St. Louis Conference: 2017
Table of Contents
Timothy
Address—Nick Simon
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We could start this afternoon by singing.
Hymn #230.
Faithful amidst and faithfulness mid darkness only light Thou didst say Father's name confess, And in his will delight. Could someone start it please? Hymn #230.
We begin by opening to Acts Chapter 16.
The subject I have in my heart, and that's one that I asked my local brethren to bear with me because I spoke on it less than a week ago, but it's the subject is Timothy.
Young man called Timothy.
And I'd like to especially speak about Timothy the person.
Though we will, as time permits and Lord willing, take a brief look at Paul's two epistles to Timothy and see what they have to say. But we're introduced to Timothy in Acts chapter 16, so beginning with verse one. Then came he to Derby and Lystra. Behold, a certain disciple was their name Timotheus, the son of a certain woman which was a Jewess and believed that his father was a Greek.
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Which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium him would Paul have to go forth with him?
And took and circumcised him, because of the Jews which were in those quarters, for they all knew that his father.
Was it Greek? And we'll pause there to consider a few things we know about Timothy's family life. You know, there are some things in life we don't get to choose, and one of them is our family.
And Timothy's father was a Greek. That's all it says about him. And they all knew that his father was a Greek. His mother, on the other hand, it says that she believed that the word in the Greek is faithful. She was faithful.
And we learn elsewhere in Second Timothy that Timothy not only had a faithful mother, but also a faithful grandmother. But as to his father, it just simply says, but his father was a Greek. I would suggest that that household was probably a divided household. I don't know how it's it happened that way. We're not told. That is beside the point.
But Timothy grew up in this divided home, a faithful mother on the one hand, and the father who was a Greek, on the other.
He was never circumcised. And I understand that if you grew up in a Jewish Home, if your mother was Jewish, you were considered Jewish. And it was such a prejudice against this man that Paul actually took and circumcised him.
The prejudice against him was so great, we learned elsewhere that Paul deliberately did not to circumcise Titus. Titus was a a gentile and to circumcise Titus would have been a compromise of principle. But in Timothy's case, that wasn't the situation. But there was such a strong prejudice against him amongst his own Jewish people that Paul had to take and circumcise him.
As I said, there are some things in life that we don't get to choose, and one of them is our families.
And Timothy could have let the circumstances of his early life mock him for the rest of his life.
You know, we were reading in the book of Joshua now Sunday school Bible reading, uh, back at home a week ago. And in the 18th chapter, there were seven nations, the seven tribes that had not yet received their division of the land. And so they took lots and cast lots. And the lot that you got was the portion that you got. We don't cast lots anymore. The last instance was in the first chapter of Acts. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, you never hear again.
Costing of loss. But in Israel they cost loss. And as it says in Proverbs, uh, when they cast lots, the, umm, the the outcome was left to God.
You couldn't look at your neighbor and say, well, that's not fair. You got a better land than me. No, God chose the land that you got. And I might suggest that whatever circumstance you find yourself in, growing up in, it's not your job to look at your neighbor and say, well, you have an easier lot than I have.
But another thing we don't have to let those circumstances in our life define who we are.
Timothy did not let that divided household define who he was.
I know it's not easy. As little children we learn things and as parents it's good to remember that that you will give your child a script that I will live by.
Don't give them a script that they have to unlearn.
So they have to unlearn. It's not easy. It's not easy. Be thankful if you grew up in a Christian home. Now, Timothy, as I said, his household was divided, but he did have a faithful mother. And as we'll learn later, that he knew the Scriptures from a young child. But there's something else that says in these verses about Timothy. It says he was a disciple. When did he become a disciple?
A believer, you know, Paul preached.
In Derby about two years earlier, and if you go back to the 14th chapter of Acts, you read there that.
Umm, just picking up in the middle of the story in verse six. They were aware of it and fled unto Lystra and Derby cities of Laconia and under the region that lieth about. And there they preached the gospel. You know, Timothy, I suspect heard the gospel of that occasion. Give me some liberties here if we we don't know these things for certain. But in first Timothy, you know, Paul explicitly says under Timothy, my own son in the faith. So I believe there is strong evidence.
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That Timothy was saved under the preaching of the Apostle Paul. Now for a Jew to get saved in that day is a little bit different than for a Gentile to get saved in in this present day for Jew. He grew up as faithful to the word. His grandmother was faithful. His mother says she was faithful. They, they believe the the the scriptures that they had received what we know is the Old Testament. But something had happened and as to what?
That the knowledge, by the way, Lystra and umm, Derby in these towns that, uh, Timothy grew up in, he was probably from Derby. We find that elsewhere in scripture, uh, is in the province of Galatia, which is sort of the heart of modern day Turkey. So that's sort of, uh, are we gonna talk a little bit about geography? So you sort of need to get your bearings here. So he grew up sort of central Turkey quite a ways from Jerusalem. So how much they knew was going on in Jerusalem, I.
Know, but we know that the Lord Jesus Christ, he came. He came to his own people. He came as their Messiah.
And he was rejected. For a Jew to be saved that day, and even to this day, as a personal indictment upon them as a people, they had to own that they crucified their Messiah. Now I know they were not alone in doing so. They did it in partnership with the Roman authorities, the secular authorities. But for you to be saved, he had to learn that their Messiah had come, that he had been rejected.
And not only that, their own people had crucified him.
They had to learn that their hopes were no longer earthly. They no longer look for an earthly inheritance. Their hopes were now heavenly. Their Messiah was now heavenly. And so that was quite a lot for a Jew to come to grips with. But young Timothy heard the gospel message and he was saved. And there was something remarkable about that young man that caused the apostle Paul to say we want him for the trip. Now. Just to give a little context, if you go back to the previous chapter, Acts 15.
We find there that Paul and Barnabas, umm, they said.
Uh, in verse 36, the chapter 15, some days after Paul said on the Barnabas, let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they do so is their desire to go around and visit the various assemblies throughout Asia Minor. But there was a dissension between Paul and Barnabas over a young man called John Mark and Paul thought it not good to take him with him because the last trip he had quit on them.
And then this poll was right. Unfortunately, John Mark was a relative of Barnabas and that clouded his decision. And the sad result was they potted ways. So instead Paul took Silas and they went up back to Derby and Lister again in the region, the district of Galatia where those towns were. And there Paul found Timothy and recognized something in him and said, come along Timothy, we need you.
But let's look at what else do we know about Timothy? You know, we don't know whether they have brown hair or blonde. We don't know how tall he was. We don't know.
All those things that this world put so much value on, we don't know a thing about them, but we do know some things about Timothy. So and, and, and we, we're gonna come back to first Timothy that we have to jump around a bit to, to find these various attributes that we can learn about Timothy. So, umm.
In uh.
First Timothy 412 It says, Let no man despise thy youth. We know he was living at home.
And here we find that Paul refers to him as being young. Now, if the dates in my Bible, anything to go by and we'll just go with them because someone obviously put some thought into this is about 10 years after Acts 16. So if he's still a young man 10 years later, and I understand the word used for young men here could speak of someone who was 40 years old.
So Timothy in Acts 16 was 30 or maybe younger, in his late 20s, perhaps as young as his mid 20s. He really was a young man.
We also learned that it was not a very forward individual. So in the same chapter in First Timothy, in the 14th verse, the apostle Paul tells and neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying of the hands of the press. Retreat. Neglect not the gift that was in thee. Here we have a young man who's reticent to use his gift, and he needs some encouragement to use that gift.
For the Lord also, when we turn to.
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First Corinthians again, I'm gonna have to jump around. You don't have to necessarily follow me through this, but in First Corinthians, the 16th chapter, Paul has to tell the current scenes in the 10th post. Now if Timothy, if Timothy has come see that he may be with you without fear. Free worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do. Now I imagine that the assembly in Corinth was pretty intimidating.
And perhaps all of us would shake a little bit if we were sent to current, but I think that it tells us and we have other verses we could turn to.
And we will that he was not a forward young man. Perhaps he would even say he was a little bit timid. By the way, the name Timothy means to honor God or honored of God. So clearly his mother, umm.
Had a concern for this young babe when he was born, but what else do we know? So he was young, he was not forward. Umm back again in first Timothy in the 5th chapter in verse 23 it says drink no longer water but use a little wine for thy stomach sake and thine often infirmities. I think this tells us two things about Timothy. The 1St is the obvious one that he was a sickly young man.
Is that often infirmities? I don't know what is infirmity. Was umm probably something to do with his stomach umm.
Last week when I, I spoke on the subject, Umm, I, I grew up, we have a family where we have at least three with celiac. Who knows, maybe he had celiac disease. It's not exactly something that's helpful when you travel. Umm, but that was, that was Timothy's lot, his life. He had some infirmity, but I think also we learned from this verse, he was a sensitive young man and he had to be encouraged to drink a little wine for his stomach sake.
Now.
I wanna speak briefly on this. It's a small digression, but as Christians we have a lot of liberty. A lot of liberty. It's interesting when Paul writes the Titus, he instructs him to tell the older women, umm, I will read it because I'll misquote it, but it's, uh, Titus 2.
And it says in verse three, the age women likewise that they're they being behaviors become of holiness, not false accusers not given to much wine. Why doesn't Paul just tell Titus, tell the older women not to drink wine? You know, an absolute prohibition is easy. It takes no exercise of conscience to be told don't do something. You know, as a as children, there are when we have little children, there are things that we have to tell them.
Don't do this, but at some point in their life there has to come an understanding.
And if a child simply does something because they're being told don't do this and has never been given understanding of why?
Then I believe it sets them up for a failure.
Now Timothy rightly was sensitive as to this subject and back in umm, Romans chapter 4, uh, 14 and 15, we have some guidance as to what we should do with our Christian liberties.
Uh, just before I get there I want to read a verse in Galatians on the way as we turn back through our bibles. But in Galatians in the 6th chapter it says there.
In verse 13 For brethren, he have been called unto liberty only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. So we have Christian liberty in many things, but how wise we must be.
As to our use of those things, we do not live as isolated individuals in this world.
And whatever we do, someone will be watching someone who may follow your example. And so in, in, uh, Romans 13, it says there in uh, verse 13 of Romans, uh, sorry, Romans 14, verse 13, it says the end of the verse that no man put a stunning block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.
You know we live in the age of Facebook.
Where everything we do is published for all the world to see. I would suggest to you that there are some things that you may feel a clear conscience about in your life to do that does not need to be published for all the world to see. That's not being hypocritical. That's being wise. If you went to the shambles in those days and you purchased some meat, you were quite at liberty to take that meat and eat it. But if someone pointed out to you, Oh.
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You know that meat was offered to an idol for his conscience. You wouldn't eat it. That's not being hypocritical. We don't do things to stumble one another. Just remember that. I don't care whether it's what you eat, what you drink. And in Romans, uh, let me just read one more verse in Romans 14 there it says in, in, uh, 1417, the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. If necessary, we can give up the things we eat and drink if it's gonna be a stumbling block to someone.
Else, or at least don't do it in front of them if you have a clear conscience about it. But it's not just meat and drink, it's the clothes you wear. It's the things, activities you choose in your life.
As a family, I had to make decisions. What I was going to do is a appropriate family activity that may have been different from someone else.
But we need to leave room for one another to have an exercise of our own conscience. But Timothy was a sensitive young man. And how important it is to be sensitive to those that live we live around.
So he was youthful, he was not bored, he had sicknesses, he was sensitive in a good way. Umm, in second Timothy. And again, we'll, we'll look a little more at this time permitting, but we've seen second Timothy, the apostle Paul.
In verse six has to say to him, Wherefore I put thee in remembrance. They'll stir up the gift of God. The word is, rekindle the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind. It's no longer now a young man that's reticent to use his gift. I believe this is a young man who had been using his gift, but was not using his gift because he was discouraged.
So I believe with Timothy we also see a young man.
Who was easily discouraged. Now at this point, look at those lists of qualifications. Youthful, timorous, sickly, umm, a sensitive individual. This one that could be discouraged. These aren't the qualifications of someone that I would choose to take on a missionary journey. And maybe you feel the very same thing as you sit in your own assembly at home in its weakness.
Who am I?
And perhaps I don't know how Timothy felt. You know, as I spoke on this last week, it occurred to me that I don't believe we have a record of a single word that came out of that young man's mouth. We don't know what he thought.
We don't know what he thought. We're not told, but.
There are.
Uh, we'll get to some positive things very soon, but I just wanted to think about those, those, those qualifications that Timothy had. And you know, the world tells us to look within to find your strengths. I would suggest to you that if you look within, you're gonna come up with the wrong answers, Moses.
Looked within and said, oh, I can't possibly lead these people. I'm not an eloquent person. He looked at his own abilities. But you know, Moses and Timothy are both called men of God. A man of God is a man who stands for God and speaks for God when all around is is giving up.
Timothy was God's man for the occasion.
And God was going to use him for the apostle Paul.
So on the positive side, you know, some of the things that we view in our lives and our personalities and our abilities as negatives, God can make into positives. And so in Philippians chapter 2.
In verse 20 it says or read from verse 19. But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothea shortly unto you, that I am also may be of good comfort when I know your state, for I have no man like minded who will naturally care for your state. That word care is anxious.
This anxious young man, you know, he, he could get discouraged. He, he, he could be timorous. He, umm, could be fearful, uh, he could be sensitive.
God says that's the sort of personality I need because he's gonna care for my people. I have, and Paul says I have no man like minded who's gonna be anxious for you.
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But with all the the negative things that I perhaps intimated about Timothy, when we consider the travels that he and the apostle and their traveling companions went on, we need to realize that Timothy was no shrinking Violet. You know, we drove 1000 miles from Colorado to Seattle, Illinois.
Along the way in Kansas City we stopped at a rib place and enjoyed some ribs and spent a night in our motel. Then we drove down here.
3/4 of ours to get to Saint Louis and we're staying in a beautiful hotel. Timothy Apostle Paul had none of that. I don't think we appreciate the difficulty that travel was in that day. You didn't undertake travel lightly. So reading on in Acts 16 and spending a little moment to view their travels.
We find in verse 6.
Keep it. Remember how back in Acts 15, the apostle originally was gonna take Bonnemous and they were gonna revisit the assemblies that, uh, had started in Asia Minor and that's where the apostle Paul went. But God had other plans for the apostle Paul. And so they start out in verse Acts 16, six. And when they had gone throughout Riga in the region of Galatia and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they have come to my Sia, they asked they had to go into Pathinia.
But the spirit suffered them not, and they passed by my sea and came down to Trois, and the vision appeared to pull. In the night there stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him saying, come over into Macedonia and help us. So they started out in central Turkey, and triathlons is on the coast of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic Sea, if I have my oceans right.
The distance I figure is the crow flies is roughly 450 miles over land.
Again, no cars, no Motel Sixes. Whether they rode a beast or not, I don't know. I suspect a lot was done by walking when they got to Trias. We and by the way, Macedonia is the northeast part of modern Greece. So they were down on the coast of Turkey and they needed to get up and over into Greece, into Europe because God wanted them to preach the Gospel in Europe.
And so.
Umm in verse 10 it says after we had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. Therefore losing from Charles we came with a straight cause to Samothracea, and next to Neapolis, and from Pence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia and the colony. And we were in that city abiding certain days. Now the writer of this book, Luke switches from.
The third person to the first person.
He stops talking about they and starts talking about we and us. So at this point, Luke joins this little band. And the way that Luke describes this journey, you'd almost get the impression that.
And I don't know, umm, I don't know the city of Saint Louis very well, but that, you know, maybe they were traveling from Ferguson, which I think from the north side of Saint Louis down to UMM.
Central St. Louis and then maybe over to where the meeting room is on the West side of Saint Louis. But that's not the case at all.
From trust they took a vote. We know they took a vote because they went to Semi three CL, which is an island. You can't walk to islands. So they took a boat. And if I didn't, the distance from Trawas up to Philippi is about 140 miles, 140 miles by boat. Incidentally, in that day, boat travel was probably the easiest.
Umm.
It may have been slow, but at least you didn't have to face highway robbers.
Umm, and, and the Rodriguez are going up and down. This part of the country is not necessarily flat, so a boat was perhaps the easiest, but even boat travel. The apostle Paul was shipwrecked at least four times in, uh, Second Corinthians. It says your shipwreck thrice, but there was at least one more after that. And it says that he was in the water for a day and a night. So one time he went shipwreck and they didn't have life preservers. He was out there in the water for 24 hours.
Treading water or maybe hanging onto a board?
So this is the sort of rigors that Timothy faced in traveling with the Apostle Paul. And then just to continue this present journey, and I won't go through the Scriptures, but from Philippi, which is a short way inland from the coast, they went to Thessalonica, which is heading towards the it's, it's the Macedonia, but it's West of Philippi, about 100 miles.
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We find that in Act 17. Along the way they went to Amphipolis and Apolinia.
And then to Thessalonica. From Thessalonica went to Berea. These towns you can still find on the map. Berea in modern Greek is written with AV umm, there we learned that Apostle Paul was bundled off to the coast. That was umm, about fo uh, 20 miles to the coast. And incidentally from Thessalonica to Berea, which they did at night because of the difficulties, that's about 40 miles.
So probably walked it at night.
And then, uh, they probably took a boat from, uh, Berea, the coast. Berea's not on the coast, about 20 miles off down to Athens. That's 300 miles.
And then from Athens to Currents is about 45 miles. So you start adding up all those distances and you discover they came in many cases much further than you came to conference.
So let's not, let's not think that TI uh, Timothy, when he signed on to travel the Apostle Paul was any weakling. He wasn't. He went despite his infirmities, despite his timorous character.
Let's take a moment now and just look at the the two letters that the apostle Paul penned to Timothy.
We've already mentioned some of the things.
In these two epistles.
So in Paul's first letter to Timothy.
We can read.
In the third chapter in verse 15.
As if I tarry long well in beginning of verse 14, these things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou orders to behave thyself in the House of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of truth.
So, as a broad overarching theme, we might say that Paul's first pistol to Timothy, first Paul's first letter to Timothy, gives instruction for the godly as to their walk in the House of God.
When things are in order, and I mention that because in the next book we find that things weren't quite so in order.
But throughout this short letter, there are many.
Instructions that Paul gives Timothy that are also good instruction for ourselves. But we begin.
By noting that in the first chapter, Paul says to Timothy in verse three, as I faculty divide still Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which meant a quest minister questions rather than godly edifying, which is in faith, so do.
And then in verse, Well, I just keep reading Now the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart and of a good conscience of faith and fame, from which some have swerved, having turned a sight unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor aware of, they affirm.
Before I get to talk about two things that are mentioned in these verses, I just want to point out that Timothy didn't always travel with the apostle Paul. He was also a delegate of the apostle, and the apostle in this instance left him at Ephesus. Why? He asked to go into Macedonia. But there are other occasions when the apostle Paul sent Timothy. So in First Corinthians we have an example of that.
Which I read earlier. Umm.
In this just you don't have to turn back to it, but in first Corinthians the 16th chapter, just reading from verse eight, it says, but I will tarry Ephesus unto Pentecost, for a great door in effect was opened unto me. And there are many adversaries. Now Timothy has come see and so on. So Paul says he was in Ephesus at the time and he's sending to Martheus to current.
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From emphasis to current is probably about 1000 miles.
So young Timothy would have packed his bags, put together provisions for a few weeks, maybe a month, and all fee would go. The apostle Paul would mean lie. I wonder whether Timothy is alive or dead. Did he make it? Did he not?
When we read Philippians, we find there that these things are real. Pafforditis almost died in his journeys.
So imagine if you came to visit in Denver and, umm.
For whatever reason, he came and saw me and I felt that I needed to send you on a journey. And I said, why don't you walk back to Saint Louis and see how the president is doing there?
That's the sort of thing that Timothy regularly did, but here in post first letter to Timothy, we discovered that Timothy was left behind in Ephesus and he's given direction on two points, two things that came into Christianity from a very early age. The one was the philosophies of man and that's covered in.
Uh, fables and endless genealogies.
That, I believe, would refer to early Gnostic teaching. The second one is the Judaizing of Christianity. Both things continue to play Christianity to this day.
In Christianity, it wasn't long before men built glorious cathedrals. Because it probably wasn't cathedrals thousand years or 2000 years ago, but whatever. They call them basilicas.
Judaism. There was a glorious temple. In Christianity, there are no cathedrals. If you go into a cathedral and they're they're architecturally interesting, you'll find an altar. You'll find constant reminders of Judaism.
Israel to become an Israelite you just had to have Israelites parents. That was umm, determined by your blood, not whether you were faithful or unfaithful. Churches today admit whoever in you can partake of communion, it's up to you.
That is a a Judaizing principle, a mixed multitude.
And I could give you many more examples. The, the, the, the umm, introduction of feast days into Christianity, Easter replaces Passover and so on. All these are Judaizing principles that have come into Christianity. And of course, on the other side, the philosophies of men, we don't need to delve into them, but the two things that have come in and came in.
On a very early day, uh, later in umm.
Second Timothy.
It says that.
Uh, I'll get to this first again, but for the time will come when I'm not in your sound doctrine. But after our last show heaped themselves, teachers having itching ears, itching ears, that's what we are by nature. We get tired of that which is old and we want to hear something which is new.
In the second chapter of First Timothy, it begins with the subject of prayer.
Those three, it says this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. That title, God, our Savior, Savior God is characteristic of first and second Timothy in the book of Titus. We have a savior God, and that is the God that we should represent to this world in our daily life and conduct.
And it says in umm verse 8.
So despite the gender confusion that's existing in this world in which we live in today, God has a purpose and a plan for men and a plan for women.
And it says there in verse eight. I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. And like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broided hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but which becometh women professing godliness with good works. I just read that in the new translation in in J&D's translation. And like manna also that the women in deep.
Portman and dress adorn themselves with modesty and discretion, not with platted hair and gold or pearls or costly clothing, but what becomes a woman making profession of the fear of God by good works and begin with the women first. It's very easy to pick on the sisters. Clothing is something we all see. It's outward.
00:40:16
I'm not gonna say much on this subject. You've heard it before. It's important not be dismissed. The way you dress will affect others about you. The word deportment goes beyond dress though, and that's why I read it from the new translation. Mr. Darby has a footnote on it. That word department is about your whole carrying of your being. It should reflect your dress. Your department should reflect 1.
Who hasn't, doesn't J&D has the fear of God desires to do his work. That's what your dress should reflect.
Your dress can be a distraction.
To others.
That's all you need to be aware of.
Now, when it comes to men, I believe it's been overlooked.
It says to lift up holy hands.
There has, rather remarkably in some ways, but completely unsurprisingly, being blasted all over the headlines for probably 6 months or more. Numerous individuals in the world's high places that have fallen because of their moral indiscretions, so they, well, wouldn't call them that. This world has soared since the 19. You could pick a day post World War 2.
Umm, liberty.
Set this well it has long craved, thrown off the bonds and the restraints of a Christian society largely in name.
And this Weld is now reaping the consequences of the sexual liberty that it has long preached.
I guarantee there's probably not many young women in this room. We've had to take public transport on a regular basis. That hasn't been propositioned.
That's the ugly world in which we live. And men.
It's all very well to point your finger at this women and say it's because of what you wear or provide some justification, but as men we're to lift up holy hands.
This is one thing that we do not as liberty as Christians. We do not as Christians have liberty to delve into that which is really accessible on the Internet.
That defiles our hands. How can we lift up holy hands?
So it was just a case last week of some men who claimed to be a Christian, some in in, uh, Washington.
Who railed against immoral behavior was caught in the very immoral acts himself.
This is.
Do we? Do we have any? Do we have any idea why so many of this well despised Christianity is because of our own conduct and behavior?
It's so important, man, that we're gonna lift up hands in prayer, that they are holy hands, not defiled. Don't listen to what this world preaches. And this message is continuous and subtle through advertisements, through through every form of media is constantly preached at us.
In the next chapter, I won't go through it.
In the fourth chapter.
You know, Mr. Dobby makes an interesting comment in his synopsis in connection with Titus two generally on the whole chapter, not just on the, uh, the older women in drinking wine, but.
Our first tendency.
When how limited when the Cru liberty that we have is believe is is abused is to become legal.
And we find that again in in in first Timothy chapter one. But here we read that Paul tells Timothy in chapter 4, the spirit expressly speaks expressly in the latter times shall some depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of the devil, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having the conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created, to be received with Thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
So.
It's describing here a fleshly religion, a natural religion. As I said, it's very easy to to have an absolute prohibition against something we like by nature, those sort of things, forbidding certain meats, eating fish on Friday, forbidding to marry. It's a fleshy religion that makes us feel good. That's what Christianity became, especially in the Middle Ages.
00:45:22
The notice was it says in verse six, if thou put the brethren remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourishing up in the words of faith and of good doctrine were unto thou hast attained the thing that nourishes the Kingdom of God is not meat and drinks. We need to be feeding upon the word of God.
We're not feeding upon the word of God, then we're going to be stunted in our growth.
There are some things I'll, I'll, I wanna speak more on that. I'll just jump to the last chapter.
Time wise, we're doing fine.
So many of these things repeat themselves of the they come back in the second letter.
But here is in the last chapter of First Timothy that we find Timothy referred to as a man of God.
And as I said, a man of God stands with God and acts for God in days of emergency when the majority of those who have professors were Professor Lee's people approving faithless to his 'cause God is looking for his men right now.
Are you prepared to be a man of God?
You can say, well, not qualified. You could look at all those weaknesses that you have within.
And you can allow yourself to be convinced, well, God couldn't be looking for me in the next book. Actually, the first book here in First Timothy, Timothy is referred to as a man of God. When we get to the second book, we find that we're all referred to as men of God.
But the man of God was to flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and so on. There's a whole meeting in itself in these verses, so I won't go into it.
But when we get to the second letter, Second Timothy, we find a different state of things. Certainly there were things in the first epistle where Timothy had to stay behind an emphasis and see that they, the Ephesians, weren't falling for the false teaching of Gnosticism or the Judaizing teachers that was seeking to put them back on the law. There were those things that were already creeping in.
But when we get to the second letter, Paul's second letter to Timothy, every single chapter.
Is marked by failure and decline. Every single chapter of Second Timothy is marked by failure or decline. The giving up.
And Timothy needed encouragement. He needed encouragement. And so just I just pick a verse from each chapter to show my point.
So in the first chapter we find in verse 15 this Thou knowest that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me, of whom if I jealous and homogeneous.
Just repeat this, thou knowest that all they return Asia be turned away from me.
Go to the next chapter.
And we could read quite a lot from this chapter, beginning the 14th. First of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no prophet, but to the Zurich, but to the subverting of the hearers. So it begins with a striving about words. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightfully, rightly, dividing the word of truth, but shun.
Profane and vain babblings and their word will eat, as does a kinker or a gangrene, of whom is Hymenius and Philetus, who concerning the truth of earth, saying that the resurrection is passed already, and overthrow the faith of some.
Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone that nameeth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not any vessels of gold and a silver, but also wood, and of earth, and some to honor, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, and so forth. So the House of God had become a great house. I think it's less important what the vessel was made.
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But the House of God had become a great house, admitting not just false doctrines, but persons as well that were a dishonor to the House of God.
In the third chapter.
And again, we could read a lot from this chapter, but just beginning with verse one. This know also than last days. Perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own soul, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemous, disobedient appearance, unthankful, unholy.
Verse 5 Having a former godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away.
Then the last chapter, verse 3. For the time will come when they will not endure a sound doctrine, but after their own lush shall they heap to themselves teachers, having hitching ears, they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables or myths. Every single chapter of Paul's second letter is marked by failure, by giving up, by decline.
This was written.
Almost 2000 years ago.
The decline that began then didn't cease, has continued to this present day. Those philosophies of men and the Judaizing principles have continued within Christianity. But believe it or not, there are those that deny the ruin that has come in I have with me.
Something that was written, I don't know when it was written, to be precise, but a good long while ago, maybe 100 years ago.
Maybe. Maybe a little less.
I won't tell you where it's from. If you really wanna know, you can come and ask me.
But this man, says Dobby's theory of the immediate failure of each of the dispensations, and especially of the ruin of the Church and the deductions he drew from it, placed him in principle in opposition to all those throughout the Church's history have either kept to the teachers and pattern of the New Testament, or return to those Scriptures as to assure an abiding guide. The whole point of what he's writing is there isn't ruin that's come in.
They're absolutely has been ruined that come in and what he writes.
Is a disservice to those the faithful amidst unfaithfulness that have gone on in the principles that are laid down in the Word of God since that time.
And Paul has to encourage Timothy. So going back now, I read a negative thing from each chapter. We're going to go back now and look at a positive thing from each chapter. The apostle Paul begins by reminding Timothy, I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience. There's some things that could be said on that to explain it, but Paul is just simply referring. He had a faithful heritage as well. His lineage was faithful, and so did Timothy.
He says to Timothy, when I called, uh, he says, umm, well, he says in verse 4, greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy when I called to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which wrote first thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice. He reminds Timothy of his pedigree. He re of of Paul, his own personal pedigree. He reminds Timothy of his pedigree in his case that came through his mother.
The faithful line of.
Of UH teachers.
Instructing the young child.
And Paul is basically saying, Timothy, don't give up. I wonder how many in this room I could if I knew your histories. I'll tell you an amusing anecdote in just a second. But how many in this room have had faithful parents, faithful grandparents that have come to conferences for years and years and years? Don't give up. Don't be the one that gives up.
You know Timothy's tears too. She's ever mentioned they weren't tears because.
He was sad. The apostle Paul wasn't with him. There were tears because he wept under the condition of things. And we should, too, weep over the condition of things. But it's not a reason to give up. Timothy had given up to exercising his gift. The apostle Paul had to say, you need to rekindle that gift, Timothy. It doesn't matter that all they in Asia have left me. That's not a reason to stop preaching. You know, I wonder how we would feel if there were just ten of us in this room right now.
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Brethren in uh, Saint Louis.
Let's say 10 guests in addition to the brethren from Saint Louis and invited a conference together and just 10 people showed up. Would I be as willing to stand here this afternoon and preach?
What would I be discouraged and go? Is it worth it?
Is it worth it all?
You know Paul in this first chapter, Read it. Take it home tonight in your hotel room. If you've got a moment, just read this first chapter as a personal letter from the apostle Paul to Timothy. Put yourself in Timothy's feet. You see a young man that was discouraged and Paul says, no, Timothy, now is not the time to pack your bags and retire. No, Timothy, now is the time to rekindle that gift, to press on, to keep preaching.
Get to the next chapter and we read there about the House of God. We have instruction. We're told that the the House of God has become a great house and the House of God is in connection with this earth and with a man's responsibility and everything. Mr. Davi was absolutely right. Not because he was Mr. Davi be because he just quoted the Word of God. Everything that man has ever been given in responsibility he has failed in.
And man has failed in his responsibilities in connection with the House of God. But there is a faithful path, there is a way forward.
We can fall into two errors. The one error is to not believe the ruin that has come into Christianity.
The other is thinking that we can return back to Apostolic days and recreate what occurred then. But there is enough. We can't do that either, and in some ways that's a worse era.
So there is a path that is spelled out in scripture for the faithful where we can go on without pretence.
Obedient to the Word of God.
But again, that's a whole meeting in itself. I, I, I, I said I was gonna tell you an interesting anecdote. We went to Regina Conference years and years ago. First time my wife and I went and neither my wife and I grew up in the assembly.
Our backgrounds are very different, but someone was trying to place us well, are you related to so and SO? No. Are you related to so and so? No. So you don't have any pedigree at all.
I always sounded amusing. Not not not happening was discouraging, and I believe the person said it somewhat in jest.
But many of you have a pedigree, if I can call it that. You can't live on that pedigree alone. But don't give up. Don't give up. God is looking for His man, his men. Now time is almost something we want to get to the third chapter where it speaks of that verse 14, it says, but continue thou, Timothy, don't give up. Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of knowing of whom thou has learned them, and that from a child. There is no in the holy.
See his mother, his grandmother, these women were so faithful in his life. From a child he heard the scriptures umm, which are able to make the wise and the salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, is profitable for doctrine, free proof for correction, for instruction, righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished.
Unto all good works you know. Again, I want to emphasize the importance of reading the Word of God.
You know what you do? Post everything. Well, I should say we I try to avoid it. Post everything on Facebook.
Now I don't want you all going this this UN unfriend me because I see what you post.
But it does concern me where you're getting your doctrine, where you're getting your teaching, there is.
Ministry out there that can be valuable because it's unique to the age in which we live. It can be helpful.
But no matter what you read, I'm afraid.
That you'll find in modern books, Christian bookstores. It will be mingled with that which is false.
You won't know it's false.
Unless you've got that underlying foundation of teaching that you can turn to, you won't know it, you won't see it. And so we're here. We hear things that.
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Free will.
Do we have a free will?
Again, another whole meeting in itself, but we hear things coming in that you can tell are coming in from other sources. How important it is that you know who you're reading, their background. They're teaching now. Time is up.
And I'll, I'll, I'll stop. There's more that could be said in the last chapter. Think especially if Demas, who in the attractions of the present world drew him away from the apostle Paul didn't abandoned his faith. But that's a very real, very real thing in this world we live in today, the attractions of this present world.
1 Corinthians 10:1-4
Reading
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Last three verses of 225.
225 beginning at verse 3.
I'll hear it.
Chapter 4.
Second Timothy, chapter 4.
Verse 6.
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not only to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing. And then in the last verse.
The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy Spirit, grace be with you. Amen. One other passage in UMM James chapter 5.
James chapter 5, verse seven. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and thou hath long patience for until he received the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh in our first meeting, uh.
A brother Red Axe.
242 They continued steadfastly, and the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and the breaking of bread and in prayers.
And the first thing that they continued steadfastly in his doctrine.
Teaching the apostles teaching. They have found it increasingly precious brethren, in our reading meetings where we can go over the apostles doctrine teaching.
I grew up in many conferences where we had those who were far more able than myself, and I must say the things that were gleaned and those meetings were a treasure. They continue to be a treasure.
My soul and I find that traveling back and forth between Latin America and North America that.
There is a awakening of the Spirit of God. I believe in Latin America, the appreciation of those truths. They're precious brethren. They're foundational. We our lives are based on them and the fellowship that we enjoy is because of the doctrine and I I would like to suggest the portion I trust it will be profitable. First Corinthians chapter 10.
Which deals with the theme later on in the chapter. It speaks of the Lord's Table, the only mention of the Lord's Table in the New Testament.
But it's connected with principles that I really believe are very important and I could trust that there will be a desire to learn it. I really appreciate seeing younger brother in here.
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And Latin America, there's a lot of younger brothers and, uh, the energy to be at meetings and to be at conferences. It is marked, not saying they don't have problems, they do, but I, I just say that it really is encouraging to me. And I, I just wonder if sometimes we're not getting the grounding here in the United States that we used to get.
So I suggest that if that is suitable to the red end.
First Corinthians, chapter 10.
Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant all that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized under Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And it all eat the same spiritual meat, and it all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.
But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples to the intent. We should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters as were some of them. As it is written. The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
Neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell in one day. Three and 20,000.
Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer.
Now all these things happened unto them, for in samples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
Wherefore let him that thing of thee standeth. Take heed lest he fall. There has no temptation taking you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful.
Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.
I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
For we, being many, are one bread and one body, For we are all partakers of that one bread.
Behold Israel after the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
What say I then? That the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything but? I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice the devils.
And not to God I would not that he should have fellowship with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils.
Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient.
All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth whatsoever is sold in the shambles that eat, asking no question for conscience sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. If any of them that believe not, bid you to a feast.
