Scranton Conference: 2007
Table of Contents
Hebrews 12
Reading
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Uh, it was worth, I know.
Great.
World and I'm from home.
Let her cry together.
On.
1001, 129.
Which I forgot.
To tell her.
Without the rain.
Rotate in your head, Sunflower.
And.
Take my daughter's my heart and flame and you know all day long.
And plan to reach the rise of life and.
Umm.
Let's pray our God and Father we ask about.
Bless us and refresh us as we open Thy word.
We pray that.
Thou siege with, uh, joy and peace, uh, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
00:05:06
Pray that our faith might be increased.
Pray that our love for one another might be increased as we gather together in these.
Couple days, yes, that guidance.
That's how it leads us to that will, which will be for our blessing.
Yes, I help.
The name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Could we look, brethren, at the mind of the thank you? OK, Hebrews, chapter 12.
Perhaps, uh.
I don't think we get through the whole chapter this morning. There's only one reading, but.
You could read the whole chapter nevertheless.
The Mind of the Brethren, Hebrews, chapter 12.
OK.
Read from verse 32 of Chapter 11 as an introduction from chapter 12.
And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell Gideon and Aberic, and of Samson, and of Jacob, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets, who through faith subdue kingdoms, brought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire?
Escaped the edge of the sword. Out of the weakness were made strong. Watch valiant in fight.
Turned to flight the armies of the aliens, women received the dead raised to light again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection than others. At trial of cruel mockings and S and scourging ye moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were saw asundered.
Were tempted.
Was slaying with a sword, They wandered about in sheepskins and goat skins, Being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy, They wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dams and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.
God having provided some better thing for us.
That they without us should not be made perfect. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us laid aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Who for the joy that was set before him?
Endured the cross, despising the shame, and it sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest he be we read and think in your mind, Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the exaltation which speaketh unto you.
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As unto children, my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him For whom the Lord loveth, he chaste in them, and scourge it every son whom he receiveth. If he endure, chase the name God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasing us not? But if he be without?
Chastisement.
We're off all our particulars then, IE ******** and not science. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of Spirit and live?
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the febo knees, and mix straight paths for your feet less that which is laying between our way, and let it rather be healed.
Follow peace with all men and holiness.
Without which no man shall see the Lord looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. Let there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected.
For he found no place of repentance, though he started carefully with tears. For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and campus, and the sound of the trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice that they that heard and treated, that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. For they would. For they could not endure that which was commanded.
And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through the dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the great assembly and Church of the first born.
Which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of justice, man made perfect.
And to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel, See that you refuse not him thus speaketh. For if they escape, nod. Who refused Him that spake on earth much more. Shall not we escape if we turn away from Him the speaketh from heaven, Whose voice then shook the earth? But now he have promised saying.
Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
And this word yet once more signifier the removing of those things which are shaken, as of the things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God.
Is a consuming fire.
There's so much in this chapter for us. We're not going to be able to, uh.
Cover the whole traffic stream time that we have, but uh.
Umm, Hebrews is a book of contracts. I think we are all aware of that. What characterizes Hebrews is the word better.
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And the apostle is bringing us onto Christian ground, no longer at the foot of Mount Sinai, where we would tremble, uh, in view of God's legal requirements which certainly were not able to meet.
But he's speaking to us in, uh, marvelous grace and, uh, bringing us on to Christian ground.
And, umm.
Our brother read the UH verses preceding UH chapter 12, where we have the description of UH.
The great heroes of faith, you might say.
Some of them delivered miraculously, but not all of them. Some of them had to endure the, uh, trials and the, uh, mockings and the scourgings.
But they are examples for us. There were failures in every one of them. Certainly there's failures in in our lives too. But we are presented with one in chapter 12 who never failed.
Is a perfect pattern for us example. Nevertheless, he went through the same world that we are going through and, uh, he never used his Godhead glory to shield himself from the necessities, the trials, the sufferings of this pathway. So that's one of the subjects of the book of Hebrews is the high priestly work of Christ, and it's in view of his perfect, uh, pathway down here.
Having passed through all that, we would be called to pass through, of course, apart from sin.
But we have an old nature, and so although we have that divine nature, the very life of Christ, still we have the old nature.
There was never chastening needed in the life of the Lord, but there certainly is in our lives because, alas, sometimes we allow the old nature to act, and chastening in our lives is because we have an old nature. But nevertheless, the Lord did endure all that a righteous man could endure in a world that was, uh, so opposed to Him in every way.
But yet he was a perfect man down here, so he is the example. The Spirit of God did what's before us, as well as this great cloud of witnesses that have been presented to us in the 11Th chapter.
MMM.
So it is that it speaks of, uh, the better thing for us that is that we have the object of faith that you're Speaking of the Lord Jesus. All those other people, it says in verse 39 of the previous chapter, these all having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise we have something better. They did all that they did not having had.
The promise, the Lord Jesus Christ, we have that and so we have some better things than they had, and so we have the opportunity to look under Jesus.
The author and finisher of faith.
We sometimes use the expression the eye of faith. What does that mean? The eye of faith? It's the eye of immortal vision.
And we read, we didn't read it, but in verse 27 of the 11Th chapter, it speaks about Moses, that he endured as seen him who is invisible.
And so these that are on the honor roll of faith, they saw beyond their circumstances of suffering and were able to by the eye of faith to focus on the man of faith. The Lord Jesus was the true man of faith in this world, never faltering.
And so these are written for our learning that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.
And so faith is just as important today, isn't it, as it's ever been, with a world full of distractions and the enticements and the the wisdom of this world so easily obtainable to to capture our time and rob us of the Word of God and dim the eye of faith. I think it's wonderful to have this read to us.
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Before we go into the 11Th, 12Th chapter, that are the eye of faith might be focused on the man of faith here before us who walked before us in this world.
The author and finisher of our faith.
It should be the subject and I'll object to it. I like to look at verse two and three, perhaps in the reverse order. Here we see that it talked about looking under Jesus and He gave us an example of who and what He did. And then at the end of verse three, He said, let ye be weary and faint in your minds. I'd like to go that way first because I feel that sometimes we fall into that trap, don't we? We become weary in this world.
As we look around, who's weary in this room? Who's fainting in the minds? Well, the trouble is when it's weary and fainting in the mind, it's very difficult to see, isn't it? If there was a stranger walking in who hasn't eaten for three days and he walked his way here, his weary, We can see the physical weariness. But when it's weariness and fainting in the mind, it's so hard to look after. Well, there's another thing about being weary. We know that when we're physical, we.
And tired. The first thing we need to do is to be fed, to drink, and so on. But for some of us who have been at that stage before, we know that we were weary. The first thing we feel we don't need is more nourishment. We tend to fight it off. We tend to think we're OK because our mind has changed. So here it says, let ye be weary and faint in your mind.
Well, why are we in that condition?
And perhaps we can even ask that in our own heart and say, am I weary in this pathway here? Do I feel like I am fainting along this way? Do I feel alone? So let's go back. It says, 4 Consider him that endure such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be weary and think in your mind, Could it be because we are weary of faith? Could it be because.
We haven't considered him. You know, I think I believe more often than not when we feel weary and distracted, we can look back and say we haven't been walking closely with the Lord here. I believe the thought is and we reduce all of our thoughts to the Lord Jesus Christ.
For consider him. I believe this is one of the ways the way to take care of our weariness and our painting and our mind. And let's go back to verse two really should ought to start with that we are to look looking unto Jesus.
We see all this faithful man of old. Well, here it says he's the one, He's the author, he's the finisher of our faith. What did he do? He said, who for the joy do we see that? Do we consider that? Do we meditate on that? That he, for the joy that was set before him, endure the cross? The one who loved you, the one who came to do the Father's will, the one who would say to the Father.
Here am I send me the one who knew full well what would be before him.
The one who read off how he set his face as if it was a flinch to go to Jerusalem, The one who knew that man would despise him, to be despised and rejected of man. Here it says, who for the joy, not just for the sake of doing it, but for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and he sat down at the right hand of God. Oh, do we consider that?
And when we dwell on that.
I'm sure that the problems and difficulties we see in this world will become very small. Then we can truly stay in there. For consider him that endures such contradictions and for of sinners against himself less he be weary and faint in your mind.
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May be important to see here that, uh, we don't have the Lord's toning work on the cross. That is not the subject of that this passage. Umm.
That is not exactly an example for us. That is the work that only he could accomplish.
But here the prominent thought is, uh, the life of the Lord is not even, uh, looking to the Lord in the glory. That's important. We have that in, uh, in other passages of Scripture, but probably the primary thought is observing the, uh, pathway of the Lord down here in this world. He's the beginner and the, uh, the finisher of our faith. He began the path of faith.
Uh, imperfection. And he finished it An example for us.
And so we're called upon to consider which is the same word as is used in the previous part of the epistle. Consider him, uh, the apostle and high priest of our confession. It's inwardly meditate. So we look upon the Lord in his perfect pathway down here. And for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, not so much there, the thought of atonement, but.
The cross is the shame side of the death of Christ.
And we in measure, if we are faithful, endure the cross in that sense.
Uh, if we are going to follow the Lord, we are called upon to take up our cross daily is a reproach in following Christ. We are in a world that has rejected Him. We don't gather around the glorified Christ and now we gather around the rejected 1 And so the joy that was set before him.
Uh sometimes is applied to uh.
The Lord having his own with him in the glory forever. And I don't minimize the preciousness of that, but the real thought here is that I believe the, the primary, uh, meaning is that, uh, the Lord returned to the glory having completed that work of redemption the Father had given him to do perfect obedience and devotedness.
Uh, he returned to the glory having completed that work, uh, which uh, involved the cross of course, and the, the shame which he despised. We don't usually despise the shame. We make a great deal of it and is set down at the right hand of the, of the throne of God. So what an example we have.
But there's much that will militate against it, and that's brought before us in, uh, the first verse.
Where the apostle mentioned Wherefore, seeing we also are accomplished about with so great a cloud of witnesses. But notice, he says, let us lay aside every weight.
That's not exactly sin, but it's something that hinders us in the pathway of faith. Every boy and girl knows that if they're going to run a race, they don't put on heavy boots and a heavy coat. What's wrong with it? Nothing wrong with it, but they know very well that would hinder them in running that race. How many things there are in our lives which are a hindrance. We argue for them, we excuse them.
We're loath to give them up, but we know very well that they're a hindrance to us.
In the pathway of faith. And then there is the sin, of course, which is.
Which is, umm, something that must be guarded against in each one of our lives.
So the Lord ran the whole course of faith, from the beginning to the end, to the glory of God.
And the affections of our hearts will put our feet in that same path. We think of the apostle Paul that he so loved his master, the Lord Jesus Christ, that he found himself in that path. We may say, well, you know, I need to get in that path and I don't know how to do it, really. It's a section for the Lord Jesus that will put our feet in that path. And we have the privilege, as Peter said, to follow.
In his steps and as we run the course of faith, we don't run it competitively against one another.
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But we run with our eye on the goal.
To win Christ. And so if we find ourselves in a path of suffering and reproach, it's really not a surprise to us. But there is a sad possibility, is there not, that we may drop out of that race. That's really a tragedy, isn't it? But to run with patience and endurance, those two qualities, virtues, if I can put it that way.
Will hold us on that path. And to think of the joy, the shout of joy, when we reach the end of the course and we look into the face of the man who ran that course to the glory of God.
And our hearts were encouraged to run it too. But there's so much as the sin of unbelief and other things that our brother was mentioning. We find that this race.
Really is very disinteresting and it really isn't worth it and so we drop out.
But you know, there's awful loss, isn't there? And dropping out of the race of faith, the Lord help us in that race.
When it speaks of the sin which doth so easily be set up, we often hear of besetting sins, and it is true that we all have certain sins that we are susceptible to. But I don't believe that's what this is referring to. I believe what's referred to here, and we can see from the context, is the sin of failure in faith, giving up.
Giving up trust in the Lord.
And faith is something that is not just a conviction. I can say I have faith that that.
I'm going to do well at something, and that may or may not happen. Faith is, as Mr. Kelly put it, a conviction founded on the known character of God.
So I can't just say I have faith that's.
About anything I can say that I have faith that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come and set things right in this world because that is, uh, that's based on the word of God. Umm, I can't say that I have.
I mean, I can't say it, but I don't think I could rightly claim that I'm going to be blessed, let's say physically or, or, uh, our financially. I mean, the Lord does answer our prayers and blesses in that way, but that's not really the faith that I think we're Speaking of here.
It's been pointed out that that, uh, faith must have some revelation from God or some object, uh, or promise of God as its foundation. And so there is that which we know.
Uh, there will be eternal blessing for us. We can have faith in that.
Temporal blessing you're bringing out, brother, on that may or may come to us. We may have illness, we may have many other problems, but we can have faith that the Lord is going to bring us through and he can strengthen us through any of those difficulties that you bring, that you you speak of. And we know that it's all gonna end up well.
This chapter takes up the means whereby we're kept in the path of faith that was laid out in Chapter 11.
And so we have the verse brought before us in the prayer meeting that were kept by the power of God. But Peter adds, through faith, kept by the power of God, sovereign power of God in our lives. But how is it that the power of God keeps us?
Is by setting the objects that are proper to our faith before our soul.
That's how the power of God keeps us.
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And so that's the first thing that we have in this chapter, proper object for faith.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, but the next way that He keeps us in the path is through chastening.
And so these sorrows and afflictions that we pass through are His way in the school of God, of keeping us in the path of faith.
It's beautiful to, uh, think of the way that the Lord met the disciples after he was risen on the beach.
Umm, Peter had been endorse and chastening.
And he had gotten discouraged. And he says, I go fishing. And they say, well, we might as well go with you. They had. They had grown weary and faint in their minds.
Scripture says as the man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
And in another place the spirit of a man sustaineth his infirmities. So so the heart and the mind are connected in our preservation. So they had gotten discouraged and.
Then the Lord meets them, tells them how to cast the net, and you know the story, and it's filled with fishes, and they get to the shore and what's there? Fire and fishes. And they're on the beach. And the Lord is talking with them and restoring Peter and.
You know, it brought them back to where they had first begun with him. It seems to me their discipleship began on places like that. They were fishers and the Lord went up to them and said follow me. And so it's thinking of Stevens comments here. It's so gracious that there's that side of it that says in Psalm 23, he restoreth my soul.
So we know that it's not our circumstances which determine our our happiness, our energy and spiritual things. It's what we've been occupied with. And the Lord graciously comes in and reoccupies us with himself that we can lift up the hands which hang down with people's knees and run with patience or endurance, like it says in this passage, the race that is said before. So endurance is a big thing in the performance.
If you have a piece of equipment that only works once in a while, it's very frustrating. It's disappointing. It's unreliable.
Well, at best we're UN UN faithful servants.
Because we tend to be unreliable and get distracted. And that's what we're encouraged not to do here, to continue to endure. And to do that we have to maintain, as it says in the other translation, looking steadfastly upon Jesus.
Matter of fact, a note in the Darby translation on that says umm.
Under steadfastly, it says, looking away from other things and fixing the eye exclusively on one.
Looking steadfast.
OK.
Verse four. He could say He have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin.
We read in the book of Isaiah that he closed his mouth.
And when he closed his mouth.
He was striving against sin.
To think of the horror of sin before his soul.
It would collapse our minds if we were to enter into.
Sin and all its wretchedness, that the Lord had to face that in all its fullness.
And to think of that blessed mouth being closed.
Let his enemies reproach him. Let it look like he tried to bring good into this world and it ended in utter defeat.
Faith can see this afternoon or this morning as we look at the cross and see the blessed Lord Jesus hanging there, that He was the victor, triumphed over sin, death and the grave. That you and I might have a time like this together collectively to feed upon Him. Faith personified what a man God has given us to gaze upon.
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The bowl to run after, and soon to join there in the Vista glory, and to enter into the Father's house, where love divined at rest, all because he closed his mouth and resisted unto death, striving against sin.
We're back for a moment. That's encouraging to look at verse three, and in the new translation there's an additional word that is added that tells us how we are to consider Him, and it adds the word well.
I believe in the Spanish Antigua or Antigua edition of the scriptures.
The first part of this verse is rendered. Reduce your costs to Him.
At least room for nothing else.
Well, Stephen was speaking a little while ago. Chastening is one of the privileges of our family life.
When the Lord loveth me, chasten it.
It's a privilege. We've, we've, uh, now falls to us because we've been brought into the family of God.
He's concerned not just with the externals and look upon the outward, but God looks upon the heart.
He has been pleased to occupy himself with everything about us, including our inward thoughts and our character and what we are when nobody else can see.
This is a wonderful and blessed thing.
The very God of glory, who made the world and sustains them when occupying Himself.
Of our lesson.
Regarding us, so we bring circumstances into our lives.
Pours us from vessel to vessel like the fodder. He lifts us up like clay and squishes us back down again and puts us through things.
Things that would tend to be a test of pride, things that would be humiliating, things that would be embarrassing to go through, these things.
And we can always look past them in confidence that.
The one brother I knew in Maine had part of the scripture on his wall in his kitchen. It was just a part of the verse that said Your father knoweth.
And in the trials of his life, he always found that so sustaining and comforting.
Uh, whatever he went through, it was the wisdom of God and the love of God.
He used to say he knows what he's doing, your father knowing.
So this is a comfort sustains us lest we think under the chastisement as I'm sure others will develop as we go through this chapter, there's three potential responses that we can have to chastening.
One is to just as it says in the verse 5, to despise it. It just counted a small thing. Despising chastisement doesn't mean you just hate it, it means you just.
Something happens to you, you say, well, that kind of thing happens to everybody there. There's there's nothing in it. There's no hand behind it. There's no purpose. No, no larger theme in my life. It's just, it's just a thing. Fate and chance happens to all. That's to despise justice.
To faint under it is a form of pride where?
We just say, oh, we don't like to say this publicly, but we almost say to ourselves, well, I thought I was so good and now this is happening to me. How could this be? I don't deserve this kind of circumstance. I really don't need this. And we get all weak in the knee and blubbery and we faint.
Tend to tend to give up and get discouraged and and lose focus.
The best thing later on down the chapter we'll read is to be exercised about it. And that's what we should desire for one another, to be exercised by the chastisement. I have to jump ahead, but uh, just read that verse. Umm.
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I guess it's verse 11 now. No chastening, for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous.
Nevertheless, afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Not not to jump us ahead, but but that's that's.
That's Wisdom justifying Wisdom's children justifying, God said well, and it's nice that it says there you don't have to understand it to get the blessing.
But you have to be exercised by getting less.
And and old brother, I knew the last part of his life he was stricken with leukemia like with the for the some of you would know him and he was constantly feverish and sick and weak man that had made his living in the woods.
And he used to say a couple of things. One was he's looking for the upper taker, not the undertaker. And then in quieter moments, he used to say, I'm looking for the after you.
And I'm sure.
Not only He, but the rest of us will see in that day the after yield for the trials and suffering that the Lord was pleased to bring into His life for those years.
So those are three.
Free that we see in this chapter of responses on our part to the good hand of God upon us in teaching us through circumstances which the Scripture calls chastening.
Brother tell brother Tom Knapp years ago, Vestal said. It's like three birds.
The chicken, the duck and the Robin said when it rains, it's for the duck. It's like water off his back he despises it doesn't matter to him for the chicken. He runs all around and squawks and flaps his wings and gets all excited. You know, that's like painting under. But the Robin, he said when it rains, he sings. He sings.
And.
I was noticing a while back in our lawn after a big rain, it was just loaded with Robins, you know, their brother said he was, they were getting the, uh, after yield, weren't they? Those worms came up to the top and they were reaping pretty well from that rain.
The only thought I might just add to that though, in connection with the the thought of the Robin singing is it does say no chastening for the present time cement to be.
Joyous, perhaps we go through trial. The Lord's brought into our lives. There's chastening, there's correction. And you know, it's like Isaac when he blessed Jacob and he thought he was blessing Esau, and then he found out that he'd not blessed Esau. You know, he trembled, he was stunned, He was under the chastening hand of God.
But He profited by it. He submitted himself to it. No chasing for the present time seemeth to be joyous. And though we may come to the Lord and take it from His hand and humble ourselves under it, it doesn't mean it's going to turn instantly to a joyous thing. It's grievous.
But he goes through it with us, or we go through it, I should say, with him.
Afterwards they yield at the peaceful fruits of righteousness. For the President seems to be joyous. Earth seems to be grievous, not joyous.
20 years ago there was a young man that and we were at a general meetings and this subject was being taken up and after the Gen. after the meeting was over with his brother, He's a contemporary with me. He said, you know, I hardly know what the brethren are talking about, about trials in their life. He says, I grew up in a good household. And he said and now I have a good job and I have a wonderful wife and I have children and I have a.
Uh, late model car and, you know, to look at them, you, you would say he was kind of our envy, uh, to talk like that. And, uh, I just filed that away in my mind.
And thank, in fact I even said that if we are without chastening, then are we ******** and not sons? I gasp as I think of saying that to him. And it wasn't long after that and his wife died suddenly and changed his whole life. That chased me. That grief, that sorrow cast him upon the Lord in such a way that if he couldn't have had the Lord.
00:50:28
He'd have lost his mind.
And I would like to add with this that in our home assemblies there are times that we experience some real difficult waters. The Lord, in his wisdom and grace, he drops an issue into the assembly and we all look at it and we all have different judgments about the matter of what we should do. And the undercurrent gets great and the friendships begin to kind of shake and so on.
What do we think about at that moment?
Or at that time, well, if you're anything like me, I've thought about, sure be nice to move away and get into an assembly where they don't have any difficulties.
I just wanna say this morning that if you're in those circumstances today, don't leave. You're in a grievous circumstance. It seems hopeless that there's no end to the controversy, but here we have, do we not the foundation to be able to go through the trial with the Lord and be gainers and when He reviews with us our life and glory.
We're going to find that we did spiritually better under those conditions than if the South wind was just blowing softly.
Is that right, Brother Paul?
This.
I was thinking the tendency, uh, with all of us under trial and pressure is to, uh, desire to be relieved of it.
Uh, Lord, Get Me Out of this difficulty.
But we really should.
Our brother.
Mentioned that we should be exercised to know why. Uh, what? What is the purpose of the Lord in this trial? What lesson has he got to teach us? Umm, through this discipline, this child training that we all need in our lives and that is where the blessing comes from.
Nevertheless, afterward a yield of the peaceable fruit of righteousness, notice those words unto them which are exercised thereby.
