Address—Bruce Conrad
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Spray. Well, just to open things up, I would like to read a verse in the book of Ecclesiastes.
The 11Th chapter.
And verse 5.
As thou knowest not, what is the way of the Spirit?
Nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child.
Even so, thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.
I have before me this morning to speak about the work of God.
You just feel.
So inadequate to take up.
Subject like the work of Christ, as you would to take up the subject of the person of Christ.
And sometimes people say, well, we won't touch on this or that forsake of time.
And maybe we will run tight on time, but one can't help but feel that we touch the very tips of the waves and as a brother.
Old brother that was one of my many teachers would say the well is so deep and we're thankful that.
The water is accessible to us at the very top.
And so, with the Lord's help, I'd like to speak about the works of God.
And the aspects I'd like to speak about this morning are the work that God accomplished through his Son on Calvary's cross.
2000 years ago.
And then just speak a little bit about the work of God that's going on in your soul if you're a believer and in mind.
However, long ago that was not that long, relatively speaking. And then thirdly, the work that God is doing today, yesterday, tomorrow, in your life and mine, that will have its transition, perhaps even today.
When the Lord gives that assembling shout and we transition.
And into our heavenly home, our bodies are changed, and we're at full liberty to be who He has intended us to be.
The Apostle Paul at one point could speak about the gospel as the as a mystery, the mystery of the gospel.
But to you and me, it is not a mystery in a certain sense, because though it is kind of a Riddle, it's been unfolded to us.
And then we'd like to speak a little bit about the mystery of life. I'm not sure that expression is used in the Scripture, but I think really the the way God is. It says in this fifth verse, thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child natural life as intelligent as man is and has.
As sophisticated and development as his abilities now are.
To understand natural things. The mystery of natural life is still a mystery to man, let alone spiritual life.
And then, of course, there is that mystery or that wondrous thing of the way of a man with a maid in Proverbs 30. And the way that God weaves the fabric of your life and mine is an immense privilege ongoing in every one of us, though we may not always feel or see His hand.
It's striking, really, as we look around at each other, to know that God has a special individual curriculum.
For each one of us, He knows exactly what He's doing. He's doing it day by day. So let's turn first of all, and get some verses before some expressions from the Scripture to speak about the wonderful work of God on Calvary's cross.
First of all, let's turn to First Timothy, chapter one.
We'll jump around a little bit here at the 1St.
First Timothy one and verse 11.
The glorious Gospel of the blessed God.
Which was committed to my trust. Or we could read it as it is the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.
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I'll turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter four, another expression to have before us.
In 2nd Corinthians 4 and verse 6.
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And let's turn to John 13 now.
In verse 31.
Therefore, when he was gone out.
Jesus said now is the Son of man glorified and God is glorified in him?
If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself.
And shall straightway or immediately glorify him.
It's a wonderful foundation to get in our souls for those that are younger.
To look at the work of Calvary's cross.
As an exchange between the father and the son.
All are familiar with the beautiful, stunning type in Genesis 22 where Abraham and Isaac and some young men that supported them went on a long journey, I assumed by foot, and it came to a point where the mountain was in view.
And they left the young men there.
And it says the two of them went together alone.
And it's a wonderful thing to ponder, the fact that even though there were all these different players.
Surrounding the Lord Jesus. And that's solemn hour.
There were soldiers, there were mockers, there were scorners, there were religious men.
There were curious people, and all the rest. They looked and stared upon him.
But in another sense.
The two of them went alone.
The disciples overcome with sleep.
Stay the stones cast.
When the Lord.
The reality of the darkness was pressing upon him.
It says in one of the gospels that an Angel it only speaks of one.
Ministered to him. Think of it.
And yet.
If men had eyes to see into the spiritual realm, I believe they could have seen legions of angels.
How do we put it on high alert?
Standing by.
In the ways of God in the Old Testament Scriptures, we see the power that one Angel.
Could execute.
Legions of angels.
When the king of Syria surrounded the city and Elijah was there, and he gets up early in the morning and he sees all kinds of Chariots and horsemen and his servants as master, how shall we do?
And Elijah said, Lord, open his eyes. When his eyes were opened, he saw a mountain full.
Of horses and Chariots of fire.
And to think of this.
Most solemn moment for which the world was made.
Brother told me once we were walking. Older brother, did you see all this out here?
Yeah, it's pretty impressive.
This is This world is a platform for the display of God's glory.
In Christ.
Mr. Darby made the comment in his day over what is it now, 100 and.
