Address—R. Thonney
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To God on high.
Peace upon earth and joy, Goodwill to man. We who God's blessing prove his name. All names above sing now the Savior's love too vast to scan. Mercy and truth unite. Oh, it is a wondrous sight.
All Saints above Jesus, the curse sustains.
Guilts bitter cup he drains nothing for us remains.
Nothing but love.
Love that no tongue can teach.
Love that no thought can reach. No love.
Like his God is its blessed source.
Death ne'er can stop its course.
Nothing can stay its force.
Matchless it is number 142.
Glory to God.
On my.
Way.
Bring good God.
No.
I'm running a flight and door that May God respond.
Let's pray.
Blessed God our Father, we're so thankful for that matchless love that has been shown to the likes of us in bringing us to thyself.
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Right into thy holy presence, blessed God our Father.
We thank thee for our Lord Jesus, for what He has done on that cross.
For that tremendous sacrifice will never.
Never understand, blessed Savior, the awful depths to which thought is go there.
But here we are once again, just to express our gratitude. Lord Jesus, thanks from the bottom of our hearts to Thee for having done it all for us. And now, Lord Jesus, we realize that there ought to be a corresponding response from our hearts as well. And we would ask as we open into Thy precious word, that we might be.
Edified and exhorted according to the need that thou to see in each one of us. Gracious Father, we ask thy blessing now giving thanks in that most worthy name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
Like to turn first of all to a verse in Second Corinthians chapter 5?
Just one verse here.
But that expresses something of the thoughts that I'd like to express this afternoon as well. Second Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.
For the love of Christ.
Constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all. That they which lived should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them, and rose again. Especially verse 14 was what was.
Before me this afternoon, the love of Christ.
Constraineth.
In Christianity, brethren, this is.
The moving power.
The love of Christ constraints us. It is not characteristic of Christianity, as it was in Judaism, to have a set of rules and laws and commandments. We do have commandments in Christianity, but they are the guides to those who love Him.
And so he says in John's Gospel, if ye love me, keep my commandments.
But it supposes that there is love there.
And so I'd like to meditate a bit upon this point. I really believe that we need to get back again and again to Calvary brethren, because that's where you see, as in Northern place, the display of the love of God.
God has been revealed.
In no place like he has been at the Cross of Calvary.
In the darkness of those hours, from 12 noon to 3:00 in the afternoon.
When Jesus was hanging on that cross where no human eye could penetrate.
There it is, brethren, that we get the blaze of the revelation that God not only is light, but that God is love.
And know how we need to get back there, because that's what's going to stir our affections.
And that's the power of Christianity going on.
It's the love of Christ that constrains. It's nothing outward.
Perhaps we feel sometimes the decay of the outward testimony, and perhaps we want to maintain that which is outward. But, brethren, what we have to realize is that there is no power in looking to that which is outward. The power is in the enjoyment of the love of Christ.
It speaks in the third chapter of the book of Ephesians that ye being rooted and grounded in love.
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What is it, brethren, that will keep us steady, that will keep us grounded? The root system of a tree is the part of a tree that is not seen.
It is underground, but it is an extremely important part of the tree.
And it is an extremely important part of our.
Christian lives to be rooted in love.
Sometimes, you know, in the outta panel of Bolivia, where I had the joy of being for a number of years and still have the joy of going once in a while.
You see trees.
There are very few and far between on those High Plains of 12,000 feet.
And the wind whips across those plains and beats those trees from one side and from another.
That you'll find that those trees are very, very difficult to push over.
They're well rooted because the winds of adversity have.
Pushed at them so much.
And God allows winds of adversity in our lives. Why? Because He wants us to get better rooted in the love of Christ. It is the love of Christ that constrains us. And brethren, if we come here just merely to talk about doctrine without.
Understanding the love of the truth.
There will be no power as we go back home to live in the enjoyment and the good of the.
Doctrines of Scripture, how wonderful they are in their place.
Oh, it's so important at this point. The love of Christ constraineth us. It's not some outward force, not some outward set of rules and regulations. It is something that is inward. It is the love of Christ that constrains us. I'd like to turn back to the book of Song of Solomon.
For a verse or two to.
Show this.
In first of all, it occurs in the second chapter.
That this verse with.
Small Variations occurs three times in this book.
Verse six and seven, really seven that I have in mind, but let's read verse six. You get the picture of the bride and the bridegroom together. The bride says in verse six. There she is and his embrace.
