The Christian's Food

Deuteronomy 14
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I'd like to turn back to the People's Book Book of Deuteronomy.
And so much tonight we're noticing that in chapter 12, the place is brought before us, the place where the Lord has chosen to place His name.
And in chapter 13, it's the imitators that come in to try to duplicate the place, but they are they are evil, false prophets and so forth.
But do you come to Chapter 14, which will read tonight? It's the food for the believer.
And if you and I are going to have strength for testimony here, we're going to have strength to follow.
The steps of the Lord Jesus, it's going to take food and the right kind of food.
And perhaps so much of the weakness that has come in among us is due to the fact that we have not really been on the right food. Now I want to say one thing before I keep it going here. Would it be a fancy if I took my coat off?
Because you folks are very warm up here.
I come from a country where there's snow.
So I'm going to read part of chapter 14 to.
To give a little picture of food.
Now this verse should really read sons. Ye are the sons of the Lord your God. Though there isn't too much difference between children and sons but.
It should read Sons because a son is here for the enjoyment of his father.
And God has left us here, should we say, for his own?
Enjoyment and gain.
You shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.
For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.
Thou shalt not eat any abominable things. These are the beasts which ye shall eat, the ox, the sheep and the goat, the heart and the robot and the fellow deer and the wild goat in the pie Garn.
And the wild ox and the Shami.
And every beast that part of the Hulk and Cleveland, the cleft into two claws, and chew of the cod among the beasts that ye shall eat.
Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cod, or of them that divide the cloven hull, as the camel and the hare and the Coney. For they chew the cod, but divide not the hoofs. Therefore they are unclean unto you.
And the swine, because it divided the whole, yet cheweth not the card. It is unclean unto you. Ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass.
These you shall eat. Of all that are in the waters, all that have fins and scales shall you eat.
And whatsoever hath not fins and scales, he shall not eat. It is unclean unto you.
Of all clean birds ye shall eat.
And now it mentions 21 unclean birds. And then again it says in verse 20, But of all clean falls ye may eat.
Ye shall not eat of anything that diet of itself.
Thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in my gates.
That he may eat it, for thou mayst, or thou mayest sell it unto an alien, for thou art and holy people unto the Lord thy God.
Thou shalt not see the kid in his mother's milk.
Well, I suppose you feel by now that I feel pretty much at home when when we get pictures of animals. And it's true because I grew up with them. I know their habits and I know how they fit in very much to God's economy. But with this, I'd like to read Titus two-part of that.
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To get the counterpart in the New Testament.
The second chapter of Titus.
And you get almost the same words there, Speaking of a special people or a peculiar people.
Tied us to.
Verse 11.
It never ceases to humble us to think of the grace of God.
When nothing else would do. Verse 11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation doesn't demand it hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly loss, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope.
And the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and in purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
And while we're in the New Testament, turn to Philippians 2.
And as I mentioned in chapter 14, it's really testimony to the world. You know, the world doesn't have their own. They don't have a Bible. They may have it, but they don't read it. And so they read the believer.
So the second chapter of Philippians.
And verse 14.
Do all things without murmurings and disputing, that you may be blameless and harmless. The sons of God. Notice the expression, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as light in the world or stars perhaps.
Give somewhat the thought, and then it adds holding for the word of life.
So in Olympians to you'll have the sons of God mentioned.
And though we here assume that all have come into blessing and are rejoicing in their salvation and rejoicing in the Lord, yet we are called to manifest the blessed Lord in this world. You know, I don't know of an unhappier course than to have one foot in the world and one in the assembly.
You're no good for the assembly and you're no good for the world.
And consequently it brings real unhappiness into your life. But I believe be wonderful if we could be like it says in this first verse. Ye are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves nor make baldness between your eyes for the dead. Well, who are the dead? It's perhaps those that you brush shoulders with every day.
They're the dead. They are dead in trespasses and sins.
And there's a danger with us as we work among those kind or go to school among those kind.
That we might disfigure ourselves for their sake. That is, you might just hide the fact that you're a Christian.
Now if you did that.
You wouldn't be the only one that's done it because.
As a young man I was guilty of that, to pretend that I was not a believer. Sometime I came into circumstances that I I was afraid of.
