Sully Conference: 1990
Table of Contents
Psalm 40:1-4, Gen. 12
Address—J. Kilcup
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Begin our meeting tonight by singing #283.
When we survey the wondrous process on which the Lord of Glory died, our richest gain, we count but loss and for contempt of all our life where the whole realm of nature ours that we're not bringing. Far too small love that transcends our highest powers demands our souls, our life, our all and brother peace come to 83.
When we survey.
That was great.
Would you open your Bibles to begin with to the 40th chapter of the Book of Psalms?
Songs 40.
We know that this Psalm, in part at least, is a prophetic.
Word as to the Lord Jesus, It also speaks to us of an actual experience that David had.
But we also have a personal application and the 1St 4 verses I like to just briefly speak on that.
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Verse one of chapter 40 I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my going. And he had put a new song in my mouth, Even praise unto our God. Many shall see it in fear, and shall trust in the Lord. Bless it is that man who maketh the Lord his trust.
And respect is not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
These little 4 verses here encompass the entirety of the divine life.
First of all, if you see this man, he said.
He heard my cry. I he inclined into me and heard my cry.
Love it. That's a saved life.
By the grace of God in our need, we have cried to him.
And he has answered that cry, and he has saved us, and He has saved us on the basis of the finished work of Christ.
We have a saved life tonight, a life which cannot be touched by events, by human powers, by difficulties, trials, nothing.
It saved life.
So you can have the confidence, and I can have the confidence tonight that no matter what may take place in your life or mine, we have a saved life.
Lord heard our cry. He inclined his ear to imagine that the Lord of glory inclining himself to such a view of me. But such is the grace of God.
Secondly, you notice he says he brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my loins. We not only have a saved life, but we have a secure life.
Our feet are upon a rock.
Ways. Many calm billows may roll, but nothing can move.
From this rock.
On the West Coast, we've been having not long ago, severe earthquake, a severe shaping in the northwest where I come from there anticipating one more severe than the 1 experienced in Crystal.
9.1 The beloved We're looking for the shout not to shake, and this is because of the rock on which we stand. No other foundation but this rock. There's no other hope but this one.
Oh, they save life. A secured life. And verse 3, There's something more. The crescendo grows, he says. And he had put a new song in my mouth, even praised unto our God, we have a satisfied life. We now have a song to sing.
And you know, it's not a song with the lips or the mouth. It's a song of the heart. It says many shall see it.
And fear and trust in the Lord is something that is visible, is something that cannot be hid. It's.
Something that is outstanding in an evil, corrupt, Pagan world. A heart that sings.
He put a new song, A satisfied life. You know, the Christian life is a paradox. You've discovered it's a satisfied life because we know that it is a saved life and that our feet are on the solid rock. But yet.
But yet, as David cried, my soul thirsted as a thirsty man. We the more we know of Christ and the satisfaction that he gives, the more we want, the more we realize there is to learn and know.
And so the Apostle Paul, after 25 years of walking with the Lord, as none other, had he said, oh, that I might know him.
It was just he had just been introduced. You know, sometimes you meet someone, they'll ask you if you did. You meet so and so up at Fredericton. Well, I, you know, I I met him. I shook hands with him.
That's seems to be Paul's attitude that he just had been introduced to the Lord and he just when he wanted to know more about him. Well, you know, that's going to be our occupation for eternity, learning the riches of his grace.
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But I wonderful to start now to have been given the grace to have an appetite for.
Christ, you know that I would like to do tonight. I would like to create in your heart and mind a divine discontent.
To stir us up, to be discontented, if you were in the portion that we have in Christ, because it is so small, you know it's enough to take us into glory. But you know, it's like the woman who went to the ocean, Pacific Ocean after having raised in the Midwest, or in poor circumstances, he saw all of that water out there the first time in her life she'd ever seen something more than enough.
And it's like you and me, as we would dip our little cups into that ocean. We make no impression on it at all. We fill our little cup, but there's more and there's more.
All to hunger and thirst after Christ, you know, that's the promise of the 5th chapter of Matthew, he said. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. And I kind of crossed it out of my Bible and wrote in Christ because he is my righteousness.
And as I hunger and thirst after him, that is a soul appetite, It's not a surface one.
But it's a pride of a soul that's dissatisfied. There's hunger in thirsting after and it promises they should be killed.
There's a verse in the 13th chapter of Hosea that says according to their pastors, so were they filled?
And whatever we want, we're feeding on whatever we are.
Whatever our appetites are, that's what we are.
I can remember my aunt who you're speaking on tonight, my aunt Elsie.
It was kind of an individual.
To say the least, she's a dear St. An unusual St. But one time she was going to get super healthy and so she began to eat or drink carrot juice.
And she drank a lot of carrot juice, and she began to turn the color of a carrot. I often told her, I told her I used her as an illustration many times, because it's so vivid, an illustration as to according to your past, you're sorry. You feel whatever our appetites are taken up with, that is going to be.
The primary myself, one of the boy we had on the farm.
A big water tank. I bought it. I don't know how many thousands of gallons or maybe 1000. I've forgotten which because on the other side of that tank there was a gauge that when it dropped down to a certain level that automatically kicked in. It's supposed to, but the reason the gauge was on the outside is so that the neighbors down the hill to so I'd get down too low and it didn't kick in well, then they would turn it on manually, but you could tell what the water was and that tank by the gauge, Love it. I think that that is true with you and me.
Our intake of the word of God. There's a We manifest the gauge as to where we are in our relationship with Christ. Tonight, you and I are.
Enjoying Christ.
Exactly as we have chose to. He is dear to you tonight and precious to you, just as you have chosen.
That's a condemnation to me because I feel I know him so well. I do want to know him better, better. And he's given me the spirit of the spirit within me that has an appetite. And he wants to minister to me. He wants to minister Christ to my soul. And that is exactly his purpose of being here. The Spirit of God didn't want you and me to magnify Christ in our soul.
But there's more. And this is the my, my thought of this meeting tonight in the fourth verse. We have a safe life. He has saved us. We have a secure life. He had set our feet on a rock. We have a satisfied life. He's given us a new song. And fourthly.
This I would like to call it. A surrendered life and blessed is a man that trusteth in the Lord, that is has committed himself totally incompetence to God. No reservations. He's not influenced by the proud, he's not influenced by the flies or the Father of lies, but he is surrendered.
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To God. And why would not we be surrendered? We indeed we are poor. We have poor thoughts of him if we haven't considered having them saved and set up on a rock and put it given a new song, not to surrender ourselves.
You see, and so we have A1 instrument, beloved, that God that we can give to Him one instrument.
I had his phone and Romans 12/1, and he said, I beseech you by the merchant of God, that he presents your body as a living sacrifice, that is surrender.
And that's what he wants.
He's got it all.
You know, I would like to.
By the way, that verse in Romans 12/1 That we often hear, and it's a powerful verse, it tells us there that it is the instrument that God will accept and that he desires, but He's given us the means by which we do it, He said, I beseech you by the mercies of God, that's it's only the mercies of God that have a controlling power over your spirit and mind, over your will and mind as we contemplate the mercies of God.
In the 32nd chapter of Psalm that speaks about being encompassed, surrounded by the mercies of God, a wall of mercies accomplish you and me.
Thrill our hearts, Oh my adaptive.
I'd like to look at a man who had a surrendered life.
In the scriptures and.
He didn't live a perfect life by any means. None of.
The men in this book, The perfect life except one. And that's why it's recall the hymn book, it's all about him, Jesus, the perfect man.
All of the outstanding men that were used were failures.
Some of the said, I think it was Mr. Bella did it not. Mr. Wolston said that God seems to be have chosen those who stumble about to be used.
The weak affairs is. Why? Because it's the.
It magnifies his grace. I think it was Hudson Taylor that hadn't written in front of his Bible.
He has chosen me that his grace might be magnified.
It's it's wonderful to think that he looked down through the universe, through the ages and he said I want you, you, you. I I am choosing you.
Not because you deserve it. At no time do we come to God because we deserve anything from you. But his grace embraces us.
Well, turn to Genesis, please.
Walker, Genesis and Chapter 12.
A surrendered man.
I'd like to take him up at this point because this is the time that he gets is calling but he.
He's like doing me. He doesn't respond at first like he ought to, but verse one of chapter 12 of Genesis. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, and to a 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. Notice that.
There are 4 promises here to this man Abram.
To be a father of numerous descendants he was. He said that he was to be blessed personally I will bless thee and and it speaks of he's going to receive personal honor and he said I'll make that name great and then he speaks of he's going to be a channel of blessing to many and certainly that is true and it will be even more so in the time ahead.
Verse 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them, and curse thee, and indeed shall all families of the earth be blessed. And so here is the covenant with this man Abram, who was called out of the land of earth previously, and he has got as far as Karen would, and where his father died. And now he's.
As first speaks to us. And so Abraham Abraham departed, as the Lord has spoken unto him. And Locke went with him. And Abram was 70 and five years old when he departed out of Erin.
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His father, Tara, stands for the flesh. You know it kind of.
Speaks of the ties of nature, and this is always in a way to enter into a port and a deeper relationship with the Lord Jesus. Nature's ties and it hindered Abram from fully responding to the word of God to come out. But the Lord Jesus said in the Matthew.
Kenny said that a man's fold will be the day of his own household.
And so oftentimes those nearest to us are they are hindrance to understand the surrendered life.
We have the flesh within us. That is something that we deal with. But there's also the fleshly pies, nature's ties, that we have to consider and often hinder our Holy Father in the Lord. I can remember after my father died, Jimmy Smith came and worked at our place for a year. We were putting together the music edition of The Little Flock Him Book.
Jan of doing the typing and I was doing some layout work and Jimmy was doing the organizing of it.
He was a great trust in that project, but for a year he was with us and he he became a spiritual father.
And remember there be there's quite a plan of us as you may know in the Northwest and we're close and there's always some family doings and Jimmy would like to visit among the assemblies in the Northwest and often ask us to go along. And I remember only happened once there was a family get together coming up and it was going to conflict with a proposed trip. He just took me aside and he says Jimmy.
If you're going to commit your life to God.
You're going to have to make a choice.
The large thing for your family things.
Well, we went. Wasn't that time? And we have tried to make decisions. But I was just sharing with them tonight that not long ago I was at my desk contemplating praying about the trips that had to be made and first thing I knew I was figuring out how long it's going to be away from my grandchildren.
You know, I I, I miss him, have been gone too long. And so I had to judge that and sit back and say oh Lord.
I'll try to deal with that.
But it's just a poor illustration that how often the flesh nature hinders us from this surrendered life. And it was to Abram Abraham Here. Now there's something else. You notice. It's verse four. It says that Abram was 70 and five years old when he departed by the parent.
This is when God began to speak to him again. He did not speak to him while he was inherent.
It's only when they begin to March that God spoke. And you know, I believe it speaks to us that whenever we act on what He has shown to us, that He's going to give us more light and more blessing, more encouragement. But if we refuse to act on what He has made known to us, we're not going to give any blessing or any further light.
But he was 75 here and sometimes we wonder how old. Maybe I'm too old or too young or.
To only follow the Lord. But there doesn't seem to be any age significance in scripture. If you look at some of the you know the history of Saint Josiah who was eight years old when he said that he only followed the Lord.
I mean, he meant business at 8 years old.
And at 16, he went down. He tore down the idols of his people. I mean this, this young guy, he, at 16, he went to work for God.
And if you take the case of Abram, here you use 75. Moses was 80 when he came out from the desert and got his marching orders.
And so there doesn't seem to be any age difference as to when God will accept our poor hearts. The response of our hearts not whatever. And I remember even to the bed, even to the bedside. I remember how long ago speaking to her sister in her bed and agent sister and.
She was saying words that maybe you hear quite often as they don't. I don't know why the Lord is leading me here.
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I want to go home and I'm no good to anybody. And the more we talk, the more I learned that she was praying about this one and she'd tell me about that one she'd pray for. And she had a privilege there going like crazy. So I said, sister, it's obvious why everybody left here.
You know, there's nothing like intercessory prayer. Nothing. And there's nothing harder than intercessory prayer. Nothing.
Or difficult that Satan will hinder us, the flesh will weaken it, and we it is difficult to storm the Word, the throne of grace.
I saw a bloody there's nobody could say. And if you read the 71St chapter of Psalms, it's it's written for those who are, should we say, mature? They're getting on in years. That's a beautiful chapter. It says don't be, don't get any rocking chair and rock away and wait until the Lord comes. There's no condition of your soul and mind, whatever the age may be, that we cannot.
We cannot.
Exercise Intercessory prayer.
At the Hicks Lake in November, we go out there three times a year.
For Labor Day.
3 1/2 days and in November were there for Friday evening, Saturday and Thursday, and then two weeks before Easter. We've been doing this for 30 some years.
At this last November was the most unusual time that we have ever had in this respect. Generally, we have ministry and fellowship. It's a time of informal fellowship and and and ministry. But this time, the first meeting, we always begin with prayer. We get on our knees before God. But there were so many requests for prayer, for the Saints, for troubled young people. And it went on and on and on. And finally we had to hold, wait a minute. We had to make a list.
Of all these names that were being submitted.
There were 40, some 40, some that were a burden to the different ones there for prayer. And so we did something very unusual, different than we never did. We divided the company into four groups, two groups of women, two groups of men. Each group got a list to pray for, specifically pray for them.
And.
That's what we did most of the time that we were there, Intercessory prayer for those who have been committed to us for prayer. And a lot of things happened.
There's nothing we know, though, about the principles that the Lord Jesus spoke of and mark 929 about prayer and fasting. I mean getting serious before God was a burden.
And things have been happening since then. The prayers have continued. Some of those lists are still going around.
I will give you 1 dramatic illustration. That's not the only one.
The daughter of one of my brother and sister. She is about 28 or 30. She is a black belt.
Professional. I mean, she's as high as she can go in the black belt karate field. I know nothing about it, except that I would not want to mess with this girl. She was hard. Hard. She hadn't shed a tear for years. She was an Army Reserve. She was toughened and rough as any man he'd want to tangle. She would not allow anybody to even touch her. She would end up in a corner.
She was on on those prayers on one particular paradise.
It was the following week. She was totally sweet. She had broken.
She was in the branch, She was an alcoholic. She her health went out from under her. She had financial problems. They all came together. Was it by chance?
I don't believe so. The intercessory prayer of those people. God's people storming the word, the portals of heaven. That girl, she wept for two days. All the bitterness, all the anger, all the hatred. Just.
Left through her soul.
Now you have to be careful when you're under it because she's so affectionate. She'll just grab you, give a big hug, little snap your spine. But that is what the intercessory prayer will accomplish. And we know so little about it. But this is what we all.
By the grace of God, we have the privilege of doing it. But it's, only, I believe, motivated by a sense of me, Motivated by a sense of need, only by a sense of need.
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You know.
Great fatal attitude of the Christians that Laodicea was this. It says that they have need of nothing. When we lose our sense of need, we've lost it, we've lost our privileges, we've lost a blessing, and we've become just as lukewarm and deadly as those folks were.
You know there are three spiritual temperatures for the Christian soul. One of them is in Matthew, where he speaks about the love of many shall grow cold.
