Address—Tim Ruga
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#3 in the appendix.
The Wanderer.
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So this afternoon in the meeting.
We had presented, or this morning I should say, a number of times about the truth of the one body.
And it is on my heart to present something of that, in particular the truth of being gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ on the ground that there is one body.
And I want to do that as simply as I can, starting from Matthew 18 and verse 20.
So let's turn there.
Matthew 18 and verse 24, where two or three are gathered together in my name. There am I in the midst of them.
Now this verse, of course, is found in context, and we're going to consider that context, but I'd just like to.
Explain very briefly what it's speaking about. It's talking about two or three that are gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And there's many things in that that I can't prove to you directly from this verse, but the Scripture bears them out. We're going to look at that this afternoon.
And it says where they are, so gathered there am I.
In the midst of them there is the special presence and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Now, before I go further into this, I just want to say that this is speaking about the assembly, and we know this because the context shows it. And let's just go back up to verse 15 because that's the beginning of this section. You'll see a paragraph mark there and speaking about a case of trespass against a brother.
It says, Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gain thy brother, but if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more.
That in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And so here is a case where you have an attempt to reconcile a brother failing the first attempt, then there's two or three others that are taken with him, and then we have next the assembly brought in if that fails.
Verses 17 to 20 speak about the assembly.
Says, If he shall neglect to hear them, then tell it unto the Church or the assembly.
But if you neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a republican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say unto you, that if two or three, if two of you shall agree on earth, is touching, anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father, which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. And so these two or three that are gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Are spoken of here as.
The assembly.
And the assembly is that.
Expression of what Christians are when they are together in the Word of God. And we want to see what that is.
It says, first of all, we're two or three.
Are gathered now.
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Witnesses are gathered. I know from the grammar I understand this could mean that two or three simply get together, and in fact the words are used that way in First Corinthians 5 and they could be used that way here.
But in no sense is that speaking about how those two or three came to be gathered together.
Scripture is not silent about that. It tells us that there is one who gathers. There's a gathering center that's clear from this verse. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is one who gathers and is not left up to individuals to decide where we are going to meet or how we are going to be gathered. The Word of God presents clearly otherwise, and I want to look at that first.
So let's go over to Mark.
Chapter 14.
Mark 14 and we'll start at verse 12.
And the first day of the week, I'm sorry, the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the Passover, his disciples said unto him.
Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the Passover?
So what is happening here?
And they were about to take the Passover, and it was really that Passover that was immediately before the Lord went to the cross, where He, the true Passover, was to be sacrificed for his own.
And it was on this occasion that the Lord was going to introduce things to his disciples that they needed to know.
Because he was going away. He was going to die.
And he was going to be buried, then rise again, then go away, back to heaven. And the disciples needed to know something about all of that.
And so this is that occasion that we're speaking about here.
And you notice the first thing brought before us by the Spirit of God, who's the author of these words, is that the disciples asked the Lord Jesus.
Where will thou that we go?
Of course they did. He was their Lord. He was there, they asked him.
What it was that they were supposed to do, they didn't go ask someone else. They didn't make up their own mind about it. They asked him.
Verse 13 He sendeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city.
And there shall meet you a man bearing a picture of water. Follow him.
Why didn't the Lord tell them simply where to go?
Why did he tell them to go and they would meet them a man?
The Lord could have told them where they should go. He could have told them himself. He had before, but now he's going away and there's something new. They were going to be committed into the hands of another.
And the Lord's going to tell them about that one.
But first of all, he gives them this object lesson. I don't know who this man was, but I do know for sure that this man is a type of the Holy Spirit of God.
And you see that on his head is a picture of water and the scriptures. We always have these things presented together, the Spirit of God and the Word of God. Ephesians chapter 5, John 13. Many other places connect water with the word of God, the Spirit of God. And then in type is whom they were sent to go and meet, and this one LED them to that place.
They were going to meet the Lord. You see the point at what I'm getting at here this afternoon. Point made countless times by others, but I want to make sure.
That everyone understands it. It's important.
Verse 14 And whatsoever he shall, and whatsoever he shall go in, wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the good men of the house, the Master saith, Where is the guest chamber? Where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared. There make ready for us.