So, umm.
Discipline can take various forms. It can be purging like we have in John 15.
It can be preventative, like we have in the, uh, life of the Apostle Paul, who had a thorn in the flesh. We don't know the nature of it, but we know that it was grievous to him because he besought the Lord three times to remove it. Uh, but the Lord never did remove that thorn.
And it taught him dependence upon the Lord, It humbled him.
Uh, but we have those beautiful words, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. And so it really was a benefit to the Apostle Paul, although he thought he would be better without it. So, umm, we all need those, uh, those trials. I was just thinking, Steve, that you mentioned that.
If you mentioned about the Lord going through the trials with us, sometimes we bring these trials upon ourselves.
Countered all joy, my brethren, when you fall into divers temptations. But the children of Israel were scattered because they had been unfaithful, and he's addressing the children of Israel there.
And so some of the trials in our lives are become because of sin in our lives. That's part of chastening and, uh.
Even there the Lord is compassionate in all their affliction. He was afflicted, but they had brought that affliction upon themselves. But isn't it marvelous that the Lord goes through that trial with us now? He sympathizes with us, not with our sin. Let this be noted very carefully. The Lord has does not have sympathy with our sin if he calls upon us to judge that unsparingly.
00:55:05
But he does have sympathy in the trials and afflictions and difficulties in the assembly. I was thinking as our brother, uh, Ron spoke about the Israelites. I just can't put my finger on it. I think it's First Samuel chapter 13, where her fourteen maybe where they ran away and hid themselves when the Philistines attacked. Umm.
And that's the tendency. There's difficulty in the assembly.
Let's get out of it all. But why has the Lord allowed that? Let's not run away from the difficulty, but seek the Lord's help and guidance and humble ourselves in it.
I think it's the first Samuel 414.
Trophimus have I left at my LITM 6.
Met a remarkable statement. We might be sick of the circumstances, that we're in the local assembly, but Paul left Trophimus right there, said you stay here even though you might be sick and hard as it were, you stay here.
We need to be.
Careful about jumping to conclusions, especially with our brethren when they're going through trial.
Let's see.
Uh, David's brethren.
Jump to conclusions, Al Saul. Jump to conclusions about him when he didn't appear at the feast of the New Moon. Uh, he must be unclean.
There are many occasions in scripture like in the book of Job where.
His, uh, his friends were jumping to conclusion as to why this was coming upon him.
And though at times chasing maybe to the Lord addressing something current in our life, some weakness or some sin to purge us from it.
It is also it He also at times brings things into our lives to prepare us.
So what comes to mind is the first part of Second Corinthians chapter one where.
The the apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians in verse 4.
It's a blessing God in verse three, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, for all encouragement.
Comforteth us in all our tribulation. Why? That we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted with God.
So you probably like, like I have encountered older Saints, Saints that have more experience in the pathway and they see you're going through some trial and they come up and they remember one sister grabbed me right by their wrists and looked in my face and she said, she just said, I know what you're going through.
The Lord will come in for you. Just trust me. She was old enough to be my grandmother and I was maybe not even saved a year, but you know, I got this strong. I felt like this lady knows that she's talking about, she's been through this.
And so the Lord at times might pass you through something, not exclusively for your benefit, but to use you, to prepare you, and to soften your heart.
Especially, I suppose, as US men we tend to be hard hearted creatures.
And the Lord graciously gets out the tenderizer and puts us through things to soften our hearts that we might be more responsive in love to our brethren. Then further on in this same chapter, the same part of the chapter, second thinking is chapter one, verse six. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation and so on. So you can read it for yourself. So.
There are times when the Lord may pass you through something to prepare you to be a blessing to others.
Indeed, there are times too, when we pass through things in order to prevent something that's not true of us.
It doesn't say that Paul was lifted up, but he was given that thorn in the flesh so that he might not be.
So there are those sides to it too. The Lord knows all about that. We don't know all about it with respect to our brethren, but it behooves us to be compassionate, to show mercy, and to seek to bear one another's burdens and soul to fulfill the law of Christ.
01:00:01
Glad you brought that up because.
We are prone to look for causes.
And it's partly so that if we can find A cause in our brother that he has a problem, or our sister that she has a problem, then we know it doesn't come to us.
You know, so we want to find the 'cause that something's happening to them and that makes us safe. But the main thing is to be is the exercise.
To to realize that whatever it is, and we may not know what it is, we may not know why it is, but whatever it is, it's the hand of God and it will be for ultimate blessing, either for me or for my people or His people, maybe not for me.
Uh, but maybe for the people I might.
Have tremendous problems.
And be ruined in every way. Uh, but maybe God has some blessing for his people in mind through it. Uh, all things work together.
With them love God. That doesn't mean all things work together for good To me. That's for uh, I mean, uh, there may be something that doesn't work together too good for me, but it works together for the, for the people of God for good.
That we might be partakers of His Holiness.
You know, it's wonderful to be able to sit in the Lord's presence and sense holiness.
I enjoyed a statement our brother Lundin made quite a number of years ago. He said, remember brethren, holiness always leads to happiness and I've never proved him wrong on that.
And so the there when our brethren are going through deep waters, we can be exercised by that.
In certain assembly or locale or whatever, we can be exercised about the trial and be benefactors of the fruits of righteousness.
Remember, dear brother, saying to me, when we had on our hearts to travel a little among the Lord's people, He said, You'll do yourself a favor if you go and visit the brethren who have gone through a valley of sorrow.
That was a wonderful statement to my soul and to go and sit with them.
And reef as the Robins.
There and some of the things that have been.
Brought to our hearts from their lips and hearts. We've been benefactors of it to this day, probably will never go through that same kind of a trial, but a benefactor of it.
Peter says, casting all your care upon him for a care for you. But before that he says, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. And so we can wrestle, you know, in these kinds of things that in the perfect chastening hand of God, he brings into our lives. But as it was mentioned earlier, it's when we get to where we ask him why he's had to allow that and you know.
I think just like Isaac, he immediately knew.
When he realized he had blessed the wrong one, or he purposed to bless the wrong one, he immediately knew it was the hand of God. I think when God brings chastening in our lives, it doesn't take very long. Perhaps immediately we know as we feel His hand, exactly what He's dealing with. After that, we may wrestle a while and try to deny it or whatever, but when we get into His presence and we can just have our hearts open before Him.
And.
No, this is what He's reaching in our souls. That's when we can cast our care upon Him. Not till then. Till then the Spirit of God wrestles with us. That's when we can cast our care upon Him. That's when it can yield the peaceable. Not the wrestling, the anxious, the striving, but the peaceable fruits of righteousness. And is it just fruits for us to enjoy? It certainly is for us to enjoy. And as our brother brought out, for others too.
01:05:02
But he purchased those branches that they might bear more fruit for him.
I think that's very important, Steve, that those two verses are put together in Peter. Sometimes they're divorced. Uh, it's humble yourself. Therefore, under the mighty hand of God, my will is active. And, uh, there's something there that I'm not willing to judge. Like Jacob, he wrestled all night with the Angel and, uh, before he yielded.
Then then the casting all your care upon him comes after verse uh, six.
So humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God first, then we will be able to cast all your care upon Him. Sometimes the will is so active in us. That's the problem with every one of us, that we, uh, we don't have that, uh, that liberty to cast our care on the Lord.
Need difficulties. There's an expected end, isn't there? At least there should be just reading a few verses in Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 11 for I know the thought that I think toward Youssef aboard thought of peace and not of evil. Well, we might say, well, the Lord is dealing with us harshly, but that's not so weird, is it?
That it says to give you an expected end and then going back to this seventh verse.
And this was on the calendar I believe yesterday on the Christians calendar. Quite impressed with it.
To then seek the peace of the city. Whether I have caused you to be carried away, captives.
Well, they were to seek the peace of that city. Naturally, they probably wouldn't do so, would they?
Then it says, And pray unto the Lord for it. So in the difficulties that come before us, earnest prayer is necessary, isn't it? Then it says, For the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
Someone has said we need to capitalize on our trials.
And if pieces the result we've capitalized, have we not? Not just peace, but peace is a wonderful thing to come to when there's terrific turmoil. Uh, we love to sing those words. Sweet peace, the gift of God's love.
Verse 9 says that he's the Father of Spirit, that one who brings us through his school.
I think would have the thought of his perfect discernment.
The Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword, and it divides between soul and spirited, divides so finally, so keenly in our hearts and consciences of that which is for God and that which is perhaps just Himself. Other motives, other things. He's the Father of spirits, perfectly discerning just where we're at, even if our brethren don't. Doesn't matter. He perfectly discerns.
What the needs are and, and uh is exacting in, in the tuition that he has for us. It's just perfect suited for us and he's doing, as Old Brother Hail said, the best he can do for us according to our present state of soul.
He sees those roots of pride that we don't like to talk about and that in our spirit a little less.
And so he goes to deal, to cut those roots of pride. And we resist. And as long as we resist, we can't live, can we? But if we just say, Lord and I will be done in my life, do what is necessary, then we will live.
The correction is the path of lightning property says.
01:10:01
We're given some instructions afterwards what to do as well for the time is almost gone. I was going to jump down to verse 14. It tells us to follow peace with all with all men and holiness. Those two are important, isn't it peace and holiness without much no man shall see the Lord. We find today that it's easy to talk about having peace with all men, but when it comes to holiness, we tend to have a a we tend to sort of staying away from it because.
It may be a hot subject. We're OK because they perhaps do not defile in every way. They're OK with this and that, but let's ignore something else. What we find here that holiness is very important. We find the apostle gave the Timothy a little bit further instructions similar to this in second Timothy chapter 2, verse 22, it says follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace within the calling the Lord.
Over pure heart.
Mm-hmm.
Well, we find in verse 16 a man who refused everything that we're speaking about this morning in respect to the discipline of the Lord.
And Esau never forgave Jacob. And to think of this world in turmoil over that small point.
Esau will not forgive Jacob to this day. What a root of bitterness. That root is too big, we might say. Not that God can't cut it, He's going to someday, but in judgment. But if we are insistent on resisting.
What the Lord has to work out in our lives, He will perfect that which concerneth me, David could say.
To have this meta have Esau brought up in this very chapter is very solemn, is it not?
Hello, time is gone. Just one more comment too at the end of the chapter. It's interesting to put as a brother for the last few verses at the beginning of the chapter. I'd like to reach at the last verse and the first verse of the next chapter because that tells us why we need to heed the chapter ends with this. For our God is a consuming fire. Let brotherly love continue.
Let's say #55 through waves, through clouds and storms, God gently cleared the way. We waited time. So shall the night soon end for blissful day.
And time. So shall I write.
Slow and you can't do anything for that call with a friend.
01:15:13
I want to breathe.
Now we are praying and and implying.
Oh, there's a lot of them.
On the throne.
I grow at all things well.
We also think 10 in the appendix.
#10 in the back.
OK. Mm-hmm. Oh, he said. Sorry like I.
Hear.
Yes, a superpower.
Love.
I'm pretty sure you're all friends.
Oh, where is your house? Oh God.
Sounds really grievous.
And brought in time.
On the headmaster's name.
Yeah, we must translate her.
And follow the same.
Broken gravel helped us fly through.
Morning.
Let's look for our gun, lung cancer and scream.
I pressed him against him.
All painful. I pledge that.
Right off, let me see my heart.
Millenniel Air
Address—Ron Klassen Sr.
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.
This afternoon, we're going to breathe a little millennial air.
And this is the only time that we're going to be able to do it while our feet are still on the earth.
Because we're not going to have earthly blessing in the coming day. Ours are going to be heavenly.
But we're all going to see.
The earthly side from the heavenly Vista and the earthly Saints will be able to look up and see us.
Round our blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus.
So I like to sing a millennial hymn in our hymn book.
Sing the 1St 2 verses of hymn #40 in the appendix. Verse 2 verses only of hymn #40.
The sun swears, not from.
And I'm talking about it.
And glory.
To me now.
I'm in the morning and my.
Supplicate the Lord for His help.
Our blessed God and our Father, we thank Thee for this sin that has been upon our lips to impress us of the coming Kingdom glory of our Lord Jesus Christ in this earth.
Because we're living in a day of unrighteousness and we're righteousness suffers, we suffer with it, and we think of that glad and glorious day when the earth shall be found bathed in righteousness, peace and equity. Oh, what a government that will be. Lord Jesus, that thou wilt order as a man.
And we thank Thee that we can have an interest in that even now, and to know that the very features of that Kingdom can be upheld in our hearts and in our lives. And we pray that it would be to this end that we would have these meditations. We ask for our help, the direction of Thy Spirit. We wait upon thee and thy most worthy and precious name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
Well, we're going to go to one of the most neglected books in the Word of God.
And that is the book of Ezekiel.
The Book of Ezekiel turning to chapter 40.
00:05:06
Charts up here are hard to see.
And they can be looked at afterward, but I thought just to catch a glimpse and have an impression from them.
Might be a help to us.
It may feel we have these charts before us and there's some of our dear brethren here in this room that we're there.
And we took up the thought of the great altar of the temple.
And the glory of the Lord has filled that temple. This afternoon. We would like to concentrate on the magnitude.
Of this vast complex.
And the water supply that is going to filter through that temple to the earth. And if we have time, we'll speak about the language.
That they will use in that day.
And, you know, to enter into it with our hearts and, and with the joy of heart, we almost would say, you know, I'd like to live long enough to be able to get there and to be a partaker of of that glorious day. But we have something that's infinitely better, to have heavenly blessing and to be united with Christ as his redeemed bride.
Blends from our sins and made fit for glory. And then to come back with him when he comes to reign and to be identified with him and to see all that he does.
It will be the uniting of heaven and earth to become one vast temple to the praise of Christ.
So in chapter 40.
We'll read verse 2.
In the visions of God brought him me into the land of Israel.
And set me up on a very high mountain, by which was as the frame of a city on the South. And he brought me thither. And behold, there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a lion of flax in his hand, and a measuring Reed. And he stood, and it should read in the Eastgate.
And the man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and here with thine ears.
And set thine heart upon all that I will show thee for to the intent that I might show them unto thee art thou brought. Hit her. Declare all that thou seest to the House of Israel.
Ezekiel is a captive in Babylon.
And he's been there.
At this point, for 25 years.
Suffered many things we had about affliction and trial. I don't think any of us here in this room would trade places with Ezekiel and what he passed through.
And so you might say, as a reward for his submission to the Lord.
He's going to enter here.
With the Lord himself and going to walk through this great complex.
And as he does it, the Lord reminds him of his eye, and his ear and his heart. And that's the way we want to enter it with them today, Because I have not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for those that love him.
You know.
One values the assembly for many reasons.
But one reason that I value God's assembly in that is it's where you're going to get the truth of God. We had it this morning.
And where the Spirit of God leads and guides according to the present name.
And so some of our brethren have labored to pass down the truth to us. And we could be in a situation this afternoon where maybe someone would take this up and they just see this man here and they would tell us all, well, you're just going to have to wait till that day to find out who it is.
00:10:11
You and I don't have to wait because it's the Lord Jesus here in his Incarnate, pre Incarnate character in the mystery of his person, and he calls Ezekiel out of Babylon.
Do words describe here this high mountain, Jerusalem?
To see what will be the greatest wonder that this world has ever seen. There's a lot of well, you know a little bit about the seven wonders of the ancient world, the seven wonders of the present world, and they all pale out connection with this building here.
And it's complex.
This is the only time.
That Ezekiel is going to have the privilege of walking in with the Lord because he too is going to have heavenly blessing in that day. He too is going to come back to reign with Christ.
And to think of his heart, so full of all these dimensions, and it's all there with him today.
He's waiting for the Lord to call.
When he calls us all home, the Old Testament Saints will gather up there in glory together.
This complex here.
The outline called the Outer Sanctuary.
Is 825 acres. There's farmers in here, and perhaps we have a little more appreciation for 825 acres. You know, Solomon's Temple and its grounds, We're about 32 acres.
So we catch the immensity of it.
Solomon had 4000 porters.
Looked after things in his temple.
I don't know how many porters are gonna be here. Priests, Levites. It'll be a busy, happy place and it will be open 24 hours a day.
Because we're not going. They're not going to have night like we have. And it gets dark and black. You can't see very good. No, you'll be able to see color at night, to see who's coming toward you at night. Like the children of Israel in the wilderness.
One day.
I was thinking about this vast temple.
The complex.
And I said to myself.
Who's gonna build that?
How many years is it going to take him?
They're not going to have big earth movers and cranes and.
All that's necessary.
Life is going to gear down where many of us wish it could gear down today.
The inhabitants of Earth are going to be able to enjoy life, never in a rush.
And Jerusalem.
Will be their greatest joy.
The psalmist speaks of it as beautiful for elevation, the joy of the whole earth.
Well, who's gonna build this temple?
I don't want to be misunderstood when we come down to the finish.
Because nothing that I say is essential for my standpoint, but we have a little scripture to look at.
And the first scripture will turn to as John chapter 2.
The Gospel of John.
Chapter 2.
And verse 18.
00:15:00
Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, What signs show us thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy the temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, 40 And six years was this temple and building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body.
This temple at Ezekiel saw.
Is going to be established on the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's going to be the temple of redemption on the foundation of the Lamb of God.
Now Zerubbabel, we read here.
That his temple took 46 years to build it. It was just a small one. How many years would this take where all the material come for this earth has been drawn from, A lot of minerals have come and gone and where is all that's going to come from and how is it going to be transported?
Let's turn to the book of Amos, the Book of Amos chapter.
9.
I have to tell you a little story about this verse.
Had a dear brother visit us in our home and we got to talking about this temple and I asked him. I said where is all the material going to come from? Do you know?
He said. You know.
I remember being at a general meetings and this question came up.
And there was quite a bit of silence and finally a brother spoke up and he said the Lord is going to build it.
Is there a verse for that? Let's look at it Amos 9 and verse 11.
In that day will I raise up the Tabernacle of David that has fallen, and close up the breaches thereof, and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old.
You know, when he found this verse that was read, I just felt a great relief from my soul.
The Lord isn't going to give out contracts.
He doesn't say we're going to build it. He says I am going to build it.
Next morning my wife and I were reading in the 14th chapter of Mark, and let's look at that Gospel 14th of March.
March 14.
Now we'll read verse 57.
And there arose certain and bare false witness against him, saying, we heard him say.
I will destroy this temple that is made with hands.
Within three days, I will build another maid without hands.
What's impressive about this is that these are false witnesses.
And we have that verse that says he causes the wrath of man to praise him. And I'd like to say he causes lying men to utter his praise. And that's what's happened in this verse. And as I pondered this over.
Probably many in this room do the same thing when you come across the verse and you say, I wonder what the new translation says. And that was even better.
I'll read the read it as it's there. We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands and within the course of three days I will build another not made with hands.
Well, not only was my heart relieved, but it was thrilled. I was thrilled to think.
What that means, perhaps we can say it has a dual meaning.
00:20:03
Res death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus from among the dead bodily, and to be with his disciples for 40 days and then be carried up in glory into heaven.
But also in the course of three days to build this temple.
Without hands.
Let's look at another verse in the Book of Hosea, chapter 6.
Daniel Hosea Chapter.
And verse 2.
After two days.
Will He revive us, and then the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord?
Let me just bring it together like this.
After we're raptured home to glory.
Daniel's last week is going to be fulfilled. The prophetic clerk hasn't moved.
Since the Lord Jesus the Messiah was cut off. And don't let anybody tell you that prophecies are being fulfilled today. They're not.
Maybe 4 runners. They don't deny that we could see the clock. The hands have not moved a second.
But now they come through great tribulation of which we wouldn't trade places with them either in our lives, make our worst trials look pretty dim.
Lord weighs, you know, and measures all our trials, and He entrusts us with them, that He may get glory to His name. Now Wonderful to look at a trial. It just presses your soul.
To get glory to his name if that's the purpose that was brought out.
And so here they're coming.
Let's just read it how it's going to be in the book of Zechariah.
Zechariah, the last chapter.
It's wonderful to have some of these scriptures to read and to reflect on.
Here they are.
They're they realize that that last week is over with sometime probably don't know for sure, but it tells us in verse six that it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear nor dark. I like to make a little application as we go on from day-to-day. There are little signs and little impressions that we have.
That the coming of the Lord draweth very nigh, and they are going to have that same impact and impression of soul, and then it goes on, but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord.
Not day nor night, but it shall come to pass.
That at evening time it shall be light.
You know.
As we come to the end of the day.
We might say to one another, you know, the Lord didn't come today and so we're just expecting to go to bed and see what's going to happen the next day.
And that's the way they are here. They're expecting to go to bed and all of a sudden, when it should be dark, it's light. The glory of Christ is now reflecting on the earth. And here's a tried and tested people coming out, and here they come to a temple that's already prepared for them.
What a day that will be.
What a change.
What an encouragement to our own hearts one of these days. In the moment, the twinkling of an eye, we're home at last.
Glorious moment for every one of us, dear brother Harry, Hail used to say with his face just gleaming, he said. And the impact of that moment will never leave us for all eternity to look into that lovely face.
00:25:06
The glorified man of Calvary.
Let's go on to the water supply. Turn back to the book of Ezekiel.
Chapter 47.
You know, this is such an immense subject.
We just can't exhaust it. No matter how many times you take it up. There are so many aspects to it.
God hasn't overlooked anything.
In connection with this temple and its complex has not said oh, I forgot, this would be something nice for the children of men. No, it's all there.
And so we read about this river.
Verse one. Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house, and behold, the waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward, for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters gained down from under the right side of the house at the South side of the altar. We'll pause there just for a moment.
Here we find.
A river that's flowing out from under the temple.
And it goes out in three branches, 1 branch goes to the Mediterranean Sea, the other one goes to the Dead Sea.
What does it do to the Dead Sea? Oh, all those waters are sweetened to the maximum and there are swarms of fish and there's fishermen along the banks and they got naps and can't exhaust the supply of food that will be enjoyed during the Millennium. And the other river flows out to the gentile world.
And by these things, the glory of the Lord goes out to the whole world, and there's a drawing power.
That makes folks from all over the world want to come to Jerusalem.
And so as they come, they can drink of these waters wherever they find them. We could read in Isaiah 35.
Let's take a moment to do that. Ezekiel 35 that gives such a beautiful account of the Millennium and all the changes that will come. The lane will be able to leap for joy in the eyes of the blind be opened. There won't be any handicapped people there on the earth.
You'll be able to enjoy the fullness of the goodness of the heart of God, but notice the water streams here in verse 6.
