Address—Bruce Conrad
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I would like to start by reading a few verses out of Proverbs 8.
I think today is the 8th day of the month.
And I was raised spiritually.
To to read the chapter a day from Proverbs right through the calendar, wherever else I was reading.
Brethren used to say Proverbs as the young man's book.
So anybody, I think under 80 probably would profit from reading proverbs every day, along with everywhere else you read.
So, so applicable to us in so many ways.
While we're here in this world.
Heavenly wisdom it's been called for for our earthly path.
But I'd like to extract out of Proverbs 8 this morning a look way back as we would think of it into eternity.
Before anything made was made, that was made.
Hard for us, isn't it, to just sometimes just close our eyes, sometimes do.
And I try to what was it like before anything was made that was made?
We read in John chapter one about a beginning that in a sense had no beginning.
There was the Father, and there was the Son.
Dwelling in Supreme.
As we would say as men, unapproachable light.
We read in First Timothy 6.
That's the dwelling place of God, a place unapproachable by any creature, Angel or man.
And there was the Father, and there was the Son.
Dwelling in light, perfect light, supreme pristine light, and love.
And in Proverbs 8 we get a little view of the latter. In verse 22 The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way. Proverbs 8 and 22 before His works of old I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was, when there were no depths that was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills which I brought forth, when as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
When He prepared the heavens, I was there. When he set a compass upon the face of the deep.
When He established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep, when he gave to the sea his decree that the water should not pass his commandment. When he appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by him as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. We'll just stop there for a second.
So we have before all these this wonderful creation when God spoke, as we read in the first, very first chapter of the Bible.
Over and over again, maybe 8-9 times and God said.
And God said, down it goes. And God said he spoke and it became.
The material, everything material we see in this universe that we can see with our eyes or that we're aware of how to beginning in God. God is a spirit and as the Lord Jesus told the woman at the well.
God is a spirit.
And in that in His Majesty he spoke, and it was so.
And he spoke from that place of light and love, and as we had in verse 30 as well verse 31, rejoicing.
I'm sorry, verse 30. I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.
And saw not only light and love, but joy of a father's love for a son in whom he fully delighted.
And a son's delight in his father, and whom he fully delighted.
A sphere of only two.
The Holy Spirit as a divine person there too, but I I don't even feel competent to speak about him in that way. I don't know how.
But we do read of the Father and the Son, and we read of rejoicing and of light and of love before the world's were made.
And in the next verse verse 31, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth. And my delights were with the sons of men.
His delights were in the children of men before there were any.
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And so I know it is popular nowadays to speak about the fragile character of the Earth.
And man has been put, as will perhaps see, in, in a position of responsibility and stewardship over the earth.
And we don't want to be careless in that way.
But the earth in a certain sense is very robust.
It was made as a platform.
It was made, and God anticipated the carelessness of man, the power of man that would be developed in a natural way with bombs and all the other stuff that men to to blow up things and change things and carve the rock and all the rest send rockets out into outer space and all of that.
As a brother mentioned, a couple years ago I heard him say it and it was an interesting comment. He said, you know, every man, every woman, every human could be taken off the face of the earth today, right now.
Just he could call all breath back. It's not a single human on the earth. You know what the Earth would keep spinning. The sun would set, The sun would come up in the morning, the rivers would row down and would flow down into the sea.
The water would go up into the clouds. The birds would fly, the fish would swim.
It's a. It's a robust place.
But he put man with us in a special position as we know, to have dominion over it. And let's turn back.
Can't tarry too long here to Genesis chapter one.
The series of N Gods saids.
The first one.
In verse 3.
But in verse 26.
Maybe the 7th or 8th?
And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness.
And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man and his own image in the image of God created him, male and female created he them, and God bless them, and so on.
And then over in chapter 2.
In verse 18 and the Lord, God said it is not good that the man should be alone.
I will make for him, and help, that is, meet for him, and help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof.
And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beasts of the field. But for Adam there was not help found in help meet for him.
