Address—J. Kilcup
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Begin our meeting tonight by singing #283.
When we survey the wondrous process on which the Lord of Glory died, our richest gain, we count but loss and for contempt of all our life where the whole realm of nature ours that we're not bringing. Far too small love that transcends our highest powers demands our souls, our life, our all and brother peace come to 83.
When we survey.
That was great.
Would you open your Bibles to begin with to the 40th chapter of the Book of Psalms?
Songs 40.
We know that this Psalm, in part at least, is a prophetic.
Word as to the Lord Jesus, It also speaks to us of an actual experience that David had.
But we also have a personal application and the 1St 4 verses I like to just briefly speak on that.
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Verse one of chapter 40 I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my going. And he had put a new song in my mouth, Even praise unto our God. Many shall see it in fear, and shall trust in the Lord. Bless it is that man who maketh the Lord his trust.
And respect is not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
These little 4 verses here encompass the entirety of the divine life.
First of all, if you see this man, he said.
He heard my cry. I he inclined into me and heard my cry.
Love it. That's a saved life.
By the grace of God in our need, we have cried to him.
And he has answered that cry, and he has saved us, and He has saved us on the basis of the finished work of Christ.
We have a saved life tonight, a life which cannot be touched by events, by human powers, by difficulties, trials, nothing.
It saved life.
So you can have the confidence, and I can have the confidence tonight that no matter what may take place in your life or mine, we have a saved life.
Lord heard our cry. He inclined his ear to imagine that the Lord of glory inclining himself to such a view of me. But such is the grace of God.
Secondly, you notice he says he brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my loins. We not only have a saved life, but we have a secure life.
Our feet are upon a rock.
Ways. Many calm billows may roll, but nothing can move.
From this rock.
On the West Coast, we've been having not long ago, severe earthquake, a severe shaping in the northwest where I come from there anticipating one more severe than the 1 experienced in Crystal.
9.1 The beloved We're looking for the shout not to shake, and this is because of the rock on which we stand. No other foundation but this rock. There's no other hope but this one.
Oh, they save life. A secured life. And verse 3, There's something more. The crescendo grows, he says. And he had put a new song in my mouth, even praised unto our God, we have a satisfied life. We now have a song to sing.
And you know, it's not a song with the lips or the mouth. It's a song of the heart. It says many shall see it.
And fear and trust in the Lord is something that is visible, is something that cannot be hid. It's.
Something that is outstanding in an evil, corrupt, Pagan world. A heart that sings.
He put a new song, A satisfied life. You know, the Christian life is a paradox. You've discovered it's a satisfied life because we know that it is a saved life and that our feet are on the solid rock. But yet.
But yet, as David cried, my soul thirsted as a thirsty man. We the more we know of Christ and the satisfaction that he gives, the more we want, the more we realize there is to learn and know.
And so the Apostle Paul, after 25 years of walking with the Lord, as none other, had he said, oh, that I might know him.
It was just he had just been introduced. You know, sometimes you meet someone, they'll ask you if you did. You meet so and so up at Fredericton. Well, I, you know, I I met him. I shook hands with him.
That's seems to be Paul's attitude that he just had been introduced to the Lord and he just when he wanted to know more about him. Well, you know, that's going to be our occupation for eternity, learning the riches of his grace.
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But I wonderful to start now to have been given the grace to have an appetite for.
Christ, you know that I would like to do tonight. I would like to create in your heart and mind a divine discontent.
To stir us up, to be discontented, if you were in the portion that we have in Christ, because it is so small, you know it's enough to take us into glory. But you know, it's like the woman who went to the ocean, Pacific Ocean after having raised in the Midwest, or in poor circumstances, he saw all of that water out there the first time in her life she'd ever seen something more than enough.
And it's like you and me, as we would dip our little cups into that ocean. We make no impression on it at all. We fill our little cup, but there's more and there's more.
All to hunger and thirst after Christ, you know, that's the promise of the 5th chapter of Matthew, he said. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. And I kind of crossed it out of my Bible and wrote in Christ because he is my righteousness.
And as I hunger and thirst after him, that is a soul appetite, It's not a surface one.
