St. Louis Conference: 2007
Table of Contents
1 Corinthians 15:1-18
1 Corinthians 15:19-28
Reading
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Off the voice of mercy sounded sweet as music to the ear.
Grace abounds where sin abounded. This the word that soothed our fear.
Grace, the sweetest sound we know. Grace to sinners here below #138.
So the voice of mercy.
Something.
Sweet as you said today.
Pray for us.
What is that?
Praise God.
Praise somebody.
Only.
Accompanying him, we just have sung him #47.
Gray's daughter, 100 feet.
And the sun wise, it's our rainy wild fried.
Pray I.
Won't go. There is grace, Water Lord.
We have one, but again.
Verse 20 where the parenthesis begins and refer back.
Be all right, brother Chuck.
Other verses we want.
First one is a good place this morning.
First Corinthians, chapter 15.
First Corinthians chapter 15, beginning at verse 20.
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that's left. For sins. By man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam or die, Even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order, Christ the first fruits afterwards.
They that are Christ at his coming, then cometh the end.
When he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father.
When he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power, for he must reign till he had put all enemies under his feet, The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, for he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is accepted which did put all things under him.
And when all things shall be subdued unto him.
Then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be All in all else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead? If the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for the dead? And why stand we in jeopardy? Every hour I protest by your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I die daily if after the manner of man. I have fought with beasts at Ephesus. What advantage it me if the dead rise not let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die, but be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.
But some men will say, How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come thou? For that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it died. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bear grain. It may chance of wheat, or some other grain, but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of man, and other flesh of beasts and other of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and bodies to terrestrial, but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon.
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And another glory of the stars for one star different from another star in glory.
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is soon in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is song in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power.
It is song, a natural body. It is raised, a spiritual body.
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written. The 1St man Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam was made a quickening spirit. How Beeth? That was not first which is spiritual, but which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. The 1St man is of the earth earthy. The 2nd man is the Lord from heaven.
As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy, and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption.
Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption.
And this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallow up in victory. Oh, death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren.
Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Had before us the different witnesses that saw the Lord in resurrection, and last of all of them was Paul who saw him. I'd like to call attention to distinction in the way that Paul saw the Lord, because all the rest saw the Lord in his resurrected body here on earth, but Paul didn't see him on earth.
Paul saw him in heaven. This is the same man who was on earth and appeared. And this characterizes Paul. His view, his presentation of Christ is the man in heaven. And it's significant, I think, to us in improving.
The Lord Jesus as a man in heaven.
There's another distinction about the Lord Jesus resurrection to that I think is important to notice that there were others who were raised from the dead before the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament even and Lazarus and others in the New Testament, but they were not raised in a in a body like.
The Lord Jesus, they were raised in the same earthly body and presumed to have died again. The Lord Jesus was distinct in that. That's why one of the reasons it calls him the first fruits here. This is singular. This is different. When the Lord Jesus was raised, there was a new creation, there was a spiritual body and the chapter develops this. This was a whole.
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New order, a whole new beginning in the Lord Jesus.
Resurrection. So I think it's important to see that. It's nice to see that the Lord had the power to raise the dead.
Other prophets in the Old Testament exercised it. One of them is significant in Elisha, who lay in the grave a while, and when another man was cast into that grave, he came alive. He was quickened.
Perhaps a picture of the Lord, the death of the Lord Jesus, a quickening spirit. Our faith in him as the man who died and rose gives life, the same life that the Lord Jesus had in his resurrected body.
That's interesting. It's a life that can no longer die.
And as you say, the others, as far as we know, that were raised from the dead in the Old and the New Testament.
Died again, but the Lord Jesus rose in the power of a life that cannot die any longer. As mentioned yesterday, there's a verse in Romans 7 that's very clear that way. Just like to read it in verse nine. I'm sorry. It's Romans 6 and verse 9, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead.
Dieth no more death, hath no more dominion over him.
I'd like to just mention that really the life of the believer today is a is resurrection life. It is a life that can never die.
Death may touch this physical body because this physical body is what connects me with the first creation, but the life of believer in the Lord Jesus has is a life that will never die when death touches this body.
We are translated into the presence of the Lord Jesus to be with Christ. So we really, in that sense of the word, will never die. The life we have can never die. And it's beautiful to get that. And that's why the Lord Jesus is the first fruits. He's the first one who came to life in the power of a life that cannot die.
And so he's called the first fruits here in these verses that we started out in verse 20, and in verse 23 he's called the first fruits.
In this verse we begin with slept, or as Mr. Darby says, those that have fallen asleep. He's become the first fruits of those that have fallen asleep.
And I think it's helpful when we take up the Scripture to realize the different words and expressions are taken up in different contexts. We know what the word sleep means in a natural sense, but it's really used in three different ways in the Word of God. Sometimes it does refer to physical sleep. When the Lord Jesus was here, there was an occasion when he was so weary that he lay his head on a borrowed pillow in a borrowed boat and he slept.
He physically slept, and so sleep in scripture often has to do with lying down and physically sleeping Sometimes, like in Romans chapter 13 I believe it is. Well, let's just read it to get it.
Romans, chapter 13.
And verse 11 and that knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. Now this is not physical sleep here. This is an exhortation to every one of us. We're sitting here wide awake this morning in these seats, but we have an exhortation that it's high time to awake out of sleep. This sleep refers to the spiritual lethargy.
And dullness that can come in to our souls if we're not careful.
And what he's telling the Saints here is the Lord's coming is near, and we don't want to be just drifting along in a state of lethargy or.
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Spiritual sleep just drifting along with the current of the world. No, we need to be awake to these precious things and awake to our testimony and living for Christ and our heavenly calling and so on. But sleep in this chapter is taken up in a little different way. It's mentioned three times. Just go back to the.
1St we noticed yesterday verse six of our chapter.
At the end of the verse he says of whom the greater part remained to this present.
But some are falling asleep. And then just jump ahead to the 51St verse. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. And in the 20th verse where we begin, he uses the expression again, What is the sleep here? Well, sleep here is the temporary state of the body when a believer dies. Now it's interesting that in Scripture, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
It is only those that die in faith that are referred to as asleep and it's always in connection with the body. The spirit is always in the conscious sense of something beyond this, this life. The Lord Jesus pulled the curtain aside and Luke and told about the rich man and Lazarus and how one was in the conscious sense of torment and the other in the conscious sense of bliss. And so it never refers to soul sleepless. There are those who have taught over the years, but it's the sleep of the body. Now why is the are the bodies of those who have died in faith referred to as being asleep?
Because sleep is only a temporary state of things. When we lay a loved one who's died in faith in the grave, it's not the end of the story. That body is sleeping, is laid there only temporarily. We lay down and slept last night and in the normal course of things that we considered it a temporary measure that we were going to get up this morning, which we did, and go on our way. And so we lay the body of a loved one in the tomb. It's a temporary measure waiting for the resurrection.
Of that body. And that's why he says at the end in the 51St verse, we shall not all sleep. In other words, you and I aren't looking for death. We're not looking to be late in the tomb. We're looking for the change. And we'll all be changed whether we have fallen asleep in Christ or whether we're waiting for the rapture. We're all waiting for the same thing, just in a different waiting place. We're all waiting to have changed bodies, but we shall not all sleep.
So I think it's just helpful to see that sleep is taken up in these three different ways. Physical sleep of the body. We need rest for our bodies here in this world. Sometimes it's in connection with the spiritual lethargic nests of the that we can fall into as believers, and it's high time to awake out of sleep. And sometimes it's in connection with the death of a Saint of God temporarily laid in the grave, waiting for the awakening at the shout.
Connection with what's just been said.
When God created man, he created his body 1St and having created a body suited to earthly life.
He then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul.
Sin comes into the world, and after that, that is a body of death.
Because of sin in it and so that body of that first creation of God.
Even though that person continues to have the life that was.
Placed in the body at the time of its creation, as it says in Romans, it's a body of death.
When we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are born from above.
That's what new birth is. We receive a new life and that new life resides in the same physical body that we were born with. But, and that to me, this is the wonderful thing. From that point, before we put our trust in the Lord Jesus, God looked at us as dead.
Dead in trespasses and sins. No life toward God. And so God's viewed us as dead.
But when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus.
We have a new life, we belong to a new creation, but we still live in those bodies that were part of the first creation. However, from that point on, that is from the time we put our trust in the Lord Jesus and receive life eternal, God never looks at us as dead again.
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We can if we physically die. God still says we're alive and we are consciously alive in his presence. But as Jim just said, as to the body, it's looked at as asleep.
And is asleep until the resurrection day of the rapture for us. So it's a wonderful thing. And John 11, the disciples didn't understand that. And so the Lord says of Lazarus, he sleeps. He's giving God's view of it. Lazarus was just asleep because Lazarus had new life from God.
But they didn't understand, so he changes the point of reference for them and he says, well, Lazarus is dead.
That is, he turned it back to the the point of reference from looked at as from the earth and from the present condition of things. And he said, well, OK, to help them. Lazarus is dead. But it's a wonderful thing for us to enter into and enjoy that we are alive forevermore and while our bodies may sleep.
That's all that as far as it can go. And then we await the resurrection day when we receive a body, which is.
In keeping with the life that has been given to us.
I think it'd be helpful to go back and notice the source of the reference that Paul speaking about here in the first Fruits if we go back to Leviticus 23 and read a couple verses there.
Which is a prophecy, the feast of Jehovah, of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the third feast.
A feast of first fruits.
In Leviticus 23 verse 10 it says, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them.
When you become into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest unto the priests, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you. On the Morrow after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it, and ye shall offer that day when you wave the sheep.
And he lamb without blemish of the first year.
For a burnt offering unto the Lord, and then a drink offering also follows.
This is a prophecy of the resurrection.
Of the Lord Jesus which followed the Morrow after the previous feast of the Unleavened bread and Passover, which were a prophecy of the death of the Lord Jesus the Lamb. And so you have it referred to here in our chapter. And what that they did on that feast is they.
This was in the springtime when the wheat was still growing.
And before they could partake of it, they were to take and cut a sheaf of the wheat and present it to God and wave it before the Lord. This was a picture of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they were to take this sheaf and wave it.
And then they could eat of the new grain that was just being ripe to an edible. And so it's a picture of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Paul in our chapter is taking this wave sheaf and he's waving it before our souls before the Lord too, in in a sense. And he's making much of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus because Christianity depends on that.
And this is the beginning of where Christianity really begins and the resurrection of the Lord, Lord Jesus, this new creation. And so it's it's good that we take this subject up.
Part of the answer to the parentheses here that begins with verse 20 and it ends at the end of verse 28. And we can mark it as a parentheses by noting that then they also which are falling asleep in Christ are perished and then go to verse 29 as though there's no break in the subject. They'll sweat, shall they do, which are baptized for the dead.
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I believe what our brother Doug is given a nice introduction to this parentheses, but I think it ought to be emphasized just a little bit more.
I'd just like to suggest what our brother London mentioned one time about this parentheses, he said.
That in this parentheses we learn to know God as our Father.
The father has been introduced to us in Christianity not known before, and so that's a lovely feature. And so there's the someone will have to help me out that when they when somebody stole.
For sheep, they had to add a fifth part to it beside restoring.
That which had been taken away. And so he likened that to the restoring that which he took not away in his death to bring the Father, God as our Father to our hearts. And I enjoyed that as something very rich to my soul to learn God as my Father. Like to just refer back to Christy Coleman that she had a terrible upbringing.
Not even to be talked about.
And consequently, through her life, she never could call God her Father because of her earthly father and the terrible torments that that dear one passed through. But at the close of her life, she penned in this book that she wrote up that she said, I know God is my father, and that's the one that I'm going to. So how wonderful to know the Father in Christianity.
In the first creation, it began with life.
And it ends in death. Everything in the first creation dies and is replaced and is removed from God's sake.
What a wonderful thing to see in contrast to that.
New creation begins with a man in death.
Who is raised from the dead?
And in life, and there in life, begins new creation, But it is a creation which is triumphant from its very beginning over death.
And it remains forever. What a wonderful thing that God was dishonored in man.
In that first creation, but God in the man Christ Jesus, who rises from the dead, alive forevermore.
Life giving spirit is to God's honor forever and it will never be replaced. And nothing, absolutely nothing in new creation will ever face death. Everything in the first creation dies or is removed from God's sight, but everything that comes from the new creation remains and that forever. And God is honored in it. God is glorified in it.
That's what we have in verse 23, isn't it? As in Adam.
All die, that's that first creation. Even so in Christ shall all be made alive. So in new creation starts with Jesus and resurrection beyond the power of death, in the power of a life that cannot die. Death has no more power over that position.
Of those who are in new creation.
But there's an order, isn't there? And that's what we have in verse 23. Then every man in his own order.
Doesn't all happen instantaneous, but it's Christ, the firstfruits. That's where it began, the Lord Jesus and resurrection. Oh, brethren, it's wonderful to meditate on the power of God in resurrection. You know, we look at creation as such, and it's a tremendous display of God's power. He spoke and it was done.
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Think of those millions upon millions upon millions of Galaxy that are out there, and he spoke them all into existence. What tremendous power. But we're talking about a power that is different, completely different. It's a power of God in resurrection. It's mentioned, and I'd just like to refer to it in Ephesians chapter one in Paul's prayer for the Ephesians believers.
In verse 19 forward it says what is he wants them to know and here's one of the things he wants them to know. Verse 19, what is.
The exceeding greatness of his power to us word who believe according to the working of his mighty power, it seems like he runs out of adjectives, brother and then talking about this power.
That's working to us who believe towards us who believe which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion. In other words, when he began to raise Jesus from the dead, he did not quit raising Jesus until he was far above all principality and power. There is a man in the glory of God.
He occupies the highest place in the.
Heavens, it says in in chapter 4 of Ephesians, far above all heavens. That's the power that now works towards us, to believe and works in us as well. It's the power of God and as it says here in our chapter in verse.
22 Again it says, Even so, in Christ shall all be made alive.
So in the book of Ephesians we are looked at as raised with Christ and seated with Him in heavenly places.
I thought we were seated here in Saint Louis this morning.
What's it talking about? It's God's eternal purposes that will never rest until.
It's full fulfillment, dear brethren. We're seen as occupying that place right here and now. Isn't that wonderful? That's the power of God and resurrection. Even so, in Christ all shall be made alive. God bless the rest.
Would always have an order and that's the topic that Bob just started off with. He would not do it haphazardly. It would have to have an order and it would starts out first, the first fruits if you wrote a paper.
You would put at the top of your paper the topic of what you're going to write about. And in First Corinthians 15 and 12, he wrote. Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? He states why he is writing chapter 15. Some were saying there was no resurrection among the dead. Now we have why he has written a chapter. Now he's going to show.
His facts and what takes place in God's order. And it starts out with first. And if you wrote a topic, you would state what it is in your first paragraph might say first, and then you would list your reasons why your second paragraph might say second and etcetera down the line. And that's why we have verse 23. Now if every man, but every man in his own order, God has an order on this resurrection and his final one is last.
Verse 26, the last enemy you see, he has a beginning, he has a middle section and he has an ending.
About his topic of resurrection. Now brother Jim Retta saw Hebrews 11 and 13 or 13 and 11. Excuse me now, is your salvation nearer than when you believed? I'm not correct? Quote exactly right, but that's real close. Turn with me to first Peter chapter one, please.
First Peter chapter one.
Let's look at verse 5 together. First, Peter one and five who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Our brother Bob was just talking about that power. It wasn't it. We have an omnipotent protector here, don't we? In salvation, originally, we were saved.
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From our sins, we were saved from the punishment of those sins.
Now we are currently being saved from the dominion and the power of sin, but there is a time coming when we will be saved, and there that says through faith unto salvation. That's what we read earlier in Hebrews or in Romans 13 and 11. Now are we closer to that salvation than when we believed? And So what the teaching is here, brothers and sisters, that there is coming a time.
When we will become exactly like Christ and our salvation will be complete, and that's what we're talking about here, is the completion of our salvation will be finished throughout the endless ages of eternity when we're resurrected with Him and our bodies changed like unto Him, and we are in heaven forever. It's the completion of our salvation.
Before we get too far with one of the brothers, go back for the younger people and discuss the difference in the headship of Christ and the headship of Adam and the guilt that we have in Christ as we come into the world.
We have in verse 22, isn't it Mark? It's as in Adam all die.
By Adam, death entered into this world and.
Everyone who participates of that first creation.
Die that ends in death like Don was mentioning, but in Christ shall all be made alive. There is a new creation. Let's go to 2nd Corinthians 5 and verse.
Want to read from verse?
16 It says, wherefore henceforth?
No way. No man after the flesh.
Yeah, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth knowing Him no more.
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, then I read it as it reads in Mr. Darby's translation. There is a new creation. It's not just that the believer in the Lord Jesus is a new creature, that's true, but at the point is that he's part now of a completely new creation.
Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.
Just like to say here, this is the reason when the Lord Jesus presented himself to Mary Magdalene in John chapter 20 in resurrection he says to her, touch me not, for I have not yet ascended unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.
Why did Mary want to touch him? She wanted him back as she had had him here in life. And he in effect was saying to her, no, Mary, you're not going to have me back as you knew me in this life. Now you're going to have me in a completely new relationship, in new creation. Sometimes people wonder about that because they did touch the Lord Jesus in resurrection, He did say.
In another place, handle me and see. But the point is that it's new creation. It's something completely new, and that's why it says in verse 16 here of 2nd Corinthians 5.
Henceforth knowing no man after the flesh. Yeah, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. That's the problem. One of the problems with pictures of Jesus. They're all, of course, fabrications of man's imagination.
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But we don't know Him after the flesh. We know him now in new creation. It's a completely new creation that we know the Lord Jesus in. He's the head of that new creation in resurrection.
