Scranton Conference: 2009
Table of Contents
Ephesians 6:10-18
Reading
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#267 Fullness resides in Jesus, our head.
Fullness abides to answer all need. Whatever distress awaits us below such plentiful grace the Lord will be stole 267.
It's not, you know.
You never know about that or anything about why.
I have no planning to be on Wednesday.
And I'm ready.
Through that one and finish it and make God breathe ahead and.
We would give you traveling today to the early men that had an hour and a half.
OK, so I need to get now I'm doing that one more time. I don't know.
We will die in a sunrise.
Who ain't now to survive?
In the case of rivers and everything.
We read from Isaiah before we ask the Lord's help. Prophet Isaiah, the 8th chapter and the 13th verse.
Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, and he shall be for a sanctuary. He shall be for a sanctuary. Verse 16 Bind up the testimony. Seal the law among my disciples.
Yes, Lord's house, Lord Jesus, we the Son that.
Uh, we know that direction will guide us the right and as head of the body from whom all.
Through ministry, the power of the Spirit flow as we look to Thee.
That thou give us a portion for our souls, that thy word might be as it were bound up amongst us in the heart, valued, walked in.
We ask thy blessing as we would have the precious word of God open.
And we pray that the Spirit of God will guide us this morning to that portion that thou its purpose.
For the blessing of each member of the body that is here this morning.
We pray that we might receive that needed ministry of the Spirit of God.
And Lord Jesus, that thou thyself might.
Be held in our hearts and holy reverence and fear.
And that thou it's be to us for a little sanctuary.
Help us to have hearts ready, willing to walk, and without spring before us, hearts ready to bow to Thy precious word, and we ask Thy blessing. We feel our needs.
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Of that washing of water, of the word, that precious refreshment.
Thy word for our souls.
In all the coldness of the scene that we passed through, that would dull our spiritual affections for thee and for one another.
And would draw our hearts away. May it be, Lord Jesus, that thou drawest close to thee as thine own we ask thy blessing, thy name, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen.
Turn uh at the whole armor of God in Ephesians 6.
Umm, thinking particularly of the.
Description of the armor, but the whole chapter could be read. No, there's only one reading meeting. Uh, particularly from birth, uh.
Hand on. But for connection the whole chapter could be wrecked. Would that be suitable with the brethren?
Some brother would read the chapter then please.
Ephesians chapter 6.
Children obey their parents in the Lord, but this is right.
Under thy father and mother, which is the first commandment, with promise that it may be well worthy, and thou may us live long on the earth. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Servants. Be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the flesh.
With fear and trembling in singleness of your heart as unto Christ, not with I service as man pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart with goodwill, doing service as to the Lord, not to and not to man, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall be received of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.
And the Masters do the same things unto them, forbearing, threatening, knowing that your Master also is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with him.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that he may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world.
Against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins skirt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
And above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery dots of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching there unto with all perseverance and supplication for all things.
And for me that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in Barnes, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak, but that he also may know my affairs and how I do. The kikis of beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord shall make known to you all things.
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Whom I have said unto you, for the same purpose, that you may know our affairs, and that he may comfort your hearts. But peace be to the brethren, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.
I was thinking in this epistle we have the very highest truth presented by the apostle, uh.
Paul in the first three chapters.
Are blessings in heavenly places in Christ? It couldn't be a richer or wider unfolding of the eternal councils of God and the purposes for our blessing. Uh, we're raised with Christ. Not only raised, but we're seated in heavenly places.
But now in these, the three chapters that follow, 4-5 and six, we have the practical exhortations that are based upon these blessings that are ours in Christ. The conflict is not in order to obtain the blessings, we have them already, but the conflict is in order to enjoy them. Remember when the children of Israel entered the land of Canaan.
There was conflict.
God had promised him those those nations would be their inheritance, but they were involved in a conflict with the the powers, the ungodly powers that prevailed in those in those among those nations. And there's an unseen power that is seeking to hinder our apprehension, our enjoyment of those wondrous.
Blessings secured to us through the work of Christ entirely. We had no part in it undeserving, but uh, God has blessed us so abundantly, so richly. But there is a conflict, the Christian life that is a combat every day. And remember when the children of Israel, uh, passed over the Jordan and were ready to engage in warfare.
Uh, first of all, they stopped at Gilgal. That is brought before us in Joshua chapter 5. A very important place.
Not only did they stop there, but they returned there after every victory or a last after a defeat. Gilgal was very important. It was the place where circumcision was carried out and that speaks of self judgment for the apostle. He unfolds these marvelous blessings to us, but he also warns us that there is.
An attack planned by the enemy of our souls.
Not as I repeat, to, uh, deprive us of the blessings, but to, uh, hinder our enjoyment of them. Satan doesn't want us to enter into our blessings in Christ, to walk in them, to be a testimony. So we need the whole armor of God, which is, uh, so, umm, completely, uh, brought before us in these verses.
It's important to see, realize that Canaan is a picture to us of that which we ought to have and can have an enjoyment of. Now sometimes Canaan is thought of or referred to as that which comes after death, after the Jordan. And certainly we only enter in in a little way to what we have in Christ now and the days coming when we'll no longer know in part and prophecy in part and so on, but has been alluded to. Canaan is that vast pain type is that vast panorama of blessings.
Spiritual blessings that are brought before us in the New Testament and particularly here in the book of Ephesians.
And it's interesting that the real conflict for Israel never began until they crossed the Jordan and went in to possess their inheritance. I realized they had a skirmish with Amalek, a picture of Satan's working on the flesh in the wilderness. It's that Satan seeking to hinder our walk with God through this wilderness world. But the real conflict began after they crossed the Jordan. And I suggest that a believer who seeks to take hold in his soul now.
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Of all that he has in Christ is going to be a special target of the enemy. The enemy does not want us to enjoy our position and our portion in Christ. And that's why the apostle Paul at the end of this epistle, before he closes, he brings before us the armor of God. Our conflict is not physical like Israel's. Their inheritance was earthly and physical.
Was right and proper that they go in and, uh, take out their enemies. In fact, it became a snare and is a snare to them to this very day that they didn't completely annihilate their enemies.
As God had told them to in the Old Testament. But their warfare was physical, or as we sometimes say, carnal. But in 2nd Corinthians 10 it tells us that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. What does that mean? Well, it simply means that we don't have a physical warfare like Israel because our blessings are spiritual and so as a consequence we have a spiritual warfare.
And though it's not physical, and though it's an unseen enemy, it is a very real conflict. It is a very real battle. And if we could just get a glimpse into the unseen world and see what is around us, Satan has a vast host of underlords, demons at his command, and they're there at every hand to seek us to, to seek to keep us from coming into the good.
An enjoyment of our blessings. And so he brings this out and he begins by saying, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. So we have all the power, all the resources we have to take possession in our souls of what is ours in Christ.
We have in verse 12.
That which we wrestle.
Against not flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness or wicked spirits, says in the margin in high places or heavenly places. So this is a formidable force that is operating in the air. Satan is the Prince that will power the air, and we and ourselves are no match for Satan.
Human power is no match for satanic power, but the fact is, we learn in chapter one of that power that has been wrought in Christ.
In Ephesians chapter one and verse.
19 speaks about the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe according to the working of His power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised him from the dead, set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. So.
We need to focus on where.
God's dear Son is at the present time far above all principality power.
Might and the Lord Jesus could say, All power is given unto me, both in heaven and in earth.
So how wonderful.
To be on the Lord South side, to recognize that we are associated with Him and this power is available to us.
As those who share in risen life with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Remarkable 2 That inverse 11 it says that you may be able to stand against notice this not the power or the force of the devil, but the wild. And I believe that Satan's most effective attacks on the believer are his Wiles, not so much his out and out force. And that's really the way it began in the Garden of Eden. The enemy came not as a dragon, not as a.
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Lion. But what did he come as? He came as the serpent, and the serpent was more subtle than any beast. And he came to Eve and tempted her with his Wiles. And I believe that we need to be perhaps more careful of the Wiles of the devil than the force of the devil. Now it is true. And Peter as a roaring lion, he walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. But we can often, can we not detect the power of the enemy.
The onslaught of the enemy quicker than we can is wild. And so we need this armor, brethren. We need this power and strength to stand against the wild. The subtlety of the devil.
And that power is not in ourselves. Uh.
Paul the apostle was a very strong character, naturally an insolent, overbearing man, very forceful. But he said in Philippians chapter 4, I can do all things in my own strengths and ability, no.
I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. So he was a dependent man there in the prison.
We need to be dependent on the Lord. It's only as we are in that, that, umm, spirit of the, of the defendants and, uh, in prayer that we can have the victory in this, uh, battle. So let's be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. There are two forces that are stronger than men. One is uh, Satan's power and the other is God's.
But we do have the resources.
We do have the uh.
The divine nature. We have the word of God, we have the Holy Spirit, and here we are exhorted to put on the whole armor of God.
We don't know when we are going to have an assault of the enemy.
We're never told to fight the enemy, are we? We're told in James to resist the devil and he will flee from you, and here we're told to stand. We're never told to fight because you and I are no match for the enemy. Sometimes we sing the battle is his, the weakest of Saints more than conqueror is. And so here we're to stand in the evil day. And then he's going to list the number of things that we are to take up and these things that are listed as the armor of God.
They are simply taking up and utilizing the resources that we have in Christ so that you and I can stand, uh, against the, against the enemy. So I, I just say that sometimes people talk about fighting off the enemy. That's not what Scripture teaches. We're to stand, but, and we're to stand with the whole armor of God. And I believe that's important. Brethren, I've had opportunity to tour many of the castles and Manor houses of Britain and Europe over the years.
And you often see those suits of armor that the Knights of old war. And those suits of armor cover every part of the body. In fact, the helmet even has often has a little thing that comes down, a little shield that come came down over the eyes. And what would you think of a knight who went out to fight a battle and left part of his armor behind? A knight who decided he wasn't going to wear his helmet?
Or a knight who decided he wasn't going to wear his breastplate. Or a knight who decided he was going to leave his shield behind. Why, he'd say, there's a knight that is vulnerable. The knight might say, well, I've got most of the armor, but you say you've left room for the attack of the enemy, the room for the enemy to get his spear or his dart or his sword in somewhere. No, those nights when they went out to fight, they made sure that they had all that armor intact.
And brethren, I believe that often we fall in the battle and get discouraged because we're using some of the armor of God, but we don't take up the whole armor of God. And so he's going to give us six pieces of the armor here, 5 pieces that are defensive, one piece that is offensive, and then there's a 7th element, which is really not a piece of the armor, but prayer He then brings before us because prayer is the spirit and attitude.
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In which we take up and effectively utilize the armor of the resources that we have in Christ.
And Satan very well knows our weak point. Uh, he's had the 6000 years experience with the natural man.
You look back in the history, uh, and of the Old Testament, you see that, uh, the great, umm, men of God, uh, even failed in what seemed to be their strongest point. Uh, Solomon failed in his wisdom, Job failed in his patience. Umm, there are other examples too. Umm, so Satan knows, uh, our weakness, he knows how to, uh, plan the attack.
Knows how to appeal to the old nature that we have is something that might be a snare to you might not attempt to me. So we need to be on our guard and independence on the Lord. Even Moses, great man of God, he failed in his, uh, pathway down here. So we need to have the word of God, uh, fortifying us and that spirit of uh, daily dependence.
In the old days in the, uh, castles you were talking about on the, the armor was kept in an Armory until needed. But uh, then uh, it's all very well for us to know that we have this armor all kept carefully in the Armory, but the instruction is to put it on. So how do we transfer it from being available in the Armory to actually putting it on?
Well, we need to be aware first of all of what it is. That knight had to know what his armor was, know that that suit of armor that was there in the Armory was his, and that it was available whenever he needed it. But then he had to understand what each piece was for. And I believe that Scripture very carefully explains to us what the resources we have in Christ are.
But we need to take those resources in hand, make them good in our own souls and utilize them. For instance, the first piece of the armor that's mentioned is the uh, or the first thing that's mentioned is we're to stand. Therefore, verse 14, having your loins gird about with proof. And so here's the first safeguard. Well, what is the truth? The truth is this book we hold in our hands.
How are we going to stand against the enemy? How are we going to have our loins, which speak of strength, their power in Scripture? How are we going to have them gird? Well, we're going to have to open this book and read our Bibles. We're going to have to be familiar with the truth. I would just suggest in that connection that our loins gird about here. It corresponds to what we have in Peter. I think it's first Peter one where it says gird up the loins of your mind.
And so we need to be familiar, have our minds full of what is the, is the truth of God, The, uh, ones in the days of the Lord Jesus that was told, that were told that they needed to, uh, be, uh, have their, have their loins gird and be as those that wait for the, for their Lord. And so if we're going to go on in the truth, we have to know what the truth is, but it's, it's practically understanding what we have.
And then proc putting it into practice in our daily lives. So it starts with our minds being, uh, protected or taught properly. And then he's gonna go on and list these other things. But as Brother Lawrence said, it was no good for the night to have the armor available and to not put it on and to put it all on.
The act the night could hardly expect to suddenly put any armor too on him.
Sudden onslaught of the enemy. It's important, isn't it, that we have the armor on that we might be able to meet the attack of the enemy. Here it speaks about the the evil day. Well, you know, generally speaking, we live in a dark and evil day.
But is it not true that the enemy may launch a sudden attack in a special way against you or me? And are we prepared for this?
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Well, the important thing is that we have on the whole armor of God.
The loins girt about that's that's the most intimate part of of what he was wearing or what we wear. It's closest to us in the loins of the very core of our strength, naturally speaking.
No, it doesn't take pleasure in the legs of a man that says in, in, uh, believe it's proverbs, but because that's the strongest part of them there it's a case of natural strength. But here it is the loins, the most intimate, uh, piece of clothing, that which is closest to us. And it has to be, uh, gird about. It has to really be firmly bound on. And it's the truth. The truth searches our hearts and conscience, doesn't it? When it's firmly bound on, it searches me first.
And searches out anything there that's not in conformity to the word of God or pleasing to the Lord. It's has the thought of self judgment.
At searching truth of God, the Word of God found firmly about, but it's bound there.
It's not loosely held. It's firmly held, you know, and there was a man in in the Gospel of Mark and he followed the Lord. He said he had a linen cloth cast about his naked body, but it wasn't firmly bound.
Wasn't gird about and you know, it says the young man took it from him. You know, he was there and it was the evil day and the power of the enemy was pressing in and he wanted to follow the Lord. He really wanted to follow the Lord or he wouldn't have been there. But the young man came and they took that garment from it came off him just like that. Why it wasn't bound on, wasn't bound on. It wasn't a picture of the truth really dealing in an intimate way in our souls.
Firmly bound on. We need it. Gird on. Otherwise the battle comes and it's gone. You know what that young man did? He fled. He wanted to follow the Lord, but he fled.
So the first thing is, is that which is most intimate and closest to the heart, the truth of God. It has to work with me and my own soul first before any of the other armor can really be put on.
So the loin skirt about would be the thoughts governed by truth, and then very closely follows the breastplate of righteousness, which is the affections governed by truth. And both are important, aren't they, to have our thoughts and our affections governed and ordered by the truth of God. So often we can bring in our own thoughts on something, or so often we can allow our affections to rule even in.
Matters of.
The things of God, but know both our thoughts and our affections. And you might necessarily think you might think that it should start with the affections, but it's interesting. It's just the opposite, isn't it? It's the the mind first, because that must be in order. There must be an understanding and a holding of the truth of God first, first of all. And that's why in Colossians rightly translated, it's let your.
Or set your mind on things above. It's true, we need to set our affections on things above too, but really the thrust of it is set your mind on things above. The mind must be governed by the truth. There must be an understanding of divine things and then the affections involved as well. Because one without the other is not enough.
That comes out very clearly in the reference we made to Joshua chapter 5. Before the children of Israel engaged in warfare with the nations of Canaan, which was their proper inheritance, they first of all applied.
The knife of circumcision to themselves. And that's very important, brethren, in our lives. It speaks of self judgment, of course, and we all have much to judge in our own.
Uh, lives and death, that old nature, which uh, we will have to the end of the journey does not improve. It never changes. It's supposed to God and the word of God. And we live in a, a day of so-called liberty and freeness where a man is, uh, allowed to, uh, to follow his inclinations. Uh, and uh, it leads to.
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Departure from God.
And.
The advantage of the enemy, so the loins gird about with truth is the personal walk. The apostle first of all, deals with our personal state here before testimony comes in. And if I'm not walking, uh, in obedience and, uh, in conformity to the word of God, I'm not going to have a testimony. Uh, so it's first of all our, our lives and, uh, that, uh, keeping the old nature in the place of death where, uh, where God has put it in the cross.
The truth applied Gertibaugh results in righteousness in the walk, and so there's an order in the armor.
The truth has to be applied 1St and uh known and held in real way, and then the result is righteousness in the walk, the breastplate of righteousness.
The righteousness here, Steve, is not divine righteousness which we possess through the work of Christ. Uh, but it is the practical thought here.
Our daily.
Umm, encounters with the world, are they honest and upright? We live in a, a wicked and dishonest world, but our, our dealings with our fellow man on a righteous basis. The world is very quick to discern what is not, uh, a Christian conduct. They Some people say it doesn't matter what the world says. Well, it does matter what the world says. And if my walk is not upright.
And commendable, umm, to the conscience. This deals with the conscience here. If I have a bad conscience, umm, I'm wounded in a wounded man can't hold a sword. So the breastplate of righteousness is having a, a conscience, voidable offense toward God and man. And it's the practical thought here in my, in my daily walk. Is that right, Jim? Yes. And it's possible, isn't it, to live righteously even in the world in which we live.
Because it tells us in Titus that grace teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly when in this present age. Because we might sit here and someone might say, well, it's OK to talk about practical righteousness, it's OK to talk about a good conscience, and so on. But some of those who are older don't understand what we who are younger go through.
Well, perhaps some of us who are older don't, because the world is morally and spiritually darkening every hour. But the apostle Paul told Titus that he could live in this way at the present time. That is, the present age is where we are, whether it was in the days of Paul or Titus, whether it was in the days of our grandfathers, whether it was in the days of the older brethren, or whether it's right here close to the end of 2009.
We can still live righteously in this present age, and the apostle Paul desired to maintain a good conscience before God and man.
A conscience void of offense. And that's really what gave Paul power in his ministry and his walk for the Lord.
Was a good conscience and so we want to seek by the grace of God to walk uprightly, to live righteously. David said lead me in the land of uprightness. Help me to live righteously in spite of all the weakness and ruin and the sin and the moral darkness. That's about it. The resources that we have that Paul lays out here, these resources are available for you and for me.
It was an evil day and Paul's day. It's an evil day today, but the resources are still the same and still available for you and me.
That really takes up that next part of the armor, the shoes, feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And there's a couple of verses in Isaiah 32, I think that illustrate the thought in what our brother's been bringing out. Isaiah 32 verse one, Behold, a king shall reign and righteousness. So we know that's when the Lord comes and sets up the Kingdom soon as power and His glory in the coming day.
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And down a little later in the chapter.
Verse 16 Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field, and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever. And that's a principle in Scripture that the result of righteousness is peace. And so there's an order, the truth bound firmly upon us, the practical walk of righteousness that flows from the truth applied.
And that practical walk of righteousness.
Then gives a settled peace and quietness and assurance in the soul of the Saint of God that the world looks on and they have no conception of how one can walk through this scene, through trials and whatever it might be in peace.
And it speaks louder many times than anything could be spoken in a word of the gospel when they see that practical, uh, peace and, uh, calmness and the life of one who has a clear conscience because of a walk of righteousness, because of the truth of life. And it's a testimony that goes out in a powerful way to this world, feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
It's the same peace that the Lord left with his disciples, wasn't it?
The Lord Jesus walked through this world in a perfect calm and a perfect peace amidst all kinds of difficulties who face, so to speak, more conflict and opposition than the Lord Jesus Himself. But he calmly walked through this world, and at the end he said, My peace I leave with you not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
And you and I, as Brother Steve said, can walk through this world with that same peace. Is this a world of turmoil? Indeed it is. And men's hearts are failing them for fear. But some of us were talking earlier about what's going on in the world about us, and we need to be aware. We're not isolationists. And I think it's good to have discernment of the times and be aware of what's going on about us. But we don't need to be overwhelmed. Aware, but not overwhelmed.
And so we can walk through this world concerned, prayerfully concerned. Yes, we're to pray for those in power and so on, but we can walk through this world in perfect peace. And then when conflicts come amongst the Lord's people too, as they often do, again, we don't want to be indifferent. And often matters have to be taken up and discussed and judged for the Lord's glory and so on. But brethren, we again, we don't need to be overwhelmed.
We can walk through this world with our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel, gospel of peace. And you know, it's, you notice, it's the feet shod here. I would just suggest that shoes in Scripture also speak of separation. We're part of this world or we're, we're in this world. We're in it physically, but we're not of it. We're part of it in the sense that we're here physically and we need to operate, but we're not of this world.
We need to walk through this world in separation, and that's what's going to give us peace in our souls. You talk to a believer who's getting all involved with the conflicts of this world and trying to straighten things out. Do you find they have peace in their souls for their walk? No, because they're becoming entangled with the affairs of this life. And Paul told Timothy that a soldier doesn't do that. And so you and I can only walk through this world.
With the peace of God ruling in our hearts and the measure in which we have our feet shod, how beautiful are thy feet with shoes? It's separation. And Asher was told by shoes shall be as iron. That's power and brass. That's endurance. You and I can walk through a world of complete turmoil and unrest in that sense.
We don't have shoes on and our lock is guided by the conditions rather than by where we want to go. So if I wanted to walk down the end of the lane here, if I had shoes on and I go where I need to go. But if I didn't have shoes on, I'd try and find a path that was got on the grass and look here and there and try and find another way to get down there and maybe never get there.
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Uh, I need to, uh, it's a thing of habit, isn't it? Uh, our hearts have to be prepared halfway in our.
It's very important to have a fee protected in the pathway. I was thinking too about the breastplate of righteousness.
Umm, proverbs.
Chapter 4.
Proverbs or.
Uh, verse three, keep thy heart and all diligence throughout of it are the issues of life.
Proverbs 4 and verse 23 Sorry, keep thy heart with all diligence rather than the issues of life. Our department is really, uh, heart and capsules. And I mean in a natural and we think of our hearts as a the affection that it's perhaps a different thought in Scripture.
Like, uh, our hearts need to be protected by righteousness. Umm.
Let's see, affections are more, uh, concerned with our loins. It was mentioned that loins are seed of strength and also of umm.
Fruitfulness. It has the three thoughts in the Scripture bowels of mercy.
The loins vertical with truth all went up to Jerusalem or not to go there and Agabus had Paul's girdle fans were bound with it. Paul should have been wearing the girdle and we and we talked a lot about Paul when we should have gone up to Jerusalem or not. We know that it is heart was right so to speak, but his affections for Israel because it wasn't bound up properly. He went back to Jerusalem. The Lord all the rule and all that but.
How important it is we have all of these.
Umm, all of this protection because it runs well armored, we don't have shoes on, and where are we going to go?
In the, on the borders of the high priests garments, so that we will remember, there were two things when he entered into the sanctuary. There was the golden bells and there was the pomegranates and there was an equal number of each each one. And uh, the pomegranates didn't make any noise, but the golden bells did equal number of each one. That is our conduct, uh.
Should be in keeping with the divine life that we have. I think there's a verse in Philippians that might help us in that regard. Philippians 2 speaks of them holding forth the word of life. That's our spoken testimony. I think that would connect with the sword of the Spirit. But there is also the thought of umm.
Among whom ye shine as light in the world. You just look at that verse in this.
Philippians, Chapter 2.
Verse 16. Holding forth the Word of life.
Uh, we're going back to UH-15, that you may be blameless and harmless. The sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. Mongomi shine as lights in the world. That's like the pomegranate.
That's the gospel of peace as we go through this defiled scene.
Uh, but then there's the holding forth of the word of life that is something active that is like the bells that were ringing, Uh, the spoken testimony, Those are two things. There's a life that we live and the spoken testimony, I think that comes out in the, in the sword of the spirit. Umm. And they, they agreed it wasn't a, uh, a difference between them. And so, uh, we are reminded that our lives.
Should speak for Christ. We've heard the expression. Your life speaks so loud that I can't hear what you say.
Uh, important that our daily, uh, encounters and, uh, interaction with the world are blameless so that they can't point the finger at us and say that's not very lovely, that's not a Christian attitude. They shouldn't be able to do that. And, uh.
00:50:10
Then our testimony for the Lord comes in. We have power in our word. But if I I am not walking in the truth obediently, I might as well keep my mouth shut because it's a reflection upon.
Our Lord Jesus.
Well, the enemy has his darts, as we find in the next verse.
And so we need the shield of faith, and the shield of faith is really practically bringing God into every circumstance of our lives.
Its confidence in God. I talked to a brother who said that often during his Christian pathway the enemy came along.
And would get them to doubt is salvation. And he was telling me how distressed he's often been. But what should a person do when one of those fiery darts is sent by the enemy that causes us to doubt our salvation?
Well, rest on what God has said, rest on the promises of God. God has said that my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Thus lifting the shield of faith, thus bringing God and Christ into every circumstance. And so we need the shield of faith. So faith is simply confidence in God.
