. He knew as he looked into the the hearts of that little company around him that their hearts were troubled. They were afraid as they thought of the Lord Jesus going away. But he said, I'm not gonna leave you comfortless. I'm going to send the comforter.
And he's going to be with you and in you. And isn't it wonderful to realize, brethren, that the Spirit of God in the Christian era is given until the rapture, until the Lord comes? He's going to abide with us forever. That's why at the end of Revelation it says, And the Spirit and the bride say come, because the Spirit is waiting for the same thing we are.
He doesn't leave until we leave, and so I say he's here as the power.
For our Christian life, and we're exhorted in various epistles to walk in the Spirit, we can't do it on our own. None of us can live the Christian life except we walk in the power of the Spirit if we don't have time to develop it. But if we were to go back to the Old Testament, part of the blessing of Asher was that he would dip his foot in oil. And we know that invariably oil in the Scripture is a picture of the Holy Spirit.
And when he dipped his foot in oil, what was the result? His shoes would be as iron. That's power. You want power for your pathway. You've gotta dip your foot in oil. You've gotta walk in the power of the spirit. And thy shoes shall be as brass. What's that? Brass is endurance. Because the Christian race is the marathon. It's the race of endurance. Let us run with endurance. The race that is set before us. And then it says, as thy days so shall thy strength be.
We find too. It says in Isaiah at the end of the 40th chapter.
That he giveth power to the faint, and that to them that have no might, he increases strength.
Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall.
You know, there's a lot of young people giving up today, a lot of young people who are saying I just can't do it. But there's power. There's power for the faint. It's a walk in the power of the spirit of God. Now I'd like to go to another resource, another tool that God has provided for us. It's in Titus Chapter 2.
Titus, chapter 2 and verse 11.
For the grace of God, that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness.
And worldly lusts we should live soberly, righteously, and godly.
In this present world, or this present age? Well, the next tool I'd like to focus on for a moment is grace. And so here we find that the grace of God is brought before us. And this is more than just the grace that saves us from our sins. It's true in Ephesians chapter 2. It says by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
And thank God for that grace that saves us from our sins. And if there is someone here this afternoon and you're not saved, all that grace is limitless. God in his grace has extended the day of salvation so that you can be saved. But after we're saved, we need that grace as well. We need the preserving grace of God, and it tells us of all we received, of his fullness and grace upon grace.
00:20:26
Do we need more grace? He giveth more grace. Is it all we need?
My grace is sufficient for thee, and grace here in the book of Titus is a teacher.
It's the grace of God that teaches us, first of all, to deny.
That which is unholy, and not according to the character and mind of God.
Grace teaches us that to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, but it also teaches us something else. It teaches us how to live for God in this world. It teaches us to live soberly, righteously and godly when in this present age that's right now where we are. Because again, I think sometimes the tendency of our hearts, especially when we're younger, is to think well.
The ministry of the Word was good back in the days of the early brethren. It was good for our grandfathers and fathers. But what about the day in which we live? Can we really live for God's glory in this present age? Again, as I said earlier, no matter how dark the day is, morally or spiritually, the resources are the same and we can live for God's glory in this present age. It brings us right down to 2015.
Where we are and we're We're left here a little longer. God's grace and the resources that we have will do the same tomorrow. And when I see a Christian who exhibits godliness in their life, moral piety in their life, I say there's a Christian who understands grace. There's a young brother. There's a young sister who understands and appreciates the grace of God because grace does not give us license to live as we please.
I know there were those in scripture who are referred to as turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.
Or taking license from the fact that God was gracious to live as they pleased.
But they really didn't appreciate grace. They didn't have a true understanding of the grace of God.
If we really appreciate the grace of God, that grace that meets our need, that grace that provides for us even when we failed, then we're going to live in this way. And I want to encourage you to go through the scriptures.
Learn to appreciate. Meditate on the grace of God. You'll find that it will have a tremendous effect on your practical Christian life, and there will be, even unconsciously.
God, Likeness or godliness exhibited in your path through this wicked world, wicked world.
But now let's go back to John's Gospel, chapter 14. I mentioned that we're only going to look at these very quickly.
John's Gospel, chapter 14.
And verse 27.
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Well, here's another thing, and that is the Lord's peace. We didn't develop it when we were in Second Peter, chapter one, but there we found that the apostle Peter spoke of grace and peace being multiplied. And I believe we need these two things, especially in the day in which we live. We've spoken of grace, but now here we have peace.
Now again, this isn't so much the peace of go, the peace with God, that which we receive when we again come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. There's the peace of God that comes from a path, a life of obedience and walking according to His word and His will. But this is something perhaps a little different here.
This piece that the Lord Jesus left with the disciples was the same peace that he had experienced as a man.
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As he walked through this world. As the Lord Jesus walked through this world.
We find that he suffered from every hand.
And not just physically, but he suffered reproach. He could say reproach hath broken mine heart. He was misunderstood. Who was more misunderstood than the Lord Jesus as he walked through this world and spoke for God. He suffered physically in many ways, but he walked through this world with a piece, a piece, the piece of doing the Father's will.
The story's often been told, but there is a painting that is hanging in one of the galleries of Europe.
And though I have been to many of the art galleries of Europe, I have never seen this painting.
But it is a painting that hangs there and it was painted by one of the famous artists of Europe years ago.
In answer to a competition that was put out by one of the nobility. And the competition was for the for artists to come together and to paint a painting each paint a painting of their best depiction of peace, what they felt best depicted peace. And when those paintings were gathered together and put on display, there were beautiful paintings of very tranquil scenes.
There were paintings of quiet water with foul swimming and birds chirping in the trees and so on.
Paintings of beautiful tranquil landscapes and so on. But none of those paintings got the prize for the best depiction of peace. The painting that got the prize for the best depiction of peace was a painting of a waterfall cascading over the rocks and crashing below, with foam spraying up and in front of that waterfall a thin branch of a tree on the shore coming out.
And a bird sitting quietly on her nest of young. And the judges decided that this was the best picture, the best depiction of peace. Because as it has been said, peace isn't found in the absence of danger or trial. It's found in the presence of God. It's found in walking with the Lord Jesus. It's found in trusting him for every circumstance.
And I can't stand here this afternoon and tell you that as you go through life, things are going to get easier, that there's going to be less trials and difficulties. No, I would be less than honest if I if I told you that. But I can tell you that there is a peace, the peace of the Lord Jesus that you can have in walking through this world. And again with these disciples, with troubled hearts, they were afraid, you know, when the Lord Jesus was with them and they had walked with him during his public ministry.
He provided everything that was needed for them. Why, when their hearts were troubled and burdened over the death of John the Baptist, we find that they came and told the Lord Jesus all about it. He listened to them. He knew the sorrow of their heart. He drew them into the desert place to rest a while. A little while later, when the multitude came and they needed something to eat, why He took those few loaves and fishes? And after the disciples had distributed to the multitude.
Very remarkable. How many baskets were leftover? 12 because the disciples were hungry too.
They needed something to eat. There was a basket for each disciple to take away to, for their own enjoyment. And so many circumstances where the Lord had had provided, even when there was a lack of faith on their part. The Lord was there in the asleep in the boat. They could wake him, and he arose and rebuked the wind and the waves, and there was a great calm. But he was going to leave them, and they were troubled as they thought of this. But he says, My peace, I leave with you the same.
With which I could sleep in the back of a boat in a storm.
The same peace that the Lord Jesus could face Pilate and answer him never a word.
Was the peace that he left with the disciples. It's another one of those wonderful tools in God's divine tool kit that has been given for our resource through the through this world. It's not gonna be Peters, never gonna be peace in this world this side of the Millennium. There's never going to be a such a thing as saying there aren't troubled waters both in this world and our circumstances in the home, sometimes in the assembly. But we can go through this world with an inward peace that the Lord Jesus alone can give.
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Now let's go back to the Old Testament, to the 119th Psalm.
Psalm 119.
And verse 105.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Well, here we have the word of God brought before us what a tremendous resource we have in this book. And remember that this book we hold in our hands this afternoon is the only book that's living. It's the only book in this world that's living. It lives and abideth forever. You and I have a wonderful resource to get us through this world.
And here we find that the psalmist says, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.
And a light under my path. This book also contains precious promises.
Again, we found in Peter that one of the resources that he mentions right there in that passage.
As to that which is provided for life and godliness is those great and precious promises.
Because those promises never fail. Maybe there's someone here and someone has made you a promise.
But they failed in their promise often, I suppose most of us, if not all of us here.
Have to hang our heads and admit that there was a time in our lives when we've made promises and we haven't been able to carry out those promises for one reason or another. Maybe we promised too much at the time. Maybe we had the resources when we made the promise, but when the time came to fulfill it, we had somehow lost those resources or they had slipped away. But we have promises in this book that will never fail. Is there a young person here and you're going through some real trial?
Maybe you just feel so overwhelmed and discouraged with life. Maybe someone has failed you.
Go to this book. And in spite of our failure, there's one who never fails. He abides faithful. He cannot deny himself. He's made great and exceeding promises, and all the promises of God in him are yeah, and in him Amen. And then we need guidance and direction for our pathway. There's only one way to have it, and that is by orderly and consistently reading the word of God.
How much is that true of our lives, if we had to answer before God truthfully this afternoon?
Could we all here in the room say honestly that we on a day-to-day basis, orderly and consistently read the word of God? Sometimes I've talked to young people and sometimes those who are not so young as to the fact that they desire direction in their pathway. They say I want to know the Lord's will, but he doesn't seem to reveal it to me. Well, the problem is never on his part.
Because it says in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths, no question about it.
But if that we do not know the will of God for our lives, it's a hindrance on our part in one way or another. And sometimes it's because we aren't orderly and consistently reading the word of God. It's the word of God that, generally speaking, directs us in our Christian pathway. I'll just mention two in passing. We need the word of God in other aspects of our lives too. If we were to back up in this very Psalm, it says wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed thereto, according to Thy word. You know, as believers, we sometimes allow in our lives those things that defile.
Not only that, but just rubbing shoulders with the world. Every day we see and hear things that dull our affections and chill our souls. How are we going to take care of those things? It's by reading the word of God. It's the washing of water. By the word, it's feet washing that the Lord Jesus brought before the disciples in John's Gospel chapter 13.
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There was an older brother at home. He's with the Lord now. But he used to tell us that when he came home from the office at night, in his working days, he needed a good wash And he wasn't talking about soap and water. He was talking about the washing of water by the Word. He'd heard and seen things at the office that he knew defiled. And he loved to open the word of God and let it have its cleansing effect. You know, we operate in a sinful world.
When we come home at night, we need the word of God and it's cleansing effect. But the Word of God is also food for the divine life.
How are we going to feed the Newman? It's the spiritual food that we get from the Word of God.
You know, wherever we read in the Word of God, the subject is always Christ.
It may be the types and shadows in the Old Testament. It's the life of Christ in the Gospels.
It's the principles and the doctrines of Christianity and the Epistles.
It's the full fruition of things in Revelation and his full exaltation.
But you don't have to read very far in the word of God to see that the subject is Christ.
I want to encourage you to read the word of God. In that way, see Christ. As you read through the verses and chapters of Scripture, you'll find that it will feed your soul. You want to be a happy, healthy Christian. You want there to be spiritual growth in your Christian life. You've got to feed on God's Word. When we were young people, we often sang that hymn Feed on God's Word in the morning.
Feed on God's Word at noon, feed on God's Word in the evening to keep your heart in tune. We need it, and we need it every day. Any of us who've raised children know that we didn't feed our children a good, healthy meal on Lords Day and expect it to do them the rest of the week.
No, we tried to provide good, healthy meals on a daily basis. But you know what? Exercise is? My own soul in this regard is the fact that so often we take care to eat perhaps two or three good healthy meals a day and a snack in between times. But how? How do we take care of the spiritual? How do we take care of the new man? Do we seek defeated in the in the same way?
You'll never grow and be a healthy, fruitful, happy Christian in your spiritual life if you don't feed on God's word. That's why Job said in the 23rd chapter of that book, he said. I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. I find that a very exercising statement. Do we really esteem the word of God more than our necessary food? The Lord Jesus said something similar.
To Satan in the temptation, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. And so we need the word of God and we need it each day and let it have its practical effect on on our lives. And it's a lamp under our feet. That is a step. It's a light, it's a it's light for each step of the pathway. It's a lamp under our feet and a light under our path. That is, it shows us where the journey ends and it's sufficient light for the whole journey. This book is as up to date.
All right, I perhaps I'll reword that. It's more up to date than the daily newspaper. It's more up to date than the newscasts of the day. It fits what's happening today, and it'll do the same tomorrow. It's relevant. It's able to answer every question and to guide you in every circumstance of life down here. Now let's go to Ephesians Chapter 6.
Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 18.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints. Now we don't have time to take it up. But if we were to back up in this chapter, as we well know, we have the armor of God. And the armor of God is really, to put it very simply, taking up those things that we have provided for us by God in and through Christ.
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And utilizing them in meeting the enemy and standing fast in the days in which we live.
And it we are to take the armor of God, not so much that we can meet the onslaught or the power of the enemy.
But the Wiles of the devil isn't that interesting. The armor of God is because the devil is a family and a wily foe. Yes, I'm not saying there aren't times when there is the onslaught of the enemy, but I suggest that the enemy is more successful in tripping us up and discouraging us by his Wiles by his subtlety rather than his onslaught. But after the pieces of the armor are listed for us and there are six pieces of the armor.
There's a seventh thing and that's prayer. And prayer is not really a piece of the armor. It's the spirit and attitude in which we take up the armor that which we have in Christ and we utilize it in a in an effective way. And when he has brought before us the armor, then he says praying always with all prayer and supplication in the in the spirit, because prayer is the powerhouse of our Christian pathway.
You know, we listen to God speak through His word, but then we can come and speak to Him.
It's that communication or communion that was brought before us in the children's meeting this morning.
And I know again that the old telephone receivers are perhaps somewhat foreign to the young people here.
But when I was growing up, there were those two parts distinct parts. There was the earpiece and the mouthpiece. You put the earpiece to your ear so you could listen. That's what happens when we open the word of God. God speaks to us through his word. But then there was a mouthpiece as well and you spoke into the mouthpiece. And so again communication or communion is a two way St. and so we listen to him speak to us, but then we can come and speak to him in prayer.
And prayer is the powerhouse of our lives individually. It's the powerhouse of our lives as families. And it's the powerhouse of our lives collectively as gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus. And if we stumble and fall in our Christian pathway, I believe often it's because we haven't utilized this tool from the divine tool kit, the tool of prayer. Are we really men and women of prayer?
We used to sing an old hymn. Did you think to pray this morning? How many of us, and you have to answer truthfully in your heart before God? How many of us spent some time in prayer this morning in by our bed or individually? We cannot expect power in our Christian pathway if we're not men and women of prayer. You know, when I was growing up, I read some of those biographies of great men and women of faith.
And I still do. I enjoy reading about ones that are past generations as well as ones of our own time. But, you know, when you examine their lives carefully, you'll find that the reason that they had power and testimony in their Christian pathway, and why they were so mightily used of God, is because they were men and women who spent a great deal of time in prayer. But it's not just the time we spend privately in prayer. Set aside and.
We need to discipline ourselves to set aside that time, but it's to learn to pray without ceasing, to go forth each day from our closet of prayer to and to keep an open line between ourselves and the Lord. It doesn't mean that we're always consciously speaking to the Lord or saying words, but to go forth with the conscious sense of His presence with us so that we can turn to Him in any situation.
So that there's no hindrance between US and the throne of grace.
You know, I thought of this subject really in connection with what our brother Dawn brought before us the other day.
Those needs that we have. And when it comes to the throne of grace, we're to come at a time of need.
