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Verse 24.
For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen, not hope. For what a man seeth, Why doth he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patients wait for it.
Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. But we know not what we should pray for as we ought.
But the Spirit itself make it intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God.
And we know that all things work together for good.
To them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren.
Moreover, who he did predestinate, then he also called, and whom he called, then he also justified, and whom he justified.
Then he also glorified.
What shall we then say to these things if God before us? Who can be against us?
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yeah, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written?
For thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Said that, hope is an indispensable quality of life. And really, we live for hope, don't we? Even in natural things, we If you're sick or going through a difficult circumstance, you can get through today because there's always hope that things tomorrow will be better. You're going through pain, and the doctor comes in with some medication. You grit your teeth and bear the pain because you know you're hoping that the medication will take effect in a few hours or a couple of days.
And things are going to get better. And so we live for hope. But the hope here is not hope in the sense of which we usually use the word hope. Because hope connected with the first man and with this life, as you say, is uncertainty at best. There's many things we've hoped for in our lives, and they've never come to fruition. And wouldn't we be presumptuous, brethren, if we sat in these chairs this morning and said beyond the shadow of a doubt?
We are going to return to our homes later today or those who are traveling, perhaps tomorrow.
You'd say that's presumptuous. We hope to, but we use the word hope in these in connection with things in this life, in the sense that we would like it to happen. But we know that there are variables that may cause it not to happen, or at least to happen on the timetable that we had had planned. But hope connected with Christ and the next life is in no way uncertainty.
It's only hope in the sense that we're not in the full good and reality of it yet.
And so in the preceding verses, we've taken up in these the preceding 2 meeting meetings, that which is yet ahead, that which is ahead for the believer, that which is a head for all creation in connection with redemption and so on. And he says here we're saved by hope in the measure in which this hope which is sure and steadfast as we get in Hebrews Chapter 6.
In the measure in which this hope is a reality in our souls, rather we're going to be preserved to go on in the path of faith and service. We've already quoted it in a private meeting. But again, when he speaks of our hope in first John chapter 3, of being with and like Christ and appearing with him and so on, then he says every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.
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So our hope is sure and steadfast.
There's no question about it. But it's hope, as I say, in the sense that we're not in the full good and reality of it yet. What a man hath, why does he yet hope for now a guide of faith, hope and love? But the greatest of these is love, because when we are in the full reality of these things, we're not going to need faith and we're not going to need hope. Our hope is going to be realized.
It helps to see that in Mr. Darby's translation is we are saved in Hull. And So what you mentioned brother, we're saved by grace, that's the means by which we're saved. But when we are saved, we are saved in hope. In other words, like you were mentioning Jim, we don't have the full realization of what our faith is going to bring us into. But that's our home. So we're saved in hope of.
What we were talking about yesterday the adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Let me use the simplest illustration possible. We'll suppose there's a boy or a girl here, and they've requested something for their next birthday, something very special, something that they've been hoping to have for a long time. And we'll suppose that mother and father come and they say to to you, we've secured that gift for you and we've put it away in a safe place until the proper moment, until your birthday.
And the morning of your birthday, the gift is all secured and it's ready. And so you're not in the full possession of it yet, but you're living in hope, aren't you? Now, again, it's not a question of whether you're going to get it or not. The assurance that it's been secured and put away is there. But in that sense, you're living in hope. You're looking forward to the day when you're going to have that gift brought out and placed in your hand. And that maybe helps us in a simple way to understand what we're saying.
It's all been secured.
The work of redemption, the resurrection, the ascension of Christ has secured it all. That's really why He says in Hebrews 6, where He speaks of our hope as sure and steadfast He presents to us Christ as the forerunner. If you ever have doubts as to your hope and what's ahead, just look up by faith and see where the forerunner is now. The forerunner is seated at the right hand of God.
And the fact that God has received him back there, having accomplished the work of redemption, and that the Lord Jesus as a man has already entered into heaven, is the assurance of the fact that everything is going to be brought to fruition according to God's purposes in the coming day. God now having raised his Son from the dead and received him back into heaven, God cannot, I speak reverently, go back on His promises.
And that's why, in the context there, he speaks of that hope, which hope we have as an anchor, the soul, both sure and steadfast. No other hope on earth could we speak of a sure and steadfast, but the hope of what is ahead is certainly that.
Isn't that why in the 12Th chapter it says we rejoice in hope? Very good.
And in the meantime we have verse 26.
We still have infirmities, but.
Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth in our infirmities.
For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
So the Spirit of God who dwells in us, we have help to go through.
Infirmities.
For the present time, what a wonderful provision for us, brethren, in the meantime that we are still in these bodies.
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It's good to realize that part of the path of faith and the life of faith is the opportunity of God to teach us things that we could not learn in heaven.
There are many things, brethren, that we are learning to know our God. We are learning to know our Lord Jesus.
That we will not or could not burn them in heaven.