And it goes beyond salvation here, Jim, doesn't it? It's, uh, not only in regard to, uh, the saving faith when we were born again and brought to Christ and saved, but this is the faith daily that we are called upon to exercise because the enemy is very subtle. And, uh, he would, uh, insinuate or he would, uh, break down that, uh, confidence.
In God, we their brethren here that are in difficult circumstances, there are some that are passing through deep trials that some of us cannot be trusted with. And, uh, the enemy will come in with his fiery darts at such a time, especially when the body is weak. Those questions that he would, uh, that he would raise. Why has God allowed this in your life? You're trying to please the Lord and uh, this disappointment has come or this frustration or this set back.
Some reversal in your plans that you can't understand, uh, if you don't have the shield of faith at such a time, one of those fiery darts will enter and penetrate doubts, questionings about the wisdom of God's ways with us. We've all had these, uh, experiences and, uh, God is doing the very best for us every day of our lives according to our state of soul.
But there are difficulties in the pathway. There are umm.
Trials, it's not a rosy pathway, uh, the Christian life were not promised, uh, that we're going to escape tribulation, trial, reproach and so on. We need the shield of faith, which is that confidence in God that, uh, he is in control and he is doing the best for us and, uh, will, uh, provide what is, uh, what, what, what will encourage us and, uh, keep us in the pathway.
That confidence in God comes through reading His Word.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
So how important it is that we find ourselves reading God's Word day by day?
That we might be able to, uh, meet these fiery darts. How? By faith. Faith, I believe, is simply taking God at His Word.
Like the little girl said, God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. Now that childlike faith is so refreshing. What Satan wants to cause doubts in our minds and make us questions Lord's love for us and His wisdom as though he doesn't know what he's doing. And then maybe even.
Question is power to deal with the situation but the fact is one who loves us perfectly with a perfect love.
And who could say all power is given unto me? And who also we read has all wisdom? Well, here's one we can trust. But how are we going to know about him is through his word. That's how we get acquainted with the Lord Jesus and with God. And this gives us a defense, you know, against these fiery darts that Satan.
00:55:23
Throwing at us.
The shield is a piece of armor that is gripped firmly in the hand, and it's movable because we never know from what direction these darts will come.
Some some darts may come from One Direction, some from another. What what the enemy uses to discourage you or turn you aside may not be what he discourages me or with or somebody else. But I was thinking of how the shield has to be gripped firmly in the hand.
And it really speaks to us of firmly taking hold of the promises of God and utilizing them when those darts come. And so the night, if he let go of that, that shield, why he became very vulnerable to the darts and the Spears of the enemy had to firmly grip it. And you and I need to firmly grip the promises of God. All the promises of God and him are yay and in him Amen to the glory of God by us. Now do we really lay hold?
Of those promises, well, he said, we need to read the Bible, we need to be familiar with the promises of God, but we need to also rest upon them and firmly grip them in our souls, just as the knight had to firmly grip that shield.
And probably Satan is more successful with his weapon of discouragement than anything else.
Umm, uh, if he can discourage us, then we have no testimony. We won't work for the Lord. In fact, in First Peter chapter five, that is, it's usually connected with persecution, uh, where it speaks in First Peter chapter 5.
Of umm.
Her adversary, the devil, uh, and then yeah, verse, uh, said verse seven. Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you.
Notice the shield of faith is not erected.
Then those doubts and questionings will come into my mind if I don't cast that care upon the Lord, that disappointment, and look to Him in the confidence that He has allowed this in love and, uh, for my benefit and for my blessing. If I don't pass that care on the Lord, Satan is going to come in. He's going to come in as the roaring lion. Remember our brother Gordon? Hey ho, we all, uh, recall.
He used to say, I believe that Satan as the roaring lion is not so much as in persecution. Usually when that happens, the Saints are bright and happy.
But here as the roaring lion, it's more in discouragement, bringing, uh, those, uh, doubts and, uh, that, umm, those fears and, uh, those questionings into our mind. Uh, he's a master, uh, at that sort of thing. And, uh, that's his successful weapon to discourage the Saints of God, the young people, or any one of us. And we need that, uh, firm confidence.
As our brother Wally said, the reading of the word of God and then we have is the last part, not exactly of the armor, but the exhortation that dependence praying always with all prayer and supplication. What a wonderful resource that is. The word of God in the loins girt about with truth that godly restraint in our lives, but also the the dependence that we have in the in the prayer.
That is mentioned here. How important that that is.
Jacob had so many doubts.
And so many things happened in his life. And finally he says all these things be against me. All these things be against me.
And I thought when I read that, oh, it'd be nice to go back there and say you didn't have Romans, then be able to turn to Romans 8 and say you've gone before us, Jacob, who can be against us? But that's really taken the shield of faith up, confidence in the one who's purpose to bless us.
And it goes beyond laying hold of the promises of God in His Word. What about His ways with us?
01:00:06
His ways with us, uh, averse from Second Samuel. As for God, Second Samuel 22 and 31 As for God, his way is perfect.
The word of the Lord is tried. He is a buckler, a shield to all them.
That put their trust in him and and so God has his ways with us and we can doubt these things.
Uh, as another has said.
Looking to 2nd causes in our lives, in other words, other than directly taking things from God's hands, is practical infidelity.
And so when the eye is fixed on God, looking to his promises in his Word.
Looking to all things that happen to us is coming directly from him. Then we're safe from those, uh, fiery darts, those doubts that come flying.
Two to take the helmet of salvation in First Thessalonians the.
Hope the salvation and just, uh, thinking about how many times we do foolish things because we can't wait, but I don't think the salvation of ourselves, but uh.
To uh, umm, see the end of the top.
How many have entered into unequal because they couldn't wait and they thought there was no other answer? Or so many things that we can do that are foolish. Our minds aren't kept straight thinking straight because we don't, uh, we're not considering the end of uh.
The hope of salvation in First Thessalonians bring it out there, and it's perhaps a similar thought here, but.
Interesting that, uh, in Thessalonians that you speak of that the breastplate is.
Faith and love, and here the breastplate is righteousness and and Thessalonians it's the hope of salvation. Here it's salvation. And I think the difference is the battle that's being fought here. It's against Satan as well as fiery darts and so on.
Or another way of putting it against the president evil world. And in Thessalonians it's not so much against the present evil world, but against the present world. Uh, that is the danger in Thessalonians there is that people were starting to, shall we say the danger was that they were sleeping amongst the dead or looking like.
Looking like unbelievers, uh, and so it's not so much against evil, but getting just caught up with the danger of, uh, the, the problems of this life, taking care of myself, my family, earning a living and the, as I say, the present world. And So what is the protection against the present world? It's.
The hope of salvation, not salvation that is. I've got something better that that I'm com that's coming.
And her breastplate, not righteousness that, uh, we need protect as protection from the attacks of the devil. But.
Love for the Lord, love for the brother.
And faith in his word and faith in God. And that is what protects us from the danger of getting just caught up with occupying ourselves and surviving in this world. So as I say, it's a different battle and and the and the protection is a little bit different.
It's interesting to think that all of these, uh, pieces of armor.
Were exemplified perfectly in the Lord Jesus in his walk as a dependent man here in the world.
Now he didn't need salvation, but he provided it.
01:05:00
And, uh, and so there's, that's why it begins with the in verse 10, be strong in the Lord. We need to have him as our focus. And as we observe that he, umm, was the perfect illustrator of dependence on this armor and the use of it, then he becomes a wonderful example for us.
And so we see that with the sword of the Spirit, don't we? Just the word of God.
The Lord Jesus used that when He met the enemy in the temptation. He simply quoted a verse of Scripture.
And there was a power there. He didn't argue with the devil, but he used the.
The word of God. And So what a lesson for us. Again, we are not to fight the devil, but we are to resist the devil. And so we've noticed there were five defensive pieces of armor and then this one offensive part. And then we find, as I said earlier, that we have the seventh thing, which is not really a piece of the armor, but it's prayer. And prayer is the spirit and attitude in which we take up and effectively utilize the armor of God. Often toss a bumper sticker one time said for the way for a Christian to stand.
Is on their knees. I thought that was very good because prayer is our powerhouse.
The those who in the Scriptures had power and fruit and testimony in their pathway for God, whether it was the Old Testament or the New Testament. They were men and women and young people of prayer. Sometimes we read the old stories too of missionaries and maybe not so old stories, current missionaries and so on that go out with the word of God and they experience all kinds of power and wonderful things in their lives and great fruit in their work. And we say, wow.
How? How wonderful. But if you examine their lives very carefully, you find that they are men and women of prayer. Martin Luther said, I have so much work to do for the Lord, I dare not spend less than three hours a day in prayer. Well, no wonder he was a man that was used mightily of God during the Reformation. His powerhouse, his resource was in prayer.
The sort of the Spirit is is using the word of God in communion with the Lord.
The word of God is used by Satan. He used it on the Lord Jesus himself in the wilderness. And uh, a believer can use the word of God in the wrong way to keep a person in a path of disobedience. Umm, it's the word of God used in communion, uh, with the Lord, uh, as we have remarked, the, uh, in the temptation in the wilderness.
Uh, the Lord, did Jesus use the word of God? Of course, he was always in full communion with his Father, but he didn't defeat the enemy by his mighty divine power in the wilderness. He could have dispatched Satan from the, uh, from the arena there, but he did not do that because, uh, he wanted to be an example for you and me. So if the word of God is dwelling richly in all wisdom we all have and we're walking in communion with the Lord.
We can use it effectively against the enemy and be and be victorious in the, uh, in the conflict. But, uh, we must, uh, be in communion with the Lord. We, there's no substitute for that.
Important to it, we're always in conflict. Like it was mentioned, the armor hanging in the Armory and the enemy comes along and we scramble to put the armor on. But there were always in conflict. No doubt there's peculiar and decisive battles, but we have to be accustomed to using this armor every day. David, when he went out against Goliath, Saul offered him his armor or saw his head and shoulders above the rest. The armor wouldn't fit and David had improved in the corner.
Different application there, but there's a lesson there. David couldn't just take that armor that he'd never tried on before. And then?
Comes out against this decisive battle this enemy put that armor on and try to use it. He couldn't do that. It wasn't practical. David was prepared, but uh, just thinking about we read this, this isn't to so that we can scramble, uh, put on the protective equipment like on a construction site when the Department of Labor shows up and everybody's scrambling to find the heart happen. I'm sure many of us have worked in construction, but if there are missing pieces falling off the building all the time, everybody has a hard house on.
01:10:06
Umm.
And it protects them. They realize the need of it and they know how to use it. If not, you can tell if somebody who's used to using that protective equipment and those that don't usually put it on and it doesn't fit and don't know how to use it, they can't work with that equipment. But if they're accustomed to it, then they can be useful and umm, when they're protected all the time and the way it should be. And so the armor here, there is an evil day and there are.
The crisis that we have to meet personally in the assemblies and the families and everything but.
It's important that we're in the habit of using it and we know how to use it day by day.
288 Two. 88 Preserve thy flock both graciously within thy sheltering fold, Move them from every harm away, and in thy safeguard hold till thou shalt fully have obtained in US the fruits of grace and we.
Enjoys that never end shall see thee face to face.
288.
Who thou, who, Smurdy? All right, leading me in all the living land.
And everything.
It's like, let's follow up on the.
Ticket. All right.
Beginning alone.
My birthday.
I'm crying that I have time to love my heart.
Re enjoy your thy life of.
9999.
3 minutes.
01:15:10
With a lot of my heart to give you a lot of paralysis. Uh-huh. And then?
Bless the garden, our loving Father, we, we give thee our thanks once again this morning for thy word before us. Surely how comforting it is to know that thou has uh, armed us. Thou has told us they laid hold of this, that the whole armor of God. And above all, we thank you that we know thou are by our side, and we thank you that thou has given us this provision of prayers too. And how much more do we need to be dependent upon Thee? So we now look today and we thank thee to that, uh, though we'll be left here in this scene.
For yet a little, uh, longer. But we do know that we have that blessed hope before us, knowing that it's not gonna be far off that time. And we shall be with thee as we wait for that shout, as we look forward to be forever with the Lord. At the meantime, we do pray for continual health and for continual safe keeping over us. And now we look to the end. We think of, uh, if it be thy will, and thou still tarry the remaining remainder of the meetings. We do ask for help and we do ask for blessing. So we just commit one another into thine hand now, thanking thee again.
For the time, with Thy word over us, we give thanks and ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen, Amen, Amen.
The Lord's Table/The Lord's Supper/The Camp
Address—Jim Hyland
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Let's begin this afternoon with 245. On that same night, Lord Jesus, when all around thee joined to cast its darkest shadow across thy holy mind, we hear Thy voice. Bless Savior this, do Remember Me. With joyful hearts responding, we do remember the 245. If someone could please start it.
On Thursday night, Lord Yee sung Where Come on Around in the morning.
We didn't care about what's wrong and everything. From the end of the day, I'm glad I'm being.
00:05:40
Let's ask God to help our blessed God and Father how thankful we are this afternoon for our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank thee that that blessed One did indeed go to Calvary's cross, give Himself their lay down His life, shed His precious blood. And we're thankful too, that he is not in the tomb today, but risen, ascended, and seated at thy right hand.
We're thankful for that blessed privilege. We have from week to week being gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to remember him in the breaking of bread. And thou has heard this little prayer that we have sung together. We trust it's the desire of our hearts until the Lord Jesus comes to remember him thus. And now we thank thee for this happy day together and an opportunity to have thy word before us. We think of this meeting scheduled as a young people's meeting, and our God we pray that there might be.
Food, particularly for those who are younger. We pray that they'll reach down in all of our hearts and give us that purpose that's needed to stand and live in these dark, difficult days. So we look to thee for ministry from myself, for edification, exhortation and comfort. We ask thy help. We ask Thy blessing. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for his glory. Amen. Turn with me, please, First of all to Luke's Gospel.
Chapter 22.
Luke's Gospel, chapter 22.
And verse 7.
Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed. And he sent Peter and John saying, Go, and prepare us the Passover, that we may eat. And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare? And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city.
There shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house where he entereth in, and ye shall say unto the good man of the house the master Seth unto thee, Where is the guest chamber, where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room furnished there. Make ready. And they went and found as he had said unto them, and they made ready the Passover. And when the hour was come, he sat down.
And the 12 apostles with him and then just dropped down to verse 19.
And he took bread, and gave thanks, and break it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body, which is given for you.
This do in remembrance of Maine, likewise also the cup after supper, saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you, and then in First Corinthians chapter 10.
First Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 16. The cup of blessing which we bless is that not the communion of the blood of Christ.
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. And then go over to the next chapter, verse 23. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he break it, and said, Take, eat, This is my body which is broken for you.
This do in remembrance of Maine. After the same manner also he took the cup when he had Sup, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Well, I have it on my heart this afternoon to take up a subject that's perhaps a rather difficult subject to take up.
We want to take up this subject very carefully, very soberly, And we want to take it up in the light of God's Word, because what else do we have, brethren, besides the word of God? That must be our foundation. And I'd like to take up our subject under perhaps three different headings this afternoon. The Lord's Supper or the Lord's Table. The Lord's Supper. And then we're going to speak a little bit as the Lord enables us.
00:10:28
On a subject we might label the camp. And so I began here in Luke's Gospel, Chapter 22, just really by way of introduction to what is on my heart.
Because we know the setting, the context well, we find the Lord Jesus is now at the end of his pathway of public ministry.
His disciples have walked with him during that ministry, and now He's about to leave them. If we were to go to John's Gospel, we would find that the hour was come, that he should depart out of the world under the Father.
Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end, and we find here that he sends them to prepare the Passover.
Now I realized that it was the Passover that was particularly in view here.
But the Lord Jesus too knew that this was going to be the very spot where, after he celebrated the Passover with his disciples, he was going to institute the feast of Remembrance, what we refer to as the Lord's Supper. And there are some things that I think are good in application, at least for us to consider in this regard. We find here that first of all the disciples were to enter into the city.
And the city we as we know was Jerusalem. Now often in the scripture cities speak of man in his confusion without God. The reason I say that is because the first mention of a city in scripture is in connection with Cain. Cain went out and built a city. He went out from the presence of the Lord and built a city. And man has built a great system of things today in independence of God.
What we sometimes refer to as the world system, and there are many aspects to that system.
Satan is the Prince of this world politically, but he's the God of this world religiously. And perhaps Jerusalem, they're going into this city would speak more in connection with religious confusion, because Jerusalem was that, that holy city. But it had deteriorated to such a point that as we find as we go on, it had religion without Christ. Because, you know, today there's plenty of religion in this world, but there's plenty of religion.
Without Christ, it's man having introduced his own ideas, his own programs, and his own schemes. And he has religion, but he has religion without Christ. And so the first thing they were to do was to enter into the city.
And we're in a world of confusion, a world of political confusion.
A world of moral confusion and degradation. But we're also are we not in a world where there's plenty of confusion when it comes to religion? And as I say, we see all around us much religion, but I say it's, to some degree at least, religion without Christ. Or at least it's man, having introduced many things and mixed the truth with that which is not according to the mind of God.
But you know, the beautiful thing is that the Lord Jesus had a pathway for them. He was going to meet with them in a particular place in that city, and then they were not only to enter into the city, but a certain house. Now we find that they were to follow this man bearing the pitcher of water. And it's often been pointed out that in Scripture particularly the unnamed man or servant is often a figure to us of the Spirit of God.
We find that Abraham sent his servant to fetch a bride for Isaac in the 24th chapter of Genesis, and I know that servant is named in another place, but there in that chapter he's not named because he's a picture of the work of the spirit of God. Here in this world calling out a bride for Christ, we find two. Another example is in earlier on in Luke where you have the story of the Samaritan and when he brought the man to the inn he said to the innkeeper.
Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. There the unnamed host or innkeeper is a picture of the Spirit of God, sent down to care for the Saints of God and provide for them what's needed here along the path of faith and service. And perhaps the in there is a little picture of the assembly as well. But there are a number of occasions, if you go through the word of God, that you find this. And so we find here this man.
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Figures. I believe the Spirit of God and water contained in a vessel is more most often a figure of the Word of God. And I believe what we learn here is that if we are going to be where the Lord Jesus desires to have us around himself, to remember Him in the breaking of bread, we must, amidst all the confusion of this world, we must follow the word of God applied in the power of the Spirit.
And we find here that they were led to a particular house. Now I don't want to go too far with these illustrations and applications, nor do I want to read into Scripture more than we have here. But I've often thought of this house, at least in application, as that which we have in Second Timothy, because there we find a great house. And you know, you and I, we're in the great house in spite of ourselves.
We're in what we refer to as professing Christendom, a place where the name of the Lord is at least outwardly owned. And we are in the great house. And sometimes I've heard young people and sometimes those who are not so young say, well, you know, it's the last days, like it's described in Second Timothy. Things have become confused and it's a great house, and so it doesn't really matter anymore.
Where we break bread or some of those principles that Brethren used to hold to those we can't hold to any longer and it just doesn't matter. But you'll find that they were not only led to this house, but there was a specific room in the house. Now again, young people, I don't want to read in more than we are told, but I have wondered this in reading this account. If there weren't others in that house, we don't know, But if there weren't others in that house that evening.
Who kept the Passover in other rooms they might have been very God fearing Jews who kept the Passover. But if the disciples had arrived at that house and chosen any other room in the house, they could have kept the Passover, but they would have missed the company of the Lord Jesus in their midst. There was only going to be one room in which the Lord Jesus was going to sit down in the midst of his own, and that room was a room furnished.
It was a room that was all provided, nothing on the part of the disciples, and it was an upper room.
Because it speaks to us of separation. And I believe that that's always been God's principle of gathering, his principle of meeting. And we're going to see later on that we are always to separate from that which is not according to the mind of the Lord. We always are to separate from evil if we are going to be able to claim the Lord in our midst and claim Matthew 18 and 20 where two or three are gathered together in my name.
There am I in the midst of them, and as I say here in this portion we find that it was first of all the Passover that was in view. But after the Passover Supper, the Lord Jesus having set aside that which put them in relationship to himself in Kingdom glory, that is the Passover supper the Kingdom wasn't to be at the time. Now he puts that aside, and he institutes that which was going to be their memorial, their remembrance.
Of himself after he had gone to the cross, risen from the dead.
And return to the right hand of God. And so we are associated with Christ, not in Kingdom glories this afternoon.
But we're associated with them in heavenly glories, and we never want to forget the cost of the of our redemption, what it cost the Lord Jesus to have us in association with himself. And so we find that it was his desire to have them around himself. And he takes a loaf and a cup, and he explains very carefully how they were to commemorate him.
In his absence, you know, if the Lord Jesus had simply said to the disciples, I want you to Remember Me, I want you to commemorate me after I'm gone, they would have everyone of us would be left up to our own ideas as to how to commemorate the Lord Jesus. But he didn't do that. He spelled it out very specifically. He took a loaf, He took a cup, He explained the significance of the loaf in the cup, and he explained the format in which they were to commemorate him.
00:20:23
And this really brings us to what we have confirmed in First Corinthians chapter 10 and 11.
Here now we find the Apostle Paul is writing to these believers and he is explaining very carefully.
2 Great truths. First of all he takes up the subject of the Lord's table.
I say that because it's really what we have in the end of verse 21, where he speaks of the Lord's table. Now a table in Scripture speaks to us of perhaps a number of things. It speaks of provision. The Psalmist said, Thou preparest the table before me in the presence of mine enemies. It also speaks of fellowship. And when we eat at the Lord's table, we're at the Lord's Supper. We're having fellowship.
With the Lord Jesus and with one another in the breaking of of bread, it speaks of fellowship. But I want to point out too, it's not Christ table. It's not the table of Jesus. It's the Lord's table. Because I believe that a table in Scripture denotes authority as well. If I am invited to a brother's home, who has authority at that table? I don't have authority at that table. It's the brother who invited me. It's his table.
And he has every right to ask me to leave if my conduct is not in keeping with what he feels is suitable conduct for his table. It would be very out of character and keeping. If I were to invite someone else to that table, could I go out and invite you to another brother's table? No, it's his table. He does the inviting, and it's where his authority is to be maintained. And I believe This is why it's brought before us as the Lord's Table. And you'll notice that it's the Lord's Table before the Lord's Supper.
Now they are two very distinct things, and we want to keep them distinct in their character.
Lest we become confused, but the Lord suffered, He desires for us to be eaten at the Lord's table. That's where he desires us to eat it. I realize there are many who partake of the Lord's Supper, but you know we need to be exercised again, like the disciples in the 22nd of Luke. When the Lord sent them to prepare, he didn't initially give them instructions. He simply said go and prepare.
And then he stopped. He waited for a response on their part, and it must have thrilled the heart of the Lord Jesus when the disciples turned to him and said, Where wilt thou that we prepare? You know, they understood from the Old Testament that it was never left up to them. They were never told to just keep the Passover and bring their sacrifices to any place that they themselves chose. It was never to be a place of convenience, or a place where they like the people, or somewhere where there seemed to be.
Outward peace and going on together.
No, they weren't. It was never left to them. God had told them, even when they were in the wilderness, that when they were established in the land, He would choose a place and put his name there. And we know that he did. And that place was Jerusalem, and it was to be the exercise and joy of every Israelite to come up to the House of the Lord at Jerusalem and keep the feast. And we know it was a very sad and grievous thing to the Lord when they chose other centers. And so we find here that he takes up, first of all.
The subject of the Lord's Table. And it's interesting. I was in a home recently and a young believer raised the question as to what makes a person eligible to partake of the loaf and the cup at the Lord's table. I thought that was a very good question. Now when I say it was raised by a young person, it wasn't just a young person whose age would qualify them for that category, but someone who hasn't been saved very long.
And they've been attending the breaking of bread, and they wondered what makes a person eligible to remember the Lord to partake of the loaf and the cup. And this was one of the portions here in the 10th chapter that we turn to, because it's interesting here that when it's the subject of the Lord's table, the order of the loaf and the cup are reversed. When it's a question of the Lord's Supper, it's the low 1St and the cup second.
00:25:14
That's the way the Lord Jesus instituted it, and that's the way we always celebrate it, because the separation of the blood from the body was the proof of death. But here we find when it's the question of the Lord's table, it's just the opposite. We find here that the cup is mentioned first. Now I realize, and rather than I realize, that too many of us, some of these things we've gone over, we've enjoyed many times, they may seem elementary.
But you know, I feel the need in my soul of light to go over some of these very fundamental things. And sometimes we who are older, we feel like the young ones have heard these things before and we know them. And I would just say an encouragement to the young people, ask questions. Sometimes we assume you know things and perhaps they haven't been explained or explained very clearly. I said to a group of young people recently who were together for a little question period.
I said there's no such thing as a dumb question. There's no such thing as a dumb question. And if you're wondering about something, probably somebody else is, and maybe they're too reticent or shy to ask. And so it's good to ask questions. And so we might necessarily raise the question this afternoon. What does the cup speak to us of if we're left here tomorrow morning? On the table, there's going to be a glass of wine, and what does it speak to us of?
It represents the blood of the Lord Jesus and that's why it's mentioned here, first in connection with the Lord's table, because what qualifies a person to be at the Lord's table is first of all that they are washed in the blood of Christ. When someone comes and desires to remember the Lord, we want to make sure first and foremost that they know the Lord Jesus as their Savior that they have had applied to their hearts.
The cleansing blood of the Lord Jesus and that they are redeemed with that blood. And that is very simply why the cup is mentioned here. First, what makes a person eligible to be at the Lord's table? It's the blood of Christ. What is it that makes a person fit for heaven? We sometimes sing a hymn, Our title to glory. We read in His blood. And that's why when we get to heaven, the theme of the eternal song is going to be the blood of Christ.
