Pella Conference: 2023
Table of Contents
Romans 9:1-11
Four Wonderful Things
Address—Bruce Conrad
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Good afternoon everybody. Let's begin with singing part of hymn #208.
208 verses 1-2 and four.
The brother could start that to a tune that.
Everybody's used to here.
We turn to start with two proverbs, chapter 30.
I.
I'd like to read just three verses here. That may seem a little bit unusual.
That's really what is the outline of what is before me. Proverbs chapter 30 and verse 18. There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yay, for which I know not the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea.
In the way of a man with a maid, such is the way of an adulterous woman. She eateth and wipeth her mouth, and saith.
I have done no wickedness.
But I'd like to speak a little bit about these four wonderful things because I I think I see in them an outline.
Of the most precious things that our human minds will ever take in.
So I lookout around, I see a lot of young people and you've probably been trained in in various things in your life. Some of you have learned very complicated natural things and engineering or calculus or other languages, et cetera.
But your mind, you know, was really formed chiefly for these wonderful things that have been commuted to us, communicated to us by God.
And so, so it is. We have this privilege to know the things which have been freely given to us of God. This is the chief purpose for the what we call the hardware of our minds and the tenor of our hearts, the way He made them to take in these precious things and have our lives, however long we're here, governed by them.
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In First Corinthians we read as the apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians, and he's putting before them their responsibility as builders. He says, here are the things that I want you to build with gold and silver and precious stones.
And then it goes on to say wood and hay and stubble.
And this is really a brief outline or an array of that which has been put into our hands to know and to understand The gold would speak of just like this eagle. In this verse we read the supremacy of the great God our Father and His Son, who has been manifested now in this world, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The silver speaks of redemption and the Gospel.
Sometimes I have thought lately that in the Gospel of the grace of God we kind of look at it as kind of like entry level Christianity. I don't think we should do that.
And those of us here that are a little older, for decades and decades we've been pondering and studying, I'm not ashamed to use that word, studying the scriptures to understand more of these precious things which concern the gospel of the grace of God. When we're in a large assembly and there's much less of them than there used to be. I think a person can get the wrong impression if we just give it to the 16 year old or there's nothing against you guys.
Or the 17 year old or the 18 year old. And you guys are the ones that present the gospel. But when it comes to addresses or the reading meeting, it's the older brothers.
The gospel, yes, it's wonderful that it can be understood by a child of three. I know personally children.
At the.
At the age of three or four, who have accepted Christ as Savior, and so do you.
But the gospel is something that is is so vast, so deep, and so ponderous that it's a joy to spend our entire life considering it more and more, and its depths and riches, the riches of the grace of God.
The way of an eagle in the air, All of these things serpent upon a rock, the ship in the midst of the sea, the way of a man with a maid, and especially the 1St 3.
They don't leave any trail. It's like, how does that work? Where do they decide to go? These are wonderful things. When we think of an ego, we think of some of, of a creature in in our house, in our where we live. The eagles come out as soon as the sun gets hot enough and the thermals go up. And if you're outside and you look up, you'll see them just hovering way, way up. You know, it's most like an eagle because of the height at which it it.
Around it seems so effortless and.
The way of an eagle in the air is we start with is goes back to or out to eternity. Eternal things have no beginning and we read in the scripture from the very first verse in the beginning God.
And then it goes on to say, created the heavens and the earth. The heavens come first. We read in Proverbs chapter 8 that before there was any any creative construction or building done, that there was a Father and there was a Son, and they were in, in mutual delight and joy and happiness, the fruit of eternal love.
And if you just think of it, sometimes I do.
I just try to imagine what would it have been like if there is just God and nothing else, just the that eagle character of things, just Him. Because there was a time before the worlds were made. There was a time before this whole universe was spoken by His word. And there was God the Father and there was God the Son. And they had as a brother brought out this morning, they had an eternal purpose.
And they carried it out through councils.
And now we're in the midst of those councils in those ways and that purpose unfolding. God, who stretched out the north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing. How do you hang something on nothing? How does even natural life, how is it even understandable to us, even natural life as brilliant as men all over this world have become?
To invent computers and all of these fascinating things.
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So that you can pick up a little device and talk halfway around the world. Yet still the essence of even natural life is a mystery to man, let alone spiritual things. But there was God and there was divine love reciprocal between the Father and the Son. And he said, let us make man in our image.
And let them have dominion. And so in Proverbs 8 we read.
That in the midst of this relationship of love and glory there was a divine affection which said my delights are with the sons of men before there was even one. You say I can't understand. I've heard the brothers say that I was chosen in Christ. If I'm a believer, I was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Yes, he did, and he put this earth in place. Why?
So that he might display his own glory, so that he might have a platform for you and for me to be brought into that fellowship with him and be a participant in that eternal relationship of love and glory. And so the heavens came first, and the eagle, you might say, has landed in a certain sense. And you're familiar with how the four gospels are divided up in our minds. And so we look at.
Matthew and with some of us have just spent two years going through the the book of Matthew and what a delight it has been. There's the lion, the the king, the greatest among beasts. No one lion turns not aside for any. And in Mark we have a picture of the ox, the servant, and in Luke the man.
That's Son of a man and presented in gospel Luke and then John we have.
That eagle side of things. And so from the very beginning of that gospel we have.
The Word in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. The Word was with God. The same was in the beginning with God.
And Christian scholars that understand the Greek language, they marvel how could.
How could someone say so much in literally so few words?
It is just a fascinating 123 verses to open up John's Gospel. And you've probably learned in your studies of John's Gospel that it speaks of love and light and life. But there is another thing that John Gospel speaks about in a word, that is that that is in John's gospel more than any other, and that is sent.
Sent he the Son of God, who existed for all eternity.
Is the scent one of God if we turn to John chapter 8?
Can't tarry too long on these aspects of things with John chapter 8.
John 8 and 42.
Jesus saying to them, If God were your Father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God. Neither came out of my eye of myself, but he sent me.
He has told them already up to this point in John's gospel that he came from heaven. When you meet somebody. We met some people just at lunch here. The question we always ask each other, where are you from? Where do you live? Where are you from?
And when men encountered the Lord Jesus without knowing where are you from, says I'm from heaven. There was never a man that came from heaven before the sun came down into this world and took manhood to himself and never stopped being who he was, as he added to himself manhood that he never had before.
His manhood had a beginning, his person as son.
Has no beginning because he's an eternal. He's the eternal 1. And so he adds to them himself that manhood, and he's sent into this world just like an eagle descends down, and he walks among men, and he displays everything.
That is in the mind and heart of God that God wished to display to man.
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And sometimes if we say, if I just say shiny red apple, and you know the English language you're picturing in your mind right now, a shiny red apple, because that's what words are capable of doing. And the Son himself has given that name or that title of the word because he communicates all that God is. And God's desire was to do that.
And so we have him as the word, and furthermore we read later on that in him.
As a man down here dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In the verse I read, verse 42, it has these two different sides of things, because the Father sent the Son, and He is the sent one of the Father, but He also volunteered of his own will to come into this world and take manhood to himself.
To accomplish the great work of redemption.
Because as we know.
And as we'll get to in a second here.
The next one is a serpent upon a rock.
Yes, he was preceded, he says first I proceeded forth and came from God.
In the well known passage in Philippians 2.
It was not robbery, not not something outside of his school.
To come down into this world and take the servants form, even though he was God. Sometimes in the workplace somebody will go and do something and and you'll hear about something done and you say well, why did? Well, I don't know why he did that. It's really not proper to him in his scope of work. He got kind of out over his skis or something like we say, but for the Son of God because he is God.
He was proper to him, it was in his scope.
To come down and to take manhood to himself. And so he says, I proceeded forth and came from God. A similar passage in John 17.
John 17 in verse.
Verse 8.
The Lord Jesus speaking to his Father.
I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them.
And have known surely, that I came out from thee, and they have believed that Thou did send me.
And so we see here the two sides and the harmony of the father wishing to fill his house with children. And so he sends his son in whom he could fully rely. And the son says, I want to stand before my father in a coming day, and I want to be surrounded by children in whom my father can take delight.
And so as the fruit of Calvary's work.
He can say, and he will in that day, behold, I and the children which God hath given me, Beautiful harmony between the Father and the Son, and flip over, please. Now to John 19.
That One who came forth from heaven, who came forth from his Father, who at the same time the Son of Man, which is in the bosom of the Father, He came, but in a sense never left.
Such is part of the mystery of his person. He comes into this world and we all know that rather than receiving, you might say, the most majestic welcome that man could ever, ever possibly give, we know that he could say they hated me without a cause. And for my love, they are my adversaries.
And he proceeded forth through this world, presenting himself.
As the one who fulfilled every promise as we had before us in the reading, promise after promise after promise that was made, prophecy after prophecy. Check that box. Check that box, check that box over and over again.
In John 19, Pilate, who was, as we say euphemistically, was between a rock and a hard place, trying to accommodate Jewish envy, Jewish hatred.
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And his own sense in his own conscience that this was an innocent man and he's trying to find a compromise because people in those positions have made their living on political compromise. And he tries to do that and just try to wade, you know, as they say, well, let's make it win, win, or let's just try to compromise us. And God would not allow it.
And so in frustration, as I take it in the beginning of John 19.
Pilate having examined him and being astounded by what he heard.
In verse 4, Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.
And just like we read of the Father and the Son, Pilate says I'm bringing him forth. Pilate didn't bring him forth. The Lord Jesus came forth in the next verse. Then came Jesus forth wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
And pilots saith unto them, Behold the man.
This is the man from heaven.
This is the man that some have said.
Almost as if he had to introduce him because he was almost.
Unrecognizable.
From the abuses.
Of the different facets of man's society.
And Jesus comes forth.
And the serpent is now on the rock.
We're not told. Sometimes people say, well, the rock is the world. It's just a big. We've seen pictures now from outer space of the Earth. People say, well, it's a big rock.
To us, it is a big rock.
And how the serpent came to be on it from the very beginning. We are not told. We have bits and pieces and and hints throughout the word of God as to how it came to pass that God who created the world to be inhabited.
How did it come into a state where it was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep? We're not told, but we we can surmise that a rebellion of some sort took place.
When the Lord Jesus began his public ministry.
He was led of the Spirit out of the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil.
And the devil tried all those things which work on fallen man.
The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, one after another. And he's clever enough to quote Scripture as well.
And the Lord Jesus, just as a dependent man, he just says it is written and he responds with the word of God and it says there, I think it's in Luke 4.
It says the devil departed from him for a season. For a season.
Until the Lord Jesus in that sense bound the strongman, and he began to spoil his house.
And he brings the dead back to life, And he makes the lame walk, and he makes the dumb speak and sing, and he makes the blind see.
And he removes all of those infirmities that that pressed upon him. Think of it every day, hundreds, when he was out in public pressing upon him.
And then in, when it came time for him to be delivered up, and he had set his face as a Flint to go to Jerusalem, he could say to those who took him in the Garden of Gethsemane, this is your hour and the power of darkness. The way I see it, the devil now has come back, that serpent upon a rock.
He's come back, and so we see a perfect man in the Garden of Gethsemane.
In the garden where Adam and Eve were placed, everything was set up.
To perfection for His blessing, for his preservation. And he failed in the face of all that. And the blessed Savior in the garden where he was, his own disciples fall asleep.
The Jew, the high priest who should have interceded for him, is busy putting together a posse of men to come take him.
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The Gentile power that God authorized when?
The seat of Jehovah's government was taken from Israel and given to the Gentile, that same Roman power.
Would mockingly wash his hands of him.
But beyond all that, the awfulness to the holy man Christ Jesus, of being made sin on Calvary's cross was weighing before him in his soul.
And he separated by a distance from even his closest disciples, and he cries to his father. Oh, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, but not as I will, but as thou wilt. The perfection in a man who.
Who's Who references everything in his life and thought and motive.
According to God is seen in perfection, and that in the face of that which made his soul shrink in horror of being made sin. And so, as the Spirit of God describes it, his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground, and then in agony.
He prayed three times.
It's been said that that was the place.
We're Satan through everything he had at the Blessed Savior was in the Garden of Gethsemane.
To turn him back and who knows what what was put before his mind.
As to reasons or rationale why he should not go forward but to the Lord Jesus, the perfect man, he discerns despite the abhorrence in his soul of going into that place where he would be made sin. When he discerns that it's a cup that is his from his Father, he proceeded on.
The everlasting Gospel from the very beginning of the pages of God's Word.
There is a promise made that Adam and Eve are allowed to hear. It's not a promise to man. It was not a promise to Adam or to Eve. It was a statement made that the seed of the woman.
The one through whom sin came into the world.
The seed of the woman would crush the serpents head. And on Calvary's cross the Lord Jesus accomplished that which has defeated sin and death and Satan, and when he having borne the wrath of God against sin, not of Satan, but of God.
When he was made sin on Calvary's cross.
He made a loud cry.
Taleo, one word in Greek. If you look it up, one word means finished, done.
He'd accomplished that work, which throughout all eternity.
The vast mind of godfather and son and the Spirit of God look forward to that day and the accomplishment of that work on Calvary's cross. Little wonder could he cry with a loud voice. Finished, and he bowed his head and gave up. The ghost went down into death.
As one who was not subject to it, but capable of it as a man, he went down into death. And we know the wonderful story.
That God, it's it's as if God looks and says.
What's my response to this?
Was it kindness that raised the Lord Jesus from the dead?
It was righteousness. It was righteousness.
It was love that sent him forth, it was righteousness that raised him up for a moment all the rest of the dead, and in addition to that, gave him the highest place in heaven.
If we could just use our human minds, we would say it would have been unrighteous for God not to have rewarded the man Christ Jesus with the highest place in heaven.
Because he was worthy of it, because of what he endured and what he did for God's glory on Calvary's cross, He could say, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And God responded back and says, you know I'm going to glorify Him and I'm going to do it right away.
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And he glorified him, and he is there as a glorified man.
Seated upon the right hand of the Majesty on high.
We see not yet all things put under him.
Brothers were talking today about.
Covenant theology and things like that, it's hard to escape it, but these things, and I ask you, would you like to be responsible for the world as it is today? Do you want to be the boss?
Would you like to be in charge of what's going on around the world today? In spite of the brilliance of computers and and space travel and all these other unfathomable things, man has not progressed 1 little iota morally in this world.
It's really people don't even talk about that.
It would be reasonable to expect that technological and intellectual growth would have brought moral growth along too. But no, it has not progressed 1 little iota. And yet the majority of Christian teachers and theologians have adopted this inane idea that Christ is reigning now.
In the hearts of his people.
And it's an insult.
To the name of Christ, to say that he was responsible for the present character of things in this world. It's part of the mystery of God.
That there is such patience and forbearance on God's part to allow this world to stagger on the way it has. Why? Because He has a work he's doing. He's gathering out of people for his name.
And if he comes in and intercedes in this world, he's going to do it in a way that's worthy of himself.
And the prophets speak of that in Old Testament and knew that when he comes, he's going to come in power and glory, and men will see what Christ's Kingdom is really like.
But even though we see not yet all things put under him, we see Jesus crowned with glory and honor.
The next one in Proverbs 30.
Is the way of a ship on the sea.
And this is where you and I in a commune, because you and I are on a journey now and we're not on a on a journey where our where we can just wear fancy shoes and walk on fancy pavement.
We're going as some so many of the hymn riders, the Scottish and English hymn writers across Moore and Fen through Tangled brake. I know young people were more in thin as not everyday English words, but they're very poignant to me from with with with partially that background. You can't hardly even walk across a more infant. It's swampy ground.
With tangled up bushes, no farmer would want to have it.
Or develop it. No builder would want to build something on it. It's.
It's a tangled mess, but that's the way our Pilgrim life is. We're at sea in a certain sense, you and I.
It's striking, as the brothers have taught us from our earliest days, that we are as fit for heaven the moment we were saved as we were ever be. Because when you put your trust in Christ, you received as a present possession the forgiveness of sins. You have that now.
You're not going to get anymore forgiveness if the Lord comes in 2 minutes than you have right now. You have it all. You have the forgiveness of sins, and more than that, you've been justified.
When I was a teenager, I'd be a little older than a teenager, I think the American president Richard Nixon resigned from his presidency in disgrace.
And I think it was Albert Hajo made the comment that he had seen a picture of Richard Nixon in his last year sitting in a wheelchair with a very unhappy, sad face. And Albert made the point, he said.
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That illustrates the difference between forgiveness and justification.
Because he had been pardoned, he was not going to be tried. He was not going to go to jail. He was pardoned. He resigned his office, but he wasn't justified. What a painful thing for him to realize that the whole society throughout the whole world looked upon him only as a forgiven crook.
I wish I could think of a different word and I want to be disrespectful.
But that was illustrates and you have not only forgiveness, but you're justified. And God looks upon you as being in the possession of a life to which sin has never been attached, nor ever can be.
You're justified from all things and you have justification of life, and God looks upon you as being righteous in Christ. And more than that, He could have forgiven you and me, and He could have justified us.
And I say, OK, I love Mark, I'm going to justify Mark. But that doesn't mean I want to have Mark in my company, doesn't mean I want to have him over to my house.
Doesn't mean I wanna commune with him, but he's reconciled us to himself because he does want our company. Why did he make the world philosophers?
I suppose have wrestled with that for for ages and ages. Why did he make the world this earth? He made the world to display his own glory.
In his son and in you. And he wants your fellowship and he's going to have it.
In Psalm 107, which begins the last book of the Psalms says they that go down in the ship in to the sea and ships. They see his wonders in the deep. And if you've been on a ship when the water is rough, it makes a coward out of me. I married into a fishing family, but I'm a coward in the sea.
And these massive ships, they just go up and up and up and you wonder if it's going to stop this massive. And then it starts to go down and you wonder if it's ever going to stop. And and so it is if you've been at sea, you, you know what we're speaking about here. But there are wonders. And these are the wonders in your life now as a believer. You're on the Heavenly Rd.
We've been reading with some some believers from overseas through the book of Romans and we just got to Romans 5.
And we were so long in Romans 4. I was so happy to finally get to chapter 5, where let me just turn to it quickly.
In Romans 5, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
And the brothers were rehearsing that this is a blessing. When we look back into the past, it's a present blessing and it's a future blessing. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. God has it all covered and it's a peak. And then in verse three it says, and not only soul, we glory and tribulations also knowing a tribulation works endurance for patience.
And so it is your portion you have been elected.
To a privileged position to have tribulation in your life.
It's a gift from God. And why does He do it? You say, well, if I'm already ready for heaven the moment He saved me, why didn't He just take me then? Because He has a work that He's doing in you now, a work the fruit of which the glory of which is going to be for His glory throughout all eternity.
And so he's pouring us from vessel to vessel in your life. He's allowed and he allows.
Tribulation. If you bear fruit, he's going to purge you so that you bring forth more fruit, and he's the father of spirits.
And he works with your human spirit by the Holy Spirit, to produce in you gradually, day by day, as we read in Romans, to conform you more and more to the image of His Son, as a brother put it many years ago. Which is harder for the Lord to do, to speak a world into existence.
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I think I'll make another Galaxy.
Bam, he does it.
A Galaxy. He could speak it into existence, but he didn't speak Abraham's life into existence.
And the brother said, which is harder, to make a Galaxy or to produce an Abraham? How did he produce an Abraham? Abraham, the father of faith, as an individual was methodically and patiently like a Baker, like a Craftsman, like whatever figure you want to use, gradually and patiently put through these experiences to produce something in his life that could be produced no other way.
It's beautiful. How did it start? It started with that eagle we read in Acts Chapter 7. The God of glory appeared unto Abram one man, and he says, What did he say?
You're all right, just do a little better now, he says. Get out, get out. That was the message, the same message Ruth heard.
She left, too, into a country that she'd never been before. This is what faith does, and it's very individual.
In our time is about up.
There's a a strange type of heavy construction that I was around in my during my work career called top down construction.
And people in rural places will never experience their have never done it. Because if we're going to build something that starts deep down in the ground in the outskirts of Pella are between anywhere out there, plenty of real estate. Just open it right up. Just bring in the excavation equipment and we blow it right open. We just dig it right open, lay the slopes back and get a huge, massive hole. But you can't do that in the city.
Because there's a skyscraper right next to you here, and there's another one there, and yet you need to go down. And so they invented this, what they call top down construction. And so right on the surface of the ground, they'll build the roof. And then they'll dig through the roof just one story deep, and they'll brace that around. Now you've built the top story, and then you pour a structural concrete slab and you're bracing and down you go and down you go. So you'll build from the top down.
When I read the book of Ephesians, I realize I'm reading top down construction because it starts with God as a brother referred and his purpose in Christ, his eternal purpose. And you know, it's very personal in Ephesians, it's very personal.
Very personal. You don't get anything collective until the end of the first chapter, I think, and into the second it's you and him because that's the way it has to be. When you arrive home, he's going to review your life and that which was done in it for his glory personally. And it doesn't say men with women at the end of Proverbs 30, it says.
A man the way of a man with a woman. And yes, we know collectively, collectively, we are the bride of Christ.
But it's really a personal relationship that God is taking pains to develop in your life.
He didn't have to do that. That's what he wanted to do. He made the world, He made this earth, and his delights were in the habitable part of his earth so that you could have a place where he, as a Potter, could form you into that which could be for his own delight and glory.
And that's what he's doing in your life.
I think we should end there.
If I were going to give out a hymn and I'm not.
I would have given out #29 in the back.
It's very rarely sung.
If someone knows the tune later on, let me know that you do.
I've heard it and sung it, It's very beautiful, but I'm not going to suggest we sing it, but just to read the last verse thus far Thy power hath blessed me, and it still will lead me on or more. And then through tangled brakes, until the night is gone, And with the mourn the everlasting joy.
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Which led me on is mine without alloy.
May the Lord give you a sense of.
The wonderful work she's doing in your hearts, his faintest whispers. Make our hearts rejoice.
And any day now, it's all going to be over and we look back and we'll have that One who made us rejoice presently. We'll have him and be with him for all eternity.
Romans 9:12-33
Grace
Address—Nick Simon
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.
By very quickly when you stand up here may not be so quick sitting down there, but if we could start by seeing the 1St 3 verses of hymn #10.
And if someone could stop that for me, so hymn #10.