His left hand is under my head and his right hand embrace me. That's where the bridegroom loves to have his bride.
There, where she can feel and enjoy his love.
O brethren, no wonder should speak in times of apostasy and giving up.
Keep yourselves in the love of God. How we need to be kept in there in that position, brethren.
In the conscious enjoyment of his love toward us.
It does not change. Brethren, our estimation of the love of Christ changes, but it is not our estimation that is the rule or the norm. It is the revelation that He is given at Calvary. Sometimes we've said don't judge the Lord's love by your present, by your estimation of present circumstances. Don't do it.
If you want to know the Lord's love, go back again to Calvary. That's where you get the.
Full revelation of His love. And that's where we need to keep ourselves, brethren.
That's the only thing that will keep us steady in these last days.
An appreciation of his love. And so she is in his embrace. Now notice what?
He responds in verse 7.
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I charge you.
O ye daughters of Jerusalem.
By the Rose and by the Hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake, my love, till he please. I just want to call attention Mr. Darby's translation. There's a note that translates the last little phrase till he pleads.
It says till it pleases.
In other words, there is the bride in the embrace of the bridegroom.
His left hand under her head and his right hand embracing her.
And then she gives this charge.
That is so important to him.
Don't anything disturb her.
From this place, don't let anything stir up.
This love until it pleases.
In other words, all he wants there to be.
Of constrainment and movement is the result of.
His love in her heart, that enjoyment of his love.
In her heart, may that move him move her.
May that move you and me as well, dear young person, There is no more powerful motive to move for the Lord than the enjoyment of the love of Christ. I say this because sometimes it seems to me that many.
Are moved, perhaps, by what they believe the brethren expect of them. I say that will never satisfy his heart of love.
Everything can be in order in an outward way and he not be pleased.
That's what happened in Ephesus in the second Epistle to Ephesus.
In Revelation chapter 2, everything was in order.
But he said, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Oh dear young person, O dear older one too, are you living in the enjoyment of the love of Christ, in the enjoyment of His loving embrace? He wants that and that alone to stir you to action.
That nothing.
May stir the loved of the bridegroom from that position in his embrace, except it be his love in her heart.
Oh, how important it is. The love of Christ constraineth us. So there she is. And you'll find this verse repeated three times in this book of Song of Solomon. She's in his embrace and all. How he loves to have her. Just there, brethren. Circumstances vary. Sometimes the tunnel gets pretty dark.
Sometimes we don't understand God's ways.
And we don't have to understand his ways, brethren.
But we need to know that He is God and that He knows what He's doing.
Don't allow doubts to come into your mind as to His love.
If you are surrounded with circumstances that are very contrary and very difficult to understand.
And Satan is there trying to.
Pound in his darts.
His fiery darts of doubts as to his love. Don't let them in.
Put up the shield of faith. Don't let those darts in. He loves you.
He loves you with a love that will never be.
We'll never have an end, and we'll never be frustrated in His purposes of blessing towards you. Never, absolutely never. Oh, how wonderful to get a hold of this in the soul. Oh, how important there's going to be any measure of going on that would not be a mere outward form of things, any mere constrainment in an outward way, but that it be His love that moves.
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You and me.
In whatever way we may be moved.
I'd like to speak in the life of David.
Of two cases in which this is evidenced in First Samuel chapter 18, we have.
David, who had come back from the slaughter of the Philistines.
Remember, in the 17th chapter is where he has the encounter with Goliath.
Goliath, that mighty giant, almost 10 feet tall.
Perhaps.
And covered with armor.
None of the men of Israel wanted to go down and fight with him.
Saw the king who was head and shoulders above all the people, didn't want to even go.
And take up the challenge of Goliath. Here comes the shepherd boy from the countryside to see how his brothers are doing.
And he takes the challenge. He has proved God out in the countryside alone. And if you don't prove the Lord alone in your own home circumstances, you can't prove them in public, brethren, No, David had proved the Lord when he met a lion and a bear. But now here's this giant and.
David says I will go. I'm surprised that Goliath.
Let him excuse me. I'm surprised that Saul let him go down to fight.
Goliath, because a lot depended on that fight. Goliath had said, if I win the battle against a man that you choose, then you'll be my servants. But anyhow, Saul permitted it. Evidently he saw the faith of that young man. And David goes down into the valley of Elah. Must have been a tremendous sight. They're the Philistines all on one side and the Israelites all on the other side.
