Regina Conference: 2017
Table of Contents
2 Corinthians 5
Reading
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Just to state this.
My really exercises from 14 on so we can take up the first part of the chapter, but I'd like to camp on the last part.
Going back to verse 13, what is the thought there where he says there inside himself?
Being excited about what you're talking about? I think so.
That's right, absolutely.
Yeah.
Suppose it's something that we should be giving to be excited about.
We don't want to sit here and just kind of be sober all the time and and say these things that repetition and you know, most of the back seat falls through.
That's why we're.
I've read a few old conferences that have been taken down in shorthand, and the amazing thing is they don't say anything that we don't know. I'm looking for something new, but it's just the same truth. But it seems like they're enjoying them, you know?
Old brother said, He said I see a lot of brothers who know a lot, but they don't see too many happy brothers.
So if we have to meditate upon these things and realize that this is, these are eternal value, eternal verities, this is God's word. This is God's word. That's a simple thing, but this is God's word. We we need to be excited about it.
I think like I said, there is meditation. We within that meditation, we don't, we don't get it. That's right.
So why are so many questions kind of?
Because we don't benefit.
You know why?
Sometimes sometimes it's difficult to get excited reading just one verse. There's a reason why the word of God is complete. So we need to understand, as in the case of this chapter, what's before it gets to that point and what's after. So we hear the subject was to be that being a new creature. But why is that for this chapter begins by building that thought for us. So we find the 1St 8 verses and open up into our at least mention this.
1St 80 verses we have this chapter receives upon and 3rd free house and a heavenly house, but when we understand that it's disturbly versus heavenly that we can look forward to the heavenly country and then SMTP three it seems to fit. Then we find the verse 9:00 to 12:00. It speaks about the judgment. See the price for something which I don't think we talk a lot about the judgment season Christ, but it's important, isn't it.
Some perhaps have a wrong thought, thinking they're fearful that they could be badge, but that's not for thought. If I have someone who can expand more on what the judge can see, the crisis, what we see here, that we would reward us for the things we do.
So once you see the earthly far out earthly body versus the heavenly that we see that we're going to be rewarded and the judgment seeking Christ. Now we should be excited shouldn't wait or that comes that day and it goes more just not just this point. Here is really the whole scripture that we have to learn to rightly divide in you whereby once we see that there are many things to be excited about because we look around us. Nothing should decide us. In fact, as we look around as we should worry.
00:05:10
Is worried about the construction of this world.
The destruction of environment and so on. But our hope is happening. Visiting.
World is not our own. We want to be as the President forever with the Lord where it is.
The great motivating factor.
Of why a Christian does what he does.
Is mentioned in the next verse 14. For the love of Christ constraineth us. If we're excited about these things, it's because the love of Christ has taken hold of our hearts and has caused us to see things, to feel things and to know things. And it's changed the course of our life altogether. Once we live for self, for our own interests, and now there's been a relinquishing of all those claims and ambitions and taking up with the things of God and the things of Christ. And that's what he mentions in the 14th and the 15th verse.
The love of Christ. It constrains us. It doesn't say love for Christ. We all should love Christ and have love for Him. But that's not what He's talking about. It's talking about His love for us. It's the love of Christ. His love enjoyed in the soul motivates us to live this change life for His glory.
And so verse 15 comes in and tells us that there are only two ways in which a Christian can live. We can live unto themselves.
We can live unto Him. Everyone of us more or less are living either for ourselves or for the glory of our Lord Jesus. And what's going to change a person from self-centered Christianity and a life full of self-interest is the love of Christ constraining us, straightening us out, if I could put it that way, altering the course of our life, where we lay down our lives on His altar and begin to live for Him, unto him which died for them.
And rose again.
How much do we enjoy the love of Christ per day?
It's a challenging question.
Well, if we're thinking of our love to him.
Be easily discouraged.
That's his law for us, the more we think about it, the more injury we are.
I believe this is where a lot of our feeling is.
He loves us 24/7, he's always loving us.
Why do we not feel constrained by that love? And other times perhaps we do a little or a lot. It's because we don't live close enough to him.
Like a magnet. If you had a bunch of nails on the floor here that could be drawn by a magnet. We put them on the floor here, and I held this magnet over the floor and nothing happened. You see what's gone? The magnets got the power to move the nails. Why is it moving them? Well, we know the answer. I got the the magnet too far away from the nails, or I should say, the nails are too far away from the magnet. So I bring the nails closer to the magnet and what happens? They start to move and finally they jump onto the magnet and there's a response.
So if we live closer to the Lord in our personal lives, we're going to feel this constraining power. If we're not feeling the constraining power of his love, it's because we're not living closely to Him, taking time to be with Him alone in prayer and reading the scriptures and what we call a daily quiet time. If we don't do that, we're going to not have this great response from our hearts and scriptures speak so here.
I'd like to make it a suggestion, especially if you need the children and young people that are listening here. Recently we took up the 13th chapter of First Corinthians.
And my suggestion to you is in verses 4:00 to 8:00, there are 16 things, 16 things that love does and love does not do. And I think if we consider them in the life of the Lord Jesus, if you will take some time.
And actually study it out and find examples of these 16 things in the life of the Lord Jesus.
Will change your perspective. I think it is one of the ways that we can be constrained by the love of Christ is to be occupied with it and to think deeply and and meditate about what the love of Christ is. The love of Christ is wonderful. He suffered everything for our sakes and so on. So I just want to challenge each each one here, especially the young people. Take some time and look up those 16 things.
00:10:16
And they go to the Gospels and see where they're illustrated in the life of Christ. It will do your heart very good.
It's nice to know to have pointed out here in verse chapter 5, verse one.
Speaks of two things that we have as Christians. It says we know and we have, and that's characteristic of Christianity. We've been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. And so we know the truth, We know the Savior, we have the knowledge of the Father, we're brought into relationship with the Son, and we know the future. We know, as it speaks of here, that our motives really are connected with the love of Christ.
And we need to know, remember that Paul is the one that wrote this and it's Paul that was constrained by the love of Christ. I often think of this verse in connection with Acts Chapter 9 and verse four. It says that Paul or Saul, when he was called Saul heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecute a cell me. Now we don't have a real inflection of the tone of voice how it was exactly said, but I wonder if he didn't hear.
That voice and sense the love of a Savior in that voice, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? He never forgot that voice the first time that he heard the voice of the Savior. And that's what constrains you and I to live for Christ is to hear the voice of the Son of God in his love, constraining us by his love because He is the source of love to live for His glory. It's not the fear of judgment.
That saves the Sinner. It's the constraining love of Christ that brings him to the realization that there's a loving God that sent his Son into this world to do that work.
I suppose it's a girding up of the mind too. We are what we people say we are what we eat, we what we think about, We are what we think about. And that takes diligence because you know, if Darby could say that no infants pleasure is like my wandering mind, we can all set to that. But it's it's a lot easier here. But when we're out, where are we thinking about?
Thinking about the things of this world, what are we thinking about when we sing these hymns? You know, even in the Lord, even in the breaking of bread, we're seeing these hymns. Are we seeing them to the wall, to the ceiling, to each other? You know, it takes, if it's, it takes diligence to keep your mind and think you're singing them to the Lord. That's a very simple thing, but it's a vital, it's a vital that we, we gird up the loins of our minds.
So that we think God's thoughts that I suppose will lead to thinking about the love of Christ, but we think about so many other things.
We're not always conscious who we're talking to. That's it.
You might be talking to her brother here and wondering whether our fares coming on is pretty good or not, or whether it's going to be a failure to sometimes no break, but the fact of the matter is I know who I'm talking to.
That's right.
So you have that trouble too, brother. That's it, That's it. That's Jermaine to all of us. I think that sometimes we start out praying to to God and we start preaching to our brother.
We do have a problem as as human is that we we forget. We think we can do things. Actually we know the answer to most of the things that we ought to do. Let me change subject so slightly. Some of us will go on a diet and we'll change diet. But do we know what we need to do for that diet? Of course we do. But when the dessert comes out, we forget about the diet. We all know here what we need to do with the word of God.
As we've been exalted sometimes when we use the the phrase like we do on a car RPM, well, it doesn't stand for revolution for a minute or rather our reading, praying and our meditation before God. We know that. But then the real problem come is when we use the word I or we into many of these situations. When we go back and say I know I'm going to sit there and read through this. I know I'm going to spend the time to pray and when we start doing that failure already begins because.
00:15:20
In our homes, we have no strength of our own. We forget that.
It is through the Spirit guide, it is the Lord who put the desire in our hearts. So we have to pray and ask that it will continue to give us that desire, don't we? And the Lord knows. So you might think, well why do we have to remembrance of the Lord every week? Because He knows that even though we know we forget, we forget. So each board state the first day of the week, how do we appreciate this love to remember Him in His death before 1St?
To go through the circumstances of his death, so he would say, for as often as he is bread and drink his cup. What do we do? We're to remember him. It's nothing to do with us. And Lord Steve warning. But you remember him. Oh, but I'm here to worship our Lord. Well, I'm sure worship will go through.
Because of that. But the purpose is to remember Him, so we have Christ before us. Then those things that we know we ought to do is a lot easier.
Because we'll stumble, we'll fail, but he's there to pick us up.
Maybe need to get back to the chapter here.
Actually, Dallas verse four and we look at it that we talk about how we do grown and that we've been burdened by many things about the world.
There's the love of Christ and then there's the the new creation.
And the activities, one of the activities of the new, new life in Christ is the ministry of reconciliation. Could someone connect the dots there? What is the ministry of reconciliation and how does that connect to the love of Christ and the new man?
The Ministry of Reconciliation directly follows the comments about the new creation, doesn't it? The new creature.
Up in verse 18 and verse 19, you're thinking about brother of God, reconcile us to himself. 17 and 18 really.
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things are passed away, Behold, all things have become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and have given to us the ministry of reconciliation.
Yes, yes, there is the apostles, right?
It doesn't apply to us.
That time in this context.
Reconciliation to deliver.
It's not that.
Together was given to the apology was to bring this all the states how they brought because wanting to be reconciled.
Wanting us to be reconciled again.
In life and death he was alone, but now that he has risen, we are identified with him. We are associated with him by the power of the Holy Spirit sent down. So we're reconciled.
God didn't have to be reconciled to us. He always loved us. But it was us who felt that God was against us. Like the prodigal son could say, Father, give me your fault that I'm not enjoying myself.
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But.
When we have a new life and the life of Christ, we see that God is for us, and so we're put back on speaking terms with God. What a wonderful thing.
You know what? What's that verse say? That the righteous died for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, and so we've been reconciled to God.
This was not through the law. What this was not through the law, not reconciled through the law.
So this is ministry of reconciliation has been brought to us through the gospel through Christ is what God has not brought into this world through him and.
To the apostles, and the apostles have delivered it to us.
And that's one of the things to get ahold of that we are now as you say on speaker terms, we can approach him.
In in individually and at every time, whereas the law is not due to the lost solution.
And how does that connect, you're saying, with the 17th verse we're a new kind of person? I think this is written a book on this, that the Lord became the head of a new race.
And we're a part of that new race, and so we're brought into association with him and this new standing.
The thought of reconciliation always has the thought in connection with our being reconciled. We were once enemies of God. We were born in sin shape and iniquity. We had to have a fallen nature. We were enemies of God. We needed to be reconciled. And God sent his Son who became a man. And so in verse 20 it says, Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ stead be reconciled to God.
And so the apostles did. God did use the apostles to preach reconciliation. And so the ministry of reconciliation has been given to those that are men, new race of men.
God didn't give that ministry of reconciliation to the angels. Do they know that man has to be reconciled? They know that God, that man has to be reconciled to God. Is there any reconciliation for a fallen Angel? No reconciliation for a fallen Angel, but for man. God has ordained that men would preach reconciliation. But a new race of men, the fallen race of men are enemies of God and they'll never change.
Apart from a divine intervention, and so we have the Ministry of Reconciliation.
It has to do with being in Christ, doesn't it? That 17.
The 16th verse may be a little confusing as you read it here, especially when he says.
You have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth knowing no more. What he's speaking about is that there's been a new connection that we have with Christ.
We, those at that time were, knew him as the Messiah through Israel and the ministry of having the Israel brought him to replace a blessing in the world and all that.
Because Christ has died and he's become the head of a new creation race, there has we have new connections with him altogether.
Not after the flesh, so we know him no more after.
Flush not the fonts in nature, but after what he is in manhood, in flesh.
And so.
It's Christ on high in glory that our connection is with Him, not Christ as the Messiah on earth. The new creation race takes its character and its substance, its connection, by having a risen, glorified head in heaven. He is the head of the new creation race.
And the occupation of the new creation race is to preach the word of reconciliation. Be busy in his things. Primarily as Kenneth said, he's referring to himself or the other apostles, but they have passed off the scene and that work has now fallen into our hands to carry on our responsibility is to preach to the world, be reconciled to God. So that needs to you need to see that in verse 20.
00:25:04
It sounds like he's talking to the Corinthians that they need to be reconciled to God. Well, that would make sense because they're Christians and they have been reconciled to God. But the Darby translation takes out the you and the ye in verse 20 and makes it read an awful lot simpler and you get the thought more clear. Let me read it in that way. Now that we are ambassadors for Christ, as though Christ did beseech not you by us that pray in Christ's dead.
Be be reconciled to God. So he's just giving the substance of the message that he preached was be reconciled to God. That's what he preached to the world.
So he's not talking about the Corinthians in his writing, he's telling them.
The substance of His message and ministry of reconciliation, which is to preach to the world be reconciled to God.
We can do that today, can't we? You should be.
So could you say then that the new life in Christ?
That should be manifest in our lives is a witness to the world.
Right, Yes, but it's also the word of reconciliation, which is our testimony by verbally.
Have someone could help on this but when it comes to the brother Robert you were mentioned were enemies, but it's interesting in Colossians chapter one and verse 21 get another thought in relation to it says and you that were sometimes alienated and then these.
Paul speaks of two and Ephesians that.
18 Having the understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God.
I think that really gives us the distinction doesn't between those two.
What we are part of that old creation or alienation from the life of God. There's complete no, there's no compatibility with this, but it's true.
He is speaking to the Gentiles here though, is he not to meet us when it says?
Reconcile not imputing their trespass. It should be their offenses, I believe.
Speaking to the Dent House.
Not that it's not appropriate for you, but I mean to do has descend against God, they trespass against him because they were under law and they didn't.
This is talking about the trespassing, the offensive.
Dealing with mentos that he never dealt with before.
No, it's reconciling the world. Not for this world.
What move the world on themselves?
Well, the 19th verse is when the Lord was in this world, yes, it's not it's not afterwards, not after he rose from the dead, but it's when he was in this world to wet that Christ was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their transgresses, transgressions under them. So it was when he came, he wasn't he was here to reconcile, but.
We might say.
There was number takers.
And so then he went and.
Died for how would I put this he he he died for us. It became the leader of a new race and.
Those who are believers are part of that race. That's the new creation. But that verse is really he was when the Lord was here and the woman was caught in adultery, adultery and all of them left. He said, where are thy accusers? And she said there aren't. He said neither do I have to. I'm on the way to die for those sins if you'll have them. So I think that that's what that passage means.
How would you explain that?
Yes, and then he died, but then the ministry is carried on by the apostles and Christians now, right, so he says, that hath committed unto us. That would be the Christians, the apostles and Christians, the word of reconciliation. So that ministry that is carried on through the new creation race.
00:30:04
And then he gives in verse 20, as I've already said, the substance of the message is to tell the world be reconciled to God.
He's preaching in Christ stead that is in Christ place because he was cut off from death.
And so it's beautiful to see that through.
The new creation race that this ministry is carried on and the persons are getting saved.
Reconciled to God.
You get something similar to that over in the carrying on of these things over in Ephesians 2 where it says.
Well, let's start with the 15th verse. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances for to make of himself Twain 1 Newman, so making peace.
And that He might reconcile both unto God and one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. Now this verse, and came and preached peace to you which are far off, and to them which are not. How did the Lord do that? Get it through his apostles. He did it through his so.
Here it's speaking as though he did it, but he came and preached peace to you, which were far off. Well, he's not even here when this is happening.
So it's through his apostles that he's preaching through us that he's preaching his disciples that right? Yes. But there are two headships of Christ that we must not confuse. He is head of the body and we are members of the body. And when that's in view, it is looking at the collective responsibilities and privileges and blessings that we have. But He's also head of the new creation race, whereas we as individuals are connected with him.
And we are in Christ. The church has never spoken of the being in Christ. That's a term that applies to the new creation race, of which each one of us are individual creations in that race, as Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10 tells us. Let me read that verse first. Excuse me, Ephesians chapter 2.
And verse.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ordained that we should walk in them. So we're created in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is a term that refers to him having risen from the dead, gone back to heaven, and seated there as a glorified man. And in that position that he occupies before God, there is a race of men under him of which he is ahead. And we are in Christ because we are in Christ place before God, and we're here.
To carry out that ministry in his stead, so to speak.
So chapter 2.
Of Ephesians is referring to the body of Christ and I would take it that that there is the headship of the body and view, whereas what we're looking at in Corinthians chapter 5 is more the headship of the new creation race.
Would that be similar to Hebrews chapter 2? Yes.
Might read it in. I think that's verse 10 as well. Hebrews 2, verse 10. It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, And bringing many sons under glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
As members of the New Creation race, we are viewed as sons of God. We are viewed as.
Christ's brethren, He's the first born among many brethren, and also we looked at as Christ's companions as Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 14, though you have to have the new translation to see that.
So we're viewed in a different way in the new creation race than we are viewed in the the body of Christ.
Two wonderful spheres of blessing that were connected with both, but just looking at it from two different perspectives.
So would you say that verse 10 of Ephesians 2?
Is that map is?
That's collective. I mean that's of everybody because it says for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which he has before ordained that we should walk in them and then you get the body is spoken 1111 on and that's so that's a different headship there that we come in that individual reason. The body begins in verse 1414. OK OK, good when we speak of the new creation race and being created in Christ Jesus. We need to understand.
00:35:27
That each person is part of that race is a separate and individual creation about God.
When we get saved, you see it with the Holy Spirit.
It is not like the old creation race where Adam was the head. God sent him and his wife in the garden and told him to go and procreate and multiply it.
But when it comes to new creation rates, every believer is a new creation in himself, in connected, connected with Christ.
Adam, the Lord breathed into the nostrils of Adam and he became a living soul. And that first creation after the Lord had risen from the dead, he breathed onto his his disciples and said, Receive ye Holy Spirit. So they come into that new creation. We come into that new creation by his resurrection, right? Yes.
He became head of the new creation race in resurrection Colossians one and verse 10 speaks of that.
Let's read that together. Colossians one and I think it's verse 18 or.
Yes, He is head of the Body, the Church, who is the beginning, the first born from among the dead. So there you have his two headships and one verse. View it as the head of the body, but also the first born among many brethren, which is that new creation race.
But it's in resurrection.
He become head of both.
The body and the race.
So some people are probably saying, well, how is this practical?
Well, this is true of us, isn't it? Well, this takes us back to what Alex was saying.
It gets very practical. We have a responsibility to carry out the word of reconciliation to the world. Are we spreading the Word? Be reconciled to God? Are we busy with the Word?
So it gets very practical, brother.
And are we enjoying sonship and all those things that you've been brought it into the fact that we are we're brethren. He calls us brethren. Everything in this new creation is of God. And we don't have our bodies yet, our glorified bodies which will enjoy it in the glory, but we it's true of us. And we can by thinking God's thoughts and in our spirit, we can enjoy these things. We live in a different world. We think different, we are different.
We need to realize that would separate us from the world, wouldn't it?
We belong to a new race, don't we?
We're a new race of men. You know, I thought of it in this connection is that God is overall.
God is head of all. And then you have, in the old scheme of things you might say you had the angelic beings, and then you had man, the race of men, and then you had the lower creation, the animals. But now, as a result of Christ having come into this world, the head of a new creation, and now seated on high as the head of the body and as the head of a new race, creation, race.
We have God head over all, and then we have that new race of men.
We don't have our glorified bodies yet, but we are part of a new race of men, and then we have the angelic beings.
And then we have the old race of men, the fallen race of men, and then we have the animal creation. So there's a new race of men.
And so we have a higher place before God than even the angels do. And we're we have a new head. We have a head in glory and our association is with him in that scene above. So it might be a help as you think of this as God is head over all. And now there's a new race of men. And if you know the Lord Jesus as Savior, you're a part of that race. You have a higher place in heaven than the angels will ever have.
00:40:03
Then there's that angelic creation. Then we have the lower the fallen race of men, and then the lower creation.
So speaks of dignity, doesn't it? We have that brought into that new race of men. We have the dignity of being the sons of God, and we ought to conduct ourselves in that character.
Not only that, we need to do our brother each other as being in that investigation.
Tendency for us, of course, is to look at our brethren of name. We look at us still being in the old creation that we read each other that way as we we think of each other. But you know, if, if if we look at one another saying.
We're working in this. I don't know as we used to be. Do we do that? I mean, that's maybe not very easy sometimes, but do we look at one another and say, well, he's a new, he's a new creation that I.
Want another that way?
So these are practical things for us to consider that we don't just talk about these things, but do we? Do we leave this room and then we act upon it or not?
John speaks of that, though he doesn't take up the new creation racist. So that's a Pauline line of truth. But in first John chapter 3 and verse two, he says, beloved now are we the children of God? And yet, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Now, as I say, he's Speaking of this, but not really the race, because that's not his line of ministry. But the point he makes here is applicable, and that is that we don't look like we're part of a new creation race with all the Gray hair that's on some of our heads. Here we bear the marks of the old creation and the decay that goes with it.
But God hasn't finished that work with us. We're going to get a glorified body when the Lord comes. And my hair is going to be black and bushy, not white or Gray. And all the rest of it goes along with the nut creation rates, which will be.
Which is the body is superior. It's glorified.
Could give us a word on Ephesians, perhaps from the 21St verse down to the 25th, bringing in really the practical part of of the new creation. Are you referring to chapter 4? You didn't identify which chapter did I Did I say OK chapter 4?
There you get the expression given again in verse 24, having put on the Newman and so on, which is created in righteousness and true holiness. So this is another passage that's speaking about the new creation race.
And he's talking about the new character that the new creates has, the new the new race has. Excuse me?
So it gets very practical as it goes on through the end of the chapter. A number of moral issues that should not be seen with us.
There's a change in character.
Were to display the character of the Newman.
And we're do not display the character of the old man.
It says there that it's what they call me here is then where it's having put on that. So it's not that we all have to remember we got to put on this.
So we've got it already having put it on be able to ask successful.
This is not an expectation to put on the Newman, he's saying having verse 24 put on the new man.
And then verse 25, having put off, lying and so on.
By making that confession of being a Christian, we take a position of separating ourselves from that whole old lifestyle after the old man. Then he says, well then bring your practice up to what you say. You make it professional being a Christian, and that we are. So these things need to be put off as far as practice is concerned, because we have put off confessedly, the old man.
00:45:09
And the Lord never asked you to do anything that isn't true of you already have, having put off, having put on. And that's true of his position. But we're exhorted to do this and we can't do it on our own. We have to be in communion with the Lord that he could do it through us, right? We don't have this life of Christ independently. It's from the source.
When the last verse of our chapter it tells us that there was a price to bring us into that new race, that new relationship with the Lord. He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And so the Lord Jesus was a substitute. It brings that in here in verse 21 for us and our sins needed to be dealt with on a righteous basis.
And so the Lord Jesus was treated.
Just as sin itself, He didn't become in a mystical way the element of sin, but He was treated as sin itself and as a substitute for ourselves. And so He knew no sin. He was sinless, He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. And it speaks here of the results that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. There would be no righteousness apart from Himself.
And that work upon the cross of Calvary and God has accepted that work. And the Lord Jesus is raised from among the dead, seated upon the right hand of the majesty on high. So this is practical as well, isn't it, that we can walk in a righteous path in an unrighteous world. And the result, that's the only, the only reason is because of the work of the Lord Jesus.
And this really has to do that 21St verse with a nature, you know, Christ died for our sins and the the blood takes our sins away. The death of Christ takes us away. And so it's really here the root of the thing that and I understand this to be when it says be made of the righteousness of God in him. We know people talk about being clothed in the righteousness of Christ or.
But the righteousness of Christ is his righteousness. It's not something that you he takes and gives to you.
Or the righteousness of God. It's not something that God has so much of and he can give it to you. That's not the thought of it's. I heard one time I was listening to a Catholic radio and there was a talk in radio show and the man asked, he said, well, I don't feel like I'm righteous enough.
Asked Mary. She's got too much, she'll give you some Well righteousness is not that it's how God can be righteous and still forgive a Sinner. That's God's righteousness. Christ righteousness is his righteousness. He imputes righteousness to us. But here you find that it says made the righteousness of God in him. I take that that we are in Christ and we have Christ place and favor before the Father. We are a testimony or.
Of revelation of the righteousness of God, that Christ is sitting there at the right hand of the Father. That's a testimony that the work is perfect and we're in Him. So we're a manifestation to the angels of how God is righteous.