And so we will look back when we get home with tremendous gratitude on having learned to know our God through the experiences of this life in things that.
We would not know if we did not pass through them.
I'll name a few of them that are just in this these couple of verses here notice in verse 20.
Five is refers to we expect in patients.
You'll never learn God as a God of patience when you get to heaven. There will be absolutely nothing in heaven that will be any need to exercise on God's part with respect to us. Patience.
But our God is a God of patience. We've had in this chapter the matter of comfort.
There'll be nothing in heaven that will require God to give you or I any comfort.
But we are presently learning to know our God as a God of comfort, and we only learn it through the experiences of this life to know Him in that way.
Now we know by faith we have the assurance of faith of these hopes.
But in heaven, there won't be anything that we would look to God and say, does God keep his promises?
Does God keep his promises? Is he a God but a promise keeping God?
By giving us hope now in things that we don't yet see, but he has promised to us and assured to what? To faith. Then we are getting to know our God is the God of that keeps promise. That does what he says he will do. But now to have it the enjoyment of it, requires the present exercise of faith, but in that character of faith when we get to heaven.
We won't exercise it, we won't need it. As Jim already said, it will already be realized and so on. We had in the next verse just one more. And the number of them, if you stop and count them up, is a very large number. I don't know if you can count it of the ways in which God is only being known or can be learned in this life.
And the next one is we have in the next verse the Spirit of God is an intercessor. Later on in the chapter we have more Jesus as an intercessor. Are you going to need the Spirit of God in intercession when you get to heaven? No, but you get to learn him now in that character and in that capacity, and you'll appreciate it for eternity. Will you know the Lord Jesus in heaven as an intercessor? No, not for you.
And yet now we get to learn his heart and his set later for us as an intercessor.
But we will look back on all these things from the eternal perspective, and we'll say all those things work together for good.
Every one of those details in my life that exercise those characteristics of God, those virtues, those power of God on my behalf.
Will be eternally remembered, eternally valued, eternally A cause of Thanksgiving and praise to him, and we will be able, in a fuller sense of the word, to say.
Just like to say a few words again back.
On what hope is, I was recently trying to explain that the the concept of folk to a young brother and the Lord brought before me the experience that this country has gone through in the last three to four years regarding the promise of hope.
There was a presidential campaign. That was when it was based upon the concept of hope for this country.
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And it was. It was given to the country as as something to look forward to the prospect of a brighter future, and it was based upon the ability for basically one man or one party to perform.
And unfortunately.
That was a prospect that was set forth.
Where the individual that was promising.
Relief and blessing was not really able to perform. And so it was a it was a baseless, hopeless hope that was presented. It was. It was actually.
Perform.
But it is not so with the hope that we are Speaking of here.
Our hope is not built upon the frailty of man.
To to produce.
It is built upon God.
Who is able to perform everything that he has promised. And that is the reason why I'm told is so sure. That is the reason why we can rejoice in hope, because that hope is coming from, has been promised to us, has been given to us by one who cannot fail.
And it's so wonderful for us to be able to speak about hope in these meetings in such a greater context than.
The natural man thinks of hope and change and things like that.
In in that regards, Phil, I I I think that probably these people that make these promises for hope do it on an idealistic measure.
That is, they have good ideals and they're right. They're right proposals, they're right ideals that they would wish to obtain.
And so I believe we as Christians can fall into that is not the.
Position that the Christian is we all in our family, our assemblies. We may have these things that we know are the good thing for everybody to have and seek to have a in your life.
You're a young parent. You say, oh, I'm going to raise these children. I want to do this, or I'm going to do my job. And you have good ideals. You know what the Bible says is right and you seek for that.
But it doesn't turn out.
We can't live our life just on the ideals that we have. We have to come to the Lord and to He is the one who can follow through with those things. And sometimes we find out, or maybe I should say many times we find out, that what we thought would be idealistic wasn't God's purpose.
And that he does have it, and he works it out, and we find it sometimes later on in our lives, that what we thought we the Lord would do in our life is not exactly what.
God had planned.
Isn't it wonderful, brethren, that when it that it's not, it's all right to have these things and go to the Lord about it, but not to base your faith on that?
The lower the spirit.
We know not what we should pray for as we walk ought. Sometimes we pray for the wrong thing even.
Isn't it wonderful that the Lord doesn't answer our wrong prayers and the Spirit doesn't intercede wrongly? So there's the eye perfect ideal and it's God's and God will perform it. To get a hold of that in your soul practically as you go through life is is a great secret and help.
To turn your It's all right to have purposes and seek for them, but if the Lord will.
And then wait on the Lord about these things and when he changes things like say yes, Lord, thank you.
God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth. And I think that is so great Doug in verse 28 that is in this section.
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It says we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, and then this part is sometimes forgotten to them who are called according to his purpose. In other words, God is doing in our lives what so often we do not understand at the moment.
