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.
Now, since this is an afternoon meeting and I know that we all just ate, let's stand up and sing #330.
Lord willing, in about the halfway point I'd like to sing another hymn. So you look forward to a break in about 25 minutes. Let's ask the Lord's blessing.
Our loving God and our Father, we thank thee for our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We think of how thou hast told us even in the portion of Scripture that we've been reading and considering this morning in the first chapter, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. And we think of the wisdom in my heart of love, our God, that thy Son should have a bride, that we should be a part of that heavenly company.
00:05:19
Not with a place secured in this world, in this earth, but a place beside the, in those courts of glory, Blessed Savior, where Thou art the midst who we thank Thee for such love and for such wisdom that would frame such a plan, our God, and to bring us into such blessing. So we pray that as we open up Thy precious word this afternoon, that each one of us, young and old, might glean something for ourselves, and that Thou art by Thy Spirit.
Have thy way with us. And so we just ask it, our God, our Father, in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I'd like to turn to the third chapter of Proverbs, and perhaps we'll read that chapter.
And then comment a little bit on the little portions. You know, the Spirit of God is, uh.
The one that directs, you know, I've heard the conversation behind me as I sat in my chair waiting for this meeting to begin. And, uh, one of the brothers, uh, young brothers was saying, well, is this, uh, uh, ministry, a meeting for ministry as the Spirit leads and the other brother says it's a ministry for us, The Spirit leads in an address.
A week ago I had been asked to speak, and I had this portion on my heart. I had distinctly the thought that I ought not to speak about it, but that I ought to take something else up.
But I still had the exercise to take up this passage of Scripture. And this morning we had before us the wisdom of God contrasted with the wisdom of man. And this is what this chapter really speaks about, is the contrast between the will of man and the word of and the will of God and the word of God contrasted with the word of men. And so let's read it and trust to be able to glean a little bit from it.
Chapter 3 of the Book of Proverbs My son, let not my law, but my son, forget not my law. But let thine heart keep my commandments for length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck. Write them upon the table of thine heart. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not.
Unto thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path. Be not wise in thine own eyes. Fear the Lord, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine, my son.
Despise not the chastening of the Lord.
Neither be weary of this correction. For whom the Lord loveth He correcteth, even as a father the Son in whom He delighteth.
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding, for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than Ruby's, and all the things Elkins desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches in honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness. In all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is everyone that retaineth her. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding He has established the heavens by His knowledge. The depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew. My son, let not them depart from thine eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion, so shall they be life unto thy soul and grace.
To thy neck, then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble. When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid. Yeah, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked when it cometh. For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken. Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
00:10:05
Say not unto thy neighbor, Go and come again, and tomorrow I will give thee, when thou hast it by thee. Devise not evil against thy neighbor, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee.
Strive not with a man without, 'cause if he have done the normal harm, envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways. For the froward is abomination to the Lord, but his secret is with the righteous. The curse of the Lord is in the House of the wicked, but He blesseth the habitation of the just. Surely He scorneth the scorners, but He giveth grace unto the lowly.
The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the promotion of fools.
Well, you know, every book of the Bible is written for a real purpose. God doesn't do things the way the man does. And as was mentioned this morning, his wisdom is directly opposite to the wisdom of man, opposite night and day, black and white. And So what doesn't characterize this world in any way is the wisdom that is from above, the wisdom of God. And so if you want to know how to live life in a right way and how to have a happy life.
Why you need to read the word of God? It's not just optional to read the word of God. For a believer, he knows Christ as his Savior has eternal life and might say, the Lord said, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. You have eternal life. Thank God He picked you up out of the ditch of sin, save your precious soul because they loved you. And now he doesn't want you just to have a saved soul and a lost life, but he wants you to have a saved soul end.
Has saved life and so that's why he's written the book of Proverbs that you might find divine wisdom for your path in this scene and so you know the 1St chapter of Proverbs is really an introduction to the book the first perhaps 6 verses give us some of the aspects of what he's going to talk about just a little snapshot and really goes over there the.
Introduction in connection with the lessons that the a mother and a father are going to give their son. And then you have in chapter 2, you have the evil man in verse 12 and the strange woman in verse 16. And he always go warned against in the first chapter of violence and corruption. But here in connection with the evil man and the strange woman. And then in chapter 3 gets down to brass tacks, you might say and starts to give some instruction. And so as we were considering this morning First Corinthians chapter or First Corinthians.
Really. The whole book The Apostle Paul takes up 10 aspects of disorder in the House of God.
