Address—Don Rule
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00:05:38
His home, his father's love.
His joy.
His glory.
Is love. That's great.
Our God and Father.
We're thankful for this quiet time together before they and in Thy presence, Lord Jesus, that may open Thy word.
And through it.
Enjoy fellowship.
This afternoon with thyself.
Father.
And with thee, Lord Jesus.
We do ask.
That each one of us during this hour together in this way might.
Inner consciously.
Into the enjoyment of fellowship with the Lord Jesus and all that.
Is the delight of thy heart to share with us, we ask Father, in the blessed name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
This afternoon.
Like to speak a little with you about giving.
Receiving and sharing.
Turn with me to.
A verse that was read the other day in Malachi chapter 3.
Malachi chapter 3 and verse 17.
And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts.
In that day when I make up my jewels.
And I will spare them.
As a man's spirit, his own son.
That serveth him.
Turn over to.
Mark's Gospel.
Chapter.
14.
Mark's Gospel, chapter 14.
And verse 35 And he went forth a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.
And he said ABBA father.
All things are possible unto thee.
Take away this cup from me.
Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt.
Matthew's Gospel.
Chapter 26.
Uh, excuse me, Chapter 27.
Matthew 27.
Verse 41 likewise also the chief priest, mocking him with the scribes and elders, said he saved others.
Himself he cannot save. Let him now come down from the cross and we will believe him. He trusted in God. Let him deliver him now, if he will have him.
Where he said I am the Son of God.
Romans, chapter 8.
00:10:16
Romans, chapter 8, verse 32.
He that spared, not his own son.
But delivered him up for his all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
The Father sent the Son into the world as.
To do work.
As a servant for him.
The work of his son as a servant is different than a hired servant.
You remember in Luke 15 when the, when the young man thought about going back to his father's home, he said he spoke about the hired servants and he wanted to take that, you might say, lower place of service among them because he didn't feel worthy anymore to the son's place. And uh, we just read there in Malachi.
That a man.
Spares his son.
Who serves him?
We come to the Lord Jesus in the garden, and he's speaking to.
ABBA father, the most intimate and personal relationship between the two of them and the son speaks to the father in the nearest terms of intimacy and says ABBA father.
And he says, if it be possible. And then he says, All things are possible unto thee.
We go on to see the Lord Jesus on the cross.
And.
Pharisees are there. The Scribes are there.
They look up at the Lord Jesus as he hangs there.
And they say.
He trusted in the Father.
Or trusted in God, not the Father. He trusted in God.
If he'll have him.
Let him deliver him.
He said I'm son of God.
I pondered.
These things a little bit.
My soul is overwhelmed when I look upon it from the Father's standpoint.
Here's my son.
And he says to me, Father.
Would be possible?
Here is the people that stand around and look at my son and say he said he's the son.
Is the father going to spare the son?
That serves him.
Father had the right to do it.
The father could have said that's it.
That's it for this whole creation.
It's over.
And no one could have said unrighteous, unfaithful or even unloving.
Because here's a choice, as it were. The well beloved, perfect son and servant on the one side.
Unrighteous, evil, ungrateful, unholy man on the other side.
We'll never know.
And we don't have the capacity to really know.
Why God made the choice that He did. We only accept what He says He so loved.
But I like the statement and.
Genesis 22. So they went.
Both of them together.
And his father and his son, they went through the whole together. The forsaking is not in John. The thought of forsaking is not in John. They went both of them together, and they went through the work. And so in Romans 8 it says He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all.
00:15:14
How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Here we have the Father and the Son going through this work together, so that together they might freely share with us all things.
Shalt not he with Him also freely give us all things. All that we have this afternoon comes from the heart of the Father and the Son jointly sharing with us.
The sun gives up all that we might receive all.
And we are the objects of the Father and the Son's love and attention.
To open their heart together. To share with us all that is there for today, but even more wonderfully, you might say, for eternity.
Let's go over to.
Where we have been in our reading meeting and John chapter 10.
John, Chapter 10.
Just one little piece out of this chapter.
Verse 27. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my father are one. These are wonderful words, wonderful message to your heart and mind this afternoon.
The Father has given you to the Son.
The son has received you as a gift from his father.
