Toledo Conference: 1980
Table of Contents
Power, Love, Sound Mind
Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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Toledo, November 1980.
Address.
By Gordon Hayhol.
103 When Israel by divine command, the pathless desert trod, they found throughout the barren land, a sure resource in God 303.
Straight.
We ask the Lord's blessing.
Or just a couple of scriptures I'd like to look at, one connected with what our brother brought before us yesterday. Second Timothy Chapter one.
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And verse 7.
For God hath not given us the Spirit of fear.
But of power and of love, and of a sound mind.
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. Then one other passage in Hebrews chapter 13.
Hebrews, chapter 13.
And verse 5.
Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have.
For he has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
So that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper.
And I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
Well, they're young people. It was particularly in connection with those 3 four things that are mentioned in Second Timothy that I'd like to speak to you this afternoon. And that is what God has not given us, That is the spirit of fear, the new translation reads. Cowardice. God has not given us the spirit of cowardice. But here are three things. He has given power and love and a sound mind.
Or the other translation reads, wise discretion. Oh, how wonderful it is that we have been blessed so.
And that's why I also read the passage in Hebrews that tells us there that our conversation can be without covetousness. What is covetousness? Well, it's desiring what the other person has because we don't have it, but we want it. And you know, we may just limit covetousness to wanting somebody's car or wanting somebody's home. But there are a great many other things that we might covet, and that can make us very, very unhappy.
We can feel it because we are not like other people because we don't have their ability or their looks or something like this.
Because we don't come from a meeting where there's plenty of fellowship, a great many things that we may covet that we might desire. Say if I only had that, my life would be complete. But isn't it very lovely what this verse says? Let your conversation be without covetousness. Why can we say this? Why does this verse tell us such a thing? Well, because we have one who is our helper, one who is sufficient for every situation we can possibly meet in life.
One who is able to give us the grace for all these things that constantly arise, and so our conversation can be without covetousness for two reasons. Because the Lord says I won't leave you and that the second thing that he says that he says.
I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Let me read it again. It says. The Lord is my helper.
So he's not going to leave us, and he is going to help us. And it was this particularly in mind that I would like to speak to you this afternoon. Dear young people, I feel that in the meetings we have had much before us about what God has done for us. My father used to often comment, and perhaps some have heard him say, that the will of God and the heart of God are the source of all our blessing. And if we could only realize this.
Then if it were God's will to give us more, Whether if it were God's will that we should be in a different place. If it were God's will, that we should be like someone else who's perhaps personality or something we covet. Why, He could have made us that way, but He didn't. He made each one of us to fill a particular place in the body of Christ, a place that no one else can fulfill as well as we can.
Because just as in our body, there are members of the body that do what seem like very, very important functions. We find it very difficult to get along without a hand or without a foot. But there are a lot of other parts to the body, quite hidden, that have a great deal to do with whether my hand is useful, have a great deal to do with whether my feet function as they should, and so every member of the body is needful.
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And you, if you belong to Christ, are a member of His body, and you have a function to fulfill, a place in the body of Christ, in the assembly where you are and in this world to fulfill. And God can give you the power and the love and the discretion to fulfill that place. Isn't that a very encouraging thought for us? And you know, as we look around, I have heard it said, and I believe it is so that God has given 3 testimonies to man.
3 Testimonies to show that He cares about us and He has given us a testimony in the creation all about us and in our own bodies.
And the way they function, it tells us in Psalm 19 the heavens declare the glory of God.
And the firmament showed his handiwork day under day utter a speech, and night under night show us knowledge as we look about on the vast creation. And we remember that when God made this creation, it tells us that his delights were with the sons of men, and that he was rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth. That verse has been a great encouragement to me, because as I see the wonders of God's creation.
I think of how the Creator made them, thinking of the good and happiness of his creature.
Thinking of your happiness, dear young person, and as you lookout on the creation, and as you attend school and learn something of the marvels of God's creation, instead of looking at it just as something that science is discovering, wouldn't it be nice to think it was my father that planned it all? He made things. He could have made all our food to taste alike. But He has given us a great variety. He could have made us all alike.
And yet, if it were so, there wouldn't be any variety. There wouldn't be the pleasure of meeting new friends, of finding those who with whom we can share fellowship, who feel in a lack in our life and that we perhaps can contribute something for them. What a wonderful creation it is. Can man fathom the wonders of this creation that is all about us? No. It's beyond the mind of man. The more he discovers, the more powerful telescopes, the more powerful microscopes, the more he looks into it, the more he discovers how marvelous is God's creation.
And then to think that when God made this dear young person, he was thinking about you.
And he wanted you to be happy. Now it's true that sin has ruined this world. But in spite of the ruin, God has left us with 10,000 tokens of his goodness and of his interests and His care over us. Little him says 10,000 thousand precious gifts. My daily thanks, employee. Nor is the least a cheerful heart to taste those gifts with joy. And I say to you, instead of thinking, I wish, I wish, I wish.
Start thanking God for all those wonderful things that we are surrounded with day by day.
All those things that we can thank him for in the vast creation.
But if we only had that, we wouldn't know our Creator. We wouldn't know his love. We wouldn't know His heart. So God is not only surrounded us with a testimony of His power and of his might and of his interest in the vast creation, but he has also given to us His beloved Son. God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, and, it says in Second Corinthians chapter 5.
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. That is, that God was walking through this world in the person of his Son.
And if you want to know what God is like, follow the pathway how that blessed savior.
See his love, his concern was anyone in trouble. Why he entered into all the sickness and sorrow that sin had brought into this world. When a home was deprived of a loved one, he wept and groaned in spirit and he was there in the disciples trials and difficulties. He was able when they had a problem that says they went and told Jesus all that sympathizing heart, that love.
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That he displayed never doing 1 miracle for his own interests, but always for the blessing of others. God come down a heavenly stranger, love to sinners to proclaim. So we have the creation. God has spoken in Son. God's own Son has walked through this world and his life was a display of the heart of God to man. And then we have His precious word.
Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. This world has been spoiled and saw The one who made it all has marked out a pathway for us through this world. He has shown us his mind and his will for every situation that can arise in your life, whether you're one of the younger ones here or whether you're in your teens, whether you were a young married person.
God has a message for everyone in this precious book, and so can you doubt that He cares about you when you're constantly surrounded by all these reminders of all that He has done in the creation, in the love that gave his Son, and in this precious book, with all its wonderful instruction For you, I say, can you doubt that he is concerned about you? And then above all, when we think of that work that Christ did at Calvary's cross, when sin had ruined it all?
The Lord Jesus, in oneness, love and grace came to settle the question of sin, and it tells us who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree. What a marvelous thing. What love, as our brother said last night, Love for an enemy. Yes, love for an enemy. Ones that blasphemed his name. It's all of Tarsus who hated his name with an exceeding mad hatred.
Brought to the feet of the Savior, charmed by His love, one by His grace.
He is saved. All I say to you, is there anyone here? Dear young people, is there anyone that doesn't know him? Hasn't he given you abundant testimony that he cares about you? And do you not care about him? Are you going on? And you say, I'm going to find my own way, I'm going to do as I like. That's why in the end of the 8th of Proverbs, when it brings before us God is the Creator there and how his delights were with the sons of man.
It says he that sinneth against me, wrong at his own soul. And I want to tell you, a dear young person, every time you take a step in rebellion against God, you're harming yourself. You're harming yourself. Many who have grown a little bit older and have tried the pathway have said, oh, how foolish I was. I didn't listen, as it says to the voice of my teachers, I didn't voice listen to the voice of the charmer. Charming, never so wisely.
Oh, I say to you, dear young people, it's a blessed thing to remember your Creator in the days of your youth, to give him his rightful place in your life when you have all his testimony to him. How long would you say I'm afraid of this? And I'm afraid of that? Well, isn't this a lovely verse that we opened with God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind or wise discretion?
This world is filled with fear. The great scientists are afraid of what is going to happen. Where is science going to lead? Is it going to lead to the destruction of mankind? Because man being what he is, when he gets power into his hands, there's no telling what he may do and how he might destroy himself and others too. The power of some of these bombs and some of these things that have been introduced into the world today on the show us that man have good reason to fear that God has not given us the spirit of fear and why.
Well, because no matter what happens for the believer, supposing a bomb, an atomic bomb, dropped in this room, would any of us who know the Lord have anything really to fear absent from the body present with the Lord? Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to be a Christian, to belong to Christ. To know that no matter what happens, the future be ahead of us, is bright and glorious. But if you're not saved, you do have something to fear.
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There is an attempt being made today to try and keep people from being afraid of anything or things that might happen. Well, you know, fear does have a right place. The Lord Jesus said, Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear. Fear him who, after ye have killed, hath power to cast into hell. The AI say unto you, fear him.
The thief on the cross turned to the man on the other side and said, dust, not thou fear God. Is there a young person here who dares to say I don't fear meeting God? Oh, I'm sorry for you. If you meet God in your sins, our God is a consuming fire. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God if you're not saved. It's a good thing to fear. But does God take away fear? Yes, perfect love casts out fear. Why is it that we who are Christians don't fear?
These things.
All because the Lord Jesus by his work on Calvary.
Has fitted us for the glory. And we don't fear those that kill the body because they have no more that they can do. The ones in Smyrna were comforted that even if they did take away their life, they wouldn't be heard of the second death. And what is the second death? Eternal banishment from God under His judgment. And so I say again, when it says God has not given us the spirit of fear, it's talking to believers.
If you're not saved, I hope you do fear, because it's a terrible thing to meet God in your sins. But if you're saved, if you know the Lord is your savior, then His perfect love has cast out your fear, and you know you're ready. And not only ready, but you can rejoice as the persecutions took place in the days of the Apostles and afterwards when Christians were thrown to the lions, when they were thrown to put into the fire, and so on.
By people that stood by, saw that God hadn't given these people a spirit of fear. They went into death rejoicing and singing because they knew the future. Oh, it's a grand thing. Dear young people, if there's anybody that's not saved, I commend the Lord Jesus to you. What have you got to lose by receiving him? Your sins? What have you got to gain? Everything that's worthwhile. Everything that's worthwhile when you know him.
Then there's another right sense of fear, and that is as we have in first Peter chapter one, it says.
Past the time of your saw journey here in fear, for if you call on the Father who without respect of persons, judges according to every man's work, pass the time of your saw journey here in fear. And now I just speak a few words to any young people who are resisting the will of God.
You know, you might say, well, I think I can get away with it, but you don't get away with it. The little song the young people sing. Sometimes you can't do wrong and get by, No matter how hard you may try. Nothing hidden can be everything he does. See, you can't do wrong and get by. You may think that you can, but you don't. You don't get by. Oh, you say, Well, if you belong to a certain family, you can get away with it. Well, perhaps with other people, but not with God.
That's why it says if he called the Father who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, we don't get away with anything with God. And I wish to say to any young person here, you say, I know I'm saved, I know I belong to Christ, but I want to have a little bit of flame first. I expect to go on for the Lord later. Remember perhaps God in his grace may come in and bring you back.
But you may bear the scars the rest of your life. King David had his flame. He saw a beautiful woman. He had his fling, so to speak. But the sword didn't depart from his house forever. Abraham decided that he was going to go contrary to the word of God, and he had a child by Hagar. It's true that God centered all his promises and blessing came through Isaac, the son that God had wanted him to have and gave him.
Through Sarah. But what about this child that he had? By Hagar? All she was a he was a sorrow to her, to them and to their household, through their life. And they're the ones that are some of the leading enemies of Israel to this day.
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Over in the Middle East, yes, we reap what we sow. Dear young people, follow Christ when you're young. Follow Christ when you're young. And so I say there's a right sense of fear, and that is if you're not saved, I hope you will fear judgment to come and flee from the wrath to come flee to Christ. And if you've decided to choose a path of self will, I hope you'll realize.
The Lord is not God as a judge you're going to call upon, but God is your father.
That he doesn't in love, dear. He doesn't let you get away with things. He loves you too much to let you go your own way. He wants your company, but you can't have his company, and he can't enjoy your company except in the path of obedience. But now to go on with the verse, God has not given us the Spirit of fear. That is, if we know the Lord is our Savior and we want to please Him, do we need to fear some of these things that cause so much fear in the world?
And as you pick up papers and things today and all the type of magazines that come out, the whole idea is how to meet the social changes that are taking place in the world, how to be able to get along with other people, and how to make a success of your life and all this kind of thing. And people more and more are living in fear. And there are young people, real Christian, young people, and what they fear is rejection.
They're afraid they're going to be rejected all, not by the world always, but the feeling that they might even be rejected by Christians. Well, is this right that we should live in that kind of fear? Well, you know, Paul, all those in Asia turned away from him, and that's the very chapter where he tells us that, that he said God hath not given us the spirit of fear. Has some friend let you down? And you say I wasn't able to make it?
I am so disappointed. What's the matter with me that I couldn't make it with that young person that they weren't attracted to me. There was something the matter with me. And you're really depressed, you're really down. Well, Paul saw all those in Asia turned away from him and how could he be delivered from fear? Wasn't this a thing that was a very unpleasant and difficult experience? Well, think of the Lord Jesus.
Prophetically, in the 49th chapter of Isaiah, it says, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for not and in vain. What was the answer of Jehovah? He said. Though Israel be not gathered, yet will I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, And my God shall be my strength. And his answer was, it is a light thing, that thou shouldest be my servant, to restore the preserved of Israel.
And all shall be for my salvation unto the ends of the earth. The Lord Jesus felt it when the nation rejected him.
But he took it from his father, and his father answered, oh, there's going to be wider blessings still, because if Israel rejected that testimony, then grace would reach out farther, and even the Gentiles would be blessed. And so with Paul, when he was, when he saw those in Asia turned away from him, he could have become terribly depressed. Depressed. But listen to what he says. I know whom I have believed.
And am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Now let me just take up that verse as though it applied merely to salvation. And it certainly is true that those of us who were saved have committed the whole matter of our soul, salvation, and eternal destiny into the hands of the Lord. But you know what are young people at? Verse goes farther than that. What's going to give you peace when some big frustration comes in your life?
When you feel as I say you didn't make it and you're afraid you can't. What will give you peace just to commit it all to the Lord, just to commit it all to the Lord is not beautiful to hear Paul in that chapter. He knew he whom he had believed and he said I've just committed it all to him. It's all going to be set right in that day. That's what it means when it says let's turn over to it in Philippians chapter 4.
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Standing shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Yes, when we have committed it to the Lord, then there's a peace that comes in and it says it's a peace that passes understanding. The world can understand peace when things are going happily.
All they say, everything is so peaceful. Come out on a day when the wind isn't blowing and there's no rain falling and it isn't a Blizzard. And you say, oh, what a lovely peaceful day. But isn't it a marvelous thing that the Christian, when the storms are blowing, when everything is going wrong, he can have this peace. It passes understanding. Why? Is it because it's the peace of God? We have peace with God through the work of Christ, but the peace of God is the peace in which God himself dwells. Does anything that is happening in Toledo today disturbed the peace of God's throne? Oh, you say No, he's in control of everything.
Well, then, what about ourselves? The Lord is my helper, and I can say, What can man do unto me? Nobody can do anything. Nobody can say anything unless God allows it. And if he allows it, he has a purpose in it, for my good and for my blessing. And so God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. And so, if there's anyone here this afternoon, some young person.
And I guess some of us older ones too. And we've got certain fears. My job is insecure.
The home isn't just like it should be. Perhaps with some older ones, old age is creeping on.
And we say, well, I'm just afraid to think about old age. We don't need to be afraid to think of the future, because we don't know the future, but we know who holds the future and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. Where was Paul when he wrote this verse? Was he sitting down to an iced meal table and surrounded by all the luxuries and comforts that we enjoy here today? Oh no, he was a prisoner. He was forgotten by many of his brethren and forsaken by some.
For those who he thought would value the truth, who had learned it from him. For the most precious truth in the Bible is in Ephesians and Ephesus is in Asia. And they turned away from Paul. Oh you say, what a heartbreak. But Paul just committed his whole life to the Lord. Oh dear young people, make it the habit of your life when things go this way and they do with us all at times. And the world would say, well, you can't help being depressed when things go that way.
God hath not given us the Spirit of fear. He has given us instead.
A resource. We can go and tell our father all about it. We can be careful for nothing because we have told him all about it. And then that peace that passes all understanding becomes like a Garrison when it says shall keep, the correct word is shall Garrison. And don't we need a Garrison? I sure do. I'm inclined to be one who worries. And I've got to need to have a Garrison at my heart to keep all these things from flooding in all the time.
Then there is another passage about this too, and that's in First Peter 5I won't turn to it for times sake, but it says.
Casting all your care upon him, for He cares for you. A verse before says, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that she may be exalted in due time. Casting all your care upon him, for He cares for you. And then the verse that follows warns us. Be sober. Be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
No, I have meditated a good deal on this passage because.
Often we've had the experience of having some care and we wanted to leave it with the Lord.
And it seemed we couldn't do it. And we say, what's the matter with me, that I can't seem to leave that care with the Lord?
Well, I have noticed that the verse before is part of the sentence, and the verse before says to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and then to cast our care upon him. And I have never yet been able to cast my care upon the Lord until I have told the Lord. Lord, I submit to Thy hand in what has happened. I've never yet been able to leave it with the Lord until I did that. And so I sometimes said to myself.
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Supposing the Lord walked into the room and said. Now listen, Gordon, I'll change the circumstances. I'll make them just the way you want them. It's not my will for you. But you think your plan would be better, so I'll change them around the way you want them. Will that give you peace? Gordon, what would I say? Would I say, Oh, please do, Lord. My way is the best, I'm sure. Or would I say, Lord, just help me to leave it with the.
Casting all your care upon him so that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper. All you see, it doesn't happen to other people like me.
That your conversation be without covetousness? Why? Because he's not going to forsake us.
And what he may see fit to pass me through may be something different than what He passes you through. But with his wondrous perfection and love, he is accomplishing something in every one of us for his own glory and praise. He's the Potter and we are the clay. So God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power. Isn't this lovely? Power. And we sure need power. You see, I just can't face up to situations when these things happen. I'm just like water.
Yes, we are in ourselves, the Lord Jesus said. Without me, he can do nothing. He can do nothing.
Do you want to step out of the path of obedience, to get your own will in your own way? You say No, I wouldn't like to say that, but I don't see why God doesn't work it out. Well, He may not show us here. There are some things we may not understand in life. As we have sometimes said, another day we're going to meet Joseph in heaven.
Do you think that he'll understand that he understood here why a lot of those things happened to him and his life like they did? I don't think so. But I've often thought how many believers are going to go up to Joseph? And I think I'm going to be one of them and say, Joseph, your life was such a blessing to me.
Every time I read it, I got such a blessing for my soul. And Joseph will perhaps say, well, I didn't know what it was all about when I went through those things, but I can see now. And so we may not understand. And was Joseph the worst of Jacob's children because all this happened? Well, you say no. I think he was about the best. But all those things happened to him, didn't they? And therefore our learning. And so it says he's given us the power. What kind of power do we have?
A strong personality. No, that's not it. Strong personality is breakdown. Moses was the meekest man on all the earth, but he failed in his meekness. Samson was the strongest, but he lost his strength. No, we can't depend on ourselves. We can't depend on our personality, but we can depend upon the Lord. Paul learned that it wasn't natural to him. He was a strong personality, and he he tried for two years to get justice from the Roman courts, but he didn't get any.
But then at last, he held up his hand with a chain hanging down. He said. I think myself happy.
What, Paul Two years trying to give justice and not getting it and you're happy now? Yes. Why? Because he had submitted to God's will. And those sweet prison epistles that mean so much to us were the result of his submission to the will of God. And he called himself the prisoner of Jesus Christ. Did he have power? Why, indeed he did the power of the Spirit of God. And in the 4th chapter of Philippians listen to these words.
I can do. I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound everywhere and in all things. I have instructed both to be full and to be hungry, To abound and to suffer need I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I can do all things because I am a strong personality now. I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. I can do all things through Christ.
Are you lying in your power? Are you reading books to try and build up your personality? And so on.
All what we need, dear young people, is to lean upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
To find in him the strength that we need to meet these situations. And they're not going to get any easier because we've often called attention to the fact it tells us in the life of Joseph that at the end of the life of Joseph, when his brethren came up there and were speaking to him and he made himself known to them, he said you've had two years of famine, but there are five years more.
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In other words, he said it's not going to get better, boys, it's going to get worse. But what did he say? He said just keep close to me and I'll take the responsibility of your families and everything. And he said if you don't, you'll come to poverty.
He'll come to poverty. Oh, isn't that lovely? There is yet five years of famine and things aren't going to get easier. As I look into the face of you children and young people, I'm sure things aren't going to get easier. You're facing things I never knew anything about when I went to school. And it's going to be more so Is there power? Is the devil stronger than God? Greater Is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Older, young people don't yield. We have in him the strength when Paul was talking in Ephesians chapter 4.
And telling them about the whole armor of God, he said. Be strong in the Lord.
And in the power of his might, so there is strength. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power.
And the Christian has the strength to meet every situation that may arise. It says when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. And so it's going to get worse, and perhaps to something that's even harder to bear. And I find many dear young people get very depressed is the things that often happen in the assembly as we see the weakness that comes in.
And we say.
Oh, it wouldn't be so bad. I expected in the world. But when you come to the meeting and you get frustrated and disappointed, things are said that hurt you and so on. Oh, can we still go on? Yes, it says be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Order young people, don't turn aside to the world. That was the temptation with Israel constantly when God didn't provide the water for them.
They talked about going back into Egypt when there wasn't bread for them to eat. They talked about going back into Egypt and when something happens in the assembly and things are said and done, you say, well, I just feel like stopping coming. Oh yes, and where will you go? Will you heal out fountains that have no water, as our brother was bringing before us yesterday in the young people's meeting, each one of us have some little part that we can fulfill.
There was a time in Jonathan's life when everything was going wrong. Even his father was unable to cope with the situations that were arising. And at last Joseph said the Lord doesn't need many. He can save by many or by few, he said to his armor bearer. He said, let us go and meet the Garrison of the Philistines. Maybe the Lord will give a victory. And so there were two young people. Jonathan.
And his armor bearer Unknown. Hardly, because it says they didn't even know that they had gone. They had to number to see who was missing. They seemed so unimportant, but they were the ones who brought about a great victory in Israel. And who can tell dear young person that you're desiring to please the Lord may be the beginning of blessing to a lot of others. As I look back in my life, I can say that young people my own age.
Who wanted to follow the Lord made a great impression, sometimes more than the older brethren.
I saw that they had something and it touched my heart. And dear young people, you may say, well, I'm not one of the teachers in the meeting and I don't say that much, but your life has a great deal of power, as if it's lived in the power of the spirit of God. So don't be discouraged. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and then of love. Isn't that beautiful? Turn to John 15.
John, Chapter 15.
Verse 9.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.
Continue ye in my love. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that she loved one another as I have loved you. Notice here 3 loves that are spoken of, that is the love of the Father to the Son.
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The love of the Son to his own, and the love of his own to one another.
Isn't this a lovely portion for us? Those 3 loves are those things that we enjoy in our souls, dear young people.
The devil's great attempt is to get us to doubt God's love. I believe if he can succeed in that, why he has gained a great victory. It tells us in the day of apostasy and Jude it says keep yourselves in the love of God, never doubt God's love. When Satan brings something to your mind, perhaps some difficult situation has arisen and Satan says how can God love you when he let things happen like this?
Don't allow it to enter your mind. How are we going to know God's love? It was proved at Calvary. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. We may not always see his love in the situations of life, but can I doubt a love that would be willing to give the dearest object of his heart to take my place and to bear my judgment? Can I doubt a love like that?
Oh dear young people, I want to bring before you this lovely thing. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love. What is so lacking in the world is love. People are out to make money. People are out to furnish their homes. And sometimes young people have said that my parents gave me everything but love. Everything but love. King Solomon, the wealthiest man, whoever lived in this world, I suppose, he said, if a man give all the substance of his house for love.
That shall be utterly content, he says. I look with contempt on anything. It has nothing if I have to give up this or that or the other thing, as long as I have love and you have love, but you know you can't enjoy it in the path of disobedience. When our children were disobedient, they didn't enjoy our love. The times when you doubt your parents love is when you're in a little bit of rebellion. There's some rebellion in your heart against them. Just check it with yourself and you'll find it so.
Something has happened. They did something you didn't like and there was a little rebellion.
Rose up in your heart, and you immediately thought, they don't love me, they don't love me. But parents do fail in their love. But God doesn't. God doesn't. And what is the measure of that love? Well, it says, as a father hath loved me, so have I loved you. The love that the Father had to his Son, the one whom he gave to die for us, the Son had for us. And how long does that love last? All having loved his own, which were in the world He loved them.
On to the end. Oh, I say again, don't allow the thought.
Of God's love to wane in your soul, live in the sunshine of it.
Live in the enjoyment of it. Get up in the morning and think of how much he loves you.
And then too, as you go through the pathway and difficulties come always cast in the tree. When the waters are bitter, you say, what do you mean cast in the tree? Well, you remember the children of Israel came to the oh, their hopes were getting pretty down. Then they saw some water and they thought, oh, at last we come to some water. And then when they went to drink of the water picture their disappointment. It was bitter, was bitter. And I suppose this has happened with us all. Only you say at last.
At last, there's a turn been made. Things are now beginning to come my way.
And then when you just think it's going to workout, it's bitter. All we've all had this happen and we said I can't take it. And they began the murmur. And the Lord said to Moses, Moses just put a tree in that water and the waters will become sweet. Not just take away the bitterness but become sweet. Why all when we go to Calvary and see how much he loved us and then we can handle these situations that arise.
We can meet them because we know he loves us. We can't doubt it because he's proved it so fully at Calvary. And now the other exhortation, the Lord commands us that we should love one another. Oh, how much we need this too. What a blessing we've got. As we look back, some of us who are a little bit older in our lives, we've known some people who taught us a great deal, but we felt there was a lack of a spark of love somehow.
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We learned a lot from them, but we felt there was a little lack in that spark. But there were other people, and we were conscious that they loved us. We could tell them anything, and they loved us just the same. And when we were in trouble, we knew that we could go to them. Well, if we're enjoying his love, it's going to radiate. Moses didn't know that his face shone, but he had been up on the mount with the Lord, and he came down and his face was shining. Yes, he had been in that enjoyment of that.
