Address—Eric James
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OK, well why don't we go ahead and get started? Let's sing #127.
How blessed the home, the Father's house #127 their love divine doth rest. What else could satisfy the hearts of those in Jesus? Blessed His homemade ours, His Father's love, our hearts full portion given, the portion of the first born Son, the full delight of heaven #127.
00:05:43
OK, let's commend ourselves.
OK, we're going to try to figure out the technology here. Nathans going to help.
I guess this is kind of a product of Zoom. So over the years, last couple years, we've done more things on slides. What I want to speak about this afternoon, thanks Nate, is the path of faith. And I've enjoyed a little study here where it's illustrated by 4 different stories in scripture. And I've asked these young men up front here to help me identify those stories that I think illustrate these.
The different stages of the path of faith.
That's one way that the Scriptures use to illustrate truth is by stories, by geographical locations. Three of them happen to be little towns, and one of them happens to be part of Jerusalem. Now, a little hint here is that all four of these places start with the word Beth. That's why I have up there, you can see.
You see, it says Beth because Beth in Hebrew means house.
And so the song we sang spoke about the home that the Lord has prepared for us, and there's certain little houses that illustrate these truths.
OK, there is a path which no foul knoweth, and which the vultures, I have not seen the lions whelps that would be their pups have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.
That's why we're here, dear young people. We want you to know that there is a path of happiness and joy through this world. And I remember one of the first young peoples I ever went to when I was only maybe 12 or 13, back on the East Coast, a man by the name of Mr. McNabb. Maybe some here remember Brother McNabb. And he, when we walked in, he handed out a little pamphlet called Rex on the Burma.
And I'm sure some of you have read that interesting little pamphlet is by Mr. Willis, and it speaks about a time when he was trying to escape China and he had to go on the Burma Rd. which was constantly being bombed by the Japanese. And he describes a number of wrecks along the way. And he described how all these trucks and all these vehicles that started out with the hopes of reaching their.
And along the way, they ended up wrecking.
And so he used that to illustrate the Christian pathway, that there's many ways that there's a right way. There is a path which no foul knoweth, but there's also many other ways that will cause us to to wreck in our Christian lives. And that's what that little pamphlet's about. I hope you read it when you have a chance. Very interesting little pamphlet. So we want to talk about the pathway.
Not get into so much the wrecks. We want to avoid the wrecks.
But we want to talk about the pathway. Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? We just sang in this hymn about the home that God has prepared for us. Isn't that a wonderful thought? To think that God loved this? As Martin was telling us this morning, reminding us of this morning. He loved us so much that in the past eternity He prepared a home for us close to himself.
As we've been saying in these meetings, and I've been so impressed with her personally that.
He's entrusted us with the highest truths of all of God's creatures. Isn't that a wonderful thing? He wants us to be so near to Him. We sometimes sing so near, so very near to God. I cannot near be friend, the person of the Son. I am as near as He. Not a wonderful thing.
And yet we live in a Laodicean day, and the danger is that we get lukewarm. We've heard it all, we've seen it all. It just kind of rolls off our back like like water off of a a duck's back. That's a danger in our day, isn't it? But let's, let's have our hearts warm that helps to get together like this. We'll talk about illustrations of the path of faith that will help us hopefully rise above that.
00:10:18
OK. I want to mention, I mentioned there's four little geographical locations that illustrate the truths of the Christian pathway, the path of faith.
This first one is actually in Jerusalem.
It's the name of a pool, and there's a picture of, I think maybe just an artist's representation of what they think that pool looked like. I'll give you a little better hint and then maybe your boys can help me guess what that pool is. There was a lot of infirm people that were at that pool, and something happened once a year. Remember what happened once a year?
No, not the pool of sight. close, but not quite once a year, something happened.
These infirm people, you can see there, there's a cane and a lot of people, a couple canes there and and crutches perhaps. And these people waited for something to happen once a year.
Robert, you're too old.
Absolutely, thank you. Do you remember the name of the place?
All right, we'll let some people a little older who's what's it starts with, Beth.
You remember, remember, these all start with Beth.
Bethesda, somebody said. Let's go there.
All right.
Bethesda.
What does Bethesda mean? Anybody know that off the top of your head? I don't think I did without looking it up, but Robert.
House of Mercy didn't even have to look. That's what it means.
