Responsibility in God's House

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Address—A. Barry
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Are singing hymns 330?
What raised the wondrous thought?
Or who did it suggest that we, the Church, the glory brought his wifes, the Son be blessed? Oh God, the thought was thine, thine only it could be.
Who did their wisdom love Divine security unto thee?
For sure no other minds or thoughts.
So bold, so free, greatness or strength that ever signs thine only it could be.
The motive to Thine owns the plan the council Thine made her eyes from bone of his bones and glory strikes to shine.
Oh God, with great delight, I wonder thought to see.
On his throne and glory bright the bride of Christ. For these the olds of the Holy Ghost, we triumph in that love.
Thy wondrous thought has made our boats glory with Christ above.
Oh.
Let us turn to the third chapter of First Timothy.
The 14th verdict.
First Timothy.
Chapter 3 and verse 14.
These things are right unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly.
But if I carry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave, I felt.
In the House of God.
Which is the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, and without controversy.
Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit scene of angels. Please Son of the Gentiles believed on in the world.
Received up into glory.
I have before me, beloved Saints.
To first bring a few slots about the church.
And then to speak.
About our behavior in the House of God.
Now Paul was leaving.
Timothy.
Or he had.
Parted from him.
And he is concerned about the way this young man conducted himself during his absence.
Well, whenever was a more devoted.
Young Believers and Timothy.
And yet he had to be exhorted. He needed to be admonished.
Just as we all need to be admonished, young and old.
And he speaks of the church here as the pillar and ground of the truth. It's really the pillar and support of the truth, just like this pillar here. We put some important objects upon it. It would support it.
Now, the church isn't set here in this Dark World to make the world better.
Or to improve society or make this a better place to live.
But the word is set here to support the truth. Truth, beloved.
It says it's the pillar and support of the truth.
And then he tells us what the truth is.
Where he says great is the mystery, and he gives us life of the Lord Jesus and the Manger to the glory into which he has entered. That's the truth. Christ himself is the truth. And so the Church has been set here.
To.
Fight the whole new month to be a testimony turned in those dark.
Recently I've been asked the question by Sexual Elections 1 gathered to the Lord's name, other a dear Christian not gathered to the law. As to why those not perform marriages. You may think I'm getting a little off of my subject.
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But you are replying to the dear ones.
I told him this.
That I'm gathered.
To the Lord's name on the ground of the one body.
And that the only membership I hold in this world.
Is membership in the body of Christ?
Say now if I take the ground some are taking that I could get a license then, but that would be the stand I would be denying.
The most precious.
Church of God has for his people.
And that is that the church one body.
Because I would be saying and taking our name, so we may be called that officially. I'd be taking that name as I vilifying myself. In other words, I I'd be just making a vision in the Church of God, which would be a very serious thing.
All the other things that you and I.
Have that Mystic body called the Church.
Because the Lord went back to heaven, 10 days later he sent the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit suddenly came upon a company of about 120 others.
And that was the birthday of the church. Are all formed into one for the same Spirit and his dwelling place, and each believer was present there.
And that very day to party the sermon so powerful and 3000 and they were all out to that company. And then at the end we read that the Lord added to the church.
The daily such as should be saved.
But how are you and I in this case?
To have a place.
In that body.
If you turn with me to the first chapter of these seasons.
I read in the 13th verse, In whom ye also trusted. After that he heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also after that he believes.
Ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchase, possession of the trees of His glory.
What is the Gospel? Well, the apostle tells us the Gospel is how Christ died for our sins, that he was buried and that he rose again the 3rd day, and that he was seen in Venice, the apostles throwing in the glory.
Have you believed the Gospel beloved trends that Christ died for your sins?
Have you ever been in God's presence about?
That thin question that would surely take you to hell if it's not better.
Well, if you have believed that gospel about Christ is death on the cross.
His resurrection, if you have accepted him, that risen man.
Then you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in me.
And if you look now at the.
The 12Th chapter, First Corinthians.
And the 13th verse the apostle says therefore by 1 spirit.
Are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bonds or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit? For the body is not one member, but many.
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We saw that when the Spirit of God came down at Santa's cross, He formed the body.
That was the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
We do get the compliment of that baptism and the House of Cornelius, where a whole company of Gentiles were saved at one time. And it tells us that while Peter speak these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all in the third.
So then the Gentiles were brought into the body.
And there will never be another baptism of the Spirit of God.
When they were in prayer, after they were persecuted for their testimony, it tells us that the house was shaken where they were assembled together.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.