And oh, you can be such a blessing to your young people. Mr. Darby once said that our testimony to the world is our joy in the Lord. If we're happy, if the world sees that we meet these situations, and nothing dampens the enjoyment of his love and of that strength that we have to walk in his peace, why, what a testimony it is. Do you want to be a blessing among the people of God? He has given us the spirit of love.
And that's why it says in John's epistle, we love because he first loved us.
In the new translation, the word him is omitted, and the point is that he's given us the capacity to love because he loved us. Oh, you say, I find it hard to love that, brother, But what kind of people did God love? Did God love me because I was likable, far from him, as he continued to love me because I've been such a good Christian? No, he loved me because he is loved and he's given us the capacity. He is loving its source, and he has given us that capacity.
Oh, may the Lord grant that it'll be more true of us. Faithfulness may be required at times, but my Father had to punish me sometimes. But I knew he loved me. I knew He cared, and saw even in our assembly affairs. We may have to, and we do have to be faithful at times, but everything ought to be done as the Scripture says, that all your things be done with charity. May the love of God touch and control our hearts. And then the last one.
A sound mind.
Or, as the new translation is wise discretion. Oh, how foolishly we act sometimes.
What silly things we do sometimes And is it because God hasn't given us any kind of instruction in his word? Turn over to Proverbs chapter one.
Proverbs, Chapter One.
Verse two, to know wisdom and instruction. To perceive the words of understanding. To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment and equity. To give subtlety to the simple, To the young man, knowledge and discretion. Well, here we find that God has given us a great deal of wisdom. In His Word. It's often been exhorted. Read the book of Proverbs, dear young people.
It's been called a young man's book. How many troubles we would spare ourselves. Our brothers spoke rather faithfully yesterday. How many troubles we would spare ourselves if we would act with wise discretion? God hasn't given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a wise discretion. I say again what foolish things we do just because we don't listen to what God has to say.
Haven't we all done it? And we said, why did I do that silly thing? And we just didn't ask the Lord. We didn't seek his mind. We just did what we thought was the best thing to do. We were afraid of offending somebody. We had the spirit of fear. We were afraid somebody might turn against us or dislike us or something. And so we did a foolish thing. God hasn't given us the spirit of fear. I will not fear what man shall do unto me, but instead He has given us.
Wise discretion. He has shown us how to act in a world like this. And I implore you, dear young people, read your Bible. Walk in the wisdom of God's Word. When you have difficulties, turn to the Lord. Ask him and say, Lord, show me what to do. Show me how to act. Don't try to take steps in your own wisdom. When you go out, even on a date with somebody, get down on your knees before you go and ask the Lord.
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To keep you and help you to act as a Christian should. And that your conversation and all that you talk about and the things you do would be pleasing to him. He'll give you wise discretion. You won't have a lot of regrets as you look back if you walk in the wisdom and the light of his precious word. And so he gives to us. This wise discretion is another verse there in Peter's epistle. I won't turn to it for time.
But it says, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that she may grow thereby.
I looked up in Mr. Darby's translation and I always have wondered why he says the mantle milk of the word. If you have a new translation, you'll see he says the mental milk of the word and why it was called mental milk. Well, he shows it's in contrast to the physical milk that sustains the body. But God gives us intelligent direction. That's what he talks about. Mr. Darby has a little note that it's really the thought is.
That he gives us intelligent or rational instruction for our pathway isn't that lovely? Have you got some decisions to make? Oh, you say, I've asked a lot of people's advice, but we have in the word, the mantle milk of the word, so that we would grow. We have direction. We don't just have to follow impulses. We don't have to follow the opinions of men. He gives to the young man wisdom.
Knowledge and discretion. When you say I'm only a babe, but even to the babe he gives the mantle milk of the word that we might be preserved. And then, last of all, I won't turn to it, because we looked at it this morning and we present our bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto God, and that we might prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God? How are we going to prove it?
Well, you know, I've traveled around quite a bit. People have told me about good roads and good highways and so on, but the only way I ever proved them was to go over them myself.
And when I went over them myself, then I could say, well, I've been over it. And I know that's a good Rd. I know. And so how are you and I going to prove it all? Dear young people, you can listen to things in the meeting. You can read your Bible. If you want to prove it, just walk in it. Just walk in it and you'll prove it. You'll prove that it's a happy path, that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You look back and you'll say.
Oh, I'm so glad that I walked in the light of God's precious word. And so I again want to bring before you. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind or wise discretion. He wants you to be a happy Christian and even to as to your pathway in regard to fellowship, many young people think, oh, you just have to go and find a nice group of active Christians. Dear young people.
Go by this book, go by this book. Follow the light of God's word and you will find the right path. And many of us whom God in His grace has kept for many years are we there because of the people? Now we know lots of nice Christians who are in other positions. Why are we there? Well, I believe that we can say that the Lord in any measure has kept us. It's because we believe it's the path of obedience to His word.
Because it's marked out in the word. And so I just want you to be happy, dear young people. The Lord wants you to be happy.
He wants you to go on for him and I plead with you, don't go on in the course of this world.
Thank God for all he has given us in this precious book. Thank God for the light and the instruction that He's given to us.
He surrounded us, as I say, with a creation that proves to us he cares about us.
He sent his Son to prove to us that He loved us. He's given us His word with all its instruction, so that we might know the way through a tangled world like this. And He has given us His Holy Spirit to indwell us. Surely we can say, as a little hymn said, Lord, tis enough we ask no more. Thy grace around us pours its rich and unexhausted store, and all its joy is ours. Oh, May God grant that as a result of these days together.
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You, dear young people, will have a.
Holiness in Relationship
Address—C. Buchanan
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
2nd Corinthians.
Chapter 4. Two verses 6 and seven. For 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. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the Excellency of the power may be of God.
And not of us.
Perhaps two more verses following on down to 10.
Of the same chapter, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, chapter 5.
And 17 Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature or a new creation.
Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.
Well, it is a treat, dear young people, to.
Look into your faces this afternoon and.
See Life.
Very much of it in the young people.
Life, you have it. We all have it.
We have it from our first parents, don't we? From Adam?
Do we have this new life? Can you fit yourself into this verse? If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.
Oh, I trust Saul.
It's a very serious thing.
To reject that gospel we have heard here from this podium.
But I want to speak to you this afternoon as believers.
I believe that's the purpose of the meeting, dear young people who know the Lord Jesus and are here in this world.
I want to bring before us thoughts like this, that you and I belong to two creations, the old and the new, for God has worked twice in creation.
You know this well, this verse.
Suggested the first one we read. God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. Well, that takes you right back to Genesis, doesn't it?
And there is, we read of that pair.
Adam there, the man at least, and that that was good. He looked upon that creation, and it was very good. Now we come to Ephesians 2.
And it says, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. If you have believed in the Lord Jesus, you belong to the new creation. You have a new life, you have life more abundantly, you have eternal life.
Now God is interested in you, particularly you young people.
Your future.
May last a little while down here.
Well, we do know the Lord is coming, but still that is the natural youth with all its strength looking on for something to do down here, and we are told to occupy till He come. So we want to address our thoughts to you that way.
So I'm suggesting that you have a new life and yet that you belong to the old creation as being in the body. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Here's one of them. You're living in one of them, you know, in first Peter.
It says.
Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls, well, you'll get that the moment you believe and you have that eternal life.
But where is it that we begin these meetings? With a prayer meeting?
Well, we had a very prime example when our brother Walter Gill fell from the roof and fractured 3 vertebrae and seven ribs. That he needs our prayers, doesn't he? He is suffering in the body and in these bodies we do grow. We have prayer meetings because we're living.
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In this kind of a body we have many things to ask God.
For and he is really interested in US.
And now my thought is to turn to Matthew the 19th chapter and to look in the first book of the New Testament and just notice a little of how that the Lord Jesus.
There in his ministry began to give instruction which would suit us in this dispensation.
Not only as being in the Kingdom of heaven, but as being in the church, as having eternal life. His chosen people called out of this scene to be a heavenly people, and yet walking down here, and yet belonging to the old creation as in the body. So we'll read Matthew 19 some verses here beginning with one.
It came to pass that when Jesus had finished these things.
He departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judea beyond Jordan, and great multitudes followed him, and He healed them there. And the Pharisees also came unto him, tempting Him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every 'cause He answered and said unto them, Have you not read that He which made them?
At the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.
Wherefore they are no more twained, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together? Let non, let not man put asunder.
They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement?
And to put her away, he saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, suffered you to put away your wives.
But from the beginning it was not so.
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication.
And shall marry another committeth adultery. And whoso marth her which is put away to commit adultery, his disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. But he say it said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which.
Made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of heaven's sake.
He said, he that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Then were there brought unto him little children.
Now he should put his hands on them and pray. And the disciples rebuked them.
But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for if such is the Kingdom of heaven, And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence.
And behold, one came and said unto him, Good master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one that is God.
But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
He saith unto him, which Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, Honor thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth. What lack I yet?
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt.
Treasure in heaven, and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
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Well, you have noticed perhaps in reading this section, that we have.
Husband and wife, we have children and a young man. You know we have responsibility.
We have privilege and I believe our responsibility and privilege results from and is according to relationship.
You can think about that. I'll repeat it. I believe our responsibility.
And privilege results from and is according to relationship, we might say.
That the measure of our privilege is that we are in Christ.
And the measure of our responsibility is that Christ is in US. I'm speaking to you young people as believers.
That's your position in the new creation. If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation. And yet, you know we're here and we're still in these bodies.
And the wonderful thing is that God has given you and I the privilege of glorifying Him in.
The body which belongs to the old creation. So that when this question.
That the the Pharisees came to the Lord with tempting him.
Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? In giving the answer, the Lord goes right back to the beginning.
Well, we have had in our meetings something of the first covenant.
And we know about the trial of man, and the verse has been brought before us that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth, and really we understand that God.
Allowed.
A different standard, we may say.
As to marriage.
From the days of Moses, I don't think the results turned out so good. If you look at David and Solomon to be two examples, well, we know, we know the results, but now the Lord takes us right back to the beginning. Now He does this in Matthew, the first book of the New Testament.
He is beginning to teach that which fits you and I through this church period, the whole of it.
A way in which you and I can live and be happy too, I may say, although there will be tests and trials.
But he says I spare you when he talks about that.
God has a special favor for His people.
I say we can live in these relationships to the glory of God.
But we can't break these things and live in them to the glory of God. I'm not here to expound what we have here in the early part of this chapter in particular, because I don't think we need to take it as it is. But it's wonderful. You and I can live to the glory of God in these bodies. I think twice from here.
We've had Romans 12/1 before us.
Beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies.
A living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service or intelligent service. Think of that privilege.
To present our bodies.
The prayer to the Thessalonians that was at their whole body, soul and spirit be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So you see, we belong to the new creation.
But we are living in bodies that belong to the old creation. And again going back to Peter.
It says kept by the power of God through faith under salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. And that's the fifth verse, the 1St chapter, the ninth verse we've already quoted. We do have the end of our faith, the salvation of our soul, but we are waiting for another salvation, the body. We are waiting for that.
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We don't think it's far away, it's just assures the first, there's no doubt about it.
Meanwhile, we are here passing through this scene and you who have so much of the natural life, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if you could present that body that you're living in as?
A sacrifice, A living sacrifice. Holy. Don't forget that word holy, which is your intelligence service.
And also in Corinthians it says you are bought with a price. All on the table. This morning there was that which spoke of the price, the body, the blood.
Of the Lord.
Those two emblems separate death.
The blood poured out. You are bought with a price. Seek what God has paid for you.
Dear young person, for you. For me too. Oh, there's no estimation of what he has paid. That's sufficient. You're bought with a price.
Glory therefore glorify God.
In your body and in your spirit. Which are the Lords, therefore? Oh, there's a reason for it.
And I think that it is possible to glorify.
God in your body.
To live in this body to the glory of God, and in your spirit, which are gods, all belongs to God.
We don't really have any rights as we had here before us.
Even this in which we live.
This temple.
This vessel.
This body.
It belongs to God.
Did you ever think of that? Well, do you read Corinthians? You'll find it out.
And other scriptures too, so it's just charming to me to see.
That back here in the first book in the New Testament, the Lord was already beginning to introduce these truths.
And he takes us right back to the beginning. And He begins with a husband and a wife. Next comes children.
Our brother quoted read from Mark.
The same verse that we have in the 14th verse here. But notice the children come next in verse 13. Then were brought unto him.
Little children. Oh, little children.
How he loves the little ones. They brought them to Jesus.
That he should put his hands on them and pray.
And the disciples rebuked them.
But Jesus said, Suffer the little, suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of heaven, And he laid his hands on them.
He didn't let any hindrance stop the blessing that he had to give to those little ones.
Now there are some young people here who are parents. Youth and old age are relative, you know.
And it's the normal form of life down here, parents and children.
And.
There is wonderful instruction in the scriptures as to the household.
To the blessing that God desires to bring to the family.
One has rejoiced to see how the Spirit of God works in this land.
And down there in the Latin countries where one has seen it, that it just seems that God likes to bless in families. Sometimes you'll see a boy get saved and later his parents. Sometimes it's the parents and then the boy, the girl. And it just seems to be a chain reaction going through the family sometimes.
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I really believe that God likes to work that way to bring that blessing, and here the Lord Jesus would not let anything hinder him from laying his hands on those little ones.
I would like to call to your attention what I believe we have in Scripture.
As to these relationships that come and bring.
Responsibility and privilege.
And I believe there are 10.
At least five pairs.
The first we have just touched on as to creation.
Created all things by Christ Jesus.
And we are all his creatures.
Now the creature has a responsibility towards the Creator on God's side, its authority, power, love and all of this. But on the creature side it is dependence and obedience.
All of us fit in that category.
We all belong to God by creations, right? You and I belong to Him another right? Redemption is right.
And oh, that's more glorious and more precious, and the responsibility is greater. Your responsibility now, dear save soul, is not as a child of Adam, it's as a child of God. Me too.
Yes, it is. Oh, far greater responsibility and privilege too.
So that that would be the first pair, the creator and the creature. And it seems to me the second would come in the husband and the wife. That's the way it was at the beginning. You know, he made the male and female just one pair. That's God's simple order for us today. He takes us back to the beginning.
Oh, it is so happy if you are.
Brought of God to enter into this relationship and abide in it. In holiness there will be blessing.
And the Word of God is full of instruction. I don't need to give it to you. Of course, we always recommend the book of Proverbs.
So we have then the Creator and the creature, and then the husband and the wife.
And our first part of our chapter gave us some very clear instruction about that. And then we have touched on parents and children.
Well, I think we should at this point go over to Ephesians to get just a little practical help on these points. So if you turn over to Ephesians 5, we'll dwell a little more fully on.
This relationship of the husband and the wife, well known, I'm quite sure, to all of you dear young people too. But it's good to be refreshed on these things and to see the words of Scripture for them.
And the figure that they present to us here in such a beautiful way.
Verse twenty of five Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of God.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.
As unto the Lord, we'll stop there just a minute.
I've said that responsibility and privilege result from and are according to relationship.
We who are married.
The wife.
Has this admonition toward her husbands, her own husbands. Oh, how accurate the Scripture is as under the Lord. Well, we'll read on.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. You see how the Spirit of God develops from this relationship to bring before us Christ and the church. Now that was God's thought before the creation.
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Before the 1St creation.
And certainly before the second, because the second isn't first.
The first creation was Genesis. The new creation is if any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation. He is the first fruits. Oh, he's preeminent in the old creation. He's preeminent in the new. He is always preeminent in God's thoughts. Let's keep him preeminent in our thoughts too. So God had this thought, Christ and the church.
Oh, what a beautiful type we have here.
And we who enter into this relationship physically need to be instructed as to how we can be a proper testimony pointing to this glorious fact.
He is the Savior of the body, therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ.
So let the wise be to their own husbands in everything. Again, you have that little word own in there.
That brings in the purity of the relationship.
Subjection. None of that points to you and I as being in the assembly, the Church. Are we subject to the Head in glory? Do we get our directions from the Head?
If we do, we get them through the scriptures, and we should. It's the proper testimony.
I see our sisters out here with a covering on their glory. Now. That's right. You know the other scriptures that go there in Corinthians to bring this out? It's because the church is on display right now.
Before those principalities which are in heavenly places, they are learning in the Church the manifold wisdom of God.
They see you, sisters, as an example of the Church in subjection to the head and glory.
It wouldn't be too bad to break that kind of a testimony. Well, you know these things. Let's go on and see what it says to the husband. 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Now here you dear fellow men, husbands.
Something for what's the standard even as Christ?
Love the church and gave himself for.
Oh, if we will fulfill this toward our wives, our own wives, it will be well in the family.
Many, many sad incidences between husband and wife could have been prevented if this had been practiced.
Love, we need this, dear brothers in Christ.
You who are husbands.
Love your wives.
Even as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that he might present it to Himself. A glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.
So it meant to love their wives as their own bodies. The truth of the unity, the oneness, comes right in here in this union. Christ and the Church. What a glorious type is brought before us here.
And this first relationship, we may say, which follows creation, the husband and the wife, well, Adam and his wife had children born to them, didn't they? And it's come right on down to us. And by that first creation, we are the children of Adam.
And now I just repeat that you and I belong to this new creation too, and the Lord is teaching so that we can live to His glory as yet embodies which belong to the old creation. Well, it says we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. What a perfect union we have.
Let's.
Let's notice in Matthew again about the children.
Verse 14 Verily, they brought children to him, that he might lay his hands on them and pray, And the disciples rebuked them. They thought the Lord had enough.
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To do in walking about and performing his miracles and going on in his.
Ministry without being bothered with little children.
But no, the Lord wouldn't allow that. Oh, the love of God.
Or these little ones that come along and the privilege of the parents to bring them to Christ.
Now you young parents who have children, this is your responsibility and privilege too.
To bring those little ones to Christ, I recommend you go right back to Genesis and start through the book to find how the book teaches as to this privilege and responsibility in the family. You know you'll find that there are no nations until you get to chapter 10 or 11 of Genesis. God begins with the family.
That reminds me of what was said about sanctuary.
And today, today for us, I believe God has given two sanctuaries, the Christian home and the assembly. And I would say the home comes first. It's so in our history.
Preeminent first. So are families form children come along. What can we do with them? We're down here in the world. Oh, what a wicked world.
Dread to read the news accounts sometimes.
How can we take care of these little ones? Bring them to Christ, Bring them to Christ.
He lay his hands on them. He will take care of them.
And a lesson this is for us. Let's go back then to.
Ephesians and going down to the next chapter.
Two children obey your parents. Ephesians 6/1.
In the Lord, for this is right.
Now we have obedience.
As what is proper to the child in the Lord.
This is good. It's always right.
In any home.
The parents.
Authority.
They have been through something of this life. They know what it is, they know what the dangers are, and they know something of a desire because you know.
The trouble with our children is they're just like us.
And we learn in our children what we were like when we were little once. But we have had some experience.
And of course, the love of the parent is toward that child.
To bring them to Christ.
And the child is taught to obey.
That's all. Just obey well, that will be the happy path for you children out here to obey your parents. A path of blessing too. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment, with promise that it may be well with thee and that thou must live long on the earth. Now that's to the children. Now we come for something for the parents.
The scriptures are certainly full for us. Verse 4.
Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Isn't this clear?
And it is needed by we who are parents, the father and the mother.
Not to provoke them to wrath, to consider things their own makeups. And no two children are just alike. At least I haven't found them to be quite so.
We are all similar, but there are the differences and the parents learn a little of these things and we need wisdom from God as to how to train, how to discipline.
How to meet the needs of correction even?
Don't provoke them to wrath.
You know God, I believe, always begins inside. He works through the heart, our Father.
He works on the outside too, and I think sometimes it's good for us parents to work on the outside. A little correction that way.
But don't provoke them to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
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How all embracing this is so we have these words to the children and then to the parents. We have been through with say 3 pairs.
Of these relationships, the creator and the creature. This is outstanding.
Perhaps even a little different.
But I think we can understand it that way.
And then the husband and the wife and the privileges, all that is spoken of so delicately, being heirs together of the grace of life.
In that relationship, it is a special tool and then the responsibility in that.
As the wife in submission and the husband in love, and then children, God goes right through the whole scale of this responsibility.
The children come first in here, in our admonition or exhortation, in Ephesians. Obedience. You know, every one of us has been a child. We've all had parents. Have we been obedient? There isn't a person here, I don't suppose.
Who would say he had had always been obedient to his parents? I should think we would all say we have all disobeyed at times.
Reminds me, though, of that perfect one of whom we were speaking yesterday. Who could say I always do the things which please my father, and therefore doth my father love me because I lay down my life?
That son of the Father, perfect in obedience, giving an added cause to his Father to love him all. The Father always loved the Son, always loved the Son.
But the Son gave a special reason for the Father to love the Son, in that he was obedient unto death.
What a perfect lesson we have in Christ. So we children, we who have been children.
In that relationship, we are exhorted to obey.
Obey.
And the fathers to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
The next relationship let's go on down here verse five and take it in the order we have it here. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling in singleness of your heart as unto Christ, not with thy service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart.
With goodwill, doing service as to the Lord and not to men.
Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall we receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.
Of course, in the days when these scriptures were written.
There were.
Masters and slaves.
Now I'll tell you what I have seen in El Salvador just in the last few years.
And it's an object lesson on this point to me.
That there is a man there named Israel. That's remarkable, isn't it? Israel. Oh, he's a strongman.
Man of perhaps 3035, Prime of life. I'd call him a cowboy.
He works for a patron.
And he rides a horse and attends the cattle, but he does more. He was caring for the whole of the large farm, which is very productive there. And the patron has a beautiful home up on the side of the mountain.
Wealthy man swimming pool. He comes up there the weekends and lives well, but Israel can just barely read and write. I went to his wedding. His wife couldn't read or write. In order to have her document legal, she put her thumb on the ink pad and then put it on the.
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Marriage certificate.
The patron took care of this whole ceremony free of charge to Israel and his wife.
And.
They had both been saved, Israel and his wife just a few months.
And.
There he is a faithful, we might say servant.
He seems to be a very stable, steadfast man, looking out for the interests of his master.
The master seemed to have full confidence in him.
He isn't paid well.
He may be paid sufficient for the area in which he lives, but he's poor. And this patron got all the documents. He brought the judge, he provided the place. We all looked up the mountain to the edge of that swimming pool.
And the judge came out and he performed the marriage ceremony, and Israel and his wife legally married. Now they're at the Lord's Table. But I want to ask you to pray for Israel and his wife, as you have heard and been hearing that poor land is suffering much.
From guerrilla warfare.
In the last year, more or less some 9000.
Have been killed. Our brother writes me that 20 to 30 daily.
Almost every day shot down in that land.
And I got a letter from Israel and brother Martine saying that Israel had no work. Now they didn't elaborate on that, but I would think that.
It may be a result of nationalizing this large farm which belonged to the patron.
So that perhaps because of this, Israel was thrown out of work and needy. But I cite him as being an example of a servant to me. He was that faithful to his master. And after he was saved, I would almost think that what he was doing, he was doing it as unto the Lord.
But you know here.
In this land too.
Most of us work for a paycheck.
And we have responsibilities.
As being employed as an employee.
And I think the relationship is a little bit similar.
To the employer who gives that check.
So that we ought to render our service in this manner.
With goodwill, doing service as to the Lord and not to men.
Well, the teaching in the world doesn't go alongside of this, does it? But this is for us.
Then we go on to Masters.
Ye Masters, verse 9.
Do the same things unto them.
Forbearing. Threatening.
Knowing that your Master also is in heaven.
Neither is there respect to persons with him. He hasn't where points the finger to me and says you're just a servant too. You may have somebody working for you, but you're just a servant. I'm the master.
Is your Master even Christ and all ye our brethren? So that even in this land which has kind of a different standard of gaining a livelihood and culture, there is still a principle of the Master and the servant for us.
So let us learn to live in these relationships, taking up the privileges in them too, and enjoying them as belonging to Christ and that as servants, well, we're to serve as to the Lord and as masters, as remembering that we have a master.
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Then he says, finally, brethren.
Well, this would bring us to the last of these pairs.
That one wants to speak of.
Brethren.
There are many scriptures we could turn to on this, but this just goes on to say, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, and then puts us in the conflict or gives us what we need in the conflict.
So that you and I.
Need to learn how to get along as brethren in the assembly too.
And this would embrace two brothers and sisters. Let's read in first Timothy.
What it says there in the 5th chapter.
On that point we read the 1St 2 verses.
Rebuke First Timothy 51 Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren.
The elder women as mothers, the younger women, the younger as sisters with all purity.
This brings in a conduct toward others.
Corresponds with the relationship, doesn't it?
But then as brethren, to go on together.
Let's turn to James, that little book of James the 19th verse.
I might say that many times in this book.
He says, my brethren, my beloved brethren.
So he says here. Wherefore, my beloved brethren?
Every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to rap, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
Well, as brethren, there are so many scriptures we could turn to. If you could back up in the night from the 19th chapter of of Matthew again to the 18th chapter, we would find something there just to touch on in closing, and that is forgiveness 1. Won't read this whole passage, but.
You know it quite well and we just need it called to our attention because.
We do offend at times.
We all offend.
And we need to learn to forget and to go along with our brethren.
In love.
So Peter asks in verse 21, how often he asked the Lord, shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him till seven times?
Said unto him, I say not unto you, unto thee until seven times, but until 70 * 7. Well, we would lose count of that. Let's go on down and read the last verse in closing.
Likewise shall my heavenly Father also. Well, we're going to have to read further back to get this thought. Verse 33 should it not? Thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant. This is 1 servant toward another, even as I, the Lord had pity on thee, this particular servant.
Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was doing to him.
So likewise also my heavenly Father shall also shall do also unto you, if he from your hearts forgive not everyone, his brother, their trespasses. This is a great lesson for us as brethren to learn to forgive our brethren, and they need to learn to forgive us too.
Our Decisions
Address—R. Thonney
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Dear young fellow believers.
And the Lord Jesus.
The Lord's coming is near.
Everywhere.
It seems.
That those who belong to him.
Are sensing it.
Circumstances in the world around point to it.
Our own low condition and the failure in general of the Christian testimony points to it. The Lord is coming.
And I really believe with all my heart the Lord is coming soon.
There may be things as we look around.
In connection with the testimony that we seek to carry out.
And other circumstances as well that might.
Mean to you discouragement?
But really?
Thinking of the place and portion that is ours in the Lord Jesus.
Thinking of that Spirit of God who still is in our midst.
Thinking of the precious, changeless, infallible Word of God that we have in our hands.
The challenge is greater.