Because we really, it seems to me that we will be a dictionary in heaven. The danger What is grace?
This point to these people, that's what grace is. God became a man, took humanity, one of his creatures, humanity into his person that he might go to the cross and die for him.
That's great. That's a lot.
So we really are all all the angels will just have to be pointed to any one of us. We are a testimony that of God's grace and God's love or a new creation.
So there's a robe that was put on the prodigal, is that what's that?
00:50:07
Being in righteousness of right. Being honest or reminiscent.
Well, I can't hear your question.
For the prodigal.
Put on him the best.
His righteousness, I suppose you know, it's he imputes righteousness to us because of the work of Christ, but it's not, it's not Christ righteousness and it's not God's righteousness. It's our righteousness. He appears righteousness to us. Is that right?
We might be made the righteousness of God in him.
But can it only be a witness because we're in Christ there?
It's a witness of the righteousness of God.
Somebody may you understand it differently?
What does it mean? Does this verse not bring in the thought of propitiation?
God's righteousness has been satisfied, hasn't it?
And so in the new translation it says that we might become God's righteousness in him.
We have substitution, but we also have propitiation in this verse.
Christ is a display there of God's righteousness, and we're in Him.
Wonder about suitability?
You know, have you ever?
In some place where you're uncomfortable.
Maybe with a group of people that.
You don't know well, or they're perhaps you think they're a class above you. And I wondered in this chapter when Alec was asking his question.
You know, if the connection between the new creation and reconciliation wasn't just that that were suited to be there, isn't is that not part of it? How would you like to be by the grace of God?
Sat next to him. If we weren't in new creation, would we not be uncomfortable?
But we're perfectly suited, are we not? We are communing with the Father, with the Son. And is that? I have a question, then, about a verse in Hebrews chapter 2.
Does that connect with?
What we're Speaking of in our chapter If any man be in Christ, he is new creation in Hebrews chapter 2.
Verse 11.
For both he that sanctified me.
Who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
You know, the same suitability.
Yes, very good verse to bring in.
Maybe we could sing #67.
#67.
Like.
The O Lord.
How?
James, I thought.
I know.
The Hebrew-Christian Epistles
Hebrews 2:5-18
Reading
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Than judgment.
Because.
We are doing.
JA Trent, this is J Trench. She understood new creation. She also wrote how blessed the home, the Father's house, He was enjoying these truths that are true of us. Rather there's we've been blessed beyond all people in this face of this earth, not just gathered Saints, Christians, we need to know who we are in Christ.
In Christ.
And we need to know what God will show you who you are and yourself.
My flash dwells no good thing, but in Christ we don't just have some lone place within the door.
We have it all through Him. We need to know who we are in Christ.
I think we've decided that between these that we go to Hebrews 2 and kind of.
Takes up the same thing. We sort of exhausted the last part of it, the 2nd Corinthians 5, but we take up a Hebrews 2 goes on the show of Christ is the head of that race, the race that we're a part of.
From the start.
I suppose.
Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 5.
For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou mayest Him a little lower than the angels. Thou crownest Him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet. For in that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him.
But now we see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things. And bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified are all of one. For which 'cause he's not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto thee.
And again I will put my trust in him. And again, behold I and the children which God hath given me. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to *******. For verily He took not on him the nature of angels, but He took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things that behoove Him to be made like unto his brethren.
00:05:16
That he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.
Bring you towards 4 great reasons why the Lord Jesus became a man. He died and rose again.
The first of which which stretches from verse five through to.
13 from 5 to verse 13 is the first reason, and that is to vindicate God with regard to the fall of man going to death and rise again to form a new a new race of men that would be able to carry out the council of God, which is, as he states here in verses 5 and six, to rule over the world to come. The 1St order of man that was set in that place, but he was altogether unprofitable and fell.
And He's not in any proper state to rule over this world as God is intended. And so Christ has come into this world, He's died, he's risen again, and he has begun a new race of men who are well able to, in new creation, new glory, reign over the world to come. As God has counseled in verses 14 and 1516. We have another reason, and that is.
To Vanquish the power of the devil.
Versus 17?
Brings in another reason that is to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
And then there's a latter part of verse 17 and 18.
Become a great high priest.
The suckers and the wilderness.
On our journey toward our final salvation, when we will be called into.
Four great reasons why Christ became a man and died I don't know how many times I have read at least half a dozen, maybe more places in the writings of Jan Darby where he takes up these four different.
Things he's talking about how important it is. I've read Mr. Kelly on it. He says the same thing, four things. That's his book on Christ tempted and sympathizing. You probably have many other writers I've heard and I heard that I have read were laid out in this way. So I think that's what's really before us here, brother.
Is God's mind not to put the world to come in subjection to angels?
You would have men to reign, and that's what he made men for, to rule over the world to come. But as I said, having set up man at the beginning to ruin that place, he has fallen, and not in any proper way able to rule in this, in the way in which God is counseling.
Is the world now going over by angels or?
Yes.
As a director.
Arm of God in Providence.
But in the coming day, he's going to do it through redeemed men.
Angels will be at the bidding of redeemed men will be set in that position of ruling over the world to come. That's seen in Revelation Four and five. You might take us off our chapter to get there and see that.
But there's a transfer of the government from the hands of angels into the hands of redeemed men in those two chapters.
In chapters four and five of Revelation, yes.
So the transfer from the angelic beings.
00:10:02
In the that are ruling the world in a sense.
They're being used of God in an administrative way over this world. The transfer will take place to the new race of men, and we will have that responsibility. And so chapters four and five of Revelation are those chapters that go over that.
Transition.
And the world to come that's being spoken of here is the millennial scene, or does it go beyond the millennial scene?
It's the Millennium.
And when you get in second second chapter of John where the Angel were ascending and descending on the Son of Man, will he still use angels or something?
Oh yes, they're under the.
We've been saying it would be glorified at that time, but that's chapter one, Chapter one, right?
Chapter one of Hebrews No John. John.
Comes in here.
No testaments made to show that God's mind and counsel is a set man over all the works of his hands.
Man would have that place and to rule the world to come. He's never purposed that angels should ever have that place.
And as I've said already having done so.
We find that man has failed in his responsibility. What is committed in his hand? He's fallen and now he's in no proper state to be able to rule over what God has for him.
Thus, the need for God to be vindicated with regard to the fall of man and the.
Inauguration of a new race of men under Christ who were well able to rule according to the will of God and for the glory of God. It's a wonderful subject. We're part of that nuclear integration race now and then that day we'll be glorified and ready for that scene of glory.
Might be good to just read in Genesis chapter one to get the seed plot of what you've just said. In Genesis chapter one it says in verse 27 that God created man in his own image and the image of God created him. Male and female created them and God bless them. And God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveeth.
Upon the earth. And then you have in chapter 2 The responsibility that was given to Adam. He says in verse 15 that the Lord took the Lord God took man the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it or to till and to guard it. And the Lord commanded and the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden, I mean, it's freely. And so he was in a place of responsibility.
But he fell into sin. The first race of men is corrupted because of sin and can never fulfill the object that God had that man should reign over this creation. And but the new race and will not only reign over the earth, but the heaven and the earth will come under the subjection of the the Son of God, the head of that new race. And you and I are going to be associated with the Lord in that reign.
And so this is what he's bringing out, isn't it?
And the reformed theology, they would tell you that there's no Millennium.
If there's no Millennium, God's glory is affected. God has just lost. His purpose is not fulfilled. The 1St man failed, but the second man is not going to fail if God's glory is connected with the Lord.
I might just say, Brother Verne, you brought out a very important principle in the Word of God. God always accomplishes His purpose.
And so you see it in the garden, I might just say in Genesis chapter one, the Lord God himself, the Lord Jesus planted a garden. He put the man in that garden. There was to be a place of fruitfulness for God in this world, but because of sin, there was no fruit. So then you read in Revelation chapter 22 and you read of a garden, as it were. There's a little picture there, and it's a place of fruitfulness. God never changes his mind.
00:15:18
There may be an interval of time where he isn't able to accomplish what he originally planned, and so there's an interval the churches formed and so on. But isn't it wonderful? He's going to have his way and there is going to be fruitfulness and he is going to have a race of men that are capable of reflecting his glory and acting according to righteous principles in the reign of this world.
So he quotes this 8th Psalm in verse six. What is man that are mindful of him? We are sometimes at a loss when we have these scriptures translated from the Hebrew and from the Greek in the New Testament into English. And this is one of the examples because the word man here is different than what he mentioned a little bit further on in that verse when he says or the Son of man.
And the word is used in first, which is what is man.
It should is the enosh.
Enosh is a word for man in his.
Frail. Weak.
State, and it has the connotations of man and his fallen condition.
Mortal Kombat, Mortal Man Yes, whereas.
The second use of it, when he says, oh, the Son of man, that's a different word there in the Hebrew, not enough. Now it is Adam which has a connotation of dignity without the connotations of Enos, which is frailty and mortality and so on.
And what is we spoken of here in the latter part of that sixth verse that the Son of Man whom thou visitors is talking about how the the race of man machine has fallen and weak and frail status has been visited by the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus?
God Himself and the Person of His Son.
And there's a reason for it.
We've been saying vindicate God with regard to the fall of the first man and to bring into existence a new race of man.
Some take that son of man to be added and son, he wasn't the Son of man, he was created.
Had to do, right?
So the first use of the word man in verse six is talking about the fallen race, which we're part of, of we're part of.
The second use of man is talking about the Lord Jesus.
He has visited this race by the will of God to do the will of God.
To begin a new race and then altogether now major stem a little lower than the angels or a little inferior to the angels.
And so on. That's because, as Brother Boulard has told us this morning, that in the order of God's creation, man are not the highest order of beings. Angels are a higher order of beings than men. And so he passed angels by and did not take on him. The nature of angels. Verse 16 tells us he became a man, and so he was made little lower than the angels, because men are an order of things that are little lower than the angels.
So this is talking about the Lord Jesus coming into manhood, being willing to take creature limitations into himself to walk in subjection to God.
Which is an obedience that you had to learn. You never knew it before. He was always in a place of commanding the creation. Now he's had to walk among his creatures as an obedient one. And of course he did it to perfection. So when it says thou mayest him a little lower than him, he was really talking about the the, the race of men being inferior to angels. Where you'll see.
In verse 9 where I've been Speaking of the the Lord Jesus was made a little Lord and the angels because he visited that race.
So verse 6, verse seven and half of verse 8.
Is a quotation from the Psalm 8.
Then you get the visitation.
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9 Lord Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels.
This is really the Lord purchasing everything, isn't it?
You know he sold all he had about the world. Here you have the purchase because it says each the grace of God. He tasted death for everything.
You get. You have to pass.
In the present.
In the future there we made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. That's fast. He's crowned with glory and honor. That's the present. That he, that he, by the grace of God, could taste death for every man. And we'll see. I'll soon find everything that's put in subjection under him that's yet to come.
The Lord Jesus is the only one that is going to be able to bring all things into subjection to God, isn't he? Every form of government has been tried in this world and men's hearts are evil and he's incapable of being subject to the authority. The natural man is a rebel through and through, and yet the Lord Jesus is the one who has accomplished God's purpose in becoming a man.
And going into death and he took a body that he might be able to die. And so he's going to be crowned with glory and honor that. And it says that he by the grace of God should taste death for everything. And his brother Vern alluded to there was a purchase made at the cross of Calvary. And the Lord Jesus has a right over this world, not only as the Redeemer, he has the authority, he's.
But he's bought the world, He's going to set it free very shortly from the power of sin. And we're known during the millennial scene that he'll rule with a rod of iron. But he went to the cross and made a purchase. He purchased the whole world and he's going to bring it into subjection. It's not in subjection to him right now. It's not in subjection to God. That's in in rebellion. Let's just look at that in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 13.
So that the young can just get that principle that there was a purchase made at the cross, the blood was shed, and the Lord Jesus has a right to this world, not only as the Creator, but because He purchased it. Matthew chapter 13, it says in verse 44 again, the Kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field. The witch when a man has found, he hideth, and for the joy, for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
And we have in a little bit earlier on speaks of the wheel of the field, verse 38 as being the world. And so the Lord bought the world. He bought all things, all created things.
But we see that it's not put into subjection to Him right now. It's still in rebellion, but He is going to set it free. And you and I are going to be a part of that administration in the world to come as we see the Lord Jesus, the head of that new race and all creation, brought into subjection himself.
We're going to be a part of his administration.
Sometimes when we read through this is a little bit difficult to understand, we see it referring to various men here. So perhaps if this part helped me is all for the sake of the younger. 1:00 We we read up the angels, we read off men.
Which expound already the angels here really speaks up to one who they're made to serve. Isn't it man to think of this as man I made to rule rule and they for God's sake and then we read off these son of man. There are actually two men in a sense that is Speaking of so we find in verse six one in a certain place testifies saying what is man and I believe.
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It speaks up Adam and his descendants, isn't it?
So then as the chap, as the verses go on and they talk about a different man, there's a second man as we read through this in particularly from verse 9 on, actually verse seven and eight mention a different man, Does the man Christ Jesus himself. So he speaks of man, the 1St man of the earth earthly, and then read of the 2nd man, the man from heaven after came to his death for every man. So I hope that would help us understand this portion a little bit better.
And it's important there in verse nine it says we see Jesus. Why doesn't it say we see Christ Jesus? It's because that's his manhood name. His name is a man. Is Jesus the salvation of God? God has ordained that it's going to be a man, a glorified man that's going to reign over the scene and bring it into subjection. But then he says in verse 10 that it became him. For whom are all things and by whom are all things?
In bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
And so he's going to bring those many sons into a glorified state. In very near future, you and I are going to have be in the glorified state just like the Lord Jesus. And so we'll be perfectly suitable not only as the companions of the Lord Jesus, but to share in his work of administration over this world.
And none of us would ever want to be an Angel because angels are servants. As our brother has said, they're servants forever. They'll never be more than servants. God never loved an Angel.
But he loved men, He loved you, and he gave himself for you, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And so he's going to have those that were once sinners, but now glorified men of that race above.
Associated with Christ, the head of that new race reigning over this world. He's going to get his way, we might say.
There is perhaps I'd like to add a little thing. We see the Son of Man and to hear you notice the sun is with the lowercase S.
And then we read often in other places the Son of Man with a capital S. Big distinction between the two, isn't it? The Son of Man who speaks of Adam here? The Son of Man in capital S speaks of the Lord Jesus. The Son of Man often speaks of his character as the one who was despised and rejected of man. Also the Son of Man with a big S.
Is the one who come to execute judgment as well? Isn't it not the Son of God which portray a totally different character? The one who who come now is the Son of man. So as Moses lifted up the surf engine in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
What it says to me.
The captain of their salvation. Perfect. We know it's talking about the Lord through suffering. What suffered is that the suffering is life, or yes.
Verse nine is talking about the death of Christ. Verse 10 is talking about the resurrection of Christ. As we've been saying in the meetings that he became head in resurrection and it says that the captain would the salvation would be made perfect. That is Christ being made perfect in the sense of resurrection. You go to chapter 5, you'll see it used in the same way chapter 5.
And verse 8:00 and 9:00.
Though he were a son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered, and being made perfect for other translations as being perfected. Yep.
So it's talking about his resurrection, but then he goes back and says in our chapter through sufferings, that is through the sufferings that he experienced in life, he went into death and rose again. I remember listening to her tape years and years ago and it was a question came up in a meeting and Amistad Barry answered it this way. It was very helpful. He said when you get the word suffering, singular is talking about his atoning suffering. When his sufferings, plural is talking about the sufferings that he experienced as a man walking in this world.
00:30:19
He said that's a there's a rule through your Bible. I wrote that down.
That was Armistead, Barrier said that.
So you'll see here in verse nine for the suffering of death, that's talking about his atoning word, but it's a singular. Now in verse 10, which Vern has drawn our attention to, its suffering is plural. He's talking about what he experienced as a man walking through this world. Now this is important, that he would be made perfect through sufferings. Why? Because one of the four reasons is he's going to be a high priest and be faithful and be able to sucker and help and sympathize with us as we pass through sufferings down here.
He had to feel the same. To him that says that, don't we? In the appendix he passed through the same.
So he's become the captain.
Of our salvation.
It's because he had been has been perfected to resurrection.
And then the next series of verses, 11/12/13, talk about our connection with him.
As ahead of this new race, it doesn't say head here. He's called the first born, but his first born. He has many brethren, which is the race.
When we speak of glory.
Remember that we're not talking about a place up in heaven.
Glory is a condition, not a place. Having said that, I excuse anybody here would like to say that by accident because I do myself. We have in our hands, it's in the Reformed theology. It's been around the Christian world for years. We talked about so and so has gone to the glories if it's someplace up in heaven. But really, as Robert has explained it, when the Scripture speaks of glory, it's talking about a glorified condition that we will have.
Let me say it again.
Glory is not a place up in heaven.
It's a condition.
Glorified condition.
And the many sons are really in their glorified state, Would you say when it speaks here in verse 10, in bringing many sons unto glory, it's really many sons in their glorified condition?
Brings them with him.
He's the captain of a glorified race of men.
In verse 11 it says that we're who are sanctified are all of one.
And so we're all of the same kind. There was a race of men, and they were.
Flesh and blood, bones, and they're all the same kind. There's not two different kinds of men.
I know there's male and female, but we're all of the same race. We're all men.
Fallen race of men, but we're going to be all of one kind, the same race as the Lord Jesus, the head of that race. We're going to be just like him. We'll be of the same kind, perfectly suitable as those that are companions for himself for all eternity.
So he says he both he.
All of one. This is a unity. That's not the unity of the body of Christ, nor is it the unity of the family of God. It's the unity of this new creation race, the oneness of kind.
There's the oneness in the body of Christ. There's the oneness in the family of God. This is the oneness of kind, being of all of that same substance. In Galatians, chapter 3 speaks of us being of Christ because we are of the same substance as far as glorification is concerned.
00:35:17
Since we are all one of kind in the new race.
He says for which 'cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. And so those who are members of the new race are viewed as brethren in chapter 3. They're viewed as companions. Verse 14.
So that's beautiful. I think if you turn back to Genesis chapter one, when it talks about all the animals and the various things of the Lord creation, you'll see it says after his kind, after his kind.
Well, this new creation race is after his kind. We are of the same substance, and therefore totally suitable to be His companions and his brethren, and to reign with Him over the world to come. Adam, when he saw those animals, each after it's made after its kind, he didn't see one among them that was of his kind and was alone. But when God brought Eve before him, now he said, Now this time is one of my kind.
And so it is that.
If Adam would probably.
Is kind to the Lord, He's very.
Not he's not exchanging that says there to cause his breath and because we're out of that.
It's so beautiful how God has elevated this new race above angels.
Placed before himself as his own son.
Marvelous.
He says John Chapter 14 At that day he shall know that I am in my father, and ye, and me and I and you.
That they will all be one and the one kind. We're at the same creation. It's an amazing thing to think of when we think of what we were. And he could.
That's the head of that new creation. You can pick yourself and make a a new time out of that.
Miserable mankind, that this year. Now it's hard for us to imagine. That's the most amazing thing you can think of, that God could come down and become man.
Make this should drive you puts it that way most.
Amazing thing that you can take. It was after death, wasn't it, that he called him brethren, we get that in Psalm 22. It's almost that he can't wait to say, I will declare thy name, the Father name unto my brother in the midst of the church by saying, praise is unto thee. Oh, it's it it just you know John, the book of John is almost.
The Lord saying in so many words, If you only knew my father.
You only knew my father, and here the work is all done that the father sent him to do. And he said, I declare by name, the Father's name unto my brother.
In the midst of the Church, I will sing praises unto thee. That is, that's the Father again, isn't it?
The revelation of the Father is Christian truth, isn't it? The Jews never knew God as Father, and so it's a revelation of God. After the resurrection of the Lord Jesus were brought into that relationship. Now the Lord Jesus spoke of that relationship before he went into death. But we can address our God as our Father and without any fear.
And to recognize that as her brother was bringing out before us in the meeting previous, that he has the he laborers with us as a father in his disciplinary ways of training and all done in love, and that we might be conformed to the image of the sun. And so we know the Father. We know the name of the Father. It's been declared to us by the Lord Jesus.
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I'm not sure the subject of the Father is what's before us here.
They they declare thy name here is the name of God. It's God with his people, not the Father. That's that's John's ministry.
A lot of that thought.
And when he says church here, he's not talking about the Church of God of which we are part of, He's talking about the assembly.
The heavenly company which includes Old Testament Saints as well as New Testament Saints.
He's quoting Psalm 22, and the church is not found in Psalm 22 or anywhere in the Old Testament.
But he's talking of the glorified Saints.
And the heavenly Saints, the heavenly company, without distinguishing the Church among the the ones that will be there.
When he rose from the dead and told Mary to go to his brother and say, I sent them to my God, and to your God, and my father and your father. That's not, that's not what this is talking about.
I'm just asking, this is not what he's talking about.
So it's not the Father God in Hebrews, but in John you have the Father.
John views it a little differently, I see. OK.
But the church has found one, and only once in the book of Hebrews.
Where chapter 12.
Yeah, and it talks about the Church of the First born ones.
We're seeing there, it's having a preeminent place above all the family of God, various blessed persons that will be there. Old Testament Saints, they're called a spiritual just man made perfect and angels and all this. Then he comes to this one favorite class and calls him the Church of the first born ones first born is the idea of preeminence having being first in rank among and above all the others. That's the place we have in this coming scene of glory. We don't deserve it, but God has purposed by grace.
And that's our destiny.
So the word church does come up in verse 12 in our chapter, but as I said, that should be translated assembly. It's not talking about the Church of God is we are part of but.
The whole heavenly company. It's a quotation from Psalm 22.
Bruce is this this third verse of 35 in the back of the book. And that's not really a that's not really a scriptural thought there. Now he praises in the assembly.
I think it was probably no, he does. That's a scripture thought.
But that's not confined the assembly to.
The members of the body of Christ, yes. OK.
That's a good question, Sir. I'm glad you brought that up. No, he does need the assembly. It's the Saints. I'm saying so in verse 10. Maybe I missed something here. I'll just ask this, Ken. But where it says, and by whom? By whom are all things in bringing many sons unto glory? Is this not? Is this referring to more than the Church then?
Or is this a reference to the church, though it's not mentioning it as such? Or what is the thought there? I I may have missed that. That's a good, good question. I think it is just the church in that church. That's what I thought. And the Old Testament Saints and never viewed as sons. OK, all right, that's good.
But you see that the four living creatures in Revelation four and Five are linked with the four and 20 elders. And that's not just the church. That's the Old Testament Saints as well. And they are seeing linked together four times in that 5th chapter and in connection with the transfer of the government of the world to come. And they're seen as glorified Saints. You know, when we talk about I'm going to be glorified someday, Well, you're not the only one. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be glorified then with us at the same time.
And we'll be a heavenly company of glorified people. We have a distinction of between the Old Testament Saints and glory and the new church and of God and glory. We have a more favorite place. But we are all.
00:45:04
Being in which the world will be in subjection to.
Do I have that right green?
Let me check.
1St Fall of present.
Well, he's close 3 Old Testament verses here in verses 1213.
To show how thoroughly we are bound up with him, of being a one with him in this new creation order.
So he's just quoting scriptures to show the the the thoroughly we are bound up with him.
And this oneness of kind.
I don't know if verse 12 is talking about a time period, but rather just there's this connection with him.
There's a suggestion here, brother.
We have difficulty hearing you from back here. So those who are further from the microphone, if you could speak up another, I know.
I didn't hear the last 10 minutes of the conversation clearly.
You're a little away from the microphone yourself, brother.
Are we told in another passage in verse 13? Are we told when this presentation will take place? Behold, I and the children with which God have given me.
It seems that there's a presentation of at the entrance into the heavens of that glorified race of men and the Lord.
Says the whole eye and the children.
Or is this figurative language?
I've looked at the preservation of the believers. It's a guarantee of the preservation of a of a believer.
That I will put my trust in him to keep them.
So there's 3 Old Testament quotes here.
Psalm 22, verse 12.
Isaiah 817 verse 13 and then Isaiah 8 verse 18.
Verse 13.
You you get the sovereignty of God there, which is a wonderful, wonderful.
Doctrines, principle, you know, it's really everything.
Harkins back for the sovereignty is odd, doesn't it? We didn't choose him, he chose us. Here you got it again.
Says, Behold, I and the children which Jehovah has given me, we are really gifts given to the Lord Jesus to bring into this wonderful place of blessing.
00:50:00
Rather than you can't get blessed any more than we are.
That's we have to realize that we're nothing in ourselves.
In Christ we have all these promises to encourage.
Even at the end of this is death. Death is no longer our enemy, it's our serve to bring us right into the presence of many of the present.
Glad you're a Christian.
Special You want to say we hear so much in the world today, but.
Is there like another planets and.
Their kids at school probably some of this stuff too and reporting their.
Could be like another plan. So far they haven't proven it that there are any, but we know in God's purposes that's impossible.