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And ye be disposed to go whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake. But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that showed it, and for conscience sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.
Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other. For why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?
For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken of? For that for which I give thanks.
Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
Give no offense neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God, even as I please all men and all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.
As I mentioned before, uh, the Lord's Table is mentioned the only time in the New Testament in verse 21. It's interesting that in the uh, following chapter, the Lord's Supper is mentioned in verse 20, Chapter 11, verse 20, those two things go together, the Lord's Table and the Lord's Supper. Lord's Table is the place.
Where we show the fellowship of the body of Christ.
And this fellowship of the blood of Christ, the Lord's Supper, is what we celebrate at that place. And so the two things are distinct, but they go together. But it's interesting to me, and I think it's profitable for us to start at the beginning of the chapter because you might think at the Lord's table is everything in order?
Well, what was the?
Course of the history of the children of Israel and it has them coming out of Egypt there in the very first verse.
They were all under the Cloud and all passed through the sea, and so it gives us the history of their going through the wilderness. What kind of a people were there? Were they perfect? Definitely not, but in spite of all God.
Was with them, he was in their midst and there was discipline on this part of God because of some of their ways. And so it's written for our learning brethren. And so we have in the first verses baptism and then we have the Lord's table. And so I suggest that would be a theme that might be helpful for us. And are you young people too because.
The Lord's Table is a theme that is very important to hold properly.
I hear sometimes people make the statement amongst us, we have the Lord's table, Brethren, we do not have the Lord's table. The Lord has His table.
And it is my exercise, in view of the truth that we get in these chapters to be there.
And that's the proper way. We can't just.
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Say we have the Lord's table and be nonchalant about it. We should take those things with exercise. We not only get the truth of God and exercise, we maintain it. We continue in it by continuing exercise. Brother, may the Lord give us that exercise. That's what I.
Have found so beautiful the sea is souls coming into the light of these things in Latin America and I hear it is the same case in Africa where you were in Angola. Tim I heard about them getting together to read the word they had questions how how long was that meeting?
Yeah, that's, that's a good time. How about staying here for three hours? Brethren? I don't know if we'd all want to stay here that long, but it is it is interesting when there is a real heart to learn the Scriptures. Will the Lord give us that?
You mentioned earlier in your exercise the in connection with the apostles doctrine. And it's very interesting, isn't it, that in this chapter where you have Paul's doctrine concerning the Lord's table and then later on the Lord's Supper. And I realized that when it says the apostles doctrine in Acts 2, it wasn't the Apostle Paul's doctrine that hadn't been given yet. It was the doctrine that was presented there, given to the early apostles in the early church.
They had to remain at Jerusalem long enough to receive it. That's why they remained at Jerusalem as long as they did.
Because that's what they had in the early, uh, moments of Christianity. But I was thinking as we read this chapter, we have two things brought before us. We have the Apostle Paul's doctrine, but we also have it introduced by the Old Testament illustration. And both are important. Brother Nick was bringing before us in the previous meeting the subject of Timothy. And it's interesting in Second Timothy.
Chapter 3 that the apostle Paul reminded Timothy that he had known both the Old Testament scriptures because that's what he would have heard from his mother and grandmother with the Old Testament Scriptures.
And then he had had from Paul the apostles doctrine. And then he says all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. That is everything we have and contained in this book from cover to cover. It's all the inspired word of God and it's profitable. And isn't it remarkable here that in introducing the subject of the Lord's Table and the Lord's Supper, the apostle Paul goes back to this old test, these Old Testament illustrations?
In connection with the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt through the Red Sea and God's dealings with them, in connection with their failure and, and so on, and God's faithfulness. And so, brethren, we have in the New Testament the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. We need that. It's the foundation, the apostles doctrine, and we can apply it in a broader sense than it is in Acts 2.
Because we have the completed New Testament, but the Apostles doctrine is the foundation for everything else.
Why is it given first in Acts 2? It's the foundation for fellowship. It's the foundation for for breaking of bread. It's the foundation for prayer. It's the foundation truths and principles that were laid out by the apostle Paul and the New Testament writers. And we must cling to them. We must adhere to them. We must act on them. They are the foundation and they do not change. The foundation of God can never be shaken.
But then we need the Old Testament illustrations like we have here because they help us to understand very clearly. They give us the pictures and they help us to understand clearly the doctrine that is set forth in an epistle like First Corinthians and Ephesians and Colossians and and so on. So I just say that to encourage us as we take up this chapter, like Timothy, we have the Old Testament, we have the New Testament.
And he had the apostles doctrine. It wasn't complete perhaps at that time, but we have the complete word of God and it's given by inspiration and Timothy to was told to continue in it. And that's what we need as well.
00:25:04
Just say, in connection with the opening verses. 2IN connection with baptism, you know, there are some illustrations in the Old Testament that are so important for us to get the meaning of that. They're not left up to our Application. They're confirmed in the New Testament as to what they mean. You know, earlier on in this epistle he speaks of the Passover, that which was the basis of their redemption.
And when we say the Passover in the 12Th of Exodus is a figure of Christ offered for us as the Lamb of God, that's not an Application. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. When we say that the crossing of the Red Sea is a figure of baptism, that's not an Application. That is exactly what it means. They were all baptized unto Moses in the Cloud and in the sea. So I just say when you go through the New Testament.
There are things that are confirmed to us, illustrations and figures in the Old Testament that we are given the meaning of, and we don't want to digress from them.
All of the Word of God is written in a very orderly fashion. And so this chapter, as has been pointed out, takes up the Lord's Table and the fellowship of the Lord's Table that we're called to. But here it begins with this baptism unto Moses, and it reflects, it speaks of the authority of the Lord. And what the people of Israel did is when they crossed the Red Sea, they were baptized.
It says under the Cloud and all that pass through the sea, and we're all baptized unto Moses in the Cloud and in the sea. And so they came under the authority of Moses. They came under the authority and the leadership, the headship of Moses as they went through the wilderness scene. And so you and I, as professing Christ as our Savior, have come under the headship of Christ. We're called Christians and so we.
Umm come to this recognition that what we do and how we meet is under His authority and according to the truth of His word. It's not left unto our own imagination. And so He brings in the character of the individuals. They weren't perfect individuals that went through the Red Sea. They were. There were mixed company and they were rebels. There were idolaters. There were fornicators. God doesn't.
He paints the picture just the way it was. And if we just turn to Numbers chapter 14, we'll read umm, just a, a couple of verses there. It gives the principle of it. It says umm in the Numbers chapter 14, verse 22. Because all those men which have seen my glory and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and have tempted me.
Now these 10 times, and have not hearkened to my voice, surely they shall not see the land which I swear unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoke me see it. But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and he had followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereunto he went, and his seed shall possess it. And so we have this.
Statement made by God himself that they tend tempted him 10 times.
They tested his spirit 10 * 5 times were read that they tempted him. They didn't have the law yet, they didn't have the responsibility of the word of God, but five times they tempted him after they had the law, after they had the word of God and they were responsible. So he brings in this aspect of responsibility and the authority and headship that Moses had as a type of Christ.
I suppose one of the serious warnings we have to take from the first part of this chapter is the solemnity of taking an outward position, first of all without inward reality, and secondly without. And Bob, you alluded to that without taking it seriously.
That is, there were those here in this company, that is the cross, the Red Sea, that weren't real, if we could use that term in Old Testament terms. And they were exposed in the wilderness. And it seems that even in Corinth with the amount of blessing, and there was a lot of blessing there, Paul stayed there a whole year and a half, didn't he? And the Lord said, I have much people in this city, but there were those who had come among them perhaps who were not real.
00:30:31
And there were others who had.
Come among them, and perhaps we're real, but we're not taking seriously the position that they were in. They had been baptized, they had identified with the name of Christ, and in that sense they bore the name of Christ. But then, sad to say, there were all kinds of things going on that Paul has to keep bringing before them and correcting one after the other.
I mean, I just may mention that.
You and I live in a society today very similar to what Corinth was like, a wealthy place, an intellectual place, a place where they were rather proud of themselves, but at the same time among the believers too. A good deal of gift, a fair amount of understanding of the things of the Lord, but sad to say, not The Walking and the good of it and the understanding of what it meant to take that place before God.
Was that some of the exercise you had, Bob, and suggesting this chapter? Umm, is that right? Yes.
I often have said that, uh, if I say, uh, that this is the right place for you to be young people.
If you base your action on what I said, that is not faith, and that's why it's important to go over these principles, that you get it yourself from the Scriptures, then you will be solid in your convictions. But that happens too much, and that's why we want to challenge you to get a hold of it for yourself. Very important.
Baptism in the first verses is what identifies us. We are identified with something here. It was not Christian baptism, it was baptism unto Moses. And Brother Robert has spoken about that, that before they came out of the land of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea. The Red Sea is a figure of our, of the death of Christ for us. And when they went through that, they were identified with Moses.
Before they went through it, they were identified. There's those slaves of Egypt and Pharaoh is still over there and he's going to come and try to get you again. But after they passed through that Red Sea and Pharaoh came in after them, you remember, and Moses lifted up his rod and they were completely destroyed and they saw their enemies dead on the seashore. Then they said, now who are you identified with?
Moses. They were baptized into Moses. So there is different baptisms in scripture. Baptism of John the Baptist was not really Christian baptism either. It was in view of the Lord Jesus who was coming that they should repent and should be identified with a repentant people ready to receive the coming Messiah. But now we are baptized as it's been brought up, brought out in.
Romans chapter 6 unto Christ in his death and resurrection, we are identified with the Lord Jesus. Wonderful, wonderful reality. It's an outward thing. Baptism is, and so that's the danger like you brought out or the bill that it could be just an outward thing with somebody here, but it is a real thing. There is a baptized company.
That is outwardly identified with the Lord Jesus Christ in his death and in his resurrection.
So they were redeemed by the blood of the Passover lamb, but they were not fully delivered till they went through the Red Sea, because, as you say, they were still on Egyptian ground under the authority of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. A picture to us of Satan and his hosts. And baptism always identifies us with someone and brings us on to a new ground. And so they were redeemed by the blood of the Passover lamb, but they were delivered.
00:35:15
Through the Red Sea, if I can put it this way, the claims of God were met in the blood of the Passover lamb, but they were delivered from the claims of Pharaoh in Egypt by being brought through the Red Sea by a mighty hand and identified with Moses. Moses really is a picture of Christ here, isn't he? He was the one that that was going to lead them through the wilderness. He was the one that had God-given authority. I think that's why it was such a serious thing when they spoke against Moses on a number of occasions, even his own family.
Questioned his authority, but it was a God-given authority. And so when we take that place, that's been brought out.
We are bringing out giving outward expression that we want to own the authority and lordship of Christ in our lives. And I feel burdened and saddened, brethren, when I hear of people, not just young people, but some who are not so young, who have perhaps been safe for some time and they've never been baptized. You know, I, I, I, I, I feel ashamed and really and humbled because it's very interesting that on the day of Pentecost.
When Peter preached and there were about 3000 souls saved, they said what are we going to do? And what did Peter say? I command you to be baptized. Isn't that interesting? That was pre pretty strong language there. And when the Ethiopian eunuch was saved and what does hinder me to be baptized? And he was baptized right away moments after he was saved. Maybe there's someone here and you've never taken that outward position. You're gonna be in heaven. That has nothing to do with our redemption.
But God gives, and maybe you say, I want to please the Lord, I want to own the Lordship of Christ in my life. But God gives us a way that we can give expression and testimony to what's in our hearts. And there are two institutions that we have in these portions that God has given us so that we can give expression to what's in our heart. Do you want to own the Lordship of Christ? Follow the Lord in your life.
Give expression to it by going into the waters of baptism. It's a testimony. Do you do you want to remember the Lord and as to what he's done for you in in the sacrifice of Calvary, as often as she eats this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death. I hear people sometimes say, well, I can remember the Lord in my heart. Oh brother, and I trust we do that every day. But again, he's given us a way that we can give expression or testimony.
In this world that doesn't love the Lord, that doesn't own for the most part outwardly his his authority, but you and I have a way that we can give expression individually in baptism and collectively as we sit down at the Lord's table to partake of the Lord's Supper.
The point that I found helpful, and I must say I was corrected by Brother Clem Buchanan about this.
I made the statement one time in Latin America that if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you should obey the Lord and be baptized.
And Brother Clem came up to me afterward and said, where did you get that idea? Well, I didn't know what to say. And he showed me that the command for baptism is not given to the person that is baptized. It's given to the person that goes out and preaches the gospel. When there are those who get saved, that is their responsibility to see that they are baptized and.
In Acts chapter 10 you'll find also when Peter is at.
Cornelius's house and they heard the gospel and the Holy Spirit fell on them because they would believe the message. Then he commanded them to be baptized. He didn't say, would you like to be baptized? That's the way we do it today. Ask a person, would you like to be baptized?
Well, that's not really scriptural. We, we live in a big, huge baptized country, brethren, and there's a lot of confusion as to that. And we need to be patient with people that don't understand it properly. But it is our responsibility with we've reached the gospel and somebody gets saved to make sure that they are baptized. And that's what's true of Moses too, wasn't it? Because whose exercise was it to take them all through the Red Sea?
00:40:15
Farrell said leave some of them behind. Moses said no, we're going to take them all. It was the exercise of Moses to take them all through the Red Sea. And so I think what you say is very helpful. And perhaps I can only hang my own head and say perhaps I failed in that exercise by way of encouragement, might just say that it wasn't always a public thing. The baptism, because the Ethiopian eunuch was in the desert. There was Philip with him.
And he was baptized there in the desert and it wasn't a public thing. And you may be shy, uh, you, maybe you're a little older, maybe you're a teenager, maybe older and you've never been baptized. It'd be nice to be a public thing. But if you're too shy, then it'd be a public thing. It's all right. Uh, the Ethiopian unit was, uh, uh, privately baptized, you might say. And one who was, uh, another that was baptized in the household was.
Umm umm.
Household of Stefanis, yes. And so you have others that were baptized in, uh, private, so to speak, but it's really, uh, a disassociation from something and an association with something else. What they did is they walked out of Egypt and they were baptized unto Moses. They looked like Egyptians.
They talked like Egyptians, they ate like Egyptians, They smelled like Egyptians, but they weren't Egyptians. They now were the people of God. And he was beginning to work with them publicly and nationally as a nation that belonged to him. And so when we were baptized, we're baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and we disassociate ourselves with this world. We're no longer Egyptian.
We're no longer world linked. We might look like Americans and Canadians, but God sees us as the children of God and may He give us the grace to act as those that are the children of God.
I was just thinking, just to make a note of it here. The first thing that the apostle Paul mentions is the cloud, that they were all under the cloud. And I think that would speak of the divine presence of God. And we know that Moses was concerned about going and so in in Numbers chapter 33.
He says in verse 13.
Now, therefore I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that this nation is thy people. And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not account. So Moses was concerned that the presence of God would be that with them. And so I just think of, as we're reading these early verses, the privileges that God gave his earthly people, and yet how much greater.
You might say they're exceeded in Christianity. So not only do we have the board's presence too, but we have the Spirit of God indwelling us and so on. So we could take each of those things. They were given, they were under the cloud. They were given this great deliverance through the Red Sea. They were given, umm, spiritual food. They were given spiritual drink. They were baptized, identified with Moses. And to think of what we have in Christianity exceeds these things, really.
So verse three speaks of the spiritual food they did eat. All eat the same spiritual meat or food. It's.
The manna that God provided, and they did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.
So we read the story in Exodus of how when they thirsted, Moses was commanded to take his rod, the rod of judgment, and smite the rock in horeb, and out of the rock flowed water.
And if you think of life in a desert, the two major things that are necessary are food and drink, and that's what God supplied them. Brethren, we are in a wilderness.
00:45:13
And our brother in this last meeting was encouraging reading the scriptures.
Oh, how important it is to be into the Word. As I travel around, I often ask young people, are you reading the scriptures?
And burn it down in southern Mexico, asking a group of young men, are you reading the scriptures? Yes. Sometimes, I say, what do you mean sometimes? Well, maybe two or three times a week. OK.
So you, when you have food for your body, you eat only two or three times a week. Oh, no, no, no, we eat every day. Oh, so you mean that, uh, your body is more important than your soul and your spirit? It is that what you mean? No, no, brother, don't say that. I say, but you only eat a couple times a week, two or three times a week for your soul and spirit, and you eat every day for your body.
Why is it that we neglect the reading of Scripture so much? Brethren, we need it, and I encourage you young people that it applies to us all to be into the Word.
You know, I've often noticed that reading a chapter, you can read a chapter in 5 minutes. I mean, if it's shorter, it might be only three minutes, but it doesn't take long. But read it.
Slowly, not in a rush, because it is. It is the Word of the living God and how important it is.
For our bodies, we take care of our bodies pretty meticulously. We make sure that we get enough food and we have over abundance of food in this country, but we don't lack physical food. This body that comes from the earth is sustained. What from comes from the earth?
But the soul and the spirit needs food as well. And if you're going to prosper in your soul, you're going to have to eat on a consistent daily basis. We eat two or three times a day sometimes. I I've asked people, how much time do you take to eat? I get very responses from half hour a day to an hour and a half a day.
That's how much it is, how important it is that you sustain your body. And how about your soul? Are you into the scriptures? I really want to encourage you to make time. You say, well, it's too busy. Make time to read the scriptures daily and to pray. It's so very important.
And it was necessary. Who wasn't it, that they had to go out and gather the manna? It took effort, didn't it? And so it takes effort for you and me. Many here lead busy lives, especially students. I guess some of us that are older are somewhat, maybe the word appalled is a bit strong, but it fits in my case. I'm appalled at the amount of homework that young people are subjected to today and the amount of time and energy they have to put in.
To get an education. But there was a definite energy needed to collect that mana, and it had to be done in the morning. If they waited too long, then it wasn't going to work. It fell on the dew, didn't it? And so we need to remember that. But it speaks also of spiritual drink here.
What was the difference? Oh, they didn't have to work for that, did they? All you had to do was go and drink it. And so I believe, and I've enjoyed this, that we get the two aspects of enjoying Christ here. Yes, there is that which takes real effort because we value what takes effort more than that which is just handed to us. And so it does take effort to get up and to read the Word of God. And as Bob says.
It's better to read a smaller amount of it slowly than to skim through a larger amount so quickly that you just kind of get the words and then your mind immediately goes on to something else. But then there's also the refreshing aspect of it. Enjoying Christ simply for what He is and who He is does not, in that sense, take effort. The Spirit of God delights to give me that enjoyment.
00:50:22
And you get it in the fourth of John, don't you? In the Lord's words to the woman at the well.
The water that I shall give him shall be in him. Not a well of water. It should read. A fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. Always fresh, always there, something fresh and enjoyable. And we'll find both in the Word of God, won't we? There's that which takes effort, which builds us up, and which is necessary for us. But there is that which gives us constant enjoyment and refreshment in Christ.
And we get that too, through the Word of God and enjoying Christ.
So Joe said the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. I thought of that when Bob was speaking. That's the 23rd chapter of Job, and I believe the 10th verse. We put such emphasis on the physical, but what about the spiritual? And why does it speak of eating when it's taking in the precious things of Christ from the Word of God? Because when we take, when we eat something, we take it into our system and it becomes part of us.
But not only so it's not what we eat that does us any good, it's what we digest. I'm not a medical person, of course, so I, I want to be careful. But I say again, it's not what we eat that does such, such good. It's what we digest. And so we find with the children of Israel a couple of very helpful things in the illustration. One is it says, first of all, when they went out to gather, some gathered more and some less.
Not interesting.
So we're not all morning people perhaps, and maybe some of you have to be out the door to work or school very early. It wasn't the amount of manna they gathered that was important, it was what they did with it. Some gathered more and some less. Then it says they meted into their Omer and I would suggest an application that putting it in their Omer and taking it with them is more than just reading the Word of God as has already been said, and then closing the book and forgetting what you've read.
That's not gonna, that's not gonna, you're not gonna digest that. That's not what's going to do you so much good. But they were to put it into a certain measure and take it with them and dip into that measure during the day. I suggest that that speaks of meditation, stopping for a moment or two here and there and dip into your Omer. Go back and consider what you read before you left your home in the morning, before you left your room.
And then there's an interesting comment that tells us the results of that. Some gathered more, some less. When they dipped it, put it into their Romer and took it with them. He that gathered much had nothing over. In other words, if you have time in the morning to read maybe a chapter 2 and think about it, thank God you can never overeat in a spiritual breakfast. You need all you the word of God you can get. But maybe you only had time for a few verses. But it's not the amount you read that's going to do you any good.
They that gathered little had no lack.
Why? Because they took it with them and they enjoyed it during the day. And so the psalmist in the 119th saw me, said How love I thy law. It is my meditation all the day.
So read the word of God, take it in, but then meditate on it, digest it and let it be part become part of your very being.
This is a little off the topic, but in the book of Joshua, you have in a chapter there, the man I mentioned, the pasta ever mentioned, the old corner of the land mentioned. We need Christ in all three aspects. The world Christianity loves to focus on Christ and the character of the manna. That is the provision for the wilderness. And you often hear people say why don't they just give us practical ministry?
Practical ministry is necessary. Christ as the manna, the humbled man, the man Jesus that walked through this earth. It's important to feed upon that one, the truth as in Jesus.
It's so frustrating when you hear ministering Christianity they never mentioned any other name but Jesus.
00:55:09
There's a place and a time and a necessity for that, but how important it is also that would be occupied with Christ in the past in the character of the Passover and also is the old corner of the land. Christ glorified our heavenly portion. We only ever focus on Christ as the manner of Christian growth will be stunted.
Verse four when it's Speaking of the water that came out of the rock, it's figurative flowing water or springing water Bill mentioned is the Holy Spirit of God and that's what's given to us. And it's a it's a wonderful thing, brother. And it came when the rock was smitten by Moses rod.
But, you know, later on in their history, there seemed to be a drying up of the water because the people were complaining. And sometimes we too, in our Christian experience, quench the spirit and we don't feel the living satisfaction of that flowing water. What was Moses told to do then? And that later instance, he was told to take the rod that was Aaron's rod, the high priestly rod, and go and speak to the rock.
Moses got perturbed at the people of God and he took his rod and smoked the rock twice.
Got in his mercy, gave water, but he made a mistake there it was to take Aaron's rod and speak to the rock. And so if you feel like that flow of living water, the Spirit of God that is in US has dried up because perhaps of something you've allowed in your life.
Take the rod in, in a figurative way. Go and speak to the rock. Go to the Lord Jesus and speak to him. Confess whatever it is that he's gotten into your life, and you will find that the waters will flow again.
Bob, just in that connection, let's read in John 7 to confirm what you say about running water, because I've appreciated the fact that usually running water is a picture of the Spirit of God. Contained water is more often a picture of the Word of God, like the labor, the man bearing the picture of water and so on. But I believe this just to confirm what Bob has said in John Chapter 7. And I'll read from verse 37 in that last day, that great day of the feast.
Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the Scripture has saith, hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Now notice this. But this he spake, He of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified. And so, as Bob said, the water never flowed from the rock until the rock came under the rod, until the rock was smitten. And it says prophetically of the Lord Jesus in lamentations.
I am the man who hath seen affliction by the rod of his rock. It was the judgment of God against sin, the rod of God against sin, that the Lord Jesus felt on on Calvary in those hours of darkness. And after that had taken place, the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead, ascended back to heaven. Then and only then could the Spirit of God be given in the way it is given.
In Christianity, and so running water, a brook, a fountain of spring, a a river is more often a picture of the Spirit of of the Spirit of God. And let me just say this about these verses that we're reading. Having had the privilege and opportunity to travel on the Sinai Peninsula 13 times, you realize how miraculous all this provision was. Bob alluded to it, but I want to emphasize it.
In Scripture, the thought of a wilderness or a desert is a place where there's nothing to sustain life.
01:00:04
In the on the Sinai Peninsula, there was nothing to sustain the natural man. And these things that we are given here, well, they have a spiritual application. They were given to sustain the natural life of the children of Israel for those years that they wanted. Even the cloud that John mentioned, you know, there are several mentions of the cloud in the Old Testament and every mention has a little different detail. I'll give you a little homework. It's a very edifying study to study the different details of the cloud. It represents different things.
But it wasn't just an up and down pillar like we think of a colonial pillar in front of a building. It actually went out over the crop the the camp. It sheltered them from the heat of the day. There's no cloud in the sky and the sun, the Sinai Peninsula. Sometimes you long for some cloud or one time I. So I don't wanna bring any levity into this meeting. But one time I was out on the Sinai and I got thinking, you know, if an airplane went over, it would be momentary relief.
Then I thought, I'm not drinking enough, I'm going delirious. But my point is the whole thing was miraculous. It drops 35° in an hour when the sun goes down. There was light and heat when it turned to a pillar of fire at at night.
They needed food, they needed water, all these things. They needed protection and, and uh, di, uh, direction. Now, brethren, as has been pointed out, and rightly so, we're not in a physical wilderness. We're enjoying many mercies this weekend and we don't want to despise them. We thank God for the mercies we're gonna, we have and we're gonna give thanks for the meal that's been provided through the Lord's mercies and we're gonna partake and we're not gonna despise it.
But we are in a spiritual wilderness.
And I, I think it's important to stress that, brethren, there is nothing in this wilderness world to sustain the Newman. There's plenty to feed our lusts, plenty to feed the flesh. You know, sometimes I get distressed just standing at the checkout counter in the grocery store, Walmart, because you can't hardly stand there without seeing something in the rock that is attractive or feeds the F the, the, the flesh or our lust. The billboards on the on the highways now and everywhere we turn, there's something to feed.
Our lusts are to feed the flesh. There is nothing in this world apart from God's provision through Christ, apart from that which we've been given spiritually to feed the new man. Now are we gonna grow and be healthy, happy, fruitful Christians? How are we going to do it? We have to partake of what? Enjoy what God has given us in a spiritual way. We've got to read the Word of God. We've got to have the refreshment and sustainment that comes from the work of the Spirit of God in ministering Christ to us through the.
The word of God and so on. We need those things. You want to be a healthy Christian. If you feed on the husks of this world, you're not going to have fruit for God and you're going to be a very discouraged believer.
We really need to adjust our lifestyles, brother and I. I find that so often those that complain that they don't have any time to read the Word have plenty of time to sit in front of the TV screen or in front of a computer screen on the Internet. Lots of time for that. But the Word of the living God, O brethren, the Lord, help us to reevaluate our time and to make time to read the Word.
It will make a difference. I remember a young man I was observing and I didn't wasn't interacting too directly with him, but I noticed that he got into reading the scriptures and it wasn't just for 10 minutes, it was for 1/2 hour, sometimes an hour, sometimes an hour and a half. But it was so evident to everybody around, maybe not so much to him, but those around the prosperity that there was in his soul.
Oh, it's it was a beautiful thing to witness. It's gonna happen if you give time to the living Word of God.
Might just, uh, comment a little bit, Brother Bob, on the passage that you mentioned in Numbers chapter 20, it says that in verse eight of Numbers 20, take the rod and gather thou the assembly together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes, and it shall give forth his water. And then a little later on verse 11, Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smoked the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly.
01:05:11
And the congregation drank, and their beasts also, while we know that Moses.
Lost his patience with the people of God. And these weren't the ones that had walked out of Egypt. These were just the ones that had gone through the wilderness. And they were just about to enter into the land of Israel. They were just about to cross the Red Sea of the Jordan. And so they needed to appropriate Christ for themselves. Their mothers and fathers have eaten the manna. They had drunk other refreshment of the rock in the wilderness.
But they needed to do it themselves. And so every generation needs to drink and to eat and to be appropriate Christ for themselves. And so this is really what he brings out in John's Gospel chapter 6. And when he speaks, I'm just going to read one verse, verse 53.
John 6 verse 53 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink of his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life.
It's appropriating Christ for ourselves, every individual. And so this chapter 10 begins with ignorance.
Paul says, Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant.
It requires that every one of us individually appropriate Christ for ourselves, and that needs to be done in private. Often times reading the scriptures, enjoying the person of the Lord Jesus, the sweetness of Christ, his moral glories and the finished work of Christ, and to know those doctrines of Christianity, what he means when he speaks of the forgiveness of sins.
What He means when he speaks of redemption, all of those terms that are used and to enjoy them and to appropriate them for ourselves, then it's not going. Our lives are not going to be characterized spiritually by ignorance of the principles and ignorance of the heart of God. Oh, how He delights to bless us.
Before we conclude, I know our time is almost gone, I would like to say a word to fathers and heads of of our homes. Now, what I'm about to say, brother, and I want in no way to negate or take away from what we have just said as to individually appropriating the manna for ourselves. It's important, it's vital, but it is interesting. If you go back and read the 16th chapter of Exodus that you know, we often see an artist depiction of the gathering of the manna. They often show the women and children gathering the manna. But I believe there's a detail. Well, let's go back and just notice. It might be helpful to take a minute.
We could quote it, but Exodus chapter 16.
And verse 16.
This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded. Gather it, Gather of it every man according to his eating. And Omer now notice this for every man, according to the number of persons, taking every man for them which are in his tent. I believe what we have here is responsibility of the head of the home, because I believe it was the men that went out and gathered the manna, and they were responsible not only to gather the manna for themselves.
But they were to gather it for their wives and children and those that were under their roof. You know, I am very saddened and I'm gonna speak very plainly for a moment, but I am very saddened as I travel a little amongst the Lord's people. And my wife and I were on a trip some time ago and she made the comment to me too, that there isn't always a family reading in the home on a daily basis. I'm saddened by that.
Now, I know we all have different schedules and so on, but if I can speak personally for a moment, I am very thankful for the vivid memory of a father who got up early in the morning and not only read the scriptures himself, but he sat at the end of the breakfast table so that he could catch his children and young people as they trickled out to breakfast with different schedules and different buses to catch. And he didn't always read us a lot.
01:10:03
I think sometimes it was just two or three verses and a very, very brief sentence comment made on it. But there was a man who gathered for himself and for his household. Now I realize again, different things work for different people, but I want to say to fathers and heads of our homes, discipline yourself and your household to make sure you not only gather a little manna for yourself every day.
But that you gather for those in your own house. There's a brother here and I hope he won't mind me mentioning this. But one time we were Speaking of these things and he came to me after and he said, you know, he said I have to go to work very early and I don't get my wife and children up as early as I have to go to work. But he said what I like to do is read a little portion and then print out a verse or two and a thought I've enjoyed. And he said I put it on. I think I, he said he put it on the fridge.
And when his wife got up a little later to get the children ready for school, she read what her husband had gathered for her and for for her children. I believe there was a man who gathered for himself and for his household. So I just say that father's men, let's be exercised, that we not only gather for ourselves, but we make sure we feed our wives and children and those under our roof. We make sure we bring home our paycheck and that there's food in the fridge, in the cupboard.
Natural food, But are we as exercised as to the spiritual food that our families need as well? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It doesn't say. Faith comes by explaining of the Word of God, but by caring how important that our children hear the Word of God in our homes.
Same 303.
303.
When Israel born.
There before all praying my daughter.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Bernie Roossinck
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Good evening everybody.
This is the Gospel meeting.
As I look around, I see a lot of young people.
See a lot of young kids.
I want to speak to you tonight about the love of God, and I want to do it in a way that is very simple.
Let's begin by singing.
Him #4 and, uh, some of you have driven quite a long ways to get here today. I know we did. And so maybe it'd be nice to stand up.
Just saying this Christ is the savior of sinners.
Christ is the Savior for me.
Long I was chained in sin's darkness. Now by his grace I am free Savior of sinners, Savior of sinners like me, shedding his blood for my ransom. This is the Savior for me #4.
Her rights is.
Right, there's nothing.
5/3.
35513.
East Shrimp is 10-4 0, 10-4, 10-4, 10-4 0, 10-4 10-4 0, 10-4 10-4 0, 10-4 0, 10-4 0, 10-4 0, 10-4 01/4 10-4 10-4 0, 10-4 1/4, 10-4 1/4.
8 California.
Well, I would also like to say #6.
Yeah, these are these same seats are such a blessing.
And, uh, we've sung from these hymn sheets so often.
Uh, but sometimes I like the echoes of Grace book with all the hymns in it. That's what I grew up with. But you know, God's love is the same no matter what him she were using. And uh, I would like for us to sing number six together. God in mercy sent his son to a world by sin undone.
Jesus Christ was crucified. It was for sinners. Jesus died. Oh, the glory of the grace shining in the Savior's face.
00:05:04
Telling sinners from above, God is light and God is love. Saying number six.
God and mercy, that is God.
The message of the Gospel.
Concerns the destiny.
Of your never dying soul.
I would like to read from 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 20.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ.
As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ that be reconciled to God.
It's almost as if.
We are standing here, and the Lord Jesus himself would walk in and speak to your soul.
00:10:09
I hope that you don't see me standing here. Listen to the Word of God. Listen to God's thoughts.
You know, an ambassador is somebody that represents the interest of somebody else. Is that right, Bob?
And so we are representing.
God, we pray you in Christ that be reconciled to God.
What is the word reconciled mean?
You know, I, uh, sometimes we have to reconcile our checkbook because what I think is in the checkbook and what the bank says is not the same.
Or I I work in agriculture. Sometimes the number of tons of urea I think are in the bin. Is that what the computer says and we have to reconcile it? That means bring them together to agree.
Notice here it doesn't say.
Umm, reconcile yourself to God says be reconciled to God. That means God's standard is the requirement for you.
And because we're told here be reconciled to God, there's a problem.
Turn back with me to the C plot of the Bible. I love this book. Turn to Genesis chapter three. I would like to make this as simple as ever I can, especially to you younger boys and girls. Now you may have heard the gospel hundreds of times, but I want to make this as simple as I can to you.
In Genesis chapter 3.
We all know the story of Adam and Eve.
God put Adam and Eve in the garden.
And he told them.
Not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Let's read a little bit here.
Uh, verse one. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman.
Yeah, if God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it either. Shall you touch it lest ye die?
And the serpent said to the woman.
He shall not surely die.
For the day for God doth know in the day they eat thereof, that your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat. Gave also when they were husband with her, and he did eat.
In the eyes of them, both were opened and they knew that they were naked.
And they sold big leaves together and made themselves aprons.
This is the introduction of sin into the world.
Sin.
Satan.
Did the first sin in in in this story he lied.
When he had to get God's creation, he had to get Adam and Eve to disobey. God had put Adam in charge of his creation.
And Satan got Adam and Eve to disobey God, and they ate of this fruit that they were not supposed to eat of, and sin entered the world.
And immediately, immediately there is a change. They knew that they were naked. And what did they do? They start sewing together fig leaves, right, to hide themselves.
They were so fit leaves together.
00:15:03
Probably not literally, but figuratively we have, right? Think about what Zacchaeus did when, uh, the Lord was speaking to him. So I do this and I do that, and I give tithes and.
Sowing fig leaves together, they knew that they were naked.
Verse 9.
And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said, Where art thou?
And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.
Did God need to ask that question?
Was he puzzled about where Adam was?
No, he wasn't. So I'd ask that question for two important reasons.
Number one, to establish that man was lost.
And the call goes out. Adam, where are you?
He was lost.
The other reason God asked that question is to show out that God was seeking.
For the center.
God is seeking the Sinner.
Immediately he began to seek the Sinner.
You know it says in Luke chapter 19 verse 10, Speaking of the Lord Jesus the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
God begins here in this early or in the third chapter of Genesis, God begins to lay out the plan of salvation, and he first establishes that God was seeking the lost Sinner.
And now let's read.
Verse 15 This is God now speaking to Satan.
