Toledo Conference: 1983
Table of Contents
Our Times are in His Hands
Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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Deuteronomy 29 and verse 29.
The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
And then in Psalms, the book of the Psalms and the 18th chapter.
And the 30th verse. As for God, his way is perfect.
The word of the Lord is pride. He is a buckler to all those that trust in him. Then in Psalm 31.
Psalm 31 and verse 14. But I trusted in thee, Oh Lord, I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand. Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.
Oh, brethren, what I had on my heart this afternoon was to speak a little bit of the different ways of God in suffering, in connection with the lives of believers. I believe we can learn much by what the word of God reveals to us as to these different ways that suffering come. We know that it's part of this world in which we live, and we'll see how that God has a purpose in all the things that come, although we may not always understand.
This is a very lovely verse that is brought before us here in Deuteronomy 29. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God. There are things that God has not been pleased to make known to us. There are things He has been pleased to make known for which we thank Him. And as someone has said, that we should never allow the things that we don't know and don't understand to spoil the things that we do know and do understand.
How often it's so that because there's something we don't understand, we dwell upon it, we get upset about it. Instead of enjoying the 101 Things and far more that God has made known to us that it is our privilege to know and enjoy. And as children of God, how very richly we have been blessed. Oh, how marvelous. As Mr. Darby once said, the path of the Christian is worthwhile.
If it were 1000 times harder than it is because we know where the path is going to end, we know it's going to be fullness of joy in that glory above. And so as we think of this, we have the courage to go on in the pathway it tells us in Proverbs.
Where no vision is, the people perish. And if we don't have a vision of coming glory, why we do perish? Or is another translation reads. We cast off restraint.
That is, we say it's not worthwhile. This conflict is too difficult, There are too many problems.
And yet, when we think of the end of the journey, when we think of the future that awaits us, why our hearts ought to be filled with praise and Thanksgiving? Because of all that we know of, all that has been secured to us, and at so great a cost. The Lord Jesus loved us and gave himself for us. He wanted us not only to save us from the penalty of our sins, but the wonder to my soul, brethren, is.
That he wanted to have my company. I just can't understand that. But I believe it's true.
It says in Proverbs chapter 8 that when he created this world, his delights were with the sons of men, and that he was rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth. Yes, And when man sinned, as they did in the Garden of Eden. And then it's to me as though God said, well, you spoil this world that I made so beautiful for you, but I'm going to give you something better than what you have spoiled.
And it's going to cost me a great deal. But I want your company so much that I'm willing to pay the price so that I can have your company in a place you can't spoil. Oh brethren, our hearts ought to be filled with thankfulness. We ought to be lifting a note of praise to the Lord as a little him says. This is my story, this is my song, praising my savior all the day long.
So here in this verse here, God gave many instructions to his people. Some of them they could understand, some of them they couldn't. Some of them, when they understood them, they could do them intelligently and in faith. Others they did without understanding. For instance, if you had asked an Israelite why do the insides of an animal have to be washed a certain way before you sacrifice them, why he'd have to say, well, I don't know.
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I just know that God has said that, and so I do it in loving obedience to Him.
There were things that they were called upon to do that they didn't understand.
But there was much that they did, much that they could rejoice in. God made it very clear to them.
That he had a glorious lamb for them, a lamb full flowing with milk and honey.
Where he would come and bless them, and that he would find his own delight, as he will in the coming day. When he does fully bless them, it says He will joy over the US singing, He will rest in his love. So let us then if there are things that we don't understand, let us be content to leave those things with God, Because as we will see, I trust with the Lord's help, there is a day coming when we will understand.
Now we find here in this twenty 29th 18 Psalm, it says. As for God, his way is perfect. He is the word of the Lord is tried. He is a buckler to all those that trust in him. No one that has really trusted him hasn't found that he's faithful to his word, that he is a buckler to those that trust him, the ones I feel most sorry for.
Are the ones who don't trust him. Because I know if you don't trust him, there's nothing worse for a Christian than the weed of unbelief growing in our hearts. And I have to say I've experienced it myself, and it can make you terribly miserable. Doubting the wisdom and love of God's ways will only make you miserable. But believing what God says, you'll find that his word is tried like the lady who wrote beside a lot of verses in her Bible, T&P.
And someone said to her, well, what does that mean besides so many verses? Well, she said, tried and proven.
She had proved these things to be true, and so we have this privilege too.
Of knowing that God's word is true and he is a buckler to those that trust in him.
And then in this 33rd Psalm, it's very interesting how it comes in here in the 33rd, in the 32nd, no, pardon me, it's in the 30th Psalm.
In May 6th verse it says, And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved, Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong, thy doubt its tie thy face. And I was troubled. Sometimes God is very good to us. Sometimes he does make so to speak our mountain to stand strong. He seems to undertake for us, and protect us, and care for us in remarkable ways.
But then there are times when he allows trouble to come, as he did with Job and others, And he said, thou did side thy face, and I was troubled. And then, as you see, he goes through quite a little exercise, and then in his 31St Psalm that we've read.
He could say, but I trusted in thee, O Lord, I said, thou art my God. My times are in my hand. Oh, how lovely to come to that point where we can say my times are in my hand. To know that those hands, as we sang, that our many sins have pierced, is now our guard and our guide. Well, having this thought before us, our brothers spoke about these ways of God a little bit on the young people's meeting on Friday.
And I just like to look on some of the different aspects of God's ways. He showed how that God did have a protection. Sometimes he withdrew that protection. But we know that he has a particular purpose in all the things that come. And there are some of them that we just will never understand down here in this life. There are those things that come that we just have to leave with God.
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But there are others. Let us turn first of all now to Romans chapter 8.
Romans chapter 8.
Says here in the.
22nd verse For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Now that shows us that there are some things that come just because we are part of this groaning creation.
And we might think of that man in the 8th chapter of John. The Lord Jesus came along where that young man was, and it tells us that he was there. And his disciples asked the question, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind. And the Lord's answer was neither did this man sin, nor his parents thought that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
Now, as I say, there's always some purpose that God has in everything, but there are some things that are not necessarily because of anything that we have done in our lives. Now this young man that was by.
Where in the 8th chapter, 9th chapter of John rather he was born blind. He was part of the groaning creation. There wasn't any particular discipline that had come upon him.
But it's just that he was part of that groaning creation. But it tells us how that the works of God were made manifest in him. The very fact that he was born blind made him feel his need of the Lord. And there were many other people when the Lord Jesus passed by that could see him with good eyes and they didn't particularly feel their need. But the Lord Jesus saw this man.
And this man felt his need. And Ohio how grateful he was.
When the Lord opened his eyes. And you know, I believe, that there will be many people in heaven.
And they'll say, well, I was born with some physical disability, but I don't regret that.
I know that God has used that very thing to make me feel my need of him.
It has caused me to turn to the Lord. And so how often those who have health and strength and all those kind of things that really have a easy life, as we might say, they just go on enjoying the pleasures of this world and leave God out. So God does have a purpose even in things that come upon us quite apart from anything that we have done, things that perhaps we were born with.
Perhaps you have some physical thing that you were born with and you say why.
Well, God can use that very thing to make you feel constantly dependent how often those of us who are true Christians and who are older have. Because we're part of this groaning creation, we have partaken of some physical limitation, and that has taught us dependence.
It has taught us constantly to be asking the Lord to help us. And if we didn't have that, who can tell how independent, how self willed we might be, what things we might plunge into? And so we can see that there are things that take place in our lives. They're not particularly the governmental ways of God because of failure or other things that with the Lord's help we'll speak about, but just those things that are because we are part of this groaning creation.
And if I'm speaking to someone and you say I've never had good health, I've had handicaps that other people don't have, and it really gets me down at times, and I don't know what I have done. Well, that man hadn't done anything particular, that he was born blind, but it made him feel his need of Jesus. And as our brother brought before us last night, how beautiful it was to see that man with all those leaders, perhaps with the best of health, rejecting the Lord.
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But his eyes were opened and his heart was opened to acknowledge the Lord Jesus.
Son of God. And so instead of feeling grieved and upset because we have these things, let us realize that God has some purpose to teach us dependence upon Him, to keep us looking to Him constantly through our lives, so that we might find the help that we need from Him. And it doesn't need to make us search our hearts and say what? What have I done?
As I say, this man hadn't done something, but it was a blessing. It was for his good and God used it for his good too. Well, these are things that do come upon us. And as we grow older too, the body has wears out. The scripture says the days of our years are three score years and 10. We can't expect to always have good health as we grow older. I remember visiting an old Christian. He was about 80 years old.
And he was constantly complaining that he didn't feel as well when he was 60 as when he was sixty. Well, I would hardly expect that I would feel quite as good at 80 if I lived to be that as I do and as I would at 60. Well, so, you know, we can't expect the body's going to wear out. But, you know, it's very blessed as we get older to learn more and more dependence on the Lord. The scripture speaks of those who bring forth fruit in old age.
And there's nothing sweeter than to visit someone in an old folks home and see them praising the Lord.
Learning to trust him in a new way as they get older and find the limitations of old age. Well, that's not particularly the governmental ways of God. That's just that the body wears out, brethren. Our bodies are part of a groaning creation, and it says not only the.
Creation, the animal creation, not only unbelievers, but not only they but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit.
Even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, To wit, the redemption of our body and the Lord is sufficient for every stage of life, no matter what it may be. Whether it's youth, whether it's middle life or old age, the Lord is sufficient. He is enough to fill and satisfy the heart, and He delights to do that so that we would be happy and rejoicing in Him.
But the only way we can do this is when this verse really grips our souls. Our times are in my hand. We're content with what he orders in our lives. I've told a story before as an illustration, and perhaps some have heard it, But the little boy who was flying a kite and it was a beautiful day and the wind was taking the kite up higher and higher and he was having to let out more string as it went higher.
And someone walked by and said, why are you holding your kite down? It wants to get up, and you're just holding it down with that string. Why don't you let go and see how high it will go? Well, he let go of the string. And we all know what happened. Yes, the kite came down. The very thing that was holding it down was also keeping it up. And brethren, this is so true that those things that are keeping us down are often keeping us up.
They're keeping us in communion. They're keeping us independence upon the Lord, and that is always for our good and for our blessing. And now I'd like to turn to another one in Second Samuel.
Second Samuel in the 11Th chapter.
Well, perhaps our turnover is a little more about it in the 12Th chapter. Romans, I mean.
Two Samuel, Chapter 12.
And the seventh verse and Nathan said unto David, Thou art the man.
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul. And I gave thy master, gave thee thy masters house, and thy masters wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the House of Israel and of Judah. And if that had been too little, I would, moreover, have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in our his sight?
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That was killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and has taken his wife to be thy wife.
And has slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house, and because thou hast despised me, and has taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite, to be thy wife.
Well, this is one of the ones, Brandon, that I have to say that God has left it as one of his secret things. I don't know that I can in any way say why God allowed this to happen to Uriah. I'm not speaking now about his government upon David, but why the Lord allowed this to happen to Uriah. If you go back to the 11Th chapter, perhaps I should read a few verses the 11Th verse.
And Uriah said unto David the Ark, and Israel and Judah abide in tents. And my Lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are encamped in the open fields.
Shall I then go into mine house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife?
As thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing.
Here was a man, perhaps one of the most devoted of David servants, Uriah, the Hittite. And it wasn't for anything that he had done, because his answer shows that he really had a desire to please God. He really valued the ark, as our brother brought before us this morning, and God's people and their interests. And here, by the treacherousness of David, another person who was a real believer.
He was actually put out in the forefront of the battle and killed he he. Could you say what blessing did he get from that? Well, that's one of the secret things that we have to expect sometimes, that there are questions in life to which we will never find the answers. Down here I was quite struck because I can look at other passages and with the Lord's help I will, and show how we can get a blessing.
Out of the sufferings and the trials that we go through, how about you would say what blessing did Jiraiya get from this? Well, I all I can say is that I'll have to wait until that coming day to find out. I can say this however, that God knew what was ahead for Uriah. And if Uriah had ever found out what was happened, he would have been a terribly sad and crushed man and God didn't let him see that. And sometimes God sees things ahead.
In our lives that we don't see things, that we don't know what's ahead, he does.
And he knew what was ahead for Uriah, if he ever found out what had happened. And so the Lord took him away, and we find him numbered among Davidde mighty men. He was counted as one who was one of the mighty men for David. And I'm sure that when we meet a Uriah in glory, that we will see that God honored his faithfulness. And sometimes our faith is put to the test in things. And brethren, I say again.
There are things that we just have to say. I'll never find out in this life, but on another day.
We shall know, even as also we are known, are we content to take things, those hard questions of life, those situations to which there seems absolutely no answer. God delights in that faith that counts upon Him, as we had in that verse.
The trial of your faith is much more precious than a goal that perisheth though it be tried with fire. And I think Uriah's faith was tried with fire, and it says it'll be found under praise and honor and glory. At the revelation of Jesus Christ. I expect to see Uriah get a great reward. Perhaps I can say a greater reward than this than if this had never happened because it brought out his devotedness to the Lord.
And to the Lord's people. And the hardest part of it all was he didn't bear it from an unbeliever.
But he had to suffer it from a believer. Have you suffered something from a believer? And there seemed absolutely no explanation why the thing should have happened as it was. Well, just think about this and just think about the faith of Uriah and by the Lorde grace look up and ask him to help you to leave all with God, to commit it to him. And no, I'm glad that God has put this story in the Word, because I can think of a lot of other stories that I can see some good came from the thing.
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I can tell you of other things in the Scripture where people learn lessons, But here there was just a matter of simply committing the whole matter to the Lord. And there are times like this in life, and I wish to encourage you. Perhaps someone has done something to you and you get bitter. You get away. You leave the meeting, you turn against them. What have you gained? I say you've lost everything by doing it. The Lord has forgiven us for many things.
And he can give us the grace in situations, no matter how difficult, to just leave all with God. So in this second case, there is something that can't be explained, but it will be in another day. Well, and there's another kind of suffering. Perhaps we could find that in Philippians.
Philippians chapter one.
And verse 29.
For unto you it is given on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict which he saw in me, and now here to be in me. Well, here's another kind of suffering, and that tells us here.
Not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake. We could think of cases of this. I'll take one instance. We think of Paul and Silas. They came to preach the gospel in Philippi. They were sent there by the Lord. They were doing His will. It was not for any disobedience or self will in their lives that they had to suffer on that occasion, but it was because.
The world is opposed to the gospel. And while I stand here talking to you.
I'm sure that I could safely say that there are thousands upon thousands of real Christians who are suffering for Christ sake. It's not for some wrong that they have done, it's because they're in a hostile world, they're in an enemies land and they're suffering.
As we look back in the history of the Church, why the history of the Church has been.
Filled with suffering Saints, people who have given their lives for Christ.
People who would rather die than be unfaithful to their Lord or deny him.
It says.
In Revelation. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.
And by the word of their testimony. And they love not their lives.
Unto the death, and there will come in your life, and in mine, if we seek to be faithful to the Lord.
Times when we'll suffer for Christ, when the confession of his name will bring reproach and suffering. It might mean just being laughed at. It might mean that you lose a promotion or lose your job. It might mean that you have to suffer, like some have in Russia and other places where they're sent to Siberia and our brethren out in India if they make a confession of Christ.
They have to be content with more menial jobs because they are not following.
The ordinary religion of the country. And so there are many ways, brethren and dear young people, that we are called upon to suffer for Christ. Is it worth it? Is it worth it? Is this world so important to us that we would rather put our light under a bushel or under a bed? That rather than be faithful to Christ? I believe the bushel means business, and the bad means laziness.
And you know, there are two things that do hinder us from being loyal to the Lord, and that is we don't like to lose out in material things. We don't like to lose out in things that we think are really important and then make up life. But all when we think of what the Lord gave up for us. The only person who could choose where he would be born was born in a Manger, the person who could say the silver and the gold is buying.
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But while walking through this world would say show me a penny, and we think of him not having a place to lay his head. And yet he made all the things that are used to build a finest, finest houses in this world. All think of our precious Savior. What an example he's left for us.
Oh, I say, and I say it to myself. Are we holding back from some situation?
That involves suffering for Christ. Oh, it's worth it. It's given to us. It's not as though it were something that we just had to do. As though a soldier is ordered into an action that he is not very anxious to go in because he has to face the gunfire. But you and I, it says it's something that is given to us, the privilege of suffering in this world for Christ.
Paul speaks of it. He experienced it himself. And now?
That was a far greater joy than the finest pay that they could have got for doing anything. Well, it's worth it. Suffering for Christ. And now we have another one in First Peter, Chapter 3.
First Peter 3 and verse 14.
But on if he suffered for righteousness, sake, happy are ye and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. And be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you, a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, that whereas they speak evil of you as of evil doers.
They may be ashamed that falsely accused your good conversation.
In Christ.
Well, we spoke about suffering for Christ. Now it's here it says suffering for righteousness sake. If I could think of an example of that in the Bible, I would think of Joseph. When Joseph was sold down into Egypt and then was given a job there working in the House of Potiphar, he sought to maintain a good conscience. He sought to do his work well, as he certainly should, and we all should.
When we're working for an employer. But there was a situation there that brought temptation with it. And when he was put in this spot, why, It wasn't a matter of preaching the gospel there. It wasn't a matter of trying to bear a testimony that she might be saved, but it was to maintain a good conscience. And when he was put to the test, why it tells us this, was his reply.
God forbid that I should do this great wickedness and sin against God.
He sought to maintain a good conscience and I know the way the world is today.
It's very easy for them to say, oh, don't worry, everybody does this. It's maybe not altogether straightforward, but everybody's doing it. And it's very easy, dear young people, and we who are older too, in the business world, very easy for us to not to maintain a good conscience, just to let little things slip in where we know that we haven't done what the Lord would have us do, what was thoroughly honest and upright.