Because of the Evil times.
And that's always.
Danger. Because we're living, we're surrounded by a powerful force of evil, and it's saturated in everything as never before.
Unless we are vigilant, it is going to do us in, but our hearts can grow cold.
And then in the Revelation 3 speech there of those and lay at the sea. The parks were lukewarm, but those are in the 24th chapter of Luke's Gospel. Remember on the way to and I asked when I met the Lord and it says after he had talked with them and and instructed them in a way that their hearts burned within them. That's kind of a heartbeat.
A burning part.
18.
What's wrong?
That have a sense of need in our souls.
Sense of poverty. How little I know. How little I I respond to this, this law that transcends our highest power as we sing it. Do we understand it?
You know, 11 Times in the gospel.
The Lord Jesus spoke to this, to those Pharisees and scribes, He says. You know the scriptures. Don't you know the scriptures? You surely knew the scriptures, but they didn't know the implications of it.
And oftentimes, I think we sing and we read without understanding the implications of what we're singing or what we're reading.
But you know the scripture that says God makes the heart soft? God maketh the heart soft, and the more tender our hearts are, I believe, the sweeter the soul will be.
Brother one time said that.
The nearness of Christ. What sweet makes you sweet?
There will be less porcupines among us if we are near Christ.
Anybody. We must get on to this chapter.
Well, Abraham took Surrey, his wife, and watch his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the soul that they had gotten inherent, And he went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan and Canaan.
Well, apparent means parts drive.
Again, God didn't reveal anything to Abram while he was in that place, but death had set Abram free. The death of his father set him free from that of his. And death has sent you and me free. Calvary has set you and me free from the not only from the the judgment to come and set us free from all the that was against us, by the way that has set us free from ourselves.
Set street from the flesh which power to walk in newness and life now because he is satisfied death had come in.
Well, he says to Abram, passed through the land and to the place.
Second, she can marginalized.
Until the plane of Moral and the Canaanite was dead in the land.
And the Lord appeared unto Abraham, said Unto thy seed will I give this land, And there buildeth he and alterance of Lord who appeared.
This is the second time in the history of Abram that he has spoken to by God.
And.
The promise is I will give, I will give.
This verb appears over 1000 times in the scriptures and more often it is used, I believe in relation to his personally people, what he is promised to give them, but his heart was just open to give these people.
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From the fullness of his heart.
So he said, I will give.
And here we find and building an ark, an altar. So an altar is built here. And I suppose it's significant that it's an author of obedience. He's now acting on what God had told him to do.
And I suppose that beloved is the first step in in a life that is surrendered, that has been one, by the master space of God, that of obedience.
So he builds this often it's vain for you and me to speak about loving the Lord and singing these hymns. And you know, we all fail miserably. Abraham, yeah, failed and David failed. Peters failed, and they all have failed. But the motives, the mainspring of their life was was was surrendered to God.
And and so.
This man he.
He doesn't alter.
You know.
Love fails when we disobey.
The disciples remember told in the 28th chapter of Matthew to go into the mountain and wait for the Lord the gallery. And if we turn to the 21St chapter of John, we find that they did not do what they were told to do.
Their love failed and they went back to fishing.
But love fails when we disobey. And so he said, The Lord says, if you love me, you will keep my words. See the one sings in one standard preset of our love. And evidence, at least, is that we love to obey. And he removed from there and to a mountain the beast of Bethel, and fished his tents, having vessels on the West, and AI on the east. And there he built an altar, another altar, unto the Lord, and called.
At the time of the name of the Lord, and so he's traveling now.
But he says that he travels. He builds his altar. He never gets far from his altar, his place of worship.
And this here is you could say the altar of the Pilgrim. And this is one thing that I think identified set Abram apart is is Pilgrims character. He never lost that.
He pitched his tent from place to place as he moved toward the landlord.
So in verse 9, and Abram journeyed, going still toward the South.
Now the South is attracting him, he gravitates toward Egypt, and we see that he's going to move away now from the relationship he had with God.
Because he's attracted into the South toward Egypt.
And I suppose we could say when looking toward the world.
Spiritual barrenness comes into our life when we saturate our souls, our hearts, with the things, the leeks and the garlics and the cucumbers of this life.
We're not going to enjoy the blessings, the fullness of his goodness to us. So we find that he slips into a duplicity here in verse 10. And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt as a soldier in there, for the famine was grievous in the land and came to class 2018. I've come here to enter into Egypt, that he sent him to Sarah, his wife, to fall down. I know that our affair.
Woman to look upon. And therefore it shall come to pass from the Egyptians shall see thee that they shall say this is his one, And they will kill me, but they will say they.
So he went down. Now he's often heard the expression going down. Jonah went down and say certainly a a significant expression here and his heart is moving away from his all her as aims as he famine speaks of testing of course and certainly a time for Christians. Things come into our life to to test his faith. Blessings never come apart from the test the famine to see how we're going to are we going to count on God? Are we going to trust him? Blessed is a man that trusts in the Lord. Do we have our a full confidence in him?
Or are we making expressions and reading into things that we fail to gain the implications of it, the sweetness of it? So he.
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Makes this arrangement with his wife. By the way, the Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered several years ago were found that they among them the remark about Abraham's wife, how beautiful a woman she was. Which group first agrees with this scripture here? That she was beautiful? Fair to look upon.
So he makes this arrangement. He lost his, he lost his peace, you might say, and began to work. And his courage fails. And when our courage fails, our faith.
Fails. He was not looking to the God of the altar.
And beloved, what a lesson to us when we get looking about casting, about the condition of things rather than having our eyes fixed upon the Savior, enjoying our our secured, our safe, our satisfied life that we have been given because of what He suffered for us and accomplished for us. But how easy it is, you know, we've all experienced this, to lose our peace and begin to make arrangements, begin to tinker with things. The young man we were speaking to it the other day, he.
Is in deep trouble, soul trouble. Life problems are overwhelming it, and he's trying to do this and trying to do that. And he is so sworn a woman up there, overwhelmed by his problems, that he just seems to be a fail between he and his daughter.
We Thursday.
Cast himself on the Lord and seek His will and His only It's going to cost something. It will always cost something, particularly when we have sown a certain course. There is a ripping and it will always be the reaping, whether we are saved or lost. But there's joy and there can be blessing in the end. But you know, to be so hungry, to be so thirsty.
For the will of God in their life that we will say, Lord, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, what grace, what grace to be able to say that whatever it is. A young woman back home in her 30s, she was a dear Christian. She is a dear Christian, and I thought she had a a a godly walk. She was an encouragement to the to the rest of us.
And private time for savings. And she said, you know, I want a deeper walk with the Lord and whatever it takes, I pray that whatever it takes, Lord, that's what I want.
Within six weeks she and her husband were rear-ended on the freeway and they were three weeks in the hospital and traction and the rest of their life. They have a special room in their home now with therapeutic.
Machines and exercise equipment for physical therapy.
But she said I would not have it any other way because she has a relationship through that experience with him, not only with the Lord but with her husband that she didn't have before.
She said I wouldn't have any other way. So when we, when we take that risk, allow it to say Lord, whatever it takes.
For God.
But joy and blessing is at the end of it, the conclusion of if we just open ourselves to whatever His will might think, because his will is an expression of his heart to you and me.
Sometimes we think we're grudgingly if we give to the ourselves up to the will of God, that it's going to mean sacrifice and and the loss of this or that, but it all it is into the expression of the heart of God for you and me.
And talking about that.
Well, you notice that.
They the Princess in verse 15. Also Carol saw her that's sorry and commended her before fell and the woman was taken into Pharrell House.
Now it's interesting that you know from the book of Esther that a girl, a woman who was presented for the wife of a ruler, that there was a period of preparation for her before she could become his wife. And during that period, I believe, as as far as Sarah is concerned.
During that period of preparation was that God says it was verse 17 the Lord played Pharaoh and his house with great pleasure because of Sarah, Abraham's wife and Cheryl called Abram and said.
What is this that thou has done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me that this was not thy wife?
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Why saidest thou? She is my sister. So I have taken her to me as my wife. Now therefore, behold thy wife take her, and pull thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they sent him away, and his wife, and all we have.
What is sad, What a sad thing you have to be corrected by by the world, as it were. This man, this Abram, this man of faith, this, this giant that we're going to find, we we feel like.
Burt bath Krishna that is in the water an inch deep compared to as far as our faith goes compared to this man.
But he's growing, and that's a process that we all I trust, they're in. If we follow the history of this man, Abram, we'd see that he indeed grew to be a mighty man of faith. But here we see that he had acted in such a way that he had to be corrected by a godless man.
And you know the unbeliever, the godless man that we may have as neighbors or a school or whatever. They may not know the Bible, but they know you. They they, they know what you ought to be. And they're quick to criticize and use it as a rationale for their wickedness or their ignorance of the word of God because they look at you and me in the state.
Not for me. Nothing in that.
Look up. Let's see some of the Christian leaders in Christendom, how they've been exposed in the media.
And held up as a derision of Christianity.
Was a tragedy, but a tragedy. What a dishonor to the Lord Jesus for you and me in any way to walk into those about us would say, look at that man. Put it down. It's full of half truths. That's what they had told my sister. Well, I was 1/2 truth.
To extradite himself, but he feared, might be a difficult situation.
And allow it again. May there be such wholeheartedness, commitment to the will of God, that there be none of this, none of this game playing as Abram did here, in order to save our skin.
But maybe you so surrendered that, as that girl said to her, whatever it takes, your will is what I want and nothing less.
And so this chapter, well, it gives us the story of Abram, I believe, at the beginning of his journey. But he drifted out of fellowship, out of communion with God. And in this whole chapter, there's hardly a mention of of God on his way down to the South, as he's attracted toward Egypt somewhat. He wasn't happy there either, you know, he wasn't happy. And which is really typical of the world, that we're not going to be happy.
Yes, and seeking to to adjust to circumstances and to compensate for this or that we we were not happy. The only possible way for you and me to be happy as believers is a surrendered life. Blessed is a man that trusteth in the Lord, and that trusting implies in the in the original, a total capitulation to a person.
No reservations.
And at this minute, he wasn't happy there. But notice what it was. What else was true there That they weren't happy with him either?
Goes out all the way around.
You and I have believers are going to be miserable if we make the compromises and the adjustments to the lot did in his history. He was the greatest compromiser, probably in the word of God.
You know, he went along with Abram, but he was a mere echo of Abram. He never had a personal exercise of his own in his life. He was a follower, but he was a compromiser and he was an adjuster, and I think you and I can relate to that.
Told of a certain manner, who I thought was a Christian on this trip and rather than saying, well, when he's with believers he acts one way and when he's with the people of the world, he acts another way. He's a chameleon. Whoever he's with, that's he is and.
You know, we have that within us that wants to be accepted, to be, to belong, you know, to be one of the among our peers.
00:50:00
But you know instead of John that he was a burning and shining light, John McDonald's joined the Baptist, a burning and shining light amongst all of those people, those rebels, those rejecters are one of the burning of the shining light. And the burning and shining light says I must decrease and he must increase. And that was eroded the path to the happiness for you and me too. But when we it's a constant thing when we get out of fellowship.
It's possible that may you and I be so sensitive and so jealous. So far our relationship with the Lord Jesus. So I have such a thirsty soul as a thirsty land that we want to drink in and submit to this blessed book. I asked a brother, 89 years old as a 88 and just had his birthday.
Been the Lord's for many, many, many years and I said what's your I said if you could say in 50 words or less, what would you say The secret of a Christian life.
He didn't take 50 words. He took three, he said. Read the book.
That's it. I read it with the understanding the implications of it and read it not to learn but to obey and I think below too that.
As we learn, we want to remember that.
So intake of truth has one one ultimate conclusion, and only one, and that is to make this Christ like those in the in the Assembly who minister.
Most of Christ should be seen in them.
That is so true because.
If we take in truth, if we understand, taken, learn and understand and gather the knowledge from this book and it doesn't conform me to Christ is going to manifest or flash in me. And so we need that that humility that that brings you see to to learn Christ as we take in the scriptures. And you know that the higher we grow in grace the lower we go in self importance. If you see Jim Kilter making much of himself you know that he is not.
Enjoying the grace of God, He is not walking in the grace of God. And if any of our company is is like that as a flesh, the flesh has come in and as we know that scripture says, knowledge does blow us up.
And so we don't want to be, that's we want to be Christ like God. Make it the heart sauce if he can, then take that softness that elevates that soil of a soft heart. And it can, it can mold it and conform it to Christ.
And one of these moments, Father, we're going to be just like him.
Just, I think morally.
His name is going to be on our foreheads, which means we're going to have his character.
How beautiful, how wonderful that even even now that there can be the features of that one, that man in the glory seems in you and me.
Well, I am so by His grace.
You sing with me number.
And for 3/28.
Lord Jesus.
To tell of I love our souls shall forever deal.
#328.
Lord Jesus.
Gen. 13
Address—J. Kilcup
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.
That was last night.
Was need to be replaced and it did. But they went out and they bought the most expensive and the biggest Bible I could find and I was overwhelmed that it's such a big Bible and my other Bible was much smaller. But what could we do? I mean this this dear couple gave from their hearts and we've been trying to get used to it, but sometimes you barely make it.
Hello exercise.
Prophet sonnet and this ways enough so I get started.
Would you turn to him #256 to begin our meeting tonight?
256.
Praise the Savior, he who know him.
You can tell how much would you stand, please and join me at number 256.
Oh no.
There's a six words that goes with this hymn that could very well been included, but for some reason they did not. But it goes like this.
Lord and glory who adore thee, cast art, mounds and joy before the praise and homage render to thee in those parts of that holy, beautiful, so close to the world.
Assuming we took up the 1St 4 verses of the 40th song, that is that. The nut line is to the Christian life, the divine life, and there's some thoughts from there that would encompass at least the 1St 3 verses encompassed.
Encompasses every believer here in the room.
That is, remember the first verse? We had a safe life where we we cried.
00:05:05
And he heard her cry, our cry of need, you and me, as soon as we we cry to him. And he saved us.
Save this. I saved life. We have tonight.
We're not dependent upon any man. We're not dependent on circumstances. We're not dependent upon ourselves. We're not dependent upon anything or anyone but, he writes.
We are enjoying the thought this morning that.
About the blood, you know when I see the blood I will Passover you in next to this fall. There have been a life taken so it was not to be repeated. There was no reason for this destroying Angel to touch a home where the blood had been put on the door of the post in the lentil because the light had already been taken. And it was like the case of in Wisconsin not too long ago where a man had been caught for some crime that he committed and.
In the process of booking him, he confessed to a murder that he had committed two years prey to previously.
And his confession, of course, was vital to the closing of that case. But they had tried him on that and set him free because there hadn't been enough evidence.
And they couldn't read pride in because of the double jeopardy law even tried.
And set free, beloved, is what's happened to you and me. The Lord changes, has been tried, and He is. He wasn't set free, but because he fully exonerated, exhausted the holiness of God.
In him we are set free. We are saved tonight.