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In just this part his disciples went forth and came into the city, and found as he had said.
Unto them the Lord gave instruction. They went. It was all the way that he said.
Now I want to go and look at what happened when they got there.
And we find the first thing, of course, right here in verse 17. In the evening he cometh with the 12. The Lord himself came to that place that he had appointed.
They found him there.
I want to see now what he said when he got there. Let's turn over to John.
John chapter 14 and I'll just refer to the end of chapter 13 because in chapter 13 the Lord Jesus introduced to them as he had already before that he was going away and this of course made the disciples very sad. So John 14 and verse one he said let not your hearts be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And so the Lord sets their hearts and their minds at ease, that with this wonderful fact that yes, He was going away, but he'd come back again.
And we enjoy that. And I'm going to pass on because that's not my subject.
My subject instead is the next question that they had and that the Lord answered.
And that is OK. What about the time until you come again?
And the Lord goes on to answer that in this chapter, and it's important to see it.
Verse 16 he says I will pray the Father.
And he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever.
Even the spirit of truth. And so the Lord Jesus speaks about one who he calls a comforter here, which I understand we don't have an exact word in the English language that expresses what the original was here Mr. Darby says something like a solicitor, but looking it up and and really.
Looking at what that word means, solicitor is pretty close. It's somebody who takes care of all of your affairs.
In the Greek I understand his paracletos.
In Malawi, they had almost an exact word called Chinkos way, and the Chinkos way was someone in the family who just took care of everything.
And I want you to notice one little word that we often skip over here. It's so important. The Lord Jesus says I will pray the Father and He will give you. He doesn't say He will give you a comforter. He does not say that He says He will give you another comforter.
Why does he say another comforter?
It's because he himself was that one who took care of all their affairs. That is why they said, Where wilt thou that we prepare the Passover?
Of course they asked him. He was the one who took care of all those things.
And he was going away and he says, I'm going to send another one, another like myself. And so it was that he was committing them into the hands of another. That's why that object lesson was so important. When they even went to that place, the Lord was at least getting them used to this idea that he was going to be gone, but they weren't going to be left as orphans.
There was going to be one who was going to come. That one was going to have a ministry on this earth of leading and guiding and directing them. In John chapter 1415 and 16, the Lord goes on to explain much about that ministry of the Holy Spirit, and we could spend the whole rest of this meeting on that, but we won't. We're going to pass on. I just want to refer to what we have just one verse in Romans.
Chapter 8, I think it's verse 14. It says as many as are led by the Spirit of God. They are the sons of God.
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As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. The Spirit of God is the one who is here on earth today.
Leading and directing. He hasn't gone away. The Lord said the end of verse 16. That he may abide with you forever.
And he meant it. The Holy Spirit is with us right now. He has this ministry of leading and guiding. And so just like the disciples wouldn't go and say we're just going to pick a nice place to prepare the Passover, so it is today that we don't go and say we're going to pick a nice place where we're going to have the remembrance of the Lord and meet with him in that place and expect that he's going to be there.
That isn't the teaching of the Word of God.
I don't say that if you did that, that the Lord wouldn't bring blessing. No doubt He would.
But the teaching of the Word of God is what we're occupied with today, and that's what I want to show in the time that we have. Let's go back to Matthew 18 and verse 20.
Four where two or three are gathered together.
Why does this stay together?
If it just said where two or three are gathered, wouldn't they be together?
Yes, they would or they wouldn't be gathered. But obviously then this word gathered goes beyond just a simple fact of being together.
And this is what our brethren were getting at in our meeting this morning.
That the Word of God teaches.
That the Spirit of God gathers believers together.
The Lord spoke of it.
While he was here on Earth. And I'd just like to go look at a few. We'll refer to one, but let's go back, or forward, I should say. Matthew, chapter 20.
Six, I believe it is. I'm sorry, Chapter 23.
Matthew 23.
And verse 8 the Lord said to the disciples, he said, But be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.
That's interesting, isn't it?
