Gospel—S. Bambauer
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So it's the Word, so it's the word of God we hold in our hand that we hold in our hands here in this country, thankfully so unhindered that gives off, that gives us the direction that God has given for the salvation of our soul.
The obstruction. The obstruction comes from God.
And a person might be running and a person might be running down the hall with the hotel on fire and he might say, I think we ought to go this way.
Another person might be another person might be running the other way and he says, I think we ought to go that way.
But the person, but the person who designed this hotel knew exactly the way out. And we wouldn't want to and we wouldn't want to enter our own thoughts, our own opinions about that. We want to follow the, we want to follow the direction. We want to accept. We want to accept what he has said. And so we hold in our hands the word of the Creator, our God. And I'm looking at the 4th and I'm looking at the 14th chapter of Acts, Acts chapter 14.
And here we see the, and here we see the Apostle Paul in his in his early journeys, as he went to a town, as he went to a town named Lystra.
And met there one in his need. God had sent him there.
And perhaps this evening there is a rendezvous with a soul here and God's message, God's Word.
So in Acts chapter 14 and verse 8.
And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked. That was the condition of this man whom Paul found there in Lystra when he came there with Barnabas preaching the Gospel.
As sent out of God.
And that's a picture of each one impotent who never had walked. We have never taken in our natural condition a step toward God, a step for God, have never walked in a way pleasing to God, but went on in our own ways, in our own self will in opposition to God. The plowing of the wicked is sin. Whatever we've ever done in our life without Christ has been with the thought that this is what I will do.
In order to gain what I determined to be my objective in life.
And we never brought God in. That was the state of our soul.
Number of years ago. I live on the Sacramento River in Northern California. It's.
Navigable stream. There were two families that thought that they would build a raft. It was the summertime and it was time for vacation for them. They had come up from the city and they went to great lengths to build a raft.
Tied them together and there were these two families on the raft, about about six people. So it was quite some time ago. I don't remember just exactly how many, but I think there were about six people, two parents, two sets of parents and some children.
And they were going to Tom Sawyer it down the Sacramento River for about a 20 mile stretch and that would be their vacation.
And they got about two miles above where I live there.
And they had a pole, and they were pulling themselves along with this pole, just like the old times.
And they came into some snags and they couldn't seem the current took them right into the snags and they couldn't pull their raft away from the snags. The current was fairly swift and that point of the river they had gotten down probably from where they had launched about 7 miles and they were having a a real nice time.
And that seems to be often the way it is in our life as we.
Wander through life. We think that things are going pretty well.
And then an issue or a circumstance comes up. Well, they had hit this pile of snags there and the raft overturned.
And they had lost their sleeping bag in their camp stove, and one man had lost his wallet. And they were out in the middle of the river. And those folks were from the city area, and they didn't know how to swim very well. And besides that, they had their young children there.
And they were in distress outright in the middle of the river, and they were just a little afraid to try to swim to shore. And there were two young fellas that came down to the river that day, and they saw them about from here to that wall out there in the middle of the river. And they said, well, that's a funny thing for those people to be all perched out there in that pile of snags like that. And they said, do you folks need any help over there? And they were sure glad to hear from these two young boys. They were about 10 and 12 years old.
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The neighbor boys that lived up the river from where I live and, and so they called and said, yes, we would sure like to have some help. And these two boys swam right out to where they were. And that was a little of a comfort to them. You know, these boys, they, they weren't very big and they could swim out to where they were, but they sure couldn't pack them off of that log. Who would know where they could pack them off of that log? They were stuck there for their families too.
And they said, well, we'll go and get some help.
I know a guy with a boat and maybe he'll come out and, and we'll go see if we can get some help. Well, a little while later my telephone rang and one of the boys, he, he said, you know, there's some people up there on this pile of snags and their raft is tipped over. Could you help them out? Well, I had the boat in the water. It was a kind of a bigger boat, an inboard boat. And so I got in the boat and I went up there to see what I could do.
There sat a certain man, at least impotent in his feet. While they couldn't swim off of that log, they couldn't get off of that log, and those boys couldn't get them off of that log, and there was no way they were going to get off of that log on their own.
He was a cripple from his mother's womb who had never walked. They were in a desperate situation and there was number hope for them unless somebody helped them. So what I did is I took the boat and I was a little anxious and the water was going by the snag and I came around from upstream and came down and thought maybe if I cruised by they could jump in as I went by and the nose of the boat hit the snag and this Jarred the snag and pretty soon I was by and they were still on the snag there.