And amongst those Philistines, amongst those Israelites, is the King's.
Son Jonathan and he sees this stripling is what he's called.
Go down into the Valley of Elah. It seemed like an awful, unfair challenge. David, that shepherd boy. No armor on.
And an exterior way. He had the Lord as his shield, but he goes down with his shepherd's bag, with his staff, and with his sling, and he goes to meet Goliath.
Confident.
That God was going to deliver him into his hand, and instead of being afraid of getting near, he runs to meet that giant.
He slings his stone, he makes that giant fall on his face. He keeps right on a running until he's on top of that giant. He pulls out the giants own sword and cuts off his head and comes back with the giant sword in one hand and the giants head in another.
I think that would have been pretty impressive to watch.
Tremendously.
But there's one who is touched to the depths of his heart.
By seeing that sight.
David was called into the King's tent.
So that Saul could ask him whose son he was, as if he didn't know him yet.
But then it says in the 18th chapter and this is where I'd like to read.
Because here we have a case of the love of Christ or infigue, the love of David.
Constraining.
Jonathan, the King's son.
First Samuel 18 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul.
That the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David.
And Jonathan loved him as his own soul, and David took him that day and would let. And Saul took him that day and would let him.
Go no more home to his father's house than Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul.
And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David and his garments, even to his sword and to his bow and to his girdle.
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Who said that Jonathan had to strip himself and give all these things to David?
Was there somebody?
Demanding that he had to do this.
Absolutely not.
It was the enjoyment of David's love, how he put his life in his hand and gone down to meet that Philistine that captured Jonathan's heart.
And of his own accord, without anybody saying to it, he said. David, I love you.
Here's my robe, my princely robe here.
You can have it.
Here's my sword.
Sometimes in old pictures you see at the end of the battle, one general hands is soared to the other.
A sign of complete surrender.
His bow bow was something. Shooting a bows and arrows was something that was.
Taught, especially, perhaps Speaking of the talents.
It too was given to David.
Oh dear young person, I see many of you with real talents.
But sometimes it grieves my heart to see all those talents being used.
By some earthly enterprise for earthly prosperity.
And the Lord Jesus who went down into the valley of death for us.
Who met Satan in all his power and defeated him forever.
He is left to one side. It grieves my heart.
I'm not here to take up a rod and to scold you.
What I want to do this afternoon is to lead you back, if I come in some, if I can, in some small measure to the cross of Calvary, so that there might be in your heart as in mine as well, some similar response as there was in Jonathan to David.
David, I love you here. It is everything.
The rogue, the princely robe, those clothes you wear.
Young sisters. Young brothers.
Have they been given to David?
That sword of surrender, has it been given to the Lord Jesus?
Oh, when I go back to Calvary. Let's go back there a few brief moments right now. Dear young person, Dear older one too.
For when I see the evidence of self will.
In the lives of those who profess to be the Lord's people.
It is greedy.
We're living in a day when self will is glorified.
We're living in a day when democracy encourages.
You to stand for your own rights.
I say that is not Christianity.
That is not Christianity.
Let's go back to that cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. No one who had rights as Jesus did.
No one, absolutely no one. He lived every moment of his life here for the glory of God. No other motive motivated him than to do what was the will of His Father.
That was his meat, that was his drink.
In every way, he always did.
The will of his father, and yet at the end of his 33.
Years of life they took him those of his own people.
Who profess to uphold the very word of God that they had in their hands at that time.
And they sought false witnesses to put him to death. What is the response of?
Him in those awful circumstances when they.
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Sought for false witnesses.
He didn't open his mouth. He was as a lamb.
Sheep dung before her shears. He opened not his mouth. How different from us. And they took him to Pilot to condemn him again. Pilate saw very convincingly that there was no fault in that man, and yet to please the people he allowed him to be condemned to the death of crucifixion.
The most severe?
And painful death that was ever executed in those times, Crucifixion. And they took the blessed Son of God outside the city of Jerusalem, and they nailed him, those huge nails to a cross of wood. They hung him up there between heaven and earth. Look at his head.
Crowned with thorns. Look at his face, so marred more than any man. See him hang there as they're pounding those nails into his hands and feet. What is the response? Father? Forgive them, they know not what they do.
And as he hangs there for three hours, those religious men were passing by him, insulting him, jeering him, never a response of wrath towards them.
And then comes those awful, awful hours of darkness.