We talk about giving and receiving, and here's the most wonderful as it relates to us perhaps giving and receiving for our blessing. The Father giving us to the Son, the Son receiving us from the Father, and then the Son saying they're mine forever.
I'll never give them up. And the father saying they'll nobody's going to take them away from you. Oh, if there's anyone here that has any.
Uncertainty or twinge of feeling that maybe, maybe you could be lost. Listen to what God is saying, the Father saying, the Son is saying here.
You're a gift from the Father to the Son. The Son has received you from the Father, and he says that's my sheep.
And it's mine forever. It's sometimes we receive something and maybe we don't appreciate it and we give it away or we've used it and now we're going to give it away. Maybe somebody here. This is the way it is with us is mankind. Sometimes somebody we, we buy or whatever a new car and when we've used it up, then we give it away. But not so with the Father and the Son. It's.
My shape.
Something that is his own.
That he will not give to another.
It's you.
He loves you, you're his own sheep, and no matter what, if you stray, he's going to get you back because he loves you. And he says I and my father are one. And the wonder of some of the thoughts that we can enjoy here this afternoon is the sharing between the father and the son and ourselves.
You ever?
Had a fantastic meal. I've been on, uh, in recent years, but at one time I had to go on business trips and sometimes I was with others, but sometimes I was alone and we had a very generous allowance and what we were allowed to do is by way of meals. And so went out and had a fantastic meal.
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But alone.
And there's just something missing. It just doesn't measure up. It just doesn't completely satisfy the yearnings of the human heart.
But in what we have before us, we see if we enjoy it together. This afternoon with our father and with his son, they're saying to us, we want to share everything together with you.
You're ours, and in one sense we're yours, and so it is ours to share together, one with the other.
And that makes a fantastic result.
Go for a minute to uh, John 20 just to get the thought a little further. John chapter 20.
Umm, verse 16 Jesus said unto her, Mary, she turned herself, and said unto him, a robo. And I, which is to say, Master Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.
If I go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend to my Father, and your father, and to my God and your God.
If I can be permitted on behalf of the Lord Jesus, I want to say he was excited.
He was excited to be able, for the first time, to say that this message, the very first message he had in resurrection for his own.
He had continually throughout his life spoken to his disciples and spoken to them of my Father.
And I have come to present the father to you, and I want you to get to know the father. And now he's risen from the dead. The work is completed, the foundation of having children, the father having children of his own among us.
And the Lord Jesus, the Son, immediately, with joy in his heart, gives the first message. Now it's my Father and your Father. We're going to enjoy one another forever together.
Now you and I are in the same enjoyed relationship that I can say.
Your father.
Along with my father.
Yes.
Heaven is wonderful.
And it's a place of shared communion.
Between the Father and the Son and ourselves.
Let's go back to chapter 12 of John.
John chapter 12 and verse one.
Then Jesus, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus, which had been dead, was, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
And there made him a supper, and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then he took Mary.
I'm sorry, then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly and anointed the feet of Jesus.
And wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.
Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him.
Why was not this ointment sold for 300 pence and given to the poor?
This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the bag and bear what was put there, and then said, Jesus let her alone.
Against the day of my burying, as she kept this or I'm gonna read it in the new translation. Jesus therefore said, Suffer her to have kept this for the day of my preparation for burial.
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For the poor always you have with you, but me you have not always.
I don't know a greater act.
Of love or devotion to the Lord Jesus.
And let's record it here.
I think it's a wonderful thing that this woman and what she did.
We'll be honored for eternity.
Here's the man.
It was exceedingly rich.
Would become poor.
Any passes among men as we had in Sunday school? Show me a penny.
Judas didn't look at him as poor.
He said. Why wasn't this ointment?
Converted the money and and given the help the poor.
I don't know how many of the disciples.
If any really entered into his poverty.
It's amazing.
This is Mary.
Just a little while before.
Mary had seen this man go into a cemetery.
And give life.
To her brother.
And now?
She's she's the one that had said to him, Lord, if thou hast been here, he wouldn't have died.
And now she is taking something that was very precious among men.
For what?
Is burial his death?
She had just seen her brother raised from the dead.
But she turns around and with a God-given Holy Spirit directed since that went certainly beyond anything that the mind would have dreamed up.
