Open—Aaron Deaver
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This has been announced as an open meeting.
It's not open for brothers to speak.
It's open for the Spirit of God to guide.
I got some verses written down here.
Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge. 1St Corinthians 1429.
If anything be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace.
For you all may prophecy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.
And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the Saints.
#288.
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I remember you.
Know whatever it's a game of?
Running each other in my life.
Uh.
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Stop.
Proverbs 23.
Proverbs 23 and verse 23.
By the truth and sell it not.
Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.
Psalm 1.
Psalm One, starting in verse one. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor cedeth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law does he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit.
In his season.
His leaf also shall not wither.
And whatsoever he does.
Shall prosper.
Ezra, Chapter 7.
And verse 10.
For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes.
And judgments.
By the truth and sell it not is a phrase that I have heard often.
And it was a phrase that it was very exercising for me.
But as I consider that phrase, I consider another phrase that that isn't in the scriptures, but it is true of, uh, our economic system. It is. Everything has its price. Everything is for sale.
If the price is right.
Everything is for sale if the price is right.
By the truth, sell it not.
In 2012, the LA Conference had Brother shared.
In the break between meetings, during the prayer, preparing to pray for the the meal, he said that.
His observation one of the young sisters said that she had to.
You know she was wearing her medium dress.
As to opposed to address that she might have worn somewhere else.
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So there is address for the meeting and address when we're out in the world.
During the prayer for the gospel that night, I shared a story about a figure in the evangelical church. 9.6 out of 10.
It's a different way of saying 96% of those children that grow up in the evangelical church will leave the evangelical church and never go back.
And that night that the young people sing.
A brother shared.
A figure. He didn't come right out and say the figure, but I ran the calculations.
And when he shared about the young people in his assembly.
And the number of them that left over a period of time.
It came out to 91 to 93%.
By the truth and sell it not.
I can look out across this room and there's people that aren't here, that we're here probably three or four years ago.
Different conferences, I remember them.
Not the young people. They were the older people.
Men that had conviction.
Caught with conviction.
But they had a price.
Look at your family tree. What do you see?
A heritage.
Of people that have gone on for the Lord faithfully, without compromise.
When you look at your family, what do you see?
The strong.
Close knit, cohesive group of people.
So tight that they hold each other up.
Do you look to a man?
You look to your father. Do you look to your grandfather?
Do you look to the person that's sitting next to you?
Do you look for the person?
Sitting across the room.
You know and Ezra chapter.
Seven and verse 10, there's a progression of study. First, to be a student, we have that in Psalm 119. We can call that the student Psalm of studying the word of God. And in Psalm 119 we have God as the teacher.
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And we have the scriptures of the textbook.
So in Ezra, with Ezra he first studied, but then he lived it out and in James.
We have.
The living out.
Of our faith.
That which we've learned.
Now do we live out what we learn from other people?
Or do we live out what we learn at the school of God?
With him is our teacher and the scripture is our textbook.
Then Ezra taught.
We have that in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse four Fathers.
Teacher Children.
Chapter 6 and verse four. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.
Jesus said that if we.
See Jesus, We've seen the Father. If we know Jesus, we know the Father.
God has the heart of a Father.
So if you want to learn to be a father.
You need to learn from Jesus.
Who displays the heart of his father?
So we have God as a teacher, and God is a Father.
And I say this because it's very important as you look up the family tree.
I looked down the family tree however however it goes it.
It's real easy to be taken up.
With imperfect people.
I want to be like my father, a child might say.
Because he was like his father.
And so we have imperfect copies off of one another.
Looking to imperfect men?
To model our lives.
No, I'm not saying that you ignore the counsel of your father's. That's not what I'm saying at all.
But if you are to buy the truth for yourself.
You will take what your Father teaches you, and you will go to the scriptures to see if it is true.
And what's very important to understand about children when they look at their parents?
They do have the ability.
To know whether or not their parents are living out an authentic faith.
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Do you come to meeting? Because that's.
What your parents did.
And your grandparents did.
And you just do everything that you do because.
