Address—D. Buchanan
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We sing him together. Hymn #172.
I'll teach us more of thy blessed ways, thou holy Lamb of God.
And fix and rudest in Thy grace, as those redeemed by blood tell us often of thy love, and of all Thy grief and pain. And let our hearts with joy confess that thence comes all our game, 172.
Oh, teach us more.
Of God.
Praying by Gray.
0325 1.
Oregon.
I would like to speak this afternoon briefly.
About the Lord Jesus as the pattern or example.
Of godliness.
Godliness. Propriety.
That which is.
Real worship or reverence to God out of His people.
We've had the Lord Jesus.
Focus before us, and I believe we'll find that the Lord Jesus is the pattern of that display of what godliness is.
Many times when we think about godliness, we think of how.
We look within ourselves and say.
I want to be a good representative of God. I want to be godly. I want people to see Christ.
That's a good desire.
But we must approach this subject in the right way, and the right way is not by looking within.
The right way.
Is looking to the one who is the pattern of godliness.
The author and finisher of faith. The one who, as a man, walked here on earth.
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And gave us a perfect demonstration of what a godly man is.
So he hasn't called us to do something. He hasn't already walked.
In and showed forth.
First Timothy, chapter 3.
We like to read these last few verses of this third chapter beginning with.
Verse 14.
These things right I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly.
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou Artest to behave thyself.
In the House of God.
Which is the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground.
Of the truth.
And without controversy.
Greed is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh.
Justified in the Spirit.
Of angels.
Preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
Here we have the apostle Paul writing to Timothy and giving us.
The order in the House of God. And it's often been commented that this first epistle of Timothy is the pattern of the House of God.
It's the instructions of how.
Timothy was to establish the assembly in the beginning.
After the right pattern.
And it's been compared to a model home.
Where a builder will have a pattern house a a model home that he builds and furnishes, and that anyone interested in a home can go walk through and see.
Visualize experience.
And appreciate.
This home that will be built for you.
And so God gives us.
In first Timothy this pattern.
And this 16th verse, or the 15th verse here I believe is the key verse.
To this epistle.
And so as we think about being the House of God, the place of witness.
To carry on the order that God would have us as his people.
For God has left us. The Lord Jesus has left us in this world.
To be his representatives.
The Lord Jesus was rejected and cast out.
So he spent the Spirit of God down to gather us together in one body.
To build his house. To form his house.
And we that are left here in this world.
Are the representatives of the testimony that God would have this world deceive?
And so we have to stick close to the pattern.
If we're going to represent the Lord the right way.
And I'm sure that each one of us here in the room has that desire to.
Be a good representative, to be a good pattern, to let the world know what the Lord is like, to reflect Him properly, to be a godly witness.
To our Savior.
In the Old Testament, we know God had a temple. He had a Tabernacle.
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And many of us have appreciated the studies of those who have gone into the dimensions in the pattern. And there's beautiful pictures and.
Teachings that we can learn about God by studying how he had.
The house built, or in that case the Tabernacle or the temple, everything was according to the model.
That was shown. Like Moses, David got further instructions too.
And we have a pattern in the Book of Ezekiel of a coming temple too.
It all has its meaning.
So Paul here writes to Timothy with this in view.
Thankfully, this has been preserved to us today.
You know, if we look out on the Christian testimony today.
We and we judge what God was like by what we saw.
We wouldn't come to a very correct conclusion of what God's like.
When we went over to Romania.
Number of years ago after the communist regime fell.
There was a great hunger and thirst to receive from the so-called Christian lands, the Western.
World.
That we're known to be.
Christian countries and there was a hunger and a thirst to receive people from Europe and the Americas, where there was a nominal at least witness to what Christianity is about.
And it was so sad to see that along with.
Sincere Christians that would go.
And open up the Bible as some of us ought to do in those early days.
There was also.
An influx.
Of all the worldly things.
Of the Western world.
The very soon dominated.
All the magazines.
All the Christian profession.
Ways of organized Christianity immediately also came in.
And filled that land.
It didn't take very long until those who were sincere believers.
Who had a?
Sincere desire to follow the Word of God.
That had been partially caught off guard and before they realized that all kinds of corrupt and wrong things came into the Christian churches over there.
And worldly practices and dress.
And models.
And as the years went by, the barriers started going up.
We don't want this. We don't want this.
There's another element that readily would receive that kind of thing.
Where was the godliness of the Christian testimony?
People judge Christianity by the outward things that they see.
They do not distinguish between those that are truly gathered to the Lord's name and those that meet.
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And other churches with all their kinds of doctrine, they don't see the difference in that.
