Open—B. Prost
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Right from the.
Word is it or no lifting.
Here it is a body.
And suddenly from everyone.
Yes.
All.
Right.
Could we turn for a few minutes to Psalm 16?
What I have on my heart is just one verse in that Psalm.
The 16th Psalm is a very beautiful Psalm.
A great deal of interest in it because it brings before us.
The Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect dependent man.
And ultimately, of course, you and I can follow in those steps.
In perfect dependence upon the Lord for everything.
But what I would like to look at is particularly verse 5.
The whole Psalm is enough for a whole meeting in itself, but verse 5 is what I had before me.
The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup.
Thou maintainest my lot.
3 words in that verse that I believe all have real significance for you and for me.
And first of all it mentions inheritance.
I've lived long enough.
To see some real squabbles over inheritance.
Just up the road from us, where I lived for many years, where we lived for many years.
Just outside of the city of Hamilton, there was.
A farmer.
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And I had gone to high school with him, so I knew him fairly well.
And in the course of time.
His old father, whom I also knew well and who was a believer, and the son is a believer too. But the old father passed away, went to be with the Lord and left the farm. But he left a rather unusual will, and I won't go into the details of it, but it resulted in a terrific disagreement within the family that was never healed.
Inheritance.
How much it means to so many people in this world.
I was at a funeral some years ago where I happened to be talking to the undertaker who was a believer.
And he said it is so nice to be at a Christian funeral. He said most people in this world when they come to a funeral.
All they want to do is get it over with as quickly as possible, get that death certificate in their hand so that they can go out and lay claim to the inheritance.
What do you and I have?
Let's turn to first Peter for a verse.
First Peter chapter one.
Verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again.
Unto a lively or living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
To an inheritance incorruptible.
And undefiled. And that fadeth not away.
Reserved in heaven for you.
Now, that does not mean that the inheritance is in heaven or is heaven. That's not the thought. It's reserved in heaven.
But the inheritance, I believe is what we will share with Christ all created things.
Do I need to fight over an inheritance down here? It's all going to be ours very soon, isn't it?
Do we need to struggle to obtain things in this world when it's all going to be ours to share with Christ very soon?
Let's turn back to Hebrews for a verse. Hebrews chapter 8.
Just go back a few pages.
And it says there.
In verse 15.
And for this, 'cause he the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is the mediator of the New Testament or New covenant that by means of death?
For the redemption of transgressions that were under the first testament or covenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
The nation of Israel had forfeited their inheritance down here for the time being.
They had forfeited what they desired, and when the Lord Jesus came into this world, they thought immediately, at least those who recognized Him as the Messiah, that He would bring them into the good of that inheritance.
And when that didn't happen, they were very disappointed. But this epistle to the Hebrews is designed to bring them into the good.
Not of an earthly inheritance, but of a heavenly inheritance.
Will there be an earthly inheritance for them? Indeed there will be in a coming day for those godly Jews in a coming day that recognize that the Messiah is coming back to lead them into blessing. But for any one of the nation of Israel today that will listen to the gospel and respond to it, they can have what we have here in Hebrews, the promise.
Of eternal inheritance.
All created things that you and I will be able to share with Christ.
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I say to my own heart, as I say to your heart and mine.
That ought to wean us away from the things of this world, shouldn't it? It ought to make the things of this world less attractive to us.
I say it calmly.
You and I, who live in North America, have been used to what we can call.
In common terms, the good life we've been used to being able to grow up.
Get a job.
Get married, own a home, raise a family.
And when I was growing up, that was relatively easy.
Anyone, even a person who didn't have an education, could go and work in a factory and that was all something that they took for granted.
Times have changed, things are different. It's not the same as it was before.
We'll talk about that in a few minutes.
But let's remember our eternal inheritance.
Christ is pleased to share with you and me everything that God has given to him.
God has, and it was brought out this morning in the readings. God has before him the honor and glory.
The vindication of His beloved Son, and the honor and glorification of His Son.
The Lord Jesus says, but I'm not going to take it alone.
I am going to share it with those whom I have chosen to be my bride. That is you. That is I God is going to share that with all of us. We're going to share that eternal inheritance.
But there's another thought in connection with inheritance that I'd like to pass on to you.
It carries me back when I first heard the thought expressed.
Over 60 years ago, as I stood in a Funeral Home at the viewing of the body of a brother that I had known not well because he was old enough to be my grandfather.
But I certainly knew who he was and I had known him most of my life, although he was not in my local assembly. He lived in Toronto, ON, but I lived in Hamilton, only 40 miles away.
So I certainly knew him well.
And that as I stood in that Funeral Home.
An older brother happened to be my father.
Walked up to the casket.
Where the brothers Bible was sitting on top of the casket.
Took his Bible off the casket and turned to the book of Joshua. Let's turn to the book of Joshua and I'll see if I can put my finger on the verse that was read.
I think it's the last chapter of the book of Joshua.