But it's a pride of a soul that's dissatisfied. There's hunger in thirsting after and it promises they should be killed.
There's a verse in the 13th chapter of Hosea that says according to their pastors, so were they filled?
And whatever we want, we're feeding on whatever we are.
Whatever our appetites are, that's what we are.
I can remember my aunt who you're speaking on tonight, my aunt Elsie.
It was kind of an individual.
To say the least, she's a dear St. An unusual St. But one time she was going to get super healthy and so she began to eat or drink carrot juice.
And she drank a lot of carrot juice, and she began to turn the color of a carrot. I often told her, I told her I used her as an illustration many times, because it's so vivid, an illustration as to according to your past, you're sorry. You feel whatever our appetites are taken up with, that is going to be.
The primary myself, one of the boy we had on the farm.
A big water tank. I bought it. I don't know how many thousands of gallons or maybe 1000. I've forgotten which because on the other side of that tank there was a gauge that when it dropped down to a certain level that automatically kicked in. It's supposed to, but the reason the gauge was on the outside is so that the neighbors down the hill to so I'd get down too low and it didn't kick in well, then they would turn it on manually, but you could tell what the water was and that tank by the gauge, Love it. I think that that is true with you and me.
Our intake of the word of God. There's a We manifest the gauge as to where we are in our relationship with Christ. Tonight, you and I are.
Enjoying Christ.
Exactly as we have chose to. He is dear to you tonight and precious to you, just as you have chosen.
That's a condemnation to me because I feel I know him so well. I do want to know him better, better. And he's given me the spirit of the spirit within me that has an appetite. And he wants to minister to me. He wants to minister Christ to my soul. And that is exactly his purpose of being here. The Spirit of God didn't want you and me to magnify Christ in our soul.
But there's more. And this is the my, my thought of this meeting tonight in the fourth verse. We have a safe life. He has saved us. We have a secure life. He had set our feet on a rock. We have a satisfied life. He's given us a new song. And fourthly.
This I would like to call it. A surrendered life and blessed is a man that trusteth in the Lord, that is has committed himself totally incompetence to God. No reservations. He's not influenced by the proud, he's not influenced by the flies or the Father of lies, but he is surrendered.
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To God. And why would not we be surrendered? We indeed we are poor. We have poor thoughts of him if we haven't considered having them saved and set up on a rock and put it given a new song, not to surrender ourselves.
You see, and so we have A1 instrument, beloved, that God that we can give to Him one instrument.
I had his phone and Romans 12/1, and he said, I beseech you by the merchant of God, that he presents your body as a living sacrifice, that is surrender.
And that's what he wants.
He's got it all.
You know, I would like to.
By the way, that verse in Romans 12/1 That we often hear, and it's a powerful verse, it tells us there that it is the instrument that God will accept and that he desires, but He's given us the means by which we do it, He said, I beseech you by the mercies of God, that's it's only the mercies of God that have a controlling power over your spirit and mind, over your will and mind as we contemplate the mercies of God.
In the 32nd chapter of Psalm that speaks about being encompassed, surrounded by the mercies of God, a wall of mercies accomplish you and me.
Thrill our hearts, Oh my adaptive.
I'd like to look at a man who had a surrendered life.
In the scriptures and.
He didn't live a perfect life by any means. None of.
The men in this book, The perfect life except one. And that's why it's recall the hymn book, it's all about him, Jesus, the perfect man.
All of the outstanding men that were used were failures.
Some of the said, I think it was Mr. Bella did it not. Mr. Wolston said that God seems to be have chosen those who stumble about to be used.
The weak affairs is. Why? Because it's the.
It magnifies his grace. I think it was Hudson Taylor that hadn't written in front of his Bible.
He has chosen me that his grace might be magnified.
It's it's wonderful to think that he looked down through the universe, through the ages and he said I want you, you, you. I I am choosing you.
Not because you deserve it. At no time do we come to God because we deserve anything from you. But his grace embraces us.
Well, turn to Genesis, please.
Walker, Genesis and Chapter 12.
A surrendered man.
