Open—K. Harman
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In the remaining time, I'd like to turn to a few scriptures and maybe just be able to lay them out for your consideration. And my burden is much along the same line but as a brother.
But it's, I believe it's mainly with the young men.
Uh, a little older than teenagers, but those that are.
Umm seeking to have a path for the Lord in in their lifetime in their pathway.
I talked to some that seemed to be, umm, struggling, some to seem to be discouraged and let's let's face it, in our healthy assemblies get a little smaller and smaller. There is that tendency to become discouraged and to wonder if this is what my pathway is consisting of.
Well, you know.
There was a time in, in the life of the children of Israel when there was no king in Israel and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And there was no doubt room for discouragement for those who had a vision of what God, uh, God's purpose was for them.
In this land, they heard about the land, they heard about the the promise given to to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and now they're in the land.
They've been brought into this land and Joshua was gone, and those that followed him were gone, and all those who had known the ways of God and heard of the ways of God were gone, and now they're left in a position where they had to pick up the mantle.
As it were. And they had to, to, umm, go forth for God in this in the midst of very, very difficult circumstances. And time and time again, God had to send messengers for, to exercise the hearts of the people and, uh, and, and for them to, to continue on for him in this land, defeat the enemies. And we all know I'm going through this very quickly, but we all know that what happened.
Was that there were enemies still left in the land. They didn't clear them out. They didn't do what God had said partially, some of them did, but every tribe there was difficulty and there was failure. But there was always a little light for God in the midst of it all. And that's what I'd like to point out. And so we'll just turn to the book of, of Judges for a moment and read a few verses. Umm, there were.
Uh, there's much food in the book of Judges for us because it is a parallel to what we've been having what we have in the, in the book of Ephesians, you see that they've already crossed the Red Sea. They've crossed the Jordan and now they're in the land and they're eating out the old corn of the land there and which speaks of Christ and resurrection. The Red Sea speaks of our death of Christ and the red and the, and, uh, uh, Christ's death for us rather and.
The Jordan speaks of our death with Christ.
And perhaps that is where we fail to is the fact that we know the death of Christ for us. But.
We don't always understand the fact that we have died with Christ. And so we go through the through the Jordan and into the land. Now God will bring us into that those heavenly things. And that's what we have been enjoying today and in these readings.
Now the question is, these people are in the land.
When they first crossed the land into the Jordan, into the into Canaan rather, what did God do?
They had to be circumcised.
And when they're circumcised, they're in very weak condition.
When they first their their enemies, when they when they first destroyed Jericho, they thought they were invented in invincible. Now they can go and they can conquer all the land. But no, God said you're going to be circumcised.
And that's cutting off of the flesh. That's what we have to recognize. First of all, we have to recognize our weakness.
And that if there's gonna be any victory for God at all, it has to be him that does it in our lives, in our individual lives, our family life, our assembly life.
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We have to recognize where we are as far as ourselves are concerned, we're weak, we have no strength. Whenever there was that that going forth on their own strength, like at AI for instance, they lost, they were conquered, they were defeated. And you and I will. It will, it will happen to us too, if we go forth on our own strength.
So I just want to pick out a few little examples here. Our time is going quickly. Uh, first of all, I'd like to read about in the chapter one of the of the book of Judges.
Just two, just one incident perhaps, and that will, that will help us. And for your own, your own, uh.
Exercise on these things I would encourage the young men.
To go through the Book of Judges along with the book of Ephesians.
There are 13 judges in the book that God picks, shall we say gives us in the book of Judges, and we see where each one of them they delivered the Saints of God.
Umm, we'll get that a little later. Let's read this in verse. Uh, one chapter one rather, umm.
We have to go through this quickly.
Let's read from.
Verse 10 And Judah went against the Canaanites that dwelt in Hebron. Now the name of the Hebron before was Curjith Arba, and they slew Shia Shishai, and a hymen and Talmay. And from thence he went against inhabitants of Deaver. In the name of the Deaver before was Curtis Seifer. And Caleb said he that smite of Curtis Seifer, and taketh unto him will I give acts of my daughter to to wives. And often the oldest son of Tina's, Caleb's younger brother, took it.
And he gave him acts of his daughter to wife. Nikita passed when she came to him, that she moved him to ask of her father afield. And she lighted from off her ***. And Caleb said unto her, What wilt thou? And she said unto him, Give me a blessing, for thou hast given me a Southland. Give me also springs of water. And Kale gave her the upper springs, and another springs. And the children of Ki of the Kenai Moses father-in-law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah.
The wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the South of Arva. And they went and dwelt among the people. Well, we're not going to go too much further in there. I my, my thoughts were with Osneola and AXA. There's a young man that overcame.
And he got a blessing.
He got the reward.
And the reward was a young lady.
That was a help to him.
How do I say that? How? How was your help? She had a consciousness of what the the land was worth.
And that she asked her father for this.
Her father gave her.
A A a blessing. She asked for more. The upper and another. She got the blessing. You know what? Farmland isn't much good without water.
And she got water and that would speak to me of the word of God, her desire after the word of God. We find here that that.
Divert.
Curtis Arbor really understand means the city of the book.
And Dieber is, uh, I understand means the word of God.
No, it was changed from courgettes are but it cursed Seaford to deeper.
Does the word of God become?
Uh, is it just a book to us?
Is that is that all it means to our souls? Do we get up in the morning when we read, read, read it quickly and then go on to work? Or do we meditate upon it? Does it become the word of God to us?
Or is it just a book?
Well.
We'll go on.
In chapter 3.
Yeah, well first of all, in chapter 2 we get re. We read verse two. And you shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land. You shall throw down their altars. But ye have not obeyed my voice. Why have ye done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. Chapter 3.