We're never going to forget that we're washed in the we're washed in the blood of Christ. What it cost the Lord Jesus to redeem us to himself, was that he must lay down his life and shed His precious blood. And then we have the loaf here. Now the loaf has a different significance here than it does in the 11Th chapter. The loaf here. And it's one loaf. It represents every believer alive on the face of the earth.
It represents the body of Christ, made-up of every believer I say alive on the face of the earth at that time. And so again tomorrow morning, there's going to be a loaf on the table. It's not going to be wafers or crackers. It's not going to be rolls. It's going to be one loaf. And that loaf, when we look at it, represents to the heart of God. And we need to view it in this way too. It represents, I say.
Every believer alive on the face of the earth, that loaf young people, doesn't just represent those who are there here on this that that occasion. Nor does it just represent those who practically express the truth of the one body in the breaking of bread. It represents every believer whether they understand it or not, or whether they practically express it in the breaking of bread. And we need to see it in in that light.
If we see it in any other light, we become narrow and sectarian in our view. It's true that outwardly things have become fragmented. Man has failed in his responsibility in endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. But thank God, the unity of the body, the keeping of the unity of the body has never been committed to man. Because whatever man, whatever man's responsibility is, I say he always fails. And God looks down this afternoon.
00:30:02
And he says there is one body. This is just a little bit of side. But you know, sometimes we use an expression. We say the church is in ruin. And I realize what we mean when we say the church is in ruin. But that needs qualification because it's not really the church that's in ruin. It's the testimony that's in ruin. If we say unequivocally that the church is in ruin, we're saying that the Lord Jesus failed in the declaration he made in the 16th of Matthew, where he said on this rock I will build my church.
And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Nothing can touch that. What he builds, he builds in perfection. And even Satan himself can't smash it. But the testimony is in ruin, because I say, man has failed in his responsibility. And so again we find these two things. First of all, the cup, our title to be at the Lord's table is the blood of Christ and the fact that we are members of the body of Christ.
That's what makes a person eligible. That's what gives a person title to be there. And so again, when someone comes and wants to remember the Lord, we want to make sure that first of all, they are washed in the blood of Christ and as a result, they're members of the body of Christ. Sometimes I've heard people say, well, I don't feel worthy to remember the Lord. But you know, back in Egypt, the night they kept the Passover lamb, what made a person eligible to feast on the Passover lamb? It was the fact that they were an Israelite under the shelter of the blood.
That's what made a person eligible. And I say again that what makes us eligible is that we are members of the body of Christ, washed in His precious Blood. And so this is the subject of the Lord's Table. Now what's interesting is that between that and the Lord's Supper, there are many verses that intervene, and we might again raise the question why? If we were taking this up, we would probably have written it.
In side by side by side.
We would have taken up the subject of the Lord's table and then immediately taken up the subject of the Lord's Supper. I say it's the Lord's Supper in the next chapter because we have that expression at the end of the 19th verse of the 11Th chapter. But there are all these verses that intervene, because if we were to notice these verses and many other scriptures in the New Testament, there are things that would hinder a person from being at the Lord's table. There is sin, moral sin.
We know that was a difficulty at Corinth. There was moral sin, and it hadn't been judged because, again, God teaches his people that sin is a thing that is not fit for his presence or the presence of his people. There's doctrinal evil that's taken up in other places as well. There are ecclesiastical connections connected with a system of things that may hold doctrines and practices that are not according to the word of God.
And if a person is connected with such a system, and we allow them to come and eat at the Lord's table, we connect those two tables. And we want to be very careful that we don't connect something with the Lord's table, that is, is not according to the mind of God. And so we have all these verses. And then he takes up the subject of the Lord's supper. And here we find that he reverses the order, because as I said.
In Luke 22 in the upper room, the Lord Jesus first of all took a loaf. And the loaf here in connection with the Lord's Supper, represents not every member of his body here on earth, but it represents the physical body of the Lord Jesus given in death for us. And so when we break that bread tomorrow, it is to be a reminder of the Lord Jesus body given in death for us.
And then the cup again is a reminder of his precious bloodshed. Forest again, I say the separation of the body, the blood from the body was the proof of death. And that's why it's not all combined in one, combined in a wafer or something like that. No, it's given separately, and that is the way we celebrate it. But I do want to say this before we pass on, because I've heard different ones say, well, I can remember the Lord Jesus in my heart.
Well, it's true. We need to remember the Lord Jesus in our hearts. And I trust that every day, more than once a day, there is a reminder in our souls that we stop and consider something of what the Lord Jesus suffered on Calvary's cross to bring us to himself. We need to remember the Lord Jesus in our hearts every day. But God always gives us a way that we can give expression to what's in our hearts.
00:35:17
And so we find here that we are exhorted to eat and to drink. You've heard me say this before, but I've sometimes said, I wish that the words eat and drink were printed in capital letters in our Bible. Because when we come together tomorrow to remember the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread, we are to eat of that loaf and drink of that cup. And before we pass on, I want to exercise your soul and mind. There are many who, like myself, by the grace of God, have had the privilege of breaking bread for many years.
But maybe there's someone here, and you've never remembered the Lord. Maybe you say, well, I remember the Lord, and even when I look at the loaf in the cup, I remember the Lord in my heart. But he's asked us to give expression to it. He's given us something physical that we can do to give expression to what is in our hearts, and that we desire to honor this one, to show forth his death in the world that spit in his face, crucified Him, cried away with him.
That we seek to honor this person in that request that he made this do in remembrance of Maine. And how long is it for? It's till he come. And he wouldn't ask us to do something if he wasn't going to provide a scriptural basis or ground on which to do it. He never asked us to do anything if he isn't going to maintain a place to do it on a scriptural ground. And so I believe that there is a way where we can still amidst all the confusion of the world.
With all the confusion of the Great House or Christendom, we can find that place where he desires to sit down in the midst of his own collectively, and have them remember him in the breaking of bread. Other privileges too, But we're particular. We particularly have before us this afternoon, that precious privilege. And when it says often, don't we need a reminder Often, You know, as you go through the book of the acts, you find that it very quickly became the exercise.
And joy of the early believers to come together on the first day of the week to break bread. And when the Lord Jesus instituted the feast, he knew not only what the hearts of his own on that occasion would be like, but he anticipated what my heart would be like. And he knew that I was going to need a reminder and that I was going to need it often. And I think this is one of the most precious things about being gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus. And that is that we have the privilege, not just on a special occasion or.
Months or twice a year or something like that. But we have the privilege, and we have it often. We need this privilege. We need a reminder time and time again. We're not going to need it When we get to heaven, we're not going to need it there. We're going to see those wounds in his hands and in his feet and his side, and they are going to be fresh and constant reminders in that day. But until then, we need to show forth the Lord's death till he comes. We need to eat and drink, and we need this reminder often.
Now let's go to the book of Hebrews.
Hebrews, chapter 13.
Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 13.
Let us therefore let us go therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. And now I want to go back to two Old Testament instances which I believe bear light on this statement. The 1St is in Exodus chapter 33.
Exodus Chapter 33.
And verse 7. And Moses took the Tabernacle and pitched it without the camp afar off from the camp.
And called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out under the Tabernacle of the congregation.
Which was without the camp, and it came to pass when Moses went out unto the Tabernacle.
That all the people rose up and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses till he was gone into the Tabernacle.
And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the Tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the Tabernacle. And the Lord talked with Moses. And all the people saw the cloudy pillars stand at the Tabernacle door. And all the people rose up and worshiped every man in his tent door. And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp. But his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the Tabernacle.
00:40:12
And then I want to read a further incident in the 11Th of numbers.
Numbers 11 And verse 25 And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the 70 elders. And it came to pass, that when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied and did not cease. But there remained two of the men in the camp. The name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other was me, Dad. And the spirit rested upon them. And they were of them that were written, but went not out under the Tabernacle.
And they prophesied in the camp and there ran a young man and told Moses and said Eldad and me dad do prophecy in the camp.
And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My Lord Moses, forbid them. And Moses said unto him, Envious thou for my sake would God, that all the Lords people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them. Well, just to go back to this expression we find in the end of Hebrews, you have to understand in its context there that the apostle Paul or the apostle. I believe it was Paul from some scriptures. But we don't want to be dogmatic but the apostles.
Was writing there to the Hebrews, to Jewish believers, and to a mixture, too, of profession and reality?
As there was when they went up out of Egypt, a mixed multitude went out, and so on.
And he speaks there at the end of the epistle of the camp. Now it is true that for them the camp was Israel.
It was hard. It was Judaism. It was hard for a Jewish believer to separate from that which he had been steeped in and brought up in, because the Jewish order of things had been established by God in the Old Testament. And it was right and proper that the Jews go on in those ordinances and so on. But that was all set aside in the book of Hebrews, because Christ had come.
And 13 times we have that there was something better for them, those Old Testament types and shadows and sacrifices and ordinances, they were just pale reflections and feeble foreshadows of what was really in the mind and heart of God. And it had all been fulfilled in Christ. And so for them, at the time it was Judaism. But I believe there's an application for us because it says let us go forth.
And what are we to go forth from? Well, if for them, the camp spoke of Judaism.
I suggest that for us it is anything that takes on the characteristics of Judaism. And isn't there much in professing Christendom today that takes on the the uh trappings of of Judaism, the things that are for the senses. The religion uh of Judaism was for the senses what they could see and hear. The beautiful music, the uh robes, the curtains, the gold and the silver, what they could smell, the incense. Everything had to do with the natural senses. It was for man after the flesh.
But he says now that we're to go forth from that not to be associated with that which takes on the characteristics of Judaism.
We find too there are many who take up with an earthly priesthood and so on that had to do with the old order of things. But to really understand what the camp is and apply it to ourselves, I believe we have to go back to these two illustrations, these two instances in connection with the children of Israel in the wilderness. And first of all we find in Exodus that failure and sin had come in amongst the people of God.
Here they were at the foot of Sinai, and they were worshipping the golden calf. And we know that they had broken the first commandment, and that was that they were to have no other gods before them. And so we find that Moses takes the Tabernacle. Now this is not the Tabernacle. The way we usually think of the Tabernacle, it hadn't been built yet, but this was some kind of tent that denoted the presence of the Lord collectively.
Amongst his people. But again, he couldn't. Sin is a thing that is not fit for the presence of the Lord or the presence of his people. And so when sin came into the camp, he was to take the Tabernacle, that which denoted the presence of the Lord. He was to take it outside a far off from the camp. And it says that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the to the Tabernacle of the congregation. That is, there was a special blessing.
00:45:24
For separating from the evil that had come in amongst the people of God. Now I want to make something very clear. We never are told in scripture to separate from true believers. What we are told to separate from is sin, evil. And if that means that there are true believers that I cannot go on in fellowship with, then I have to say so be it. But it's not true believers in Second Timothy chapter 2. The thought is they were to separate from evil.
Yes, it meant that there were vessels that they couldn't associate with, but it's evil that they were to separate, that a man is to purge himself from. And so it's a very important principle. We are always to exclude evil. And so we find here that those who separated from the evil that came into the had come into the camp. Yes, they found separation from dear brethren as well. And I want to make it very clear that those who remained in the camp were still the people of God.
They were still the people of God, and they were no doubt many, dear brethren, and many perhaps had to separate from family. But if they were going to have a special enjoyment or sense of the Lord's presence, he was not in the General Assembly amongst the people. Now he was outside the camp, a far off from the from the camp, and I want you to notice too that every man stood up and worshipped in his tent door.
Because in the measure in which believers are in the enjoyment of the person and work of Christ.
There is worship. There is worship. And I'm not going to stand here. I want to speak very plainly for a moment. I'm not going to stand here and tell you that tomorrow morning this is going to be the only place in this area where there's worship. Because, again, in the measure in which individual believers are in the enjoyment of the person and work of Christ, there will be worship. And I've met many dear believers. They're perhaps not in fellowship with the Lord's table, but their appreciation of the person and work of Christ.
Has put me to shame. And so every man stood up and individually he worshipped in his tent door. But I say there was a blessing for those who separated and went out to the Tabernacle of the congregation.
And we find that.
Moses, He gets himself into the camp, you say? Why? Why does Moses do that? Well, you know the Lord doesn't forsake his people in the camp. But I want to make this very clear. There's a difference between the Lord being with us collectively and individually. The Lord is with every believer individually, but it is only in the place where we follow the man bearing the picture of water that we can claim the presence of the Lord in the midst.
And Scripture. All through scripture, there's always a careful denoting. Let me just quickly give you an example.
You remember the two on the way to Emmaus in the 24th chapter of Luke. They were really going the wrong way. They were discouraged. They were leaving Jerusalem and they were going to Emmaus, just the two of them. And it's interesting, it says the Lord drew near, I want you to notice this, and went with them. And it says as he talked with them and he went into tarry with them, He was with them even though they were going in a direction, to a place where they ought not to have been going. They ought to have been back with the other disciples.
There at Jerusalem. But they were going away. But he was with them now. As soon as they recognized him, he vanished out of their sight because they were in the wrong place. They ought not to have been at Emmaus. They ought to have been back at Jerusalem. But it's interesting that when they rise up and return, and they gather together with the others in the upper room. Now the language changes. It says Jesus came and he wasn't just with them. Jesus came and stood in the midst. They were back, if I can put it this way for our purposes this afternoon.
They were back in the place of corporate obedience. And so, brethren, there's a difference between the Lord being with us, He's with every individual, and wherever individuals meet to worship the Lord.
Or for Bible study or prayer, the Lord is with them. But that's very different than the Lord being in the midst. The midst has the thought of the central focus. The old wagon wheels had a hub in the midst, and that hub kept the rim and all the spokes together as long as that hub was in place. And so we find here that Moses gets himself into the camp. The Lord doesn't forsake. He's a picture of the Lord. He doesn't forsake his people in the camp. You know, Elijah and Elijah.
00:50:25
Two of the greatest prophets, you know, we never read of them going up to Jerusalem. Never.
But they were men of God, and God used them even in a day of division amongst his people. God used them in a mighty way. And we're thankful that he did. But it's interesting that Joshua, he departed not from the Tabernacle of the congregation. He valued that sense of the Lord's presence and where the Lord was. And so he remained there. And that's my prayer for all of us, if there is a place, as we've been saying, where we can be gathered around the Lord Jesus.
Collectively, to remember him in the breaking of bread and for other assembly meetings. And if it's till he come, then the exercise of your soul and mine ought to be there. That we would be there by the grace of God and brethren, young people. It's only by the grace of God if we find ourselves where we feel the Lord is in the midst. To remember Him. Remember it's nothing special in ourselves. It's only the grace of God that brings us there, and it's only the grace of God that preserves us there.
But I want to notice another incident that we read in the 11Th of Numbers, because here we find failure had come in again, particularly on the part of Moses. This time he felt the burden of the people of God, and he complained and told the Lord that the work was too great. And so the Lord took part of the Spirit off Moses and distributed it amongst these 70 elders. You know, the Lord had given Moses everything that was needed to perform.
His service for the Lord and leading the people of God. You know, if the Lord raises us up for a service, He provides everything that's needed.
But nevertheless the Lord took some of the spirit off Moses, and he distributed it on the 70 elders. And immediately you find these two L Dad and me dad. And they prophesied in the camp, and someone came and told Moses. And Joshua says, oh, Moses forbid them. Moses says no. Now what I want to draw from this is that I am very, very thankful for those who propagate the gospel and the truth.
In any way, you know, we, as many of you know with the book rooms in the Caribbean, we deal in some 15 or 16 tons of Bibles and literature in a year.
And I never realized until I was involved in book rooms and literature distribution, how much tonnage of good literature through many organizations goes out around this world every day. And we're thankful. And most of the literature that we provide for the English Caribbean would go to those who we wouldn't be in fellowship with at the Lord's table. But they use good, solid material both in their ministry to believers and in the gospel.
There's been a great demand in the Caribbean for Bruce Anstey's pamphlets, and people are using it for their Bible studies and their youth groups and so on. Aren't we thankful for that? You know, Paul said whether in truth or pretense, Christ is preached and I therein do rejoice. Yeah, and will rejoice. And as soon as Moses complained about his responsibility, why the There were these 70 elders and two prophesied in the camp.
I I wanna say, and again, I I don't wanna say this critically, but I and I wanna say it very carefully. But you know, if the gospel effort depended on the gathered Saints, it'd be a very feeble effort. I'm not saying that much isn't being done amongst the gathered Saints, and I'm thankful for every effort there is. But I'm thankful for every effort there is amongst all Christians to get out the gospel. And so Joshua, he says to forbid them. Oh, Moses said, no. What does the Lord, all the Lord's servants, were prophets.
And that the Lord would put His spirit upon them. And so we can pray and be thankful for those who get out the truth in so many ways. It's true. There are many that I couldn't go along in fellowship with. I couldn't go along because of their practices, or perhaps something of their doctrine. I can't go along with them because we are, we read in Philippians. We're to strive together for the faith of the gospel. And if I go along in some work with someone who doesn't hold, perhaps eternal security or.
Take up practices that perhaps are not according to the word of God or connected with some ecclesiastical system that holds doctrine or practice not uh, that's contrary to Scripture. I can't go along with that, but I'm thankful for it. The Lord said to the disciples, he that is not against us is for us. And so let's learn to appreciate and pray for the work as it goes forth. There are many, if I can put it this way, who prophecy in the camp and we don't want to forbid them. We need to be exercised that we would be more energetic. I say to my own soul that we would be more energetic in getting out the gospel.
00:55:31
In propagating the truth of God that we might be exercised, now you find again Moses got himself into the camp again. The Lord doesn't forsake his own. And in the measure in which the Spirit of God is given liberty in any Christian circles and with any Christian work, the Spirit of God is working. Thank God. The Spirit is working in the Great House today, and we can rejoice in it. But again, he doesn't encourage Joshua to go and join himself to them. No, Joshua, if I can put it this way, He remains in the place.
Of obedience. And that's really the place for us. And I just want to encourage our hearts. I know we've taken up this subject very briefly, perhaps very simply. I trust we've taken it up very circumspectly. But I just want to encourage our hearts. Young people. There is not just a path of faith for us individually, that's true. We often talk about the individual path of faith and how that characterizes the last days and so on. And that is certainly true.
But there is also to the end, a corporate side of things. There's a collective side of things where we can be collectively gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus. I'll just give you a little principle in Second Timothy. You know, in Second Timothy, Chapter 3, Timothy is encouraged to continue, continue thou, that's individual. And he's to continue in the things he has learned and been assured of. He's to go on faithfully in Paul's doctrine.
The word of God, the fundamental principles of Christianity that were laid down, is to continue as an individual in spite of the day of ruin, in spite of all those in Asia having forsaken Paul and this one gone his way and another one the other way. Timothy was to go on individually, but I think it's very significant that before he tells him that when we back up to the second chapter, he says go on with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
He said, Timothy, in the great House, there's still a path of corporate obedience, And if you're faithful to the word of God, if you seek to own the lordship of Christ in your life, you'll find others who have the same desire. You'll have find others who seek, are seeking to go on in that way as well. Well, may we be encouraged, all of us, But particularly, I say to my younger brethren, be encouraged to go on. And the question I want to leave you with is tomorrow morning when we sit down at the Lord's table.
Are you gonna remember the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread? As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come. And don't you think it'll be a joy to His heart and yours when you see Him face to face? To know that in this world you availed yourself of that precious privilege of breaking bread in His request, this due in remembrance of me. Let's pray our God and Father. We're thankful for Thy word that we can turn to for its light and instruction.
And now we pray that thou encourage each of our hearts. We think of our precious young people. We're thankful for them. We pray that thou lead them on and use them in thy service. And two, that each one of us might have that exercise to remember the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread from week to week. And so we thank thee for this privilege of being together, and commit the rest of the time to Thee in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
A Gathering Center - The Name of the Lord Jesus
What Have Given to Him? Your Heart?
Having an Enlarged Heart
Gospel 1
Gospel—John Kemp
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So we open our meeting tonight to friends with the UH.
Song in our hymn sheets #15.
Oh, blessed gospel sound, yet there is room.
God's love in Christ we see yet there is room number 15 of some brother would start it please.
Yeah, everything.
Everything is the residence.
God has been telling fire yes and a nervous dream.
How long time do you have? What else do you think about that one hour you have a?
As soon as I finished the day, right? I don't get it. Well, I don't know.
It's crazy. No. All right. We're going to stay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything's really good.
Shall we pray? Our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for the words of this hymn, reminding us that there is still room in the heart of God for sinners who are invited by Thy wondrous grace to be pardoned, to be blessed, to be saved for all eternity. We think of that glorious home prepared for the child of God.
But we are concerned there might be some in the company tonight who are strangers to that love and grace, who have never closed in with God's offer of mercy and salvation and pardon. We pray for such. We pray for the message. We own our weakness and dependence upon Thee to present it, that Christ may be exalted, lifted up as he said, if I be lifted up from the earth.
Will draw all men unto me. So we seek Thy health and blessing. Wherever the gospel goes forth this day of grace, that souls might be saved, Heaven may ring with joy. As sinners accept God's full and free salvation. We seek Thy help. We commit the meeting to the and pray for any who are still without Christ in this company, young or old.
Rich or poor, we ask it in the name for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I think another, uh, him here.
Thinking of one that is well known #9 Come every soul by sin oppressed. There is mercy with the Lord.
He will surely give you rest by trusting in His word. Shall we stand thing #9?
00:05:20
Let's draw on.
The.
Headache If you're not doing anything you're telling me to do, you have one second if you're ever going to have.
488 Thousand, 7545.
A lot of you guys love you together with my life and the next night that I have a lot of chin and fly and I have a little.
Oh, baby, crying there. And they'd cry and I'll go to make it surprise they're in town.
It's running the same thing that you can do. It doesn't continue to give me one second. You can do it if you're not alone. I have anything to do with the time. Umm, yeah.
OK, umm, but I don't know what I'm going to do about that. Umm, do you get a million significant customer care about that? I haven't been together with? All right, so you're getting a plan.
Ladies and gentlemen.
OK. And umm, they're getting throughout different time.
If you're supposed to, let me see if you don't have anything to do with those things that you're doing well on the Skype and give us a good time.
You know, when I was younger, he had a brother in the Ottawa meeting.
We used to often remind us Little expression that I have never forgotten down through the years. You'll never preach the gospel well unless you love souls. Well, I was thinking of that tonight at the outset of our little Gospel meeting here.
Love for precious, eternal, never dying souls is the greatest UMM.
The greatest gift that an evangelist can have because what we are seeking to present to you, dear friend, tonight is a gospel concerning God's beloved Son and to demonstrate to, uh, bring before you that blessed truth that God loves your eternal.
Precious soul, that he has not spared the dearest object of heaven.
Heaven's beloved one, that you, a poor guilty Sinner as I was, and many others here, might have a home in the glory, free from all pain and suffering, to see the face of that blessed One who loved us with an unquenchable love which led him from Heaven's glory to Calvary's depth of war.
You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.
What depth of poverty he went to the riches of the glory that He had with the Father in apost eternity, we cannot fathom it. He could put His hand upon all the treasures of the universe.
00:10:15
He was the creator and sustainer of worlds without number. We gaze into the heavens and see the the planets and the stars by the millions. The one whose fingers created those marvelous heavenly bodies and keeps them in their orbit, sustained hour after hour, is the Son of God who loved you enough.
To leave that presence of his father.
There unwelcomed, uninvited to enter a world that was steeped in sin and evil to provide salvation full, free and eternal to you tonight.
And so it's the message concerning God's beloved Son, not some new philosophy. We're not asking anyone to join a new religion.
Or to turn over a new leaf. It'll just get as filthy as the other one. We've tried that. But we are inviting you. In fact, God is inviting you, my friend, to come as you are. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. The invitation is from none other than God himself, whose nature is love.
Who planned this Marvelous.
Salvation in apost eternity. Sin was no after, uh, the the plan of redemption was no afterthought with God. He had it all prepared there in a past eternity. He knew.
That his creature ungrateful and.
Rebellious would partake of that fruit and fall into sin.
And enmity against God. And yet He would provide a Savior for you. He would not spare the dearest object of heaven.
The Lord Jesus, his beloved eternal Son, in whom he had all his delight from a past eternity.
And the heavens could break asunder at the beginning of the Lord's public ministry and at the end of his service down here we hear the Father saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found all my delight, but God's love was so deep for you, for me. Guilty sinners that would spit in the face of the Son of God would scourge him and nail him to a cross and put him to death in the cruelest possible way.
God knew this would happen, and yet He did not withhold the dearest object. The invitation for you tonight is to come without money, without price. Don't you talk about good works or turning over a new leaf or trying to improve your condition. That is hopeless.
And God is not asking.
For anything from you, my friend, tonight he's a giving God. He tested man for 4000 years with the law and man only proved to be a helpless and hopeless Sinner. He couldn't keep the 10 words, the 10 commandments. Impossible. He had a nature that was opposed to God. And so do you. If you're unsaved in the company tonight you are.
At enmity with God.
You have no love for God. All of us here and everyone of us who are saved in the company here tonight are only monuments of the matchless grace of God.
But we were at one time enemies by Wicked works.
And God says, I want to reconcile you. I have found a ransom. You're not required to find it. God has found the ransom. The payment has been made at Calvary. Now will you accept what God is offering to you freely? He says, be reconciled to me. God never needed to be reconciled to you and die to man because he was never his enemy. His heart was full of love.