Right now, 1980 than ever before in the history of the world, to live to please the Lord.
All the moments getting there, we're going to leave this world.
Into a burst of glory.
When the Lord comes, how is he going to find you? How is he going to find me?
Continuing.
Or discouraged and cast down on one side or another. This is a challenge that comes tremendously to my own soul as we approach the moment when we're going to be raptured into eternal glory.
Dear young person, are you discouraged? Are you sidetracked by one thing or another? This afternoon? I want to challenge your soul with all that's in my heart, in view of the greatness of the blessing that we've been brought into.
And in view of the promises of God, this book is full of.
Oh dear, young people, continue on.
Little Hymn and the Echoes of Grace often comes to mind.
I just copied out a verse of it before meeting. I'd just like to read it to you.
I found a friend, oh, such a friend. All power to him is given to guard me on my onward course and bring me safe to heaven. Then this part especially is what I had in mind. The eternal glories gleam afar to nerve my faint endeavor. So now to watch.
To work, to war, and then to rest forever.
You know, there's just one word I'd rather change in that. The eternal glories gleam afar. It says they're not very far off, dear young person. They're near. We're close to the moment.
We're going to be raptured into heaven.
To the presence of the man who died for us and who lives for us and who waits for us now. Are you ready?
There was a young man.
The time.
Of the apostles.
Who is perhaps timid?
Some of you already know who I'm talking about.
That young man's name was Timothy.
I'd like to go to Second Timothy chapter one to see a few of the principles that the apostle Paul.
In the last lines he ever penned gave to this young man.
Oh, there is every reason to be encouraged. There is every reason.
To press on the few remaining moments.
Second Timothy, chapter one, verse one.
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Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.
According to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus.
To Timothy, my dearly beloved son, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience.
That without ceasing, I have remembrance of Thee in my prayers.
Night and day, greatly desiring to see thee.
Being mindful of my tears that I may be filled with joy.
When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee.
Which dwelt first, And thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice.
And I am persuaded that in thee also.
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God.
Which is in the by the putting on of my hands.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power.
And of love. And of a sound mind.
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of Maine his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the power of God, who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace.
Which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
But now, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.
Whereunto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
For the which 'cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Old fast, the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love.
Which is in Christ Jesus.
That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in US.
This thou knowest, that all that are all they which are in Asia be turned away from me, of whom are Fajilas and homogeneous. The Lord give mercy into the House of Anissa for us, For he off refresh me was not afraid ashamed of my chain. But when he was in Rome he sought me out very diligently.
And found me the Lord granted to him, that he may find mercy to the Lord in that day.
And how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.
As we mentioned before.
This is the last lines that the Apostle Paul penned in his life, or at least if he didn't write them himself dictated. This is his last epistle and it's written to an individual.
Written to an individual who was a young man and it appears quite a timid man.
And so this epistle can be taken very much to heart.
By those of us who are younger.
To all of us, of course, but very much for us who are younger. And I just like as we go through this chapter, don't profess to be able to give word to word exposition. But there's a few things that call my attention in these verses I'd like to share with you.
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In verse one we have the will of God spoken of.
Upon the apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God.
Oh, what is God's will?
Ah, friend, if you are here without the Lord Jesus Christ.
God is not willing that any should perish.
But that all should come to repentance, and in First Timothy.
Chapter 2 we have is the will of God, that all men should come, should be saved and come.
To a knowledge of the truth.
And I like to think of the will of God as a vast stream of blessing.
That flows in from that past eternity blessing that was already purposed in a past eternity. It flows in, flows through time and it flows out into the future eternity and blessing the souls. Woe be to the person who resists that will, God's will for you if you're here unsaved. And we feel that they're perhaps some who are passing for believers.
But not real in their own souls. If you are here, God's will for you is to be saved.
And to be saved now, not tomorrow, now.
If you resist that, well, there is only one thing you can expect.
Then that is terrible, awful, eternal judgment.
Is that the desire of your soul?
Friend, the will of God is your salvation.
And for us who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, this should be something supreme in our lives as well.
This day and age in which we live is characterized by the will of man. Man's will is supreme. We've all heard a lot of this program.
That's called human rights. Every man has his basic human rights.
Well, we cannot comment in political circles. The postures of the earth will strive, but when it comes to those of us who have been redeemed with a precious blood of Christ, let's establish one thing very certain according to the Word of God, and that is no one who is.
Redeemed with that precious blood of Christ.
Has any right to their own will at all? No. We have declared that we have forfeited every right. The only rightly, rightly had was to the lake of fire, and He redeemed us from that end. Now He who has every right in my life is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so when it comes to decisions in life, it is not a question any longer of what I want.
No, that's what the Lord wants for me. The will of God, remember.
That will may seem hard at times, but that will is written for your own blessing.
When the word of God says, Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
It's written for your own happiness and good and blessing. Dear young person, if you are even thinking of marriage with someone who is not a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are, I ask you to consider what is the will of God? Remember His will.
Is for your own good and blessing ultimately.
And those who resist that will will only do so to their own sorrow.
And so this is something that affects us in all our lives, all the.
Apostle before he was saved as Saul of Tarsus.
Was going madly along his way, his way persecuting the believers. The Lord Jesus shined out of heaven, said Saul. Saul, why persecutest thou me? And Saul didn't know who was talking, but he did recognize one thing, that the one who was talking was Lord. And he said.
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Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord responded.
I am Jesus, whom now persecutest. What's the next question Paul asks? Lord, what will thou have me to do? Oh, this should be the question that we ask in every decision of life. Lord, what wilt thou? It's not a question of what I desire my own natural desires any longer. It's a question of what He desires.
And remember, His desire is for your good and blessing.
It may seem that you have to pay a terrible price to follow that desire of His for you, but remember it's for your ultimate good and blessing and happiness. And so the will of God was something that was supreme in the life of the Apostle Paul.
There are many things the scripture speaks about the will of God that are very clear and definite.
There are other things in our lives when it takes real getting into the Lord's presence and prayer and searching His Word so that we can tell what His desire is, what His will is for us.
But I want to share with you a verse that's been a tremendous help in my own life, and that is in Psalm 32.
Read it.
Psalm 32 Eight. I will instruct the and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. Be not as the horse or the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bitten bridle, lest they come near unto thee.
Verse eight is the verse which shows us how we ought to be guided.
In the decisions of our lives.
His eye is honest. That's the way it should. Read here the last part of verse eight. I will guide thee with mine eye upon thee. His eye is on you. Each one of you that belong to Him is. I is on you.
How are you going to discern his mind? Have you turned your eye on him?
Have you looked to him? That's the only place you're going to get an answer that gives peace to your soul.
In the decisions of life, others may give you good counsel very well, but it will never be the final answer. No, only He is the one that can truly guide you in life. I will, He says, instruct thee and teach thee in the way that thou wilt go. And dear young person, if you don't know.
Then wait, the Lord is waiting.
In Isaiah chapter 30 and verse 18 it says therefore the will the Lord wait that he may have mercy upon you, for the Lord is a God of judgment. And then at the end of the verse it says blessed are all they that wait for him. He's waiting to show you His will for your blessing and happiness.
He's waiting, and blessed are all they that wait for him.
In verse nine of Psalm 32, it speaks of two animals.
The horse and the mule. Impulsiveness and stubbornness.
The two extremes of our own human nature. How often we are guided by these things.
And by circumstances. But it's never the real way that God wants to guide us in. He may guide us by circumstances. Thank God if he doesn't let us go our own way. And he does use circumstances to hem us in. But remember his promises. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way that thou shalt go. I will guide thee.
With mine eye upon thee.
And so, dear young person, in every area of your life, keep this before you. God's will, what is it? And you'll never, and I'll never be intelligent of what the will of God is for me in my life if I don't spend time reading this book, other young person read it. Read it often.
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Be in prayer. Often this is the way the Lord shows us.
His will.
And so this is what we get in verse one of first two Timothy, one, the will of God. Like I say, I'm not going to take up these verses in detail, just mention a few things that I feel are very important from verse to verse here.
Verse 3 There's another point feels very important for us as young believers. That is a pure conscience.
Pure conscience. Various times in First and Second Timothy this word conscience is used.
Let's look at First Timothy chapter one.
Verse 5. Now the end of the commandment is charity.
Out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and a faith and faith. Verse 19.
Holding faith and a good conscience, which some, having put away concerning faith, have made shipwreck.
Oh, how important that conscience be pure, that it be good.
You know man was created in innocence and told.
That there was one tree of the Garden of Eden, that he was not to eat of that garden. That tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
But.
Eve deceived by Satan and Adam with his eyes wide open.
Ate of that tree anyhow.
And they had what we now call and know a conscience, the knowledge of the the knowledge of good and evil.
You have that knowledge. Each person born into this world has a conscience, and for as much as a man may turn infidel in his mind, his conscience always witnesses to the truth.
There may be greater light from the Word of God in certain parts of the world.
Than there are in others, and so in the light the conscience.
Is more active, perhaps, than in places where there's very little light. But in every part of the world God has his testimony of one way or another witnessing to man, and man's conscience is active according to the light that he receives from the revelation of God.
And here we have it now in connection with these last times. That conscience of yours, dear young person, make sure that it is good. Make sure that it is pure. Make sure that there's something not troubling you there and you're trying to cover it up.
In First Timothy 4 it speaks about a seared conscience, those whose conscience bothers them so much they just try to put it down continually until finally the voice of conscience begins to fade. Son. Not completely, but son.
Oh, it's a serious thing. And those in First Timothy, one who put away that concerning faith made shipwreck, they didn't hold faith in a good conscience. Oh, how important to let the light of the word of God shine in ever upon our lives.
Conscience is not a guide. The Word of God is our guide.
But conscience is a good policeman to tell us when we're wrong.
And don't ignore the voice of that conscience of yours.
Oh, how important to be extremely careful in our lives in these few days that are left before the Lord comes to take us home.
Dear young people, be careful.
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The customs and practices of this world.
Are not to be taken up for us and whatever they may decline to.
Remember, our guide is the Word of God. It never changes.
And I'd just like to say a word to those who are thinking about taking a life companion. Thank God if you find someone who has a true believer in the Lord Jesus.
And that you have a sense in your soul that this is the one the Lord has for you. But be careful. Be careful before you're married. More and more you see the custom of freely handling one another.
And the wisdom of the Word of God is in First Corinthians 7, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Sure, we give we.
Shake hands. But beyond that, dear young person, be careful. Be careful.
If that boy really respects you, really has a love that is born out of respect, remember he's not going to freely handle you.
Remember that.
And dear young brother, if you really respect and love that one you're interested in.
Then you want her to be pure. You do.
Be careful.
Sometimes we think we can trust ourselves.
Remember.
Although we are not in the flesh any longer as the position before God, we are in the Spirit, still the flesh is in.
And we cannot trust.
Cannot trust.
Be careful how important to have a pure conscience before God.
And then we come down to verse 5, something else so important for our day in which we live.
When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith.
That is in thee which dwelt first in thy grandmother lost, and thy mother Eunice. I am persuaded that in thee also.
Faith. Faith. What is faith?
Oh dear young person, we live in a world that is controlled by materialism. Everything is controlled on the basis of how it will affect us materially.
But in Second Corinthians chapter 5 the word of God says we walk by faith not by sight. And in the 4th chapter the apostle Paul says.
While we look not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal.
Things which are not seen are eternal.
We have a viewpoint as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That reaches way out into eternity. There are many wise businessmen in this world who control their businesses and their personal interest by looking with sharp precision into the future, are able to discern and to tell how to move their interests for their own material.
Gain. But the Christian has a viewpoint that reaches farther than any of them.
Right out into eternity. And what should control us is to be have that day when we stand before the throne of God, the judgment seat of Christ, before our souls.
When I make a decision, oh it might help me materially, but will it help me in view of that day or is it going to be lost in view of that day?
That's what faith does. Faith looks at that which is not seen.
And faith is based always on the Word of God. Faith is not based on circumstances necessarily. No faith is based on what God has simply said.
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No matter what circumstances may appear to say.
Oh, how important to be guided in this way in our Christian lives. Not guided by material things, not guided by circumstances, guided by the book we hold in our hands this afternoon.
And here we have something that is very interesting in this verse and that comes as a challenge.
To my heart as a parent, and perhaps there are younger ones who have.
Children to.
Faith is not something that is naturally inherited from parents to children.
But here we see grandmother, mother and son, and they all have faith. How is this? We turn to the third chapter. We see how it was.
3rd chapter and verse.
15.
That from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Oh, here we have that the Timothy had known from a youth the Holy Scriptures. Oh, how good to be brought up in a home where the Word of God is read daily. Is that the custom? Is that the habit of the home where you are head of.
Is it?
The day we live in is a day of a lot of pressure, and it seems like the pressures of life are growing stronger all the time.
But is there time in your home to open that book?
Even if it's just for 5 minutes in the morning before you meet the world and all its pollutions, is there time to open the book in your home?
Oh, I really feel if there's no time to read the precious word of God.
For our families, then we're too busy. And this comes home to my own soul too. I don't stand here and point the finger at you. Only, dear brethren, I'm not an example, a perfect example, I want to say very definitely, but this is the word of God. This is the wisdom of God. Timothy had a grandmother and a mother who read the Scriptures.
Them daily and what was the result? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Oh, how important this is.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, and so how important to take time.
To fill those little water pots with water from their youth up.
You know, in Bolivia there's been a real need.
Amongst families to read the word of God in the homes. Something you can speak about, but it doesn't get across very fast.
Has been something had to speak very plainly about sometimes about reading the word of God in the home to the children. So many of the children that grow up don't go on.
But if we do not sow that precious word, how can we expect that there will be faith in their hearts? How can we expect?
And so how important this is for us of us who are parents, just like to read in Deuteronomy Chapter 11.
A few verses that have spoken to my own soul.
In connection with this.
Timothy was a man of God.
How was that young child formed?
You know, sometimes we hear of the importance of assembly life, and it is very important, but I want to say that there's another important sphere for the forming of men of God, and that's family life where the Word of God is read and respected.
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Deuteronomy Chapter 11.
Verse 18.
This is the instruction that was given through Moses to the children of Israel.
Since the principles of God's Word remain the same, there is instruction for us as well here.
Therefore verse 18 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words.
In your heart and in your soul.
And bind them for a sign upon your hand that ye may be, as that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. Notice what comes first. All the challenges is to my heart as a father.
To lay up these words in my heart and my soul.
Do my children see that I'm walking in the enjoyment of what I speak to them about?
Verse 19 and then comes.
Ye shall teach them your children, Speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the doorpost of thine house, and upon thy gates, that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children.
In the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers to give them as the days of heaven.
Upon Earth.
Oh, this is a precious little recipe for a home that is heaven upon earth. May it be so in my home. May it be so in your home, dear young person. It's a great challenge in these days in which we live to bring children up in a world that is going so fast and with such a terrible current to destruction.
And if it weren't for the fact that in God's precious word.
We have promises to count on God to work in their hearts.
By faith.
Not only of faith. I'm not talking about a faith that just sits down and crosses its arms. Talking about a faith that works. The faith, the living faith of the Word of God, is a faith that works incessantly.
But it also counts on God to work in their hearts.
To bring them to the knowledge of himself, but weren't for that. I'd be terrified bringing up children in a day that we're living in, because if they're going to go to eternal destruction.
Better they never be born in the 1St place. Far better.
Oh, may this challenge come home to my own soul.
The souls of those who are parents here.
And then going back to the first chapter again of Two Timothy.
Verse 6 Wherefore I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God that is in thee.
Which is in me by the putting on of my hands.
Timothy had a gift.
But evidently for some reason.
He was timid, perhaps. Perhaps he saw the small response there was in the part of the Ephesians.
To what the Apostle administered, and he must have got a bit discouraged.
And Paul has to exhort him.
To stir up the gift of God that is in the stirred up.
Sometimes, you know, I hear statements. Perhaps they're not meant in the way they are sound, but.
Some brother will be commenting on another person to say that person just doesn't seem to have any gift at all.
Well, I want to say to you, dear young person, there is no such thing in the body of Christ of a member without a gift.
In Ephesians chapter 4 it says, For unto us is given grace.
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According to the measure of the gift of Christ. Excuse me, I should have quoted the whole thing. Or unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Every one who is a true believer in the Lord Jesus and therefore.
A member of the body of Christ.
If you are, you have a gift.
What is your gift?
What is my gift? I don't know perhaps, but what it should be our exercise in the presence of the Lord.
Is to be ready in what little I have to use it for him.
I enjoy thinking of what the Lord said unto Moses. What is that in my hand? Oh, it's just a rod, Lord.
I'll use that. Moses used that rod, that thing that seems so simple in his hand. He used that for the delivering of the people of God from Egypt and carrying them to the borders of Canaan.
What is in your hand? Use it for him little by little as your exercise before the Lord to be a help in one way or another. The Lord will show you your place. And there are real gifts in the body of Christ. But I really feel, dear young person, that there are many, many, many gifts that are completely dormant in our assemblies.
Go back home, we say. Oh, there's just no gift here.
Is that true?
No, that's not true. There is gift.
But it is an active that's the problem.
I like the way it puts it in the Spanish translation. It says wake up the gift of God that is in thee. Wake it up dear young person, you have a gift.
I really believe, dear young people, This is why OFT times there's a tendency amongst us to look to those who seem to have real gifts, to look to them even for decision making.
Oh dear young person, every member of the body of Christ has a gift. You have a gift. I don't know what it is, but if you are exercised before the Lord and holding practically the head, the Lord Jesus has head in the assembly, the Lord is able to use your gift.
It doesn't have to be much, it can be a very little amount, but he can multiply the five loaves and the two fishes.
So that there will be plenty for everyone there. May the Lord encourage you, dear young person, to stir up the gift of God that is in thee.
Sometimes when the Lord has called home some of those who have been a real blessing in our midst.
I hear statements that say.
Well I just can't understand why the Lord took him home. Just can't understand we need him so bad.
Dear young person, is Christ still head of His body, the Church? He is, He is, Is He not there over all principality and power, and might and dominion, in every name that is named? Is there anything too hard for the Lord? What we need is exercise, each one of us.
Not to be looking at one another, as Joseph told his brethren, but to be looking to the head. That's where all supply comes from, and the Lord encouraged us to be exercised as to any little measure.
Of using something we have from the Lord for the blessing of others.
In the assembly where we are.
Verse seven. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Oh I like that verse. What a verse to be written right at the end of the Apostle Pauls writings.
God has not given us the spirit of fear.
Power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
I'd like to thank in the Old Testament, perhaps there are examples of this in different places. One example that's well known is David.
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David.
That little shepherd boy.
Out in the Wilds you had learned to prove his God.
Killed a lion and a bear when it came to the time that his father sent him up to see how his brethren were.
There was an uncircumcised Philistine defying who?
Define the armies of the living God.
And so David, in the simplicity of his faith, was not.
Controlled by a spirit of fear. No, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind.
For David, the battle was not a question between his capacity and Goliaths.
No, the battle for David was between the God of heaven and Goliath and there was no question in Davide mind as to how the issue would be of that battle. No, he had to be the winner because it was between God and God. And so David in a sense of this spirit of power.
And a spirit of love for the people of God who were terrified by this man.
And our sound mind, he wasn't going out there as a fool, no.
He had well measured things. He had well counted the cost.
Oh, this is the Spirit that God has given us, Spirit of power and of love and a sound mind. May I encourage you, dear young person, to stand up for the Lord in these last days. We have other examples. We don't have time to mention them now. Just like to continue on here. Verse 8. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony.
Of our Lord, nor of me his prisoners.
But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.
Here it speaks of the testimony of our Lord. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. The testimony is the Lords. Dear young people, it's not our testimony. We're only a testimony to our own failure and weakness.
And christen them in general, of which we are a part is filled with failure. But remember, God is fully able, and he will maintain his testimony. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner.
What was wrong with the Apostle Paul?
Everybody in the end of the chapter, everybody had forsaken emanation. Those believers at Ephesus that Paul had written such a tremendous epistle to.
That all forsaken him. What happened? Oh, faithfulness to the Lord had caused him.
To be rejected and remember dear young person.
That faithfulness to the Lord in these days will not be popular. If you want to be popular, be careful.
You may go wrong.
No, faithfulness to the Lord will not 'cause you to be popular. And that's the way it was with Paul.
But Paul says, be not ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.
Nor of me is prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.
And then I like to connect with that verse what we have in verse 12.
The apostle says for the which 'cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed against.
Excuse me. And then persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
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Says to Timothy, don't be ashamed. I am not ashamed.
Apostle Paul not ashamed word his pathway where the doctrine.
That was so precious that he taught word, had it led him, oh, as a heavenly teaching about a heavenly people, the church, a heavenly body, and that we are no longer form any part of this world system. So much so that the world in effect, said Paul, the only place we have for you is the dungeon. No more place in this world system for you.
But all he says there in the dungeon.
The end of his days. I'm not ashamed.
Oh, I love that spirit of that apostle To me. This is a tremendous challenge. I must say to my dear older brother, and some of you have been a terrific challenge to my own heart to see the firmness no matter what and the conviction the Word of God has in your own soul. Still remember dear brother Jackson in his last days.
How?
Down there in Florida, you talk about the Lord's coming.
It's so thrilled, his soul. He got up on the edge of his chair. He couldn't get up by himself any longer. And all of a sudden he sank back. He couldn't take any longer. The spirit was.
New. He wasn't old. No, the spirit was new. He wasn't ashamed. How many people come to the end of their days?
And then they reflect, ashamed of their lives. Oh.
Terrible. Terrible really, to lose your life that way.
The Apostle Paul could say, I am not ashamed, I know what firmness, what solidity here. I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day.
And before we close, I'd just like to touch on verse 13 and 14.
Hold fast the form of sound words.
Which thou hast heard of Maine faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus.
Hold fast the outline, it says in the new translation.
Oh fast, this outline of sound doctrine. Dear young people, try to get It'll be a real help to you in your later life. An outline of scripture.
There is much precious written ministry that is written for us that can be a help to get an outline of sound doctrine. Why did the apostle Paul write First Timothy? Why did he write First Corinthians? Do you really understand? Do you have an outline I'm not Speaking of? Can you explain in detail? No.
You're going to put up A-frame house. You put up the outline first, the framework.
And then after that's put up, you put up the detail work, but get an outline of sound doctrine. It'll be a real help to you in all your life if you do that. And then verse 14, that good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in thee.
In us keep oh, the precious truth of God, dear young people, don't let it slip. Here it is in the word of God. And I just want to say a word, dear young people, Sometimes it seems that.
What is believed amongst us is believed because of writings.
Of dear gifted brethren like Jay and Darby and William Kelly. But dear young people, our faith is not based on those writings. Our faith is based on this word of God that lives in abides forever. Seek to found your soul here.
Those writings are very helpful to help to explain to us what the Word of God means so that its power will really reach to our souls. But this is the ground of our Christian lives, nothing of the writings. Isn't it the ground of our Christian life or testimony? Oh, may the Lord encourage you to search it out and to possess it for yourself.
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Early feel were being robbed of the precious truth of God because we're not willing to dig and get it for ourselves. You may read it in a book of ministry, fine, but then go to the Word. Do you see it there for yourself? Until you see it there for yourself, it's not yours.
Oh dear young people, keep that good deposit that has been committed unto us. Story is told in Bolivia. Some of you have probably heard of it, heard it before.
Of in the region of Eulog, where Brother Eric Smith went first amongst the Indians, Certain time of year they gather the taxes together.
And in that time of year, it's very rainy.
And the rains, since there's no vegetation on the hills, the rains when it rains heavily, rains come right down the mountains and fill the rivers. There's often flash floods. This Indian was dispatched to carry this large sum of money in his hand in a bag to the authorities in different part.
On the way, crossing a river, a flash flood caught him and carried him downstream, beat his body against the rocks and the and the logs that were floating down killed him when they finally found his body few days later.
It was beginning to decompose, but still clasped in those hands was the treasure didn't let it go even in death. Dear young person, when the Lord Jesus comes again and he's coming so very soon, how is it going to be? Is he going to find you with that attitude toward the precious?
Deposit of truth that we have here in the Word of God.
Oh, as I say, dear young people, as we close the challenge to live for the Lord to continue on in the things that we have been taught is so much greater now than ever in the history of this world. May encourage you may encourage my heart until he comes, just pray.
Hebrews 10:7-11
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From henceforth expecting, till His enemies be made His footstool. For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that He had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days.
Saith the Lord.
I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities. I will remember no more Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
By a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, And having an high priest over the House of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled.
From an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another.
And so much the more as you see the day approaching.
For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses law died without mercy, under two or three witnesses. Of how much sore punishment suppose she shall he be thought?
Worthy who have trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith He was sanctified and unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the spirit of grace, for we know him that has sinned. Vengeance belongeth unto me.
I will recompense, saith the Lord, and again the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But call to remembrance the former days in which, after ye were illuminated, He endured with great fight. He endured a great fight of afflictions, partly while she were made a gazing stock, both by reproaches and.
And partly while ye became companions of them that were so used, for ye had compassion of me and my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which have great recompense of reward.
For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God.
You might receive the promise for yet a little while. And he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
His father.
Of the book that's referred to here. Isn't that the eternal word of God, The eternal counselors of God?
First, Peter, that the Lamb was foreordained before the foundation of the world. God had those eternal purposes. The written word is the revelation of how these purposes are brought about. But these things were in the councils of God long before, and He had in mind this One who would come and accomplish that work.
So he can easily see the connection as to why the sacrifices offered under the law.
God didn't find pleasure because they were just a temporary means by which God showed that the only way of approaching to His presence since man was a Sinner is through the blood.
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Would you say, then, that although he had no pleasure in the sacrifice, he did have pleasure in that of which the sacrifice spoke, and his delight was a sweet Saber because it pointed forward to that of which the sacrifice truly spoke?
Doesn't this bring before us in a way, the ways of God?
God could have brought.
Christ down at the very beginning, after Adam had sinned.
But God by means of all of these types and shadows in the Old Testament.
Simply bringing before us the real thing. Of course in the Old Testament times they didn't know this. The only way they knew anyone was coming or Messiah was through the prophetic scriptures. But the God just held back. It shows that God is wise in the way he works and he doesn't work fast.
He has, well, he has a reason for all of this.
And it just impresses me how much we need to be dependent upon God and submissive to God and submissive to all that God is doing. Sometimes we like to do things in a thing in a hurry, but God in a way we might say, is not in a hurry.
And he was teaching lessons through all of this that we have recorded in the Old Testament.