In the assembly, and he then addresses those 10 disorders in a very careful way, goes through them so that we might learn profit. And the assembly there did profit. No doubt there was blessing because Paul wrote that second epistle and he rejoiced that they had received the instruction. Now in Proverbs we get in the first nine chapters, particularly the little expression, my son now is used in the book of the Proverbs 24 times.
That little expression. And in the first nine chapters, it's really the beginnings of each of these lessons. There's 12 lessons that the parents are going to give their son. And here in Chapter 3, we begin with one of these lessons. And the very first one has to do with the instructions. So he says, my son, forget not my law or my teaching, but let thine heart keep my commandments. You know, there's a great work going on in this world.
The enemy is your soul and mind knows that if he can captivate your heart, if he can somehow get your affections diverted from the aspects of the Lord himself and divert your affections from your brethren, divert your affections from the things of God, he can divert those affections and and divert your life, the course of your life.
Your heart will follow where your treasure is. Your feet will follow where your treasure is. And so here the writer of the book of the Proverbs says, let thine heart keep my commandments. Now those are divine instructions. And I'm going to just point this out in a couple of different places. There's instruction given and then there's a reward for keeping that instruction. So here you have this instruction. Forget not my law.
00:15:01
Forget not my instructions.
I thank God for her Father in my early, early part of my life that gave me some instructions.
Sat down and gave me some instructions and I see a lot of you young men, young sisters, thank God for parents that sit us down and give us some instructions. And here the word of God gives us this little insight. The very first thing that's going to have happen in life often times is that if you leave the home, you begin to branch out, go into the world of education and work world is you're going to forget some of the instructions. There's a tendency to forget the instructions.
And so these parents, they say, don't forget, want to have a happy life. Don't forget the instructions that God has given and have affection for those instructions. Keep my commandments. Now we know that this was written in Old Testament times and has an Old Old Testament flavor.
I'm gonna point it out in a couple of places a little bit further on, but we're I'm not giving you instructions or commandments and God isn't going to give you commandments in the new.
New Testament time in the Day of grace. Let's turn to John's Gospel chapter 14 and, umm, see if I had read the Word of God more when I was younger, I could quote this like Brother Gordon Hale, but.
I didn't spend as much time in the Word when I was younger as I should have, and I didn't memorize all these verses as I should have. I could maybe quote little snapshots of them, but I couldn't quote the whole thing, so I have to read it. Thank God I remember where it is. But John's Gospel chapter 14, verse 21, He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
And then verse 23, Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words. My Father will love him and will come unto him and make our abode with him and soul. It's a path of communion with the Lord. He will manifest himself to us. So the reward is in verse two, length of days and long life and peace. Three things shall they add to thee. So if you have instructions, you keep the instructions.
You enjoy the instructions the you have affection for the instructions that the Father above has given us in his word gonna produce three things. Length of days long life and peace. Now I puzzled a little bit about that little expression length of days. We don't use it in the English language today like perhaps they did in the days past, but reading a little bit of ministry and I will say this if you read a little bit of Mr. Darby's writings on the book of Proverbs is very profitable.
Don't ever think that our older brethren have writings that are so complicated that we'll never understand them. Don't ever think that if you pick up the little book that Mister Darby has written, practical Reflections on the Proverbs, anyone in this room, even a teenager, could read this book and gain much blessing from it. I just want to encourage you to do it well. He makes these little comments in connection with this expression, something that's the fact that it speaks of a useful life.
Or a productive life. Productive days, Useful long, useful productive days.
Anyone here want to have long, useful, productive days? People that are in business, that's what they really like, to have long, useful, productive days. And God has given in His word the key to having long, useful, productive days in this world, and that is by being taken up with the instructions that He's given in His Word so that we don't spend wasted days.
I find it very, very striking. When I was your age, some of you young men here, I never ever drove by a casino. I didn't even know what they were when I was your age because we didn't have casinos. But now as my, my son and I drove here to the conference yesterday, we drove past so many casinos, I, I couldn't even count them.
It's wasted time, wasted days, unproductive and the world wants to produce that wants to distract you so that you have unproductive days. But what a wonderful thing to have a productive day, long productive day and a long life. Now that was Jewish in character. They if they did the word of God, they they obeyed the word of God, they would promise with to have long days long life. You're not promised to have a long life. But I want to tell you this that if you fear the Lord.
And if you walk in the path of righteousness before the Lord.
00:20:01
You could well have a long useful life as long as Lord is going to give you, and I have noticed this in my young life. And there are those that are older in the room that will tell you the same thing, that the life of a rebel is short life.