You say I've got lots of needs in my Christian life, needs that nobody else knows about, needs that I can't share with anybody else. But you can go to the throne of grace in time of need. You say I don't deserve it, but it's a throne of grace. Grace is the undeserved favor of God. You have needs. Oh, go to him and keep, I say, that open line between yourself and the Lord and the throne of of grace. He knows our every need. But, you know, prayer is the expression of dependence and confidence, and that's what he wants from each one of his children.
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He wants us to come and own our dependence and confidence. In fact, I think sometimes he works circumstances in our lives or even withholds something from us to bring us to that point where we express our need and our dependence and confidence. And then while we're speaking, he has the answer right there as another portion of the Word of God tells us. Now let's go to Hebrews Chapter 8.
Hebrews chapter 8 and verse one. Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum we have such an high priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens. Well, here's one of the most wonderful resources that we have. We have a living Savior at the right hand of God. The right hand is the place of power and if we were to back up in these chapters in Hebrews we would find.
That he's he's brought before us as our high priest, the one who's living for us to preserve us.
In the path of faith and service again, we don't have to live the Christian life by our own devices. We couldn't.
But to look up every day and avail ourselves of that resource that we have at the right hand of God.
We've just spoken about prayer and the wonderful resource of speaking to the Lord in prayer.
But isn't it wonderful to consider that we have one who's praying for us?
Every hour of every day. You know, sometimes I'm not aware of my the needs I have. Sometimes I forget to pray for my own needs, the needs of my family and those brethren that I know. But there's one who knows my every need, and he never forgets a need. And he's praying for me. And I say he's praying for you and for me to preserve us in the path of faith. But in that regard, then I'd like to notice something else he's doing at the right hand of God. Let's go to 1St John.
Because there's another office that the Lord Jesus is fulfilling. He's our high priest on the one hand.
But here in first John chapter one or chapter two we have something else.
Chapter Verse One, my little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.
And if any man's sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
And so he's praying for us as our high priest to preserve us in the path of faith.
But when we sin, when we fail, He's praying for us to preserve or to restore us.
As our advocate, it's illustrated in the Old Testament where Moses, a picture of the Lord Jesus, went up on the mountain when Israel went out to fight with Amalek, a powerful enemy in the wilderness, A picture of Satan's working on the flesh, seeking to hinder our walk with God through this wilderness world. But the secret of their victory was that Moses sat down on the mountain, a picture of Christ where he is now gone on high.
To fill all things. And Aaron on the one hand came and stayed up one of his hands.
And I know Aaron hadn't been officially put into the priesthood at that point, but I think we see the illustration very quickly. Aaron illustrates to us the high priestly work of the Lord. But on the other hand, there was another man, and his name was her, and her name means purity. And he's a picture to us of the advocacy of Christ. Because when I sin, I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. I have a righteous advocate, and I can't. I'm forgiven and restored on a righteous basis.
I sometimes illustrate it this way if I go against society and I'm brought up to the law.
And the judge listens to my case. He might let me go. If I get a good lawyer or I'm a fast talker, he might let me go. But if I'm really guilty, he's not a righteous judge. But we'll suppose the judge listens to my case and he says, Now, Jim, I know you're guilty and the penalty is thus and so, but I'm gonna pay the penalty so you can go free. Now he's a righteous judge because the the penalty has been paid. The claims of society have been met.
And when I sin, it's just as if the Lord Jesus, in the presence of the Father says.
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I paid for that sin. That's how he can be a righteous advocate. But notice it's an advocate with the Father. His high priestly work is in connection with God because that's power. But his advocacy has to do with the Father, because that's relationship. Some of you have heard me say before that to my own soul at least, this is the clearest verse on eternal security, because I know some of you may have Christian friends who will tell you, well, you know if you sin, you lose your salvation.
If it's said we have an advocate with God, we might well wonder. But when I sin, I don't lose my salvation. But I have to do with my father. It's an advocate with the father. When my girls were younger and they went against me, I didn't bring them up to the court of law or disown them, but they had to do with me. As to family relationships, it shows that when I sin, the relationship is in no way broken.
But I do have to do with God as my father. So this is another one of the one of the wonderful resources that we have.
I'd like to go back to the 119th Psalm for a moment.
So I'm 119 and this time the 63rd verse.
Psalm 119 and verse 63. I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.
I believe one of the wonderful resources that God has provided for us in our Christian pathway are others who desire to follow and please the Lord. Aren't we thankful for companionship that He gives us as we walk through this world, friends and brethren who seek to encourage us in the Lord? Because, as someone has said, our friends, those who we make, our closest associates, they are like the buttons of the elevator. They either take us up or down.
And our friends are either going to be an encouragement and help to us in our Christian pathway or they're going to be a detriment and a discouragement to us. And we find in Scripture that those who chose their friends wisely always found encouragement in their pathway. I remember attending and officiating at the wedding of a young man some years ago, and there was a role of young men on the front who had a special place of honor at that wedding.
And someone said after to me about the groom. They said, well, I can see why he goes on for the Lord.
He chose his friends wisely because that row of young men and I knew the mall well. They were young men who had a similar desire to please the Lord. You know, Timothy, in his day, as bad as things had become, he was told to go on with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. And I believe until the Lord comes, the Lord will provide companionship if we really seek and desire to have friends who.
Are going on for the Lord. He will provide those friends. I know sometimes there have been those who have called been called to go on alone and.
God can sustain them too, but I say I believe there are others, and if you really seek those friends and companions, they're going to be a wonderful help to you. I say it's another one of those tools that God has given us in the divine tool kit. Are you choosing your friends? Well, I'm not talking about those you have to associate with work and at work with at work or school, maybe some you have to work on a project or a team with. But are we like those in the early church? Who?
Being let go, they had their responsibilities, but being let go, they went to their own company. They sought those who had a similar exercise and desire just one more scripture back in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews, Chapter 6.
Again, this is just a sample list. There are many other resources that God has given us. I'm just giving you a sample list. And maybe you can, in your own time, take a notepad and go through scripture and make a list of some of the resources, some of the tools in the Divine tool kit. In fact, I'd be interested down the road to see what some of you might come up with as some other of the resources that God has given us, but just as a last one dimension.
In the 6th chapter of Hebrews verse 18 and that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie.
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We might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope set before us.
Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which generous into that within the veil. Whether the forerunner is forest centered, even Jesus made an high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Well, here we have a hope. We didn't read it in Titus, but grace teaches us something else, something beyond just living soberly, righteously godly in this world. It also teaches us to be looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing.
Of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. And here we find we have a hope set before us.
And we're exhorted to lay hold of it, to make it real in our souls. You know, when I, again, when I was in business, there was no use sending someone out on the job with a tool kit if they didn't utilize it when they got to the job or I myself got to the job. You had to lay hold of those tools. You had to reach into those that that tool kit. You had to lay hold of that tool and utilize it in the proper way. And here we're told to lay hold of this tool, the hope set before us.
Because young people, to keep the whole, the goal in view is what is going to encourage us. God has made us in a way that we need incentive. We need an eye to the future. Faith always needs an object, No such thing as blind faith. Faith is not a leap in the dark. Faith has an object. Paul was running a race and he was pressing toward the mark for the prize. And the prize in the Christian life is always Christ and glory. And so we need to keep this before us and it's a hope unlike any other hope connected with this life.
Which is uncertainty at best. Know the hope we have in Christ is sure and steadfast. It's the only hope that we can speak of in that way. And why is that hope sure and steadfast? Because Christ the forerunner is already entered there, the Lord Jesus having been received back by God the Father. And seated at God's right hand is the assurance that you and I, when the time comes, are going to be there as well. I say it so very carefully and reverently, if God were to refuse me entrance into heaven now.
Availed my Having availed myself of the finished work of Calvary, he would have to banish his own dear Son who glorified him in that work. And that is impossible. That is the security. That's why it speaks of this hope, assurance. Steadfast. We've spoken of these things so very quickly. But there are needs. We have needs, physical needs, spiritual needs. And for those needs, as we've had in these meetings, God has provided everything.
My God shall supply all your need. I know that in its context that refers to temporal need there, and Paul writing to the Philippians.
But let me apply it at the end of this meeting in a broad sense. You have needs. You wonder how you're gonna get along in the Christian path if the Lord leaves us here. Let me say like the Apostle Paul, my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Hebrews 10:9-14
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First two, God is satisfied with Jesus.
We are satisfied as well, number 57.
So far out there in Water Hill.
All ourselves, glory and soul, man.
In the water.
9 verse 9.
Hebrews chapter 10, verse 9 then said, Hello, I come to do thy will, O God, He takes away the 1St, that he may establish the second, by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Every pre standing daily ministry and offering offering often times the same sacrifice which can never take away sins.
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that He had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws in their into their hearts.
And in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Now we're remission of these is there is no more offering for sin, having therefore, brethren, boldness through an end to the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.
Having a high priest over the House of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. Having our heart sprinkled from the evil conscience in our bodies, force with pure water, and let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.
For He is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another to vote, provoke unto love, and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much some more, as you see the day approaching. For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.
But a certain fearful, looking for a judgment, fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. And he that despise Moses law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much more sore punishments the fogey shall he be thought worthy, who has trotted under foot the Son of God, and it has counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified unholy thing.
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And has done despite unto the spirit of grace. For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall under the hands of a living God.
But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions, partly while you were made a gain stock, both by reproaches and afflictions.
Partly whilst you became companions of them that were so used for you had compassion of me and my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven.
A better and an endurance substance. Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which has great recompense of reward. For you have need of patience, that after you have 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. Now the judge shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. And we are not of them who draw back unto petition.
But of them that believed to the saving of the soul.
Just to say before we go on with these verses, that in the seventh verse, which is a quotation from Psalm 40, he says, thence I lo, I come in the volume of the book. And some have wondered what this book is, the volume of the book. And I don't believe it's the Bible we hold in our hands. But there are different books in Scripture and you always have to keep them in their context. And I suggest that the book that is referred to here is the Eternal Councils of God.
Because it takes us back to a past eternity and it shows very clearly in these verses.
That the work of Calvary and the plan of salvation was number afterthought with God. You know, in business we often have what we call Plan A and Plan B. And if plan A fails, then we have to come up with Plan B. But God had in the past eternal councils. The Godhead had already, if I can put it this way, discuss the matter. The matter had been taken up. And it's like it says of the Lord Jesus in the book of Peter, that Lamb who was verily foreordained before the foundation of the world.
So it wasn't that God ordained the sacrifices under the Levitical order of things, and then that didn't workout and nobody could keep the law, and those sacrifices didn't put away sin and so on. And God had to come up. I speak reverently with another plan. No, those sacrifices, as we said yesterday, into the heart of God pointed forward to what had been in his plan from a past eternity.
That in the IT had already been written in the volume of the book, that at the right moment the Lord Jesus was going to come and go to Calvary's cross, and there offered himself as that great sacrifice.
In these verses, and I just like to give it as a kind of a resume of these, this portion that we're going to consider this afternoon, verse 9 and 10, we have the will of God.
Verses 10 and 11:00 and 12:00 we have the work of Christ, and in verse 15 we have the witness of the Holy Ghost. So we have the whole Trinity involved in this, what we're considering here.
The will of God, the work of Christ, the witness of the Holy Spirit.
So in verse 10 it says by the which will the will of God like it says from the past eternity.
The Lord Jesus and those eternal councils.
When it was.
Uh.
Seen necessary that there was going to be a Redeemer. The Lord Jesus said here am I send me and so the will of God he came, and by the which will we are sanctified, set apart through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ.
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Once for all. So that's one of the were the work of Christ sanctifies us.
Sets us apart for God. And that's an important thing to realize. You know, we live in man's world, where man's will is evident everywhere. In fact, it's encouraged. Do your own thing.
When God saves us, brethren, we come to realize that He has set us apart with a specific purpose in mind. That's what sanctified means. And then he goes on to say, every priest standeth daily ministry and offering and offering often times the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. It was an unending stream.
Of sacrifices.
Persons sinned, he had to bring an animal for a sin offering. And here comes another one another, and here comes another one. It was unending. And here's the contrast. This is so wonderfully blessed, brethren, that this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins. And notice the forever in our King James Bible.
As a comma after it, I think in the Darby translation, the commas after four sins and he forever sat down on the right hand of God. He sat down forever, never again to take up the question of sin. It's settled forever and that blessed to realize that.
He's never again going to get up from that seat to take up the question of sins. It's settled forever.
Doing that, John.
And I can't answer it.
OK.
Go ahead, brother.
The truth sanctifies us, and that's a continual sanctifying. What Brother Jim was talking about in in the Scriptures, when we read the Scriptures, it has a cleansing effect and we need that every single day. But the sanctifying that we have here is done once for all. It's not a continual thing. It's we have been set apart for God. Somebody put this little practical illustration that helped me.
I go to the grocery store and I get a card and I go down the aisles and I pull up a can of beans and I go down and I box the cereal. What are you doing with those things in your cart?
I have a purpose for them and I'm going to pay for them. I am setting them apart and so then I get up to the checkout counter and I pay for them. They're mine and I'm taking them home. I have a specific purpose in mind. When God saved you and me, brethren, He saved us with a purpose. We are set apart not for our own will, but for God's will.
And it's wonderful to realize that and not to understand that is to be affected by the spirit of this world, that we can do our own thing. Not any longer. No, I don't have any rights anymore. The Lord Jesus has all the rights now.
Now over the years, brethren have adopted the terminology of our standing and our state. I think it's very establishing for a young Christian to understand which passages of Scripture in the in the New Testament apply to which our standing is 100% based upon the work of Christ. And we all enjoy it in the same way. And we all have a, a, the the same wonderful standing we have.
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God is, ha has sent Christ to accomplish the work, and we have him for our righteousness. We are sanctified and et cetera, but we have a need for a practical righteousness. We have a need for that today, and we'll have a need for it tomorrow and Tuesday morning when we go back to work. We have to conduct ourselves righteously because of who we belong to. And the same with sanctification. One example of the practical side of it is in First Thessalonians chapter 4.
Where the apostle writes to these new converts and writes, umm, this is the will of God. Verse 3, even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication, that everyone of you should know how to possess his vessel and sanctification and honor. So there it's the practical side of sanctification, walking consistently with the separated place I've been assigned by God, bringing me into his family and fellowship.
But this verse in verse ten of our chapter is.
Positional sanctification, wouldn't you say? Complete.
It's done. The price has been paid. How can you call that in question?
You can.
In the last chapter of this epistle, that Jesus, in order to sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. You know, it's solemn to think of that when the Lord, they took the Lord Jesus. Or let me go back to the Old Testament on the Day of Atonement, when the question of sin was taken up, they took the sacrifice outside the camp and it was burned there. And when they took the Lord Jesus outside the gates of Jerusalem.
It was really as if they were treating him as sin itself. They said he's not fit for our society. They rejected him fully and they took him outside the gates of that holy city that had deteriorated to such a point that it had religion without Christ, and they crucified him without the gate. And so now we have been positionally sanctified. The apostle Paul said to the Galatians, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I under the world, we don't belong to this world anymore. We have been set apart, sanctified from this world in every aspect, whether it's the religious side of the world, the social side of the world, the political side of the world, we've been set apart. When Israel went through the Red Sea, they were sanctified. Moses LED them through the Red Sea, a picture of Christ, and they were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and the sea. And you know, they never positionally got back to Egypt.
Thank God they never got back there. Now in their hearts they returned into Egypt. Stephen says that when he sums up their history in the book of the Acts. In their hearts and in our hearts, we can return into Egypt if there isn't that practical day-to-day cleansing through the Word of God and practical sanctification. But thank God they never positionally got back there. And thank God we'll never be part of this world again. We'll never be under this world and its system again positionally. But we need to be careful, brethren, that in our hearts we don't return.
Into Egypt that there's that practical sanctification.
I'd like to connect these things had in the last reading meeting.
Almost would seem like this is disconnected, but it's not.