I'd like to take him up at this point because this is the time that he gets is calling but he.
He's like doing me. He doesn't respond at first like he ought to, but verse one of chapter 12 of Genesis. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, and to a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. Notice that.
There are 4 promises here to this man Abram.
To be a father of numerous descendants he was. He said that he was to be blessed personally I will bless thee and and it speaks of he's going to receive personal honor and he said I'll make that name great and then he speaks of he's going to be a channel of blessing to many and certainly that is true and it will be even more so in the time ahead.
Verse 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them, and curse thee, and indeed shall all families of the earth be blessed. And so here is the covenant with this man Abram, who was called out of the land of earth previously, and he has got as far as Karen would, and where his father died. And now he's.
As first speaks to us. And so Abraham Abraham departed, as the Lord has spoken unto him. And Locke went with him. And Abram was 70 and five years old when he departed out of Erin.
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His father, Tara, stands for the flesh. You know it kind of.
Speaks of the ties of nature, and this is always in a way to enter into a port and a deeper relationship with the Lord Jesus. Nature's ties and it hindered Abram from fully responding to the word of God to come out. But the Lord Jesus said in the Matthew.
Kenny said that a man's fold will be the day of his own household.
And so oftentimes those nearest to us are they are hindrance to understand the surrendered life.
We have the flesh within us. That is something that we deal with. But there's also the fleshly pies, nature's ties, that we have to consider and often hinder our Holy Father in the Lord. I can remember after my father died, Jimmy Smith came and worked at our place for a year. We were putting together the music edition of The Little Flock Him Book.
Jan of doing the typing and I was doing some layout work and Jimmy was doing the organizing of it.
He was a great trust in that project, but for a year he was with us and he he became a spiritual father.
And remember there be there's quite a plan of us as you may know in the Northwest and we're close and there's always some family doings and Jimmy would like to visit among the assemblies in the Northwest and often ask us to go along. And I remember only happened once there was a family get together coming up and it was going to conflict with a proposed trip. He just took me aside and he says Jimmy.
If you're going to commit your life to God.
You're going to have to make a choice.
The large thing for your family things.
Well, we went. Wasn't that time? And we have tried to make decisions. But I was just sharing with them tonight that not long ago I was at my desk contemplating praying about the trips that had to be made and first thing I knew I was figuring out how long it's going to be away from my grandchildren.
You know, I I, I miss him, have been gone too long. And so I had to judge that and sit back and say oh Lord.
I'll try to deal with that.
But it's just a poor illustration that how often the flesh nature hinders us from this surrendered life. And it was to Abram Abraham Here. Now there's something else. You notice. It's verse four. It says that Abram was 70 and five years old when he departed by the parent.
This is when God began to speak to him again. He did not speak to him while he was inherent.
It's only when they begin to March that God spoke. And you know, I believe it speaks to us that whenever we act on what He has shown to us, that He's going to give us more light and more blessing, more encouragement. But if we refuse to act on what He has made known to us, we're not going to give any blessing or any further light.
But he was 75 here and sometimes we wonder how old. Maybe I'm too old or too young or.
To only follow the Lord. But there doesn't seem to be any age significance in scripture. If you look at some of the you know the history of Saint Josiah who was eight years old when he said that he only followed the Lord.
I mean, he meant business at 8 years old.
And at 16, he went down. He tore down the idols of his people. I mean this, this young guy, he, at 16, he went to work for God.
And if you take the case of Abram, here you use 75. Moses was 80 when he came out from the desert and got his marching orders.
And so there doesn't seem to be any age difference as to when God will accept our poor hearts. The response of our hearts not whatever. And I remember even to the bed, even to the bedside. I remember how long ago speaking to her sister in her bed and agent sister and.
She was saying words that maybe you hear quite often as they don't. I don't know why the Lord is leading me here.
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I want to go home and I'm no good to anybody. And the more we talk, the more I learned that she was praying about this one and she'd tell me about that one she'd pray for. And she had a privilege there going like crazy. So I said, sister, it's obvious why everybody left here.
You know, there's nothing like intercessory prayer. Nothing. And there's nothing harder than intercessory prayer. Nothing.