The life of a rebel is a short life. It's not a full life, it's not a long life. And so here we have contrasted the wisdom of God, the will of God, and we have submission to that will and it produces length of days, long life and peace. And if you want to have a long life and peace, peaceful life, peace with God, this is how he does it, with instruction. Now the next part of the instruction is let not mercy or grace and truth for safety.
But I know about thy neck, and write them upon the table of thine heart. And then he gives the reward. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God.
And man.
Well, there's something you know, if you read these two chapters, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, you'll find that there are something like 27 knots.
No, I didn't know this, but somebody else pointed out they said there was 24 knots. I counted the knots and there's 27. Maybe some of them are duplicates, but umm.
Sometimes we have to know what not to do. And isn't it lovely that the Lord in his wisdom tells us what not to do? And one of the very first things in this series of instructions is not to let mercy, grace and truth for safety. The world is an ungracious place. Mr. Darby translates this word, loving kindness. Let not loving kindness and truth forsake thee. That's not what characterizes this world, loving kindness. But you know, it says the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
You know, Mr. Kelly and his writings suggest this. I think he actually may translate it so in his, in his, uh, translation, but I'm going to turn to it, John's Gospel chapter one, so that I don't misquote it now that I use his name.
Verse 17, Chapter one. Verse 17. For the law was given by Moses.
What did the law bring to man? What did law give? Did the law give man anything, gave man his minimum requirements that God has for him to live, live by, but it didn't give him anything, didn't give him the power to do it, didn't give him the motives to do it. But you know, the Lord Jesus came says grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. It says Mr. Darby translates that grace and truth subsists by Jesus Christ. Mr. Kelly makes this note. Grace and truth came into being.
Jesus Christ, and if you know the Lord Jesus as Savior, you know the man who brought grace and truth, brought loving kindness and truth into this world.
So wonderful to have a loving Savior. He loves you so much.
He gave himself at the cross of Calvary to redeem you for himself, that he might have you for all eternity. And his desire is that you would mimic his character as you walk through this world. That your life would be characterized by loving kindness towards your brethren, loving kindness towards your parents, loving kindness towards those in the assembly, loving kindness and truth. Now the world is not characterized by truth, but if your life is characterized by loving kindness and speaking the truth.
You're going to have a reward and it says, so shalt thou find favor and good understanding or esteem?
In the sight of God and man. You know the Lord Jesus when he was in the temple in Luke's Gospel chapter 2. Actually, it's right at the end of that chapter that is mentioned that he found grace in favor. I'm going to read it so that I don't misquote it here again. It's necessary. The scriptures are very, very accurate and I enjoy that accuracy.
Luke chapter 2 verse 52, Jesus increased in wisdom and stature really means maturity or bodily size. So he increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. You ever find yourself in the presence of a a young person that's exceptional.
I do a lot of traveling, as you know, and sometimes, you know, I need a young person or sometimes I need an adult. Very exceptional young person. You know, this little boy Chiwito in Mexico, some of you are still praying for, he, umm, had brain surgery to remove some, uh, umm, cysts and different growth in his, uh, brain. They were apparently not cancerous, so he doesn't have to have, uh, chemotherapy.
00:25:00
But, uh, he's recovering. He's still in a wheelchair, doesn't have the feeding tube anymore.
He's growing in little strength. He thanks God he could speak a little bit the other day. He could speak a couple of words. Oh, thank God for it. But you know, an exceptional young man when he was on the streets of Reynosa, these little guys, they go out and they buy a little bag of chips with a few pesos and they open up the bag of chips. And their habit is, his habit particularly was to take that bag of chips. He wouldn't touch them until he offered the bag of chips to everyone in the company, young and old alike. If there was anything leftover, he had some.
An exceptional young man, and he desired to follow the Lord.
Can I ask you a question this afternoon? You desire to follow the Lord. You desire to read the instructions of the Word of God and to walk in a spirit of loving kindness towards him and towards your brethren and to speak the truth, to speak the truth and love, to love the truth of God. And you know in chapter eight of the book of Proverbs, the truth and wisdom are really connected with the Lord Jesus. And so to love and to walk in the truth.
Is something that God wants for you. And so I ask you again, is this a desire? Is this an objective in your life to walk with loving kindness and to walk in truth? Oh, May God give you the desire to walk in truth in a world that isn't filled with love, it's filled with hate, it's filled with war. And God wants to see you as a son or as a daughter and to walk in the dignity of the relationship that you have with him and to enjoy that favor with God.