Verses 1-2 and three. If there's time left, we might sing four and five at the end.
Praise is the sweetest.
Sunlight.
Will reach our here.
When all your dreams are sent to the scrolls, what is great revenge of the dark skinned?
Is great grown to the swing.
So my subject that I wish to speak on is Grace.
It's a subject that I've been meditating on for a couple of months now. In fact, I'm working on a little pamphlet about it, but it it came about because of a text I received from someone and then something I saw on Facebook and and the verse two that came to my attention.
What is grace? You know, recently in a meeting a brother said in spiritual things we come into the truth of them before we come into the meaning of them or the understanding of them. And that's so true of grace. Every child of God, even the three or four year old that's received the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Has a has come into the good of the grace of God?
But do they understand it? No. And do we? I think it's especially true when it comes to the subject of grace. But what is grace? You know, the various definitions are given. This is one you've probably heard. Grace is getting what we do not deserve. Mercy is not getting what we do deserve. So the naughty boy, his father says you've been naughty, but you're still going to get a birthday present. That's grace.
The naughty boy, the Father says you need a good spanking, but you're not going to get it. That's mercy. And that that definition has some truth to it. It's helpful in part, but it's not really a very good definition of grace. And I think its focus is in the wrong place. It's on me what I get or don't get.
Another definition you've probably heard is unmerited favor. And I can remember I first heard that and it sort of passed over my head. What what does that mean? But grace is a lot to do with the favor of God. And that favor as shown in grace is something I don't merit. There's nothing in me, as we've been having in these meetings that merits that favor of God.
It is unmerited favor. Another definition. I like that I heard while I was on zoom meetings during the COVID thing.
Was.
Its divine enablement, and as we consider grace, as we go through the Word of God and consider the word grace, I think you'll find that many occasions that definition works as well.
The word grace appears in the New Testament alone well over 100 times.
The grace of God occurs over 20 times. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who are similar expression, occurs also a little over 20 times, as I recall. In fact, the word grace occurs so many times that we perhaps might think it's just a throwaway line. You know, you greet someone, you say how are you and I am, so I'm fine. Well, thank you. It's a pleasant tree we exchange. We don't mean any of it.
00:05:13
I don't mean that when someone says it to me they they don't have some sense of feeling in my heart, but if I started pouring out exactly how I was.
They might stop me and say, well, I didn't mean that. I was just saying hello. But God doesn't have throwaway lines in His word. He doesn't just sprinkle the word grace throughout the New Testament just out of pleasantries.
Another thing that can that struck me, and this was the Facebook posts and I I admit I have them jotted down. I don't have a memory for recalling such things, but it was a post about the thief on the cross and the person had written I don't know the person and they're not gathered. Says we should be rejoicing. I'm not a thief, but I am a Sinner and God's grace covers all sin.
Actually, God's grace doesn't cover any sin, has not covered any sin.
Grace is perceived as old pleasantness without any rebuke or hardship. I have a little pamphlet at home. It's on joke, and its title is Job. A man Renewed by Grace, you say? Wait a minute, The book of Job is about grace.
Yes, God could not let Job think that He could stand before him in his own righteousness.
God would not let Job continue on. God intervened in Job's life.
God met Job in his need.
So another misconception I think is is that.
God of the Old Testament is. I listened to a book, an Audible book recently and it was written by a young man. He went to a church school in England and he had.
Had some exposure to the Bible and he said that his perception of God was that he was a grumpy old schoolmaster.
And perception of many Saints and Sinner alike is that the God of the Old Testament is nothing but a demanding old schoolmaster.
But God's grace goes from the beginning of the Old Testament.
To the end of the new, it was God in grace that provided covering for Adam and Eve. When they're covering that they tried to hide the shame with proof to be wholly inadequate. It was God in his grace that promised to Satan, in Adam and Eve's hearing, as it were, that the woman's seed would crush the serpent's head. A promise that has.
Been the hope of faith throughout the centuries and will continue to to the very end. It's the everlasting gospel that Bruce happened to mention.
His meeting as well for us is not a promise that's being accomplished in the cross of Christ.
We're not looking forward to it, but it's the hope. It's what our faith rests upon, that work of Christ. It was God in his grace that provided a first link to Abel that he might OfferUp a sacrifice.
It was Cain that despised the grace of God and said I'm going to bring the labor of my own hands. Don't ever think that Cain's offering wasn't costly. Cain's offering cost, I believe, far more than Abel's offering.
Cain offered by the sweat of his brow.
But it never seemed to occur to him that that was the result of man's sin, that the fruit of this earth was the fruit of a cursed earth, the result of man's sin.
Cain's offering to God was costly, but he was going to offer based on his own merits and work.
We could go through the Old Testament and discover God's grace over and over again. That was God's grace that delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt. It was God's grace that brought them through the Red Sea and into the wilderness. You know, it's rather remarkable.
Did the did the manna become come before or after Sinai?
It came before God's provision for the wilderness.
The water from the rock, the manner from heaven.
They all came through His sovereign grace.
We get to Exodus chapter 19 and somehow I'm going to have to keep track of time. Exodus 19.
00:10:08
And that's where we get the giving of the law.
And.
The children in verse four. So Exodus 19 verse 4 You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bear you on eagles wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore you obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant. Then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine.
In verse 8 and all the people answered together and said all that the Lord has spoken we will do.
Verse 9 The Lord sent to Moses. Lo, I come into the in a thick cloud.
That the people may hear what I speak with thee, and believe thee forever.
There was another verse, I thought. But anyway, up until Sinai.
It was God in His grace that had bared them on eagle's wings. But when they get to Sinai, God presents to them a law, and the people in the confidence of their flesh say, yes, all that you have said we will do.
And God takes up now with man on a different principle. He takes up with them on the basis of law.
Now I want to make it very clear, and again, this was mentioned in the meeting, the reading, the first reading meeting, that it could never have been said in the Old Testament that grace reigned.
We'll get to that shortly. But don't imagine that the God of the Old Testament.
Was not a God of grace. I mean, we know what happened the the golden cup, but the the the point that I read this this verse, I will come into the inner thick cloud.
God remained hidden in the Old Testament.
Mount Sinai itself was cloaked with cloud and fire and could not be approached unto.
God's revelation of Himself could not be complete in the Old Testament.
And even though God made no one.
A revelation of himself to the children of Israel. It necessarily had to be limited.
But we know that the golden calf came in and Moses smashed the first tablets.
So not even Israel in the Old Testament was taken up under pure law, because as was pointed out, it would have been necessary at that point to destroy them all. But we know that Moses intercedes for the people. And then basis of that intercession and on the basis of who the Lord is. Exodus 34, verse six, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.
On the basis of this revelation that God gives of himself.
Two new tablets are cut.
But where do they go?
In Deuteronomy 10 we find that in verse two I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tablets, which thou breakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.
That simple box made of wood.
Covered in gold, upon the top of which was the mercy seat where the blood was sprinkled once a year.
Enabled God to look down upon Israel.
And show mercy to them. That ark is a picture to us of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And only because of that could God.
For bear with that nation.
I want to make clear that grace does not cover sin. Grace does not make light of sin. Grace does not overlook sin.
God could bear with Israel for bearer, because he could look down upon that blood on that mercy seat.
And see ahead to the cross of Christ and what it represented.
And that is the only reason why God could for bear with the Saints of the Old Testament is because of His anticipation of what was going to happen at Calvary's cross. So let's jump ahead now to Romans 3.
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That's one thing I had meant to to to say, and I'll just return to it now. Why not?
I said that the first definition I gave of grace.
Has its focus in the wrong place. It has its focus on us.
It has been said that I'm going to read a definition. I think it comes from the Concise Bible Dictionary. A tremendous help, incidentally.
Grace refers more to the source and character of the sentiment, mercy to the state of the person who is this object. Grace may give me glory, but mercy contemplates some need in me. Mercy is great in the greatness of the need, grace in the thought of the person exercising it. The beauty of grace does not lie in the blessing that I get.
The beauty in grace lies in the one who dispenses the blessing.
So taking up the subject of grace brings before us one of the.
Beauties of God.
The expression of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It especially focuses us on the way grace has come to us through that work that He has accomplished for us on Calvary's cross. It's not a different grace to the grace of God, but it puts its focus on that work that He has accomplished. So as we think of these verses and as perhaps you leave this meeting, and hopefully it's not my words you take away with you, but an interest in the subject and trust, perhaps meditate on this subject of grace.
Your focus and my focus turns.
To a God who loved us, who gave his Son, who provides our every need.
So Romans chapter 3, the verse 3 chapters of Romans, God takes up with man and as it were puts him on trial and he finds both human Gentile.
In verse 10, there is none righteous. No, not one.
You know, the law didn't establish sin. Sin existed with or without law. But what law does is it imputes or puts to my accounts in what does that mean? I'm driving down the road. I drove here yesterday from Denver. And did I keep the speed limit? I'll let you work that one out.
You know, if there's no speed limit signs on the side of the road, I have a perfectly clear conscience. That doesn't mean that I'm not breaking the law. Don't ever imagine that if I'm driving 80 in a 75 zone, I'm breaking the law. I, I'm, I'm sinning whether I know it or not. But as soon as that 75 mile per hour sign comes into view, bam.
It's to my account. I've transgressed. I've transgressed the law. No getting away from it.
The law too.
Is that the law obviously stands in contrast to grace. These are two different principles that God takes up with man. Two different principles.
The law itself provides no power. I see that 75 mile per hour sign and my foot doesn't automatically start easing off on the accelerator. Why? I think to myself, five over. The cops will be merciful in Nebraska. I could probably do eight over. Let's go a little faster. So.
The law doesn't provide power. The Lord merely condemns without remedy.
It probes the heart of man to see if there's any righteousness there, and it demonstrates that man is utterly bankrupt.
We're not. Not every man needed to be tried. God took Israel, the chosen people, and He, as it were, set them in their promised land.
Provided for them all that they needed be tested man.
And as it were the best of circumstances, man's heart demonstrated that there was nothing in it for God, no righteousness. The law, as we all discover, is like a jailer. It condemns us and throws away the key.
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There's nothing that it can do for me except to demonstrate that I'm a Sinner.
And so the law having accomplished its work, Paul takes that up, both Gentile and then Jew in that order in Romans 1-2 and three, and established there is none righteous, no, not one. What does God do at that point?
As Steve said in the next last meeting, he would have been righteous if he said I find none of you righteous. You're all condemned to an eternity in hell.
No, what does God do? He is now free.
He is now at liberty.
To show his grace, he says, look now what I can do for you.
And so let's just read a few verses, verse 20, Romans 3, verse 20. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For the by the law is the knowledge of sin. As I said, it just proves that I'm speeding. It doesn't fix me, doesn't change me, doesn't give me power to obey the speed limit. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifest being witnessed by the law and the prophets, God is now going to demonstrate He looks for righteousness.
Man finds none, now he's going to show his righteousness, and how does he do it? Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of or in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe. For there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and so on being justified freely by His grace.
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, he sends his Son.
Who pays that price for my sins? They're on Calvary's cross.
That's how he righteously justifies me. Justification is based on the blood of Christ.
I come into the good of it by faith, and the way of it is through grace, not law.
I'm going to have to move along.
But God doesn't just.
Address my guilt, He doesn't just address the sins that I've committed.
He also addresses who I am. And so when you get to Romans 5 in the middle of the chapter, the subject changes. It's no longer the things that I'm doing that he addresses, but now he takes up what I am, my sin nature and.
So he says in verse 17, for example, well.
I'm going to have to keep my comments short.
Verse 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses. Adam was given a command, don't eat of the tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and Moses was clearly given the law. But everyone between Adam and Moses wasn't under a law or command, and yet what happened? They died.
Evidence of a sin nature within.
And how does God deal with that sin nature that's within why he does away with it completely.
Does away with it completely. He doesn't fix it. So grace, as I said at the beginning, God doesn't cover sin in grace. He doesn't just gratuitously forgive sin. Grace is not graciousness. Grace is not tolerance. As this world preaches. In grace, God dealt with my sins and also who I am by seeing me as being dead in Christ when Adam came into this world and Eve, Adam and Eve.
And they sinned. The effect was tremendous.
It wasn't just that Adams and Eve's descendants are now born in Adam and Eve's place. I I moved to this country from another country.
My children, where were they born?
They weren't born in Australia, they were born here.
I am born in Adams place. There's no getting around that. And so I am born in Adam's place, with Adam's nature at a distance from God. But Adam's sin doesn't just affect Adam's race, it affected all of creation. And creation groans, waiting, awaiting the redemption we have. If you believe you have redemption, creation's waiting for redemption.
00:25:01
God is going to reconcile.
All things unto himself, Colossians one you don't have to turn to, Colossians 1-2 Says.
Sorry, Colossians one and verse.
20 And having made peace with the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. By the way, be very careful to note that He reconciles things in earth and things in heaven. It never says He reconciles things under the earth, the infernal beings. Now if you were to turn to Philippians, it says there.
In chapter 2, verse 10, the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things in heaven, things in earth, and things under the earth. Everything infernal beings as well will bow to the Lord Jesus Christ. But don't ever think that God has reconciled sin.
God is not reconciled to sin, and he hasn't recognized sin unto himself. God has not even reconciled to man. God didn't need to be reconciled to anything.
It is we that needed reconciliation and it's through the blood of the cross.
So again, grace doesn't overlook sin, it deals with it by addressing it. But at the end of Romans 5 it says there that.
In verse 21, that a sin has sorry, I want to the verse before that, verse 20. Moreover, the law entered, or law entered law as a principle entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
So Adam sinned. The effect has been tremendous, but God, his grace has abounded, has super abounded.
Sin will not triumph.
In Ephesians one there's a verse in connection with grace. Remember, grace is about the one dispensing it more than the ones receiving it.
In Ephesians chapter one.
In verse seven, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sin according to the riches of His grace is not the verse I'm thinking of, but there's a verse with grace.
It speaks of to the glory of His grace.
Someone helped me find it.
Verse six to the that's it. Thank you to the praise of the glory of his grace. All is to the praise of the glory of his grace.
So Romans 6 begins with a question, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? If grace is abounded, super abounded, over and above sin, man raises the question, Well then sin save grace is abound. And shall we know continue in the sin that grace may continue to abound? And Paul's answer, God forbid.
Grace is not for the flesh.
The law is for the flesh, Grace is not for the flesh. If the flesh takes up grace, the flesh will turn it into either legality or lasciviousness, one of the two. Grace is not for the flesh. That, remember, is seen as by God as being crucified with Christ. Grace doesn't just gloss over what I am by nature.
Says done with. It altogether sets me in a place of death.
So if I ask that question, who's asking it? It's not that new life that I have within.
It's the flesh, and as I said, the flesh will turn grace into lasciviousness. But God, Paul goes on to say, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
And.
Verse four. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism unto death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of Father, Even so also we should walk in newness of life.
Verse 14.
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye not under law, but under grace. The natural response of man's heart, when he finds that he.
That flesh is still very much alive within him is to try to control it by putting it under law.
And if we take that approach, we'll be like we will be the man in Romans 7. We'll discover that we have no strength within us, none whatsoever.
00:30:16
For sin shall not have dominion over for you, for you not under law, but under.
Grace God now in His.
Grace has provided us with a life with the indwelling of the Spirit of God.
We no longer need to live under the power of sin.
We have been delivered from the penalty of sin. We have also been delivered from the power of sin. And God in His grace is the one. The Lord didn't provide power. Grace provides the power to live in the good of it.
As a verse I want to touch on in Titus chapter 2.
There it says.
In 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 grace teaches us.
We look at what has been accomplished at Calvary's cross. We read what the apostle Paul has said in connection with what God the way God views us now as in Christ, and that that old nature is seen by him as dead and buried.
It would be entirely inconsistent, therefore, to go on practically in our lives, in the life of godlessness.
It would be completely inconsistent, but I would suggest this is no mere intellectual assessment of what God has done. As I said, God has given us a life within a life that sin cannot attach to.
And the indwelling of the Spirit of God. God in his grace has provided everything in his power for us now to live a life of godliness. Soberly, that is my own self-control within myself righteously, that is my conduct with each one of you and my coworkers and in this world and godly that is before God. God has given us in his grace the power now to do this. But grace is not something we.
Up, you know, the children of Israel, God, as I said, on eagle's wings, He brought them out of Egypt in grace. And where does He bring them?
Does he bring them into the land of Canaan? Well watered land with springs and rivers and corn and you name it, grapes, bunches so huge? No, no where does he bring them. He brings them into the wilderness.
We'll just say that's not grace. Oh yes, it is, because he provided the water, the food they needed.
But you know that man, I had to be picked up every morning. We cannot store up grace. If we could store up grace, we would store it up and then we would say, OK, God, I don't need you anymore. Go on in a path of independence. God wants us to be dependent on Him.
The divine power He gives to live our life for Him. We need to feed on it daily. We need to collect it daily.
Otherwise, we won't experience that grace in our lives. Your Grace is so intimately connected with our salvation that I often think that we.
Imagine it ends there. Oh, so God has saved us by grace.
But now I've got to take it on my own.
No, God's grace continues on. Let's look at first Peter.
Last chapter.
First Peter, the last chapter.
And.
Verse 10. There's so many references to grace I'm barely going to touch.
Touch them today. But verse 10, first Peter chapter 5, verse 10, the God of all grace. So now we've got the God of all grace.
00:35:04
Who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus? After ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, saddle you.
You know, the Jews were so familiar with earthly blessing as being a sign of God's approbation that the saved Jews really struggled with persecution. What could that mean? Maybe they made the wrong choice.
Maybe Jesus wasn't really the Messiah.
Every epistle that is addressed to the Jewish believers, Hebrews, James, Peter, all take up this subject of suffering.
Because, as I said, the Jew who had experienced famine, who had experienced.
Their enemies taking their land, who had been under the subjection of the Romans, and so on, and as a result of their sin and failure, certainly in the Old Testament viewed.
Suffering as being a sign of God's disapproval. And so suffering was something they struggled with. But we know that for ourselves. When the Lord was here, He told us that we would experience suffering. It was and is a normal part of the Christian life. And the more that we walk for him, the more we'll experience him.
Whether it be for the name of Christ?
As some of you have no doubt experienced in preaching the gospel, or whether it be simply because of our walk as a testimony before the world, it says in John 15. Again, no need to turn to it.
Verse 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they are persecuted, me there shall also persecute you. If they have kept my saying, they will also they, they, and so on. There's a verse, there's a quote that I'm going to read it. It is by Mr. Darby, but that is just for in case you want to look it up. There is not a trial or difficulty that Christ has not passed through before me and found his resource in God the Father.
He will supply the needed grace to my heart. So God doesn't just saved us by grace, but He provides that grace to go on in our wilderness journey here, the God of all grace.
Paul tells Timothy, Timothy who was a somewhat fearful and timid individual in Second Timothy, when we have the things decaying and declension falling apart, the church and ruin, he says, therefore my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. It's the only thing that's going to give us strength every time that we try to take up things in our own strength.
We will discover failure. Even Paul had to learn that with his speech with with the thorn in the flesh, rather that he had he prayed three times.
And the Lord had to remind, tell him, and He had to learn. My grace, My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness.
So last thing I want to end on There are three epistles written by the Apostle Paul that end in a similar fashion.
And the first one is Galatians.
And the I'll read it to you and then I'll explain. So the last verse of Galatians says, brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your Spirit.
And each of the four I'm going to read in somewhat simile the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. That's a little S Now I said that grace is not graciousness. Grace is not tolerance as this world would preach. Grace is not overlooking sin.
But graciousness surely is the fruit of grace. If I understand what Christ has done for me, then I can be gracious to my brethren.
Why? Because I overlooked their failings? Well, yes, because Christ has paid the price for them.
Not because I'm indifferent to sin and doesn't mean that we as brethren should be indifferent to sin. That's quite a different thing. And to use grace as an excuse for sin is turning grace effectively into the lasciviousness. But here the Galatians were being pulled back under law. Like Peter is a wilderness book. They're on a journey through wilderness. The inheritance is something in heaven that's laid up for them.
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And the Galatians, they were going along nicely in this wilderness journey.
But verse seven of chapter 5 says he did run well. Who did hinder you? And I think the new translation says you ran well. Who has stopped you? And it's the thought of cutting in, cutting into line. You know, we line up for dinner here and we're all nice people. So no one cuts in. But you know, that's not the way of the world and that's not the way of Satan. He was cutting in and they were being turned aside by Judaizing teachers and being put back under law. They needed to be restored back.
To Grace.
Grace, the law is not going to keep you. As I said earlier, I don't want to repeat my words. The time is short.
It's only when we live in the power of what God has provided in His grace can we go on for Him.
Law is not all it's going to produce is bickering and fighting and and all the things that are mentioned in Galatians 5. Now the next one is Philippians. Now the Philippians were an assembly, a completely different situation. The book of Philippians doesn't take up sin. It doesn't say moral sin. It doesn't take up doctrinal era, ecclesiastical era. It considers a normal assembly and the normal assembly.
There are trials, there's conflict, there's friction.
And one particular example is mentioned in Philippians in the 4th chapter. But I know that some feel that was the crux of it, the root of it. I am inclined to disagree. It was just a outward manifestation of it.
It's very easy in assembly to say, well they are the problem.
Everyone, every chapter of Philippians, addresses this, hints at or addresses this conflict that occurs naturally between us as brethren. And how does the epistle end?
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Brethren, we cannot get along without the grace of God. Now remember, as a mini assembly overlooks or is indifferent to wickedness in its midst, that's not great.
Grace hasn't covered freely covered my sin. I just want to address that word freely. Freely doesn't mean free. That comes from that verse I read in Romans 3.
It was.
Justified.
I.
Where was it?
Being justified freely by His grace, that word freely doesn't mean free.
It was not free. It is to me. It was not free to God.
It cost him the utmost. That word freely, if you look it up, means undeservedly.
Means we didn't deserve it. It means unmerited. We didn't merit it. God's grace.
So anyway, back to subject again, Philippians. They needed the grace of God to continue on. That's not an excuse for an assembly not to address.
Matters of evil in their midst or even difficulties. It's interesting in Philippians it says in verse three, I entreat thee also, that's singular. There was one person that Paul was singling out who knew who he was or she was and he says, I entreat you.