I will put in the T between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed.
It shall bruise thy head.
Thou shalt bruise his heel.
Early on the very beginning of the scriptures, God is showing that salvation would be brought and that the seed of the woman are human mankind.
A man in in whom God could find all his delights.
With bruise, the head of seed.
That person is his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
They were were told in Romans chapter 5 by 1 man. Sin entered into the world and death by sin. So death passed upon all men for all of sins.
And because of what Adam and Eve did, and sin entered the world.
God's creation was spoiled.
At Death was introduced.
We find in Romans chapter 6 the wages of sin is death.
We don't like that, do we?
There was a broken relationship here.
God who was holy.
And just.
So I can say this reverently was offended. The relationship between God and his creation was broken.
No longer could they have fellowship together. Says further down in Genesis three that God drove them out of the garden.
Was 23. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth.
From the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out demand.
Sin entered the world and because Adam and Eve sinned, that has come down to every single one of us. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
That's a problem.
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All have sinned and come short to the glory of God.
So as in Joe Pain man would be wise though man be born as a wild *** is cold.
When are you young man? What's a wild *** colt known for?
Nice gentle behavior.
It's known for stubbornness, wildness, and that's the way each one of us has been born. Born in sin is shaping in iniquity.
Separated from God.
So now I would like to turn to 1St John chapter one.
These are the words of the Apostle John. The apostle John was uh, uh, a man who had a very close, loving relationship with the Lord Jesus.
This is what he says.
They could really read a lot here, but I'm not going to.
Verse.
Three, that which we have seen and heard the clear way unto you.
Verse five. This then is the message which we have heard of him. And declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
God cannot have sin in His presence.
His very nature is light.
And we have, all of us.
Are dead and sins.
And that's a problem.
You know, if, if we could think back over the councils of God throughout the Old Testament, we could see, and I mentioned earlier about uh, the woman seed bruising the head of the serpent. But all throughout the Old Testament we see God laying out, umm.
The plan of salvation. Think about, uh, uh, when Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden, it says God, uh, clothe them in coats of skin and those animals had to die and there was bloodshed.
Think about, uh, Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22.
And the question goes out, My Father, behold the fire in the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And the answer comes back, God will provide himself.
Oh, I am forever offering.
Exodus 12.
The Passover.
It's take a whim.
Out of the flock, keep it.
Kill it, Put the blood on the door, God says. When I see the blood, I will pass over you.
There's many many other examples.
And there came a day this turned to Isaiah 6.
There came a day when the question goes out.
Believe God asked this question Isaiah 6.
Receipt Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying.
Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?
Then said I here am, I send me. I believe the Lord Jesus. We could see in that answer, Jeremiah, send me.
And so.
God sends His beloved Son into this world.
He's born.
Uh, to Mary.
One of the first things that said about him is there was no room for him at the end.
And he was born in a barn in a stable. My understanding is it was probably a cave where they some dugout of the side of a hill, maybe weighed in a Manger. You know, I, I had milk cows for a few years. The mangers that we had weren't very nice. We didn't have them filled with nice.
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Fluffy straw and they're kind of dark and wet.
30.
That's what.
Environment the Lord Jesus came into into this world.
And as he grew up.
And he began to be about his father's business.
Like when he was 12 years old, he was in the temple and uh, his parents thought he was lost.
And he says to them, wish she not that I must be about my father's business. You know what that business was.
It was to go to the cross of Calvary.
To lay down his life for you and for me.
And over and over in the Gospels, particularly in the Gospel of John, we read things like.
Uh, the cup which my father has given me to drink, so I not drink it.
Things like.
To this end was I born and for this cause came out into the world.
And I should bear witness unto the truth.
God sent his beloved son into this world to die on the cross of Calvary because that was the only way.
That he could.
Deal with our sins and be just.
Yeah, you might say, why couldn't God just wave a magic wand, if you will, and just make sin go away?
In Romans it says the wages of sin is death.
And though there had to be bloodshed, there had to be death.
You know, there are a number of times in the gospels where God.
Spoke publicly. This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased hear him.
Turned Isaiah 53.
You know the day came.
When the Lord Jesus was arrested.
And it was sentenced to be crucified.
You know what those people said?
Away with him.
We will not have this man to reign over us. Crucify him.
This is the air. Come, let us kill him.
And the Lord Jesus was taken out there to the cross to the hill of Calvary.
They laid him down on the cross there. I take it it was probably on the ground. And they begin to nail his hands into that beam.
In the speed.
They stand it up.
There he is.
God's beloved Son.
There's a witness given by one of the thieves that was crucified with him. This man had done nothing amiss. The Lord Jesus was there hanging on the cross for you and for me.
Isaiah 53 verse five. But he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him.
And with his strengths, we are healed.
Oh, we, like sheep, have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way.
And the Lord hath wait on him the iniquity of a soul.
It was oppressed, it was afflicted. Yet he opened on his mouth.
He has brought us a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
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He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation?
Brie was cut off out of the land of the living.
For the transgression of my people was he stricken?
Then he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.
He had put him to grief.
When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.
He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.
By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
The Lord Jesus was hanging on the cross.
He was not hanging there for anything that he had done.
He was hanging there, taking the wrath of a sin, hating God for you and for me, upon His own blessed head.
The time came.
With God darken the sun, and for three hours he poured out on the head of His Son all of the anger and wrath and punishment of a sin, hating God on His beloved Son. You know who we did it for? It was for me.
It was for you.
You believe that?
He did it for you and he did it for me.
You think about the Lord hanging there on the cross.
Crying out to God, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
Go ahead, pour it out the rest against sin on the head of His beloved Son. And He did it for you, and He did it for me.
And so that.
Sin could be dealt with.
You know, it says in Romans that he might be just in the justifier. Uh, let's turn to that. I think it's Romans 5.
It'll be wrong in that.
Romans.
Three.
Romans 3.
26 to declare at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus, you know?
God heads it properly that righteously deal with sin.
Bob, what would you say if there was a judge here in Saint Louis that?
Let's say I'm just gonna.
Make an example here. Suppose I murdered Jim tonight.
That would be pretty bad, wouldn't it, Jim?
Suppose the judge said, well, you know Jim is.
Pretty old anyway, and.
Yeah, we're just gonna forget about it this time. Would that be right?
That would not be a righteous judge at all.
And God could not do that in the question of sin. He had to punish sin, and he did punish sin.
But he doesn't have to punish you.
He poured out that punishment on the head of his beloved son.
We read earlier the wages of sin is death. I didn't finish the verse, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Does this in 2nd Corinthians 5 after the verse we read earlier. He made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. God took His beloved Son and made him sin for me and for you.
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So that we might be made the righteousness of God in you.
Let's go back to first Gen. again, this time the chapter 4.
You know the apostle John writes so beautifully about the word Jesus.
Christian 4.
We'll begin with the end of verse eight. God is love.
And this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
Herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
That's a big word. It's a hard word.
Some of you kids might think you know Bernie. I have no idea what you're talking about. Propitiation, I think in a simple way, means a fixer of broken relationships.
Right then.
Go ahead and send the Lord Jesus into the world to die on the cross.
To fix the breach the offense caused by sin.
And the Lord Jesus was the only one that could do that.
Of all of the people through all of the history of time, when God looked down upon this earth, the only one that he could look upon and say.
In thee I am well pleased.
Was his son the Lord Jesus?
And he sent him to the cross.
To die for you.
We accept that.
You know, people will say, oh, I'm a, I'm a pretty good person. I, uh, when I get to heaven, God and I are going to have a little chat and we're going to weigh my good deeds and my bad deeds and God's going to see that I've been pretty decent and, uh, now it doesn't work that way.
Doesn't work that way.
The only way that you and I can.
Enter heaven is by having the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Applied to our hearts, to us, in a way.
You know.
I I have a little bit of a burden. So there's some of you young people.
You know, I sat through thousands of gospel meetings.
And I know that some of you have to.
There's a story the Lord told in Matthew 22 about a wedding feast.
And at that feast there was a person.
That didn't have a wedding garment on.
Let's turn to that.
This is Matthew 22.
Verse 11 When the king came in to see the guests, there was a man which had not.
On a wedding garment.
And he said unto him, Friend, OK miss thou, and hit her, not having a wedding garment.
And he was speechless.
Then said the king to the servants, bind him hand and foot, and take him away.
Cast them out in the outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Here's my burden for you young people and your kids.
I hope that there is nobody in this room.
That is pretending.
Pretending to have a relationship with the Lord. Pretending you're saved.
Pretending that you have accepted God's work or the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross.
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But in reality, you have never ever.
Really accepted salvation.
God takes sin very seriously.
You know, the other burden I have is.
When I was a kid.
I knew that I needed to be saved.
But I didn't think that it was all that urgent.
I got saved.
Yeah, a conference like this.
Under the precinct of a man named Cam Wilken.
SACKVILLE, New Brunswick.
You know, I sat through a good many gospel meetings.
Knowing exactly what I needed to do.
They didn't do it.
Don't put off.
Accepting the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
You know, it's, uh, I think it's Ecclesiastes 12.
It says.
The dust returns to the ground from whence it came.
And the spirit of man.
Returns to God who gave it.
Yeah, I hope you'll part in this. Uh, this is a personal reference.
About a year ago, I stood by my father's.
Uh, that side.
And he breathed his last.
His breathing got shallower.
There's a little sigh and he was gone.
And immediately.
He is his soul. His spirit was carried into the arms of the Boston Savior.
I believe I can say that.
But, you know, friends.
If you do not know the Lord Jesus as your savior and death comes knocking.
It's over.
There was a, uh, I mentioned I work in agriculture. Umm.
Those of you that are farmers know that Saint Louis is the headquarters of one of the world's largest seed companies.
And there was a man that I had a lot to do with named Reggie. He was from this town.
He was a, uh, inventory manager for Seed. I probably talked to Reggie a couple times a week.
You know, one day I called Reggie and I got somebody else.
Here all I found out.
He stopped beside the road some place here in Saint Louis to help a motorist with a flat tire.
Hit by another car instantly in eternity.
I don't know if Reggie was the Lord's or not. I hope he was.
Just that fast.
Life is real.
Life is earnest.
And the grave is not a skill.
Dust thou art to dust returns was not spoken of. The soul. Your soul friend will live forever.
In one of two places. You know when my dad breathed his last.
And he was ushered into the presence of his savior. It was a tremendous victory for him.
But you know.
There are others. They're gonna say to the Lord, Lord, Lord, He's gonna say, I, I never knew you depart from me. Workers of iniquity.
Don't let that be you.
You know, young people, I'm guilty of this too, so I don't think I've beaten you up. We live in a world that we're consumed by media and Snapchatting and, uh, texting and instantaneous communicate. You know, when I was your age, we had the right letters to people and they might get a response back in 10 or 12 days maybe.
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Young people, don't be distracted.
Satan wants to distract your mind. He wants to tell you put it off.
Until it's too late.
Romans chapter 10 tells us Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved whosoever is open to everybody.
The gospel goes out, the story of God's love, the story of God sending his own Son to die, and a substitution for you and for me goes out to everybody. But you know God will not force his way into your heart.
He says, behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If any man hear my voice and open the door.
We'll take according to that, correct? Quite right anyway, God. Well, that forces way into your life.
Will you have him? Is the Lord Jesus ever done you wrong? Never, never.
He loves you.
He died on the cross to redeem you. His blood was shed. You know it says in Leviticus, uh, the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it unto to you upon the altar. It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. And all of those sacrifices in the Old Testament, millions of sacrifices, rivers of blood that was flowing, it was all pointing to one event.
There's the Lord Jesus and he's hanging on the cross.
And it's beginning to be the end of the day.
And the soldiers come out and they're going to break the legs of those on the cross, and they break the legs of that first malefactor, and they break the legs of the other one. They did that so they would hang down and suffocate faster. The act of terrible cruelty. They get to the Lord Jesus and he's already dead.
You know what the last words of the Lord Jesus were before he died?
Think I'm right in this? It is finished.
Or was it Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. That's what it was.
But the Lord cries out. It's finished. All of God's demands against sin, Paid in full. Paid in full.
Suppose, Jim, that, umm, I owed you $750,000.
And I came to you and said, you know, Jim, I feel really bad about this. So from now on, I'm going to pay cash. Could you just forget about that other money? You're going to do that? No, you're not going to do that. We can't go to God and say, I'm going to turn over a new leaf from now on, Lord, I'm going to do it right.
You know it says God requires that which is past.
So there's the Lord hanging on the cross. The soldier sees that he's already dead. He takes his spear.
He just.
Jams it up into the side of the Savior.
And one last act.
About flows but the blood of Jesus, blood and water flowed out, we read in first John. A blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.
Are you willing to accept that?
Are you willing to say to the Lord Jesus?
I believe that you did that for me. I accept it.
Suppose that uh, we brought uh.
Well, I suppose we brought your run, right? Was, uh, we brought you a nice birthday present here and you looked it over and said, I don't want that joke.
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Is that yours?
He rejected and threw it in the trash, right?
Don't reject the gift of God.
They'll reject the gift of God.
You want security in your life?
You want peace in your life. You want purpose in your life.
Give your life to the Lord Jesus.
Says in John chapter 10, my sheep hear my voice.
And I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hands. My father, which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hands. I and my father were one, John. You got big hands.
It's like the Lord Jesus has you in his hand like this. God has his hand like that. Security.
God wants to give that to you.
You know Adam and Eve introduced sin into the world. The Lord Jesus came to settle the question of sin.
Will you accept it? Will you believe it?
I'm reminded of a song that we used to sing when I was a kid.
Oh, don't turn the savior away.
He's calling into you today.
Oh, cry out and to him, and pray or weep in that great judgment day. Oh, your time is running out. Run, Sinner, run to the arms of the Savior He's calling you. Come, O rest not don't sleep till the matter is done.
Hopefully while you can.
The rap that's to come.
You know God's offer of salvation is not going to be open forever.
Think about, uh, Noah and the ark. For 120 years the message that God is going to judge went out, and the day came that God said to Noah.
Come thou into the ark, come thou and thy family. He didn't say go, he said come. That means the Lord was in the Arctic.
And God shut the door.
As judgment fell, dear young people, one of principle of scripture you need to get a hold of is this. God always makes a way of escape.
Always makes a way of escape, but I.
I tell you, dear friends.
Reject the word.
Often enough.
And you'll die in your sins and be sent into a lost eternity. I don't want that for you. The Lord Jesus doesn't want that for you.
Were you taking?
Will you make him your savior?
It says in Romans chapter 10 verse nine, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, that means give him authority, turn your life over to him. So confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe A9 heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. You know, when Jesus died on the cross, and they laid him in that tomb.
He didn't stay there, friends.
He didn't.
Early in the morning on the first day of the week.
The stone was rolled away and God.
Brought out such wonderful blessing.
He's alive. The Lord Jesus is a living man today.
It wants to be your Lord and Savior. Will you take him? Will you have Him?
You know, if he is your savior, it'd be nice to tell somebody.
That can be a little bit hard to do when you're young.
Worth it. I remember when I was a young person, a good friend of mine turned to me after a gospel meeting like this, he said. You know, I'm happy to tell you that the Lord Jesus is my Savior.
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Tell you that.
It really meant a lot and I I said it back to him too. I said Lord Jesus is my Savior.
Where Jesus loves you.
He wants you.
Will you take him?
He's the only answer to sin. That's a disease we all have.
Like Christ is the answer.
Yeah, you think about what's going on in our country.
As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be.
Uh, can't quote that exactly right, Bill. How does that go? Because it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be?
Days of the Son of Man says the whole earth was filled with violence.
Is there any doubt that that's true today?
Just look what happened in Las Vegas.
And other places.
The coming of the Lord Jesus is very, very near. Could be tonight.
Don't be left behind.
Well, dear young people.
I've spoken this tea and a great deal of weakness. I really feel inadequate, but I want you to know I love you.
But much more than that, I want you to know that God loves you.
God is love.
God is light.
Accept the word Jesus as your Savior.
1 Corinthians 10:5-14
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275.
Yesterday we were reading in First Corinthians chapter 10.
You got a thought as to where we should start, Bob?
There's five.
Sins chapter 10 and verse 5.
But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples to the intent. We should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be idolaters, as were some of them. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
Neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell in one day.
3 and 20,000 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted.
And were destroyed of serpents neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured.
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And we're destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them for in samples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
Wherefore let him that think of thee standeth, take he lest he fall. There has no temptation taking you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful.
Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it? Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
For we being many are one bread and one body.
Where we are all partakers of that one bread, Behold the Israel after the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What say I then, that the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything?
But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice the devils, not to God. I would not that you should have fellowship with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.
Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth whatsoever is sold in the shambles that eat, asking no question for conscience, save for the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. If any of them that believe not, bid you to a feast, and he be disposed to go.
Whatsoever is set before you eat, ask me no question for conscience sake. But if any man say unto you, this is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that showed it, and for conscience sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. Conscience I say, not thine own, but of the other. For why is my liberty judge of another man's conscience?
Where have I, by grace, be a partaker? Why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks.
Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Give none offense neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God, even as I please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit.
But the prophet of many, that they may be saved.
Verse five of our chapter kind of introduces the next section.
Of those that God was not well pleased with them, they were in the company that came up out of Egypt.
And they were amongst that company that had been delivered from Egypt, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they were all saved.
And even amongst those that were perhaps truly saved, there were those that were overthrown or they did not make it to the.
Promised Land, and I think it's good to see that, that even Moses didn't make it into the Promised land, but it's God's governmental ways with his people. I don't think it's necessarily dealing with the question.
00:10:09
Of salvation here as it is God's government, and when we take up yesterday, we mentioned in verse 21 The subject of the Lord's table.
We're talking about a place where His authority is acknowledged. Doesn't say Christ table. It doesn't say Jesus table. It's the Lord's table because he has authority there. It's not our authority, brethren. It's his authority that we need to learn to recognize how important that is. And we're all learning.
And so in the next chapter, Paul speaks to the Corinthian believers. There was a lot of carnality in Corinth, But he says in the end of that chapter, many of you are sick and weakly and some sleep. What was it? It was God's governmental dealings with those people that had outwardly associated with the Lord Jesus Christ, as we had in the first verses of this chapter in baptism.
And so when we take up this, there's lessons to be learned. It's very clear in verse six and also in verse 11 That those things that were written in those Old Testament Scriptures about the children of Israel were for our learning. And so we cannot isolate ourselves from the scrutiny of the Scriptures here to say when we talk about the Lord's table, brethren, and.
I want to talk about this carefully because it's his table, not ours as we mentioned yesterday.
But it's a place where his authority needs to be recognized. In First Corinthians 5, we have certain conduct that is to be put away from among you. Paul wrote to the Corinthians people. And so we're responsible to take action on certain matters. But that doesn't cover everything because God has his government really in every area of our lives and so.
When we take up these things, it's to scrutinize each one of us. I feel myself under the scrutiny of the precious Word of God. Can we do things lightly? No, we cannot whatsoever man. So that shall he also read? Is there any exceptions to that? No, that applies across the board. And so if you treat the things of God lightly.
There will be the Lord is observing, maybe your brethren don't even notice it, but the Lord is observing and He will have the last word with every one of His people. And so as we take up these different things that are mentioned in the next verses, we need to take him up, perhaps in that context that we are before the eye of God.
I want to say this too, before I go any further. The Scripture speaks of the Lord's Table in verse 21. It doesn't say the Lord's Tables, plural. It's the Lord's Table. The Lord's Table is one fellowship in the whole world. Remember our brother, late brother David Heyho speaking about the Lord's Table? He says, I like to think of it as a table that goes all the way around the world, and there's some.
Breaking bread at that table.
In Asia, in Africa, in Europe, in South America, in North America and Australia, it's one fellowship. And as I said yesterday, it's a table that I believe truly, practically exists in this world. Some people say with all the confusion there is, they say.
Now you can. No place can be identified as the Lord's Table.
What I say, is Scripture practical, or is it just to be taken in a philosophical way? My own conviction is that there is a practical reality that corresponds to this. I'm not going to tell you. I remember our brother Chuck Hendricks saying, I'm not gonna tell you where that place is.
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But if I had a conviction that I was.
To be somewhere else, I would not be here. This is my conviction. But your conviction, dear brother and sister and I speak especially to you young people, needs to be based not on what I say or anyone else says, but on what God says in His precious words. So important because that is solid ground that will stand the test of time. Lord, help us.
Have I done the the Beyond my place brother?
What do you think, Brother Jim? No, I think that's very helpful. And I'd like to just add in connection with what you said about the government of God, that we want to be sensitive brethren, to what His standard is. And we will only get that standard of holiness in what is acceptable to Him and to His presence by going to the Word of God. Because the problem today is, and I suppose it's always been true to some degree, but perhaps more and more as the world winds down for the judgment of God.
We become desensitized to evil. Evil today is not just practiced, it's been practiced from the Garden of Eden down, but it's preached and glorified. It's acceptable. And brethren, if you'll allow me to be very frank for a moment.
If we sit before a screen and watch that which is acceptable to the world today.
We're going to become desensitized and over the last, I would say 50 years.
The enemy has been very successful by using those kinds of instruments. I'll be, I'll be very blunt, television, the Internet, and so on in desensitizing us in bringing in those things so slowly that when we look at them, I don't think sometimes we even realize how far things have deteriorated. I, I think it's a hundred and 43rd Psalm. Just turn to it for a moment because it's a very helpful verse in this connection.
No, it's not the 143rd sum. I I'm looking I'm thinking of the verse. That's where David said take not the spirit of holiness from me 5051 fifty. Yes, thank you is confession. Yes, let let's just go to that and read it. It's a little you you need to get it in the Darby translation to get the real sense of it. Umm, give me the verse verse 11. Thank you.
Cast me not away from my present, and then this is the part of the verse now.
It's not quite clear in the King James, but in Mr. Darby's translation, he says, take not the spirit of holiness from me. David had sinned and sinned grievously with a serious moral sin, but he got into the presence of God. And in his confession here, he makes this statement, which I believe is a good, good thing for all of us to consider because we can, I say again, becomes desensitized to sin. And I found it helpful in my own life to pray this little prayer. Lord, don't let me get used to sin and its effect.
Because we see it. We hear it on every hand, at work, at school, in the day-to-day operations where we.
Li where we operate from day-to-day, and how are we going to be to have a sense of what is acceptable to God. It is, I say, to walk in the presence of the Lord and to have his standard, the word before us. And so the children of Israel in the wilderness, they, I believe they got worn down, they got used to sin and its effects. They didn't always come back to the presence of the Lord in the way that they should.
So I just say that and brethren, the older I get, the more I realize the government of God is very real in your life and mine. It has nothing to do with our security as far as our the Father's house and being with the Lord Jesus in a coming day. But the government of God is very real in our lives. When I was growing up, I got away with a lot of things that my parents never found out I did. But we don't get away with anything as the children of God and also He loves us too much.
To let us go our own way. I wanna repeat that. He loves us too much to let us go our own way. You know, your children and young people. Why do your parents correct you? Why do they seek to direct you in the right the the right path? Because they love you. Not because they wanna be hard. I know as parents, sometimes we swing too much one way or the other. No earthly parent is perfect. But we have the Father of lights. We have one who chastens us not for his pleasure, but not for our hi his. Not because it's pleasant to him.
00:20:07
But for our profit. And so I made many mistakes as a parent, I'll be the first to admit it. But I am thankful that as the children of God, we have a Father who perfect knows us perfectly through and through. He chastens us for our profit because He loves us. And I say again, He loves us and desires our blessing too much to let us go our own way. Oh, be careful. Let's live in the presence of the Lord so that that which we have in these verses does not.
Affect us or become part of our daily routine?
Given in these verses, in verses 6789 and 10:00. And if you look up their references, you'll find that they are not in a historic order. Instead, they're presented in a moral order. And the five things that are given here, I would suggest, correspond to those same five things we find with the churches of Ephesus, of Pergamos, Thyatirus, and Laodicea.
It begins, first of all, with lusting.
After that which attracts the flesh and giving up of first love, then proceeds to idolatry. That may seem in allies that idolatry is a terrible thing, but idolatry ends with Christianity in a very subtle way. Christianity was presented to a people that was largely illiterate, and so having images before them was a way to present in the eyes of those that created them the truth and I and and in the his Israel's history too.
We find out that they say, well, we don't know what became of Moses. Give us something we can look at. And Aaron created the golden cops and said, let's have a feast unto Jehovah. It entered in a very subtle way, and I won't go through all of these things, but it progressed from idolatry, just fornication, and then from fornication to despising his grace and finally with apostasy. They're saying, let us make ourselves a leader and return back to Egypt. And so we have a little outline of the church, church's history here, of your preferred, the history of Christendom.
But these things too, we're a part of that. But these things also affect us individually. The same Satan makes the same efforts in our lives individually, first trying to draw away our affections after those things in the world around us, and then that proceeds into idolatry and then spiritual fornication and so on. So, as I said, these five things present us a little outline of the history of what we find in Christendom.
We'll associate those with the churches eventually. So beginning with Ephesus leaving a first love with Pergamus, we have umm, uh, offer eating of things offered to idols with fire tire. We have the spiritual fornication.
Then with saddest, with Sardis, we don't really get the truth of the Reformation, but the Reformation ultimately became, which was despising the very grace of God. That was umm, uh, revealed in, in the Reformation and finally, ultimately apostasy spewing out of the mouth. And, and in Israel's history, that was in Numbers 14 where I think that that chapter where they say, let us make a leader and return back into Egypt.
I'll just follow up with that.
Those who are doing some excavating on these verses, if we, these verses from 6 to 10 are all taken from the book of Numbers, every one of them, if we go backwards and they're not necessarily as umm, as Nick has said in uh, historical order, but a moral order. So if we go backwards, uh, the 10th verse is Numbers 14. The ninth verse is Numbers 21. The eighth verse is Numbers 25, the seventh verse.
It's actually a quotation from Exodus 32, but you pick up on it from Numbers 33 and the 15th verse in the, in the, umm, in the various, uh, uh, stations that the children of Israel stop that. And then the sixth verse is the 11Th of numbers. It's interesting that the, the, the book of Numbers is a wilderness book. The, the 1St 15 chapters of numbers are the first two years that they pulled out of Egypt.
So the 1St 15 chapters are the first two years. The next 5 chapters are the next 38 years. That's quite something, isn't it? 38 years for five chapters. And then the last 16 or the last 17 chapters of Numbers are the last year before they went into the promised land. So it's helpful to look at that breakdown of the Book of Numbers as we go through these verses. But maybe, uh, it would be helpful to look at least the first one, and that is Numbers 11. Let's go there.
00:25:11
So in our chapter we have now these things were for our examples of the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted numbers 11.
And verse 4.
It's interesting this is just as they embark on that 38 year travel. Notice the first verse of the chapter.
And the people complained. Is it any surprise that there were so many difficulties through that 38 year trip when this is how it started and they complained? So let's pick up on the quotation from our chapter, which is the 4th verse. And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting. There's a lusting in our verse, in our chapter.
The children of Israel also wept again and said who will give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt. Cucumbers, the melons. And did they have fish to eat? No. Did they have melons? No. Do they have cucumbers, onions, leeks? No. Did they have garlic? No. So did they have those things to feed on? No, they didn't have them. They lusted after them.
They were tired of the manna. They were tired of it. It says down, down further. Uh, speaking about the mana in the sixth verse. Now our soul is dried away. There is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes. You know the it's interesting that.
The first symptom.
That we see.
That something is wrong with one of our children. You sit at the supper table, you give thanks for the food. They all dive into the food. One of them says I'm not hungry. I'm not hungry. Now it may have been they have eaten something before, but not necessarily. It's a symptom that there's something wrong inside. And that is the first symptom with ourselves when there's something wrong inside.
When we lose an appetite for the Word of God, that is the first thing.
And it says here in our chapter.
To the intent that we should not lust after evil things. You, you look at that list of things that we just read about and we think, So what, what's evil about eating a cucumber? So what's, what's, what's evil about, uh, about having a, a, a fish dinner. That's not the point. It's something that has displaced an appetite for the mana.
And in our own souls experience.
The first symptom that there is something wrong, it's that very thing we lose an appetite for that which is so precious that we have here on our left and we we spent quite a bit of time on yesterday that which we need to have.
An appetite for the Word of God.
Might be good to turn to Hebrews chapter 3. There's a little synopsis there that the apostle gives in connection with these principles.
And why they didn't enter into the land. Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 15. While it is said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation for some of them, and for some when they had heard did provoke. How be it not all that came out of Egypt by Moses, but with whom was he grieved 40 years? Was it not with them that had sinned?
Whose carcasses fell in the wilderness, and to whom he? And to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believe not. So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
And so these five things could be summarized by these three things. The reason why these ones didn't go into the land of promise. A little picture of all of the truth that we have that is in Christ in the heavenlies, that is bound up in the person of the Lord that was that is ours, our inheritance. And so it's the the first one is in verse 15. They hardened their hearts. They knew what the truth of God was. They knew that the man had been provided by the Lord.
And yet they hardened their hearts against the Lord, and so they could not enter in. And then it says in the end of verse 17 that it was with them that had sinned. They were lawless. They wanted their own way. And in John's epistle, I think it's chapter 4, it says Mr. Darby's translation, sin is lawlessness. And then the third thing is in verse 19. So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
00:30:24
Those three things.
They hardened their hearts, they sinned, and they were filled with unbelief. It's quite an indictment. But isn't it marvelous, the grace of God to point these things out to us so that we would be warned? And that's why he points them out in this epistle. He says that they're given to us for our learning, that we might learn in verse 11. All these things happen unto them for in samples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the end of the world are come.
We have a wonderful Savior, a gracious God. We have sinful natures and we're going to have those sinful natures until we see the Savior, until perhaps we, some of us are called to be with the Lord. But, uh, while we go through this wilderness scene, we have the same tendencies, but we are responsible. And so he brings in the fact of responsibility not to live in this way. And so no marvelous. So we can be thankful to the Lord that he teaches us in this way.
I want to say a word more about the government of God because sometimes it's presented as something to make us fearful. And in a sense that's true. But I notice as I travel around that when there is a family where their children are loved and at the same time there is strict government in that house, those children are confident children. I remember seeing a family in South America that.
Uh, I think I could say the parents truly love them, but they didn't control them very well. Those children were terribly uneasy and had no idea where they stood. I say the fact that I have a father who has government in his house makes me confident I'm not gonna get out of the way too far before he's gonna speak to me, and I'm thankful for that.
The grace of God.
And the government of God run through scripture as the two rails of a railway track, and you cannot divorce the one from the no another. We could not be before God if unless it was by his grace. But at the same time God has his government. And so she read down these lists of of sins that are mentioned Lust in verse 6 idolatry verse 7 fornication verse 8 tempting Christ verse 9, murmuring verse 10.
Are these Christians?
Are they talking to Christians? Yes, that's who Paul was speaking to in Corinth. And so like your brother has just brought out these things. We have a nature that can do these things. By the grace of God, we trust we can hold that in check and reckon ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God. But sometimes we get out of line, brother, and thankfully we have a father who is completely.
Faithful. And we're reminded of that in verse 13.
That's so important where you put that because as you say, sometimes we think of the government of God as being someone who holds a big stick over us and says don't you dare step out of line or here it comes, well, God is a God of government and as you say in a well ordered home there is discipline that is necessary at times. But why does God warn us about these things so strenuously?
Why does he draw our attention to Israel way back in the Old Testament and what they went through? Oh, it's because he knows that indulging in these things deprive us of that which is real joy. Indulging in these things takes us right back to where we were before we were saved, where we found at least some of us, but nothing satisfied.
And the natural man finds that nothing in this world can satisfy his heart. And we will find the same if we try to find our joy in these things.
00:35:05
The world says, and I've seen bumper stickers to this effect, how can it be so wrong when it feels so good referring to some of these things? The fact of the matter is it's the pleasure of sin for a season, isn't it? And so the Lord and Bob has pointed this out very out, very actually doesn't distinguish here particularly as to whether the ones to whom He is speaking are truly his or perhaps unbelievers. That isn't the real point here.
He's writing to an assembly.
Of believers, even though sad to say in court, there may have been some that weren't real. But in Israel of old, the same situation was there.
It doesn't matter, as Bob has already said, whatsoever we so we are going to reap. Why? Because God wants to recall us to Himself, to give us that which really satisfies. And so let's never think of these things as God depriving us of something good, depriving us of all the fun in life or anything like that. Absolutely not. No, God is warning us because He knows.
Where the ends of these things are, and He wants to fill us with that which will give real and lasting joy.
That called into question their very salvation whether they truly were saved or not. This chapter actually just follows from the previous chapter where Paul speaking. There he says I keep under my body and bring it into subjection less than by any means when I have preached to others. I myself should be a castaway.
Just a word on apostasy. I wasn't here Paul suggesting that he might lose his salvation, but you can preach the gospel and still be found a castaway if umm as uh, was read there. In the case of Israel, those that died in the wilderness died because of their unbelief. That's so important to see. We cannot lose our salvation, but if we never had that belief in the 1St place, we can go along with like Israel, those that. This chapter begins with another five things 5.
Privileges that all Israel enjoyed in coming out of Egypt and being baptized to Moses.
But you can go, you can be in the assembly, you can carry on and pretend.
But if there's not mingled with belief, then you most certainly can as an individual apostasize. Interestingly, that word only appears, I believe twice in the in the New Testament and and neither time is it translated apostasize. But one of those times is in Thessalonians, chapter 2 where it speaks of a falling away. That word falling away is apostasize, apostasy. And with that is the day in which we're living in a day of falling away, a day of giving up. We're we're in a day where.
The, the, the, the weight and the tears are being put together in bundles that there is we're being tried and Israel was tried and it was exposed who really had belief and who didn't have belief. This is the day in which we live in Christendom. We're being tested and it's being revealed as to who is real and who is not real.
But we can go ahead, Bill.
Little comment to add to what Nick said, uh, just to say a hearty Amen to it because as you say, Nick at the end of the previous chapter, Paul in no way is concerned that he might not be saved. But he's really saying that the real proof of my Christianity is not my preaching, but rather my life. And that is the message that we are having, shall I say, impressed upon us in this chapter. The world is not listening so much to what you say.
As it is observing the way you live and the way I live, and that is what is going to lend the weight to our words.
It's not left up to us to decide who is an apostate and who is a backslider. The Lord knoweth them that are his.
You get that mixture in Second Timothy where the House of God has become this great House of profession and reality, but it is not up to us. And so in the parable that Nick alluded to, the Lord is going to, uh, in the coming days, sort all that out.
And I would just say this too, in connection with what has been said, that the children of Israel, they lusted for the things of Egypt.
And when Stephen in the 7th of Acts sums up the history of the children of Israel in the wilderness.
He says in their hearts they returned into Egypt. Thank God they never got back their positionally. And so a true believer will never lose his salvation. But in our hearts we can return into Egypt because it really is a question of the heart. And when I was growing up, Brother Gordon Hayhoe used to use this little expression. It's possible to be unbelieving believers. And that was really the problem with the children of Israel when they sent in the spies in the 14th of Numbers.
00:40:25
And the spies came back. They wouldn't believe the good report that Joshua and Caleb brought up.
And God says because of their unbelief, they were going to have to wander in the wilderness until all that of that those of that generation passed away.
And died in the wilderness. And there's only two that we read of for sure from scripture of that generation, 20 years.
That generation that, that got in to see the land and that was Joshua and Caleb, because I believe it was from 20 years and up that they were to fall in, in the wilderness. Just say this too, in connection with, uh, Thomas. You know, we often talk about doubting Thomas, but that's not what scripture calls, says about him. Thomas, when they brought him the report that they seen the Lord, he said, except I, I see.