Just as all the Spirit of God took that house and shook it, and he says I'm here, I'm with you. He doesn't have to come down again as another baptism, but he reminds them that he is their present with them.
There between you all of course, center accepted the gospel or if you haven't accepted this, if you're accepted this very moment, then the Spirit of God will put you into that one body. You see, he doesn't say by 1 spirit are we being baptized, but by 1 Spirit are we all baptized. That is, you're just brought into by the Spirit that is.
Formed on the day of Pentecost.
I like this illustration I read years ago very much.
Come on illustrates the formation of the church like a pond, and their reeds growing all through this pond. And someone takes the stone and throws it right into the middle.
And it causes a great commotion. The water flies high in the air. And from that commotion there are rings, forms. You've seen that one.
Any of you have thrown a stone at the Waterhouse, a circle of rings is formed and it goes wider and wider and as those rings.
Are going rider, it takes in more and more of the reeds until it has a last ring, covers the whole palm and takes in all the reeds. So when the work of the Spirit of God and gatherings.
To a rejected Christ is complete. Then the bridegroom comes and the church is taken away from the scene. And we might say too, that likes the song that's thrown into the water, it comes with a mighty force. So at the beginning there was a mighty commotion when the Spirit of God.
Have.
Worked in such power there in Jerusalem.
And the last as we realize the the rings as they go slider, they become weaker and weaker.
We don't see Pentecostal power in the way they thought at the beginning, but our service also beloved the fire, will never see Pentecostal power. We can be.
In a Pentecostal position.
That is, we can be just as truly gathered to the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, on this day.
As we were gathered in that day.
Very often you have where faced with this.
This question as to why.
We can't there. We should not go to other places among other groups of Christians.
And perhaps someone says to you or me.
I'll go, I'll go with, I'll go to your meeting on this occasion or this night.
And then you go with me.
To my meeting some other night.
I guess this illustration or this explanation from our brother Steve Brown.
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And his reply is this.
For the one who is talking with you, it means little difference where they go.
That has the stands or the position we take, that we are gathered on the ground of the one body.
To go anywhere would be to deny our position and if we're if we're upright, we'll have to say to that one.
I thought you asked me to do is very convenient and nothing that had violates your conscience. But with me I stand for the truth of the one body.
And if you ask me, to go elsewhere would be to deny the truth by whole so dear or so very important.
I think we have an illustration of in connection with whether we should go on with divisions or no. The first time was called attention to what the apostle Paul tells us in the first chapter of First Corinthians.
He says on the 11Th verse.
For it has been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are the houses, for that there are contentions among you. And if I say that every one of you said I'm a Paul, I'm a Paulus, and I Christ, and I, and I of Apollo, and I of thesis, and I Christ. Now here's apostles answer.
Is Christ divided?
You can no more have a divided church in the mind of God.
Our divided church in the mind of God. Then you can have a divided Christ.
Someone said to our dear brother Potter.
Well, the testimony is all broken up today.
That we can't say anymore. There is just one place where the Spirit of God is gathering souls to the person of Christ.
The old brother replied. It doesn't seem to bother you very much. And that's the word he gave and left to the conscience.
It seems to me it's very much like the case of those two mothers with kings of Thalam.
At the beginning of his reign.
How they each had a child and one mother overlay her child and the child died in the night.
And so she took the living child out of the bosom of the other mother, and put the dead child.
Left with her.
And you know what Solomon said? Because they both claimed the child. So Solomon says, bring me a sword. And he says we'll divide the child and give half of it to one woman and half it to the other.
Well, the one to whom the child belongs.
Bow yearn for her little 10. She says no, let the other woman have it. Don't play the child. The other woman says, oh, divide the child, that's all right. And the sovereign says there is the real mother, the one who loved that child. It was soon stolen.
By her affection that she could not think of such a thing as dividing.
The object of her affections. And beloved, isn't that a word for you and me?
We want to see a divided Christ.
Does it mean nothing to us?
Are we going to be like that callous mother to slay the child to settle this dispute?
Oh no, beloved.
And hand these closing days, God in his wondrous grace has restored.
The precious truth of the Church.
As one body see, at one time they were nothing but organizations of men.
And questions on this so that those organizations that when.
The.
Those who search the word found that the church was not an organization.
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By then they began to break bread just as members of the body of Christ.
And as they remembered the Lord in that simple way, they found that other companies of Christians were gathering in the same way, and they immediately united wherever they found the company gathered in that way.
They live together.
As members of the body of Christ.
And in that 12Th chapter of First Corinthians from which we were quoting, we have a verse in the 18th of that chapter. It says that now have God sets the members.