In the sight of God and man. Well then we have another little aspect of the teaching here in verse five. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding for thy own intelligence in all thy ways. Acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. So here we have a little instruction given, and another little reward.
Who are you going to have confidence in?
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.
In most things and some things, you know, it's a very, very difficult, isn't it?
To trust somebody.
Because all of us have a little bit of difficulty sometimes driving with other people. And umm, we have our own style. I have my own style of driving. Umm, I think my wife would attest to the fact that she's not as scared as she used to be when I was younger and had more energy and went a little bit faster. But we all in some way get into a vehicle and we have to trust somebody to drive. We have to trust and have confidence that we're going to get to the other end. And sometimes they scare us. You know, when we came back from the Bangor conference.
And Jonathan was driving sometimes my heart left a little bit. I, I confess, I didn't feel the confidence that I would have liked to have had. And he probably felt the same way when I was when he was younger. We came back, I came back from my little visit to Korea and there was, I couldn't even see the, the four lane highway was just snow all over. And I, my heart was pounding a couple of times. Jonathan just kept going, didn't faze him a bit. You know, dear brethren, the Lord sees the end from the beginning.
And he desires that we would have confidence in his ability to guide and to lead. He does have the ability and he does have the wisdom to guide in perfection. And so he says, trust in the Lord, or trust in Jehovah with all thine heart.
And have affection for the Lord. But trust with all the heart. Don't just reserve something for yourself. I don't trust the Lord to guide me in this particular aspect of life. I think I really need to look after these details here. I'm not going to tell the Lord about how we're going to do this. I think I have enough wisdom to do this a little bit. We don't. God says trust the Lord with all thine heart. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. And lean not unto thine own understanding. You know that leaning self-confidence. God doesn't want you to have self-confidence.
We read this morning and commented in connection with the flesh. Having confidence in myself, having confidence, self-confidence in myself is an awful thing. It says whoso trusteth in his own heart is a fool. You know, I, I read that at Mr. Hales cottage often times when I was a young person, didn't really particularly thrill me to see that because it was really a condemnation of all of my intelligence entirely.
You like to think that you can figure something out.
But a fool has said in his heart, no God. It means that he conducts himself in a way as if God doesn't exist. He's confident that he can do things without God. Well, as those that are believers, we need to lay aside those things that that confidence that we have in ourselves and recognize that we are the Lord is capable of guiding in every aspect of life and to he's worthy of our trust, implicit trust. And so here Lord, as you notice here in our King James translation is capitalized Lord and it's Jehovah.
00:30:30
And in the book of Proverbs, it's always the Jehovah, except for a couple of places. I'm not going to point them out, but and Jehovah was God's name in relationship with Israel. But I want to just point and apply it this way. If you know the Lord Jesus as Savior, you're in relationship with him and he's speaking with you as a son, as a daughter, and he's pleading with you to have confidence in his ability to God.
He has the wisdom, he has the power, he has the desire, but he's not going to force himself on you. And so he decides to to have you confide in him. And then verse six gives us a reward in all. Or be not wise in thine own eyes.
Fear the Lord, depart from evil.
I should say verse six was the reward. In all thy ways acknowledge him.
And he shall direct thy paths, for he shall make plain thy paths in all thy ways.
I thought of it in this way and all my ways. Acknowledge him. Give them the right to help. Give him the right to help, to choose. Acknowledge him. Acknowledge his right, his authority to choose and to direct. Does he add the right to direct you?
Does he have the right to direct you to dress in the morning? What? What are you gonna wear today? I know Brother John Culp works in a sometimes a messy environment and I work in manufacturing world in factories. I would go through factory tour or something. We'd have a supplier problem one day. I wouldn't know about those events before the time, but I would ask the Lord in the morning, you know, what should I wear?
And by the grace of God, oftentimes I was directed to wear the right thing. I go into a factory, there's grease all over the place. I happen to wear black pants. That day was great. I wore black pants. I rubbed up against a piece of equipment or something, and it didn't show all day. Sometimes I didn't ask the Lord about what I should wear that day. I went to work like this with tan, cocky planted pants. First thing in the morning. I was at a supplier and you know what happened? So I got to wear that big black mark all day.
The Lord delights to guide us.
And in the big things too. Let's sing that hymn. Let's all stand up and sing.
#5 in the appendix.
And I appreciate it, but I don't know, I'm pretty many.
Days, 3 days, three days to follow up with her. I don't know if you're recommendation, I've got a number of people today. Uh-huh. More than they don't have anything to do with uh, uh.