Umm, we had worship and the worshipper brought before us in the previous reading meeting and the I believe the thoughts here of the Spirit of God are giving emphasis to that fact actually that the sanctification looked at particularly here, while true in its broad principles that we've had before us, was also God setting apart.
The worshipper.
And that he might worship.
To get that thought a little more fixed, go back to verse 9.
It says, Lo, I come to do thy will. O God, he taketh away the 1St, that he might establish the second. The first did not produce worshippers.
It was necessary for God to do something, to establish a new order of things that would enable man, his creature, to become really, for the first time, properly speaking, a worshiper. A worshiper that could come into the presence of God in a proper way, and even the activity of worship itself was not something that man had previously been given the capacity to do.
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To see that more clearly, let's back up a little farther to the previous chapter and verse one. It says then verily the first covenant. That's what's referred to in our chapter when we say the first.
Where it says he taketh away the 1St that's referring back to Chapter 9 and verse one and where it says then verily the first covenant.
Had also ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary, for there was a Tabernacle made the first, wherein was and he describes the 1St and what it was and how it just the outline of it, and we go back to Leviticus and see the activities and so on. Even to Exodus. The point of it is that.
God.
Under the first.
Established a sanctified people.
Here we just were talking about sanctification. God set apart a sanctified people for himself.
Through Abraham and his seed.
And he set these people apart from all the wickedness and defilement of the creation, mankind, godless man, represented by the Gentile, and out from among the Gentiles and idolatry. He separates, sanctifies to himself a people, and establishes an order that would maintain them in a sanctified position before himself.
And then he established within that order of things.
Everything that would be possible to induce.
Man in nature.
To be a worshipper.
But it wasn't possible.
Everything that the natural man might wish in order to help him worship God. The most probably beautiful choir that was ever created among men was established in that order. The people of the choir, many of them, were born into that function and raised for that purpose.
Perhaps one of the most beautiful buildings that was ever made in mankind's history.
Was for the purpose of approaching God in worship.
The robes, the ceremony, everything that if possible, for natural man to approach God properly and give him the honor that is due to him, was established by God. It was, as it calls it, a worldly religion, but it was God's religion, established by God for mankind.
But at the same time as we had yesterday.
It didn't truly provide a single individual to be able to rightly come into the presence of God to offer.
We had that yesterday. Even Aaron, the high priest, the most privileged of all the people, as was mentioned yesterday, the first thing he had to go in to do was for his own sins.
He didn't approach in liberty. He didn't approach with a clear conscience. He didn't approach in liberty to worship. He was sanctified. He was sanctified as a family within the sanctification of the children of Israel. He was sanctified within the family to down to the just the fam, the members of Aaron and so on of the tribal Levi.
The most careful narrowing down to see if there was any single thing in the first.
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That would satisfy the heart of God.
And fulfill his heart in his nature.
It didn't work. It did not work. And So what we have in Chapter 10 here is to establish the 2nd.
To replace the first with a whole new order of things.
And as was mentioned yesterday, I'm trying to connect the two, uh, the, the now now, as it wasn't down to one man to try to do it, but every single person in this room.
And all others in the body of Christ have been brought into a position, and with provision to be brought into a state as well, that we may truly approach into the most holy presence of God.
And fulfill the function.
The setting apart for that privilege of entering into his presence, just gonna take a little bit more to see because you see the same.
Thought pattern, the same development of the Spirit of God in the first chapters of John's Gospel, which is really the introduction of Christianity to us to bring us into this place, that we have more formally connected here with Judaism.
In chapter one of John's Gospel.
We have the father, we have the son.
And through John the Baptist, we get the germ, the beginning of the seed of seeing what it was.
John the Baptist when he saw the Lord Jesus and he first says his comments about him.
He said behold the Lamb of God that taketh away to the sin of the world. That's praise.
He entered into the spirit of praise. Praise is thanking God.
For benefit given and always praise also tends to bring in ourselves in some way into it. Not in a wrong way. It praises proper and wonderful in its place. Thank you Lord for saving me. Thank you Lord, for my inheritance. Thank you Lord, for that. I'm going to be in heaven with you. And so on. That's praise. That's not worship.
The worship goes farther than that.
But the second time John the Baptist looks at the Lord Jesus and he just says, behold the Lamb of God.
That's the spirit of worship.
That goes beyond the 1St. It's that adoration of the new heart.
Man in nature, unregenerate man is incapable of fulfilling the function of of worship.
He does not have the capacity to do so.
And so in chapter 2 of John's Gospel.
We see the beginning of the first being replaced by the 2nd, when at the marriage of Cana of Galilee, the Lord's mother comes to him and he has to respond to her, and he says, What have I to do with thee, woman?
That is, she wanted and she had a relationship with him under the first, but if she or others were to become sanctified worshippers, that had to be on a new basis. It wasn't on the ground of Judaism. It wasn't on the ground of the original. In the next chapter, Nicodemus comes to the Lord by night, and he was a Jew. He had he. He was a sanctified person.
As far as Judaism was concerned, and he was an upright, sanctified person as well, but as it were, he wasn't a worshipper. On those grounds, the Lord had to say Nicodemus. I'll put it this way. If you want to get into the second, you must be born again. You've got to have life or you can't worship. You can't fulfill the purpose of God and the function of God. And so he was being taught.
That he was going to have to go from the first into the 2nd and in the 4th chapter of John's Gospel.
Worship is introduced more formally to us and actually it it explains truly what it is and what a worshiper is, says they that worship must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
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Uh.
To worship him in spirit, because it immediately says God is a spirit.
Man in nature doesn't rise above his soul and his emotions, and that isn't worship, and he can't worship in that way. He can praise, he can do homage. Natural man, according to his relationships can praise his fellow man, and he can do homage to someone like a king, but he can't worship.
But because to worship God in spirit is to worship God according to his own nature.
And we can only worship God according to his nature if we have a divine nature.
That gives us that capacity to fulfill the function. The one of the primary functions of our existence is to be worshippers. And so the Lord said the Gentiles didn't have it, the Jews didn't have it. He says you worship, you know, not what. And so the criteria was to be in spirit and in truth. And in truth there means to be according to the revelation given.
And the revelation given was basically new brethren we enter into it. They didn't until that point in time. The whole of John's gospel was the revelation to man and being, bringing him into the relationship to know God is Father.
So the Lord Jesus came, and He came to reveal the Father. Why?
So that we could be brought into the relationship to worship the Father.
That prior to that, we as creatures had no place there. There was nothing we we didn't have that relationship with God and the Jew never did.
But God wanted to bring mankind into a greater realization of Himself and nearness to Himself, and so He said you have to do it in spirit and in truth. And so it is according to His nature.
And it is according to the known relationship with himself. We worship him in the relationship that we know Emma's father and we worship the Lord Jesus in that regard as well. I'll just not to take all the time, but it's precious ministry that God's giving us in these things that connects itself with our chapter and and that is.
I don't know how for sure to put it that might not confuse but.
Umm, do we really worship?
I would suggest, brethren, it's not wise to be very occupied with whether we have or we haven't.
It's not a wise thing.
True worship is that adoration which comes from the renewed heart by the power of the Spirit of God, when the soul is set free from itself to be so occupied with its object that it adores the object, and they're only only God in the Lord Jesus are proper. Nothing else is to be worshipped when the adoration of the heart.
By the Spirit.
Lifts the soul to that spirit of John the Baptist. Behold the Lamb of God, that it's the overflow of the heart in adoration to God. And that's that's what worship is. Did I worship in the morning? I would leave that with God to decide and not make a statement about that. God knows if the heart truly overflowed to that extent.
It wasn't. Some people call things a worship meeting. Scripture never uses it in that expression at all because.
Umm, we probably would feel very inadequate if it was given that way, but it's a sense of it was a remembrance meeting. It was a remembrance. It was in the breaking of blood and we could consciously and intelligently say we praised, but the matter of worship is best left to God sees the heart as to whether.
It rose up to that point of adoration in which there was the overflow, uh, for God. But whatever it may be with us now, and whatever measure, and however often it may be in His presence, in eternity, it will be without any hindrance. And then as a sanctified people, we will perhaps worship without ever stopping.
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That is, will spill eternity with worship.
And and the heart of God will then.
Have fulfilled His purpose for us and for Himself, and we will be so, so occupied with adoration that we will.
Lose sight of self completely and we won't be thinking about it in in that way.
Uh, it Yeah. We'll be thinking about him in Revelation 5, the better translation even of one verse that we quite often use, and more the praise than the worship sense, and then I'll stop. Is thou art worthy, for thou was slain and hast redeemed.
And then?
The King James us. But the moment you say us, you're thinking about the praise side, you're thinking about the benefit rendered to you, and you're thankful for it, and you thank him for it. But worship goes beyond that. And then the new translation is thou art worthy, for thou was slain, and the US is left out. That company won't be occupied with it. That way. They'll say thou was slain, for thou hast redeemed to God.
By thy blood out of every hindered tongue and people and nation. In other words, the focus is so fully on the object that benefit rendered is is that there's liberty to to rise higher, if you will, in the soul.
That, uh, the Lord in requesting that we remember him.
Says this do in remembrance of me. We often say we remember the Lord in his death and that's true but he said Remember Me it's with a person that we should be occupied rather than I think if.
Like Don has been bringing out, if we could think more of him, who are we talking about? Who was that one that was hung on that cross outside of Jerusalem?
It was no mere man, it was the one who created the vast universe by the word of his power.
It was the one who was the Son in the bosom of the Father from all eternity.
And the more we're occupied with him, the more there will be worship. And I sometimes think that we think of the what he did, which is a very important point, Brother. We shouldn't forget that. But if we would think more of him, it would produce more worship. Jim mentioned yesterday that worship is not always connected with words.
And you have that in Matthew chapter 2 and.
The wise men came from the East.
And when they saw he was only a child in the house, it says, and probably less than two years old, they fell down, these wise men, and they worshipped him and presented gifts.
It doesn't say anything that these set.
Another illustration of worship I like to think of is.
Mary of Bethany and that supper they made for the Lord Jesus.
Lazarus sat at the table. Picture of Communion.
Mary, uh, Martha, served beautiful privilege.
Mary took a, uh, bottle of ointment, very costly, and broke it and poured it on the Lord Jesus.
She didn't say one word, but everybody knew in that house what Mary had done.
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That's worship, brother.
That should be an encouragement to our sisters.
We all worship.
And we pray, too, the sisters praise.
The Book of Hebrews.
Positional sanctification and being set apart.
There's a verse in chapter 12 and verse 14 that is not about positional. Chapter 12 and 14 says follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Otherwise, the teaching about sanctification in Hebrews is about positional teaching. And quite often it is said that we are set apart by God, we're set apart for God, and we're set apart to God. And therefore you have three different ways that you can look about this positional.
Sanctification.
When our brother was speaking about the eternal purposes, and that comes a good reference out of Ephesians chapter 3, verse 10, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. We see there the eternal purposes and His wisdom, and He wants it known.
Unto us. And so when we look back at verse six of our chapter.
Chapter 10 and six and burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. Thou has had no pleasure. Turn back with me to Isaiah 53 and verse 10 for a moment. Isaiah 53 and verse 10.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. Now we have a verse that says that his soul was made an offering for sin, and it says that the Lord, it pleased him to bruise him.
We have a verse of very depth.
And a lot of different ways to think about.
And when you read it, it is not a conflicting verse because everything in Hebrews is about better. And here that we're looking at one sacrifice is superior to the many sacrifices of old, and it is the new, isn't it? And so when you study that.
There's a difference there in the little word pleased. It pleased Him to fulfill the eternal purposes, therefore completing that we could be sanctified and set apart for Him as one part of those things in which the fulfilling of his will pleased Him. And so that ties back in here to the passages that we're looking at.
And you always want to look at verse 12. And our brother very clearly explained it that he will never.
Stand up again to come back and deal with the sacrifice again because it's once and for all it's done with. Yes, we know he will stand up and he will come back and at the rapture, and yes, we know at the end of the tribulation he'll come back for his second advent, won't he? But this verse is written referencing that the one sacrifice was superior. It is better, and it was by God, for God and to God.
Provision for any seat. You look at the instructions given in the Tabernacle and also in the temple, there was never any seat provided because the work was never done.
But the fact that Jesus is at the right hand of God sitting.
Is a testimony to the fact the work is done.
God Himself is satisfied, and He has raised him from the dead and seated him at his own right hand. What a testimony, dear brethren, to the fact that the work is done forever done.
And that's really what you have in Hebrews. It's really in Hebrews not so much the work, although it is the work, but the results of the work. It's not so much where the Lord Jesus was here in this world as the lowly man of grace, the man of sorrows. It's not where he was hanging on a Roman cross outside the gates of Jerusalem, but it's where he is now because, as you say, the resurrection, the ascension, and the glorification of Christ.
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Our Gods Amen to the work of Calvary. And do we want proof that God is satisfied with the work of His Son? Do we want confirmation in our souls that we are now accepted in Him because of that work? Just look up by faith, brethren, and see where he is now. See him seated there. And if God were to refuse me now, he would have to refuse his own dear Son. And again, that is absolutely impossible. That's the security that's in which the believer stands before God in Christ.
Having by grace availed ourselves of that finished work of Calvary, the sacrifice that was accomplished on the cross.
We are as securing Christ as his Son who has been accepted there. There at the right hand of God. There's no room. When we get a hold of that in our souls, there's no room for any fear. There's no room for any thought that we can lose our salvation or that it's on shaky ground. No, God has raised him from the dead and seated him at his own right hand. And in Hebrews he seats himself down there.
Knowing fully that all has been accomplished.
In Second Samuel, Chapter 7.
David had been given a promise by God through Nathan.
David went in incomplete and sat down before the Lord and there's that beautiful worship comes forth. There's a little precursor which takes away the 1St. The Levitical economy couldn't do it. God acting in grace. And David recognising that God had acted in grace, brings him right into the presence of God.
Is a worshiper.
In the Old Testament, whose hearts really were touched weren't there? And I think that's good to recognize because in general it was a worship for the natural man. As you say, it didn't bring man close to God. There was always a distance. But it is beautiful to go through the Old Testament and see that there were those whose hearts were really touched and those who enjoyed privileges and even had flashes of light and revelation that were beyond.
The normal understanding of the day. And as you say, Brother David, it was all on the grounds of grace.
It's beautiful to go back and see that, but how beautiful for us that it is every believer's privilege now. There are a few in the Old Testament that God worked with, but isn't it beautiful to see that now?
In Christianity, it is the privilege of every believer and every believer positionally, whether they enjoy it or not or appreciate it or not. Every believer's position is positionally in the same standing before God. Just say this too, before we pass on that while the Lord Jesus this afternoon is seated at the right hand of God, it tells us what he's thinking about.
That's interesting henceforth expecting until his enemies be made his footstools. Verse 13 you know the Lord Jesus is seated this afternoon at God's right hand thinking about the day when he's going to come back and he's going to be vindicated on the very planet where they crucified him and set away with him crucify him and neither the heart of God the Father.
Or the heart of the Lord Jesus will be fully satisfied until that happens.
And God is going to make sure that in this on this planet where they cast out his Son, he has his full vindication. We know from the 2nd chapter of Hebrews that he already has that place in glory and from the very fact that he's been raised from the dead and seated at God's right hand. And God has now crowned him with a crown of of glory and honor, and he has his rightful place in heaven today.
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But he does not have it on earth, and I trust there's no thought, even in corners of our hearts, to this being the reigning time.
Or the Lord Jesus having his rightful place outwardly on this in this world today. But he's thinking about that, and God is thinking about that. And we ought to be thrilled when we think about that too. That's why I don't want to depart from our chapter, but that's why Paul in the verse we quoted earlier this afternoon, he said looking for that blessed hope. That's what we're looking for at any moment, the rapture, the coming of Christ to take us to be with himself. But that's not the only thing we're to be looking for.