Isaiah 35.
Middle of verse six. For in the wilderness shall waters break out?
And streams in the desert and the parks ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.
You know those springs will always be there for 1000 years. As those dear ones come and go, they'll have to have water like we do. They can live, put their pictures down to their canteens and they can get that fresh flowing water clear as crystal. Don't have to worry about malaria or typhoid fever.
No corrupt waters.
Flare. Oh flare. Does that water come from?
Say, well, it comes from under the temple and it flows out, but let's go to Psalm 46 for a healthy verse. Psalm 46.
And verse 4.
There is a river.
The streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, and the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
The varying streams of refreshment that you and I will drink of in heaven.
The Lord Jesus is a fat, living fountain.
00:30:03
He's the head of all these.
Drinks of refreshment.
Slowing down now, we turn to Psalm 65. We'll read something there.
Mm-hmm. Psalm 65.
And verse 9.
Thou visit us the earth and waters it. Thou greatly enriches it with the water of God, which is full of water. Thou prepares them corn when thou hast so provided for it. That water is the ridges thereof abundantly Thou settle us, the furrows thereof they'll make us. It's soft with showers. Thou blesses the springing thereof.
Thou crown us the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness.
I've enjoyed the thought.
There won't be any mosquitoes either.
What a plague. You know you go camping and they can just make it so miserable you got to pack up and leave.
No, that will all be under control.
Well, the one Dean made this statement, I don't know where he got it. Maybe others have seen it. There's 1000 varieties of mosquitoes.
And they'll not be bothersome to anybody of the inhabitants of Earth.
So we have this stream of read on verse 2. Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about away without unto the inner gate by the way that look at the eastward. And behold, there ran out waters on the right side. And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured 1000 cubits, and he brought me through the waters. The waters were to the ankles.
And again he measured 1000 and brought me through the waters, and the waters were to the knees. And again he measured 1000 and brought me through the waters. Waters were to the loins, And afterward he measured 1000. It was a river that I could not pass over, for the waters were risen waters to swim in.
A river that could not be passed over.
Isn't that the heart of God described?
Perhaps you join me in calling to memory a brother getting up and reading this passage and giving a little word in the open meeting or wherever.
And it can be taken different ways. I've heard of different ways and I've enjoyed every way it's been presented.
But to think of having the privilege in our Christian experience to be able to step into the water of blessing.
We go slowly, don't we? We get into our.
Ankles.
That is, afterwards saved, there is normally a desire to want to walk with the Lord.
And so he refreshes our souls. Then we get in a little deeper.
And we want to pray to him, we want to have converse with the Lord that saved my soul and get into our loins, which is the seed of strength to be able to go onward.
And press toward the goal that we might win Christ.
And then to get out there deeper.
Begin to feel our feet leaving and losing contact with earth.
Heaven taking control. I have looked at some of my brethren. I have said of them, They are more in heaven than they are here.
You know, it tells us about Jacob, that he was blessing his son sitting there on the side of his bed, leaning on his staff.
And after he finished, it says he drew his feet into the bed.
Lost all contact with.
Gathered unto his people, it says.
Well, this is a wonderful experience when our feet begin leaving Earth and they're fine, those waters to swim in.
Recently there was one of our dear brethren taken home to glory.
00:35:05
And the comment was made about them that they didn't have a clue who the president of the United States was.
Didn't have a clue of current events.
Totally disinterested.
You know, I covered that. I'm afraid I'm too earthly minded, too interested in what's going on to see if I can't put something together.
That, uh, might make a little sense.
Well.
Wanted to just touch back.
On those that come out of great tribulation.
And that is that when they come out of great tribulation, they have palm branches in their hand.
And they're going to meet the Lord with those palm branches in their hands. And what do they, what are they saying by those palm branches?
We're going to meet the Lord without an offended spirit.
Oh, did that ever speak to my conscience?
You know, a palm tree is a very interesting tree in that it can bend down so low.
And when the storm is over, it raises back up again and it's leaves shaking the breezes.
There's a lot of things that the Lord hasn't told us about this temple, and it's complex, but he has told us about the palm trees.
Palm trees, you know or can be found in that land even today. Jericho is called the city of palm trees.
But the palm trees are going to be a prolific tree. I enjoy a palm tree when I see it catches my eye. Don't live where palm trees grew, grow.
And so were these waters flow out going to be lined with palm trees and there are other trees that are going to be there too.
And so I have not seen nor ear heard, neither hath that entered into our hearts this afternoon. How glorious that is going to be in that day.
Well, we.
I was spoken about the waters, those sufficient waters that will fill the inhabitants of earth with refreshment, no end to it, exhaustless, eternal.
And here the Saints are.
At the end of 1000 years.
We perhaps can point at a man and say you see that man or that woman, they are 1100 years old.
So that in the point that I want to make is that those that go into the millennial reign of Christ, that their life is like eternal life.
They have a life that isn't going to die.
Now we're going to Tabernacle over the earth, not on it. We're going to Tabernacle over the earth because sin will still be here.
And we're not going to be defiled by sin when we leave.
This sad earth, but there are going to be some reminders of sin and that is that the poor serpent is going to have to eat dust for another 1000 years.
I don't exactly know how to say it, but he was the propounder of deceiving Eve in the garden. Consequences.
Then there are marshy places that will not be healed. They'll be a little monument, you might say, of sin.
We have.
In uh, Lot and his wife that they weren't to look back, and she looked back and she became a pillar of salt.
And the Lord in his ministry, he simply said, Remember Lot's wife?
Monument to disobedience and sin.
Men, I don't know quite how this is going to be, but sin is going to be judged every morning.
00:40:03
I don't know if there are going to be those that see that.
But at least we know this.
That anyone in that day that.
Presumptuously sins against the wisdom and knowledge of God that is clearly given.
They will be cut off in the morning. Sin will be judged every morning. So we Tabernacle over the earth.
Now we spoke about the language that they're going to speak. Let's turn to the book of Zephaniah for this verse.
Zephaniah, chapter 3.
And we'll read verse 9.
For then will I turn?
To the people of pure language, that they may call upon the name of the Lord to serve Him with one consent.
A pure language.
You know, over time.
The languages of this world have degenerated.
They pick up bad words.
The language of Latin was that way.
The language of Latin was unique and still used today by those that put pills together of different compounds. They give it a name, a Latin name, because they can zero in to exactly what they're talking about.
And that language became so corrupt in the earth that the Lord just collapsed the Roman Empire.
And the language is dead today, just to give an example.
Thank God for the English language.
That we have the Bible to keep that language from turning upside down and becoming a dead language.
All the King James Version, that language, call it archaic, whatever you want.
That stabilizes the language in this nation, whether they know it or not. You, you know that there are those corrupt channels of talk and some of it, if we heard it here this afternoon, are so protected and we wouldn't even know what they were talking about.
Well, what we do here?
Graves our souls, doesn't it?
How many times I have heard the young?
Leaving the protection of their Christian home.
Going to school, going to the workplace and what they have had to put up with is horrendous.
We need to be.
Pray every day that the Lord keep us from unreasonable and wicked men of this kind of conversation.
The power of wicked words allowed to work in our souls again take us right out of communion with the Lord.
In full.
Oh I love this. To think that during the Millennium they'll have a pure language.
No bad words, no off colored stories.
What you hear is the truth. No deceitfulness.
What a day.
I don't want to misquote it, but there's an expression a millennial language in the Book of Ruth, chapter 2.
The Book of Ruth, chapter 2.
Ref You've had fathers and mothers, you young folks.
There you are reading the 2nd chapter of the book of Ruth and verse four it says, And behold, Boaz king from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee.
Well, I remember my father.
Emphasizing this to his children. And we lived on a farm and harvest time, there would be a lot of men employed to get the wheat out of the field and into the granary. And he said, wouldn't it be nice if you heard those men say to their boss, the Lord be with you, And he would answer his reapers, the Lord bless thee to think of how that would stimulate the heart to go out and do a good day's work for a good boss.
00:45:27
Well, this is just a sample of the talk of the millennial glory, one to another.
You know, another feature.
Of the millennial glory is equity. Equity.
Equity sounds pretty good to me, doesn't it to you?
It's the opposite of favoritism.
Equity, you know, one of the beautiful features of equity will be that nobody will have to say, do you know the Lord? Do you know the Lord, waiting for the answer yes or no?
No, they won't even ask that question, because everyone shall know the Lord.
There we add it in Hosea, that they shall know, if they follow on to know the Lord.
Oh what a what a day of blessing this is going to be.
And we've touched very briefly on it.
Perhaps we could have time for one more thing.
Let's go back to the Book of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel, chapter 40.
Three.
And verse 3.
It is for the Prince. The Prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord. As he entered. He shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.
You know, on the subject of this comes up, the question is, who's the Prince?
And if you would ask me, I would ask a question back. Is it the Lord Jesus?
And the one who knows would say, no, it's not the Lord Jesus, but it is a man of the seed of David who will be a man like David.
He's going to be subordinate to the Lord Jesus Christ, going to have direct communication with him.
And he's going to fill his heart from day-to-day with wisdom and knowledge to be able to.
Enhance the Kingdom.
You know, there are going to be children born in that day and it's not going to be a question, do we do this or do that? Do we do this because so and so does that. No, it's going to be channeled wisdom.
As to how to carry yourself and what to do, we're not going to do it, but.
In the book of Zechariah it speaks about the old folks, the old man and the old woman. The next verse that speaks about the boys and girls playing in the streets of Jerusalem.
There's not going to be any generation gap in that day and there doesn't need to be one today, but we have to be on guard to.
The exercise that there not be a generation gap.
Because the truth of God goes from one generation to another.
And if there's a generation that doesn't hear the truth, doesn't realize the seriousness of life, can lose it.
It's gone. How are you going to recover it? It's gone.
Well, this dear man is going to be like David. David was Israel's loved king.
And David had a reign of 40 years of grace marked by grace, and he really had a rapport with the people that his son Solomon did not have. It was more regal and more.
00:50:01
Just to make sure that everything is in proper order. But you know, grace is a wonderful thing, isn't it? God's wonderful grace that we have the privilege of showing to one another. If that grace is active, it won't allow for a generation gap.
And so just a little word on this Prince is not the Lord Jesus Christ.
Wondered whether to say this statement or not, because the first time I heard it, I was lost instantly. That our dear brother London, when he ministered the word among us, he said, you know most.
Of the Old Testament is prophetic. What did he mean? What was he saying?
Well, number one, he was right in what he said. And so we have David as a prophetic king.
To answer to the man here in the book of Ezekiel that will be called the Prince.
I can find a little paper. I'd like to read it as we come to the end of this message.
I would just like to strengthen the hands of my brethren in connection with prophetic ministry.
Recently so convicted of it in my own soul.
As to the value of prophetic ministry.
There are a lot of prophets in the world today that are prophesying this, that and the other thing.
And it's very accessible, from the waves, airwaves to magazines to whatever.
And it sounds good, maybe even good sense, but it's not true. And we hear enough of that.
And we start imbibing some of it.
And then we find out it's wrong.
And we feel irritated by it. Well, might we feel irritated?
So we have to have it based upon this precious book.
I just encourage my brother in connection with not neglecting the prophetic side of the ministry.
I had the opportunity to read some of Dear Mr. Kelly's treatise on the Book of Ezekiel.
It was wonderful to my soul.
Well, what really impressed me was how he closed his book.
I had to write it down, lest I forget at least the.
The blessedness of it.
This is what he wrote. This then is the last and chief glory, the presence of Jehovah in the city of his choice. That will be Jerusalem.
In this Israel shall boast above all their privileges, and justly.
For it is the compliment and crown of all.
Do you think of those downtrodden people?
The tale, if you please, will one day be the head of all nations, and they will be the most lovable people that have come out of great tribulation and have softened their hearts so that they are good representatives of their Messiah to the Gentile world.
It goes on to say how bright an end of their long wanderings and of their manifold sorrows, how worthy of His redeeming grace who will cleanse away the guilt.
Which shed it when they turned to him in faith, discerning and owning at length.
They're self-destructive folly.
In the light of his love, who never wavered.
But died for them so many centuries before.
They broke down in shame and contrition before him.
He doeth all things well.
I'd like to just add with that.
That 2600 years.
Of exile will be over.
00:55:00
Forever.
There they will be.
In that place of richest blessing.
I believe.
That Ezekiel is at the very heart.
The trouble in this world?
Connection with God blessing Jacob for 1000 years.
And all other nations will come to Israel for blessing. Esau can't stand that he hates it and wants to exterminate the Jews. So this Bible is just a sham. And if they don't do that?
Then the Koran is a sham.
Dealer collision.
Wonderful to be on the winning side, isn't it?
Let's go back to our little M #40.
The back of our handbook.
The last two verses.
All day sunshine.
And praying. Talking.
I don't trust him crying, frozen and just.
Our God and Father, we praise Thee for sharing with us the secrets of Thy counsel.
Of a future day that's not very far off.
It's the things that must shortly come to pass.
And how we appreciate this dear servant of thine that went through that mighty complex when there wasn't a stone in place.
By immortalized to see that building and to see it filled with the glory of the Lord. Oh how wonderful the eye of faith will give us more of that vision as we journey on home to be.
More taken up with thyself, Lord Jesus.
Less of or and it's confines. So we ask for Thy blessing now on the open meeting, to give our dear brethren wisdom and liberty to further bring Thy word before us. We ask these things in my most worthy and precious name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
Temples of Scripture
Take My Yoke Upon You and Learn of Me
Learning from David to Consult the Lord About What We Do
Gospel 1
Gospel—John Kemp
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.
Good evening, everyone. Uh, we especially, uh.
Uh, extend uh, warm welcome to any uh.
Strangers to anyone who has.
Coming from the neighborhood.
Through our gospel meeting tonight.
Uh, we're going to sing a couple of hymns.
Before the message is given, so shall we start by singing number six?
God in mercy sent his Son.
To a world by sin undone number six. Someone who's started, please.
Jesus Christ.
If I was first man and there are two in the pride.
No more snow rain.
She was crying, and then again.
In the glory.
High time.
Oh my God.
OK, uh, we're down from above.
Very well.
Every time I.
And I cry. That's why I want.
Now we pray. Our gracious God and our Father, we thank Thee.
Above all, for the unspeakable gift of thy beloved Son, the One who.
00:05:07
Less the glory on high, where he was from a past eternity in the bosom of the Father.
Rich in glory became poor, and we, through his poverty might be Rick. We thank thee for his journey from the throne of glory to the cross of Calvary. And as we seek in some feeble measure to, uh, unfold this wondrous story.
From the heart of God we ask thy help, thy guidance. We cannot look into the hearts of each one who is present in the room this this evening, but we know our God that all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. We pray for the salvation of souls, young or old, with the time is short.
And the Lord's coming is near.
The Day of Grace's fast running to a close. So we ask guidance, our God and my health and the founding 4th of the Glad tidings.
We thank you for the privilege, we thank you for the liberty that we have in this land to do so, asking it all in that blessed and holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. So we also sing #14 Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the land? I heard a story. I read a story of a man who had lived most of his life.
And carelessness.
Without any concern for eternity, businessman successful laying on a hospital bed.
Umm ex expecting to go into the operating room at any moment.
He took stock of his uh.
State before God as he lay on that bed because it was going to be a critical operation. There was no guarantee that He would come out alive.
Any thoughts? I'm not ready to meet God.
I may not have another opportunity.
I'm going in for this operation. I don't know if I'm coming out.
And, uh, as he lay on that bed with.
He was reaching out like a drowning man for something to hold onto.
There was no one there, but I want to encourage those who labor in Sunday school work mothers and fathers I know.
Faithfully give the message to their children for those who labor among children, as I have done a little.
Uh, implanting the precious word of God in their souls like a flex. A verse that he had learned at his mother's knee.
The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin came into his mind. He grasped it and he, uh, held on to it. He says that is enough. A piece filled his soul that he never had before.
And he entered that operating room with confidence. Whatever happened, he was ready. Are you ready? Are you prepared, my friend? Under the sound of our voice tonight, Are you ready for eternity? Shall we stand in thing #14?
Have you been to Jesus for the friendly Father? Are you lost in the world?
When the bright grilled promise of your roast beef like your employees in the bottom of the world.
And my soul friend's name brought all the Bible.
Are your garments?
Are you lost in the blood of land?
A very important question for every one of us to consider tonight.
Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? No light is uncertain. You may have a lease upon your house, but you do not have one on your life.
Umm.
We are reminded every day of the brevity of time and the sureness of eternity. What would you think of a man that was on the brink of a precipice? At any moment he might be dashed over and lose his life.
If he was unconcerned, unaware of the danger that he was in, wouldn't you call him a foolish person?
Wouldn't it be inclined to warn him?
Of his danger and point him to a way of escape. And that's exactly what God has done. He has warned us of our danger. He has also provided a wonderful way of escape from eternal judgments, from hell, from sin, from Satan's power. And tonight.
We have this message of pardon to proclaim. You know, a gospel meeting has its origin up there in heaven.
It comes from the heart of God. The Lord Jesus came to reveal the heart of God to us and to bring man to God.
That was the purpose of His mission. From the glory, the Son of God loved us and gave Himself for us. And tonight we are still in the day of grace. The door of salvation is wide open tonight or whosoever.
The word of God says, whosoever will let him come and take the water of life freely, freely.
There was a man, I think he lived in Ottawa, where I live, and, uh.
He was not saved, but he went into the army and in the army they gave, they give them a, uh, a New Testament to put into their uniform pockets.
And he was in active service on the front lines.
00:15:03
And a bullet penetrated through his tunic, his uniform, and through the New Testament that he had there, and stopped at that verse. Whosoever will let him come and take the water of life breathing.
Well, as our brother Gordon, I believe it was, spoke to that man. He could bring out that Testament. He could show you where the bullet stopped at that very verse. That's the last invitation in the Bible.
For sinners to come, that's the last one. God couldn't close his precious Word, the Canon of Scripture, without giving one more invitation.
And he gives it to you tonight. But the sad thing, that man who had that experience was not safe. And I don't know before he passed into eternity if he tasted the water of life.
But tonight, we want you to taste the water of life. We're gonna read a little later on about a woman.
A wrecked, miserable person who tasted the water of life.
And found forgiveness.
And pardon and salvation.
Oh, dear friends, life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal. Just thou art, and unto dust return us was not spoken of. The soul, that soul which you possess, is eternal.
And it's going to exist.
As long as God exists.
Man was breathed into his nostrils and he became a living soul.
Responsible to God.
And tonight the eye of God looks down upon this company, searching every heart.
And, uh, every light.
God knows all your sins, every thought. God has a good memory, reverently speaking, and he knows everything that you have done in your life. Every thought is recorded there in the books, every act.
And how solemn it would be.
To stand before God.
Without a savior in your sins. Without hope.
Without the precious blood to cleanse your sins away.
Remember that the light of God. We sang it in our hymn.
It reveals what man is.
Uh, the, the like of God, the sins that the light of God reveals the blood of Christ and.
And put away.
Uh.
God is light and God is love.
Tonight we want to, umm, make it clear that God is not demanding something from you. He's a righteous and a holy God.
He's not looking to receive something from you tonight because you have nothing to give. You are a bankrupt Sinner.
Without anything to offer God and he's not demanding anything.
If we turn back to the Book of Exodus, we see that fiery mountain, Sinai.
Moses stood at the bottom of that mountain when God's demands, God's holy demands, were made known. And it says.
That he quit.
And he feared exceedingly he was in the presence of a sin hating God.
And he felt unfit for his presence.
And so it is with you, my friend. There's nothing that you can do, Reformation, good work, resolutions, whatever that can ever fit you for the presence of a holy, sin hating God.
Who searches your heart tonight?
But there is a way, only one way, of escape from that eternal judgment that hangs like a storm cloud over this world.
00:20:09
It says in the book of Acts it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment people are infidel today.
And, uh, they don't believe in the health. They make fun of it. How often we hear the word spoken in a flippant way.
Uh, and the name of the Lord Jesus blasphemed.
What a world we live in. But God does not make light of sin. Sin is an offense to His holy nature. One sin in God's sight is worse than 1000 sins in our sight. We have to deal with us. Holy God, a God who must punish sin. People make a joke of sin today. You hear it every day.
But God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. What is repentance? Repentance is a change of mind.
Perhaps you thought you were pretty good like this. Boys and girls, A man goes to the doctor.
And uh.
He's in a quite a happy mood, but uh, the doctor diagnosis his condition and tells him that he has a very serious.
Terminal illness. In other words, he might die if he believes what the doctor says. He no longer makes fun of the symptoms. He is now serious. If he does not believe it, then his attitude is different. But if he believes what the doctor tells him.
That he has a, a very serious disease. He will do something. He will listen to the advice of the doctor. He has a change of mind. And that's what repentance really is. Uh, dear friend, it's a change of mind. You may have thought yourself acceptable to God and you may be a moral and a religious person, an amiable person, a friendly person.
And looked up to in your community respectable.
But when you get into the presence of God.
And you hear His word, and you believe it.
It it causes a change in the life.
God's Word is living and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword.
There was a little boy, his name was Tommy.
He wasn't afraid of very much.
There was one thing that made him a scared and that was an old fashioned plate that was on the wall.
And uh.
He never wanted to look at that plate.
It only had about four words on it. It was on the Mantel piece there.
And he wished it would fall down and break, but he he never did. And he wouldn't touch it. These are the words that he had that he saw there day after day as he went into the dining room. Thou God seeth me.
Well, Tommy wasn't the worst boy in the village. Mother would have covered up his faults with the mantle of charity, as mothers do. But deep down in his heart, boys and girls, this is a little story that you might understand. Deep down in his heart, regardless of what other people said, he knew that there was sin.
Lies a deceitful heart inside. It wasn't the outside that he was troubled about. It was the inside.
And that's the important thing, boys and girls and older ones too, because God looks, man looks on the outward appearance.
He, uh, seemed to be a wholesome boy, but God looks on the heart. And so Tommy was troubled by that plate and those words that were printed on the center of it. Thou God sees me. But one day Tommy came to a gospel meeting.
And he heard the message from Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 6. Here it is all we like sheep, have gone astray. Tommy knew that we have turned everyone to his own way.
He, uh, could relate to that, he, he agreed with that. He had often turned to his own way, and so have we. But the end of the verse and the lo uh, the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all There He saw his sin so great, so many, even though he was a boy laid upon the head of the Lord Jesus, the substitute, the Lamb of God.