00:15:15
True, in the Old Testament it wasn't always expressed because the man was under trial. He was being tested in different ways.
In innocence he failed. Under conscience he failed until the flood, until things became so terrible that God had to sweep the whole earth with the Bism of Destruction except eight people who found a refuge in the Ark.
Man was tested under the law and uh, it only proved his, uh, complete helplessness to, uh, meet the claims of God. You cannot meet the claims of God. You're a bankrupt Sinner. You need a Savior and every one of us here are no better than you. We're not talking down to you tonight, but God we trust is speaking to your heart.
And offering you a full salvation at great cost to Himself, presenting to you His Son, none other than the Eternal One, the Son of His love, who laid aside all that glory that was His by right and title in heaven, and left that scene to enter a world.
Where He would be crucified, and where He would be reproached, bearing the judgment, the shame, the sorrow, the rejection, He could say, Reproach hath broken my heart. God knowing full well what man would do to His Son, still He sent him for you a Sinner. Will you bow the knee and believe on that blessed 1:00 in India?
Where I visited many times, I once went to see.
The umm one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. No doubt you have heard about it. It's called the Taj Mahal. It was built in the 17th century by a famous Mogul emperor.
As a tribute to his favorite wife, his name was Shay Jahan. It took him 20 years to build this monument, this beautiful. Uh, it's really a tomb.
Magnificent in its insect stones and uh, intricate designs all there in, uh, white marble. Magnificent spectacle. 20,000 men worked on that building.
For 20 years.
And it was a monument to eternal love. But Shay Jahan and his beloved wife are gone. We're Speaking of a love tonight that is greater than any human love because human love, in the case of this Mogul emperor, there was something in his wife that drew out his love. No doubt he admired her and he, well, he wanted a monument to her. But the monument that God has is the cross of Calvary, where Christ died for you. And those who bow the knee and accept the Lord Jesus are monuments of the grace of God. Trophies.
None of us can do any boasting tonight. We were in the deep pit. We were in that horrible pit, every one of us. And yet God reached down, in fact, in order to accomplish redemption.
Christ, the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, had to go down into that awful pit where I was and where you are if you're unsaved. The horrible pit.
Of sin and darkness and distance from God. But He was willing to do that in love for you. A love that brought him not only from the glory from the courts of eternal joy that was his from a past eternity, but led Him to the cross.
In his circumstances down here, he was not rich. You know that he was poor. He found his joy and his delight in ministering to the poor.
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The rich didn't have much time for him. The scribes and the Pharisees who were religious leaders didn't even know that he came into the world. But all heaven was in an ecstasy, rejoiced when the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The heavenly hosts came trooping down to announce the arrival of God in man's world.
How marvelous. Yet the religious leaders and all Jerusalem was troubled. They didn't know who he was. They had no room for him. But God's Son was visiting man's world. Isn't that a marvelous truth to grasp, that God loved this poor guilty world so much that He would send His Son, the Creator of the universe? For the first time, the angels saw their Creator.
Born in a borrowed Manger, died in a borrowed tomb.
And all that man could give to the Son of God was the cross and its shame and.
Its, uh, reproach.
Uh, but God has come into the world in the person of the Lord Jesus and tonight he invites you, whoever you are, regardless of your background. Or you say you don't know what a what I have done in my life. No, I only know my own life.
I know the mountain of sins that the Lord forgave me. I don't know your life, but God does.
And he loves you, not your sins. True sin is a is a serious thing in God's sight. Sin must be punished.
God cannot pass over it, He cannot sweep it under the carpet, so to speak. He must deal with sin because he's holy in his nature, in his character, He's holy, and yet that character is love. And God rejoices far more in the truth of redemption than he does in creation. All the sons of God, the angels rejoiced at creation, but there on that.
Starlit night.
Of Bethlehem when the angels announced that.
Uh, the arrival He was born as Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
Uh, glory to God in the highest and on earth. Peace, goodwill toward man. That's the message that God has for you tonight. If you're a Sinner and we all are sinners by nature and by practice, there is an offer of salvation, an invitation.
This week my wife Eleanor, who is from Brazil, as most people know, received an invitation.
From the Brazil Embassy.
She was invited to meet His Excellency Mr. Pinto, the Ambassador to Brazil.
While this was an honor we attended.
In a a large room about this size and there we were introduced to.
The ambassador in person and his wife and we were able to share the gospel with him and with many others in that room who were from Brazil, giving them Portuguese calendars and tracks. And not one refused. But that invitation was from very eminent, respected man.
In this world.
But to the invitation that comes to you tonight is from the heart of God the Creator.
The sustainer of the universe who, uh, desires your eternal blessing.
And who did not spare the, uh, dearest object of heaven for you? You know, we think of Exodus chapter 3. I just look at this, look at this passage for a moment here.
At this time, the children of Israel.
We're, uh, under the terrible ******* of Ferrell. We know the story. And you, dear friend, if you are unsaved, you are under, under the ******* of a much mightier tyrant than, uh, Pharaoh was. You are under the ******* of, of the enemy of your soul, Satan, who is a strong man armed.
00:25:16
With all the entertainments of this world to appeal to your soul to keep you in a false security.
Because he doesn't want you to be saved to blind your eyes. The God of this world that blindeth the the minds of those that believe not. Those who have heard the gospel and yet do not believe it. That is the company spoken of there. He's blinded the minds of those that believe not. Rejecters of Christ come under the government of God, but here.
In our chapter we will read just a few verses. 7 The Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters. For I know their sorrows, and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land onto a good land, and a large unto a land flowing with milk and honey.
And so on unto the place of the Canaanites. You know, God looked down, He saw the, the, uh, burdens, the groaning. He heard God's heart was moved with pity for those poor people under the lash of the taskmaster. Satan is your taskmaster, and he's cruel. He wants you for what the world wants you for what it can get out of you.
And Satan too. But God wants you for what he can give you.
He wants to make you rich through the work of Christ, through his sacrifice. But the Lord was a spectator here. And that continual groaning he heard and, uh.
He heard the size, he saw the condition of the people.
In this awful ******* and tyranny that they suffered from, his heart was moved with pity, and he did something.
That none of us would do. He came down Himself to deliver. He became a deliverer. He became a savior, a Redeemer. What is more wonderful than the truth of redemption? God delights in that wonderful truth himself. Redemption. Through the work of Christ and coming on to the New Testament, we see the fulfillment of this perfectly.
Because God's Son came into the world, a world that his hands had created and would turn him out. He came into the world to demonstrate the love of God. His pity, His mercy moved him to action. It was just wasn't love in words. It was love in sacrifice and action. God.
Was moved by the condition of man.
And he did something about it to speak. Uh, umm.
Mundanely, he did something about it. He provided a salvation, full and free.
That plan conceived in the heart of God.
Brought to pass by the the descent of the Son of God from heaven's glory, a poor man down here, who had not where to lay his head.
Who healed the sick, and cleanse the leper, and raise the dead. His every act an act of blessing and mercy.
His heart of love reaching out and He is no different tonight for you my friend, if you are still without Christ, this is the night of opportunity for you.
We trust that you will hear not only the voice of the speaker, but the voice of God.
Pleading with you.
In tenderest tones to close in with his wondrous offer of mercy. Because life is uncertain, you have no lease upon it. Little poem that probably you have heard. The clock of life is one but once. No man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop at late or early hour. To lose one's wealth is sad indeed To lose one's health.
00:30:24
Is more.
To lose 1 soul is such a loss as no man can restore.
Dear Friend's life is real and life is earnest. The grave is not its goal. You have no lease upon it. You have no promise of tomorrow. May the 21St.
I left on a Air France flight Montreal via Paris to Johannesburg.
By God's grace, I arrived safely.
Met my Good Wife Eleanor there and we had an interesting month spreading the gospel in Malawi and Mozambique. 10 days later an Air France flight left Rio de Janeiro, not far from where Eleanor lives, with 238 passengers on it and no doubt they expected fully to arrive in Paris next morning. But as you no doubt know.
There were no survivors in that crash.
238 people were ushered into eternity who had expectation and plans for the future and fully expected to arrive in Paris next morning. Not one of them.
Survived that, uh, that crash or whatever was the cause of the, the, uh, breakup of that flight. So God, he warns us, those people didn't have any warning of what would happen, but, uh, it shows us the uncertainty of life.
The sureness of eternity. I'm reminded of that passage there in Luke chapter UH-12 and we just make a few comments on it. Uh, Luke chapter 12. It's a well known.
Passage, the rich fool.
Verse 13.
No. Verse 16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where it could bestow my fruits?
Here was a rich farmer who had.
God's blessing upon him.
The fields we're producing by the handfuls.
Uh, he was prosperous. He was a hard working man, no doubt.
And, uh, he had God's blessing, but did he? Was he thankful or grateful for what God had given to him? No, he didn't acknowledge God's goodness in any way. He thought only of one thing himself, how he could indulge himself, how he could live a life of comfort and ease. He didn't want God. He didn't acknowledge him at all. And there he was.
In his counting house. What was his counting house? I believe it was his bed that night. He was laying out the plans. He had the architect. His barns were crammed to the roof. There wasn't any more room. I've got to pull them down, expand and put up new buildings to accommodate all my goods. And I'll be able to retire and eat and drink.
And enjoy myself.
As we read here the umm what shall I do verse 17 because I have no room where to bestow my my fruits. And he said this will I do, I will pull down my barns and build greater and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. There he was making great plans for the future.
But, you know, as Doctor Wolfston.
Describes it. He says the best word that he knew of describing this scene was miscalculation. I think it's very good. Yes, he planned for the future. Maybe you've planned for the future. No doubt those people that left, that left on that Air France flight on May the 31St had plans for the future They were looking forward to accomplishing. Perhaps much in the business world are there in eternity tonight.
00:35:15
And this man?
He had a visitor that night. He didn't want him, but there in the middle of the night.
God visited this man.
And he felt the dew of death on his brow, and he heard the voice of God there speaking to him.
Uh, a disappointment indeed, but here he was ushered, sold out, as much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. What God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. How solemn.
Their plans for the future?
Provisions for many years and much goods, but ushered into a lost eternity.
God entered that scene.
And all his plans were upset. Well, dear friends, tonight God has a deep desire for your blessing.
And God said the same words, actually, what shall I do?
Man had shown what was in his heart, all the wretchedness and evil that led man to crucify the Lord of life and glory and to put a spear into his sight. God said, What shall I do?
They've killed the prophets and stoned them and put them out of the world and rejected me. I'll send my beloved son. Surely they will reverence him. But they did not. They recognized him, but they want. They did not want God. They wanted their religion. They wanted their pleasures.
But they did not want God's beloved Son.
But did that, uh, quench the love that was in the heart of God? Not at all. He turned the wickedest act that man could perpetrate into blessing for sinners like you and me. Because through the death of Christ, the doors of heaven have been opened, and they're open tonight for you, my friend, to enter in to come just as you are. God is not asking anything from you. He's not demanding something.
He is offering a full and a free salvation to shelter you from the coming judgment. Rock of Ages cleft for sin. Grace has hit us. Safe within. Written by Augustus Toplady in the last century I think it was. He was brought to the Lord as a young boy of 16 years of age in a barn where a simple preacher proclaimed the gospel.
You that were far off.
Are brought nigh by the blood of Christ. That was the verse that he was saved through Later on in his life, when he was caught in a severe thunderstorm in England, he looked for a shelter, a refuge, so that he could be sheltered from that the rain and the the Thunder and the lightning. And there he saw.
Uh, a cleft in a rock.
And he ran for all he was worth, and got into that cleft. The storm beat with all its fury upon that rock. But Mr. Toklady was secure and safe because he was sheltered in the rock.
And he wrote that hymn Rock of Ages cleft for me. Tonight we present to you that Rock of Ages in the person of God's beloved Son on the cross. The storm beat upon him. The stroke of judgment came down in all its fury from the very hand of God.
He was punished the just for the unjust Doctor Simpson said.
He was the inventor of chloroform and other medical uh.
Medical inventions and he was asked the question, Doctor Simpson, what was the greatest discovery that you ever made in your life? Because he was world renowned for his work in medicine. He says the greatest discovery was that I was a great Sinner and Christ was a great savior. Isn't that a lovely testimony from a man of renown and ability?
00:40:19
And we trust that tonight you will find in the Lord Jesus that a great Savior, that redemption that has been provided for you.
God delights in the confidence of the Sinner. We sang it in our hymn tonight. God delights for you to put your trust in the work of Christ, to reach out the hand and say I will.
Receive the Lord, I'll put my confidence.
In his power, in his death, in his sacrifice as the substitute for me, I will take God at his word.
Umm, God has spoken.
And the word of God makes you sure the blood of Christ makes you safe. Will you reach out the hand in simple, childlike faith and put your trust in Christ, that hand that has never lost a man? You know our brother Wally there last week, Saint John, he told the story rather briefly of Mr. Blondin. Mr. Blondin was, uh, the famous.
French Acrobat who walked over the Niagara Falls.
About 1859.
100,000 people were there to watch him, prancing across the tightrope. He walked on stilts, he walked blindfolded, even sat down and cooked himself something to eat out in the middle of the abyss. And uh.
We're gonna safely got over to the other side.
The, uh, crowd was weak with anxiety about him, but he pranced back and forth like a playful monkey. Uh, and uh, then he said, I don't want to go back to the other side alone. Who is willing to come with me? There was Prince Edward, who the Prince of Wales. He knew that he could do it because they had watched him again and again performing this wonderful feat.
And, uh, no one would accept his offer. No one was willing to trust him and, uh, get on his back and go across the tightrope. Finally, he did persuade his trainer, uh, whose name was Colcord, to get on his back and go across. And if you know the rest of the story, I think.
Realize that umm, he nearly.
Uh, Blondin nearly did not make it across someone had loose to the guy ropes and uh.
The umm R tight rope was swaying very dangerously there. He said to his trainer. Henry, get down and grab me on the the thighs. Remember you're no longer Henry, you are blonde and uh only.
By a a tremendous exertion of effort, uh, was he able running across that rope? He just arrived, uh.
In safety with his, with his burden on his back. He never did that again. He and all that great crowd are gone into eternity. Whether he ever crossed the deep dark river of death and is now in the glory, we don't know. But there's one that has gone across that those deep waters, One who has gone under them for you, who can bring you safe and sound.
Into the glory. If you are willing to put your trust in Him, He will never fail. There will be no possibility of Him ever letting a sheep of Christ perish. You are eternally secure, graven on His hands, on His heart of love, on His shoulders. My sheep hear my voice, and I give unto them eternal life.
00:45:01
And they shall never perish.
So, dear friends, as we approach the end of our gospel meeting, I'd just like to read another poem before we stop. We've been speaking about the, umm, journey that the Lord Jesus made from the Father's bosom to the cross. What brought the Son of God from heaven? Not sinful man's endeavor, nor any mortals care could draw thy sovereign favor.
To sinners in despair.
Uncalled thou canst from with the gladness us from the fall to raise and change our grief and sadness to songs of joy and praise. Isn't that wonderful that the Son of God?
Can meet your deep need. He looks down as he did in the book of Exodus. He, uh, weighed the burdens of those people. He knew their sorrows. He knows all about your life, dear friend, everything you have done, your sorrows, your afflictions, your trials, your discouragements. He enters into all of this. He loves you in spite of what you have done. You may have a large catalogue of sins.
Sometimes I say that God has canceled.
The debit side and he's adding to the credit side. My debit side was very long since without number like the hairs of my head, but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin gave me a perfect title fit for the realms of glory. Although I deserved eternal banishment from God's presence in hell. And now he is adding to the credit side. That's an encouragement for those of us who are believers here.
Because.
Everything you do for the Lord Jesus, be it even a cup of cold water, is recorded in the annals of eternity in the book of remembrance which will be opened in that coming day. A wonderful that God would reward our poor feeble endeavors, which is only through His marvelous grace. The debit side has been forgiven, pardoned, pardoned. What a wonderful thing is a pardon of God. I read a story.
About.
Uh, an evangelist. His name was Peter Miller. In fact, he lived and preached the gospel in this very state of Pennsylvania couple of 100 years ago.
He was an earnest evangelist, but there was one man, I don't know his name. He was a bitter enemy of Peter Miller.
And those that were with him, he hated him, and did everything possible to hinder his preaching of the gospel. But it so happened in the history of this character.
In the Revolutionary War, he was accused of treason, and you know, that's a serious thing. He was a traitor to the to the cause of the revolution and he was condemned to death.
When Peter Miller heard that his.
Friend, we can say.
Umm uh was doomed to be hanged.
To be, uh, put out of this world. He took a long journey, 60 miles he walked.
To see General Washington himself came into the presence of the general and he says, I would like to have a pardon for this person giving his name who is, uh, condemned to death. Oh, General Washington said that's not possible. He is guilty and he must pay the price with his life.
Uh, I'm sorry, but we can't help your friend, oh, Peter Miller said. He isn't my friend. He is my bitterest enemy.
Who hates me?
What? Washington replied. You mean you've come all this distance to look for a pardon for your bitterest enemy? I've never heard of that before. If that's the case, I'm going to grant you a pardon for him. He wrote it out.
00:50:01
Give it gave it to Peter Miller, who put it into his pocket and he rushed back as fast as he could the 60 miles.
To where this character was just as he was being led to the scaffold.
And his enemy, really, he loved that man. But he called out and he said, Peter Miller, here you are to get your revenge upon me, to see me hanged here. Just at that moment, Peter Miller stepped forward with the pardon and put it into the hand of that traitor just a few minutes before he was going to be hanged. How marvelous.
That's that's that's a true story.
But, uh, it's a pale reflection of the heart of God, we who are guilty of far more perhaps than that character, we who had rejected God's offer of salvation. And, uh.
Umm, put the Lord Jesus to death in such a cruel way that God would in his matchless grace come forth with a pardon, offering it to you tonight, to you individually, in love.
That cannot be measured. Will you close in with that offer of mercy and see the Son of God?
Dying in your place, bearing the awful judgment of God, exhausting the wrath of a holy and sin, hating God for your guilty, filthy sins that have defiled you. You're not fit for the presence of God the way you are, nor am I. You know in Bombay that I have visited many times. Sometimes they will put on the door you F.
S uh, no, uh, sorry, do you know what that means? Unfit for human habitation. And, uh, the residents of those apartments which are falling on their heads nearly in the slum conditions or deprived conditions of Bombay, that huge city of 10 million, it's not easy to have to move in the middle of the monsoon, get out with all your belongings.
Unfit for human habitation. And we are in that condition, dear friend, before God. We're not fit, nor can our good works in any shape or form. Our baptism, our religious exercises. Perhaps you have taken the Lord's Supper and you pass for a Christian because you attend a church and you're respectable in your community and you may do good works. None of these things will ever make you fit for God's holy presence.
Only the work of Christ, only the precious blood that he shed is your passport to eternal glory. And if you bow the knee just as you are, someday you will bow the knee to the Lord, meeting him as your Savior or judge. But tonight, if you bow the knee and say, Lord Jesus, I'm a Sinner, I'm guilty, I don't deserve your mercy, but I put my faith and trust.
In your finished work.
This will delight the heart of God, and heaven will be filled with joy. If you refuse the Lord, the angels will reap. Well may the Lord bless these few, uh, feeble words from the Word of God. And we trust that, uh, there will be a blessing for eternity in the soul and heart of any who are still outside of Christ, strangers to His love and grace.
Shall we sing in closing?
A well known hymn that your children will remember this number 8. Shall we gather at his coming? Some brotherhood started please.
She gathered departed when my daddy went around.
Me in the set, your heart went to my home and beyond.
The sun. Yeah, it's my own coloring. And the Lord in your house is flowing yourself. Uh-huh. I'm not sure if I'm a Jerry. Yeah, I'm afraid. I'm just saying it's not. It's not. It's hard to get it airwashed. And the flame, your love.
00:55:18
May I know please the end of the song is coming?
Then thanks all the time.
Blue light and here to begin thus.
We're taking a good following.
Where about 300 and 5800 dollars without whatever they used to be in the day for anything that I have.
Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you're not, it's a lot of radios. Uh, I'm looking. Yeah. You're doing anything today. I mean, I think. Uh-huh.
Yeah, 50778608 umm and there's a lot of things that I'm going to see you tonight.
I didn't really see.
Now let's change on the same time. I was like, you've been doing a little while. It's been a little while. I think that it's not a little bit.
Yeah, I'm getting on the left and it's, uh, I don't know. I don't know anything. It's above 108,000. It's 180,000.
Yeah, that's what you're saying. Uh, I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. Why don't you think I'd say you know what it's like? So we pray our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for this blessed hope that is before every child of God in the room tonight.
When we shall leave this scene of faith and strife, and enter into the very presence of the One who loved us and gave himself for us, But we are burdened. We are concerned about any in this company who are not ready for that coming which may take place tonight, who are still in their sins and would be left behind for judgment. We pray that by the Spirit of God, the Word.
The word of thy grace may find an entrance into hearts.
We think of the young people, the children, everyone present here having an eternal soul, loved with an unchanging, everlasting love. And we thank Thee for the privilege of announcing this message of pardon through our Lord Jesus, through His finished work, through His death and His blood that cleanses from all sin. So be with us now, and we pray for wherever the message of Thy grace has been told forth in sincerity of truth.
We know it is the day of thy long-suffering, our God not willing that any should perish, so we commit the word to thee here and wherever it has gone forth, giving thanks in the blessed and worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Learning From the Moon
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.
Good morning. We don't have too many people on the front rows.
Also, in our travels we made a mistake, and that was to not bring a cynical paper from last week. So someone can give me the Bible verse that some of the kids might know this morning. I'd appreciate that. OK, someone have a song they'd like to sing?
Even beyond the front rows, that's OK.
#5 Thank you very much.
You are great. Thank you.
And someone can start that please?
And that is why I am cheerful and above.
I think it's not up again.
Good morning, Doctor Raymond. Your transaction starts. I am my Lord, and I think he is fine. He is drooping out by Father of God, like you're going to tell him love once you can run.
I began, I think, he said.
When he saw.
I think her parents.
My love to be right in the heart. Let me find my blood with the fact that that's.
Well, I have the right fry on my glory within my head and bring this for the time.
Uh-huh.
My sister away.
He didn't start out, he didn't have. Do you know why? He didn't forget my name And I have a very great joy and after me that I am in. I want to see that I see him.
Wendy's as well. I think it's away.
OK. Do we have another one?
How about on the back there? Why don't we do Jesus loves me?
And for the chorus, we'll do the sign language. OK, I presume we all know that yes, Jesus loves me. And then.
The Bible tells me so. The Bible tells me so.
Now, I kind of indicated that because there's three words for so, but that's the one I kind of like.
So OK so I wanna start that please.
Jesus loved me that I lost for a pirate of what I believe so much together to him to make it on laying up for these buttons and he began from yeah, I know he's like last week.
Yes, you must love me.
00:05:07
OK, Jesus of course is pointing at the wounds in his hands. Jesus loves me and the Bible, The Bible is Jesus book.
Vital It's American Sign Language, fourth most common spoken language or unspoken language in the United States.
OK, second verse, go ahead please.
Don't wait.
I'll come again. Yeah. You've got a lot of me. Yeah. I have a beautiful bloody painting. Yeah. I have to be in touch with a lot of community. Not out of my life or anything else that I'll ask you to give me. So I'm going to go to the moon.
Yeah.
Last week.
Yes, dear, That's what I'm seeing. Yeah. Yeah. But I just thought I'd be here. No, I don't know how to make it close. And I don't believe in your own.
Call 913 93017.
8910.
Shining light on top until watch me where I live.
Yeah, I have a few.
Yeah, you love, love me. Yeah, I have experience. I do not see not how I feel about being so.
It's a lot of life. Maybe you're not saying you love me. 385 You may not allow anything. Yeah, I I'm sure. Hi. Bye. Bye. Eating well. Take me to hold on time. Yes. Please tell me what is it?
Yes, Yes. I thought you gave me anything. Yeah, she's not like me. I don't know how to go to that. I don't feel good.
It's easy to get distracted when you're talking with your hands. Some of us talk with our hands without even thinking, though it's usually not American Sign Language.
Another song? Yes please.
46 Thank you very much.
One of the spelling songs, so I'm going to start that please.
I'll leave you on it now. I haven't done that and then give me $100 and three dollar line and you can see this and see if it's continuing on. You can give your legs eat anything and and I'm going to add it and sound a much better way.
Yes.
#4 Thank you.
Christ is the Savior of sinners. I'm going to start that please.
Christ is the savior of Savior. Now I get the spread but I am pretty.
Good.
980795 nae nae nae nae nae nae nae nae nae. I didn't get much more than my grandma's son. There's this one stay here for me.
00:10:05
No, I can't say I am following up everything I have to give you anything just because I have been by my pleasure. You're giving me anything, murderer. Let's just go ahead and party.
Stand around and learn. There's a lot of cameras like me.
Said I didn't get a lot more than some. Let's just start getting your phone in.
Migraine. Umm, let's just OK, you're calling me.
Yes.
41.
I always loved this song when I was a kid and I thought the person that wrote this song must have been so smart.
Because he has a sentence, there's.
Four sentences and they all end with the same expression.
Wow. How could you write that? He or she, I don't know whether it was. How could that person write that?
And end up with the same little phrase at the end of each sentence and it all makes sense.
