Regina Conference: 2015
Table of Contents
2 Peter 1:1-4
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I've been thinking lately about a God has given us a nature that we can enjoy what he enjoys. We all know that we have that nature, but God would have us to live the life that we have. And I'd like to suggest a chapter because I I believe that we can all plead guilty to being cold in soul and knowing these things but not enjoying them.
And so we have that great privilege.
To enjoy the very same thing that God enjoys that the Father enjoys about the Son and that the Son enjoys about the Father. So I'd like to suggest second Peter and the first chapter. I believe that it is a chapter that gives us tools to enjoy that nature which every believer has.
And so I was thinking perhaps of, uh.
Maybe I could just explain why I am suggesting this chapter. It says that the ninth verse Speaking of believers.
But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off. He's nearsighted those eternal things and have forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. I think perhaps, if we're honest, we can all plead guilty at some time in our life in these things. But we don't have to settle for that. We can enjoy these promises. We have the Spirit of God.
You say the second chapter, the 1St chapter of Second Peter did that. Is that what I said? No. Yes. OK.
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Second Peter, chapter one.
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained light precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain us to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue.
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by thee He might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, and besides this giving all diligence.
Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you, that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that locketh these things is blind, and cannot see far off.
And I've forgotten that he was cursed from his old sins. Wherefore the rather brethren give diligence to make her calling an election sure where if he do these things, he shall never fail.
For sowing upon entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things.
So you know them, and we established in the present truth. Yeah, I think it's me, as long as I am in this Tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle.
Even as our Lord Jesus Christ assured me. Moreover, I will endeavour that He may be able, after my deceased, to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly divisive when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory.
This is my beloved Son, to whom I am well pleased. I'm this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mountain.
We have also a more sure word of prophecy whereon we do well. Let ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in his dark place until the day dawn, when the Daystar arrives in your heart. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. Where the prophecy came down in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
When studying the 2nd epistles, we must remember that the Spirit of God has before us the breakdown of the Christian testimony. Remember that when you read the 2nd epistle.
Second Timothy, second Peter, second John, so on. And they've used, uh, various aspects of the breakdown and gives the believers resources in view of the breakdown on the Christian testimony. I think what you get before us in second Peter is the, uh, the letting go of practical godliness in life.
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And being preserved.
By the sovereignty, by the Lord, by God's sovereignty. Excuse me.
Divine means of being kept in an evil day.
It's very interesting to me to see.
In scripture, how often you get 2 lines of truth side by side, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, and you get it here in this chapter. Our preservation therefore, is not all on God's side. He wants us to be responsibly exercised in it. And so you'll see in the 1St 4 verses the sovereignty of God brought up what He gives in order that we might be preserved in the past.
And then from verse five on through the end of the chapter, we have to give to there's responsibility on our part. And he mentions how that we need to give diligence to various things that will work together for our practical preservation.
And the instruction to go on in a day of ruin in the second Epistles is not so much instruction in connection with going on for the Lord amidst the darkness of heathendom, but amidst the professing Christian testimony at the time. And I think when we read the 2nd Epistles in that light, it really gives more important to what? To what we read, just as a matter of a point. Sometimes we read Second Timothy chapter 3, where it speaks about the last days in perilous times. And perhaps in our minds we think of that in connection with violence and corruption and all the things that are going on in a physical way in the world.
Well, there are certainly many scriptures that bring before us that the last days are characterized by outward violence and corruption and.
We certainly are very aware of it in the day in which we live, but that's not what Two Timothy 3 is talking about.
The perilous times there in the last days are that which has taken place in the Christian profession. And when you read it in that light, I say it really gives impact and import to it. And when we take up an epistle like Second Peter here to realize that he's encouraging the Saints to go on and bringing before them the resources that they have in God and in Christ in the midst of the ruin of Christian profession.
Because brethren, we can go on. There's, there's light and instruction, there's resources to go on for the Lord's glory, even in a day when the truth of God and practical Christianity and, and practical holiness is being, is being given up. We don't have to compromise. Timothy was told in his day to continue. And I say that because I think sometimes, and maybe when we're younger, but not so young too, we look around.
As the condition of things amongst believers, the condition of things in that which we refer to as Christendom or professing Christianity, and we say, can we really go on in the truth of God?
Can we really go on as gathered to the Lord's name? Can we really go on and take up the principles that are laid down for us and the pattern in the early Acts and so on? Yes, we can. There's provision to go on.
To to the very end. And so we don't have to compromise. We don't have to say, well, everybody's doing it and Christians are doing it here and there and we've got to give a little bit. We don't have to compromise.
It's illustrated, no doubt, in the life of Daniel and his three friends in the first few chapters of Daniel.
Difficult day, many brought from Babylon. I don't know how many of those young men were brought in to be schooled, to stand before the king. A lot of them compromised. But Daniel and his three friends said, no, it's a different day, yes, we're in a different place, yes, but we're going to stand for the truth. And so with what we have here in this epistle, brethren, these are days of giving up, days when we see the seeds of apostasy on every hand, days when there's compromise.
Uh, even amongst the Christian profession. But we can go on for the Lord's glory and do it to the end as well.
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There's an author in the Christian world by name of Francis Schaeffer. Some are familiar with them perhaps, but he, uh, he made this, he makes a statement that, and I think he wrote, wrote the book. It says the God that is and, and that's kind of a, umm, I kind of like that statement. The God that gives, and I believe that is where we have to start is that God is, and he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
And that's not necessarily.
The, the, the, the lost, because the lost don't seek God. It's those that have life that seek God. And so if we want to know what God's will is, Jim has to comment on, we don't look around at the, at the, at all that is going on out there and compare. But we have to know, I believe as the starting point is to know what God's will is. And so we start with God and then we see what his will is and if we really want to know his will.
Was read to us this morning in first of Peter chapter 5 and I'll just read it. Uh, verse five says likewise, ye younger submit yourselves unto the elder. Yeah, all of you be subject 1 to another and be clothed with humility. And it seems to me as the second Peter has taken up, uh, as uh, the apostle Peter speaks here. He doesn't pronounce himself as the apostle, but in deep humility.
He presents himself as Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, but he's a servant first. And in humility he addresses the Saints. And I think that this is necessary in the day that we live in is to recognize that we're just a bunch of zeros, we're nothing. And it's really Christ. And that's what the the Lord uses Peter here to bring out. And in humility he seeks to bring before the Saints before his departure the.
Promises, these great and precious promises that God has brought before, uh, the Saints and given to the Saints and in the same way as the apostle Paul as he prayed in chapter one of uh, Ephesians that he wanted them to enter into the.
Knowledge of those things, and then he wanted them to enjoy those things. And so Peter, uh, in humility speaks and teaches the Saints in this way. So it's, uh, incumbent upon us as well, isn't it? So Simon was what he was by nature. Peter was what he was by grace. And it's very interesting as Robert says, that he uses these both names here. He doesn't in the beginning of the first epistle there, it's Peter, an apostle.
As He brings the truth before the Saints there, but here He takes his place as it were, and identifies with the failure that has come in amongst the people of God. And brethren, we all have to identify with the failure that has come in amongst the people of God.
And when you go through scripture, the men and women that were used in blessing to God's people.
At times of failure and ruin where those not those who'd stood apart and said well, I, I, I haven't had any part in this. I've been faithful. No, they are those that have identified with the failure that has come in again, Daniel.
Identify Daniel was confessing his sins, you say, what sins did Daniel have to confess? He was a upright, righteous man. He had purpose of heart, but there he takes his place amongst the uh, with the failure that had come in the ruin that had come in amongst the people of God. And that is always the way of blessing. So he, Simon Peter again, Simon is what he was by nature when he acted in the flesh in Luke's Gospel chapter 22.
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The Lord didn't address him as Peter. He said, Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat. He took him up on that ground because he wasn't acting on the resources that he had been given by grace.
But here he takes his place, as Robert said, in humility. He takes his place a month with the failure that had come in. And again, what we have here is believers in the midst of the Christian profession.
In the midst of failure. And it is never assumed in many of the 2nd epistles that everyone that makes a profession is a true believer. And it's important to see that there are expressions in Timothy and Peter and some of the epistles that you're not going to understand, that you're going to misconstrue if you don't realize that it's not assumed that every person he's writing to is a true believer. And that that is especially true in the epistles that are written to Jewish believers, if I can put it that way, like Hebrews.
Like Peter and and James is another one. Those are and the Jewish believers understood this from their Old Testament history. There went up a mixed multitude out of Egypt and God brought to bear circumstances in the wilderness that brought out the reality or the lack thereof that within their heart. And with many of them, God was not well pleased and they fell in the wilderness as First Corinthians 10 tells us. So again, it's Christianity. It's it's a exhortation to true believers to avail themselves of the resources they have and to live practical godly lives in the midst of the Christian profession. And so he begins here by addressing those of like precious.
Faith. Those are real, aren't they, Bruce?
There are two kinds of professing Christians. There are those who are merely professing and there are those who are sincerely professing. And we like to think that we're looking into the faces of those who are sincerely professing to be believers. So it's not wrong to be a professing believer. We, we should all be such. We profess that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But as I say, there are some who are merely professing. It's only an outward speak, but the life and the life is not there.
But yes, getting back to what you say there, Jim, about the light precious faith, as we mentioned, the chapter has two parts to it really, and that is God's part, what He's given him for us to be preserved. And then our part, what we need to be exercised about doing, and the 1St 4 verses really bring before, is what God has done, God's part, we might call it. He's given us light precious faith, which is the Christian revelation of truth to occupy our hearts and souls and build us up.
He's given to us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, and He's given us the greatest promises. That's verses 1, three, and four. These are the things that God has given in order that we might be preserved. It doesn't guarantee that we will be preserved because we have to give to there needs to be exercise and diligence in this matter, and that's taken up from verse five on through to the end of the chapter.
And the tendency in this day and age is to go to sleep. And so this is a dying man's exhortation, isn't it? Yes, he says. Uh.
12Th verse Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and be established in present truth. Yeah, I think at me, as long as I am in this Tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing.
That shortly I must put off this tent for Tabernacle.
Even as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me, so his desire is that the Saints might not go to sleep.
Spiritually.
Just as we begin this portion as well, it's interesting to notice that the apostle Peter is the one that uses this word precious. And he doesn't seek to hide the fact that he had failure in his past. He was truly humbled. And he addresses the Saints in a humble way and he presents to them something that's precious to his heart. And he says, you know, you have the like precious faith, the very same faith that we have as apostles.
We were brought into blessing as the into the knowledge of the Lord Jesus as our Savior and through the righteousness of God and of our Savior Jesus Christ. And he speaks of this grace and peace be multiplied unto you.
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Through the knowledge of God. But there was once a time in Peter's life when he didn't see that it was worth suffering for Christ, and he denied the Savior three times. We read of that in John's Gospel, chapter 21.
Asked Peter those three questions because there was 3 denials and he really needed to be publicly restored in that way. But here Peter uses this word precious. He uses it in a way that even the apostle Paul, even the apostle Paul doesn't use, and I believe he uses it seven times. And so there may be someone here that has had failure in the past. Life hasn't been walking with the Lord.
And, umm, perhaps it's a time of, uh, searching things out and realizing how precious Christ is. Peter, after he denied the Lord, learned that the Lord was everything. Paul, you know, he said Christ is everything.
This is, uh, in contrast with that. It was not a faith, but now this is the faith of Christianity, isn't it? I just want to say a word about that too, because again, it's helpful to keep in contact. Sue Peter is addressing here. It's those who had been saved, who had been under the Jewish order of things. They've been brought up in a very different way and in the way they've been brought up and what they've been taught, it was very right in its place, given by God in the Old Testament and so on.
But I find, I think too, you find with Peter that another thing that is unique to Peter is that he speaks about knowledge or full knowledge. And that's a contrast with the Old Testament as well, isn't it? Because in the Old Testament they had a service to do for God, but they didn't have full intelligence as to why they carried it out. If I can illustrate it this way, if you had stepped up to the brazen altar as the sacrifices were being offered from day-to-day.
And ask the priest or the Levites why there are certain things done in a certain way. Why are there certain sacrifices and animals for certain sins? Why do the birds have to have the head pinched off and set aside? Why do the crop and the feathers that have to be set aside? Why is CER certain things not always burnt? And so on. They would have said, we can't tell you, but this is the way it is. And we saw what happened to Nadab and Abaya when they offered strange fire and didn't do it. According to God's mind it wasn't an intelligent service.
And they didn't have full knowledge. But if you notice Peter's epistle here begins and ends with an exhortation to knowledge. And that interesting he he exhorts us in the second verse, or he speaks in the second verse of grace and peace be multiplied unto you notice this through the knowledge. And Mr. Darby has a footnote in his translation and says it's really the thought of full knowledge. It's the same that Paul uses in the I think it's the 17th verse of the.
Book of the first chapter. Let's just look at it for a minute. Let me read it. Ephesians chapter one and verse 17. I think it is.
Ephesians chapter one, yes, and verse 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in and again it ought to read in the full knowledge of him. That's what marks Christianity, the full revelation of the Lord Jesus and the truth of God because of what was accomplished on Calvary's cross to the glory of God and the fact that the Lord Jesus now is arisen, ascended.
But it has to be the basis if we're going to go on in practical Christianity. You know, first Timothy takes up the need for sound doctrine. Second Timothy is the need for sound practice. But you've got to have sound doctrine to have sound practice. Paul said, thou has fully known my doctrine and then manner of life and purpose. And he gives a list of things there. And I believe that many times we get tripped up in our Christian pathway.
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Because what we do is not based on sound doctrine or teaching. We must have knowledge. And so when Peter ends his epistle, he says growing grace. Oh, we need that, brethren. We need grace to go on in the last days.
And we need all the grace that God can give us and it's it's endless it of all we received of his fullness and grace on grace. But brethren.
We also need knowledge, and how are you going to have knowledge of how to live the practical Christian life? You've got to read the Word of God. You've got to know our standing first you've got to have sound teaching, but then to have sound practice, you've also got to have the practical exhortation of the Word of God. And I'm afraid there are many Christians who have a real heart for the Lord. They want to go on for the Lord. They're doing many things.
That seem good, but when you really search it out, it's not based on sound doctrine. Sound practice, I say again, must be based on sound doctrine. So he begins here with the knowledge and it's full knowledge.
Wonderful that we have the full revelation of God's mind in Christ.
We've been given the Lake precious faith, which is the revelation of Christian truth that has been conveyed to us through the what was given to the apostles, and as a result we have the full knowledge of God. The Old Testament Saints and Judaism, they had a knowledge of God, but that we have the full knowledge of God because all of the revelation concerning the things of God, the purpose of God, has been brought into the light through the precious faith has been put into the hands of the Saints.
Proverbs 9 and 10 says that the fear of the Lord in the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding. So we get the three, the wisdom, knowledge and understanding and they all it begins with God, the knowledge of God.
Who He is, not just as to our sins, you know, and putting our sins away, but the full knowledge of God.
And that comes with communion, isn't it?
What, uh, Bruce has said about the sovereignty of God and that, that like precious faith, it shows that my sins have been put away on a righteous basis. And the one who's done it, doesn't it say, it says like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God. It was done on a righteous basis and the one who did it was our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So those are sovereign things like.
He said that they forced. The 1St 4 verses are what God has done and there are things that our brother said you can't even sin away. But then there is the responsibility of living the life that we have and that comes later.
We are to earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the Saints. That's Jude 3.
The faith there again is the Christian revelation of truth, where the earnestly contend for it, not by arguing with everybody involved, the various things in the Bible, but by living it and walking it and holding it, practicing it. But it's interesting that it was once delivered to who? The apostles? No, to the Saints. It was delivered through the apostles to the Saints. But the Saints are the custodians of the truth of God. Don't get this idea that it belongs only to the learned among us and the.
The gifted among us, the truth is for all the Church of God, for all the Saints of God. It was delivered through the apostles to the Saints. You could have us all to know these things.
So just to make it clear, faith is taken up in different contexts in Scripture. Sometimes faith is the confidence that we have in God or in the Lord Jesus, but sometimes, and especially when the article law is in front of it.
It's not so much confidence in God, but it's the deposit of truth that has been committed to us.
And again, brethren, we need to be on our guard in the days in which we live, because there's a great movement sometimes to look for new truth or new life.
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You find in it's a principle with God all through his dealings with man from the Old Testament on that he never gave fresh light or revelation at the end of a dispensation.
There's recovered light sometimes during a dispensation or an administration, but never fresh light. And so that which was laid, Paul spoke of the foundation being laid, the apostles and prophets.
The New Testament writers, Paul himself being a wise master builder, they laid the foundation of truth, that which we have in our hands.
In the epistles, and that hasn't changed. And to look for fresh light or revelation at the end of a dispensation is dangerous, its shaky ground at best. That doesn't mean we can't have a fresh enjoyment of the truth.
We should, we've taken up this chapter perhaps many times before you've read it in your personal reading. We ought to have a fresh enjoyment of it during these meetings as we seek in the power of the Spirit of God to take it up. But it's not fresh, fresh light. And so again in the second epistles you often have that confirmed. Timothy, continue thou in the things that thou hast learned, that which was all had already been taught to him.
He was to continue and he learned the truth from the apostle Paul and so on. And so, uh, again, we, we will get to it. But Peter's not writing something new. He's giving them the same truth, reminding them Paul said to write the same things to you is not grievous, but then to me it is. And for you it is safe. For to me it's not grievous and for you it it is, it is safe. John said no new commandment right I unto you, but that what you have received from the beginning.
Confirmation that that which has been laid down at the beginning, brethren, is the truth of God, the foundation.
And it does not change, but just to go on a little bit because the long chapter and we only have 3 readings, you speak about the resources that we have that God has provided and the two, there's two things in the second verse, grace and peace.
And so, as has already been quoted, we have grace here. And of all we received, of His fullness and grace upon grace now.
We often think of grace as that which saves a person, and we all if we know the Lord as our Savior here this morning.
We're all saved by the grace of God, and John Newton wrote that hymn we all love to sing, Amazing Grace That Saved a Wretch like me. But there's more to the subject of grace than that. There is a preserving, enabling grace of God that gives us the power to go on, and it's available to everybody, whether you've known the Lord Jesus for one day or for 60 or 70 years.
It's available of all we received of His fullness and grace upon grace. Do we need more grace? Do the days get more difficult? He giveth more grace, He said to Paul, My grace is sufficient for thee.
And that grace is not only that which saves and preserves us. But then, as was alluded to, Peter had experienced the restoring grace of God. Peter had failed, and failed miserably, but he was restored.
Because there was some spark of good in Peter? No, simply on the grounds of pure sovereign grace. But then there's something else goes with it, and you often have these two things connected.
In the opening of epistles, peace now again we think of having peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and that's certainly the beginning. And I hope everyone here, based on the work of Calvary and having availed ourselves of that finished work, have peace with God because He himself has made peace through the blood of his cross.
But there's something more to consider in in the subject of peace. You know the Lord Jesus at the end of his pathway.
Left his peace with his his own, He said, My peace I give unto you.
What piece is that? That was the very same piece that the Lord Jesus had as he walked through a troubled world. And who had more conflict outwardly? Not inwardly, of course, but who had more conflict outwardly than the Lord Jesus Christ? He was the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was misunderstood. Even his own didn't understand him. His own forsook him and fled. Peter denied, denied him three times.
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The Lord Jesus walked through this world in obedience to His Father.
With a perfect peace. And He has left that peace now. So that you and I, no matter how dark the day gets, no matter how much we see the seeds of apostasy song, no matter how difficult it is to live righteously for God's glory, you and I can walk through this world with the wonderful resource of the very peace of the Lord Jesus Himself.
And taking all of our circumstances from him. Thus the Lord did that.
So not only has he given to us the precious faith, the Christian revelation of truth.
And verse three tells us that he's given it unto us all things that pertain unto godliness, life and godliness. And I still remember being in a Bible reading years ago when Brother Saxton asked the question, what would these things be? Well, he set the cat among the pigeons there because we were all put back. So I could ask that question here this afternoon, this morning, what would these things be?
Well, I suppose to start off with, we would say he's given us the Scriptures, He's given us the Holy Spirit, He's given us Christian fellowship for encouragement. He's given us a high priest, He's given us the Advocate, given us gifts to the church that help us to understand the truth and to walk in it, shepherds, and so on. I give you a short list, but you could go on and on. He's giving us many, many things that pertain to life and godliness. There's no excuse for me not to go on. Preserve when you think of what God has provided on his part.
Which as I said already, regardless of all that God has made, it is a provision for us to be preserved. That in itself is not enough. He would have us to be responsibly exercised. And we're going to get that up from verse five onward. And it's so that the life can be manifest in a practical way, isn't it? In Peter's ministry here? It's not so much the life we have. That's true. John brings that out, but it's the practical manifestation of the life we have. It's living in a such a way because we have life.
And because we have the resources, I don't know if you mentioned another resource is the Spirit of God. That's the power for the the divine light. The divine life is a perfect life. It's the very life of Christ, but it has no power of itself.
If I can illustrate it this way, and, and I know it's a repetition, but you might have out in the parking lot this morning one of the best engines that money can put in a vehicle. But if you go out and start that engine, it may not start. You say, why? I've got a perfect engine, the best engine that money can buy. Well, you need an unseen commodity in that engine to make it start. It needs power. So you put gasoline in that engine and now you go out and you turn the key and there's an immediate spark and you have all the power you need to get you down the road to your destination.
We have divine life, that's true. John brings that out in his ministry in a very real and precious way.
But we also have the power for that life as well, and that power is the Spirit of God. Another resource we have is prayer. You know, it's interesting that when Paul, when Saul of Tarsus was saved.
That when Ananias was told to go and see him, you can just imagine Ananias now, Lord I I've heard about this man and he's only come here to take us captive and to have us killed and to try to stamp out the name of Christ.
I And now you're gonna send send me to him. The Lord gave him a confirmation. He said you'll find him in a certain place. And behold, he prayeth immediately on Saul of Tarsus conversion. He was in the attitude of prayer, because prayer is the very breath and power of the divine, of the divine life. It's often the proof for confirmation that there's been a work of God in the soul. So all these things are given to us.
And they're given to us so that the life we have might be practically manifest in the midst of Christian profession and ruin. Can we say priesthood, you ask what they are, and advocacy. If we fail, all of these things are given to us that we might carry this life out. The throne of grace. Yes, yes. Another thing.
It's helpful to make a little list. I did it one time when I was younger in the back of my Bible. And as you go through the scriptures, if you come upon one of the provisions that God has made, jot it down in the on a, on a notepad or in the back of your Bible as those things that pertain unto life and godliness. And it's very helpful to be able to go back to it. You're going through some situation, you feel burdened, cast down. How can I go on? Go back to your list and you'll find that your list will be ongoing too.
00:45:31
Yo, I don't know as you'll really ever get to the to the end of it because as you read through the scripture, you'll keep finding another little something that God has provided those things that pertain all things, not just some things.
But all things, let me use another illustration. When we were in business, we used to send men out on jobs into the field, but we never sent a person out on a job to a factory. We were in the Fire Protection, equipment installation and service business.
But we never sent a man out into the factory without the proper tools. We made sure that everyone who went out to the factory to service the equipment had the proper tools. The only thing is sometimes.
Something was left back at the shop or they ran into something they'd never run into before and they didn't have the right wrench or the right piece of equipment. Sometimes they had to come back to the shop. We were always ordering new tools because sometimes the equipment changed and the factory would change the sizes of the gaskets and the screws and the nuts and the bolts and the gauges and the stuff we we would use. We didn't always provide everything with all things that were needed for the job.
But brother, we will never, never, never face any dilemma, any situation, any hurdle in our practical Christian pathway where we have to say God hasn't provided the tool for this one. There's all things that pertain unto life and godliness. The divine toolkit is full, and if we're willing to reach into it and get the right tool, it's there for us. So you're telling us no excuses. That's it.
OK.
I have a list of all things that somebody gave. It's not mine, but #1 The Word of God. And two, the prayer. We had all these things, but it's good to repeat them. Three, the Holy Spirit, we have a divine.
Visitor dwelling in us that we have, we have divine life, uh, the Lord's intercession, the hope of the rapture advocacy. We have the armor and there's angels too at our disposal. So there is no, no, no excuses. God has provided everything for us. We have the life and the power and the spirit of God to carry these things out.
It's interesting to see too that he is equipped us with these, uh, great provisions, but he's also encouraged us.
With great, great promises. That brings us to the next verse. And I'd like to point out the fact that this next version, the King James Version, is not really the best rendering. It says whereby we are given a given unto us are the the exceeding great and precious promises. But it should read has been given unto us the greatest promises.
And what great promises we have been given now to draw upon Brother Sacksteader again he asked what were these things be? Of course the Catamona pigeons took place again, if I recall, in that Bible reading. So may I ask that question here again? So what would these?
Well, one that comes to mind is the promise that he's gonna come again and receive us unto himself. I If we don't get a hold of that promise, brethren in our souls, we're gonna get discouraged pretty quick.
And Peter always brings glory before us, doesn't he? He brings the end of the thing before us.
What's going to encourage us to go on in a day of ruin? It's the end. It's having the the the end in view. So that's just one. There's many, but that's one on the way there, he said. I will never leave you nor forsake you. What a precious promise that is.
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Isn't that the verse before it says through the knowledge of him that have called us. I think it's by glory and virtue. So the glory is before us. We, we read about that. We, we could read in the third chapter some of the things that are, uh, it says, umm.
The ninth verse we just the Lord is not slack concerning His promise as somehow.
Count Slackness, but his long-suffering to us were not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. You know these are all things in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements from Yeltsin's fervent heat. The earth also in the works there therein shall be burned up.
And so we, we look the first looking for and hastening under the coming of the day of God, wherein the heaven shall be on fire. So all of these things where it shall be dissolved and the elements, you know, nevertheless, we according to his promise, there's a promise. Look for the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Does that excite our souls that someday we're going to be with the Lord Jesus?
Over the new heaven and the new earth where dwell in dwelleth righteousness, where sin is gone. Is it that we're going to reign with the Lord Jesus through that day. The Millennium does it. Those are things he's called us the glory. And in the 14th of John, I've enjoyed this that he told his disciples. He said now I I'm going to my Father's house, but don't worry.
There is room for all of you in my father's house are many of those. And I'm going to come back and I'm going to take you to my father's house and you are never I'm never going to leave you again. When I rain, you're going to rain. When I when I come down to be over the the new heaven and new earth, you're going to be with me in that close relationship as a bride.
Are these you know, are are these, you know, pie in the sky?
These are real things where most of our life, which is just a little bit here, this is where we're going to spend eternity. So these things ought to excite us.
So we often make promises, but we often promise more than we can carry out too. I've made promises where when I had the time came to fulfill the promise, I had to shake my head and say, I promised more than I had the resources to fill. Or maybe when we made the promise, we had the resources to carry it out, but between the promise being made and the fulfillment of it, something happened and we lost the resources and we had to shake our head and say.
I was sincere when I made the promise. I had the resources to fulfill it. But the time has come when I can no longer carry through on the promise. But I want to read you 2 verses from the Old Testament to show that God, the greatest and most precious promises that God has made are promises that He either has or will fulfill. God has never made a promise that He can't or won't fulfill. And when we get discouraged, brethren, when we see failure in our own lives.
Or in the lives of our of our brethren, maybe in the local assembly, maybe in the family circle. It's good to go back to the promises that Scripture gives us, because all the promises of God in him are yay.
And in him Amen to the glory of God by us. But I want to go back to the Old Testament.
To show how on two occasions the people of God went back to the promises that God had laid out at the beginning.
The first is in Joshua chapter 23 where we have Joshua at the end of his life giving some of his final words to the people of God before he passed over off the scene.
Just notice the 14th verse of Joshua chapter 23 and behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth, and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing hath failed.
Of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you, all are come to pass.
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Unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof. Now before I comment in this, go to 1St Kings chapter 8 and we come over a little further in the history of the people of God. This is Solomon's prayer, the dedication of the temple. Blessed be the God, be the Lord that hath given rest unto His people, Israel, according to all that he hath promised.
There has not failed one word of all His good promise, wherewith He promised by the hand of Moses His servant. Now you'll notice in both occasions much failure had come in amongst the people of God.
We say, how can we claim the promises of God when there's been so much failure in our own lives? Well, if you lead the wilderness journey of the children of Israel from the Red Sea to this point, there had been lots of failure.
But we see God's faithfulness too, in spite of the failure, and Joshua reminds them of the promises.
And the faithfulness of God that had brought them there thus far. But then you read from the days of Joshua to the days of King Solomon, and there was plenty more failure. Every page, it seemed, is stained with failure. And so on.
What does Solomon remind the people of God of their own faithfulness? No, he couldn't. But he reminds them of the faithful promises, and he takes them right back to what was laid down at the beginning, what was given to Moses. Not some new promises, but the faithfulness and the security of the promises that were given at the very beginning. So again, Peter, in writing to these Jewish believers, they could think back to the Old Testament.
Of the unfaithfulness of, of their predecessors and think, oh, how can we be? How can we stand by MO, Joshua or Moses or Solomon? Oh, he says, remember, you have these great, the greatest and most precious promises. They're secure because of the righteousness, the righteous basis on which their base, they, they, they, they rest as you brought before us, brother Vern and brother. And can't we rest on those promises too?
Have they all been fulfilled? No, not all. There's still some to be fulfilled. His promise to come again. But Byrne was bringing before us later on in the epistle about the day of of the Lord, the day of God, and so on.
But does that mean he's failed in his promises? I say again, he's never made a promise that he can't or won't fulfill.
And we've had already read to us, uh, this the promise, the assurance that he'll keep, uh, us as well. And that's profess for Thessalonians chapter 5 faithful is he that calleth you who will also do it. So we have those verses that you've brought before us, Jim, that he would keep those promises.
To Israel but will he keep promises that he's made to us absolutely. And there's a verse for you that says he's going to do it and he's he's faithful to his word. Getting back to our chapter in the middle of verse four. We find that the divine end of these provisions and encouragement that he gives us is for what reason that we might be partakers of the divine nature. Now this is not vital partaking vitally partake of the divine nature through new birth. This is.
Practical partaking of it, to enjoy the things that God himself is enjoying. Now we're having fellowship with God on the highest token there can be so as to be partakers of the divine nature. I think that's beautiful to see that, uh, he would draw us into fellowship with himself and have us to enjoy the things that he enjoys and feed on the things that delights his heart. That's really to partake in a practical sense in the divine nature.
So our children have the very life that we have, but they don't always partake of the in the family circle of that life in the way that we would, we would like them to. And so it, you know, there's a meal provided and the family sits down. One of the children doesn't come to the table. Another child doesn't eat the food that has been provided. There's activities planned. The some of the children refused to participate in the activities. It's very practical. They've partaken of our life, our nature.
We've given them life as parents, but we want them to enjoy in a practical way that which has been provided for them in the family circle. And that's why we said earlier here it's not so much a question of the life we have.
01:00:04
But it's the practical manifestation of that life. A son or a daughter may not practically manifest in their life. The family that they belong to, they may not give proper testimony to it. You think of it in connection with royalty. Sometimes the Queen of England's children and grandchildren haven't acted in a way that is in keeping with being heir to the British throne or part of the British royal family.
And I'm sure it's a grief to the Queen of England and other members of the family that seek to live more in a morally upright way and give testimony as to who they belong. It's not that they aren't royal of the royal family. They're partakers of that.
But they are acting in, in a practical way. So maybe that helps us understand what Bruce is, is saying. We all, every one of us here who know Christ as our Savior, every one of us here who have, uh, let me rephrase it. Every one of us here who have divine life, have the life of Christ.