Where we could say at the end of the day, as Paul said here into I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man, well, that's suffering for righteousness sake. And you know, that was very hard. That was very hard for Joseph on that occasion. Sometimes the Lord helps us when we try to be upright and honest, but sometimes the same thing happens to us that happened to.
Joseph Joseph, Joseph not only lost his job.
And I think it might have been a pretty fair job that he had because he was in charge of the household, but he was actually put in prison for trying to maintain a good conscience. Yes, he was put in prison. And why did God allow that, you say? If he was trying to maintain a good conscience, why didn't God uphold him? Sometimes, brethren, we have to suffer for righteousness sake. Sometimes we have to suffer. Young people have lost their jobs. Young people have failed to get promotions.
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Just because they desired to be thoroughly honest and upright and so this is suffering for righteousness sake. And Joseph Thayer was cast into prison, but you know, God had his hand in it. And there in that prison he was able to speak to that Butler. And that Butler was I believe, led to put his faith in the Lord. And he afterwards turned around and spoke up for Joseph and was the means of him getting out of prison.
Well, we see how God has ways. In situations like this, He accomplishes his own purposes. But here we sometimes have to suffer for this. I'm Speaking of the various ways that we have to suffer in this world. It's a world where everything is out of order, so to speak, and it tells us not to be afraid of their terror and either to be troubled. We find the same thing with those three Hebrew children.
Have sometimes said they probably could have found a way to get out of that situation. When they were told they had to bow down. They could have easily said, well, putting your head down isn't necessarily bowing, that's just a muscular thing. And they could have found a way of getting away from the responsibility of being loyal to the Lord. But no, they wouldn't. They rather would maintain a good conscience. The same with David, with Daniel rather.
He was in the school at Babylon, and he refused to eat of the King's meat or drink of the wine that he drank. He sought to maintain a good conscience before God.
And you know, there's a warning in Timothy that sometimes in giving up a good conscience, it says we make shipwreck. That doesn't mean we can be lost, but we can definitely spoil our usefulness in our Christian testimony. And the world is very alert about that. I don't think there's anything the world is more ready to point a finger at a Christian, as in anything where he thinks that he has been a little bit dishonest, how quick they are to make a great deal out of it.
How it reflects on the testimony. Well, there is such a thing as suffering for righteousness sake. And then it says to be ready to give an answer when we're asked, ready to tell why. And so that's what that's what Joseph did. He was ready to tell. He said, God forbid that I should do this great wickedness and sin against God.
Well then there's also suffering. Turn over to John, Chapter 15.
John chapter 15 and verse one.
I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, but every branch that beareth fruit he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit. Now we have the dealings of God with us as his children. This is not so much what we suffer in an outward way, like the case of Uriah, or suffering for righteousness sake, or suffering for our testimony to Christ.
But here it's the Lord himself. Here is God our Father as the husbandman.
And he sees that we are bearing fruit. When I read this, I think about Job. The Lord bore a very wonderful testimony to Job. He said that he was a perfect and an upright man, and one that feared God and astute evil. But God had a desire that there should be more fruit. And there was something that was hidden in Job's heart that Job wasn't aware of a little hindrance to bearing fruit. And it was very hidden because outwardly, his life seemed to be.
And was very upright and good, but you know, they're inside there. There was a pride.
There was a self righteousness have sometimes said, you might be the most godly living person in the whole assembly and God would put his hand upon you and it might be brethren because we're proud and we think we're better than our brethren. Yes, that's something that God hates is pride. It's good that we should be upright and God come into Job for all these good things in his life that he was indeed a perfect and an upright man.
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And I believe when it tells us what he said about himself, that he was kind and made the widow's heart sing for joy and did so many things for people. I believe all that was true, But there was that inward pride. And you know, there's often that within us and the Lord has to prune us and Job couldn't see it himself. There's an interesting verse if you turn to Job where Elihu is talking to him. I think it's the 34th chapter.
Verse 29.
When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? And when he hideth his face, who then can behold him, whether it be done against the nation or against a man only?
The 31St verse. Surely it is meat to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement. I will not offend any more that which I see not teach thou me. If I have done iniquity, I will do no more.
Well, we see here that Elihu is the only one who really had a wise answer for Job. He's telling Job that this didn't happen by chance, and God gives quietness.
There's not a power in the world that can disturb it, as our brother brought before us the other day. There's not a power in the world can disturb it unless God allows it. And when he allows it, he has a purpose. A job searched his own heart and he said, I've been an upright man, I've been kind. Everything has been right in my life.
And if I could put it very plainly, he said. It doesn't seem fair that all this is coming upon me.
But a lie? You gave him a very, very needful and wise answer, he said. Job, why don't you ask the Lord to show you what he sees? You don't see it, but he sees something. And Mr. Darby once said, the flesh in another is easily detected, but we don't see it in ourselves. Isn't that true of a lot of us? We don't see it in ourselves, but we see it in others. And there was that in Job that he didn't realize.
And Eli, who says, why don't you ask the Lord to show it to you? And we finally see that God did show to Job what was the root of his trouble. He was pruning him. There was that which was useless, so to speak. It was Job in his importance as being a better man than his neighbor. And God had to take care of that. He had to prune those branches that weren't going to bear any fruit for him.
And he passed Job through a great deal to do that. And sometimes I don't know much about pruning, but as I've been told of those who who pruned by it almost seems ruthless the way they go out the trees. But what was the result in Jobs life? It almost seems to the natural man when you read Job, as though God was placing on him more than he could bear. But what was the result? In the end, Job was drawn nearer to the Lord.
It tells us that he had twice as much as he had before, And he had three children, three daughters who are spoken of as the fairest in the land. And the three names bring before us fragrance, purity and beauty. And that's what God wants in US, brethren. He wants that fragrance of Christ, that purity of Christ. And he wants us to be for his glory here, fragrance, purity and beauty, that beauty of Christ to be seen in us. And I believe that that pruning produced that result with Job.
And so sometimes when we go through trials instead of giving ourselves a clean sheet.
I think we can take good heed to what Eli you said to Job and we can say Lord.
What is there in me that needs to be corrected? And then Elihu advised him. He said, if the Lord shows it to you, be willing to give it up. If I have done evil, I will do it no more. In other words, when the Lord shows it to us, do we say I can't give that up, it's part of me. Or do we say, Lord give me grace, He give us more grace? Well, that's pruning, brethren. And very often this takes place in our lives.
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Terrible things could happen like did to job, but that was pruning and the result was.
Much blessing in Job's life as a result of it. Now let's turn over to 2nd Corinthians and we'll see another case.
2 Corinthians.
Chapter 12.
And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh.
The messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure for this thing, I besought the Lord thrice that I it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Well here we could perhaps call.
What God was doing as preventing something?
There was a tendency on account of all that had been given to Paul.
That he might be exalted, that he might be lifted up with pride. There's a tendency in everyone of our hearts.
Along that line. And if the Lord gives us more than others, it's so easy for us to become proud. Well, in the case of in the case of Paul, it was in spiritual things. He had those wonderful revelations from Christ in glory. And so along with it, God gave this thorn in the flesh. He gave him that which, if I could choose the expression, made him somewhat despicable in the eyes.
And into the ears of those who listen. There's a suggestion of it when it says his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible. So that people would say, well, I like to listen to Paul, but on the other hand, he has such a poor delivery that he's awfully hard to listen to. He tells us some wonderful things, but and that that was hurtful to Paul. It really was knocking on his pride. And I'm sure that he hesitated to get up on his feet sometimes because he said, I know that people are going to find it hard to listen to me. And the Lord says that's just what you need, Paul. It's going to help to keep you humble.
And you know, God sometimes has to put blocks in our way to prevent things.
We think we just like to rush ahead and the Lord puts blocks in our way. Has He put a block in your way?
Well, his grace is sufficient. If he has put that block in the way, he knows what he is doing. And did he take it away? Now, in jobs case, he got back twice as much as before. But I think sometimes as though the Lord said to Paul, Paul, I'm not going to take it away. You're going to have it the rest of your life. You're going to have it the rest of your life. But my grace will be sufficient for you.
And there are things Even when we have learned what God has for us, He still lets them remain.
They still stay with us, and God allows it in his perfect wisdom.
And in his love, because his ways are perfect and he knows what's best, He knows our frame. He numbers the hairs of our head. He knows all about us. He knows our tendencies all about us. And so Paul learned that this was a necessary thing. And isn't it beautiful to see a submission? He says most gladly. I rather glory in my infirmities, he said. I'd rather have this thing that I have to bear with all my life.
And have a sense of the Lord's presence with me. That's better than just having all that delivery and all that nice thing that I could glory in as a man, that I was the best, I was tops and everything like that. Now he has this that keeps him down. Well, brethren, God sometimes prevents things in our lives. He sees where the road goes, and He allows things.
And he doesn't always take them away. He sometimes lets them remain.
And he teaches us to be constantly dependent on him. Now let's turn over to Hebrews chapter 12.
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Hebrews, chapter 12.
Verse 7 If he endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, were of all are partakers, then are ye ******** and not sons? Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection under the father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure.
But he for our Prophet that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Here we find another, and that is the Lord dealing with us in chastisement.
We could speak of different cases like this through the scripture, and all of us have experienced it in some measure in our lives, because it says what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not. We read about what David did to Uriah. Did David come under the chastisement of God for it all the rest of his life? The sword didn't depart from his house for what he did. He took the life of Uriah and he lost four sons.
Because of it, God has to deal. God has to deal very, very solemnly sometimes in our lives. But you know, he does it for our profit. And David was drawn near to the Lord through the chastisement that God saw fit to bring upon him. And we all need it, brethren, There's no one of us that can say, well, I'm such a good child in his family. He never has to correct me. He never has to put his hand upon me. None of us can say that.
We all have to go through this, more or less, but it's beautiful what it says.
He for our prophet it says here we had fathers that corrected us after their own pleasure.
And sometimes, as parents, we correct children for our own pleasure. If the children are noisy and they're bothering me, I might tell them to be quiet. That's for my pleasure, not for theirs. They were enjoying having a good time, but for my pleasure. I told them to be quiet. But my Father in heaven, God, my Father, is not like that. Every correction is for our good. Oh, how faithfully is how wise he is. Sometimes I was a little too strict with my children, sometimes a little too easy with them. I wasn't always wise.
In the things that I did, but I have a father who will never make a mistake in his chastening.
He knows exactly what we need. He knows the very intense of our hearts.
The Lord is a God of knowledge and by him actions are weighed. That's a beautiful verse because it shows us that God not only sees the act, but he measures the amount of self will in the act. I might do something and the Lord would have to deal much more severely with me than someone who was only saved a short time because he does make a difference and those who know their Lord's will. And so we have a Father.
If the correction is not from God as a judge, but it's from a father.
And these are part of the troubles that he brings into our lives. It's good for us to be exercised thereby. We may not always discover the exact thing, but if it has drawn us nearer to the Lord, it is the results in blessing. I'm sort of glad the verse doesn't say it heals the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those who find the reason. Because sometimes I think as Christians, we don't always see the reason for a trial that God sends.
But if it has taught us to be more dependent upon the Lord, then it has accomplished a needed purpose, even though we didn't exactly see it ourselves. And so it says that it's we might be partakers of His Holiness, and it yields a blessing when we're just exercised, when we look up and say, Lord, I want to learn what our teaching me in this trial. Well, as I say, there are many kinds of suffering that we go through.
That are part of this groaning creation. Some through unkind acts that are done by others, some because the world is hostile to Christ, some just because we want to do what's right. And then there are other things that have more directly to do with our own personal lives, preventing us from things pruning us because when we want to please the Lord, He wants to have more fruit and then correcting us when we have done what's wrong.
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There is one other that I'd like to turn to. It's in Hebrews Chapter 11.
And verse 25.
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, And then the 10th chapter and the 32nd verse, but called remembrance the former days in which, after ye were illuminated, he endured a great fight of afflictions, partly whilst you were made a gazing stock, both by reproaches.
And afflictions, and partly while he became companions of them.
Which were so used. There is another suffering that we have and that is when we cast in our lot with the people of God.
When we cast in our lot with the people of God, then we suffered along with them. That is, if they go through trials, Paul said. Who is a who is offended? And I burn not, he said.
The, the, the things that came upon him daily were were the care of all the churches he entered into the trials and sorrows of God's people. He shared them. Well, let us be willing in this, brethren.
There are a lot of trials among God's people. Do we try to run away from these situations or do we identify ourselves with the people of God? There are suffering people. Sometimes God has to correct them and we can shed our tears along with them. Even though the correction may come because of self will, we're part of it because remembers one of another in the beautiful to see this with a man like Moses, he could have enjoyed all the excellence of the court of Pharaoh.
He could have perhaps been the next pharaoh in Egypt because he was in line for it and he gave it up. What for? To have a good time with the people of God now, to suffer affliction with the people of God. May I put it very practically, too. If you take your place among those gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, you're going to have to suffer affliction along with the people of God. You may say, Oh, there's too many problems. I'm just going to stay clear of them.
Then you're not really identifying yourself with them when these Christians got saved by.
Now they it says here they became companions of those who were suffering. And so it is we cast in our lot with those who are walking to please God. Maybe they're going through trials for their own fault. We can still cast in our lot and feel for them. Isn't it beautiful what it says about the Lord in connection with Israel and their passage through the wilderness? Many of the things came on them because of their own self will.
But this is a precious verse in Isaiah. I think it's the 53rd chapter. I'm not just sure. It says.
In all the reflection he was afflicted, and the Angel of his presence saved them.
And he bare them, and carried the mall, the days of old, all that they passed through the Lord felt.
He said. You're living in tents. Make me a tent and I'll live with you. Isn't that beautiful? Or how precious? Brethren, may we go along with the people of God when they're in trial, share it with them, because we're going to share eternal joy with them. We're going to be with them in the Father's house.
Well, are we ever going to understand? We don't always understand. Now maybe we just turn to 1St Corinthians chapter 13.
First Corinthians chapter 13.
Verse 9 For we know in part and we prophecy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. And then in the 12Th verse. But now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. And one more verse in Revelation 21.
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Just verses 3:00 and 4:00.
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with man.
And he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, For the former things are passed away. I believe, brethren, we will know in a coming day. I believe it will all be explained when the Queen of Sheba came to King Solomon with all her hard questions.
She couldn't find answers to them in the country where she lived. But when she asked Solomon these questions, it says he told her all her questions. There was nothing hid from her that he told her not. And I believe when we get the glory and all tears are wiped away and it's all past, then we'll know even as also we are known, we'll understand. We'll enter into it. And what's more, I believe we'll say Amen. It was the right way.
Will not question them, as we often do. Now we'll know that all was done by one who was perfect in wisdom and love. In the meanwhile, we walked by faith, not by sight. We're companions in tribulation, as John said. And as we go through these different kinds of things that we have to in a world like this, may we realize that we're in good company, he said. I will never leave the.
Nor forsake thee.
Open Mtg.
Open—P. Johnson, G. Hayhoe
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Hebrews 2 and verse 5.
Or under the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak?
But one in a certain place testified, saying what his man with thou art mindful of him.
By the Son of man that thou visited him.
I made it seem a little lower than the angels. I crowned him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of thy hands.
I was put all things in subjection under his feet, put in that he put all in subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put under him.
But now we see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.
Crowned with glory and honor that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man.
For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things.
In bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.
For both he that sanctifies, and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which 'cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
Verse 17.
Wherefore in all things it behooves him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high Priest in things pertaining to God.
To make reconciliation for the sins of the people, for in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them.
That are tempted.
And in the 4th chapter.
And verse 15.
But we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
But was in all points tempted, like as we are yet without sin, let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace.
That we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
And in the 6th chapter.
Verse 17.
Wherein God willing more abundantly to show under the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel.
Confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge, to lay hold upon the hopes that before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil. Whether the forerunner is for us entered. Even Jesus made a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
You had before us in our readings and I believe.
In a profitable way.
The Pathway of Faith.
And we're reminded of that verse in the 12Th chapter of Hebrews, when we're exhorted that with patience we might run the race that is set before us.
And requiring any epistle to the Hebrews that it is a wilderness epistle.
It views the people of God as being still here in this world.
And in the place of testing and trial.
I'm thinking of it especially in that light.
It's the not so much the the world as to its.
Ungodly character. Of course, that might be one of the sources of trial and testing.
But we're viewed as being here in this world, in a wilderness scene, which is a place of testing and trial.
And we will be in this.
These circumstances, as long as we're here in the wilderness, that's the view in Hebrew, in the wilderness and.
It calls for faith.
And it calls for confidence and hope in God.
But I was thinking of the the way in which the Lord is for us.
As we are here in this wilderness and their trials and their testings.
For we find that everything that is in the world is against us and is contrary to faith and what we know of God. And we find as we were singing in our hymns, the last what weakness within ourselves we find. And I'm who was thought afresh as we sang that hymn, that those words were written by a man, that we would perhaps.
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Have never thought that he felt weakness.
But he had to. He wrote it in that hymn of the weakness that he felt. And so this would cause us to look to the Lord Jesus as the one who would be for us and to help us through this wilderness scene.
And I thought we might consider here in the these verses that we read the way the Lord Jesus is presented to us.
As our forerunner and as our leader, and also as our High Priest.
And in this way it would be a help and encouragement, I believe, to us as we pass through this wilderness scene and we want to keep in mind that the pathway of faith.
The path that the Lord has put us on as those who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ leads on to the world above the world. It is going to be brought into great display and exhibition in the coming days when the Lord Jesus comes at his appearing. So I read those verses in the second chapter.