House of Mercy, this is where the path of faith starts, doesn't it?
We need God's mercy. That's where the pathway starts. And we've heard the gospel several times and I hope that you, you young people especially, take it to heart. Martin was telling us how that he heard it many times and it didn't really sink in. I have a brother. We just visited, hadn't seen him for 11 years. Just a couple weeks ago I visited him with my other brother and he heard the gospel. They grew up in the meeting, like like I did.
Heard went to Sunday school.
We have no assurance that he has taken the Lord Jesus as His Savior. This is the first step in the path of faith. It speaks.
As it must speak.
Yeah, where you get this?
What happened to my cursor here? Whoops, there we go.
It speaks of salvation.
We must be saved to get God's blessing, otherwise we're going to be thrown into this world of which Satan is the God and the Prince, and we're going to be his plaything.
Here's a Here's a hymn I came across recently.
I hadn't heard it before. I'm sure many others have. You can see the date up there is actually 1890 something. Is that what it says? Written a long time ago. I actually heard it on the Radio One day and I've been praying for my uncle who was my closest of all my uncles. He's the one who operated on my knee when I had to, didn't have any insurance and had to come out West and get my knee operated on. He was a orthopedic surgeon.
And my mother's brother, but.
He had not accepted the Lord as his Savior.
And he was getting older and older. His mind was still more or less clear. He finally got to 97 years old.
As far as we know, he died in agnostic.
And that was a sad thing for us. And I, as we were praying before he passed away, I came across this hymn. Out of Christ, without a Savior. Oh, can it be like a ship without a rudder on a wild and stormy sea, out of Christ, without a Savior?
Lonely and dark the way, with no light, no hope. Indiana Jesus making bright the cheerless day out of Christ, Without a Savior, no help or refuge nigh. How can you, oh friend and brother, dare to live and dare to die? How can we dare to live and dare to die?
00:15:03
Without the savior. All to be without a savior.
Hope no refuge nigh can it be, O blessed Savior 1, without thee dare to die. Don't go there, young people, children, don't go. Don't face life. Don't face death without the Savior.
OK, that's the beginning. The first of the four. Now we've got another little place. This is a little town in Israel.
This is an artist rendition of it doesn't give too much away at this point. I'll give you a little more hint and I think you'll get it. Remember, these all start with Beth. OK, that'll be a help. All right, let's go to the next 1-2 widows. One older, one younger had left the land of Israel and now the husbands have died. One was the mother of of the other husband.
Now they're walking back to this little town in Israel.
Bethany. Bethany. Right. Very good. Thank you. And here's another picture to help us. There's a younger woman's name. What was her name?
Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, it's Bethlehem, actually. What's the younger woman's name? Danny.
Remember the two ladies that came back to this little town that the mother had left before?
OK, what's your name?
Ruth, you remember Ruth June and you guys remember Ruth? Remember she came back with her mother-in-law. They came back to the place where the priests are. They came back to the place that had been chosen by the God of Israel for blessing, and yet they didn't have anything. Did they accept one thing?
They had trust in the Lord. They trusted in the, in the.
In the under the Wings of the Lord. And that's what Boaz says to this young lady.
Ruth, she was a widow now, but now she's come to. What did we say again? What's the name of the town?
Not Bethany. That was a mistake. Bethlehem. OK.
What does Bethlehem mean?
House of bread, House of bread. Isn't that a good thing? If you're hungry and destitute and don't have anything to know where you can go, someplace where you can get food? Well, that's what Bethlehem is, the House of bread. Isn't that a wonderful thing? Once we're saved, the Lord wants us to get some satisfaction, get some things that meet the needs that we have. We have desperate needs, don't we, as people?
And there's a place we can go. The path of faith will lead us on to where the Lord is, where we can get things. We can get that which satisfies our deepest needs. Speaks about. I call that big word sustenance. That means it gives us what we need, it satisfies our needs, and it gives us true satisfaction. You remember.
There is a man in the book of Ecclesiastes. You, you young boys, you remember who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes.
Solomon, thank you. Was Solomon a rich man or a poor man?
Very rich man. Was he a smart man?
He was the wisest man in all the world at the time, wasn't he? Was he? Was he? Did he have any authority?
It was a king. Did he find satisfaction in this world? No.
That there is a path that leads. There is satisfaction in this world.
