St. Louis Conference: 2021
Table of Contents
Our Heavenly Calling
Address—Steve Stewart
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I'd like to talk a little this afternoon.
The subject of Our Calling.
Like to start with Romans chapter 8.
Romans, chapter 8.
And verse 28.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are.
The called according to his purpose.
We as belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ are those that this verse.
Says are the called the called ones in chapter one.
Saints by calling.
It's the divine purpose of God in Christ.
Flowing from a heart of love and grace.
To fulfill those purposes and His beloved Son for his own glory and the satisfaction of his own heart.
He would call you and I.
Verse 29.
For whom He did foreknow, He did also predestinate, to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren. And so we get His purpose.
It's for His beloved Son and His beloved Son's glory that He has in view.
Moreover, whom he did predestinate them he also called.
There, it's Our Calling in time.
The gospel reached you and I and made that call in His eternal purpose.
In his will and purpose, In his son good in time.
And the gospel reached you and I where we were.
He's called us and them that he called.
He also justified in whom He justified them. He also glorified. He has an end in view in the path of everyone here this afternoon. Every child of God is going to end in glory, no matter what intervenes, by the way, it's going to end in a blaze of glory. We are the called of God.
First Corinthians. Another little detail so beautiful.
One Corinthians in chapter one.
Verse nine. God is faithful by whom ye were called.
Unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus.
Christ our Lord.
We've been called.
Into a beautiful fellowship with his well beloved son, the object of his.
Heart's Delight.
Son of his love.
And so Our Calling has a nature, a character.
It's formed by whom we have been called into fellowship with.
If we're called into the fellowship of his son, what's the character of that fellowship? Let's look at first John, chapter one.
First Epistle of John.
Chapter One.
Verse three. That which we have seen and heard declare unto you.
That He also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
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Verse five This sent us a message which we have heard of him and declare to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
Verse 7 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another in the blood of Jesus Christ. His Son cleanseth us.
From all sin, the fellowship that we have been called into, fellowship of His Son, we find in John is a circle of fellowship that goes from a past eternity of the Father and the Son. They're the center of that fellowship that we have been brought into. And God is light and he is holy. How can he have us there? How can we be in that fellowship, the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son?
Has made us fit for that place, cleansed us from all sin, and He can have us there through the satisfaction of his own heart, without compromising his holy person in any way. And so Paul writes to Timothy in second Timothy in chapter one.
Verse nine. Who hath saved us and called us?
Within holy calling, it's a holy calling because the one that we are called into fellowship with.
Is holy, is light in him, There is no darkness at all. But it cost him, it cost him the blood of his Son to have us there according to his own nature.
That we might be holy and without blame before Him.
And love Ephesians 1.
It's a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace.
Which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
All Our Calling has an origin that goes.
Past the ages of time, it goes before the ages of time.
It comes from the heart of God in a past eternity, centered centered in His purpose in His Son, because it's all for the glory of His Son.
This purpose in Christ Jesus.
Is it just like?
A watchmaker makes a watch and he puts the gears in place and he winds the spring and he sets the mechanism going and he just delights that everything sort of works, as we say, like clockwork, and goes around and he finds his satisfaction in that. That's not it.
It comes from His grace, from a heart of love. That's the deep motive of His heart, not just because He designed something and set it in motion. That comes from His heart, so it's His purpose.
And grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before.
The world began.
In Ephesians.
In chapter 4.
Verse one. The apostle beseeches us. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation of the calling.
Wherewith ye are called, and then.
In 2nd Thessalonians.
In chapter one.
Verse 10. When he shall come to be glorified.
In his Saints, not by his Saints.
And to be mired in all them that believe, not by all them that believe, because our testimony among you is believed in that day He is going to be glorified in all those that he is called.
When they see the place that we have been brought into by the sovereign grace and call of God, it will be for His glory when all created intelligence looks on.
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The place you and I have been brought into in sovereign grace, it's going to be for his.
Glory.
He'll be glorified in His Saints and all them that believe. Wherefore also we pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power.
He's called us, but he wants to look down and count us worthy of that calling. He wants to look down.
And see us walking in the good of that calling in. It's working out in our lives in all its practical reality as we go through this world.
Out of which we have been called.
Worthy of that calling, the apostle beseeches us to walk. Worthy of the calling wherewith we have been called.
Hebrews.
Chapter 3.
Wherefore.
Holy Brethren.
Partakers of the heavenly calling.
Oh, it's a holy calling. A holy calling that is constituted you and I.
Holy Brethren.
I lookout this afternoon.
In the faces of those that are holy brethren.
When Gideon captured Zeben Zalmuna in the Book of Judges, he says, What manner of men were those that ye slew at Tabor? They said.
They were like you. Everyone had the countenance of King, he said. They were my brother.
Holy Brethren.
We're holy brethren.
Partakers commonly together of a heavenly calling, not an earthly calling.
A heavenly college.
Philippians, Chapter 3.
Verse 12.
Not as though I had already attained.
Either we're already perfect, but I follow after.
If that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus, brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended. But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Literally could be translated on high, could be just translated above.
The above calling.
Called from above heavenly men by birth. Holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, God has called you and I.
Out of this earth, the fellowship of his Son. It's a holy fellowship. It's a holy calling. We're holy brethren. It costs him the blood of his Son. He wants to look down and see us walking worthy.
Of that calling.
Or will we have been called? Why did God have to call?
Let's turn back to Genesis.
Chapter 12.
God had told Noah to spread out in families.
Be fruitful. Fill the earth.
Man had rebelled.
Gathered together to make a name for himself at the Tower of Babel. God came down, confounded his languages.
His language made many languages.
And in doing that, he created many different kindreds. And in Genesis 10, those various families in the earth kindreds are outlined and they became nations. When I've turned to him. I'm just going to read the verse from Deuteronomy. I think it's 32 or 332.
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Verse 8 When the Most High divided unto the nations their inheritance.
When he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel for the Lord's portion as his people. And Jacob is a lot of his inheritance in dividing by languages he also brought into being the nation's.
And he had one particular one in mind.
Those are institutions of God.
They have claims upon us.
Immediate family, Father's house, kindred might say, our people in general, our race, nation to which we belong, institutions from God, and they have a claim upon us.
But evil has come in, sin has come in, and so God must bring a new principle in to the scene.
That has a claim upon us that transcends every other claim that nature might make upon us.
Because sin has come into those spheres.
And they had in Abram's day.
Genesis chapter 12 we get the 1St man in the scripture that was called.
Of God.
Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country.
And from thy kindred, and from thy father's house into the land.
That I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee.
And make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.
Now bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed.
As the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him, and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Heron.
Just skipping down to the end of verse 5.
And into the land of Canaan they came.
We read in Judges for Joshua chapter 24 that Abram's father Abram and his family were idolaters.
In the land that they came from.
Sin had come in.
As the nations had developed those wicked traits of the fallen nature of man, aggression, greed.
Desire for power.
Developed themselves in the nations.
We know it today. Idolatry had come in the nation, the kindred and to Father's house.
When God tells him to get out, he doesn't tell him to get out of idolatry. He doesn't tell him You need to fix up your father's house. You need to fix up your kindred, your country.
You need to get out there and change things, Abram. No, he says. Get out.
Get out.
Leave it all.
You leave it where it is, I'll take care of all that you get out. And the call of God had a transcendent claim upon the soul of Abram above, of every other claim that might be made upon him. And the call of God has the same claim upon you and I.
Because evil has come in.
To even the very institutions that God has set up in this world.
And he must have a principle that has a claim on you and I above all of those things.
And so it did on Abram, and into that land he came with. The call of God is coupled with two things, Promises.
And obedience.
Like to look back? We'll hold our place here in Genesis and look at two Peter.
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Chapter One.
When Steven was speaking to the council in the 7th of Acts, he says the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham.
When he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran.
And Peter tells us here.
In verse three, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
Through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious.
Promises that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through life.
The same God of glory that called Abram of old has called you and I, and the character of that calling is a character of glory, and it's glory that we're going to, but the character of the call itself, a glorious call.
But there's a path between here and when we arrive at its end, its purpose and.
With Christ in glory, there's a path, and it's not going to be easy. It's going to take faith and it's going to take obedience. And so the other thing that characterizes this calling is virtue, moral courage.
To walk that path.
In the face of every opposition.
Abram went into that land.
He laid hold.
The call of God. He enjoyed the promises of God, walked in fellowship with God.
Says in Genesis 12, the Canaanite was then in the land. Picture of evil spirits in heavenly places. You know, we have a land that we walk into.
A land that Ephesians tells us of. A land of promise for us.
Heavenly places in Christ Jesus. All the promises of God and Christ are secured there, but there's a Canaanite in the land. There's opposition in heavenly places.
Satan and his hosts would like to rob us of our joy, turn us out of that path.
We need virtue. We need moral courage.
And Abram comes into the land, and the Lord appears.
To him, he builds an altar in verse 7.
The place of communion.
For that characterizes the path of one who is called by God, that he walks in communion with God.
And he has an altar where God meets him and speaks with him.
We have something else In verse eight. We read that he has a tent.
You pitch this tent. He was a stranger in that land and a Pilgrim passing through it.
He was a stranger walking through it in communion with God.
Called by God, he escaped the pollutions of that place that he came from, not because God told him get away from the pollutions, but because the call of God laid on hold on him above every other claim that might be made.
But the test came, and the tests will come, and the path of faith for you and I who are called by God.
Because obedience is required if we're going to go on in that path and enjoy that path, if we're going to walk worthy of that calling.
It requires obedience. God had told him to come here. He didn't tell him to go anywhere else, but a famine came in the land.
As he was journeying towards the South and he just kept going and he went down into Egypt, he made the prudent decision, you know.
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Preserve his family and his scuff.
And he left the land that God had called him to. He disobeyed.
He was out of the current of God's will.
Out of dependence upon God, he left the altar behind. Communion were gone and he got afraid.
He got afraid.
He made a plan.
To lie.
He made a plan to lie.
Because he was afraid, because he was out of the path of faith and dependence, and he had to come up with something to protect himself.
His own resources, and that's all he had to come up with.
And so he tells Sarah to say that she's not his wife.
He's afraid that he'll be murdered for Sarah.
He goes down and justice, exactly what he feared, came to pass.
They saw Sarah, she was beautiful.
Recommended her to Pharaoh. He sent his servants. He took her away.
Can't imagine it.
The new.
In Galatians, we find Sarah presents something to our souls.
An allegory.
She stands in contrast to Hagar.
An Egyptian handmaid and her son Ishmael. She and her son Isaac stand in contrast. What's the contrast?
Law and Grace She's a picture of our relationship to God and grace.
To the Lord Jesus Christ and grace.
What was Abram's lie? He got in a corner. He got into bind. He got out of the current of God's will.
And he denied his relationship with Grace.
All Satan loved to bring it to a place where you deny that relationship.
That call of God is in your life, that grace it called you.
We'd like to get you out of the path of faith dependence upon God.
And ruin your enjoyment of what you have in Christ.
I can't imagine what it was is they carried Sarah. Did she look backwards?
Like the Lord looked at Peter and Caiaphas Hall.
When he denied him.
All Satan will reward you. Well, you want to make a trade, he says. Oh, he sends.
Servants.
The animals.
He enriched Abram, He gave him so much.
You know what was valuable? He took that to himself. Oh, do you think? Abram said. Oh, wow, some fine animals here and what I can do with all these servants, and this is really been very profitable.
I don't think there is any other thought in his mind.
Where is there?
He had lost that relationship.
Where was she?
What had become of her?
Oh, you and I get into that place and we lose the enjoyment of that relationship. The Spirit of God will press upon our hearts.
Where's Jesus?
What happened to your relationship with him? What happened to walking in fellowship with him?
Are you enjoying the things that you have from the God of this world?
In exchange for that which you left behind, that which you denied.
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Oh, you know how it was with Abram.
God came in in grace. What was a hard lesson, He restored him to that relationship.
The land of Cana.
That he comes back to where he had been verse 13 and verse two. At the end of the verse, at the beginning, he had to start where he had left off. He had to start, for he'd gotten off the path.
But there is a way back.
Begotten away from the Lord and your soul. Have you forgotten your heavenly calling?
It's way back.
Go to hell.
He can restore you to communion with himself.
He wants to look down and see you walking worthy of that call or with you then call.
Verse 5. Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents.
And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together, for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. And there was a strife between the herd men of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of locks cattle. And the Canaanites And the Perazite dwelled in the land than in the land.
New danger?
There wasn't any strife in Egypt.
Go back in the place of dependence and obedience.
Join the call of God.
There was a strike between brothers.
There's a ditch on the other side.
It's a real potential, isn't it?
We've known it. We felt.
Abram felt it.
What did he say?
Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for we be brethren, holy brethren.
Partakers of the heavenly calling.
We're in this together.
We're partakers together. We be rather.
He says to law choose what you want.
What looks at the well watered plain says in verse 10 that held all the plain of Jordan that it was very well watered?
Everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Mora.
You lookout on this earth.
And you see the well watered plain.
When you see all the natural provision and possibility and potential that's out there.
Don't forget that it's just before the Lord is going to destroy it.
Don't leave that out of your calculation.
It's coming to an end.
Not only that, it says.
Before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
It was even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. No doubt what he had seen when he went with his uncle Abram down to Egypt, Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan.
Lot journeyed east and they separated themselves, the one from the other.
Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, pitched his tent towards Sodom.
Sir Darby said man may say.
What's wrong with the well watered plains? Aren't they the provision of God and his Providence?
But I say to you, Satan is planted as Sodom in the middle of it.
Men of Sodom were wicked and.
Sinners before the Lord.
Exceedingly.
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Abram stayed where he was, enjoying his tent and his altar. We never read of what having an altar and he soon lost his tent and Sodom.
He had an opportunity to watch his uncle.
To see if one who was walking.
In the good of the call of God, enjoying the promises of God, he had an opportunity to see the walk of.
Faith. Yes, there was failure.
To.
But he had an opportunity to learn.
And the time came for him to make a choice. As the time come, it has come for you to make a choice.
You have to walk by faith yourself. You individually have been called by God.
You have to respond.
Turn back to.
First Peter. Second Peter.
Verse seven of chapter 2.
Let's read from verse six and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example to those that after should live ungodly and delivered just lot vexed.
With the filthy conversation of the wicked, for that righteous man dwelling among them, and seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day-to-day with their unlawful deeds. I like to connect that back again in Genesis.
In chapter 19.
God was going to overthrow Sodom and Gomorrah.
Just as we've read 2 angels come down to view that city of Sodom and even in chapter 19 and we know the story Wad is sitting in the gate of Sodom when they come verse one.
Sitting in the gate of Sodom, sitting in the place of administration of that city.
A man who is just personally.
A man who was vexed.
Every day? Why was he vexed every day?
Because he saw the deeds of the ungodly and they vexed him. You know you can grieve someone you love, someone who loves you can grieve you. But they it's.
Someone who doesn't love you, that vexes you.
Only someone you love can grieve you. Anyone, I should say convective.
He was vexed.
He got up every day. He looked around at Sodom. It's where he wanted to live, It's where he wanted to raise his family. But he vexed his soul because of everything he saw.
And so he sat in the gate.
You're going to try and change things.
He's going to try to make Sodom a better place. Maybe there's some people here I can work with that see things how I do.
Maybe they did.
Maybe they said, yeah, yeah, a lot. Maybe we can work with you on this.
And so we sat there in that place of administration.
And try to influence.
To make Sodom great again. But it never was great.
Because the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord, exceedingly do we think we're going to make this world great again. This world.
Is exactly what Sodom.
And it's coming under the judgment of God.
But he tried.
And in the end.
This man who did not have that character that God would like to look down and see walking worthy.
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I can put it that way of a heavenly and holy calling. Two men show up that are evidently heavenly.
And holy.
And perhaps those very ones.
That lot sat in the gateway, turned against him.
And they came and beat on the door of his house that night to deliver those men.
To their evil will. And what does Lot say to them?
Verse seven. I pray you, brethren.
I pray you, brethren.
Do not so wickedly What kind of brethren were they?
Your holy brethren.
Partakers of a heavenly calling, what kind of brethren do you have?
What kind of associations did he have? Weary ones, perhaps, he thought would help them turn that city around.
So he could live there and not be vexed in his soul day-to-day.
To try and change that place.
Turned against him.
They were brethren.
Reverend that he had partakers, if we can put it that way, of a heavenly calling for open mammary. The plains of High Plains of Hebron, enjoying communion with God. They weren't in that city.
You've been called by God and he was walking in the good of that holy and high calling.
Oh dear brother.
Tate would like to take you and I down, down, down, down from that lofty holy falling and walking in fellowship with him, with his holy brethren.
Down to lend our efforts to make this world a better place so we can go out and not feel vexed.
Don't we feel vexed when we see what goes on in this world? We do.
Of course we do, if our holy brethren, we do.
We'd like a world where we go out and all the church bells ring on Sunday morning and all the kids are skipping down the streets and going to Sunday school.
And there isn't any of the liberal agendas that we see pushed. We'd like that. We'd like to not be back.
Like to raise our families in a place where we're not vexed and worried about those things. And Satan says all.
I got present for you that could use a person like you.
Make this world great again.
What software?
I'd like to pull you down from your heavenly calling.
This world is under judgment.
Always so impressed with what the Lord said to the disciples in Mark 13. Just a very simple phrase.
And says behold.
I have told you all these things beforehand. It is the Lord's surprise as he sits on his throne and he sees the evil condition of things around us. He's not surprised. He suspect told you all before him.
Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of Gentile power and dominion, and he saw it as this tremendous.
Beautiful image and he was awed by it, even made an idol to go out and imitate it. It's a picture of the gentile powers in the eyes of men. It looks great.
And then God gives Daniel a vision in chapter seven of those same Gentile powers and their beasts with every ugly feature that the Gentile powers of this world really have in his sight. They're not great.
He's told us all beforehand.
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He's told us evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse. He's told us these things.
We're going to take place. He's not surprised.
He hasn't sent us here to fix it up.
It's under judgment.
Please call us.
He wants to look down and see us walking worthy of that heavenly calling.
Oh lot lost everything.
He lost everything.
You missed out.
Walking that path of faith.
Though he was a righteous man, Rex's righteous soul. Just man, I should say.
He lost everything.
Never had the joy of communion and walking in that holy and heavenly calling.
Philippians Chapter 3 again.
This is such a beautiful chapter.
Oh, I have a vision of a man in the glory.
The glory to which he has been called, the call of God.
A glorious and virtuous calling.
A holy calling.
Called him to and he says I've seen the end of that path. I've seen man and the glory and I don't care what it takes. I want to be like him. That's the object he has before his soul, even if it means death. I want to attain to the resurrection of the dead. I want to be like that man. I want to know him completely, thoroughly. He's everything. It's eclipsed everything else in my life.
That's all I want.
He says I haven't, as we already read, apprehended it yet. But I am pressing towards the mark. I am reaching out.
I want to lay hold on what I have been laid hold on by God, for God called me, and I want to lay hold on the object to which he's called me to.
Lord Jesus Christ.
And so he presses towards that mark for the prize. There's a prize at the end. It's Christ himself to be with him, to know him, to be like him, to be without any shade of distraction, the cloud between US and his presence.
That's what I want.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.
And if anything, you'd be otherwise minded. God shall reveal even this unto you.
Oh, brethren, what's perfect here? It just means.
Simply put, to be grown up in our souls, in our understanding and laying hold.
Of that heavenly calling, the place and position that we have been brought into in sovereign grace.
In God's purpose and his beloved Son, what it is to be in Christ?
And all its privileges and all its responsibilities and how it separated us from this world.
Don't give that up, he says. Be thus minded. Are there those who are still growing into it?
They're coming along. God's going to bring them along too. Encourage them.
It helped.
Don't step down from the place that you're in. God's going to bring them along too.
It's analogous to.
The taking of the land and the book of Joshua, we find that.
2 1/2 tribes in chapter 14. I think there are 15.
Ephraim Manasseh, Judah half tribe.
Mass of Judah had taken their portion.
There are 7 tribes that still had not.
Gotten into their taking their inheritance but they were in the land still growing and apprehension of their inheritance and their portion and there were 2 1/2 tribes that stayed outside the land.
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Settle down.
Was a good place for cattle, a good place for business?
They didn't want the heavenly calling.
They didn't want the land.
Paul says.
Verse 17 Be followers together of me.
Mark them which so walk as you have us, for an example for many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you, even weeping, that they are enemies.
Of the cross.
Christ. Oh, just hold your place there. Turn back to Galatians.
Verse Chapter 2. Verse 20. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.
Getting out I but Christ liveth in me in the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me.
And gave himself.
For me, chapter 6.
Verse 12 But as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised.
Only lest you should suffer, they should suffer persecution.
For the cross of Christ.
Verse 14 But God forbid that I should glory.
Save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
Enemies of the cross of Christ that has crucified us for this world, and the world to us.
That has separated us from this world.
Enemies of the Cross.
These are those who make a profession of Christianity but have no use.
For the heavenly calling.
All they have their influence on the dear Saints of God.
They have their influence on the dear Saints of God. They have a profession of Christianity.
And perhaps of a conservative viewpoint, if we can put it that way.
But it's just for this Earth.
They don't want the heavenly calling.
They rejected it. Revelation speaks of them as the earth dwellers.
They made their choice for the earth, and they rejected heaven.
Verse 19 Whose end is destruction? Whose God is her belly? Whose glory?
Is in their shame who mine that worldly things, earthly things.
Firstly, firstly mind.
Their portion is down here, their intent on making this earth.
A better place?
Their intent on making Christianity acceptable to this world.
So that they're not vexed.
That they don't suffer persecution for that cross that is separated you and I from this world.
But what about us, brethren?
Our conversation is in heaven.
Our citizenship literally translated as in heaven.
The root words for that word in Greek also are the roots of the word for politics.
Our politics are in heaven, not on this earth. Our citizenship, our conversation, is in heaven. Don't count out.
From whence we also look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. What happens when we get influenced by those things?
And our minds become earthly minded. We lose the hope, the reality of the hope of the Lord's coming, because we're settled on the earth.
We look for the Savior.
He's going to subdue the end of verse 21. All things to himself. Leave it behind, Abram. I'm going to take care of it all. I've called you.
It's a holy, it's a heavenly, it's a glorious, it's a virtuous calling into the fellowship of His Son with glory and view.
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Lockworthy.
The word comes to our hearts of the calling we're with. We've been called.
Luke 9:28-32
Reading
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Himself gone before.
He has marked out the.
Fact we tried.
It's a sure as the love we adore. We are nothing to fear nor to drive.
Where is my God, one of him always.
Where this one stops out marked as his own.
And we followed him down the Champions.
There's six where he's gone on his crown.
Where our Savior is gone.
As God to his Father and God.
In the place where he is now on the road.
And the strength shall be.
In the joy of his love.
Burns in the beach. That his presence shall come is the pleasure we found in his love.
Let us make us now buildings we lost.
I'm sincere when we reach them all.
And bring home all your small practice will go.
And say your deceived from 1:00 point.
We'll wait till the time thou shall come.
Irritate.
I slammed by my God.
To myself.
In my heavenly.
Our delight and our comfort shall.
Be.
We're content with thyself and thyroid.
It will be almighty alight glory.
I woke up two mornings in a row thinking about the amount of transfiguration and.
Would it be all right to take something from Luke 9?
I'm thinking beginning with I think it's around the 28th verse.
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We we have, we've had the heavenly portion before us and I, I want.
I want that to be our focus in this subject if we take it up.
The Lord revealed his coming glory there, and then the disciples come down from the mount and we see a quite a contrast.
And.
I just suggest that Luke 9 and.
Beginning at verse 28, I'll lay it out to the brethren where you decide.
How far were you thinking about it? Where we could just read down to verse?
41St end of verse 48. But for the first part of it.
28 to 48.
I thought maybe you had something, Bob, but I thought I waited long enough. Thanks for going ahead.
It came to pass about an 8 days after these things took Peter, John and James went up into the mountains of prey, and as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was twice and blistering. And behold their talk with him.
Amen. Before Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of his deceased, which he should accomplish, if there is one.
But Peter and they that were with him were happy with sleep, and when they were away, they found glory, and the two men stood with him. And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it's good for us to be here.
And let us make 3 tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for a lawyer, not knowing what he said while he's at stake. There came a cloud and overshadowed them, and they feared as they entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud saying, This is my beloved son, hear him. And when the voice was passed, Jesus was found alone. And they kept it close and told no man in those days any of those things.
Which they had seen, and it came past it. On the next day, when they were come down from the hill, much people met him, and behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son, for he is my only child.
And Lois spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out, and it heareth him as he found it again. And.
Bruising him hardly departed from him, and I besought the disciples to cast him out, and they could not.
He's answering said so faithful since the 1St generation, how long shall I be with you and suffer You bring my Son with her. And as he was yet coming, the devil threw him down and tear him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father. And they were all amazed that the mighty power of God.
Evolving wonders everyone that all things that which Jesus did.
He said unto his disciples.
Let these things sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men.
Stop.
Regarding the conference and I believe it's, it's just an encouragement for us and that was that conference take on.
Characters last conference we went to took on a certain character as we prayed about this one.
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I noticed there was a theme in our prayer meeting and that was.
The glory of the Lord.
So I just want to express my appreciation for a little silence that we had.
After the prayer, as we waited on the Spirit.
Thank you Phil, I appreciate that for self too. And in suggesting this portion, I I believe I want to take it up in that view that why did the Lord Jesus give us this preview of his coming glory that the world hasn't seen this and we haven't seen it either, except as it's revealed here. But I believe well, first of all, it was given for the disciples at that time.
And there was an order in this chapter that because they looked for that glory to appear anytime when the Lord would take that.
Kingdom and set it up and reign righteousness and peace. But we know that the purpose of God were different and it was necessary.
1St that the Lord Jesus go to the cross and be the sacrifice, otherwise he could not have a people with himself but and and for us too.
This is given to us as a preview of the coming glory. That's what we're waiting for. And we, we, our focus needs to be on Him, on his glory. We are accessories to that.
And we are, we'll be there to display it as a people that he loved and chose and called. How wonderful to be among that people. And so we're waiting for that.
If, if we had, if we didn't have, if we hadn't had this preview of the coming glory, we would be the loss of.
To know what to expect or what is before us.
Or for him. And so here it is. And then the disciples come down.
Now we're in, we're down here now, brethren, we're like Lot in Abraham in the wilderness. And what a contrast. What happens after this was when we get into it and we struggle our faith. Our faith doesn't lay hold of what is really ours. I trust that what we take as we take it up, it will.
It will make our faith grow.
Just noticing the verses that precede this story and I find that that is.
A interesting to get the perspective in verse 24 of this chapter. Well, we can read from verse 23. And he said unto them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. And whoever will save his life shall lose it.
Whoever, whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.
So that it gives a totally different perspective when we get in view of that coming glory that's coming where the Lord Jesus is going to be supreme. It's not that way today in in our culture in which we live. We live in a man centered culture. You do what you like, you do what you enjoy. You buy the things that you need.
And I find, brethren in my own soul, that I need to be challenged.
By this view of coming glory.
Because it brings into question everything in the.
Culture that we're passing through into question.
It's going to pass away and that quite soon. So when we come to verse 28, it's interesting. It says after.
About an 8 days after these sayings.
I don't know that I have any thought, but in Matthew's gospel it says 6 days.
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What's the difference, Doug?
In verse one about that the Lord sending out the 12 and he he sent them out two by two I believe and that's so on. And so I don't know if this is 8 days after that or not, but it's eight is a new creation.
I'll just offer that start.
Offer a few comments, but before making him on this chapter, I'd like to turn to.
Hebrews, chapter 12.
Hebrews, chapter 12.
And.
This read the 1St 2 verses.
Let us also, therefore, having so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us.
Laying aside every weight and sin which so easily entangles us.
Let us run with endurance the race where is it in, and the glory that is set before us, looking steadfastly on Jesus.
The steadfastly looking on Jesus here is here's the man.
Who ran the phrase?
Perfectly, we have in the previous chapter a whole collection of witnesses who ran the life of faith.
According to the calling of God.
But not all perfectly. And so, as it were, were turned from their testimony to us of how they ran God's testimony concerning how they ran the race to the one perfect example.
Of what it is, and so it says. Who ran the race? The race of faith set before him, enduring.
And what does it say? Looking steadfastly on Jesus, the leader and completer of faith, who in view, in view of the coming glory, really of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and he's in the glory set down on the right hand of God.
Consider, well, him.
And now going back to our chapter.
And connecting it with these verses we've just read. The chapter begins with.
Falling together as 12 disciples. And what does He give them? He gives them power that's connected with the coming glory of the Kingdom. And so it says to them, He called His Twelve. He gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases. And so they go out.
However, they're not able to be successful completely in what they were given to do.
And part of the difficulty is if I could put it this way in application.
They hadn't learned what it was to run the race. They could see something of the coming glory.
They could have power connected with it, and they could.
Go out and do what they did.
So what's the Lord Jesus in the chapter? How is he different than they were? How was he running the race different that they were running the race?
In verse 18.
It came to pass.
As he was alone.
Praying, that's the first thing.
He was alone.
He was alone, praying. He was recognizing that the path of joy to the coming glory was a path of dependence, and as we had in the previous meeting, it involved obedience. And so He was in the path of His Father's will, independence, and obedience. And what was that path?
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He gives it in verse 23 that Bob referred to in 24.
If any man come after me, let him deny himself and follow me and take up the cross.
There was a self denial in him.
Recognizing that.
There was going to be.
For himself, a path through death.
And in.
A spiritual way. The only path to glory is through death.
We would like to have it in spirit without having that.
But spiritually speaking, I'm not talking about physical death, but spiritually speaking, the only path to glory is through the death that the Lord Jesus experienced personally, Himself and we in identification with it. And so if I could give an application of the 8 days, it was going to require a new beginning.
As Jews, they helped enter into the glory, the earthly glory, but even that glory cannot be entered into and will not for them without going through death. And so it was going to require a new beginning, if you will, as the eight days suggest.
And how does the very example of what we're talking about to see that glory?
It says in verse 29 it begins.
And as he prayed, the Lord Jesus himself introduces.
Amount of transfiguration in this chapter with the thought of prayer, and I think that's important as well.
We by faith see Jesus frowned with glory and honor, but the only way we're going to experience it in practice and enjoy it in practice to be able to enjoy Himself where He is, is in the measure in which we experience.
In a practical way.
The dependents that comes.
From the recognition of death and its application to ourselves.
This may seem unrelated and then I'll stop, but Brother Darby in some Old Testament verses was commenting on the thought that man recognizes their sin in the world, but he tries to get as close back to Eden in his personal life as he can. In other words, he tries to go back to as good a circumstances of life as will.
But he says everything has the stamp of death upon it, and it's a.
Wasted life that tries to spend life giving the most favorable circumstances in which we can live.
So that we can get as easy through it as we can in order to.
Arrive at the glory. But if we want to really enjoy the Lord Jesus, we have to enjoy Him now.
This afternoon as the man who passed through death and have that same stamp upon us.
Ivy lost in Ave.
Autumn.
Going through death for his disciples.
And John in John Jeffrey Flow and 24.
We come toward acknowledging what he was going to have to.
Do verily, verily I say unto you, except the corn of wheat, fall into the ground and die, and invite us along this, and die, bring us forth much fruit. And then verse 25, which is very, very similar to the purchase we have in our chapter that loveth his life, you know, loses. He has hated his life in this world.
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Follow me and where I am.
They're all through my servants. They'll need, if any man serve me and will my father honor.