Verse 47, The 1St man and the 2nd man. The 1St man was the head of an earthly race of people. That's Adam and everybody in this room.
Is a descendant of Adam.
But in verse 47 in our chapter, the second-half of the verse is the second man is the Lord from heaven. He is the head of a new race, having no as that race, we are all of him.
We who are part of the new creation are our life is of Christ, it is our life. And so He is the head of that new creation, which we might call a new race. There's the 1St man of an earthly race and there's the 2nd man a heavenly race. I'd like to mention two with respect to this matter of the verses in 23, four and five.
It is.
And Adam?
All dying in Christ, all be mating made alive. We have.
In God's work in power, in the first creation, a mighty expression of his power, we look at all the sky and so on. But it's well to remember that when God created all of that, it was before sin.
There was number sin involved. It was a work of God displaying His mighty power and His own glory, and He created it all and it all had perfect order connected with it. But then sin comes into it and now God has to do an even more mighty work of power to deal with that situation, if you will, in which sin had come into that first creation.
To display his own honor and his own glory in the midst of a creation that had been spoiled by sin. And man looks at God and he, he puts God down many times. And what he has to say about God because he only sees the first creation and it's spoiled condition. And he sees man and all his suffering at the present time. And so he's, he says, well, he doesn't think very much often times of God. It's because he does not see the mighty power of God.
Who has worked in that condition of things to send into it? A man.
To do a mighty work of redemption that will deliver man through that work into a new creation in which this man reestablishes, if you will, all the order that belongs to God and is necessary for God's own glory. And so he's the beginning of it. He's the first fruits of it. Into his hands are committed the administration of the new creation.
And he puts down everything that has been allowed to come into the first creation that was disorderly, and not according to God's own nature and being. And this man is put into that administration of things, until absolutely everything that had spoiled the first has been now established in the 2nd and perfect order the very last thing of disorder.
That is, removed from the sight of God is death itself, because it was never the will or the intent of God that there be death in his creation.
Even though man brought it into the first creation and yet the Lord Jesus, that blessed person established by God is the one that Himself is the first fruits. He is the quickening Spirit that gives life to us to participate in it. He then establishes all the order of things under God. He then takes away and the final thing of disorder which is death itself.
And then, as it were, as a man, he presents it to God, and he says.
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Here it is.
Everything is now ordered according to God's own character and God's own heart, and it's for God's glory and he presents it up to God. What a blessed man the Lord Jesus is for our hearts to see that what he is doing for God has done for God and the end result of it when it's delivered up to God. So these verses, this parenthesis, really crescendos with what we often refer to as the eternal state.
Because as you say, it's more than just our being brought into blessing. We have, as we sit here, the wonderful truth in our souls that we've been made a new creation, a new creature in Christ and so on. But God's heart is has already been said, will never really be satisfied until sin is removed from everything that has been created, until his man is the center of everything. God's man is going to be the center of everything.
And I say it crescendos here with the eternal state, because even the Millennium is not going to be a perfect state of things. The serpent will still eat dust in the Millennium. There will still be death in the Millennium. There will still be sin and judgment morning by morning because of it. And so he must reign, as it says, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. Just let's just take the time and go to Revelation for a moment where we have.
We're told very little about the eternal state, but I think it's precious just to read what we have.
And to see the heart of God completely satisfied with the removal of sin, Stoners said. From all that has been created and all that has been tainted and spoiled by sin. Revelation 21 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the 1St heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. I might just say before I read on that everything, all creation, has been tainted with sin.
And not only this planet as we know it, but man has sent his probes up into the to the universe. Satan is the Prince of the power of the air. All has been spoiled. All that God has created has been spoiled by sin. And so it's going to be all dissolved and done away with. You get it in Peter where he says the element shall melt with fervent heat, and that will introduce the day of God or the eternal state.
And so he's John sees this new heaven and the new earth. There's no more sea. And I, John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God shall be with them and be their God, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death.
Neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. And he and he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, right? For these words are true and faithful. And when we read about no more pain and sorrow and death and tears and so on, it's not really talking about heaven. That'll be true of heaven, but it's really talking about a condition of things on the new earth. Finally those things are going to be completely removed.
And there's going to be a sphere of things, brethren, where sin will never be able to enter again. Sin came into the to the first creation. It spoiled the earthly paradise when the Adam eight of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. But God has a purpose and it's a place where sin will never be able to taint or come in again. And really the eternal state will be the fulfillment of what John the Baptist said.
When he saw the Lord Jesus walking, he said, behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. That hasn't happened yet, and it really won't happen in the Millennium either. And although it with Satan bound and the righteous reign and execution against evil work speedily executed, will be to a great degree suppressed and put down and kept at Bay, but it really won't happen until the eternal state. And it's really what the hymn writer referred to, all taint of sin.
Shall be removed, all evil done away, and we shall dwell with God's beloved through God's eternal day.
00:55:02
We are perhaps verses that would help us is younger want to understand what we were talking about the first one we mentioned already how Christ being the first fruit. That's the beginning of all these verse. We find that in verse 23. Well, why do we talk about resurrection Before I go to the next one, I'd like to turn to portion and 1St in Philippians chapter 4. The apostle Paul told us a little bit more about that.
That would encourage encourage us to learn more about the resurrection. Philippians chapter 3. I'm sorry Philippians chapter 3 we find Paul mentioned about his background and then he mentioned 7 new desires that he that he would like to have. And couple of this in verse 10 there he said that I might know him for he wants to know more about our blessed Lord and the power.
Of His resurrection, the apostle wanted to know what that does indeed, that I may know him, the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, and so on. Well, the resurrection leads to other things. That's the beginning of a few things. Let's go back to our chapter, verse 24.
He said another stage here that was alluded to and mentioned already about this millennial scene verse 24. Then cometh the end. We see the word cometh in italics so we can read this then the end. That's another phase of time, isn't it? So the Lord have risen from the dead. We know that is going through this day of grace and then we know and we mentioned about a soon returned and then it would usher into that that seed that millennial scene after that.
And then it will be the end. That's the end of that millennial time. What would He do at the end of that? He said, when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, what? He shall have put all rule and all authority and power, for He must reign until he has put all enemies under His feet. Well, that was mentioned to us already, wasn't it? I want to point this out, the end. But is that it?
No, there's still more to that phase. I believe. The next verse in this parentheses section here is verse 28.
Then when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto him, and put all things under him, that God may be All in all. That's what it all going to be, isn't it, That God may be All in all. But the precious thing here is that.
Not Christ will continue to reign, but He will remain a Son in the eternal state. He will remain a man after all that He has done for us. He remained a man so that He can be with us. What precious thought that is when it speaks about rule, authority, power, reigning, its connection with the millennial day. He must reign until He put all enemies under His feet so.
In the millennial day, it tells us that righteousness will reign. It's because sin is still in the earth, and therefore to control that there is necessity of rule, authority and power.
But in the eternal day, righteousness will dwell. There will be no more sin.
To reign over or to control at all. No taint of sin in God's eternal day. What a what a day it will be when there will be absolutely no suggestion of sin. We live in a world so full of it we get used to it.
Oh, what a wonderful day when there will be absolutely nothing left. But what David was mentioning here in verse 28 is beautiful, brethren, when he, when all things be, shall be subdued unto him like Don was mentioning. The Lord Jesus is going to put everything back into order as a man, then shall the sun also be subject unto him that put all things under him.
That God may be All in all, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Lord Jesus is that Son, but he is a man as well, and as a man he takes that place of subjection under him that put all things under him, and he remains a man forever to enjoy the company of His redeemed people.
01:00:22
What a future.
Call in writing to Timothy.
Speaks of the Lord Jesus.
In First Timothy, chapter 6 refers to him as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and I like the way Mr. Darby has put that.
In First Timothy chapter 6.
And verse.
15.
He speaks of him as the king of those that reign, and Lord of those that exercise lordship.
Which certainly impresses us with the thought that he will be above all.
He will have dominion.
And God will see to it.
That his own dear son, who here on earth was rejected by men.
Will obviously have the highest place.
And you know God, I believe, was delighted in His Son here on earth. You could say, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And how does he show favor to his Son who died? You know the Lord Jesus was obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross, while God is highly exalted him. And God has shown favor to his Son for what he did.
By raising him from the dead, he's the first fruits of resurrection.
And he now sits at God's right hand. And of course, in that coming day.
During the Millennium, all will be subject to Him. But I was just thinking how that God shows favor to you and to me.
By raising us.
It speaks of Christ, the first fruits afterward, they that are Christ at his coming, referring to those that have died in Christ, trusting in Him. I believe what we have here is the first resurrection. Is it not Not the second resurrection? Because that takes place about 1000 years later. We read it in Revelation 20.
The terrible time when those that have died in their sins are raised, they stand before that great white throne and are judged according to their works.
But blessed are all they that have part in the first resurrection, and I believe it also includes those who in the tribulation.
Have been faithful to Christ, suffered for him even unto death. They're going to be raised.
They're part of those that are his that is coming. Am I right in saying that?
So the thought is that we have not only the Rapture in view, but His appearing in glory too. And.
I believe those that are faithful to Christ through the tribulation, Revelation 20 speaks of it will be raised and will enjoy heavenly blessing.
We noticed the epistle written to those Saints at Corinth and we know that this is about the resurrection of those that know Christ. But when we come to verse 22, verse 22 for as in Adam all died. Taking a look at the word, all all died, all become sinners and all die. Even so in Christ shall all be made alive. That's the question I want to bring up. Does that second all in that verse incorporate in.
The raising of the unsaved also or is that strictly because it is an epizzle? It is all referred to all those that are saved.
I think there's a beautiful order here. I'd like to go through the order in these verses. We've commented on it in brief, but not put the whole together. We have Christ, the first fruits. That's his resurrection in verse 2223. We we kind of skipped over the next one afterward. They that are Christ at his coming. That's when he comes to take his Saints home to heaven, where he has gone before.
We have the life, the new creation by faith in him. Now we're quickened with that life that takes place. It says afterward. There's an order here.
01:05:14
I think this is important because in the day we're living, brethren, there's an effort being put forth to undue dispensational truth.
To deny it, to just make all different time periods the same, and God's dealing in a moral way and without distinction of earth and heaven and so on. You get it here in these verses, the order that things will happen.
Christ the first fruits, that's the resurrection of the Lord Jesus afterwards, they that are Christ at his coming.
That's when he comes to take the Saints of the present time to heaven with him.
Then there's a big change that's going to happen.
And it says next then cometh the end.
It really jumps over the whole millennial period at first and goes to the end of the Millennium when He shall deliver up all to the Father. Why is it put in that order? It's because there's a change in what the Lord is doing. He is working with earth then, and at the end of that time working with earth and those who live on the earth at that time, which is the next verse.
He will deliver it all up.
As it says, the Kingdom, that's the kingdoms of the world, That's the kingdoms here on earth.
Going to be delivered up to God in having put it all back to order again.
On Earth.
And then it describes how he's going to do it.
Verse 25 really proceeds in time. Verse 24, verse 25 is the process of the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus, putting it back in order for 1000 years here on earth, and then at the close of it He delivers it all back to the Father in a perfect state. These are the dispensations of God, the plan of God.
The last thing is, the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Well, that I believe is.
Yes, you're in the great White Throne, and I think perhaps this may be the answer to the brother's question about as in Edemald die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.
When God, when the Lord Jesus does away with death.
The ungodly appear in their body.
It's not called a resurrection exactly. It's called the second death, and I believe in that order. That's the answer to when they are included in made alive, they are not resurrected, they are.
In it, and more accurately they are death is done away so they have to appear before him to be judged. Am I right brother? Chuck, we haven't heard from you all meeting.
I know you have something to say.
I was looking at Genesis 1.
Verse 26 and God said, let us make man in our image.
After our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fall of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth.
And over everything that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image.
An image of God created him, male and female created he them, and then all that we've been going through, going back to that 28th verse in our chapter. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the sun as man is really what it is also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be All in all.
When he created man, he was to be the head of everything, and then he fell.
And now that's all been conquered by the one that became a man.
01:10:05
And he'll be a man forever.
I mean these things haven't said much because they just throw my soul of what He starts out with His initial purpose. He creates the earth and all. He puts man there and you're going to be the head. And what a mess he's made of it. But when Christ came there was the 1St and the only perfect man after Adam. I mean the only perfect one.
And everything is going to be placed under his feet.
And we're going to be associated in the closest, most intimate way with that man.
How can you say it better?
Just like to say in connection with what you said, Doug, in John Chapter 5, it does.
Speak of the resurrection of damnation, which I think shows that it is a resurrection but it is not the resurrection of of those in Christ, is it it's and I like the way you put it it says death will be destroyed so absolutely those people that have died and been put in graves there's no longer for them to be there in the grave. They're pulled right out and it's it's amazing to think that every.
Single.
Grave that has ever been dug in this world is going to be emptied. No human bone is going to be left. Every single soul that has ever lived will be resurrected. But there's the resurrection of life that we're talking about here in this chapter. And then there's the resurrection of damnation that will take place, like you said, Doug, at the Great White Throne when those that are dead, he said, I saw the dead.
Stand before God.
Do dead people stand up? They will then, because death.
That first death is going to be destroyed and then.
Death and Hades are cast into the Lake of Fire, which is the second death.
Connection with what we've had before us in Colossians Chapter 3.
Colossians chapter 3 and verse one.
If you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection or your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
For ye are dead.
And your life is hid with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory.
In Adam all die, even as it says here ye are dead.
In identification with Adam, everything dies because Adam sinned. Adam stood in responsibility before God. He had life. But in that life that Adam had, he disobeys God. He already knew ahead of time the pronouncement. The consequence was death. And in Adam all die. And so those who know not the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, they're physically alive at the moment, but they're dead.
Toward God and if they die in their sins.
They're put in the grave, but they're accountable to God for the deeds done in the body. Man is not only a soul and a spirit, but he has his body and all that we do and all the sin that we commit is done in the body. And so the whole man, body, soul and spirit, is responsible to God.
He's died once. James tells us what that means. He says the Spirit, the body without the spirit, is dead. The first death for a Sinner in his sins is the separation of his soul from his body. That's the first death. But that dead person is raised to stand before God, to be judged in the whole body, soul and spirit, because that's the whole man that was responsible.
Once in his living condition before God, but he stands before God is dead.
01:15:05
And he's judged. And the second death is the separation of that whole being, that person and body, soul and spirit, forever from the presence of God. That's what second death means. It's the separation of the whole man, body, soul and spirit from God's presence. And so he's born once into this world. He dies twice.
But the reason for reading the verses in Colossians, which to me are wonderful.
Is.
When we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we receive what we call eternal life, and it's His life.
We're bound with him in the same bundle of life. We have his life. Previously it might be said we had Adam's type of life, but now it's even more closely linked with the Lord Jesus. We had Adam's type of life, but our own addition of it or something, our own instance of it.
That we receive from our parents, but it's more intimate, It's closer. When it comes to the Lord Jesus, my life is not independent of Him. It's His life that I share in that life. Why is that wonderful? Well, it's wonderful in itself, but it's wonderful in another way, brethren, That's why the new creation will never fail.
We might say, well, what happens if somebody in heaven decides to rebel or sin?
And then spoil everything in the new creation. It can't happen. It won't happen because everybody in heaven has life in Christ. And if that were to happen, he would have to fail.
But he won't fail. We know that it's impossible that he failed in that life. And so it's impossible for us to fail in it either, because Christ is our life. And consequently, when the Lord Jesus presents everything to the Father in the end, he presents it to him in a state of things that will never, ever fail. It will remain to God's glory through that man.
Forever.
And it's our joy to be part of it. It's our joy to be in it and rejoice in it with Him.
And I for myself at least, would add the thought in in this verse, when it says in Christ shall all be made alive.
Adam had life which he forfeited, and everyone after him, having received from him, forfeits. And all life in the first creation in man starts with Adam, but it all fails. But all life in new creation is from Christ. There's no other source of life and new creation but Himself.
And in Christ shall all be made alive. He's the first fruit He rose from the dead to begin the new creation in that life in which he rose from the dead. And in that life everyone who will have life forever receives it from him.
In connection with that life that we have through him, this is kind of a practical a word. I think it's very helpful to see.
As we are linked with the resurrection life of Christ as believers now.
There's a tremendous effort in the world today. Every time I look at the educational books that today I'm impressed with how much emphasis is in the educational system. And there's a great movement onward to fix this world up and to Greenpeace and to make things put things back to in order. It's a tremendous effort. And it lest we get caught up in that, I believe we have the remedy to of our condition, our position here.
Identified with Christ in resurrection life and that the old order is the end of it is all death to see that the Lord is the only one that can put it back together again and he has demonstrated that and his resurrection is is the is the proof of it among other things and we've we've noticed here how he's going to do that in the coming age.
01:20:03
This, brethren, should help us.
And give us peace as we still live in the first creation. And it's true, things are out of whack and it's getting worse. We even talk about the weather being out of whack and so on. These are all results of man's fall and of sin. When we see the Lord Jesus is the one who demonstrated first of all the power to do it when he was here on earth but now in resurrection.
And the plan here of how he's going to do it and eventually deliver it all back to God in perfection. That's our answer, brother.
It's unbelief.
To join the movement to do it now.
So remember Our Calling, and the Lord Jesus is the one to do it. It's not that we're careless or unconcerned or wasteful with the things of the first creation. We shouldn't purposely.
Do harm to it and and drag it down further. But our admission of the fall and that we're dead.
Ought to ought to cut all that off, and turn wholly to the Lord in faith in Him.
And to be identified with him in the coming day when he does put it back together.
That is, reorder it.
I just want to make a comment on verse 29.