Because he doesn't have another family and another planet that we don't know about.
It's there's he has prepared this place for you and me or to for a people for himself. So there I can, I can confidently say you can look, you can you can take a trip to all the other planets that were possible and you won't find anybody there.
Because God has made those for his glory. That's true. He's put all those things into place for his glory. But this earth as he prepared for the sons of man.
And so you don't have to look elsewhere.
Don't even listen to that such nonsense. And so we can rejoice to think that God's purpose.
Was for you and me, who have a family for himself and a bride for his son, and it was prepared from before the foundation of the world.
That's the reason why.
He's called the last Adam, right? Exactly. You know there was the first Adam. The Lord Jesus as head of the new creation race is the last item. Now why does it say second atom? Because they.
Really decide there may be a third or fourth, there may be other bases of that. But when he comes in and calls him the last atom shows there's going to be no more racism and that God is going to make this one is perfect and there's no need to to bring in or introduce something else. Why doesn't he say the last man? Why did he say second man? Because he's bringing many sons to go. Yeah, exactly.
That's in First Corinthians 15, right?
Then he says, And as our earthly, such are they that also are earthly, as they are the heavenly, such also are they heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. That's when the that's First Corinthians 15 verses 2048 and 49. That's when there's going to be the completion of the work of God in glorifying the race.
We are now we bear the image of the earthy, and that day we're going to bear the image of the heavenly by being glorified.
Walter Scott.
Writer who's writings are.
So edifying, he felt there was people on other planets.
Got that book that I the book too, but just goes to show you what happens when even a great man speculates. You know, when I say I think I think wrong, unless it's according to this book, you tell a story and it's a great little story. It's a true story that this woman who had a son and he was complaining about doing the chores.
We don't need these animals. Why don't we get rid of them? You know, they're just a bunch of work. You know, I don't want to do this. And she said, well, son, we have a difficulty here. He says, what's that? Your thoughts? Your opinion doesn't count in the things of God. Your opinion does not count. But sometimes, you know, an assembly will make a decision. God's given the authority in that assembly.
I think. I think.
Bow to that we, you know, it's, it's, it's defiance. This is the word of God that we our thoughts don't count when it comes to the word of thought.
00:55:10
More and more prevalent that we want to trust what we think and what God has written. SAD.
I have that book that you're referring to. It's called Otherwise, but I have something also and that is I have two of them.
2nd Edition.
In the second edition that on how the happy remark is so he corrected himself when we're thankful for that.
So I think his mind got influenced by science. There's a lot of science in that day. In the 1800s, when you try to make science with the Bible, you might get off track.
And he evidently thought that there were men on Mars, he said. Mars is evidently or no, Mars is surely a people planet.
He he took that out in the second edition and was thankful.
Brother Lundeen one time said that a great theologian but a bad scientist.
So First Corinthians 15 verses 45 to 49 or 50, I guess you could say to 50, give us the prospect of the new race.
And I said, I said already, there's only.
Two atoms, the first atom and the last atom.
There's a condition waiting which we're going to be brought into by the coming of the Lord.
A lot of verses of the chapter it shows us how this will take about will come to pass and of course we always can't be with the Lord's coming.
It's connected with the Lord's coming.
What do you say, Ken?
That's right.
I was thinking of this. It speaks of the mysteries, you know, the various mysteries of God.
And.
All brought to fruition, shall we say, or to our tension and our knowledge through the resurrection request.
And the fact that we're talking about the.
The church is that which has been.
Was was in the mind of God from before the foundation of the world? That's a mystery that was never made known to Mandy.
Except when through the fossil pole.
And it was made known for you and me.
That we might know the counsels of God, Imagine just those of us.
Who have?
Shall I say who I were?
Strangers to God, into his grace. I chose you and me. You didn't get to the angels you give to you and me.
To know his counsel.
And they're all.
The more we want to know and the more we walk with God and want.
Noah's counts is the more he really reads to us.
But if I make friend of the counsels of God, I must, I must not be walking down.
What the father would give would would give his secrets to a son, should he say, who chose to walk at a distance from.
So if we want to know more of the things of God, we need to walk closer to it. And do we have all the deal here? We want it. We have the Spirit of God that can take these things and make them do this.
And there's no.
And could we say if we really enjoy it, we'd be homesick?
01:00:08
So glory is a condition to which we are looking.
Saints are not yet glorified.
Whether on earth or those who are departed to be with Christ.
Think of most of the members of the body of Christ today have gone home to be with the Lord because God has been building the church since the day of Pentecost. Many, many thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe a million or two, I don't know, are there with the Lord. Not one of them are glorified.
Souls and spirits are happy, rejoicing in paradise. They're in a condition that's far better, very far better than to live on Earth.
There's a sister whose husband.
Gone to be with the Lord and.
Remember, Norman Berry was was greeting her and she said something about her husband. He said, well, she's he's he's in glory and he says not yet. She was kind of dejected by that. She didn't know how to take that because she was under the impression he was in glory, but he said not yet.
To explain why there's only one man in glory, right?
Christ Jesus.
We'll be like him when we see it.
That's is that first John we shall be liking when we see him. He is.
3rd chapter.
That will be. That will be.
That now this is a second verse of that. We know it well, but we'll read it because it's so nice. Beloved now are we the children of God? It doth not appear.
We shall be, but we know.
That He shall appear and be manifested, we shall be likely.
Where we shall see him as he is.
The Lord Lord said to the thief and the cross, This day shalt thou be with me? And is that right? No, no.
Compared to SO what's the difference?
Paradise is a state of bliss.
Who enjoys?
And that's not a place, it's a description.
Look like yeah.
Now there's a verse in First Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16, the last verse that.
May give you the idea that glory is someplace up in heaven under which the Saints are traveling. It says your controversy great is the mystery of God in this God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit. See them angels preaching and Gentiles and believed on in the world received up into glory. So it looks like it is a place that you run into and right there, but that is not a best translation should be received up in glory. Scratch out the two. Pardon me, scratch out the two. Scratch out the two.
He was She went up in glory and she went up in a glorified state. When they were on the Mount of Olives, they saw him going up in a glorified state.
Into heaven.
It's a reformers idea to think of the heaven being the glory.
Sometimes they say, well, the Saints are not in glory then they people think.
That it is the place they come up with the idea. So you're saying that the Saints are not in heaven. And we didn't say that. He said they're not glorified, but they're there in heaven with the soul and spirit. And it's a reformers idea is going to the church for hundreds of years. And I'll show you in a verse in Psalm 73 how their doctrine has crept into their translation work. Remember, we are reading a translation. They came forth in the days of the reformer. Reformers. This translation is a little bit over 400 years old.
And.
They made the translation and sometimes they would let their doctrine creep into the text.
Psalm 73.
They crystallized the Psalm and it's really not talking about Christians or the Church of God at all. It's talking about.
The remnant of Israel.
Anyway, it's in verse.
01:05:01
24 And thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Oh, it sounds like it's a place, but as I say, that's the translation error.
And the doctrine of reformers have crept into the Texas should read.
And after the glory, thou shalt receive me.
And after the glory thou shalt receive, what glory is this? The glory is appearing of Christ, and he comes back to redeem Israel, to deliver them. There'll be glory everywhere. And after that great manifestation of glory, they're going to receive restored to Him, and the Millennium is going to begin.
So.
Yeah, for some we're very indebted to the critical translation agenda sets these things in the proper place.
That's what he says.
Thank you.
1St Corinthians 13 and 12 from.
Always see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known to follow up to your your story? Can a widower asked the preacher at the funeral, Would I know? Will I know my husband in heaven?
And the preacher said, Dear sister, you will not know your husband.
Until you get to heaven.
Now we know, in part.
But up there, you won't be a husband, no.
No, yeah.
I hope there's not too much confusion going on here amongst the younger ones. We might be.
Bringing in some deeper things, but they're needful.
To rightly divide the truth is a.
Yes, the relationships that we enjoy our husband and wife.
Is for the earth and when we're taken to glory at the coming of the Lord.
You're no longer going to be in that relationship with husband and wife will be there as members of the body of Christ, as members of the new creation race will be glorified, but we will not be in a marital status in heaven.
Now it says that the Lord said that in Luke 20, didn't he? You see? Well, where do you get that from? It's Luke 20, isn't it?
They're not given in marriage, but as the angels, let me just quote turn that so we get these.
Passages before us move 20.
Yeah, they asked the question to the Lord who would be her husband in the in Gloria, in heaven.
And he answers by saying.
Verse 34, Luke 20, verse 34 and Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world married and are given in marriage. That's on earth. This is what I was saying. These relationships are on earth, but they which are counted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead neither married nor given in marriage, neither shall they die anymore. They're equal to the angels. That's not equal in position. That means that there are the same in the same state as an Angel that we don't procreate.
Angels don't have that capacity.
There's the scripture for it if you want to chapter and verse.
And what it says in Philippians 1 to depart to be with Christ, which is far better? The Darby constellation says far should be on steroids. It should be very far better.
So it's and he's talking about being on earth in communion with God.
He's a man seen in Philippians and walking with God and the flesh, not acting. He's living in the enjoyment of his relationship with Christ and communion with God. And he says yet when they pass into that scene when the souls are to die and are going to be with the Lord, it's very far better.
What a wonderful thing. It's not the best though. Doesn't say it's the best. He's better, and he said it's far better. Very far better. And not the best, because the best is yet to come in glorification.
01:10:02
When we're glorified, that is the ultimate hope of the child of God.
So what to depart to be with Christ is not referring to the rapture.
Sometimes I hear people saying that we talk about the Lord coming and you take us home. Wouldn't that be wonderful if people say yes and somebody chimes in about this point and says yes, to depart to be with Christ, which is far better? Well, it's true, we're going to depart to be with Christ and it will be far better or be the best when he comes into rapture. But that's not that verse Philippians chapter one is talking about. It's talking about people who die and go on to be with the Lord, not the Lord's coming.
So keep that straight in your mind if you can.
Let's see.
When we speak about glorification, it's not just the glorification of the body.
Close we eradicated of the fallen sin nature.
Will be glorified in body, soul and spirit.
The two classes of the Saints are mentioned in First Corinthians 15, which we've alluded to. Perhaps we could just touch on that to fill the hour as we're together.
First Corinthians, chapter 15.
Verse 51 And remember, this is the prospect of the race. Behold First Corinthians 1551 Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep.
But we shall all be changed.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye that the last trump for the trumpet show sound. And the dead that shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
So when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, whereas I sting, O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.
You have two classes of Saints here, one's whom he designates as being the corruptible.
The other as the mortal.
Who are they?
Well, they're living in the dead Saints. Both need to be changed. Both need to be glorified. So the corruptible are those bodies whose bodies are laying in the grave. The corruptible will put on incorruption. That's their glorification. The mortal, that's the living Saints. You and I, we're going to put our immortality. That's our glorification. It all happens in a twinkling of an eye.
161.
165.
Gospel 1
Gospel—David So
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I suppose I have the same challenge to not knowing which clock to go by, so I suppose we can begin with this clock and end with the other watch.
Perhaps they'll buy us a few more minutes.
I like to begin the meeting.
With some children's hymn. It's so good to see many children here.
You know, often the Sunday school will sing him #42 we won't sing that tonight, but I will change that. As many of you know, that him says a little child of seven, and we will change that to a little child of 70 or even 34. And I thought when we sing it that way, we have many children here that would fit into that category and all. Some are even older than 70. Those are the big kids in here.
And then there are middle-aged kids that are 34 and of course we have children that are 7 or even 3 or 4. But I thought we're seeing a different hymn. Hymn #44. I enjoy that most Sunday school that I've been to. This seems to be a favorite. Into a tent where gypsy boy lay.
Dying alone at the close of the day.
So let's sing that together for the children and the not so young children.
Into a tent.
Nobody ever saw three *******.
Makes them sorry drinking in your endorse.
I have.
Look to the Lord.
Blessed God in our.
I like seeing children. I know this is not a children's meeting.
But I do know it wasn't that long ago for me as a young child. I have difficulty sitting through adult meeting so I know the first few minutes.
We often listen, so I like to, if it's OK with you, address the children just for the first few minutes before we go into the gospel message. Or perhaps I said that wrong. We are going into the gospel message for the children. Would that be OK, children? Yes. Good. OK, Now turn with me to a verse. I know what it's like to memorize verses.
00:05:26
I have difficulty with that. I can say it over and over again when it's time to say it.
I freeze and I can't remember it. I don't know how many of you know that feeling. You know that. And I used to sit there and go, Oh no, three more people. Then it's my turn. Now it's two. I would sweat more and more and then.
It's my turn. I don't know the verse anymore. So we'll find some verses that are easy because I want a children to be able to go home and say I learned another verse. So turn with me to Luke's Gospel chapter 17.
Now this is a very easy verse to remember, but I want you to remember why.
You would say this verse.
I want you to be able to use this verse here and be a preacher for our Lord Jesus Christ. So let's turn to this Lukes Gospel chapter 17, verse 32.
A very short verse. Remember, sometimes we have a favorite verse that we want to remember. We'll say Jesus wept. I like that one because there are only two words in it. This one is a little bit more difficult. There are three words in it.
It says remember.
Lot's wife.
Remember Lot's wife, Luke 1733? That's a strange verse to have you memorized, isn't it?
I'm curious how many children have their parents made them learn that verse? I don't see in the hand showing up here.
How many have you learned that verse already?
Wow, you think you can say that? OK, just keep that in mind for now, remember?
Lot's wife. Because when you say that you may be, you too may be able to tell the story. Why we say, remember Lot's wife.
There must be some significance here, isn't it for the word of God to record such a short verse? Remember, remember this man, this man a lot. But that's a funny name by yourself, but his wife in particularly.
Too. So we're not going to go into the story right this minute. We will a little bit. So I hope you stay with me for a little bit longer. And maybe some of you already know the story of Lot's wife. It's a gospel story in a sense, but it's a terrible story because she didn't heed what God commanded him to do. And that's just like many people in this world today. God speaks one's day twice.
Man's heart ignore what God has to say.
And today we as a civilized society, as we call it, we have many ways that we think we can and man things they can turn to their own ways. And this afternoon a brother reminded us of our science. And we as men think science, answer all the questions. But men have tried that through our ages and science.
Did not solve any problems.
I'd like to begin the meeting by turning to. Perhaps it's not a known passage.
I'd like to turn to the book Zephaniah.
Savannah right before Haggai Zafanaya. Haggai Zachariah.
You'll find that many books that my favorite are very short books. It makes it easier to read. There are only three chapters in the Book of Zechariah, so I like books like that. Books like Hub, like Habakkuk is short. Nahum is short, but they are full of interesting stories in there, isn't it? Now this book was written a long time ago.
It was probably about 630 years.
Before our Lord Jesus came into this world and God told his people of old something, and you would think this got to be something old fashioned, but let's read that, see what he told his people of old. So if it's 630 BC, that would be almost 3000 years ago, isn't it? I don't think even the oldest here can remember that far back.
00:10:25
Right, anyone. I don't know of anyone here that are 3000 years old.
But the word of God recorded this in there for us.
I'm going to start at verse two. There are a lot of interesting thoughts in there. Zephaniah, by the way, the name means the one God has hidden. He's going to be hidden when the judgment comes.
Verse 2 This is God's word, he said. I will utterly consume all things from off the land, sayeth the Lord. I will consume men and beasts, I will consume the fouls of the heaven and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked, and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord. I will stretch our mind hand upon Judah.
And upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem I will cut off the remnant of Baal from his place, from this place, and the name of Tamarims, with the priests, and them that worship a host of heaven upon the housetops, and then the worship, and that swear by the Lord, and that swear by Malcolm.
And them that are turned back from the Lord, and those that have not sought the Lord, nor inquire for him.
Wow, how many have you got what the message of God had for his people, and really we'll find later on for the rest of the people in the world. These are very strong language, isn't it? That God said He will utterly consume everything He will destroy.
Everything from the phase of this land.
What's everything he said, man? And beasts. Wow.
Even the birds in the sky, the fishes in the ocean and in the lakes.
The stumbling blocks. I believe it means the idols that men would worship.
It will cut off men from the face of this earth.
Wow.
Have we ever seen that the whole earth is condemned by God?
And Baal, that wicked prize that caused man to worship idol. He was the the the idol God of the Canaanites.
De Chambriens, those are the idol priests. They serve, they distract, they have people worshipping idols rather than the true God. And then he said some people look so scientific is that here they worship on top of the houses, on the roof, so they can look up and worship the stars in the sky.
You think these are old fashioned people? And how many people do you know in this world still look at the signs from heaven and they worship just like they did 3-4 thousand years ago?
Has man got any better? Has God's mind changed toward man?
Oh yes, you may say, this is speaking to Judah. Oh, this is speaking to Judah concerning what God's going to do to this world.
And you and I in a very different position. This has not happened yet.
This will happen according to the Word of God.
Today we have a totally different way of salvation.
The Lord Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago, He came. He came in grace to die for you, to find a way to satisfy God's judgment to the sinful world.
So we read in Scripture. He came.
00:15:01
In John's gospel, we often read the verse that you know so well for God so loved the world.
He does, doesn't he? He's willing that none should perish. This doesn't sound like a God of love, does it? That he's going to destroy, utterly destroy, everything on this earth?
And this is what man forget. God has two characters and we often read God is love, but we forget that he is too a God of light. The 2GO together.
That God require righteousness and sin cannot be tolerated in the presence of God. God must punish sin. So we read in the book of Romans. There it concluded, if you go through the book of Romans, it starts with the talk about the Jews, the advantage they have had. They talk about the Gentiles and.
It concluded.
That man, whether Jews or Gentiles, he said. For all have sinned.
And we find another place in Romans is that for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
And we find it says For the wages of sin is death.
But we find 2 in the same verse. It will go on in the sense the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. He gave his Son, He loved us, that he sent his Son to die for us. So in John's gospel is as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.
Even so must the Son of man be lifted up, 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. All we see here God will put God pronounce this judgment to come, that this world is going to perish.
But yet we find his loved taught us that he loved us so much.
That we should not perish if we believe that He died, that his Son, his beloved Son, his only begotten Son.
What a wonderful news and that message is for whosoever. And as I look across this room tonight, we have many here, don't we? In fact, many people from many parts of the country, or I should say rather countries.
We have as far as locally here in Regina, some of us travel from Toronto to here, some came from from from Vancouver, from some Washington state and I see some even from India around the world.
So who is God speaking to? Who is this whosoever? That's a big word, isn't it? Whosoever. We got children here. So I like to be simple. Actually, I'll share with you why? Because if it's complicated, I don't understand it. So I need to keep it simple.
Someone told this story and I really enjoyed it. It was a little boy wearing AT shirt.
And often there are slogans on T-shirts and I suppose young people like that. But this slogan on the T-shirt was very different. Actually it wasn't much of A slogan at all. On the back of his T-shirt he have.
3 words.
No, he didn't say. Remember Lot's wife. He had three words in the back of his T-shirt. It says I am.
Whosoever.
Isn't that nice? Whosoever. That's me, that's you.
That anyone who wants to you are the whosoever that believe in the name of Jesus.
Realize that God loves you.
And that his son shed his blood for you on the cross, He said You are that whosoever is looking for, and you will be saved. What do you have to do? There is nothing to do. There is nothing to buy. Do you need to go back to the housetop and study the stars?
Study the moon.
Study the path of how these stars move and come up and learn all those names.
You say, well, the Egyptian knows it so well, we can see how they build a pyramid and they plot that against the stars and the moon and so on.
00:20:04
Did it save them from their sins?
Not according to the word of God. So here God pronounced judgment to this world.
And you and I today have a way of escape as simple, isn't it? Not by believing, not by doing, but by believing. And we know the story well too. In in Acts 16 with the Philippian jailer. That made the verse even simpler. If you remember the Philippian jailers after the earthquake, they were fearful and they said to Paul and Silas, they said, sirs.
What must I do to be saved?
And we know the answer, don't we? The answer was so brief, so short, so sweet, so simple.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou.
Shalt be safe.
Nothing to do, nothing to buy, the work has to be accomplished. It is by faith. It is the grace of God that has brought salvation to man. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And as a look across this room tonight, I see there are many family connections here. Many have children, cousins.
Aunts. Uncles. In fact, when I first visited here in Regina, I had a hard time trying to keep track of who's related to whom.
That's that was a challenge there, but it was interesting that verse we quoted. I didn't finish quoting it, did I? He said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved and.
Thine house, you know I take special comfort in that verse, knowing that God delights to bless not only you.
And your family too, so we may think our family members who in our eyes may not be saved. We have to leave that with Him. Salvation is of the Lord's. He bless family and thine house.
So we find here God, God exhibited God. Show them in this book of judgments to come.
By the way, for young people, I know this is not a book we turn to often. There are only three chapters. We can see how God deal with them and show them the grace when they fall and what they have to do and these three simple chapters. So as a sidebar here, I encourage you to read this and I hope that once you get interested in that, then you'll say, wow, this is this is like the book of Jeremiah. I better look at Jeremiah again and you'll find that.
The similarity in there in connection with the book of Joel.
Or in the book with Nahum is a very good way to start. Actually, it doesn't matter which one you start. We see that it's all connected because God loved this world. Do you remember Nineveh? Nineveh, the story of Jonah, he preached and the city of Nineveh, they, they repented. Oh, what a way of salvation. But then about 130 years later, we'll find that in here that God pronounced judgment upon Nineveh again.
And it was destroyed.
That brings to my thought.
Tonight, judgment is something we don't speak of often. We speak a lot of God's love, and rightly so. God loved the world. He loved sinners. That's why he died for us. But we said he's a God of love. Judgment is in connection with God's work. So let's go back to Luke's Gospel chapters 17.
Do you remember that portion? The verse that you young children learn? Remember a Lot's wife?
Well, maybe we'll start getting to that story there.
This is an interesting chapter.
I won't spend much time on that, on some of that we find in the early part of the chapter.
Around versus.
12O perhaps we'll go to that. Let's start with verse 11.
And it came to pass as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria in Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when they saw them, he said unto them, Go, show thyselves unto the.
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And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed.
Isn't that a wonderful story? We don't hear lepers much in this land, but we do have many lepers in this land. Many are under medication. They're not as contagious as they used to be. So as the story go, you could be riding on a bus and you could be sitting beside a leper.
Dreadful disease in the Old Testament time in certain countries they have to.
Separate them. As I look at David, they're in India. They have a place. It's called leper colony, don't they? Because that disease is a picture of sin, is contagious. You get near sin. It's like leprosy. You touch it, you pick it up, it's not bad. And the lepers would start losing the feelings on their nerves. So they could put the hand on fire and they wouldn't feel it. Or perhaps today we can use the phrase they put their hand on.
Stove and a hand could be start burning and smoking and it couldn't feel it. That's a picture of sin, isn't it? It's like when we're seeing the first one is difficult. We know it's terrible, but then once we've done it once, it's easier to do another one. And then after a while we're seared of the conscience that we don't feel the effect of sin. That's why children, that's why young people.
We are told to remain holy before God because this world.
Would numb our senses to the point that we would agree with them. As our brother mentioned earlier in this country you would think we profess to be a Christian country, but yet we're not able to freely present the gospel of God's grace. When we tell men they are sinners, when we tell them the immorality act is not acceptable before God, he become a hypocrite to them or sometimes get into trouble.
As my children always say, he said. Dad, you got to be careful how you say certain words.
Because the world won't accept it. Oh, the word of God does not means words.
This the world changed, but the standard that God has does not change.
There is holiness. God require holiness in fact.
Our sidebar just this because I know many here love the Lord.
Do a little reading, do a little look up on these words, the word strange.
Strange as in stranger. And that might encourage you to understand that God's principle doesn't change. If you're writing it down. I'll give you just a few words.
Strange fire.
What's so strange about fire? Well, we know the story of Nadab, and if I you they took strange fire, meaning they didn't get the fire from the altar.
You see, it's still fire. Fire is fire. God, look at that. It's that strange fire. They were consumed one day.
They talk about strange incense. God has a specific way of making incense to be OfferUp.
He does not accept strange, but he smells the same strange incense.
The book we were in in Zephaniah, he speaks of strange apparels.
You see, it looks good. Well, I believe it speaks more of those priestly garments that those who are not rightfully priests will wear and pretend to be priests.
Strange garments. God does not accept that. And of course the 4th one perhaps won't apply that well, but is careful and is good for the young people. Look up strange woman.
I'll leave that with you on that God require holiness. God's way does not change. We learned that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His word remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. His way of salvation remained the same yesterday, today, and forever. There is no other way our Lord Jesus can say I am the way, the truth.
And the life.
No man can come unto the Father, but by me you might say I have another way. No, there is no strange way that God would accept except His Son through the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. So this 10 this ten man that we that I sorry, I digress from our chapter. They were as terrible of the outcast from the society as they could be.
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They came to the Lord Jesus.
They were not even of Israel. They were Samaritans.
I'm sorry I said that wrong. There was a Samaritan among them.