And the Lord God calls a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept.
And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he, or builded he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.
They shall be 1 flesh, and they were both naked, and the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
We have here the history of the first man and the first woman. God didn't create a woman separately from a man. He didn't create a man over here and then a woman over here and bring them together or permit them to come together. He created one man.
And out of the man, the woman is not of the man. The man is not of the woman we read in First Corinthians 11, but the woman is of the he created one man. And these things, as we now know, are a picture to us. They're types to us of spiritual realities of the 2nd man.
Called in Scripture the last Adam, the Lord out of heaven.
And so it was that. A deep sleep.
Was necessary for Adam to undergo to go through.
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In order that God would build out of Adam a wife, a a woman, that would be meat for him, and so when he looked upon her.
He said.
She's me.
Everybody in this room. Well, maybe I could put it the other way around.
None of us in this room are fully responsible for our children. We're partially responsible. Every one of us doesn't have. Each of us doesn't have. Excuse my grammar, but one parent, but two. We have two. We have a mother. We have a father. But Eve.
She came from one, and so it is in our spiritual life. We all come from one, and as we know, in the beautiful picture, in the beautiful factual exposition in the New Testament.
That it required the death of the Lord Jesus and the shedding of His precious blood, that there would be anything or anyone who could fulfill.
An answer to the statement that God made that is not good for the man to be alone when the Lord Jesus walked here as a perfect man down below, having come out from God from that place where man could never see or penetrate or enter.
That unapproachable light, the sun came out from that place.
And he came down into this world and took manhood to himself.
But even as a man walking here, he in a certain sense was was alone. He felt spiritually alone, and he was factually alone.
And so when those Gentiles, those Greeks, came to him and said, and you feel so sympathetic to them, they said, Sir, we would see Jesus.
They didn't come to him, I don't know why, whether they were intimidated or whether it was the the structure of who was standing where. But they asked 1 disciple and that disciple asks another and then they communicate the message to the Lord Jesus himself.
And I'm sure it it struck the heart of the Lord that he could not come out and answer the desire of those Greeks who would want to see him, to know him, to ask questions of him.
To to be in in in a way brought into some fellowship with him, and he had to say, accept a corn of wheat, fall into the ground, and die it abideth alone.
It's not good for the man to be alone.
And so he proceeded.
All the way to Calvary's cross.
And not just a deep sleep that you may have had last night.
Especially the younger ones. They sleep better than we do.
You may have fallen down in a deep sleep and you wake up refreshed. Sleep is a miracle to me. How that works, I don't know how that works, but it's wonderful when it works.
But the sleep that is pictured here is what our brother spoke about last night in the Gospel.
It was the death of the Lord Jesus.
Having exposed himself with hands outstretched to the wrath of God against sin.
And having bowed his head after that.
And given up the ghost.
And the testimony to it was in a soldier piercing his side.
And forthwith came there out blood and water from a Christ who had already died from a dead Christ. The water of the blood and the water flowed.
And God is so particular about the testimony.
To the life, the death, the.
Burial and the resurrection of Christ, that he surrounded every single aspect of it with totally competent witnesses.
We were speaking last night at the motel.
About about what they call in certain industries, traceability. There has to be traceability of some special material that is made if it's going into a nuclear reactor and they don't. They're very fussy about those things. As you would imagine. It has to be a set of eyes and a competent witness. For every step somebody makes a piece of welding wire, somebody has to, somebody has to certify that it was made of the proper mixture of of of metals.
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And somebody has to certify that it was stored properly. And somebody has to certify with their own eyes and their own reputation, their own professional life that it went here and that it was stored there. And when the welder comes and takes it that it's that same material and it's put by a certain process into a certain traceability all the way through.
People are trained in that.
And God if you if you stop and think about it, Perfect traceability.
In the life that it was, actually it was that same Jesus. There were women who followed him from Galilee. There was his own mother, there was his disciple.
And they spoke with him and it was really him.
God knew the cynical attacks on these facts down through the ages, and he knows how important it is.
