Talk—Walt Porter
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Well, they told me there may be seven or eight folks here tonight, or young people anyway, but we did much better than that. So thank you for coming.
And trust the Lord will bless the time here at the conference.
I always find myself praying for the conferences because I know there are a lot of things that happen at conferences and we're going to pray in just a minute. Don't let me forget, a lot of relationships are formed at conferences.
A lot of things are said and enjoyed.
At conferences that have effect on us for the rest of our lives.
So I think conferences are very important and I often pray for them. So we trust that you're paying attention as we go through the conference here and have another day tomorrow and some meetings. And we just trust the Lord will bless them to each of our hearts. So let's ask His help for these few minutes.
Our God and Father, we thank Thee for an opportunity to be under the sound of Thy Word. We thank Thee that Thy Word will not return unto Thee void. And we've heard stories of those who have heard the Word all their young life, and have turned away from it at the end. But we count upon Thy promise that Thy word will not return void, but it will accomplish that which doubt us. Please and prosper in a thing where two Thou has sent it.
So as we have a few moments to be in Thy word again tonight before we retire, we ask thy blessing upon it to the needs of each heart here. So we ask this, Give thanks and thy precious name, Lord Jesus, Amen. Amen.
I'd like to turn to Luke chapter 10.
And speak a little bit about appreciating the position that we've been brought into.
We've had a lot of these meetings about the overview of things in Scripture, the Sevens, the Threes, 70, and I know some of these things sound like you're in school maybe, and it's just something you need to memorize and go on with your life.
But these things help us, as the verse was read to us there in First Timothy, to have an outline of sound words.
We need to have an outline. It helps us to fit everything in. I don't know if you all like to do puzzles, but generally speaking I like to go the easy route. So when you dump the box of pieces out, you look through for all the ones with a flat edge on them.
Then you start putting them together because it's a little easier, and pretty soon you have an outline.
There's the framework. Everything fits within this framework. Then you start putting together the house or the car or the horse or the dog or the mountain or whatever it is, and then you fit in all the little pieces. You don't have to have the whole puzzle from right to left all filled in. It doesn't have to work that way.
It's not very effective, but the things that the Lord brings to us that are interesting to us are important to take up because maybe the Lord has them for us just at that moment.
So we need to let the Lord be God and arrange things in our life.
So I want to read in Luke 10 starting with verse 23.
And he turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see.
Where I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them.
Have you ever considered that there may be Christians around the world where there's such a dearth?
For spiritual understanding that they would, as the expression goes, give anything to know what you know.
To have sat under the sound of the word today like we did.
And to have these things laid out, it's almost unheard of in the Christian world.
Whether you appreciate it or not, whether I appreciate it or not, God has been very good to us.
We don't know how many people in the Old Testament were wondering about these things. What did Abraham know? What did David know?
To some of the prophets it was said, seal up these things until the time of the end. It's not for you to know.
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We're at the end of the days. We can look back now through Scripture and see all kinds of things that other people didn't have the privilege of seeing.
And I just want to reinforce that tonight, the place of privilege and blessing that we have.
How many years would you have to go back before you found somebody or found a situation in even North America where people didn't know how to read very well? It's a common thing today. If you don't know how to read, you're a real oddity. But how far back do you have to go before people couldn't read?
And people were very poor. Read about the Dust Bowl and things like that. You can go back when people didn't have money to buy a Bible.
You can have as many of them as you want.
You value them.
How far back then from that do you have to go? Before you couldn't find a Bible.
You know when they started the printing press, Mr. Guttenberg and all those people.
14-15 hundred.
Before that, what did they have for the word of God?
Compared to what we have today, who would you find? They say. I just was reading in Isaiah the other day and I just enjoyed. Where would you find that?
Maybe you'd find a priest in a monastery somewhere who had even seen a Bible.
Then you go back before the Lord was here, and what did the people of God know? The people of faith, they trusted in God. What did they have for a testimony from Him?
I'm asking these questions to make us realize the blessing that we have and the place that we have here in these last days. I understand that back when the truth was being recovered in the early 1800s, there was a woman by the name of Lady Powers Court, and she had readings in her home early on in the movement, if I could call it that. And they were reading in the Revelation and enjoying about these seven churches.
And they knew what the 1St and the 2nd and the 3rd and the 4th.
And the fifth one were But what? What is this about Philadelphia?
And Laodicea, where does?
See that in history? It's because they were living in it.
And I thought that was so interesting. And now we've gotten to the point where we can look back now and see the whole thing, all the seven churches and how much more. It's all there for us to look into.
Are we interested in looking into it?
Hope so.
We're going to go on in chapter 10 and I want to read about this Samaritan that.
Found the man by the side of the road.
Verse 30 of Luke 10 and Jesus answering said a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment and wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead. I'm going to suggest that perhaps he was unconscious.
By chance there came down a certain priest that way, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on the other, looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him he had compassion on him and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, perhaps the man being unconscious.
And set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
And on tomorrow when he departed, he took out 2 Pence and gave them to the host, said unto him, take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee. We'll just stop there as the story basically stops there. But I want to ask you, have you ever considered what happened after this?