You know, it's interesting too. Jews and Samaritans don't mix, do they? We find that the women of the well would say to the Lord, you know, we have no dealing with the Jews. But here's what's interesting. They were the outcasts when men have similar condition when his sin is involved.
They get along just very well because it's not worth or according to God's way.
They will find a way to get along, but the Lord, they came to the Lord Jesus.
What would require that the Lord make that rough special appointment?
Did they do like he did with Naaman? Go into the river and jump in there and bathe himself seven times?
Know hear by faith. Here's what's interesting with the New Testament with the Lord Jesus. He's not here to heal us, but he is here. So we find that in verse 14 is came to pass. So it happened it came to pass as they went. They were cleansed. Do we need the Lord Jesus to be here physically touching us and say you are now healed.
No, by believing as we ask Him to forgive us our sins, we are healed, we are saved.
Isn't it wonderful to see that now here little thought will digress since we were in the chapter 10 of them.
One return to give thanks, man. We as man, we're selfish. We only look after ourselves. Isn't it? In the business world? They always use that phrase. They said what's in it for me? If there's nothing in it for me, I'm not interested. They will heal, but only one. Oh, we need to remember that too. We were that leper.
Weren't you?
We were terrible unfit before God. Read the 1St chapter of Isaiah as the description he gave of a nation of Israel. Bruises.
Putrefying wounds from heck to food. There's no soundness at all. That's what we are before God. But he healed them, and this one came back and he gave thanks. He glorified God, and then he sets here. And he was his American. Oh, God opened up ways, whether Jews or Gentiles.
And now, as we're reminded this afternoon, that the true worshipper, he won. True worshiper, the worship him in spirit and in truth.
We're just going to go down a little bit in the chapter into chapter.
Now they want to ask him. Verse 22.
Want to know this? Let me read. Just let's read that.
Verse 20 I'm sorry to get the connection. And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, lo, here or lo therefore, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. And he said unto his disciples, The days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall.
See it, and they shall say to you, See here or see there. Go not after them, nor follow them.
And I'm going to jump down to verse 25, but first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation? I just wonder I don't want to comment too much looking at time there, but we had that before I start. Christ must suffer first, doesn't he the suffering come first, the glory to follow. Now my thought really was on verse 26 and as it was in the day of.
Noah or Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.
They did to eat, they drank, they marry wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah enter into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Here's 2 short verses we have here that describe the day of Noah.
Now notice the phrase we commented earlier, the Son of Man, the son within capital S, the Son of man. In Scripture, I believe there are two characters. One is that he was the man of sorrow, the one who was acquainted with grieves. We didn't see any beauty in him that we should desire him. That's the Son of Man.
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It's interesting, I heard a phrase one time said the Son of God came into this world to become the Son of man. The Son were the capital S so the.
Sun's small S the sons of men.
May become the sons of God. It's in the interesting to see that the Son of God came as the Son of man, so that we as the sons of man can become the sons of God.
Now the second character of the Son of Man is that he's the one to execute judgment when he comes back. So we find here, as it is in the day of Noah, it shall also be in the days of the Son of Man in Noah's time.
Judgment was executed. Why was judgment executed? We find in the 6th chapter of Genesis it says that the whole earth was filled with wickedness and violence, and every heart and thought and imagination of man was evil continually.
You know, sometimes we make up, we use this phrase we say, and things are getting worse and worse.
I don't know if it has. I don't think man's heart has changed. We have been terrible all along. Before God, we were wicked from the very beginning. And just because we calmed down a bit, then we become bad again, don't we? God said he must punish sin. Now, this is Noah. We know the story of Noah, but did that happen in Noah's day? Hold your place here and I'm going to turn. I'd like you to turn.
Me to the Book of Jude.
I know some of you were joking. Let's say which chapter. So we'll say we're not going to say a chapter, we'll just turn to the book of Jude. There is only one chapter in that book, Jude chapter. I'm sorry, Jude verse 14.
It tells us about Noah's grandfather. It's interesting when we look at his grandfather and Enoch.
Verse 14 said and Enoch also the 7th from Adam prophecies of these saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with 10 thousands of his things.
7th From Adam, I would have to say, without you even looking at a time charge, you will figure out that that was in the very early days of time, isn't it? It tells us conditions that we as men were in Noah's days was wicked and terrible, but it went on.
Now we you know Enoch.
He was translated, he walked with God, God always have his own and he was translated out of this scene didn't have to pass through the article of death, but he preached and looked at the strong language that Enoch was preaching that the Lord cometh with 10,000 of his sinks. Oh, we read in the book of Zephaniah what the Lord's going to do. He's going to.
Assumed this whole world man beasts, fowls of the air, fishes in the sea.
In Noah's day, at least, perhaps some of the fishes were spared.
But it's seven Niners time, which I believe.
Enoch prophecies that day the Lord is going to come to execute judgment.
There he preached to man above their ungodly deeds.
The heart speeches do we see much different in this world today as it was in the day of Enoch, or perhaps going back to our chapter as it is, or as it was in the day of Noah? The word of God even tell us more similarity, he said.
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They, they ate well, we did too, didn't we? We've been here for almost a day. We had two meals already and numerous snacks. So you might say, well, what's wrong with eating? They drank well, you drank too. But I suppose here that this drinking is probably more than the juices that we have had.
They marry wise well, we have two don't.
Some of you know that we even hosted 2 weddings in December and in February, so we know what that's like and we went to many weddings this year. Well, as they say, it seems that life goes on. They were drinking, they were eating, they were giving in marriages.
Until the day Noah enter into the ark, when God shut that door.
There was number more excuse for man and you know, I believe man still mocked.
When the door was shut.
As the water came, as the water rises.
Here's the sad history of man.
A Souls were saved the whole earth.
The whole world were destroyed.
A sold nowhere and his wife.
The three sons and their wives.
And there God.
God spare Noah to create another generation as if it were. Now for some of you that like to go into scripture more carefully, you'll find this very interesting. When you follow through the story of Noah in the 8th chapter, you'll find that the ark rested on Mount Ararat on the 17th day of the first month, the same day as the day of the Feast of the First fruit.
We find God look at death, and you look at resurrection, and you look forward to the cross, knowing that his Son will come into this world, that he would die.
To save sinful man, but after three days he's going to rise from the dead.
Death and resurrections are connected very closely together because no other religion in the world can tie that together. They can show you a dead Buddha. They can show you a dead Mohammed. As Christians, we can show you an empty tomb, and there we can say he is risen. Our Lord is risen indeed. And you'll find.
Scripture speaks a lot about resurrection.
Not just the New Testament throughout the Old Testament you'll find a resurrection seen being picture in various places. You see the feast of the first fruit being a picture of that. You'll find Ruth and Naomi returned back to the land at the beginning of barley harvest. The feast of the first fruit, isn't it there you see resurrection see you see they they cross over the Red Sea on the 17th day of the resurrection day. You see they crossover the.
Other resurrection day, oh God is is happy to let us know that his sons going to die and that there's resurrection. So we find in the book of Romans in Romans 10 and verse 9. Let's turn to that. I know many of you know that verse very well, but I want to point this out because sometimes we forget that Romans 10 and 9A well known verse is as if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord.
Jesus, and shall and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. Isn't it interesting? Often we speak of his death. We remember His death, and rightly so. Oh, we must have the connection of his resurrection. So this verse reminded us, if thou shalt, we're to confess with our mouth that Jesus is.
Now our Lord, and to believe in our heart, not that he just, not just that he died for us, but that God hath raised him from the dead. The resurrection scene is God's way to say he is satisfied with Jesus as we sometimes sing into him. God is satisfied with Jesus.
00:45:00
And many of us here can echo the next stanza and say we are satisfied.
As well, Oh, God hath raised him from the dead, and thou.
Shall be saved.
You know what's interesting? It's interesting to see this.
We mentioned we have different nationalities.
We can all say, and the world would understand this and acknowledge in most cases that we are from Adam. Have you ever noticed that not very many people would argue with you that you are from Adam?
One family.
If you turn that phrase around and say we're from Noah.
We don't find that expression used often. Are we from Noah? We have to be.
We are from Noah. In fact, you go through, we won't have time to go through that. You will find Noah, his sons, has seventy nations after them. You go through that in there in names of his sons and the descendants.
71 Actually out of nowheres, 1, namely Peleg, have no descendants. So there were seventy that formed the nations of this world, and that is in accordance to Jacob, isn't it? He said that.
Jacob 70 Loins from the Jacob from the sons from I'm sorry, 70 from the loins of Jacob, and you'll see God. God is perfect in his weight that we are well, why would men not acknowledge we're from Noah?
I really don't know, but here's my thinking.
Adam simply means we have seen Adam was a bad boy, he's sin. It is obey what God has to say. And I believe many in this world would actually acknowledge and say So what? I'm bad.
Men are so proud.
But Noah tells us a different story. Noah reminded us not only were we bad.
God punish sin. There was a judgment that was executed and he did not spare this world save 8 souls.
Judgment is imminent. God going to punish sin. You know, sometimes I hear people talk to me about they're so concerned about global warming, and I often try to use that to pick up the conversation. I said, yeah, I really believe that. And he looked at me and said, you really do. Oh, I really do. Because the Bible said everything's going to be melted with fervent heat. I said, this is more than global warming.
I don't think that's what he meant, but this is what I mean that God going to destroy this world and what a what a good way to present the word of God. So let's go down further in Luke's gospel chapter 17. I'll keep you hanging long enough children of a lost wife, haven't I so we'll read about lot. Here's another example that God.
Executed judgment.
Verse 28 likewise.
So the work likewise tells us it's just like it was in the day of Noah likewise also as it was in the day of Lot. What did they do? What is that? They bought, they sold, they planted, they built. Well, life goes on too. I heard a young brother early on is that, Oh, I saw, I saw someone some sunglasses.
Well, we've done some selling here too, don't we? We sold something. They drank, they bought. And I suppose the fact is, so some sunglasses. Somebody bought some sunglasses. What's wrong with that? Life goes on.
It's interesting if there's something different or missing from the previous portion. If you notice, there is no mention of giving marriages in Lords Day.
I believe in morality was so terrible in that day.
They didn't give in any marriages. They were so immoral.
It's terrible that God has to punish them.
They built, and the same day that Lord went out of Sodom.
The rain it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroy them all.
00:50:09
Two thoughts Lot left Sodom, and the moment he left Sodom and Gomorrah, it rained fire and brimstone.
Well, I don't know about your children. I have never seen rain with fire and brimstone.
Rain usually makes you wet. Can you pick your fire coming down from heaven and it will continue to burn?
Now, I have never been to the land of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And today with technology, you have YouTube, you have Google Earth, you have all this stuff and understanding Vancouver. Some of you folks are so advanced with that you can live stream and I don't even know all these phrases are, but you can Google this or maybe that's the wrong word. You can YouTube this and just type in Sodom and Gomorrah and you see there are documentary of that land. When I saw that, I don't know how truth it is because as they say, you can't believe everything you see.
But he said use a land of vastness, of nothingness, nothing grows there. A general consensus was is a desert, nothing grows. Well, that's not quite true. Something grow in the desert. It's just very sparse. There's something.
The truth was they found out it's not because it was a sandy and dry place, but it was all ashes. Nothing grow on ashes and as people try to dig things up, they said on this YouTube video, they said they find as they sift through the ashes, they found golf ball sizes of pure sulphur.
And they said there is no men have never mind the sulfur that pure. I believe that was the brimstone that the word of God Speaking of this burning sulfur. And when they hit the houses, it just burned it all up. When they hit people, they were burned up in the fiery judgment of God. They even show pictures of they call it vertical structures when it's perfectly straight and vertical.
Most likely man made, especially when it has 90° angle on it. Probably old houses. Evidence still there in that land of Sodom and Gomorrah, God unleashed the judgment of fire and brimstone that not a single soul escape except Lot. And we find looking at our time here we won't turn to the book of Genesis there many of us.
Story We found God, We found lot. Didn't want to leave.
We find Lot is an interesting character. God consider him a just man, consider just Lot, but he vex his righteous soul in that land and there should be a warning for us to Lord. When he chose Sodom, he pitches tangs toward Sodom and we found him before the Lord came. He was in a house. Oh, he moved closer and closer to Sodom and become part of the citizens there. We found he was even sitting.
At Sodom.
Is it not like us? There are attractions in this world that isn't. There are the things that you need to go back to quickly tonight.
Something that is so important to you.
Are the friends that you must go see when you get home on Tuesday.
Are the things that you must do.
A brother gave up to him this afternoon.
Be thou the object, bright and fair to fill and satisfy our heart, other things that occupy our hearts more so than our Lord.
Is there other hope, however dear, that would defer thy coming, Lord?
So we find here with Lot Lot still attracted to the city even though the execution is so imminent.
Brethren, do we have that feeling for this world? We know and we can talk about the Lord's coming assoever near, but I hope He waits another day because I need to finish this. My new car is not coming until Wednesday. I want to enjoy that. Do we have that?
You know, I like the picture that was given The lot is that the angels took hold of his arm, His wives, his daughters. As if you don't want to leave. I'm taking you with me. Oh, isn't it just like the rapture? The Lord's going to rapture out of the scene. Oh, we don't have a choice. We wait for that. Use not just a way.
00:55:21
But why does it say remember Lot's wife?
Remember, they were told don't look back, don't look back. Looking back means there's still attraction, isn't there?
There's still something back that I really want, right? It's like perhaps some of us. I can see if I can relate a story. I don't know. Some of you are like me. You leave home for a week like this.
You drive two blocks away and you go, oh, did I lock the door?
Where your treasure is, that your heart may be also.
Have you ever done that? You go back home, is it? I'm going to double check as I'm gone for a week. Perhaps I forgot. Why is that? Because we have something that's valuable to us in that house, isn't there? We double check.
Leave the parking lot. Many of you use this little clicker thing to lock your car, right? Children? Have you ever watched your parents? They push the clicker and they go beep and then watch your mom and dad. You take five more steps and they go beep again just to make sure that it is beeped. And then they take another 10 steps and it wouldn't beep. Oh, it's our range. It's OK now.
Because it was something that you treasure, isn't it?
Lot's wife. She treasures something. She looked back.
Because she looked back, she was turned into a pillar of salt. Isn't it sad? And I tell you another thought I have.
It's like salvation.
As if Lot's wife, she was only one more step. As if it were, she can go into the city of Refuge and she would be saved.
She didn't take that one more step. As if it were. She looked back.
Let me ask you.
How close are you from being saved?
Have you heard of the gospel message and know that it's true and know that you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? But there's something that you said, I will wait.
Waiting won't help you.
There's a hymn that we're saying weeping won't save you.
There's only one thing.
Is to believe.
So the message tonight?
Remember Lot's wife? How close was she from Salvation?
Almost almost doesn't save neither and children, perhaps you can do that. I know it's difficult sometimes to tell the story, so I'm going to challenge you to embarrass your parents. So in front of your friends, you'll say to them, remember Lot's wife and they're going to say, what do you mean? Ask my mom and dad. They'll tell you that they have to. They too would have to tell the gospel of good of God's grace. You know, God's word.
That's to us is that we're to preach.
Do the work of an evangelist. It doesn't say for you evangelists out there, do the work. No, we ought to do the work of an evangelist. You know what's even more interesting is the word of God doesn't say when you do. Well, I will. It doesn't say that we're responsible to tell forth the God, the glory of his grace, but we are not. We are not.
Being. Being.
Reported on how well we do because salvation is of the Lord. We have to leave that into His hand. Let's sing hymn #30.
Hymn #30 We will sing verse.
Three and four I'd like to read verse one. We paying will not save you. Though my face were bathed in tears that could not allay my fears could not wash the sins of years. Weeping will not save you. Blessing verses three and four together.
01:00:00
Waiting will not.
Exhale anything last night.
That's a God.
Who Do You Belong To?
Children—Steve Hall
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.
A excellent choice.
So my name is Steve Hall. If anybody doesn't know me and there's more spots up here front, if anybody is willing to come on up front, I do have a round bag with me. I always, when I was a kid, I always liked Sunday schools that included a brown bag because that mean that meant there was something to see and maybe something to touch.
And I think we always learn better when we can see and touch something.
So I have a brown bag, so if you want to see better you might want to come up front. Who else has a?
Song for us to sing.
#14.
Have you been to?
Watching the world.
Party.
By staying in history.
That's a really important question for each one of us to answer individually.
Are we washed in the blood of the Lamb? We're going to talk about that a little bit. Who has another hymn for us?
#16.
00:05:44
Someone else have one loop back in the back?
#10.
00:10:16
All right, we have time for a couple more #13.
You know, kids. There's some children's hens on the back of the booklet as well #13.
We have one back there.
#40.
This is a great 1 #40.
Strong.
Yeah.
Ready to make me forever?
Way to begin in my heart.
May stay from and rely on.
Slightly.
You have to change your eyes so I don't beginning. Yeah, I have to give you because I love you so much. So I love someone to see me.
00:15:40
So.
Yeah.
I think we have time for one more. Somebody else have a favorite?
Go ahead #44.
And I am sure that these and importantly.
Again.
Celebrations. So everything.
No one can stand up and tell them.
You know, children, I really, really like that him. In fact, that's my favorite children's hymn. I used to give it out all the time when I was a kid. And I think one of the reasons that I really like that him is it's a story.
Any of you kids like stories? You guys like stories?
I hope I can tell a story this morning that will illustrate a point. But before we do that, let's bow our heads and we're going to ask the Lord for His help.
00:20:04
Does anybody know what the Well, let me back up. I'm going to read the verse that's in the Sunday school paper.
Just as a little bit of a reminder and then anybody that wants to conceive their verse, you don't have to. Not going to make you.
But if you do know the verse, we would love to hear it. The verse is Romans 323. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 323.
Does anybody willing to say the verse? You willing?
So all of sending consort of the glory of God almost 323.
Anybody else?
I'm short of the glory of God. Romans 323.
Ball of sin and come short of the glory of God. Romans 323.
Frogs and in Control of the Glory of God. Rooms 323.
Anybody else down here?
For all of sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 323.
For all I have sinned and controlled the glory of God. Romans 323.
For all of sin and come short of the glory of God. Romans 323.
We're all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Romans 323. For all sin and compared to the glory of God Romans 323.
4 seconds to the glory of God. Woman turning free. Good job.
Anybody else?
For all of sin, For all of sin and come short of the glory of God. Romance 323.
Anybody down here?
Anybody in the back?
Just want to make sure everybody has a chance.
So so before I let you guys see what's in my back in my bag here, you got to keep this.
A secret for a little bit longer.
I want to ask you kids a question and it's really, really important question. My question this morning to you is who do you belong to?
God, very good.
Is that where you were going to say?
How do you know?
Because the Bible tells us that's very good. I'm going to talk about that in in two different aspects. Okay. And the first one.
Is a transaction. Do you guys know what a transaction is?
Transaction. Go ahead.
One person gives another person something that's kind of generally a transaction. Usually a transaction includes some kind of a form of payment. So it's buying and selling, right?
And I've been thinking about this for a little bit because we recently went through some transactions.
Does anybody like animals? Anybody like animals in the front row? You guys like animals? I like animals.
And justice a few weeks ago, my wife and I entered into a transaction and we got in our car and we drove for five hours.
To make a transaction. I know that there's some people here that know what that transaction was. Gee, does anybody have any idea why I would drive for five hours?
Well, it was a lot longer to get here, so it was 16 hours for us to drive to get here, but we spent five hours in the car one way and then we made a purchase and then we turned around and drove 5 hours again to get back to our house.
Anybody have an idea?
00:25:05
No.
Does anybody like puppies?
Anybody like puppies? I really like puppies and I have to confess, we drove for five hours to get a puppy.
And I can tell you this, that it is the cutest, fuzziest little black and white puppy that you can imagine. And I couldn't bring the puppy here this morning.
But I'm going to show you something that we had to do as part of that transaction.
And I think it illustrates a point.
Can you guys read this?
Anybody want to tell me what this is?
You read it.
What's it say?
Bill of sale. Bill of sale.
So back in the United States, if you're going to.
Buy a livestock or a dog. It's a really good idea to have a bill of sale, and a bill of sale simply states that.
I, as the buyer, spent a certain sum of money and I paid that money in cash to the seller of the puppy and in return I obtained a puppy.
And hopefully that puppy will grow up to be a really good dog.
This bill of sale that I have here is a little bit different.
Did two kids know that you are?
Part of a transaction, part of a bill of sale.
We hope that you're part of the right bill of sale.
So this bill of sale, it has some parts to it. It says that there is a seller.
And then there is a buyer.
And.
This villa sale is actually for me.
And it says the seller is the God of this world world.
And the purchaser is the Son of God.
And it says the price was the cross.
You see, children, when we're born into this world, we, whether we realize it or not, are owned by the God of this world.
Satan has a claim on us because of our heritage, because we have.
Been born into this world in a fallen condition.
The verse that we had this morning says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
All have sinned and so we needed someone to come in and to purchase us.
The beautiful thing, children, this morning is that the Lord Jesus paid the full price. Let's read a couple verses.
About that purchase, so First Corinthians.
Chapter 6.
We read about this purchase.
First Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 20 For ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are gods.
I want to read a verse also in First Peter.
That talks about this purchase first Peter chapter one and verse 18 for as much as you know that you were not purchased with corruptible things as silver and gold.
From your vein conversation received by tradition from your Father's, but with a precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Dear children, it's really, really important that you have entered into this transaction. The interesting thing about this transaction is that you are the subject of that transaction.
00:30:01
But you have to be willing to receive the Lord Jesus to be.
Part of that transaction.
You need to be bought with the blood of the Lord Jesus, and that's really, really important. But I want to go on and I want to talk about something.
That occurs after that transaction has happened.
You see, where we live, we have some animals.
We have some cows and some chickens and a couple pigs.
I hope the pigs go away soon.
We've been trying to sell them.
We have some cows.
Do any of you children know how, at least in the United States, you would identify who owns livestock cows?
You would brand it so I have something to show you.
This is.
A very very old object.
To my knowledge, this is my grandfather, maybe great grandfather's brand.
And if you, if we were to use it like it's supposed to, it would look kind of like this.
You see that?
This is a brand. Any of you children know what a brand is? What is a brand?
Kind of like a logo for a business. That's the way we use the word now.
But in the Old West, what was a brand used for?
Yeah, it's to identify livestock. Do you know how it works?
So out on the range, you guys know how it works?
You stick it in a fire and then what do you do with it?
You stick it on the cow.
Yeah, and what does it do?
It burns and it leaves a mark. It leaves a permanent mark on the side of the cow. I'm going to pass these two sheets around so you guys can look at the brand. You guys can take a look at that and afterward you can come up and take a look at this brand if you would like.
So what does a brand have to do with Sunday school?
Any of you children have an idea of what a brand has to do with a transaction?
So I'm not exactly sure what the name of the farm was that my.
Grandfather had, but as best I can tell, there's a, there's a three there and there's a triangle, and the triangle is kind of on its edge.
So I'll let you use your imagination to come up with the name of that brand, but that brand would have been used to identify my grandfathers cattle versus anybody elses cattle.
So my grandfather had a ranch in Colorado.
And he would buy and sell cows.
And there would be some cows that were or calves that were born on his ranch.
But over in Colorado, they don't have a whole lot of fences, and so the cows would run around and sometimes you have to separate your cows from the neighbor's cows.
And I have a few stories about my grandfather's cows.
Just a little plug.
If you children.
Are.
Want to read some stories about my grandfather and his cows? There's a book called Lambs and Lambs Quarters and that's about my grandfathers farm.
So little plug for lamps and lamps quarters.
A brand is a very, very important.
Thing to have.
And you know, children, there's a brand in our Christian lives as well.
And it's not something that I have heard talked about very much, but it's something that I think is important for us to think about. Turn with me.
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To Acts Chapter 8, and I'm going to read a story here and then we'll talk a little bit more about brands.
Acts chapter 8 and I'm going to read.
From verse 35.
Philip was one of the disciples and he was sent by the Spirit into the wilderness, and he saw a man riding in a chariot, and he went and joined himself to the chariot and he had a conversation, and we're going to pick up with part of that conversation.
This man was reading the word of God.
And he didn't understand it.
Verse 34 And the eunuchs answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this of himself, or some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same Scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went their way, they came to a certain water, And the eunuch said, See, here is water, What doth hinder me to be baptized?
And Phillip said, If thou believest with thy all thine heart, thou mayest.
And he answered, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still. And they both, they went down both into the water, both Phillip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And we'll stop there.
Dear children, I want to use the illustration of a brand as.
Being a picture of baptism.
You see?
Once we've entered into that transaction with the Lord, when we've been purchased by His precious blood, it is very important that we be identified with those that have been saved.
That we take as it were, our place in His.
Flock or his fold?
That we identify ourselves with the Lord Jesus and I think.
This brand is a interesting picture of baptism. Baptism is simply associating ourselves with the Lord Jesus, saying that we are His. You know a brand is a permanent mark.
And I think it's safe to say that a brand cost the animal something.
And I believe that, as our brother was sharing yesterday, if we are going to walk a Christian walk in this world, it's going to cost us something to be associated with the name of the Lord Jesus.