And the glorious appearing, we're to be looking for that thinking about it. He's thinking about it. We ought to be thinking about it. And almost the last words Paul penned by inspiration where to Timothy and he said all those that love his appearing, do we love his appearing? The last glimpse this world got of the Lord Jesus.
Was hanging on a Roman cross, crowned with a crown of thorns. But it throws my heart to think there's a moment coming when heaven's gonna open up to reveal the Lord Jesus coming back in power and glory. Not crowned with that which was part of the curse, the crown of thorns, but he's coming back crowned with many crowns or many diadems as you get in the 19th of Revelation, brethren, that ought to thrill our hearts. And what is it all based on?
It's all based on the work of Calvary. Every blessing for every level of creation is based on the fact that the Lord Jesus offered himself as that supreme sacrifice. Oh, it's, it's a thrill to the heart of God. It's an anticipation to the heart of Christ. Is it an anticipation and thrill to our hearts too?
At that moment is I'd like to think of a gym as I think we can safely say that it will be the most glorious moment, the most tremendous display of power and glory that will ever be experienced on planet earth, past or future. That moment when heaven opens and Jesus comes back with the.
Redeemed and just think of the tremendous company of the redeem. I think we could probably safely save billions of the redeemed and not only they, but Second Thessalonians 2 tells us he's going to be accompanied by his mighty angels. Think of that the display of power and glory we have in Revelation 19 that Jim mentioned that the beast.
And his armies are gonna be coming against the Lamb and it they won't have a chance, they won't have.
A single chance when the Lord comes out of heaven, it's gonna be such a tremendous display of power and glory. That's what we're looking forward to. That's what he's expecting, isn't it?
Converse with John's Gospel, chapter 5.
And.
John's Gospel, chapters 5.
And verse 22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honor the Son, as they honor the Father. Be that honoreth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which hast sent Him. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent Me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation.
What is past?
From death unto life, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is.
When the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear.
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Shall live under the first, which this chapter is bringing before us under the first.
Umm, it was really only a select people that were sanctified positionally and brought into an outward relationship with God, and for which there was a Tabernacle established that they might approach unto God and so on.
But it wasn't for everybody.
The Gentile didn't have that right.
They're called dogs and.
In their relationship and so on. But the second introduces something so wonderfully new that having done that work and sat down on the right hand of God, the message continues on from the worshipper in John 4 to go on to John 5. And as it were, say it's for everybody.
There there's.
There's no one that's going to be excluded from the opportunity to be brought into the place a blessing and into the place of being sanctified before God and entering in to becoming a worshipper and to live in the Father's house with the Father that was being revealed to man and yet.
His position there is now such that if a man refuses.
What is being brought to him?
Then the Son, when he leaves that throne to establish order on the earth, He does so in a way that all men must honor Him. And so in John 5, when it's presented, He will come in judgment. But in verse 24, the so well known verse, it says, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. He's brought from the first into the second. But then he says, shall.
Has till not come into condemnation. He won't be judged. He won't participate in what we have in our chapter when He comes forth in power and glory to set things right and to be honored. Why? Because he's passed from death unto life. He has passed from that place where he was formerly facing judgment into a new position. He sanctified to use the words that we're using before.
He's been sanctified into a new position where judgment can never come because he's been brought from death unto life. He's been redeemed out of his old position and brought into a new and a position that has nothing to do with judgment. And so even in our chapter, to go back to the, the connections that are constant really go back to.
Of chapter Hebrews and the end of Chapter 9.
And verse 27, in Chapter 9 and verse 27, it's appointed unto men once to die.
But after this the judgment.
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.
And unto them that look for him, that is the believer.
He shall appear well. We in our chapter, we have Him appearing in righteousness and holiness and judgment.
But for his own in the end, before that happens, his own. In verse 28, it says he'll appear unto them the second time.
Without sin unto salvation means I'm going to read the new translation that looked for him the second time. Without sin for salvation, that is. The matter of sin for us is settled forever. We're in a new position and it's completely and forever established. We're beyond.
The matter of judgment into a new position where judgment can never come because our judgment took place already at the cross.
And our position in Christ is that what he is in the position he's in now, himself before God, having borne sin and become sin for us. And so when he comes for us the second time, the matter of sin has nothing to do with it. It's without sin, without taking up the issue of sin at all, to take us to be with himself.
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But if I'm not in that position, then he's he's waiting.
And when He appears the second time in this glory that is brought here and has been spoken about already, then it's the honor of the Son in judgment.
Solemn thing to have to honor the Son by being judged by him. But every man who has ever been brought under the message that we've been having, every single soul is going to honor the sun. We honor him when we accept him as Savior.
And recognize him as our Lord.
But every other man will honor him as his judge, because God is determined that the work is so satisfying to him that every single soul, one way or the other, is going to honor him.
Every knee shall bow in honour to himself, we as Savior, but many as judge.
Solemn, but that's where they you might say this is not disconnected flow of thought in this chapter.
See that it's all for the glory of God and the glory of His Son. We think of how wonderful it will be when we appear in glory with him. But there's a remarkable scripture in first, Second Thessalonians, one that bears out what we're saying. Second Thessalonians, chapter one.
We think of again of our part and the king. It's true a king will reign in righteousness and Princess shall rule in judgment, but again, it's all going to be for His glory. Just notice verse ten of Second Thessalonians chapter one Speaking of the day we've just been talking about. It says when He shall come to be glorified in His Saints and to be admired in all them that both in all them that believe. I'm gonna skip the parenthesis in that day. What is that day?
It's the day when the Lord Jesus appears in glory and the world looks up and they're going to see the Lord Jesus coming. Yes, as we've been saying, with a vast host of the redeemed, with the heavenly company.
But everyone in that day is going to reflect Christ. He's coming to be glorified in his Saints. You know, again, it throws my heart because in the measure in which we are occupied with Christ in glory. Now there will be an unconscious reflection of the glories of Christ in our life. But I have to on. I can only speak for myself and sometimes, and I have to say sometimes it's pretty clouded picture, but it throws my heart to think brethren.
But when heaven opens up in a coming day to reveal God's Son coming in power and glory.
And we come with them wherever the the they look. They're gonna see Christ fully reflected in every St. You and I are going to fully reflect Christ in that day.
Because it's God's Son that will be the center of everything. It is God's purpose.
To vindicate his son and to have his son fully glorified.
You know, to be glorified is to have every attribute and quality that makes up a person's character brought into full display.
And every quality and character of God is going to be brought into full display.
In his Son and in all of the heavenly company, when we he's coming to be glorified in his Saints, when we reflect Christ fully in that day. Brethren, that ought to motivate us to live for his glory now while we wait that time.
You're talking about the practical side, right? But look at verse 14. Because this says something different. For by one offering he had perfected forever them that are sanctified. So are you perfect, Jim?
That wonderful.
And the measure that we are brought into the enjoyment of that brother.
It's gonna make us careful on our walk down here, so it will be reflected more by grace in us now, even now.
In connection with the Tabernacle because the boards of the Tabernacle, while they collectively made-up the dwelling place of God amongst his people in the wilderness, individually they represent individual believers and there were two things that characterized.
01:05:11
Those those boards, One is they sat in two sockets of silver. That's redemption. Silver is invariably a picture of redemption.
In the scripture. But there was something else that characterized those boards. They were covered completely with pure gold.
And gold represents to us divine righteousness. And it's a little different, but it's like it says in Second Corinthians, we've been made the righteousness of God in him. We here we find by one offering a perfected forever, then they're sanctified. When the eye of God rested on those boards, it wasn't to see that rough cut lumber, it was to see that which spoke to the heart of God of divine righteousness.
And so we have a perfect standing, two sockets of silver. That's our redemption and covered with pure gold. That's our the righteous position in which we stand and nothing as we've been saying in this meeting, Brian, we need to get a hold of this in our souls. Nothing can change our standing. I stand perfect before God in Christ practically, it's not always the pretty picture, but I if we just go back and rest, don't get discouraged and overwhelmed by failure. Judge it, but go back and rest on the perfect standing.
That you have in Christ. That's what's going to encourage you and that's what's going to give us the strength. And as you say, the more we are occupied with our position, our standing, the more it's going to raise our state of soul. Because as we enjoy our standing, we cannot help but walk in newness of life.
Sing just verse #1 and verse #5 and stand.
Moreover, whom he did predestinate them he also called, whom he called them he also justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified.
And then in uh.
2nd Epistle of Peter.
Chapter One.
In the middle of of verse 4.
That by these he might be partakers of the divine nature.
Gospel 2
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.
Start our meeting tonight with #11 on our hymn sheets.
Will your anchor hold?
We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and shear wise, and the billows roll fasten to the rock which cannot move, grounded, firm and deep in the Savior's love.
Will your anchor.
Wolves pray for The Wailers. We are praying for the rest of the night. Oh my God, Oh my God. Gracie's granny.
Nsnoise.
I'd like to read some verses that were already read this afternoon, but just to read them without commentary in Hebrews chapter 6 beginning with verse.
17 We're in God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise. The immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie.
We might have.
A strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, and which enter into that within the veil wherein whither the Forerunner is for us entered even Jesus.
Made an high priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek. Let's pray.
00:05:05
One more hymn.
#3.
My hope on nothing less is built than Jesus.
And the blood he spilled?
What a beautiful hymn.
I wanna speak tonight about.
Something that's been mentioned the number of times in these meetings and that's the internal security.
God makes it abundantly clear.
In scripture for those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus of their eternal security, one of the verses that is most clear like to read first of all in John chapter 10.
And verse 27, I want you to listen closely because it's what the Lord Jesus says that really counts. What I say about Scripture tonight may be clear or may not be clear. I trust it's helpful. That's my desire. But sometimes what we say doesn't help. And so just listen, please.
To what he says he's speaking here. John, 1027.
My sheep.
Hear my voice.
And I know them.
And they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father, which gave them me, is greater than all.
And no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand.
I and my father are one this beautiful promise.
But I want you to notice verse 27 to begin with, because there are people who like to apply these verses.
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But don't pay attention to what the Lord Jesus says in verse 27. My sheep. What's the first thing it talks about? Three things about them.
Number one.
Hear my voice.
Do you really listen to God?
I noticed that sometimes people are here present and sure their ears are capturing what I say, but they're not really listening.
I ask you, please, if that's the case with you, please let down the barriers. It's not what I have to say about it that is important. It's what he is saying. And he says, my sheep hear my voice.
The second thing it says.
I know them, and as the Lord looks out over this audience tonight, He knows exactly where you stand with God.
You can put on a good front.
And fool me, but you cannot fool the Lord. He knows exactly where you stand in relation to Him.
And the last one is.
They follow me. Can I ask you, are you following the Lord? This is characteristic of his sheep.
And then it says, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Understand that's a strength and negative.
In the Greek you could read it. They shall never, never perish forever. That's how secure it is. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all. And no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. There is that person, that she in the hand of the Lord Jesus, and in the Father's hand.
Never, never to perish to me. Beautiful. You know, I've talked to people sometimes that think that you can lose your salvation once you have it. If that were the case, then they would have to say that the Lord Jesus is telling a lie here.
Because, he says, they shall never perish.
Are you gonna say that?
I don't think that's very wise to do that. Just simply accept what he says. They shall never, never perish. To me, it's most wonderful.
For the one who is a sheep of the Lord Jesus. But I want to read another another never in scripture. It's found in Matthew's Gospel Chapter 7.
And this is a different never.
Wanna contrast it with what we've read?
Matthew Chapter 7 and verse 21.
Listen to this.
Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father, which is in heaven. Verse 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name have done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you depart from me, ye that work iniquity. We're talking about people here that prophesied in his name. Prophesying simply means to speak the word of God.
They did. They cast out demons in the name of the Lord. They did wonderful works in the name of the Lord.
What does he say?
I never knew you, he didn't say. I knew you once and you went and got lost. No, doesn't say that.
I never knew. So the fact that the person can say Lord, Lord.
Doesn't necessarily mean that they are a sheep of the Lord Jesus.
00:15:03
I look around this room and I don't.
No.
I'm not the judge. I can't see beyond the surface. Sometimes I can see indications of a person that's real.
By the way they listen. By the way they respond to the word of God.
And it's wonderful when there is a real response.
But only God knows your heart.
And I want you to know that you're dealing not with me up here tonight. Yes, I'll try to help you if you'd like some help, just like Tim did last night. But I want you to know that you have to do with God. He's looking down at you. He knows the condition of your heart before him. You can fool me. You cannot fool God. And it's with him that you have to do.
The question of sin must be addressed. You cannot ignore it.
It is important here are those that took an outward stance of being Christians. They preached the word.
Amongst them, one of the Lord's own 12 apostles. Imagine one of his 12 apostles.
Was a fake.
And none of the other 11 even seemed to have any clue that he was a fake. Judas Iscariot was a long for what he could get out of it monetarily wise. He had the bag, the treasury, he was the treasurer for the Lord and his disciples.
And he helped himself. He was a thief. The Scripture tells us he helped himself, but nobody knew about it. When the Lord at the end said, one of you shall betray me, they looked around. They didn't know who it was. He had pulled the wool over their eyes. The Lord knew.
Oh, how subtle, how deceitful our hearts are. We cannot trust them for a moment. Judas is in a lost eternity right now. Think of that so close to the Lord.
And I fear sometimes, as we come together in meetings like this, of those who are only putting on an outward show.
You know, I was brought up in a Christian home, too.
I was brought up in the meeting so-called.
I heard the gospel. I sat in Sunday school.
And I came to the point, I remember that I had to recognize I needed to be saved. I needed to deal with God about the question of sin. Sin is serious business with God. Sin wrecks people, erects homes. It wrecks hell. It will pay you with death.
At the end of your life.
You know, I think I may have told this story before, but it shook me to the core when we lived in Bolivia when we first went there, Barb and I, after we were married in 1974.
We arrived in Bolivia January 5th, 1975 and.
We decided to build a house.
On a lot that we had purchased. And so one of the men that was contracted to help out in the construction of the house was a man named Jaime Martinez, and he was a professing believer.
He was even breaking bread.
And I didn't know him that well. I just come there and I figured, well, he's just a new believer. Hasn't, uh, understood very much yet. Anyhow, once we were done with the construction, he went off and got employment somewhere else and I lost track of him.
00:20:03
You know if you ever come to Montero, Bolivia where we lived 1St 10 years of our time in Bolivia.
You will know that they have motorcycle taxis in that town. Just pay a guy on a motorcycle and they'll take you where you want to go in town.
These guys started appearing dead.
On the long side of a road, one place and another, and nobody could figure out who did it when one day there was a man picked up on the side of the road. He had a gunshot wound in his head, but the boys had gone around the side of his skull and he was still alive. And they took him into the hospital and he got better. And he told who it was that had done it.
Jaime Martinez.
And it was a military government at that time, and military governments handle things a little differently and democratic governments. And so he was taken into custody.
And he confessed.
To multiple homicides.
Again, if it was 10 or 12, you'd take in their motorcycles and sold them.
Not only did he confess to it, but he vowed to do even worse when he got loose.
No evidence of any repentance toward God.
Well, under military government, they have a way of dealing with criminals like that.
And under pretense of doing an investigation as to where he might have sold one of the motorcycles and took him out into the jungle area and kind of let him loose.
And he started running toward the forest or the jungle. They called out for him to stop, and he didn't stop. And so the police pulled out their pistols, and Jaime Martinez went into eternity.
And I stopped to think about it. A man I broke bread with burning and the flames of hell. I'm not the judge, but there was no evidence of any repentance at all.
I believe that's where he is.
Is there somebody here that still hasn't gotten it straight? I know you haven't done that kind of crime, but you are not right with God. You have not submitted to the lordship of Christ. You want to have your own way in life. You can't have your own way in life.
There has to be repentance toward God.
And faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Extremely important.
I do want to say before we get into the side of responsibility on your part toward God.
That what gives you.
Eternal security.