But it comes from that which the Lord supplies, not which man supplies. And you know, young people and you boys, I can remember, I grew up with a young man. We used to go to Ottawa Lake together. Some of you people know what that is, been there before, went to conferences together. He made his object money. He was a Christian and he stayed a Christian all his life. He's still living, but he decided to make money in his lifetime.
And he had the go to the Super Bowl every year and he had to have fancy cars in a fancy house and made many, many millions of dollars and was the head of a big company about my age. You know, I just found out something about him. He's bankrupt.
All those multi millions dollars, what he pursued all his life, it's all gone.
He's bankrupt.
So we have to be careful what we pursue. There is a path of blessing.
00:20:04
That God has for us that will satisfy our deepest needs.
He satisfied the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.
That's God's promise. Do you think God's good news promises?
He is, isn't he? I can tell you after 70 years, I'm 70 years old. The Lord is good to his promises, But remember, there's a lot of wrecks on the Burma Rd. a lot of ways we can veer off and run into trouble. That the Lord wants to keep us. He wants us to be blessed. We read about some of the things he wants for us. He wants us to to learn what love is his love, and he wants us to learn what love is to our brother. He wants us to have that peace that he.
With all the trouble we just had, a brother was just speaking the other day in our meeting he said, you know, I had to had to go to the coast and I was listening to.
Podcasts on the way and this brother has been pretty successful in business and he has some investments he's trying to live off because he's semi retired now. And he said, you know, he said those podcasts, it's just one thing after another, the business world and the World Economic situation and the Geo what we call the geopolitical situation in the world of Iraq.
And he said if we didn't have Christ we would be so upset and so without any peace. But as Christian Wigan rise above that and look into the sanctuary and we know that God has everything under control and he's our God and he's the one that wants to bless us. Here's another little song I thought it explains as so many of us have sung this many times, I heard the voice of Jesus say.
To me and rest, it's one of the things we need is and it is rest. This world doesn't give us any rest. Lay down the weary one, lay down my head upon my breast that came to Jesus as I was weary, weary and worn and sad. I founded him a resting place and he has made me glad. I heard the voice of Jesus say, Behold, I freely give living water. Thirsty one that satisfies us.
Stoop down and drink and live. I came to Jesus and I drank of that life giving stream.
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in him. I heard the voice of Jesus say, I am this world's dark light, this dark world's light. Look under me. Thy mourn shall rise, and all thy day be bright. I look to Jesus, and I found in him my star, my son. And in that light of life, light of life, I'll walk.
Till traveling days are done, The path of faith.
But there's something else. You know, one danger we have as Christians is that we make it self-centered. We make it all about me. That's a dangerous thing. I think much of Christendom is all about me. How can I have a better family? How can I have a better a better? How can I raise my children better? Those aren't bad things in themselves, but they're not a good object. So we have to remember that Christianity is about Christ first. Not, not not about me once.
My needs. He wants to lead us on further in the path of faith. And so here's the question that the psalmist raises in Psalm 116. We don't know who wrote that Psalm. It doesn't have the name of anybody. But it speaks of a time when somebody is being restored to the Lord, and they raise this question, what shall I render under the Lord for all his benefits towards me?
I will take the cup of salvation. We just spoke about that, you know.
There are three tensions to salvation. You know what tenses are? Past, present, future. Okay, he learned that in school. Here we have the three tenses of salvation. I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. That's the first tense. That's when we're saved. When we take the cup of salvation that God has freely offered to us and we call upon the name of the Lord, we change masters.
We take Jesus as Lord. Now the second tense.
I will pay my vows under the Lord now in the presence of all his people. Well, that's another good thing. You know, vows, we speak about responsibility. Once we become Christians, we're responsible to act like Christians. And so he says, I'll pay my vows. I'm going to act like a Christian, like a believer under the Lord now in the presence of all his people. I'm going to be responsible and accountable to other people. That's a real problem sometimes, isn't it?
00:25:05
Sometimes we want to live our own life or sometimes we get on the computer and we don't want anybody else to see what we're doing on that computer.
But we need to be accountable not only to the Lord but to one another to. So I'm going to pay my vows under the Lord now in the presence of all His people. There's what we call a collective testimony. The Lord has instructed for our blessing that there is a collective testimony. As we've been speaking, we need our brethren in order to grow, in order to keep us accountable, and in order to exercise the gift.