And this partaking of the divine nature in a practical way leads to what, as he goes on to say, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. There's the way in which we're going to be preserved and escape at all. We're enjoying something better. We're enjoying enjoying something higher, something that captures the soul.
Enthralls the heart and it keeps us separate from the corruptions that are all around. If we're not enjoying something better, we're headed for trouble because the heart has to have something to be occupied with.
Now some may look at this and say partakers of the divine nature. Sounds like we're partaking in deity or something. No, no, no, no, no. That's nobody's talking about.
As Jim has said, life has been imparted to each one of us through Newbury, but God wants us to enjoy that life and fellowship with Himself. That's partaking of it in a practical way, and that's what the thought is in the verse and the and the purpose of it is that we might be preserved from the corruptions in the world.
The heart must have something as an object before, before we get the other side of things where we need to separate and need to be exercised hard, taking up first with what is positive before we turn our back on what is negative. Always God's order for preservation in life. You turn it around the other way, you got legality.
He brings in, in verse two as well a second point I could mention, and that is the lordship of Christ, the lordship of the Lord Jesus. So grace and peace, a calmness and a peace as we go through this world. And it's he desired there be multiplied through the full knowledge of God and our uh, and of Jesus, our Lord, acknowledging the Lord Jesus as our Lord. So having a heart engaged with him and also acknowledging his authority.
Will preserve us.
Just in connection with what you said, you find it with the patriarchs in the Old Testament, as they're brought before us in Hebrews 11. They didn't receive the promises, but they saw them afar off and embraced them. And what was the result? They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and they looked for a better country. It was, as Bruce said, that which Wiener souls through their hearts from that which was around them.
They they embrace those promises. Abraham looked for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker's God. They look for a better country. It's what spurred them on and gave them the proper character of what we have in Peter's ministry, where again we are to be strangers and pilgrims. But if we don't have those promises firmly implanted and enjoyed in our souls and the glory ahead, we're not going to have that proper care.
Mixing With the World
Address—Robert Boulard
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Meeting #258 maybe someone local could?
Begin the tune.
258.
I'd like to turn to Hosea Chapter 7 just to open up the subject that I have on my heart this afternoon.
Hosea, Chapter 7.
And verse 8.
Ephraim He hath mixed himself among the people. Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not.
And the pride of Israel testifying through his face. And they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this. Ephraim also is a silly dove without heart. They called Egypt, they go to Assyria.
Well, you know, we could read more more there, but I just wanted to read this little passage of Scripture because it brings before us the fact that Ephraim or the 10 tribes of Israel that are referred to here that were shortly to be carried away into captivity. Why they were mixing themselves. They were really going on in a way before in the under the eye of God, mixing themselves morally and in every way with this world.
And strangers had devoured their strength. And it says he knoweth it not. They didn't even know it, didn't even sense it.
I'd just like to look this afternoon at the lives very briefly of several.
Men perhaps might, might even say young people in the word of God who went down into Egypt and it left a taint upon their lives. Some of them didn't even know it, didn't even know it they went down into Egypt.
And Egypt, in this character, you know, the world is presented to us in different ways in Scripture, the different cities of the world. Jericho was a, a picture of the world, the good life. And that's the city that the men of Moab wanted. I think it's in Judges chapter 2 or chapter 3. And they went up and that's the only city that they wanted. They wanted the place of comfort, knees and luxury. Jericho, the name means a constant pleasant odor. It's a constant pleasant odor to the flesh. That's what this world is.
To the man of the world. But Egypt, you know, is a picture of the world in its independence of God. And the Egyptians, you know, they had very clever tool, clever device in Isaiah, I think it is, that it says they had augers and they could auger water into the irrigation canals, very clever tubes with a little auger and they would get water up into their irrigation canals. And they didn't pray for rain. They got what they needed by technology.
And the technology was fantastic for the day that they lived in.
So Egypt really is a picture of the world in its independence of God and God has desired to deliver you and I from a spirit and a life of independence from himself. He created us so that we might be dependent. And if we turn to Proverbs, let's turn to Proverbs. Just read a few verses there in chapter 3 of how the Lord delights as those that are perhaps particularly young people, but all of us, we live in a day and age.
When we can reach into our pockets and solve just about any problem, we can.
Take a look at our cell phones.
Our smartphones and we can just about figure out anything that we need to figure out right away fast if we have a problem in one of the technologies or one of our homes, whatever it is.
And I fear that we've forgotten to pray.
Well it says here in Proverbs chapter 3. It says in verse five, 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 paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil. It shall be held to thine able, and marrow to thy bones.
00:05:15
Well, you know, I considered, as I saw thought of this subject of those that were brought into Egypt.
Those that went unwillingly, if you might say, those that didn't go of their own volition particularly and the effect that it had upon their lives, which one to take up first? We could start in Genesis and then we could go right back into the New Testament. But you know that in all things he might have the preeminence. I just want to look at Matthew's Gospel chapter one and two beginning and to see how the Lord Jesus was brought into Egypt and umm.
Instead of defiling him, it had no effect upon him at all.
He says in Hebrews he was wholly harmless and undefiled, separate from sinners.
And so it says in Matthew's Gospel chapter one.
It says.
Let's read from verse 11 just to pick up or chapter 2. I'm sorry, chapter 2 of Matthew, verse 11.
Speaking of the Lord Jesus there, when they were coming to the house, they saw the young child with Mary's mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to terror, they departed into their own country another way. And when they were departed, behold, the Angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise.
And take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word. For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. And when he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled. Which was spoken by the Lord, by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt, have I called my son? Oh, I think this is a wonderful little.
Illustration that the Spirit of God gives us in connection with the Lord Jesus, and he was afflicted in all of the affliction wherein he was afflicted. The people of God have been afflicted. You live, dear young people, at an evil and a wicked time. You live in a time morally in this world that surpasses the wickedness, I believe, of even Sodom and Gomorrah. We live in a time when there's violence and there's corruption and there's prosperity and we live in an awful time.
But the Lord Jesus knew what it was to come into Egypt, and he left the courts of glory where sin can never come.
He came into this world, he came into Egypt, he came into this place that was characterized by independence of God.
And he came that he might glorify God, and that you might be able to see my faith a pattern for life, and to follow this in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus who did no sin.
And and humans have no sin.
And he knew no sin. He did no sin in whom is no sin. There was no sin in the blessed Savior. And he came into Egypt. He came into this world and he walked through it. He wasn't of it. Let's read that in John's Gospel, chapter 17. And he prayed for you and I. He prayed for you and young people this afternoon. This is a meeting for young people. And perhaps I'll address my comments more to you than to those that are older.
For the Lord Jesus knows what it is to have lived in this world.
He came and even as a young boy could be at 12 years old in the temple, asking questions and speaking with those that were in religious opposition to God, but not out of step. He came into this world.
So John's Gospel, chapter 17.
And umm, let's just read in verse eight. It says, I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that it came out from thee that they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me. For they are thine, and all thine are mine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world.
And I come to Thee, Holy Father, keep through Thy own name those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. And while I was with them in the world, I kept them by Thy name. Those that Thou gavest me have I kept them. None of them is lost but the Son of Perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to Thee. And these things I speak in the world, that they might have joy, my joy, fulfilled in themselves. I have given them My word, and the world hath hated them because.
00:10:28
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil. Oh, isn't it lovely, dear brethren and dear younger brethren, that the Lord Jesus came into this world and He walked to the glory of his God and Father. He could say truthfully, and you read it several times in John's gospel. I do always those things that please my Father. Where was it that He pleased the Father?
Was right here in this world. He came into Egypt. He came into this place characterized by independence of God. He depended upon God for everything. He wouldn't take a step. The devil offered him all the kingdoms of this world. He wouldn't take them.
No, He walked in dependence upon His Father. Well, what an example for you and I as we walk through this scene. So the blessed Savior walk through this world, came into this world, was brought into Egypt, and it didn't taint him one bit. Oh, He left this world and after having finished his work, I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do, He could say. And so.
He's on high in the glory, and because he came to Egypt, he's on high in the glory and he intercedes for his own and he's interceding for you in your weakness this afternoon. Don't you feel weak? Let's be honest, Don't you feel weak?
I feel weak as I stand here before you this afternoon and don't think that I stand here this afternoon and I point any finger. I feel as weak as water. And we live in a day of weakness. We live in a day not of strength, not characterized by strength, a day of small things, but not a day to despise the wisdom of God and the strength of God, the power of God, the love of God for his own. And so we have the Lord Jesus interceding for us. And if we fail, we have an advocate with the Father. If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
Jesus Christ, the righteous, oh, that blessed Savior, came into Egypt so that he might sympathize with you and understand what it is to walk through a scene that is characterized by independence, that will not bow the knee and pray.
You know, and I know that there's a a drought in California. I think it's the fourth year of the drought, maybe three years. But it's a severe drought, isn't it?
And I'm told out in the Midwest that often times there's been periods of drought and, uh, in the Midwest might call it Bible Belt America, perhaps it's kind of.
Falling short of that at the present time, but oftentimes the farmers will get together at the ball diamond in a little town and they'll cry to the Lord for some rain. And you know what happens? It rains.
It rains, but in California I haven't heard about any prayer meetings that there might be rain and that God might open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing. But you and I have that resource, and we have a Savior on high, risen on high, a man in the glory.
And he knows what it was to have walked in Egypt. And if you have a sorrow, a need in your soul, you have something of a famine in your soul, something of a need. He knows, He understands, and you can tell him all about it. And he knows he can intercede for you. He can give you strength, and you can find grace and help, mercy to help in time of need. Well, let's turn to the first one that we might.
Have before us here this afternoon. The second one I should say. Genesis chapter 12.
I'm going to read several different verses of passages of scripture.
And I might read more than what I comment on, but if you would consider perhaps meditating on your own, just jotting down these passages of scripture and meditating them on your own, you may have some profit after this meeting and some other time chewing the cud. Well, Genesis chapter 12, let's just read from verse one.
Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house unto 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.
00:15:06
And thou shalt be a blessing, and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee.
And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
Well, let's just turn down a little bit farther. Umm, verse 10.
And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to soldier there.
For the famine was grievous in the land, and it came to pass when he come near to enter into Egypt. But he said unto Sarah's wife, Behold, now I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon. Wherefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is my his wife, and they shall kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee that thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee.
And it came to pass that when Abraham, when Abraham was coming to Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman, that she was very fair. The Prince is also a Pharaoh, saw her and commanded her before Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
And he entreated Abram well for her sake. And he had sheep and oxen, and he ***** and men, servants and maidservants, and she ***** and aunt camels. And the Lord plagued Pharaoh in his house with great plagues, because of Sarai, Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this, that thou was done unto me? Why dost thou not tell me what she that she was thy wife? Why says, though she is my sister, that so I might have taken her to me to wife?
Now therefore go, behold thy wife, take her and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him. They sent him away and his wife and all that he had. Now let's just look at verse chapter 13. Verse 5. Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents, and the land was not able to bear them that they might dwell together, for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. And there was a strife between the herdsmen of Abrams cattle and the herdmen of Lots cattle, and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled man in the land.
Now let's just turn over a couple of.
Pages here, Chapter 16, verse one.
Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children and she had a handmaid.
An Egyptian whose name was Hagar.
Well, we won't read much more than that, but we know this story so well. In connection with Abraham, you know the Lord had given him great and precious promises. We could put it that way. He's given us the greatest promises, the most precious promise. He given Abram great promises. And Abram perhaps didn't grasp all of those promises, and neither do you or I perhaps grasp the blessedness of those promises, but the more we read of them.
And the more time we spend in the presence of the Lord Jesus and recognize the portion that is ours.
The less and less we feel attached to Egypt, the less and less will feel the need to walk an independence of what God has given us. And you know, Abram had just received this promise from God, Seven parts to this promise, I believe that's given in Genesis chapter 12. And he went down to Canaan. He left that land, it says in Hebrews Chapter 11, and not knowing whether he went, and he went in faith.
And I say here this afternoon, dear young people.
Have you taken Christ as your Savior? Have you begun that journey of faith? Have you, in the presence of God, owned that you're a Sinner and that you need to have your sins forgiven? Have you laid hold of the finished work of the Lord Jesus for yourself?
Well, Abram, you know, in faith had to believe God. He had to begin on his journey and he began on his journey, went down to Canaan.
And the Lord tested his faith. There was a famine in the land. Because, you know, we get so that we're so independent, we're so used to providing for ourselves that we get into the presence of the Lord and we want to provide for ourselves. We don't want to pray. We don't want to be put into a place where we need something and cry, have to cry to the Lord. Abram came into that land. There was a famine.
00:20:02
And instead of weighing the thing in the presence of God, he went down into Egypt with all those that were with him. Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land. Well, you know, he lost some things when he came into Egypt. Some things happened in Abraham, in Abraham and some thought patterns perhaps you might say that he never really expected to have. But when we go into a journey into a path, a course that is not directed by the Spirit of God.
That is not directed by the Spirit, by the Word of God. Oftentimes we begin to reason in a way that the world reasons, and that's what Abram began to do.
Going a little straight it this way, like Ephraim, you know, he went into, he was mixed, he'd mixed himself, mixed his principles and he was mixed with Judaism and idolatry. It was all just a jumble.
You only have a dear brother in the Lord that we sometimes visit with and, uh, go into his home and sometimes have a little bit of a list of projects to do. And he has, uh, some animals in the house. And often times, uh, I go in there and he's very gracious. We open up the doors, open up all the windows and so on. And, uh, I take out my tools and I fix the, whatever needs to be fixed. And then, uh, I leave the, we spent a little bit of time in the word and so on, have a little meal and so on.
But you know, I pretty soon come out of that place and then I have a cat here all over different the garments that I have. And I don't even, I didn't even didn't even notice it, you know. And, and then a month down the road, I'm in my little RV and I'm on my little sofa and reading and I, I see a cat here and I pick up the cat hair and, and I put it in the trash can and so on. You know, Abraham went into Egypt and he began to think like an Egyptian.
He said, you know, I'm married to a beautiful girl.
And instead of jeopardize my own safety, I'm going to just get this woman to tell 1/2 truth. She was his sister. She was 1/2 sister to Abram. But you know, that's called guile. And so we began to think and talk like an Egyptian. He lost the companionship of his wife.
Then he lost the companionship of Lot.
His brother's son.
His nephew and then a little bit later on, we're not going to read it, but in connection with Isaac, Isaac faced a similar test in connection with famine. Now Isaac, he was going to go down to Egypt too. And he also denied his wife. You know, our children, our imitators of ourselves, every one of us are imitators. And the Lord tells us to be imitators of Christ, to be imitators of his life. And let's just read that so that I don't misquote it in Second Peter.
Pardon me first, Peter.
Verse 21. Chapter 2. Verse 21.
Or even hereunto.
Were you called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving as an example or a model that you should follow his steps who did no sin, neither was guile fine in his mouth, Who when he was reviled, reviled not again when he suffered, He threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. Well, you know the Lord Jesus walked in perfection throughout this scene and never compromised principles, not even once and often times what happens if we put ourselves into a place.
Of compromise with this world. Then we end up compromising principles. Abram lost the companionship of his wife for a period of time.
You know, it's one of the things that's very hard for me as a twin, and I've said this before, a twin as you grow up, you never have. You're never alone. You always have someone else with you. And I was very thankful I was married when I was living at the time, that I was living in my father's home and then set up my own home and I had a wife. I just enjoy family life tremendously. But one of the trials of what it is to live on the road is to be alone. It's a hard thing for a twin.
And I can imagine Abram here in in Egypt and he needed the support of his wife. He needed the advice of his wife. He needed to have some companion that would encourage him and the things of God. But when he was in Egypt, when he was living in the world, when he was living in a path of compromise, he didn't have that in connection with his wife. And then a little bit later on, there was a strife in connection with Lot and they had flocks. He got a, a place of prosperity.
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In the land of Egypt it says he was rich. In verse two chapter 13 verse 2, Abraham was rich.
In cattle and silver and gold. Oh, he'd acquired prosperity in Egypt. And it cost them a lot. It cost him a lot. You know, it says that Lot went with Abram. And I think it says that three times. Maybe it's four times, but I think it's three times at least. And it says Lot went with Abram. And so young people you have, you know, as you grow up, you get to the age of responsibility and taking more responsibility in life.
And there comes a time when there need to be decisions made as to why you are where you are. And so here you are among those that are gathered to the Lord's name, among those that little company, a little company that has been gathered out from the confusion of Christianity, gathered by the Spirit of God to the precious name of the Lord Jesus. Some of you are second and 3rd or 4th or 5th generation brought up at the Lord's Table.
And others here are first generation, perhaps at the Lord's table. Those that have had to pay a price to be there, well, lauded appears never paid a price to be at uh, in the Abrams company and.
Abram was tainted with thinking, the thinking of Egypt, and Lot was tainted with the thinking of Egypt. He didn't even know it. And he wanted the prosperity that Egypt had. He perhaps didn't want to go as far as Egypt, but he wanted that prosperity. And he left Abram. Oh, I asked you, dear young ones, this afternoon.
The Lord Jesus delights to have us.
Have him as an object, bright and fair, and this world is doing what it can. Satan, the God and the Prince of this world, is doing what he can to have this world presented as an object and as some sort of, uh, umm.
An objective, a priority that you might set your goals in this world. But Lot lost his testimony. He lost his family. He lost everything that he had because he went after this world. Let's turn to umm, like to look at the life of Joseph just a little bit here.
Let's turn to chapter 37 of Genesis.
We'll just read a few verses.
Verse 23. Chapter 37. Verse 23. It came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him. They took him, cast him into a pit, and the pit was empty, and there was no water in it.
And they sat down to eat bread, and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicy and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.
And Judah said unto his brethren, What prophet is it? If we slay our brother, conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our head be our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content, and they were proud. They are. They're passed by Midianites merchantmen. And they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph under the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver. And they brought Joseph into Egypt. And then a little bit further on in chapter.
39 verse 7.
It came to pass after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and she said, Lie with me. But he refused, and said unto his master's wife, Behold my master, what if not what is with me in the house, and hath committed all that he had to my hand? There is none greater in this house than I, neither hath he kept back anything from me, but the Because thou art his wife, How can I? How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?
And then a little further on in verse 20, Joseph's master took him and put him into prison, a place where the King's prisoners were bound, and he was there in the prison, but the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.
And then a little further on in chapter 41.
Verse 42 Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him investors of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck.
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And made him to ride in the second chariot which he had. And they cried before him, bowed a knee, and he made him ruler over all Egypt, all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without me shall no man lift up his hand or foot in the land, all the land of Egypt. And Joseph call. And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zafna Pinea. And he gave him the wife Asana, the daughter of Potiphar, priest of Anne. And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt.
Well, I read these little passages in connection with Joseph because, you know, he is a type of Christ and he went down into Egypt, but he, he went against his own will.
And you might say, you know, I'm born into this world. Why was I born into this world? I didn't ask to be here.
It's a troubled place. It's a wicked place. And I don't know, I have a hard time finding my way through this world. Why am I here? And Joseph could ask those questions. You know, he didn't know the purposes behind what God was doing, but he was a man of faith. And at 17 years old, he was brought down into Egypt as a young person. But, you know, he was in Egypt, but he was not an Egyptian. He was not of the world. He was in the world, but he was not of the world.
And what we have in Joseph is really a beautiful type of Christ and how he came into Egypt. He lived in this world, in an amoral world.
You know, the Egyptian society was marked particularly by fornication and adultery, wickedness, moral wickedness. That's what characterized that country and all of its prosperity and all of its wealth, all of its architecture and everything. It was characterized morally by fornication. And you see that very quickly in connection with Joseph's, umm, life. And you know, dear young people.
If there is one way to ruin your life as you rub shoulders with those that are Egyptians.
And as you live in the Egyptian Egyptian world, because you were born here, you were born into this world. You didn't call to be here, but God has chosen in his wisdom to have you born into this world and to live as a an ambassador for Christ here. You're going to be pressed into a mold. This world is going to try to press you into a mold to make you look like an Egyptian, to make you think like an Egyptian, to per make your priorities.
Those priorities that belong to Egypt and one of the ways to ruin your life is to begin to live immorally like an Egyptian. You know, I think this story is so beautiful. It's not only a type of Christ, but there are practical moral lessons in connection with this story and isn't wonderful here. Joseph was all alone. He was, think of it, 12 Children. He was never alone.
All those servants, all those.
Cattle he he was never alone. He was a beloved son.
And he was taken from that place, from that family, and he was brought into Egypt. He knew what it was to be alone.
He knew what it was to be alone with God.
I wanna tell you as as a little bit of an encouragement young people. When I was a young boy, my brother and I would go to school. Often times we change schools every year. My father worked for the railway and umm.
So he would get transferred one year at a time and we would go to these little school houses and every year, oh, how we felt alone. We got beat up in the school yard in those days and we, umm, had a difficult time. We felt alone. But you know, my father gave us this little encouragement. He says, you know, those boys are picking on you because you're different.
And it's all right to be different because you belong to the Lord Jesus. You're different and that's good. And he said you just keep on going on because you're different. What a wonderful Joseph was in Egypt and he was different. He lived differently.
And he didn't allow any of that spirit of Egypt to rub off on him and he didn't take matters into his own hands. He didn't, umm, say, well, you know, as long as I'm a slave here in Egypt and so on, he could have reasoned these things out and said, you know, I might as well just get on with life and I need a companion anyway and so on. He could have compromised principles. But you know, it's a as, uh, you and I live in this world as young people, we're going to be tested and God's going to give us tests in our lives.
In our youth particularly, but even when we're older and we won't get a lot of time before we have the lessons, and these are the book lessons that we get at the conference like this. We get the principles, but then the test comes in the real world.
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And Joseph, by the grace of God, we have this little picture of him morally. He didn't even have the written word of God, but he had a sense of living in the presence of God, and he would not defile himself morally.
He wanted to stay pure and we find that at a time when God had chosen, he'd gone through all those experiences. Why? He was raised up to a place of oversight in the land of Egypt. He became the 2nd in command of Pharaoh. And so God is training you as you have different tests that come into your life. Nothing is allowed in your life, no circumstance apart from what God has allowed.
The Lord is desiring to test you, and so He gives grace for those tests and He never gives us a test where He doesn't give us the grace to be able to go through the test and to be able to, umm.
Endure. And so here, Joseph.
Was preserved pure and he man was used of God in Egypt to deliver the people of God. Let's turn a little bit further on and to the book of Exodus. Just look at Moses.
And I'm not going to read much of Moses life here, but umm.
Chapter 4.
Verse 18.
And Moses went and returned. Exodus chapter 4, verse 18. Moses went and returned to Jethro, his father-in-law, and said unto him, Let me go, I pray thee, and return unto my brethren, which are in Egypt.
And see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said it to Moses, Go in peace. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go return into Egypt, for all the men are dead which sought thy life. And Moses took his wife and sons, and set them up upon an ***.
And he returned to the land of Egypt, And Moses took the rod of God in his hand. And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return in the land, see that thou do all the wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in his hand. But I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
And thou shalt say in the Pharaoh Thus sayeth the Lord Israel is my son, even my first born. And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me. And if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy first born. And it came to pass by the way in the end that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me? So he let him go. Then she said.
A bloody husband thou art because of the circumcision. And then a little bit further on in verse 29, Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel. And Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed. And when they had heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that he had looked upon the affliction, their affliction, and they bowed their heads and worshipped, well, you know.
I just read this little passage of Scripture because it reminds us of in connection with Moses the Lord.
Send them back into Egypt. He, we know, was born in Egypt, and he was born to a couple of slaves in Egypt. But those that were of faith. And so a man of Levi went and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived and bear a son. And they call, and we go have that that they called his name. And she hit him, and she saw that he was a goodly child, that she hit him three months. And then a little later on Pharaoh's daughter gives him his name, Moses.
But, you know, Moses had been tainted somewhat by the thinking of Egypt. We know that he was educated in all the thoughts of Egypt and all the, umm, technology and so on. And, umm, Moses, you know, had been given this work, this commandment of the Lord, this Commission to go and to deliver the children of Israel and to bring them out of Egypt, but not on the principle of the flesh, the energy of the flesh. It was on the principle of faith. It was going to be on the principle.
Of how God was going to do his work and there was something that was a little bit hidden, a hidden thing in Moses life in connection with the flesh. And he had allowed his wife perhaps this liberty. It seems that she was not as spiritual a woman as she should have been. And it says here in verse 25, the poor took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at his feet and said surely a bloody husband art thou to me? I used to wonder, you know why the Lord gave.
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Moses, this Commission to go and to leave the children of Israel out of Egypt.
And why it was that he saw sought to kill him at the inn. And it was really this that he allowed his wife to have some liberty in connection with the flesh. And there was this hidden thing. The flesh had not been cut off. You know, dear young people, there are some things that we allow in our lives.
That are of the flesh and we rub the shoulders with those in Egypt we live in Egypt and we begin to think and talk like those that are of Egypt and we begin to think that sin isn't so bad and that some.
Parts of the way the world does things, there's an honorable way of doing things. There's umm, you know, just listening not too long ago to a little address by CHM and he talked about minced Oves.
Swearing in a polite way.
And you and I live in Egypt, as it were. We're passing through. We ought to be, as those that are heavenly citizens, careful in our conduct, in our talk. And, uh, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. And so there are those ways that the world swears, and in a polite way.
Why these things rub off on us, we don't even know it. And Moses here, he had allowed this little thing in connection with the flesh. His son was not circumcised, should have been circumcised.
And the thing needed to be dealt with. And so, so that his conscience might be clear as he went to do a work for the Lord, this thing was looked after. Well, let's just turn over to Jeremiah. Look at another little passage here.
Jeremiah.
Let's turn to Chapter 41.
It came to pass in the seventh month that Ishmael, the son of Nathanaya, the son of Eli Shaima of the seed royal and of the Princess of the King, even 10 men with him, came together, the son of Hayekum to Misbah.
And there that he'd eat bread together. Then arose Ish Meal, the son of Nathanaya, and the 10 men that were with him, and smote Gedelia, the son of a high come, the son of Shafan with the sword, and drew him, and slew him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over all the land.
And then just a little further on in verse 17, chapter 41 of Jeremiah, verse 17, they departed and dwelt in the habitation of Chim Ham, which is by Bethlehem to go into to go to enter into Egypt because of the Chaldeans. For they were afraid of them, because Ishmael the son of Nathanaya had slain Gedelia the son of Ahikum, whom the king of Babylon had made governor in the land.
Then all the captains of the forces, and Johann, and the son of Korea, and Josenia, the son of Hosea, and all the people from the least under the greatest, came near, and said unto Jeremiah, The prophet, Let we beseech thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the Lord thy God.
For all this revenant, for all, For we are all left but a few. For we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do. Behold that the Lord thy God may show us the way we're in, we may walk, and the thing that we may do.
Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard you, behold, I will pray to the Lord your God according to your words. And then just a little further on in umm, just for the sake of time, verse 10, if you will still abide in this land, then will I build you up and not pull you down. I will plant you and not pluck you up, for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you. Be not afraid of the king of Babylon of whom ye are afraid. Well, he told them not to go into Egypt. He says in verse 12, I will show mercies unto you that you may have mercy, that he may have mercy upon you.
And cause you to return to your own land. And then in chapter 43.
It says in verse 2.
That they then speak Azariah the son of Hosea, and Johannian the son of Korean, all the proud men saying to Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely, for the Lord our God hath not sent unto thee to say, go not into Egypt to sojourn there. And then in verse 7. So they came into the land of Egypt, for they obeyed not the voice of the Lord, and thus came they even to Taffanese. Well, I just read these little passages of Scripture in Jeremiah, because you know the Spirit of God gives us this little history.
Of trouble among the people of God and judgment. The government of God came in because of idolatry and the Lord had caused that the king of Babylon had come into the land of Israel and he'd taken some captive and he'd set up a governor get a liar and the times of the Gentiles had begun really there was going to be now no nation of Israel in independence before God until.
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Really the Lord would set it up. We know that they go on and independence right now that there is a land of Israel, but they're in independence of God and they're fighting for their lives every day, but they're there in unbelief and the Lord will take them up very shortly and he will deal with them. But then these little passages, Scripture that I read, you know, young people, it's.
We all need discipline, and the people of God needed discipline. They had gone on in idolatry and wickedness, and God was dealing with them. And the children of Israel were not allowed to have their own country anymore, and they had to submit to the Gentile powers while they rebelled against those Gentile powers. And it says that they departed and then they came to Jeremiah and they said, Jeremiah, pray for us. We don't know what to do, where to go. Jeremiah prayed for them.
No, they didn't want to hear what God had to say. God said don't go into Egypt.
And you are going to face trouble in the assembly. You're going to face difficulty. You know the Lord Jesus said in John's gospel, he says in the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. But you know, it also says in Proverbs, I was in almost an all evil in the midst of the congregation of Israel. Really, it's in the congregation really among the people of God. There was going to be difficulty. There was going to be trial. And God deals with his people in his governmental ways.
And often times they'll be struggles in the assembly. There'll be struggles in your little assembly at home and go.
2 Peter 1:5-7
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Second Peter, chapter one, verse 5.
And besides this, giving all villages after your faith, virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance, patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they shall make you, that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But he unlocked these things his blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
Wherefore the to make your calling and election sure, or if you do these things, ye shall never fail fall.
For so an entrance shall be administered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things.
Though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yeah, I think in me, as long as I am in this Tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle.
Even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover, I will endeavor that he may be able, after my deceit, to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came country voice to him from the excellent glory.
This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
On this voice which came from heaven, we heard when we were with Him in the holy mountain. We have also a more sure word of prophecy. Whereof ye do well, let ye take heed.
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I don't know light that shineth in a dark place, until the day gone and the day star arise in your heart.
Knowing that first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation, where the prophecy came not in no time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake that they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Does this take us back to verse 3 where it says, umm, divine is that his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and violence. And then in verse five, and besides this giving all diligence, so we are to give diligence to add, to expand upon the thought.
Well, I'm sure that it is.
I think it's important that we understand that there is a a paragraph marker in the Jan Darby translation at verse 5 where we began reading today, and in the 1St 4 verses as we mentioned this morning.
We have God's part in preserving of his Saints in an evil day, and He's made these various provisions for us, which we touched on.
But from verse five onward, we have our part.
And we need to be exercised and give as well. You'll notice how it says that, uh, he has given unto us all things that pretended to let him go on his verse 3, verse four, He's given unto us the greatest promises. And now in verse five, that word give is mentioned again. Only it's not God giving, it's us giving. We need to give energy and diligence with regard to being preserved in the evil path in the evil days. And umm.
He mentions three things in particular. Perhaps you'll see more, but first of all, there should be an exercise in our part to have the moral qualities that would mark a godly life, which is what you get in verses 5 through 11.
Then we need to have the exercise of being established in the present truth. That's verses 12 and 1314. But lastly, in the latter verses of the chapter we have another third thing, and that is the necessity of keeping.
The coming glory before our souls that is God's glorious end, and the display of Kingdom glory where Christ will reign over all these things are going to keep us in the pathway.
So God has made full provision for us to be preserved in the past. The question we might ask is, well, why is it that we have a day of ruin and so many have not been preserved and there's so much failure that we look within our own hearts, we see the same thing?
Well, it's simple. It couldn't be a fault on God's part. Of course not.
The problem is in our part, we have not given the diligence and the things that he brings before us in the latter part of this chapter, and as a result, there has been failure on our part.
But if we feel we fail, then so we should realize that.
He's a God that will help us to rise up and to be overcomers in spite of failure.