To bring before us the thought of the world to come, Verse five of chapter 2.
He speaks of the world to come.
And we want to have our have our eyes set upon the end of the pathway and the gold that world to come.
We are already associated with it. We are already identified with that world above. We already belong to it, but we're not there yet.
And it says here the world to come, whereof we speak. We can speak of that world to come because we're familiar with it in the word of God.
And I would remind you that the elements that make up the world in which we live now are not the elements that make up the world to come.
That world to come is going to be an entirely have entirely different elements.
We have some of those elements, I believe, brought out in the 12Th chapter when we read how that we have already come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God. And and the Spirit of God takes us through those wonderful elements that constitute the world to come.
And over what a contrast with the world in which we live.
And I thought sometimes that perhaps we're too much occupied with the world in which we live, rather than, as the apostle says here, the world to come whereof we speak. Of course, I know that he primarily has in mind what he has to say to the Hebrews, but I think it would be well for us to be those who are so familiar with the world to come, as we are occupied with it in our thoughts and in our affections and our desires and hopes. They would also be the subject of our conversation.
The world above the world of which the Lord Jesus Christ his head.
And he's the center of that world. It's not put into subjection to angels.
Great as they are, they excel in power, but it's put into the hands of man.
And we know it's the man Christ Jesus. And we look up and to see him in that place that he has in the glory, knowing that he is the center of God's world, the world above the world that is to come. You know, we have in Scripture. I believe you can say there are three worlds brought before us. Peter speaks of them in his Second Epistle Chapter 3.
That is, he speaks of two of them. He speaks of the world that then was.
The world that perished, being overthrown with the flood, the world in which Enoch walked with God, that world that was swept away by the waters of judgment, and only eight souls brought through. That was the world that then was. That world has passed away.
And then God began anew. But we have the world that now is, and it's called this present evil world. And that's the world in which you and I live at the present time. And then we have here the world to come.
That steel future, But I would remind you that that world has already, you might say, been inaugurated because the head of it has been installed. We find that in Ephesians chapter one it already.
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The Lord Jesus has that place and that name which is above every name, and he's made to be head over all things.
So already, you might say, God has inaugurated that world to come. It's not brought out in display.
But by faith, we see it and we know that it's the world above and that's where we're going.
That's the end of our pilgrimage, our wilderness journey well.
In the 6th chapter that we read, we have the Lord Jesus brought before us there as the forerunner.
We've been speaking a little of mention in the Lord Jesus being in glory.
We know that he is there as the man you might see of God's purposes and counselors.
He's there because God had purposed in eternity past.
That he would be, as a man, the head and center of a universe of bliss.
God purposed that he's there as a man of God's counsels, but I believe He's also there as one who has glorified God here on the earth and particularly in the work of the cross. And now God has straightway glorified him. He has been raised and glorified by the glory of the Father, because he had honored and he had glorified God here on earth but here in this.
6th chapter in verse 20.
His entering into the glory is as our forerunner here. It isn't because of his own, you might say, personal worth.
But here he is entering into the glory, in a sense, for you and me.
As our representative, there is the one who's gone before, the one who is our forerunner, the one who has gone through the pathway of this wilderness and now he's entered there. The the pledge and assurance that you and I are going to be there with him. He's entered there as our forerunner. This is the hope that we have, as is mentioned here, the hope that is set before us at the end of verse 18.
The hope there is not, of course, the hope of eventually being saved or something of the sort.
It is that hope that we have as we look up and see the Lord Jesus.
In the glory as our forerunner, as I say, not only there because of his own merit.
And that of which he is deserving, but he's there as our forerunner.
Looking off unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, the one who walked this scene to the glory of God, is a man in a world of evil.
In a world that was under sin's dominion. A world filled with Satan's power.
You know, sometimes I'm afraid that we do not appreciate the character of this world through which the Lord Jesus himself passed.
We are inclined to look back.
To days that have passed away, as if they were so much better, that we're inclined to forget that sin and sorrow, and all of the grief that sin has brought in, was here in this world. When the Lord Jesus was here. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And he was. He was thoroughly and totally acquainted with grief. We only touch a little bit.
Of the knowledge of the grief and sorrow that exists in this world, even though, as was mentioned by a brother, than the days in which we live now, communications has has increased so much that we're enlarged as to our knowledge of all that is going on in the world, but still we only touch a very little part of it but the Lord Jesus.
Was acquainted with grief in a way that we shall never know.
We couldn't bear it, I'm sure of that, but the Lord Jesus was here as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
So he has gone through this world, and it wasn't a pleasant world when he was here, Remember in Mark's Gospel?
When he was there in the wilderness, being tempted, he says, he was with the wild beasts.
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I believe in the spirit of God has given us that little touch to give us to realize that he was in a world that was hostile.
He wasn't in a world that was peaceful. He wasn't in a world like.
Adam and Eve were placed in that garden of delights. He was with the wild beasts, and he's passed through it. And now he's entered into the glory as our forerunner.
And I am. I press that upon our heart. He's there is our forerunner. Can you say that we can rejoice to say he's there as the pledge and assurance that I will be there. I'm going right through this wilderness.
It may be with stumblings, and it may be with failings and sometimes with fearful heart, but I'm going to be in that glory with himself. He's my forerunner, the pledge and assurance that I will be there, and I trust that our hearts will be encouraged as we look up to see the Lord Jesus crowned with glory and honor. It's true, as the man of God's counsels and crowned there because of a work well done, is the one who has overcome and seated upon His Father's throne. But He's there, is our forerunner.
And so we have a hope, and this is what our hope is, is placed upon.
Here we find that the hope is anchored within the veil into the very presence of God.
As to our souls, we already have been brought within the veil.
We have that in the 10th chapter, do we not, that we have boldness to enter in the very holy, holy, holy of holies the holy place through the veil, that is to say, His flesh through the death of the Lord Jesus.
But here is one who has gone into the very presence of God is a man. That is, he's there in the body.
That body in which he lived in this world, and in which he suffered on the cross, was raised from the dead. He's there in the glory in that body. And while as to our souls we're already brought to God, and we are, we have that blessed place within the veil.
We anticipate being there in the glory and conform to his image in every way.
Even these bodies fashioned black unto his own body of glory. So he's there as our forerunner. But I'll turn back to the second chapter.
And here we have him as our leader.
It's one thing to have the gold before us and to know that we're going to be there.
In the glory with him, just like him, and conformed to his image. But it's another thing.
When we think of being in this wilderness, of going through it, but we have one to lead us.
That's what's involved in verse 10.
For it became him referring, I believe, to God.
For whom are all things? And by whom are all things? And bringing many sons unto glory?
To make the captain or leader of their salvation perfect through suffering.
This is not referring here to the work of the cross whereby we're saved. The salvation here, I do not believe, refers to the salvation of our souls. That is in the forgiveness of our sins and cleansing us in the eye of God. I take it that it refers to our deliverance through this wilderness.
Our being preserved, our being saved as we have go through this wilderness scene because it is a scene of testing.
And trial, trials and testing is characteristic of it. And he is the one who saved us.
He preserves us. He's going to take us right through. He's going to lead us through it. We may not know much of the wilderness, that is, we may not really know its true character. But here is one who has passed through it, and I suppose that's what it means in making him perfect. It doesn't imply that there was any imperfection with the Lord Jesus.
But we know that as existing in the form of God is read in Philippians chapter 2. There was no experience of the wilderness as he existed from all eternity. God over all blessed forever. No, no thought of a wilderness experience. There we read that he learned obedience, but the things that he suffered or it was his to command as being in the form of God, He was in the place where.
Everything was at his command. He was the Creator and the Sustainer of the universe.
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But when he came into this world as a man.
When the Word was made flesh and he had body that was prepared for him.
He entered into those circumstances of life in this scene.
Circumstances of a man in which he was he was to be obedient and submissive to his God, and he was to be here in the world among men, where there was this sin and sorrow and hostility and rebellion toward God. And in the midst of it all he would render perfect obedience, absolute perfect obedience. And that obedience brought him into suffering.
His obedience brought him into suffering.
And I believe that's what it means, that though he were a son, yet learned he obedience.
For the things that he suffered and being made perfect, that is having passed through.
That those circumstances and that condition of things here in this world, as a man obedient, perfectly submissive and suffering and knowing what it is to be in a world hostile to God and departed from God. Having gone through all of that, He's a perfect leader. He's perfectly qualified. Now, I hope you don't misunderstand me. We know, of course, that when we speak of the person of the Lord Jesus, we know that.
He is always God. And yet we have to realize too that he was a perfect man.
And so, as in, as a man, he is perfectly qualified to be the leader. He's gone this way and he went the right way. He didn't wander about, you know, the children of Israel, when they passed through that wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. What wandering.
If you've ever looked at a map, and I'm sure most of us have, of the passage of the children of Israel in that wilderness, you see how they wandered. They didn't go right straight in. But the Lord Jesus, of course we know, was perfect in every way, and as a man he would be perfect. No wanderings. So he went through the wilderness in the right way, and he knows the right way, and he's perfectly qualified to be our leader.
But you'll notice that he was made perfect through suffering.
And if we're going to follow our leader, I'm sure we're going to find the same thing in the pathway that he found, that there's going to be suffering or I'm not thinking altogether of sufferings now from bodily afflictions and things like that. We know, of course, the Lord never knew any of that.
There is no sand working in his body at all, no death, but we have sufferings here in being faithful to the Lord, sufferings in also in being in a scene.
Where the Lord Jesus has been rejected and where God is not wanted, and where there's hostility toward God.
If we are really following close with our leader, we will feel the state of things in this world morally and spiritually.
How that God is not in the thoughts of men. And not only that, but as I've said and and I think it's good to emphasize hostility toward God. And it's true, you know, if you scrape the veneer.
On many who make some profession in regard to God or even the Lord Jesus, you find underneath a real hostility to the truth of God and to the person of the Lord Jesus and to God himself. You seek to walk in the light of God.
And you that hostility comes out as it did with the Lord Jesus, he said. If he had not come, they had not had sin.
But now that he came and perfectly declared God, the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father declared.
God here in this world, and the result was that they hated both him and his Father.
Well, it brought out what was really there and as our leader, that he will lead us through the path that he might say, the way in which he went through this scene. But he's bringing us as many sons unto glory. Oh, we're already those who are associated with him. Notice that next verse in verse 11.
For both he that sanctifies, and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which 'cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
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Doesn't this rejoice our hearts to think that he is not ashamed to call us brethren?
Is it because he finds such perfection in US?
Because we always do those things pleasing to God he did, but that isn't why he's.
Not ashamed to call us brethren, because we've been made one with him, he who sanctifies.
And they were sanctified. Are all of one, all of one. Sort as before God, we are as His beloved Son. We are one with Him, we are one with Him. And He owns us to be one with himself. He owns us as his brethren, His kindred. He's not ashamed to call us brethren. But we know it's all of grace. We know that it's all the result of His sufferings on the cross.
It's only through that that we have this blessed place and this blessed privilege of being sons of God, not only children of God as those who've been born into God's family, but those who are associated with the Son himself, the Lord Jesus.
And one with him.
We have the Spirit of his Son sent into our hearts so that we can speak.
In that sense of nearness in which he spoke to his father in the garden, ABBA father.
We too can speak in that sense of intimacy and nearness to the Father.
Even as his beloved Son, the many sons that are being brought to glory and he's leading us.
How wonderful to have such a leader, one who is has perfect knowledge and understanding and appreciation of the pathway of faith. Because he was here and passed through it and now he's the leader taking us on to the glory. But then we have him.
We have him in all of his.
Sympathies and all of the support that he can give us in our testings and trials.
I was thinking of the as the forerunner. It brings before us the end of the pathway.
The goal that is before us as the leader, it has to do with the the, the pathway, the character of the pathway through which we pass, but as our High Priest.
It's especially in connection with our.
Testings and our trials.
Because of not only the character of the wilderness in which we're found, but because of our own frailty, because of our infirmities, because of our weakness. Notice at the end of this chapter 2.
I'm thinking of this aspect of priesthood in verse 18, for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted or tested.
He is able to succor them that are tested. I use the word tested rather than tempted here because I don't believe the fault here is so much. It's not the fault of solicitation to evil. For that, the Lord never knew.
But he was tested.
And he was tested in many ways, not only in that the temptation in the wilderness as we speak of it, but it was all along. It was a pathway of of testing.
And we know of course that he was perfect and everyone, every bit of it. And what a test it was as he had the cross before him. We see in the garden what a real trial in testing it was to the Lord Jesus as he had that that hour of suffering and abandonment of his God. But we know how perfect he was in it. But now he said he's able to sucker them that are tempted or tested.
Well.
It says our high priest.
He himself knows what it is to be tested.
And he is able then to support us in our trials.
And our testings now turn to the 4th chapter, where we have this brought out more in detail.
In the 4th chapter, the detail that is brought in, you might say added. It's not only that he's able to that we are tested, we have our trials and testings, but we have our infirmities. Verse 15. For we have not a high priest, which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
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But when it was in all points tested like as we.
Apart from sin.
He is.
Put here rather on the from the negative side, perhaps to emphasize that how it is that he is touched with a feeling of our infirmities.
Now I would like to say this in.
Clarification of this that he's not talking here about sins that we might commit.
We don't find the priesthood in connection with that. That's his place as the Advocate.
In the first epistle of John, my little children, these things I write unto you that you send not.
But if any man's sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
Even though we might sin, and even sin willfully.
And you know when you read Hebrews 10.
In connection with the that expression, if we sin willfully.
The apostle there is not talking about 1 sinning in self will.
He's talking about turning from the sacrifice of Christ, turning from the truth of Christianity.
He's really warning those Hebrews that if they turn back to Judaism and give up Christ.
There is a willful turning, there's a willful sin, and so there is no provision of God for them. I mentioned that because sometimes young people read a verse like that and they wonder.
Because they have sinned, and they knew before they did it that it was a sin. And they say I have sinned willfully and perhaps you thought you've lost your salvation.
Well, we know, of course. It's sad that when our wills are at work and we do sin.
But John says we shouldn't sin. He writes that we should not sin, but if any man sin.
He doesn't even say a Christian, he just puts it in that sort of general way, if any man's sin.
We have an advocate with the Father. The relationship is not altered as we had before us, that he changes, not even though we might sin.
The Father is still the same. The Lord Jesus is still the same.
That work still has all of its all of its efficacy. Jesus Christ.
The righteous.
That work on the cross of Calvary is still the same. Nothing can take away from that.
So as an as the advocate, he would seek to reach our conscience and to restore us to communion.
And fellowship, because sin breaks that fellowship in communion with God.
But here it's the priestly activity of supporting us as to our infirmities.
The Lord Jesus knows that we are here in these bodies of humiliation, these bodies of weakness and humiliation, and he is one who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and so our testings and trials.
He can enter into because he was here, and he felt it all about him when he was here. You remember when he when Lazarus, he came to the tomb of Lazarus. He groaned within his spirit, and we read there that Jesus wept, He was touched, I believe, with the feelings of their infirmities, seeing the sorrow, feeling with them the sorrow. And he was touched with their feelings.
Of their infirmities wasn't sin, but infirmities. We are in these bodies of weakness and humiliation, and there are limitations. There are limitations, and the Lord knows that well. That's why He encourages us in verse 16. Let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy.
And find grace to help.
Are timely help.
Is the thought here well, we have mercy and grace.
And I would like to put it this way when we come to the Lord Jesus.
A great High Priest, that throne of Grace.
It may indeed be that He would grant mercy to us to deliver us, as it were, from the particular trial.
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Testing affliction that in which we might be found, that would be a mercy.
And we find sometimes that the Lord acts in this way. We have prayed for our individuals.
Who were in time, in times of great trial, and perhaps affliction testing, and the Lord has delivered them. And we might say that they received mercy, because the the trial or the testing and the affliction was was removed. But I thought of grace to help.
Might indicate that that The thing is not removed.
The thing is not removed.
You remember the Apostle Paul thought he would be better off without that. Foreign that.
Satan had brought in to afflict him whatever it was. He thought he would be better off without it, and he prayed that he might be removed, but it wasn't removed. But the Lord did say my grace is sufficient for thee. He gave Paul grace to stand up and to go on.
In the face of that trial and that testing or that affliction, Mercy might remove it.
But grace is given to bear it, and to go on with the Lord despite.
What might be a trial or a test or something that might be in the way of an affliction?
But we can be sure that the Lord does respond to our need.
That's the thought. Here is the high priest in this chapter four. He responds to the needs of his people.
He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities and he responds to our prayers when we come to the Throne of Grace.
And may not always be that The thing is removed. It may be grace rather than mercy.
But whatever the Lord sees fit to give, we know that if He doesn't give the mercy to remove it, He'll give the grace to bear it. And so as we think of this wilderness through which we pass.
As we're in it, we want to think of the end of the pathway and we want to look up and see the one who is entered there is our forerunner.
The pledge and assurance that we're going to be there, and then to follow him in his precious words, as the leader, as our guide now through this wilderness scene, even though it involves sufferings in obedience to the Lord into His precious word. And then to have that boldness. To approach the throne of grace and seek His face for everything. To bring everything to the Lord, to make our request known under the Lord, and then to find that mercy.
Are that grace to help in time of need?
Could we look Brethren at Ephesians Chapter 5?
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse one.
Be therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love.
As Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us.
An offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.
Could we turn also to 1St Epistle of John?
First Epistle of John and the 4th chapter.
Verse 16.
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.
God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
Herein is our love for the margin love with us made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is No Fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us. And then one other verse in Acts Chapter 20.
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Acts, chapter 20 and the 35th verse.