But it's very, very important.
And I hope you children, each one of you will think about that and that each one of you have taken that step of being publicly associated with the Lord Jesus and being baptized.
There's something else I have here in my bag that I wanted to show you.
Does anybody know what this is?
Go ahead.
Yeah, it's called an ear tag. It has a number on the top.
That identifies this cow.
This one is.
261585025.
And this is attached to the ear of a cow.
And actually if you go, if you were to go to our house, you would find out that none of my cows are branded and all of them have an air tank or I should say most of them have an air tag. We have some Cabs that we haven't ear tagged yet.
And I want to use this as an illustration. I have found over the few years that we've had cows that ear tags aren't a permanent mark.
We've had cows that have lost their ear tanks.
We've also had cows that you're supposed to write some kind of an identifier down on this part. And if you go up to that cow and you look at that irritate really, really, really carefully, you won't be able to figure out what we wrote on there.
00:40:06
And I don't think that that ear tag is worth a whole lot as far as identifying the cow.
Because the marking is not legible.
Dear children.
There are some of us.
That don't want to receive a brand because it hurts.
We would rather have an ear tag.
Because we want to, as it were, walk the fence.
We want it to be reversible.
And dear children.
That's what we call profession.
There are those that look like they are a Christian from the outside. They wear the symbol in their ear, so to speak, and yet they're not truly the Lords.
You know.
Baptism.
Is one of those things that.
Is done once and forever.
And dear children, I hope that none of you are opting to wear an ear tag that is temporary.
Instead of truly giving your life to the Lord Jesus, you know we've had the situation where we've had cows that weren't ours that joined our herd.
And they may have had an air tag and somebody driving down the road could look into our pasture and.
Say, oh, what a nice group of cows.
What made the difference between those cows that were ours and those cows that were somebody elses is the bill of sale.
I don't own any cows so that I don't have a bill of sale or that weren't born on my farm.
And dear children, it's so very, very important this morning that you make sure.
That you have settled the question of your sins with God.
And that, as it were, you have a bill of sale, that you know that you are the possession of the Lord Jesus, that He has paid for you with his blood. And I trust that as you drive around and as you see ear tags, it will remind you that you need to make a permanent statement that you're the Lord.
'S that you belong to him.
And that you're willing to let it.
Be known to anyone around that you belong to the Lord Jesus. Don't be like a cow with an ear tag that doesn't have a brand.
And it looks like we're right on time, so let's pray.
Expressions in Paul's Doctrine
Address—Robert Boulard
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Good afternoon.
I thought we might sing number 99 and if I could ask someone else to start that him number 99.
Lord willing, I know it's just after lunch and people tend to get sleepy, so I like to give out of him halfway through. So we'll stand up and sing to him, Lord willing, at about 2:30.
So let's ask the Lord's blessing on our time together.
I'd like to turn to Ephesians chapter one just to open up with my little subject here this afternoon.
I'm going to read a few verses.
And then we'll begin to make comment on some of these words that are used, some of these terms that are used. Ephesians, chapter one.
Verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who had blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, or in the heavenlies in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us under the adoption of children.
Our sonship Jesus Christ to himself.
According to the good pleasure of His will. To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. According to the riches of His grace, wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will. According to His good pleasure.
00:05:22
Which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times.
He might gather together in one all things in Christ, or in the Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him in whom also we have obtained an inheritance.
Being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things, after the counsel of his own will.
That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, In whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of His glory.
While I read these few verses of scripture.
Because, you know, I believe that we need to enjoy the little terms, the expressions that the Spirit of God uses throughout Paul's ministry because they are expressions of his love.
We sometimes think of it as technicalities to speak of our sins being forgiven.
A technicality that were justified before gone.
A technicality that were redeemed, a technicality that he produced, he purchased.
Made a purchase at the cross. But it's more than that brethren. And I'm going to address my comments this afternoon with the Lord's help and great weakness, but with the Lords help to all of us that are Christians young and old alike. And So what God has written in his word about these little terms.
Apply to the youngest believer here.
And they apply to the oldest believer, and they are given, as I say, as an expression of the love of God.
For us and the love of the Lord Jesus for us, they're not to be taken as those expressions.
That are just technical and so I just like to bring out some of those thoughts and connection with these things I might say that.
I have been stunned.
Stunned at the.
Error in the Christian world in the Brazilian.
World and the country of Brazil has met with different believers there and at cottage meetings and even in the assembly in different places and.
They don't know that some of them have not known what it is to have eternal security. And so the Lord did his work at the cross of Calvary, so that we would be eternally secure, that we would know it, that we would appreciate it, and that we would thank Him for it. He says, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
I was in the home with my wife. I have a brother called Diego, Diego and Regina.
And Diego has been saved since he was 13 years old. And he told me this story. He's 30 years old now, but he was brought up in a church system with his wife, a Pentecostal system that teaches that you can be saved and lost again.
And that's not true. God's Word tells us that it's not true. But I have wondered sometimes, why is it that the Christian profession has sunk to such a low state that we can think, possibly think?
That we could lose our salvation. It's impossible, because what God does, he does in perfection.
And it can never be undone. But Diego, you know, said to me that his, the work in his soul began when he was 13 years old. And so you don't need to be very old to recognize that the work of God is going on in your soul and to search out the truth of God for yourself. Diego was told that he wasn't saved because he couldn't speak in tongues.
And so he said, yes, I am saved. I know. I've trusted Christ as my Savior. I know.
00:10:03
That I'm saved, They said no, you're not saved because you can't speak in tongues, he said. I didn't feel like.
It was right for me to do what they were doing. And so he said. I read in the first chapter of Ephesians, and this is what he read.
In verse 13, in whom ye also trusted, he said, I trusted.
I know I've trusted the work of Christ.
He said he kept reading after that. Ye heard the word of truth, he said. I've heard the word of truth. I've read it.
I know it's true. God wrote it.
And he said the gospel of your salvation, he says, I know I'm saved. I've taken, I'm saved salvation. That's what it's Speaking of.
The salvation of the soul, in whom also after that ye believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. He said, I'm sealed with the Spirit. I'm indwelled with the Spirit because I believe, he said. I believe what this wrote this the word that God wrote.
And he had assurance of his salvation sealed with the Spirit of God. You know when you get sealed with the Spirit is after you accept the work of Christ and you apply it to yourself. You say the Lord Jesus died for me on the cross. He died for me and I appreciate what he did. And I lay my faith and my trust for eternity upon that finished work of Christ. You can thank Him for it.
Well, I could tell you other things in connection with this dear brother.
But he left that church system. He was pushed out, you might say, because he began to read the word of God. He said, what else didn't they tell me that was true?
And he began to read about the Church of God.
And he had responsibility for some young people. He said to these young people, he said, what is the church? Show me the church. And they pointed to the walls of the building that they were in. They said, this is the church. This is where we meet, and this is the church right here. He said, no, that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that you and I are members of the Church of God, living members.
Of the Church of God, and we're members of the body of Christ.
And he says that's what the churches, within a week they had.
Cast him out of the church.
And so he said. I wonder what I do now.
And so the Lord by his grace, you know, if you take one step in faith, well, he'll lead you on. But he began to search for the truth of what it is to be gathered to the Lord's name. He didn't know exactly how to call it, but he got onto a website or two, couple of different websites, and he got onto this website of Mario personas, Evan Helio de la Gracia de Dios entres Ninjutos, 3 minute Gospel on YouTube.
And he heard of eternal security and having your sins forgiven and knowing it.
And he contacted Brother Mario.
The Evangelist Mario and Mario put him in contact with some of the brethren.
He comes to the little assembly. He drives 2 hours to get to the assembly meetings in Sao Paulo. It's a city of 20 million people.
He knows what it is to be gathered to the Lord's name, to have been gathered. Well, I just wanted to express this afternoon that the reason we find ourselves in the Christian profession with such degrees of ignorance as to the work of Christ and the security, the eternal security of the believer is because we don't know some of the terms that the apostle Paul uses in his ministry in his epistles in connection with the Church.
And we don't appreciate it and we don't recognize that he uses those terms in love.
And he uses them that he might stir our hearts to follow him. And so let's look at a couple of them. In verse seven it says chapter one and verse seven of Ephesians, and whom you have redemption through his blood.
Now, you know, redemption is spoken of in several different ways. I think maybe about 5 different ways if you take into consideration the final redemption of Israel when the Lord delivers them from their enemies. But we have the redemption of our bodies in Romans chapter 8. We have the redemption of our time in Ephesians. I think it's chapter 5. We have the redemption of our souls spoken of here.
00:15:00
And so, you know, it's necessary for us in our Bibles. If I could make this comment.
I may make it again, but when you have redemption mentioned, when you have forgiveness mentions, there's five different terms in connection with forgiveness. Mark in your Bible, which one it is? Is this a redemption of your soul or the redemption of your time or the redemption of your body? And read those things and enjoy them and recognize that the Lord Jesus has told us about those things that he might that we might enjoy.
Those terms, well, to be redeemed, you know, means to be bought back and set free from the power of sin. And I have sometimes used a little illustration and maybe you've heard me use it, but pardon me if I'm repeating myself. But I also have experience with dogs like Brother Steve this morning, except it's my wife that has this experience and my daughter, one of our daughters.
They wanted to have a little dog.
And I'm allergic, deathly allergic to some kinds of dogs and cats and so on. So.
Anyway, they wanted a little dog, so they went looked in the newspaper for a little dog and they were shopping for this dog and they saw the right type of hypoallergenic dog.
And the price was up pretty high. So they said, well, we'll just kind of wait. They looked weak after week, after week and after several weeks. They, my daughter said to my wife, she said, I think I have enough money, I could go and buy that dog. So they said, well, let's go look at the dog. And so they hopped in the car and they went and looked at this dog, a little white dog, a poodle mix dog.
And it was kept at the front door of a house in a cage.
And it was treated very badly, was dirty, filthy, had an injury.
It was a miserable sight.
And my wife and daughter said, oh, we have to take this dog and rescue this dog.
And so they made a transaction. They made a purchase.
They made a purchase, there was an exchange of some money, and then that dog became the property of my daughter and my wife. And then they took that dog, they undid the cage, they took that dog out of the cage and they set it free. That's what redemption is. They set it free from the power of that cage and from the ******* of that old master.
And so.
When it speaks of purchase in the scriptures, it speaks of our transaction that took place at the cross of Christ.
And we came under the benefit and the blessing of a new owner, an owner who loves us.
You know, let's just turn to the Exodus and we'll see the I think it's chapter one or chapter 2 That has this illustration. Exodus chapter 2, verse 13.
Says that the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, and they made their lives bitter with hard ******* and mortar and brick, and in all manner of service in the field, in all their service wherein they made them serve was with rigor. It speaks of with cruelty.
With severity and with cruelty.
You and I were born into this world as those that were sinners of the fallen race of men, and we were slaves. We were a race of slaves to sin and Satan, and it took the power, the direct intervention of God Himself and the person of His Son.
To extract us from the power of sin and Satan. And so there was a transaction made at the cross of Calvary.
The purchase.
You know, I might as well. We might just turn to.
We don't have time to turn to a lot of passages of Scripture, but let's look at Ruth, the little book of Ruth.
Chapter 4, it just gives us a little illustration. Remember, those of you that are younger, we all need this kind of a reminder is that the Old Testament is God's picture book. He uses the Old Testament as examples, little examples to teach us what the New Testament doctrine is. So we have the pictures in the Old Testament and then we have all the writing underneath the pictures.
00:20:01
In the New Testament. And so he speaks of redemption.
In chapter four he says in verse four, chapter 4 of Ruth, verse four, I thought to advertise. He's saying buy it before the inhabitants and before the elders of my people. If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it. But if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me that thou that I may know. Well, it turns out in verse six, the kinsman said I cannot redeem it for myself. There's a lot of teaching that goes beyond behind this. But verse 9.
Boaz says.
He said to the elders and unto all the people, Ye are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and all that was Killians and melons of the hand of Naomi. Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Malan, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. Well, you know.
In the language of Matthew Gospel chapter 13, it says that the Lord bought the field. He bought the whole field and the treasure that was hidden in that field.
Boaz bought a field. There was a treasure in the field.
There was a house in the field, maybe. And Naomi was in the field. Ruth was in the field. Oh, he wanted that treasure.
And he had to be able to have Ruth. He had to buy the whole field.
He bought the field. We don't hear anything more about the field, but we hear a little bit more about Ruth.
She came into the lineage of the Lord Jesus. She was set free from the ******* and the debt that was perhaps incurred, all of those things in connection with that field. Oh, she was bought and then she was set free. You know, dear young people, the Lord Jesus has bought you. He bought the whole world.
At the cross all of creation, he lost it because of sin.
And it came under ******* the ******* of sin, but he set it free. He's going to set it free in the future during the millennial scene, but he wants to set you free. If you've never accepted the Lord Jesus as Savior, He wants you.
To be saved, He wants to set you free from the power of sin and Satan. And to open up that door, I want to just say this.
That he did not work in love.
He wanted that treasure, and you're a part of that treasure. Treasure speaks of a little collection of gemstones.
Everyone of them unique, not one of them the same. And he wanted you for himself. And he's polishing, and he's grinding away and chipping away at the sharp edges. And he's polishing and polishing it and he's putting it under tremendous heat sometimes. But he wants to be able to look through that.
That little gemstone he wants to see a little reflection of himself.
And he's making a collection of gemstones in the scene. Well, he purchased, made that purchase. There was a transaction done. But there's more than that in connection with redemption. He set it free from the power of sin. He set you from free from the power of sin. And Satan, have you ever thanked him for it? Why did he set you free?
Did he set you free to have a good time every weekend?
Did he set you free to have a wonderful career and to live in the biggest house and to have the best of what this world has? Is that why he set you free? He set you free.
You set your affections free to live for Him and to return some love and affection to Him. He set you free to live for His glory in a world that is characterized by sin and rebellion.
He set you free because he loves you and he didn't want you to serve a wicked master. Well, you know he says that.
In First Peter, let's just look at First Peter chapter two. I think it is.
I'm sorry, second Peter, chapter 2.
And verse one, But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who shall privilege, bring in damnable heresies, or sole damning heresies, and even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. So the truth is that all men have been purchased in this world, They all.
00:25:17
Belong to the Lord, they all.
Have ought to recognize that they have a new master, but they don't all recognize that they have a new master. But you and I that have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ and acknowledge the Lord Jesus earth our Lord, we acknowledge that we have a new master.
And so the world is not living a normal way. They're not acknowledging the purchase that took place. You and I have the right and we have the privilege to acknowledge that the Lord Jesus has purchased us. Now it says here in verse seven of our chapter, it says that we have the forgiveness of sins.
When it speaks of redemption, it speaks of being brought into a place of liberty.
Because we were slaves. And when it speaks of being purchased, it speaks of our having a new ownership, a new master.
And the Lord desires that you and I would draw near to Him. I want to tell you a little bit about that little dog. Her name is Shama.
She's not alive anymore, but she lived along 14 years in our home.
She never forgot.
That she had been redeemed. She didn't know the term, she didn't know the term purchase, but she never forgot.
She would watch sometimes at the door. When my wife went away on a trip, she would take a day to go down to Ohio, maybe get a grandchild and bring a grandchild up, and that dog would sit at the front door. There's a glass front door at our door.
And that dog would sit at that door.
Well, for two days.
And it would never surprise when the master came back down at the top of the hill, the van would show up. The dog was never surprised.
And that dog, that little dog would sit on the sofa with my wife always sitting.
Touching her side, she kept close to that one who had set her free.
You know the Lord Jesus desires that you would.
Acknowledge His rights, acknowledge what He has done for you, set you free from the power of sin, so that you would be at liberty to be in His presence without any fear. Have you ever thanked Him for it? Are you trying to stay close to that Blessed One and to rest in communion with Him? Well, he speaks of the forgiveness of sins here. This is another term that he uses, the Spirit of God uses in connection.
With our.
The work of salvation.
And it has to do with our guilt. You and I were guilty before God, and we needed to have our consciences cleared of our guilt, and our sins needed to be dealt with on a righteous basis. And so God wanted to have you and I in His presence with a clear conscience.
Did the children of Israel ever have a clear conscience before God as to the question of sin?
They never had a clear conscience. Did you know that the children of Israel, they could offer an offering for sin? Let's just look at it. Leviticus chapter 4.
I'm going to read just one.
Portion of it Leviticus chapter 4, verse 27. If anyone of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, and be guilty, or of his, if his sin which he has sinned come to his knowledge, then he shall bring his offering a kid of the goats, a female without blemish for his sins.
One sin.
For his sin.
Which he has sinned, And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering. And the priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of the burnt offering, and shall pour out all of the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar. And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat is taken away from the off the sacrifice of the peace offerings.
00:30:12
And the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour unto the Lord.
And the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him.
Now you know. Forgiveness is spoken up in five different ways in the Scriptures. We have brotherly forgiveness.
Brought out in Matthew chapter 18, it's one of the similitudes of the Kingdom, brotherly forgiveness. And I think Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32 speaks of brotherly forgiveness. We should be forgiving one another. We should have a spirit of forgiveness.
But when it speaks of this forgiveness, it's judicial, the judicial forgiveness of God against sin, your sin and mine. We were going to face God as a judge.
We were destined to face God as a judge, and God so loved the world.
That He didn't want you or I to ever face him as a judge. God judges sin. He doesn't pass over sin. And so governmentally, we can be forgiven as well if we sin, if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's governmental forgiveness. We have administrative forgiveness in connection with the assembly. But you know, I just want to comment on this.
Forgiveness. Judicial forgiveness.
If you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, the Lord Jesus because he loves you.
Never wanted you to feel guilty in the day of Grace.
Because you were a Sinner, He never wanted you to feel guilty. He wanted you to have a clear conscience as to your sins. And so our sins, if you believe on the Lord Jesus, you've accepted him as Savior. He took your sins and laid them upon his Son in those three dark hours. And the Lord Jesus bore the judgment for those sins, and they're gone.
They're gone because he bore the judgment for them and he went down into death. He paid the penalty.
And then he rose again from the dead, and he's seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. There is no sin that can come into heaven itself, and so the Lord Jesus is there without any sin.
Your sins are gone.
God wanted you to have a clear conscience because He loves you. He wanted you to walk in fellowship with him in this world and never to feel guilt because you were a Sinner. You were a Sinner. Now he sees you as a Saint of God. Oh, it's wonderful to have your sins forgiven and to thank the Lord and to know that you'll never face him, but you know the children of Israel.
They never had a clear conscience. They never had a purged conscience before God.
Because if they sinned and they offered that one sacrifice. Her brother was talking about the animals on his farm this morning. A little lamb. What did a little lamb ever do?
The man had to kill the lamb and shed the blood because of that one sin. Maybe 10 minutes later he sinned again.
He had to go and offer another sacrifice.
He was never finished and maybe he forgot one. He never had a clear conscience before God. And so they were told in Hebrews Chapter 9 that in verse 14.
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Oh, you can have a purged conscience, know that your sins are forgiven, and judicially you will never face God as a judge.
At the judgment seat of Christ, He will never remind you of one sin.
He will never look into your face and say I died for your sins. But that one sin, I just can't. I just can't let it go. I just can't forget. No, he chooses never to remember our sins. For all eternity they're forgiven and you'll never be reminded ever again. Let's sing a hymn. Let's stand up and sing a hymn and we'll continue.
#265.
Someone started please.
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265.
These are Father, we bless thy holy name.
God and found the sand brought us nigh to.
Thee and won the rest of the.
Of glory.
Our Holy.
That's the current Romans chapter 5 will read the first verse.
Romans, chapter 5.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also. We'll just stop there. I just want to speak a little bit about justification because it's a legal term that Paul uses in his epistles, and it speaks of a new position that we've been brought into before God.
It's not that you and I are seen in the before God has saved sinners. He doesn't look at you where you're sitting and say there's a saved Sinner. Thank God. He doesn't see us as sinners. He sees us as Saints of God, children of God, sons of God, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ. And he treats us in this way as well. He dislights in us as the sons of God, but we're justified before God.
We're justified by faith.
And it really speaks of being placed in a position before God, a new legal standing before God.
Why did he have to do this? Did he have to put us into a different standing before himself?
As those that were.
Cleared of the debt. You know, we sometimes have heard this term and it's not really very accurate that justifications mean just as if I'd never sinned. It's not accurate at all. Brother Gordon Hail used to tell us. Often times God never pretends.
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About such a thing use sin and I sin, and God never pretends that we didn't sin. But he knows that that work of the Lord Jesus on the cross of Calvary is so sufficient that the blood of His Son was shed to cleanse away all of our sins. And it permits Him on a righteous basis to put us into a new legal standing, a new position before Him as those that are justified.
And so we are no longer guilty because we're forgiven.
He forgives us because he loves us.
And He wants us to know his heart, and so he justifies us as well. He gives us a new standing, a new position before Him in love because He desires us to.
Enjoy that relationship that we have with him and so that's why it speaks here of joy. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God and we have peace with God in verse five chapter 5 verse one and so it speaks of our position as those their sons were brought into a new relationship were brought into the relationship of the family of God and then it also speaks a little bit further on I think it's.
Chapter 5 of justification of life in verse 18, he says in verse 18, Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment, one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, Even so the righteousness of one, the free gift, came upon all men unto justification of life. So we have a new life.
We're part of a new creation race, as we've been saying in the Reading meetings, but we also have a new life.
We have justification of life. We don't need to live the way we lived before.
We have new standing before God. We have a new life that we can live before Him. It's a wonderful thing. Why does He tell us about this?
Because he loves us.
He wants to have that relationship with you and I as sons, children of God, to know the love behind that work that was accomplished, the cross of Calvary. And he uses all these terms to make sure that we understand that we can never lose our salvation. We can never fall out of favor before Him. We're brought into a place of blessing and favor before Him and a standing that is inalterable.
You can't alter it. And if I could put it this way, reverently, reverently, God himself can't alter it. We're justified. He doesn't forget our sins. He can't forget. But you know, he has the power never to remember those sins ever again. And he says that they're forgiven. And on the basis of that work, he can forgive the basis of the finished work of the Lord Jesus. Well, let's look at one more.
Term that he uses in. We were Speaking of it a little bit in Second Corinthians. Let's turn back to a chapter 5.
Two Corinthians, chapter 5.
Verse 17. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, creature, or new creation. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.
He set us in a new place of blessing, justified us, and so we find ourselves in a new position of blessing and favor before him. But we're also reconciled to God. You know, when it speaks of reconciliation, it speaks of it's a term that the Spirit of God uses to remind us that we were once enemies of God.
And man is born into this world.
And he's an enemy of God from birth.
An enemy.
And you might say, well, what did God ever do to man?
What did God ever do to man to deserve this? He did nothing to deserve it. And God doesn't need to be reconciled to man. Man needs to be reconciled to God. I think our brother Vern brought that out yesterday and needs to be reconciled to God. And so we are ambassadors. We ought to be ambassadors. Sometimes we're pretty poor ambassadors because we forget why we're here and we start to involve ourselves in the.
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Political world and all those sorts of things. The we involve ourselves in this world that cast out and crucified the Lord Jesus.
But the Lord Jesus tells us, the Spirit of God tells us here that we're.
God, who hath reconciled us to himself by.
Jesus Christ, you know, there are people that are going to pass out of this scene, out of this world, and have passed out of this world and gone into lost eternity and they'll never be reconciled to God.
The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanseth us from all sin, and God sent His Son into this world that His love might be manifested at the cross of Calvary. He proved His love. It says in Isaiah chapter 4 or chapter 5. What more could have been done to my vineyard? The children of Israel didn't know what more could have been done?
We know what more could have been done. The Lord Jesus was sent. God sent his Son.
And God wanted to have a relationship with you individually. He wanted to reconcile man to himself, and he didn't want you and I to feel ill at ease at all. And so he uses this term reconciliation.
And it's a term that he uses that to express the fact that we are no longer at enmity with God, we're no longer enemies with God after we're saved.
Now we have an old nature. We still have the flesh in US, and that flesh wars against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh, we're told, and there's a battle going on sometimes.
But the fact is that God sent the Lord Jesus into this world.
And one of the purposes was that you might be set free from the power of sin and Satan.
And that you might be reconciled to himself that there might be no.
Animosity whatsoever between yourself and God, and not only that, but that you would enjoy being in the presence of the Lord.
Can you imagine? You and I are here at this weekend at this Bible conference and I trust everyone here that knows the Lord Jesus as Savior is rejoicing at the privilege of being in the presence of the Lord and reading some passages of scripture, reading about the love of God and being instructed and being encouraged and the things of God.
We enjoy being in the presence of the Lord.
We no longer have fear. We're no longer at enmity with God.
Why did he tell us?
Why did he do it?
Because he loved us.
Did you ever thank God for that work of Christ on the cross?
To reconcile you.
Christ came into the world to reconcile you.
Unto God.
So that you wouldn't be an enemy of God, So that you would be one of His children, That you would be set at liberty in His presence and enjoy His company.
Well, let's just look at a couple of other passages of Scripture.