When it was no longer God, a man's place to deal with him, but God in all the holiness of His being during those awful hours of darkness, laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all, and on him fell the full weight of the wrath of God for our sins.
He went down into the wave of the judgment of God.
He went down to the bottoms of the mountains.
He went down into depth for us.
He did it all, he finished that work and he gave up his life.
To God.
Oh, and I stand there and see that I say, how can I come away from that place and still insist on my rights?
On what I want, how can we do it? But this is what is very common even amongst.
Those who are believers in the Lord Jesus, you hear these expressions.
I will be heard. I have my rights and they're not going to tell me what to do.
Is that the expression of one who has stood at that cross to see?
The Lord Jesus give up every right He had for our blessing.
O brethren, how we need to get back to Calvary again to see.
That awful, awful sacrifice that was made there for us.
So Jonathan gave it all to David.
Even to his girdler. We would call that a belt. You know, it tells us in the New Testament. Gird up the loins of your mind.
In other words, the long flowing garments of that day had to be controlled as they walked along.
Otherwise they might wrap around their legs and trip them up and so before they.
Started walking. They had a kind of a belled affair and they took that and they tied up their garments, they controlled them, Peter says. Gird up the loins of your minds. Sometimes our thoughts go helter skelter one way and another. Sometimes we think bad of this brother and that brother.
Gird up the loins of your minds. Don't let your thoughts go in any direction.
Control them and if they start going in One Direction that you know is not right.
Control it.
Be careful what you read, young people.
Be careful what you read, older ones as well.
Because it will affect the way you think.
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Be careful what you watch.
It will affect the way you think. God will hold you responsible.
And He holds us responsible for the thoughts that we entertain. Sometimes thoughts come into our mind.
But if we entertain those thoughts, if we continue to hold them there.
Then we become responsible not just merely for coming into our minds, but.
For holding those thoughts geared up the loins of your minds, I'd like to go over to Second Samuel to consider another.
Three persons that are part of David's mighty men.
That have always challenged me.
Second Samuel, chapter 23.
And verse 13 and three of the 30 chief went down.
And came to David in the Harvest diamond to The Cave of Adulam.
And the troop of the Philistines pitched in the valley of Raphael, and David was then and then hold the Garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David longed and said.
Oh.
That one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate. And the three mighty men breakthrough the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David. Nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out into the Lord. And he said, Be it far from the old Lord, that I should do this. Is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it.
These things did these three mighty men here we have these three mighty men and it doesn't seem like in relation to the.
Ones that are numerated before one of his mighty men killed 800 at one time.
Another killed 300 and there are various that did tremendous feats.
What did these three do that they're going to be named?
In David, in the list of David's mighty men.
They were close to David when David was in The Cave of a dolem.
They heard David express a desire.
No command here involved. It was just a desire. But you know, in the New Testament it speaks that word that we mentioned earlier. If you love me, keep my commandments. But there's another word, He that keepeth His word. In him, verily, is the love of God perfected. What does it mean? What is the difference between keeping His commandments and keeping His word?
I just like to think of it in this way, dear young people, keeping his commandments.
Are things that he's definitely told us to do or to not to do.
And if you really, truly have felt the love of Christ, those commandments will not be grievous. They won't be hard for you to fulfill for Him since He did so much for you.
But keeping his word goes even further. His word is the expression of all his mind.
And it's not only keeping his commandments, but it is keeping his word.
Here these three were close to David in that cave. It wasn't a very pleasant place to be.
That they were close to David and they heard this desire of his heart. David had been raised. He remember he was born in Bethlehem and as a youth he probably drank from this cistern a lot. And he said, oh, that one would give me water from the well of Bethlehem, that is by the gate.
These three heard that desire that David expressed.
They went.
That city of Bethlehem was surrounded with a Garrison of the Philistines, the enemy.
Is that going to stop them? Is that going to intimidate them?
No, they breakthrough the Garrison of the Philistines. These three, three against the Garrison, kind of.
Dangerous odds, I would say, but they breakthrough the picture. They met that well. Perhaps two holding off the Philistines while the other takes some kind of a container and dips it down into that cistern to get some water out for David. Again, they breakthrough the lines of those Philistines to take that water to David.
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Some mighty military feat. Is that what they had completed? No.
Just fulfilled a desire that David had.
Dear young people, can I speak a word to you this afternoon?
The Lord Jesus.
As he left his disciples here in this world.
Expressed a desire for his people that they.
Do this in remembrance of me until he came again.