You might notice that what we call a verse or.
Stanza here they all end with a comma.
Well, not all, but they all end not with a period, let's put it that way. And the little refrain of the course goes right with that every single time.
I was really really impressed at this song. OK, someone can start this please.
Singing glory, glory, glory, glory to God.
In shining, we're on the side deposits, climbing each one. We're getting out of rest. Well, they can't remember the last thing. I am going to have a birthday singing. Glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory.
Let's bring them to that world by the black heaven. So brightness.
Well, it's enjoy and love. How come the children bear singing Glory, glory, glory.
Because of dangerously different awakening.
I want to get back to practice by being all over them, by them being making glory, glory, glory glory.
OK, let's pray. Our Father, we are thankful for another day of the grace of God. We're thankful for a beautiful day and the sunshine, and we thank Thee that we can live in the sunshine of Thy love.
00:15:05
We do look to thee for anyone who might not really know thee as Savior, perhaps a young one, perhaps an old one who is not yet become as a little child to receive thee. We just do pray for a work and each heart in Jesus name we give thanks, Amen.
Now the center school verse that is commonly learned by lots of kids for this morning is in the fear of the Lord is strong confidence and his children shall have a place of refuge. That's Proverbs 1426. Now is there someone who has learned this or another verse who would like to say it this morning? I know this is probably a bigger crowd than your Sunday school at home, but you're still welcome to recite memory verse if you want to.
Do I see any takers?
That's, that's fine. There's there's none. That's that's all right. We often have some of the younger ones sitting up in the front, but.
Any of your family knows Bible verse? Want to say it or want to give it a whirl?
You're welcome to. I don't have any toys or candy or anything like that to hand out, so there's maybe no incentive from that point of view.
You're welcome to if you want, if you know the verse.
Wanna give it a try or no? OK.
Yeah, the book of Proverbs is a very, very nice book. Lot lots of nice verses in the book of Proverbs. OK, let's dive into the.
Subject I had for this morning.
And I had an interest in talking about the moon.
The moon. Now the moon is quite an interesting.
Uh, piece of God's handiwork up in the sky.
It's rather amazing.
And uh, just to get this out of, uh, in case you're thinking along this line, you know, the, the Latin, presumably the Latin for moon is Luna.
And, uh, we get several words from that, including like lunar, like we talked about in lunar eclipse, we talked about a lunar month.
And we also talk about lunatics.
Yes, that comes from the moon lunatics. People that spend too much time either staring at or thinking about the moon. They go crazy.
And so we have in our vocabulary lunatic. So that's connected to the moon, in case you didn't know that. So be careful staring at the full moon, OK?
Our moon is is one amazing thing. Think how big it is. It's not the biggest, but it's one of the biggest moons in our little solar system here going around our special star called the Sun.
But it is by far the biggest moon in comparison to the size of its planet.
Because, you know, Earth is a pretty small planet, not that huge.
And the moon is in comparison is very large.
Yeah, a lot of moons out there that are real tiny and I've lost count on how many moons there are going around Saturn and Jupiter and, but there's a whole lot of them out there. Most of them are pretty small, but we have big moon. It's great.
Have you ever noticed?
As the moon looks, every time there's a full moon you can see the whole moon. Everyone knows it always looks the same.
I mean, isn't the moon shaped like a ball?
It was shaped like a ball. Why don't we see the side of the ball? Why don't you see the back?
Of it, what happened? What's there to hide?
All we see is one side of that moon.
That's actually quite a miracle, Bec.
Because that's very unusual. Very unusual. We're gonna maybe talk about that a little bit a little bit later.
Of course, we know who made all of that, and he had a reason for for making the moon so special for the Earth.
00:20:02
Beautiful moon that we all enjoy and we're going to do a few things.
About the moon this morning. So to begin with, let's turn to the book of Joshua.
Book of Joshua, chapter 10.
And there's going to be two parts to our Sunday school this morning.
There's gonna be a part that to those that are some of our older.
Young folks here and then they'll be part that is more to the younger young folks.
And to the older, young folks, it's a project.
And we're going to start in Joshua chapter 10, and we're going to read in verse 12 and 13.
Of Joshua 10.
Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel son.
Stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ashlan. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies.
Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the Son stood still in the midst of heaven and hasted not to go down about a whole day. Now consider the incredible power. If you know God, that's really not a big deal, but in consider the incredible power of what it meant.
To give the appearance that the sun and the moon did not move.
Just think of everything that went into that, and if you're familiar with a little bit of physics, you would say that is obviously impossible.
But with God, all things are possible. OK, let's take this for some of our, uh, older ones that are here. Let's look to the South and you are Joshua.
And you're fighting this battle, and you have asked God to give you some more time, and the way to do that was to give you more daylight.
And so you're looking towards the South and you see the sun up in the sky.
And the moon is up there also. Yes, you can see the moon in daytime, of course, certain times of the month. And that is going to be part of our project.
If you're looking towards the South and the sun is standing still, it's gonna be like that for a, you know, 20 hours plus. So you have time to think about this. Where in the sky is the sun?
And I started thinking, because there's gonna be some other things coming up a little later about this. Where in the sky? Where in the sky is the sun?
Where is the moon?
And what phase of the moon is it?
OK, got it. Now these are not extraordinarily hard questions. You just have to kind of stop and think about it. You probably haven't stopped and think and thought about.
About things like this. OK, so are you thinking about it? You'll have an answer for me.
Uh, no you.
You'll have an answer for me about 5 minutes.
Yeah, good. OK.
So there's the three questions. Where's the sun? Where's the moon, and at what phase is the moon in? You work on that, Jayce.
OK. I just just put that in your mind that that is South, by the way, I'm pretty sure the way the sun is shining in the door there.
Now, in the meantime.
Let's turn to Genesis chapter one.
Genesis chapter one and verse 16.
And God made two great lights.
The greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day.
And over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. God saw that it was good. Well, these great lights, of course, the sun, and the second one, the moon.
These past couple months, at least in our next the woods, the weather has been reasonable enough where when the full moon is, has, has come out, it's been very spectacular, very bright. And, uh, this, this last one, it rose large over the horizon, uh, at the just a couple of weeks ago and a beautiful, beautiful moon. And sometimes the moon that seems to come up looking large on the horizon is called the harvest moon.
00:25:28
And uh, I've never seen, I've never seen a truly spectacular harvest moon. But isn't it interesting how the moon looks bigger when it's down towards the horizon? Probably I'll notice that.
Do you realize that that's totally an optical illusion?
It's totally an optical illusion.
The human eye will always look at a moon that's near the horizon of Earth as if the moon is bigger than what it is.
Now how do they go about working on that? They took pictures of of rising full moon and they had people observe at the same time they took pictures, you know like every 5 minutes or something. And they had people say well how big do you think the moon is? And they got the pictures, they measured on the photograph how big it looked on the photograph and compared it to what the people said. And the people says oh it always looked bigger when it soars the horizon and the measure on the photograph and lo and behold, it's exact same width.
On the photograph, you can't get around it. Your brain will always tell you that the moon looks bigger.
You cannot get around it. Don't ask me why.
But it always does.
And it's not true.
But these are great lights, and God has put them the one to rule the day.
And the one to rule the night. And we're thankful for a bright moon that gives us some light at night time. You know, one of the biggest things that has been feared by mankind over the centuries.
Is darkness.
And for good reason.
Broken legs.
Knocked out by hitting something, falling, you know, the path ends and you end up over a Cliff of some sort. Oh yeah. Darkness has been the greatest fear mankind, one of the greatest hindrances mankind for centuries. And so we're thankful for the moon that gives light now.
The moon's light is only reflected.
And of course, you know that I'm going to have a point to some of this, right? You are.
Reflecting God's light in this world, you are like the moon. No, not the lunatic part, but.
The light part shining as light.
Let's turn to Psalm 8.
And no matter how big or how small we are.
Whether we're a young Christian or an older Christian.
We are all to reflect God's light. Psalm 8, verse three. When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the Son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.
You know.
All of God's works glorify God himself, and they speak in some way of God.
We think the sun is important.
Who does God think is important?
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
The creation is astonishing.
God's love toward us is more astonishing that He sent Jesus Christ to this world, the Son of Man, the one who came to suffer, the one who humbled Himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That one is far more important than any of these created things, as neat and as interesting as they are.
Let's go to.
89.
Psalm 89 and there's some talking about, uh, David's King David, he was the king in, in Israel, you know, and, uh, how his family was going to go on and it was going to be very great. And of course.
00:30:15
If you go down far enough in David's line, you know David had a son and a grandson and great grandson. You keep going down and down and down through history. You come to Jesus.
You see, the Lord Jesus is born into David's house, called David's house, his lineage.
You know, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson of David is Jesus.
So that's why it says in verse 36, his seed shall endure forever.
And his throne as the sun before me.
It's gonna last forever.
It shall be established forever as the moon and as a faithful witness.
In heaven.
Well, both the sun and the moon are faithful witnesses to God's goodness, to us, the wonders of this creation. But you know the moon in a very special way as a witness.
You are like the moon, and you know the church is like the moon too. And maybe we could put it this way. I've had a week to go over this. I mentioned this last Lord's Day, but.
The Church is like the moon.
It reflects divine light.
Let me back up churches like the moon. A heavenly people. There you go, A heavenly people who reflect divine light back onto a needy earth.
Church is like the moon, heavenly people reflecting divine light.
Back onto a needy earth.
A witness, You know the moon. Our moon is very reflective.
Very reflective, it can be very bright. A full moon. It's, it's quite amazing. Well, that's the way we're supposed to be in this world, reflecting back God's goodness into a needy world. And so the moon is like a faithful witness in heaven, and that's what you should be also.
Now the Valley of Ezelon, Who has got it figured out? Where is the sun?
Yeah, OK. What time of day?
OK.
OK.
Southeast West.
OK, so it'd be towards the West, so be over here. OK, so that doesn't leave much other section of the sky for the moon to be in. So what section of the sky is the moon in?
If, if, if it's afternoon, probably is uh, mid to late afternoon because the battle is going on. I need more time, you know. So where would the moon be? There's not much choice here. Where would the moon have to be?
Point don't have to say anything out loud.
You got it figured out.
OK, so over here somewhere.
So the sun would have been over there.
And the moon would have been over there. And what phase of the moon?
Would it be?
What phase is the moon? Who overhears them pondering? You've been pondering? What phase of the moon would it be?
Would it be a full month?
OK, couldn't be a full moon, could it? Because the moon has to be totally opposite from the Sun. That means on the other side of the Earth to be a full moon. OK, can't be a new moon because it would be, right? It'd be right close to the Sun to be a new moon. OK, So what? What's in between?
Second phase OK, let's let's call it a Half Moon. OK, it might be it would have been a Half Moon or maybe a little bit bigger than 1/2 moon. OK, very, very likely depends on on a few things, but it couldn't be a full moon. It couldn't be a a real small moon. It would've been like 1/2 moon or a little bit bigger. Now let us pretend this is Part 2 of the older uh section here. Let us pretend that.
There was that it was a Half Moon. Let's say it was exact Half Moon.
00:35:04
OK, now that's making an assumption that it's not in the Bible at all. OK, but let's assume it was an exact Half Moon and somebody had a long time to think about this because that day was pretty long, hour after hour, and they just sat there. The sun of the moon just didn't move any place and they had a long time to think about it. By the way, this did happen. Probably not back in the day of Joshua. Someone did think about this. Someone said, ah.
Look at that, I can figure out how far away the sun is from the earth.
Yeah, I could do that. OK, now tell me how.
This was done about 300 years before Christ. Someone did sit down and think about that.
But probably not back in Joshua's time.
I'm going to throw one other thing here that might be fascinating. If in Israel there is both the sun and the moon up in the sky, and it was for this very, very long time, we've been almost 24 hours, 23 hours plus would have been like that.
Uh.
What did the poor folks on the other side of the world think?
No sun.
No moon.
How? Yeah, this is really, really something.
You would have felt like you've been left out in the dark, huh?
OK, let's turn to Psalm 136.
Psalm 136, and this is kind of a fun chapter. Our family enjoys reading this at the, uh, dinner table because of the way it's organized.
Psalm 136. Let's start verse five. To him that by wisdom made the heavens, for his mercy endureth forever. Tim, that stretched out the earth above the waters, for his mercy endureth forever. To him that made great lights for his mercy endureth forever. The sons who rule by day.
For his mercy endureth forever the moon and stars, to rule by night.
For his mercy endureth forever. It's God's grace that has put these things for our benefit up in the heavens. Be thankful for that wonderful Son that's out there. Be thankful for that wonderful moon that God made for your benefit. Be thankful for all the stars that God made. But we need to think beyond that. We need to be thankful for our Lord Jesus Christ. Who's that son of righteousness?
We need to be thankful that we are a redeemed people and that we can shine as lights in this world. We're going to read that verse before we're done here.
Let's go to 1St Corinthians.
Sorry about turning to some A versus, but there's no exact one chapter in the Bible about the moon.
First Corinthians, chapter 15.
And verse 41.
There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars for one star differeth from another star in glory. I'm going to take this. I mean, the Scripture is written for that, exactly that, but I'm going to take it out of the context of this chapter. There is a glory.
That's different between the sun and the moon. And you know, is the moon any less important because it's not the sun? Are the stars any less important because it doesn't have the same?
Visual image as the moon, you know? The stars feel left out because romantic poems haven't been written about them, but they've been written about the moon, you know, umm.
No. Each has their own glory, and you may wonder where you fit into God's scheme. But you do. And each of us has a particular glory, presence of God, and for the benefit of the people around us. No matter who you are, whether you seem to be little or big, whether you're older or younger, whether people know who you are or not, you're important. You have a glory that God has given.
To you.
Let's turn to Revelation.
And towards the end.
Revelation Chapter.
00:40:00
21.
Revelation 21 and verse 22 And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it, and the city had no need of the sun.
No need of the sun.
Neither of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof, you know, in heaven.
Everything is going to be a total connection with the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not gonna make a difference about other lights.
It doesn't make any difference whether there's a physical sun or a physical moon or stars, because Jesus Christ takes precedence over all that everything.
And we should actually think that way now that Jesus Christ is first and foremost.
Now I just have a little.
Umm.
Just a word to say to those that are older, and then just a few little verses for those that are younger. Let's go to Philippians.
And, uh, I'm sorry, Ephesians.
Just a few pages off here. Ephesians chapter 4.
Joshua of course asked that the that the have more daylight hours that he'd be able to accomplish something and uh, Ephesians 4 verse 26 be angry and sin not let not the sun go down.
Like in Joshua's time, the sun didn't go down until his task was accomplished. Neither let the sun go down upon your wrath either. Give place to the devil.
There are several ways of thinking about this, I'm sure, but I've enjoyed this. And if we have the light of the word of God for us, no matter what our situation, that it will be sufficient. Don't let the light of the Word of God go down until your matter is solved. It doesn't mean a 24 hour day. It might be a whole month, but let that light shine. Don't let the sun go down on the things that are frustrating you or angering you or whatever.
Let that light shine.
On your circumstances and again, for those that are, uh, older and sorry for going faster, first, uh, first John, first John chapter 2.
First John two and verse 14.
In the middle of the verse it says, I've written unto you young men, because you're strong, the word of God.
Abiath in you, so don't let that sun go down.
For your whole life the word of God abideth in you. You've overcome.
The wicked one love not the world, neither things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father.
Is not in him. You know there is a phase of the moon.
It's called the new moon and it can it can block the light of the sun. We don't want we we want to be a moon like shines good stuff into this world, but we don't want to be the kind that blocks out the light of the sun. We call it a lunar and we call it a solar eclipse. It can happen.
And it can happen in our lives too, that we might get in God's way. Let's be sure and not do that.
And Matthew, maybe for some of us that are younger, Matthew chapter 5.
Very simple here.
Well known verses.
Matthew 5 and verse 14. You're the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a Candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Are you 8 years old? You can be a little light in your house.
You always can be.
Don't ever think that you're not important. Don't put something over top. The light that God has given you. You can be a light in your house.
God has given all of us to be a testimony and a witness for Him, no matter where we are school.
00:45:03
Playground.
Sports, whatever it is, let your light shine for the Lord Jesus Christ.
We mentioned right to begin with beginning that the moon only shows one side of itself.
Now we know that.
At least two countries have set up satellites and taken pictures of the backside of the moon, but to the rest of us, we can't see that.
Perhaps again, have you ever thought that you might be a bit underappreciated?
You know, like there's a backside that no one ever sees.
Perhaps we all run into that, and of course the world at large doesn't see, shall we say, the backside of what real Christianity is. They do see the light that's reflected here, but they don't understand what Christianity is all about. We have to show them and tell them. But don't feel bad about that. Don't feel bad about a side that is hidden.
That's fine. We live in the presence of God. We don't live in the presence of human beings anyway.
Don't be worried if only half of you is really known. You think maybe someone's missed out the better half. Don't worry about that. God sees that. God appreciates it.
It means everything to him. He sees you as a whole person. Maybe I don't see you.
In your totality.
That's fine. God does shine for him, live for him. Let's give thanks our God and our Father. And we're thankful for another day of the grace of God. We're thankful that there is the light of God's Word shines into our life. We pray that we might reflect that back to this world for blessing for good to those that are around us. We pray that we might just shine for thee.
Perhaps not saying much in a quiet way, but that we might manifest thy glories in this world.
And leaving the results to the Lord Jesus, in thy name we give thanks.
Amen.
Instances of Jesus in the Midst
Address—Wally Dear
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.
Our, uh, brother Wally Deer is gonna address the young people here, but, uh, perhaps he didn't know about the.
The time being pushed up, so he should be here shortly. And in the meantime, we'll, we'll sing a hymn at least one we sing maybe, uh, 177.
OK.
No.
Anything. You're not going to do anything.
I do apologize as an impression that the meeting was at 2:00.
Singing sounded wonderful.
And we'll continue with the meeting.
First of all, could we look to the Lord in prayer, seek his help?
Father and gracious God, we thank you. This afternoon I was giving us.
Opportunity to be together.
We rejoice in the exceeding riches.
Of thy grace and thy kindness to us.
We thank you for the kindness of our dear brethren here in Scranton.
Who have gone to great lengths.
To arrange for these meetings and to make us feel comfortable and we just thank you for their kind hospitality.
We know it because of their faith in Thee, Lord Jesus.
That this labor of love has been put forth and now we just thank you for the meetings over these past.
A day and a half and we look to the on behalf of this meeting here that, uh, that which is said might be a help and encouragement to thy people. We pray for any who might still be outside of Christ who don't have a clue as to what.
00:05:07
We are enjoying having.
This I word before us and the marvelous flight to which we have been brought, we think of how many there are in darkness. So, Father, we do pray by blessing and help here, and wherever Thy word is being proclaimed this day, we just thank Thee for Thy wonderful grace and goodness.
And the precious and the worthy name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
It's great to be here.
We're so privileged.
I do believe that the Christian really has the best of it in both worlds. I.
I mean, we're faced with.
Trial and difficulty as believers reproach. There's conflict.
But here we can.
In this world, Enjoy.
God and His Word.
And that's something we're gonna enjoy in the next World.
But here and now God has given to us.
That which can make us totally happy, That's his desire.
That we might be thoroughly happy.
And how can it be while we look into His word to get the answer?
We come across the border.
From Canada into the States often.
And there's a large dumpster there. And there's two words on it. Be happy.
That's all it says.
Be happy.
There once this afternoon, there is a way to be happy.
And I kind of wonder.
That, uh.
Trash business has put these dumpsters around. Perhaps we should call and find out what their thought is on how to be happy. I hope it's in line with the word of God.
This afternoon, we're here to speak.
To young people.
And to older people too.
And we have children here.
And we all want to be happy.
God's Word explains how it can be.
I think it has to do.
With putting the Lord first.
Now, yesterday.
We had reference to.
The fact that the Lord Jesus went with those two that were traveling to Emmaus.
They were going away from Jerusalem.
And they were discouraged.
They were disappointed.
But the Lord Jesus drew near and went with them.
And it tells us they were sad.
So later on in the chapter.
We read that they were glad.
And we sang in the little song.
Although I noticed it's written sometimes different on different hymn sheets. Jesus loves me though I'm sad. And perhaps on our hymn sheet this morning it said.
No, I'm bad.
Jesus loves me throwing bad.
But I've also seen that Jesus loves me, though I'm sad.
And he waits to make me glad.
He wants to make you glad there once this afternoon. And those two on the way to Emmaus, they were disappointed. And you know why they were disappointed? It's because they had certain expectations.
And things didn't happen the way they expected.
You know, they thought that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah who was going to deliver them from the power of Roman.
Dominion and make them a nation in the world.
But God had bigger plans.
And the Lord Jesus went into death, not simply that he might bring blessing to the nation of Israel.
00:10:04
But to the whole world.
And you know, these two, they came to understand something of what God's plans really are and found out.
That their expectations weren't what they should be. They weren't based on the word of God.
I think that's really what brings disappointment into our lives is.
You know, we expect something to happen and it doesn't happen and we become disappointed. But let me ask you. Let me ask myself.
Our our expectations based on the word of God. Because if they are.
We're not gonna be disappointed, no way. That's why the Word of God is so important. And we look into this blessed book and we find out what it is that God has in mind, what His purposes are.
And their purposes of love with respect to you and me.
And sometimes we think wrong. Thoughts.
Why? Because we're not reading the Word of God. We're not reading the Bible.
Well, those two.
As they traveled.
They were accompanied by the Son of God, by Jesus.
And of course.
They prevailed on the Lord Jesus to stay, and when he.
Broke the bread. It seems as though he becomes the host in the house and he's the one that actually breaks the bread.
And they realize that this one is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Lord Jesus vanishes.
And.
They.
Make haste to return to Jerusalem.
Their hearts were warned.
And they want us to be with.
Other believers.
Sometimes we get disappointed and we like to go off on our own.
But when our hearts get warmed up, we desire the company of other Christians.
I had such a privilege to be here at these meetings.
With others of light, precious faith.
Then it is that the Lord Jesus it tells us.
He came into the midst of His own. I was just thinking of that expression in the midst. You know, God's desire is that in all things His Son might have the preeminence.
In all things.
Oh, how God delights in his Son.
This is Iris that all men should honor the son.
And he that honors not the son, honoreth not the father who has sent him.
Well, we find that expression more than once.
How the Lord Jesus.
Was in the midst.
Of his own.
Particularly with respect to the assembly.
Christ is the center.
And we wanna just look at that, but.
With respect to center.
We sang this morning of the vast universe of Bliss.
The center thou and sun.
Lord Jesus Christ, heaven's beloved one, the Son of God.
Is at the center of the universe.
Of all God's counsels and purposes, they sent her in his Son.
If God places such importance on His Son, should not we?
Of course Jesus is God.
The Father is God. Jesus is God.
The sun is God.
And so is the Holy Spirit.
I can't tell you too much how God has laid out this blessed book, but I tell you one thing. There's a perfect order and plan to what God has in this book that I hold in my hands. This is the word of God.
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And with respect to being in the middle.
Or at the center.
There's over 40,000 verses in the Word of God.
But I understand that the center verse is found in Psalm 118 and verse 8. Psalm 118 verse 8.
It says there it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
That's exalting the Lord.
And I believe that verse.
Has right at the center of that verse towards the Lord.
Well, that speaks to my heart, that.
When we pick up this book.
God is speaking to us concerning Himself.
He wants to be the center of our thoughts.
Of our activities.
He wants our lives to revolve around him.
It brings happiness into our lives when this is the case.
How many there are that leaving the Lord out, live their lives without? God can't be happy that way or for a season.
You know, there's pleasures in sin for a season, but we're talking now about a happiness that's real, that's lasting.
It's found in God.
Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he.
Well, John 316.
Has right at the center of those 25 words, SON.
It's right at the heart of the verse.
SON.
Just as the planets.
Revolve around the sun. The SUN God's desire is that our thoughts, our lives would revolve around His Son.
Do you have the sun in your heart?
He wants to be there. You can't be happy without him in your heart.
There was a.
Dear man in Africa.
He was beaming.
Somebody asked him why is it that you're so happy? It's obvious something was making him happy, he said. I'm happy for three reasons.
He says I have Jesus in my heart.
And I have Jesus here. He put his hand on his Bible.
And he says I have Jesus up there.
He pointed heavenward.
Is that making you happy here?
This afternoon, that is a question for my own heart.
I believe all of that.
We ought to be the happiest people on the face of the earth. But I I would add one item.
And this has to do with our.
Assembly.
How is it that we assemble?
Is Christ the sensor?
That's the fourth reason to be happy.
Is they have a sense in our souls that as we come together with other believers.
As wonderful as they may be, what it is that attracts us is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ in the center.
To be gathered to his name and his name alone.
You say, well, I don't know exactly where that place is.
Well, do you wanna know?
Do you really wanna know? I just sincerely searching because I believe God will show you he wants to lead you in a plain path.
And I know some don't have peace about where they're at.
Well.
We can pray that the Lord might show.
And give them peace.
As to where his presence is collectively.
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Now there's another verse. It's over in Hebrews 1313.
It's not hard to remember that reference.
But right at that center of that verse, there's a little word him.
HIN.
It says, Let us go forth therefore unto him.
Without the camp bearing his reproach.
13 words I believe.
7th word him right in the center there of that verse.
You know, if we're going to enjoy the Lord's presence in a collective way.
We're gonna have to be willing to accept reproach.
