Sully Conference: 1992
Table of Contents
Ephesians 5:25-end
Address—T. Roach
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Sisters and the Lord. Happy to be back in Sony once again after a long time and from the wife with me this time.
So we'll start by singing #330.
330 What raised the wondrous thought? For who did it suggest that we, the turn glory brought with the sun relaxed #332.
Like it turned to Ephesians.
Particularly the 5th chapter.
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But I was thinking a little bit of the the statement in chapter 3.
And verse 10.
To the enchantment now under the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God.
That is, by the Church, those powers would know the manifold wisdom of God and.
To ponder a statement like that, and I'm sure I don't have all the answers to it, but I was thinking how?
At the Tower of Babel, mankind was scattered. It was a scattering of the human race, and even the geography of the world was perhaps necessary to keep human beings from annihilating the rest of the human race, separating them by rivers and oceans. And now, of course, we can zip across an ocean in mere 10 hours. You can cross the Pacific Ocean. So these things.
Those natural boundaries don't mean as much, but here is something that those principalities and powers angelic beings must wonder about. As they see now, all mankind of any race, of any language, of any background can be united and one in the church.
It's a marvel, isn't it, that we could all be together of various nationalities. It's a shame then that we find.
Arguments between groups of Christians and so on. But this is a marvel and we should, we should see it that way, that it's God's wonderful overriding of even the judgment of the Tower of Babel to bring together Christians. Been telling some of the folks that when we were in Hong Kong at the meeting, they have a hymn book that's got both the Chinese and the English.
And the tunes are the same. And so when a hymn is given out, we were singing to him in English, They were singing it in Chinese to the same tune, the same words. And it was not confusion. It it landed together nicely. And similarly in Japan with another language. But these are wonderful things that God has done. He's brought us together.
And I was just thinking of going down through part of the 5th chapter.
And when we turn to these verses, you might think this looks like a lecture on.
A natural relationships or something like that. But God uses an actual relationships. In fact he says first that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. So the natural relationships are given. But because as we read it, I just call your attention to the fact that in every.
Not necessarily every verse, but in every statement about husbands and wives it brings in the Lord.
And it brings in then our relationship is the bride of Christ to our heavenly Bridegroom.
And that's what I really have before me to speak about. Not so much the natural relationship, but let's begin with verse 21, Ephesians 5 and verse 21.
Can everybody hear me?
I have a tendency to let my voice drop. And if I do, put up your hand. All right, thank you. OK.
Verse 21 Submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of God.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
Where the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject under Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. But he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
That it should be holy and without blemish.
Men to love their wives as their own bodies.
He that loveth his wife loveth himself with no man ever yet hate of his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church. For we are members of his body, and his flesh, and of his bones. For this pause shall a man leave his Father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be 1 Flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ in the Church. Nevertheless, let everyone of you in particular.
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So love is wife even as himself.
And the wife see that she reverence her husband.
The Lord willing they might take up the children, fathers and the servants and masters more night, but we'll just see how far we can get with this part of the subject.
I was surprised to see that in verse 21 That we started with that in the Darby translation.
Changes God to Christ, submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of Christ.
Well, I never had noticed that before. I don't know of any other passage where that occurs. But then again, I am not sure that I've exhausted the possibilities. It may be somewhere else. Why is it here? Well, you wonder, don't you? But I believe it's because we're talking about the spirit of God is talking about the headship, headship. And it's not merely God as such. But we ought to have the fear of Christ and the fear.
I trust we all understand that it's not a terror of fright, but a fear of of doing anything that would dishonor that one. A respect, a reverence.
I remember reading an article in the paper which.
Help me to understand the way fear is used in the Bible. There was a blind man who wanted to swim across Chesapeake Bay and he had a lot of supporters and a lot of folks waiting for him on the other side, waiting for him to arrive. And it's a long distance. I don't remember what it was and it was a boat attending him, so I guess he didn't swim in a circle being blind and someone asked him if he was afraid. He said I was only afraid of disappointing my supporters.
Well, that's the kind of a fear that that we should have of the Lord, fear of disappointing it, fear of dishonouring it. And so it speaks of.
All of us submitting ourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.
Well, as we were speaking before about all the tribes and nations of the world and how God erases, separate them by natural barriers.
There is that fear of one another, and there's that.
Tendency of trying to be superior superiority and the arms race that we've had in our own lifetime, this type of thing. But here is submission. It's not something that we naturally take to it's that which as believers in the Lord Jesus, we are responsible to do, to submit, submit to one another.
In this case, it doesn't speak of elder or younger or any relationship in verse 21 submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of Christ.
Well, submission, that's the biggest barrier if we can, if we can get through that one submit.
Nobody wants to submit in the least argument. Each one wants to have the last word and speak the loudest and defeat the other person. But here we are brought together. How can we exist together only by submission?
Well then, when it speaks of wives submitting to their own husbands.
As unto the Lord, well that's the position that we all as believers in the Lord Jesus have as the bride of Christ to submit to him. Submit to him. Other is something that maybe could be repeated as to even those natural relationships because.
Tells us how we can exist in these natural relationships and how to get along and how to prosper and then how to enjoy them, whether it's husbands and wives, children and parents or parents and masters.
And if we disregard those things, we're going to have trouble in this life. But if we disregard them, we're also spoiling the picture. We're spoiling the picture.
So we need to attend on these things in the natural. But my point tonight is to to speak of it in a way of how we as believers of the Lord Jesus and the first chapter ties a few things together, says the church, which is his body. Of course we understand the bride is is another figure and each of those.
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Ways of looking at the body of Christians has its own thought connected with it. The.
The bride, perhaps. Her beauty and the life, the relationship and the body, the activities and the the church, the the building being built up increasing. Maybe there are other thoughts too, but.
We are to be subject to the one who is our heavenly bridegroom.
Verse 23 It says the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and he's the savior of the body.
So we have that relationship of looking to one who is our head, and the head controls the body and we should get our our direction from the Lord Jesus, from Christ. It doesn't say God, it says Christ. And I believe that's why the 21St verse is accurately, more accurately priced.
Because he is the head, and we are to obey him, He is.
Savior of the body.
Therefore, as a church is subject unto Christ, I find that quite a statement. He's saying that the church is subject to Christ, and therefore why is there to be subject to their own husbands? The church is subject to Christ.
Well, as we look around us and we don't have to look very far because he can look within and see failure there, that the church has not been subject to Christ. But he didn't establish it that way. It's the way he intended it to be. And it's wonderful how in the beginning it was that that no one dared join himself.
To the church no one dared to joy himself to the group of believers, because of the matter of Ananias and supplier there was power there in evident power, and the Lord was in control of that.
Well.
Ashamed, no doubt, as we look at that. And it says the Church is subject unto Christ.
Church is subject under Christ, and I bath myself. How subject am I as a member of the body of Christ?
I believe we ought to have more of a sense of coming into the presence of the Lord.
I find myself very weak in that because we come together in order today, morning particularly, and we come into the presence of the Lord and well, we're we're discussing something and we keep on with our discussion and we want to ask somebody, how do you like your new car or one thing or another that can distract us?
Not because of the building, but because of the person of the Lord Jesus who's in the midst. He ought to mean enough to us that.
I I just wish that from the moment I got up on Wednesday morning, I could have that sense. I'm going to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus. What a difference it would make in the meeting if we all came that way, came subject unto Christ.
And then in verse 25 we have the other side of it.
And you know, the husband Dennis has the responsibility of acting in the place of Christ, as the wife has the responsibility of acting in the place of the of the Church. So this is a very great responsibility.
Husbands, love your own wives. It should be even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.
Well, how little do we do? We see that real responsibility that even as believers we have to other believers is to apply it in that way. The Lord Jesus came and he gave himself for the church. That's how far he went. The extent to which he went, He gave himself. He didn't give something. He gave everything. He sold all that He had to purchase that Pearl of great price.
And you know, in First John 316, that's an easy reference to remember First John 316, it says that we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, but to lay down our lives for the Brethren, How readily, how willingly would we do such a thing, Interpose ourselves to protect another believer?
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I was just telling my brother today how at a meeting a few months ago the subject was brought out and in connection with that, laying down our lives for one another. You know, and I have made a comment that it isn't likely that any of us would be called upon to go to that extent. We may have persecution of another kind, but you know.
That's the limit. That's how. Help. We couldn't go any further than laying down our lives for someone else. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Young brother made a comment after that and said.
He said. Is that possible that we should or isn't it?
The proper thing for us to be willing daily to lay down our lives for one another. But that was a good comment. That was a really excellent comment. We should be willing to lay down our lives for one another. It doesn't mean to say we'll necessarily lose their lives, but use their lives. And there's a comment made about Priscilla and Aquila, who for the sake of the apostle had laid down their necks. They had risked their lives. It was like they had their necks on the chopping block.
They didn't lose their lives because he's sending greetings. That's in Romans 16. So they were still living, but they had they had gone to the extent that they could have lost their lives for the sake the Apostle Paul, well, do we put ourselves out for one another?
Well, these things just come to mind as we look at these verses and see the extent to which Christ went for us.
I read the 25th verse again so we can get the connection. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. That he might sanctify and cleanse it with a washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy without blemish.
And so there is the end of the pathway. He's going to present the church to himself, A glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
And if you go back to chapter one.
In verse 4.
Says, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be fully and without blame before him. In love, holy and without blame. Holy is a character of our lives, and without blame would be our conduct, our our behavior.
So even now, we ought to be holy and without blame and without lunch, I believe. I believe He looks at us that way. He looks at us that way. But as we go through life, we recognize that we are not really what we ought to be. We fall far short.
Then it goes on to speak of.
In verse 28 so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies, and that lovethless wife loveth himself.
I'm sure all of us.
Who have wives feel we have come very short in this.
But it just shows us the extent to which the Lord Jesus went. He didn't fall short at all. He fully carried that out. And I believe that we should recognize not only that this happened once at the cross, but he died for us. But we need to recognize something important. He's living for us.
He's living for us now and he's putting himself out just as much now.
As he did when he came down here, He has risen and he's living for us. I believe that's neglected in our thoughts in comparison with thinking of the past when Jesus laid down his life for us, for the future, when He's coming for us. But what about right now?
Now is the time when I need it, and now is the time when he is living for me. He is living up there in glory for me. He's he's our shepherd, caring for us. He's our great live priests that are seeding for us.
These are aggregate restoring us. He restoreth my soul, so He's living for us right now. A very important thing that we should we should bear in mind that the Lord Jesus is living and not only think of his death, but think of his life, his living for us in the glory.
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The remainder of the chapter speaks, just connects these two thoughts together. We'll read the last two verses before we go on. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ in the Church.
Nevertheless, let everyone of you in particular so love his wife, even as himself and the wife see that she reverenced her husband.
These are the ways in which we should react as believers in the Lord Jesus toward.
The Lord Jesus.
The wife see that she reverence her husband. We should, as the believers, as the body of Christ, we should see that we reference, we reference the Lord.
Respect him.
And I'm sure that we would say, yes, I know I want to do that, but this, this involves every aspect of life respecting the Lord, respecting His.
His word and respecting himself.
It would come into honoring His word, not belittling it in any way or joking about it. It's a serious word. It's God's word, and He would have us reverence him.
Saw it, I think. It's not in this room. I guess it was impelled. I saw the verse and we have it at home in Dartmouth too.
God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the Saints and the hadam reverence of him.
Americans. By them, there are valuings.
I'd like to turn now back to the book of Daniel.
Connect a few thoughts there.
Daniel was an individual who in the first chapter tells us he purpose in his heart. He had a purpose in his heart.
And he wanted to be pure. He wanted to be pure in what? Not want to defile himself that portion of the King's meat.
So he purposed in his heart that he would not be file himself. Now we're coming to That was in the early part of Daniel's life. He started out that way.
And we're going to turn to the 9th chapter, something that took place in the latter part of his life.
And let's make this observation that.
But we have just lately visited some of the elderly Saints, and we find them just rejoicing in the Lord. And we talked to our sister, Mrs. Reeves, over there in Des Moines and talked about the Lord's coming and the closeness of it. And she said, that's what I want to hear, you know, just a real delight. And she's enjoying the Lord.
And what I want to say to those who are younger, including myself, that it doesn't happen automatically when you pass your 80th birthday, that you suddenly become a very godly person automatically because you've passed a certain birthday. Those folks who enjoy the Lord like that in their late years have been enjoying them in their earlier years when they still have energy and and vigor to to give to the Lord.
And so we see them rejoicing in that kind of stored up.
Joy. In their old age, a sister who lies in bed, is helped to a wheelchair for part of the day, and has helped back to bed again at night, can join the Lord.
Tell other stories, too, but it's just wonderful to recognize the fact that these things start early in life and they carry on through. Daniel started early in life and 70 years have passed. He's no longer a young man.
I don't have any idea how old he was at the beginning, but I often guess that maybe 15, maybe he was younger. Supposedly he was 15 when he started out. He was chosen as one of those young men to be trained to stand before the king. I'd be pretty young to be chosen for something like that and let 70 years pass. He's 85 years of age, He's no young man. And so he.
He has gone through much and he has been used of God and he gains a title in this chapter which will in this 9th chapter. In the 10th chapter is repeated a wonderful type. Let's just look at it. Look at the one in the in the 10th chapter, verse 11. Daniel got a nice title there.
Some people go to college and they get a degree with some initials after their name. As opposed I'm entitled to write BS after my name, Bachelor of Science. I've forgotten all about it, but it comes to mind. And here is a man who could put MGB after his name if he wanted to in that 11Th verse of Daniel 10.
First of Daniel. 10 he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved. A man greatly beloved. Why? Because he had purposed in his car early in life, and he carried 2 with it. He didn't give up partly along, and he set the call several times, A man greatly beloved.
Or a woman graces a lot. Or a boy. Or girl greatly beloved because of faithfulness. But I believe he earned that over a long period of time. Took him a long while to get his degree, but we'll just start.
We can start with verse two of Daniel 9.
In the first year of his reign, that is, of Darius the Meade I, Daniel understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And I set my faith unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
I prayed unto the Lord my God, this father, because here's this man, Daniel. He's a prophet, Daniel the prophet he's called, and yet he's reading the prophecy of Jeremiah, the prophet. Interesting, isn't it, to find the prophet reading the words of another prophet. And he discovers that.
The captivity of his people would last for 70 years.
For the last for 70 years.
You know, some of us might just have looked at the calendar and said, Oh yeah, let me check off a few more days. Every day we check off a date and assume coming to the end, it'll be all over the way, Daniel.
And I wonder it wouldn't have an application to ourselves knowing that the coming of the Lord draws near to just follow Daniels example here, because he wanted to be in a proper state of soul with regard to the end of the captivity. And so he says. It says here he set his face unto the Lord to seek by prayer and supplication the fasting and sackcloth and ashes. Well that was quite an attitude to take, and he was willing to.
To do that, even though he was a great man in the Kingdom there, he's willing to take that holy place and pray to the Lord is gone. I believe what he wanted to do was to be in a proper state of soul when the captivity was over.
It could be that we we might just think of the Lord's coming in kind of a a remote way.
I read one time.
Of I guess it was in one of those little booklets like streams in the desert.
Where it was said, I no longer think of the Lords coming as a doctrine because it affects every aspect of our lives.
And that was always said, you know, in this little excerpt in the book.
So you start thinking about that. How does the coming of the Lord affect every aspect of our lives? Well, you'll find it referred to, for example, in the remembrance of the Lord until he comes.
Give it some Death of a loved one by First Thessalonians 4 speaks of the coming of the Lord and raising the dead, incorruptible and every aspect of life. You have got a subject tonight, but it's a good one to pursue because every aspect of life is is covered by the the coming of the Lord in Philippians Three. Maybe it has to do with our health in the breakdown of our bodies and and the bodies of humiliation. He's going to change our bodies when he comes.
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And so everything that we that troubles us here is going to be effective by the coming of the Lord and the thought that they returned.
Well, we need to be in the right state of soul and Daniel and going on then in the 9th chapter and verse 4.
He says, I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping covenant.
And mercy to them that love Him, and to them that keep His commandments we have sinned.
And have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, have rebelled even by departing from My precepts and from Thy judgments. Neither have we hearkened unto Thy servants of prophets, which spake in Thy name to our kings, our Princess, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. With Daniel is one of those rare individuals in the Scripture that we find nothing that could be charged against it.
Davidson and Abraham said. I remember a brother speaking on Abraham rather on the first words of some of these well known Old Testament people, and I don't remember the rest of it, but I remember Abraham, the first words that are recorded in the scripture of Abraham.
You know what they were? The law concerning his wife.
And shameful isn't it, to think that the first words recorded of that man is a lie concerning his wife, and the first words of every one of those patriarchs and wise men, and ones that are looked up to, They leave a lot to be desired. But when you come to the second is Luke.
There's a 12 year old, the Lord Jesus at the age of 12, and the first words of the Lord Jesus that are recorded that he spoke are just not that I must be about my father's business.
What a refreshing contrast that is. Well, Daniel, we don't seem to find anything.
You really have to pick at something to find fault with Daniel anywhere. And yet he says we have sinned, we have sinned.
And in the in the law of the offerings, you know, you find a priest eating the sin offering, the priest eating the sin offering. Daniel here is an associating himself with his people and their sins. And we cannot lift up our heads and say, well, Christendom does such and such because we're just as guilty. We're part of Christmas. We are, we're part of Christmas.
And we have a very privileged position to be gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus with a great privilege. It's a joy. And I certainly for one, don't want to lose that privilege. You know, we're so near the end. We're so near the end. I don't want anything to come in that would spoil that privilege and take it away. And I'm sure you don't.
Daniel has to say we have sinned, we have to hang his hand.
And have committed iniquity. So it takes that low place and I believe that has its application fully to ourselves today and to all that taking place. We don't know all that goes on in the rest of Christendom, but we do know a little bit about what's taking place among ourselves and we have to hang our heads in shame. Well, the next thought in verse 7.
He continues his prayer and he says, Oh Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee.
But unto us confusion of faith faces, and at this day to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel.
So on.
Righteousness. Do all of them believe? He justifies the Lord, He justifies the Lord and all that he has done. Righteousness belongs unto thee. And that's a a good thing for us to see and an important thing for us to see because.
Sometimes it looks like why did the Lord do that? Why did he allow that as though we were charging him with some false Daniel is clear on that. Oh Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee.
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And he speaks.
Of many things there on down to.