We shall never be more saved than we are this evening. And let us thrill our hearts. Secondly, in the second verse, it speaks about a secured life. He has set our feet upon a rock, and that rock is bright as we know the unshakable foundation.
Of the man Christ Jesus. And thirdly, it speaks there of a satisfied life, where we have been given a new song. A new song has been put in our mouth, and many shall.
That says, see it, not hear it. That is a song of our hearts, of our souls are going to be such a power. They have to be that many shall see it says, and fear the Lord and trust in him.
But the next verse is what we have been considering principally, and that is the 1St 3 verses ought to call out from your hearts and minds. The next verse where he says blessed is a man who trusted in the Lord, that is the surrendered life.
If you are the fact we are saved in view of the truth, that we have a secure life, and the time that we have a satisfied life, we ought to say in the response to our hearts, without the bees, Lord.
I'm yours. I'm yours again. The only instrument that we have that God is interested in is our bodies. I beseech you, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
So I says it's what he wants.
And the persuasion of power to present our bodies is encompassed in that word of mercies. I beseech you by the mercies of God. And as we contemplate the mercies of God, beloved, then I believe we tumble.
Then we say, yes, Lord, what would you have me to do?
Then we say I am yours. I My body is yours. My life is yours. I What are the mercies of God? Well, we're past judgments. We have been delivered. We have a safe life, a secured light. We have a whole. We have the promises of God. Sometimes just sit down and list the mercies of God. They are inexhaustible. But the more that the mercy of God grip your will and might. They're the only things that will move our will.
To surrender.
Our lives to him.
And beloved, if it's true. If this book is true.
Mary, we have to do it by the grace of God. Seek grace to do it. If it is not true, then we are among the most than most liberal. But what is true? And I believe it is true.
The Spirit has shown to me that it is true, and my spirit responds to it. Say Yeah Lord, it's true.
Every bit of it's true, and I believe moment by moment in this life we experience that it is true.
00:10:03
It is true. We talked to some of these folks like we have on this trip of 8889 years old and they're getting down to the end and what are they saying? It's it's been a waste.
No. If they had one complaint they they would. If they had a rerun they would have done it much different. There had would have been a surrender or a commitment much earlier in their lives.
That's their only side part of the race. They wish they'd run it with more of the goals that before there. But as we mentioned last night, there is no age requirement as to the the race. When we as we have a fresh start, we have a God of new beginnings, of a fresh start. I don't know how many times I've had a fresh start, but I spent many of them.
And we illustrated last night by enlisting, illustrating with Josiah who was eight years old when he said he sent his heart to holy follow the Lord. Then he was 16 when he went out, and he cut down the idols. And then I was a God's people. He destroyed the idol. He didn't have business for God. And we illustrated Abraham, and he was 75. God began to use him. Moses was 80. And so there's really no time along with people while we're here.
That we can't say yes, Lord, I would like tonight to turn back to the.
Book of Genesis.
Has to take our the next chapters. We have two men principally in this chapter, and I like to illustrate the two lives and one was surrendered and one one was not.
And possibly finish. So learn something that would encourage us to surrender.
To raise the white flag the words, and surrender. Oftentimes when we feel that we have surrendered but we are still elevating the compartment of our souls. Our lives that we are are keeping for ourselves and we say, Lord, I'm yours, I've got all of you, but let me have this little part of me.
But until he has all of us, I don't believe we're going to enjoy the thought that we have all of him.
Now in the 13th chapter of the book of Genesis we have Abram.
Returning after being to Egypt, it was a a last experience to him, that is no doubt he learned something of the flesh and that truck. But as far as gaining anything spiritually it was a total loss. And so in the third verse it says. And he went on his way, after taking his wife, of course, and lot with him on his way on his journeys from the South even to Bethel and to the place where his tent had been at the beginning.
Between Bethel and AI place of the altar which he had made there at the 1St, and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.
I think it's significant that until he get back to this place where he had been at the first, there was no progress in his soul and beloved. I think this perfectly illustrates your progress in mind. When we drift away from the things of God and until we judge what what caused the departure, that would seem to be in limbo, as it were as far as our dispersal enjoyment is concerned.
So May God give us the grace to go to him and say, Lord, whatever it is, I want to judge it, I want to deal with it.
And and we find it, it seems, Abraham and building his altered. It seems that it is what he had in mind. Now I'd like to illustrate this man as he has presented. Would you turn to the 11Th chapter of the book of Jesus?
Keep your face down in Genesis for the times of evil.
I report versus I'd like to read to us.
And it begins with verse 13.
Are these all died?
In faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from which they had come out, they might have had opportunity to return, But now they desire, desire a better country that is heavenly.
00:15:14
Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them for the city.
Now these people were weak and failing things that were listed in this chapter, but the general principle of their life was a one of surrender. And although they failed, here we see God's estimate of them. And there are 7 aspects, 7 appetites here written by God upon the lives of these patriarchs, These people failing people like you and me, but nevertheless.
They were again governed by the principles of surrender. First of all, you notice that they verse 13.
We all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar, far out there, persuaded of them, and embraced them.
To solve the promises of God. And you see, they were so meaningful to them they believed the bare word of God.
And there were so meaningful to them that they embraced them. They they, as another has said, they hugged them to their breasts.
And you know, that's what we need to do do, pumpkin. I I believe it's how far as my heart hugged these promises. And I believe they closerly hugged them to know more. We will experience the the truth that we are indeed strangers and pilgrims. Tomorrow I hugged the promises of God. The more I will enjoy the blessings of God. They go together.
Or to others to make them our own. Secondly, you notice they not only pump them, embrace them as a word, but they confess that they were strangers and pilgrims.
They were happy. The power of the promises enabled them to walk and live as as strangers and pilgrims. I believe there's the only the degree that my heart is filled with the promises of God, the word of God. Will I have any desire to walk as a stranger in children? As one just passing through like I saw on the door of the refrigerator, Those 3 words just passing through.
That's all we are, the leather just passing through and the more we have these promises.
The more we'll consent to this truth, the more we will agree to it joyfully.
Not to have any strings attached here to be ready to soar not only soar when the Lord come, but sore in spirit now.
And that's the thing that'll keep our our standard lights and our eyes outward. But thirdly, I mean I say this third aspect of this is the best definition of separation in the entire word of God. It says this for they that say such things, that is confess the promises of God and that are exchanged the pilgrims.
They confess, I say. Such things declare plainly that they seek a country. There it is.
We declare plainly that we see another country that is separation. That's all.
There's nothing difficult, there's nothing profound about that. It's simply beloved that as our hearts are taken up with the promises of God or the specifically the person of Christ.
Then our lives will be care, finally that we are just passing through.
Just passing through. But declare any of that saying, verbalize, declare plainly by their lives that were passenger for them. And truly if they had been mindful of that country from which they came out, they might have had opportunity to return. And the thought here is that I would there was the there is the attraction to draw us back and if they had thought about the the attractions, the allurements.
Of the scene around them if they would have returned.
It could have easily said, well, this is not the path for me, the path of separation of a stranger in a pilgrimage. But you see that the promises through their hearts. And so they had they been mindful, that is, that they had wanted to, that is, if they had been so minded, they could have returned to what they had left.
And so it is with you and me.
00:20:00
As God says by the grace of God on on this course that He has placed us on or in.
There are going to be many, many attacks, many attempts to draw a society, and many of God people have been drawn aside, I suppose.
That if the children of the Saints had gone on as their parents had, and the parents had gone on as their fathers, their mothers had gone on this room, no way could contain that company. You would not find a room in Pella, or here in Sully.
To hold the company.
The children had gone on as their parents had, or their parents had gone on as theirs.
The The battle is so fierce for the hearts of men and women and young people as well. But unless we are embracing the promise of God, we will not stay on the course. But we like demons who chose the this world's attraction for the flavors of the fall. And that's just one that we could choose from. But there's you know them, I know them, and you may be one, and I may be one too. That will no longer be sitting in these seats or have an interest in being with the Lord of people unless we embrace.
Our embrace, even a daily way. The promises of God.
And enjoy most of all we say the person of Christ. That is paramount, because if we we must, as we embrace the the promises of God, we must understand that that these promises are based on the character of the one who gave them, and that is price themselves.
And so it is He and to whom we are attached. If to him we look and enjoy and revel it, that man Christ Jesus, none other. But there's more. In the 16th verse we have the fifth thought. And now he desired a better country. That is heavenly, a better country, a better country. In this book of Hebrews 11 Times over you'll find that expression better, better.
You know, often times we choose the good.
But God and had us have the better part the better, and he is taking time needs to for suffering Jewish Christians. And to whom this letter was written that you have a better part in Jesus, much better than not in the old things, the old ritual, the old form of things. But now you have a living Christ, the living Jesus.
And so the thought here they desire a better country, better than heaven. All love it. May we maybe so embrace the the promises of God and the person of Christ who gave them.
That our hydrostatic fixed on that better country, that better country, you know as we have the right perspective of this world.
I wouldn't want. I don't know why. You know, I personally had the flesh, and the flesh responds to the the dainties of this life. But I wish you had been with me today at the hospital down in Iowa City. I believe every believer, every one of you, that professed price.
Would visit a hospital or a nursing home from time to time. That helps us keep the perspective.
We live in a a dying world, a hurting world.
Twisted world what sin has done.
You know and.
The 11Th chapter, John said Jesus wept.
And you know, I believe that is one of the most profound, it's not the most profound person in the Bible. Why did he wait?
I like to give you 4 reasons maybe why he left, but maybe there are more. First of all, he left because of his humanity. He was a man.
Secondly, he went because of his sympathy as the high priest. He entered into it.
What they were suffering the loss of their brother. Thirdly, he went over the tragedy of sin. What sin had done? What sin has done in this world, beloved?
You feel it in your own bodies. If you don't, maybe you're a young person and the disease has not touched you yet. But it will. It will. You are dying. The scripture says that the old man is dying.
We can take vitamins, we can do our exercises and we can do everything, the doctor said. But we are dying.
But praise God, it tells us that the new man is renewed day by day. And are you investing in the Newman or the old man?
00:25:09
What a waste to invest in your mind is going to be laying in a hospital or taking someone away, but it's good for us to visit again to see what's the horrendous damage, the tragedy that sent his partners in this world and fourthly.
Peace, the glory.
That is.
The Lord Jesus knew that he was going to bring Lazarus back, and I believe that he went because of that. That could be one of the reasons he went because he knew he was going to bring this man ladders back into a world for which he and which he would, he would die again.
But I want to What a profound thought that Jesus was the man of the glory. The man in the glory. What? Because he saw this world through those divine eyes.
They felt the heartbeat, the heartache of what Sin had done, the heartache of his people anyway.
But indeed, there's a better country.
And six thought here is not, is not ashamed to be called their God, for he had prepared them a city that is God is not a shame to be told to, to to be identified with those who have embraced his Son, who embraced his promises and have their eyes fixed on him. He is not ashamed to embrace us in that glorious He's not ashamed of the place. Tell us they call us right.
That's great to personify.
And lastly, because this isn't what we wanted to take out this evening altogether, but last spot was.
For he had prepared for them a city.
God is not ashamed to be called their God. He has identified himself with us, He's embraced us, and he has prepared us a city.
And that city, of course, is that one between the glory well.
Made maybe these thoughts that embrace the Saints of old that are listed in this 11Th chapter. Maybe we understand something of them that so we can say as they did in in our weakness to say yes, Lord, I prefer that path. Finally, by your Grace, that's the path I want.
And I do believe too, if one believer is more spiritual than another, it's simply because he values the person of Christ more.
Each one of us have our relationship tonight with the Lord Jesus that.
We have chosen.
And all power for the Christian walk, I believe in testimony depends on the appreciation of Christ himself. That's all the more we appreciate that land.
The more we'll understand His glory, His Majesty and the tale of this world well, back to our chapter. What a tremendous.
Illustration there of the Lord speaks of the in there in the 11Th chapter of Hebrews to those poor sites, what encouragement it must have been to them.
Doctor caused our hearts to send too.
Well, in verse five it says a lot also.
Who went with Abraham had blocked some birds and sentence, and the land was not able to bear that that they might dwell together for their substance of rape, so that they could not dwell together. There was a strike between the herdsmen of Abrams cattle, and the herdsmen of lost cattle, and a Canaanite, and the Perizzite well then in the land.
Now if you will notice here something very very significant.
It says that there is strike between Abrams people and lots of people in the midst of the Canaanites and the parasites in the midst of two God fearing men who could not live in harmony.
You have these warring factions.
You know they did not strive in Egypt. Important, important thought. I do believe that that is worldliness, effectually.
Prevents brotherly care and concern, so there's no strikes. But once there is a concern and a love for one another, then we need the grace. We need more grace and more grace to go on together in unity, or there will be strife and controversy and contention as there was here.
00:30:02
Here godly men were involved in a strife and humbly. And how often do we find it among God's people? Because there hasn't been the the humbling and the seeking of more grace. Scripture says that we have not, because we have not. And we were speaking last night at the great fatal disease that many of us are afflicted with is We don't feel the need. We don't feel the need of more grace. We don't go before God in our burden, in our needs.
And we'd like to lay this scene. Who said that we have need of nothing? So he drifts along and moves out. The best part?
Thought maybe we maybe understand.
Arts of poverty, that we've seen more and more of those. And Abraham said unto life, Let there be no stripe. I pray the between E&D between my person and my and thy herdsmen, For we are brethren, is not the whole land. Before they separate themselves, I pray thee from me that thou will take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if thou depart, to the right hand.
Go to the left.
This is beautiful. What disinterest we have here. How beautiful. He could care less. Abram could care less about.
What Locke had, or what he had, he could careless no notice what he did here. He knew that he did not need to assert himself. He knew that God would take care of him.
He did not have to push himself in order to have God's best.
So he let's not choose the planes.
Abram didn't choose. He left the choice to guard a great principle.
A great bunch of people.
Lot prescribing for the well watered planes and Abraham says lots. Make your choice. I'm going to leave my choice with God.
In that, in that fresh the beautiful disinterest that Abram had in the face of this conflict, he just backed away and says, I'm going to let God choose, but maybe he does come at this spirit.
But you know, I believe there's a truth here too, that that character determines our decisions.
And you know, no.
Anyone. As it works, that can ruin our reputation.
But no one can ruin our character. Only you can't. Only I can't.
And we, our character, again we say, is determined by and manifested by the decisions that we make.
And he.
His character is characterized by several things here he he doesn't pray, He doesn't look to God about anything. He is self-centered.
He is occupied with only the visible. He doesn't see beyond the immediate and he loses out, of course, on the riches rich part. But he seemed to have no discernment. He did not.
He did not see or seemed to care about the situation in Sodom. He should have known that the the real estate in Sodom was with us.
But you see, he was so self-centered and material minded that he lost sight of higher grounds and so he.
He lusted after those things. Are we guilty of that? In a sense, only you can answer that.
Actually, if we had time against, we could look at this from another viewpoint that lots followed. The man Abram, he didn't follow God. God was leading Abraham out by his bare word and another place you remember it says that Speaking of Abram acting on the word of God, he said. It says that Abraham staggered God at the promises of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. If there's one thing to give, glory to God.