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead?
If the dead rise, not at all.
Why are they then baptized for the dead?
To be baptized for the dead is to take the place of one that's been put to death because he was a Christian.
What's the point in that if there's no resurrection?
If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, you're yet in your sins, and they which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable. So what shall the those that are baptized for the dead to be identified with? With this, this order of things that is going to end in death, and that's the end of it. It's not the end of it at all. Verse 28 is the highest title. You can't go higher than that.
In the whole New Testament.
When all things shall be subdued unto him.
Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him.
That put all things under him, that God may be All in all. If the Lord is going to be subject to the one that put everything under him, he must be a man to do that. And that's the first. That's the highest creature that God made there in the Genesis one, and that was Adam. And he fell. His humanity was innocence. Christ humanity was holy. Holiness cannot sin.
Innocence could did.
So.
What shall they do? Which are baptized for that and why for the dead? Why be identified by death by baptism? Have that name written upon me, so to speak, If that's the end of it. No, it's not the end of it. I, I think of the story of, you know, there's, there's millions of Christians that have that have been killed for their faith in the in the 1St century. There are many, many, many that were put to death.
And there were at Rome, this one man was in charge of doing that. And he saw, he saw the faith of those that were Christians and he put them to death. And then he came forward and he says, put me to death too. I'm a Christian now too. He saw the value of it, the reality of it. Death doesn't end everything, not at all.
What a wonderful chapter looking at.
01:25:13
1:15.
Every day on my heart.
Thereby thy side, thy smile, thy spring.
Shall run.
The one dress swell over again.
And let's call the beast forever and forever.
Praises the sweetest sound.
When the bones and stars and dust is brown.
Was strange.
Rain will die again.
Troubled by Many Things - One Thing Needful
Address—Don Rule
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.
We'll begin with #134.
134.
Lord of life, to death once subject blesser.
Yet a curse once made.
Of thy father's heart the object yet in depths of anguish laid.
Thee we gaze on.
The recall bearing here our sorrows all #134.
The response man, all thy father's father came along, and.
That's all.
Even now.
Repeat anything of the ring.
All day in the Lord, and we're on thy soul, rain.
Turn with me to Luke's gospel.
Chapter 10.
Luke's Gospel chapter 10 and verse 38.
Now it came to pass as they went, that he, that is Jesus.
00:05:04
Entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.
And she had a sister called Mary which also sat at Jesus feet and heard his word.
But Martha was cumbered about with much serving, and came to him and said Lord.
Dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?
Bitter, therefore, that she helped me.
And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken from her.
It's before me and I trust of the Lord to spend this time together speaking about.
Things.
We're all occupied with things and so is God.
The Word of God is full of things for us to be occupied with, and life is full of things that we are.
Occupied with everyone of us.
And here in this brief little description of this house that the Lord Jesus visited one day.
Was this woman Martha?
Who showed her hospitality to him, her interest in him, and inviting him to come into her house and to serve him there.
And as she was serving the Lord Jesus in her house, her heart was not at peace.
Underneath the surface of her service to the Lord Jesus and to others that were in the house.
She was troubled.
She was distressed because her sister, who was also there in the house and lived in the house with her, wasn't helping her, but she was where the Lord Jesus was in the house, and she had sat down at his feet and was listening to Him.
And so, in her distress, Martha comes to the Lord Jesus.
Two will say complain about her sister's behavior and to ask the Lord Jesus to straighten it out and tell her sister Mary, Mary, get up and help me.
I don't suppose she anticipated the answer that she got.
But the Lord says to her.
Thou art careful and troubled about many things.
Maybe you're troubled about some things in your life this afternoon.
Some things that are bothering you individually, whether you're a young person.
Or whether you're in the final stages of this life, it's very easy for all of us.
To be careful and troubled about many things.
The answer the Lord Jesus gives to her is an answer that I think at one time or another.
Everyone of us needs in our own lives.
When we are careful and troubled about many things, the Lord says to her, one thing is needful.
One thing.
We'll notice a number of one things.
And this is one of them. One thing is needful.
And Mary chose that one thing. What was it?
She chose to sit at Jesus feet.
And here is where.
Regardless of the circumstances of your life or mine at any time, that's one thing that is always needful in our lives.
No matter what else has to be put aside, we all need one thing.
All the time we need it. Every day we need it.
00:10:01
We need to sit at Jesus feet.
And hear his word.
I just want to say for the young people this afternoon, don't simply think about this.
I don't know what I'm going to say. Don't simply think about what I have in my hands as a book.
It is more than a book.
It is God speaking to you.
I believe it this morning.
God spoke to me.
In fact, we had a conversation.
Did God speak to you this morning?
Did you have a conversation with him? I hope you did. When you pick up and read the words recorded here of God, they are God speaking to you. And no matter where you read in it, God has something in what He's saying for you to apply to your own life. And we all need to listen. We all need to listen to what God has to say to us.
And as you listen to what God says.
For myself, sometimes I'll stop and say, Lord, I don't understand what you just said.
Help me to understand it.
Or sometimes I'll say, Lord, I don't really like to hear that.
There's something there that speaking to my heart, or in that case to my conscience, or other times, thankfully, I can say thanks, Lord.
I'm enjoying that, that you're saying to me.
One thing is needful.
Choose it no matter what.
You might be. I don't know if there are any, but I think of this because I have a daughter at the present time who's nursing and because she has a child that's only a few months old, she's up several times in the night. She doesn't get her normal night's sleep.
Because she has to care or serve a helpless babe.
Who can't live without her or someone else to care for it?
Regardless, she needs just like you and I need to sit at Jesus feet to hear his word.
One thing is needful, and if we don't have that every day.
We will spiritually starve.
We have to have it. We'll have it for eternity. The food, we were talking that today, this morning, about a new creation and a new life. Yes, this life that we live on earth is a physical life and it has to have food to live, can't live without it. We've received a new life from God and that life has to have food too. The words of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Himself is the food of that life, and that is needful.
One thing is needful.
Let's go then to Chapter 12. Look at another.
Little place that tells us about some more things.
Luke 12.
Verse 15.
And he said unto them, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully any thought within himself, What shall I do? Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said, This will I do. I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will bestow all my fruits and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods, or, Mr. Darby translates it, much good things laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. And then who shall those things be?
00:15:01
Which thou hast provided. So is he that layeth up treasure for himself.
And is not rich toward God.
I'm going to go back and read in the new translation the first verse that we started with, it says.
In verse 15.
Take heed.
And keep yourselves from all covetousness, for it is not because a man is in abundance, that is, life is in his possessions.
I say that because not very many of us in this room would be considered rich.
But that isn't the point here.
You can be poor by comparison to the person sitting next to you, but that fact doesn't mean that your life isn't totally absorbed in your possessions, the things that you have.
I just want to before we to back up here at a moment and say that possessions doesn't only mean physical things.
Or I should say, things aren't. I didn't mean I didn't say that correctly. Things, as the Bible uses the word don't simply mean possessions.
You remember when the Lord Jesus was talking to the two Emmaus, they talked about the things that happened in Jerusalem, and the Lord Jesus responds and he says what things they were talking about events that had happened as things. And so things that happen are things as well as physical possessions and so on. And that's important, I think, to understand when we talk about things. Here's a man that accumulated a lot of things.
And he was going to enjoy them. And it's a desire of everybody to be happy. There's not a person in this room that says I want to be sad. All of us haven't were born with a desire to to be happy. And we try to do those things in our lives that we think will make us happy. And here's a man that had a farm and the farm was prosperous and he accumulated many good things.
And he said I've got a lot of good things now, what should I do? Well, no use working so hard anymore. I'll just build some bigger barns and then I'll I got a lot of years to enjoy. I'll step back and I'll enjoy.
For commenting, you can keep your finger here, but let's turn over to one verse in Romans.
In Romans Chapter 11.
Here's something this man didn't understand.
And if you don't understand it, life will never work right, whether you're young or old.
It's important to recognize what this verse tells us. In Romans Chapter 11 and verse 36 it says.
Speaking of God.
For of God and through God and to or for God.
Are all things.
To whom be glory forever. Amen.
You'll never be happy for a very long.
Things will never work right for very long.
Unless as a creature of God, you learn and accept.
That everything, all things are of God and through God and for God.
He created this world. He created you.
For himself, for his own purposes and pleasure and the only way we can ever.
Get things right.
In our lives.
Is when we accept that.
For of him.
And through him and for him are all things. Nothing would exist.
Except He created it. Everything is of God.
Everything that is allowed to happen.
Has to happen under his control.
Doesn't mean that everything is good because man has sinned and rebelled against him, but the extent to which man can go God always is over that and controlling of it.
00:20:12
And everything, ultimately, is for him.
Now back at this man that we're looking at in Luke 12, he said.
A certain rich man's ground brought forth plentifully.
This man had a nice farm.
And it was prosperous.
And as far as that man was concerned, God wasn't in the picture at all.
God didn't have to say anything about it.
He that probably got up in the morning and lived his day and went to bed at night, and God never entered his thoughts.
When he was planning to do something, he said this I'll do.
He never took into account God in his activities or his plans. God wasn't in his thoughts.
He just, I'm going to do it. This is what I want to do.
That wasn't a very smart man.
I've got years to live, he said.
Did that take God into account? No.
God wasn't part of this man's life. He is in another place. He's what the Bible calls godless, a man who lives without reference to God.
Ungodly so, he says. I'll do this.
I'll do that. I'll do the other.
And so on.
What's God say to his life?
You're a fool.
You're a fool.
You can't leave God out of your life. Young person, older person, all of us do we leave God out of our lives and can I say prosper with God? No. We might temporarily. This man for a while got along pretty well, but in the end he got nothing.
He wasn't.
Rich toward God, and he lost it all in one night.
God required his soul of him.
There was nothing in his life for God, and all things are for God. And so God said that's it, you've had it.
You're a fool. There's nothing for me in your life that's so I'm going to remove it.
And God did.
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself.
And is not rich toward God.
Everything in our lives has to be lived in reference to God or it's wrong.
It's wrong.
I've been thinking a lot recently on my heart about prayer.
And I'm just going to go aside for a moment.
When we're talking about, everything has to be in reference to God. I found something recently that's been a help to me connected with prayer.
I'll explain it this way.
Suppose after this hour was done, I had it in my heart to leave this building and go to some in the shopping mall here and Rob steal something.
Do you think I would talk to God about it ahead of time?
That's what my heart was set on.
You know the answer. I wouldn't talk to God about such a plan.
Here's the point.
If there's anything in your life this afternoon that you can't fully and freely speak to God about.
You need to stop and ask yourself if there's not something wrong in that thing.
Isn't that a practical thing? Think about the activities, the things that interest you, the things that are important to you, the things that you think will make you happy or sad. If there's any one of those many things that you can't freely and fully communicate with God about them.
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Then I would suggest to you that maybe you want to remove them.
From your interest list, From the list of things that are important to you.
Here's a man that lived everything without letting it be of interest to God or to himself. OK, let's turn over to chapter 18.
Chapter 18 and verse 17.
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child.
Shall in no wise enter therein.
And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good master.
What shall I do that I to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good, save one that is God.
Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother. And he said amazingly, he could say all these things have I kept from my youth up. I think the apostle Paul could have, or when he was, Saul could have said the same.
Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing?
Sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come follow me.
And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful.
For he was very rich.
Here's a man that.
Just lacked one thing.
In order to have eternal life.
And I believe what?
The message is, if you will, in this little story can be found if you want to hold your place here I want to read in First Timothy chapter 6 some verses that have already been read.
First Timothy, chapter 6.
And verse 17.
Charge them that are rich in this world.
That they be not high minded nor trust in uncertain riches.
But in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.
That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come. That they may lay hold on eternal life.
The words I want to emphasize in those What's read here is.
That they trust not in uncertain riches, but in the living God.
Here in Luke 18, we have this young man.
And he wanted something important. He wasn't like the rich man who had the prosperous farm and was ungodly. He just left God out of his life. Here's a man that comes to the Lord Jesus and he wants something that'll last.
He wanted to inherit eternal life and he was sincere about it. And he says what do I have to do so that I'll have or inherit eternal life?
He tells.
Things about himself.
He knew the law.
Which if a man did those things, he could live by them. And he mentions half of the 10 commandments. I want you to notice though, in the five that he mentions, every one of them has to do with his fellow man. In the 10 commandments, they can be divided into two groups. Those that have to do with God in my relationship with God, and those that have to do with my relationship with my fellow man.
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And this man had an exemplary life. He had a life that was honorable among men.
He was a person that he did everything right with respect to others.
In his neighborhood or whoever he wherever he lived.
But he doesn't say anything about his relationship with God in them.
He wanted to do something to inherit eternal life.
And he?
Trusted in himself that he could do it.
Important thing.
Anyone of us in this room?
That trusts in ourselves.
And what we can do?
Lack one thing.
We lack one thing.
We lack something that is fundamental to our relationship with God, who is in charge of all things.
We are not to trust in the uncertainty.
Of what we think we are, or we think we are what we have.
It's not gonna work.
He that trusts in his own heart, it says, and in other places, a fool.
Everything is out of order and if we lack one thing.
And what is it? It is a trust in the living God.
It's a trust in the living God.
This man was put to the test about that.
Did he really trust the living God?
For his internal life and everything else, he, the Lord Jesus, puts him to the test, he says.
Go sell giveaway everything you have.
That's a big test, isn't it? Because if he didn't have anything.
He wouldn't have anything in himself to trust in anymore. He could only trust in God.
But he lacked that one thing. He looked at his possessions, he looked at what he had. He was very rich. He had more than many, maybe more than most. And it doesn't say, but we can see from what Timothy tells her, Paul and speaking to Timothy says teach those that have a lot.
Admonish him not to trust in what they have.
But to trust in the living God.
Whether we have a lot or whether we have a little, we all have to learn the same lesson. We need to learn fully and completely to trust.
In the living God.
And not.
In ourselves.
Not to have confidence, Paul says, or trust in the flesh.
We have a human nature that wants to trust in itself because it gives honor to itself.
But.
Everything in this world went wrong.
As soon as man trusted in something other than God.
God said.
To the first man and woman.
If you eat of the fruit of that tree, you'll die.
He could have said, trust me about that matter. It's true.
Receive my testimony that what I say to you is true.
Satan comes into the garden and he says you will not die.
And man is put to the test. Is he going to put trust in God?
Or is he going to believe a lie and put his trust in what the serpent said?
He chooses.
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Not to believe God, He chooses to believe Satan. He acts in disobedience and everything from that moment to this has flowed from not trusting fully, completely in God.
Let's turn over now to Chapter 24.
Chapter 24.
Verse 13 And behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem, about 3 score furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, while they communed together and reasoned about the things that had happened, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. And their eyes were holding that they should not know him. And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these, that ye have one with another?
As you walk and are said. And one of them, whose name was Cleopas answering, said unto him.
Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things?
Which are come to pass there in these days? And he said unto them, What things?
And they said unto him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people.
And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered them, delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him.
But we trusted.
That it had been He which should have redeemed Israel. And beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done.
Yeah, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre. And when they found not his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre and found it Even so, as the women had said, but him they saw not. Then he said unto them, O fools and slow of heart to believe.
All that the prophets have spoken.
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them, and all the Scripture.
The things concerning himself.
I'd like to apply these verses in a matter of encouragement.
And test 2.
There are many times in most of our lives when.
We would say we're discouraged.
Something has come into our life which is hard to take and we are discouraged by it.
And I find these verses a real help in such a time, because here, even though they didn't know who he was, the Lord Jesus comes near.
To such.
And he came near to these two people and he started to go along with them and.
They let his company there, but they didn't know really who it was and as they go along.
They've been talking about what happened in Jerusalem that caused their disappointment and discouragement. So he he asks what things?
He enters in to where they are, and he lets them.
Open it up.
It's a wonderful thing about the Lord Jesus if we let Him, or even sometimes when we don't, but He loves us anyways and cares for us, He will come close. And as it were, asked us the question, what things? What is it that's bothering you?
What is the the problem that's on your heart that's come into your life?
Don't you know? You know, sometimes when we have a real difficulty, somehow, even though we know it's not exactly true, we assume everybody knows.
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It's obvious if they know a little bit that they'll know why we're upset.
But the Lord allows that he says well what things, and so they tell him what things.
We're bothering them, and I'd like to notice we talked about faith in God.
Notice what it says about them. We trust it.
We trusted.
I think all of us who belong to the Lord Jesus would always say we trust.
We trusted, but why were they discouraged if they trusted?
Because they trusted.
In certain things that were written about the Lord Jesus, but not all.
And that's how it sometimes is with us too. We trust. We pick out and choose certain verses out of the Bible and and we enjoy them and we trust them and we have certain expectations based upon those verses.
But sometimes we leave out others.
And that's kind of what happened to them. They saw from the Scripture that this man Jesus that they had been following, they trusted he was the Messiah, and they read about the Messiah, that everything was going to be wonderful for them.
But.
It didn't turn out that way.
Everything wasn't wonderful for them.
They were leaving the city, maybe out of fear, I don't know, big thing, but at least disappointed that things hadn't worked out the way they had trusted they would workout. What are they left out?
What things did he have to say? You're a fool. You didn't believe it all. They left out the suffering side. They left out the suffering side of life.
Scripture also clearly said that the Lord Jesus was going to suffer.
But they wanted the blessing side, if you will, and they didn't really want to believe, at least in application to themselves, that there might be a suffering side.
We must learn to trust God absolutely for all the suffering side as well as all the blessing side.
And what will help us in that? I think the Lord after pointing out their problem to them.
The difficulty they were having in their hearts was.
These words.
Verse.
27 He expounded unto them, and all the scriptures.
The things concerning himself.