Well, it may be that someone has come up to you someday. They gave you the gospel in kind of an abrupt way.
And perhaps it didn't set well with you, but that hasn't changed. Your condition has implanted on both feet and never having taken a step toward God hasn't changed the position of a man who is in his sins and without Christ and desperate, who is like those who are out there in the middle of the river. So the next time I decided to come up from downstream and I put the boat right next to the snag, right where it was, right up against the raft that was partially submerged and in the water.
I came to write where they were, and that's what God has done for us and the person of His Son. He has come right to where we are.
He came down from the glory. God's beloved Son became a man and walked here on this earth right where we are. He came to where we are. He didn't stand back and give U.S. law and say if you do the best you can. He didn't stand back and give us even the Sermon on the Mount for our salvation. The Sermon of the Mount only slays us. I remember being an exercise when I was a youngster. I just started reading in the book of Matthew and I came to the Sermon on the Mountain and said, I can't come up to this.
And I knew that I wasn't good enough to come into the presence of God.
But God came right to where we are, and so I came right up to where these folks were and I actually grabbed hold of them and I helped them into the boat.
The law won't save us, only Christ. He has come right to where we are in our sins in this world. And I help those folks into the boat and I couldn't get them all in at once. I had to make several trips.
Now here were two sets of parents there, and there were some children.
What do you think the parents did? You think they said I'm first and they jumped into the boat? No, they were concerned for their children. They wanted those children in the boat. If all else failed, they wanted those children in the boat. You know a parent's heart. We know what a parent's heart is. Oh, how we would love to see each of you young people, your children, safe in Christ.
He has come right to where you are and He is knocking at your heart's door right now. He is accessible and He loves you.
Well, we took those people off and then I didn't take them out into the middle of the river and say, I've got you off the log and now the rest of the way is yours. There was a man once who had heard the gospel and he said, you know, I just don't think I I could endure if I ever believed. And the gospel preacher said, if I could make this pen stand up on its point, would you believe? He says, well, you can't do that. And he took it and he just put it there like that. And the fellow said, well, you're hanging on to it. And the man says, well, I never said I was going to let go.
And the Lord is not going to just pick us up to let us go.
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Do you think God takes delight in just picking us up and watching us fall? He has given us an all the way home Savior, a Savior to the uttermost. I took those folks all the way back to solid land and dropped them off and went back and got the rest and I wasn't satisfied until I got them all off the log.
And God would like to save. He is not willing that any should perish. So here is this man.
And He's in this condition. And I give that illustration that it might make simply and plainly the truth of this eighth verse as to what our condition is. Sometimes as man, we think our thoughts are not God's thoughts. His thoughts are not our thoughts. We think that we can provide something. We think that we can alter the plan. We think that we can make it suit our need in some way of our own doing.
But salvation is of the Lord.
And so this same man heard the same, heard Paul speak.
Who? Steadfastly beholding him and perceiving that he had faith to be healed. This man was in earnest. That's all he meant. Business. There he was, and he recognized his need. Repentance.
Recognizing the need to be saved.
The person who is not sick is not going to go to the doctor. It's expensive there, and the shots may be painful and the medicine may not taste good. And so if he's well, he's not going. But a person who is sick will go, and a person who realizes his desperate need before God will come and receive the Savior that God has provided. And that's what the apostle Paul saw in this man.
We look at Jeremiah 29th chapter.
God wants reality. There isn't very much reality today.
People are sweet, talked and.
People believe this and that, and they say this and that, and sometimes they're weird and their deeds don't match, but God is looking for reality.
And so it says.
In verse 12 of Jeremiah 29 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you, and ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Do you mean business with God? Are you satisfied sitting out there on that snag like those folks were when I got to that snag? Do you think they said I'll wait for another boat?
Or I like it just fine out here with the children. I think I'll stay here a few more days and I'll think about it a few days down the road.
They meant business, that's all. And God wants you to mean business with Him. Do you want to be saved?
Or do you want to be lost? You can ask yourself that question. God has come to where you are and He has provided for you fully and freely. Salvation is complete in Christ, but He wants you to mean business.
Ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Beholding him and perceiving that he had faith to be healed. That's all.
The man meant business. Saul with a loud voice.
Said said with a loud voice stand upright on lifebeat and he leaped, then walked.