And with his death, he bowed his head. And they witnessed it, and they witnessed the other things that happened.
And the soldiers pierced his side, and they were convinced themselves that he was dead already. So they break not his legs.
And those dear men go to pilot because they had access, because they were men of that of that character of life. They could go in and see Pilot Joseph of Arimathea Nicodemus.
They begged the body of Jesus and Pilate didn't just say, yeah, go ahead, yeah, you can have it. No, He sent a centurion to make sure.
A centurion is no slouch.
It's not going to be careless and say, yeah, I looked from over the hill and he looked like he was dead to me. No, he's going to make sure.
That's the way they were trained and that's the way they kept their position. Their position was everything in their life.
And so they come back and they give testimony to Pilate and pilot releases Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus to take the body of Jesus.
And people watched him take him down.
And put him.
Wrap him and they watched, and Joseph of Arimathea volunteered his burial place, in which Never man was buried.
And the other saw where it was.
And they saw him put in there.
And vain man puts, puts a puts, puts a big rock and seals it and puts soldiers there, Roman soldiers there.
Everything is done with with profound divine care and testament for the testimony as to what took place on Calvary's cross and thereafter.
They saw where he was laid, and they came back before dawn the next morning to that same place. They knew where it was. They had seen it with their own eyes. They knew him. They knew what happened.
And they come. And the rest, as you know, is history.
Where the Lord reveals himself to Mary, and then to the other disciples, and so on. And then above 500 brethren at one time. And then they see him go up into heaven.
What care?
The woman is taken out of the man.
And the great foundation of Calvary's cross.
Is that now God can righteously bless sinners like you and me.
They say, well, how did he bless Abram? How did he bless Noah? How did he bless all these Old Testament Saints?
He blessed them on the principle of faith, just like he does with you and me. But he proved at Calvary's cross that he was righteous.
In his forbearance with their sins.
At Calvary's cross, he proved himself to be just and the justifier, and he showed his righteousness in the forbearance of those sins that were passed, and so any debt that was accrued.
Any credit that was assigned to any Old Testament St. to any believer in those days.
Was paid in full at Calvary's cross. God glorified in it.
The beautiful picture here as to the bride, this first picture of the bride.
Is that there is oneness of life. Adam could look at Eve and say she came out of She's 100% me. God made her right out of me. She's me and they were one.
Now we read in the New Testament.
That the truth of the one body of Christ and the Church, in that character of one body of many members indwelt by the Holy Spirit, united to the head in heaven, was a mystery hidden God.
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It's not hid in the Old Testament, even. It was a mystery hid in God and I submit to you and I'm often.
Questioned or challenged on this. I don't believe there is any type in the Word of God, of the truth of the one body of Christ and the members of the Church as one. I have never seen a type in the Scriptures of that aspect of the Christ of Christ, the Head and the Church.
But there are types and shadows, are there not of the Church as the Bride of Christ. And I believe this is the first one that we see. And we see here the aspect of yes, they were given dominion, a brother read the other morning.
Application in Psalm 8. Dominion assigned to the Lord.
According to God's purpose, wonderful thing, they were given dominion.
But here in this passage, we read that they shared a life, a same life. And as a believer, you have, in a certain sense at least two connections to Christ.
We are pretty familiar that when we put our trust in Christ, the Holy Spirit indwelt us. We're sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
And were united by the Holy Spirit to one another and to Christ our head. But we also share a life in nature.
Because we are as it says in Hebrews chapter 2.
He that sanctifieth, and they who sank, and they who are sanctified are all of one.
You read the rest of the verse here.
Hebrews Chapter 2.
Verse 10 It became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things.
In bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect or complete through sufferings. For both he that sanctified, and they who are sanctified are all of one.
For which 'cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren?
Adam and Eve were not ashamed to be naked because they were in innocence.
As soon as they were deceived.
Into partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil their eyes were opened. But the lie, as the brother said this morning, was that they would know good and they would know evil, but they would be absolutely powerless in choosing the one and ignoring the other.