So I'm amazed brother, as they travel around and see problems amongst God's people.
They get so tremendously complex, I have no clue what's going on and what God has in mind about it. And so it's happened so often that we don't even know how to ask. What do you do when you don't know how to ask?
And I think that's where it comes in verse 26.
The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
We can grow them, brother.
Things are not the way God means them to be, but God is working, and He's working in view of His eternal purposes.
You mentioned Doug, we have purposes related to life down here.
And they might be all good purposes not criticizing that.
But God's thoughts are beyond our thoughts. And brethren, let's not limit God's thoughts.
By.
Our small thoughts when God is working.
So often we don't understand what he is doing and so the Spirit then makes intercessions for us. In verse 27 it says he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit because he makes intercession.
For the Saints according to God.
William is there in italics.
So he makes intercession.
For the Saints according to God.
You know, I often think in connection with these verses of the case of Joseph.
Whose beautiful story we have in Genesis.
And as Joseph left his father's house when he was 17 years old to go to see his brethren.
He doesn't realize that he wasn't going to see his father again for 22 years.
And for thirteen of those years.
Everything seemed to go wrong.
I mean majorly wrong. What did Joseph done that things would go so wrong? Well, maybe you could say.
The stories those dreams he told kind of provoked his brother, and it may be so, but.
That things would go that wrong and he'd be sold as a slave, get down to Egypt and doing things rightly in his master's house. He gets falsely accused and lands in prison, and they're in prison. He's forgotten, I mean.
I'm amazed that Joseph didn't give up, but God had his purposes, brother. And if things are going wrong in your life, remember God has his purposes.
And his purposes are greater than our purposes. Oh, what a wonderful God we have. And let's not give up when things seem to go the wrong direction.
They're not the wrong direction as far as God's concerned. He has purposes and He is working his eternal purposes.
We live in a world where man glories in his purposes, but it's God's purpose that he's working in us now. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to have a sense of that in our souls.
God gave Joseph some to know those purposes in those dreams, the very dreams that provoked the enemy of the the envy of his brethren.
Would have been.
The the hope that Joseph had that one day his brethren would bow down to him, he could have had that, that whole history. That's exactly what we have in our chapter here. God has told us His purposes. And so it helps us go through all this down here because we know the end of the story.
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Well, when it says here likewise, the Spirit also helps our infirmities.
Sometimes we hear that a safe person commits suicide.
Now what happened to them? I compared sometimes.
With a fuse goes out in our house, everything's dark.
Everything is just dark. It's everything quit when the fuse goes out. So what we have to do, we have to replace a fuse.
But then if something like that happens, well.
What did we do wrong?
In that House, we know what could have been done. We could have changed our views ahead of time, expecting that it might go out all the connections.
That go to our fuses.
Have to be we know those who are that field, they know what to do, and that can be prevented. Now we ought to do we ought to know, in a case like this also how to.
Prevent these things.
And how would we do that?
Turn over to a verse and are there on enrollments.
In verse Chapter 11.
And verse 33.
All of the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways?
Past finding out.
For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who hath first given to him? And it shall be recompensed unto him again. For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom the glory forever. Amen again in verse 23.
How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out?
Just a few more comments on the matter of the Purposes and Councils of God and Hope.
There are things that God has told us as to His purpose and counsel that we know with absolute assurance.
We know that our destiny is, as the bride of Christ, to be Co heirs.
We know that our eternal home is with Lord Jesus Christ in heaven.
We know that we are going to have redeemed bodies like unto his body of glory, and so on. We have a multitude of purposes and councils of God that are clearly and explicitly stated for us in the word. What we don't know is from now till then the ways of God in our lives that accomplish the present good in as we go toward those destinies.
And those ways of God, those ways of God with us are past finding out. And that's the reason why many times when we when we pray, we don't know what to pray for as we ought. There are things we do know what to pray for as we ought that have to do with we didn't have any uncertainty when we prayed for blessing in the gospel that souls be saved because we know absolutely with no question.
God wants those souls saved, and so we pray with confidence in the will of God and in the mind of God in those matters. But to take something else of a different character, someone gets sick.
Do we pray that they will get well? Well, that's a natural thing, and in some cases it may be the right thing. But we're often uncertain as to whether that's the will of God in that case and in that circumstance, to bring that outcome as to his ways in this life.
But we have feelings about it, and consequently God has made provision for us by the Spirit that is within us, that recognizes those natural and spiritual feelings in us and intercedes in ways that we can't ourselves formulate the right thought because we're not told always the will of God.
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In the matter.
And consequently we don't want to speak or to ask something against his will, and yet we want him to know how we feel about it. And so on. And so the ways of God are past finding out, even though in many things the purposes of God are clearly and explicitly stated. But another aspect of it. I'll go back to the example Doc used of Joseph.
Joseph had been explicitly told that his brethren would bow down to him.