But in due time, we read, Christ died for the ungodly. There was a due time for God. God had it all planned. And what we need to be exercised, I believe, is to be in tune with God in communion or fellowship with God to such an extent that will follow right along with Him.
Now we read about that God made known his ways to Moses, but His acts unto the children of Israel. Now that brings before us surely that the children of Israel as a whole did not understand the ways of God.
There was only one that could understand the ways of God and at least enter into them in a measure, and that was Moses. But the others, the only thing they could understand was the things that God did, the miracles, the acts of God.
I believe that should exercise us that we should be in tune with God to such an extent that we can enter into his ways in a measure at least. We can't enter into it perfectly because we're we're poor and weak and, and we're not always spiritually what we ought to be and we don't have discernment and all of that. But it's something I believe to exercise our hearts because.
There are the ways of God.
And God all through, since save as sin came into the world, was working out His plans and His purposes. And we can thank God for the conclusion of it all. It lands us in the glory. God will watch us there with Himself. God wanted the people. We saw that in the Old Testament. He wanted to dwell amongst His people. He wanted the people around.
God is that kind of a God. He loves companionship, He wants our company, and he he is happy this morning because we're here gathered around his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's just a foretaste of the glory, and he's looking forward to having all of his children there.
Or if we could enter more into the ways of God, how wonderful it would be for us. And I think this should be our exercises, shouldn't it?
Yes, this is true of the.
Part the purposes of God and if I might say the timetable of God, then I feel it would be very wrong for us to worry and fret about conditions in 1980 because God is still working out his purposes and his timetable is perfect and we look back on 1980 from eternity someday and see the purpose of all those things that are taking place now that have the.
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Believers so worried, and they discuss it with great fear, but the believer is aware of these things and I trust feels the sorrows and trials through which many are passing. But someday we are certainly going to look back and see the perfection of his ways and the ordering of his timetable. And I believe it must be pleasing to him and a good testimony too, to the.
Unbeliever to see the child of God confident that God is over all, that the Lord is still there in control, and that we can go on our way in perfect peace.
In Romans 15, we read that the things that were written at four time are written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. That's certainly a very, very important aspect of the Old Testament and how much our hearts are cheered in seeing the wondrous ways of God and patience and grace with those Old Testament Saints. But on the other hand, there is the other side of the picture, and that's in First Corinthians 10.
It says these things happened unto them, for examples, to the intent that we should not lust after the same thing. So there we have in the Old Testament serious warnings as to those things that will bring the governmental hand of God upon us. But oh, you know, beloved brethren, I've thought in connection with the days of Ezra there when they were reading the word of God before the Watergate and the people wanted it. They wanted to hear what the word of God.
Said, but as they heard the word of God, they realized how far short they came and they were distressed and they wept and they felt bad about it. So when we're in a right state, then God can bring in comfort and he can encourage because he said there to them through the prophet, the joy of the Lord is your strength. The joy of the Lord is your strength. But we need to be exercised and to recognize how low estate we're in.
There are two things that run through the Word of God and that is man's responsibility and God's sovereignty and foreknowledge and He always puts the creature to the test. Even the angels were tested and many of them fell as we know. And it's only that God has elected certain angels that are spoken of in Timothy as the elect angels, that there will be even blessing to the angels.
And so through the Old Testament, and even now, as our brother has remarked, God passes us through certain tests. He tests everything only to show that nothing that is of the creature can stand. Only that which is of God will abide.
And so in our own lives, only that which is of God is going to abide. It says he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. So as we read all these Old Testament scriptures, these things happened, as it was remarked, for our learning. They were examples to us. Examples of what? That if we trust in the flesh, we're going to fall.
That if we depend upon ourselves, there's going to be failure. But the only way of blessing for us is to see.
In the purposes of God, his blessing and to walk in constant dependence and we have the perfect example of it in the life of the Lord Jesus as it tells us here he came to do God's will and so we see him here was.
This world under Satan's power, the Lord Jesus comes right into it. It's spoken of as Satan's palace. When a strongman armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace. And what Satan has done is arranged the whole world system to try and keep people from thinking about God or from dependence upon God, to try and work out everything for themselves and for their own happiness and independence of God.
Here comes into this world God's beloved Son, the 2nd man and last Adam, who never did one thing to please himself, whose every action was to please His Father, and saw as he walked through this world He has marked out the path for us.
He has not only accomplished that mighty work of redemption that we have been speaking about.
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Which is the groundwork of all our blessing. But He is the pattern for us. And if you and I would want to please Him, if we would walk in that peace that we have been speaking about in connection with His ways, it must be in the path of His will.
It says, By the word of thy lips have I kept me from the paths of the destroyer. And so we may desire to recognize His will, but unless there is submission in our own hearts to Him and to His will, an attitude of constant dependence and obedience to His will, there will not be the enjoyment of that peace. The Lord Jesus walked in it perfectly, because He was a perfect dependent man.
Would that be?
Some thought in connection with that in Romans 12.
The will of God.
Romans 12.
Verse One. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable or intelligent service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good.
Acceptable and perfect will of God, where we have the salvation of our souls.
We, if we belong to the Lord, we know we're saved and we have this joy in our souls. But what about this body that we have? I believe here we have the presenting of this body which belongs to Him too. And in doing so we prove that good and acceptable and perfect will of God in this body is where we can honor Him now.
And thus we know.
The will of God. I'm thinking of the verse just prior to this, the opening of the 36th verse of the previous chapter. We find that says of him through him to him are all things that is, he's the source of it all. He's the channel of it all and he should should be the object of it all.
Well, I believe, my brethren, that we have something here that would exercise us as to knowing the will of God, proving the will of God.
But in contrast, that is the Lord Jesus in our chapter set a body. Hast thou prepared me? And in that body he did the will of God in everything. Now what is the principle on which this world operates? The whole principle on which the world operates is to make yourself the center. And everything you do is to revolve around yourself, whether it's for your good, even when.
Show kindness to others. It's the good feeling that they get. They cannot rise higher than themselves until they have a new life. And so if you and I are operating our lives on that principle, and then a whole system of things in our life is on the principle of this world. This can be in connection with our whole life. It can be in connection with our business life. It can even be in connection with.
Assembly life that we want to be the center of everything and everything revolve around ourselves and it's just as much conformity to the world. To want to be a great man in the Church of God is to be a great man in the world. It's a wrong principle. The Lord Jesus empty himself. He came down into this world he came not to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him he.
Took the lowest place walking through this world.
In order that he might be a pattern for us and I believe it's a very important thing that when we are saved, why we don't operate any longer on that principle. If we do, it's the world. We may look at someone else and say that person is worldly, but at the same time we may not realize how much our own lives are operating on this principle for of which self is the center. Oh, may the Lord give us to see as we have in our.
This Blessed One who came down into this world and did His Father's will and what it cost him is set before us here. Because if He was going to glorify His Father about the question of sin and open up the way for the fulfillment of all these councils that we have been talking about, the cost was that He must settle the question of sin, and that He did at Calvary and through it.
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Us into the fullest blessing that is in the heart of God for those who are redeemed.
The first man brought in the will of man.
When he exercised his own will, and as you say, that's the very principle that operates in the world. But the second man brings in the will of God.
And I was thinking of an expression. It's really.
Humbling to think of that expression in Luke's Gospel when Pilate said he then released he Barabbas and delivered Jesus to their will.
And we know what that was. The will of man is, you might say, seen there. The will of man was to turn out of this world the only man who was here entirely for the will of God. It's remarkable. And I have wondered or thought.
That when you consider the life of the Lord Jesus.
And all that he did, as we read that, he went about doing good, healing those that were oppressed of the devil.
You would say, why would they want to turn him out? Why would they want to turn a man out who could raise the dead and open the eyes of the blind and heal the sick and all of those wonderful works? I believe it's because he brought in the will of God. Lo, I come to do thy will. Even in the raising of the dead and the healing of those that were sick was doing the will of God.
It wasn't merely to relieve the needs of the individuals, but it was as doing the will of God. It was his meat and drink to do His will and to finish the work. And such a man was is what the world will not have. If a man were to do all of those things as doing his own will, he would be accepted. It's because he brought in the will of God.
And as you say, the the.
Man may do many good things, but as doing his own will, it makes him acceptable to the world.
But here's one who brought in the will of God and all that he did. He connected God with it, everything that he did, even those wonderful deeds.
And that the Lord Jesus.
As you say, he did exactly the will of God. Well, we read in John six that they would have made a king out of him at that time, but the Lord would not yield to their will. He withdrew because of the Father's will. But we see in the end of Daniel 11, I believe it is. It says the king shall do according to his own will.
Something like that. I believe that that gives us a picture of the Antichrist. They will have a man that will do just exactly according to his own will. And oh what, what trouble and distress and and sorrow it'll bring upon the nation, because they will have a king that will do exactly according to his own will and bring tragedy to the nation.
Well, it seems that this is something that.
Speaks to our own hearts.
That we should have that desire to do the will of God.
It means giving over completely. The word yield is used in scripture to yield ourselves to God. There was a time that we yielded to, to unrighteousness, to sin, but now that we know the Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior, this is the time when we yield to God.
It's amazing how much of the world.
Is doing its own will.
And they have yielded to Satan.
I think of an example, a case in the Congo when we were there.
There were these two men.
Who were chiefs? The one was chief of 1 village, the other was chief of the other village, and they came to hear the gospel.
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We sought to give them the gospel simply and plainly.
There came a time when these two men were faced with making a decision.
Now these two men were under the power of Satan.
The reason I know that they were under the power of Satan was that both of them.
In order to be in the position that they were in, they had to do a terrible thing.
In other words, they had to do something that acknowledged Satan, where they gave themselves over completely to Satan. They yielded to him. They yielded their bodies to him.
And these two men had killed a man. They had to do this to show their complete yieldedness and surrender to the power of evil.
And they had to take the tendon from the back of the leg.
Of the man they killed and make a bracelet out of it and wear it on their ankle.
And that was symbolic, then, of yielding to the power of Satan, and Satan had the power over them.
Now, when these two men were listening to the gospel.
I could see them squirm, I could see conviction coming on them.
And the one professed to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior.
I said, pointing to the anklet. I said. What about that?
That man got out his knife.
And going all contrary all together to custom, he cut that anklet.
To make proof that he had put simple true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The other man saw what the the other chief, the other chief saw what the other chief had done.
And he got his knife out.
And he proceeded to put the knife inside of the anklet, going to cut it, but he couldn't be fainted away.
His profession was not real.
The one had yielded to God, to God's will, and accepted Christ as Savior. The other one had not. He was not real.
Oh, what a solemn thing it is to see.
Thousands, yay, millions in the power of Satan.
And when the gospel is preached like it was last night.
Only way anyone can get deliverance is by complete submission to God, believing the Word of God and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. There's not going to be deliverance any other way. It's not come. It's not going to come by Reformation or trying to do better and so on. It's Christ. We must have Christ, the one who has done the will of God.
And in submitting to God, in receiving Him as our Savior.
Break the power of Satan and this is what we need. You dear young people, you have not confessed Christ yet as your Savior. Be real about it.
And really, in sincerity and simple faith, believe God's word and receive Christ as Savior. There's no other way of deliverance. There's no other way of salvation. We can't fool Satan and we can't fool God, and we might as well decide to yield ourselves. I like that word. Yield, yield, surrender, surrender to God.
This is what we need to surrender to God. We have had it made plain to us.
In the Lord Jesus Christ, how He submitted to the will of God as a man. He did the will of God perfectly did His will. Do we want that man or do we want Satan? Do we want to continue on doing our own will?
Well, this is a test for us, but we have the Lord Jesus Christ. If we take him, we have the victory, thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. There's no victory in ourselves. Without Him we can do nothing. He told his disciples that without me He can do nothing. We need Him. Or you might try to make a profession of being a Christian, but you need Christ. That's the only way you.
00:30:12
Real.
This night verse then said, He will I come to do thy will, O God, he taketh away the 1St that he may establish the 2nd. I believe he's talking here about the two covenants, and that is the first one was a test to man.
Could he live up to God's requirements? Man asked for the law, and when he said all that the Lord has spoken, we will do and be obedient. He entered into an agreement to do the will of God in his own strength. It wasn't a question of a man being born again.
Once we have received a new life, we have a new power. Now we can please God, but not before. And so the law was addressed to man, the flesh. It gave him an opportunity, if it were possible for him in his natural state to live up to God's requirements. He broke down entirely. There was only one person who could magnify the law and make it honorable.
There was only one person in this world who could perfectly live to the glory of God.
And that was the Lord Jesus. And now it tells us here He taketh away the 1St. That which was dependent upon man has now been set aside because there was no good in man. He couldn't fulfill God's requirements. Now he establishes the 2nd. And what is the second?
Well, it isn't anything coming out of us at all. God himself imparts a new life.
Gives the power, and so as it goes on later in the chapter to say, I'll put my laws in their hearts and in their minds will I write them. Because we possess a new life, the very life of Christ. It is now our delight and our desire to do the will of God.
And for a person to place himself under law is to suppose something good in the flesh which there is not. And he establishes the 2nd. And that is, when Israel are finally brought into blessing, it will not be because of anything that they had in themselves, anything in the flesh, but rather that which God has wrought in their hearts. And of course, as we see.
It's founded upon the work of Christ, and I believe that's why in this chapter the two things are brought in.
Blood and the water. The blood is putting away sin before God, and the water bringing before us, being a new creature in Christ Jesus, and without that there can be no fruit for God whatever.
And the first covenant, it was connected with the will of man. They said. All that God commands us, commands us, we will do.
But in the second, it's what God does, isn't it? It's God's word in the removing of our sins and then his work in us, putting into our hearts and minds as we read there His law. It's the work of God in us as well as the work of God for us. But it's the it's God as it were, exercising his own will.
But the first covenant was involved the will of man. What man might do, what he would do.
But in the second it's what God will do as we read also in James have his own will begat he us with the word of truth. It's God, it's God expressing his own will in the second covenant is and of course the work of the cross is the moral basis of it. God could not come out and.
Accomplish His will and to carry out what he had purposed.
Were it not far the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, as we the Lord says in the Gospel of Luke, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straightened till it be accomplished? That is, it was He was more or less pent up. He could not, God could not come out, and all that was in the heart of God and in the heart of the Lord Jesus could not come out until he endured those sufferings of the cross.
Accomplishing that work, but now having done that, the second the new covenant is established on the basis of that shed blood, the cross of Calvary.
00:35:03
With yielding ourselves unto God, I believe that when the gospel is made known, the question is first to a man submitting to the gospel in faith. And the gospel reveals two things, his own condition as being lost and helpless, as our brother brought before us last night in the gospel. Man doesn't like to admit that, but God isn't requiring anything in the way of works or even wanting his.
Services until he has first come as a guilty, lost, helpless Sinner and acknowledged this. And when it speaks about obeying the gospel and submission to the gospel in faith, that is, it's made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.
It is accepting God's testimony about two things about ourselves and about what Christ has done for us in that condition. But then, after we have done this and have received Christ, then a new life is imparted. And so it says in the 6th of Romans.
Here it says, Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead.
Here it says yield yourselves under God as those that are alive from the dead. We're no longer now that we are saved dead sinners, we can yield ourselves because we possess a life that wants to please God. I mentioned this because there's a lot of preaching in the world asking sinners to do something and yield their wills to God and so on. But.
A man has to acknowledge his guilt, his lost condition, his helplessness.
And to see what God has done for him in that condition, when he recognizes this, when there is repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, then, but not till then, he possesses a new life. And now having that new life, he can yield himself to the will of God. So I believe it's important that actually the word repentance means.
Change of mind. That's simply what the word means. And as one is often remarked, the natural man has wrong thoughts about himself, and he has wrong thoughts about God. He thinks there's something good in himself.
And he is, as it was brought before us, an enemy of God. Now in the gospel he learns right thoughts about himself. What is he? Nothing but a lost, guilty, helpless, hell deserving Sinner. He recognizes what God has to say about him in that condition.
And then he sees that God is not against him. God is for him. God has provided a Savior for him. He has met him in all his helplessness, and the Lord Jesus has accomplished the work so that God has been glorified about the question of sin. So there's repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Then he can yield himself to God. He can present his body because he has learned the mercies of God.
He has a new life that now delights in doing God's will. Would you say that we today are not under covenant relationship, but we come under the blessings of this new covenant, we under the liberty of grace and we have this new life and this these new desires, but just.
The fact I believe that we're not under a covenant relationship is that so?
Yes, I believe that comes in later here and if you turn back to the the 8th chapter and the 10th verse, you can see it has to do with Israel and this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, say at the Lord.
I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. Now if you go to Ephesians where he is addressing Gentiles, you already quoted the verse Ephesians chapter 2, verse 12, that at that time you were without Christ being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel.
And strangers from the covenants of promise.
Having no hope and without God in the world is our position as Gentiles outside of all those covenants.
Perhaps I could use an illustration so we might understand how we come into the blessing of the covenant without being the subjects of the covenant. Supposing I.
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Make I say to my boy, I'm going to give you a new bicycle. Well, he says that I'd like to feel that I've earned the bicycle. So I say, well, I'll lay down certain conditions then. But remember, if you don't live up to these conditions of obedience, there will be a punishment instead of the bicycle.
All he says I can keep the conditions. All right, So he enters into this agreement and he breaks down entirely. He doesn't earn the bicycle, he earns the punishment instead. Well, how am I going to bless him now when he has entered into that? Well, I recall that before he entered into that at all, I made a promise that he was going to get it apart from any condition at all.
How am I going to fulfill that original promise? Well, we'll say a substitute takes all the punishment he deserves. And now I say the bicycle is going to be yours. But never tell anybody that you earned it. Remember, it's just pure grace that you get this bicycle.
And so he now, if it were possible to me for me to communicate a life that wants to please me, now there's a new covenant. There's a new relationship in which he stands, in which he desires to please me. But the first one failed utterly. Now there's another boy in the family and he says.
But Dad, give me a chance. I said, Oh no, we're not going to go through that again at all. You're going to get it on the same basis basis as your brother. Now you can understand very simply the Gentile was never under the law as such. It was given to Israel.
And so they broke down South. God makes a new covenant with them and brings them into the blessing founded upon the work of Christ. We as Gentiles were outside of all that, but He brings us into blessing on that same ground. And so both you and Gentile, as we have in the 11Th of Romans, are brought in as the objects of mercy, the Jew with a new covenant, the Gentile, on the basis of what Christ has done.
It's the same foundation, but not in the same way.
And that's why our as our brother was remarking as Gentiles were not the subject of covenants, but we come into the blessing of it because it's all our blessing is founded on the work of Christ. Purpose of God was declared when God said to Abraham, and in thy seed.
Shall all the nations of the earth be blessed? God showed what His purpose was. But as you remark, it's so natural to our hearts. And the Galatian heresy, I believe, was first recognizing that they needed Christ for salvation, but placing themselves under law afterwards as a rule of life. And it's very easy for us, perhaps without realizing it.
To recognize that we have been saved by grace.
But making certain rules for our lives, which if we live up to them, we longer now that we are saved dead sinners, we can yield ourselves because we possess a life that wants to please God. I mentioned this because there's a lot of preaching in the world asking sinners to do something and yield their wills to God and so on. But.
A man has to acknowledge his guilt, his lost condition, his helplessness.
And to see what God has done for him in that condition, when he recognizes this, when there is repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, then, but not till then, he possesses a new life. And now having that new life, he can yield himself to the will of God.
So I believe it's important that actually the word repentance means.
A change of mind. That's simply what the word means. And as one is often remarked, the natural man has wrong thoughts about himself, and he has wrong thoughts about God. He thinks there's something good in himself, and he is, as it was brought before us, an enemy of God.
Now in the gospel he learns right thoughts about himself. What is he? Nothing but a lost, guilty, helpless, hell deserving Sinner. He recognizes what God has to say about him in that condition. And then he sees that God is not against him, God is for him.
God has provided a Savior for him. He has met him in all his helplessness, and the Lord Jesus has accomplished the work so that God has been glorified about the question of sin. So there's repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Then he can yield himself to God. He can present his body because he has learned the mercies of God. He has a new life.
00:45:26
That now delights in doing God's will.
But you say that we today are not under covenant relationship, but we come under the blessings of this new covenant, we under the liberty of grace and we have this new life and this these new desires. But just the fact I believe that we're not under a covenant relationship. Is that so?
Yes, I believe that comes in later here and if you turn back to the.
The 8th chapter and the 10th verse you can see it has to do with Israel and this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. Now if you go to Ephesians where he is addressing Gentiles.
You already quoted the verse Ephesians chapter 2.
Verse 12, that at that time you were without Christ being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. That was our position as Gentiles outside of all those covenants.
Perhaps I could use an illustration so we might understand how we come into the blessing of the covenant without being the subjects of the covenant. Supposing I make, I say to my boy, I'm going to give you a new bicycle. Well, he says that I'd like to feel that I've earned the bicycle. So I say, well, I'll lay down certain conditions then. But remember, if you don't live up to these conditions of obedience.
Be a punishment instead of the bicycle. All he says I can keep the conditions. All right, So he enters into this agreement and he breaks down entirely. He doesn't earn the bicycle, he earns the punishment instead. Well, how am I going to bless him now when he has entered into that? Well, I recall that before he entered into that at all, I made a promise that he was going to get it apart from any condition at all.
How am I going to fulfill that original promise?
Well, we'll say a substitute takes all the punishment he deserves. And now I say the bicycle is going to be yours, but never tell anybody that you earned it. Remember, it's just pure grace that you get this bicycle. And so he now, if it were possible to me for me to communicate a life that wants to please me, Now there's a new covenant. There's a new relationship in which he stands, in which he.
To please me. But the first one failed utterly. Now there's another boy in the family and he says, but dad, give me a chance. I said, Oh no, we're not going to go through that again at all. You're going to get it on the same basis basis as your brother. Now you can understand very simply the Gentile was never under the law as such. It was given to Israel.
And so they broke down, So God makes a new covenant with them.
And brings them into the blessing founded upon the work of Christ. We as Gentiles were outside of all that, but he brings us into blessing on that same ground. And so both you and Gentile, as we have in the 11Th of Romans, are brought in as the objects of mercy. The Jew with a new covenant, the Gentile on the basis of what Christ has done. It's the same foundation, but not.
In the same way.
And that's why our as our brother was remarking as Gentiles were not the subject of covenants, but we come into the blessing of it because it's all our blessing is founded on the work of Christ purpose of God was declared when God said to Abraham.
And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. God showed what his purpose was, But as you remark, it's so natural to our hearts. And the Galatian heresy, I believe, was first recognizing that they needed Christ for salvation, but placing themselves under law afterwards as a rule of life.
00:50:10
And it's very easy for us, perhaps without realizing it.
To recognize that we have been saved by grace, but making certain rules for our lives which if we live up to them, we sort of pat ourselves on the back that we've done pretty well as Christians. If we fail, we get discouraged or as what God sets before us.
Is the person of His beloved Son. His love and His faithfulness shows us that when we fail, we have grieved and dishonored Him. We've sinned against His Holiness. But our standing is all through what Christ has done. And that's why it's the goodness of God that leads to repentance. That is a sense of the goodness of God.
The Sinner seeing that in spite of all his sin, God loves him.
And what way is it that will draw a careless Christian back to the Lord? Even in these meetings? Or if you have a fresh sense of the love of God that has been displayed towards you, and what it cost him to make you his own, that love will constrain you and draw you back and cause you to want to judge anything that has hindered that wonderful privilege that we have of walking here in fellowship with God.
The will of God.
Out in Christ is such a beautiful thing to trace a little in Scripture. We've had it here. Brother referred to, I believe Luke 1250, but.
In Luke 9 it says about the Lord that he steadfastly set his face as a Flint to go up to Jerusalem. Then in 1250 it says I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straightened until it be accomplished?
And then about him and or he says in John 10. Therefore death. My father loved me because I lay down my life.
This was the will of God, and the Lord had undertaken to accomplish this will, which led him to the cross.
And isn't remarkable that it could be said, or he could say, Therefore does my Father love me because I lay down my life, that I might take it again? That was obedience unto death.
Perfect second mind, obedient unto death. The contrast to the first man, disobedient unto death. So he comes in and is our substitute and fulfills the will of God and brings all this blessing to us. And here he is, both the sacrifice in our chapter, and He's the priest.
That word straighten that you just mentioned in that verse.
Really is a strong word.
And it brings before us, really.
A big river dammed up.
The rivers dammed up.
And all who are living below the river are not getting any good or blessing from that, from that river. It's dammed up.
And so it was when the Lord Jesus was going to the cross, and he says all the blessings that God wants to give his people are damned up. They can't flow out until I go to the cross and die there. And as soon as he had died and risen again.
Well, the floodgates have been opened. We're blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ.
The floodgates are opened up.
There's God is no longer straightened in bringing blessing to man. He can bring blessing now because it's on the ground of His grace, a solid ground and all. How thankful we can be. We have a ground like that to stand upon the grace of the grace of God, the ground of grace. If we were still on the ground of doing, we'd lose everything.
But that was what the problem was.
There had been given out a law and the people were under law and they were trying to keep the law for blessing. They had failed in keeping the law and God couldn't give them blessing.
Now that it's all on the ground of grace, God can give blessing and this is what we need to keep befores as we're preaching the gospel. Giving up tracks.
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God has desires to give blessing if they will just accept the one.
Who has been the means of bringing in the blessing and really showing us the grace of God, the goodness of God?
And just receive him.
Oh, this is what we need to think about. We want souls to see that that should be our desire and pray God that he give them that desire. And as we're preaching that we might preach in the power of the Spirit of God, because it's not by might or power, but it's by my spirit. God has said, and we just have to come to that point where we.
Cast everything upon God, just rely wholly upon Him, and rely wholly upon His desire, His desire of sovereign grace to bless. And blessing is going to come.
All fathers and mothers, they're concerned about their children. Think about that. God wants to bless those children and you children sitting here who haven't received Christ as Savior. God wants to bless you, but you can't get blessing by doing. You have to just come to the point where you acknowledge this has already been said that.
Your poor, lost, guilty Sinner before God you're weak, you're helpless, you're.
Godly, you are an enemy of God. Just take that place and then take the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who's opened the floodgates of blessing on the ground of the grace of God, and you'll have that blessing too, and you'll be happy. And then you can live for God because you have Christ in your heart.
There's another little point here about our salvation which is so very beautiful to see.
