Open—Robert Boulard
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Just have a heaven on my heart to read a couple of verses of scripture.
Let's turn to John's Gospel, chapter 17.
Verse 3.
Perhaps we could read John 316 first.
For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life or eternal life. And then in chapter 17, verse 3, this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
You know, eternal life has been spoken of in these meetings and it really has to do with our relationship with our blessed Savior.
And our relationship with divine persons, you have a relationship if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you have divine life, you are given divine life, and you're indwelled with the Spirit of God. And you not only have the indwelling in the Spirit, but you can with every right address God as your Father.
You have been brought into that relationship to the internal relationship, and you also have trusted the Lord Jesus as your Savior. You know Him as your Savior.
How do you develop that relationship? How do you?
Nurture that relationship. How do you expand your capacity to enjoy divine things?
To spend time in the presence of the Lord, Let me just read a couple of verses of Scripture in the last of Deuteronomy. The last chapter of Deuteronomy.
Chapter 34.
Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of his gun, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead unto Dan, and all Nap to lie, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the utmost sea and the South, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees.
And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I swear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it.
Until thy seed I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes.
But thou shalt not go over thither.
Well, you know, it's.
You and I are saved by the grace of God, and it's the sovereignty of God that we're saved because we were quickened by the Spirit of God so that we could hear His voice. And when he quickened us, He gave us faith to believe. It says for by faith, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. So He gives us the faith to believe when He speaks to us. But then you know, beloved brethren.
He is the one.
Personally.
That involves himself.
In his relationship with you, and he personally desires to teach you and to show you all that he has won for the glory of God and for your own blessing. He personally desires to show it to you. Just think of how Moses was on that Mount Pisgah and he looked. He was there on that mountain with the Lord Jesus, with Jehovah.
Says.
I will give it unto thy seed. I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes.
And so the Lord desires to show you the truth that He has.
Acquired the blessings that he has desired that you and I would enter into and enjoy because it says we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. And he wants us to know those blessings. He wants to study of those blessings. He wants us to enjoy those blessings now.
What a wonderful to sit in the presence of the Lord and have them just lay some of these things out to you. Can you just?
I have thought of this, of Moses being on this mountain and the Lord showing him perhaps Jerusalem in that area where the temple would be built and some of those streams and rivers, and just showing him how the land would be laid out and.
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Figuratively speaking, he's Speaking of laying things out for us so that we would enjoy them. Now there was something that was in the way.
And that was the city of Jericho, the first enemy that the people of God would have to conquer to be able to enter into the land.
Would be Jericho, and Jericho is a picture of the good life, the city of palm trees, it says in verse 3.
And that stood in the way.
And the enemy has made it so in this world, that prosperity and the good life will keep us away from devoting ourselves to the cause of Christ and sitting in our in quiet with the Lord one-on-one, like Moses was with the Lord, and him showing us those things that are eternal.
Those things that matter.
My brother Bob brought the forest this little expression in First Timothy chapter 6 and it's to lay hold on eternal life in the new translation that second time that it's used.
Our brother Darby and his translation says let him lay hold of the what is really life? Let lay hold of what is really life.
And so Moses had that experience with the Lord. The Lord personally showed him these things.
Well, we need to recognize that the enemy has designs to make sure.
That you do not have time to be with the Lord alone so that you can enter into that enjoyment and enter into the identification of what those things are. And so I just would desire to bring that before. So I was hoping that we would have time to perhaps look at First Kings or Second Kings chapter.
Four. Maybe I'll just read it and you can meditate upon it yourself.
But in Second Kings chapter 4, it says it speaks of a woman. They're great women. And she made a place with walls, a place where she could spend the man of God, a type of Christ could come and be in her presence. And she provided a stool to be able to sit in His presence and so on to hear His word. Let's read from verse eight. Second Kings 4, verse eight. It fell on a day that Elisha passed to shoot him.
Means peaceful.
Where was a great woman, and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was that as OFT as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread. And she said unto her husband, Behold now I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall or with walls, and let us set for him there a bed.
A place of refreshment and resting.
A table, a table, fellowship, communion. She wanted to have with that man a stool to sit in his presence, to hear His word. And Candlestick, that light of testimony, that light that his word would bring before her soul. Candlestick. And it shall be when he cometh to us that he shall turn either in thither.
Well, brethren, we need to make that time, that wall, that little chamber in our hearts.
For the Lord set a time aside and make he's not going to force himself upon us at all. But isn't it wonderful to recognize and the responsibility that we have to go beyond Jericho and it's going to be the enemy is going to seek to have those things brought into our lives. The pleasantness of life, you might say in the prosperity of life to keep us from entering into personal.
Relationship with the Lord and to really lay hold of what eternal life is. Well let's be exercised about laying those things aside that are weights that so easily to set us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.