Open—Michel Payette
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Psalm 83, verse 12.
Referring to, I believe, enemies in the days of.
Of Gideon, I believe. Let us.
Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.
My French Bible says that the habitations of God.
And that word houses there. It's the same word as.
The pastures in Psalm 23.
Pastors of God.
The places God has provided for blessing and enrichment of His children, His people and.
Where he wants to dwell with us.
And our brother brother Tim mentioned Romans chapter 12 and I was just wondering if we could consider different habitations of God.
And one of them is our bodies. He dwells in our bodies by His spirit. And so if we deliver up our bodies to Him, he can be.
Using us, as our brother suggested, in worship and service and.
And the enemy, as those that are mentioned here in the 83rd song, that was their desire to take possession to themselves of the habitations of God, deprive the Lord of those places where He has an entrance, and He deserves to live and dwell, and to put something else in there. And so I just mentioned this in connection with our bodies, which are the temple of the Holy Ghost.
We have the members of our bodies and our eyes, our ears, our mouths, our hands, our feet can be occupied with many, many, many, many things all around us.
Or they can be put to the service of the Lord by being energized by the Spirit of God and submitting to His leading and obedient, obeying the Word of God.
Another habitation of God, I believe, is a household and a family, and how he likes to the enemy likes to destroy families and.
Prevent the Lord from having us. Enjoy with Him that invention of His family, you know.
Father, mother, husband, wife, and children. It's such a wonderful, natural thing to enjoy and to be blessed in. And we're so thankful for every family, every measure of that habitation of God with us that we can enjoy.
And as we've mentioned in the reading meeting, we have the habitation of God, which is the church and the body of Christ. I'd just like to go to First Timothy chapter 6, verse chapter 3 rather for a few comments.
Is one thing the enemy certainly wants to destroy is any testimony on the earth that gives glory to the Lord Jesus and have it as his name honored and he would destroy anything in nature that corresponds to God's order and glory. You know here we have this.
Dissolution of gender differences is just, you know, an attack on the creator God and the order that he's put in his creation. So we have in first Timothy chapter 3 just like to read from verse 14 to 16. There these things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly, But if I carry long that alias know how to ought us to behave thyself in the House of God.
Which is the Church of the Living God, the Pillar.
And ground of the truth.
And Paul writes these things to Timothy. He would have liked to be there himself. And hadn't had he been there himself.
They would have heard it from the apostle himself, but he just in case he wasn't able to make it. The Lord didn't provide for that opportunity, he says in the 15th verse. But if I carry long.
That thou mayest know.
How thou Artest to behave thyself. I would just suggest here that the translation is a bit different in French and I think it's two in a new translation that how one.
Artist ought to behave. It's it's not just a Timothy, it's how we ought to behave in the Church of God and the House of God, the Church of living God.
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Now artists to behave artists is maybe it's clear to you, but as I read it, I had to look it up what the intent or strength of that artist. You know, I would have read it myself, say how he should behave. But that's not what artists mean. It's what you must behave. You must be born again. Same word.
Translate a difference in here so.
Here's instruction from the apostle, and we have it in the preceding verses as to men and women and the order in the church and the offices we spoke of yesterday, local responsibilities. It's not left to us. It's specified here. And it says that that's how we must, how we must behave, how the order of God is here, how we must behave ourselves.
In the house.
Of God.
Which is the church?
Of the living God.
The pillar and ground of the truth.
Now, if we talk about the church, we talk about the truth. We thought of maintaining the truth and.
These are all subjects, you might say, that are taken up by different ones at different times and in different lights. What's the substance of all that's mentioned here? This church and the living God and the truth? What's right in there in the next verse?
And without controversy.
Is there a controversy among Christians?
It's controversial.
Where does the culture, where she come from without controversy?
Great is the mystery.
Of godliness. That's what it's all about. There's no controversy we had.
The mystery of godliness you know, when I was a young man, I was brought up in a in a church and.
We had all these mysteries, so I asked a question and they'd say that's a mystery.
How does the host become?
The body and blood of Jesus. That's what I was thought when I was young man. What a precious romance we had this morning.
We didn't have the body of the Lord or the blood of the Lord. We had a loaf and we have a glass of wine. We had a cup of wine, but boy.