Yes.
Last chapter. Chapter 24 of the book of Joshua.
And verses 29 and 30.
My father read those verses aloud to the widow of this brother, whom I also knew.
And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua, the son of None, the servant of the Lord, died, being an 110 years old, and they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath Sierra, which is in Mount Ephraim on the north side of the hill of Gay Ash.
Then he turned to her and he said, calling her by name.
He said your husband in one sense is going to be buried in his inheritance. He had a good inheritance. What did he mean? He meant that that brother had fully enjoyed the fullness of all the blessing that God had given us.
And that he lived in the good of it all his life. And now that he was lying there in a casket.
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He was in that sense, taking with him the enjoyment of that.
Of Christ and all the blessings that Christ has given us.
He had lived in the enjoyment of them.
He was going to enjoy even more in the coming eternity.
I say to myself, I say to your heart. And it echoes what Brother Bob was emphasizing this morning.
All of us sitting here have a rich inheritance, not necessarily something that's in the future.
Because all the blessings that are ours in Christ, it says in First Corinthians chapter 2, I hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man.
The things that God has prepared for them that love Him.
And we often think of that as future, and there's nothing wrong with that. But then it says, But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.
But you know, the children of Israel did not get the inheritance just by saying it's all ours.
Everywhere that the sole of your foot shall tread upon shall be yours.
They had to walk on it, they had to take it, they had to possess it and live in the good of it. You and I are privileged to do that.
In that sense, to think of the inheritance in that way.
Yes, in one sense the inheritance is all created things and its future.
In another sense, it's all the blessings, all the enjoyment of that.
Which God has given us through Christ, and you and I are privileged to enjoy them. Now to walk.
In the good of them.
I don't like to quote my own father too much.
But I remember once he said to me as a young man, he said, you know the truth of God and all the things that we enjoy.
Or we could enjoy have been left to us much like a large estate.
But he said if we're not careful, we're in danger of letting the greater part of it grow up to weeds and live in a small part of it.
Ouch.
There's a danger of that.
We need diligence in order to be able to walk in the good of all that is given us, and that is more than ever necessary today.
And more than ever, important to us.
Let's go back now to Psalm 16.
Psalm 16 because we have something else mentioned here.
The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup.
What is my cup? What's different about that?
We had some of the 23rd Psalm read to us this morning and it says in that Psalm, my cup runneth over.
My Cup.
My cup, I believe, would take us to the point of saying.
That is what I enjoy.
I may have a large inheritance.
With how much of it do I enjoy?
And I would say to your heart and to mine, how big is your cup?
An old brother now long since with the Lord used to remind us, you and I can have as much of Christ as we want.
And our live show how much we want.
My cup can be as big as I want it to be.
But that reminds me of something else. Remember once reading in a secular magazine?
I picked it up in the dentist's office while I was sitting there one time.
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And an article kind of caught my eye.
Again, written by a secular journalist, but he made this remark, He said if you want to do anything well in your life, in this world.
You will have to let a lot of things go that you might otherwise have done in order to do that one thing well.
He recognized that.
Anybody who has ever trained for the Olympics knows what that means.
Because in order to train for the Olympics, you don't start two weeks before the Olympics, do you?
Or a month before the Olympics. Or two months before.
You start probably four years before.
And your whole life is centered on that because your eye is on that gold medal.
You hope.
And everything else is subservient.
To training for that event, whatever it might be, and winning that gold medal.
You and I.
Have an object that God has put before us, and that's why I believe it says here.
And I know in our Old Testament here, it's really Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. And once again that brings Israel into the picture. But we're going to apply it to ourselves.
And so you cannot have that inheritance, that cup.
Excuse me for a moment.
If you're going to have the portion a large cup of that inheritance.
As we said earlier, it takes diligence. You will have to let other things go that you might otherwise have done.
And I would say.
Not trying to talk like an old man that's reminiscing or talking down to the young people. I hope it doesn't come out that way.
But I say to you.
If you.
Due diligence now, when you're young in those things, it will pay big dividends.
I can still read. I can still enjoy.
And if I put my mind to it, I can still memorize things.
It's a lot harder than it was 60 years ago. A lot harder.
I see a few people smirking. Yes, maybe some of you can relate to that.
You can remember things when you're young.
I can still remember our late brother Gordon Hayle giving an address when he was about my age, or maybe even older.
And he said to the young people, you know, if I quote a verse to you, he said, I didn't learn it yesterday.
I learned it a long time ago.
You can remember when you're young.
My Cup.
That is what you enjoy in your life.
And remember, it is not what you know that governs your life as a Christian, it's what you enjoy.
It reminds me we won't turn to it. It's in Deuteronomy.
Where the children of Israel were reminded not to try and conquer the land too quickly.
Because, it said, the beasts of the field will tend to multiply upon it. What does that mean? It meant that if they conquered that land and took it away from the Canaanites too quickly.