But let me ask you a question.
Do you wanna sacrifice?
The enjoyment of.
The Lord's presence.
In order to avoid reproach. You think that's a better way to go?
I don't think so.
And I think most here would agree.
There's nothing more wonderful.
Than to enjoy the Lord's companionship.
Individually and also.
In the assembly well.
What I was?
Thinking this afternoon was just to take a little time to go to somebody's portions where we find the Lord in the midst.
And.
The the first reference that comes to mind.
Is found in Luke.
Chapter 2.
Luke chapter 2. So perhaps we could.
Look at this portion.
It tells us in verse 39, Luke 2 and 39.
And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee.
To their own city, Nazareth.
And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit.
Filled with wisdom.
And the grace of God was upon him. Here we find the Lord Jesus growing up.
As a boy in this place called Nazareth.
Sometimes we see a list.
Of the 10 best cities.
To live in in the United States.
Or maybe there's a list of 100 cities?
With the best cities as man sees it at the top, but you know Nazareth wouldn't be too high in the list.
In fact, there was one who said, can any good thing come out of Nazareth?
But you know, God doesn't think like man does.
And God had purposes of grace.
For his son to fulfill.
And the way it could happen best was that he would be reared in Nazareth. It was a despised place.
But that's where the Son of God grew up.
And notice what it tells us here.
Even in those circumstances, the child grew waxed strong in spirit.
Filled with wisdom.
And the grace of God was upon him.
Here was God manifest in the flesh.
There is a child. He went from a baby to a young child.
To a teenager. To a full grown man.
I believe his development was a normal development. It was.
Good.
End.
We read on here in this portion. It says Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover when he was 12 years old. They went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast, and when they had fulfilled the days as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.
00:25:21
But they supposing him to have been in the company when a day's journey, and they saw him among their kinsfolk in acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and his answers.
And when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou dost dealt with us? Behold, thy father, and I have sought thee sorrowing.
And he said, said unto them, How is it that you sought me? Wist he not that I must be about my Father's business? They understood not to saying what she spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them. But his mother kept all these sayings in her heart, And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
We don't have too much recorded about uh.
The Lord's early life.
The 1St 30 years of his life, we don't have that much recorded about it, but here we have something. At 12 years old, he goes with his parents.
To Jerusalem.
To keep the passo.
Now when they go to return home apparently.
They overlooked the fact that.
Jesus wasn't with them.
I suppose maybe they traveled in a caravan and.
Maybe Joseph and Mary, they thought well.
Perhaps he's with one of the groups of young people. You know, I notice that these conferences, groups of young people walking about, and it's so nice. And I'm sure that parents at these meetings don't always know exactly where their children are, but you have.
Uh, not too much concern because of the fact.
You know, they're probably in good company.
Well, they had gone a day's journey and found that.
Jesus wasn't with them.
And so they turned back. And where do they find it?
He's in the temple.
Sitting in the midst of the doctors.
I turn over a couple of pages and I see reference to doctors of the law. I I suppose these are teachers.
Well, this indicated I believe the Lord Jesus at an early age had an interest.
In the word of God.
The Bible was that which attracted him.
And he was asking questions.
And he was listening to the teachers. You know, this, I believe, showed humility on his part. He wasn't trying to take over.
Even at 12 years of age, he could have taken over the temple.
He was the master of the temple. It was his father's house. But no, he shows, I believe, a respect for those that are older.
And we learned lessons, I believe, from the way the Lord Jesus conducted himself.
Well, the parents are rather upset.
But of course, the Lord indicates that He must be about his father's business.
Speaking about God, his Father.
But then we find that there was that submission.
To his parents Joseph and Mary, and it tells us here he went down with them and came to Nazareth.
Went back to Nazareth.
I suppose.
There perhaps is a lesson for us to be learned.
And I speak to myself.
Have I not gone?
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Perhaps a day's journey.
For two days or three days.
Thinking that, well, the Lord is with me, but perhaps I actually lost contact with the Lord.
It's possible, isn't it? We can allow things into our lives.
We can allow sin.
And it spoils our communion with the Lord, and although He does not forsake us, we know that.
We will lose the enjoyment of his companionship.
What do we need to do? We need to go back.
So we're.
We went off the track and confess.
Wrong. Confess our sin.
You know it tells us there in first John chapter one.
That if we sin, well, he's faithful and just if con.
If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and.
The cleanses from all unrighteousness. I believe that's where we need to go.
In repentance and confess our sin.
And that's hard for to do. I mean, the old man can't do it.
The old man in his pride would persevere in a course of self will.
And just keep on going down the wrong path and never really enjoy companionship with the Lord or communion with the Lord again. It's possible for that to happen, I believe. But you know, when we confess our sin and be specific about it, you know, if we set an unkind word or, or we took something that didn't belong to us, make it good, confess it to the Lord.
We don't have to ask forgiveness. It's automatic. He forgives us.
And we can be restored.
To communion with the Lord.
And we can enjoy his company day by day.
Now it tells us later on the chapter here.
52 And Jesus increased.
In Wisdom.
In stature.
And in favor with God and man.
Now he was a young person.
That was well balanced in every respect.
Says he increased in wisdom.
Well, perhaps we could think of that with respect to uh.
His mind.
His mind.
His stature, his physical being.
And it tells us he increased in favor with God.
Here we have his spiritual progress, if we could put it that way.
And then he also increased in favor with man.
Would this be?
In a social way.
You know, there are social graces that God would have us to cultivate.
With respect to.
Our dealings with one another and with those at work.
He wants us to be friends.
And it tells us that in order for one to have friends, he has to be friendly.
Don't want to be facetious, but.
I heard something I didn't forget.
The question was what kind of vitamin do you have to take?
In order to have friends.
And the answer was B1.
Well, let's go to the next.
Incident here.
John Chapter 19, we're going to Fast forward.
The Lord Jesus.
Has grown to manhood.
He's answered on his public ministry.
He's shown how he's able to resist the devil.
They're in the wilderness. He was tempted, but he spoke the word of God. He knew it. He presented it to devil.
00:35:05
And the devil had no more to say.
The Lord Jesus came into this world.
To destroy the works of the devil, he cast out demons.
He.
Fed the multitudes, thousands and thousands and thousands of people hungry. They had compassion on them.
The desire was to meet their needs.
First of all, I believe in a spiritual way and he preached the word, but also he wasn't.
Ignorant, Sir.
He didn't close his eyes to the physical need and he fed the multitudes and it tells us they were filled.
Is there anybody?
That went away from that meal table.
Over there at the dining hall that wasn't filled.
Is there anybody like that?
I know I went away filled.
And maybe some people didn't want to be filled, but I'll tell you one thing. You had the opportunity to be filled. If you wanted to be filled and you weren't, it's your fault. You know the Lord.
He works in a wonderful way to meet the needs.
Of his own.
And impossible he could say, my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
All you need so the Lord Jesus had this beautiful ministry.
And yet we find that he was faced with bitter opposition.
And there were those that would seek to destroy him.
They want to cast them over a Cliff.
What kind of people were they? Religious people?
You know why? Because the Lord Jesus and His teaching didn't fit in with their religion.
And rather than.
Giving up their religion and bowing at the feet of Lord Jesus and accepting him as a way of salvation, No.
They want to get rid of Jesus and hold on to their religion.
And I believe that.
Some of the bitterest.
Strife and conflict.
In the history of the Church of God.
Or shall I say in this world?
Has been religious strife.
Well, dear, once.
No Ortiz S.
Lived a beautiful life.
We're here at John 19 ****.
You don't need to turn to this, I'm just going to read something back here in Luke chapter 4 because this describes his ministry.
It tells us that the Lord.
In Nazareth.
Uh, open the book.
So you can turn to it if you want. This is Luke chapter 4, and he begins to read out of this book. It was the book of the prophet Isaiah.
And it tells us he found a place where it is written. This is what he wrote. Read verse 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And he closed the book.
And so on.
Verse 22 And all bear him witness. And wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.
They said is this not?
Joseph's son.
The Lord Jesus.
He was full of grace and truth.
Of His fullness have we received, and grace upon grace.
00:40:02
Upon grace. How wonderful the grace of God, the hymn writer put it. Lord, it's enough.
Your grace around this pores, it's fast and unexhausted store in all its joy is ours.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So beautiful.
But this was his ministry here.
I think of healing the broken heart. Is there somebody here whose heart is heavy because of some circumstance in your life?
I wanna tell you to Lord Jesus.
Is not all evil, but he's willing to heal your heart.
He can give you peace in your circumstances.
Sometimes he doesn't change the circumstances, but he gives us peace in them and we can enjoy his companionship.
Just as much as if the circumstance was changed.
And somebody said Joy is Jesus.
In you and nothing in between.
Joy, joy.
Apostle Paul, he said, rejoice in the Lord always.
And again I say rejoice. You see, circumstances do change. Circumstances are difficult. But the Lord Jesus is the same yesterday to date forever, and his love for you and for me will never change.
He loves us just as much today as when his hands, his arms were extended, pierced by nails out there on Calvary, on that cruel cross. His love held him up there. His love for you and me has not diminished down through the centuries, and it warms my heart to think about it.
I trust it warms yours too.
Now, with respect to the crucifixion, John chapter 19, what does it tell us?
Verse.
16 John 1916.
Then delivered he that's pilot delivered Jesus therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away. And he bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him and two other, with him on either side, one and Jesus.
In the midst.
How despicable.
How shameful a death that was.
That the Lord Jesus was obedient to. He was obedient even unto death, and that to death of the cross.
But God saw to it in these circumstances that his son was in the middle. I believe that's how Mr. Darby puts it.
He's in the middle.
He was numbered with the transgressors, one on this side, one on the other.
But it was our privilege this morning as we met in the presence of our Savior of what Jesus Christ, to be focused on that center cross.
And to realize that Jesus died for me.
Can you say that from the depth of your heart?
You know.
Many say Jesus died.
Well, that's history, we all know that. But can you say Jesus died for me?
That's salvation.
And so the Lord Jesus was lifted up.
To die.
His hands, feet were pierced.
Crowned with thorns, spit running down his face, his face bruised, his visits so mild more than any man's.
We can't imagine what it must have been like. I.
I know there are those that have sought to depict the Lord's physical sufferings, and I'm told that those that have seen videos to this effect, they've come out so moved even to tears that a man.
00:45:04
Would accept such abusive treatment.
But that's my savior. That's your savior.
We need to keep ourselves in the love of God and over that cross in shining letters we can see.
Written God is love.
So there he was. He died.
We read here too about.
How his blood was shed, his side was pierced, and forthwith came throughout blood and water.
Of course, during those hours of darkness, the Lord Jesus suffered from the hand of a holy God.
He had already suffered.
At the hands of wicked men. Now he was to suffer at the hands of a holy God.
Will never enter into that suffering for sin.
He exhausted.
The the wrath, the fury of God.
There's a scripture back in uh, Nahum.
One and seven. Jonah, Micah Nahum Habakkuk.
This is what it says.
We all know verse 7, but I was noticing the verse before it says who can stand? This is Nahum one and six. Who can stand before this ignition and who can abide in the fierceness?
Of his anger.
His fury is poured out like fire.
And the rocks are thrown down by him. The Lord is good, the stronghold in the day of trouble.
And he knoweth them, they trust in him.
In order that the Lord Jesus might be.
A stronghold, a refuge for your soul and mind.
He bore the fury, as it tells us here, the fierceness of the anger of a thrice holy God.
It happened during those hours of darkness at Calvary. My precious Savior suffered for seeing the chest, for the unjust. What for? To bring us to God.
He was willing to take our place on the cross. I deserve to be on that cross, but he become a substitute.
What a savior Jesus is. He was taken down. He was buried. Chapter 20 of John.
Indicates to us.
How he rose again.
The third day.
And when they came to the tomb, they didn't find him. There in the tomb, he had arisen.
He appears to marry Magdalene, out of whom he had cast 7 devils. Trophy of the grace of God. Marvelous.
That the God of the universe, the Creator himself was willing to become man and in the person of the sun become our Redeemer, our Savior. Now he's risen, he's talking to Mary Magdalene. But then verse 19, it says then the same day at evening being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood.
In the midst.
And saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
This is a picture of the assembly.
And he comes through the doors.
He had a resurrection body go right through doors.
We don't have those kind of bodies yet, but I believe that we'll we'd have that.
Capacity to do the same. Resurrection body might say too, that because the Lord Jesus had a resurrection body doesn't change, you might say, his attitude towards you and to me. You know, the very person that we've been reading about in the Gospels.
Who is flesh and blood?
Is the same person.
In the glory of his flesh and bone.
00:50:04
That's a comfort to my own soul.
And we sometimes sing his love and his loneliness still shine upon his glorious face.
But there we find the Lord Jesus in the midst.
And he shows to them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. Then Jesus said to them again, Peace be unto you. As my Father has sent me, Even so send I you.
Thomas wasn't present. He missed out.
I think Thomas is a picture of the Jewish remnant that.
They will not believe unless they see, but they will see. And they're not going to miss out on all the blessing, but I would say perhaps on the best of the blessing.
Their blessing will be in connection with the Earth.
But it tells us in 26 after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
The Lord Jesus spoke peace during his life.
It was his legacy, and now he's died, but he's risen again. His message is the same. Peace beyond. We can have peace of conscience. We can have peace of heart.
And it's because of what Jesus did on the cross. But notice he's in the midst of his own.
And this is the place where God.
I believe.
Moves by His Holy Spirit.
In the worship, in the ministry.
In my heart, just this morning seemed to be lifted up higher and higher.
Brother gives out of him.
And it seemed like the Spirit of God stirred another brother moved him to give out of him. And we sang, and we sang. It just seemed like we're lifted up.
It's precious.
It's a privilege of the assembly to be where the Lord is and where God has liberty by His Holy Spirit.
To control.
In the worship, in the ministry.
Of course, it's to be a place where there's submission to this book, the Word of God.
I believe that the Lord maintains a place like that on earth. There's always, I believe, a collective testimony.
To the Lord Jesus Christ here on earth.
Now just one got 2 minutes revelation, we've got another.
Seen here where.
Who's the center of attraction here?
You know the answer is Jesus.
There's a question about this book. Who's worthy to open the book to loose the seals? There are verse two a book. I think it has to do with cleansing the world from its evil and introducing.
A system of blessing that God has in mind.
Call it the Millennium, but it's all in connection with the exaltation of Christ.
That's God's purpose, to gather together in one all things in Christ, both that which is in heaven, that which is in earth. But.
The question is, who's worthy to open the book?
And there's weeping.
Until verse 6.
I beheld.
And low in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and 20 elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps.
And golden vials full of odors.
Which are the prayers of Saints? And they sang a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals there up. For thou was slain, and has redeemed us to God by thy blood. Out of every kindred tongue, and people and nation, God has exalted his Son.
00:55:06
Who is it in the midst? A Lamb freshly slain?
God's answer to Christ's rejection here on earth is that He is highly exalted Him, and now he's in the midst of that great heavenly company. Well, as it is in heaven, so be it on earth. That's God's desire.
That the Lord Jesus Christ.
Might truly be.
At the center.
Of our thoughts.
Our ways, our words.
It brings happiness into our lives when this is the case. If you know these things, happy are ye if you do them. And the Lord, He has a path for each of us to travel.
And it worked for us to do, and we don't all do the same work. Lord has a special work for you to do, and there's no one who can do it any better than you that work that He has in mind for you to do.
How we need to look to the Lord about that as to what it is.
David said, Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path. Somebody asked Mr. Darby how can we know the Lord's will and he quoted a verse.
He said the secret of the Lord.
Is with them that fear him.
Pose that fear to bring dishonor upon his name, those that have a desire to honor Him for who he is.
The Lord will tell you.
And the happy path is to walk in obedience to His will.
Faith will save our souls, but obedience to the Word of God will make us happy. So we pray. Father, we thank Thee this afternoon.
That together we could open thy precious word.
Thy written word we thank you for the one of whom it speaks.
I know, dear son, the one of whom thou could say this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. It's been our privilege during these days of meetings to exalt the Lord and to magnify His name together, and we just seek thy help as we go from this place. We know it's perhaps not hard to do at a conference like this, but may we just continue?
To exalt the name, the one who loved us washed us from our sins.
In his precious blood, and that which we say and that which we do, that others might be attracted to the Lord Jesus.
And that's a 2.
Might find joy and peace through believing. So we ask these things now as we give thee our thanks for this time together and commit the balance of the day-to-day for thy further direction. Help the precious and the most worthy name of our soon coming Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
What Is Right in Your Own Eyes
Reward
Gospel 2
Gospel—Al Coleman
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Let's ask the Lord's blessing on His word. Our loving Father, we thank Thee for this weekend. We thank Thee for the precious time we've had over Thy precious word this weekend. And now we just look to Thee for the few moments ahead and this precious gospel message that can still go forth to whosoever will we thank Thee, and we praise Thee and Thy long-suffering heart of mercy, that Thou art still lingering over this world, not willing to initiate, perish. So we pray that if there's one here, that is still.
Lost and in their sins, that tonight they might hear words whereby they might be saved. We just ask you for help as we open thy precious word, and we give you thanks for the privilege of being able to do so. In thy precious and worthy name, Lord Jesus, Amen. I'd like to open first of all, an opening verse, Exodus chapter 15.
Exodus chapter 15, one verse.
And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and we'll do that which is right in his sight, and we'll give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. Then go to Second Chronicles, chapter 36.
Second Chronicles, chapter 36.
Verse 15.
And the Lord God of their Father sent to them by his messengers, rising up at times, and sending, because he had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. But they marked the messengers of God, and despised his word, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy or no healing.
Now go with me to the fifth chapter of John's Gospel.
John's Gospel, chapter 5.
After this was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market, a pool which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches in these Gray, uh, great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, of hull, of withered, waiting for the moving of the waters. For an Angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water. Whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever.
Disease he had, and a certain man was there which had an infirmity 30 and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time. In that case he said unto him.
Wilt thou be made whole? The evident man answered him. Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to get put me into the pool, but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
Jesus says unto him, rise, take up thy bed and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked, and on the same day was the Sabbath. Well, I've just read dear ones here this afternoon thought verse in Exodus 15 and how the Lord told the children of Israel just as about their time when they were going about to.
I go, uh, into the desert and into the promised land. And he and he told them, he said, if you owe a dir diligently hearken to me and be obedient to thee. I will put any of those diseases on you that I put on the on the, on those in Egypt. And but did they hearken and did were they obedient to the Lord knows we can see the history of Israel and the history of mankind down through the ages.
Of how much man has failed. And we went to those verses in on Second Chronicles chapter 36 and we find that they mocked the messengers of God and they misused the prophet until there was no healing. And so we see, and here if we could apply it this way this afternoon, that the gospel has been going forward for 2000 years and since the cross of Christ.
00:05:18
Uh, man has gone downhill, downhill, downhill until today. What have we got today? This world is right for the judgment of God. Man has got so far away from God. And uh, he says, umm, I won't put any of those diseases that I put that that Egypt had. Well, what about today?
Those diseases have happened in this world, haven't they? All I have to mention is just one word, age.
And what a sad scene we have in this world today. And so we come to this chapter here in John chapter 5. And there is this sad scene here. And I think of it, the Lord comes to this to to this pool of Bethesda and.
Bethesda means mercy, mercy, and so I say this that a God who is rich in mercy. I love that those verses in the Hebrews in that Ephesians chapter 2, it says a new happy quick endo are once dead and trespasses in sin. We're in the time past. He worked the current.
According to the course of this world, the Prince and the power of gaire and we, we had our conversation in times past and uh, I'm, I'm not quite right. I'm sorry. But then it says, but God, but God, not wonderful, that wonderful word, but but God who is rich in mercy. And so this wonderful God who is rich in mercy and still lingering over this world today.
And just seeking sinners to come to him today.
The wages of sin is death, but.
The gift of God is eternal life. Think about it, A wonderful God that gave his beloved Son.
The darling of his bosom, God, so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And so we come to this pool of Bethesda. And if you could just picture, OK, there's a circle right in the middle of our room here, and there are five porches around this pool of Bethesda.
And.
And it says in these lay a great multitude of impotent folk of blind, of pulp waiting for the moving of the waters. And uh, let's think of that. What a sad scene it was. And you look at this world today. Isn't it a sad scene in this? What a terrible world we're passing through.
Blind Halt withered, waiting for the moving of the waters.
And the only blessing was there was that an Angel came down at a certain time and troubled the waters. I don't know what happened. Maybe the the waters got got got rippled and the first person that got down there, the only blessing that was there.
If you got down there first, you were healed whatsoever disease you had. And there they are all around this Pooler blind, Halt withered. And you know, I believe that that is the three.
Shall we say stages of a life without Christ? A life without Christ yet first of all.
Satan blinds you, doesn't he? It says in as a second Corinthians 4/4. It says in whom the God of this world that blinded the minds of them that believe not let the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine into him. And so the God of this world blinds you. I know that when I was a young, young man.
And the I just wanted a lot of this great big world and Satan blinded me and those were wasted years in my life. But thank God that the Lord turned me around to find beauty in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blind and then it says how and it cripples a person.
He cripples a person.
00:10:01
And then withered. You know, I see these people all the time where I go.
They're blind. Satan has blinded them and then he cripples them. You can see them. They're on the.
They're sleeping on the side, or you're walking down and there's a big blanket and there they are. They're underneath. And there's another person down the street farther on. He's got a cigarette lighter and a little glass tube and you know what I mean talking about. And there are many of them.
And yeah, and it's so sad to see them all.
What does he need? What do they need? They need Christ. They need the Lord Jesus Christ as their own personal savior. Well, you know, umm, I'm not gonna go on too much with the, with the, with what I'm doing, but.
The the, their soup kitchens all over the place, places where you can go to get a meal and things like that. And is that what they need? They need?
They need the gospel, blind halt with it. They're waiting for the moving of the waters. And so we come to hear one special individual and this man is impotent. He can't do anything, not a thing, not a thing. And he's lying there and think that he had been lying there for 38 years.
38 years, That's a long time.
And you know, the Lord Jesus looked at that person, and he knew how long he had been there.
I'm gonna ask you a question.
Is there a person here this afternoon you've been around through the precious word of God? This weekend has been our lovely weekend. Is there a person here in this room to this afternoon that has been under the word of God this weekend? Enjoyed the fellowship, the meals, everything, and yet you're still lost.
How long are you going to keep the Lord Jesus waiting?
38 years? Oh, I hope not. You know, we haven't got 38 years.
The Lord is coming.
Yeah, the Lord's coming. We haven't got 38 years. I'm waiting for the Lord to come and Take Me Home, put him home with us, just before us.
And he saw the awful condition of that infinite man.
And you know he sees your condition too.
And you saw mine, and thank God that he saved my precious soul.
That's wonder, that's wonderful. He left the heights of glory and came down here into this world 2000 years ago.
To redeem poor lost, fallen man.
And there he suffered on that cross, to think on that cross, that he could cry out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why was he there? He was there on account of my sins.
And thank God that he shed his precious blood for me.
And thank God that I can say that even though I have sinned against God, and the wages of sin is death, and all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, yet I can say that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Not beautiful. My sins are all gone. I'm fit for heaven. The Lord Jesus were to come. What is IT4430 now 25 I'll be there, I'll be there. How about you?
And so here's this infinite man.
And the Lord comes to him, and he says, Wilt thou be made whole?
And he's asking you the same question this afternoon.
By the Spirit of God wisping in your ear, would you like to be saved?
Wilt thou be made whole of all your sins? You want to be saved.
That's the question.
You can be saved.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's as simple as that.
It only says a simple thing. Believe and live. Oh yes, you have to come as a guilty Sinner. You have to realize that you've sinned against him like the prodigal when he came to his father, he said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and I'm no more worthy to be called thy son.
00:15:01
He's the Savior of sinners. This man receiveth sinners and needeth with them. Wonderful, wonderful. And so he comes to this man, and he says.
Will thou be made whole?
And the man says to him, Sir, I've got no man. I've got no man to help me down to that pool. When I while I'm trying to get there, another person comes down before me. And it's a hopeless situation. Yeah, it is. It's a hopeless situation. And you know what this tells me? I cannot save myself. I cannot sell, no, no matter how I try. And I remember trying real hard.
To change my ways. Those people that I meet on the street, they're trying, a lot of them are trying to change their ways, but they can't. They need Christ. They need Christ and I need Christ. I cannot save myself. It's only the finished work of the Lord Jesus on Calvary's cross. Think about how wonderful it was when the Lord Jesus was up in there on that cross and he and he.
Quarter those per those 3 words. It is finished. Nothing left free for for you and I to do, but just to come to him and be saved.
I know, I know. Wonderful, wonderful, uh, message from, from the heart of God didn't ask you to do something. He just says, I want you to come.
Beautiful, beautiful.
He says, Sir, I have no man when the what? And another gets down before me. It's just it's just been an impossible situation. What does he say? He says.
Rise, take up thy bed and watch. Not nice. What a lovely savior. What a lovely savior. I want to tell you, I don't want to ask you this this afternoon.
You know this lovely person, this man who is the fairest among 10,000? This is the person that you and I that belong to the Lord Jesus are gonna see maybe this very afternoon.
Demand, who came to the pool of Bethesda and saw that awful scene there? Who came to heal? Who came to bless? And it's the same one that 2000 years later.