Is what we have been talking about today as to the work of the Lord Jesus, His person, His work. My hope on nothing less is built than Jesus.
And the blood he spilled, I don't want to point you inside. You know, an anchor in a ship is a very important thing. But as long as that anchor is in the ship, it doesn't do any good. It has to be thrown out into the ocean and then it will go down and hook on to something to hold that ship straight.
And so I'm not going to point you for security of your salvation to anything inside of you.
Should we reflect on your actions and your feelings? Yes, I believe we can from Scripture, but that is not the security you want security. It will come from what Jesus did, his person, his work. We've been talking about that today. Let's go back over to Hebrews Chapter 9 a little bit here because.
00:25:07
I just want to go over it again a bit because it's so wonderfully precious for the soul that has repented and believed in the Lord Jesus.
Hebrews 9, verse 11. But Christ being come, and high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect.
Tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption and notice for us is an italics. It's really added by the translators. The question is that he obtained eternal redemption. That's the work of Christ.
As we were talking about in this conference, there is that part of the work of Christ that is for us. Christ died for our sins. Yes, wonderful truth, but there is another part of the work of Christ that is towards God.
Christ died for God.
What do I mean?
You know man's sinful condition had called in question.
God's holy character.
When Jesus died on that cross, in his work he vindicated all God's holiness.
And the work he accomplished on that cross, he obtained eternal redemption. Wonderful, wonderful truth.
And I can tell you there is eternal redemption available for you tonight. But now notice verse 13. For if the blood of bulls and goats in the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctify it to the purifying of the flesh. That's the old way it was done under Judaism.
How much more shall the blood of Christ?
Who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God? Purge your conscience.
From dead works to serve the living God. Do you notice that the three members of the Godhead are mentioned in verse 14?
The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God. I just want to briefly give the story of what happened that day outside the city of Jerusalem when they led.
The Lord Jesus as a lamb to the slaughter, His head crowned with thorns.
His face marred more than any man's.
His back plowed upon by the Roman scourge, they.
Nailed his hands and his feet to that cross. They lifted him up there.
At that place of Golgotha, the place of the skull.
And there the Lord Jesus from 9:00 in the morning hung as the malefactor. He was not a malefactor. He was the holy One of God. He could say to the Jewish people that wanted to accuse him, Which of you convinces me of sin? There was no sin in him. He was the holy sinless.
Sacrifice. And there he hung from 9:00 in the morning till 3:00 in the afternoon. At 12 noon the sun got dark, and for three hours there was no.
Complaint from that center cross.
In those three hours.
And it was that Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled.
He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
00:30:01
The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.
This is guilty person that stands here.
My sins were laid on his head.
That sinless holy sacrifice.
Than God's judgment that had to be satisfied if there was going to be forgiveness of sins, fell in all its fury.
On his blessed head for three hours. No complaints from that center cross.
He loves you. He loves me, you know. They cried himself he could not save. Was that true? That was sudden derision. Let me tell you it was true. He could not save himself.
God is love.
And to save your soul, somebody had to pay the price in this awful reality. And Jesus paid it all on that cross in those three hours. At the end of those three hours, he cries, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
The God that was his strength and stay abandoned him in that moment of the most awful meat.
Why? Because he doesn't want to abandon you in the lake of fire forever. That's the reason why God is love and it's shown at that moment like in no other.
Then he gives up his life.
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. He dies.
Soldier opens his side with a spear, outflows blood and water.
The Lord Jesus rose again the third day.
The Lord Jesus went back into the glory, having obtained eternal redemption. Oh, the wonder of it all.
But notice now in verse 14 again, what is the result for us? It purges our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Here is our part.
You have conscience of sin.
Msai.
I don't have any clue as to how many times I may have sinned against God.
But given perhaps 10 times a day.
In a year it's 3650 times, in 10 years, 36,500 sins. Multiply it by the decades that I've lived.
Comes to an amount that is awful.
Do I not have any consciousness sins any longer? You know what? I have a purged conscience. I know that it has been paid. Not by anything I've done or any appreciation on my part. That's not what does it. It's because of Him and that blood that was shed on that cross.
Oh, the blessedness of it, to know that's that's where it was settled.
That's where it was settled.
Now go down to the end of the chapter. These verses were read too, but I'd just like to draw attention to them again because they have to do with this again, verse 26.
Well, let's read from verse 24. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high Priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others. He's speaking about the Jewish system of sacrifice. For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world.
But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. You know in the Old Testament they killed the sacrifice yearly, and they caught the blood of a goat, and the high priest took that blood, and went into the immediate presence of God, and sprinkled that blood.
00:35:25
On the whole, on the Mercy seat, the gold plate that covered the Ark of the Covenant.
He sprinkled that blood. That was the great Day of Atonement. Atonement means a covering, and so there was a covering put it was covered with the blood of a sacrifice.
But you know what? Atonement doesn't occur in the New Testament.
The King James Version. It's used in Romans chapter 5.
But the real word there is not atonement, it's reconciliation.
Because in the New Testament, Jesus didn't merely cover sin.
He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. He completely took it out of the picture.
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.
And unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin unto salvation.
Did you notice that verse 28 he was once offered to bear the sins?
Of many.
When we consider the sacrifice of Christ towards God.
It's for the whole world.
Here's the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only.
But for the whole world.
But when it comes down to individuals, it doesn't ever say that He bore the sins of the whole world. You know, why would God be righteous in putting a person into hell if Christ had already borne his sins? That wouldn't be right. Scripture never says that. No, it says He bore the sins of many and those that put their trust in the Lord Jesus will be able to stay in that day he bore.
My sins. You can say that right now if you simply accept Him as your savior. He bore the sins of many.
So important it is to have these things straighten our mind. I know that many people have questions as to eternal security. It's important that you understand that it rests not in any experience of your own.
But on the work, the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But now I wanna probe a little bit as to the responsibility of people because it's scary to me to think that there might be the Lord would come tonight, people still sitting in the room that don't have it straight with God. Where are you? I don't know. But you know, if you don't have it straight. And my desire is that you would get it straight tonight.
It's so tremendously important. The Lord could come at any moment.
Let's go to Acts chapter 20.
For reverse, that is important. We've actually quoted this verse, but I want you to see it.
Apostle Paul is speaking to the Ephesian elders.
And he says.
Acts chapter 20 and verse 21 testifying.
Both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God.
And faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Two things he speaks about here that are very important to consider. Repentance. What is that? Let's read a verse.
In Luke's Gospel chapter 13.
00:40:06
Verse one through 5 I'll read.
They were present at that season. Some that told him that told Jesus of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering, said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay, but except ye repent, ye shall.
All likewise perish.
Or those 18 upon whom the tower of Silomon Siloam fell and slew them. Thank you that they were sinners above all men that dwell in Jerusalem. I tell you, Nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Repentance is something that is necessary for salvation.
What does repentance mean? It comes, I understand, from a Latin root. Pent means to think. In Spanish it's pensar to think.
Repent means to change your thinking. Repentance is a change in thinking. Remember the prodigal son when he got the inheritance from his father?
He took off. He was out of there. He wanted to get as far as possible from his father to have a good time with his friends.
And he soon spent it all.
And he ended up sitting with some pigs, wishing that he could eat the pig food.
It was really down there.
And it said he came.
To himself, there was a change in his thinking. He was still sitting with the pigs, but his thinking was changing. And he thought, how many hired servants of my father have bred enough and despair, and here I am perishing with hunger. I'm going to go back to my father.
That's repentance, a change in thinking.
This scares me when I hear sometimes about what young people do.
Sometimes they're older people, too.
You know, you can hide it from your parents, you can hide it from your brethren. You cannot hide it from God, and it's with God you have to do.
It was presented to me recently.
The terrible problem that *********** is in this country.
Say up to 80% of men are hooked on it.
It's more addicting, or I should say it's the same addicting power as cocaine.
It's only a click away on your computer.
Are you into that?
I'm here to say repent.
Change your thinking. That's gonna wreck you. Don't go that way.
Sometimes young women.
Don't cover themselves properly.
And they stir the passions of men.
Because they don't dress properly.
Does that describe anybody here? I leave it to your conscience, but if you're doing that, I ask you to repent.
Because those things are serious with God.
Scripture talks about them. You cannot deal with those things lightly. We had the verse read to us today that God has called us to sanctification.
00:45:01
Means to withdraw from evil stuff.
That we should abstain from fornication.
Free sex is such a big thing in this world today. People take it for granted. You can't do that lightly. God takes that seriously. He's the author of marriage, and there is a place for intimate relations between a man and a woman within.
The bonds of marriage sometimes like to say that marriage is like a river.
It flows within its banks. What a beautiful thing it is to have a river like that.
But if it gets too full and however extends its banks, it is terrible damage.
Are you involved in that? I don't know about it. I'm not talking about anything I know about, but you know, if you're involved in something like that.
Don't try to cover it up yourself. Confess it. Repent of it. That's what repentance is. The Lord is coming soon and you cannot hide it.
There has to be repentance. Without repentance there is no salvation.
Repentance is not what saves us, It is faith in Christ that saves us.
But repentance must take place for there to be salvation. The Lord Jesus says it twice here. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. You know what perish means.
Been explained taking that word Perish.
Pass internally ruined into Satan's hell.
That's the alternative of not repending.
Don't go there. Please stop. Repent.
And then the other part is relieved in the Lord Jesus Christ. Like to go over to a verse in John's Gospel chapter 3.
Verse 36.
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son of God shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
It's a matter of believing. That's where faith comes in. Faith is believing. Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Savior. He's the one that has.
Accomplished eternal redemption.
It's with him you need to do to obtain salvation.
But believing is a heart belief. It's not just a mere head belief. It tells us in the book of James that the demons believe and tremble.
Are they gonna be saved? No. No salvation, they believe.
Yes, they believe, but they don't. They're not safe.
You know, people say very lightly, I'm going to believe in the Lord, but I want to continue to live my life like I've been living it.
What's the problem with that?
There's no repentance there at all.
Are they saved?
God knows the hearts and so I don't pretend to judge, but I say doesn't appear to me that they're saved because there's been no repentance.
Sometimes give the illustration that after.
The meeting I get into my car and while I drive down the road towards.
Hotel where I'm standing.
But before I leave, one of your brothers comes up to me and says, Bob, don't go down that way. That's dangerous. There's somebody ambushing cars down that way.
So I say thank you, I believe you. So you may get into my car and just go right on down the road. Do I really believe you? Not really. I just said I believe you. That's what I'm saying. The believing that we have here is a hard belief.
00:50:10
And it's interesting in an alternative translation.
The second part of this verse said, He that believeth not says he that is not subject unto the Son shall not see life. It's a matter of your will. Are you willing to surrender to the Lord? Jesus says in Romans chapter 10 and verse nine, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord.
Leaving 9 heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
You know, it's amazing to me to see how God works with people.
And often he has to break people down.
And that's not a very pleasant process.
You know why he has to break him down? Because we have a nature, a sin nature, that is an enemy of God. We want to do our own thing and we don't want anybody telling us we can't do it.
That sin in the flesh and that sin in the flesh is an enemy of God. And so sometimes God has to break people. Not everybody is the same, so he doesn't often use the same tactics on different people. But it says.
It is the goodness of God that leads thee to repentance. Isn't that a wonderful verse?
God leads you to repentance. He allows things that maybe are hard for you to understand. He wants you to come to repentance, to grips about that question of sin. We have an example in the Scriptures of a man in the Old Testament.
Very interesting man, a man who's called King of Kings.
His name was Nebuchadnezzar.
He was the first king of the Babylonian Empire.
He was a despot. He killed whomsoever he willed to kill, and whomsoever he willed he kept alive.
He was on the throne of Babylon when Daniel and his three friends were taken into Babylon.
And it's interesting. He had a dream.
And he wanted to get the right interpretation of the dream.
And so.
He asked his wise men to tell him the dream and its interpretation.
Our King James version, it appears that he forgot it, but if you're reading the Darby translation, it's interesting that he didn't forget it. He just wanted to make sure to get the right interpretation. So he wanted somebody who knew his dream.
And they said, please tell us your dream and we'll tell you the interpretation. But you know, those wise men, they had a way of deceiving even the king.
So Daniel and his friends went to the Lord about it, and God revealed it to Daniel. Daniel came and told him his dream and the interpretation of it. Nebuchadnezzar was extremely impressed, and he declared that these men, Daniel, his three friends, should be exalted.
In the government of Babylon.
But there was no repentance with that be good measure.
The next chapter tells another interesting story.
Daniel doesn't appear in the next chapter, just his three friends. Somebody have suggested maybe Daniel was on a trip somewhere but.
Nebuchadnezzar raised up a golden idol.
In the plains of Babylon, and demanded that all should bow down to that idol, under penalty of death being thrown into the furnace of fire.
And these three friends of Daniel had another command from a higher authority than Nebuchadnezzar. God had said not to bow down to any image.
And so they would not bow down, and they were called into Nebuchadnezzar's presence to give account.
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You How dare you defy my order?
I'm gonna give you another chance. I'm being really good to you. Bow down.
Or else you're gonna be thrown into the furnace.
And they said to the king Nebuchadnezzar, we're not careful to answer you about this matter. We cannot bow to your goals and image. And he was furious. How dare anybody contradict him? And he ordered the oven to be heated 7 times more, and he ordered them to be clothed in all their clothes.
And bound up and thrown into the furnace. And they were thrown into the furnace. The only thing that the fire burnt was the cords that had them bound up. And they fell down into the midst of that fiery furnace. And then they got up and they started walking around in the fiery furnace. And Nebuchadnezzar looks into that for any fiery furnace and said, didn't we throw three men in there?
I see four men and they're walking around in that furnace.
And he calls Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego come forth.
Since it was not an order that contradicted God's law, we came out and they didn't even have the smell of fire on them.
Nebuchadnezzar again, that's extremely impressed.
Their God has to be the true God, and He ordered that they would be exalted further in the Kingdom of Babylon.
But Nebuchadnezzar didn't repent. But God kept on working for me with him, and he gave him another dream and he warned him. But you know what? Nebuchadnezzar had eye problems he started bragging about.
Me, myself and I. And as he was doing it, he lost his reason.
And he was cast out for seven times. I don't know how long that might be, maybe seven years.
But he ate grass like an ox.
And his hair grew like eagle's feathers, and his nails grew like claws. I wouldn't wanna meet up with that kind of a man in an alleyway.
But that's the way he was, a beast.
There's another beast to arrive on planet earth as well. Fascinating. Our history repeats itself. But you know what? After seven times it passed, Nebuchadnezzar lifted his eyes to heaven and recognized the God of heaven. And God gave him back his sanity, and he had excellent glory added unto him. He returned to being king.
Of Babylon.
You know God wants to bless you.
But you have to repent of your sins. You cannot go on like you are.
It's so hard for people that have been brought up in Christian homes and think that they're all right. I'm not that bad of a guy. You might not be that bad of a guy, but you have to repent of your sins.
There is no other way to be saved and then.
To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
As your savior, the one who's paid the price of redemption on that cross.
I ask you tonight to get serious about this question of sin, to get it settled. As Tim said last night, there's anyone that has questions about it. We certainly are here at your disposal to answer any questions that you might have about eternal security or anything else. But please get it right, get it straight with God, and get it straight tonight. Don't wait for tomorrow.
Hebrews 10:15-on
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He loved to sing its words. It sounds like music in our ears. The sweetest name on earth.
Hebrews chapter 10 verse 15, whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after they he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts and their minds while I write them, and their sins and iniquities while I remember no more.
Now we're a remission of these is there is no more offering for sin.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he had consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. Having a high priest over the House of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from the evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.
For He is faithful that promise. Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another so much the more, as you see the day approaching. For if we sin wilfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for a judgment, fiery indignation.
We shall devour the adversaries. He that despise Moses Law died without mercy, under two or three witnesses.