And yet didn't have the wherewithal and diligence, the energy.
To farm it and to look after it and use it. Then the beasts of the field would start to creep in.
And that's just what they do if you leave a piece of land.
Uncultivated and I have seen it happen.
Then pretty soon the weeds start to grow up and depending on what part of the continent you're living in, trees start to grow up.
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And then if there's no human beings much there, the wild animals just move in and start taking over.
Which in some ways is a good thing. But what does that mean? To conquer the land too quickly as Christians?
It means that if we take in too much up here.
And not enough down here.
There's a discrepancy between what I know and what I walk in.
And I hasten to say that there always is, there was always. There was only one.
Who, when he was asked who he was, could confidently say.
Altogether that which I say unto you.
Everything the Lord Jesus said, he walked in perfectly. Everything, if we could say it with all reverence, that He knew was the mind of God. He perfectly walked in. That's what this Psalm is about.
With you and I, to some degree, there's always a discrepancy between what I have up here and what's down here in my walk.
But that discrepancy?
If it gets too big.
That's what the beasts of the field are. The beasts of the field are the activity of the flesh.
Which results in the discrepancy between what I know and what I live and walk in.
And saw my cup.
Needs to be that, not only which I happen to know.
Paul refers to it in Second Timothy chapter 3.
Timothy, The things which thou hast known and been assured of.
I know something when I have learned it. I am assured of it when I walk in it.
My Cup. The Lord wants to give you and me a cup as big as possible.
And he's willing to fill whatever size cup you want to try and fill.
But it takes energy, it takes diligence, it takes laying aside things that really don't matter, I really don't need.
Yes, we need to make our way in this world. We need to earn a living.
And I have never been in any way against a young person getting an education.
If I were, I'd be condemning myself.
But the point is, what is our point of view? What is our end in view? What is our motive in getting it? Is it to get a good income? Is it to live the good life?
Or is it to use it for the Lord?
That is where it comes.
Well, let's go on.
Thou maintainest my lot.
Wonderful to have a good inheritance.
Nice to have a good sized cup that we happen to enjoy because none of us ever enjoys the whole inheritance.
But we have a cup that we enjoy.
Then my lot.
Oh dear, how many problems are concerned with my lot? And we have often heard that expression.
My lot in life for his, lot in life for something like that.
What is my lot?
My lock refers, at least I believe, in the context here, and I'd like to apply it that way.
Are my circumstances.
Oh my, that brings things right down to where the rubber hits the road, doesn't it? My lot.
I will say it right out loud that I feel very sorry in some ways for many of those that are much younger than I.
For my grandchildren and those in that age bracket, because you have a rough time in this world of today in North America, and not just here, but many places in this world.
The manufacturing in North America is not what it was.
People now call much of that wonderful.
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Era back 60 plus years ago. Now it's turned into what's they refer to as the Rust Belt.
Very difficult.
And many young people can't afford a home today, can't hope to own a home unless they have two incomes.
Or have a rich uncle that leaves him an inheritance or something like that. Or a rich grandparent that gives them money, or something along that line. It's a very difficult world out there.
My lot.
Sometimes other things come in illnesses come in setbacks.
Difficulties of every kind, and it's not just young people.
Seems every time we turn around the day we hear of someone else that has gotten really ill or faces a serious problem in his or her life. My lot.
What do we do about all those things?
I love the wording here.
Thou maintainest my law.
I thought about that a number of times when difficulties came into my own life.
And they do.
And never look at someone else and think that they have an easy time of it.
Never look at someone else and say they have it going pretty well for them.
They've gotten into something.
That farmer I told you about a while ago in connection with an inheritance that lived up the road from me.
His sister didn't get what she thought was her share of the inheritance and there was bitterness and anger in the whole family until she passed away.
His son.
Who's the same age as my daughter? I knew him well.
Very, very well. He would often complain to me about, oh, he didn't get his fair shake and all the rest of it.
Now everyone looks at them and says how they use the word out in the world, how lucky they are, what happened?
A big developer came along, wanted to buy the farm.
$22 million they got for it.
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
Pretty good lot he has, but does he have a good lot?
His health is failing.
He's my age, starting to His health is starting to go downhill. What's he going to do with $22 million? What good does it do?
Now that he's got it all.
And so it goes.
What can you and I say as believers thou maintain us my lot.
Is that going to be true right to the end? Indeed it is. Does that mean we'll always have an easy time? Does that mean we won't suffer here in North America?
Some of our brothers and sisters are being persecuted in other lands. Others have a terrible time even putting food on the table, making a go of it in any way, shape and form. And it's widespread.
You and I may have a little rougher as time goes on.
Thou maintain us my lot, we can count on the Lord, and I would encourage each one.
Whatever comes along to remember there is an inheritance ahead.
There's a cup to be enjoyed right now.
And there is one up there in the glory that says, and he promises to do it.
I will maintain your lot.