So the Lord Jesus hears.
His disciples, and he's saying, I'm going to ask you to lay down your life for me.
But before He asked His disciples to lay down His life, He presents the truth and the fact that He was going to be the perfect example of laying down His life.
In order for there to be eternal blessing and truth for God.
So the Lord Jesus never asked us to do something, and he hasn't first set that beautiful example of doing Himself.
And it's it's just wonderful for us now to be able to follow.
An example of what you must better.
God was speaking your boss an example as far as in the.
Here we have the example of actually going.
Find that interesting in connection with what follows, and I think Doug mentioned it, the man that brings his child. After they come down from the mountain, the disciples try to cast out this demon. They can't do it.
And I think it's only Mark's gospel that mentions. They ask the Lord afterward. Why couldn't we cast him?
The Lord said this kind cometh forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.
But it's fasting. It's that self denial that you're talking about.
That that's not in the culture we live in.
And I find, brethren, it's a challenge to me because we come against situations and we seem to be powerless, just like those disciples were powerless. Seemingly the Lord comes and without any difficulty casts out that demon because there was a person that was completely.
He did not think of his own interests.
Completely centered on doing his father's will.
To me, that is a real challenge to think about.
Matthew, Mark and Luke all speak of this incident.
Very interesting to compare.
Matthew's Gospel. His face shines as the sun. Supreme authority. But here it is.
The Lord's humanity that is more focused on, and I think it's nice by what Don said about his.
Is dependence and obedience.
So he is presented as praying and as he prays.
The fashion of his countenance was altered.
And his raiment was white.
And blistering.
That's why we call it the Transfiguration.
This practical chapter is important to enjoy the Lord of glory and His glory.
Is what's alluded to. And they went up to the mountain to pray.
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But he takes them alone.
And very often we're hindered from enjoying the Lord in glory by the distractions.
That feel like.
And so if we want to enjoy the Lord in his glory, this we sometimes have to quietly put aside all the activities and distractions of life, to come quietly with himself, to enjoy himself. And then we are in that as Peter, as the disciples here were taken apart in that time of prayer.
Prayer is often one of those periods of time when we're the most focused, as it were, because we're conscientiously.
Speaking to the Lord alone, and that in such a time sometimes we're the best ready.
To let the Lord speak to us.
It's well sometimes in prayer in that time to stop. And if I could use these words, Lord speak to me and let the Lord speak to us. And the Lord can make Himself known to us in such times in which He gives us the enjoyment of Himself, even as His present portion in glory, as He looks down upon us waiting when He is going to have us physically and forever with Himself.
And so that's part of the being focused with the Lord in glory.
It doesn't always work to just say, oh Lord, I want to see your glory. We can say those words.
But there is a practical living of them out of getting a loan with the Lord.
And enabling him to make himself known to us, as he does to the disciples. Here we find them sleeping.
We see the Lord on the night in which he was betrayed. He takes the 12 and then the three, and finally we find him alone.
Because he alone had that sense of what was before him, the death that he was going to have the next day.
In order to accomplish all the purposes of God, the work that would do it, and then first the suffering and then the glory.
Luke reverses the order of James and John here that we're used to. We're used to when they're referred together in Scripture, that's usually James and John. That's all. James was older. Perhaps he was, but.
Luke reverses it and he puts John first on the other two accounts if you look.
Just mentioned it as John James and Ninja.
I only bring it up because I remember someone saying once that we generally get more out of seeing the differences in the gospels than we do in trying to make.
Because of the unique character in which each of them was written, how the Lord brings before us a different how the Spirit of God brings before us a different aspect of the more Jesus. But I just wondered if anyone kind of thought on.
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I can't say I have any thought on that. Brother John at.
Just wanted to comment on the fact that.
Of these three.
Peter is the only one who mentions it in his epistle. Of course we don't. I don't think this is. This is the apostle James, and I think the epistle of James was.
Not the apostle James, who is the Lord's brother James, but.
Peter is the one that mentions it in his epistle and his second epistle, and I'd just like to read those verses. To me it is.
Incredible because like was mentioned.
At first the disciples were asleep.
Is it possible, brethren, that we are asleep as to his glory?
I have to confess that I think that's the case with myself.
We don't grasp the least of the glory that's coming, right? We have. We get under the power of present things, we get distracted. But it's beautiful to see the way Peter speaks of this in his epistle, this incident.
In second Peter chapter.
One verse 16.
We have not.
Followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But were eyewitnesses of his.
Majesty, but to me impresses me. Majesty.
I'd like to have somebody explain that word to me.
Or he received from God the Father honor and glory.
When there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory.
The glory that excels.
This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
And this voice which came from heaven, we heard.
When we were with him in the holy man Beautiful.
Peter grasped it.
And may the Lord help us, brethren, to.
The awake as to his glory.
We have we live in a day when man and man's glory.
Are put forward.
How different it's going to be?
In that coming day.
Matthew and Mark.
They see the Lord and glory. What's the response?
Afraid. They're completely afraid.
Here they're asleep.
And we?
Have to recognize in a practical way both sides.
To enter fully into the majesty of the holiness of God in nature is a fearful thing. Man would like to think he could enter in and be part of that glory, but in reality the nature in us, because it's sinful, shies away from or tries to avoid getting too close if you will, to be exposed to the fullness of the holiness of God.
And they were not prepared.
Themselves in that sense in in the Matthew, where we have the Kingdom glory most officially presented and the scene on the Mount of Transfiguration, what it will be in the millennial glory.
Even as to the earth, because they didn't yet recognize the fullness of the importance of the death of the Lord Jesus.
That no man would be fit to enter into that glory, even the millennial glory.
Without being clothed in the righteousness of Christ in redemption and the death through which he would have to pass. But here in this gospel you get the other side. They were asleep and the things of earth and the tend to put us asleep, the spiritual things and we get focused on them to the point where we.
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Don't.
Look for or are not truly occupied with glory. I think an anecdote or what we need in that regard is.
As it says in the hymn we sang, it's the treasure.
We found in His love that has made us now pilgrims below, and it's in the measure in which our hearts treasure Him that we will be occupied with heavenly glory.
In the measure in which we allow earthly things.
To become focus in our life. They rob us.
Of the desire to be occupied. They rob us of giving value to the treasure. The treasure doesn't mean as much because it's a we're distracted by having our own little treasures while we wait. And so we find things here to treasure and go after. And they rob us of the appreciation of himself as a treasure that fully satisfies because it's mixed.
We'd like to have him as a full treasure of our hearts, but we also have other things that we've decided to treasure.
And there's a conflict in that. And so we miss the enjoyment of them, of himself because of them. And we also miss seeing him in the fullness of his glory, because other things here are treasures that make him as a treasure less important to the soul.
There's a connection there too, with the suffering and the cross that's mentioned before, because why do we find a treasure in His love? He gave himself for us. He went to that cross, He suffered for us. He gave everything he could give. And if I'm asleep, I remember Brother Londine saying this, If I'm asleep as to his sufferings, I won't be awake as to His glory.
They're connected together.
So Peter was a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and he was going to be a partaker of the glory that was to be revealed.
There's an order.
Right.
I've received this request given remembrance of me as you guys are so vital.
Have fresh enjoyment of.
Ministers and.
Privilege to be identified with the Lord in his rejection and suffering during this present time. And I think we need to realize that because we're accruing appreciation as we go through life and the hard things in life. It's it's wonderful to associate it with Christ and the coming glory because you've never gone through anything hard. How would you appreciate heaven is in the same way?
The Lord Jesus that he's the author and finisher of faith, and He trod the the path of suffering perfectly.
And so the more we suffer, the more we'll be able to appreciate it There. I sometimes, sometimes enlarge the morning. I think about Abraham.
There, who went up to offer up his son and the experiences of his soul as he did that.
He's going to have something to talk to God about when he gets there.
That is, they will have a common relationship, have gone through something and I just mentioned that in connection with suffering and glory.
Perhaps that's the reason when Moses and Elias.
Up here they appeared in glory. What are they talking about? This is the only gospel that tells what they were talking about.
Is deceased, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.
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That really speaks to my heart, brethren, when we get home to glory.
There's not going to be anything quite so glorious.
As that subject of his deceased that he accomplished at Jerusalem.
Yes.
It's going to be supreme in his glory. His face is going to shine as the sun.
But.
They spoke of his deceased, that he should accomplish a Jerusalem. That really speaks to my own heart.
What a subject and I think in that coming day of glory.
All our bodies.
Will be perfect.
Transformed into his image.
Only one body in that coming glory.
Will have wounds.
Wherever that we don't forget the cost.
Lord help us.
Remarkable to think of these three together.
When the people sinned and broke that law before it even came down from the mountain.
Moses.
Was going to go back up into that mountain, the answer for a broken law to God. And he says per adventure, I'll make an atonement.
But he couldn't. He had no ability to make an atonement. He went up the great mediator.
And the mediation is beautiful and it's sweet, and it's full of lessons, forests and exodus. But he could not make atonement, though he interceded for the people of God.
The people broke the law again, and Elijah went up into the mountain to answer for a broken law before God.
And he interceded against the people of God. He had an opportunity to stand there before the Lord, like Moses.
And intercede for the people of God.
But he interceded against them.
With the Lord Jesus Christ went up to Calvert.
And he accomplished.
What a word, a complex.
That deceased, he not only interceded, but he made an atonement.
God's glory and our eternal blessing.
I think man could never do and to save these three together, three men, three mountains, 3 journeys.
The one who went up to Calvary?
It's the preeminent 1.
Accomplish that atonement for God's glory and our blessing.
It might make just a few more comments on that. I That's good, Steve. When Moses had to go back back up with a broken commandment, God gave him another set of stones and he told him to put him in the ark, and that was the picture of Christ.
Here we have Moses singing that fulfilled that man, Jesus Christ.
When Elijah went up the Mount Orab there, he was discouraged, and he was finished.
God said no, you got to do one more thing. You got to go anoint somebody else to take your place. And so he anointed Elijah, who is a minister of grace.
Well, here Elijah sees who that was the Minister of Grace.
Another detail that I've found quite interesting to think about, brethren, is.
That the three disciples when they are awake.
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They saw His glory and the two men that stood with them.
And of course they were.
Quite impressed to see Moses and Elijah.
There is no evidence.
On Moses and the Elijahs.
Part that they recognized the three disciples.
Why not?
Rather than they saw His glory.
And nothing else really mattered. I think we'll be conscious of others there. But brethren.
It's him that will occupy our focus completely in that coming day.
Oh what a person to fill our souls completely.
In the past, when I read the accounts of the amount of transfiguration, it always seemed I guess my own heart seemed to focus on what Peter said and how.
As I as I put it, he ruined the he ruined the scene by interjecting his own comments.
That were from himself, but I that's that's half of the that's only half of it the.
I don't think it's presented quite that way in this gospel. It seems like it's more God it says in verse.
30.
Verse 33 it says as they departed from him so that they the Moses and Elias were already departing and it wasn't so much that Moses of what Peter said that.
Upset ended the display. It was God.
That it was.
A temporary display of a coming glory.
And God only wanted to last a short time till till they could see it. Once it was seen and visible and recorded and he ends it. So it isn't ended just because Peter ruined it. That's my thought. God purposed it to be that way because it couldn't continue until the coming day.
And that's really what Peter wanted to happen then he wanted it to go on. That's what his comments were, were geared toward. I believe he, he, he, he wanted it to be then, but it couldn't be. And there's a reason he must go to Calvary first.
Wonderful thing. I'm going to heaven. I'm going into that glory and.
There's going to be no sin there.
There's going to be no anxiety, No Fear, everything is just going to be absolutely wonderful.
And I'm going to have some place assigned by the Lord.
In the coming glory of the Kingdom. And what have I said that's wrong? Just about everything.
The point is.
Moses, Peter was occupied with what their blessing and their place was going to be, and these people in the glory.
And the Spirit of God says no, no, no. He is the focus of the glory.
And so they have to be removed from the vision even before the aspect that Doug talks about, which I think is true, but they have to be removed so that the place that God wants him to have in their hearts.
And we'll be in Moses and Elias and all the rest is.
The glory is wonderful, but imagine the glory without himself.
Suppose you could have everything I said and he was I'm not here.
Would your heart be satisfied? Would you say, oh, heaven is a wonderful place? It's.
It's Eden and heaven. We've got everything, no.
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It wouldn't satisfy your new heart without Himself. And further than that, your heart won't be satisfied unless He has the supreme central place of everything with you. And we will. We don't have to worry about it. He will.
But at the same time, the moment we start thinking about heaven and all the wonders of it.
If it detracts us from the enjoyment of himself alone, without any of the other things that will come with it, we're missing the whole essence of what God wants for us.
Your suggestion showed that fallacy, didn't he put?
The Lord Jesus on the same level as Moses and Elijah.
And saw a cloud overshadows them.
God is jealous for the glory of His own beloved Son.
And they feared as they entered into the cloud, and there came a voice out of the cloud saying, this is my beloved son, hear him.
You can imagine how those disciples must have been.
Really impressed to see these two men that were.
Great figures in Israel's history, Moses, what a man of God.
And meanings without failure. But it was a tremendous man of God.
And Elijah, who turned the children of Israel back to the true God.
Alone that time in First Kings, it's incredible, the story about it. But they're nothing, brother, nothing in comparison with the Glory.
Of God's beloved Son.
This is my beloved son. Hear him.
And I just want to mention it now before we get down to the latter part of the chapter, but this that very point of not.
Not having Christ there All in all and his glory before them is why they couldn't cast out the Spirit.
Why they were reasoning among themselves who would be the greatest, and why they would call fire down from heaven, because there was still something of man in them, in their strivings.
Rather than.
If we have to have Christ before us but Peter.
But Peter got it later and in his epistle where you read Bob is beautiful.
Peter dotted at the cross, not at the Mount of Transfiguration. I think that's important to see.
The Lord clearly over and over and over again, said I, the Son of man must die.
They couldn't say they didn't have that testimony. And so the night before he's crucified, they're together in the upper room to have the Passover, which speaks of his death.
And.
They in that very room the night before his death, What did they get to talking about? Which one of them would have the greatest place in the Kingdom?
Without any respect to his death or even the thought that he would die.
We had trust that afterwards, they say we had trusted that it had been he which should have.
Delivered to Israel, He was the Messiah. He had come to bring in the glory and give him a place in it. But as I I just want to put it this way, brethren, we're pretty slow learners.
In our own generation and our own lives. But the Lord is an incredibly patient teacher, and he bore with his disciples. No matter how clearly he spoke. He bore with them in patience. He didn't constantly rebuke them for their lack of faith or.
Lack of understanding even on the night in which he said he appreciated that they were with him. You're they which have continued with me. He said that night, even though they were arguing as to which would be the greatest and but when they saw him die. That was the foundation in which they get it and Peter shows he gets it in his epistles. He had learned and the Lord wants us and he will work with us through a lifetime.
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That we truly enter into the blessing and the enjoyment of that which is set before us by Himself.
#134 number 134.
We rise.
There are sorrows all.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Bob Thonney
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Good evening.
I'd like to start the meeting with #23.
Behold, behold the Lamb of God.
On the cross for us. He shed his precious blood on the cross.
O here the overwhelming cry Eli Lamisa backed, and I draw near and see the Savior die on the cross.
Behold, behold the Lamb of God.
On the cross.
On the cross.
To sing also #14 in our hymn sheet. Have you been?
To Jesus for the cleansing power. Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you one?
Are you watching my blood?
All you want in my life.
In the soul 24 of the land.
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Spotless, heartless, heartless heartbreak.
Are you lost in the flood of the man?
Are you lost in the world?
In the soul 21 of the land.
Are your warm and calmness of this all day wise?
That's quite a challenging question, you know.
As I started a gospel meeting like this, I feel challenged because I look out over the grip here and I know pretty much everybody has been sitting in meetings like this perhaps most of your life.
But the point is, have you been washed in the blood of the lamb? Have you made it personal? Way too many people that have sat in meetings like this.
And now they are leading lives that make us wonder if they have ever really, truly accepted the Lord Jesus and as their Savior. You know what the Lord said? He said by their fruit she shung all them.
And if they are not the fruits, then there's a doubt in our mind.
As to the reality, and so I cannot make a judgment.
Only God knows, the Lord knows them that are His.
But I've seen way too many.
That have grown up in Sunday schools in the meetings.
And have heard the gospel most of their life, some of whom today are professing atheists.
Can I hardly believe it? I have no clue. I'm glad I do not have to present.
A past judgment on such persons, but I want.
To say at the beginning of this meeting.
Please be real with God. You can fuel me. There's been a lot of people that have fooled me.
You cannot fool God, and it's His word we're speaking tonight. And so I ask you.
To let his word penetrate.
This afternoon in the address we heard about Abraham and I'd like to go back to Genesis.
Chapter 22 to begin with, and there's a question in that chapter.
That resonates down through the ages of the Old Testament.
And we'll read and when we get to that question, I'll.
Mention it.
Came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him.
Abraham. And he said, Behold, here I am.
And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son I seek, whom thou lovest.
And get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him therefore a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.
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This is very incredibly challenging request that God makes of Abraham. You know, in the New Testament, Abraham is called the friend of God.
To make a request of a friend like this.
Is incredibly interesting and difficult.
What in the world did God have in mind? You know Abraham had waited for Isaac for many years.
And finally, when his wife, Sarah was beyond the years of conception.
God gave her conception and at 90 years of age when Abraham was 100 years old.
She presented him with this little boy, Isaac.
You know what his name means. It means laughter. And when people heard about a woman 90 years old bearing a son, I'm sure there was laughter.
It was an incredible miracle, but now God comes to Abraham and says Abraham.
Take that son, it was the only son he had of Sarah and offer him up for a burnt offering. You know what a burnt offering was? It was an offering.
That after it was killed, it was put on the altar and burnt to ashes.
Take that thy son, and offer him for a burnt offering.
Incredibly difficult request.
Is there any back talk with Abraham?
Notice verse 3. Abraham rose up.
Early in the morning, he didn't delay things he didn't stay in bed for.
A while ago he got up early in the morning and saddled his ***.
Took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and paved the wood for the burnt offering.
Rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
Then on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. After three days.
Travel.
Abraham said unto us, Young men, abide ye here with the *** and I, and the lad will go Yonder.
And worship and come again to you.
It's interesting when it says come again, it's in the plural. Abraham had the confidence that even if he burnt Isaac to ashes.
That God could raise him from the dead. And so he said to the young men.
We're going to go and sacrifice and come again.
To you what faith? Incredible faith. And Abraham took the word of the burnt offering.
And laid it upon Isaac, his son. You know, I often wondered how old Isaac was. It doesn't say the scriptures.
But to carry enough wood for a burnt offering was not for a small boy.
He must have been a young man, and so he put the wood on Isaac, his son.
And he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went, both of them together.
And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father.
Don't know. Until this time, evidently Abraham had not told.
Isaac that he was going to be he the offering.
So Isaac says.
My father.
And he said, here am I my sin. And he said, Behold the fire.
And the wood.
But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? That's the question that stands out in this chapter. Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
Rather than that, maybe my father forgot.
But notice Abraham's answer verse 8. Abraham said my son.
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
So they went, both of them together.
And they came to the place which God had told him of. Abraham built an altar there.
Laid the wood in order.
And bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
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No indication of any struggle.
Abraham, or I should say Isaac, evidently had confidence.
In his father that he realized his father was doing what?
He should do.
But notice verse 10 and this to me.
One of the most hard verses it must have been, for Abraham stretched forth his hand.
And took the knife to slay his son.
Oh my. Oh.
You know what?
God is showing us a picture in this story.
Abraham, fix your God the Father.
Isaac, picture of the Lord Jesus.
The eternal Son in the bosom of the Father.
And since Abraham was the friend of God, I like to think that God was saying Abraham.
I want to tell you a secret.
I too have an only begotten Son.
And Abraham, I'm going to sacrifice him.
We don't know how much Abraham really grasped that.
We can't really say beyond scripture.
But when he took that knife to slay his son and I often think.
It would be harder for me when I have two sons, myself and my family.
To plunge that knife into my son.
Rather plunge it into myself to do it to my son.
Do we understand the sacrifice? It was for God?
To give His only begotten Son for the likes of rebellious sinners like us.
No, we can't grasp that. It's beyond us.
But that's all the further this story goes. God stopped him there. Abraham. Abraham.
And he said don't lay your hand on your son.
And Abraham says, lifted up his eyes and looked behind him.
And.
There verse.
13 lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him.
A RAM.
Caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
Where is the lamb for a burnt offering temporarily?
Here is the RAM to take the place of Isaac.
And that RAM was offered as a burnt offering.
In the stead of his son.
What a story.
You know, I don't think we grasp in our.
Day How serious sin is with God.
We tend to take it rather lightly so often.
But sin is a serious thing. There is only one thing that can protect you from the judgment of God.
Is the blood of an acceptable sacrifice?
And so in the case of Isaac here it was the blood of a ram.
Just to remember a number of years ago.
Being down in the Dominican Republic.
In at a conference.
And they had.
A wasn't. It was a young.
Steer they had if they were going to butcher for.
The conference.
And I stood off to the side to watch the process.
And it was what you'd call gruesome, but impressive.
The brother that was in charge of doing the butchering took the knife.
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Got down in the front of the thing, it was quite calm.
And took that knife and rammed it into the chest of that.
Animal.
Was a long knife, probably that long and pulled it out.
And the blood came gushing out, and that poor animal and the pain.
That he was experienced bellowed.
And the blood came a gushing out until he fell on his front legs to the ground.
And then he fell over dead.
Death is a serious thing. It's not a pleasant thing.
And so we need to understand when you sin.
Especially when you do it knowingly how serious that is before God.
And unless there's repentance on your part, there can be no forgiveness.
They were to prevent.
Preach repentance toward God.
And faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not only faith that saves, it takes repentance.
The Lord Jesus said, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
So take sin seriously. It's no light matter God.
It costs God the death of his only Son. And so as we go through the Old Testament scriptures.
We find this question ringing. Where is the lamb? And there were multitudes of animals that were sacrificed in the Old Testament times.
Solomon and the dedication of the Temple offered a sacrifice of 120,000 lambs.
And 22,000 oxen.
Can you imagine that quantity of animals, that quantity of blood it was?
Literally, it must have been rivers of blood.
That flowed.
Could any of that blood put away sin before the eyes of a holy God?
You know what the Old Testament has a word that it uses? Atonement.
And atonement means a covering, so when that blood of that animal was.
Sprinkled on the Ark of the Covenant and the great Day of Atonement.
Sin was covered temporarily.
When you come to the New Testament, the word atonement is really not used. You find it in the King James Version, in Romans chapter 5, but it's really not supposed to be a tone that's supposed to be reconciliation there because when it comes to the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
Sin was not merely covered, it was put away by the sacrifice of himself.
So the question of sin has been resolved eternally.
By the sacrifice of himself, but until that time.
The question rings through the whole Old Testament Where is the lamb?
In Egypt.
On the Passover night, you remember, they were told to take a lamb.
According to the House of their fathers, without blemish, they were to keep it up.
For four days. Representative of the 4000 years from Adam to Christ.
When God was Real of Ewing.
The human race, when he was saying where is the lamb, He did not find one that was fit for such a sacrifice.
Where is the lamb?
Now we go over to John's Gospel chapter one.
Please. And there we have the answer.
Demilis, so beautiful. One day John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Lord Jesus.
Is speaking.
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And in chapter one and verse 29.
Here's what it says the next day, John. That's John the Baptist.
Sees Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Yes, the sin is going to be completely taken.
Away by the sacrifice of this Lamb, so the Lord Jesus.
You know John the Baptist Mother and the Lord Jesus as mother and the flesh.
Were cousins.
And so I'm sure they must have known each other in a human way.
But John the Baptist, when he sees the Lord Jesus here, he says.
Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.
But let me tell you a little bit more about this lamb. Who was this person?
Who was this Lamb? And in this chapter, John's Gospel chapter one, we have.
A number of different titles of the Lord Jesus that tell us who he was. To me it's amazingly wonderful to talk about it. Verse one of this chapter in the beginning was the word.
And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
This is an interesting title of the Lord Jesus the Word.
What I use? What do we use words for?
To express thoughts, ideas.
I could stand here and Justice look at you for quite a while.
You'd say, what in the world is he thinking?
You wouldn't know until I opened my mouth and used words.
What I was thinking. So words are the expression.
Of what I would be thinking.
You know, God is so infinite, so eternal. You know, it just blows my mind to think of a person.
Who always was, who never had a beginning. Can you grasp that? That just blows my mind. I can't grasp it, it's beyond me, but that's what it is. Here. In the beginning was the Word, His eternality, and the Word was with God. In other words, He was a distinct person in the Godhead. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the Word was not the Father.
Word was not the Holy Spirit, the Word was the Son.
And then it says the word was God, He was deity, He was God in every sense of the word. And it says the same was in the beginning with God. In other words, in the beginning, that's who He was. He didn't become this at a certain point of time.
No, He was that from all eternity, the eternal Son.
But notice something else about in verse 3. All things were made by him.
And without him was not anything made that was made. In other words, he's the creator of everything.
And that's such an incredible thing to think about, too. You know, I hear reports of the.
Size of the universe and every report I hear it seems like.
The numbers just get bigger and bigger and bigger.
I don't know if I mentioned it, but some years ago I was talking at a young people singing out in Los Angeles.
And I mentioned that scientists believe that in our Milky Way.
Galaxy, we have probably about 100 billion.
Stars.
In one Galaxy.
Young man came up to me afterward and said, you know what, they really think the number is closer to 200 billion.
Wow, I said. That's fascinating.
Was a few years ago, I was back out in the Los Angeles area and somebody showed me a video of a astronomer talking and he said it's closer now to 300 billion stars. I mean, the numbers just keep going up.
And he spoke all this into existence by the word of his power.
Can you grasp a person of that magnitude?
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I'm baffled. I'm totally baffled.
You know how small that makes me feel?
Rightly so.
Rightly so, we're just specs.
In the universe, he made it all.
And this is that same person we're talking about, the lamb.
Of God, but notice in verse.
14 It says the word was made flesh.
This is the only reference in John's Gospel to his birth.
The word was made flesh. In other words, it wasn't his beginning. He was from all eternity, but the time came when he was born into this world of a woman.
Necessarily, he had to become a man to be able to be the sacrifice for sin, to be able to be the Lamb of God, to be able to die. God cannot die. He's immortal.
A man can die, and so he became a man to die to pay the price of redemption.
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
And we beheld His glory, the glorious of the only Begotten of the Father.
Full of grace and truth. Amazingly wonderful.
The only begotten of the Father. This is another of his titles.
Occupies that place of oneness or of uniqueness?
That here is the object of the Father's heart of love.
From all eternity, this is the one God gave.
So freely.
I just marvel and I think of how he was born.
Into this world.
In such humiliation.
His poor mother, after coming all that way from Galilee.
To Bethlehem.
And going to the inn to find a place to stay.
Just about to give birth, told to go outworthy animals are.
Might find a spot out there.
There's where the King.
Of glory came into the world. What a story. What a story. You know the angels came down to witness it because the angels had never seen their Creator in physical form.
And when they saw it, they must have thought, where are these people?
They have.
The word in their hands. They know the answers to the questions, but they have no clue.
That God has become Incarnate in the person of His own beloved Son.
And so they go out into the fields where these shepherds are, and they tell them.
They're the ones that hear the story first.
So the Lord Jesus was here in this world as a stranger.
Oh, what a story, meeting up with needy souls. I'm amazed how in wisdom he touched lives. That dear woman in the fourth of John who was thirsty, Not only did she have a thirsty body, but she had a thirsty soul. And she comes out there one day to get water, and there's a man sitting on the edge of the well.
She doesn't know who he is. And he says give me to drink. And how in the world you ask? Drink of me. You're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans don't have anything to do with each other.
Did he answer that? No, he said, if you knew.
Who it was that said to you, give me to drink? You would have asked of him.
And he would have given you living water.
And so finally she says, Sir, give me this living water.
The Lord Jesus had to touch your conscience.
Because there is sin in their life, like there is sin in all our lives that has to be faced.
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And judged.
And she said, he said to her in his wisdom, go call your husband and come here.
I don't have any husband. She thought she would cover up the issue that way.
But you know, with an all seen God you can't cover things up.
So the Lord Jesus said you said it right, you don't have a husband. You've had five husbands and the one you have right now isn't your husband.
She realized, here's somebody that knows everything. My life.
You know what? He knows everything of your life too. You can't hide anything.
You might have hidden from your parents, from your brethren, things you cannot hide from him. It's impossible.
And she says you must be a prophet.
That then later on she says, I know that Messiah cometh when he has come, he will tell us all things.
And the Lord Jesus said, I that speak unto thee, and he.
Isn't that beautiful? Wonderful how she came to know the Lord Jesus and she goes and tells others about him.
Oh what a story, the Lord Jesus through his life meeting with needy souls like that.
But I want to go over to John chapter 19 because there's where we have.
The Lamb sacrificed. Before we get to chapter 19, go back to chapter 18.
Just want to point out.
Verse.
38 Pilate that said unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, Notice this I find in him no fault at all.
Now chapter 19.
And Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him.
Pilot, you just said you didn't find any fault. Why are you scourging him?
Is this justice?
The soldiers planted a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They put on him a purple robe. He said, Hail King of the Jews, and they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Again he says the same, no fault.
And came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns in the purple robe. Pilate saith unto them. Behold.
The man when the chief priest therefore enough officers saw him, they cried out, saying crucify him.
Crucify him, Pilate said unto them. Take ye him, and crucify him. Here's the third time, for I find no fault in him. This is human justice.
And Ohio.
It's in connection with the Christ of God. No fault here is God's lamb and.
Completely sinless. Not only did he not sin.
He could not sin. In him was number sin.
What a story of God's lamb.
Verse.
Nine, or verse 8 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid, and went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou?
But Jesus gave him no answer. Then said Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me?
Norest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, not power to release thee?
Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except that we are given thee from above.
Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. From thenceforth Pilate sought to release him.
The Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend.
Whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.
When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth and sat down in the judgment seat in a place.
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That is called the pavement, but in the Hebrew was the preparation of the Passover in about the 6th hour.
And he said unto the Jews, Behold your king. But they cried out Away with him, away with him, crucify him.
Pilate said unto them, Shall I crucify your king?
Chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
Then delivered here him therefore unto them to be crucified, and they took Jesus, and led him away.
And he bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew.
Golgotha where they crucified him and two other with him on either side, one in Jesus.
In the midst, here's God's lamb. Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross, and the writing was Jesus.
Of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
This title then read many of the Jews, for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city.
It was written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin.
Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate right, not the king of the Jews, but that he said, I am the king of the Jews.
Pilate answered. What I have written, I have written. The soldiers, when they had crucified him, took his garments and made four parts.
To every soldier apart. And also his coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.
They said, therefore are among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it whose it shall be, the Scripture might be fulfilled. Which saith They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture did they cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.
Verse 28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith.
I thirst now. There was set a vessel full of vinegar.
And they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said.
It is finished.
Bowed his head and gave up the ghost.
That word in the Spanish is consumado S it is consumed.
All the judgment of God that was against us as guilty sinners was completely answered.
By the Lord's expiatory death on the cross of Calvary.
What a story. Here is God's plan. He died.
He gave up his life, the Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation that the body should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day.
For that Sabbath was in high day, besought Pilate, that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
And came the soldiers, and break the legs of the 1St and of the other.
Which is crucified with him, that when they came to Jesus.
Saw that he was dead already. They break not his legs, but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side.