Oh, I trust that my God's good hand on each one of us.
That when we're discouraged.
He will bring before us the things concerning himself.
May it be said, times the things concerning his suffering, at other times the things concerning his glory.
We need it all. And he loves God. The Spirit of God loves.
To bring to our hearts the things concerning himself. If you're discouraged this afternoon, may the Lord help you.
May God help you to gain a little even in these meetings of the things concerning Himself.
They're a source of great encouragement to our souls.
Do we have a pain? A suffering?
If we see the things concerning himself, we'll say it far exceeds anything we could ever experience ourselves.
He always has something.
In his own life, to show us that is more extreme really than any we will ever ever experience, he went through something.
So terrible in puff suffering that he promised will never know it, will never experience it.
He said I'll never leave you. I'll never abandoned you.
That was the worst.
Thing, I think that the Lord had to experience.
Was the total abandonment.
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In his atoning suffering.
But he says to us, you'll never experience that. You'll never allow you to.
To know that pain of abandonment. But I want to give you the things concerning myself.
I want you to enter into them.
Well, just we won't turn to it, but I'll refer to the verse in Philippians chapter 4.
In everything, give thanks.
I think the Lord was working on me a while back when I was sick.
For a little while.
And I remember one night I went into the bathroom and I threw up.
And I hadn't even gotten up.
From my niece.
And I said thank you, Lord.
Few hours later I threw up again and I did the same. I said thanks Lord.
And a little while later that night, a couple hours later, the third time, and I said thanks, Lord.
I thank God that she gave the grace to say thanks at such a time, and I think we all need to learn that. I certainly need to learn that more, but I thank Him for a little example of it.
In everything, give thanks.
Why? Because all things, all things work together for good to them that love God. All things work according to the Council of His own will.
Let's look at one verse in connection with that in first Peter chapter one.
Peter tells us that we're on a journey, we're in the wilderness, we see a vision of heavenly things that we've had before us in the conference, and we're going on toward those heavenly things. But it's not easy.
To always go through them in our lives. And so here.
He says verse chapter one, verse 6.
Verse five were kept by the power of God through faith.
Unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time we're in you. Greatly rejoice, though now for a season if need be. Ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perisheth, will it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
Trial of faith.
Trial of faith.
There wouldn't be much trial of faith if there was number suffering.
But in the sufferings of life, in those things that press upon us, not only physical, but.
In our bodies, but also in our circumstances, it tends to push the soul down. It tends to want to crush us sometimes. And it's a trial to faith. It's a test to one's faith. Well, I is God, what he says He is to me is God really care about me?
And so it's what's God say?
He says that faith is more precious.
Than gold. That rich man had his gold.
But he says, as it were, God would say to us, you have something better than that.
Your faith is better than that.
It's precious.
They might be permitted to go this far.
In my own soul, it's as if I can visualize.
Some in this room, someday in the father's house.
And the Lord Jesus putting his arm around them and saying to the rest of us.
This person trusted me.
Trusted my father.
Is that glory to God? Yes, it is.
Home in the Father's house when all is passed connected with this life and and as it were, the Lord Jesus being able to put his arm around someone and say this person trusted my Father to the praise and the glory and the honor.
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Oh, may the Lord help us that when it's all over here.
There will be that treasure.
That has come through the circumstances of life.
Let's turn over to a verse in the Old Testament, Psalm 27.
Psalm 27 and verse 4.
One thing have I desired of the Lord.
And that will I seek after.
That I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.
New translation here also says one thing if I ask.
Lord.
Suppose the Lord Jesus were to come into this room.
And.
Stop it, the chair of each one of us.
And ask us what one thing?
Would you ask or desire of me?
Well, we might have lots of things we would think about, but if you were to narrow it down to just one thing.
What would you ask?
What would you desire?
Of the Lord right now in your life.
I don't think that's.
Necessarily an easy question for some of us to answer.
But I want to turn to an answer that's given in Philippians chapter 3.
So that I believe that question.
Philippians, Chapter 3.
We'll notice a few verses here until we get to that question, if you will. Verse four, it says, though I might have confidence in the flesh.
Here's that matter of trust that we've been talking about. Here's a man that says.
If I were to have confidence in myself and in my own flesh, well, here's what I could have confidence in.
Circumstance. Verse 5. Circumcised the 8th. The day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the Hebrews, is touching the law. Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. He had a list of things in which, if he was going to trust in His flesh, he can name them.
And so could you.
If you thought about it, you could stop and make a list of things in your life.
That you might be trusting in for your happiness.
Just like that man, that was that young man, that was rich. He had a lot of things going for him.
What's he say here?
What things verse seven were gained to me, These I counted loss for Christ.
Yeah, doubtless I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win, or have Christ for my gain.
I wish this for myself and I wish this for everybody in this room.
If we were reduced to one single thing that we would ask of the Lord, I would hope that every one of us would say, I want to have Christ for my gain.
That's everything to me.
To have more of him for my own soul, for my own life.
You know, in order to have more of Christ, he had to do some, make some other decisions, as it were. He had to evaluate things.
I want to try to illustrate it this way. My brother-in-law, Bill and I for several years took a couple of our children on a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.
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And we were usually gone for six days.
And those trips required a lot of planning.
We knew that for those six days we were going to carry our food.
Our clothing, our transportation, our lodging, our bedding on our backs.
And when you are going to do that, you give careful thought to what's essential.
And what can be left behind?
It's important.
To give careful thought to what's really important in life.
And what can be left behind?
Put it a different way, if I want to have Christ for my gain.
Everything can be evaluated as to.
Will this help me or hinder me from having more of himself?
Will it slow me down or hold me back or hinder me from having more?
Of himself.
What's he say?
In verse.
Umm.
Verse 13.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do.
Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things.
Which are for I press toward the mark for the prize of the calling on high, or the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
We've had before us and so far the resurrection and a new creation and a heavenly creation, a heavenly calling that's connected with the new creation.
I wish this for you as I wish it for myself.
That there'd be this one thing we would do when we leave this place.
We would forget, as it were, those things that are behind us in our lives.
Can't change those, they are what they are, but that we would set our eye upon Him, the Lord Jesus.
And press toward the mark.
Of having more of himself.
As He is where He is to have, the Lord Jesus is that one that satisfies the heart.
He's worthy of it.
He satisfies. You'll never find Paul say I'm sorry I made that choice.
But he had one thing to do.
He wasn't distracted about many things.
And I don't believe he lacked the faith either. But he had that one goal before him, and he pressed on. May the Lord help us to press on toward the mark.
Our heavenly calling, that calling on high of God that is before us.
Let's finish with reading the last two verses, or maybe the last three.
Always context everything you read. I'm gonna start in verse 18.
For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.
Whose end is destruction, Whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame? Who mind earthly things? For our conversation is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Savior of the Lord Jesus Christ. And read this next verse in the new translation. Our Savior who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory, according to the working of the power.
Which he has even to subdue all things to himself.
He says you belong. I belong to a new creation.
And the cross of Christ is the end of the old for me. I He died there, I died there, He was buried.
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God has raised me with him.
And I stand in new creation.
Oh, he says. I feel so sorry. I'm so sad that there are those who mind earthly things whose lives are totally taken up in the old creation.
Their enemies, really, he says of the cross of Christ.
But pressing on to the heavenly.
Our conversation, our Commonwealth, our interests, our associations, our are with heaven where he is. And I look forward, he says, to that power which shall transform this body of mine, this body of humiliation.
Into conformity to His body of glory. How? By that power, that resurrection power, whereby He is able to subdue all things to himself.
Let's pray.
1 Corinthians 15:29-58
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#35.
All the sorrows of the day are feeling.
How I can?
All of a sudden, the sorrow.
From around and from where again?
Oh, joy, and all of the triumph in the darkness through the.
Fronts and.
Now.
Resurrection.
I see my prayer to the left from.
Having some.
Judgment.
On the storm of Christ of Lord.
He didn't say all the musical soccer the most.
Certain time.
Never ever just thought of our Porsche. We must bring sunlight.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. See praying, Counting.
All the.
For everyone.
I saw.
Your father and.
We can jump to work.
It would know that.
Means of singing.
For the joy and spirit sung around.
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Salvation.
And there's never.
Anything wrong?
Her screening is 15 and 29. Comment was made on that but we can go from there.
All right.
First Corinthians chapter 15, beginning at verse 29.
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead? If the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead, And why stand we in jeopardy? Every hour I protest by by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I die daily, if after the manner of man. I have fought with beasts at Ephesus. What advantages it me if the dead rise not?
Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. But some men will say, How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come? Thou fool, That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be.
But bear grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of man, another flesh of beasts, and other of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and the bodies terrestrial.
But the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun and and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. For one star different from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption.
It is sown and dishonored. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is so a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written. The 1St man Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam was made.
A quickening spirit. How be it that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual? The 1St man is of the earth earthy. The 2nd man is the Lord from heaven, as is the earthy. Such are they also that are earthy, and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
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In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality.
Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren.
Be ye steadfast.
Unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, For as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
'S.
I have a short question on verse 56.
The first part seems fairly clear to me. The thing of death is is sin. However, could someone give me a few words on the strength of sin is the law? It's not as immediately clear to me.
And after he.
Sinned became a creature that wanted to do his own will in contrast to the will of God.
But it wasn't always apparent to man how serious was his condition, because there was no, as it were, law to tell him fully what he had to do or not do. Men died because of the consequence of sin, but when God introduced a law.
It made it very apparent that man didn't want to do the will of God.
And so, as it says, sin became exceeding sinful. The introduction of the laws. It says in this verse, the strength of sin is the law. The degree of man's rebellion against God was fully displayed through the use of the law. It was a teacher to man, and taught him how.
He was not what he might have thought he was without the law, and so it became that power used of God to show man what his true condition was.
Sometimes feel like this is a good illustration of it.
Man wants to do his own will.
But suppose I drew on the floor here a yellow line and said to everybody on that side of the room, don't cross the yellow line.
What is the first thing you want to do? Naturally? Everybody on that side of the room wants to cross the yellow line. Just because it's put there, it immediately raises within the soul. Why? Who says so? Do I have to? Does it make any difference? And yet what it does is expose by putting it there, exposes the condition of the natural heart with respect to God. And that's what the law did.
You put down the yellow line that do, do and do not from God and it makes manifest or it shows the power of the law to.
What a state man is in, in his unwillingness to be obedient to to God. I think a good example of that verse is in in the, in our country in the Wild West days, they didn't have any law. Anything went, you could do what you want, you could kill another person. But when the law came and said thou shalt not kill, that made that a sin. And it wasn't a sin until there was a law there to identify what it was.
And that's the point of that verse, isn't it? So the law entered that the offense might abound.
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The offense was there, but the law showed just how far short man fell of God's glory. And that's why with the law came transgression, because to transgress is to break a known law. Perhaps I can use another illustration, Brother Chuck, if you were to come to the town of Smiths Falls, where I live, you might come down the Front Street, the Main Street of Smiths Falls, and you might drive 70 miles an hour. Now, even if there was no law that posted speed limit, you know in your own conscience.
That 70 miles an hour is too fast to drive down the street, the Main Street of Smith's Falls.
You have a conscience, and man, when he sinned, received a conscience, and there was sin before the giving of the law. Man knew that he had done wrong. Adam hid behind the trees of the garden because his conscience told him that he had sinned and disobeyed God. But if we but so suppose there was no speed limit in the town of Smiths Falls, and the police stopped you for driving 70 miles an hour down the Front Street, why you'd say there's no speed limit?
And not only that, how could the police levy a fine against you? There's no law that says how much over the speed limit you're going. But then they put a post, a speed limit and 30 miles an hour, or as in Canada, 50 kilometers an hour, is the speed limit down the Main Street of Smiths Falls. Now you drive 70 miles an hour. Not only does your conscience tell you that's too fast, but the law tells you. And not only does the law tell you, but it tells you how how fast, how much too fast you're going.
Now when the police stop you, they can put a penalty. There's a penalty, they can tell you you're going thus and so over the speed limit and the penalty is so much. So with the giving of the law, there were penalties. I know death entered by sin, that was the penalty. But there were further penalties levied when God gave the law, because now man knew how, just how far short he had broken God's law, come short of God's law.
And so when the person, when there's a speed limit posted, the person is not only doing wrong, but they're transgressing and there's a penalty and they, the police or the authorities can tell them just how far over they are. That's the strength of sin that came in with the law. As you say, Don, it showed man just how far short he came.
That the IT provokes the sin nature in us to put a limit on us. Look at Romans Chapter 7 and verse 8.
It says at the end of verse 8 for without the loss sin was dead, for I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came.
Sin revived and I died. So it's like you say, Jim, it, it does show.
Where we're wrong, but it does. The commandment provokes a reaction, just like that line, Don said. You draw and you say don't cross it, it provokes.
The lawlessness of that sin nature in me to do it. And so that's why the sin is this. The law is the strength of sin.
In terms of the old and the new creations that we've had before us to.
Adam and his race showed their rebelliousness and were provoked by the very putting down of a law. But the Lord Jesus, a holy person, came into the world with a holy nature and life. And what did he say about everything? He said, I delight to do thy will, Oh my God, He had a perfect pleasure in being submissive.
To every word of his Father, to word of God, and that's the life we've been given. We have been given a life, the life of Christ, which does not resent obedience.
It delights as the Lord Jesus did, to do the will of God. And when we are taken home to heaven and the flesh which is within us is left behind, then forever we shall delight to do the will of God. There won't be any provoking of us or anything that would make us say, oh, I don't appreciate having to do that or the other. The other thing the law shows that man could, left to himself, could never come up to God's standard.
00:20:07
And we spoke at the tables of stone last night on which the law was written, and they were really a picture of man's Stony heart. No response. You can clang away on stone with a hammer and chisel. The stone doesn't feel it. You may make a dent, but the stone doesn't feel it. And it was a picture of the natural man, the heart of man left to himself. And so the law, the giving of the law, showed not only how far short man had fallen, but that he could not. Without some other principle being brought in by God, he could not.
Measure up to God's standard.
Actually has clarified to me that my initial confidence about the first part of the verse was misplaced.
Can you say something about the first part? Because I read it wrong the first time and.
Just the this thing of death is sin. I thought I grasped that, but I realized I misread it.
When one comes to die.
If they don't have peace with God.
They're afraid to die if they don't know forgiveness for their sins.
There's a sense, I believe, that it's sin that God hates, and they don't have peace in their soul through the blood of Christ having covered those sins.
They're fearful to meet God. Why? Because of their sins.
And I know a brother, dear brother in fellowship, passed away when home be with the Lord many years ago. But what was such a comfort to him on his dying bed was first John 17. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sinning. He repeat this over and over.
But if you don't have that assurance in your soul that your sins are gone.
Death is terrifying.
Because you're going to meet a holy God and your sins. Isn't that the sting of death?
After death, the judgment.
First, now the resurrection of the truth of resurrection gives us a hope and something beyond death that was unknown and unseen before the Lord Jesus went down into death and destroyed the power of death and he brought life and incorruptibility to light through the gospel. And so this list here in beginning in verse 29 of the sufferings and the things that the early Christians were subjected to.
And did not hinder them from taking their place as followers of the Lord, and rather those who saw their fellow men lives being taken from them.
Were encouraged to fill up the ranks and follow that that path that gave them a hope beyond this life beyond death. And so Paul speaks of the various things there in those in those verses. Brother Chuck has already commented on the being baptized for the dead.
I presume that some may have even been thrown to the lions and and when the others saw the faith of those face death so boldly and at peace and with joy and not afraid of death. Because that's the tool the enemy Satan hangs over the world and threatens him with. That's the power he got over man in the beginning when he got him to sin, it was death and he uses that tool.
Very effectively. But when we have resurrection power through the Lord Jesus, it takes that all that away and it gives us life that doesn't stop with death.
That's what gave the apostles such power in their testimony in the first days of the church, is that they were living in the light, in the power of resurrection life. And if you're going to live in resurrection life, that's beyond death.
Can you scare a dead man by saying to him, I'm gonna kill you? You can't scare him. He's already dead. And these men were living in resurrection life. And so they threatened we're going to kill you if you keep on preaching that in that name had no effect on them whatsoever. That's the power of resurrection life.
00:25:24
Baptized to a Jew, they'll tolerate one that embraces Christianity until their son or daughter is baptized in that hated name, and then they're put out of the house and have nothing to do with them, and they might even put him to death. Baptism is taking a stand on the side of Christianity. And they knew what that was and when that was was when someone in the family does that.
He says I belong to Christ now and I'm baptized and that that may oftentimes results in death.
But the true believer does. It doesn't fill his soul with fear any longer.
Nation to his brethren, some of which were introducing the idea that there's no resurrection from the dead. He first brings up the Lord Jesus in the previous verses and said if he if he hasn't risen from the dead in his body, then there is no resurrection and our whole faith is destroyed. Here He lives the practical consequences of it with respect to his life and others. If there's no resurrection then.
Let's eat and drink for tomorrow. We die and people live that way in the lower world. They don't believe.
And so they live with the idea that when I die, that's it, that's the end of everything. And some would like to believe that because they don't want to face the thought of having to do with God about their life. So their attitude toward life is lettuce. Eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
But as Paul says, evil communications corrupt good manners. That is, if you give wrong communications about the truth of God, you will lead people to wrong manners of life. But the truth is there is resurrection. And consequently, Paul said, why should I risk my life? Why should I face death daily if there's no resurrection? It's a foolish thing.
To do so, I might as well just get the most of life I can, and when I leave it, I leave it. But thank God, we know in this room that resurrection is, God is, and that we have life in Christ that is not touched by death, and our whole future lies beyond death. And so like Paul and like the others that Bob mentioned, they could confidently face the thought of death.