But the word is, let's not do it. You know, it's so much more wonderful if it comes out that you're a believer, however it comes out. But the sooner it comes out, the better. And I want to tell you something. You don't have to be afraid of it. There's something about even the world respects a man that'll come out and out with his belief, as they put it and so.
There's a real warning to us not to disfigure ourselves in any way.
For the dead. For for the unbelievers.
Because we can give a misrepresentation of our Father.
And this is what a son was supposed to do.
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Then it says, For thou art and holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all nations that are upon the earth. Well, you know it doesn't mean that we're to be peculiar, as a dictionary might give the definition, but it means a special people unto the Lord going to be wonderful to be.
A special people unto the Lord.
Well, we might say, well, life has gone along here. I have lived 20 years and I've got maybe 50 more to go. How can I go well?
Of course, that's not the right kind of reasoning, but perhaps sometimes we reason that way.
But you know, Christianity is a day at a time, just a day at time. It reminds me when I first began to work on the farm that I later on leased.
And the man, you know, it couldn't keep me busy. That was 45 years ago with just the form work. So he had me dig ditches, picking a shovel.
I know I just rather that I didn't mind driving the horses and the combine the plows and so forth. I like that. But just to fill in time with digging a ditches and the picking a shovel. And so the only thing that kept me going was the fact that when I laid the pick and shovel down at night, I had no intentions of picking it up in the morning. I forgot it because I thought, well, tonight the Lord might come and Take Me Out of this world.
And so by the time morning came, well, it was fresh to go again. And it really paid all. And it pays all for you, dear brother and dear young men. It'll pay off for you to, as it were, tread this Christian pathway. And if it gets rough, just as you lay your head on the pillow, say, well, perhaps tonight.
And this is it, and we'll be called to glory.
Now we spoke of the food that's important and necessary, but there is a first statement here. Thou shalt not eat.
Now we often hear this statement, I don't believe in the religion of do's and don'ts. Well, we don't have that kind of religion, do we have do's and don'ts.
But there is this don't that comes in before the food.
The right food is brought in.
And I believe there is a reason for that because.
To eat, you know what abominable things were. Perhaps to nurture yourself on the literature of this world and various things that this world has to offer. Maybe you're taking up certain pamphlets that the camp is produced and you go through them to see if you can find a mistake in them and so forth. Well, in a way, it's apartment to rob you of an appetite for the truth and for the.
Ministry and it's often done it now. I was in a home a while back.
And invited out to a nice dinner in the evening.
And I came in the home about 4:00 and there were a couple of nice children there.
And the Hostess, with all good intentions, I'm sure she wanted to be very.
Very hospitable, she said. A nice.
Box. Not box of chocolates, but a dish of chocolates right on the table in the front room. Well.
I'm not much of A chocolate eater, but there were two children there that were.
And she came in once and she said, have you taken another chocolate?
You know, well, she said you're going to spoil your appetite for supper and so.
She goes out again and of course the same thing happens and so.
She came in and she reprimanded him, said the well, it's going to spoil your supper, Let's see. If it would have been me, I would have taken a box of chocolates or dishes chocolates, and I had to set them up on the piano or up on a cupboard someplace. But I can't understand why she didn't do it. But anyway, it came to supper time.
And sure enough, she had told the truth.
The children began to cry. They didn't want to eat.
And they tried to force them and they wouldn't do it. And so they got sent to bed. Well, the point is, we as believers can do the same thing. We can spoil our appetite for the word of God. And so let's be real careful. We all have to admit that if we step into a home, our home or anybody else's.
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If there's some literature of the world there, we pick it up before we pick up the word of God.
Now, if you're anything like I am, that's what you would do. And the only safety that I have is not to have those kind of things in my home. That's the that's the only safety feature along that line. And so we're told not to feed on these things that would hinder.
The enjoyment of right food.
So now we come to the right food.
These are the beasts which ye shall eat.
The ox, the sheep and the goat.
Now.
These were all used for a sacrifice in relation to the Lord. I mean in relation to.
The Old Testament, they used the ox and they used the shape and they used the goat for sacrifices. And what are these sacrifices speak of? Well, we know what they spoke of. They spoke of Christ. And so we have first the ox.
What? What does the ox speak of? As I am feasting on the ox or Christ as the ox, what am I feasting on?
Well, the ox was that animal that was used to plow the ground, to sow the seed, and to harvest the seed. And so they were especially used in relation to food. Now Proverbs says where no oxen are, the crib is clean. That is, there's nothing, no food in the Manger if there's no oxen.