And so.
The Savior of Christ.
Is lost because of the Christian testimony.
Godliness.
I like that little saying.
Preach Christ at all times.
And if necessary, use words.
That is, people read us by how we live and what we do.
They detect.
Piety.
It's important.
How are we going to be godly?
I believe the following verses are the secret.
Great is the mystery of godliness.
And then it proceeds to give us that which is really clearly.
A testimony of what the Lord Jesus Christ was.
When here on earth?
I believe the Spirit of God is.
Pointing us and saying there's only one man, there's only one godly 1.
That I can give you an example.
That's my son, the Lord Jesus.
Our Lord Jesus.
When Moses went up on the mount and got the pattern of the Tabernacle the first time.
Are the 1St.
Not the first time he went up, but the first Tabernacle.
He was there 40 days.
The second time when he came down his his face shone because he had been with God and he was.
A witness.
He was the godly man. They saw the godliness.
They saw it reflecting in his face. In fact, it was so bright.
He had to put a veil over his face because they weren't godly and he was.
Or they hadn't been with God and He had.
Now in the New Testament, we know Corinthians takes this up and says that we view Christ through an unveiled. That is, there's no need to cover it up because it's too bright for us because we now have the life and nature by the Spirit of God.
We can take these things in, We can appreciate first hand who Jesus Christ is and look to Him in glory and see him for who He is.
This is how.
Comes out of us.
I might I might comment just a little more on the end of the 15th verse.
The House of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. The church is not the truth. Jesus Christ is the truth, and we have the word of God which is the truth, but we are the sustainer or the pillar and the base, and so the Christian Church.
God's assembly, the House of God is to be.
That representation?
Of the truth.
Not very much of it gets across.
Today.
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In the world.
But there still is a Savior of Christ. We're still, even though we're at the last time in the darkest hour.
We still have this opportunity.
Of representing our our, our our Savior.
The church or the assembly that he has formed?
Verse 16.
Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.
This is a great and wonderful thing. I believe it's called a mystery here because it's not readily seen.
But I believe if.
The people of God.
Look to the Lord.
Learn of him.
Live Christ, it will no longer be a mystery.
They will see it.
But it needs people to show it out.
What a wonderful privilege.
To show it out. Godliness or piety?
It's a little like the mystery in contrast, the mystery of iniquity.
Which is.
It's spoken of in Thessalonians about the Antichrist.
It says the mystery of iniquity was already present.
But at the end of time, when the Antichrist comes forth, it's no longer going to be a mystery. It's going to be a full-fledged, revealed, plain, evident Antichrist.
There's a spirit of God that would hinder it being manifesting itself in its full-fledged form.
Here, it's not the iniquity, it's godling.
That is spoken of as a mystery.
I believe the Lord would have us to.
Not having a mystery, have it opened up so people can see what it is.
And the only way a lot of people are going to get it is if they see it expressed.
In a living practical example.
Of one who lives.
Like God.
Or in piety.
God was manifest in the flesh.
Mr. Darby also has a footnote saying it could be translated. He was manifest in the flesh, and I've taken it this way. I don't know whether this is right, but it isn't just the thought that it was God come in flesh, but it was godliness in flesh.
He's pointing the finger here to the practical, living example in display of the Lord Jesus.
In a human form.
Of our likeness.
He didn't take the form of an Angel, he took the form of a man, and he lived among us.
And a little later, we're going to at least turn to one gospel and notice something of of that godliness or piety.
God.
Came down.
Jesus Christ.
Was manifest.
In the Flash.
Complained about how God was in a far off place and he couldn't get near him.
Or he couldn't reason with him to resolve his problem.
But when Jesus?
Became man.
No one can can say.
God isn't near and living among us and giving us a demonstration of what He's like.
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That's what the Lord Jesus did. He revealed to us like no one else. What?
God is like we learn more about what God is like through him than anyone else.
This is why this is the secret.
To godliness.
Look at him.
He shows us he didn't just preach it, he lived it.
Godliness isn't isn't a doctrine, it's a life lived.
It's something in evidence by the way you behave. That's what it talks about here. That will misbehave. How the the artist know how the artist to behave. It's behavior.
Justified in the Spirit.
These are indeed profound words here.
I'm surprising myself to even be Speaking of them because they're so profound, I believe.
The Lord Jesus as he walked here as a perfect man.
Was always.
Guided by the Spirit of God. Never took an action without the guidance of the Spirit of God. I believe this is.
Picture to us in the anointing of the priest in the Old Testament, the oil.
With the oil, which is a picture of the Holy Spirit.