There's not many rabbis and rabbi means instructor, teacher. There weren't many teachers and many groups of brethren. The Lord said no, it's not going to be that way. There's only one. It's the Lord himself. This isn't to deny that we don't have features. We do. The New Testament plainly teaches that truth and we enjoyed it this morning. But.
It's saying that there's one instructor overall, and that's the Lord Jesus.
Himself and all the others are brethren, and you don't see that broken down into separate groups.
Go to John chapter 10. We have this brought out in a little bit different way.
John 10 and justice for context in this chapter quickly, the Lord was speaking about a fold. That fold was Israel.
And of that fold there was a true shepherd, and it was the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And he wasn't just the true shepherd, He was the Good Shepherd that gives his life for the sheep.
And so he was the true and the Good Shepherd of Israel, but not them only. And this we have in verse 16 he says other sheep I have which are not of this fold.
Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be. Now this is something we need to correct in the King James. It's not one fold, it's one flock. There shall be one flock and one shepherd, only one. And that's not Israel.
That's other sheep that weren't Israel brought together with those of Israel.
Put together, now there's a flock and we could speak a lot on what that means, but very simply we can see again that the Lord is teaching that it's only one, only one shepherd, only one teacher, all the rest, brethren. And if we turned over to John chapter 17, we see that the Lord prays to His Father.
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And there he prays for these same disciples.
But just like he says here, he prays for others who should afterwards.
Believe through their word. That's you and that's me.
And he prays four times over that they might be one.
That they might be made perfect in one. That they might be one. That they might be one.
That prayer, of course, was answered.
And it's true, just like all the rest is true. There's only one teacher, everyone else's brethren. There's only one Shepherd.
All the rest of us are his flock.
And there's only one family of God. We're all that have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, all in that family, not just those here, but every believer on the face of this earth.
We are all part of that one family.
But you see again the importance on that issue. Yes, God made it perfectly true. But what I'm getting at here this afternoon is we're not giving truth just to have an abstract idea or to know something about the future. We're given truth so that we can act on it. Now, what good is it? Well, there is good, but we lose much, let me put it that way, if we have these truths presented to us.
And they have no present effect in our life. It's so important that we understand that there's a practical side of everything that we've been talking about here today.
And this truth goes on to something more intimate and close to the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
Because the Lord Jesus did die.
And he did rise again.
And he was.
Received up by God into heaven, he ascended there and sat down in the right hand of God.
And then there came a time when the Lord Jesus received that promise of the Father that he spoke about in John chapter 14.
And that occurs in Acts chapter 2, which for the sake of time.
We won't turn 2, but Peter says when the Holy Spirit came down on the disciples at that time Peter explained it. He said this is.
That which the Lord Jesus received, He has poured out on you all, the Holy Spirit. He received that promise of the Father, He poured him out.
And as a result of that, what happened? Well, we know that the Holy Spirit came to earth. We know that we received our guide, that one who would take care of all of our affairs. But what happened? What did that really do? Let's go over to 1St Corinthians chapter 12.
1St Corinthians 12.
And we'll just start at verse 12. For as the body is one and half many members, and all the members of that body being many, are one body, so also is the Christ or Christ, For by 1 Spirit we are, are we all baptized into one body?
Whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free. And have it all been made to drink into one spirit?
The Spirit of God was poured out on that day and all the believers that were there.
And not just them, He says we all, we have been baptized into one body. That's what happened on that day. They were formed into this single body of Christ. He himself, the living head in heaven, had received the Spirit. He poured out the Spirit of God on them and the baptism that then formed them into one body, his own body on earth.
And the point that we have before us today.
Is that emphasis on the word 1?
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It's not arbitrary, This thought of one body we have over and over again, and that's what we need to see in connection with our subject. Let's go to Romans chapter 12.
Romans 12 and verse 4.
For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ.
And everyone members of another. You see how integral this is? All the members all forming one body.
And it's true. It isn't just those who act practically on this. Again, I'm going to emphasize that it's a simple fact. Every believer is part of this one body. No believers left out of it.
All members of one body, but we are called to act practically on it, and that was referred to already this morning. Let's just go to Ephesians 4.
Ephesians 4.