True York fellow. I think it's probably a male. You'd have to look at the Greek to see the the gender of the verb. The words help those women.
There was someone that was failing there in that assembly to doing to stepping in and helping address this problem.
The next epistle.
Is the ends with this way is Second Timothy and I already touched a little bit on that Second Timothy things were in decline.
And Timothy was in danger of being overcome, not with wickedness, but just fatigue, discouragement. It's very easy to be overcome with a discouragement.
You know, whenever we take up things in our own strength, you're going to end up discouraged because you will not succeed.
Discouragement. It affected Elijah. It affect David. You can turn to so many of the Saints of the Old Testament to find how they were turned aside, at least for a time, by discouragement.
00:45:05
And how does the end of the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy Spirit? Grace be with you? Timothy needed the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to go on. And then the last one is by Lehman. Philemon is a very short book. It is really a letter of commendation. The apostle Paul is commending an SMS who was a slave who had run away from his master.
And stolen from him. He ran away as an unsaved individual.
He got saved and somehow Paul, he and Paul's pods intersected and he got saved and Paul said now the right thing to do an SMS is you go back to your master. But I'm going to send a letter with you.
And in this letter, he addresses Philemon, who was an SMS's former master. How would Philemon respond?
And he says in verse 25, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with your spirit. Amen.
Is he asking Philemon to be indifferent?
To Anesthesia's behavior, no, he says. An SMS is not coming back to you as the same man. He's coming back as a saved individual, as a brother in Christ. And if he stole from you, put it to my account, I'll take care of it.
But Philemon was truly going to need the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again, when it uses that expression, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is emphasizing the way in which we have come into the good of that grace. He was going to need the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to respond well to this man that was about coming, knocking at his door. Imagine it, opens the door, sees his former slave.
Knew what he was like, Knew that he stole from him.
How would we respond?
Gospel 1
Gospel—John Kemp
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Welcome everyone tonight to the Gospel Meeting. We're glad you're here and we have a wonderful message to tell.
To the world tonight and.
We hope that if you are a stranger.
To the love and grace of the Lord Jesus, that.
There'll be a change in your life.
You may have come into this room in your sins without hope and without God.
But you can leave rejoicing in a present full salvation.
We'll open our meeting by singing.
Number looking for the.
Yet there is room where is that?
1515, Thank you.
Yes, all blessed gospel sound, yet there is room.
Some brotherhood started, please.
In Ottawa, where I live, we have a Tulip festival.
It just came to a close a few days ago.
You have the Tulip Festival here.
To my wife, Eleanor and I were out at the Tulip festival four or five times to see the tulips. Well, that was that was beautiful to observe and one of the largest festivals, I guess, in the Western world. But that wasn't the reason we went. We went to give out gospel tracts.
To the thousands of people that were milling around there from nearly every country that you could imagine. We met many from India and from other lands. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the tract that we gave out, among others, but the title of it you probably remember.
00:05:17
Can we be sure?
There's a history behind that in connection with Ottawa because.
That is the story of the conversion of Queen Victoria. You boys and girls who go to school you'll read about the the marvelous British Empire, which straddled most of the world half of the world was under the control of Britain, Africa, India and so on Queen Victoria was the.
Empress of India, she was the ruler for about 50 years.
So we give out the track. Can we be sure? And I said to the people, now look, this is the message from Queen Victoria for you, not only from her, but from the word of God. And it so happened that Queen Victoria chose Ottawa to be the capital.
In about 1854 and Ottawa has been the capital ever since.
But Queen Victoria, she had a concern for her soul and she went to her chaplain at Saint Paul's Cathedral in London. She asked the question, Sir, can anyone be sure in this life of having eternal safety?
The chaplain looked at her rather strangely and said, Lady Her Majesty, I know of no way that that would be possible. Well, that was the answer she got from the religious head of the church.
But it happened that.
John Townsend, a humble evangelist, heard about this episode.
Of Queen Victoria and he took out his pen and humbly he wrote a letter to the Queen of the British Empire.
And he said, I can't quote the words exactly, but it was along this line. Her Majesty, we have heard that you have asked the question of whether a person could be sure of where they were going for eternity.
I want to draw your attention.
Queen Victoria to a few scriptures that I want you to read.
John 316 was one of them, and I think Romans 10 verse nine was another.
So he signed his name, he put the letter into an envelope and it was sent to the palace, Buckingham Palace, I suppose.
After a short time, oh, I should add that many prayers went up for the letter that John Townsend had sent the Queen. By the way, if you have the opportunity, read the biography of Sister Abigail, who worked for many years in the city of Buffalo.
She was an avid track distributor and many souls were brought through the labours of Sister Abigail.
Who was the daughter of John Townsend? But let me finish the story. The queen received the letter. She opened it up and she read it. Not only the letter, but she turned to the word of God, and she opened it and read the verses that John Townsend had given to her. And she sent a reply.
Thanking him for the letter that he had written.
At such and such a time and adding these words, I have considered the scriptures that you have given to me, and I can say truthfully that I am trusting in the finished work of Christ.
And I know I have salvation, and I will meet you in the glory. Wasn't that a lovely reply from such a a prominent person in the world? Well, we want you, dear friends, to have the assurance that your sins are forgiven. This is the purpose of this gospel meeting tonight.
00:10:10
That if you are here without Christ, without God.
Was nothing but a lost eternity before you. That the Spirit of God will awaken you to your need, to your peril, to the end of a life without Christ in a lost eternity. Dear friend, tonight God is beseeching you to be saved.
He is saying be reconciled to God.
You know, as we have mentioned in our meetings, God didn't need to be reconciled to us because He was never against us. We were the ones that were the enemies by wicked works, enemies in our minds and burdened with many sins and the judgment before us.
But God reaches out tonight with His love, with his grace. He beseeches you to turn from your evil ways. He commands all men everywhere to repent, to take sides with God against yourself, to acknowledge.
Your sin, your guilt, your ruin.
And what you've done with the gospel of God's grace.
So the heart of God is reaching out to you tonight.
You know, if you look in the book of Exodus, God looked down and he saw there.
The ruin of the nation there they were burdened with the laborers in Egypt, and God's heart of compassion went out to them. He did more than that. He came down to deliver them.
From such a terrible death, from such a ******* they were slaves of Pharaoh. And if you're unsaved, my friend, you're a slave of the enemy of your soul, Satan. He's a strong man, and he's armed with all the entertainments of this world to keep you in peace.
A false peace. That's Luke Chapter 11. When the strongman armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.
Who are the goods, The souls of men and women? Without Christ, they belong. They don't belong to the Lord. They're slaves of Satan. We all were in that position at one time.
But.
Remember his policies the world.
And in this day and age in which we live, he has every sort of entertainment. With all the modern technology, we have to keep people asleep.
Unaware of their danger.
They're in a dreadful pit and they don't realize that they're sinking down, down to a lost eternity. And yet God is reaching out with His love. He is pointing souls to His beloved Son. The marriage feast is going to take place. In fact, the Gospel supper is right.
Tonight God is beseeching. Our last man is refusing to be made forever. Glad you know, some people think, well, if we can get some of the Saints to intercede for us, maybe the Lord will have mercy upon us. And that's not the truth.
No one needs to intercede with God for the salvation of your soul.
The work has been finished at the cross, Nothing can be added to it. It is a perfect work and it will meet your deep need. The Lord came down Himself, the Son of God, born of a woman, cradled in a Manger, living a perfect spotless life for 33 1/2 years.
00:15:07
Raising the dead, cleansing the leper, healing the sick, no one went away disappointed. When the Lord was here on earth, He was the full revelation of the heart of God.
As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country that good news tonight is from heaven.
I'm not telling you.
Some religion about joining some religious society. The good news of salvation. The water, the living water is coming down. If you repent, that living water will fill your soul just like the woman in John chapter 4.
The streams of this world are polluted with pride and lust and evil, and yet people are drinking at those streams, trying to satisfy their spiritual thirst. Not only is there a physical thirst, there's a spiritual thirst. And if you're without Christ, nothing in this world.
Will ever fill the void of your heart.
You need Christ, you need salvation, you need forgiveness of sins. All is found in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I tell the story of something that took place in London.
I lived in London for three years, teaching school in that vast city.
And I had many experiences in London. It's a huge city and there are many opportunities for the gospel there. But in 1854 something happened in London that had never happened before.
There was an outbreak of cholera. That's a dreadful disease, very common in India.
We know the source of cholera now, but at that time.
They did not know. The doctors joined together and they said this is an awful plague. It's it's.
Hundreds are dying with this disease. Where did it come from? Will it just run its course and be over? Or is it from the vapors from the water or something? They didn't know. They were wise men, but they didn't know the cause of cholera.
But there was one doctor, Doctor John Snow, and he says I'm going to investigate this. And he took a big map of London on the wall and he went around to all the houses where they there had been victims of cholera.
Deaths in the family, he said to, he said to the people in that house, where did you get your water? They said at such and such a well on the corner of these streets. It went to the next house, where did you get your water? Because you've had a death in the family And they said at such and such a well. And so he went all through the city.
Where the cholera outbreak had had caused so much death and he put put it on the map and he came to the conclusion the cause of that outbreak of cholera was that well at that certain St. in London. It had a long handle and all those people had got their water from that well.
Doctor John Snow said.
Cap that well immediately. Don't let anyone use it anymore.
That's the problem, I believe. Sure enough, when they cap that well, the cholera epidemic subsided.
And there weren't any more deaths.
You know the water was coming from the Thames River. It was like an open sewer, slaughter houses and cow sheds all around and raw sewage being poured into the water. No wonder the same thing happens in India when they can't get enough.
00:20:05
Wood to boil their water. Cholera will sweep through those slums of Calcutta, taking hundreds into eternity. But anyway.
I tell you that illustration, that story.
To speak of the living water that the Lord Jesus is offering to you tonight. And if we look in John 4, we'll see a woman here who.
Tasted of that living water.
She wasn't a very commendable person. She wasn't a very moral woman. Quite the contrary. We know the story.
And the Lord Jesus.
They're wearied with his journey. Will read John 4 here.
Verse Well, verse one, When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John? Verse three, He left Judea and departed again into Galilee, and he must needs go through Samaria.
Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Psychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there, Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey.
Said thus on the well, and it was about the 6th hour. There come with a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. Here was the Lord of glory.
In Samaria, a place that an Orthodox Jew would not have passed through.
But the Lord of glory, the creator of that well, I've sat by that well myself. And if I remember correctly, they dropped a, a coin into that well. And they we, we timed the, the number of seconds before it hit the surface of the water. The well was deep. And this woman, she had tried.
All the resources of this world, She was a moral outcast. I don't think people would want to be walking down the street with her. She was a Sinner and she knew it. But here was the Lord of glory wearied in his journey. He was a real man.
Wearied in his quest for souls, his whole life was spent.
In reaching out to the lost and the needy, the Lord never thought of Himself. There was no selfishness in the Lord like there is in me. The Lord lived to bring blessing to the lost in the perishing. He was God there at that wells. He didn't know who He was, a stranger, in fact. She wondered why a Jew knowing by the blue ribbon on the Lord's apparel.
She knew he was a Jew and there weren't dealings, there weren't good relations between Jews and Samaritans with the Lord from apost eternity. He had that woman in his heart.
And he came to where she was, in all her ruin and her guilt, and he won her confidence, and he poured the living water into that woman's soul. Dear friend, do you want to have that living water tonight?
Will you take your place like this woman or you say I wouldn't put myself in the same class as this woman. Maybe not, but you are a Sinner, as I was, and you're guilty before God. You're not on probation tonight.
That was all finished at the cross. Man displayed what was in his heart at the cross of Calvary. There they crucified the Lord of glory. There they put him to an open shame, the most cruel death possible, the Lord Jesus.
In profound humiliation came from the glory in manhood, Weary here with his toils among lost souls.
He sat by the well, and he waited for that woman to come.
00:25:03
Because He had blessing for her. Dear friends, let me say this tonight God has blessing in store for you, if only you are willing to take your place before God.
And acknowledge your sinfulness, your ruin. You're in a horrible pit. But the marvelous grace of God, the Lord Jesus came down into that pit himself.
In order to lift you up.
And to give you forgiveness of sins, eternal life.
And he's not asking for anything from you. No, he's not asking for any money. If, if the Lord put any value, if any value could be put upon salvation, you are desperately poor. You could never meet the need.
But God is too rich to sell, and you're too poor to buy.
And I've worked a year and year after year in the poor areas of the world, like our brother Brad Erlinson has been to India many times. I've preached the gospel among the poor in India. And it's been a wonderful privilege to share the message of God's grace with those poor souls, some of them, many of them illiterate.
The poem that I often use. Forgive me if I probably have used it before, but.
Having lived in London, it means something to me, and here it is midst the dwelling of the poor. I think this was in London, England.
These bright golden words were uttered. I have Christ, what want I more? He who heard them ran to fetch her something from the world's great store. It was needless.
Died she saying I have Christ, what want I more as she had the true eternal riches. Dear friends, if you accept Christ.
I've never met anyone in my travels worldwide that has ever said I was sorry I accepted the Lord as my Savior.
And tonight is your opportunity. Tonight, today is the day of salvation when the Lord was in Nazareth, You remember, maybe you should turn to the scripture so we get it correctly. Luke, chapter four, He was in his own hometown of Nazareth, and he went into the synagogue. This was the Lord's habit, to be in the synagogue.
And he stood up to read.
And the scroll was given to him, and he opened it up, and he found those wonderful words from the prophet Isaiah. Here it is in verse 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted. You know you'll always have an audience if you speak to broken hearted people, because the world is full of them everywhere, broken hearted people. And the only one that can heal a broken heart is the Lord Jesus Christ. No one else can do it. No psychiatrist or anything of that sort.
Christ is the answer. Well to finish to heal the broken hearted.
To breach deliverance to the captives. Yes, men and women are captive to their lusts, their vile dispositions, their sins, their habits, their addictions, their captives of Satan and sin. And I was one myself. Dear friend, the Lord is preaching deliverance to the captives tonight.
He wants to lift you out of the pit. He wants to put you on your shoulder.
Not on one shoulder, you might fall off. The Lord holds the whole universe on the on the one shoulder. But when he picks up a poor lost sheep, he puts he puts that sheep on both shoulders. He's an all the way home Savior. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Yes, he wants to bring recovery of sight to the blind.
00:30:03
Well, you say my eyes are pretty good. I don't have a problem.
But you are spiritually blind if you're without Christ.
Lately when I was in Brazil this year.
I read a book that struck me very deeply. It was called.
The Leopards of Robben Island Just a little background, Robben Island is a piece of the land that is away from the mainland of South Africa.
It has a long illustrious history, but not very flattering. Any leper that was found any place in South Africa, if they had any taint of leprosy, they were pulled from their family regardless of what their social status was. They could be the son of the president if they had any taint of leprosy.
To Robben Island.
Forced to leave their homes and their families and go to Robben Island, as many as 600 were there.
And I enjoyed reading the history of Mr. Fisher, who worked for 30 years on Robben Island. He didn't live there. He lived on the mainland. He would go over week after week and he got to know many of those dear people that were afflicted with leprosy. Indescribable that conditions.
The decaying of the body, the stench, the hopelessness.
Nearly all lepers eventually are blind, and Mr. Fisher patiently presented the gospel to those lepers week after week. And I am sure that in that coming day of glory, we're going to meet many of those lepers who receive Christ. They knew their their they knew their physical need. They were.
Completely outcasts of society.
And very few of them ever recovered from that disease, and they had nothing but an eternity before them. But I believe that many did receive the Lord Jesus as their Savior, and we will meet them in the glory. So with this woman, the Lord.
Touched her conscience because she was living in open sin.
And she knew what her life was like The Lord.
Exposed what she really was, and her conscience was stricken by the Word of God. And I hope your conscience will be awakened tonight by the Word of God, that you will realize your need and your peril.
And like the woman here, received the living water that is coming down from the throne of God.
Through the Lord Jesus, through his death, through his sacrifice, through his precious blood that was shed.
Many boys and girls are here. A lot of prayers went up at the prayer meeting for you.
I'm gonna tell a little story, but time is going here.
Robert Woodward was about nine years of age. He lived in Canada, where I live. He got on a boat with his sister and another gentleman and they were rowing the boat.
In the in the river that leads down to Niagara Falls, 162 feet.
The Canadian falls, so the Horseshoe falls, but something happened, they sheared a pin or something and they lost power.
And there's a strong current in that river, and it's only going in One Direction.
The man that was.
Handling the bolt he the bolt capsized and they were all thrown into the water.
A miracle that his sister was just picked up by the hand at the border of the river and was saved. The man went over the falls and that was the end. But little Robert Woodward actually was just a life belt. Went over the falls down 162 feet.
And there he was, bobbing up and down and the.
00:35:03
Pilate of the Maid of the Mist Bolt. He looked and he couldn't believe his eyes. Who is that? What is that bobbing up and down in the water? It's a little boy. And he threw a life belt to a lifeguard, a rope to him, and he pulled him in and put him on the boat. He's the only one that went over the falls and lived, no one else ever.
Had that experience. It was blazed all over the world and the headlines. A boy went over the falls and lived.
But that's not the end of the story a year later.
Robert Woodward was in that area where he had that awful experience, and he heard the gospel of God's grace.
And he believed the message. He said the Lord saved me once.
So that he could save me twice and.
Robert Woodward believed the message that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He bowed his young heart and he was saved. It was God's mercy that preserved his life and that remarkable way, and he lived to witness and tell others of the wondrous gospel that had saved him. So, dear friends, tonight our meeting is coming to a close.
But again, we appeal to you earnestly that if you are still without the Lord Jesus here tonight.
Don't go to bed and lay your head upon your pillow in your sins.
There's a danger that you will wake up in a lost eternity.
The day of grace is now the verses that we read there in Luke chapter four. To set at liberty them that are bruised what bruising sin has caused.
Maimed people. It has ruined man, body, soul and spirit. Bruised. Preached the acceptable year of the Lord. This is the acceptable year of the Lord.
My dear friend tonight.
The Lord stopped the verse at this point. The rest of it is the day of vengeance of our God. But the Lord did not read that. Isn't that remarkable? We're still in the acceptable year of the Lord. It's still the day of grace, as our brother mentioned elaborated on that wonderful subject this afternoon. We're still in the day of grace and opportunity.
But tomorrow may be too late.
Tomorrow you could be in eternity. You've carried your burden. You've carried it long. Oh, bring it to Jesus. He's loving and strong. He'll take it away and your sorrows shall cease. He'll send you rejoicing with his heavenly peace. May you, each one, if there's anyone here.
Without the Lord Jesus. I'm going to tell you as I close the meeting. Yet there is room.
That hymn was written by George West Fraser. He was one of the gathered Saints last century.
I think he was born about 1840 in that area.
George West Face Fraser was invited to a gospel meeting about 1859 when the Spirit of God was working in Ireland in a marvelous way, his brother said. George, come. Oh, I don't want to go come. Mr. Guinness is preaching. The crowds are are filling the arenas.
The stadiums come. Well, if you insist, I'll go. But there is no room. The place was filled, standing room only. So George Frazier said, or his brother said, listen, we'll that stand pipe there, that gutter there, You will climb up there. There's an open window there. And so they climbed up and they sat on the window sill with their feet dangling over the crowd.
Looking down at the preacher and those words.
Yet there is room where, like an arrow that reached the conscience of George Fraser, he went home, but he was under sole trouble for two or three weeks until he finally.
00:40:16
That verse Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Came to his soul and gave him peace and he wrote that hymn yet there is room and we say that this to you, my friend tonight that God's house is filling fast is not going to be an empty banquet hall. They're coming in from far and near. But if you refuse the invitation you'll be like the man in Matthew 22 The marriage feast was.
Deaned and these invitations were going out. How this man got in without a wedding garment, we don't know, but I suppose, he said. I am all right the way I am. I don't need that wedding garment. My clothes are all right. I'll just slip in here. He got in. But when the bridegroom came.
Immediately he was detected and and questioned. How came you in here my friend?
Without a wedding garment, it was provided at the door and you didn't accept it.
And he was speechless, He had nothing to say. And if you refuse the Lord Jesus Christ, someday you'll stand speechless in the presence of that Holy One at the great white throne, and you will be judged according to your works. How terrible. But tonight is the day of salvation.
God has no pleasure in punishing an unsaved person. There's no pleasure in that. His longing desire is.
That you might be part of that heavenly company, the heavenly bride of the Lamb of God. May God bless His word to us tonight. Could we close with just a stanza of #14?
Yeah #14 first first verse. Some brother would start it.
Have you been through Jesus?
Are you watching the blood of the land?
What do you want in the blood?
Moral Character
Sing Talk—Brad Erlandson
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Going to be here with you and to be invited and have a chance to share two thoughts with you young people and appreciate your effort to be here too and your desire to be here and our process tonight about.
Term moral character and the benefit of the moral character and the example of moral character and someone in Scripture. And how do you define moral character? It's not something that you can refer to in tangible terms. You can't put. You can't put.
A big poster up on the wall of athletic achievements. You can't point to academic achievements. You can't point to philanthropy.
Generosity. What is moral character? Well, it's something that's highly valued in the eyes of God, and it's.
It's it's.
No, and its way in God's value system. So it's it's referenced in a safe place. He's going to be something he's going to use it and.
Live in a day when moral character is.
He's he's slipping. And so that day, even more needed than ever that there be.
Strong moral character, testimony to God's order and to the goodness and to his honor. And so that's that's what I have my heart in. This one that I want to turn to is a really good example of moral character he rubs shoulders with.
Some of the worst corruption in this world, and he bore a testimony to it and there was a testimony that was received. He didn't start a an effort to reform the world, but he bought testimony to it and that was received.
It off the attention of someone who resented it and that person launches that this morning on that person got their way that's not allowed them and some of this.
From the total session, it's loaded graphic and we're going to read that portion now and then we're going to talk a little bit more about the wall church or so on the Baptist.
Mark chapter 6.
And the background of this is the first couple of verses, first verse of March 6. And what all of that since came in his own country and his disciples following up in verse 12. And they went out and preached that meant to be death. And they passed out many devils and going through the oil, many that were sickly healed Devil and King Harris.