And so the Lord Jesus.
Because he always looked.
To the Spirit of God as a dependent man, as a perfect man here on earth. We're not talking about his divinity. We're talking about his humanity.
As a man, he walked and talked among us, and he gave us a perfect example of how we should always.
Seek to be guided by the Holy Spirit.
It's when we look to ourselves or other resources for guidance that we go astray.
We don't need to be afraid of what's going to happen if we look to the Lord for guidance.
We may make a mistake, but we can be sure that the Spirit of God will stop us.
Or change our course. Paul made certain decisions to do certain things and when he prayed about it says the Spirit suffered him not.
And so the Spirit of God could give his stamp of approval.
On everything that Jesus did.
He was justified.
In the Spirit.
There may be other meetings too, but.
Just share that with you.
Seam of angels.
Her brother commented. Brother Lemoine commented about that yesterday very nicely.
When the Lord Jesus was born.
Here on Earth, in his incarnation, the Angel saw.
God for the first time, for God is the Spirit.
And until God had taken the form of man with their physical eyes, if I may put it that way.
They had not seen their creator.
And they they, they praise God on that scene.
In Bethlehem.
But it says scene of angels.
They are the spectators.
But we're more than spectators, brethren.
He didn't take the form of angels to redeem angels. He didn't take the form of angels.
To rescue them or to bring them into adoption, into the family.
He chose man.
And so there's a difference here.
Preached.
Unto the Gentiles are the nations.
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He's presented to us. The message is to us. It's witnessed of the angels.
And so.
That's why it speaks of the.
For example, in connection with the head covering.
The angels look down and see the order among us.
And when they see that new subjection, they notice it.
If they were ever in subject.
They would be forever doomed.
What a wonderful thing to appreciate.
That God became man, and he.
Preached to us, he's presented to us.
Scene of angels.
And it says of the angels too, they witness in the in the assembly the manifold wisdom of God.
But we are the chosen ones.
If that gets a hold of our souls.
It will make us godly.
You know, it's nice to see when a young couple gets married.
How they like to be like each other. A lot of times they dress alike, use the same colors and so on. And.
And.
It's nice.
It's natural. It's in its order.
And it should be that way with us and the Lord Jesus too.
The more we appreciate about him, I believe the more we're going to want to be like him.
And a testimony will result.
But the testimony, the godliness, won't shine out.
If we start being, if we occupy ourselves with being that godly one or that testimony.
A secret?
Look, Jesus.
And so this list here presents to us that pattern of godliness in a person.
The Lord Jesus.
We can also read it and apply it to ourselves.
And individually.
Seek to be those the various things here.
And represent the Lord Jesus in that way. Behave in the House of God.
Like these verses say.
Preached unto the Gentiles, Believed on in the world.
And then it closes, received up into glory.
I really enjoyed the comments that Bob made about Our Calling.
We have a heavenly calling.
We have a heavenly calling because Jesus was received up into glory.
And he's calling us there, too.
And that's what will make us like him.
If we forget that calling, if we forget where our destiny is, where Jesus is and where he's going to take us, it's so easy to become earthly minded or worldly Christians.
We ever lose the hope of the coming of the Lord.
We will become worldly.
The Lord Jesus was received up in glory. Soon we will be there too.
Now I'd like to go back to the Gospel of Mark and Justice. Notice one little portion.
About the Lord Jesus in his life here on earth in chapter 10.
This these verses have been referred to more than once already in this conference.
In Mark's Gospel chapter 10.
Beginning with verse 17.
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And when he that's the Lord Jesus was gone forth into the way.
There came one running and kneeling to him, and asked him, good master.
What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one that is God. Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not honor thy father and mother.
And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed.
From my use.
Then Jesus beholding him, loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest, go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor. Thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross, and follow me.
And he was sad that thing, and went away grief, for he had great possession.
Too bad we have to read that last verse.
But it teaches us a very important lesson.
Not even the best of men.
Have it in themselves.
To be that godly 1.
But the Lord Jesus met this man where he was.
He didn't.
Correct him and say you're all wrong.
He points him to the right way.
And he gives them some secret thing or some important things.
That I would like to take and apply for ourselves.
He was off basis when he began.
He addressed the Lord Jesus as good Master.
I believe this was a very subtle attack.
When God created man.
He did not create man to be self-sufficient of himself.
And to be good of his own accord, or within from within himself.
And that's what these words insinuate. Good master. That is, you have something good within you. I believe that's why the man went to him. Because.
The young man thought he had something good too, and they would be good buddies. Or they would. They could be companions or he could learn something from this good man.