It tells us in Psalm. I'm sure I'm getting the right song, but a Psalm 102 are close to that song. It says the word of the Lord tried him. What does that mean?
He knew the purpose of God with respect to his life was that that was going to happen. But he spent 13 years tried by that word in all the experiences through which he passed, and he was tested as to his faith year by year by year, as to his home, if you will, or his expectation. And it says the word of the Lord tried Him and brethren, There are many things that we have to go through life.
On the same ground, the word of the Lord will try us.
That's all we're going to have. The word of the Lord, the word of the Lord tries us as to do we really believe it? Will we really live by it, even though the passage of circumstances and difficulties in our lives doesn't express.
The answers to the desires that we have at that moment. And so it's what do we have. Faith lays hold, for is tried by the Word of the Lord.
And consequently God looks at it and says that face precious.
That faith which lays hold of the word of God without regard to the circumstances that God has said, And I'll live in that realization of His word for.
That's where it does not change, does it? People change. Circumstances change.
That's why it's so important to have our faith built on the word of God.
I think of what Joseph told his brethren after.
His father had died, he says. They came because they thought he would turn against them.
And he says to them, As for you?
Ye thought evil against me.
But God meant it unto good to bring, to pass, as it is to this day, to save much people alive.
And so even when people.
Turn against us. God can use that for good.
It was because he was sold as a slave to Egypt that he was down there and he was in the right spot at the moment.
That Pharaoh needed someone to interpret his dream, and God brought it back to the memory of the Chief Butler.
At the right moment and one day Joseph woke up in prison. At the end of that day he was the 2nd ruler.
All of Egypt. Who could ever imagine those kind of stories? God's ways are past finding out, brethren. And so how important it is to not go by outward circumstances that change so, so easily?
Go by God's word. His eternal purpose is for blessing.
And.
We have that verse 28. It's in contrast with verse 26, verse 26. We don't know what to pray for as we ought, but we do know.
All things work together for good. Doesn't say all things are good.
All things work together for good. The way his brethren treated him was not good.
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And the way he was falsely accused by Pharaohs wife was Potiphar's wife was not good.
But God made it to work together for good and brethren. I see so often that in our problems in life we are short sighted. We look at people.
That supposedly are opposing us. We look at circumstances if that wouldn't have been that way.
It would have been so different rather than we're short sighted. There is a God who is overall who is ordering all for a purpose that he has of ultimate good according to his purpose, not ours. His so often our purpose is in life. Brethren are short sighted, I have to say for my own.
Experience. But what is God's purpose? And then that's where we go on to verse 29. I'm sorry, I'm pushing ahead a little bit what we want to get through this chapter, brother.
There we have God's eternal purpose.
That purpose, that was purpose before there was any creation in existence. What was his purpose?
Whom he did for know, he also did predestinate to be conformed.
To the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brothers.
His eternal purpose is to make us, like Christ, to conform us to the image of His Son. That's what he's doing in our lives, and each one is different.
Not one exactly the same, and it is infinite wisdom.
Those councils that are past finding out.
He is working in the life of each one to bring us into conformity.
To the Lord Jesus.
What a tremendous thing it is to have these things open to our hearts.
I was talking to a brother down in Brazil.
This brother getting up close to the retirement age and in his job and he was hoping that you know, things would go easy for him as he finished out his last few years and it's working for this company.
Well, he told me, he said. You know what happened? They transferred me to another office where I had to take an hour.
Ride on the metro every morning in an hour, back every evening.
At his job, instead of getting easier, his job got harder.
First few days he went, you know, fretting a little bit.
And then he decided, the Lord must have some reason.
And so he said, You know, I realized that I needed to spend that hour train ride every day.
In the scriptures or reading ministry?
So I said I started taking books along my Bible along. And he said, you know what?
That was an answer of God, he said. My soul is becoming dry.
I wasn't fresh.
I wasn't in the word like I should be, and the Lord was not close to me in my heart, he said. That was the greatest blessing that happened to me.
And I just thought that a good example of all things working of one who got before the Lord and right now.
First had the crudeness to look to the Lord and then experience. Now not always will we see it here in this lifetime, the all the things working together for good, but sometimes he he does show us.
It's the timetable too that we need to be exercised about, isn't it, brother Doug because.
I was thinking, we've been talking about Joseph, but you know when Joseph interpreted the dream for the chief Butler? I suspect that Joseph thought the next day or so, as soon as the Butler was released from prison, that he would be called for and he would be released, maybe go back and work in Potiphar's house or have some servant job of servitude in the court of Pharaoh. But that wasn't God's purpose. And I can just imagine those who know me best can imagine how I must have ponder this because.
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Think of Joseph. That was another two years before he he got released. That was a long time. Doesn't seem like a long time. But imagine sitting in a prison cell for another two years and thinking, here I thought God was going to intervene and I was going to get out and get my job back. But God had something far better than just another job as a servant in Potiphar's house or in the court of Pharaoh. He had a purpose for Joseph to be elevated, to be a ruler of the land.