And so.
We think of the Lord Jesus as that one that went through this scene, the one with with endurance as it were, the one that could say, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. And in every step, as it were, there was that going forward.
If you were to read the book of Mark you would find 40 times that you get the word a non straight way.
And immediately and those words, this was the character.
Of Christ as that servant that went forward, forward. Sometimes we get discouraged.
And hardly know what to do, but wouldn't be wonderful to turn to a portion in the word.
Where our blessed Lord might have been discouraged and He wasn't, He went straightforward.
You know, I was talking to a man that that woodsman and falling trees and dragging them out of the forest and he told me.
And that's been a good many years ago. But he told me that 2 oxen.
Could skid out more logs out of the forest than for good horses.
Because he said the oxen as they, their tubs would tighten and they would just lay in there, the burden as it were, until the log began to move. And then when the log begins to move, then it's it's much easier to go. But he said sometimes you would hit horses to it and they wouldn't work together. They would seesaw and.
Well, again, there's a real lesson in that it's wonderful to be steady and not a seesaw.
You know what I mean by seesaw as a horse, One horse to go forward, the other one back, and then this one go forward and this one go back, and you wouldn't make be making any headway. Well, the Lord doesn't want us to be that way. Might we be as the ox and steady and go forward, and then we have the she. Now the sheep isn't known for its labor, but it's known for its patience.
Well, the the sheep is the character of Christ in his patient suffering.
Are we suffering? How wonderful to turn to a portion in the Word of God where we see this one.
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Suffering patiently, and I just like, for the sake of a little interest, to turn to the 53rd of Isaiah to see something of this very thing.
Now, I wouldn't have picked this up if I hadn't had a little experience with sheep, and I don't say this boastfully, but you know, it's kind of nice sometimes to know what you're talking about. I've heard folks in the city tell stories about sheep that didn't really add up.
And so it says here in verse 7.
Now all through this chapter, the Lord is spoken of as He.
And so it says in verse seven, he was oppressed.
And he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before.
Her sharers is dumb.
Now why the change?
Is referred to as a herd there when it comes here to the end.
When it comes to the slaughter and to sharing.
Spoken of as a herb.
Well, I'll tell you the reason for it is because a male.
Iran doesn't go willingly to the slaughter or to the slaughtering pen.
The some of the men that come around shearing the sheep.
They charge twice as much for sharing a RAM as they do for a you or a female. Because a female does not sense danger, a male does.
If sometimes would have to drag them, as it were, to the slaughter, because they wouldn't come willingly and the same into the shearing pen, they wouldn't come willingly, so you would lose the picture of the Lord Jesus there.
If it would say before his shavers because the shepherd would know there's something wrong here because the male doesn't go willingly. But a you or a female is absolutely oblivious of danger. You open the gate, she runs in, she's absolutely oblivious of any danger. You might hear her cry a little bit. Maybe her lamb is on the outside someplace.
But how accurate scripture is?
And so I was talking on this once and the brother came to me and said how about Acts 8 where it says as a lamb before his shares is done? Well, of course it stopped me for a minute and maybe it still can stop me. But I thought of it in this way that the cross is passed in the eighth of Acts until the Lord comes back in all the power of Iran.
Iran speaks of power.
So it's nice sometimes to see those little points.
And we know that the Lord Jesus did not have to be forced to the cross, no.
He is straightway and he went forth.
So it's wonderful to feed, as it were, on Christ as the sheep, and then you have the goat. Now the goat was also used for an offering.
But the goat speaks of. In Proverbs 30, the goat is said to be stately in going.
Well, there was a certain dignity and stateliness with the Lord in every move.
Whether he met Pilate, or whether he met Herod, or whether he met the Pharisees.
Or whether he met the woman at the well, there was always a stateliness in going.
And it's a real exercise, isn't it, for the rest of us, that we might be stately and going, that there might be some manifestation of Christ in our lives in that way.
They think of the blessed Lord at the age of 12, there might be some 12 year old here tonight, and how he, his parents rebuked him for not being with them after he had been up to Jerusalem and how he turned and went with them and was subject to them. He could say, wish you enough that I must be about my Father's business.
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I believe as much as said, don't you know really who I am?