That's what we do in the meeting.
By the truth and sell it not.
Of those young people that signed that birthday card.
All of them but three were breaking bread.
93%.
Left.
By the truth and sell it not.
Do you have a price?
Now, I don't know what is in your family tree. I don't know the history of a lot of your families.
Maybe there is some failure in your families. Maybe there is some very discouraging things in your family tree. Maybe there's some things that you just don't talk about.
Because other people might.
My cast of judgment.
Let me share with you a verse, a couple of more verses.
In Second Chronicles.
Second Chronicles, chapter 30.
And verse 8.
Now be ye not stiff necked as your Father's were, but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified forever, and serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of his wrath.
May turn away from you.
I think we can find hope in that verse because it does demonstrate the character of God.
There may be some failure in your family's.
Maybe it's your father, maybe it's your mother, maybe it's your grandfather, maybe there's some uncles.
But the Lord wants to take you up.
It's an individual thing, not a family thing.
Psalm 27.
Psalm 27 and verse 10.
When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord.
Will take me up.
I find it striking that the first word is when.
Many young people will point to the failures of their parents.
And of their friends and use that.
As a point at which they will sell.
That will be their price.
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My father sold out, so I'll sell out.
My friends have all sold out, so I'll sell out.
My father neglected in in teaching me from the word of God, so that's my excuse.
When?
My father and mother forsake me.
Then the Lord will take me up.
It's an individual thing, not a family thing.
When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.
He's a faithful teacher. He's a faithful father.
He's compassionate. He will not hold the failures of the past against you.
But the question is, will you buy the truth?
So we just look to the Lord for his help. Our God and Father, we just look to thee as we open thy word and.
Seek thy guidance, seek to be exercised by it. Their eyes and ears would be opened to receive it. Now hots might be prepared. So we just look to thee and just pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
What I have in my heart is not dissimilar to what we just heard.
I would like to begin by reading.
From Revelation chapter 3.
Revelation chapter 3 and verse 14.
And I'm going to read to the end of the chapter.
And unto the Angel, the Church of the Laodiceans write these things, says the Amen. The faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would that thou art cold nor hot.
So then, because they are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.
Because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, for thou mayst be rich and white. Raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that by shame of thy nakedness do not appear. And anoint thine eyes with I sell, that thou may see as many as I love. I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him.
And will Sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also ever came and sat down with my Father in his throne. Either half an ear. Let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
It's not actually my intention to take up that portion.
What it describes, I believe, is the present condition of things in Christendom, and we are a part of Christendom.
But the condition that describes it seems to me is not dissimilar to the condition of things in Jeremiah's day.
Jeremiah was a prophet to Judah.
The nation of Israel had divided many years before and the northern 10 tribes had already been taken captive.
And the Conti, uh, Kingdom of Judah continued on.
Until we get down to the time of King Josiah and the days of King Josiah, there's a revival.
And Josiah?
Unfortunately, he was caught up in the politics of this world and involved himself in something that was absolutely of no concern to him whatsoever, and his life was lost in the battlefield.
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From that point on, that Kingdom of Judah lasted just 22 years.
At that point, it was a little more than a city state.
And Jeremiah the prophet was sent to preach to a people who did not want to hear what he had to say.
We read there in Legacy that the condition of things in Christendom is going to be so bad that God is going to spew it out of his mouth.
In Jeremiah's day, well in the days of Israel, the nation of Assyria was to the north, waiting there for God.
The UMM for God's time to execute judgment against that nation.
In the days of Judah and the days that Jeremiah preached, a lion crouched to the north. It was Babylon, waiting to execute judgment according to God's timing upon that people.
We live in a day when judgment awaits, but it's not now Assyria or Judah that is going to come. I mean, uh, Syria or Babylon that's going to come to execute judgment. It's the Lord himself.
And as we look around us and things in Christendom.
What is Alha's attitude?
Let's just begin. And I just picked some verses from the early chapters of Jeremiah and I'm going to apply them loosely.
And I trust you allow me to do so.