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20 or 40 years.
He said if the earth is small in itself.
That which God accomplished on it is not.
How much bigger the world seems today.
With telescopes and all the I don't even know how they do it, but they lookout and out and out and out. The more powerful man is able to see out into the universe. There's just more there.
And it goes on and on and on in the mind of any reasonable person is overwhelmed by the thought of spatial Infinity.
And we look at the rocks I know as a young student, and we take you up to a rock cut.
Where they shoot the rock out to make the road go through and you could see the and.
And you ponder in your mind the ages and eons with which God has done what He has done in natural things.
And I believe that God has given man little man, and that's why man could sense as what is man, what what are we? What am I that are mindful of me? Look at this out here. We look back in time or look ahead into Infinity, all centered and headed up.
In this great, great collision.
That took place in Calvary's cross.
And I just for myself, I just think that angels were standing by, as it were, on high alert.
They shouted for joy when the When the worlds were made, we read in Job.
When the sun came down and took manhood, and was born in Bethlehem, the silence of heaven was allowed to be broken.
And the angels stating the glory of God, what must they have thought standing there?
Knowing what was about to happen.
When the man of such stature with legs like pillars of marble.
Is on his face before his God.
Oh my father, if it be possible.
Let this cup be taken from me.
And he sees and he discerns and he knows that it was not possible that God could be glorified, that the work that he was sent to do could be accomplished in any other way.
And he rises. Then he proceeds.
To the further horrors of Calvary's cross.
In John's Gospel, it's sometimes a wonder as we first start to read the Scriptures, because the Lord Jesus speaks about things as if they already happened.
And as we begin to ponder things more and more, and we think of what eternity is, we say to ourselves, well, eternity doesn't stop. And then time starts.
And then time runs along, and then times over, and eternity starts up again. Because that eternity wouldn't be eternity, would it?
Eternity and time are concurrent, while there's time, it would seem to me.
And the Son of God as he was here.
Inhabiting eternity as God and yet here as a man in time. It's just as if he steps to this side and then steps to that side and inhabits both and speaks from both.
Seems to me is why he could pray and say, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, and yet in time it was a little bit from being really fully accomplished in time.
In verse 31 Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him?
The headwaters of the blessing that you and I are going to enjoy for all eternity.
Is in the immense and wonderful love of God.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
And the sun is the scent, one of the Father. But the Spirit of God protects the majesty of his person. And in almost every place in John where it says he was set, it also says he also says I came because it was proper to him to do that. And those verses are usually back-to-back, lest we get a wrong thought. The Spirit of God so jealous.
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Of Him and His glory and careful about our understanding.
And so he came as the sent one to the father, and he accomplished the Father's will.
And he could say, now is the Son of man glorified in God, is glorified in him?
As one who was, as another put it, competent to pass judgment on the value of his life and work, he says that.
When I do work, I'm in the construction business. When we do work, someone else has to come and validate that it was properly done, that it was well done.
But here is one who is competent because of who he is to pronounce assessment, divine assessment of the value of his own work as man. He glorified God on the earth.
And it's as if God looks down. Calvary is the work of Calvary's cross having been accomplished. He laid down his life.
He allowed himself to be taken by wicked hands, and crucified and slain. A soldier pierced his side.
And the blood of Christ came forth in the water.
And he laid himself down in death.
And God looks down and says. What is my proper response to this?
What is my proper response?
Have you ever wondered why it speaks of us being blessed according to the righteousness of God?
Sometimes it seems to me like it should say according to the kindness of God.
But it's quite a subject to ponder. It says the righteousness of God. It's God's righteousness. I know there is a righteousness imputed to you and me on the basis of our faith, and that is different.
But God is consistent with himself and righteously raised the Lord Jesus for among all the rest of the dead.
And gave him glory.
It was proper, it was righteous thing to do. It's beautiful.
God is glorified in Him.
And if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify in himself, and shall straightway or immediately glorify him.
And we could, for the sake of time. Here I went and said it again.
We won't multiply scriptures about the wonderful reality.
That God raised him out from among all the rest of the dead, and gave him glory.
All of our loved ones that we've laid in the grave, they're with Christ.
But their bodies are in the grave. They're awaiting the first resurrection.
The Lord Jesus has already been resurrected. Resurrection has to do with the body, and he has a body. He has a body of a man, a glorified man, and he's the only one. And he's been glorified. And as an overcomer, He's seated on the right hand of the throne of God. He sits on his Father's throne. God has glorified him.
He sits there now and he is in a position.