Forthwith came there out blood and water, and he that saw it bear record in his record is true, and he knoweth that he set through that ye might believe.
So here's the sacrifice.
Here is what takes away sin from the eye of God. You remember in the Old Testament we didn't get down that far in the story of the Passover, but.
They had to not only kill that lamb that was kept up to the 4th day.
But they had to take its blood and apply it to the two sideposts and to the upper doorpost of the houses.
Where they were staying.
And it says when I see the blood, I will Passover you.
The only thing that could save them from the destroying Angel was the blood applied. It's not enough that you know that Christ died and shed his precious blood, you must apply it through personal faith in the Lord Jesus.
You may know about it, but you've got to make it a personal matter between you and God. Have you accepted the Lord Jesus as your own personal Savior? So the blood was.
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Shed the soldier pierced his side. It came out of a dead.
Christ, how important that is. It's in the Gospel that speaks of the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God.
The only one of the three gospels or four gospels that speaks about the blood.
Is this gospel? How important it is? There is nothing that can protect you from the.
Judgment of God, except the blood of God's Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, we know the story that the Lord Jesus was buried and that he rose again the third day.
But I want to go on now to the Book of Revelation and.
First of all, in chapter 5 to talk about this lamb.
John. This is the apostle John.
Who wrote this epistle? Or it wrote this book and it says in verse.
Six. He's up in heaven now witnessing this, and I beheld and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a lamb as it had been slain.
The Lord Jesus is the one who occupies, as far as God is concerned, that central.
Position in the midst.
And so he sees him that lamb, and notice.
Says verse seven, he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.
The book is sometimes called the title Deed to Planet Earth.
When he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps in golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of Saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, For thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred.
And tongue, and people and nation, and that's made us unto our God, kings and priests, and we shall reign.
On the earth, here's redemption song through the blood of the Lamb.
How important this is. But before we come to the end of our.
Meeting I want to read to you an expression that has stood out to me.
Very strongly in a number of occasions in Chapter 6, towards the end of Chapter 6.
Here we have this sealed judgments, the judgments that are going to begin to fall on planet Earth and.
I don't think we have a clue as to the awfulness of the judgment that's about to come on planet Earth.
People think they've seen bad times and they have nothing in comparison with what's coming.
And so here in verse 12 of this 6th chapter.
The 6th seal is opened. I beheld when he had opened the 6th seal and lo there was a.
Great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell into the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together. Every mountain and island were moved out of their places. The kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, the mighty men and every bondsman and every freeman.
Hid themselves in the dens and the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains.
Rocks fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne. And notice this expression.
And from the wrath of the Lamb. Isn't that interesting?
You don't think of a lamb as one who has rats.
Such a little meek, gentle animal.
What is this, The wrath of the Lamb?
00:50:04
The one.
Who was slain so that his precious blood could provide eternal redemption?
For those who believe in him. For those who refuse to trust him.
They're going to face this day of the wrath of the Lamb. How awful it's going to be in this. Figures that we have here, of the sun being darkened and the moon becoming as blood, and the stars of heaven falling to the earth are figures of this whole system of government that we've known and lived under coming down.
It's all going to be replaced. We're coming down to the end of it. You know, brethren, to me, it's so serious to see the way our country is decaying. We should respect authority in the measure that we can, but it's decaying very evidently. The whole thing is going to come down, and I believe it's beginning to come down now.
It's going to be an awful time when things are shaken to the point where.
These people are going to call on the rocks and mountains to.
Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the.
Wrath of the Lamb.
That same one that hung on that cross to pay the price of redemption.
Is coming back and he's going to set this world in order again.
But it will be an intense.
Judgment.
Where are you sitting here in this room? You have not.
Made it real in your own soul with the Lord Jesus.
He is the lamb.
Of God that takes away the sin of the world, but if you cling to your sin.
If you refuse to repent and come to him in simple faith.
You're going to face this one.
The wrath of the Lamb we are here to plead with you.
To take it seriously, to get right with God, don't play with sin.
It's deadly.
So we have in Genesis 22 That question, where is the Lamb? And the answer in John 129, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And we've seen that that person was nailed to a cross.
We know the story how the darkness descended at 12 noon when the Lord Jesus was on that cross and God poured out His judgment on that sin because He was the holy sin bearer and all the wrath of God was poured out on him so that He could show mercy to you. And now you despise what He has done for you you. The only thing that's left is the wrath.
Of the Lamb we plead with you to take it seriously, to repent.
And to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ while there is still time.
Luke 9:33-36
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Amen, Blessed see where sin can never.
Come.
In spirit wings.
From Earth, where yet we roam.
And die we fall.
Stop Liberty.
Morning game, when God is rest shall give.
His praise.
Is rest it's your untold.
Shall find way and let's see when and let us see.
Our God. The centers.
Is crying sun spills that land?
And God bless me as long as his.
Right hand adoring stand.
Our God, we have gone.
Who are alone in Jesus love.
Resting all blessing of his own.
Before himself.
Our grace will premature.
Glory.
Night shines through all more.
Friends, but still that long to share.
And souls that longest call.
I change us in my place.
A blind and lost a dream.
Why sweat of sorrows for praise?
And blast and endlessly.
I hear him all grace supreme.
I am before thy face.
Like Him to know that glory.
Again.
Face to face.
Oh, still Freeman crying. Good.
You love me less, heart.
I give us now as heavenly light.
What soon shall he art?
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I trust.
I agreed to go ahead with our subject of the Luke 9 and I suggest that we re read what we've already read, the verses we've already been over. I think we were somewhere around verse 33.
But.
Just the reading of that is pretty good.
Maybe he could read down to verse 50.
28.
And pay the past about an 8 days after these sayings. But Peter and John and James went up into a mountains of crave. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his bravement was white and blistering. And behold, they're clumped with him, two men which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory and spake of his deceased, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep, and when they were awake they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him.
And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here, and let us make 3 tabernacles, one could be, and one for Moses and one for Elias, not knowing what he said, while he thus faked their chemical cloud and overshadowed them. And they feared that they entered into the cloud and became a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved son here in hell. And when the voice would pass, that Jesus was found alone.
And they kept it close and told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen.
Came to pass that on the next day when they were coming down from the hill, a lot of people met hell. If you hold a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech you look upon my son, for he is my only child and loan A spirit taketh him, and he suddenly cryeth out, and it teeth him that he falleth again. And bruising him hardly departed from him. And I'll be solved by disciples that cast him out. And they could not. And Jesus answering said, Hold faithless and perverse generation. How long shall I be with you?
And some for you bring thy son hit her, and as he was yet a coming.
The devil threw him down and tear him, and Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the child.
And delivered him again to his Father. And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God.
But while they wondered everyone at all the things which Jesus did, He said unto His disciples, Let these sayings sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of man men. But they understood not the saying, and it was hid from them, and they perceived that they perceived it not. They feared to ask him of that saying. Then there were roses reasoning among them. Which of them should be great is. And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a child, and set him by him. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not.
That is not against us, is for us.
This has been called a preview of the coming Kingdom glory of the Lord Jesus.
And he just got through speaking about the Kingdom of God and that they should.
Not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God. And so it's interesting, the three parts of this Kingdom.
The Lord Jesus, of course, supreme in his position as.
The one who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
And there is nothing that can compare with him and his glory is unique in his position and.
Then there are the two heavenly ones, Moses and Elias.
The figurative of the heavenly part of the Kingdom. And then there's the three.
Disciples.
Peter and John and James, which are figurative of the earthly side of the Kingdom. So it's interesting to think of it in that way. The Kingdom will have its heavenly and its earthly hearts. And so we get a preview of it here in these MIS portion.
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And Elias you get Moses died and the Lord buried him.
But Elijah was caught up, so you get those that have died in Christ.
And those who are alive and remain. But altogether they're forming that heavenly company.
And we're living in the time while the heavenly side is being formed and enlarged. Of course, it includes the Old Testament Saints too, but that died in faith. But so Peters thought here was that the earthly side of the Kingdom would appear. And so I think your brother even said quoted this, it's good to be here.
We, God's Kingdom is a good place to be.
And but.
I believe we kind of had the same problem that often times that Peter had because we wanted to hurry up and appear now, don't we?
We, we. The Kingdom side now is impatience.
It's forming here on earth, but it doesn't appear, it's not manifested. It's going to be manifested. And so that was the reason the Lord.
Appeared and was transfigured to give him them that preview and we've been enjoying that in our hymns and so on.
So we must. We must.
Wait in patience for it to appear and in the meanwhile we have the last part of the chapter and those are experiences that are test us as we get into it. We will notice that.
We it's so good to have the preview before us because and enjoy it.
If we're in the enjoyment of it, brethren, I don't think we will mess up like in the rest of the chapter. They they, there was a failure there.
Just want to mention that verse that you referred to Doug in Revelation 1.
Where the Kingdom and patience is mentioned and there is another word that is used there.
That I find helpful.
Revelation chapter one and verse 9.
I, John.
Who also am your brother?
And companion in tribulation.
And in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ.
3 words connected together tribulation, Kingdom and patience so.
You recognize the authority of the Lord Jesus. That's the sphere.
Of the Kingdom.
Then you're going to have to have patience. Things are not going to be rectified immediately.
And there may be tribulation in the picture as well. And so many of our brethren in many parts of the world are going through severe persecution.
It's because he hasn't taken his Kingdom yet.
So that's important to remember. That's the character of the.
Kingdom at this present time.
Peter was ready to skip over the Passover, wasn't he, And bring in the Feast of Tabernacles.
But it couldn't be brought in without that wonderful.
Beasts that pictures to us the death of the Lord Jesus.
We know that he later learned that because in his epistle he said.
Spoke of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that took fall.
So we have in the end of verse 33 the comment about Peter.
Not knowing what he said.
God often his perfect way with us. As we see the lives of the Lord's people in the Scriptures, we get to kind of know them. We get to see their character. Peter we can recognize from the record given to us. He was impulsive, whatever he was thinking, he said. Other people are different. They stop and reflect before they open their mouth. But Peter tended to be whatever he was feeling at the moment. That's what came out.
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And he had to learn, and so here.
Peter is on the mountain and he has an experience.
And we're talking about patience. The Lord shows here how wonderfully patient a teacher he is.
He doesn't work with us as we should be, each one of us. He works with us as we are. He takes each one of us wherever we are and works with that to gradually, patiently bring us into that which He would have for us to know and enjoy of Himself. And so it is here with these disciples. They come down from the mountain. What an experience.
Not one of them talked about it.
Totally silent, they come down off the mountain, and not one of them had a word to say to the fellow disciples at this point in time.
About what they had just experienced of the coming glory because.
They were uneasy. They didn't understand it.
And yet the Lord used it, and gradually later on.
And they couldn't understand it after the Lord's death, after the Lord's resurrection.
After the Lord had gone back to glory, then they were able to look at it and comprehend it and share it. And so it is. We, each one of us, may have this morning some little measure in our own souls of that glimpse of coming glory, and yet the Lord knows that there may still be in each one of us that need to enter into it more.
That we might be able to share it more with one another.
Don't you think that?
Peter thought that he was honoring the Lord.
By suggesting building these three tabernacles.
He put the Lord first.
Says let us make 3 tabernacles, one for Thee, one for Moses and.
One for Elias.
Well, it's already been brought out that the Lord Jesus is in a unique position. He's the 2nd man from heaven. He's the perfect man.
Altogether love.
And so, you know, he's in a position might say supremacy in all things. He must have the preeminence.
So really, Peter, he was depreciating the boy.
Instead of honoring.
But as you point out, I think Peter really had a love for the Lord.
And. But if you stop and think of the.
Outcome of building 3 Tabernacles.
Now you've got three places to go.
And so if you go into the Tabernacle of Moses.
Your focus is going to be on Moses.
You go into the Tabernacle of your lies. I'm going to have Elias before you.
What about the Lord Jesus?
You know he wants our full attention.
And so I believe as we see.
You know the account.
That time went on, it says.
Jesus was found alone.
And so that's God's desire for you and for me, that we might have our focus.
On his year started.
That we might solve.
And not going to places where anybody else.
As a prominent decision at the expense of the exaltation of Christ.
You know, it's a wonderful thing to be simply gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus.
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And to be in his presence and to enjoy it.
It's really the sweetest place on the face of this planet Earth.
And there is a place, I believe, where the Lord is what is me.
Thank God, by His grace we are found in that place.
It's going to be a place where we find satisfaction, joy, fulfillment.
It's not that the Lord doesn't use each other individuals, but we have to realize that in all things He must have the preeminence.
You know, and even if they have gone into the Tabernacle, that would have been set up for Jesus, it would have been a man made thing. It would have suggested him staying here and not fulfilling his deceased, which he should have found to Teresa.
We get in situations where we feel like the circumstances demand that we open our mouth and say something.
And if we feel that pressure, we can open our mouth and say things that we just shouldn't say.
And not really know what we're saying. Like Peter, he felt like he had to say something. The situation demanded a response. And so he just kind of blabbers this out and it wasn't suitable at all.
And we can be in the same way. And then the voice comes from that cloud. This is my beloved son, here him.
What had he just been speaking about? His deceased, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem? What had he been speaking about before?
The amount of transfiguration his deceased, what is he going to say after he comes down?
Let these sayings sink into your ears. And so again, that voice comes. Peter, stop talking. Listen. Listen.
It also suggested in his words and how he started let us.
Whoa, Peter, you're in the presence of the Lord Jesus and you're going to have a consultation and decide let us do this or that we do well when we come into the presence of the Lord and God is showing something to us not to put it on a community decision making issue of well, Lord, you and I are going to do this and so or tell God let us do this and that God.
We do very well when we come into His presence to come to hear and receive rather than tell him what to do.
That's why they had the US and them problem later on when they complained about the others not following them that.
When you have the Lord before you, it's not on us and them issue anymore, it's Christ in them.
It was mentioned before that Peter desired.
Honor the Lord.
And he heard this rebuke from heaven, he and the disciples. I'm sure Peter was speaking.
The other disciples, Peter probably pretty well represented their thoughts as well.
It's interesting what God says, and he speaks from heaven. He doesn't say.
This is my beloved Son. Worship him.
He says here a very simple thing. Hear him.
We turn to.
First Kings.
First Kings.
Chapter 10.
And we see the Queen of Sheba.
Talking to Solomon, verse eight, she says.
Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that here?
Thy wisdom.
Hearing is the essence of honor.
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We don't listen to a person, we're not honoring them.
I know Peter desired to honor the Lord by doing something, but the first thing?
Is to hear.
And I hope we have each done the Lord that honor this morning.
And hearing him.
Thank you, John. I needed that.
Moses and Elias, they lived about 550 years apart.
What does this tell us about conversation in heaven?
Why are they focused on his deceased?
I tend to think we get the answer in Romans 3.
And verse 24.
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
And Goddess set forth to be a propitiation replaced in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time His right, that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believe in Jesus.
Brother Ron has brought out.
Passover, you know, both of these men mentioned his deceased, which is to be accomplished because it's that it's going to cover their sins too.
It's the blood of Christ that is bringing every dream soul into blessing.
So it's a very important conversation. It's such an interesting scene because.
Here we go, three men.
3 disciples that are on earth.
We get the Lord of glory on earth.
Is garments white?
And insulting or glistering and the.
These two.
Brother Steve has mentioned one that was buried by God.
Then Elias, which is substantial if one raptured.
Such a rich scene, isn't it? And the conversation.
Focal point.
Is this blessed man that's.
Got raiment of glory and these men.
These disciples.
I mean, what a tremendous thing for them to grasp.
No wonder they really speak about it later.
Little another note I've just enjoyed with this.
When Peter speaks up, he mentions Moses and Elias. Had he ever been introduced? Had he ever seen him before? No. Why isn't he surprised that he knows who they are? Not even surprised by, he just knows.
And I think it's a little foretaste of what it's going to be like when we're with the Lord. We're going to know as we're known. I don't know that we're going to need introductions. We're just going to, we're going to know each other and it's not even going to be a surprise. We're just going to know our brethren.
I've seen that we have market is serving an area of city hearing his word and.
The Lord commends Mary for her part.
She has the better part, so I wonder if from that we can.
Know that it's more important to hear his word. Even in service. He puts that above service. I think the service is a result of.
Of hearing his word and being affected by it.
And I've enjoyed that, John, in connection with Mary of Bethany.
I really think that she was probably the only one.
That got it when the Lord spoke of his.
The sea, said Jerusalem.
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The disciples here later on in our chapter, they don't get it.
And they fear to ask.
But I think Mary must have listened so intently that she got it.
That's why she comes in the 12Th chapter of John 2.
Anoint the Lord Jesus beforehand and the Lord Jesus says.
She has done this to my burial. She came and did it when he could enjoy that beautiful perfume.
Not after he had died. So I think that's so beautiful that she was one who listened. How important that is. Somebody said for some reason God gave us two years.
But only one mouth.
Like to make a few comments on.
The fear that is expressed when they're there to see the glory.
In the Old Testament.
The time of Moses.
Moses goes up on the mountain.
And he goes into the presence of God.
Who received from him?
The covenant and the law that was to.
Govern the people.
He comes down to having been in the presence of the glory of God.
And the people are afraid of them. They're not comfortable as they look at them.
And they want him to put something on that will cover up the shining appearance that he has.
And then the Lord says after he will go with the people.
And so the Tabernacle is set up.
And there is that aspect of the Tabernacle in which the priests were allowed to go.
But that which represented the glory of God in His presence, while it was among them in a Tabernacle, was hidden.
In the most Holy Place where his glory was, they couldn't enter. Not one of them was allowed to go in there. And even the high priest who was the one who could go in once a year, it was a time of fear that he wouldn't come out alive because he was going into the presence of the glory of God.
Why? Because man and Adam.
Cannot properly see or be in the glory of God.
He's a Sinner he's unsuited to see.
Or be in such glory the UN.
Tainted holiness of God in which He dwells.
And has dwelt eternally is not a place for man.
That is sinful.
And as a consequence, here in our chapter, the disciples who were given this.
Opportunity to see the glory of God were likewise afraid.
They were not in a state.
That would make them comfortable.
To be in the presence of the glory of God.
What changes it?
Why do we talk in the last couple of days about viewing the Lord in His glory?
And seeing him where he is.
To review what we had yesterday.
These disciples later on could view and we can view the Lord in His glory without fear.
In fact, it rejoiced to do so. Why? Because.
He then goes into death.
And having gone into death, he himself as a.
Risen in life, man enters into that glory as man.
And if I could put it this way, He opens the door for us in himself that we in Christ, but only in that place in Christ, can rejoice in viewing the Lord in a place of glory. If it were not for the work of the cross, we ourselves would be fearful.
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And not able to enjoy what we're enjoying this morning. But the God had not fully revealed himself. He could not fully reveal himself until Christ had come and done that work. And then the heart of God was set free to be able to share what His purposes were. There's not anybody in the Old Testament who had.
The revelation of the purposes of God that are revealed to us in the new.
Because the work hadn't been done and God was constrained, He couldn't tell.
All that he had in his heart were us for blessing until we could have it and enjoy it. And so, brethren, we can enter in and see what Moses couldn't.
Restay in and what was not yet available, but it is ours this morning and we can enjoy the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Without fear, because we have been clothed in the garments of salvation.
And are able to look upon it. I don't believe we see it yet in our souls as we will see it. But we can see it. And it's ours to enjoy this morning.
We have spoken of it as a preview.
No doubt to quicken our hearts in regard to that wonderful scene of glory.
I think again of.
Center of that scene being the face of our Lord Jesus.
Shiny like the sun, using light, life, love to all there in that scene.
Then Moses and Elias.
The disciples feared they didn't. They were there in such peace.
And intelligence as to what?
You say that the purpose and counsel of God to be able to just talk.
I love that art of talking with the Lord.
Not seen a piece?
The enjoyment of the counsels of God.
And Peter, again, we had it yesterday. He didn't want that scene to dissolve. You know, young people, if you wonder what you're going to get tired of heaven. Why? Peter wanted it to stay. He did not want to see it break up.
But then to here, to this voice.
Peter said in such a voice. We're going to hear that, the father's voice, What will it be like?
And he'll tell us.
Of all that the sun means to him.
No, there's twice as.
The life of the Lord Jesus there was that proclamation from heaven, from the Father.
Once at the beginning of his ministry.
This is my beloved son, in whom is my delight, and it tells us his thoughts.
For those first 30 years, we don't know much of them, but the father, he.
Watched his son.
Throughout this very scene that we're treading perfection and dependence. The lighting is heart.
He could say, this is my beloved son in whom is my delight. But here this is at the end.
And he says it again. Nothing has changed. This is my beloved son.
I would have seen awaits her.
Brother Bob mentioned.
Now that only one person perhaps got it, we have in Hebrews where.
Speaks of the Lord Jesus being touched with the feelings of our infirmity.
Everyone sister asking me once in a Bible study. Well, he was gone.
Ockerty fuel like I feel, how could it be touched with those things?
We have in our chapter here an expression where the Lord Jesus in verse 41, Oh faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and suffer you? We have other similar expressions in the Word of God where you can see the Lord Jesus pain in his heart.
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He's feeling lonely and alone, not because his father is not there with him, but these men who are gathered around him, they don't get it.
And he feels loneliness.
In a group of people.
Have you felt that way?
Older brother, sister, young one.
Have you felt alone in the crowd with the Lord Jesus felt that way?
Alone because the ones he'd spent 24/7 with didn't get it.
But every now and then you might hear a story or see something where you see someone gives the Lord Jesus what he deserves and what they do.
And the woman that Bob spoke about?
Brought a little alabaster bar.
CC Winan, the famous gospel singer in the United States, wrote a song about that.
And I cannot but weep every time I hear it, because in my heart I see a poor woman who comes to the Lord Jesus. She gets it and she offers this. She doesn't say anything.
She weeps. She pours it out.
She takes her long hair and wipes his feet with it, and he gets.
Something of what he deserves, and she honors him. The men, none of them seem to get any of this, but there's a moment where one person comes forth and her story is written down for eternity in the word of God. Because she gave him something and he thrilled at that, that, that little heart in that.
Woman that he had delivered, who loved him much because she was forgiven much.
She got it and she came there and she gave to him something that you and I.
Can look at and be thrilled in our hearts that he received that in that moment.
That should have been from all of these guys.
I think it was very beautiful. I was brought out that.
Mary had intelligence.
Because he sat at Jesus feet and heard his word, this was a priority for her to listen.
And sometimes, you know, we get so occupied with what we're doing for the Lord that we might actually get out of His will in what we do because we're not listening to what He has to say to us in His Word. And we begin thinking our own thoughts. That's not good. It just brings the mind. If I could just refer to this incident back in the Old Testament in First Samuel chapter 15.
We have Samuel is anointing Saul.
To be king.
Over God's people.
Over Israel.
And you notice what he says in the first verse. There Samuel also said unto Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel.
I'll listen to this.
Now therefore hearkened out unto the voice of the words of the Lord.
Very important for the King.
To listen to Hearken.
The word hearken has the word here. The 1St 4 letters of the word hearken are here. It simply means to hear.
And.
So then instruction is given to.
Saul.
With respect to Amalek, the enemy of God's people.
Verse three Now go in smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but display both men, women, infants, suckling oxen, sheep, camel and ash, and so on.
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But as we read on in the account, what do we find? This is in verse.
Eat. And Saul took Agag, the king of the Amalek's.
Mallocates alive.
And utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared egg and the best of the sheep and of the oxen out of the fatlings and the lambs, and all that was good.
And would not utterly destroy them.
But everything that was filed and refuse and they destroyed utterly.
Now, Saul.
Begin to think his own thoughts.
In opposition to what he had been told.
And so as we read on in the portion, it's very instructive, I believe.
In verse 20, Saul says unto Samuel, Yeah, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.
And have gone the way which the Lord sent me.
Is that true? Had you really done that?
And have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, in an utterly destroyed.
Enallocates.
But the people took of the spoiled sheep and oxen the cheaper the things which should have been utterly destroyed. Now here's Saul's excuse to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God, and gel God.
The sheep and the oxen, their spirit.
Is that what God told Saul to do?
Now verse 22 is what I was thinking.
Especially applies to what we're talking about. And Samuel said that the Lord has great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord.
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken.
Then the fact of Rams we see what it is that God.
Appreciates where there's a.
Willingness to hear what he says and to be obedient.
To them.
Where rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. And that's really what character I saw. He rebelled against the voice of the Lord and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. You ever think about that?
Stubbornness. It's idolatry because we're placing more importance on what I think is good than what God.
Zeitgeist. So it's a word to my own heart.
And we see what happens in verse 23, because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord.
He hath also rejected thee from being king.
So I think God would have us to be intelligent as to our service for Him.
And to listen to what the Lord Jesus.
As to say to us through His word will guide us as to our service for Him.
And will enable us to stay on a track.
That's pleasing to him.
To stay in the path of his choice.
As opposed to thinking my own thoughts, even though it might seem like a good thing to do.
And get out of will of the Lord.
I've enjoyed thinking about the cloud here as the covering of God.
It's God must cover himself.
Because His glory.
Cannot be looked upon and seen by natural man, and so the cloud here.
Comes in when Peter speaks.
And then there's a there's a voice out of the cloud.
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It's interesting in the Scriptures, you know that pillar that Shekinah glory appeared in a cloud and they only saw the cloud, they didn't see what was inside it.
They knew what it represented.
In Acts chapter 2.
When the Lord was taken up to heaven, the disciples saw him and a cloud received him. That's where that's where it stopped.
We expect to meet in the cloud and there's not going to be, there's not going to be a cloud in heaven.
When we pass there with our new bodies.
The Don was speaking earlier about the fear.
That of God and how in the Old Testament.
He displayed himself and there was, there was fear because man, natural man, cannot be in his presence.
It's interesting that.
In Peter's account of it in Two Peter, you don't have any clout.
Talks about the excellent glory.
There's going to be no cloud in heaven, really.
We're going to in our new bodies in Christ. That's why the cross was necessary before this couldn't come out and so here.
It seems that the order here in Luke is a little different.
The you don't get the the things being hit them being.
Lacking understanding and that being hid from them till verse 45 down down below.
But I think it's in Matthew. I didn't go back and check it, but I think in Matthew, you.
The that is stated earlier on and.
It was because of Peter's speaking ill advisedly and and the Lord said don't tell anyone about this until the Son of Man is risen.
Uh, that was necessary because.
Those truths couldn't come out until Jesus had.
Opened the way.
We are looking for that cloud it, isn't it? But uh.
We're going to pass through the cloud though, aren't we?
And if I might say a little bit more in connection with the fear in in in Hebrews chapter.
Chapter 12.
Oh, let me see. Let me find it.
In chapter 12 of Hebrews, you have the fear.
In verse.
18 I want to notice the contrast here.
But for ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, or that is physical.
And that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and Tempest, and so on. This is Mount Sinai.
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That this is represented by Moses and Elias in our chapter.
But then down in verse 22 you have the contrast, but ye are come unto.
Mount Sion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
To an innumerable company of angels and so on. This is Christian position in contrast to a mountain on earth like Sinai and an earthly Jerusalem. And this is this is.
This is the glory that is unveiled and that we can come into unto without fear.
In Christ.
Like to contrast a little bit.
What we have?
Here in our chapter.
Where we have the Lord saying, this is my beloved son, hear him.
Which has already been spoken about and where it's already been commented. I'd like to go back and look at it and make a few more comments about it in chapter 3.
Where heaven is also opened, that God would declare the same concerning his Son.
At these baptism.
In chapter 3 of Luke.
John gets shot up in prison and so on and in verse 21.
Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus.
Also being baptized and notice again we had yesterday and praying.
The heaven was opened.
And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
We could spend the whole conference on this.
Chapter, I suppose. So we're just going to make a comment or two.
In the contrast between the two.
I'll introduce it this way.
I read a comment the other day, someone was said yes we quote the verse. All things work together for good.
To them that love God.
And it's easy to do when it's somebody else's circumstance.
We quote to them when they're in some circumstance. We say to them all things work together for good.
To them that love God.
But then when we're saying it, we're not in their circumstance.
God had a Son, A1 and only begotten Son who was in His presence from all eternity.
And day by day they enjoyed one and either one another's company, if I could put it this way in perfect circumstances.
Everything conducive to joy and happiness.
And all things, if you will, working together for good together.
What happens?
The father sends the son into the worst possible circumstances he could send them.
He sends them into this world, a world of sin, a world of sorrow, a world of conflict, a world of death.
Totally different circumstances.
He lives the 1St 30 years of his life in obscurity and here he's just getting ready to go out into his public service. And in the next chapter he's tempted again of Satan as whether he's fitted for the work he's going to do and then he goes out into that service.
But God looks at him in those circumstances in which he was.
And he could say I'm pleased.
This is my beloved son.
And so he is in those circumstances whose circumstances our own.
He leaves his own circumstances to enter into ours.
Why? Because according to the purposes of God.
He wants to take us from ours into his.
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That's his purpose. He was going to take us from the circumstances in which we are in the condition in which he we were found here on earth.
That we might be taken to share in His glory and be with Him in the Father's house.
And enjoy one another's company with the Father for eternity.
And yet it's a wonderful thing that we could never say to the Lord Jesus. Now, Lord, you don't understand.
You never pass through what I'm going through. We have one who?
Perfectly and far beyond what any of us will ever go through.
In the difficulties of life, who says I know just how you feel this morning?
In the circumstances in which you are, and I want you to know I'm with you in them.
And yet in the glory that we have in the Chapter 9 is a glimpse of that into which he's going to take us to be with himself when he's first come into our circumstances, that he might take us then into his own.
Make one further comment.
Also, we've talked about those who get it.
And the examples of some who got it. The very few examples.
Mary Magdalene on the resurrection morning got it. She was the very first one who got to see the Lord Jesus in resurrection.
And I want to comment on it because I think it's.
Even more important than seeing his glory.
And that is those who got it.
Were attached to his person and that was everything.
They were not intelligent because they had the doctrine of scripture to make themselves. We can be intelligent according to the the doctrines of scripture and still not get it.
Ultimately get a **** if I could use that expression is the attachment of the heart of the person of the Lord Jesus to the exclusion of all else. And that is what is going to give eternal satisfaction to each one of our hearts because if we don't get it now, ultimately every one of us will get it and if but the thing that is more important than anything else ultimately.
And we see it illustrated in that she anointed me for the burying and.
Martha and Mary and so on. And Mary and Magdalene. She expected to go to the cemetery.
Not to see a glorified person in resurrection or anything. It was her heart.
Where is it? Even the body of the Lord Jesus was in the most she could have at that moment in her heart, but it was what she wanted to the exclusion of everything else. And brethren.
That's the ultimate of what we want.
That I say will have.
Many Bibles nowadays they have.
Red print and the red print are the very words that the Lord spoke.
And I'm not sure why.
The color is red. I've been told it represents the blood of Christ.
But.
When the father speaks about fearing him, this is my beloved son.
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Hear him.
How do we?
Here.
The Lord Jesus.
And what are we to hear?
Is it just the words printed in red?
You know, I've taken how that.
The Lord spoke to those two on the way to Emmaus, and it says that beginning at Moses and the prophets.
Expounded unto them in all the Scriptures that things concerning himself, and that was the Old Testament.
And so it was important to listen, I believe, to the Lord Jesus.
And it must have been a wonderful experience for those two. You hear the Lord Jesus expounding on your destiny.
Brother you brought out from kings.
Example of listening to what the Lord has to say. There's a profound difference between Saul.
And these men that we're talking about?
He had direct instructions. He disobeyed.
It's the same thing.