I have showed you all things how that so laboring. He ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus. How that he said it is more blessed to give than to receive.
Full Our brother has just spoken to us about how abundant provision has been made, a leader for us, the captain of our salvation, and also how he is there as our great high priest and our advocate. But I was thinking also of how not only is the help supply that we need for our pathway, but here we see, I believe, the outgoing of love that reaches out to others and seeks their blessing.
And I believe that is so important for us. Our brother remarked in the young people's meeting how that it was said by another that Christianity is known by what it brings and not by what it finds. And when the Lord Jesus came into this world, what did he find?
He found everything that was opposed to God, and to that which He had come to display as the perfect man, and as the one who came to tell out the Father's heart here in this world. Everything was opposed to it. But there was that in His blessed heart that rose above every situation, all the wickedness of man, all that they did to him, and all that misunderstanding that he had never changed that heart that He had.
He had come to tell out the heart of God. And as it says, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. That is, he was in this world seeking to show man what was in the heart of God. And so when that woman was brought to him, taken in sin, he said, Neither do I condemn thee. It was not that he didn't condemn the sin, but he had come to bear her condemnation.
So that he could say to her, Neither do I condemn thee. How wondrous to trace that blessed pathway of love here through this world, how it touches our hearts, as I believe it was Mr. Bellitt who said when he read the Gospels here he said, I found a man who never did one thing to please himself. His whole blessed pathway was the outflow of the heart of God.
And when man's evil rose to its height, as it did at the Cross, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. There was that love that rose above all that man was and all that he is. And brother and I believe we need to get this into our souls. We need to realize more of that love so that it would not only be something that we know, something that we know for ourselves.
But you know, our natural hearts are selfish, Haman in the book of Esther, said. To whom would the king delight to do honor? More than to myself. And I'm afraid, secretly in our own hearts, that is a great deal of our thought that everything should be done for us. Everything should be done to make us happy. Everything should be done for our pleasure and for our happiness. And this is.
That everything should be done for us.
Everything should be done to make us happy. Everything should be done for our pleasure and for our happiness. And this is the way the world operates. It operates on the principle of selfishness. But God has brought a new principle into your life and mine, A principle that was displayed in perfection, in the blessed Lord Jesus as he walked through this world. Oh, how beautiful those words in Ephesians chapter 5.
Christ also hath loved us and have given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour. God delighted to have his heart told out, and there was only one person who could do it perfectly. The cost was great, far greater than our hearts will ever know, but the Lord Jesus came to display that, and it tells us He offered himself to God.
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A sacrifice for a sweet smelling savor, how God delighted as he looked down and saw one man in this world in whom he could find all his delight. Twice in the pathway of the Lord Jesus we find the heavens open, and the Father's voice saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. The whole race of humanity had dishonored him, had turned against him.
Had not appreciated his sending his son-in-law, but there was 1 here.
Who pleased him in everything that he did and offered himself to God.
As a sweet smelling savor, his whole delight and joy was to do his father's will. As I said before, he never did one thing to please himself. You don't find even a miracle, although he had the power that he did for his own comfort. That is rather striking, isn't it? Why, if we had the power, how quickly we would do miracles to help ourselves in problems, how readily we would use it if it was available.
Because we're naturally selfish beings. But the Lord Jesus did everything for the glory of his Father and for the good of others. When he was hungry, he wouldn't turn stones into bread without a word from his Father, but when that multitude were hungry, he could turn a boy's lunch into food for the whole company. He had power, but he didn't use it for himself. And I believe, brethren, that this is something that needs to get hold of our souls.
And that is that we are not just to call upon to be receivers, but we are called upon to be givers.
We are called upon first to give praise and Thanksgiving as we think of all that He has done for us, and then too as it tells us in John 316. It says God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. How we praise God for that wonderful verse, and what God has done for us in giving His Son and giving us everlasting life.
But first John chapter 3 and verse 16 says.
And this was manifested the love of God toward us, in that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. There ought to be that willingness, that we have the privilege, and what an unspeakable privilege it is, and that we can be givers here in this world. And so he says that this work, that the Lord Jesus did a unique work, a work in which we could have no part, it was His and His alone.
But that we can manifest that same spirit. We can walk in love.
We can be imitators of God as dear children we can give ourselves, and that is what God desires that we should do, that we should give ourselves. Paul said in Romans 12 and verse one. I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that she presents your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable, reasonable, or your intelligent service.
And so here it tells us that we are to walk in love and we are to bring love into all the situations.
As the Lord Jesus did in His blessed pathway here and then we find over in that passage that we read.
First epistle of John. How this is possible?
It says here.
In the 17th verse here in his Our love or love with us.
Made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as He is, so are we in this world. Isn't that a beautiful expression? Love with us, that is, God had shown His love, but we didn't respond to it. We didn't appreciate it. So what did God do? Well, He has given us a life that responds. He has given to us the very life of Christ.
And so to me, this is the most beautiful expression, love with us. You might love a person and the person doesn't respond, but if the person responds as you would wish, then you can say love with us. It's something you share together because they enter into and enjoy what you were trying to show to them and respond to it. And that is exactly what God has done. He has given to us a life that is capable of loving.
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A life that enables us to manifest that love down here in this world, as it tells us in Second Corinthians chapter 4, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, That the life also of Jesus might be seen in our bodies, that is, our natural hearts are selfish. We think of ourselves, we think of our own interests. We think of all the concerns ourselves about.
As we put that all nature into the place of death and then we display in a practical way.
What the Lord Jesus displayed down here because we have his life, and so that we display the life of Jesus and it says as he is, so are we in this world, brethren, We will not be any more fit for heaven when the Lord comes than we are right now. We will not have a different life in heaven than we possess right now. We already possess the life that we will have up there in glory forever.
Possess it now, and he would have us as the IT tells us in the Epistle to Jude, it says, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Oh, you say, Don't we already possess it? Yes, but we possess that life in a world where everything is different from it. If a fish were taken out of the water and laid upon the shore, it still has a fish life, but it's out of its element.
And if the fish could talk, it would say, please put me in my element. Brethren, God has given us a life that's suited to heaven, and as we see the world getting worse and worse, our hearts say, all want to be grand, to be in our element. But, brethren, we're here. And what can we display down here in this world? The new life that we possess? And that is what He's telling us here.
In this in this 19th verse it says.
We love him. I might mention here that in the new translation the word him.
Is omitted. It's just simply we love because he first loved us.
The word him is omitted, you say? Well, that kind of spoils the verse for me. No, brethren, it doesn't. Because we love him. But it's much it's much wider. We love his too. We love, We have the capacity to love. Sometimes we might say, well, I find it so hard to love that brother. God says, oh, you don't need to say that. I've given you a life that is capable of loving, loving, even though there's no response.
The Lord didn't find any response from our hearts, but He still loved us, and He gave himself on Calvary's cross to display that love. And let us never say, oh, I couldn't love that, brother, you can. You already possess the life of Christ we love. Why? Because we're better than other people? Because we're nicer dispositions? No, because he first loved us. He loved us with a love, and that love because of what it is in itself.
Not because of something in the object. If there's a stream flowing down the mountainside, why, If you put a a barrier in the way, what does the stream do? Well, it just rises a little higher, doesn't it? And the bigger the barrier you put in the way, as long as there's plenty of water in the source, the higher the water rises. And all the barriers that men put in the way of the display of that love only caused it to flow out in a wider sphere.
Has the hymn writer said the river of thy grace through righteousness supplied his flowing ore, the barren place where Jesus died? And so here we have we love because he first loved us. And again, that verse that we read in Acts, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Well, we have received so much that it just overflows our hearts when we think of what we have received.
We can only say if I should declare and speak of what he has done for me. It's more than can be numbered. We can't reckon the things up in order that he has done for us. But now it says we have the privilege of giving because He has given us of His spirit. He has given us this new life. Let's turn over to the Epistle of Jude.
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I just like to read from the 20th verse, but ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith.
Praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
And of some having have compassion, making a difference, and others say with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh, now unto him that is able to keep you from falling or stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
Here we find what sometimes been spoken of as the four anchors.
And I believe we could think of them in this way. That ship that was waiting for the break of day didn't have a wreck until they took up the four anchors. But when they took up the four anchors, then there was a wreck, even though they all got safely to shore. And here we have 4 anchors. Building up your cells on your most holy faith seems to me to answer to reading the word praying in the Holy Ghost. That's prayer.
Keep yourselves in the love of God.
That is keeping the enjoyment of his love, just like I might say to my child.
On a day when it's cold out but the sun is shining, I say, well, stay in the sunshine. It's nice and warm if you stay in the sunshine. It's a cold world, brethren. But the sun is shining and you and I can keep in the sunshine. And then it says, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Why we just long for the time when we're going to be taken out of this scene where everything is so contrary to the life that we possess.
But this little expression in the end of the 24th verse I had particularly before me, that he's able to keep us from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
The Lord Jesus lived his life here to please his father and for the blessing of man.
And now, isn't this very beautiful that you and I can give joy to the heart of God? The Lord is looking forward to the time when He will have his own with him. He doesn't want us brethren to be stumbling along the way, but he is waiting for that time when He is going to present us there. And you and I are living a life for his glory here by showing out in his absence something of his love.
Two others Why we can give joy to his heart. I say again, a natural love is selfish. Our own hearts are naturally selfish. But isn't it a great thing to think that we can actually give joy to the heart of the Lord? When a Sinner gets saved, there's joy in heaven.
When Christians walk to please the Lord, it says, I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in the truth. And then when the end of the journey comes and the Lord presents us there, it'll be with exceeding joy. He wants us to walk in this world as those who have the privilege of doing something that we can bring joy to His heart. We once brought pain, brethren, untold pain.
That suffering of Calvary and now has a little him puts it that we may in some small degree.
Return thy love again. We can display that love.
And not only to him in seeking to please him, but also.
To others, oh, how many needy souls there are around us, How many of God's people are discouraged, How many that just need a little understanding and love. And you and I have been given the capability of this. You say, oh, I couldn't, I couldn't do it. You never know what a little word of encouragement might mean. I often think of that time that Jonathan went up against the Garrison of the Philistines.
And when he saw that sharp rock on the one side and the sharp rock on the other side.
He apparently turned around, and his armor bearer was there, and he said, turn me. Behold, I am with thee. And at this point Joshua Jonathan turned around, and they too went forward to a great victory. You may think I couldn't do anything, but that little word of encouragement changed the whole course of Israel's history, we might say. And you can't tell if you're just walking near the Lord and asking him.
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It says he openeth mine ear morning. By morning he openeth mine ear as the instructed one. And again that I might know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. Who can tell what a little word you said? I didn't do anything. Maybe you forgot about it. God hasn't told us the name of Jonathan's armor bearer, but it changed everything for Jonathan and it changed everything for Israel. And it was just a little word. Turn they behold. I am with thee.
You never know what some little word you can do it you say I couldn't do it. Just keep near the Lord. And it's more blessed to give than to receive, to be always looking for something to be said to help you. Let's think of what we can do and the joy that there is. The Lord Jesus gave joy to the heart of his Father, and we can give joy to the heart of the Lord by seeking to go on in this world and be a help. And perhaps pulling somebody out of the fire, perhaps helping someone.
At the point of discouragement and perhaps of turning back, oh how wonderful that we have the privilege, I wonder if I could just add a little word, and perhaps a more personal way, in First Corinthians Chapter 7.
First Corinthians Chapter 7.
And verse 32. But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord.
How he may please the Lord, but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world.
How he may please his wife. There is a difference also between a wife and a virgin.
The unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit, but she that is married careth for the things of the Lord. How she may please her husband. May I just say a little practical word in connection with this? You know, once we enter the married relationship, we have a responsibility now to try and make our partner happy. You know, that's what's the trouble with the world. And I'm sad to say that there are so many trials coming in among the Saints.
And, brethren, I believe selfishness is the bottom of it. We want to have something for ourselves. We're not thinking about making other people happy.
We're not thinking about making our partner happy. We say I didn't get what I expected in marriage, but did you give? That's what it tells here. Don't enter into the marriage unless you expect to give. And if you enter into marriage, why then do what you can to make your partner happy? And making your partner happy will make you happy too. It's a privilege that we have and I believe there there would be much happier homes if we were instead of thinking.
About ourselves, we were thinking about making perhaps that partner in the natural way.
Happy. Perhaps some of the others have heard me say that the only true marriage that has happiness is the one where the husband is 100% for his wife and the wife is 100% for her husband and both together 100% for the Lord.
If it drops off that there's going to be problems, there's no such thing as a happy 5050 marriage.
The one that's married cares how to please his wife, and the wife cares how to please her husband. And I hope we can say that together we desire to please the Lord. God has a pattern for us in connection with our Christian pathway, and for our homes too, so that we might have happy homes. God said to his people of old that he laid down the pattern for them, saw that their days would be as the days of heaven upon earth. He wanted them to find that happiness.
Now, of course we know that there are the trials that we've been talking about that come in because we're living in an evil world, but we're speaking about the giving part of it, that giving of ourselves as the Lord gave himself for us. And I just like to turn to one other passage in Proverbs Chapter 15.
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Proverbs chapter 15 and verse 20.
Just the first part of this 20th verse, a wise son maketh a glad father. And as it says in another place where the father said that when his son walked in wisdom, he said, my heart shall rejoice, even mine. Dear young people, some of you are not married, quite a few of you are not. You can make your parents happy too. You can walk in the wisdom of God's Word, and you can make them very happy.
I know that we've had three children and nothing made us any happier than our children wanting to please us and please the Lord.
And who can tell what you can do? And you're going to find a lot of pleasure in trying to make your parents happy, too. There is a joy in giving. It's more blessed to give than to receive. Well, brethren, I believe these things are practical. But the Bible is a practical book. God's love has been manifested to us when we didn't deserve it at all. And in His wondrous grace, He has met us and given us a life that is able to do these things that He has enjoined us to do.
One has often said God will never ask us to do anything, that He hasn't given us a life that delights in doing it. And He also has given us the Holy Spirit, all the power that we need so that if there's anything He asks us to do, He hasn't left us without power. All the power that we need is available. I think I have a fairly good car, but I know I could stall on a hill very easily just by not stepping on the gas when I start up the hill.
The power is there, but if I don't use it, I'm going to stall. And we stall very often, The longer pathway not because the power's not there. It's all there for us, but we're not using it. Brethren. Oh, how blessed to know is our brother brought before us, this blessed One who's done everything for us, and He's looking now for a response from our hearts. We delight in getting responses for our love. The Lord delights when there's a response from our hearts too, and when He sees us seeking to show. But He has shown.
To us, to others, may the Lord grant it. May I quote that verse again, that we might remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that he said it is more blessed to give than to receive.
Hebrews 11:1-4
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Hebrews after 11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous.
God testifying of his gifts, and by if he being dead yet speaketh.
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see that and was not found because God had translated him.
For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God.
But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
By faith, nor being warned of God, of things not seen as yet move with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house.
By the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith by faith Abraham, when he was called to go into a place which he should after received for inheritance, obey, and he went out, not knowing whether he went.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise.
As in a strange country dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob.
The heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is called.
Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful. Who had promised, therefore sprang their even of one, and him as good as death, so many as the stars of the sky and multitude, and as the sandwiches by the seashore innumerable.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.
And truly.
If they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
But now the desire, a better country that is and heavenly.
Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city.
By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son.
Of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
Accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.
By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph.
Worship leaning upon the top of his staff by faith. Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones.
00:05:04
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the King's commandment.
By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
Esteeming the reproach of Christ.
Greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect under the recompense of the reward.
By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.
For he endured seeing him who is invisible.
Through faith he kept the Passover.
And the sprinkling of blood.
Lest he that destroyed the first born should touch them.
By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians are saying to do, were grown.
By face, the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days.
By faith, the heart of rehab.
Start with them that believe not when she had received the spies with peace. And what tried more, say, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon on a barrack of Samson, and of Jepsen, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness.
Obtain promises, stop the mouths of lions, quench the violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword out of weakness, were made strong.
Wax valiant and fight turn to flight The armies of the aliens. Women received their dead race to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance.
That they might obtain a better resurrection.
And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, Yay, moreover, a bond and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute.
Afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.
They wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dams and caves of the earth.
And 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.
Let's stop. This is often called the faith chapter because it brings before us those who in time past, whether before the giving of the law or after the giving of the law, learn to walk by faith. And I believe the reason it is brought in here is because he has been bringing before us the better things of Christianity.
About whether it was before those sacrifices were instituted or now that Christianity had been made, known and revealed, it was impossible to please God apart from faith. They might go on with all those sacrifices of Judaism, but if there was no faith, they were of no value to God. It was the faith of the offer that God valued, as it was the faith of those that are mentioned here even before the Law.
And so now a person might accept all the outward things of Christianity and yet not be a safe person at all. It is an awkward things. It isn't going on in a certain outward path that God values. It is the heart. It is taking God of his word. It is having confidence in him that is of real value in God's sight. And that is what we are put to the test to today.
00:10:12
That's what they were put to the test to before, is there that confidence in God? If outward things come as the result of inward faith, God values that. But I say again, the outward things in themselves have no value. And I believe this is very prominently brought before us in this chapter and in what our brother brought before us in the young people's meeting. It is that confidence in God that is so important.
And that is the character of the pathway. Today we walk by faith, not by sight. I might just add here too, that this first verse is not really a definition of faith. The clearest definition of faith is found in John's Gospel chapter 3. It says he that hath received his that is God's testimony has set to his seal that God is true.
That is, in the face of everything that seems to be the opposite. The scripture says, let God be true and every man a liar. Now that is, faith believes things not because we can prove them scientifically, not because we even prove them in the experiences of life.