And God is now, if I could put it reverently, in a position to bless the vilest Sinner and still be blessed, still be right and and just in doing it.
Because in the neighborhood I grew up in, and you start to people here that you're a Christian, he's the last person I thought would ever be a Christian.
And then they said, well, what's fair about that?
There's nothing fair about the gospel.
It's so beyond fair.
What's fair about?
What's fair about the man Christ Jesus taking my place or your place and bearing my sins in his own body on the tree? That's not fair. That's so far beyond fair. It's not even a discussion.
He's positioned himself there, and God is now free in consistency with himself and all that He is in light and holiness to pour out blessing on whosoever will.
And young men, young sisters, it's good to learn the truth of propitiation. It's not a word that you probably got in high school in your spelling test or on the Sats. And it's a little different than the way men and women use it in the world.
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In one John two we read he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world. It's the side of the work that Christ accomplished on Calvary's cross that has been for God.
And he has glorified God. First things first.
I don't want to take the time, but it's, it's, it's just a wonderful subject.
To lay hold of how?
Gloriously. I don't know. Adjectives fail.
That God has vindicated the that's the Son of God has vindicated the majesty of God with respect to the stench of sin.
It's a wonderful subject and we need to move on.
But it is the basis where God can come out in blessing this. We have just touched the tops of the waves.
Of something that you and I believe will be occupied with through all eternity.
And I know you are now and I am now and you 40 years, 50 years, some here 70 years may be known the Lord Jesus Savior. And I'm sure you sit down on a on an evening and you just have to pinch yourself. Is it really true? How could this be? What a you have to pinch yourself, do you not?
That God would reach out and accomplish such a work of love and power and wisdom all combined for the likes of you and me. And the best is yet to come.
Well, that is the work accomplished outside of us, a work we can say was done for us. But now let's turn to John, chapter 3.
And speak a little bit about the work.
That he has to do in.
US.
I'm sure all are familiar.
With the occasion in John chapter 3 where Nicodemus comes to the Lord Jesus by night.
He comes to him as one who has a certain reputation and a sense of his own knowledge and competence, maybe in religious or divine things.
But the Lord has to basically put the brakes on dear Nicodemus. I believe we'll see Nicodemus in heaven.
And the Lord pierces right to the point, and he says in verse 3, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
And then in verse 5.
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
Just as it is essential and later on in this same chapter in verse 14.
The line of things we've already taken up.
As to the Son offering himself on Calvary's cross in verse 14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
That is the aspect that ties to the truth propitiation.
The righteous claims of God being addressed first.
But there's another must that we've just read in verse seven. Ye must be born again.
The backdrop to the fact, as we read through the Scriptures, of the necessity of being born again or born anew, of having a life from God, is that without that, the gap between the wonderful liberty that God has taken to himself to be able to pour out blessing righteously and fulfill the desire of his love.
Could never be realized.
Because of what man is.
The scriptures could be multiplied in the New Testament.
And pictures are seen in the light of the New Testament in the Old.
For the fact that man has been proven to be without strength, without a will that is capable of desiring divine things.
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The Lord Jesus was plain, and he said, Ye will not come.
Let me just read one Hold your finger in John three, I think over in John chapter 5.
In verse 40, ye will not come to me that she might have life.
Over in John chapter 6 verse 44, No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.
And in our chapter 3 we read the verse The flesh. That which is born of flesh is flesh. And the Lord Jesus explained in another part of John's gospel that the flesh profiteth nothing.
How is this? How is this going? How is the effect, the blessing going to flow out this wonderful work of God that He has accomplished through His Son? How is it going to be realized in the lives of men and women who cannot come, who will not come, who cannot see the Kingdom of God?
It falls back on God being God and God being sovereign. And the God who has shined, as we read in 2nd Corinthians 4, who shined light out of darkness, is the one that said in the darkness of your soul, let there be light, and there was light.
Without the sovereign exercise on God's part of His prerogative.
To do a work inside your soul and mine. The Savior and the Sinner never meet.
And I know some of the young brothers around my one of my boys too.
They find it hard to grasp the truth of election.
They find that a difficult thing.
But for the sovereign action of God.
To do a work.
As we read in Ecclesiastes.
Inside your soul and mind by the Word of God and the Spirit of God together.
There would be no response.
The prophet Isaiah and I know he was in his mind speaking about the nation, the the the the guilty nation of Israel said the whole head is sick and the heart faint and from the sole of the feet to the top of the head it's wounds and bruises and putifying sores.