What I ordered is what a deceitful lie.
But here, when soon as the man and the woman, their eyes were opened, they realized they were naked and they go and hide.
But at this point, they're not ashamed.
And I think it's in a certain sense a picture really of the fact that the Lord Jesus has so brought us.
Into connection with himself by giving us a life that is actually, as Scripture calls it, eternal life, that he's not ashamed to call us brethren.
You can look on your relatives, close relatives and say, well they we have the same we have Buchanan life or we have rural life or I sat with a bunch of cousins yesterday and they they they share that that natural life to a certain extent.
But here the man and the woman, they share one life, and you and I, by virtue of the work of God in our souls, now share the very life which existed in Christ eternally, but only in Him.
And now you and I, by the grace of God, share it.
That's just an astonishing thing to consider.
I should be. I should just sit down right now and leave that. That thought just hanging out there, It's such a wonderful thing to consider. In him was life. We read in John Chapter One. All others, in a certain sense, dead and trespasses and sins.
And in John, but in John's first epistle, looking back at the effects of the work of Calvary.
He says there in in first John chapter.
First John Chapter 3.
Which thing is true in him?
And it was for all eternity, and in you.
That's the new thing.
First, John 3. See if I can pluck that out of here.
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Bit of a digression, but I'm not. I'm not finding it. If somebody wants to shout it out, you can.
But to me that's a wonderful part of the wonderful essence of the First Epistle of John, that that which once subsisted or existed only in the Son himself.
Is now communicated to you and me. That life which was alone in him, is now in you, and in the first epistle of John he unfolds different aspects, different attributes to what that life is like. It loves its obedient, it trusts.
It's holy. It has discernment and all those other characteristics.
Chapter 2, verse 8.
Thank you. I'll read it.
Thank you, Bob.
First John two and verse 8. And again a new commandment. I write unto you which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past or passing, and the true light now shineth.
And so we have this life we're as.
I think it was, Abigail said to David when she interceded for her extended household.
She said the soul of my Lord is is bound in the bundle of life, is the expression she used. I think we may get to that.
And so it is. We share the life in nature of God's Son. These are amazing things to think about or to speak about. Yes, you're united to Him by the Holy Spirit indwelling you, which Old Testament Saints were not.
But now eternal life has been given to you and me.
Upon the work of Calvary's cross.
And the Descent of the Holy Spirit. The next bride I'd like to speak about is in Genesis 24, well known.
Passage.
We have another man that's alone.
Named Isaac in type. He is a type of Christ as a risen 1.
If you notice in particular and it's been pointed out before that in Genesis 22.
After God provides a lamb for a burnt offering instead of Abraham's son Isaac.
Then it says Abraham returned in verse 19 of chapter 22. So Abraham returned and his young men.
It doesn't even mention Isaac as if as if he's risen and as if he never came back down that mountain. We know that. In fact, he did.
And in Genesis 23.
Sarah is set aside a picture of Israel.
In her first estate and in chapter 24, Abraham is now old.
The sacrifice having been accomplished in type in Genesis 22.
Then Abraham the father. Abraham is a type of the father, and he sends his servant out to get a bride for his son, because it's not good for the son to be alone, and so he.
The long, long chapter which I will not go into in any detail really at all.
And the servant, very dutifully follows the wishes of his master, presents a testimony to the household of Rebecca.
Gives a verbal testimony as to why he was there and who he was the servant of.
And it boils down to a question that is presented to this woman. Wilt thou go with this man?
All the other stuff, well, it's a different country.
Or what? What's the economy like there? Is it industrial or agricultural? Is it? Is it, is it this or is it that? All of those other things? It comes down to that one question.
Wilt Falco with this man.
It was probably not an everyday occurrence for a young lady or for a woman to be asked if she wanted to marry someone.
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Oftentimes women.
Were, I suspect in those cultures looked upon as very much the the property and under the domain of the head of the house. Her father in this case was her brother.