Oh yeah, where his name was spread abroad. He said that John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore money works through show forth themselves in him. Other said that it is his bias, and others said that it is a prophet or one of the prophets. Why? But never heard there obviously go on who might be petted. He is risen from the dead for her itself, and sent forth and lay forth upon John, and found him in prison for ferocious sake.
His brother Phillips wife for his Mary's birth. But John and son of a heritage is not awful to need to have thy brothers wife. Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him and would have killed him, but she could not. Or hear John, knowing that he was a just man, and as holy, and observed him, and observed him to get many things that hurt him. Lovely. This is what I mean about the testimony that.
John the Baptist.
Carried and it was effective and errors knew that what he was saying to him had a.
Had had a value to it and it was it had a power to it and he would listen to him. And so when you rub shoulders, when the sorrow of this world is corruption, this world, there is a path to law. And this morning is there individually. That's what we have here. We have an example of an individual relationship. We don't have an example of God.
Starting.
A collective effort to perform the world that's not your place and mine young people that is going to be taken care of with the Lords of Purity. He's going to come back and going to set things right. He's going to rise that this.
00:05:09
Speaks of the sunilizing and righteousness through his wings. That's what's going to happen in the coming days and a full of something that's Mr. Garvey may appoint to us. He said this we have to do his phrase and not with judgment.
And so that's what you and I, that's what we that we could present grace and not judgment to this world, which is their testimony that will judge the world. But.
That is left in the answer to hip great disease that can continue on your way.
But that's that's what I responded to. So that's what John was Baptist. We have an example here and his relationship with parents and.
Herod fear God, knowing that he was a just man and a holy and observed him and he heard him. He did anything to hurt him gladly. So there was there was a relationship, there was a change between parents and John the Baptist and.
But there was resented to us it was.
On the part of this one that narrative taken to be his wife and he had no life having to have and that's what I mean by the corruption of this world it's.
It's it's a snowball that's gather a steam morally around us in society today and everybody scratching their head among the among the the ruin of society and yet nobody can do anything about it. Nobody wants to do anything about it either when they're dead and trespassing sick. And so we'll just read on here verse 21 on a convenient day was come and Aaron on his first day made a suffer to his Lord.
Chief of Spaces Gallery. And when the daughter of a said melodious came in and danced and praised marriage, and then that's not with him. The king said under the damsel, and asked her Feed whatsoever thou will, and I will give it to you. And he swear unto her whatsoever without her last of me, I will give it to the half of my Kingdom. And she was more than some other mother. What shall I ask?
He said to him, talking about all the radical people.
Voice removed from the chief of liberal life without any testimony with the quickness of it. And so one of the writers said basically she set her daughter up to this.
And her daughter, daughter was happy to comply and I think she she was of the same nature which will see that as they go along here.
She went forth, and son of her mother, what shall I ask? She said, I cannot have gone about. She came in straight away with taste under the King, and now saying, My will that shall give me my life in charge of the heavens on the baptism.
Your father say bring it in the charger. No, she got it into it. So that's what I mean she was at the same moral character remark. So she's out of this to it and the king was sitting sorry yet we're both safe for their streets and it's not worth it was not rejected.
From evidence he brought it and went together in prison and brought his head out of the charges. Give them to the damsel downfall, David to her mother and the recycle tournament.
So.
There is a testimony in candy bar I criticize enough that you don't lose your tag over it but you it will be honored in a coming day and God here more testimony and she didn't flinch at that that corruption and the consequences that came on us and.
Very foolishly.
They just made this whole I think you saw as you say it doesn't wasn't fair in this whole scene and sorrowfully for him and John is taking home to glory and a couple of other things here about the wall characters drawing about.
To search out their masters and get a little bit more on his his pathway and what is said of him there.
00:10:02
Just a little a little bit here.
Matthew is 3 and verse 4.
The same John had his name on the camel's hair and a leather girdle about his loyal, and his knee was loweness and wild, coming one of those details made about it on the bathroom.
It pictured, it takes a picture of simplicity and contentment and young people. There's never been a day where it's harder to get a life. Simplicity and the consenting.
Got that hands? Healthy money.
So do I and.
Like like that and like the marketing of this world around us. And it's, it's a challenge for you every day to live a massive life.
Hebrews 13 and five, but your conversation will be content with such things that you have where he has said I will never leave you anymore. First statement.
How about just listen to Cancer of Christian Life?
And as you grow older and as you step into perhaps a marriage relationship, we're going to have financial pressures at the benefits. You gotta make ends meet. And that is such an important principle to try to live technically.
Try not to live beyond your meaning if the world wants you to use that piece of plastic to buy this that and the other thing and worry about paying for tomorrow. Well, that's not and my my grandfather said this to my dad said there's no taskmaster like a heavy debt load and.
Try to be careful about what you committed. You may have to will have to.
And that's what that loan for something still that most pictures and, but, but don't go beyond your needs. And I I I know what that means because I did it. I had a heavy deployment and it was a hard math master. The Lord delivered us from it, but it's a hard company and.
So the the world again wants you to.
Wants you to. Just trying to think of a term here, um.
Yeah, financial independence, that's what it is. And it's good to be responsible in your finances and move there, but letting within your means is the key to financial independence.
And I just suggest in your relationships, young women, that young men, you need to take a leave in this and you need to take the responsibility for that financial management and that financial care. And when it goes sideways, you take the responsibility of it. Don't blame somebody else and.
So I just.
Want to want to?
Umm, give this caution and this example from scripture of these things and, and this simplicity and maybe a, maybe it may be a help to your path and mine. A couple of other things that I just want to touch on here while I, while I pay your attention. I heard an address a couple of weeks ago, advice from an older brother to young brother, and it's a, it's a really good address and I would.
I would suggest it for the younger brothers here, for the other sisters here too, because you can use it for checking out some and you go right ahead and do that that that address was given by by Bill Cross and it was given on the European zoom. And if anybody wants a length of that, give me your.
E-mail address.
Your phone, your.
Number and I'll forward it to you. I would, I would highly recommend some advice from an older brother to younger brothers. And it touches on some of these things, but it touches on your responsibility in the relationships of life. So just just a few thoughts and I appreciate your attention and your exercise and your presence here today.
Light
Children—Jonathan Grinton
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I'll do everything I can to make you not nervous.
He even dimmed the lights. Isn't that kind of neat?
Looks really pretty with those lights, doesn't it? Who likes lights?
I like lights.
OK, well.
You see on that hymn sheet you have there, I just want to point out on the very Backpage.
On the very back, our children's hymns.
In the rest of the hymn sheet, our gospel songs, and they're all very, very nice.
But if you want to stick with the children's songs, pick off the back sheet. OK, And if there's an action song or something else that you would like to sing, just tell me what it is and we will do our best to sing it. How does that sound? That good? OK, who has a song they would like to sing this morning?
Right here. What is your name? Oh, I knew that, Lucas. Sorry, what #47 #47 Oh, that's a good one. Number 47 on the back of your sheet.
When he cometh, when he comes.
For this Kingdom, all the same minds of the right ones cares about and tears from.
Life a start of the morning.
It is Friday proud of Dorney.
Are the jewels precious jewels?
Is all and his own.
Like the stars of the morning.
It is right now.
Morning they shall shine.
His beauty.
Right chance for his crown.
That's a really nice hymn. I really like that one. Lucas, you know, do you think that you are special to God? You do. That's really good that you know that. Does everybody realize how special you are to God? He loves you so much that he would call you a precious jewel. And you know it says that.
They shall shine in his beauty.
You think you could shine? What do you think? Do you ever see a diamond on somebody's ring and in the light when it hits it, it really shines bright? Have you ever seen that?
For your mom? Yeah. And that's true of you and me. It says we shall shine in his beauty because of him. We're going to shine bright as jewels. OK who has another one they'd like to sing?
Lillian.
39 Oh, that's a nice one.
What a friend we had in Jesus.
And grace to her.
What a criminal that you can dirty.
And we thank you God in prayer.
00:05:01
Oh God, it's we often for that.
Because we do not care.
And everything to God in prayer.
We trials and temptations.
It's a trouble and anywhere.
To be discovered.
In prayer.
We find our friends so fast.
Goodnight, Princess. Vice versa.
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
In his arms shall take, and she'll be.
I will find a soul is there.
OK, what a friend we have in Jesus, because each one of you have the Lord Jesus as your friend.
Eastern. You have the Lord Jesus as your friend? Yeah. Do you want to sing a hymn? What number?
What action? Which one do you want?
Oh, Zacchaeus was a weird little man. And a wee little man, was he that one? I like that one too. OK, we're going to do Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus was up.
In a Sycamore tree for the Lord. He looked up in the tree and he said that He is you come down.
We're going to your house today.
Going to your house today, do you think, Easton, that you would climb up in a tree to see the Lord Jesus?
Yeah, wouldn't that be exciting? You know, because let's you're a little bit shorter than me, right? It'd be hard to see past me to see the Lord Jesus, wouldn't it? So you'd have to get up on something higher in order to see him, wouldn't you? But that took effort. It took effort for Zacchaeus to do that. He wanted to see the Lord Jesus so bad that he climbed up in that big tree.
And when Jesus said come down.
Did did Zacchaeus come down? He obeyed them, didn't he? And that's what he wants from you and I He wants us to obey him. Yes. And I know you too, Sarita.
Peter didn't be honest about Sure we can. Peter, James and John in the sailboat. Got your sailboat ready. Is it like this? OK, Peter, James and John in the cell. But Peter, James and John in the cell book. Peter, James and John in the sailboat.
I don't want the deeper thing. It's all night, but they don't fishes. It's all night, but they got no fish. It's fished all night, but they got no fishes.
Jesus said cast your net on the right side. Jesus said cast your net on the right side. Jesus said cast your net on the right side. Out on the deep. Let's see.
00:10:02
Wow. That's always a little bit of a risk when you go somewhere else as to being in the right tune or the right speed or the right words. But that was very good. And Sarita, the same thing. God told him to do something and they did it, and that's called obedience.
And that's what he wants from everyone of us.
OK. Who has another one Evan 4141 on the back of the sheet?
Okay.
#41.
Around the throne of God in heaven.
Are unforgiving will have the screen singing glory glory.
Glory need to God.
In Shining Crows of spontaneously, it's one of the.
Lasting life and joys and everything singing.
Glory.
Glory.
Glory need to God.
My.
What brings out to that world that happens on bright and clear, where all is peace and joy and love? How can the children, they're singing glory?
Glory.
Glory to God.
My life.
Because the singer shadows but to wash away their sins.
Now watch them, that most precious but beholden, wise and clean singing glory.
Glory.
Things in God. Very nice, very nice. Evan. That's a very nice hymn.
And, you know, it speaks a little bit more there about shining robes and everlasting light that will never fade. Hmm. We might have to keep those little thoughts in our minds as we go along here this morning. Well, you know, maybe we'll sing a few others in a moment. But I wondered if there was anybody that would like to do their verse today.
Yeah, OK. I see some hands. I'm used to the hands just going like this. Yeah, there we go. Who wants to say their verse today? OK. And you don't have to be shy. If you are a little shy, you can say it quietly to me on the side. OK, Well, I think what we'll do is I'll just read this to you and we can just go around and whoever, if you don't like this big thing, you can just say it to me. OK. So.
The Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Luke 9 and 56. The Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Luke 9 and 56. Did you want to say the verse today? OK, go ahead.
Because Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Luke 956. Very good. Now I put some pencils and some pads out there on the table and if you would like one, you go ahead and get one, OK?
The Son of Man has not come to destroy man's lives, but to save them. Luke 956 very good. Lincoln has not come to Flyman trash, but the safe commute 956 very good. You go ahead and get your pencil and pad if you'd like one.
The Lord, the Son of Man, has not came to destroy man's lives, but to save them. Luke 956.
Men have not came to shore man's life, but to save Luke 956. I like the enthusiasm very good.
Hold on, Alley, the Son of Man has not come to Star Man's life, but 956 very nice.
The sun for the sound of the for the son of man had not come to destroy man's lives. But but to see she can, she can say them, Lou.
00:15:05
956 have to save them. OK, good job. The sun. The sun has the Son of Man. The Son of Man has not come.
Oh, oh, come.
Not come to.
Destroy man's life.
But to save them.
Look.
956, Good job. OK, You want to try Lucas? Oh, I'm getting tangled up here.
The Son of Man has not come to destroy.
Is not come to destroy men's life, but to save them. Luke 956 Well done, good job. Man has not come to destroy man lives, but to save them for 956 Good work. William, the son of man has not come to destroy man's lives, but to save them with 956 Oh, you guys are really good at this. The sign of man has not come to destroy men's eyes, but to save them. Look 956. OK, good job.
You got it here. Let's see your first God.
Emily.
The Son of Man is not come to destroy man survives, but to save them.
Group 956.
Very good, well done. I know how hard that is, believe me.
The seven man is not the same man's lives, right? He's not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And 956 very good, good job.
The Son of Man has not come to destroy man's life, but to see them look. 956 Good job. Luke 956 The Son of Man has not come to destroy man's life, but to save them. Luke 956 Well done, OK.
The Son of Man, Son of man.
Not come.
Joy Men's lives.
956, it's 956. Good job, well done.
Oh.
OK.
The sun has not come to save to the assurance, but to save them.
Book 956 Do you want to say it?
No, the Son of Man.
To destroy men's lives. Destroy men's lives.
5656 I'm learning this verse too. This is working out pretty well.
What about you? No, thank you. No thank you. No. You want me to help you? No. No. OK.
This is the man who's not come to storm inside, but to save them. Little 956. Very good.
You want to try nothing now? OK, you want to try.
The Sun.
Save them. Book 956 Nine 56. Well done. OK. You all did a very, very good job. The Son of Man does not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Why? Anybody tell me why?
He loves them. That is a beautiful answer. He loves them. Did everybody get a pencil and a pad for participating and did everybody get one that wanted one? How about over here?
Well, if you want to come and get a pencil and a pad, go ahead. Come on up. Everybody get one. There's one there for everybody.
Do you think the Lord Jesus leaves anybody out?
No, he doesn't. He loves everybody and he wouldn't leave anybody out. He would have everybody to be saved. Well, you know, I wanted to talk to you a little bit today about darkness. Do you think it's a little dark in here?
00:20:02
You think it's a little dark in here? It's not as bright as it was, is it? I wanted to turn out all the lights, but here's the thing. I'm a little bit afraid of the dark. So I said maybe while Tom suggested leaving these lights on and then I could see a little bit and then I wouldn't be scared. Anybody else afraid of the dark? Just me, Isaac. OK, Thanks, Isaac.
I got some girls over here very good. Well, you know.
In Genesis, in the Bible, it says that God created this whole earth and you know, it was dark. It was dark and it says that he made the sun the greater light and the moon the lesser light. But you know what I found out? I found out that when the moon.
Is closest to the sun.
That it shines brighter.
And I thought, well, that's an interesting thing. When the moon is closer to the sun, it shines brighter.
It's a scientific thing. God's the only one that really knows how that works, you know? Well, I got thinking about you and I, and it tells us in.
The book of Ephesians chapter 5 and I think it's verse 8.
It says that.
We walked in darkness. We were the children of darkness. What do you think?
How would we be darkness? Can somebody tell me how we could be darkness? Yes.
Because we don't love God, but Lord just die for our sins that we can't so that we could. That's very good. I probably don't have to finish Sunday school now.
Well, you know what it is right? Because we didn't love God. What makes it? What is in US that makes us so dark? Who can tell me?
Who can tell me Yes, what is it? Holler it out.
What is it makes us so dark?
Anybody know? Starts with an S Evan. Our sins, our sins, our sins. They make us so dark. Do you know what sins are?
What are the Easton? Nice and loud?
Right. And we're that's what we are, is dark. Who wants to be dark?
I don't see any hands. I don't. Sarita, you don't want to be dark. What were you going to say?
Well, you could also be naughty by just obeying your parents, by disobeying your parents. That's right. And we were talking a little bit about obedience and disobedience, weren't we? Right. Well, obedience is going to come into this a little bit. So that's very good, Sarita. Thank you. Well, you know, it says that we walked in darkness. I better look that up. But.
If God made the sun.
And the moon to be light here.
And we were walking in darkness because of our sins.
What did he do?
To help us. It says that ye were sometimes darkness. That's what it says ye were sometimes darkness. At the beginning of that chapter 2, it says that you were the children of, as Sarita said, the children of disobedience. Oh boy, that doesn't sound very good, does it, Evan? No. What did God do?
To help.
With all that darkness.
And to help us get rid of our sins. Anybody know who did he send?
The Lord, the Lord Jesus, He sent the Lord Jesus, you know in John chapter 8.
In verse 12 and in John Chapter 9 and verse.
Five, it says that he is the light of the world.
Can you imagine? The earth was dark, Says Boyd. And he made the sun. And did you see the sun outside today? Isn't it beautiful? Who would rather have dark, dreary rain? No hands? Me neither. I really like the sun. I like to be able to see. I like to be able to be warm. And so he made the sun. And then he sent his son.
As the light of the world.
00:25:00
For you and I, because we were sometimes darkness and full of sin. What do you think of that? Who likes light? Let's see if we can make some light.
Well, there's one I hope I don't set the sprinklers off.
Well, what do you think of that? Is that pretty? You like that Easton?
Oh well, it's contained. Trust me, it's contained. Easton. Well, you know, it says that we were sometimes darkness and God is light.
And what did he do?
Sarita said He went to the cross and he died for you and I, and then he didn't stay here, you know, He rose up from the dead and he went up into heaven and he's preparing a place.
That you and I can spend all eternity with them? Who wants to go to heaven?
Do you think it'll be dark there?
No, it will not be dark there. You sang about it this morning, that song about your robes being white and bright and bright jewels in his glory, right? There be no darkness there, only light.
Only light. So he came.
As the light of the world. And then do you know what he said? He made you and I.
Lights. How did he do that? Does anybody know?
Uh oh.
Well, that's part of the story actually, but we haven't got to it yet.
How did he make us lights? He went to the cross.
And anybody that believes.
In the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can be a bright light for him, did you know that?
Are you a bright light for him? You are. That's very good.
There we go. OK, now we've got a few. And you know, I was thinking of this verse.
In Matthew chapter 5.
And it talks about.
Being a bright light, you know, he left this world and he said ye are the light of the world. And then it talks about a city. It talks about a city set up on a hill. And it kind of reminded me a little bit of a lighthouse because I grew up in a fishing village and there was a lighthouse there. And you know what a lighthouse does.
What is it? What does it do? It's it's to know that other boats, it's like like the tell other boats not to crash into the rocks. That's right. It's dangerous there, isn't it? Rocks are kind of dark too, can't see them. And so there's a big light in the lighthouse, like a city up in the hill with a light. What happens if the light goes out Easton? Would they crash into the rocks?
Yes, they would crash into the rocks and so it says here that.
Men don't light a candle and put it under a bushel.
But they put it on a Candlestick so that you can see it. What would be the point? What would be the point in lighting that lighthouse and then letting the light go out? That would be destruction. Wouldn't it be bad? Wouldn't it? The boats would crash into the rocks.
Well, you are the light of the world and what are you doing? This is what I was getting at with the sun and the moon. I'll try to explain it to you. You know the Lord Jesus is that bright light. He is the light. And you know you and I when we get saved.
We're a bright light, and we reflect the light of the Lord Jesus.
We reflected so that everybody can see that we belong to the Lord Jesus, and you know the closer that you are.
To God and the Lord Jesus, the brighter you can shine for Him. Did you know that? So when you learn your verse like you did, when you learn your verse and you sing the songs like you did, I heard some really good singing.
And you know, maybe at home mommy reads you the mommy and daddy read you the Bible at the table or calendar, children's calendars, and you learn more and more and more about the Lord Jesus.
00:30:00
The brighter you get.
Isn't that nice?
Or do you think it would be better?
To just get saved and then.
Boy, I sure hope this works. Oh wow, what happened? What happened?
How did that happen?
I did. I covered it up.
With something and I hid it and it went out.
Does that seem very good?
No, I agree. First of all, I don't like darkness.
God saved us from our darkness. He sent his Son, the light of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for our sins, right? And he made us light. And then all of a sudden I say I don't want to be light and I cover it up and I don't want anybody to know.
Oh, that's not very good, is it? That's not very good. You know, there's a verse in Leviticus, chapter 24. I was going to ask Tom to help me with that, but he said I had to remember on my own. And it's in verse one and it talks about pure olive oil.
And you know what they used pure olive oil so that the lamps would burn continually. And that's what the Lord wants from you and I as boys and girls and older ones too. He wants us to burn our lights bright continually, and we can only burn them bright.
Continually when we're near him, walking with him, dear to him.
And knowing of his love, learning all about him and you know.
A little further down here in this Matthew 5, it says let your light so shine before men, so let everyone see it.
That they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.
Well, you know, I had a nice chat with Mr. Stewart yesterday.
And he helped me a little bit to know this verse better.
And I'm going to try to explain it to you the same way, you know.
As bright lights for the Lord, we can do some very good things, can't we? Can we do good things for the Lord? What do you think? Yeah, we can. We can. And when we're shining bright and all the men see us, that means everybody in the world, they see us do something good.
Who gets the glory for that?
Who? Jesus. God gets the glory. You're right, God the Father gets all the glory when we do something good as a bright light now.
If you're not.
Being a bright light.
Can you still do good things?
Can you still? Yeah, you can. So who gets the glory if you're not a bright light?
But you do something good. Who gets the glory?
God doesn't, you do.
God doesn't get the glory you do. You did it for yourself, or maybe you did it for man, somebody else in this world, but you didn't give the glory to God. And so that's why He wants us to be bright lights continually, all the time, every day, so that He gets the glory. And it should be in our heart just like it was in the heart of the Lord Jesus when he came.
To give the glory to God the Father. Do you understand that? Does that make sense?
So, you know, I think a little further on in Ephesians chapter 5, there's a nice little verse in Philippians that says that.
Shine ye as bright lights I think. But in Ephesians 5 it says.
Now are ye light in the world? Walk as children of light, and you know, to walk as children of light. I was just thinking about the Lord Jesus when he was here.
00:35:01
Can somebody tell me if he was perfect?
Yes, I heard somebody say yes. So if he walked here perfectly as a light to bring glory and honor to God the Father, and then he tells you and I to walk here.
As the children of light.
Should we walk like him?
Should we walk like the Lord Jesus did?
Anybody answer?