Skip down to verse 13.
Says as it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come upon us, yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth.
But we have to justify God. He justifies God entirely, you know?
In the prophecies like Jeremiah.
They're worn over and over again.
They're worn over and over again, and they don't seem to list.
I was thinking too, we'll come to it if we have an opportunity to take it up in the 6th chapter of Ephesians, it says of the masters for bear threatening.
Don't threaten. Don't threaten your slaves. Don't threaten.
Well, I used to read that I would think, well, what is God doing all through Jeremiah? Isn't he threatening?
I don't believe so. He wouldn't tell us for bear threatening and threaten himself. So what does it mean? I believe what God is doing is warning. He's warning faithfully because he will carry out the judgment.
Threatened.
People.
Sometimes they threaten their children. If you do that again, I'll never bring you to the store with me, you know? And the kids know that. They don't mean it. It's a threat. They know they don't mean it and they just carry on. But God doesn't threaten. He's gracious. He may wait, but he's going to carry out the judgment. Well, we have.
Then those repeated warnings to the prophets, and they refuse to listen, they put Jeremiah down in a pit. Another time they came to him. Believe it. The 42nd chapter and they said.
What's the word of the Lord today? I think they were hoping that the word of the Lord would change and so that it would agree with what they wanted to do.
They said whatever it is, we'll do it. Good or bad, we'll do it. And it took a week or more before the answer came back. God tested them by waiting, and that's a problem. We don't often wait for the answers.
I'm interested myself, and maybe that's the problem. We need to wait. We need to have that patience. Well, the answer comes back and they don't like the answer.
Are they going to accept it? Like they said? They wouldn't know. They said you didn't get that from the Lord, Jeremiah, you got that from Beirut. They made it the word of man rather than the word of God, and so they disregarded it. Well, we can't do that. We must turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth, he said. We didn't do that. We didn't make our prayer before the Lord.
Well, that's the second point, the first being Daniel.
Confesses the sin of the people as his own. He justifies God and what he has done, and then verse 14 to be part of the same thing but a little bit of another talk. 1St 14 Therefore have the Lord watched upon the evil.
And brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth, for we obeyed not his voice.
The Lord watched upon the evil and brought upon him studious the evil. When it speaks of the Lord doing evil, it means that he brought some kind of a judgment on people, some kind of a harm, and they looked on it as evil.
To to speak to that in in another place, I believe it might be in Jonah that the Lord repented him of the evil, for God has no evil to repent of in the sense of sin. But he was going to bring a problem. He was going to bring judgment on Nineveh, and he changed his mind. He decided not to do it because they repented.
And so he will change his mind about the judgment on the center when we repent. Is that the new life? So we don't have to be under that judgment. Well here.
Is a very interesting thing, I find.
That nowhere in this chapter does Daniel blame a particular individual or name anybody. He says. We have sinned. You know the people in general. But he doesn't say.
Is Zedekiah sinned and therefore Nebuchadnezzar had to come in? He doesn't say. Well it was rehoboam that split the Kingdom and terrible and set up false Bible. He doesn't speak of any of those people. He just says that the Lord sent this, the Lord sent this.
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I read a commentary not too long ago and mentioned.
Mentioned that Daniel did not say the Lord allowed it. We speak that way. The Lord allowed it as though it just happened, and the Lord didn't interfere with it happening, and so it took place. But this is more than that, Daniel, seeing the Lord brought it upon us. The Lord said it. The Lord said it. So we shouldn't be chafing under it. If there's judgment, if there's problems, we should recognize a long standard. A long standard.
And I don't need to say that when someone has a problem that I should start thinking, well, the Lord said it because.
He needed that. Maybe he sent it to another individual to make me think, and if he sends the problem to me, then I should be exercised about why took place. But I I just want to guard against the thought of.
Certainly not in here that we would look at someone else and say the Lord is judging that person.
It's up to us to take that personally for ourselves. The Lord watched upon the evil and brought it upon us. The Lord sends those things. He brings those things because what he sees and he knows the need, he knows the effect that he desires. And you know, Daniel does something else before the 4th thing that he recognizes in his prayer in verse 17. Now therefore, O Lord.
I'm sorry. Oh, now, therefore, O our God, hear the prayer Thy servant, and his suffocation, his supplications.
And buzz thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake, Oh my God, inclined on here and here, open thine eyes, and behold our desolations in the city which is called by Thy name. For we do not present our supplications before the for our righteousnesses, but for my great mercies.
Isn't a local prayer. He turns to the very one who sent the judgment, and he pleads with him to bring the blessing.
Can't we just turn right around to the Lord and after confessing our failure, just plead with him to preserve his testimony, his sanctuary, his name for his name's sake? Certainly not for our righteousnesses. But he says for thy great mercies He falls on the mercy of the Lord. Remember that David. One time he had a choice.
Because of his own sin and numbering of people, he had a choice of three things, and his comment was Let me not fall into the hand of man. But it is the hand of God merciful, and the Lord knows just what to do.
When God brought.
Human enemies into judges people, they want to thrive. They often want to farm and he has to charge some of them was saying if if thieves break in and steal what they just steal till they had enough to leave and someone would now harvest an olive tree. There's still going to be a few olives left on but he says you've just taken everything and so he's.
He's speaking here now of those that would just fall upon the Lord.
And not to unmanned.
He would They would turn to the Lord, the one who sent the judgment for his great mercies.
I just like to notice something about Daniel at the end of this is pleading with the Lord to heal, to hear verse 19. Oh Lord hear, O Lord, forgive the Lord hearken, and do refer not for thine own sake, Oh my God, for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.
And while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin, in the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God, yeah, while I was speaking in prayer even the man Gabriel whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning.
Because the fly swiftly touched me about the time of the evening oblation. Just think about that about the time of the evening ablation.
And 28 the numbers we have a list of various.
Sacrifices that were to be given throughout the year in Israel's calendar and every time it speaks of us, maybe the Passover example, it'll say beside the morning and the evening sacrifice and it goes on to another special case.
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Beside the morning and the evening sacrifice.
I counted at one time. I if I remember correctly, it was about 14 times besides the morning and the evening sacrifice.
What that would be?
Would it be that we spend some time in the morning with the Lord and spend some time in the evening with the Lord?
The morning and the evening sacrifice what we can apply for ourselves, but I just think in here of Daniel.
Remember when he prayed and was put into the lions, and he was at his windows open toward Jerusalem, in accordance with Solomon's prayer, that if they were carried captive and they prayed toward this house that Solomon had built, as the Lord appeared, answered, and the Lord said yes, I will be agreed with Solomon, he said. I will answer this. The temple had been destroyed.
Daniel still prayed in that direction. His heart is there. He knew that's where the Lord would be if he could be, and he prayed in the direction of that temple. And here is the same thing. The sacrifices had ceased because they were all taken into captivity, and the temple was destroyed and there was no one there to offer sacrifices. But he still thinks in connection with the time of the evening oblation.
This is something like visiting one of these old brothers or sisters in the nursing home and coming away rejoicing because of what they just remarked on or what they enjoyed. Here's Daniel.
Daniel, just thinking about the time of the evening oblation.
I just think there's pressure going to put that out for us to consider, and even in the New Testament we find Cornelius a Gentile.
And the vision that he saw was about the 9th hour.
In the speech of the ninth hours, the hour of prayer, I believe that was the time of the evening oblation.
And here is this Gentile, just so close to the Lord that he knew when he should be praying. And you know that wasn't prayer when the when the vision came to him at the time of the evening of relation.
Now we'll just go on a little bit to see what the Angel says in verse 22. And he informed me and talked with me and said, oh, Daniel, I am now come forth to give these skill and understanding. At the beginning of my supplications the commandment came forth and I have come to show thee.
Thou art greatly to love, therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision, and against that vision of up to 70 weeks. But Daniel.
Has been faithful all along. I believe he could be a great example to us in our day.
Of purpose, of heart, and the result of that things are revealed to him. He sees things in Scripture as he was reading Jeremiah, the prophet. He saw something in Scripture that caused him to confess the fallen confession and to justify God, and to recognize that God not only allowed things, but sent things, and then to fall in that same one for blessing and and rely upon him.
Upon the Lord who set the judgment to be the one who will bring the blessing in the sanctuary, not for our righteousness, but for thy great mercies. But we have a wonderful position, a wonderful portion. And we may be weak, and we may be feeble, and we may be failing, but we have a wonderful resource, don't you? We have a resource in the Lord, and we have that.
Designation of Daniel here, a man grapling beloved.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear the Lord say, Well done, good and faithful servant.
A man greatly beloved in the New Testament we have a man of God. Timothy was called a man of God. And then he tells us that if we if we read his word in the Second Timothy 3 the end, it says old man of God. But the man of God may be fully furnished. I believe that's a special designation not applying to every Christian who may be careless about the word of God, but the ones who who read it, who are equipped by being close to the Lord.
I believe that's referring to such a person and just because it says man doesn't leave out the sisters because it's no doubt the generic term for the human race, man or woman or children who are faithful to the Lord and God.
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It would be a wonderful thing to hear that, Hear the Lord say that to refer to.
A woman of God or a man of God?
Child of God for different connotations, but just the thought of being those greatly beloved ones of the Lord because of faithfulness to him and dedication and devotion.
Well I trust the Lord and use that to stir up my own heart and as well as the heart of each one of us here to to continue on. We don't have much time towards coming soon perhaps tonight or as I've often repeated the words of a sister from the Pleasantville that was Scotia meeting. She's with the Lord now, Missus Murphy and she was so enjoying the Lord and and she was enjoying the fact that he would come soon and she said.
Is coming soon. Probably tonight. She didn't say maybe, and she said probably. And I think that's how we should be. Just probably tonight. We probably won't even see the morning the Lord is coming. And that's how real it was when he was murky. He's enjoyed it much.
Ephesians 6
Address—T. Roach
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Praise we to the Father, give God and whom we move and live children's praise. He loves to hear children's songs. He like his ear.
Start off with children tonight over.
Sing a Song About Children #131.
Well, we can go back to Ephesians Chapter 6.
We'll take up another.
Part of what we have some of last night.
And these relationships that we know here on earth.
That are also relationships that we have towards God. So tonight we'll look at children and fathers or parents and servants and masters.
It seems like there's quite a lesson in all of these for us.
Just read the first part begin with beginning at verse one.
Ephesians 6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment of promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
And ye fathers revoked not your children to wrath, to bring them off to the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
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You know, we can't really totally separate the divine things from those that are have to do with our life down here.
Because the scripture speaks of that which is natural 1St and then that which is spiritual. So the natural thing that we're learning here is that children are to obey and not only children will come to that again with servants. And it seems like what God is telling us that the Christian life is one of obedience.
And it does make it simple.
We don't have to make a lot of decisions for ourselves. We simply have to obey what God says.
Children obey their parents in the Lord, and I think that I've often made this comparison with a verse in First John, the last verse of the 4th chapter that speaks of.
Love toward our brother. And it says how can you say you love God if you don't love your brother because you can't love your brother whom you can see. How can you say you love God and you cannot see? And just to make an extension of that.
Children have the opportunity of obeying those they can see, and what a blessing it is to learn obedience in the home. And then?
As children of God, we are accustomed to obeying, and if we can obey the parents that we can see, and then we understand a little bit about obedience to God when we cannot see.
Authorities in the world, and we're going to look at some of that later on, but it speaks of children and if we go back to John Chapter one, we find out how we can become children of God.
John chapter one and verse 12.
Nice to get the connection so we can read the previous verse. 11 He came unto his own and his own received him not.
As many as received him to them gave thee power for authority.
Become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were bore not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. So the authority to be sons of God or children of God is to ban that believe on the name of the Lord Jesus, believe on his name.
It's quite amazing to find out how many times the name of the Lord is mentioned. Even the name isn't given, but the fact that it is the name of the Lord is.
Interesting to note perhaps that back in in Malachi 316, the verse that we like much concerning these last days, that speaks about those that fought on his name.
Those apartments name, and we often find that the name of God.
Lost feelings and so on.
Well, by trusting in the Lord, we find that we become children of God.
And we have that again in Galatians.
1/3 of Galatians in verse 26.
Year All the Children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Well, just as in the natural, so also then in the spiritual.
We have we are children of God and we have a responsibility to obey and to respect because it speaks of honoring father and mother.
To obey and to honor. We have that responsibility before dawn, and then the fathers and we we can again look in John chapter 20 this time.
After the Lord was risen.
And he met Mary Magdalene.
That's a remarkable story in itself that will read just verse 17 of John 20. Jesus said unto her, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father, but go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.
Without more or less establishes the relationship that we have where children God is our Father.
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And so we often refer to one another as brothers and sisters because we have the same Father. And is that simple, wonderful relationships that we have in the Lord Jesus.
Now the Apostle Paul speaks of it in a little different way in the first chapter of Ephesians he speaks not of of birth like John does, but.
He says in the fifth verse.
Having predestinated us, or mark us out beforehand unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.
How often we find Paul using the term sons and speaks of adoption and that no doubt has to do with our privileged position before God. There are things that are ours, Inheritance for example, because we're we're the sons of God.
It's a closer, close relationship, but then John speaks of us as children and.
Children that are born into the family and John three must be born again. So John speaks of the new birth and are being born into the family.
And if we go over to 1St John.
And Chapter 3.
First John in chapter 3.
We are part of the family there.
Again, John's epistles dealing with family truth.
And in the end of her spawn we'll read verse five of John chapter first John chapter 3. And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin.
I'm suppose we've all noted that the three places where three different writers of the New Testament speak of the sinlessness of the Lord Jesus. The Apostle Paul, the educated man was speaking to the educated and wise Corinthians. He says Jesus knew no sin to the connection, I think between the fact that Paul brings out that he knew no sin, the man that knew a lot of things and spoke to those who knew a lot of things.
Peter was an active man, a doer, and he was speaking to the Jewish people.
Whose background was to do, to keep the law to do. And he says Jesus did no sin. It all fits in with the author that God used to write these things and how we now we have John, a disciple whom Jesus loved, who lay on his breast at the supper. And he was close enough to the Lord that he speaks in the first chapter of our hands have handled and our eyes have seen and our ears have heard and he says in him.
Is no sin.
I'm sure established in those things, but it's just a joy to think of them again that Jesus was sinless. Even the ungodly had to remark that. And Pilate spoke about just man. His wife spoke of him as a just man and he spoke of him as innocent blood. And the thief said this man has done nothing amiss. They all had to justify the Lord Jesus, the officers that were sent to take him.
And came back without him. They said Herman spake like this man.
Oh, they were impressed the person of the Lord Jesus. So here is John Speaking of of in Jesus there's no sin. That third chapter we go down to chapter in that same chapter to verse 9.
It says, Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.
Well, that tells us that the nature of the Father is transmitted to the children. In Him is no sin and he gives us a sinless life. He gives us a life that cannot sin.
And when we look at ourselves and say, why do I sin so much then it's because we're allowing that old nature, that Adam nature, the flesh which cannot be changed, to act.
But this is just a little bit to indicate how we're children of God and God as our Father. And it's a wonderful relationship that we have as as children. We're to obey and we're to respect the Father, respect God.
And you know, if we respect someone, then we're willing to do what they say. We we want to please that person if we respect that person.
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And then we come to the Father, says fathers in verse four of chapter restart. Yes.
Region Six He fathers provoked not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Well, the fathers have a great responsibility.
And what about the mothers do too, but the fathers are responsible one. And so we as fathers are more or less in the position of God is to us. And that's a very serious responsibility because God is is perfect in his ways And we'll look at where some Hebrews in a moment, but.
Says Provoke, not your children to rap.
Now we have to be careful that we don't overdo.
The discipline and you have to remember the age of the children. We were in a place a few weeks ago where it was a 2 year old.
Sitting in the high chair and he spills his milk.
Just acting like a 2 year old, he can hardly stole. He didn't get scolded for that. It wasn't something that he should be punished for. It wasn't a willful act, it was a natural thing. Since that time I spilled something over too on the table. So it can't be too hard on the little part because they're just acting like they put things like that.
So here's that which might be a little bit overdone, and we're warned not to provoke the children and.
Factions of parallel portion of Colossians 3.
It says fathers provoked, not your children.
To angers and our talents, lest they be discouraged.
We don't want to discourage the children. We want to encourage them. And I believe that's what nurture and admonition has to do. And with bringing up the children, those things that would encourage them and train them in the way they should go and and bring them along in the admiration of the Lord. Well, let's look at Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews, chapter 12.
There's a bit of a portion here, I'd like to read it.
Region verse 5.
And you have forgotten the exhortation with speak, which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loveth he chased me.
Conspiracy every son whom he receiveth.
If you endure chasing me, God deals with you as with sons. But what son is he Whom? The Father chasing the God?
But if he be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you ******** and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father's spirits live?
For they barely for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness, now no chastening for the present, seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless afterward healed that the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised there by.
Well, I was just thinking of a few parts of this, but it's good to read the whole context.
Because God does chase of his children. He acts toward us in love, and he wants to train us, and he wants to encourage us. He wants us to bear fruit for him. And so he speaks of these things and what it says in the.
Well, in verse 9, the fathers who corrected us, we gave them reverence.
That's a beautiful relationship. When it works like that, it should be like that. But at verse 10 it says they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. I believe that needs a little comment. We need to see the whole verse. It goes on to say, but he for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness, you know, we might have the wrong motive for correcting our children. We might want them to be.
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Good little children, so we can be complemented on how good our children are.
And we would correct them for our own pleasure so that we would get some some pleasure and some nice comments or to do well in schools. So that people said, well, I see your child may be on a roll and we may not be correcting them for the right reason. But the Lord, it says He corrects us for our prophet, for our prophet. Now we might, we might.
Open. I just want to be quiet and power the kids to be quiet, and it might be for our own pleasure, but they're still in that. I was thinking of using that for the example, but I don't think that's 100% because they do need to learn to respect others. So it might be that they should learn to be quiet at times, but they are kids. You have to act like kids, so.
There are those things that we need to examine the motives in our correction of the children, and they will respect us. They will give reverence for that.
Well, this is so then, in our relationship with the Lord. And I was thinking of an example.
We can just turn to first Timothy.
Oh sorry, Philippians, Philippians for this one.
Timothy was brought up well. It wasn't his father, it was his mother and his grandmother. And that from a child he learned the Holy Scriptures.
And that's a wonderful thing when children are brought up to learn the Holy Scriptures, memorize the verses.