That is the act of faith that we are given grace to do.
But.
What he He was just a mirror echo of Abram. He had no personal exercise outside of his what his uncle had, and so he had no stamina. He had no roots, and so he went away of his own choosing.
He looked for the best in this world.
We look for the best that had to offer and we know the conclusion of that. He came out empty handed, empty handed.
00:35:09
I was on a flight one time from Tel Aviv to Israel to Rome, Italy, and I was sitting alongside a Jewish lady, affluent Jewish lady, who obviously was well educated, and she asked me what I did for a living.
And I got to spend the next 2 1/2 hours telling her she had never heard the gospel before.
And she asked me a question toward the end, she said.
Why am I here? Why? Why are you here? Why are any on this, this plane law? Why are we here? I want to know why people. Why men and women, men and women are in this world on service, you know, That was, you know, a kind of a good question, A good question.
I believe Scripture tells us that we are made for the glory of God. I tried to share that with her. I don't know how much she got. And I believe for the Christian we are here to make the Lord, to to learn Christ.
And to make him known and that brings glory to God, I believe any any, any character or feature of Christ have seen in your life and mine brings glory to God.
We are here for God's glory, not as live thought for his personal and driving at his own personal.
Welfare or personal means or whatever he was here for himself and you and I are are beyond that. Hopefully we're here for the glory of God. At the close of the of the trip as we're planning, I asked her if she understood what we talked about, what I had told her and she said.
Understand. I hear you, but I don't believe you.
But I thought that it was not my my job to see that she believed or to force her to believe. I could not do that anyway. But I made her to consider what we talked about because her eternal destiny depended upon it. And she gave me a smile and left. But her question was a good one. When we know why we are here and what our destination is, then I think that we will hang on things loosely here.
Will be less likely, more like.
Well, it says in the 10th verse, it's not lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plaintiff Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the black Egypt, as autonomous on Tuesday.
So see it's beautiful land, how the lot was attracted to it. Then lot shows from all the Plain of Jordan and Lot journey east and they separated themselves at one from another.
Call of God had not reached the heart of of life, nor get God's inheritance enter into his vision at all.
And I think that if we would study this, we would notice that the the decline begins gradually but always leads away from Christ and into the world. It never happened suddenly. I remember a young man who was in prison. I had known him before he was incarcerated and that's what drew me to go see him. And he was a wild young fellow and the last time I had seen him, his hair was down to the back and and he had a wild slush. He was in the drugs and so on.
But when I went to see him in the prison, he was. I didn't recognize him when they brought him into the room because he was hair was cut, he was clean, getting a clear eye. And I had to be. He had to be pointed out to me.
And what happened to this man? He had been saved.
Out after he had been incarcerated, shortly after he been captured with a gun. He had had confessed Christ as a savior. Now he had heard the story of the love of God all of his life, But he had run as fast and as hard as he could, and he was remarkably safe. And it was so real and vibrant that we started up some meetings, So one meeting a week and so into that the prison.
And he would go out and he would get that Chapel full.
Of prisoners to hear the gospel.
And.
00:40:01
He became a leader in the prison at the Chicanos of the Indians.
The group they have in the prison, the the blacks have their Chieftain and the Indians have their Chieftain, and the whites have their chieftains, and they pretty much run the prison, the chiefs, and he became a chief.
And by being a chief, he forced a lot of these people into the Chapel. And so we had many, many happy.
Times in the Channel with these prisoners hearing the gospel, sometimes not willingly.
But this young man?
He wanted to, he wanted to get into shape. And so he began to work out in the gym. They had to have the prison there and a track that he could run around. And so he and working out, he became, of course, tired, exhausted, and he would come in and throw himself on his bunk and crash.
The time that he had spent usually in in reading the word of God and in prayer for God.
Simply as he became more and more involved in getting in condition and his body had a tremendous bill that his time of God disappeared and.
He just just that crack, that opening, you see of giving up that the most valuable time that he had to God and being in a prison, you're surrounded 24 hours a day with every kind of evil and vice that there is.
More maybe it's all that outside, only in the prison is concentrated, and unless the believers in the prison walk closely with the Lord, there's no way can they stand against the evil and those that place in both places. And so just by opening a crack, I was giving up. Not intentionally, but being so busy with getting into shape, There's nothing wrong with being in shape, but it it cost him everything. He wasn't long after that that he was not coming out to the meetings at all.
Get no more interest in the gospel and soon he was involved in in peddling every kind of vice inside the prison imaginable. Money was let out for prison. He was soon back in for offensive pilot. His salvation had been real and in time. Now he is out again, but he has done permanent damage to his body through the drugs and so on. But now he is his mind is so effective that he cannot concentrate for any long period of time.
And so he is not stable, He's as a child and many things. But why I mentioned this young man is this that simply by opening the door a crack and giving up the most treasured part of his life, his spiritual life depended upon it.
Kid, past American.
And you'll not be able to hold down. I'm thinking of material things like constant, but think of you won't be able to hold down a job he won't be able to marry.
Think of it in this life, but it cost him. But in in his spiritual life, his soul, the sorrow that has brought in his life is the magical love. We may think well that's happened to him and that would never be so gross with me, but then maybe you can do it.
With a much easier way. But carry on with the facade and nobody will notice that you have opened the door to whatever giving up the the treasure time of God. But beloved, if we are going to enjoy the the promises of God, we are going to embrace them and and walk with Christ in a way that will fill us with joy and happiness in this life. And then we have to have that discipline life that surrender life that will above everything else.
Place this block.
Will treasure this more. Anything that keeps you and me from this book is our enemy.
Anything that keeps us from this book is our enemy, and we ought to recognize that. And the only way we are going to learn Christ is to be in the book.
Maybe I shared with you, but I remember not too long ago was I was mentioning that the necessity of our being in the Gospels and all of our reading. We want to be in the book, of course, but never, never pass a day without being in the Gospels. And a young man came up afterward, and then he said, brother, he said, I've been saved for three years and I've been learning truth and I've been learning doctrine, and my heart is as cold as ice, he said I'm going to get into the gossip. The Gospels, you see, present Christ to us as nowhere else. We'll find it, that is.
00:45:11
Our affections will be drawn to him. We'll find our heart satisfaction.
In the Gospels, as we have Christ minister to us, so never, never get beyond the Gospels in our reading as we feed upon the living Christ.
Well.
What I wonder 1St 12 you notice?
Abram walked in the land of Canaan and locked loved in the cities of the plane.
And pitched his tent towards Silent. I would like to ask you a question.
Was Abram sorry for his choice?
I've got any luck make the his choice.
Would you please turn over to the 19th chapter?
And the 28th 1St.
And he looked at Abraham, looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plane, and Miguel and all the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of the furnace.
In the plane of memory, which was near human word, Abraham was it was about 3035 miles away. He could see the smoke of the burning cities rising in the sky.
Was he sorry that he had made the choice, that he left it to God? I don't think so. I think he had the right estimate of the real estate values in Sodom and Gomorrah.
May God give us that same understanding.
But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.
You know, there's a lot. Mary, first of all pitched his tent towards Sodom. But even after.
His experiences, he seems to just be continuing. He's seen him in cops here, in a trap of his own choosing. You know, I was with Daniel's queen in Spain.
One time and there was a.
There was a river that was used for generating power and it went over a dam and it had a catch. It looked like a.
Spring of of real work of of steel. But anyway that was this water was running through and the last time I was there I I noticed that the the stream was not running anymore and I asked him what had happened. He said well see those men down there they're they're cleaning the the.
Trash screen down there so that the water can run through.
And you know it kind of came to mind. You know, that's what I need to do occasionally in the trash string. You see the water wasn't able to flow through there and generate the power that that because of the debris that had built up. You know that's what happens in our lives. We we need to clean out the the thrash screen we allow things to build up. So the word of God is not having its power. Like with this man luck he the trash stream also collected. He didn't understand what the will of God was. He was disinterested in in the will of God.
He was so collected, wasn't debris, and as we know, it's a healthy thing to do to get before our holy God. Like, do we read this morning what Job did and he got in the presence of God, he said. Ooh, I pour myself.
We get the right perspective from that viewpoint at least.
And we it's a healthy thing to clean out the track show screen.
So.
The Lord sent him to Abraham in verse 14 after Lot was separated from him. Lift up thine eyes, now thine eyes, and look at from the place where northward and southward and eastward and westward.
Notice this he gets, he gets a view of what God has for him. I believe it's only when we are in communion with the with the joys and the glories of of the Lord Jesus that we will reject the world's display of things. Here he sees the the promises of God unfolded beforehand. If Corey says, for all the land which dossiers to thee, will I give it, and to thy seed forever.
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And I will take thy seed.
As the dust of the earth, so that a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall I seek also be numbered. But the promises given to David, I know if Abram could look down in his body and could say he he looked he looking at his body, he could say no way, no way can that be.
But he looked at God rather than ahead himself, he said. He said verse 17. Arise, walk through the land.
In the length of it, and in the breadth of it, while given much of the then Abram removed his chance and came and dropped by the plane, or in the plane of memory which was in Hebron, and built there in Alder unto the bar.
Our blood. That's the end of the chapter and the end of the talk. Hebron means fellowship, Hebron means communion. And if you want to know the best place to live, it is in Hebron, Hebron.
It's a it's a nice thought to follow through sometime, and I wish we had time to pick it up because I stood the best place to live and the blessed best place to die.
Sarah died here at Hebron Patriarchs. I remember visiting Hebron one time, and all the patriarchs are entombed in that place and revered.
Still, Hebron is a place of fellowship, a place of communion, and it's certainly it is the place of blessing. May God so creating us a desire and a hunger that will not be fooled or deceived by, deceived by the things in this life.
But.
Have an eye on that better country. You know, the third chapter of Second Timothy says. That character of our day, the time we're living in just before the return of Christ, will be that of this section. And I suppose never have people been so deceived in following this man for that man or this cult or that whole cult. It has never been as it is today. 10 years ago, you talked to people about spirits or about demons.
And they may have laughed at you now. It's part of our language. In the Northwest we have two internationally known channelers that mediums that work with these spirits, demons, which they profess to be 35,000 years old. And they will charge people $1000 for a weekend to have this medium, this spirit, this channeler, unfold, this wisdom of the ancients.
People are living and dabbling in the oaks out of the demon world as never before.
Time of deception. But it's not just happening to unbelievers. It is also happening to God's people. So never has there been a time when we need to be looking under Jesus that we need to be ravished by His loveliness, by His beauty, by His Majesty, by His power, and living in the glorious knowledge that He is coming to take His home momentarily. It's going to be there is. If you want another happy study, look in the scriptures.
The number of times that you find this expression, even as he had said, even as he had said, he remember, he told the disciples to go and prepare supper at a certain large upper room, and it said that they went and they found, as he had said, You remember at the tomb, the 28th chapter of Matthew, When they they came, the women came to the tomb, and the Angel says he had risen as he is said. 11 He has said, I will come and receive you and to myself, that where I am there you may be also.
Please turn to 174 with me.
All patient, spotless one our hearts, and meet this training to bear thy yoke, and learn of these that we may rest obtained. Oh, fix our earnest gaze so holy Lord on thee, that with thy beauty occupied we elsewhere.
Non basic. I'm 74.
Do a Please stand with me and sing this last temp. And would you change the wording in the first line of this last verse from our to my old fix my earnest gaze on debut?
Revelation 2&3
Address—B. Prost
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One 68168 The night is far spent and the day is at hand.
No sign to be looked for The stars in the sky. Rejoice then, ye Saints, tis your Lord's own command. Rejoice, for the coming of Jesus draws nigh. 168 Just the 1St 3 verses.
Well, I trust I have the Lord's mind tonight in turning back to Revelation chapters two and three that we had before us in our recent meetings in Des Moines.
I don't mean to recap what we have had there, but as we can appreciate, we covered only, at least in part, some of the truths that we have in these two chapters, and I'd like what the Lord's help to take up.
Not the whole of the two chapters, but some thoughts that I have enjoyed concerning the address, first of all to Ephesus, the first church addressed, and then to the Church of Laodicea, which is the last one addressed. We'll leave out the intervening ones tonight. It's too much to try and cover them all anyway. And what I particularly had before me was what the Lord had to say to the church at the beginning of its history, and then what the Lord has to say to it at the end of its history.
Let's read then, in Revelation chapter 2, the address to Ephesus here as we find it.
Revelation 2 and verse one unto the Angel of the Church of Ephesus, writing these things, that he that hold of the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.
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I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil. And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and has found them liars, and has borne and has patience, after my namesake hast labored, and has not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore from whence thou art fallen.
And repent, and do the 1St works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy Candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
But this thou past that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also need.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.
A couple of thoughts, first of all in connection with the church in Ephesus.
I know perhaps everyone here wasn't at the recent meetings in Des Moines. I don't know, maybe you all were. But I suppose it's nothing new to most of us here to say that what we have in these seven churches has given to us in Revelation 2 and three are very clearly what we might call a panoramic history of the church.
But God gave them to John in the way that they are given here. Because if it had been clearly evident in the Apostles day that this was a panoramic history of the church, then I believe the church could have read them and said, well, we're only in Ephesus now. So there's a lot of ways to go yet before the Lord can come. Or they could have said, we're in Smyrna now. But evidently there's a long ways to go yet before the Lord can come.
And So what God does is take up seven churches. And if you've never done it before.
Get out of that sometime and look them up. They're all clustered fairly close together there in what is known as Asia Minor, now part of Turkey, not too far from one another, much like a cluster of assemblies that we might know in our day. And here they were all in different states. And I believe that these states existed as we read them here. These assemblies were in those states. And So what impresses my own soul is that, yes, this forms a panoramic history of the church.
And that is important. I believe we lose much if we don't see it that way. But also we need to recognize that each of these individual assemblies was an assembly in which what we read about here was going on, and the Lord was speaking to them as individuals at that time. And I believe that's the way they took it when they first received it. When John wrote the Book of Revelation, I don't believe that the Saints looked at it and said well.
This is very clearly a panoramic history of the church. In fact, I stand corrected on this. But I would go so far as to say that I very much know if the understanding of this as a panoramic history of the church was understood until the last century, at least not in its right way. And I believe that would have been intentional on the in the mind of God, because the proper hope of the church is always the Lord's coming. And if you read.
Through the New Testament you find that, for example, in Thessalonians, Paul gives them the truth of the Lord's coming as if it was something that would occur at any moment. Then we which are alive and remain. Paul has been with the Lord probably 1900 years or more now, but he could talk like that as if he would be here when the Lord came. And so that was always the proper hope of the church.
The true love of the church is always glory. There's no future for the church other than glory in the Word of God.
Someone once asked a novit servant of the Lord in the last century when troubles and difficulties came in amongst the people of God, said, brother, whatever is going to become of us if these things go on. I thought his answer was so nice. He said I know of no future for the Church of God, the glory, no future for the Church of God. But we do know from this, this history of the church that there were these various stages that it went through and what I want to dwell on tonight particularly.
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If the Lord's help is not to.
Shall I say, look upon this and say no, here was the period that characterized this and we'll apply it to them. We'll do that in one sense, but at the same time I'd like to apply it to myself and each one of us to apply it to ourselves.