I will not believe in that. Interesting. Thomas was a true disciple, unlike Judas. Thomas was a true disciple, but there was a moment when Thomas became an unbelieving believer. So we want to be careful that in our hearts we don't return into Egypt. If you just allow me to make one other comment in connection with what Dave said earlier, we won't go back to the 11Th of Numbers, but if you read on there just a verse or two later, not only did they get tired of the manna in the simplicity in which God gave it, they tried to do other things with it, you know?
When God gave it to them in its simple form, it tasted like wafers and honey. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Wafers and honey. But they got so tired of it. They said, well, we gotta eat it anyway. And what did they do? They beat it in a mortar. They baked it in pans and and so on. And what happened? It tasted like fresh oil. Wasn't palatable. I'd rather eat wafers than and honey than fresh oil. And I just pass on this little warning. Brethren, we want to be careful.
That we don't try to not sure how to say this to dress up or fancy up the word of God. I can't think of a better way to put it. It's the the word of God presents the simplicity of it that is in Christ and to thank God for ministry that explains it and is helpful written ministry, oral ministry and so on. But let's take the word of God in its simple in in the simplicity in which the Spirit of God has presented it to us.
The simplicity of Christ and that is what is going to feed our souls, and that is what is going to keep us from lusting after evil things.
And when Steven mentions in the 7th of Acts that they returned in their hearts, they returned into Egypt, what's the next thing? If you notice the 40th verse of that chapter, the very next thing he talks about is idolatry. They said to Aaron, make us an idol, make us a calf. And so if we don't take the word of God in its simplicity, enjoy it in the way God has given it to feed and to satisfy our souls, we're gonna lust after evil things and then we're gonna turn to idolatry. You say, But we don't bow down to images like the heathen do, but rather.
And we perhaps can have a word on it. There's a far more subtle form of idolatry than the idolatry that some of us have seen on a regular basis in other countries. What do you think about that, Bob? Definitely. And I think we have to recognize that North America is an idolatrous country or continent. Like you say, it's not after images that are made by human hands, but anything that takes the place of.
The Lord Jesus in our hearts is an idol, and so we need to be wary of that brother to keep the Lord Jesus in all His glory. I often think, brethren, the moment we step from this life into His glorious presence, we will wonder why our hearts were so attracted to other things down here. God has for us an object that will enthrall our hearts for all eternity.
And how can we be attracted to other things and yet we are, we have to admit it. We need to confess it to the Lord and ask Him to help us to judge that evil of idolatry. I'd like to read a verse in Isaiah 2 and that connection that I think is is we can apply and is relevant. Isaiah chapter 2. Now again, I re realize this is referring to Israel and the physical idolatry, the images that they set up.
00:45:12
Chapter, chapter 2 of Isaiah and verse 8. Their land is also is full of idols. Now notice this. They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. Now again we see the folly of bowing down to an image of wood or any other commodity. I've just come back from Guyana, which is a very idolatrous country, very strong Hinduism. There's a Hindu temple about on every corner and you see those hit really hideous looking idols. We see the folly in the wrong of that. But brethren, aren't there many things that we've made with our own hands?
That we're looking to for deliverance that really we're putting between US and Christ. As Bob has has said, inventions and thank God we can use these things. There's a way to utilize the unrighteous mammon for God's glory. But we want to be careful as Bob has said that the things we've made with our own hands don't displace the the the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I was impressed recently in going through the 119th Psalm. How many times the Psalmist speaks there of our whole heart.
Or wholeheartedness. He doesn't just want half our heart. He doesn't want us to to have an idol that takes up even 10 percent, 5% of our heart, and he gets the other 9095%. No, he wants wholeheartedness. Oh, brother. And I say we need to be careful. We live in a society where idolatry is very real. And John said, little children, keep yourselves from idols.
I think.
Go ahead. And I think too, there's an intellectual idolatry that we suffer from in North America and the Western world in general. An idol was, uh, an image of God that the person made according to their understanding or their, what they interpreted God to be. And I think intellectually in this country and in Western world, intellectuals have created a God of their own liking. They don't like this about God. They don't like the fact that hell exists. They don't like this other point of God. So they created God of their own liking. And whenever man creates a God of his own liking, he'll create a God just like himself.
And so in Psalm 50, it says in verse 21, thou thoughtest that I was altogether such as one as thyself. So man, whenever he's created gods from his look at the Roman gods, you always created God that is just like himself.
In Isaiah 2 where Jim was reading, I'd just like to read a little bit further on in that chapter because it will show what gives them to throw away their idols and I think this is something to be considered. Verse 17 says the loftiness of man.
Shall be bowed down in the haughtiness of men. Shall be made low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, and the idol as he shall utterly abolish. And they shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His Majesty, when he rises to shape terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold.
Which they made each one for himself to worship to the moles and to the bats, and to the go into the clefts of the rock, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His Majesty.
When he arises to shake terribly the earth, O brethren, the manifestation of the Lord Jesus when he comes back is going to be so overwhelming, those idols will be taken and be thrown to the bats of the earth.
That's their proper place to be abolished. And when we get in view the glorious person of the Lord Jesus, how can we countenance idols?
Brother Dave, you're gonna say something. Sorry.
This is not a general reference to idols. It's a specific reference to idols. You know, umm, it's interesting that umm, just look at another reference. You remember when, umm, when Rachel stole her father's idols, she, she took them and she hid them. That is characteristic of us is we take those things, we don't want anybody to see them. We don't want anybody to know that we have them and we hide them.
And if those things that are a real problem, but you know, we can make all kinds of excuses for them. It's very interesting if you look at this particular reference.
00:50:08
Which is, uh, it's Exodus 32. We won't turn to it, but, but you know, the reference, uh, Moses is up in the mouth and, uh, he's coming down the mountain, you know, Joshua says, uh, it's getting kind of noisy in the camp. And uh, Moses says, well, you know, let's, let's go check it out until they go down and, umm, and uh.
They, they get there and, and, and here's, here's Aaron, he's kind of sheepishly standing there and there's this golden calf and, and Moses says, uh, uh, what's going on? And, and Aaron says, well, you know, umm, the people, they gave me their earrings and they gave me this gold and we rounded up and we threw it in the, uh, in the, in, in the river and out popped this cap. Oh, really? Is that really what happened? You know, that, that it's just a ridiculous comment and yet we make the most ridiculous excuses.
For the things that we bring into our lives that we think, oh, well, they're very necessary or well, you know, umm, I, I really need this. Uh, I know it could be a problem. Uh, you know, these things that, that we want to hide from everybody so nobody else sees. But there are a real problem in our own lives. And it was a real problem here with the Corinthians. We looked at water work, verse 6 together, verse six. But with many of them, God was not well pleased. Excuse me, verse six. Now these things were, are examples to the intent that we should.
Not.
Verse 11.
Now all these things happened under them for in samples or examples.
And they were written for our Imam and nation, in other words, to, uh, Amanishas.
Let me read one more verse in Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 5, Hebrews 8 and verse five who served? And they're talking about the Aranet priest here, serving the shadows.
And Christ served in the realities of them, but who serve unto the example in the shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the Tabernacle. Foresee saith, that thou will make all things according to the pattern showing in the mouth.
There's 3 words on there, example shadow and pattern.
In the packages that we've been reading, these examples are negative examples and we're being taught by mistakes of others. I've often said out of my mouth that I don't learn well by other people's mistakes. I've learned by my own mistakes, but the Word of God uses mistakes by other people to teach us.
To set as an example.
So that these are negative ones, they're an increase. We're on the positive side. There are positive examples that teaches in the word of God and then thank the Lord that he sets down a pattern in everything perfect and correct that we can be taught by that. Titus chapter 2 has pattern in it. I have Dave behind me that the body man. I have Troy beside me that the body man. Both of them know about patterns.
There's only one certain Fender that'll fit that exact year, that exact model of the car. No matter what, that pattern has to be exactly 100% perfect and correct. And those are the patterns that we have in the Word of God that are exactly perfect and correct in God's way. And right now we are learning in this passage from things that we should not, things that admonish us, and they are God's word and we need to learn from them, but thankful that there are positive things and there are patterns, things in God's Word.
Examples that we have, I'd like to look at Exodus 16. We're we seem to be dancing all around it. But if we just look at the pattern, the perfect pattern that we have before us, we'll see what they turned away from.
It gives us these, uh, five things that they turn to. But what did they turn from? From the Lord himself in, uh, Exodus 16, verse four, it says, then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will reign bread from heaven. So it's a type of Christ, the heavenly man. And then we have in verse 14 that when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness, they were lay a small.
Round thing, it speaks of His humility, His smallness, and His the roundness, I believe brings before us His eternality, His deity. And then so it was small as the hoarfrost on the ground. He was a lowly man. And then a little bit further on in the chapter in verse 31, it speaks of the House of Israel called the name thereof manna. And so it was that provision that God had made.
00:55:25
It was something of a regulated life that they were to gather day by day. And then it speaks of the coriander seed with light, the coriander seed, the source of life itself. Christ, God has given His Son that we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly. And then it was white. It speaks of purity. He was holy without sin. And so instead of being occupied with those things, that they were occupied with idolatry and.
Fornication and so on. They could have been occupied with the holiness of God. And then it says it was like wafers made with honey. It speaks of the sweetness of Christ. And so they turned away. God gives us a very clear picture that they turned away from the person of the Lord Himself, and they turned to other things. And so the remedy, I believe, is to have Christ before us, and all of His sweetness and all of His humility.
And if we have those things that come into our lives that displace Christ as an idol does, the answer to for us is to get into the presence of the Lord and to read the scriptures and to the occupied with Christ the heavenly man, the source of life and the sweetness of Christ will bring us back into fellowship. No no doubt self judgment as well as to why we got to where we got.
But it may be necessary to set something aside in our lives to get it out of our lives and exercise self judgment unsparingly. That that's helpful, and I think it is. You're Speaking of, conversely, what you see with the Thessalonians believers when they got saved, it doesn't say they turned from idols to God. It says they turn to God from idols. In other words, what they found when they got saved was so much greater that than the idols, the dumb idols they had once worshipped and looked to for deliverance, that it was no difficulty to cast off those idols because, as I say, what they found was so much greater.
But isn't that true, as Robert has said, in our Christian life as well, you know, sometimes we think of giving up things in separation from evil as a hard thing.
Now we're gonna get a scolding. Now we're gonna be told to do something hard. But as Robert has said, if Christ is everything to us in the measure in which you and I are enjoying the person of Christ, the wafers and honey, the man has been brought before us in that measure, we're not even gonna want those other things. Those things were gonna drop off. Those things were going to leave because the heart is satisfied. You know, it's interesting even with the quails in the wilderness.
He did feed them with meat, He allowed that, but he never satisfied them with it. It says in the Psalms, He fed them with me, He satisfied them with the bread from heaven. And so those things that are not of God, those things that are of the earth.
And nothing wrong again with meat, but the point, the spiritual lesson we learn is that it is what speaks of Christ. It's what comes from God through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we had yesterday, the water from the rock, the Spirit of God, to make that good to our souls and give us that refreshment, that is what is going to satisfy us. So if there's an idol in your life, instead of trying in a hard way to cut it off, get into the presence of the Lord and start enjoying the Lord.
Enjoy the sweetness of Christ. You'll go home and you won't even Washington Washington think about or or desire hanker after that, which was once an idol. Let's try to keep moving through these verses, brother, and else we're not going to get down to that section. We only have one more reading left. But I'm not saying that this is not profitable. I'm sure it is. But in verse eight we have fornication.
Illicit, sexual.
Uh, relations and it can be used in the spiritual way. It's illicit relations with those that we should not have relations with. God has made the sexual, uh, relations between a man and a woman who are married one of the most beautiful things there are in nature, yet man takes that and profanes it. He uses it outside of the bonds of marriage.
01:00:03
And it results in destruction and it results in down grading that which God made to be enjoyed. You know, in Hebrews chapter 12, Esau is called a profane person, and it says he was a fornicator. It doesn't tell us in the Old Testament that he committed fornication, but fornication is dealing with what is sacred as if it were common.
Don't do that. Sex is sacred. Young people only contemplated within the bonds of marriage. And so it is in connection with spiritual relationships too. In the case of Esau, what did he deal with that was sacred? He dealt with it as common. It was the birthright. God gave him a birthright and that was sacred. He said, oh, what use is that? To me, it's not any more worth than a in a bowl of pottage. Give me a bowl of pottage.
That's why he's called the fornicator and a profane man and so the Lord help us to deal with these things properly and then we have and I I don't wanna cut off anybody else that has specific exercise in verse nine is tempting Christ. If you go back to the 21St of numbers. It is where they were discouraged. They got their eyes on the circumstances and then they despised this light bread.
And that was.
Not pleasing to the Lord, and they were destroyed of serpents. And then there was murmuring. Verse 10.
Not content with what God gives us, wanting something further. These are things that afflict us all, brethren, and it's interesting that it comes in this very chapter about the Lord's table rather than I think it has something to say to each one of us.
These things the Lord help us in our meditation, but I'd like to just mention before we go on. In verse 12, it says, Wherefore let him that thinketh, he standeth. Take heed lest he fall. None of us can say we're all right. We've got it together. We have to stand and exercise because we are talking about a God who sees everything, brethren, everything is naked and open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
And there are things in my life that I don't realize that are there even, and so I tremble in his presence, but I thank God that he has taken me into his family and that He will deal with me faithfully. And notice verse 13. It's beautiful. I'm pushing ahead. But then there might be other comments. There is no temptation taking you, but such as is common to man Notice this.
Next statement. God is faithful, That is a bulwark. Brethren, we can count on God's faithfulness. Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.
The Lord help us, brother, and this is a wonderful promise. God is faithful. He cannot be anything but what he is. He is faithful. He will always be that way.
I would suggest that these two verses, 12 and 13 are the two serious difficulties that come about with temptation or testing. Verse 12 is referring to what Bob has just mentioned, where we think, I'll never be tempted by that. I'll never fall into that kind of a sin. I'm immune to that.
Very dangerous attitude to take, isn't it? And I'm reminded of the story, which has often been told before, about the wealthy man in years gone by who was looking for a coachman to drive his coach. And he raised the question to all of the potential applicants, how close could you drive to the edge of a Cliff without dropping a wheel over it? And several made various.
Confident assertions about what they could do and how close they could come.
Driving horses with a coach and not drop a wheel over the edge.
The one that got the job was the one that said, Sir, when I'm driving along the edge of a Cliff, I stay as far away from it as I possibly can. He got the job, and unfortunately the world today tries to provoke us to get as close to the edge as we can without falling over it.
01:05:18
We need to be careful because we're all vulnerable.
But verse 13 is the other side of the coin. It is succumbing because we say the whole tide of things in this world is so strong and so overwhelming that I find it too difficult to swim against the current. I find it too difficult. The Lord has allowed me to be in a spot where the testing is too hard for me to overcome. And allow me to say that I have heard.
Dear people of God, say that to me, and I don't pretend to be above it myself, not at all. But I have heard those whom I knew to be real Christians, true believers who love the Lord. And yet when I pointed something out to them, they have said, well, but look at this circumstance and that circumstance in my life, and look at what I have to pass through as much as to say, Don't you think the Lord cuts me a little slack in those situations?
I like that comment you made, Bob, out of verse 13. God is faithful and He never allows us in a circumstance where He doesn't give the grace to overcome it. He never puts us into a situation where I have to say there's no way of standing against this. We do make allowances for some who under very difficult circumstances have succumbed. We feel for them. But I say to my own heart.
I can't use that as an excuse, can I?
We have these five steps, uh, of increasing, umm, moral decline presented in this chapter in the wilderness. And then we have the Lord's table. It's it, it, it reminds me of that question that us in Psalm 78. And I know this is perhaps taken out of context, but the 19th process says, yeah, they speak against God. They said, under these circumstances, is it at all possible for God to provide, to furnish the table in the wilderness?
I grew up in a circle of believers where the answer to that question was given as no, it is not possible for God to provide a table in the wilderness. But I believe that we can answer that question and say, yes, it is possible for God to furnish a table in the wilderness. We don't have to succumb to the world and its temptations and say we cannot go on in that which God has given us, but it is so important as to what we are identified with.
And with the Lord's Table we have the idea of fellowship, and as the chapter goes on, it speaks of identification.
When we remember the Lord at the Lord's table, we are identified with other believers that they're with us and with what is held in conjunction with what is practice. And so it says, you know, it ends the point. This whole chapter, umm has various threads through it to be sure, but in verse 14 he reiterates wherefore my delay daily beloved plea from idolatry. It does matter what we're identified with. But yes, God can indeed punish a table in the wilderness.
Length when it.
13 He not only can, but he will. God will secure a victory over.
When it says that we're not able to bear, but He is able, He can and He will secure a victory over that 4th. And so we're turning into the positive things here, aren't we, that He has laid down for us here and then moving on into the Lord's Table and the beauty of it.
Of unbelief and how we can be unbelieving believers. And in Second Timothy where you have a day of ruin and a day of mixture of profession and and reality, it says there if we believe not, he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself. I find that again a great comfort. And it's very interesting in Second Timothy that Timothy is not only told to go on as an individual. That's true.
And we often say the last days are characterized by individual faithfulness. That is true as well. And Timothy's told continue thou that's individual. But in the second chapter of that epistle epistle, we find he's also told.
01:10:02
To go on with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. In other words, he's told Timothy, there still might be, There's still those who are faithful to my name. There's still those who are faithful to the truth that you have been taught by the apostle Paul and the truth of Scripture. That's the collective side of things. And I say that as a warning, brethren, because I have heard people say that, well, in the days in which we live, it's such a day of ruin and such a day when things are broken up and fragmented that it doesn't matter anymore.
And you really can't discern the Lord's table or where the Lord is in the midst of his people, the gathering center. However, it is what and it just doesn't matter where we fellowship anymore. As long as we go on individually and follow and serve the Lord brethren, it does matter. It does matter. He cannot deny himself. We're to go on with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Even with all that was going on in Israel, there was still God's ability to furnish, as Nick has said, a table in the wilderness.
Here in Corinth, with all that was going on.
And there was appalling situations at the Lord's table, brethren, they were drunk at the Lord's table. They were in fornication at the Lord's table. They were doing things they ought not that were awful. But was God faithful? He could not deny himself. And I just say this too, as we sum up the the what, the what we've had before us, that the wilderness teaches us 2 great lessons. It teaches us, first of all, our own hearts.
And brethren, we need it for the to take up the wilderness journey. For that reason, what we have in connection with Israel and the wilderness is a reflection of really what's in our own hearts. But it also teaches us the heart of God. So it teaches us, as someone else has said, that the flesh profits nothing, but God is faithful. And brethren, if we learn that from what we've had before us in these readings already, then I believe we have learned a great lesson. Again, the flesh profits nothing teaches us our own heart, but it teaches us that God is faithful and.
That through the resources he gives, it is a it is possible to go on. Dear, beloved Caleb, dear beloved Joshua. They went on. Think of what they saw around them. They saw their own generation fall around them in the wilderness. They saw sin on every hand. They heard the murmuring and complaining and the fault finding and the governmental hand of God upon them, 'cause they say, well, we're going to follow the Lord, but we're not going to go on with those rebellious people anymore. We're going to find our own way to the Jordan and across to the Promised Land. No, they went on quietly. They never compromised.
But they went on quietly and they received a real blessing as a result of their faithfulness. They were faithful amidst unfaithfulness. And brethren, we can with the resources that we have, because God is faithful, you and I can go on to the very end. We don't have to compromise the truth. And we're gonna find there are others with a similar exercise and desire, and that God's desire still is to have a place where we can sit down at the Lord's table to partake of the Lord's Supper.
Before we sing that, I'd just like to make the comment because I think that is good. What Jim said is that the Lord Jesus or the.
Apostle Paul gives the instructions in the next chapter that we are to, uh, remember the Lord until He comes.
If that has the request that the Lord has made, he's not going to make it an impossible situation. He's going to make it possible at a designated place that He has ordained called His table. So I want to leave that with you young people.
As a reason that I believe that there is a true place to do it.
Excuse me?
#76.
Umm.
Perhaps I don't know what we have to do in my life once I have closed down rain.
Nsnoise.
Number six, before we pray just for our encouragement.
In uh, Galatians chapter 6.
Versus 7-8.
God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap, for he that soweth to the flesh shall love his flesh. Reporruption.
But either soweth in spirit, shall love the spirit, reap life everlasting.
Haggai
Address—Bill Prost
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Could we sing together part of a long hymn?
Number 79.
Number 79. It would be nice to sing the whole hymn, but forsake of time. Let's begin at verse 7.
And see, the Spirit's power has opened. The heavenly door has brought me to that favorite hour when toil shall all be ore. And here's what we've had before us. Although on the heavenly side of things, there on the hidden bread of Christ, once humbled, here that's the manna. God's treasured store forever fed his love, my soul.
Here, looking on to the wonderful future that is before every believer #79 beginning at verse seven. And we'll sing it to the tune. Welcome voice.
Uh.
Nsnoise.
Oh great. Well.
There all day and I thought.
My soul.
Was great spring break on spring.
Light winds to my voice.
Uh.
00:05:16
When a brother from the local gathering here in Saint Louis asked me to take the responsibility of this meeting.
I asked him is it a young people's address?
And he said no, it's just whatever the Lord lays on your heart for everyone.
I trust before the Lord that there will be some things for those who are younger, but perhaps some things for every age group, including my own, although I am by no means the oldest one here, not by a long shot.
But let's turn, please, to a short book in the Old Testament that I have been occupied with lately, the book of Haggai.
The book of Haggai, right toward the end of the Old Testament.
A very short book, only two chapters, and yet much that is in it for our souls.
I may say at the outset of this meeting.
That much of what I had on my heart has already been said.
In various ways. Next said much of it yesterday and I reminded him of that when we were chatting together. And some more of it has been said during the reading meeting this morning.
So that's all right.
I can well remember and pardon the personal reference, but when I was in medical school I can remember.
A professor saying to us, you probably are looking at the mass of things that you will have to learn and wondering however you are going to absorb it all. But he said, remember anything that's important will be repeated over and over again.
So repetition is not all bad, but we trust that what we have from this book will be fresh and from the Lord.
Just to get the setting here.
Haggy, I prophesied in a very short time, probably less than one year.
And we can pin it down pretty much when that was.
For those that are interested, we'll give a few dates in a minute, but what is the background of Haggai's book?
He is one of what we call the post captivity prophets along with Zechariah and Malachi. He prophesied after the Babylonian captivity of Israel or we might say Judah.
He prophesied specifically to those who had come back from Babylon under Zerubbabel and Joshua and others whom Cyrus had told to go back to the land of Israel.
And rebuild the temple.
Sad to say, relatively few of those who had left in the captivity came back. Fewer than about 50,000, but they did come back.
We know that Nebuchadnezzar took over the land of Judah in and this is pretty much accepted in 606 BC.
Probably about 538 BC are the events of Daniel chapter 5 when Belshazzar was slain by the Meadow Persians and it's recorded that Darius the Meade took the Kingdom, but Darius only lasted a couple of years and then was succeeded.
By a man whose name has been prophesied by Isaiah, probably about 175 years before a king by the name of Cyrus. And Cyrus was a Persian.
And he was the one who?
Told the Jews to go back to the land and rebuild the temple. And they did, and for a while, under Zerubbabel and others, they worked with a willing hand. They built the altar of the Lord 1St and offered sacrifices. Then they laid the foundation of the temple and began to build.
00:10:21
It was what we might call a time of.
Real rejoicing. And yet when we read about the foundation of that temple being laid, we find that there was a generation gap. There were older ones who had seen the Temple of Solomon and they wept, and they were younger ones who hadn't been there to see that old temple. I say old in the sense of previous.
And they shouted for joy, and the two sounds were so commingled that you couldn't, it says, distinguish the one from the other.
And I believe the Lord accepted both.
He recognized both.
But then something happened. We find that the people eventually lost heart, and as a result, they stopped building the temple.
And later on, of course.
And this is often a principle with God. When the people lost heart, God allowed there to be a royal decree which prevented them from building.
Without going into too much detail, but if Cyrus proclaimed the liberty for anyone who wanted to go back and build the temple, probably in 536 BC, that corresponded, didn't it, with the prophecy of Jeremiah, who had foretold that there would be 70 years of captivity, and that was fulfilled right to the letter.
But then eventually, when the people lost heart, they stopped the building and there was a period of time when they devoted themselves to their own interests.
And Haggai comes along in the reign of a man by the name of Arctic Xerxes. In history, he's generally known by the name of Smurdus or Pseudosmertus. We won't go into the reasons for that. And he began to reign at 522 BC. So there was a period of time there when the people were relaxing.
He didn't rain that long.
Because about a year later, a very brilliant and strong man by the name of Darius. And there were several men by the name of Darius in the Old Testament. But this Darius is what we he goes by the name of.
Darius Histospace kind of a mouthful and he eventually murdered this Arctic Xerxes and took the throne from him in 521.
BC so there are some dates for those that are interested in pigeonholing when things happened.
I'd like to look at the prophecy of Haggai and make 4 distinct points which I trust are from the Lord, because the days in which you and I live are much the same as the days of Haggai.
As Israel was a failure, so in an outward way the Church has been a failure. And yet God in His grace, and it was brought out in the Reading meetings both yesterday and today, has graciously brought back the precious truth that He gave at the beginning concerning the Church, and enabled you and me once again to live and walk in the good of it.
Let's look then at what happens and what Haggy I has to say.
AGI chapter one, verse one.
In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, unto Zerubbabel the son of Shallotteal, a governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Joseph the high priest, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts say this, people say, the time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built.
Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet saying.
Is it time for you or ye to dwell in your sealed houses? And this house lie waste now therefore, thus saith the Lord of Hosts. Consider your ways. You have so much and bring in little. Ye eat, but you have not enough. You drink, but ye are not filled with drink. Ye clothe you, but there is none warm. And he earneth wages. Earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
00:15:18
Thus set the Lord of hosts.
Consider your ways, go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the house, and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.
You look very much. And Lloyd came the little, and when he brought it home I did blow upon it. Why saith the Lord of Hosts? Because of mine house That is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.
I'd like to make an application of what we have here.
First of all though, sometimes you and I find that things don't go well in our lives.
And clearly and simply, the Lord sometimes allows there to be difficulties in our lives for various reasons, and it isn't always for what we are going to bring out from this chapter. But sometimes things, things don't go very well in a natural sense. And sometimes things, things don't go very well in a spiritual sense.
And sometimes they don't go well in a spiritual sense individually.
Sometimes they don't go well collectively.
It's always easy to point the finger at circumstances, or perhaps at someone else.
I have heard it many times, and perhaps I've used it myself too, because there's truth in it, where when I have talked to individuals who find that things are not going well in their lives, or I talk to those who bemoan the condition of things among the Lord's people.
The statement is made and it's true.
Satan is sure being active today, isn't he? The devil is working overtime to cause problems in our lives.
That is true.
And I don't take away from it.
But may I say it's a half truth?
Satan cannot do one thing to you and to me unless the Lord allows him to do it.
We won't turn to it, but you see that perhaps most clearly in the book of Job, where Satan, almost, as you would say, had to get permission from the Lord to do something to Job. And the Lord told him how much he could do and how far he could go.
And it's the same today. And if the Lord has allowed perhaps even in natural things to happen, what we have seen here in this chapter, or perhaps spiritually He has allowed it.
Twice over, Haggai says these words. Consider your waste.
It's easy to point the finger. I say it the devil. It's easy to point it at someone else.
And shall I say it out loud?
When there are problems and difficulties that the Lord allows among His people collectively, it's easy to point the finger.
At those whom we figure are responsible for the difficulty, and I want to make it clear that I refer in no way to any particular difficulty because.
At this very moment, I know of more than one in this world.
Among those gathered to the Lord's name.
The Lord perhaps is saying to me and to all of us, consider your ways. And if I fail to do that, then I miss the blessing.
Oh, the Lord is willing to bless. He wants to bless. But if you're anything like me, I like to see things go on smoothly. We like everything to go on nicely. All the nice conferences that we enjoy attending here in North America, all the nice camps and young peoples get togethers and harvest parties and various and sundry things that we have the freedom to do and the liberty and Ways and Means to do.
To and I don't take away from them one bit. They're wonderful.
00:20:02
But if the Lord for a moment puts a little bit of a damper on any of that.
We should not hesitate to consider our ways because sometimes the Lord has something to say to me that maybe has little or nothing to do with what appears on the surface, and maybe He wants me to deal with something in my own life.
Sometimes it has to go a ways back, but there is a time in your life and mine when God would have us to consider our ways again. I don't want anyone to misunderstand this because self occupation.
Is not God's purpose for us, and the individual who is occupied with himself is never happy.
Never God wants you and me to be occupied with Christ and with all that we have in Him. But sometimes self examination and self judgment are necessary. And it was necessary in Haggai's day. And the result of considering their ways brought real blessing.
To see that go on a little bit in the chapter. What happens in verse 12?
Chapter One. Then the Rubble, the son of Shall Teal and Joshua, the son of Josadec.
The high priest and notice this, they took the lead, but it says with all the remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord.
Then spake Haggy I and notice this again the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message under the people saying I am with you, saith the Lord.
I am with you.
Oh, I say that to each one here. And it has all been ready, been reiterated in the meetings, in the readings. The Lord is still with those who want to call upon His name. And there is no reason why anyone in these last days of the Church's history cannot enjoy the Lord just as much as anyone did right at the beginning of the dispensation.
Now we'll talk about that a little more in a moment, but the Lord says, here I am with you. What a wonderful thing it is to remember that the Lord wants to bless. And if you say I don't see much blessing, I don't see that things are going on in the right way.
I say maybe the Lord wants you to be as a Rubble or a Joshua and take the lead.
And maybe as a young person, you say, I don't know how to do that. Do you really expect me to grab hold of the reins of things and override those who are much older in my local assembly than I am and start putting things right? No, no, that's not what it means. But again, and it was said in the readings.
What carries far more weight than anything, whether you're young or old, is our walk and our ways.
Our walk and our ways are far more important because then the power of God is behind us.
And when there is an effort to deal with something before the Lord and to do what is right, we often find the Lord comes in at a wonderful way. And it happened here. We won't go back to the book of Ezra to see all that happened, but it's interesting you have to read Haggy Eye with Ezra to get the whole picture.
Because Ezra is more of an historical book and it gives the facts, but Haggai is a prophetical book and it talks about the moral condition of the people. So Ezra doesn't talk so much about the moral condition of the people, except that later on Ezra, who lived a long time after Haggai's time, I don't suppose they ever knew each other.
But.
Ezra confesses the sins of the people in the 9th chapter of Ezra, but other than that the book of Ezra gives historical facts but haggy ideals with the moral state of the people and doesn't give the history. So you need the two together. What happened when those people started to build here supposedly against?
00:25:02
The decree of King Arthur Xerxes.
He wasn't around anymore. He wasn't around anymore. And when they went to this king Darius, some of the people and said what about these Jews that are building this temple?
Then Darius went and took a look in the records, and he apparently had a great respect for Cyrus, and when he looked back into the records he found that it was indeed a decree of Cyrus to rebuild the temple. And he said.
Let those Jews alone, and not only let them alone, but you give them everything they need out of the King's revenue. He supported them.
Isn't it wonderful that when we strike out for the Lord with His mind, then we find that all of His power is behind us, even sometimes the secular authorities? Well, let's go on here because we don't have a lot of time.
That's number one. Sometimes we need to consider our ways. Chapter 2.
In the seventh month, a little bit later, in the one and 20th day of the month, came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying, Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shall Teal, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josadec the high priest. And to the residue of the people, saying, Who is left of them among you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now?
Is it not in your eyes, in comparison of a comparison of it, there's nothing. Yeah, no, be strong. Those are rubble, saith the Lord.
And be strong, O Joshua the son of Joseph the high priest. And be strong, O ye people of the land, saith the Lord. And work, for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts.
According to the word that I covenanted with you when he came out of Egypt. So my spirit remaineth among you. Fear ye not.
And I'm going to read that fifth verse approximately as it is in a better translation in the Darby translation.
Leave out the words according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, and my spirit remain among you. Fear ye not His Word and his Spirit.
Wonderful.
You know when some of those came back from Babylon.
Especially those that could remember the 1St house, it was easy to feel discouraged.
They were looking at the past.
It's not wrong to remember the past. A few days ago, a brother was reminiscing a little bit.
And he's my age.
And he said to me, Bill, you know, it's good to remember the past and enjoy it. But he said it's good not to live on it.
Some time ago.
I listened to a cassette tape and it was a real cassette, it wasn't ACD.
I still have a cassette player. Old, old people still have those things and I listen to a cassette of a meeting.
At Wheaton, IL between 55 and 60 years ago.
It brought back good memories.
And unlike most of the CDs today, they also had the singing on it, which perhaps some of you realize that I particularly enjoy. And it brought back tears to my eyes as I heard the brother start the hymn. And I knew who it was by his voice too.
And I heard the groundswell of volume come up from however many hundreds of people there were at that conference. You remember that, Bob?
Wheaton Conference. I'm sure you do. Anyway, the point is, I enjoyed that, but you know, living on the past is not a good thing.
It's good to remember the past.
But God wants us to to look on to the future.
00:30:05
There's a danger, and I speak to those of us that are older, of looking at the past.
And wishing things were back the way they were.
And sometimes, shall we say, there's a danger in the other direction of trying to recreate the past.
And shall I say this even though we would not want to do it, and if it were suggested to us, we would probably immediately cry out against it. It is there sometimes the thought.
That we are recreating Pentecostal days.
Is there sometimes the thought, shall I say it, that yes, we are living in the last days and we are living in the great House of Christendom, But thank the Lord, there is one part of the great house where things are done right. And even though we might not say it out loud by implication, well, yes, and that's where we are.
Things ought to be done right.
Yes, they should.
But to quote a brother who's some will recognize this quotation, it may not be word for word, but it's a good one to remember that wherever there is an attempt to set up and display the position in the unity, there will be nothing but a mess and a failure.
God will not take this place with us.
I do not limit what the Spirit of God can do, but in order to be in the place of God's strength, I must be in the place of His mind, and that is in the recognition of the failure of the church.
We are at the end of a ruined dispensation where things are broken up and by God's grace He has given us, and it is His grace and nothing else, because we're no better than anyone else. He's given us the opportunity to give expression to that same precious truth that He gave at the beginning. But just as.
Those who came back with a rubble and Joshua could not hope to have the glory of the days of Solomon, or be an independent nation, or have the Shekinah glory in the temple, or all of those things that had characterized Israel in their days of glory. So you and I in these last days must recognize where we are.
But the Lord has not changed. And how does He direct our hearts?
Verse five to His Word and His Spirit. Now in the Old Testament no one was indwelt by the Holy Spirit, if we could use the term reverently on a permanent basis.
The Spirit came upon them from time to time, gave them the word of the Lord, whether it were to write the scriptures.
By inspiration or to give expression to it orally.
But nevertheless, it was the Spirit of God and the Word of God. And the Lord gives both of these here in verse five of chapter 2. And you and I have both today, but so much more than they had.
There were some in this day that we're saying, and it was said today in the reading, is it worth it? Is it worth it? Look at this pitiful house that we're trying to build. Is it really worth it?
What does the Lord say? I am with you.
Oh, God values that which honors the name of Christ. He values that.
And giving up on it is not what God would have us to do.
Is it difficult? Sometimes? Indeed it is. Indeed it is, and we don't minimize the difficulties.