00:25:22
That verse starts with all and it ends with all.
Go in at the first call and come out as the last call and you'll be safe. In other words, you go in as a thinner and.
You come out as a St. You come out saved by his grace. So Tommy was no longer afraid of the light because he he was glad that God saw everything in his life now.
Because he knew the blood of Christ had cleansed him from his sins. And God saw everything. That was all right, because the blood of Christ cleanses from all sins. So, dear friends, this evening we do invite you. We should say that God invites you to come to Christ. What have you got to lose by accepting the Lord Jesus as your Savior? I'll tell you what you have to lose.
Your sins, that's all.
And you're glad to get rid of them. What do you gain at the Gospel feast that is being spread tonight? For whosoever, What do you gain? Eternal life, forgiveness and pardon of sins. A home in the glory forever.
And the justification, so many wonderful things are on the table, the Gospel feast, and yet there is room. God's house is filling fast. But the proof that we have on Gospel meeting tonight tells us that God is still waiting in long-suffering grace, not willing that any should perish in the door of salvation is wide open for whosoever.
God's grace and love is still reaching out. How long we do not know. God is speaking to people.
The earthquake in Peru.
We were in Peru in July in Lima.
Where we at a conference, 300 to 400 people present. Happy time.
I think we've all heard of.
Devastating earthquake that hit ICAH and area about 200 kilometers from Lima.
Tremors were felt in Lima. I have been in Lima when I felt tremors too.
But, uh, the, uh, loss of life was tragic. Over 500 people, many of them gathered in a church there in some sort of a religious holiday. Many gathered in the church, which collapsed. And, uh.
Hundreds were ushered into eternity. God's voice to that land of Peru. God's voice to you tonight too.
But the middle of July?
Eleanor, my wife, who is Brazilian. We were just married last October. We were sitting in the.
In the airport in Puerto Alegre. Puerto Alegre is in the South of Brazil. It's a large city of 1,000,000 people. That's where five rivers meet a major port in uh, Brazil.
We were sitting in the waiting room. Uh.
For our flight to be announced.
We had been visiting in the South of the country. We were on our way back to Sao Paulo.
Where, uh, Eleanor lives.
At the same time that we were to leave that airport, another plane left. It was also going to sail Polo.
It had about 175 people on it.
I wanna tell you something. Not one of them arrived alive.
They were likely sitting in the same waiting room as we were. I still reproach myself for not giving out tracks to them because that would have been their last opportunity.
We did give our tracks after, but it was too late. Yes, that's that airline.
Umm missed the runway or there was some mechanical defect. It hit the runway over the highway, which we pass regularly into a deep hole. There a fuel depot exploded.
00:30:10
An inferno and all those people 199, including those on the ground, ushered into eternity.
Did those people think when they sat in that airport that that would be their last day on earth? They were looking forward to arriving, meeting their family in Sao Paulo, that vast city, 17 million.
No, they didn't think of that. That wasn't in their calculations.
But now they're in eternity.
How earnest we should be. We don't know, brethren, when it is the last time.
That we meet a person on earth.
And how we're going to reproach ourselves. I speak to myself. First of all, if we have not made an attempt to give them the gospel, at least by a track or a word of warning, these are eternal souls that we are meeting and rubbing shoulders with every day going on into the next World. They're like that man on the brink of a precipice, unaware of his danger, like a blind man there.
And.
Loves that person. He loves those people that lost their lives as much as he loves you. How many were ready? I don't know.
Dear friends, God is speaking, and perhaps He's speaking to you tonight.
Because He wants you to be saved. He doesn't want you to pass into eternity without hope and without God. Let us turn to John 4.
John chapter four. We are familiar with this story, so we probably will not read the uh.
The whole passage.
Uh, we all are.
Umm.
Familiar with the third chapter of John? Uh, you know, in John's gospel you often get the Sinner along with the Savior.
Uh, that's characteristic of the Gospel. Of course we have the Lord Jesus as the Son of God in the Gospel of John. We think of all the glories that he had from a past eternity.
Unfolded to us in chapter one.
Uh, where we, uh, we see who he was, The eternal 1.
The Creator in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
From a past eternity He was in the bosom of the Father. He knew all that was in that bosom. He came to earth to make it known. As we said, He came to earth to reveal the heart of God to you.
Show you that God was not against you, but for you, that he wants to save you from that awful thing that has ruined your life.
Sin this world is like a huge leper colony.
I have visited leper colonies in India and in Nigeria. What an awful condition. People shuffling around without feet and without hands, without noses sometimes, and so on. What an awful disease leprosy is eating away.
The very umm vital organs of the of the person death working in the midst of life. It is.
A striking figure of sin and this world is like one huge leopard calling sin and evil rampant in becoming worse every day. Satan acted as never before. When I went to high school, there were temptations.
There were attractions, TV and so on, but nothing like it is today. And uh, Satan is a master entertainer. He's a strong man and he's armed with all the pleasures of this world. And in 2007?
His, his, uh, resources are tremendous.
I won't name them, but we know.
Unregenerate man, the Sinner who who wants to please his lust. He has access. He can have anything he wants.
00:35:03
But umm, there's a stronger than heat.
The Lord Jesus has power to break the chains of sin that holds you.
Uh, I have passed through South Africa and there is an island.
Off table in Off Table Bay, South Africa. It's called Robben Island.
And uh.
It, uh, was a place where they sent, uh, those who were affected with leprosy.
From the 1800s and there was a man, his name was James Fish. He left his home and comfort to go down there to South Africa to preach the gospel and after a time he made the journey over to Robben Island. Most people only had a one way ticket and they went over there. They never came back.
If anyone was affected with leprosy in South Africa.
There was your destination, whether you liked it or not. You were sent to Robben Island and you never got back.
It was a death sentence. Well, James Smith, James Fish, he tells in his book that I have read, very interesting biography of how he would gather those lepers together, sometimes 120 without hands and feet. Sometimes they have to carry a poor man on his shoulders to come into the meeting and they would just sit.
Such miserable.
Creatures, but all had souls that Christ died for. I've spoken to the lepers.
Umm and Miss Mr. Fish for years labored among them.
Umm, uh, among all the dangers? And so on.
But he devoted his life to bringing the gospel to the lepers on Robben Island, and I'm sure that in the glory we will meet many of them.
Who in all their misery?
Maimed and halt may be blind and naked. They would come to Christ and receive a full and eternal salvation. They didn't have any money, they were poor, but they did feel their needs. And dear friends, tonight we trust the presence of God that you will feel your need of a Savior.
That you will realize your wretched condition. Or you say I'm not like that. Well, physically no, but spiritually you are dead in trespasses and sins. You might say I'm more like the man in John chapter 3, Nicodemus. He was a moral and an upright man. Everyone would look up to him just like you would to the Apostle Paul. Why it took the last commandment to knock the Apostle Paul down.
As touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. Can you say that He was at the top of the ladder of human religiousness and human righteousness, you might say. But he met the Lord and he was struck to the ground and heard the voice of the Lord Jesus calling to him. Nicodemus. He went to see the Lord by night. He didn't want everyone to know that he.
Was going to meet the teacher. In fact, he was going to receive some instruction. The Lord Jesus was the greatest teacher that ever lived, but it wasn't teaching that Nicodemus needed. He needed a new nature. He needed to be born again. And he was taken aback when the Lord Jesus said to him, Nicodemus, he must be born again.
What did the Lord mean? Well, the Lord goes on to explain it to his astonished mind. And there's another must in that chapter which you have noticed, no doubt, chapter 3, verse 14. Uh, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.
Even so, must the Son of Man be lifted up? There's a must there, the necessity of the new birth, and every one of you.
00:40:02
Regardless of your background, we're not talking about your background tonight.
The invitation is given to you to come to the marriage feast.
Uh, it's not your sins that will keep you away from that invitation. The invitation is offered to you tonight, regardless of how great a Sinner you may be. But Nicodemus was in that.
Kathu Gori of uh, moral and respectable man.
But the Lord said.
Uh, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Yes, there was a necessity for Christ to be lifted up. And the cross of Calvary. Nicodemus being a Pharisee, he knew the Old Testament, He knew that story of the serpent, the brazen serpent being lifted up.
A picture of the Lord Jesus bearing our sins root and branch on the cross of Calvary. Nicodemus listened, and I'm sure when he left that home that night, he felt I'm not ready to enter the Kingdom of God, but he was ready before the end of the gospel. Here we have him at midnight in John seven. We have him in twilight. He speaks up for the Lord among the Pharisees.
But in John 19 and 20 we have him in broad daylight. He has now come out.
And, uh, identified himself with the one who was rejected and with Joseph of Arimathea. He embalmed the precious body of the Lord Jesus. Well, he was a man that had standing, He had reputation, he had character. But in chapter 4, we're gonna look at a man, a woman that had none of these things. Let us read a few verses. When therefore the Lord knew.
Of the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John.
Verse three. He left Judea and departed again into Galilee.
And you must need to go through Samaria, and comethy to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. The Lord had been rejected in Jerusalem, and by the Jewish people came unto his own, and his own received him not. We find him now outside of that land of promise, so to speak out. He was in the country of the Samaritans.
You know, the Samaritans have sort of a mongrel worship. They had their own center and their own mountain, but it was never recognized by God. This was a Samaritan woman and uh, of a, of a very poor character too. She was one that, uh, was at the very bottom of the ladder of the righteousness and morality. She was.
Wretched she was isolated. Her sin had isolated her from society.
She was not wanted.
Uh, in the city of Sykar, usually in these countries.
The women go out to draw the water in the morning or in the evening when it is cooler. But she was out here in the middle of the day in the hot sun. She feared the frown of of those who knew her. Perhaps women would walk on the other side of the street.
We know from the account, as we read on, that she had had five husbands.
And he, he whom she now had was not her husband. She was living in open sin. And the Lord deals with that matter as we see further on in the chapter. But here the Lord is coming in maxless grace.
He's coming here in mercy.
Comparison, pity, love, you must needs go through Samaria.
And he was hungry at this time, and thirsty because the Lord Jesus was a perfect man. As we said this morning, He never used his Godhead power to shield himself from the necessities that we all have.
00:45:02
He was hungry, tired, thirsty.
The Son of God, the creator of the universe. He could put his hand on all the treasures of the universe. He took humanity into union with himself. He became a man.
And here, as a weary 1A weary Jew, that's all she saw there.
As she looked upon that man, uh, a weary Jewish man, but oh, he was there for the purpose of bringing blessing into her empty life. Yes, she had tried sin. The well was deep. She was tired of life.
And uh.
She didn't have any hope. Wretched, miserable.
Alone there, but she was alone with the Lord Jesus. How wonderful have you been along with the Lord? Again we repeat, we see another woman in John eight of a similar character. We know she was brought into the presence of the Lord, an adulteress.
And the Lord said to her.
Neither do I condemn these Go and sin no more. The word didn't make light of her sin.
There, if she had been at Mount Sinai and she had got what she deserved, both of these women would have been stoned.
If the law had taken its course, the law condemns what the Lord was hearing. Infinite grace. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. The Lord was here to bless this Sinner, and He's here to bless you tonight. Dear friend, He doesn't want you to go out of this room in your sins, on the road to a lost eternity. He has come down.
For that purpose of seeking and saving the loss and the Lord Jesus, perfect man, perfect God, along with this woman, he searches her heart and he says.
Umm, give me to drink.
The one who had created the well of Jacob.
Was here, uh, winning the confidence of this poor soul. He knew all about her life. Come.
See, a man that told me all things that ever I did, as we go on down the story, she has a lot of questions. She's rather ignorant of things, but the Lord is patient with her and, uh, he leads her on and he speaks to her of living water coming down the passage here.
We read that in the uh.
10th verse is Passover, a few verses. I think it's familiar to most of it, most of us. But verse 9 then says the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that valve being a Jew, ask his drink of me, which I'm a woman of Samaria. She had questions, so did Nicodemus. He used the word how to there were questions in their minds.
And people today have a lot of questions, don't they?
Sometimes they're infidel questions because they don't believe what God says in His Word.
And uh.
They are not willing to submit to the word of God, but the Lord deals very patiently with this the ignorance of this woman in our past each year.
And God's grace is flowing out to her. And in John chapter 8.
Did the Lord make light of her sin? Again we say no, but he was going to go to the cross.
To bear the judgment for the sin of that woman and on the cross.
The Lord Jesus.
Bore the terrible wrath and judgment of God for my guilty and filthy sins. So for this woman here he was going to go to Calvary. It was before him the gift of eternal life was being offered to her. The living water from the heart of God. You know that fountain.
Arises in the heart of God tonight.
00:50:02
Our brother mentioned the waters coming from under the temple this afternoon.
There were four rivers in the UH.
Or one river, I think divided into four parts in the second chapter of Genesis.
But it was polluted by man's sin.
Creation was spoiled and ruined by man's sin.
And uh, we turn to Exodus, we see the water there flowing out of the smitten rock. When Moses struck that rock, the waters gushed out. That's a picture of the Lord Jesus under the judgment of God.
That raw Jehovah lifted up his rod. Oh Christ, it fell on thee line. Open bosom was my ward. It bore the storm for me. That water gushed out.
Doctrinally, we could say a picture of the Holy Spirit that was given as a result of the death of Christ, but it's the living water that God is freely offering those of us who have been guilty of the death of the Lord Jesus. Oh, you say? That's pretty strong language to use.
But in reality, we are guilty before God, if not saved, of the death of Christ.
There were two little boys, uh, that were fishing one day.
And they fell into the water and they couldn't swim. There was a strong young man on the shore. He threw off his boots and he dived into the water and with a great personal exertion he was able to rescue those two boys. He was a good swimmer, but his clothes were soaking and he was weighted down with water. He couldn't get up the embankment.
And he fell back into the water and drowned. But the two little boys were saved and united with their parents. A few days later there was a funeral in that town. It was a preacher of the gospel who was there. He was going to announce the glad tidings that night. And he says he said that night to the audience, He said, today I saw something.
That I've never seen before.
I saw the father.
Of those two little boys.
Yes, ma'am.
Umm.
Yeah, he thought, The father of the young man.
Who had lost his life. I saw him go over and.
Plant a KIF on these.
On the head of those two boys.
Those two boys were the cause of his son's death.
But he showed his love for them.
And dear friends.
That is the case with us too. You have taken, and with wicked hands of crucified and slain.
But, uh, God in his mercy is reaching out with, uh, that message of pardon for you tonight. And so the Lord later on in this chapter, uh, speaks to the conscience of this woman. It speaks, it says here.
Verse 16.
Whosoever well verse 13, whosoever drinketh of this waterful thirst to gain and uh.
Man with all his inventions and his knowledge, is he satisfied? No, you can't be satisfied until you find the source of true happiness in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. This gospel message, I trust, has brought before you a person. We're not talking about a religion or a philosophy or turning over a new leaf. We're not talking about amending your life and, uh, cleaning up your act. We're talking about salvation.
A new life, forgiveness of sins, and uh, here the Lord says the well, she said the well is deep and it becomes deeper all the time.
Man seeking to satisfy the cravings of his heart, he has to go deeper all the time.
More and more he had desired, and he's never satisfied. But here is living water, as the Lord says. Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. Isn't that wonderful? But the water that I shall give him shall be in him. A well of water springing up into everlasting life. That's the fountain that is springing up perennial. Offered to you tonight that which will satisfy your desires.
00:55:26
Oh yes, there's lots to satisfy the sinful desires of man.
Satan knows how to appeal to man. He presents to him that which will satisfy his evil lusts. That's how he keeps them in his power. But here the Lord is offering pleasures forevermore. God doesn't deny that there are pleasures in sin, but they're only for a season. They're only for a short time. And so the Lord reaches the conscience of this woman, because the conscience has to be brought into the presence of God. And we trust tonight.
But your conscience has been awakened. If you're still unsaved, you're still sitting here without God in your sins, guilty. We we pray that your conscience will be awakened. The Lord did that with this woman in verse 16. Goal, call thy husband and come thither. It wasn't very often that the Lord told someone to leave him.
And it was with a divine purpose here because, uh, this woman.
Uh knew she was a Sinner, and the Lord put his finger on her conscience in this uh, in this passage.
And she was awakened, She knew she was in the presence of One who knew all about her from beginning to end. And so it is. You are in the presence of God tonight who knows your life, yet He loves you. He knows all about you, yet He has come in Maxwell's grace from the glory to meet your needs. As He did with this poor woman, He filled her heart.
She was a wonderful testimony.
When she went back into that city of Sikar, it was natural, it flowed out, it was the overflow of her heart. That should be the case with us. Sometimes it's a formal thing when we witnessed because we don't really understand the grace of God as we should, what we have been saved from that horrible pit. The grace of God reached down below all our sin. It was even greater than our sin.
But do we realize what we have been saved from? Saved for?
But she, her heart was filled and, uh, she went into the city and she had a, a wonderful message to give to those who knew her so well. She went in to reap fruit. Many believed the message that she presented. Many more believed when the Lord spent a few days in that city.
And then Phillip the evangelist in Acts chapter 8, he goes in and reaps the whole city. He preached Christ unto them, and they believed, and the whole city was saved.
While the fields are white, all ready to harvest, the laborers are few. Well, may the Lord bless His word to us tonight. Dear friends, know the gospel has been presented very feebly tonight. There's many that could do a better job than me, but uh, brethren asked me to take them to the meeting and there are many that would be more than happy to sit down with you and, uh, go over the scriptures.
We do trust that you will not leave this, this premise, this room.
Without Christ, it's a dangerous thing to do. You leave it with judgment hanging over your head. We visited the north of Brazil, Eleanor and I, also with the brother Pisanato, last April, because there's an assembly up in Mozero, the northern part of Brazil. We flew to Fortaleza and then we took a car and went into the inland areas of that poor.
Arid area of northern northeastern Brazil.
And we visited the hospital in this town of Mozero, and the door was wonderfully open. Remember visiting a very large hospital, a public hospital where we had permission to, uh, preach the gospel, I think, in every, uh, room.
01:00:14
And give out calendars to the visitors to the.
Patients there.
Our brother Pizza NATO translating for me. We had an encouraging time for two or three hours that night. Four people passed away.
Maybe they heard the gospel from our lips gone into eternity. Maybe the last opportunity, and this, dear friend, may be your last opportunity to hear the message of pardon, salvation and forgiveness through the work of Calvary.
Through the blood that was shed there for you.
Through the Person, the work of our Lord Jesus, who is now in the glory, but is still calling you as he called this poor woman. Come see you man. They told me all things that ever I did. Shall we sing in closing?
#16 Joey Standen thing #16 and some brotherhood started through.
Shall we pray? Our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee.
Once more for that unspeakable gift of thy love to guilty man, in the person of Thy beloved Son, the Lord Jesus.
Coming from Heaven's glory to accomplish that mighty work of redemption on Calvary. A perfect work by a perfect person to give forgiveness of sins eternal life.
A home in the glory. We pray that no soul, young or old, in the company tonight may turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of love from the heart of God that had been presented this evening, albeit in feebleness. We thank the the day of grace has been extended until we believe. We thank Thee for the many in this room who know.
Their future and can look forward to that day of.
Eternal joy that lies before us, but we do cry to Thee for any who are still in their sins, in darkness, without hope, without God in the world, as we were ourselves for many years. We ask Thy blessing on the Word here tonight in Brazil too, as it has gone forth to many souls in India, as those in the highways and hedges are hearing the gospel and being saved.
Especially in the north of that country.
We think of the day of grace fast running to its close. Perhaps this is the last gospel meeting, but we ask Thy blessing on the Word. We pray for any who are still strangers to Thy love and grace. We thank Thee for the time of fellowship with Thy beloved people here in Scranton and area. And we ask Thy continued blessing, giving thanks in the worthy and precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Creation
Children—Bruce Imbeau
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.
OK, who has a song they'd like to sing this morning?
Yes #14.
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? I want to start that for us, please.
Are you walking daily by the state-of-the-art and you watching the ball?
Good, they can rise. It's my friend and the first day of life I can do. I've been on the line.
Dry grilled, cognizant of their realm.
Where your soul creates your headache. So I don't know. My eyes are on the right. I'm getting lost in my life.
Are you alive?
OK, let's pray and then we'll sing one more song. Our Father, we just do look to thee for help this morning and a blessing as the very Word of God is open. Just do and thank Thee for our Lord Jesus Christ who can wash away our sins, the Savior of sinners. And we just do and pray in his name, Amen.
OK. Yes, thank you.
You want to give me a name of a song?
Can you give me a name of a song?
And #5 happy day. That sound good? OK.
And someone can start it, please. And then when we're done with this song, we'll say our verses for the week, OK?
I am my Lord. I am dear mine.
00:05:04
Fall apart.
Why do not?
Want to be mine?
My.
Mom, did I get on my? It's on my flashlight, the tensor rise.
No, I forgot to turn the problem. I lower your mind.
Phone back, I'll forget it.
I'm pretty happy.
I can change the walls my 10:00.
Every boy has been every day.
I'm glad, I'm glad.
When did the wall my gentle?
Very nice. Now we're going to say our verses, but before we do, I came in just a little bit before this meeting started and I put these up on the wall.
And maybe if you're way back in the corner, there might be a little more difficult to see.
But let's see if you can figure out what we're going to talk about this morning.
If you do, figure it out.
You're going to be wrong.
Even if you figure it out, you'll still be wrong.
OK.
Who wants to start with the verse Philippians 419? Is that what most of us learned for the week?
Or since it is conference time, you didn't learn the verse this week?
OK who knows the Bible verse? Someone know it by memory?
No, this one's on and OK, you know the do you know the memory verse for today? It goes like this. My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Not an easy little short one.
You know it.
Well.
You know what?
Well then maybe we should go to some of the 2nd and 3rd rows.
Did you happen to learn it?
OK, well, it was the memory verse whether we memorized it or not, yes.
Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
OK.
Have you learned it pretty faster? Did you get it? Yeah, got it. OK, go ahead.
Yeah, well, see, I get it. It's Sunday morning and it's time to go to Sunday school. And so you'll get in the car and mom, what's the verse for this morning? And then you learn it.
Am I right?
Probably. OK, go ahead.
My God.
00:10:07
According to his riches.
In glory by Christ Jesus.
Right.
Thank you very much. OK. Anyone else got it yet? You got it.
Riches of His glory.
Which is ignorant by Christ Jesus, yes.
OK. Thank you.
OK, anyone else? Let's see. Have you learned it? No. OK.
OK.
Well, this was the memory verse.
My God.