Of how much more sore punishments suppose he Chavez he be thought worthy, who has trod it under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified. An unholy thing has done despite unto the spirit of grace. For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me I will recompense, saith the Lord.
And again the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. The call to remembrance. The former days in which, after you were illuminated, he endured a great fight of afflictions.
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Partly wise you were made at gain stock both by reproaches and affection, partly while GV came companions of them that were so used. For you had compassion of me and my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.
Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which has great recompense of reward, for you have need of patience. But after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise for yet a little while. And he that shall come will come, and will not tear it, neither just shall live by faith. If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back into petition.
But of them that believed to the saving of the soul.
Yesterday we talked about.
In verse 9 the will of God, and in verse 1011 and 12 The work of Christ.
And now in the verses we've read, it talks about the witness of the Holy Spirit.
So the Holy Spirit is a witness.
And the work of Christ, of course, he's talking to those who are Jewish believers, the Hebrews, and of course to them.
Will apply in the future that new covenant and.
Really, we have to understand that the Gentiles and the church as such is never really under covenant. We enjoy the blessings.
Of the new covenant, which is based on the blood of Christ, just as the Jewish people, their blessing is based on that same thing, but the new covenant is with the let's look back at it and I think it's chapter. Is it chapter 8?
And verse.
10 Right, this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days though the.
New Covenant is with the House of Israel.
In the future day, they will be brought into blessing again on that same basis.
But.
We as the Church are never mentioned as being under.
Covenant that was with the House of Israel God is going to.
Bring them into blessing again. Maybe it'd be good to look back at Jeremiah 31, which is quoted here, to see it too. Because there is teaching today that says that God is done with Israel.
And it's called covenant.
Uh, teaching instead of dispensational teaching. It's covenant theology and they say that.
Uh, God is done with Israel, the church has replaced Israel and the church is under the covenant. That's not really understanding the word of God in its entirety. So just to read it here in verse chapter 31 of Jeremiah, notice 3131. Behold, the days comes, saith the Lord.
That it will make a new covenant. With whom? With the House of Israel and with the House of Judah. That's what the covenant, the new covenant is for. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them out by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break because it was based on responsibility, human responsibility, although I wasn't husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be.
The covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, that the Lord I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people, and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, No, the Lord, For they shall all know me from the least of them, even unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember.
Their sin no more.
Now notice the next verses, brother. And this is precious. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the Son for a light by day.
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And the ordinance of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea.
When they waved their uproar, the Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel shall cease from being a nation, be before me forever. Thus saith the Lord, if the heavens can be measured, and the foundation of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord. So just as is, there is day and night.
There will be a nation of Israel that God is going to bring in two blessing. That is His purpose, and nothing can forego that. Now, if the heavens and the earth depart and cease to be, then He will cease His faithfulness toward the nation of Israel. I think that's so important, isn't it?
Hope to engage in in that faulty reasoning that somehow the church.
Has eclipsed the promises to the nation of Israel and to spiritualize those passages or in some way just just come to the conclusion that God has just changed his mind. And and yes, he made all these promises to it, to the House of Israel, but now he has this new thing that he's going to do because if you apply the same reasoning to the promises made to to us sinners of the Gentiles.
And the promises pertaining to the House of God and the Church of God today, could you not do the same thing?
So God not only has given it to in his word, but that very passage to to go back to the security and consistency of creation to establish this fact that he's going to bring the nation into blessing in a future day on the principle of grace. Because if you lined up all the nations in the United Nations and just took stock of them all and then told the whole assembled world that this nation, this little tiny nation here is going to be the head of all the nations.
And I'm going to bless them in a way that no nation has ever been blessed. And I'm going to do that. People would say, well, why would you do? That's not fair. But if you lined up all the boys and girls I grew up with in my neighborhood and you pointed to me and you said that that boy there is going to end up in glory with Christ, that's not fair either.
But God has secured to himself the right to do both of those things.
Because of the work of His Son on Calvary's cross, and he has declared himself now after the long forbearance that he showed, He showed that he was righteous all along in doing so. Because of the work of His Son on Calvary's cross, He's declared himself so wonderfully to be just and the justifier of him which believe in Jesus. So on the principle of grace, you and I are brought into eternal blessing, and God has secured to himself righteously that right to bless that nation on the same principle of grace.
And so Paul could write in Romans 15 that Jesus Christ is a minister of this was a minister of the circumcision to confirm the promises made to the fathers and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. So it's a wonderful and and comforting and encouraging thing to see God is going to unfold these wonderful purposes on the earth with this earthly people and we with a heavenly portion and part of this.
Mystery, uh, now revealed to faith, part of the bride of Christ, the church, uh, another and a separate glory that he's gotten to himself.
So what's just been said?
Give further emphasis to a very good point that's just been made, and that is.
Every single individual who has ever lived on the face of the earth has failed in their personal responsibilities to God.
And there's not been a single individual who has ever lived who has a claim upon God on the basis of having fulfilled personal responsibility of any generation or dispensation or any relationship that God has placed them under. And consequently, God is cast upon Himself to act according to His own will and His own purposes in a sovereign way.
Without ever being bound by any man making a claim, you're not fair.
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And it's a very important point for us to recognize in the whole of the Word of God that God is righteous in his sovereignty. He has the sovereign right to do as He chooses, but He also is righteous in the basis on which He does it, and consequently every man of every dispensation.
For blessing is dependent upon the grace of God.
Men never can. The only if I want to say there's an exception to it, yes, in manhood there is. The Lord Jesus Christ is an exception to what I've just said. And in fact, he's the only person who has ever lived which has given God a motive to love him. There's never been a so another individual who's ever lived on this earth that has given God a righteous, true motive to love them.
Uh, but the Lord Jesus could say, therefore doth my Father love me because.
And he did as a man, give God a righteous claim. He had a righteous claim to be loved by God. But for the rest of us, we want to re.
Depend 100 and 203 hundred 1000, whatever you want to say percent.
Our blessing comes directly from what God is from His own heart. Everything flows for good from the heart of God. Nothing flows from man to God in that way. But it all originates. That's why in first John 4, even the matter of love, it says we love.
Because He first loved us all, Divine Love flows originally from His own heart. And if there's Divine Love in our heart, it originated in His. It flowed into us, and being in us, it may flow out to others, but even love itself always originates in His heart. That is divine Love. And so God is the only one and only source of true good.
And we are all the recipients of it. And brethren, if we in some little measure it lays hold of our souls, it helps us to be properly humble.
It's important to see that all blessing, whether it's for us in this dispensation, whether it's for God's earthly people who will be blessed in a coming day, or whether it's for the redemption that all creation is going to feel in the millennial scene. It's all based, as we've been saying, on the work that the Lord Jesus accomplished on Calvary's cross. And it's helpful to see in the book of Hebrews that it's really a broader thought than just our being brought into blessing.
We sometimes lose a little bit in the King James, but just to make our point, you find in the first chapter where it says he by himself purged our sins. That's true. Thank God, he has purged our sins. But if you notice Mr. Darby's translation, it's really a broader sense than that, isn't it? He's made the purification for sin because in the context there, it's by whom? Also, He made the world's and he's going to take it back in the coming day.
Not just on the basis of being the Creator, but on the basis of redemption.
We find in the second chapter that he should taste death, not just for every man, as the King James says.
But for everything, and so for Israel, as we've been speaking, they are going to be brought into a wonderful position of blessing.
In a coming day, they're going to enjoy like they've never enjoyed before. The promise, inheritance. The promises are going to be fulfilled that were made to Abraham and others down through the ages.
But they're going to too, have to recognize that it is on the grounds of redemption.
When they finally recognize that they are the that it was there in outside the walls of Jerusalem, that his hands and his feet and his side were pierced.
But there's also, again, let's apply it to ourselves 1St and then go back to what we're Speaking of with Israel, with everyone of us here who are saved. It's true. It's on the basis of the work of Calvary, the death and the shedding of blood of the Lord Jesus. It's on the grounds of grace. But there also had to be another work, and that is a work in our souls because none of us would have ever responded to the gospel message. We were dead in trespasses and sins.
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And apart from a work of God, a sovereign work of imparting divine life and bringing us to the realization that we were sinners, none of us would be saved. And I believe it will be similar for Israel in the coming day. He's going to, as our verse says, write His law in in their hearts. There has to be a work in the heart of Israel. And let's just go back to Ezekiel for a moment because I think we see it there.
Just to notice some verses in Ezekiel 36.
Speaking of the coming day of blessing for Israel and that work that's going to take place.
Amongst them verse 25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.
And all the filthiness. And oh, I'm sorry, from all your filthiness and from all your idols, will I cleanse you Now notice this.
And a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.
And I will make take away the Stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.
And ye shall keep my judgments and do them, and so on. Isn't it remarkable to think that while the Lord, I believe, took this portion and applied it in John 3 individually to Nicodemus, and I'll just say this, that's why Nicodemus should have understood what the Lord He said. Are you a teacher? Aren't you a teacher in Israel? And you don't know these things? If Nicodemus as a teacher in Israel had been studying the Old Testament and reading it with prayer and exercise like he should have been.
He would have understood what the Lord was saying in application. He would have thought in his mind back to this portion.
So he applied it individually to Nicodemus. He must be born again.
But brethren, in its context here in Ezekiel, there's going to be a National Heart transplant for Israel.
When the law was given, it was chiseled on 2 tables of stone. It was a picture of the Stony heart of man.
Israel being just a sample of what was indicative of all mankind.
But it was a picture of the Stony heart of man. No response, naturally speaking without a work of God.
But brethren, Israel as a nation in a coming day.
Is going to have the Stony heart of unbelief taken out of them. They're going to be given a heart.
That is going to respond to himself and he's going to write on that heart, not chisel like was chiseled with the finger of God on the tables of stone. He's going to write on that heart that will respond to himself, his law and there is going to be a response at Sinai they said all of the Lord thy God has said that what we do and they immediately failed in the 1St and greatest of the commandments and set up the golden calf and had an image.
Worship the the golden calf and they're gonna return to idolatry briefly in a coming day when they worship the image that is set up in the temple. But he's gonna take that Stony heart and he's going to give them a heart that is going to respond. What a wonderful thing. And Israel as a nation will never apostatize again. Once there is that work of grace and that work of power that takes out the Stony heart and gives them a new heart and writes the law in their heart, they will never as a nation apostasize again.
What a wonderful day it is going to be for Israel, and it ought to rejoice our hearts, brethren, to think that He is going to accomplish and fulfill those promises that He made to that nation in spite of that nation on the grounds of pure sovereign grace and a mighty work. It is going to be fulfilled.
In this chapter, but I'd like to make a mention of something for, especially for the younger, but uh, for us all in the way that covenant theology is taught that, uh, the church has replaced Israel. This is the reason why Christians today are told to get into the political process. And in the Old Testament, you have been of God who were high.
In the politics, Daniel was high in Babylon, Joseph was high in Egypt. And so they come to you and they say, why don't, why aren't you doing your Christian duty by representing God in the culture that we're passing through? And it sounds reasonable. And we need to understand that the church is a completely separate entity from Israel.
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We have not replaced Israel. Israel is always an earthly people with earthly blessings.
Material blessings. The churches are completely different people with heavenly calling and heavenly blessings. The Apostle Paul lost everything down here and yet he was one of the ones that enjoyed most his heavenly portion. Wonderful to see it even though he'd lost everything. I don't know what they would say, these prosperity gospel preachers today about the Apostle Paul that lost everything.
But, uh, it's important to see that we have a heavenly calling. We are pilgrims and strangers here as pilgrims and foreigners. We respect the laws of those countries that we live in, as any foreigner would do. But we do not get involved in those political processes. That is not our place. We are ambassadors for Christ and an ambassador does not get involved in the political processes.
The Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul and those.
The first disciples, you never find them getting into political, uh, movements at all. There was a lot of, uh, terrible things done by Nero, the Roman emperor. Do you see the Lord Jesus or any of the disciples protesting against that? Never did it happen. That is not our place, brethren. And so we need to understand that we're completely separate from Israel.
God has formed in this day from Jews and from Gentiles what is called the Church of God. That's our place now. And so in this chapter, although he's writing to those who are Jewish believers that come from that background, these things apply to us because we are, we come under the blessings of New Covenant, even though we are not under the New covenant.
And so we look at these things, brethren, and enjoy them. Verse 17 says their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Isn't that amazing to think about? We can say we enjoy that as well.
To think that God will never again thank be thinking about this when we come into God's presence. If I have the idea that the Lord would be thinking about some of the bad stuff I've done in the past, I would not be totally comfortable. But we have a positive promise. He doesn't say I will forget because forgetfulness is human weakness, and God is not afflicted with human weakness.
When you forget something, there's a possibility you might remember it further on. But God has made a positive promise. I will remember no more. Oh brethren, those things cannot come up any longer. The work of Christ is so completely put away sin by his sacrifice that He says their sins and their iniquities will. I remember no more. So my grandmother had.
Brush and I forgive and forget, but I always remember. And that's true, isn't it? Suppose I broke into your house, Brother Bob and I steal some things and you call the police. And later on that night, the police call you up and they say, we have your man, he's down here at the police station, and we'd like you to come down and press charges and pick up the goods that he's stolen. And so you come down and as you enter the police station, you look over on the bench and there's Jim Highland in handcuffs. And you come over and you sit down beside me and you say, now, Jim, we've enjoyed a lot of happy times together in the past, and I'm not gonna press charges.
And I'm gonna forgive you. And not only that, but Jim, why don't you still come over to my house when you're in town and we'll have a meal together and we'll just forget the whole matter? Would I ever really feel comfortable in your presence? Would I feel comfortable to come over on Friday night for dinner? I'd always feel like a forgiven thief. But you know, in Christianity, we're more than forgiven sinners. It's true. He has forgiven our sins. But this expression.
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Vice, our sin, their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. And I know it's referring to Israel in a future day, but as you say, we can apply it to ourselves. It doesn't say He never remembered them. There was a time when our sins were remembered and they were placed on the Lord Jesus. And as you say, God doesn't forget, but He chooses now because they have been taken care of righteously in the work of Calvary. And he bore us my sins in His own body on the tree.
Only a divine person can choose not to remember. I forget the things I want to remember, and I remember the things I want to forget. As you say, that's human nature. But only a divine person can choose not to remember. And I'm perfectly comfortable and will be for eternity perfectly comfortable in the presence of the Lord Jesus, because those sins are gone. But it's not that He just swept them under the carpet. It's not that He just chooses not to. I will remember no more that word.
Those words no more are important. He remembered them once, but now that they're taken care of, he can say I remember them no more. And that is for all eternity.
The apostle contrasts the blessings that Israel had under the law, and he contrasts them with the blessings that they can now have in Christ and this verse 17 contrasts with the.
The verse earlier in the chapter.
Verse 3 For in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. Now our brother Bob mentioned last night that the word atonement doesn't turn up in the New Testament. Why? Is it because atonement means as God our brother mentioned covering. So what was the situation, shall I say of a believer?
In the Old Testament times where those sacrifices were offered and those sacrifices, reverently speaking, reminded God of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who was going to come and bear all those sins in his own body on the tree, and on the basis of that, God granted.
Atonement. He covered those sins up so that he could have communion with his creature like our brother was mentioning the night before. And so that is atonement. Now if there was ever a workplace where the word atonement might have been used in the New Testament, it is in the 9th chapter and it's the.
Umm.
12 First, because of the.
Uh, allusion to that great day of atonement. And it says neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood. He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained atonement from us, no eternal redemption and eternal redemption. The debt has been paid. That all those sins that were covered up on the basis of those sacrifices so that God could have communion with his creature, they're all gone. The debt has been paid.
And so we have not atonement, but we have eternal redemption, and it's much better than atonement. We sometimes use the expression the atoning death of Christ now.
What we're doing is we're talking in types and I I suppose it's OK if we do so, as long as we realize what we're doing. But if redemption is far, far better than atonement.