Every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him.
Now if I go and join some spects of men, what have I done?
I have gone and joined something the Spirit of God has nothing to do with. He doesn't baptize Christians into 1500. Different bodies scattered throughout Christmas.
He baptizes into one.
Or he sets the members in one body.
Marvelous the weather that that in the midst of all the confusion and all the wreck and havoc that the enemy has brought in, that we can still gather on divine ground and have the center.
Tell even Christ in the midst.
Our brother Brown sometimes. Brother Chapter Brown sometimes.
Speaks in this way.
That there's even among so-called brethren who say, well, you know, there's so many divisions among.
Those who have come out from systems.
So now we can't say that one place is any different from another. There isn't anyone place.
For his reply is this. God tells us in his words that there is one body.
And he tells us that there's one gathering Center for his people.
Where two or three are gathered together under my name, there am I in the midst of them.
One body, one spirit, 1 hope of your calling, and we're told to endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit and the uniting bond of peace.
Tells us that there is a place, and for those there, then we look for the place and there isn't such a place. According to the argument of many, they say there wasn't any such place anymore, that you can go maybe to a dozen different places right in the same community, and one's just as much gathered to the Lord's name as the other.
Where is that God's way to tell us there's a place? And then when we look for the place.
We discover there isn't such a place. It would be almost blasphemous to connect God.
With.
Such a treatment of his people as us.
All know, Beloved, is just as true to the day as it was when the apostles penned those words.
There is one box.
And how precious we can meet on the ground of the Church of God, which is the.
Person of Christ himself, gathering his people together.
Knowing that verse where two or three are gathered doesn't say they gather themselves, they're gathered by the Spirit of God.
Into one center that.
God has for his people down here.
And when thus gathered, we hear the Lord saying, There am I in the midst of them?
But beloved, in taking up the verse, I read in First Timothy, the third chapter.
There's a responsibility.
That goes with.
The truth that has been dropped before.
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You know, we might get a line of things that then seeking to prevent that there is definitely a place.
On this earth where the Lord has put His name, we might be perfectly clear.
And there could be those who faithfully can continuously go on that place. We wouldn't think of going anywhere else.
And yet there won't be very sadly inconsistent.
With that place and that position.
And so we need not only the truth of the Church, but we need the Apostles word here, if I carry long, that thou may have know how thou Artest to behave thyself.
In the House of God, which is the Church of the living God.
A church who looked at in two ways has looked at as a body, and it's also looked at as a house.
When we look at the Church of the House.
Everything is perfect.
Because each member is.
Placed in the body of Christ by the wisdom of God.
So that one member cannot say to another member. I have no need of these.
So everything, as God sees it in the body is a perfect body, united by the Spirit to Christ, who is the exerted heaven glory.
But then there is the house view of the church.
And that's where responsibility comes in. So you see, when Timothy is is cautioned how he ought to behave himself, it's in the House of God.
How you doing? You never discipline the members of your body. If your hand makes a slip when you're writing, you don't chastise your hand for that slip.
Hello out of the that wouldn't do.
But you do, if you have a family discipline, then members of your house.
So that has to do with ordering, that has to do with conduct.
So we find that, Timothy.
Is told. How about orders to behave thyself?
In the House of God.
And there are, it doesn't just.
In the morning meeting that our conduct is in question.
We might be going on in a very careless way.
Very wrongly, and yet come encrypted in a very orderly, proper way at the meeting.
And even give out hymns and take part.
You see, when the apostle.
About his behavior in the House of God that takes in not only large days, but it takes him every day of the week.
Are we behaving ourselves because we're in the House of God?
What kind of conduct is our in connections with such a lawless truths as we have in vain before us in connection with that wonderful?
Marvelous church that is being formed by the Spirit of God in this world.
Where do we spend our?
Leisure hours.
You know there is such.
A tendency in this day of prosperity and and the cities that are growing up to have.
A community world.
Everybody joins in together.
Or as a federal danger to go in with the neighborhood in which you live.
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And the farm associations among those who are in the world.
We need to be reminded the lovers of the apostles when they were being persecuted, it says. Being let go, they went to their own company.
You receive every opportunity to be among God's people.
Do you think of the every meeting that is possible to attend? Sometimes we find those that get so engrossed in their occupations that you only see them at the breaking of bread.
For some reason it seems that that's the last meeting to think will ever give up is the breaking of bread or they want to hold, they want to be identified with a company like this.
And it's quite a truth to be the big meeting such as is held here.
So what about the term meeting?
You have a reading meeting too. Are you up to those little meetings?