And we can read from verse one. Your brother David explained a lot of this already, so we'll just read it.
And I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. I want to read that part at least, indicating, as our brother said, that we have responsibility, not good enough just to have truth presented to us. We are called to walk in it with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.
Endeavoring to keep.
The unity of the Spirit.
Oh, you see that the Spirit of God very much has something to do with us.
Yes, he is here. He has a ministry, and that ministry, among many other things, is that there's a unity. He gathers believers together, and he has a unity that he desires to be expressed practically while we're here.
It says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. And what does he bring up immediately?
There is one body.
You can't read these verses and say, yes, I acknowledge there's one body, but it has no present application to me. No, it's put together here with this thought of unity that is of the Spirit, and we are told that we are to endeavor to keep it, you and I, that's our responsibility.
I want to go to one more in Colossians.
Just on this point.
Colossians 3.
As this emphasizes a slightly different part of it. Colossians 3 verse.
15 Let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which ye are called in one body, and be thankful.
To which ye are called could be to which you have been called. It sounds like it means pretty much the same thing. And that's exactly what it does mean. You are called to it. It's not some future thing. We know for a fact that when we all believers get home to heaven, we're going to be one. Of course we are.
But we're called to it now. You have been called to it. This is present truth right now for us today.
And I'm going to just ask a question for you to think about because.
Because many have said, yes, I see all of that, but it's not practical to walk in it today.
Would the Spirit of God in these scriptures have given us this truth repeated over and over and over again so many times if it wasn't possible to walk in it?
I'll leave that question with you.
For me the answer is very simple. No, we are responsible to walk.
In this truth big of expression to it.
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First Corinthians chapter 10 is another part of this truth that we often enjoy showing the importance of it.
1St Corinthians 10.
And.
Verse 15 I speak as to wise men. Judge you what I say.
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.
That night when the Lord.
Was with the disciples there at the Passover.
He instituted this feast of the Lord's Supper.
And he said to them, when he gave them that loaf, he said, take, eat. This is my body, which is for you.
And of the cup, this is my blood. These symbols we know are very, very important symbols. They speak of the Lord Jesus Christ in his work on the cross, giving himself, shedding his blood.
And isn't it interesting that here the Spirit of God takes that very symbol by which the Lord gave his life?
And connects it with the fact of what he gave his life for.
That he would have a body and a bride and that loathe before it is broken speaks of the fact that there's one body.
And from this verse at least, we know that meeting together to remember the Lord.
It's very important that we do it in the way that he is appointed. It gives expression to the fact that there's one body.
This is no idle thing. I hope we can all see that many people pass on from these verses and from these thoughts and think, well, that's not a major truth of God.
If that was true, why do we have it over and over again? This is dear to the Lord Himself.
Let's go on to.
The First Corinthians chapter 12, again, back where we were. So I just want to talk just for a minute about what that body is.
That isn't not just a group of things or a group of people. In our case, we might talk about a body of knowledge.
It's not like that. It's often been said it's not an organization, it's an Organism. And that's true because it's living.
And Paul learned this at the moment of his conversion. The Lord struck him down on the Damascus road and said.
Saul saw Why persecutest thou me?
He learned right at that moment that he had touched the Lord's people, and in doing that he touched the Lord himself. And that's what this body is. It's a living Organism, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not some abstract idea that he's away in heaven representative. No, he's vitally connected with his body.
And I'm saying this because it again emphasized, emphasizes how important this truth is.
And what we have here.
It says in verse 20.
Six. Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.
Or one member be honored. All the members rejoice with it.
That's quite an expression of unity, isn't it?
And so it is. This body is one, and we actually do feel it. And Brother Bob was talking about that earlier this morning, that these ones are suffering. Maybe we don't feel like we should, but we do feel it. It's real.
But the practical side of that is we should act it out as well if we really believe that we really need to act on that, to be together with others, but not again to choose that ourselves. I'm going to come back to that. The Spirit of God is the one who will gather Christians together on that principle that there is one body so that it can be acted out in practice.
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It says here.