What do you think the Lord Jesus? What do you think his desire was? What do you think he wanted to do?
When he was here.
Somebody tell me, what do you think he really wanted to do? What was it?
Save us. And so he was the light of the world all by himself.
And then he saved us and he made us light and, you know, as lights, He wants us to bring other people to the Lord Jesus to know him. And so if we shine bright with one another, then doesn't that encourage others to become lights too? Don't you think? You know, He was the perfect.
Example. Did you know that?
He was the perfect example for you and I and he saved us and he wants us to be a perfect example to one another and other people in the world so they too can be a light.
And do good things for the glory of God. Did you know that if you're a bad example.
You know if you're a bad a bad example or a poor example, and maybe your light is out. Do you know what happens?
Maybe the person sitting next to you, they see how you're acting.
And they decide well.
Maybe I'll act like that person and maybe their light goes out too. What do you think?
That's kind of sad, isn't it? So we need to be good examples and bright lights, don't we, do you think?
Lillian's nodding her head yes.
There's a verse in Proverbs that says.
Proverbs, chapter 4.
Who's got their Bible? Has anybody got their Bible here?
Do you know where Proverbs chapter 4 is? You want to look it up? You could read us this verse Proverbs chapter 4.
Proverbs chapter 4 and verse.
18 But the path of the jest is just as a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
More and more unto the perfect day. So how can we shine more and more unto the perfect day? Well, we already talked about it, didn't we? Reading our Bibles, doing our verses, singing our songs, being obedient to the Lord Jesus.
And we can shine more and more and more every day because we become more and more like the Lord Jesus. Who wants to be more and more like the Lord Jesus.
I do, I do and you know we can't do it by ourselves. We should have these lights lit in too should or light.
So I thought of a couple of hymns that maybe you remember and we could sing them together. Who knows? The hymn, This Little Light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Who knows that one? Okay, so there's a bunch of different verses, and probably some of you will sing one and I'll sing another. And so we'll just do our very best to get through it.
All right, this little light of mine.
Let it shine.
This light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
No, I'm going to let it shine.
I'm going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
00:40:07
To blow it out, I'm going to let it shine. Don't. Let's say you're talking about I'm going to let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Shines of Jesus I'm gonna let it shine, Let it shine till Jesus comes by the Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine all around.
I'm gonna let it shine, Let it shine to all around. I'm gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Very good. So it sounds like our lights are not going to go out. We want to let them shine. Right? That sound, right. All right. I had one other hymn. I borrowed my wife's Sunday school hymn book. And if you know it, you can sing it with us. It's Jesus bid to shine with a pure clear light, like a little candle burning in the night.
In this World of Darkness. So we must shine, you and your small corner, and I in mine, the rain able to do that one with us, OK.
Jesus is the shine with a pure clear light, the light burning in the night in this World of Darkness. So will be my shine, you and your small corner and.
Light she's a spins a shine first of all.
He looks down from heaven to see us trying you in your small corner, and I in life.
She has been so shy next door all around.
Many kinds of darkness in this world so.
Every quantum sorrow. So we must shine.
You make your small corner and by.
So we must shine. So we must shine. And that little verse in Philippians 2 and 15 it says, shiny as lights in the world.
What an opportunity you and I have to be bright lights for him.
I pray that you will ask the Lord for help, each one of you in your day, each day to be a bright light for him, to bring glory to Him, and to be a help.
Two brothers and sisters and friends so day 2 might come to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior and those that do.
All of you here believe in the Lord Jesus Christ now and you can help each other. That's nice. You can help each other to be bright lights for Him.
Jehoshaphat
Address—Robert Boulard
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good afternoon.
I'd like to start with #230.
But my habit is usually on a meeting just after lunch, everybody starts to nod off about halfway through, maybe sooner, depending on the subject matter and the speaker. And So what we do is we stand up halfway through and we sing another hymn. So let's sing #230 maybe someone can start it for us.
Well, there I'd like to just read a passage of scripture. It's in Second Chronicles.
I'd like to take up just a little portion, just a little passage. Second Chronicles, chapter 17. We're going to talk about Joshua Fat now.
Let me just say this at the outset. None of your older brethren here and myself included, none of us present ourselves as any better than any of you young people. We've all had our failures. We've all had times in our life when we walked with the Lord and then there needed to be restoration, repentance, confession of sin and all those things. So I'm not talking to you here as someone.
Any better than you are just one that is a Saint of God by the grace of God and preserved unto this day by the mercy of our God gathered to the Lords name and just desiring to encourage you this afternoon in the path of faith right at the end of the day of grace. And I think every one of us has a sense that we're not going to be here very long and we want to be found faithful and watching and waiting for the Lord when he comes.
00:05:20
So let's read this chapter together and then we'll try to bring out some points that might be a help in connection with the principles of life.
How we might apply these principles to our own lives and those of us that are older, maybe we'll judge ourselves in connection with how we failed and some of these principles. But you know, the Lord is able to take His word and apply it to each one of us. So let's read it. Second Chronicles, chapter 17, verse one. And Jehoshaphat, his son, reigned in his stead and strengthened himself against Israel.
And he placed forces in all the spent cities of Judah.
And set garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the cities of Ephraim, which ASA his father had taken. And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Balaam, but sought to the Lord God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel.
Therefore, the Lord established the Kingdom in His hand.
And all Judah brought Jehoshaphat presence, and he had riches in honor in abundance, and his heart was lifted up or encouraged in the ways of the Lord. Moreover, he took away the high places and Groves out of Judah also. In the third year of his reign he sent to his Princess even.
To Ben Hale, and to Obadiah, and to Zachariah and to Nathaniel.
And to Makaya to teach in the cities of Judah. And with them he sent Levites, even Shamaya and Nathanaya and Zebediah, and Asahel, and Shemar, Ramos and Jehonathan, and Adonijah and Tobaija, and toward the Noja, toward Tobad.
No nijah Levites with them ilashima.
And Jehoram the priests, and they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people. And the fear of the Lord, or the New Translation says, the terror of the Jehovah fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat.
Also some of the Philistines brought Jehoshaphat presence and tributes silver.
And Arabians brought him flocks, 7700 Rams, and 7700 he goes. And Jehoshaphat wax great exceedingly. He built in the in in Judas, castles and cities of store, and he had much business in the cities of Judah. And the men of war, mighty men of valor, were in Jerusalem.
And these are the numbers of them.
According to their the House of their fathers of Judah, the captains of thousands.
Edna the chief, and with him mighty men of valor. 300,000 Next to him was Joho Hanan the captain, and with him 204 score 1000. Next him was a Messiah, the son of Zikri.
Who willingly offered himself unto the Lord, and with him 200,000 mighty men of valor, and of Benjamin Eliada, a mighty man of valor, with him armed men with bone shield. 200,000 Next him was Jawsabad Jehoshabad, and with him 104 score 1000 ready to prepare.
Ready, prepared for the war, these waited.
On the King, beside those whom the King put in the fenced cities throughout Judah.
Now, it's not my purpose to take up the failures. We know that that with the Old Testament Saints, many of them, they had divine life, you know, and.
They often times failed. I don't want to concentrate on failures of Jehoshaphat. And you wouldn't. I wouldn't want you to concentrate on my failures. You may know some of them, but you know, isn't it the grace of God? He writes this about his this king, He's the 4th king.
00:10:10
Of the divided Kingdom of Judah and Benjamin, remember there was a division among the people of God and it was allowed of the Lord and the Lord had two tribes that were preserved. We might just turn back and look in second in First Kings Chapter 11, and I'll just point that out.
Was that interesting that her brother Jonathan Grinton this morning had before us the thought of the light?
And it's a theme throughout Scripture that there's light and God wanted the nation of Israel to be a light and a testimony to the his wisdom and his glory, his the, the wisdom of his word and so on. He wanted that nation, those 12 tribes to go on and to shine throughout this world, that there would be 1 nation that served the living God and that there would be a testimony in this world.
Well, they there was failure, there was sin, and there was the light became dim and God allowed judgment to come in and he separated the 10 tribes from the two. And so the majority went in division and they went out and they fell into idolatry immediately. The sin of the neighborhood, Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that made Israel the sin, but God preserved 2 tribes.
Just a little remnant. It's umm, first Kings Chapter 11.
Let's read verse 36. Well, let's read verse 35. I will take the Kingdom out of his sons hand, and will give it unto thee even 10 tribes. He's speaking to Jeroboam, and unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant, may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen to put my name there.
So, young people, God preserves a little testimony of those that.
Are associated with his name, identified by his name, and he preserved them in Jerusalem at the divine center. Now we know that in Israel they had a physical location where they could meet with the Lord, a physical location, Jerusalem. You know what that name means? It means the abode of harmony, the possession of peace, a possession of peace, the abode of harmony. You know, I think that's a nice picture of what the assembly.
Be like a place of peace, a place where there's harmony, a place where the Word of God is read and it's bowed to. The principles of the Word of God are bowed to. And so there was a light. And here this man is 1/4 king. We know that Rehoboam, he really syndicates God. He lost those 10 tribes. He lost most of his territory within a few months, a few weeks of his becoming king.
He lost most of his subjects. He.
He lost everything. There was just a little remnant and God preserved that.
There would be a light and a testimony in Israel for His name, for his glory. Well, what's the first thing that God has to say about Jehoshaphat? This chapter is almost like a little synopsis that gives us why. I just ask you a question. You've got first and second Samuel, 1St and 2nd Kings, First and Second Chronicles. What's the difference?
Many of the stories, they're told slightly differently. There's a little content variation and so on. Why does God tell us the same story in First and 2nd Kings and 1St and Second Chronicles? Well, First and 2nd Kings, he takes up the history of the all of the nations, all of the tribes of Israel, you might say, but particularly deals with the 10 tribes and 2nd Kings, I believe. And then but here in First and Second Chronicles, he speaks.
It really takes, it really takes up the history of the Jews.
But from his perspective.
Isn't that nice? You know the Lord's going to have us each at the judgment seat of Christ. He's going to look into our faces and he could tell all the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And it might dishearten us. I don't. We're not going to have the flesh. But he wouldn't, he wouldn't do that. He's going to review our lives and he's going to tell us what he saw.
What he approved of and what he delighted in, he's going to tell us about it and we'll rejoice together and he'll give us a reward for those things. But the other things, you know are going to go on the big burn pile and Hammer Bay. We have a burn pile and the construction materials and everything come in and old sofas and things that people bought brand new and we really, really delighted with. But then a few years later.
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They go into the bucket of the front end loader and up on top of the big burn pile that ends up to be 1520 feet high and then in November it goes up in flames.
Nobody misses that sofa.
But you know there's going to be then then shall every man have praise of God. The first thing God says about Jehoshaphat, he says Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead and strengthened himself against Israel and that is that he didn't want to go on in the air of the religious systems of the day. He wanted to go on in the truth and instead of being associated with.
Ahab and the 10.
Tribes that had broken off in rebellion against God.
Why he wanted to go on in the truth and God makes mention of this first in connection with Jehoshaphat. I just wonder young people, do you know why you come to the assembly meetings, Why you're gathered to the Lords name? Maybe you're remembering the Lord in his death. You know why it's you know we don't have time to go into the principles what it is to be gathered with the Lord's name. But I won't tell you this.
It's the most precious.
Precious thing to the heart of God to have his people in in the presence of the Lord Jesus on a continual basis at the Lords Table and in the when we remember the Lord in his death and two at the assembly prayer meetings, the assembly reading meetings, the assembly meetings. It's a delight to the heart of God to see the Saints in the presence of the Lord Jesus and there's a delight to the heart of the Lord Jesus himself to have you there.
In his presence. And it's the most wonderful privilege in all of Christendom to be found gathered by the Spirit of God under the precious name of the Lord Jesus, and to be able to have the liberty as our brethren have been able to bring before us. These last couple of meetings and the reading meeting, the distinction of doctrine, the distinction between doctrines, and the distinction between the truth and error.
And it's not wonderful, you know, that we have the privilege of not going on.
In error and being able to identify those things that are error.
You'll forgive me for giving a little personal reference, but my father was saved out of Roman Catholicism at 20 years old.
And it was a traumatic thing for him to leave Roman Catholicism and to receive Christ as Savior.
And in those days in Quebec, he was 20 years old and.
The Roman Catholic Church had the power to seize property if someone died, and under other circumstances they could seize a persons property if they belong to the church.
And so he wrote.
A letter of withdrawal to the Roman Catholic Church.
He left the Roman Catholic Church. It was something very difficult for him to do. He wrote that letter of withdrawal and he sent it to the local church and he withdrew from fellowship with the Roman Catholic Church. It was heir. They didn't teach the truth of God in connection with salvation. They said that there was another mediator. There's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. And they said there's another meteor there.
Hope there's the priest and so on. No, he said, can't go on with that. But you know, young people, there's an aspect of this that is necessary for each one of us. Jehoshaphat's father ASA died. He went to be in the presence of the Lord. Now he had to take up responsibility himself. He had a major responsibility leading the people of God.
And the first 6 verses of this chapter.
Tell us of his personal exercises, what he went on with and what his decisions were personally at the beginning of his life in connection with the responsibility of the people of God. The first one is that he didn't want to go on an error. So know the truth, learn the truth.
Enjoy the truth, savor the truth. And in these meetings, you know, you can just draw a little note of something to search out a little bit later. And do you have a library, young person? Do you have a little library yourself?
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You'll forgive another personal reference, but I became interested in a young lady years ago, ended up being my wife.
But I went to her house on Thursday morning.
She was out on the screen porch.
And she had a book of ministry. She was reading a book of ministry. I had never seen this before.
I said, well, a sister in the Lord that's reading ministry on the I, I'd never seen this before. I asked her what book she was reading. It was a book by Mr. Edward Dennett. And so that's what she was reading and she was studying a little bit and just encouraging herself. And the Lord, you know, the word of God is written for all of us and God has given us teachers in the Scripture, in the assembly and.
In he's given, let's let's read it in Ephesians chapter 4, He's given us teachers. He's given us those that can teach us not just one teacher, but many. And so you find that there are brethren that have the ability to communicate the truth in a different line of things perhaps, but God has given us a variety of those that can expound the Scriptures.
He's given them to us. Let's read it in Ephesians chapter 4.
And.
Let's read verse nine. Now he that now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also that ascended up far all heavens, that he might fill all things, and he gave some apostles. Now the common is in the wrong place in the King James Bible. It should be after.
The apostles, He gave these gifts to the Church.
So he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Why did he do it? For the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. And so God has given gifts to the church. And what does a teacher do?
He teaches orally, he can give an address, he can teach in a home, He might write his a certain passage on a a certain document, a booklet or a book, and he might write it in an orderly fashion. And the Saints are taught a line of things in connection with the truth. I'm just saying this, young people, I just encourage you to do what Jehoshaphat did. The first thing he did is strengthen himself.
In the things of God against the error of the day, against the ecclesiastical error of the day, he didn't go along with everything that was religious, and he delighted to learn more of the God of Israel. And I just suggest that this is one of the first things that should characterize us in our youth is that we should be studying the scriptures ourselves and that we should know what is truth. Not everything, not everyone that names the name of Christ.
Is speaking the truth in connection with the Lord Jesus?
You know, I was in a shopping mall.
Years ago and I was looking at one of these signs at the at the mall and it tells you where you are and you're looking for a store and where it is on the map and so on. And I had a fellow standing beside me and I said something and he responded and I, but there was a little something. I said something about the Lord and he responded and it was just a little off.
So I said.
What are you connected with?
He said I'm Jehovah's Witness. I said no, you're not.
He said, yes, I'm Jehovah's Witness. I'm I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses. I said no, you're not.
He said yes I am. I said no, you're not.
Jehovah is Jesus. Jesus is Jehovah.
He didn't answer me. He turned on his heel and he walked away. Now I'm perhaps a little more dramatic in how I might approach some of something. You don't have to be that dramatic, but it's nice to be able to know what the truth is and know that these individuals are deceptive. It says in Second Corinthians chapter two. I think it is. We are not ignorant of his devices.
That Satan, we're not in the Kelly translation says we're not ignorant of his stratagems. He has strategies.
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To just try to take us off base, OK. The second thing we want to notice in connection with Jehoshaphat is he placed forces in all the fence cities of Judah, set garrisons in the land of Judah and the cities of Ephraim, which ASA, his father, had taken.
Some of us are 3rd, 4th.
5th generation at the Lord's Table.
I think I could look into the face. I know that some are first generation at the Lord's table.
By Father and grace and goodness of God, my father was saved out of Roman Catholicism, bought the truth, was gathered to the Lord's name and.
I heard the gospel of the grace of God from his lips Himself. I took Christ as my Savior and then a little later on I was gathered by the Spirit of God, I believe to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then I had to learn the truth for myself. And so it says here that he fortified himself in the cities of Ephraim, which Asas father had taken. So he needed to learn the truth for himself. He needed to fortify himself in connection with those cities and all of the truth of God. Now the whole land of Israel had was 12 tribes and then ten went off and.
Well, they didn't have much access to those other that property where the 10 tribes were.
But you know, this is a fabulous little story of Jehoshaphat because there was a little recovery. It speaks to us of a recovery, a little remnant desiring to go on for the glory of God. And this man had energy.
You're not going to learn the truth of God by just cruising. It's nice to come to meetings like this, but it's nice, you know, to be able to study the Word for yourself and to fortify yourself in connection with the doctrines of Christianity. Could I make a suggestion to you? You know, there was a brother, an older brother, Chapter Brown. I never met him.
That I listened to his ministry.
Very, very thankful. Listen to the Ministry of others that I never met Harry Hajo.
Never met some of these older brethren, but I listen to their ministry on recorded ministry and so on.
And, umm.
He had this little expression. He used to say, you know, young people, this book, The Concise Bible Dictionary, will answer 75% of all the questions that you have about scripture.
That's what he would say.
Do you have one?
Well, my dad has one.
That's not good enough. Could I just encourage you to get it? You know, I think it's $25 or something like that, maybe slightly more. John, Brother John Kaiser might be able to tell you.
But some of us as young men, I don't know, maybe Brother Nick and others used to read other materials, but I used to sit down on a Saturday afternoon, a Saturday morning.
And I used to read through the Bible dictionary. Now that sounds like dry reading, right? A dictionary. But, you know, there's little gems that you can read and there's little outlines of each of the books of the Bible. Well, a brother, Nick has written a little outline. It's called short sketches.
Of all the books of the Bible? And isn't it nice to know something about every book of the Bible?
You know, some of our older brother in the past used to say, how would you like to go and meet Hosea? Hosea says, oh, did you read my prophecy? Said, oh, sorry, Jose, I I don't know. I where was it? Didn't didn't get to it. No, we should have a knowledge of the whole of the Scriptures. It's not a very big book. You know, it takes maybe 50 hours or 53 hours to read from front to back of the Bible. Have you ever done it?
It's necessary. Well, this is the second thing that Jehoshaphat did. He strengthened himself.
It took energy, it took time, and he allocated resources to acquire this objective in his life. Well, verse three says the Lord was with Joshua because he walked in the first ways of his father David. That's really referring to David's sin, I believe, with Bathsheba. But David walked with the Lord. He was he was a type of Christ and there was failure. But here was Jehoshaphat.
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A generations later.
And he was walking in the ways of his father David, and sought not unto Balaam, but sought unto the Lord God of his Father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel.
Therefore, the Lord established the Kingdom in his hand. All Judah brought Jehoshaphat presence and he had riches and honor and abundance. Well, you know this next thing that we want to speak of really versus.
Three to six is really in connection with having a value for the presence of the Lord.
A value for the communion. A walk of communion with the Lord.
Did the Lord value having Josh fat walk with him?
You know, it says that Enoch walked with God, and God took him, for he was not.
Enoch was walking with the Lord one day and they were enjoying something together, a divine things.
And the Lord just took him. And there's Enoch with the Lord.
Jehoshaphat.
Notice.
That it was his personal desire was to walk with the Lord. You know what just point out and maybe you've heard me point it out before, but in the French translation, you'll notice in verse three it says Lord capital L capital O capital R capital D Lord. And in the French translation messenger Garvey uses the word Jehovah. He doesn't. There is no.
Or late Almel, it's the equivalent to Jehovah the Eternal 1.
Isn't that nice? The Eternal 1.
Maybe you're a boy, six years old, eight years old. You can walk with the Lord. You're a teenager. Maybe you're a little older than a teenager, but you can walk with the Lord.
And the Lord will notice that he'll value that.
And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat. The eternal One was with Jehoshaphat.
Oh, Jehoshaphat had a sense of it, I believe. Would you want anyone else to be with you? I delight to have my wife with me, and I know she's not well today, but it's nice to be together and to be on a trip and to be able to share thoughts together and so on, but isn't nice.
For you and I that know the Lord Jesus as Savior to cultivate speaking with the Lord, having a time of prayer and being able to with ease, to pray with reverence and godly fear, to pray with the Lord, to pray to him and just to communicate with him the feelings of our thoughts, of our hearts, and just to express ourselves. Don't you ever think, young people?
That people that are older. I think John Kemp is 84.
Is that right? 84 years old? Don't you ever think that John Kemp isn't afraid? Sometimes he is.
And you know what he does when he prays, when he, uh, he's afraid, He prays, He tells the Lord he's afraid. And don't you ever think that your mother and father aren't afraid either? They're afraid sometimes and they pray, they ask the Lord for help. Your older brethren are no better than you are. Know they desire in some measure. The brethren here at Pella have gone to an extreme measure of work labor.
Expense so that the word of God could go forth.
And that you would come here and receive something for your soul, and that you wouldn't go back home the same way that you would go back home with a renewed desire to live for Christ and to make the changes in your life that would produce fruit for him. That's what these brethren have desired, and that's what the Lord desires. Well, it says here that this one.
These few verses really show us that Jehoshaphat wanted to.
Walk in communion with the Lord.
'S presence and he wanted the Lord's approval. Therefore the Lord established the Kingdom in his hand. It's a blessing of the Lord.
And then it says his heart was lifted up, or it should be encouraged in the ways of the Lord. Moreover, he took away the high places and Groves out of Judah.
Well, this verse here speaks of the high places you know the religious system in.
Israel time when they were a nation, there were two kinds of high places. Do you remember? There were high places that were idolatrous, high places, and they had idols there, they had Groves. And let's read it. I think it's Deuteronomy chapter 12 That illustrates that, really speaks against those.
