Open—Bill Prost
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Well, I hesitate to get up again, but I trust it'll be of the Lord.
I was thinking about that verse in Isaiah 50 that our brother Ernie read for us this morning.
It talked about, Well, let's turn to it.
And then we'll mention it for a moment.
Isaiah 50.
And verse 4.
Well known verse that we have heard before, but very much connected in scripture with a couple of other verses.
The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season.
To him that is weary he wakeneth morning, by morning he wakeneth mine ear to hear, as the learned, the Lord hath opened my ear.
And I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
This is no doubt, of course, a reference to the Lord Jesus during his earthly pathway.
Every morning his ear was open to hear what the Lord had to say.
And where did that pathway lead?
All verse gives us the answer. I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
It began with His ministry to Israel in grace, presenting himself as the Messiah.
And as it says there in verse four, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.
But it ended in rejection.
I want to talk a little for a few moments about the Lord Jesus as an example for us in this.
And we tread on holy ground here because as an example for us, God gives us that which in absolute perfection is beyond that which any of us can reach.
But here was one.
Who every morning when he got up, if we could say it with all reverence. And he was a real man.
With all of the thoughts and feelings, everything that a real man has.
Apart from sin, but every morning when he got up.
It was to listen to the voice of the Father by the Spirit of God.
What would you have me to do today?
I asked myself that question. I ask you that question in the presence of God when you and I get up in the morning. Yes, we have responsibilities and those of us that earn a living.
People sometimes ask me if I've retired, and I'm not sure how to answer that question. But the point is, if we earn a living in the secular sphere, there are certain things that we have to do, certain time frames that we have to be familiar with.
It becomes a routine, and that's right and proper. If we go to school, there's a certain time that we have to be there. There are certain assignments that have to be done, very definitely.
But above and beyond all that.
Am I before the Lord?
As to the fact that if I am a true believer and I trust all here are right down to the children and young people. Am I aware of the fact that God has left me in this world to be.
An ambassador for him and a living witness for him. It does not mean necessarily having something to say all the time, but it means that my life is lived with that ear continually open in order to listen.
But let us remember that that pathway of faith may lead where it let the Lord Jesus.
Here we find that the atoning sufferings are not mentioned, as they are not mentioned in Hebrews 12, the chapter that we have had before us. They will come later in Isaiah 53. But the atoning sufferings are not mentioned here, but rather what He endured at the hands of man. And if you and I are going to be a witness for Christ in this world, even the fact that we live for Him.
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We are going to encounter the opposition of this world in one way or another.
It may not be as some of our brethren are experiencing, persecution, imprisonment, suffering even unto death. Yes, it's happening.
But God prepares for whatever He would have us to do.
But remember while reading how that the evangelist in the 1800s, Charles Spurgeon, was walking toward a place where he was to hold a gospel meeting, and a fellow believer who knew him fairly well fell into step with them. And as they walked along, this was somewhere in England, I believe, he suddenly said Spurgeon.
Would you have the grace?
To be burnt at the stake for the name of Christ, as many believers have in the past.
Kind of a tough question to be pitched at you out of the blue, isn't it?
The Spurgeon thought for a moment, and then he said well.
Right now, I don't know that I would.
But he went on to say that's not the kind of grace I need right now.
What I need right now is grace to preach the gospel in 20 minutes.
And that's the kind of grace I'm asking the Lord for.
Beautiful answer. He was looking to the Lord for the grace that was needed for what was before him, and the Lord gives the grace for whatever he says.
But where did this ear come from? Where did this ear come from?
Let's turn back to the 40th Psalm.
And I know this is familiar territory for many here, but I want to make a practical application of it for our hearts.
Psalm 40.
And verse 6.
This verse is repeated, as we know, with a minor variation in Hebrews 10.
But here it is in the Old Testament.
Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire.
Mine ears hast thou opened?
Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required?
Then said I lo, I come in the volume of the book, it is written of Maine. I delight to do thy will, O my God, ye thy laws within my heart. If you look in the margin, at least in my margin, and I believe it's the same in the Darby translation, that word opened in reference to my ears could be translated, digged.
Digged.
What does that mean?
You know, if you want to put a post in the ground, you first of all have to dig a hole in which to put it.
And we speak with all reverence when the Lord Jesus came into this world.
In one sense, he had never had to have that ear before. It had to be digged.
We won't turn to it, but it's in Hebrews chapter 5 where it says.
Though he were a son, and the indefinite article there should be left out. It should read though he were son.
Yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. He experienced, if we could say it, for the first time in an eternity.
What it was to be the perfect dependent man to be obedient.
I'm not old enough to remember it, but I understand, and I'm speaking now, perhaps for the moment as a Canadian, that our present Queen, Queen Elizabeth the Second, when she was, uh, in her early teens.
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In the early part of the Second World War, she badly wanted to do something for the war effort.
She didn't want to sit there in the palace and enjoy all the comforts to which she was entitled as a Princess.
With her father as the king, she wanted to do something.
And so they arranged for her to work in an auto mechanic shop, and there she went, in a pair of coveralls, crawling under cars, getting her hands dirty with grease and all the rest of it working in engines and so on.
Learning how to do it.
And she learned for the first time to have someone give her orders. Now don't get me wrong, when she was a small girl and when she was growing up, she was no doubt under educators who taught her how to do things. And she was schooled in what was right and proper for a Princess who was growing up. But now she was in what you might call the real world.