We know that Ephesus represents the period of time that occurred immediately after the apostles left the sea. The Apostle John was the one that lived the longest. I suppose it's history tells us that he lived to be almost 100 years of age. And we know that the book of the Revelation was written approximately at the time AD 9798. Something like that.
When John had been banished to the Isle of Patmos, and this was the state of things that was coming in right after the apostles had left the sea. And I just want to dwell on a couple of things here that have impressed itself upon me.
In emphasis, everything was going on outwardly well, and the Lord notices that, and the Lord commends that.
They labored while reading verse two. I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience are perhaps endurance. And how about cats not bear them, which are evil, and so on.
And those tried them which say they are apostles under not and has found them liars. Well, there were those that came on the scene right after the apostles had left, and they took the place of being apostles. They took the place of being sent of God in that capacity. And here in Ephesus there were those that had the discernment to see through that, and they had shown them to be liars.
And God commends all that, and has born, and has patience, and for my name's sake hast labored it, hast not fainted, all very, very commendable. But then he says, I have somewhat against thee, verse four, Because thou hast left thy first love.
You know.
We're going to have a wedding in our family in about six weeks.
And.
You know, it's a joy to my heart to see first love. It's a joy to my heart to see my daughter and her fiance enjoying one another's company. What characterizes it?
Oh, there's, there's love, there's joy, there's a romanticism about that love which only those who have experienced it can understand. We all, I suppose, at one time or another, those of us that are married have experienced that and I hope, I hope we still do. But we know what it's like first love. It's something that.
We can't really explain it, but it's a wonderful thing. It's been a joy to my heart to see it again.
And here we have the apostles, saying to them, Thou hast left thy first love. What did he mean? Or I believe he meant very simply.
That everything was going on as it should. And God commends that. He doesn't say you're wrong to do it, not at all. But the communion with the Lord, the Moses spring of it was gone. It was gone.
And that's the departure I suggest. For each one of us is a state of soul.
Where Christ is not.
I was going to say Christ is not my object, but that gets to be an overused cliche sometimes.
And I'd rather put it this way, The Lord Jesus Christ is not.
Precious to my soul as a dear friend. Brother Harry Hayhoe used to remind us very often the secret of a happy Christian pathway is to commune with the Lord as with a dear friend.
And I covered that from my own soul. What? We need more of us to be in his presence. You know, our brother Hendricks reminded us of the meetings.
That the Church was at its best and closest to the Lord when it knew the least.
When the church in the book of the Acts was in its time of first love, they had no epistles to read. They may have had the Gospels, they may not even have had all of them. I doubt it. I doubt if they had the book of Luke at that time. I doubt if Luke had written it by then. And maybe the other Gospels hadn't been written. I'm sure Mark hadn't been written by that, because I don't think Mark wrote his gospel until after he'd been restored. So they didn't have much of anything as far as the New Testament is concerned, the new the least.
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And yet all what joy there was.
Oh, grace, great grace was upon them all. They had all things common. The fulfillment or answer to the Lord's Prayer in the 17th of John was carried out there and then Phaedra came in very rapidly, and we've never seen it since. First of all, first of all, and they knew the least. It wasn't a question of how much they knew. And you know what concerns me most about myself and what concerns me most about the Saints of God?
Is not that we don't know the truth? Thank God, I believe those in this room know the truth. Thank God, I believe the Saints know who the Lord is. But what it concerns me that we know the truth, we should. I don't say it doesn't concern me, but it doesn't concern me as much as a moral state that goes along with it. That is what exercises my own heart the most. And how can I have a moral state that is in keeping with the truth that I hold? Oh, that Blessed One, to whom the truth points and who is the embodiment of it all, who is the source of it all.
To whom at all points, who is the center of it all? That blessed man?
Must be precious to my own soul. And if he isn't?
Then something's wrong. Well, the point of departure in every case, the Lord identifies here, and I believe we find that that is the point of departure in every case. If we get away from the Lord, it's first of all because the Lord didn't mean that much to me. I didn't communicate with Him as a dear friend.
Later on, maybe something came in, but you know, if I really want to get before the Lord, well, I'll tell you a story that illustrates it. Many years ago, I only heard this story because I never knew JB Dunlop. But Mr. Dunlop, he lived up in our area, traveled extensively. He knelt down at his bedside. And I think there are children here tonight, and I want to speak simply so we can all understand. He knelt down at his bedside one night to pray.
I hope we all do that. Any meltdown to pray. And when he came to pray, he found that he couldn't see me to pray and the words wouldn't come very well. I mean, his mind kind of wandered and there seemed to be some difficulty. And you know what he did? He didn't do the way I have often done. Just said it all must be pretty tired. I'm too tired. I can't think straight tonight. And rolled in the bed. He didn't do that.
He said, Lord, what is what is it?
And he cast back in his mind to see if there was something that had come in between himself and the Lord. And you know, the Lord showed him that there was something that he had done earlier that day. And I even forget what it was, whether it was a sharp word he'd had with someone, whether it was a wrong thought that he'd entertained and not judged it or whatever it was, I don't remember. But the Lord said you've got to judge that. Now we use that word a lot. We've got to judge that. And sometimes, as I as a boy used to think of a judge sitting on a bench with a gavel in his hand. And that's not what it means. It simply means that I have to.
Come to the Lord and say.
That was sin. I'm sorry, I confess. It is sin. That's what we need to do.
And the moment Mr. Dunlop did that, then he was able to pray, then somehow the barrier was removed. It's just the same way if you've done something that you know has made someone very unhappy, it's not very easy for you to go to that person and strike up a conversation because you just know there's something that, well, you really should settle it first. And how much easier it is if you go and say I'm sorry for what I did the other day, or I'm sorry for what I said to you earlier today, or whatever might happen to be.
And the other person?
If their gracious says that's okay, thank you very much, I accept it, Let's forget about it. Then you can talk for you. That's what it means, first love. It means that I value the communion with the Lord above anything else. Above anything else, I believe that's what it means.
And notice what happens in verse five if we don't do that. Remember therefore, from whence thou art fallen. Oh, you say, had they fallen that far? Yes, it was a serious fall. Outwardly it didn't look like that, but it was. And repent and do the 1St works. Oh, you say they were doing lots of works. The Lord says, I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and so on. For let my namesake hast labored, and hast not fainted. And yet the apostle says through the.
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The Spirit of God says through the apostle, do the first words. What does he mean?
Well, I'm just going to suggest to you that it is the motive that lends value to the app.
If I do something for you and you know in your heart that I have said something to you.
It wasn't right or I'd done something to you that wasn't right. Everything I did for you would somehow lose its value, wouldn't it? It would lose its value. It wouldn't. It wouldn't be the same. The 1St works. It doesn't mean that the works themselves were wrong, but it means that there had to be the right move. There had to be the right motor. And you know, the energy in your heart and mind should be for Christ and for nothing else.
Suppose I say we'd like to have a nice gospel testimony. I'd like there to be more people coming into the gospel. I'd like to see more blessing in Sunday school or whatever it might be. Isn't that right? Yes, that's good. But what is the object of it all? Oh, I speak to my own heart sometimes. It can be very subtly so that I can just see a nice company sitting there and I can have the satisfaction in my own soul. Well, I'm doing my best. We're doing our best.
I've had that time and I had to get before the Lord devoted and say, Oh Lord, help me first of all, to have thy heart toward all these things. That's what he means by the 1St works. And then everything that I do flows not from anything to do with self, but because I have Christ and his love and his desires and what concerns him before me. Why do I want to have a good gospel? All because I want to see the Lord Jesus Christ glorified first and foremost. Do I want to see souls saved? Yes I do.
But I want to see the Lord Jesus glorified first and foremost, and then I want to see souls brought to Christ, and so on. But then he says, repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy Candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Well, we mentioned it at the meetings that the removing of the Candlestick is simply that God said you're not representing what I have in mind anymore, You're not representing what I want you to do anymore. You know, the United States has ambassadors to many countries. US has an ambassador to Canada. But there are occasions, it doesn't happen very often, but there are occasions when an ambassador doesn't represent the interests of his country very well. He doesn't represent what his country expects him to represent.
They may not recall him right away. They may wrap him on the knuckles the first time and say, hey, that isn't the character that we want you to represent. Suppose the ambassador from the United States to Canada. I know where the American embassy is in the capital of Canada and Ottawa. It's right across the road from what we call Parliament Hill, right across the road from the seat of government in Canada. And sometimes this happens here in Washington, DC.
People think they have a.
A case of beef, if you want to use the word, with the government. And so they make a big demonstration on Parliament Hill, same way they do in Washington. I came through on my way down here. When I crossed over into the United States, I guess the demonstration was on the Canadian side, but I had to navigate about 3 or 4 miles of semis to get to the border because they thought they were being unjustly treated. What would the US think if there was a big demonstration on Parliament Hill and the US ambassador said, I agree with them. I think they've got a legitimate point.
So he gets the staff of the embassy out there, and they go out there with the American flight, and they start demonstrating along with them. Oh, I'm sure Washington would immediately step in and say, listen, that isn't what you're there for. That isn't the character that we sent you there for. You're not there to mingle with these rabble rousers and create a demonstration. That's not your position. You're an ambassador to represent the interests of another country.
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And we want you to be sure and carry that out well. And if you don't, you can be replaced. That's what they would say, wouldn't they? Well, the Candlestick was the testimony on earth of a heavenly company, the heavenly calling of the Church. And where is the head of the Church in heaven? What does the Lord want us to do here? Represent His interests.
But the church sucked down to the level of the world. It rejected the high calling that it had. God's is over.
I'll remove the Candlestick, and the Candlestick was removed, and the church went down, down, down, further and further. Oh, you say, yes, that's too bad, it all happened. Well, let me apply it to myself and to my own heart, because as I say again, what concerns me more in my own soul and for the Saints of God is not how much truth we know, but is there a moral character that is in keeping with it? When the world looks at me, does it say there is a man who is living for another world instead of this one?
It's not a question of what I have or how much I have that that isn't the point. But do they see in me that my sights are beyond this world and not down here?
I can remember the late father-in-law, Albert Hey Jose, saying something to me which really struck home and I'll pass it on to you, he said. There are two ways that the world can view us.
He said they can view us like this.
There are people that are pretty much like ourselves. They do the same things, they have the same aspirations, they act the same way, they buy the same insurance. They want all the same things as we do. Oh, they've got some queer ideas about religion that you kind of have to put up with, but otherwise they're pretty much like the rest of us. And I wish they'd get rid of those funny ideas about religion.
Because that would be much easier for us to get on together. That's one way they could look at us. Or they can look at us and say there are people who are living for another world. Yes, they have jobs the same way as the rest of us do. Yes, they carry on family life. Yes, they engage in enterprises appropriate to their abilities in this world. But their whole thrust and aim down here.
Has that which is not characterized by the ways of this world, but everything they do is with a view to eternities.
Well, I asked myself that question. Is that the way the world looks at me, or do they look at me efficiently?
Well, very searching stuff.
But what does it say here in the end?
Is a word of encouragement here to the overcome? To him that overcometh? Will I give to even the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God?
Now that might seem like an unusual expression at first glance, and I don't pretend to be able to explain it fully, but let me let me tell you what it means to me. In the Garden of Eden, you'll remember there were two trees, weren't there? A tree of life and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And you'll remember that God never told Adam that he couldn't eat of the tree of life. He told him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but he never told him he couldn't eat it, the tree of life.
But what Adam and Eve sinned and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
Expressly doing what God had said not to. You remember that God put them out of that Garden of Eden, and it says He put an Angel there with a flaming sword that turned every way to do what it says, to keep the way of the Garden of Eden. No, the tree of life. Why? Oh, because if man had gone and eaten that tree of life, eaten of that tree of life, he would have lived forever in a sinful fallen condition.
I can remember talking to some boys and girls at what is known as the detention home in Toronto, Boys and girls that had been accused of very serious crimes. They're all under 16, but it doesn't seem that there was anything that some of them hadn't tried Drugs, immorality, armed robbery, burglary.
Even heard more than once I have read in the newspaper about a young man who had committed murder before he was 16 years old. And you read about it in the newspaper and the next week you were sitting across the table from the detention hallway.
00:30:01
Almost unbelievable. And yet here were these young people and I said to them once I said, how would you like to live forever? Oh, I'd love to, but I said remember not the way you're sitting there now in the full blown health and strength that you enjoy at the age of 14 or 15. You're going to get old, but you can never die. Would you like to live like that?
Oh, no way, They were saying your own way of telling, would you like to live like your grandmother or whoever you can think about that has arthritis and whose mind is failing and whose eyes are failing and whose body isn't capable of doing all the fun things that you like to do. And yet you knew that you were going to live forever under the effects of all of that. I said God was wise not to allow that, was it? But I'll hear. What does it mean? Eat of the tree of life, which?
Which is in the midst of what the Garden of Eden knows. Paradise of God, if man spoiled God's paradise down here.
God says I'm going to take you to a paradise that you can never supply. And what is the thought of eating of the tree of life? Oh, I believe that when God came down into the Garden of Eden, the cool today, he wanted to do what? To commune with Adam. But you remember after Adam sinned, he went and hid because he had a bad conscience. To me, what this verse says that to the overcomer will be the enjoyment of that communion, not temporarily, but for all eternity.
Eating of the Tree of Life to me is figurative, and it brings before us the fact that the enjoyment of that communion up there.
Will be for all eternity.
Well, let's turn over now. Our time is going to the address to lay it Asia.
And once again, let's read it together.
Revelation 3 and verse 14.
And unto the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans right these things set thee. Amen. The faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works. Same expression is with Athensis that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou Wert cold or hot. So that because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will skew the art of my mind, because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.
He knows not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor, blind and naked. I counsel thee to buy me gold, tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich and white, Raymond, that thou mayst be clothed, and at the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.
And anoint thy eyes with I serve the dullness, see.
As many as I love, I rebuke, chase, and be Celeste therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him, and will Sup with him, and he with me.
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throat, even as I also overcame and sat down with my Father in his corner. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit said unto the churches.
Well, here we have the end of the churches history. That was just the beginning of departure. Everything that God told would happen has happened. There was a repentance, at least not as a general body. The Candlestick was removed and the church went down, down, down until when it came to Thyatira, God said there's no recovery for the whole body as such. Now I'm going to have to talk to individuals.
Well, we won't go into, as we had before us at the meeting, Sardis in Philadelphia, but I want to say a word here about Leo, to see you, because that is the period of time I suggest that you and I are living in. Although in one sense we can't talk about the period of time because we know that all of the last four churches go on to the end. Thyatira representing, I suppose, Roman Catholicism, Sardis representing Protestantism.
Philadelphia representing a condition.
A condition of things characterized by keeping His word and not denying His name. And then Laodicea. A condition represented by indifference. Indifference to the Lord Jesus Christ and what is due to Him, and lukewarmness in living in the good of what He has given to us. But notice here some expressions.
The Lord says these things set thee, Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. You know that is a marvelous expression right at the end of the churches history when the whole testimony has ruled and the church is in ruins as far as its testimony is concerned.