There's never an excuse for failure in our lives, is there? And when you and I stand at the judgment seat of Christ, we will never be able to offer God an excuse of the Lord Jesus, an excuse for any failure in our lives, and will never be able to say, well, the Lord, the day was so dark that we didn't have the resources to live in the darkness of the day in which we found ourselves in the moral ruin around us. Because we're going to realize then that we had all the resources at our disposal. But just in connection with what's been said, I'd like to go back to the illustration we used this morning.
Of sending out the men on a job with the tool kit, because I might be able, might have been able to send my men out on the job with all the tools they needed. Maybe I did supply everything that was needed.
But if they didn't open the tool kit and reach into the tool kit, they weren't going to be able to perform the job or to perform the job properly. No, there had to be diligence on their part to utilize the tools that were supplied for them. And so it's interesting as this paragraph in our chapter begins, if I just read it, Mr. Darby's translation, but for this very reason, also using their with all diligence.
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And so it connected, as Ken said, with what goes before. Everything is there. The tool kit is full. The Divine tool kit is full, as it were, But now there has to be the opening of that tool kit.
And brethren, it's only by the grace of God I realize that we utilize what God has given to us. It's God that works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. If there's been any measure of utilizing the resources that God has provided in our lives, I realize that it's only the grace of God that has worked in US. However, there has to be that spiritual exercise and energy exhibited.
And God never encourages laziness in any aspect of our Christian life.
Whether it's our practical Christian life, whether it's our spiritual Christian life.
There's always got to be that energy. That's why David in the 27th Psalm, he makes 2 statements that go very well necessarily together. He says one thing, have I desired.
Well that's good. You know sometimes I hear it said about someone. Well they have a nice desire. Well desire is good, but the slugger desires and has nothing we can desire if after these meetings are over this evening.
We can have every desire to go back to our homes or where we're staying, but if we don't do something about it, we could sit here till tomorrow morning. No, David said one thing. If I desire that, will I seek after? He realized there had to be.
And energy put forth if he was going to accomplish or enjoy that which he desired.
And so for you and for me, there needs to be that diligence that he introduces here in this very practical section. And again, it's not what here, what we give God or what, uh, we give God, uh, it's what we do. And I should say, it's not what God is doing so much. He's done everything, but it's what we are to do now in light of the fact of what God has done and supplied for us.
He mentioned 7 qualities, moral qualities that are necessarily to be added to our faith. He assumes faith in the Saints, so he doesn't count that as one.
It begins with virtue, then knowledge, then temperance which is self-control, then endurance which is patience, godliness, then brotherly kindness and charity which is love. These things are necessary in the Christian pathway and.
They are only going to be, uh, ours. If there's exercise, it doesn't just sneak up on us one day and we're godly. If it's not, you may run into a godly Christian. It's because Scripture, as scripture says the person has been exercised about it. It says exercise thyself. Rather untrue.
That's something that just happens without the soul being exercised. And so the first thing is, as he mentions here, besides this giving all diligence, add in your face, not to your face, but in your face. Virtue. What's virtue? Virtue is the courage to stand on our convictions. Moral courage is so needed. Remember Christianity, the whole theme of Christianity is so opposite the world. We're going against the stream that we're going to need courage to stand on the convictions that we have.
And what we've been taught from the Word of God. And Peter says this is where you need to begin. Add this in your faith.
Would you say these are sequential as well? You can't begin with the end. And you, he doesn't, uh, with a list like this, he doesn't, uh, begin, uh, haphazardly, but very, very, in an orderly fashion. He lays things out very carefully. And so it's, uh, to our faith. We have faith in Christ. We have, uh, the, the world doesn't want us to live by faith, but by sight. And it also brings in the fact that we need to have our loyalties.
In connection with our fidelity associated with Christ, we need to be loyal to Christ in our thoughts and our actions. And so here he begins with faith and virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience very methodically goes out and I wonder if it's just building blocks. You can't just take umm and jumble this all up and start with the patience or start with temperance, but in a very careful way begins with faith in Christ.
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And then that virtue, that spiritual energy that we should have and are exhorted to exercise, and then knowledge.
In this matter of courage, it's not limiting to the men is if you might think that.
But we all often enjoy the virtuous woman in properly. I understand that that word in the Hebrew virtuous.
How to thought of once a woman of courage and conviction is for the birds, and then she acts on that.
And it it really is quite a testimony because perhaps with a week or pass holder before and here having a sense of being weaker.
And encouraged by, uh, the woman that we get in Second Samuel Chapter 20.
Second Samuel, chapter 20.
That time there's warfare and and there are those that are following after the command Stephens from victory and they go to this tower and they hold up in the tower.
And everyone in the tower is going to lose their life, except for there's this woman that comes out.
And it's kind of remarkable in verse 16, it says in Christ a wise one out of the city here, here I say unto you, Joel, come near, hit her that I may speak with thee when he would come here and turn. The woman said ourselves, Joel, after he's been answered by him and uh, she speaks, umm.
Why, Master said, far be it from me that I should swallow up or destroy.
And he said, well, read it, the matter's not so, But a man's not easy, and she does not a victory by name Have lifted up his hand against the King, against David. Deliver him only, and I'll depart from the city.
New stuff in the woman, She's talking to the general that way, and she says to him, his head is going to be delivered up. How is she going to go back in that tower and convince all those people that they need to take the head of the man that they're following? But she does.
It says in verse 22 That the woman went into all the people, their wisdom, and they cut off the head of Sheba, the son of Victory. He passed it out to Joab. We leave a trumpet.
The retirement of the city of a man's with him John returned to Jerusalem.
We have in Luke's Gospel chapter 6 verse 19 in connection with the Lord Jesus. It says the whole multitude. In verse 19, Luke 619 the whole multitude sought to touch him, for there went virtue out of him.
And heal them all. So in connection with the Lord Jesus, there was moral energy, there were spiritual energy. And uh, what you and I should be characterized as by is spiritual energy. We're flowing, we're living against the current of this world. And it will take spiritual energy and it will take spiritual courage to walk against this world. But it has to be done in faith. And if we don't have faith in, with a view as to what the end of the pathway is, then it really will be an empty thing.
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But it really is for Christ that really has to be with Christ as the object before our hearts, and that's what faith thinks before us.
And then it has to be according to knowledge too, doesn't it? We've already commented on this this morning. But there's much that appear, may appear pious in a person's life, but if it's not done according to knowledge, it's on a very shaky ground. We're told in Romans to present our bodies a living sacrifice.
Wholly acceptable unto God, which is your intelligent service. Because again, as we said this morning, Christianity.
Is marked by intelligence, and I say that because there's many things done today even in the name of the Lord Jesus. But when you go to the Word of God, you find it's not done according to God's Word.
You know we're never justified in doing anything, even in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Without the authority on the basis of the word for what we do. So that's why in the 138 Psalm it says thou hast magnified thy word above thy name. Sometimes people say, well, the only thing that matters is that souls get saved. Wonderful that souls get saved. But if we're going to live for the Lord and the testimony for the Lord, it must be in a way that conforms to the word of God. So we we've made many comments on that already, I realize, but.
He brings in knowledge here at the end of verse 5. So it's not just moral cour, it's not just moral courage. And uh, it's not just faith and moral courage, but it has to be according to knowledge as well.
And again, where are we going to get this knowledge? It's all here for us in the word of God. Could you explain why in the King James it says add, but it doesn't seem to be that that thought it's.
Yes, it's misleading to think that it's uh, steps or something. These features are to be added in our faith or we in our faith. Umm, more like branches of a tree. They all grow on the tree at the same speed at the same time.
I think you could probably add to that, but the word add here, it doesn't is misleading. It makes you think that there's sort of steps involved or something.
God wants evenness and consistency in our lives. You know, sometimes we tend to be extremists. I thought of what Robert read to us earlier in the address, and I know it's only an application.
But it's like it says of ethrium. Ephriam is a cake not turned. You know, you put a cake on the griddle and it gets too well done on one side and not enough on the other.
And that's what we often are by nature. We get off on one tangent of something, or we get off one characteristic shows up more in our lives than the other. And the Lord Jesus, as a man, he was the fine flower.
There was an evenness and consistency in his life. These virtues and those glories and attributes that shone out in the life of the Lord Jesus, there was an evenness and consistency in it.
They were seen in their perfect perfection in him. Well, they ought to we ought to seek by grace. And I know again, we'll never reach the same perfection of the Lord Jesus. But those things, whether they're those, these things that are listed here, the fruit of the Spirit that's listed in Galatians, which again are just attributes of the person of Christ. Those things ought to if we are walking in a proper way with proper exercise.
They there will be no unevenness or there will be less unevenness in our lives, and those things will each shine out consistently.
The brother used to say we have all the virtues of Christ undeveloped. We do have a life, and these things are characteristic of that life, aren't they?
But they're undeveloped. So he's saying cultivate these things.
And that's what spiritual exercise really is. It's the development of those things. We we think of it in a natural sense because someone quoted the verse about exercising ourselves unto godliness. But if you notice the verse before, it's making a little contrast there. He says bodily exercise profits for a little time, and it does. We all need exercise, but exercise in natural things takes energy and consistency. It takes discipline.
00:25:14
A young man or a young lady, they maybe get up early in the morning and they go down and they work out or they go for a run. That takes discipline. Maybe they're not by nature mourning people, but they want to keep healthy and they sit at a computer all day at the office. So they get up and they discipline themselves. Umm, young man, he goes up, goes to the weight room and he disciplines himself every day to lift weights. And as he lifts weights each every week, perhaps he adds a little to the, uh, to, to the weights. There's a development there.
You don't go into the weight room and expect to lift 150 lbs over your head the first day. The first day, No, it there's a development that takes place. A runner doesn't go out to train and expect to run a marathon in a month. No, there's months and months and years of of training and maybe they take part in smaller races 1St and then they develop those certain muscles and those certain lung capacity and whatever.
Well, that's what we're saying, brother. There needs to be the spiritual exercise, which takes energy and discipline. You know, if you're gonna have a knowledge of Scripture, you're gonna have to discipline yourself to take a little time every day to.
To read it, you're going to utilize any of the tools we've spoken about. You're going to have to take a little time. Prayer, one of those wonderful tools we spoke of this morning, takes time, takes exercise, takes energy of faith. Christianity is not easy. The Christian race is not easy. And that's why he speaks here of patience or patience often in our King James Bible is better translated endurance, and that's the way it is here.
Again, the marathon runner. He has to learn to pace himself and endure mile after mile, laugh after laugh. The Christian race, it says let us run with endurance. The race that is set before us.
So it's not the easy path, but it's the blessed and the happy path and the fruitful path.
You said that virtue, we can have this.
Moral energy, but it can be misguided and so we need knowledge to rightly know how the thoughts of of God is how to use it. But then it says to knowledge temperance.
There's a there's a danger in just wanting knowledge too, isn't it? Knowledge puffeth up, so there's a need of having temperance or self-control. Say a word about that.
How does that kind of, uh.
Keep us from being puffed up with the knowledge that we have.
What'd you say, Jim?
Well, I enjoyed a little definition that Brother Garvin Seymour serves the Lord in the Caribbean gave. We were taking up this very chapter one time at a conference in Dixon Village, Saint Vincent, and we came to this temperance and this is very simple, but I enjoyed it, he said, knowing how much in everything.
I thought that was very good to know how much in everything, and this is contrary to the spirit of the age in which we live.
Because the spirit of the age in which we live is to indulge, and if it feels good, do it. If you want more, go after it. Reach for your your dreams, get as much of whatever this world is a playground in which to indulge yourself and you only have one life and so on. Temperance is not what characterizes the age. Now I'm not criticizing, but you go down to the fast food place. You want the biggie size and you want the liter and 1/2 or the two liter drink or what, whatever.
There's no temperance in that, and that's only one aspect of things. But brethren, like Paul said, all things were lawful but not expedient. And, and there's too much of different things, certain things too. We can go too much.
One way or or the other? So temperance is knowing how much in everything. How would that temperate knowledge? Would that be walking in or carrying it out or?
The knowledge or what?
In the end of verse 4, you have the word lust for just used and having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And lust really is unbridled lust. It's just no control. But a believer's life is really characterized, ought to be characterized by control, self-control. That's our responsibility. But really we ought to be under the control of the Spirit of God.
00:30:26
But here is it. It is our responsibility, self-control, and instead of using knowledge to be puffed up and umm, to present ourselves with being something, it's really to control ourselves and to use that knowledge to exalt Christ.
And to walk in a Christ like way.
I hear, I heard of an instant where this man was quite well taught in the scriptures, but somebody went into the store where he was there and, and he had a basket full of cheese and, and, uh.
Why? Well, it wasn't Temperance. There wasn't. He had the knowledge, but he wasn't walking in it. And.
There are things just to qualify our remarks too. As you say, there are things that Scripture speaks against too. And so we want to be careful when we make the comments we have. And again, you won't have the knowledge.
Of what is actually forbidden, there are things that are forbidden.
I'll speak very plainly, brother.
Sexual conduct outside the marriage tie is not to be handled in temperance. It's absolutely forbidden. Fornication and adultery are forbidden. You've got to have the, the knowledge. Then there are other things that are not forbidden, but they are to be with temperance. They're in, in, in, in moderation. And so the word of God is the govern, isn't it? It's it, it's the, it's the guide. It tells us what is forbidden. It tells us what we can do.
It tells us how much it answers every question for every aspect of our practical Christian life.
On one side it prevents us from going into legality and the other into leniency.
Good, Very good.
Another thing that you should notice in these, uh, verses is the word.
2222 all through it, but if you read it in the Jan Darby translation, he does not have those words there at all. Add an add to is not there.
And so it's just one thing after another here mentioned. And, uh, he goes from self-control, which is what temperance is, which is the fruit of the spirit. Galatians 5 tells us that then to patients, which should be translated endurance.
Endurance is very important. We need to endure, be able to be, to be tough, to be able to accept the fact that we're going against the grain of the course of this world. And you know, we all wanna be well thought of, but Christianity is not something that's popular, that is faithful. Christianity, if it's lived by God's people, is not popular in this world. So if you're looking to win a popularity contest with your worldly friends or people you work with or go to school with, it's not gonna work.
You have to endure the reproach that's connected with the name of Christ and you when you set out the Christian pathway. We need to be prepared to accept this kind of thing because it's normal to Christianity.
That's endurance.
In Hebrews 13 we get the verse. Let us go forth, therefore unto him outside the camp, bearing His reproach would be.
A form of endurance wouldn't. It could bear his reproach. You can continue on anything.
And we are to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, Timothy was told, because we are in a war zone. We're, we're, we're in a, we're, we're in Pharaoh's land as Robert was bringing before us. We have an enemy, a powerful enemy. And that's why we're to put on the armor of God. But we are to endure hardness. And brethren, don't expect that the Christian life is going to get any easier. I sometimes say to the young people.
They look at us who are a little older and a little further along in the path of faith and they think perhaps it's going to get any get easier. Well, the, the, the temptations, the difficulties may be different than what you're facing, but they're, they're no easier. In fact, when I was in Egypt recently, you know, the brethren were saying, you know, life is tough over here, it's harsh and so on. I said, let's illustrate it this way. If you've got 10 problems over here in Egypt.
00:35:29
We've got 10 problems over where I come from. They may be 10 different problems. I just pulled 10 as a number. But I said we may, they may be different problems, but they're just as real. The enemy is just as busy. The situations are just as real for us. They may be very different. And the brethren said, yes, we, we understand that. And so whatever age we are in our Christian life, wherever we live in the world, the enemy is busy. He's opposed to Christianity.
And we are not going to be done with Christian warfare as long as we're here in this world.
Run with endurance the race that is set before you. Hebrews 12.
It is a very needed quality when we're in an enemy's land.
Then godliness.
Godliness is simply being like God in character.
And as we've already mentioned, this comes through exercise as well.
Mm-hmm.
That I was just looking at the new translation and, uh, because I was thinking of a verse that says where you have need of patience and after you've done the will of God, you might receive the promises. But it is, and it's endurance. And, uh, might be an illustration of that 32nd verse of, uh, Hebrews 10. Uh, read it in a new translation, but call to mind the earlier days in which having been enlightened, he endured much conflict of suffering on the one hand.
When you were made a spectacle both in reproaches and afflictions, and on the other, when you became partakers of those who were passing through them, for you both sympathized with prisoners and accepted the joy.
You became partakers of those.
The plundered your goods, knowing that you have for yourselves a better substance and an abiding 1 Cast not away, therefore your confidence, which has great recompense.
For you have need of endurance in order that having done the will of God, He might receive the promises for yet a little while. He that comes will come, and will not delay. So it seems like.
They, they were exuberant when they started, but that was kind of waning and, uh, that's the way with us, you know?
We get tired, you know, uh, we wait, we, we think the Lord is coming and uh, he doesn't come. So we kind of, uh.
Get weary and but you have a need of endurance.
So let's let's tell I'm gonna ask for a little help on this because there might be some here saying, well, what do we endure?
In North America, some of us have been to countries where the endurance is very real. Our our brethren in Egypt, when they meet at night, it it's it's done very circumspectly. When we have meetings, we have it in a different brothers flat in a different part of the city each night.
Under lock and key we don't sing so that we don't raise any.
Any suspect from any of the apartments above us or below us or or around us?
They, the brothers told me when.
In the morning when we get up, our main concern is for our wives and daughters till we're all home and accounted for at night. They can't evangelize openly. All these things. And like some of the things Brother Vern has read to us and Paul endured. He endured things at Ephesus from what he people he called beasts and so on. But now let's bring it right home to where we are this afternoon. We're sitting in this beautiful facility.
00:40:21
We've got air conditioning, climate control, we've had wonderful meals provided by our brethren. We're not afraid of the authorities coming in and busting down the door and arresting us or shooting us because we're having a Bible meeting.
We're not going to be afraid tonight to preach the gospel. We could go out on the streets if we had the moral courage and have a street meeting and give out some tracks, and we wouldn't be afraid of being arrested or stoned like the apostles or in the early brethren who are not afraid of being burnt at the stake. So we talk about endurance and I'll quote a verse. All they that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
That's pretty definite. Not might, but shall. But we're not suffering persecution in the general way we think of persecution this afternoon. Now, what does that verse mean? What are we talking about?
For us practically here today in North America when we talk about endurance.
Brothers, help us out.
We're being tempted to give up. Thank you That that's really the, uh, the temptation of the game is to is to give up, fit in and drift home.
We were in, in, uh, we were down in Phoenix, uh, this winter and uh, on Thursday we would drive up the Cottonwood. My wife and I, we doubled the assembly on Thursday night. But here's a brother who is well taught, enjoying the Lord and he's, uh, he's vibrant and it just, sometimes his wife is there. So there's three, there's him, his wife and George.
Uh, you know, uh, but uh.
You know, he values George because George is always there and, uh, they have the, when, uh, they have a prayer meeting and it's uh, lively, but, uh, that man is going on the same thing in, in, uh, Colorado Springs, my brother Bill White.
So those are the things that and and of course, you know, you take the persecution of those who are believers, you know, why are you going on like that? You know, why don't you come and act like the rest of us?
I'll give you another example. I was in the assembly out east and uh, brother and, uh, another brother, two brothers would come to the reading prayer meeting very faithfully on Wednesday night. Two of them, their wives weren't that terribly interested. And there are other brethren in the area. Well, they're not that interested. They come to the meeting room every Wednesday night for a reading meeting and a prayer meeting. I was sitting in this brother's house and I said brother.
Why don't you, uh, perhaps consider, uh, meeting in one of your homes and then you don't have to unlock the meeting room and heat it up and so on and so forth and so on. And he said this to me. He says, brother, I fear God.
Brother, I fear God. We're going to meet in the meeting room and we're going to be in the presence of God. We're going to read the scriptures in the presence of God. We're going to read and we're going to pray in the presence of God. I fear God. I tell you that assembly has prospered.
And there has been more growth. If there was a little more endurance, a little more devotion to Christ, there would be more, uh, blessing among us. And that litany of things that you just told us that we have, I remember what a brother used to often say, prosperity, thou enemy of the Christian to endure and not let that take over in your life because we have it so well, it what the tendency is to get taken up with the things in this world.
Just good things and forget the Lord altogether. And it goes back to what Brother Ken said earlier. There's always a reproach in the measure in which we are faithful to the Lord, whether it's in our personal lives, whether it's collectively as you brought out. There's always going to be a reproach connected with our testimony for Christ. We may not fear being stoned as we walk down the street or arrested for our testimony, but there's going to be the sneer. There's going to be the misunderstanding.
00:45:03
And sometimes persecution is, for us at least, is more connected with reproach than being physical. Another thing too interesting, when you take up the armor of God, it doesn't say to put on the armor of God that we would be able to stand against the power or the onslaught of the devil. That is not what it says. When the Knights put on their armor back in the in years ago to go out to battle, they put on their armors of to withstand the onslaught of the enemy.
But it says to withstand the Wiles of the devil. Isn't that interesting? The Wiles of the devil are often more successful, at least for us in the Western world, than the onslaught of the enemy that in a physical and practical way that many of our brethren, uh, experience. I want to read one more verse in this connection in Revelation chapter 21.
Revelation chapter 21 and verse seven. He that overcometh shall inherit all things. Are these things. It's the things he's been Speaking of in connection with eternity. And I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
It's interesting to notice the overcoming here because the overcoming in the seven to the churches earlier on the overcoming there is in connection with something very specific.
In regard to each assembly, sometimes it was physical persecution, there were other circumstances, giving up of the truth, compromise and so on. And the overcomer there, the overcoming there, and the overcomer, it's always in connection with something very specific. But I suggest the overcoming here is a little more general. The overcoming here is just the general grind of life and brother. And I believe that the enemy can use just the general grind of life.
You know, I watch people in the airports and the business lounges every week. Businessmen in the top echelon of the political and corporate world, they are just overwhelmed by keeping up in business.
And the enemy can come in with that which is not wrong in itself, but just as we say, to tread water in society and keep our head above water and survive in the workaday world in which we find ourselves.
But, brethren, even in the pressure of life in North America, the Western world.
We can still be overcomers. We can endure, as we, as we've been been saying, and in spite of whatever opposition there may be, whether it's subtle or whether it's not so subtle, the Lord is sufficient. And as we've been saying, the resources are there. What is the power for endurance?
Tell us 10. I believe it's the person. Mm-hmm.
If you go back to that verse that I quoted in Hebrews 12, it supports what you say, looking off unto Jesus the author and finisher the faith. Then it talks about enduring the run with the patience or endurance of the race. It's the only thing that's going to give us the energy we need to keep our eye fixed on the person that's before us.
We often, uh, emphasize the plate and it's good, but we can emphasize the place to the exclusion of the person.
And if the person comes first, the place will follow after and.
Gain as much importance to us, but let's not, uh, let's not umm, emphasize the place per SE to the exclusion of Christ himself. Because if we do, He's not going to be there.
And there's only one way too that these moral qualities are going to be exhibited in our lives, and that's occupation with the person. I just want to turn to the to 2nd Corinthians 3 and I, I think this is borne out.
Because sometimes we might say, well, these things don't seem to be manifest in my life. How can I really manifest these things in in my life? Because as we've been saying, these things are really those attributes of the person of Christ himself, those things that evenly and consistently shone out, those moral glories that they saw when they saw the Lord Jesus walking here in this world.
But here's another key, and it goes along with what we had, what Bruce quoted to us in Hebrews looking unto Jesus. But notice the last verse of chapter three of Second Corinthians. But we all with open face, beholding us in a glass, the glory of the Lord. Or if you notice Mr. Darby's translation, looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled faith are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as the by the Spirit of the Lord.
00:50:27
You know, sometimes we might try within ourselves to generate some of these attributes and qualities and so on. That's not going to work. What is going to work? What scene of Christ in your life and mind is in the measure in which we are occupied with Christ, where He is now and His glory. You know, Moses, when he was in the presence of God on the mount and he came out, He had to veil his face.
They couldn't look on him. Why? Because his face shone as a result of being in the presence of his God on the mouth. He didn't try to make his face shone. In fact, it says he wished not that his face shone.
It was the unconscious reflection of being in the presence of God. And these things will be unconsciously reflected in your life and mind. And I again, I don't want to take away from the exercise and the diligence and so on, but there will be an unconscious reflection of the moral qualities of Christ in your life and mind only in the measure in which we're looking unto Jesus. We're looking at him with unveiled faith. Moses had to veil his face.
The veil has been removed for us. We can look full in His wonderful face and be occupied with Himself, that those things might give testimony in our lives. Let me give you a verse in Hebrews 11 which will show the power for endurance. Turn with me to Hebrews 11 and verse 27.
Talking about Moses by faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.
For he endured as seeing him was invisible. He added his the focus of his life and faith was on him who was invisible. And it gave him to be able to endure the hardship the the reproach, the.
Persecution that was going to follow in standing up against the king.
If one can read their experiences and to other people, and it's not difficulty, it's not it's not difficult when we're here to be occupied with the Lord. Where I find difficulty is driving down the road.
Or what I'm doing other things when I leave this place and there's so many other things to occupy that it's very difficult or uses. You need diligence to be thinking about the things of the Lord and to be in his presence. We used to hear all the time at the conference. There's no substitute for communion. I think that's.
What that verse, eighteenth verse of the third chapter means, you know, we're we're taking up with him in glory. But to keep your mind on those things, it's it takes diligence, at least if one can speak for others.
Well, what about verse 7?
Brotherly kindness and charity.
Why are these important for in in the mix of preserving us? Because that's the context of the chapter, remember?
Help us.
What was the question again?
Restate the question. I'm asking a question. Yeah. What was it? We restate it, please. Oh, I see.
Well, it says Brotherly kindness and brotherly Kindness charity. There's two things there.
And I'm asking why are these features necessary?
In the mix of our being preserved in an evil day. Because that's the context of the chapter.
Well, when is filet, O love, The other is agape love. And so our love for our brethren is necessary. We love our brethren. It's proof that we are the Lords, and we ought to, we're responsible to love our brethren and to grow in that love, but also in connection with the charity. It's agape love, it's a subtle disposition of love, it's divine love. And so you and I have.
00:55:03
The capacity, don't we, to love as Christ loved? And so instead of, uh, umm.
Oh, what is it? Uh.
It's like Steven praying for those that were stoning him, he said.
Lord Jesus.
I was gonna read it so I don't misquote it.
He they stoned Steven, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus receive my spirit. And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice. Lord lay not there this sin to their charge. And when he had said that he fell asleep, was that not?
Really agape love, that was charity. That was a subtle disposition before God. He was going to love his enemies and he was going to love them even unto death. It was really mirroring picturing, uh, the love of Christ. But then we're it's necessary to walk in friendship and fellowship with our brethren as well.
We cannot bypass the first, uh, of the list that we have for this and go right directly to loving our brother. I believe the, the, the love that is shown to our brethren is the fruit of applying all these other things to our place and, uh, because that is the nature of God.
So, uh, that, that is not the first thing that's given in our list here. You mentioned before, Robert, that there is a, a, a, an order, uh, by in, in which it is given. We don't, it's not just multiple, but we're thrown in there. We couldn't mix this up and still have the same thought. So the end of that list, you might say, is, uh, loving our brother because these characters have been, uh, manifested in our life.
And so it starts with the individual. We can be no more collectively than we are individually.
And so it starts with the individual, but then it says in Romans, no man lives to himself and no man dies to himself. And so there's the collective, collective side of things. And our love one for another, expressed in a practical and a real way, is often the world's greatest testimony. The Lord said by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you keep my word. No, that's not what he said.
If you have love one for another. And so when there's that brotherly love, that practical love, and you notice it's brotherly love here first, but it doesn't stop there, then love. You know, we're going to preach the gospel tonight. Why? Because I trust we have a love for sinners as well, that our love goes beyond just the Christian circle. God loves the world. He desires the blessing of all men, and we ought to have that as well.
And so there's love in the Christian circle, there's brotherly love, sometimes that breaks down, but then there's divine love, as Robert has said. But it goes, as I say, beyond just the Christian circle, where to have a love for all men.
And desire their eternal blessing. So is it I'm asking this now Is it to to live in the element of love being expressed? That would be the preserving element. Is that what you're?
Well, it has to start with with our with ourselves, But then there's the practical expression, brotherly love. We can't carry on brotherly love without interacting with our brethren and expressing it in a practical way. And that's what we're talking about here. It's living practical Christianity in a day of ruin and giving testimony in a in a day, in a day of ruin, that there's reality. And how's the world going to know that there's reality?
They're going if it's only if they see it. How are our brethren going to know if there's reality in our lives? It's as we express in a practical way, that brotherly love you might enjoy divine love in your soul as an individual.
But brotherly love brings in others. It's the our interaction of the practical expression of love in a care one for another. So again in Hebrews, he says, let brotherly love continue.
The very practical thing, what, what don't you think, Bruce, is it, is it something that, uh, uh, brotherly love can deteriorate? So it's relative, but there's one thing that's even above that and that's agape love. So we might, it might deteriorate into, we just, uh, you know, love our brethren and, and, uh, go on with them, uh, when they're going on with something that doesn't please the Lord, but love for God would, uh, balance that out.
01:00:03
I think you get something relatively or something that is like that. Not exactly, but if you turn to Luke 414, it's a very revealing, uh, uh, God forbid that anybody would ever say anything about family. You know, God is the, uh, author of it and where to respect it. But relatively, uh, the 26th verse, if any man come to me.
And hate not his father.
And his mother, his wife, and his children and brethren and sisters. Yeah, in his own life also. He cannot be my disciple. It's relative. Christ first. If anything, there's a danger of allowing these things to supersede that. So. So he says.
The 27th verse. And whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot, cannot be my disciple, not, cannot be, uh, a child of God, but a disciple. You know, salvation costs us nothing, absolutely nothing. We are saved by the work of Christ, by the grace of Christ, by faith in Christ alone, discipleship.
May cost you everything.
So I think it's relative is, is is that?
Oh, what were you? What was your thought on it? I didn't have a thought, but I'm glad to get that. But I might say I love you. That's one thing. But if there isn't a practical manifestation of that love in our interactions one with another, then you say, well, that there's no testimony in that. There's no reality in that. And that's again, what brotherly love is. It's just, it's the display of it practically one with another. It's a little different, but you think of the, the.
Umm, the story of the Samaritan. The priest and the Levite went. They came along and they looked and they might have said, well poor man, we love them, but not much we can do for them. They were but when the Samaritan came.
He not only had compassion on him, it says he went to him and he bound up his wounds. And he didn't just leave him in the ditch with bound up wounds. He put him on his own beast. He brought him to the inn. He paid to have somebody take care of him.
That was the practical manifestation of the compassion or love that the Samaritan had for the man in the ditch. So what does it mean to hate your mother and your father and your brother and your sister? Is that too strong a word here?
It's really the sense of valuing one relationship above all other relationships.
And really giving Christ the 1St place, the world has an expression family 1St and that's not true. It's really that Christ that in all things he might have the preeminence. And so we have family responsibility, don't we says children obey your parents and it says that husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. And so we have those responsibilities, but those claims cannot supersede.
What we have and responsibility Godward and know how the Lord loves us and desires that we would walk in the same fashion as he did. He uh, loved the Father and even when it comes to ourselves, having loved his own, which were in the world, He loved them unto the end, but never in defiance of the word of God in any way. And so this is really why he brings that out in Luke chapter 14 is that that one relationship would be of value to us above all other relationships.