We all need to do. We need to listen carefully.
Directly disobeyed what he had been told.
You can see the Lord treating people differently. We have how He talks to the Pharisees.
They knew better many times and he was stern with when Nicodemus comes to him, he says we know, we know you're a man, come from God. He's from there, from God. They all did. They didn't understand that he was the Messiah or any of that, but they knew he was from God and they lied to the people and said he's from the devil. That was one of their greatest sins, their wickedness.
Because they knew better. They knew something more than they were revealing. There was direct disobedience and contrariness to the to the revealed Word of God.
The Lord treats differently.
Peter's heart.
Often in the right place when he makes his mistake, sometimes people speak of him in a way.
That, I think is incorrect. I heard somebody once say Peter was a coward and he ran.
He meant what he said when he said he would die for the Lord Jesus.
He took a sword and he stood the fight.
He was going to die right there.
He meant it, but what he didn't know was what was coming.
This Kingdom.
Mystery form that would exist in the church. Aid. You've got to fight in a different way. You're not going to pick up a physical sword and do battle. He didn't know that. Well, how could he? He knew what he had before. But that's one of the lessons the Lord is teaching in that he wants to know, are there any swords? They have two swords. He wants Peter to grab that sword and go after that guy and cut his ear off because he's going to teach him something. And later they're going to know. Oh.
We don't fight that way now.
That's not the way we fight. We fight in another way. We're fighting against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness in high places.
And we fight not with a physical sword anymore. His heart was in the right place. He meant what he said, but he didn't understand. Same here in the passage we had before us. We didn't get it.
They're thinking all of their thoughts, and we can see it throughout the accounts of the gospel.
They sink and this is what's occupying their mind. It was in their day.
It's what the Pharisees fought on, all of them. The Messiah is going to come and get Rome off our backs.
We're going to be free and boy, those of us who are around him, we're going to be rich.
And one of us gets to sit on the left and the right. We're going to be in a good place.
That's not what's going to happen. They don't understand. So when they hear things like we had before us, he's talking about dying. They overheard the conversation about Moses and Elias talking about his death. It's like it just went.
Because they're not ready to receive it yet. Their understanding is something else.
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And it's just that I notice that when it's not a direct rejection of the word of God, he is graciously and he is long-suffering with them. He feels it. We see it, and we see it in other accounts in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus felt that loneliness and being by himself in the midst of that, that group of men.
But there's a difference between those who reject the direct word of God and instruction.
And those who may not understand or aren't there yet, or haven't learned what is yet to be learned.
And how patient was the Lord Jesus with Peter in every way and everyone of us in this room?
Ought to be able to identify with Peter in some way, shape or form and be so thankful.
How gracious he is with us, as He was with this dear man who walked with Christ in that day.
Make a contrast again between.
Chapter 3 and Chapter 9.
When the Lord.
Says concerning his beloved son. He doesn't say hear me.
In Chapter 9, he says to the disciples.
Hear me, there's a difference.
The father was enjoying the son.
And he is just commenting on his enjoyment of his son.
It was his own personal joy as he looked upon the sun as a man.
In the circumstances in which he had placed him in John.
Chapter one you see a similar thing with John the Baptist. When he first sees the Lord Jesus, he says behold.
The Lamb of God, which beareth away the sin of the world.
He's just looking upon him. He's not talking persectually to others about it.
But it's his own enjoyment in his own soul, and he goes beyond that a few verses later when he just says, behold, the Lamb of God. He sees the person even beyond the work.
That he had done, and he looks upon the person himself, and he just an enjoyment of the person.
Generally in scripture, well, the hearing is connected with the will.
God uses the eyes and connects them with faith. He uses parts of our body and very often connects them with something spiritual or moral. In connection with the ears, it's hearing, and hearing is involved with the will. If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear and hear there is in Luke.
That, hear me, has to do with correction. He's correcting their thoughts.
They had wrong thoughts and he is patient and he's gracious.
But he is saying your thoughts are wrong, and so you need to listen and see differently than you are in the question of the will. In Revelation 2 and three it says He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. There's a question mark there about the listening. I would like to suggest again though, looking ahead.
When you get to glory, the Lord Jesus will never say again to you.
Hear me.
You won't need that.
You'll never need that exhortation and glory. There will be simply with himself, with God the Father, the common enjoyment of the Son.
And there won't be any need for reminder or any question of will.
As to willingness, but there will be the perfect unhindered.
Satisfaction of sharing together with the father in the common enjoyment of feasting upon the Sun.
It really transcends getting it. So we have one or two that got you, perhaps like Sam brought out where one or two that received what he said were accepted.
It's interesting to me too though portion that Wally was talking about of the two that.
Were walking with him to Emmaus and how he opened the scriptures and their heart was burning within them.
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But they were still going away from Jerusalem.
And it was when they got their eyes opened as to who he was.
They knew immediately where they belonged. They weren't even going to wait for the next day.
The same hour of the night, they get up and they go back to Jerusalem and oh brethren, that's really the issue. It's getting our eyes open as to who he is. And it's just so impresses me in this portion here.
That it says.
Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep.
And I just feel that that's the spiritual state we are in so often.
And when they were awake, they saw His glory.
Lord, help us to be awakened.
As to His glory.
Just like to run more comments speaking about hearing and listening and also been speaking about service and sometimes they do get occupied with service. But I just want to encourage our hearts today that the Lord will call us to service.
But we can listen while we're serving.
If we're serving in an attitude of doing what we're doing in the presence of the Lord, we're going to learn a lot from Him while we're serving. I I think of the Lord's communication in my own life have often been made while I'm making sawdust.
It was at work or.
But that's where he teaches us in our everyday life when we're walking with Him. And so I just, I just want to encourage us not to shy away from serving the Lord as he directs, but to do it with listening and hearing is an attitude.
It's it's it's.
Having our ears directed to him and being near enough to hear him, well, we can do that as we serve brother.
174.
All patients.
Our hearts and being the strength.
To bear thy own can't learn nothing.
Like we may have her life starved to make.
Of my soul.
I followed the Spirit.
Of escape.
So.
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Life without you.
Why?
Faith Sing.
Gifts
Address—Don Rule
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Begin this afternoon by.
Singing the first hymn in the hymn book #1.
Before we start singing it, I'll make the comment.
That.
We're going to.
Spend some time looking at gifts.
As they're presented to us in God's Word. And so as you sing number one, you can pay attention.
You should be able to find 2 gifts at least that you're going to sing about in #1 so that'll keep your mind on the song as you sing it to make sure you can recognize 2 gifts that we sing about in number one, we need somebody to start it.
Here's thy love bestows.
Thou giver.
Of all good.
Not having itself.
A richer nose.
Than the Redeemer's blood turn with me to the Epistle of James.
Chapter One.
James chapter one and verse 17 every good.
Gift.
And every perfect gift.
Is from above.
And cometh down from the father of lights, with whom is no variableness.
Neither shadow of turning.
All of us.
I'm sure have received gifts.
Most of us that were not young anymore can remember the day when we were young.
And there was one day of the year particularly that we tended to look forward to.
That day called birthday because we associated that day.
With the receiving of gifts.
And.
Also, it was generally connected with or at least in people I knew and our family. Very often as that day other members of the family that might not be living in the household or close friends and so on would come together for that occasion and we would have the enjoyment of fellowship together and.
We got gifts.
Here it says.
Every good gift.
And every perfect gift cometh from above.
I got some gifts as a child that weren't always didn't turn out.
To be what I thought they would be, they were sometimes a disappointment to me.
There were times when I wanted a certain gift and I didn't get it and so I was disappointed.
And.
I had a child and I'm going back to childhood. I had a child's view of what was worth.
Being a gift.
I can say thankfully.
The view I had as a child isn't the same view I have this afternoon, but there was a process of learning.
And to try to illustrate what I'm saying.
In contrast to God as a giver.
Is I was born and raised in the city of Columbus, OH.
And in that city?
Was a store that my mother went to.
From time to time and as a child.
Hey, Mom's got to take you with her when she's got to do things. And so we went to the store.
Called Lazarus Store. Lazarus store was.
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Probably the biggest store that I've ever been in of its type.
Then lots of stores since, but I don't remember being in a store that was bigger.
Then the Lazarus store. For what it did, it was a block square.
How many times you've been in a store a block square?
It was six stories high.
And Ohio, The best part of the store was.
Half of the 4th floor.
The toy department.
Oh, it was a wonderful place for a child to find treasure.
It attracted me. I can remember one time as a boy when I was in the store with my mother and she was in, I don't know the part, clothing part of it. That was no treasure to me. I didn't have any interest in the clothes. And so while she was looking for clothes, I decided to go to the better part of the store. And so I just wandered off and.
Went up the escalator the wrong way.
Which was fun for a kid and got to the 4th floor and.
I was in my world, the world of treasure, the place where you looked for your gift.
If you had any choice later at birthday time to say this is what I want.
And so that was my mom. Didn't have a problem finding me though.
She knew where I was, she knew where my treasure was, and so she found me.
And I got some instruction about not leaving her in future occasions.
But there's another side that I want to give, because later on I want to make some moral application about it.
This is a lesson that I had to learn as a child that was extremely valuable but extremely difficult for me at that point in my life. And I'm not going to tell much of it, but just a tiny outline of it, the story. Some here have heard it innumerable times from me, probably.
There was another day when my mother and I went into Siler's store.
And she was shopping and.
I saw something.
I wanted.
Two rolls of Scotch tape.
Why I wanted them I have no idea, but they attracted me and I wanted them badly.
And I didn't have any money. I was a boy. And I went to my mother and I said mother.
Can I have these? And I had them in my hand, 2 rolls of Scotch tape. And she looked at me with kind of a puzzled look on her face, I think. And no, not today.
And so she.
You said, you basically said put them back on the shelf. I didn't. I put them in my pocket.
We went home.
And in the truth of scripture, be sure your sin will find you out.
As a little boy I immediately my conscience bothered me when we got home and so I had to hide what I had done.
Then I put it under the bed in a couple days Mother when mother was dusting and went the dust mop and out came the Scotch tape.
Every good and every perfect gift cometh from above, from the father of lights. I'll give one more illustration to introduce the thought. My brother-in-law, Danny, when he was a boy, he was with his father in a shop that sold sporting goods and there was something there he liked and he went to his dad and he said, Daddy, can I have this?
And he his father's response was not today, son.
And so he was very disappointed because his father hadn't given him the gift that he so badly wanted in that store.
His birthday was less than a week later, and on his birthday, his father had already purchased for him a similar item that was worth at least three times what he wanted.
We all grow up with desires for things.
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Some of which as young people we aspire to even as children. But in the verse that we started with, the points I'd like to draw out of it is.
Every good gift. God knows what's good for us.
God knows how to give it to us.
And he knows how to give it to us.
With what I'm going to call, no strings attached, that is, without.
Us having I will give you this if you.
Will accept that.
Satan is the very opposite. He always has strings attached to what he wants to give you. He wants to put before you and I something that we would desire, and if someone would give it to us or if we can acquire it to ourselves, we're going to treat it as a treasure.
And very often there's serious consequence of it.
But as we will see, the gifts of God are wonderful.
And it's from a Father of lights. It's from a God who absolutely, perfectly understands us.
And knows exactly what's good for us and what will satisfy.
Sometimes we do get nice gifts. We enjoy them.
But they don't last.
They have their day and then they're done.
One of the things I hope that you will take away with us, that will be a joy to our hearts is stop and think about gifts you've given, been given.
And recognize that very often the giver is more important to you than the gift.
The giver is very often and ultimately more important to you than the gift.
I have things that I've had for most of my life.
That were gifts and why do I still keep them? Why do I still have them?
Is it because they and themselves have a lot of value? No, it's because I treasure.
The person that gave them to me.
Okay.
Must turn to Romans Chapter 11.
And.
And verse I want to connect.
What I believe was of the Spirit of God's purpose for us yesterday afternoon at this time.
The calling of God, the heavenly calling of God. And I just want to connect it with gifts.
And so here in Romans Chapter 11.
And verse 29 we have the two points together in one verse.
For the gifts and calling of God.
Are without repentance.
God has called us to a heavenly calling.
As we had it brought before us yesterday.
Is he going to change his mind? That's what repentance involves. A change of mind is going to say, yeah, got a better plan or that one wasn't going to work out, so we're going to do something else or I'll just forget the whole idea.
No, when God purposes something.
He always carries it out because he is a Father of lights who knows when he forms, upon what the end result will be in good. And so the gifts, the calling of the heavenly calling.
It will never change and it's going to be realized.
It likewise here.
In the same verse it says the gifts of God are without repentance.
God is the ultimate giver.
He's the only one that can give things that will last for eternity.
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You've never given anybody a gift that's going to last forever.
You don't have the capacity to do that. You can give lovely and wonderful gifts to others.
But you can't give them something that is going to in itself last beyond this life. But God is the ultimate giver and He gives. And so He's giving us as we are going to enjoy just a few of them. In fact, a very small number of the gifts that God has given in my heart to focus on. But it is that.
Which God knows will satisfy your heart forever.
Forever.
That's the character of the giving of God.
OK, let's turn over to 1St Corinthians the next verse, chapter 12.
Just a piece here of something that we'll see more fully later, perhaps First Corinthians chapter 12.
And verse 31.
I'm going to read it and Mr. Darby's translation, but desire earnestly the greater gifts.
And yet show unto you a way of more suppressing excellence.
This particular chapter has to do with and we're not going to spend any time on it. It's not the focus of my heart.
This chapter 12 has to do with God giving spiritual gifts to His children for the blessing and benefit of the assembly and for the presentation of the gospel to the lost. And so God has given various gifts. Everybody in this room has some of these gifts that has been given, one or more of them that have been given to you to be used.
And so on.
But he says, and this is the point of it that I want to emphasize, it says.
And yet show unto you a more excellent way.
What's better than the gifts God's going to give you to use or has given you to use?
For the blessing of others and good in the assembly and in the world.
He then immediately takes up the 13th chapter, which is about love.
The way of Love.
Is greater.
Than gift.
In itself and the way it can be used.
Again, what is it that attaches to a gift that gives it its value?
It's the giver, and not only the giver, but it's what's in the heart of the giver.
Before God ever created the world, He purposed that you would come to know His heart.
God is love.
And to know the heart of God and some of the gifts that are given to us are given for that very purpose, that we might be given the capacity.
To enter in to the heart of our God.
Our giver. There's a more excellent way, and if the Lord has given you and he has something to do for himself, don't ever.
Disassociated from the use of it.
With the same spirit in which God gives, and that's love.
That's slope.
I'll make one other comment that comes to mind at this point, and that's this.
I can remember.
Having to be taught corrected a little boy.
I'd open my present.
Oh wow, and I was already.
To enjoy it, to play with it.
And my mother and my dad would have to say Donald.
Thank Judy, thank Alan, thank Grandma or whomever had given it to me.
You know, we can sometimes get so occupied with, we call it blessing, we call it benefit, we call it gift, then it's all true. And yet we're so occupied with the thing that's been given.
00:20:12
That we don't turn around and fulfill what love the better way would say. And that is thank you giver.
Thank you, giver.
So that's as important in its own way as well. OK, let's turn over to.
Romans.
Chapter 5.
Romans, chapter 5.
We'll read a few verses, starting with.
Verse 12.
Wherefore is by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.
So death passed upon all men for that.
All have sinned.
Verse 14. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses.
Even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who was the figure of him that was to come?
But not as the offence. So also is the free gift.
Where if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many.
And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift.
For the judgment was by 1 to condemnation, but the free gift.
Is of many offenses unto justification.
Where if by one man's offense death reigned by 1 so much more, they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by 1 Jesus Christ.
We don't have time to examine what we've just read in much detail, but there are a couple of points to be brought out of it this afternoon.
Where all the have a common ancestor.
A man named Adam.
And this world very often at the time when a baby is born.
Talks about something even the world understands called the gift of life.
We all received.
The gift of life.
Through our parents.
I hope we're here, thankful we have it.
Without to use the word strings attached, it came with a string attached.
We got the gift of life.
But it was defective.
Had a defect in it.
Probably most of the adults here at one time or another have gone somewhere and bought something.
Took it home, examined it and decided it was defective.
So you wanted to take it back and get it replaced with one that was properly manufactured, if you will?
Adam.
Perfect.
When God created him, his wife Eve was perfect.
When God created her and gave her with him the gift of life.
But he misused the gift.
And became a sinful man.
And he passed on that sinfulness to his children.
And down through the human race.
So we all have the gift of life, we're born with it, but in its very character, it's presently in a state that we would, I would call defective.
In the way I want to apply it.
Here.
Gods and what were just read is a process that God has gone through.
To take care of the defect and bring something better than Adam had as a result of it.
00:25:09
One man, as we read, sin came into the world.
And the consequence of it was death.
Serious, isn't it that the day I was born, I started to die?
I got the gift of life, but the very day I got it, I started to die.
Because I had within me that thing called sin, a sinful nature that cannot stand in God's presence and His holy being.
So here he's making an important point as to the matter of the gift of righteousness, which he's talking about.
He's saying one man sinned and everybody was affected by it.
Every single person in this room has been affected by what Adam and Eve did.
And you've been affected by it from the day you were born.
Because it's passed on from one man to everybody else.
By contrast, from that we have introduced here a person, the Lord Jesus Christ.
One man who has done something for the blessing and benefit of everyone of us.
And what is it?
He has done a work.
That God may give us the gift.
A righteousness.
That we may stand before God.
Not defective.
But righteous?
It's a good gift to have, isn't it?
Who could give you that gift? What God through his Son?
I can't give it to you. You can't give it to me.
Good perfect gifts originated with God, and this is one.
That has a benefit that lasts forever.
It's not going to be lost.
When you leave this world, sooner or later, one way or another.
It's yours.
Have you thanked the giver?
The trust you have.
Nice, thank him every day.
It's a wonderful gift you've never received from any person in this life.
A gift that equals that one.
You've never given it, you've never received it, but here is a giver in love to your soul that has given you the gift of righteousness.
That.
You're going to have to enjoy forever.
We should be thankful people, shouldn't we? For once we've been given.
OK.
Turn over to the next chapter.
Chapter 6.
And verse 23.
The gift, the wages of sin, is death.
But the gift of God is eternal life.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The gift of God is eternal life.
I've given gifts in my life.
You've given gifts in your life.
Some of them.
Cost you a little bit.
Some of them may have cost you quite a bit more.
Do you ever give a gift like this?
What did it cost God to give this gift?
The gift of eternal life.
You can't measure the cost.
The more excellent way of love.
Said I'm going to give it.
The one who had to pay the price.
Said I'm willing send me.
00:30:03
I'll pay it.
And so now we have the gift.
God.
Through his son.
I and the lad will go Yonder.
They went Yonder.
Into three hours of darkness.
And the price was paid.
It can't be purchased. What could you offer?
For such a gift.
You couldn't imagine giving it.
The gift of God.
Is eternal life.
God's a good giver.
The gift of God, Eternal life.
Let's turn over to Chapter 8.
And verse 2.
For the law of the spirit of life.
In Christ Jesus.
Hath made me free.
From the law of sin.
And death.
I want to connect this with the gift of eternal life. It's going to take a little bit of explanation.
But I think it helps us to appreciate the gift.
Adam received the gift of life.
And passed it on.
In the way that God gives conception.
When an Old Testament St.
Put their trust in the.
Whatever testimony God gave to them in the matter, when they believed God.
They received a life that they had not been born with.
A new life.
The life they received.
Was a wonderful life. They'll be in heaven with us.
But in connection with the gift of life, a new life being born anew.
In John's Gospel.
The Lord Jesus said I am come.
That they might have life.
And that they might have it more abundantly.
When the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.
He brought when.
Mary.
Met him at the tomb. I'm going to put it this way. He couldn't wait. The first message he wanted to communicate in resurrection life, his own resurrection life.
He said, I ascend unto my father.
And your father?
To my God and your God as a man who walked through this world, He walked through it with a conscious enjoyment of God as his Father, even as a man.
He was eternally the Son, but.
He wanted her to have the message of a more abundant life.
A life in which.
See and the others.
And you and I would be brought into a relationship with God as Father, and we as his sons and daughters, His children.
That's more abundant than Adam, trustee. I'll see him in glory, but Abraham and Moses and others ever knew.
00:35:10
Dead life, but they didn't have it in its resurrection character.
They didn't have it more abundantly.
That's part of the gift.
Eternal life.
But in the verse we read in chapter 8, there's more.
There's more.
To the life.
And the gift of eternal life, it says.
The spirit of life.
In Christ Jesus.
The spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
What's the nature?
Of the eternal life that you profess and know you possess.
Is it a new life that yours? Yes, it's yours.
But in reality, what is that life?
It's the life.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's tremendous to grasp. I don't know that we can grasp it.
But the life you have.
Christ, who is our life.
God in the gift that He's given in this eternal life, as He says, I am giving to you to share the very life of my Son in resurrection.
It wasn't communicated in that character until resurrection.
What kind of a life does he have in resurrection?
A life that death can't touch.
That's the gift.
A life that can't ever, ever face death.
It's already been through it here. That is, he was through it as a man.
And associated with it is to bring you into that state of immortality.
That is a state where you're not even subject to death again, or ever.
The power.
What was the power that raised him from the dead as a man?
The Son of God, he could raise himself, but as man.
He was raised by the Spirit of God.
God gives you a life, His life, but he couples it.
With the Spirit of God indwelling you.
That's part of the gift.
It's a wonderful gift.
That the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Oh, I look forward to having it someday.
It's going to be wonderful when I get to heaven.
Is that what it is?
No.
You're living it now.
You sit there in your seat with the life of Christ as a gift from God.
You sit there in your seat with the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in you.
It's a wonderful thing to appreciate.
The very power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is present in you to direct, to sustain, to support, to direct your life.
The Spirit.
Of life in Christ Jesus.
It's really not time to go much farther on this particular chapter, but it it's here to bring out how to live it practically.
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So that we don't live under the constant dominion of sin and the old nature that's in US.
And I encourage you to read through the chapter and see how God has delivered us from the power that sin in our old nature. There's a conflict and there will be a conflict in you as long as you live because the Spirit that's in you and the flesh are contrary to each other and in conflict with each other and will remain in conflict as long as you live.
On earth until you're delivered from the flesh at the time of the rapture, but.
That spirit of life has set me free from that law of sin that exists in me, and that death which is a consequence of it.
So he says verse 12 were debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh, but to live after the flesh. She shall die, but if through the Spirit you demortify the deeds of the body.
Ye shall live.
Now we're going to stop.
Before we read a few more scriptures.
We're going to sing a hymn.
100.
And 90.
Three.
I'll say at this point.
What brought the whole subject before me?
Or I was even asked to have anything to do with this conference or to be standing here at this moment.
Is the 1St 2 lines.
This stem.
And I say to you right now, if you don't remember a single other thing about this hour, I hope these first two lines.
If you need this.
Read this him every day for the next 10 days to get the 1St 2 lines. Do it.
It's worth it.
The first two lines Jesus, my Savior.
Thou art mine, the Father's gift of love divine.
Yes, I'm his.
I'm the gift of God to His Son.
I'm going to be the gift of God to his Son for all eternity. And that's absolutely the better part, really the more fantastic part, but.
You know what it is to get a gift.
You receive a gift.
And you're a little boy, you're an adult. And immediately there's something in you that says.
That's mine.
That's mine.
You take possession of it and you make it your own.
And that's what the 1St 2 lines emphasize here.
Jesus, you're mine.
You're mine. You belong to me.
God gave you to me.
Does that touch your heart?
You're my Father's gift to me. Jesus, my Savior, thou art mine.
Let's sing it.
Until I.
See.
OK, let's turn to 2nd Corinthians Chapter 9.
2nd Corinthians, Chapter 9.
And verse 15.
Thanks be unto God.
For his unspeakable.
Gift.
The gift of God, his Son.
Cannot be adequately described with words.
The fullness of the gift.
Exceeds description.
But at the same time, it's important to recognize that he can be known.
And enjoyed.
It's also important to stress again.
Responding to the Giver. Thanks.
Be unto God.
Or his unspeakable gift.
Time's running out, so we'll keep going with chapter 32. Corinthians chapter 3.
We're going to end with a few verses.
That connect the gift with the glory.
We've been having in the reading meetings the glory.
And being occupied with the glory.
And now we're going to be occupied with the glory and the gift.
Two Corinthians, chapter 3.
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Verse 17.
Now the Lord is that spirit, and we're the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.
But we all with open face beholding.
As in a glass or a better translation I think to get the thought with unveiled face.
Are transformed.
Or changed from glory into glory by the Spirit of the Lord.
I'll speak for a moment on God's side of things.
God is so pleased with His Son.
That he's decided in his purposes, he wants heaven to be filled with people that are just like him.
I had two brothers that were identical twins.
And.
1St 15 years of their life. They were inseparable.
Everything they did, they did together.
Except at school, because the teachers couldn't tell them apart, they put them in different classes. However, once in a while they'd go to school in the morning and decide they'd switch. I'm going to go to your class this morning. You can go to mine. Even they were so identical that their father, when they were not right up close to him, couldn't tell his own sons apart. They were identical.
I well remember standing beside the casket of one of them when his brother looked down at the body of his brother and he said, I feel like I'm looking at myself.
He had that sense of the oneness that they had begun the gift of life as a single.
Egg in the womb of their mother.
When God looks at you and when I look at you.
In the glory, I'm going to see you.
As just like Christ.
Same heart.
Same life, same character.
Because God has given you the life of Christ and the Spirit of God to dwell in you eternally, and the day when the flesh that's in you, the old life, will be entirely past.
When you receive the redemption of your body, it's purchased now, but you still have to have it redeemed.
And you will have that at the Rapture.
And then?
You'll be like Christ.
That's the end result of God.
Giving you to his son.
That you be like.
Christ here, it says with unveiled face. They couldn't.
They couldn't look on the glory in the time of Moses that we were reading about.
And that's the context here.
But with us now that need to prevail over the face because we can see the glory.
And here's the point of these verses is.
You don't have to change yourself.
Just be occupied with him.
Put your eye on him.
Open the Word to see Him, to sit down with Martha and Mary and the Lord.
To go into the garden with Mary on the day of the Resurrection.
To stand by the cross and see Him, you know we've been occupied with his official glory.
But his glory is seen in his life as well.
You can't look at him.
In the Word of God, without seeing aspects of glory in His person.
No more time for that notice.
Verse.
Six of the next chapter. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts.
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To give the light to the knowledge of the glory of God.
In the face of Jesus Christ.
We have this treasure.
In earthen vessels, that the Excellency of the power may be of God.
And not of us.
This incredible.
You get a treasure. What are you going to do with it?
Somebody gives you a gift. What are you going to do with it? If you value it, you're going to treasure it. You're going to put it in a safe place, right?
You're going to hold that treasure, and some people have safes to keep certain valuable things in, other people keep their houses locked and everything else in order to protect their treasure.
What's God treasured the most?
His son.
Where does he put his treasure?
In you.
And you?
Can you comprehend God putting His treasure in you?
His son.
We have this treasure.
God says it's as we have the hymn Jesus, my Savior, thou art mine.
He wants us to know it's ours. He wants us to enjoy it as ours. And so he says, I'm going to put my treasure in you.
Can you get your head around it? I can't.
But I enjoy it.
Touches my heart. It touches yours too.
Luke 9:37-50
Reading
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Worship.
Then we read the wondrous story.
All across the same and glory.
Every heart come. Darkest Song.
From.
All the depths of my heart.
So.
Tone and answering.
Free song.
Get the Heart of England, forsake it.
In his face from thy divine.
Face once hard and smitten.
All his glory.
Rise our hearts and bless the Father.
Sees my song.
And must praise an adorable.
To the Father and the Son.
I suggest we start with verse 37. I'm afraid if we reread the other part, that's all we'll talk about, so.
We we need to get down to earth too.
Nine starting at verse 37.
And it came to pass that on the next day, when they were come down from the hill, much people met him.
And behold, the man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, and look upon my son.
For he is my only child, and Lois spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out, and it teareth him that he foameth again.
And bruising him hardly departed from him. And I besought thy disciples to cast him out, and they could not. And Jesus answering, said, Oh, faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and suffer you bring Thy Son hit her. And as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down and tear him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his Father. And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God.
But while they wandered, everyone at all, at all things which Jesus did, he said unto his disciples.
Let these sayings sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men. But they understood not the saying, and it was hid from them that they perceived it not, and they feared to ask Him of that saying. Then there arose of reasoning among them which of them should be great as. And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a child, and set him by Him, and said unto them, Whosoever shall receive this child in My name receiveth me, and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth him that sent me.
00:05:14
For he that is least among you all the same shall be great. And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thine name.
And we forbade him, because he found was not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us.
Going to ask a question real quick.
Verse 30.
1St 28 They went up into a mountain.
Verse 37 They came down from the hill.
So how did the mountain get changed to a hill?
Was it the glory of the Lord?
It eclipsed everything naturally.
This we don't have to do a lot on it.
Garbage translation is bound okay, and we're still.
Verse 37.
And it came to pass on the following day when they came down from the mountain.
Big crowd matching.
I think we'd like to connect this.
I'll sit in some reading about.
With a mountain, because it's a high place, that's what a mountain is. It's a high place.
Above the world. And I think that's really where the Lord Jesus led his disciples, that he might.
Displayed His glory.
So we have these mountaintop experiences, don't we? And how wonderful they are and even coming to a conference like this.
We enjoy it.
Ministry. Rich Ministry that.
Feeds our souls and ministers Christ.
Where hearts and it's a wonderful time.
How many times we have referred to these conferences at Mountain top experiences?
But then we do have to return to our homes and to our jobs, to school.
Our everyday life.
But it's wonderful that.
You know, we can take with us the enjoyment of the mountaintop experience.
We come down last month.
In the middle of first 38.
Look upon my son.
It may be that others have done like I have done too often, bring a problem before the Lord and then give them a solution.
This person deliver them by circumstance. He says, look upon my son. So that's nice. We don't know what kind of faith that he had. He knew that the Lord could heal him. But just a reminder to myself and maybe others too that we certainly want the Lord's will done and maybe it isn't to deliver the person from the circumstance or myself from the circumstance.
And the Millennium State is going to be bound for 1000 years that he should no more deceive the nations. The Prince and Power of the air is going to be found and put in the bottomless pit. But it's an old brother used to like to say we're not in the Millennium yet. So we come down from the mountain and it's the sphere of the Prince of power of the Air, and he's active. And that's where we are now. So that scene closes on the mountaintop. It's for another day. But it was to reassure their hearts that it would certainly come and they were going to find it a great.
00:10:01
Comfort in later times, as we see Peter has already been noted. Writes about it later.
Am I correct in saying that verse 41 where the Lord said this He wasn't necessarily just speaking to His?
Disciples. He was speaking to this man that was in the urgent need. The disciples hadn't been able to cast out the Spirit.
That and in other gospels they questioned why they hadn't. It doesn't present that here. So that was the human side of it.
I'm not sure what the.
What this it's different here?
Verse 37 says much people that is wouldn't have been for all who could hear.
It wasn't it.
It wasn't lack of power that the Lord has called an attention to its lack of faith.
It was not only on the part of the man, but the disciples too seemed to lack.
Ability to cast out that demon. Why?
In verse, the beginning of the chapter and verse.
It says.
And having called together the 12, he gave them power.
And authority over all demons and to heal diseases.
And sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
This is a statement of the power that's given in the beginning of the chapter.
Through the disciples to deal with.
What they would find in presenting the gospel of the Kingdom that was coming.