Like to switch gears a little bit? Let's look at Matthew's Gospel chapter 18.
I'd like to read verse 20.
Matthew 18 verse 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I.
In the midst of them. And then let's just turn back to Ephesians chapter 4.
And, umm.
Let's read from verse one. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of vocation, wherewith you are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called, in one hope of your calling. 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism.
One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.
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Well, I just want to make this comment in connection with the love of Christ.
It speaks of him having a church.
And it says in Ephesians chapter 5 it says Christ also loved the church.
And gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that he might present it to himself. A glorious church.
Not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
And it says in Matthew chapter 16, it says I will build.
My church and so we have identified in the Scriptures in the New Testament something that was new that the Lord Jesus was going to do, and that is that he was going to build his church. And we have little different figures in the passages of Scripture in connection with the church. We have the church presented it speaks of.
I think the term means the called out ones and so.
He has one church. It speaks of it in a couple of different manners. We know that the church universally includes all believers.
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. He's only got 1 Church, but then there's a local aspect. And so he raises up testimonies in different places, and he gathers by his Spirit to the precious name of the Lord Jesus. Little testimonies gathered to his precious name.
Because of his love, he bought the church. He paid that price, he redeemed the church. He's let's just. I don't want to misquote here.
It says Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. He gave himself for it. He loves his church, He nourishes it, He cherishes it. It says a little bit later on in verse 29.
In a future day, he's going to present it to himself.
And so he uses some different terms in connection with our collective responsibility.
In the day that we live in, and it says that the Lord Jesus was going to build the church.
You and I are not building it. Christ is building the church, and you and I are members too. He speaks of being members of the body of Christ.
He speaks of these terms and he uses these little terms.
Paul uses them in his ministry to give us little distinctions of the blessedness of the place that we've been brought into.
As those that belong to the Lord Jesus.
And so we're a part of the church. He has one church. He also uses the figure of a bride.
He's only got 1 bride. He'll have one bride for all eternity. He's going to have that heavenly company composed of all of those that are a part of the church. He's going to bring them into His presence. Why? Why does He tell us these things? It's because of His love for us.
You know, I think sometimes we have the feeling that Paul was a very hard man and Paul wasn't.
Very soft or tender hearted perhaps, that we we think. But you know, I've enjoyed looking in the passages of the Scripture, in particular in the book of the Acts and in some of the epistles he mentions as well. And he mentions his tears.
We're talking about a man who was the focus of God's energy in the Christian world at the time of the beginning of the church, and he shed tears.
Because he loved the Saints, and he wanted them to know how much they were loved of the Savior.
I want to just make this little comment that I would like to suggest that we study some of those little expressions that the Word of God uses in connection with the Church, the Bride, the body of Christ.
And he uses other figures. He uses the temple where our bodies are, the temple of the Holy Ghost. He speaks of a Pearl of great price in Matthew chapter 13.
Research those little expressions and enjoy them. Don't just know them, but enjoy them and think of the love of the Savior behind that expression. Why does he say he bought that one Pearl of great price?
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It speaks of a Pearl because, you know, you and I are gathered out of this world, out of this Gentile world, out of the sea. That's where the oyster grows. He grows in the sea, and it's formed in a time of suffering. And we're suffering in this scene, and the church is being formed in a scene of suffering. And when it's complete, it's going to be viewed by Christ as a Pearl, an object of preciousness exceeding.
And there's only one Pearl just like that. It's going to be the church. And he loves the church. It's an object of preciousness. So you and I, the Spirit of God, communicates this, that you and I are objects of the preciousness of the heart of Christ. Collectively, yes. But even as a treasure collectively, you and I are precious to the heart of God, to the heart of the Lord Jesus.
And so.
We have 52 weeks in a year.
I would just like to suggest that we study perhaps for.
I would just suggest in your own personal life, have your personal reading in the scriptures, but study one of those little terms, 11 little term a week, let's say the forgiveness of sins.
Or forgiveness, The word forgiveness and how it's used in the scriptures and the five different ways that's used.
Right down the list. Make a list of those.
Passages of Scripture that use that term and discover where it speaks of the judicial forgiveness of sins, the governmental forgiveness of sins in connection with David and his sin with Bathsheba. He was governmentally forgiven. He had to suffer the consequences of his sin, but he was governmentally forgiven. I just want to suggest that we learn these terms.
So that we're not ignorant of what the work of Christ, the value of the work of Christ, and that we have an appreciation for the expression of His love in telling us, giving us these expressions.
And so that we might never be ignorant of the fact that He saved us, and by grace were saved and we know it.
I'll just give you 1 little story just before we close.
Years ago I had a man come into my office.
Who is a supplier of ours?
I used to keep a Bible beside my computer and I was in management, so I had that liberty. Perhaps you don't have that liberty, but I kept the Bible in my office and by the grace of God, if I had opportunity, I tried to be a little bit of an ambassador for Christ. I'm not a good example, but this man came into my office one day. His name is Dan Strong.
And he closed the door to my office.
And he was weeping.
A grown man, 54 years old, and he was weeping, and in his hand he had a letter from his daughter.
I had been speaking with this man on and off for 9 years about his soul. He was brought up Roman Catholic. He was still technically a Roman Catholic.
And he had a letter from his daughter. His daughter had written him a letter, she said. And he showed me the letter and it says, Daddy, I got saved.
And she told them a little bit of the love of the Savior, and she gave them a Bible as a present.
And he was weeping, he said. What does she mean by being saved?
He says I don't understand the term. Tell me what the term means to be saved.
And we sat down and we went over some passages of Scripture and spoke of the salvation of God, to be eternally saved from the judgment of a holy God and to know it, and went through passage of the Scripture. And then I needed to get a vehicle down South about 20 minutes away, and so I needed a ride. And he gave me a ride and we spoke about the Lord as we drove along.
And that man, that rainy Friday afternoon.
In Mount Eaton, OH decided that he would not get out of his car until he too could say I'm saved.
And that Friday afternoon, he took Christ as a Savior and he said, when he called me, he says I'm saved. And I know what it means, I'm saved. I just want to say, dear brethren, let's use these terms accurately. Let's use these terms with affection. And let's remember that the Lord Jesus didn't tell us these things to be technically correct or technically accurate in our expressions with one another.
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But that we would appreciate the love behind the work of Calvary and appreciate the love in these expressions. Let's let's just ask Lords blessing.
Having an Answer - 5 words, 3 words, 1 word
Open—David So
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.
I just for those who are something on the heart to say, I want to start by saying I do intend to take very long.
I have a very brief message. I know sometimes it's difficult. Often we don't want to be the first to be out and we don't want to be the last. So I thought, I just thought with a very, very brief message here.
We speak of yesterday. Yesterday we had the opportunity to learn about being new creation in Christ.
What do we do when we have that new nature?
And on my heart, it's just a very brief example of this man. Perhaps we don't speak of him often, this man, John the Baptist.
It's very interesting, man. He was a forerunner for our Lord Jesus Christ, John. There's something very interesting with John the Baptist. He understood his place. Let's begin with a verse here, John chapter 3.
John chapter 3, verse 30, a very well known verse, John said.
He must increase.
But I must decrease.
We know John's purpose was a forerunner. Isn't it for a forerunner?
He just want to announce the news and when his job is finished, he will be taken home and he knew that.
It's very interesting. You go through the Word of God. I'll mention it briefly, in the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah is like a miniature Bible. There are 66 chapters in that book. There are 66 books in the Bible. We know that, right? 3039 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New, 39 books in the Old Testament. The 40th book begins the New Testament.
And we won't have time. We won't turn to it. But if you turn to the 40th chapter of Isaiah, there you talk about the voice crying out from the wilderness. It's very interesting, isn't it? But John knew that he must. The Lord Jesus himself must increase, and he himself must decrease.
Do we know that for ourselves too? That when we speak, when we tell for the?
Especially the story of His good news when we tell people we're Christians. Is the subject behind it so that we can look bigger? I hope not. Are we there to present Christ, to magnify His name? I promise to be brief, so I only have just a couple of verses here before me. I was thinking in the first chapter John was approached.
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And he was asked a few questions. Let's turn to John, chapter one.
And I'll sit down in a few minutes.
John chapter one begin. Let's begin reading at verse 19. And this is the record of John when the Jews and priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him. Now here's the question they had for him. Who are thou? Wow, that's a tough question, isn't it? There were followers who were John's followers. He was getting prominent in a sense, he was getting known.
Now I had more of the application side of these verses.
I look at young people, I look at myself still being young, at least I like to think that being young. And we often have the challenge of how do we answer people when they question our faith? Do you not find that? And we try to figure it out, perhaps plan it beforehand, come up with these long things and perhaps 7 reasons why we should and 23 reasons why we shouldn't.
I'd like to look at what John did here. A very important question they asked John Who art thou?
And we see John get asked that three times. Have you been challenged that someone asked you something and as if you answered it and it's not enough. So now we have the same war to defend that answer.
But we find very interesting that John didn't do that. So let's look at that verse 20.
Who art thou? Verse 20? And he confessed, and he deny not, but confessed. Now here's his first answer.
I am not the Christ.
Simple, isn't it?
He defended in any way, Who art thou? I am not the Christ. Now for some of you may want to look at and count how many words this is interesting.
I am not the Christ.
5 words answer. That was it.
He leave the word of God with them.
Then they ask him again in verse 21 and they asked them, well what then art thou Elias? Wow, that's question get changed. They still really want to know who he is.
See the prophet of old.
Now notice the answer again. What's his answer? Did he open up the scripture and expound to them that he's not Elias?
No, he said. I am not.
The first answer have 5 words in it. They press him now He answered with three words.
They press them again. Art thou that prophet?
Do we not feel that pressure? Pressure. We must come up with an answer. Well, here's John's answer and he answer.
No one word.
Then they present a scripture.
Right from the book of Isaiah chapter 40. And he said, I am the voice of the one crying in the wilderness. Make stray the weight of the Lord.
Now, it's not my thought to present that portion because here we'll find that he omitted a lot. He only presented the beginning part to let them know that he's the forerunner and others can have thought on that. Or when you go home, you can meditate on those thoughts. But my thought this afternoon or my message for you is.
When we are pressed for an answer, we don't need to. We need Scripture, don't we? That's why we need to study.
So that we can be like workmen, approved by God. So we can answer man from the word of God. And the answer could be very brief, as in John's case, 5 words I am not the Christ or three words I am not or simply one word.
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No is the word of God that is quick and powerful.
We Are the Lord's Treasure and You Are Rich
Open—Ken Harman
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.
You might notice that sometimes I wear my glasses and sometimes I don't.
Having a little bit of eye problem. Sometimes it's good when I have them on, sometimes good when I have a mop. So.
We'll try and make do here.
My thought is that.
I I don't know whether it would take far more than a few minutes to express the.
The burden, shall we say, and we should all have a burden at this time.
We are in the very last.
Days of the Church's history.
We were reading, someone read the portion.
About the Lord Jesus that was spoke of the Lord Jesus saying.
Well, let's, let's read that. It's in Matthew 13. Those thoughts in Matthew 13 about the treasure hit in the field. And I was just thinking about this in connection with the Lord's treasure and our treasure.
So in Matthew 13 and or yes, Matthew 13 and verse.
44 Again the Kingdom of heaven is like under the treasure. 8 Treasure hid in a field, that which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth himself all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
And again the Kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly jewels, pearls rather, who when he had found a Pearl, 1 Pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Now I don't have to mention everyone is familiar with these are what these represent. The Pearl represents the church.
And it's it's peculiar value to the Lord Jesus.
As a Pearl that might be found, a great Pearl, a precious Pearl found by one who is seeking goodly pearls. And he buys he, he would pay any amount for this. And the Lord Jesus did this, He sold all that he had.
We read that though he was rich for yet for our sakes he became poor.
That we through as poverty might be made rich.
Are we rich here tonight? This afternoon?
Any, any soul here, even the children, the young people, you know the Lord.
I can look at each one of you and I said, do you know the Lord Jesus? And you say, yes, I do. Then you're rich.
And we're all rich who know the Lord, that we through his poverty might be made rich.
So we have a treasure.
The Lord had saw this treasure in the field. Field speaks of the world, the world and the treasure. Is that what she saw? And He was it was so valuable to him that He said, I am going to purchase that. And we just had a little word about purchasing that which has been purchased with His own blood.
And so there was a treasure in the eyes of the Lord that he valued, and he was going to come down and purchase that, and he did. And he's going to. And all that have trusted in him belong to Him and.
Are redeemed by His precious blood. And as has been mentioned before, I just reiterated, He has set us free.
And if we know our sins are gone, we are free.
There are many souls that that know the Lord Jesus as they accept him as the Savior, but they don't really feel free in their hearts. I had a helper once that he was he was a churchgoer but and he knew the Lord but he wasn't set free. He could not accept the fact that if he sinned.
Also, for some reason the Lord is going to let him go.
We said, but the Lord will not let you go. But what if I let go of him? And he could not get this through his mind, and he was.
And, and and yet there was another man in the office, and he was you. You went to the same, the same congregation as this young man did, but he saw it differently.
He said what is your name? And he told him what his name was. Now you were born into that family.
00:05:05
What if you were did such bad things that your father kicked you out of the house? Would you lose your name?
No. Well then, neither will you lose your lose your salvation.
You're and he could understand this and so I dare say that that there are many in this in the the systems of men that are are not set free.
They're they're, they've been purchased there and they know the Lord Jesus as Savior. So they they redeem, but they haven't been set free yet.
Well, you and I have a treasure and we are a treasure to the Lord Jesus. Just think of that, that the Lord Jesus came down because he saw me and he wanted to purchase me and he had to to leave his heavenly glory to come down.
Into this world and lay down his life in order that he might get me, Take Me Home to himself. Do you think he's going to let you go? No. He's bought a price. He's paid a price for you and me. And he's never going to let us go. So that should make us happy. That should set us free. But there was the treasure that was that you and I.
Were to the Lord Jesus now.
Over in Luke's Gospel.
If we turn to Luke's gospel.
And verse.
Chapter 12 and verse 31 will do.
It says, But rather seek ye the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your good Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
And then it says sell that you have and give alms. Provide yourself bags which wax not old.
Pardon me, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not where no thief approaches, neither bath corrupted for where your treasure is.
There will your heart be also.
Now let's just turn over to second Peter.
I'm sorry, first Peter.
First, Peter.
Chapter 5.
The elders which are among you? I exhort.
Who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker.
Of the glory that shall be revealed, feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly. Not a for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither as being Lords over God's heritage by being in samples to the flock.
And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory.
That fadeth not away. Likewise you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yeah, all of you, be Subject 1 to another, and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.
Be sober, be vigilant.
Because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lions, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, After that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish strength, and settle you. To him be glory.
And dominion, forever and ever. Amen. Now you might say, why did I read those?
00:10:00
In connection with the treasure.
Because you see.
We are still.
The Lord's treasure, he has paid the price but and he has set us free, but we are we're always dear to him and.
He is living for us on high now and he is caring for us.
But in the mean time, there is his treasure is here on Earth, and we're going through times through through this world and through tribulation trials and so forth that are that the enemy can use for to cause us to stumble and to fall aside.
I wonder just how much we we value the treasure that belongs to the Lord.
Here the apostle Peter is saying, and you know what Peter did? He did. He denied the Lord Jesus, but the Lord restored him. And what did he say to him afterwards? He said, Peter, lovest thou me more than these? Are Simon? Lovest thou me more than these? Yeah, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. Well, he tried. He tried him three times, didn't he? And finally, each time he said, feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed my sheep.
Peter felt that here when he's writing, as I'm sure he did, that's why he could say that he was, he was a witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker of the glory. He had seen the Lord Jesus on that mount of Transfiguration. So in that sense he was a particular of the glory that was was to follow.
And, and so now he's saying to, he's telling these ones later on the second epistle, I'm not going to be here all the time. I'm not going to be here. I'm going away. The Lord has told me how I'm going to die. So I'm I'm but in the meantime.
I want to remind you of all these things that are yours, these treasures that are yours, and the fact that you are a treasure, that you belong to the Lord, that he means something to you. It's a flock. It's it says.
You're about The Who feed the flock of God. That's what what it is. And that flock of God is his treasure. Now does it mean anything to you?
Does it mean anything to me?
The fact that.
While we're waiting for the Lord to come, He wants his his flock fed. And if we don't feed them, who's going to feed them?
No, I guess I'm talking to all everyone in this room.
Especially the brothers.
I look here and I see a whole bunch of young men coming up.
And you know what? It could be the women too. The ladies, they have their part in feeding the flock of God. But he's talking primarily to the young men here. And he said he's saying feed the flock of God, which is among you.
Now.
There's no money involved in this. You see there's some people that that get paid to do this.
But that's not what he's asking, he says. Not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.
And why? Because it's a flock of God.
So are we interested in feeding the flock of God? You say, how do I do that? You be an example.
It says neither as being Lords over God's heritage. We don't go in there with a big hammer.
And we don't go in there with the Word of God and demand and legislate and so forth. But it says you're being an example for the flock. When do you start being an example? You wait until you're a certain age, or do you wait until you're older or you have grandkids and so forth? No, you can start right now.
And what is the incentive? The fact that it's a flock of God? The fact that it is.
The treasure that was hid in a field and he purchased.
And now that can become our treasure.
What is our treasure? Do we value the Saints of God?
Perhaps not enough.
00:15:03
But I would challenge my own heart as well as my brother's heart, each one here to think about these things that we can't. No man liveth to himself.
And no man dieth to himself. Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lords.
And what is?
A value down here, is it a big bank account? Is it our job? Is it our family? What is our main object down here? It should be that which is the Lord's object, right?
What is dear to the heart of God, His people?
What is the greatest? What is? Where is the eye of God upon in this world more than anyplace else?
It's on the assembly.
When I speak of assembly, I'm talking about the whole, the whole scope of the of the Church of God. That's what is dear to him. That's what he paid the price for. That's what he saw that Pearl for great price.
So do we, and I say this to myself, do we go around along then as so we're just a sole entity in this whole thing and we just look after ourselves, our own needs, or are we conscious of the needs of the Saints of God? Are we conscious of the needs, I should say, of what is dear to Christ?
Feed the flock of God, which is among you? Where among you?
And so who is that?
It's our brethren one another wherever we run into them, and primarily that which is going on for Christ.
Let us try and support it in this, try and encourage it. And even the young people can do this. You know, you're a young man, a young lady, you're coming up in the assembly and if the Lord leaves us here, you're going to be one of the responsible ones that are going to be.
Perhaps supporting putting on a conference like this? Are you going to be there?
Will you be there? Will you still be there?
I've been.
Around 60 years at this conference.
By the grace of God.
There's many faces I don't see here anymore.
I know some of them are at home with the Lord, that's true.
But some of them aren't.
Nor are they here. Why?
Well, I suppose there's many reasons.
But they're not here, for the presence of the Lord is.
And if we value that, we would like to encourage them to go on, wouldn't we? The ones that are here, you know, in the days Hezekiah kept the Passover and it was who was there that kept the Passover, those that were present.
There's they weren't all there, but those that were present kept the Passover. And in this day and age at the end of the church's history, there are very few that are carrying on, shall we say.
The the Lord's desire to have to be remembered in the way that he's asked us to do on the ground of the one body. Now there's many people that that remember the Lord.
But they're on different grounds.
There is a ground where the Lord.
Values.
And he appreciates and.
That is.
Where the Saints are gathered on the ground of the one body to his name.
So that's that's what he's looking for.
I'm not saying that.
He doesn't have Saints elsewhere. All the Saints of God are precious to him, and we value them. And you know what? They're part of the Church of God.
Not just the gathered Saints.
But I appreciate in my soul, and I'm sure many do here, the fact that there is a place.
And that we can, we can be identified with that, with that testimony that he has placed in this world in these last days, the present truth.
00:20:07
But I say, I guess what I'm trying to say is that how valuable is this to you and me?
Does it mean anything? Is there a price that can be paid?
We're told by the truth and sell it not.
So there is a price to be paid.
Into to be.
Where the Lord Jesus is himself and what is valuable to him, what means a lot to him, and I guess to what I should, what I'd like to say is that don't forget those that are not there, those who are not on that ground, are still dear to Him, and we should appreciate them too. And it should be our desire to feed that part of the flock of God as well.
Do we ever see Saints that are that are are enjoying the Lord and their soul? But you know.
They're not gathered with us.
What does that mean? Do we don't that we don't like them? No. We long for them. And we can feed their souls too. We can give them a little bit of Christ here and there wherever we meet with them. That's part of feeding the flock of God.
And we should appreciate that. It should be our treasure, it should be that which will be value in these last days.
It's tough. It's not. It's not easy.
Because the enemy, as I was reading there, he's walking about, seeking whom he may devour.
And there's only one way that we can prevent that from falling in that way, and that is to stay close to the Lord. Humble yourself, therefore, it says, under the mighty hand of God.
That He makes all true in due time, casting all your care upon employee care for you. He cares for us. Maybe we can care for His flock. Maybe we can make that our treasure.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. We've just read, so is our heart with the Saints of God, because they're dear to Christ.
And that's why it should be. It's not because we all get along and that's the main thing. No, we're all different, but the Lord puts us all together and he gives us grace and we should walk in that way to please the Lord. I just.
Trust that these few words might be an encouragement to young and old. Not just the young, the older ones, but the young ones too. That as you grow up.
Remember this?
You're not always going to be the same as you always are, as you are right now.
Because you grow in your in your growth, you grow in your abilities, you grow, but are you directing them in a way that God can use you later on for the help of his people, where you can help the Saints of God? That is the object.
I think of ones in the Old Testament, you know, that where the people of God were in such a condition that every man did that which was right in his own eyes, and there was nobody to deliver them from the enemy. But God raised up. One here and one there. He raised up, I believe it was one from various tribes, not always the same tribe, to deliver the Saints of God.
In the book of Judges, we've been going through that in our family reading at home, and I've enjoyed the thought there that that.
There are those that are that can that God can pick out of the group of the whole, shall we say the whole failure of the people of God. He can pick one up here and pick one up there to deliver the Saints of God deliver them a lot way from the enemy.
And to bring them back, shall we say, and encourage them in the in their walk with the Lord.
So the elders which are among you, I exhort. Who's an elder will take the place of an elder, it says.
We're told here, it says.
Umm, feed the plaque of God, which is among you taking the oversight taking it.
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How do you do that? You just yank it out from somebody else. You just say I'm going to be the elder here or I'm going to be the one that's going to deliver. You know, you just start walking with the Lord.
An older brother once said to me when I was younger, he says you want to help the Saints of God walk with the Lord. You didn't. You don't have to go to a school. You don't have to do to do anything particular. Just walk with the Lord and your walk will be a testimony and it will help deliver the Saints of God. It might not be very many, but it might be one or two. You young people, you can help your peer, your peers.
You can start now.
There was a brother, I guess I could mention his name, but maybe I won't.
But when he was younger. He's 12 years old.
Maybe some in this room will know who I'm talking about. But his brother, this man was was a one who fed our souls. Each one will know us know who I'm talking. I I'd be talking about if I didn't mention the name, but I want. But when he was 12 years old, his his brother used to go come into the house sometime and he'd look into the living room. There was his brother sitting there reading his Bible.
12 years old.
Meanwhile, this young brother would go out and he'd play ball with the kids, the rest of them.
But his older brother?
Was feeding his own soul.
He started reading the word of God when he was young, and you know, that's one thing that I.
Regret in my life that I wasted a lot of those years and I'm sure there would be many in this room. You could say Amen. They've done the same thing. And that's why there's many that were here at one time are no longer here because they've wasted those years.
But we're going to have to give a count for our time, and the judgment seat of Christ is before us. So let us desire to feed the flock of God in some measure just to help one another.
But the testimony might go on, and that treasure that the Lord Jesus paid that mighty price for will go on and and we can be an encouragement to them because they are a treasure to us too. Does this mean anything to us? Well, it should. And I trust that just these simple words would encourage someone to take hold of these things and make them.
Give purpose to them in this.
Little time that we have left before the Lord comes.
And we will either hear that well done now, good and faithful servant, or we will lose that reward.
So what we do here is training time for raining time.
Letters, remember that.
My Dad Recently Died in His Sins; I Failed to Speak to Him About the Lord
Open—Barclay Elles
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.
Can you hear me?
I'm pretty nervous.
So.
I'm I'm pretty nervous. I'm not a speaker.
But I was thinking of the Sunday school.
And being branded and being of God.
It's on.
It is on.
Can you hear me?
Like I said, I'm not. I'm not a speaker.
I was thinking as Sunday school as we as we've been being branded and being of God.
I think it's important that we.
As young children.
We take God at a young age.
I was 27.
When I when I seen the light.
And there was during the Gospel Hall with Henry Schwartz.
My dad passed away about a month ago, almost two months ago and I have a picture of a young man and an old man.
And I'm looking at the young man in this picture.
That had a life of many years. No concern, strong, do whatever you want. And then on the right you have a picture of an old man.
And it's.
Very hard and sad for me to say that he was not of the Lord's.