And we learn from cover to cover in the Scriptures that man in his natural state is altogether vanity.
And God allowed the working out or the manifesting of whether this was true or not in in life. He sent his son. Last of all we read in the parable, He sent his son. What will be the response?
In government, man failed.
In Innocence Manfield.
And the law is given and immediately broken.
And special privileges to a nation that was hedged about and given special privileges. A law broken, a special privilege.
Violated. And last of all, he sent his son.
They will reverence my son.
And we know the result that the sun was not reverenced. They said this is the air. Come, let us kill him.
And that's what they have done. And that is the natural heart of you and me that we were born with.
And I know it is popular. I'm told them it's popular in Christian circles to think that a person is maybe 98% bad, but that 2% kind of rallies itself in order to accept God's offer of salvation and to believe. But my friend, it is not so. That is not what the Scriptures teach.
You and I were on a Broad Rd. Even if you were raised in a Christian home, you're on a Broad Rd.
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A road that leads to destruction. And but for the sovereign work of God to say, you know what, that one is not going down that road.
And you're a brand plucked from the burning.
Is that fair?
It comes down to can God be God?
And as the older brothers were where I was first saved.
As Tim's grandfather used to remind us all the time.
All may.
None would, some shall, and I have not heard a better simple description of the way that those different of the sovereignty of God and man who's responsible and accountable to God, is woven together.
All May is the gospel of the grace of God that goes out to whomsoever will.
And the truth of propitiation that we review says God has been satisfied with the work. He's free to come out and bless the vilest Sinner.
And in love, the Spirit of God goes out to the whosoever wills.
It says com.
Left to ourselves, none of us would have come.
God is free. God could have been free. It was free to just say, you know what? Let's just close up this. This did not workout.
That would have been righteous. A bona fide offer was made.
At tremendous cost and rejected. But God says to himself, as it were, in the counsels of the Godhead. You know what?
Where sin abounded, grace is going to over abound.
And so some shall. The truth of election is not a complicated truth.
And to show that, let's turn briefly to 1St Thessalonians Chapter one.
Because these believers we read in the book of Acts about those from Thessalonica had only had maybe three weeks or four with the apostle Paul who brought the gospel there to their city.
The northeast of Greece, what we call Greece today.
And so they were young in the faith.
Verse 3. Remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father.
Knowing brethren, beloved, your election of God.
Three or four week old Christians and it was something they already knew.
That they had been chosen. Let's turn to 2nd Thessalonians, the 2nd chapter.
And read about this process that God has enacted with you and me.
Verse thirteen of two Thessalonians two. We are bound to give thanks all the way to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord.
Because God hath from the beginning chosen you.
To salvation.
This is elementary Christian truth.
Boys and girls, men and women.
And I can remember first being saved, and the Lord sent an old brother down to me in the dead of winter and giving me the gospel. And I blurted out that I had just gotten saved. And he came and gave me a hug and took me to his house. And.
His wife poured coffee and I sat at his kitchen table and I learned what had happened to me and he unfolded to me.
Started to unfold to me the truths of Paul's doctrine and of John's ministry and what had happened to me, and one of the first things I learned.
Was that yes, you sat there in that house 1.5 miles or 4 miles away from this house and you thought it was all your decision? Because I had told him how I trembled, I did not want to come, and I just felt I had to come and I came and I thought it was all me.
And he says, you know, he says it's like the meeting room down there in Palmyra. He says on the outside, as if you have that verse, gospel verse, come unto me, all ye that labor.
Whosoever will may come and says, you go inside the door, and then you look back over the same door, and what do you see? Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
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And I can remember my jaw-dropping. At least I felt it did. And what does that lead to in the practical experience of your soul? It leads to the question, why me?
And it is important early, early on, to come to that place in your soul where you sit there and the tears will run down your cheeks as you ponder it. Why me?
It's because in Psalm 22 The Son of God said why me?
My God, My God, why?
Why are you forsaking me? Why me?
Men and women of faith down through the ages.
In times of trial and testing have gotten to the place like Job did where he just said why? Why God are you bothering with me? Am I a whale? Am I some big significant creature? I'm just a man of the earth and I just try to go to sleep and then you trouble me with dreams. Why don't you just leave me alone and let me swallow down my spit?
We can get so down.
Which is the next topic.
Under the discipline of the life of faith.
But for you and me, the position we've been brought into, like Mephibosheth, Mephibosheth was brought as one of Jonathan's son in the kindness to Jonathan and in faithfulness to him. David said, Is there yet any of the House of Saul that I might show the kindness of God to him? And there comes Mephibosheth, lame on both his feet.