Entrusted to us and in order to praise the Lord in a collective way. You know what I found out something that I thought was remarkable.
We sing together. We've been singing together here. Do you know that for 1000 years there was number congregational singing about the year 360 at a place called Laodicea of all places. They had a, they had a conventicle they called it. And they decided that from now on only the professionals would sing in in church. So for 1000 years, from about 360 all the way up to about 1350 to 13.
The people weren't allowed to sing in church. That a sad thing. Only the monks could sing. Only the professionals could sing. Isn't that a sad thing?
But I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people. He wants us to sing. Sing out of a full heart. And so remember, Christianity isn't just about me and meeting my needs. You know, sometimes I have to admit, I go even to a conference sometimes or go to prayer meetings.
Somebody said sometimes the prayer meetings are often organ meetings that's about everybody's organs that aren't working quite right, and sometimes that's what it is. But really?
Prayer meetings should be, first of all, to thank the Lord and praise the Lord simply for what he's done. So let's remember, the Christianity isn't just about me. That's where it starts, but it's about the word Jesus Christ and about the blessing that God has brought us into and wants us to know. Well, that's the second tense of salvation. That's what we should be doing day by day. I will pay my vows under the Lord now in the presence of all his people. You know, if we get too far away.
From other believers. We get cold in our hearts, don't we? And we don't, we just, we just get it occupied with other things and taken up with other things that we can't understand what's happening. We think we're fine, but we don't realize what we've missed. Like a brother John has been reminding us when we don't get together in assembly, which the Lord has established as a gathering center of the assembly, when we miss those meetings, we miss something, perhaps for all eternity.
That the Lord wanted us to have. So I will pay my vows under the Lord now in the presence of all his people. And then the third tense of salvation, precious in the sight of the Lord, is the death of the Saints. Isn't it a wonderful thing with the Lord? Jesus has taken care of us when we die. So often we think of death as a sad thing, and it is a sad thing for those of us left behind. But I read something recently that I appreciated by a man named William McDonald.
Some of his things I appreciate some of the things you wrote, He said, you know, we need to look at death too, from God's sight. He said God has the right to come down into this world and pick his lilies, as it says in the Song of Solomon. Sometimes we forget about that, don't we? God has the right to do that. He's not depriving us of certain things. He knows the beginning from the end.
Doesn't he have the right? He gave us the breath in the 1St place. Doesn't he have the right to come?
And pick his lilies, as it says there, and take some of one home to be with themselves. Their trials are over.
They don't have an old nature anymore. They won't sin anymore. That's really a lovely thing, isn't it? Not that we want to rush it, but God has a right to do that to, to take his own. And precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints.
OK, that's Bethlehem.
Here's another death. Now think about this a second. Here's a man. Anybody. Here's some angels going up and down a ladder. In the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis, we read about this. Here's a man sleeping on a stone. Anybody remember the man's name?
Right, Jacob, Right. But.
00:30:03
Jacob OK, You remember it starts with death, so maybe you can get it. Let's give another picture. OK, This is another hint. In the Old Testament, there was a certain house, a house. Whose house was it?
God's house getting pretty close here.
And then a little bit later they have that Tabernacle and the wilderness, and they had the Tabernacle in the land of Canaan for quite a number of years. And then they had the beautiful temple, didn't they, once the Kingdom started? And this is all about the House of what?
House of God, do you know the name in scripture?
Bethel, Beth is house, L is God. Pretty simple, isn't it? The House of God. All right, let's look. The House of God. Bethel, That was where Jacob saw his scene. The scene there, the angels going up and down the ladder. House of God is literally what it means. And what does that speak of? It speaks of God's sanctuary.
The place where the Lord dwells. What a wonderful thing that is.
To be where the Lord is, He wants us to be close to Him as we are singing in the hymn.
That's why he saved us, that's why he created us. He didn't create us to go to the lake of fire. That's where the 8th the the devil and his angels. He created us to enjoy his presence and to be like his son for all eternity, to be part of his family and to dwell with him for time and for all eternity. So it speaks of the sanctuary. When we use that word sanctuary, we're talking about the place where God dwells, the House of.
God.