And sometimes.
The devil attacks very specially when difficulties come in and it's a lot easier to say.
As one brother said to me one time, Bill, I want some peace and quiet. I could relate to that because the devil especially going to attack that which seeks to honor Christ in any way, shape and form in this world.
In foreign lands, as we had before us earlier today in the prayer meeting, he sometimes attacks.
By persecution from the outside.
And it's very, very difficult, very difficult, one wave after another of constant harassment, sometimes by the civil authorities.
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And it never seems to end.
For you and for me in these favorite lands, though sometimes it comes from within the House of Christendom, sometimes it comes from that which professes the name of Christ. And although I in no way minimize that which comes from the world outside, sometimes that which comes from within the great House is even harder to bear.
Because it comes from those from whom we might have expected support and help.
If we were to go back to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, we would find that the opposition in many cases came from those who were right in the land, those who were in the northern part of the Kingdom, the Samaritan Kingdom.
Who tried all kinds of Wiles and all kinds of attacks in order, all kinds of things in order to try and stop the work of building the wall and carrying on. And it happened when they were building the temple too, in different ways.
I am with you Seth, the Lord, the word that I gave and he goes right back to the beginning when they came out of Egypt and my spirit remaineth among you. Fear he not. I say that to each one, especially to the young people here, because you have a difficult Rd. in the world of today, but the Lord says I am with you.
That's number two.
But I wanna say something just to support one remark that I made and that is.
When they said that this house looks kind of pitiful, what does the Lord say in verse?
Six, chapter 2, verse six. For thus saith the Lord of hosts. Yet once it is a little while is that phrase repeated in the New Testament a few times. Indeed it is. And I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land.
And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations, that's the Messiah shall come. And I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. And it should read not the glory of this latter house, but the latter glory of this house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of Hosts.
And in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord.
Oh, the Lord says, don't look back, look to the future. The Scripture hasn't been fulfilled yet. All the Messiah has come. But the glory of that house that is prophesied here, that has to wait until the millennial day. But it's coming. And God is going to give a glory far, far greater than even in the days of Solomon. I say to you and to me.
Yes, we can look back.
But the Lord says, I want you to look forward.
Let me tell a story that maybe I've told before, but someone repeated it to me a few days ago.
Some years ago.
My elderly aunt by marriage, Auntie Ruth from Ottawa, went to be with the Lord. She had lived in her home there in Ottawa all her life. Her parents lived in that home when she was born and when she got married she moved into the lower story of that home and her parents moved into the upper story. She lived in that home.
For more than 96.
Years. Eventually she got cancer and had to be in a hospital and it was very clear that it was only a matter of time until the Lord would take her home.
She was going into Hospice care, which was only a matter of few blocks from where she had lived, and as the ambulance was taking her there, her grandson, who is a paramedic and was riding in the ambulance with her, he said. Grandma, would you like to go past the old house one more time?
Her remark thrills my soul.
She said. Oh no, Matthew, I'm not looking backward, I'm looking forward.
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Don't bother taking me back to that old house, I'm looking for a better one.
Didn't even want to be bothered going by the old house.
The father's house loomed up out of her.
Let's go on verse 10. Our time is going in the four and 20th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius. Now here's Darius.
Very powerful king, reigned for a long time, about 36 years. Really did a lot for the Persian Empire. Although just as an aside, he managed to pick fights with the Greeks and incur their wrath and antagonism and.
Down the road that translated into an Alexander the Great who eventually smashed up the Persian Empire and took control of it. But that perhaps is beside the point. But it just mentions the time frame here.
In the four and 20th day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord by Haggai, the Prophet saying.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Ask now the priest concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt to touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, should it be holy?
And the priest answered and said no.
Then Haggy, I said, If one that is unclean by a dead body, touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, said the Lord, And so is every work of their hands, and that which they offer there is unclean.
And now I pray you consider there's that word again from this day upward. And before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord.
Since those days were when one came to an heap of 20 measures, there were but ten when one came to the press fat for to draw out 50 vessels out of the press, there were but 20I smote you with blasting them with mildew and with hail, and all the labors of your hands. That's what had happened during that time, that they were not paying attention to the Lord's work.
Yet ye turn not to me, saith the Lord.
Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and 20th day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid considerate.
Is the seed yet in the barn? Yeah. Is yet The vine and the fig tree and the pomegranate and the olive tree is not brought forth from this day I will bless you.
I say again, much of this was covered in the last reading meeting. What was another problem? Why the Lord wasn't prospering them. Oh, there was not a separation between clean and unclean.
And what the Prophet was saying here was.
If something is there.
Does the fact that the priest touches it make it clean?
And the priest said no, it doesn't.
OK, but supposing something that is unclean touches those things, does that make them unclean? And the priest said yes it does.
What is the point?
The point is very simple. If I were to ask any child here, or any child old enough to have handled fruit, if I were to take.
An apple with a good rotten spot in it and put it in a bag with half a dozen good apples and sit the bag on the shelf for three or four days. What would happen if I open the bag up?
What? I find that all the good apples had made the rotten one nice and good to eat. What is that? What would happen? You know very well it wouldn't happen. I see John roosing over here, grinning. He runs an apple farm. He knows very well what would happen.
No good chance they'd all be rotten by that time, or at least have something rotten in them.
What the prophet is saying here, it is important for separation between clean and unclean and we don't need to be labor the point except that we live in a world which is full of uncleanness. No, I don't want to be misunderstood because there is a difference between separation and isolation. And if there is a lost world out there, and some of us were talking about this at lunch.
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We are in this world, but not of the world, and the Lord would have us to go out to a lost world and reach them with the gospel and to be so separate from them that I never have anything to do with them.
Is not God's way. No, no. I should be the first one to help out if the world needs help. I should be the first one to tell them about Christ. I should be the first one to bear a Christian testimony to them.
But follow them down that pathway of uncleanness? Absolutely not. And as was brought out in the reading, it is so easy today.
To get into that uncleanness.
I'm going to re echo a remark that another brother made in an address several years ago and I thought it was a good one.
He was lately, although he didn't say so, but he was likely referring to the Internet or the television and maybe things like Facebook and stuff like that.
He said 60 seconds is one minute too long to be feeding a dead man.
I think the meaning is pretty clear, isn't it? What's the dead man, the old sinful flesh in each one of us?
And it's liable to get fed very easily if we don't look out. And I speak to my own heart. Don't think I'm preaching at you.
It is just as much a problem for any of us.
But it's so easy today.
And pretty soon we're going down a road and we said where am I heading?
I know how easy it can happen.
And the devil is made it very easy.
Some years ago.
I was looking up something in the medical field on the Internet. I still don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden there I was on a site of ***********. I wasn't looking for it. Nothing I punched in in any way, as far as I could tell, attracted that, but there it was. I was shocked at how easy it came up. I don't. I don't. I still don't know how it happened.
I'm thankful the Lord gave me the grace just to click it off instantly.
Because I guess I've known enough from talking to other people.
Where that kind of a road leads.
But the point is, it's so easy today to fall into those traps. And it's not all just the Internet. It's social interchanges. We have to live and move and work in this world. And the moral standards of this world have fallen down so low that just about anything goes today. You know that, you young people, probably a lot better than I do.
Let's remember this and remember.
That moral and spiritual leanness in our lives can often be traced back to this, whether individually or collectively. And yet, what does the Lord say here?
Again, he doesn't just give them negative things. What does he say?
He says verse 19. We read at the end of verse 19, From this day I will bless you.
Maybe you look back on your life and you say, Oh dear, I've succumbed to some of those temptations. I've been guilty of some of this uncleanness.
There's anyone here that can say, and I've never been tainted by any of it. I'd like to talk with you afterwards because.
I admire you.
It's so much all around.
The Lord always provides a way of repentance and coming back. Oh, he says come on back, come on back. I want you. And if I have allowed some difficulties and some problems.
I will not allow it to go on any longer, not one bit longer than I need in order to accomplish my purposes in you. And that is just as much true collectively as individually.
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Sometimes we get upset when difficulties and problems go on longer than we want.
And I must confess that I'm that kind of a person.
I'm not naturally very patient. I like something done.
Yesterday if possible.
And so it's not easy sometimes to have to wait on the Lord and let him work.
But the Lord never allows a difficulty or a problem in your life and mine, either individually or collectively, to go on any longer than we need in order to accomplish what He wants to do. And may I say one more thing? And it was also brought out in the reading. Sometimes you yourself may search your own heart and say, well.
I can honestly say that despite failure in my life.
I am not at this moment aware of any single thing that the Lord is drawing to my attention.
That I have to deal with.
That can be true. I'm thankful if it is. I'm thankful if you search your heart and consider your ways and say I don't really find any particular thing that the Lord is wanting me to deal with.
All I say is remember Caleb and Joshua.
They were faithful and they could have complained bitterly and said why do we have to wander 40 years in the wilderness?
Because of the failure of 10 other spies and ultimately the whole nation that decided that they weren't ready to go into the land of promise. Why should we waste the best years of our life in the wilderness when we were faithful that.
Isn't fair.
Does anyone ever hear anyone here ever thought that God wasn't fair?
I think we have it sometime, haven't we?
Let's not entertain that thought. Sometimes we need to suffer with the people of God to let God accomplish His purposes. And I'm thankful that I don't recall any word of complaint from either Caleb or Joshua in the wilderness. It must have been hard for them, but the Lord rewarded them. And when they got to the land, we find a Caleb 45 years later being able to say, I'm as strong as the day when Moses gave me this.
And I'm not quoting that accurately. And so on. He could count on the Lord, and the Lord didn't let him down. We never lose by allowing the Lord to do His work, not only in our hearts, but maybe in the hearts of others.
Our time is nearly gone. One last comment, verse 20 of chapter 2.
And again the word of the Lord came unto Haggai in the four and 20th day of the month, saying, Speak unto Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth. Well, just a minute, Haggy, are you already said that? But there's a little difference here. And I will overthrow the throne of the Kingdom of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heaven of the heathen rather, and I will overthrow the Chariots.
And those that ride in them.
And the horses and their riders shall come down everyone by the sword of his brother. But notice this. In that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shall Teal, saith the Lord. And I will make thee as a signet, for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of Hosts.
You know, there's a wonderful truth conveyed in that verse, that last verse, because if you trace the genealogy, you will find that Zerubbabel was in the royal line and was actually the rightful king. It must have been a very humbling thing for him as the rightful king to come back.
To the land of Judah and find himself under the domination of a foreign power. And he realized, I believe from the prophecies that had been given, that God was not going to re establish Israel in their land right at that point. And here he was the rightful king, taking the lead among his people, yes, but no longer able to exercise the authority and power that normally would have been his.
What does the Lord say to him, Zerubbabel?
You are a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a type of Christ here and in a coming day when the Lord Jesus takes his rightful place, isn't it beautiful?
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That you and I are going to be associated with them.
Won't it be worth it? In that day we sung that him as young people and I still like it. It will be worth it all when we see Jesus, life's trials will seem so small and so on.
Oh, what a wonderful future we have to which to look for. And to me what is so beautiful here is that this is a rubble is so closely connected with the Lord Jesus himself, the Messiah, that being in the royal line, the Lord uses him through Haggai as a type of Christ. And the application I make of that is that the Lord is really saying to you and to me, I have left you in this world.
To represent me in a very difficult day.
Are you prepared to do it? Zerubbabel was. He was prepared to take the low place and say by God's grace, I won't go back to that land. I will take the low place. I will rebuild a small temple that doesn't even compare to the previous one. I will go along with that small group of people there rather than seeking my own ease and pleasure.
And the Lord gives him a tremendous compliment and a tremendous reward for that. There's a reward waiting, too, for those who wish to be faithful.
Let's sing part of another hymn in closing. We have a minute or two left.
#173.
173.
This hymn bears that phrase a little while.
Beginning with a little while the Lord shall come and we shall wander here no more then going on to verse two, He'll come again. Let us the precious hours redeem our only grief to give him pain our joy to serve and follow him watching and ready may we be as those that wait.
Their Lord. To see, let's sing the last two verses, verses 3:00 and 4:00.
Of 173.
1 Corinthians 10:15-on
Reading
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.
46 in the appendix.
Nsnoise.
Breathing.
Rainforest every day.
I am flying by grace. You've done the same. You don't understand.
Uh.
Free breathing in life.
Nsnoise.
1St Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 15.
I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I say.
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body. Well, we are all partakers of that one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
What's AI then that the idol is anything or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything but? I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice the devils and not to God. And I would not that you should have fellowship with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils.
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You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.
Let no man seek his own, but every man and others well.
Whatsoever is sold in the shambles that eat, ask you no question for conscience sake, For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. If any of them that believe not, bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go.
Whatsoever is set before you eat, asking no question for conscience sake. But if any man say unto you, this is offered in sacrifice unto idols.
Eat not for his sake that showed it, and for conscience sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. Conscience I say, not thine own, but of the other. For why is my liberty judge of another man's conscience?
Four or five, by grace, be a partaker. Why am I evil? Spoken of for that for which I give thanks.
Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God, Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God, even as I please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.
A few minutes to go over a few points in this chapter. Uh, this is we, we said in the first meeting that this is a context. This chapter is in the about the Lord's table. And I like to look at some of these things in the chapter is that which would characterize a believer who is, is at the Lord's table and in verse one.
Going back over some verses, we see that there's a cloud, that cloud that represented the presence of the Lord. Well, in the assembly we have the promise of the Lord's presence, where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there are mine in the midst of them. And so we have the presence of the Lord, and it's the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who's there, who is the one who attracts the believers by the Spirit of God.
And to himself then, we have all were baptized unto Moses.
Uh, you, it's general generally wise that a person is baptized before they are received at the Lord's Table. In Galatians, we're speaking this the other day, Galatians 3 and 27, six or seven, it talks about putting on Christ. And so baptism puts on Christ.
And it identifies you with Christ. And so if you don't want to be identified with Christ, if you don't want to be baptized.
Then why would you want to be at the Lord's table? And so it's important for a person to be baptized baptism here, it's putting a person in relationship to Moses as their leader. Well, in Christian baptism, we are in relation with Christ as our leader. And then we then we have the spiritual verse three, we have the same spiritual meat. So we have the word of God. And so the things that represent the Lord's table should be.
Done in the unity of the Spirit, it should be done in accordance with the word of God. And then we have the spiritual drink has been mentioned about the Spirit of God and how he guides and directs. Then we have the spiritual rock to be the foundation of the assembly. And then we get down into verse 5 and it talks about with many of them. God was not well pleased for their overthrow in the wilderness and it goes on with several points that we went over.
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In the last meeting. And so I like to look at this as being a responsibility of the assembly to keep the Lord's Table clean. There's things here that don't belong at the Lord's Table. The evil things, the idolaters, the fornication, the tempting Christ and murmuring these, a lot of these things, they don't belong at the Lord's Table. And so if that's what characterizes a person who claims to be a Christian.
They don't belong at the Lord's table. And then we get down to verse.
Verse 13.
There hath no temptation taken you, but such is common to man. But God is faithful. And so these things we have in verse six through 10, there's 10 things there that would tempt a person to drag us away from giving glory to the person of the Lord Jesus and to dishonor his name. And they're the Wiles of the devil, those things that he would tempt us with. But God is faithful. God is faithful to be.
Be there to, to help us through these temptations and to overcome them. He gives, he gives us all the resources we need to be able to overcome those temptations. And then we get down into, into communion and the Lord's, the Lord's table. So I just want to make those few comments before we started.
In verse 15 he says, I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say. He wants to awaken their thinking to take these things properly. And it is important to have a clear understanding of where we are, brethren, not just to speak about it, but to have a clear understanding about it.
And then he goes on in verse 16.
To say, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
For we, being many, are one bread and one body, For we are all partakers of that one bread.
So here we have.
Brethren, what is characteristic of the Lord's Table? It's a place of fellowship, a place of communion, and it mentions first of all the communion of the blood of Christ before it mentions the communion of the body of Christ. Why is that?
Because that's our title to be there, the blood of Christ. That's really what gives us our place at the Lord's table. And so when he mentions here the Lord's table, we find that the cup is mentioned 1St and then the the loaf. When we go to the 11Th chapter and he takes up the Lord's Supper, it's reversed because there the the loaf has a little different significance than it does in our chapter.
And I think it's helpful to see that. So as Bob said, we have here the Lord's table. Our title to be at the Lord's table is the blood of Christ. That is when someone comes and wants to remember the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread, partake of the Lord's Supper at the Lord's table. The first thing we want to make sure is that they are redeemed by the blood of Christ, that they are saved, that the blood of Christ has been applied in their in their life and that that the number one criteria.
And so we have the cup, but then here in our chapter where he takes, he's taking up the Lord's table, the loaf here it has to do not so much with the physical body of the Lord Jesus, but it is the body of Christ made-up of every believer alive on the face of the earth at a given time. So tomorrow morning when we sit down to at the Lord's table, we're going to find not more, not two loaves on the table.
It's not gonna be wafers or crackers. It's gonna be one loaf. And why is it one loaf? Because that one loaf to the to God and I trust to us, represents every believer alive on the face of the earth at that time. There is one body as fragmented as things have become outwardly with Christians in various pockets and fellowships of Christendom and divided outwardly. It does not change the truth of Ephesians 4. There is one body. And brethren, tomorrow when we look at that loaf, we need to look at it the way God looks at it so and the way the Lord looks at it, because that loaf will not just represent those of us who are here in this room.
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Nor will that loaf represent just those who practically express the truth of the one body in the breaking of bread. That loaf will represent to God and I trust to us, every believer alive on the face of the earth. And if we don't see it that way, we become narrow and sectarian in our view. So that is the context of the loaf in our chapter. Now just to complete the thought.
The loaf in the 11Th chapter, where it's a question of the Lord's Supper.
There when we break the bread, it is to be a reminder of the Lord's body given in death for us. And there we find that the loaf is given 1St and then the cup, because on the cross the separation of the blood from the body was the proof of death. And not only that, but this is the way the Lord instituted it, the low 1St and the cup separate. And that is the way we always celebrate it. So I think it's helpful to see those little differences.
And why the the cup is mentioned first in our chapter and the significance of the loaf being different from the significance of the loaf in the next chapter?
Uh, behind Bob there, Sorry with the name, I can't pull it up, but spoke about moral and by basically chronological, I believe would be the other term and I believe wouldn't that also fit here because in Chapter 11.
The body was first before he had given up, and then the flood blood flowed out from the spear. That chronological and this one here is moral. Am I correct in my line of thinking?
Could put it that way. I I agree. I just reiterate what's been said. The blood comes first here because that is what.
Qualifies us to be at the table. I think we need to recognize too that this is a part of Paul's doctrine. It's unique to the teaching of the apostle Paul, and God gave the apostle Paul this as revelation. We might turn to 1St Corinthians 11 and just read that he says in verse 23.
For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. And then he goes, and he gives us those details. Now we have historically this.
The Lord's Supper, given to us by the Lord Jesus himself. He instituted it, and historically we're told in different aspects of it in a sense in those three gospels that we have. But Paul tells us the doctrinal significance.
Of the loaf and of the cup, as we have here, and the basis of our fellowship and the cost of our fellowship, the restoration of fellowship between man and God, and our fellowship at the Lord's table. It cost God the blood of His Son to bring us back into fellowship with Himself and on a righteous basis, as those that are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ and a part of the body of Christ.
Now we are in suited to be in fellowship with him might just point out as a little bit of a an outline so that we don't get confused as versus 16 and 17. Take up the fellowship of those that are Christians and at the Lord's table and he speaks as Bob began in when he spoke of those verse 15. I speak as to wise men, those that are believers.
Those that are indwelled with the Spirit of God and that have wisdom. There were, and it was alluded to this morning, possibly those that were lost did not have Christ as Savior and they were there and in a religious way perhaps. And but he spoke to those that had discernment and were wise and they could understand what he was saying. But there's a Christian communion spoken of here. And then in verse 18, he speaks of the Jewish communion.
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The Jewish altar, the means of approach that the Jews had when they came and offered their sacrifices to God. But then he also speaks in verses 19 and 20 of the Pagan sacrifices and that whole scheme of things, and none of them were to be mixed. Christianity is unique and is not an addition or an improvement on Judaism. It's entirely unique.
And so that's the apostle Paul. It's a part of Paul's doctrine, and we never get it in Peter's doctrine or anyone else's, anyone in the other apostles in connection with the doctrinal significance of these emblems and what they mean to the believer. And so we ought to distinguish it in that way in our own minds and enjoy it for what it is. So everyone that is voiced with that precious blood of Christ.
And a member of the body of Christ has a place at the Lord's table. Whether they are there or not is another matter, but they have a place there. And, and it's to be something that we should be exercised about. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you have been washed with that precious blood. The price of redemption has been paid, and you are a member of that body.
That one body of Christ. It's a significant truth of this dispensation. By 1 Spirit we are all baptized into one body. In Chapter 11 in the Lord's Supper, we show the Lord's death till he come. In chapter 10 at the Lord's Table, we show our fellowship as members of the body of Christ.
How do I show that I'm a member of the body of Christ?
Tomorrow, as we break bread and that loaf is broken and passed from one to another, I take a piece and I eat it. I am saying in that way that I am a member of the body of Christ. That's why we say sometimes, brethren, that there's a testimony in a certain place, because in the breaking of bread we show the Lord's death until he come in the Lord's Supper, and we show our fellowship as members of the body of Christ.
In the Lord at the Lord's Table, it's a place of fellowship, wonderful place of fellowship, rather than I often think if you were invited to the White House to have dinner with the president, wouldn't that be a tremendous thing? We're talking about something far greater than that. The Lord of Glory has said he wants us to remember him until he comes again.
I say to you young people who perhaps haven't taken your place at the Lord's table, do you understand the wonderful place that has been?
One for you. What would you think if I went into the president's table? He had invited me. I have the letter of invitation and I go in and there's my place set at the table and I take my seat and I pull it off into a corner.
And I sit down over there.
What would you think of me?
Maybe I'll say I just don't feel worthy of this place. That would be a pretty serious thing to do. What are you doing? The Lord of Glory has said this Do in remembrance of me until I come. But it's to be done in fellowship and as such it needs more than one to do it. It is. And like the look it says in Matthew 18, where 2.
Or three, the minimum of plurality, because we are one body. It's a collective thing, brethren, that we are showing.
There is a wood throughout this portion of two woods that are very important, and the word is translated communion, partaker, and fellowship. And in the Greek there's two different words. One means simply to share in the other is a much stronger word. It's a means to have fellowship with. And as we mentioned that every true believer has a place at the Lord's table, but there are things that can disqualify us from being there.
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And one of those things is to have fellowship with things that are contrary to the Lord's table. So 3 examples are given the Lord's and, and Bob, uh, mentioned this already, the Lord's table, the, uh, the Jewish altar, in particular, the peace offering where the offer also partook of that offering and then an offering to an idol. In each case, you simply had to be a partaker. That was a weak expression means sharing in it.
But in sharing in one of those things, you had fellowship with what that altar stood for. This is something that is completely lost upon people in Christendom. They want to remember the Lord as an individual thing, something that they do.
For, and it could be expressed in a variety of ways because the Lord asked them, because I, I, I want necessary put words into their mouth. But as is being said, the the remembrance of the Lord is a collective thing. In the next chapter you find ye do show. It is plural. It is ye show and is much less a remembering as it is a remembrance. November 11Th. And I've said this before and I always feel like I sound like a broken record when I reiterate things.
But November 11Th is Remembrance Day. It's a day about remembering fallen soldiers and and honoring them. And that is the sense of which it is a memorial. We have a remembrance and in it we do remember for ourselves what the Lord has done. But it's a showing as a let me just read from the next chapter because it makes it easier. It says for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he comes.
Umm.
There's another expression which I'm not seeing right now, but I think it's so important we understand that when we partake, simply share it.
That low we're identifying with those that we are remembering the Lord with. Eating is an expression of fellowship. The man of God and 1St Kings chapter 13, he was told not to eat or drink, to deliver his message and leave because to eat or drink was an expression of fellowship and he was not to have fellowship with that which was contrary to the message which he was delivering. And just one other point that was disconnected. Tell us what happened to him when he did that.
Umm, if I remember rightly, the lion ate him. He killed him anyhow.
Yeah, excuse me, sorry. Uh, just one other thing that I found helpful. We had Ezra before us in the meeting before Haggy. I strictly, but it was the time of Ezra. Umm, the book of Ezra, I should say. We find there that as I said, I don't remember the number you you said Bill, how many came back at that time 50,000 roughly 50,000 and yet when they offered to the Lord.
Umm, it says there.
And again, I'm probably not going to be able to put my finger on it. Well, chapter 6, verse 17 says.
Says and often at the dedication of the house that got 100 bullets and 200 Rams.
400 lambs and for a sin offering for all Israel 12 egos according to the number of the tribes of Israel, even though all the tribes of Israel were not represented. I don't know how many times I have been told that we cannot give expression to the one body unless we invite everyone to be in fellowship. Or do we have to be in practical fellowship with everybody? Numbers are not what count.
In.
The Lord's Table.
In what we have in our chapter in First Corinthians 10, that loaf is what gives expression to the one body, and in partaking of it we.
Uh, give an expression to the one body. It's not about numbers.
And and someone else can.
Help me out on these things and explain it no doubt much better.
The body of Christ is a wonderful reality, the unity of the body of Christ, and as you say, we express it in that one loaf that's on the table.
But, uh, I just wanted to say for the sake of the young people, not to be critical of other groups of believers, but there is a, uh, fellowship of believers that we know as the open fellowship. Many real true believers in that fellowship. I know many of them.
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But the principle they meet on is that every assembly is independent and autonomous. That is in their doctrine. That's what they teach. I've seen it in their booklets. And that is a practical denial of the unity of the body of Christ. What is true about the body is its unity. And when we sit down to break bread.
There should be unity based on what the apostles doctrine is and fellowship. And then comes the breaking of bread when we show that unity. And so I can't say to my finger here, I'm going to chop it off and you should work over there independently. That's not the truth of the body of Christ.
We are. I like to use the word we are interdependent, not independent. Brethren, there is no such thing as independence in the body of Christ. We are interdependent. And when it comes to questions of discipline and an assembly, God has set authority in the local assembly to deal with problems and we re recognize that, but it doesn't mean that they are.
Independent of us. And that's why when there are problems, we feel it.
And we should pray for that. We should try to be a help in whatever way we can. So it's not independence, brother. And they can't say keep out of here. I have my own thoughts about this. No, we are interdependent, brother. And these are things that are very important as to the testimony as we go on together in the fellowship of the body of Christ. And that's what we have here.
Fellowship of the blood of Christ, and then the fellowship of the body of Christ. And verse 17 makes it very clear.
How we show that fellowship by being partakers of that one bread. Remember one time.
That quite a number of years ago in Toronto, Canada, we had a conference and I think they said there was 1200 present. That was quite a large group and I still remember on the table the largeness of the loaf. It had to be large so that all there could partake.
And show that fellowship of the body of Christ wonderful privilege, brethren, that we enjoy together.
Just a comment or two again on the cup, because it's called a cup of blessing here and we don't want to confuse it with the cup that the Lord Jesus spoke of that he drank. You know, the Lord Jesus when he instituted the Feast of Remembrance, he didn't drink of the cup that he passed to the disciples because it was a cup of blessing and joy and the Lord Jesus was going, was going to face the cross and that awful, the awful reality.
Of not just what he was going to suffer at the hand of man, but what he was going to suffer at the hand of God.
In those hours of darkness. And so he said, The cup which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it?
But don't confuse it with this cup. This is a cup of joy. And sometimes, and, and I think sometimes it's just a slip of the tongue or it's just not fully understanding when a brother gives thanks on Lord's Day morning. Sometimes there's a little fuzziness in connection with the mention of these different cups. The cup that the Lord Jesus drank on Calvary's cross was a cup of judgment, and it was indeed a cup of sorrow.
But this cup that represents to us the blood of Christ, it's a cup of blessing because as Robert said earlier, all our blessings depend on the blood of the Lord Jesus. God has always taught from the very beginning of man's history of sin.
That the way of blessing and fellowship is based on the death and the shedding of blood of an innocent victim.
And in John's epistle he takes up this subject of fellowship and communion.
In one John chapter one and verse three, he says truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
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Then in the seventh verse he says, we have fellowship one with another, so we are brought in to fellowship.
With the Father and the Son, and as a result in fellowship with one another. And what's the basis? And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. That's the real context of that verse. We often pull out the end of that verse and use it in the gospel, and rightly so. But in its context, what he's saying is the basis for fellowship with the Father, the Son, and with one another is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so it is a cup of blessing, brethren, we never want to forget that. The ground of all our blessing and fellowship.
Is the fact that the Lord Jesus shed his blood on Calvary's cross and it's gonna be the the theme of the eternal song?
Perhaps, uh, make one more comment on the uh.
For the Lord's Supper, umm, it's not in our chapter here, but in the following chapter just to make this.
Plain to each of us what it means to the Lord.
For us to remember him and his death, uh, Lamentations chapter 3, I'm going to read from the Darby's translation. Just, uh.
Uh, free verse this year?
Sorry, 2 verses Lamentations chapter 3, verse 19. You don't. You missed the thought in the King James, but I'll read it here.
Uh, probably. Uh, sorry. Limitations Chapter 3, verse 19, remember?
Thou mine affliction and my wandering, the Wormwood and the gull.
Then he speaks of himself, my soul have them constantly in remembrance, and it's humbled in me. The wound and the Lord Jesus his hands and then inside and then his feet.
The pain and suffering that he went through on that cross is going to be forever fresh in his mind.
And he asked you, and I remember him.
Not just to remember him in our minds, but to have this little testimony.
It's not a worship meeting, it's a remembrance meeting, but there's three things that should flow from it when we get them in First Corinthians 11.
And, uh, first.
24.
I'll get the first one.
OK, OK, we see in verse 24 here it says, uh, the end of the verse, this due in remembrance of me. This is the person of the Lord Jesus himself.
When a true believer who's been born again and has been dwelt with the Holy Spirit.
When they see Jesus for who he is, response in the heart worship.
There's another thing.
It says in uh.
Uh verse UH-26 For as often as he eats his bread and drink his cup, either show the Lord's death till he comes.
This is what He has done. When we see what again, as a believer, he's been born again, He's been dwelt with the Spirit of God. When we see what the Lord Jesus has done in perfection to the glory of God the Father, response will be praised and will be praised coming in the remembrance meeting. And there's one more thing and that has to do with you and I.
If this doesn't touch you.
If if we've been safe.
We've been washed by that blood.
Each one of us.
Have part of this. It says verse 24 just above what I read before. It says this is my body which is broken for you.
There ought to be Thanksgiving coming from us because you and I would have no place. We would have no place here.
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You would have no hope ever if it were not for what that worked with the Lord Jesus sit on that cross did to redeem you and I. And he's asking us to remember it. And he's telling us that He Himself will always have this in remembrance before him. The Creator of the universe will not forget the day where He went to that cross and shed his blood for your sins.
Look at, uh, one more verse in Revelations chapter 5.
Umm, I'll look at the few different verses here. Umm, verse 9, Revelation chapter 5. And verse 9. Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the fields thereof, for thou wast flame, and hath redeemed to God by the blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and so on. And verse 13.
Uh, there's a new, uh, there's a new, there's a new song here and it says every.
Preacher, which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I say, blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb forever and ever. It's going to be our joy and privilege to bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus forever for that worth that he did on the cross, and he's given us the privilege to start now.
And it's a privilege we only have for this life, isn't it? It's not something we're going to do in glory because, as you say, we're going to see unhinderedly the Lamb as it had been slain. We're going to view those wounds in his hands and his feet and in his side. And it was mentioned, I believe, in the first meeting when we took up the subject of baptism, that God has given us two things. Or let me, let me back up. God always gives us a way that we can give expression to what is in our hearts.
Because I might say I want to follow the Lord and own the Lordship of of Christ in my life, but I've never been baptized. I have. God has given me a way in the institution of baptism where I can give expression to that.
As to as to testimony, and then in the breaking of bread.
Again, people say, well, I can remember the Lord in my heart. Well, that's true. We ought to remember the Lord in our heart every day of our lives. But I've often wished that in our Bibles, in the verse that has been referred to in the 11Th chapter, the 26th verse. I often wish that the word eat and drink were printed just a little bit bigger and perhaps in capital letters. Because God has given us something that we can do to show, to give testimony to this world that cast him out and spit in his face and still hates him.
That we desire to honor the dying request of the One who loved us and gave himself for us. There's something He has asked us to do, and that is to eat and to drink. Tomorrow morning, if we're left here, a loaf and a cup are going to be passed down the rows. And you might say, well, I remember the Lord in my heart, but are you going to, in loving response to the Lord Jesus, eat of that loaf and drink of that cup?
He, he desires that we would not only be present tomorrow when the breaking of bread takes place, but his desire is that we would eat and drink. And as Bob said at the end of the last meeting, it's till he come. God never asked us to do anything that he isn't going to maintain a scriptural ground on which to do it because as we said earlier, sometimes people say, well, it doesn't matter and there are many who break bread.
There are many who remember the Lord, but there is a place where we can, I believe, give expression to more than that. A place where we cannot just break bread, but we can partake of the Lord's Supper at the Lord's table. And sometimes I hear people say, well, I trust I'm where the Lord wants me to be. It would be better to say I want to be where the Lord is because as soon as I say where the Lord is.
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I recognize in my soul that there is already a place established, a place where He is in the midst, a place referred to as the Lord's Supper. And as soon as I realize that there is a place on earth where the Lord Jesus is in the midst and where I can sit down at His table, then He wants to bring me there. If I truly recognize this and have the desire to be there, then there's the man bearing the picture of water to lead me to that very place.
There is a place I don't wanna be just where the Lord wants me to be. I trust, I desire to be where the Lord is and that He will lead me or has led me to that place.
To you there you touched on 1St Corinthians 11 and verse 28. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat.
Uh, many younger Christian will ask questions and I've often said that this scripture does not say.
Let him manage, examine himself, and stay at home.
Yes, we heard this morning very good passage earlier this afternoon. I guess it would have been in the address And, uh, consider your ways here to examine. And, uh, we have to remember that if we confess our sins that God is just insured to forgive, isn't he? And that's why it says and so letting me it doesn't say examine yourself and stay at home, does it? And, uh, so therefore I look sometimes at the words quote this do and remembrance of me UN quote.
As a direct command, the same as be baptized. In other words, he only gives me two direct commands.
Being baptized in this doing remember to me, yes, my heart has to be with the right way and lamentations chapter three of the.
Verse it is.
The the verse is about waiting, Uh.
Different chapters in three and then the patients. My soul is we have waited for thee. And maybe I'm thinking of a different passage and I can't afford it right now. I'm sorry that I just slipped on that.
And then and what you mentioned in in First Corinthians 11, we examine ourselves, but when we come back to chapter 10, we examine those that are in fellowship. And I think that's a important difference between the two chapters as well. So when we come down to verse 18, he says, behold, Israel after the flesh, are not they which eat of the sacrifices?
Partakers of the altar. What say I then? That the idol is anything or that which is sacrificed in I in uh, offered and sacrificed to idols is anything but. I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice the devils to demons and not to God. And I would not have that. You should have fellowship with demons in connection with idolatry if you go back to Second Chronicles chapter.
11 I just wanna point this out because it's something that we perhaps in the Americas or in North America at least, don't, uh, catch always. But in Second Chronicles, Chapter 11, speaking about Jeroboam, who split off with the 10 tribes and set up to calves, one in the north and one in the South, and set up an altar there.