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We know the foundation of God standeth sure, the Lord no offend that are his. The Lord knows that the body is complete, every true believer part of it. But as to its outward testimony, which is what is in view here, it's in ruins. And yet the Lord Jesus says the beginning of the creation of God. What does that mean? Well, there was a creation in the beginning that was a creation by God. But we might say, if we might say it reverently, it wasn't a creation that was of God.
Because it was a creation that man could spoil. It was a creation by God, and God saw that everything was very good, but it wasn't a creation that in every way exemplified the mind of God. And that first creation was characterized by a man, Adam, who failed and who brought failure on the whole of his posterity until after 4000 years of failure. God has to right across the whole thing that man is a Sinner.
There's nothing good in that control. But then what does God do? Oh, God says, I'm going to bring my man forward. If I might say it reverently, the 1St man is of the earth, earth, and the 2nd man is the Lord in heaven. And God is going to have a creation that is not merely by God, but it's going to be of God where everything is in keeping with His mind. And that which God says, man will never, never spoil the beginning of the creation of God. That means that Blessed One is the head of it all.
And the origin of it all.
And here's a little exercise that I have enjoyed. Look at the first creation and look at the second creation and see the differences between the two, the exact opposites of one another.
The first creation began.
With the heavens and an earth, and it ended with the creation of man. The new creation begins with a new heaven or with a man and ends with a new heaven and a new earth. And we could multiply those, We could go on, but we won't take the time. It's reversed because when God starts something, he brings it into perfection. And it's the opposite of the way that the first creation began. And it's something that will never be spoiled.
To me, that's beautiful that God brings that in when he deals with this fallen testimony here. But what I want to dwell on particularly is what we have here, not merely as it applies to a general condition of things, but as it applies to me.
And to you remember there was an assembly that was characterized by what we have here. It can characterize me individually if I'm not careful. Verse 15 I know that works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou Wert cold nor hot.
You know, I like hot drinks and I like cold drinks. And even in the summer I enjoy a good hot cup of coffee or a hot cup of tea. And in the winter time I like a good hot cup of or a mug of hot chocolate. We all do. And when it's it's hot weather, I like a nice cold drink. Good cold drink of water is just fine. Or a good cold glass of Coke or lemonade or something like that. We all enjoy that.
There's something that's lukewarm.
I used to work with a man and he would always get a great big mug of coffee about 9:00 in the morning when he started his work, and it seemed to take him half the morning to drink that cup of coffee. I don't know how he did it because he'd still be sipping that cup of coffee at 10:30 when it was back to room temperature. I don't know how he did it. He somehow managed to finish it up half the time and never did get finished. Why? Because the taste was bad. He didn't like something lukewarm.
We like things cold or hot, and you know, that's what the Lord wants us. He wants us to be hot when it's something that is for Him, and He wants us to be cold when it's evil. He wants us to be clear and definite as to these things, not take the attitude well, anything goes well, you have to make allowances and so on. No, He wants us to be clear, indefinite. But what does he say in verse 16? So then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot.
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Spew thee out of my mouth? I'd like to make a comment or two upon this because the question has often been raised. Will God ever spew a true believer out of his mouth? Does this refer to a true believer? And when it says in the next verse thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, does that refer to a true believer?
Ultimately, yes, it does refer to an unbeliever. It does not ultimately refer to a true believer. The Lord will never spew a true believer out of his mouth. And I believe the ultimate end of what we have here is the false church. Because you know, when the Lord comes, they're still going to be those that outwardly profess to be Christians. There are still going to be those who outwardly go on with a form of religion.
Probably known as Christianity, but it will all be false and God will undoubtedly spew that out of his mouth because there's no reality there at all. No question about it. And when the scripture talks about those who are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, the word naked is used in scripture of unbelievers, no question about it.
But equally true, equally true, that's the end of the road. That's where it leads.
But may I suggest to your soul and mind that the condition, the condition of indifference to Christ and lukewarmness can characterize any of us, and that that condition is equally nauseous to the Lord? And So what we may say, He will not spew a true believer out of his mouth. I suggest that if you and I take refuge under the shelter of saying, well, I know Christ is my Savior and therefore I don't need to worry about these things applying to me. That applies to people who pretend to be Christians and who are not really.
I say we're missing half the truth.
Because the whole thrust of what we have here, I believe, is not so much who is real and who is unreal, who is saved and who is lost, who is pretending and who is really saved. But I believe the thought is that the full condition of indifference to the Lord Jesus Christ and His claims and who He is and what is due to Him, that is what is Nautilus to Him. And in that sense let me take to heart.
That he will spew that out of his mouth in the sense that that whole condition is nauseous to him. And so to me, the worst state for me to be in as a Christian is to pretend to be what I'm not. If I'm in a low state, if I'm weak, the Lord will always meet me in my weakness, blessed be his name. And the Lord will never upgrade me for my weakness or my ignorance.
Much as if I as though I much as.
As I deserve to be upgraded for the Lord will never do that if I am simply weak, if I'm ignorant.
If I haven't been going on, perhaps as I should, if I come to the Lord, even confess it, He'll always meet me in my weakness.
In blessing and according to my state. Now it might be nice if I were in a better state so that I could take in more, but the Lord will always meet me in my weakness and there will be blessing. And so we never need to appear to come together in weakness and own our weakness. I can remember meetings that I have been at where brethren looked around, conferences perhaps, and they said, boy.
Too much gift here this time. Wonder what's going to happen. Did you know? In many cases they've been some of the happiest meetings that we ever had because we relied on the Lord, and the Lord came in in a wondrous blessing.
But to pretend to be what we're not? Oh, that is the serious thing. And an upright person in Scripture, you know, isn't someone that never makes a mistake. An upright person isn't someone who never fails. But an upright person is one who owns his failure and wants to get right with the Lord and doesn't pretend to be what he's not. That is what Laodicea was doing. I am rich, increased with goods.
Mr. Darby renders that I am rich and am grown rich.
In other words, they took credit for it for themselves. We did it, we made the money, we did it. I know it's not money that's in you here, but they take the point, the view that we did it, look what we've done and have need of nothing and know it's not that. And the emphasis is on the thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. And so I believe the moral import of this address is each one of us, both individually and perhaps collectively.
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Ask ourselves, is this our attitude? And yet recognizing that the ultimate end of what we have here will be the false church. No question about it, but God expects repentance.
You know, if I were to get on to Interstate 80.
And I were to start traveling West.
And I said, you say, where are you going? What, I'm going to Davenport.
No way you're you're headed for Des Moines, but I'm not in Des Moines. Yes, but that's where you're going to end up if you stay on this road. But hopefully I listen to you when I turn around at the next exit and start going east, so it'll end up where I walk to go. That's the thought here. If you go on like this, this is where it's going to end up. And God doesn't. I suggest your soul and mind for the moment, take up the question of who's real and who's unreal. It's the question of what he sees.
Are you real?
Then this may characterize you as far as your condition. Are you not saved? Then you better turn around because you're making an empty profession. And if you keep on that road, this is where you're going to end up getting spewed out of my mouth as part of the false church. And so the what is the the remedy? Oh, I love this. I counseled you to buy me gold. Tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich. Gold is divine righteousness, and that's what the unbeliever needs.
The one who is lost needs Christ as his righteousness.
But it doesn't stop there. Don't let me point the finger at the unbeliever and say you need the gold.
Maybe I need it, but what do I need? Practical righteousness. Practical righteousness. We saw that in the meetings in Des Moines. The first departure is a bad state of soul, then a bad conscience, then giving up the truth. Ephesus began with a bad state of soul, getting away from communion with the Lord. But when it's a question of returning to the Lord, I have to come in reverse. I have to get rid of the bad conscience first, and then.
I can come and have a pure heart. And so this is there, that in my life which doesn't answer to that divine righteousness which I have before God. Does my practical life bear it out? Or are there those things in my life which are not right? Maybe they're things that are done behind the scenes.
What would happen if God suddenly were to take my life and turn it inside out in front of all of you to see? Would it stand the test of what we have here? It's a searching thought, isn't it?
White raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear. Well, we know that nakedness is spoken of as an unbeliever. He has nothing to clothe himself with. And White speaks of that white robe with which God clothes us when we're saved. That's what the unbeliever needs.
But do I need it? A memorial character that goes along with my profession? You know, clothes speak of a standing before God, but they also speak of a moral character in this world as my moral character go along with the truth that I hold. Because someone has said that Laodicea may be nothing more than Philadelphian light, but without Philadelphia character manifested in our lives.
And annoyed thy eyes with I Sabbath L may see what does the unbeliever need. All that says in Second Corinthians chapter 4, I believe.
The God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ was the image of God should shine under them. What does the unbeliever need? Heinous needs eyes to see beauty in Christ, that blessed One. What does the believer mean? He needs ISAF too. He needs ISAF to discern his true condition in the sight of God. He's a nice have to recognize he's gotten away from that Blessed One, and as such he doesn't realize what a mess he's in. He doesn't realize that he's wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
He needs the Isaac. But it doesn't come first. First of all comes a good conscience, divine righteousness, the goal. Then comes a moral character that's fitted for it. And then comes the discernment. Do we wonder why we don't have discernment? Do I wonder why I don't have the discernment that I should have? Maybe I need first of all the gold and then the white rain, and then maybe I can get the eyes out that I may see.
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And then verse 19, as many as I love the word here for love is somewhat interesting. It's not the word for divine love. You can look it up if you wish, but it's not the word for divine love. It's the word filio, which is, you might say, the love that exists between individuals where there is a reciprocation on each side. It's more intimate and more intense in that sense than divine love. I don't want to be misunderstood when I say that, but divine love has more of a general thought.
Where for God so loved the world divine love. But if I say I love my wife the word there is feeling it. I love my wife because of what she is in herself and there's a reciprocating on her side and the more we go on together, the more that love grows. Oh, I love this as many as I love. I rebuke and chase him. Does the Lord love every believer equally? Yes he does I believe he does but you know if you.
Let me put it this way and I'm going to try and say this so that it doesn't come out wrong. If there is a desire in your heart to go after Christ and his things and His claims, we can depend on the Lord to work against. Oh you say I need such a massive thing sometimes I want to please the Lord. I was talking to a sister not too long ago and with tears in her eyes she said I make such a mess of things but I want to please the Lord. And she was telling me about some experiences in her life that the Lord had put her through.
And I thought to myself, as many as I love, I rebuke and chase. And the Lord saw that desire there. He knew she wanted to please him, and He didn't let her just go on. He brought things into her life so that she would be brought to be more like Christ. I rebuke and chasing. Are there troubles and difficulties amongst us?
As many as I love everything from chasing, Does the Lord allow trouble in my life? As many as I love, I reducing chasing. Oh, May God give us to see it all from the hand of a loving Father. And if there is a desire in your heart to please the Lord, then He'll bring it about. But it may take some rough schooling. At least it does in my life.
Verse 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will suffer him, and he will be. Oh, that's community.
The Lord wants your heart and mind, but it's come down to the individual here. Maybe I say, well, I don't see the things going on in Christians generally that they'd like to see. Maybe I may not.
Think that I see it even in the assembly? Well, let me be careful that I'm not lifted up in pride. But assuming perhaps that it's true, what does the Lord say? I'm the same to you as an individual. Nothing has changed. There's no reason why you can't enjoy the Lord as much as the Apostle Paul did. Individually, he's the same. You can come just as close to him as the Apostle Paul did. God doesn't have any favorites at any time during the dispensation. No, I will suck with him.
And he with me. Isn't it wonderful to be able to enjoy a meal with someone that you really love and care for? Isn't it wonderful to be able to sit down with someone and enjoy a meal and sit and chat together about things that you mutually enjoy? The Lord says if you'll apply the remedy that I give you here, if you let me in the door.
That's what I want. I want to do that with you. Do you want the Lord to come in in this way? He says I want to. You have to make the move and then just one last comment. Our time is gone to him that overcometh verse 21 will I grant.
Not to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God, but a similar thought to sit with me in my throat even as I also overcame. And who sat down with my Father in his throne. I suggest to you that the emphasis here is not on the throne, but the emphasis here is on the with me, my father. It doesn't say that I am sat down with God on his thrill, although that would be true when its father, its relationship, it's not.
What I grant to sit in my throne.
That's true, but the emphasis is on the with me, with me.
And he brings himself into it all. What wonder squeeze.
That Blessed One went through all of the pathway down here, endured every kind of opposition that a sinless man could endure.
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And he overcame. Now we want to be clear on this. The Lord never had to overcome.
The central tendencies that we see here. But he had to overcome the opposition from without. And it's rough to try and live in the midst of a Laodicean condition because it tends to weigh you down. And we tend, perhaps, if we're not careful, to be like it. Well, let us for our part, never seek to point the finger at others, but simply to act as an individual on this. And then the Lord says, I'll grant you to sit with thee.
Oh, it brings us full circle right back to the beginning.
Because what the Lord wanted in Ephesus was the communion with His people, and what the Lord wants him later to see it is the communion with His people and the southern substance of the reward. In both cases I suggest to your heart and mind is really the same. In one case it's a question of the tree of life, which expresses to me the continuity of it for all eternity. In this case it's the throne, which to me expresses the exaltation and the association with that blessing wife whom God has put as head over all things.
Well, May God encourage our hearts with these things. They're very, very searching, and they have been to my own soul. But I believe that God has written them for us in order that we might take them to heart, first of all individually, and then perhaps collectively, and that we might desire what He desires above and beyond all things. And that is that intimate enjoyment of the community between Christ and ourselves. Let's sing the last two verses of that hymn that we sung at the beginning. 168.
Or pardon us, Lord, that our love to thy name is so faint, with so much our affections to move.
Our coldness might Phyllis with grief and with shame. So much to be loved and so little to love.
168 versus 4:00 and 5:00.
Elijah & Elisha
Address—B. Prost
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327 Lord Jesus, are we one with thee, oh, height for death of love, and crucified and dead with thee now one in heaven above. 327.
Four years of our world.
I'd like to turn.
To one scripture, first of all in the book of James. This part of a verse there that I'd like to read book of James.
Chapter 5. The last chapter.
And verse 17.
James 5 and verse 17 and just the first clause of the verse.
Elias, or as we know, Elijah, same name Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are.
I'd like to turn back to the Old Testament tonight, but I read this verse to show us that.
These men about whom we are going to read, although they may have lived several thousand years before our time, Scripture tells us they were men of light. Passions as we are, they weren't, on the one hand, some sort of, we might say Superman, who were in a situation which we can never imagine ourselves in, and who reacted in ways that we can't ever imagine ourselves reacting. No, they were men of like passions, as we are.
And so I believe that we are entitled to go back because the Word of God tells us that whatsoever things were written beforehand were written for our learning. And although the truth of Christianity is found in the New Testament, yet we find the illustrations of that truth very often.
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In the old and so I'd like to turn tonight back to the Old Testament.
To find two passages which I believe bring before us that which would on the one hand, encourage our hearts and on the other hand, which gives us a warning, let's turn first of all to the Second Kings, Chapter 3.
Second Kings chapter 3.