And so this is an unusual picture, it seems to me, where the woman is the one who who decides in the Western world, we're all this is, this is normal, right? People decide. I asked my wife. She was free to say no.
And you all have been most likely. And so it comes down to that. There's the call. Wilt thou go with this man? And of course, the beautiful answer, she says. I will go, and off they go.
And then she's in the wilderness.
And so you have a woman, unbeknownst to herself, that is really repeating what her soon to be father-in-law had experienced because the God of glory had appeared to Abraham. And he said get out and I'm going to tell you where to go, but get out.
Leave.
Your your country.
And your kindred and your father's house.
Unto a land that I will show thee of There wasn't even a an object out there. It was this beautiful, really the command of God to go. And he went.
He didn't fulfill every aspect of that, as we all know, but he went.
And Rebecca goes to, but she has an object now. She has one that she is probably hearing about day after day on that long journey across the wilderness. And like Abraham, she goes out not knowing whither she went. But she's on her way to a man. And so we have in Rebecca a beautiful picture of the call and she comes and she's ushered into Sarah's tent. And Isaac, it says at the end of the chapter, brought her into her mother Sarah's tent and took Rebecca, and she became his wife.
And he loved her. And Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.
Every believer is called.
If you are saved, if you have the salvation of your soul, you have been called.
Romans 8 says that you were chosen.
You were chosen for a certain destiny, as we had in Ephesians Chapter one.
God had chose you individually.
And if you are a believer and he had a destiny in view that he was choosing you for.
And having predestinated you for that destiny, he called you.
And then he justified.
And maybe later today he will glorify you.
That's the the last piece.
But not everyone We read that is called.
Is called effectually.
We read in the parable in Matthew 25, Matthew 22. I believe it is of the certain man that has a great feast.
And everybody initially declines the offer, and he sends his servants out into the highway to to both good and bad compelled him to come in, and all these people come in.
And the the, the the host of the of the feast comes, and he sees a man.
That doesn't have a wedding garment on. I take it from that that wedding garments were supplied.
And he, for some reason, didn't think he needed one.
And so he met with a horrible fate. He's cast out.
And and the pronouncement is made that not all that are called.
Receive the blessing because we read it. We we take it from that parable that a person must put on the wedding garment. They must accept, as Bob was bringing before us last night, repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
And when by faith you put your trust in Christ, God reckons you through faith as righteous before him.
It doesn't mean that you got so changed by your faith that he can just look at you and observe that now you are righteous. And so I consider you that.
Now, he says, on the basis of your faith in my sight, I reckon you to be righteous. That's what Scripture calls the righteousness of faith.
And so in Rebecca, we see one called, We see the happy result, and we see Isaac comforted. Let's go to Genesis 41.
I think it's the next one.
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In the first two pictures of the man.
One that was alone, all creation passed before him, and nothing that would satisfy his heart or his nature.
Not one. And so God creates one out of him.
In Isaac, we didn't read it, but he's out in the field meditating in the evening. A lonely, separated type of a man Isaac's character was.
But here in Joseph we have a man.
Who was of a different bent and who had a different experience? And as you all know the story, he was taken by his brothers in envy and sold into Egypt.
In Egypt, his natural competence elevates him in his position until God decides, as he does with with his children, he pours us from vessel to vessel. He's like the Potter with the clay, and he works us. And he decided, you know, Joseph's not quite ready for what I have in mind for him.
Into the prison he goes, He's there for a certain number of years, and you would send he was and the Baker and the butcher.
The Butler, the Baker and the Butler are taken out one to a a a deliverance, and one to the fate of death.
And Joseph is wondering. I thought it was my time to come out.
When God says no, I think you're going to be a little longer.
And so, so it is in our lives. I I was in a very humbling trial. Humbling to me.
And I thought I'd gotten the blessing out of it and humbled myself and and.
And gotten the fruit of it in my soul.
And I experienced it because of my own failures.
And we go on. And the Lord has to bring almost the same thing to me again.