And then the Lord takes them up into the mountain, but as we had.
Yesterday the Lord went up there and even as it says in verse 18, he was praying alone.
And then when they go up on the mountain, it says he went.
He went, doesn't say they did, but he went up to pray.
And then afterwards, when they come down, they cannot exercise the power that's given in the beginning of the chapter.
They're unable. The disciples are unable to exercise the power that had been given to them.
For the very purpose of dealing with situations like the man with his child.
And so we can rightly say, why didn't they have that power? They did have the power. Why?
What was the difficulty? And I think that importantly.
We the visions of coming glory.
Are not all that we need to deal with daily life.
We have to learn that the exercise of what God has given to us can only be done with dependence upon Himself, and the prayer gives an expression to that dependence. The Lord Jesus, the very night in which he was going to go to the cross the next morning.
Spends much of the evening in prayer in anticipation of what he was going to face, you might say.
The next day, and so it is, we can come to a conference like this, we can have the enjoyable experience of, you might say, being on the mountaintop for a weekend.
But at the same time, we will find that we have to learn.
That there is the exercise of dependence upon himself or we will not be able to use the experience of the weekend to meet the challenges of tomorrow's life.
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But the Lord was teaching them that, and as so he says.
As it were when it comes down and Mr. Darby. Oh unbelieving and perverted generation.
He brings two things here to pass, and I'm going to suggest in part what happens to us is we go up on the mountaintop, we enjoy the Lord and we enjoy coming glory, and then we go down from the mountain into the world and we apply the world's principles to that day's life.
We stop acting and living in practice in what we learned on the mountain, and we go back to the idea of.
Doing things the same way our neighbor does, who doesn't have faith in the Lord Jesus. And so we live by sight.
Instead of by faith and when we do the dependence, the choice that we have is lost. I'll I'll give this example of it in John's Gospel because I think it's connected the Lord Jesus shortly before he left and John said my peace.
I give unto you.
The Lord.
Once you and I, tomorrow or the next day or whatever day, we go back into the.
Of daily life, He wants us to go into it with the same peace.
That he had in his everyday life.
Not on the mountain.
But down on the earth, if you will, why did he have a peace?
That characterized his life. Did he have fear? No, he didn't.
Lord Jesus.
To go to sleep at night with rest. He had a piece because he lived his life.
In daily dependence upon the Father, and upon the father to give.
Everything that was necessary to meet the experience of that life. The disciples here had not yet learned that truth.
Although I believe they learned it later after the Spirit of God.
Descended and after they had the life of Christ in resurrection to.
Live and they gradually did learn and experienced it. There's something else.
Lord Jesus told two stories about importunity and prayer, the neighbor and the judge.
The story of Abraham going up on the mountain with his son.
I saw a movie clip once, that scene God telling him and in the movie clip they had Abraham pounding on a rock screaming at God. How could you make me do this? That never happened. It's a bald faced lie and we know from Hebrews.
He didn't understand the situation completely, but because he believed God.
He thought he was going to see a resurrection ending. That's what Hebrews tells him. Abraham thought when he took his son up on that mountain, he was going to plunge a knife into him. He was going to die, and then God was going to raise him up because he believed When God said that that boy right there, that boy is going to have children, he knew something had happened.
He didn't understand the situation. He didn't understand how it was going to happen.
He just said, well, I believe God, then I'm going to see a resurrection.
Well, that's not what happened. Well, in a type it was because it says that.
But he believed God. He really did believe what he told him. If he told me my child was going to have a son, then that boy is going to be alive somehow, some way after what happens on this mountain. So when we're faced with something and we're praying.
Why should we give up when something seems to be stopping?
The answer?
Why should we hold back?
I think sometimes we will say in our prayers thy will be done and it's an excuse.
We've given ourselves a way out, or we think we're letting God out of a box or something. That's not faith. Never has been.
If God says something and you stand on that and it's the truth that he has revealed, why wouldn't you keep on? They should have just said, well, he gave us the power, this demon needs to go. What's next? He didn't go the first time, let's keep after it again.
00:20:08
And again and again. But they didn't.
Do we do that?
Do we do that?
Why shouldn't we keep going in, persevering with importunity and praying until God either says no, no, no, very clearly like he did with Paul, and until he does, just go and go and go until you have no more breath in your body or until He comes. Why should we stop? If he we have His word, we have Him telling us.
When we have in James those words there the effects of fervent prayers of a righteous man availeth much and we have there he says to pray for those that are sick that they might be healed. He doesn't throw in the middle of that, that Oh well thy will be done. Let God decide the outcome. But how about praying that they might be healed? Because he said, isn't it that simple enough? Just do it and keep praying until God decides a different outcome.
Because I think one brother said in a reading meeting not long ago, he said like he's sitting right in front of Maine, that eventually.
That person is going to be healed. It just might not be today or tomorrow. It might be in the rapture. It might be in the resurrection.
But why would we not just press forward with opportunity, if I can say this as reverently as possible?
When I read those two stories about the Lord Jesus, those stories of importunity.
When I read those, it's like God is saying to us.
Pester me about this.
If an unjust judge and a neighbor who is irritated by you will finally give in, how much more?
Your father, all that we have heard, he has given us the gift of his son.
How much more?
When the faith of a dear Saints of God, who is on his face crying in tears about something.
That he's imploring God for maybe the salvation of a child or a brother or sister or something to do with health or whatever it is.
And pouring that out, God sees a spare fall from his death.
He cares about that. Does he not care? Does he not see your tears? Yes, he does. Why would you stop? We know more than these guys did. We know a whole lot more than they do. Why should we stop until there's an absolute no from God in some way, shape or form, we should press on those men and women in Hebrews.
Tell us some things and I love that story of Abraham that he thought in his mind I'm going to see a resurrection even though he was wrong. What a testimony to us and they didn't know what we.
I think there's another.
Point to be considered too, and we mentioned it I think yesterday both in Matthew and Mark in this story.
After they seem powerless to cast out the demon, Lord Jesus said this kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.
And brethren, we live in a world where we cater to our desires, our own desires. Not naturally, not necessarily bad desires.
But we just like to cater to ourselves, and fasting is denying ourselves.
The Lord Jesus said, if any man come after me, let him deny him.
Take up His cross and follow me. You know yourself.
Why should I deny myself? I got money in my pocket, it's at my.
At my fingertips? Why not?
Brethren, that was not the life of the Lord Jesus.
To me, it is so challenging to see how the Lord lived his life.
In such simplicity and never did he use his miraculous powers.
To for his own pleasure, for his own needs.
00:25:01
Use them for the blessing of others, yes, but we tend to do that in our culture. We're taught and I think it's the current of self pleasing in this culture that robs us of power to meet these situations that come up.
This really searches me. This part, this kind comes forth by nothing.
But by prayer and fasting, the Lord Jesus comes up on the situation, and he has.
The thing in full control, disciples like you say, Don.
We're given that power, but they could not do that work. So it's, it's a challenge, brother. And I, I, I just have felt my own soul that so often we come up to situations and we're powerless. Yes, we should persevere like you say, Sam, but I think there is another point to be considered is that we cater to ourselves and that takes away our power.
It's been commonly taught and I believe.
In Christendom that the Kingdom will be introduced because through the preaching of the gospel by people of our generation, and that will gradually prepare the world so the Lord can come back and reign over it. This these verses that we read here.
Prove that's, prove that's error. The the disciples were looking for that to happen, and indeed I guess it was presented to them to introduce it.
The Kingdom that the Lord would come right at that time.
We've already commented that it was going to be necessary that he go to the cross first, but.
That trial is still being proven here and so.
Peters when he said let's build 3 tabernacles, he was already jumping ahead and wanting to start right then. And of course we know it couldn't. And so here you see developed when you get back down to earth again and you start relying on your testimony to to prepare for the king and give a demonstration by these miracles that he's here and he's he can introduce this Kingdom.
Have him.
They fail in it and the Lord, as it were, has to come in an emergency and rescue the situation.
He's kind of obligated here to do this for his name's sake.
Because the disciples had failed. And of course he does.
And so it's approving that when the Christ introduces his Kingdom, it's going to be all of himself.
And he's going to have to do it and he will do it. Yes, there will be people involved, but they're going to be through regenerated people, born again people. And so that could only take place by his going to the cross and rising again and imparting to us that life. Well, we have that.
Observation and then a question.
Prayer can be done spontaneously.
At the spur of the moment. So I'm thinking of a first in Nehemiah chapter 2 and it says Nehemiah chapter 2 verse four. Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I pray to the God of heaven, and said unto the king.
When you're standing in the presence of a king and he has asked you a question, I don't think you wait a long time to answer it. And so that prayer he gets, safe to say was brief, was something that he could do on the spur of the moment. You cannot fast in the spare of the moment.
You're doing spontaneously. It doesn't count. And so the question I have is this, in regards to the disciples, when the Lord tells them this could only come out by prayer and fasting. Is it true that there are challenges that you and I will face today that we are unprepared to meet because of decisions we did or did not make in the past?
00:30:12
I believe that's true, Michael, and.
Prayer and fasting should be more a character of our lives so that when those situations come up, we are ready.
Like Nehemiah was.
I have a personal involvement in a situation many years ago or it is very verse. These verses not in this book, but the other two gospels.
Facing demons.
Why aren't they responding?
Because this kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting.
And the group of us that prayed and fasted overtime found victory.
Over the power of the enemy from these very verses, to be given as the instruction from the Lord.
And counsel from two brothers that are long home now, Ron Reeves and Albert Hagel.
Rather, if the Lord leaves us here much longer, with the way this country is gone and with the way the West is going.
People are embracing the fastest growing religion in America right now is witchcraft, according to some polls.
Some versions of that have to do with the New Age and so forth, but men and women are turning to paganism openly.
If we're here much longer, you think you might face something like this face on.
Some of those that have gone to foreign countries more often than the rest of us have seen some of those things.
The power of the enemy coming in like a flood.
If the Lord leaves us here, persecution begins to come. Our brother mentioned in prayer about persecution and other lands.
It's coming here. If the Lord carries very long, we're going to face it.
Are we ready?
The onslaught of the enemy coming in and the power of the enemy and people who embrace that kind of nonsense, well, we will need.
To understand these things.
And I can.
Understand that.
Used to do is stand up with a sign with the name of Jesus on that.
In a busy corner and you will have one or two cars that go by and say things that are, I'm not going to repeat here about that very thing.
Know that it's here.
Certainly know the power that we have.
Stronger than the Power of faith is so so nice to hear that.
Talking about.
I think the spirit of prayer, of fasting has been laid in verse 23. We didn't really take it up, but we didn't speak about it. He said unto them, If any man will deny, will come after me, let him deny himself, and take him his day across the alien. Follow me for whosoever.
Will save his life shall lose if the loose or lose his life for my sake of saying shall save it. So if the Spirit of God has worked that desire in our soul that we're willing to lay down our lives and this is the work.
The Spirit of God does.
If we have that sense of.
Living in the Lord.
Whatever cost.
Then there will be power.
There will be fasting. There will be no desire to live for ourselves.
There will be more power for all we face.
It says there, doesn't it daily, which shows that it should be the character of our lives and to me it's interesting in the verses that follow immediately the Lord Jesus.
They are amazed at the mighty power of God.
But the Lord Jesus then immediately says, Let these sayings sink down into your ears, for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men.
00:35:12
But they understood not this saying and it was hid from them.
That they perceived it not, they feared to ask him of this saying.
Lord Jesus was a rejected man in this world, and if we follow a rejected man, what can we expect but that same.
Rejection.
They couldn't understand that.
And you know, the current of this world has such influence in us that it's hard for us to grasp this too. You go over to the 18th chapter, the Lord again mentions this and it's interesting, It really develops it further.
Verse 31 of chapter 18.
Then he took unto him the 12, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem.
All things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished.
For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated and spitted on. They shall scourge him, and put him to death. The third day he shall rise again.
And they understood none of these sayings, and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.
Isn't that incredible?
But I think that happens to us too, brethren, if we don't realize.
Of following the Lord Jesus.
Is a life of self denial. It's taking up the cross to follow him.
Otherwise, there's not going to be any power.
Lord Jesus died and rose again. The life that we now enjoy as a life and resurrection, It's a life beyond.
This natural life.
It's a life beyond death.
I don't know, I was asking Don in the break.
What it means in first Timothy chapter 6? Paul says to Timothy twice in that chapter lay hold on eternal life. What does it mean? Didn't Timothy have eternal life?
Yeah.
But it's one thing to have it, brother, and it's another thing to live.
In the reality of what that life is.
And we live our lives quite often pretty much like.
Anybody in the world lives their lives.
And therefore there is not power.
When we come to these crisis points.
Sometimes we're not aware of the reality of what's in conflict.
In this example here given to us in verse 42, it says while he was yet coming the devil threw him down and then in.
Verse 43 They were all amazed at the mighty power of God.
There are two great powers in conflict with one another. It's the power of Satan and the power of God.
And sometimes we don't realize the nature of that conflict.
And because we don't, we are deceived by Satan.
And we lose in our souls the practical walk.
That gives power to us to be overcomers.
The Lord Jesus had to face that power his in His own life at the time of His baptism. Immediately after Satan comes to him to present himself, and he presents himself to the Lord to have the kingdoms of the world as long as he will give Satan a place.
00:40:03
In his life. And then he fails and he says he leaves him for a time.
Satan comes back again at the time of the cross to exert all the power that he has to defeat.
The Lord.
And in fact, the wisdom of God, being what it is, was greater than that power, because it tells us in First Corinthians 2.
If Satan had only realized. If man had only realized.
He would not have put Christ to death. Why?
He would have defeated the whole purpose of God if he had withhold himself from putting Christ to death.
And so it says of them, it would not have if they had known.
If Satan had realized what the cross was going to do in defeating his power and delivering man.
From him and bringing him into a new creation, he would have said.
No, I don't want, I don't want the cross. If Satan had defeated him in that way, that heaven would be empty.
There wouldn't be a soul saved accepting. Of course, we know that God's purposes would be fulfilled.
Regardless, but I'm Speaking of it from the suspect of what scripture talks about the conflict between Satan and God. And here we recognize that the Lord Jesus as a man exercised the power of God, independence himself upon God for the power of the Spirit to act rather than himself as a man alone. In John he does act as this divine Son, but in Luke.
He acts as a perfect man. And in such it was as they, the people saw. They didn't say they were amazed at the power of Jesus. They were amazed at the power of God. And sometimes we fail to be able to do because we think that what God has done for us and done with us is the true source of power. But it's not. And consequently, instead of depending on ourselves or what God has even given to us.
We need to have the same spirit that the Lord Jesus had, and that was to recognize that.
Man in himself is no competitor with Satan.
Satan is constantly at work in his effort in our lives to turn us.
To act in the flesh and dishonor the Lord, and to act according to the spirit of the world that He has established to tempt us with and so on. And yet the Lord recognized the faithless and perverted generation and that was at work and He said that doesn't do it. That kind of a generation is no match for Satan.
It requires the power of God and so he acts in that power and the little one who himself had no power and and not even an understanding of what was going on. God cared for the child and delivers him.
Laying full of eternal life.
His brother Bob was talking about.
One of the things the devil wants to do, too, is to keep us from understanding who we really are.
In Christ.
All those truths of who we are.
We're talking a context here of a demon being cast out. Remember the story of the seven sons of Skeva who observed the power of God?
And the Apostle Paul's life. So they decide that.
They're going to use what they see like an incantation to make some money.
To go about and deliver people from demons.
I find it so interesting.
What the demons had to say.
Who said we know who Jesus is? We know who Paul is? Who are you?
The point is, the enemy knows who you are. Do you?
Do you know who you really are? Have you laid hold of all of that? The truth of all of it? Do you know?
If you don't. And many, many, many believers.
00:45:02
As our brother had mentioned, had been deceived by some of these other ideas about.
The church becoming the Kingdom that takes over the world so Jesus can come back. They miss a whole lot of truth in there. They don't really know who they are. In fact, they're being taught, like Paul says in the Corinthians, you, you reign as kings down. They want to reign now they're being taught Jewish things like they're in the Kingdom. They don't know who they really are in Christ. Do you? If you've laid hold of that and you know who you are in Christ?
The devil knows who you are.
And if you know who you are, there is power in that. There is real power in knowing that.
Knowing the truth.
Those things that Brother Don said read on from where I have just left off.
Knowing those things and laying hold of them.
In Mark's Gospel.
Chapter 13.
There's an interesting comment.
A story the Lord Jesus tells.
Last part of the chapter, verse 34.
For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house.
And gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work.
And commanded the Porter to watch.
Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh at even or at midnight, or at the **** crowing, or in the morning. This coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch but back again, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants?
Do you have authority, brethren?
As he left his house.
Are we still here?
Do you know that?
The smallest child in this room, standing in faith before the enemy, need not tremble in fear.
I mean the littlest child in this room, standing in faith before the enemy need not fear.
Because the power of God.
Is behind that.
Sentence and obedience as a man here and overcame and.
This is what we need to overcome.
It's not focusing on the power.
It's there, but are we in prayer and fasting? Those are the tools of.
Dependence and obedience so we don't to overcome Satan, we don't have to be stronger.
We have to be more obedient.
We have to be dependent on the Lord.
And he stands up for his own and he.
He comes in.
Yes, our faith is tested.
But he's there.
Might be helpful context to what's just been said to go to First Timothy chapter 6 and get what surrounds the lay hold of an eternal life statement.
That gives us some of what we've just been going over and what has just been said with respect to it.
Umm, it starts a week.
First of all, in verse nine it says umm.
The verse lay hold on eternal life is found but before we can get to that verse.
What leads up to that statement is found in verse nine. They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. Verse the statement that he's giving to Timothy, as I'll use another example, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And so there is that statement, where was the treasure for the disciples? In part, the treasure was their honor and glory in the Kingdom.
00:50:00
And it was a it was a hindrance to them from comprehending what was going on and being able to act according to the Spirit of God at the time and what God was doing. But we can be distracted by having something else that motivates us besides that which the motivated the life of the Lord Jesus.
The rich young ruler had a whole lot going for him.
But when he came to the Lord, it said the Lord loved him outwardly, his life was.
Wonderful.
But the Lord could see what was in his heart, and so he says to him.
Well, you go and sell all you have and then come and follow me.
If you want, he wanted to add eternal life to everything else that he had.
He wasn't going to give up anything he wanted to add to what he had. And so we sometimes set motives for ourselves, what we want to have, and then we want the things the Lord as well. It doesn't always work that way. In fact, it can't in principle work that way. So Paul is saying to Timothy, if you're going to desire certain things, they're going to be a snare and a temptation to you. They are going to rob you of that power to walk on a daily life and to be a blessing to others.
And then he says in verse, the next verse, the love of money.
Is the root of all evil.
The love of money is elsewhere described as idolatry. It's that which displaces God in the soul.
And becomes more important than God. And so that's the work of the enemy to keep us.
From walking in the path of faith. And so then he says to him.
What's the consequence? Heard from the faith, pierced themselves through with many sorrows, And so you get off the path that way, and there's a consequence to it, and so on. So then he says to Timothy, But thou, O man of God, do you know who you are? Timothy? You're a man of God. And if you are, flee these things.
Now that is run.
Don't just turn your back and walk away like you have a certain power.
But recognize the power of these things and the hold they can get over your life and run.
Flee and so on. And when you flee, then you have to be occupied with something else. God doesn't want us occupied with evil, He wants us occupied with good. And so that's part of the walk of faith. He says follow after. And this is in a practical way, righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. And that's how in verse 12.
You flee, fight, fight. There's conflict. Satan's against it.
The flesh is against that, the world is against it, The three enemies of the believer.
So you have to fight Satan, the world and the flesh. And it says fight the good fight of what? Faith? That's what we had already, the trust, the dependence. Then it says lay hold on eternal life. So all these things are part of how you lay hold and how you can lay hold on eternal life.
And then one more that Doug, not to take more time, but there's more here.
But in verse 14 it says that thou keep that's.
Obedience that thou keep this commandment.
And so faith, dependence, obedience are all characterized in laying hold on eternal life and giving the path of faith that can overcome the enemy or enemies.
In our chapter Mark 9, the enemies Satan particularly, but in our daily life, it's Satan the world.
And the flesh that's in.
US.
Could we go on to the next little section here about the little child in the midst where we.
Close here.
There, there was an environment of striving there.
I think we pretty much know what that's all about in life today. It's all around us and in US striving for greatness.
00:55:02
And the Lord Jesus puts a little child in the midst.
And.
It is an example of how to enter into the Kingdom.
Why is there this natural?
Tendency in us to be the greatest.
The lack, isn't it?
Really realizing.
Who the Lord Jesus is.
His glory.
Often thanked brother and.
This is kind of an aside that.
The Apostle Paul was caught up into the 3rd heaven.
And.
He saw things. It says. I will come to the revelations, visions and revelations of the Lord. That's things you see.
He heard things.
He doesn't say anything about what he saw.
He only says something about what he heard.
He heard unspeakable words that it is impossible for a man to utter.
But it was so.
Amazingly wonderful and overwhelming.
That he didn't remember. Did I have my body?
Or not, I don't know. He mentions that twice in that chapter.
I think when we get home to the glory.
Is going to be.
The glory of one that's going to.
Rapturous brethren.
Will we recognize others around? Yes, I believe we will.
But that's not our first thought.
To be thinking of which of us are the greatest is because we're thinking about ourselves.
And not him.
So if there is that tendency, it's because.
And this is what our culture does to us. It makes us think about ourselves. It's man centered, the whole.
Advertise advertising industry is concentrated on that to focus on yourselves, what you want, what you like. That's not what it's about.
So in the measure that we are not enraptured with the glory of this person.
That we're called to be in fellowship with.
O brethren, we're going to start this tendency of.
Who's the greatest? Which is the best?
Not, not that at all. That's not what it's about.
There will be no rivalry in heaven as to the Lord's place.
I think in the life of Joseph and his brethren, and.
Perhaps we could look at it as a demonstration of the process.
I'll just suggest this, you know, he was given that coat of many colors and, and it provoked envy on his from his brethren and they hated him and and so on. You know the story, what happened to Joseph, what how they treated him, sold him and so forth. And then he goes down into, he's down into Egypt and the whole process that the Lord puts him through. They're very hard picture of the Lord Jesus and his humiliation, all he went through.
To become the savior.
And then he's brought the brethren, or brought back before him.
And he had seen that vision of all the sheeps bowing down.
And that was prime the only, the only clue that I think we're given of of given to him of what would become of his life in Egypt.
01:00:10
And so after it's all said and done and they come down and they have to buy from him and so on, he puts him through a hard time to bring him really down to acknowledging what got the grace of God.
And.
They bow down and there's no more rivalry.
Even men of this world.
Story of the Knights of the Round Table in King Richard, These proud men.
Would bow the knee to no one.
But they vowed to need a King Richard because he won their heart. That's just natural, men.
I don't know of anybody in there that heard anything in history that there are any Christians involved in that group.
But even among men in this world, if their heart is won and they respect someone, they may bow the knee to no one else but the man who won their heart.
Well, as someone won our hearts.
Have we not received, as we've been told, the greatest gift that there is and has been pointed out? If our eyes look someplace else, then we get occupied with other things. But we have someone we respect.
That we willingly vowed the need to the moment we were saved. If we get our eyes off of that, well, we look around at all kinds of goofy things and we get all kinds of goofy ideas. But there is one that we willingly bow the knee to.
And that should keep us from this other nonsense.
Is Balani keep our heads under his mighty hand?
That's the best place we can be, and there's real power there too.
Like there's something beautiful here in the child, and the Lord is the teacher, Matthew says. He called the child to him with obedience.
Mark, who takes him up in his arms.
And what does he say? Nothing. The Lord uses it. And I said the Lord is beautiful to see Jerry seating his disciples a lesson. What the picture he's giving them. Someone doesn't say a word was willing to be held, and it's obedient. What a beautiful, useful Lord makes of them. We're enjoying what he taught us today.
James and John come to the Lord, and they ask that he would grant them whatsoever they would ask him.
And he says, well, what do you want? Or to sit on thy right hand and thy left in the Kingdom. He takes this little child in Matthew 18 that says he put him in the midst. But here he sets him by him in that place they would have liked, you know, but he set that little child right by him. I'm just wondering what the difference is in Matthew 18. It's it's a little child in the midst. I think maybe there it's more the thought of that little child is just unaware of all the relationships around. It's, it's selfless in the midst of all these important people, so to speak.
But why there is, umm, humbling oneself as a little child?
And being converted, becoming as little children entering into the Kingdom. But here it's.
Connected with receiving the Lord.
I don't perceive what the difference is. What's the lesson for us in receiving the Lord and receiving this little child?
The root.
Principle of man, it's his.
It's as easy to be proud as it is to breathe.
It's natural to the fallen human heart, and so when?
Satan first. Satan himself is the first one to fall. He falls before man does.
He wanted the place that was God's. He wanted to elevate himself to a position that was.
On the equality with God in his attempt to tempt the Lord Jesus in.
The 4th chapter of this gospel, he goes through the same set of temptations that.
Adam and Eve faced and failed in and they.
01:05:04
He tempts them to want something that God had not given them that would increase or add to what they had in their own importance, which was the knowledge of good and evil. And when Cain goes out from the presence of the Lord, he established the whole system that we today called the world, in which man is willing to work as long as it adds or elevates himself to a place of importance and prominence.
And the child is in contrast to that in picture form because.
The child doesn't have those characteristics, and so the disciples.
They don't have any in an honest sense, a whole lot of interest mantle. Man will do something for a child if it gives glory to the man that does it. But in the other side of it, children can't elevate the man very much in a natural way. They he wants people that can add to his glory and his honor. When a person's campaigning for a public office, he doesn't campaign to the children.
He campaigns to the people that can give him the place and honor that he seeks for himself.
And.
The glory of the Kingdom that was to be.
Given And the disciples were going to have it, and we're going to have honor and glory.
But one of the things that were the slowest to learn about the Lord Jesus.
And have it applied to our own lives is.
I am meek and lonely, and the reception of the Lord and the way the Lord was to be received was in that meek and lowly spirit that is so unnatural to us that we I when the Lord said, Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
Ryan, meek and lonely in spirit, and ye shall find rest to your hearts. Normally when I read that inside myself, I have to use these words, Come down unto me, come down unto me. Because it is a very, very challenging lesson to be honestly meek and lowly inside, no matter how we appear on the outside.
And it's only coming truly into the presence of God, in the light of God.
That we are brought to into that position of having a self-image of being meek and lowly or it's produced in US.
Just to mention, before we close in verses 49 and 50, there's another.
Thing the Lord seems to address. They say, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him because.
He followed, not us.
US was the.
Point of reference.
Lord Jesus says, forbid him not for he that is not against us is for us.
US is not a proper reference point either.
The Lord, That's right.
And it's easy to confuse that as gathered to his name and we.
Perhaps unconsciously associate us with the Lord in a way to.
Think that that's the testimony.
And.
If it doesn't meet that criteria, then we judge the.
Whatever we're looking at because they don't follow us.
We don't know if they're following the Lord. The Lord knows, and it's never the references that should never be on us as gathered to the Lord's name. It should be always on the Lord.
22 in the back.
01:10:05
Our Holy One and True.
Our hearts in being confined.
And in a certain.
Time.
We are like.
Gospel 2
Gospel—Wally Dear
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, one and all.
Welcome to our gospel meeting this evening. Like to begin by.
Singing well known him number four starts with Christ.
And the second hymn we're going to sing, it starts with Ohio Christ and what we want to do here tonight.
Is to make much of Christ.
Because.
It's all about him and without him we really have nothing.
But with him we have everything, and we'll talk more about that. But #4 to begin with, Christ is the Savior of sinners. Perhaps we could stand as we sing #4.
Christ is the Savior of sinners. Christ is the Savior for me.
Long I was changing since darkness. Now by His grace, I am free.
Savior of sinners, Savior of sinners like me.
Shedding His blood for we're going to pray and ask for God's blessing on His word here tonight. But I want to tell you something.
There have been many prayers already ascended.
Tonight.
On your behalf.
We had a prayer meeting Room 1210 on the top floor and I was encouraged. My heart was warmed.
To hear those prayers on behalf of any here in this hall tonight who might be outside of Christ.
Because if you don't have Christ, you're in your sins, you're traveling the Broad Rd. It leads to destruction. And God is concerned for your soul. And we are too. And we.
We want to present the way of salvation simply and clearly. And you know those prayers went up.
And at the end of the prayer, I believe every time there was a resounding Amen.
You know, it's wonderful.
When we have a concern for the souls of men and women, boys and girls.
And so tonight.
May the Lord help us as we open His word together #19.
19.
Oh Christ.
Indeed, my soul has found.
And found in the alone the peace, the joy I sought so long the bliss.
Till now and no now none but Christ can satisfy none other name for me there's love, life, lasting joy. Lord Jesus found indeed, perhaps we could remain seated as we sing #19.
Oh Christ, in thee my soul hath found and found.
We sang together in that first hymn that Christ.
Is the savior.
We sang in the second hymn.
Christ is the satisfier and wonderful to know him who not only saves, but he satisfies. Yes, he does. And tonight we're going to look into the Word of God. I've got a Bible here. You know, this is a Bible conference.
And.
The reason we call it a Bible conference is because we come together.
To read the Bible the Bible is.
God's.
Message to mankind, it's a message.
To you here tonight.
And how thankful we are that God is willing to communicate His.
Mind to us through this book, some say. Well, I don't really think.
God wrote the Bible? Well, who do you think did write the Bible then?
And if you're questioning whether or not God wrote the Bible, let me ask you, have you read the Bible?
00:05:07
Because when you read the Bible, you find out that it's different.
Than any other book.
On the face of this planet, Earth is different.
We were talking about this the other day.
You pick up a newspaper.
And you read the newspaper, and the articles are very intriguing, perhaps. But you read through the article, you read through the first page, you read through the newspaper. What happens? You throw it on the pile. It's ready to go to the dump or maybe to start a fire somewhere. You know what I mean? You read it one time, and that's enough for the most part. Well, you might go back and read.
An article another time.
But I want to tell you something when you come to this book.
You open up this book.
And you can read over and over and over the same portion.
And it just seems to come alive.
And it's so wonderful.
You take the story of Zacchaeus. Do you ever get tired of reading about Zacchaeus? I don't.
So this is a living book, and I'm thankful that we got the Bible. It's withstood the test of time. The Bible is open here tonight. It's going to be open in eternity. It's the word of God. It lives, OK. It's a living book. It's powerful lives, and it abides for ever because it's the word of God.
So.
Please don't question the Bible.
Napoleon he was down in.
Africa, I believe it was Egypt, a military campaign. He found himself and his troops in a quagmire, swamped all over the place.
It was a bad situation, so he.
Got his first officers together, he said. Listen, I want you to go in every direction and I want you to look for solid ground and when you find it, you come back.
And I want you to lead us.
To that place.
And that's what happened. They found solid ground. That's what they wanted. They searched for it. They found it. And I'm going to tell you here tonight, you see this book I have in my hands?
You build your faith on this book and you are on solid ground.
So let's read a portion. And I thought tonight perhaps we'd go to the Old Testament for a gospel message now.
Typically we go to the New Testament, but you know, we were speaking today how that.
We find Christ in the Old Testament.
Because.
In Luke 24 we read about how that the Lord Jesus.
It tells us that beginning at Moses and the Prophets, he expounded unto 2 individuals in all the Scripture the things concerning himself.
And I believe what he had available at that time was the Old Testament. So what I'd like to do is turn over to 2nd.
Kings.
Chapter.
6.