And go through it, as most of the apostles apparently did. They died the death of martyrs, and most of them were aware that that was to be. But they had seen the Lord in resurrection, and they were strengthened by the assurance that all was well.
Clearly as Christians as their baptism.
When they submitted to baptism they they had crossed the line and said I'm on his side and what are the consequences could be death.
Identifies with the death of Christ, and also connected with it is identification with Christ in resurrection.
So there is resurrection, as you say, and I just like to say that in, I notice in today's world increasingly as our country and in other places as well, they are abandoning Christianity and going back to paganism.
Interesting in Bolivia, I was told this last time I was there that the president of Bolivia now offers animal sacrifices to the sun God and moon God.
And to Mother Earth, it's a return to paganism. And when you have Hinduism and Buddhism, what is taught of times is reincarnation. In other words, a person who dies comes back in another form. The truth of God is resurrection. And it's really important to understand.
00:30:11
Death does not end it. There is resurrection.
And it's one of the best established facts even in human history, that Jesus not only died, but he rose again from the dead. In the beginning of the chapter. We had those witnesses one time above 500 brethren at once saw him.
In a court of law, two or three witnesses pretty well seals the matter, and we have abundant witnesses. Jesus rose from the dead. There is resurrection. It's a fact, and we have to face it.
I'd like to suggest, brethren, that we continue on in this chapter because time's going fast and we're not going to get through the rest of this chapter and the hour we have left. But it's it is tremendously interesting subject.
Just suggest verse 35. Some men will say how are the dead raised and with what body do they come So now they somewhat accept the fact that.
There's resurrection, but they're questioning how is it? What body do they come? And then the apostle gives an illustration that I think is very interesting. He says, thou fool, that which thou sawest is not quick and accepted die. And that which thou sawest, thou sawest not the body that shall be, but bare grain. It may chance of wheat or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body.
As it hath pleased him into every seed his own body.
The question often comes up.
In resurrection, are we going to know our loved ones?
Somebody was asked that and they said do you think we'll know less in that day than we know now?
We're not going to know them as we knew them here.
But the illustration is very interesting, he says. You saw a bear grain and you know, you sow wheat in the ground or you sow corn or in this part of the country you're so soybeans.
And that seed you put in the ground is not what comes out.
But what comes out, you distinguish it. You say that's wheat.
Well, that's not what you put in the ground, no, but you distinguish it.
And it's a little different, the corn that comes out of the ground and soybeans that comes out of the ground, it's different, it's distinguishable. And I think that's a lesson for us yet. Yes, we are going to know those that we have lost in death. They are going to be recognizable. And I like to think of it in this way, that the Spirit of God is in his people now, and he is developing those traits to be like Christ in US.
And I know, dear friends of mine, I've done rule for quite a while.
He's not going to have a Gray beard in that day. He's not going to have wrinkles on his forehead either. But am I going to know him?
I am convinced I'm going to know him by those traits, those characteristics that the Spirit of God is formed in him now and I enjoy that in him. Those will be there and I'm going to enjoy them. So we will know our loved ones that have died in faith in the Lord Jesus.
No, a female.
There are no females in heaven.
No males either.
They're different. You have to say, my you've changed.
You were much nicer looking than you were down here.
Had another thought about the the sewing too. If you never planted corn before, or wheat or any other grain, you couldn't take that seed and look at it and tell me what kind of body it was going to have after it sprouted. The only reason we know is we've had experience and we've seen what happens when you put corn in the ground and we through experiences we learn that. But you take in the first time and plant something and look at that grain, you have no idea what it might turn around.
00:35:01
That's an experiment that kids could do, take a bunch of seeds and put them in there and see what comes out of them. God knows and he gives it that body that it's going to have. That is the plant that grows. And so that's the issue here. We can't look on this side of, of, of death and look by nature and say what our new bodies are going to be like. But God gives it a body as it please him and he knows that. And so it's our trust in him and that's it's the resurrected body like Christ.
Our loved ones we will know those of other ages that we have never met down here. The amount of transfiguration.
Peter, James and John were up there and they saw Moses and Elijah. How in the world did they know him? They had never known them in life. But brethren, we shall know, even as we are known in that day. Wonderful to think about.
To that, God gave us a body, the body we're sitting in this room in that is perfectly suited to the world in which we live.
It's a body of flesh and blood, and it breathes air, and God made provision in this world to supply the oxygen that our bodies need, and so on. Yes, it's true that the whole system has been spoiled by sin, but when Adam and Eve were in the garden, they were earthly creatures, and their bodies were perfectly suited to life on earth. While we don't know the details, it's a wonderful thing to realize that in resurrection in a new creation.
God gives us that body which is perfectly suited to the environment in which we will live, which is heaven. And so we have now an earthly body suited to the earth. But that seed that God has planted in US of eternal life, when the body that's connected with it is is given to us, then it will be in every respect perfectly suited to.
Home, the Father's house, which is where we're going to live for eternity.
Only God could do that.
Man can't do that. We we couldn't even dream of the way it should be. But God knows and God says you don't need to worry about it. Don't raise a disbelieving question perhaps as to how it could, what body it could be. Don't limit me by what you are now and what you can see and know, but just trust me, I'm going to give you a body that's perfectly suited to.
The home that I'm giving to you.
Agree with that, but verse 50 puzzles me. Now I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. So I would take from that that the resurrection body doesn't have blood when it says flesh. That's what puzzles me.
I think some of these questions we're raising are beyond us. We'll just have to wait to see until we get there. All I say, brother Chuck in that regard to stick to Scripture is that when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, he said to the disciples, handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bone as you see me have and to put that with the truth that we're going to have bodies of glory like under his body of glory.
We just have to leave it there.
In verse four of our chapter, it's called resurrection body is called a spiritual body. It is like you say Jim, you've shown in Luke 24 the Lord Jesus said.
Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have. Flesh and blood is the body we have now, because the life is in the blood.
But in resurrection, spirit is the life of the body.
And that's why I think it's called a spiritual body. It's not blood.
So.
I think that helps to understand our body in that day. It'll be a spiritual body. Doesn't mean that it'll just be a spirit, because there will be. We will have bodies, Don mention in his address, like unto his body of glory. We're going to be like Christ in that day. We're going to have bodies of glory like Him.
00:40:09
Is an expression that is used earlier in the gospels, and it's a contrast when it speaks about the Kingdom of heaven. It is that man in his present condition, a man of flesh and blood. The state in which he's in has no place in God's Kingdom, and the only way a man can enter into the Kingdom of God is by new birth, which then introduces him to a new creation.
And so he uses that previously explained truth, which isn't exactly the point here, as much as to use that as a contrast and to say neither can corruption inherit in corruption. And there he is saying that the body in its corrupted state cannot inherit that which is suited to eternity, that which is suited to heavenly things.
And so he has man has to be transformed to have that body which is suited to glory and he will have it. So some might say, well, you know, I don't know how this can all happen because.
My body is corrupted and corruptible. And he's saying, well, no, that's not the case. You didn't enter the Kingdom of God through flesh and blood. You entered it by new birth, and likewise you won't enter into heaven.
With that corrupted body, it will be transformed so that you have a body of incorruption and then that final victory. Our bodies will never be subject to corruption again.
When Paul was caught up to the 3rd heaven, it was a temporary thing and so foreign a sphere of things was it to what he was used to on earth that he said he didn't know whether he was in the body or out of the body.
But there it was just a temporary thing. But when we are caught up to be ever with the Lord, as you said, Don, we're going to have bodies that are perfectly suited to that sphere of things. When we sit down in the Father's house, we're going to be perfectly comfortable, Tremendous to think about. Sometimes I sit down in the homes of my brethren and I feel comfortable there and they do everything they can to make you comfortable. But I'm not family.
I'm not, it's not my home. I'm not, there are things about it that I'm perhaps feel I'm not quite suited. Maybe I don't like the climb, the temperature they keep it at. It's a little different than my own home and, and and so on. But when I sit down in the Father's house to be ever with the Lord, I'm going to have a body that's suited to that sphere. And when God views his family, he's going to see them all just like Christ, his beloved Son, now the Lord Jesus.
Will remain the only begotten of the Father for all eternity. He will remain the center of everything and but we will all be like Christ. Eternity is not a melting pot. And I enjoyed the way another put it. He said we will all be like Christ, but we will all retain our individuality. And if I can just give you another little scriptural illustration that perhaps is a hint of that. You find that on the breastplate of the high priest there was a separate stone for everyone.
Of the 12 tribes, every tribe was an individual when you come to Malachi.
It says of God's people, they shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels.
Then you come over to the to the Book of Revel, end of the Book of Revelation.
And on the one hand, in the description of the heavenly city, you have the church described as the Pearl, but then there's the the individual stones that make up the foundation of the city. And those individual stones, those gems, I would suggest, are a little hint that for eternity, yes, you and I are going to be part of the Church of God, the bride of Christ, but we are also going to retain that individuality.
That we have now and that we will have then. And so when we look at one another, we'll know even as we are known.
We'll know, we'll know individuals. However, our relationships as we've known them here on earth will not be the same. There are relationships that have been given to us for this earth and for the happiness and blessing of man here that our natural relationships that will not continue. But I say again, eternity is not a melting pot. We're all like Christ, but we retain our individuality.
00:45:07
Of the expression in John 14 of the Father's house, and Speaking of the many abodes in that house, and in connection with what you say about individuality, a father may have many children.
We knew a family in the Dominican Republic where they had 25 children. And you ask a father?
In that family, if it's a proper functioning family, which of those children is your favorite? I don't think he would be able to point to any of them. He would say every one of them has a special place in my heart, and that's the sense of the many abodes in the Father's house. None of us are like any any other of the redeemed, but each one has a special place that no one else can fill.
In the Father's house.
But getting back to this chapter here, it's interesting it tells in these verses following 394041. It's Speaking of different flesh and bodies. All flesh is not the same flesh. We've been speaking about the flesh we have down here adapted for life in this world. There's a flesh of men, there's another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, another of birds. There are also celestial bodies.
And bodies terrestrial, the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is other, is another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars. For one star different from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead. So all these things that we know in creation are an illustration of what is going to be in the resurrection. There's going to be differences, there's going to be.
Ways of distinguishing one from another.
Get the two groups of people that will be partake of the resurrection when the Lord raises the dead and these verses, first of all, it's the ones that are sown that is those if they departed in death, they're going to be raised farther down. Beginning in verse 51. There's something special that is brought out and that is that Paul himself looked forward to it not to even die, but to rather be changed in the.
The body that he had and to be made like Christ and he tells us how it's going to happen. But it's beautiful to see the hope that they, even Paul, had. We don't necessarily, as one brother said, we don't look for the undertaker, we look for the upper taker.
That is the proper Christian hope. But should the Lord take one in death, then He is going to raise them again.
So you have both groups here in this chapter.
Wonderful, isn't it? Just to notice three different things mentioned in verses 42, three and four.
What we are associated with now, that is in our bodies, is corruption, dishonor and natural.
But when the power of resurrection is applied to our bodies, the result will be in corruption, glory, and spiritual. What a wonderful thing, brethren, that for God's glory man in his present body has dishonored God and corrupted himself.
And in his natural flesh has no interest in relationship with God, but when God's work is done.
We will be vessels perfectly of honor, incorruptible vessels.
And spiritual and God will be To God be the honor, to God be the glory. May we just appreciate and thank God for what His plans are with respect to us.
00:50:05
Oh, we see the breakdown of everything here, don't we? And maybe there's somebody sitting in these chairs this afternoon and you feel a few aches and pains. You say I don't feel quite as chipper as I did a year ago at these meetings. And time takes its toll. But it tells us in the end of Philippians 3 that he's going to change our ought to read Bodies of Humiliation. This was brought home to me before Brother Charlie Little passed away. He for the last two or three years of his life, he became very feeble.
And anybody that knew Brother Charlie knew that he was always a proper gentleman, never went to the post office without his tie straight, every hair was in place, he shined his shoes every morning. He was one who was always a gentleman, dressed Immaculate, knew how to say the right things. But as he got more feeble, he found it hard to eat without getting his shirt and tie soiled and various things. And one day he said to me, he said, Jim, now I understand what it is when it, what it means, when it says a body of humiliation.
But he was encouraged to think that that body of humiliation, that body that was breaking down was going to be exchanged. He's with the Lord now. He that's not what he was looking for. He wasn't looking for death. He was looking for the Lord to come. But I just thought of that. Everything breaks down here. We sometimes sing a hymn. The world itself grows old, but Christ, our precious dust will take and freshly mold. And to think, brethren, that we're going on to a scene where everything is not only going to be perfect.
But it's never going to decay. When we bought our home some 20 years ago, I said to my wife, not being very handy, I said we're going to buy by the with the help of the Lord, we're going to buy a brand new home. So at least for a while it doesn't need any work or upkeep. It wasn't very long till I started having to get Ron's son-in-law Dave and and Paul in to do a little touch up here and there and so on.
Things breakdown and decay our homes. You buy a new home, it isn't very long. It needs some work on it. We just had to get a new roof. But we're going to a home, brethren, where nothing from within or without is going to decay. And if that doesn't encourage us and direct our manner of life now, then nothing will. And looking on to the glory John says in his epistle, everyone that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure, in other words.
The measure in which we look on to the day of glory. In that measure it will have a practical purifying effect on your life and mind now.
This is one of the things that he wanted to teach them was about that resurrection body. And so when he was right to them, because they didn't believe some of them among them, they didn't believe in that resurrection. He had written about the value of the resurrection in verses 2934, but 35 he started writing about that body and he compares it to that grain. And when you put a grain of seed in the ground, to all appearances it dies. But when it starts to grow, it becomes larger and it becomes more glorious, doesn't it? And that's the point that we're getting to hear that once we receive that new body and we go to heaven.
It's that glorious body that will last forever and forever without any corruption in it. That's the thing that we want to realize. What we're going to receive is the perfect body like unto his. And so later on in verses 51, towards the end, he starts to speak about that mystery of resurrection and he starts to teach them the truth for the first time. He opens up scriptures and he starts to think about those that are asleep that will be caught up in the air, and those that are live, that'll be changed in the moment, in the twinkling of the eye at the last Trump.
At the last Trump, what? The glorious appearing of Jesus Christ. That's what it's going to be. We're going to get to see our Lord and our Savior, aren't we? At that glorious appearing when he takes us up into heaven in our new body? And it's a beautiful thing that that body is recognizable, yes, like our brother said in Moses and lies in transfiguration, but it's a body that is capable of living out of this Earth's atmosphere, capable of living where there's no gravity. We see those when they send them up the spaceship, they have to alter that atmosphere inside that spaceship, that earthy body.
Maintain up there doesn't we're going to receive a body that's a spiritual body that will live forever flawless once we've raised been raised up off of the scene.
I know it's a little different, but just in connection with our remarks, we mentioned this morning in connection with the eternal state and we read that portion in Revelation and I know we're talking about our individual bodies, but it's interesting to to notice that when the bride is viewed in eternity 1000 years at least after she's been with Christ, she's viewed as a bride adorned for her husband and that a remarkable statement.
00:55:26
Now, if you were to come to my home and flip through some albums and look at my wedding pictures, you'd say there's a change, Jim Decay has come in. The aging process has been at work. If we were to look at our parents wedding pictures, we'd have no doubt it would confirm any doubts we had in our minds. We know that time brings in its changes, but brethren, think of a scene and eternity where a bride is never going to lose her loveliness and freshness.
For all eternity. And more than that, the relationship isn't going to decay either. You know, this is a day when family relationships breakdown. We don't see proper relationships between husbands and wives. We don't see proper relationships between parents and children, Earthly relationships breakdown and fail and so on. But to think there's a day coming when no, those relationships that will be there, the Christ and the bride, it's never going to deteriorate. She's going to be in the freshness.
Of bridal affections to his heart for all eternity. She's going to be viewed in the freshness of her bridal beauty for all eternity. Oh, brethren, it ought to spur us on to live for Christ now. That's what it means when it uses the word incorruption, doesn't it, Jim? Absolutely impossible to corrupt. Like to say something that I found quite interesting. I believe it is true.
That Mister Lundin used to say, and it was quite thought provoked, thought provoking when I first heard him say it.
He said in new creation there is no time nor distance. Think about it. I really believe it's true. I think Scripture bears it out, but it is something that is hard for us to understand. We had to get in cars to come to Saint Louis and to be here and it took time and we had to cover distance. New creation is not a question of time.
Nor distance. And I think that's why it calls our bodies in resurrection. It's spiritual bodies.
They're not subject to that when the Lord Jesus presented himself to his disciples.
On that first day of the week, the doors were shut. He didn't have to open the door to come into the midst of the disciples. No, He was just there at a moment's notice. And another moment He was with the two on the way to Emmaus. So it's not a question of time or distance. That's something that we can't hardly think about because we're so used to thinking in those elements.
Well this is perhaps are now didn't what we have in the 51St and 52nd verses where he speaks about the change and it's interesting that the in the moment in the twinkling of an eye is directly connected with the change of the body that's going to take place because here we sit in this hotel in the city of Saint Louis this afternoon and if the Lord Jesus were to give the shout this afternoon, which.
We ought to each be fully expecting and looking for and if he were, with these physical bodies, these natural bodies we have now.
There's something that's physically hindering us from rising to meet the Lord in the air. There's a ceiling above us, there's several floors above us, there's a roof on this hotel. And physically, without a change, we could not rise to meet the Lord in the air. But when the Lord Jesus gives the shout, there's going to be an instantaneous change take place. And those bodies, as Bob said, are not going to be subject to physical hindrances.
Just like the body of the Lord Jesus in resurrection. So this ceiling and the floors and the roof above us are not going to be a hindrance.