OK.
The last five grandparents and all those a lot of things that I'm talking about.
00:35:09
OK, OK.
Uh, is there anything else I can do for you?
Uh, to remove the phone.
To the end of the day.
Phone Laura.
May I go on?
And I'm like wah wah wah wah wah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Well, I'll just summarize what we just went over verse one really has to do with having an affection for the teachings of your parents and in extrapolating that the teachings of the word of God. That's what ought to characterize our lives and then.
Verse three the Spirit of God gives us to understand it would be his desire that we would have our lives would be characterized by loving kindness and truth. The third thing would be.
Our confidence. This world wants you to have confidence in schemes and plans and its educational systems and its objectives in the workplace and so on. But the Lord desires us to have confidence in himself and He desires to guide us. And then the fourth thing I want to point out is verse seven, and it's really in connection with pride, the pride of man in contrast with the fear of the Lord. And so the Lord desires that you and I would not be characterized by a life of pride.
But by a life of fearing the Lord, you know, our brother Gordon used to say to us as young people, it's good to get these little expressions in our minds and in our hearts that the fear of the Lord. Here in the book of Proverbs and largely in the New Testament, the fear of the Lord is a fear begotten of love. It means to have such a reverence and a desire to please the person that you love. You don't want to displease them at all. And you walk.
With a desire to express your love to them in a practical way. So it's a fear.
Begotten in love and so he says fear the Lord. Is that what's characteristic of your life? Is it the fear of the Lord? Someone says, I know some so and so sister so and so, you know, she's she fears the Lord. She's just so afraid of displeasing the Lord. She longs to please the Lord. Is that what characterizes your life? I say in my own life, I wish that it characterized it more, but May God give us the grace and the desire to cultivate that aspect of things in life. You know, the Lord Jesus could say.
I do always those things that please my father. He never ever stepped out of character not once. And you and I step out of character as those that are sons and daughters oftentimes, but let's have that exercise of soul to fear the Lord. Can I just make this little comment in the middle of this address and that is that we'd like these local brethren have called together. This company invited us all together to come to these couple of days of meetings.
And their desire, I think I could speak for their desire. They don't want you to go back home the same way they don't want you to go back home and say we had a good time at the conference and that's the end of that. It's good to have a good time, But they like you to come back home with an exercise. Having said, you know, that made such an impression on me, I'm going to change my life in this aspect of things. Would you seek to have a desire and effect, just an exercise before the Lord at this conference this weekend to get something for your soul?
Something that would exercise you and change the course of your life in some aspect. Well, the fear of the Lord. Now there's a reward. It shall be health to thy navel, marrow to thy bones. You know, there's lots to be said to walk in communion with the Lord and to have peace of conscience. And it gives to have a healthful life and strength, really, that's what it speaks of, marrow to the bones. It speaks of strength, having strength in the path of faith, strength to walk.
In the world. But you know, brother in the Lord years ago said to me.
00:40:00
There's an acronym, you know, for pride, it says if you just write the letters downwards, pursuing riches, I decide everything. That's pride. Pursuing riches, I decide everything. But, you know, the life of faith is different. Forsaking all, I take him. Forsaking all, I take him. And that's the desire of my heart this afternoon and the heart on the desire of the hearts of those that are older, perhaps in this room.
Our desire for you young ones is that you would forsake all and take him, forsake this world. It's going to soon be destroyed in all the systems in it. Well, the next aspect of this teaching that these parents give to their son or their daughter, really the son. I don't want to just limit it to the son, but I think we can broadly apply it. Verse 9, honor the Lord.
With thy substance, with the first fruits of all thine increase. Now there's a reward. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, And thy presses shall burst out with new wine. Now this is Jewish in character. If you honor the Lord, you give him the 1St place. That's what it's saying here. Give the Lord the first place in your life. It's a good theory for other people, right? No, it's something that you and I ought to be exercised about. Is given the Lord the 1St place the best? That's really what it means.
The best place you know, when in Luke's gospel, when the Father said, umm, bring hit her the best robe. It means the best, the the best, the first robe, the the best place you and I have the very best. We're going to have the very best in in heaven. God sent the best of heaven itself into this world that you might have the best. You're going to have the best place in heaven. If you know the Lord Jesus Savior, you're going to be a part of the bride.
In heaven you want to be right beside the Lord Jesus, and the glory that you radiate in that day will be a reflection of His glory.
And he'd delight you to have a full reward, and his principal hears, and to honor the Lord, honor Jehovah with thy substance, with the first fruits of all thine increase. Give them the 1St place. Give them the best, not the leftovers.