First, he presents himself as a servant. Maybe you've done that in your life too. I'll be, I'll be your servant.
The prodigal. I'll be one of my father's servants. No, no, you're not going to make a very good servant.
But you're going to come in as one of my sons.
And then Mephibosheth fesses up and he says, What am I? I'm a dead dog. I'm just a dead dog.
And this is the experience that we need to have as children of God, as the sons of God, to take our proper place. And we see the Scriptures.
Account after account after account of God wrestling with a soul to get us into that place where we just have to bow our head and say, why me?
It's because the Lord loved us. And so in verse 13, to move on here of chapter two of two Thessalonians, we are bound to give thanks only to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath chosen you from the beginning to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.
If we were to go in more detail through the passage in John chapter 3, we would see that we were born again.
Through the work, God's work.
Let's just hold our finger there and go back to it and I'll read the exact verse.
John 3.
In verse five, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God that which is born. The end of verse six of the Spirit is Spirit, you and I, by God's sovereign work in our souls.
Are the recipients of a life that takes its character from the one who gave it.
The water God could have said born of the Word and the Spirit, but he uses the word, it's ponderous. He uses the expression water, and we know it speaks to the word of God, but it seems to me it by the use of the word water, it brings in that which it accomplishes in our souls in washing and purification.
And if we read in first Peter or James, and these other passages which speak of this same aspect of the work of Christ in our souls, that has been accomplished, it says of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. And Peter writes, You're born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
But here it's the water, and it's the Spirit of God applying the water.
And God gives us a nature wonder of wonders. That is the nature and life of His Son.
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He we are made partakers of the divine nature.
And so do we know when we're born again? Not necessarily.
The wind blows where it lists us, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell from whence it came, or withereth goeth. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Just like in Ecclesiastes 11 In natural things, we have to say the same thing in spiritual things. The wondrous way that God works in His soul to communicate life. We'll read in the New Testament the word quickening to give life, which is a slightly different.
Aspect of things.
The new birth, But it brings us a life, a life that is divine.
Eternal life we read about in John and so in 2nd Thessalonians 2.
Chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit, which is that work that He has done in you and me.
To give us to lay hold of the word and belief of the truth.
And so if people are prone to think.
That they became born again because they believed it is actually just the opposite. We believe because we are born again and we have life from God. And as someone was quoting in the prayer this morning, or from the hymn, so must it be that glory all belongs to thee. The great work on Calvary's cross.
Is His work the work He has done in your soul to give you life when you are dead in trespasses and sins is His work.
And when that work takes place in our soul, and we have life, that life is is consists of faith and belief of the truth, and the testimony is put before us by the word, and we lay hold of it.
And further to that, in our days since the death of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit, God seals that work that the Spirit does to give us life.
With the Holy Spirit of promise sealed, we read in Ephesians until the day of redemption.
It ends in glory, verse 14, whereunto He called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Lookout upon you and if you're a believer, I know where you're going to end up.
I know what happened to you. Based upon the revelations in this book. I know what happened to you.
And in a general way, we know what's happening to each other now. Lord willing to get to that in a second.
But I know what your destiny is going to be.
You're going to be with Christ. You're going to be like Christ. You're going to be with him forever. And the glories that the man Christ Jesus has won here as a victorious man, wonder wonders. He's going to share them with us.
The obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let's turn for a few minutes to Hebrews.
Chapter 13.
And speak of another, the last aspect I'd like to speak about today this morning.
Hebrews 13 and verse.
20 and 21.
Now the God of peace.
That brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
Make you perfect in every good work, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen.
If we were to read back in the previous chapter in Hebrews.
The Spirit of God through I assume it's the apostle for myself, the apostle Paul.
Seeking to encourage Hebrew believers to press on, to not faint, to not turn back in their practical life.
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And he tries to put in context before them that there's an ongoing work.
What we've spoken of as to God's life giving or quickening power in your soul and mind to give us life is a one time occurrence. He sustains the life. It's true that He gave to us, but the giving of it is a one time thing. We know the Lord Jesus died on Calvary's cross once. Once for all. That work has been accomplished for God's glory.
But for you and me now. For you and I now.
There was an ongoing work that he is doing, working in you, that which is well pleasing in his sight. He's the father of spirits.
And it seems, of course, at times to us that maybe our circumstances are a little random.
And we're not quite sure why this happened or why that happened.