Now, what about those who are who have been buried? There's many buried at sea under many fathoms of water. There's many that are buried under 6 feet of earth, many that are buried under the twin towers when they collapsed and so on, who have died in faith. What about them? Well, they are going to be raised with bodies of glory. They're not going to be raised with the physical body that was laid in the grave.
01:00:18
They're going to be raised with those bodies so that that 6 feet of earth, those fathoms of water or whatever is between them and the cloud will not be a hindrance to them in that wonderful brethren, we're going to have those bodies. And so He's taken care of every detail. You say, how could it be? How can this be? He's taken care of every detail. So the dead in Christ are going to be raised with those bodies that aren't subject to physical hindrances.
And in a twinkling of an eye, we're going to have a change so that we can rise to meet the Lord in the air.
In fact, there is a sequence in First Corinthians or First Thessalonians chapter 4. It's kind of interesting to notice when it says in the in the twinkling of an eye, like you say, Jim, it's not speaking about the rapture. It's speaking about the resurrection. That's what's going to take place in the twinkling of an eye at here. It's interesting in First Corinthians or First Thessalonians 4, it says.
Verse 16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God. This directly relates to our chapter. And then notice the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, And so shall we ever be with the Lord. It doesn't mention here the change.
That's what we have in First Corinthians 15, because it's a question of resurrection, and our bodies that are connected with this first creation have to experience a change in order to be able to be caught up together. So it's going to happen at at any moment now.
At the last trump, the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed so this takes place at that time.
When there was the those who were raised at the crucifixion, it says the graves of that those were open and they came forth. When Lazarus was raised from the dead in John 11, they had to roll away the stone. When the Lord Jesus came out of the tomb and resurrection, it's true the stone was rolled away, but not so the Lord could come out in resurrection. He had a body in resurrection, as we've been saying, that wasn't subject to physical hindrances.
The stone was rolled away at the tomb of the Lord Jesus so that there could be ample and complete testimony that he had risen from the dead, that they could come in and see where he lay, and that there was testimony not to let the Lord Jesus out of the tomb like in the case of Lazarus, like in the case of those Saints that whose bodies arose. And don't take me to task for this because I'm not saying it dogmatically, but I will say this.
That at the rapture we do not read of the graves of the Saints being opened. Now I'm not saying they will or won't, but why don't we read of them being opened? Because they won't have to be. When the when Lazarus came forth, he came forth with a natural body. As was already said earlier in these meetings. When the Saints in Jerusalem came forth, they came forth with bodies that were later again, we assume laid in the tomb. In death they had to have their graves open. But when the Saints.
Raised with incorruptible bodies at the resurrection, at the rapture, it is not, will not be necessary for the tombs to be open again. Those who are buried at sea, will the sea have to roll back to let them out? No, they'll have bodies that won't that, that water won't hinder from rising to meet the Lord in the air. So it's important to see the difference between those who were raised then and the bodies that the Saints will have in the resurrection.
Call an attention to is the difference between an earth receiving an earthly body and receiving a spiritual body or a heavenly body won't need the the stone removed that that's an interesting point. It really confirms how the the Lord Jesus who was the first fruits of them that slept who was raised with the spiritual body of the new resurrected body is it's it's distinct, isn't it?
01:05:23
I might ask a question.
Upon our resurrection, or the resurrection of those who sleep in the Lord Jesus.
Is the body reunited with with the soul?
With the spirit I, I realize we've we've covered this a little bit.
There seems to be a distinction between.
The natural body and the spiritual body. I think we've heard it at funerals before, that the body will be reunited with the with the spirit.
Just a little clarification.
Has to be going earlier in the chapter.
Verse 15 Yay. And we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ whom he raised not up. If so be that the dead rise up, for if the dead rise not, then is Christ raised. That is, when we think of the Lord Jesus, He had to rise in his body, or the dead rise not.
And we ourselves are like him in that way.
When the Lord Jesus dismissed his Spirit in death, his Spirit was separated from his body, and James tells us.
The body without the spirit is dead. That's how we really have in scripture and knowledge of what death is in for natural death. It's the separation of the spirit and the soul from the body.
But when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, he rose in the body, and His, if you will, the body was united with his soul and spirit, and he was a living person, living by a different principle of life.
Than natural life, but nonetheless living in the body. And so it will be for us. We shall.
Be changed if we are living at the rapture or our brethren who have gone before us who are asleep in Jesus.
They will have their bodies raised and transformed, and we shall together rise in the air to meet the Lord in the air.
It's important that there's, for example. Why is the body so important? It's because.
Christ died for our sins by taking our sins in His own body on the tree. His bearing of our sins is associated with His body, and in resurrection in that body in which we see Him, we see the fact that God has accepted the work of redemption at the cross, and the witness to us of it is His life in the body.
So we in contrast to us believers, because man has sinned in the body, so that body will be raised.
The person won't have life toward God. They won't be given life again, but they will be raised. The dead, small and great stand before God. And as Bob mentioned, every single grave in the world will be emptied.
Every single grave in this world, when the final day of judgment is done, there won't be a single grave with a body in it in this world. And the persons are raised to stand before God, to give an account of themselves as they were in spirit, soul and body before God is living on the earth. And then the second death comes, which is the separation of that whole person from God forever.
On that, our bodies are redeemed.
Just as our soul and spirit are redeemed, aren't they? They are. They are bought with a price, we're told where they're bought with a price. And so that's why I, generally speaking, believers in the Lord Jesus.
01:10:07
Bury their dead instead of like in heathen lands where they cremate. Cremation is becoming more of a practice in this country, but I think it's coming in more because we're leaving the principles of Christianity behind. But.
This body, too, is redeemed. It's been bought by a precious.
Blood of the blood of Christ. And so it's not to be mistreated. It's it belongs to the Lord. The body belongs to the Lord.
It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. the IT there refers but to both bodies, and it's the same. Also, I'd like to comment on verse 46 in connection with what's being said. How be it that was not first which was spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual? God is not going to create new beings in heaven.
To fill heaven in the coming day, he's going to raise the bodies of those who were natural first. You have to have existence as a a being and a natural body first. Then God is going to take in those bodies and change them and bring them to glory. That's beautiful, brethren, to think that how the God does that, you first have to have the natural body. Just in connection with Phil's question two in the comments Don made.
I look at Don Ruhl, and from my perspective, the physical is the person. I look at you, and I recognize you because you have certain features in your body. But from God's perspective, it's not merely the physical, it's the Spirit. And I say that because Paul in the second epistle refers to those who are absent from the body and present with the Lord. That is, they're in the conscious sense, like my father. He's in the conscious sense of the Lord's presence.
Not with the physical body, but he's there. Is he recognizable? Well, it's interesting when you have the story of the rich man and Lazarus. They were both two men who had left the body, but they were recognizable. And Abraham was recognizable in that state of things. And so there was recognition because that's really who the person. That's the person from God's perspective. From our perspective, it's the physical.
And that's how I recognize you, by certain physical features. And if those features change drastically, perhaps I don't recognize you right away. So just so, it must be that when the resurrection takes place, the rapture, the spirit and the body will be reunited. Not the body, as we've been saying, that was put in the ground, but that changed body. Now the departed dead in faith are absent from the body, but their spirit is with the Lords they're in, as we sometimes refer to it as their unclothed state.
And as Second Corinthians 4 tells us, these bodies are just tabernacles.
They're just temporary dwellings. A Tabernacle in Scripture denotes a temporary dwelling. These are just temporary dwellings for our spirit, for who we really are. When the body, what constitutes physical death again, is this body without the spirit is dead. But when the resurrection takes place, the spirit and the body are reunited and the person is now physically. They're consciously. They're consciously now, but they will be physically.
In the presence of the Lord and those who've departed aren't going to get there first. We're not going to get there first. We which are alive and remain will be caught up together with them, those as Bob who said, who are raised first, then we get the change. And with them we're caught up to meet the Lord in the air. And when we physically enter the when the Saints of God physically enter the Father's house, it is the Saints of God from.
Every dispensation who together.
Are ushered in with glorified bodies into the Father's house to be with and like Christ.
Last Trump and the Trumpet.
Twinkling of an eye.
Peace. There was 90 long blasts giving, and after hearing 90 long blasts, you heard the last one. You knew you'd heard the land of it.
01:15:09
There is no question about what we will know. That is the last trump in this chapter 15 we have last of all seen by Paul. We have the last enemy is death, we have the last Adam, and we have the last trump.
Comment has been made.
That this may be an allusion to the Old Testament.
Where the children of Israel, when they were going to break camp, the trumpet sounded as a means of communicating to the people that get ready to go.
And they then were to break camp and prepare to journey to the next location. And there was a last Trump, which was OK March. And in a spiritual way, brethren, we've already had, you might say, the first Trump.
We've been told get ready, at any moment we're going to go. And so everything in our lives should be ordered with the expectation that at any moment we're leaving this world and there's nothing more that needs to be done. And we're not going to have to say, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. I've got to finish a few last tasks before we go. But the last trump is that which will, as it were, on God's side, says March, or in the case of the rapture.
Bring us up, the Lord calls and come up, hit her, as it were, to us, and we go into the air, and we we see Him. But it's important for us to have a sense that, as it were, the midnight cry has gone out, and we want to be ready with nothing in our lives that would be a hindrance to our souls. Of course, no matter what, we'll go. But spiritually, he that hath this hope in Himself purifieth Himself, even as.
He is pure.
Put it another way.
Well, just to go back to the verse that Bob alluded to, which is found in Romans chapter 8, which is on this subject.
Romans chapter 8 and verse 22.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travail if in pain together. Until now. That's the present condition of things.
We live in a creation which is groaning animals grown because of our sin and the consequences it's brought on the creation. You see an animal suffer and you say, well, the man's responsible for that. It's man's sin that has brought that suffering upon that animal and and the whole creation groans and travels in pain. And verse 23, not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit, even ourselves.
Grown within ourselves, that is, we have the Spirit of God dwelling in US.
As the earnest we belong to a new creation and that we have life in Christ. But still we groan because we're in these bodies and some of us, I suppose, woke up this morning with a lot of aches and pains and not feeling completely well and so on. So he says.
We're waiting.
For the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, he died to save us completely.
Spirit and soul and body as God had created us and the transformation as to our spirit and soul has taken place with new life given to us. But our bodies have already been paid for in the work of redemption. God is not going to leave them behind as it were. They have to be transformed for all the reasons of corruption and and the spoiling that's taken place in them through sin.
And they're suited to the earth, they're mortal, and so on. And so they have to become immortal and suited to their heavenly spiritual home. And we're waiting for that, though that is the actual carrying out of that redemption applied, that's paid for at the cross, but applied to us, awaits the resurrection. And at the moment of the resurrection, then we'll be, as it were, the fulfillment of what we wait for.
01:20:09
The redemption of our bodies. And so we just to elaborate in a little different sense, I've enjoyed in my own meditations on the word of God. God created a physical universe first.
And then he created creatures that he was going to place man in responsibility over. And then he creates man by giving a body. And then within that body, his final act of creation is to breathe into that body the breath of life, and it becomes a living soul. And the whole history of that man, Adam and his race, finishes at the cross. That's the final end before God of the first creation.
It's all condemned, it's all in the thoughts of God judged, and the sentence has not yet been carried out. But from the cross on, God starts working, not in the physical outward creation, but he starts in the soul of a man and he begins a new work and he begins new creation there. And the whole process is reversed in the exact, I think, exact same opposites steps that is.
First, it begins within the man, as Jim said, we look on the outward appearance, but God works inside in the heart and he gives us life and new life through the work of redemption. But then the day is coming of which we're speaking about when we're taken to heaven and they have the redemption of our bodies and we have a transformation and we then will be in our perfect eternal state. But.
That's not the end. This has already been said of the story. God continues that work until the very last thing that he does was the the thing that he did in the very first of the first creation. That is finally he takes the whole universe itself and he burns it up in the end and destroys it with fire and introduces a new physical creation for the eternal state. And then his work is done. But it's nice to see it starts with that physical thing first and finally ends up in the the life given demand.
And the new creation begins with life given to man and goes on until you have the final new heaven and new earth, which I believe is the very last act of God to fulfill His purposes in creation through the second atom. Not only will we be done with the aches and pains and the physical limitations we have now, but they'll be full understanding too. Just take a minute and go back a couple of chapters to the 13th.
Chapter because I think this is beautiful to see. We've spoken of it in connection with how we'll be rid of physical things. But let's notice what Paul says in the end of the 13th of First Corinthians, verse 9. For we know in part and we prophecy in part. Don't we have to say that at the end of these reading meetings?
We know in part, and we prophecy in part, and maybe, if we're honest with ourselves, we skipped some verses because we really didn't have full understanding or didn't feel capable of explaining the truth of them. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now notice this. For now we see through a glass darkly.
That's the present, now the future, but then face to face, now I know in part that's the present, but now the future. But then shall I know even as also I am known? And maybe at the end of these meetings there's someone here and you say, you know, it's been a lot of things haven't been adequately explained or there's been some distractions. And I just didn't catch that. And I just don't seem to grasp certain concepts from scripture.
Certain truth. Never mind. Enjoy the things that the Spirit of God has made good to your soul.
And be encouraged to realize there's a day coming when we're all going to come to full maturity as far as our understanding and comprehension of Christ and divine things. Maybe this afternoon we'll exchange this reading meeting for the full understanding of First Corinthians chapter 15. But brethren, in the meantime, aren't we thankful that He has revealed these things unto us by His Spirit? We have the capacity now to take them in. We have divine life.
01:25:09
We have the Spirit of God, we have the full revelation of God in his written word. He's given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. The only thing is, there's still some physical limitations. There's some distractions and hindrances that come between, but those things are all going to be done away with the moment we rise to meet the Lord in the air. Could we sing 303 just like to say before we let you give out your hymn in Lemoyne, but.
The mystery in verse 51 is the fact that some of us are never going to die. And that was something that was not known before, and now it's revealed. And so in these verses from 51 forward, it tells how these corruptables are going to put on incorruption. It's like putting on a new garment. This mortal must put on immortality. And then at the end of 54.
Death is swallowed up in victory.
What? What number, Brother 23?
Is that right, 323?
The Lord himself shall come, and shall not break me.
From.
Laughter forever.
With the Lord.
Yeah, we can try it as we try a different tune and use the last verse for a chorus. The Lord himself shall come, and shall come with a word.
From God to order.
With the Lord.
Forever.
When so I have again being.
There with a mirror being dead.
On her eyes, on him forever.
I am satisfied with the spread.
Of our soul grimly blessed.
No, we can't, sweetheart. No.
I shall reign.
How far?
From.
01:30:00
Death on the end of the world.
Sing, also 94.
94.
The Lord is.
Really.
Born.
But now it's your take now under the screen.
And the love for his heart.
The Lord is president and.
Pray in your lives to thine of the Lord.
Amen.
Will turn.
People.
The Lord is resident.
Me.
I'm glad I saw it, pray.
I went there, All the rice and sausage shall pray in the Lord's day.
Last verse in First Corinthians 15 Therefore, my beloved brethren.
Be steadfast, unmovable.
Always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor.
Is not in vain. In the Lord we commend ourselves.
Sin Sick People Need the Physician - Jesus
Children—David So
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I see the two clocks on this wall here, one that we already passed quarter one set quarter after. So I suppose we can start right.
Anyone has a hymn to start off with this morning? Yes.
Hymn #41.
Hymn #41.
Around the throng of God in heaven.
The handspring singing glory.
Glory.
Glory into God.
I've never been singing glory.
Glory.
Glory, glory to God.
What brings them to thy world of that council, right, and where?
All is peace and joy.
Those children.
They're singing glory.
Glory.
Glory made to God.
Because the same guardian's blood to watch away, they're sailed, no question that most precious one. Behold the white and clean singing glory.
Glory.
Glory into God.
Let's command ourselves to the Lord before we begin, OK? Who has another hymn?
OK.
Hymn #40 Jesus loves me. This I know, you know, as I look across the room, I'm quite sure, and I'm saying this with confidence, that everyone in this room can sing that can we? That Jesus loves me regardless that you are a younger one or an older one.
It says, Jesus loves me. This. I know. So as we sing this, let's see if we can sing this from our heart because, you know, sometimes as we walk by and listen to singings, we listen to it and say, boy, they sound so sad. So we don't want that to happen, do we? Because there may be people hearing this outside the hallway. We want to truly feel and hear that. Yes, yes, Jesus loves me, yes.
Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so Are you ready to sing this?
Jesus.
They are awake by being a strong yes gives us long sleeve.
Yes, yes, I slugged me. The Bible tells me so.
These are slides made in will die.
And like straight to open wide.
It will wash away my sin. Let God come in.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
00:05:00
Yes, James, are slots made?
Yes, James, I swam straight, but I won't tell me so.
Today's US life is made online back and give ways to make me glad.
Waste to fold me in his heart.
Keeps me safe from every heart.
Let's change us, Wild Spring.
Yes, James, I love you.
From a shining flames on high, they will watch me where I lie.
Yes, James, I'm slaughtered. Me. Yeah, let's give you some loves me.
Yes, it's a slug spring Luna by Motels Minister.
Jesus loves me. He will stay close beside me all the way.
If I trust him, should I die?
It will take me on my mind.
Let's take his eyes. Lost me.
Yes, it is my slides. Me. Yes, James, I'm slightly slaughtered to make it.
The Bible.
Now that was nice.
Let's have another here, OK?
Hymn #44.
Oh, I like this him.
Him #44 about the gypsy boy.
Into a tent.
Nobody ever has told it to me.
Tell me what I can tell it again.
And salvation soul may reap in your hand.
Till one can say, How about children of men? Nobody ever has told me before.
A little boy and not to be in a good timing of joy.