But because God says it, and that is the thing. That's really what faith is. And this first verse of our chapter really is telling us what faith does it. A definition of faith is taking God at his word, setting to our seal that God is true. But what does faith do? It makes real to us, brethren, what we haven't seen. And that's what is so important.
The natural man walked by sight.
It's everything that appeals to him in this world of sight. But I say again, in this verse here, we find what faith does. It makes real what we haven't seen. It's the substance of things hoped for. It's the only evidence we need. God has spoken, and that makes it real to us.
In Romans chapter 10, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
And that really isn't the faith believes what God says in God's testimony.
Of whatever might be the the results of that I was thinking of how we Peter, speaks about the trial of your faith, and in Psalms it speaks of of Joseph how that the word of God tried him, that is God had made things known to Joseph.
That he was to be elevated, he was to be dominant and here he is found in prison in Egypt. So that the word which God had spoken to him they not way becomes a real test of his faith. And I believe as long as we're here in this scene, there's always going to be testings and trials to our faith. That is God would would give a testimony.
Of himself in his precious word, in many ways, many things he has to say. And then we may find that circumstances appear just the opposite of what God has spoken in His word. But it seems to me that all of these in this chapter, they they are real witnesses to the path of faith, not because they set out to be a witness, but because they believed the testimony of God.
And they acted according to it. And many of them went through very trying circumstances.
Now thinking of that expression here in the second verse, or by it, the elders obtained a good report, and then again in the 39th verse, and these all having obtained a good report through faith, well.
We what What the Lord wants, I believe is, is faith and exercise and activity and not to reasonings.
And human wisdom. And if we would desire to have a good report, I believe it would be that that faith would be an exercise like these, not trying to do something to produce results, but acting according to the word of God. The testimony that God has given us in his precious word. And walking in the light of that Word, and leaving all of the results with God. Because we find in this chapter that.
00:15:23
The results were not always the same, as was pointed out in the address. Some did not obtain deliverance, some did. So the results varied, but they all obtained a good report because they had faith in exercise.
I think it might help to to point out the two keywords in this first verse, substance and evidence.
The word substance. It's nice to see how it's been rendered elsewhere to get the real force of it. It's already been brought out, but now faith is the substance. Faith is the realization. Faith is the assurance. Faith is the confidence. That word is rendered that way elsewhere. Turned to Hebrews One, verse 3.
Here you have the same word.
Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, that word rendered person. I'll read that in the new translation. It says about Christ. He is the expression of His substance. And so the word is rendered substance in Hebrews 1/3 in the new translation, as it is here and also in chapter 314.
We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. That's the same word. So the Word has the thought of that which gives substance to it. What makes substance to our souls is faith, isn't it? Faith gives the realization in my soul of the future that I'm hoping for, and it makes it good to me and good to you. It's faith.
Faith is what gives substance to it, to our souls. It gives the present confidence in the things we hope for. And then it says the evidence of things not seen. That's rendered conviction. And in John 16 eight we have that same word.
Are you right? Look at it.
John 16/8 When he has come, the Holy Spirit he will recruit not. That word reprove sometimes is rendered convinced or convict. He will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Now that's the word that's rendered evidence here and in the in the new translation. Again, Brother Darby has it. He will bring demonstration to the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
And so that's what we have here. Faith is a demonstration to our souls of things hoped for. Faith shows the true character of things.
Well, I want to read that in John 3 verse 20 you have the same word again just to show how it's used in scripture. John 3 verse 20.
Says for everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deed should be reproved. Now that's the same word. And in the new translation again it says that his deed should be shown as they are. That is the light shows the true character of everything. Now going back to Hebrews 1, faith is the substance, the substantiating, the realization in our souls, that conviction in our souls of the things we hope for.
We don't see them. There are hoped for, and faith gives the souls conviction of these things which are real to us. That's what faith does. And then it brings a demonstration of the things not seen. So faith inspires with present confidence in the things we hope for and affords demonstration of matters not seen. That's what that first verse is saying, isn't it? As our brother Gordon was saying, it's really the same thing, but just I thought it might be helpful to show.
How the same words are used elsewhere to get the real force of the verse?
Faith that we're talking about is the faith of God. We should always remember this, Peter says. We've obtained, like precious faith. It's a gift by grace. Are you saved through faith? But that's not of yourself. It's a gift of God. And our brother was reading or quoting from Romans 3 where the apostle Paul in Romans 33.
00:20:23
Said for what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? Notice it's the faith of God. That's what we have, and it's that faith that ties us to his son and says we leave it all with him that our brother was bringing out. I was thinking that faith in action is so beautiful to see. It doesn't look at the circumstances.
Or what happened to us? It looks to see what the Lord has in mind and it tries to to discern what the Lord has for us in it. I was thinking just one thought here the second kings, second kings 4th chapter we have this woman of great faith and she was given a child which was an impossible thing apart from God.
But of course God took that child. He died on her knees, and she went all the way back to the man of God, a long way and a high climb to the top of the hill, the mouth. And in verse 25 it says, So she went and came unto the man of God to the mouth. Now notice the questions put to her. It says in verse 26. Is it well with thee?
Well, she was grieving.
She was at the end of herself. She had just lost her only son and there was no hope of another to her. And then the next question is it? Well with my husband, he didn't enter into any of her problems. He didn't comfort her at all or help her in this time of trial. Is it well with the child? The child was dead, she said. It is wealth notice.
In verse.
27 She caught him by the feet. She was at the feet of the man of God, where she took every effort she had to get there. Therefore all was well. Well, we know it wasn't, but it was. If she said I'll leave it with the Lord, I'll leave it with the Lord. Well, he gave her son back, but she didn't know he was going to give her son back. She just knew.
All was well. That's what faith does.
It's the faith of God. It's beyond reason. Reason doesn't come in at all. It just says we'll look to the Lord in this and we know it'll be well have a first Act 27, one is enjoyed has a very simple answer to our question too. Acts 27 and verse 24.
All on his voyage to.
The Lord appeared to him during the night, and he says in verse 24, Fear not, Paul, Thou must be brought before Caesar. Lo, God has given thee all them that sail with thee, therefore serves thee of good cheer. For I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me. It's not a simple answer. I believe God.
That's why it's massive. First Peter, chapter one that was mentioned that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perishes.
Though if he tried with fire might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. If we understand it isn't the trial of faith. If you explain something to me and tell why you have done it, then it's not for me to trust you. I understand because you have explained it. But there are many times in life where faith is put to the test. We can't understand why.
But we believe God, as you have said, We take him at His word, and that is precious to God, even in our own experience. For someone to take us at our word in the face of something that seems to be the very opposite, we say, well, it's nice that they believe what I said. They'll find out afterwards that I spoke the truth. And we feel pleased that that person had enough confidence to take us at His word before the explanation was given.
00:25:17
All brethren, God is honored. God is glorified when you and I trust him. When to simply trust him seems the hardest thing of all, when there seems no natural explanation. But just it's enough that God said As for God, his way is perfect and.
Tells us more than this. It's not only that we give a present joy, but our lives are going to pass into review. And it tells us that it should be found under praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Our lives are going to pass into review.
And God is going to manifest these things. And perhaps some of the things that looked like great accomplishments were not half as great as that simple confidence when everything seems so black and impossible. That's what God values. And that is to be the very, shall I say, background, the very reason for us living in this world. Not because we think we're going to gain certain things, but because.
We know that faith pleases God, It honors him. And I believe this is the whole import of this chapter. Whether we understand or not in other day it says we shall know even as also we are known. And so you're content to wait that day.
Saw by it, the elders obtained a good report and as our brother brought out in the end of the chapter.
The ones who got glorious deliverances in answer to faith and those who suffered in faith all obtained a good report. It isn't that the ones who had those miraculous deliverances had a good report. Sometimes when you read books about faith, you think that those people who had those wonderful answers to prayer had those the superlative faith that God looks at things from his viewpoint and the ones that count upon him.
When deliverance doesn't come and the trust him and continue to live a life that pleases him.
That is what makes a good report in God's sight. And so let us remember that it isn't just that we see something miraculous happening, but that I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me. We take him at His word. That is what is so precious. And the Lord Jesus was the perfect example of that. He was the man of faith. That's why it says looking under Jesus, he began and completed the path of faith in every circumstance.
He did what pleased his God, He counted upon his God, and his whole life was a sweet savor to to God who had sent him.
Noticed in the chapter the end of chapter 10 here in Hebrews.
A quotation from the Old Testament verse 38 Now the just shall live by faith, and three times we have that in the New Testament. And each time no doubt there is some emphasis on a certain aspect of it, But it's in Hebrews here and then, in Romans and in Galatians, and I believe in the Old Testament we only have about.
Two times perhaps faith mentioned, although it's implied, and it's evident from this 11Th chapter that it characterized those Old Testament Saints. But in this prophecy of Habakkuk, it's nice to notice how it's concluded because it was a time of great disappointment and a time of real pressures as spoken of for the Prophet, pressures from the north, and disappointments and distresses.
And we notice in the very close of this prophecy in the third chapter of Habakkuk.
He says in verse 17. Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall the fruit be in the vines, The labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat. The flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like Hinds feet, and He will make me to walk upon my high places to the chief singer on my string instrument. And so we see that he could always rejoice in the Lord. The Lord is the chief singer, He leads the singing, and we see such an overcoming spirit here when everything seems to be contrary and negative. And this is all because.
00:30:28
Of faith. So the faith was there even though it isn't mentioned by word in the Old Testament, except perhaps twice.
In the third verse.
Have not only we've been Speaking of faith as believing, believing God and what God has said, but here we see that faith gives us to understand.
It's faith that gives us to understand, not only believe that the world's framed by the word of God, but to understand it. And this is really the only way we can understand how things began, isn't it? We'll never understand it. Man cannot understand it if he does not have faith. It's only by faith that we can understand. And when one, faith is an exercise.
As we have later on here that one must believe that God is, that's one of the.
Characteristics of faith. And when one has that faith in God, and knowing that God is, then it isn't difficult to understand that He's the one who brought everything into existence.
He's He is sovereign, He is eternal, He is all powerful and to that faith.
Gives understanding to the fact that he could bring.
Into existence, that which never had any existence before. It is not that he took what was available and what was at hand and what already existed and formed something out of it. Even though we know in in Revelation, in the Genesis one, that there was a bringing ordered condition of things out of chaos, but the original creation was bringing into existence.
Something that had no prior existence and faith. This is very reasonable to faith. It may be unreasonable to unbelief, but to faith, it's very reasonable that God would do that and that God could do that. And so it isn't something fanciful, but it's only faith that gives that. And I I feel that efforts to substantiate the the act of creation by God by.
You might say scientific evidence really would detract from this. The believer doesn't need it because he has faith and he believes that God is, and he knows God, and so he knows that God can, and God has brought it in. He's declared it in his word in the beginning.
God created the heavens and the earth, and that's not only what that we believe, we believe it is. God has said it, but faith gives us to understand it. It's very reasonable that it should be so that God has done that. That subject taken up in Proverbs chapter 8. It's very beautiful there in Proverbs chapter 8, where we have instruction as to our pathway through this world, says in Proverbs 8 and 22.
The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no deaths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth, while as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the earth.
And it goes on in the.
30th 1St Then I was by him as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth. And my delights were with the sons of men. Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children, blessed are they that keep my ways, hear instruction, and refuse, and be wise, and refuse it not.
00:35:00
And that is if God had prepared and made everything in this world as the Scripture tells us He did.
And everything arranged in such perfect wisdom and order, then can we doubt that he understands our pathway through this world, that he knows how to direct everything. And so he takes this up here as the very starting point. And that is very important. The reason I believe that we see the breakdown of everything today stems back to the denial of the creation. And God is Creator, because when we accept that, then we have.
A responsibility to God as Creator. We see His wisdom in creation, we see in this beautiful point is brought out rejoicing in the habitable parts of His earth, and my delights were with the sons of men.
Brethren, can we? Can we doubt His perfect wisdom and marking out the pathway and in ordering things in our lives, when we look out on the creation in which we live, and see all His wisdom, how foolish we are to go ahead of one.
Who is so perfect and who has arranged everything in the creation as he has? And this is taken up in Proverbs to instruct us for earthly wisdom, for the path of heavenly wisdom, should I say, for our pathway through this world. And now it's taken up here in the 11Th of Hebrews as being the reason why these who went contrary to the ideas of the natural man, but believe God and want to pass that the natural man did not understand.
Because they believed in the God who created everything and knew him as their God, were in a personal relationship to him, and therefore knew that his delights were with them. Well, this is what gives us confidence in God and for the pathway of faith, not only to know how to conduct ourselves wisely in the world, but when the whole system has broken down in the hands of man, to see that the path of faith is still marked out by one who is all wise.
And is still working on the power of Babel. I was thinking of the description of the building of the Tower of Babel. It took and took play and birth them baking bricks and that's lying for their mortar. Well, there was man's great attempt to make himself a name.
Just had before said God made things out of those things which do not appear out of nothing but men has to use the contemptible things of this earth, and it has a real application for us today, does it not?
One is thinking again of our dear young people that may think, well, the world has still a lot of things that are so enormous, so great, so wonderful. We are entering into an age of the computer so-called. But can we not call them just slime and Brick Man's greatness, to be built up on their own minds and knowledge and intelligence? And what does God's word have to say about all that?
As he that increases knowledge, increases sorrow, and the result of it all has only been that man knows more about the wickedness that's going on all over the world. When some of us were younger, we didn't know as much about what was going on all over the world. But now, with communication as it is, what are we finding out? That the wickedness is all over the earth. And we I remember one time we stopped for the night and started out the next day and out in front of one of the motels with the sign.
Have a good day. Don't listen to the news. Well, I'm afraid that's the way it is as man increases knowledge and that's all the computer is doing, is just bringing all knowledge together. And it's just increasing man's sorrow. Oh, how wonderful it is to have a book from the all wise, the one who knows everything and who's marked out a path. And as our brother was saying, the faith is the gift from him. The strength to walk in the path is from him.
And he wants us to count upon him, not count upon our own wisdom, not count upon man's wisdom, but to count upon him, and to count upon his word. Only God grant his word, will become increasingly precious to us. And the need of looking to him for every step in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths, is still true today.
00:40:03
A wonderful tool that the word of God never changes doesn't have to be adjusted. It is absolute, perfectly reliable when you take science, books that were written only a few years ago have to be changed. Things that they believe to be accurate a few years ago are proven to be false. But the word of God needs no revision.
And remains the same. And I believe we have to emphasize that we should not stoop down to the level of trying to.
Prove These would be scientists who preach evolution to be false by scientific event. We rest on the word of God. God says that I believe it. That settles it. That gives me peace and that gives me assurance. And it is the Word of God that never changes.
By the way, you can never buy scientific discover. We find out how things came to be, why we are here, and what our destiny is. You can only get that by divine revelation, which we have in our hands in this blessed book, the Word of God. We don't want to discredit scientific discovery. I believe man has been permitted to accomplish tremendous things.
But the Word of God is what we rest on, and the Word of God only can give us answers that give meaning to our life. He gives it in His word. The divine revelation lets us know how He in His wisdom arranged everything, created everything, gave us purpose and why we are here. We can never find that out by reading the most enlightened scientists.
Of this world. How wonderful that is. Beloved, a young people read this book, become familiar with this book, and base your convictions on what you find in this book. It's the might even tickle you and might make you feel good that you prove some scientists to be wrong or somebody who passes as well. Because evolution certainly isn't the science. It's a philosophy. It's not proven. You need just as much faith for that.
To believe that evolution then you need for the word of God. But that faith that you need to believe evolution is not the faith of God and that you are very shaky basis for faith. We believe this book and that's the basis for our faith. Not only that, that's how we received it. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. God spoke and that's what we have and we believe that. I was thinking it's Timothy.
Timothy, we have a little verse there that I believe speaks a lot at this point. Second Timothy, second chapter 13 first.
If we believe not yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself. Now God has spoken, and that's what our faith rests in. Doesn't matter what the world thinks. It's always been wrong, but I was thinking the worst.
Tragedy. The worst thing that happened to his disciples when he was here.
Was his death.
And all they had to do was rely and believe his word, because many times before he told them very explicitly what was going to happen, and even to the point of their spitting in his face, he explained it all. And then he said, and on the third day I shall rise again and go back to my father.
They should have believed. Well, notice just one thought. In Luke 24 we have these women at the sepulcher, and they were in the in the despair. They were at the end of themselves because of this terrible thing that happened. And notice the response of the answer, They said. Why seek ye him that liveth among the dead? That's verse 5.
The other translation Why seek him that liveth among the dead? He is not here, but risen. Remember his word. That's all they should have done, was rested on what he said. Well, of course that's those. What about the two on the way to Emmaus? It said in verse 15. They reason, they reasoned themselves, and every thought of our own will take us away from God.
00:45:24
Every thought cannot be God word, it is always a way. Well the Lord of course came, and by the word of God he brought the the word of God to them in verse 27 And they were restored because they believe. And lastly the apostles they didn't believe. And in verse 38 the Lord said, why are you troubled? Why do thoughts arise in your hearts?
The apostles were thinking.
Instead of justice trusting what the Lord said, and so He brought them back and restored them the same way verse 44, He used the word that he had spoken and the Old Testament Scriptures that spoke of him. Well, brethren, that's what we have. And I was thinking we may be unfaithful. That's true. They were unfaithful when they wouldn't believe the word of God. That's all it is.
Unfaithfulness. But he is faithful. He said it, and I was thinking, we have been reminded already if God before us who can be against us. He said that and all things work together for good to them that are the fault. He said that and we should just rest in it. Circumstances have nothing to do with this Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were facing.