But what I was thinking of was the effect in Philippians 2.
Timothy because earthly father, his natural father, did not train him because he was a Greek.
We don't know anything more about him than that. At least he had followed a spiritual father who really did much for Timothy.
And so in Philippians 2 and verse 19.
The Apostle says of Timothy, But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send to Morpheus shortly unto you. But I also may be of good comfort when I know your state. For I have no man like minded who will naturally care for your state, or who will care with genuine feelings. How you get on for all seek their own things, not the things that are Jesus Christ, but you know the proof of him that as a son with a Father.
He has served with me in the gospel.
Now we have both father and son here, and it's nice to see that an example of one who very tenderly as a father, cared for Timothy, and how Timothy really responded to that training. No doubt his early training from his mother and his grandmother and how they had instilled things in his mind, the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make him wise into salvation.
Wanted to avoid turning to too many scriptures, so didn't turn to Timothy. But you would see there that he was exhorted to to continue on from the things that he had heard, had learned knowing of whom he had learned them, knowing of whom he had learned them. And I believe as we teach our children, we need to recognize that we're living, we need to remember to live what they're telling so that there's a responsibility there.
To live Christ before them.
So that they would have an example and they would not say, well, that's what they say I've heard of.
Children whose parents smoke, telling the children not to smoke. Why shouldn't they? The parents are doing it, so they learned the bad habits well. We're going to teach them good habits if we try to train them in the way they should go. We ought to be talking of the things of the Lord at home as well as in the meetings.
And living those things well. This is a big responsibility. And I'm sure that everyone of us who has gone through parenthood and into grand parenthood, we have lots of things that we wish we had done differently and we recognize many mistakes that we've made. But the Lord is overall, and He desires to see a good purpose apart going on for him.
00:25:23
Well, let's go on to Servants in Ephesians chapter 6.
Verse 5.
Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and singleness of your heart, is under Christ for thy service as men, not with thy service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart.
With goodwill, doing services to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man do it, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.
So here is the exhortation now the servants beginning again with obedience.
In many ways it's very simple to be a servant, because the servant doesn't have to reason whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing. He just has to be obedient, he said, to do what he's told. And so it's very simple for a server. And as the servants of the Lord, which everyone of us are the word servant in the New Testament, I don't know if I can speak authoritatively that every place, but I believe most often, if not in every place, it's a slaves. It's not simply.
One book has gotten a job.
But we could apply it that way in our own lives, because we don't have that same system of slavery but as respecting the Lord if we're saved as free men, where the Lords grown men were his slaves. To service there were to be obedient to masters.
And here it speaks of masters according to the flesh.
And that's important, because if we don't, if we don't fulfill these obligations, whether it's in the family or whether it's as servants, the various scriptures speak about how the name of God or the Word of God will be blasphemed on account of us, and that's not something we want. We would rather have someone turn to the Lord through the light, and we sometimes do hear of a person who.
Whose life and testimony has led another to inquire, and want to come to the Lord.
It's nice when that happens. So servants are to be obedient to.
Masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and singleness of your heart as unto Christ. That may be very difficult. There may be folks that are over us in the business, or wherever it might be that are very hard to deal with, but we are to remember that it's under Christ. I remember the story of two young brothers, one that was a foundry they worked at and one worked in the office.
So that wasn't such a hard job. But the other fellow got a job in the foundry. So that's heavy work. They're pouring castings or stoves in this case, and as dirty and it's hot and it's heavy work. And at noon time, these two brothers had lunch together. And the one who just started in the foundry, he was trying to keep up with everybody else, you know, because he thought he had to do that. He would just knew. And he was so discouraged at noontime.
But going home the evening he was very cheerful and the first brother says to him, what's what happened during the day. He said that you were so discouraged at noon time and and you're going home cheerfully now what he said in the morning I was I was trying to to work hard and please the the people at the the shop. I said in the afternoon I did it as unto the Lord, I just did the best I could and so he went home, cheered and happy and that's the that's the way to be.
To do it as unto the Lord. It may not be perfect, we want to do a good job, but it it's done as unto the Lord, and it gives us joy in doing it.
Not with eye service as men pleasers.
That's that's a common thing in the world today for pardon the boss is looking.
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Verse 7 but with goodwill, doing services to the Lord and not to men.
Believe in.
Over himself to Colossians want me to turn to the third chapter, Colossians that speaks of the.
Servants.
Verse 22 Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye services men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God, and fearing the Lord. And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord, you shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ.
Well, that's encouraging, isn't it? To do our work is unto the Lord, if we only did it for any other reason for.
Shoulder or works for an engineering firm or something like this and.
And you're building things, and you're doing things well. If we do it as unto the Lord, it can be burned up, and we wouldn't care so much if our work was destroyed that way. But we've done it as unto the Lord. The attitude has been as unto the Lord, and that's what he's looking for in our lives.
And the second of some other servants.
There's of course we are familiar with the one in Exodus, that servant.
The faithful servant in Exodus 21.
Now these are the judgments which Nashville set before them. If that by a Hebrew servant 6 years he shall serve in the seventh, he shall go out free for nothing.
Came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, she have borne him sons or daughters. The wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out by himself.
The servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges. He shall also bring him to the door or unto the doorpost. And his master shall board his ear. Through all he shall serve him forever.
You might wonder why the ears?
Why would that mark be in the ear?
I believe it's because of servants. To be obedient he has to listen.
He has to listen, has to hear. And so if we're going to be obedient servants for the Lord, we have to be listening. And it's the ear. And I can't help but think, and I'm sure you're thinking of it too. The Lord Jesus, the perfect servant. It says my ears has no date. He got ears as God. He could command. He could say, let light be and light was. He can create the heavens and the earth and a word.
But he was going to take the place of a dependent man, and it speaks of ears.
His ear. And so oftentimes we'll read this scripture on Lord's Day Morning in connection with the Lord Jesus, as though his fear were poured through. He came to hear and he says, and John's Gospel, he says, I came not to do my own will, but the will of him in sentence.
So the Lord Jesus was a perfect servant and it failed.
And that is what he would expect of us, that we would go on faithfully for him.
We can't help them but think going back to the New Testament of the Lord, Jesus is that perfect servant, and I'd like to read that in Philippians 2.
Again, a familiar portion. The Lord Jesus as the perfect servant.
Philippians 2 Beginning at verse five, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal of God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death.
Even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also has highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name. But at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord for the glory of God the Father.
00:35:25
If something is brought out here, this person connection with the Lord Jesus, but you notice.
The words we often know, men in Lord's day, mourning the first part of verse five, are very important for us in this convention that we're looking at. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. That applies to us what the the Lord Jesus did, how he humbled himself.
And became obedient as a servant. You notice that in verse eight he became obedient unto death. And then it says in verse nine, God has highly exalted him.
As a servant, the servant doesn't look for any special recognition. He does his job, he might be glad to hear well done, but he he doesn't get any special recognition for doing what he does. There's a nice verse in that connection for us. We need to turn to it. But the 17th of Luke in the 10th verse, it says after we've done what we're commanded to do, we're to say we're unprofitable service. We've done what was our duty to do.
Someone misunderstood me one time on that one, as though it's so it was indicating that we could do something and say I've done my duty.
Believe what it's telling us is no matter what we do, it was only our duty anyway. We have the responsibility to do it. So if we do it, we can't pat ourselves in the back and say, well, could I accomplish something? We've only done everything.
But this verse 9 here says God also has highly exalted him. We need to wait for that coming day when he will say well done, good and faithful servant, unsuccessful servant, but faithless. Or. I understand Brother Brown used to make a comment or had made a comment that if it said successful, he'd have given up long ago. But he was willing to be faithful. Try to be faithful and let the Lord commend him. In the end leave the successes with him.
So it says.
In that parable, well done, good and faithful servant, Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear that, to get to heaven and hear the Lord say it? Sometimes we're content to have our brethren say it, and well, that's all right to encourage somebody, but it it's going to be wonderful if the Lord would be able to say that, if any one of us.
It isn't limited to certain brothers. It's all the same. Everyone of us were servants of the Lord. Children who believe were servants of the Lord, and they can do things for him is unto him.
But a blessed thing, then, to be a faithful servant, God has highly exalted the Lord Jesus.
The servant is under obedience.
You know, we better look on at the back in Ephesians 6.
To the masters.
Verse 9.
Adi masters do the same things unto them for bearing, threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven. Neither is there any respective persons with him.
I believe that's all said about the masters there.
There's something I found interesting looking this over that both here and Colossians. It refers to the fact that the masters.
Master over them. Masters have a master over them. Now many of us are in the position of being the boss somewhere and having those under us. This would speak to us how we should treat those under us. It speaks here for bearing threatening. We spoke of it last night, I believe, about threatening.
The word of God, God himself never threatened.
He promises, he warns. But he doesn't threaten. And we might we might tend to threaten. The master might threaten.
Servant.
And parents may threaten children. It doesn't refer to it here, but we hear it. We hear it in the supermarket, we hear it all the time.
Threatening same things that are not going to be carried out. Parent doesn't intend to carry it out, the child knows it's not going to be carried out.
00:40:08
Please, God doesn't threaten like that.
God warns because he is going to carry out his judgment and if he delays it, and take the case of Nineveh, Nineveh for example.
He sent Jonah there with with a message. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown and we might say, well, he didn't carry that out. Not then. But is it 125 years? If I remember, someone said I'm not up on those dates, but 125 years or so later Nineveh was destroyed because they they went back into their evil. But there was a stay.
Of that execution of the judgment because they repented so masters are exhorted not to threaten, but we should.
What we mean and mean what we say.
How easy it is to save them and then wish we hadn't said them and want to take them back.
Speak it for myself.
The masters then that have a master over them as an example in Matthew 8 that I find quite interesting.
Matthew Chapter 8.
And the centurion that comes to the Lord Jesus.
Verse 5.
And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him and saying, Lord, my servant, live at home, sick of the palsy, grievously tormented, Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him.
Centurion answered and said, Lord, I'm not worthy that thou should have come under my roof, but speak the word only if my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this man, Go, and go to another, Come and cometh to my servant. Do this, he do with this. And Jesus heard it. He marveled, and said unto them that followed. Verily, I, Sandy, you have not found some great faith.
No, not in Israel.
Well, this man was a gentile and he had, he was a centurion, so he had soldiers under him.
But it is interesting to notice that when he explains what's on his heart to the Lord, he says I'm a man under authority.
Wouldn't we expect him to say I'm a man in authority? He seemed to have quite a sense that the authority he had over those soldiers was not his own authority. He was a man of your authority. And anyone of us that has any authority at all, we haven't gotten it from ourselves. It came down for the Berry has often said all authority comes down.
Start with God. He delegates it to the rulers and to those in authority over us and for lesser rulers, and they establish another level. And the policeman has authority, but not his own. There's a law behind him, and there's authorities over him and over them. And here's this man seems to recognize that I am a man under authority. And so he speaks of how his authority goes out to the soldiers, but it's not his own authority.
And we have that in John 19, which I think is very instructive for us as to the flow of authority.
When Pilate was speaking to the Lord Jesus.
John 19.
And verse 10 Then said Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except that we're given thee from above.
Therefore he that delivered me unto thee of greater sin, the authority that Pilate had, is given him from above. Now how Pilate understood that I don't know. He might have thought it was Caesar's authority, but the Lord was speaking about the word Caesar get his authority from.
All of the powers that be are ordained of God. And that's interestingly the apostle writes that at a time when the worst rule of the world was ever seen as in power, one of the worst anyway. And he says those authorities are ordained of God and were to obey them.
00:45:07
So we if we have any authority at all, it's derived from above. We're under authority. And we we have to use that with that discretion, because these masters had a master over them. And you find the same thing again in Colossians 41. Masters give unto your servants that which is just an equal, knowing that he also have a master in heaven.
I think that's quite interesting and instructive that the authority is coming down and there's nobody that has authority of his own. You must remember that and not try to misuse authority. Men and authority almost always misuse it in government so.
And misuse their authority. Well, we're exhorted here to be careful about that.
And to remember that there's one over us.
Well, back in Ephesians then, we have the armor. This is very.
Instructive.
Finally, my brother, verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and the power of His might. It seems that that's the end of the categories of husbands, wives, children, fathers, servants, masters, when he speaks to us all. Finally, my brethren, be strong, the Lord in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, you may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil.
All armored God may be able to stand against the wild the devil. Satan's power was defeated at the cross, but he's the wily foe. And you remember when Joshua and the children of Israel went into the land of Canaan.
They they were never defeated in a battle. They won all the battles that they entered. But.
To north was the the Gibeonites and the form of this word Wiley, it says they did work wildly.
Tongue twister. Word. Wildly. They were they were clever and sneaky and subtle, and they worked a deal. And it was it was not done properly. It was not handled properly. But God held them to it. God held them to it.
And I think we can learn a lesson even from that. That's not our subject tonight, that the the illegal agreement between Joshua and the Princess with the Gibeonites, God held him to it. And later, when Saul tried to kill some of them, there was a famine in the land because of it, and David had to take up the matter and settle it with the Gibeonites. We need to learn those kind of lessons, but here we're told to put on the whole armor of God and may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil.
Stand and we have that word stand throughout this portion and we have the truth of God-given to us. And we're told to buy the truth and sell it not. And someone has said it's easier to gain the truth than it is to keep the truth.
So here we are to stand.
We've been had a lot of the truth. We've had all the truth committed to us. We may not understand it. All is committed to us and we're responsible to hold it, to hold on to it, to stand, I think, of one of David's mighty men.
He was standing there, The Philistines were all gathered together and it says the people fled and the man was standing there alone and he had the sword and defended that field of food. The Lindos he defended, he stood. He stood. And if another one of those men, it says his hand play into the sword like gold, he held on to the sword. You know what think of the sword, of the spirit, Let's hang on to it. And.
Use it and.
Defend and stand. And that's the important thing. There are these powers in heavenly places.
Then in verse 13 and again it says, Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand, stand.
Therefore, what so emphasizes and stand not gain, not try to gain, because in the first chapter of Ephesians we have been given all spiritual blessings, and having a Galatians in Christ, we have them all. There's nothing to gain. And the apostle, in the end of that first chapter, toward the end, he says he prayed that there the eyes, of their understanding, of the eyes, of their heart, our hearts would be opened to understand.
00:50:04
Not to gain, but to learn what those blessings are, and to use them. And here it is to stand, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness in your feet, Shawn, with a preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith. For with ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit.
Which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance.
Supplication for All Saints.
Well, this is a blessed portion to have the armor. It doesn't say go and get it. It says take it unto you, put it on. God has given us the armor. He just wants us to use it.
We have it. We're equipped. We had reference.
Last night to the man of God, referring to the man of God, Timothy was called hotel man of God. And that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Well, we were furnished by the word of God, We're furnished. And so these things that are mentioned here, the truth we find out in the word of God, the breastplate of righteousness, would perhaps speak of a good conscience. And we we learn of that much of that in the word of God, preparation of the gospel of peace that comes from the Word.
A shield of faith? Well, we learn about that too. But we learn in this very book that it's the gift of God.
Works with study manager, bills, even the faith.
And so then we have all these things to.
To use them and use them for him.
I know it's not a question of.
Having been been successful in all this, we know that we fail often. We might get discouraged if we just said, well, how well have I accomplished these things as a wife, as a husband, as a child, as a parent, as a servant, or even as a master who failed often. But the Lord looks in the heart. And I believe when he looked at Daniel and saw that he had purposed in his heart, he gave Daniel the courage to act for him, and he gave him wisdom too. All the rest followed, because.
Purpose in his heart, so we're exhorted. Even in the New Testament, Barnabas exhorted the folks in Antioch.
Believe it was to phone the Lord for the purpose of heart. What more can we do? Follow the Lord the purpose of heart, and not give up. Not give up. It's easy to give up.
Want to continue on?
Let's see #46 and the appendix.
46.
Like that last verse, we can sing the whole hymn, be Val the object bright and fair to fill and satisfy the heart, my hope to meet thee in the air and nevermore can be departed, that I may undistracted be to follow serve and wait for the.
46.
Assembly Order
Address—R. Reeves
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Let's sing together.
The first verse of #172.
#172 just the first.
Burst.
The four teachers for.
My classmate.
Holy Land.
All 3.
I.
Love.
That's great.
Of this meeting this afternoon is.
A meeting that has caused me a lot of.
Concern.
I feel that we.
Who are gathered through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Are in great need.
Of taking another look.
At the basic principle.
Upon which we meet.
I'm going to try to.
Review some of these basic principles.
As you know.
God did a special work in this world.
In the early 1800s.
When there were believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, who?
Looked around.
In the Christian testimony that existed at that time.
And they were not able to find.
A fellowship that was according to the scriptures.
Well, God began a new work.
Because individuals began to meet.
On the early principles of the scriptures.
And there was number attempt in those days to form a new church.
But it was rather a movement of the Spirit of God working in the hearts of God's people.
To return to the first principle.
Of the truth of Christian fellowship.
As found in the Word of God.
Now my brother-in-law.
Ken Harmon.
Who lives in Altona, MB, Canada?
Have been going through some of the papers that were left.
By my father-in-law, A Dan Anderson.
And he found some very interesting things.
And he made some copies of some of the things that he found.
Among the papers of my father-in-law.
And he gave me a copy of a booklet called Matthew 18 and 20.
Which I thought I'd tell you about.
This is.
Book written by a man by the name of Frank Gill.
Frank wrote this book for his children.
To have.
I have seen it before.
And it's quite interesting.
And it gives a lot of the history of.
00:05:00
The concerns that.
Christians had.
In those early days when they began to return to the first principles of Christian fellowship.
And meet only in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have decided to read you a couple of small.
Excerpts from this book.
Because I thought you find it interesting as I have.
Here's the first one.
On page 25 it says.
In the winter of 1827 and 1828.
Four Christian men who had for some time been exercised as to the condition of the entire professing church.
Agreed after much conference and prayer to come together on Lord's Day Morning.
Before the breaking of bread, as the early Christians did.
Counting upon the Lord to be with them.
Their names were Mr.
John Nelson Darby.
Mr. Cronin, who is later known as Doctor Cronin.
Mr. JG Bellit.
And the Mr. Hutchinson?
Their first meeting was held in the House of Mr. Hutchinson.
Located at #9 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, Ireland.
They had, for a considerable time, along with others who attended their reading meetings, been studying the scriptures.