Shall supply all your need according to his riches.
In glory by Christ Jesus.
His riches.
Not dependent on us.
Not dependent necessarily on how good we are.
But it's his riches in glory.
And that little theme is going to come up in just a couple of minutes from now.
So why don't we see what?
I had planned to talk about this morning.
Let's see, Did anybody figure it out? Yes.
You're gonna talk about blood? Well, I think I'm gonna mention blood, but it wasn't my subject.
Howard, what's the subject going to be?
Easier.
OK, we have a mystery going here.
Yes, creation very good and yes we will talk about that 123456 days of creation in Genesis chapter one, the very first part of the Bible.
Now, do you think the first part of the Bible is important?
Yes.
You need the middle part of the Bible is important. Yes, you think the end part of the Bible is important?
Yes. But we're going to start at the beginning. In fact, we're going to start right with number one. How's that?
But you know, that isn't what I really want to talk about, though I probably will spend most of my time talking about it. There's something else that is much more important.
And so we're going to read a little verse in the book of Proverbs.
And you've all heard this verse before.
And it goes like this.
Proverbs Chapter 9 and verse 10.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning.
Of wisdom.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and there is a verse almost exactly like this in the book of Psalms also.
And there's something that's pretty close in the book of Job.
So God says it three times at least. I think it's three times.
That the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's also the beginning of knowledge and of understanding.
The fear of the Lord.
And when we're done this morning?
I want you to know what the fear of the Lord is.
When we're all finished here.
He wants you to know what the fear of the Lord is so.
Let's start at the beginning.
What is fear?
00:15:03
Can you tell me what is fear?
Have you ever been afraid of something?
Never been afraid of something. You are a remarkable person.
Very remarkable.
Yes. Have you ever been afraid of something? You know what fear is? Yeah.
We all know what fear is, some way or another. Have you ever been afraid of something?
No.
Yeah, for quite an audience here.
Very special select groups here. Have you ever been afraid of something? Yeah.
We're all afraid of them.
We're all afraid of something.
We all fear something.
We do. Sometimes we fear being alone.
I know that I was.
Alone when I was a little one and I all over the house.
For mom or dad and my brothers, sisters, nobody there.
And I was afraid.
It wasn't fun to be all alone.
Ever been afraid of the dark?
Yeah.
And afraid of the dark. Now let me tell you something that.
Some of you that are younger might not quite understand.
But get the idea that darkness nighttime has been the greatest fear of human kind for thousands of years.
It's a danger.
And we don't know what that means because we've got St. lights and we have lights in our house and we have lights on our cars and we have even lights on our bicycles, and we've got lights all over the place and we don't know what it's like to be dark.
But the greatest fear mankind has been.
Darkness.
It might fall in a hole, you might trip over things, an animal might be lurking behind you ready to jump on you, all kinds of things to make you afraid.
In the dark.
Greatest fear of humankind has been darkness.
You know, we're all afraid of something.
And the Bible says the fear of God.
Is the beginning of wisdom wisdom?
You know what's wisdom?
That's a pretty hard one.
That's a pretty hard one, but sometimes we say no one. What to do?
That's to be wise. I know what to do. You go to school and you time for a spelling test, and so you've gained a little bit of wisdom and you know what to do.
You may not know how to spell the words, but you do know what to do. You have some wisdom. So you pull out your sheet of paper and your pencil, and you listen to the teacher.
Say a word and then you're supposed to spell it out.
And so you know what to do, and so you have some wisdom.
But wait a minute.
This isn't making sense. The fear of the Lord.
Is the beginning of wisdom.
The fear of the Lord. Now remember that we all fear something, and we do.
Whether you're sitting here on the front row or if you're sitting on the 2nd row or the 3rd row and on back, we all fear something we do. And the Bible says drop all of those fears and fear God.
And you know what? The word for fear God is just exactly the same word as being afraid of the dark.
It is fear.
And I'd like to say one other thing.
Sometimes.
Sometimes we might be afraid of God in this way, that we're afraid to do something wrong.
Or we have a certain fear to motivate us to do what's right. You know what? That's not quite the idea in the Bible. Because that kind of idea puts me at the center and says, well, if I do this and I do that and I do this and I no, no, no, no.
00:20:16
God is the center.
Fear God.
Fear God.
That's right. Now I want to give you.
Some good reasons to fear God with a smile.
We so often think if we're afraid of something, we just like we want to curl up, or we want to turn around and run, or we want to go hide somewhere.
But that's not true with the fear of God, and we are going to talk about that.
A little bit.
OK, that was pretty good. That was more like a game though, right?
And play a little bit of hide and go seek, yeah?
Uh-huh.
Does it work to hide from God though?
No. OK, so we might not try that. So we better figure out something else. Let's look at the wall here.
123456.
The days of creation of Genesis, chapter one.
Let there be light.
Let there be light.
And then God talks about.
The air and the water.
Things that tend to move around.
You say air moves around. Well, sure. Didn't we have a lot of wind last night? Whenever with the rainstorm? Yeah. You got all kinds of things moving. You have wind moving, you have the water falling out of the sky. We call it rain.
And then we have things that are.
Solid. Well, we think they're solid, but close enough.
Do we believe that God created the world?
Do we believe that God actually created everything?
Look out the door here because see the things in here? Somebody made the carpet, somebody made the chair, somebody made your shoes.
Somebody major hat.
Say, well, God didn't make those things.
Look out the door though and you see some trees out there.
What's Yeah, there's woods out there. Yeah, there's probably some animals out there. You know, God made those.
God made this. Do we believe that?
Now did God do a good job?
God did a good job now.
Isn't that the kind of person that if you had to fear something, that you'd like to fear someone like that?
Someone who does a good job.
Yeah, I'd say so.
Now, darkness has been something that has been scary to mankind for a long, long time.
Would it be nice to know somebody who could make light?
Yeah, it'd be really nice to know somebody who could make light.
Would you like to fear that kind of person? Oh, yes.
Definitely this. We're on the right track here. You absolutely want to get to know and do fear a person who can give you light.
I like this.
You know, light.
Is some pretty interesting stuff.
You know that we don't think much about it. We look at the sunshine and we see the moon at night and we turn on these things called the electric lights. They're pretty bright.
What is light?
00:25:00
Well, you know, I never stopped to even think about it.
Can you tell me what light is?
Yeah, let's talk about light.
How does it get from the bulb down to the floor?
How does it get there?
I don't know.
But it does.
Let's change for a second. What about sound? I'm talking how does sound from my mouth get to your ear. Now get it from your ear to somewhere else is maybe another question, but how does sound come from my mouth to your ear?
Stop. The thing about that. So this is this is pretty hard stuff. Sunday school is not supposed to be this complicated.
Figure out how sound goes from one place to another. But let me tell you something. A bell will make some sound, right? Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding Ding, little brass bell.
And if you put that bill.
In a bucket.
OK. And you take all the air out of that bucket?
Will you hear that bell ringing?
That's right.
It wouldn't make a sound. It wouldn't make any sound at all. So I go, OK, I got it. I'm going to put a flashlight in that bucket and I'm going to take all the air out. So you put the flashlight in the bucket and hopefully this bucket is like clear so you can kind of see what's going on in there and you pull the air out.
This doesn't work. Look, the lion can still see the light. The light doesn't need air.
To go from here to there.
Wow, that's really strange. And you know, it's probably a pretty good idea that God had, because otherwise how would the light get to us from the sun? There's no air out there.
Yeah, You know, did you think about things like this? There's people who sit around all day and wonder about stuff like this.
And so they go, there's no air out there. So it's a pretty good thing. Pretty good. A pretty good thing. What? It's a pretty good thing that God did, yes. A good thing that God did fear God. Well, that's the person we want on our side is a person that made light come all the way through space where there's nothing to even even bring the light.
And so someone scratched their heads a little more and they said.
It's a self propagating wave. That was cool.
I'm sure you all understood that.
But that's what it is.
Have any of you had X-rays taken?
Your chest of your teeth.
Or of a bone that got broken.
Same thing, it acts like light.
It kind of goes from here to there without any. No need for air. In fact, X-rays can go right through space and out for millions of miles.
Amazing.
And someone comes along and says a wave. You like this wave stuff? Well, let me tell you, it's it's a particle. It's like a little BLOB of stuff and it goes shooting through space. You go, really?
How'd you figure that out?
Well, you know, you can figure that out. In fact, you can buy these little things in the store. I forget they're called. They sound about yay tall and they're glass. And there's a little thing inside that looks like has little paddles on it usually has four on one side. It's painted white and the other side is painted black.
And so you stick it up, you buy it at the Science Center or something. You know, this is pretty neat. You take it home and you put up in the wind window sill of your house, and that little thing starts going around and around.
You go, how does it go around? Come on, Nobody plugged it in. Nobody's blowing on it. It just goes round and round.
And how does it know to even go around? Why does it go one way then it goes the other way?
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Wow, this isn't supposed to be a physics class, but.
You know what, There's these particles that come shooting out of the sky from the sun, and it comes all the way down and hits your little thing that you bought at the Science Center.
And on the one side, that little particle disappears on the black side, and on the white side it bounces. Off you go. How do you know that? Well, because it's going round and round. Well, it's going to make it go round, round.
Yeah, because when it bounces off, it's like it gets hit twice, bam, by that little piece of light particle that came from the sun way out there 8 minutes ago, got released from the sun, hit my little thing on the window sill and.
Who invented all this stuff God did?
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Yes, absolutely.
That's the person that we want to fear, someone that could do things so incredible like that. And so, you know, along comes someone else.
And says, yeah, you talk about waves. Who did make the waves that swim OK?
Uh, and you talk about particles and someone comes along and says, yeah, yeah, yeah, you all missed it.
That light stuff is made out of little fibers, little stringy things.
And you go, yeah, right. You show me the little stringy things it can't.
It's way too small.
It's like maybe.
20 times smaller than.
Now, more than that.
It's humongously times smaller than even those little particles.
You go strings? You mean when I stand outside and being hit by a bunch of strings?
Yeah, that's right.
At least that's what they think so far. So you'd be hit by a wave. A wave?
Being hit by a particle, You'd be hit by a bunch of strings when you stand out in the sunshine.
Who made all of that? Isn't God amazing? Isn't he wonderful? He is.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The beginning of wisdom.
You know, we are so impressed by things like microphones. We like this kind of stuff, electronics, and it's all part of the result of something that we called scientific inquiry. Oh, bless my soul. Where's this guy coming up with all these words?
It means that you're interested in finding out how things work.
And you know what? The people who really got going on that.
Were people who feared God, and here's what they said.
To themselves and they wrote it down and they said, you know what? There is a God and this God has done wonderful things. And not only that, but this God does things sensible. He does sensible stuff.
And if he does sensible things, and if I look close enough, I can figure out how God or I can figure out some of the things that God has done. Isn't that neat?
And that started our great scientific and technological revolutions in the world was from Christians who feared God. There was a man who's my little hero.
His name is George Washington Carver.
Yes, George Washington Carver. And he had to do something with peanuts. Peanuts.
Yeah, yeah, I eat those peanuts. Open up the jar. Well, you know, those peanuts come from a plant.
Yeah, and he thought it would be a great idea to plant lots of peanuts to help the soil. Smart man. Was he such a smart man or do you have a good God?
Yeah, and so someone came to him and says, look, Mr. Carver.
We gotta do something more of these peanuts people and you get tired of eating them. We've got and we're we're growing these things. Yeah, it's helping our land. But we are, we're just throwing them away and we're losing money.
00:35:03
He says well.
Says I'll just go talk to God about that.
So he got a loan and I assume he wrote this down or else people wouldn't know he got a loan and he prayed.
And he said God.
You're the one who made the peanut.
Now you tell me what it can be used for.
You tell me what it can be used for. This was a man who feared God. Yes, what can it be used for? And he got out of his little he was a very humble man, and he got out of his little laboratory there and he got to work and he got 300 uses for peanuts.
300.
He feared God, fear God.
Yes, Isn't that neat?
You know, God made the atmosphere. He made the water too. Isn't it fun? We like when the wind blows. It feels kind of neat. And we like it when it brings the snow sometimes. And we like the water we like to swim in. And of course we all love to take baths and showers, but.
Water is fun, but isn't water a little bit different? Wouldn't you like to get? You can do the snowballs, but that's kind of a solid thing. But would you like to go to a lake and get up a handful of water and warm it like this? Isn't that neat?
And then you'd be able to throw it.
A BLOB of water, that would be. You'd like that, right?
It doesn't work that way though, does it? Now you pick up water and it just runs all over the place. How about if you could catch air? Here's air, You go, Oh, there's nothing in front. Yeah, there's stuff in front of me. There's air. So let's, let's catch it.
You can't do that. It just, it just runs out. You go runs out, you can't see it. No, but it's still there. And so there's things that are we call fluids, they just move. They don't have a set shape, stuff like that.
And you can't play with it like you might play with a baseball.
But God made those things too. He made the water. He made the air.
He made all the slippery things and all the little slimy things and that moved all around the orange juice and the grape juice.
God made all that.
Do you know him? Do you fear that wonderful person?
That made things like air and water.
How about when he made the dry ground appear?
On the third day, yes, something solid, but he also.
Put on that dry ground. He put living things.
Plants, animals and trees.
I said living things. I'm not sure that the Bible ever calls plants living.
I need to look that up.
He only calls animals living.
Somebody can check that for me?
I don't beat you to it first.
They put all these neat things.
Does God have a reason?
For doing all of this, oh, I'll say he does. So that we stop and we think and we'll fear the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom and better than that.
We have a problem.
Better than that, we have a problem. OK, we have a problem, but see, God has a solution.
We have a problem called sin.
And we'd like to have things that are solid. But you know what?
Sin is slippery stuff.
And when I think of those things that grew on that third day, I think of a tree of life.
That God brought into this world so that you could be saved.
The judgment of God's wrath fell on Jesus Christ so that you can have life.
Life. When you read about the first six days of creation, you think of life and everything that God did for you and for me.
And we think of what Jesus has done.
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Do you know Jesus?
Fear God. Fear God.
On day one there was light. Where did that light come from? Because on day 4 you get light again, but it comes from a sun and a moon and stars. Wait a minute, how did you get light on day one if there were no sun, moon and stars yet in place?
Why? You're asking some tough questions here. You know that God is white.
In fact, there's another verse that says the Lamb is the light thereof.
Yes, light comes from God. Do you like light? Light is wonderful. Now, I know it's been kind of hot these couple days, but yeah, you see a whole row of fans going here.
And and that's the fault of light, sorry, but you know, be glad that you're warm because of the light turned off, the sun shut down, You'd be pretty cold.
Like you wouldn't exist. So we're thankful for light because it warms us up. We're thankful for light because we can see where we're going.
Do we think of the Lord Jesus Christ? Who is that Son of righteousness? Do we think of Him when we think of the light from the sun?
Yeah, he's a wonderful creator, a wonderful God. Fear the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
And he kept going, and he filled the air and the water. He filled them with animals.
Fish and birds, things that fly and things that have fins.
All these things that can move through these liquids and fluids where we can't pick up this water and use it for a baseball, but the fish go in this water and they swim. It's their home. God did that.
Fear God, What a wonderful God we have.
Wonderful.
And then along comes day six and God says we've got this solid ground.
Let's put wonderful things on this solid ground. And so we made animals.
And he made humans.
Day 6.
You know the scripture mentions that the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are going to praise Him.
We're going to praise him.
But you know when we think of the animals and the humans.
We might want to jump ahead and think about the Lord Jesus, because He came as a human being.
Yeah, Jesus is God. He's the one that did all these wonderful 6 days of creation, and He came as a person right into this creation that he made.
And he even calls himself the Son of Man.
What an astonishing thing that Jesus would become a person just like you so that he could talk to you.
And you'd recognize him.
That nice? How tall was she?
Maybe 5 feet 10 inches.
A little shorter than what we are nowadays.
He was so normal that when he walked in a crowd, they didn't even recognize.
Because he wanted to spend time with you.
We think that one who not only was a man, but he was given another name.
A name of an animal.
Lamb.
There was a lamb that was slain we have in the Bible.
The Lord Jesus Christ died for us.
Fear God.
Don't waste your time fearing other things in this world.
It's useless.
Fear the Lord.
And of course.
The Lord Jesus will bring us into rest.
If you know the fear of the Lord, if that is the wonderful person.
00:45:04
Who you will fear in your life, He will give you rest.
And I'm just going to read a verse of a man One verse.
There's a man that it seemed like he didn't fear God very well, but.
He said the right thing and his name is Jonah and he says this.
I fear the Lord the God of heaven, which made which half made the sea and the dry land.
I certainly trust that all of us in this room can say that same verse that we fear. The one who made the sea and the dry land, the wonderful God of creation.
Loves us, died for us, gives us a brand new life.
Our God and our Father, we just do thank Thee for Jesus Christ.
The Son of God.
One who is also the Lamb of God.
Who took our sins on himself so that we could live.
We pray that we might truly fear Thee, Lord Jesus.
And have that entrance into wisdom and knowledge and understanding.
Build.
Lord Jesus, that we might grow up to be men and women of God.
And we'll fear nothing else.
In Jesus name we give thanks, Amen.
A Virtuous Wife
Address—Paul Hadley
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.
Because we've seen #207 Now may the God of peace and love perfect our souls and every grace to do His blessed will.
And all that's pleasing in this sight inspires to fulfill.
#207 maybe someone could start it for us.
Tomorrow and it's a little more. Oh, and they have a lot of.
Ourselves and I got all this and everything, kind of.
When you have to breathe in the eyes, breathe in breath.
That's the Lord's blessing. Our God and Father, we help as we open Thy word. We pray that Thou inspire us to do our Savior's will.
We pray that Thou wire my hearts, we all need it. We pray for Thy health and Thy blessing on each one of us. I think especially at this time which is devoted to the young people, that they might be encouraged and blessed.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Let's turn to Proverbs 31.
I'm going to read.
The acrostic poem of the virtuous woman.
This is for two kinds of people.
For the Romantics.
And for the godly.
And I'm going to.
Not expound on this chapter.
There are interpretations of scripture and there are applications.
I'm not gonna interpret the scripture for you today. I'm going to apply it in a different way. In other words, what I have to bring before us tonight is not.
Today is not uh.
Really what these verses are teaching us. But we can apply them to ourselves in a certain way. I'll get to that in a minute.
Let's read this.
Proverbs 31.
Verse 10 who can find the virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies and as we read this on I think how that back when I was a young person I used to.
Wonder what my ideal woman would be ideal wife?
00:05:03
And perhaps some of you young men have done the same thing, And perhaps some of you young women would.
Want to have some instruction as to what the ideal?
Wife would be that you would like to be and so you can think on those things as we read these verses, even though that's not what I'm going to be speaking on. So let's go on and chapter verse 11. The heart of her husband does safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil. All the days of her life. She seeketh wool and flex and worketh willingly with her hands.
She's like the merchant ships. She brings her food from afar. She rises also while it is yet night, and gives meat to her household and a portion to her maidens.
To consider the field and Vietnam. With the fruit of her hands she planted the vineyard. She girded her loins with strength and strengtheneth her arms. She perceived that her merchandise is good. Her candle goeth not out by night.
She layeth her hands to the spindle.
And her hands hold the distaff.
She stretches out her hand to the poor. Yeah, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She's not afraid of the snow. For her household, for her household, for all her households are clothed with scarlet.
She maketh their self coverings of tapestry. Her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of the land. She maketh fine linen, and sell of it, and deliverth girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honor are her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come.
She opened her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her.
Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excels them all.
Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.
Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates.
So that's the beautiful.
Poem. There are different kinds of poems in the in the Bible.
Hebrew poetry is different than ours.
In our poetry, most often the last word rhymes, uh, with the previous sentence, or two sentences before or whatever. But in Hebrew poetry they often have rhyming thoughts. So for example.
And the, uh, verse.
The last verse of the 30th chapter of Proverbs you have surely the turning of milk bringeth forth butter, the ringing of the nose bringeth forth blood, and the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strike all similar thoughts to say there you rhyme thoughts rather than words. And that's nice because we can understand that and it translates well. But what we have here is, as I say, an acrostic poem. That is, it's more like A is for apple, B is for boys, C is for.
What do they have a car or something and and so each each.
Verse in this little passage that we read starts with.
A different and, uh, and consecutive letter in the Hebrew alphabet. And so there's 22 of them. And very often when you find chapters that have 22 verses, they are acrostic poems. But anyway.
What to get at? Let's turn to Ephesians 5 for one verse and you'll hold know my whole message.
1St 24 Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wise be subject under their husbands and everything.
Well, I guess 23 is what I was thinking of.
The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body.
That's a simple thought that I'd like to bring out. Is that you and I?
00:10:01
Are the bride the wife of Christ?
Now.
Perhaps while we're reading this passage in Proverbs 31, you are thinking what you would like to be to your husband.
Or if you're a young man, you're you're thinking what the ideal.
Woman for you might be if you were to be married.
And so the application that I'm making, we're going to try to make anyway in this passage here is what would the ideal bride of Christ be?
You know we.
Think of ourselves a lot.
And.
How much it must mean, though, to be thinking of what he would want from us.
And so we have.
In the first couple verses that I read, verse 10.
We find.
Something that it says that her price is far above rubies.
And I'm told that diamonds aren't very rare. It's mainly that the De Beers, uh, operation that controls the diamonds there.
They kind of limit the amount that's out there to keep the prices high, but rubies are truly rare. If you had a Ruby 1/2 a carrot this big.
If it was the right kind of Ruby, they call it pigeon blood Red, you could sell that Ruby and buy a house.
Rubies are rare.
But there is something that's far above the price of rubies.
And that was something that we have here.
Price of a virtuous woman.
There's two things in the book of Proverbs that are said to be above the price of rubies. The other is wisdom. That's in chapter 3, verse 15.
Of the price of rupees, things to really, really value that are truly rare.
And when we re and when we speak of a virtuous woman here, it does not speak of chastity. Chastity is an important thing.
But that's not the subject. We have a lot of other verses.
In the book of Proverbs about chastity.
What we're Speaking of here is worth value, one that is truly a fine wife.
How would you like and how would I like to be truly a fine wife?
It's hard for me to say that being a man, uh, fine wife to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are going to be. We are.
His bride.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil, it says.
You know, in those days they didn't have welfare.
And so you but you go out and plant your fields and you have a good crop and that would take you through the year or you'd feed your animals and they would take care of you for the year. You lived through the difficult winter.
But if you didn't have a good crop.