The Lord doesn't tell anymore of the story there.
And when it says a certain man.
I don't know what to say about the difference between when it says a certain man and he put forth a parable, but I kind of think this is a actual occurrence, but I could be wrong about that.
But here was this story of this man.
Now, what happened after the Lord quits telling the story? You're the man's in the end.
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Somebody's taking care of him.
And he's waking up, if we can say it that way, not feeling very well.
And so he starts looking around him and wondering where he's at.
Presently the door opens and a man comes in and has a little food on a tray maybe.
Ask him how he's feeling and he begins asking questions.
How did I get here?
And he said, well, a kind man found you in the ditch.
And brought you here.
Really.
I was that bad off, yeah.
You were about gone.
Why did he do that?
Maybe someday you'll find out.
And as the man is plying the host, maybe for answers to these questions.
I just enjoy the thought.
That it's like a Christian waking up to their privileges.
And to see where they had been.
Where the Lord has now put them and what it's like to be able to look forward to this Samaritan coming back to the end and meeting this man perhaps.
And to me, it's like when we start out our Christian lives, we don't know anything about Christianity.
We realized we were sinners, and here's someone who's providing for our needs. He's offered His precious blood so that we can get into God's perfect heaven.
It's a wonderful thing.
But I think it was said today, it's just the beginning.
That's not where everything ends. You don't take the ticket and then run out and do whatever you want with your life. I mean, that'll work if you've really trusted the Lord Jesus to wash your sins away in His precious blood. It's a once forever thing. Don't let anybody tell you that. God's an ****** *****. He'll take it back from you if you're not good.
It doesn't work that way.
But the Lord desires so much more for us than that.
And so I look at it as a process of waking up into our privileges and responsibilities.
So here we have.
This conference.
And we're sitting here hearing things that how many people wish they could hear, they don't even know about them.
We have the privilege of taking them in. It's a wonderful thing that the Lord has given that to us, and I just hope that we appreciate it.
And I want to read a little bit in first John chapter 2 about 3.
Perhaps I could say stages of maturity.
It was alluded to today.
First John 2.
Verse 12 I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because you have known Him, that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one.
I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because you have known him this from the beginning. I've written unto you, young men, because you're strong, and the word of God abideth in you and.
And you have overcome wicked one.
And we'll just stop there. I don't purpose to get into the three things that are the world, characterize the world, but just to notice that there are these three stages we read about children.
We read about young men. We read about fathers.
Now I'm a parent and most of you have not been.
When you have these little ones that are growing up, if little Joanna, next time we come two years from now to Hammer Bay Conference and Joanne is still crawling on the floor, I'd say there's something wrong with her development. She shouldn't be still crawling, right? She's going to be three years old pretty soon.
This is not good. We like to see growth and maturity and in the young people as they are growing up, we like to see improvement exercise. We like to see them wondering what does the Lord mean when He says this in the scriptures and have evidence that they're looking into the word for themselves. This is a great joy to the older ones.
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As we know, that's where.
Real blessing is, as Jonathan's been pointing out.
So it's OK to be a child?
For a while.
But you shouldn't be interested in having a bottle to drink from till you're 14.
And we all need milk at the beginning of our career. As Christians, we need simple things.
But the time comes that we should be beyond those things. Not that there's anything wrong with milk and we can always enjoy it have a glass of milk, but we should be enjoying other things besides.
So I'd like to put it this way, that in the first stage, when we start out our Christian pathway, we don't know the Lord very well.
We've just heard what his offer is and we don't know how he operates, why he does the things he does, but what we do have is his word.
So I think I want to say the first thing that we enjoy as a young believer, there should be an interest in the Scriptures.
That's where we find out about the Lord and about His ways, and it's so important for us, as we had today, to have an outline of sound words. Begin to put that together so you can understand what God's ways are about and who He is in Himself. There's a verse in the Psalms that speaks of making known His.
Acts to the children of Israel and his ways.
To Moses, God has reasons why he does things. And we can read the Scriptures and we say, yeah, the children of Israel, they went through the Red Sea. Yeah.
Moses, he did this, yeah, Abraham, he had these three people in his tent door and he the day and yeah, Abraham went up in the mountain with Isaac and yeah, you know, and there was a ram there. Well, what does it mean? Does God have a purpose? And all this information, it's not just information, it is information, but it goes so much further than that and the more you look into it, the more all these connections and pictures come out of there that magnify the.
Of the Lord and help us to know why he's doing the things that he's doing. That's his ways. First we learn his word, then we learn about his ways and then we never quit appreciating the word because in his words where we find about the ways.
The fathers, it says the same thing about them both times. It speaks to them here ye have known him, that is, from the beginning.
And, you know, it's a real special time in our own lives and when we see it in others.
When you come to the point in any degree, I'm not saying it's like something you attain to and once you're there, it's a plateau and you're always there. That's not the way it is. But if in any measure we've appreciated the Scriptures and we've seen in some way the Lord's workings and why He's doing things, then we begin to say like the hymn we sung today. For sure no other mind.