As you know, perhaps about 30 years ago.
After we were married, maybe a year or so, my wife and I bought the house that we're in. My father-in-law had built himself a retirement home up on the hill in.
Near Hammer Bay overlooking the lakes. And he had this old house, this older house that umm, had difficulty selling. There was a Marina right next by and they, there was talk of a, a resort being built. It was actually built in 1984. And, uh, it just wasn't real desirable piece of property. But he was very kind to us and he offered to sell us this piece of property right nearby to the assembly and we could walk to meeting and so on. And we signed all the legal documents on one day in November.
1982 and umm.
I felt a lot of weight of responsibility. Taking on that piece of property was a new beginning in life. There are a lot of new beginnings in life for you young people. And uh, so I asked my father-in-law, I said, uh, we just bought this little piece of property and you've had it all your life. Is there anything that you have a spe, a special request, any special request as to how we conduct ourselves with this property, what we do, what we don't do? Is there anything that you would like like us not to do?
He said, Son, there's only one thing I want you to do with this property. He said you do everything you can to use this property for the Lord and for the Lord's people. He says, that's all I want. Wasn't that a nice answer? The Lord delights for you to have the resources that he places into your hands, and now you have the responsibility. He'll let you use those resources selfishly if you want to.
He's not going to say thou shalt not use it for thyself. That's not how he's going to be. He's going to really, in this day of grace, beseech you, and he's going to ask you to honor him first, to give him the 1St place.
That in all things he might have the preeminence. What a wonderful In the coming day every knee is going to bow to that man, every knee is going to confess thou and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And the Lord delights that you would take a light touch on those things that He has provided for you and honor Him to give him the dignity of the early part of your life. And the first part of your day, the first part of the week, the Lord's Day, you find yourself at the assembly meetings. Is it a priority to honor the light of the Lord with your life?
00:45:14
Do you give him the whole whole of the Lord's Day?
You give them the whole of the first day of the week.
Do you give them the breaking of bread and then you use the rest of it for yourself. You know we don't have time to turn to all these passage of Scripture, but you make a note of this and you can read it yourself in Isaiah chapter 58 and verses 13 and 14, Isaiah 58 and verses 13 and 14, it reflect it really is teaching in connection with the Sabbath, but we can apply it to the first day of the week. Now he says in verse 11, he says, my son, despise not thou that chase me.
Despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of this correction. For whom the Lord loveth, He correcteth, even as a father the Son in whom he delighteth.
And it's nice.
You know the Lord loves you and I deeply.
He's proved it at the Cross.
He proves that every day.
And his delight is that there would be a little pruning that would take place. We could read in John's Gospel chapter 15, the branch that beareth fruit. He purges it that may bring forth more fruit. And this word chastening not only means correction and connection with punitive, uh, uh, correction, but it really has to do with preventative causes. Sometimes the Lord trains us. It could be translated training or.
Teaching. And so sometimes it is correction, but oftentimes it's training and we don't always get it right the first time, do we?
We need correction, we need to be trained, we need to be taught and the Lord loves us enough to teach us. You know, in the book of Job it says who teacheth like him who teacheth like him. What a teacher. You know, the disciples people would come to the Lord Jesus when he was here on this in this scene and they would say master or rabona. They they recognized him as teaching the truth of God and the Lord delights to teach.
Each each one of us and to bring us into the knowledge of his will to prepare us perhaps for different things that would have would have, would take place in the future.
And I feel a burden, particularly for the young in this room.
But I'm going to say this to you young people. Life is not going to turn out the way that you thought it would.
You have rosy pictures perhaps as to how life might turn out. You're going to college and things that you've got a career path, maybe picked out, all those kinds of things, and, umm, life is not going to turn out the way that you thought it would. You know why? The Lord has a better plan. The Lord has better ideas, and He's going to allow some trials in your life to train you, to prepare you for the next stages of life and to make you more like His son.
You know the Lord could say that He rejoiced in spirit and he could thank the Father. He was rejected, His testimony was rejected. The man, the nation rejected him, but he could rejoice. Why? He was going to suffer and He was going to prepare at the cross of Calvary and in His work there was going to be such provision, such a preparation made that you are going to be welcome in the glory. You are going to be free to be in His presence. You are going to have free access even in the day of grace.
To be in the presence of the Lord. So the Lord is allowing different trials and He will allow different trials in your life to prepare you for things in life and to just in love, to train. You have taken me a long time to learn that and I can't say that I've learned it.