You had the option of starving to death.
Are going out and stealing somebody else's, maybe that's spoil. You see they go out and raid the the Philistines or something and and steal their crops. So what we often read of is the Philistines coming to steal the Israelites crops. That's what spoil is.
If you and I are faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ as His bride, he would have no need of spoil.
This world would be a different place if you were, and I were faithful.
If you and I were faithful, this world would be a very different place.
He would have no need of spoil. But you know this church, His church is in ruins.
We've dishonored him in many ways.
By fighting and so on.
00:15:03
Uh, and not bringing the gospel to others.
It's kind of sad to say he needs he needs spoil.
Our husband is in need of spoil because of our failures.
And, and, uh, versus versus, uh, in the next two verses, 12 and 13, I'd like to bring before us the subject of our being faithful to him. She will do him good and not evil.
All the days of her life.
Umm.
The memories of mine that I regret the most.
My failures in this very thing. Doing him good and not evil all the days of her life.
Speaks and Titus of adorning the doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The way we act, the things we say and the things we do.
They either adorn the doctrine, that is, they make it sound good to others.
Or they make it sound bad to others. We don't wanna have anything to do with those Christians. Because I saw Paul Hadley going and doing some terrible things or saying some terrible things or whatever.
That would be not adorning the doctrine of our largest but if if in my life.
I make others want to know what I have that really makes me different. Then I'm adorning the doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And you and I need to adorn that doctrine.
Many are starting off at another school year.
Somehow you can purpose in your heart.
Some little way adorn that doctrine.
I don't know how.
You can find out how you can do it.
Each one for each one it's different perhaps.
But we must adorn that doctrine, and so.
That we can do him good and not evil.
All the days of our life she seeketh. It says in verse 13 she seeketh wool and flax.
The world, we might say in my little application.
Is that which identifies us as a sheep.
How is it possible that you and I can somehow or other have a little wool something that will identify us as a sheep?
Somehow.
You and I need some wool.
To identify us as the sheep of Christ.
And then there's, uh, the other thing she seeks is flax. And there's two things you do with flax that I know of. I don't know what else, but what I learned from the Bible is you make linen out of it. And the Book of Revelation chapter 19 tells us that the fine linen is the righteousness of Saints. So it has something to do with our, our testimony. The other thing that you do with flex that I learned from the Bible is, uh, you make a Wick for your oil lamp.
And so we read that a smoking flex he will not quench.
That's that's when the Wick is running out of oil.
And so both of those things have to do with testimony.
The way we live, our outward testimony, giving light to others.
Our our deeds.
So the flex.
You need to seek it out. Do you seek the world and do you seek the flex somehow so that.
Our lives might be identified as as lives that belong to Him.
Now in the next couple of verses, I'm going to bring out another thought about studying the word. She's like the merchant ships that says in verse 14, she brings her food from afar. She rises also out yet night and giveth meat to her household in a portion to her maiden.
There's nothing special about food that comes from far away places, in fact.
00:20:00
If it's real far away, it might be getting spoiled, but the point here is that you get a little variety if you go to other places. So if I live up north, I'm not gonna have very many oranges unless I.
Take advantage of the merchant ships that bring them from the South. And so there's a little variety.
In the food that this woman prepares.
And you and I can have a little variety in our spiritual diet that we'll spend a little time studying the word. You know, there was something wonderful that happened at our conference in Mount Tabor. I thought it was wonderful. There's a sister that had a library from her father that brought it and put it on the table. Anybody could come and take the books.
I thought that was good.
And you know, if you have a library that you're not using, maybe it'd be a good thing for you to do with it so somebody else can have some merchant ships coming from afar to get a little more spiritual variety, a little more variety in their spiritual food.
It was kind of sad though that those books sat on the table the whole conference, uh, just a few taken here and there and uh, some had to be taken home.
I would encourage you, young men, young women, if you get the opportunity to get some of your hands on those books, get them and use them and you'll have spiritual food that will be, that'll be a little bit of a different variety.
I know some people say all I want is the Bible and that's I respect that.
I also respect those others who have gone and spent a lot of time studying it.
And I refer often to.
To my other brethren, because I there's a lot of things I just can't learn myself.
Things that have been brought out to us at this conference that I.
Would not have been able to learn myself.
We need a little merchant ships going afar, coming to conferences. One of them. Glad you're here.
The other thing that speaks of in connection with, I'll apply it again in connection with the Bible study is getting up early now I don't start work till about 10:00 and usually that le leave the house around 9:30 so.
I don't have to get up very early. I haven't used an alarm clock clock in years unless it's to catch an airplane or something.
But I do respect my brethren.
Very highly.
Some of them who have to get to work at 7:00 or something for them to get up.
And get some food for their souls.
I hear they're up at 5:00 sometimes.
I turn over in bed at that time.
But I surely respect my brethren.
Who will who will make that amount of diligence to actually set an alarm clock, which I never use, as I say?
To take them out of their sleep, to get them ready to get a little spiritual food for themselves.
I've had the joy of.
Getting spiritual food from this book for years.
And every once in a while.
It's something that.
As it says here, it gives meat to the household. Somebody else gets to enjoy it too. Because I enjoyed it. And, you know, I've enjoyed things that other people have brought out. They've brought me spiritual food.
But it's not meant to be a one way St. It's not meant to be one brother.
Bringing all the food, it's like a potluck, you see, everybody brings a little bit and we all feed each other and we all go home happy.
We got a little variety that way. It's a wonderful thing for everybody to be diligent in the study of the word, to be able to enjoy these things.
Now in the next few verses, uh, starting in verse 16, I wanna bring out a few thoughts about serving the Lord and the gospel and so on.
So says she considers a field and bias it. With the fruit of her hands, she planted the vineyard.
There is a field of service for you and for me.
00:25:05
I've had many fields of service that the Lord showed me.
And I didn't buy them, I passed by them.
But it keeps showing me some and every once in a while.
I don't goof up as bad and sometimes we take advantage of a little bit, but there's a field of service for each one of us.
Whatever abilities you have.
There might be a special field for you that you can use those.
Those, uh, those abilities for him.
And so there is also a purchasing of the field.
Which means to me that it's not always easy to serve the Lord.
There is some self, there is some sacrifice involved.
You know, we think of people going out in the service of the Lord, you know, perhaps let's say to Malawi or whatever.
And, uh, we, we, uh, hear about what's being done there.
But you know that field costs money.
Uh, I don't mean money, I mean effort. There's a buying of that field.
There's a certain amount of suffering leaving comforts that they have.
There is a certain amount of sacrifice that goes with the purchase of any field.
Any field of service, we tend to want something to be handed to us.
But there we have to be willing if we are to be a faithful and a virtuous wife for our Lord Jesus Christ. There is the need for us to be willing to purchase that field. With the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. This is hard work.
There are stones that have to be removed from that vineyard, the soil has to be tilled.
The seed has to be sown.
And she doesn't get immediate results either.
I planted a.
A1 Vine vineyard in my backyard.
A few years ago. I haven't got a grape out of it yet.
I don't know if I ever will, but uh.
But the there is a certain amount of Labor and, and, uh, caring for that before there's ever any results.
But this virtuous woman?
Season to the future, and she plants the vineyard, and she waits for the fruit. And and in judges that speaks of wine as that which shears the heart of God and men.
How come?
I would say that wine shears the heart of God.
Well, I mean, we know how. Cheers, the heart of men.
How would it? How would it be that it cheers the heart of God?
Well, if we think of wine as a picture of the joy of our salvation, you know that salvation.
It shears the heart of God.
And for men?
It's just what they need. It's just absolutely what man needs in this world.
They need to have their souls saved, their life redirected, the life before you know, we forget this, how empty and directionless our lives are without Christ. It's just what man needs.
Cheers, the heart of man.
And you can be sure that there is rejoicing in the presence of angels of heaven as well as the heart of God.
When one soul is saved.
So she plants that vineyard. She girds her loins and strengthens herself.
Re We.
We, uh, read of uh, being prepared for every good work.
Titus, chapter 3.
Doing good unto all men, especially the House of God, those the household of God.
00:30:04
And there needs to be a little bit of strengthening of the arms to be prepared for every good work.
There are things that I can't do if I haven't strengthened myself for them.
There are spiritual things that you can't do if you haven't strengthened yourself for them.
She perceives that her merchandise is good. Her candle goes up, not up on it. And that's what I was bringing up before. We need to have a sense that the salvation that we have to offer.
It's good.
That that's it's just what man needs.
I used to.
Walk to the train station back many years ago when I commuted to New York City.
And I often.
Would repeat, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
Gospel of God, the power of God, Gospel of Christ, power of God and salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, also to the Greek.
I would repeat that to myself as I took my steps down the hill to the train station because I needed it.
This is not something to be ashamed of.
It's the solution of for man's problems. We need it. They need it.
Our merchandise is good, what we have to offer is good. Candle goeth not out by night. There's some work going on at night to prepare for this.
Then it says verse 19, she layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaste.
I had to look up a few years ago, and I think it was four or five years ago, when I was meditating on these things, I had to look up where these things are because I didn't know what they were.
But my memory is right on this has to do with spinning a spinning wheel.
And, uh, making thread or yarn or whatever, umm, spindle. I forget what that was. I think one thing stretches the yarn out or whatever, and another thing you wind it up on. So our hands on those things.
Now those threads they make aren't very good for anything. I suppose you could tie things with them, but.
Point of bringing out is in order to make a shirt or whatever else, you've got to have the threads first.
And so there's a whole lot of preparation for the gospel work to be done.
It's true you can go out and preach the gospel on the on the street corner without any preparation.
But what I'm thinking of is the preparation in bringing people to the meeting.
Or to, uh, prepare for, prepare the room for, for our Augusta meeting.
There's a lot of preparation involved, not only for the speaker but for all those others.
If you and I are to be a faithful and a virtuous wife.
Woman.
For our husband, the largest is Christ.
There needs to be a little bit bit of preparation involved for helping his work, his service.
Verse 20 She stretches out her hand to the poor, yet she reaches forth her hands to the needy.
Helping the poor is a wonderful way to spread the gospel.
You know.
This bears on the subject of charity giving, giving to the Lord.
Much of our giving really is just giving to ourselves.
I put some money in the collection box this morning.
It perhaps has gone towards paying for a little vacation that I've had here with you dear brethren.
Uh, I get to see my friends, you guys.
I get to have a free place to sleep. I got free food.
Have I given to the poor? Not really.
Now, I'm not speaking against that.
But have we any sense that there is another need out there that we're not meeting? Or are we just, do we just give to ourselves?
00:35:10
Make nicer rooms for ourselves.
Whatever else, provide for our own.
Fellowship, as I say, I'm not speaking against that. I'm Speaking of.
The other need that we need to do if we want to be.
The Virtuous 1.
On to another subject in verse 21.
Well, she make it.
She's not afraid of the snow for her household, for her household, or clothed with scarlet.
What a wonderful thing it is to to know that you and I.
Are prepared for that which is ahead. The snow is the adversity.
Are you and I prepared for that? There is adversity to the lost, and I trust each and every one of us are prepared for that.
But there is also other adversity.
There's adversities in the assembly, there's adversities in family life.
Is our household prepared for that?
Are we close with the Scarlet?
You and I can help prepare each one in the household of faith for the adversities that.
Are out there, we can help prepare the lost for the adversity that is ahead of them if they are lost in their sins.
She her husband is known in the gate that says in verse 23.
When he sitteth among the elders of the land.
What I'd like to bring out from this verse.
And somehow or other, she, this woman has made her husband more important.
In the gates, that's where they did the judgment.
And it's for you and me to make our husband, our Master, our Lord the Lord Jesus Christ more important. And the way we do that?
Is to bring the Word of God and the fear of God to bear in every situation.
That is, when an issue comes up and everybody is discussing what to do, you and I can say, well, God's Word says that we ought not to do this.
Uh, Godsworth tells me not to lie.
Or you can say, well, I can't do that. Umm, I fear God. So bringing the word of God or the fear of God into that to bear on the situation is making the husband.
Unknown in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.
She maketh fine linen and selleth it, and Delivereth girdles unto the merchants. The merchants are some other people that that sell things, and you and I can't do it all.
Other people are out there serving the Lord, but you and I.
And help them. There are those that are making plaques that others pass out.
There are those that are providing gospel literature for others to pass out.
You and I can be of some help in this verse. 25 Strength and honor are her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come. In the next few verses I want to speak a little bit about the time to come.
There is such a thing as preparing for the time to come, and I don't mean salvation here, I mean in our assemblies.
I was asked a few times.
By various brothers.
How? How is the assembly?
Doing without our spiritual, UH, leader brother **** Orgas.
We were doing fine. You know why? Because he prepared for the time to come.
He didn't do it all.
00:40:00
He prepared us so that we could do without him when the time came that he had to leave.
Yet I see in some places where one brother.
We'll do all the teaching.
For *** **** often asked for somebody else to give a thought on something. I know he knew what we're I know he knew what the answer was. But he often asks for somebody else to give a thought on it.
And so he taught us the way to go. It's a little bit like what we heard yesterday.
Of being in the yolk and somebody learning and learning from another to walk the path.
There is a time to come.
Are you, if you're a leader of the assembly, preparing for the time to come?
She opened with her mouth with wisdom, and her and her tongue as the law of kindness. The law.
A law is a fixed principle.
Never is anything unkind said by such a one.
I've heard unkind things said.
That have been repeated to me.
Uh, from various ones and assemblies.
We thought never to be.
My brethren, these things ought not to be, it says.
Does uh, Sweetwater and and, uh, bitter water come out of the same fountain?
These things ought not to be, my brethren tells us in the book of James.
Talking with uh, I've talked with a lot of people, one fairly recently.
Uh, who have left the assembly?
And it's interesting how they can quote things that unkind, things that were said to them.
There needs to be a law of kindness.
On the tongue of everyone of us.
That doesn't mean I was that you never rebuked. I have been corrected and rebuked by my brethren many, many times.
So I'm grateful to say that.
It was done. It has been done with the tongue that had the law of kindness in it, and I'm grateful for those corrections.
Because I often need them and often make mistakes.
But uh.
If it's done with the love kindness, it's gratefully received.
She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of kindness.
Are those who are the leaders in the assembly looking well to the way of the household? Are they providing for the time to come the spiritual blessing and the benefit the leadership of the younger people?
I, my local brethren, will have to forgive me. I've told this story, I think a couple of times in Mount Tabor, but it's so much struck me that I have to tell it again. And, uh, a friend of mine spoke of having the privilege of visiting with.
Eric Smith for a while, I think he's there for a a week or so with in the same place where he's with Eric Smith.
Eric Smith was a missionary to Bolivia.
And perhaps you know that there are, I think, hundreds of assemblies and well.
Over 100 assemblies in Bolivia.
But he, he speaks of, uh, this time when he was visiting with brother Eric Smith.
And he tells me that he had a question for Eric Smith and so.
He got the opportunity and presented it to him.
And Eric Smith, uh.
Indicated that was an interesting question and so I'll think about that, he says.
I can't imagine that Eric Smith didn't know the answer to that question. I don't know what the question was, but I can't imagine that he didn't know the answer to it.
00:45:02
But they came back the next day or so. I think he told my friend, uh, that he should think about it also and, and it came back the next day or so and says to him, uh.
I've been thinking about that question you asked.
Uh, did you have any verses that would bear on that, uh, subject? And, and so my friend, that I won't give you his name. Uh, he says, yeah, I, I had this verse and Eric says, read it. He says, so here he was a 20, like a 2223 year old boy reading this verse to Eric Smith.
And Eric says to him, what does that mean to you?
And so he proceeded to expound the scriptures to Brother Eric Smith, who was, I think perhaps 80 at that time.
And then Eric says, do you have any other, uh, passages that you and ye Yes, he did. He thought about this other passage and.
And then he said, Eric System read that and he reads it.
And he has to expound it to Eric Smith again.
And then Eric asked him if he had anything else.
And he said, no, I didn't have anything else. Eric says, well, I had, I had one other thought. And he says, uh, and he, he said it was in verse, chapter, whatever verse.
And he had my friend read that verse also, and he says, what does that verse mean to you?
And so my friend then had to explain to Eric Smith the verse that Eric had found and how that bears on the subject that he brought out.
And then Eric Smith says, well, that's all I had.
When I heard that story, I said no wonder.
I said to myself, no wonder there are so many assemblies with us in Bolivia with a spiritual father like that.
I'm sure he could have answered that question in 2 minutes.
Thrown those 3 verses or whatever how many there were out right away, but there was a spiritual father who was intent on helping a young man grow in the things of the Lord, Help teaching him how to study, teaching him how to search out things for himself.
Are you a leading brother that somebody answers the question and you flip right to the an?
Right to the answer.
Don't do it.
Does your assembly ask a question and I'll look to you.
Don't answer.
That question is out there for the assembly.
I don't mean you should never answer, but you know what? I'm getting that.
There is more something far more important than answering that question.
It's developing that the ability of these younger brothers.
And sisters and your fellow brethren, maybe even older than you, it's developing their ability to search out the things for themselves.
See, this one looks well to the ways of the household.
They rejoice in the time to come, and when you are gone, that assembly will continue and it will be strong.
Her children rise up and call her blessed. I think it's a characteristic that those who take leadership and assemblies get hot shots.
If we're careful in what I'm just Speaking of.
Your children rise up and call you. Bless it.
We are called to honor and respect our elders and our leaders.
We all need to do that.
We need to be careful as elders and leaders that we do it in such a way that our children will rise up and call us blessed. They've been a blessing to me. My spiritual fathers have been a blessing to me.
May I be a blessing to them. Many daughters have done virtuously. Thou sells them all.
We get praise even if we goof up it seems like.
Uh, He, He loves us so much, favors deceitful beauty, is vain woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.
00:50:01
Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates.
That makes me that last verse makes me think of.
That passage where it speaks of, uh.
Wisdom is justified of all our children.
Red I've I've wondered what that meant a lot and I've read a few thoughts on it.
From different writers.
But I'll I'll use one of them for what I want to bring out now and that is that.
Wisdom is justified for all our children. That means that for the Lord Jesus.
His wisdom, His rightness, was vindicated by his works and by his followers, and by the lives of his followers.
May that be so.
In your life and mind that his that he our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
That he might be vindicated.
In our lives.
#39 in the appendix.
The last two verses.
All by three one.
And all we have.
Is for now.
Beautiful.
We love the Lord with such a love that we would give thee all. May it be so.
Our God and Father, we ask thy blessing on thy word. We thank thee for it. Thank you for anything that encourages us in in life service. Help us to be.
Faithful to Him who has so loved us, help us to be diligent in our study of Thy Word. Help us to be those who help in the spread of the good news of salvation. Help us to be those who encourage one another to continue and provide for the time to come.
Yes, Thy blessing name for our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
You Have a Place to Fulfill in the Assembly
Open—John Kemp
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Your father's one.
Our heart.
And name.
You're right, all night.
And I'm heading.
And, umm.
50, 3:05.
Way now.
When I say.
Are we afraid to get it? Our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for the words of this hymn.
And thank you for that wonderful object that the Spirit of God has put before us.
The person of our Lord Jesus whom we have enjoyed.
These last few days.
But Lord, we are freshly dependent upon the.
For the meeting which lies before us in the gospel that will guide us and help us give that ministry, which would be, uh.
Suitable.
Uh, food convenient for us.
Edification, Exportation, comfort.
We have special needs.
Different ages, but we thank you for thy word. Lamp to our feet, a light to our path.
And may this, the language of this hymn be.
Our prayer will fix our earnest gate. So holding Lord on thee, who will you speak thy direction?
We thank you for this inexhaustible.
The treasure we have in the living, eternal Word of God.
The revelation of thy mind and thy will and thy purposes by counsel, how little we enter into that. And we pray that we may have an appetite and that they'll administer to us this afternoon according to our need, as others see it. So, Lord, we thank thee these happy meetings. We thank the fellowship. Now we ask Thee to be with us, be with us.
The next hour, may Christ be glorified. We give thanks and praise in the worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.
00:05:15
I just have a few thoughts here briefly.
Uh.
So that, uh, another brother would have the opportunity to speak Luke chapter.
19.
Uh, verse UH-12, Luke chapter 19.
Verse 12 he said therefore.
A certain nobleman.
Went into a far country.
To receive for himself a Kingdom and to return.
And he called his 10 servants, and delivered them 10 lbs. He said unto them, Occupy.
Till I come.
But his citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying we will not have this man to reign over us. It came to pass that when he was returned having received the Kingdom.
Then he commanded these servants to be called unto him.
Whom he had given the money.
That he might know how much every man had gained by creating.
Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound have gained 10 lbs.
And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over 10 cities?
The second came saying, Lord thy # hath gained 5 lbs.
And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over 5 cities.
And another came saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin, for I feared thee, because thou art an austere man.
Take a stop, and they'll lay us knock down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee?
Our wicked service, our newest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid knob down, and reaping that I did not So Wherefore then gave us not thou my money into unto the bank, into the bank that at my coming I might have required my known was usually. And he said unto them that stood by Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath 10 lbs.
Well.
We know that this deals with the subject of.
Stewardship.
And, uh, we are all stewards.
What? What is a Stewart? Well, a steward is a custodian, someone to whom we commit our goods.
Or our valuables or our treasures, that he might keep them for us. We expect him to be faithful.
And uh.
It is assumed that he will give an account of how he has carried out his responsibility.
Well, brethren, we are stewards, stewards of the mysteries of God.
For one thing.
And here in the assembly, not that we can do any boasting, the Lord has entrusted us with, uh, much truth.
Much, uh, ministry.
And unfolding of the mind and purpose of God.
More, I would say, than any place in Christendom. And you young people, it's a joy to see you here at the meetings. I hope you realize the privileges that God has given you.
Now the fields out there might be whiter, might be more attractive to you. I'm not referring to the world. I'm referring to Christendom.
You know, there's a lot of activity out there, and I'm not speaking disparagingly of it.
But there is the truth, the privilege of being gathered to the name of Christ outside the camp. What is the camp? It's the whole religious system around us, including Christendom.
00:10:14
You can break bread out there, but not at the Lord's Table.
And there is a Lords table, the Lords table, not 21 and it's a privilege to be there.
But we have been entrusted with gifts, with talents.
With the responsibilities, if you have a gift and everyone has, you have a responsibility as every man has received the gift, Even so minister the same.
As good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
Not everyone has a public gift.
That has not been, uh, given to every brother.