I have his memory of of his.
When you pass. He has 36 grandchildren.
27 great grandchildren.
And I stand before you tell you that none of them are saved.
To this day.
As a young man.
I neglected.
To speak to my father and show him the way.
I had 22 years to attempt to say something to this man.
And I failed.
As a parent.
As an adult, I look to my kids.
And.
Again.
We feel failure because we want everything for our kids and our parents, and we want them to come to know the Lord as their Savior.
And it's very difficult at times to speak up and say things of being real Curtis scared or.
Laughed upon.
The more I sit here in these meetings and the conferences I have come to and I look at the children that have come and sitting here and I just think to myself, what a privilege they have. What a what a privilege to have parents that love them so much to bring them and to pray that they come to know the Lord personally as their Savior.
I pray that no one goes through regret.
My mom is 71 years old.
She has 20% capacity of her lungs.
She has cancer in her lungs and in her back.
And she does not know the Lord either.
I've been talking with her lately.
Because the time is running short.
00:05:04
Like I said, and I can stand here and I can say it's like a blink of an eye.
As we see our kids grow up.
I can see ourselves as well getting older as many of you guys have seen you guys over the years and we age, we decay.
So it's important.
For the young ones especially think the young ones that they take the Lord as a savior now.
Because nothing is guaranteed.
You're not guaranteed to live as my father for 81 years and a life of heartache and torment.
You know, the more I sit here and I think.
What a privilege. I sit here and I can't. I don't know why God chose me.
Obviously he loves me.
And to return what he has asked, I think it's important that we go to and speak of this awesome God we have God of love, God of patience, a God.
That has his arms open and waiting for us.
And then I hear the stories of many that we have kids that come and gone.
Together religions or to other denominations or whatever it be.
But I can say if they sat here in these meetings, they have had the truth.
They have, they have heard the precious Word, and by prayer we pray that they will return.
We know they are God.
There are strain.
But as parents and grandparents.
We need to make sure that our door is always open for them.
And that we are welcoming him with open arms.
Because I know that the Lord wouldn't forget anyone.
So.
Ezrea Katydin prayer meetings That and as we partake in gold are separate places.
I ask thee for one thing.
Ask for my brothers and sisters to pray.
But that they will give.
Courage and strength to myself.
To my family members to help.
That I could.
Be strong.
And.
Tell my mom.
But there's a higher power. The Lord Jesus is waiting with open arms for her.
Before it's too late.
Gospel 2
Gospel—David Harman
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.
There to the gospel meeting.
We're glad you're here. If you're here by special invitation, it's because somebody cares about your soul.
And we want you to know that God loves you.
And that he's long-suffering. To us, we're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
And so we'd like to begin our meeting tonight by singing #22 on the hymn sheet. Sorry, 23.
If if someone could please start that one.
On the cross.
Let's ask the Lord's help.
Turn with me, please, to the book of Romans.
Chapter One.
And we'll begin reading.
At verse one.
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
00:05:06
That's as far as we'll read for now.
So we want to talk tonight about the Gospel of God.
And these first few verses in the book of Romans introduced the subject.
And we have in the verses that we read.
The servant, the source, and the subject of the Gospel.
Paul was a special servant of the Lord.
Chosen by God to preach the gospel of salvation, the gospel of the grace of God to the Gentile.
And it's called here the Gospel of God, because God is its source.
The entire plan of salvation by which man can be redeemed, brought back to God, originated in the past eternity in the heart and the mind of God.
And he had you in mind, and he had me in mind.
And so he.
Devised this plan. It's beyond human comprehension. No man could ever come up with such a plan.
And when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman.
Made under the law to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons.
And so God had a plan.
And he has now revealed it to man.
In the gospel, the gospel of God.
Gospel means good news, and I think we all know tonight that this world needs good news.
And if you're lost in your sins tonight?
You need good news, and that good news that you need is found in the gospel.
The Gospel of God.
And the subject?
Is his Son Jesus Christ our Lord?
Who was?
Foretold in the Prophets and the Holy Scriptures.
Verse two tells us he had promised a four by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
In the book of Luke, the Lord, in speaking to those two on the road to Emmaus, He expounded unto them and all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
And so it's been said.
That.
There are over 300 prophetic references in the Old Testament to the coming of the Messiah, the Savior.
And if any of you have read Josh Mcdowell's book More Than a Carpenter, you'll be familiar with this these facts.
The out of 300 plus prophecies about the coming of the Lord Jesus.
To professors.
Made a calculation.
About the probability of only eight of these prophecies being fulfilled in one man from the time they were written to the current day.
Their statistical methods were reviewed or they were approved and certified as legitimate by peer review.
And they determined that the probability of eight of these 300 or more prophecies being fulfilled in one man was.
One in 10 trillion. That's one with 17 zeros after it. That's only eight of the 300 prophecies.
And we don't we don't understand that kind of a number. And so to put it, put a little perspective on it, the example was used if you.
Got 100 trillion silver dollars.
And place them in the state of Texas. That would fill the state of Texas to the depth of two feet.
And if you marked one of the silver dollars and mixed them all up thoroughly throughout the state, you put a blindfold on a man and told him to drive as far as he wanted in any direction he wished, and pick 1 silver dollar, the chance of him picking the one with the mark on it is one in 100 trillion.
So it's mathematically impossible.
For 8 prophecies to be fulfilled in one man, if those prophecies were written by men.
00:10:07
Scripture tells us that prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
And that all scripture is given by inspiration of God.
And so.
We can be.
100% confident that.
The scriptures that we hold in our hand are what they claim to be the inspired Word of God.
And so God.
Sent forth his son.
As we have said.
And this gospel, the subject of this gospel is his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. This brings before us his humanity.
He was fully man.
And he was declared to be the Son of God, with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
And so he was God as well as man.
Scripture tells us that in the beginning was the word and the word was.
With God and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
No man has seen God at anytime. The only Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.
And the Lord Jesus told the Jews that I and my Father are one.
They understood exactly what he was claiming to be God.
Equality with God. And so it was.
God become man.
God and man and the same person.
We can't explain it, we can't understand it.
But it's the truth of Scripture.
And it's the beauty of the person of Christ, this one who came from heaven's highest glory.
Humbled himself.
And became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh.
And force and condemn sin in the flesh.
And so he walked this earth as a man.
Unknown, unrecognized for who he was.
Rejected by those who should have known him.
He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto his own, and His own received Him not.
They didn't recognize.
Didn't recognize him for who he was.
Even though he was a light, that lightest light of every man that cometh into the world.
Light exposes darkness. Light exposes what is hidden in the darkness.
And man.
Chose darkness rather than light because his deeds are evil.
So this is the one who is the subject of the Gospel, this one, this holy Son of God who became a man.
And walked among men.
Why did he do that? Why did he lower lower himself in such a way?
Trust we'll get into that in a little bit.
But it's because.
There was number other way.
For the question of sin to be settled, but by the blood of a perfect sacrifice being shed.
And so when he was declared to be the Son of God, with power by the resurrection from the dead.
This is a vital.
To Christianity. To the Christian faith.
Because without a spotless sacrifice, we have no savior.
Scripture says that none of none of you can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him. And so if there is, if there were one who was under the curse of sin.
00:15:14
It was impossible for him to make atonement for sin, for the sin of another.
Had to be a spotless sacrifice.
In answer to all those sacrifices that were offered in the Old Testament as a type, looking forward to that one who would come and OfferUp the perfect sacrifice of himself to God.
And so, without a spotless sacrifice, we have no savior.
Thank God as He provided a lamb without blemish and without spot.
It was foreordained before the foundation of the world, and so sin did not take God by surprise.
It only provided.
The means whereby God can glorify his Son.
And be glorified in him.
Let's turn over to.
Verse 16.
For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and to salvation to everyone that believeth.
To the Jew 1St, and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written. The just shall live by faith.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
We'll stop there for now.
The Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation.
Why Salvation?
Saved from what?
Who needs to be saved?
In the Sunday school this morning I didn't count, but at least I would say at least 12 young children quoted the memory verse that tells us for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Even a child in quoting that scripture can understand what it means in a measure.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. God has a standard. God has loved that is well well known and often claimed by even by rejecters of God. Well, God is love. How can you do this? God is love, but he is also light.
God is holy and he cannot look upon sin.
And so man's sin has offended God in his holy nature.
In chapter 5 tells us.
Wherefore as by one man, that is, Adam's sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
And so if you were born into this world, you are partakers of that atom, nature.
Born in sin, shape and iniquity.
And as we've been reminded this today already, that we are owned by the God of this world.
Who has a claim on this world?
And so we are sinners by nature and by practice.
And our iniquities have separated us from our God.
And our sins have hid his face from us, and so we need to be reconciled to God.
There had to be a sacrifice made, for without the shedding of blood is no remission for sin, there's no forgiveness. Without the shedding of blood. The price had to be paid.
And so we all need to be saved. In answer to the question about salvation, we're all lost.
When we're born into this world, we are lost in our sins apart from God, and we need salvation.
And salvation is not found in ourselves. We have no hope. We are without God in this world.
And so God provided a savior.
God provided the sacrifice.
00:20:07
And the person of his son.
The power of God unto salvation.
Scripture tells us that before we were saved, we are dead in trespasses and sins.
And we are darkness.
And so it's only the power of God that can can quicken.
Those who once were dead in trespasses and sins. It's only God who can give life to the dead.
It's only God who can, who can bring one from the power of darkness into his marvelous light.
God, who has shined, who caused the light to shine out of darkness, shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Only God can do that. It's the power of God unto salvation. It's found in the Gospel.
Countless stories could be told of lives who were transformed by the power of the gospel.
Those who once were.
Profligate.
Wanton Careless.
Were turned around and became vessels of mercy.
And the transformation was like night and day, as we say. Sure enough, they were brought from the power of darkness into his marvelous light.
So it's the power of God.
To everyone that believeth everyone.
There's not a one in this in this room. Who can say I'm not included in this? I'm too bad or I'm too good?
Or it's not for me?
If you believe the gospel.
Then the power of God will bring you salvation.
It's to everyone that believeth.
Chapter 3 tells us that it's unto all and upon all them that believe.
A little song says, Whosoever will may come.
And so the gospel goes out to all. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
There's no such thing as a special elect.
Outside of which no one else can be saved.
God says all may come, whosoever will may come.
So why do we need to be safe? What? What do we save from?
Well, verse 18.
Reminds us of the wrath of God. There's the power of God.
And there's the wrath of God that is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
Are you leaving God out of your life?
Are you living as if there is no God?
The wrath of God is something you have to reckon with.
Scripture tells us that he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
I picture it as this cloud of judgment over one's head.
Ready to fall at any minute? You don't know when that will be. The wrath of God is abiding on you if you're outside of Christ.
We were reminded last night in the book of Jude.
How about the wrath of God? We'll turn to a similar passage, not Jude, but in second Peter.
Chapter 2.
Verse 4.
For if God spared, not the angels that sinned.
But cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.
00:25:05
And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the 8th person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.
And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an in sample. And to those that after should live ungodly, and delivered just lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.
Verse 9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust.
Unto the day of judgment to be punished.
So the message is clear. There is judgment coming.
God has appointed a day in which He will judge this world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained.
There has never been another judge like that.
There has never been.
A perfectly righteous judge in this world before.
But God will judge this world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained.
Where until he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised them from the dead.
And so there's this question of right, wrath and judgment that you have to reckon with.
But you'll notice in these verses that we just read in two Peter.
That accepting the angels there was a way of escape.
There were those who.
Found refuge from that judgment.
A little picture of the refuge to be found in the Savior.
To find shelter from the coming judgment.
And where is that refuge to be found? How do we escape this judgment?
How do we avail ourselves of this salvation?
Turn back to our chapter in Romans.
Verse 17.
Speaking of the gospel of Christ, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
From faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. And so there's the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel.
And there is where we find refuge from this judgment.
What is the righteousness of God?
I believe in this context it is the means whereby God can save the Sinner and still be righteous.
How can he do that?
God's holy claims demand that.
The wages of sin is death.
And there must be bloodshed to make atonement for the soul.
And so, in the absence of any other suitable sacrifice that could ever take away sin, he offered up his Son, his only beloved. 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.
And so the Lord Jesus.
Came into this world.
Failed his intrinsic glory for a time.
Entered into manhood.
And he walked in perfect obedience for 33 years.
Obedience to his Father's will.
Never a wrong thought, never an angry word.
Are you always those things that please him, my father?
And at the end of it all.
The wicked hands of men and their hatred took him and nailed him to the cross.
Get rid of him. Away with this man. We will not have this man to reign over us.
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And so they killed the Prince of Life.
Incidentally, that was a fulfillment.
Of a prophecy that was made 800 years before the Romans began crucifying their prisoners.
It was unknown as a method of death and for 800 years before this prophecy was fulfilled.
But he fulfilled the Scriptures by being condemned to death.
And dying on a criminal's cross.
Being hung up between heaven and earth.
As a spectacle.
The object of men's hatred and derision.
Whatever the object of the Father's love.
And as he hung upon that cross.
There came a time at midday where the sun was darkened.
God shut out that scene from the eye of man.
And in the midst of that darkness, he forsook his son.
And the cry was heard. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
We sang about that, an awful scene.
Where God forsook his Son.
And He took upon him our sins.
And he bore the awful judgment of God for those sins. He became the sin bearer, the one who knew no sin was made sin for us.
That we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
There's a story, a true story, that was told a number of years ago.
About a young lady who was.
Apprehended for traffic violation.
She's brought before the court before the judge.
And the judge?
Ask her how do you plead? And she replied. Guilty, your honor.
And so he brought his gavel down and sentenced her, this was a number of years ago, to $100 or ten years or 1010 days in jail.
And then the judge rose from the seat, took off his robes.
And he came down and he paid her fine. The judge was her father.
Was he righteous? Yes, he was. The law demanded that the fine had to be paid.
And so he paid it for her.
And so God.
Could be righteous.
And still forgive the Sinner because his son has paid the price had to be paid.
Tis in the cross of Christ we see how God can save, yet righteous be.
And and so this is revealed in the gospel, the righteousness of God.
Have you availed yourself of the righteousness of God? Are you sheltered under the precious blood of the Lord Jesus?
Have you heard his voice calling to you? Come.
The righteousness of God.
Turn over to Chapter 3.
Verse 19 Now we know that what things whoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.
That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
The law was given to God's people, children of Israel.
And they were like a little.
Sample of humanity, you might say, to put man to the test to see whether he could measure up to God's standard of righteousness.
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And so you might take a sample of water out of a well.
And you run your tests on it and whatever the results of that test reveal.
You conclude that it is true of all the water in that well.
And so God had this little sample of humanity, and he gave them the law and put them to the tests, and they failed.
And the results of that test are true of all humanity.
And so he's concluded, all under sin.
And every mouth is stopped, and the whole world has become guilty before God.
Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Christ is the end of the law to righteousness.
We've proved that we can't keep the law.
There is no good in.
But now verse 21, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested.
Being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe, For there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
So there's the righteousness of God again.
How God can save yet righteous be?
And it is imputed to all who believe in Jesus.
Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe.
If you have not believed the gospel.
You are not righteous before God.
As simple as that.
Furthermore, there's no way that you can be righteous before God without believing the gospel.
There's none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
And so if you are not believing the gospel tonight, you are not righteous before God, and you cannot be.
This righteousness of God.
Is by faith of Jesus Christ, and it's unto all, and upon all them that believe.
For there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Can you say that tonight that you're justified?
The moment you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
As your savior, believe that he died for you and that God raised him from the dead. God removes every charge that could ever come against you.
That's what justification is.
No more charge of sin can ever be brought against you. That's justified.
Can you, can you say tonight that you're justified freely by his grace?
There's no money involved in this transaction.
But an awful price was paid.
The.
Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.
To declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God.
This big word propitiation. It means that God is satisfied as to this in question.
Through the death of his son.
But it's only upon all them that believe.
Are you under the shelter of that precious blood tonight?
Job tells us because there is wrath.
Beware lest he take the away with his stroke, and then a great ransom cannot deliver thee.
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God's offer of free salvation is a limited time offer.
Now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Don't wait too long.
You don't know how. How long is too long?
That's the key. You don't know how long is too long.
Come now, while there's still time.
Receive God's offer of salvation full and free.
Without money and without price.
I'd like to turn back again to chapter one.
And comment a little on verse 18.
The end of verse 18. But we will read the whole verse. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
How about you young people?
Compared to the man on the street on average.
You young people know a lot of truth.
I don't think you realize how much truth you have, but what are you doing with it?
Are you holding it in unrighteousness?
And.
Are you comfortable in your knowledge of the truth and the blessings that it brings?
But going on in a path of unrighteousness or carelessness.
As if there is no God.
That's holding the truth in unrighteousness.
And God has something to say to you about that.
God's truth demands a response.
What has your response been to the truth that God has revealed to you?
That speaks to all of us, not just the young people.
It's not enough to know about the Savior.
It's not enough to know the facts of the gospel.
There's millions of people in this world that know that Jesus was a historical figure. That's not enough.
Do you know Him as your savior?
Have you had a transaction with him?
Whereby He has taken away your sins and given you eternal life.
It's not enough to know the truth.
If we don't walk in it.
To whom much is given of the same shall much be required.
What are we doing with what we have?
Two final verses.
In closing, John chapter 12.
Verse 48.
The Lord Jesus speaking, he that rejecteth me.
And receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him.
The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him in the last day.
Don't trifle with the word of God.
You can't.
Just relegate the gospel message to mere words, ignore it and walk away without any consequences.
Because the very word that we're considering tonight, the word that it has been spoken, will judge you in the last day.
You'll be held to account for what you what you've heard, what you know.
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And you'll be speechless if you're without Christ.
Chapter 5.
Verse 24.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me.
Hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.
Is passed from death unto life.
Present and immediate effect of believing the Gospel.
He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me half everlasting life.
And shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.
We pray tonight that if you're still dead in trespasses and sins that you'll believe the gospel of your salvation.
And that God will quicken you, quicken your soul, give you life.
Eternal life.
In his son.
Can we sing in closing?
Verse #21 on the hymn sheet.
Someone could start it.
1 Corinthians 15
Reading
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.
That we go to 1St Corinthians 15 unless.
Someone wants to summarize the rest of Hebrews 2 SO.
What would you suggest?
I think it might be nice to start First Corinthians.
Chapter 15, maybe verse 41 and read down to the end of the chapter, OK.
1St Corinthians 15 verse 41 There is one glory that's done.
There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. For one star different from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption. It is raised in corruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written. The 1St man, Adam was made a living soul.
The last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Albeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. The 1St man is of the earth earthy. The 2nd man is the Lord from heaven, as is the earthy. Such are they also that are earthy. And as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I will I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
At the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed for this. This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is thy sting, O grave, where is thy victory? A sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us a victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
This chapter is all about resurrection, as you know.
And.
It really brings us to.
What we're destiny is.
That is to be with and like the Lord Jesus and experience that change into glorification.
It's the prospect of the new creation race.
In verse 42, on to.
Verse 50.
We have the manner of resurrection and then from verse 51 on to the end we have the.
The moment of resurrection.
First the character or the manner of it, then the very moment, which of course we know he correlates with the last trump, which is of course the rapture of the Lord's coming for the Saints. So we know when that will take place.
So verse fifty really tells us that a change is necessary. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption. So there's an absolute change that is necessary. And so the Spirit of God teaches us how that change is going to take place. And perhaps we might say even the sequence of that change, the speed of that change, how quickly it'll take place in the twinkling of an eye.
And that it's going to be.
Glorified body that we have. The very same body that we have. Philippians. Chapter 3 brings that out, doesn't it? Let's read it so that we get that connection.
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Philippians chapter 3, verse 20 for our conversation or our associations of life are in heaven from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body or our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. So there's a there's a change that's going to take place and this is a part of Paul's ministry, isn't it?
The moral change Peter speaks of, and I think we commented on it.
No, it's John that mentions that first. John Chapter 3. There's a moral change that takes place, isn't there?
First John chapter 3 and verse 2.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as He is. So we're not only going to have physical bodies just like the Lord Jesus, but we'll be morally and spiritually like Him.
When glorified, we will be like him, but we will still maintain our individuality.
I think that's important to see. And the 41St verse does speak of the inanimate creation that God has made and how it has all kinds of different celestial beings and moon and stars and so on. Every one of them are different. We had a book on sale here with Alex bought it. But of course with regards to stars and astronomy and so on, he loves that subject. And every page you said he's starbursts and these various galaxies that they have taken pictures of and every one of them.
Are different beautiful?
Color pictures and everyone of them are different. Well, that's just like what you have in this 41St verse. They all differ in this creatorial glory. And so it is with the new creation race. We're going to be changed and we're going to be like the Lord Jesus, exactly like him, but we still will maintain our individuality and be a wonderful change indeed. And the 42nd verse shows us the manner of it.
He speaks of four things. It is sown in corruption and is raised in interruption.
Is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. The keyword in that verse is it.
It is sown in corruption. It is raised in corruption. It's the very same body that we lived our lives in. And if we have succumbed to death and he's talking about those who have gone on to be with the Lord and the bodies have gone into the grave and have begun to corrupt, it's that very same body in which the person has lived will be raised in glory in a completely different condition like Christ. The emphasis here is on it always through that verse. Why do we need to emphasize this? Because.
There is this idea.
Among Christians that when the Lord comes at the rapture that we're going to get a new body and altogether a different body and so on. And this, if you consider what they're actually saying, although they don't mean to make any error with it, it's really denying resurrection. Just think of it, if the Lord's going to come and bring an absolutely new and different body and give it to the Saints, and what about the body that they lived in?
You know, it's the very body in which the First Saints have lived in and died in. It's going to be raised, but in an alternative, different condition.
So it is the same referring to the same body that was subject to incorrupt to subject to corruption will then be put on incorruption.
So incorruption is a new condition. Right now our condition, the condition of our body is corruptible, but it's going to have a new condition and the condition is incorruptible. Then he speaks of really a new appearance in verse 43. We're going to have glorified bodies, very same body, but now we see it as a body of humiliation and it has the marks of sin and age, but in that day it's going to be glorified.
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And so it'll be a body just like the Lord Jesus, incapable of what the Lord Jesus did.
In resurrection, as a man, he moved through the walls and in the upper room and appeared suddenly to his disciples and so on. We're going to have new powers as well. It says in verse 43, it is sown in weakness. That's our mortal body, and then it is raised in power. So we're going to have different capacities as we have a glorified body and then.
It says we're going to have instead of a natural body in verse 44, we're going to have a spiritual body. And so it's really perhaps might say the character of body that we have now is natural. It's failing and it's very limited, but in that day it'll be a spiritual body. The Spirit of God goes over these details so that we might enjoy the aspect of the work of Christ that gives us.
The.
Full compatibility with the to be a companion of the Lord Jesus. And we don't have ever have deity or anything like that. He says I have sent unto my father and your father my God and your God. And so there's a distinction between Christ as the head of that new creation race and those that are members of that creation race. They have they're still glorified. They still have a wonderful position, wonderful condition and everything as a part of that creation race.
But the Lord Jesus is the head of that race, and he has the glory that exceeds, perhaps you might say, because he is God.
And so will not attain to that the glory of God, but we will have, will be a part of that new creation race. He's not ashamed to call us brethren. That tells us in Hebrews chapter 2. But I know we're going to be told in Scripture that we should call him our brother or our elder brother and so on. I mentioned that because some Christians have that idea.
And the reason for it is he is always to be held, is in dignity, in separation, because he is the first born of the race. So he has a place of preeminence in rank and position. It should always be recognized. And so we should always see that as what belongs to Him is what we call his glory of preeminence.
When the Lord was raised, he didn't have, they didn't have to open the tomb to get let him out. He came out, His body came out, but it was a spiritual body.
When he died, it says, the graves were open and the Saints came out and walked in the streets.
When we are raised, the graves will not have to be open.
Will our bodies will be changed and will arise out of that ground, just like the Lord Jesus came out of the tomb? So the graves don't have to be open, am I right? Absolutely.
So I often wondered, you know, when the Lord comes, all these grades are going to be open. Everybody's going to see all these graveyards, you know, with all the great the graves open. But that's not so. They'll remain as they always were, but the bodies will be gone.
All changed before we're raised just like the Lord.
There are ten such resurrections mentioned in Scripture, at least 10, and all of them are not part of the new creation.
First resurrection, which puts on glorification.
And what I'm talking about is the child that Elijah prayed for and he was raised the child that Elijah prayed for and stretched himself on and he was raised the man that was bones were thrown into Elisha's grave and he rose up. And, and the various ones that the Lord Jesus raised, you know, Lazarus Jihad's daughter and widow of Maine son when Peter raised Dorcas and so on, Utica's named just a few of them. These are all resurrections.
But they're not resurrection of the first resurrection that we're Speaking of in this chapter, which is a resurrection to glorification. In other words, what we're saying is that since they were raised back to life, it was back to natural life, and that meant they had to die again and did die again.
There are exceptions to the rule.