The fiery furnace he did said seven times over, and they remembered. I'm sure the heart of the king is in the hands of the Lord. He turns it with us, whoever he will, as rivers of water. What was their answer to King Nebuchadnezzar? We are not careful to answer thee, O king, If, God, if, if, if.
Our God is able.
And if not, it's still alright if you won't deliver us from this furnace. You see, they had that sense in their soul by faith that God was over all was wonderful. We have the same if God be for us, who can be against us? Faith makes that good, no matter what happens.
This afternoon we have word in our hands, the word of God and how precious that is. But here the word of God is spoken of a little differently by through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Let's just read some verses in Psalm 33. I think they bring this out so nicely.
Psalm 33 verse 6.
Psalm 33, six.
By the word of the Lord, where the heavens made, and all the host of them, by the breath of his mouth He gathereth the waters of the sea. Together as in heap He layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For he spake. And it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast.
Sometimes it is said, well, meaningly, and we probably all made the error. But they say that God created the universe out of nothing. There was never nothing. There was always God. He created the universe out of himself. He's fake and it was done, He commanded, and it stood fast And how wondrous that we understand through faith that the worlds were framed by the word of God.
We hold the Word in our hands this afternoon. That's one form of it. But the creation of which we're a part exists by the Word of God. He spake it into existence, created out of Himself, that which we see around us, and it's all from himself and of Himself. The Word of God. Well, so we're to stand in awe of Him. We're to fear Him if he could bring into it, into existence that which never had any existence before.
He could speak it into existence. He certainly is the controller of everything that happens down here. He's over it all and He allows it and He orders it all for His eternal glory and our eternal blessing and faith trusts Him, doesn't it? No matter what comes, our steps as capture that are very beautiful. We have the 1St about faith and then we have about creation and then we have about redemption.
00:50:21
How beautiful this is that we see the creation, but it was ruined by man sin and God steps in again, just as He was the one who by His word made everything. Everything would have ended in judgment as far as man was concerned if God hadn't stepped in in another way.
And that was in connection with Redemption. And we see this typified to us in Abel's Sacrifice.
And so how wonderful it is, the way it's brought before us in this chapter, that faith just believes God, so we see him as the creator of everything. And then we see in this fourth verse, by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
We often hear the expression while we all believe in the same God. Well, Cain believed in the same God is able. They both approached God with a sacrifice, one according to his own mind and thoughts. Cain brought of the first fruits of the ground the cursed earth, with no sense apparently, of his guilt. Why did Abel bring a different one? Well, just as God brought everything into being, so he worked in Abel's heart.
To make him realize that there was a proper way of approach into his presence, I believe it had been shown in the fact that when sin entered, God clothed Adam and Eve with coats of skin. As that is, he showed that the only way they could stand in his presence was not by something from the their own making, but by something that brought before us death and blood shedding. And so Abel laid this to heart and thought of God. He approaches God in the right way.
And so why are we different from others? People say sometimes, well, you have your religion, and I have mine. Well, I have no more right to my own thoughts than you do to yours, if it's a question of that. But God is the one who has shown the right way of approaching to His presence. And as Peter stood up in Acts, he said, neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men.
Whereby we must be saved. It's not man for to choose his own ideas or thoughts or religion.
God is the one who alone can give in His Word through revelation, just as by His word He created things, So He gives to us a proper way of approach into His presence. And there's no other way, only His way. And that is through a sacrifice through that which figures to us the death of Christ and His precious Blood, which alone can fit us for God's presence.
Piggy expression.
Connect righteousness that God had said, that in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.
And one of the ways in which faith is is expressed as we've been mentioning that faith believes what God says. Apparently Cain didn't believe that he brought he did not bring an offering that that spoke of death at all, did he?
The but Abel was impressed with with these things that had taken place in regard to to Adam and Eve in the garden and as her brothers mentioned, how the provision was made to cover them. But the death had come in, and it isn't it's unrighteous to to set aside any pronouncement of God, anything that God.
Speaks to set that aside or not accepted is unrighteous.
But he really justified God like the.
Centers and publicans who justified God in being baptized with the baptism of John. That's the expression that is used. They justified God. God had pronounced the nation as having.
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All in the way, and being perverse and in need of repentance. And those who accepted that and bound to that in faith, why they went out to John to be baptized, and they justified God.
So the righteous righteousness is brought in with Abel righteousness because.
He accepted what God had pronounced and what God had had brought in, in the way of not only of judgment, but in the way of recovery. And so in that way he is a witness.
Of righteousness of righteousness we have in first John that.
Pain slew his brother and the reason was because his brothers Deeds were righteous and Cain's were not evils, Deeds were righteous.
You have that thought brought out in Romans 4?
Verse 20 HE Abraham.
Staggered, not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him.
For righteousness now it was not written for his sake alone that was imputed to him.
But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus, our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offences, was raised to gain for our justification.
Yes, there, I suppose it's for the the fact that righteousness reckoned to us counted to us by faith they're thinking of.
When we speak of faith, we know that faith is a common word used.
Taken up by those who are not true believers, and even sometimes by those who make no profession of Christianity using the word faith. But true faith is not just having some vague confidence in someone.
Faith really has God as its object, and the Word is the basis for it. And we see here that one of the characteristics of faith is that it's righteous, that is, it justifies God. One can't speak of having faith and at the same time, setting aside God's word, faith recognizes God's word and acts on God's Word so that one of the IT might say one of the features or one of the characteristics of faith.
Is righteousness. You can't separate the two. Faith and righteousness really go together so that when when someone speaks about oh I have faith or my faith sustains me. The question is, is it that faith according to the word of God, that is we find in scripture that as God as its object and the and the word is it's as the basis for it and is it righteous? Is it really?
Respond to the word of God. Does it respond to what God has has declared in his word? That's what Abel did. He responded to that. Cain did not. He was just the opposite.
That's brought out in job. Look at job chapter 40.
Job, chapter 40 and verse six. Then answered the Lord unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Gird up thy loins now like a man, I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me Now this is the verse particularly Wilt thou dissing all my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me that thou mayest be righteous, when when Job hesitated to take his true place in repentance before God?
He was actually condemning God's judgment of him because God's judgment of everyone of us is that we are sinners and guilty in His presence. If we claim to have a righteousness apart from that, we are really disallowing His judgment in order that we might be righteous.
And that kind of righteousness God calls filthy rags. It is not acceptable before him. But but Speaking of Abel, he took that true place. He really recognized his guilt, just as God had said. As our brother remarked, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. He recognized that sin required punishment, and so he accepted what God had to say about sin.
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And in that way, he declared God to be righteous in himself as a Sinner and needing something to satisfy those claims of God. I think it's important also for us to see that repentance is really of faith and not a preparation for faith. Really. Repentance is true. Repentance is because we believe God. I've illustrated it like this. If someone shouted in the door, the building is on fire.
If we didn't believe what he said, we just all stay in our seats and pay no attention.
But if we believe the message, we immediately want to find a safe place. And God has not only warned us of our condition, faith believes what God has to say about our condition. As long as we cling to any righteousness of our own, we're disallowing His judgment. We're telling him that he's not speaking the truth when he says that we're guilty and lost and exposed to His judgment. When we believe that, then we see a little sign over there says exit. We believe that that's a safe escape. We go to it.
And God has not only told us of our condition and we declare God to be righteous when we accept that, but we also realize that the way of escape he has provided is the one and only way. And that is what we have in Romans chapter four, that through what Christ has done, God has provided a way to put away our sins. And so the 5th chapter begins. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.
We get outside. We're at peace now. We're out of the burning building, and so we take God at His word. We rest in peace that the way he has provided is certain. It's sure. It is a way by which we can rest in peace in His presence and know that it's His provision. So let us remember, brethren, that both both repentance and believing on the Lord Jesus are all of faith, and it all begins by taking God at His word. That's why when we preach the gospel, we present to the Sinner not his feelings, but what God says about his condition.
And what God says is a penalty that he is exposed to. And then the provision that God has made. We preach repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord. Jesus Christ saw that repentance, properly speaking, means a change of mind. That is what the word simply means. And I've often said a Sinner has wrong thoughts about two things. He has wrong thoughts about himself, and he has wrong thoughts about God.
And the word of God sets those two things right. It sets right the thoughts about himself, and he justifies God and says I'm guilty. It sets right it's thoughts about God. And he finds that God, in gracious, wondrous love, has provided A surer way of escape.
He rests in that, and that is what glorifies God. That is what is the result of faith, taking God at his word.
Where one has to begin with God.
That is, I believe that one cannot.
Receive anything from the Lord until that that basic and elementary truth is is recognized. And I think that's why Abel is not just historically. We know of course, that Abel lived before the ones that are mentioned that follows, but I believe there's a moral order to there.
The first one brought before us is Abel. We do not have any witnesses of faith before the fall that we do after, and one has to be brought to that point where there is that repentance and that accepting of what that what God says is true. I was thinking of the way that in Luke 20 when they came to the Lord.
In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 20.
The chief priests and the scribes, the elders, And in verse two they say, Tell us by what authority doest thou these things? Or who is he that gave thee this authority? And he answered and said unto them, I will also ask you one thing, and answer me the baptism of John, Was it from heaven, or of men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say from heaven, he will say, Why then believe ye him not, but if we say of men?
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All the people will stone us, for they be persuaded that John was a prophet.
And they answered that they could not tell whence it was. And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.
It seems to me he takes them back to the baptism of John. They wanted to circumvent that that issue and bring up other issues, but he brings them back to that basic elementary message that God set out with John that.
Preaching a baptism of repentance. And they had rejected that, and so they he could not take them up on any of these things. And he had they He could not bring anything before them that from himself until they had accepted that. In the 7th chapter of this gospel we read that the publicans and sinners justified God in being baptized. But.
These rejected the counsel of God against themselves. That's weird read, isn't it? They rejected the counsel of God against themselves in not being baptized with the baptism of John. So I believe as our brothers bringing out it, that's the important thing is to accept that and that's the.
Beginning of ones dealings with God, or God's dealings with with man is the the bowing at his word and accepting what he has to say in regard to what we are and in regard to what he is and in regard to what he has done. That is in opening a way of of finding a way back into his presence. And that's what we see in Abel. Abel accepted all of this.
And he He accepted the way that God had opened up for man to be brought back into his his blessed presence. I think it's important to see that distinction, too, between repentance before man and repentance toward God. Because people will often be sorry for something because it has affected them, it has brought some trouble into their life, it has shamed them before others, and they call this repentance well.
In a certain sense it is, but it's repentance before men. It's a change of thought, because they don't like to lose the prestige that they once had, or they don't like to be looked down upon or to suffer for the results of some mistake. But what God requires is more it's repentance toward God. It's looking at the thing as it appears, not just before men. We find that on 2 occasions, King Saul said I have sinned.
Once to Samuel and once to David, but never to God. He never took his true place in repentance before God, and so that is important in regard to the center, the publican who went up into the temple to pray. He took his place before God and said, God be merciful to me, a Sinner. He wasn't concerned about who was looking on. He was probably despised by the man beside him, but he was thinking about what God thought about things.
And that's the important thing. And brother and I believe it's also true in connection with sin in the lives of believers, that there is no true restoration until we look at the thing in the presence of God and see how it is not before our brethren, not what they think of it, but what God thinks about it. And when we judge it in the light of His presence, then there is true repentance toward God. Then there can be restoration.
Well, I believe it's a very important thing because repentance is often just before men. But what God values and what he speaks of in His Word is repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
I've always enjoyed definition of sentence and I'll give it to you.
Repentance is the judgment we form under the effect of God's testimony of all in ourselves, to which that testimony applies.
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The word literally means an afterthought. Upon reflection, the word of God comes to me, reaches my conscience. It corrects my thoughts. As our brother was saying about ourselves and about God, and as I reflect upon the testimony that's been presented to me in the Word of God, my thoughts are corrected and I changed my mind. That is, I learned to think God's thoughts, Brother Smith used to say to us in Oak Park.
Over and over again, learn to think God's thoughts well. That's really what's involved in repentance.
It's an afterthought upon reflection as we reflect upon the word of God. Man has high thoughts of himself. God speaks differently, and he lays bare the evil that's in our hearts. And when we receive that testimony, and we realize, as Job, as Isaiah could say, woe is me, for I am undone, as Peter could say, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
As Job could say, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye seeth thee.
Wherefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. That's what he had to be brought to. And that's why God deals with us in his ways of faithfulness, to bring us to that that we might see that we are nothing and that he is everything and he He wants to bring us into blessing. And the way we lay hold upon these things is by faith.
Hebrews 11:5-7
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By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God, but without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God.
Must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them, that diligently seek him.
By faith, nor being warned of God of things not seen as yet move with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obey, and he went out not knowing whether he went.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob the heirs with him of the same promise.
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is gone.
Through faith also, Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed.
And was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky and multitude, and as the sandwiches by the seashore innumerable.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, it was intimated.
Yesterday that there was a bit of a sequence in these names that are brought before us.
And it's nice to develop that just a little bit farther and to see that in that.
The third verse we have the the creation.
And then in the fourth verse in Abel we see the suited and proper sacrifice.
And then in the fifth verse we have Enoch and that is the.
The work of the believer and then the next verse we come to Noah.
And here is the justice judgment of God on a corrupt world.
And then in the next verse, in the eighth verse, we come to Abraham.
And he brings before us the heavenly man, so we have these steps of creation.
And the redemption in the Cross of Christ, the walk for the Christian.
Through this corrupt world, the sure and certain judgment that is about to fall.
On this corrupt world, and then to know of the heavenly portion.
And our occupation with Christ as Abraham was, it tells us in John that he exalted to see my day, and he saw it.
So we have that those steps in connection with this fifth verse. It's nice to read second or first Thessalonians 4. Of course we know that this 4th chapter of first Thessalonians.
Is.
The rapture. It gives the unfolding of the rapture.
But it's so good to read the early part of the chapter, because it ties in with our fifth verse, and also with the account that we have in Genesis. Furthermore, then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would abound more and more for you know what commandments.
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Or instructions we gave you.
But the Lord Jesus, for this is the will of God, even your sanctification.
That she should abstain from fornication, that everyone of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor and so forth. Well, that's very pointed instruction, exhortation for the pathway in view of the fact that we're soon to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. And so this was the exercise that Enoch had, and that's an interesting wording there.
When it says and was not found because God translated him, that indicates that they were looking for him. Just as those sons of the prophets were looking for Elijah. In all their unbelief, they were looking for him. And no doubt the world will wonder what has happened to the believers when we're all caught away, and they may search out and look for the believers, and it may well be that the enemy will fabricate.
A lie that they'll have strong delusion, perhaps even in this connection. They may twist scripture and they may say that we were taken away in judgment or some other excuse, but the believer indeed will be missed. Nice to see in that chapter in Thessalonians, as you've been bringing out, we read in Genesis 5 that Enoch walked with God. Well, that's by faith. We have that privilege. By faith, that's our chapter.
Is to walk in a way pleasing. And of course it says.
And he pleased God in Hebrews 11. Well, that's what we have there. We ought to please God.
And in that we have the fruit, we should all have fruit for the Lord.
And of course, that comes by the walk. That's faith. And then of course, the raptures in the chapter.
And it says.
He was not. In Genesis. God took him. Well, of course, that's our hope. We expect to be taken, snatched out of this scene and it'll just simply be said. We were not. We will not die. We'll go. And of course, the little while that's left.
Why? It's separation. And that comes in the third verse of that chapter. This is the will of God, even your sanctification.
He is holy, and we should be so in the seventh verse that says God has not called us to uncleanness, but under holiness. So the four things really come in that chapter. The walk is by faith, and the fruit is the result of it, because you please God. That's what fruit is. It pleases God. And then the rapture is our hope, and it's coming, but in the meantime, sanctification practically.
There's separation from this world.
So it's a very exercising chapter, the 4th of First Thessalonians.
Wondering if there was a thought in Genesis 4 and verse 26.
And desert to him also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos.
Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord, and then in Genesis 5.
Verse 22. And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah.
I was just wondering if the exercise to walk with the Lord was after they were given that little one, that he might be brought up for the Lord. I think it's interesting here too that it follows immediately after Abel about Enoch, because it has often been said that the wilderness is not part of the purposes of God, but part of his ways, and so we find that immediately after we have Abel who presented that acceptable sacrifice.
Then we have the truth about Enoch being translated, and so isn't it very blessed that the very moment we are saved, we have this hope set before us now? God will sustain us in our pathway here, and the verses that follow show that we see the world is under judgment, like Noah and Abraham walking as a Pilgrim and a stranger. But the thought of the translation follows immediately after.
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The thought, the truth of redemption. And brethren, we need to be looking for the Lord at any moment, and that is a regulating truth for our whole life. Indeed, as I believe, another has said that it's brought in in connection with every detail of our lives.
If you and I had been writing a book, why, we'd bring all the truth about the Lords coming together and the truth about the walk and another paragraph. But it's very lovely to see through the Scripture that the truth of the Lords coming is brought in, in connection with every part of our lives.
Because if we really have that hope before us, it's going to regulate everything. And so in our verse here it says he was translated that he should not see death. And this even before there's anything mentioned about his walk, because this is our blessed hope. And another thing too, that's very precious. If the Lord should come at this moment, every one of his own would be caught up, faithful and unfaithful would go up.
Christ that is coming. But if we have this hope in our hearts, as it tells us in first John 4.
Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
And in the measure in which we're expecting the Lord to come at any moment, then we do want to have his approval about our walk. And that's why it goes on after telling us about his translation, that he had this testimony that he pleased God. And that ought to be our desire, as it tells us in the 12Th chapter of Luke, that at his return we might open to him immediately, And that is.