Willie, he could.
Joe seems to have fallen into that trap.
When God tested him.
He had a lot of good qualities, the Lord tells us he did. He was perfect.
That is evident. There wasn't anything outwardly evident wrong.
There was something within, but not outwardly.
And the reason that Job had so much difficulty is because he hadn't learned.
What the Lord Jesus is speaking here?
That is that everything that had received.
A blessing didn't come to him because he was good.
And earned it or got it on his own self.
All of us are creatures of God. He made us, we didn't make ourselves.
Everything we have about us is given to us. Nothing of it is.
Have we gotten of ourselves?
There we breathe the heart that pumps within us.
All our faculties are from God.
And yet we think we're so self-sufficient.
It's a part of our culture. We're taught to be that way.
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The Lord Jesus said.
Why call list?
Thou me good, there is none good but one that is God.
Yes, we know Jesus was God. He is God.
But he's speaking here as man.
He is this godly one. He is this perfect representation of godliness.
He assumes nothing of himself.
And John, he says I can do nothing of myself.
That's not weakness, that's perfect submission. God created us to be that way. God did not create us to be independent and self-sufficient from Him. He created us to be companions with Him, to be dependent on Him. He delights to provide for us and He has proved that. And now and then in Jesus Christ here we have.
A perfect man.
Taking that perfect place as a dependent, perfect man, never doing anything without God.
Beautiful.
This is the secret to godliness.
The one who made us is the best plan for our life.
He knows all the answers.
Not only does he know the answers, he will give them to us when we need them.
That's why they're in the 5th of John where it says the Son can do nothing of himself. The rest of the verse or the following verse says the Father. Well, let me just turn to it so I don't misquote it.
John's Gospel chapter 5 verse 19 in the middle it says the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do. For what things so ever he doeth, that is the Father. These also doeth the Son. Likewise, for the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth.
And he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
The answer from the Father to the perfect obedient son is he showeth himself.
All things.
There never came a time in the Lord's life.
When the God withheld from the sun, what would be the right thing to do?
He gave the answer.
Sometimes his parents or as responsible ones, we fall down on that.
It takes both to make a perfect relationship.
And so in godliness.
It takes a perfect obedience and dependence accompanied with a God who will show.
What we should do? Give us the pattern.
And so I enjoy seeing this in the Lord Jesus here.
He didn't assume any goodness of himself apart from God.
Then he goes on and he points out the law and gives the.
Several of the commandments here.
Not because.
He thought the man could complete them.
He gave them as a means of proving to him he could not do it.
But the man didn't get it. He missed the point. Or he wasn't.
Willing to submit to the point he wasn't willing to give up a certain thing that was dear to him.
But the Lord didn't just give him the commandments.
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He gave him a little added portion there at the end.
Like as if if you can't do this, I've gotten reserved something better.
On a better way for you.
And that is, come take up your cross and follow me.
May the Lord help us to do that.
Follow the Lord.
He gave us the pattern.
Let us follow him.
Thou shalt have treasure in heaven.
He also says there in connection with the giving up of everything.
That is, if he gave up his worldly goods.
That blessed man knew what he had in store in heaven.
There will be no disappointed Old Testament Saints in heaven that get there and say, oh.
I was looking for earthly blessing and here you gave me heavenly blessings.
There's not going to be none of that in glory, brother.
And those of us who look for heavenly blessings.
And get caught up with earthly things now that drag us down from time to time.
And we struggle with these things. It's a challenge to not leave these things.
Have an undue influence in our lives. I know that I struggle with that myself.
But the fact that we fail here and there should not 'cause us to give up the race.
Give up the whole thing.
You know that happens sometimes, brethren, they give up. We've had a lot here in these meetings about continuing on.
And so on. And I believe the enemy would.
Seek to overwhelm us with the the problems and the failures, the groanings and so on. Get us distracted from the goal, get us diverted from seeing in the Lord Jesus that perfect example, the beauty of it. And it's only as our souls glean that and see it in the Lord. And that's one of the beauties of reading the Gospels.
Is to see in the Lord Jesus his perfect manhood.
He did give us a good demonstration of it.
This is just one little portion.
And then he says.
Through the Apostle Paul.
This is the secret or the mystery of godliness.
Well, those are just some of the thoughts that I've enjoyed on the subject of godliness, piety.
Uh, I believe it's primarily towards God, but I believe it it's towards our fellow men too.
They read in US.
May the Lord help us to have the focus on Him.
That great.
Example of godliness.
Let's sing in closing hymn #230.
Oh Lord, when we.
Love the river?
Where we come.
10-4.