May I not perish. My hand will be cold. Nobody ever, The story has told.
Tell me if I can tell it back again.
Salvation Story.
No one can say of the children of men. Nobody ever has told me one.
Man who they wake up the last words of his breath, just as he entered the body of death. God stands to the sun. Roots of heaven shall be. Then I am sure that He is a temple for me. Tell me another again. Tell me again.
Salvation story reaping horrible.
Gentleman can say of the children of men, nobody.
Has called me before.
00:10:01
How many of you have sang this him before?
Yeah, so we know this story, right? This poor little gypsy boy, he was dying. Dying. And then he said banding. We caught the last words of his breath. You know, I often picture this poor little boy. He was just just ready with his last breath. He's just gasping for his last breath. And you know, I often wonder.
If that was you or I, if you were dying.
And if just one breath left.
What would you say now I know this little boy here ask something He asked to hear the story. He says tell it again, tell it again. Salvation story repeat all and all. Now I'd like to change turn this around a little bit. What have you were that were someone like that dying? You know, when we're well, sometimes people say we talk too much.
Don't we? We try to tell the story by explaining and explaining. But what if that's all we can say? What? One breath left? And I thought this morning, perhaps I'm going to have the boys and girls tell us to tell the story of God's love. Now, who would be a volunteer for me to tell me if you only have one breath left, perhaps all you can say is one word. Or maybe we'll start with that and then we'll start after that. We'll say perhaps one sentence.
If there is only one word that you can utter, what would you say if this is your last breath?
Anyone would help me hold on a second now.
Oh, there's a mic there, OK.
Go ahead.
Believe. Wow.
It's not that nice. Believe, Believe on what Jesus. Believe in Jesus. That's right. Isn't there a verse that tells us that?
Anyone else can help you with that? It's word of God. Tell us to believe yes.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I saw your hand. Believe on.
OK, Paul.
The Lord Jesus, yes.
Isn't that what the story is about? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And.
Thou shalt be saved. Now who else can can tell me another word?
Do you have a word? If that's all you can say, Can you imagine this boy?
I can't, and you can only whisper one more word.
In the other word.
Perhaps a word to tell someone who you really are, that you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yes.
Christian. Oh, that's nice. Christian. Yeah. The Lord's people. Anyone else?
Yes, Jesus, Jesus. Oh, I think that's nice, isn't it? It's the name of Jesus that were to believe on. And sometimes we refer to the Lord Jesus Christ, don't we? He is our Lord, He is our Savior. Now what if you have a phrase you could use or a verse that you have enough breath to utter that last, that last breath by saying a verse. Anyone would have a verse that would tell someone.
John 316. What would that be?
Should not perish, but have eternal life. That's nice. Did you hear that? How many of you know John 316?
Wow. You know, there are boys and girls that have never heard of John 316. You know, there was a brother in our assembly. He he lived nearby a Catholic school and he often asked him, he said in the morning reading, he says, can I come in and read the scripture for you? So one day they let him and he went in and he read to them. John 316 he read to them 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. John 316 And you know, afterwards one of the teacher came up to him, and this is a teacher in the school. And the teacher said, she said, I didn't know what the ball game had to do with John 316 until you read this first to me.
00:15:22
All she saw was people putting up signs that says John 316 at a ball game and all her lives she didn't know what it mean. Oh how precious for you boys and girls who already know this verse to know that God so loved you and I that he gave his only begotten Son for you. And what do we we have to believe, right? Who said that? You said the word believe isn't it?
Believing.
That God sent his Son to die for us, He said. We will have everlasting life.
OK, let's have another hymn.
Now who have I picked this side already? Did I pick you OK?
46 Ah, that's a nice 146.
Galati Idi.
The J as you as us come to us ABBA, and he calls and he calls for the GI.
And he wants all that we know. Why has two?
Duty, are you?
Asking him.
And have all their sins now wash away.
That is so nice, all the boys and the girls that God is calling you. What is He calling you for? To trust in Him and have all your sins washed away. Now, is it OK for me to pick a hymn too? Yeah, thank you. I'm thinking boys and girls as we're singing and we got lots of boys and girls here. We got little boys and little girls, and we got older boys and older girls here. And I like to choose this him, this hymn #42.
Because as much as Sunday schools for little ones, I think it's for all of us, isn't it? Now, this hymn is a short hymn. And some of you have heard me use this before. And let me repeat this. We like to, I like to sing this hymn twice. The first time around, we'll sing it the way it is. The second time around, we're going to change this couple of words here for the sake of the older boys and girls. So the way we're seeing it is this a little child of 70, OK? Because we do have big kids here. They're 70 years old.
So we're seeing a little child of 70 or even 34. I'm sure we have big kids here that are 34 years old. And I hope by singing this we will include everyone in this room. OK, so we're seeing it the way it is the first time and we'll change it the second time.
A little.
Bit praying over all the world.
00:20:21
Now, how many of you brought your Bible with you? I'd like you to turn to a verse with me, to the book, to the Gospel of Matthew.
Chapter 9.
Matthew Chapter 9 This is going to be a verse that we normally don't read and I hope yours little one can understand this. It's a tough verse so you have to pay attention to this. Matthew Chapter 9 verse 12. Now I'm going to start reading in the middle of that verse. OK the verse says, but when Jesus heard that he saith unto them, now he's the part that I have in my heart, they that behold.
Need not a physician.
But they that are sick.
But go E and learn what that meaneth.
As a stranger is, isn't it?
They that behold that means.
Somebody that's not sick, they don't need a doctor.
Is that a strange verse to say? How many of you boys and girls gone to a doctor when you're not sick?
You do? Oh for checkup I guess, but you go to your doctor if you're whole.
Or do you just go anyway?
No way. How many of you don't like going to a doctor?
Yeah, I know. I don't neither. Especially when I see the nurses for those big needles, right. I know a lot of boys here are very tough and strong boys, but when they see those needles, they'll just shrink and shiver to nothing, right? Yeah. So we set you they that are whole, they that behold need not a physician.
That's obvious, isn't it? But they that are sick? Oh, what do you tell your friends when you see someone who is sick?
Yeah, go see a doctor, don't you? But then he said go ye and learn what that means. You know, I have to scratch my head. That's so simple. What is there to learn? If you're sick, you go see a doctor. If you're well, you don't need to worry about that, do you? But then, you know, perhaps someone can tell more on that later. But the little thought that I have on it is this.
Sometimes we don't know that we are sick.
You realize that sometimes we don't think we're sick.
We don't go see a doctor. Not only are the fact that we're not sick, do you know how many people out there that are sick, carrying problems, disease, perhaps some kinds of weaknesses? You don't know what it is. You know, some of you I've seen here has some insulin pump. How many children here heard of diabetes? Have you heard of that? Yeah. This is a big common problem, isn't it? And, you know, a few years ago.
The doctor told me that I have that problem and I go, oh, I didn't know that. And you know, what it taught me was a few things.
When I didn't know that I had a problem, I didn't have a problem.
Does that mean that I really don't have a problem?
I didn't want to know that I had a problem.
So after he told me he said well you have to check this regularly so so.
Micro Minute.
What they did was they they told me to get one of these little gauge. Now what it does is it check to see if I cheat. You see diabetes in different forms. Sometimes it says your blood sugar is too high and in some cases it's too low. Now my case because I like to eat cookies.
And especially the sweet stuff, the one that's full of sugar coating.
You know the stuff I mean, the gooey, gooey stuff that looks so good. Well, the trouble is in my case, my body doesn't know how to process that. And they go into my blood and then they say, well, if you take one of these gauge, we can tell if you cheated or not. Isn't that bad. So if I had too many cookies, it shows and there's proof. What do they do while they take it? One of these little gauge and they give you a little.
00:25:16
How many have you seen this? Yeah. And they put a little pin inside and, and you, you fire the, you pull this thing, it loads it up. And when you pull the trigger, a little pin comes out and it prick and it get a little drop of blood coming out from that. No, you won't let you try it. Don't worry.
And, and you put in a little tester and it'll come up with a reading. And so, so you know, what I do is I, I got quite smart at that. So there are times that if I had a few cookies too many.
I learned that the nice way to do it is don't check it, because if I don't check it, I don't know there's a problem. I don't have to worry about it.
Yeah, we are pretty smart at things at times, right? Because if the reading tells me that it's bad, then I would feel really bad and I have to do something about it. But you know, boys and girls, you know what I learned about that? This this is a lot like sin.
You know that last night in the gospel we heard about someone talk about sin.
You know the word of God said, for all have sinned.
You heard of that verse, right? For all all of you little baby over there.
We were born in sin and shaping in iniquity. We were born with that. But you know, many of us choose not to acknowledge that.
Do you know that?
It's like people with problems like this. I'm not going to check. I don't even know I have a problem. I don't need to know.
Yeah, God sets all, for all have sinned because of that, it says, and come short of the glory of God.
That's how bad it is. We can't even come close to God's standard because of our sin. But man's way is let's ignore that. So God gave us a gauge as if it were. And how do we know we have sinned? Well, we talked about that yesterday. Remember in the reading meeting, I know there were a lot of things we talked about, but one of the things was about the law, right? The law was like this gate. Well, let's put it easier with the word of God in before us here.
It's like a gauge.
It tells us you see this gauge that I just showed you. You notice something about this gauges. It tells me how bad my condition is.
But you know, it doesn't fix my problem.
It will do nothing to clear my condition.
But the word for God is a little bit different. The word of God.
Expose our conditions.
Because God sees what we do too, doesn't He? You know when you should have that extra cookies? Now in your case, you won't have any proof because your body would digest that and use that quite nicely. You think Mom would know when you take that extra cookie?
Yeah, in your case, your mom probably think your brother took it right. So it's hard to tell, but God knows. But the word of God exposed how crooked, how bad we are. But yet we as men was it. We don't have a problem. Just like they say there are millions of diabetics out there. They don't know about that yet. You know, someone asked me one day, they said, how long have you had that problem?
I said I don't know and I think the Lord allowed us so I can tell the story as I was diagnosed about 5-6 years ago, but it doesn't mean I had that problem 5-6 years ago. I could have had it for a long time. So like this condition in your heart sin? How long have you been a Sinner?
Do we know how long? How long have you been a Sinner?
Since yesterday when you stole that cookie.
No. Do you know how long I have been in the center?
Since I was born.
But you know God's word is gracious, even though it is, for all have sinned, and then it says the wages of sin is death. Do you know that when you do terrible things against God you get paid?
Did you know that?
Yeah, what's the pay?
The wages of sin.
Is terrible pay is death? Isn't it bad that when you sin you get paid, but the payment is death?
00:30:07
But you know, boys and girls, God is gracious. How many of you know that verse? Who can finish that verse for me?
For the wages of sin is death. I'm trying to think now, but there's something good about it, OK?
OK, hang on, try again.
Oh, did you hear that?
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So on the one hand, God said, I want to let you know your condition. You're all sinners before God.
But because of his love toward us, he said, But here is a gift. The gift of God is eternal life. If there is a gift, if someone were to give you a gift, what do you do with that gift?
What would you do?
No thanks.
Is that what you do? Well, perhaps a stranger giving you a gift? You say no thanks, right? But what do you normally do with a gift?
What you take it right and what would you do, Paul?
Oh, he will take care of it and play with it. So God is offering you a gift. The gift is his son. What would you do? What would you rather turn an eye and say, look, I don't have a problem. I don't need you. Oh, unfortunately, boys and girls, many people say that I don't need it. I'm not a Sinner. I'm a good.
Well, the word of God set the benchmark for all have sinned.
And you know the sad thing for boys and girls when they don't accept the gift of God when they are younger.
Often it gets more and more difficult as you grow older. And how many were you here last night at a gospel meeting? Why would why do we have a gospel meeting?
Ah, why is that?
To preach the gospel. That's right, because we know the big boys and big girls who are still lost. They may have heard of the gospel story before, but oh, what a joy to preach. We can preach Christ crucified and we can preach the resurrection. Remember with that, in our reading meeting, we spent three reading how Christ rose from the dead. Now let's turn to one more verse.
I know we quoted this before in our reading. Romans 10 and nine there tells us this is what we need.
Romans 10 verse nine. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart.
That God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. There's no medication in this world can cure the problem of sin.
But here God, God sent his Son. His name is Jesus.
He came into this world, he veil all the glory that he had on hide, and he became a man.
Then he suffered as a man. He bore your sins and my sins.
In his own body, on that tree, he was nailed to the cross by men, by you and I, because man said we want nothing to do with God.
There he bore your sins in mind. He died on that tree.
He shed his precious blood, and today we can say the blood of Jesus Christ his Son.
Plants with us from our sin. Now, boys and girls, let me go back a little bit.
Do you remember we said about this? If you were like that gypsy boy?
And you only have one more breath left to tell the story of God's love. What would you use it for?
Would you use it to ask for your favorite toy?
Would you use it to tell the story of God's love if you have been redeemed by the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ?
And if you haven't, would you use that last breath and say, Lord Jesus save me? I believe that Jesus died for my sins because.
You need to know.
Because as a Sinner you need the very first thing is to acknowledge the fact that you always Sinner before God. Remember he that is whole need not a physician, but he that is sick. Do you recognize this, that you are sick, filled with sin, and that we need a Savior to cleanse us from our sins? Now some of you, I know you love the Lord Jesus.
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And I want to see if I can can help you a little bit. How do you tell people about the love of God?
Well.
Thought maybe put it in this way being an easy way to remember it. The first thing we have to tell people is just what we talked about so they can recognize the fact that they're sinners. So I thought, let's start with a. Can you remember a A said all have sinned.
That's what we have to tell the world. Don't we? All have sinned, for all have sinned.
Well, I thought, OK, if I start with A, then maybe the next thing we have to remember is B. Would that be easier? What's B? Let's see now the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sins. Is that nice? Well, we have AB. Maybe we'll make the next verse.
Praise Jesus.
Came into the world to save sinners. Can you remember that?
AB and C What's A?
Aw, all have sinned. That's right. What's be?
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. I got to pick on a girl this time. What See who can help? What's C Christ Jesus?
Came into the world to save sinners. That's right. She was whispering to me. Yeah.
Isn't it nice to know that, well, let's have just a couple more hymns before we close?
Who has another hymn for us? OK.
Hymn #45.
Hymn #45.
Too little eyes too.
Let's have one more.
OK.
Hymn #39.
What a friend we have in Jesus.
What a friend.
Everything to God in prayer.
The whole life being straight up and formed.
Every trials and Santa patients.
It's like trouble randomly.
Great, it's going down for me discovering.
Say again to the Lord in prayer.
We find the ground so bad.
Tell all of our Spider-Man.
She's giving it some snowstorm and Greenwich never happened, standing again to come over in prayer.
We'll find the stove once there.
Before we close, how many of your boys and girls were wondering why there was a knapsack up here? No, nobody. You did. I bet you did. Oh, I see big boy and big girls put their hands up too. And I bet you all through this meeting you were looking and say, I wonder what he's going to pull out from this bag. Well, I just want to close by telling you why I brought the bag up here. It really have nothing to do with what we want to talk about.
I figure.
This is just like this world. We try to find facts to justify what we want to do, don't we? We look for reasons, anything but from the word of God. So we get distracted, don't we? When we see something and often either it's people or things or places would distract us. You know, when we present the gospel, people will say, well, don't, don't tell that to me. What about those poor people in India and in Africa?
Yeah, well, don't get distracted by that. The gospel is about you. If you are still lost in your sins, the Lord is speaking to you this morning, that you have to understand that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and that you, you're the one that requires the blood of Jesus.
You're the one that have to recognize that Christ Jesus came into the world to save Sinner. That's you.
It's not about anyone else or anything else. Let's look to the Lord and commend ourselves. Bless the God and our Father. We.
Our Lord Jesus Christ - Holy, Harmless, Higher Than the Heavens
Address—Doug Buchanan
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.
Let's open our meeting with him #230.
2300 Lord, when we the path retrace, which thou on earth has trod to man, Thy wondrous love and grace, thy faithfulness to God.
Verse five. We wonder at thy lowly mind, and fain would like thee be, And all our rest and pleasure find and learning Lord of thee.
230.
Oh Lord.
We wander I.
I am the Lord.
I am afraid.
And by the earth.
And.
She always looked up.
There's a verse in Hebrews chapter seven I would like to read as an introduction to our subject.
Hebrews, Chapter 7.
And verse.
26.
Speaking of the Lord Jesus ascended man, our High Priest.
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For such and high Priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.
I would like to take these things in this mentioned in this verse.
Concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, and though we know it applies to Him now exalted in glory.
To consider a portion in the Gospels.
Of how he manifested that when he was here on earth.
As he ministered.
As a man, he came so near to us.
In our need.
So accessible.
To all.
And yet.
So holy.
So harmless.
So undefiled.
Separate from sinners.
This is the situation that we're in now in the world.
God has chosen us to be his people. They rejected the Lord Jesus. God took him out of this world.
But he sent the Spirit of God down.
To unite a people together in one body. To him, we are part of that people. We are his representatives here on earth. He was the author and finisher of faith. We follow on. He's left us an example.
An example of perfection in this.
And as we go out into the world.
We find the same elements that he faced when he was here on Earth.
And oftentimes, we have difficulty knowing how to meet.
The situation.
How to be balanced?
In accessibleness and nearness.
And yet holy and separate.
These are real issues.
And we're not going to give you.
The answers to all questions, but there are principles in the word of God that would help us.
And I would like to read in the 4th chapter of John's gospel how the Lord Jesus met the woman of Sycar.
As he sat there on that well.
We're going to read a part of that portion.
And then we're going to compare it or contrast it to.
The life of Samson.
Because I believe in Samson.
We see God's provision for one in the Old Testament.
To be separated.