Or difficult that Satan will hinder us, the flesh will weaken it, and we it is difficult to storm the Word, the throne of grace.
I saw a bloody there's nobody could say. And if you read the 71St chapter of Psalms, it's it's written for those who are, should we say, mature? They're getting on in years. That's a beautiful chapter. It says don't be, don't get any rocking chair and rock away and wait until the Lord comes. There's no condition of your soul and mind, whatever the age may be, that we cannot.
We cannot.
Exercise Intercessory prayer.
At the Hicks Lake in November, we go out there three times a year.
For Labor Day.
3 1/2 days and in November were there for Friday evening, Saturday and Thursday, and then two weeks before Easter. We've been doing this for 30 some years.
At this last November was the most unusual time that we have ever had in this respect. Generally, we have ministry and fellowship. It's a time of informal fellowship and and and ministry. But this time, the first meeting, we always begin with prayer. We get on our knees before God. But there were so many requests for prayer, for the Saints, for troubled young people. And it went on and on and on. And finally we had to hold, wait a minute. We had to make a list.
Of all these names that were being submitted.
There were 40, some 40, some that were a burden to the different ones there for prayer. And so we did something very unusual, different than we never did. We divided the company into four groups, two groups of women, two groups of men. Each group got a list to pray for, specifically pray for them.
And.
That's what we did most of the time that we were there, Intercessory prayer for those who have been committed to us for prayer. And a lot of things happened.
There's nothing we know, though, about the principles that the Lord Jesus spoke of and mark 929 about prayer and fasting. I mean getting serious before God was a burden.
And things have been happening since then. The prayers have continued. Some of those lists are still going around.
I will give you 1 dramatic illustration. That's not the only one.
The daughter of one of my brother and sister. She is about 28 or 30. She is a black belt.
Professional. I mean, she's as high as she can go in the black belt karate field. I know nothing about it, except that I would not want to mess with this girl. She was hard. Hard. She hadn't shed a tear for years. She was an Army Reserve. She was toughened and rough as any man he'd want to tangle. She would not allow anybody to even touch her. She would end up in a corner.
She was on on those prayers on one particular paradise.
It was the following week. She was totally sweet. She had broken.
She was in the branch, She was an alcoholic. She her health went out from under her. She had financial problems. They all came together. Was it by chance?
I don't believe so. The intercessory prayer of those people. God's people storming the word, the portals of heaven. That girl, she wept for two days. All the bitterness, all the anger, all the hatred. Just.
Left through her soul.
Now you have to be careful when you're under it because she's so affectionate. She'll just grab you, give a big hug, little snap your spine. But that is what the intercessory prayer will accomplish. And we know so little about it. But this is what we all.
By the grace of God, we have the privilege of doing it. But it's, only, I believe, motivated by a sense of me, Motivated by a sense of need, only by a sense of need.
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You know.
Great fatal attitude of the Christians that Laodicea was this. It says that they have need of nothing. When we lose our sense of need, we've lost it, we've lost our privileges, we've lost a blessing, and we've become just as lukewarm and deadly as those folks were.
You know there are three spiritual temperatures for the Christian soul. One of them is in Matthew, where he speaks about the love of many shall grow cold.
Because of the Evil times.
And that's always.
Danger. Because we're living, we're surrounded by a powerful force of evil, and it's saturated in everything as never before.
Unless we are vigilant, it is going to do us in, but our hearts can grow cold.
And then in the Revelation 3 speech there of those and lay at the sea. The parks were lukewarm, but those are in the 24th chapter of Luke's Gospel. Remember on the way to and I asked when I met the Lord and it says after he had talked with them and and instructed them in a way that their hearts burned within them. That's kind of a heartbeat.
A burning part.
18.
What's wrong?
That have a sense of need in our souls.
Sense of poverty. How little I know. How little I I respond to this, this law that transcends our highest power as we sing it. Do we understand it?
You know, 11 Times in the gospel.
The Lord Jesus spoke to this, to those Pharisees and scribes, He says. You know the scriptures. Don't you know the scriptures? You surely knew the scriptures, but they didn't know the implications of it.