It's like I thought I had gotten the blessing out of this. I thought he had accomplished what he wanted, but no, you know.
Little more back in the oven, and so it was with Joseph, but at this point he's exalted.
And we read there in Genesis 41.
Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled. Only in the throne will I be greater than thou.
Pharaoh said, See said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And he took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him investors of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck. And so on verse 45. And Pharaoh called Joseph's names Afnath Payania, and he gave him to wife Asanath the daughter of Potiphar the priest of An. And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt, and Joseph was 30 years old. And so on.
Down in verse 50, verse 50 at Joseph unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came which Asanath the daughter of Potiphar priest of Anne Baron to him, and Joseph called the name of the first born Manasseh.
For God said He hath made me forget all my toil and all my father's house.
And the name of the second he called Ephraim, for God hath caused me to be fruitful.
In the land of my affliction.
This is before the.
Recovery of Joseph's brethren to him.
Before the recovery to Jacob of his long lost son.
Which prefigure?
The coming blessing of Israel.
When God brings them through repentance.
Just like with the Sinner, he brings them through repentance and to the acknowledgement of Jesus as the Christ.
And that will be a touching moment, a touching time, and I believe we will be able to observe that wonderful time.
It strikes me.
That every every significant event.
In the moral history of the world from today forward.
You and I will be part of our witness.
The Lord comes today. We're going to be part of that.
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There's going to be the judgment seat of Christ.
There's going to be the marriage of the lamb and the marriage supper of the lamb.
There's going to be the Lord coming out of heaven with 10 thousands of His Saints when he appears back in this world and he comes with a vesture dipped in blood.
Like Joseph Fester, all of that, we're going to end the recovery.
Of his beloved people.
And the tears that will be shed.
I believe we will be.
Able to witness that.
Because Joseph has a bride here, she's not. Not much has said about her.
We don't read about her having an active role in the recovery of his brothers.
Or with the interaction with Jacob later on, but she's there and she's she's the bride.
Of the rejected one that has now been exalted before the before the recovery of Israel.
And this, of course, to you and me, speaks of his present exaltation at the right hand of God.
And if we kept reading there in Hebrews, we would read the passage that says we see not yet all things put under him.
But we see Jesus crowned with glory and honor, and there he is. All the work has been done.
God has been glorified and raised him in righteousness to that place.
And God now in.
In long-suffering is gathering out of the nations, one by one of people for his name, and when the last one is brought in.
Then the Lord Jesus will begin his work with His beloved earthly people.
But meanwhile he I think Asanath's name means beauty.
I can't exactly remember, but I believe her name means beauty and there she is with Joseph.
Who's a stranger but an exalted one, and she has these two children which Joseph names Manasseh, which means forgetting, and Ephraim means fruitful.
Don't want to tarry too long on this, but.
There must be a lesson that there's a certain amount of forgetting that has to happen in your life and mine if we're going to be fruitful.
Forget also the bride was told, thy father's house. He is thy Lord, worship thou him.
It doesn't mean that we just obliterate memories of things.
As the way I see it, I just submit this to you, but in a certain sense forgetting something.
Is processing something in a proper, moral way so that we're able to move beyond it if we don't do that?
Then what happens is this horrible weed grows in the human heart. That's called bitterness.
And bitterness chokes the human the believers heart, and robs him of fruit, robs him of peace, robs him of joy.
And he or she becomes such a one that defiles many. It's a horrible re wheat in the human heart.
If you lived in in forests, deciduous forests especially.
The forests are designed in a special way that when the limbs and the dead branches fall down, God has organized a way that all of that debris and those leaves and twigs and stuff all gets processed.
And and and it doesn't just build up and build. Otherwise it would just build up and build up and just choke all the trees.
And so it is that there is a right, moral way to process the difficult all the circumstances of our life.
And in doing so we became become fruitful. We see for example with the 12 spies that were sent out, two of them prostate both, they all 12 Saw the same information. They all had like the same data, right As we would speak in modern terms with you younger ones, they all had the same data on the table, but two had a completely different interpretation, interpretation.