She could have normally and naturally said, well, nothing can harm the Lord Jesus, He can even raise the dead.
But the Lord Jesus, the man of poverty.
Appreciated what was given to him.
His heart was, I'm sure, stirred.
That here was one.
Who?
Heart was attached to him in such a way that she would give to him.
Something that spoke of his death.
The father could say. Surely they'll reverence the son.
And they despised and cast out, and man says no, we won't have them.
And so in his own poverty.
Here's one.
That gives to him something precious.
And something in connection with his burial.
She deserves.
I believe eternal honor.
For so honoring our Lord Jesus.
In that blessed way.
Turn over to Chapter 14.
Chapter 14 and verse one. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.
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In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.
I go and prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself.
That where I am, there you may be also.
It's often been remarked we know very little about heaven.
When we sang that hymn #127 it struck me forcibly that it's a good thing.
It's a good thing.
God in his wisdom.
Perhaps knowing our hearts that if we had a lot to tell us about the details of heaven.
We would very easily lose.
What makes heaven, heaven?
It's the Father and the Son and their love.
That, if I could put it this way, is all we need to know.
That they want to share it in their home with us.
A home is a place. A house is a place where you tend to go in and if you will, take off your shoes and relax and sit down and enjoy relaxed fellowship and communion.
That's heaven.
The father is going to relax.
He says right now my.
Uh, the the son says my father worketh hitherto and I work.
As long as sin exists in the creation, the Father cannot rest, nor can the Son, so they work together.
Until it's removed completely and the foundation for it has already been done at the cross, but it's still present and so they work. But when it is fully removed, then the Father, if you will, can relax and rest.
In his love.
Is love in the sun?
And is loving you.
And may we will enter into a scene of blessedness to share.
With the father and the Son.
And that's what that him is all about.
The love in the Father's house.
The father's house, the father's heart, all that the son is given, we've been given to the son.
Made ours.
The objects of his love.
And he our joy in heaven.
And so the sun.
What's his is his father's house.
His place of welcome and delight in the as it were says to us.
I've got to take you there.
We've got to share it together.
My heart won't be satisfied.
Until we're together.
At home.
Now there's.
26.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance. Whatsoever I have said unto you, peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled either, let it be afraid.
There's something of the Lord's that he gives to us.
And it's love for us. It's peace.
This is not the piece that you have in the book of Romans.
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's a piece that comes from the work of the cross.
Concerning our.
Standing before God and being righteous before him. But this is a different kind of piece, and this piece the Lord Jesus.
Gifts to us.
I hope you are enjoying it. I hope I'm enjoying it this afternoon and when I leave here in a day or so. If the Lord leaves us here, then I will continue and you will continue to enjoy this piece.
00:35:10
Every day of his life.
The Lord Jesus lived in peace.
In his relationship with his father.
God in his heaven looks down on the earth, and nothing that happens today disturbs him.
He's at peace.
Nothing surprised him today, nothing's going to surprise him tomorrow.
God lives, if you will, in that tranquility of His own being, knowing all, controlling all, being over all.
And when the Lord Jesus walked through this world as a man, he walked through it in peace with the throne of God.
He was able to face the sorrows and the circumstances and the difficulties and the rejection of life and feel it.
Be burdened by it to save reproach. Have broken my heart but at the same time.
To do so in the fellowship of peace with the Father.
As the two went together.
The Lord Jesus had provided that environment and enjoyment to the disciples while they traveled with Him for the 3 1/2 years, and it's coming at this moment to an end and He's making preparation for them when He won't be there, if you will, to be their peace.
For them. And so he says, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit, the Comforter to dwell in you.
To fulfill that function.
For me, for you, that you may continue to go on and enjoy my peace.
Let not your heart be troubled.
Either let it be afraid. Let us walk in that peace.
Let our hearts not be troubled nor afraid.
It's ours.
He's given it to us, we, if we, He's given it to us to enjoy. May the Lord graciously help us to enjoy it. Let's go to chapter 15.
Umm, verse 9.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue, ye and my love.
If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love.
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
My commandments.
My love and my joy.
The Lord Jesus.
Walked through his life.
And uninterrupted, unhindered.