Verse 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and members in particular. Does that mean that that Corinthian assembly was a whole body of Christ? Of course not. The Holy Spirit baptized all believers into one body. And we see this also from the next verse which says, and God has set some in the church or the assemblies first apostles. Did he put all the apostles in the Corinthian assembly?
No.
This is speaking about not the Corinthian assembly, but the whole body of Christ, and they were simply representative of that locally. That's what they were. And notice too what it says about them and members in particular.
What were they members of? Were they members of the Corinthian church?
No, absolutely not. They were members of the body of Christ.
And get this.
The Word of God shows no other membership.
That's all we have. You're a member of the body of Christ, or you're a member of something. You may still be a member of the body of Christ, but if you take another membership, you're going outside of what the Word of God recognizes. This is the only membership recognized in the Scripture.
Well, for the sake of time, I just want to go and just abbreviate this a little bit. Ephesians chapter one. I'm sorry, 1St Corinthians 1. Let's go back to the first chapter.
Because the thought naturally comes up what of divisions and I don't want to spend a lot of time on that, but I do want to just suggest a few things about it.
First Corinthians one and verse 10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
And so that was the instruction. That's what they were asked to do right then. At that time, things were coming in by where they were going to start to divide. They hadn't yet inside the assembly. There was these divisions going on. There were still one assembly, but divisions were coming in already.
And he says here it have been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the House of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I have Christ. You see what they were doing? They were starting to follow leaders. It wasn't anymore. One is your teacher and your old brethren, was it?
That's what the Lord said it was supposed to be.
But they had gotten away from that somehow.
And say, well, So what if they did? That doesn't affect the fact that there's one body, does it?
Actually no, and actually yes.
They can't do anything to affect the fact that there's one body, because God has done that and nothing that man does can destroy that.
But what they were doing was denying it, and that was unacceptable. Look what Paul says next. Is Christ divided?
Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? And so on.
When we don't act practically on this truth.
To be gathered together by the Spirit of God.
With the Spirit of God would have us on this ground that there's one body.
Or even if we do what they did in this Corinthian assembly.
That is to have divisions among ourselves, and we have to hang our heads, I'm afraid, on that one.
Then we are suggesting that Christ is divided.
Even though he isn't and he couldn't be.
But that is what in effect we're saying by our actions. This is a serious issue and it wasn't me who put it this way.
It was the Apostle Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God.
We could go on. Chapter 11 takes the thought just a little bit further.
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There was going to be a day in that assembly when there was no longer just splits inside the assembly, but there was going to be a full open division and another one.
And you say, well then everything is destroyed. You no longer can do any of this. But the Spirit of God says that the approved may be made manifest among you. And so when that happened in the Corinthian assembly, and I know nothing about it other than what it says in Chapter 11.
When that happened, there were those who were approved.
And obviously and necessarily, there were those who were not.
And so God still has a place where we can meet together. He gave these scriptures so that we might have a foundation for how it is that he desires us to meet. And why I'm going through all of this is you say, well, what's the point? Don't we just follow the Spirit of God and just go wherever he says?
Yes, we do, but don't forget that that man had a pitcher of water on his head. And the Spirit of God never ever leads contrary to the Word of God. And so we will find that place where the Spirit of God leads believers to be gathered together to be consistent with the Word of God. And that's why we're going over these principles.
The Spirit of God wrote these things down. He uses the word of God.
In that process of guiding his own to the place where he desires they should be gathered together. Now let's go back to Matthew 18.
Matthew 18 Four where two verse 20 where two or three are gathered together.
In my name, or to my name unto my name says There am I in the midst of them, just a few words on in my name.
And we sang together thy precious name. It is thy bear.
Tells us in Acts Chapter 11 That the disciples were first called Christians.
At Antioch and then the Spirit of God took.
That word, that name by which they were called, and sanctions it not only by mentioning it there, but in first Peter chapter four, he says if any man suffers a Christian, he shows that this is what we're called by the name of Christ. That's what Christian is one who is called by Christ. We bear his name.
I really enjoyed how a brother in Malawi.
With explaining these things, one day he actually turned to a gospel verse. He went to Acts chapter 4 and verse 12 where it says there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And his comment that I enjoyed so much was this, that God hasn't given any other name by which we must be saved.