Stand upright on my feet. And he leaped and walked, you know.
The man had never done that before in his life.
We read in the Gospels how the Lord Jesus came and told the man with the withered hand to stretch forth his hand. He told him another man received by sight.
And I suppose the person could stand there and consider and think about that and say I've never done this before in my life. It's a good idea. I'd sure like to see. I'd like to receive strength in my legs. I'd like to be able to walk, but I've never been able to do that before.
I remember when I was young, I thought I would sure like to be saved. I don't want to be lost. Nobody wants to go to the lake of fire. Nobody wants to be lost. I wonder how you'd be saved. I wonder what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. I wonder if I could just find that switch somewhere that would give me to believe what I'm supposed to believe and know what I'm believing so that I could be saved. I didn't understand these things very well.
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But God says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You know, in natural things you, you go to the physics class and the the teacher explains these things and you understand them and then you enjoy them. But in the things of God, it's the obedience of faith.
We believe these things and act upon them, and then we enjoy them. The enjoyment and the entering into the truth of God.
Is not by the intellect. You don't have to join Mensa. You don't have to have a certain IQ. You don't have to have a certain amount of money to be able to understand. You don't have to have letters after your name. You don't have to have a degree to understand the truth of God. That's why it says whosoever will. If it were only true for those who could understand these things and wrestle with them intellectually and sort them out.
Most of us would miss out.
It's for whosoever will, and so that the truth of God comes down as he presents salvation.
The gospel in ways simple that anyone with a conscience exercise before God and desiring to be saved can be saved as to whosoever will, and it can be to anybody in this whole world. It can be anybody in this room.
And so the man in response to what command was given him.
And God sends that forth as a command. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
There are no options here. This is not negotiable.
If you reject the command of God, you perish. If you receive the command of God in what he has provided, you're saved. This man responded to what was told him. Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked. He made that statement in the obedience of faith in every single one of us in this room.
In our lives is making a statement. This man, in the obedience to what he was told, obeyed. And his statement was that he leaped and he walked. And everyone of us makes a statement in this life as to what we think life is all about. And that statement is made not so much by the words that we speak, but by the way that we walk and the things that we do and everybody's statement.
Is a statement of the inner workings of their soul, of what they're thinking, of what they believe life to be all about. He leaped and he walked.
In Matthew Chapter 9.
In verse 5.
The Lord Jesus said for weather is easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say arise and walk.
How could the Lord Jesus say to this man, thy sins be forgiven thee? Here is a man that they had brought in four people brought him in on a cot and he couldn't walk another man all his life, sick of the palsy, and the Lord Jesus said thy sins be forgiven thee. What did it cost the Lord Jesus to make that statement? He had to go to Calvary's cross. He could see that man sins, every one of them. He died there and bore the sins of all that would believe upon him.
He bore them in his own body on those three hours of judgment at gallery's tree. The soldier came after those hours of judgment were passed, and he had said, it is finished. And he pierced that soldier, pierced his side, and the blood flowed forth for the remission of our sins, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission.
There He made atonement toward God for our sins. He covered our sins. He bore the judgment that we deserved. He, the sinless One, took them upon himself at Calvary Tree. He knew that ahead of time he could see that coming, and he could say to this man, Thy sins be forgiven thee. But then he also said, Arise and walk. He had to take out this bed and everything that ever held him down.
Every passion and self will and rebellion toward God had to be judged and brought into submission. The apostle Paul preached to Felix righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. Temperance is self possession. A man in this world is totally possessed by the things of this world. He scratches and claws and goes after these things and he thinks that's life and they possess him and they motivate him. Pleasures and wealth and fame and power, all these things.
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Motivate man and possess him and occupy him. And here this man takes up his bed, and now all the things of this life are possessed by him. He is a man in Christ. He is a Newman. He has the Spirit of God. He has all things that pertain to life and godliness, everything that is needed, the new nature, the Spirit of God that God gives, the object and the glory, the hope before us to be home with Christ in glory, Everything that is needed.
But he is there too, as our High priest.
That we not fall. He's with us every day of our lives. We look up and we see him there as our high priest.
Has our advocate, Has the one who is yet accessible. He's the man in the glory.