And she had to learn what it was like to work in an auto mechanic shop with a foreman over her. And she voluntarily and willingly did it.
And was glad of the experience.
But here, the Lord Jesus, we speak with all reverence.
Allowed his ears to be digged by God the Father.
I say to your heart and mind to our ears sometimes have to be digged.
I don't want to be funny, but my right ear had to be digged.
About a week ago.
I had a very difficult time over in Romania because sometimes my allergens mess up my middle ears.
At least temporarily.
But this time it didn't go away the way it was supposed to. And when I got on the plane, it didn't go away. And when I got home, it didn't go away.
And I finally said to my wife Charlotte, I said this is not allergy.
There's got to be something plugging that right here.
So happening as I do to have an ear syringe at home, I schooled her in how to do it and I got her to syringe out that right ear.
And the gunk she got out of it surprised me. I didn't know it was there.
And back came my hearing. My ear needed to be digged. I wasn't hearing people very well. I was straining to hear.
My left ear wasn't too bad, but my right ear couldn't hear very much if anything.
You know, sometimes morally and spiritually our ears need to be digged, don't we? Because we get them full of gunk and the gunk as the things of this world that comes along, so that we are not hearing the Lord's voice.
I don't need to elaborate on that because I have been guilty of it.
There is a lot of gift among those gathered to the Lord's name, and we are thankful for it.
Would God more of it were used? There's a lot of energy among many gathered to the Lord's name.
Would God more of it were being used? Oh, you say I don't know what to do. Perhaps I don't know where to go.
Rest assured that if you and I want to do that which is for the Lord, if we want to hear the Lord's voice morning by morning, and we want him to dig our ears.
He will do it and show us what he would have us to do.
But there is one more thing that happened to the Lord's ears, and for that we have to turn to Exodus 21.
Exodus 21.
Well known scripture and we won't take time to read the whole account.
We're familiar with it about the Hebrew servant.
Who after he had served six years, was free to go out for by himself, but because his master had given him a wife and he had had children by that wife, the wife and children belong to the master, and he would have to go out on his own. And what happens? Verse 5?
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And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife and my children.
I will not go out free.
Then his master shall bring him unto the judges. He shall also bring him to the door.
Or under the door post.
And his master shall bore his ear through with an all, and he shall serve him forever.
There is no question that in type this refers to the cross.
There was the ear of the Lord Jesus, as it were, bore through within all.
Why? Because he loves first of all his master. And notice the order there.
He doesn't say I love my wife, my children and my master. He says I love my master.
Lord Jesus primarily went to the cross in order to glorify God His Father.
And our brother Bruce brought that out yesterday in connection with propitiation.
Propitiation was Godward, without for the moment bringing you and me into the picture.
I love my Master, my wife and my children, and the Lord Jesus goes all the way to Calvary's cross in order.
What? That he might continue to be with that master, Speaking of God the Father, in order that he might be able to be with that wife, Speaking of the Church?
In order that he may be able to have children Speaking of you and me as individuals.
As the children of God.
And he becomes a servant forever. O the Lord Jesus will be a servant forever as a result of Calvary's cross.
But I want to make an application here and I trust it isn't misunderstood.
If I allow God to dig my ear.
And if I am ready to be?
Wakened morning by morning.
To hear what the Lord will have to say to me.
It may in that sense, as we've already had in Isaiah 50, lead to my ear being bored through with an awl.
It's basically the same thought, but carried one step further.
Recently I read the story of a man in China who eventually managed to escape not all that long ago, within the last 20 or 25 years.
And as he was in that situation in China.
He found that gradually, more and more persecution came his way.
And he said to his wife, you know, one of these days we may have. And he used the term we may have to learn prison theology.
Prison Theology.
Boa's wife said. I don't know whether I'm ready for that yet.
He said I don't know whether I am either, but we may have to learn it. The Lord gave him more time, but eventually the time came when the Lord allowed both of them to be put into prison. Not for a length, a long length of time, couple of months, but enough to give them a severe taste of what it was going to be like. Well, the end of the story was good. Eventually the event, eventually they have managed to escape.
Hong Kong, which at that time was still under British rule and then eventually managed to get over here to the United States.
Many of our dear brethren are finding their ear being bored through within all.
As we have in Hebrews 12, our chapter that we have had before us.
We cannot follow the Lord in His atoning sufferings, no.
But we may be called to follow him.
In the sufferings from the hand of man.
But you and I say it's not come to that in this country yet. No, it hasn't. But it is getting more and more difficult to live a godly life.
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How things will go as time goes on, we do not know.
But it is getting more and more difficult, and we cannot expect righteousness from an unrighteous world. As her brother used to say many years ago, the world that crucified the Lord Jesus will not stop at anything in antagonism to Him.
Let us be prepared for that and yet at the same time to recognize that having the ear board through with an awl can take many forms. It can take many different forms because the testing that you and I may go through may take different forms, but ultimately it will come down to effect. Are you and I prepared to be faithful to the Lord and faithful to His Word?
Under whatever circumstances He brings us into, He will give the grace for it if we look to Him.
And is it so I shall be light, thy son.
#18 in the back is this the grace which deep for me has one?
It looks to raise the tune.
Not the only one seeing it.
And if it's all, I shall be like my son.
Came on me and one of you took it away from.
We did. I'm sorry. I started again to.
And in the cold heart shall be like thy son.
It is great grace for your kid has more.
Whatever.
He called me on the call.
My love, my pride.
And drive above thine soul.