But if Joseph had got out when he thought he would have, that wouldn't have worked out at all. It wasn't the time for Pharaoh to want somebody needs somebody to be over the the land. God had a perfect timetable. And I appreciate it being in Egypt this summer, you know, our brethren in Egypt, it it's pretty tough. It, it's difficult. I don't think any of us realize that what it's like to live, it's one thing to visit, but to live under those kind of conditions.
But you know, it's very interesting to me that they desired this year at the conference to take up the book of Esther.
Because I gulped at first when I they told me we were going to take up Esther, but the Lord gave us some very happy meetings, I trust profitable. But the reason they wanted to take up the Book of Esther was just what we've been saying. Because in the Book of Esther, though God does not openly manifest himself, He's not mentioned by name. He doesn't doesn't seem like he outwardly intervenes in the circumstances yet.
By the end of the book, there's no doubt that God has been in control of the government, the king, the personal lives of Mordecai and Esther. Providentially, he was over the people of God collectively, and that's what those brethren wanted to hear, confirmed by the word of God. But it is interesting when Mordecai speaks to Esther. You know, Esther and Mordecai didn't have something to go on as to the future like Joseph with his dream.
Or King David. Or David in his rejection, knowing that he was the anointed king for the future. And so on. You know what Esther said to Mordecai? I'll do this, I'll go in. But if I perish, I perish. And you know, it was mentioned as we took up the book. We read the story with confidence because we know the end of the story. Esther didn't know the end of the story. She didn't know how God was going to act and what, how the circumstances were going to play out.
But she was willing to go in obedience to Mordecai.
And I believe she had faith too, even though she said if I perish, I perish.
That she knew that God would deal in his own way with her and with the people of God and with the king and with the enemy. She had that confidence in her soul and brethren. Things don't play out as quickly as we think they should sometimes in our lives. Are we willing to just trust the Lord? Because there are many things we're never going to see and understand the full fruition of as to God's purposes in our lives down here.
I know it's a little different context, but I often think of what it says in First Corinthians judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, you say. I just don't know why that happened. I don't know why this has been allowed in my life. Leave it till the Lord comes, because at that time he's going to bring this to light. The hidden things of darkness make manifest the councils of the heart. And then shall every man have praise of God. And we're not always going to understand or see things straightened out. And that's why I think Brother Don mentioned that earlier. It speaks of patience in the end of verse 25.
God, That's one of the great lessons God is teaching us is patience. Do we get discouraged? Do we get short sighted? Sometimes? You know, David did.
David. David knew he was the anointed king for the future, but read some of the Psalms of David. He was cast down. He was discouraged. He fled for his life. David was a real man. He felt those things. And sometimes his focus got off what was on the in the future and the purpose that God had in in the end. And and I do that sometimes too. I lose sight of the end. I get discouraged. But in those Psalms of David.
And in those circumstances of his life before you come to the end of the Psalm or the circumstance, he always came back to what he had in and of the Lord. He always came back to the promise of God. He always came back to what he knew God had promised for the future and could not fail. And that's what lifted him out of the slew of despond. That's what brought him out of the discouragement and gave him the courage to go on in the path of faith.
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And to realize, not in the same sense we do, but to realize rather that all things, while they are not good. Some are bitter experiences, but it's all working together in the end. God has His purpose, and when we see it in a future day, we're going to see it all in retrospect. We're going to see the whole thing in completion. And what are we going to do, brother? And question his ways there.
We're just going to praise Him for His ways, because one of the things that eternity and the judgment seat, the judgment seat of Christ and eternity will do is show us the perfection of all God's ways. Things we didn't know now, we'll see, were perfect as to what they were and the time frame and timetable in which they were allowed.
We'll say I wouldn't have had it otherwise, right?
Don't you think, Bob? That's why in the end of Revelation 5, the four beasts say Amen. Those four beasts that represent God's governmental ways in the earth, they say we see it all now. Everything was working out for a purpose. And I believe we'll say Amen as well.
Like to look at another aspect of this subject in Philippians chapter one.
A little different side of it.
Profitable.
For us in the ways of God.
Working things together for good.
He says.
The Philippians just not take too much time. We'll start at verse 21. For me to live this Christ and to die is gain.
But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor, yeah?
What I shall choose? I want not.
Brian was straight betwixt to having a desire to depart and to be with Christ.
Which is far better.
Nevertheless, to light in the flesh is more needful for you.
And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all.
For your furtherance and joy of faith, here's a man that is in prison.
And in prison, he's awaiting the day when he sees.
These are who decides whether he lives or dies.
And Caesar had the answer to no tribunal he didn't. He was supreme.
All they have to say is he lives or he dies and so you would say there's no way.
That this man could have any understanding of the outcome of his circumstances.