And comparing what they found in the Word of God with the existing state of things around them.
But they could find no expression of the nature and character of the Church of God.
Either in the national establishment.
Which we know is the.
Church of England.
Or in the various forms of dissenting bodies which we would think of as the denominations, such as the Baptists and the Quakers.
Another.
This brought them into the place of separation from all these ecclesiastical systems.
And LED them to come together in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Owning the present and sovereign action of the Holy Spirit in the midst.
And endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Matthew 18 and 20.
And Ephesians 3.
43 to 4:00.
Here's a comment by Mr. Darby.
Writing about that, he said we began to meet in Dublin, Ireland, in 1827 and 28 and I found that wherever two or three.
Meet in Christ's name, He would be in our midst.
And acted on the promise with three other brothers, brethren, and the wife of one of them.
And we never thought to go beyond this meeting the need of our consciences and hearts according to the word of God.
But God was doing a work.
I have no idea of myself and it spread over the world.
Beloved brethren, here in Sully.
This is the beginning of the movement that you and I are connected with as Christians, gathered through the name and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that testimony has continued down to the present day.
Here we are.
April 19, 1992.
That's a long way down the road, isn't it? But I've read to you what was the beginning of the movement.
Which we believe to be of the Spirit of God.
And that movement which has contended till the present corner, I'll read you something else.
This book is very interesting.
And if you know the Gill family, you'll find it especially interesting.
I have.
The little company of believers in the Lord Jesus gathered through his name in Dublin, Ireland, continued to meet in Frances Hutchinson's house until the winter of 19 of 1829.
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Or the spring of the next year.
When, at the insistence of John Parnell, a large auction room in Algiers St. was secured for the meetings on each recurring Lord's Day.
For one thing.
The numbers gathering together was increasing.
And two, it was felt that the fine house in Fitzwilliam Square was somewhat of an hindrance to persons in the humbler walks of life.
That must have been apparent to all, that removal to another place would become necessary in the event of continued growth.
But the action of young Parnell was rather reluctantly conferred in by some. Mr. Darby was not in Dublin at that time, but Mr. Bell believed that the change was prompted chiefly by Parnell's purpose to let the Lord's table be in the midst of us, become somewhat more of a testimony.
Well, I read those things to you.
To let you know that.
The movement that we are connected with had a beginning at that time and has continued to this day.
And I believe with all my heart that you and I, who broke bread, either here at Sully or Intelli this morning, are truly gathered.
In the name.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that the basis of our fellowship is on that same basis.
Which is a return.
To the first principles of the Word of God.
Now, brethren, we are at this moment.
As a testimony gathered through the name of the Lord Jesus facing a supreme crisis.
And we need to be prepared to face into the issues of the truth and the basic principles of the truth.
We will all be tested.
As to whether we really believe?
And the principles of the truth.
That God has given to us we are going to be tested on these basic principles.
And with this in mind.
It is on my heart this afternoon to share with you as best I know how.
And some of these basic principles.
What are the first principles?
Of the truth of God that lie at the very roots.
Of the fellowship.
So that you are a part of.
And that I have been a part of.
With joy.
Since the age of about 17.
This has been my life.
And I have never had a desire.
Since the age of 17.
About soon be 65.
I have never had a desire.
To be connected with any other fellowship.
Other than the fellowship that God has brought me into.
Of those who are gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As a meat only in his name and his authority.
I've had no I've had no desire for anything else.
But I feel at this moment that we need you and I need.
To get a fresh glimpse.
Of the basic issues of what it means to be.
Gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we need to take another look at these first principles.
That lie at the root of our fellowship.
This is an enormous subject.
And in 40 minutes I don't think I can do justice to it.
00:15:01
But if I can plant the seeds in your heart and my own.
Of interest.
To take another good look at this first principles of truth.
Then we'll all be blamed.
Well, now, where are we going to find the first principles?
Of Christian Fellowship.
Nowhere else.
Nowhere else but in this precious book, God's Holy Word.
It must be here or it will not be of God.
It must be here.
So in this hand I hold the answer to our search.
Now of course, I am not going to be able to go through the full Bible this afternoon.
But I'm going to pick out a few things that I think will be good for us to look at Square.
I'd like to ask you first to turn to.
Acts Chapter 2.
If we want to return to the first principles.
Then let's go to the early days of Christianity.
And find out what happened first.
Among God's beloved people.
When the church began.
Now most of you know here this afternoon that.
There was Number Church in the Old Testament.
There was number such thing as a church in the Old Testament.
There was a congregation of God's people.
God's earthly people, there was.
But there was no such thing as a church.
And there was number such thing as a church.
Or an assembly.
Because you see that word church means assembly.
It's from an original word, which means those who are called out.
There was Number Church.
During the life of the Lord Jesus.
In this world either.
No church in the Old Testament. No church during the earthly life of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ.
No church.
And there did not become such a thing on earth as a church, Oregon, an assembly of God's people, until after our Lord Jesus Christ had died on the cross.
And had risen from the grave, and had ascended back to heaven, and had sent the Holy Spirit down.
To indwell all believers into one body. Now. Until that time there was number church.
But the first day of the church occurred on the day of Pentecost.
When believers were united into one body.
By the Spirit of God.
They were united into one body so that they were united to each other, and they were united to a glorified Christ in heaven by that same spirit.
And so great was that work of God.
In bringing to pass on the earth a thing called the Church.
So great was that work.
That in one day over 3000 souls were added to that church.
And now the question is, what did they do?
After that happened. And that brings us to the subject of my.
This afternoon. What did they do?
And I think as we find out what they did.
We're going to get a little vision of what we should do.
Acts Chapter 2.
Verse 41 Then they that gladly received his word.
Were baptized.
And the same day they were added unto them about 3000 souls.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostle doctrine.
And fellowship.
And then breaking of bread and in prayer.
00:20:01
Now, beloved brethren, I believe that verse 42 is the key to our meditation this afternoon.
We see in this verse 42 of Acts chapter 2.
What these early believers did and were going to see the first principles.
Of Christian Fellowship.
It says they continued steadfastly in the apostles.
Doctrine and fellowship.
That means that they listen to spiritual teaching.
The word doctrine, you know, means teaching.
They listened to the teaching of the apostles.
These are the men that God raised up and to whom he gave his thoughts.
And His revelation. And they listened to what those apostles said, and they believed what those apostles said.
And they were in fellowship with those servants of God.
It says they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship.
Their teaching was the teaching that the God had given to his servants, the Apostles.
Now I want to talk quite a little bit about that.
I would like to tell you the names of some of those men.
And I would like to concentrate on some of the things that they taught.
That were the first principles of Christian fellowship.
But because that will take us a little bit longer, I want to pass on to.
The last two items in that verse first and Justice, say a word about them and then go back to the subject of the apostle doctrine and fellowship.
But they continued in the breaking of thread.
Now that's what they did in the early days.
Now they didn't really know exactly how to do it.
And really didn't have any instructions as to where to do it.
In verse 46 it says that they continued daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house. They all broke bread in in individual houses.
Well, these were the early days, but one thing that they did was they broke bread and remembered the Lord Jesus Christ in his death according to the principles that he had given his disciples that they were to do that in memory of his death on the cross.
They did that right away.
Right away.
The breaking of bread is the only meeting.
That expresses the fellowship of God's people.
A meeting like we're in right now does not express the fellowship of God's people because there's no visible thing that ties us together.
But in the breaking of bread, there's a loaf of bread that's passed around, and believers take a little bit of that loaf of bread and eat it, and there's something that they all have in common.
And it's an expression of the oneness of the body of Christ. And if someone comes to that meeting and doesn't take any take a piece of that bread, they are not demonstrating that they belong to the body of Christ at all.
And its confusion.
And it's really disobedience for a Christian to come to the break of their bread if he's a real Christian or if she's a real Christian and not for fake of the bread because they don't demonstrate that they're part of the body.
Doesn't make a bit of sense. But when the bread is passed and I take a piece, and you take a piece and she takes a piece and he takes a piece, we demonstrate that we're one. We all could take part of that one bridge. And we remember that our Lord Jesus died on the cross for us and suffered for us, and that we're members together. And it's the only meaning there is. It expresses the oneness of the one of your friend.
Now, isn't it wonderful to see that in the early day here?
00:25:02
They broke thread.
And it says in prayer.
There's one thing that a Christian wants to do is to pray.
Prayer for a Christian, a real Christian prayer is like this.
The breadth of his spiritual life and the person that tells me that they're not, that they're a Christian and don't pray.
They're saying something that's hard for me to believe.
Because prayer is that communication.
With God.
And it's an absolute necessity for the new life.
Well, we see that early among believers and.
That first principle is still with us today.
The breaking of bread and but now I want to go back and say more about.
The Apostles doctrine and fellowship.
Now who were some of those apostles?
Well, the one that comes on the scene.
The first is Peter.
And we do thank God so much for this apostle.
Because to him was given much of the truth of God.
So that he could communicate the truth of God to God's people. And Peter was a wonderful servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In fact, it was Peter's sermon to these people.
All of whom were Jewish. It was his sermon that led to the salvation of 3000 souls on Monday, and he told them that God has made that same Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. And people got so stirred up in their hearts they said, what are we going to do? And he told them to repent and to accept the Lord Jesus Christ.
And their sins would be forgiven.
All Peter was a servant of God, and he had a.
We had a wonderfully free gospel.
Why? He said Believe on the Lord Jesus and your sins will be forgiven.
And God will give you this spirit.
Well, Peter was one of the apostles, and these early disciples listened to what he taught them.
And Peter continued his service for quite a while.
He was very useful.
And in fact, he later on wrote a couple of books.
Which are called in our bibles one Peter and two.
And they're wonderful book.
And they have a kind of a Jewish flavor because they're written mostly to believing Jews.
And Peter writes to those believing Jews, and he says to them.
Oh.
Now that you have accepted the Lord Jesus as your savior.
You have got.
A heavenly inheritance instead of an earthly inheritance.
And you've got a life that's hid with God and.
You've got something far better than you had, just as being Jews.
And you've got a Kingdom that can never be destroyed, and you've got a life that cannot be corrupted because it's.
A life of God was born by the word of God.
So Peter had a lot of good things to say.
And he was one of these.
And we thank God for him. Now what's the name of another one?
I'm going to reserve the most important until last because I got a lot more to say about him. But the next one that I think about, that's quite prominent among these apostles that these people listen to was the Apostle John.
And what do we learn from him?
Oh, we learned a lot.
You see, he wrote 3 letters called I, John, 2 John, and Three John. And his teaching was that everyone that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ has a new life, which is the very life of Christ, and every believer is a child in God's family. And throughout John's teaching we learn that believers have a life that's the life of God.
00:30:08
But they have the joy of living out in this world and I would like to sat and listen to God.
And he dropped it. But now?
The most prominent apostle.
That we want to talk about this afternoon is a man by the name of Paul.
Now Paul was not present on the day of Pentecost.
Paul was not even saved at this time.
Paul was not baptized into the body of Christ on the day of Pentecost. Why? Because he wasn't even saved.
How could you give that faith into the body of Christ if you not see it Impossible.
And later on in the book of Acts.
This man, Paul.
Without to stamp out the name of Jesus.
From the minds of people.
And he heard a voice from heaven.
And he was saved on the road to Damascus.
By a voice from the glorified Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, he was saved, and he saw light brighter than the noonday sun, and he fell to the ground.
And he said, Lord, what do you want me to do?
And God saved that man.
And then he told him in that same.
Chapter wherein we find his salvation, he says. Paul, you're a selective vessel. I've got a job for you.
And he said, You're a chosen vessel for me.
And you're going to spread a precious message.
To people everywhere.
And Paul became a special servant of God later on to give us the apostles doctrine.
To the church.
Now this is the teaching of the apostles.
That I have especially on my heart today.
Beloved brethren, it's the teaching of Paul that's vitally of importance to us right now.
Because it's the teaching on the Church.
Of which you and I are apart as believers in the Lord Jesus.
It's the teaching on the Church that we need to get a good grip of.
And in order to get a good grip of it, we have to go to the writings of this man, Paul, because it was to him that this truth was given.
Now I want you to turn with me, please, to Ephesians Chapter 3.
Where we get a glimpse of the importance of falls.
And I want to say it as clearly as I know how.
You and I will never understand the basic principles of the truth.
If we don't listen to the teaching of Paul, we must listen to what Paul taught.
God's people in order to know anything about the church and in order to know anything about Christian fellowship today.
We must listen to him.
Chapter 3.
Verse two says, If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which is given me to you, word notice brethren, given me to you.
Do you want the kitchen of the apostles?
Do you want the truth of God?
Here's a man that said I haven't been given this truth for you.
Which three says how that by Revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote before on a few words?
For by when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.
Which in other ages was not made known under the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.
Whereof I notice I was made a minister.
According to the gift of the grace of God-given unto me by the effectual working of his power unto me.
All who am less than the least of All Saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hidden, God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. Now I read those verses with you.
00:35:18
To point out that it is absolutely necessary for us to listen to Paul's teaching.
That we are going to return to the basic principles of Christian.
Fellowship.
We must listen to Paul.
Now let's turn to 1St Corinthians chapter one.
Where we have some of the teachings of this dear man of God and teachings that we need so badly at the moment.
So badly doing it.
First one is chapter one and 1St Corinthians.
Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and softeners our bread, and through that Church of God.
Which is at current. Please stop there.
The Church of God which is at client.
The Church of God, which was a crime.
Take all, brethren. There's no such thing, according to the word of God, in a place as more than one church.
The Church of God, which is a carpet.
Just one shirt.
To them that are sanctified or made holy in Christ Jesus.
We see in this one verse that.
There is just one Church of God demonstrated in a locality just once, and we see that they are holy.
And one may say to me, brother Ron, do you believe in holiness? And I say yes, I do.
Because God tells me about holiness and the holiness.
Sanctification characterizes God's people.
Called to be Saints.
With all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours.
So everyone, wherever they are on the face of the world, who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, is a part of the Church sanctified in Christ, made holy, and.
Are Saints as well.
That part of Paul's teaching?
Now notice what he says in verse 9.
God is faithful by whom you are called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Well, brethren, there is only one Christian fellowship that God knows about in the Bible, and that's the fellowship.
Of his Son Jesus Christ, although there is no other.
They're not a lot of different fellowships, just one. And if you and I are going to return to the basic principles of the truth, we've got to come back to the realization and practice of the Fellowship.
Of his Son Jesus Christ.
Our Lord, Lord, that's his authority. And beloved brethren, let me say this.
And I'm going to say it several times in the next few minutes.
The Lordship of Christ.
Is everything.
He is the Lord.
And he is the head, and we can acknowledge no other Lord but Jesus Christ.
And there's no such thing as a fellowship according to the Word of God which does not acknowledge the lordship of Christ.
Now around this are many divisions of so-called Christians.
And they don't come together, They don't go to the same meetings.
But listen.
Can two or more groups of Christians?
Which are not together, can they all not be acknowledging the lordship of Christ?
Absolutely not.
Absolutely not.
You cannot have two groups of Christians so-called.
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In a place who are not in fellowship with each other, and both of them acknowledging the lordship of Christ, it's an impossible situation.
There's just one way.
One minute and there is no such thing as two heads in the church.
The Lordship of Christ.
Do you know what has caused most of the trouble among?
Those who have been gathered through the name of the Lord Jesus through the years.
It's the rejection of the Lordship of Christ.
And it's the rejection of assembly decisions made in his name.
That has caused almost all our troubles.
And it still got in trouble.
I want to tell you, brethren, here, Sully.
If you get a letter.
In the next.
Short period of time from an assembly gathered.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you have got to accept it because he is the Lord.
And one of the basic principles that we have been gathered.
Upon is this we accept assembly decisions which have been given to us from the Lord Jesus, and to deny an assembly decision.
Taken in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. To deny, that is to step off the ground of the truth.
You can't do it. There's only one Lord and there's only one fellowship.
That's according to the word of God, and that's a fellowship that acknowledged the worship of Christ.
And you can't be in that fellowship.
If you deny the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now in Bush 10, it says, I beseech your brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You all speak the same thing, saying there could be no divisions among you.
Brethren is division.
There's division among God's people of God.
Is it a God?
No.
I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let you all speak the same thing, and there'll be no divisions upon you.
When divisions come among God's people.
Are they all right?
Are they all correct?
Can there be several groups of Christians and they all meet?
Separately from each other? Can they all be acknowledging the lordship of Christ?
Absolutely not. That's not the fellowship.
Based on the first principles of the truth of God.
One of the first principles that we must look at closely today is the headship of Jesus Christ. He is Lord, He has head of the body, and we must submit to Him.
If we're going to enjoy the fellowship.
But according to God.
And rather, we cannot deny an assembly decision made in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and still be on the ground of the truth.
You can't do it.
We must accept.
The headship of the Lord Jewish Weapon.
This is one of the first principles and when these early brothers met together.
In the early 1800s, they recognized that principle. There was only one Lord.
And that all of that confusion that existed around them was not of God at all.
And so they said, let's return to the first principles of the truth.
And we'll continue in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship just like those early Christians did.
Now I could do.
Easily carry on this meeting for.
A lot longer.
But I want to point out that one of the first principles and probably the most important principle of Christian fellowship.
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Is the acknowledgement of the lordship.
And beloved brethren, May God help us.
To get a good look at that first principle.
And let us never, let us never deny the name of the Lord Jesus Christ by refusing to accept a decision that has been made by an assembly gathered in Brisbane.
When an assembly meets together and makes a decision in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is a decision from Jesus Christ himself. He's ahead and we must accept it.
That's one of the first principles.
Of the fellowship of God speaking. Now, as I said, I could take a lot longer to go through Falls ministry, and it's so precious. I love it.
I could talk about his elaboration of the one body and all the members of the body helping each other. I could talk to you about his.
Telling us the proper way to enjoy the Lord's Supper. And I could tell you about that his precious.
Teaching about the coming of the Lord Jesus. Those are all wonderful things.
But before this afternoon, I thought that the most important thing that I had to share with you that is this.
You and I represent our testimony.
Which acknowledges the lordship of which.
And beloved brother, may we never, ever step aside.
From receiving.
The commands from the boy.
The Church Pt.1
Address—J. Hyland
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Speak to the New Testament, and I just want to say this concerning the Word of God, that we need to see these things in the light of God's Word. The subject of the church is one that's been misconstrued through the through the ages. It's one that has been propagated in a false way, and so we need to see these in the light of Scripture. It doesn't matter what my thoughts are concerning the Church. It doesn't matter what the thoughts of great theologians and philosophers are. What matters is what God says, and the Word of God is as applicable today.