Is there a, did the Lord display this? I, I'm, I'm asking, uh, in uh, Matthew 16 and the 17th verse. And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed are thou, you know, he, maybe I should have started up above, but we all know, uh, the 14th verse, uh, he'd ask them. He asked them, what do pins say? Who do men say that I am? And uh, and then the 15th verse he said, he said unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now here is the Lord.
Giving us affirmation to that Jesus said unto said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood, if not revealed this unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven now there is a love to to Peter, but.
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When Peter said.
In the 21St verse, from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem.
And suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes will be killed and be raised again a third day. Then Peter took him, and he began to rebuke him. The Lord. Now the Lord is going to be faithful.
And to God his Father, and he, so he, he said, get thee behind me, say.
That was it was.
To honor.
His father above the person of peace. And I believe that you get an example of that. You know, brotherly kindness ought to be shown.
But it can deteriorate into displeasing the Lord.
In going on with something our brother that is not a God.
Let me take time to just tell you one little story that I think will touch your heart. At least it touched mine during the revolution, the two revolutions and overthrows of government that they had in Egypt over the last four, four years.
I continue to visit my brethren there and there are about 3 wealthy brethren in the assembly there in Cairo. And they are not only wealth, very wealthy even by our standards, but they have family and connection either in North America or Europe. And those brothers told me during the height of the revolution, they said, you know, Jim, we could put our family on a plane tomorrow and leave and get out.
But we won't leave our brethren behind. We're here to care for our brethren, and we feel before the Lord that we're here to be with our our brethren. They can't leave. We can support them financially, that we can encourage them in the Lord. We can take care of them in every way, and we won't leave without them. I thought what a beautiful example of brotherly love in its proper context. They had such a love for their brother.
That though they could leave a very difficult situation for them and their families, they wouldn't do it. Now I've never been put in that kind of test, so I don't know what I would do. But I thought that is a modern day example of brotherly love, brotherly kindness and a care one for another.
200 and 96296.
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Hi.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Jim Hyland
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This evening with hymn #4 on the gospel hymn sheet, Christ is the Savior of sinners.
Christ is the Savior for me, long I was chained in sin's darkness.
Now by his grace I am free hymn #4. If someone could please start it.
Now there is no contemplation. This is the thing therefore being.
The day girl and girl standing like me.
Shaking his life for my granddaughter, this is the danger for me.
Let's ask God.
We're going to take some time at the beginning of this gospel meeting and read a number of scriptures.
And I realized that to the casual reader or listener, these scriptures may seem very disconnected.
These scriptures might seem like some of them at least very strange scriptures.
To begin a gospel meeting with but I believe if you listen closely that you will find.
One thing at least in common with these scriptures that we read.
We may not comment on all these scriptures specifically, but we're going to read them because, you know, tonight.
Blessing depends on the living word of God in all its power. That's where the blessing comes.
Thank God it's not our ability to explain the gospel that is going to bring about salvation tonight.
But it is the word of God in all its living power, because the Scriptures tell us here and your soul shall live.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. We're born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever. And so, as I say, we're going to take some time and read these scriptures, and then we're going to seek, with the Lord's help, to tie them together in as simple a gospel message as we can. The first scripture I want to read is in the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 21.
Genesis chapter 21 and I'm going to read verses 3.
And verse 5.
And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him.
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Isaac and Abraham was 100 years old.
When his son Isaac was born. And now we're going to go over to the New Testament.
To John's Gospel, chapter 21.
John's Gospel, chapter 21.
And verse 10.
Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.
Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of great fishes on 150 and three, and for all. There were so many, yet not was not the net broken.
And then in Luke's Gospel chapter 15.
Luke's Gospel, chapter 15.
And verse four, what man of you having 100 sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the 90 and nine in the wilderness?
And go after that which is lost until he find it. I want to read a verse in the book of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah, chapter 3.
And verse one then he lies ship. The high priest rose up with his brethren, the priests.
And they builded the sheath gate. They sanctified it and set up the doors of it even under the tower of Mia. They sanctified it under the tower, under the tower of Hannah Nel. And now one more portion for now in Marks Gospel, Chapter 4.
Mark's Gospel chapter 4.
And verse 14.
The sower soweth the word.
And then just drop down to verse 20 and these are they which are sown on good ground.
Such as hear the word and receive it and bring forth some 30 fold, some 60, and some an hundred. Well, as I said, these may seem like very strange scriptures to read at the beginning of a gospel meeting, but I believe you'll find that these scriptures bring before us a number, the number 100, and the number 100 has a great significance in the word of God.
As we often point out, numbers in Scripture often have significance.
And the number 100 has the thought of complete or full salvation. I'm going to show you something in my pocket in a few moments that brought this subject to my mind recently. But I began back in the book of Genesis because there we find that when Isaac was born, he was born to Abraham. And it is not insignificant that Scripture records the age of.
Abraham when Isaac was born.
Abraham was 100 years old because Isaac was the son of promise.
And if we were to go on and read through that the different chapters in Genesis that follow, we would find that Isaac is a very beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I began with this portion because we want to, at the beginning of the Gospel meeting, bring before our souls that the gospel is concerning God's beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The one who was sent into this world. And so if we were to go on to the 22nd chapter of Genesis.
We would find there that Abraham is told to take his son.
The son of his old age. The son of promise. The son that he waited so long to have.
And he is told to go and to offer him as a sacrifice on a mountain that God was going to appoint. And that chapter I believe is a very beautiful picture in the Old Testament of the Father and the Son going to the altar. And the Son offered up as a sweet smelling sacrifice, summed up no doubt in that precious verse in first John chapter 4 where it says the Father sent the Son.
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To be the savior of the world because tonight it's the savior of sinners that we are presenting.
And so it all began in Isaac's life, with his father being 100.
Years of age, I rarely bring an object lesson to a gospel meeting.
But I'm going to show you something that was bought a few days ago.
At Tenukaliki, which is the very famous bazaar in downtown Cairo, Egypt.
I asked one of the young brothers that was with me to haggle for this thing that's in my pocket, and he did, and I brought it along to night. What I have in my pocket is a set of beads.
And of these beads, if you were to count them, there are 99 beads.
On this necklace, these beads are very important to a Muslim man.
And you can have a look a little a little closer. Look after the meeting if you like.
But you will find that on these 99 beads there is an inscription on each one in Arabic. Because if we were to pull the Koran tonight, the Muslim Bible, so to speak, we would find that there are 99 names for the Muslim God. We generally refer to him as Allah, but there are 99 names in the Koran for their God.
Not 100, but 99, and a very devout Muslim man will take this set of beads every day and finger them and repeat the 99 names of his God. When you look a little closer at these beads, you'll find that they are divided into three sets, each consisting of 33 beads.
If a man is not so devout, he may recite.
66 of the names of his God and if he's a little more casual about his religion.
He will recite just 33 and it is divided in that way for that purpose. You can get sets of these that are very expensive, that have semi precious stones and you can get sets of them without the names of their God engraved on them. Because a man who does this all his life, he doesn't need a set with the names on them, he knows them by heart and every time he recites this these names.
This helps him to get another foothold on Eternity and hopefully.
Heaven. But you know, it's interesting to me and the reason I bought this and the reason I brought it tonight.
It's because whatever Satan seeks to copy, it always falls short of the truth of God. And it's interesting, isn't it, that there are 99 names that a Muslim man will repeat, 99 names of his God, But there's one that's missing. It comes short of God's salvation, and as different Christians over the in Egypt have told me.
The one name that's missing is the fact that God is a God of love.
They do not know God as a God of love, and you're not over there amongst them very long before you realize.
That they do not know their God as a God of love. If they knew him as a God of love, they could add another bead to this string.
And there would be salvation available to them.
But here we find Isaac, this beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus.
And he is taken and he is placed on the altar. And I realize that there was a substitute for Isaac. I realized that there was a ram caught in a thicket. But, you know, we find in the New Testament that in figure in type to the heart of God, Isaac was offered as a sacrifice because it pictured to God as Isaac was bound and laid on that altar.
And as Abraham raised that knife to plunge it into the heart of his son to God he was thinking.
Of a time when his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, would come into this world.
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Go to Calvary's cross, and there be offered as that great and supreme sacrifice, because while there was a substitute for Isaac, he was but a pale reflection. He was but a feeble foreshadow of what was really in the mind and heart of God.
Yet for the Lord Jesus there was number substitute. He bowed in the garden in his agony, sweating as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And he said it, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But he rose from the garden to do the Father's will nevertheless. Not my will, but thine be done. He went on to pilots Judgment Hall. From pilots judgment hall he looked out towards Golgotha.
And he knew what was going to take place out there. And we read in John's Gospel, He bearing his cross, went forth. Yes, he did. He went forth, and there they crucified Him.
There he hung for those hours as a spectacle for men and angels. There there were those who passed by and reviled him.
Others sat down and watched him. In his agony. One tried to give him vinegar to drink.
But then there was a moment in time, a moment in the history of this world.
For something tremendous happened.
Where the sun at high noon was darkened, God said that's enough.
And he darkened the sun so that no eye could penetrate.
Well, my sins were laid on the Lord Jesus.
Where I can say he bore my sins in his own body on the tree.
Can you say that this evening? Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior?
Are your sins taken care of by the work of Calvary? At the end of those hours of darkness, the Lord Jesus bowed his head. He gave up the ghost. He died in a way that no other could or never has or ever could. He lay down his life.
Some time later, a soldier came along and with a spear, pierced his side.
And Scripture records again in John's Gospel forthwith came throughout blood and water.
And we read throughout the scriptures the things like the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.
We read in the Old Testament without the shedding of blood is no remission.
The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar.
It's through that blood that we have the forgiveness of sins. I grew up singing that gospel song. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. And there's no substitute tonight for the death and the shedding of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I say again, Isaac was just a pale reflection of what was really in the mind and the heart.
Of God, but there is complete salvation offered now.
Based on that work that the Lord Jesus accomplished on Calvary's cross.
And there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
And that's why I read the portion in John's Gospel chapter 21.
Because there we find that the disciples having acted under the direction of the Lord Jesus.
They cast this net into the sea and when they drag it to shore.
Scripture is very, very precise as to the number of fish.
In that net.
The bigger numbers in scripture we have to breakdown a little bit, but you'll we found here there were 150 and three fish. Again, 100 has to do with complete salvation.
50 has to do with the day of Pentecost. And you know, it was on the Day of Pentecost that the Christian era began.
Because as if we were to go to Acts chapter 2 This evening, we would find that after the Lord Jesus.
Had risen from the dead, and after he had remained on earth long enough.
00:20:00
To give complete testimony to his own that he had bodily risen from the dead.
A moment came on the side of the Mount of Olives at Bethany.
Where he lifted up his hands and blessed them, and his feet left planet Earth, and the cloud received him out of their sight, and they saw him no more. And Scripture doesn't leave us in any doubt as to where the Lord Jesus went.
The Scripture leaves us in no doubt as to what took place on the other side of the cloud.
And we know from many scriptures that the Lord Jesus return to the Father.
And that he is seated there tonight as the Savior.
Of sinners.
This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever, sat down.
On the right hand of God, Hebrews 10 tells us.
But after the Lord Jesus had gone back to heaven and time had been fulfilled according to scripture.
On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God descended in the bodily form of a dove, and that was the beginning of Christianity. That's the day. That's the time. That was the place where the Church of God was formed. There were about 120 believers gathered together in that upper room, and the Spirit of God came and formed what we call the Church of God.
And aren't we so very thankful that from the day of Pentecost until this very day?
The Spirit of God has been working, and through His spirit we read, the Lord added to the Church daily Such as should be saved.
And the fact that we're here tonight in this hall and the fact that we can preach the gospel is a proof.
That the Spirit of God is still here in this world, and the Spirit of God is still working.
And God is working by his spirit. And maybe there's someone here tonight.
And the Spirit of God is striving with you, but I want to warn you.
Solemnly in the presence of God tonight, that God has said, my spirit shall not always strive with man.
God speaks once, yeah, twice. Yet man perceiveth it not. And we find all through Scripture that God often spoke, and often he spoke more than once to get the attention of various individuals and peoples. But you know, the day always came when the voice of God was no more heard in that way, I suppose the most outstanding example that comes to many of our minds.
Is in connection with the flood. You know, it's remarkable that it says that the flood came and took them all away.
You know there must have been children, there must have been young people living on planet Earth at that time.
But you know when the judgment of God fell on this earth in the days of Noah.
It was no respecter of persons. It didn't matter how old you were, how young you were.
It didn't matter how often you'd heard Noah preach righteousness for those, I suppose about 120 years.
It didn't matter your social standing. It didn't matter if you were a person of religion. It didn't matter if you were God fearing. It didn't matter if I can put it this way, if you were walking The Dirty side of the broad road or the clean side, the flood came and took them all away.
And there is a moment coming in this world when judgment is going to come again.
Because you know the Lord Jesus, before he went back to heaven, he told his disciples He promised them.
That he was going to come again. And there are many scriptures we could turn to. One that comes to mind is.
When once the master of the house hath risen up and shut to the door, then they are going to become and begin to knock, and they are going to say, Lord, Lord, open unto us, we have the parable. Of the 10 virgins, five were wise and five were foolish. Five were ready and went into the marriage, And when the other five came and knocked, they were sincere at that point.
They said open to us.
But the door was never opened again because when God's voice.
Ceased us to speak in the power of the Spirit of God in connection with the gospel of the grace of God.
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It's going to be too late for anyone who's ever who's heard it before and it is going to be too late for you. I can say with full assurance that everyone of understanding in this room.
Who rejects Christ and goes into a lost eternity or is left behind when the Lord comes, is going to be left behind for the judgment of God because you'll be without excuse.
Very serious to think about, isn't it? You will be without excuse.
Because you have heard the way of salvation, and we are seeking feebly to present it again tonight.
And these verses that we quote these verses if you reject them as to a point of refuge.
If you reject them as to your soul's salvation, they will rise in judgment of you in the coming day.
The Lord Jesus said the word which I have spoken the same shall judge him in the last day.
To go into a lost eternity and remember the verses from Scripture that you heard.
In a gospel meeting like this.
Those verses will rise in judgment of you. I'm going to quote a familiar gospel verse that I suppose perhaps everyone in this room has heard before, but I'll quote it again.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Have you ever heard that verse before? I'm sure you have, and you've just heard it again. But it will be a serious thing for you to remember John 316 in a place where Scripture says the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.
And to remember that verse in a lost eternity, that verse will nag at your conscience.
Forever and ever and ever, because you will realize that that verse could have been your soul salvation.
And so there were 150 and three fishes. Why three? Well again, 3 is a picture, 3 is the number of death and resurrection. He died, he was buried, and he rose again the 3rd day according to the scriptures. And in that regard I just want to again stress for a moment the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We stress in the gospel the fact that he died.
We stress the fact that he shed his precious blood. We stress the fact that he was buried.
But as Paul said in writing to the Corinthians, the gospel that he preached was summed up in these simple words.
He died, he was buried, and he rose again the third day.
According to the scriptures, I want to stress that for a moment, because if Christ be not raised.
Your faith is in vain and ye are still in your sins.
But thank God he was raised again for our justification, and we want to tenaciously hold on.
To the truth of the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus, I know that there have been those down through the ages.
Who have propagated the false doctrine that the Lord Jesus only rose in spirit?
But he said to his disciples, Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bone, as ye see me have.
I know sometimes we repeat our stories and illustrations, but I am often in stressing the resurrection on an occasion like this.
Reminded of the story of two missionaries who some years ago.
We're working in one of the busy cities in India and one day they were on a crowded, noisy St. in India.
And they were startled by a large procession coming down the road.
And they made inquiries as to what was happening and they were told that supposedly.
A bone of Buddha had been found and the followers of Buddha were rejoicing.
As this bone was carried down the road by the priests of Buddha in some very ornate box.
Well, the missionaries watched this for a time and when they retired to their quarters and talked over the matter.
They were struck by that, and, as they said, the contrast in Christianity, because they concluded that if a bone of the Lord Jesus were found, it would not cause great rejoicing amongst the believers, it would cause great sorrow. But thank God, a bone of the Lord Jesus will never be found in this world. He rose from the dead. The tomb was empty. The stone rolled away the napkin and the clothes that were wrapped around him in order.
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So that they could see very clearly, And then to remain on earth, as I say for as long as He did, to confirm to his own His bodily resurrection. And this is the man in the glory who is the savior of sinners. There is a savior on high in the glory, a savior who suffered on Calvary's tree. A savior is willing to save. Now as ever, his arm is almighty, His love great and free. And the invitation it tonight is, oh come now to Jesus.
That dear loving Savior, receive him this moment, and peace shall be thine.
You know, you realize very quickly when you're in a Muslim, a Buddhist, A Hindu or a heathen country that there is no peace. And I have seen people who have spent their whole life trying to appease their God or gods. It is a very solemn and a sad thing. And I have heard those that wail out their cries at the hour of prayer five times a day.
And it is a very sad thing. It is not a happy thing. And although I don't understand it, because it is all in Arabic, you can tell just by the expressions and the tone of the voice that it is a very woeful and sorrowful thing. But you know, tonight we don't have to make peace with God because we never could. If we had eternity to do it, I could never make peace with God. But thank God I don't have to. He's made peace through the blood of his cross.
And based on that work of Calvary I have peace with God thru our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is a very sad thing to hear people wail out their hearts at the hour of prayer and often to pray to someone who is in the tomb. And not only that, but I have been to Hindu countries where it is extreme idolatry.
And to see people take their sacrifices and sometimes take food at the expense of their own hunger and the hunger of their families, and offer it to their gods.
It is a very solemn thing. There's no peace.
They never obtain any peace or rest of soul for their whole lives, and sad to say, they go to a lost eternity. But oh, tonight we have full salvation. We have these scriptures and so many more.
And this number 100 that brings before us God's full salvation, because there's full and free salvation tonight based on the work of the Lord Jesus. I read in Nehemiah chapter 3 because there we find Nehemiah and those that were with him raised up by God to build the rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. And it's interesting that the first gate that's mentioned is the Sheep gate.
Again bringing before us the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, the one of whom it was declared, Behold, the Lamb of God.
That sheep lead, that lamb LED as a sheep to the slaughter, and as the shears before her shears, as a sheep before her shears is dumb, So he opened not his mouth. That sacrifice of which those sheep in the Old Testament again only pointed forward to the sacrifice of God's lamb, the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. But it's interesting that there were two towers mentioned in connection with the sheep gate.
The first one is the tower Mia, You know it's still the Arabic word for 100.
Still the Arabic word for 100. And isn't it interesting that as soon as we have the Sheep gate, Speaking of the work of the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God, we have that which denotes salvation? We have the tower Mia. Why is it a tower? The Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runeth into it and is safe. I've seen in my travels in Europe and many other countries some of the towers of this world.
Some of those towers that were built back in ancient times, back in Roman times, back in medieval times and so on.
And we talk about the Tower of London and various towers.
I realize the Twin Towers came down in a few hours.
Back a few years ago.
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A wake up call by God, I believe to those of us in the Western world.
But a tower in Scripture so often speaks of a place of refuge and a place of strength.
And when you look into the history of why those towers were built in ancient times?
They were usually built for that very reason. They were built sometimes so that the.
They could watch for the enemy to come. And when they saw the enemy coming, often those who were in those edifices, they ran to those towers. Those towers were their place of refuge and safety from the onslaught of the enemy. And oh, there's a place of refuge and safety tonight from coming judgment on this world. It's the tower, Mia. It's the Lord Jesus and the salvation.
That he's provided. Interesting that the other tower that's mentioned in Nehemiah 3.
Means the grace of God, because you know, it is the grace of God tonight that we want to present in connection with the gospel, because by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And oh, how wonderful that God has provided His grace, He's provided salvation through His grace, by His grace He's working by His Spirit, I have no doubt.
In this very room tonight, are you going to say no to the grace of God?
Are you going to shuffle off the grace of God? Are you going to spurn the grace of God?
Are you going to say that's not for me? I don't want it.
You say I don't deserve it, but it's grace. Grace is the undeserved favor of God.
I don't deserve to get saved. I was a Sinner, rotten through and through.
With a fallen nature altogether, born in sin, conceived in iniquity.
But thank God, I love to stand and tell you that by the wonderful grace of God.
He picked me up in my need. Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that saved a Wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found was blind. But now I see. And I know there are just so many here in this room tonight that rejoice as we speak of the saving grace of God. But you know, as we had in these meetings already, grace takes us farther than that.
Grace is what carries us through this world. You know there's many empty, aching hearts in this world tonight.
No doubt there are many in the city of Regina who are just saying I can't go on. Life is empty, or life has its too many difficulties, insurmountable problems. I can't go on. But you know, if you come to know the saving grace of God tonight through the Lord Jesus Christ, you will then be able to to experience a preserving grace. Grace that is sufficient to carry you through every circumstance of life.
It's not necessarily that God is going to take us out of the problems and difficulties.
You know mercy takes us out of difficulties.
And we are so thankful often, aren't we, for the mercies of God.
But, you know, grace carries us through the difficulties grace carries us through. You know, the Apostle Paul, he got saved. He was Saul of Tarsus. He got saved. You know, it didn't mean he didn't have any problems. No, he had lots of problems. And he had something that he called a thorn in the flesh, and he prayed three times that it might be removed. The Lord said, no, Paul, I'm not gonna remove it, but I'm gonna give you the grace to go through it.
He said My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness.
You know the believer. When we know Christ as Savior, we're invited to a throne of grace.
That we may obtain two things, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help.
In time of need, this is the positive side of Christianity.
Because sometimes when people hear the gospel, they think of what they'll have to give up.
If they get saved. The only thing I gave up when I got saved were my sins. And I'm glad they're gone. As far as the East is from the West, so far as he removed our transgressions from us, He's blotted my sins out as a thick cloud. They're washed away in the precious blood of Christ.
00:40:01
You know, if it said he'd remove them as far as the north is from the South, that wouldn't give me a whole lot of comfort because you can measure North and South, but you can't measure east and West, See how accurate scripture is. But thank God they're gone and gone for gone forever.
But then we read that little story. While we didn't read the story, you know it well. The story, the parable of the lost sheep. You know, the context is here that the publicans and sinners drew near to hear him. Those who knew they had a need, those who recognized that they were sinners. I trust that everyone of us in this room tonight recognize that we are sinners before God. You know, a person is never gonna get saved till they realize they're a Sinner.
Degree. And you know, it's more than just realizing you're a Sinner tonight. It's realizing too, that there's nothing you can do to get rid of your sins. You know, if we were to go out on the streets of Regina tonight and ask passers by on a busy street, if they're sinners, I think even today people, if they're really honest with themselves, will admit that they've done wrong things. But to admit that they're lost and guilty and there's nothing they can do to better themselves before God is quite another matter.
If you are sick and you feel there's some home remedy, and don't misunderstand me, I'm not against home remedies. But if you feel there's some home remedy to cure your illness, you're not going to seek the advice of a doctor. But as soon as you realize that your sickness is beyond any home remedy or herb tea that you can take, then and only then are you going to seek the advice of a physician. And the Lord said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And so we find here the Lord Jesus tells this story.
A story about himself as the Good Shepherd, the shepherd that had 100 sheep.
And he lost one.
Doesn't seem like very great odds.
I'm not so sure that an earthly shepherd would risk his life.
Or go out on a stormy night to find one sheep that was lost. Maybe they would. I know nothing about the care of sheep, but here we find in the story that's so valuable. Were these sheep as individuals to the shepherd that he goes out to seek the one that was lost. He only had 9999 names of Allah on this set of deeds. Come short, doesn't it?
The shepherd came short with his sheep, and so he goes out again, a very beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus, the one who came to seek and to save that which was lost. And he goes out and he searches for that sheep until he finds it and he brings that sheep back, rejoicing on his shoulders. You know, we don't read that the shepherd scolded the sheep. We don't read that the shepherd slapped the sheep and told it to get back to the fold and how bad it was and.
It better smarten up. No, that wouldn't have done any good. No, the shepherd lovingly took that sheep. He placed it on his shoulders, and the sheep never got off the shepherd's shoulders until it was safe back with the other sheep. Oh, it might have struggled, It might have got a footloose here and there, but it never got off those shoulders of strength. Because when I got saved the Lord Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
The Lord Jesus is that great shepherd of the sheep. He picked me up, he put me on his shoulders, and he's been carrying me on his shoulders ever since. Oh, I've struggled. Believe me, I've struggled. I've got a footloose here and there in my own will and my own way. But thank God, thank God, he's never going to put me down till I'm safe home. And when the shepherd came home, when he came back with the sheep, there was rejoicing.
And where? Who was The Who was rejoicing? Oh, I believe the shepherd's joy was the greatest joy. There was joy in the presence of the angels of God over 1 Sinner that repenteth. Do you want to cause joy in heaven tonight? You want to cause rejoicing to the heart of God the Father? You want to cause joy to the heart of the Lord Jesus. You want to cause a stir in heaven. Tonight all you have to do is come as a repentant Sinner confessing your sin because it's repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
00:45:01
And you will cause such a stir in heaven, a stir in heaven that will bring great joy.
Oh, it's wonderful when a soul gets saved. And it's wonderful to see the joy of salvation after repentance.
But oh how wonderful to think of the joy in heaven when one Sinner.
Comes to the to the Savior, I read in connection with the Sower in Mark's Gospel.
Because again, we have this thought of 100 and we find that when the seed is sown.
And really, in the context here, the Lord is the sower. And of course the word is the seed. And so we find here the seed. The sower is perfect. The seed is good. It's sown correctly. It's sown faultlessly.
But it lands on different kinds of ground. We find that it lands.
By the wayside it lands, perhaps on the hard surface of the road.
And there's no, there's no root, there's no work, there's no fruit. As a result, that's the wayside hearers I trust. There's no wayside here.
You know God can work and soften your heart tonight.
Then there was the Stony ground, and it's interesting with the Stony ground that it sprung up, there were leaves, there was a show. And when the disciples asked the Lord Jesus about the meaning of the parable.
He told them that this, that which fell on Stony ground was were those that Anon received the word with joy.
You know, I used to read that and puzzle over it because it seemed good that they received the word with joy. But the point is again, there was no inward work. There was no hidden work. There was no root. In other words, there was no repentance, because repentance is not joy. Repentance is godly sorrow. The joy comes after. But there was no work. And so when the sun came out, when circumstances were brought to bear on that which looked like it was going to grow and bear fruit.
Why? The leaves just withered away. I hope there's no one here.
Who makes a profession a mere simple, a mere profession of being a Christian?
But there's no reality in the soul. God will bring to bear circumstances that will bring out what's in your heart. You know, when the children of Israel went up out of Egypt, it says there went up a mixed multitude. And God brought to bear circumstances in the wilderness that brought out the reality, whether there was reality in their hearts or not. And it says with many of them, God was not well pleased and they fell in the wilderness.
How solemn to make a outward profession without an inward work.
Then there was the thorny ground.
Those who were choked by the things of this world.
And you know, the enemy seeks to use the world in various ways.
It's interesting because I remember the one of the first times I was in Egypt.
I said to some of the believers as we sat around between some meetings. I said, does it bother the believers in Egypt that we use Egypt as a type of the world? You know, you don't want to be over on their turf and bad mouthing their country even from scripture. And I just wondered what the reaction of those Egyptian believers would be. They all looked at one another and smiled. And then they looked at me and said, no, Jim, it's so clear in scripture that we understand.
The application. But Egypt is a type of this world.
Pharaoh is a type of Satan seeking to keep souls from coming under the good of redemption.
And deliverance. Pharaoh didn't want the children of Israel to leave. He wanted to keep them in ******* in slavery.
And that's what Satan wants to do. He wants to hold us with the cords of our sin.
And keep us in *******. But you know, there's another side of the world too. You know, it's interesting that Moses.
Wasn't trained to be the son of Pharaoh. That's the harsh side of the world.
He was trained to be the son of Pharaoh's daughter. That's the nice side of the world. That's the culture of the world. That's the affluence of the world. I never realized until I visited Egypt.
And I have been there by the grace of God 10 times. I never realized.
00:50:05
When it says Moses esteemed the reproaches of Christ greater than the treasures of Egypt, just exactly what that meant. Egypt is a base Nation Today, but it was not a base nation in the days when the Pharaohs were there. It was not a vast nation in the days of Moses. The treasures of Egypt, the science, the understanding that they had of the universe.
Is remark A remarkable part of history, And yet Moses being trained in the culture, and it tells us he was trained in all the wisdom and learning of the Egyptians.
That's the son of Pharaoh's daughter, but he had to forsake that if he was going to take his stand with the Lord and the people of God.
He had to even forsake that. And so there are the thorns that choke the world. It may not be the raw side of the world. It may not be the degradation that many get into.
But there are those things. The nice side of the world. There was an old brother. He's with the Lord now. He used to say. Culture is the embalming fluid that keeps the old man from stinking. And isn't that true? Isn't that true? But then we come to the good ground where we read, and we find that on that good ground the seed fell and it brought forth some 30 fold, some 60 fold, and a full head was a hundredfold.
Because the good ground is prepared ground and the things that are fatal to the unbeliever.
May hinder growth and fruit in a true believer.
To reject the word of God, the seed has the seed is good.
There's nothing wrong with that. It's perfect but to reject the word of God.
Is to, as it were, let the seed fall by the wayside on the Stony ground, on the on the thorny ground.
But oh to let it fall on the good ground, so let it spring up and bring forth fruit.
But I just want to say, as this meeting is concluding, to those who know Christ as our Savior.
He doesn't want us just to bring forth 30 or 60 fruit, he wants us to bring forth one hundredfold.
He wants full fruit in our lives, fruit for his glory.
Fruit that will be manifested in a coming day. In that regard, I would like to turn to one more Scripture in turning.
It's in this same book of Mark and in the 10th chapter.
Mark's Gospel, chapter 10.
And verse 28 Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.
And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife.
Our children are lands for my sake and the Gospels, but he shall not receive an hundredfold.
Now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, and in the world to to come eternal life a hundredfold. You know, that's 10,000%.
That's that's pretty good in return on your investment, isn't it? I don't think there's any investment agency, any bank, any Trust Company that can offer 10,000% on your investment. But here with Peter, and Peter felt that he lost a lot to follow the Lord. Perhaps he felt it more than the other disciples because Peter is the only one from scripture that we read of that had a wife.
The reason we know that is because he had a mother-in-law. And to have a mother-in-law, you've got to have a wife. And his mother-in-law was sick on one occasion. And he might have felt, well, Lord, we've left the comforts of home and family. What are we going to get in return? Oh, the Lord said, you'll reap A hundredfold. And he gives them a sample list here. And then it ends. And in the world to come, eternal life. And so there's provision, there's blessing for this life and then for that which is in another world.
Ahead for us. I want to tell one more little story before we close to illustrate this.
Mr. Kelly, William Kelly, whose commentaries are still sold and I trust appreciated by many, Mr. Kelly, was one of the great minds of England back in the days when the recovered light, the truth of scripture was being brought out again. And Mr. Kelly, I believe it was a nephew he had, was attending one of the great universities of England. I can't remember which one, whether it was Cambridge or Oxford, or what it was.
00:55:11
But this young man was excelling in his Greek studies, and so the professor and the Dean of the college realized.
That this young man might be must be getting some help, some extra tutoring with his Greek studies.
And so they questioned him about it, and he said, well, yes, His uncle William was giving him extra tutoring. And so the Dean of the college arranged for an interview with Mr. Kelly, and he was astounded in the the presence of one of the great minds of the day.
And finally he leaned across his desk and he said, Mr. Kelly, you could be a great man in this world.
Mr. Kelly looked him straight in the eye and said which world?
Which world and which world are we living for? Do you know Christ as your Savior? Are you the possessor of eternal life? The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And if you know Christ as your Savior, are you living in view of that harvest day?