To break that bread, to partake of that bread, to partake of that cup. Perhaps you say, well, I go to the breaking of bread meeting. I ask you, do you do that in remembrance of him? Doesn't seem like a great thing. You might say, well, I remember the Lord without doing that.
His word is this. Do Remember Me?
I just like to leave that on your heart. I cannot. I do not want you to do it because I said for you to do it. I want to lay His word on your heart.
And if his love stirs in your soul, dear young person, do it. Do it.
His commandments are not grievous. Dear young people, another thing I want to share with you that I really believe His love would stir you about, and I want to leave it in this way on your heart. Go over to the New Testament.
22 Corinthians, chapter 6.
And verse.
11.
O ye Corinthians.
Our mouth is opened unto you, our heart is enlarged.
You're not straightened in us, but you're straightening your own bowels.
Now for a recompense in the same I speak as unto my children, be ye.
Also enlarged.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness, And what concord hath Christ with Belial?
Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said.
I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate.
Set the Lord and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
Here's the call to separation. Separation sometimes is a word that we shrink from. It is not positive.
Brethren, if it isn't positive, it's because we're looking at the from.
We're not looking at the two.
And another verse that we could read in conjunction with this is in Hebrews chapter 13. Perhaps we should just read that.
Hebrews, chapter 13.
Verse 12 and 13 Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people.
With his own blood suffered without the gate. Let us go forth. Therefore notice this part, brethren, unto him.
Without the camp bearing his reproach. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
Here it is separation, and here's the power of separation, dear young person.
Unto him.
Without the camp unto him, who are we talking about? Jesus, the glorious Son of God, the one who went down into the waves of judgment to redeem you and me.
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Oh, that there would be that link of fellowship established between your soul and him, that burning of His love in your heart to stir you to go after Him.
It's not merely from.
Yes, it is involved leaving some things behind, but when we consider the other side.
20 It's so much more glorious and great and powerful and good unto him without the camp. What is the camp? I'd like to just say this relation to this. I think it's important to see sometimes we use this expression camp as if it meant Christendom, and I think it's important to see the difference, the campus Judaism.
We are never told to come out of Christendom. We cannot come out of Christendom without becoming apostates to Christianity. The only way to get out of the great House of Christendom would be to become an apostate.
We're not told to come out of cursing them. Sometimes our expressions kind of infer that, and I think we need to be careful how we express that. But we are told here to come out of the camp, that Judaistic system of things that was characteristic of what was pleasing to man in the flesh. These principles have been introduced.
Into the great House of Christendom, and we are to come out.
In whatever way that this system, religious system presents itself.
We are to come out of it. May we be exercised about coming out of it unto Him. Never let us forget the focus, brethren unto Him. It's not unto a group of brethren that were gathered, it's unto Him. There was no place for Him in that system of religion. They took Him outside. They nailed Him to a cross outside.
And now we are called to go outside the camp unto Him over other than. If the love of Christ constrains your heart and mind, it will be our great pleasure to do just that. We don't want it to be in just a mere outward form of things, like I said before.
There is too much of that today and I fear sometimes even when young people take their place at the Lord's Table, they do it because of pressure from their parents.
And it's not a lasting thing. Later on, the test comes and it shows that it wasn't.
Real. And that's why I want to be careful this afternoon not to insist on this.
Because the brethren expect it from you. No far be the thought. The desire is to lead you back to Calvary, to see that one who hung there. Who said this.
Do in remembrance of me.
Can I speak another word please, to your hearts, to young people and older ones too.
It says in Hebrews. Perhaps we can go back to the 10th chapter.
Reading verses 24 and 25.
Let us provoke one another unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
Here's a word, I don't know if we can call it a commandment or not. I'm not just sure of that myself.
But if it is not a command, it certainly is a word. Let us.
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Consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.
Brethren, there's enough of the flesh in any of us to cause tremendous problems.
Not just in some other brother over there.
In my heart, there's enough of the flesh to do that.
But here's the exhortation. Let us consider one another to provoke.
And to love and to good works.
Do we know what that means, brethren? Sometimes we say, well, somebody has left. Yes, maybe they have.
What is our attitude? Do we know what it means?
To go after souls in love, to seek to win them.
We sometimes think we have to convince them of our point of view. That's not what the scripture says.
Provoke unto love and to good works.
What provokes love, brother, is love. It's the primer that primes that old pump that we used to have to pour some water in if you want to get some water out. And nothing provokes love in someone else like love shown from us ourselves.