OK, some things about the House of God. God is holy, isn't he? So holy must become a thine house, O Lord God, forever. If I'm going on a bad way, I don't want to be in God's house, do I? Because I'm not walking in a holy way. But it's a wonderful privilege to be there, because it's through holiness that we get blessing it. Bible tells us holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
So holiness means to act in a way consistent with the with the righteousness of God, to walk in a way that's honoring to the Lord. Let's look at some other verses. Here's something that's found in the House of God, the full knowledge of the mystery of God, and richer hid all the treasures.
Of wisdom and knowledge. Remember, one of the first slides we had we talked about has so entered into the treasures of the snow.
You know, where does snow come from?
Where did snow come from?
From the sky, right? Who else came from the sky? What person?
Important person came from the sky.
But the Lord Jesus didn't he, we didn't come from the sky, we came from from the earth. But the Lord Jesus came from the sky. Why did he come from the sky? Because he wanted us to enter into the treasures of the snow, the treasures that were in his heart and the Father's heart from all eternity that would make us happy and blessed and, and Phyllis with the secrets of God.
It says there the full knowledge of the mystery of God. That's what we call the assembly Christ in the church.
And which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Would you like to know all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? God has wants us to enter into that. They're found in his house, in his presence, in his sanctuary.
But that made us know how to behave thyself in the House of God, if we're going to be in God's presence, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Great is the mystery of godliness.
If we want to be, if we want to learn these things and walk in the good of them, we have to behave ourselves in a certain way. Do you know what makes the House of God the House of God now?
It Where is the Lord Jesus right now?
Is he on earth? He's in heaven, right? So, but is there one of the divine persons that's on earth?
The Holy Spirit, exactly. And so where this Holy Spirit dwells, it's the House of God. So if we're going to, if we're, if we're Christians, we need to be, we need to remember that we're part of God's house and we're guests in God's house. And we need to behave ourselves in such a way that's consistent with God's house. And so that thou mayest know how to behave myself in the House of God, which is the Church of the living God.
00:35:20
The pillar now the pillar here has few different thoughts in Scripture, but the thought of the pillar here is that we're a testimony. We represent God to the world. Have you ever thought about that? We don't just live for ourselves. Christianity is not all about me, but we're to be a pillar. We're to represent God in the world. Sometimes you see a monument and you go into a little town and you see a pillar set up and it it speaks about some famous person perhaps that lived there or or speaks about.
People that perhaps died in a certain war from that little town. That's a pillar. And so our monument, we might say, and the Church of the Living God is a painter were to represent God in this world and also the ground of the truth. That means that God has deposited this truth. The full knowledge of the mystery of God. The treasures of wisdom and knowledge have been deposited in the assembly.
Isn't that a wonderful thing? And so we looked at that house, that little Tabernacle, and we looked at the temple.
The that was where God dwelt, and he dwells now in the assembly, and that's where the testimony of God the pillar is, and that's where the deposit of truth, of this tremendous truth that's been entrusted to us is deposited in the assembly. What a wonderful privilege that is.
His little song and a little little flock him by Mr. Wigram. What way is the wondrous thought? Or who did it suggest that we the Church, the glory brought, should with the sun be blessed? Oh God, the thought was thine, thine only it could be fruit of thy wisdom. Love divine, peculiar unto thee for sure no other mind for thought so bold, so free.
Greatness or strength could ever find thine only.
It could be, you know, it would be blasphemy for us to save any of the things that we've enjoyed together. Unless God told us it was true, it would be blasphemy. It's a horrible thing, but God tells us all these things. He loves us and He wants us to be very near to Him for sure. No other mind for thought so bold, so free greatness or strength could ever find thine only.
It could be the motives to thine own the plan, the Council thine.
Son, bone of his bone, that's the Church where the bride of Christ in glory brought to shine. O God, with great delight Thy wondrous thought we see upon his throne and glory bright the Bride of Christ shall be.
Here's the rest of that song that we read before the 160 sixteenth Psalm. Remember it says, what shall I render under Lord for all his benefits towards me? Well, the first was when the believer was just was just newly newly saved, we would say in our language today. But then a little later on, he's grown a little bit in his soul and he says this, oh Lord, truly, I am thy servant.
Well, we've been talking about.
Consecration, haven't we? You know what consecration means, that I'm using it in a general way. But the consecration, the way most brethren speak about it, it literally means to have the hands full, to have our hands full of Christ. Now, when we're younger, sometimes we have maybe one handful of Christ, but then we have another hand we have, maybe it's sports, maybe it's art, maybe it's music, maybe it's business, maybe it's a family.