There may be only a few are present.
How easy it is to to to neglect?
The opportunities that are so valuable and so important.
And what about the office where you work? You go in with the social life of the office.
There's always outside of things of social life coming in.
I never forget their brother I knew in Montreal, Henry Morgan, when he went there, when he got a raise in his in the CPR.
Railroad office, when he went into this new office, among a lot of men, he just held up his Bible like this. He was quite a tall man. He says, man, that's what I stand for. He took his stands right at the start and he was standing firm by the word of God.
Very important dear friends and many young people here.
To take a stand right at the beginning.
Of your business life.
So you see, our behavior has to do whether we're we're going into the world in any phase or form, picking up those worldly companions and going into worldly things.
What we need to remember to be lauded that the world isn't the only enemy the Christian has. We have three enemies.
The world and the place and the devil.
Whatever comes in in his subtle way.
There have been groups of Christians who were meeting.
In in a thoroughly unworldly way.
And they are dressed in their department would mark them out AS2 Christians.
Or that the devil saw his opportunities and he brought in false doctrines from companies that were once with us, were defiled and corrupted.
My doctrine that Christ wasn't the eternal Son.
Brought into the midst of gods of those people in a very clever way, so it was hard to detect.
Just what the?
Bad teaching actually was.
And we see Harrah's by allowing any false doctrine, anything that concerns the glory of the Person of Christ.
To have any influence, we cannot compromise with anything to love us that brings this honor on the glorious, blessed Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
All right, another way. The enemy attacks the Saints and then perhaps.
That enemy called a slave.
Is the is the hardest to detect of all our enemies because the place is that evil thing within it?
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And we can easily deceive ourselves in thinking that we're acting for the Lord, when in reality.
Just the energy of the old nature. Our hearts are so subtle, beloved.
Unless there is that in connection with our walking ways that is in agreement with that, Brother Smith was telling us this afternoon.
Devotedness to Christ.
Christ being everything, the enemy can do nothing when Christ is first in our lives.
When he is the supreme object. When he is All in all. Whenever Satan meets a believer that is full of Christ.
With one full desire to please that blessed One, he has met his deceit.
He can do nothing against when he meets Christ and Christ in the believer.
As a deliverance from every attack of the.
Of the flesh and all the enemies.
I've heard impressed yesterday when Brother Smith was speaking about self will.
That's the place.
We might be going on very properly.
And know a lot of the scriptures and they have to be able to talk fluently on the word that if we allow self will to come in.
Our accuracy to take any advice or expectation perhaps from our brethren.
Especially our older brethren who have been walking in the truth, we're putting ourselves in a very serious and dangerous.
Polarization because.
Because these things grow and fastware becomes of such a subtle nature that it can do more harm than a lot of world. And this might do among God's people. One who is unyielding and just determined to have his own way among God's people can.
Have for the testimony, and bring dishonor on the Lord's name that is of the most common character.
Let's be careful the love about that enemy within.
That which is called the flesh.
That sinful nature with which we were born, which is not subject to the law of God, and as the apostle tells us, neither indeed can be.
We live in an age when small standards are being abandoned.
In my short life.
I have seen the giving up of moral principles that even people of the world once stood for.
Things that are accepted as a part of our 20th century.
Age.
Has has allowed or condemned that would have shocked people 50 or 60 years ago.
It's a certain day in which we're living beloved because we're fast coming on through the time like it was.
And Sovereign.
Or before the Lord comes back, he's going to find this world of great Sodom and demol. And he says, as it was in the days of love, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man.
And we have to be on our guard indeed, that brings in this word, if I carry along, that thou may have know how thou artists to behave thyself in the House of God.
Because we're living down as Morris standards.
Unless we're following the Lord in obedience to his words, if we listen to the advice of our.
Have teachers and professors and the those who are leading the Society of today. We are far right under the terrible corruption of immorality that's increasing on every side.
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Now I can show you a verse in this right in this epistle.
That will preserve our dear young people and the older brethren too, because remember, the flash is just as much.
And on earth, faint as it is in the young Saints turn there. Just looked at the 5th chapter of the same official for a moment.
If there's reviews not an elder, it should read rebuke not an elder sharply.
That's an important word.
I've seen people go astray by not regarding that word. God does have elders, souls who are in the place of responsibility and we need to treat them.
With due respect.
Because of their age and their maturity and their rightness of years.
But an elder can fail, and sometimes an elder has to be taken to pass. But it's Timothy, a young brother was told. You mustn't reduce him sharply, and it's only before two or three witnesses in the last part of the chapter.