Let the Lord works with every one of us because He loves us. Now we have 2 responses and this is what he says. We can response and this is responding. This way. We can despise the chastening, we can despise it, say we don't need that, we don't need to be taught that. Or we can be weary of it, just tired of it. Not this again.
I've had enough of this, I'm just tired of it. I don't want it.
We hear you sometimes enough. I don't want to hear it. You ever had a young person say that?
I don't want to say this. You know, I I've been very encouraged by young people in my visits of late. I'm so glad to see the young men digging into scriptures, young sisters digging into scriptures. I can't tell you.
00:50:10
How it encourages my heart. I was in the little Assembly of Atlanta. Spent 6 or 8 1/2 weeks or so. Nine weeks visiting assemblies. 2 1/2 months actually did it, 21 assemblies.
Most of them had two of them, two in the assembly, three of them in the assembly, five of them in the assembly. Some had maybe more than that, some had more, like Dorothy. I went to Dorothy so thankful to see a full room in different places.
Those people really know why they're there. They know why they're gathered to the Lord's name. They're thankful to be gathered by the Spirit of God. If I want to say that when I was at Atlanta and we had a little address in the afternoon like this and there were two older brethren, Ron Lebow and his wife, and there were a bunch of young people.
Mostly it's usually a bunch of older people and then maybe a couple of young people, but there was a couple of older people and a bunch of young people.
Oh, I was thrilled. We had a wonderful time together and uh, those young people tucked me out for lunch, went to the subway. It was one most wonderful meal I ever had at the subway because of who I was with. What an encouragement to my heart.
But I just want to say this to you young people, God is going to train you don't despise the training. Don't get weary of it. He's working with him and he desires you to submit to that training and there's going to be blessing and profit. Now he says in verse 13 really begins a new, new beginning perhaps, but he has a happiness plan in Scripture. Did you know that the word of God has a happiness plan If you read this word happy in the book of Proverbs.
And you read the word blessed, so happy as a man that findeth wisdom.
And the man that getteth understanding. And so we find wisdom in connection with the teaching.
Of the Word of God. Wisdom is really the right application of knowledge in this world.
And knowledge that we acquire in the Word of God.
And we apply it in the right way and we have understanding where we have discernment. Not everybody can trick you. It's easy to get trick.
Just go on.
Answer to some ads on Kijiji or or Craigslist or something. See how how fast you can get tricked.
I'm a little bit of a sucker. I could get tricked very easily. But you know, I was reading as I looked at some of those ads. I was reading this verse, verse 26.
The Lord shall keep, they shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.
The Lord knows the tricks that this world has and He can keep you, but here He wants to give you the wisdom to go through this world and understanding your discernment. And he says, you know she is in verse 15. She's more precious than Ruby's and all the things that thou canst desire not to be compared under her. Here you have this length of days again, long productive days.
Is in her right hand and in her left hand, riches in honor. Now that's Jewish. God's not going to promise you that if you keep his word that you're going to be wealthy. That's not the promise. But you will be rich in your soul. You will be rich in divine things. You will have something of the knowledge of the Scriptures and a clear conscience as you walk before God in a moral way in an immoral world, an unrighteous and walk in a righteous way in an unrighteous world.
Her ways are of pleasantness in all her paths or peace. You know, there's a lot of people that spend a lot of time to get riches and to mine gold and rubies and all those things. A lot of effort.
I grew up as a boy in Northern Ontario. The 1St 10 years of my life and being in the mining country I saw how much effort people go into to mine nickel, into mine copper.
A lot of effort into the depths of the earth to get that nickel, tons and tons of ore and all kinds of wealth is extracted from the earth. That's really the picture that you have in Job as well. I think it's Chapter 28.
But you know, the real wealth is in connection with the things of God. You never lose that wealth. You never lose. But how much energy is are you putting forward? How much energy am I putting forward to dig into the scriptures and define those treasures? Define those little, little treasures in the Scriptures? Is it just going to pop to the surface? No. God has written His word in such a way that you and I have to dig and dig. We have to be exercised.
00:55:19
In our souls, and we have to plead with them to show us where the vain, the line of truth is in the Scriptures we have to plead with them. And in grace and mercy He shows us where to dig. And when we do find something of a treasure and meditate upon it, oh what a benefit, what a profit there is, what wealth, what rejoicing there is in the soul as we understand something of the riches of Christ. Well, this really is connection with happiness. And verse 13 down to verse 20, and then in verse 21.
He begins another little instruction. He says let not my son, let not them depart from thine eyes. Keep sound wisdom and description discretion. So we need to keep the word of God before our souls. We need to have the.