And oftentimes, I think we sing and we read without understanding the implications of what we're singing or what we're reading.
But you know the scripture that says God makes the heart soft? God maketh the heart soft, and the more tender our hearts are, I believe, the sweeter the soul will be.
Brother one time said that.
The nearness of Christ. What sweet makes you sweet?
There will be less porcupines among us if we are near Christ.
Anybody. We must get on to this chapter.
Well, Abraham took Surrey, his wife, and watch his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the soul that they had gotten inherent, And he went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan and Canaan.
Well, apparent means parts drive.
Again, God didn't reveal anything to Abram while he was in that place, but death had set Abram free. The death of his father set him free from that of his. And death has sent you and me free. Calvary has set you and me free from the not only from the the judgment to come and set us free from all the that was against us, by the way that has set us free from ourselves.
Set street from the flesh which power to walk in newness and life now because he is satisfied death had come in.
Well, he says to Abram, passed through the land and to the place.
Second, she can marginalized.
Until the plane of Moral and the Canaanite was dead in the land.
And the Lord appeared unto Abraham, said Unto thy seed will I give this land, And there buildeth he and alterance of Lord who appeared.
This is the second time in the history of Abram that he has spoken to by God.
And.
The promise is I will give, I will give.
This verb appears over 1000 times in the scriptures and more often it is used, I believe in relation to his personally people, what he is promised to give them, but his heart was just open to give these people.
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From the fullness of his heart.
So he said, I will give.
And here we find and building an ark, an altar. So an altar is built here. And I suppose it's significant that it's an author of obedience. He's now acting on what God had told him to do.
And I suppose that beloved is the first step in in a life that is surrendered, that has been one, by the master space of God, that of obedience.
So he builds this often it's vain for you and me to speak about loving the Lord and singing these hymns. And you know, we all fail miserably. Abraham, yeah, failed and David failed. Peters failed, and they all have failed. But the motives, the mainspring of their life was was was surrendered to God.
And and so.
This man he.
He doesn't alter.
You know.
Love fails when we disobey.
The disciples remember told in the 28th chapter of Matthew to go into the mountain and wait for the Lord the gallery. And if we turn to the 21St chapter of John, we find that they did not do what they were told to do.
Their love failed and they went back to fishing.
But love fails when we disobey. And so he said, The Lord says, if you love me, you will keep my words. See the one sings in one standard preset of our love. And evidence, at least, is that we love to obey. And he removed from there and to a mountain the beast of Bethel, and fished his tents, having vessels on the West, and AI on the east. And there he built an altar, another altar, unto the Lord, and called.
At the time of the name of the Lord, and so he's traveling now.
But he says that he travels. He builds his altar. He never gets far from his altar, his place of worship.
And this here is you could say the altar of the Pilgrim. And this is one thing that I think identified set Abram apart is is Pilgrims character. He never lost that.
He pitched his tent from place to place as he moved toward the landlord.
So in verse 9, and Abram journeyed, going still toward the South.
Now the South is attracting him, he gravitates toward Egypt, and we see that he's going to move away now from the relationship he had with God.
Because he's attracted into the South toward Egypt.
And I suppose we could say when looking toward the world.
Spiritual barrenness comes into our life when we saturate our souls, our hearts, with the things, the leeks and the garlics and the cucumbers of this life.
We're not going to enjoy the blessings, the fullness of his goodness to us. So we find that he slips into a duplicity here in verse 10. And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt as a soldier in there, for the famine was grievous in the land and came to class 2018. I've come here to enter into Egypt, that he sent him to Sarah, his wife, to fall down. I know that our affair.
Woman to look upon. And therefore it shall come to pass from the Egyptians shall see thee that they shall say this is his one, And they will kill me, but they will say they.
So he went down. Now he's often heard the expression going down. Jonah went down and say certainly a a significant expression here and his heart is moving away from his all her as aims as he famine speaks of testing of course and certainly a time for Christians. Things come into our life to to test his faith. Blessings never come apart from the test the famine to see how we're going to are we going to count on God? Are we going to trust him? Blessed is a man that trusts in the Lord. Do we have our a full confidence in him?