And that is the Trinity involved here in this chapter. We've dealt much on this verse. Lo, I come to do thy will, oh God. And you come down just a little ahead here. And we have the Holy Ghost in verse 15, whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness. Well, what one has enjoyed so much is any of us who are saved can say that we're saved.
Because of the Trinity.
In this way that we have the work of Christ and the will of God and the witness of the Holy Spirit. It's easy to remember each of those words begins with W for the work of Christ. That's the doing and the the will of God and the witness of the Holy Spirit. So everyone of us who are saved, the whole of the Trinity, has had an interest in that salvation.
Do we have those three rocks together like Christ in the water and the safety man going tips I'll be the current broad commands of these killings remain threat.
His reply was, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Well, there have been no word come to him from the Spirit of God to command those stones we made bread, so he took no action.
And the enemy was fooled, shall we say defeated his purpose.
He was the lowly obedient 1.
It's an interesting subject for meditation. We won't go into it, but it's been very, very beautiful to me that from the very, very beginning, even from creation itself and from the conception of the Lord Jesus right through as we have been reminded.
His temptation, His miracles, His death, His resurrection, the descent of the Holy Spirit.
And as we get here, the conversion of a soul, the preserving and keeping of the believer right through to the Rapture when we're called home step by step, every one of these vital events involves the whole Godhead specifically identified in Scripture.
I recommend that for your enjoyment you might search it up. The whole Godhead specifically identified. I just mentioned this, that I was enjoying it so much one day and tracing it through until I came to the rapture and I was astounded. I read 1St Thessalonians 4. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.
01:00:06
The voice of the Archangel, and with the Trump of God.
The dead in Christ shall rise 1St and so on. You know it well. No mention of the Holy Spirit. And I had traced it through with such joy in the Scriptures that I just couldn't believe it. I could find no mention of the Holy Spirit in connection with the rapture.
And I I pondered it for quite a long time till suddenly I realized how beautiful.
The Holy Spirit is down here and we get in Revelation 22, the Spirit and the Bride say come. And I suppose we could say in response to that expressed desire, the Spirit and the Bride say come, and then we have that glorious moment. So we really see the whole rapture even in that context too, do we not?
I think you have a birthday, yeah.
Romans 8.
Would be the Spirit, would it not?
Verse 11.
Or did you have another verse?
That was what I was thinking of in connection with the Spirit is involved here in the rapture.
Quickening our mortal bodies, coming of the Lord sanctified here means set apart, and saw the people were set apart from the other nations. Speaks of the law of commandments being that which separated them from the nations all around them.
Peter said it wasn't a lawful thing for a Jew to eat with a Gentile. There were many, many ordinances under the law that were such that a Jew and a Gentile couldn't go on together.
So they were a set apart people through all these things, but what is it now that sets us apart? It's not ordinances that sets us apart, but the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Because of that mighty work that He has accomplished, we are no longer part of this whole world that's under judgment, nor part of that system of things that God set up for a people in the flesh. But it's an entirely new thing.
We have a new and living way, and so we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. Once for all, the man who came and offered the sacrifices, why he was set apart, He was now the the priest who offered them must be sanctified in order to do this work. It was a constant thing and it had to be repeated because they were always being defiled. But here the thought is.
The position that we are brought into through the work of Christ. Now, sanctification, as we know, has looked at in different ways in Scripture. But as to the believer, we have been sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, never to be repeated. We're no longer part of this world that's under judgment.
We no longer have part in all that system of things that was only a type and a shadow of good things to come.
Now practically we are sanctified by the truth, so that there is the practical side of things brought before us. For instance, in John 17, where it says, sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy word is truth. Or again as we have it in First Thessalonians chapter 5, it says there I pray God, that we might be sanctified. Holy that your whole.
Soul and body might be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the practical side of it, but positionally it's accomplished through what Christ did upon the cross. I've used the illustration. You go into a store and you.
Buy a basket of apples, you say. I'm going to come back and pick that up afterwards. So the storekeeper puts your name on the handle and there it is. It's yours. You've paid for it. In his mind, it's set apart. It's yours because the price has been paid. But there's a lot of confusion. It may be sitting with other baskets there. Someone else may come along and not notice your name. And there's a lot of confusion.
But if he takes it and puts it out in the back of the shop.
It isn't anymore yours back there, but it is in a practical way set apart.
So we are sanctified, brethren, by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. It is a never to be repeated work that he has accomplished. And so that every believer can rejoice in this. But in a practical way, God would have this truth to so lay hold of us that we wouldn't go on with the law and the ordinances.
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Also that we would be separated in walking ways from the world and all that it goes on with.
That's the practical side of it, but here it's what has been accomplished through the work that Christ has done.
These things are also wonderful.
Our minds aren't able to.
To form the adequate words to describe these things. But the involvement of the Trinity is is beautiful to think about and to ponder.
We get some words, four, four verses in John 14 to bring this up very emphatically, I think to be profitable for us to consider here.
John 14 and verse 16.
And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another comforter, that He may abide with you forever. Even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him, but ye know Him, for He dwelleth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless.
I will come to you verse 26, but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost.
Whom the Father will send in my name. He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to you, to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Thinking here, how beautiful it is that part of our, our inheritance or our possession involves the indwelling Spirit of God who is a permanent witness of all these things to enable us to enter into and take hold of these things and they may take hold of us. And our brother Gordon has been mentioning the, the sanctification by the, by the truth of God. Well, this is the unction of the Spirit within us, isn't it?
The Spirit has the liberty to bring these things to our.
Remembrance and make them good to us. They have the sanctifying effect. The world doesn't have its attraction on us anymore.
It's the privilege of the Christian, isn't he?
Sanctification of the Spirit mentioned in Scripture too, isn't it?
Back in first Peter.
Through sanctification of the Spirit and also in Second Thessalonians chapter 2.
Sanctification of the Spirit, but that is not practical or progressive sanctification. Again, it's connected with that work of God. It's the work of God not for us, but in us, by the Spirit producing that life, would you say?
So when they sometimes they, there are those who think of a sanctification of the Spirit as being a spiritual progress or reaching a particular state through the Spirit working. Now there is a practical side as you mentioned in John 17 and again in First Thessalonians 5, but the sanctification of the Spirit mentioned.
Is in Peter.
And in 2nd Thessalonians 2 is the is the initial work of God in our souls in producing life so that we're set apart inwardly as well as having an outward position of being set apart by the work of Christ. So we really say we're set apart or sanctified by the will of God and by the work of Christ and by the Spirit of God.
So again, you have the Trinity.
It shouldn't be.
John 17 verse 19 connection with what we had about sanctified through the body of Jesus that's related.
And for their sake, I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
And I believe that the present worked at the Lord Jesus is carrying on, and that is he accomplished that work. We are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. But in that verse.
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For their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Right now, while this meeting is going on, there is a living man at the right hand of God.
Who has set himself apart to do a work for us up there, saw that in practical sense we might be in the enjoyment of these things we are talking about. And so the Lord Jesus not only did that work at the cross, but there he is at the right hand of God. Do we need help to go on in a way pleasing to Him in separation from the world? Well, he's up there. He is no longer here. He has sanctified himself. He has.
Part up there to do a work for us. Have we failed? Well, He is there as our advocate to restore us. And so He has sanctified himself. He's no longer here in this world, walking with the disciples. He has accomplished that work by which we have been sanctified once.
For all but he is still carrying on a work there at the right hand of God for us. And I think it's lovely to see that He's the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him. And that is his present work. I was just going to add too, just for the sake of understanding in the chapter we have before us here.
Because it might be a difficulty to some in the.
29th 1St scene. We're Speaking of the subject.
Of whom, of how much sore punishment suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who have trodden under foot the Son of God, and have counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing and a thund despite under the spirit of grace. Some have taken up this verse to think a believer could be saved and lost, But we have to remember that Israel were looked upon as a people set apart.
And there is that outward aspect of things that a Jew might have professed faith in Christ, set himself apart from Judaism to professedly believe in Christ, but he was not really a child of God at all. And the proof of it comes out when he goes back to those things.
Which cannot put away sin. He had made the profession and in that sense he had taken that place so that sometimes in Scripture sanctified like the nation of Israel were a set apart people is sometimes looked upon as a place taken in profession. It is even used I think it's in Ezekiel or as a Jeremiah where it says they sanctified themselves to do evil. That is they set themselves apart for some.
Purpose. But when it has to do with what God accomplishes by His Spirit, as our brother pointed out, then it's a real work. It's a work that is founded on a sure foundation because it's founded upon the work of Christ. It is not an external thing. It's real.
You had a word, Brother Albert.
I was just going to say that I feel it would not be at all difficult to carry out this practical sanctification in our own life if we were in the enjoyment of the changeless love of the Lord Jesus. It's because our affections grow cold, because our eyes are turned elsewhere, that the practical carrying out of this sanctification becomes.
Difficult.
Perhaps not a perfect illustration, but in a marriage ceremony, sometimes you hear words something like this. Do you promise that forsaking all other, you will cleave to him only so long as he both shall live? Well, there's a real separating challenge if you wish. And you know what the answer is? We've often heard it.
A very warm I do, and oh, they are just so happy, shall I say, to be separated.
From whatever claims there may have been before to enjoy one anothers company 1 anothers love. But if that love begins to fade and grow cold, which sad to say we have seen, then the challenge of that separation 1 to the other becomes irksome and difficult and sometimes breaks down. So here by the very wonderful grace of God and through that which we have had described to us.
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We are set apart by the which will we are sanctified for the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Why did He do that? As we have been reminded, because of the loving desire of his heart for your company and mine. And he's going to enjoy that without hindrance in the glory. But he wants he wants the enjoyment of it now.
And I believe the the practical effect of this truth, the display of it in our lives.
Can become quite a difficulty if our eyes are turned elsewhere and our affections become cold toward Him. But to remember that it did originate in the heart of God, that it cost God the giving of His beloved Son, that He might claim us as a sanctified people.
There's a personal sanctification as to the individual.
And we have had that before us. But is there not a collective sanctification for the assembly as well set before us in the Word of God that we need to consider? It's perhaps mentioned in the 5th chapter of Ephesians where?
Ephesians chapter 5.
Speaking of the Lord Jesus loving the church and giving himself for it.
Also in verse 26, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.
Well, as it's been pointed out, without an object.
Or an individual.
To enjoy the Lord Jesus and His love, we really can't walk in separation.
The word of God is that which sanctifies us individually, and is it not coveting the love of Christ and the.
Presence of the Lord Jesus in the assembly and the truth of God that separates us collectively as a people belonging to Him, purchased with His precious blood. And this is very needed too, is it not for those of us who are gathered to the precious name of the Lord Jesus that this might be very practical in our lives?
That we would walk in separation for the glory of the Lord Jesus.
Hebrews 10:12-
Reading
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Hebrews, chapter 10.
12.
But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sin, forever sat down on the right hand of God, and henceforth expecting till His enemies be made as footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified, where the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that He had said before.
This is a covenant that I will make with him after those days that the Lord.
I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Now we're remission of these is there is no more offering for sin.
Having therefore, President boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
By a new and living way which He had consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, and having a high priest over the House of God. Let us draw near where the true heart in full assurance of faith, having your heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful to promise, and let us consider one another to provoke the love and the good work. Need not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together, as a manner of some, is but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin.
But a certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.
He that despised Moses, Lord, died, and without mercy, under two or three witnesses.
Of how much sore punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy, who have trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith He was sanctified and unholy things, and has done despite under the spirit of grace? For we know him that has said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense that the Lord, and again.
The Lord shall judge his people.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
But call to remembers the former days in which, after you were illuminated, he endured a great fight of afflictions, partly whilst you were made a gazing stunt, both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly while she became companions of them, they were so used.
For He had compassion of me and my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.
Not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward, for you have need of patience. But after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. For yet a little while neither shall come, will come, and will not tarry.
Now that Josh will live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
But we are not of them which draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe for the saving of the soul. Her brother was asking me.
About the sufferings of the Lord.
In connection with the curse what there was in the Old Testament.
Which would point to that.
I suppose.
Connection with that that we could look at what is said about the sacrifice of Christ, connection, the curse and Galatians in Galatians chapter 3.
For as many as are of the works of the law.
Are under the curse.
For it is written, cursed is everyone.
That continues not.
And all the things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God it is evident for.
The just shall live by faith.
And the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us. I suppose Paul in writing is referring to us Jews.
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Hath redeemed us from the curse of the law.
Being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone.
That hang us on the tree while he is quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 21.
There when he says Christ is everyone that hangeth on a tree.
Now it's been striking to me to see that because in the previous verses, just a verse or two above that it speaks of stoning the one who offended, who broke the law. And then this is added if anyone is hanged on a tree.
Well, you just can't help but feel.
That the Spirit of God penned that because the Lord would come in a day when the Gentiles would be in power who did their execution by means of crucifixion, hanging people on a tree. So it seems to me that the Spirit of God was just pointing forward to that time when the Lord would come.
And he would be hanged on a tree, and he would take the curse. And so He has redeemed us from the curse of the law that is Jews. Now the Gentiles will be brought in here in connection with the verse 10, it seems to me.
For as many as are of the works of the law under the curse. So if a Gentile, and there are many today who have professed to be Christians even that put themselves under the law, but really they're putting themselves under the curse. Well, that's a solemn thing. But it would seem to me that especially for the Gentiles, we, it's what we have in.
In Corinthians.
That the Lord was made sin for us.
Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God as far as Gentiles are concerned, who never were under the law.
The Lord accounts to them that they have sinned. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And the Lord Jesus went to the cross, and he was made sin for us. That is, our sins were laid upon Him, and he suffered the judgment for those sins. So.
It seems from this that he bore the curse, and he also bore the judgment for sin. There may be some other brother could add something to this.
That connection, looking back at Genesis chapter 3, to notice there that there were really seven things which came as the result of man's disobedience. There was the enmity, the bruising.
The sorrow, the curse, the thorns, the sweat, and the dust of death. All of them mentioned right there in chapter 3. The enmity, the bruising, the sorrow, the curse, the thorns, the sweat, and the dust of death.
And perhaps sometimes it is pictured as though God reached down into that situation and plucked us from it. But is it not right to say that God himself really could not do that? The Lord Jesus came into this world, and every one of those seven things are specifically mentioned in connection with the Lord Jesus.
I repeat them the enmity, the bruising.
The sorrow, the curse, the thorns, the sweat and the dust of death. I say the dust of death with caution because.
He saw no corruption. But in the 22nd Psalm, prophetically we read, Thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
So that it is to me very remarkable and very beautiful that all those things which came upon man and upon this world because of sin.
Where all endured by the Lord Jesus and we might be delivered from that position. I've enjoyed too, I must admit contrasting that with Revelation 5 where we read.
Thou art worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. There in Genesis are seven of those awful curses, if you wish, and in Revelation 7 notes of praise.
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Of praise, and between the two is the cross of Christ. Might be nice to be reminded.
Scripture. You referred to Brother Anderson in Deuteronomy. Look at them for a moment. Something that was on my mind and heart this morning when we remembered the Lord.
That's so.
Remarkably brought out in that portion the end of the 21St chapter of Deuteronomy.
You mentioned the two occasions for the death sentence.
In verse 18 we read.
The man have a stubborn and rebellious son.
Was a son brought in and all? What a contrast, beloved.
And we think of the Son of God, whose obedience was perfect.
And then in the 22nd verse to read, and if a man have committed a sin worthy of death.
And the Lord Jesus stood before the high priest, and what was it that he was condemned on?
For his confession that he was the son of the highest.
That merited him the death sentence.
And all. What a contrast. In each case we have that obedient son, delighted to do his father's will.
And yet condemned to death.
We are the one who.
Confessed a good confession before the authorities before whom he stood.
Brought him the death sentence. What a solemn thing that is, I've often thought, when the Holy Spirit.
Through Moses had these words penned in the very Pentateuch, here in the very book of the Law of the Lord.
It was Jehovah that is revealed to us in the writings of Moses, and here to pen these very words of a rebellious son of a man, and had deserved death.
When the Lord Jesus Himself came, the Lawgiver Himself, and by whom these words were pinned, and then he was subject to this sentence so unjustly put upon him. And all, beloved, He suffered it for you and for me.
I think of verse 12 and verse fourteen of our chapter.
And we think of the confusion of religion around us, and we can realize that where one is introduced, it takes away that confusion.
And so we see one sacrifice, and we see one offering, and how.
We need to lay hold of this in this Dark World because there's so much that would take away from.
This sacrifice, this offering of the Lord Jesus, let us keep it ever before US1 Sacrifice 1 Glorious Person, Jesus Christ, who glorified God, who answered.
To God for every holy and justice claim, and because of that we can be LED out of confusion and given peace that we can truly enjoy as Christians. But there's so much around us that would rob the Lord Jesus of His glory.
And to introduce on every hand the truth or.
The teaching that a person can be saved and lost.
And that there is the need of being saved more than once is to dishonor the Lord Jesus and to take from His glory, as we have set before us in these verses.
This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins whatever, sat down on the right hand of God.
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I believe in the Tabernacle.
There was in the Holy Place or in the holiest of Holies. There was no seat. The work was to be repeated.
But here the Lord Jesus when that work.
Was finished that one sacrifice offered. He took his seat in the highest place of authority, and his acceptance is ours. One sacrifice forever sat down on the right hand of God. The translation in both verses. In the 12Th verse it says one sacrifice.
In perpetuity, and then in the 14th verse. For by one offering he hath.
Perfected in perpetuity, that is. It's in contrast with the priest standing, as you said, offering over and over again the same sacrifices which could not take away sin. But this one sacrifice, it will never lose its value in the sight of God.
In perpetuity, and that is, it continues forever. And when we reach those shores of eternal glory, it will still be about the Lamb that was slain, about his precious blood. And so if this is so, as before the eye of God, and then as He looks upon us who have been brought into blessing through that work, it's in perpetuity with us too. And so it says in the 14th verse. For by one offering he hath.
Forever, and before we could ever be lost again, the work of Christ would have to lose its value before God. But there it is in perpetuity. It's accomplished at Calvary, but its value will ever be celebrated in heaven. And we ought to be and are entitled to be in the enjoyment of this now in our souls.
In perpetuity. It's lovely the way those thoughts are brought together in the 12Th verse and in the 14th verse.
We read in Revelation chapter 2 and also in chapter 3, especially in chapter 3 it says I will make them come and worship at thy feet that say they are Jews and are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan, that is they they held to ritualism, to a continual sacrifice.
And it put a slight upon the work of Christ.
But I believe one of the characteristics, or at least something to consider in connection with the Philadelphian testimony is that it makes everything of Christ above all his sacrifice, but also the fact that he is the true gathering center. But here you have that mentioned right in the midst of that Philadelphian testimony, that question of those that say they are Jews and are not, but of the synagogue.
Of Satan there the Lord Son unto my Lord, said thou my right hand, till I make thy clothes thy footstool.
But noticing here in the 12Th verse also, as we have it in the chapter one and verse three, that he himself takes that seat in his own right. So the Spirit of God has taken what we have in the Psalms and interprets it that the Lord Himself in virtue of what is done.
Has a perfect right to sit down on the right hand of the throne of God.
How wonderful it is to know that, but that it is not only that God has given him that place, but He Himself has the glory which accrues to him through the work of the cross.
To take that seat in perpetuity is will never be taken away from him.
This man, there's a man in the glory, the heaven, even the heavens are the Lords, but the earth has he given to the children of men in the Psalm. And then the Lord saying, in the 14th of John in my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go, I will come again. Then in Luke 19 he puts a parable, says a certain noble man went into a far country to receive for himself a Kingdom and to return. So now we have come to the moment, this man.
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Well, he had to offer the sacrifice for sins 1St, and then he enters in and he's enters in as a man and as a noble man. But he's coming back and he's coming to bring us into that place of glory too. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing that now there is a man in the glory.
With all this right and power, and he's going to bring us there. Believe too that we have set before us here that which we can avail ourselves of as to access. We're not only saved in our sins, put away those sins gone, but we have access.
As believers into the very presence of God.
In verse 17 and 18 and 19, which seems to continue the subject of these verses and their sins and iniquities.
Will I remember no more? God is reminding us that those sins are gone and He does not remember them because He has been glorified.
Then it says where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. There's never to be another offering for the believer. Sins that offering, that one offering in for purity is ever perfect before God, and God delights in that.
And you and I have the.
Holy boldness now to come into the very holiest of holiest, and I believe that's the presence of God, is it not?
Being gathered to His precious name, that place where we were this morning, sitting together at the Lord's table, was the holiest of holies. That was the very presence of the Lord Jesus.
And His being there makes that place, as He will make that place in the eternal day of glory when we are up there. It's going to be He himself that will make the place. But down here.
It's everything to the child of God to be in the.
Blessed joy of having free access.
There's nothing richer, is there, than that access into the presence of the Lord Jesus through His precious blood. Having therefore, brethren, boldness or liberty to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, every believer has that.
Titled To be there.
And He has the liberty to be there, but we have not all availed ourselves of it. But it's true for us. And it's because of that one sacrifice, and because our sins are gone, and because God remembers them no more, and because there is no more offering for sin.
A wonderful these things are to enjoy because I believe that many Christians do not enjoy the liberty that is theirs.
Nor the access that we have as brethren.
In Revelation chapter 5 we see the Lord Jesus as the Lamb and.
As it were slain, or as it as if it had just taken place. And this is at least 2000, more than 2000 years after the work has been accomplished on Calvary's cross.
But this is a beautiful portion of the Word of God to show us that that work is ever fresh and new in the presence of God. And there we do see Him as the one that has.
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By his death and Calvary gained a right to take that book of Judgement and to cleanse the earth, the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world.
But it gives occasion for the redeemed to realise the one that has claimed upon everything as the Redeemer is the one that has spared us the judgment that he is about to execute. And so it leads to worship. I thought two beloved that tell me if I'm wrong here, the difference between.
Sanctification by one offering.
And perfection that it seems that the sanctification has more in view of us being set apart, called out from the world and set apart in view of the world. We're sanctified by the death of the Lord Jesus. We are completely called out and set apart, but the perfected by one offering forever seems to be.
As to what we were God worth now, and what we were in the past and what we are now as a result of having come.
To the one who had died for us on Calvary's cross, on the one hand.
The only thing that really will effectively call us out and separate us and sanctify us in connection with the world is the work of Christ, his death. But it also is dead, which will cleanse us and make us perfect so that we are fit for the presence of God.
Is that the correct difference there between?
All, I believe, sanctification, Sanctification in this chapter brings in the thought of being set apart from the whole system of things in Judaism, because the great danger seemed to be with these Jewish believers that they were going on with the two things. And that is, they were going on still with those sacrifices and still profess to recognize that the work of Christ was sufficient.
But he shows that through the work of Christ we are not only set apart from a world that's under judgment, but also from that whole system of things that God established that had to do with what came before. Before that work was really accomplished. But now that it has been accomplished and there's a glorified man at the right hand of God, and we have that standing in him.
Why then we have neither anything to do with the world system, which is under judgment.
That's the 14th, the 13th verse from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. But also we have taken our place outside of all this order of things that was once established in Judaism. So I believe the two things are brought before us. Was also going to say too, in connection with the Lord Jesus having gone back to glory.
That he could have gone back in his own right.
If he had at the end, that's why it says, when the time came that he should be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem like the Hebrew servant, when he had perfectly glorified God in his whole pathway, He had a right to go back to heaven alone. No man had ever done that. But here was one to whom the gates of glory would open, as the 24th Psalm says.
Who would enter into the glory? He that had clean hands and a pure heart, Who could go in? Only the Lord of glory himself. He had title to do that. But when the time came that he should be received up, it's as though, like the Hebrew servant, he has a choice now. Is he going to go free and have that liberty alone, or is he going to have the companionship of his wife and his children?
If he says I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go out free.
Then he must go to the judges. Then he must provide a way so that he could have that company. And that's exactly what the Lord Jesus did. When the time came that he would be received up, He set his face to go to Jerusalem. And why, brethren? Well, He wanted your company and mine. And the man who sits at the right hand of God sits there as the one who has glorified God about the question of sin, so that he.
Have associated with himself a people in that glory and he has given us already titled to be in his presence. As it's been remarked through the work that he has accomplished. The high priest alone once a year and this continuance remembrance, continual remembrance of sin, but now your sins and iniquities will I remember no more. And so he is there in the presence of God for us not to settle.
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Question of sin that has been settled, but he is there as we have in the.
21St verse And having a high priest over the House of God. He's there as the one who has glorified God about the question of sin, but now his present work is to maintain our souls in the enjoyment of that.
And just a little comment too, in connection with having boldness to enter into the holiest. I believe it is true, brethren, that we worship in the holiest of all, but I believe that as it's looked at here.
It is the position into which every believer has been brought, and he is entitled to enjoy it. It isn't that I am not in the holiest of all, except when I come on Lords Day morning into His presence to remember Him. It's the place that grace has brought me into. And it is because I am in that place that I have liberty and boldness in connection with worship. Otherwise it would be afraid.
To come say on Lord's Day morning into his very presence where he's in the meds, if I didn't have the consciousness that through that work I have been fitted to be there. And that fitness is all through the week. It's all the time. We have that place before God through the work that Christ has accomplished. We might just notice in Leviticus 16, I think on Saturday, the scapegoat was referred to.
And Brother Brinkman's remarks brought this to mind. In Leviticus 16 he spoke about Revelation 5 stood a lamb as it had been slain. And how with God that is recent he, he never forgets. Oh, that cross, it's always before him.
And here in this atonement, in this chapter, we come down to.
The 14th Verse. And the priest was to take of the blood of the Bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward. And before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger 7 times. Just a precious thought here in connection with the eye of God.
And with our own sight of that cross.
That it's Once Upon the mercy seat for the eye of God. Just once. Oh God, or least Abraham in type, says to that servant.
In the 24th of Genesis.
Take heed that thou bring, not my son Hit her again.
God has sent his son into this world once to die. He's not coming back for that work that's all finished. And God never forgets the cross. It's always before his mind and it's recent with him. But it was seven times before the mercy seat an eastward, I believe to perhaps.
At least it presents the gate before us. The people's entrance into there was on the.
East And so you and I need continually to be reminded of the cross of Christ. And that's why we read this morning in the 20th of Acts upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread each Lord's day, each seven days. And continually you and I need to be reminded of the cross that we forget, not that sacrifice.
Point over in numbers.
29 Here in Numbers 29 we have the order of that seventh month, which is a very significant time in Israel's history. If you notice in especially in Leviticus 23, you see that it has a prophetic bearing on their coming history. And so you have the Feast of Trumpets mentioned 1St and then.