So that you will reap bring forth not just 30 fold, not just 60 fold.
But a hundredfold. That's what he wants. That's the fruit he wants.
From everyone who knows the Lord Jesus as their savior, and so we have looked at these scriptures.
We've looked at them so very quickly tonight. I trust again if there's someone here and you haven't experienced God's full salvation, that tonight you won't leave your seat. But that as we pray, you'll come to know the Lord Jesus and not leave your seat until you have settled the question, until you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior. And remember that every false religion ever propagated in this world always come short.
99 beads But thank God we can turn to his word and speak of full salvation.
As we have taken up the number 100 tonight, let's pray.
Joseph and His Coat of Many Colors
Children—Darrel Kollman
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.
Ted, can everyone find 16? It's kind of in the middle there.
You need help.
Do you have a song sheet?
Do you have one of these?
I'm gonna put that right there. How's everybody doing?
I'm going to ask someone to help us start singing #16 did someone start that please?
Nsnoise.
Very good. Now isn't that nice, that you don't have to be a special kind of person to come? It says whosoever will. That's the good news about the gospel, that anyone can come in the blood of the Lord Jesus is sufficient to save everyone, to wash everyone's sins away. And it also says here in the second verse that whosoever cometh must not delay. You know, the Lord's going to come pretty soon and it would be too late to be saved.
And so that's why it's urgent to be saved while you're young. Sometimes we want to save things till we get older. Maybe there's things we can't do when we're a little boy or girl. We can't drive a car, but we can get saved. Everyone, even someone that's just two or three, a little boy or girl, can come to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
How about another one? Does a girl have a song this morning?
Any girl wanna pick one out?
Any boy or girl in the front have a song a favorite?
OK.
Let's can we go with a girl? Then we'll go with you, OK?
What have you got? 4040 is on the back very.
And for times sake, let's sing the first verse and the fifth verse. So we have to pay attention. Sometimes people don't listen to what God says. So we're going to test you and see if you pay attention. We're going to sing verse one and verse five of #40 someone start that, please.
80, 12980.
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00:05:22
Well, that's very good news, isn't it? Jesus loves us.
He proved that to us by dying on the cross, didn't he? How about your song now? What number is that?
Teen.
Well, that's very.
Interesting because I wanted to give out #14 so I got my favorite too. And the reason I wanted to give out this song was today. I thought we would talk a little bit about something in the refrain here it says it's a garment. Are your garments spotless? And the third verse talks about robes. So we might talk about garments and robes with the Lord's help a little later.
But umm, maybe we could sing verse one and verse three of #14 Could someone start that please?
I need to go on in 10-4 OH 10-4, 10-4, 10-4. OH 10-4 OH 10-4 OH 10-4 OH 10-4, 680280128001000100100010000 10-4.
Nsnoise.
All right, let's close our eyes and let's pray and ask the Lord to help us with this little time, OK?
Now, I do have a different microphone here. Sometimes at a conference, I see that boys and girls might want to say a verse that they learned. So we have time if somebody wants to say a verse. Did anyone learn a verse this week they'd like to say? I've got a volunteer over here.
I'm going to hold this here so you can talk in there.
Are my sins in his own bloody glory, and a many forever and ever. Amen. Revelations 15 and six.
Unto him that washed us, and left unto him that washed his.
I love this from my sins in his own blood be glory.
Help me, I wanna make sure I don't give her the wrong words. Here is it Glory and dominion?
Should we go on to the next one? You know what, I should get it. I should open it up. Where was that found?
Can you hold it? Do you have one you wanna sing or do you wanna say something? No. OK.
What is yours?
There are six things that the Lord hate. Yeah, he seven. No abomination unto him. A proud look aligned on feet that shed innocent blood.
00:10:12
Hands are shared and missing bad.
Mm-hmm. Let me run into mischief.
False listeners.
As biggest lies.
And and use that.
He that showed him that on Brother Man.
506.
16 to 19.
The 16th Doctor, Lord hey A7 are an abomination unto him, A proud look, a long tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, feet that be swift and running to mischief.
Are the divisive liquid imaginations. He's very swift in learning to mixture.
A false witness that speaketh lies.
The heels of discord among brethren.
Prior 6th, 16th, 19.
Very good.
How we can have maybe one or two more people say something and then for times sake we probably will move on.
Fear thou not praying with thee. Be not dismayed. Pride my God, I will strengthen the year, I will help thee. Isaiah 4110.
Very good. Anyone over on this side of the room wanna say anything?
OK, we won't put you on the spot. Molly, did you want to say a verse? Go ahead. The 16. This is not the Lord. Hey. Yeah. Seven are abomination unto him. A proud look, A lying tongue. Hands that shed innocent blood. Heat that be swift and running to mischief. A heart that divides this wicked imagination.
A false witness that seekers lies.
And and he that throw us up discord among brethren.
February 6th, 16th, 19.
Very, very good. I appreciate that. I'm sorry that I didn't help very much over here. I wasn't paying attention real good because I was kind of nervous about being up front and I couldn't help you as much as I should have. But thanks for trying, everybody. I'm going to set this down, try to get it so we won't trip on it.
And I told you we were going to talk about garments a little bit.
I brought one of my garments, one of my favorite ones. It's not very heavy.
You want to feel that.
What do you think, Eva? What is that? Is that kind of hard and rough?
It's a very agreeable.
I don't think this is hard as rough and rough though.
How about you wanna feel that?
Soft, isn't it? Sometimes when little grand boys and grand girls want to sit on their grandpa and grandma's lap, they like to snuggle into something that's soft. And they they would like this one. They would like this one.
I I'm not an artist, so you promise you won't laugh at my pictures?
Not very good about drawing.
I tried to draw a coat like that's a jacket, I suppose, But this is a coat, I suppose, right? It's got sleeves and it's got buttons and some big long 1. To get cold up here in Regina in the winter time, you have to wear coats. Buckle up, because you could get really cold in the middle of the winter. Now, do you have a favorite coat? Anybody have a favorite coat they wear?
00:15:05
Yep, you do login. What color is it?
It's red.
I don't know, I think Brown's my favorite color.
And I'm going to color part of this coat. And then maybe if somebody wants to color another part of your favorite color, you could do that. And we're not going to take a lot of time to do it really good. We're going to rush.
So I put brown on the bottom there because that's kinda.
My favorite colors? Is it OK to have more than one favorite color?
I suppose somebody else want to draw or color another part. Ollie, come come on up.
If you were to color this next part, what color would you pick?
You're picking blue.
Is blue your sisters favorite color?
You think so how about someone else? Anyone else want you want to come up and color apart? You can pick a color out of there that might be. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Now, does anybody have a color, a coat I should say, that's got lots of different colors on at your house. You do, you do as well.
What about the Bible? Can anybody think of someone in the Bible in the Bible that had a coat with lots of colors on it? You can.
Dave, you said no.
She got it right the second time. That's the person I was thinking about. I don't know about the coats that David might have had, but Joseph, it tells us he had a coat of many colors.
Where did he get that coat?
From his father. That's right. Maybe we'll read about that.
If I can find that.
It's in Genesis, I think it's chapter 37.
Just going to read part of this story. There's a lot to the in the Bible about Joseph, but in Genesis chapter 37, it says Israel loved Joseph more than his children, all his children, because he was the son of his old age and he made him a coat of many colors. That's what we were trying to color there and we didn't have time to keep going and get it all. So we could take a lot of time if you were home and color that just perfect.
And what about his brethren? Did Joseph have brothers? He did. Were they really happy for him? And they said, I'm so glad that you've got such a pretty coat.
No, they weren't happy. They were jealous.
Sometimes we can read that it says, And when his brother saw their father loved him more than his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Now, do you ever get jealous of your brother or sister? Like, let's say it's their birthday and they got a nice gift and you didn't have anything that day. Anybody here ever get jealous? Did I see you go like this? Yeah, that's kind of the way we are, isn't it? That's jealousy would be a sin. And we have sin. We have a sinful nature. And someone said we just sin once in a while to prove that that's true.
And his brethren weren't nice to him, were they? Now, something else about Joseph. And maybe you know this, that there are stories in the old tests in the Bible that your Sunday school teacher and your mom and dad tell you about. And when you learn these things there, sometimes we say they're pictures of something more important. They pick something to us about the Lord Jesus, about God, or something that we learn more detail and doctrine in the New Testament.
And Joseph we know as a type of the Lord, the type of the Lord. And the Lord had brethren too, and he came into this earth, and did his brethren love him and welcome him.
No, he didn't. He didn't. And we could read about that and.
Umm, I don't know that will take the time, but I have another thing here. Now. This is a quote and I tried to draw a robe. Our song had a robe in and robe might be different. I think it might be different. Like if you go to a graduation, somebody might wear a robe and it kind of hangs on them more. Maybe if you were older and you were unfortunate to go see a judge, he might have something like that on. Or maybe someone in authority might have that and umm.
00:20:22
I want to read something.
In the Bible.
Umm, I believe it's John's Gospel.
About the Lord and a robe.
And uh.
We said that his brethren didn't really like him, they weren't happy for him, and they wanted to crucify him, didn't they? And they used the Romans to help to that end.
And I am gonna read something here. Then Pilot therefore took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers planted a crown of thorns and put it on his head. And they put on him a robe. I skipped their word. What color robe did they put on?
The Lord Jesus.
It's kind of a trick question. What do you think? A purple. It's purple here. And that's the in Luke's gospel, it's purple. And I think another gospel is purple. But in Matthew, it's a different color, right? It's scarlet. But they're both dark colors. And I think they were very precious at the time. And why did they put this robe on the the Lord Jesus anyway? Anybody have an idea? Were they going to honor him for being a king of the Jews? And.
Before.
Make him feel real important.
No, they didn't. Let's read. And they put on him that purple robe.
I don't know if I have a purple here, I do.
Somebody want to color it little purple?
Go ahead, come forward.
You don't have to make it perfect, but you can get some purple on there while I read this.
And they said, Hail King of the Jews, and they smote them with their hands. They were making fun of him. They were mocking him, because he had said He was the king of the Jews. And uh, Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that you may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing a crown of thorns and that purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man.
And here's the brethren now, and the chief priest, Therefore an officer saw him. They cried out. Crucify him, Umm, crucify him, Pilate saith unto them. Take ye him, and crucify him, for I find no fault in him.
The Lord Jesus didn't do anything wrong, did he?
No, He was the perfect Son of God. He didn't deserve to be crucified, but in the ways of God and God's love, he allowed it. But the wicked heart of hen was displayed when they said crucify him. His brethren want him, just like Joseph's brethren were envious of him and they crucified him. What's wonderful about that though? It's through that crucifixion and his death that salvation can be offered.
To you and me this morning. That's very, very good. I can see I'm not an artist, but I think we've got probably 1 here, probably 1 here. Well, I've got a few more of these, and the next one's not very good. Well, you have to promise not to laugh at this one.
This was harder.
Now there's two people up there.
Who do you think that is?
Abstract art maybe? What?
Adam and Eve, I told you, this girl's an artist. She can recognize good art.
How did you know that was Adam and Eve? It could have been Abraham and Sarah.
Looks like they're wearing leaves. Very, very good.
Maybe we should read a little bit about that, OK.
What color do you think these leaves were?
Green. Somebody want to color some green on those leaves? Do you want to go ahead?
You can come up. Whoops, here's that. I'm gonna get this out of the way.
00:25:02
He's going to color a little bit in leaves there and I'm gonna read to you.
A little bit about what happened. You kind of know the story, right? Adam and Eve, they were told what they could and something in particular that they shouldn't do. Did they obey?
No, they didn't listen. You know, I asked you to listen and do verse one and do verse five and they were given specific instructions and they didn't listen and, uh.
So they were naughty. They disobeyed.
Do anyone here ever disobey?
Yeah, I did. Yeah. It's the way we are, right? And then maybe did we go hide sometimes? Or if you ever do something naughty and you think, oh boy, I'm in big trouble, I didn't think that was going to happen and you went to hide.
Yeah, usually your mom and dad can figure it out and they can find you, but maybe you could hide for a long time. What about, umm, hiding from God? Can we hide from God?
No, we can't, right? He knows the thoughts and intents of our heart, and He says all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. I think it is in Hebrew. And so we can't hide from Him. And Adam and Eve couldn't hide from God. So let's read a little bit. How are you doing there? Oh, you're doing a great job. Somebody else want to do the green on the other on Eve. OK, you want to do some? I'll give you another turn.
I think I will if I remember.
Umm, so yeah, they, they uh, disobeyed and I don't have time to read all of it, but it says here in verse seven of chapter 3. In the eyes of them, both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sowed fig leaves together like she recognized and made themselves aprons.
And they heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? He knew where he they were, but he he spoke that to speak to his conscience, I believe.
Now.
You're doing a good job there and you can quit whenever you want to quit. Maybe you should just do like one more and we'll let that little boy that I promised come up and do a couple more, OK?
How did God look at those fig leaves and say, well, that's really a nice apron you made there. I really like those fig leaves, but I could get you a better 1A better apron with bigger fig leaves with less seams and it would last longer and would be nicer for you to have. Is that what God? Was he really happy with those fig leaves? No, he gave them something else.
Now who can think? This is really kind of a tough one. If you know this, I think this is good. God gave them something else to wear.
Anybody know? Anybody remember?
Clothes. Yeah. And what was that clothes made out of?
Yeah, what?
No, not leaves. I'm going to read it, OK.
In the further on in the chapter it says unto Adam also and his wife. Did the Lord make coats? We're talking about coats, but coats of skins and clothe them. You know, that's very, very important part. I will really to get in a simple story. OK, that's far enough. OK, can you let this up? We'll do a couple because we need to move on to something else. Thank you.
Umm, you know, sometimes we have our own idea what we should do to look nice, present ourselves to God. And umm, Adam and Eve did. They made these fig leaves, they sold them themselves. And in the next chapter we learn about Cain and Abel. And, uh, Cain, he had an idea what God might like and he brought something that he killed in his land, the first fruits. But Abel realized that blood had to be shed. And that's the thing about this coats of skin.
Something had to die. Something had to shed his blood. And in the Bible all the pictures point to the shedding of blood. And we read in the New Testament that without the shedding of blood is no remission.
So that's why God gave them coats of skins, I believe so that's an important.
Important part. Now our time is kind of going, but I had a couple more stories I wanted to move to. And you're a perfectionist, definitely a type A personality, kinda.
00:30:00
Now maybe we can turn. Can you finish that one up? And we're going to turn to the next page, next story. You can put the cap on when you're done with that one. OK. And then you can sit down. I want to talk about a couple more. And so we're going to move along for time. And I'm thinking of another robe in Luke.
Luke chapter 15 Now this is a story of a boy that wanted his own way. I know boys like that and we often want our own way. Thank you. And umm, we're going to turn this to another page. And this, uh, boy wanted his inheritance and he got it and he went into a country and he spent all that money foolishly living in righteous living, it says.
And then he got hungry. It was a famine and and he got thinking about his house. And this is the story of the prodigal son. And he went thought, well, you know what, I'm going to go home to that house and talk to my dad, my father. And maybe he won't accept me like a son anymore, but I could just be a servant. At least I'd have something to eat. Remember that story in the Bible? I'm going to read just a little part of it and then you can help me finish this.
And he rose and came to his father, and when he was a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.
And the sun said unto the Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son.
But the Father said to his servant, bring forth the blank robe.
What was the kind of robe were they supposed to get?
Remember.
The purple one, well, I don't know if it was purple, we'll get to that later, but sometimes we have uh, maybe some clothes we play in and maybe have some nicer clothes. The word he used was the best robe, the best robe. And yesterday we learned about umm, great things, great and precious things. And somebody said they're the greatest. Umm, God doesn't give us umm.
Any robe hits him, it's the best one. Now if we were to color the best robe, and I don't know that we have time, what color would you color the best robe?
Purple. Why?
You don't know. I don't know either. You think?
Well, he's agreeing too. Agreeable, kids. That's nice.
I don't know what color the best robe. It doesn't tell us what color. I have an idea. Maybe some of the older ones have an idea. Brother Bob, if you were to Robert, if you were to color the best robot color, do you think it was?
Yeah, bye. That's the color I was thinking of. Now this one here, we're not gonna take time and it'd be hard to color because I don't have a white color, but I've got another one that looks kind of like that. Got a pattern going here. This is 1, so it's good to remember there's a reason I think it's white. And just to finish up, we're gonna look at that one. It's, umm, revelation.
Towards the end of the Book of Revelation, there's a wedding mentioned. Have any of you been to a wedding?
Yeah, you have. What color does the?
Bride usually wear at a wedding white, is that right Eva?
That white, yeah, pure and white. And that's because it symbolizes a very important wedding that's recorded in the Bible here. So let's just read a little bit. Let us be glad and give honor to Him in verse seven of Revelation 19 and seven. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
Wouldn't it be sad if you went to a wedding and it was time to get married and they couldn't find the bride? She wasn't ready.
There's a story in the Bible about something that didn't have the right garments on at a wedding. That's very, umm, sobering as well. And here it says, and to her was granted, that she should be arrayed in fine linen.
Clean and white like brother Robert said, you know, I think that, umm, to be made clean. And we sang about that in that song #14 that, uh, I think Logan no umm Nate that out. Didn't you, umm, peer and white by nature, you know, we're not, we're, uh, we're not clean. And let's finish reading this. Uh, clean and white for the fine linen is the righteousness is.
00:35:23
Of the Saints, Well, I don't know what to call this robe, and I might have to have an older one.
Tell me that because in Isaiah I think we read about those repentant company of the Jews that had washed their garments, had the garments of salvation, and they had a robe of righteousness that says there, and I don't know if I can call this a robe of righteousness. It says it's the righteousnesses of the Saints. But I want to get an important lesson that this is white. And so if we could sum up this Sunday school maybe in a simple way.
We learned that a lot of people agree that they had done bad things, and a lot of people agreed that maybe we've sinned. And so we said we have a sinful nature, right? And sometimes we have ideas of how we want to make ourselves look good for others maybe, and maybe for God. Adam and Eve had an idea about putting those fig leaves on. And different people have ideas.
About looking good and acceptable to God. Maybe you might learn lots of verses or come to Sunday school. Maybe if you're older you might.
Umm try to join something to make the world a better place might do your part in the community and you think well God will appreciate that a lot of people have tried to do things but.
We can't really do anything on our own, can we?
The Lord Jesus had to shed his blood. The other thing we learned was that there was the shedding of blood. They had, uh, coats of skins, which symbolized the giving of life and that the Lord Jesus gave his life. He was the only Lamb of God that could take away sins once and for all. God was fully satisfied with him. And any boy or girl that simply says and knows that they're a Sinner repents and confesses that and says, I want my sins away, washed away. I want to be made clean and fit. I want to wear this robe in Revelation 19. I want to be at that wedding.
And, uh, I wanna be part of that company, that bride of Christ. And so that's something that can happen. Umm, any boy or girl that simply accepts the Lord Jesus can be saved and take part at that marriage, that marriage ceremony and that marriage feast. Well, I hope that was a simple story that we can all understand and get something from, and I really appreciate the help of.
That everyone gave here. I think I should close in prayer and then I'm gonna give you some more instructions.
And we'll see if we can listen to that too. Let's just pray the instructions. So this is kind of the test. When you have a class, you have a test. And I brought some treats and umm, I probably have more here than we need. So I'm gonna set them out and we're gonna have now how many can count to 4.
Mostly you can count to four. Maybe it would be good if we took about four.
Of these things once I set them out here and then you can ask your mom and dad when you can eat them and if all the little ones have their four, there's some others Outback and come up and maybe if you're older. This is kind of like the gospel that everyone can come. We sang about everyone coming but unlike the gospel in that this is going to run out but the blood of the Lord Jesus is sufficient for all. It'll never ever run out so you can come up and.
Grab a tree if you'd like. Thank you.
A Band of Men Whose Hearts God Touched
Address—Bruce Anstey
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.
Let's begin by sending #294.
294.
It's a.
The second verse I've been thinking of Take thou our hearts, and let them be forever close to all but thee.
#294.
Umm.
I have somewhere.
I feel love, love, love, love, love, fore.
By my wife falls by.
Let's begin speaking in First Samuel chapter 10, First Samuel, chapter 10. This is an introductory verse.
First Samuel, Chapter 10.
And verse 26.
And Saul also went home to Gibeah, and they went with him. A band of men whose hearts God had touched. They went with him a band of men whose hearts God touched her. Something beautiful about this expression, this verse, that has struck my.
Attention many years ago and it's beautiful because.
The principle involved is still applicable for us today. There's two things that happened here. God touched the hearts.
Of his people. And there arose a band of men that dropped everything that they were occupied with and followed the man of God's appointment. And uh, it's.
Something to think that God actually touches hearts and works in men's lives like this. And wouldn't it be wonderful if we left these meetings?
00:05:09
On Monday afternoon, and it could be said of us, there goes a band of men and women whose hearts God has touched. I think there's not one person in this audience this afternoon that would have to say I'd like that to be said of me. If they could write that on my tombstone. It was a man or there was a woman who whose heart God had touched. Well, that's what God is seeking to do, even to this day, because the question may rise out of this. Yes, that's true. He touched their hearts. But does he really do that today?
And the answer is yes, indeed he does. He still touches hearts today, and I'd like to speak a little bit about that this afternoon.
Of course, as I say, this is just a principle involved here, because the man whom they were following was King Saul.
But God is still touching hearts and motivating persons, men and women, to follow the man of his appointment, his anointing, which is of course the man Christ Jesus, the Lord Jesus, our Savior. And so it could be nothing more pleasing to God himself. And to see the hearts of his people been taken up in affection for the Lord Jesus. And that would be a tremendous outcome of these meetings. I think the local brethren here would be very glad if, uh.
That was the case that we left here as a band of men and women whose hearts got it touched. I think that they would think that their effort was well, uh made and the money expended to put this uh occasion on would be well spent. So may it be so that our hearts may be touched this afternoon and through the course of the conference that we're here together. You know, I was talking to her sister one time and she said, have you ever noticed that sometimes it's just when persons get saved? There are people that, uh, just seem to go on straight after the Lord whose hearts seem to be really motivated.
And then there are others that, well, not so much. And then she just said sort of nonchalantly, I guess God just touches some, you know, and others I don't know. And I said to her, no, I don't think so. I don't like to think of it that way. I think that God is seeking to touch and is touching the hearts of all his people. The problem is, is that we're dull of hearing. We're dull and we don't feel the touch of his heart.
So I don't think that he picks out favorites and touches one and not another, but rather that he would touch all his people. And I believe that that is the intention of God this afternoon, every single one of the few people that are here under the sound of my voice. You like to touch your heart and change your life, make you motivated to follow the man Christ Jesus.
And so let's remember that that God is interested in motivating us to follow the Lord Jesus. You know, somewhere in the writings of Jan Darby, I can't remember where.
Does not really matter. But I recall reading something to this effect and he said that motivation and the dedication and devotion and that line of things is something like building a fire. He said there's God's part and there's man's part. Now, as I said to you in the meetings already, that you'll find many, many times you get God's sovereignty and man's responsibility put in Scripture side by side. And this is another case of that, you know there's God's side and there's man's side, he said. It's a bit like building a fire.
It's a bit like building a fire. There's first of all the the match that's needed to ignite the flame to get the fire going. But there is also another thing, and that is to the to the arranging of the kindling in such a way so that when the fire and the spark happens, it takes hold of the material and you get a real good burning fire. And he likened it unto the fact that God will put the spark there. He's a faithful God, but we're responsible.
To put the kindling in a right way, so that when God does light that fire, there's a real burning in the heart. And that's what I'd like to speak about this afternoon. So I got to thinking about it because Darby didn't go into it any further. What would the kindling pieces of kindling be put in the right way? B Well, I thought about it must be some things, like daily reading the scriptures, daily taking time to be with the Lord in prayer.
Uh, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves as a matter of some is as far as collective meetings like this and so on. Those kinds of things, if they're in place in our lives, even though it may be a little bit of bit mundane for us to come up to meetings sometimes or to maybe take a Bible in hand, you know, may not feel like it. You have other things you may want to do. But nevertheless, if that kindling is in the right place, there's a time and place coming, I can assure you, because God is faithful, he's going to light a fire to your life.
00:10:01
And if there's those things that are in your life, if they're in place in your life, there's going to be a real fire for the Lord. There's going to be the touching of the hearts that we have here. But the problem is, though God is touching all the hearts, as I said, there's dullness on our heart, our part. And, you know, dullness in Scripture is addressed under the figure of sleepiness or drowsiness. And with that in mind, I'd like to look at four different sleepers in the scriptures and see what was the cause of their sleeping.
And what the Lord did is a remedy to awake them out of their sleep, because we are a drowsy state as far as the collective state of the Christian testimony is concerned. And we have to lay our hands upon our heart that that's us.
So with that in mind, there's an introduction. Let's turn to.
4 Sleepers in the Scripture and see if we can't learn something from it. First of all, Song of Solomon chapter five. Song of Solomon, chapter 5.
Read from verse 2, which marks the 4th category.
Candical is just another word used for the Song of Solomon. If you read the old brethren writings, I'll say the like. Mr. Bell has a book called The Canticles. Uh, what book is he reading anyway? Is this the pacifier or something? But no, it's just uh, another word for.
The song of Psalm, it's just like Revelation that he used to call the apocalypse.
Remember the word, the titles and the most of the books in the Bible are man made. They're not divinely inspired. So if someone wants to call it the Apocalypse, or if somebody else wants to call it the Book of Revelation, that's OK as long as we're in the same page at the same time. I say most because there's one that has a name divinely inspired. Do you know which one that is? You're asking kids questions. I want to put you on the spot. The Psalms. The Lord said himself. The Psalms.
Anyway, let's uh look at Solomon chapter 5 verse two. I sleep but my heart waketh. It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh saying open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled.
For my head is filled with dew and my locks with drops of the night. I have put off my coat. How shall I put it on? I have washed my feet. How shall I defile them? My beloved put his hand in by the hole of the door.
And my bowels were moved for him. I arose to open my to my beloved, and my hands dropped with mirror, and my fingers with sweet smelling mirror upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved, and my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone.
And my soul failed. When he spake, I sought him. I could not find him. I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchman went about. The city found me, and they smoked me and wounded me. And the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. I charge your daughters of Jerusalem. If you find my beloved, tell him that I am sick of love.
Here's the first sleeper.
She was sleeping and her beloved comes to her chamber.
And he wants to have a little time of fellowship, a little time alone with her.
He's the bridegroom, she's the bride, and it's right and proper that they should have a little time together and spend fellowship. But we find a situation here that is not uncommon among us as believers in the Lord Jesus in a spiritual sense.
And that is, we find that he's outside the door and she's taking her ease and comfort in her bed and doesn't have enough energy to get up and let him in. And so he knocks and seeks to arouse her from her drowsy state. And you know, I believe this is a picture for us of what the Lord is seeking to do every single day of our lives. He wants to to come into our lives and have a little quiet time with us, spend a little time in fellowship.
And to to enjoy our company. And very often we're like her. We have other things that have caused us to get a little drowsy. We don't have time, we don't have the energy to rise and to let the Lord into our life. And it only produces a sleepy state, a stage of of, I would say carelessness, I guess.
It's pitiful, but we have to lay our hands upon our heart because there goes myself at times.
And I would like to think that.
The cause of the sleepiness that's here is what we might call the neglect of having a little quiet time alone with the Lord in our lives. That's sure to cause a dullness to come over our souls. So we want to be sure to learn from this that that's not a good thing to do.
00:15:10
But I also mentioned that I would like to speak a little as to what he did to, uh, arouse her out of the state, because you wanna learn something from this. But before I get there, verse three, it says I put off my coat, how should I put it on? I wash my feet and I define what was she doing there? She was making excuses for her state. She was making excuses for not opening and rising to him as she ought to have. And very often when our conscience speaks to us about maybe I should take a little time today to be alone with the Lord.
And I wanna do some other things in my conscience. Speaks like that. We often push back the conscience and say and make a bunch of excuses. Well, I'm busy. You know. I've got these things to do and I promise so and so to get out to so on and so on. I gotta go to work. I gotta go to school. I know I'm not pointing the finger at any of you here because we all feel and I re know what it is to.
Make excuses for our drowsy state, but nevertheless it doesn't deter him, and I can assure you that it does not deter the Lord. You know he is jealous of our affections, and when we allow our hearts to cool down, so to speak, toward him, and he's going to stir those affections up again. And isn't that something? You're delighted for your heart this afternoon to have your affections stirred for the Lord Jesus afresh?
Well, what does he do? Verse 4?
My beloved put forth his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. I rose up to open to my beloved. My hands dropped with mirror and my fingers with sweet smelling mirror. Now you may say, what would this typify? What would this speak to itself? Well, he knew what would catch your attention. And so he stuck his hand in by the door, just showed his hand to her, and it surely stirred her up and ** *** began to yearn.
For to have him with herself again, And I believe that that really speaks to us of a recall to the atoning sufferings of the Lord Jesus, you say Now why would you say that? Well, first of all it says that was it uses the word mirror here and sweet selling mirror in scripture. Myrrh is a type of the sufferings of Christ, the atoning sufferings of Christ. And it's interesting to see that it was on his hand and he showed her his hand. And I believe that the Lord would like to do that this afternoon.
He would like to show us his hand in connection with the sufferings that he went through to redeem us. And you know, if he was to do that this afternoon, what would we see? She wouldn't have seen this, of course, with her beloved, but we would. We'd see a hand with a nail print in it, wouldn't we? We'd see a hand with a nail print in it because he paid a price to redeem us. And so this is calculated by the bridegroom, and I believe the Lord uses the same point as well.
And that is to steer us to a rekindling of our affections for him by a recall and a reconsideration of what he has accomplished in his atoning sufferings for us. And I think that the breaking of bread does that very often. We ought to come in the state of Seoul, that we are very glad to be in His presence. But for some of us we may come to the breaking of bed out of communion, and it may serve as a time to get back into communion when we have a fresh before our thoughts.
The Lord And what he paid his price to redeem us, well, it certainly got her up out of her bed, and I trust that that'll happen to us. This afternoon she opened to her beloved, and her beloved had withdrawn, he said. What does that mean? I thought he wanted to have fellowship with her. Now when she finally opens the door, he runs away, you say?
But there's a reason for doing this, and that is because she wanted to resume fellowship with him, as she would have had at other times without a word of acknowledgement that she had failed in this and he wasn't going to have fellowship on that line.
He wanted her to acknowledge what she had done and stifling him in his desire to have her company, and so he let her feel what it was like to have him withdrawn from her.
And she had to go through the experience.
Of seeking him and realizing that what her bad state had got her into cost her something.
My beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. So then she rises up. Now she's not just out of her bed. She's ready to get out of her chamber. She's ready to get out onto the road and find him. Where did he go?
00:20:00
And now we see energy. We see earnestness.
And we find later in the chapter that he.
He allows himself to be found of her, and they're together again in happy fellowship. So I'd like to just say that this is the first thing that the Lord would like to do to Uh.
To correct, to redeem, to remedy our, our, Umm.
State or spiritual state of sleepiness. A fresh look at the sufferings of Christ. A fresh consideration of what He paid at the cross to save us. That's number one.
Let's turn over to another sleeper in Acts chapter 20.
Acts, Chapter 20.
Verse 7 And on upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached or discoursed unto them.
Ready to depart on the Morrow and continued his speech until the midnight till midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber and they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a young man named Eurekus being fallen down into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead. And Paul went down and fell on him and embraced him and said.
Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him. And when he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten and talked a long while until Daybreak, so he that's all departed, and they brought the young man alive.
And we're not a little comforted. Well, this is a story of a young man named Eudicus. He was the first man that we know of in the Bible that fell asleep in in a meeting. But he's not the last one, I'll tell you.
Because we've all have had the experience I think at one time or another, but nevertheless we see here that UH, in falling down from the third loft, there was a recovery and we're we're thankful for.
The powers of recovery from ones who.
Have a fall like this?
Well, it was a wonderful scene, wasn't it?
What a an occasion to have the apostle Paul visit a town like this. This was Troyas and they had special meaning for him and he was talking and discoursing and uh, there was many lights in the upper chamber. It says it was the most favorable condition you could possibly get and perhaps the most gifted man in the history of the church was in their presence and he was ministering a full bar. And we find that all of that still did not keep this man.
From falling into asleep and departing from the meeting in a very innocuous way.
So it shows us something. It's not good preaching that keeps us in a good state. It's not having much light that keeps us. There needs to be personal self judgment and communion with the Lord and attention. And that's what was missing with this young man and he paid the price for it. And so we find here that he sat in a window and as I said, we want to look at the cause of the fall into sleepiness and then maybe the remedy that was taken to.
Recover the situation. So what was the cause here?
Well, judging by the position that he decided to take, which was to sit on a perch in the window, I would judge from that, that he had an interest in what was going on outside the meeting in the world, as well as an interest that was going on inside. And while he kept his eye on both things at the same time that I worked in his soul, something that caused him to fall asleep to what was being said by the Apostle Paul. And it wasn't long before he dropped out of the meeting, shall we say.
In a very dramatic way.
And uh, where did he fall? Did he fall into the meeting off the window sill? No. He fell into the dark night where he had been looking a picture of the world drawing someone away from the Lord. And we need to realize that the world is indeed, as scripture teaches us, an enemy, an enemy of our souls that has a way and a power to draw our attention and our thoughts away. And so it wasn't long after he was sitting in that window that Paul's voice just sort of tailed off into like.
Until after a while, he didn't hear it at all. His ear became deaf to Paul's doctrine and Paul's ministry. And then what happened was the inevitable as I said, he dropped out of the meeting.
00:25:02
And he found out that the world.
Is a hard place because he met an impact at the bottom of the building that caused him to.
Be dead.
So while Paul was preaching long or long preaching, he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead.
You know the this would typify not a person losing their salvation because you can't lose your salvation. We know that from scripture. But what it really speaks to itself is a person getting out of communion because there is an aspect of death used in the scripture to denote that. It's in Romans chapter 8, verse 13. It says if we should live after the flesh you shall die. And he's talking to believers there. Die in what way? Not physically, but it is always the thought in connection with death, separation.
It's the idea of being separated from communion with God and is used into the figure of being dead. So I would take it that this would typify that he didn't lose. If a person leaves the meeting gets off into the world, doesn't mean they lose their salvation, it means that they, uh very often lose their communion with God and get away from him in that way.
So there he was, taken up dead. Now the remedy for this I think is interesting. It says Paul went down and fell on him and embraced him and so on, and when they brought him up again, there was life.
So it was not Paul's doctrine that restored the man. It was Paul's embrace. I think that's important to see. It's not Paul's doctrine that revived him.
He didn't go over to the window and shout a few favorite verses from one of his epistles that he had written down to him. You know, he he got out of the room himself and went down to the level for which this man had fallen. And he embraced him. And that would bring before us the affectionate side, the moral side of Paul's ministry, the Kingdom of God's side of the truth rather than the the doctrinal side. And I believe that when there are those who slip, away, drop out of meeting, depart from 1:00.
Like this, that we do need to be exercised about seeking to recover, to restore. I'm not talking about someone who's been put out of fellowship because they have a charge on them. Which scripture is clear that we should not have fellowship with them? I'm talking about some that are like this man who slips into the world inadvertently. And uh, we should seek to realize that we have a responsibility to our brother. You know, umm are we our brother's keeper? That's what Cain said to the Lord. Am I my brother's keeper? Well, what was the answer to that?
Yes, you are your brother's keeper. And thank God we have ones who have gone after us at times. Well, anyway.
Paul went down and he embraced him and he brought him up again and all the the people that were there got involved with it because it doesn't say he brought the young man up alive. It says they brought the young man up alive. And I think it's nice when Brethren as an assembly can be interested in seeking those ones who have taken a position where they have been drawn into the world in one way or another.
So I would say that the the cause here is just an interest in the world that overpowers an interest in the things of God and becomes vice, one vice for the other, until finally a person is drawn out altogether. And what is needed is the affectionate side of the truth being ministered in such a way that there's a revival. May it be so, and thank God when it is. Now let's look at another passage.
Matthew Chapter 25.
Matthew chapter 25. Just read a few verses in this chapter. This is the chapter about the foolish virgins and the wise virgins.
Chapter 25 verse one.
Then shall the Kingdom of heaven be likened unto 10 virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
And five of them were wise, and five of them were foolish. And they that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
And at midnight there was a cry made. Behold, the bridegroom cometh go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.
We'll stop there. Right now. Here we have a scene where there was these UH versions that were set out on the highway and they went forth to meet their bridegroom that we were expecting to come. And it's a picture really of the early church and Christian testimony.
00:30:13
That's what happened. The church went forth from the world. There are three things that characterized these uh, virgins that are very nice and commendable. First of all, they took lamps. Took their lamps that would bring before us the fact that they had a profession of faith. Some of them were wise and some of them were foolish, which means that some of them really were only merely professing Christians. They were not sincerely professing ones, as we mentioned in the meeting, but nevertheless they did do the right thing in taking their lamps. And every one of us, as a Christian, has made a profession in this world. If we have confessed to be a believer on the Lord Jesus, we have a lamp, a lamp of testimony.
And then we find that they went forth, so they broke away from all secular and religious.
Connections that they've had prior to conversion. And the other church was marked by separation and a testimony of their faith in the Lord Jesus. But there's a third thing that's marked here mentioned here, and that is they went forth to meet the bridegroom. They had an expectation. They had a hope of the coming of the Lord Jesus as the bridegroom. This, as I say, is what characterized the early church. But what happened was that there was a sleepiness, a state of drowsiness that came over the church.
And the the Saints of God would read any kind of church. History will show you that they lost sight of the Eminence, of the hope and the hope of the Lord's coming.
And for many hundreds of years there was been not a idea at all as to the fact that the Lord was coming to take his people home, The rapture as we speak, they knew of the appearing of Christ and imagined that the rapture was part of it and was all confusion. But there came in history in the 1800s a revival of the hope of the Lord's coming, as depicted in the fact that there was a cry here made of the bridegroom coming, and then there was a stir.
An awakening.
So while we can see a historical little picture of the church and the revival of the hope of the Lord's coming, and finally the Lord's coming, as mentioned in verse 10. And while they went to buy the bridegroom came, and they were were ready went with them to the marriage, and the door was shut. Afterward came there the other virgin saying, untrust Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know not watch therefore for you know not whither the day nor the hour.
Now the next 6 words are not supposed to be in the text We're in. The Son of Man cometh because it's the Lord's coming for the His people, the Church, the.
As a bridegroom, he doesn't come as the Son of Man in that way. That's when he comes at the pairing. When judgment coming as the Son of Man is always in connection with judgment, is always in connection with the appearing of Christ. Remember that I mean this is the coming of the the Lord as a bridegroom. And so if you check any critical translation, you'll find that those last 6 words are not to be found there. My point though is this. There is a time coming when the Lord is going to come and take us home and those who are merely professing are going to be left behind. Is this illustrates?
Now, having looked at it in its historical setting, we wanna get the moral and practical lessons for us here. And that is simply.
What happened? How did they fall asleep and what awoke them?
Well, they started out well, but I guess while the time wiled on and the days became weeks and years and so on, in the early church what happened was there was a losing sight of the eminence of the Lord's coming, and it wasn't long before the church lost sight of the hope of the Lord's coming. Then there becomes this drowsiness, becomes this mixture mixing with the ones who were foolish, that were not even real. And a state of drowsiness has pervaded the Christian testimony for 1500 years.
We're not here to pick on our dear fellow Christians that have lived before us. Our point is to see that the bridegroom, the Lord, is not going to let the state of that state to continue forever. And He arouses them out of it, and there's a cry being made at midnight.
Verse six at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh. Now again the better reading is to behold the bridegroom. The word cometh, just not in the text.
It's certainly true he does come, but that's been inserted there by translators, and it does distract from the point of the passage because it's more the thought of the idea that the person of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, is coming.
00:35:03
Not so much the event of it. And when he says Bridegroom cometh, it leads our thoughts to the event of the coming, which it certainly is an event, but the Lord does not want and God does not want.
Us to think of the Lord's coming as a prophetic event. It is a prophetic event, but we don't want to think of it as a prophetic event because he's our eternal lover. He's coming to get us and to take us home. He's coming to take us to the marriage and we're all should be ready and for this.
And so it's more Behold the bridegroom.
And so the tension was taken away, awakened, and their focus was on him. And then they mentioned go ye out to meet him. There was a historically, in the 1800s, those who were taken by this cry were very much exercised about going out again. There was a need to go out again, that is, to break all secular connections with the world and all religious connections with the world, and to be outside of it all waiting for their bridegroom to come. And that did happen in the 1800s.
And so we're on the eve of the coming of the Lord Jesus. You know something? The rapture, which we're all waiting for is the greatest event that will take place in the last 2000 years. I would say that it rivals and is is a greater event is the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. But since the death and resurrection of Christ some 2000 years ago, there hasn't been a an event in history.
That would rival what we're waiting for. We are living at a time when the greatest event in the last 2000 years and world history is going to take place. And what are we doing? Are we in the state that these virgins were in? Drowsy mixing with the world, half asleep, not really concerned, not really being ready for him and so on. Well, I'm not picking anybody here. I feel the coldest of my own soul. There's a hymn that we often sing, you know, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it.
But anyway, there's this revival which was so beautiful, it was a fresh presentation of the coming of the person of the Lord Jesus. So I believe that that was really what will revive us in our thinking. And our hope will become burning brighter if we start to think about the fact that the Lord is coming for me, He is a person is coming, and it's more than just a prophetic event.
You know when we when we think of what Scripture tells us as far as indications of the nearness of the Lord's coming.
We ought to be thrilled in our souls to think that we could be this afternoon when the Lord's come. There are many things in Scripture, at least six or seven of them, that I've found, that would point to the fact that we are living in the very last moments of the Church's history on earth, and the Lord could come at this very moment. One of the things is what we find in what is mentioned is the Laodicean condition of the Church. I hope everybody knows what I'm talking about there. But in Revelation 2 and three, there's these seven churches which depict the Church's history.
And there's various epochs that the church passes through. And the last of the mall is Laodicea, if you read that in Chapter 3.
And what you find there is this state that the Laodiceans are found in, which is really obnoxious to the Lord, but they're very casual, they're very self-sufficient and very confident in self not knowing. They're naked in their wretched condition. And then after the 7th church takes place, the church history is viewed as being over and we can look in the Christian testimony today. And if there isn't a day that depicts this, I don't know what else is so more accurate in all of the seven of churches, because the church, most definitely.
Is marked by alea, DC and condition all kinds of confusion and lukewarmness, carelessness, self satisfaction.
And all the rest of it. That's just one thing. We are most definitely in a Laodicean day and that means we're right near the end because there's no more churches that have come to in the Bible after Laodicea. It's the 7th and final one and seven is what the number of completion, the church's history is about to be completed On earth is my point. Not forever because where our history continues in heaven, but I mean on earth, another thing. The midnight cry has gone forth. The midnight cry that we're reading about here has gone forth. What do I mean by that? Well, as I said, there's a historical backdrop in here.
And in the 1800s when there was a revival of churches in churches, history of the Lord's coming in 18. And when brethren began to look into scripture and found out that the Lord is coming, the rapture was revived in the church all over many denominations and church groups were upheld this and were in the expectation of the Lord's coming as a result of this recovery of truth. Well that happened in the 1800s, a 150 years ago. And the very thing that happens after the midnight cry is what the bridegroom comes.
00:40:16
So we must be real close to the coming of the bridegroom if the bridegroom, the bridegroom is the.
The cry has already been made and 150 years have gone by.
The Jewish national independence has uh been revived in the last 65 years or so. You know the Lord said in Matthew 24 chapter before this that there would be the the rebutting of the Lee and the leads would come on the fig tree. Fig tree is this type of Israel and it really speaks to us of the national independence of Israel or at least the Jews. And we all Co cognizant with history in the of the world in the last 100 years we know.
Now, for 2000 years, the Jews and Israel had no land. They were not a national.
Uh, entity at all. They were just scattered in many nations. But in in 1947 or 48 they actually acquired a piece of land in the land of Canaan or were over there in the Holy Land, and they declared their national independence for the first time in 2000 years. And I believe that the Lord hinted at that when he said that behold the fig tree it would bring forth to shoot forth its leaves. That is, there's going to be a profession that life is about to happen. Doesn't mention there's any fruit.
But figs being but there is at least leaves, so there's some show of life going on. Well, that's happened some 60 years ago.
And so that would point us to the fact that we're getting very, very near, because when the Lord said behold the fig tree, then he mentions his coming.
So we know he's coming. He's connected with that. Some say it's the same generation that sees that will see the coming alone. I don't know. I don't know how long a generation is in the Bible. So I'm not gonna pro project any kind of a.
Speculated idea more than that Daniel Chapter 12 he is told that there would be a rapid pace of life in the end times. Well when would that be? And he also was told that there would be an increase of knowledge and information How if you know world history, you know that that has to be Speaking of this last hundred years or so. I mean think of it 100 years ago they were pushing buggies around and horses and stuff and now we're flying in jet planes and all the rest of it and test cell phones. There has been an incredible.
Increase of technology and advancement in all manners and aspects of life.
And mechanical devices and everything I like. In fact, I'll tell you when you heard me say this before, but you know, my dad told me he came home from school one day. He was about six or seven years old. And he said to his dad, Dad, I saw a car today. He said you did not.
No, that's a lot of advance. He saw a car today where we just drove down to California. All we saw was cars, and it was bumper to bumper from Seattle to LA. I saw cars. Lots of them.
So the rapid pace of life, I've never seen people drive so fast as those Californians. Not picking on anybody but.
And the increase of knowledge it's got to be today.
It's it's we're living in that day.
They tell us that knowledge and computers and all this is, what is it doubling every, I don't know what it is every six months or something like that. It's incredible, the increase of unbelief and skepticism. So Peterson apostle Peter says that in the last days they're going to say, oh, where is the promise of his coming and all this skepticism. There's always been unbelief.
In the coming of the Lord, there's always been unbelief in the things of God. I don't say that, but I'm saying the increase of it. It is prolific Today, every person you turn to is filled with that kind of thing. It it was Peter's day, I'm sure, but it was here and there. Today it's everywhere. So we know again we're in the last days. Another thing and you'll find in Scripture, we don't have time to detour into it, to show us that we are indeed in the last days, and that is that Scripture does point to the fact that the Lord would be away under a figure.
In Scripture of two days. Because he says in two or three places in scripture that two days or at least a day is as 1000 years with the Lord and 1000 years is as a day. So you have two days, it would be 2000 years. It's only a little figure, little picture on it saying the Lord's coming back in exactly 2000 days, 2000 years. But we are in that time frame, are we not? Again points to the fact that the Lord is coming and there's some dozen places in the Bible where the Lord would go away and deal with the the Gentiles and return in two days.
And so we can be sure that the Lord's coming is very near. Now we don't want to arrive at the fact that the Lord's coming is very near. Like Mr. I think it was Mr. Stoney who said, well, I'm sure that the Lord is coming, because I'm sure the Lord is not coming, he said. Because I would like to think that I live in communion with him, and the Lord has never told me that he was coming today, so I'm pretty sure he's not coming. We don't want to be that way because he's as much as saying that I live so close to the Lord that he would have told me he's coming.
00:45:31
He's, in other words, he's trusting on his communion with the Lord and with God to indicate whether the Lord is coming or not. That's a bad ground to get on. You must stick with Scripture and what we see from the word of God. Is the Lord coming today? I can't say that he will be, but he's coming very, very soon. And he's made a promise, and he's kept every promise he's ever made. So I know he's going to keep this one. But when we don't know when, but we need to be like these virgins arise, awaiting, looking, watching, working.
And not slumbering.
Let's look at one last one and Jonah.
Jonah.
Prophet Jonah.
Chapter One.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah. The sentiment saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it. For the wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee to unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa. And he found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the feather of and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty Tempest. That's a storm in the sea.
So that the ship was like unto be broken. But then the Mariners were afraid, and cried every man to his God, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides, or into the lower part of the ship.
And he lay, and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him, and said, What meanest thou wilt sleeper, Arise, calleth upon thy God, if it be so, that thy God will think upon us, that we perish not.
And so on. Here we have another sleeper. As I said, we're looking at the causes for the sleep and for the remedy.
Well, what was the problem here? Jonah was a prophet of the Lord, and he had been given a mission. He was to go to Nineveh, which is a gentile city. These gentiles who had just trounced the children of Israel, they were Assyrians.
And of course, anybody who would wipe out your uncles and brothers and take your cattle and your land and just destroy your land, you're not necessarily very fond of them, to say the least. He was given a mission to go tell them that God would spare them from judgment. He didn't really like that. But whatever the case is we find in the end of the book, he actually did go and preach to them the word of the Lord came unto Jonah.
And he was to go to Nineveh and cry against the city because his wickedness was so great. God would have mercy on them. Though Jonah didn't want to have any part of this mission. And so he turned his back on the word of the Lord and he went the opposite direction. The Lord said, go E to Nineveh. He said, I'm going West to Tarshish. Apparently Tarshish is somewhere in the Mediterranean. That's not a good idea to do.
I suppose we all know that to disobey the word of the Lord positively and, uh, manufacturing like that is never a good thing in Scripture. And when we get our our ourselves moving in a direction like that, we can be sure there's going to be difficulties and trouble.
And so he goes down to He goes down to Joppa, which is a sea town where you get to find a ship. And sure enough, he found one going to Tarshish. It's often been said that you know if you want to go away from the Lord, you want to disobey the Lord. Satan will make sure that you can get the the right boat to get there. He goes down there. Lo and behold, there's one leaving this afternoon, so to speak. So he jumps on the boat and takes off, pays the fair thereof. And it is interesting to notice that when Jonah was restored and brought back.
Who? Who provided that vehicle? Was it the devil? No, it wasn't. It was the Lord. He prepared a fish that brought him back. He went out on a boat and came back on a fish whale.
So he goes down with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. This man is on a crash course with a destiny of nothing but trouble. And So what happens is that the Lord sends out a great win against the sea, and there's a storm.
00:50:08
And uh, you'd think that the storm would turn them on to turn to God. But it didn't. He just went down to the sides of the ship and went to sleep.
He was a real case, but the Lord can stop the ones who are defiant disobedient.
Posers to his will.
And so we find these. We find them fast asleep here.
And the Lord does send storms in our life, You know, if we're disobedient to His word, if the Lord is showing us very clearly what he'd have us to do and live in our life, and we want to choose another lifestyle, another way, live in some sinful way, you can be sure that the Lord is going to have a word to say about it. And He'll send forth His storms, his disciplines in our lives.
You know, the Lord wants our attention. He's paid too much of A price to let us go our own way and to do our own thing. He's going to bring us back. But it may be painful, and it often is one of the last things that uh, Christy Coleman said to me. She said the Lord wants our attention. And I said to her, and he's going to get it too. And she was just speaking about how many people there are in this world and they're not listening to the voice of the Lord. The Lord's people are not listening.
Excuse me but.
I've often thought about that. You know, the Lord wants our attention.
Dear brethren, the Lord wants your attention.
And he's gonna get it.
But he may have to bring discipline into our lives.
To get it.
You know, I was reading and I wish I brought it with me to read to you, but I was reading a little book, like just before I left home by Jan Darby, and he was talking about discipline and the lives of the Saints.
And he said that, uh, there are different reasons for discipline to come into our lives, to train us, to educate us, to teach us the dependents and so on. But then he made a statement that I thought was very interesting to pass on to you. He said, But most of our discipline in our life is because our own self will and God is speaking to us about it, sickness, trouble and finances and so on. We don't like to speak of it that way. We often say, well, there's many different ways in which God speaks and most of the time it's for other reasons and so on. But he says that sickness, solve problems, troubles most of the time, is because we're not listening to his voice.
And he's had to discipline us in a punitive way.
I'm not pointing the finger at anybody here. I know my own soul, soul. I'm just saying that God will bring discipline into our lives and does bring it into us. And we need to listen to his voice. Well, he's not listening at all here. So the shipmaster, he gets a hold of him and he says, what menace thou, O sleeper, arise, call upon thy God.
The point that I would get from this is that God may use someone to come to speak to us in our life.
If we're not listening to his his storm, he may have to send some profit or profit us to come and speak to us and address our state. And so he wakes him up. Thank God for a faithful brother or sister who come and wake us up.
Well, you know what happened If you read the whole story. Jonah realizes that the Lord is speaking to him and he needs to return. The only problem is he's out at sea. How is he going to get back? Amazing amount of faith this man had when he turned back to God. At least he began to turn to God, and that is that. He said just cast the end of the sea and God will take care of me. And he did too. He cast, they cast him. They didn't want to. They tried to roll the ship to shore, but they realized it wasn't going to happen. So finally they said, OK, we'll give you what you want. And they threw them into the sea.
And God prepared a fish to swallow him up, and he drove him back or swam him back. I don't know how he shipped the the the fish got back there, but he got back.
But in the ship, in the excuse me, in the fish's belly, we have recorded for us in the second chapter.
Jonah's prayer.
And we find that Jonah finally breaks down and turns to the Lord, and the Lord uses him to go and do that message to Nineveh, as he told him.
And he was a blessing there.
And the reason why that Jonah did not really want to go there is because he knew the heart of God as being a merciful God, and he knew that those people repented that God would re would repent of his evil that he had pronounced upon him.
Upon them. And what would happen then? He would lose his prophetic office. Because you see, one of the qualifications for being a prophet in Israel is your message must always be true and right. If he goes and preaches to Nineveh as he does, and then he says, yet in 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown and then God doesn't overthrow them. Guess what? Your office as a prophet is finished. It's over.
00:55:18
So he had his reputation on the line and he didn't want to do that because he was gonna lose his reputation and he had to learn that. You need to get rid of your reputation. We need to get rid of our reputation. For the blessing of souls is more important than our reputation. I don't wanna leave this place saying, oh, he spoke very well this afternoon. What if I spoke really poorly? Like, you can tell, you know, if you got a blessing out of it, wouldn't it be better than my re reputation? It'd be out the door rather than and people get a blessing. But that's what he had before him. He was more concerned about how he would look as a prophet in Israel.
Than those poor people that were perishing and were going to die under the judgment of God and so he refused to act for God and that until finally the Lord broke him down and he even at that he had a bad attitude about it in the end in the 4th chapter which we won't get into.
But this guy, I shouldn't call him a guy. Excuse me, this I'm going to call him a brother. But he's not a Christian. But uh, he's this prophet, This dear St. of God. This dear believer was one tough hombre.
Have you ever noticed what it took to get him to turn? Have you ever noticed?
How long was he in the fish's belly? 3 days and three nights. When did he pray?
On the first day, no way.
On the second day, No way. On the third day, he finally broke and prayed. Isn't that amazing? Chapter 2, verse one.
I'll read verse 17 of chapter one. Now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish 3 days and three nights. Doesn't mention he prayed all that whole time. Then chapter 2 Says Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God. After three days and three nights, God finally broke him and he prayed. Now that man is 1 tough hombre. If you were swallowed by a fish when you turn to God, and you whom you knew that would deliver if he could and would not Jonah, he was determined.
But God can break him down, and he does.
Breakdown the hardest hearts. Thank God for the grace has broken our hearts.
Well, you've had four sleepers here this afternoon.
And it's time to close. May it be that the dullness that is on our hearts would be taken away by an affectionate call, a wake up call, a shake up call as you get here, and so on. Let God have his way with us.
Because it's worth it. He's a great savior, and he wants our hearts to be touched. That we might be, as we read this at the beginning, a band of men and women whose hearts God had touched. May it be so.
Open 1A
Open 1B
Gospel 2
Gospel—Wayne Coleman
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I see the problem. Can't see the clock from here.
I have to do it like everybody else. If I'm a minute early, it's all right. The Lord is coming very, very soon. We don't have a minute to lose.
That will work very well. The hour has come.
Let's sing together from our hymn sheet #11.
I've been very much impressed through this series of meetings.
The time is very, very short in every address and every reading. That matter has been touched on many of the prayers.
The gospel last night was as clear as I've ever heard it.
And if you're not saved now.
And particularly you, if that's you.
Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?
So how's it going?
Without Christ.
We want to move through that, through the theme of this hymn tonight, if the Lord tarries that long.
Umm, let's, let's stand together and sing this hymn.
John Gregory and tomorrow Cliffs 10-4. I'll give you a headache for a headache creating a flash and you're sending your ******** blow.
Nsnoise.
Just gonna bow together in prayer.
As is typical with meetings like this, usually there's a phone call or an e-mail some days before. Would you mind to take this gospel or, or this address or something? And I've been praying about this obviously since that time and my subject has changed a lot. And particularly when I arrived through the course of these meetings, it's gone through a lot of changes and, uh.
00:05:28
I think I pretty much had enough material to write a book.
About 10 minutes ago.
And so it's very difficult to whittle it down the thoughts that are impressed upon our spirits when we're here together for days like this, considering eternal matters. And we're straddling a very temporal world. And we have businesses, we have school, we have families, diapers and food and cars and as Brother Robert says, Egyptian Chariots and all of that.
And then to consider eternal matters.
Really, what else matters?
If the Lord were to come right now.
What else matters? Where are you with the Lord? So I don't want to waste any time right now. I, I have such a conviction and how it's been growing over the last number of months as I'm hearing in fellowship with my brothers and sisters here. We know the Lord is coming, maybe today, maybe tonight.
So I'd like to go straight to the solution to this, uh, matter. This matter of the eternal welfare of your soul. Where will you spend eternity?
Acts Chapter 13.
Verse 38.
It's war, all begin.
Acts chapter 13, verse 38 Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.
This is eternal judicial forgiveness.
If you are not saved, this is what you need. You need to have the stain of your sins removed from your record before God because if your life should cease tonight or if the Lord should come I In either case, the opportunity, the window of opportunity is over for you and you will eventually step out into eternity and stand before God will look at that exact.
Time.
Later on, if the Lord should leave us here that long.
And you'll be without Christ, without a refuge. You will have no place. You will have had no place to steer your storm tossed vessel into. No refuge, no comfort.
So whatever comfort you have experienced in this life will be the last that you will ever experience.
The love, the enjoyment of things will be the last.
This matter of your.
Place your standing before God as either a child of God, a St. or a Sinner.
Is what we're concerned about here tonight. We've talked about many, many blessed things through these days and we will tomorrow. The Lord leads us here.
But for you, I'm addressing not the children of God here, but those that are still in nature's darkness.
But for you, all that matters.
Is the record of your sins before God right now?
And what you need is, is here in this verse, through this man, the Lord Jesus Christ is preached unto you, the forgiveness.
Of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses.
This matter of justification is the most wonderful thing. God is prepared not just to forgive your sins, but to put you in a place of acceptance before Him that never will there ever be, even if you were to live another 50 years on this planet.
There will never be another charge laid to your record again. That is the efficiency of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the value of the blood of Jesus Christ to blot out.
00:10:05
Our records past, present and future such that we have a new position before God. As a matter of fact, when you get saved, you cease to exist.
Under Adam's headship as a Sinner before God, you begin to exist as a Saint of God called out one out from this earth, and you belong to something new. You belong to Christ. You become part of Christ, your identity.
Is now in Christ.
Justified.
What peace? Therefore now we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and so justified from all things from which He could not be justified by the law of Moses, if there ever was a system of works.
That could present you before God. It would have been the law.
Impossible, he says here, from which he could not be justified.
By the law of Moses.
You know, it's very interesting. Uh, the subject came up, uh, of the Islamic prayer beads. Our brother showed us those things, umm.
And I have a couple of Islamic people working for me.
And this matter of justification is really most wonderful, particularly when you take it up with a Muslim.
Have you ever done that? I would encourage you to do so because you might ask your Muslim friend, on what basis does Allah forgive sin?
Well, I don't, I never thought of it. Umm, I guess he just forgives sin. Well, apparently if he has a good day.
If he feels merciful.
OK, but how does he do it?
How can God forgive sin and be consistent with himself? He becomes a party in the crime.
Is that your God?
Oh no, Allah is very, very holy.
And apparently.
But actually, if he can forgive sin at all without a righteous basis on which to do it, he's a crooked God because he's fudging his own law.
You have to make sure that you're not talking to a militant Islamic person because you might lose your head at that point, but.
Umm, In any case, this is really a challenge and and I bring this in by way of illustration to to show what we have.
And so we need to think about how God is able to forgive our sins.
And as a as a young person, and even when I was first saved, I, I was very, very glad to have my sins forgiven.
But as I began to think about it.
I began to wonder.
Really.
How?
And I really didn't know. And this is what the gospel does. It teaches us how God can maintain His righteousness and yet forgive a guilty Sinner. Since when? In what Court of the land?
Can somebody who is guilty be forgiven?
And the court retained its integrity.
Well, God has done this.
And he hasn't fudged any law.
He has sent his own beloved Son, and he has taken my guilty place. And so as we consider 2nd Corinthians 521 That God made him.
To be sin for us. He actually and really took our guilty place. He took my guilt upon Him.
And he paid the full price before God. Do I understand it? No, I believe it. It is faith that takes God at His word. It is faith that believes God.
So what about you? Why are you not saved now? Tonight? What is going on? How can it be?
00:15:04
I understand that there was 600 invitations given out. I don't see a lot of faces I haven't seen here. Maybe there are somewhere, but I realize that for the most part, I'm speaking to those who've probably been here for a couple days now and uh, you've heard the gospel and maybe the most powerful gospel message.
Was the remembrance of the Lord today.
I think most of us, we were coming to the edge of our emotional abilities to contain ourselves.
As we thought of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus and what he endured to put away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself.
The value of the blood of Christ.
What can we say but wow, what a sacrifice, what a savior we have.
Well, our concern is really for those who linger.
For some reason.
I should know. I, I did it. I did it for 19 years. I was raised in a, uh, a division of brethren something.
Similar to what you may have experienced.
Brother Robert, you were there too. Cross the country. We went to different schools together, so to speak, and, uh, but we heard the gospel.
And for some reason.
I was listening to the voice of the devil and I was not trusting the Lord.
And so I think I have some understanding, and yet I see it now with horror.
To, to try to game the Lord, to try to game God. And we're going to look at that. I'd like to turn to a, a verse very briefly in the book of Job, Job chapter 33.
I'm going to refer to quite a few verses tonight, uh, because.
My words really have no authority whatsoever and you certainly want, wouldn't want to base your eternity on my opinion. So the word of God is what we're after here tonight. And so Job chapter 33 and verse 14.
God, speak at once. Yeah, twice.
Yet man perceiveth it not in a dream, in a vision, in the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumbering upon the bed. Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction.
That he may withdraw a man from his purpose, and hide pride from man, he keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain, so that his life abhorth bread in his sole dainty meats. His flesh is consumed a way that it cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen stick out. Gay. His soul draweth nearer to the grave, and his life to the destroyers. If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among 1000 to show unto men his uprightness, then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down into the pit.
A ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a child. He shall return to the days of his youth. He shall pray unto God.
Does it have to come to this?
We have a very loving God who loves enough to have given His own beloved Son as a sacrifice for you, and He also loves you enough to break every bone in your body.
If it will bring you to repentance.
How many of us?
Have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of the road.
I did.
Many, many people.
Have come to trust the Lord Jesus Christ. At which end corner?
Sometimes in massive pain and suffering and disappointment when everything falls apart.
And then they feel, how can I possibly come to the Lord now when I am bankrupt?
That's when you need to come. I don't know what's going on in your life right now, but I, I know this, that.
The Lord was seeking. We've had that before us. He is seeking. He is speaking to everyone.
00:20:04
If you resist and resist and resist, we have it here.
The Lord speaks once. Yeah, twice. Yet man perceiveth not so we think. OK, well, that's it then. He won't bother me anymore. No, He will keep on. I don't know if any of you have heard that poem, The Hound of Heaven.
Bit of an irreverent, uh, title, but I have, uh, I've thought about some of the, that, uh, graphic language through that, that poem.
I've experienced that.
The Lord tracking me for years.
And refusing and as I looked back on it, I just don't get it. I really don't get it.
Such darkness. Well, by the grace of God, you tonight will bow your stiff neck.
To the Lord Jesus Christ and accept Him as your Savior.
Job Chapter 36.
Verse 22.
Who teacheth like him?
When the Lord begins to speak in your life, all I can say to you is you need to bow quick.
He is a loving God, but He's faithful and He intends your blessing.
Even if it has to break bones.
And the most marvelous thing is that when a person after years of resisting or months or days or whatever it is.
Finally breaks down and yields to the Lord. They look back on the painful process, the rebellious process, and they say it was worth it.
It was worth it to have Christ now.
Even if I lived only one more moment.
To have Christ now is worth it all.
Chapter 37 of Job.
Verse 7.
He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his work.
God can act in a way in which the only conclusion can be God has acted.
We live in a world now where the insurance policies don't say acts of God.
It's just acts of nature.
And the more common expression would be Mother Nature.
And so on and so forth. We put God out of the picture.
We are slowly becoming in our culture like animals that perish. It doesn't matter.
And lives can be taken just like in a in a a computer game.
You can do it on your cell phone. How many can you kill in a minute?
There's no value.
That's what Satan's doing in our world. We are moving on to the end. We are very, very close. We have had various.
Comments have been made that resonate very much with me as to where we really are at this time.
By marriage, I have two sons that are not the Lords yet, and one of them is a prepper. Do you know what a prepper is?
It's a person who believes that the end of civilization as we now know it is coming to an end.
And they're getting prepared. He doesn't have the money for a bunker, but he's armed, a Canadian armed, Can you believe?
I mean, that usually happens South of the border I thought, but it and so.
We we love the dear fellow, obviously.
And we've had many opportunities to talk to them about the things of the Lord. And he wants to know, he said, no, you know, I, I don't believe the Bible. I don't want you to get that idea. But tell me about the rapture.
You know his mom and I are going to be gone.
Well, what comes after that? You don't want to know.
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You don't want to know.
You can't even dream of the horrors.
Of what's coming. But that's nothing compared to being here, still alive, with certain eternal judgment coming.
But we have, we, we talk a lot and I'm, I'm very happy to go there with them.
How about all the things he's discovering?
And, uh, he can talk at great length about the imminent financial collapse collapse and how that, uh.
This thing is being manipulated.
Beyond what we can possibly understand, any of us here, because it's way beyond this, beyond our pay grade. Robert hinted at some of those things earlier on. We are living in a day where corruption is not in 3rd world countries.
The real corruption is in North America and in the Western world. We are moving towards such a time where manipulation at such high levels.
Is taking place that it's well beyond their their ability to manipulate it further and get any more out of it.
As Jim had mentioned to me earlier, the elastic has stretched and is worn and tattered and it's not going to make it much further.
And so if the Lord tarries, we are going to see.
Some very, very difficult times very soon.
Don't think.
That this day of ease and and comfort is going to carry on.
Through the Lord's mercy.
It may for a little while.
Don't use it, as our brother has said, to go to sleep. This is not the time to go to sleep. This is time to wake up.
I sure hope that you heard Bruce's quiet call.
Who teacheth like him? Are you listening?
We're at the edge.
Before this meeting is over, the Lord may come and you could be maybe the one or two. Maybe you got a buddy.
And you're left with a Bible on your lap, open.
At this scripture.
He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his work. You'll have absolutely no question as to what happened.
And there will never be another chance.
There's a strong delusion coming.
The scriptures tell us.
And whether you'll exist long enough for that delusion to come.
But your thoughts will change very quickly.
If you're left behind, I would say.
Change your thoughts now.
That's repentance, repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has finished.
That eternal work on the cross, that work of atonement and the invitation to you is to come now and be saved.
Change your thoughts now because your thoughts will be changed against your will later on.
If you if the Lord comes and you're left here.
Second Peter, chapter 3.
Well, it's half an hour already gone. That's quick. Second Peter, chapter 3.
Verse 3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts, saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
For this they are willingly ignorant of.
They've altered their thoughts to align with their practices.
God has intervened.
And the following verses suggest that the the flood God intervened in a very major way, but he's going to intervene again in fire.
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And complete destruction. Notice this. Notice verse three, the last days. That's right now.
Notice verse 7, the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. That's yet future.
Notice verse 10, the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is 1000 years, and it begins with judgment and it ends with judgment.
And then notice verse 12, the day of God eternity.
You know, I went to the car wash when I.
First got here.
Because I think I collected most of the bugs on the front of my car and.
As Robert suggested, it's Egyptian chariot and it's incompatible to have such filth on the front of my car, so I went to the car wash.
And as I drove in, I realized that there's nobody around.
And you push the button and it says you take your feet off the brakes and put it in neutral.
And these pegs come up out of the ground and, and if this chain goes and, and, and it locks in and it pulls my car along and at that point there's no putting the brakes on.
Do what I mean, I'm going through that's this chapter.
We're in the last days right now.
Once we moved to the Day of Judgment and if you're on the planet.
This is not good.
And so there's a progression here.
Repent now. Turn now.
And trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, He will save you.
Ecclesiastes, chapter 8.
You know, there's a lot of gaming going on, not just on people's phones and little devices and Xboxes and things like that.
Anybody who's not saved is attempting to game with the Lord.
Very, very dangerous business. Does anyone here doing that?
I beg you to wake up. It's time to wake out of sleep.
Gaming puts people to sleep spiritually.
In more ways than one.
Verse 5A. Wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment, because to every purpose there is time and judgment. Therefore the misery of man is great upon him.
For he knoweth not that which shall be. For who can tell him?
When it shall be, or how it shall be, there is no man that hath power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death, and there is no discharge in that war, neither shall wickedness deliver those that were given to it.
Verse 11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
Though a Sinner do evil 100 times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him, but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow, because he feareth not before God.
You know the wise are those that are now at this time trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. They are indwelt of the Spirit of God. They have the inside track on what's coming down.
And they discern both time and judgment.
The intelligence of the people of God is, uh, is really something, you know, to go. And we talked earlier today about, uh, Israel, the power, the Jews, uh, occupying their land and becoming a nation. You know, the early brethren back in the early 1800s spoke of that. They gathered that from the word of God.
And so it came not they couldn't prophesied the year at the time, but they know they could tell that this had to happen. They would have to return to their land.
00:35:05
A wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment.
Because to every purpose there is time and judgment. So you think that you can just run this life and make a whole lot of money and organize yourself, manipulate the little world that you're in and, and find a, a comfortable corner where you can grow and develop and, and make your own little empire and so on. To every purpose there is time and judgment.
God has a way of resetting the operating system regularly.
You know, it's a sister here fro from home had mentioned to me that, uh, they've just discovered that there is an earthquake where I is, is about to happen where I live. And, uh, that the city that I live in, it's one of those cities that should never have been built. Richmond should never have been built. Uh, but the people that build those cities don't tend to look back and see what, uh, what the characteristics of the land are and so on. Uh, they shouldn't have built Seattle either for that, that reason.
Uh, but.
In the year 1700, there was an earthquake that emptied all the water around Seattle.
It all went out, came back in and went way inland. And there's trees that were destroyed by salt water where you are there too, Vern. Uh, I'm not alone in this. And, uh, that area, they figure gets an earthquake in the nine and above, uh, range every 250 years.
1700 was the last one.
It's called the Cascadia Fault.
And, uh, there's a lot of people who like to get out, particularly the city I live in, because the city that I live in is, uh, it's a marsh really. And they just kind of built up big towers and things on the marsh. And apparently this is one of those you've heard about liquefaction, uh, on an earthquake. Uh, it's when the ground becomes soup essentially, and things that are on top go down and things like that. So Richmond is, is exactly that. It is this.
Soup waiting to happen. Actually, it's kind of that way already. Uh, it's a silly place, but it was a good deal, so we bought there. But the, uh, to every purpose there is time and judgment. The Lord has a way of resetting things and so there are, but that's not all. That's just a little part of North America.
The kind of things that are all stacking up and that are coming due in every aspect of society and of the development of humankind on this planet and so on, of, uh, nations against nations and things is all coming onto a schedule, and it's God's schedule.
Where are you with that?
Your life may not.
Go coincide with such a schedule.
Your days may be over very quickly.
We we buried a little boy grandson.
Very short time ago, little fellow, not even 2 years old, he saw his brothers and sisters playing in the hot tub and it was time to go in for breakfast. He went in with breakfast and as soon as he could he went out, because he has legs now and they work and he can get around. And he climbed up into that hot tub and he never came out.
And that dear little fellow, he had no idea what was what was coming.
He did not know he wouldn't have done it.
His schedule did not coincide with all of these things.
And so your your life is in the hand of God, and when he decides that your time is up, your time is up.
You need to settle with him now.
Let's turn to the book of Ecclesiastes or Isaiah.
Speaking of schedules, I'm jumping around now.
This time.
Isaiah chapter 55.
00:40:12
Isaiah chapter 55, verse one. Ho everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, ye that hath no money come ye. This is an individual.
Come ye.
Buy and eat, Yeah, come and buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and labor for that which satisfyeth not?
Hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto me here, and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
I speak reverently, but you need to make a deal with God.
Come ye buy and eat. This is a transaction.
That is a very solemn deal.
You must buy without money and without price. God is far too rich to sell his salvation, and you're too poor to buy it. But there must be a transaction.
Between you and God and this is a solemn transaction. This is not what I call a cereal box conversion where you write something on the the leaf of the cereal box and send it in and get some plastic toy, or reading a gospel tract and and reciting the sinner's prayer and sending it away with your address and getting a Bible. You need to get down before God and admit that you're a Sinner and that you need to be saved on God's terms.
And your life will not be the same.
You cannot come to him.
For a cheap salvation and go back to the same life. It doesn't work like that.
Because that, by its very definition, is false.
Accepting Jesus as the Lord of all.
Everyone that thirsteth coming to the waters, and he that hath no money, come, buy and eat. Buy wine and milk without money and without price. You've been existing on that which is just air, or worse. You need that which is real. You need somewhere firm to put your feet. You need that solid rock to stand on which is the Lord Jesus Christ.
You need that anchor.
And that rock is Christ.
You know the problem is as we get in Romans chapter 3.
That all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. He there is no possible way that you can turn this boat of yours around.
Of your own efforts or your own works. You're a Sinner before God, and God cannot have you in His presence in your present condition. You're lost. Face it, you're lost and you need to be saved.
Hebrews, Chapter 9.
And verse 27.
I was going to go through Ecclesiastes 8 and list out some of those divine, uh, interruptions that men so hates.
Not just the floods and the storms and all the rest of it.
Divine interruptions when the Lord speaks and intervenes in a way in which there's no question but that God has spoken.
How many of those incidences have have been in your life and you've refused to hear?
How many of those appointments have you missed?
How many of those opportunities in gospel meetings are someone witnessing to you that you have shut down and closed the gates?
Hebrews 9 verse 27 says it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.
You'll not miss disappointment.
It's a pointed unto me once to die, not twice, not three times. There's no reincarnation here.
00:45:02
But after this the judgment.
So verse 28 says this situation is so grave.
So solemn and so serious that the deal that needs to be made, Jesus has already made that deal.
I hope you won't think I'm speaking irreverently.
Because I'm not.
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.
Substitution.
He took my place there upon the cross.
And so you don't come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And give your life to him.
And he takes your place.
As your substitute and you walk away without all life again. It doesn't work.
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that looked for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
Revelation chapter 20.
So we go from death to judgment.
Revelation chapter 20 and verse 11 I I can't imagine anything so horrible.
As this I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them.
I saw the dead.
Small and great stand before God. This is not little people and big people.
This is the insignificant and the significant in this, in the in the world's opinion. I saw the dead small and great stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.
The sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works in death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, and it's almost as if.
This won't happen, but it's almost as if.
The Lord says check that book again.
And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into a lake of fire.
You must get your name in this book.
And you can get your name in this book right now.
You can just close your eyes. It's a good idea. Shut out those around you, they really don't matter anymore.
And you pray.
And just tell the Lord really what it is. I'm a Sinner. I've been playing fast and loose with thee. I'm sorry. I accept the Lord Jesus as my Savior. I want to be saved.
I want the power.
To live that life that would bring honor to thee and so on, you need to tell the Lord in your own, in your own words.
Most of us, I trust all of us have been there.
It's a horrific chapter.
I'm gonna close with.
One verse Revelation chapter 4.
After this verse one. Revelation chapter 4, verse one.
After this.
I looked and behold, the door was opened in heaven.
And the first voice which I heard was, as it were, of a trumpet talking with me, which said, come up, hit her.
As others have said.
That's the moment for which all other moments have been made for those of us that are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ.
By the grace of God, this is more real to me than this table that I'm holding.
Come up, hit her.
00:50:01
To the end of the Church's history on earth.
If you have your Little Flock hymn book with you, I'd like to suggest that we sing a hymn in the appendix.
You know, man without Christ.
Really struggles with all of the trials and tribulations and the changes, the divine interruptions, time and chance.
It frustrates his game.
For those of us that are believers, we experience this many disappointments. We experience many trials, suffering and pain and disappointments and so on.
But it's different. It's different with us.
All of the suffering and the the calamities, the disasters so-called.
That men experience, they have a purpose. God is speaking.
And he wants men to hear these are not just random acts of Mother Nature.
This is God trying to get the attention of fallen man.
These acts combined with new birth.
Result in repentance. That's the plain truth of it.
For those of us that are the family of God, we experience the earthquake, we experience the tsunami, fire, the death of loved ones, the cancer.
Old age, whatever it is, things that try us and are difficult.
But we realized that behind it all is a loving God.
And he binds us to himself. All these disappointments and sufferings, the divine interventions.
They hinder us from trying to paddle our own canoe like we're so prone to do after we're saved.
And so judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace. Behind a frowning Providence he hides a smiling face.
So this hymn #44.
Is to be sung by the Saints of God.
This is our perspective on divine interruptions and so on, on the incredible wisdom of God.
And if you're not saved.
I pray, and I will pray in a moment, that you will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as supreme over all.
As worthy of your faith and trust.
And that you'll be able to submit to a loving God.
That acts like this. Let's sing #44 if someone could please start that hymn.
00:55:02
Nsnoise. Hoist your sails, Nsnoise.
Nsnoise.
Harl.
2 Peter 1:8-21
Reading
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Second Peter, chapter one, verse 8.
Or if these things see in you and abound, they make you that ye should neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind. You cannot see it far off, and have forgotten that he was first from his old sin. Wherefore the rather brethren give diligence to make their calling and election cure. Or if you do these things, you shall never fall, for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly.
Into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth. Yeah, authenticity, as long as I'm in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me. Moreover, I will endeavor that He may be able, after my deceased, to have these things always in remembrance.
For we have not followed comingly divided, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we're eyewitnesses of His Majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, we heard when we were with Him in the Holy Mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy.
Where on the EU well let you take E doesn't do a light that shine it in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arrives in your heart, knowing in first that no prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation.
For the prophecy came not in old times by the will of, uh, man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the holy world.
If you all want to know how that patients and and love and particular time, but it should be something that is part of her.
Well, Christianity, as we've been saying, is characterized by diligence, and Peter uses that word several times as we've noticed in practical still notice. And when these things are a reality in our soul, it's going to motivate us to live the Christian life. Some run into people, but they read to us this morning about purpose of parts. Barnabas went down and ignored the brother with purpose of parts that they would leave unto the Lord.
And purpose of parts is really when there is a desire motivated by an object.
And when there's, there's real motivation, then there's diligence. When the athlete is motivated to train and to participate, well, then there's action too. He doesn't just sit on the sidelines. He doesn't just stay at the, uh, starting, starting line of the right. No, he runs with endurance. The race has been set before him. There's motivation. And so I believe that's what he's saying here. When these things really get down into our soul, not just the truth. That said intellectually.
I'm not really gonna motivate. We might know the truth. We might know all about how to walk the Christian pathway, but there has to be motivation. Let me go back to a little illustration we use the other day. But you know, you and I might go all about how we get home after these meetings. We might know what to do in our cars, how to go to the airport and check in and all that. We have it all up here in our in our head. And you ask me how I'm gonna get back to Smith's Falls. I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna do web check in later today and tomorrow. I'm gonna go to the airport and I know how to go through security and I know how to board a plane.
00:05:34
But if there's no motivation, I would stay. I could stay in Regina till the Lord comes. I'm not trying to be facetious, but I'm just saying there has to be more than just the mental ascent to knowing the truth. And brethren, if we sit in these seats and take up this chapter and it doesn't get down into our soul, it doesn't get down into our hearts, then we're not going to go away anymore motivated than when we came.
But if the practical things of God that we've had before us in these meetings affect our conscience and our heart, we're going to go home a different way. And I'm not saying a different highway or a different airline or whatever, but a different way in the sense that we're going to go home with a deeper and greater motivation. And we're not going to be idle in our Christian pathway. Let's, let's be very practical about this. We're going to go home and seek to be a help in our local assembly. We're going to go to doctor worker school and we're going to.
Seek to be a testimony to those around us. We're going to seek to help out other members of the body of Christ, whatever it might be. And that's what's going to bring about fruit in our Christian lives. And what God wants, brethren, is fruit. And what is fruit? Well, if we were to go back and read the 15th chapter of of John, if we were to read in Galatians where you have the fruit of the Spirit, fruit is really the expression of Christ in a believers life.
And brother, that's what he wants. I'm not. Yes, it may involve gospel work. It may involve ministering the truth in one way or another. But what God really wants in your life and mine is a reflection of Christ. That's what real fruit is, may take on various other forms. You want to bear fruit for God's glory. These things and what are these things? They're the things we talked about yesterday.
That precede here. If these things are a reality in our souls, we're neither going to be idle in our Christian pathway and we're not going to be unfruitful. We're going to have a reflection of Christ in our lives for his glory and for the blessing of others.
I was thinking about these things being in you, that brotherly kindness by this shall omen know that you are the disciples, that you have loved one to another. And uh, I was, uh, not too long ago, uh, someone was telling us about the blessing that the Lord was doing among other people. And this jealousy welled up in my soul. I thought, what is this I'm jealous of that God is using somebody else.
These are the people of God. Christ is being exalted. And I'm wondering, you know, you know, they're not doing it among us. So those things are really, these things are very practical. You know, that if our heart isn't taking in every believer, you what's on your heart is not what's on God's heart. Every believer is precious to him.
But what we had yesterday was just as precious.
That we walk in a way that pleases the Lord. And so those things that they're not balanced in our life, then we these things are not in US really.
He asked a question, the, uh, this fruit that you speak of, umm, we have the wedding garments mentioned, uh, yesterday and there were those righteousnesses of the Saints and, uh, I'm wondering whether some of these things you speak of, would they be learned? Who spoke of, umm, a stitch, uh, in that garment are, are these things with this pie? I'm asking, yes, I believe someone has said that, that the righteousness is of Saints. There that garment that, that everything that a believer is done for the Lord is another stitch in that garment.
But there can be a lack of these things too, if we're not careful and watchful in our Christian pathway. And so he brings that out in verse nine. Now there's two conditions here that he speaks of. He speaks of blind and cannot see a far off or short sighted. Now I want to go to first John for a moment and and then make a little contrast here because there's a condition similar in first John, but I believe in a little bit different context.
00:10:19
First John, chapter 2.
And I won't read all of this, but he's talking about a person who hates his brother and so on. And then in verse 11 he says, but he that hateth his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. Now I'm going to suggest that in first John it's an unbeliever. Is that right, Bruce? It's an unbeliever because in John you have one or the other. We're we're in the light or we're not in the light.
Where a child of God or we're not a child of God, it's one or the other. So the one that's blind in first John is an unbeliever who's walking in darkness apart from God, because apart from God it's darkness.
But I suggest here that it's a little different context because what he's saying, I believe, is that, well, we are always in the light. And I want to stress that, brethren, we are in the light. If we know Christ as our Savior, if we're part of the family of God, we're in the light, but we can close our eyes and walk in darkness.
If I close my eyes to the light, I may walk down the sunniest side of the street in Smiths Falls that there is. But if I close my eyes, I'm not going to see where I'm going and I'm going to start bumping into people. I'm going to fall off the sidewalk. I'm going to hurt myself and maybe get run over by a vehicle. And so we are in the light. But it is possible for a believer to act or walk as if he's not. But then two, there's another condition here.
I may not completely close my eyes to the light and stumble. If I close my eyes to the light, the present things that are in front of Maine, I'm going to triple over. But I can also be short sighted. That is, I lose sight of what is ahead because it tells us in Proverbs chapter 29 where no vision is the people perish or the people cast off restraint and brethren, what is going to motivate us to live the Christian life?
And to walk for God's glory in a practical way now, while here in this world.
It's to have a vision of what's ahead, and Peter's going to go on and talk about that. An abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom.
Gonna talk about what's ahead for the believer in a future day as we reign with Christ and so on. And the day's gonna dawn. The daystar rises in our hearts and so on. It's to have vision. And so we must have vision. So there's two conditions. I close my eyes to the light. I stumble on what's in front of me. That's, that's, that's what's right there. I'm short sighted. I'm not seeing the end of the pathway.
I'm not looking on to the glory. I don't know if that commends itself, but I just suggest that.
We get a picture of those that you're talking about in the walk with their eyes shut. Shall we say Christians are walking their eyes shut not knowing where they go, Do we? Is that a picture that we get in Philippians chapter 3 where it speaks of?
Brethren, be followers together me and mark them which walk so as we have us, you have us for an example. And then he says for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and I'll tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction.
Well, it's those again that only lift the eyes above as far as the horizons of this sad world. And it is possible for a Christian to fall into that kind of a category. You know, it's interesting with Abraham and Lot, you have that contrast. Abraham on a number of occasions was told to lift up his eyes.
And he lifted them up to heaven, and God blessed him in that way. But you read too that lot lifted up his eyes.
And he beheld the well watered plain of Jordan. He only lifted up his eyes as far as this world, the horizons of this world. And what was the result? He was a real believer, but he only lived for present advantage.
00:15:02
He lived like this was this world was all he had, and he built everything for present advantage. Sad to say, to see it all burned up and and gone because everything in this world only has present advantage. It's all reserved under fire and you and I need to live rather than in light of eternity. If we get short sighted, we're gonna get discouraged, we're gonna fall, we're gonna get cast down. But I believe to live in light of eternity.
Is what a Christian is exhorted to do in the New Testament. It's running the race with the prize in view. In Philippians where you read it it What's the prize in the Christian life? The prize in the Christian life is always Christ in glory.
That's what the prize is. It's looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of of faith. It's to have more than just the horizons of this world. And an earthly minded Christian is a Christian who's not going to exhibit these things, but what is what makes an earthly mind a Christian? They lock these things or they're not. You notice Mr. Darby's translation. They don't have these things as a they're, it's not present with them.
We have them. They're they're available to us. It's the tool box we spoke of the other day there. It's all available, available, but they're not availing themselves of the present resources that they have.
I know it's a little different, but in in the 46 Psalm, it says he's a present health. He's there, but do we avail ourselves of the resources that we have in him? That's what's going to make an earthly mind a Christian. We lose sight of Christ, we lose sight of the end, and now we only take up with the things of this world.
That's why we need to have the Word of God before us continually. And this is Peter. It's interesting. I think you mentioned it before, but he uses this little term, these things five times in verse eight. If these things be in you and abound, they'll make you that you shall neither be barren or idle nor unfruitful. And then verse 9. But he that lacketh these things is blind and short sighted. And then in the end of verse 10.
If you do these things, you shall never fall. And then in verse 12 in the middle, and I will put you in remembrance always, always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth. And then in verse 15 after my deceased, to have these things always in remembrance. And so it takes focus.
I would give a little bit of an illustration. I sometimes when I'm on the highway and I've got a place to go and I've got miles to put on.
I'm focused and I want to get there and I look at the billboards all along the road and I, it's like a game that I play, uh, with these billboards, they're, they're, there's some effort by someone spent a lot of money to try to get me off the highway.
And into their establishment and whether it's the price of the fuel or whether it's something else, there's billboards the whole way and they're trying to get me off the highway and to lose my focus. Well, a believer to bear fruit for the Lord.
Needs to have purpose of heart and needs to have energy in the path of faith and needs to be reminded of these things. He uses this word as well. Remember remembrance. I think three times in verse 12 put you always in remembrance of these things.
Verse 13 put you in remembrance, and verse 15 always in remembrance.
We need these things brought before us continually, and we need to remind one another as well, and to remember that the world is going to have all kinds of billboards try to get us out of the path of focus and energy and the things of God.
And off into some other rabbit trail.
There's two directions to that. We can be short sighted in what's ahead. We've spoken of that. But we can forget where we've come from too. We he forgets that he's been purged from his old sins. And brethren, we never want, we want to look back to Calvary and never forget what happened there too. To remember what took place there and to remember the work of grace in our souls that gave us these things. So I think sometimes we forget.
What God has done and so we take up with the things of the world, forgetting that those we've been purged from those things. Those things have no are are not to have an effect on us. Now those things were taken care of Calvary and we've been delivered from those things, but we go back to them. We go back to that which we've been delivered from and we start practicing again that which we have been delivered from. We've been purged from those things.
00:20:09
You know, you often see a believer when he's first saved and he's, as we often say, on fire for the Lord. And there's a real change, a turn around in their life and they've left the old things that they once were involved in, but then they forget. They get a little short sighted in forgetting that they were delivered from those things and that there was a time when they had left those things behind. So we need to have the future in before us, but we need to look back to and never forget what we've been delivered from and to remember the grace of God.
That has delivered us from those things.
We find that the, uh, the, uh, Thessalonians Saints, when they got, when I heard the word of God, uh, there's a, there's a good report went up on them showing that they were, they were falling the, the word that was given to them. And of course, Thessalonians chapter one, the apostle says, umm, uh, for from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and IKEA, but also in every place your faith to Godward is spread abroad so that we need not be to speak anything.
For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we add unto you, and how ye turn to God, come idle to serve the living and true God, and to wait for her tongue from heaven.
So there there was a going on. It was not forgetting those things that they had heard, but to to they had an object before them, and that was the coming of the Lord Jesus and that kept him going on in the right time so that they're they're their activities, their their character was should was being shed abroad through all the all those around in a chaos and the apostles, no, didn't even have to say anything because they were speaking.
So the point here is that we must keep our focus in the right direction. We lose sight of that. We're going to go back to our former lifestyle. We're going to adopt those old sins and habits. And he goes on in verse 10 and says, wherefore rather that gives you the opposite.
Brethren, give diligence to make your calling an election sure he would rather be to see them to to go on in such a way as that all around would be sure to see that we're there has been a real change in our lives. There's been real conversion and we truly are the elect of God. So the making the calling and the election sure is in the eyes of our fellow man. God doesn't need to know it. He of course knows it and we know we're elect, but our lives should show that to others and they should be able to see.
We truly are the elect of God and we have that confidence too that our, Our Calling an election are sure and and you do what you bring out is uh, our brother Ken now has just told us how the Thessalonians were going on. But when he gets to the 4th chapter, he says avoid fornication. When I see that, I think Paul, why are you talking about this? These people are going on because he realized that they got away from the Lord.
To go back to the things that they came out of. And that's the word that should be used here, purged from his old sins or from his former sins. It should be translated. When you see people adopting former lifestyle, the pre conversion sins will come into their life. It's because they have lost sight of the focus that he's mentioning here. And he's persuaded that this should not be true of the Saints. And so he's saying that you need to give diligence rather to make your calling and your election. Sure.
How do we give diligence? Well, by adopting these seven things that we mentioned in the previous verses last time we were together.
Is that right? Yes, and it's to keep the freshness of Our Calling and election in our own souls. And again, it goes back to what we said earlier. Because if if I have in my own soul the freshness and reality of my calling and election, it's going to show in my practical life. It has to start with within. But then there's going to be the practical. And as Bruce said, that's what he's saying here. So by their fruit she shall know them. It's a sad condition when a believer.
Returns to their former way of life as when they were unbelievers, and we have to say the Lord knows them that are his. That's a sad condition of a believer and it's true. The Lord does know them that are his and it's true.
00:25:05
You know, Lot was never restored to the Lord this side of heaven. If it wasn't confirmed to us in the New Testament that He was a believer, that He was a righteous man, we might well wonder if we were going to see Lord in heaven. But He was a righteous man, but He never was restored in this life. Sad condition, but that's not the way it's to be with a believer. He wants us to keep before us due diligence, to keep this calling an election fresh in our souls so that there will be a practical outward manifestation of it in our lives. That is really what the point of this verse is.
I it is not the fact, and I know we all understand, but let's just reaffirm this is not the fact that there's anything we have to do with Our Calling an election as far as God's work, God called God. We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. The calling was his. He worked in us both to will and do of His good pleasure. It's all we were electing. The foreknowledge of God and so on has nothing to do with us, but it has everything to do.
With keeping it fresh in our souls and giving testimony to it, as to it, to the world around us, Peter makes a promise.
Peter makes a promise at the end of that tenth verse, and if you do these things, you shall never fail. That word should be translated, uh, fall. It should be translated stumble, apparently from Kelly's translation. I think it's interesting, uh, and significant that, uh, believers are not viewed as falling in the sense of because that's a word that's used in the New Testament for apostasy. Believers can backslide and go back, but it's interesting that the word is stumbled here.
And uh, that's not the normal Christian life to be a stumbling along, bouncing off of every Hard Rock and making a bunch of mistakes in our life. He wants us to live the victorious Christian life, so to speak. And so these things are so necessary in our lives.
If you do these things, you see how He's bringing the responsibility of man before us in these verses, we had the sovereignty of God supplying all the need, all the tools for us to do it. Here the onus is directly on our shoulders. We need to do these things and we will not stumble. Let's re. I'm sorry.
Let let's wait in that connection. Go to the book of Jude and you see something similar. And this is a guarantee as well. And again, you have to go to Mr. Darby's translation to get the sense of it. But again, in Jude, he's exhorting us at the beginning to earnestly contend for the faith to go on in spite of the giving up of the truth. And the day's very parallel to the days in which we find ourselves this this morning. But notice what he says at the end of his exhortation, verse 24.
Now unto him that is able to keep you from it ought to read stumbling again. A believer has never looked at as falling in the New Testament, and so it's able to keep you from stumbling. I want to use a little illustration of sometimes used before.
Because when my girls were little, we would go out for a walk and when we would come to a rough spot in the ground, I would often take their hand.