Let's begin with Jeremiah chapter 2.
Jeremiah chapter 2 Says, Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying Thus saith the Lord, I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine and spousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not so on.
And we might ask ourselves the question, when was this?
When it is that nation ever have that kind of love towards Jehovah? But God saw it, He remembered it, and we think of the 1St letter in those seven letters to the seven churches there in Revelation, of which I read the last layer to see it, and to the first.
The Lord says to Ephesus, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Everything I say I direct to myself. Where is the affection of my heart?
You know, we live in a very difficult day.
There are so many things to pull us away, to draw our hearts affections away.
So we, you know, we are we're often appeared to be I don't think we intend to be. We often appear to be critical of the disciples. But you know, in John 14 there the 11 reason why the Lord spoke to his disciples as he did because they truly sorrowed that he was going to depart. They did indeed love him.
Would we feel that same love?
Do we Would we fill that same sense of sorrow?
If we knew that the Lord was going to leave us.
Where are our hearts affections?
And then later in this chapter.
It says, yet I have planted in verse 21. Yet I have planted the ennoble vine, holier, right seed. How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?
You know we have 7 churches there in Revelation.
Begins with Ephesus, which will speak of the Church. In the Apostolic period. We have Simona.
Which would speak of the persecuted church up until the time of Constantine. Then we have Pergamos.
And then pergamos, we have fire tire. Each of those four churches were successive periods in the history of Christendom.
Fire Tire would speak of the Church of Rome. It continues on until the end. We still have that today.
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And then we have Sardis, which would speak of Protestantism, not in its days of glory and the Reformation, when a light shone in Europe.
In the midst of the darkness.
That hadn't shown for.
1000 years.
Then we come to Philadelphia.
Now, brethren often accused of saying that they are Philadelphia.
I trust that none here would question if I said that.
I have no difficulty in correlating Philadelphia with the recovery of the truth that we had in the early 1800s in connection with the true character of the Church.
With the true nature of the assembly.
What it meant to be gathered on the ground of the one body. Let me just read something I wrote in my Bible long ago. It was not written.
By anyone we would label as brethren is written by a man who believed was Presbyterian. This is what he wrote and I, I don't, I. He may have changed affiliation, but he wrote following the eclipse of nearly all truth in the dark ages. It was given to Martin Luther in the 16th century to reinstate the doctrine of salvation through faith alone.
And in the last century it was given to Jay and Darby of England to reinstate the doctrine of the Church. That is an assessment of a man who was a theologian never connected with brethren.
And so I think it's fair to say, and I trust that no one here would disagree with me.
That Philadelphia, and incidentally Philadelphia and Laodicea, do not describe ecclesiastical system, but rather a moral state.
And so as I said, I I would trust that no one would argue with me that Philadelphia corresponds to the recovery of the truth, especially in connection with the church is heavily Co heavenly calling and so on in the early and mid 1800s. You know, I enjoyed something that a brother in Europe shared with me.
Recently.
He said, like it or not, we are identified with Philadelphia. What have we done with those truths? We are responsible, brethren, whether we like it or not. You and I don't have a choice.
Those truths were given to us. What have we done with them?
God plants his seed, a noble vine.
Do you value them?
Do you even care about them?
Do you have an interest in them?
You know, Jeremiah was preaching to a people and and we'll see. Let's move on and and in the third chapter, the Lord said unto me in the days of Josiah the king. This is chapter 3, verse 6.
Hassel seen that which backsetting Israel has done. She's gone up under every high mountain, under every green tree, and there have played the harlot. Verse 10. And yet for all this a treacherous sister, Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but faintedly said the Lord, saith the Lord. You know there was a tremendous revival in the days of Josiah, a revival that had not been seen in the days of Israel's history.
Before it eclipsed the revival in Hezekiah's day, I believe.
And yet in that enthusiasm of that revival, I think it's fair to say based on what we read here, that probably in the majority went along with the movement.
They feigned.
The revival.
And you know, I, I don't wanna point fingers. But dear young people.
I have to confess that I feel.
My part and the responsibility of letting you down.