Than the other because they processed what they saw in a different way according to their state of Seoul.
And so I I just think it's a beautiful little picture of Manasseh comes before Ephraim. And of course, later on there's the flip. Now let's move to Exodus chapter.
Two I think it is.
In Exodus chapter 2.
We see another man.
Who is in a place of rejection?
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Moses, beautifully in faith, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
He has an exercise in his heart by faith to help his people.
And he goes about it in exactly, I guess, the wrong way.
And any of us that are a little older that have sought to be helpful.
To our brethren or to serve the Lord. Maybe we can relate to rough starts.
And and.
We sometimes.
Have to take a few steps back before we go forward.
And so it is, I think, of Isaac's in Isaac's state when Jacob and Esau came to him.
Jacob deceived him with a hairy garment and all the rest.
And he said.
What's his exact words? It's Jacob's.
Going back there right now, I think it's around 27.
And Isaac says.
Seven and what? Thank you again.
And Jacob went near onto his Isaac, his father, and he felt him and said, the voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands were the hands of Esau, yes.
And sometimes when we're young, or even when we're old, we can we can have Jacob's voice, that is, we want the right thing, but our hands are the hands of easel.
And so God wants us to communicate spiritual things in a spiritual means. We are enabled to take in spiritual things in a spiritual way. He's fitted us that way. And when we respond in service to Him, it's to be done in a way that is in accordance with His Word and with His with and in the right Spirit. And sometimes we have to back up and and realize that.
Those principles of things. And so it was with Moses. He spends, as you know.
40 years I believe it was. And here he is, a great man of the world with all the wisdom of the Egyptians.
He's got all the credentials, and God says, you know what you really need. Moses is the backside of the desert.
What you really need is to learn how to be a shepherd. Because when you're leading my people, you're going to see what unruly people they are, and Egypt is not going to prepare you to lead them in that way. But being a shepherd is is the best way that you can be prepared for what I have for you.
And so in verse.
17/18/17 And the shepherds came and drove them away. This is the daughters of Midian when Moses is out there.
And Moses waters the flock.
And Rule finds out that someone has been helpful to his family.
And says in verse 20, Where is he? Why is it that you have left the man?
There's the man again.
Call him that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with a man, And he gave Moses Zipra his daughter, and she prepared him a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.
Zipper, when you look it up, means a little bird or a Sparrow.
And it reminds me of.
Passage in Psalm 102.
Where the Spirit of Christ in that Psalm.
It says I'm like a Pelican in a wilderness and like a Sparrow alone upon the housetop.
There are certain birds that you see and they're just always in flocks and then you sometimes you see a bird that's proper to.
Flock of birds. And they're alone. It always makes me think of that passage.
The Lord Jesus, of course, walked here.
As a stranger from heaven, and as a lonely man in a certain sense. And he was called by prophetically, the man of sorrows.
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And He prepared his disciples before he went on high, that it would be our pathway to.
To walk as strangers and pilgrims in this world. And yes, we have the fellowship of others of like precious faith at times.
But largely our pathway is is is somewhat alone and singular and we need to get, if I could put it this way, to get comfortable with that.
I was saved and gathered in an assembly where there was only one other young brother.
And but there were all these other brethren, maybe 15 or 20. They were all my parents generation.
But I never felt deprived. I had all these these new, new I was in a new family and we did things together, go fishing together, we go cut wood or do stuff.
And then I went to my first conference and I realized that I was really suffering because there were no young people's meetings where I was and everybody was lamenting and and almost weeping about how bad I had it because I didn't have this, all this young people's.
Infrastructure where I was and I'm like, man, I've never felt like I was missing anything.
And it's good if if you have fellowship of your peers where you are, it's a bonus. But let's remember that we're walking in his steps and we're following him. And oftentimes it's a lonely path. It doesn't mean that we need to be discouraged.
Loneliness and the sorrows that can come from loneliness are different than discouragement.