If things are not just right, we don't open the door right away. We'd like to straighten a few things up.
By if we're really going as if we are expecting the person at any moment, the moment they wrap, the door swings open. And this ought to be our daily attitude, brethren. And I'm sure if we are truly expecting the Lord to come, this will be the important thing, and each one of us.
To please God, you may not at once learn his mind about everything.
It little by little precept, line upon line, precept upon precept. But the very first day of a child of God, like Saul of Tarsus, when he was brought to know the Lord, it says, What wilt thou have me to do? He wanted to please God. That is the character of the new life. May that desire be deepened, And I say again, it will be deepened if we're expecting the Lord at any moment.
What a wonderful time we're living in. I've often thought if we could have chosen when to be born, we couldn't have chosen a better time. It's exciting really, the fact that we can start every day with two words, perhaps today, and it really guides our walk and our heart for that day. It's as it really says in first John, first John, chapter 3, verse two and three.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God. It does not get a fear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure. Brethren, we're going to be snatched out of this world. We thrill when we read Enoch.
And he was not.
He doesn't die. He was taken by God, translated right from this life to that, and how precious it is. It's going to happen to us. It was mentioned yesterday that some are not even concerned or vexed with all these problems. We have a nuclear war and with Russia and so on. Well, I was in Dixon Village in Saint Vincent.
And you know, they're not bothered with the news and they're not bothered with Russia. I doubt if they know it exists.
Nor with nuclear war, but all how they're excited with what we're talking about, this event that's going to happen, the shout. And that's what occupies their hearts. They they're not troubled with the things that trouble us daily as we read these reports. They don't even know about nuclear war, but they surely know about the war's coming, and it excites them. And it's wonderful that excites all of us.
00:15:09
Well, you know, I love to give out these pocket calendars, and I usually start giving them out right after the Wheaton Conference, I should say the Edison Conference. And because people love to receive them, and then I give them out usually four months more. So almost all year I'm giving them out. But this year I've had an exercise about it and I try to find out if they're Christians when I hand it to them, and if I haven't got any indicate or if I have an indication they are, I tell them I don't expect to use this one. Do you?
Because the Lord's coming before 84.
And if they're lost, I tell them to. I'm not expecting to use it, but in case, here's one for you. I hope you don't use it. And that brings off our little question. And it gives a nice chance to testify. When you give out these calendars, you expect to use them. When you buy them, do you expect to use them? I don't. Not 84. But still, we should be ready. And the text on them are good and the verses are able to bless them.
But I think it's exciting. We're living in this time that Enoch experienced and brethren, we're going to experience it. How that ought to occupy not only our walk, but our exercise towards the loft all around us. I'd like to bring in a little word of.
Of warning in connection with this passage because I believe that.
Many more and more of the.
Christian groups in the world are drifting toward.
The belief that the Church is going to pass through the tribulation, and I believe that if the Lord doesn't come soon that this is going to be generally accepted and I think it's worthwhile to notice the sequence that we have here in this passage.
And also to compare it with the passages that have been mentioned, intimated in Genesis how that Enoch a picture of the Church.
Is raptured to heaven.
Before.
Noah, who is a picture, can be a picture of the little remnant that is going to be preserved through the tribulation that is going to follow. So we see very plainly from that those passages in Genesis and also the sequence that we have here, that the rapture of Enoch took place before the tribulation which followed in the days of Noah.
And I believe, beloved ones, that we need to be very careful.
When this suggestion that the Church might pass through the tribulation.
Is going to take place. I believe that it is. It turns us on to our own selves and it's it's introspection and it is occupying us with ourselves and and how we're going to endure and and so on. And it misses the point and it turns our thoughts away from the coming of the Lord Jesus personally for us.
Revelation chapter 5, I believe, should really clear that matter up for anyone, because we see that the 24 elders are there worshipping the Redeemer, the Lamb who is to take the book out of the hands of him that sits upon the throne, which is the book of judgment which have not yet begun. But the 24 elders are there representing the believers.
Of the Old and New Testament worshipping the lamb. So they necessarily have to be taken to glory, to be with Christ, to be in that position of worshippers before even any judgment has begun. I also like to take encouragement from the fact that Enoch walked with God for 300 years. Just imagine 300 years.
What a long period of time there is. None of us will be called upon to walk for God that long in this scene.
The Lord preserved him. The Lord can preserve you and me, that we also in a measure will walk for him and for his glory in this city.
00:20:12
You'll notice it says that.
And they still first that before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God.
And we would want to take note of that it was before his translation we.
We think of scriptures and we have in our hymns, and we often have in our thoughts of how that we will be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory, that we shall be like him and we will be totally pleasing to him, and there will be nothing in connection with us that is not for the pleasure of God.
When he comes and we are caught up and we are changed.
To be like him, but here it says before his translation.
He pleased God, and I suppose this ought to be a real exercise with us as to be.
Pleasing to God, pleasing to the Lord while we're here in this world.
Which we're inclined sometimes to believe is more difficult.
Than it perhaps was for Enoch when he walked with God. But you know, the world in his day was filled with violence and corruption.
And I have no doubt it was not an easy thing. You might say, well, we have more problems today. But there's always been problems as far as the world is concerned. Because when sin came in and man that was alienated from God, he has filled the world with violence and corruption. It's what characterized it, even the world before the flood so bad that God swept it away. And yet.
It was in those circumstances that he walked with God, and we see that to God that took him.
And you might say that he went right into the presence of the One.
With whom he had been walking for those many years now his.
You might say his surroundings were different. No longer was he with the God. In walking, with God, in the midst of difficult circumstances, and with sin abounding, He found himself in the in the presence of God, in different circumstances and surroundings. But it was the same God. I've enjoyed the expression of Mr. Darby's, him when he says there no stranger.
God shall meet thee.
Stranger thou in courts above. When we're translated, we'll be an entirely new and different circumstances.
But it isn't a new and different God. It's the one that we know now and with whom we can walk.
And have communion. And it's our privilege to know his thoughts and his ways and to enjoy his presence, even while we're here in a world that is departed from God and under Satan's power. And where there are many things, so many things that are contrary to God, but we want to keep in mind to to have an exercise to be pleasing to Him.
Before our translation, and not just thinking of what we will be when the Lord comes.
But what he would have is to be now for his pleasure I would appreciate.
A brother or two giving some help.
On this question in John chapter 3.
Verse 13.
The Lord Jesus says no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven. Even the Son of Man which is in heaven is the first part of the verse. The Lord says no man hath ascended up to heaven.
And then in First Corinthians 15 verse.
Verse 50.
Apostle Paul says now this I saved brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.
Neither does corruption inherit incorruption. And yet we read that Enoch was translated that he should not see death. How do we harmonize that? How are we to understand that in the light of these other verses? I I only I believe there's only one person in heaven with a glorified body, and that's the Lord Jesus himself tells us there in First Corinthians 15, Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ at his coming.
00:25:13
But all the others that we read about in this chapter, and with the exception of these two, Enoch and Elijah, they passed through the article of death. And I don't believe that those two pass through. The article of death tells us distinctly about Elijah that he went toward heaven and that chariot of fire, so there is no thought to my mind of him receiving a glorified body. But he didn't go through the experience that we have to go through if the Lord doesn't come in our life time.
And that is the experience of going through death. They never faced that. God removed that. But I believe it's just brought before us in the Scripture as a type to show us that there were these who were caught up. And so this is what is going to take place for us. But at that moment when the Lord catches us up, then we have an added expression in First Corinthians 15, and we shall be changed.
There's no mention about this in connection with either Enoch or Elijah that they were chained. So for my own part, I'm satisfied that there is no one there with a glorified body now except the Lord Jesus and when he was speaking here to Nicodemus.
He was actually in heaven and on earth at the same time. It's really a verse that I believe that sets before us His deity.
Because of who he was, he's omnipresent, and so he brings before us in this first John three, I believe, those two very important points, the glory of his person. And in the next verse the work that glorified God, that is the. In the next verse it says. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
So the our whole salvation rests upon the person and the work of Christ.
Wouldn't you say too that the expression?
Ascending up to heaven would indicate something a little special. Because he's a divine person, he can ascend up to heaven.
We know that as a man, we're like in Luke's gospel, he was taken up into heaven.
You might see it with The same thing is true of Enoch and Elijah. They were taken up, but only a divine person could ascend. And he says to Mary I've not yet ascended. And in John's gospel where we have the truth of his person.
Being a divine person emphasized. I think it's the the thought of his ascending which set him apart.
As as being a divine person that he could.
Himself ascend to heaven. That was where he came from, and he's with but with man.
He is taken up into heaven. And so in regard to the Rapture, we'll be, we'll be taken away. We don't. It's not said of us that we're going to ascend into heaven, but we're going to be taken up. But he ascends on his in his, in his own person, as a divine person.
But I just add to that in the end of the 11Th chapter of Hebrews which we are reading.
It says but these and these all having obtained a good report through faith, receive not the promised God, having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Now we, I think we all know that that expression means that they haven't as yet received their glorified bodies. Or in the 12Th chapter and the 23rd verse it says to the General Assembly and Church of the first one, which are written in heaven.
God, the judge of all and to the spirits of just man made perfect. That shows that the expression made perfect refers to receiving the glorified body. Now we have a perfect salvation and a perfect standing before God, but we haven't yet been made perfect. The making perfect as we have it brought before us here has to do with receiving a glorified body. That's our full salvation.
And there's no on there, and have them there waiting the same as we are to be made perfect. And when the time comes that the Church is there and glory, the Church of the first born written in heaven, then there will be the spirits of just man made perfect. They will have their glorified bodies too, at the same moment as we receive ours when the Lord comes, then all who have gone before will receive their glorified bodies with us.
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You have the same.
Mystery surrounding those that arose that had slept and came out of their graves and appeared to many in the city. After the Lord's resurrection it's veiled in mystery. We don't know what their state, present state is, but we just accept it as from the word of God. It was a testimony. What a testimony it must have been to those in Jerusalem to have those Saints that they knew to have passed on.
Appear to many what a powerful testimony that must have been, and we're just told nothing as to their present state, but we leave it with God.
Wouldn't you think, your brother Hendricks, that it would be comparable to to what the Lord said to the thief today Shalt thou be with me in paradise? Well, paradise isn't a place, but it is a a condition of waiting with joyful anticipation. And it would seem that these two were in that similar condition. In John 14 it says I go to prepare.
A place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you on myself. When the Lord Jesus entered into heaven, the very entrance, as a man prepared heaven for the first time for a man, and prior to his entering into heaven, there was no man there. So we can believe that these two didn't have their glorified bodies before the Lord.
Because they took they lived long before, so I would take it that they are similarly in that paradise.
In joyful anticipation waiting, And the Lord is in heaven alone as a man at the present.
Even as to the resurrection of those who rose from the grave, the Saints it specifically said.
After his resurrection they appeared so that the Lord Jesus is the 1St and it's beautiful to see that. I also think it's so encouraging to see how as Brother John already indicated the birth of his son.
Enoch's son seemed to have had an effect upon his life in Noah.
It seems to be the other way around.
That Noah's godliness was a blessing to his whole house. And how wonderful that is, We know that.
None of the children of the Saints will be saved because their parents are safe. They have to personally come to the Lord Jesus. But in Noah's case it is not a question of heaven or hell. That is a question of being preserved for God on earth and how wonderful it is to see that the children.
Are in a privileged and blessed position because of the faith of their Father.
And I believe that's Even so today in verse 6.
We have the we as we had in verse five about pleasing God.
We see that without faith it is impossible to please him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that he is.
And I suppose this might seem very elementary, but the it's putting our faith and confidence in one who is supreme.
Cometh to God must believe that He is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him out, as I believe is a better reading. That's what I wanted to emphasize. They don't believe here's the fault of a Sinner seeking the Lord. They believe it is the Lord's people seeking out God in all of their circumstances and their pathway.
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And that's really what I suppose characterized Enoch.
And walking with God, he sought out God in his daily pathways. He walked through this scene. And so the exercise would be that we would have a we would be diligently seeking him out. That's not being careless and indifferent, but it's seeking out God.
In all of our circumstances, we know that when when the Lord Jesus was here, he always had God before him and everything that he did.
And in all of his thoughts and his motives, his purpose, and when he was was to be apprehended in the garden by his enemies, and Peter sought to defend him, he says. The cup that the Father has given me, he took all of those. He took that circumstance and everything from the hands of the Father.
So God would have us to be exercised in seeking Him out in all of our circumstances and everything that we are involved in. We might see the hand of God in it, and walk with God in it, and seek to be pleasing to Him in it. It says there that he had this testimony.
I'm sure that Enoch wasn't occupied with his testimony. I remember hearing of a young brother that had been saved and he was in one of the assemblies and he asked the question, how do we take care of our testimony? How do we look after our testimony and shouldn't we be occupied with it? And an older brother apparently answered and said, if you walk with the Lord.
He will take care of your testimony and so it seems that that is born out here in this verse.
He had this testimony that he pleased God, that was his object pleasing the Lord, and the testimony was taken care of.
The whole thought is responsibility, isn't it? Without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. In other words, it is not just doing outward things.
There might be the offering of a sacrifice. The children of Israel offered many sacrifices, but God was not pleased. And he said, I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices? And that is it was not things. It was doing what we do to please God. And that's what counts, because we're so liable to thankful if I do a certain thing that would please God.
Well, doing the certain thing is important in the sense of obedience, but unless the motive is right, it has no value before God.
What gives it value is that we're doing it to please God. Now, of course, if we're going to please him, we must please him according to the instruction that he has given. And that alone is the way we can please him, because it says that.
If any man will do his will, he shall know the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.
And he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. But I believe the important point in this chapter.
And I think the thing we need to all get hold of we might take our place at the Lord's table. We might partake of the Lord's Supper. But we could ask ourselves, why are we doing it? Is it to please the one who has done so much for us? If we are seeking to walk in separation in the world, are we doing it because it's one of the rules that we have become acquainted with, and this is the way things should be done? Or are we doing what we do?
To please him.
So this verse, I think, brings before us this very important thing that it without faith it is impossible to please him. And as our brother brought before us last night in the gospel, there might be those who prophesied in his name, there might be those who did many wonderful works.
Without faith, it's impossible. So faith has God for its object. Faith is doing what we do to please Him, and we learn how in His word. But the moulder is so important than this, I believe, is the theme of this chapter, and I believe it speaks to all our hearts, and we need to ask ourselves in God's presence, Am I doing this to please God? I'd say too that that there's an encouraging word here.
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He is a rewarder.
Of them that diligently seek him.
And one might be become.
Maybe a little downcast in feeling that one is not able to do much in the way of great service for the Lord, but if we take up the word of God.
As has been pointed out, with a desire to please God and our walk in ways children obedient to parents, whatever the exhortations are we have in the Word, yielding our bodies a living sacrifice. It may be that as far as.
Great service. It may appear to be a very small thing and we know in Christendom.
There's not much emphasis put upon pleasing God In everyday affairs. There's a great emphasis placed upon taking up some activity, some work that that can be pointed out as a producing results, but to take up the daily pursuits of life and our work and in our school and in our homes. But here it says he's a rewarder.
Of them that diligently seek him, and we know that such labor is not in vain. I was thinking in regard to the verse in verse four in regard to Abel.
It says at the end of that verse.
And by it he being dead yet speaketh. In other words, what he did. God testified of his gifts and what he did. We see that God has recorded it and it still has a voice today. It's a it has a voice, even though it was done many years ago. And I would connect that with the thought to of his God taking account of what he's done to please him.
And what is done according to his mind and his will, and obedience to His word.
And he records it. He keeps a record of it and.
He can use it for blessing to others, and then he is a rewarder of those who would be exercised for that. Nice to see that principle. We don't do things in faith because of the reward, but God will never be better to anyone, and it's nice that principle is always there. I was thinking in a Mark, the 10th chapter of Mark.
Peter.
Was bringing up to the Lord.
What it cost them to follow him.
And he said, Law in verse 28, Law, we have left all and followed thee. Well, of course, if we're thinking about what it costs us to follow the Lord, we're not giving him any pleasure. We're occupied with ourselves and our work. And Jesus answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, there's no man that has left house for president, or sisters, or father, mother, or wife, or children or land.
For my sake in the gospel.
But he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time.
Houses and brothers, sisters and mothers, children and lands with persecution and in the world to come, eternal life. Well, we know that he's brought us out of this world to bring us in. Well, we know that he's brought us out of this world to bring us in, as was the principle with the children of Israel. But he's brought us into a wealthy place. He's brought us into a large place that says in the Psalms.
We have brethren worldwide. We have fellowship. Life was unknown, and that's what the Lord Speaking of here. It's wonderful to have that in our heart. Now, just before in this chapter in verse 17, he had that rich young ruler coming to him in earnest, and he could say I've kept all these things from my youth off. Without faith, it's impossible to please him.
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The Lord looked upon him, beheld him, and loved him.
Because the Lord loves anything that would seek to to be doing according to his word. But there wasn't any faith. He was law keeping and he did. He did not give pleasure to the Lord. In fact He left the sorrowful. And that's what the Lord said, take up thy cross and follow me and give me pleasure in another gospel that says take up thy cross.
Daily It's an exercise, they say. And when you're following him, there is a cross. There's a rejection. He had a reproach and a loss but all what a rewarder he is. He that shall save his life here, shall lose it, but he shall he that shall lose his life, for my sake shall find it. And what a life we found.
Abundantly in Christ, He might say in a general way that rewards are never a motive for service, but in difficulties when things get tough, then Scripture presents a reward as an encouragement. The motive for service or doing things for the Lord is always affection to Christ.
Like we have it even when Peter lovers dharmeet. That is the motive.