And we're going to read from verse 24.
Second Kings chapter 6.
And verse 24.
And what I see in this story, it's a true story.
Is that?
Men.
Because of their self will, because of their sin. And that's what really sin is itself will.
They find themselves.
In very difficult circumstances.
00:10:01
They find themselves in a mess and you know this world.
I think it's fair to say it's in a mess.
Why?
It's because of sin. Sin, you know, sin is.
It's horrible. Sin is awful.
It's detestable, it's just most repulsive.
But we find out that this is what characterizes mankind, because man has turned his back on God. It happened back in the.
Garden of Eden.
Almost 6000 years ago.
Man and woman, they walked out on God.
Is a Paulie to think of what took place?
When God had provided.
For his creature man.
And for the woman?
Provided so wonderfully for them.
What do they do?
They listen to Satan.
And they turn a deaf ear.
To God.
And you know man, ever since.
Has walked independent of God in his sin.
It tells us that by one man's disobedience, sin came into the world, and death by sin.
And so it's not God's fault that this world is in the condition it is today. But what's wonderful is that God has provided 4 sinners a wonderful salvation.
And it tells us over in Romans that we're sin abounded grace.
Has much more abound. And so grace triumphs over sin. And that's what we're going to see. I believe in this portion.
Now it tells us here in Second Kings chapter 6 and verse 24.
And it came to pass after this that Ben Haydad, King of Syria, gathered all his hosts.
And went up and besieged Samaria.
These are 5 words and it came to pass. We find it more than once in this chapter.
And in the next chapter, I believe I was noticing over in Luke Chapter 9 where we've been reading in the in the Bible readings, I believe at least five times in that chapter.
Luke Chapter 9 and it came to pass. What does that mean? This actually happened. This is not something that's been made-up. This is not some kind of a.
Fairy tale. This actually happened and so when I read these words.
They speak to my soul as to the authenticity of the Word of God.
So what came to pass? Well, then he did. The enemy of God's people had come up and surrounded the city of Samaria.
And as a result, there was a famine.
And it was an awful situation. In fact, it tells us here in verse 25 there was a great famine in Samaria. And behold, they beseeched it until an ass's head was sold for four score pieces of silver.
That's a big price for the head of a donkey. I suppose it was.
For food, there's like this orbit in price, but this is a famine price because the food was in such short supply.
And it tells us.
The fourth part of A Cab of Dub's Dung.
For five pieces of silver.
There seems to be some debate as to what Dubstong refers to.
Some would say it's a type of a plant.
00:15:03
That looks like Dubstong. Others say it's a fuel.
I read a record one time about.
A situation where there was extreme starvation and a terrible state of things, and they were actually.
Examining bird tongue.
In order to see if there were any undigested seeds.
That they could collect in order to keep body and soul together.
The point here is this is a drastic situation, but it goes from bad to worse.
What do we find in verse 26? It says, And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help my Lord, O king. And he said, If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? Out of the barn?
Floor or out of the wine press? And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him. And I said unto her, On the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him.
And she hath hit her son.
So we see these two mothers, they made a deal.
Because they were going to eat their offspring.
And it's just horrifying to think about. But you know, if you read back in Leviticus, I believe it is, and also Deuteronomy, we find out that when the people turned away from God and.
We're disobedient.
There was going to be consequences, even to the point.
Of eating their offspring.
Well, one mother didn't keep her end of the deal.
And so this creates a problem, and so it's brought to the king and the king.
He tells us in verse 30 it came to pass.
When the king heard the words of the woman.
That he rent his clothes, and he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh.
Then he said, God do so, and more also to me, if the head of Elijah, the son of Shaffer, shall stand on him this day.
Now this king, he was an ungodly king.
And.
He rents his clothes.
And he puts on sackcloth. Now that was supposed to represent penitence or some kind of repentance.
For the situation at hand, he had sackcloth on his skin, but he had murder in his heart. Who is it that he wanted to murder?
He want to take off to head of Elijah. Elijah is the man of God.
Who in Israel had been performing many acts of kindness?
Elisha, I believe the name means God is salvation. That's a beautiful name. And you know Elijah.
He wanted to help people.
And there was a mother. Her husband died and she owed a bill. She couldn't pay the bill, so the creditors are coming to take away her two sons.
And she's very distraught. She's already lost her husband, and now she's going to lose her two sons. But Elijah appears on the scene and he says, what can I do for you? Isn't that nice?
And so she explained the situation and then.
Elijah says, well, I want you to gather all the vessels that you can gather.
00:20:04
Doesn't matter what size, what shape, just gather as many as you can.
And when she did?
Elisha.
Pour out.
Pot of oil.
Is to pour out fills up this vessel, this vessel, this vessel, this vessel.
All the vessels were filled.
And then?
Elijah told her to sell.
The oil and it was sold.
And her bill was paid and she and her sons were able to live.
On the balance that.
Was leftover just one example of what Elijah was up to in Israel?
Another time there was a.
Pot of food put on.
Some kind of a Stew or something was put on the fire and they found out there was poison in the pot.
Elijah said go get meal. They cast it in the pot and neutralized the toxin in the pot and it was good to eat. And you know, I believe it was just after that somebody brought to Elijah loaves of bread and ears of corn, and it was for Elijah. But Elijah said no, I give the people to eat.
And.
Elisha had such a.
Compassionate heart to reach out to others. He was not a selfish person.
And you know, I think Elijah is really a picture to us in the Old Testament of the Lord Jesus.
Yes, and that's why I delight to speak about Elijah, because you know, the Lord Jesus, he was so kind.
And so gentle and so mild as we.
Talked about that this afternoon.
Elisha.
Found that the waters of Jericho, they were bitter. He healed the waters. Another time the Moabites.
Enemies of God's people.
They arraigned themselves against God's people in.
Jehovah.
And I believe he was in association with the.
King of Judah.
They ran out of water.
Well, you don't go very far.
With an army, if you don't have water, but Elisha arranged so that water was made available. So we see how Elisha over and over he was able to help people in their situations.
And even in this chapter that we're reading here.
Previously we see that.
The king of Syria had come up to war against Israel.
And he was absolutely perplexed and frustrated because it seems like.
The king of Israel always knew what his position was, and so he couldn't sneak up and take Israel by surprise, because the king of Israel always knew the positions, he said. How can this be? Well, Elisha was advising the king of Israel.
You know, and so he was helping out the king of Israel.
I should say the king of Israel is helping out the.
Yeah, he was helping out the king of Israel, OK.
Now.
When?
The Syrians surrounded the.
City.
We find that Elisha's servant was very anxious.
And I really love this account, you know, it says in verse.
00:25:05
15 Now this is in Second Kings 6 and verse 15, when the servant of the man of God was risen early.
And gone forth, behold, in hosts compassed the city, both with horses and Chariots. And his servants said unto him, Alas, my master, how shall we do?
And he answered, fear not, for they that be with us are more.
Than they be with them. And Elijah prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.
And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and Chariots of fire around about Elisha. Elisha was not.
Fearful in the least.
He knew he had the power of God surrounding him, and he wanted his servant to know about that too. And so the servant, his eyes are opened to see this.
Divine force and so then.
We find that Elisha actually was able to blind.
The Syrian Army, they were struck with blindness and he leads them, that is the Syrian Army, right into the middle of Samaria.
And then?
Their eyes are opened.
And you know the king of Israel.
When he sees that enemy force, he sees those Syrians.
He says.
My father, shall I smite them? Shall I smite them? That was the first impulse is to destroy those Syrian enemies.
Now as Elisha of the same mindset.
Notice what it says here.
In verse 12 and he answered, Thou shalt not smite them.
Wouldst thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword, and with thy bow set bread and water before them?
That they may eat and drink and go to their master.
And he prepared great provision for them, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. So.
Bands of Syria came no more.
Into the land of Israel. Now I just read this because I want you to see.
The type of person that Elijah was.
I believe we see his ministry in Israel was one of grace and he showed kindness to these who were enemies.
And he actually prepared a feast. I believe it was more than just bread and water. It says here that.
He prepared great provision for them.
And I believe they all were filled, they were all satisfied, and they leave now.
We find that things have turned around, things have changed.
And here we find the King of Syria.
Than he did. He's back.
And.
Again besieging the city.
But.
The King.
It seems to me.
He has lost sight.
Of the kindness, the goodness.
The gracious dealing of Elijah. And now he wants to take off his head.
But that reminds me of.
How when you turn over to the New Testament?
The Lord Jesus.
He went about doing good.
He was so kind. How does that little hymn go? Jesus?
Who lives above the sky came down to be a man and die and indefiable. We may read how very good he used to be.
00:30:07
And you know, it goes on. He was so gentle and so mild.
He would have listened to a child.
But you know.
Goes on to say.
But such a cruel death, he died.
He was hung up and crucified.
And those kind hands that did such good, they nailed them to a cross of wood.
Those hands that had been breaking the bread and multiplying the loaves to feed the multitudes.
They were pierced.
Those kind hands that had reached out to the leper, to the blind.
To those that were sick and lame.
Nailed to a cross of wood. Now this is.
The height of man's sin.
His enmity against God that he would put to death.
The one who had come to seek and to save, who had come to bless and his ministry, was that which.
Was one of compassion. You know, it tells us in more than one place that he was full of compassion.
And that's a beautiful word. Compassion is to have pity for somebody with earnest desire to help them. And that was Jesus. He had compassion on the multitude. The Samaritan, you know, when he saw the man that was half dead on the side of the road, it says he had compassion on him and.
Many other places.
But we find that.
The king of Israel.
He calls for.
The execution of Elijah.
But in verse 32 it says but Elijah sat in his house.
And the elders sat with him, and the king sent a man from before him. But ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head?
Look when the messenger cometh, shut the door, hold him fast at the door is not the sound of his master's feet behind him.
And while he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger came down unto him, and he said, Behold, this evil is of the Lord. What should I wait for the Lord any longer?
So we see how the conditions in Israel had deteriorated and.
Elisha's life was in jeopardy, but I don't think Elijah tells us here. He sat in his house.
I think he was at peace about the situation.
And he knew what to do.
But in the next chapter.
We see Elisha.
Proclaiming a message.
Which I think in this sense is it's like the gospel. You know, gospel means good news. And that's exactly what Elisha was bringing.
To the people of Samaria, the message was a message of cheer.
And what was it? Well, in Chapter 7, verse one, then Elijah said, Hear ye the word of the Lord. Thus sayeth the Lord. Tomorrow about this time, shall a measure of fine flower be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria.
What a message. No longer was there going to be an ***** head sold for four score pieces of silver or a cab of dubstun for five pieces of silver, but now we have at a very low price, flour barley and it's going to be available.
00:35:07
In the Gate of Samaria, it's going to be available for any.
Who can come?
And.
I'm sure.
When the people heard this.
They.
Were much encouraged.
But there was one in verse two who questioned what Elijah had to say.
It says in verse 2 Then a Lord on whose hand the king leaned, answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shall not eat thereof this Lord.
He was a nobleman.
In the King's court he had a very important position.
And when he heard that message from Elijah, he scoffed.
He was a mocker.
And that's just how we have it today. Too many people, when we try to present to them the gospel of the grace of God, they make fun of it.
They yeah, they ridiculed it.
But you know, it tells us in First Corinthians chapter one, the preaching of the cross.
Is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
And so this nobleman, this Lord, he was spouting off.
And opposing the message that Elijah brought. And actually Elijah was speaking as it tells us here in verse one.
The word of the Lord OK, hear ye not the word of Elisha, but hear ye the word of the Lord. And then he says Thus saith the Lord. So Elijah was one who presented the word.
And you know the word of God is true, and it tells us that God is not a man that he should lie, nor the Son of man that he should repent. Has he not said it?
Shall he not do it? Hath he's spoken, and shall he not do it?
I didn't quote that quite the way it is, but you can look it up. I believe it's in Numbers 23. But the point is it's impossible for God to lie. And so if this is the word of God, which I do believe with all my heart, it is it's truth. God cannot lie. That's an impossibility with Him.
But this Lord, he thought otherwise, and we're going to see what took place with him. Sad end.
Verse three. Now who is it that God reaches out to? You know, as we read this next portion, it speaks to my heart.
To realize.
That God.
Is interested.
In those who are down and out, He's interested in salvation of any soul. But you know there are those that really feel their need and God appreciates that when we acknowledge that we are.
Helpless that we are, hopeless that we are needy sinners.
And so as we read on here, it tells us in verse three there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate. And they said one to another, why sit we here until we die? If we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city and we shall die there. And if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore, come and let us fall into the host unto the host of the Syrians.
If they save us alive, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die. These 4 lepersmen.
Realize their dire circumstances.
To get the camp of the enemy in front of him, that means death.
00:40:02
Back in the city, it's a famine. That means death. They're surrounded by death.
But they say.
Why sit we here?
Until we die, they're not just going to sit there.
They're going to.
Take this situation you might say into.
Their hands and they're going to see what they can do.
And you know, dear ones here tonight, I just wonder.
Is there somebody sitting here on your seat?
And you're not saved, you're in your sins. You know leprosy in Scripture is a.
Symbol or a type of sin.
And so you sit there in your seat, and you have never, ever.
Put your trust in the Lord Jesus.
You're not concerned about it.
You're going to sit there.
You might say until you die without closing in with God's offer of salvation.
These leprous men, they moved and they went into the camp of the Syrian. But when they found themselves in the Syrian camp, they see there's no sign of any soldiers or enemy in the camp. The camp is vacated. I suppose they couldn't believe what they were seeing. In fact, it tells us here.
In verse.
Five And they rose up in the twilight to go onto the camp of the Syrians. And when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of Chariots, and a noise of horses, even a noise of a great host. And they said, One to another low, The king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefore they rose up.
In the twilight, and left their tents, their horses, their ***** even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried dense silver and gold and raiment, and went and hid it, and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried dents also, and went and hit it.
I suppose these lepers.
They were just reveling in all the spoil.
I suppose they were looking for Food First of all, get something to eat, but then they see the silver and the gold, so they go for that and the clothing and you know, they put it all.
In a place.
To hide it, however, in verse 9. Then they said, one to another, We do not Well, this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace. If we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us. Now therefore come, that we may go and tell the King's household. So they came, and called unto the Porter of the city. And they told them, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no man there, neither voice of man, but horses.
Tied, acid tied, and the tents as they were. And he called the porters and they told it to the King's house within. Now we see that these men, they realize that this is not something that we want to keep to ourselves. We need to pass on the good news. And so they became evangelists and they went forth to tell.
About what they had found.
And you know, it was God that worked here. He slept, man. They had nothing to do with the.
Exodus of those Syrian armies. He was God at work. You know, it tells us that God he's made the hearing ear and the seeing eye. Yeah, the hearing ear and the seeing eye. God has made them boast and I I enjoyed in the chapter 6.
We see what God did with eyes to open eyes, close eyes.
Now here in this chapter, we see how God interfered with the hearing and these troops, you know, they thought, oh, this huge army is descending upon us. We got to get out of there. They just fled. But it was all of God. But it was a total victory because it tells us there wasn't not one man left in the camp. And you know, this reminds me of what took place at the cross of Calvary.
00:45:14
The Lord Jesus went into death.
As we often sing, the mighty victory was all his own, though we shall share his glorious throne, and I believe that Through Death tells us this in Hebrews 2/3.
Through death he has destroyed him who has the power of death? That is the devil, and he has delivered them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to *******. Yes, God has wrought a mighty victory through His own dear Son at the cross of Calvary. And you know the Lord Jesus went into death. We heard about that last night, didn't we?
So vividly brought before us how they turn those dark hours, the Lord Jesus.
Was willing to take the punishment for your sin and mine, if you trust him. In fact, that which we could not have exhausted in an eternity of hell, it was compressed into three hours. And during those three hours He bore my sins and yours, and he exhausted the fierce anger of a holy God against those sins during three.
Hours of darkness.
This is what took place at the cross, the Lord Jesus. He stooped.
Down from the heights of glory to the depths.
Of Calvary in order to save your soul and mine. And his precious blood was shed.
By which we enjoy redemption, you know, redemption is being delivered from the power of the enemy and.
It's the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, that cleans us from all sin. Well, I believe in the Old Testament we have.
That which helps us to understand that mighty work.
That has taken place at the cross of Calvary. Not one Syrian troop in that camp to harass or concern God's people. It was a wonderful victory. It reminds me of how that.
When God's people were brought out of Egypt, they came through the Red Sea, and you know that big Red Sea just closed in on Pharaoh and his troops, and it says there was not so much as one.
Egyptian troop remaining. They were all dead.
On the seashore.
And then we read about singing, don't we? Yeah. That's when they sang the song of redemption. You know, the Lord is triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider as he thrown into the sea. It's the first mention of singing, I believe, in the Bible.
Well, I see.
Our time has gone, but I did want to draw attention to what happened to that Lord that was making fun.
Of the message.
That Elijah brought. Notice what happens in verse 17.
Well, we could read verse 16. And the people went out and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord. And the king appointed the Lord, on whose hand he leaned, to have the charge of the gate, And the people trolled upon him in the gate, and he died, as the man of God had said, who spake.
When the king came down to him and it came to pass.
As the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, 2 measures apparently for his shekel, and a measure of fine flower for a shekel shall be tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria. And that Lord answered the man of God, and said, Now behold, if the Lord should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, I shall see it with thine eyes, but shall not eat thereof. And so it fell out unto him, for the people trod upon him.
In the gate and he died. Oh, what a sad end.
To an unbeliever, is there anybody here tonight who when you hear the gospel of the grace of God, you, you don't accept it, You maybe make fun of it. You don't believe it. I want to tell you, you are in big trouble. You don't want to be like.
00:50:05
The rich man you know in Luke chapter 16.
He lived for this world. He lived without God. He lived without Christ.
And it tells us when he was buried, he lifted up his eyes being in hell.
But what do you see?
He saw the glory, He saw Lazarus in Abraham's bosom. But.
It was too late.
He was too late now. Would there be anybody like that here tonight that would actually be found?
In hell, longing.
Not just to be in glory, but to have a drop of water.
To cool the tip of your tongue, read about it. Loop check 16. It is the most solemn chapter. But we need to bring this to your attention because it's the truth of God. And tonight our desire is. And more than this, God's desire is.
That you might be saved. That you might not perish. The Lord Jesus died.
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried. He rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
Jesus lives. He's coming again.
To perish PERISH means to pass eternally ruined into sinners hell. I never forgot that acronym.
I'll just close. I see our time is gone.
With perhaps?
Best known gospel verse in all the Bible.
And all of the 31,000 verses in the Bible. This one. The Gospel in a nutshell.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
How Old Is Old Enough?
Children—Andy Buchanan
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Well, good morning.
Look at these boys and girls sitting in the front row ready for Sunday school. That's great.
I'll, I'll tell you a little secret, you know.
Well, first I'll start by saying, you know, it's been a little while since some of us have been able to go to a conference.
And maybe forget what it's like to sit in the front row at a conference.
It's kind of a little bit scary. I'm going to tell you a little secret just for the people that want to sit in the front row. It's a little scary being in the front too. So it's OK. It's OK. And we're going to try to do some things up here. So if there's any more boys and girls that would like to, you know, we're going to sing some songs and we're going to talk about the Lord Jesus and oh, we may have some, we may have some experiments to do here.
And so if there's any more boys and girls I'd like to sit in the front, that'd be, that'd be great. But we'll try not to make it scary, so.
With that said, does anybody have a song they'd like to sing? Now this is a different.
Book than what we use at our Sunday school, and if it's a different book than what you use at your Sunday school, if you know the name of the song.
Maybe somebody here knows how to sing it? What would you like to sing?
#10 in our book, that is supposed to be around the throne of God in heaven, Around the throne of God in heaven. I think that's a song that lots of people here know how to sing. So let's try to sing that one. If somebody could help us start it. I was on the sheet. Oh, I'm so sorry. Let's see here. 41 on this sheet.
OK, let's sing #41 on here.
Around the throne of God in heaven will many children sing children.
Say versus if you learn one, if you learned one this week.
There's something in this.
Song.
There's something in this song that reminds me a little bit about the verse that was in the Sunday School paper for this week.
Maybe you learned a different one. There's something we're going to talk a little bit about today, and I've noticed it in a lot of the other meetings we've been having this weekend. There's something in there that reminds me of it.
Well, let's see.
Let me get any ideas.
Let's see, I'll just put that there. I don't know if that's a hint once we got here.
Well, here's another one.
Put down this side so you can see. What do you think? Is that a hint?
Not sure. OK, well I noticed in.
The second verse, there's something that's talked about in the second verse.
That is.
One of these.
Yes.
What is it?
I remember it says.
It makes you think of shining robes. Yeah, well, I was thinking of the word light. Shining. Yeah. Shining robes, it says In shining robes of spotless white. Each one will be arrayed, dwelling in everlasting light. Isn't that wonderful? We have that to look forward to. OK, who else has a song?
Yes, 16 on the sheet, OK #16.
00:05:01
Whosoever heareth, shout, shout the sound.
Whosoever hearest shall shout the sound, send the blood.
May come.
Whosoever will.
Proclamation of repair the landfill.
Is the longing ponder also wonderful? Who is so ever will pay from?
Who is so ever found it was not delayed. Now the door is overrun and while you may.
OK, I've got an interesting question to ask you, just for the people in the front row.
How old is old enough?
How old is old enough? You know what I can remember being told?
You're not old enough. Has anybody ever been told that you've been told that? Has anybody ever said you're not old enough?
So how old is old enough you think?
Probably about an adults age. Probably about 41.
OK, does anybody else have an idea how old is old enough? That's a good answer, I like that.
Okay, Williams got an answer. How old is old enough, you think?
Around 18, around 18, you know, that's one of those. The government says you're old enough to do some things at 18.
So yeah, that's a good answer. 18 Some people are old enough at 18. Anybody else have another thought? How old is old enough?
You can think about that while we sing the next song.
We've got another song.
OK, William.
#8.
On this sheet here.
Shall we gather Ed is coming?
Maybe somebody could start that for us, please.
It was still the Savior's life.
00:10:00
And the stranger I just coming.
Shall be his only glory, grace.
Will you be among the 100?
Your glorious. It's glorious.
Same time is coming.
It was in the Savior of love.
They will wash your White House.
Yes, will gather eyes come in this glorious, this glorious.
Coming.
After river Sainsburys coming.
It was in the same memories was.
OK good. OK, now did anybody else come up with a thought on how old is old enough?
Evan, you look like you're contemplating that. Can I ask you how old is old enough you think?
Umm.
I think, like William said, eighteen. Yeah, 18. OK, it's good answer.
Sorry, won't make anybody nervous. So that's good. That's good answer. So anybody else have a thought? You have another 41, you're going to change your answer, it's okay.
Say that again, to go to heaven at any age. To go to heaven is any age. I like that answer, that's really good. Thank you for sharing that, that's really good.
That's a true answer, by the way. It's true. Let's go to heaven at any age, and I'm glad you mentioned that.
OK, I'm going to. Let's see the emails. Have a really interesting week this week. This past week, lots of different things happening at your house. I know what our house is. A lot of different things happened this week. Did you have an interesting week too?
Yeah, I had an image with.
Think about where you were going here. I like to.
Oh, that's nice to sing, isn't it? I like singing, too. I'm glad you like to sing. You know, we had several things happen this week, some of which I've never done before, some of which I have. But I want to tell you a story about one of the things that happened to me this week. It didn't happen to anybody else in my immediate family.
Tell you another secret, I like airplanes. Anybody else up here? Like in the front row, Like airplanes riding in airplanes?
Not everybody likes it, so it's OK if you don't.
But somebody texted me who was an instructor. I was actually hoping he'd be here today.
He's not feeling well so they couldn't come but he texted me and said we need to do some.
I'm going to go with a student and take them up and we're going to fly at night. Would you like to come along?
So you think I just said no way?
Well, I went You think it's different trying to fly an airplane in the dark?
Hmm.
What would be different about trying to fly an airplane in the dark?
What do you think, William?
The view is definitely different in the dark. And you know what, where we live, it's farm country, so there's big fields of dark. And then as you're flying along you see a whole bunch of lights, all in one area, whole bunch of them. What would that be, you think?
00:15:13
What do you think? What do you think is going on? How about somebody over in this section here?
What do you guys think there? Why there would be a whole bunch of lights on the ground in one area. What do you think, Willie?
Well, this, yes, but not for, not for the people in the air, so people on the ground can see. But what would it be? Why would there be all these lights together in one little spot?
What do you think?
The plane stole it.
That's a really good answer. It's so the airplanes don't run into things. Windmills, I think you said that make electricity, right.
And so there are there are special lights like that on towers. You're right, that's good. I was thinking of a city or a little town. All of a sudden there's 'cause you're up in the air. So it just looks like a little bit, but all these lights and then over here only a few blinking lights.
Maybe for tower or something?
And as I was thinking about our verse, it reminded me of a story.
About somebody who was a Christian who was flying some, doing a flight for the Lord over a country called Zambia. And we'll tell that story in a minute. I guess we'll sing another song. Who's who else has a song to sing? What would you like to sing?
Let's see, I think that's number nine on this sheet here #9.
Come every soul by sin oppressed. Good song. OK, could somebody start this for us, please?
Crap eye drops. See everything's word.
Oh great Christ came on great Christmas.
Only trust him now.
He will save you. He will save you.
In real savior now.
Grace blessings to be strong.
For so many different thy friends like that more strange my grandstone.
All may try skin rolls can't only trust him.
Only to trust him now.
Maybe what savior He will Savior He will save you now.
When I see something gone through the way, my pleasure.
We trust him, all may trust him now.
He was savior.
He was savior.
He will save you now.
I have to enjoy this holy round and all that long till farming.
00:20:17
The psoriasis. Great.
You will save your name. Will save you.
He will save you now, OK? You know, when we were flying up there over the cities and then it came time to land.
You know what I was really glad to see? I shouldn't say I was glad I enjoyed it. I wasn't scared or anything, but it was really neat. When we came into land, the person that was flying the airplane, the pilot, he could turn the lights on to go along the side of the runway and then you knew where to go.
And so it was really nice because you know if you click the button too many times, they turn back off again. So you have to be careful how you do it. And so you clicked it again and.
The runway lit up and you can see where you're going. Isn't that nice? OK, so I know that it's scary saying a verse.
So what? We'll do it this way. I've got some things for you boys and girls, so I'm just going to stay up here.
So you can pick one out of the bucket and if you want to, you can say a verse. I'd love to hear it and I think everybody else would like to hear it. But if you don't want to, that's OK. We're not going to put any pressure on. So would you like to pick out one of these? You can pick out any of these. This is for you to take. You want to take one of those.
OK.
Now, do you have a verse that you would like to say?
Not sure about a verse. OK, that's just fine. Would you would you like one of these?
No. OK, that's OK too. Now, did you have a verse that you'd like to say? No. OK, that's OK. How about you? Would you like one of these?
OK, now how about verse? Would you like to say a verse?
You know what I should read the one that was in the Sunday school paper. Would that make it a little bit easier if I read that first? Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I should probably read that first. I don't know if.
Maybe you learned a different one.
OK the one that's funny school paper was Proverbs chapter 4 and verse 18. It says but the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
The path of the Justice is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
So maybe I should carry my Bible around so I can help you. Now you want to try it.
Her passes are just as the shining light.
The shine is more and more on to the perfect day.
The problems 418 hours 14. That was really good. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Now how about this young man? Would you like a flashlight?
I'm just going to push it along this way so that I can hold my Bible and talk to you at the same time. Would you like to say a verse?
OK.
The fast and the rest is of the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
Robert for it. That's really good. Thank you. Yeah, good job. How about you, Evan? Would you like to take one of those?
The path of the dresser that is shining light, that shines more and more into the perfect powers for it came excellent. Thank you. Do you want to help me, Willie? Okay, but first would you like to take a light? Okay, now would you like to say your verse?
The path of address is as the shining light that shineth more and more under the perfect day. Proverbs 418 Thank you. You want to carry that the bucket there, Thank you.
OK, how about this young lady?
The path of ledges is at the shining light that shineth more and more until the perfect day. Preference 418. Wow, you guys learned this verse so well. Everybody, that's good.
00:25:00
Would you like to say your verse?
Oh, I love that verse. Thank you for sharing that one with us. That's good. How about this young lady? Would you like a flashlight? No. OK. Would you like to say your verse? No.
OK, that's all right. We'll come on down here to William.
The path of the judge is as a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Proverbs 418. Thank you very much. Would you like a flashlight? No flashlight. Would you like to say a verse? Not today. OK, that's fine. We'll come over to this side.
OK, a good choice. Now would you like to say a verse today?
As the shining light that shines more and more onto the perfect day. Proper floor 18. Oh, thank you very much. That's good. Really good. Everybody's saying such a good. Would you like a flashlight?
Now, would you like to say a verse today?
Not today. That's OK. All right now. Anybody else want to come up? I've still got flashlights left, if any.
Anybody that usually sits in the front row of Sunday school like to come up and get a flashlight.
Anybody have any, anybody else want to come up? OK, thanks. Lily. You can just that's fine.
Now, I told, I said I was going to tell you a story and I read this story a few years ago. Oh, I love this story though. It's very interesting. As a man, his job his his normal everyday job is to fly airplanes. So he's really good at it. And this man.
He loved the Lord Jesus.
And so every year he would spend some of his own time and his own money. And he would.
Fly airplanes for missionary activities and I'm not sure what all.
This was four, but he was flying over Zambia in a nice jet with all the electronics on it, and there's a lot of nice things on a jet to help you know where you are at night or anytime now.
For some reason, all of a sudden the radio stopped working.
Do you think it's important when you're flying an airplane to be able to talk to other people? Yeah. Are there coincidences? Here's my next hard question. Are there coincidences in life?
Are there things that just happen?
And there's no reason for them.
That's a hard question for the front row, I think, but it's a good question to think about.
What do you think? Are there coincidences? That's a big word, but does that ever happen?
Sometimes it sure seems like it. It seems like it does sometimes, doesn't it? Let's see. Does anybody else have another answer?
William's got an answer. Oh, good. We got a couple. OK. What do you think, William?
I think it's because the Lord want it that way. You think it's because the Lord wanted it that way? Hmm. What do you think over on this side?
Well, because. Probably because.
The Lord made it happen in our life, you know. You know what? You're both exactly right. There's no such thing as a coincidence when we think about that. The Lord is in control. So was it a coincidence that these radios stopped working in this airplane? It's a nice airplane. It has good stuff in it.
What do you think?
He was a pilot. Yeah. In fact, there were two pilots in there. This man was saved, you know, he knew the Lord Jesus as Savior, but the copilot didn't know the Lord Jesus as Savior. But they were both really, really good pilots. Saved lots and lots of hours in an airplane. And they're flying a nice jet. So no, there's no coincidences. So they're flying along. It's at night, thankfully. They think they know where they are, but they can't talk to anybody to make sure, and they're looking out the window.
00:30:20
And there are no lights.
Not one.
Single white. Oh, I was so glad when I was flying. We could lookout and there's towns and there's lights and such and we had a pretty good idea where we were. At least pilots did.
This guy was flying an airplane with several people on.
The airplane.
And let me ask you another question. If you're driving a car down the road, what happens if you run out of gas? Does that ever happened to anybody? Anybody ever run out of gas in a car? They have me one time. Anybody up here in the front row been in a car when the car ran out of gas?
That happened to you one time.
We were on the lake. We were still in Illinois. I think we were on our Illinois Circle tree or something else, and it was a gas station.
And somehow.
Our dad came and met us up because.
I think it's my uncle's car.