Because enough. It's not in his powers and the power of Caesar to decide whether he lives or dies.
But does he know whether he'll live or die? If you read these words carefully, he knows he knows the outcome.
He says first of all for you to live is Christ.
The point in this in this context here to me is he have no will of his own.
The expresses and afterwards desire between two things.
To depart to be with Christ, which for him personally was the better choice, but he recognized the Saints in Philippi had needs.
And there was their side, their need of it.
Having no will of his own, he goes to the Lord in the matter, and the Lord tells him what his ways are going to be in this situation, he says.
And verse 25.
Having confidence, I know I shall abide. He knew in faith the outcome of those circumstances. He knew what the Lord was going to do. He was going to be released. He was going to, for the sake of those in Philippi and elsewhere to fulfill that needed service to them. And he wasn't going to have what personal? If he had a personal will in the matter would have been. I'd rather be with the trust.
00:50:07
That was his own choice.
And I the summation of it, rather, is that sometimes the will of God in the ways of God are made known to us. In this circumstance particularly, it shows us that if we have no will of our home in the outcome.
There is liberty of the Spirit of God in many circumstances to make His will known to us, and we don't wait until the glory and so on to see the good of it.
Not everything is this way. This is another aspect of truth. But in the Apostle Paul's case, we see that sometimes the Enlightenment of God in our souls as to a specific circumstance in our present lives is having no will in our own we may have desires.
There, there may be that which we weigh and say this is good and that's better and whatever.
But if the outcome can be rested in the war and say whatever the Lord chooses is the way I want to go in this, there will be an enlightenment in our souls As to the mind of the Lord, I submit to you, It's true you can experience this in your life that the Lord will make now and at times what he's going to do and give you confidence as to, but it's an exercise of faith.
And the secret of the Lord is with them that fear now.
And we need that. We need that sense of it. And again one other thing connected with this is very practical side of things, but peace in the soul and circumstances in which we don't know the alcohol is founded. As the Lord Jesus said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. And I apply that to the believer in this sense coming to the Lord and submitting to him.
In it and there will be peace, but if our will gets involved in it, if we are insisting on.
The person gets better, the situation gets rectified the way we think it should, and so on. If we introduce our own will into the outcome, very often we will not have peace, and quite often we won't have a sense of how the world is working either. So these are two practical things that we can learn.
Even though, as Jim said, there are many things that we will have to wait until the glory before we see what God's hand was in it.
That's good, because answers don't give us peace. God gives us answers, as you say, but the answers in themselves aren't what's going to give us rest of heart in the circumstance. Again, I've often told, but I remember standing up to take the funeral of a young man in a very tragic situation.
And there was a room full of young people who I knew had come some from many, many miles for answers. And I said during the funeral service, I said I don't have the answers as to why God has allowed this. But I said even if we had all the answers today, we still wouldn't have peace about it unless we submit to God's will and realize that God has a perfect purpose.
As for God, his way is perfect. And so sometimes I say that because sometimes I hear young people and sometimes those of us who are not so young say, well, if God would only show me why, if he just give me some answers in this difficulty, I think it would make it easier, I'd be able to accept it better, No. In fact, I suggest sometimes God doesn't doesn't give there. One of the reasons at least that God doesn't give us the answer or the answer right away is because there hasn't been submission.
And as you say, sometimes when there is finally that submission, God, whatever you're allowing, I know it's best.
Then he comes in and he gives the the answer as well as the peace of soul. So I think what Don says very good to echo, it's not answers that give pieces to the soul and rest of heart. It is submission to the will of God and the understanding that whatever he's doing with us and in US is right.
As eternal purpose was formed before there was any creation and existence, and now we are here in this world.
Now we have our purposes, our thoughts.
00:55:03
The Brethren who is going to prevail in the end?
God's eternal purpose or my puny idea of what God might be doing?
Oh my brother, may the Lord help us to.
Seek to see his purpose in all these things that happen.
He's conforming us to the image of his son. He's working in ways we don't understand.
But his purpose is going to come to fruition.
Harold Highland, Was he some uncle of yours? Great uncle, Great. I still remember him talking about verse 30 here as the Upside Down rainbow. You remember that?
Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
That was his way of putting it and I have really enjoyed it because it starts in heaven, you know, a rainbow really generally starts on earth and it swings up to heaven and back down to earth, but this starts in heaven.
When did he predestinate us?
Before the foundations of the world.
When did he call us? It's the second thing.
When we heard the gospel is when he called this.
When did he justify us? When we believe the gospel, we were justified.
When did he glorify us?
Wendy Gorbachev, Brother Bruce.
Are you glorified now?
No, I don't think so.
Not an actual fact, but in God's purposes it's so sure that he puts it in past tense. Isn't that wonderful?
Glorified there is the rainbow goes back up to heaven. It's going to all happen, Brandon. It's sure.