You can be joyful in tribulation.
You can have joy and sorrow mixed together. It's OK.
It's not a spiritual deficiency when you feel loneliness or feel sorrow and young people if you are isolated as the Western world veers off into its confusion and you find yourself more and more isolated from that.
Take courage. The Lord can sustain you in it. It'll bear sweet fruit in your life if you just walk in that separated path. The last one. Our time is gone anyway in First Samuel 25.
Abigail.
Abigail's the wife of Nabal. He's a wealthy man. He's from the House of Caleb, which is exercising.
And David in his need as he's fleeing from Saul.
Send some of his young men in verse 8.
See if I can pick it out here.
And they come in the name of David. Verse 9. David's young men came. They spake to Nabal, according to all those words in the name of David, and ceased.
They came with his authority, even though they were young men.
And they presented his claim. And Nabal, whose name means fool.
Decides to ignore the claims of the Lord.
As expressed in David.
And David, as you know, gets indignant. Everybody ***** ** your armor. They're going to go, and they're going to take vengeance on Nabel and his household, And Abigail beautifully intercedes.
In keeping David from making that.
From vindicating himself.
And she has the vision of faith, and so in verse.
28I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thy handmaid, for the Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house, because my Lord fighteth the battles of the Lord, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days. Yet a man has risen to pursue thee and to seek thy soul. But the soul of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God, and the souls of thine enemies. Them shall he sling out as out of the middle of a sling.
David doesn't have to avenge himself on Navel. Navel is given a testimony.
And for 10 days he no doubt pondered what had almost happened. His heart became like a stone, and his life was taken from him.
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And by the taking of navel in death, Abigail is separated through death from that former marriage and she's freed.
And David, so.
Encouraged, Thankful. Impressed, if I could put it that way, with the virtue of Abigail.
Asked her to become his wife and she does the beautiful thing about Abigail. One of the beautiful things is what her name means. I think it means the father's joy.
And perhaps you came to Christ because you were burdened about your sins.
Perhaps you came for to Christ because you realized that he said I am the truth.
Perhaps you came looking for peace, or whatever else you came for.
In your soul's experience, But the father actually drew you to himself and to his son.
And God the Father.
Appreciates profoundly the love that you have expressed and the fact that you have bowed the knee to his beloved son. We sometimes, I think over, emphasize, you know, we sing that song sometimes, and in that din of voices, rude. I recognize my own.
And we know that that's where we were in our natural condition.
But on the other side of it, you've been brought by faith to God's beloved Son, and you've bowed the knee. You've confessed Jesus as Lord, and you've believed that God has raised him from the dead, and it has delighted the heart of God.
In John 16 we won't turn to it because our time is gone, but the Lord Jesus says there. I believe in John 16 the Father himself loveth you because you have loved me.
And have believed that I came out from God. It's something, I suppose, we don't often think about, but what appreciation the Father has for everyone that has put their trust in his Son. He witnessed, he observed, and he exercised divine restraint when wicked man took him.
Can you imagine as a father, many of you in this room are fathers? Can you imagine the divine restraint it would have taken when he could have interceded in a nanosecond and he allowed him to be taken by wicked hands and slain? It's just like it happened yesterday to him.
And so, on the other hand, how He appreciates those who have from the heart, with their trust and their love and adoration, into His beloved Son. And so it shall be that throughout all eternity we're going to be.
The intimate companion with Christ, because the mystery of his will is that not only is this Christ that was prophesied of all the way back through all the prophets going to be the head over things on this earth.
And bring peace and rest and joy to this earth. But he's head over all things in the whole entire universe, Angels included, are under his feet now as an ascended man, But the mystery of that as well is that in that place of exultation, he's going to have someone right next to him.
Who is his bride? Who is completely one with him, from him of his nature, completely, as we would say in English on the same page.
Loved reciprocal light and rejoicing, and you and I are part of that wonderful glory.
May the Lord give us to be in the present appreciation.
Of the.
Blessings that we have in Christ. Let's just pray.