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Now these are the nations which the Lord left to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan. He left them there to prove them. God told them to destroy them and they didn't. Why have you done this? He said, I'm going to leave them here to prove you. And so my brother was bringing before us restoration and repentance and so forth a lot of times.
Those things, there may be things left in your life and mine that are just.
Under the carpet and they're not taken care of.
And so they're left there to prove this and they will be a snare to us. We read of the of the of in in Hebrews of those weights that's so easily beside us. And you know, they can become a sin to us.
And if we don't judge them thoroughly, and everyone of us are guilty of this in our souls, and we're in danger of being attacked and of being tripped up by the enemy we left behind.
In our lives.
You know, there's what the enemy of our souls really wants.
And as we've had before, that God's program for this world is is that is the assembly that is dear to Christ.
You can look out in the world and you say there's so many things out there that look very important and they're beautiful and they're and man goes after them. Even Christians go after them. But let us remember from God's point of view, what is important to him is that which is important to Christ, the assembly.
And we look on to the coming day when that is when we will be with Christ and he will say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Is that what we're looking for? We're hoping for it. And it's a hope that will not make us a shame.
But you know, there's a pro. There's there's.
There's work to do in this, in this world and in view of this, and there's the devil wants to destroy that more than anything else, and he's going to use the young man.
He wants to get rid of you.
He wants to destroy you.
And so we find young men here. We don't have time to go through it, but there's the 1St 3 judges we read on. One is, is a figure of of the world. And that is which means the blood, the the blackness of double wickedness. That's the enemy that's in the world. That's what the world is. And that's what attracts our hearts if we allow it to.
But it God says it's the blackness of double wickedness.
The next judge, the next one we enemy we find and we might not have turned time to turn to them and but it speaks of the devil because it's a king here who has who has others under him. And we read of that in Ephesians chapter five. Well, the principalities and powers and and the spiritual wickedness in high places. That's what we get in the in the next judge, I believe pictured in that. And so the next one we find.
Is a picture of of.
There's.
I should say the next one in between that is a picture of the flesh.
We have the world, the flesh and the devil.
And so in these three first ones, we get the world, the flesh and the devil. Those are the things that oppose us. They always have from the Garden of Eden. That is what has always opposed it. And Satan is using that all the time to trip us up. And he paints such a pretty picture, such as there's so many beautiful things out there that we might set our hearts upon. But you know, John says, little children, keep yourself from idols.
Keep yourselves from idols. He's talking to the young. These were young men, no doubt that were.
Delivered Israel.
And God raised amongst some of them, they delivered Israel for for a number of years, 20 years, 40 years, 80 years.
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And there are some from different from different of ones of the tribe. It wasn't always the same tribe.
And so God can pick up a Gideon, He can, he can pick up a a a man that has an Oxford.
And he can deliver the people of Israel, the the children of Israel.
What do you have? What do I have? We don't have any strength. If we go over into, into the Book of Revelation, we find there, uh, in connection with, uh, with, uh, Philadelphia, we have little strength. But thou has kept my word, not denied by name.
Is that important to God? Does He want us to do great things? Does he want us to use an ox code or or what? No, He wants us to be faithful.
And in John also speaks of the young men, and he speaks to the young men because you're strong.
It's a young man that have the have the the energy.
The older man has been brought before us. The old man now are on the shelf.
They've gone through this.
Now there's young man.
And so God would have us to be exercised about this young man.
Don't be discouraged.
You know discouragement is going to destroy.
The testimony.
Discouragement is one thing that the enemy uses to kill everything.
Look off and see what God has in in view for you and me. Think of the end of the pathway.
Where you are might be small and significant.
But is the Lord there?
As the Lord is there, there's work to do. Our brother referred to that verse in in first Peter. Maybe may I just have time to to read that?
First Peter 5.
Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy looker, but of a ready mind, neither us being Lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
It doesn't say that you have to wait there for somebody to give you that position or if you wanna call it that, to give you that work to do. Where was Gideon? He was in, he was in in the winepress and he was getting his own food. He was being prepared for God to use them to deliver the children of Israel and he used them. He sent an Angel and he met him there.
And he said I'm the weakest of all. That's a good place to be.
We need to not recognize our weakness, but we need to recognize the strength of the Lord for us.
And he's willing to do that. He's willing to help, but we have to take that.
You say, well, there's nobody, no gift in our assembly. No, but it you want to feed the flock of God, it's God's flock, not yours, not mine. Feed the flock of God, which is among you taking the oversight, not waiting for somebody to give it to you. But there's also there's also a a way of doing it. And we get that a little further where be subject 1 to another and the old, the young men are to give in to the older man.
But to be all subject to one another, submission and obedience is the healing.
As as the healing principle for all mankind, for the whole world, not just in the assembly, but the whole world, if everyone would be obedient and submissive to one another, just look, Look how wonderful that would be. How wonderful would be in the assembly if that was what it was.
Healing principle for humanity.
Young man, I say take the oversight if it's there, if it needs to be.
You then give your weight to the oversight.
But be there for something to do. There's always something to do.
Osmil got access if there's young men here that are that are looking for marriage.
Find an accent, somebody that's going to help you, somebody that's going to have an understanding of what God wants in your life, what God wants in this world.
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Somebody is gonna be helpful to you, not somebody that will drag you down or have opposite thoughts.
Our time is gone, but that is what I would encourage you just to read through the book of Judges in view of our portion and see there that God used young men to deliver the people of God.
All through the Book of Revelation chapter 23 Superhigh in Seattle through but those 3 chapters it speaks of of an overcomer overcomer.
Are you an overcomer? Am I an overcomer?
In spite, in view of all the weakness that there is, let's remember that God is for us and that He is the chief. The Lord Jesus is our chief Shepherd, and there's going to be a reward. He will honor faithfulness.