And Adam sinned.
God's eye was now occupied with sin.
After Adam was created.
It says on the end of the 7th day God rested. On the 7th day He rested because he had just finished a work and he could look upon that work with satisfaction in his own heart and there was nothing to disturb his own satisfaction in the work.
But the moment Adam sinned, God ceased to rest, and he's never rested since.
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God cannot rest as long as his eye is upon sin. It is contrary to his nature, it is contrary to his holy beings, and as long as his eye sees sin, he cannot rest. And so when the Lord Jesus was here on earth, he says.
My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. It was an ongoing, continuous dealing with the matter of sin. As long as sin exists, God is forced to be a judge. It's not His desire to be a judge, but as long as sin is before His eye, He's forced into that position of having to make judgments with respect to that which is inconsistent with Himself.
And so in John's Gospel, when John the Baptist looks upon the Lord Jesus, he looks on to something that is God looks on to to this hour. He's still looking on to it. And that is, behold, the Lamb of God, which beareth away the sin of the world. That is, the Lord Jesus is one that is given of God to be one that will remove from God's sight.
Forever.
Send and when that work is in its entirety, uh, complete, the foundation of it is mad at the cross, but they're still sin in, in the creation. And then and only then do we find the expression and he shall rest.
In his love and he will rest in the end result of it. And so the work of redemption as it, as is already really been mentioned, the covering is that which did something necessary, but it did not remove the thing itself from before God having to deal with it. But redemption and its result is that which the blood of Christ cleanses, it removes.
That which is, in God's sight, offensive to him and so unlike.
Jim's illustration where you wouldn't be comfortable, no, it might be forgiven, but it's still there. It's still there to be seen. It's still there in the memory, uh, if you will. But the work of the Lord Jesus is that foundation and that work which God uses so that everything inconsistent with himself.
Can be righteously, perfectly and forever removed from his own sight. And then we go into eternity and eternity remains for God forever. I in connection with this chapter, I want to make one more comment about it as well. The first covenant.
Was based on man and responsibility, and so in that way it was conditional.
You keep these 10 rolls, you live, you break them, you die. There was a condition for man in connection with it, because man was placed in responsibility before God on that, on that ground.
The second covenant and the reason we come under the blessing of it is because it is a covenant that is not based on the same foundation. It is God saying I'm now going to be the responsible one. I am the one that is now going to do work in which I will maintain the responsibility of that covenant forever. And.
God will maintain it.
Forever and so they'll never be 1/3 covenant.
For man, heaven, earth, or otherwise, they'll never be another covenant because when God undertakes to do something on his own responsibility, he does it in perfection with an eternal result connected with it. And so we need a new heart. You haven't talked about our transplant. We we get a new life.
And we've got bodies that have sin in them, but based on the same work, God says, well, I can't have those. I can't, I can't have before my eye the results even of what sin has done, uh, because it still reminds me of sin. So I'm going to change the body and bring it into conformity to my own. And that's for us is glory. But even for the heavenly people it will, I mean the earthly people, it will ultimately have the same results.
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God looks at the creation itself and he says that reminds me of sin.
I look at a tree, I look at a flower, and I see the consequences of sin on that.
And it's been said, there's not a single perfect leaf in the whole of this universe. Every single leaf that exists on the earth at this moment in time, if examined carefully enough, will show something of the effect of sin. It's imperfect, in other words.
But God says, OK, but the work that my son is doing, he's going to remove everything from my sight. And on the same basis that Israel is blessed, we're blessed, the animals are blessed.
Every single creature comes under the benefit of the work and in the end, then as the final step, if you will, to remove all that has to do with it from God's sight, there'll be the last step of the really the, uh, day of the Lord, introducing the day of God in second Peter three that takes us on to future eternity, and that is.
I'm going to replace the heaven and the earth itself, and then I'll never remember sin anymore. The full effect here, it's applied to us as individuals, but forgot it in his thoughts. It goes out beyond that. And he says I'll remove the old creation itself and introduce a new creation, and on the basis of that one work, I'll maintain it forever. We ought to be thankful we don't have to worry about going to heaven someday and sinning.
You know we won't.
And, uh, God, in his purposes of perfection will still be responsible to be obedient. We'll be obedient creatures forever. Uh, we'll never have a time in all eternity where even in spite of grace, we aren't creatures of obedience and dependence. But God will sustain us in that way so that we never break, we're never disobedient again. And, uh, he maintains it in its perfection forever. And blessed be God.
So in verse 18.
Because full payment has now been made, not just atonement, but full payment has been made. There's no more offering for sin. God would be unrighteous if he required another offering for sin. And again, it's another one of those contrasts that our brother David was Speaking of because as we learned earlier, the sacrifices in the Old Testament, not only did they not put away sin, but they only dealt with that atone for that one sin and then they had to bring another and another and another.
And they understood that very clearly, the priests and the Levites and the children of Israel.
But it's important to realize that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus took care of sins past and sin's future. So as David was saying, the sins of the Old Testament were atoned for or put on account, really, weren't they? And the debt accumulated through the Old Testament, through 4000 years of man's history of sin from Adam to the cross, that debt accumulated the Lord Jesus and the sacrifice of Calvary. He took care of that tat there's been complete remittance made.
But even more wonderful than that, what about sin's future? What about your sins and mine? They were taken care of at the cross, too. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. And so full payment has been made. What? What would you think of a creditor who received full payment for a debt and then came and tried to force more money out of the person? Why you say that's completely unrighteous. The debt was fully paid.
Oh, the debt was fully met at Calvary's cross. And so in the 17th verse there's no more remembrance of sin, but it's really becau. And so as a result of that, there's no more offering for sin completely taken care. What assurance and confidence that ought to give us, brethren.
00:45:04
The Lord Jesus paid that price in full. The hand of God ripped that veil of the temple into from the top to the bottom. I've heard that it was probably a very thick.
Veil. But the hand of God opened that up, and I like to think of it in this way. God now comes out into the full light. We know Him as we could never have known him before as.
Israel could never have known him, but not only that. Now we can go in with boldness. Verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness.
Over other than let's let that sink into our souls, the privilege, we don't grasp it properly that we can go at any moment into the very presence of God. We mentioned in these days of how that there was only one person in Israel only once a year and not with confidence. He went into the very immediate presence of God.
Now, because of the work of the Lord Jesus, we can go in with boldness.
Sometimes I'd rather and I I don't think this is really sinking down properly into our souls. No one encouraged the young brother. And it's not a matter of experience and age, the question of priesthood. It's a question of being born into the priest priestly family. In the Old Testament, to be a priest, you had to be born into Aaron's family. In the New Testament, everyone that is born into the family of God is a priest.
A holy priest capacitated to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices.
Of praise and prayer. Why is it that on Lord's Day morning so often a long, long pauses? I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a pause.
To enjoy and meditate on the Lord. But sometimes uncomfortably long pauses. Do we understand where God has brought us? Is there a doubt as to the sufficiency of the sacrifice that has been made? Oh, brethren, it says, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.
Sometimes we call it holy boldness because as we go into the presence of God, let us never forget there's the veil hanging on one side and another. The veil was rent the price.
Price, president, was costly.
But let's enjoy it. He's won it for us this place before his presence.
And then it says in having an high priest over the House of God.
In chapter 5 it shows that the high priest was there because.
Of men's infirmities and weaknesses.
Do we feel it as we enter into the presence of God?
In our expressions of praise and thanks, do we make mistakes? Yes, we do.
And that's why the Lord Jesus is there as high priest. So don't let fears of our infirmities and weaknesses impede our expression of gratitude, a praise of worship to God. Let's enjoy this privilege. It belongs to us. And so he is there.
And it says in the hymn to all our praise, our prayers and praises, Christ adds his sweet perfume and love. The sensor raises those that are the orders to consume so that the Lord Jesus is there for that purpose, to help us in our weaknesses and infirmities. We should be correct in our expressions to the Lord. But sometimes I've made mistakes.
In my expressions.
Brethren, we can learn and we can do it better next time, but don't let that impede you from coming into His presence. Verse 22. Let us draw near.
00:50:09
He's made every provision. Are you gonna hang back? Are you gonna say I don't feel worthy to participate in the praise and Thanksgiving to him? How can you do that?
It's interesting. We won't go back for the sake of time, but in the Old Testament, when you have Aaron the priest, one of the things that he was to wear was the mitre, and it tells us what the mitre was for. It was so that he could bear the iniquity of the holy things of the children of Israel. Because even in our worship and our praise, it's sometimes checkered with self. It isn't always perfect, as you say.
But we can take comfort that, as you say, by the time the Lord Jesus takes our prayers and praises and presents them to the ear of God, they're perfect. I find that a great comfort. As you say, Bob, we need to be exercised that we are intelligent worshippers because that's what characterizes Christianity. But there's one as our high priest who wears the mitre. And it's interesting that in the 4th chapter of Hebrews.
We're told to approach boldly in another aspect. There we have a great high priest.
Who has been touched with the feeling of our infirmities? And so on. And there we're told to come boldly to the throne of grace.
And you know, we're quick to do that, aren't we? And thank God we are. Thank God for that wonderful provision. And we often enjoy the fact that we can come boldly to the throne of grace, make our requests known. He's living to intercede for us. He sympathizes. He empathizes with us. But what about this, brethren? What about this privilege here? Are we as eager, shall I say, are we as exercised to come in boldly into His presence?
Worshippers, that's what he wants. We're we're priests, as Bob has said, and you get it in, in, in Peter's epistle. We're holy priests to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices. And as we've been saying in these meetings, this is what he wants. But he wants us to come. And not only are the brothers priests, but the sisters are priests too. And a sister's presence in the assembly with her heart full of praise and worship.
It's a tremendous blessing. I think it was mentioned that when Mary poured out her ointment at the feet of Lord, she never said a word.
Not one word, but it had an effect on all those that are there. Oh, brethren, what a privilege we have to come, not with fear and trembling, but to come with holy boldness and confidence on the basis of the blood of Christ, and to pour out our hearts as worshippers and in praise and Thanksgiving.
Collective sense than individual. I was thinking of, not to jump ahead, but verse 25, he gets into the thought of not forsaking ourselves, the assembling of ourselves together. So is is the emphasis here more in our approach collectively than it is individually, or would you include our individual approach as well?
Together, whether individual or collective, these principles apply.
You might say the, uh, 24th verse would be the individual on the 25th, the collective, wouldn't you?
Yeah. So I both are included.
In verse 22 it says, and this is beautiful, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Brethren, think about it. What has God omitted in making access into His presence possible for us? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
That's the sprinkling of the blood and our bodies washed with pure water.
And that is not the water from the labor that the priest washed themselves as they went in on a daily basis to do the service in the Tabernacle. That is the full bath that was given to the priests at their consecration. It's the washing of regeneration. We're brought into a completely new position before God in that work of Christ. That's the voicing that's referred to in verse 22.
00:55:25
Isn't that right, Don?
Mm-hmm.
Comment on the the general principle too, and as it says in verse 19, enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
When the Lord Jesus himself.
Rose from the dead, and he came into the presence of the disciples in the upper room.
Where the door was shut for fear of the Jews.
He said to them.
Umm, or it says he showed them.
His hands and his side.
That's what they saw when you and I enter glory for the first time.
That's what we're gonna see.
When we first see the Lord Jesus face to face first time in our.
Existence. We're gonna see his hands and his side.
We're seeing what after sin is removed from the creation and from God's sight, as we had a little while ago.
We'll have that eternal reminder. There won't be when you enter and see the Lord Jesus for the first time, there will not be a single mark of sin upon you.
There will be absolute perfection in your body.
Bought in for him the only perfect body in which sin never entered internally or externally.
It is God's choice, I guess I'll put it that way that the cost of redemption as we see it, we will see in his hands and in his side and and will be forever in awe and worshippers of that. Likewise when he presented himself to them, he said flesh and bones, you see me have and a carefully expressed statement.
That there was no blood in that body.
That blood had been shed on the cross.
And that blood?
God will see.
Forever we see his hands on his side, and it's brought before us to think about it that way. But at the same time, when the high priest Aaron went into the most holy place, into the presence of God, there was the ark and there was the mercy seat on the top of the ark sprinkled with the blood. And on the day of the Passover, he says, when I see the blood.
I will pass over you, and God himself will rest forever with His eye on that blood and all that it means to Him.
As to the one who shed the blood and to the work accomplished through the shedding of that blood, through the giving of that life, and he will rest forever in his own satisfaction in it, in a way that will.
Give rest, if I can put it that way, to the heart of God, that nothing will ever disturb the present state of.
Creation bless in God's sight, because the value of that blood to His eye will remain in its application forever, and nothing can disturb it. And it is really.
For us, you might say in our in a moral sense, let's rejoice in God's eye on the blood, but at the same time rest in the satisfaction of it as God is satisfied as well.
It's a wonderful thing, brethren, to see those two things which will remain for eternity, which in themselves are, we'll say, a reminder that sin once existed.
01:00:20
We sing #70 in the back.
We sang of the realms of the blast, that country so bright and so fair, the glorious mansions of rest.
But what must it be to be there first? For do thou, Lord, pleasure and woe still for heaven our spirits prepare, and shortly we also shall know and feel what it is to be there #70 in the back.
We sing all the roads, all of us.
In the house, so big round wine.
And worries are great.
With anything high.
In the living room that happened to fall over.
Who I am from the earth view of.
01:05:03
Shout Now I'm going to get a fall from here and there's a little it's a blasting to be so.
Hey John, I'm dumb like a child.
On the Doom on the ground.
All right, umm, like when you can so.
Sanctification
Holiness of God and Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ
B. Shane, E. Seichter
Open—B. Shane, E. Seichter
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.
Beside our long spirit wings from earth, where yes, we roam, And can we call our homes on the ice, on high, The best of God are rest to come, Our place of liberty 64.
Why don't we reopen to?
Romans chapter 10 again together, please.
For a few moments.
I would like to.
Continue a little bit on sanctification.
And I'd like to take up a third part of the topic.
That would be the consummation of our sanctification.
Please bear with me in my speech.
Hebrews 10 and 10.
By which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
The book of Hebrews is a a book of positional.
Sanctification.
And there's been much talk about it this weekend, and I wasn't here for all of it.
It's a beautiful topic to enjoy.
And in this passage.
It is a superiority.
Of the sacrifice.
Of God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I had read from Isaiah 53.
And verse 10.
It pleased the Lord to bruise him.
He hath put him to grief, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.
And I had compared it to verse 6.
Of Hebrews 10 and burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure.
The one offering.
That was so far superior.
Completely and fully pleased the Lord, pleased God the Father.
It's perfect and spotless sun.
Shedding that precious blood on Calvary St. for your sins and for mine.
And so we see positionally.
This passage in Hebrews 10 and 10.
And throughout the book of Hebrews it is a position, except for chapter 12 and verse 14.
And we also heard about the eternal.
Positioning.
And in the book of Ephesians.
Chapter 5.
And verse.
Excuse me, chapter 3 and verse 10 to the intent that now and to the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be known by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God.
According to the eternal purposes which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
00:10:01
And sometimes referred to as an eternal plan. I believe that's how it was referred to my middle brother.
We see the foreknowledge. We see the wisdom.
And we see the eternal plan.
And they're in Revel, in the book of Isaiah. When we read that, it pleased.
God to bruise him.
The depth of the verse.
And it relies and hinges upon.
The perfection and the superiority of the sacrifice.
You can take that and you can read it and you can study it in many a different ways.
The same way in Hebrews.
10 and 10.
We are positionally sanctified by God.
We are positionally sanctified to God, and we are positionally sanctified for God.
And you can look it in each one of the ways.
I can remember studying Isaiah.
And that verse and what led me to that was two very elder gentlemen standing in a hallway and discussing the verse. And I had utmost respect for those two elders. I was a young man in Christ.