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In verse seven you have that great day of atonement.
The affliction of their souls that we were considering in Leviticus 16. But then you notice on in verse 12 we have the 15th day of that seventh month which is the Feast of Tabernacles, and prophetically I believe that would figure the time of the coming Millennium. Well now you notice here that there was a certain requirement.
They were to offer certain sacrifices each day.
Of that period of time and you notice that there were a certain number of bullocks and then they were to also to offer.
14 lambs. But now as you go down through each day at verse 12, down and then beginning at verse 17, then verse 2023262932 and 35.
You see that the number of lambs 14 never changes. It's always 14 lambs. It's like a a double testimony to the perfection of the work of Christ. Never does it change. But we noticed that the number of the bullocks offered diminishes because it appears as though even in the Millennium, even during that thousand years of glorious rain of the Lord Jesus that.
Righteousness and joy and peace it will diminish. That is the value.
Of this blessing will diminish in their hearts. And this just speaks of the character of man, doesn't it? All over again, all through the ages we can see the the heart of man, how that everything entrusted has deteriorated and has been spoiled. That is the heart of man.
There's another thought that I was considering too in connection with this. Perfected forever them that are sanctified.
Over in Acts chapter.
19.
We notice here Acts chapter 19 and verse nine. It says but when divers were hardened and believed not but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples. He separated the disciples. I don't know if we have any definite effort before this to separate the disciples from the synagogue.
But it appears by now that the apostle realizes the serious influence of this Judaizing spirit, and so he separates the disciples. And surely that is so important in connection with the present testimony. And I believe, brethren, we should be very much exercised about anything that would creep into the present testimony to the truth of the one body that would.
Favor of the old way that would bring in anything connected with the former things, as we've had before us here in Hebrews.
Beautiful thought in the book of Genesis with the East. You know, when Cain left the presence of God, he moved towards the east of Aden. And isn't it beautiful that that the Tabernacle was opened towards the east, wasn't it?
And the blood is sprinkled towards the east. I think it's beautiful to see that God, as it were, is inviting the ones who have left His presence to come back to Him. The opening is towards the very direction where Cain went, leaving the presence of God.
And that's where the blood is sprinkled in that direction.
2IN connection with the building of the wall and Nehemiah's day was the Eastgate. I really liked that because you know, you see the names of retirement homes and senior citizens buildings. They're usually Sunset Lodge or something like this, you know, as though well, getting near the end of the journey and the sun is soon going to go down.
I like to think that the end of the.
Believers, life is eastward the Eastgate, looking toward the sun, rising by the grace of God. And when I see those words, sunset, lodge and so on, I think, thank the Lord. We face eastward waiting for the sunrise, and we can see by degrees it departs, just as though God was loath to.
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Remove that testimony, but you know God must show us the other side of the picture.
And before we get out of the book of Ezekiel, God shows us the return of that glory, and it returns by way of the East. And so there will be blessing marvelous to see the ways of God in connection with that people of old. It should just thrill our hearts when we think how wondrous and marvelous is His grace toward us in this age.
To look at a couple of things in type that we have in the Tabernacle.
As to where God meets with man, let's look in Exodus chapter 29 for the first one. The gate was on the east I believe, and we read down here in verse 42 of Exodus 29. It says it were God coming out to man. This shall be a continual Burke offering throughout your.
Generations at the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord.
Where I will meet you to speak there unto thee. Notice it's at the door of the Tabernacle, as old God is coming out there to meet those who bring that sacrifice. And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the Tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. And I will sanctify the Tabernacle of the congregation and the altar, and I will sanctify also both.
His sons to minister to me in the priests office. Now let's go to the 7th of numbers for the meeting in the sanctuary. We've been Speaking of that worship and our entrance into the Holy of Holies. I believe it's typified here.
In the last verse. This is a long chapter, the last verse 89.
Of #7.
When Moses was gone into the Tabernacle of the congregation to speak with him, then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy seat that was upon the ark of the testimony from between the two char bends, and he speak unto speak unto him. Well, it's through Christ who has entered into that sanctuary.
That we have had this wonderful privilege of entering right into the holiest today.
Christ, therefore us and our worship and our entrance right into the presence of God sitting down. It's really beautiful that there were actually no seats for any of the priests could sit down, but there is that one thing that is called the mercy seat. And there the eye of God could rest. There was the provision that he had made. And when we come to the New Testament, we see the Lord Jesus seated down.
And we are told in the first epistle of John that he is the propitiation or he is the mercy seat for our sins. And so because he has become the mercy seat, because he has glorified God about the question of sin, now we too can come in with that holy boldness and rest, because the mercy seat was a type of the Lord Jesus, and he is now seated at the right hand of the majesty.
High and so we find that rest we come into his presence and all this is set before us in that perfect peace in regard to the high priest too, when it says having a high priest over the House of God in the 21St verse, we know that in the in the garments that were worn by the high priest on the day of Atonement, he didn't wear the garments of glory and beauty. He wore the holy.
Garments and those holy linen garments he wore when he went in to make atonement. But there were also provided those garments of glory and beauty. And the Lord Jesus having glorified God about the question of sin, now he appears answering to that type in those garments of glory and beauty. He didn't make atonement when he wore those garments of glory and beauty. It was for the maintenance.
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People that they might be preserved and in the favor of God.
And oh, how precious to think that the Lord Jesus there, in those particular things that are brought before us in connection with the garments of glory and beauty, He carried the names on his shoulders, He carried the names upon his heart. And then there was the Urim and Thummim. And those three things are what sustain us now having a high priest over the House of God.
That we can be in the consciousness that He's carrying us upon his shoulders of strength.
That He is carrying us upon His heart of love, and that all His ways with us are in perfection. They're always in wisdom as well as in love. Because the Urim and Thummim was under those stones that were upon His, on his breast and the breastplate. So when it says here in this 21St verse, having a high priest over the House of God, it's the present work the Lord Jesus is carrying on. Isn't it lovely? We're considering these two things.
What he has done to bring us into acceptance as the one who has offered that one sacrifice.
And what He is doing now to maintain our souls in the enjoyment of the place where grace has brought us. And He would have us to know this not only not with timidity, not that we're wondering about our acceptance, but how lovely brethren, holy boldness, entering into the very holiest of all. For the holy eye of God cannot see one spot upon the One who has been cleansed by the blood and fitted through the work of.
Christ, He's perfected forever. Next 3 verses We have something that's very important and that is perhaps our responsibility as those who are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ and brought into this large circle of blessing. We have those two words.
That should speak to us very loudly.
I believe these two words are given to us.
12 different times in the book of Hebrews, the little words, let us.
In verse 22 and verse 23 and in verse 24, because of the privilege we have, then there is the responsibility and that which should be an exercise for each of us in the journey of life. Let us draw near with a true heart.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith. Let us consider one another to provoke and to love.
And to good works how needed it is for us to.
Now the enjoyment of.
What has been accomplished for us by the Lord Jesus?
And what he is doing for us right now is you have mentioned as our great High priest. And so there is that work that has been accomplished for us and there is that work that is going on now for us up there as our great High Priest. But there is a work in us, is there not? And that has to do with.
Bringing us into the.
Place in its enjoyment, let us we can't just.
Sort of coast along. We need to be exercised, we need to lay hold of these things in reality, do we not? Let us. So three times we have in these verses and 12 Times in the Epistle, these words. Let us.
This epistle.
As an exhortation in the 13th chapter, 20 second verse.
The writer says, I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation.
For I have written a letter unto you in few words. This is why we get these expressions. Let us It's an exhortation. It's written to to stir us up. It was written to stir up those Jewish believers. It was necessary.
Become tempted to go back to the old order of things that was given to them in Judaism.
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But they were not to go back to that, because Christ had come, and it speaks of.
The new and living way which ye hath consecrated for us in verse 20. Well, I think the thought there, and the word new is newly made. It has no connection with the old. It was a new thing altogether. And if they were going back to the old, they wouldn't leave this thing that had been newly made the new way. Well, this would be a solemn thing for them, so you can tell.
All the way through things are said to to stir them up.
To really get at their conscience about this to get their eye upon the Lord Jesus and find all their sufficiency in him. And I noticed in verse 15, the Holy Ghost is brought in here. It says we're of the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. Now the Holy Ghost had come. What I think what it means here is that the Holy Ghost spake in the Old Testament about these things pointing forward to it.
But the Holy Ghost now had come to earth and the testimony had been given from Pentecost on to the Lord Jesus Christ and what He had come to do, and the work was finished. The Holy Ghost was still testifying. And of course later on in the chapter it speaks of doing despot onto the spirit of grace. Well, if they went back again, they would just be disregarding what the Holy Ghost.
Testified to. So there's so much here that's in the way of exhortation.
Just to stir up. And that's why it's good for us, isn't it? Israel in the coming day of the new covenant will enter into the blessing of this. But as you say, the Spirit has already come to bring us into the good of this right now, so that we're not going to have to wait until Israel's day when they are blessed. The Spirit is now a witness to us of the blessedness of this, and in a much fuller way, because even in the millennial day.
There will not be that liberty to come into the holiest of all. Now that is something that is peculiar and special to us in this present Church period.
And that's why he desires that these Hebrew believers would see that it is a new, it's a living way. It was something. It is something that is especially for this particular time, Israel, as I say, in a coming day, will be brought into the blessing of the new covenant founded upon the blood of Christ.
But we are brought into a much better thing as our brother brought before us. God has provided some better thing for us, and how much better our place now.
And also this 20th verse, I just wondered whether we should mention what it says there. It's a new way, as our brother has just said, it's a living way. And that is.
The flesh can enjoy ordinances, the flesh can enjoy fine buildings, the flesh can enjoy all that appeals to the senses, even religiously. But one has to be born again and possess a new life to just sit quietly without any of those external things and just enjoy the Lord's presence.
It's a new thing altogether and it's a living thing, and because we possess a new life, we can sit with just simply bread and just simply wine on the table. It's not a special sanctuary or something, it's just simply around the Lord Himself.
And we, if we possess a new life, we can sit there and quietly enjoy his presence with all that holy boldness and liberty. And then too, when it says through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, the veil in the Tabernacle was really a picture of the Lord Jesus. We remember how it was blue and purple and scarlet and fine twine linen that was woven with.
With gold and all that represented to us the glory of that person who walked through this world, the one who came down and all those glories centered in him. But what did his perfect life do well? What did the veil do well? It actually proclaimed to his every Israelite, there's no entrance for you. And the perfect life of the Lord Jesus only condemned us. It only showed us that.
He had no right. There was only one who had the right to go back there and could have gone back alone. But He wanted to have us. And so if there was to be any access, the veil must be rent. And whose hand was it that rent the veil? It was rent from the top to the bottom. And now since the Lord Jesus on the cross bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and shed His precious blood, now God is saying, and now.
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He's not going to have the joys of having the lawn. He has already provided a way of access into his presence through the rent veil. And as someone has said, two things are very blessed in connection with it and that is that God could come out now, which he couldn't be for.
Is what he wanted to do for man was restrain. Justice had withstood the purposes of love, the Lord had a baptism to be baptized with, and there was a restraint on the outflow of what was in the heart of God.
Until the Lord Jesus had accomplished that work, and how wonderful when he cried, it is finished. The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. The blood was shed and access is now provided into the presence of God. So God comes out to tell all that's in his heart, and we go in in perfect acceptance. And the result of it is.
That we are brought into this place of nearness. And now, as our brother has remarked.
These three precious fruits show themselves in the life of the believer and I believe I just call attention to the fact that the 23rd verse when it says let us hold fast the profession of our faith.
It's really the profession of our hope so that we really have the three things that characterize Christian life. Faith, hope and love. Faith because we can rest upon what God has said about what Christ has done. Hope not because we're faithful, but because he's faithful and loved because we love, because he first loved us and these three things now characterize us. It isn't just.
Provided for which there was number response within us. But as our brother said, he did something in us too, so that we could enjoy all this and not only the one living to make it solve, but produced in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that response, that fruit that makes us enjoy all that has been provided. I think that.
Secular history brings out something about this veil that they.
Priests and Pharisees, whoever they were, they patched it up again. Well, this is really what the apostle is trying to open their their eyes to see that it's useless to patch it up if they tried to patch it up where they shut shut up the way into the presence of the Lord and that was a serious thing there's they're supposed to see now that the way is opened up and what a wonderful thing but.
Were shook to it and they didn't understand. But that's why I believe God by His Word gives them this, that their eyes might be opened. And why is it we have the word of God-given to us by the Spirit to open our eyes? We don't see things even when we're reading the Word, unless the Spirit of God opens our eyes to see it and illuminates the pace. That's the only way we can get anything for ourselves.
So I think it's wonderful that you have the Spirit of God.
We speak of him as the third person of the Trinity, brought in here too, as well as God. The epistle starts out with God, and of course it's the Lord Jesus Christ all the way through. Well, all is brought together here.
To open the eyes of those who need to see.
The privilege that we have is passing within the veil.
I believe there's two scriptures that would help us to consider how we come in, and that is in first Peter chapter 2 and verse five. First Peter chapter 2, verse 5.
He also has living stones are built up a spiritual house.
And holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ and also in Revelation chapter one and verses 5:00 and 6:00 and from Jesus Christ to his.
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The faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth, unto him that loves us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests, or a Kingdom of priests.
Priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion.
Forever and ever, Amen, I believe, as we enter into the holiest through the veil.
It's not only as forgiven sinners, and that is very true. We are forgiven sinners, but we have a special office given to us, and we say this for all believers because all believers are holy priests.
And we are a Kingdom of Greece and Christendom and religion around us would take this away and spoil the blessedness of being there as a priest to offer those spiritual sacrifices.
And has been said, we can come together and even if it's in quietness, and it's good to sit still, to be quiet sometimes and just to be free to be there in his presence as a priest to offer those sacrifices before him. So not only do we come into his presence, but we come in with.
Special service and privilege as a priest, a holy priest. Think of it, how favored we are to enter into these things, how much they should mean to us. Beloved brethren, let us go on in the pathway. Let us possess these things in the reality of it.
And to be before God in the full enjoyment.
Of what we have as Christians to enter into His holy presence with boldness, and as holy priests to offer spiritual sacrifices before Him. That is the sacrifice of praise to His blessed name.
In verse 22, I've heard that applied as if it is connected with our self judging ourselves before we remember the Lord. That is not what that verse conveys, does it? It is really here an admonition that if we draw near, we better make sure that we are of a true heart, that we really belong to the Lord, and that we are.
In the Christian position, that's the force of the verse, isn't it?
There are the two things that from the Lord's side there flowed the blood and the water, and so the blood has to do with our conscience. And so it says, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. What is it that has removed sin from my conscience before God?
Well, it's the precious blood of Christ, but if I were only forgiven.
Supposing I had wronged somebody and He had merely forgiven me, that would not set me at ease in His presence. I might easily say, well, He forgave me, but I wonder what He thinks of me. But isn't it wonderful a body washed with pure water? And that refers to what we have in John 13. Not the washing of the feet there, but what the Lord said when Peter said, not my feet only, but also my hands.
My head, the Lord's answer was, he that is washed or washed all over needeth not saved to wash his feet, but is clean every whit. I believe it's very important, brethren, that we should distinguish between those two things. The washing all over is what our brother was talking about in the young people's meeting.
That is, every believer in the Lord Jesus is a new creature in Christ Jesus.
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He has been washed all over, once and for all, and God sees him not merely with his sins forgiven, blessed indeed that is, but sees him in a life that never sinned and cannot sin. It's what is spoken of in Titus, the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. And so when I come into the Lord's presence, I can have the enjoyment of those two things.
That the blood has once for all removed my guilt as before God, and the God isn't looking upon me merely as a forgiven Sinner, but accepted in the beloved, a new creature in Christ Jesus. As I sometimes said, Rahab the harlot was sheltered from the judgment of Jericho, but she was afterwards married to the into the royal line of Israel.
Could you imagine if she sat down at the table with her new husband Salman?
And looked across the table and said to him, oh, it's wonderful to be a forgiving harlot. I think I can hear his reply when he looks back and says, oh, but you're far more than that to me. I don't think of you that way. It's true. You're forgiven, but I don't see a spot on you. Well, that's the way the believer is. That is our position, brethren. And that's why when he talks about holy boldness, what can give us holy boldness that we don't know this?
Many dear Christians break bread merely as forgiven sinners, and they're constantly uneasy.
But if we could just see this, how wonderful a place that we have been brought into. For here in Hebrews it's not so much the condition of soul, what is the thought, but our standing before God. Now the condition of soul is very necessary for the enjoyment of it. And so if our feet aren't washed, the Lord said, if I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.
And that is, if we're allowing defilement in our lives, we can't enjoy these things we're talking about.
We're going to be uneasy, not because our standing has been disturbed, not because the blood has lost its value, but because we are. We've allowed something to come in and rob us of communion with the Lord. So we're not enjoying the things that are set before us here. And that's why it says having an high priest over the House of God for our standing is always perfect, but the work of Christ as our high priest and our advocate.
To maintain our souls in the enjoyment of where grace has brought us through the work of Christ.
In the Old Testament, we have what answers to that or what is the type of that pointing to it. In Exodus chapter 29, we have Aaron and his sons washed. Well, that's the whole body that's washed. That's their preparation for the position of being priests and serving as priests.
But if you go over to the 30th chapter you find out to have to keep on washing but not the whole body and verse.
Verse 19 Verse 18 tells about the labor that's to be made. Chapter third and verse 19 For Aaron has and his son shall wash their hands and their feet their aunt when they go into the Tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water that they die not well. It was a solemn thing if they their feet and hands were defiled, they had to wash, but they didn't have to do the the other over again. That was done.
That was it, but they had to do this repeatedly. So you see how the Old Testament and the New Testament, the truth we get there, they all fit together because it's given to us by by God. The same Spirit dictated all of this holy men of old specters, they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
And it's so wonderful to see this. And this is the mark, one of the marks that this book we hold in our hands is the word of God.
This expression, the sprinkling of blood or the sprinkling, would that have to do more with the thought of the application of the blood? Yes. Once for all, yes.
Just a little comment in connection with the priest. Our chapter says not the very image of the things. So when the Lord was going to do it, he only watched the disciples feet, but not their hands. And so in the Old Testament these priests had to be constantly engaged with these sacrifices. So they had to wash both their hands and their feet because the work was never done that they were carrying on.
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But now there's no something that we have defiled our hands in connection with.
At a sacrifice that's all complete, but we do pick up defilements. So isn't it lovely? It's not the very image. It shows, as you say, the perfection of the Word of God. The priests, because they had to go on with these continual sacrifices, they washed both their hands and their feet. Now, since the work has been forever completed, we don't have to wash our hands, but we do have to wash our feet because we pick up defilements in this world that we walk through.
Think of the the altar that they were to make. They were to make it of stones, but not to lift up any tool on it. They were to take the stones just like they were. They were not to use their hands to fix them up. Well, this is this is a good principle that you bring out there.
Revelation 4 and verse six, it says before the throne was a sea of glass. Oh, I have enjoyed the thought there that it's a it's fixed. That is as far as the labor and all is concerned. There is no more need of the cleansing in the way the foot washing, but rather it's in a state of fixed purity, a sea of glass in connection with your.
Done in first Peter one verse two I believe we have again the sprinkling.
And we have it there elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
That seems to refer to when we come into the good of that work, when it is as it were put upon us through faith of that. And then I think this 23rd verse is so beautiful too. Let us hold fast. It's really the confession of our hope without wavering. For He is faithful that promise when the children of Israel placed themselves in a condition of obedience.
By what hope had they have ever entering the land?
Because they fell into the worship of the golden calf and the Lord said I'll have to consume them. But he provided a way, and that way was such that he could bring them through the wilderness and bring them in. Why? Because they were faithful. No, because He is faithful. And so is there any of us that will say, well, I'm sure I'm going to be faithful to the end.
No, we hold fast the confession of our hope because he's faithful.
He's made a promise. He's the captain of our salvation, bringing many sons to glory. And is the captain going to fail? No. So we don't hold fast on the ground of our faithfulness. But because he is faithful, he's going to complete that work and he's going to bring us home and present us faultless before his throne.
Exhortation in verse 24 and what it goes on with in verse 25.
Is really quite striking.
We're to consider one another, to provoke unto love, unto good works.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, the matter of some is, but exhorting one another.
Now we've just considered that the whole epistle is an exhortation written by the apostle.
Is not enough. No, they are to exhort one another now. Well.
Perhaps this is a word for ourselves, not that we pound one another.
Where we lay down the law to one another. But I think there's a way that we can exhort one another as led by the Spirit of God, because the apostle is being led by the Spirit of God in his exhortation. And perhaps this is an example for us in exhorting one another approaching. Well, we're certainly right on the very threshold of the great apostasy.
And if we ever needed the fellowship of the Saints in the Assembly, it is now.
To provoke one another to love and good works. It is serious time, isn't it? Moment to that little expression, Let us draw near. That's always seemed so very, very lovely to me, as though we had in this chapter that which gives us perfect right and perfect access. But then comes the little word, Let us draw near.
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When you stop and think of that rent bail and what it cost God that the veil might be rent just to think of anyone.
Shall I say, standing aloof and saying, Well, I know it has all been accomplished, I know that access is mine to enjoy, but to to have to be told, shall I say, let us draw near? Sounds to me something like Joseph in the presence of his brethren.
He had been through so much, he had been into prison and now released from prison, his brethren are before him. And he says, Draw near to me, I pray you, I like that, come near to me, I pray you. And all his brethren drew near. And so, dear brethren, when we read of these things, and we realize what it cost God, what it cost the Lord Jesus.
That this title and this access might be ours.
Then to read such words as we have been reminded of, let us draw near. It really should speak to our hearts.
The desire of our heart ought to be to respond fully to such words as thee.
Hebrews 10:1-6
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Chapter 10 For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by year, continually make the comers there unto perfect.
For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because of the worshippers, once purged, should have had no more conscience of sins?
But in those sacrifices there is remembrance again made of sins every year.
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
Wherever when he cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body has to have prepared for me in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
Then said I lo, I come in the volume, the book it has written of me to do thy will, O God.
Above, when he says sacrifice, and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin, thou wouldest not, neither has pleasure therein which are offered by the law. Then said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God, he taketh away the 1St, that he may establish the 2nd.
By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
And every priest endeth daily, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
Four by one offering hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. For the Holy Ghost also was a witness to us. For after that he had said before, This is a covenant that I will make with him after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them.
And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Now we're remission of these ends. There's no more offering for sin.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which yet consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having an high priest over the House of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith.
Your heart sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
That hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised.
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as a matter of some years, but exhorting one another, one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation, which will devour the adversaries.
He that despised Moses, Lord, died without mercy, under two or three witnesses.
Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and encountered the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the spirit of grace?
For we know him that have said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will repay, saith the Lord.
And again, the Lord should judge his people.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Call to remembrance of former days in which after that you were illuminated, He endured with a great fight of afflictions, partly while you were made as gazing stuck both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly while He became companions of them that were so used. For He had compassion of me in my bonds.
And looked joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven it better.
And an enduring substance.
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Cast not away, therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward, for you have need of patience, that after He have done the will of God, you might receive the promise.
For yet a little while, and neither shall come, Will come, and will not tarry.
Now the just shall live by faith.
But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them which draw back unto perdition, but of them that believed to the saving of the soul. It has often been said that the Epistle to the Hebrews, the characteristic word, is better, and how everything in Christianity is better than that which was given under the old order of things in Judaism.
About he shows how in the end of the ninth chapter.
All these things were a pattern, a shadow of those good things to come. And he sort of sums it up in the end of the ninth chapter, in the 26th verse, the middle of the verse. But now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.
And unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin unto salvation. In the 26th verse it refers to the Day of Atonement and the sacrifice. And the Day of atonement laid the groundwork by which God could go on with the guilty people. And he shows how that the work of Christ took up and settled the question of sin. And I thought.
Sinned by the sacrifice of himself really looks on to the time when there will be a new heavens and a new earth for indwelling righteousness. It's a similar thought to John 129. Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
And so, as I say, on the Day of Atonement, the groundwork was laid by which God could go on with the people. But then there was the scapegoat, and upon over the head of that scapegoat were confessed the sins of the people, and those sins were carried away to a land not inhabited. So not only has the work of Christ laid the groundwork for a new heavens and a new earth and blessing where?
Results will never enter, but there are people who will share in that and so we who deserve the judgment. How wonderful. It says Christ was once offered to bear the sins, not the sin, but the sins of many, so that those of us who know the Lord is our Savior can say that the Lord Jesus bore our sins and just like those sins confessed over the.
Escape God not the sins of the whole world, but of those who were to be brought into that place of blessing. They were confessed over the head of that scapegoat, and carried away. And the Lord Jesus bore the sins of many, But he settled a question of sin, so that there would be a new heavens and a new earth. And so when it says in the end of the 28th verse. And unto them that looked for him shall he appear the second time.
Sin unto salvation. It shows that when the Lord Jesus comes again, it will not be to take up the question of sin that has been settled, and whether it be for ourselves to take us to glory or to bring an earthly people into blessing, It's all founded upon the work of Christ. And that's why the chapter begins by showing us that the law only had a shadow.
But the Through the work of Christ we have been brought into this place.
Of blessing. And then, as the chapter goes on to show us, He would have us to be in the present enjoyment of this, in liberty before Him, brought into the very holiest, and then that practical fruit in the life they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. But He first of all, shows us where we have been brought through the work of Christ.
I just mentioned these few thoughts because I believe they introduced to us the 10th chapter in the precious truth that He's opened up to us.
And its fullness in this 10th chapter. So he starts with that in this chapter to show them that if they went back to that, they were only going back to the shadows and they were leaving the real thing, which would be an awful solemn thing for them to do.
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Warning too because of what we see all about us in Christendom and emphasis laid on ordinances and many people feeling that they are.
Even blessed and saved through Christian ordinances. But he shows that everything is founded and rests upon the work of Christ. And all those things of the past were a type and shadow. And even now too, the privilege of being baptized and of remembering the Lord. These things bring certain truths before us, but salvation is only through what Christ accomplished on the cross.
And he makes everything of the work of Christ, and of how through that work we have been brought into blessing with those things that these professed Christians among the Jews were in danger of going back to. And so in Christendom we find that there has been a taking up with these shadows, and they're making much of these ordinances.
And they speak of them as grace for this and grace for that.