Or are we making expressions and reading into things that we fail to gain the implications of it, the sweetness of it? So he.
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Makes this arrangement with his wife. By the way, the Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered several years ago were found that they among them the remark about Abraham's wife, how beautiful a woman she was. Which group first agrees with this scripture here? That she was beautiful? Fair to look upon.
So he makes this arrangement. He lost his, he lost his peace, you might say, and began to work. And his courage fails. And when our courage fails, our faith.
Fails. He was not looking to the God of the altar.
And beloved, what a lesson to us when we get looking about casting, about the condition of things rather than having our eyes fixed upon the Savior, enjoying our our secured, our safe, our satisfied life that we have been given because of what He suffered for us and accomplished for us. But how easy it is, you know, we've all experienced this, to lose our peace and begin to make arrangements, begin to tinker with things. The young man we were speaking to it the other day, he.
Is in deep trouble, soul trouble. Life problems are overwhelming it, and he's trying to do this and trying to do that. And he is so sworn a woman up there, overwhelmed by his problems, that he just seems to be a fail between he and his daughter.
We Thursday.
Cast himself on the Lord and seek His will and His only It's going to cost something. It will always cost something, particularly when we have sown a certain course. There is a ripping and it will always be the reaping, whether we are saved or lost. But there's joy and there can be blessing in the end. But you know, to be so hungry, to be so thirsty.
For the will of God in their life that we will say, Lord, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, what grace, what grace to be able to say that whatever it is. A young woman back home in her 30s, she was a dear Christian. She is a dear Christian, and I thought she had a a a godly walk. She was an encouragement to the to the rest of us.
And private time for savings. And she said, you know, I want a deeper walk with the Lord and whatever it takes, I pray that whatever it takes, Lord, that's what I want.
Within six weeks she and her husband were rear-ended on the freeway and they were three weeks in the hospital and traction and the rest of their life. They have a special room in their home now with therapeutic.
Machines and exercise equipment for physical therapy.
But she said I would not have it any other way because she has a relationship through that experience with him, not only with the Lord but with her husband that she didn't have before.
She said I wouldn't have any other way. So when we, when we take that risk, allow it to say Lord, whatever it takes.
For God.
But joy and blessing is at the end of it, the conclusion of if we just open ourselves to whatever His will might think, because his will is an expression of his heart to you and me.
Sometimes we think we're grudgingly if we give to the ourselves up to the will of God, that it's going to mean sacrifice and and the loss of this or that, but it all it is into the expression of the heart of God for you and me.
And talking about that.
Well, you notice that.
They the Princess in verse 15. Also Carol saw her that's sorry and commended her before fell and the woman was taken into Pharrell House.
Now it's interesting that you know from the book of Esther that a girl, a woman who was presented for the wife of a ruler, that there was a period of preparation for her before she could become his wife. And during that period, I believe, as as far as Sarah is concerned.
During that period of preparation was that God says it was verse 17 the Lord played Pharaoh and his house with great pleasure because of Sarah, Abraham's wife and Cheryl called Abram and said.
What is this that thou has done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me that this was not thy wife?
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Why saidest thou? She is my sister. So I have taken her to me as my wife. Now therefore, behold thy wife take her, and pull thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they sent him away, and his wife, and all we have.
What is sad, What a sad thing you have to be corrected by by the world, as it were. This man, this Abram, this man of faith, this, this giant that we're going to find, we we feel like.
Burt bath Krishna that is in the water an inch deep compared to as far as our faith goes compared to this man.
But he's growing, and that's a process that we all I trust, they're in. If we follow the history of this man, Abram, we'd see that he indeed grew to be a mighty man of faith. But here we see that he had acted in such a way that he had to be corrected by a godless man.
And you know the unbeliever, the godless man that we may have as neighbors or a school or whatever. They may not know the Bible, but they know you. They they, they know what you ought to be. And they're quick to criticize and use it as a rationale for their wickedness or their ignorance of the word of God because they look at you and me in the state.
Not for me. Nothing in that.
Look up. Let's see some of the Christian leaders in Christendom, how they've been exposed in the media.