It spoke to my heart about him. That's not him. It's a remembrance of him. When I was a young man, they said that this piece of wafer, after some prayers were made, it became.
The body and blood of Jesus. And if you ask them how?
It's a mystery.
So every time you had an intelligent question, you wanted to know and understand.
It's a mystery.
You can't be brought into it, you can't enjoy it, you can't know it. Well, it's told us right here.
What is that mystery of godliness? Well.
God was manifest in a flesh.
That is a blessed person of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, who became a man and who walked down here among men.
And manifested who he was by the miracles, by the discourses, by the wisdom expressed, by the compassion.
And manifested the reality of man's heart.
How we treated incarnated goodness, Incarnate love. How we treated that person with hatred, without a cause.
This is the mystery of godliness. God has revealed himself to us through that person of the Lord Jesus, and everything we do and understand and are brought into the enjoyment of is connected with that person becoming a man and going to the cross and shedding his precious blood.
To allow us to be brought in such wonderful blessings. So that verse there we have verse 15, the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground it says in a note there to stay of the truth. And so the first element there, primordial element one has preeminence.
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Is God manifest in flesh, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ and no one else?
You know, a pillar.
Speaks of strength, you know?
And the churches there put in a strong position.
It has a sure foundation. The apostle Paul says in First Corinthians 3. No other foundation can any man lay than that which is laid the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's no other foundation you can build on. What a firm foundation?
Unmovable. Unchangeable.
Do you have a controversy with that?
Some have a controversy with that. Jesus is one element of Christianity. No, he's not one element of Christianity. He is the substance, the beginning and the end. You don't have Christianity without Christ. And so I thought of the pillar. You know, it has a firm foundation.
A Christian and work of the Lord Jesus.
But a pillar is vertical. You know, they're not pillars like this, the pillars like that, they're solid on solid ground, the revelation of the Word of God, of the Person of Christ. But it's vertical. And how high does that pillar go?
Right up into heaven.
We have a head in heaven, we have a foundation on the earth, which is the Lord Jesus Christ and his work, and we have a head in heaven we can depend on and receive from him instruction, guidance, help, restoration, forgiveness, grace, rich supply that we pray to him in heaven. So I enjoy that connection of the pillar strength because it's based on something unmovable and connected with the Son of God in heaven who has.
All authority both in hurt and in heaven. It tells us in Matthew chapter 28.
But that second part of it, it says ground of the truth or stay of the truth. It seems to me, as I understand it, that there is this pillar and it's connected with the personal allergies in his work and His presence at the right hand of God, and that there is the.
A stay, something that helps out. It helps. We had that in First Corinthians 12.
The church is there to be a help.
And that revelation of that mystery of godliness in connection with the Lord Jesus.
I think at the work of the evangelist, you know, I, I, I like simple things.
Evangelists. He presents Christ as sinners.
And the pastor teacher.
He presents Christ to the believers.
And the worshiper represents Christ to the Father. It's all about Him.
And so if we are active, our brother was bringing to us in Romans 12 and we had that in the gifts here we are members of the body of Christ, living stones in that building and that building and that body needs to be distinguished in our understanding of it. But yet it is to be stay a stay, something to help out.
To that wonderful revelation, and so without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest.
In flesh he partook of flesh and blood.
He became a man so he could die, and he died, but he was on the earth there and after he went through John's baptism.
When he came out of the water, the Spirit of God descended upon him in bodily form, and the voice came from heaven, said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
He was a son before, was always a son of God, never became the Son of God.
When he was born into the world, he became the Son of God. In incarnation. We're still the Son of God, but he had never been a man before.
And now he's risen from the dead, and he's a Son of God in resurrection. He's never going to be anything different for eternity. He always was and will be the Son of God, but now he's the Son of God.
In resurrection, so when he was on the earth here justified.
By the Spirit.
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Scene of angels.
They were there when he was born, they told the shepherds there.
And they saw him in the garden.
In his agony of blood.
And their witnesses. There is resurrection in the Gospels. Why seek ye among the dead? He that is resurrected or alive?
Scene of angels.
Entered into heaven in bodily form.
Angel in heaven they saw him.
And bodily form wounds in his hands, and his feet in his side. The March of the crown of thorns, the Son of God, the Lord of glory, scene of angels on the other side of death in heaven. And then it says, preached unto the Gentiles.