Well, the grace of God is apart from ordinances. The Lord Jesus Christ gave himself at Calvary and gave himself for us. Christ loved the church and gave himself for us on the ground of grace. And we when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we accept God's extension of grace, his unmerited favor to us. And that's what we stand on. But as soon as we go back to trying to.
The law and to follow all these ordinances, we forsake the ground of grace and we are getting on the on the on the ground of works. Well, God doesn't want us there. He wants us on the ground of grace because that's a solid ground to stand on.
I think we notice as we read through the book of Acts, how very patient God was with that people in connection with their holding on tenaciously to the law and to all the ordinances, and how very patient and gracious He was with them in bringing them into the full light of Christianity. As we were coming up, we were reading a little from a book in connection with the Reformation.
And it's marvelous to see how patient the Lord was as He was giving them a little light here and there when they acted in faithfulness on that light and how patient He was in that connection. And we were reminded of a verse that says, For the pathway of the just is as a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. If we act in the light that God has given us, He'll bring us on into more light. But we need.
Doing up with those that are still clothed with a good deal of darkness about these things if they're beginning to come into the light, how we need patience to help them on. Keyword in Hebrew seems to be better.
And that is that the the Lord would be impressing upon us what we do have.
The how much better it is than what the people of God had in days past.
Because it seems that our danger is to lose the sense of what we really have been brought into by the grace of God and what has been brought to us.
The the period in which we live is the most privileged when you say of all of the the.
Various dispensations that that man has been blessed of God. We have the whole revealed mind and will of God, we've been brought into heavenly and eternal and spiritual truths. But the tendency of course, is to drop down to the level of the flesh.
Either in farms that are like we have in the Corinthians, scandalous things or to fall down or drop down to the level of the flesh religiously. And it seems that the Epistle to the Hebrews is more from the religious side, is it not Corinthians. The Corinthians were in danger of of the dropping down to the level of the flesh as tomorrow's and one would not say that we're not.
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That, but sometimes we forget that the flesh can take up religious things, man in the flesh. And it seems that we if we don't really value what we've been brought into, there is a danger of dropping back into those farms that the flesh can be comfortable in. So while in a way we can apply these things to Christendom.
It seems that we need to.
Maybe exercise our own heart and conscience to that we might value the better thing, God having provided some better thing for us, and that we might value it or else we would be in danger, perhaps of of dropping down to the level of what the flesh can take up and enjoy in a religious way. Those things can greatly hinder.
Spiritual growth. It's remarkable.
You mentioned Corinthians and Hebrews. In writing to the Corinthians he says, I believe I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it neither yet now are you able, for ye are yet carnal. In writing to the Hebrews, he says, when for the time he ought to be teachers, he have needed one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God.
And are become such as a need of milk and not of strong meat. So that the things that you mentioned can be, I would suggest a very, very great hindrance to the spiritual growth that should be proper to the believer. Isn't it possible that.
There might be many even among us who?
By hearing much teaching.
They make sort of an ordinance or law out of those things, and perhaps even without being born again, they try to live up to these Christian principles.
Well, we need to regard Christian principles, it's true. But unless a person is really born again, has a new life in nature, and has the Spirit of God dwelling in him, he cannot live up to these principles. He may try in the flesh to do it, and he might make a fair show in the flesh, and this kind of thing is what we have to guard against.
Trying to make a fair show in the flesh.
And perhaps we can put on a good show and when we're at meetings of this kind or when we're at assembly meetings, but how do we act when we're away from our brethren and we are alone? Oh, this is the test. And perhaps it can lead to a lot of hypocrisy trying to be something we are not.
And so we need to remember this, that in the book of Hebrews.
If they were going back to those ordinances, they would be trying to profess something really in the flesh. And it was, it was not real. It wouldn't be real. Now, I don't suppose that those who were real.
If they, when they receive these exhortations from the apostle that they would go back, I would judge that they would judge themselves and go on. Perhaps there were those who were not real and they would just drop back into that, be satisfied with that kind of thing.
Well, we need to be before the Lord, and I believe greatly exercised about this.
That we might be real before the Lord, that we might receive really the better things. And the Lord Jesus Christ in this epistle is shown to take the place of all of these different things that are brought before us, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I suppose that's why we get toward the end of the epistle, looking off unto Jesus, looking off unto Jesus, not looking back.
Not looking at these ordinances.
Not trying to make a fair show in the flesh, but looking off unto Jesus, being occupied with him, filled with Him, feeding upon Him and His precious Word. This is what will produce a spiritual man. What is spirituality? Well, it's not looking at myself and asking the question, how am I doing? Am I measuring up?
Am I what I ought to be? No. It's looking at Christ being occupied with Christ.
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Because the Holy Spirit, who is the one who dwells in the believer, would not occupy us with anyone else or anything else but the Lord Jesus Christ. So the mark of spirituality is being occupied with Christ looking away from ourselves.
We might bear in mind that it was God who gave all these things in Judaism. It wasn't things that they had started themselves. The law had a shadow of good things to come, but God was testing man. And so it's spoken of in the first part of the ninth of Hebrews. There were ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary.
We might ask, Well, why did God give all these things? Well, in the Old Testament, man was placed under trial, and the test was as to whether these outward things would actually draw the heart to God. But when the people who had all those outward things which were a shadow of the good things to come, But when they went on with these outward things, and yet rejected the Lord.
So religious they were that it tells us they wouldn't go into the judgment hall because they wanted to eat the Passover. So they stood outside of the judgment hall and cried away with Him. And yet the Passover was a picture of Christ showing how a person can go on with outward things and have no heart for the Lord at all.
Now the Lord Jesus Himself is the fulfillment of all those types and shadows.
And so, as we see in this chapter, why it's a new and a living way, it's new. It's not an extension or an improvement of the old system. It is the fulfillment of the type. And one has to have divine life to enjoy spiritual things and to enjoy true Christian worship. But strange as it may seem to us, as our brother Bilasali remarked, God.
On with those people. And so they actually went on with the Tabernacle, and went on also with a breaking of bread, and carrying on as God had brought before them in Christianity, and they mixed the two things into a system.
And if you read through the Acts, this is very clear that they went on with those things. In fact, they were very much disturbed because they wanted to have people circumcised and keep the law. And yet these were people who had professed faith in Christ and no doubt many of them were real.
That is, they mixed the two things into a system. And what is being brought before us in Hebrews is the fulfillment of what the Lord Jesus said, that the new wine must be put into new bottles, and that it was not a patch on the old garment, but an entirely new garment. And Christianity is not a mixture of the two things. It's not an improvement on the old thing, it's the fulfillment of it.
The type is fulfilled in Christ, and it's very precious for us, but a great part of Christendom still goes on with mixing the two things. In fact, we might say, sad as it seems, that the great thing that will be judged after the Lord has taken the church home is really a mixture of Judaism and Christianity and paganism into a system. That's what Babylon really is.
It's confusion, the mixture of the whole three things together. Now, what are you seeking to bring before us into He in the Hebrews is to bring us into the full blessed liberty of Christian position. And that we must go outside the camp. It's not the priest himself going inside the veil, but every believer having title to enter into the holiest of all, every believer being a purged worshipper.
And all how precious it is for us to get hold of this. It's only as we get hold of it in our souls that there really is the enjoyment of what we have in Christ and of true Christian worship. And we don't realize how much we're affected by all these things. What is was of Judaism, a grand building, music, robes, all those things.
And now what is true worship?
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Well, true believers are living stones. It's not a building that man bills. And what is true worship, it's melody in the heart is that which is produced in the heart by the Spirit of God. And what is the altar? Christ himself is the altar. And as we get hold of these things, then the soul is brought into the liberty of Christianity and occupied, as our brother said.
With a person whom God delights to honor, who has fulfilled His will.
And this chapter, it seems to me, sums it up and shows us where we are brought through the work of Christ.
Significant to see in the gospel how that in the very beginning of the life of the Lord, that voice comes from heaven and says, this is my beloved son, in whom is all my delight. Well, a Jew hearing that voice, he'd know that that voice came from God in heaven.
And here he was, God was speaking about this one here on the earth. And if they were real in their souls, and I'm sure there were some of them, and there were those that followed the Lord, they should have said in their hearts, well, if God is delighted, altogether delighted with this person, that's the person that we ought to have our delight into.
But with most of them, it was just the opposite. They didn't have delight in him. What a sad thing.
The sacrifices were in contrast to the one sacrifice of Christ.
I just looking down there at this verse.
Verse 12 but but this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, oh verse one says, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers around too perfect.
There was number perfection in the law, The law. There's perfection in Christ. One sacrifice, not sacrifices, but only one.
I think some of us have heard it said that Christianity is not intended to be an improvement on Judaism, nor an extension of Judaism, but a whole new presentation of a person.
The Lord Jesus Christ. I say that because so often we hear the term the judeo-christian religion as though the Bible presents to us man's search after a knowledge of God, which gradually developed into what we now call, or what is called, I should say.
Judeo-christian religion oh how wonderful it is to realize that although.
This was indeed God-given, yet it proved in the rejection and crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, the incorrigible heart of man, and that that which we now have is something infinitely better. And to try to mix the two would be very, very hateful really in the sight of God.
Someone also has said that as as spiritual life declines, man naturally turns to ordinances because these things are appealing to the flesh and an unconverted man can go into a fine religious service and the field benefited by it. He likes that which he sees and hears.
And it makes him feel that he has fulfilled the religious obligation.
But what a wonderful thing it is to be found in the presence of the Lord Jesus, and to find that he Himself and the wonderful truth that is centered in him actually is a delight to the soul. And I believe it's right to say.
That if there is anyone here that does not find a personal delight in the person.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ there is no evidence that you are born again at all. Could I say that again if there is anyone here who does not find a personal delight in the person of the Lord Jesus?
There is no evidence that you that you are born again at all. One of the essential differences of Judaism and Christianity is that there's been, you might say, a change in the man who is before God. In Judaism, it was man in the flesh, as our brother was mentioned mentioning being tested for the time of testing.
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And Judaism is connected with the with man in the flesh, that is natural man.
It was really an arrangement that God made whereby he could go on with a man in the flesh during the time of probation and testing. But that's all over and has been mentioned. There's one been introduced. This is my beloved son in whom I found my delight. He's the 2nd man, isn't he? He's the last Adam, the 2nd man, and that's.
Christianity is connected with.
The second man, the Lord out of heaven, it's not connected with man in the flesh, so it doesn't appeal to the natural senses. Christianity is essentially spiritual and not sensual like Judaism, which appealed to the senses. And so I I feel that to be very practical in regard to these things.
We need to think in long terms like that.
That are we attracted by the religious things that appeal to the flesh?
Or is it that we recognize that those things have been set aside, that's all connected with Judaism, and the Lord Jesus is outside that? I'd like to make a remark in connection with that first verse in Chapter 9 that was referred to.
That Judaism had ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary, which is an unusual combination.
And that isn't true today. There is no such thing owned of God as having divine service and a worldly sanctuary. We might say that was true at one time in Judaism. There were services, the ordinances were God-given, but he was in connection with a earthly or worldly sanctuary. Now then, the.
The services of God is not connected with the worldly sanctuary at all.
So to continue this combination is really what the camp is, isn't it? The camp would be characterized by that which seeks to continue this, this connection of things, of divine service with a worldly sanctuary. Sometimes individuals ask, what is the camp? Well, I I think that's one, at least one of the indications of it, those two elements being combined.
You can give up.
Christianity and go back to Judaism. Is he not saying that the blood of bulls and of groats is better than the blood of Christ? And if we continue with worldly ordinances, are we not putting them before on a level 2 with the precious blood of Christ? You might say that the Lord fought.
And Christianity was such a new thing to them.
And they at one time faithfully obeyed the ordinances given in the law, the sacrifices, and they dared not to disobey. And it was difficult for them to accept the change and the patience of God with His earthly people. That's one thing, but we ought to be careful not to apply the same as to.
Gentiles being brought under this kind of thing.
Refined Galatians is the epistle that would really be helpful, and we see how strong the apostle Paul speaks. They are when Gentiles who never were under the law are sought to be brought under that *******. And I believe that we ought not to be afraid to point out faithfully in the terms of Scripture.
The sin and the terrible system that is being introduced and practiced in Christmas.
Today, because Scripture does not hesitate at all. While it is certainly true, we ought to be patient with those who are brought up under this corrupt system, and the Lord will gradually give light, but we must never be afraid to.
Name the thing for what it is.
Disobedience, and it's really religious wickedness that is introduced and practiced in Christendom all around.
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To remember that when God did set aside the law and all that was connected with it, the ordinances of divine service.
Although those things are not carried on today in Christianity, if we are intelligent as to the position we are in, we can gain a great deal from the types and shadows. Or if God instituted that whole thing in order to show how He could go on with a guilty people while they were waiting for the time when the one sacrifice of Christ would be made.
Why isn't it lovely to see that we can go back and see?
How remarkable the pattern is. And the law it isn't as it tells us here. It's not the very image of the things. And we can never make those sacrifices fit exactly into the full light of Christianity. And we don't have to say, well, we're not interested in reading Leviticus anymore.
Because we don't have those sacrifices, we can go back and see that when God set those things up, He gave the most beautiful type and shadow of these good things and many of those precious things. We have enjoyed those of us who don't go on with the building any longer that was built by King Solomon or the Tabernacle that was constructed by Moses.
We can see in a beautiful picture.
Of what we have now in Christianity, living stones and those coverings of the Tabernacle and the altar of burnt offering, and all these things are most precious. So only God could do something like that. When man has something and the trial fails, then he must discard it. But when the trial failed because of what man is in the flesh, the Lord Jesus came and fulfilled.
All the types. But we can go back and enjoy those types and shadows and see that God foreknew about the work of Christ and how God would be glorified in it. And all those things were a shadow of the good things to come. As it's been quoted from the Psalms in my temple. Every hood of it doth utter thy glory.
So the the things in the Old Testament are precious to us.
But to go on with them now, when they've been fulfilled, is to go on with the shadow when the reality has come. And as it's been pointed out, to turn our back upon the reality, and we have it in this chapter would be serious indeed.
Say that these things in the Old Testament, these ordinances and so on, are like a signpost pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, as soon as we found the one that the signpost points to, we're not occupied with the signpost anymore. We're thankful for the signpost. We're thankful that it points the way we should go to the object that we're to be occupied with.
We can be thankful for the these shadows.
These sign folks, but when they pointed us to Christ and were occupied with Christ, we're occupied with him.
And justice thankful for the signposts. It used to perplex me when I would read of those multitudes of sacrifices, especially like in the dedication of the temple, thousands of beasts and all. But when you stop and think, what is that in comparison to the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ? And I believe that when we read in many places in the Old Testament, we can see that the heart of God.
Was entreated in connection with the sacrifices, especially like the daily sacrifice.
Because it reflected on to the time of his beloved son when he would sacrifice himself. And two, I was just thinking as we were considering this, for the Jew it was definitely an advantage. That is, it says what advantage then half the Jew?
It says unto them, were committed the oracles of God. It was like a schoolmaster, conductor.
That kept them more or less in the way they were shielded, I suppose, to a large extent, from all the wickedness and corruption that existed in the Pagan world at that day. And so for them it was a different story, wasn't it? Because Scripture does say the law is holy and just and good.
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But then as Galatian brings out, it brings us unto Christ, doesn't it? That comes to the point of Christ. Maybe it'd be good to read that in in Galatians chapter 3 verse 23, it says before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up under the faith, which should afterwards be revealed.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster.
Unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith, but after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
Cometh into the world in verse five, bring us to the same point, don't they? To Christ. And that was the object before God. It wasn't those sacrifices and offerings that were offered.
Their value was in what they typified, what they pointed forward to. And so this desire of God comes out in a very wonderful way in these verses, which are taken up from Psalm 40. Sacrifice and offering thou would not.
That is, it wasn't God's desire just to have that.
No, it goes on and says here a body, hast thou prepared me? It's interesting. If we look at Psalm 40, it doesn't say a body has stopped prepared me. It says my ear hast thou opened. And so the thought of God goes way back into the past eternity from the council, I believe, of the Godhead thinking of what would take place in creation.
And the necessity of having a redemption. And how is it going to come about? Well, the purpose of God was to redeem. So the Son says, in effect, I will do thy will. So he has the ear to hear. And the Psalm, it's the ear to hear. And here it goes a little further. And as where God says.
Well, if you're going to undertake this work, you're going to have to have a body.
So now we have the body of Christ in sacrifice brought out in our chapter. Another change which is interesting in the way it reads here in Hebrews in contrast to Psalm 40, is that it leaves out our delight to do thy will. Oh God, I wonder if it isn't, because here in Hebrews.
We read about Hoover. The joy that was set before him endured the cross.
In the body heat bore our sins on the tree. That wasn't a delight, that was suffering. That was endurance. That was the cross. That's the sacrifice. Well, just those little changes in the quotation from Psalms. The Hebrews have a great meaning, I do believe.
Someone remarked, and I think it's well to remember it, that the law that God gave was perfect. The law that God gave was perfect, and we have no right to refer to it in any other way. But even in the Old Testament, do we not see again and again that God had this new thing in mind, even in giving that which was perfect?
There are many such illustrations, but in the case for instance of.
Samuel Anointing, David.
Jesse presented two Samuel 7 that perfect number seven of his sons.
And Samuel and Flier are there not any others? For God had not yet pointed out anyone of these seven to be the one who would be the ruler over Israel. And so the 8th. 1. David is brought in, and he is anointed, and is the one whom God so mightily use. And then again, and I hope this is not too remote, but in the 119th.
We find that in every section of that Psalm.
And those sections are part of inspiration, divided as they are by inspiration. There are exactly 8 verses in every one of those sections in Psalm 119. And as we know, that's all magnifies the law from verse one to the very end, over and over. And verse after verse the law is magnified and it's beauty and perfection.
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Declared, but instead of having 7 verses, there are 8 indicating I believe that although the law was holy and beautiful and perfect, yet God had in mind something new, a new beginning. Even in the case of Gideon in.
Judges chapter 6, When he was about to be used for the deliverance of Israel, he was told to offer a sacrifice and he was told, and this to me is very remarkable take from his father's heard the second bullet, even the second Bullock of seven years.
That's rather unusual that he should be told exactly which bullet to select.
The second bullet, our brother remarked that the Lord Jesus was the 2nd man and last Adam, and here when Israel was oppressed by the Midianites and they were about to be delivered, an offering is presented and it's not the first.
But the second book of seven years, just what we would expect that which was perfect in the sight of God. I say this because I think it's very, very beautiful to see even in the Old Testament where these types and shadows and where the law is given that not only is it beautiful to meditate upon, but.
God had in mind that which would be perfect and which would be presented to us, His beloved Son, in connection with that, I thought.
Of Psalm 40.
As being somewhat like David being the 8th, as you say, a type of the Lord Jesus as the second man. The seven sons brought before before us there would represent the whole history of the first man, wouldn't it? Complete 7 is the number of completeness, and in the whole history of the first man that was not found, one upon whom the eye of God could rest.
As he could upon the Lord Jesus when he came into this scene as the second man. Then I thought of the that in Psalm 40 we read of the Lord Jesus. I'll just read that one verse.
Verse eight I delight to do thy will. Oh my God, yeah, Thy law is within my heart.
That wasn't true of the first man, but here is a man who has the law within his heart. I delight to do thy will, O God. And I like to think of the Psalm 119. Now we find that the the people of God have the law written in their hearts. And that's really the terms of the new Covenant, isn't it? He says that I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts.
And that that is because we are connected now with we are connected with the 2nd man, not the first. We find that in the Romans 5. Is it not the latter part that we are now associated with Christ, the 2nd man? And the the work of God is to write into our hearts and minds His very laws, as it were, the desire to do His will.
Just as the Lord Jesus when he was here, that's.
And it seems to me that the apostle in this very epistle that we have, is seeking to do that, seeking to to give them impressions of Christ, so that they might be able to respond to that exhortation. Let us go forth unto Him without the camp, as their hearts would be engaged with Him, and they would have these impressions.
In their hearts and drawn to him, then they would find such an exhortation.
An invitation rather than something that would be irksome going forth unto him without the camp.
Deuteronomy 10IN connection with what our brother has said to carry the thought on a little.
It is so nice. There we have Moses. At that time the Lord said unto him, Hear thee 2 tables of stone, like under the first.
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And so he goes up and he gets those tables of stone. The second time comes down verse five. I turned myself and came down from the mount and put the tables in the ark which I had made, and there they be as the Lord commanded me. Well, the type is.
So pointed pointing to Christ, who is pictured by that ark.
In the most Holy place, and so the Lord could say.
Thy law is within my heart. He fulfilled the law.
And so now we read in Romans 10/4, Christ is the end of the law.
For righteousness to everyone that believeth. So that's that's the doctrine of the gospel that we have today. And how futile it would be for we poor Gentiles to try to get under the law under the which we never were. Yet we have the book and we're living in a day when.
Organized religion has taken up the law and mixed it up with grace, and some are coming out of that. And so we have the guidance in this book, which fits the day in which we live, too.
Doesn't it? The verse was quoted, The law was wholly just and good. But I am carnal, sold under sin, and as we have in our chapter here, it says.
The first verse it could not make the comers thereunto perfect, and another verse in Hebrews says the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did. And so the law was all right. It was given of God, holy, just and good. But we just like having a very, very good set of tools.
And working with rotten lumber, you can't make the thing right no matter how good the tools are.
If the lumber is rotten, and that's what is brought out. The law was holy and just and good, but there was no good in us, nothing to respond to it. And so as our brother has brought out, the law was taken and placed in the ark, and on top of the ark was the mercy seat where the blood was sprinkled. And they in that way God made a way of approaching to His presence. And then too, as it goes on in this 10th of Hebrews.
We are brought into that place. Christ is our mercy seat and now too he has put his law into our hearts so that we delight to do those things that are pleasing unto him. So that that really shows that what God has done is not taken up the laws a rule for man in the flesh because he couldn't produce any fruit for God, but he has imparted a new life and is that 40th Psalm says.
Pleasure of Thy will, O God, is my delight. And so for us who know the Lord, that new life that has been imparted to us finds its delight in the path of obedience.
Was just thinking too to make a couple of comments about those many sacrifices. I believe it was not only to show that God always had in view the work of Christ, but it was also to show the enormity of sin in God's sight. If you had been there and witnessed thousands of animals being slain, you would have naturally said why is all this required? And the answer would be sin is so enormous.
God's sight that thousands upon thousands of animals could never put away even one sin, but that flow of blood was a reminder of that. If you go to the 7th of Jeremiah, I think it helps to explain why it says that he didn't have any pleasure in those sacrifices. Jeremiah Chapter 7 and verse 21.
Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel.
What you're burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh, for I spake not unto your Father's, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices, But this thing commanded I them saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people, and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be will well.
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With you. But they hearken not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the councils, and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward. So God didn't command them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. Concerning sacrifices, He wanted obedience. But why were the sacrifices necessary? Because they were disobedient. Because they didn't fulfill His will.
And so.
The Lord Jesus came. He has done the will of God. He has glorified him. His one perfect sacrifice has put away sin. But now to go on with those sacrifices is a denial of the fact that that one sacrifice was enough to glorify God.
Because he never did have pleasure in the death of all those animals. He didn't create those animals to have to be slain upon Jewish altars. He created them as part of that creation that was given to Adam to enjoy. But sin came in, and so Abel had to offer his sacrifice. Adam and Eve had to be clothed through the death of an animal, and those sacrifices had to go on continually.
Not because God wanted the sacrifices, but because of man's disobedience which required a sacrifice.
And now how he's been glorified in this wonderful work of Christ. And I think that helps us to understand what it's speaking about. A way back in those eternal councils of God. He was looking beyond all this to the time when his beloved Son would come.
Take a body, settle the question of sin, glorify Him, and put an end to those sacrifices so they wouldn't have to continue.
And that's why I believe it says.
In the eighth verse above, when he said sacrifice and offering and bird offering an offering for sin, thou wouldest not. Neither has pleasure therein, but He had pleasure in obedience, and He has pleasure in our obedience. It's not how much we go on with ordinances, but the obedience of heart that He values. Even in the things that we have in Christianity, as I mentioned, baptism in the Lord's Supper, they have no value at all.
Apart from faith, people speak about taking communion, but the the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
The blood, the cup, is the communion of the blood of Christ. It's only as our hearts enter into the meaning of those things that they have any value before God. If we're in communion with His thoughts, then they have value in His sight, but not the things themselves.
There on the ordinances to call to our mind of that which God delights in the person and work of his beloved Son. I think that's very important to to in connection with the an erroneous thought that in the minds of many in Christendom.
That there is a God of the Old Testament and a God of the new, as if the God of the Old Testament did delight in these animal sacrifices, but that now he's a different type of God. But it's the same, isn't it? He delighted in obedience then. What he looked for then in his people was that obedience to himself and submission.
And those animal sacrifices was whereas an acknowledgement on their their part.
Of the debt that they owed, it was a remembrance made every year of sins. It was an acknowledgement that they were sinners and that the death is the is the result of sin. So rather than it being something that God delighted in.
It was, as you say, a necessity on their part and an acknowledgement on their part that they were sinners. And every year there was a remembrance, a calling to mind. It's remarkable that the word in verse three of our chapter, remembrance is the same word that is used in First Corinthians 11. This do in remembrance of me.
A calling to mind a memorial and those offerings it was a memorial of of the.
The fact that they were sinners and acknowledgement of the debt. It wasn't paid. The debt wasn't paid, but there was an acknowledgement that they were debtors. And of course, and now that the work has been accomplished, we do not remember a call to mind sins, but it's the Savior, isn't it? The one who put them away. Perhaps a word, you might give us a word on that, this word perfect.
01:00:17
Because.
You know, it's used commonly in our language today of meaning something that is flawless.
That really isn't the meaning here is there is. No one is perfect. We hear that expression which is true. None of us are perfect, but there is a sense in which we're perfect, wouldn't you say? The believer?
That's what's referred to in Hebrews 6 is not the.
6th Chapter of Hebrews. In the first verse, therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, you have a margin. It says, Leaving the word of the beginning of Christ, Let us go on unto. Let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, and so on.
That is, when the Lord Jesus was here walking upon earth, the work of redemption had not yet been accomplished. And he said to the disciples, the Pharisees sit in Moses seat all therefore that they bid you observe that observe and do.
Saw that it was right for them to go on with those things that God had ordained under Judaism until Christ had accomplished the work. But when the Lord Jesus had accomplished the work, then we go beyond what He said in His pathway here before redemption was accomplished.