As when it was pinned by divine inspiration so long ago. And you know, we need to see whatever.
A subject we take up whatever line of truth we need to see it in the light of God's Word, and we need the whole counsels of God. You know, I am saddened sometimes to talk to real children of God and find that they are setting aside parts of the word of God. And sometimes you talk to individuals and they say, well, the Old Testament is not really applicable. Or I even talked to a brother recently and he said, well, he said I only read the Gospels because he said I don't believe the epistle.
Important as were once considered. Well, you know, I would just say this. In the word of God you have two things. In the New Testament, you have the doctrines of Christianity and the principles brought out, and in the Old Testament you have the illustrations. I'm not very good at putting things together with my hands or working with my hands, but recently I bought a bookcase and when I buy things, I try to avoid buying things that say on the box some assembly required.
But I bought a bookcase that needed to be assembled, and so I brought it home and I had put together several bookcases.
And so I didn't even pull the instructions out-of-the-box. And I worked at that bookcase. I got the back nailed on. I even got the little plastic things that go over the screws and I went to insert the pegs for the middle shelves. And I found that I they were on the outside. I had put the bookcase together completely backwards. And I had to take time and take it all apart again and reassemble it. Why? Because I didn't read the instructions. And you know, sometimes when you buy something like that, there will be written instructions and I'll buy something and I'll struggle along with the written instructions trying to figure it out. And usually my wife will come along and pull another paper out-of-the-box and say here's a diagram, why don't why don't you try this?
It might help you. And what happens. The diagram helps us to understand the written instructions. Now, brethren, God has given us both. He's given us the written instructions in the New Testament, and we have the illustrations in the Old Testament. And we're going to draw on those illustrations as we go along because it says in Leviticus that we can bring forth the old because of the new. Those stories in the Old Testament, if we didn't take them up in the light of the New Testament, the revealed truth that we have, they'd just be interesting stories.
And historic facts. But we take them up in the light of what we have in the New Testament and they help us to understand. You see, God is speaking about spiritual things in the New Testament and he illustrates them so that we can relate to them and understand and enter into what he has for us. Because he doesn't want this to be a great mystery and something that we can't grasp, something that we can't, shall I say picture. And so we can see in the Old Testament the illustrations when the Lord Jesus was here. That's why he spoke in parables. He knew that he when he was speaking to men at the sea fishermen.
That they knew what it was to go out and cast the net into the sea and pull out a rod of fishes. He knew that farmers knew what it was to go and sow seed and have some come up in various ways and in various places. He knew that shepherds would understand the care of of sheep, and so he illustrated the truth in that way.
And we're going to find that the truth of the Church is illustrated for us in a way that we can understand.
Well, let's introduce this subject by turning over to Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 11.
Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, who have made both one and have broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, or to make in himself of Twain one new man so making peace.
00:05:09
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. We'll stop there for now. Will I have a chart here? Because sometimes if we have a visual aid, it helps us to relate to what we're Speaking of. And I don't profess to utilize charts as some can, but I know when I was younger, if a brother came through and he had a chart, often I would get something out out of the message. And so I have a very simple chart here. I have two circles.
An upper circle and a lower circle and if I were to were able to separate these two circles on the chart.
We would find in the upper circle we have the Jew and in the lower circle we have the Gentile.
Now there was this very clear distinction in the Old Testament, and that's what Paul is referring to here as he writes to the Ephesian brethren. Now you have to remember that as he writes to the Ephesians, they were Gentiles who had been saved. That's why he speaks of them once being outside the covenants of promise and strangers to God and without hope and without God in the world. Because in the Old Testament God dealt with a particular nation that is from the time of the call of Abraham.
Now before the call of Abraham, God dealt with particular individuals. There was Adam in the garden.
There was Abel, there was Methuselah, there was Enoch. There was Noah. He dealt with particular individuals, but then he called Abraham out of her, the Chaldees. Abraham answered that call by faith, and God told him that because of his faith he was going to bless his seed and build of him a great nation. And that's exactly what happened. And the Jewish nation sprung out of Abraham. He was the father of that nation.
And we find that they go down into Egypt, his descendants, Jacob and his descendants. They go down into Egypt, and there they become a great nation under the ******* of sin. A little picture of what we were by nature. But then God redeems them by the blood of the Passover lamb. He brings them to the Red Sea. He opens the sea they go through and they look back, and they see their enemies dead on the seashore, and they have complete deliverance. And then God gave them.
The law and God bless the Jew in every way possible that he could bless them under that system of things. In the Old Testament, he gave them the promises. His oracles, as it were, built a hedge around them. In fact, it says in Isaiah, it says what more could have been done in my vineyard than that which was done. He gave them every advantage. You know, people talk about environment today, an advantage. And I know our environment affects us, but there was the best sample of humanity.
Put in the best of environment, what did it prove? That man left to himself, couldn't take one step towards God. That that which is born of the flesh is flesh. And it says there in Isaiah, what more could have been done in my vineyard than that which was done? When I looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes. There was no fruit for God. But we find that those who were outside the nation of Israel, they were considered Gentiles, they were dogs. And a Jew was steeped in this tradition.
Now, I don't mean that there weren't those of the Gentiles that were brought in by grace in the Old Testament, because we have individuals that were brought in, such as Ruth the Moabites and Rahab the Harlot. In fact, they were blessed so that they were even in the royal line of the Lord Jesus when he came to this world. But particularly, God was not dealing with individuals from different nations, He was dealing with a nation. Now, when the Jews were saved in the New Testament, it was very, very hard for them to accept.
That if they were going to now be blessed, they had to come in the same way as a Gentile. Because for generations they've been told that the Gentiles were afar off and that there were they weren't to take them in and they were to be careful. And when they went in to drive out their enemies out of the land, they were to completely drive them out. And that was one of their sins, that they never did drive their enemies completely out. And now to find that God was not dealing with them as a nation.
But he was he was dealing with individuals out of every tongue and people and nation.
It was very, very hard for a Jew to accept this. In fact, I believe that that's why in the book of Hebrews, where the apostle writes to Jewish brethren those who had been saved, he takes up every segment of the old order of things. Because even for a Jewish believer it was hard to set aside that order of things that had been established by God and that was all good and proper in its place. And so very patiently, for 13 long chapters, the Spirit of God goes over these things. He takes up Moses and Aaron and the ironic priesthood and the worldly sanctuary and the.
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Sacrifices, he says. Yes, they were good and proper in their place, but then he sets them aside and says now you have something better.
They were only pale reflections. They were only feeble foreshadows of what was to come. And what was that? It was Christ. And 13 times in that book you have the word better as he sets the old aside for something better, something better in Christ. But, you know, it's interesting, just as a contrast to read the book of Galatians, because in the book of Galatians you have Gentiles who are putting themselves not back under the law. They were never under the law to begin with.
That law was not given to the Gentile. It was given to the Jew. And here were Gentiles that were putting themselves under something that never was intended for them. And does he take 13 long chapters to patiently explain things? Oh, no. The language is very severe. He rebukes them very sharply for putting themselves under something that was never originally intended for them at all. Well, we find now that as I brought this circle together in Christianity, now there's something brand new.
Now I want to make that very clear because as I spoke of dispensationalism, you know, there are those who will say, well, when man failed a test, when man failed under a covenant, well, God just built upon that. He didn't. He didn't set that aside and just built upon it. And you never find that in Scripture when man failed under a dispensation, because I believe a dispensation is simply this a time frame in which God tested man under certain circumstances.
And God tested man first of all in innocence in the garden. He tested him under conscience.
He tested him under human government. He tested him under promise. Finally he tested him under the law. And when man failed the test, God ended that dispensation and introduced something brand new. Now the Lord Jesus said concerning Christianity and what he was introducing, he said, do men put new wine in old bottles, or do they sew new cloth on an old garment? No, man didn't have the capacity in himself to take in these truths.
That's why the Lord Jesus said to his own in the upper room that there were many things that he wanted to tell them. But he said they couldn't contain them because the Spirit of God had not been given in, that Christ had not died, been risen and ascended and glorified. But he told them that when the Spirit came, he would guide them into all truth. And so God introduces something brand new, and the truth of the church is something brand new. Now God tested man in the Old Testament.
And showed that man left to himself was ruined. Showed that anything that depends upon man always breaks down.
And so he sets that all aside and introduces something that doesn't depend on you and I. It depends on Christ. It depends on the work of the Lord Jesus that he accomplished when he satisfied God as to the whole question of sin and those just demands and claims. And so the church introduced in Christianity is something that is brand new. It's not a remake of Judaism. You know, sometimes when we make something and it doesn't turn out exactly the way we like it.
Or after a while it gets old. What do we do? Well, maybe we if it's a chair, we take it to the upholsters and we have it reupholstered. It's it's done over. Or we have a piece of furniture. I know when I was married I bought several pieces of second hand furniture and I took them and I had them refinished and they looked like they were brand new, but they were the same old furniture underneath. No, God doesn't do that. He sets something aside and he brings something in that's brand new. Now I brought these circles together and put the church in the middle.
I put a cross here because Paul reminds them in Ephesians that the position they have been brought into.
Is because of the finished work of the Lord Jesus on the cross of Calvary and because of that precious blood, as he says here, He's made peace through the blood of His cross and brethren. I trust we never lose sight of this because when we get home to glory, we're going to have on our lips as the theme of our eternal song the precious Blood of Christ. We're going to sing unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. We'll have nothing else to glory in in that day.
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And Calvary is the ground of every blessing that you and I possess apart from it. God has no blessing for man. And you know, even in the Old Testament, when God blessed man, how could he bless him on the grounds that his son was going to go to the cross? As soon as man sinned in the garden, God announced the blessed news that the woman's seed would bruise the head of the serpent. And I know he had to bring in judgment and drive Adam and Eve out of that garden because of their sin.
But He blessed them, He clothed them, and He blessed many in the Old Testament. How? Why did he do it?
Because he was looking forward to Calvary, and every blessing in this dispensation rests on Calvary. We look back and we rest on it, and may we never tire of speaking and of singing and of hearing of the work of Calvary. David said he never wanted to forget the pit from whence he was digged. And Lord, stay morning when we come together it's a fresh reminder of what he has done for us. And here in Ephesians, where he opens the mystery of the church, he brings out what?
What the Church is to Christ.
He goes back and he reminds them of the basis of this blessing that they have been brought into.
Now from the Spirit of God is very careful in the word in the New Testament to show that.
There's only one church. And to show that God is not dealing now with a particular race of people, but it's when we sing the eternal song in that coming day, we're going to sing as those who are redeemed out of every people and tongue and family and nation. And so we find that, he says here the middle wall of partition is broken down. It's gone now. This was prophesied so beautifully in the Old Testament in connection with Joseph.
Because Joseph is one of the most beautiful types of the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament. And it says of Joseph, Joseph is a fruitful bow by a well, even a fruitful bow whose branches run over the wall. What is that wall? It's that wall of Judaism. But you know, the Old Testament types, they always break down. They always fall short in some way. And it used to bother me when I read the tights and see the way they broke down. And yet I believe where the tight breaks down, it only illuminates what we have fulfilled in the New Testament.
And you know, it says the branch just run over the wall. But you know, in Christianity, the wall, they don't only run over the wall. The wall has been completely removed. And now you and I, who were once strangers once, there was no blessing for us. Now we can come by way of the cross and we can come into the closest relationship that's possible. It's a relationship that Abraham, who was the friend of God, didn't enjoy. It's a relationship that the children of Israel.
Who knew Jehovah as the one who dwelt with them? They never enjoyed this relationship that you and I have been brought into. It's the closest possible relationship, and it's the closest relationship that man has ever been brought into in any dispensation.
Now I would just say this too, that the church is heavenly in its character and in its calling and that's what Ephesians brings brings before us. In fact, in Ephesians we're already seen as seated in the heavenlies. And I just want to make this very clear before we go on, because we find that Israel, their blessings were connected with this world. In fact it says in Matthew 25 concerning their blessings. It says they were from the foundation of the world.
Because their blessings were connected with this world, and they will be blessed in that way in a future day. But it says here in Ephesians that our blessings, we were chosen before the foundation of the world. Now, brethren, the Spirit of God is very careful in the New Testament to detach us in every way from this world. In fact, so careful is the Spirit of God to bring out this truth that Paul received much of this.
Revelation.
In this world, but caught up to the 3rd heaven, where he heard unspeakable words that it was not lawful for a man to utter. And so careful is the Spirit of God to guard this truth, that in Revelation 5, where it speaks of that time when we will reign with Christ, it says we reign over the world. You see, the Spirit of God is careful to detach just in any way from this world to disconnect us. So there is no thought of our goals, our aspirations.
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Being in this world and brethren, I trust we realize this as we go on because we're told in Peter that we are to have the character of strangers and pilgrims. Now you know, sometimes when I quote that verse, I say pilgrims and strangers, but it doesn't say that. It says strangers and pilgrims and scriptures tremendously accurate. And I believe that if we don't have the character of a Pilgrim that are of a stranger, that is one who doesn't belong.
Then we're not going to have the character of a Pilgrim, one who's just passing through. And there needs to be that realization with us that, first of all, we don't belong to this world, we're part of the church, we're part of this heavenly company. And secondly, as we have that realization in our souls, it will give us the character of one who's just passing through. If I visit a country and I no longer feel I'm a stranger and I settle down in that country, that I'm not one who's passing through.
I don't have any thought of leaving that country. And so we need to have those two things before us, and we need to grasp in our souls, brethren, the truth of the imminence of the Lord's return. You know, I was struck in reading church history to find that as soon as the apostles, and particularly the apostle Paul, who brings out the heavenly calling of the Church, as soon as he passed off the scene, the church lost sight of their heavenly calling. They gave up Paul's doctrine.
And what did it do? Well, they just settled down in this world, and they began to be involved in all its politics and the social aspect of this world and the religious aspect. And they lost sight of their heavenly calling, and they lost their character of strangers and pilgrims. And what is it that's going to give me this character? It's the grasp in my soul of the nearness of the Lord's return. You know, it says everyone would have this hope in him.
Purifies himself even as he is pure. That is in the measure in which I enjoy in my soul the imminent return of the Lord Jesus. In that measure, it will have a purifying effect on my life. You know, I think of Daniel so often in this connection because Daniel stood before the greatest king of his day, King Belshazzar. And Belshazzar said, if you can interpret the writing on the wall, I'll give you 3 things. I'll give you a gold chain, I'll give you a scarlet robe and I'll make you third ruler.
In the Kingdom. And Daniel said to Belshazzar, give thy rewards to another. Nevertheless, I will read the interpretation thereof. Why did he say that? Well, brethren, why would he want to be third ruler in a Kingdom that was already under judgment? Daniel knew from the writing on the wall that the Kingdom was divided and given to another. Secular history tells us that while Daniel stood there before that king, the enemy was already receiving the city. And scripture itself tells us that that very night was King Belshazzar slain and his Kingdom given to another. And Daniel knew this. And why would he want to position just for a few hours?
As he realized that the Kingdom was about to pass away, and brethren, everything down here is about to pass away.
It's under judgment. We're going to leave it all behind. But I don't mean that we don't. We despise the temporal mercies that God has given us, and God has given us many, and we're to be faithful stewards of that which has been committed to us. But we need to realize that the things that are are seeing are temporal. The things that are not seen are eternal. We need to realize that the elements are going to melt with fervent heat. And just like poor Lot, you know, Lot is a picture of a true child of God whose goals were centered in this world, and Lot lifted up his eyes only as far as the well watered plains of Jordan.
Only as far as the horizons of this world. Quite a contrast between he and Abraham, who later on lifted up his eyes. But he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and God blessed him in that way. But Lot chose that which was for present advantage. He pitched his tent towards Sodom. He lived right in Sodom, and then he was involved in the politics of that city. And what happened? He had to be dragged out of Sodom. Now I want to be careful in using these Old Testament illustrations, because every true child of God, every member of the Church, is going to go at the rapture in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and so on.
But you know, I wonder if in in the picture some of us are going to have to be dragged out of this world. We've built our whole aspirations and goals in this world. And poor lot, he sought live to see it all destroyed. He had to leave it behind. Well, what a sad history we need to have before us the truth of the Lords coming, that we keep things in the proper perspective. And I would just say this too, in Leviticus 25, what was it that put place the proper value on the things that the children of Israel bought and sold?
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It was the nearness of the Year of Jubilee because when the Year of Jubilee came, everything had to be returned to its original owner. In other words, if a man bought a field in the 49th year, well, he obviously didn't pay very much for it because in one year he had to give it back. And So what is going to place the proper value on the things you and I have?
It's the realization of the nearness of our jubilee, the nearness of the Lord's coming when he's going to give that shout and call us home. And brethren, I believe we're just moments away from that time when we're going to meet our blessed Savior, what we need to have that character. Now I would like to turn over to Acts Chapter 2.
What I would like to do for a few moments now is to go back to the birth of the church to see when it was formed. It's always good to go back to the beginning of something, and this is what we have here in the book of the Acts. Before I read a verse in chapter 2, I'm going to read one in chapter one.
And verse, chapter one and verse 15. And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of his disciples and said the number of the names together were about 100 and 120.
And then just passed down to Chapter 2, verse one and when the day of Pentecost was fully come.
They were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with with other tongues, as the Spirit gave the moderates.
What we find here in Acts 2, The birth of the Church on the day of Pentecost.
But I read this verse in chapter one because here you find the believers gathered together. They have been told to remain at Jerusalem till they were given power from on high. And the Lord had told them that when he went back to the Father, he would send down the Holy Spirit. Now I would just say this too, before we go on, that as we go on to speak of the of the Church, we're Speaking of the collective aspect of things. Now there are two things given to us in Scripture. There's the individual aspect of things and there is the collective aspect of things.
Now we have in Scripture much concerning our individual responsibility, our individual position, and but we also find that there's much concerning the collective aspect of things. And that's what we're taking up when we take up the truth of the church. And there's always a special blessing connected with the collective aspect of things in Christianity. And I'm saddened that many have lost sight of the collective aspect of things. They think of their the individual enjoyment and the their individual position and standing.