You know the heart of God.
I might be wrong and I'm saying this, but the heart of God wasn't fully known to the Jewish people.
God had a heart for everyone of his creatures, every human being in the face of the earth, He has a heart for them.
He was thinking of them. He chose that people of Israel to make himself known and to have them go through those things that we benefit from now as we learn from them, from their mistakes, how God had to deal with them.
But his heart wasn't limited to the people of Israel. And now that the Lord Jesus come and he's died and risen again, and that his contract with Israel, you might say, was set aside when they finally stoned Steve and rejected their Messiah, who was both risen now and glorified, God could open his heart and say, oh, I had this on my heart all the time. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
All of them.
The Gentiles, the Lord Jesus, God, manifest and flesh presented to the Gentiles, believed in the world.
You know, it says in the Book of Revelation from every tongue and people and nation, tribe, you think of a tribe on the earth, a nation.
A language.
You can think of it and there's going to be one of them. That's what the scriptures say. There's going to be at least one of the many, many, many more, I hope, from every one of them in my glory.
God had a heart for all of mankind and he revealed it to us now through the Apostle Paul, the gospel of the grace of God. And then it says, received up into glory, you know.
We know he's in the glory now.
The Apostle Paul was taken up into the 3rd heaven. He didn't know if it was in the body or out of the body, but we can affirm on the authority of the Word of God that we are going to go into glory, into heaven itself with our bodies.
When the Lord Jesus comes, we're going to enter into heaven ourselves in the glory to be with and like Him forever. And so we can look back at these verses, considering the mystery of godliness, and see how.
God is applied to us.
The result of this wonderful person in his work God manifest in flesh.
Can God be manifested in your life and mine? I believe he can. I mean, it's not like the Lord Jesus. Of course not.
But the Spirit of God dwells in your body now.
How can that be?
What's it justified by the Spirit and that believe that the work of the Lord Jesus so perfect, when the benefit of it is applied to you, God Himself by his Spirit can come and dwell in your body until the day of redemption. And if you and I let Him live out in US, what is going to be manifested in that life that we have is the character of the Lord Jesus.
The fruit of the Spirit, Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, all these beautiful virtues that we see manifested in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ lives in you.
And if Christ lives in you, it can be manifested in you.
And I have to say it's in a very small measure in my life, but I know He has produced in my life compassion and love for people I didn't have compassion for. I didn't love. He will do that. He's given me, my wife might not agree, some measure of patience, but He has done that. He has produced in me, produced in you some likeness to His Son, and it would never be manifested perfectly like it was in the blessed Lord.
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Jesus, but God can be manifest.
In your flesh too.
I believe you can.
And it's based on the fact that the work of the Lord Jesus so perfect that God could give you and seal you with his Spirit, one on the basis of you and what you've done, but on the basis of the merits of the Lord Jesus and the value of his precious blood that has washed you from all your sins and mine also.
God manifest in flesh justified in the spirit to the ones that believe also scene of angels. You know it tells us in the scriptures that the let's go to that verse in Ephesians chapter 3. Principalities and powers are learning of the manifold wisdom of God through the church.
Ephesians chapter 3.
Verse 10.
To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers, in how many places might be known by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God.
According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You know.
Sometimes we were gathered, just a few of us, to remember the Lord and.
Was a precious time this morning. I trust you. You find it precious yourself. I thought it was so precious. Think of the Lord and glory looking upon us there and so.
So wonderful. But there are other spectators, I'm sure this morning, and I believe some of them were angels and they would see these creatures made to the likeness of God, who in time past blasphemed his name and misbehaved. I'm sure if they look at your life, I might say that we're so such misbehaving children, you might say here we are.
Giving up every other occupation, Sitting quietly.
Not filling our minds with different aspects of truth or whatever. We're just quietly sitting in the presence of the Lord Jesus and going back to that scene of Calvary where others just like you and me were there cursing him, insulting him, despising him. And here are the same creatures, you know.
With the same nature have been visited by the grace of God to be worshippers that our brother was saying, here we are.
And the angels are Washington.
God is so wise. God is so wise. He didn't crank up robots. He moved our hearts. He touched us. He visited us. He affected us so much that we decided that we wanted to be here this morning.