I don't think we have held that we have practiced, that we have taught the truth that we were handed.
And it's had its effect.
It is having its effects. You know, activities are wonderful and fellowship together, what I would call social fellowship, is a wonderful thing.
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But it's no substitute for the fellowship that God would have us have with himself and his Son.
There's no substitute for sound teaching.
You know, we can create a lot of activity, a lot of revival.
And everything looked rosy on the outside.
But unless our hearts are touched.
It will prove to be vain. So in the next chapter, chapter 4 and verse 4.
It says circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the foreskins of your heart. You know repentance is inward. It's not just outward.
You know, as I speak.
I stand here because I recently said in Denver as the preacher.
And you might feel that I'm preaching to you.
And unfortunately, that's what happens when someone stands up and talks to an audience. But I'd rather you thought of it. Is the Word of God speaking to your own hearts? Take Me Out of the picture.
These things I find very searching to me. I look at Jeremiah and the deep exercise he went through and the condition of things in the day in which he lived. Those conditions of things that we see around us in the world today, they're no different. Am I? Am I exercise like Jeremiah? Am I brought to tears like Jeremiah? Does it move me to see the condition of things?
So I recognize my responsibility in it.
Do I humble myself? You know Daniel.
In Daniel 9.
He prays and says in verse four of Chapter 9, I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said.
O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant mercy to them that love Him, and to them that keep his commandments, we have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Thy precepts and from Thy judgments. Neither have we hearkened unto Thy servants, the prophets, which spake in Thy name to our King, and our Princess, and our fathers, and all the people of the land, O Lord.
Righteousness belongs unto thee, but unto us confusion of faith. That, brethren, should be our prayer. To unto us belong with confusion of faith. So we do we wonder at the confusion that we see about us.
Do we own our part in it?
Moving on in Jeremiah.
As many verses I could pull from.
Verse 21 of chapter 5 for example says here now this so foolish people without understanding.
Which have eyes and see naughty, which have ears and hear not. And just remind you what I read there in Revelation chapter 3 where it says.
I counsel thee to buy of me gold Trident fire, that thou mayst be rich.
And white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear. And anoint thine eyes with I salve that thou mayest see.
In verse 31 of Jeremiah 5 the prophets prophecy falsely and the priest payroll by their means. And my people love to have it so. And what will you do in the end thereof end of Timothy?
Chapter The Second Timothy. Chapter 4.
Verse three says for the time will come when they will not endure a sound doctrine, but for their own lust shall they heap to themselves. Teachers have itching ears. I believe we've already heard something of this in the ministry that we've enjoyed at these meetings.
When you have a thought, who do you go to? Of course we should go to the word of God, as we just had before us now. But if there's a brother that you want to look to for some help, you go to one who you know is gonna say yes.
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Or do you go to one who you know is going to challenge your conscience? You know, I, I love my Denver brethren.
I'm sure there are some that maybe don't think that, but I do. I love them.
And I recently wrote something and I was on the phone and my wife said to me, who you're speaking to? And I said so. And so he said, why are you calling him? Said, well, I don't want to call Brother A because I know he'll say, that's lovely. If I call Brother B, he'll tell me just the way he sees it.
That's hard. That's hard.
Because I I'm. I'm no different than you.
I don't like.
My conscience to be addressed.
Moving on to chapter 6 of Jeremiah.
Chapter 6 and verse 10. To whom shall I speak and give warning, so they may hear? Or behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken. Behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach. They have no delight in it.
Is that your?
And my heart.
Do we delight in the Word of God? Is it really a delight to us? Does it really? Does it really delight us to be able to come into His presence, to be over His Word?
You know, I am well aware that we get in the way.
I'm well aware that you may come into reading meetings and feel that you're tired of these brothers arguing about the meaning of this word or that. I realize that we have stumbled you, but that doesn't change what your heart should feel towards the Word of God.
Do you love it? You know, I think of David and the sons and the love that he expressed for the Lord of God. I know that the law is all, is all-encompassing. It includes, as the Jews call the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, that is to say, the law.