We hear the voice of a glorified Christ speaking from heaven and going on to perfection. As your remark is not perfection in the flesh, but it's a perfect work that a was accomplished by a perfect Savior that gives the believer a perfect standing before God.
The subject. That's the way the word perfect is taken up in Hebrews. We're not perfect in the sense that we still have the old nature, but every believer here who's resting upon the work of Christ can say, I have a perfect Savior, He did a perfect work, and I have a perfect standing before God. One enjoys that lovely verse in First Epistle of John in the 4th chapter.
As he is, so are we in this world.
As Christ is, with death and judgment behind him, a glorified man at the right hand of God. That is our standing while we're still here. And that's really what perfect is in the sense that it's used in Hebrews. But of course there is another sense what it's used.
In the 12Th chapter where it speaks of the spirits of just man made perfect, and that looks on to the time when the Old Testament Saints will have glorified bodies or in the end of the 11Th chapter, they without us should not be made perfect. That is, we're going to have glorified bodies like Christ. The Old Testament Saints who died in faith will have glorified bodies like Christ.
And then we'll be perfect, not only as to our standing.
We sing sometime in soul and body. Perfect, all glorified with thee, the perfect there in Philippians.
Three, does that not have to do with full understanding, or at least a proper understanding of these things? Verse 15 of Philippians 3. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in anything you'd be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Yes, I believe the thought in that verse is full growth. I believe in the 12Th verse.
Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect. He's saying there that it won't be saw until, as we have in the end of the chapter, we have been changed into His likeness morally and physically. But we can lay hold of these things where God has put us through the work of Christ, and that is the condition that He's bringing before us here.
And every believer is entitled to enter into and enjoy these things, that he is in that perfect standing before God.
And if he has entered into that and he's not looking at himself, he's pressing on in the race with Christ as his object and with the hope before him of being like him physically when he comes.
01:05:05
Perhaps we might think that perfection is connected with our comprehension of the truth of what has Christ has done. Well, I'm sure there's not any of us that has a complete, full comprehension of all that Christ has done.
But the perfection comes from the work of Christ himself, from Christ himself. And if you have just simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have that perfection of perfect standing. The work that Christ has done for you is complete, and it doesn't depend upon our knowledge of it or our comprehension of it. That is the amount of it. But simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, trust in Him.
When we receive Christ as our Savior, we have it all. We have all that God wants us to have.
Dispersed all the Philippians 3 and verse 15 he is Speaking of laying hold of it because I believe there are I believe I could say thousands of true believers in the Lord Jesus who has to their standing are perfect before God, but haven't entered into it in their own souls.
And they're losers, buy it. And so when he's addressing them here, he would have them to come to that.
Knowledge in their own souls as to what the work of Christ is before God, and what their standing is as a result. And in that sense it is practical here in Philippians 3. But as you say, the position is founded, and only founded upon the work of Christ.
Really the only when one apprehends what his true place is before God, that he can understand what his responsibility is when you say as many as be perfect. Let us be thus minded. In other words, if if we apprehend it, then we know what God looks for in his people and.
No doubt this is a source of weakness.
In that we don't apprehend what we really are before God in Christ. And I was thinking too of another sense of perfection even in what we have in our chapter.
Chapter 10 it says at the end of verse two, because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins, and connect that with the verse nine of Chapter 9, which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts.
And sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience. So a believer we might add to what you were saying, what the believer has in the way of perfection, he has a perfect conscience in this sense that is a conscience free.
Of the sense of guilt before God.
In the way of judgment. Now, of course we know governmentally it may not be so. One might not have liberty because of his walk. But a believer who is entered into the value of the work of Christ, one who has entered into the value of the work of Christ, has a perfect conscience in regard to his sins, so that he knows that he will never be brought into judgment.
And that God will never bring those sins up again. And I was thinking of the and I think in Luke 19, is it not the prayer of the public? And when he smote his breast and said, God be merciful to me, the Sinner, you might say, he would have not yet been brought to perfection. Because now we see God has been merciful to the center.
And we see what God has done for the center and how many.
Times we hear, have heard the prayer, I trust not among us, but we have heard the prayer and forgive us our sins for Jesus sake. Well, one in that condition wouldn't be perfect as to his conscience, would he? He still has a conscience of sins and he's asking God for mercy or forgiveness. But when we see the value of the work of Christ.
Then one has a perfect conscience before God.
In regard to his sins.
Important, the way in which. So I say the truth of these things and the practical side of these things are woven together in Scripture. I really believe it's very important. In fact, I was surprised one time to find how many, many times doctrine is mentioned in Paul writing to Timothy, which we just had brought before us this afternoon.
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And I believe that if through the goodness of the Lord, we see what the Scripture says as to how God sees us and where we stand before Him, then the practical result of it in our lives should be carried out. Not that we are seeking to arrive at or strive after.
These wondrous the wondrous position that the Scripture presents to us.
Presented to us in all certainty and at all clarity, these are points of doctrine, but then interwoven with it are those reminders as to the conduct suited to one who is in such a position, just by way of a little illustration.
From time to time you see a comment or hear a comment about excuse this British illustration, but His Royal Highness Prince Charles.
And as to the kind of behavior that is suited to him, why suited to him because of the family into which he has been born, because of the dignity of the position that he represents, wherever he is and at all times. He's not striving after such honors. He's not seeking for such a position. He was born into it. And there's a certain kind of.
Behavior suited to him, and he would be smartly reminded of it if he failed to maintain it. So I believe when we read the doctrines of the Word of God, how thankful we should be to discover where we are before God.
The standing that is ours, the love that shines upon us. Then define the kind of behavior that ought to be at all times.
Displayed by those who are in such a place before God.
Well, even in connection with the believer not being under law, still we read in Romans 8 it says for the righteousness of the law. Or rather let's see, yes, that the righteousness of the law verse 4 might be fulfilled in US who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. I believe the thought is that the righteous requirements of the law will be fulfilled.
In those that walk, not after the flesh.
But after the Spirit, so we need the exhortation of the New Testament Scriptures, do we not to appeal to the new man to be an exercise to our hearts in practical righteousness? Is there not a connection? Is there not a connection with this perfection to do with the changing from as we get in 2nd Corinthians 3? But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord.
Are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Is there not a connection there between that and growing up into Christ, our being perfect?
That's really laying hold on that which is eternal life.
Might read Hebrews 514 on that point.
Hebrews 514 But strong meat belongeth to them that are in the margin, says perfect.
Or full age, even to those who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
It's really a.
Kind of a convicting verse. That is, do I have my senses exercised to the discerning of good and evil? If so, these.
Precious, deep things of God.
Are for me.
If not, I'm still.
Needing the elementary things.
Practical, isn't it?
And so in connection with the Lord Jesus Himself here in our chapter in the seventh verse.
For I come in the bottom of the book, it is written of me to do Thy will. Oh God, what a perfect example we have. We have Him brought before us. Here, of course, is the one who glorified God about the whole question of sin and opened up all His blessing for us. But what was it that characterized His whole pathway? Even the Calvary? It was doing His Father's will. That was the only.
01:15:15
Liberty that his blessed soul knew it was liberty to do His Father's will. And if you and I are in the enjoyment of this, I surely that's what will be seen in our lives as our brother brought out in the young people's meeting. It's not having our own will at all.
We have one who at such tremendous cost, at his father's will, took that place and bore the judgment so that all this blessing might flow out to us who never did one thing to please himself. Now, what an example for us. It's opened up in the end of the chapter here, but the person who did it is brought before us as the one who came into this world not like us.
He Isaiah 53, says We turned everyone to his own way.
But here's one who came into this world with one purpose, to do His Father's will. Well, may it be so with us, because we possess His life. Now I think it's interesting in the prayer in John 17, how the Lord speaks in the fourth verse. I have glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which Thou gave us me to do.
He takes that work as a gift.
Something the Father gave him to do. It was his delight to do it. Do we take up our work that way?
220 Four 224 Oh, that we never might forget what Christ has suffered for our sake.
To save our souls and make us meet of all His glory to partake. But keeping this in mind, press on to glory on the victors Crown 224.
Hold Fast
Address—P.L. Johnson
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General Meetings. Toledo, November 1980. Open meeting.
The hymn that was given out and brought before me.
The little word to Philadelphia in Revelation chapter 3.
Revelation chapter 3.
Verse 7.
And to the Angel of the church in Philadelphia, right these things, that he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shut it, and shut it, and no man open it.
I know thy works. Behold, I have set before thee an open door.
Passed a little strength, and has kept my word, and has not denied my name. Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee because thou hast kept the word of my patience. I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come.
All the world to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly, hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
Now, it wasn't my exercises to speak in detail on the verses that we have read.
But verse 11 was especially what I had before me.
Behold, I come quickly.
Which is, we've been reminded, even in these meetings.
That we are.
Are in expectation of the soon return of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Behold, I come quickly. And I'd like to say in passing that the real ground for our expectation of the Lord's soon return is His own word. Behold, I come quickly. That's really the ground of our expectation.
Of his soon return. Behold, I come quickly.
I'm not going to say anything in regard to events that one might take an account of that are going on in the world, but I do feel that the word, the words of the Lord Himself, should be that which really gives us the expectancy of His soon coming. Behold, I come quickly.
Now in view of that, he says, Hold that fast which thou hast.
Well, our brother yesterday gave a very good illustration, which was, as he said, a true experience of one who held fast, held tenaciously, that which had been committed to him, even though he lost his life in the process. But he held fast that which he had, and I have no doubt about what the reason for it.
Was that he valued that.
He valued that.
And what I had before me is to speak a little in regard to that which has been brought to us.
In the grace and goodness of God, in his beloved Son, through his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, and that into which we have been brought to.
That we might value.
The precious truth value that which God has.
Revealed of his heart and of his mind, and of his will.
And I believe that if we truly value these things, and as we have indicated here in the church at Philadelphia, these precious things once given by God by divine inspiration through chosen instruments of old.
Those things have been recovered and restored to the people of God.
I believe we can say that those of us who are living at this particular time in the history of man on the earth are the most privileged of all people who have ever lived.
00:05:09
We are those who have the fully revealed mind of God. We have all of the accumulated, you might say.
Understanding and revelation of the ways of God with His people. Think of all that we have available to us in this precious book that God has given. And not only that, but we're living in a day when these truths have been unfolded.
By the Spirit of God, through vessels that he has taken up and used.
We're living in days of great light and great privilege, but the question is, do we really value that which God has given?
This is what always impresses me when I read the Epistle to the Hebrews.
That the Spirit of God there would want to impress upon them the value of that into which they had been brought, and that which God had brought unto them, So that they would not turn away, so that they would not give it up, so that they would not want to have it corrupted and altered in any way.
Turn back to the Epistle to the Hebrews chapter.
11.
I made a statement as to our living and privileged times.
And I want to read a verse that would bear that out, I feel.
Verse 39 of Chapter 11.
After God had given these wonderful witnesses.
To the path of faith.
And very worthy they were. We read that these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us.
That they without us should not be made perfect, Well, no doubt that being made perfect here would refer to.
They're being brought into the glorified state.
The glorified bodies, they are those spirits of justice men. All of these Old Testament worthies we know are with the Lord. They are the spirits of just men. They're not yet made perfect because they do not have their glorified bodies. They will receive those bodies of glory when we receive hours at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But meanwhile it says God having provided some better thing for us.
Oh that to think that these men of faith.
Faithful men and women as well brought before us in this chapter, and when we read this chapter, we are made to feel how far short we fall from these who have walked the pathway of faith here.
And we feel that they have been. They have honored the Lord, perhaps.
More than we have. And yet God has provided some better thing.
For us, some better thing, and that's what we find all the way through this epistle to the Hebrews. These better things, the good things to come. Well, it isn't because of our worthiness. We know that there are better things because God is now, has now made known the fullness of his heart and his mind and his will, as we've had before us in our readings.
That that baptism, that he was to be baptized with the Lord Jesus says now having been accomplished, the floodgates are open and God has brought to us wonderful blessing. He has unfolded things to us that was never known before, and he's brought us into a position that these who were faithful in Old Testament times never enjoyed a place of nearness.
A place in association with his beloved son.
A place before him as his children and as sons too, and with His Spirit indwelling us. And as I've already said, the whole revealed mind of God made known to us in this precious book. Well.
00:10:19
Perhaps the danger with us is somewhat like the Hebrews, that we do not value it. This is what was given by God in the beginning. Turned back to the book of Acts chapter 20.
A verse that I often refer to.
But it's really a striking statement.
Paul in verse 26 of Acts 20 says.
Wherefore I take you to a record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men, For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the council of God.
All the counsel of God.
I wonder if we really appreciate the fact that we are in such wonderful light of having all the council of God. God has held nothing back.
When Solomon dedicated the temple, he had to speak of God as dwelling in the thick darkness.
But now God has come out in the light, so to speak. He has come out in light, and he has made known.
All his counsels.
We read in our reading.
Of the of that book.
Lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written of Maine, and it was pointed out that that book contains the purposes and counsels of God. And now in Christianity God is unfolding those purposes and councils, those things that come out from His heart, from his.
Own innermost being, as it were.
I have often thought that if we were allowed to have a an intimate conversation with the President of the United States so that we would be assured that he would speak what was really on his mind and in his heart and tell us what his thoughts were and just spoke to us.
In a very, very intimate way, revealing himself.
In a way that he wouldn't dare to do, you might say publicly. Why we might say that would be very interesting, how we would like to be able to have a conversation like that.
Well, I wonder if we've ever thought that we have, in this precious revelation that is so easily accessible to us, what comes forth from the very, very heart and mind of God.
And we know, of course, that in the Old Testament it's chiefly a record of God's dealings, God's ways with his people and his dealings with men generally. And when we come to Christianity, the subject of the New Testament, it's more the unfolding of those purposes and counsels of God, the great light.
That has now been brought in well in this very book of Acts I'd like to refer.
Back in chapter nine, first of all.
In the experience of Saul of Tarsus.
As he later of course becomes the Apostle Paul as the one.
Who was used of the Lord to make these things known?
The experience he had on that road to Damascus would perhaps indicate something of the light that God has now brought out to us from himself, the light of Christianity, which is.
Greater than anything that God has ever brought out before.
Now I just used a word that reminds me of something we have the subject of the Gospel of John.
You remember when Nathaniel is brought to the Lord Jesus?
And he confesses him to be the Christ, the Son of God. No doubt that was an Orthodox Jewish confession, as we have in the second Psalm.
00:15:12
As the King, as the Christ, the Anointed One set upon his holy hill of Zion, and he's also spoken of as his Son. But the Lord Jesus says to him that thou shalt see greater things than this.
Greater things, and I believe we have in the Gospel of John those greater things brought out. We find that when he speaks to Nicodemus in chapter three, he speaks first of the earthly things and then he says, now I'm going to speak to you about heavenly things. And he brings out the truth of eternal life, the truth of eternal life, the heavenly things.
Earthly things were known in Judaism, but now the heavenly things are brought out.
And even in that second chapter, it was said there that the best wine was kept until the last. Well, I know that perhaps that might be applied to the to the coming day of the Millennium, but I think in principle it applies even today that the best has been kept until the last. And we find all the way through in John's Gospel the greater things brought in now in connection with the Son of God.
Who has come down from heaven? From God?
The one who is in the bosom of the Father, and he declares.
The father, Well, those are some of the greater things. Well, now in the experience of Saul of Tarsus.
When he is stricken down on that road to Damascus, as we read here in Chapter 9.
Verse Three. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven.
A light from heaven.
This is what characterizes.
Christianity. This is what characterizes that better thing that God has.
Reserved for us, this is what characterizes those greater things.
This is what has been brought to us.
And the person of the Lord Jesus.
And what we've been brought into the heavenly light, that which has come down from heaven, and we are now those who are associated with heaven.
Heavenly things.
Well, I mentioned this because I feel.
In myself and I find with the Lord's people generally that there is a tendency to drop down to an earthly level now, not necessarily a worldly in the sense of going out into all of the the worldly amusements and pursuits that the world goes after, but just earthly dropping down into.
An earthly state of things and an earthly mindedness.
But we find that the truth that God has brought us into, the truth that God has restored, is of a heavenly character. It is that which opens up heaven to us. It is that which not only assures us of being in heaven, but puts us in touch and contact with heavenly things even now, as the apostle says, while we look not on the things that are seen.
But on the things that are not seen, well, those things that are not seen are the heavenly things.
We know that before the work of the Lord Jesus, his sufferings on the cross.
His resurrection and ascension to heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit. Why it was necessarily occupation with things that are seen and earthly things. But now God has introduced the heavenly.
And this is really a part of the testimony that God has committed to us.
That which thou hast.
Which has been committed of the whole purpose and counsel of God. What has been unfolded and now is available to us here. He says it's a light from heaven, the heavenly things and we know of course that the not only do we find a tendency to drop down to an earthly state of things, but we know that this world.
Resists the heavenly things.
00:20:03
I have no doubt but what?
That which aroused the enmity of this world was the fact that the Lord Jesus, as He said that He was from above, they were from beneath, they were of this world, but He was not of the world. And this aroused their animosity. As I said in the readings this morning, it was not the useful deeds that the Lord Jesus did. It wasn't that He was that He went around doing.
Healing those that were oppressed of the devil, that aroused the animosity. It was because he was that heavenly one, the one who came down from heaven, and he was not in, he was not in consort with this world in any way, but he was heavenly. Well, that's the light that has been brought to us, as he says here, a light from heaven.
Now turn over to the 22nd chapter.
As he recounts this experience, the.
In chapter 222.
Verse 6.
And it came to pass that as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly they're shone from heaven a great light round about me. Now you notice here a little change in the wording. In the 9th chapter it was said it was a light from heaven that would emphasize the heavenly.
Features.
Found in the truth of Christianity.
Now we read here that it is. He refers to it as a great light. A great light. Well, this is in keeping with what I've said in regard to the Epistle to the Hebrews, as well as the Gospel of John bringing before us that light, that it is greater and better than anything that God has ever given before.
A great light round about me.
Well, I know that.
Actually, literally that he's referring to that light that shone down from heaven, but I believe we can see in this a little away in anticipation.
Of the ministry of the apostle Paul as the one who was used of God to bring out as he says in Acts 20.
All the counsel of God.
Do we really look upon it as a great light?
You know, I'm satisfied that.
Whatever thing is that we value, it may not be something of great value to others, but if we value it, we're going to hold on to it.
And if it's something that is important to us, we're going to continue in it.
I believe we all recognize that, and I would want to impress upon each and everyone of us the greatness.
Of what God has brought us into in His precious truth, and what He's brought to us.
Through his beloved Son, all that we have that through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, as members of the body of Christ, as those who form the House of God, as those who are in the family of God, as those who have been set apart to God, sanctified and set apart to God.
As those who are not a part of this world delivered from this present evil world.
As those who are pilgrims and strangers passing through or one could go through.
The whole length and breadth and height and depth of that into which we've been brought and what has been brought to us. Do we look at it as something that is great? Do we feel how great it really is? And what a privilege it is to have such light from God? A great light. And God would impress us, impress our hearts with the greatness of it. Now it may be.
That those who.
Have not been brought into the light. Those who are still in the darkness may not think much of it.
And may not consider to be very great. And I just wonder as I'm saying these words here this afternoon, if there would be any in our midst.
00:25:00
Does not feel the greatness of what God has brought out now in Christianity, the greatness of the light from God concerning His beloved Son, in the work that He's accomplished and the blessings that result. Does it mean nothing to you? Or it would be sad that there would be any in our midst who has no appreciation of His life?
Well, of course, one would doubt if such would be really the Lord's.
No doubt, if one is a true believer on the Lord Jesus Christ, he will have in some measure at least, an appreciation of that light which is not only heavenly, but great.
But my exercise is that that appreciation might be increased, that enthusiasm for it, that desire to retain it. And now turn to the 26th chapter of this same Acts of the Apostles.
Again, the apostle is recounting his conversion.
And he says in verse 13.
At midday, O King, I saw in the way a light from heaven.
Above the brightness of the sun.
Not only a heavenly light, a great light, but here he says it's above the brightness of the sun. The brightness of the sun. Well, what would that perhaps suggest to us?
I believe it would suggest that it is light that is beyond the creature, so to speak, beyond created things. The sun is the greatest light in the this created immediate universe of ours. It's the great light that God has put into the heavens. But it's a created thing now, this light that has come down to us, this light that we have received.
Is above the brightness of the sun.
It is above and beyond the creature.
It did not emanate from the mind of man, but it came forth from the mind and the heart of God Himself.
We read in First Corinthians 2. I have not seen nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him, but God has revealed him unto us by His Spirit.
See, it's beyond the eye of man to see, and his ear to hear, and his mind to conceive, but God has revealed him unto us by His Spirit, which would suggest, of course, that if one has not the Spirit of God, he does not have the capacity to enter into this light.
And consequently, of course, he would have no appreciation and value for this light. But those of us who have received the Spirit of God, having believed the gospel of our salvation, our hearts having been purified by faith, God has given us his Holy Spirit. And so his by the Spirit, we're able to enter in to these things that are beyond.
The mind of man.
Because it comes forth from the mind and the heart of God above the brightness.
Of the sun, how great are these things, how wonderful this light. Well, now I'd like to say a little word in regard to.
The privileged day in which we live. If you'll turn back to Revelation again. Chapter 3.
And I want to refer to a word that he said to Sardis.
In this chapter.
Verse 2.
Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain.
Ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Now we've had this word perfect before us in our readings.
And I don't know that I would want to undertake to give a definition. You really have to take it in its context each time it's used.
To understand what it is referring to.
Here the thought is, I have not found thy works complete.
00:30:04
Something was missing.
I have not found thy works complete. Now what is this referring to?
Those of us who are familiar with these letters to the seven churches in Asia.
Know that we have here the history written.
By God, the moral history of the Church in its responsibility as a light bearer in this world.
The Apostle Paul was used of God to establish the church.
Now not established on the day of Pentecost, but to establish it in its practice, in its doctrine, its teaching, and in its function in a practical way. It was through his ministry that it was established, and it was through him that it was endowed with the great light that God had for his people.
And then he leaves. As he says in the 20th chapter of Acts, he was about to depart.
And he was leaving them.
And they were left with this great light, They were left with the whole council of God, this heavenly light, this great light, this light above the brightness of the sun.
They were endowed with that.
Now they were responsible to maintain it.
Walk in the light of it.
To value it.
To know the practical power of it.
And we know that after the apostles left the scene, that soon, it had to be said, thou had fallen to the church. It fell, it left its first love, it dropped down from that elevated place in which it had been placed through the goodness of God in the ministry of the apostles.
And we know in these 7 letters to the seven churches, as I say, we have the moral history of the church.
And we see the downward course from Ephesus.
Right down to Thyatira and when we come to Thyatira.
Its darkness and not light. That heavenly light as it were, had been extinguished. That great light, that light above the brightness of the sun. Now that is not to say that it did not exist in the word. It did. It is never perished, but in a practical way it was lost to the people of God. It becomes submerged.
It had become, as it were, a light hid under a bushel or under a bed.
Was not shining, and God worked in his goodness to recover.
And to restore in a practical way, and for the enjoyment and blessing of the people of God, that precious truth, that heavenly light, that great light, that light above the brightness of the sun. And as He began to affect this recovery, we find that Sardis is the result of the first effort.
And the first stage, we might say.
In the recovery of that light that had been lost, but there was not a full recovery. It was only partial. And I have no doubt that what it has referenced to what God recovered at what we call the Reformation, there was a certain amount of recovery of the Christian truth that with which the church had been endowed. But it was not a full recovery. And that's what he's referring to here when he says I have not found.
Works perfect or complete. It wasn't a complete recovery.
Philadelphia represents, I believe, that full and complete.
Recovery so that the truth has been brought out again the light.
Has been restored and recovered. Now we live in a day.
As I've said, the most privileged dispensation of all of the dispensations of God.
We live in a day when the.
Council of God has been revealed and also in a day when that has been recovered.
And restored. The light has been recovered and restored. Perhaps that's what's referred to in verse 7.
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When the Lord says there that he has the key of David.
And he speaks about opening.
And again in verse eight I have set before thee and opened. It should read OPENED.
And open the door, indicating that the door had been shut. Now it is open.
It's an open door. The door is now open. The light has been restored and recovered.
Do we value it?
Do we steam it?
With the proper estimation or is it something that we.
Take for granted. Is it something that we have become so familiar with in a way?
I'm speaking now as to knowledge that we do not really value it in our hearts.
Well, we know that just as the light was lost in the beginning, that was left thy first love, that those.
Whom the truth has been restored and recovered can also let it slip away.
If there's not the real valuing of it, recognizing the better things, recognizing the greater things, and I feel that there is always the danger of flipping down to the level of the religious world around about.
Because the religious world round about us has dropped down to that level of the mixture of Judaism and Christianity.
As we had before us that ordinances of divine service in a worldly sanctuary, seeking to combine those elements.
Dropping down to a level in which the human mind can operate and function, in which the flesh can be comfortable and at ease and take part. Dropping down to the level whereby the man in the flesh can be accommodated.
And recognize, but you see the light, that heavenly light, that great light that had been brought out, that light above the brightness of the sun is above all of that.
It's above all of that. It's in connection with the 2nd man, the Lord out of heaven.
And we read as is the heavenly. Such are they also that are heavenly?
We have a connection now with the 2nd man and the heavenly man, the one who had come.
Out of heaven, the Lord out of heaven no longer associated with the one who is of the earth, earthy, the 1St man. Well, this is what was upon my heart, that we might heed the admonition. Behold, I come quickly.
Hold that fast which thou hast what God has revealed.
That better thing, the greater things.
They were in the scriptures all the time ever since they have been revealed of God.
They have been available to the people of God, but in a practical way it was lost and now it's been restored and recovered. There's been a full recovery. The Lord, as it were, has used that key of David, which perhaps have has reference to what do we have in the book of Isaiah in regard to Hill Kyle replacing Shebna, who was the treasurer of the House of God.
And if he said of Hilkiah that he would be?
But placed upon him the key of the House of David. And so it was in connection with being the treasurer of the House of God. Those wonderful treasures that God has for his people, they are opened up now, the Lord Jesus using the key of David, as it were, to open them up.
And minister them to his people. Well, may we value these things, the better things.
The good things to come, they have come. Now there are hours to enjoy.
Here, while we're here in this scene, as we pass through this world, not only we, we don't have to wait until we get to the glory. We can enter into them now and value them and walk in the light of this precious truth that God has made known to us and recovered to us that which thou hast. Hold fast.