And I hope you all wanted to be here this morning. Maybe you were here because you had to be here. And I know that happens and family, and I'm glad the parents are bringing their children to the meeting and having them understand that and witness that. But you know, it doesn't matter how old you are, you can enter into it yourself and say that person who's the Lord Jesus.
He died for me.
I have a man in a therapy house I visit every Monday and I said.
I say to him, he's been brought up in a certain denomination, and he says, I know he died for us, you know, And so I tell him who'd he die for. And he said he died for us, You know, he died for sinners. He died for us. And I said, that's not a good answer. That might be a true answer. It's not a good answer.
And he knows what I'm getting at, You know what I'm getting at. And he died for me.
The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
He loved the church.
And he gave himself.
For it.
You are precious, dear brother and sister.
All our brothers and sisters are precious.
And we can be.
Seen of angels and the measure that we appreciate his love and come around him to worship and come to him in prayer also, and we certainly need to do that because we're needy people. Well, I just want to go on here with first Timothy 3 and verse 16 justified in this scene of angels preached unto the Gentiles.
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In the past tense.
Preached into the isn't nice. It was. It was preached to the gentile.
You preach to the Gentiles.
Have you told your neighbor? Have you told your fellow workers? Have you told your friends at school?
That's how it happens. How shall they hear what other preacher? And we had that in connection with the gifts. You know, I'm not an evangelist. I am. Yeah. You don't need to be an evangelist. You might give a book. You might suggest something to somebody. Listen to that. You see that? You ever read this?
The Lord can give you just that needed courage and energy to open the door in a conversation. Somebody says something about that, but about the future, about something.
And the Lord says that's the key, that's an entrance. And so use that opportunity yourself because I don't think it's finished. He hasn't finished preaching to the Gentiles. I believe he's still doing that. I think people are getting saved every day.
By somebody telling them.
Priests unto the Gentiles believed in the world, and that's God's work. I can't have this man who keeps answering me in the plural. I can't have them. I can't save them.
You know, I can wrestle them to the ground and say he died for me, Died for me. You want me to say I'll say it, but it's not true. In his heart, I can't do that.
That's how God makes people believe. How shall they believe if they don't hear? And how are they going to hear unless it's a preacher? And so each one of us who know something of this mystery of godliness, the Son of God who became a man so that the whole world could be saved, it's not going to be saved, but he has a purpose that he could save the whole world if the whole world would believe. And so preached unto the Gentiles, believed in the world and received.
Into glory.
Where does our path end?
Our path ends in the glory, in the principle of face to face with him. We're talking about a brother there just before the meeting. Say I don't know how many millions are going to be there. We're all gonna be face to face with him. I don't know how it's gonna happen, but it's gonna happen.
I don't know how the Lord Jesus could raise Lazarus from the dead when he was already stank already.
But it happened.
Everything God says happened, happened, and when he says it's going to happen, it's going to happen, and it's going to happen exactly the way he says it's going to happen. The Lord Jesus was received into glory.
Of course.
And you and I, we're going to be receiving the glory also, not because of you and me, but because of him.
Now this verse here, it says how we must behave in the House of God, which is the Church of the living God.
It's a Church of God, but it's qualified, living God.
And I like that expression because the dynamic of God acting in the midst of us by his Spirit. And you know, there's a lot of criticism made about.
US collectively and and, you know, perhaps we need to bow our head and say something that we deserve. You know, we kind of.
We kind of did things that brought us upon us, but.
I think we're doing the right thing.
We're applying and submitting to the instructions of the Word of God, and I believe that's why this morning we had such a beautiful remembrance and yesterday we had entrance into different things in the Scripture that was, I believe, edifying to each one of us and learning things from one another. It works. And in spite of our weaknesses, it works because that's God's provision. And He's a living God, and where He's given room, he comes in and he ministers.
And he helps and he uses.
Now, we would not claim that we are the Church of God. We know the Church of God includes every believer. Everyone has received the Lord Jesus, his Savior, and that really is the House of God and the body of Christ. And we can't claim to be specifically that. That's broader than just the company that we're in.
But I trust that we understand from this book that God has ways he wants us to do things.
And I believe we should be that company who has a desire, a heartfelt desire to do things the way he wants them to be done.