It includes all those five books, but nevertheless, when I think of the law, I think of the commandments, the curses connected with and, and we'll find it in the 11Th chapter of Jeremiah connected with disobedience to it. But David loved the law because it was a communication of Jehovah to his people. David loved it. If David loved the law, how much more should we love the word of God?
Given the revelation that we have received and the indwelling of the Spirit of God to comprehend it.
The position that we have been brought into in Christ.
Do we love his word?
You know, my wife and I met in the local assembly.
And so I only have a wrote her one letter.
But those of you before the days of e-mail and even and I heard recently of a young man that was writing letters to his fiance.
You know what happens when they receive those letters? Do they just? Oh, it's a letter. Oh, I'll put it aside. I'll read it when I have time.
Is that how we are with the Word of God?
You know, I, as I said, I speak these things to exercise us to, to challenge us. We this is the day in which we live, Christendom.
It is so much like the days of Jeremiah. There was a complete disinterest in the things that Jeremiah said. In fact, they so hated him, they wanted to kill him.
Jeremiah chapter 70. No, before we go on chapter six, another thing, verse 16. Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see and ask for the old paths, wherein is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. For they said we will not walk therein. I just want to read a verse from Proverbs 22 which is somewhat similar. So Proverbs 22.
And verse 28.
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Remove not the ancient landmark which thy Father's have set.
And then I'm gonna read a verse from Jeremiah Chapter 7 because I want to connect these thoughts. Jeremiah Chapter 7 verse four says trust ye not in lying words saying the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord of the East.
So the first thing I wanna bring out is the old parts, the ancient landmarks.
You know, I I have told this story before and there are some very good listeners in this audience because periodically someone will come up to me and remind me of something that I said probably 10 years ago.
But I grew up on a farm in Australia.
It wasn't what we would call a station, which you would call a ranch. In other words, it wasn't thousands of acres. We lived in a very fertile part of the country. Most of you think of Australia as being desert and dry and brown. Well, where I grew up was a lot like Napa Valley in California, Philly vineyards, apples. And that's what my father grew. He grew apples. So we had 100 acres.
And uh, for an orchard that's pretty good considering we want a corporation. It was a these days farm seem to have turned into corporations and so on. But anyway.
But I loved being on the phone.
And my brother and I knew every inch of property and we walked the boundary of that farm. Not all at one time necessarily, but I say to my brother Steven, hey, why don't we go to such and such point of the farm? We haven't been there for a long time. And we'd walk down there, you know, that's like the truth that we've been given.
My son Steven, and he's not here, so I can't embarrass him.
So he is currently studying civil engineering and he finished his semester and he had to do what's called a field session, which was six, uh, three weeks, I think of six days a week, 8 hours a day where we had lectures. And then he went out and did actual field work, including surveying. But a group of three was sent out to find survey marks that have been laid out to describe sections, and there were descriptions that should have pointed to where those survey marks were.
Well, they slogged all afternoon.
Through marshes and bogs, they found one on the wall of a reservoir. It of course, had not been moved, and from it they could figure out where the next one was. And sure enough, they found it. And then they documented it based on existing landmarks to prove where it was.
You know those ancient landmarks of the truth, the principles in the Word of God that never change, but we wanna move them?
We wanna move them to accommodate our own wells.
Just like in Jeremiah's day, those old paths, they didn't want to walk in them.
But you know, it says the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord Lord. What does that mean? Well, that's like us saying, well, we're brethren, we don't have anything to worry about.
We're in the right place. We're the and you know, I really enjoyed Brother Bob's message. It's not about us. It's not about us at all. We're not secure because of who we are. Everything rests on who he is and not us. You know, when the disciples asked the Lord and John chapter one there, don't, don't turn because we're gonna go straight back to Jeremiah. But in John chapter one, they said to the Lord.
Master Wedwell style.
And the, the, the word there is abide where abide is thou. And he said, What did he say at the corner of such and such a street, and such and such a street? No, he says, Come and see. And they came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him, with him.
