Talk—Robert Boulard
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And then we'll read a few verses of Scripture together.
Our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for the happy weekend that we've had together. We thank Thee for thy precious word. We think of how in thy sovereign love and grace Thou hast acquainted us with Thy well beloved Son that was given us a life that's worth living. And now it's brought us into the knowledge of the eternal Council of the living God that we might have just hope in this scene.
That's filled with sin and corruption. So we just pray that these few words that are read.
Out of Thy precious word, this afternoon might lodge in our hearts and consciences.
And that we might have a desire to live the rest of our time for Thy glory and for thine honor. So we pray for thy blessing upon our brethren who are traveling to and ask you for safety, and that they might rejoice as they go on their way, thinking of those things that we've had before us. So we just ask thy blessing our God and our Father, and the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Well, I just have on my heart to read a little passage of scripture. It's in the Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 3.
And in this series of proverbs, there's a little bit of instruction given.
By the Lord and then he gives a little bit of an indication as to what the reward is if we hear that instruction and we act upon it. So we'll look at five of those. There's seven, but we don't have time here to to look at them all. But it says in Proverbs chapter 3, verse one, my son, forget not my law or my teaching, but let thine heart keep my commandments.
For length of days and long life and peace.
Shall they add to thee? Wasn't this nice that this expression that the Spirit of God uses my son, it says really, I believe it's 24 times in the book of Proverbs he uses this term, my son. And in the book of Proverbs, it's the thought of building upon the family name and honoring the family name, honoring the Lord. And so if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
You're a son and heir of God. Join heir with Christ.
And you have the privilege of conducting yourself with the dignity.
A conduct of dignity and honor in this scene to honor the Lord, but it says forget not my law. And so this is really in connection with the word of God.
This passage of scripture is a young father, a father and mother, perhaps instructing their son before he goes out into the world, but we'll take it as an instruction given from the Lord Himself.
And so he says, forget not my teaching and my law, the word of God.
And so we're so apartment to forget it. But he says, let thine heart keep my commandments or my instructions, and so to keep it in the heart, the affections engaged. And so the word of God read, and then having affection for the Lord and what he has said to us.
How many here have read through the Bible right from the front to the back?
Well, I'm going to tell you something. Some of you haven't done it. If you read the word of God from the front to the back, it'll do something.
It'll change how you think. It'll change your life.
It will.
If you take and to take note and have affection for those words that he's written.
You know, I was helping a young fellow young man move from one apartment to another. He just finished college and we were moving little bits of furniture and all that kind of stuff. And I had my little truck out there and under his bed he had boxes and boxes, heavy boxes of things that he wanted moved. And one of the boxes was open.
And I said to him, what is this?
Looked at a notebook and I start reading. I can't remember if it was Ephesians.
Handwritten.
Pick another one up, Galatians.
Picked some others up. Deuteronomy.
The young man had come home after school and the very first thing he did was go up to his room and he would hand write for an hour.
Out of the Word of God, so that he was copying out for himself all of the word of God for himself.
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Took him quite a while to do it.
But what's the reward for having affection for the Word of God and listening to the instruction that the Spirit of God gives us? It says verse two is the reward for length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Now that's quite a reward. What's the difference between length of days?
And long life. There are three rewards, length of days, long life.
And peace.
Peace in your conscience, peace of heart, peace to walk through this world.
With the peace of God, which passeth all understanding to have a sense that the Lord is in control and that things aren't out of control, that he knows what's going on but length of days, you know it's if you look at some of the commentaries and some of the Bible dictionaries, you'll see that it means.
Long, youthful, productive days.
Long, useful, productive days.
You know what happens in life is often times there's rebellion against the Word of God and then the life isn't filled with long, useful, productive days.
And the life of those that are rebels, you'll notice.
Are very short. Generally the days of a rebel are cut short. And the Lord knows how to give long, useful, productive days if we abide by the principles of the Word of God. Because the principles of the Word of God will give us to understand how the Lord Jesus lived and what's pleasing to him and will live in a righteous and a godly way. What a reward to have long, useful.
Productive days.
And there's some here, you know, the Lord gives us 3 score in 10 years. That's 70 years if by reason of strength they're more than it's with labor and sorrow. But that's 25,550 days.
70 years.
And I've wasted a lot of them. And I'm sorry, I regret.
How many days I've wasted? But you young folks are younger, and you can use the days that you have.
To be long, useful and productive in the things of God. For the blessing of your families. For the blessing of those that are the Saints of God.