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Two kinds of high places. One of them is idolatrous, it says in verse 2.
Deuteronomy 12, verse two. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess serve their gods, upon the high mountains, upon the hills, and under every green tree. And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their Groves with fire. Ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.
You shall not do so unto the Lord your God. So there were idolatrous high places.
But then there were other high places where you could practice Judaism, but not at the divine center. You could choose to go to another place and offer sacrifices in a high place, and you could practice Judaism but not go to Jerusalem, where the Lord had chosen to place His name. So there were imitations, you might say, of what God had established in Jerusalem.
And so neither of them were acceptable to God.
The first was a true abomination to the Lord, and the people of God were to destroy those things, those images, and so on. But it says he took away the high places in the Groves out of Judah. He took away the idolatrous places, the idolatrous high places. We'll learn in another place that he didn't take away.
The religious high places. Let's sing a hymn. Let's stand up and sing a hymn.
#318.
Oh Lamb of God, still keep.
On and tears up around us and love.
Well, let's look at verses 7 to 9 here. It's really that the another aspect of this man's reign. In the third year of his reign, he sent to his Princess, even to Ben Hale and Obadiah and Zachariah and Nathaniel and so on.
So he selected 9 Levites. Really. There were 5 Princess.
9 Levites and two priests.
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And, you know, this was a little bit of a recovery in the nation. Remember, Solomon's reign is a type of the millennial reign of Christ. And there's going to be in that reign. There's no, not going to have to be a, a restoration or a recovery. But, you know, Solomon's reign was a high point in Israel's history. And he fell into idolatry himself. And then Rehoboam, his son, lost most of the Kingdom, as we said previously, and all those things and.
But God for his own glory.
For his own delight wanted to have a place where he would be glorified and he arranged that this man Jehoshaphat would have an exercise to send out these men to teach the truth throughout the nation. That wonderful. You know, I think of how the Lord raised up the different ones at the recovery of the truth in 1800s and men like GV Wigram and.
Mr. Darby and chapter Macintosh and all these.
Beloved brethren. And they went out throughout the known world at that time, and the truth was recovered and they taught and it took a lot of energy and they went by steamship and train and they wrote. They didn't have computers, so everything had to be handwritten and.
It was hard work.
But it was something, you know, in connection with the truth of God, that Jehoshaphat had had an exercise that all of the people of God should come into the knowledge of the truth and that they should be made aware of what God had for the Saints of God in that time. And it says in verse nine that they taught in Judah and had the book of the law of the Lord with them.
And went throughout all the cities of Judah and taught the people.
You know, it's just, umm, I think of this in connection with, I think it's Second Timothy, Second Timothy Chapter 2.
Yeah, Second Timothy, Chapter 2. And Paul was speaking to Timothy, you know, he says.
Now therefore, my son, not nice term, the Lord looks at you and he looks upon you with favor. You know it doesn't matter whether you're a sister, whether you're a brother. He looks upon you with favor in relationship that he has with you. And he says as it were, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able.
Teach others also.
You know what's the responsibility of every generation? To pass on the truth to the next generation in its entirety and in its purity, exactly the way we received it. Don't add anything to it and don't take anything from it. It's our responsibility. And did you know that Joshua had that sense of his responsibility and he had learned the truth? I believe he had learned it.
From his father ASA, Thank God that many of us have godly parents and that we had had Christian parents, failing Christian parents, and I'm a failing Christian parent more perhaps than any others, but we have had Christian parents that brought something of the knowledge of the truth before us.
And we would be very, very we ought to be very, very thankful for parents that have brought us into the knowledge of the truth and then for those that have ministered the truth among us. But they took the word of God that he read out of the law of the Lord with them. They went throughout all the cities of Judah. So there was the truth was all for all of the.
People of God and this man Jehoshaphat labored that the truth might be ministered.
Do you know what the truth of God is? Do you know what Paul's doctrine is? You have a little outline of it.
You know, Paul's doctrine, that's not very complicated. There's really 4 main parts to what he presented as received from the Lord and presented as his doctrine. You might say one of the things is Christ and the church. Christ and the church. It was a mystery. It was a secret in God's heart from way back, and God revealed the secret of it to the apostle Paul that Christ would have a church. And he speaks of it in Ephesians.
And of the mystery and in Colossians and he speaks of it a little bit in as his gospel at the end of Romans chapter 16 where I think verse 25 perhaps, but you know, it's Christ in the church that we are heavenly people and so on. He speaks of the Lord's coming, the coming of the Lord Jesus at the rapture. The Old Testament Saints knew that the Lord was coming at the appearing. They had no idea about the at the rapture. They didn't know it was not revealed.
00:45:28
But it's a part of Paul's doctrine that we we learn about it in First Thessalonians chapter 4 and the change in our bodies and so on in in First Corinthians chapter 15. It's Paul's doctrine. We need to know what it is and we need to enjoy it. He wrote it for us because he loves us and he wanted us to enjoy it as young people. He wanted us to enjoy it and to be found waiting and watching for him as young people and.
Two and then the breaking of bread, the remembrance of the Lord. We read it this morning, First Corinthians Chapter 11. You know, it's Paul's doctrine. You say, well Mark and Matthew and Luke, well they have that same story and so on. How do you say it's Paul's doctrine? Well, historically and perhaps we might say from a Jewish perspective, it's written in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but.
In Paul's ministry, it's written from the church's perspective and it gives us the doctrinal significance.
Of what it is to remember the Lord in his death. When I take the loaf, a piece of that loaf, I'm confessing publicly professing that I'm a member of the body of Christ and I'm participating in that way at the Lord's table. And the blood or the cup represents the blood, and it's a cup of blessing. I couldn't be better blessed.
I'm within the veil. I have the ability to offer sacrifices, praise to God continually. I can come right into the presence of God. Aaron could come once a year, but you can come anytime. It's Paul's doctrine and all of those things too that we have in Christ. You could read Ephesians chapter one. You get a good portion of them, but all of the blessings that we have in Christ and the fact that we're heavenly citizens, that's Paul's doctrine.
And so we should have an outline of that. Well, it says in verse 10, the fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat. Also some of the Philistines brought Jehoshaphat presence, tribute, silver Arabians brought him flocks, 7700 Rams, 7700 goats, you know.
Young people, God wants your life to be blessed, and he wants you to receive a blessing from Himself. It says in the Proverbs. It says the blessing of the Lord maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. A better translation is The blessing of the Lord maketh rich, and labor addeth nothing to it.
You couldn't add to it. Do you want the blessing of the Lord?
In your life.
Well, I think everyone of us would say, yes, we want the blessing of the Lord in our lives, but you know, we have to be going on in a state, spiritual state. Our standing before God is sure, certain, we can never lose our salvation. We're safe and secure, but our state ebbs and flows and we need to walk in communion with the Lord. But the Spirit of God gives us this little story about Jehoshaphat says this was a high point.
Jehovah Jehoshaphat's life was such.
Oh, I was just so enjoying Jehoshaphat. I'm going to bless him. And he's not going to have war. Philistines are going to bring him some presents and so on. You know, it's a little picture of the millennial scene. But remember, this is a recovery.
There was a little bit of a recovery in the nation of Israel here, and you live in days of weakness.
Sometimes maybe I'm.
A little different, but sometimes I pass a church building and I see people going in and I begin to cry. I weep.
When I see what's the name is on the building.
Well, I see how many people are going in there.
I have a hard time with that. It's difficult.
You know, we live in a day of ruin, a day when many are following the blind leaders or leading the blind and men are just being LED into error. It's a sad day, but you know, we are susceptible to repeating the history if we don't go on in the truth ourselves. We don't learn the truth ourselves and we don't study the scriptures ourselves.
00:50:24
But.
Here. There's a little picture here of the Lord's reward, the Lord's blessing.
And he said had said to them in in the Old Testament, we could turn to it Deuteronomy Chapter 11.
It says.
There when there was a time when they would walk in obedience to the Lord.
Verse Deuteronomy 11 Verse 25. There shall no man be able to stand before you, for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you, and the dread of you upon all the land that you shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you.
You know the Lord moves hearts of people, the hearts of men. It says in the Scriptures that the King's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water. He turneth it whithersoever he will. And so sometimes in the governmental ways of God, he has to introduce some difficulties in our lives, to turn us and to educate us perhaps, and to in love and His faithfulness to chasten us or to train us.
In a certain matter that we might allow in our lives.
But you know, Jehoshaphat pleased the Lord, he walked in communion with the Lord, and the Lord saw fit that there wasn't necessity to bring in disciplinary matters in his life at this point. And so there was a fear of the Lord that fell. The terror of Jehovah fell upon all the kingdoms of land. So he didn't have to go and fight any battles. He didn't have to go fight wars. It was very expensive and time consuming and so on, loss of life.
And he had gifts from the Gentiles.
He had gifts.
You'll forgive a little personal.
Story it's not that the Lord is going to give you a physical physical gifts. You might say he'll give you spiritual gifts in the day that we live in but you don't have only one son running a construction company and in the Lord's mercy as he seeks to live for the Lord for his glory and you know I've been astonished at some of his customers say one of his customers had.
A Honda.
I think it was some sort of a leaf blower, some sort of a very expensive piece of equipment said, you know, I'm never going to, I bought this thing to blow my leaves and so on. I'm never going to use it. Would you like it?
Here he ends up with a leaf blower, Honda leaf blower, and the Marina at the end of the Bay. Jonathan was kind to them and so on. And man had a a boat, an aluminum work boat. I don't know how much these things cost.
Men wanted to get another one as a demo boat and he says to Jonathan, would you like this other boat?
I'll give you a really good price on it.
Aero Jonathan Schott burned five years ago. Lost all of his tools, lost one front end loader, lost a boat with a brand new motor on it.
Lord gives them aluminum work boat.
Best boat in the business that you'd possibly have. The Lord always gives the best. Never, never think young people, that the Lord is withholding something good from you as He allows trials in your lives.
He always gives the best you can search the scriptures. He always gives the best. He never holds back what is not good for us. Well, we noticed something else here in verse 12. It says that he had he vax great exceedingly built Judah city castles and cities, and he had mighty men of valor. And then he goes on and says that there's Edna the chief and a Messiah, the son of Zechariah a little.
On verse 16, who gave himself unto the Lord. So this last point is that.
One of the last points, he kept company with people that would help him. He kept company with those that were exercised. It appears that they were exercised men and they didn't just get to be the chief by buying.
The privilege, you might say. They worked.
Hard they became one of them, became the chief Adna, the chief Johannan in verse 15, the captain and Messiah, son of Zechariah, men of renown.
00:55:14
I just want to point this out to you.
You are making a mark in the day that you live in.
You have a testimony.
And you personally?
Are influencing the Christian testimony.
In the day that you live in and you are either building or you are.
Eroding the truth, contributing to the error, contributing to the erosion of the truth and the weakening the hand of your brethren, whatever it might be, Wasn't it wonderful that Jehoshaphat had an exercise to surround himself with those that were building, those that were defending the truth of God and defending really the country of Israel? And if you add it all up.
1,160,000.
He had an army of these men, five of them that are named, or five or six of them, five of them that are named, and he had surrounded himself with those that would help him. I hope that you choose your friends rightly, those that want to go on for the Lord for His glory. Now the last point we want to make is that this man in verse 16, MSI of the son of Zechariah, who willingly offered himself unto the Lord.
Jehoshaphat, I believe, had taken this step. He had offered himself to the Lord, to Lord's people.
And he had sought to sacrifice his resources and so on for the blessing of God's people. There was a failure in his life a little bit later on, but I don't want to dwell on that. These points here, The first point, verse one, that he was, he strengthened himself against the religious error around them. And the second thing is that, you know, he had a value for what he had been taught, what Issa's father had taken.
And so he had a value for his heritage, for his spiritual heritage.
And then you find in verses three to six, you find that he had a sense of the Lorde blessing and the sense of the Lorde approval. He wanted it. And so that's something that we should seek as well. And then in verses 7 to 9, why we find that he was doing the work of the Lord, and he was.
Strengthening the people of God in connection with the the Truth.
And then a little bit later on verse 10 and 12, we find the blessing of the Lord, and He had.
A sense of the presence of the Lord and blessing of the Lord. And then another thing might be that he built that testimony. He valued the divine center and versus really 12 to 13.
He built, I didn't really comment on that, but he was a builder and then he also kept company with those that were of like precious faith. And then he offered there were he kept company with one who offered himself to the Lord.
Have you done it? Have you offered yourself to the Lord? Have you made yourself available to the Lord?
You know the Apostle Paul did.
Cost him his life.
You know the Lord Jesus did.
Suffered himself a sacrifice to God for the sweet smelling savor cost him his life.
Says he was a faithful and true witness. Cost him his life.
Let me read it to you this little in this little hymn book that we have.
When we were had a young family, we typed this out on a computer and put it on our refrigerator.
So that might remind us a little bit of the reason that we were here in this world. This is what we had on our refrigerator. I gave my life for thee. My precious blood I shed that thou minest.
Ransom be and quicken from the dead. I gave my life for thee. What hast thou given me for me?
My Father's House of light, My glory circled throne I left for earthly night, for wanderings of sad and lone. I left it all for thee. What hast thou left? Hast thou left aught for me?
I suffered much for thee, more than thy tongue can tell. A bitterest agony to rescue thee from hell. I've borne it all for thee. What hast thou born for me? And I have brought to thee down from my home above salvation, full and free, my pardon and my love. I bring rich gifts to thee. What hast thou brought to me?
Romans 10
Gospel 2
Gospel—John Bilisoly
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.
The hood and he went to the king of Moab, I believe it was his name was Eglon and he said I have a message from God to you and I trust that tonight.
I have a message from God to you, dear one. So each one that's here, I don't know some of you and I don't know, only the Lord knows whether you're one of his child children or not.
But our desire is to present the gospel to you, the message from God of salvation. So I wonder if we could begin tonight by singing hymn #21 in the little hymn sheet. And maybe it would be nice to to stand and sing this together #21 in the hymn sheet. Someone would start that for us.
Save praise the power of sin.
Rise the world, be satisfied.
Which is to prepare.
Well, to begin with here, I just want to look at a statement that we have from David and it's in First Samuel Chapter 20.
And we know that at this time in David's life.
He's fleeing for his physical life. He's.
He's fleeing from King Saul, who wants to kill him. And so David has come into a relationship with King Saul's son Jonathan, and he's telling Jonathan how he feels. And Jonathan is having a hard time accepting the fact that his father would really ever do such a thing because David was a faithful servant for his father, the king.
And had been promoted to.
Position of responsibility and this is hard for Jonathan to accept this fact, but we have here in this chapter 20, I'll just first Samuel, I'll just read verse 3.
00:05:06
So Jonathan is trying to convince David that his father really would not do this. But John, David says, and David swear, moreover, and said, Thy father certainly knoweth that I have found grace in thine eyes. And he saith, Let not Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved. But truly, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death.
Now I want to use that little statement there.
At the end of the verse 3.
As and use it in application tonight in the gospel.
David says there is but a step between me and death. So David meant that literally. He was fleeing for his life. I have never been in a position where I was fleeing for my life. I can't imagine the anguish of heart, the fear that must have coursed through David's mind.
And heart as he thought about this.
And could see in his thinking that Saul meant to do him harm and David was feared him and was fleeing for his life. There is but a step between me and death.
Now, none of us knows what's going to happen in this life. We know that we could physically lose our lives suddenly. We have heard of of many accidents that have happened, things that have occurred in people's lives where one moment they were alive and the next few seconds they were in eternity.
That happens. It happens all the time, no doubt in this world.
Especially with all the wickedness that abounds.
And so we don't know. There's uncertainty, isn't there, as to how long our physical lives might last. But I'm thinking too, in a spiritual way, that if you are here tonight, perhaps you've never heard the gospel before. Perhaps you've never heard God's message of his love to you and sending the Lord Jesus into this world to die on the cross so that you might be able to be saved from your sins.
And the consequences of those sins. And you know, every time you hear the gospel, dear one, tonight, whether you're a young child or you're older in this room, every time you hear the gospel, you are faced with a decision just like Pilate could say in Matthew 27 verse 22, I believe it is concerning the Lord Jesus. He said, what then shall I do with Jesus, which is called Christ?
You dear one, tonight you have to answer that question before God. What are you going to do with Jesus, which is called Christ? Oh, I hope you will accept him as your Savior if you have not already. God has made it very simple. All you need to do is own that you are a Sinner, that you have sinned before God.
And what you deserve is the judgment of God against that sin.
But there's one that has taken your place at Calvary's cross, if you will allow him to. He has done so, and he is willing, God is willing to forgive you those sins, if you will accept his Son the Lord Jesus as your Savior. What a wonderful provision God has made. So in one sense, as you are here tonight.
There is a step between you and death. I don't know.
If you will have another opportunity after this to hear the gospel. So I feel compelled to warn you of the consequences of continuing on in your sins without a Savior. God wants to save you, dear one tonight, and he's made every provision to do so through his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, the one who he can look down from heaven and say.
That the Lord is the one in whom is all his delight, that one.
Has laid down his life at Calvary's cross. His precious blood was shed there. And God is offering you salvation tonight, you know.
All, all related experience that my father had before he was saved. He was probably in his teens. And there's a lake in Colorado not too far from where we live. And I think it's it's in the city of Lakewood.
00:10:10
And there was that one time a peer that went out into the water from the shore on that lake. And just about every time I drive by that lake, which is fairly often, I think of my dad and this experience that he had.
He was one of three children in his family, and he had an older brother, my Uncle Bob, who's still living and lives in Colorado. He'll be 692 This year.
My father and my Uncle Bob were swimming there one day. They used to allow swimming, they don't anymore. And they would go out on the pier, Kids would go out on the pier and they would dive into the water and swim. Well, Uncle Bobby was sitting on that pier and he had his feet in the water. And you know, they were, they were close, my, my father and my Uncle Bob. But just like any siblings, they, they like to play pranks on.
Each other. And so my dad saw my uncle Bob sitting there on the pier with his feet dangling in the water. And he thought, you know, it would be so fun to sneak out there and grab his toe. And so that's what he proceeded to do. Well, unknown to my father, there was a low spot in the ground under the water there that he couldn't see. He didn't know how to swim. So he began waiting out to where my uncle was.
And he stepped into this hole and before he knew it, he was over his head in water and not knowing how to swim well.
It reminded me of this when I read this first. There's but a step between me and death. Well, he floundered, as you would expect. And so on. But he was in real trouble. He was under the water. He couldn't be seen. The Lord allowed it. He had his eye on him.
The Lord allowed a bigger fella to come along and he literally bumped into my father as he was waiting out and realized that somebody's under there and he reached under and grabbed him and pulled him up and his life was spared, but it was so close a step between him and death.
How about it tonight, dear one? Like I said, I don't know what's in store for you when you leave this room, but God is giving you an opportunity to believe the gospel message tonight. I trust that you will. I want to look at a few individuals in Scripture very briefly that came to a point of decision in their life or when they had an opportunity.
To accept God's offer and the decision that they made. The first one. We've already mentioned a little bit about Cain. Brother Nick mentioned about him, but let's turn to Genesis 4 and just read a few verses there concerning Cain.
We know the story, most of us, that there were two boys that were born to Adam and Eve. The oldest one was Cain.
And the next one was able, and it says that in in the process of time they bought, they brought sacrifices to the Lord. And Abel he brought, Cain brought of the fruit of the ground that which he had raised in his garden, as was mentioned, no doubt the best.
That he could, I'm sure he took great pains to make it attractive in whatever way he presented it, in a basket or whatever, whatever it might have been. But it was that which Cain had raised from this cursed earth, the earth that had been cursed because of sin. And I, I would like to mention too, that I have no doubt that these boys learn the story of what had taken place.
Our our young men, I should say.
I picture them as being somewhat older than boys, but they had no doubt heard the story of how sin had come in through their parents and that God had to set angels with flaming fires of sword to keep the way of the tree of life so that they would not partake of it.
After they had sinned.
And no doubt, perhaps maybe even the fact that his, their parents from their earliest memories would have had these coats of skin perhaps or something, some covering, maybe all of that came out as to what had taken place. But I believe that they were responsible and I think we can we have grounds for that because of of what?
00:15:18
Abel does with intelligence. He offers an animal sacrifice that had to be killed.
To take his place, a substitute for him. He is a guilty Sinner before God offers an animal that takes his place, and that animal is slain and his blood is shed. Oh, how important that is. Whereas with Cain there was no blood in his offering, and so he he, as it were, spurns the the effects of what sin had brought into God's creation.
And God's remedy for it, to slay those animals, to make coverings for Adam and Eve.
And his brother's offering that had to be slain and its bloodshed. He spurns all of that. He sets it aside. And as it were, he thinks his way is better. It's the heart of man by nature. And perhaps there's someone here. Maybe you're a child. And you think, well, if I just be good, if I just do what my parents tell me to, I'm OK. No boys and girls.
You need you need the the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
To shelter you from judgment without the shedding of blood, we're told in Hebrews 9 verse 22, there is no remission. Almost all things it says by the law, and almost all things by the law are purged with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no remission.
The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. First John 17. But God commendeth or proveth.
His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by His blood. We have peace. We shall be saved from wrath through Him. You know, dear ones, without the shedding of blood there is no remission. It took God sending His Son the Lord Jesus, to Calvary's cross. It took the Lord Jesus laying his life.
Down there on Calvary's cross and his precious blood being shed in order for God to be satisfied eternally concerning the question of sin. How important that is.
An able brings before us someone that sets that aside. He feels like he can come his own way, the way of his own making. And maybe you're thinking that you're going to come that way. It won't do.
You can't reach God that way. You cannot come into favor with God by anything that you can do. You have to accept God's way. There is only one way to be saved, and that is through the work of Calvary's cross by the Lord Jesus. And so Cain brings this, and the Lord says to him in verse six of Genesis 4. The Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth?
And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest dwell, thou shalt shalt thou not be accepted. And if thou, if thou doest not well, sin layeth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother.
And slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not.
Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice?
Of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. Well, I just want to point out one thing.
It says there in verse seven, if thou doest dwell, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not, well, sin lieth at the door. If you look at a more critical translation, I think it's in a Jay and Darby's translation, he has a footstote footnote there considering that verse and the thought of sin lying at the door is perhaps the thought of a sin offering.