But I say we're going to find that there's a special blessing connected with the collective side of things. And when you have a truth concerning the individual aspect of things, there is always a comparable truth connected with the collective aspect of things. And we're going to see this as we go along. Now, what you have here in Acts One, we're 120, about 120 individual believers now. That's what you had up until the day of Pentecost in the Old Testament. There were those who had faith, there were those who were righteous.
In the Gospels, there were those who had faith. There were those who followed the Lord. They were individual believers. But something took place on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit of God came down, and not only did the Spirit of God indwell each individual believer, but he came to dwell in the collective aspect of things because there was a new unit formed, and the Spirit of God connected those 120 believers into a new unit.
I trust I don't speak irreverently when I use the word unit. I sometimes find the English language a little hard to fail, sometimes to give these thoughts. But I brought the circles together and we have this new unit now in the middle, the Church that was formed on the day of Pentecost. So the Spirit of God came down, and our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost. Every one of us that's saved here, but not only is our body the temple of the Holy Ghost, but the Spirit of God dwells in the church.
Now let me illustrate it this way. Well, suppose I have 120 beads up here on the table and you have no problem to recognize that we have 120 individual bees but the day of Pentecost. Now, you know, there's a lot of talk today about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but I believe that the holy, the baptism of the Holy Spirit took place once on the day of Pentecost, because when the Church was formed on the day of Pentecost.
00:30:28
The Spirit of God, from there on in the Acts, is very careful to guard the truth of there being only one church, just one. Now one is God's number, and unity is his desire. 1 Lord, one faith, 1 Baptism. And I say the Spirit of God is careful to guard this truth. And so the baptism of the Holy Spirit took place on the day of Pentecost, never to be repeated. But I do want to say this, and I don't want to take away from what I've just said.
Later on in Acts 8 when you have the Samaritans brought in because here it's Jewish believers, and then you have the Samaritans brought in, in Acts 8 and in Acts 10 you have the Gentiles brought in. There wasn't a repeat of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but if I can put it this way, a little extension of it because the Spirit of God was didn't want to give any indication as to there being a Jewish church or a Gentile church or a Samaritan church.
Or even a Jewish Gentile church with a hyphen. I say the Spirit of God is very careful to guard their the truth that there's one church. We are going to see it when we go on to speak of the aspect of the body. There is one body. And so the baptism of the Holy Spirit took place on the day of Pentecost. And then it says, and the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. Now we'll go back to the illustration of the necklace.
Suppose I obtained some more beads at a future date. Well, what do I do? I untie that necklace and I add those beads to the necklace. But you wouldn't say I made a new necklace. I just added to the present necklace. Now, that's what the Lord has been doing ever since the church was formed. He's been adding, perhaps in these days, not in great numbers, but he's been adding to the church that was formed on the day of Pentecost, you know.
Albert Cahill, who most remember. He was sitting in the office one day of a well known clergyman in the town of Smiths Falls where we where I live and where he lived. And you know that they got talking about these things and this man he knew where Albert attended. He said to him, what church do you belong to anyway? Oh, he said, brother. He said I belong to the same church you do. Well the man was very surprised and our brother Albert said, isn't that so all he said. I know what you mean.
He said, you mean the Church in its broad aspect. And Brother Albert said, is there any other, is there any other? And you can trace through the acts and you'll find this truth very, very carefully guarded and maintained. Well, my thought is to go on and to speak of different aspects of the church, because it's brought to us in different lights and we'll flip the chart in a moment or two, but it's brought to us in different lights. We're given different characteristics of the Church.
I want to say this, that as we go on to speak of these things, I trust, brethren, that this will be more than just.
A list of truths from the word of God and that which we can enumerate in a mental way and give mental and verbal assent to.
But I trust that as we go over these things, they will be fresh and that they will touch our hearts and that we will see what our responsibility is in connection with the position we have been brought into. Now I'm going to make a statement that I will probably repeat, but if we get nothing out of these talks, I want us to remember this.
And that is that when God brings me into a position of blessing and gives me light from His word as to that position that he brought me into, there's always responsibility connected with it. And when I carry out my responsibility in connection with that position He's brought me into, that's when there's joy and happiness. That's when there's fruit and power in my Christian life now.
It says no man goes to warfare at his own charges. If God gives us responsibility, then he always provides everything that's needed. In fact, it tells us in Peter we've been given all things that pertain unto life and godliness. God has given us everything We need to be first of all the possessors of divine life and enjoy it, and then to enjoy the position and the place we've been brought into, and to carry out our responsibility in connection with that place.
00:35:09
You find this again illustrated in the Old Testament when they went into the children of Israel, went in to possess the land of promise. Joshua meets a man over against Jericho, and he goes up to that man. The man had a drawn sword, and he says, art thou for us or for our enemies? But he says, nay, as captain of the Lord's host, am I come. In other words, as they went in to enjoy their inheritance, there was going to be warfare. And if we're going to enjoy our position and our inheritance and that which we have in Christ.
It's going to be, there's going to be warfare, not carnal warfare like Israel, but spiritual warfare. We have any Ephesians, but you know, as they went in to possess that land, they had the assurance that there was one who was going before, who was going to fight for them. And as long as they realized that he did, he did go before so that they could enter into the enjoyment of these things. There was a great victory in Jericho and the walls came tumbling down. They didn't even have to lift a finger because they had a sense of this one who was going before and a sense of dependence. But then they came to AI and they said, well, it's just a little city. We don't even need to send our whole army. We can go up and take it.
Although I taught them that if they were going to enjoy their inheritance, if they were going to come into the good of these things, they had to realize that it was only through the One who was going to fight for them, the captain of the Lord's host. And so it's only through Christ and the Spirit of God indwelling us that we're going to enter into the enjoyment of these things and go on in the good of them. And so I just say we need to let these things speak to our hearts, speak to our consciences, because these truths were not written merely for our heads.
I know that the mind is the channel, but the mind is not to be the dwelling place the higher it is the dwelling place. And brethren, when I get these things down into my soul and I enjoy them there, that's when they're going to have a practical effect on my life. That's where the joy and the power and the fruit comes as I go on in the enjoyment of the position that he's brought us into. Now there is a day coming when we're going to enjoy these things fully and we're going to no longer see through a glass dimly, but face to face it says, now we know in part, and now we prophecy in part.
Brethren, he doesn't want us to have to wait until that day to enter into the enjoyment and the good of these things. He wants us to have a happy pathway. He wants us to enjoy all these blessings that he has for us. And they're all there. They're all theirs in ours, in Christ. Why is it we so little enjoy them sometimes?
Because we don't let these things touch our hearts and speak to our consciences, we don't let the word of God have a practical effect in our lives. Now just for a moment where I'm going to flip the chart and the litter gives this subject and then go on with it another night, Lord willing. Now I have drawn on this chart a large outer circle put in the center of the church and we're going to look at the church in different aspects. Now I would say that it probably would have been better to draw 7 circles in this chart.
Because I believe the church is brought to before us in seven different ways. But I have categorized two of these ways for the sake of space on this chart and we will talk about that. We go along, We're going to take up the aspect of the building and we find when we take up the aspect of the building, it's taken up in two different ways. There is the temple and there is the house and we'll speak of that. Going to look at the aspect of the church is the body. We're going to look at it as the bride.
Going to look at it as the city. We're going to look at it as the Candlestick.
When we take up the subject of the bride again, we're going to look at it not only as the bride but as the lamb's wife. So we have we're going to look at 7 aspects really, of the church. Now, I want to make it very clear that as we look at these different aspects, one in no way takes away from the other. That's why I've drawn this large outer circle, because we're Speaking of the same thing and I know nothing about precious jewels. But if you hold a die, a cut diamond up to the light and you turn it slowly, you'll see the light reflected through it in different ways.
And I'd like us to think of it in that way. As we look at the church and we look at these different aspects, it's like we're turning that cut diamond and we're looking at it in different, in a little different light. And in each one we're going to see that he brings before us a very real place of blessing, but a very real responsibility in connection with it.
Now, when we take up the subject of the church, it's found in one of three contexts. In the Word of God, the word the word church appears. I think it's 122 Times, but over 120 times in the New Testament, and it's always in one of three contexts. That is, sometimes it's every believer from the day of Pentecost when the church was formed until the Rapture when the church is taken safely home to glory.
00:40:17
Sometimes it's in the aspect of every believer that's alive on the face of the earth at any one given time, and sometimes it's in the aspect of the local expression of these things, the church, the local church or the local assembly. Now the word church as we find it in the scripture would probably have been more correctly translated assembly or called out ones is what it literally means. Now I'm not sure why the translators chose to use the word church instead of assembly.
Perhaps to satisfy the one under whose auspices they were doing the translation, because they seemed to favor terms that were acceptable in the ecclesiastical circle of their day, they instead of using the word overseer, they would use the word Bishop. They would use the word Deacon. They use the word church instead of assembly, perhaps to satisfy King James, under whom they were, they were under whose offices they were working. But nevertheless the words are interchangeable.
And we're going to find as we go along that we may interchange them and I trust as we go along and look at these aspects, but the picture will not be too clouded.
Because we're going to perhaps go from one to another to exercise us concerning the broad sense of things, to exercise us concerning the local expression of these things. Now perhaps before we close, we'll turn to Matthew 16. We're going to start with the aspect of the building.
Matthew 16 and verse 18.
And I say unto thee.
Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Well, this is the first mention of the church in the word of God. And as dear brother Irvin Clawson told me one time, he said if you want to really understand the truth, he said go back to the first time it's mentioned in the word of God. Because there God sows the seed as to the meaning of that truth, what he's bringing out the main thrust of it. Now you have to go on to other scriptures to find the truth illuminated and brought out and and you'll get other applications. But the seed of that truth is the first time that it's mentioned in the word of God.
And here we have the subject of the Church introduced by the Lord himself. That's why he speaks of it here in the future tense, because the Church wasn't to be formed till the day of Pentecost. But the Lord Jesus introduces this, this truth.
Now, I would just say this too, that in the Gospels, and this again is why you need a balance in Scripture. In the Gospels you get the seed of every truth that's later developed in the epistle. The seed of every truth that is later developed in the Epistles is found in the Gospels sown by the Lord Jesus himself when he was here, and here he sows the seed concerning the church now.
If we were to just go by this scripture, we might be confused like Christendom is today.
Because I don't believe that what the Lord was referring to here was that he was going to build his church upon Peter. And yet, if this scripture was all we had to go by, we might wonder if that isn't what the Lord was Speaking of. But we're going to go to the Epistles, perhaps another night, and we're going to see how that the Lord brings out.
Spirit of God, that he was not going to build his church upon Peter. But I believe what the Lord Jesus was Speaking of here was that confession that Peter had made earlier in this chapter. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And on that confession the Lord Jesus said that he was going to build his church. And I like what it says. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. You know, I used to read that statement in the Psalms of the foundation. Be shaken.
Can the righteous do? And I used to wonder about that. Well, I like the answer to that in Second Timothy 2. It says nevertheless the foundation of God standeth. Sure. And you know, it's very beautiful to see the context in which that's written. If it was written in First Timothy, will I say, of course, because that's the House of God in order. But in Second Timothy there's complete ruin because man fails in his responsibility. He's built a lot of wood, hay and stubble. And yet there where there isn't even a clear distinction between that which is real and that which is unreal.
00:45:00
That which is profession and true believers. Right in the midst of that, he says the foundation of God. Stand assure. Thank God he didn't build his church upon Peter. Thank God, the church, the foundation of the church, the cornerstone was not committed to some human because there would be complete failure and ruin. And doesn't this give us confidence? Brethren, we're going to stop now. We'll go on with this a little bit, but I would just say this. Doesn't this give us confidence in a day when everything is being shaken and a day when men's hearts are failing them for fear and a giving up of the truth and all these things?
And things that men once trusted in and found confidence they're finding, are not as secure as they once were. I don't suppose that there's anything man desires more than security. He spends his whole life trying to build some kind of security. But all you and I have been brought into a wonderful position of security.
Something that even the gates have held themselves cannot shake. Something that Satan himself and all his adversaries can never, never touch. The Church of God. Well, we'll go on to develop this subject of the building another evening. But you know, before another evening comes, we may be safe home in the glory and come into all the good of it. And you know, I'm glad there's a day coming when we won't be governed by time and clocks and we'll have all eternity to go over these things, and we won't have the physical limitations that we have now.
But we'll just see him face to face, and we'll delve into the unsearchable riches of Christ. Oh, let's look on brethren. We're going on to something far better. David said I had fainted, except I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord and the land of the living and the this is the land of the dying. But you and I are going to the land of the living. Well, what a hope we have. Shall we pray?
The Church Pt.2
Address—J. Hyland
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What heavenly life, what power divine does that sweet word afford 210? Will someone please start it?
Just to very briefly go back for a moment, we've been Speaking of the church. We've looked at this first chart. So I pointed out the other night, I have two circles, one on the top and one on the bottom. And in the Old Testament, there was a distinction between Jew and Gentile, those who were inside the circle of blessing.
That had God's promises and oracles, and there was the Gentile who was outside. But we spoke about how this new unit is formed now, the church. We spoke of the cross and how it is the foundation of every blessing that we possess. We've looked at the church in a general way. We spoke of its calling. We spoke of its birth on the day of Pentecost. And then we went on to speak of the building a little bit.
As I said last night, we're going to look at the church in these various aspects. And I trust that as we do so, it might encourage our hearts as to the portion we've been given and brought into and to the responsibility that is connected with this position. Because as I said the other evening, and I may again repeat this a couple of times this evening, when God brings me into a place of blessing and gives me light as to that position that he's brought me into, then there is always responsibility connected with it, and the joy and power and fruit come in my Christian life.
When I seek to walk in the good of what what God has brought me into and given me light concerning, in fact, we it's been often said that we never stand still in our Christian lives. We're either growing or we're receding. And so as I go on and seek to walk in the light of what God has given me, then he gives me further light. And it's a very blessed thing. And as I visit assemblies from time to time, it's nice to see those who are going on in the good of these things.
And who are enjoying them? And you go back another year or several months later, and they've grown in their soul. Why? Because they've sought, by grace, to follow the Lord and to carry out what he has for them. And we find too, in Scripture that there are two things that are inseparable, and that is obedience and happiness. You know, I've often said that when I was a child, if I could have only realized that obedience to my parents was the best way, I would have had a happier childhood.
But sad to say, we learn those things as we get a little older. But you know, I don't believe I can say for myself that I ever really learned this lesson of obedience to the word of God and how that those two things, happiness and obedience, go hand in hand. Sometimes when we have something from the word of God, we feel perhaps it's going to be easier to disregard that. And we find that Jonah is a stark example of one who received a word from the Lord.
00:05:26
He decided that it was going to be easier to choose his own way, so he went in the opposite direction. But we know the sad history of Jonah. He could have saved himself a lot of grief if he had, if he had only followed the word of the Lord to begin with. And so when the Lord gave the disciples much truth in the upper room, he said, if he know these things, happier ye if he do them. So it's not enough just to come together on occasions like this and be over the word, wonderful as that is, but we need to carry it out just in that connection. Before I go on, I've enjoyed a little progression in the songs, because David is one who sought grace not only to know the mind of the Lord, but to carry it out.
In Psalm 27, he says, teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path. And I trust that we ever have that desire to know the mind of the Lord and what he has for us, because as I said the other night, I believe there's still a path of faith for us as individuals and as families and collectively as gathered to the Lord's name. But you know, David, when you come over to the 119th Psalm, he finds out that if he's going to know the path the Lord has for him, it's in the word of God.
The remarkable Psalm, the longest chapter in the Bible. It has in almost every verse I counted one time. I think there's two or three. But in almost every verse there is some reference to the word of God, either called commandments or precepts, or thy statutes or thy law. And in the 105th verse he says, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. In other words, he said, if I'm going to know that path and he wants to show me that path, then it's got to be that I find it marked out in the word of God. But then I like what it says in 143rd Psalm. I think it's the tenth verse, it says.
Not teach me thy will, but teach me to do Thy will. Because we might hear the truth, we might have a real desire to know, and then we hear the truth.
And we say, well, I wouldn't mind if it wasn't something quite so narrow or quite so difficult. But David said no, whatever thy with your will is when you reveal it from your word then give me grace to walk in it and carry it out. Now we spoke of the building in the top circle here and I mentioned the other evening that the building we're going to take it up in 2 aspects. We made a some general comments. We went back to Matthew 16 and saw the introduction of the church, the truth of the church by the Lord Jesus himself.
And he brings it before us in its character as a building. The word church is found, as I said, over 120 times in the Word of God.
Never once refers to a physical building. It's a spiritual building. We're going to develop this as we go on in the word of God. And I make no apologies tonight for flipping back and forth through the New Testament because I want to see this in the light of God's word. So we made a few general comments where the Lord said on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now I would like to take up where we left off and go back to Ephesians 2.
Ephesians 2 and verse 19.
Now therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners.
But fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom all the buildings fitly framed together.
Groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God.
Through the Spirit. Now I want us to remember that as we go on with this subject, we're looking at the collective aspect of things. And I think I mentioned the other evening that when the Spirit of God descended on the day of Pentecost, he not only indwelt each believer individually, and our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost, but he came to dwell in the collective aspect of things. Now this is taken up in the aspect of the building, because when it's the question of the building, it's a habitation of God through the Spirit. It's the dwelling place of the Spirit of God.
But I read this 19th verse because you have a little contrast here from what I mentioned the other night. The other night I mentioned that we are to have that character of strangers and pilgrims, those who don't belong and those who are just passing through, and we have a heavenly calling and so on. But here it says, and it may almost seem like a paradox because here it says now, therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners. Well, what he's looking at is not our position in this world, but our position of being brought into this place of blessing.
00:10:18
Now remember, in the earlier part of the chapter which we read the other night, we were he was writing to Gentile believers and he was telling them that they were outside this circle of blessing. At one time there was no hope for them and they didn't have the promises of God. But now we've been brought into this circle of blessing. We don't belong to this world anymore. We're fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of faith. And I don't want to belabor this thought, but I would like to just say this brethren, that I believe Satan is busy today to do 2 Things.
One to keep man insensitive to his ruin and the other to keep the Christian earthly minded. That's what happened as soon as the apostles passed off the scene. The Christians settled down in this world, and particularly the Apostle Paul, because it was the Apostle Paul that was given the main, the, the meat of this, this truth concerning the heavenly calling of the church and so on. When he was gone, the apostles doctrine was given up and the Christians settled down in this world.