Certainly has not been given to the sisters, but they occupy a very important place in the body of Christ. So do each one of you.
Your gift may not be something prominent. It may not even be seen. There are certain organs in my body. You don't see them.
You probably never will see them.
But they're very valuable.
They have a very important function, though not seen. You see my hands and my feet and eyes. They're they're in the forefront.
But every one of us, brethren, we have.
Umm, a place in the body of Christ.
Corinthians brings this out very clearly.
Uh, different having then gifts differing according to the grace that has been given to us. Unto everyone of us, to every man is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Well, you say that's only those who are on the platform. No, that is everyone in the body of Christ. You have something to do.
In that.
Place which which you can do better than anyone else.
And, uh, it's a service.
That the Lord has given to you. It may be in the background.
It may not be seen by the brethren even.
But you know, as Mr. Darby said, Christianity is characterized by what it what it gives, what it brings, not by what it finds.
How often it may be that, uh, we are looking for something.
We're looking for love in the assembly and we don't find it, but the exercise about bringing love.
What did I contribute to the meeting?
I can look back and think of some brothers in the Ottawa meeting.
They didn't teach me a lot.
But their presence in the meeting?
Their warm handshake.
Their smile was an encouragement to me.
They weren't prominent brothers on the platform, but their presence at the meeting was a blessing, and still is a blessing.
So don't be discouraged if you don't have, shall I say, a public gift. You have a place to fulfill, and the Lord is recording in the annals of eternity.
Everything that you do, it may appear very insignificant in the eyes of men, but the Lord has it recorded.
Cup of cold water will not lose its reward. Your presence in the assembly here at the conference where the Word of God is read and the Lord Jesus is honored, that will be rewarded.
And uh.
The Book of Remembrance is going to be opened someday.
Malachiah chapter 3. Every thought upon his name will be rewarded.
00:15:01
Sisters in the meeting, every thought upon his name this morning.
Will have its reward in that day.
And the service that some of us who travel a little experience in the homes of the Saints.
Where the sisters labor so faithfully, that will be rewarded.
The many hours that are spent in preparing gospel literature, models or texts. God has a record of that.
And in that coming day?
The married Supper of the Lamb.
The wife there is arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, which is, notice this, the righteousnesses of the Saints. It's not divine righteousness. We have that through the work of Christ, a perfect standing before God in a righteousness that nothing can sully, but the righteousness spoken there is practical righteousness.
When our lives are going to be.
Manifest.
Will actually.
Marriage Supper of the lamb when the wife.
The bride is arrayed in the fine linen.
Comes after the judgment seat of Christ.
Uh, at the judgment seat of Christ, our lives will be reviewed. Everything will come out in your life and mine. And I believe it is public and uh, there will be a reward.
A portion given by the Lord at that time for faithfulness to His word for every little act of service.
Every sacrifice in our lives.
We don't sometimes we feel we don't have very much sacrifice. I I can say that, but all those.
Little services.
Will will be rewarded and then the result will be that beautiful garment.
Uh, where she is the bride is displayed in all her beauty. That is our good works, our conduct, our lives that are going to be manifest before the assembled.
Company all the Saints, they will see the result of our service and our laborers.
It will be manifest then.
Perhaps there's someone that thinks I try to do something for the Lord and no one takes notice of it. Or sometimes I get criticized for it. Leave it with the Lord. He has the record straight. When Mary broke that alabaster box appointment on the feet of the Lord, she was criticized, didn't say anything. The Lord up upheld her action.
And praised her. And that act of devotedness, uh, shown there in the life of Mary, as Mr. Brown said, it's multiplied into eternity.
And everyone who reads the scriptures knows about her act of devotedness.
So if you're criticized, it's going to come.
Leave it with the Lord if you have sought to honor him according to his word. Now our brother Paul mentioned that being reproved, that's, that's very, that's very important. That's not criticism. That's something that is, uh, needful, constructive. We all need reproof.
It should be done in the spirit of love, but we need to be corrected. But leave those things with the Lord and He will, He has, He will reward what has been done for Him as we have in our past each year. Occupy till I come, and I just wanna.
Say in closing, the reward is certain. Now we've often been told reward is not a motive for service. I fully agree with that.
Reward is not a motive for service. That would be a wrong thought. But it certainly is an incentive. It certainly is an encouragement. You may labor on in a difficult field. In the gospel, you feel the rejection, the cold shoulder, maybe the open opposition. You say, is it worthwhile?
00:20:13
Am I getting anywhere?
Leave it with the Lord.
He is going to reward those scars that you have received. It's not going to be easy in a world that has rejected Christ or it may be even among your brethren. Sometimes you, uh, are disappointed.
Don't get your eyes on your brethren. It's wonderful to have their fellowship and as we have enjoyed these last few days, but uh, you're not in a perfect assembly.
Certainly wouldn't be perfect if I was part of it. And there there's failures we need to bear and forebear with our brethren. But you are among those that truly love you. And, uh, I hope you value it, but we need patience with one another. But what I'm coming to sort of get sidetracked here is that, uh, the reward is certain.
For those who have remained, it may be in difficulty and loneliness, sometimes discouragement, to be connected with such a small group. There doesn't seem to be a lot of energy or activity going on. You are at the place where the Lord has placed His name.
And Paul said his desire was that he would finish his course with joy in the ministry which the Lord had committed to him.
Not every St. finishes his course with joy. Not every St. has an abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
But that reward is certain.
God will not forget your work and labor of love that you have shown to His name.
And, uh, you don't need to speak about it.
Even if you've forgotten about it, the Lord has not forgotten.
And he is going to apportion the reward in that coming day, manifest at the judgment seat of Christ and the marriage supper of the Lamb, Noah. Sometimes a girl, she will spend a lot of time preparing her wedding dress and you don't see it. Maybe months go by stitch after stitch as she is.
Umm finishing the dress that she is going to appear.
In on the wedding day, no one sees what's going on.
But the day comes when it's all manifest. Her laborers are sown to all the company. That's the way it will be at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Our feeble efforts will not be forgotten. They will be manifest. And.
The Kingdom is mentioned in the passage we read here and uh.
Rewards, I think most of us know are connected with the Kingdom.
That is, your place in the coming Kingdom will be according to the way you have walked down here.
Uh, Viva, over 10 cities, 5 cities. That's administration.
We're all going to have a place in the Kingdom, but.
That position will be according to the way we have walked down here.
Our I've often said our sins will never be brought up and resurrected to condemn us. That wonderful.
But our works will be brought up and, uh, reward it often mentioned you can have a save soul and a lost life. You wanna have a lost life?
Lot is an example of that, sad to say. Jonathan also though he was energetic and he, uh, displayed much devotedness to David.
And he performed some mighty.
Acts in the power of God.
But he did not share the rejection of David. You know that.
And he remained in the port of Saul.
He never shared the Kingdom with David. He fell ignominiously on the on the mountains of Gilboa. He thought he would be with David.
00:25:06
He expected to be, but he never was.
And that was the loss in the life of dear Jonathan.
And so the Lord wants us to have a saved soul. We have that already and a life that will, that will, umm, be for his glory and be, uh, be kept in that coming day. You know, there's one verse that is given six times in the Gospels, 6 times this verse is given. Isn't that significant? Why would the Spirit of God repeat this verse six times?
I'll just give it to you in one one place.
Uh, John 12.
And verse.
25 He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. Well, that speaks to every one of us.
And uh.
There's the, there's the tendency, there's the.
Uh, desire in every one of us.
To keep our lives down here.
To deliver the natural man.
For the things of time and sense.
Which are going to pass away.
But if we spend all our energy on those things which are temporal.
And have to do with.
Uh, our position in this world, you may get a good salary.
And uh.
Much reputation in the world, but if you lose.
The sense of the Lord's presence.
If it interferes with your communion with him, your fellowship in the assembly.
It's eternal loss. Well, it it speaks to all of us.
May we have our eyes on the Lord and, uh, labor on.
In the past that he has marked out in his word for us, knowing that.
Uh, all will be.
Manifest in that coming day the judgment seat of Christ.
Is not to condemn, but it is to manifest our lives.
Down here when we will have the same thoughts about our lives as the Lord Jesus has. May the Lord bless His word.
Reserve by clock most graciously within thy sheltering fold, move them from every harm away, and in thy safeguard hold till thou shalt wholly have obtained in US the fruit of grace and we.
Enjoyed that never end shall see the face to face do thou the very God of peace.
I'm only sanctified and grant us such a rich increase of power from on high, that spirit, soul and body may preserve free from staying the blameless until that Gray day, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
All day.
And.
00:30:03
All the way.
Rainfall.
Wherever it is, I don't understand it.
I'm saying.
All right, so.
Uh, per day, maybe around 7:00.
Right.
Gospel 2
Gospel—Leo Renaud
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.
Would you arise with me and sing just the first verse of 99 on Christ? Salvation rest secure. The Rock of Ages must endure, nor can that faith be overthrown which rests upon the living stone.
On Christ salvation.
How can?
I.
Do nor can I play?
All the Rome whenever.
I live.
And then install.
May we look to the Lord together.
Our God and Father.
We thank Thee for the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That he died.
That he was buried and he rose again on the third day.
Now, as we.
Seek to.
Tell that sweet old story of a free and a full salvation.
May Thy Spirit give liberty and help we count on Thee for blessing. Thou dost know the heart of each one in this room.
And we pray that.
Everyone will accept the.
Gospel offer and know their sins forgiven.
So we seek help as we open thy word together. In thy name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
The Lord's help I'd like to speak a few minutes about the word come come, and the verse I'd like to read in that behalf is Isaiah chapter one.
And verse 18.
Come now.
Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord.
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like Crimson, they shall be as wool. What a wonderful word.
Com is.
C would be for each of you, dear children. Children.
And.
All all the older ones.
M Middle class, middle-aged.
And then E everyone.
Whosoever will may come.
Isn't that a wonderful thing? The little girl said. That means.
Me and you and everyone else.
Can come.
And the message here is.
Come now.
Yeah, we know that. First behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
The only sure time we have is now.
We're to prepare to meet our God, Yeah.
Now this is a gospel meeting, and gospel, we know, is good news. Yeah, how? Why is it good news?
All have sinned, we are told, and come short of the glory of God.
We've been born in sin, as by one man's sin entered into the world, so death passed upon all, in that all have sinned.
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The consequence of sin is death.
Separation from a holy God.
For all eternity.
But the Lord came into this scene.
To give himself a ransom.
For many.
And so he died.
He was buried. He rose again.
What a scene. It was there at Calvary.
You know the they falsely accused the Lord Jesus.
And.
Pilot said what will you do with Jesus, which is called Christ? And they said crucify him.
And he even said, Why? What evil hath he done?
That, uh. The.
Cries of the people won out.
And so he was delivered to be crucified.
Nail to that, cross to that center tree.
Where he died there.
For you and for me.
Yes, he gave his life while on the cross. The challenges were come down from the cross and we'll believe.
You who said that?
Tear down this Tabernacle. In three days I'll build it again.
Well, the people also said His blood be upon us and our children. What a solemn thing. So we're all sinners.
Doom to die in the sight of a holy God. It's an important thing. Last night we were reminded what repentance was. It was an about face.
To acknowledge our sinful condition before a holy God, Yeah.
Come now, dear children, dear older one.
Dear middle-aged person, everyone here.
Have you paused and considered?
That were centers, you know over in Barrow this past year we were passing out the calendars in the January a young man pleasantly come in and I said may I give you a gospel calendar and he said sure, I'll take one of your calendars and you know on on January. That was the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So he passed through the entry and was going into the store. The store there is a lot like our super Walmarts and he started reading this. The wages of sin is what?
That's all I heard.
He really didn't want to face.
What that was telling him?
Pray for that dear man, the wages of Santa's death. But it doesn't stop there. The gift of God is eternal life. What a gift. In Isaiah also it says, Come O everyone that thirsteth coming by.
Without money and without price. A true gift.
What is the value of a gift?
My mother-in-law used to say, especially when she'd be giving a necklace, I if I just would know the value of it. Some of these pearls, maybe we could appreciate it more.
The dearest gift.
That we can have today.
Is to know our sins forgiven? To acknowledge our sinful condition before a holy God?
Just in simple faith, say Lord, I'm a Sinner.
I need a Savior, especially now. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet.
Perhaps something that soap and water can't wash out?
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You know our sins cannot be blotted out. We can do all our righteousnesses.
Are as filthy rags before a God with whom we have to do.
We must decide for Christ or put it off.
Satan would desire try turn over a new leaf. You can do better.
And but does it work? No, he's experienced and we do well to.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
The message is for now.
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
Though they be read like Crimson, they shall be as wool the work that the Lord Jesus did there on Calvary's cross once and for all.
Satisfy the holy God as to the question of sin. And so the message is it's it's good news, we who are sinners in the sight of a holy God, we who are doomed to die.
Can be brought nigh through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What a what a good news, what a message.
Will you accept it?
Don't turn it down.
A gift. Sometimes we get a gift for somebody, our favorite person maybe, that we love and and we know they're gonna be excited about it and we're anxious to see them open it up and their eyes and their joys in receiving it. But how would you feel, dear one?
If you would go out and buy a favorite gift.
That you knew your friend wanted.
And they?
Desired and they didn't open it.
How about you?
The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We just have to accept it.
These things have I written unto you.
This is John speaking, who believe on the name of the Son of God.
That ye may know, KNOW.
That you may know that you have eternal life. Is that not really good news?
The Lord see us not as man see us. Man looks on the outward appearance. You know, I look in the audience here and I have a joy and turning around and seeing the smiles and the pleasant faces.
But you know, I don't know what's going on inside.
We're desires that each one has in simple faith. Just said Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a Sinner.
But I know that your work there on Calvary's cross when you died and when your blood was shed.
And you went into that grave, and on the third day you rose again.
That that work has satisfied a holy God for me.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Let's sing a verse of 332.
300 and.
I think that's just as I am.
And if you haven't accepted that gift, do it even while we sing.
Uh, the first verse and the last verse of 332.
Justin.
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All right now.
Shall we give thanks?
Our God and Father, we give thanks that Thou hast extended the day of grace even to now.
But we know that life is uncertain.
It is as a vapor. It appears for a time and is no more.
So we pray that each one in this room may be mindful of the shortness of our lives, and two, that we might be ever aware that thou has said, Behold, I come quickly.
No man, no at the hour.
Only the Father.
This same Jesus which you've seen.
Taken up him to heaven shall so come in like manner of you seeing him go up. We look forward to that time.
But we pray that each one in this room.
May know their sins forgiven and be ready to hear that shout.
We seek blessing and give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Open Mtg. 3
Open—D. So, L. Renaud, K. Covell
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.
All right, so.
Oh, I see.
Glory and lighting the Lord.
Pray together, God, we do thank thee for the.
Expressions in this, uh, hymn we have sung together, bringing before us that, uh.
Marvelous hope that the believer has.
Of being forever with and like the Lord Jesus.
But our God is, uh, still in this wilderness scene.
Encompassed with infirmity.
And need and trial.
We are dependent upon the.
For the Ministry this afternoon.
That thou use thy servants to.
00:05:05
Umm, unfold to us, uh, from thy holy word.
About which we stand in need of.
And our God, we acknowledge how many and varied are our needs.
Young people, older ones, all of us needing.
Edification, exhortation and comfort. So help us, our God. We are dependent upon Thee.
And seek that Christ may be glorified in this meeting this afternoon, that we may have receptive hearts.
Consciences too, that are exercised.
As to our walk and ways.
And, umm.
Umm, dependence upon the now at the head of the Church. It is my delight to bless and to feed thy people.
Thy word tells us out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
So we pray that thy people, those who minister, may be a channel of blessing.
From that source in the glory so we see, we commit the meeting to the and ask thy health and give thanks for this wonderful privilege of being together with thy people for a short time and being built up on our most holy faith. We ask these things and give thanks and the one who has made it all possible through his finished work on Calvary and his precious blood. Our title to be here this this day.
And his worthy name we pray.
Giving thanks. Amen.
Early on this afternoon we had a peak of this tempo.
A tempo in the future, in the millennial date. I have in my heart perhaps just to talk about a few of the temples that the Word of God have shown once and more. In particular, there is one of this tempo I have in mind now. I'm just going to talk very briefly on it. It's not my intention to spend a lot of time on all these temples, you know. Do we have the time for it this afternoon?
The perhaps let's turn to our verse first in the Book of Exodus.
Exodus chapter 25 This is not exactly a temple, but this becomes before the temple in Exodus chapter 25. We see here that the Lord asked Moses to build a place for him to dwell in verse one, and the Lord speak unto Moses.
Verse 8 And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. Verse 22 And there I will meet with thee, and I will commute with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims, which are upon the arc of the testimony of all things, which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
See that the Lord wants to dwell with with his people.
But because of our conditions, He couldn't dwell with us immediately. He has to have a place separated from man and from from God and man. So when they were in the wilderness, we know that He commanded them to build this Tabernacle. Now there are three distinctions here, or three things here I should say that we just read. It is a place that the Lord spoke of. The Lord is there.
That signifies his drawing place. He's there.
The second uh, that we read in verse eight is there is a place that he appointed.
And then it shows us again that he promised communion with his people. And we know that just for safety of time, we know that that was a was not a permanent dwelling. So later on we find that Solomon Solomon built that very first temple. We won't we won't turn into that, but just to mention that being the very first temple that.
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Was built something physical, something that's permanent.
In fact, something that the Jews took pride off, we learned in Jeremiah. Jeremiah would say to them the temple, the temple, the temple of God, they were proud of that. And God because of the unfaithfulness, took something that is prideful. I'm sure as people, it may be that it was destroyed. We know that pride of Solomon's temple was destroyed. And then when we get to the book of Haggai and perhaps in the book of Zechariah.
We find that the tempo was rebuilt. Actually, when we have the book of Ezra, we find that the foundation when they return was rebuilt and they set up a, uh, uh, the, the altar there. And then later on a Peggy eyed with the people of and Zechariah come along and they are that second temple was rebuilt. So we know of those two temples. Incidentally, if you look at the date of these temples, it's kind of interesting too.
Solomon's temple I believe was finished around the time of 1005 BC and the one that Hegei helped finish was around the time of 516 BC. If you look at it, there are 490 years between the two temple. Very interesting isn't it? They were to wrest the land and they didn't for 490 years that they didn't rest the land. They were to pay for that in 70 years of captivity.
It's kind of interesting to see those dates there. So just for gravity, we see those two. The third tempo was mentioned briefly. We read that about Herod's temple, 40 and six years was it in building? And the Lord was able to say to them, destroy this temple and in three days he said he'll raise it up again. So that was the 3rd temple that we know of. That wasn't the temple of God, that was temple of man. The high priests in those states weren't the proper high priests according to the word of God, but nevertheless.
That was the 3rd temple.
Then there is the 4th temple, which I'm going to come back to. I'll leave that for a moment, or perhaps I'll mention that right now, 4th tempo we know of as we look around us, we should see that that, uh, that 4th temple today, let's turn to 1St Corinthians chapter 6. We'll find that 4th temple being mentioned there.
First Corinthians, chapter 6.
And I say we should look around the room 1St, and then we'll look at this verse here in verse 19. In fact, even the apostle Paul for the remark that he said what? No ye not. Isn't that interesting? By the way, in this pistol he mentioned 10 times. He raised that questions 10 times. Know ye not, Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and which are not your own.
For ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are gods. We often neglect to look at that, don't we? That we see this 4th temple in front of us. We'll find that in the third chapter of Corinthians it mentioned the uh, uh, there no E not the tempo.
The temple of God and that our Spirit of God dwelleth in it. That speaks of the assembly there that the Spirit dwells in here in the 6th chapter that your body.
Is the tempo of the Holy Ghost. We're gonna come back to this in a, uh, in a minute. I'd like to mention the finished mentioning the other tempo. So that's the 4th temple, the 5th temple that we know of. We can turn to, uh, Second Thessalonians, umm, Second Thessalonians chapter 2.
This tempo is not yet, but will be, and it could very well be in the process of being built, already built. We don't know that yet. Second Thessalonians chapter 2, I believe is in verse four. Perhaps. Let me let read verse three, uh, and four together. Let no man deceive you by any means. For that they shall. For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first.
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And that man of sin, that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition who oppose it, and exalted himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he as God.
Sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Well, we know that, and that time will come, in fact, very soon perhaps.
This man of sin, he's going to claim that he's God and he's going to sit in that temple. It's scary to think about that, isn't it? But we'll be gone. We'll look down from there as the 5th temple and then the 6th temple that we spent some time on this afternoon in that millennial day. Ezekiel's temple, as our brother mentioned, the book that we often neglect to read is very interesting to read through those last few chapters of Ezekiel from chapter 40 on to see how.
Full details God has given us about the temples, the room size, the number of steps going up the Eastgate. Oh, interesting to see how when the glory left the the temple it left via the Eastgate and to know that when it comes in the future day is that it's gonna come, it will come back in the Lord's glory will descend back via the Eastgate. Well, my thought this afternoon is more so.
On the 4th temple that our body, the temple while we have here, it is God's dwelling place, isn't it?
The Spirit dwelled. God wants to dwell with his own. God wants to have communion with his people.
How are you treating your tempo?
Do you have that communion with God as he desired to do? So one of the objects really is so that we can be Christ like we sang it that him and is it so I shall be like thy Son. Well, how would you do that? And what did God do so that we can be like his son?
I'd like to turn to John's Gospel. Well, well known passages here, John's Gospel chapter 14.
Here again it talks about the future day as if it were Let's just read the first few verses together. We know these verses well. John 14 verse one is just let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am.
There ye may be also. This is familiar verses we know. The Lord gave us comfort on that, knowing that we shouldn't be troubled with him going because he go to prepare that place for us. He said in my father's house are many mansions.
And I believe in other translation habitats, there are many abodes, a lot of dwelling places. You know, it's interesting if you take a closer look at the tap at the tempo that I'd rather put the picture up on. And you can ask him more, He can tell you more than I can about those chambers, the chambers, those dwelling places. Isn't that interesting to see that for his servants? But here he gave us a promise that he goes. We know that the Lord Jesus have left.
But He didn't leave us without any devices. He gave us the promise that He will come forward again, but at the meantime, He gave us something else. You see, before the Lord Jesus came, God was the object of his people, isn't it? They were in communion with God, Some even walked with God. And then because of man's conditions, man's sins have have separated us further and further away from God.
But what was the solution? God sent for his Son. So God the Father and then God the Son came into this world.