Oh, I'm sorry, we'll read in chapter 2. We may refer to chapter 3, but.
It's mainly chapter 2 That I had in my heart.
Second Kings chapter 2, and we're going to read part of the chapter beginning at verse one.
And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind. And Elijah went with Elijah from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elijah, Tarry here, I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel. And Elijah said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.
So they went down to Bethel, and of the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elijah, and said unto him, Knows thou that the man, that the Lord will take away thy master from the head to day? And he said, Yeah, yeah, I know it. Hold you your peace.
And Elijah said unto him, Elijah, tarry here, I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came to Jericho, and the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, Knows thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he answered, Yeah, I know it holds your peace.
And the largest said under him, Tarry a crazy year for the Lord, and sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they too went on. And 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view afar off. And they too stood by Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle and wrapped it together, and smoked the waters. And they were divided thither and thither, so that they too went over on dry ground.
And it came to pass when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elijah, Ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee but a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing, Nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee, but if not, it shall not be so. And it came to pass as they still went on and talked.
Let behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire.
And part of them both ascended. Elijah went up by a whirlwind Internet.
Elisha sawd. And he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes, and read them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back and stood by the Bank of Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smoked the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had smitten the waters, they parted his or thither, and Elijah went over.
And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said The spirit of Elijah, the rest on Elijah, and they came to meet her, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.
We'll go just that far. I want to refer to another passage a little later on, but I want to dwell most of all on this one, because this is the passage that to me is a real encourage, a real encouragement. The one we'll read a little later on is more of a warning, but this is a real encouragement, just by way of background, and I hope I don't, on the one hand, insult anyone's intelligence here, nor do I hope that I take too much for granted, but.
We'll just briefly go over a bit of the background here. You know, Elijah, the prophet of the Lord had been a very faithful man, but at the end of his life he failed because he thought he was the only one left. And you'll remember how that he went up there to Mount Carmel and won that wonderful victory over all the false prophets of Vale, and how the Lord sent the fire down from heaven to consume the sacrifice that Elijah had. And Elijah had gone and had all those false prophets.
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Killed that were the prophets of Baal and idol, but then when Jezebel said Elijah.
You're going to die, God, do so to me and more also if I make not thy life like the life of one of them, meaning those false prophets by tomorrow. About this time before Elijah, he got discouraged and he fled for his life, Fled for his life. Well, he was afraid and he interceded against the people of God and God had to replace him. God had, as it were to say to Elijah, I can't use you anymore if you're going to talk like that.
And so poor Elijah is a broken man.
And we're not going to go into that. But he comes and he throws his mantle on Elijah and Elijah. He wants to be with Elijah. And notice what happens here, that the Lord is going to take Elijah up to heaven.
And.
Those who were near to him knew that Elijah knew that. He evidently knew it. God had revealed it to him.
And so he knew that. And what did he want? He wanted the company of Elijah. Well, you know, sometimes, and I speak particularly for the moment, for those who are younger, sometimes our older brethren may fail. Sometimes there may be failure. There is failure in me if you look at me.
Although I don't like to put myself in the class of the older brethren, but there's failure in all of us, and sometimes perhaps we are younger, may look and see failure. I'm sure Elijah realized the failure that had been in Elijah. But what did he want? Oh, he valued his company. He realized that there had been a life of faithfulness to the Lord. And although there was failure at the end, he realized that he had much to learn from this man. And I believe that Elijah had really repented of that faith.
I believe it broke his heart when the Lord had to say to Elijah, you go and anoint Elijah the son of shape that to be prophet in thy room, in thy room. Oh, it broke his heart. He didn't go on anoint him. You'll remember. Do you remember what he did? He just threw his mantle on him as much to say. Elisha, I'm finished.
You take this mantle now, that's what God has given you.
Elijah immediately says just hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, I want to go with you. Elijah says you can read it for yourself. He says, what have I done to me, Go back. You don't have to follow me as much as to say I don't think you can learn anything from me. What humility. But Elijah says, oh, I want to be with you. So he burns his bridges behind him, if we might use the expression, he sacrifices the oxen that he was plowing with. He used the implements for the wood to make the fire atmosphere.
That must have taken a lot of a lot of courage. You know, I grew up on a fireman that that would have been something to take the to take the instruments of the oxygen and use them to sacrifice the oxygen with. But he meant it. He put everything behind him. And now he wants to follow Elijah And notice what it says here, verse one. And Elijah went down with Elijah from Gilgal. Oh, there's a significance to the four places that are mentioned here.
Gilgal was the place of self objection.
Gilgal was the place you'll remember that the children of Israel and camped, first of all, after they crossed the Jordan after 40 years in the wilderness, and it was the place where circumcision was renewed. Oh, they were entering in on the land. There were new challenges, new responsibilities, and they had to remember that they couldn't do it in their own strength. And I believe each one of us needs to remember that right at the outset of a Christian pathway if we're going to do anything for the Lord, if we're going to walk the pathway of faith.
Then we have to recognize that the old nature must be kept in the place of death.
I used to think that was pretty fundamental truth. And so it is that I've learned, to my sorrow, that it sometimes takes a lifetime for life. It sometimes takes a lifetime to learn.
One time at a Bible conference, many years ago, in the last century.
There was a Bible conference at which dear Mr. Darby was present, and he threw out the question. He said, well, what should we take up?
Somebody said let's take up Ephesians.
After the meeting, Mr. Darby said, well, I enjoyed Ephesians, but I kind of wondered if it wouldn't have been better to get back to something more fundamental like Romans. But he said it didn't really matter because no matter where we read, we always end up back in Romans anyway. That's true. That's true because the foundation truth in Romans of keeping the old nature in the place of death is something that continually, continually continues you have to be reminded of. So they started at Guildhall.
00:15:24
But then notice what happens, Elijah said unto Elijah, Tarry here I pray, for the Lord have sent me to.
Why did he say that? Did he not want Elijah's company? Oh no, he wanted to test it. He wanted to test them. And you know, when you start out on the Christian pathway, there are always going to be tests that come along. There will be choices to be made where perhaps I don't have a definite scripture for it and where perhaps I have to decide, well, now, what should I do in this situation? And I believe sometimes the Lord leaves a few things in our lives and maybe more than a few.
He doesn't give us a definite scripture in order to show where our hearts are. If there's a question in my mind, do I give the Lord the benefit of the doubt or do I give myself the benefit of the doubt? Well, I say that very humbly. Elijah wanted to test Elijah here. Do you really want to follow me? And so he said, stay here, I've got to go to Bethel. But no. Notice the reply. As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, thy will not leave you.
Oh, he wanted to be with him. He wanted to be with him.
But there's something says here that's very important. He doesn't say As thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. He could have said that. He says, as the Lord lived, and as thy soul live. Why? Oh, because he put the Lord 1St. And I say to each one here, always put the Lord between yourself and your brethren.
Then if your brethren are a help to you, what does it do?
They can be used of the Lord to draw you closer to the Lord, and that's wonderful. That's where God gave us one another to be a help to each other and an encouragement.
But supposing.
I get someone between myself and the Lord.
Oh, then what happens?
Then I have my eye on a man or on a woman instead of on the Lord himself. Then there's trouble because then if something happens to that individual, then I can't find the Lord because I've always gone through them for the Lord.
If I put the Lord between myself and my brother, then if my brethren fail, then what does it do? It only draws me closer to the Lord. I cling closer to Him. The failure may burden me, but it doesn't cause me to stumble. But all if I have my eye on men, even the best of them, even the brightest Christian, even the most gifted, even the most godly.
Sad to say, there will be failure there sooner or later, because the Lord wants our affections himself. And so he says, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And where are they going? Down to Bethesda. There's a significance to that name. I'm no Hebrew scholar or Greek scholar, but anyone can verify this, that Bethel means the House of God, means the House of God. Alice, the Hebrew word for God, Beth, al, the host of God.
And I like to think of this as representing the assembly because it's more the collective thing. I have to go to Gilgal as an individual and deal with the old nature before the Lord. But Beth Al is the House of God. And so in my assembly life, what do I do? Oh, I put the Lord first. But notice what he finds here. Verse three. The sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today?
Oh, they you too.
They knew too. Why? Because they were in a place of privilege. They were the sons of the prophets. They've been brought up in the homes of those who were in the current of God's thoughts, and they knew that God was going to take Elijah away. What a wondrous privilege. And it is a privilege to be brought up in the assembly under the sound of the word of God and where the whole truth of God can be given out. But why then, when they make this comment, is Elisha so short with it?
Almost rude it seems. Yeah, I know it hold you your piece. And if you look at another translation it's even more sharp.
I know it. Be quiet, be silent.
Why is he so short with them? Well, I believe it was simply because of this that here they were intelligent as to the mind of God, but it had no effect of no effect on them. And you know, that's a solemn thing, and I speak to my own heart as well as to each other one. It's possible to be in a place where the whole truth of God is known and given out, and to know it up here, but it has no effect on me so that I don't walk in it.
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And evidently that was the case here. These young men, sad to say, it didn't have any effect on them that they were in the current of God's thoughts. They weren't interested in going along with Elijah. They weren't interested in anything that he had to offer. And so they weren't any help to Elijah.
And you know, sad to say, there may be those who are even in the assembly who instead of being a help to us, are a discouragement and a hindrance. Well, I say that very, very humbly because the Lord only knows that I may be in that category at some time or other, and I have to be careful of my own heart. But it only brings out the point that the Lord is always to be first and then our brother. Are they able to be a help to me to know the Lord better? Wonderful.
But if they're not, then and they just have to leave it. And so they go on. Well, we won't take a lot of time on this first four. And Elijah said unto him. Elijah called them by name this time.
Tarry here, I pray thee, for the Lord have sent me.
For the Lord had sent me to Jericho.
Jericho. What was Jericho?
The children here could tell us what Jericho was. That was the first city that the children of Israel encountered when they crossed into the Promised Land, wasn't it? And you'll remember how they marched around that city every day for a whole week, and then they had to March around it on the 7th day seven times. And then.
What happened? They blew those trumpets and down fell the walls of Jericho, and God pronounced a curse on that city, he said. I don't want that city rebuilt.
But a man did rebuild it. A man did rebuild it against the command of God. And you know, I think Jericho to me represents the world. It's a picture of the world and the world, you know, it's a beautiful place. Outwardly, Scripture calls Jericho the city of palm trees. Beautiful city, evidently. But what was wrong with it? It was under a curse. It was a wicked city. And God says don't build it again.
But they did. They built it again. Well, we have to live in the world. We can't get out of the world. We're in it, but we're not of it. And so I believe that Jericho would represent my life as it contacts with the world. For the children, it might be their school life. For those of us who are older, it might be our job, our work, our business life, whatever it might happen to be, where we have to get into contact with the world. I believe Jericho represents them.
And what happens here? Oh, he says the same words as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave it. I will not leave it all. Once again he puts the Lord first as he goes down into the world. But what does he meet in the world? Verse five. And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elijah and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he answered, yeah, yeah, no, it holds your peace.
Or you're going to find the child children of God in the world. You notice it doesn't say that Elijah or Elijah lived in Jericho.
They went there, they had something to do there. It doesn't tell us what Elijah had to do or what business he had there, but he didn't live there. It was a place under under a curse. But these sons of the prophets evidently lived there and felt comfortable. And you're going to find Christians that are comfortable in the world. You'll find worldly people too, but you'll also find Christians. And the same thing was true of them. They knew what was going on. They were intelligent as to the mind of God.
Elisha has to say the same thing to them. I know it. Be quiet, be silent, hold you your peace. Know. They too were in the current of God's thoughts, but it had no effect on it. They were involved in the world, they were living in that place which God had so clearly pronounced a curse on, and they couldn't be any help that a man was gone.
Well going on here in verse six and Elijah said in to him, tarry, I created here for the Lord has sent me to George Jordan. What does Jordan bring before us? Well, it can bring before us different things. And I suppose in the sense in which the children of Israel crossed the Jordan. First of all, it was representative of my death with Christ.
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The Red Sea is Christ death for me. The Jordan is my death with Christ death to everything that is of the old nature. But I suggest to your heart and mind that, and I say it humbly, but I don't think that's the primary thought here. I believe Jordan in the sense that it's brought the forest here represents obstacles and difficulties in the Christian pathway, because here it's evident that Jordan was a difficulty. It was in the way of where they wanted to go.
They tell me there's a bridge out between here and Mullet and you have to go the long way around now for a while until they get the bridge fixed. Well, here they didn't didn't seem to be a bridge. And so that River Jordan was an obstacle because they wanted to go to the other side. But there was that river, I don't know how big or how deep, but evidently it wasn't something you could just wait across easily or something like that. It was an obstacle and I believe it brings before us here the obstacles in the Christian pathway.
And we're going to encounter those from time to time. We're going to encounter difficulties and problems because the Lord hasn't promised us an easy path. What happens here?
Same thing Elijah says, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. Oh.
Am I willing to go through the difficulties with the Lord, or do I shrink back from them? I have to live in the assemblies. I have to live in the world. But then when difficulties and problems come up to our shrink bank, Elijah could have said, well, I don't know, I don't feel like getting wet today. He didn't know that they were going to have to cross in an unusual way, and so he could have gone back. And many Christians fall down when the difficulties and problems of life confront them, you know.
They think perhaps this is too much. I can't handle this. I can't walk the Christian pathway. I can't meet these problems and we can't in our own strength. We can't meet them in our own strength.
Notice verse 7 and 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view afar off. All remember. Excuse me.
Remember, in everything that you do in your life, others are watching, others are watching. I don't know whether Elijah and Elijah were conscious of these fifty men, of the sons of the prophets watching them. They didn't have the faith to go there themselves, but they were watching. How are they going to handle the difficulty? What are they going to do about this kind of a problem?
I know a brother who was in a home once and he was having some trouble with his car and he was a little bit upset about it, I guess because things weren't being done properly. The car was under warranty and the company it seems wasn't paying as much attention to it as they should.
And you get on the phone to call to try and straighten it out. But unbeknownst to him, out in the kitchen, the sister in the home in which he was staying was listening and thinking to herself, I wonder how he's going to handle that now. What's he going to say? Is he going to blow his top at them or is he going to be gracious or what's he going to do? Other Christians are watching what you and I are doing. And so here they were watching to see how are they going to handle this problem? What's going to happen now when they come to Jordan?
Well, notice what happens in verse 8. To me, this is beautiful. I don't think Elijah knew ahead of time that this was the way it was going to be, Says And Elijah took his mantle and wrapped it together and smoked the waters. So they were and they were divided, hit her and thither so that they too went over on dry ground.
I don't want to pretend that the Lord puts every problem out of the way as easily as this, but you know, it's wonderful of free meat. The problem or the difficulty in faith before the Lord, how easily he can work it out. Oh, naturally speaking, you'd say, how are you going to cross the river like that?
But, you know, I'm sure that Elijah remembered that way back how many years before this, hundreds of years before the children of Israel, a whole nation had crossed over that river and God had caused those waters to go this way and that way so that a whole nation of several million people could go through on dry ground. But hundreds of years had rolled off. The nation had failed. The priesthood had failed, the judges had failed, the kings had failed.