What a wonderful God, man.
And God is for us. Sorry John, just going to say God is for us when we read that. What can we say? God is for us.
I'd like to turn to Ephesians chapter One.
Ephesians chapter One.
Says.
Verse 9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will.
According to his good pleasure which we have purposed in himself.
That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together and on all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in him.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who work at all things, according to the Council of his own Bill, to comment about the purposes of God in our relationship to them.
The ground, ground, eternal purpose of God is to glorify Himself.
Through his son.
Everything is also round back.
For the purpose of God to glorify himself through his Son.
And his son is the center around which everything that God purposes to do to fulfill his own.
Exaltation of himself.
That was found in the sun.
Connected with our chapter, it says we are to be conformed to the image of His Son, and we can immediately in our minds think of this wonderful purpose of God with respect to.
Me.
And at a certain level, that's all right. But it comes short.
He is going to conform me to the image of his son, to the exaltation of his son.
01:00:08
That's first, and that's most important.
And the natural man centers everything around what's in it for me?
And misses the whole purpose and counsel of God. And we as believers can easily slip into that.
And immediately look at every scripture and think about it, or be not so interested in hearing about it.
Because we can't see the relevance of it to ourselves.
Brethren, there's liberty, there's joy.
In being freed from being occupied with oneself to enjoy the purposes of fraud with respect to his son.
And to see how things are to the exaltation of the sun.
I love.
Think about it many, many times. I have a very close friend and brother in Christ in prison named Allen.
In prison the rest of his natural life.
But Alan was telling me about someone else he was seeking to help grow in their Christian life, in the prison, they willing.
And he said to me, Don, he said, I have to keep saying they're really over and over again, Willie.
It's not about us. It's about him, Willie. It's not about us. It's about.
That's liberty. That's liberty.
And the ways of God, and the purposes of God, and the dealings of God with us, and many things when we see it from.
The better perspective we're going to say It wasn't about us. It was about the accomplishment of his purposes to the glory of his son.
And there are many things. There are trials and difficulties through which we pass, and we say God is for us and God is for us.
Because he is God, because he is love, but also because he is not going to allow anything.
To keep him fulfilling the counsels of his own heart to the glory of his Son.
He gave us to the size of the.
And he's not willing to let anything keep the fulfillment of his own pleasure.
And giving his son a ride.
Fulfillment rather, but it's about here.
We wonder with a bride of Christ, why are we?
Why are we in the Councils of God?
The giant of Christ because God said it is not good.
A man should live alone and his son became a man.
Would he let him live alone? And he said it's not cool to imagine live alone because his son, in becoming a man, going to remain a man for eternity. Yes, he is. He took manhood and he will remain in manhood. And so the purpose in council of God was my son shall not live alone.
As a matter.
So you and I are part of that purpose of God. We can look at it and rightly enjoy it.
For what we are going to get out of what we're going to see in the coming day part of the bride of Christ. What a wonderful blessing. Yes, it is.
Greater and more liberty to the soul, but it's not what I'm going to get out of it, but what he's going to get out of it.
With the glory of God and the expectation of his Son. And that's some of what we have. And you might say they're inverted Rainbow in this chapter, all these things that he's doing.
Doing fulfillment of his own purposes in the exaltation of his own son.
The the woman was made for man, not man for the woman. And so you see the order there in creation. But men, we all like to have a happy wife, don't we? If she's not happy, the rest of us aren't very happy either.
And and so in our part.
It's good to enjoy what's our part so it'll be right rightly represented before the Lord.
01:05:02
And that's why it's important that we understand that God is for us rather.
It seems like so often when we get into tough situations.
Immediately Satan comes to our ear and whispers, look what's happening. Be objective. Recognize things are not for you. It's all going against you.
And it seems like that.
That is not true.
God has shown Himself to be for us. And if God be for us, who can be against us? He has displayed that He's for us. How he that spare not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, How shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?
God has shown himself to be for us at the cross, brethren. So often our own evaluation of present circumstances is so partial that it looks like God is not for us. But we need to go back to the cross to get the picture right.
God did not spare his own Son.
He gave him up for us all.
And if that's the case, if he was willing to do that?
Rather than there can be no question about it. God is for us.
I'd just like to back up and read again.
Verse 29 and 30 in connection with what you just said, and I'm going to emphasize, he for whom he did for no, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brothers Norover whom he did for destinate them he also called.
And whom he called them he also justified, And whom he justified.
Then he also glorified, you know, the in the purposes of God, we really didn't have anything to do with where we are.
In this place of blessing.
It all has to do with what God has done. It all has to do what He started in the Any from eternity past, we don't know. We can't put that in its place. But He thought of us.
It ends with he glorifies us.
And so we sit here today in all of the favor and blessing of God, not because of anything we have done. We is not in these verses. It's all He.
And then we get what you were, you were just bringing before us. The greatest thing that he did was he gave his son to die for us.