For the blessing of those that you know.
Well, long life is.
Necessary for to be productive. Well, he's going to add those things to us. Now the third one is this. Let not mercy and truth or loving kindness and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck. Write them upon the table, thine heart.
You know this world is a cold, cold place. It's a wicked place, godless place, and the affections for Christ are and for the things of God. The heart grows cold. It says in the tribulation period that because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. This world has a cold and a soul deadening effect upon us, and we need the word of God. But he says here he's giving us instruction.
To have loving kindness and truth.
And not to forsake them, not to make exceptions and say, well, you know, under certain circumstances I need to lie. Or under certain circumstances, you know, I can be unkind.
No, loving kindness is what really characterized the Blessed Savior all of his life.
You know he didn't have to touch that leper in Mark chapter one.
He didn't have to touch him to heal him. He could have said you're healed. He had the power in his voice. But no.
The gentleness and the kindness of that Blessed One, he touched him. You and I have the ability to express kindness, the kindness of God to one another and to those that are in this world. You know, Mr. Haiku, maybe you've heard me say this before, but I've enjoyed reading his little book on Ruth. And he has this little expression, he says part way through the book in his commentary, he says, you know, kind words are so scarce.
Among us that you'd think they cost $10 a piece.
You know they don't cost $10 a piece. We need to be kind to one another and loving kindness, I think is expressive of how the Lord would desire to have us in truthful. He is the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Well, what do you get? You know it's a loving kindness and truth. And he says, bind them about thy neck. So how do you do this?
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Well, I've thought of it this way, that some of the sisters like to have a Pearl necklace or something like that. And so it's a link of loving kindness, a link of truth, a link of loving kindness, a link of truth.
And it's visible.
You're kind.
You have a kind nature, you have a kind, you have the capacity, if you're indwelled with the Spirit of God, to show kindness.
You have a characteristic of truth. Someone comes, asks you something, they know they're going to hear the truth.
That's how we ought to be. And then, you know, it becomes an ornament. People will see it. That's what it says. So shout, there's a reward. Thou shalt find favor good understanding in the sight of God and man.
So, you know, you have an expression, you have a reputation, if we could put it this way, you have a testimony in the neighborhood, in the world.
And.
It shows whether there's loving kindness.
And whether there's truth, there's a display and it's before the Lord, it's going to be in the sight of God, in the sight of man. So what you're doing, how you're living is being lived in the sight of God.
It is nice to be have a sense of being doing what you're doing in the sight of the Lord. Well, the next one is to trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Now I'm going to give you this little term. The word here, trust in the Lord means to confide in the Lord and the Lord here is Jehovah. If you look at a new translation says Jehovah, but in the French translation.
Mr. Darby uses the word the eternal 1.
The name the eternal 1L apostrophe eternal, later the eternal 1. So when you read Jehovah in the new translation, you could put it in there, pencil it in if you want. The French version, the eternal one. Can you trust in the eternal 1?
The eternal One who brought you into this world made only one person just like you.
And has the desire for your blessing. And He longs for you to trust His word.
The trust is instructions. You know, chapter Brown used to have this little expression. He would say this.
None of us are ever any wiser than the Word of God.
None of us. We are not wiser than the Word of God.
And so we have the responsibility and the privilege to trust the Eternal 1 implicitly trust the Lord in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding of thine own intelligence, natural intelligence. And what we heard this weekend is that the wisdom of God is not an improvement on the wisdom of man.
It's directly opposite. The wisdom of God is directly opposite.
To the wisdom of man and wouldn't you want to walk and live in your live your life in the wisdom of God, in the wisdom of the Eternal one? Why do we need the wisdom of God? It's because when the man fell into sin, he lost his ability to know where the boundaries were. And the law gave man a boundary and he needed to know where the boundaries were morally.
And spiritually, he needed to know.
Where the lines were drawn and it's in a sense the Lord says here's the lines and stay inside the fence, so to speak. And things are going to go well. And so that's how he dealt with the children of Israel. But with you and I, his love is such that he desires us. He desires our confidence, He desires our affections.
Some of us are married in this room and isn't it one of the things that we like to have is to have?
I like to have my wife trust me when I say something.
No, I say. Well, you're not just saying that, are you?
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We like to have we like to be trusted, while the Lord Jesus loves to be trusted.
And he is capable and powerful to be able to bring about what he needs to.
Bring about well, it says, in all thy ways, here's a reward. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and then in our prayers we can acknowledge his rights.