So.
Well, I think behind us are spread of us or that side and yeah.
Was actually and then when we got to the uncles house he dropped off the car, dropped off the car.
Then he came back and.
I.
I gotcha. That's a good story. Hey, but the thing about a car when you run out of gas, because this happened one time we bought a car and I was so busy paying attention. Well, how do I do this and do that in the car we were driving home and it ran out of gas? Well, well, you just pull off to the side of the road. You might have to walk a little ways to get a gas can and put some gas in it and walk back to the cars. No big deal, right? Hopefully you.
Place you can pull over, but at the end of the day it's not that big a deal. What do you do if you're at 15,000 feet in the air and you run out of gas in the middle of the night? You have no idea where you are.
Oh, that'd be scary. Wouldn't it be scary?
I think that would be scary. He was praying a lot.
He was praying a lot. Well, we'll come back to that story. That's that's an interesting story. What happened there?
You know, I was thinking about this verse that you guys said. A lot of you guys said that verse.
Here in Proverbs 418, the path of the justice as the shining light that shineth more and more into the perfect day. Isn't that a nice verse?
Made me think of some other verses that are kind of like that talk about.
Light in the Bible You know, there's a lot about light in the Bible, but.
I'd like to read in Matthew 5.
We read.
This is something Lord Jesus said.
About light.
In Matthew 5. In verse 14.
Lord Jesus is talking, He says. You are the light of the world. Hmm.
A city there sat on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men Light a candle and put it under a bushel, put on a Candlestick and give it light to all that are in the house. I don't know if I have time to. I've got a different kind of bushel basket here, but I don't know if I have time to try that. That says.
Let us so OK, so here's the thing we're going to, I want you to pay attention here because this is a real important verse. So I'm going to read it two different ways.
And I want to see if anybody can notice.
Because one time I'm going to read it the right way, and one time I'm going to read it the wrong way, and I want you to see if you can tell what's the difference.
OK, I'm going to read it one way right now.
Make your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. So that's one way. I'm going to do it another way.
00:35:03
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.
I made one change.
Can anybody?
Tell what the one thing I changed was.
Willie, what's the one thing I changed?
Did I? I didn't try to. That's a good. So you thought that? OK. What did you think I changed William?
That had to do with the father part.
In heaven. OK, I didn't mean to change that part anyway, I don't think I.
I'll put more emphasis on the word kind of. OK, that's a good catch. I actually said a different word. There's one word that I changed. I'm going to read it to the It's in the It's the very first word, the very first word in this verse. It says, let your light so shine before men. What's your light?
OK, let's see.
There's everybody's flashlight.
Working good.
Oh, wait.
Yeah, hey, don't tell anybody yet.
Does your flashlight work?
Doesn't is your flashlight work by the way?
You're welcome to play with these, just don't shine anybody's eyes. Why almost everybody's flashlights working? Does anybody not working?
Does yours not work?
Everybody is working now. You're faster than. I'm just pulling out here.
Some of these don't work. This one is not. Look at.
This is how it came out of the package.
It came out of the package.
Not lighting. It doesn't work.
Is there anything different? Can you guys see something different on this flashlight? Not you Lily. Does it look the same?
Yours. It looks the same on the outside. It's the same weight. You kind of know what it is, don't you, William? Yeah.
What's in here? What's going on?
There's something that's stopping this from lighting up. I want to open this up.
Try to here look at this.
This.
May be a little white lie.
Oh, this could be a little bit of selfishness.
Has anybody ever maybe not told the whole truth?
I have. I've done that. Anybody else? Does this look like a big deal?
It's just a little tiny. What color is that? Can you even tell me what color that is?
Can you tell what color that is? It's clear you can't. I mean, you can hardly see it. It's not a big deal, is it? No.
But it's keeping that flashlight from coming on.
You know what? That's just like sin.
Sin separates us from God.
Oh boys and girls, I know you've all heard the gospel before.
The Lord Jesus loves you so much.
Isn't that wonderful that we can talk about how much the Lord Jesus loves us that he would die on the cross?
Because he loves you so much.
Well, that's like this little piece of plastic it keeps.
It separates us from God. OK, well we'll take that piece of plastic out and now this light should work just like all the other ones, hopefully.
You know what I was thinking about when I was thinking about that verse and I changed one word.
I was thinking about those. There. Works OK. I was thinking about those. I've never owned one, but I've seen these little flashlights that are for emergency use and you know, these went on batteries and the batteries will die someday. They have little flashlights, though, that you can crank them and you can make that light come on, why you crank them. It's kind of a nice little thing to do.
00:40:02
That's making the light shine, isn't it? But that's not what our verse says that I just read.
It says let your light shine. How do we stop that light from shining? And once we know the Lord Jesus as Savior, is it possible to keep that light from shining once we know the Lord Jesus as Savior and He loves us a lot?
And he wants us to let our light shine.
See if I can do this.
You know, wasn't that nice of, I should say, wasn't that brave of Mr. Rule yesterday to talk about a time in his life when his light wasn't shining as bright?
But you know what? I've, oh, I've had lots of times in my life where that happens. Maybe, maybe I got upset about the way somebody was treating me. So all of a sudden that kind of covers up a little bit of that light, doesn't it?
Oh, what about?
Well, ma'am, we, you know, as a he was a boy or girl at school and we know that they don't know the Lord Jesus as Savior and we want to tell them about the Lord Jesus, don't we? That'd be letting our light shine. But what if I get in a fight with them at school? Oh, my lights getting covered up.
Is he going to want to listen when I want to tell him about the Lord Jesus?
There's not as much light that comes out when I start covering it up, is there?
Now.
What if I'm kind of shy and I don't want to tell my friend about the Lord Jesus? I'm just going to empty this out and.
I know this is going to work because you can kind of see through this bucket a little bit in the middle of the night. I just don't know if you can see it during the day, but we'll try it. I got my light here and I'm going to cover it up like that verse says. Can you see it?
Not very well. Can you? It's pretty dark.
Yeah, that verse says you don't hide it under a bushel.
Well, our times aren't a noun. I would feel bad not finishing that story, so maybe I better finish that up. You know what happened? This man, this missionary, this man that was doing a missionary flight, he, they prayed and he flew as well as he possibly could. They turned down all the lights inside so they could see outside really good. And they still couldn't see, and they still couldn't see and they still couldn't see anything.
And then all of a sudden, the Lord showed him the way. He landed the airplane.
Safely.
And.
You know what happened? There had been a military coup and so there's a blackout and weighs allowed to have lights on. And as soon as they land the airplane, all these lights shone on them and all these men with guns came and they got these guys out of that airplane in a hurry.
Now we said there's no coincidences with God. You know what happened? A whole bunch of those military guys got saved because they took that missionary into the airport, locked them up. They thought they were going to treat them badly.
And he told he let his light shine real bright. He didn't. He and the others that were with him wasn't just him.
They shine that light really bright and.
Those men that were there that were going to do something bad.
They learned about the Lord Jesus and a bunch of them got saved. Isn't that wonderful? That's what the Lord Jesus, that's what he wants for you to be a light to the people that are around us. Now real quick, we got one minute left. The reason why I've got, oh, hey, that's perfect. Hey, can I borrow that for just one second? You see how he's got this red light flashing?
Why would it be important to have a red light? That's why I bought those that kind because it has a red light on it.
Hmm, why would we want a red light? I wonder if somebody on this side over here, why would we have a red light on a flashlight?
How about this young fellow here? Can you think why we would want to have a red light on a flashlight?
Especially one that blinks. How about this young man here? What do you think?
I.
Well, I'm just going to give away the answer. One reason is if you want to give somebody warning.
00:45:02
And you can see there's trouble ahead.
The other day we were on the side of the road working on the car is at night and I kind of wish we would have had more of those little red lights that we could put out there. People could see there's a problem ahead. So that's another way we can shine for the Lord Jesus. Sometimes we have like in the gospel meaning sometimes we have warnings.
So, boys and girls.
If you don't walk away with anything else, just walk away this morning with the fact that Jesus loves you so much.
And he gave us his word.
I was going to read the verse about the word being.
Lamp to our feet. Isn't that wonderful? He also gives warning in his word.
But then after you're saved, he wants you to be lights for him.
Idolatry in Hosea & Him Who Draws Us
Address—Stephen Rule
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Let's begin our meeting this afternoon by returning to a hymn we sang yesterday. We won't sing as much of it this time. We'll sing 4 verses out of it #64 if we'd sing verses 3:00 to 6:00.
But someone else have to start in a moment before we do these. The words that impressed me yesterday when we were singing it. And part of the burden on my heart is that when we're done this afternoon, we would see more of the person who's actively at work in our life. And so when we sang the words yesterday, our God, the center is his presence, fills that land.
I thought it would be a wonderful way to begin singing again this afternoon, so if someone would start.
#64 Beginning with verse three, we'll sing down to verse 6.
I'll share with you a little bit of the burden on my heart and I'll give you a little outline of where we'll head this afternoon.
I'd like to take up the subject of idolatry in the Book of Hosea.
That sounds intimidating and scary and abrasive. That's not the burden that's on my heart. Burdens that's on my heart is what we shared in the hymn that we would come to know the person who's actively at work in our lives to remove those idols. So we're going to apply some things the book of Hosea has written to Israel, obviously.
Dealing with primarily the 10 tribes.
The problems that they had with idolatry and how good God took them away.
But yesterday we had how or not yesterday, but Friday, how we were called out or called out people. And Abraham was called out and he was called out from that land of idols. And we were referred to Joshua 24, how he was called out from beyond the flood where there were idols. He comes into the land, he's got that altar, he worships God and he leaves it and he has to be brought back.
And Jacob comes along.
And Jacob goes back, and what's he bring from that far land in Rachel's baggage? He brings idols, and those idols need to be taken care of to enjoy the land. And so finally, later in his life, when he's heading to Bethel, the place where Abraham spent time, those idols get buried.
And then the nation of Israel gets taken out of the land of Egypt, and they come out of that land, and what do they bring with them? They bring idols, and they're in the wilderness and they're not very far along their way, and they're worshipping the golden calf. And the Lord has to take it out so that he can enjoy that fellowship that he wants with his people.
And that's the burden on my heart, I want to tell you.
00:05:00
I've already said the focus, the center, what I've enjoyed in reading and rereading and reading and rereading the book of Hosea and certain chapters in it is over and over and over again. We're going to hear those words. I will.
It's God at work in your life. It's God at work in your life when he frustrates you.
It's God at work in your life when you feel abandoned by Him, and we'll see that in the book of Hosea.
It's God at work in your life when it goes through the baby book of your spiritual journey and He draws out and explains His love to you. And it's got at work when He brings us in to that point where we can leave those idols behind. But it's a process. It was a process with Israel. This book that will spend most of our time in this afternoon was written approximately 2750 years ago.
And most of it's not accomplished yet.
2750 years of God's patience.
That same patient God is at work in your life and in mine so that He can bring us together in full fellowship with Himself to enjoy Himself. That's the burden that's on my heart. But sometimes we slip when we fall and we have to go back over things. So I'm going to give you a visual picture to hang part of the message on.
Monday morning.
I was in our kitchen and running just a little bit late. A few minutes late. And so I was hustling around, went to the fridge, grabbed milk for Paul and the orange juice and a bottle of hot sauce and a nice quart jar of chopped up jalapenos. And Add all four of these things in my arm and I was hustling a little faster than normal across the kitchen floor and the next thing I knew I was flat on.
Back and the jalapeno jar was smashed. There's glass everywhere and there were jalapenos everywhere and I was lying there stunned. I didn't, I didn't get up for a moment or two. How did I get here?
I had no idea how I got there. I had to think back through it.
We have a refrigerator and about six weeks or so ago that refrigerator developed a problem where the defrost drained, that water started to pool at the bottom of the fridge and then we first noticed it when it pulled to the bottom of the fridge and overflowed onto the floor. Found the problem and.
Having tried to learn in life to not leave problems that involve solutions that require technical expertise that I don't possess, I went to the.
Fount of all knowledge YouTube and.
Speaking facetiously but there's a lot of useful information and I was looking for our model of fridge and I couldn't find it but I found something similar so I watched the 10 minute video or something on how to repair your defrost drain on your fridge and it's beyond me.
It was beyond my technical expertise you had. I would just have to handle it on a Saturday someday where you can take everything out of the fridge and put it all in the back porch and remove all the shelves and unscrew the inside of the fridge and get some kind of hot water and make sure you have plenty of it. And you pour it down this drain in the center of the fridge and you'll clear it out. So I'm going to do this, but it's warm outside and it's going to take a while and I'll wait till it's a little cooler and in the interim we'll.
The bottom of the fridge.
Done that in your life, Found a problem, recognized it and gone. Looking for a solution somewhere and it's complicated. Can't get rid of that problem, but I'll patch it up.
You may have an idol in your life and you're aware of it, and you'll patch it up. And so we did. We mopped out the bottom. We waited for the colder weather. Colder weather came, and it wasn't quite so convenient to deal with quite yet.
And a whole week went by instead of a few days, and that water had come out of the fridge along underneath the mat in front of the kitchen sink. And when I took off across the kitchen, thinking about hurrying with the breakfast routine, my foot hit that get it out from under me and I was flat on my back.
And that may happen. We're going to look at how the Lord uses frustration in our life to bring us to really deal with an idol that's been there.
00:10:01
That we've been aware of. And so the Lord did. Umm.
Let's spare you the details because it's secondary that night.
That night, not six more weeks, pulled the fridge out and found the blockage in the drain. It was so much easier than it looked like and I got help from multiple people, my dad and my wife, and cleaned out the drain that was clogged with gunk. Put it back in and the next morning checked in the bottom of the fridge and bone dry. Beautiful taken care of.
And I got an e-mail at work partway through the day. There's water in the same spot on the kitchen.
More sometimes these matters with idols, they keep popping up, they go in their back because you haven't gotten to the root of it. Well, we had actually, in this particular case, we had gotten to the root of it. We had found the blockage, but when we put the drain back in, we just kind of aimed it at the bottom of the fridge instead of bending a little bit into the drain pan where it belonged. So that night we got to look at it again and solve the problem and at least.
Thursday morning, anyway, both the spots that we're supposed to be bone dry, we're still bone dry.
You've got to go back to the root and if we're waiting and we're waiting for something to get dealt with.
Then it's not going to happen. We've got to go and allow the Lord. Really.
To go back to the root, help us to deal with it so that we can walk and fellowship with them. That's his delight. So let's turn to the Hosea 14/8.
This was written down on my.
Memory, My memory exists on paper. It's written down on my memory this morning. I don't think I've ever heard it read in the breaking of bread before. Maybe in your local assembly it's a staple, but I've never heard it before until I heard it this morning. Just made me smile. There's 31,109 verses in the word of God. The Lord had that for us this morning. I believe the Lord has that for us this afternoon. So let's begin with that theme for the rest of our meeting.
Hosea 14, verse eight. Here's the conclusion of the matter.
This is what God wants, and it's a conversation. He wants fellowship with you and He wants fellowship with me, and He's going to work to remove all those things where our eyes are turning other places so that He can have that conversation with us. It's got four parts to it. The Lord speaks twice. Israel speaks twice, and so Israel speaks first. Ephraim, the 10 tribes in particular, I'm going to speak of them usually as Israel.
But their special problem was idolatry, for which they were removed from the land. And it says Ephraim shall say.
What have I to do anymore with idols? Isn't that beautiful?
That's what God wants. He wants to bring our heart to the point where we say I don't want him anymore.
What do I have to do with those anymore? I have something, I have someone so much better. What have I to do anymore with idols? And the Lord answers. The next clause is the Lord speaking. And the Lord says I have heard him. You know, perhaps in your life and in mine. We feel like the Lord either doesn't care.
Or he's not paying any attention.
But his ear is listening for the words that he wants to put in our mouth. He wants to hear from them. And we'll get to those at the very end. He's listening to hear from our hearts those words that I don't want anyone else but you. I'm done with idols because I have you. And his ears are listening throughout all of our lives. And he's at work throughout all of our lives to bring us to that point. And then he hears those words and.
Says here, I have heard him. Isn't that beautiful? He brings us to that point all the way to the end until he can hear it, hear it coming from the heart and it delights him. And then it says.
And observed him.
He was watching. It's not just listening to the words, not just listening to the words that are in the heart and the words that come from the mouth. His eyes are on our lives every step of the way, in every action. Everything that's going to happen to you the rest of today, everything that's already happened, the Lord has had His eye on you with a desire for your blessing in the end. And he says I have observed. What has He observed?
I believe I've enjoyed at least that what he observed were those works meet for repentance. John the Baptist when he preached, he preached repentance and there's a need for repentance. There's repentance at the beginning of this chapter, but God is looking not for your and my failure so he can punish him. He's looking for the repentance and the works that come with it that show the repentance and I believe he says I've seen.
00:15:26
I've observed it. The Lord is giving testimony to the fact that with his people as earthly people, Israel, and we're applying it to the believer in this dispensation this afternoon. He's looking for it and he says that's it. That's what I was looking for and I've observed it and he had delight and he shares it with them. I saw those works of repentance.
An Ephraim answers and they say something that's beautiful. I think I am like a green fir tree.
There may be some special things about this particular tree, but what I've enjoyed is at least it's an Evergreen. They had had little fits of revival, little moments at which there had been maybe a little turning toward God, and then they'd slipped, perhaps even worse, into their idolatry. And maybe you or I have done that. Maybe there's a particular sin in our life, a particular idol that's been there for a long time, and we know it.
And it hasn't been dealt with yet.
It's not been taken away, maybe for a little period of time. We do better in that area and we feel a little bit better, but it hasn't been dealt with. The Lord wants to deal with it and He's the actor in dealing with it. I know that there's a side to things in which we have a personal responsibility. And so in First John, it ends with little children, keep yourselves from idols. There's personal responsibility. The side that's on my heart this afternoon, though, is the work of God in our life to look for it.
And to respond to it. And so they say we're Evergreen. There's a recognition that they've reached and will reach it in its fullness When we're with him in glory, we've reached that point where we're not going to be a dry tree again. We're going to be green. There's not going to be any period of time when there isn't that evidence of life there.
And then the Lord answers, and he says something that he's been looking for the whole time.
He says from me is thy fruit found? From me is thy fruit found. We'll enjoy at the end and make sure we have time for it. A little something a little earlier in this chapter and you'll find it's the person himself that's precious and that brings about that fruit. And really we have it. That life that we have that we were hearing about yesterday. We were being reminded of yesterday. That life that delights to respond in obedience, delights to respond.
Delights to act independence and there's fruit for God there. And so that's the Lord's conclusion from me. Is thy fruit found? Now let's go back and we'll just pick up a few little details and three earlier chapters in the book of Hosea, and then we'll return to this chapter to conclude and pick up a few more details here. But we're going to look and Hosea chapter 2 and how the Lord frustrates us.
We're going to look in Hosea chapter 5 at how we might have a sense of abandonment, and Hosea Chapter 11, we'll look at how the Lord presents to us the way that He's worked in love in our life to draw out our hearts, and then we'll return here. Let's turn to Hosea 2.
And Justice pick up a few little highlights throughout the chapter.
Here's one of the ways in which we're going to start with verse five, and one of the ways in which idols get a grip on our life is given in verse 5. For their mother hath played the harlot, she hath conceived them, she that conceived them hath done shamefully. For she said, I will go after my lovers. I believe in referring to idols.
Literal in the case of Hosea's wife, for she said.
I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.
What's wrong with bread and water? What's wrong with food? Apostle Paul says what? The first two sets of these things right? He says having food and raiment will be there with content. Here we started with food, bread and water. Raymond Wool and flax, a covering and the end of the verse. Mine, oil and my drink. I'm not sure.
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At least I have enjoyed this application anyway.
There's in oil, there's a couple multiple ways in which it gets used in Scripture, at least in this verse. I think what she's looking for is the sense of refreshment and those Eastern cultures, they had their might. The Lord said when he came in mine head with oil, the house not anointed. I'm not quoting it precisely. You haven't anointed my head with oil. There wasn't a refreshment that was normal. There's also in Psalm 45. It refers to the oil of gladness. So there's a certain sense of.
Sadness and drink can be different things, but certainly in this book there's the vine and the wine. So I would like to at least apply it here to the wine of joy. And so this person is saying.
Are any of these things wrong? Not in themselves. There's nothing wrong with them. The problem is in the middle of that verse. I will go after my lovers that give me.
These are the sources of those things that I need, and that's where the problem lies.
The heart has been turned to something other than their Lord, and when our heart turns to something other than our Lord Jesus Christ as the source of these things, we're going to go in the wrong direction. After an idol, there's nothing wrong with the things in themselves.
On purpose, at least this afternoon, to only give one at the most 2 examples of idols and a very personal one here in a moment.
Purpose, the burden on my heart is not the point at your life and say, oh, here's your problem because I don't know what your problem is. The Spirit of God knows where your eyes have turned, but the eyes turn away from him because there's something here that I need. I need food, I need clothing, I need joy, I need gladness, and I'm going to find it in my lovers.
I don't know who your lovers are, but I'm going to give you a very simple example to try to illustrate something that I think applies to try to illustrate the point that we can have idols in our lives at any age, and in fact, we probably have a whole lot of them. You'll notice throughout the book, it doesn't say they're idle. They're idle. They're idle. They're idle. It says the idols throughout the book. What have I to do anymore with idol Z Frame is joined idols let him alone. It's plural throughout the book.
And so perhaps in your life there's multiple ones there and illustrate 1.
I had an illustration for you from Wednesday, but I'm going to replace it with one from this morning. Same thing.
And it's very personal in this sense, but.
I like to be in control. You could stop and put a period there, but I like to be in control of my schedule and be able to plan it out and kind of leave a little bit of slack in there so that there's room for some adjustments along the way and deal with matters and then things work out well.
I've got it planned nicely and it's just flips in so easily. And I'll skip Wednesday's example and I'll give you this morning's. Well, it started last night. I wanted to get a little bit of food for for breakfast place. I went convenience store at a gas station. I went on on Friday morning. It worked out well, better than the restaurant I went to yesterday. So this morning I was going to go back. No, I think I'll go on.
I think I'll go on Saturday night. That'll leave my.
Find clear get rid of some problems that could come in this morning. Keep my mind fresh so I can focus on the word. You know, I'd like to like to have these thoughts fresh in my soul to share them with you with freshness. And so I'll keep the schedule free. And so I went out to go to my car and I remember a couple of years ago this parking lot was just jammed like it is right now. And if I go and get.
This what I'm going to eat for breakfast tonight.
Then.
I'll come back and I'll drive all around this parking lot and I'll park way on the far side and it'll be a problem when we're packing up in the morning and.
I don't want to. I'd love to get this taken care of, but I'm going to go this morning and I'll go early enough that.
Things will work out well.
I like to be efficient. I hate to get dressed twice, so my wife beat me into the shower this morning. So I waited until that was done. I finally I'm ready to go out, go down to the car, get to the gas station, park, go up to the door and it's locked.
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Before I went on Friday morning, I'd read the reviews and they're always locked there, but they weren't on Friday and it worked out really well. So this morning it was going to work too. Now they were locked during their business hours. I couldn't get in, so I went down through multiple extra traffic lights to another place and they didn't have anything appropriate. I found something. I got back to the hotel room this morning and so far.
I wouldn't say so good, but you know, accepting it from the Lord and so on.
I hadn't learned the lesson yet. I hadn't even thought about the lesson yet. Just trying to accept these things from the Lord, you know?
And put down one of the bags of stuff and it got pumped on the floor and now it's strewn on the floor and I'm frustrated.
Because my idol got dumped on the floor. Not the food. My idol of being in control of my schedule that I've had with me my entire life probably got kind of broken up and left on the floor because I'm not in control of my skids. Never have been, never will be. The Lord is, and when He wants to order it for his purposes of good, he's going to order it for his purposes of good.
He will frustrate that situation.
And so whatever it is, and so looking at frustration this chapter, here's this person, Ephraim, chasing these things, good things. Nothing wrong with having a schedule.
Is natural and proper to accomplish things. That is not the problem. Not wrong to have A to do list. That is not the problem. The problem is in this verse to make it so clear. I will go after my lovers that give me. There's the problem. It's my lovers that give me that thing that I need. That's the problem.
And so if we look at a little bit further down verse 6.
What happens?
Therefore, behold, I will. I love that over and over in this book. You can look it up, not just a simple search because Ephraim says I will multiple times too, but look up where the Lord says I will and you'll find it in a lot of context. Some of them are beautiful. It's all the blessing that he wants to bring in. Not this one. This one is his ways to draw out the heart to frustrate.
To turn those eyes from the lovers. And so it says, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall. That she shall not find her paths. I like it, Mr. Darby's translation in verse six, because he repeats again in the middle of the verse. And I will. I like that emphasis. Not just once. I will, I will.
If we don't remember anything else from this afternoon and it all becomes a sludgy mess in the memory.
Let those two words ring in your ears. God is at work in your life and in mind with a purpose to bring us into fellowship with Himself. And he says in every circumstance of our life, I will. And what does he do? I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. Very simple example this morning, but I had my paths, I had my plans, I had my idea. Not a bad one either, and not for a bad purpose.
Wanted extra time to keep my thoughts focused and clear, but they were my plans.
And the Lord says that's a problem, and I have to put my finger on it because you didn't ask me about them. Oh, it's just a little simple thing. But the point is you didn't turn to me in everything. And he says I will hedge up. I don't say every time you go to buy something in the store and it's locked, it's because you have an item in your life. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying he was speaking to me in that way because he's hedging up for this purpose.
And so he makes a wall.
And she can't find her paths. I'm going to skip down. There's a beautiful thing in verse 12 we'll pass by. It talks about vines and fig tree. Beautiful. You'll see those figures throughout the prophets, vines and figuries calling back to some things in Deuteronomy that perhaps we'll get to later. I want to skip down to a beautiful word in verse 14.
That word is therefore.
It was shocking to me and reading through to come across that word. Therefore, and in fact, I've read a little bit of Hosea and I would strongly encourage you if you wish to go back and really get more from the book. Mr. Kelly's introductory lecturers are very good. They're very nice. Brother Bruce Anstey's book on the Assyrian prophets, and the only part I've read is the part on Hosea so far. But very profitable, very worthwhile and I'd encourage you to read it and get more from the book. You'll only get a few.
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Today, go ahead and read it.
But one thing you'll find that some have said, Mr. Kelly at least said it. I can't remember Brother Anstey, but Hosea makes these sharp transitions. You're going along and he's talking to you, and all of a sudden, wait, where'd he go? And if I could put it loosely in this way, he completely juked me out on verse 14. I was leaning One Direction, and whoops.
I was metaphorically on the floor again because the 1St 13 verses is I will and he's frustrating them. And so there's a therefore. So there's a therefore that he's going to bring in judgment. We'll read verse 14.
Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her. And from there to the end of the chapter, you get all these. I will, I will, I will. And this time it's God bringing in His purposes and blessing for his earthly people. But it's the same God. And that's really what I want to bring out this afternoon. It's not so much the historical prophetic side of the book, but the same God, the same heart that He has with His earthly people matches His.
Start with us. The same way in which he deals with idols, with them is so similar to what he does with us. And so in verse 14, you're waiting for the spanking. And you hear what? Behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness.
There must be repentance. I don't want to Passover that side of things. That's why the Lord frustrates and doesn't allow the path to continue on and on without His voice in it. And that's why He speaks into it. But his purpose is not punishment. His purpose is not to bring vindictive judgment. His purpose is to draw out the heart so that we can have that conversation like we had at the end of the book, a conversation between our.
And his heart, and that's what he's at work doing here. And he says I will allure her. And over and over from here to the end of the chapter, I will give her her vineyards. Verse 15, they were taken away. Verse 12 destroyed, left for animals to wander through them. Now you get them back, but in fellowship.
With himself. And so that's the beautiful part going down to the end of the book. But I want to emphasize a couple other things here in verse 16. I shouldn't say it through the end of the book. I should say the end of the chapter, verse 16.
And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me. Is she?
So call me no more Bailey.
There's more than one thought here. It's a beautiful one.
Balaam Bale, I should say, was the idol, meaning Master Bailey. So it may be perhaps does include the thought that when A-frame is fully restored to the Lord in a coming day at the very end of the tribulation and brought back in the least, a remnant brought back into the land, they're never going to turn to idols again. They're not going to go back there. But there's another thought that's been suggested and I find very precious.
Especially in the context of the subject of idolatry, Because with idolatry, so often it's you better not touch that.
But Bailey means master.
And the Lord is our Lord, He says so clearly to the disciples in the night of his before his crucifixion in the upper room ministry. He says, if I then your Lord and Master, he is our Lord. He must remain our Lord. We're to be obedient as obedient men, but that's not enough. That is not enough. That doesn't satisfy his heart. And so at the beginning doesn't satisfy his heart with his earthly people either, that word.
She means husband.
And so he says, thou shalt call me husband. That's what he wants. He wants that personal relationship with every individual. I know in the church that we're members of his body with him in the head. Actually, you get more intimate than that part of the same.
I don't need to know the right words. He's the head and we're the body or his bride, and He's the bridegroom here with his earthly people. He says it's the same heart of God for his own. And he says I don't want a relationship that's based on nothing more than obedience. I shouldn't put it that way because obedience is a wonderful thing and it's beautiful in the Lord. The Psalm 22 is.
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A magnificent expression.
Of an obedient man. It's absolutely beautiful. So I shouldn't make it sound like obedience is secondary. It's vital.
But that's not the full heart of God and the full heart of God is to say, I want you in personal relationship with me. And so his work is done when they can say is she or my husband?
Just a little bit further down, verses 17 and on down in the chapter are loaded with I wills, but just to notice a couple more verses 22 and 23 in the first chapter.
I just want to make sure I'm not.
Getting something vital. But we'll look at 22 and 23, and there shall hear the corn and the wine and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel. Jezreel, and as mentioned in the first chapter, means scattered. They were to be scattered. Ephraim was the land of Israel. They were to be scattered and driven out of the land because of their idolatry. And it says here I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy.
They were to be told no mercy. LO ruama LOA, here it is mercy. And I will say to them which were not my people, the low am I. I will say to them, thou art my people, and they shall say thou art my God. It's not just when you read through the book of the Prophets, it's not memorizing. Aha, OK, here's Jezreel and here's Loru Alma, and here is.
So am I now Like those aren't in English, so let me memorize the definitions. Aha. At the end of chapter 2, I get there and I see that those are reversed. I got the fact down.
No, it doesn't satisfy the heart of God. You get to the end of chapter 2 and he brought them back into fellowship with himself, and they shall say, Thou art my God. Their heart isn't chasing those idols anymore. It's not after them. It's not full of them. That's not where their corn and their wine and their oil and their flax and their wool is coming from.
Their bread, their water. No thou art.
My God. So God works in frustration. He uses it in his I wills in Our Life, chapter 5.
Chapter 5 in this section. There's more in this section which is hitting a few little highlights.
But in this section, he's dealing with their sense of abandonment.
It may be that there's a sense of maybe I'll expand it a little bit on abandonment to barrenness in your life. There's that sense as that lack of freshness.
There is not that close personal sense of the Lord's presence there one might be.
Religion. There might be the outward things of Christianity applying it to ourselves, and we'll see some of the outward that appears in this chapter that I don't believe was in the earlier chapter, just that it didn't happen to notice it.
But in chapter 5, just pick up a few details, a few principles, Chapter 5 and verse four it says.
In the middle of the verse, the spirit of ********* is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord and the pride of Israel that testified to his face. Therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall on their iniquity, due to also shall fall with them.