Mary, one that said, you know the Holy Ghost shall over shadow thee, and that which is born of thee shall be Christ called Christ the Lord the Savior.
But they didn't understand and so the Lord went and was subject at 12. And I'd like to say if there's a 12 year old here tonight, that the Lord can enter into the feelings of a 12 year old. Yes, there might be a one year old. There might be a 2 year old, There might be a three-year old. The Lord can feel for you. That's something Adam could never have done. Adam was created a full grown man.
And if you don't ask him, how does a little boy feel? It's about 7-8 years old, so I don't know. It never was there, but the Lord Jesus went through all that for us.
And I believe the more we with Him, the more our hearts go out to him. It isn't a matter of do's and don'ts by any means, but it's attraction to this one person that we're going to spend eternity with. And He has walked the path before us.
And he, he speaks of following his steps. And Peter, well, then we come to the heart.
Now the heart there is. The special thing about the heart seems to be an inward desire for the Lord, as a heart panteth after the Waterbrook soul, panteth my soul after Thee, O God. Well, this is wonderful. We may have an outward appearance of going on, but in the still more wonderful to have a heart.
That thirsts after the living God.
Well, God and His wonderful grace can give that, and I believe the more we get acquainted with the Lord, the more our souls are going to thirst after Him. And then we have the Roebuck and the fellow deer and the wild goat and the piegog and so forth. The shammy. Well, personally, those are animals I don't know very much about because I've never been a hunter.
Others might we have a man in the meeting that came in late in life, and Walla Walla, Walla that.
Spent most of his life in the wilderness area of things and he told me the other day that.
Deer or Roebuck had no gall. Gallbladder, no gall speaks of bitterness and he said they didn't have any. And he says consequently, in the winter time where an elk might come along and eat the hay, it kills the deer because they're not really fitted for that kind of food. So they have to feed the deer a different kind of a food.
But again, I say I don't know much about them. Maybe you don't either.
But there are a lot of things that we don't know very much about and don't know anything about.
And so when we get to the glory, there's going to be a revelation of things, one thing after the other.
As the hymn puts it, their new wonders daily learning.
Oh, I heard an awful statement last week of a so-called theologian.
That said.
You don't want to go to heaven. What would you do there if you went to heaven?
You wouldn't be at home. I think you can't. You can't stand there. You can't have a lot of fun there. This was a man on the platform told his audience. Well, what enrolls the devil is making in in this way? But let's remember that.
That in Excuse me in the glory, there'll be no dull moment.
Let the devil prompt a man like that to deceive the people. Let's not be deceived. God has brought us into.
A place where the Word of God is taught, where Christ is honored. Let's appreciate it. Think of you, young man. You know the testimony is going to fall on you if the Lord doesn't come. What kind of a testimony are you going to be? Are you going to adopt the ways of the camp? This man, this preacher maybe once was halfway sound, but we're easy tonight.
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Well, don't ever worry that there won't be something.
In heaven.
Well.
Now we come to the characteristics of these these beasts.
Got him also the beast that part of the hoof and cleaveth the cleft.
In two claws and sheweth the card among the beasts that he shall eat. Now what we learned from that? Well, there again those animals we mentioned, they all have two a split hole.
And they all chew the cub.
And the split half speaks of separation. Separation from this world.
And chewing the card speaks of a meditation on the word of God, a meditation on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so it isn't a walk of separation as it were. Apart from that, no, there's a, there's a rumination. The food is taken in. Now you might not know this, but these animals we're talking about have 4 stomachs and they have a rumination that goes on and they get every bit of good out of the food by time it passes through their system.
Well, so he uses the.
The chewing of the cod and the split holes.
Well, now we come to some animals that have just one of these things.
You know, Speaking of a call, for instance, she choose the card and she has a split hook.
But there's something interesting about a call.
She'll go into the Meadow and she'll graze and fill up with food, and then she lays down and she begins to what they call chew the cod. She ruminates the food.
Well then perhaps the milk maid comes along and tap sure on the back and says get up.
And so she stands there as she's dispersing the milk. I mean, the cow is giving milk.
Is the cow aware of that this milk is going to feed anybody? No, she doesn't know. But think of it, If you and I, as it were, have the split off and chew the cod, we can yield some food to others we may not be aware of at all. Again, I say the call was not aware of the fact that she was really nourishing perhaps.
Many, many people.
But now you come to something like the camel.