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Some of them are very simple, and I'm afraid I mention them often because they're obvious. They can be seen with your eyes because there's verses that say this is how things need to be done and when you do them physically that way. But there's also many, many other things that are invisible, not as perceivable by the sight that are also prescriptions in the Lord of God, in the Word of God.
So what the Lord says, love one another as I have loved.
Hi brother, How are you? That's outward, that's nice. But is there that love, that compassion, that concern for one another?
Every member cares for every other member.
Another member comes in. You don't know him, you don't know her, you've never seen him before. And perhaps they're not in the mold that we're used to. How do we greet them? Do we greet them with love and open arms? Or are we more in a?
Cold attitude, warm attitude. How would the Lord greet them members of his body for whom he died for? Well, that affects how we treat each other and perhaps others that we're not connected with. We may not agree with things that they hold or they that they're carrying on with. But you know, it's not possible for us to say we're going to we're going to walk with the whole House of God. We do recognize it's the House of God, but.
If we're going to be called to disobey the instructions of the Lord, I have, I can't, I mean, I'm not perfect, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying if I have light from the Word of God how things need to be done, how can I substitute that with something else? And that's what men have done. You know, they said that was those verses in those days and you know, and they destroy this part and not part and then you can't really know.
This book, unless you go and follow courses and you go to university and have diplomas, you're recognized that you have a degree in theology and stuff like that.
Book here says that God has revealed it to little children. Little children. What they do is they believe their fathers.
When I was a kid, I believed in Santa Claus.
Anyway, I want to bring for the kids. But anyway, I did believe in Santa Claus and on Christmas Eve I would ask my father for a piece of cake and a glass of milk and I put it by the Christmas tree we had in our home at that time. And I go to bed. But in our house we were living in downtown Montreal and we didn't have a chimney.
So poor sad. I know how he would fit in a chimney the way we see him in pictures, but he's a pretty hefty fellow anyway.
I'd say my father that, yeah, you know.
And my dad would go in a living room and he'd open the window and he says we don't have a chimney, but come by the window and he'll, you know, put the gifts under the tree and stuff. And so in the morning, I get up, sure enough, the cake was gone, a glass of milk was empty, The gifts were under the tree, and the window was closed within the window.
Santa Claus, it come, I'm sure about that. It was five years old, you know that wasn't true.
It wasn't true.
You know children believe their parents.
So their parents can have them believe that Allah is God and Muhammad is their prophet.
They believe that sincerely, because the adults around them, that's what they say.
Well, you know, when we have the word of God, we say, what does God say? What does my father say? I believe what my father says. I'm a little child and this is what he says in his book, and this is what I understand. And that's what I want to do. So just go to first Peter chapter, first John chapter 4 for a moment.
First John, chapter 4.
First, John.
And verse one.
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist. Where have you heard that it should come, and even now already?
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Is it in the world? Ye are of God, little children, because I've overcome them, because greater is He that is in you than he does in the world. They are of the world. Therefore speak they of the world, and the world here with them we are of God, and he that knoweth God here at us, He that is not of God, hear it not us hereby know we the Spirit of truth.
And the spirit of error, I just like to notice here there is the spirit of the Antichrist.
That opposes that Jesus is come in the flesh.
And you know, it's just that Jesus was a man on the earth is that God was manifest in the flesh. That person is God manifest in the flesh. That's the mystery of godliness. It's given to us to understand that this is what Christianity is about, God coming on the earth and the person of his Son to reveal himself and to accomplish that wonderful work of redemption to fill the heavens with sons and daughters of God. Well, it says later on here.
They that are of the world, they, they are of the world. Therefore speak They of the world, and the world hear them. We are of God.
He that knoweth God here at us, he that is not of God, hear it not us hereby know we the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. And I just mentioned this, that I distinguish between the spirit of Antichrist who denies the person of the Lord Jesus to who he is, and the spirit that denies the teaching of the apostles. They hear it, not us.
How simple. For us dear ones who receive the Word of God, this is how we must behave.
In the Church of the living God, and if we must behave this way, may we appropriate ourselves of the living God who lives in you, who lives in me by His Spirit and is ready to lead us together, independence and in subjection 1 to another, for us to enjoy the wonderful thing, the wonderful thing that He's prepared for us before we go and enter together all in perfection and glory that He has merited for us through His work on the cross.