So it's just a wonderful thing. This is grace if we don't understand grace and we need to reread these verses and realize that God is for us.
Jacob looked at present circumstances and he said all these things are against me.
That was just looking at present circumstances.
But when we look at the big picture, we see that God is for us. And if God before us, who can be against us? But there are two things in these verses that we're reading that are sure.
Two things that we know for sure.
Were predestinated and were elect. He's going to. He speaks of being God's elect in verse 33. Election has to do with the person being predestinated has to do with the place.
We've often used the illustration that when there's an election in the United States or any other country, the there's a man that is going to be elected. He's there, a vote is going to be taken and he's going to be elected to the office of the President of the United States. And as a result of being elected to the office of President of the United States, he's predestined to live in the White House. And so you and I are the elect of God. As Bob said, we've been hand picked. We've been chosen in Christ.
Before the foundation of the world, we're called out people. But where are we? What are we predestined to? We're predestined to glory, brethren. We're gonna share in that glory. We're gonna see it all from God's perspective. And again, it's all as Donna said, it's all going to be in relationship to His son. We've mentioned several times in these meetings when heaven opens up to reveal the Lord Jesus coming back in glory. Every St. is going to reflect Christ. God is going to make sure of it.
01:10:15
They're going to see Christ everywhere, every everywhere they look in there, in every St. Christ is going to have his full exaltation not just in heaven. You know He has a place of glory in heaven now he's crowned with glory and honor. But you know the heart of God is never going to be satisfied till his Son is vindicated and glorified on earth and has his rightful place here the on this planet that spit in his face and cast him out and said we won't have him.
God is going to make sure that he has his full vindication, and we've been talking about looking ahead to the glory and accepting circumstances because of what's ahead. But think of the perfect example of the Lord Jesus when he was here. How could he take what he did as a man?
Who, when he reviled, reviled Not again. He's when he suffered. He threatened not, you say? How could he do such a thing? He committed himself to him, the Judgeth, righteously. He knew that there was going to be a coming day. It hasn't happened yet, and he's the man of patience, waiting for it now. A long time. You think you've waited a long time to see the purposes of God fulfilled in your life. Think of the Lord Jesus as a man. He's still waiting. After two millenniums, He's still waiting.
And there's it. But he knew there was a day coming when he would be vindicated by God and have his proper place on earth and brethren. If we can realize that and look on to that day of work and see it, as John said, all in relationship to Christ. But to remember too, there are two things that are sure. Things aren't sure in life, but there's two things sure We're the elect of God. Nothing can change that, and we are predestined.
To the glory. Nothing can change that as well.
There are four questions. Well, actually there are more than four questions in the end of this chapter, but.
I have enjoyed.
The I think it was Albert Hayhoe I heard it from first, but.
Comparing it to a court case.
Beginning with verse 31, it says if God be for us, who can be against this in a court case, you have a contrary party that's against you.
If God be for us, who can be against us? In verse 33 it says who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justify it. There you have the prosecuting attorney that lays out the charges against the person.
But who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
And then verse 34 He who is he that condemneth? There you have the judge.
That pronounces the condemnation.
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died? Who rather yeah, rather that is risen again, even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
And then the last one, verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
After the sentence has been pronounced, the jailer comes to separate that person. Put them behind bars.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Over other than every single facet has been answered by God in a way that there can enter no question about it.
And I think of what Don was saying, that we are to be the companion of Christ for Christ's own glory, eternal glory.
In that coming day of glory. But how important it is so that we would enjoy His love and His thoughts that we are confirmed in our own soul as to the position we occupy before Him of unchanging favor.
That's our place, even here and now.
That's why the subject is justification. It's more than just forgiveness, even, isn't it? We rejoice to be forgiven, but it is God that justifieth, and no charge can be brought up against us because we're seen in all the perfection of Christ. That's what justification is. We're more than just forgiven sinners. It's true we are forgiven sinners. But when God looks at you, when God looks at me, He sees us all in the perfection of Christ.
01:15:19
I think it's so beautifully illustrated in the boards of the Tabernacle that went up, went to make up that the walls of that building in the wilderness, because there were two things that characterized those boards. First of all, they sat in two sockets of silver. That's redemption, and that's wonderful to be redeemed. But there was something else had to be done with those boards. They had to be covered with pure gold. That speaks of a scene in all the righteousness and perfection of Christ.
And when we realized that brethren that were seen in that light.
Who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect? There's no charge. I'm not afraid of one charge of sin being brought up against me because it's been settled by one offering. He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. And it's true we have forgiveness through his blood. But in Romans we're justified by the blood of Christ. That's the basis in which we stand, and that is the security we have and the confidence that we have.
Before God as being seen in all the perfection and righteousness of Christ.
Seeing him number 75 in the appendix.
Number 75 in the back of the book.
No separation.
Of my soul.
Must have been.