Now the camel has the.
The solid hoof, like a horse.
And but choose the card.
Well, see, there is a certain chewing of the cod and maybe the right kind of food, but there's no separate walk with it.
And this is very sad today, isn't it? Many souls as it were, embracing the gospel and saying I am saved.
And their life is just like it was before. Fact is, it's very sad that that kind of a gospel being preached today. I heard of a man giving up the gospel and one of his first approaches was that you don't have to change your life at all. You can have the gospel without changing your life. Well, even a man of the world knows better than that. It isn't a matter of having to change your life, but if you're truly saved, you will.
A man of the world.
Like it was asked once, why don't you accept Christ as your savior? And he said I'm afraid I'll have to change my ways. Where did he get that idea? Who told him he'd have to change his ways? Man is simply conscious of the fact.
Well, then we have something else. We have the one that has the split hole, the separate wall.
But doesn't chew the cud like the pig.
And so the sad thing is in relation to that there are, and we spoke over tonight too, there are some separated people.
Some come to our doors and they're dressed nice, they have nice haircuts and everything.
And what they present you with is another gospel.
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But it's so easy to be carried away with them because of their appearance. But the real test would be they may have separation on the outward appearance, but the test would be, do you know Christ as your own personal Savior? That would be the real test. And it's a it's a remarkable thing.
But when I was in the hospital.
My son brought a text in. I was in a hospital that's run by a cult.
My son and they would before this, they would bring poems to me and and scriptural and scripture references and things like that and go as far as to pray at your bedside. But anyway, he brought in a text just to hang at the foot of my bed.
And this text said this unto you, therefore, which believe he is precious. And some of these very devoted ones who come to the room and I say, look at the text and they're lovely text, and they would draw a blank.
Because why? Because they do not know the Lord Jesus personally.
And it's an awful thing, as it were, to walk separate and still be feeding on corruption like the pig does. You know, sometimes you've seen a pig rooting in the water and you hear crackle, crackle, crackle, and you have no idea what they could be eating, but they're getting something down there and all that.
Muck well, you know, this world maybe somewhat refined, but there it's it's mucked. If it isn't Christ well.
Then you come to the fish, which I believe is a real test now, the fish.
It's in his own habitat, he can't get out of it.
Swims down the lake or the river or the ocean. Maybe a shark comes along on one side. Maybe, maybe a swordfish. Maybe here are some little minnows he can't get out. That's his natural habitat. And you and I have our natural habitat. We have a home that we're in. We have a business that we operate. We have a place where we have to work. It's a habitat.
That we can't do anything about.
And so.
It's the real test here.
It says that they have to have fins and scales. Now fins are that which protect you from the mean. Fins are those things that motivate you and scale that that which protects you. Now there are some fish without.
Scales.
But they have fins and there's some that have scales and no fins. And So what it takes in the case of the fish, in the case of our habitat, is the ability and strength to go upstream to meet the current. You know, any fish can float downstream, but it takes a good one to go upstream. And so I believe that we are tested here especially.
In the very habitats we are in, and I believe sometimes we feel the worst in these.
Our own personal habitat.
Handle themselves at home it's so easy you know to father to come home and been working all day and tired and he lets his hair down as it were and and.
Speaks roughly to the children.
So let's be real careful that we might feed on the fish. The Lord Jesus, no matter what circumstance he was in, He went against the current.
And now we come to the birds. The birds speak, you know, of influences, whether good or bad.
And I mentioned here that the first it speaks of you may eat of the clean birds and then it ends up after mentioning 21 birds to eat the clean birds. So a lot of these birds speak of false doctrines. You know, the tree in Revelation 18 became the whole, the hold of every unclean.
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And fall bird so.
There are many of these things that are are loose today, but I believe the reason it doesn't say it doesn't say anything about having anything to do with them because it's a real danger when you try to dabble into some of these false doctrines.
You're apartment to get taken up.
With them, there's a danger some have. I was Speaking of one tonight that got taken up and carried away because.
He searched into it and so.
We don't need to search into false doctrines. Now there are those that have done it for us and that is sufficient. But it's real important to be acquainted with the genuine. If you're going to work at a bank. They don't give you a counterfeit money to test and to feel, though. They give you the real thing and they get you acquainted with that.
Remember one man singing all day long. He was given these coins and this paper money, and he was to feel it.