Serviceable to give deliverance to Israel.
Who were in ******* to the Philistines?
This involved a man being involved with with a defiled, ungodly people.
Mixing with them.
And giving deliverance.
And we know Samson failed.
But before he failed, God used him wonderfully.
And he had a secret.
And that secret was what gave him power.
Now that's an introduction. Let's turn now to John's Gospel Chapter 4.
00:10:00
Verse one.
John's Gospel chapter 4, verse one. When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized not but his disciples, He left Judea and departed again into Galilee, and he must needs go through Samaria.
Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Saikar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about the 6th hour.
There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink, for his disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat.
Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, ask us, drink of me which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou was to have asked of him.
And he would have given the living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water?
Art thou greater than our Father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her.
Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him.
Shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hitherto draw.
Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband, and come hit her.
The woman answered and said I have no husband.
Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that sittest thou truly.
The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship. You know not what we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
For the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit.
And they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit.
And truth, the woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ. When he is come, he will tell us all things.
Jesus, death unto her.
I that speak unto thee am he.
Let's just stop there. There's more to the story, but I believe this will suffice to.
The purpose of our considering this subject.
Here we have the blessed Son of God come down from heaven.
Coming near.
To a woman of Samaria, I have been told that it was a custom of the Jews, the religious Pharisees, and so on that they went and they went from some some Judea up to Galilee that they intentionally bypassed and went a long way around to get to Galilee without going through Samaria. Whether that's true or not I do not know. But what we do know is that the Lord Jesus said it must needs pass through.
00:15:03
Samaria and he did not bypass that place.
Even though they were a mixed company, they were not of the true Israelites.
They did not really have a true.
Claim on the blessing from God on the basis.
Of what God had given in the Old Testament, nevertheless.
We see the Lord Jesus.
Passing through that land of Samaria.
And ministering to the need that he.
Encountered here and I believe the Lord Jesus was fulfilling here.
What was promised to?
The children of Joseph by Jacob.
In that he was a fruitful bough, reaching over the wall and being a blessing.
To a bit beyond a barrier that had been erected.
To this woman.
This woman.
Made a certain claim to that well, she said. Our father Jacob gave us that well. She claimed a certain heritage from the Old Testament. Whether right or wrong, she claimed it.
The Lord met her on that ground.
This poor woman was using this well to satisfy a thirst, a natural thirst of her soul, and she wasn't getting good results. She wasn't satisfied.
In a carnal way, she was seeking to satisfy her heart, her soul.
Every day going back to this well.
To find nourishment another day.
Another husband and so on.
We can relate to that in the world that we live.
How many souls are seeking to satisfy their thirst?
What's that claim from God even?
But totally mistaken in the way.
Of approach.
To the satisfaction.
Here the blessed Creator, humbled in manhood.
So near, so humble.
She did not even realize, as most other people did not realize.
Who this was in their presence?
The Lord Jesus met her.
There.
The holy Son of God.
Holiness is the abhorrence of evil and the love.
Of good.
But he did not use His Holiness to despise.
This woman in the condition where she was.
That was the way the normal Jews had been treating the Samaritans. They have no dealings.
Why could Jesus bridge the gap?
Because he was had true holiness.
It wasn't a self-made holiness of his own pride and taking a position of being better than somebody else. Sometimes we can confuse the issues on this point.
God has called us to holiness.
We are not made holy by ourselves.
There are many people who have sought to attain.
Holiness by segregating themselves and going off to a monastery and.
Removing all temptation, as it were. Moving all defilement so they can maintain a holy life.
By themselves, that's not the way to holiness.
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For us.
Therefore this wall of separation had been erected between the Samaritans.
And the Jews.
Whether for right or for wrong.
There certainly was a certain rightness. God does not want his people.
To mix with the ungodly.
That's not the answer either.
We have the secret.
In the Lord Jesus.
Harmless.
He.
No ill feelings, no putting down, no hurting.
Those who did not maintain the same standard.
That he maintained imperfection.
Says another place. A bruised Reed. Shall he not break? You know, it's pretty easy to look out and see the faults of your brethren. Pretty easy to make pronouncements about it too.
That doesn't help necessarily.
It's a part of our growing up. We noticed that in our little children. We noticed it in the young people. When they're into certain growth stage, they begin to notice something. They call attention to the wrongs of it. It's a part of a natural learning process. The only thing is, we ought to learn to keep our mouth shut when we're learning these things too.
The Lord Jesus says.
Was harmless.
To this woman.
He's been harmless to us, brethren.
He's mad us in spite of our faults.
He's worked with us in patients.
And he would like us to be that way, too.
Undefiled.
Talks to this woman.
About the issues of life.
He brings out of the heart of this woman.
What she had been living.
How can you do that?
And not become defiled.
You know, our minds can go in the gutter pretty easy.
Are we enticed?
This is where we notice a contrast.
In Sampson.
Samson when he went down there to that feast.
He let his heart.
Carry him away.
He became defiled.
And so on. We're not going to read the story of Samson, but I think probably most all of us know it well enough to just refer to it.
There was a similarity with Samson.
God called Samson.
To a life of Nazarite ship.
Israel had sunk down to a low estate. They were in ******* to the Philistines.
God didn't intend the children of Israel to be in that kind of a ******* but that's that's what happens when there's departure from the God of Israel. That's what happens to Christians when there's departure.
Sin gets us starts getting hold little by little, and the little things until.
They become bigger things.
And God in his mercy sometimes raises up a deliverer.
It's happened over and over in the history of Israel. It's happened over and over in the history of Christendom. And we're thankful for it. We're thankful for a revival that brought back a truth that we can appreciate in our day. How dark it was many years ago.
How could God use a man to give deliverance?
Well, we will go back and read just a couple of verses there and judges capture.
12.
00:25:02
Chapter 13.
Judges 13 and verse 3.
And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold, now thou art barren, and bearest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a son. Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine, nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing. For low thou shalt conceive, bear a son, and no razor shall come on his head.
For the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb.
And he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
Here you have the calling.
It was to the parents.
Of Samson, it started from his birth.
From his conception.
Such a, Such a.
Path of separation.
Is particularly necessary at a time.
Of declension.
And ruin failure. You don't read much about Nazarites in the days of the king of King David or Solomon.
There was much blessing.
But in a time of the judges, in order for God to use a vessel.
In order for a person to have power.
There must be these three things.
No wine.
No defilement.
No razor upon his head.
Now, I'm not going to get off to the meanings of this.
No wine speaks of cutting off of the joys of life.
It's men pursuing joy that oftentimes gets them into trouble.
This woman at the well, seeking to satisfy the thirst of her soul.
Through her husband's many of them.
Letter down the path.
That she chose.
The Lord Jesus and perfection.
Never controlled by the his own will or self.
Satisfaction.
So Samson, in order to have power.
And deliver must be kept separate from that defilement.
And then the last of all was the razor. It's the public testimony of his.
Recognition as being one under an oath.
And these three things gave.
Samson his power to be a deliverer, and as long as he maintained that.
He had strength, he had power, and nobody.
Could overcome him.
This is an example for us. This is the example.
That the Lord Jesus gave us in a slightly different way with Samson. It was a physical separation from those things.
With the Lord Jesus, it was a moral separation from those things, and so it is for us today.
To be separated unto the Lord.
And that's why it wasn't just a physical separation at the Lord. Jesus could, as it were, bridge a gap or go over a wall in blessing where the Jew was forbidden to go or could not go because of their lack of following the Word of God.
Lest they be defiled, you remember the story about the Good Samaritan.
How that the 1St, the Levi, the priest, and the Levite, they went by the man who had fallen among the thieves, and they passed over on the other side. They couldn't touch that man that that had been defiled, and I was half dead, lest they ruin their own separation to God.
00:30:28
Holier than thou will not cut the cake.
But there was a man who was so separate.
So holy, so harmless he could get.
So near and yet not be defiled. He could touch the ear of a leper or touch the body of a leper and not be defiled because his touch brought healing.
We as we go out into the world.
We are called to do these things too, the Lord told his disciples in the.
17th of John. Now let's go over and read this. We're getting just a little bit ahead of ourselves, but.
I'm going to go ahead and read these verses now.
In John 17.
When the Lord Jesus was about to leave this world.
And he had kept his disciples faithfully all his earthly pathway.
He was about to go back to the Father by way of the cross, death and resurrection.
And he was preparing his disciples for the time afterwards, and we have these.
Upper Room Ministry chapters here that conclude in this 17th chapter with his final prayer.
And in this prayer he prays for his disciples.
For the time to follow when he was going to no longer be with them. And it has.
An application for us, all of us, all through this time.
While the Lord Jesus is gone in heaven and we are waiting for him to come back.
And he has set himself apart to care for us while.
He's away and so on.
In the 17th chapter.
Verse 11.
He says. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world.
And I come to thee, Holy Father, keep thru thy no name.
Those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name.
Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
And now come I to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth.
Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, Even so.
Have I also sent them into the world? And for their sakes, I sanctify myself.
That they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also, which shall believe on me through.
Thy word.
Here we have the secret.
Samson also had a secret.
This was between him and the Lord, His secret, His Nazarite ship. The Philistines were not to know this.
00:35:01
Long as he kept his secret.
He had strength and power.
The Lord Jesus perfectly.
Without unfailing, without failing.
Perfectly.
Walked a path.
Of separation and power.
Never was he in a circumstance where.
It got the best of him.
Holy.
Holy.
Harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.
This is a very important thing.
For us.
As Christians to realize because we're in an unholy world.
And we've been sent.
Into this world.
Now I have known in my travels as serving the Lord in a few other countries.
I have seen the results.
Of some who have sought to serve the Lord without.
Maintaining this separation from evil.
And when they got into difficult situations, the flesh was weak.
Failure came in. Testimony was ruined.
And an ability to serve the Lord ruined.
We've already spoken about others.
Segregate themselves.
Not mixing with anybody in the world.
It was very popular thing to do in Christendom in the dark ages.
I believe because they failed to see the truth.
Of these verses in John 17, the Lord Jesus has given us in John 17.
The secret?
To preserving ourselves.
In As We Go Into the World.
If there is not, first of all that separation to the Lord.
The realization that you are holy unto the Lord.
You cannot go into the world.
And have a life of power and testimony and strength to give.
Deliverance It is beautiful to see how the Lord Jesus.
Met this woman of Saikar.
Gave deliverance to her, brought her out of the ******* of sin.
Made her comfortable in his presence while doing it. Harmless.
Instead of running away from him to the city, watch out, here's a prophet. He's going to tell you what you're doing wrong.
She goes to the city and says come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. Is this not the Christ? The truth of who the Lord Jesus was had got a hold of her soul.
Not only of who he was, but what he was like.
And instead of chasing them away.
Many of them believe too later on, it says.
This is like a true Samson. This is 1 giving deliverance.
Not through the slaying of people, but of giving them life.
Giving them salvation. This is what the world around us needs today too.
It needs deliverance from sin.
But in order to do it, we have to see the secret here.
Sanctify them through thy word.
Thy word is truth.
It is very important for the believer to continually have the scriptures daily before them.
00:40:03
It is a sanctifying power in our lives. It checks us up when our thoughts go astray or our affections get out of line and we get enticed.
Let the word of the Lord.
Have its say in our life. It will control us. It will give us strength. It will give us power in our Christian lives.
It will preserve and keep us. It will honor the Lord Jesus Christ.
So the Lord Jesus, first of all.
In his prayer.
He calls them out of the world.
When we go back into the world, we don't. We don't go back into the world as one of them.
We are in it, but not of it if we do not see this distinction.
If we do not maintain this distinction, there will be no separation, no power to give deliverance.
Lot, for example is an example of one of those.
He lost his testimony.
Abraham lived in communion with God.
He could intercede and do far more than Lot.
Basically, he's the one that got lot delivered.
His intercession.
Is what brought Lot out.
It's not what you and I can do, brethren.
In gospel work and going out.
It's what the Lord can do, and we as servants in obedience.
And if God calls us to something, he gives his own.
The strength and the power.
He sent the disciples out into the world. He said, Go ye into all the world.
It's a mission. It still applies to this day.
First of all, you have to see you're called out of the world, separate from it, sanctified by the word of God.
Maintain that sanctification.
Then it is.
In that place of sanctification.
That is set apart in holiness or cleanness.
That the Lord can send his own as witnesses of himself back into the world.
It also speaks here of a part of the work that the Lord Jesus is doing.
When the Lord Jesus went back to heaven, we've had much about his resurrection here in these meetings. So beautiful a man risen, glorified. When he went back there to heaven, the Father's house.
He didn't go back to go there to sit in a rocking chair and wait till the time the grace was over.
He set himself apart in dedication to a service.
And that's what it means here. I sanctify myself.
He is occupied with the daily needs of his people.
Here on Earth.
Overseeing.
Through the Spirit of God, which is sent down here to give us help and direction and strength.
A wonderful thing.
And that's where what we read in Hebrews really picks up as our high priest.
He dedicated himself to that service of priesthood.
That's the secret.
That's a part of it.
Nothing can happen to the believer.
That is walking in fellowship with him, but what he would allow it for good and blessing.
He's in control.
That's what he said when he sent him out. All power is given me. He is in control.
Sometimes it doesn't look like it.
He can even use the enemy to accomplish.
His purposes? How many stories?
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Happen.
Of the Lord using.
Only in obedience.
And maintaining that place of sanctification.
So I like to think of this secret then.
Like Samson had his secret.
His physical separation in those three ways.
Was what gave him power to be a deliverer of the children of Israel so the Lord Jesus.
Exercise the same.
In a moral sense.
And thus not just physical separation.
That's the problem, one of the problems of making rules and regulations.
A brethren or codes of conduct.
They may seem like good restrictions, and don't get me wrong, we're not, we're not turning everything loose here to anybody and doing what they want. No, it's just the contrary to that.
If the Lord Jesus, for example, had followed the normal.
Restrictions that was put upon the Jews. He would have never even gone through this city of Sikar.
Or Samaria.
There but because.
He was walking independence and obedience as a man in the Lord Jesus, and the Lord said to go that way.
He could go that way not fearing the consequences.
But rather having power to give deliverance.
To the woman there at the well.
Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
That's the Spirit of God. But we're not greater.
Of ourselves than the world, therefore it is very necessary.
For the Christian to maintain that life.
Of moral separation.
And yet if the Lord calls us to a situation.
Where we are near temptation near.
Defilement. Only the person who is maintaining himself.
In holy separation to the Lord can get that close.
Be of help an assistance without becoming.
Defiled. This is a great secret. This is a real help.
And sometimes you feel weak and I don't feel, I don't think that that is wrong of itself.
We are weak. We're not stronger of ourselves than the enemy.
But again.
There is a path of obedience of separation to the Lord.
To him.
And his calling.
Maintaining that we can be.
A deliverer.
The Lord Jesus did that.
To this poor woman, the disciples.
Were marveled that he would talk with her and so on. It seems like it must the.
They were affected by this barrier, this wall.
To well I've enjoyed this as a an example for us.
And how the Lord Jesus could.
Be so close, so near to this woman, and yet so wholly and so separate.
And so instead of like Samson when he got near.
He was enticed and little by little, not the first time.
But little by little, as he gave up his Nazarite ship.
Here little, there little. He began losing his power.
And when the.
One step was taken where they cut his hair and a razor came. He did not even realize that he had lost his strength. But it doesn't say just that he lost his strength. It says he knew not that the Lord had departed from him.
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How sad.
The Lord not to forsake him forever. I believe He's in glory. I believe He is a man of faith.
But in that situation.
He had disowned.
His relationship with his God as a Nazarite And how could God be connected?
In power and deliverance, where the source of his strength.
Had been disowned.
He gave up his Nazarite ship. He gave up his separation to the Lord.
May the Lord help us as believers.
To have.
And to see in the Lord Jesus this perfect example.
And to follow his steps without fear.
And yet without compromise.
Well, these are a few thoughts that.
I found helpful.
In connection with our going out into the world, and there is the Lord alone knows young people.
There as you grow up.
You will begin making these decisions on your own. We see in this case of.
Samson that his parents did not understand.
Part of the mission that God had called Samson to.
And yet they did see a danger.
That he go down to a Philistine feast and that he go seek a bride from among that people. That was not right.
That was wrong, plainly wrong on Sampson's part, but God was going to allow it for a 'cause that He wanted, and his Nazarite ship was supposed to be what would keep him.
And if he'd have kept his Nazarite ship, he would have been kept.
That's the situation that we're in.
Our brethren sometimes may not understand what.
God has called us to.
But if the Lord calls us to something we can trust, He has the power to keep us where that may lead us.
But let us not think that we can go out and in front the work, confront the world in our own strength.
We will be overcome.
We're no match for the enemy. The secret is our.
The Christian Nazarite ship. The secret is the word of God.
Daily in our lives to maintain our position as a holy people, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.
May the Lord help us then, in these last days. We are.
We are in a very defiled scene. The heart of man really hasn't changed. These things happened of old.
But I believe there's this distinction today.
Like it was in the days of Lot and days of Noah.
It's more openly practiced. It's out there. You can't drive down the street without becoming defiled and looking at the advertisements and so on. You can't open up a magazine or a book without becoming defiled. There's not a place you can go except like in a home or a place like this, and even it's here.
It's a wonderful thing to preserve the little children while they're young from this.
But then there comes a time like Samson.
When he had to go out on his own.
These are the secrets. May the Lord help us to use it. Perhaps we could sing a hymn in closing.
151.
But some other start this for us. We could sing perhaps a different melody than the last one. 151 Lord Jesus, when we think of the of all thy love and grace, our spirits long and fain would see thy beauty face to face.
Thank you.
Privacy.
And your day by spirit state art all the way now.
Little drink and roll.
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