His arms are outstretched. Oh, I say to you this afternoon, if you don't know him, he's saying to you, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. This is the Savior I like to proclaim to you this afternoon. Receive this wonderful person, the Lord Jesus Christ, that he may be Lord of your life. Let's pray.
Loving Father, we're so thankful for thy beloved Son and for what he has done on Calvary's cross.
We thank thee, we praise thee for that Blessed One, that one who is the delight of thy heart, that one whom knock has opened up the heavens and look down upon and say, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And we just exalt that Blessed One this afternoon. We praise and thank thee for what, our God, for what? For sending thy beloved Son, and we thank thee for the precious gift of salvation.
Lord Jesus, we thank Thee and Thy precious and worthy name. Amen.
Open Mtg. 3
Open—H. Vedder, J. Coder, B. Christensen
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Tip #100 and 68168.
The noise is far from.
The line.
The Lord's power.
Reigns and he gave me praying to him, Oh my God.
All right, uh, we can take them to learn two and it's one better day.
Look at the flowers in the house. Listen, we're not going to come back and be here. We can't matter.
What I'm afraid to go out for anything, something.
OK.
Oh yeah.
I just plowed holy.
Time 100 and 501,000 years of life.
And God, I love you all the time. I'm going to put the fire and fire on the fire and fire and fire and fire.
Just read some verses in Luke 24, Luke 24 and verse 15.
It came to pass that while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near and went with them.
And verse 25 he said unto them, O fools, and slow part, to believe all that prophets were spoken.
00:05:03
Not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory. Beginning of Moses and all the prophets he expounded unto them, and all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself.
Good. Thanks, our God and our Father.
Wherever we are in our, uh, state of soul or thoughts of our minds, uh, perhaps our reasonings, uh, whatever it might be, we're thankful that there's one that comes alongside and, uh, our ready to minister thyself to us to set us at ease to.
Uh, bring us into a place of comfort and peace and soul. And so we just do commit this time to thee for thy blessing. And that is the scriptures are open. We might see thee. Lord Jesus, in thy name we give thanks, Amen. Amen, Amen.
I have a subject I'd been on my heart for many years and, uh, perhaps now is time to speak of it once. I'm, uh, glad our brother asked the Lord to do what he alone can do, and that is come to us, walk with us, join us. And we notice most times when the Lord Jesus joined himself to the disciples, there was some bit of.
Correction they took away with it.
Fact. Sometimes it seemed that the disciples couldn't stand to be around the Lord Jesus. Mr. Bellock suggests this in the Moral Glory. He says from its intense Excellency of his moral glory. They hid themselves. Give you a good example? Why did it take 12 men to carry a loaf of bread?
The disciples had gone away into the city that they might buy bread.
I'm just speculating, but I think I see what's going on with the disciples when you're with someone.
Who's constant every action is only perfect with no deviation from that at all when he picks up that piece of paper that you walked over as you walked into the room.
That's not fun.
So Mr. Pellet put it in nice language, and I'm going to take that language and make it understandable from the intense Excellency of the moral glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, the fact that He did everything perfectly. Men, shield away. Let's not shy away from the Lord speaking to us, OK? The subject I want to take up, I don't have time to do so, but I'm going to dive in anyway and give it a try.
We're all familiar with the Scriptures from Deuteronomy 12 and 13.
Everybody familiar with the scriptures there that speak of then there shall be a place.
Anybody here who has not heard those scriptures spoken on?
Sender shall be a place, and we take that correctly to be typical for us, that God has in the present day a gathering Center for His people.
And it's not a physical place like it was with Israel. It is a gathering center, the name of the Lord Jesus.
OK.
Now, we're all familiar with this. Uh, I don't think there's a soul in here who's not heard about one place. And it's a typical picture derived from the Old Testament with a correspondent in the New Testament in Matthew.
What chapter?
18 Woodverse.
20 Thank you. I think everyone here knows that we're two or three are gathered together unto my name. There am I in the midst of them. That was given by the Lord Jesus when He was on earth. And we have felt now for since the early 1820s that that Scripture has particular meaning to us, and that it is the New Testament correspondent of what in the Old Testament was pictured to us as a physical thing.
00:10:02
A place.
OK, now I see not everyone is familiar with this. So guys, you're going to have to listen up. Some of this is going to be new. I want to go beyond that. And in order to do that, I've got to assume, you know that Scripture will read it. And I've also got to assume you know what a type is. When you get a story in the Old Testament, it's mostly a type of the Lord Jesus Christ in some aspect.
And there are so many aspects to the Lord Jesus that we don't have enough stories in the Old Testament to bring it all out. OK, but this is one of the stories in Deuteronomy 12. Now I'm going to begin this by saying I'm going to read that scripture. But before I do, I'm going to read the scripture that I believe ties in with it, that I've gone around and asked a number of.
Guys like myself, older brethren, I'm 67, OK, that's a number of older brethren in different places. I say, where is the Scripture that speaks of every place or?
All places, they say well in Deuteronomy 12 and 13 is replete with references to a place not place and so on, and say well is it scriptural for me to refer to every?
Place instead of the place. It's a scriptural thing for me to say there is.
The scripture says all places, plural, not the place.
Hey brother and wanna volunteer uh here? Uh, tell me where to open up and read that scripture.
Somebody wanna tell me what book it's in?
Nope. Good try.
There's some related things, yes.
It's in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament there's thematic things that are brought out. You know, you learn that if you want a wife, where do you go to? Well, I mean, you learn the themes. You know, things are given right out and things repeat themselves. Words tie themselves together. The scripture is characterized as a living person. And Paul says the scripture foreseeing that Abraham blah, blah, blah. It's a living thing. We need to learn to read the scriptures. And if we have become dull in reading.
So let's, without further ado, turn to Exodus chapter 20.
And keep your finger there and I'm going to flip over from Exodus 20 to Deuteronomy 12 and continue reading. You're going to be amazed that the one plays off of the other.
And, uh, incidentally, I'm using, uh, Mr. Darby's translation is the one I picked up on the way out the door today. Uh, hope you don't mind. Uh, I think we all like a better translation. I do use the King James and would be happy to switch, but I have it here, Exodus chapter 20. And there's only one word difference in the King James and this one here, it's, it really strengthens it. Umm, verse, umm.
I've been a read for the context, uh oh. And just say for the context in case you don't know it in excess. 19 The children of Israel brought near in their first year on the way out from, uh, Egypt, OK, to come to where the place where Moses had seen God on that mountain because God had promised he would bring him there and he'd bring the people there. And God set bounds around the mountain. He said, don't let him come near. I'm going to come down and he got ready and he came down. And what actually happened was you get chapter 20.
God came down in all his glory. They saw him hiding in the not hiding, hidden from them with the obscurity and the darkness and the trumpet sound and the voice of words and the lightning and so on. You know, Jewish tradition would have it that it was written with the finger of God, with white lightning on black lettering and so on. We don't go into that. Scripture doesn't say that. But there was quite a scene so that Moses himself said, I am exceedingly afraid and tremble.
It's not recorded in the Old Testament, but Hebrews tells you that, uh, if I got scripture right, OK, I'll somebody will correct me afterward. I like that. Nice to talk to a group like this. Umm, OK, so God comes down on that mountain and he speaks what are called the 10 words. You call him the 10 commandments because that's what you've been taught to call him since you were a kid. OK? In scripture they're called the 10 words, OK. And it begins with thou shalt love the Lord thy God. And you know the have no other gods before me. Pardon me, I'm, I'm mingling couple, OK.
00:15:08
Now, when he gives that, and this is in the first of those 40 years that they came out, they're camped at the foot of the mountain. He's just given it. Now he starts giving Moses some more things. Let's read, uh, the context from verse. Umm.
22 And Jehovah said to Moses, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have spoken with you from the heavens. Ye shall not make beside me gods of silver, and ye shall not make to you gods of gold and altar of earth. Shalt thou make unto me, and shall sacrifice on it thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, and sheep, and thine oxen.
In all places your translation probably says Every place, same thing. No, no big deal. In every place, all places where I shall make my name to be remembered, I will come unto thee.
And if they'll make me an altar of stone, thou shall not build it of hue. And so and so on. Uh, I don't have to read that. Now flip on over for the continuing narrative. And I'm gonna have to say, guys, if you don't know that the book of Deuteronomy was all spoken in one continuous speech, I read it aloud. We do this in New York. Hour and 20 minutes to read through the Book of Deuteronomy.
From beginning to end without stopping. OK, you can read the book. It was delivered like that by Moses.
To the children of Israel on the banks of the Jordan, as he had been told, you're not going in that land. They provoked him to being hasty and God said you're not going in the land. So what he did instead was he spoke that entire book and people say, well, it's the second giving of the law and there's different things. It's it's Moses and his deathbed, his swan song as it were giving them.
Not only what they had seen and what they had done for that 40 years that they were wandering, but he says, I'm longing to go into that land. And I went to Jehovah and I said, let me see that goodly. Jordan, he said, speak to me no more of the matter. And he thought takes him up to the top of Pisgah and shows him a mountain. Well, in between those two events we have the book of Deuteronomy spoken by Moses to the children of Israel as one continuous speech.
OK. And he takes a different tone in different parts. One part he said that we took our journey here and we went here and it's 11 days journey from there. And the next question says, remember how you're there and you did this and that. You've got to read it that way. When you read it, don't stand there and read this like, you know you can't get it that way. Put yourself in the frame of mind of the person who wrote it and the frame of the mind of the people to whom he intended it to be read out. OK. They didn't have their own copies of Scripture. Each one of you and I have our own copy.
Prior to Mr. Gutenberg's wonderful invention.
Nobody did hear either, but they had a scripture read out to them in a public kind of way. OK, So, umm, what I'm gonna read now in Deuteronomy chapter 12 is Moses saying, OK, guys, I can't take you in. Joshua's gonna take you in. I would love to go there to that land, but I've been forbidden. Now there's things are gonna be very different when you get into that land. The manna is going to cease.
You're going to get a new kind of bread, you never a new kind of food. You're going to partake of old store corn, of the land that wells you didn't dig, crops you didn't plant. It's all there waiting for your land of milk and honey. And he's preparing them for this. And so let's find a place to start that will continue the same tone of what we've just heard. What we read in Exodus was the order for the wilderness.
In every place where they would come for those 38 years from there on, God says whether it's Maratha or Masa or Kibrova or whatever place they came to, God says you build an altar there of whole stones, don't you touch them with your chisel and I will come to you in that place. And he did that. All through that wilderness journey, God was teaching them what was in his heart towards them.
00:20:08
And they were kind of learning what paltry, pitiful stuff was in their hearts in response to God. It's not hard to get picture, is it? It pictures us. It's a type. Let's write. Read right from first verse. And I'm going to read rather rapidly here, so hang on, let me see. These are the statutes and the ordinances which ye shall take heed to do in the land which Jehovah, the God of thy Father's, is giving thee to possess it. All the days that thou shalt live upon the earth. Thou shalt utterly destroy all the places where in the nations which he shall dispossess have served their gods upon the high mountains.
And upon the hills, and under every green tree. And you shall break down their altars and shatter their statues, burn their asheras with fire. And you shall hue down the graven images of their gods, and shall destroy the names of them out of the place, the names of them. Get it? OK. Ye shall not do so to Jehovah your God.
But unto the place which Jehovah your God will choose.
Out of all your tribes to set his name there his habitation shall ye see. And thither shalt thou come, and thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices and your ties and the heave offering your hand. Sounds kind of like Exodus, what we just read, doesn't it? Similar verse. That's why I say you follow themes. It helps you in reading a scripture, uh, and your vows and your voluntary offerings and the first things of your kind of your sheep, and you shall eat there before Jehovah your God.
And ye shall rejoice, ye and your household, in all of the business of your hands.
Where in Jehovah?
Thy God has blessed thee. Ye shall not do after all that we do here this day, everyone, what is right in his own eyes for year not as yet Come to the rest and to the inheritance which Jehovah thy God giveth thee. Watch these four conditions now. But when thou art one gone over the Jordan, 2 Dwell in the land which Jehovah your God causes you to inherit free. When he hath given you rest from all your enemies round about, and you dwell in safety, That's four.
Then there shall be a place. Can I just pause there?
You see the direct contrast while a soul is in the wilderness, God comes down to them, meets them in their circumstance, feeds manna to them.
When that soul crosses the Jordan.
The Manor ceases.
Every condition of life has changed. Moses spends his entire swan song telling them, if not to remember how they were or what lessons they learned, how they were to act in this new condition now.
I don't want to take a lot of time here and we certainly don't have time to develop the subject. I'm just simply going to lay out a few thoughts that way, uh, maybe somebody else will have some thoughts on that and, uh, can, uh, elucidate me a little and correct me a little bit. Goodness knows we all need that. Uh, what I'm going to say is this. When you're taking a picture, a type, OK, We all know the picture of the type of God taking a people from another people, right?
Uh, Abraham was told 400 years, your descendants are going to be, uh, in a land captive and I'm going to bring them out with great spoil. But I can't do it right now because the iniquity, the amorite is not yet full. That is a picture of the people of God being in ******* to Pharaoh in Egypt. Egypt is the world, Pharaoh is Satan. That ******* was broken by what?
So his ******* was broken by Jehovah coming down and saying to Moses, I have heard the groan of the children of Israel and I am come down and Moses said they don't even know your name. Who am I going to tell you is sent me. He says tell them I am actually said sure, I share. Aye, yeah. It it's in Hebrews you come. I'm not a Hebrew scholar. I've learned this in Hebrew. If you take the tense for I am I was.
I will be and put them all together in one pair of syllables you get Yahweh or Jehovah as we've spelled it out. OK, Jehovah gave his new name there to Moses. He said by that name. I wasn't known to Abraham and so on. Tell them I am has sent you so that he comes with this new name. I am tells the children of Israel that hey, something really wonderful has happened. God has appeared to me.
00:25:21
In a burning Bush. And he's promised me that he's gonna come and deliver you. He's heard you're groaning. Well, you know, the human race was groaning for 4000 years, just like that 400 years that Abraham talks about. I don't know if the picture or not, but this is how pictures work in Scripture, OK. And they were groaning. And finally, what happened when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, come of a woman, come under law, that he might redeem.
And so God sent his son the picture of Moses and the picture of Christ. Pharaoh is a picture of Satan. Egypt is a picture of the world. Well then, you say, are the rest pictures too? Yeah, by golly, the Red Sea is a picture, and I'm just going to run by if you're not going to catch it. Red Sea is a picture of Christ's death for you and me.
The wilderness is a picture of the experience we go through in coming to know our God. We don't want to know him. We're like those disciples who say, oh, let's get out of here. We'll go buy a loaf of bread.
Couldn't stand to be around Jesus 24/7. It was too much. We're that way with thought, he said to Moses.
Get up there on a mountain where the God's going to scare us. You know, we've heard all this trumpet and everything. You go talk to him and come down and tell us what he says. Moses says OK, OK, so the wilderness is a picture of our getting to know God. It's that thing that if the Red Sea price dying for us and you came into the knowledge of that is your deliverance from Egypt, that's feral.
The world and Farrell is is Satan.
We've been delivered from that. Well, then the wilderness is a picture too, a type, and that's what it is. And then the third type is the Jordan. We just spread 4 signs. You know, when you, God's given you a restaurant about and your, uh, safety from your enemies and so on. What happened when Christ died? That's what he did. That has won everything for us. But now the thing that's different, when you come to interpret this type, when you go home tonight and read this and try to figure it out on your own, you're gonna have a hard time.
Uh, I had a lot of help from good brethren.
Umm, you're gonna find that the Jordan is a picture of the same event, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and his death there. However, you're going to find in the New Testament, there is a great difference made between.
Christ dying for you, and you're dying with Christ.
Not everyone can say I am crucified with Christ.
That was an experiential thing.
OK.
Anyway, just want to bring before you a little bit that there are three conditions that are typically spoken of in the Old Testament, the people of Israel, in Egypt, in the wilderness and in the land, and those are typical of us.
In Egypt, they didn't even know who their God was until he acted for him and sent Moses.
It's like us, we didn't know who our God was until he sent Christ.
And when he came, we said, oh, you know, And John just attached himself to him. From then on, John was done with everything else. Same with Mary. You couldn't pull her away from Jesus. When you discover who Jesus is, it does something to you.
And then when you find out that he died, you go through what Peter did. It's all over. He moved around for those couple of days not knowing what he had denied his Lord. These things are pictures for us. OK, now that I'm I'm mixing some things here, let me let me recapitulate and get this a little clearer so you can think about it straightly. You're dying with Christ is the Jordan.
Regional writers. I mean, this is not Harvey talking speculations that he speculated. Reid, Darby Reed, Kelly Reed.
Patterson uh, you know, we have a nice heritage. If you don't touch it, hey, you're gonna have to pick it up elsewhere. Hire yourself a guru. You know it. It's better to go to the word and get it straight from there. Because when you get it straight from God, it's going to stick and it's going to help you. It's going to build you up. OK, so we've spoken of those 3.
00:30:11
Pictures in the wilderness.
Uh, in you're, you're in, not in the wilderness, 3 pictures of the people of God. You're in Egypt and your food there finally becomes a Passover lamb. You're in, uh, uh, the wilderness. Your food becomes immediately the manna, but the manna ends at the end. You get into the land. You have the old horn of the land, as King James puts it, or the store corn as the modern translational give it the, the stuff that they had.
Raised in the land and put in storage and Israel had just come in and took it all prepared. They didn't have to do anything. Umm OK so those 3 pictures, uh, read CHM. Anybody ever hear of Chapter Macintosh? One of the old writers? He said something like this. As to the fact I am in Egypt, as to experience, I am in the wilderness, as to faith, I am in the land.
Uh, yeah, again, I said I'd quit and I will quit here. It, it gets a little bit, uh, difficult if you've never done types before in your life and opened this up and said, oh, here's a story. What does it mean? And tried to figure it out. What's Jonah really a picture of, you know what Sampson, really a picture of in the New Testament? If you haven't done that, you can have some difficulty. But, uh, those three conditions as to the fact I'm in Egypt, I can't deny it. My body is right here on earth. I had to eat today.
I had a drink. I have to breathe, OK, that I'm in the world. You can't deny it. You take a knife to my blood, shut it out. I'm dead, OK. I can say by faith is no longer I that live, but the faith of the Son of God, you know, and he's loved me and given himself for me and I have eternal life. And I believe that. But that's true to me, to my faith. The fact is I am in Egypt and the government, the the.
Proper protocols of a person who's yet in Egypt.
Is obey the authorities until you're let out. And the guy who did that would say, oh, I can't go back and make bricks for Feral. But, you know, that's just drudgery. And they make us work harder. And the other guy would say, hey, you know, this guy Moses has said, we're going to be out of here in days. All I have to do is a couple more days of making bricks. I'll do it. And he goes back with renewed vigor and he makes bricks for Feral. Guess what we're doing? You guys are going to college to learn how to make bricks for Pharaohs for a world that's already been condemned.
And just the date of its execution is not there yet. So as in fact, we're in the world. I can't deny that. As to experience what am I feeling every day. I fail today. I'm failing now. I can't put in words what I would love to bring out of my heart and bring from the heart of the Lord Jesus down to you and me as our brothers prayed. I can't do it because I haven't learned enough in the school of God. Well, thank God for the wilderness in my.
Experience. Day by day, I'm in the wilderness.
So now when you go and you read about he broth, Hatta have a graves of Lust and Tibera and all these places with the long Hebrew names, you're going to find some meaning to them because it can relate right to you. It's your experience that you go through day after day. Now to faith. We're in the land. Let me give you an example of that. Remember Caleb, Joshua, remember the 12 spies they sent in to search out the land and 10 of them come back with a bad reversal. Oh man, we're like grasshoppers in the sight of those giants cities, walls of heaven. You can't do anything. Let's go back to Egypt.
And Caleb and Joshua, they say the land is wonderful, flowing with milk and honey. Let's go on in. The same God that delivered us through the Red Sea and the wilderness is going to take us on in.
That's faith. OK, as to faith, I am in the land and I'm no longer eating the manna. I'm no longer eating the Passover lamb. I have a remembrance. And you know, celebrity Lords, they certainly we're going to come together here and we're going to remember the Lord. But to one who has gone on, there is a whole different order of things. Now, I submit to you real quickly and I'll close with this.
Those of you and I'm going to turn away from the younger one thing and speak to the older ones and the leaders.
Umm, we have.
00:35:00
The words of uh, brother that we all respect. I won't say his name about 40 some.
Yeah, about 47 years ago.
He was visiting me when I first met my wife in New York and we had just gotten married, just gotten saved, met two wonderful people in New York, the Lord Jesus Christ and my wife. He visited with us that he said Harvey, I had written something he says Have you ever considered that most error is 1 sided truth?
I said no, I never thought about that. Well I've thought about it pretty much since then. Look at most of the systems of error. You will find a germ of truth there, but it's one sided and pressed to the exclusion of other. OK, we don't want to be unbalanced. 1 sided. The two sides that we need older brethren is every place.
And a place.
A place becomes a moral necessity for a soul who is actually gone on through the wilderness. He's come out of Egypt. He knows what the death of Christ for him has done. He knows what's in his heart. He knows what the death, his death with Christ is all about. That's the Jordan. He now has four things before him. When ye are at rest in the land, and from all your enemies, and Jehovah's cause you to dwell in safety, then there shall be a place.
You don't tell a soul in Egypt, let's say some simple believer I meet every day on the street, somebody in a Catholic Church. They know nothing of what you and I are enjoying here in a way of spiritual wealth. They know something that yet Jesus is going to Get Me Out somehow. That's faith in Jesus, his person. They don't know nothing about his work. A soul like that is in Egypt, and they have not come to the wilderness because they've not gone through the Red Sea. They've not realized that Christ's death, that he died, was good for them.
And applying the value of that blood to them changes their whole condition. They're no longer under the power of Satan in Egypt. OK, we don't tell a soul in.
The Wilderness.
Uh, what wonderful big clusters of grapes are on those eshkol that's come at the end of the journey? Oh no, I'm sorry. That did come in the beginning of the journey and they refused it. You don't tempt someone in a different state of soul.
With what can only be theirs when they've gone on. Those who have gone on and actually believed in Christ.
And then walked with him and then found out why Paul switches and says I instead of we. We know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly sold under sin. Romans is riddled with that. When he says I, it's personal experience and you've got to make it your own. The weeds are for all of us. We know that God is good. You know, we know God's love. We know we love God when we love the brethren, all the wees. But when you come to Paul's eyes, you've got to make them your own.
And in one sense it's true what our leaders have told us, that every soul has been given all blessings in this heavenly places in Christ. So we're seated in the heavenlies. But believe me, it does no good to probably 2/3 people in this room right now have no idea of what we're talking about in Ephesians 6. Because in Ephesians 6 we're getting into warfare. Do you realize there was no warfare in Egypt?
There was number warfare in the wilderness. All you had was a skirmish with the Amalekites who picked on what lag behind. You only get warfare in the land and to tell people who have never come into the land what it's like to fight the warfare.
I'm sorry, I don't believe it's intelligent.
The Lord Jesus taught us to give.
Meat suitable to the occasion and he talks about servants who beat the other fellow men, servants and maidservants and failed to give the household when he's gone meet do.
For what they can take in. OK, so I want to confess my failure in this. I've seen these things for many years, not been able to speak of them. And I want to bring before the brethren and say let's consider what we have done. We've been beating people over the head with truth that presumes.
00:40:07
That you've come out of Egypt, you're still not hankering there in your soul. They've been through the wilderness experience.
That you've come over to Jordan now and realize that not only Christ have to die for you, but you have to die with him. Whole different light and read the old brethren on this. And it's not stuff that I'm I'm percolating up out of my own head.
We need to feed the people of God with meat such as they can take in.
So to my older brother and I say, receive the word of exhortation to my, uh, younger ones.
Read the book.
Read it together. When you don't understand, ask the question.
God will come in and give you what you could not get in any other way. Thank you for your listening.
Uh 156,000 5.
Umm.
All right. Welcome.
To anything right?
Yeah.
To follow me.
Umm, I think.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Umm Oh my God, 68, 2011.
Is there anything else?
Or anything.
All right. Good day, my soul.
All right, so.
You're getting yourself in my head. We're almost going to receive.
I don't want to go to bed.
Oh my God.
It's allergic to anything.
00:45:00
You have anything like that? Medication or normal 100%?
Lord, Beast of Lord, I had one of them honored and.
Anything else?
Lord, we were Shasta or I'm connected or not. I'm trying to find out what you're doing. Anything.
All right. Thank you so much.
For anything more, everything.
We need ourselves to give anything to believe you're in the past.
Yeah.
Did you hear me about that?
10-4 Did you see anything?
That's quite a song, isn't it? Quite a message.
Jesus gave himself for me.
What have I given to him?
What have we given to him?
Failure on every hand.
And you know why we have failure on every hand.
Turn with me to the 119th home.
One thing we can be sure of, there is no failure.
And this one that gave himself for us.
The failure is all ours.
And when I think of young people growing up and becoming mature in this land today.
It certainly breaks my heart.
Because I know I'm not gonna be here much longer.
But you got your whole life ahead of you if the Lord tarries.
There's only gonna be a few versus.
I want them to go into my heart and into your heart also.
119 songs.
1St 10.
With my whole heart.
Have I sought the?
Can any of us in here stay with our whole heart?
We've.
I know I can. Oh, there's been times when I maybe made a little mark.
But are we playing the game, or are we in serious business for the Lord?