They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord.
But they shall not find him.
Perhaps this is where the Lord's at work in your life. Maybe it's not an idol that's quite so obvious. Maybe it's not an idol that most of your brethren could come to you and try to give you a hand with because it's obvious and out there and they can see it. These are ones that are coming to the Lord. They shall go with their.
Lamb and their Bullock.
No, they're flocks and they're herds and they're showing up.
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They're flocks and they're herds. They're showing up for worship and they're bringing flocks and herds. Looks pretty good, doesn't it?
To seek the Lord.
But they shall not find him. He hath withdrawn himself from them Who did it.
He hath withdrawn himself from them. What's happening here? Lord wants a work in our hearts. That was also read in the breaking of bread this morning, wasn't it? If we have time at the end, we'll see it again in the 14th chapter. It's the calves of our lips. It's the sacrifice that's coming from the heart through the mouth to Him. Ultimately, what's real, that's a delight to Him. There can be an impressive outward show. Was it wrong for an Israelite to bring a herd?
Or a flock? Absolutely not. That's not the point. Bringing a herd in a flock was a good thing.
Is it wrong to show up at the meetings? No, it's a healthy thing.
But the Lord wants you. He wants you in His presence, yes, and He wants you in His presence with your heart filled with Himself. And that's how He wants me to. He's not going to be satisfied without it. And so they show up and he says he hath withdrawn himself.
From them, this is another way that the Lord works to get at those idols that may be in our life. And if there is that barrenness, that sense of dryness, the sense of distance, the sense of abandonment by the Lord, and it's lurking in some corner of the heart, I just suggest to you, because that's what the Lord does here. That may be what he's doing at the moment.
In your life to give you a feeling, a sense.
That there's something that needs to be dealt with.
Want to pull a detail from verse 8?
Blow ye the cornet, and give you the trumpet, and Rhema cry aloud at Bethaven after thee, O Benjamin.
Remember Abraham? He came up.
Where did he put his altar? Right that Friday? Already put his altar.
Wasn't it at Bethel, the House of God?
Jacob leaves the land and he comes back and he goes S eventually he's finally, there's all those steps in his life and they're beautiful, but he's brought back and he buries his idols and he comes back to Bethel, the House of God, and he comes to know L Bethel, the God of the House of God. Why do I mention that with this verse?
Because Beth Haven, I believe is referring to the exact same physical geographic location.
It's talking about the same place, but Bethaven means House of vanity, House of emptiness, House of emptiness. Because the people that were showing up there had their idols, they had everything else to attract their heart, and they had Beth Haven. They had their worship and their outward, this and that and the other, and they didn't have the person that makes it all worthwhile.
And so the Lord says I'm going to bring judgment on it. And I call that place Bath Haven, a House of vanity emptiness, because.
In practical heart, they weren't coming to meet him there.
I want to briefly go back.
Read 2 verses of very little comment from the prior chapter.
They had no intention until this morning of reading them and I.
Lost my place on the page this morning and I was reading those verses.
But I was strongly impressed that I need to read those verses, so I'm going to read them to you with very little application.
But I believe the Lord has them for us this afternoon.
Verse 17 Ephraim has joined the idols, Let them alone.
Here's one I said very little application. I'll give just a little. He's joined idols.
That is his whole focus, not something that snuck in and hiding there under the saddle like Rachel's idols. It says hold of focus. He's joined there, let him alone. Isn't that awful? Isn't it awful to not have a sense of the Lord with you in your life?
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But the O Lord makes this comment on his people as He looks down into their hearts. It's not the bird of my heart this afternoon, but I do believe it's here for at least someone. Ephraim has joined idols. Let him alone.
Their drink is sour. They have committed ********.
Can include following after idols, It can include fornication and all that comes with it continually.
Her rulers with shame due love give ye. I'm going to read that in Mr. Darby's translation. Her great men passionately love their shame.
Her great men passionately.
Love their shame.
And that's the case. There can't be fellowship with God, there can't be the enjoyment of fellowship with him, and God says let him alone.
It's not that that's his end. It's not how the book ends. That's what he has to do temporarily to bring about the work of repentance in the heart.
Chapter 5 just to return to Chapter 5.
I'm going to go all the way through the end. There's a lot of I wills in this part and it's the Lord at work. But just one verse 14, I will be unto Ephraim as a lion and as a young lion to the House of Judah. There's a good lion in the next chapter we'll look at, but here it says I even I will tear.
And go away I will take away, and none shall rescue him.
Sure, prophetically, it's referring to what He would do with His people in the land, taking them out of the land and scattering them until that future day of regathering them. But I believe that is how He works when we've turned our back on Him or turned our heart on Him, even though our outward may be. OK, let's turn to Chapter 11.
I'd like to think of this as just as a word picture to help perhaps remember it. This is the Lord taking His earthly people back through their baby book. And as he goes through and he reviews the incidents with him, and He's going to do it in a future day too. When He restores them in a future day, that's what He does. When He restores our hearts, this is what He does. He takes us back and He shows us His hand in our life. That's one of the beautiful things we're going to receive someday as part of His.
Church as individuals that are believers, when we are at the judgment seat of Christ, it goes back and he reviews the whole thing. We're just going to be shocked. We're going to be shocked at that hand that was so perfect in its love and every single step of the way. It's going to be beautiful. And he's doing something similar here, I think, with his people in Chapter 11. And so it says in the first verse when Israel was a child.
That I loved him and called my son out of Egypt.
How long ago was that?
20-30, thirty, 400 ish years, something like that.
More than 3000.
Does he have what he wants with his earthly people yet? Not yet. Has he given up on them yet? No. We're looking at something that will actually happen in the future when he goes back and looks through it. We deal with an incredibly patient God. We deal with the God who, if he reveals to you this afternoon an idol in your life that's been there your whole life and you've never seen it before, it's not like he hasn't seen it before.
He's just ready to work on it. He's incredibly patient. He is so amazingly patient in his love to accomplish the end that he has for each one of us to bring us into that fellowship with himself. And so he goes back and he says, called my son out of Egypt, even applies it in the New Testament to the Lord Jesus out of Egypt. And if I called my son and it's applied to him, when he comes back up there having fled to Egypt, returning to the land, he goes through that same path.
People so that he can be that perfect sympathizer as they called them. So they went from them. They sacrificed them to Balaam and burn incense to graven images. I taught Ephraim also to go taking them by their arms. They knew not that I healed them. Perhaps they don't have the right figure here, but I'm visualizing in chapter and verse 3 apparent, you know, the parent got the child by their hands.
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And the baby's excited and he's taking those first few steps.
The parent is right there enjoying the whole process. You know, on Wednesday night we were enjoying a little baby and that little baby wasn't quite walking yet, but they were standing.
It was just enjoyable and they were rocking maybe a little bit, but it hasn't been that long, I don't think, since they've been standing. And it's a progress and you want to see that development. You want to see them continue to grow and reach manhood. In this case, you want to watch it.
Grow to its fullness. What's the Lord doing? I was right there with you. I was right there with you in your infancy. I was right there with you as a toddler. I was right there with you the whole way along, showing you my love to bring you to that full maturity of relationship with me.
And so he draws with the chords of a man with bands of love. The end of verse four. I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, And I laid meat unto them.
Different ways to look at the verse, but I've enjoyed this as an explanation from another. It was as though yolks weren't just for the necks. Apparently the yolk can also have some sort of a bridle with it and so that would hinder both the yolk and the bridle with hinder eating. Can imagine an ox that's tread out the corn. It's time to eat.
They have the right to eat or the animal that's done their work of the day and the oak has taken off and they're.
Encouraged, helped to eat. Who was the one that helped his people to eat, gave them food the whole way was the Lord. He got rid of those things that got in the way of their enjoying the food that they needed, and that's what He did for them.
There's more of what he would bring. The sword should abide in the city as in verse 6 and so on, but I want to go down to verse 8.
It's a beautiful touch on verse 8.
How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admiral? How shall I set thee as a boem?
This is, I believe you might say, God having a conversation with himself.
God looking at his people. We don't have time to read the verses. You can read them on their own your own. They're in Deuteronomy 29.
And in Deuteronomy 29, if you're writing it down, you read from verses 17 to 26, you'll get enough context to interpret this reference here. God, as he so often does, He doesn't have to budget an inch. He looks back at where he set them up with their charter in the land back in Deuteronomy. All the things that he expected, he brings them back to. And there in those verses in Deuteronomy, he speaks of one who would in their heart.
Turn to idolatry and they would be a stumbling block to all the others.
And they were going to be cut off and they were going to be made like Adma and Zeboam. Those were cities of the plain associated with Sodom and Gomorrah, and they were utterly wiped out.
The Lord is looking at his people, he says. How can I treat my people, the people as a whole? He cares the same way about idolatry as he did back in Deuteronomy. He wants a cut off.
But when he looks at his people, he says, how can I make them like Admiral and Zeboham? How can I treat them like those cities in the plain that are utterly wiped out and cut off? I can't do that. I can't do that. I'm going to bring back at least a remnant in to enjoy the land that I have for them. That's the heart of our God. If he has been dealing with you and he is dealing with you, with idols that are there in your life.
This is the end that he has. Maybe he needs to show you how awful they are.
Maybe he needs to show me how awful they are so that we'll be done with them in repentance. We've used them as awful. They take the heart away from him. But in his counsels he says, I don't want to destroy. How could I do that? How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? This is in the future in its fullness.
2750 plus years after it was written. He's not going to do it. He won't do it. And there's a reference to a lion in verse 10.
Skipped over a beautiful one. You can go back. There's a lot written on it. The Valley of Acorn Man chapter 2 That intended to go through with you that the Lord apparently didn't. So chapter 14.
For the second time today.
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Hosea 14 verse one O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. That's what goes down to the core, not just the outward actions goes down to the core. Take with your words and turn to the Lord. Say unto him, take away all iniquity and receive us graciously in this beautiful Lord. It's not even going to.
I don't know how to put it in the right way.
In a sense, he wants it so much he's not going to risk them getting it wrong. So he puts the words in their mouth. He puts the words in their heart. Really, that's what he's producing in the heart. It's not a vain repetition, but but.
He gives them the words to say.
So will we render the calves of our lips?
They say verse three, Asher shall not save us Asher or Assyria or the big imperial power of their day. Perhaps it represents any other human organized thing that I could turn to, to provide those things that I think I need, those essentials in my life. I'm not going to turn to them.
We will not ride upon horses. Of course, there's the military side to that.
And Solomon turned to them, But making a practical application of it. Horses are anything that extends our personal power. So any kind of ways of of adding to our personal power to accomplish the end that we have in mind. And he says, I'm not going to turn to that. Neither will we say anymore to the work of our hands. Ye are our gods.
For neither fatherless findeth mercy.
He planted those seeds for them back in Deuteronomy and he says to them, what does he have care for throughout the book?
A Levi stranger, a widow, and the fatherless God wanted them to have that heart for those because he had a heart for those. And now they come back and they have no right. They've lost it and their responsibility, they have no right. They're coming back repentant.
And they find a God who will take them not because of what they were by. Genealogy, per Southeast, is restoring as earthly people. I don't want to stretch it too far, but they're not being restored because of their parents, exactly. They're being restored because of the grace of God. And they take that place. They take the place that's fatherless and the Lord loves me.
With no rights, no claims except for his heart.
And that's how we come to him, no rights, no claims, simply in repentance because he loves us and he's at work. I will, I will, I will in grace and in government. Throughout the book, a couple more details.
Verse seven or no one. I want to make sure we get verse five. I really enjoyed this. I will be.
As they do, you know, in Egypt, they used the foot pedals to bring water up from the ground out of the Nile River, to water their fields, to have prosperity. But when they went into the land, they're told in Deuteronomy that there would be rain from heaven and dew from heaven. And in their sin, in their idolatry, it was cut off. Elijah prayed and it was cut off and they had their their drought.
But when they're restored here and they're looking back and they're seeing the dew, they could have seen the dew in the wilderness of the man that was on.
They're not hearing these words. I'll read it wrong. I will give them do. No, it says I will be as the dew.
It's personal, it's the Lord himself bringing out to them that all your fruitfulness and you can trace it through the end, all your fruitfulness.
Is going to come from me we read it at the beginning it was read this morning from me as thy fruit found well not only that I should say not only that that's fabulous that's kind of the conclusion but along the way I.
I will be as the dew.
One expression, let's pray who is what verse nine, who is wise and he shall understand these things prudent.
And he shall know them.
We all say it together in our hearts. I don't mean a response, but when the Lord reviews His life, our life with us, even if it's now in a fullness at the judgment seat of Christ.
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The response of the heart is here. The ways of the Lord are right.
Joshua walkin the ways of the Lord are right.
Our Response to the Lord's Love
Address—Ron Klassen Jr.
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.
Before we begin, I have an apology to make when my when our local brethren asked if I would take this last meeting, they added with that that you can have the liberty to speak whatever you feel is the Lord is laid on your heart. So although it's scheduled as a gospel meeting, I trust you will forgive me that that is not primarily.
What I feel, the Lord has put on my heart.
And I would say in that regard that in the last two nights we've heard clear and faithful gospel meetings. I don't know what else I could say tonight in regard to the gospel. And yet I know that the Lord is able to use whatever he wants. And certainly if you're here tonight and you don't know him as your Savior.
I trust that something that the Spirit of God would use.
Could be for your salvation, as we've been reminded.
God is such a giver and to think of saying no to Him.
What you'll lose out on?
South. With that in mind, and because I would like to speak tonight or this afternoon on the subject of response, we have this paper.
Copied out and I just like to sing together Number 75. Maybe a brother could start that for us.
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I think we all enjoyed yesterday.
If I can put it in the words of the Lord Jesus, He spoke to that woman in John 4.
If thou knewest God is a giver, you would ask of him.
And he would have given to the living water.
What a subject that we ponder. God is a giver and the gifts that He is.
Poured out freely and in his matchless grace.
Recently at home, we've gone through the book of Romans.
And in those early chapters.
Being.
Realizing that if we were going to come into the blessing of God.
We were helpless to get it on our own. If it was by righteousness, we had none.
And yet to learn that God did have for us a wonderful salvation, but it was completely by grace and through faith.
And then we got to the 8th chapter and I was just overwhelmed as we went through that chapter.
Of now that he is free to bless us on his own grounds and we just come as beggars.
All that he wanted to pour out. So it really will be just for a few moments, something of really what we had yesterday just to recount.
What God has poured out to us as His own, freely, by His matchless grace, I've enjoyed.
Definition of grace that someone gave.
They said.
Grace is Love's indulgence.
Just it's love pouring out, being indulgent as much as it can. And I believe that that's what we find in this chapter. And we'll just touch on a few things because that's not primarily what's on my heart, but I think an important beginning we we were reminded yesterday.
Verse 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. And verse 9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be the Spirit of God, dwell in you.
A wonderful result.
Of salvation by faith is that God imparts.
To each individual.
His indwelling spirit to abide until the day of redemption.
Isn't that amazing? A very person of a Godhead.
He gives us to reside, to lead us, as we have later on in these verses.
To seal us because he's made us his.
And no one could take us from him.
Verse 15 for ye have not received the spirit of ******* again to fear that's what we.
Were helplessly in ******* to sin and to Satan. But ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ABBA Father.
Yes, this spirit of God that indwells us.
He tells us. He gives us to know in a most blessed way that God is our Father now.
God is our Father.
We're his children.
How can it be?
You know, you may desire to show kindness to maybe a boy on the street.
And I've, you know, given them a little gift, a little something and.
Spoken to them about the Lord and then I went on.
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But if you wanted to, really.
Show your love to someone in great need and poverty.
Imagine doing what God has done.
To not just give us many things and to give us a nice house that we could stay in.
Or whatever, but to make us his very own children. Can you love more than that?
And he's going to take his very own children to his very own house.
That's what he's purposed.
Verse 17 And if children, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be, that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.
If children.
Thin air.
Errors of all that God has.
Joint heirs.
With our Lord Jesus Christ.
Is striving for something today.
It was exercising.
What we heard yesterday in regard to riches, or some particular, as we just heard idle, that our hearts are pursuing after.
To be reminded that the danger in that thing is so much greater than we realize.
The power of it and how it will plunge men into.
To destruction and perdition. How it will blind.
And everything is ours already. Are we struggling so hard to get some particular thing?
And God tells us, you know, as my children, you're going to inherit all things.
Verse 28.
We know.
We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.
To them who are the called according to his purpose.
Imagine that in each and everyone of our lives as the children of God.
Because we are the children of God. God is working. I love that we just heard. I will, I will.
He's working so that everything in our life is working together for our good.
Everything what?
A consolation. What an encouragement to know that as we pass through and we were reminded that we don't know what's ahead, it doesn't look good.
But whatever is ahead, and however the power of Satan forges forward in the in the powers of evil, we can know because God is God and because his love never changes, that everything that is in our life that he allows in our life, that he works in our life is for our good.
Verse 29 For whom He did foreknow, He did all. He also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren.
You ever wanted to be someone great?
Something great? Well.
If you're one of his children, he's dusting you for the the greatest thing.
And that's to be just like his son.
Have you ever heard this quote before?
Every spiritual blessing.
That God has given us in Christ.
Is an apex beyond which even God himself could not go.
Every spiritual blessing that God has given us, He gave us. If I could say this to the Max.
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Not even 3/4. It's the highest that he could go, and then he poured it out on us freely.
Verse 34 in the middle of verse, who also make us intercept. Well, let's look at verse 32. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, How shall He not with Him also freely give us?
All things.
God and all the richness of his heart didn't hold back His greatest treasure.
That's the kind of love we're loved with.
He did not spare his son, but he delivered him up.
For us all.
And he says to us, isn't that a proof that he's going to give you everything that's the best for you?
Then he speaks about the verse we read God who also makes intercession for us because in our pathway home we do fail because there are many dangers and pitfalls. He didn't just die for us, He lives for us. And when I think of him being a servant forever, I think of Him constantly.
Hebrews puts it he lives. What does he live for? He lives to make intercession for us.
You know, as you go through Romans, I think just once or twice, it speaks of the love of God.
He come to this chapter and he keeps pouring out on us and you say ha.
Another another wonderful blessing. Another wonderful place.
And then at the end he says this.
Verse 35 Because we don't have to question now whether he loves us.
He didn't say it, he proved it.
But again it says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written, for thy sake we're killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
This is very real to the apostle and to the disciples they faced.
All the day long, every day, they were their life was endangered.
But the question will any of these things distress famine, Things that, you know, we fear?
Nakedness or peril or sword, Will that separate us? Can it separate us from that love?
No.
If we could lose that love, we could lose, we would lose everything, but just the assurance that none of these things outward. I would say things in situations.
None of them can separate us from his love. And then there are these other things and they're, they're more fearful, I suppose.
Nay, verse 37 and all these things were more than conquerors through him that loved us, for I am persuaded that neither death.
Nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Death.
Can happen a moment.
Angels, principalities, or powers were reminded that spiritual.
Powers are having their day and will no doubt increase as the time and the day gets darker. And you know of ourselves, we can't even see them, let alone prepare ourselves for them. We're no match for these spirits.
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But this comfort to our hearts, they will never separate us from that love. Never.
If we went over to chapter 12, because there's a little parenthesis of chapters 9:10 and 11:00.
The apostle says in the light of all this.
I beseech you, by the compassions of God.
Let you yield your bodies a living sacrifice.
In view of what I've just told you, In view of all that God has poured out upon you.
Could you respond? You can respond this way.
You know the thing about love?
Because it does love its objects. It delights.
In a response.
And our God is no different.
It doesn't change his love, but it does delight his heart.
What is our response?
To this love.
These superlatives, so these mighty glorious.
Stupendous blessings.
That are ours irrevocably.
Let's go back to the minor prophets.
Very last one, the Book of Malachi.
This was Israel's response to all that God did for them.
Perhaps as we read a few of these things and I just want to pull out a verse here and there.
We can identify.
With his people of old, he begins in verse two of chapter one. I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us?
You know the book of Malachi is unique.
In the Book of, Havoc said I'm going to go and stand on my watch and hear what he says to me and what I shall answer him.
But when you get to Malachi.
The Lord answers for them.
The omniscient God.
Answers for them and you know, it's very searching.
If God has the omniscient God who knows me through and through as we had, he observes and he hears, and he knows me.
He has to answer for me.
Why? Perhaps it's because I'm not being honest.
Perhaps it's because I'm so blind, but I don't really realize.
And so he says, ye say he's answering for them.
Ye say.
Wherein how Saul loved us? How have you loved us? Can you imagine that after what we've just read in Romans 8?
How have you loved us?
You know when Jude writes, he says keep yourselves in the love of God because he knew the closer the day of apostasy becomes, the greater the danger of losing a sense of the love of God and that makes you vulnerable for the at least to be affected by the spirit of apostasy.
And that day is come drawing near.
If you begin to feel.
Let the Lord you're questioning whether he loves you.
Back in His presence, Go back to Romans 8 and cry out to Him as we just had. What idol is is robbing the Lord of my heart? How could he show any more how much he loved us?
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First, let's start in the middle of verse 6. All priests that despise my name. And ye say we're in, have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar, and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? And that ye say the table of the Lord is contemptible. And if he offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if he offer the lame and sick, is it not evil?
Offer it now until thy governor, will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person, saith the Lord of Hosts.
He says offer to me.
Offer to the governor what you're offering to me. Will he accept it?
Brethren, are we so careful to make sure the government's requirements are being given to him and then leaving the rest whatever's leftover for the Lord?
Verse 9 says, And now I pray you, beseech God, that you will be gracious unto us.
We say, well, we got to make sure the governor is satisfied and then we say the Lord understands. Yes, he does.
Understands very clearly.
What our priorities are.
The table of the Lord.
Polluted.
Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naughty?
Neither do ye Kindle Fire on mine altar for not.
I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of Hosts. Neither will I accept an offering.
At your hand.
You won't go and open the House of the Lord.
And then close it again.
The Lord's presence is not virtual.
And neither can it be adopted to that mode.
You know, the equivalent of Malachi for the Christian dispensation we know is the Church of Laodicea.
And again, really the Lord.
I said to his sister one time, I've never heard anyone say I'm rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.
Maybe we don't live in the time period of Laodicea, she said. I'll tell you how we say that. We say that we come to the prayer meeting and.
And we there's a few things expressed of needs of our brother and that's very proper in its place. And then we pray for that and maybe a thing or two more and then a brother says Amen. And there's a few Amen, she said. That's how we how we say we're rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. You know what really?
Affected my heart. I don't think Leia to see has said that verbally.
But again, the Lord who knows our hearts and who cares?
He says it for them.
Is it possible, beloved, that?
We like Laodicea.
You can find out a way.
To go on without him.
Maybe there's more attendance that way.
I know there are some of our brethren that drive almost an hour to get to meeting and then you turn around and drive almost an hour to get home.
I feel for that, I do.
But who's there and what did he do for us?
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The table of the Lord is polluted.
Did they say that? He said you did by what you're offering me?
Verse 12. Verse 11. For from the rising of the sun, even to the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the heathen.
God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the Saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are about Him. He's worthy of the best offering of a pure offering, one that comes truly from self judged hearts.
But ye have profaned that ye say the table of the Lord is polluted, and the fruit thereof, his meat is contemptible.
Ye said also behold what a weariness it is.
Not very long ago a sister said to me, we don't travel much.
But the few times that we have.
We go to another assembly and she said, Lord, stay mourning at the end of the meeting. I'm overwhelmed.
The sense of the Lord's presence and the leading, the precious leading of the Spirit of God, she.
She said. Then we come home.
And I have to say, it's dead.
And she was weeping and she didn't have a critical spirit.
And I've been there.
And I know what she's talking about.
The table of the Lord is polluted because of what's being offered there. You know, in the chapter two he says it starts out and now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you.
If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts.
I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yeah, I have cursed them already.
Because you do not lay it to heart.
The priests. The priests were to represent God to the people, and the people to God.
And you know, the sisters, they can't speak up and change that.
They're just there.
But to see her weeping?
All ye priests, a brother told me just recently. He said I was listening to an old meeting.
Reading meaning and he said a brother just said a simple thought, but he said it really stuck with me. He said, you know, when the the light of testimony goes out in a place, it's not all at once, perhaps it begins to flicker like it did in Samuel's day.
And then perhaps goes completely out.
He said who's responsible for bringing the oil for the lamb?
The people are.
Everyone of us.
As we have the privilege to go and be where the Lord is in the midst, you know, he says here I'm a great king. We know he's even more than that as the Son of God.
So Brother Wally said, is there anything more precious than just simply meeting around the person of the Lord Jesus gathered to just his precious name? Why does it seem to lose its luster?
Why do we feel we wouldn't say it, but it's a weariness?
It's because.
There hasn't been that being before the Lord and how the Spirit of God, that oil given and then and then we take it and there is led by the Spirit of God, it comes out and there's that light reflected on the Candlestick and that's what will sustain our hearts and that's what will feed our hearts.
That's missing, but it's from the people. The priest didn't supply that.
But again.
As priests, everyone of us, what are we bringing?
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This commandment, O priests, is for you.
Our time is going quickly. I want to go on to chapter 3 and verse eight. Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But you say, wherein have we rocked thee? Entice and offerings.
You are cursed with a curse, for you've robbed me even this whole nation. Now this verse bringing all the ties into the storehouse.
That there may be meat in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive that, doesn't that touch our hearts?
He can. He speaks of their state and their attitude and their weariness and their.
Sad response to his love but he said prove me now.
Prove me.
It's still good. It's still good if you just bring from your hearts.
The Tide into the storehouse. I'll give you what you need and I'll.
I'll open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing. Brother prayed before this meeting.
Thanking the Lord for opening the windows of heaven and pouring us out a blessing if we're unfaithful. He abides faithful, but all does not touch our hearts.
Verse 16 Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it. And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my special treasure.
You know, these ones obviously didn't have computers, they didn't have Zoom, they didn't even have phones.
They didn't even have cars.
But they spake often one to another, and the Lord so valued it, he said. I'm going to write it down because I want you to know in that coming day how much it meant to me that there was a response.
To my love.
I just want to thank the brethren here for providing such an occasion.
Thank you.
Last year.
The Lord closed the door, but.
Even the letter that you wrote was a blessing.
A beautiful spirit.
Let's go to.
The first verses that were read at the beginning of this.
Our meetings in Genesis chapter 24.
You know I have enjoyed.
The pictures of the bride and the Old Testament, there's a number of them. They're beautiful and I, I have enjoyed it in this way, Revelation 19 says.
The marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
Now we cannot make ourselves fit for the presence of God.
But we can give expression to what?
His coming means to our hearts. Albert Hayle put it this way. He said, you know, if my wife was coming down the aisle on the day of our wedding and she had sort of a tattered, he called it a house coat, something looked like she just maybe pulled off just in time for the wedding. And Lord that he said, I would have loved her just the same, but I would have wondered what that day meant to her.
And I just have enjoyed it in these different brides that.
He's giving us a hint as to how we can make ourselves ready.
How we can let him know how much his love means to us. And we don't have the time. But if we went to the book of Ruth, we would see a bride there that that the night before the wedding, she goes down to where he is. She's cleansed, she's anointed herself, and she gets as near to him as she can as is proper.
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And as a result of that night.
During his conversation, when he realizes she's there, she says you know you have, you've, you've been.
You've done more for me at the end than at the beginning, Lord Jesus had to say to Israel. I remember for the.
The love of thine is but the kindness and the love of thine espousals when the One is after Me in the wilderness. I remember for you when, when you didn't care, you were going in a land where there was nothing but your heart and your your souls on me as your Redeemer. But you're not that way anymore. They didn't show more kindness at the last and in the beginning.
And we often don't either, But it should be. It should be like the children's verse, the path of the just as a shining light going on and brightening until the day before he come. Well, you know, I don't know if if Boaz was a little bit reticent because afraid that if he asked the near kinsman, you know, do you want to redeem Ruth, that he would say yes.
I like to think that that that night, that visit, that night when she let him know how much she meant to him.
That he wasn't going to wait, Naomi said. He's not going to wait any longer. He's going to make sure.
You know, I, we've had a number of weddings at home and I enjoy this to go up and and ask the bride to be here, the bridegroom to be well, you know, how's it going? You're pretty close and always to see their response.
I asked one today here. Well, you, what do you think of that day? He responded. I'm ready for it. I asked him why, you know, he didn't tell me. He didn't say, well, things are getting so rough at home that.
The day, that day can't come soon enough, he told me, He said. For one, I don't like saying goodbye to her, and for two, I can't wait till she's all mine.
But can I ask you this question? How many times have you heard the?
The Rapture.
A time when the Lord Jesus, our Bridegroom, is going to come and take us. How many times have you heard it referenced in this way? You know things are really getting bad.
I just heard whatever and at the end of that it's the Lords coming. Must be very near.
I sometimes wonder what he thinks.
Again, Brother Albert Hale used to say.
When did you last ask him to come?
Is the father waiting?
Because the times and the seasons are in his hand, is he waiting until the reception that his son gets will be a worthy 1?
Petersons looking for and hastening the coming. Can we hasten his coming brother?
Can we, like Ruth, make it so irresistible?
That moment is only going to happen once.
We're out of time. I was going to go to Rebecca.
This thing about Rebecca, as you look through her, you can say it's response from the very first moment the servant's picture of the Spirit of God comes to her. He says, could you give me a drink? And she said sure. And then she says I'll give your camel's drink. He said, is there any room at your house? She said there is and we've got straw and provender and you know, here's the servant, a picture of the Spirit of God delighting in that response.
To lighting.
Because he loves his master, he loves his master's son. And there comes a time when he says.
The family says, well, just at least 10 more days. And he said, let's ask her. They said, let's ask her, wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go, I will go. And so off they go.
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Let's just read the end of it.
Verse 61 of Genesis 24 And Rebecca rose and the damsels, and they rode upon the camels and followed the man, and the servant took Rebecca and went his way.
Verse 64 And Rebecca lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel, or she spring sprung off the camel. Why? For she had said unto the servant, What man is this?
That walketh in the field to meet us, and the servant has said It is my master. Therefore she took a veil and covered herself. They went many miles, no doubt. And she had been asking, what is he like?
And her heart was more and more attached to him.
Did you see him all of a sudden quickened? I'm sure they passed many people, but suddenly there was one that was very much an object of his interest. And so she says, who is this man? He says that's my master.
We're waiting. Are we watching?
You know, when he got there, she sprang off of the camel.
Into his arms.
Will there be spring with us? It's right now that that's being formed.
And a response to his.
I want to close with two verses.
Chapter 8 of Genesis.
Chapter 8.
And verse 9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him, and to the ark, skipped down a little bit. Then he put forth his hand and took her, and pulled her in onto him.
Into the ark and then in Isaiah Chapter 11.
Isaiah Chapter 11.
Verse 10. In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for the Ensign of the people.
To it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be should read glory. His rest shall be glory.
We've spoken of how the disciples, when that cloud enveloped them, they feared.
But you know.
When he, like Noah, when the Lord Jesus, reaches out and takes us as his bride to himself.
And takes us to his rest that we had.
He'll rest, he'll rest in his love, He'll joy over thee with singing.
Will be completely at home there in that glory.
His resting place shall be glory, and that will be our resting place too. But all, beloved, what spring will there be in our step?
He's so worthy.
May we like revelation, says the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. What will it be when the Spirit of God presents us to the Lord Jesus?
And we see the delight of his heart, of that which he paid such a price for. And as we have this morning, he still remembers what he paid for it. He takes it to himself, like Isaac did that day, and into his glory, and loves us forever.
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