So when the Lord, when he is the first fruits of the resurrection, that's that's a new resurrection. But not you can't say what people might say. Well, others were racist like you mentioned. So how can you say he's the first fruits of the resurrection? Well, because it's the new resurrection, the new bodies now the spiritual resurrection. So that's very clear when you think of it.
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Those in Matthew who after the Lord rose from the dead and the graves were opened, doesn't it say and they went into.
So the graves were open there, but they didn't have glorified bodies. But when the Lord comes, the graves won't be open, they'll just be raised.
So now Ken has said to us that the Lord's resurrection, He rose in that condition, that He did not require to have the grave open, but his grave was open, but not for him to get out, which was people to look in and bear witness to the fact that He has risen.
We go to verse 23 of course chapter it says every man in his own order. Christ the first was afterwards. They that are Christ as coming. So what will this point even though the Lord has been glorified in the sense we've been talking about almost 2000 years. There's no other person in that Commission. He's the only one that then act is coming. We will get back to glorified body too, but right now there's only one glorified man so.
All those other resurrections be spoken of even where the natural sex is Christ after the first groups and then there's this big undefined and time gap that they which are crisis coming. So there's only one right now. That's what we're doing tonight.
When it says it is sown.
And the 42nd verse, it is shown in the 43rd verse it is sown. In the 44th verse sown is at this death or what does it mean there? I have AI have a note over the top of it not buried but I'm not sure why I put it there.
What does a sowing mean? What's the idea of planting? Isn't it? And it would be the idea of burial in my mind, but in the ground.
Just put in the ground, yeah.
So this shows that normal Christianity is that we bury our dead.
I know that there are some lands where it's just not possible anymore, especially in Asia where they have to cremate because it just isn't great burial site to even purchase if you have the money to do so. So we understand that sometimes Saints may have to be cremated, that is the bodies, but what is normal?
Possible. We want to plant.
And because we're looking for a resurrection, we're looking for a new crop. As far as the resurrection Glorious is.
Mentioned, it says of Stevens. He was the first martyrs you know, it says devote men carried him to his cremation. No devote then carried him to his burial.
So it's a replant in faith, another gay coming resurrection. And I've seen it in type in the very first burial in Scripture. And we've talked many times about the first time rule. First time you get something, you get usually the tenor of things that will spread right through scripture following that line. And that is Abraham's purchase of the The Cave of Macpeda where he buried his wife Sarah. And you went back Peter means.
Cave of two doors.
One to go in and one to come out. He did not see death as an end of existence, but only when he put his wife there. He had it in mind that there would be a time when she would come out of that condition and it would be united. So we plant in faith, and Mac Pilot really speaks to that.
But not all people are buried. Some diet, see, and they're just put overboard or some die in war and and they just lay on the ground. It says dust thou art and dust thou shall return. So I was thinking it might speak more of death and it speaks of barrier. I wonder if you got the answer, Brother Vern in verse 37 of our chapter. That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bear.
Green it made by it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body, and so he uses the natural.
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Planting or botanical?
Example here of planning in the Earth.
I was thinking of Genesis 319 says dust thou art and dust thou shall return. That's the planting would not necessarily be burial.
Well, they may not all be buried in the ground, but as you say, they're buried at sea.
Yes, however way they go, it's not impossible for God to raise them up again. They thought that with many is that well to escape the judgment of God will be cremated. And that way God can't raise me up for judgment. But that's that's not true. He will. Yeah, right. I'm not saying that.
Yeah.
Verse 45 it says so it is written the 1St man Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam a quickening spirit does that that phrase the last Adam a quickening spirit does that refer to his?
Quickening of.
Breathing upon the disciples as we read in John's Gospel chapter 20. Is that the experience? Yes, I believe he only only came into that after a resurrection, didn't he?
And that was right after he rose from the dead, that he said, Go into my brethren, and tell them.
I have sent unto my God, unto your God.
But that's not the indwelling of the Spirit, no.
That's a spirit coming upon them.
When he breathed onto them, receive the Holy Spirit.
That's not the same as Acts 2.
Am I right? In resurrection, He became the quickening spirit.
New life.
Your comment on that, Ruth?
There was a a transitional thing, wasn't it? The Spirit of God didn't come and indwell the Saints until the day of Pentecost, but when he breathed upon them and said receive the Holy Ghost.
It really is signifies that they became a part of that new creation race. That's a it's a symbolic action, you might say.
The disciples were born again when the Lord walked upon this earth, but they didn't have what Scripture calls abundant life until the Lord rose from the dead. Then he became that quickening spirit then.
That's what we've been talking about.
In the new creation.
This these things God has provided, not just some lone place within the door. The death of Christ provided these blessings that we might be identified with him as the head of a new race.
And that we might be.
The other blessing that who he might be a part of that one body. These are all things.
That accrue to us because we are identified with them.
He won these things by a very coming down here and taking humanity into his person and dying for us and bringing us into this place. Are we not to want to know these things?
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Are they too tough? The Spirit of God thought enough of them to put them in this book. Ought we not to search them out?
And enjoy them.
Well, it goes on in verse 46 to speak of the natural.
Thing it says, Howbeit that which was that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. The 1St man is of the earth earthy, the 2nd man is the Lord from heaven. And so the first man was created out of the dust of the earth, as you said earlier.
He has an earthly existence, he has a earthly hopes, earthly aspirations, He lives in the earth and he suffers the consequences of sin because the earth is cursed with sin. But the second man is the Lord from heaven. And so the race, the new race, the new creation race of men.
You might say has a heavenly origin, heavenly hopes, a heavenly existence. It's a heavenly Organism living in the world itself. And so we don't belong to this earth, we belong to heaven.
So what he's doing in these middle verses here from 45 on to 49, and he's comparing the two races.
And we learn a lot by comparison. So he takes the heads and looks at it, looks at the different heads, Adam, and then the last Adam.
And now he's looking at the character of the race. One is, as you've mentioned, Robert, he's, he's characterized by being natural, not sinful, but natural. And then the other is characterized by being spiritual.
I noticed that verse 47 needs to be translated more critically than what you have in the King James Version and it talks about the 2nd man, that second order of manhood. It's not is the Lord from heaven.
But it is of heaven, it's character.
And is the Lord not supposed to be there? Yes. So it just says the 2nd man of heaven of heaven.
That that's what he was morally.
A heavenly man.
The second man was not king. The 2nd man was not king.
No, but he was the 2nd man to live on the earth. There's a different thing altogether.
Just like we often say that the Lord the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord is not the Lord's day. There are two different things, although they sound the same.
And as we mentioned last time we were together on this, the last atom is really referring to the fact that there going to be no more races, no more heads of races and no more third race or fourth race that's going to follow because this new creation race is perfect.
And there's no need for to have another race to supersede it, because God cannot get any something more than what is already perfect. So he's considered.
Not the second atom, but the last atom. Sometimes we say that when we're speaking, we'll talk about the second atom. There's no such thing as the second atom, it's the last atom.
And it's, we've already said this, but perhaps it's worth saying again, that when God created man and he made man out of the dust of the earth, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Now when the Lord rose from the dead, what did he do to these disciples? He breathed into their, he breathed into their nostrils and said, receive Holy Spirit. So this is a new creation.
That's good in verse 48 brings in the fact that those of the new creation rates not will be heavenly, but are heavenly. That is what we are.
And we need to behave like heavenly persons on earth, so it says here. And as is the heavenly, such are also they that are heavenly, not will be heavenly.
So we're to live in this heavenly man now upon earth.
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And then he just goes on to speak about the the three.
Back of the need of the change in verse 49, as you have borne the image of the earthly, because we all have had our beginning as far as existence is concerned is under the first atom and the earthly creation. But now there's a time coming when there's going to be a change and we're going to bear the image of the heavenly.
And notice it doesn't say we are here now, it says shall. Because this is yet a future thing. We're not glorified yet. We're not bearing the image of the heavenly now.
We have the marks of decay upon our bodies and it's very evident that we are not. So it's a future thing. And then verse 50 comes in to show us that we God has destined us to inherit the Kingdom of God.
In that coming day, there's going to be a demonstration of the moral characteristics of the new race pervade the whole.
Coming scene of glory. And then if that's our destiny, we can inherit the Kingdom of heaven.
In the present condition of our bodies now, therefore, our change is needed. So he goes on in the latter half of the chapter to give us the very moment of this change, and tells us the power of God to work in our lives, to take the road that which we are in now and our bodies, and perform a change to our bodies which brings us into glorification.
So there's such a thing as the glorification of the sons of God and the manifestation of the sons of God. There are two different things.
Let's look at that in Romans chapter 8.
Romans, chapter 8.
Verse 18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed.
In US.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waited for the manifestation of the sons of God. So you have two things here. And I should have read verse 17. I said this. So we suffer with him. We shall also be glorified together. So there's the glorification of the sons of God and there is the manifestation of the sons of God. The glorification of the sons of God takes place when the Lord comes for us at the rapture. That's when we're going to be glorified. But the manifestation, the public manifestation of the sons of God in all of our glory is not until the appearing, when He comes to be glorified in the Saints and admired and all of them that believe.
Then the world is going to see this manifestation of what God has been working in this world in. The day of grace will all be put on display in that time, and we're going to be there with Him in glory.
Both our future.
What a prospect, what a prospect.
Yeah, great.
So verse 51 goes on and he says that behold, I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep. What does he mean by sleep? He's talking about death and he's always put in that sense of sleep when it's applied to Christians. So when the unbeliever dies, it's not viewed as sleep.
It's a term that's used in connection with believers who have passed through the article of death. Souls and spirits have gone on to be with the Lord, and the bodies have been planted in the earth and burial.
But he says we're not sure she'll not all asleep.
Not all of us are going to die. There is some that are not going to.
Keep the appointment of death. You know, it says it's appointed under man wants to die. And after this, the judgment, there's some that are going to miss that appointment of death because as he goes on to explain here, there's going to be a change in the drinking of an eye and the mortal is going to put on immortality and the living Saints are going to be changed and they won't see that.
This is the normal Christian hope.
Was this a missed? This was a mystery then in the Old Testament? Is that what it means here, that that wasn't known in the Old Testament?
Well, I wouldn't say it was a mystery in the Old Testament. It just wasn't in the Old Testament. I think that's what you mean, which is a secret that has now been disclosed, I think. Yeah.
The Old Testament Saints knew that they would reign and there would be something coming. There's going to be resurrection. You read in Job and so on, and David mentioned that, but they didn't have the facts or the details as to how about it was going to take place. It just had this hope. And they didn't know really how we got from here to there. But in New Testament, we have this mystery disclosed, and he's going to unfold that here in this chapter and these verses from 51 on to the end of the chapter. But before we get going too fast on this, this is not the rapture.
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This is the moment of the Rapture.
But not the rapture. Rapture is to do with the Saints being snatched away to heaven. He doesn't go that far. He's focusing on the fact that they get changed and we know what happens at the very moment when we're going to be snatched away. But he only views the the the change in the Saints, not their.
Translation to heaven.
You have to go to 1St 1St Thessalonians chapter 4 to see that that they actually get taken into heaven.
But he and he correlates it for us with First Thessalonians chapter 4 so that none would think that this is some different time. And he does that by talking about Trump.
The last Trump Both chapters speak. Passages speak of the last Trump so we can synchronize them. We know that they happen at the same time.
So this is not the rapture here, but it is the moment of the rapture. He's focusing on the change rather than the transporting from here to there.
Tell us some how to.
Keep this in our mind. It says the last Trump. But when I turn to revelation, I find there's going to be more Trump.
The last Trump in what?
That's the reason why we need to understand dispensational truth. It's the last act in this dispensation, but you read them in Revelation is another dispensation.
Rightly divide the word of truth and you got all the answers.
Give up dispensational truth and you're in a hodgepodge of Hungarian goulash.
Spiritually speaking.
This discussion very good.
And you're mentioning about the these things were not known in the Old Testament, but it had so it says in the second in Second Timothy chapter one.
Verse 10 but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath.
Abolished or hath a null death, and have brought life and immortality to life through the gospel. So the Gospel has made these things known to us that we're not known in the Old Testament. We know many things that were not known in the Old Testament.
I think it would be good to turn to John's Gospel and just see how limited the knowledge was that they did have in John's Gospel Chapter 11 and verse 24. Well, let's read verse 23, John 11, verse 23. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha said unto him, I know.
That he shall rise again in the resurrection. At the last day, Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life. And so they had a little bit of knowledge. They knew that resurrection was going to take place, but they had no idea of the details. And so that's the Christian revelation. And that's why it's called a mystery. It was hidden in the heart of God and it was a detail, the details of that new state, new condition of things.
And the sequence of events in the resurrection at the time of resurrection is all related to the Apostle Paul's doctrine. What was revealed to Paul by Revelation?
He was first taught by the Lord Jesus.
It was first taught by the Lord Jesus in Mark Chapter 9 and verse nine. At the Transfiguration, as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen till the Son of man were risen from among the dead. It should say.
And they asked him, well, then the other gospel that says they didn't know what he meant. The old man dare ask him what that meant to rise from among the dead. You get that in Matthew 17. The reason why they didn't know what he was talking about is he never heard of resurrection from a mom and dad. They knew that there was going to be a general resurrection. And now he's talking about a resurrection, whether it'll be a select ones taken out from among the dead and leave the rest there. What is this? They never heard of such a thing like this.
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This is a new truth, a new revelation. And we know, of course, this is talking about the.
The first resurrection into glory.
So it is that when the first resurrection takes place, it involves the righteous believers in every race. First unbelievers will be raised 2nd and later at the end of the millennial Kingdom reign of Christ at the great white throne. And so there's going to be a selective resurrection of the righteous first in three phases. Christ the first, first David, sure his is coming as Marcus mentioned. And then at the end of the tribulation period, the Saints that die and the tribulation was raised at that time. Revelation 14 tells us that that completes the first resurrection, which is resurrection of just persons.
And then after the 9, your Kingdom reign. Then comes the resurrection of the dead, which are the damned, the wicked.
They're raised in two different resurrections, two different reasons, and two different times.
You said that rather quickly. I just say the first fruits, Christ the first fruits were reading of this in connection with the Lord Christ, the first fruits. He was the first one raised from among the dead and then in the rapture when it speaks of the rapture.
In First Thessalonians chapter 4 the 2nd installment of the resurrection takes place so and then in Revelation chapter 20.
You have the martyred Saints during the tribulation period, they're raised, and they're the last phase of that first resurrection. So those 3 passages of Scripture, you get an outline of the resurrection and you can use that verse in First Corinthians chapter 15, as Mark has pointed out.
In verse 23 for the first two segments of the.
Direction Christ the first fruits afterward they which are Christ that is coming and those that are Christ is not talking about the church here. It includes the church, but those who are Christ is a bigger volume of Saints and like I put it that way, including the Old Testament Saints.
This is not those in Christ, that these are those who are Christ, and they all are raised at the same time together.
And that is what you've called the 2nd installment, if you want to call it the second phase. And then the third phase is, you've just reminded us Revelation 14 at the end of the tribulation period, the last Saints that have died as martyrs in the Tribulation will be raised.
And John chapter 5, we get these verses that we're familiar with. Marvel not at this verse 28.
For the hours coming, into which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth. They that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. You know in that verse there's 1000 years difference in them.
Between those two resurrections, but maybe you can give us a little more light on that.
The explanation of that verse because it it's not all the same resurrection.
Is it No2 resurrections? Yeah. But I'm glad you mentioned that because the Christian world is fast trying to say that there's just one, which is going back to the level of light that the Orthodox Jew had.
They have translations that try to take that verse that you just read to us and homogeneity and homogenize it into one resurrection.
As they're trying to do the rapture and they're appearing in other verses like Titus chapter 2 verse 13. I think so it's important to be distinguished these two characters of resurrection is another version of Acts chapter 20 two or three and then it takes the same distinguishes them like that Ken.
See if I can find that now it's Acts 23.
This is Paul.
It's not what I'm looking for.
Yes, Chapter 24. Acts 24.
Verse 15 and have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow that they there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust, showing there's two resurrections altogether.
Might be good to point out too. In First Thessalonians chapter 4 you alluded to those that are.
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Christ that is coming. But in First Thessalonians chapter 4 it says in verse 16 that that the voice with the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise 1St. And so Paul is addressing the Thessalonians Saints and they were those that were Christians and they were concerned about those that had died as Christians.
And being raised to gain and missing the.
Opportunities that they had as living Saints. But when he speaks of those that are dead in Christ really embraces all that were have died in faith. Yeah.
Right from Adam until those very last ones, those martyred Saints.
The Lord is going to raise all of the Saints, and He'll have them all at the manifestation.
The dead in Christ.
Go ahead, say that when we have those 3 phases that make up the whole first resurrection, that is the complete heavenly company that we see in that group. Those that are not part of that are those that are going to live on in the Millennium of earth that's unfurled with people with price codes that are taken up at the rapture and then at the end of the tribulation of the murder state that forms the complete heavenly comfort. And so the closest relationship will be those.
That Live Today during the day of praise with church, but then those that are called for friends in the bridegroom, which will include those Old Testament Saints, those that have martyrs, inventions, and that is the whole having a company. And so when we think of the first resurrection, it's a process, you might say that will take over 2000 years because the Lord Jesus, he was that first truce 2000 years ago. And then when we talked about the resurrection of the unadjusted of the dead, that just at one time event at the end of the Millennium, the great white control and that's a one time event and all those that were not raised.
At the rapture because they were unjust and have not don't have a relationship with God.
At that time to find out their eternal destiny, which will be related to.
In Ephesians chapter 3, what is referred to there as every family in heaven and earth?
What are these families?
It says.
Of whom it says, the whole family in heaven and earth is named, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole or every family I understand, that should be in heaven and earth is named.
You have a word on these families. What is referred to because evidently there are more than one family.
I've I've been taught that it's the angels and it's the Old Testament Saints and it's a New Testament Saints. And so it's different blessings and different families.
That verse is very good to bring up with regard to the air of the Reformed theology which we know as covenant theology was tries to take all of the Saints from all times and all God blessed creatures and poured them into one mold and call them the church.
It shows very clearly that God has different spheres of blessing for different ones that He has chosen into and brought into blessing.
The church is one they were called the Church of the first born ones because we are we are have a preeminent place among all the family of God as far as those who are he has chosen to bless.
And it's a very favorite position by grace alone.
But there are distinctions within the family as you've drawn our attention to, Very important to see that.
Knowing Heaven.
It's part of the price we are in happiness, part of that one family. But then we know there are Old Testament sayings that we're also going to be in heaven with us, but each one of them were dealt with differently. So we look at folks from Adam to say Abraham. They were the friends. God dealt with them differently than man. I should say, actually from patterns, you know what? And then Noah to Abraham was a bit different. Abraham to Moses was a bit different under different dispensation, and then from Moses to the cross. So we see all these step in the process of people.
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And then today we under the day of grace, we're at the church. But then there's still in the future there are going to be martyrs for the gods equal. And then of course, the gospel of the Kingdom will be preached again after the rapture and yet have another family in there. And then today too, we have children perhaps who died before the age of responsibility, but there will be another part of factory and some classical seven. I believe so the magnet about that. But.
Various foods because we know God is a God of love. And when we get the glory, I believe we're going to see more in glory. Maybe not be part of the church, but there will be more things. I know I will see Abraham there.
There may be those two that would be added to that. And when the gospel, the everlasting gospel, goes out to the heathen by the angels, and is that another family? I don't know. But God is so anxious to have all to come in, and whether it's the gospel, the grace of God, the gospel of the Kingdom, the everlasting gospel, or whatever way God means, however man receives God.
As he is identifying himself at that time, he will receive them. And so they go forth as and present the everlasting gospel to the heathen as the God the Creator. And so they will receive God as Creator at that time. So you might say there's another family there.
It's like us going to weddings like.
So many of us been weddings and I don't know if you noticed that various people were going to someone else and say, how come he was invited? Have you ever gone through that? And then we find out, oh, it is. They are probably closer to the family than we are. And remember the 11 Time it was someone asked me that, oh, I'm surprised to see you here. Are you related? I said, yes, that's my nephew's wedding. So sometimes we don't know. All we can say is God is a God of love.
He wants it's meant to be as possible, but we we must remember that the body of Christ, the church is very special.
They're closest to Christ, just like the wife to the husband.
Now there's two classes of Saints that experience this change in our chapter.
The mortal and the corruptible.
We mentioned a couple of days ago what they are. They're repeating the mortal, they're the living Saints. They're alive, but they're subject to death if they exist long enough in this world.
And then there's the corruptible. That's those who have died already and their bodies are corrupting in the grave. So he says in this 53rd verse, for this corruptible must put on incorruption, that would be resurrection. And this mortal shall be put on immortality. That's not resurrection.
But it is a change.
If the Lord was to come this afternoon and call us all the way, we don't experience resurrection. We never died, so how would we need to be raised again? But we do need glorification. So my father and mother and all the other Saints that you and your own love to your loved ones have gone on before they experience resurrection.
We experienced glorification with them. They they get resurrection and glorification and we're all going to be snatched away together as one company.
And it's a two fold victory, as he says here in a political way in verse 55. Oh death, where is thy sting? O grave should be, O Hades, where is thy victory? So death is what claims the body.
Hades holds the soul and spirit, but there's a two fold victory over the grave and over Hades. Hades coughs up the souls and spirits, so to speak. When I make it, a grave coughs up and where there's going to be a reunion of the soul and the spirit with the body and I glorified condition. And then we're translated to heaven, which is not taken up in this chapter, but we know what will happen at the same time.
So it's a two fold victory and time is running out here. But we do need to say that these things are not just facts and theories and interesting details which we can intrigue ourselves with. It has practical ramifications. Sometimes we cry out there's not enough practical ministry. Well, it gets very practical in the last two verses of the chapter. It should produce two effects. First of all, Thanksgiving, appreciation for what has been done. Thanks the under God which giveth us this victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And the second thing it should produce is energy in the service of the Lord. Verse 258 Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as you know that your labor should not be in vain or is not in vain in the Lord, it should get us busy in the things of God, spreading the truth, spreading the gospel, building up the Saints in the most holy faith, shepherding, feeding the flock, and so on, and so on and so on.
These things have a practical effect on our lives if they're absorbed and understood and appreciated properly. Is that right?
Quite a difference to the end of verse 32 where it says if after the manner of men I have thought would be said if Ephesus, what advantages to me if the dead rise not let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. That would be the opposite to what we get at the end of our chapter. And that would be the only the only that would be the only thing to do if this is people say if you only have one time around, get the Costco and that's really true, but it's not real.
That's why we have this the word of God and what's such a wonderful blessings to be a Christian. But the man of the world that's intelligence. That's that's what he should be doing. You know, just don't do anything that would cramp your style. You don't want to be put in jail then you can't do all these things, but you know, it's and that's what he's doing and that's what he's doing. But what a hope we have another thing I was thinking about as because we pretty much exhausted this chapter.
But.
Someone said that one of those families would be the babies that had died but and I thought that too, but until one brother told me we shall be like him.
Well, there is The Lord isn't a baby. And those will they will be adults there, won't they?
They'll be intelligible. All those boarded babies will be. They'll be intelligent beings. But isn't that Speaking of the type of body?
Not the physical size of the body.
I don't know. They shall be like him and he will have glorified.
Whether we're small or big, well.
Might be good to just comment on Hebrews chapter 2 verse 14 that.
For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy or annull him that had the power of death. That is the devil so, and deliver them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to *******. So we have been delivered from the fear of death, the King of Terrors, as it was called in the Book of Job. But.
The power of death. The sting of death.
Is really gone for the believer his he's not held in fear by death, and death is really only a servant to bring him into the presence of the Lord. And so while it's not abolished at the present time, it is annulled the power of it.
I think I know what Brother Vern was alluding to.
I'm a little slow with my deduction.
You must be referring to the fact that the Saints are viewed in the final book of the Bible, Revelation, as the 24 elders. Elders bring before us the thought of maturity. The Saints will all be mature in that day of glorification. That's why Chuck Hendricks used to say he didn't like that children's song. I said around the throne and heaven will many children sing. You know, children in heaven, they'll all be grown. Full return. Yeah, right.
Is that what you mean? Yeah, yeah, I just threw that in so Well, there's a verse that tells us in Psalm 110 that the Lord will be when we see him, when he is glorified state, when that day could be today. We're going to see him in the dew of his youth.
And he said we're going to be made like him. We will be in the dew of our use, only in a glorified state. So you're not going to see Robert with his bald head when it comes up there, and you're not going to see me with my shocked white hair. I'm going to be in the dew of my youth. And so is Robert and all the rest of us because we're going to be like him, just like him. Yet we'll still bear our individuality.
Well, with the believer, when he leaves this world he begins to live, whereas the one who leaves this world without Christ, he's dead in sins shall we sing #94 #94?
01:00:22
The Lord is risen indeed.
01:05:38
And right just answer.
To grace question to die.
Can it be when all these blessings can it be?
OK.
While the father thanked me with enforcement. So if you've had.
Explain that the best is yet to come.
We can look on but.
Ambassadors