And So what happened when he got ahold of a piece of counterfeit, it registered immediately. And so it does with those that are trained that way. And so it is here we don't have to look into the false doctrines and see what they teach. An occupation is sometimes more talking about those things than the Lord. But we don't need to. We need to feed on the clean birds. And the Lord Jesus was that clean bird.
He has looked at it as a dog and again I'd like to say about a dove has no gallbladder. No, there's no bitterness there. And so the Blessed Lord is figured as a dog. Different places.
So there again.
You have this.
Precious portion of feeding on a clean bird.
Now we might just roughly pick out a few here. Now, the ego and his family there in verse 12, the Vulture and so forth. They feed on corruption they feed on.
Dead things. Remember years ago we used to drive through the desert leading to Aberdeen and if you drove at night you are banging something. Every little bit you'd hit something.
Something, well, it turned out to be Jack rabbits. It hit them and they were splattered all over the highway by morning when they were so prolific. Well, perhaps by 9:00 or 10:00 the next day, it wasn't the highway crew that cleaned it up. It was the vultures that came out of the desert there and they cleaned up everything.
Feathers. All you could see is little specks of blood. Well.
That's what the Vulture does. He feeds on corruption. But now you come to the Raven. It's a bird that can do bull a Raven can get.
Satisfaction from a dead carcass, or he can eat wheat.
Those are real dangers, kind, aren't they? Those that can preach in all speaks of the word of God.
That speaks of Christ and those that can eat both are are really deceiving sometimes.
Or you might meet a man and say, well I believe that man is a Christian because he said he used the name of the Lord. Well, that doesn't make a man a Christian, but this is sometimes deceiving.
So anyway, you come then to the owl. There's a brother here in the meeting that has an owl. Well, an owl is a creature, at least a wild one. He's a creature of the darkness. There remain hidden during the day, but at home become a dark, and you hear the hooting of an owl. They come to come to life, as it were.
They're an animal that loved darkness rather than light.
All some of these doctrines that are brought to you, you put them in the light and the people run they they don't want to be exposed.
And then you have the swan, for instance, a kind of a beautiful bird, a very attractive, and there are some, you know, that have been attracted to something because it's spacious and beautiful.
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And then there's the these other animals, for instance about.
Well, all these animals work in the dark.
Entrance of a cave. I went into a cave once and I looked back and littered with a bats.
I heard that they get in your hair and you couldn't pull them out. Well, it may be true. That never happened to me and I don't know if anyone had happened to, but this is what is said. But anyway, it was a place I wanted to get out of. And so there are folks, if you ever find a place where there's some of these these creatures that love darkness rather than light, get out.
And now we come to something else here.
You shall not eat anything that dieth of itself. Thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gate, that he may eat it, Or thou mayest sell it unto an alien, for thou art the holy people unto the Lord. Now what does that speak of? A carcass? Something that dies of itself?
No, we find that every once in a while. Cattle.
Go out and you find a carcass.
Maybe a coyote would be eating it. Maybe the vultures. Fact is, I was always suspicious when I began to see vultures. Something has happened now. Neither one of these animals have I ever known to kill an animal, a vulture or coyote. But they're right there when they're dead and so.
It's it's the character of a vulture to eat dead things. It feeds on something dead.
But you know, something that dies of itself has no sacrificial value to the Lord. It's cost nothing.
Being the Lord a dead thing, you know, they did that in Malachi. They brought him the crippled things and the things that they didn't, wouldn't have.
And this is worse yet to bring something that has died of its soul. Well, maybe I could with a little example explain that. And I I trust I'm not offensive in this, but when I was driving the school bus, there was a man that got saved.
And.
He seemed to know one thing would be becoming was the fact that he would give up his pipe.
And so he said. I took my pipe and tobacco and I laid it up on the refrigerator.
As I said, I always felt that that was not consistent with with.
Christianity.
And so.
He said he saw the second day there.
And the third day the largest overcame him, so he went over there to pick it up once more. But his wife had, she had one of these old fashioned cook stoves and she lifted up the lid and she dropped the pipe and the tobacco and everything in there. And that was the end of it. He just took it from the Lord.
Well, in a certain sense, he offered to the Lord something that cost him something.
Well, it's about the same time there was a young man in the gathering who had carried on this way.
And he was having problems and went to the doctor and the doctor said.