Never was a man there before, but now there's a man just like we are in the glory, who represents us there, who takes up our cause and to whom we can come at the throne of grace and find mercy and grace to help in time of need. And it's a time of need. Every step that we take in our life is a time of need. And we need to call upon the name of the Lord. We need to bring the Lord Jesus into every decision that whoever we make. And that's the only way that we'll ever walk in temperance. That's the only way that we'll ever have power over those things.
That would subdue us and bring us right back down. He could say to that man, take up thy bed and walk. And that's no easy thing to say either. That is a difficult thing to say. Which is easier to say? I don't know. But the Lord Jesus as Savior and as high priest accomplishes both for us. He brings us all the way home. But this is very practical.
And it involves a walk with the Lord Jesus to be with him, to bring him into all our thoughts, you know, and natural things. We can understand this. A young man takes a wife and he doesn't put her out of his thoughts. His thoughts are toward her. And it's not a duty on his part to continually be thinking of his wife and in ways that he might please his wife. And as he gets to know her more and more, the better he knows how to please his wife. And we understand these things in the natural sphere.
We are glad to please one whom we love.
And so it is in that relationship that we have with our Lord Jesus Christ to walk with Him, to take up our bed and walk, to leap and walk as we have in our chapter, to go with Him throughout our whole life, calling upon Him.
It's a life of profit. It's not a vain thing.
Godliness is profitable not only for that which is to come, but for the life that now is. You may well read the stories of men who.
In their lives made the statement.
That they were an infidel, and all their life their energies were spent to discredit the word of God, to ridicule the Scriptures, to try to disprove these things. But every single man has a conscience and none are exempt from that. And the conscience is a very delicate and sensitive instrument. We all know that.
You take a man like Voltaire who when he came to the end of his life, God gave him space for reflection.
Rather than a sudden death.
And he weighed these things and he considered these things, and he was at his wit's end. But there was number repentance and salvation. The man finished his course as he had lived it, an infidelity and his intellect he may have lived by, but he could not die by. And the nurse that attended him there in his final days said I would not attend the deathbed of another dying infidel. For all the gold in Europe as she saw the waves of darkness flow across that man's mind as he realized.
What was just before him?
So he made that statement, but God gave him space to make his final sentence just before he died. You will never find a person who goes on with the Lord and calls upon the name of the Lord daily for his sustenance, come to the end of his life and say it was a mistake I lived and I die in regret. He will never say that. You will never find such a one as that. What kind of a statement are we all making?
God wants reality with us, but he has given us provision for every step that we take. And here this man leaped and he walked. And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Laconia, the gods are come down to us in the likeness of man.
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And they called Barnabas Jupiter and Paul Mercurious because he was the chief speaker. This area of Laconia was in Asia.
Which was very near to Greece.
And these people were highly influenced by Greek thought and philosophy, Greek culture.
And the first thing.
That the enemy would do.
In view of a work of God here on this earth.
Was to bring in some kind of a religious corruption and spoil it.
When the gospel of God in Christ went to the Greeks, it became a philosophy, when it went to Rome, it became an institution. When it went to Europe, it became a culture. And when it came to the United States or Western civilization as we know it, it became a great enterprise.
Big business.
And the enemy will come in and try to confuse and cloud the truth and simplicity of the Gospel of God, and so immediately enters in here this religious corruption. Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people.
Here was Paul and Barnabas chance they could build a great enterprise.
They could have people flocking after them. They could have people casting their wealth at their feet. They could have made a lot of money. They could have set up a big business. Here we see it all around us, but the gospel hasn't changed. The gospel is still the same. And God will have reality even in the midst of the day that we live in, in 20th century Western civilization. He will have souls saved in simply believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The apostle was faithful.
Which when the apostles Barnabas and Saul heard of, they rent their clothes and ran in amongst the people crying out.
And saying, sirs, why do you these things?
What is? What is your motive anyway?
Maybe I could ask you that question about the things that you do in your life, everything that you do in your life. Why do you get up in the morning? Why do ye these things? Why do you do the things that you do and what is your motive behind them?
Only that which is done for Christ will last. Only that which is done for Christ.
Is apart from all vanity and vexation and emptiness has substance only that which is done for Christ. Oh, if we could just really sincerely and honestly ask ourselves that question, why do ye these things? Why do we do the things that we do?
Why is it that we lose our temper sometimes?
Why is it that the passions go on unchecked in our bosom? Why is it? What is our motive in these things?
The man of the world is sustained by them. He moves by them, he is motivated by them.
We have the privilege of self judgment before the Lord to examine these things and call them what they are.