Wisdom speaks of hear the sound wisdom is true counsel. I'm going to just drop down to verse 27 and make a few comments. This is another little line of things and it's really in connection with building character and his desire is that we would have confidence and have a character, a godly character. So the very first instruction is in verse 27. Withhold not good from them to whom it is due when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. So means here.
Young people, and for those of us that are older, don't be selfish. Don't be selfish. The world is selfish. That's what it means to have an evil eye. When you read in the Scriptures an evil eye, it means that the world is selfish. They'll say, here, we'll give you something and then they ****** it back. Selfish. But that's not what's to characterize your life. You know, Brother AC Brown, I never met him, but he had this little expression. The Christianity was not to be characterized by the closed fist, but by the open palm. And so you and I ought to be generous with one another and generous with others.
And umm, so it says, do good when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. And then verse 28, say not unto thy neighbor, go and come again. And tomorrow I will give when thou hast it by thee. Well, we need to be honest and upright. And so he's teaching honesty. Don't say to somebody, I'll come, come again another time. I'll give you something next time. That's being stingy too.
But really it speaks of honesty. Verse 29 Devise not evil against thy neighbor, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee. And so we don't betray someone's trust. The Lord has never betrayed your trust. He never will.
Wouldn't it, wouldn't it be awful to trust somebody to do something?
Leave them in responsibility to do something. You trust them to do something for you. That's very important. You come back, it isn't done. This awful feeling. It's happened a few times, more than a few times in my life, but it says here in verse 30, devise ascribe not with a man without 'cause if you have done me no harm. So don't be contentious. You wanna have good character, be well liked by people and build some friends.
He says here.
Don't be contentious, don't have a spirit of contention about you and then envy thou not the oppressor or the man of violence, choose none of his ways. So you know, if you don't get your own way, the will of man is opposed the will of God. And if you don't get your own way, sometimes people resort to violence. So he says don't do that.
Envy thou not the oppressor. The froward is abomination in to the Lord, but his secret is with the righteous, and so his desire is that you would walk in righteousness. Curse of the Lord is in the House of the wicked, but he blesseth the habitation of the just. Oh how the Lord wants you to have a happy home, happy life. And umm, just in closing, I want to read in verse 19 and 20. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding He has established the heavens.
By his knowledge, the depths are broken up by the and the clouds drop down to dew. I just close with this little saying, this little encouragement. It takes wisdom to run the universe. It takes wisdom to form the earth. It takes wisdom to keep the universe in power in In Sync. Does God have the wisdom and the power to keep your life In Sync? He does. And so here he's saying, won't you trust my wisdom?
I created the earth. I keep the heavens in motion. You know, John Newton, Sir Isaac John Newton, umm, Sir Isaac Newton. I'm sorry, the scientist, uh, astronomer and so on in the late 16th century, I think it was.
01:00:19
In England, he formulated the plan really the he came up with the concept of how the solar system operates.
That the sun is the center of the solar system and that the Earth revolves around the sun and that all these planets go around and around. But, you know, he said that it takes energy to maintain that system. Somebody is still making the Earth go around because what happens? And he didn't know about satellites, but he explained it that if you have a satellite that's orbiting around the Earth, sooner or later comes crashing to the Earth because it was set in orbit and then nobody's making it still go around well.
Mr. Newton said the creation is such that it takes the power of God to keep it in motion so that nothing comes out of place. And God, as it were, says in this chapter, I have the wisdom to create this world and to keep it all in motion just right.
Said, Won't you trust me? Won't you trust me to guide your life?
Oh, I trust your young person that you won't make any of those decisions that would leave the Lord out of your life and that would trust.
Your own wisdom and to leave and set aside the wisdom of God in His Word. It'll bring disaster into your life. Let's just commend ourselves.
Our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for Thy precious word always thank Thee for thy wisdom. Our God, we think of how that was created this world, and by thy Son. Without Him was not anything made that was made, and by Him all things consist or subsist.
Oh, we thank Thee, blessed Savior, as thou daily.
Maintain the solar system. Maintain the orbits of this world around the sun without interested in puny little.
Individuals such as ourselves, interested in what we wear, interested in the decisions of life, interested in our friends, interested, blessed Savior, enough to teach us, to train us, to discipline us all. We thank Thee for Thy love and Thy faithfulness. We pray that thou bless our young, bless each one of us, and give us a desire to honor the Lord. So we ask in our God and our Father, thank Thee for this occasion together in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hey, man.