And, you know, there is a lot of talk today about environmental issues. Now, I want to temper my remarks as I go along because I have nothing against recycling. And I believe that man has abused what God has given him in creation. He's given us richly, all things to enjoy. And man has not been a good steward of what God has entrusted to him. But, you know, I fear that there are many zealous Christians who are so busy cleaning up the world that they've lost sight of their heavenly calling. They've lost sight of the truth of the imminent return of the Lord Jesus.
And not only that, but man is busy cleaning up this world and they have Earth Day and they talk about Mother Earth, and man's whole goal and aspiration is centered in this world. Well, if Satan can keep man cleaning up the world and occupied with things down here, he's not thinking about eternity.
I remember one time visiting with a couple that we've been asked to go and see. Not a Christian couple, but the Brethren in that area have had some contact with them.
And you know, she said, the lady said to me, she said, You know, I believe this world is getting better and better.
She said with all the advancements in medicine, she said if it wasn't for this technology, I wouldn't even be alive today. And it was during the Gulf War. And she said, I think after this war things are going to be on a course that will lead to better and better things will. I shook my head in disbelief because how can we look around and say that? And yet Satan has blinded the minds of them that believe not to keep them occupied with the betterment of this world. And sad to say, even in an evangelical circles, there's sometimes the I know at home there's a slogan.
Building better citizens to build a better world. And that this thought that the Christian is a moral force to change this world, What this world needs is Christ. They need to realize their eternal destiny and that they're going to have to leave this world behind someday. But I say again, I believe Satan is also busy to rob us of our enjoyment of Christ and the enjoyment of our heavenly position. And so we need to be very, very careful. We're no more strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens.
With the Saints and of the household of God, if I'm visiting in the United States, of which I am not a citizen.
I don't get involved in the politics of the United States or the running of the country. I wouldn't be allowed to vote and all that kind of thing because I'm not a citizen.
Of this country. Well, we need to realize that we're citizens of another country and that we're going on there. Well, then he speaks about in verse 20 and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Now I believe when he speaks of the foundation as the apostles and prophets, what he's Speaking of are those truths, those foundation truths that the apostles were given by divine inspiration. Now I mentioned that Paul was given the main thrust or the meat of this truth concerning the Church.
And yet all the Apostolic writers in the New Testament allude to the Church in some way. In fact, it's interesting that Matthew, which is the gospel, it's Jewish in its character and presents the Lord as the Messiah. That's the gospel where the Lord introduces the truth of the church. So all the Apostolic writers bring before us some aspect. They they mention in some way the truth of the church and our position as being in the church. But it was particularly the Apostle Paul. So the foundation is the apostles and prophets, and nothing can change that, as I think we mentioned the other night.
The foundation of God standeth. Sure, the word of God is sure. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away. And brethren, the truths that we have been given and the truths that were brought out by godly men in a past century, let us cling to them, and let's realize that they do not change. There is so much today to take a different slant or a different application, and to say, well, those applications were once considered to be.
00:15:29
Proper. But we don't consider them in that light anymore. We have to be careful, brethren, because the grass withereth from the flower fadeth. But the word of our God shall stand forever. And God's principles in any dispensation, the underlying principles of God, never change. You know, there was a large bookcase in our parents home as we were growing up, and it was in the hallway. It ran from the floor to the ceiling.
And it was full of all kinds of books, but there was a shelf way up by the ceiling, and there were some dusty old books on it that we never got read very often. But sometimes on a snowy day or day, we had nothing better to do. We would take those books down and we would read them and we would do it, as we said, just for a laugh, because they were old books that our parents studied when they went to school. And we'd say why we've left those things behind long ago. And men's opinions and philosophies change and.
Progress and man is always learning. Sad to say he's ever learning, but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. But those things change. And sometimes books are out of print, are out of date before they're off the press. But this work book is more up to date than the daily newspaper, and it's applicable today. And it's able to guide us and direct us. Whether again it's in our individual lives, whether it's in the family or whether it's in the assembly and how we can meet has gathered to the Lord's name. It's all here for us.
All the instruction, if we're willing to follow it, well then he brings out here that Jesus Christ himself is the chief cornerstone. Now remember what I said concerning the portion in Matthew, Because in Matthew it's a little ambiguous. The Lord doesn't develop the truth there as to the rock that he's building on. But you know, I want to say this, if you don't understand the scripture or if it perhaps seems a little unclear, always compare it with other scriptures. And sometimes comparing it with other scriptures you can see what it's not.
And sometimes by seeing what it's not, you can see what it is. Now that may sound a little ambiguous, but I really believe that, as I said the other night, we need to take up truth in the light of a whole context of the word of God. And so he develops this here, and he makes it very, very clear that he was not building his church upon Peter upon a man. He was building it on the on the confession that he made Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And so he says that Jesus Christ himself.
Is the chief cornerstone in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto unholy temple in the Lord. Well, this is the aspect of the temple. I said that they when it's the building, there's two aspects. There's the temple and the house. And when it's the aspect of the temple, it's the Spirit of God indwelling the collective aspect of things. And in that way, brethren, there can be three things. Collectively. This is the collective side of things. There can be.
Worship in the spirit collectively. There can be ministry in the Spirit collectively and there can be prayer in the Spirit collectively. And I just want to say a little word about the assembly meetings, because remember I said that sometimes when the church is taken up, it's in the context of the local expression of things, the local church or the local assembly, the words are interchangeable. I'd just like to say a word about those three things, what we might call the assembly meetings, because it says of the early brethren, they continued steadfastly.
In the apostles, doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and in prayers.
And when we come together on Lord's Day morning, it's we don't come to get on Lord's Day morning. We come to give, we come to give the sacrifice of praise and to pour out our hearts in worship. Now these three things, worship, ministry, and prayer in the Spirit are important in our lives, first of all as individuals, because the assembly can be no more than the individuals that make it up. And so we need to have that spirit of Thanksgiving and worship as we go about from day-to-day.
You know, there's so many difficulties and life is so pressured today that it's easy to.
Have a critical grumbling spirit and to get underneath the difficulties. But we need to have that sacrifice of praise on our lips and in our hearts as we go about from day-to-day, so that collectively on Lords Day morning we can come and pour out to the Lord Jesus in worship and Thanksgiving.
00:20:15
I think there's a nice little illustration with the six pictures, pictures of water that you have in John chapter 2 at the marriage of Canaan and of Galilee. And I know that there is a prophetic aspect of what you have there with Israel and the marriage, the third day and a millennial scene and so on. But I just thought of it this way. There were six water pots. They all, they all had different capacities because it says they contained about two or three firkins apiece. And we all have different capacities.
But you know, when those water pots were filled to the brim with the water, which would speak of the word of God, which presents to us Christ.
When there was that filling of the of Christ, then the Lord turned it to wine and they poured out to the governor of the feast. And I just think of it this way. There are 6 water pots and there are 6 days of the week. And if we fill the water pot 6 days of the week with the word of God, which I say always brings it before us Christ, because that's the subject. No matter where you read in God's word, if we're occupied with Christ, then there can be that praise and that joy and we can pour out to the true governor of the feast. But if we don't fill up the water pot, there's nothing that the Lord can turn to praise and worship. There's no wine, as it were. And so we come on Lord's Day morning and He values that that response of our hearts.
You know, I think of the 10 lepers there were 10 cleanse and one returned to good things.
And the Lord Jesus said, And I can just picture the sadness in the voice of the Lord Jesus as he said, were there not ten cleansed? And where are the nine? He valued the response of that man's heart, but he missed the response on the part of the other nine. When Mary came and poured out that costly ointment at the feet of the Lord, it says that all the disciples spoke up against her. But the Lord showed that he valued the response of Mary's heart, and So what a privilege to be able to pour out our hearts before him.
We come, I know, on Lord's day morning to remember him in death, and we'll speak of that a little later. But I just say there needs to be that and ought to be that collective worship with us. Well then we have ministry in the assembly and I think this is such a wonderful provision. Now again, I don't want to take away from the fact that we can read the word of God as individuals, and I trust we do. And if we have a real desire to learn, it says if any man desire to do his will, he shall know and the Spirit of God if given liberty in our lives.
Can teach us as we read the word of God from day-to-day. And I think I mentioned yesterday, the other night, that Israel needed fresh man every day. What they needed today was not what they needed tomorrow. They had to go out and gather. But you know, in the assembly when we sit under the sound of ministry, we get a balance. You know, man is an extremist by nature and I think this is one of the most gracious provisions of the Lord because there are so many today who will put a man at the front.
And they may get part of the truth, they may get one aspect of the truth. But, you know, if I bring out something in the assembly that's not correct.
If the spirit of God is given liberty, another can correct that. Or if I bring out something that's one aspect of the truth someone else can give out and can present a balance and give another aspect. If I bring out something that's only part of a truth, another can add to it. There are those who can bring out the practical side of things, those that can give us the the doctrines of the word of God. These things are all necessary and we get this balance. You know, I often think of the verse that says Ephraim is a cake, not turn, and that's what we're like by nature.
If you put a cake on the griddle and you don't turn it, what happens? It gets too well done on one side and not enough on the other. And so we need that balance in the assembly. And I noticed that those who don't sit under the sound of ministry in the assembly, they go off on tangents. They they take up one aspect of the proof and they press that without perhaps even realizing that there is another aspect to things. Well, then we have prayer in the assembly.
And, you know, I think this is so vital. A brother wrote to me not long ago and he said, you know, he said, prayer is the powerhouse of our Christian lives and the powerhouse of the assembly. And, you know, I really feel that one of the reasons there is often a lack of understanding when problems arise in the assembly or a lack of power to deal with situations is because perhaps the prayer meeting is the most poorly attended. Not always, but I often find as I travel from place to place.
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That the poor prayer meeting is very sparsely attended. Why? Well, I suppose for one reason we don't realize that the Lord is there on Wednesday night, just as He is on Lord's Day morning. And secondly, I suppose we don't really realize the power there is in collective prayer. Now the Lord said, if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that you ask in my name, it shall be done for you, even of my Father, which is in heaven. And you know, whether it's in the Old Testament of the New Testament. You find that when God's people came together for collective prayer.
There was real power and blessing. We'll just cite a couple of examples. You find that there was Daniel and Daniel was a man of prayer, but there was a situation came that affected Daniel and his three friends. And you know, there are often those situations that affect that the people of God as a whole.
It's true that as individuals and we see that with Daniel there are things that affect us. And it says, thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father, which is in secret. But then there are those things that affect us as the Church of God, as the people of God, and as assemblies gathered to the Lord's name. And I don't believe there's an assembly on the face of the earth today, brethren, that isn't going through some real trial and difficulty. The Lord is testing and Satan is busy.
Well, Daniel and his four three friends came together and they had a prayer meeting. It was a tremendous request, A request, you'd say naturally speaking could never be answered, that not only would an interpretation of a dream be given, but the dream revealed itself. But when they came together and they presented the matter to the Lord, the Lord came in and gave Daniel real wisdom and discernment. I suppose the nicest example you have of assembly prayer is in Acts 12. Where?
Again, Peter was in prison and it affected the people of God. They were burdened for for Peter.
And so they come together and they have a prayer meeting. And, you know, I think there's a nice encouragement there for the sisters because Rhoda was at the assembly prayer meeting and Rhoda was a damsel or a young girl. And she might have said, well, what's the sense of me going to the prayer meeting? The brothers can take part. They pray, and I can pray just as well at home. Well, she could have prayed at home. But, you know, the Lord blessed Rhoda in a special way that night for being at the assembly prayer meeting because he even ordered it. So she was the one that went to the door.
And she saw first hand the power of God to answer assembly prayer. Now if she hadn't been there, she would have heard about it later on, and she would have rejoiced the next day with the Saints as Peter was released. But it wouldn't have been the same as seeing the power of God first hand in the assembly to answer their prayers. And do you want to see the power of God to answer assembly prayer, be it the assembly prayer meeting? I wonder if Rd. have missed very many prayer meetings after that.
Now, I recognize that sometimes it's not always possible to be at all the assembly meetings, but you know, I fear brethren.
That this is the day when we try to plan our lives and then we try to work in the Assembly. You know, I was raised in a generation and in a home where our lives were planned around the assembly. When Tuesday night came and Thursday night came, there was nothing else planned. It was just assumed that we would be at the Assembly meetings if someone came through and there was something extra and plans had already been made. Everything was done to change those plans. Now, again, I recognize that it's not always possible to do that and the Lord knows the heart and our desire. But, brethren, if we don't plan our lives around the assembly, if that is not the pivotal point.
Satan has so much in these days when life is so pressured and life is so busy, and Satan is tearing down the two great institutions that God set up, the family and the assembly brethren we need to plan our lives around.
The assembly. And not only the assembly meetings, brethren, but you know, one of the things that the early believers continued steadfastly in was fellowship. We need that Satan wants to divide us. He doesn't want us to have fellowship and enjoy Christ together and enjoy happy times with our brethren. All we need to seek grace, that we would go on in happy fellowship. And so Rhoda was at the assembly prayer meeting. I used to feel, you know, when I was younger that well, the older brethren take part in not much point of going to the assembly prayer meeting.
But I say again, if you want to see power in the assembly, if you want to see blessing, be at the assembly prayer meeting. I remember about a year ago or so, we were visiting in an assembly and there was a little baby in that assembly that was very, very sick. And it was prayer meeting night. And the doctor had said that the crisis would come that night. Either the baby would begin to recover or the baby would be gone. And so we went to the assembly prayer meeting.
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And the brethren, one after another, poured out their hearts in supplication for that child. And the next morning, the mother called the home we were staying at. And she said, what time did the assembly prayer meeting start? Well, the sister we were staying with said about 7:30. She said that's just the time he began to turn around.
Well, I say again, there's power in collective prayer. God not only hears our prayers, but he delights to answer our prayers according to his will and for the good and blessing of his people. And he knows our needs even before we ask, but He wants us to come with that spirit of dependence as an assembly. In fact, I sometimes think that God, just as it were, withholds an answer or keeps something just behind the door, so to speak, until there's that spirit of dependence, and when there is that spirit of dependence.
With us then he has the answer right there and he comes in in blessing. I would just like to say this too concerning assembly prayer, that not only do we need to be at the assembly prayer reading, but I believe we need to avail ourselves of this resource in the way that God intended in the Scriptures. Because the two examples we noticed collective prayer with Daniel and his friends, assembly prayer in the New Testament. In both cases it was to bring a very, very specific request.
Before the Lord. Now, I don't want to be misunderstood, because I believe that at the assembly prayer meeting it's good to.
Embrace the whole household of faith and to pray for the gospel work worldwide. But brethren, I wonder if we were more specific in our assembly prayers if there wouldn't be more blessing. Daniel and his friends had a specific difficulty the Saints at when they came together in connection with Peter, they had a specific burden. And you know, sometimes I fear that we are afraid to pray for a brother or a sister for a a need that is known and felt in the assembly.
Now, brethren, granted, I know there are some things you can't pray for publicly in the assembly and we need to use discernment. But when there is a felt need, an unknown need in the assembly, why are we afraid to pray for that? Because the brother or sister is kneeling on the other side of the room. You know, I really believe that if we were more specific in praying for one another and those no needs in the assembly that it would not terrace apart, but that it would draw us closer together.
As we hear the burden of our brethren express one for another, and you know, when I have a need and the assembly knows about it, I I rejoice when they pray the brethren pray for it publicly, because that's what I say, where the power is. So we need these things, and brethren we need the the Assembly, meetings and even Lord's Day Morning. You know, when we come together, I think there's another nice encouragement for the sisters because Mary poured out her ointment at the feet of the Lord, as I mentioned earlier.
And it says the whole house was filled with the odor of the ointment. And you know, a godly sister who is going on with the Lord and whose heart is full of praise and worship. On Lords day morning she little realizes what a blessing she is, can perhaps even set the whole tone of the meeting because her heart is full of praise and worship.
And so we need that and we need to bring our families to to the assembly meetings. You know, I didn't always appreciate the assembly meetings. I didn't always appreciate being taken to the to the reading meeting, in the prayer meeting and a couple of times on Lords day. But you know, as I look back now though, I didn't appreciate it at the time, I knew what was important to mother and father. And you know, I fear that sometimes those who are younger look on and do they see in my life that which is important. Do they see that I value my children? Do they see that I value the assembly meetings?
That our lives are planned around those, those assembly meetings. And, you know, sometimes we think the children get nothing out of the meetings. But, you know, I was struck. We were visiting in Delavan, IL, in September, and my family was with me. And I had been speaking one night concerning the sincere milk of the word in Peter. And the next morning, the sister with whom we were staying said, would you like some milk? And I said, no, I don't care for milk. Thank you. And Kimberly, who's five years old, she looked at me and she said, Dad.
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Why do you tell us at meeting that malk is so important and you won't drink it yourself? Well, not only do our children know what that we hear, what we say, but they look to see whether it's going to be carried out in our lives. We think they're coloring, we think they're fidgeting, and up and down and in and out. But they hear and I say they know what's important in your life and mine. And I fear that if we don't value the assembly meetings that there will be with the next generation even less.
Of a value. Well, we need to seek to go on or to persevere in these things like the early believers. Now let's just turn over to First Peter, because I want to see another thought here.
One Peter 2.
And verse five. He also has lit lively or living stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone elect precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Well, I read this verse first of all to show that it's a spiritual building we're talking about.
And it's interesting here that Peter, on whom to whom the Lord made the initial revelation concerning the building of the Church.
He is given this truth as to who the cornerstone is to show, to prove, as it were, to confirm that it was not he on whom the Lord built his church. But he brings this out so beautifully that and concerning the prophecy in Isaiah that he the Lord is the chief cornerstone, because it says, and he that believeth on him, that's the cornerstone, shall not be confounded. Now we're not told to believe on Peter, we're told believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thou shalt be saved. So it's the Lord Jesus who is the chief cornerstone. But I would just like to say this about these stones that compose this building. You know, I was struck when we were in England a few years ago, we visited some of the great cathedrals of that country. And if you've ever seen pictures of them, pictures don't do them justice. They are tremendous edifices. I marveled how they built them in the 11:00 and 12:00 hundreds without the equipment they have today. But as I stood, I remember Salisbury Cathedral particularly.
And there were those huge foundation stones, magnificent stones. And then as you looked up the building.
The stones became smaller and smaller. They were all fit together and I thought of the spiritual church that is being built now that work that's going on is the spirit of God is is still saving, calling 1 here, calling one there, convicting and bringing to Christ. And those stones, you and I, we are those living stones that are being placed in that building. And yet, you know, sometimes as I looked at those buildings, there was a stone missing. They looked like solid buildings and they had thick walls.