When God the Son came into this world, we as men rejected him. We set away with him, crucified him, we nailed him to the cross. He died, he rose again, and we know that he's now living at the Father's right hand on high. But what did God do at the meantime? Ah, we go on to this chapter. Let's look down here, uh, John 14, verse 15. If you love me, keep my commandments and I will pray the Father.
And it shall give you an other comforter, that He may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because ecstasm not neither knoweth him. But ye know Him, for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you. Oh, how precious do you think that the Lord didn't just leave, and without giving us any kind of provision?
00:20:33
He sent the comforter into this world. So now God the Spirit came to dwell in this temple, this, this temple, this body of ours. Now we find that the Spirit of God worked from the very beginning. In fact, let's go to the very beginning of the Bible and we'll see that. Let's go to Genesis chapter one.
Umm. Genesis chapter one, Uh.
Verse 2.
Halfway through that verse is that and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. So here the Spirit of God is not something new to man, but here now the Spirit, when the Lord leaves this earth, then the Spirit comes on that day of Pentecost we find that Spirit descended into the believers. There it came and indwell the believers. Isn't it wonderful to see that we see the Lord Jesus Christ himself?
He was anointed with the Holy Ghost and he was indwelled by the Holy Ghost. We see the picture throughout the Old Testament. We see the meal offering. You know, it's nice to look through the offerings. We'll see in the meal offering. It says there are a couple of ways to prepare that. You get fine flour and one way is to set you pour oil on it. The oil has a picture of the Holy Ghost is as if it was anointed with it. Another way to bake that is to mingle that with oil.
Well, today we see the same picture, that we can be indwelled by the Spirit. So what does the Spirit do for us? Let's turn to Ephesians chapter one.
Just going to pick up a few functions while we are waiting.
By the way, we, we mentioned 6 temples. This is a side remark. I don't believe we will see A71 because when that 6/1 after the millennial seed will go into the eternal state, The true dwelling place is with God forever, isn't it? And I believe how God planned it. So Ephesians chapter one, we find here that this chapter often known or at least verse 10 of this chapter often, uh, we call that the key to the whole Bible.
In verse 10 there is that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. Even in him a dispensation in the fullness of time, in that millennial day, all things will be gathered together, all things will be in Christ. Then what's the purpose of all that? Well, let's look at verse 12. Now verse 12 here, by the way, when you read through the a lot of Paul's epistle, you see the word we.
And you see the word EYE, the distinction often is this we he was referring to himself and the Jews and E is referring to what? So when we read here that we should it's not us as Gentiles, it's the Jews. It's that the Jews that we the Jews should be to the praise of his glory who trusted in God. That's the purpose, isn't it? In whom ye also trusted, verse 13 in whom ye now that's us.
How do we trust in whom ye also trusted? After that ye heard the word of the truth. Ah, we heard the gospel of his salvation. We were saved. I'm going to skip that and I'll come right back to the latter part of verse 13.
Umm, a lot of part of uh, verse 14 and to the praise of his glory. That's the purpose, so that the Jews and the Gentiles are brought together unto the praise of his glory.
Now let's go back to verse 13. The latter part of this in whom also after that ye believed something happened the moment we believed in whom after that EB lead ye were sealed. You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Oh, not only did this Holy Ghost dwell in you as a temple of the of this body that you have been sealed, you have been marked as his.
00:25:18
You know, a number of years ago.
We were out West and perhaps being growing up in the city, I don't know a whole lot about the Country Life and when we were out actually at Lassen and some of you may have been there, as you drive up to these mountains you see these free roaming cows. In fact we almost hit a few because they don't understand the road crossing that they have stopped before they cross the road. They just go. And I asked somebody one day, I said how do you know they just left out there all to their own. Nobody watch over them. How do you know whose house is Boot?
Because they leave them the all summer and I'll see a brother looking at me. They're familiar with us from our W. They're leaving out the all summer to grow bigger and bigger.
And then they say to me, well, what they do is on these catals, they have a little branding on them, don't they? So when it's time to collect them, they go by the CEO of this brand that's on them. So you can tell whose it is. Well, here, since we've been sealed, you have been put a CEO saying that you are his. Oh, the Spirit put that seal on you, that seal with the Holy Spirit of promise. How precious it is to know that we are his from the moment that we are saved.
Verse 14 which is the earnest.
Of our inheritance until the redemption. Of the purchased possession, until the praise of its glory, the earnest of our redemption.
Well, word earnest is kind of interesting. We don't use that word much anymore. You know, years ago you may name a boy Ernest. And as opposed to these society, we we really don't like that word anymore because a lot of people perhaps are not as earnest.
As they ought to be. What does it mean here, Ernest? The earnest of our inheritance. Now I see we have all various ages, various groups now some of UI and are Canadians. And we as Canadians perhaps won't even understand this word as much as our American brethren. Let me give you an example.
In the real estate business.
When you go purchase a piece of property, you look at this piece of property and say, I'm gonna buy this property. And you go to the seller and say I really wanna buy this, but I'm not ready to take it yet. And you'll find that often that's the case, right? The day you make an offer to purchase this property, you do not move into that house. So what you do is you give them a deposit. At least that's what we call it at home. You give them so much money as a deposit.
And I understand down here you folks use a different phrase, you call that earnest money. So you give them some money and say this is my earnest money to prove that I will come back in another month or two. Of course you have a date, at least preset date and that I will finish or complete this transaction. The fact that you signed it, you signed the deal as they say, signed CEO and delivered the CEO is put on.
The earnest money is given, that really is your property, even though you don't have any possession of that yet, do you? So the Holy Ghost does that as if he put that down payment in there for you and say it's gonna be soon. That will be ours because of the earnest. We can see, as we're saying in the Him, and it is so. I shall be like thy son. Oh, isn't it wonderful to know that?
His job here now is to show us and to make sure we know our home is there not here. We are heavenly citizens and he's gonna teach us as we walk with a little time that is left in this pathway to be Christ like to walk just like he would. Well, let's turn to another passage here. I believe it's in first John.
Yes, first John chapter 2. Now we find another function of this Holy Ghost, the one that indwell in this this this temporal body of ours.
First John chapter 2 verse 20. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things. Oh, isn't it nice to know that the Holy Spirit have put that seal within us to know that we are His. He put that earnest, that deposit, that damn payment as if it were so that we know.
00:30:22
The inheritance of ours is sure. Now we have the unction from the Holy Ghost so that we know all things. You know the moment you're saved, you know all things. Now I don't believe here it means that you know everything, that you can be able to stand and teach everything. But do you find that there are times there's something, that Spirit inside you to let you know that there's certain things? That is not the Father's voice. It's not the Shepherd's voice.
Ah, it is the unction of the Spirit, isn't it, to teach us, to guide us, so that we don't get in trouble? Let's look at a few more verses. Verse 21. For I have written unto you, because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is Christ. He is Antichrist, and denied the Father and the Son. Whoso denieth the Son, the saying hath not the Father.
But he that acknowledges the sun hath the Father. Let that therefore abide in you. Watch ye of which you have heard from the beginning. If that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you also shall continue in the sun and in the Father. And this is the promise that He had promised us, even eternal life. So we find here that there are people out there that will try to deceive you, but the unction of the Holy Spirit will show you. And one of the things is that.
Learn that anybody that denies the sum denies the father, then they're not of God. I was speaking to a young man one time. He told me this group that he sort of get into association with two of the college and university. He said to me, this group is not that bad. I only noticed 3 fundamental errors. Well, if there are three fundamental errors, what if there is even only one? And if these errors deny the father and the Son?
Then we need to stay away, and the function of that Spirit will teach us when He to stay away from all of that. Another portion in Romans chapter 8.
Romans, a verse one. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ. Verse 2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, that made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak to the flesh. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilling us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
So here we find in verse 2 The law of the Spirit of life.
In Christ.
Here this law, the Spirit, teaches us to walk not as the way our flesh or our own personal view things should be, but walk in a way pleasing to God, Walk in a way that is being directed by the Spirit. You're finding the book of Corinthians that there were three sorts of wisdom that it mentioned. There was the wisdom of this world. It says the wisdom of this of this world.
By the wisdom of this world, they crucify our Lord Jesus.
And then there's the wisdom of the flesh. How often do we bring our own ideas into the assembly? How often do we bring our own ideas into our own lives? It makes sense, It works well in the businesses that we run, but is it of God?
And then there is the wisdom, which is from above, being guided, being led by the Spirit. The Spirit dwells in the assembly too, doesn't it?
Of course, there are many things that still, many other things that Spirit would do. It would comfort us, it would teach us, it leads us the way, what His job is so that we can be more Christ like. As we sing that hymn, can we think of how precious it would be? And it ought to be. And is it so? I shall be like thy Son in the same chapter of the book of Romans. Let's go down to verse 29.
00:35:06
He says for whom he did foreknow, he also.
It predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren. Oh, it says that we have been predestinated to be conforming to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Conform, you know in another place in the book of Romans, he says do not conform to the world. And we often take this word conform to be a bad word. And in the case of conforming to the world.
It is bad, isn't it? But here we know that we will be more conformed to its image in that day. In that day we will be. But at the meantime, through the Spirit guiding, we ought to walk in that way so that we will be more Christ like. These temples that we mentioned perhaps give us a lesson as we look at them, as we study them. The Word of God put them in for reason, doesn't it? That temple is the outward expression to show man that God dwells there.
Solomon's temple was splendid. Splendid.
Ezekiel's Temple. We don't know very much about Dewey.
Herod's temple man was proud of it. They were able to boast and say 40 and six years was it in the building.
What about this tempo of yours? How would man look at you? What would they say? Whose tempo is this? What kind of man manifestation do we have for this world?
And then the two to come, the one that the men of sin shall sit on. Or sometimes we spend so much time worrying about it, we need not to be God. Allow that we won't be here to worry about that. We'll leave that with him and to see that Christ will reign in the millennial day there that that future temple. He already know all this before it happens. At the meantime, how are we to walk with a little time that is left in this world?
Walk in a way pleasing to him being led by the Spirit. Don't grieve the Spirit. Follow.
After him, as Daniel always say, that he had the purpose of heart, he knew what he was gonna go. He had the purpose of heart and God blessed him for it.
I'd just like to say a few words about a yoke.
A yolk.
Found Let's look at UMM Matthew Levin.
Yolks were made of wood and.
The Lord being the carpenter's son, perhaps, uh, help make many yolk. And isn't it interesting here in Matthew 11 and verse 29, he would say.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
For I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. As I thought about a yoke, you know the one man said I've got to go claim 5 yoke of oxen. So it seems very likely that.
A yoke was made to connect to oxen.
And so here the Lord is saying.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
What an interesting thing.
And he goes on to say for my yoke is easy.
And my burden is life.
00:40:01
The story was told and I was impressed in reading it.
Of the man who was plowing with a yoke of oxen.
And the interesting thing about it was this one oxen was mature and very big.
And the other oxen was.
Small and very young.
So at the end of the day, why The man was confronted and said to him, someone said why would you be plowing?
With two like that.
And he said, umm, you should see that yoke.
See how that yolk is made?
The large oxen.
Is pulling the whole load.
The small oxen and the young oxen is going along to learn where to walk.
I thought that was very interesting and now the Lord here is saying.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
What a what a privilege that he would desire you and me to be yoked up with him. Undoubtedly when he made yokes, they would be very nicely done and so.
The Yelp that he would want us to be yoked up with would be very nicely fitting.
And easy for us to.
Put on with him and to go with him and he would pull us through.
Take my yoke upon.
Take my yoke upon you.
Isn't that interesting?
He would desire, dear one, and I say this to myself too, He would desire us to be yoked up with him.
And see us through. See us through the hard times.
You know.
I was privileged and enjoyed plowing and there were tough spots.
The field might look all the same, but as you cloud along the track, tractor would really feel.
A heavy load, much heavier load at various spots. And so our lives are that way, aren't they? Uh, we have the ups and downs. Maybe we could save life. But here's the Lord using this practical illustration to take my yoke upon me.
Individual salvation is individual that we had just before this.
We individually must be saved and we've talked about faith this morning and it's been mentioned four times, Is it not that the just shall live by faith? And that first time they're in Habakkuk when it says that, it says the just shall live by his faith.
So how individual and how important it is that we each individually know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and then take that yoke that is made especially for you and especially for me, and walk with Him. The little oxen was learning how to walk and what a privilege it is.
To go through this scene and may it be true of each of us that were yoked up with him and we are told that.
Is yolk, for my yolk is easy and my burden is light. He's an all the way home savior and he desires that you and I would be yoked up with him.
00:45:34
I'd just like to.
Share a little story in the Old Testament that I enjoyed about a piece of furniture in the Ark and the temple, the, uh, the Ark and, uh, First Corinthians, uh, First Chronicles.
First Chronicles, chapter 13.
You said two little things that I enjoyed in this chapter. Maybe if you don't mind, I'd like to read it. And umm, First Chronicles chapter 13.
And David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds, and with every leader. And David said unto all the congregation of Israel, if it seemed good unto you, and that it be the Lord our God, let us send abroad unto our brethren everywhere that are left in all the land of Israel, and with them also to the priests and Levites, which are in their cities and suburbs, that they may gather themselves onto us.
And let us bring again the ark of our God to us, for we inquired not at it in the days of Saul.
And all the congregation said that they would do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people. And so David gathered all Israel together, from Shahor of Egypt, even on to the entering of Hamas, to bring the ark of God from Kerja. And David went up, and all Israel to be LA, that is to Kerja, which belongeth to Judah, to bring up, sent to the ark of God the Lord that dwelleth between the cherubims, whose name is called on it.
And they carried the Ark of God in a new card out of the House of Abinadab and Azza, and a high old Ruth the Kurt.
And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, and was saying, and with heart, and with salaries, and with timbrels, and with symbols, symbols and with trumpets. And when they came on to the threshing floor of Chidon, Aziza put forth his hand to hold the earth, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against us, and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark, and there he died before God.
And David was displeased because the Lord had made a breach upon us, Wherefore that place is called Peraza to this day. And David was afraid of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God home to me?
And so David brought not the Ark home to himself, to the city of David, but he carried it aside into the House of Obadidom the Gittite.
And the ark of God remained with the family of obedient in his house three months.
And the Lord blessed the House of Obadiah.
And all that he had.
I just enjoyed reading in in, uh, First Chronicles and uh.
And the Kings during the summer. And, uh, this portion touched my heart a few weeks ago.
We street it starts our chapter. It says David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds.
And with every leader.
The one that's standing here is probably guilty of not consulting with people sometimes.
And you know, the Lord tells us that there's, umm.
In Proverbs, but the wisdom of counselors.
And so, you know, it's a wonderful privilege that we have parents or we have fathers, uh, spiritual fathers in our assembly that we can go to and we can consult.
But umm.
Here we have King David.
And you might say what a wonderful thing he did. He consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds and with every leader and.
00:50:03
It would seem everybody thought that this was a wonderful thing to do, to bring the arc of the covenant up to Jerusalem.
And there is one problem though we don't read that they consulted with the Lord.
And, umm.
This afternoon I was my thought was with some of you who are young people.
Who are umm, entering the workforce? Perhaps earn?
Thinking of being married or are married or going off to school and leaving home.
And a few years ago.
Young lady that I love left our home.
And it was a difficult thing for mom and dad to see her go down the road to school.
And she was a cheer and a blessing in our home.
And you know, we enjoyed some phone calls from her.
And we got a few phone calls.
Where she inquired what maybe mom or dad thought of it something.
And I was exercised before the Lord.
To umm.
To speak to her.
Because although we valued that input into her life, we had a desire.
That she would look to the Lord and consult with her Lord and Savior.
And that she would.
Read this blessed book.
And not be dependent.
On what mother or her father felt, she said dear.
And so this afternoon in reading this little portion.
One of my thoughts was to encourage you.
Not to neglect our older brother, not to neglect mum or dad. What a wonderful thing that we can share our life with our parents.
And with our close friends, with her brethren.
But the result of David bringing up this arc, the Ark of God from Umm Kerja, resulted in the death of someone. Excuse me?
You know, sometimes the Lord lays certain things on our hearts to do.
And I would say that in the in the same light, isn't it good that we if we consult with him?
Sometimes we're guilty of uh.
Of considering something and the Lord lays it on our heart. And you know, we go to brother so and so and we speak to them and sisters so and so and we'd like to get a good vibe on it.
But you know, we should, umm, we should consult the Lord and trust in Him.
I was encouraged. You know, our last year our daughter Umm took a little room not far from the university she stayed in.
And we prayed much about, umm, a spot for her to stay in and uh.
Hope she'll bear with me with this umm.
And she prayed a lot about this and, uh, the Lord directed her to a little spot about 10 minutes from the university where she could walk in. And, uh, she visited it and she came back and told us and, oh, I thought.
You know, I kind of hope that she'd have a little spot to stay in with a mom and a dad that loved the Lord and that could watch over her.
And we hesitated and we waited and we waited, and two weeks went by and three weeks went by.
And the time was close approaching that she had to have a spot to stay.
Hence she was much before the Lord about this and one night and umm, she prayed about it.
And the Lord brought before the little story that Elijah and you know, she came down the next morning, she said, you know, Dad.
The Lord provided a bed for Elijah, a stool and a table, a little light.
She said, you know, I believe the Lord has provided that for me in this little room.
00:55:08
You know, that wasn't my first choice, but I believe that the Lord opened up that little room for her and I just mentioned that story.
Uh, young people.
Umm, old people.
Look to the Lord.
We're told in the book of Proverbs, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path. Just one other little thing in the end of our story.
Uh.
Umm, I'll read from verse 11. And David was displeased because the Lord made a breach upon Azza, wherefore that place is called Peraza to this day. And David was afraid of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God home to me? And so he brought not the ark of home to himself in the city of David, but carried his side into the House of Obadiah the Goodite. And the ark of God remained with the family of Obadiah in his house three months.
You know the Spirit of God tells us the name of the man that this heart rested in for three months.
And, umm.
There is some here.
Who? Uh, in their assembly? Probably.
On Lord's Day morning, gather in their home to remember our Lord Jesus Christ. And I've been privileged. Umm.
To stop in the home of our brother and sister Ralph and Janie Pilkington, and to remember the Lord there and umm.
We did, uh, a number of years ago when my cousin was married. And just this last February, we were privileged to stop there again on the way back from Saint Thomas. And it was a joy to see the number who are gathered around there in that home. And the Lord had blessed that little assembly, uh.
With a number who are gathered there and it was encouragement to us.
But I just, umm, I thought of this in relation to those of you who are leaving home and, uh, setting up a little apartment, uh, a little room for, for college.
We read that the Lord blessed the House of Obadiah because he cared for the ark. That testimony of God. And what a wonderful thing if in our college life, in our work life, in our married life, if our neighbors, if our friends would look at our little home or apartment or or dwelling place and say that place is a testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Umm, we're told in the epistles.
But uh.
I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in truth.
And you know, it's a joy to my heart as a father and to my wife as a mother when we see any desire in our children to, umm, to honor our Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Lord bless. We read here that the Lord blessed Obadiah because of his care for that testimony. And the Lord Jesus will bless your life.
Umm, if you seek to honor him and I just in reading this portion, umm, my thought was to take the liberty to encourage you to, to have your dwelling place, whether it's just a little room in the wall or whether you're sharing an apartment with a friend.
Whether you're setting up a home as husband and wife to read the precious Word of God and to honor Him.
I'd like to turn over in one chronicle just a couple of chapters.
In closing.
Chapter 26.
I'll just read verse one concerning the divisions of the porters and verse 4. Moreover, the sons of Obadiah were Shimiyai the first born, Jehovah the 2nd, Jehovah the third, Thicker the 4th, Nathaniel the 5th, Emil the 6th, Issachar the 7th, Kalua the 8th. For God blessed him. I also want to Shamia. His sons were sons born that ruled throughout the House of their father.
For they were mighty men of valor.
The sons of Shumiai, Osni, and Raphael, an Obed and Elizabeth, whose brethren were strong men, Eli, Hugh, and Semeka, pardon the pronunciation. All these of the sons of Obadiah, they and their sons and their brethren able men for strength for the service, were three score and two of obedient.
01:00:20
In verse 15, we read that Oviedo's portion was to Obeditum southward and to his sons the House of Asakum or the House of Gatherings.
The Lord honored the care that Obedient gave to that ark of the testimony in His home.
And I don't think it's an accident that the Lord Jesus wrote in his word O through Obadiah's name was.
And so he blessed him with a number of sons, We're not told how many daughters, but uh, they went on and honored the Lord Jesus and they had a place mentioned here in the scripture as porters and umm, so I just, I read this little portion. I trust it would be an encouragement for, for those who are umm.
Starting out in work, in school, away from home to, uh, to inquire the Lord. Don't just lean on mom and dad. We're thankful for that. But uh, search the scriptures and to consult with the Lord Jesus.
The one who knows the end from the beginning, and then that we might honor him in that little spot that the Lord has given us, and the Lord will bless us for us, just as He did for obedient.
OK, teach us more of thy first grade.
Your holy.
Land of Fall.
Uh.
All right.
We're trying.
To.
All ready for anything.
Location by the one.
I understand.
Our Father, think of that scripture. It says they saw no man save Jesus only.
We think of Mary 2 as a separate curve to water the words.
To the person that she assumed to be the gardener.
Sir, I shall have borne him hence away.
Tell me where thou hast laid him.
She supposed that.
Everyone knew of the one.
That was on her heart and the one that she was thinking of.
She uttered not thy name or Jesus.
But again, assume that all would know who she was occupied with.
And so our loving God and Father, we think of those things that would cause us to perhaps.
Uh, turn us aside.
And a few.
Pull out our.
Faces and eyes to look elsewhere, but draws closer to these, as we sometimes say, draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, plus the floor to the cross where thou must die. So we would just thank thee this afternoon for the ministry that has been before us.
Think of the practical ministry concerning our bodies being that temple we would think of.
That's encouraging verse in Matthew's Gospel. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. How often we fail to learn.
Healthy and of thy blessed ways and blessed Savior. It is our desire to.
Be again.
Directed to thee and two, we just thank for the blessing.
That entered into the House of Obed Edom.
As a result.
Of having the.
01:10:01
Very real privilege.
Of having the ARC abide with them for that period of three months.
So we just thank you again for the practical admonitions and expectations brought before us. And again, we just thank before the Lord Jesus, that perfect example, that one that we can look to in every hour of need. We're just giving thanks and our saviors most worthy and precious name, Amen.