Notice what it says, uh, verse 14 in the middle of the verse, Jeroboam and his sons had cast them off from being, from executing the priest's office unto the Lord. And he that's Jeroboam, ordained him priests for the high places and for the devils or the demons and for the calves which he had made. In Scripture, idolatry is connected with demons.
And demon worship, it's a very serious thing, and we don't sometimes grasp the seriousness of it. Now, in Corinth there were idle temples.
00:50:00
And, you know, the Greeks were famous for their array of different gods, and they had their idol temples and the idol perhaps up in the front of the temple with an altar in front of it and then a table inside where they could eat of the things sacrificed, those idols. It wasn't merely idolatry. There was demon influence in connection with it, very serious. Could there be fellowship between demons and the Lord?
Supposing a brother in fellowship in Corinth was going down the street one day and passing by a de uh, idle temple, he sees one of his work, work companions sitting at the table in there. And he calls out to him and said, I know you're an evangelical, but you, you don't have to bow down to the island. Just come down, come in here and sit down. I'll give you a nice piece of meat to eat.
Could he do that?
No, he couldn't. Why not?
Because in sitting down there, he was showing fellowship with everything that went on in that place with demons. Now it comes to the Lord's Table and he comes to the Lord's Table. If he's going to come to the Lord's Table having partaken of the table of demons, what is he saying in effect? That there's fellowship between those two tables? Is that possible?
Impossible. So these are things we need to think through, brother.
It's not that every table in Christendom is a table of demons. Demons tables are where there is idolatry. Yes, there are sectors of Christendom where idols are in existence.
But there's a principle there that we want to get a hold of that going from one table to the next shows fellowship between those two places.
Last weekend I broke bread in in uh Montero, Bolivia. In the weekend before in Santiago, Chile.
I carry my letter of commendation if there's any question, how can I break bread? I hope to break bread tomorrow here in Saint Louis, because it's the same fellowship, the fellowship of the body of Christ, the fellowship of the blood of Christ, wonderful privilege.
But it shows that we need to be careful.
Who is partaking?
I know a very evangelical group here in the United States. In their Sunday school curriculum, they definitely teach that the Lord Jesus could have sinned if he would wanted to.
Well, there are people that may come from that denomination and want to break bread with us. What are we going to say if we allow them to break bread? We are saying that we are in full fellowship with them. No, brethren, there has to be distinctions made, and these are principles that help us to see why we don't receive on a moment's notice just anybody. There has to be evidence.
That doctrinally, morally as well that there's purity and their connections are not disqualifying them. These are principles here in this part they Paul takes this from the Old Testament scripture of Jeroboam and he says they that eat of the sacrifices are partakers of the altar and when Jeroboam set up those.
Two calves, one in the north and one in the South. Let's suppose a godly Israelite in the north.
Says, well, it's time to take my sacrifice to the Lord. And on the way to Jerusalem, which is a long way off, he passes this other sack, this other altar that Jeroboam set up.
Well, maybe it's too far up to Jerusalem. There's an altar here. Maybe I can offer my sacrifice here. I don't believe in that idol that I just offered my sacrifice to the Lord here. Could he do that?
No, why not? Because if he offered his sacrifice and partook of the altar, there he was connecting himself with all that took place in that in that place. Brother, these are principles that Scripture speaks about clearly, and they're extremely important in connection with the Lord's Table. When it comes to the eating of food offered to idols, perhaps it's all very clear.
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So the Lord gives another example and that was an Israelite that ate at the altar who established that who God established that that wasn't false. That was established by God that had been set aside in Hebrews 13, it says there in verse 10, but we have an altar where they have no right to eat which serves the Tabernacle had been set aside. So it was not right even though it had was right in its time. You could not eat a Jewish also and then remember the the Lord that the Lord's table, it was umm putting.
Bringing those things together into fellowship, that which had been set aside and that which had now been established. Because the Lord Jesus, when he presented himself to that Jewish nation, they basically said we have no place for you in our system. And they took him outside the camp of Israel and they nailed him to the cross. And so we are called out of that Jewish system.
Two cups, a cup our Lord drank and a cup of blessings. The distinction between them. Matthew 26. Our Lord is going to drink a cup in the coming Kingdom, isn't he? They'll be the King's cup. I will not drink until he comes. Now that's beautiful to see that he's gonna drink a different cup in the future. The verse I was looking for was in Isaiah 26. It was the desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee. Quite often read.
But I couldn't think of a few minutes ago. So what we are to exclude from our lives and from collective fellowship at the Lord's table is evil and that which is not according to the mind of God. You know, I'll say this and I I believe it's a true statement. I want to say it carefully. We are never told in Scripture to separate from true believers. What we are told to separate from is that which is evil or sin. And if that means there are true believers, I can't go along in full fellowship with.
Then so be it. But it is not that we exclude. Sometimes we're called exclusive brethren. It's not that we exclude individuals from the Lord's table that are truly saved. We ex we are to exclude evil. It's like my children. I remember sometimes they would come to the dinner table and their hands were filthy or their shirt was dirty and they'd say, well, Dad, it doesn't really matter. Well, yes, it did matter to me.
It wasn't that I excluded my children from my table, but I did send them off to change their shirt. I did send them off to use some soap and water and then tell them their place is back there. And so brethren, these are serious things. They're God's principles. The great, the great spirit of the age today is tolerance, and it seeps in amongst the Christian for the believers, whatever the spirit of the age is.
It tends to eventually, if we're not careful, affect the people of God and even those gathered to the Lord's name.
We cannot tolerate evil, we cannot tolerate ecclesiastical connections where there's sin is unjudged or there's false doctrine that is held and taught. And so we must exclude sin. God has always taught that the basis for fellowship is that sin is put away. God cannot dwell with his people where there's indifference to sin and sin is allowed. And so at Corinth they were allowing these things that the Lord's table.
And they were too, yes, Put away that wicked person from them. Why? Because he was connecting himself. He was connected with evil. I believe it was moral evil here. But the principle stands with ecclesiastical and doctrinal evil. So it is evil if we're accused of being exclusive? Yes, we are, in the sense that we are to exclude evil if we are going to claim to have the Lord's presence at the Lord's table. And brethren.
It is normal Christianity for a Christian to be at the Lord's Table, and yet how few there are, are are there. I'm going to tell you a little story that really touched my heart. On more than one occasion my wife and I have had the opportunity and privilege of standing in the evening at the meningitis Belgium and the men in Georgia on the men and gate on stone tablets are on the the fringe of Flanders fields.
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Are engraved engraved 56,000 names of men and women that were never found to bury in Flanders fields from the Great Wars. 56,000 names. But what is remarkable is that every night they missed two nights during the Second World War because there was fighting so close it wasn't safe. But since the First World War, every night. I'm not talking about once a week or on a special occasion.
But every night there is a ceremony held and they say there's never less than about 300 people for that ceremony. And I remember one time we were there on a special occasion when there was a contingency of, of folks from Britain and they were laying some wreaths to commemorate some special battle and, and victory and so on. And I looked around, I saw quite a few elderly people in the audience. And the tears were coming down their faces. And they weren't, they weren't ashamed.
Because they either had family members who had suffered and died in in in the war or some connection with the war and there they were to remember those who had died. And it happens every night of the year.
That morning that we were there on a Lord's Day evening, that morning we had sat down in men in Belgium and remember the Lord with six brothers and I thought what a contrast.
I thought of that incident, little story in Ecclesiastes about the poor wise man who delivered the city, and no one remembered that poor wise man. Is that going to be you and me tomorrow? Is there someone here? And you've put away evil in your life. You're not going along with any moral or doctrinal evil. You're not connected with an ecclesiastical system that would hinder you from being there. You're going on for the Lord, but you're gonna sit here.
Tomorrow as we we sing hymns concerning the death of the Lord Jesus, His person and work as Scripture is read, as things are expressed in worship and praise and Thanksgiving.
And you're gonna let the loaf and the cup go by. No one remembered that, poor wise man. Hundreds of people will show up at Cenotaphs on November 11Th. Hundreds of people every night at the Menengate. But no one remembered that poor wise man. Brethren, I trust that as we have taken this, these verses, that very feebly we've scratched the surface. But brother, and I trust that it has spoken to your heart and mind and for those of us.
Who have remembered the Lord for many years in the breaking of bread.
I trust that as we sit down tomorrow, it won't be just something that's routine. You know, it can be something that's just routine, something I just do because another Lord's Day has rolled around. But I trust it will truly touch our hearts again. Like to make one other comment about the loaf in the cup. When the Lord Jesus chose a loaf of bread and fruit of the vine, he chose two things.
That he knew would be accessible at very little cost, with very little difficulty in any age, in any part of the world. Now, I've had the privilege of sitting down and remembering the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread with my brethren in various pockets of the world. And some have, others have here too, and we have broken bread with a loaf. Doesn't always look like the loaf we break bread with here in North America. But in some form, the brethren as poor as they are, they've been able to obtain a loaf of bread.
In some form they've been able to obtain fruit of the vine, and I remember the Lord with a number of things that are fruit of the vine, but perhaps, again, not exactly what we'd have. Just tell you a little story. I know there's Egyptian brethren here, but in Egypt very difficult in a Muslim country to get wine. So what do they do? They boil raisins and pour off the syrup, and that's what they remember the Lord with. But I say again, he's made it accessible.
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To us, even at this late date, and I know it's a little bit out of context, but I think of the verse raised by Naeem and servants so long ago. If he had asked thee to do some hard thing, what he would thou not have done it? Brethren, has he asked us to do some hard thing? Has he asked us to obtain emblems that are difficult and costly to secure? No, He's made it so simple and his request is then.
This do in remembrance of me Chapter 11. We've spoken of the need of judging ourselves. Uh, verse uh.
Verse 31 if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. Chapter 10 As I say again, we judge those we have fellowship with and I I know that that is something that is shield away from in today's world, you shouldn't judge anybody.
Brethren, we are responsible to judge, not inward things.
Motives, it says in chapter four of First Corinthians, judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who will show the kitten things of darkness and bring to light the motives of the heart. Those things we do not judge, but we're talking about outward things that are very evident. I see a tree with apples on it, I make a judgment. That's an apple tree. And so we should judge those things.
That are not right. And when it's in connection with something that is uh, connected with idolatry, we should shy away from it. Why do we do that? Because of some norms that we have.
No, brethren, it's because we're talking about the fellowship of the Lord's table. What a privilege that it is for us, the Lord of glory. Brethren, I honestly believe when we get home to glory, we're gonna look back and we'll say the greatest privilege we enjoyed in this life.
Was sitting down at the Lord's table to remember Him in his death. What a tremendous privilege, but its responsibility too. And to not allow that which brings dishonor to His precious name. Because He is the Lord. He is the one that sets the norms at this place, not we, but He.
And what excuse will we give the Lord if we didn't remember him? When you look into his face, if you haven't remembered him in the breaking of bread, what are you going to say to him? He's going to say I provided everything it was available. Are you going to have the joy of knowing that while you were here you answered to that request, or are you going to have to hang your head, say, Lord, I didn't do it, but it you'll give him no good reason when you stand at the judgment seat of Christ. And so.
It's a tremendous privilege, as we've been saying, and again, it's a privilege that's only given to us for this life. We won't need a loaf and a cup on the table when we get to heaven. But in the meantime, he says this, do in remembrance of me you do show the Lord's death till he come. That is stable.
#40.
01:10:32
Uh, but I mean, uh.
Nsnoise.
Is our place #21 just the second verse to the same tune?
We also sing just the last verse of 146, verse 3 of 146.
Gospel 2
Gospel—Bob Thonney
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good evening.
The Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword.
Piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, And there's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest.
In his sight, but all things are naked and opened.
Unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do, let's sing a hymn #23 on our hymn sheet.
Behold, behold the Lamb of God.
On the cross for us. He shed his precious blood on the cross.
Oh, here the overwhelming cry. Eli, Lama Sabachthani, draw near and see the Savior die on the cross.
Draw on the chair and give. Thus they do not.
Did you get this, uh, medium? Uh-huh.
On the cross.
On the Grove.
231329.
Browser of the community of the Ramsey, but no one else was listening to the way what happened to the giraffe in Dahl Dahlia bows together.
All the genius I'm a very swallowed and swallowed my heart today.
00:05:06
Want to read a verse in Acts chapter 20 to begin the message I have to give this evening. Acts chapter 20 and verse 21.
The apostle Paul is speaking and he says testifying.
Both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Want to speak about those two things? First of all, repentance toward God. Repentance is something that is very.
Important in the matter of salvation, you cannot be saved without repenting. However, repentance in itself does not save. What saves is faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. But we want to speak about those two things because unless you repent, Scripture says you shall.
All likewise perish. Let's read it in Luke's Gospel, chapter 13.
The Lord Jesus speaking.
Gives an account of two separate incidences that happened.
Let's read it in chapter 13, verse one. Look chapter 13, verse one, and Jesus, I'm sorry, verse one. There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were?
Sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things, I tell you. Nay, but except you repent, ye shall all likewise perish. For those 18 upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem, I tell you.
May but accept ye repent, you shall all likewise perish. So repentance is necessary for salvation.
And I, I see that many times people don't understand what repentance is. They think it's just merely being sorry for what you've done. That may enter into it, but it's not what repentance is. Repentance comes from the Latin word pence, which is two things. Repent means to rethink. It means to change your thinking.
Naturally speaking, we all have tendencies to some kind of sin.
And we have to learn that they are going to ruin us. Sin brings death. The wages of sin is death.
You sin, you die. Are there any exceptions to that? Absolutely none. It's 100% true in the world that we live. You sin, you die. And that's why, first of all, there's need of repentance to have God's thoughts about sin. Sin is serious with God. It will wreck you. It will wreck your.
It will wreck nations. It's happened before. It's happening right in our world today.
So sin is serious with God, and God says first of all that we need repentance, We need to have a change of our thinking about the sin question. I'd like to read in Romans chapter one a description of a culture that really seems to.
Relate to where we are in this country today.
Romans chapter one going to read from verse 18.
For the wrath of God.
Is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
Because that which may be known of God is manifested in them, for God hath showed it unto them.
00:10:06
For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. In other words, the creation is the testimony to God's eternal power and Godhead. That's the God we're talking about, the One.
Who made the whole universe and who keeps it in clock like order?
People today seem that they can just dispose with the thoughts of God. I tell you, you might do that, but you will change your mind later on.
Remember last year when we were here, we had the news that Fidel Castro had died?
And as he slipped across the edge of this life to the other.
He now knows that there is a God for sure. He was an atheist. He is no longer an atheist.
So that creation gives testimony to God's eternal power and God. And when you consider the vastness of the creation and God spoke it into existence.
It was created by the word of the Lord He commanded, and it was done.
He commanded and it stood fast and he has everything in his control. Even your heartbeat, even the breath you take is in his hands.
We need to learn to fear this God because he's holy. He hates sin because sin has done such terrible damage in the creation that we live in. It's incredible to think of how much damage is done.
You remember when God created man?
In the Garden of Eden and placed him there and.
He Adam sinned. But even though he had sinned, Adam lived up to 930 years old. One of his descendants got up to 969 years old.
Whatever happened to us?
The other day a sister in the east died when she was 106. That's pretty impressive, but 900 years? You see how sin degenerates everything and if you give yourself to it, it will degenerate you.
In faster form than might be normal. So there's a God in heaven who's created everything into him.
We're going to have to give an account.
Says verse 21, because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image like to corruptible man and to birds.
The four footed beasts and the creeping things.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves.
Oh sad when men give up God and finally God gives up man and this is what is happening in our world today.
Continue here.
Verse 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. This is our soul.
He gave up vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. Likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lusts one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves.
00:15:02
That recompense of their error which was made.
I think you don't have trouble in determining that this is where our country.
Is going even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up to over to a reprobate mind, a mind void of judgment.
I've been amazed that what you hear in our country.
Our country is supposed to be an educated country.
I heard out in Washington state sometime a few months ago that they did a survey amongst the students in one of the universities and they asked the students.
What is the difference between man and woman?
And most of the students answered. Really, there's no difference, it's just all in your head.
Come on.
Do you have any sense in that head of yours?
That's what happens when people give up God. God gives them up to a reprobate mind. It's sad, but this is what is happening in this in our our country.
Verse 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers back fighters, haters of God. Notice that.
Despiteful proud boasters. Inventors of evil things. Disobedient to parents without understanding. Covenant Breakers.
Without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but they have pleasure in them that do them.
You may say, well, I don't do all those things. Do you sit in front of the TV screen and enjoy the depiction of all these things? That's exactly what it's referring to in that verse 32.
We go over to Chapter 2.
And verse 3 Thinkest thou this, O man, that judges them, which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
Or despises thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. There's that word repentance. What is it that's going to lead us to repentance?
It's the goodness of God. Oh, how good God is.
How he has prospered this country is incredible when I hear the reports of other parts of the world where people have so little to eat.
We've been talking about Venezuela here for prayer in this conference. I understand that the average person there has lost 20 lbs because of the lack of food.
That is incredible. Here we have it abundantly. Are we thankful for it? Most people sit down at their tables and they eat as if it's because of their working that they have the food.
Oh, how soon God may allow things to happen that will change all that. It's His goodness that leads us to repentance. And I want to say to you, my friend, repent, because your sin will take you into destruction, not only for this life, but for all eternity. We need to change our mind about our lifestyles.
Somebody has spoken very plainly about ***********.
Here at this conference, I'm afraid it affects more people than we realize.
It is, I understand, even more addicting than cocaine.
And do you involve your mind in that? Let me tell you, it will wreck you, it will wreck your family, and it is wrecking this country. It is a industry that pays tremendous dividends.
00:20:08
In wrecking people terrible. That's why God calls us to repentance. He doesn't want you to go in a way of destruction, He wants you to be saved.
And so we come to the other part of that verse we read, and this is where I want to focus, mainly because this is the positive side, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who is he?
Oh, let me tell you about him.
He is God's eternal Son. You know when I start thinking about Him, there is so much that completely baffles me. Can you think of a person who never began his existence? He always was.
That that that just that just blows my mind.
But that's what Scripture says, the eternal Son of God. What about what else about him?
He was the creator of the whole universe. He is the one that spoke and it was brought into being. Oh, the tremendous power. Not only the power, but the wisdom.
That is involved in creating the whole universe.
I think I've spoken about it before, but it enthralls me because.
Since last April I was able to be at a conference in the High Alta Plano, Bolivia.
And at night it was in the city, a little, uh, town called Siberia. And at night there's not a whole lot of St. lights in that town. And the blaze of the Milky Way across the sky was incredible. I've never seen it that way anywhere else in the world.
It's so clear the of course, you're up at 12,000 feet altitude, so there's not a lot of atmosphere above you, but you it's so clear that you can actually see other galaxies with the naked eye. Tremendous.
And yet when you stop to think what a little pinhead we are here in this world. This world is 25,000 miles in circumference. But it is only.
One millionth of the size of the sun and the sun is not that large of a star comparison to other stars. And in our Galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, they say there are 200 billion stars.
The distance from 1 edge of that Galaxy to the other is 100,000 light years. The distance.
That light travels in one year.
Is incredible. It's at traveling at the speed of 186,000 miles per second. It will take light 100,000 years to cross our Galaxy alone.
So that the light that began to cross our Galaxy when God placed Adam in this Earth is not even the 10th of the way across yet.
Dry and traveling at that at that that velocity.
But one more fact, I think I've talked about this before, but it it just, it thrills me.
Scientists calculate that there are perhaps 250 billion more galaxies in the universe, so that there are.
Unquestionably more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on the seashore of this world. And you and you know, the numbers just keep going up and up and up.
Because they can't tell where the edge of it all is.
I think the universe does have an edge, but I don't know that man will ever find the edge of it. This is the person we're talking about, the one who brought it all into existence.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. It was this person that God sent into this world, and to me it is incredibly wonderful, the story of His entrance into the realms of time. Remember, He's the eternal Son of God.
00:25:22
But he took human form. He became flesh.
Through the Virgin Mary wonderful story, a woman who had no, had no, had no relations to a man.
She was engaged to be married to Joseph, but they had not come together and she was found with child of the Holy Ghost, and it's through that means.
That the Lord Jesus came into this world.
Just as we come into the world through a woman, but with one difference. Since he had no human father, he had no sin. Nature. When the Angel announced to the Virgin Mary that she was to be the mother of the Son of God.
The Angel said, That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
Wonderful reality. So when Joseph and Mary.
Came down to Bethlehem because they had to go there to be censored. Censored.
Uh, census and they were there and they went to the inn kind of a hotel that we were staying in.
There was no room in the inn and they were told to go out to the stable.
Where the animals were. And there it was that Mary gave birth to the Lord Jesus Christ and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in the Manger. Oh, the tremendous story. You know, the angels came down. They had never seen their Creator in physical form before that.
And so they come down and I think they must have marveled.
Where are these people? There were people in Israel that had the word of God that knew where he was going to be born. They had no clue.
That God had entered His own creation in the person of His Son.
So they go out into the fields. There was some poor shepherds out there taking care of their flocks and they announced to them.
This wonderful news unto you is born in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord and they came, they were the first ones evidently to see the Lord Jesus. So he grew up in this world, wonderful stories we could talk about of how in complete perfection, because there was no sin in him, he met every.
When he was about 30 years of age, he comes one day to John the Baptist, who is baptizing with the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
And John evidently knew something of who he was.
And when Jesus presented himself to be baptized for the remission of sins, for repentance.
John said I need to be baptized of you and you're coming to me. Did he need repentance? Absolutely not.
But Jesus said, suffer it to be that way, let it be that way.
For the time being, because that's the way.
It is convenient to fulfill all righteousness, and so Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, and as soon as he comes out of the water, the heavens open, and God the Father said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I found my delight.
And the Holy Spirit came down upon him as in the form of a dove. And from then he goes out into his public service. And it's a marvel to read through the Gospels and the wonderful encounters with every cert, every person. There were those that knew they were sinners.
00:30:18
There were those who thought they were all right.
We've got it together. We are religious.
What in the world you asking us to repent for? That was their spirit, and that's why Jesus was baptized. He did not identify with that group. He identified with Republicans and sinners who had repented and were baptized, and that's why he was baptized, to identify with them.
Oh, it's a wonderful story. I just love going over talking about the different encounters he had. Remember that encounter? It's in John chapter 5. But he met up with a poor Samaritan woman. The Samaritan peoples were not accepted by the Jewish peoples. That didn't make any difference to the Lord Jesus. He's interested in the salvation of all.
And so he comes to that well and sits down there, says Weary with his journey.
The eternal God wearied.
Yes, but he was a man as well. And as a man, he knows what it means to be weary. You ever get weary? He understands. He was hungry, he was thirsty, he was betrayed. He understands those experiences.
And here comes a woman. Evidently it was at an hour when not many people were coming to the well.
And.
You understand why when you understand the story. She comes out there to fill her water plot with water and Jesus says give me a drink.
And she, instead of giving him a drink, says, what are you doing? You're a Jew and you don't have any relations with the with the Samaritan people. What are you asking me that for? And they got into a conversation and.
Jesus finally said he that drinks of this water will thirst again, but he who drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst forever, but the water that I give him will be in him, a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.
She was interested. She said give me this water.
And so Jesus said, go call your husband and come here.
And she says I don't have a husband.
I suppose she thought that would satisfy him, but he is the eternal God. And he said, you said it right, you don't have a husband because you've had five husbands and the one you have right now is not your husband.
You said that one, right?
Wowie.
All of a sudden she realized, here's somebody that understands my whole life. Let me tell you, friend, he understands your life. You can't hide anything from you from you can't hide anything from him. He understands every detail of it.
And the Lord Jesus revealed himself to that woman, and she got the blessing. She got that living water that springs up into everlasting life. Oh, there's so many stories, but I want to get down to the end of the Li. The Lord's life down here, you know, he came.
To save. And there was something before him.
That troubled him.
He said, Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?
But for this cause, have I come into the world? What was it that troubled him? It was sin. Sin was wrecking his creation. And as he walked through it, he groaned. You never have any record of Jesus laughing. People say he did.
I say scripture doesn't talk about that. Why not?
00:35:04
When he saw such wreckage in the humankind, he wept, he groaned, he stood at Lazarus tomb and he cried. Why? He knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. Why did he cry? Because he saw the misery in which his creation was so.
A sin that troubled him, and he comes down.
To the cross.
And they condemned him unjustly to the most awful death possible. You know, and all human history, if you study it, the ways of capital punishment. There was no other way more excruciatingly terrible as the execution of crucifixion.
And he chose.
To come and die the death of crucifixion.
And so they let him out inside the city of Jerusalem again and again, Pilot, the Roman governor, said. I find no fault in this man.
And still he saw that they were adamant that he be crucified, and so he finally gave sentence that it should be.
And Jesus was taken by the soldiers.
He was stripped. He was whipped.
I've read a story of the history of the Roman scourging. It's awful. It was called the Living Death. It was so awful. And many times malefactors died after they had been scourge. So they scourge Jesus. They crowned him with thorns.
They took him outside the city of Jerusalem and they stretched out those hands. They nailed them to a cross. There he was raised up.
As they nailed him, he said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.
So he was crucified the way we.
Tell time at 9:00 in the morning.
He died about 3:00 in the afternoon. For six hours he hung in life on that cross. The first three hours, people passed in front of him, spitting on him, mocking him, jeering him with another form of suffering. Not only the physical suffering, but the suffering of his soul.
They said if he's the Son of God, let God come and deliver him.
Did God come down and deliver him?
No answer from God.
Why not? Wasn't he his son?
You know, if God would have delivered him, we would have been all condemned to hell forever without any ray of hope. The only way you and I could have a hope of heaven.
Was for him to die.
At 12 noon, everything got dark.
And for three hours, it's dark.
I'm Golgotha's Hill outside of Jerusalem.
What happened in those three hours?
You and I are not very able to understand, but it was in those three hours.
That God laid on him the iniquity of us all. I'm the guilty Sinner. I'm the one that deserves to be punished. And God laid those guilty deeds I have done on him. And God poured out his judgment.
And fury of his anger on his own beloved son. For those three hours, there's no complaint from that center cross.
Suffered in silence.
Till the very end.
And then there's a cry. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God forsook his Son so he wouldn't have to forsake you in the lake of fire forever.
00:40:15
And he said it is finished.
All the wrath of God that was against us as guilty sinners. He paid the price in full. It's finished and he bows his head and dies.
The soldier was dispatched because there were three that were crucified that day to make sure that the three were dead by the end of the day.
And he breaks the legs of one thief and the other, and then he comes to Jesus.
Jesus was dead already. No man could take his life. He gave it up of himself.
But the soldier takes his spear and Rams it into the side of a dead Christ and outflows blood and water. Testimony that life had been given. He died to save our souls.
Now let me come to that point that we spoke of, that second point.
Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance toward God is first, but faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what will save your soul. Faith in the Savior, not faith in a religion. Sometimes people think it's a matter of being Catholic or Protestant or Evangelical, whatever.
That has nothing to do with it. Let me tell you, if you think that the evangelical religion will save you, it will not save you. The one who can save you is Jesus. It's a person that we're talking about, and you need to have your attention directed to Him.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's what will bring full and free salvation, you know.
The matter of salvation. So many people think that it is a matter of doing something to please God.
Is our brother Bernie was saying last night, people think that on one side is our good deeds and on the other side are bad deeds and God's going to weigh it and see maybe.
If the good deeds are more than the bad deeds, maybe God will let me in heaven. Come on, that doesn't work.
Not even in human justice do they do that. I've committed a crime here in Saint Louis and was taken before a judge and said, hey, I've done a lot of good things, can't you just consider me and forget the rest?
It wouldn't get very far.
Not even human justice thinks that way. So give that thinking up. Repent of that kind of thinking.
There's only one that can save you, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when the gospel was preached after his death and resurrection, let's look at it in Acts chapter 2.
Apostle Peter is preaching.
Verse 36 is the end of his sermon, if you want to put it that way, end of his preaching.
Acts 236. Therefore let all the House of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and the rest of the apostles, men, and brethren.
What shall we do? What are we gonna do? Notice what he says. Then Peter said unto them, Repent.
And be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Chapter 3, Verse 19. Peter is speaking again. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. When the times are refreshing. Shall come from the presence of the Lord.
00:45:10
Go over to Acts Chapter 17.
And verse.
4:30.
The times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead.
And when they heard the of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.
Others said, we will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. Howbeit certain men clave unto him and believe. There's that second part of the equation, repentance toward God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. How can you have faith, people ask. Sometimes you know how faith comes.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
Are you listening tonight? You know, I see sometimes people sitting in gospel meetings. Yeah, they're sitting there respectfully, but you can tell by the way they're listening that they're not really hearing the message. Faith comes by hearing. I say, if you want to turn a deaf ear to what I have to say, OK, But please, for the good of your own soul, when God speaks from his word, listen to what he says, because it's for your eternal.
Benefit.
There are three people I want to speak about before we end this meeting.
The first was one of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. His name was Judas Iscariot, a man who had followed Jesus.
A man who had done miracles. A man who had preached.
Let's go over to Matthew chapter 20.
7.
Verse 30 you remember that at the end of.
Jesus's life.
Judas Iscariot made agreement with the chief priests to sell him for 30 pieces of silver.
PRI. Price of a common slave.
Judas loved money.
I suppose he thought Jesus would walk out of the trap and he would have the money in his pocket and nobody would know.
Things don't turn out the way we plan sometimes.
Chapter 27, verse 3 Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he that's Jesus was condemned, repented himself and brought again the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying I have sinned in that I've betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? Seed out to that and he cast down the pieces.
Silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself.
He repented himself.
But he had no faith in the Lord Jesus. Isn't that awful? 3 1/2 years in the presence of the Son of God?
And he had no face.
Where is Judas Iscariot?
Apostle of Jesus Christ, where is he today?
He is in hell burning.
You say you're a Christian, but you know in your heart do you haven't got it settled with God. I ask you don't try to fool yourself. You think you're fooling God. You're fooling yourself worse than anybody else. Doesn't work.
Get right with God. Awful, awful end of one of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
00:50:05
Acts chapter 8 another man.
And this man we say, we see.
Had been and.
He was a sorcerer.
Verse nine of Acts 8 There was a certain man called Simon, which before time in that city used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one to whom they gave. They all gave heed from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God.
And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with their sorceries.
But when they believe that the people of Samaria preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
Then Simon himself believed also. Do you notice that he believed?
And when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
He believed and was baptized, wasn't, he said.
Notice later on.
Peter comes down Peter and John comes down to come down to Samaria, and he says to Simon, when Simon offered him money, Peter says in verse 20, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this manner, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God.
Perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee, for I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.
Was he saved? No.
He had believed in his head, but not in his heart. And that's where it has to be. For thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved.
He believed he was baptized, but he never had repented. He still wanted to be a great one in Samaria, this time as a Christian. He wanted to be a great one. He had never truly repented. And notice what he says to Simon Peter in verse 24. Pray ye to the Lord for me. He didn't even know how to pray himself.
Poor man, No record.
That he ever repented and believed.
One further.
Case in Acts chapter 16 and this is one that is an example for anyone who wants the blessing of eternal salvation.
Here we have the Apostle Paul and Silas.
They're in prison for preaching the word of God. And while they're in prison?
I should say that the prisoner or the jailer didn't treat them really nice.
Says in verse 23, When they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into the prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.
Pretty poor treatment.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were open.
Everyone's bands were loosed, the keeper of the prison awakening out of his sleep, seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we all hear you. Notice the change in this man, says he came, he called for a light. Verse 29.
00:55:04
Sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas.
Pretty evident that this man had repented, he had changed his mind. And then he says in verse 30, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house. They speak unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. He took them, and same hour of the night.
Washed their stripes and was baptized.
He and all his straightway.
He repented and he believed and he got salvation. So my friend, tonight I want to ask you.
Repent of your sins. Your sins are not going to help you at all if you continue to go in the way of sin. It's going to wreck you not only in this life, but for all eternity. And God doesn't want that. That's why He commands you to repent.
But salvation will come when you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what saves. It's not a religion. It's not a certain.
Recipe of obedience to certain commands that will save your soul. It's faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, his person, His work on the cross of Calvary.
He has completely satisfied God. God was so satisfied, He raised him from the dead.
And Jesus as a man is sitting in the right at the right hand of God in heaven right now.
Oh, I ask you to stop and to repent of your sins if you have not done it yet, and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know this world is standing right on the edge of the most awful judgment it will ever see.
Call the time of tribulation.
The Great Tribulation, and I don't think this country realizes how awful it's going to get.
In not the two distant future.
So that's why God commands you to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other way of salvation. There is none other but a name given among men whereby we must be saved, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There's anybody that has questions, we'll be glad to answer them afterwards.
Widow's Mite
Children—Tim Roach
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.
If any children wanna come up to the front, now's the time to come.
And while we're while the children are coming to the front, we can sing a song. Does somebody have a song you'd like to sing?
Nobody likes to sing.
How about we Yes.
#41 Around the throne of God in heaven.
Around the throne of God.
We're all over there to be nice. Oh my God, I love about getting those girls and friends that are making me Lord.
Glory.
Glory. Glory.
Alive.
Be honest with them saying your mechanic and fly to rise on the wind and.
Now the white man's land was crashing his blood in the hole in his life and bleeding anything.
Oh, everything. Whoa, everything. There's no.
Umm, when we were in Malawi some years ago, we were at the breaking of bread in the SI in a village called Nyungwe. It's kind of a remote village and there's a sister there who is in the fellowship and when they started passing the collection plate around, she didn't have any money and so but she brought two ears of corn and she put the two.
Cobs of corn on the plate as it went around.
She didn't have very much, but that's what she had to give. Another time. I was in that same village assembly and again the plate came around.
And she still didn't have any money, But she had two eggs, and she put two eggs on the plate.
That was an old widow. She's blind, she can't see, but she loves the Lord, and she was happy to give what she had to the Lord.
Someone else have a song would like to sing?
This little girl here.
Yeah, you you, me. OK. What? What number did you wanna sing? Yeah, you. No, the one. The boy next to you.
45 OK in my song sheet, there's not a song there. Does someone have a?
While we sing this song to all the children who are sitting in the front row, we're going to be giving out some money to you. But there's there's a reason for it. We're going to give you each 1/4 and a dollar. And so anybody, any children sitting in the front row, you're going to get 1/4 and a dollar. And so we sing this song, we're going to give them out to you, OK?
00:05:09
1 day of time to speak he's going through.
One, there's a whole life for him down in my human.
Take them, Lord, give us, and let them be in.
OK. Hold on to that dollar in that quarter because you might need it later. OK, Don't lose it. And if any children want to come up and and sit in the front row, you're more than welcome.
You know, when we were.
When we're in Malawi and the collection plate comes around.
Everybody. They put some money on the plate.
And after the plate goes around at the end, they O they often announce how much collection money was on the plate at the end of the meeting. And sometimes there's 16120 quache. Now, quacha isn't like a dollar, there's 725 quache to the dollar and so if you do the math, 16125.
Somebody might have to do the math for me.
Well, it's about a 2-3 dollars.
And that's when we put in 1000 clots ourselves. And so for themselves, there might be 20 people and they're putting in 620 quache. That's less than a dollar for the collection. But they love the Lord and they're willing to give to the Lord, you know, sometimes.
They only want to put in 50 kwacha, but they only have 100. And so when the plate comes around, they put in 100 and they take out 50 and they get change, but they put they give to the Lord. They give to the Lord Jesus. What they have, it's not much, but they're giving to God. Does someone else have a song you'd like to sing?
Yes.