And the one made a comment about the depth of that verse.
And I went home and I studied.
I studied and then I leave for a while and then a month or two later I'd come back.
Now leave it for a while and come back again.
One day I read that after Jesus had dived out his head and gave up the Spirit.
Along came the soldier and.
Pierced into the side that sword.
And I said.
And then I started to wonder, did God give him the power to push that spirit aside?
And then I started to study things that said God allows things.
And then I started looking at different ways and looking at that verse.
And then I started studying that Moses smoked the rock and water gushed forth.
And there was the sight of Jesus sitting there with that blood in it.
That blood had to flow.
It wanted to come out.
With power, it gushed.
Every last drop that it needed to cleanse you and cleanse me.
So that we could be sanctified and set apart.
Otherwise it would have been impossible.
His eternal purposes, his eternal plans had to be fulfilled. And then I'd go back to that study and I'd look at another angle at that verse.
And the beauty of it would just come out.
About the love.
And Jesus hanging on the cross and saying Father forgive them for they know not what they do.
And the low of Calvary to set me apart.
He bled and he died for you and for me.
And it's an eternal position.
And we're going to see that because it's in Revelations 22 as my last little reference, OK?
We're going to see that.
Internal positioning.
So then our brother next spoke about the Holy Spirit.
And his work in the position?
And if we go to 2nd Corinthians.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 3.
And verse 18.
But we all.
With an open face, an unveiled face, beholding as in a glass, in other words a mirror, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory.
Even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Go back to Ephesians in chapter 5.
00:15:08
Verse 25. The latter part, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that he might sanctify it and cleanse it with the worship of water.
By the word.
We see that there is a part there.
Where the Holy Spirit is involved in the sanctification.
In the Old Testament, the word sanctification.
Has various.
Different words.
Various rendering of one Hebrew word.
And some of those renderings are.
Consecration.
Some of them are dedication.
Sometimes it's sanctification.
And sometimes it's holiness.
And in the Old Testament, it's not always of a person, it's sometimes of a thing.
Turn with me to Zachariah.
Chapter 8.
Look at verse 3, Zechariah chapter 8 and look at there where this is a passage where the Lord will restore Israel and the Kingdom, by the way.
Verse three of chapter 8. And thus the Lord, I am returned to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth.
And the mountain of the Lord of the Host, the most Holy.
Mountain.
A sanctified mountain, Matthew, chapter 4.
Matthew chapter 4 and verse 5.
Then the devil taketh him.
Up into the Holy City.
And setteth him upon a pinnacle of the temple, a holy mountain, and a holy city.
So we see that that was before Christ died on the cross.
We see there we see.
Set apart by God and called a holy mountain and a holy city.
And so in the Old Testament, we can see, and I read from the New Testament there, but when the first part of it there, we can see that sometimes it's things that are sanctified.
So it's either a person or a thing.
Now I'd like to look together.
At the Book of Daniel.
Daniel.
Chapter 4.
Verse 13.
I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and behold a watcher.
A holy one came down from heaven.
And Anne, holy one came down from heaven. Verse 23 and whereas the king saw a watcher and an holy one coming down from heaven.
I can remember the first time that I read about a watcher.
And I wondered what it meant.
Not in the New Testament. I found that the angels are watching this meeting.
We generally think of the Angel as a messenger.
But the angels are watching.
When you go to.
The little book.
Right before Revelations.
The little Book of Jude.
And the little book of Jude in verse 14.
Speaks about Enoch.
00:20:02
Anirudh also the 7th from Adam prophesied to these saying, Behold the Lord cometh with 10 thousands of his Saints.
And I had read in the Bible about other books that were quoted from that were not in our Bible.
And so I wanted to extend my knowledge and read some on them.
And so I picked up a paperback book of the Book of Enoch.
And I started reading from it.
And finally I found the verse that this quote comes from.
This quoted right from the book he prophesized it. See behold the Lord cometh with 10,000 of his Saints. That means as many as 10 thousands of 10 thousands of 10 thousands of 10,010 thousand that could pass by. He could call upon all of them if he wanted to. And our Lord when he was going to Calvary, he could have called upon as many of them as he wanted to.
And when we go to Song of Solomon, we say, my beloved, he is fairer than all of the 10 thousands of 10 thousands of 10 thousands of 10,000, no matter how many there is. And I was enjoying it. But all of a sudden, boom, there was the watchers in that book of Enoch all over in there referencing the angels as the watchers. So I started to understand.
A little bit about the watchers.
An unholy one in Daniel four and verse 13 and 23.
Now I'm going to switch this and I'll put the two together.
This good little Leviticus, Chapter 11.
Leviticus Chapter 11 and look at verse 45.
For I am the Lord who bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God.
And ye shall therefore be holy.
For I am holy.
The Holy One in Daniel.
And this one here.
About God himself.
For I am holy.
They have an inward.
Moral quality.
About them. That makes them holy.
An inward moral quality that makes them holy.
When it was used of us in Hebrews 10 and 10, it was set apart.
Yes.
We are a St. therefore we are holy from the moment we were saved.
When I look at my Lord, when I look at the Triune Godhead, God the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit, I look at myself and I read that I'm body, soul and spirit.
And I put the Spirit with the Holy Spirit.
And I put.
My soul with God the Father in the seat of affection.
He is love.
And when I come over here to my body.
And Jesus Christ became a man and took on the body, didn't he?
He came down and became the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief.
You know, we can experience a progression in our lives where there is a detachment from evil.
But here we have.
God saying I am holy.
And the angels, the watchers, coming down with an holy one.
And the inward of them.
Is wholly.
Amoral quality.
And so I'm looking at my body.
And I need the consummation of my body.
Be changed.
You know, salvation has three things in it. I was saved the minute I trusted and I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm currently being saved now.
00:25:07
And in the future will be the completion of my salvation.
Our sanctification is in three in a triune also.
I was set apart the moment I was saved and the Holy Spirit works a part in me.
Where I progress.
And move away from evil.
And the consummation of my sanctification.
Is going to be.
In the coming days, soon, we hope, don't we? And we look for it, and we pray. First. John, chapter 3.
First John chapter 3 and verse 2.
Beloved now, are we the sons or the children 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.
Holdy.
In a body that's changed, likened to him, for we shall see him as he is.
No, I said that I would touch and I would sit down. I've taken right at half the time. Exactly. It's just about Revelations 22.
Verse 11.
At the end of verse 11, for the sake of time, I was going to read it, and he that is holy.
Let him be holy still.
We're in the last chapter, the last part of the Word of God.
The destiny is fixed.
The moment we were saved and we were sanctified, our destiny was fixed. Let him.
That is holy, the holy still, meaning forever and forever and forever and forever and forever and forever. We will be holy, spotless, undefiled.
In a body like unto his.
The consummation.
Of our sanctification, let him that is holy be holy still.
Beloved to the Lord.
Listening to the brother just spoke about the holiness and the glory of holiness of God, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That made me think.
Of a portion that's been on my mind for a long time. Kind of a question.
And that portion is.
About the Lord Jesus.
Where he speaks, I believe.
Is it is.
Where he speaks.
And that place is in the.
Psalm 8.
No, it's in Proverbs 8.
Verse 23.
I was set up from Everlasting.
From the beginning.
However, the Earth was.
00:30:01
When there were no debts, I was brought forth when there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth.
While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
When he prepared the heavens, I was there.
When he set a compass upon the face of the depth.
When he established the clouds above.
When he strengthened the Fountain of the Deep.
When he gave to the sea his decree that the water should not pass his commandment.
When He appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was with was by him, or with him as one brought up with him.
And I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth and mighty lights. Where were the sons of man?
Now this last statement.
Has always made me glad when I read it because I was thinking.
About this portion of Scripture, we read that quite often, every once in a while in the worship meeting.
And why do we read it in the worship meeting? A thought.
There must be pur uh, purpose for that.
And.
We probably could say it is because it speaks about the Lord Jesus.
And I often think.
Uh, where? Where was the Lord Jesus actually in heaven? And what did he do before He came in to this world to do His great work?
Appointed to him by the Father.
And every time I think, well, we have a portion of scriptures or several portions in scriptures that speak about it because we use them at the breaking of bread.
May I also think of Psalm 19, verse one. The heavens declare the great glory of God.
And the firmament?
I have to read it. I have to read it before.
Making about the making of his hands he made. That's what I wanted to bring out.
And then I think.
This portion I just read.
That must be the Lord Jesus before he came into this world.
Because it fits so well.
With what he did also.
In Hebrews.
Oh in John one in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God also speaks about the Lord Jesus and when it we read here.
That fits so well. I was set up from everlasting. We often say they're God. The Lord Jesus was with God.
From time.
By the beginning of time and before the beginning of time.
From Everlasting.
And he was appointed there.
That's what we can say, set up by God.
To do what he did.
And then also the beginning.
00:35:06
When God made a beginning.
And that's when he.
Started to make the earth the world.
However the earth was, there was a beginning of it.
When there and then he describes these things.
There's no place in Scripture that I know who better describes.
What the Lord Jesus?
Was occupied with before he came to this earth.
He says I was set up from everlasting from the beginning, or ever the earth's worth, and then when there were no debts.
I was brought forth.
When we think of deaths, we think usually of deep waters.
Well, there were. There was nothing else. There was nothing of that. But the Lord Jesus was there.
I saw that the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean supposed to be 6 miles deep.
There wasn't there yet.
But the Lord Jesus was there.
He was brought forth.
To see it, to make it, to be with God when he made it.
And when there was no fountain abounding with abine abounding with water.
The Lord Jesus was there. The earth wasn't made yet. There were no fountains of water like we know them today in the mountains when they come down. Freshwater springing up there wasn't there yet. But the Lord Jesus was there.
Before the mountains were settled.
Well, we all may have thought, well, how did the mountains come to pass? How did they be so high and so widespread?
Before the mountains were settled now they must have been settled at that time put up.
The Lord Jesus was there.
And he was himself working with God, putting him up, balancing them.
I often thought, well, how could that be, that the earth turned so precisely and there so so great high mountains? How come it doesn't get out of balance? Look at the Hamilton Hemalian mountains, so heavy and so high.
And then the Alps and the mountains in the United States.
The Lord Jesus was there. He made all that with God.
When we fly from Europe to the States.
It's exactly a certain time that it takes, and it's about two hours faster than the Earth's Earth turns.
And it's all in balance it.
It comes exactly a fraction.
A millionth of a second accurate. It turns. I can't look at my watch. It's always on time. It's guided by.
Erase which are.
Coming from a certain mountain.
And it's always on time.
And the Lord settled. That was God the Father. Before the hills was I brought forth.
Well, they had to be hills to balance out. They were there, but there were no mountains.
To make the Earth's Tor turn just in the right speed all the time.
00:40:07
And we go unlike that while as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
Where we all know where the fields are.
When he prepared the heavens. When we look up into the heavens.
We see clouds.
And we know that from there the earth is watered. They are full of water.
And it all prepared by the Lord Jesus when he prepared the heavens.
Him, God and Father, God the Father and him, they prepared all these things.
And the Lord Jesus was there when he said, a compass upon the face of the earth. There we have the earth's magnetism.
One time I went skiing, I took a compass with me.
And I piled the house.
On from where I left and I, I knew.
And I set the compass in that direction. I find the way exactly home again. And I did. I went there for a couple hours. It was time. I looked at the compass, pointed it to where I left, and I got exactly to that house where I came from.
Well, all this is made by him, by God the Father and the Lord Jesus.
When he gave to the sea his degree, we are thinking of the great seas, the Mediterranean, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Oceans. They have all lots of waters in it, and they have.
Exactly been appointed to how big they are, how deep they are, how far they can go and when the winds.
Steer them up. What they can do is what they cannot do.
They should not pass his commandments, and they don't.
When he appointed the fountains of the earth the foundations of the earth.
We sometimes things were Where does the earth have a foundation? Where is it?
Where we have to think that out more in a spiritual way, because the earth is.
Set in a certain place in the universe and it stays there.
Is there a certain distance to the moon? There's a certain distance to the sun.
If men have already been able to measure that.
If I race, which they have produced.
And then measure the time it took those rays to get there.
And they found out.
The Earth is always in their place, the moon is always in their place, although they do move.
Well, at a certain time of the year, there will be right back in that same place where they are supposed to be.
When he appointed the foundation of the Oz, it just as sure as the foundation of a building that man builds and they know where it is.
And they know how much it took to build it, to make it.
God knows the places.
Of the planets exactly.
Where they are and where they should be all the time.
And then he says something that rejoices my heart. I was daily his delight.
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So the Lord Jesus.
Was in the presence of the Father, and he was the Father's delight, and he still is the Father's delight today.
He was his Father's delight when he did that great work, and the earth when he died on the cross, because he did exactly the will of God the Father.
And he was rejoicing before God the Father, like we know our children do.
At least at a certain age, when they the father takes them out on an outing, takes them on a picnic, takes takes them somewhere.
The Father delighted to do that, to make him happy. Well, the Lord Jesus was always perfectly.
In line with the thoughts of the Father God.
And later on, when we have the habitable part of his earth, when man was made, and where men were put.
In the different places, different nations.
Although they were often.
Doing things that I'm not delightful and in generally failed.
But the Lord Jesus never did fail.
He he was a delight of God the Father and his He could even say my delights were with the sons of man, God.
Himself was God the Father. They made men.
Man failed.
But they are still patient.
They still are delighted in those.
Who put their trust in the beloved Son of God in the Lord Jesus, and that way they can be the delights of God.
And the delights of the Lord Jesus.
Well I could mention a few scriptures yet like John one the first verses they speak about these things.
I can't think of it right now anymore. I haven't written it down and my memory isn't that good, but I just wanted to share with you these few sorts where the Lord Jesus might have been.
In.
Heaven before he came here and the things he did.
Because sometimes people ask, well, what did Jesus Christ do in heaven before he came here? Well, there are many other places in Scripture we might be able to put out, put up and read and look at and we will find out.
That.
He did many things and ran real with him in heaven. We won't be idle. Some people say, well, we have nothing to do there. We will be idle, no.
We will be the Lord Jesus.
And we will be his daylight and we will rework for him and with him.
Let us all rejoice at the time when that will happen. We spoke a lot in these meetings about these things and we praise His name. We thank their God and Father there about those few.
4.
Like him, oh grace supreme.
Like him?
Before thy face.
Like him to know that glory beam.
Unhindered.
Face to face.
Everything wonderful in these words.
Want to leave with our hearts as we come to the end of this time together?
Something that is common to everyone in our hearts is.
There's a deep desire in every one of us.
To know him better.
I don't believe there's a single redeemed soul in this room that doesn't have a thirst.
To know him personally, individually better.
Then we know him now.
It's a great desire.
But in Proverbs 8 that we have a little bit.
He says my delights were with the sons of men.
His desire matches ours in that way. He wants us to know Him.
As His delight is is with us, His delight will be with us when these it has been from a past eternity, but it will continue to be so.
And so I just want to make this remark about knowing him.
How can we know him better?
Well, it's primarily his work.
If you wanna know an aunt, you've gotta have the nature of an Ant.
Nobody in this room knows an Ant. You don't have an ant's nature, and you can't say you really know an Ant in an intimate way.
For Jesus and God's desire that we might have this.
Desire in our souls to know him better, he said.
Give you the nature, I will give you my nature.
And in that way you may know me.
Life as a character to it.
That I might know him as the Apostle Paul expresses the desire, he says.
In order that we might truly enter in to the fullness that is possible for us to know him, he says, well, to know me you have to have my life.
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My delights are in you, so I give you my life.
And we share that common life, and by having a common life and having a common nature, it gives us common interests.
Common feelings.
Even common thoughts.
And so this little hymn like him.
It's this has already been quoted or read in in this meeting going back the 1St.
Well, I'm gonna read it just to get it correctly stated but and you don't have to turn to it in view of the time, but it says in first John chapter 3.