His authority?
Not skirt the authority that the Lord has.
Put into our lives.
And he says he shall direct thy paths, or he shall make plain thy paths. You don't need to walk in a place where you don't know where you're going, you don't know what the direction you're going. You don't know you an aimless life. And a lot of people in this world have an aimless life. But if you have Christ before you, you have the object before you, the object bright and fair to fill in, to satisfy your heart.
And to please him, he's going to direct your paths.
I'll give you a little illustration. When I was going to go to college, I.
My dad never went to college. So he said, you know, you don't need to go to college. It's, it's all right, just get a job and you'll be fine. And well, he was a railway worker and he was a salesman and so on. And he made a good living, decent living, and he was a believer. And I learned a lot from my father about the word of God in the early part of my life.
But I felt that I needed to get a little bit of training.
And so I wanted to design, I wanted to not only work in kitchen cabinet factory, but I want to be able to design the cabinets. So I asked the Lord. I got down on my knees and asked the Lord, can I please find something that I would be able to design cabinets, design different objects and then they could be produced in a factory.
And so I got up on my knees from my knees and went over to the nearest college.
And I sat in a man's office and he said, well, you know, in this program.
We'll teach you not only how to use your mind, but how to use your hands and so on, but we'll teach you how to use your mind and how to develop product to be manufactured in factories and so on. He almost used exactly the same words as what I prayed to the Lord.
I'm not a very good example, but.
I don't pray enough in that way, but the Lord is capable of directing you, and what I'm trying to impress upon you here is that the Lord will give you that reward if you trust in Him. Just trust Him for the direction in life. Well then we have the next one is 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.
So it's easy for us when we're young.
To be wise in our own eyes and it's easy for us when we get older.
To be wise in our own eyes. But we need the word of God. We need the wisdom of God, and none of us is any wiser than the word of God. The wisdom of God far exceeds the wisdom of man. But what we tend to do is to try to rely on our own wisdom and what we can see and what we think we can perceive. But it's not the path of faith.
The path of faith is to trust the Lord and to trust His Word.
And to fear the Lord, You know what it means to fear the Lord. It's not to be afraid of the Lord.
But it's to be afraid to displease him.
You'll forgive another little personal illustration. Maybe you've heard me say it before, but when I was first married, I.
Mary Janet May the 2nd, 1981 I was so happily to be married, married a wonderful girl and I wanted her to be the happiest wife and I came home.
Several weeks, maybe a couple of weeks after we were married, and she asked me to put up a rack of spoons and, you know, some stuff right by the stove. Told me where she wanted it. And I ran downstairs, got my level and drill and I got things all measured out and put this thing up.
15 minutes later the job was done and how she was so happy.
And then a couple of months later, I came home and she said, you know, honey, this chair has fallen apart, needs to be glued up and.
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It's just, it's just a mess. And I said, well, you know, I'm kind of tired tonight and well, you know, maybe Saturday if I'm not too tired, I could probably look at it and see if I could do it. And immediately my heart smoked me.
I said, oh, here I am. I'm married three months or four months, and I'm not even afraid of displeasing my wife. I just want my own way. I want to be comfortable. I want things my way. I ran downstairs and I got my clamps, I got my glue and I had that thing put together pretty fast. It didn't really take that much time. But it's to fear the Lord is to be afraid to displease the Lord.
To know what pleases him and to want to just.
Return your affections to Christ by just obeying His Word and trusting His Word, not walking in your own sight. So what's the reward? He says.
It shall be health to thy navel. You're going to have divine nourishment. You're going to have marrow to the bones. It speaks of strength. You want to have spiritual strength. You want to have strength nourished in your soul. Feel fed with Christ.
Try to please them, don't please yourself, please the Lord.
You know the Lord, Brother Gordon. We were talking about Brother Gordon a little bit. He, Gordon Hale, used to have that.
His little cottage up about 20 minutes north of my house. And he used to.
Oftentimes tell us.
About the fear of the Lord. And he used to tell us about the threefold cord. He said young people, and I heard him say it at many weddings, say young people, a Christian marriage is a threefold court. It should be the husband 100% for his wife, the wife 100% for her husband, and both of them together 100% for the Lord.
And he said, be sure if you marry that you marry in the Lord.
And that your marriage is a threefold court.
Well, let's look at the last one here that we're going to look at.
Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty. Thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
Well, honor the Lord.