Lying at the door. And it just came over me that here is Cain. He has this opportunity, if you will, to take what God is offering, if that's indeed the correct translation of that verse. And it seems like it would be so in keeping with God's heart of love that he would provide a remedy. And Cain, all he had to do, if you will, is open the door.
00:20:11
And take that sacrifice.
That was laying at the door for him and offered that as a substitute for himself, following the example of his brother Abel. But what does he do?
He slays his brother.
He kills his brother. He becomes a murderer.
And then it says one of the more solemn statements in Scripture in verse 16. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord.
Isn't that solemn? Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. And you know, I don't think we ever read that Cain was in the presence of the Lord again.
How solemn.
Dear one, tonight you may not have another opportunity to hear the gospel. And so we beseech you, we urge you, young child, if you haven't accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you can do so even now in your seat. You can own in your heart before God, sincerely and honestly, that you're a Sinner and that you want His.
Savior that He has provided to be your savior.
And he will come in and do that work. What a wonderful thing it is. You know, there's a a lady that we're familiar with that wrote many hymns. We know her best as ***** Crosby.
And she lived. She lives quite a while ago.
She lived in the night. She was born in 1915 or actually she passed away in in 1950 and she was born in 1820. I have here and lived to 1950. So she lived to be 94 years old, quite remarkable for that era of time. But she wrote over 18,000 I'm 8000 hymns. Many of them were very familiar with and one of them is this one here that came before me as I was thinking of this.
Only a step to Jesus then why not take it now?
Come on thy sin confessing to him thy Savior. Bow only a step, only a step. Come He waits for thee. Come and thy sin confessing thou shall receive a blessing. Do not reject the mercy He freely offers thee.
Well, dear ones, that's the gospel message. Only a step to Jesus. Why not take it now, you know?
Many of us in this room will remember the moon landing that happened in 1969.
We had not, my father moved us as a family to Corner Brook, NL in 1970. So it was about a year before we had before we moved. And I, I remember I was pretty young, I think I was around 13 and I had a paper route, maybe some of you have had paper routes and I had like 60, some papers that I would deliver in the neighborhood.
And I remember.
The day after the moon landing and it was on July 20th, 1969 that a man named Neil Armstrong an astronaut.
Of the United States stepped down on the moon and left a big imprint on the moon. And of course.
There were many, many pictures taken of that and all of and those pictures were being sent back to the.
The command center and of course they they got into the newspapers and I remember the next day after the landing took place that the paper was the front page was in full color and it showed a picture of Neil Armstrong stepping off the Apollo spacecraft into the the dust of the moon and leaving that big print.
And he became famous for.
A statement that he made about that time, he said. This is a small step for a man, but a giant leap for mankind.
00:25:08
And you know, as I've thought about that.
I I would like to ask you a question. Do you think that man landing on the moon made him more aware of God? Do you think that that event that took place brought the nation that we live in?
Closer to God? Through that experience, do you think it's been God's mind for man to explore the planets and the moon?
And Mars, it's amazing when you think about it. You know, we have a Museum of Science and nature in Denver and occasionally some of us will go there if we want to see something or if we have company and we are thinking of what can we do with them, Maybe they would like to see the animal exhibits there. There's some very, very nice collection of gems and many things. But they were having a.
Exposition, exposition, exposition on the.
The moon landing and.
The Apollo spacecraft missions in general, but they had quite a bit of things from that, that journey to the moon. And it was, it was impressive to think of man's technology, that God has allowed the intelligence he's given him to be able to do what he's done. And yet has it brought him any closer to God? No, it hasn't. If anything, I believe it's caused him to be.
To come more vain in his thoughts.
To leave God out, to shut God out of his thoughts. Well, so he might have been able to say it was. It was a one small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind, but I don't think it was in the right direction.
So I want you to think about this tonight, this evening. There's but a step between you and death. And I hope that you're considering that God is reaching out to you, giving you another opportunity tonight. Let's look at a more positive example in the book of Ruth and.
It's a beautiful story, but we won't take the time to to read it.
But there were two daughters that were with Naomi that married her two sons, a man named Elimelech and his wife Naomi left Bethlehem, Judah, House of Bread and House of Praise.
Here isn't that something they left that place of because it it seemed to them there wasn't food there. So they they went into the land of Moab and their their sons end up marrying daughters there.
Moabite ish women girls.
And then they die, and her husband dies, and now she's left with what to do and the Lord lays it on her heart to come back, like a picture of repentance from having left. Now perhaps she wasn't.
Totally responsible. I'm sure she wasn't for that decision, but she was part of it. So they come back. And I think I counted here at least four times in this little account where she tries to persuade her daughters, her daughter in laws, to go back to their people to turn again. But Ruth continues on through each of those.
Entreaties. And she persists. And she persists, and she persists.
And she says in verse 16, And treat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee. For whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people and thy God, my God, and so on. What a beautiful answer. Here is a decision that these two girls are faced with. What are they going to do? Are they going going to forsake that which is familiar to them?
And go with their mother-in-law into a foreign land? Or are they going to continue on?
Well Orpa, she makes the decision to go back, but Ruth cleaves to her mother-in-law and what is the result of all that? Well, she meets a man named Boaz and together they have a child named Obed, and he becomes the father of a man named Jesse, and Jesse becomes the father of a man named David who becomes the king of Israel.
After Saul and this dear woman is mentioned.
00:30:03
And the genealogy of the Lord Jesus in Matthew one, what a what a reward for the decision that she makes. And dear one, tonight come to the Lord Jesus. If you don't know him, you won't be disappointed. I'm not saying you'll never have any struggles, that all your troubles will be over. No, we live in a scene of sin and sorrow.
And disappointment and trials. And God permits and allows these things.
And there's various reasons why He allows these trials in our lives. But one thing I can assure you is that you will have a peace that passes understanding. Now, not that Satan won't try and take things away from you, even peace, but God will give you a peace. You'll have that assurance from His precious Word, which nothing can alter. It's forever settled in heaven. You'll have that assurance.
That you are going to have a future.
With the Lord Jesus in a coming day and we believe that his coming is near and that's why we press upon you to make a decision tonight. Don't put it off. I want to look at another individual in the book of Acts and let's turn to the book of Acts and go to chapter 20.
Three, I believe it is.
They're Acts, actually. Let's go to Acts 25.
We're going to talk about a king named Agrippa.
And Paul is a prisoner and he's preaching and he's telling the king about his experience and he says in Acts chapter 25.
We learn about this king in verse 13 and after certain days King Agrippa and Bernice came unto Caesarea to salute Festus. And when they had been there many days, Festus declared Pauls cause under the king, saying there's a certain man left in bonds by Felix, about whom when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, desiring to have judgment against him. Well.
Forsake of time, I'll I'll turn over to the next chapter 26.
But Agrippa, when he hears the account given by Festus of Paul, he wants to hear him too. So Paul says, OK, I mean, Festus says, OK, I can arrange that. And he arranges for there to be a meeting with Paul. And so Paul is brought before him and Paul asks him a very pointed question. He kind of describes his course and how the Lord.
Saved his soul. And then he says to King Agrippa in verse 27, Believe us all the prophets. I know that thou believest. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, almost self persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul said I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds. And when he had thus spoken, the king rose up, and the governor.
And Bernice and they that sat with him.
And when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds. Then set a grip on Defeastus. This man might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed unto Caesar. Well, I think it's striking that.
We see some similarities between what Cain did. Cain rose up and went out, it says at the end of that account. There we'll hear Agrippa. He rises up in verse 30.
And he goes aside with the others and they talk. And, you know, I don't believe that this man possibly, as far as we know, ever had another chance to hear the gospel presented by Paul. What did he do with it? Well, it appears that he scoffed at it. He appeared that he made light of it and said almost.
Now persuade us me to be a Christian. Let me ask you this.
If you are standing before a holy and a righteous God, and you said I almost believe the Gospel.
Of the thy grace, that the gift of thy son. Would that be enough? No, no, it would be too short, too little, not enough. How solemn, how solemn. And so, as far as we know, this man never had another opportunity. Now I want to just touch on one. A man named Jonathan. We already spoke briefly about him.
00:35:16
But let's just.
Again, look at Jonathan and First Samuel 18.
Because to me Jonathan and I want to make this application.
Jonathan is. In the light of the way we're speaking now, I would refer to Jonathan as someone that is saved.
But his life is lost.
And so it says in in verse one of chapter 18 of First Samuel. And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
And then just for sake of time.
Let's read in chapter.
20.
21 I think it is.
Chapter 20 I'm sorry and verse 4.
First Samuel chapter 20 and verse 4.
Anyway, I we won't read it all but.
Basically, it comes to the point between David and and Jonathan that Jonathan has to make a decision, am I going to follow David or not? And we read at the end of this chapter.
Verse 42 I'm going to just skip down there for the sake of time because and Jonathan sent to David go in peace for as much as.
We have sworn, both of us in the name of the Lord, saying the Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed forever. And he arose and departed, and Jonathan went into the city. Again, a very sad account in Scripture. Now, as as I said, I would look at Jonathan in the way we're speaking as someone that's saved. But when it came to making a decision, am I going to follow David? He's in rejection. He's fleeing for his life. My father is hunting him.
Wants to take his life. Am I going to follow him? And he makes that decision, that fateful decision to go back into the city. And the last we read of Jonathan, is he slain in battle? He was, he had, even as it were made a covenant with David that they were going to, he was going to enter into David's reign with him. And instead he loses his life and he never has that opportunity.
Oh, I would just say this is a word to each of us.
That, you know, sometimes it's just a step in the wrong direction and we can, as it were, lose our life. We can spiritually lose our life. May the Lord keep us in that. Now I want to finish in a few minutes that we have left with the perfect example of one who walked, who every step he took was in perfect obedience to his Father's will and let's just go to.
Luke 9. I think we might have touched on this today, possibly Luke 9 and verse 51.
Luke 951 And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. I just think of the Lord Jesus, as it were, taking each step according to the Father's perfect will.
Each step that led him closer and closer to Calvary's cross, we think of his agony in the garden and his asking his Father if it was possible to take that cup from him. But nevertheless he would say, not my will, but thine be done, and say, we see the Lord Jesus walking, going all the way, even unto death.
And then just to end on the thought of the example that he has left us in first Peter.
Chapter 2.
It says in verse 21.
For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. I'll just stop there. I was thinking primarily of what we have there, that beautiful statement that Peter makes, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps.
00:40:19
Well, may the Lord encourage us that those of us that are his that we might.
Walk carefully before him, seeking to follow him. And for anyone, young or old in this room that doesn't know the Lord Jesus.
As Savior, we just plead with you to come with him to him tonight. If you want to talk with any of us, I'm sure most of us would be glad to talk with you to make it clear perhaps or something that was is confusing to you, but God just says believe His word.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
In the Beginning
Sing Talk—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.
In the beginning.
Or at least following The Big Bang.
More than 14 billion years ago.
Scientists say that there were a grand total of three elements.
And some of you have memorized the elements chart, but there's hydrogen.
There's some helium.
And a little bit of lithium.
That's amazing, but now they've discovered over 100 elements.
One day they're going to find an element of surprise.
As for Stacy?
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. You don't know what happened way back then. Ecclesiastes 311 It says He has made everything beautiful in his time. Also He has set the world in their heart so that no man can find the work that God make it from the beginning to the end.
Man has all sorts of theories of how creation began and they have no idea. They have no way to know what the work that God made from the beginning to the end. We only have the word of God. We can only know what he tells us. In Genesis one verse three to five, God said let there be light and there was light and God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light day and the darkness he called night.
In the evening, in the morning were the first day. If you go backwards in the days of creation, you go from the 6th day, the 5th to the 4th to the 3rd to the 1St and the first day they God created. He said let there be light. Did I do that right? I missed that. Well it's in there somewhere. But what happened before the first day?
We're not old but it but it says on the on the Genesis one, verse 2. This was before the first day the earth was an empty wasteland and it was standing in the water and out of the water like it says in Peter and everything was in darkness.
No, the Bible does not tell us how this disorder in this confusion happened to God's beautiful earth. We read in Ecclesiastes that God made it beautiful. But in Genesis one, verse two, it's no longer beautiful. Something happened and we don't know how long the earth was in that condition of being in the water and out of the water. But in Genesis one verse three, you see God, He was ready to repair the earth. And in Hebrews Chapter 11 and verse 3.
It says through faith we understand that the worlds were framed, which is framed me. It means to fix or to restore something that has been broken or damaged. And so Hebrews, the Lord Jesus, tells us in the book of Hebrews. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
That means God made all the things that we can see, and He made them from things that we cannot see.
And God took six days to restore the heaven and the earth into a good condition so that bad could live on the earth.
Some years ago, before we sold our business, we had a cleaning business and we moved before we moved to Africa, we had a business whereby when a house was damaged by fire or water or smoke, we go into the the house and we'd restore it back into a good livable condition and but when we went into a house say like there was all filled with smoke and there was damage everywhere. The black soot was on the ceiling was on the walls.
And the pictures. And in the drawers and in the silverware and in the clothing, it was everywhere.
Flat suit. We've done everything and where should we begin to clean and restore the damage? If we start from the bottom and we work to the top of the room, by the time we get to the top, all the suits going to fall down and get the bottom dirty again. And so if we stop, start at the top then the water is going to run down the walls leave ugly streets it can't remove, and so we needed to have a plan to properly restore the damaged house back to its original condition.
In creation, God would take six days to restore the heaven and the earth to a good condition that was fit for man to live on. But where was God going to begin? And God had a plan. And first of all, God had to do something about the darkness.
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And so when time began on day one, God said in the verses we read, Let there be light. And God saw the light that it was good.
And when God divided the light from the darkness, he began the 24 hour cycle of day and night.
But for the light day?
Dark be called night.
So we people, we need both the dark and the light.
We need both the night and the day. In the daylight, we get out of our beds, we go to school, we go to work.
Nighttime time for sleeping. God made our bodies so that we sleep better at night in the darkness. And so God started the restoration when everything was in darkness.
Out of the physical light, God said Let there be light and there was light.
Since that first day, every morning the physical light breaks through the darkness of the night and we begin a new day.
But now I want to talk about spiritual life and spiritual darkness.
The light that breaks through the darkness is how it can be with sins when we're born as a baby.
We're in spiritual darkness and we grow up to be a Sinner because we are a Sinner when we're born. And we're on our way to the lake of fire. And we know that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And God says that the wages of sin is death. So we have a problem. We're stuck in spiritual darkness.
The condition of sin.
Is We need to have spiritual life for a spiritual restoration so we can be reconciled to God. We're reconciled to God by the death of his Son, the Lord Jesus.
I think in Sunday school we had some of these versions. But Jesus said in John 12 and verse 46, I have come into the world as a light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. See, light helps us to see things. Jesus gives us spiritual light so we can see that we're sinners, we're in danger. We can see that there's judgment of the lake of fire, and we have the light of Jesus, and we have the light of God's word to show us that Jesus is the Savior of sinning.
We see that we.
Need to trust the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior to have all our sins washed away in His blood. Well, the light of the word of God. It shows the Sinner that they must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and they will be saved. But then after we are saved, the Word of God is a light to us to show us how we can live as a Christian.
It is important for us to read the Bible.
Somebody was speaking today about the importance of reading the word of God. It's important to read in our own time, to look into the light so our our pathway can be filled, Shown out. Psalm 119 hundred and five says God's word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
If I don't read the Bible, if I don't get that light, I'm going to be sometimes confused as I go through my day knowing which way to go, what to do in the spiritual life. And so God gives us believers, He gives us his life so that we can be spiritual lights in this Dark World. And that's kind of the point of my message.
Matthew 5 verse 14 says you are the life of the world.
Other people need to see Christ in our everyday actions, because you might be the only light of Christianity that a person will see, and so we need to be like Jesus Christ.
If we're always busy talking about politics or human rights in this world.
To our friends, they might not see the light of Jesus Christ in our life.
Because we might not look any different from The Sims.
We are lights in this world, and that means that our life and our words should be examples of righteousness in the world. Another verse I think we might have written this morning in Matthew 516.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.
Good works that they may glorify your Father, which is in heaven.
Have you ever considered that?
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One of the purposes that God created you for and saved you for is to do good works. I know we heard today that good works are not. We're not supposed to do good works. To be able to gain favor, to be gained, gain eternal life. That's not how we how we approach God, but when we're we're born, when we're saved, we're told in Ephesians 2 and verse 10 says that were created in Christ Jesus.
For good works.
Because we have the life of Christ in US.
We want to do good to all people, just as Jesus. He's good, he's kind, he's loving.
We're not working to keep our salvation.
And when Christians do good.
It is to glorify God. We're not trying to get the glory for ourselves. Everything. Help somebody. We can do things for people. Maybe people will see us do things, but really our our work is private to serve the Lord. We can serve our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and we and we get let God get the glory because as God's goodness shines out through us to to our friends.
Through several versions that tell us we need to be rich in good works.
Be diligent to follow every good work.
Be thoroughly furnished unto all good works to be a pattern of good works.
To be zealous of good works and to maintain good works.
You think we're supposed to do good work?
It's not something that we decide I'm going to do good work today, but it's just a natural overflow of the Spirit of God, of the eternal life that we have the life of Christ in us. It's an overflow that we've been created to do, created to do good work. And so these good works, they're not a burden to us. They should just flow naturally from our lives as we become more and more like Christ.
The Pharisees remember that they did a lot of good works, but they did them to be to be seen by others and to glorify themselves. And so we don't worry about what others think about us. Our concern is that our good works might bring glory to God.
So on day one.
God said let there be light. God saw the light that he was good. So good works are part of the Christian life.
Wondering what are some of the good works that you can do for Jesus?
I'm sure you've done many things. You can probably make a list yourself. You'd help others with anything. You can visit the fatherless and the Withers. You can follow the visit the motherless. You can bring meals to friends when when it's needed. You invite a lonely person to go out to coffee with your to your house, have lunch with them. You mow the grass for somebody, shovel snow, rake leaves. There's many things you can do for the Lord Jesus, and you can.
I'm not going to tell you what you need to do to do works of the Lord. Just let the just let the Spirit of God guide you, and you'll put things in your life that you can do, even doing your job for the Lord. Do all things heartily is unto the Lord.
Works. You work in your house, you prepare food, you go to work. You do your job as unto the Lord. People will notice. You'll notice that you're doing good work. You may get bored with your job and your good work, but keep doing it. If the Lord wants you to change, he'll make the change possible for you. So.
That was my thought here, but created the light. We are lights in this world.
We can show forth the love of God.
That's great. Our God and Father, we give thanks and we can consider these things about the life that God created into this world, the physical life. You think of the spiritual life that we can let allow shine through us because we've been created into good works. Father, we give thanks for this and help us in our daily Christian life in Jesus name and pray. Amen. We will not forget to give thanks for the food that's been provided to in Jesus name.
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I've been doing.
Romans 11
Prayer for the Remnant
Address—Steve Stewart
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We start the meeting this afternoon with 100 and 68168.
Someone could start that.
The night is far spent and the day is at the end. Nobody to be loved for the stars and the stars.
Rejoice and his hands in your Lord's own. Come on, man.
Rejoice for God coming.
Some of the things that I'll speak about we've already touched on, but.
In Deuteronomy 30, that had been.
Looked at it a bit and from Chapter 9 of of Romans was a prophecy by Moses connection when the people would fail.
In continuing in the goodness of Jehovah, we can put it that way. And how they would be cast out of that land that he had given them, their sin being even worse than the heathen that had possessed it before.
But they were not going to be cast off forever as we have had. And in chapter 30 of Deuteronomy verse one, it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse which I have set before thee. And thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whether the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and shall return unto the Lord thy God, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children.
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And all with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whether the Lord thy God has scattered thee. And we remember the exhortation that.
The commandment which he had commanded them, verse 11 is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.
It wasn't in heaven, it wasn't down in the depths, it was right at hand. They had learned the scriptures from the time they were little. They knew them well. It was just a matter of the hearts subjection and obedience to the Word of God. And so that moment waited, and they certainly were long after and fulfillment of that prophecy carried off into captivity.
Like to turn to Second Chronicles?
And the last chapter.
Chapter 36.
Verse 14. Moreover, all the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the House of the Lord, which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their Father sent unto them by His messengers, rising up at times, and sending, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place, But they mocked the messengers of God.
And despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people.
Till there was number remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew the young, their young men with a sword in the House of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age. He gave them all into his hand, and all the vessels of the House of God great and small, and the treasures of the House of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his Princess.
All these he brought to Babylon.
And they burnt the House of God, and breakdown the wall of Jerusalem, and burn all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And then that had escaped from the sword, carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons, until the reign of the Kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah.
To the land had enjoyed her Sabbath for as long as she lay desolate. She kept Sabbath to fulfill 3 score.
And 10 years, 137th Psalm we read that their harps were hung on the willows, and they couldn't sing the song of the Lord in that strange place. And for 70 long years there they hung no altar, no temple in that far away land, but God had his eye on them.
And he had prophesied and will turn to Jeremiah to see that prophecy.
He had prophesied that he would come in just as Moses had, and turned that captivity and he.
And Jeremiah's prophecy and things, the 29th chapter.
And verse 10.
For thus saith the Lord, that after 70 years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you in causing you to return to this place, and I think a little earlier to chapter 25.
We get that as well.
Verse 11. The whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, And these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years, and shall come to pass on 70 years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon. And that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity in the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it a perpetual desolation. And so he had given the prophecy of the exact number of years.
That they would be in captivity in that land.
But not only had he prophesied the length of time that that captivity would span, or if you turn to prophet Isaiah, he also prophesied of the man that he would use to.
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Initiate that return to Jerusalem Isaiah chapter 44 and 45. I thank.
44.
And verse 28.
That saith thus of Cyrus, He is my shepherd. He shall perform all my pleasure, even saying, to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the temple thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have hold him to subdue all nations before him, and so on. And he takes up how he would conquer Babylon.
And then down in verse 11. Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, ask.
May of things to come concerning my sons, concerning the work of my hands, command you me. I have made the earth and created man upon it. I, even my hands have stretched out the heavens, and all their hosts have I commanded. I have raised him up in righteousness. I will direct all his ways. He shall build my city. He shall let go My captives. Not for price.