And to go on with the Lord, put him in the place, and leave him in the place of judgment. But not so if you're lost.
If your affections aren't toward the Lord Jesus and you have no use for him, these are the very things that move you along in this life. We also are men of like passions with you. You know God save sinners.
And preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities unto the living God. This is conversion.
Good old fashioned conversion which is the result of reality in the soul. A turning to God from idols, A recognition that we are ripe.
And do for judgment that we deserve it, that we take sides with God against ourselves, and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one that can save.
Vanities is what the vanities is, what the Word of God calls the things of this world, the motives of the self willed vanities.
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The living God which made heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are therein. He has rights over every single one of us. He is the creator of everything. God created all things.
Man again with letters after his name.
Takes a position in places of instruction.
And he asked all these questions as to what is life and what is origin and what is destiny.
And where did we come from and where are we going?
Him and all the dust settles. He comes up with some kind of a free fall.
Through an infinite vacuum.
He has no answers.
He spends his lifetime asking these questions.
In all different ways that he might ask them and never comes up with an answer.
God made heaven. We begin with God in the beginning, God.
He is the creator of all things.
And as our Creator, we have responsibility to Him.
Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways?
And God was long-suffering, and people come and ask, well, why?
Are all these sorrows in this world? And why does God allow the tears and the sorrows of this world?
And the only way that God will rid this world of those things is in judgment. But God and mercy now waits.
That sinners might come in repentance toward human faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
When time passed, suffered all nations to walk in their own ways, and men are still doing that today. But a day is coming when judgment will come, and He will judge this world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained, in that He hath given assurance to all men, and that He hath raised him from the dead. Christ has been raised from the dead. The One to whom all creation is committed is raised from the dead, and as Son of man, all judgment is also committed.
Nevertheless, He left not himself without witness in that He did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling our hearts with food and gladness. You know, it's the goodness of God that leads man to repentance. Sometimes we think that God is a hard taskmaster and He has come and He is there to collect. But God has come to give. He has come to provide and we come receiving.
Even in natural things we can understand this as the fields produce the fruit and the food and the raiment that we have need of it all comes from God.
And with these things scarcely strained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them. And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city. Supposing he had been dead, albeit as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and came into the city. And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derby. And when they had preached the Gospel to that city.
And had taught many. They returned again to Libra and to Iconium and to Antioch. And so the disciples, the apostles, they came back. They were gone for a bit, but they came back.
And they confirmed the souls of the disciples in exhorting them that you continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation, enter into the Kingdom of God.
God has not promised us anything but food and raiment and tribulation, and it's with much tribulation that they entered into the Kingdom of God.
There was a man named Dieter Dangler during the Vietnam conflict who was flying.
In AF1 fighter and he went down theater was a German fellow, but he got into the US military and he was over there and was shot down and he has he evaded for a time, but then he was captured and the path that law had captured him and held him in a prison camp with about five or six other young soldiers and aviators that they had captured in that particular area of operation. They didn't have very much food the past that Lau didn't have enough food to feed themselves.
And these men with data, they began to lose weight and lose weight.
Pretty soon they realized that with the lack of sustenance that was available there, they were going to perish. They were surely going to perish.
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And so they decided they would try to make an escape. Anything was better than dying there. And when they saw the opportunity, they ran. When the guards had diverted their attention, they ran. They got into the forest, they all split different directions. Peter never knew what happened to the others, except for the fellow that was with him. The two of them went and they journeyed as far as they could. They were exhausted.
They'd gotten away from the guard. They went for days that way. They tried eating what they could. They found a little plant. They were desperate, desperately hungry. He took the plan. He wondered if it was good to eat. He put it in his mouth and he chewed, and it just turned his mouth inside out. It was so stringent he couldn't eat it.
People are feeding on things of the world, you know, and that's the taste it leaves and that's the nourishment it gives. Nothing, he went on. And he went on.
They went to a village. There was a village they thought, the only hope that we have.
Is to go up and ask them if they would in mercy give them something to eat. This was a path that Lao village. They had no sympathy with an American soldier. Their village had been bombed. They had lost loved ones. They had no sympathy with an American soldier. They ran out from the village with machetes. The two soldiers saw what was about to happen. Dieter found more energy than he ever thought that he had. And he made a run for it back into the jungle. The other man was slain by the villagers. Now Dieter is alone.