We might use we read this weekend, Me First in Luke's Gospel. I think it was chapter 18. Was it maybe 19 Me First.
But really it should be Christ 1St and I'm not a good example. Forgive me for even trying to speak about it. But when I get up in the morning I try to spend time with the Lord first before I check my cell phone. I digressed a little bit on a three hour time difference here and my wife is wanting a little bit of information here and there so I've broken my rule but.
I try to spend time in the presence of the Lord first.
Before I get busy.
It's gathering up the man at first in the morning before the sun is hot and before things get out of control and you don't have time to go back to the word of God. But here he says honor the Lord.
With thy substance.
In 1982 my father-in-law had built himself a house on the hill overlooking the the lakes, a nice brick house, and he had the old house for sale and it wasn't very moving. It was an old household.
Wooden house, no brick on it and everything, and it needed a lot of work and Janet and I were just married and so we made an arrangement and bought the house from them.
And the day that we signed the documents, we came back from the lawyer's office.
And, umm.
I said dad.
We just bought this property from you and I know we have different ideas and that sort of thing, but is there something, something that you would like me to do with this property or some instruction that was particularly needful that you want to communicate to me?
He said, Son, I only have one thing that I want to tell you.
That I would like to see done with this property.
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I don't care what you change, how you do it, what do you do but just do this one thing.
Use this property for the Lord and for the Lord's people.
So Janet and I prayed and asked the Lord for help to be able to do that, to give him his request.
And young people, I want to just say this and perhaps say it to us who are older as well.
When the meeting room needs some new utensils, you need some new utensils at home.
You go to the store, you buy some utensils and so on, and then you take the old ones to the meeting room maybe.
Let me just say it should be done the other way. You buy some new utensils and you bring them to the meeting room and then the old one stay at your place.
Give him honor the Lord and make sure that he gets the best.
Not the leftovers.
Don't give the leftovers to the Lord, give him the best.
And you won't have any regrets, you won't be sorry later that he got second best. God gave the very best of heaven. He spared nothing for your blessing. And for all eternity the Son of God will delight in His bride. And God has given his best. And how He longs for us to return in our affections and give him, honor him and give him the best.
Honor the Lord with thy substance, with a first. Fruits of thine increase. Well, what's the reward? So shall thy barns be filled with plenty. Thy presses shall burst out with new wine. Now this is in a Jewish context. So they expected an earthly blessing. They expected to have a good reward, good crops, all those sorts of things if they walked in obedience to the Word of God. You're not going to get a new Mercedes.
You're not going to get the biggest house and you're not going to get all those.
God didn't promise you blessing in the earth as it were, but he's speaking in a spiritual sense.
God is no man's debtor, and if you use your resources for the blessing of God's people for the honor of Christ Himself.
In this world, he will see to it that you are honored.
That your resources are provided and that you will rejoice in your heart. That's really what it speaks of, the new wine. You will have joy in your soul.
Things may be difficult, you may have trials and those sorts of things, but he's going to provide for you and give you the joy in your soul. So I just encourage you this afternoon, young people and those of us that are older.
Just to give the Lord the best, don't give him the leftovers.
Give him the best.
So we have these rewards, have the word of God before us.
Make sure that you read the word of God. His wisdom is necessary to walk through this life.
And He'll give you length of days, He'll give you long life, and He'll give you peace. And then it says that we should really have a tender heart, loving kindness and truth. What will we get? Favor good understanding in the sight of God and men. Then He wants our implicit trust.
In verse five and then.
What will we get? He'll make playing our paths. You'll walk in a plain path in this scene. He'll guide. And then it says be not wise in thine own eyes. And so we need to have unfailing fear of God and to just walk in his favor as we seek to please him, and then to honor the Lord. And the reward, the rewards are all well worth it.
Well, that's really what I had on my heart this afternoon.
To just bring before us as we leave this conference, that we might not go back home the same way that we came, that we might have a desire heart to have the word before us daily ourselves, and to honor the Lord. So let's commend ourselves, our loving God and our Father. We thank Thee for Thy precious word, Thy love that has sought and found us.
And we thank Thee 2 That we have the eternal 1 to guide to instruct us, and we thank Thee for the love behind that work of Calvary, blessed Savior.
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We think of how Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to himself. A glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. So we looked at thee for Thy blessing our God. Help us to walk in a clean path, in a path that would be pleasing to be so preserve us. We pray as we part, and as we go to our separate homes. We pray for Thy.
Safety Thank you for the time together and the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.