Communion with the love of his father.
Every moment of every day that he lived, he lived in the enjoyment, in his soul of the love of his father.
How did you do that?
He kept his father's commandments.
He says.
I delight to do thy will every morning as he got up and he went through the day, he went through it and perfect submission.
00:40:01
In Perfect Dependence, and I want to add a comment about dependence. Dependence implies confidence. You don't depend on somebody you don't have any confidence in.
If someone goes to a doctor and they don't think the doctor understands their case, they may have no dependence on the doctor. They may try somebody else, but they feel they can have confidence in independence.
The Lord Jesus.
Had confidence in the father.
And as he walked in obedience to the Father's will.
And the result was the enjoyment of his father's love.
Enjoy my joy.
Now the Lord Jesus speaks to us this afternoon.
He speaks to your heart, and he speaks to my heart as we sit in these chairs or stand this afternoon. And he says to us, just as he said to his disciples, these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and it's your joy might be full. The Lord Jesus wants you and I to experience the same joy, the same character of joy.
Yeah, he did in his life.
He wants you and I to experience what he experienced and enjoyed throughout his life.
And so he says keep my commandments.
To keep his commandments, there's confidence.
And you might say his will.
There's dependence that's involved in that, and there's obedience to it.
And the word of God, those things go together. You can't be happy and disobedient with the Father or the Son that they don't go. They're not. They can't be Co joined.
You want your own way, you want your own will, then you're going to enjoy.
You're not gonna have the joy of the Lord Jesus in your life.
Going to be missing. But it isn't his will, It isn't his desire for any of us. This afternoon he would say to us, please.
Let's walk together.
I want you to have my joy remain with you.
Let's turn over to Chapter 17.
Yes.
Chapter 17 and verse 20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them which also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in US, That the world may believe that Thou has sent me, and the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are, I and them, and Thou and me that they may be.
Made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them.
As thou hast loved me, there's incredible sharing and oneness expressed in the verses. We don't have time this afternoon to, really.
Elaborate much on them, but.
The Lord Jesus.
As glorious, which belonged to Himself alone, and they cannot be shared.
God has glory that is his own.
As Chuck think it was yesterday was commenting on God being.
Umm. And having alone, having immortality, that's the glory of God that the creature does not have.
Never will.
The Lord Jesus, as the Son of God, has that. He has life in himself.
And he is as immortality in his being.
But there are glories which she receives from the father.
That he can and will share because he loves to share with us. He wants to share everything that can possibly be shared. He gave up everything.
00:45:11
That he might be enabled to share his heart, his love, his time, his energy, his presence with us. And here he says, I want the whole world to know.
That your loved just as I am.
That we together are bound up in this same bundle of love. And I want the whole world to know that you are loved just as I am.
How is that gonna be expressed?
In the coming millennial day.
This whole world is gonna see you and me.
Sharing in the official glories of the Lord Jesus.
As reigning over this earth.
You'll be right there with him and the world will look at you and say, oh, how loved they are.
He said I'm I want to share and I will share those glories with you.
That the world may know.
And it will.
That the Father loves you.
As he loves me.
Turn over to the last book of the Bible, the last chapter, Revelation 22.
Revelation chapter 22 and verse one. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
In the midst of the street event, on either side of the river, there was the tree of life, which bear 12 manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month. And the leaves of the trees were for the healing of the nation. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face, and His name shall be in their foreheads. Keep your finger here. We'll come right back here. But let's turn over to John chapter 6.
Pick up a couple of verses connected with this.
John chapter 6 and verse 33. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
Umm.
54 Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day, For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him, as the living Father has sent me. And as I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
Verse 63 It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.
Adam and Eve were the first creation of God and and.
As respect to man. And they were placed in a garden, and in that garden they were given all the trees, the fruit of those trees to eat. And there were two specially named trees in the garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And we all know the story. So we won't go into the matter of the fall, but we do know that after sin came in, Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden.
And the gate, the door, the entrance was closed and they could not go back in.
Now we come. That's the beginning of the story, if you will. And now we come to the end of God's story for us in this last chapter of the Bible.
And it gets brings before us the tree of life.
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The Lord Jesus, it's a tree of life to us.
And Adam all die.