And you young people, you certainly have my prayers, and I'm sure you have the prayers of many in this room.
Because you got a battle ahead of you, as we had this morning. How I thank God for that meeting.
I can't do what you young people can do.
I can pray for you. I can ask God's strength for you to put that armor on that we were talking about this morning, and I love that.
Man I love that meeting also.
Where talks of the remembrance meeting.
My own personal belief is that's the greatest meeting that we have gathered. We have gathered, Saints have.
And I left it for 14 years.
Because I couldn't get along with my brother.
That's all been forgiven.
And we can thank God that our sins can be forgiven.
00:50:05
But with my whole heart.
Have I sought thee?
Oh, let me not wonder.
From his commandment.
That's one of his commandments.
Was this due in remembrance of me?
And I heard of a ******* preacher not too many months ago.
When accosted by a friend of mine, a brother and the Lord in California, and he asked that pastor why? Because he had just got done preaching a stirring message.
And he said, why have don't you remember the Lord on the first day of every week like he had requested?
And that preacher says.
And a very smile part.
You make it too common.
How can we ever say for one minute that the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ could be too common?
All that my heart might be touched with. Love in your heart also.
Love Hoyer, Jesus said. It starts in US.
A new commandment I give unto thee that she love.
That she loves one another.
They don't see much of that kind of love anymore.
I told someone earlier today that when I was the little boy, I didn't come from a Christian family.
But we weren't allowed to go out and play on the Lords day.
We weren't allowed to make any noise or any frailty.
We had to be quiet.
Well, we're not under law, are we? But the Lord's Day is the Lord's Day.
And I think that message.
That our brother gave earlier on the Lord's Day was a stirring message from my heart, and I hope it was for yours also.
With my whole heart.
Have I served thee?
We have so little time to love and serve the Lord.
We have so little time.
To read and learn His word.
I've been working in a nursing home.
For the last several months.
And you don't know what time is all about until you go in a nursing home.
Because so many people.
Have so little time.
So little time.
But so did the thief on the cross.
Who rebuked the other thief and said we're getting our just desserts?
But this man.
Have done nothing amiss.
And he turned, and he said to the Lord three of the greatest words he ever could have said.
Lord, Remember Me.
And Jesus said, Today thou shalt be with thee, with me in paradise.
And I didn't get up to make a message for the young people, but you're on my heart.
You're on my heart because I know the battle you have ahead.
But just remember one thing.
Commit your life.
To Jesus Christ.
Have a desire within your heart to live and to serve Him.
He'll do the rest. God bless you all.
Might we very briefly look at a portion in the New Testament and then go back to the 119 Psalm?
In Second Corinthians chapter 6.
The apostle Paul says.
O ye Corinthians.
Our mouth is open unto you.
Another place the apostle Paul said that he did not shun to declare or make known unto them the whole council of God.
00:55:16
But then he says at the end of the 11Th verse.
Our heart is enlarged. Our heart is enlarged.
Well, in a medical sense, when a person has an enlarged heart.
There are problems.
In a spiritual sense.
When a believer has a large heart, it's something to be commended, isn't it? And so the apostle Paul goes down in verse 13 and says now for a recompense in the same.
I speak as unto my children.
The apostle Paul had to speak very faithfully to the Corinthians. There were things that were in disorder.
But there was still.
A heart of love.
Here in this chapter, addressing the Corinthians, I speak unto you as children.
And then he says.
Be ye also enlarged. So he not only expressed the fact that his heart was enlarged to them, but he felt a necessity of them having an enlarged heart. How could that be expressed?
In love to the Apostle Paul and appreciation.
Four. Perhaps what the Apostle Paul had suffered, perhaps in appreciation for the apostles faithfulness.
Perhaps in appreciation.
And love for their fellow brethren. And I believe that that would be a practical way to display or to show forth an enlarged heart. Now if we go to Psalm 119.
Verse 26.
The psalmist says, I have declared my ways, and thou hearest me, teach me thy statutes. As I has been mentioned many times before, we have the word of God brought before us. In every verse of the 119th Psalm perhaps a different word is used, statutes, word, commandments, but each verse in the Psalm brings before us.
The word of God.
In verse 27 it says, Make me to understand the way of thy precepts. Make me to understand.
And the New Testament, we have a corresponding verse, I believe if there is a lack of understanding, there is a way to get it, isn't there? Let's just turn briefly to the book of James holding our place in Psalm 119, the book of James.
1St chapter, fifth verse. It says if any of you lack wisdom.
And I'm the 1St to admit that often.
I've done things that were not wise. I thought things that were not wise.
But where are we to go?
To see the bounds, to see the boundary, to get that necessary wisdom says, let them ask of God that giveth to all men.
Liberally.
Here's a resource often unavailable.
Let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.
Let's go back to Psalm 119.
Verse 29 removed from me the way of lying, and grant me thy law graciously.
01:00:02
I have chosen the way of truth. Thy judgments have I laid before me.
I have stuck unto thy testimonies. Award. Put me not to shame.
I will run the way of thy commandments.
When thou shalt enlarge my heart.
In the New Testament portion that we read, the apostle Paul could speak about his heart being enlarged. He desired that the Corinthians have in large parts.
Here the psalmist expresses a desire.
For his heart to be enlarged.
Well.
I believe.
One portion of God's word that we could read that will help us.
Enlarge our hearts towards our brethren.
Is the first epistle to John.
We have a wonderful balance in God's precious work.
We have Paul's ministry, which we certainly appreciate.
Which is valuable.
We have Peter's ministry, but let's not forget John's ministry.
Let's just turn to a few verses.
And the epistle of John, first John.
No, love begets love.
When someone shows us love.
There's a tendency for us to reciprocate and show it back, give it back, isn't there?
Well, we have in John's epistle we involve not only we love him.
But we love. Why? Because he first loved us.
And that's the example that we can follow, is it not?
And that will help us often put things in the proper perspective. We're just going to read a few verses.
And the first official of John.
3rd chapter.
Verse 14.
We know.
That we have passed from death unto life because we involve the brother.
This manifests in our ways.
Do we express this practically?
I speak to my own soul.
Verse 16.
Hereby perceive.
We the love of God. Why? Because He laid down His life for us.
Verse 18.
My little children, here we have the word children again, the Apostle Paul.
Spoke to the Corinthians as his children here, John.
Is using similar words, my little children, let us not love in Word, neither in tongue, but indeed and truth.
Verse 23 And this is His commandment that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and loved one another as He gave us commandment.
And if we went on to the next chapter, we would find similar verses.
We look at verse 19, we love him or we love because He first loved us.
It was a little piece of poetry on the Christian's calendar.
For the 4th of September that made quite an impression on me.
And I kept it.
By my chair.
The dining room table and I've looked at it every day.
Since the 4th of September.
01:05:02
Read something like this. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another.
Fenny man have a quarrel against any.
Even as Christ forgave you.
So also ye do.
Then there's a piece of poetry.
Gov is desirous for the gain of another.
Love suffers long.
With the fault of a brother. And we don't have to look very far to find faults in our brethren, do we?
My brethren don't have to look very far to find faults in me.
Love giveth water.
To a cup that's run dry.
Love reaches low as it can reach high.
Seeks not her own.
At expense of another.
Love is of God. When it reaches our brother, well may we all desire to have our hearts enlarged.
We sing #2 in the appendix.
And my.
I'm.
Oh.
My God, there in the beginning.
01:10:29
Umm, and the first time I'm getting back in my eyes and then 181,000 I saw a shadow of a Graham.
That we are thus privileged to be gathered like this.
Around the darling, as I told them, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's difficult for us to understand why thou would love a touch tone.
But it's not difficult to believe.
We just would ask Father that we might be touched within our hearts.
We surely are unworthy of my love, Father.
But after looking to the cross and seeing that Blessed One taking our place in judgment.
That we might not perish, but have everlasting life.
How come we say anything? But The thing is, author, thanks for giving the darling of libosum.
Thine only begotten stuff.
Who is Willingham?
Take my place in judgment.
And I do thank thee, Lord Jesus, and I thank thee, Father, for the gift of gifts.
Eternal life.
Through Jesus Christ, of course, and his precious things. I can read that.
Stop.
Open Mtg. 7
Open—P. Hadley, J. 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.
Number 166.
I know.
I'll try my best to take your whole life toward the end.
Northern Ireland.
What?
Between now.
And God, thy nigh night, ah.
By head.
I'm afraid of life went hard when love.
Oh my goodness, yeah, I want to breathe with the damage.
Our strength on the shield, our day of our own.
Before.
God from God.
I can change up all my prayers.
Today.
I'm sleeping. Glad you know.
That you know, How are you eating? How are you?
I can learn murderers living in the hell because I can't disturb them.
Malachi, chapter one.
Verse one.
The Burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
I have loved youth.
Then chapter 3 verse verse 10.
Bring me all the ties into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough.
To receive.
OK, loving God and our Father, we thank you for this time we've been able to have together this weekend to enjoy the the truth that was given to us and.
Thank you for, uh, others of light precious faith that we can go over these things with and to think on these things and.
You think of the meeting ahead of us, Just pray for liberty.
That are.
Our spirits will be restrained, and that by spirit would have liberty and.
We thank thee, our God and our Father that are the kind God and a loving God and we we have confidence that there will be a blessing this afternoon. So we look to be for help. Independence on me. We ask this in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Hey.
00:05:06
Let's look.
At the last verse in the Book of Judges.
It's a verse, that is.
Repeated many times.
I believe this is. I think this is the last time it's found in the Bible.
It says.
Chapter 21. Verse 25. In those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which is right in his own eye.
Hi.
I'd like to suggest that this is a condemnation.
And yet it doesn't say people did what was wrong. They might have done things that were right.
But the condemnation was they did what was right in their own eyes.
And the sad thing remarked here that there was number king in Israel. That is, there is nobody to keep control of things. There's nobody in charge.
You know.
You and I gather.
In such a way.
We don't have a Pope.
There's no king amongst those gathered to the Lord's name. We could be guilty of the same thing that these people and the judges were guilty of if we're not careful because we don't have somebody in charge to get things straightened out.
When we goof up.
There's a verse that we just had, I think last week in our Mount Tabor reading.
Says all unrighteousness is sent. That's in first John 5. All unrighteousness is sent.
I think we understand that. That is, if you do bad things, that's sin.
That we understand.
Well, there's a verse earlier in First John that says or should be translated. I understand sin is lawlessness, that is.
Sin is acting without reference to the law or to God.
In other words.
Maybe I'm driving down the highway and I'm driving 60 miles an hour.
In a 65 mile zone. And I'm not doing it because the law says that I'm doing it just because I think it's safe.
That's lawlessness.
It doesn't. I'm not breaking the law, but I'm doing what I think is right without reference to the law.
Now it's even worse. We find when.
When you do it, when you send against the law.
But the point I'm bringing out is.
Right or wrong?
People were wrong because they were doing it without reference to God and without reference to authority.
Now we're back in the book of judges.
In chapter 17 we have this.
This same.
Statement. It's in verse 6.
In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
That is in connection with idolatry.
Everybody knows. I think everybody here knows idolatry is wrong.
But you know what?
The people that did this send didn't know it's wrong.
In fact, it's not like they're worshipping Baal or somebody else. The worship of idols like that didn't come in to Israel until Ahab introduced it.
They're worshipping Jehovah with idols.
They had them as they were making a mistake as to how God would judge things, but they had no king to tell him what to do.
00:10:04
And so they did it the way they thought they ought to do it.
And then in the next chapter we find something a little bit different. Chapter 18 and verse one, there is no king in Israel. Now it doesn't say that every man did that was right in his own eyes, because in chapter 18 they're doing something they knew was wrong.
They we find out that the idolatry spread, and we find out that.
They're gonna go and kill a bunch of people and take their land. They're gonna set up the idols and they're gonna steal these idols that they did steal the idols and they can set them up after they wipe out a a tribe. They knew they shouldn't be stealing those idols.
But yet they're still worshipping those idols, let's say as I understand it here.
Thinking of Jehovah.
The God.
But they it doesn't say they did. That was right in their own eyes because they knew it was wrong to steal those idols.
Then in chapter 19 the same thing happens or similar thing happens.
It says in chapter 19 verse one, and it came to pass in those days when there was no king in Israel that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of money from and so on. And then we have a story of the concubine that was.
Rate.
Killed.
There's no king in Israel. There's no control over the immorality that was spreading there.
Doesn't say that they did. That was right in their own eyes. They knew what they did was wrong.
But the conclusion of the whole book of judges is that which we had before, that they were doing that which is right now on us.
And as I say.
What could be wrong with doing what's right?
What you think is right, That's what all mankind asked of his fellow man. Do what you think is right.
But there is something wrong with that and there's.
Something wrong with that?
That you and I need to be very much aware of.
It's interesting to me that the first reference to that.
A statement is not in the book of.
Judges, but in the book of Deuteronomy.
It's in the chapter that was referred to yesterday.
Chapter 12.
And in Deuteronomy chapter 12.
We often refer to the verse that was referred to, verse 13. Take heed to thyself, that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place where thou seest, but in the place where the Lord shall choose, in one of thy tribes. There thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings.
That we understand.
There's a place that God would have us to worship.
But earlier in that chapter it says.
And verse 8.
Umm, ye shall not do. After all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.
For you not come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God liveth you, but when you go over to Jordan and dwell the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit.
When they give you rest from all your enemies and so on, and and that goes on to say when you offer your sacrifices, then you'll do that in that one place that God has set up.
So it seems to me.
That here in this first instance of this statement.
And we find it, and judges also.
That doing that which was right in your own eyes was connected.
Especially with spiritual things.
We're not to do that which is right in our own eyes.
We find often that we disagree with our brethren.
00:15:01
Is that not true?
You might find that you disagree with your parents.
I did from time to time.
Wife might find that she disagrees with her husband. I don't think there's many wives here that would disagree with that.
I have often seen.
Myself and others disagree with what our government does.
I've had occasions in my life when I have disagreed with assembly actions.
Actions that I heard about had that had gone elsewhere.
What becomes us if we do that which is right in our own eyes? And why is it that God, we might say, emphasizes this so much? Not to do what's right in your own eyes? It's really very simple, I think.
Because you and I can't get on together if we all do what we think is right.
Because you and I are going to come at some point to something that we should we do that which we disagree on and we're going to have to separate. And I'm going to say the word of God says this. And you're going to say the word of God says that and.
We're gonna have to separate from each other.
Which we already know is not according to the Word of God.
And I think I could say that almost all divisions start out with a failure in love for our brethren, failure to obey the one and only new commandment that God has given that the Lord Jesus gave us to love one another.
But even then you wouldn't have a division.
The vision, the division. The division proceeds because.
We do that which is right in our own eyes.
So what is it that's better than doing what's right?
What we think is right.
I know you hear you hear about a a dispute someplace and you want to get all the evidence.
What happened?
Who did wrong first?
What does the Word of God say about?
This or that stage of the wrong that's been done.
And we began to analyze it and the whole thing is wrong.
The whole thing is wrong because we're setting about.
To do that was right in our own eyes, to make our decision as to which side to choose on any given subject, whether it be.
A division or whether it be a decision to make on some other matter, you know, there's all kinds of things that come up all the time.
Discipline.
Uh, whether they have a conference, uh, you, you could make a long list of things that we could think about and, uh, maybe disagree on in our, as we talk about things together.
So what's the better way? How many times when we hear about something?
That we want to know the details about.
How many times do you and I condemn myself?
Failed to ask what can I be submissive to here?
What am I to submit myself to?
Yes, Christians are to be watching and waiting.
There to be working for the Lord where to be worshipping.
And we should be submitting. We are. Christians are meant to be submitting people.
You know, if I was a kid and my dad says I think we should go this way on this subject and.
Uh, I thought I I don't think that's right.
I can be right even if my dad is wrong.
When I go along with them.
Because I'm doing it because I'm submitting to them.
I've sometimes heard of.
Divisions and families were.
Say the husband leaves the assembly.
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And the wife, it said, stands firm.
I don't think I admire that.
She could be right, but then wrong.
Because she hasn't submitted. Now sometimes it's not a matter of submission. Many times they agree that's fine and the wife has permission to to continue or the child has Conti permission to continue. But where there is rebellion in the family, you can be wrong when you're right, or you could be double wrong. It could be wrong in the decision.
And you could be wrong and your failure to submit.
So I asked myself when a.
When a matter comes up.
What is it that I can submit to?
Is there something that I can submit to?
Maybe there's a question as to?
Uh, where the authority is in the assembly, there's two factions that say.
We have the authority and the other folks don't.
I don't know what to do. What am I meant to do? Start gathering the evidence? See who did the wrong thing first?
Have I looked for what I should submit to?
I said I submit to the word of God, yes.
I submit. But then both sides claim that they've got the word of God behind them.
I submit to assembly authority, yes.
But then both sides, they say they have it.
And as one person saying to another, that the testimony of two different sides.
What happens if I make my decision? Somebody else comes to another conclusion?
We have a division.
We have a division because.
Maybe hundreds of miles away.
Uh, one assembly makes 1 Chooses one side, another assembly chooses the other.
Because they did that which is right in their own eyes, and who wants to do what's wrong?
Do we have any scriptural authority to do anything other than that?
What about in the Book of Numbers where there's a man who dies in the field?
They measure to find the nearest city.
And that that city has the responsibility. Do we not learn any lesson from that?
I remember.
About 25 years ago, there was schism in New Jersey.
And I got a call. I got I think 4 calls.
From Norman Berry.
And he said to me, Brother Paul.
What do the local brethren think?
Brother Paul, what do they think? What does a local brethren think about this?
And he'd say, Paul, pray, pray.
I got 4 calls and they all had that message in them. Pray, pray what do they? What are the local brethren think? He said.
You know, I didn't know for, I think 10, maybe 20 years afterwards that he did not agree with what was coming down in New Jersey.
He felt the other side was right.
But he wouldn't tell me that.
He was.
He knew that there was authority in nearness.
The the authority of nearness that overrode overrode his opinion on subjects.
I say that this fundamental principle.
Doing something that's right in your own eyes.
That is where we have failed.
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Often.
And uh.
At every point it is for a Christian to ask what he can be submissive to.
And there's times when it's simply the word of God. I agree.
Well, let me leave it at that, but.
It says sin is lawlessness.
And I think.
That we can say that just about the definition of sin is lawlessness.
In first John.
Is that last verse that we have in the book of Judges doing that which is right in your own eyes, not wrong?
And that was just right in your own eyes and his lawlessness.
I know we only have a few minutes here and.
I don't propose to, uh, give any long lecture, but just a few verses that.
Might be, uh, helpful to our souls. Umm.
I'm thinking of uh.
The subject of reward, which is.
Too large and extensive to, uh, developing, uh, short time.
But it is a distinctive, uh, truth of Scripture. Uh, there's various, uh, verses that bring before us the subject of reward.
Paul said that he wanted to finish his course with joy and to fulfill the ministry which the Lord had given him to to accomplish. And we know that the apostle Paul did that. He said, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the court, my course. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me in that day.
Now, reward is not, uh, uh, a motive for our service. I think we, uh, are clear about that. It's often been, uh, pointed out, it's not a motive for service, but it truly is an incentive, an encouragement because God has given us various talents.
He has entrusted us with, uh, abilities, with a work to do, a burden to bear. Every man has his work, his place to fulfill in the body of Christ.
A work that is different than anyone else's, but you can be happy in that work the Lord has given to you, not a question of.
Coveting someone else's position or work. God has put you in the body and He's given that member and office to fulfill. It may not be in the public sphere prominent we tend to have our umm judgment formed by the platform that is those who are able to.
Deliver an address publicly, uh, are looked up to, uh, more so than others. But Scripture doesn't, umm, quali doesn't support that thought. Every one of us is a servant of the Lord. Every one of us has a work to do. And we read in First Corinthians 3, every man's work shall be made manifest for the day she'll declare it.
Verse 13. Because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
That is the judgment seat of Christ.
Which takes place after the rapture, after we are present with the Lord, our lives will be reviewed. I've often said our sins will never be brought up to condemn us. They're buried in the sea of God's forgetfulness, in the depths of the ocean. But our works will be brought up. They will be resurrected to be manifest, not for condemnation, but for reward or for loss.
How a child of God will suffer loss at the judgment seat of Christ I do not know, but the Scriptures.
Say clearly, If any man's work abide which he have built, thereupon he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire. Lot is the prime example. There he was a Christ, a believer. He was a righteous man that vexed his soul every day by the filthy conversation of Sodom.
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Trying to change, uh, the the character of that wicked city where he should never have been.
But he wanted to improve the world, and he sunk down to the level of the world, and he lost his testimony and lost his family, and he was just saved by the skin of his teeth.
A saved soul, a lost life. None of us, I am sure, want to end our Christian pathway in that way. But it's possible.
We want to have a life that will TE that will tell for eternity, that will glorify our Lord Jesus here in this world and abide into that coming scene, regardless of how small the service may appear in the eyes of men. God has recorded in the book of Remembrance everything you have done for Him, as we said.
The debit side has been canceled, but he's added adding to the credit side there in that in the records, the annals of eternity, he is umm, recording every.
Act of devotedness to the Lord. This morning we had the remembrance. Beautiful meeting.
And the sisters did not publicly participate. That would be disobedience to the Word of God.
But they are an integral part of the meeting, and every thought on the Lord this morning was recorded, whether it be by sister or brother, every thought. Malachiah, chapter 3.
And so let us remember that.
We are living lives in view of eternity. I've been studying the book of Ezra and Nehemiah lately, and you'll see some long, tedious lists of names that sometimes don't mean very much to us. We pass over them rather quickly and find it kind of laborious to read them. But you know, there's a lesson in those names, those people who left Babylon, that city of idolatry, and made the long journey.
Because they value the name of the Lord Jesus. And they took that journey to Jerusalem and found it in a state of ruin. But they obeyed the word of the Lord, and they desired to be where He had placed His name. Not everyone from Babylon returned. Their names are recorded there, the book of Ezra and Nehemiah. God took notice of that sacrifice, of that desire to be.
Where he was.
To act in accordance with His word.
To be restored to the ground of the truth, we might say. And so it is today. We are a feeble remnant at best, but God values every.
Uh, every act of devotedness, your presence at the meetings.
Is a joy to the heart of God will be rewarded while at a conference like this, as our brother Wally mentioned, our hearts are uplifted. It seems that, uh, we're drawn more to the Lord and to one another in the bonds of Christian fellowship. And it seems easy to go on for the Lord when we're sitting in a conference like this. But we're going back, brethren, to our home meetings. It may be very small.
Week after week, the same, uh, little company, probably not much gift that's not so important anyway. But uh, there's not the, uh, the numbers, uh, to encourage us and support us, but the Lord is the same young people, your meeting may be very small, maybe only a handful, and you might not have the fellowship that many have in the systems around us with all their activities.
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The Lord values your faithfulness in remaining there week after week. That's when the test comes. The Lord is the same when you get back home to your home meeting as He is right here in the conference.
Will be encouraged to press on and to be there present.
As often as possible. You know, I can remember in my earlier years of being gathered in Ottawa, certain brethren that, uh, they weren't, uh, gifted, they, uh, didn't take a lot of parts, uh, publicly in the meeting. They didn't seem to have that ability.
But, uh, their presence there, their warm handshake, their faithfulness.
In being, uh, attending the meetings.
Through thick and thin was a great encouragement to me. I won't mention names, but uh, what do we contribute to the meeting where we are And we, we come looking for something, but uh, let us be exercised to contribute something in your presence at the meeting is a contribution in itself. I was just thinking to close because time has gone that in Revelation 19.
We won't take time to dwell upon it in any at any length, but you remember that, uh, the marriage supper of the lamb is mentioned here and, uh, details given of that, uh, appearance of the bride in all her beauty.
There, umm, after the judgment seat of Christ, when our lives will be manifested, the rewards will be given. The crowns will be apportioned only to be thrown at the feet of our blessed Lord, but the rewards will then have been, uh, provided. But notice.
Verse seven. Let us be glad and rejoice. Give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteous. This should read the righteousnesses of Saints.
There she is in all her bridal beauty, and that fine linen, clean and white, is the righteousness of Saints here. It is not divine righteousness which we possess through the work of Christ.
Our righteousness that we stand in before God, perfect and accepted. This is not the righteousness mentioned here. This is our conduct in this world, our our works, our good works that we may have forgotten about.
Doesn't matter if you forget about it. God will not forget your work and labor of love. He does forget our sins, but He won't forget our work and labor of love. And so here the bride is displayed in all her beauty. But what is that beauty? It's what she has done in this world. It's her conduct, her life. Shall I our lives, shall we say?
We are preparing our wedding dress.
A young lady is going to be married in a few months and night after night she works in the home on her wedding dress. No one sees what she is doing.
Uh, she stitch after stitch, laboriously works on that dress, and the day comes.
The wedding day when she is displayed, when everything is seen publicly. Our lives are going to be seen publicly. And that day, brethren and God will reward faithfulness. We are now preparing our dress and may there be in our lives that umm.
That separation from this present evil world.
May we have our hearts attracted to Christ not only at these meetings, but day by day. The test comes when we go back to our home assemblies.
Uh, and uh, we encounter the same difficulties that we left behind, whether it be in the assembly or at work or at school, they'll still be there. But the Lord is our captain. He's the captain of our salvation and he is leading us through the wilderness. And if there is any little sacrifice in your life or mine.
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Uh.
There will be a reward for that, and we all desire that abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.