Everything was in the mix. What's going to happen now?
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God is willing and ready to use the same power on behalf of two men that had formerly been exercised on behalf of a whole nation. Oh, beloved brethren, we're in a day of ruin. We're in a day of failure. We're not in Pentecostal times. The Lord hasn't changed. Are the problems and difficulties there the same God that gave the power for multitudes to meet those problems and difficulties?
Back in the days of Pentecost is here to give that same power on behalf of one or two that lay claim isn't that beautiful? And so you and I can go to the Lord. Are there only a few that want to be faithful to the Lord? The Lord says the same power is available to you.
When there's failure, the same power is available to a few. When there's failure, the same power is available to a few that act in faith, as was available to thousands or millions back when things were fresh and new. And so notice what it says here. They too went over to the muck. Oh.
Sometimes, you know, you go to cross a riverbed and the water may have dried up. I grew up on a farm and we had a Creek out the back, and sometimes that Creek could get pretty low in the summer. Oh boy, oh boy. If you went out and tried to cross that Creek, you could be up to your knees and muck simply because it might look reasonably dry, but it was pretty wet. But that's not the way the Lord fears difficulties away for us. Day two and two on dry ground. What wonders great waters go back. You know what happens if you suddenly pump the water out of a out of a pond or something like that? The muck takes days to dry out, even if it's bright and sun.
But here the Lord drives it out instantaneously, for they too went over on dry ground.
Well, verse nine. And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elijah, Ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken away from thee.
Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.
And he said that was fast a hard thing. Nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee. But if not, it shall not be so.
I suggest to your heart and mind that here the picture changes a little and here Elijah, instead of being representative perhaps of one who is older than we are and more experienced in the Lords things now becomes a type of the Lord himself, of Christ himself. And he says to Elijah, Elisha, what would you like before I go away? Oh, Elijah could have asked for many things. You notice what he wants, he wants a double portion of.
Elijah's.
Here, a double portion of Elijah's spirit. Oh, that was a good request to Mint. And I just suggest to you, as I've enjoyed it myself, that the double portion here is a double portion of Christ. The double portion is Christ in manhood and Christ in resurrection. We could use it figuratively. Christ in manhood is found in the gospels. Christ in resurrection is found in Paul's doctrine in his epistle.
Christ in manhood is the manner that the children of Israel eat in the wilderness. Christ in resurrection is the old corn of the land that they eat after they had crossed the river Jordan. Christ and manhood is all the beauty and perfection of that blessed One displayed in all His pathway down here. Christ in resurrection is all the power of a risen Christ in glory gone up there now is head over all things to the Church, which is His body. I suggest that that's what the double portion is, and we need both.
We need both. Well, Elijah wanted that. He wanted that. And the response is, thou hast asked a hard thing. Oh, it is a hard thing. You know, it's one thing to have Christ in manhood, and I say this very, very kindly, but that's what many Christians are content to have is Christ in manhood, all of the beauty and perfection of that blessed work. And we need that. We need that. But you know, as our brother Clifford Brown often used to remind us.
Christianity really didn't begin begins beyond the cloud. True Christianity is characterized by a risen man in the glory and my eye on him and Donna stabbed a hard thing, Elijah said. Because the human heart is constantly wanting to withdraw from the high energy of the Spirit of God, which would lift us above this present world, which would give us to realize that we're a heavenly people.
Made for heaven, not for this earth. I say again, the human heart wants to go away from that high energy of the Spirit and to sink down to the level of this world again. And so it requires a constant eye on a risen Christ endory in order to be maintained in the enjoyment of that Blessed One who is above this world. Our life to Him puts it well. Thy life is now beyond the grave. Our souls thou hast set free.
00:35:26
Light, strength and grace in Thee we have, for we are one with Thee. That's what we sang in our hymn. But it requires a constant eye on Him. Otherwise we sit down and we walk in according to the course of this world. Oh, we may appreciate all that the Lord was here on earth, but we don't walk as being in this world. But not out of it. Well, what happens? He says, if you see me, all the eye has to be on Christ.
He couldn't look around down here, he had to see him when he was taken away. And what happens? Verse 11? And it came to pass that they still went on and talked, but behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and part of them both assigned her. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
Now notice here, and Elisha sawd and deprived my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. Remember that wording, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more.
All we have to walk by space, we have to walk by faith. We can't see the Lord here on earth, but by faith we see a risen Christ in Nora. He saw him no more. But what does Elijah do? And he took hold of his own clothes and rested in two pieces. Oh, what does that mean? Oh, he was done with himself. He was done with himself. A man's garments, a man's clothes speak of what characterizes them. It speaks of a man's rights. Naturally, Elijah says, I'm going to get rid of these.
I don't want to be characterized by what I am by nature anymore. I want to be like the man who's gone up there in the glory. Now I'm putting it into the context of the New Testament, and I hope I may be allowed to do that because I believe Elijah is the type of Christ. And Elijah, as it were, says I want to be like the man that's gone up there into heaven. That's where I want to be. And I want to be like him. And so he tears his garments in two pieces, gets rid of all of that. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from.
Oh brother, now that Christ is up there in the glory, the only testimony that this world has is what it can see of Christ in you and me. What does it see of Christ in me?
In first Timothy chapter 3, truly great is the mystery of godliness. Why? Oh, because God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit scene of angels, and so on. That's all what the world should see in here. It's Christ seen in me. And so here it says He took up the mantle of Elijah. Oh, may you and I be given grace to take up the mantle of that blessed One I can remember.
My brother saying to me when there was a question raised about something that he was doing in his life, the way he reacted to things.
And somebody brought it before him that this wasn't very Christ like. And he said, well, that's the way I am. I can't help it.
Well, Scripture says yes, you can help it. People say you have to take me the way I am. I love the way somebody put it. The Lord loves us the way we are. He really does. But He loves us too much to let us stay that way. Why? Because He wants us to be conformed to His image. He wants us to be more like Him.
So he takes up the mantle. Notice what happens in verse 14. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and smoked the waters and said, where is the Lord God of Elijah? Oh, I think he had a little bit of a doubt as to whether this was going to work. It was fine for Elijah to take the mantle and smite the waters, but now Elijah is gone. What do I do now? Well, I've got the mantle here, but is this going to work? Where is the Lord God of Elijah?
Lord, are you still with me? What happens? Oh, he smites the waters. And when he also had smitten the waters.
They parted, hit her, and thither and I, like she, went over all. The same power it was exercised on behalf of a whole nation was exercised on behalf of two men. Then one was taken, and the same power was exercised on behalf of one man, one man.
And the Lord says all from the river Jordan up for one man, if it's necessary, that's no problem. There's faith. As you know, we may have to walk individually. In some cases we may lean on someone else, but then eventually they may be taken away. But then we find that the Lord is the same. And what's the result in verse 15? And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said the spirit of Elijah to thrust on Elijah.
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Oh, others will see Christ in us if we walk in this way, even though they're unfaithful. These sons of the prophets didn't have the energy themselves to walk in that path. But they looked at Elijah and they said, well, there's a, there's a man that's gone. There's a man that has the spirit of Elijah. There's a, there's a man that is walking like this, Master. Well, that's what others should see in US. What will commend itself most to other Christians? Not what I say.
But what I do?
What will commend itself more to others than anything else? Not what I do, but what I am. It's not what you do that counts, but what you are. Always remember that.
Well, I said this was the encouraging part. Let's turn over a little bit in the book now to something which I believe is a bit of a warning to us. Turn over to the 13th chapter of Second Kings.
And here we find a king.
What we've just read was at the beginning of Elijah's pathway. Here we find an incident at the end and notice here in verse.
10 Second Kings 13 and verse 10.
In the 30 and 7th year of Joash, king of Judah began, Jehovah the son of Jehovah has to reign over Israel and Samaria and reign 16 years.
Now notice what it says about him. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, but he walked there in.
And then it tells us about his.
Dying and so on. But then beginning in verse 14 is an incident is life. That gives us a bit of insight into this king.
Verse 14 Now Elijah was fallen, sick of his sickness wherever he died, and Joash the king of Israel, that's the one we mentioned. Jehoash and Joash are the same, not to be confused with Joash, king of Judah, two different men, but Jehoash the son of Jehovah has.
Was the king of Israel also known as Joash?
So this is the king of Israel. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, Now notice the wording, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof, not striking, saying words as Elijah had used. When he saw Elijah golf, he knew those words. And yet it says that he was a wicked king, He did evil in the sight of the Lord. And it says He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, and the son of me back, who made Israel the sin.
Isn't that sad? And this man Joash.
He was a grandson of Chi Gu, and you all remember Jiu, how the God used to him mightily to take vengeance on Ahab's house because Ahab and his family were such wicked kings, and how that Jihu executed the judgment of God so faithfully. But Jihu himself turned aside to worshipping idols, and his family failed too. But here we find that this King Joash, he knew all the right words. He'd heard about Elijah going up. He knew about it, and he had an admiration.
For that which was according to the mind and heart of God.
But there was number, desire or power to walk. No desire, power to walk in.
Well, you say that's me, perhaps maybe I say that's me. That's what I've done. I've been in a place where I knew the truth of God. I've known the word of God, I've had it all brought before me, but I've made a mess. I've lived a bad life. I've done things that I knew I shouldn't have done. What do I do now? Is there a remedy? Yes there is. Notice here verse 15. And Elijah said it again, Take bow and arrows. And he took under him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, put thine hand upon the bull.
And he put his hand upon it, and Elijah put his hands upon the King's hands. Boy, I like to see this. You know, it's as if the Lord says you've made a bit of a mess, you're in a bad spot, you aren't even good enough to shoot the arrow yourself. But I'm going to put my hands on your hands. I'm going to help you out because I want you to get out of this difficulty.
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Verse 17 And he said open the window eastward in the openness. Then Elijah said shoot and he shot and notice what he says. And he said the arrow of the Lord's deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria. For thou shalt smite the Syrians, and impacts of thou consumed.
Oh, that's a wonderful promise. What do the Syrians represent? Well, these nations in the Old Testament represent different things, and I believe the Syrians, in the sense in which they're used here, represent the world as it is allowed of God to.
How shall I explain it 2.
Bring difficulties and problems into the life of a believer because of his unfaithfulness. God may allow difficulties and problems in your life and mine, and He may allow typically the Syrians to come in. That's God allowing this world, as it were to bring problems and difficulties into our lives. Why? Because we have not been faithful to the Lord. And what had happened as a result of the unfaithfulness of these kings? All the Syrians were overrunning the country. They were their enemies.
But the Lord makes a promise, he says joy. That's the arrow of the Lords deliverance. And you're going to slight these Syrians and apex till thou hast consumed it doesn't say just defeat them, but consume them. You know a beloved brother and I speak to each one of us. If we have failed, if there is that in our lives which we know is not according to the mind of God, there is a remedy for it. I don't have to say, well I made a mess, the Syrians are in here now.
Can't do much about them. They've got the upper hand. We'll never be able to drive them out. I'll never be able to get out of this mess. No, there are no limits on the God's restoration if there's true repentance. If there's true repentance, there are no limitations on 1St John 1:00 and 9:00. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And I believe that was the message here. The prophet said thou shalt smite the Syrians and apex till thou hast consume them. No conditions attached.
It was, as it were, George's last chance. The Lord, as it were, said to him. Joash, here's a chance to recover. Because he knew that Joe Ashley did have some heart for the Lord. There was a heart for the Lord. He knew that Elijah had gone up, although evidently he wasn't around at the time. He probably wasn't even born yet, but he'd heard about it.
The language, how did he learn it? You probably heard it from Elijah, because evidently Elijah was the only one there at the time when those words were said. Nobody else overheard them all. I should probably told them. But this poor king, he probably had an admiration for the man of God and everything that he did, but he didn't seem to have what it took from the Lord to walk in it himself. But the prophet says I'm dying. There's a chance for him. Do you want to take it? The Lord will deliver you from the power of the experience.
Well, notice what happens.
Verse 18 And he said, Take the arrows, and he took her. And he said unto the king of Israel, smite upon the ground, And he smoked Christ, and escaped. And the man of God was wrought with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times. Then hast thou smitten Syria, for thou hast consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite cereal, but Christ.
Verse 25 The end the last verse and Jehovah asked the son of Jehovah has took again under the hand of Ben Haydad, the son of Hazel, the city which he had taken out of the hand of Jehovah has his father by war three times did Joash beat him and recovered the cities of Israel.
All there was a lack of faith here. At first glance, you might say, well, that wasn't fair. How did he know how many times he was supposed to strike the ground? How did he know he was supposed to strike five or six times? Well, there was a lack of faith. He should have known by faith how what to do, but there was a lack of faith in his heart to follow what the prophet had set before him. There was a lack of faith to walk before the Lord and the good of all that the Lord has given. There was a lack of repentance of the course that he had pursued up until then. And so he takes the arrows.
And it was fine as long as Elisha's hand was on his. Then they shot the arrow, and he said the arrow of the Lord's deliverance. But when poor Joash takes up those arrows himself.
All three times and he quit.
And you know, very often we as believers, the Lord gives us an opportunity to write the difficulties that are in our pathways, but we don't seem to be able to take it up. But there's a route to it all. Well, there's a route to it all. And I believe that it wasn't a question that poor Joe asked, just said, well, 123, I guess that's enough. No, I believe there's a deeper significance than that. I believe he really didn't want to get completely out before the Lord.
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What he was going on with. And as a result, there was only a partial recovery. He beat the Syrians three times, no question, but he didn't get delivered from. And I've often thought, you know, I speak to my own heart. There are many Christians like that in the world today. They follow the Lord partially. They have an admiration for the things of God. And when they hear something, some nice truth brought out from the word of God or the Lord, well spoken of them, oh, they enjoy it and they love to do it, But oh, there's something in their lives that drags them, drags them, drags them, and they can't seem to get clear of it.
And the root is that we don't want completely to judge the old nature. We don't want completely to have done with that which is a hindrance to our Christian life. And this poor king, evidently he didn't have what it took to be able to judge those things, to get rid of those idols.
Throw them out and to follow the Lord wholeheartedly. And so there was only a partial recovery. Well, we can be thankful for that. We can be thankful for anything of Christ in a believer. And I privately feel that even though this kings, it was a wicked king that there was life there, that there was reality there. I don't know. We can't say for sure, but I rather think that there was. But his life was characterized outwardly by that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. Well, what are we going to be? Are we going to be in Elisha?
Or are we going to be a Joash Elijah? He had no hesitation when it came to a question of dealing with the situation. He tore his own clothes in two pieces.
They weren't going to come back together again, were they? He could have made a good rip in them and then sewing it up again. But no, he tore them in two pieces. He made a clean break with the pastor. He got rid of everything that had to do with himself, and then he followed the Lord. Poor Joash, he made a partial recovery. And yet each one of them said the same words. They knew it up here. The one walked in wholeheartedly, and one walked in it only partially. Well, May God give us grace to walk close to that blessed One and in the full good of everything that He has given us in order that we might not only have.
A happy pathway down here, but that up there we may have a full reward while our time is nearly gone.