No, we can't rely on our heritage and as a brother, just since we can't rely on what my grandfather did or my my parents did. The truth has to be individual. We each have to buy it for ourselves. You know, there's two tendencies when you talk about the old paths. The one tendency is to wanna to go back and live like things were.
That's what the Pharisees did. It was all outward. The other is to say, well, let's shake things up a bit and I'll get to that one in a minute. I just want to talk a little bit more about rolling things back.
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You know, we can't go back and live like the mid 1800s. The truths haven't changed, the landmarks have not been moved. They're still there. We have to make them good to ourselves for the day in which we live.
You know, I I recently had lunch with a young man who wrote a letter to the assembly and said that he was leaving, withdrawing from fellowship. Since that time, he's come.
Sometimes and not others. And he there's a, there's a work going on there.
But every time I speak to a young person in that condition, one thing they always like to bring up is, you know, in the days of Mr. Darby, when Christians would come into the assembly that were allowed to break bread.
And, you know, I was recently in the South of France and I enjoyed hearing from a letter that Mister Davi wrote about his travels through southern France and how people came at quite a bit of risk to themselves personally. In fact, they were imprisoned because you were registered Catholic. And if you went somewhere else, that was a, a, an infraction that you could be in fact, be imprisoned for. And so when they would go to a brethren meeting, not necessarily from the Roman Catholic Church, but anyway, when they would come.
Umm, it caused problems because the authorities would wanna know how many, how many people are registered at your church and they couldn't tell them.
But you know what? We don't live in the days of Mr. Dobby anymore.
The truth.
Has been preached and it has been rejected.
The truth of that being gathered together on the ground of the one body has been rejected in favor of independent coalition of assemblies.
That's what we see around us with the mega churches. They're not part of the traditional churches of Protestantism.
They're large, independent.
Churches full of energy and music to, uh, lift the senses.
It doesn't mean to say that.
If someone comes in that they.
We don't have to be exercised about it, you know, in the end of June.
It says concerning some making a difference.
But I just want to point out, we can't roll things back and say, well, they that's what they did in that day. Remember, the tooth was preached and has by and large by Christendom. It was, except it was, it was recognized. I read that quote earlier. It was recognized as the truth that it has by and large been rejected.
And when someone comes in, it should be made quite clear to them. Do you realize that the way we meet is essentially in protest against the way that you normally meet?
And you're going to be identified with that.
Let's move on to the next chapter.
Let's just read UMM in chapter 8.
This is the other side of things, chapter 8 verse 11. For they have healed the hood of the daughter of my people slightly, saying peace, peace when there is no peace.
You know I have one tendency of how hot is 1 to go back to living a ex outwardly in the day and which is not the present day.
And pretend.
The other is to lighten things up a bit.
Oh, what do you mean?
There's problems. Peace. Peace.
You know we.
Just as dressing ourselves up as some some groups do, so they look like they come out of the 1800s. We can go the other way too and dress things up to look modern. You know, dressing things up. It's like putting old wine in new bottles or new wine in old bottles. That doesn't work.
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It doesn't work.
Let's turn to Chapter 9.
Chapter 9 Verse one Oh that my head will waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might, might weep day and night.
Do we really understand the condition of things in Christendom? Do we really understand, if I can put it this way, the pain that it causes God, the anguish?
If we did, we would weep like Jeremiah.
We would weep.
Verse 24 of this chapter says, Let him the glorious glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me.
I don't care.
Who you are, where you've come from, what truth you've had.
If I was speaking to another Christian who maybe came out of the Baptist Church.
I would say the same words to him he has received.
A certain degree of truth. What are you doing with it? You know it's not for us to put ourselves in the place of another. God has put you here. You didn't ask to be put here. I know God has put you here in a certain family, a certain assembly.
And you have heard these things taught. What are you doing with them? Don't worry about your Baptist brother down the street. He has a degree of truth that he is responsible for, and you're not responsible for it.
What are you doing with what? What am I doing? What am I doing with that which I've received?
Do I value it?