Sometimes we think that we can appeal to this world for help and solace and comfort.
They have no desire for the things of God, no desire to sympathize with a child of God. Dida ran back into the jungle, and he went for a few more days, and he was down to his last calorie. He knew he was about to die. He crawled up on the side of a mountain. He took some weeds and formed them in the shape of an SOS, and he lay down to what he was sure to be.
An American Flyer came by and looked down and recognized him. They weren't anxious to get into a situation like that.
Sometimes they were trapped. He saw Dieter there and he says that's not an Oriental. I recognize that man as being Western.
They called in help, they rescued Dieter, they got him out of there and restored him to hell.
And he was. He was recovered. It is through much tribulation entering into the Kingdom of God. We are not here in a friendly world. I cannot promise you that. Taking a stand for Christ will put you in good stead with your neighbor if you are faithful.
It is with much tribulation they entered into the Kingdom of God, the Saints in this day.
Many of them lost their possessions, some of them lost their lives, but they meant business with God. They pressed themselves into the Kingdom of God. There was reality. They saw what was before them. They saw that behind them was death and that before them was life. And there was no turning back in spite of the tribulation.
And so it is even today, entering in with tribulation to the Kingdom of God. But God makes provision.
And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord.
On whom they believed. It's on the Lord that they believed. It wasn't in the Apostle Paul, it wasn't in Barnabas, it wasn't in the disciples, and it wasn't in the elders that were ordained at these churches.
There were local assemblies there that these men could be brought into. The man that we read about in verse eight who was leaping and walking, who was restored to his feet, who could now walk for the Lord and make that statement that Christ is everything. As Paul could say for me to live is Christ. He is brought into a place. There is a place for Him. We are not only brought out of our sins and desperate situation, we are brought in to a place of blessing.
In Ephesians chapter 2.
And verse 19, it says now, therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners. That's the place that we've been brought out from.
That's where we were, a stranger toward God and foreign in all our thoughts toward God.
But fellow citizens, with the Saints and of the household of God.
They had ordained them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting. They commended them to the Lord on whom they believed.
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That's the place they're brought into the assembly.
Place where there's encouragement, where there's instruction. I can't commend you to the Church of your choice.
I can't tell you to go down there and make this choice or that choice. There is a place where God has placed His name on this earth and it's a place of refuge. It's the end. It's the place of instruction, it's the place of comfort. It's a place where there you will find others also.
Who would desire to go on in brotherly love?
Commanded them to the Lord on whom they believed, And after they had passed through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia. And when they had preached the word in Purga, they went down into Atalaya, and then sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. And now what did they do At the end of their journey, when they were come and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done.
With them and how he had opened the door of faith under the Gentiles. They rehearsed there with each other what God had done.
Our employment in heaven, one of the things as the eternal ages role, one of the things that we will enjoy is what God has done and how in sovereign grace he has brought us along through the journey here and brought us all the way home and there they abode long time with the disciples long time ages role eternity's role time has passed new heaven.
Newer still gone in glory with Christ, there with him the bride, all the redeemed, gathered around him in the enjoyment of his person.
You can enjoy a person for time. You know what it is in relationships as brothers and sisters naturally in your families, as husbands and wives, as children and fathers, fathers and sons. We understand these things naturally and we enjoy them and rightly so because God has given us these institutions in relationships that we might enter into some concept of what God has in mind has the eternal ages role to be in the enjoyment of Himself as our Father.
To be able to look up and see God in the face of Jesus Christ and to know Him forever and ever.
Well, the dust will settle on this world.
And everything will come to a conclusion and there will be those two classes, there will be those that opposed.
And there will be those.
Who had faith to be healed? Who desired? Who had that desire to believe? Who meant business with God?
Who received what God had provided in the person of His Son, and had been saved fully.
There will be those who have rebelled.
And all the opinions of man at that time.
Won't do him a whit of God. He may entertain and tickle his mind with them now, but then only weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Those two positions are held on to us now.
And the words ring down the halls of time. Choose life.
Don't choose death.
Choose Life.
All that we have, our life, our salvation, our hope, our object, our eternal position is found in Christ alone. The one whom God has set forth, the one who is his whole delight, and He wants us to come now and to be blessed. God wants to bless us and He will do it in Christ. Those are the directions that He has given, just like the sign down the room.
There is no alternative. All of God's blessings for us are found in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our life. Choose life.
Shall we sing #5?