Family is important. Some of those things are not bad in themselves, but there's a danger of not having the Lord 1St. And so many young Christians don't have the Lord first. They're saved and they're on their way to heaven, and they maybe come to meeting or go to church or some such thing. And the Lord's met some of their needs, but they haven't really learned and progressed in the path of faith. But the Lord wants us to be His servant in one sense. I know you just read that.
Not servants. In a certain sense, we are servants, Paul said. I'm a slave to the Lord Jesus. You know what the word redeemed means.
Redeem means to buy back and set free.
So why would Paul then say that he's a slave? If he's been bought back, but he's been set free, why would he want to be a slave to the Lord Jesus?
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You ever thought about that? Why does Paul call himself a bondsman or a slave of the Lord Jesus? He was brought back from a pathway of of pride and ruin as he was, but then he was set free. But then why would he become a slave?
We ever thought about that? It's a little harder question, isn't it?
Have you ever read Robinson Crusoe? Maybe that's showing how old I am here, but.
A lot of us had to read Robinson Crusoe when we were in high school in English class. But I don't know if you young people maybe don't even know who Robinson Crusoe is. But but it's story about Robinson Crusoe as he was out on an island and he would have been shipwrecked and he wasn't on an island. He thought he was all by himself. And one day you know what happened? Some cannibals came along and they had a man that they were going to kill and eat.
And they had that man that from a different tribe, and that's the way they did. And they landed on this, what they thought was an uninhabited island.
And they were going to kill the man and eat them.
And Robinson Crusoe was there, and he had some rifles and things, some muskets, and he delivered that man and he set him free. You know what that man's name was?
Somebody older?
Friday, right? What did Friday do then, when Robertson Crusoe delivered him?
But I.
Remember what Friday did after he was delivered by him, He was set free. What did he do?
You think he got on a little boat and left?
You know what he did? He insisted on being a slave for Robinson Crusoe, he said. You've saved my life. I want to serve you forever.
And that's what consecration is when we come to the point that we're not only on our way to heaven, not only living kind of a Christian life, but we say, Lord Jesus, I want to live for you 100%. I want to be holy years want to have both hands full of Christ. That doesn't mean we don't have responsibilities. Of course we do. But you can do those responsibilities for the Lord. That's the great secret of consecration. No longer just for ourselves or for other people, but we can do those for the Lord.
So truly, I am thy servant. Well, we're even more than that, aren't we? We read how that were friends of the Lord. The Lord has brought us closer than those Old Testament Saints, and we're even brethren. The Lord calls us his brethren. But truly, I am my servant. I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid. You know what I think about that.
It's a wonderful thing to have a Christian heritage. I know sometimes when we're younger, we think, oh, you know, my parents, you know, they, they read the Bible to me and they pray and, and, you know, I remember when we had a son when we would pray and he would kind of pretend he was falling half asleep and he was making us know that he wasn't very interested in what he was, what we were reading about, you know, and now that young man has a family of his own and he loves the Lord.
And he's right through the Lord. But there was a time when.
He wanted to make his parents understand that this was kind of a waste of his time, you know? And we sat and read the Scriptures and prayed together. But it's a wonderful thing to have a Christian testimony, isn't it, To be raised in a Christian family. What a wonderful, wonderful privilege. So we don't have to, we don't have to find out what Satan has for his people in the world.
We hear sad, sad stories. The Lord doesn't want us to have to go through it. So I'm the son of thine handmaid.
So you young people, be so thankful that you're being raised in Christian homes. Thou hast loosed my bonds. We talked about that. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of Thanksgiving. This is more than just about me now, isn't it? We can thank the Lord Jesus and we can think about and we'll call upon the name of the Lord. It's about Him. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now on the presence of all His people. He read that before, but notice there's something more now.
It's in a particular place, in the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem, praise ye the Lord you know.
00:45:05
We've been speaking about this with several here recently.
Spiritual truth is exclusive.
Just think about it. What's what did God say to the Israelites in the Old Testament? Here, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God, and thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exclusive, I assail. Pretty exclusive, isn't it? Or if you're a Hindu, you can have a million gods. You can even have Jesus as your God if you're a Hindu. That sounds strange, but it's true. Not that you're devoted to them, but you could pretend that he's your God. You can have millions of gods.