If you keep up this habit, you are in line for lung cancer. Well, so he gave it up. But see, there was no sacrificial value in it. He gave it up because he had to, not because of Christ. So when you give up, as it were something, you do it in relation to a living sacrifice.
Now I hope that isn't something over your head that is, maybe I can explain it further, but.
But some of us, you know, we, we perhaps carried on with a thing in this world that we weren't all together happy about. Maybe we were associated with a certain thing that we weren't really happy about and it sort of plagued us. There was a man like this up north. He was he was associated with a situation. And so he says, when I retire, I'm going to.
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Give this all up.
Well.
If there would have been a real exercise before the Lord, he would have given it up for Christ's sake, and not wait till he retired.
Well, a sad thing had happened was the five.
That when the man retired, the Lord took him home.
After retiring, he was going to live holy for the Lord. All associations and everything that were used exercise about and we're going to drop off and he was going to be for the Lord. But you see, there was no sacrificial value in that kind of a thing.
Now you say, you know, I may just give it into a stranger and unto an alien. What? What he got from that? Well, again I like to speak about.
A man that lived neighbor to us now that's a mile away. It isn't like you would say a neighbor here, but anyway, he was a man given to drink and.
When I drove the school bus, sometimes these poor girls had come running out of the house half dressed and crying, and their father had been in a drunken brawl and.
It was real pitiful thing. You know, you do anything if you could help such a situation, but it was impossible. But the day came where equipment he didn't get saved, but he quit it well.
There were no sacrificial value connected with us as far as God was concerned, but the alien and the stranger that is his family and others profited by it.
Well, now you come to one more phrase here.
And that appears three times in the scripture. Thou shalt not see the kid in its mother's mill.
Now what does that mean?
Now a kid and a smother.
There again, it's a very, very visual thing to me.
Know exactly what it is.
There's a mother and she's nourishing her kid with her milk.
But supposing you took the milk and boiled the kid in it.
You it would be offensive to God.
No, I might illustrate it this way.
The milk was to nourish the kid with, wasn't it? Supposing I take the word of God And has anyone ever done it? Taken the word of God and destroyed a child with him?
It's happened.
Remember a boy that I went to visit and I.
Wanted to.
You know, do a little something with him. He wasn't in the meeting, but then he was connected somewhat.
And so he said, I can't come out well, so what's the matter?
He says my.
Sister-in-law who was much older than he is making me right.
A verse in the Bible 100 times. He was a poor writer anyway.
And so he said it's going to take me all day to do that.
Well, she ended up really using the Word of God to make.
The things of God Obnoxious.
Well, perhaps we have done that in lesser degree, maybe more that we have.
Spoiled the kids, as it were, by taking the milk and using it in the wrong way.
That's very important to have our morning and evening reading, but I think it's a very important to to realize the limitations.
Of children, and sometimes there are some very interesting portions that we read.
And perhaps there could be such a thing that after having a little discussion with the children, that they might be.
Able to play, I don't mean grown ones, but youngsters. And if some of us older ones want to carry on a little further discussion, whether it's a wonderful privilege. So we want to be careful that we don't take that which should be for the kids, nourishment.
And destroy him with it.
Only one thought. There's many thoughts in relation to seething a kid in its mother's mill. It's something very unnatural, isn't it?
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And you might say, well, the mother doesn't know anything about it and the kid doesn't know anything about it, but God knows about it and he says not to do it.
I remember Brother Barry once said be careful men, brothers.
About hunting.
Said there's some 3 legged deers around here. Somebody has shot off a leg.
Those creatures belong to the Lord. They get their sustenance from the Lord. And for a poor man.
To do something like that to them again is seething a kid in his mother's mouth Now, perhaps we don't understand that, but we have time to go into it any further.
But let's do remember that we are the sons.
Of the Lord your God.
That the world does not read their Bible, but they read.
This is our only privilege, to suffer reproach for the name of Christ. We won't suffer in the glory.
And then?
The Lord has laid out plainly what we are to eat.
And what we are not to eat.
And again, that's not offered to the Lord, that which costs us nothing. David came forth with that, a dead carcass, though the Lord says keep it.
We sometimes say well done in ignorance, but remember the Lord still has his thoughts.
And his ways in these things, and then again.
Let's not see the kid in his mother's milk, and perhaps you have the opportunity to look into that a little more yourself.