You know, this love that it speaks is a love that loves when there's nothing lovable.
In the object.
Sometimes in my.
Visits amongst the Latin peoples in Bolivia and Peru. I've heard the complaint there's no love in this meeting.
Sometimes, say the person that complaints that way is the first one guilty. Because the kind of love we're talking about here is not a love that waits to be loved, it's a love that loves when there's no love there.
There's some reason why, your brethren.
That we have in John's Gospel and Epistles.
Seven times the exhortation or the command.
By the Lord Jesus to love one another. And it's not like we had in the Old Testament which said love thy neighbor as thyself.
Because we are not in the picture any longer, we are not the measure of that love, he now says. As I have loved you, there's the measure.
Have you loved like he's loved?
I have to confess first of all here, my brethren, that failed in this.
Not loved like that.
My sacrifice for the Lord's people has been very puny, paltry.
But as I look at his sacrifice, I see the measure that we are exhorted.
To love as he loved us.
And so we're exhorted to provoke one another, and to love, and to good works.
Then the next verse says, not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.
It's so easy to leave off the meetings, dear young person. I know you've got a lot of studies from school, a lot of homework, and again I say I don't want you to do this because I told you to do it.
Remember a young fellow that I knew?
Some years ago.
Who was studying medicine in university?
But in all the times that I knew him, he never missed a meeting.
Even though he had tests the next day maybe once or twice he missed but.
I really appreciated the devotion he showed.
And the desire to be right there where the Lord had asked him to be.
Yes, it might mean some sacrifice on your part. You might have to mean regulating your time, getting onto your homework when you get home from school so that you can be at the meetings. But it is a tremendous encouragement for you to be there, dear young person.
And those who are older as well, sometimes we get slack. Sometimes we say, oh, I'm so tired. I think the Lord understands and I'm tired. Yes, the Lord does understand that you're tired.
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The Did he complain of being tired as he carried that cross out of Jerusalem?
Did he complain or did he go all the way? Dear brother, dear sister, I want to stir your heart.
I'm not laying down a rule here that you've got to be at all the meetings. No far be that thought. Please remove that from your mind if that's what's there.
It's because of the love of Christ. If you feel His love, you will want to be there. It is not because of any outward constrainment. It is the love of Christ that constrains.
One other thing before I close this afternoon that I want to lay on your conscience.
And on mine as well.
And it is.
In the end of Matthew's Gospel.
28.
Verse 18 Jesus came and spake unto them, saying all power.
Is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore.
And teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit.
Spirit, Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever. I have commanded you the law, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world. Amen.
This simply this because this command, in a varied form, is repeated in each of the four gospels.
To take the good news of the gospel out.
This isn't something that is for justice. A few who are gifted evangelists.
Yes, God has gifted certain ones very specially in this work.
But each one needs to consider.
This responsibility to carry the good news out. Brethren, we're living in a day of unprecedented opportunity for the gospel. I'm amazed still, and I go down into Latin America, the openness of people to talk about the Lord, to talk about the word of God.
Many of those countries, you can go to somebody's home, they'll invite you right in. You can sit down and open up the word.
It's not like it is so much up here, even though up here there's an increasing People are increasingly aware of an emptiness in their souls and they need the gospel too. You and I are responsible. This is a day of good tidings and we hold our peace. Brethren, you and I are responsible to carry out the message.
Russia is wide open for the Word of God.
Is there somebody that feels?
The responsibility and view of that open door to carry the scriptures into that country.
You could form a lot of different excuses, but I say.
As someone else said at one time, given the clarity of the command of Christ to carry out the message.
Perhaps we need to consider if we have a call to stay home and rather.
Then consider if we have a call to go out.
Dear young person, I just want to lay this word on your soul as well.
You and I are responsible. There's parts of this world that are dying in war right now.
Millions are starving to death in Africa and are we content just to sit here and do nothing?
Dear young priest person, I lay the responsibility of this word on your soul and your conscience.
May you be exercised, may nothing else move you save the love of Christ. Let's just pray. Gracious God our Father, we're so thankful for thy love that reached down, that picked us up, that brought us to God.
We're asking at this moment, Gracious Father, that there may be some corresponding response in our hearts.
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To that great love, bless thy word, we pray. May it not be from any outward constrainment that we move.
But because of an enjoyment of the love of Christ, we pray thy blessing, gracious Father.
In the name of the Lord shall.