Because we were going over some tree branches, some Stony areas, a little hill or whatever it might be, and I could keep them from falling, but I couldn't always keep them from stumbling and so they would.
Trip on that tree branch and they would stumble. They wouldn't fall because I was holding them tight, but I could not always keep them from stumbling. But brethren, isn't it amazing if we walk in communion with our God and with the resources and the tools that have been given to us? There is an absolute guarantee, both in our chapter here and what we've just read in June, that we don't even have to stumble in our Christian pathway.
If I stumble in my Christian pathway, it's not God's fault go. It's not because God has let go of my hand. It's not because He hasn't provided the tools to live all things we had that pertain unto life and godliness. If I stumble in my Christian pathway, it's because I have not availed myself of all the resources that I have in Christ through God the Father.
00:30:03
Is that right? Yes, it is. We often say Peter had a fall. If you want to be technically accurate, you should say Peter stumbled. Falling in New Testament is apostasy, and so we're distinguishing two things here. I might add also that there are two kinds of departure from God, backsliding and apostasy. They're both bad, but ones infinitely worse. A believer can backslide, but he does not apostatize.
And falling or falling away is used in the New Testament to describe the apostasy. Not a believer, uh, backsliding. So we could say that Peter stumbled. Judas on the other hand, he fell. And it says that in Acts chapter one.
If your daughter had a responsibly participated with that guiding hand, she would not swim very good.
And that's really the point of, of these two matters here in this chapter of the sovereignty of God and our responsibility. We tend to, uh.
Put it on cruise control when it comes to the sovereignty of God.
00:35:52
What you said Bruce, in Ephesians 5 four, tell us what that means. I mean not Ephesians, Galatians 5 four about fallen and how does that how does that figure in there?
Read it. Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever you are justified by law.
Ye are fallen, or you have fallen away from grace.
We can fall from grace. We can fall from our steadfastness. That's the last, second, last verse of our epistle.
But we don't fall away.
As apostasy speaks of, so we can follow the idea of falling there, slipping.
It turned to the last chapter of our epistle that we're on second Peter chapter 3.
And verse 18 grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now the verse before that, verse 17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing that ye know these things before, beware, lest also you be LED away.
With the error of the wicked, and fall from your own steadfastness.
And again, it's the same idea of slipping from your your steadfastness. It's not the thought of apostasy. Yeah, because he's talking to dear believers. He calls him beloved.
And that's what we've been saying. Isn't it wonderful to have this opportunity this afternoon or this morning and this weekend to sit and hear the Word? But in itself that is not enough. But just our time is going. And just to go on to the 11Th verse, we find there that He put something before them, the future. But you'll notice here, it's not to have an abundant entrance into heaven. Brethren, we're all going to have an abundant entrance into heaven when the Lord comes.
Every believer is going to hear the shout, they're going to have an abundance and he's going to usher us himself into the Father's house. But it's an abundant entrance into the Kingdom. That's quite another matter because you know, there will be degrees in the Kingdom, there'll be degrees of reward and administration. And so, and I know the language is figurative, but he says be thou over 5 cities, be thou over 10 cities, and there will be loss at the judgment seat of Christ.
Not lost for what He can not lost as far as our salvation, of course that is secure in the hand of God in Christ. But there will. It refers to there being lost, loss of that which He can reward us for.
So the LO age-old illustration has often been used about the two sailing ships and they leave port and they both go through a storm. But one sailing ship has been I'll rigged. They haven't taken proper supplies on board.
They haven't re roped the sales, they haven't repaired the sales. They perhaps don't have such a competent captain. They've got a crew that isn't that experience and they bought those ships. Both go through tremendous storms on their way to port, but the other ship, it's made the proper preparations. They haven't experienced captain and crew and not only have they upgraded the rigging and the sails and so on.
00:40:05
But during the storm and the journey, they keep upgrading and they keep repairing and so on. What happens when those ships enter the port at the other side? Well, one ship enters battered, a mast is broken, the sails are torn, the ropes are gone.
The sailors are hungry because they didn't and thirsty because they didn't have the proper provisions on board. But the other ship makes an abundant entrance. It comes in with all sails out and blowing in the wind, and the crew is healthy and everything, everything looks wonderful. That's an abundant entrance. And that's what he wants us to have into the Kingdom. He wants to be able to say to us, be thou over 10 cities, we're all going to get rewards. That's true. Every man is going to have praise of God.
But if we live for His glory now, availing ourselves of the resources that we have for the blessing and good of others, then we're going to be able to have an abundant entrance. And then he's going to be able to say, well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. So this verse 11 is not got to do with the rapture, no, but the appearing of Christ. And you'll see a little later he'll bring in the Kingdom.
Near the end of the chapter as well, and I think it's important to see that that it's to do with the the the results of the judgment see put on display in the Kingdom. As you've been saying to us. I remember my uncle Stan used to say at the rapture. Responsibility is not taken up. He's the bridegroom coming for his bride and responsibility is not addressed at that moment were to be in his arms and were taken into the father's house and be great rejoicing. We're finding united together forever.
Then the judgment seat will take place, then the Kingdom after the seven years of tribulation is on. Then the Kingdom will be set up and that's when the responsibility will come into view. What is I, what is Bruce Anstey been doing in his life? Well you're going to find out when the Kingdom is comes into display because we're all going to be manifest in that day before the wandering worlds. Why does it call it everlasting?
Wayne, would you, you know, for that the Kingdom is that just for 1000 years. Daniel Chapter 7, It's really perhaps referring to Daniel Chapter 7, the same language, the same, umm, everlasting in connection with the, the Jews had to do with everything that had to do with the present age or the present world. And so, umm, Chapter 7 and uh, let's read verse 13 of Daniel.
I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man, came with clouds of heaven, and came to the ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him, and there was given him dominion and glory, and a Kingdom that all people, nations, and languages should serve him as dominion is of everlasting dominion.
Which shall not pass away in his Kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed. So nothing will supersede the Kingdom of the Lord, and in that sense is an everlasting Kingdom.
And you find that expression in the song of Israel on the banks of the Red Sea. He shall reign forever and ever. I like the way John Ruskin Gill. I don't remember John Ruskin Gill, but I remember hearing a reading a quote from him. He said the Millennium is the front porch to the eternal state. And while it's true in the eternal state, it's not referred to as a Kingdom because a Kingdom gives the thought of something that needs to be ruled over, suppressed, brought into order, put down or whatever. And he's going to put down all enemies, and then he's going to turn the Kingdom over to the Father.
That God may be All in all, you get that in one Corinthians 15. But what is established in the Kingdom in that sense, though, will go on into the eternal state without it being without there being anything that has to be put down or corrected or or ruled over. So perhaps that's the thought, but maybe you have a thought for no, no, that's, that's I thank you. That's a good answer.
It's an important point, really, that he brings out in connection with the Jewish believers.
About this Kingdom because that's really what they had in view as an earthly Kingdom and their identification with the Lord Jesus within that Kingdom. And so the writer, the Hebrews, says in chapter 12 of the Hebrews, the Epistle to the Hebrews. And that, umm, verse 27 yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made and that thing, those things which cannot be shaken.
00:45:03
May remain, wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved. Let us have grace. And so he sets before them a Kingdom that cannot be moved and will not be moved, that everlasting reign. And we know that it's not referring to heaven that, uh, because we're not, we don't gain heaven on the basis or the principle of good works. And so it's not that we keep these things and then we, the reward is that we get to heaven. So this verse of scripture really can be taken out of context. It's not heaven.
It's really the Kingdom I see.
Well, moving along, verse 12 marks another paragraph and he brings another thought in here altogether. He's not changing the subject, but he's still speaking about those things that are necessary for us to be kept in an evil day. But he brings in another thing, and that is the importance of being established in the present truth. Learning the truth and being established in it is necessary. Now we often hear people say that the truth won't keep you, but, and we know what they mean, they're probably trying to say the truth alone will not keep you. But the Bible does teach us the truth keeps the believers as long as he's kept in communion with God.
So the truth alone will not keep us, but because we have to hold it in communion with God. And I'll give you a verse in Psalm 40 which shows you that the truth does keep us in that in that way. Psalm 40.
Psalm 40.
And verse.
11 Hold not withhold not thy tender mercies from me, O Lord, let thy loving kindness and Thy truth continually preserve thee me. Notice it's coupled with the enjoyment of His loving kindness.
And so it brings in the thought of communion. And so the truth does does have a a keeping effect if we're kept in communion with God be established in the present truth. He's remember he's talking to.
Converts from Judaism who were well established and Judaism, Judaism and Judaistic principles and the law and all the statutes and knew their responsibilities more or less with regard to that old economy. But they had been saved and brought into Christian economy and they needed to get established in the present truth. And that is important that we understand the calling that we have. It's entirely different from what Israel has and it is distinct in every way the Israel. The more you study Scripture, the more you'll find.
That Israel and the church are so vastly different in their calling and in their destiny, their character and so on. And the need for a believer is to, especially one who's come out of Judaism is to get established and what characterizes true Christianity, it is not a mixture. And this has been the enemy's work since the get go from Pentecost onward, is to mix Judaism and Christianity. And there's nothing that will confuse you more than to start mixing up Christianity with Judaism. And we know that.
But oftentimes we we belay our our confession and ask questions and we'll make statements to show that we do want to mix these two together. So it's important that we keep these things distinct.
Yes, I think so. Good, good. Now we need to make a little practical suggestion too. When we minister the truth of God, when we minister from Scripture, if we make an application, say it's an application.
I think that's very helpful because I think sometimes we've grown up hearing applications of scripture and we heard them so often and they were right applications, but we began to think they were the interpretation or the meaning of Scripture. And so we take Old Testament stories and portions and yes, we do. We, we, they are pictures and illustrations and applications. But let's make sure and even with New Testament scriptures.
Maybe we take scriptures in Matthew where it's really in its interpretation, the Lord is referring to the Kingdom and it's, it's uh, Jewish in its character. We can make applications, but let's be clear that that is what they are. I I find that very helpful for my own soul. At least we've just done that. Yes, and that's good in Philippians when it talks about for many walk of whom I have told you often and tell you even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction.
00:50:00
Whose God is their belly, and whose glory and their shame, Who mind earthly things?
You find 10 times in Revelation these men spoken of, they have rejected heaven and they have chosen earth.
And they take up with the Antichrist. They're, you know, they're the people who.
Are have no time for Christianity, but they want to abort the babies and save the whales or they want they're all taken up with ecology, the things of this earth and have no time for for God. So that's the difference. There's a difference between being earthly minded and worldly minded.
Yeah, I, I no, that's right. And I'm gonna make an application now from this little expression in our verse, the present truth. You know, there's so much today that would look for some new or fresh revelation. But brethren, the truth we hold in our hands in this word is the present truth. That is, it's relevant to what we are, our situation today. It's just as relevant today as it was when Paul wrote or when Peter wrote to the Saints.
It's just as relevant today as it was to our grandfathers. It's just as relevant today as it was when some of us were in this room last year. It is the present truth. It fits what's happening today.
And if we take up the Word of God and read it in that light, we're going to get a blessing and we're going to get light and instruction for our pathway even in 2015. It is the present truth. Don't go and look for something else. Don't look for fresh light or fresh revelation at the end of this dispensation. And don't shove it off by saying, well, that those scriptures were good back in the day or that applied back when things were a little different, no.
The truth is good for all time. That's an application.
I'd like to ask a question. Does not this present truth has have something to do with knowing the truth and applying it to our circumstances in the day of ruin? Because this is second Peter. Yes, I was going to say that actually. I was going to say that actually my brother-in-law insists on that. But this is more than just knowing Christian doctrine as opposed to Old Testament truth. Both are truth, one is present truth. But he said present truth goes even beyond that.
To take in its special application to the Saints walk in ways in a day of ruin because that's the subject of the second Timothy, the 2nd epistles that we're reading. And so we do need to know how to conduct ourselves when the truth has been given up by the masses and there is a path to set up before us and we're called to walk in a in a in remnant testimony days. So he includes that with it. I think that that's right, Robert.
We have just a few minutes left, maybe we should pass on a little bit further. He brings another thing in here on our part to make us responsible with regard to being kept in an evil day, and that is in the latter part of the chapter.
The necessity of keeping the coming scene of glory before us. God's glorious end. What is God's glorious end? To save people. No, that's not God's great purpose. His greatest purpose is to glorify His Son in two spheres, in heaven and on earth, to save people. Yes, He does want to save people. It's His desire, and He does it in route to accomplishing His great purpose, to exalt His Son. But that's not the highest purpose of God. To save souls is to glorify His Son.
And so he brings before us in the latter verses of the chapter the Kingdom glory that's going to be displayed.
In in in the coming day and that millennial Kingdom that we've been Speaking of and he would have us to have our hearts fixed on that time and those things that pertain to the the glory of Christ in display. And he mentions in verse 19 something that's interesting. So if we could pass forward to verse 19 since we are running out of time.
Alright, we have a more sure word of prophecy. Why aren't you, if we do well to take heed as unto a light or a lamp that shineth in a dark place, or an obscure place until day, dawn and the daystar arise in your hearts.
Now he's speaking in this verse of the importance of paying attention to prophecy. This would be Old Testament prophecy. It's a healthy thing for the believer because it points you forward and keeps the focus in the right direction, which Brother Hyland has been telling us. And it's another means by which our hearts are pushed forward. But he mentions 2 lights here, and he uses them in contrast with one another. And he's using it in connection with the light that the Saints in the Old Testament had and the light that the Saints in the New Testament have.
00:55:20
The two lights are a lamp and the dawning of day. You know a lamp you could is like likened to to what they had as far as lighting Judaism, it provides light, but it's not the brightest light. But what we have in Christianity, the full light of the truth of the revelation has come out now through the apostles is he he uses under the figure of the dawning of day the broad daylight. And if you hold up a lamp in broad daylight, you hardly see the light from the lamp because of the broad daylight is so superior.
To that. And So what he's saying is that we do well to take heed to prophecy because it's like a light or a lamp. But the more we study prophecy, the more we'll understand that Christianity and the Christians calling is so diversely different that it's contrasted like day dawning as opposed to the lamp. And what happens as we study those things, we begin to see how different the church is, it's calling, its destiny and so on and the great result that comes out of that.
This is a day star arises in our hearts. What's that? That's the hope of the Lord's coming, the Rapture.
Because the Lord comes as the day star and the rapture. But so the more we pay attention to, uh, the truth and learn how wonderfully blessed we are in the revelation of Christianity, the day that what happens is that the, the, the, the hope of the Lord's coming, the rapture burns brighter in our hearts because everything in the New Testament revelation of Christian truth works toward that end, toward the Lord coming. And that's our hope.
And are to be glorified with Him. And it works to that end. So may we be occupied with those heavenly things both in the Old Testament and rather those coming things of glory in the Old Testament as well as in the New.
So when he says day dawn, he's not talking about the Millennium there, He's talking about the Christian revelation of truth. Let me say that again. When he says day dawn, he's not talking about the Millennium. He's talking about the revelation of Christian truth. And he's using it in contrast to the lamp that they had in the Old Testament, which is by far inferior as far as what it produces in light.
So don't, don't, don't neglect Old Testament prophecy.
To the Kingdom glories that are that are coming.
The Old Testament could be divided into two things in connection with the Messiah. Peter speaks about it in his first epistle. He says that it really brings the forest, the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow the sufferings of Christ. Of course, we know what that's about. This is what He suffered when he came here as a man and when he died to put away sins and so on. But the glories that follow are referring to His Kingdom, glories that He is yet to come into. There's 2000 years between those two statements. This is Mr. Darby, put it that way.
The sufferings of Christ 2000 years and the glories to follow, which is Kingdom glories. I've heard so many times people say the sufferings of Christ and the glories that followers talking about the glories that he's in now, the mediatorial glories of Christ that he has now.
What's referred to there in Peter? Because, uh, it's talking about Kingdom glory.
Is that right, brother Vern? Yes. And Paul fills in the gap there, Yeah.
You've seen 208.
208.
And then hold your left or West belonging, your eyes waiting to see the morning star arrives.
A blossom will his adventure before the sun shines forth.
1.
Sunshine.
On his floor.
Is there anything else I can do?
Open Mtg. 7
Open—R. Boulard, K. Harman
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Just like to turn to 1St Kings chapter 3.
Read a few verses there.
I just have a burden on my heart to complete the thought that I had.
Yesterday we looked at those individuals that had gone down into Egypt and how they were tainted in some way or another. They didn't even know what many of them, and it affected themselves. It affected the people of God. But here in First Kings chapter 3, we read about a king and he didn't go to Egypt.
But this is what he did first Kings chapter 3 verse one. And Solomon made affinity with the king of Pharaoh, with king Pharaoh a Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of David until he had made an end of building his own house and the House of the Lord and the wall of Jerusalem round about. Only the people sacrificed in high places because there was no house built under the name of the Lord. And until those days and Solomon loved the Lord.
Walking in the statutes of David's father, only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places.
And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. 1000 burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar.
And then just a little bit later on in verse 14, if thou wilt walk in my ways to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen my days. When Solomon awoke and behold, it was a dream, and he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered up burnt offerings and offered peace offerings, and made a feast to all his servants. And then a couple of pages passed.
We'd look at UH again in First Kings, just, uh, chapter 10.
In verse 28.
Maybe we could read verse 26, First Kings chapter 10, verse 26. And Solomon gathered together the Chariots and horsemen, and he had 1400 Chariots and 12,000 horsemen whom he bestowed in the cities for Chariots and with the king of Jerusalem. And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones and Cedars.
Made he to be as the Sycamore trees that are in the Vale for abundance. And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt and linen yarn. The King's merchants received the linen yarn at a price, and a chariot came up.
And went out of Egypt for 600 shekels of silver, and in a horse for 150. And so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria. And did they bring them out by their means. But King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomite, Zydonians, Hittites, of the nations, concerning which the Lord had said unto the children of Israel, You shall not go in unto them.
Neither shall they come in unto you, for surely they will turn your heart after their God. Solomon clave unto these in love.
Well, I think, uh, perhaps we read, we've read enough there, but just, uh, think of the love that the Lord had for Solomon. It says that, you know, in connection with Solomon at the beginning of his reign, beginning of his life, really, when he was born into David's home, says that the Lord loves Solomon. Oh, there was deep affection of God for that man, and he had been born into home. There had been sorrow.
Sin, failure, and yet God loved that man as little boy as he was born into this world. And now it says in chapter 3 verse three that Solomon loved the Lord. We find here the love is reciprocated, the affections of the heart and the whole. How the Lord delights to have our affections go out to him. And as we have read in different places of Scripture, not everyone is born into wonderful circumstances.
Many have different disadvantages and God arranges the disadvantages that we might have and the sorrows and heartaches that come into each home. And he's ordained those different circumstances and he desires that there might be the affections might flow forth to him as we realize that he is so constant. His love is so faithful towards us. And so here Solomon loved the Lord. But you know, in connection with Solomon, he didn't go down in Egypt, doesn't say, I don't think we have a record of him going down into Egypt in the scriptural record. And here he was about 17 years old, about 18 years old.
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Young man. He lived to be approximately 58 years old.
He reigned 40 years and one of the very first things that God tells us about him when he came, his first priority, as it were, when he came to be the king of Israel, as he made an agreement with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, he said, as it were, I'm not going to go down to the world. I'm not going to live in the world. I'm going to live in the land of Israel. I'm going to live in the land of promise. And maybe, you know, I just say this.
And I said yesterday, what we say here, perhaps behind the podium, we often say to ourselves, and maybe have more deep exercise about these things ourselves than we do as we speak to our brethren, that the world has an attraction to every one of us. And in some small way, the enemy, sometimes a big way, he wants us to make an agreement just to go on in certain things.
You don't have to go down into Egypt and enjoy all the.
Umm, bad parts of Egypt and bad parts of the culture of Egypt and the sins of Egypt and the all those things. But, uh.
Make an agreement with Egypt. Brother Jim brought before us yesterday the thought that the son of Pharaoh's daughter is really the thought of the nice part, the cultured part of Egypt and umm, going to the Philharmonic Orchestra, going, uh, enjoying the finer things of life, the culture and the nicer parts of what this world has. It's not all bad, it's good.
Well, it's not all good. It has been tainted with sin and is a part of the world system that crucified the Lord Jesus and umm hates him and continues to hate him and we live in this scene. And So what a solemn thing it was for Solomon as a young man to make an agreement with Egypt, to make an agreement with the world and not to go right into the world to enjoy all the pleasures of sin for a season, but to just make an agreement and.
Make a tie and relationship cement that bond.
By marrying an Egyptian.
Now those of us that have wives know what it is to have a Christian wife. Not only a Christian wife, but it says Paul says to the Corinthians, he says only let her be married in the Lord.
Isn't that nice that there would be a man, young brother here perhaps this afternoon, young sister, it's nice to be married to a Christian, that I would guarantee that that's the best. But to be married to a sister and the Lord that desires to walk in the lordship of Christ and own the lordship of Christ and have a home that's open to the Saints.
And a home where the husband and the wife can serve together, serve the Saints of God. I tell you, there is no higher feeling of privilege and blessing that I have ever experienced in my own life before I was married. It wasn't a part of my life. But after we were married, I married a wife that is given the hospitality and helps and she spurs me on as it were. But isn't it nice as we see different brethren and how their homes are open to the Saints of God? Well, Solomon.
I believe miss some of the portion that God would have had for him in this way, and he married.
Pharaoh's daughter, he cemented that bond, that agreement with the world, and he married Pharaoh's daughter. Well, we read yesterday of, uh, Joseph, he married a wife, but he was given a wife and it's a type of Gentile bride given to the Lord Jesus. Joseph is a type of Christ, and he was given a bride.
Did he get the best bride that he could have got? I believe Joseph got the best bride that he could have ever had. God gave him a wife and he waited till he was 30 years old and his wife was presented to him.
I'm sure it was a she was a delight to his heart. We're not told much about household, but we are told about Solomon's household. Well, Solomon loved the Lord, The Lord loved Solomon, and there was in connection with the sacrifices. We know that he went to this place in Gibeon where there was a high place, a great high place, and that's where the Tabernacle had been set up, but the ark wasn't there.
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And so it looked like the real thing, but it wasn't. It was an imitation, if you could put it that way. The ark of the Lord wasn't there. It was in another place. And the Lord here appeared to Solomon. He awoke in verse 15 and he went to Jerusalem and in communion with the Lord he went to stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord and offered up burnt offerings and offered peace offerings. That speaks of communion with the Lord Jesus and made a feast all his Saints, all of his servants.
Oh, it's a feast to the Lord. It's a feast to the Saints of God if we walk in communion with the Lord and if we go to be with him in his presence. And that's what the Ark of the Covenant spoke of. I don't want to follow that line of things this afternoon, but to turn farther on here in connection with this man, because you know, chapter 10 verse, let's look at verse 26, how your home is ordered.
How your home, young people, younger brethren, if I could address you, protect it specifically all of us too, that how your home is ordered will affect the Assembly, will affect the health of the assembly.
Will affect the blessing of God in the assembly.
And, umm, if it's a home that's in disorder, if it's a home in which the Saints aren't welcome, if it's if there's a home where there's any hindrance to the free flow of fellowship among the Saints.
Or if there's a home where there's something in the home that you don't want the Saints to come in at.
There's going to be a loss in the assembly, there's going to be a loss in your own soul and all how the Lord delights to bless the Saints when they come together and to come together in the home. Well, we know that we don't have a little picture, We really don't have a picture of Solomon's home given to us in the scriptures that I know of. But we do have his prosperity and the what he had amassed as far as wealth, we find that he had 12,000 umm horsemen he had.
400 Chariots. You know, the kings of Israel were told not to multiply wives and not to multiply horses.
Two things. Why weren't they to multiply horses?
I thought about myself, you know, because I I mean Brother Wayne Coleman and others perhaps could.
Sympathize with my feelings having been in the automotive industry for years, 25 years. I worked in the automotive industry and I I know a lot about cars and I'd love to have a full stable, but I don't have a full stable. My wife has a vehicle now I have a vehicle and I just wish I had another horse, but I so I sympathize in connection with these thoughts that Solomon had, but you know, the Spirit of God records here.
Then he had horses brought out of Egypt.
The object shows us had fine horses.
And Solomon lived in a time of prosperity. He could afford any horse he wanted.
Is that all right to have any horse you want?
You know, when I was a young man.
First came into fellowship, gathered to the Lord's name, the Little assembly in Pine Grove, Ontario. There were those there that were very wealthy and it struck me, it struck a deep chord within my heart as I saw those wealthy men. Dr. Chevrolets.
I saw them Dr. Chevrolets, they were nicely done up and so on, but none of them drove a luxury vehicle.
And none of them had really was going on and publicly displaying their their wealth. Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt. He had the very best of Egypt. He had the very best of what they had. And it speaks of power and the ability to make war without dependence upon the Lord.
And Israel ought to have been totally dependent upon the Lord, and you and I are made to be dependent upon the Lord, even in connection with our vehicles, if I could put it this way. Well, you know.
I'm not a mathematician or anything, but I wondered about the price of some of these things. A chariot came up and went out of Egypt for 600 shekels of silver. You know the in 2010 the US dollar was approximately equivalent to $104.00 US to 1 silver shekel. I mean, there's different variables you could look at, but this is a chariot for $62,500.
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Now that was a very fine chariot. He had quite a few of them.
He had the best Chariots.
Had an Egyptian wife.
He had Egyptian horses. The horse only cost $15,600. He had a few of those.
But instead of walking independence upon the blessed Savior, instead of depending upon Him for what He needed.
Why he paid the same price for his horses and cherries as those other kings did, It says in verse 29. So for all the kings of the Hittites and for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out of their by their means? So he's paying the going rate for horses and the going rate for Chariots.
When he has an Egyptian wife instead of enjoying things of God in the home, instead of really walking in a simple humble way before the Lord, why there there's all you have this picture of prosperity and not anyway withholding anything from himself in natural things and in connection with the Kingdom. Oh how often we need to exercise self judgment and what we allow ourselves to have.
I'm as guilty as any.
I just the thing that brought this portion to my heart.
Is that recently got another vehicle, it's almost five years old, but still I got another vehicle. My daughter needed a vehicle so we were going to give her our old vehicle and so we went looking for another vehicle and we spied this couple of different Honda vans with my wife wanted a Honda van. So we got a couple of on our radar screen white ones and one had it was a little bit newer, but it was a little more beat up and I had a very hard time driving a beat up vehicle so.
I saw this nice vehicle that had 30,000 miles on it and obvious that the individual that owned it before had taken very good care of it. Had never been through uh, one of these brushed car washes or anything like that just.
Very good wheels were good and everything, but it had this little badge on it and Wayne will not understand what it means that it says touring on it has all the bells and whistles.
I thought about this scripture after I drove it home.
I have one of these Egyptian Chariots.
It's a little easier to get an Egyptian chariot than it is to get rid of an Egyptian chariot.
But I just say this, dear brethren, I say it to myself, We ought to judge ourselves in connection with what we allow in our lives as to what we make, what agreement we make, as it were with Egypt that there should be no agreement. Egypt crucified the Savior. We cannot make an agreement and go part way with the world. And my dear, dear ones, dear young ones, never, never marry an unbeliever, never marry a daughter.
Of Pharaoh. You know what it says? I'm going to read it in First Corinthians or Second Corinthians chapter 6. We need to be reminded of these things because each one of us has a tendency.
To want to make an agreement with Egypt in a different way, am I right? Everyone of us think in a different way and Egypt rubs off on us.
And so Second Corinthians chapter 6, verse 14 be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion?
Hath light with darkness? And what Concorde hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God.
As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. I will receive you.
And will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. You know this is the only time in the New Testament that this term is used, this name of the Lord.
Lord Almighty, and the Lord is mighty upon in the.
Cause of his own, those that are daughters and sons and to walk in fellowship and communion with the Lord is not what your heart desires. I know as I look into your faces and you know the Lord Jesus as Savior.
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But the pole of Egypt is there. I know that what you yearn for is to walk in communion with the Lord, and you yearn for it. You have a new nature. You have a life, the very life of Christ. You're indwelled with the Spirit of God, and you have a nature that wants to walk in communion with the Lord. And oh, how he longs that you will allow that and not link yourself up with something that will really come in and divide the heart. Well, I don't have a stomach to read the rest of Solomon's story. We know it's a sad story.
He ended up fighting against the prophets of God. He ended up really, he could have had a long life. God said he promised him.
But he lived to be about 58 years old. It was really a short life.
And oh, how the Lord loved them, wanted them to go on. And so I just thought we might read these portions of scripture and it might just say that, uh, if we.
Might have that exercise of heart, not to go directly into Egypt, not to go directly into the world, not to go to the movie theater Maybe. But maybe we have this agreement and we just bring the movies and we, we, we look at them in the room or something like that. Don't make an agreement with Egypt.
Especially in the youth don't make an agreement with Egypt. He that is a friend of the world is an enemy of God. I'm not recording that right. Will you give me the patience of just looking at it in James?
James Chapter 4.
He's using this in verse 4.
The adulterers and adulterers. Adulterers. No ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. So it's not that we're to live in umm, in a reclusive way. We are in the world, but we're not of it. And the Lord desires that we would be ambassadors for Christ in this scene, that there would be that love for souls, a desire for their salvation, and a desire for their blessing.
Practically, but that we don't make an agreement, make affinity with Egypt and just allow some of the painting aspects of it into our lives or into our homes. May God give us the courage and the desire for it to please Him in this way and to go on in communion and walking in the light in the day that we live in.
So I can make a comment on what you mentioned there, Robert. There was a brother that, uh, spoke to the young people.
Uh, many years ago some of you would know him. He was killed in a car accident. His name was Lyle.
And he spoke to the young people, One of the comments he made, and I'll just add this to what Robert has said here, uh, brought, brought it to mind. And he was speaking to young people. And he, one of the things that, that he said that really stuck with me. He's, he said to the young people.
How close to the edge of the world do you want to walk?
Sometimes it's.
We we would like to have a little bit of the clean world and think that we're safe. So he's, he, he just put this challenge to them. How close to the edge of the world do you want to walk?
I'll just leave that thought for you to entertain because there was a challenge to my own soul. Because you know, no matter how old we get, it's not just the young people, it's the older ones too.
Umm, that, uh, the world is not.
The the world still has a certain amount of charm if we allow the flesh to be activated. And so I say that challenge to every one of us, older or young. But the tendency, I say is quite often with the young. I was young months too, and I had the same tendency as Robert was talking about. I won't go into that, but there is that challenge now Robert was bringing before us about the the.
The world, the world is signed, but you know, there's the other side of it too. And that is the ecclesiastical sign that is a religious side, because the devil is the God and Prince of this world. He's the God of this world religiously and the Prince of it politically. And so he would have us to, to be concerned about both of them and to be involved in both of them. And you know, one when it, when it come, when we get God's thoughts about these things, one is as bad as the other.
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Because it displaces God.
And it's just it, it displaces what his purpose is for us. So I would like to just go on, if you don't mind, in that second first Book of Kings, just a little further.
And perhaps we can address this that I had before me. We know that, Solomon.
Solomon lost his his Kingdom, as it were, and God told him that he was going to lose it and so.
It says in in the second in the first Kings Chapter 11.
Umm.
There's this man, Jeroboam.
That brought God brought on the scene.
And he was a very powerful man, and God was going to give him.
Part of the Kingdom.
So yet in verse 31, and he said to Jeroboam, take the take the 10 pieces. For thus saith the Lord the God of Israel, behold, I will rend the Kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and he will give 10 tribes to thee. But he shall give, he shall have one tribe for my servant David's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of.