Does it make me weep to think of what God has brought in amongst us? The confusion of faith?
Do I own my responsibility in it?
Says let him the glory if you're going to glory in anything, glory in this that he understandeth. And no, it doesn't say knoweth my words. We'll talk a little bit more about the words in a minute, but it does. It's no good just knowing the words.
God wants a personal relationship. The Lord Jesus wants a personal relationship. He wants us to know Him. Going back to what we read in chapter 2.
And that they had left the love of their spouses going back to Ephesus. Now, you might say to me, well, we don't live in the days of Ephesus. And you're absolutely right.
But there's two different ways to look at the letters to the seven churches. Well, three, actually, But.
The one is that presents an outline of the history of Christendom, but the other is intensely individual.
And we find ourselves often taking the journey that we read there in those seven churches when we were first saved. There is that first love.
And then maybe persecution comes in and that turns us cold. That often happens in high school or college.
Where suddenly you realize that not everyone is a happy Christian and you get discouraged from opening your mouth.
And then pergamos, worldliness sets in. And so you see, individually we're all like.
That passed through the seven churches and there's nothing stopping us going back to Ephesus, you know, individually in our lives and re having that first love rekindled in US.
And then Chapter 11 of Jeremiah speaks especially of the covenant, and you look through Chapter 11 of Jeremiah and we find what it was like to live under law.
Verse 3 Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, cursed be the man that awaits, not the words of his covenant.
01:05:02
Verse 4 obey my voice end of verse six, hear ye the words of his covenant and do them. Verse 7 obey my voice. Verse 8 yet they obeyed not we're not under law, but we had it beautifully brought out in the meetings here connection with the commandments that God the Lord has given us, the instruction that he's given us. It's not let me think of the word commandment and John uses that word commandment in his epistle and.
In his gospel and but whenever you think of the word commandment, I know for myself, my mind jumps to the law. Well, it's a different word in the Greek, the word for law is namas, I believe. And the word used for commandment is interlay and it speaks of instruction. Instruction. And I like what was brought out that when we have instruction in the word of God in the New Testament is not thou shalt the Old Testament says thou shalt not kill in the New Testament, Oh, this is says thou shalt not steal.
I'll just read a verse from F Ephesians that says.
1St Ephesians 428 Let him that stall steal no more. Brother Robert brought that out in the meetings. Let him and say, when it comes to thou shalt not kill in second Peter, I mean first Peter. It uses a similar expression.
So when we think of the commandments in connection with the New Testament, don't think of law, but think of those injunctions that we have been given that one who loves the Lord would desire to do so that they would not so that in this case the Lord. But if you love someone and they ask you to do something, you would delight to do it one because you love them and two, because you wouldn't want them to be hurt. And so I was just gonna the connection with the thou shalt not kill in first Peter chapter 3 it says but let.
None of you suffer.
As a murderer, so the Old Testament is thou shalt not was accompanied by a cursed New Testament. We know we have directives given to us, instructions given to us. It is let us but time is moving on. I wanted to get to a verse in verse 5th chapter 15.
Chapter 15 verse 16 says Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy words when I unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.
You know, every time we have restoration in the word of God, it always takes us back to the word of God. But like I said, it's not the word had an independence from the Lord Jesus. It's not the word had an independence from God in Ephesians. There's a in the apostles first prayer in Ephesians, it says.
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowledge, in the knowledge of.
Him in the knowledge of him we can only have the spirit of river re spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The things that we read there in the Epistle to the Ephesians can only be had in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. But again, is the word of God a joy and a rejoicing to your heart and to my heart? Do we delight to read it? I I can't pretend that it always delights me to read it when I'm busy and rushed and and don't have enough time.
Again, as I said, I stand here as the preacher preaching.
But I don't want you to take it as if I'm preaching to you. I These are things that we need to be humbled about. These are things that we need to be exercised about. These are things that, as the brother kept saying, take away. Think about them.
Let them enter into our hearts.
Tuesday morning at 8:00.
Oh my God.
Nsnoise.
Thy word to our heart, to you. Pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.