And that first creation comes to an end when.
The heavens and the earth flee away, and when it's burned up, it's gone.
But you might say in one sense, there's a new Garden of Eden heaven to us.
And there is the tree of life that Adam and Eve never partook of in that first garden.
But we partaken of it.
We have Christ.
The bread of life.
And we have fed upon him in faith, and we have life.
And in our Garden of Eden, if you will, there's 12 manner of fruit.
We are going to, brethren, feed on the Lord Jesus as food for our eternal life forever.
Even eternal life needs food.
And he himself is the food of that life.
He that he of me shall live by me, it says in John 6:00. And we are going to for eternity have something to feed on.
Himself and it will be an ever never dull Never.
Boring man's always worried about being bored. It will be that which is perfectly satisfying. Each might say, even though eternity has no time. But we can't think of outside of time, I don't think. And so it's given to us as each month of the year comes and there's fresh fruit and we are going to see fresh manifestations to our hearts of that one person, the Lord Jesus and.
We're going to feed on it.
As the food of ourselves.
But I want to just make this remark.
Don't wait, don't wait.
Lord wants us to feed upon Himself.
To enjoy in our souls.
The beginning of our eternity.
Here it will be unhindered in the scene that's described in Revelation 22. And we won't have the flesh innocent. We won't have the world to distract us or draw us away. And that Satan will be gone. But we can start and we can enjoy. And the Lord Jesus says, as it were, this is important to know that Christ is our life.
We don't have it independent of him.
This is our life.
He, I, I have the life that you see here independent at this point of my parents, my mother, my father, my father's with the Lord. My mother is quite old. And so the life that I'm now living is in that sense independent of them.
But not eternal life.
It's not that kind of independence. It is life in Christ and we live by Him. He is our life. We participate in His life and we enjoy it and we feed on it and it is our food. May the Lord just so put Him before us that.
Nothing else you might say compares, but we don't yearn after the husks of this world.
Now just two more things.
Umm, verse 12.
Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me.
I give to give to every man according as his work shall be. I am alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
Here's another thing. That's the Lord's.
That he wants to share.
My reward?
But it's very humbling.
To have it here.
00:55:02
He's talking about coming.
And he's talking about his rewards.
He's gonna bring his rewards, if you will, with him.
Give you a phone.
But what's humbling about it is there's no response.
And I suppose if to whatever measure we in this room enter into that we don't feel able to respond.
We're not real comfortable to review or have a sense of our own life and faithfulness and work and worth and everything else to receive any reward.
And consequently there is no response by his bride to these remarks of his own to want to give.
Nor does the Spirit of God say anything either, because the Spirit far better than we.
Knows that reward will be a matter of grace.
And love on God's part rather than.
The response there has been on ours.
He then says.
Verse 16 I Jesus have sent mine Angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I'm the root and offspring of David, the bright morning star, and the Spirit and the bride say come.
This is wonderful, encouraging.
Winnetts himself and who he is that is presented without respect to our responsibility and faithfulness to life. Uh, there is a response.
The Spirit and the Bride can say come.
May it be so, brethren. Another comment. We know very little about heaven. People get very preoccupied as to when the Lord is gonna come.
If we knew it would spoil it.
If we knew it would spoil it, if the scripture said this is the event and that's what has to happen and that's going to be God. Knowing our natural hearts and even our tendency to fall back, that's exactly what we focus on and lose sight.
Of icon.
And we would be occupied with the expected, anticipated watch for event because then we say, Oh yeah, it's going to happen. Yes, how shallow it is going to happen rather than icon. And God in perfect wisdom has said, I'll take care of that.
And the spirit and the bride just want us to say, he says on the route and offspring and David, the bright morning star, and our hearts say come.
Or Jesus? Well, just one last comment verse. The last verse of the word of God.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
The Lord Jesus as we conclude this meeting.
I believe could say to each one of us personally and individually so that our hearts respond to him even at this moment. He could say to us as he did as to Paul.
My grace is sufficient.
My grace is sufficient to that.
That's all we need, brethren.
Sufficiency.
Of his grace.
Take us home.
It is sufficient, and it's this last message, if you will, or the last message of the Word of God. My grace is sufficient.
That's great.