For thought so bold, so free, greatness or strength could ever find it has a beetle. Who is this one?
Who could write a book like this?
With so much in it.
Who could make all these things intertwine and have pictures like Albert Hayhoe once said, suppose the Garden of Eden, and here's Eve, newly formed, and she looks at Adam and she says, I owe my very existence to the man with the wounded side.
Did you ever think of that?
I didn't either until I heard Albert Ajo say it. But he read it and he enjoyed, and he thought, whoa, isn't that interesting? It's like God's given us a little picture ahead of time about he and his bride.
And how his side was going to be wounded.
And I'm going to tell you, there's an awful lot of those kind of things, little Nuggets tucked away in the scriptures that if you want to take the time to study them out.
It will really draw you close to the Lord.
So the fathers are those that have gotten or are getting to the point of just enjoying himself, his word, his ways, and then it's himself. And it doesn't make little of his ways or his word at all. But you say, who is this person?
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That could devise such a plan.
To write such things in his word, to carry out things in this certain way, so that we can look back and say, here's Abraham and Isaac going up the mountain.
And there's the father and the son going together to the cross.
And there are all these things you look in the Tabernacle and then the temple and all these different things. They're all pictures everywhere.
Who could do that? It's the one who offered you salvation and.
And he says, I want you to learn more about me.
I wrote the Bible in very simple language so almost anyone could understand it.
But.
I've also written it so that there are meanings and there are pictures and there are types and illustrations and connections that you're not going to make without study.
If you take the time to be with the Lord in His Word, you're going to begin to make those connections that's going to really enrich your Christian life. So that's what we desire for you. We have these conferences like that, that like this. That's why we have them have the Scriptures open so no matter what stage you're at, you can appreciate a little more.
The milk of the Word. Perhaps you can see a little bit more of your way of God's ways, as we had Brother Eric speak to us about.
And then to think who this person is that was so wise, so powerful, so omniscient, that he could write this book in this way so that we can enjoy looking into it and growing up into the knowledge of him. So may the Lord grant that it's more so with each one of us as we approach that day. Pretty soon we're going to hear the shout and there'll be no more school.
No more chance.
To look in the scriptures and find out these things. It's all done. We've graduated, we're out of the scene. The day of opportunity is over.
Now we have opportunity. We were talking about sacrifice in this, in the passage.
We spoke about 3 different kinds of sacrifice, but I'd just like to say.
Used to be at conferences when I was a young person, you'd see Albert Hayhoe talking to Clarence Lundeen in the middle of the room after the meetings.
One time Clarence Lundin had a bunch of young men around him, So I went up and joined the group and he was saying to them, you know, I don't know how you're going to get ahead in your spiritual life if you don't get up at 4:30 in the morning and read the scriptures for an hour before you start your day.
What did it do for brother Lundeen?
And some others who have accepted that kind of an exhortation. Do we make time for the Lord?
Soon the opportunity is going to well tomorrow, you know. Well, this is a really rough year at school or my job is really tough right now. And the Lord knows all those things. Sometimes we have harvest in our lives. We have harvest in Walla Walla. And you don't do anything else except you go out and you work all day and you come home to eat and you sleep and you get up and you work again. But it shouldn't be that way our whole life.
So may the Lord encourage our hearts.
To make the sacrifice, Gordon Hayhoe said One time you'll never find time.
To read and pray, to be at the assembly meetings, you have to make time.
That's called sacrifice. If I weighed 300 lbs and people started telling me, you know, you really should go on a diet, you know, well, yeah, maybe one of these days I'll do that. But I just enjoy eating. So I keep eating, and one day I go to the doctor.
And he says to me, if you don't stop what you're doing, you're going to be dead in six months. Then I'm going to start thinking, well, maybe I should not eat so much. That's no sacrifice that's forcing me into a situation. Now, if I had said, you know what, I don't know, it's honoring to the Lord for me to be like this, whatever it be overweight or I just love money or whatever it might be.
I like to do things in my own time that I like to do. OK, you got a problem with that? Well.
The Lord appreciates sacrifice and if we're willing to give up something that we enjoy or feel we should do or something for Him.
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That's a sacrifice and he appreciates those things. So may the Lord encourage us along these lines. He's worthy to be followed.
And he has so much for us in this book.
And may we search it out, each one of us, for ourselves, and share what we found with others to be an encouragement to them. Let's just pray.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee for an opportunity to be at a weekend like this, to have Thy word open and those that have studied into it to share with us what they've learned.
We ask thy blessing that some of these things might stick in our minds. Some of them might spur us on to more study and interest and without us have to say in our in our own lives. And we just commit ourselves to be in this way, thinking of the shortness of time, the blessedness of our position that we've been brought into to live in a land of peace and plenty to have time to look into these things that we want to.
Without fear of being thrown into prison.
We give thanks for this opportunity, and we ask a blessing that we might desire to make the most of these things. So we pray and give thanks, Lord Jesus, for thyself and for thy precious word. We pray my precious name, and then.