#4
Were you saying this one last night in the Gospel Meeting?
Price is the.
Cerebral palsy.
Alumni for the same instant.
But it is great. I am free.
Slave to your house. To hear me, listen to me. Stay in your house. Stay in there. It's like millions.
Just as I want everything.
In front of God 22 please.
Now there is no thousand day shrunk. Let's take a second.
Save your name.
Yeah, yeah, Everything's gonna be around the same. And it's like, man.
Blood flowing, my grandson, Let's say the singer for me.
00:10:37
Oh my God, I'm saying, therefore he.
2 Lords days ago we were in the city of Lilongwe and there was just a few Christians gathered together to remember the Lord in his death. And the collection went around and at the end of the meeting, the brothers, they decided that they were going to give the money from the collection to two sisters there who were very poor. They had no they had no income and they hadn't paid their their rent or their electricity for three months.
And they they were having problems and so they decided they would give the collection to these sisters. Well, there was an orphan boy who was present, and he was from another assembly. He was gathered there, but he came to the meeting and he had just graduated from high school, but he had no, no people to give him guidance. And so he moved into the city and he was a Barber. He was learning to cut people's hair, and so he made a little bit of money from cutting people's hair.
But.
The electricity is not on very often.
Some days electricity only comes on at night. And so how can you cut hair with an electric Barber, with a razor, with no electricity? So the little the young man, he didn't have money. And so I saw the one sister. She gave some of the money to her daughter. Her daughter is about 10 or 12 years old. And so she took the money and she went over to the little boy.
Or to the young man and gave him that money so he would have money for transport to get back home.
The Lord Jesus appreciates it when we give money to him, and giving is important. Giving to God is important for the believers after Sunday School.
Many of us will sit down for a meeting here. Who will sing? We'll pray, we'll read verses and we'll eat the bread and we'll drink the cup. And each Lord's day, many Christians, they come together in this way to break bread.
They come to remember what the Lord Jesus did for them when he died on the cross.
And this is the time when we come together like that. We're gathered together to give to Jesus. We come to give to him as a group collectively. And the Spirit of God gathers believers into a group.
That represents the body of Christ.
And this is And when we're gathered together for the breaking of bread, it's a time when we give to God.
And when the collection comes around, we give money to God, we give worship, we worship together as many members in one body, but we give to the Lord. And it's not important about. Well, it is important about giving the money. But when we come to the to remember the Lord, we're giving the Lord Jesus thoughts. We're giving the Father thoughts about the Lord Jesus about his death.
And when we all think about the death of the Lord Jesus.
It makes us want to give Him worship and we give Him praise.
And we give Thanksgiving.
You know, boys and girls, we give worship to the Lord Jesus. That means we're thinking nice thoughts about the Lord Jesus because he is God. That's worship. And then we give praise to the Lord Jesus because we're happy. We're happy because the Lord Jesus saved us. And so we want to praise him. And then we give Thanksgiving. We thank the Lord Jesus for what he did to save us.
Because we know the Lord Jesus went to the cross to die on the cross because you.
00:15:01
Are a Sinner.
And you are going to be punished if you don't believe on the Lord Jesus because the Lord Jesus wants you to go to be with him in heaven. He doesn't want to punish you, so he wants you to be saved.
And So what? Three, what three things do we give to the Lord Jesus? We give him worship. We give him praise. We give him Thanksgiving, but we also give him something else. We can give him money. And that's why the collection plate goes around at the end of the meeting. It goes around and people put the money in it. They're not giving the money to the assembly. They're giving the money to God, to the Lord Jesus.
And so.
The collection it's only for believers. Only the believers can put the money. Should be putting the money in the basket because.
You can't get saved by putting money into the collection.
But do you think the Lord Jesus is interested in the money that we put into the basket? Do you think the Lord Jesus is interested? Well, let's look at a story in Mark's Gospel, chapter 12. We're going to read a story about people who are giving money.
And in mark chapter 12 and verse 41.
Says in Jesus sat opposite the treasury and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury, and many that were rich cast in much.
Just a minute here.
Mark 1242.
Sorry.
Giving a little.
I had my Bible on to a different translation so we won't get confused. We'll read this from this one. OK, Matthew or Mark, chapter 12, verse 41, and Jesus sat over against the treasury and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow and she threw in two mites.
Which make a Farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow has cast in more than all they which have cast into the treasury. For they did all cast of in of their abundance. But she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living in this story.
The crowd of people, they were came to the temple and they went and put their money in the treasury. They were giving gifts in the treasury for the temple and they threw their coins into a box. And Jesus was sitting there and he was watching and he watched as people came and put their money in. And the rich people came. They were dressed in their very nice clothes, expensive clothes, maybe they were made of fine twined linen.
But they had very nice clothes and they came and put a lot of money into the box.
Then the Lord Jesus saw a widow.
A woman, she came to put money in the box. Her husband had died and she was poor and she went to the box and she put in two mites, 2 little pieces of money that weren't worth very much.
And Jesus asked his disciples, come here. And Jesus said to his disciples, says, what I'm saying to you is true. He is this poor widow woman.
She has put into a better gift into the box than all the other people have put in.
And the disciples looked at him. She only put it into two little pieces of money. These other people put in a lot of money. The Lord Jesus said her gift was better because she put in all the money that she had.
00:20:06
She had nothing. Those people, they still have plenty of money and they only put a part of their money into the box.
They gave a little bit of their abundance.
Few children have been given an abundance this morning. You've been given $1.25.
That's that could be an abundance. Well, these people, they came and they put a little bit of their abundance into the basket, into the box. But this lady, she came and put all her money in. That was all the money she needed to live on. Now what was she going to do? But that widow, that woman, she had faith in God, and she loved God so much.
That she put in everything.
That she had.
You see, Jesus is more interested in your heart and what you think about Jesus more than how much money you put in.
Many of the people there who are putting money in the treasury, they put the money in because everybody else was doing it and they wanted everybody to see that they were putting money into.
And they wanted to look good to everybody else.
But I think that that widow woman, I think that she knew that she was giving the money to God and it meant a lot to her to give to God.
Well.
We want you boys and girls to to kind of experience what those people did back in this story back when the Lord Jesus. So how many of you have a dollar and 1/4?
Oh, everybody in the front row. Very good.
Well, we want you to see what it's like to put money in the Treasury.
But we're not going to give the money to the Jewish treasury. We don't want to do that. But we want you to give the money. We want to give the money to the Lord Jesus.
And so after I want you to put just not yet, but I want you to go up and put some money in the ball in this little silver basket we have on the table.
And we want to give that money to the Lord Jesus. So if it's OK with the brothers here in Saint Louis, after the children put the money into the basket, we can give that money to the Saint Louis assembly and we can let them use that money. However the Spirit of God directs them to help share the gospel with others. But now listen, you have a dollar and you have 1/4.
One of those is for the Lord, and one of them is for you. So don't put them both in you. Keep one of them. You can put whichever one in you want, and you can keep whichever one you want and.
You can keep the other one for yourself, but but before we do that, you know the Jews, they would receive money from anybody. Everybody could put the money in the basket.
But I think that Jesus only wants to receive the money from believers.
From Christianity the the those who are saved.
So Jesus does not want you to think that if you put money in the basket, you're gonna go to heaven. He doesn't want you to think you get a a good place in heaven just because you put money there. No, He wants you to know that you are saved. And so if you don't think that you are saved, maybe you better not put any money in the basket in the treasury. OK, now.
I want you each to go up and one by one you can put either your dollar or your quarter in the basket, whichever you would like to. And you can keep the other one for yourself. OK, go ahead.
OK.
00:25:03
Very, very nice. The Lord Jesus appreciates that.
Oh, and here comes a widow woman.
Putting in 2 Pennies.
Thank you, Jesus, our Lord Jesus.
Ah, thank you, Lord Jesus. We just gave money to the Lord Jesus.
If you think.
That maybe you are not saved.
And maybe you didn't feel that you could put money into the basket.
Because you weren't saved.
We want you to know that we love you.
And that the Lord Jesus loves you.
And that you can be saved right now.
And for you to be saved right now.
You must believe.
Believe that you are a Sinner.
And believe that there's judgment.
For the center.
And that you deserve to be punished.
And then you need to believe that Jesus came into this world, the Father sent the Son, the Lord Jesus, to die on the cross. And you believe that Jesus died there and that during three hours of darkness he was punished for your sins. Do you believe that? Do you believe the Lord Jesus made a way of escape for you?
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And then we heard last night about the soldier who pierced the Lord Jesus with his spear, and out came the blood. And so do you believe that the blood of Jesus can cleanse you from all sin, and so that you can never lose your salvation.
Do you believe that?
Then the Bible says that if you confess the Lord Jesus with your mouth, you will be saved.
Believe that Jesus is Lord and confess. Tell somebody that Jesus is Lord. Tell your mom. Tell your dad. Mom, I believe Jesus Christ is my Lord.
And you will know that you are saved.
No, the Bible doesn't tell the the Sinner to confess his sin.
Because if you had to confess your sin to get saved.
You probably wouldn't remember them all, would you? I can't remember all the things I've done, and if I had to remember all of them, I wouldn't be able to confess them all.
And so we need to confess that Jesus is Lord.
And that he took our sin away from us.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you will be saved.
I have a small little purse here.
We got some.
Some coins in here.
Let's see, we have 10203040555657 cents.
That's not much money, is it $0.57?
Well, this morning I want to tell you about a story about a little girl named Hattie. Hattie.
I want to tell you about the gift that she gave of $0.57 to help build a bigger Sunday school building so children could come in here, the gospel.
One Sunday morning, the Sunday school teacher he was, he went outside the the building and to find a group of children there who they wanted to get into the Sunday school, but they couldn't get in because there wasn't room and so many of them had to sit outside.
And one of those children was 6 year old Hattie.
And when the kind man saw Hattie sitting there, he lifted her up in his arms, and he put her on his shoulder and he carried her into the building, and he found a place for her to sit in the Sunday School class.
00:30:04
The next morning, as he walked down the street, he saw Hattie sitting out there, and he stopped to talk to Hattie, and he told her that he hoped that someday they would be able to build a bigger building that was large enough so that all the children could come in to hear the gospel that anybody who wanted to attend could come into the room.
But two years later, the little girl, Hattie, she died. And the kind man, the Sunday school teacher.
They asked him to have the funeral service to preach at the service. Well, after the service, Hattie's mother came up and handed the man a small purse containing 57 cents. She had been saving her pennies and the mother told told the man she said she's been saving her pennies so that she could give it to you so you could build a new building so people could hear the gospel.
Well, the Sunday school teacher, he took the $0.57 and the other. He told the other Christians about the little girl who had been saving her pennies to help build a new Sunday school building and the people were so inspired by Hattie's gift of $0.57.
That they were soon able to build an addition on the building so that all the children could come and hear the gospel.
Hattie I'm sure that Jesus would say that Hattie gave more than anyone else from that that assembly, from that group of Christians.
Than anybody else to be able to build that new Sunday school room because Hattie gave all she had.
I want to look at a verse in Luke chapter 16.
Maybe we can just put this $0.57 in here too.
This verse is in Luke chapter 16 and verse 9.
And this verse is about giving money to Jesus.
And it's got some hard complicated words in it, so it might not be too easy to understand, but we'll try to explain it.
And it says, Luke 16, verse 9 And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.
Let's talk about mammon. Well, that's money.
And this verse is telling us to use our money to help spread the gospel so other people can hear about the Lord Jesus.
And the friends in the verse, the friends are the people who get saved because you used your money to help get the gospel out to people.
And then it says that when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. What's an everlasting habitation? A habitation is like a house. It's a place where you stay. And forever we're gonna stay with the Lord Jesus in heaven. And so when you get to the everlasting habitations that those people.
Who were saved because of the money that you gave. They're going to welcome you to heaven, and there's going to be a happy reunion when you get to heaven. And so that's what Hattie did. Hattie's gonna have a happy entrance into heaven when she's received by into the eternal heaven when she's received by all the people who were saved because of her $0.57.
That she gave to help build that building so other boys and girls could hear the gospel, to hear about the Lord Jesus, and so that they could get saved. And so it's going to be a happy day when we go to heaven, we're going to see the Lord Jesus.
We're gonna see all our friends who are saved because we were able to help them in a way where they could hear the gospel about the Lord Jesus. So it's very nice that you boys and girls put your money into the basket to give to the Lord. And we're gonna give this basket to the brothers here in Saint Louis and so they can use their discernment and be guided by the Spirit of God so they can give.
00:35:20
That money to somebody who can share the gospel with children. But we have time to sing another song or two. Someone else have a song you'd like to sing? Yes. Yeah.
#14
have you been to?
The hills. Are you watching the blood of the blood?
Oh, I already got your time. Yeah, I'm just gonna say why it doesn't know why you lost in the world of land.
When the bright room come like when your rock in white your and white and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
I.
I like that song. That's one of my favorites because it talks about the love, the blood of the Lord Jesus and how he washes our garments white. You know, our sin makes us dirty, but the blood of Jesus Christ, it cleanses us from our sin and it makes it as if we are white and we are clean. But sometimes a person, they think that.
I know I'm safe, but sometimes I still do bad things and doesn't that get me dirty?
But I say to you, no, it doesn't get.
It might get you dirty on the outside, but it doesn't get you dirty on the inside because when the blood of Jesus Christ washes your sins away, he makes you white, he makes you clean and and you can never lose your salvation. Because the Bible says in Isaiah he says it's it's like wool when when you were washed in the blood. It's like being like wool and wool. If you know anything about wool, wool has its own resistance.
To dirt and you can clean it. You can wash it with water and it gets clean again. You don't have to. It doesn't have to die. Umm, So that thought there is that yes, you might get dirty on the outside, but you can be washed in the water of God's word. You don't need the blood to wash you a second time. You only need the blood to wash you once to make you clean. And after that, if you sin again, then you need the water of God's word to confess your sin.
00:40:03
To him, see, only believers confess their sin. Unbelievers don't confess their sin because a believer confesses his sin. Because when a believer sins, it disturbs his fellowship with God. And so God wants you to be happy in His presence, but when you have sin, it makes you unhappy. But he doesn't want you to think that you're going to lose your salvation because you're unhappy. He wants you to confess your sins. Say Lord Jesus, I'm sorry.
I sinned again.
And the Lord Jesus says when you confess your sin, he's faithful, He's just. He will forgive your sin and he'll make you clean on the outside. You're already clean on the inside because of the blood of the Lord Jesus. We have time for one more song. And this is I hear, I hear someone over here saying a song each time.
Was it you? What? What number did she want?
43, OK 43.
Nsnoise.
Before we pray and close, I'm going to give.
The the money that you boys and girls gave to Jesus. Thank you for giving to Jesus. I'm going to give it to Brother Mark Cell from the assembly here in Saint Louis. And I want, I want the basket back.
And may it might be that the Lord Jesus will use the money that you gave, that somebody else might be saved, and you'll see that friend in heaven, and you'll know it when you get to heaven.
Twelve Apostles
Address—David Mearns
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.
Maybe we could sing this afternoon the 1St 2 verses of 224, the 1St 2 verses of 224. Maybe if a local brother could could get me some water, I'd appreciate that.
#224 Thank you, Austin. So let me please start that.
Way.
I forget what right now.
The soul where I can take God is being.
Oh.
My God.
And perhaps if we have time at the end of this meeting, we'll be able to consider that last verse. So a little frantic for me. I've never done this.
This subject I mean.
Jim always tells me don't try to.
Say everything that you know on the subject. He's gonna be looking at the ceiling here in a moment when he sees the the subject is.
Number of years ago, three years ago actually, umm, I had an exercise to umm have 12 addresses in our local assembly and to take up the subject of the 12 disciples. And we did it over a year's period of time. I trust it was for.
A lot of profit this afternoon. We're gonna do all 12.
Umm, we're not gonna, of course, umm, take 12 addresses and put them into one. But the subject has been really profitable to my own soul. And I trust that as we look at these blessed pages, that if there's even something that would touch each of our hearts, perhaps one thing that would touch a heart, each heart here this afternoon.
Then it'll be well worth our time to read from these pages.
So you think of of these 12.
What was it that made them go?
What was it that, that made them, uh, what was the fuel that, you know, we read about it in the Acts that umm, not just, not just the disciples, but other believers and umm, you know, as they, as they moved out from Jerusalem and as they, as, as they moved into Asia, if they moved, uh, into Europe, perhaps into Africa. And you know, the, the compensation that we read from Acts is that they turn the world upside down. So, So what is it that made them go?
00:05:08
You know it. It really should be exactly the same thing.
That makes us go same thing.
These were not influential men.
They weren't.
They weren't scribes.
No priests, no lawyers.
No important men, none that we read of that were great orders. They weren't.
They were men.
Like you and I.
We read about Timothy.
Umm, that's what they were like. That's what these men were like. So, So what? So what prompted me to take a look at this subject? You know, it's not something you, you can look at BTP and search down and try to find a volume that takes up to 12 disciples. It's not going to happen. There just isn't any. So, So what what prompted me? You know, I've appreciated at times in my life. I got a boy here. We like to fish down again. We don't get to do it much.
Once a year, Umm, used to do a little more. I, I, I've been, I've been greatly interested though, in, in watching in various different places fishing boats come in, commercial fishing boats and seeing them unload their fish. And I, you know, I was in Brazil a number of years ago and I was down in Florianopolis. And it was fascinating to me to see these fishing boats come in and they were so loaded with fish that the, the, the tops of the boats were just above the water.
You know, when they, they, they, they get to the shore and then all the, there'd be scores of people there in Florianapolis and they, they all line up like a tug of war that maybe thirty of them. And they pull these boats up onto the shore. And I'd, I'd watch the, all the merchants come down and they, they want special fish. And, you know, sometimes they clean them right there. Sometimes the, the, the people would buy the fish as they are. And it was fascinating to me.
I appreciate this. The thing in Florida, if you go to, if you go to Port Orange, where umm.
Our dear sister has just passed away. Umm, you see that? You see the boats there and they, they commercial fish for shrimp and it's fascinating to see that happen, umm.
I've umm.
I.
Seen at other places, I, I, you know, there's lots of incidents like I could tell, I'll tell one. It was fascinating to me and it really was, it was, it really struck my interest as to what the Lord came upon. Umm, you know, when there was 153 fish or when the, the next break and they had to call their buddies to pull all these fish up on the land or, or, umm, when Peter and Umm and Andrew were casting their net, net into the, the sea or when.
When John and and and his brother were were mending their naps, what did the Lord come upon in these instances?
Remember standing in Florida, uh, watching some of these commercial boats come in and there was also some, uh, sport fishing boats. And I watched one and they, umm, people all got out and, uh, and the buckets of, of fish that were caught, they, they, they brought them out to where they were gonna clean them. And it's interesting the way they go through, umm, as you catch fish in those boats, they, they mark something on the head.
Umm, you get a certain mark and this person gets another mark and third person gets another mark and everybody gets a different mark. So, umm, these people all standing around in a circle and umm, there's a guy that's going to clean them and he's going through the bucket and he's, he calls out, you know, a mark on the head. And this person says 1 mark on the head, it's my fish. And so they, he throws the fish down at that person's feet and another mark, he throws it at this person's feet. And by the end, if all these people standing around maybe 15 or 20.
Them and they've all got this group of fish at their feet and the person that has the uh, least amount of fish, he's the one that gets his fish clean and there's fish there that are three feet long. There's fish that are this big and very, very fascinating for me just to observe. So this, this, this guy, he's cleaning fish as he's cleaning, there's a Pelican over there on the boat and all of a sudden he swoops down right into the middle.
Grabs one of the fish, opens up that big beak.
And So what was it? And, and the guy that's cleaning the fish, he just stops, reaches over, grabs the Pelican, opens up his mouth, runs his hand right down to the stomach, pulls the fish out, throws it at the man's feet, takes the Pelican, goes over to the side of the dock and throws it in as if it was all part of the skit. NE never even looked.
00:10:06
At, at the people watching. It's fascinating, fascinating to me. And I thought, you know, I wonder what the Lord came upon.
Uh, my, I was of interest that some of the folks here have just been to Israel. That was my interest in asking several of them, you know, what did you see in the Sea of Galilee? That was fascinating to me. So it's wonder what was happening there. And they told me all various things. Well.
The 12Th.
They all had a call.
As do you and me.
They had a personal call.
They had a public call.
I'm gonna have one call. Actually, we don't read them due to just having a call. I'm sure he was. Someone had three calls, some of them four calls.
So as we embark on this, I thought first of all, we would, umm, it's interesting. Umm, Nick said, uh, two days ago when he looked at the clock, he said as far as time, time is concerned, everything's just fine. As I look at the clock, I, I say as far as time concerning, it's not fine at all. However, whatever we get, let's, let's get. And so I want to look at.
The four times.
That they're listed because the disciples are listed four times and they're listed different ways. And then we're gonna turn and stay in the one portion where they're listed because I'd like to take that up. So the first, the first, umm, the first instance. Let's look in the book of Matthew, Matthew's Gospel.
And the 10th chapter.
Matthews Gospel chapter 10, Matthew 10, Mark three and.
Luke 6 and then the book of the Acts. So here in Matthew's Gospel, uh, the 10th chapter, we read this. Now the names of the 12 apostles are these notice as we go through Matthew and we go through Luke because they're listed.
In pairs, that's how they're listed different in acts, different in March. So we read here the first Simon, who's called Peter and Andrew, his brother James the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew. Notice pairs the publican James the son of Alphaeus in Libya.
Whose surname was Thaddeus and who also had the name Judas.
Man with three names. So I'm in the Canaanite and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. Let's go to umm, actually, let's go to Luke's gospel.
Where we have the same.
Scenario in pairs.
Luke's Gospel, Chapter 6.
I wonder if they called the famous disciples, and of them he chose 12.
Whom also he named apostles, Simon, whom he also named Peter, and Andrew his brother.
James and John, Philip and Bartholomew. Notice pairs Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon called Zolodes, Judas the brother of James and Judas Iscariot, which was the traitor. Let's go to look at the act.
Acts chapter one.
This is different because here.
They're in groups, a group of four, a group of three and two groups of two not only adds up to 11, of course there's one missing. Interesting because in this chapter we find the the lot is cast. There's there's two that are candidates. UH-1 draws a long straw. That's Malcolm. We never read them again. The one who draws.
The short straw who wasn't one of the apostles. We read of them again.
Couple times in the book of the Acts. So we find out that he has something to do that perhaps if he had been called an apostle, maybe that work would have been umm.
Not he wouldn't have been able to do that work, but here, as we look at the list, let let's read it now. Umm, when they were come thirteen one and 13 when they were come up into an upper room, they're abode both Peter and James and John and Andrew.
00:15:02
And then Phillip and Thomas Bartholomew.
And Matthew?
James, the son of Alpheus and Simon Zelodes and Judas, the brother of James groups. And I've appreciated that because we're going to go down to Mark's gospel where we're gonna spend the rest of our time because in in Mark's gospel we find them called individually. Sometimes the Lord has a work for us to do and it's with somebody. Sometimes he has a work to do and it's with a group.
Sometimes he has something forced to do.
And it's all by ourselves with the Lord. Well, let's look here now in Mark's gospel, where they're called in individually. We're gonna start. Let's look at the 16th verse. And Simon Eastern and Peter and James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James and his surname, them bow energies, which is the sons of Thunder.
And Andrew. And Phillips and Bartholomew and Matthew.
And Thomas and James the son of Alpheus and Thaddeus, and Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him, and they went into a house.
Fascinating, isn't it?
So let's embark on the first one, Peter.
I don't know how you take up Peter in a setting like this. Umm, just just for, for information. Uh. Andrews mentioned 13 times in the word Peter in excess of 220.
So how, how do I select, you know, Peter's thinking in the water, Peter denying the Lord Peter.
Uh, going up in the mount of Transfiguration, uh, there, there's, there's so many things about Peter that, umm, that we could look at. And it's interesting because Peter's the, the one that gives the boldest confession. Peter's the one that, umm.
That, uh, denies the Lord.
Peter is the only one that rebukes the Lord.
That's pretty songs, isn't it? And Peter began to rebuke the Lord towards us.
Peter is the only one.
That the Lord says, give thee behind me, Satan. You know what? And and yet, you know, Peter's the one that uh, in the book of the Acts says he had denied the Holy one and the just Peter's the one that writes, uh, to us and says, uh, be clothed with humility. You know, as I, as we punch in the word humility, Peter doesn't come flashing up on our screen.
And yet what? What was it that that worked with Peter?
To bring him to the point where he's such a blessing to ourselves. And so the, the, what I'd like to do with Peter is, is, is look at one scripture now and maybe one at the end, umm, to look at, uh, perhaps the change in Peter. Let's look at Matthew chapter 17.
Matthew chapter 17 and I'm going to ask you that you'll continually, umm.
Nick said in his address that there was gonna be a ray of scriptures. Umm.
That was kind of an understatement for what we have here. Umm, there's going to be a number of scriptures and you don't have to turn to them. Umm, you can perhaps just, umm, listen. And if there's something that you can glean, you know, I'm sure the, the marvelous, I, I, I'm just enjoying this as I've enjoyed my own soul. Matthew umm, chapter 17.
I I love this.
13.
Jesus came under the coast of Caesarea Philippi. He asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, AM?
I'm sorry, Matthew 16.
Matthew 16. Thank you. Whoever it was that whispered, that was it. Appreciate that. You might have to do that again.
So Matthew chapter 16 and verse 13, when Jesus was come to the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, whom? The men say that I, the Son of Man AM, And they said, some say thou art John the Baptist. Well, that's impressive.
00:20:02
And some Elias, yeah, that's that's impressive too. And others, Jeremiah, these are.
Men of note, or one of the prophets, and he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Oh, I love this. And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. It's interesting that that comes in exactly the same chapter where the Lord says to Peter, get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, as we just embark on this subject.
Do we have a sense in our soul?
As who it is that has called us, we have a sense in our soul. You know, I was reminded of an incident in in my life before I was married, and I was reminded of it just this week. My wife, uh, made arrangements with, umm, our brother Tony Kelly in Nassau to break bread with him in the month of February.
The last time I was in Nassau, and I don't know, it's still right, still here.
Maybe he's gone, but he's probably the only one here that was with us. There was a number of us that we got our own boat, umm, and we went from, uh, from Florida and we sailed across to the Bahamas and we did some of the islands there. We, we broke bread with, uh, Tony was actually this, the, the week after Tony was gathered. It was very interesting to spend the time with him and his, his grandmother enjoyed the time very much. I haven't seen him since then. Uh, I expect he's changed a bit. I expect I probably have 40 years ago.
Umm.
We were on the far side of Nassau.
We were headed back to Florida.
And we were kind of in a rush and we, we had to, umm, we were in a 40 footer. It's what we had rented. Umm, it had two Chrysler sixes in it. We were, we're using the power for some of the time we were sailing for some of the time. At this particular time we run out of fuel. So we were sailing, but we needed fuel because we were, we had a headwind and it was going to be a headwind all the way to Florida.
And we, we taxed because it was a head when we were talking back and forth, it was really time consuming. And we came into Nassau, came into the harbor there and, uh, it was nice. Everything was closed down and we couldn't get the fuel. And we were, some of us had some deadlines and we thought, oh, we've got to get fuel. And so we, we found someone that thought they might be able to get someone to help us out. And sure enough, in a little while, umm.
Umm, a man came down and sneakers and shorts and he said, you know, I'm gonna help you. And he kinda helped us out and filled us up with our fuel and uh, you know, this is, uh, it's a large harbor. There's ships in it. There's 200 foot yachts. There was.
A multiplicity of the size of the ones we had, probably 100 or more. And umm, this man, he filled us up with, uh, fuel. And at the end of it, umm, because of his kindness, we handed him 20 bucks.
And so thank you very much. We appreciate you. All right, it was a holiday, umm, late and on a holiday. We appreciate you doing this. He looked at the 20 and he said, umm.
I probably don't need that.
I own this harbor.
You know, our deportment changed.
Drastically. We've been laughing and chatting with them, you know, thinking this clerk could come down to fill our boat here. He left his mansion, left his family behind.
And came down to the the Wharf to.
Fill these. Fill up the both of these.
7 scallywags you know, and we, we were as we spoke, as we spoke with them, you know, we were Canadians and Americans and we were way above him.
When we realized who he was, our deportment changed.
I would just like to suggest as we embark, Peter, who says thou art the Christ?
The Son of the living God. Do we have a sense in our soul as we go through the day, that that's the one who has called us? That's the one who has called us?
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Let's move on to.
James and John, which is the next one in the list here in Mark chapter 3.
00:25:01
Maybe we'll do them together.
James uh, it's sort of interesting.
He's never mentioned alone, never ever accept when he loses his life, and he's the only disciple that we have his death recorded. James.
John his his brother and that's another thing. How how do you umm.
How do you select that a portion with regards to John, whether it's in the epistles, whether it's in, in Revelation, whether it's in the Gospel, uh, how do you select, uh, do you know the disciple whom Jesus loved? There's so many things that we, we could, umm, we could glean here in relation to John. I thought though of, umm, of, uh, there, there's, there's a, there's a portion, it's in, umm, it's actually in, umm, it's in Matthew's Gospel.
Umm, in Matthew 20? It's in Mark 10. It's in Luke 10. Let's look at it in Matthew's Gospel, the Matthew 20.
Where we read umm?
In, in Mark's Gospel and Luke's Gospel, we have umm, we have uh, James and John coming to the Lord Jesus and they wanting a special place in, umm, in Matthew's gospel we, we find that umm, it has to do with Mrs. Zebedee, which we'll read here in, in Matthew 19 and verse 20.
Uh, then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children, with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? And she saith unto him, Grant the thieves, my two sons may sit, the one on the right hand, the other on the left, in thy Kingdom. And Jesus answered and said, You know not what she asked, Are you able to drink of the.
Cup that I shall drink of be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with. And they said unto him, We are able. And so far verse 24.
You know what's interesting here?
The 10 here of it.
The 10.
And they're furious. They're absolutely furious.
Because they wanted that spot.
You know, I, I thought of this, this portion, you have a number of portions where the disciples are squabbling and grumbling amongst themselves as to who should be the greatest. Uh, we can't turn them all. There's a multiplicity of them. But I thought, you know, probably the best way to look at it is to go back to First Corinthians chapter 10. I'd like to do that for a moment.
First Corinthians chapter 10, you're going to say, where are you going with this?
Well, there was a comment that was that was made.
With regards to the division of the chapter in First Corinthians 10 and how there was.
A There was a a vivid change from what we have in the first part of the chapter to when we get to the 15th verse 16 the community of the blood of Christ and the fellowship we we spoke about.
We spoke about the five things in verses 6 to 10. We didn't really touch in too much on the 9th and 10th verse. And I want to just point those two verses out because they make it so vivid, the change that we have in this chapter. And it's this, if we're to go back to the Book of Numbers, those two portions.
They have to do with the people of God speaking against Moses and Aaron.
You know, I, I think these things are mentioned and, and, and that's mentioned, we have a, a portion, you know, actually the only Old Testament, umm, failure of them, uh, failure of an Old Testament prophet that we have in the New Testament is Elijah. And it says he was interceding against his brother.
You know it's.
To be found with with hard thoughts and and negative things said about our brethren just does not go along with what we have in the next part of the chapter. You know, you think of the word fellowship. We, we love the word. We love the word communion. It just can't be married with speaking against our brother. You can't take those things and put them together. You can't do it. And that's why it's so vivid here in first Corinthians chapter 10.
And that's why it's so vivid that we have it so often with the disciples. Let's go back to, umm, to, uh, Mark's gospel.
00:30:03
Uh, James and John, umm, we could take a look at the umm, at the uh.
Portion that, uh, where they call fired of heaven. But I'd like to go to Mark's gospel chapter one and just take a look at this scenario with James and John.
Because here's one of the scenarios where the Lord Jesus comes.
And there's a fishing experience.
Versus Mark chapter one and verse 16. Now as he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew's brother casting an end of the sea for their fishers. He said unto them, Come ye after me, I will make you to become fishers of men. Straight away they forsook their nest and followed him. And when he had gone a little further fence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship.
Mending.
Their Nets, interesting expression. I've watched that. I watched it in Florida. I watched the mending Nets. Uh, one of the things I did just before I came here, uh, I mended my socks. My wife can't do it anymore. Umm, so I, my mom actually taught me how to mend my socks. And if there's a hole in your socks, umm, can mend it. My, my daughter thinks it's ridiculous because a couple of years ago when I turned 60, she gave me.
60 little wrapped up bundles and there was 60 pairs of socks. She thinks I could probably throw them all out but no.
As most of the men here know, you've got favorite socks, you've got favorite sweaters, we've got favorite socks. And some of my favorite socks, They need to be mended.
These two disciples were mending their Nets. Interesting word. Interesting word. Very, very much needed individually.
Very much needed in our families.
Very much needed in our assemblies vendors.
Galatians 6 and one.
So ma'am, be overtaken in a fault. Ye who are spiritual restore such an one the word there is ye who are spiritual mend such an one same word. You have it in in first Corinthians 1, umm, that she'd be perfectly joined together. You read that scenario in first Corinthians, you think, wow, a lot happening there, but that's what it says perfectly joined together, the word, same word.
You'd be perfectly mended.
Have to work. Let's pick it up, umm, uh, in uh, let's go to the Old Testament. Pick it up in in First second Chronicles. Rather just read a verse there.
Second Chronicles, chapter 2024.
Second Chronicles 24, the King and Jehoiada gave it to such as did the work of the service of the House of the Lord, and hired Masons and carpenters to repair the House of the Lord, and also such as Ross, iron and brass to mend the House of the Lord. Brethren, we need members the menders in our families.
The menders in the assembly. The Lord saw these two.
We look at some of the things they did and we think it's a bit of a stretch for them to be vendors that as life progressed, I believe they came. They became members of the people of God. Let's go on to Andrew.
Mark Chapter 3 Andrew Andrew, as I mentioned earlier, mentioned 13 times.
He's, umm, he's the first one called.
Phillip is the first one the Lord says follow me. But Andrew is the first one called umm, we have the Lord saying to him, uh, come and see. You know, we don't read much about Andrew. No sermons, uh, don't read of them once in the book of the Acts.
It's just not there. He's a, he's a behind the scenes person. That's where Andrew is behind the scenes. He's a whole missionary, brought his brother to the Lord. Where am I gonna pick a spot for Andrew? I thought probably the best thing to look at in connection with Andrew.
Is the feeding of the 5000 the feeding of 5000? Is umm, something that we find in Matthew, we find in Mark, we find it in Luke and we find it in John, Umm.
I'm not sure which one to look at. Maybe look at Matthew 14?
So Matthew 14 to mark six. It's in Luke 9, and it's also in John's Gospel chapter 6.
00:35:03
It's interesting that in each of the synoptic gospels.
We read this.
Matthew, Chapter 14.
Verse 15.
When it was evening, his disciples came to him saying, This is a desert place. The time has now passed. Send the multitude away. Have that Matthew, have that mark, have it Luke, Send them all to do the way. Get rid of them. And in each case the Lord says this.
Give ye the end of verse 16. Jesus said unto them, They need not to part. Give ye them to eat says it, Matthew says it, Mark says it. Luke, give ye them to eat. This is a challenge to my own soul.
After the, the, the, the meetings we had yesterday and the day before, uh, it's kind of hard to conceive that perhaps we wouldn't have got something to eat ourselves spiritually by ourselves, isn't it? But maybe there's someone here and you haven't gotten some feats. Let me just ask the question. Did every one of us get something to eat today by ourselves along with the Lord? Did we? I'm not going to look for a show of hands.