But sometimes there was a stone missing, brethren, you and I, who have been placed as a living stone in the Church of God.
Will never be removed. Not one stone can be taken out. And I saw up at the top those small stones and they were nothing perhaps compared to those great stones that built the fountain that were held the foundation. But you know, every stone was important. And I just think of it this way. Those small stones are being put into place now as one another here and there is being saved by the grace of God. But, you know, I think it's illustrated so beautifully in the Old Testament with the salt building of Solomon's temple. I'd just like to say a word about those stones because as I said the other night, we have the illustrations in the Old Testament.
Help us to understand these things. And there were several things about those stones that went into the building of the temple. First, they were hewn stones. And those workers had to go down into those pits and they had to hew those stones out and they had to raise them an old brethren. It's a very beautiful picture of the work of grace in our souls. Because the Lord Jesus had to go down into that pit. He not only came into this world, but he went down, down, down, became obedient. Even under the death of the cross, He could say my waves and my billows have come over me.
Sinking deep monitor where there is no standing. Just like those workers. He had to go down into the pit, and then those stones were hewn out. They had no power to heal themselves. Brethren, we had no power to take one step towards God. And then those stones were raised. They had no power to raise themselves. No, I say. It's a beautiful work of the Spirit of God that opened our eyes to see beauty in Christ drew us to the Savior.
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Convicted us of our need, imparted divine life.
And when we get home to glory, we're going to recognize fully that it was nothing of ourselves. I know that the messages come unto me, and there is responsibility. But no man can come. To the Father, to the Son, to the Son, except the Father. Draw him. It's all a work of God's grace and of the Spirit. Well then those stones were brought up, and it says they were first of all great stones. Every stone had a position, just like in those buildings I saw in England. Every stone had a place of importance, even the small stones of the top. And every one of us are of equal importance to the Lord Jesus.
He died for us. He loves us with an equal love and we, you know, sometimes in a large family.
It's hard just to feel as an individual brother was telling me recently. He came from a large family and he he felt that there were no favorites in the family. But you know that that that I think is a unique case because you know, I come from not a large family but there were four of us and it seemed like I was the oldest. And I always thought the younger ones got all the favors and the younger ones thought the older ones got away with everything. And the ones in the middle felt kind of wedged in between and forgotten. I remember one time we were visiting in a home I'd never visited there before and I didn't know the brethren. So we got in in the afternoon and.
One of the young lads came home from school after a while and so I said to him I noticed they had a ping pong table. I said would you like to play some ping pong. I wanted to get to know him a little bit and so we batted the ball back and forth for a while and I had read the brief the friends by name before I got there and I assumed from reading it that he was the youngest member of the family and I said are you the youngest in the family? He said yes and I don't appreciate it either. Well I said why? Well he said all the older ones pick on me. You see wherever we come in a large family sometimes it's hard and.
Those of us who have children, perhaps it's hard sometimes to treat each of our children as individuals. But everyone of us in the family of God, every member of the Church, is of equal importance and value, because they were not only great stones, but they were costly. And old brethren, what did it cost him? He gave up all that he had. He sold everything that he might buy the field for the treasure that was in it. He was that merchant man when he had found one Pearl of great price.
He went out and sold all that he had that he might buy that Pearl, which speaks to us, of the church. And so they were, they were costly stones, and each stone was brought and put in place. And you know, it says that in the building of the temple there was not the sound of a hammer or a chisel or any tool heard. It was a silent work. And it was just a little feeble picture, a feeble foreshadow of the silent work that's going on in this world now.
As the church is being built, one stone added upon another and when every stone, when that last stone is put in place.
Then I believe the church will be raptured safely, home to glory. Well, we're going to move on. Now I want to talk about the body. We're going to move counterclockwise or clockwise on this, this chart. We're going to talk about the body. And my artwork broke down on this one because some time ago I was taking up these charts at an assembly and there was a young lad on the front row. And before the meeting started, I said, what have I used to illustrate the body?
Well, he guessed two or three things and never did get it right. But I've tried to draw a loaf of bread and we'll talk about why a little later on. Now, to introduce this subject, let's go over to 1St Corinthians 12, and you'll forgive me if, without turning to it, I just go back to the building for a minute, because I did mention that we have the building not only as the temple but as the house. And in First Timothy he tells him, Paul tells Timothy.
Speaks of the pelt, the assembly, as the pillar and ground of the truth, and how he ought to behave himself in the House of God. And so I would just say when it's the temple, it's in connection with worship. When it's the the house, it's in connection with responsibility. And you know, when Paul wrote to Timothy there, he wasn't just telling him how he was to behave when he came to meeting. Now that's an important aspect of things, and we won't get into that because I do believe there ought to be a realization.
When we come on to the assembly meetings as to whose presence we're coming into, the Lord of life and glory and what is acceptable, If you were going to have an audience with the President of the United States or the Queen of England, you would be grilled beforehand on what would be acceptable as you come into their presence, perhaps even the dress and what you would say, and so on, the mode of conduct. And so that is an important aspect of things, and I trust we never lose sight of it, but.
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What Paul is really telling Timothy there is that as being and as being part of the church, the house, Timothy had a responsibility and there was a conduct as being part of that church that was acceptable to one who was brought in to that position. And brethren, we need to realize as we go about from day-to-day that the world looks on and that there is to be a conduct about us and when we think of the dignity of the position we've been brought into.
It ought to give us that character as members of the Church of God and as sons and heirs of sons and heirs of God. I remember of brothers told me one time he listened to his father give a an address on pride and completely denounce pride. And so after the meeting was over, he went up to his father and he said, Father, if I didn't have some self respect and some pride, I wouldn't care if my shoes were shined or my tie was straight or my jacket matched all, his father said, If you remember at all times the dignity of the position you've been brought into.
It will take care of all that without one ounce of pride. Well, I say we need to realize and remember the position we've been brought into and that there is a conduct in connection with it. Now let's go on with the body here in First Corinthians 12.
And verse 12 for as the body is 1 and half many members.
And all the members of that one body, being many, are one body. So also is Christ, or I believe it should read the Christ. Now I think this is very precious because we can understand this in a natural body, that every member has a function and that there is a head, and that there is are the members of the body. And here you and I who compose the spiritual body are viewed by God, we the members on earth, Christ the head in glory. And remember what I said. Not only did the Spirit of God unite those believers on the day of Pentecost.
But united them not only one to another, but united them to their head in glory. And God views the head in glory Christ.
He views the members on earth and so close is our connection that he views the completed body and he says it's Christ. That's the relationship that we have been brought into brethren as members of the body of Christ. And God views us with Christ ahead and says complete it's Christ so near, so very near to God. I cannot near be from the person of his Son. I am as near as he.
And you know, when God brought the woman to Adam who was taken from his side, you know, sometimes the question is raised, what did God call the first woman he ever created? And usually the answer is given ease. But Adam called his wife's name Eve. God called their name Adam in the day in which he created them. So close was the relationship that he called their name Adam. And here, so close, is the relationship that he says.
It's it's Christ.
Well, I believe in One Corinthians 12, and we won't take time to read these verses here, but I believe what he's bringing before us in connection with the body is the function of the members of the body in the proper way. Now, again, we can understand this in a natural body because every member of our body in a natural sense has a particular function. And you know, if you lose a hand or a foot, well, the other can take over and you can get through life, but not as well as with two Every member is important. And you know, some members of our body have a function that we're not even aware of.
And yet I believe that if that function broke down, we would miss that member and I just want to apply this in connection.
With the local aspect of things, the Church in its local aspect, because we profess to be gathered to the Lord's name on the ground of the one body.
And I believe we need to feel our responsibility as members of the body of Christ. And I sometimes wonder if there aren't assemblies who suffer a lack because there are those in the assembly who don't carry out the little function that God has given them to do. I've wondered if that's what Paul meant when he wrote to the Saints at Colossae because there was a man there named Archippus. And he says, and say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry that thou hast received to the Lord, that thou fulfill it. We're not told what that ministry was. Perhaps it was some little hidden service, but Paul felt he wasn't carrying it out and that the Saints at Colossi were suffering a lack. And I say sometimes it may be a little hidden service because Epifras labored in prayer and little did he realize that God had written it, was writing it down.
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To abide in His eternal record for eternity. Perhaps no one knew he was doing it. They never. Perhaps they didn't appreciate it or say thank you because he didn't know it. They didn't know he was doing it. It takes real grace and going on before the Lord to carry out some little function, but every one of us have a function in connection with the body because he's placed the members in the body as it have pleased him. If you ever have difficulty with a brother and sister, just remember that he placed the members in the body as it pleased him.
Scripture. We never thought people were never given liberty to choose the company of people they associated with. I think of Gideon. Gideon was told whom I say shall go with thee, shall go with thee, and whom I say shall not go with thee, shall not go with thee. When the Lord chose the 12, he didn't ask their opinion as to whether they thought they could get along one with another. He did the choosing. And so he's placed the members in the body as it had pleased him. And I think there's a nice encouragement again for the sisters.
Because Paul said when he wrote to the Philippian brethren and helped those women which labored with me in the gospel, there were sisters that Philippi who had been a real help in Tupaul in furthering the crew and the gospel. They'd helped him and now Paul said, you helped those women that have fulfilled their little function as members of the body of Christ.
Three women who followed the Lord in His pathway and they ministered to Him of their substance. Their names were Joanna, Susanna and Mary Magdalene. And God recorded it in his eternal record. He valued that quiet service by those, by those ladies. And so each one of us have a function. But you say I don't have any outward manifest gift. Well, you know, it's interesting because as I say, sometimes members of our natural body have a hidden little function.
And I was visiting an elderly brother some time ago in a very small assembly and he said when he was young and 1St saved and gathered a brother had come through visiting. And he said I was complaining to this brother. He said I don't have any gifts that I can use for the Lord and the assembly.
Well, the brother said to him, who make sure there's a loaf and a cup on the table on Lord's Day Morning. Well, he said I do. And he said after the meeting's over, who makes sure that things are cleaned up? Well, he said I do. And he said when the Saints go home, who make sure that the door is locked and the lights are out.
Well, it said, I do. Well, the brother turned him, just dropped down to verse 28 and God hath set some in the church. First apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers. After that miracles, then gifts of healing. And he say, I don't have any of those, but what's the next one helps.
And brethren, we can all be a help. We might read and earlier on the list of gifts, and we might say, well, I don't have any any of those.
But I wonder if any of us can get out from under this one, because it doesn't take much some time.
To be a help. And that's what we need. You know, I was preparing for a trip some months ago. I was going to be away from my family for some time and I was preparing. I was perhaps a little bit discouraged and I was doing some rather mundane tasks, but needed to be done around the house before I left. And a brother in an assembly many, many miles away, he called me up that morning, just out of the blue, just to see how we were. Couple of words of encouragement, I don't suppose we talked for more than four or five minutes.
But you know, when I hung up the phone, it just gave me a lift for the whole day. I didn't realize what just a little word, a little phone call, a little encouragement, a warm smile and a handshake, a little note just helped somebody over that rough spot. Because there's plenty of rough spots today and there's plenty to discourage. We don't need to look for things to discourage what We need bread and is, first of all, like David, to encourage ourselves in the Lord. That's the IT begins with the individual. But you know when David did that?
He went down and encouraged those that were with him and there was a great victory in Israel that day. And brethren, we need to encourage one another in the Lord. We need to be a help. I wondered if there was any connection between this helps here and what we have in the end of Acts Acts 27 where you find Paul in the ship and they were anticipating a storm and it says they secured the helps. Well, I was visiting in Pleasantville, Nova Scotia some some months ago and many of the old brethren they're on in their 90s, they followed the sea.
In their younger days and they remember the days of wooden sea going vessels, so I asked them what were the helps.
Well, they said they were metal cables that when they were anticipating a storm.
They would throw these cables over the bow of the ship, draw them back around the side of the ship. At different intervals they were brought up, secured to a pulley and tightened to help hold the ship together as the storm approached. And oh, I thought, how beautiful. We need the help, brethren. We're not anticipating a storm. The storms are here. The seas, the waves. It's like the disciples. When they were in the ship, the waves were high and the wind was contrary. There was that opposition by Satan and those forces around them. That's the days in which we live.
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Brethren, we need the helps. God would have us go on in happy fellowship, just as he encouraged those disciples to get into that ship together to go to the other side. Oh, I just say we need to be a help one to another. And we don't realize sometime how the little things can be a help. But I say again, we need to be exercised. God has given us all different bends to our nature. He's given us different characteristics, and we need to seek to carry out the little function that He has given us. You know, when the Levites were in the wilderness.
The children of Israel were in the wilderness. Everyone of the Levites was given a service in connection with the Tabernacle, And when that Levite carried out his service, that he was given in the proper way. And as before the Lord, then the Tabernacle was taken down, carried through the wilderness, and set up in the proper way with, I'm sure, very little difficulty. And, you know, they weren't to look at one another's service and covet that and say, you know, I think of the one who perhaps kept the pots and pans together or the one who.
Kept the cords from tangling, or went around and picked up the pins. He wasn't to look at the one who carried the brazen altar or carried the boards and say, whoa, I wish I could do some great thing like that. No. What was what was his reward? Not the greatness of the service, but doing it as unto the Lord. And when he did that, he knew that he was doing that which the Lord had given him to do, and that things worked in a proper way. And so it says in Galatians, let every man prove his own word, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone.
And not in another. Well, brethren, if you'll bear with me. Just for a few more minutes, I would like to finish the subject of the body.
And then tomorrow night Impella will go on with this subject. But if you just turn over with me for another thought in connection with the body.
To Colossians Chapter one.
In verse 18 And he is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning.
The first born from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. Now just as in a natural body, all the members take their instruction from the head or from the brain, so in the spiritual sense of things, where are the members of the body, you and I, to get our instruction? It's from Christ.
You know, I used to sit in conferences as a young person and a child, and I would hear brethren. I remember dear old Armstead Barry used to tell us often brethren were not holding the head, and I used to wonder what he meant by that. Though I believe that, Simply put, it just means that we're not looking to Christ, who is the head of the body for the instruction that we, the members on earth need. We perhaps try to do things in our own strength and by our own wisdom.
And I think, brethren, this is important in the day in which we live. Because, you know, this is a day when you read the paper, you listen to the news and everything screams of democracy. And democracy is on the rise. And states that were parts of other countries are now rising up and wanting their independence and ruled by the majority. And again, don't misunderstand me, I'm glad I live in the country of Canada and you're glad you live in the United States, where the government.
Allows us the freedoms that we do, but you know, you can search the pages of God's word.
And you'll never find democracy ordained of God. It's not there. You'll never find rule by the people and for the people, as they say. And we have to remember, brethren, when we come to the assembly. We gather around himself. We're at His table, and his authority must be owned and maintained. Brethren, I feel a special burden in these days.
Assembly is not a democracy. The assembly is not where the majority rules. You know, I am thankful for my dear old brethren, and God has left them to us. And we who are younger are to submit ourselves to them. And I really feel that there would be a lot less difficulty if those of us who were younger would submit to those who are older.
But, brethren, who is the authority in the assembly? It's the Lord's table. I have enjoyed some happy fellowship at Brother Howard's table this past these past few days. And whose table is it? Could I invite someone else there? No. Whose authority is owned at that table? If I act in a way that is not according to the conduct, but Brother Howard feels is acceptable to his table, he has every right to ask me to leave in his table. His authority ruled that that table.
01:00:23
Brennan, if we say we're gathered.
To the Lord's name, if we say we are at his table, then his authority.
Says thou hast magnified thy word above.
Thy name and I feel again, this is so important, because, brethren, we are never justified.
In doing something in the name of the Lord Jesus without the authority of the word of God for what we do, I speak reverently. We're never to put the name above the word, You know, sometimes when a difficulty arises in the assembly, the initial reaction is something has to be done to straighten out this problem. And again, we're victims of the age in which we live, because this is the day when there's an instant answer to every difficulty, and if you have a problem, you go to the computer and you punch it in and zip.
There is the answer on the screen, and the faster the better. Or if you have a difficulty, you go to a self help book and in six easy steps we get from point A to point B. Well brethren, those things may be necessary to survive in the world in which we live. But we need to remember in the assembly he's magnified his word above his name, and we are never to act even for the Lord's glory and honor unless we have the authority of the word of God for what we do. You know, there was a difficulty at Corinth that was a very serious problem.
It required judgment, action on the part of the assembly, and the Apostle Paul writes to them and he tells them what they are to do in the name of the Lord Jesus. But when they took that step in the assembly, they had the authority of God's word because Paul was writing to them by divine inspiration. Now in a similar situation arises, we turn to 1St Corinthians 5 and we say here is the authority for what we do in the name of the Lord Jesus.
There's a nice commendation, too, given to the Saints of Philadelphia. And brethren, I trust there's no thought, even in corners of our hearts, as to being Philadelphia. But we still see it Philadelphia, that which met with the Lord's approval. And isn't that what we really covet? And it says, there are two things thou hast, thou hast kept my word, the word 1St and not denied my name. And so if we don't have in the assembly.
The authority of the Word of God for what we do. All we can do is commit the matter to the one who has head over all things to the Church, which is His body and brethren, if there is a collective exercise and a collective searching of the word of God.
And a desire to know his mind. In his time he will give us a portion of Scripture.
So that when we take that action we can say this is the authority for what we do and use them. But I don't want to be labored this, but I just feel it is important and we need again to remember that the assembly is not a democracy.
And you know, in Scripture the majority was always wrong. I'll cite just two cases. You'll find when the 12 spies went to spy the land, 10 brought an evil report from 2 brought a good report. Was the majority right? Of course not. When the Kingdom was finally rent under Jeroboam and Rehoboam, we find that 10 tribes began meeting at other centers. Dan and Bethel 2 remained at Jerusalem. Was the majority right? No. God honored those that remained at Jerusalem, even though the perhaps the spirit of the thing hadn't been right. But they remained there and God honored that.
And the Lord Jesus said himself, straight as the gate, and narrow as the way that leadeth unto light, and few there be that find it. And so the majority in Scripture is always wrong.
And I would just say this in closing tube brethren, that he not only wants first place, but he wants the only place. It's his table, It's his word. He is the authority. He is the head of the body and we need to look to him for our instruction. Shall we pray?