But intrigued him as a father. Lovely that is now here. While I was especially wanting to call attention to and the younger men as brethren.
Brothers, I'm so happy to see many of you here going on.
And that brotherly companionship which is so precious to the heart of site to look down and see. So just talking about how I can drive the car, what a wonderful.
Pick up your car has and a lot of other things that could easily just absorb your minds and fill up your time and your interests.
But he says the younger men as well. And remember, we're brothers in Christ.
And then he says the elder women as and the and the elder women as mothers and the younger as sisters.
With all purity.
You know, beloved, if this scripture was.
Was submitted to.
Would never be a case of immorality breaking out among us.
For it says the younger women as sisters.
And their young brothers.
Until you're persuaded in your that some young lady is the one that the Lord would have you.
To take care of your wife.
Treat the young, the young women, as sisters.
Just like you treat your own sisters and your own family and you'll never go wrong if you carry that out and then.
The other women as mothers.
Or, sad to say, and we were better.
Can fail in this respect.
How do we treat our mothers?
Or we look up to them, we respect them, and when that respect is shown to the elders as mothers and to the younger women as sisters.
There is a preserving.
Power here keep us from.
That which will cause such uncertainty.
And shame, dishonor to the Lords blessed name.
And all Solomon allowed one night.
When he allowed the flesh to to overcome him.
To leave behind the animal blemish which is following.
That dear man, even to this day people talk about the sin of David.
He wasn't sure in communion. He was out of communion and the place when one is out of communions.
Cannot be trusted. And he also brought upon himself a government of God. For the prophet told him that the sword shall never depart from my house. He had to bow to it, and by a little unfaithfulness.
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We can bring a blemish into our lives and we cannot.
Be spared from the effects of that blemish we have brought upon ourselves. The name of David carries that blemish to this very moment.
Where may the Lord's preservative stand? In closing, I would like to just speak a few words.
On the 5th chapter of his season.
The 25th verse cousins love your wife Ephesians 5 and 25 husbands love your wives even have Christ also loved the church and gave himself toys that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the words.
That he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spouter wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy without blame.
So that is when we think of hop for weak things, we are in ourselves. We can't keep ourselves.
Left to ourselves.
With all regardless of the how long we have continued in the in the pathway make abysmal failure.
Then how precious to know that there is one who loves the church.
And all beloved, such as his love, that he gave himself for that object.
And since he gave himself, that says that.
That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the rushing of water by the Word.
Thank you for all means to separate. We're talking about separation from the world.
But you can't separate yourself from the world in your own strength.
But I of course have his place.
If you're enjoying Christ.
If His word has a place in your home and in your life, the community.
Activities will not get an inroad into your life.
If Christ has his place.
And the leather, even with all the desire we may have.
Before to carry out this instruction as we speak at this moment.
It's only because.
That he that blessed head of the Church.
Is sanctifying and cleansing the church by the rushing of water by the Word?
Or how we owe everything to that blessed one and think that this moment I've just.
His service on your behalf, how He's serving you at this very moment to keep you from the very things that we're so far only warned against. And beloved, when we reach the shores of eternal glory.
We all have nothing to boast of Once there I.
We choose this, and I judge that you'll be like petery, you know, when he sought to walk on the water.
And got his eye off of Christ. The Lord immediately appeared and caught Peter and said there's a little face suffered inside that. And then Peter went hand in hand with the blessed Lord into the boat.
And he couldn't bear to the other disciples how he walked on the water. All he could both serve would be that one that caught him before he spanked under the waves for his heart. All to him, if it hadn't been for his grace.
Howard have Paris, I wouldn't be with you at this moment you'd have to give him all the glow and for my supreme desire for his woman whose whose faces I'm looking is the rather keep Christ before you learn Christ.
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Farah, Christ.
May indeed say in the language of that little hymn, him first, him last, him all day long.
Or how we need to have more and more faith.
Before our schools.
And that's his work. As we're occupied with him, he keeps our feet. As it tells us I will keep the feet of rising.
I will rejoice to think of His grace just keeping grace to us along the way.
And now I know that I'm given an hour and a half to speak, but I don't feel that I could fill in any more time possibly.
And so if the environment is expected to fill in another half hour, you'll have to excuse me.
I feel that the Lord has given me just.
They are, they are, man, that I have brought before you and so.
And so we'll just close with, I think it's the 36th hymn of the appendix.
We go to meet the failure His glorious faith to see what manner of behavior does with this purple green. May God's illumination guide heart and Walker right As for our preparation be pleasing in His vice.
#36 In the back of the book we go to America.