But now I'm going to ask.
Have any of us or all of us shared something?
That's what the Lord said here. You give them thieves, you give them something to eat. Have we done that? Have we done that something that I've enjoyed today? Have I shared it with something? I think, oh, well, you know what? What I have to share is such a little bit, you know, it doesn't matter how little bit it is. You think of Boaz thing to to to Ruth, He says bring up your morsel and dip it in the vinegar. Just a little morsel, you know.
We've got a little more so share the more so with someone. The Lord can take that and as we find in the book of Ruth, she was satisfied and there was other satisfied from a little more so give ye them to eat. Oh how I love that exhortation in connection with Andrew. Let's go on now to Philip.
Mark chapter 3.
Verse 18 and Andrew and Phillip.
As I said, you know umm, Philip was the first one and we won't look at some of these, we can't possibly, but he's the first one that the Lord Jesus says to follow me. I'd like to look at 2 portions in connection with Philip. The first one is in UMM, in UMM.
John chapter 12. Let's look there. I, I, you know, this is, uh, this is very helpful for me. This, this, uh, portion in John chapter 12 because we don't do well with this.
In in John chapter 12 and verse 20, there there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast. The same there came therefore to Philip, which was a Bethea of Galilee and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. No, I love this because Phillip could well have taken the Greeks to the Lord Jesus, but he didn't do that.
He thinks in his mind, who's good at bringing people to Jesus? Who's good at that? Ah, Andrew brought his brother.
He brought the lad with the lunch to the Lord. He'd be the 1:00 to be able to get to bring these Greeks to Jesus. And what does it say?
Philip, come us and tell us Andrew verse 22. And again Andrew and Phillip tell Jesus, you know, I would just like to encourage our hearts.
To capitalize on each other's strengths. We can have a we can tend to be lone wolves and want to do everything by ourselves.
You know, there are our brethren that are good at things and they're far better at them than we are. So could have taken, taken, uh, these ones for the Lord, but he didn't. He went and got Andrew, somebody he knew was good at this. And together the two of them take the Greeks to Jesus. Now let's go to John chapter one, and we'll look at another scenario in connection with Philip.
I I I really enjoy this.
John, Chapter one.
Just a phrase in connection with Phillip.
00:40:09
This has to do with.
With Nathaniel, which maybe we'll look at, but he makes a comment here.
In verse 45.
Philip findeth Nathaniel, and saith unto him, We have found him.
Just that phrase. We have found him now. I love that little word. I think of a Luke 15 of the woman sweeping the house until that coin popped up. She found the coin. Think of the the sheet that's lost. What does it say?
She was found.
You know, we read about solid assets they were found. Think of, think of Isaac's day as the servants or, or or thinking for water. What is it says that they come to Isaac and they say we have found water, we have found water.
You know this little statement. We have found him.
Do we find that's less than one our Lord Jesus in each of the details of our life?
Do we do that when we get up in the morning just today?
We depended on the Lord as to who we should eat lunch with, and we found the Lord showing us who to eat lunch with or to who to share something with.
Or all the little details, oh if we could, in all the details of our life.
Doom for Phillips says here we have found him. That's what the Lord desires for us. He wants us to see him in all the details of our life. I I love that about, about Philip here. We need to move on though to umm, to Nathaniel, which in our chapter is Bartholomew.
You know, I, I just, umm, we don't read them much. He's umm.
He's in, in John, We know that he, he went fishing with Peter and in John 21 umm, we find him in here, though, in the, in the first, umm, the first part of John's Gospel chapter one. Let's look at that and just to pick up what the Lord Jesus says about him.
John, Chapter one.
And this is a little searching to me. I was thinking of this in connection with the scripture that I read yesterday at the prayer meeting. So here in John chapter one.
Well, 43 The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, find the Philippines. 17 Follow me. That's the first time we have that of a disciple. Philip was was a Bethea, the city of Andrew and Peter, Philip finest Nathaniel and saith unto him, We have found him, who Moses in the law and prophets did write Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nathaniel said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?
Philip saith unto him, Come and see Nathaniel coming to him, and see out of him, Behold.
Jesus, Psalm, Daniel coming to him, and saith of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile.
No facade.
With Nathaniel, you know, he goes on here and he speaks to Nathaniel about the time that he was under the fig tree.
And I would like to connect that with the 6th chapter with what I read yesterday at the prayer meeting where it says John's Gospel Chapter 6.
And verse 3.
Where it says and Jesus went up into the mountain and there he sat with his disciples. I love that.
The Lord desired that.
You know, one of the things I didn't read.
It looks gospel in Mark's gospel, you don't have to turn to it. It's in that third chapter, though, is the 14th verse where it says any ordained 12. Why did he? Why did he ordained these 12? Why did he call these 12? Mark 314, it says that they should be with him. That's why he called them. He called them so they should be with him and that's why he's called you and me.
So that we should be with him very simple. That's why we can have everything we have.
00:45:00
Now, so we can do great things, He wants our company. That's what we did here. He sat with his disciples, just sat with them. One of the.
One of the greatest things in my day and it happened two or three times. Uh.
I live a busy life like many here. Uh, I run a couple crews, uh, office in the house. My wife does the paperwork, I do some paperwork. I, I come into the house probably three or four times a day.
Usually my wife is sitting on the couch.
If it's already, if it's sometime in the morning, she's reading and praying. Sometime after, she's maybe on her computer. She might be doing paperwork. I come in the door, I go over the couch. I flopped down on the couch beside her and just leaned up against her.
Don't say anything.
We just sit there and we love it. We both love it.
The Lord desires that with us. And let me ask you this, let me challenge you on this. When was the last time you spoke with the Lord and you didn't ask Him for something?
When was the last time? It seems that every time we address the Lord, we ask Him for something. Every time, except maybe on Thursday morning.
You know, if every time my wife communicated with me, she asked me for something.
It started it was start to get wearing and every time my children spoke to me, they asked me for something you know it would get tired of it. Think of our blessed Lord who just desires our company just to be with us, just to enjoy that that that fellowship that company would have to say anything. I just love that the Lord Jesus.
Sat with his disciples. Do we do that?
Seems like we don't even have the capacity to do that. We have to ask the Lord for something every time we speak with them. Oh, you know, I, I love this. I love Nathaniel sitting under the fig tree and I, I want to take up the concept of the, the ladder there with the.
Jacob's platter, probably what he was meditating on, and the Lord brings that out here. Uh, it's beautiful to see, but manual Nathaniel's deportment of simply seeking to be with the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus saying about him, Oh my, there's no facade here whatsoever.
Let's go on now to Matthew.
Matthews an interesting individual. We read them eight times, not many times.
It doesn't say very much.
About himself? Just about nothing.
Matthew.
I don't know what umm.
Nick, you talked about your pedigree or lack of it. I enjoyed that.
Umm. I don't know what Matthew's background was, but he quotes from the Old Testament about 100 times. That's more than Mark, Luke, and John put together.
Where that came from, I don't know.
I I I really don't know, but Matthew.
He he was a, he was a publican. Just to, to give a little scenario as to the Republicans, it seems that just about every time we read about Republicans, we read them with either sinners or harlots just about every time.
Matthew.
Was the tax collector the scenario of collecting taxes? Then you bought this franchise from the Romans for so much and you started collecting the Jews taxes. Now it's interesting when the publicans come to John the Baptist and they say, you know, what are we supposed to do? John the Baptist says unto them, don't take any more taxes than you're supposed to because it characterized them.
So Republicans they were. They were ostracized. They were hated. They were hated by the Romans.
Because they're Jews. They're hated by the Jews because they collected their taxes.
Isn't it beautiful that the Lord selects Matthew Japan, the Gospel that portrays the Lord Jesus as the rejected Messiah, the rejected King? Who would be able to conceive of those feelings better than Matthew? It's beautiful to go through the book of Matthew and and to see that.
00:50:16
I'm like, I just love that. But what I really love is his call because if you look at we won't turn to it. If we, if we look at umm, his call.
In Matthew, where he calls it just says.
Umm, Lord Jesus called him and it says umm.
He followed the Lord Jesus.
If you go to Luke's cost, well, that's where you have to get it. Luke says and he forsook all and follow Jesus. You know, Matthew, he didn't think it was worth anything anyway. So why would you even pen that in there? I'd love that. But we have to get that detail from from the book of Luke that he left all. But he did that and you know, he just dropped it like a hot potato. I I, you know, it's amazing. I think that's what affected Zacchaeus actually, who is chief of the publicans.
He wanted to see Jesus. He had this under Republican that somehow took this franchise that he had and he dropped the whole thing and followed Jesus. I'm sure that was perhaps one of the things that affected Zacchaeus. He wanted to see what was it that made this man Matthew turn and follow the Lord Jesus. Matthew, what a wonderful scenario you read in connection with him. Well, let's now go to.
Umm, you know, just before we do that, I'd like to umm.
Make a comment in connection with all the times that we read of Matthew's quotations. Somebody instills in Matthew a love for the Word of God.
You know, Nick, you were talking yesterday, I thought, you know, pedigree is worth nothing. It's worth nothing. My great, great grandfather was saved through Mr. Wolfson. It's worth nothing. He had a family. Only my great grandfather went on. He had a family. Only my grandfather went on. He had a family. Only my dad went home. I don't even know if my uncle was the Lords, we think.
What a huge heritage to go back all those years, you know?
On the other side, my mother.
Who used to burn candles?
Used to go to cathedrals on our knees.
Used to pray to Mary to save her soul.
The Lord reached down and picked her up.
Her dad was an alcoholic.
She never saw her mom smile. At grade six, she went to work so she could provide for the family.
My mother, I was just up at the graveyard just before I came here, stood on my parents grave and thank the Lord.
For what they instilled in my heart, my mother instilled in my soul a love for the word of God. I did something I don't usually do. I brought a Bible with me.
My mom, after she instilled in my soul up for the word of God, she sewed inside all my jackets a little pockets where I could put this very volume. Not one like it. This hygiene jacket had one. Wasn't a big thing.
My ski jacket had it a windbreaker. They all had a little pocket where this little Bible, if you open it up the first time that I read it, my dad challenged me once. He said save what are you going to say to Ezekiel when he says to you, how did you like my book? I was 20 and so I had read most of it a number of times, but July the 19th, 1976, I read this all the way through this very volume and it was my mom.
But instilled that into my soul. Not the heritage factor, Mr. Wolf. My mom got an old drunk for a father.
You know, young parents that are here.
And still in your children, a love for the Word of God. I really believe Matthew had tremendous love for the Word of God. Let's go on to Thomas.
I see we're gonna have to skip some here, so that's alright. Let's look at Thomas and I'd like to look at.
John, Chapter 20.
00:55:08
John, Chapter 20.
Thomas was always the.
The most piece of the disciples when they were despondent.
They're saying the Lord Jesus, you know, if you go to Jerusalem, uh, they're going to kill you. Thomas says, hey, let's go up with them and die with them. We always touch into doubting Thomas, but all there's so much more.
Not too long ago I was in an airport. Some of you heard me tell this, but it fits here and umm, I was in a rush to get a plane. I was in the washroom and umm, I was washing my hands. Right beside me, washing his hands, was a big black guy, two of us washing our hands. There was someone over here who just finished washing their hands.
And they pulled some paper towels out of the dispenser and a whole bunch of them fell on the floor.
And the man immediately says, Oh my God, that's probably the most quoted scripture in this world.
Oh my God, what a solemn thing as we recognize the place that that comes from the holy ground.
Oh my God, I cry in the daytime.
My God, my God, we had this morning, who has thou forsaken me? This man, he said that the big black guy beside me, he seized an opportunity and he turns to me and he said, I prefer to say, Oh, my Lord, and proceeded to tell me why. You know, to hear this man so fervently present the gospel to me, I just let him go.
You know, before I finally cut him off and said, you know, I know the Lord Jesus as my Savior too.
It just did my heart good to see this man so earnestly presents the gospel to me. Seizing an opportunity, this man headed out the door and he just took that opportunity to change what the man had said and and said. I prefer to say, Oh my Lord, there are four people in the New Testament that say, my Lord Elizabeth.
She says it to Mary, the mother of my Lord. The Apostle Paul says it in Philippians.
Mary says it in John chapter 20, and here we have Thomas also saying it. Let's look at it.
After eight days, verse 26, verse 27. Then he says to psalmist, verse 2028. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
Is he your Lord?
Is he my Lord?
I'm not asking if you're saved.
If he's not Lord of all.
He's not Lord at all.
Thomas said.
My Lord, beautiful.
Our time has come. I'm sorry. There is Judith and there were some things about Judas, there's things about Simon Zelodes. You could, you could think, you know, how can you, umm, how can you give a whole address on Simon Salodes? Well, you'll have to get the, the CD. And then the last one is Judith Iscarius. Quite a, a scenario in connection with Judith. I'd really appreciate it because that time comes in Judith's life.
We read about the disciples that it says about them.
And many of his disciples turned away at that time. John six chapter verse 66. You know, Judas stuck it out the whole time. He stuck it out all the way to the end. And he wasn't real.
Well, let's just, we won't. We should maybe read this, sing this last verse of this hymn. I was thinking of Peter and what Peter brings to us in his epistle.
Second theater, he says, what manner of persons are you to be in all holy conversation and godliness? Let's sing this last verse of hymn #224 Somebody please start that.
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Nsnoise.
Gospel 3
Gospel—David Whitaker
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.
Return please with me to number 12 on the hem sheet. It's a well known.
Hymn sung by Christians for a long time and there's been a lot of souls been blessed by this beautiful hymn. Someone start please #12.
Just as I am.
All right.
Let's fly.
Away and I've been.
All done your hair. I did it.
Very few stories tonight. I want to get to the point. I'll start with a short one happened last week.
Young, uh, man, middle-aged man by the name of Ward.
He's a businessman, managed this big company and uh, I knew him a little bit.
And he said, Dave, come here, step outside. We went outside the driveway. He says, you know, I'm not able to do the amount of work that require me to do. I just think I'm gonna work a three or four days a week in sales instead of managing this whole thing. And so I said to him.
Ward, I said you got to take it easy.
Gonna take it easy, gotta back off.
I had a beautiful opportunity to tell that man about the grace of God. I didn't. The next day he was dead.
The young man.
Mr. Trott, Robert Trott, High jump champion. His grandma, Grandma Trot would take him to Sunday school when he was a little lad, and he was 21 years of age now. And by the way, his grandma was a faithful old lady.
00:05:07
And someone told me that she was faithful, very faithful, so she would bring this little boy, Robert.
To a gospel meetings and the Sunday school. Well he grew up and I was working with him in the garage. I was working on his motor motorcycle in a garage and island of Bermuda.
He came over and he started complaining about Americans coming down there and taking their jobs and all this things. Wait, wait, wait, wait, Robert, what should I profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
He thought about it, he said.
The next day, he was dead.
He took someone with him on the back of a motorcycle. A careless life. Careless life.
Well, we have very solemn and sober issues to speak of tonight.
It's so nice we're in the halls, we're visiting, we're talking and enjoying Christian fellowship. Those of us that know the Lord Jesus. But outside there's a world where you find tornadoes, you're finding hurricanes, you're finding murders, mass murders and every the town I city. I live in Seattle area, murder every night. Plus down in Tacoma, murder every night.
These are serious days.
And besides that, God has an issue with this country.
16 books of the Bible talk about Sodom, Gomorrah, Adma, Zebom, the book of Job. It says unclean, they die in their youth. Look in the margin. It says Sodomites, we're living in serious days. God has an issue and he's warning this country. He's tapping on the door and he's saying wake up.
Prophet Joel said.
The Scriptures the harvest is ripe.
Jeremiah said the harvest is passed over, gone, were not saved. I want to get to the point tonight. I'm going to start with a verse that you probably know.
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.
If the meeting were closed right now, five or seven minutes after.
It would be the last meeting on this card, and you have heard the gospel already. 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.
I could close my notes, close my Bible, look at this card. Is there any more meetings? Hold on.
The harvest is ripe.
The harvest is past. The summer is gone.
We're not saved. That's what it says in the Book of Jeremiah chapter 8.
Are you saved? I'm not going to mess around with a lot of stories tonight below. The Bible is full of beautiful stories. I love to read them and we hear stories every day.
Uh-huh. About a man just, uh, yesterday he was sick. So he's in prison, apparently a terrible, terrible man. And so they took him to the, uh, nurse or whatever and he said no, nothing wrong with him. He went back to his cell and someone came along and said, well, here, take these blankets and, uh, cover yourself up because you got a fever.
He started tying those blankets, you know, in form of a rope to hang himself.
And someone left the Bible in the room there he opens up in the first verse he came to it says cursed is the man that hangeth on a tree. That man got saved.
Amazing. It's amazing what God can do and it's a more amazing what he did and we're going to talk about that. So open your Bible, please. Genesis chapter one, verse one.
In the beginning.
God, this takes place.
He doesn't give opinions or ideas. He makes bold statements and they're meant for faith to believe.
00:10:01
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and so on.
There we have where we came from, and the reason we're here is to bring glory to God and where we're going is to be with his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven above. I believe that, by the way. That's for those that believe now.
He is going to unravel to us in this book, the most wonderful love story that was ever written down, ever. People like to read love stories. This is true. It's pure, it's beautiful.
I've been given the privilege tonight of telling out this love story in a shortened hour, so I would really appreciate close attention.
John 316 has already been pulled out.
God has our happiness in view when he gives us the gospel.
Also, I want to turn to a verse that's rather interesting verse Genesis chapter 2 and verse 18.
It says the Lord God said.
Is not good. That man should be alone. If you read that, it just kind of Passover that that that makes sense.
The consequences?
Of that verse.
Are monumental.
Not good man. Should be a little What's he talking about? Well.
Right away we know that God.
Of walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And he had to say Adam.
Where are you? Where are you? I don't believe that was a snarl like I would have probably given.
But that was a call of loneliness. Adam, where are you? Well, what happened? We know the story. If you're familiar at all with the Word of God, you'll see that Satan entered into the garden and he tempted Eve, and Adam was swept in. He should have been watching over that situation, but he wasn't.
And he chose to eat that forbidden fruit.
They had all the fruits of the garden as much as they wanted any time of the day. Just said don't touch that one over there. Simple, simple request.
A command.
Failed, and so to this very day, the wages of sin.
His death? The minimum wage.
Wages of sin is death, and now we have something called sin, sorrow, death.
A broken race guy that worked next to me said he went to his pastor and he said, pastor, I got all these things, matter of control, trouble after trouble. Pastor wisely told him, he says, man, you're living in a, you're a broken man living in a broken world. She knows something.
The answer is coming and I'm gonna give it to you and I gotta bleed around the Bush. The answer is coming. It's beautiful.
Separation came in, distance came in.
Adam, where art thou?
No, I'm gonna ask this. Your name is John. Jim. Alex.
Ben, Mark, Adam, whatever it is.
Is there a separation between you and your Creator? He made you, you know.
You were made in the image and the likeness of God. Can you imagine that God would do a thing like that? The one that made those stars, those starry heavens the brother spoke about last night. Amazing.
Amazing, amazing.
He lost fellowship with his creature because of sin.
We will go on.
Adams family, the head of it is Adam. There he is. And his family. This side, there's another family.
Christ is the head of it this side.
Addams family in Adam all die without exception.
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In the family of God, Christ is the head of it. They all live without exception for getting to the gospel. Aren't we, brother? We're getting there. Let's keep it going.
Adam sinned, death reigned. That's a fact.
Adam sinned and death reigned. Your grandparents, your parents, right on back to Adam.
They sin, they die.
How do you get out of that family of Adam into the family of God, which Christ is the head? That's what we'll talk about in a minute or two.
Fellowship was broken.
Estranged from God.
A beautiful garden wasn't long. That there's murder.
Cane slew Abel jealous. Sadly true. Now we will perceive proceed with a very wonderful love story. Not good. That man should be alone.
That's the Lord Jesus. He wants companionship. He wants your companionship tonight.
That's the Son of God sent down from heaven.
How can he win and woo? That's a funny word. How could he win and woo the heart of somebody that's taken off in a rebellious way, A rebellious, self-centered course?
How can I display my heart of love?
To somebody that's gone so far astray, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.
Believe the rest of that verse for a moment or two.
The heavens declare the glory of God.
Does that show the love of God?
No.
Those vast marvelous worlds out there, this is the one that's inhabited by the way God so loved this world right here though those worlds, those those constellations that the brother was speaking about the marvelous distance and all he made showed his marvelous.
Power His wisdom. The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows His handiwork. You find that and.
Uh, Psalms chapter 19.
On earth, here you find in creation you find a tremendous skill of design.
Every time a man looks at something and he dissects it down closer with his, uh, with his, uh, microscopes, and he looks at something else and that shows something else. He looks that down further and further and further, and he finds out that it's, it's UN, it's Li. He can't fathom it. It's too much. Once in a while, an honest man, even though he doesn't want God, he'll have to stand back and say yes.
There's a divine hand here.
So that divine hand is the one I want to talk to you about tonight.
We see His glory displayed in the heavens and the firmament showing his handiwork. The planets show the precision you know without without that precision, you can't do science.
Volcano, volcanoes and earthquakes, winds and waves.
Show his power. Does that. Show his love? He wants to show his love.
To you.
This doesn't show his heart's desire.
He has a Could it be that God has a empty place in his heart?
Empty places for you to fill and he made a way whereby.
He can feel it, but he wants to show you his love Now. One thing to show love.
But the love of God.
A depth of love so great, so immense.
He had to choose, He had to figure out a way, and he did, to show that.
Marvellous heart of love of his. No, there was a warmer heart. Never beat. Think about that.
So what do you do?
00:20:02
See, there's no way you can do it because this is the way he did it. He pulled down a backdrop. Figure this wall here, a backdrop that comes down down to the floor. And what kind of a backdrop do you see? Oh, terrible. The heart of man.
Wicked.
You read about it and Bob Tony read about meeting last night. Haters of God, men, slayers, disobedient to parents.
Adulterers. All kinds of foul. Foul and enemies. No, wait a minute, is he going to show his love on the backdrop like that? That's the only way he can show the intensity of that love.
The depth of that love was so great.
He had to put it on a backdrop. I had to give you some idea how great it was. It's wonderful. Do you know of the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and that love? I hope you do. I do.
When he pulled down that curtain, as it were, that backdrop, he knew the consequences.
He knew what would happen. He knew he would have to go to a cross because that's the only way the intensity of that love could be shown out.
And So what do you do? Say let they took those hands, blessed the little ones, they took those feet that walked the streets.
They took that face that smiled on the.
Broken.
Brokenness of man and knew that he could fix it all.
And they spit in his face.
They crowned him with a crown of thorns. He'll crown you with a crown of loving kindness and tender mercies.
They crucified in between two thieves. He never stole a thing. He restored that which he took not away.
Rebellion.
Sin, sorrow, immorality, murder, hatred against Christ, against God.
That's the backdrop that he chose.
It wouldn't work any other way or he'd have taken it.
His power was shown out.
His wisdom.
His love is skillful.
Love is immense.
Hello, how dark was the night that our Lord broke through to save the sheep that was lost?
And so he knew. He knew when he would look at that history of mankind from start down here to where we are tonight, Sunday night.
And he saw the poor depravity of the heart of man.
Steeped in sin. Sickness headed the wrong way. Sheep gone astray.
He said I gotta go the cross turn with me please to Isaiah chapter 6.
I've heard of other meetings. It's beautiful. Look at this. Look at this.
Isaiah chapter 6.
Verse eight I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send?
Who will go for us?
Think of the consequences of this.
Answer.
Here my send me. And he sent him into this world, knowing what was going to happen to him full well he knew it all.
And you know something? He set his face like a Flint. Or right straight to Jerusalem. Step by step, day by day. He came down here to die for you, Senator. He came down here to give his life for you, Sinner.
Now picture yourself.
Sitting on the center bench.
There's just room for two.
Who's the other one?
The Lord Jesus Christ, you say, what's the matter, David? He never sinned. No, he never did, couldn't. What's he doing sitting there beside you on the center's bench with your head bowed and his arm around you? He said, I was made sin for you. I went to the cross for you, substitutionary. I paid the price for you, Center.
00:25:13
Now.
You're sitting on that center's base. I'm sitting beside you because I was made sin for you and I got my arm around you and I want you to come with me over to the.
Hmm, that would be the, uh, slipped me the word. It's too bad.
I'll get it. Hang on, Mercy seat. There we are. Propitiation.
So let's just see that mercy seat. What's on that mercy seat? The blood, the precious blood of Christ.
He'll meet you at the center's bench.
He'll meet you at the mercy seat, and then He's gonna meet you in the clouds, meet the Lord in the air, and then we're gonna sit with Him on that throne above. This is a plan that you could possibly fabricate. In the wildest dreams, God would do this for you and the person of the sun.
A rebellious, wicked God hating.
Charles O'Brien worked with me. I could just picture him was put up on the bumper of a car like this, insurance adjusters over there and he takes the name of Jesus Christ in vain and brother O'Brien says.
You just took the name of my best friend in vain. He left it there.
There was power in that.
There was power in that.
You're mine, send me. He knew all the consequences of it.
Do you realize for him to answer that first, it's not good that man should be alone. The consequences were tremendous and you're hearing about him tonight. The Lord Jesus had to go to a cross, and they took those blessed hands and they nailed them up. Can't think of a more cruel thing to do.
Far more merciful to cut his head off. Far more merciful. But no, no.
No, they saw to it their heart had the chance to vent itself against the Son of God, and they sure did.
Well.
That was the only way the greatness of his love could be shown out.
Isn't that amazing? Does that mean anything to you that passed by? Is there any sorrow like unto that sorrow where the Lord afflicted him the day of his fierce anger? For God so loved the world?
That he gave his only begotten Son.
Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, would have everlasting life. God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. I know in the heart of man there's the idea that God is out there and he's hard, He's a austere man and he is going to judge you and so on.
Well, we know that he took out Solomon Gomorrah because of their unholiness, and he's going to take out this city because of its unholiness. But today the harvest is ripe.
And is ready to be taken.
Are you gonna be left behind? Unsaved, lost soul? Oh, don't do it.
The Lord Jesus went to that cross. He bore my sins in his own body on the tree.
Then he was buried.
And then a frightful thing happen.
For the laws he was raised again, this is a terrifying thing. It's OK man thinks he can go into the ground and and dislike that follow there in Tacoma he would I suppose. It was a great big Harley-Davidson hog like they say, and he was dead.
He has his buddies burned his body, put the ashes in the urn on the front of the seat of that motorcycle and they back that motorcycle up to the six foot hole in the ground.
00:30:08
And the record truck took and they let that thing down to the ground, motorcycle, the urn, and then the tow truck pulls away, the concrete truck pulls up and fills the hole with concrete.
Nonsense resurrection coming whether you like it or not.
You got no say in that matter.
We go through life and we're able to control certain things in our life. We can control what kind of car we drive, maybe what kind of job we have a little bit, control our health a little bit. But there comes a day coming when we leave this world, that point on, we control absolutely nothing from God and your soul from then on.
So.
And the soul that sinneth it shall die. That's true.
Now you have an opportunity.
In simple faith, by the provision that God has made.
So when judgment day comes, it's behind you, It's not a heavy, oh, that's so wonderful. Tell you tonight, Judgment Day is behind me. It's done. It's gone at the cross of Christ.
And what's before me? Glory, blessed be his name. Oh boy, what a story of love. So when the Lord Jesus tells us in his word that just for the unjust to bring us to God.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man laid down his life for his friends.
Beautiful. We were enemies.
You can find those verses in Ephesians. When we were dead, lost enemies, He died for us. A love like you can't believe. You know what have you experienced that love this God that you think might be hard and austere, gave his everything, that you might be saved tonight.
So what you need to do, you need you need to get there. And as soon as bench you let him put that arm of love around you and let him tell you, I died for you, I became sin. I suffer the righteous wrath of God for you at the cross of Christ and then he can take you to that mercy seat for the blood is seen there.
Your ticket is paid. God sees the blood He passes over you when it comes to judgment.
Judgment is not ahead of me, not ahead of me at all. Judgment is behind me because Christ died for this simple man you're looking at.
We'll go on.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That was.
A cry like no other. They had perfect fellowship, eternity past, one with another. God had to turn his eyes away from from fellowship before Sookie's son. Is that possible? Yes, because God could not look upon sin those first three hours on the cross. There as a marker, he suffered.
He suffered intensely, terribly, awfully.
But then the sky went dark.
In those three hours.
God poured out holy wrath against sin, on His Son no less.
Do you think the sun should ever shine again on that world?
No, it should have been blacked out forever. No, but then God wouldn't have had.
A bride for a son.
No.
God raised him from the dead. Spirit raised him from the dead. He raised himself from the dead.
And now he presented himself to his brother in there. He was seen of above 500 brother. No one said testimony is solid. And then he took his loved ones out there to Bethany. He lifted up his hands and he blessed them, and he was departed from them. He was taken up into heaven. He went up into heaven. He was carried up into heaven as a victor.
00:35:13
You look at each one of those aspects, it's beautiful to think about.
Heaven received him. He was rejected here. Heaven received him.
Just a few minutes left in this meeting.
The harvest is ripe tonight.
Summer is ended and gone. Harvest is past. We're not saved with God told Israel not saved. Deliverance hasn't come. Deliverance. Let's put it straight. If you walk out that door and your sins, you may never have another chance. Never. May never have you've heard it. Perhaps you, perhaps you haven't, but you know most of you have heard it.
Dull of hearing, but may you wake up tonight. Don't go out that door in your sins. Let that whole burden of sins cast off, and let the Lord Jesus take that matter and sell it for you once and for all.
That's interesting thing I noticed this morning. You know, the brother says. What do you notice this morning, today so far in the scriptures? Well.
Let's see.
The Lord Jesus said, I think it's the 10th chapter, John. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
You know what they said? They took up stones to stone him. Now that's not the main reason they stoned him one to stone him, but there it was. They hated the idea that God, the Lord Jesus, would take care of his sheep when they never perish. Satan wanted them sheep.
Satan wants you tonight, but you know something? They'll never perish. That's called eternal security. God puts you in a relationship that you cannot break. God puts you there in Christ. When you're in Christ, you're in a safe place.
Uh, with the children. Sometimes you can use the illustration. You put a coin in the hand.
Of a little child.
Or by hand, for example, I work with my hands, so they're fairly strong. So I said to the little child, oh boy, tough little ruffians. I said, OK, let's just pretend like this coin is you, little boy.
And let's just pretend like this hand is the hand of the Lord Jesus and this is the hand of the Father right there. OK, little boy, take that coin, would you? You can have it. You can't get it. No. Well.
Think of how secure you are in Christ.
Sometimes our fellowship, because we do do things that aren't right, our fellowship is broken. We don't have to ask him if we're saved to forgive us. That took place at Calvary's cross. We do need to confess in that thing that we did right.
So relationship is firm, it's settled, it's sure.
Fellowship gets broken.
So we can look at a verse.
This is so wonderful.
How about, uh, let's try Peter?
Let's start with the first Peter.
One verse 18 not reading. You're not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold.
Verse 19, but with a precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish, without spot. There's another verse that says if we confess our sins, if if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So he puts us before God in Christ in new position and we're safe.
We're secured, we're sure forever.
So He took your place in the cross. Now you can be the one that fits into that verse. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 18. Not good. That man should be alone.
00:40:01
You can be the one that fills the heart of Christ tonight for companionship.
You can be the one that makes the angels in the presence of who's in the presence of God in heaven, the Lord Jesus. There's joy in the presence of the angels of God and heaven over one Sinner that repenteth.
Are you one of those that are going to bow the needle? Sure you're going to bow the knee someday. There was a brother that had a tape deck going and there was a brother preaching to children.
And he talked about the brother was preached preaching the gospel on the tape and he went into the mechanic and the mechanic got in the car and the tape came on automatically. And the tape said this is one of the brothers speaking. He said point to your knees.
Mechanic. I don't know what he thought about that.
Oh, he said, those knees will bow to the Lord Jesus Christ someday.
I'm happy to tell you I have bowed my knees to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have bowed. I delight to do it. It's a joy to my heart to bow my knees to the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you bowed your knees and this time and this day of grace when the harvest is ripe, summer has not ended. If you bowed your knees, the Lord Jesus Christ and you just.
Why? Put it this way? He's just looking for.
Yes.
He's looking for a yes out of you tonight, a confirmation that you have turned yourself in.
For wretched, guilty, held, deserving Sinner, you've turned yourself in at the mercy of God, and don't try to bring anything with you but your sins.
If you want to add anything to it, if you want to add a little, some good works that you plan to do in the future, he's got nothing for you. 0 But if you wanna come as a poor, broken, helpless, needy Sinner, he's got everything for you. He's got eternity of blessedness for you. Oh, it's a joy to speak of that Savior.
He did it all and he did it perfectly, and he did it out of a lump of his heart for you, Sinner friend.
Why would you reject that?
It's folly. I work with a man.
He reminds me over and over, well, I'll put it this way, he goes to a family reunion.
Numbers of people can't find one Christian among them. He heard about an Ant somewhere in the distant past that was had some religious connection. But he looks around and all of his relatives, all of them, and there's not a one of them. They're atheists and agnostics and nothings and godless people.
And his father died cursing God really his sorrows about that His mother. He presented the gospel to his mother.
This is well, I I didn't mean anything 0.
You know, he says to me.
You make that decision and you gotta stay with it, live with it.
So the decision you make, it may be this night, the decision you make tonight.
It's a serious thing to think about.
Maybe heavy turtle consequences. Listen up, young person, listen up. I want to say another thing. Two minutes left.
Someone said let's study it up.
70% of the children that go to the universities.
Out of a Christian home.
Have their fate stolen away from them.
I know of some.
At the large table went off the university.
Have their full faith stolen away from them. There's a man, his name is Professor Allen.
He's a professor of, uh, Chinese history.
Seattle University there in Washington.
Needed some help with his car. Helped him. Ask him what he did, Professor.
Yeah, he said. Wrote a book. I'd like to read it. Got the book, read it. He had a chapter on evolution.
When he came back in, I said the Ellen, I said that, you know, I don't know. I had the guts to say this person, the wife was listening. I said, you know, they say that the Bible says rather that.
00:45:11
Uh, so the first of all, these children come into your class, young people come into your classes and they're, they're pliable. They're pliable and they respect the, uh, wisdom of the instructors.
I said you wrote an article, a chapter on evolution there, and I said, you know what the Bible says about that? I said that it says.
You offend one of these little ones is better than a millstone behind about your neck and you'd be cast into the sea. Oh, his wife said, yeah, it might offend my husband. I said no. I said he gets out of school.
Wow, that's kind of scared to think about saving such a thing. I did. Anyway. Thank God I told him that because he came back later and he said, Dave, you're my friend. He says. If I wrote that book again, I'd leave that chapter out.
Educators, higher education will suck the good right out of you, the faith out of you. That's their joy. They would love to take the faith that you have. Young people, there's lots of you. Look at the beautiful children.
They'll take the socks of faith right out of you if they can, they'll enjoy doing it, and they'll absolutely give you nothing in return 0.
But God wants to give you everlasting life. He wants to give you happiness and peace and joy and believing. And you know, he's going to give you at the end of the trail. He's going, he's going to take it to heaven. He's going to take you to heaven. That's beautiful. Are you going to come with me?
I hope so. Are you gonna go with mom and Dad in heaven? I hope so. Don't let the professors of this world steal what you've been given. A heritage like you cannot believe.
Think about that. Let's pray for our young people too, to go through life.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Some Isolated Events
Sacrifice