But it is important and helpful in practical life to have the understanding.
That God is ordering my circumstances perfectly according to His love and wisdom.
We sometimes sing that hymn that he never causes his child a needless tear.
He's working in us something now that in a little way. And please don't take this wrong. I'm in my 70th, my 7th decade.
I shouldn't say this. It's on tape, probably I just shouldn't say it. But sometimes, I'll be honest, sometimes I sit in the quiet of my study and I wish that I could live another 100 years. I feel like I'm just scratching the surface.
And I have to say my enjoyment of these precious things.
Continues to grow and I remember my older brethren who have long since with the Lord saying.
Things and I understand now more fully what their experience was.
And you just wish you could just spend more time and enjoy more richly the things that have been shown to us.
And the experience that we go through now in this life.
In Second Corinthians we read that the tribulations that we go through work for us in eternal weight of glory.
And so part of Maine just says, Lord, if you didn't come for another while.
I would you put me through more experience. I can't believe I'm saying this. I never said this before, but you know what I mean. There's a side where you appreciate what he does in our present life.
For our spiritual blessing that is going to redound to His glory.
In that day.
Now don't get me wrong, I have sorrow upon sorrow like everyone else with things and the aches and pains and all the rest, and the Spirit of God in me, just like in you says Even so, come Lord Jesus.
And there isn't a.
Work outside a lot and you get outside and you look up on a day and you say, oh, today could be the day. I try. I'm not.
I trust I'm waiting, and I hope I'm watching for the Lord to come, but I think you get my point. There's a rich value to the experiences He puts us through. Now He's working in US that which is well pleasing in His sight. And He's the father of spirits.
And he's a master Craftsman.
And you and I are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
And he's putting he has paid such a price for you and me. Such a price.
And he is devoted and dedicated.
As a master to crafting, you and me, not in these physical bodies, it's not a matter of going to the gym all the time, but morally and in our character.
Working in US ongoingly, that which is well pleasing in His sight.
I heard brother Lundin say once.
00:50:01
He said something like this, he said.
He says. Which do you think?
Was more difficult for God to do.
To make a star or to create worlds.
Or to create an Abraham.
An interesting comment.
He spake and it was so. He made the stars also. That's all we get in that passage. He spake and it was so.
But yet he laborers labored with Abraham all those years.
In circumstances that, like the Potter lifting up the clay and schmoozing it down a little bit, lifting it up again until it was formed in the way that he envisioned it in his mind.
And chapter after chapter he brings us.
Into the observation of his ways with his friend Abraham, and with Jacob, and with others, and with you, and with me.
How he laborers?
And it's not our subject today, but we could see in the Scriptures that the Church of God, that which he is doing in these last days.
Is his masterpiece, as Mr. Lundin has put it, at times his masterpiece. You're part of that masterpiece. You and I have collective blessings that we all enjoy together.
And we have individual blessings. One star will differ from another in glory.
And he's going to be glorified when he displays what he has done in your life and mine.
And if you call an older St. or visit an older St. and they're in like like my dad was and unable to hardly even.
Just hardly even able to move.
This is why does the Lord keep me here.
We know why I was with my dad, but Saints of God that have walked with the Lord for decades and they say, why is the Lord keep me here? Is that, oh, there's a reason the Lord's keeping you here. That was exactly what he's doing. Old age and the weakness that comes upon our dear brethren as they get older is not for the faint of heart.
What they go through.
Are extreme spiritual experiences.
And we take it from the word of God that it will redound to his glory in eternal weight of glory. And so, brethren, we've touched a few tops of a few waves.
The wonderful work of Christ outside of us.
On Calvary's cross, the Father and the Son.
Really. God and the man Christ Jesus.
The work that he has done in your soul to give you life so that you could lay hold.
Of God's testimony to His Son and receive eternal life. The Sinner and the Savior come together, never depart.
And then take courage the ongoing work.
And the clouds and storms that we all experience.
They're going to be unfolding in the coming day for Rich Blessing, so it behooves us all to lift up the hands which hang down.
In the feeble knees. I'd like to sing just part of hymn #43 in the appendix in closing.
The second and third verse.
Of him. 43 in the appendix.
Perhaps someone else could start that please.
As thy notice for.
No, from all eternity.
I chose to love myself.
To the thy mind.
Calling my grace is simply burning.
From his hiding place.
I work thyself reflecting, not a sanctified by truth.
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Still the word proceeding.
Be gone, my grace.
Or it just made a dream.
Harder to see my face.
Spray.