But.
In the midst of the O truesome. So we go to another place. We go to Deuteronomy 12, and we were told that they were supposed to, and when they would come into the land, that there would be one place where the Lord would dwell, where the pillar of cloud was there, and they were to worship the Lord there. That place was to be Jerusalem, wasn't it? Under the Kingdom, And they were to be there. That's exclusive, they might say.
Why can't we meet other places? You know, my wife and I recently read through the historic books in the Old Testament and one thing struck me that I don't remember so much in the past. One thing that we remember is that the kings of Israel remember the 10 tribes that separated from the two tribes. They were characterized by the sin of Jeroboam. He set up golden calves on the North and South end of his Kingdom because he didn't want people going to Jerusalem, the divine center.
And the kings after that were often their besetting sin was the fact that they.
Did not put away those golden calves. They maintain that false religion.
And that was a dangerous thing. But what about the kings of Judah? What was their besetting sin? And this I hadn't really thought about so much. But over and over again you'll read about the kings of Judah who were more godly men, at least some of them were. They didn't put away the high places. What does that mean? The high places? The high places were competing centers where they worship the Lord, but on their own terms.
And only when you get to people like Hezekiah and Josiah, they finally put away the high places and said, the Lord said to me.
Where he is in Jerusalem, not in all these high places as well.
They weren't necessarily idolaters high places some of them were but many of them apparently they worship the Lord when on their own terms, but the Lord wanted them to meet in Jerusalem. So check that out when you read through about the kings of Judah, you'll see that many of them they'll be setting sin was they did not put the high places away. They did not destroy the high places and scripture tells us that was grown they should have destroyed those high places because.
Lord was only in the one place. We come to the New Testament and what do we read? The Lord Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father except by me. Is that exclusive? Well, that sounds exclusive to me. We get to be Acts of the Apostles, and we read in the 4th chapter of Acts. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Is that exclusive?
Sounds exclusive to me. And so we go on. And then we read in Matthew 1820 where we're two or three. It doesn't say wherever two or three. I read a a corrupted translation once that said that translated by men who despise the, the the recovered truth. And they translated that wherever two or three are gathered together.
Doesn't say that, it says for where a place.
Two or three are gathered together unto my name. There am I in the midst of them. Well.
We have the man has recovered greater intelligence now and he knows that the place to be is where the Lord has placed his name. What a tremendous privilege and blessing that is. That's where the assembly operates as the assembly, as the House of God, as the body of Christ, as the as the bride of Christ is where the Lord has placed his name. You know, it doesn't say exactly.
And I know we misquote this sometimes. It doesn't say exactly that Christ is the gathering center. It says for where two or three are gathered together unto my name, what's the difference? The name means what's represented by the person of Christ, the work of Christ, and by his authority, obedience to Christ. I remember.
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Albert Hayhoe Some of us fondly remember Albert Hayhoe. I learned so much from him when I was a young person.
Remember what he said once he was reading in First Corinthians 10 words, speaks about the Lord's Table, and then he turned over to the end of First Corinthians 11 and it speaks about the Lord's Supper. But he said, what's between those two?
It's about head coverings for women. He says, why is that? It seems like it's out of place. Why is it, Why is it right there between the Lord's Table on the Lord's Supper? And he said, I believe the reason is very simple and it's this. But the only way to maintain the truth of the Lord's Supper on the Lord's table is by obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.
A lot of people talk about the Lord's Supper. I believe many believers.
Value of the Lord's Supper, but what about the Lord's Table?
The Lord has promised to be where we're scripturally gathered. That's an exclusive place for where two or three are gathered unto my name. There am I in the midst of them. It's a special, it's a it's the presence, the special sign of the Lord's presence. What a privilege. Why do we argue about that? Doesn't mean we're better or anybody else. It's a simple truth of Scripture.
We bow to what he says. We get the blessing he intends for us. It's so simple.
Let's not forget that, brother, spiritual truth is exclusive.
Let's not forget that.
OK, we have just a couple minutes here. One last bath. Here's three people. I'll tell you it's two sisters and a brother.
And something, I'll give you some more hints here. Something very serious happened to the brother and these sisters were so glad to see him.
OK, you remember the man's name? Lazarus. Where they live?
Bethany. Very, very good. Here's another hint. This was one of the sisters named Mary Wright. She was consecrated the Lord. What's she doing here? Can you tell?