And he hasn't given any other name by which we must be gathered either. It's the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see that that's the name that God has taken and exalted above every name in Philippians 2. That is the name of Jesus. Every knee should bow, every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And so these ones are gathered.
To the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what the Spirit of God does. He's not here.
To speak of himself, the Lord says in John 16, No, he speaks of me, and he gathers believers together to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then what does the Lord Jesus say?
He says there am I in the midst of them.
Now we could take a lot of time on this too, but speaking about the presence of the Lord Jesus and in context here, it's speaking about His authority.
But it goes beyond to His presence in a special way. There's simply no question of that. And the Scriptures present that you say, isn't the Lord Jesus present everywhere?
Yes, of course he is. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be God.
One of the attributes of God is that he's omniscient. And the Lord Jesus could say in John chapter 3, no man hath come down from, has ascended up into heaven, except you came down from heaven. Even the Son of Man who is in heaven, the Lord Jesus. I said omniscient, I meant omnipresent. The Lord Jesus is everywhere at once. That's his attribute of being God.
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Omnipresence.
And so he is, isn't he with every believer?
And in a special way.
Yes, of course he is. In Hebrews 13 tells us that He says I will never leave you nor forsake you. We have those promises and we know it's true.
But there is yet another way spoken of in this verse.
That the Lord Jesus is with his own that are gathered to his name.
You get something of the idea of in Exodus 33, which we won't turn to. But Moses says to the Lord, if thy presence go not with us, then we will not go up, Heather. And the Lord says, my presence will go with you. Wasn't the Lord always with them? Yeah, the Lord everywhere. Jehovah was everywhere. But that special presence is what Moses was looking for. And here the Lord says, I will be there.
There am I in the midst of them, and if you went over to 1St Corinthians chapter 5, you'd find more taken up on this subject of authority. It says there in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together. Let me see it again there. That's the other sense. By the way, the Corinthian assembly came together at that time.
And the Lord says.
That is in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that came together in a special way.
And there it was, that they had the Lord there.
And the power of my spirit with our Lord Jesus Christ, He said, to commit such a one to Satan. The authority of the Lord was there to do it. And when they did that, he speaks to them at the end of the chapter, he says.
Do not you judge those that are within?
Now that was a day of simplicity. The in the within was just inside the assembly, which was, as we saw, a representative of the whole body of Christ.
And that was given to them to judge. And that without he speaks up next, them that are without God judges. That's Speaking of unbelievers, the lost in the world. And that's all you had at that time, just those that were within and those that are without. Today there's confusion of man, but it still doesn't change.
What God set out in His Word is what He desired.
We have that here in Matthew 18 as well, verse 18.
Verily I say unto you that whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So the Lord is speaking about the fact that these ones who are on earth without Him present as to His physical body, we're going to bind something, and it wasn't going to be bound just in the assembly there.
It was going to be bound in heaven and the same with the loosen.
Which shows that this was something that was done because the Lord and it says that plainly.
For or because where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. They had the authority to do it because he was actually there, even though they couldn't see him.
It's important.
And so.
They were.
Given this authority to act.
In the name of the Lord and I just want to say our time is over here.
That these are principles laid out in the scripture.
I trust that I've shown that.
For today, the truth is that the Spirit of God is gathering through the name of the Lord Jesus. He himself is still in the midst according to this promise. There's still this authority to act, and you and I have responsibility as to what we do with this truth.
We have responsibility before the Lord. Nobody going to come up to you or to me and say you have to do this.
But one day we all give an account, and I'm going to stop with that. Except that I don't want to end on a bad note.
00:55:01
There's a beautiful side of this that I just love.
I don't know that every Christian appreciates these things.
But every single one will, and there's a verse that speaks of it, and I love the verse. Let's go there to close the meeting. 2nd Thessalonians 2.
2nd Thessalonians 2 and verse one.
Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And they're gathering together unto him.
Not one.
Will be missing.
We're all going to be perfectly gathered one day.
But am I going to give the Lord the privilege of being gathered to His name before that day?
I trust.