Nor for rewards at the Lord of Hosts. And so 150 years before Cyrus was born.
God named him, gave him his surname, he says and.
Appointed him as the one who would let those captives go back to the land of Israel.
While everything's in place, isn't it the time, the length of captivity, the instrument that God was going to use to affect that return? But there remained one thing.
It's very interesting to me lately, looking into something I had not known historically. There was a revival in Wales, southwest England, early 1900s.
A young man named Evan Roberts had prayed for years, the young man that the Lord would come in to that part of Great Britain and would.
Stir up his professing people that the gospel would go out in power, that souls would be saved. And he prayed.
Year, another year, we prayed a long time and then God came in and there was a wonderful revival, the effects of which are felt to this day in that part of Great Britain.
He was used to the Lord in preaching the gospel, but not too far in it. He retired to the background.
And they asked him why. He said to pray. And so he died in 1964. I was just five years old. And he had spent the rest of his life in prayer for that work and the souls that were saved. He went into one church. They wanted him to preach. And he said not that he knew the truth and the way we do it. And he said.
Do you believe that the the scripture that says we're two or three are gathered unto my name? There are mine in the midst of them? And the congregation said yes.
He said, well, do you believe that the Lord is here? They said, yes. He said, well then you don't need me. And he walked out.
Well, it was a wonderful time. There's a hymn that sometimes sung that was written in Welsh some years before that became known as the love song of that revival. Here is love, vast is the ocean.
God intended to do that work.
But it waited, his purpose waited on the exercise of the soul of one young man.
Who spent years in prayer for that very object.
God's purposes wait on the exercise of the souls of His people.
Have you ever thought of that?
His purpose is going to be carried out. It's his purpose.
But he is pleased to let it wait on the exercise of the souls of his people.
And so he had purposed 70 years in that captivity. He had named the instrument that was going to be used to bring them back to that land.
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But there was a man.
Who he called.
Greatly beloved.
And that purpose waited on the exercise of that great heart.
Daniel, Chapter 9.
Verse one.
In the first year of Darius, the son of a Hazuarius of the seed of the Medes.
Which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans.
And so God had brought to pass what he had said, that at the end of that 70 years he would judge Babylon and its king. And he did, through the Medes and the Persians, and that rain had come in.
In the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood by books the number of years or of the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
I've been reading Jeremiah, I've been reading the Word of God, and he knew.
And understood Spirit of God opened it up to him.
That number of years and no doubt he realized the time had come.
The time had come.
What would you do if you were Daniel captive and that far away land and you read in Jeremiah and it it it hit you 70 years?
It's now.
I think it was me. I'd be running all around Babylon telling all the other Jews we're going to go home.
Really, look what I found.
He doesn't.
He doesn't because, you know, before you get to Jeremiah 25.
In Jeremiah 29.
There's 25 other chapters to cover.
That lay open the sin of that people and the reason why they were in captivity. They had made themselves empty and broken sisters.
And they had departed from Jehovah in their hearts.
And he had worked over them. They had forgotten him. Days without number.
And so the result is verse three. I set my face unto the Lord, gone to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes, and I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession and said, Oh Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping covenant and mercy to them that love him well. Israel had not been faithful.
With the one to whom he prayed was faithful.
Keeping confident and mercy to them that love him, to them that keep his commandments. We have sinned.
And have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments. And so Daniel might have looked back and said, well, God knew all about it. Look all the detail of it there in Jeremiah.
What need to confess? No, he doesn't. He feels deeply the reason for the broken condition and for the captivity.
Of God's people and he believes no stone unturned. He confesses everything, but he takes his place in it and he says we have sinned. He doesn't take a stand over here and say they know he includes himself in it. He feels his own responsibility in that.
And dear ones, isn't it the same with the Church of God? You know, it struck me as we thought of those branches broken out and grafted back in, that the ones that were.
Grafted in their place, then we were broken out or never restored. The sin of the Church of God is greater in its responsibility than anything committed by Israel.
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Saul, Saul.
And we need to feel our place in it and remember reading Miller's church history. And he quoted another writer. Instead of the history of the church, it was the annals of hell itself.
And it says in revelation in her was found the blood of Saints.
They aggravated their sin by not hearkening, as we had read of the messengers that Jehovah sent verse six. Neither we hearkened unto thy servants, who didn't argue, just the kings.
Now the kings.
The Princess, the fathers, the people of the land, all of them.
All were responsible before God. Every class is included.
And he says, O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion a face as it is this day.
And going on down to verse 9, to the Lord our God belongs mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against thee. And so he goes to the only possible foundation.
For restoration, for blessing, the only foundation of his intercession to God, for that people and for that place, that city.
Was the grace of God.
And you know, that's exactly what Moses takes up, that it was would be if they turn to the Lord with their whole heart in that land of captivity, he would begin anew with them in grace, in grace. And so he comes back to that wonderful foundation of God's own sovereign mercy and forgiveness like we had in Romans 9. I will be merciful to whom I will be merciful.
Wonderful place.
To be cast upon.
He has confirmed his words, verse 12.
He had spoken over and over and over again, but in the end his words were confirmed in the captivity and the judgment that fell upon them.
Verse 13 middle of the verse yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth.
And the result of all of that, therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil.
And brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth.
For we obeyed not his voice. And now, O Lord, are gone, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and has gotten the renown, as at this day we have sentenced an wickedly Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee. And he has three pleas, the Lord's righteousness.
He had promised in his word, if they turn to Him in their heart, He would bring them out of that captivity.
And then down in verse 17.
The end of the verse. For the Lords sake, for the greatness of his own name. These were his people. Daniel is characterized by a burning desire for God's glory in connection with Jerusalem, a place where he had placed his name, and an undying love for God's people.
It filled his great heart.
Oh Lord, for the Lord's sake, His name was in that place, His people.
Lord, incline thine ear, and hear open thine eyes. Behold our desolations in the city which is called by Thy name. For we do not present our supplications before Thee for our righteousness, but for Thy great mercies. O Lord, hear, O Lord, forgive, oh Lord, hearken, and do defer not for thine own sake, Oh my God, for Thy city and thy people are called.
By thy name.
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And then we find that God had sent an Angel right at the beginning of his prayer to come and give him understanding as to what would unfold in God's purposes with his people. It's not my intent to go into that.
But God's purpose in returning that little remnant to Israel and bringing them out of captivity hinged upon or this was the catalyst that it was waiting upon.
For him to fulfill his purpose.
Back to Ezra.
And chapter one.
Verse One. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, and he made a proclamation throughout all his Kingdom. And put it also in writing, saying Thus say, Osiris, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him in house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? His God.
Be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the House of the Lord God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem, and whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, besides the free will offerings for the House of God that is in Jerusalem. Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah, and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, and all them whose.
God had raised up to go up and build the House of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem.
We spoke of the sovereignty of God in our meetings.
In connection with the salvation of lost man. But here we have the sovereignty of God.
And a revival among his people and a recovery of that remnant back to Jerusalem, back to that place where he had placed his name. And dear ones, there is a correlation in these things to the work of the Spirit of God. In the early 1800s, you know, the people of Israel were in Babylon. And what does Babylon speak of? It speaks of religion.
Confusion.
And what confusion the church had descended into over the centuries, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. But God was pleased in His purpose.
To make a recovery, to restore.
To his people, those things that had been lost in the confusion of professing Christianity.
And it began with prayer, it began with the heart's exercise as to the condition of things in the Church of God. And it began with tears and prayers of intercession.
And it was deeply felt.
And God was pleased to respond to that. And I would like to look at the third chapter of Ezra when they came back and see some of the things that were set in place and connect them with the truths that God was pleased to recover at that time. But I just wanted to present 1St that the truth of God was recovered.
In a state of soul, of feeling deeply their ruin of the responsible testimony.
In this world. And each one of those hearts that were exercised that way felt their own part in it. It was not a movement of rebellion.
A movement of dissatisfaction that would have just led to another church. It was a movement returned to the first principles of the Word of God.
In a deep sense of repentance, you know, on the day of Pentecost, that beautiful beginning of the church, there was a sorrow, and it was expressed in our chapters that we took up, Paul said, My continual sorrow.
Is for Israel. His continual burden was for that people that had forfeited their own blessing in rejecting Messiah. And so in the time of the recovery of the truth, there was a deep sorrow as to the result of the failure of God's people and that responsible testimony in this world.
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This is a sovereign work. The Lord stirs up Cyrus. He did it. Cyrus didn't do it, God did it. He stirs up the people that go back. Who's verse 5? All them whose spirit God had raised.
And I believe that work in the early 1800s and the wonderful recovery that we have come to enjoy the truth of God was a sovereign work of the Spirit of God as well.
Well, chapter 3, you know, this remnant that responds in the sovereign work of the Spirit of God in their hearts and went back to that place. I think of them returning and it was in the first year of Cyrus this proclamation goes out. We'll read if we touch on a little later, Daniel.
Was still living in the third year, Cyrus. I have no doubt he saw that little company.
Go back to Jerusalem. But he was too old to go. It was more than he could do.
But no doubt he saw them go back with joy and anticipation.
Some had never seen that place before, only heard of it, some distant memory and going back.
And looking forward to being back at that place.
Where Jehovah had placed his name, and a restoration of that divine order of things given in the Old Testament Scriptures as to the worship of Jehovah and building that temple.
And no doubt he watched them go.
Well, it says in chapter 3.
When the 7th month was come.
And the children of Israel were in the cities. The people were the people gathered themselves together as one man.
To Jerusalem.
The 7th month is significant. You remember what happened in the seventh month. There were three feasts. There was the Feast of Trumpets. There was a Day of Atonement.
And there was the Feast of Tabernacles.
And I think the Day of Atonement might present to us that a spirit of self, judgment and repentance before God that accompanied that work of the Spirit of God, and the recovery of those truths that had been so long lost. It was a day in which they afflicted themselves. We read of that feast.
And so it's at that very time they come in the seventh month.
And they gather as one man to Jerusalem and that wonderful truth of the unity of the Church and what the church really is.
Composed of members of one body united to Christ in heaven as their head forming 1 Newman. Not some national entity presided over by a king or a queen or any such thing.
But just composed of the members of the body of Christ, the Church and its true nature and character and unity was recovered, had been long lost. And so they gather as one man to Jerusalem.
Really, it goes back to Pentecost, doesn't it, where they had one heart, one mind, all things in common, that wonderful unity that was displayed so practically there at that time. They're returning to 1St principles.
Then stood up Joshua the son of Josdak and his brethren, the priest, the Rubble, the son of Sheltie, on his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses, a man of God.
The first thing they did was to take that altar, it says in verse three. They they set it upon its bases. Fear was upon them because of the people of those countries. They knew there were those that were enemies of the work that was going on there. But the best protection was not to get a lot of weapons together, not to.
Build walls but to give God.
The first place, his rightful place. And they set that altar upon its basis, that altar of burnt offering. What, on what basis can God have to do with His people? It's on the basis of the finished work of Christ. And so the great burnt offering was the basis upon which God could have to do with Israel. And there was a burnt offering every morning.
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And every evening that was to be offered.
And we get that in verse 5, the continual burnt offering. And every morning and evening, verse three, the end of the verse, every morning and evening, a burnt offering would go up to gone. It was the basis upon which God could have to do with them and before them. And it's the basis upon which God can have to do with you and I, and which He is for us is the finished work of His beloved.
All that burnt offering was beautiful. It was a voluntary offering. It was laid on the altar. It all went up to God. Every bit of it was holy for His glory. It spoke of the work of Christ, who by the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, whatever God required for the satisfaction of His own.
Glory of His own holiness, the maintenance of His righteousness.
His Majesty in connection with a question that sin had brought in against His own holy character. Christ offered Himself whatever it took.
He yielded himself up to God.
And that burnt offering, all of them.
You know, sometimes we enjoy the thought connection with the sacrifices.
That those sacrifices were burnt upon the altar.
And consumed but when Christ was crucified on the cross.
After those hours of darkness, rather than the fire consuming him, he had consumed the fire. It's a beautiful thought.
But I want to present another thought to you.
At burnt offering went all up to God.
Nothing was left.
Nothing but ashes.
And what are ashes? Ashes are the witness of an accomplished and an accepted sacrifice.
It all went up to God. Nothing was left, and there is an aspect of the cross of Christ in which that is most precious. Nothing remained on Mount Carmel. The fire fell on that altar, on that burnt offering that Elijah laid upon that altar. He had raised it, consumed the sacrifice, it consumed the wood, it consumed the stones it.
Licked up the water in the trench.
And the dust of the ground. Nothing was left.
All went up to God.
There's a hymn.
First line her lines for verse is this. I've been to the altar and witnessed the Lamb burnt wholly to ashes for me.
And seeing its sweet savor ascend upon high accepted of God by thee.
It's a beautiful picture.
And in the law of the burnt offering those ashes were carefully taken, and they were laid by one dressed in linen at the side of the altar.
And then they were carried outside the camp to a clean place.
And in John's Gospel, we read at the cross that right by the cross there was a garden, and in that garden a new tomb.
Where never man had laid. And they carefully took the body of the Lord Jesus, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in that new tomb. Rape by the cross, like those ashes laid right by the altar. But it was a clean place. It was a new tomb, never defiled by a dead body.
Falls in a beautiful.
All went up to God.
What remained his body on that cross is precious to God.
And what care was taken with those ashes off the altar? Burnt offering?
All that's the basis upon which God can have to do with you and I.
Finished work of his beloved son, and they were eager to have that in its place. They set the altar upon its bases. It wasn't going to come in contact with this earth. It was too holy.
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Abraham said to his servant connection with Isaac. Bring not my son down.
Know the truth of His person, I think also presented in that altar upon His basis, for we know that alternates construction speaks of Christ.
Doesn't come in contact with this earth.
And so.
Wonderful truths were recovered in connection with the finished work of Christ, brought out in a way that they had not been brought out before.
As to his person in the holiness of his person so carefully guarded some of the most wonderful ministry that you can read on the Son of God.
We have readily available to us what wonderful things were recovered, How precious to the Saints. It was a 7th month. The Feast of Trumpets speaks of the ingathering of Israel. But what does it speak to us of all that moment when that shot will be given?
In the trump of God, war and Archangelic voice, the Lord will come and take us to Himself, and the truth of the rapture of the Church was recovered.
As the true hope of the Church of God that 7th month, the Feast of Trumpets.
The Feast of Tabernacles is mentioned in verse 4.
Dwelling in booze, tents, pilgrims and strangers. The heavenly calling of the Church. We don't belong to this world. We're just passing through. This world is not our home.
All wonderful truths recovered in a in a beautiful way. How opposite the general testimony of the Church of God that saw its place in this world, its home down here.
We find the priests and the governor, Joshua Jozdak and his brother and the priest, the rubble, the governor.
Order and function in the assembly recovered in a beautiful way that there is.
The function of priesthood.
Of all believers.
Was recovered.
And not only that, that character of things that needs to be active in the assembly, the intercession side of things, the priestly side of things, the mother side of things in the assembly and the care for the Saints, the governor, that which maintained order among God's people, Both of those things needed in the in the ongoing functioning of the assembly. We need both.
You know, it says in. Is it in Deuteronomy?
That if one came across a bird with its eggs, they were to take the eggs but not the eggs and the bird. Why?
Because if you take the mother too, you won't have any eggs.
If you take away the mother spirit in the assembly, you're not going to have any fruit and you lose your children in the end.
We need that side of things. Yes, we need the orderly side of things, but we need that motherly side of things.
That priesthood side of things. That intercession side of things.
They saw that that's all in order and then we come down.
To.
Verse 7.
Well, let's read verse six. The first day of the 7th month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the Lord, but the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. Everything wasn't recovered at once.
They progressed and the Spirit of God opened up more and more truth to those early brethren.
And one thing built upon another. The whole temple wasn't built in a moment. Here things are being put in order, but the foundation isn't even laid of the temple yet. Everything in its time.
And God.
Provides here with.
Masons, verse seven, carpenters, and they're provided for with meat and drink and money. Cedar trees from Lebanon.
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To see if Joppa, according to the grant, the head of King of Persia.
What else was recovered?
In the functioning of the assembly that God had given, the Spirit of God had given gifts severally as He will.
To set forward the work of the Church of God. Not everyone is a Mason. Not everyone's a Carpenter. Not everyone's a healer of wood or jar of water. Each gift different.
To forward the work of the House of God. I think of those cedar trees taken down like the gospel were going out and dropping those mighty Cedars in their pride, and bringing them down low, and bringing them into the work of the House of God Building, laying strong solid foundations of truth and doctrine for the Saints of God, fitting everything in its right place, and they themselves were provided.
With the needed food and drinks.
And how wonderfully that works, as the members have a care of one or another, each with their own gifts, they build each other up and the work is set forward and it grows.
And that order of things was wonderfully recovered at that time too, That all believers have a function in the body of Christ that sets forward the whole body.
But what is it all leading to?
I'm skipping over a little bit, but down to verse 10, when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their peril with the trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with symbols to praise the Lord after the ordinance of David, king of Israel. And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, because he is good.
For his mercy.
Endureth forever toward Israel, and all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the House of the Lord was lain.
All those harps long hung on the willows. It was time to bring them out.
Those songs long not sung, the songs of Zion, it was time to sing them again, and what everything was working towards, and that is exactly in the function of the Spirit of God and the members of the body of Christ, is to bring us into the place of worshippers. The Father seeketh such to worship Him.
And the ministry of the Spirit of God through the members of his body, whether individually.
Or collectively in the assembly, as we go on in the assembly is to set Christ before our souls, and when Christ is set before us, praise and worship goes up. Old Brother Armstead Barry told this story on himself and I enjoyed it so much.
As a younger man, he was in a meeting many years ago.
And there was an old brother named Walter Potter who could be quite pointed when he wanted to correct something.
And Arm said Barry prayed as a young man. He prayed that the Lord would give us an attitude of worship.
And old brother Potter came to him afterwards and said.
Armstead, when are you going to stop praying that the Lord will give us an attitude of worship?
And he said, Brother Potter, what should I pray? You should pray.
That we would have Christ before us. Then you would have an attitude of worship.
That is the function of the ministry of the Spirit of God in the assembly is to set Christ before us, and the other function is if there's things in the way of seeing Christ, he addresses those, get them corrected so we can get Christ before us, that we would be worshippers in His presence.
That praise would go up to him.
We are built up a spiritual house, Peter says. We have a holy priesthood.
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And those praises went up when that foundation was laid.
Well, the we know this account, but the.
There were those that were ancient men. Verse 12.
They had seen the 1St house Solomon's won. The foundation of this house was laid before their eyes wept with a loud voice, and many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people. For the people shouted with a loud shout and the noise was heard afar off.
What a beautiful Symphony. That's what I think. What a beautiful Symphony.
The weeping and the joy.
We should feel both.
We should be able to look back at the church in our first estate.
And feel it what has happened.
And yet we should look with joy on what the Lord has preserved to us.
He has preserved so much.
For sitting here today, gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, return to 1St principles. The truth of God recovered, ministered to our souls in a way that very little of professing Christianity has ever had. The truth of God ministered to them.
Hold fast that which thou hast.
That no man take thy crown.
Haggai ignores both the weeping.
And a shout of joy. And he says, does this house seem small? Oh, there's a there's a coming house. The latter glory of this house is going to eclipse everything else.
No matter how things have gotten here, remember, dear ones, the latter glory of the Church of God.
Is going to be beautiful.
We're looking forward.
We're looking forward. A backwards look is good for us and the humility that it should bring, but looking forward.
Is a wonderful prospect.
With all the burden of my heart as we had gone through these meetings this weekend, how we need.
Those building blocks of solid doctrinal teaching laid in their places like that course of stones and that foundation of the temple how we need it. I thought some years back, and this was I meant probably a foolish thought. I thought all the days are past where we have to worry about doctrinal error amongst us.
It's just more moral issues and maybe.
You know, assembly decision issues and those things, but don't have to worry about the doctrinal side of things.
Well, I was wrong.
We need to go over those foundations. We need to rehearse again and again the solid truths of the Word of God and that which was recovered.
And the work of God, His purpose.
And maintaining that truth.
Till he comes.
Rests upon the exercise of your heart.
And your prayers.
His purpose is wait upon the exercise of the heart of His people.
Second Kings.
Chapter 19.
Where I read what I'm going to read, I want to go back to Daniel in my thoughts. You watch that remnant go.
And in the third year, Osiris and Daniel, 10, he's given a vision.
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Vision that's so difficult.
He can hardly bear it.
A vision that he can hardly understand. I'm going to keep my spot here, if you don't mind. Second Kings 19, come back here. I want to read a little bit from Daniel 12.
Daniel, 12.
Verse eight I heard, but I understood not.
Then said IO, my Lord, what shall the end? What shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel. Go thy way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed to the end. What did he seem?
In that vision, what had he heard he had heard.
Everything that that remnant was going to pass through, that he had seen go back to the land, he had heard everything that they were going to pass through until God brings in the Kingdom.
And wave after wave of army was going to sweep through that land and beat that people down and down and down.
I think of that great heart.
Who so loved the people of God and had such affection for that place, that city where his name was placed, hearing all of that?
He didn't understand how can it be?
Go thy way, Daniel.
What was Daniel's way?
While we read a bit earlier in the book, his way was to open his windows towards Jerusalem and three times a day kneel down in prayer.
And I have no doubt Daniel went his way.
And did just that.
That great heart alone knew.
What God had said about that remnant, He had no one to share it with. It was between him and God.
And he went his way.
I have no doubt Daniels prayers will still be yet answered in a coming day.
Second Kings 19.
The end of verse 4. Wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are left.
We need to go.
Daniels away.
We need to pray that God will preserve and keep.
Those solid foundations of truth that he recovered as many years ago.
That He will keep us in the right spirit of self, judgment and repentance.
Our new brother that had this very verse on his mantle years ago, but he slept into a spirit.
That God could not use any more.
And God dismissed him from Lord, dismissed him from his table.
We need to have Daniel's spirit.
And we need to go his way, and we need to lift up our prayer.
For the room that that is left.
We.
271.
271.
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We know from serving to serving.
This heartbreak tears to the beach, our bright side blank and saving her love. Here's the Lord.