She's washing the feet. She took the most valuable thing she had.
A cruise of oil that was so precious, and she broke it, and she washed the Lord's feet.
And she wiped his feet with her hair because she had the sense of all the enmity that was rising up against the Lord, and she wanted to respond to the Lords love in a way that showed her appreciation to him. Beautiful, isn't it? Beautiful picture of consecration, Bethany.
What's it mean?
What Bethany means?
Not quite. Well, it may be one meaning, but it's not the primary meaning. It's a House of.
House of Bait? What does that mean? Let's get to it here.
House of dates What is a date?
Type of fruit. Now is it a sour fruit?
No. Is it like like roughage that we eat just to fill our bellies so we're not hungry?
No, What's what's what? What do you know about dates?
Very sweet. You know, for these people, the simple people, they didn't have a lot of fancy desserts. This was their dessert was dates and figs too, I might add, But dates, this was, we could put it in a special way, the one place on earth when the Lord Jesus was in his ministry that he felt at home. This was a place sort of like his dessert, if we can put it that way. It was a place where He loved to go.
And he knew that they loved him.
They knew that he loved them too. That's when they sent the message when their brother was dying, was sick. They said, Lord, he whom they'll love us is sick. They had a special relationship with the Lord. And so the House of Dates speaks of the secret of His presence. This is the real secret of going on for the Lord, the path of faith. We've been speaking about it in our meetings, haven't we, The Communion.
Secret with the Lord. Spend time, we might say. Sometimes people say, oh, I don't have time. We got to get to work. Wait a minute.
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What's the most important thing in our lives? To put Christ first. That's how we get the blessing. That's how He gets the glory.
That's the only thing worthwhile.
And so Bethany was the House of dates. It was the place where they loved him and he loved to be. Let's make sure our houses are a House of date. Let's make sure our hearts are a House of dates for the Lord. Here's a little song, little poem, The secret of his presence. How my soul, the lights to hide, or how precious are the lessons which I learned at Jesus side.
Earthly cares forever vex me.
Trials lay me low, but when Satan comes to tempt me to that secret place, I go when my soul was faint and thirsty. Meet the shadow of your wings. There is cool and pleasant shelter in a fresh and crystal spring, And my Savior rest beside me as we hold communion. Sweet. If I tried, I could not utter what he says.
When thus we meet, only this I know. I tell all my doubts, my griefs and fears. Oh, how patiently he listens, and my sorrow soul he cheers.
Do you think he never reproves me? What a false friend he would be if He never, never told me of the sin which he must see. Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord? None of the rest of what we've talked about means much if we don't know the secret of the Lord. Go and hide beneath His shadow. This shall then be your reward, and whenever you leave the silence of that happy meeting place.
You will surely bear the image of the master in your face.
Very little.
Home I appreciate. Once it was the blessing. That's what a lot of Christianity is about, isn't it? Let's get a blessing. We want a blessing from Christianity. But now it is the water. Once it was the feeling, now it is His word. Once the gift I wanted, now the giver own. Once I sought for healing. Just things we can get from the Lord, His gifts.
Now himself alone, the hymn is called himself.
Beautiful him.
OK, just a summary here. Just out of curiosity, the first Beth we looked at, Bethesda was actually part of Jerusalem.
One of the others we looked at let's see, Bethlehem is just a little bit South of Jerusalem.
And then Bethel about, I think it's 9 or 10 miles north of Jerusalem.
And then last of all, Bethany, just a couple miles outside of Jerusalem where there was so much hatred against the Lord Jesus.
And Mary felt that, and she was in communion with her Lord, and he appreciates that. He appreciates it when we're in communion with them too. So here's a summary. Bethesda, the House of mercy, speaks of salvation. That's the beginning of the path of faith. Bethlehem is the House of bread. Bread isn't a good flavor necessarily like dates, is it? It's not dessert, but it's what we need.
Perceptence that meets our needs.
And satisfaction, Bethel, the House of God, of the sanctuary is supervision. God has made for us to come into his presence there to not only enjoy His presence, but there to lift up our hearts to Him and praise and worship and adoration. What a privilege that is. Worship and praise and adoration is the highest privilege of the Christian in this world.
And then Bethany, the House of dates, the Lord's desert, if I can speak that reverently, the secret of his presence.
Let's bow our heads.