And held up as a derision of Christianity.
Was a tragedy, but a tragedy. What a dishonor to the Lord Jesus for you and me in any way to walk into those about us would say, look at that man. Put it down. It's full of half truths. That's what they had told my sister. Well, I was 1/2 truth.
To extradite himself, but he feared, might be a difficult situation.
And allow it again. May there be such wholeheartedness, commitment to the will of God, that there be none of this, none of this game playing as Abram did here, in order to save our skin.
But maybe you so surrendered that, as that girl said to her, whatever it takes, your will is what I want and nothing less.
And so this chapter, well, it gives us the story of Abram, I believe, at the beginning of his journey. But he drifted out of fellowship, out of communion with God. And in this whole chapter, there's hardly a mention of of God on his way down to the South, as he's attracted toward Egypt somewhat. He wasn't happy there either, you know, he wasn't happy. And which is really typical of the world, that we're not going to be happy.
Yes, and seeking to to adjust to circumstances and to compensate for this or that we we were not happy. The only possible way for you and me to be happy as believers is a surrendered life. Blessed is a man that trusteth in the Lord, and that trusting implies in the in the original, a total capitulation to a person.
No reservations.
And at this minute, he wasn't happy there. But notice what it was. What else was true there That they weren't happy with him either?
Goes out all the way around.
You and I have believers are going to be miserable if we make the compromises and the adjustments to the lot did in his history. He was the greatest compromiser, probably in the word of God.
You know, he went along with Abram, but he was a mere echo of Abram. He never had a personal exercise of his own in his life. He was a follower, but he was a compromiser and he was an adjuster, and I think you and I can relate to that.
Told of a certain manner, who I thought was a Christian on this trip and rather than saying, well, when he's with believers he acts one way and when he's with the people of the world, he acts another way. He's a chameleon. Whoever he's with, that's he is and.
You know, we have that within us that wants to be accepted, to be, to belong, you know, to be one of the among our peers.
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But you know instead of John that he was a burning and shining light, John McDonald's joined the Baptist, a burning and shining light amongst all of those people, those rebels, those rejecters are one of the burning of the shining light. And the burning and shining light says I must decrease and he must increase. And that was eroded the path to the happiness for you and me too. But when we it's a constant thing when we get out of fellowship.
It's possible that may you and I be so sensitive and so jealous. So far our relationship with the Lord Jesus. So I have such a thirsty soul as a thirsty land that we want to drink in and submit to this blessed book. I asked a brother, 89 years old as a 88 and just had his birthday.
Been the Lord's for many, many, many years and I said what's your I said if you could say in 50 words or less, what would you say The secret of a Christian life.
He didn't take 50 words. He took three, he said. Read the book.
That's it. I read it with the understanding the implications of it and read it not to learn but to obey and I think below too that.
As we learn, we want to remember that.
So intake of truth has one one ultimate conclusion, and only one, and that is to make this Christ like those in the in the Assembly who minister.
Most of Christ should be seen in them.
That is so true because.
If we take in truth, if we understand, taken, learn and understand and gather the knowledge from this book and it doesn't conform me to Christ is going to manifest or flash in me. And so we need that that humility that that brings you see to to learn Christ as we take in the scriptures. And you know that the higher we grow in grace the lower we go in self importance. If you see Jim Kilter making much of himself you know that he is not.
Enjoying the grace of God, He is not walking in the grace of God. And if any of our company is is like that as a flesh, the flesh has come in and as we know that scripture says, knowledge does blow us up.
And so we don't want to be, that's we want to be Christ like God. Make it the heart sauce if he can, then take that softness that elevates that soil of a soft heart. And it can, it can mold it and conform it to Christ.
And one of these moments, Father, we're going to be just like him.
Just, I think morally.
His name is going to be on our foreheads, which means we're going to have his character.
How beautiful, how wonderful that even even now that there can be the features of that one, that man in the glory seems in you and me.
Well, I am so by His grace.
You sing with me number.
And for 3/28.
Lord Jesus.
To tell of I love our souls shall forever deal.
#328.
Lord Jesus.