But rewards are not a motive, but they are held out as an encouragement in times of difficulty.
I think we have a very happy instruction in the might return to it for a moment in the first chapter of Second Peter, a parallel with what we have here in connection with that word diligently seeking him.
In second Peter chapter one.
The first four verses are the position that every believer.
Is in that is is standing before God and every believer has this, he's executed these.
Eating great and precious promises and the deliverance from corruption that is in the world through lust. And then in the fifth verse it changes, and there we have responsibility. And in another translation it says In this in the King James it says And beside this well, the other translation puts this way, and for this very reason.
Well, what is the reason for that which the Blessed Lord Jesus has accomplished and the position that grace has brought us into now with all this, the consciousness of it, because of it Now he says, And for this very reason add to your faith, virtue, and so on. And there are the the exercise. There is the diligence that is necessary.
All things that pertain unto life and godliness in the third verse, second verse, or third verse, but we are to give all diligence. Now then what is the result of it? Down in the 10th verse it says, Wherefore, the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, ye shall never fall.
Never stumbled so there that is not as has been pointed out.
We're not acting because of any desire for the reward, but we have the the all of the work of the redemption and the total deliverance that we have in Christ. And for that very reason now we are to use all the diligence and the promise is that if we do these things, we shall never fall.
We notice in the Church's history down through the ages, as I believe we can accept the thought there in Revelation 2 and three in every period of time there were things to overcome. And so it's very helpful to see how the Lord encourages the overcomer in each of those periods of time. And so in Ephesus He gives.
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Encouragement as to the tree of life.
Well, I've thought of it in this way that.
To go on with the Lord and to forfeit the advantages.
Of this life, at least in some measure.
There will be that reward in that connection. That is, the Lord will show his approval in regard to the tree of life. In other words, the Lord Jesus says, he that findeth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. And so there is this encouragement here as to what true life is, laying hold of eternal life. And then we see in Smyrna that he gives encouragement.
In regard to the second death, he that overcometh verse 11 shall not be heard of the second death, and we see 2IN regard to Pergamus.
In verse 17.
That the Lord is going to give His approval, that is, in regard to the enjoyment of Himself. Christianity may have taken a popular turn at this point.
But we see that the Lord would give that approval in a hidden way, the enjoyment of himself and the Whitestone, which is the mark of his approval and a name of affection, no doubt in that connection. Then we see entire tariff where the Church more or less was asserting itself in the world, taking an imperial position and seeking to gain power over the nation.
We see that the Lord offers this word of encouragement to the overcomer.
That he would give him power over the nations in verse 26 and then we see also in.
Sardis, where there was this question of state churches and a name having a name to live, and so forth, we see that the Lord would offer this encouragement that they should walk with him.
Or they should be clothed in white. Raiment verse five of chapter 3, and he would confess his name before his father. All in contrast to this.
Question of having a name and a place in the world religiously. And then of course in Philadelphia. It's lovely to see the word to the overcomer there, because he says that he'll make him a pillar in the temple of my God. That certainly bespeaks of stability, a recognition of a steadfastness and a stability, and the assembly we notice in First Timothy 3 is looked at as the pillar and ground of the truth.
And has it continued on in that responsibility? Well, we see that the Lord values the true overcomer in regard to this Philadelphian testimony, and says that he will make him a pillar in the temple of his God, and so forth. And then he uses other expressions in a very personal way that indicate his approval even to the extent of keeping the word of God and.
Bringing in the thought of the New Jerusalem, the Church.
And it's millennial and it's eternal character and all of these things. And my new name in the end of verse 12, indicating his appreciation, his value for holding to the truth of his name now as the only true gathering center. Finally then, in Laodicea, we see the word to the overcomer in verse 21 That the Lord is going to give His.
Full approval, that is his being set down at the right hand.
Of God was a mark of his God's approval of his beloved Son, and the Lord would add that encouragement.
For the overcomer, when everything is in such a state of indifference.
And coldness, Well, I think it's nice to consider those things, and I'm sure others could add much more to that. But the Lord would encourage the overcomer in any period of time. And you now come to Noah, and we see that he viewed the world as being under judgment. In the case of Enoch, he was, as were, the sighing of coming judgment, but now it becomes imminent in the time of Noah, and he takes his place in separation from the world as seeing it under judgment.
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And he prepares an ark to the saving of his house, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness, which is by faith. It's interesting to what it says here. He was warned of God, of things not seen as yet. That is, he didn't, as far as we know from Scripture, there had never been rain. And now God is told that he's going to bring this flood upon the earth and tells him to build this art.
How foolish he must have looked in the eyes of all the people living at that time.
Building a boat a place far from water and telling that a flood was coming and that God was going to send this rain. Well there there was no evidence that he could point to to say that this would take place. Just one thing. God had said it just like we find the Apostle Paul when he stands up there at Mars Hill and says God is appointed today in the which you will judge the world in righteousness.
And by that man whom he hath ordained. And so in the time of Noah, everything went on, just as it had from day-to-day, it says, until the day that Noah entered into the ark. And so we're liable to be taken up with the events that are going on now and lose sight of how this will come as a very sudden thing. The Lord will ****** his own away. And then those awful judgments that have been.
Foretold in his word will take place. And so we see in Noah. He isn't looking out and saying, well, it's nice that our family can progress in this world today, but instead he is thinking of his children and they're being delivered from the judgment that's coming. And I believe we need to make provision in connection with providing things honest in the sight of all men. But brethren, let's not set our hopes upon a world that's under judgment.
And may our children too be brought up to the realization of this that we're called with a heavenly calling. We view the world as under judgment. And while we're to occupy and go on from day-to-day and provide the necessary things, let's be careful we don't set our hearts upon it, that we realize what is really coming upon it, and that by this he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
And I've often thought how his family must have suffered at that time. Here we see a great number gathered together and we're thankful. But out of the whole world, there was only one family, and there were only three children in that family. And we can perhaps picture what it meant to these three children to have to tell that this art their father was building was because they believed, and he believed that this judgment was coming.
They didn't have friends. They didn't have support. They didn't have their peers to help them.
They must stand alone. But God rewarded Noah for his faith, and blessed the family too, who associated themselves with it. And I just like also to mention a little thought that I have enjoyed in connection with what it says about Honosiferous. When he came to Rome, he sought out Paul very diligently. And I've enjoyed the comment the Spirit of God makes there. It says the Lord grant mercy under the House of Onusiferous.
For he off refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain. It wasn't an easy thing for this man to tell people that he was looking for a prisoner and he wanted to break bread in his house and remember the Lord. And this was hard for his family, too. Where? Where do you go to remember the Lord? Well, there's a prisoner there. He has a chain and he's got a guard keeping him. But that's where we remember the Lord. Well, this was hard for the family, too.
And the Lord enters into all these things, not only we who are adults, but also what it means to children to have to go on an identification with the truth. But God honors it, God will bless it. And it's beautiful to see these things brought in in the word of God to encourage not only us, older ones, but children, to be identified with their parents in the path of faith.
01:00:03
Just as they didn't believe Noah's testimony.
Because it hadn't been before. Well, they don't believe today of the judgment to come, and they're willingly ignorant, says Peter. Because they what would I just look at one verse there in Second Peter 3?
They're called scoffers in the third verse, scoffers at the word of God. But notice walking after their own lunch. We're walking after God. That's what we trust by faith. But otherwise there's nothing left but their own lot and their scoffers. And you notice what it is. Where is the promise of his coming? Oh, that's what we're looking forward to, brethren every day.
And it's what keeps our feet detached from this world, with our heart attached there with that old. But, they say, where is the promise of His coming? For since the Father's fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. Willingly. Ignorant, they can't deny the flood. Well, they may not believe the word of God, but they can't deny the evidence. That's all over of the flood.
All geologists attribute to it their shells of the highest elevations that all the Aborigines of the world could have transported there. They can't deny the flood it happened, but they're willingly ignorant. That's the heart of man exposed. It will not believe God, the carnal minds that enmity with God and is opposed to God. And so today when we tell them.
And warn them, it's just the same as in Noah's day, apart from the faith we're reading about. That comes from God, and it comes by the word they'll never believe, they'll score.
It's interesting to see that the way it says by the witch, he condemned the world.
The fact of his building, the Ark.
It's put this way that that was the condemnation of the world.
Here, it isn't that he went out and particularly told individuals of the judgment that was coming. I'm not saying he didn't do that. We know he was a preacher of righteousness.
But here it's put not in the way of his declaring to the world by word of mouth.
That judgment was coming, but in the building of the ark he prepared an ark to the saving of his house by the witch.
He condemned the world and the very fact of building that ark.
Was a was a witness to those roundabout of the state of the world that gods would not continue.
And his patience with them at the end of all flesh had come before God, and his Spirit would not always strive with man. That is the very building of that art had that effect, and I believe is that it was pointed out in regard to.
Our houses, households of the Saints.
And not only the parents, but the house where the you might say they are, an arc is prepared. That is, they are preserved from the from the contact of this wicked world and association with it in separation, separation from the world that will have the effect of bringing home to those in the world.
Of what the state of the world is, that it's not pleasing to God. We find that this is what really arouses the enmity of the world.
Sometimes we find that even the preaching of the gospel is acceptable, and Speaking of the truths of Christianity is acceptable with our neighbors that may not know the Lord or maybe just false professors. But separation, they feel, really condemns their pathway. It condemns that which they are living in and when the children are.
Are preserved from the pursuits that others take up in the neighborhood and in the schools.
Why? It has the effect of condemning them, and this arouses the enmity and animosity. But the Lord will preserve them. And as they thought is here the the preparing of the Ark was for the saving of the house. And that's the thought we should have in separation, isn't it? The saving of the house, not just to to.
01:05:23
Put out any sort of a attitude of being better than others, but it's really the salvation of the house that we're looking for.
And we count upon the Lord for but at the same time it has the effect of condemning the world.
That's case was the very opposite.
Lot when the angels came down and said the place was going to be destroyed, he went to his sons in laws who married his daughters and said that that God was going to destroy this place. But they didn't believe him. It says he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law because his whole life showed that he was living for Sodom, building his hopes there.
And how could he be telling them that it was going to be judged when his life showed the very opposite?
But in the case of Noah here, his life showed that he believed what he was saying, because building this ark was a proof that he believed God, and identifying with that was identifying with a not only a spoken testimony, but a testimony that was lived, that the world is under judgment. Well, brethren, this speaks to our consciences, doesn't it? Because it's so easy for us to talk about the world under judgment, but to live as if we were going to stay here.
But the Lord would have us to realize that at any moment, perhaps this very day, we will hear the shout.
And that will be the signal, as it were, taking away his arm. Just like when Lot left Sodom, it says he was pulled out of it. But when he left Sodom and the judgment came, the only hindrance to the judgment falling is the presence of the Church here. And when the church leaves, the Spirit of God will leave, and then things will begin to move in that awful, awful period of judgment that is coming upon this world.
Get ahead of ourselves, but it's instructive to see how we have some have instructions here in regard to parents, I believe, and their families as we are speaking here. In the seventh verse, it's Noah prepared an ark for the saving of his house, and then in verse nine we read there about Abraham dwelling in tabernacles or tents with Isaac and Jacob. He not only took up the pathway of a Pilgrim and a stranger, but he.
He took it up with his children too, that is.
We find that he had an exercise that that what he should be for the Lord should be for his family and then later on.
In.
We read in the 23rd verse.
Of the parents of Moses. How that they hid him three months.
Because they saw he was a proper child. They saw this child in relation to God, in God's purposes for him, and they held this child to be for God, so they hid him and they were not afraid of the King's commandment. So I believe that the preparing of the ark would be the the.
The way in which the household is conducted, not only the readings and the prayers, but the whole atmosphere in the house would be.
For the salvation of our households from this world And then.
To take up the spirit of a Pilgrim and a stranger.
And the same with our children, that they might be reared from the very beginning with the.
Sense of being a Pilgrim and a stranger, and not belonging to this world and then to.
To take up with them from the very beginning of what they are to be for God.
And God's thoughts for them, that God has has their good and blessing and view, and so in that way we rear them as being the Lords for the Lord in respect to him, and for his for his.
Purposes to be fulfilled in them. So we view them in relationship to the Lord, and not just as having any place in this world, but for the Lord. So I believe there's an exercise here or instructions.
That would exercise.
01:10:01
Us in regard to our households.
There are many families here, parents, and there's a very lovely promise in connection with brother Johnson has just been saying in Isaiah 44, in Isaiah 44 and verse 3.
For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty.
And floods upon the dry ground.
I will pour my spirit upon thy seed.
And my blessing upon thine offspring.
Well, I just say this that if as parents were feeding on Christ ourselves, and we're feeding our children on Christ in the home, then we can count on the Lord to preserve and to bless our children and keep them from the corruption that is sweeping our lands. But it is the responsibility, I believe, of the parents.
To be drawing from Christ himself, to be feeding on him, and then feeding the children in the.
Daily reading of the Scriptures with our children? We can't.
We can't neglect the reading of the Scriptures day by day with our children, and if we do, we may have the mercies of the of God. But if we do not neglect that responsibility of feeding the children, then we can count on the Lord to preserve them in in these awful days in which we are living.
The children are of Christian parents. Even one Christian parent is in a place of real advantage. It might be well, since we've come to that thought in First Corinthians 7, it says.
Verse 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified for the husband. Else were your children unclean, but now?
Are they holy? Of course. This doesn't suppose a willful, unequal yoke, but it's a circumstance. It's a provision of grace in Christianity where perhaps one was saved out of a Pagan situation and now the question of their children, Lydia, may be in that position. We don't know in Acts 16, but at any rate, we see that it's not like it was under the law.
Where there couldn't be that mixture, they would have to put them away. But here we see what a provision and grace this is, that those children are in a place of relative holiness, and so by faith we should go ahead and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That is a responsibility. But I believe by faith we can truly count upon God for the blessing of those children. It must be a work, of course.
In their own souls, individually. But by faith, I believe we can count upon them and recognize the fact that they're in that relative holiness. But there is, with this privilege responsibility, brethren, and as parents, there ought to be a very real exercise about it. Now, those of us who might have the joy of seeing our children walking with the Lord, I'm sure.
All will readily.
Admit that it is His grace that he has to get all the glory and the praise. But, beloved, the Lord wants us to be exercised about our responsibility, And I believe that the children themselves know as well They know whether there is our greatest concern, that they be the Lords, that they are saved, that we do not desire a great place for them in the world.
But more than anything, that they be saved and that they go on for the glory of God in this scene. So while we emphasize responsibility, we want to magnify His grace for any that is in the path that is His doing. Because no matter how well we try, how many mistakes we make, if it would be depending entirely on us, nothing would succeed.
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So we want to magnify the grace of God. But, beloved, here we have a passage that speaks to our conscience. Do we really mean, more than anything else, the blessing of our children? Do we seek, I should say, more than anything else, the spiritual well-being of our children?
Hebrews 11:8-40
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Hebrews 11 verse 8.
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obey.
And he went out not knowing whether he went.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise.
As in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac, and Jacob the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is gone through faith. Also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past Aids.
Because she judged him faithful who had promised.
Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky and multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them.
And confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country, and truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned, but now the desire a better country, that is, and heavenly, Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.
For he hath prepared for them a city by faith, Abraham.
When he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.
By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
Faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph, and worshipped leaning upon the top of his staff.
Faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones.
Faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the King's commandment.
By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect under the recompense of the reward.
By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first born shall touch them.
By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians are saying to do, were drowned.
By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days.
By faith, the harlot Rahab Harry snot with them that believe not.
When she had received the spies with peace. And what shall I more say?
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For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barack.
Of Samson and of Jephthah, of David also and Samuel and of the Prophets.
Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtain promises.
Stop the mouths of lions, quench the violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword. Out of weakness were made strong, wax violent. In fight, turn to flight the armies of the aliens women receive their dead, raised to life again, and others were tortured.
Not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial, cruel mockings and scourgings, yeah. Moreover, of bonds and imprisonment, they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins.
Being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.
They wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
And these all having obtained a good report through faith, receive not the promise, God having provided some better things for us, that they without us, should not be made perfect.
You mentioned Brother Dawn that you had Abraham.
Particularly on your heart.
Will you tell us a bit of what you had?
Well, just a few.
Sketchy thoughts, but just the very fact of his faith, and that he would leave a place of advantage. Because no doubt, ER, the Chaldeans was a prominent city of that day in a place of advantage. And it's really the obedience of faith, because Abraham must have had some link or connection with idolatry, at least in his family.
Because I believe Joshua says, our fathers worshipped idols on the other side of the flood, or the other side of the Euphrates. And so we see such remarkable faith that Abraham would obey and take a step like this, going to a place that he knew nothing of. And he when he got to the place, of course, he was given the land. That is, God told him to look up and to look in all directions.
And it was all his possession. But we see that Abraham never really took possession of the land. The only possession that he actually had was a burial place. And that is remarkable in itself. It was all his. But he didn't take it by force. He could have no doubt. We see that he had trained servants that had real ability when they stood up against an army, but there's no thought at all that he takes any possession.
But I was thinking especially of this verse 10.
He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. What a word that surely must have been to the Hebrew believers, because they were putting so much importance in a city, Jerusalem. And we see how that they didn't want to give up everything connected with the temple worship in the city and so.
We see how that Abraham's faith rose above any mirrored earthly advantage, and he looked for a city that had foundation, whose builder and maker was gone. But I would enjoy hearing some other thoughts on this.
I was thinking, and not only just Abraham, but others that are brought before us in this chapter where we have their faith.
Brought out a record given and when you compare what is recorded here with the actual history recorded of their lives in the Old Testament, there are many things that they did associated with.
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Of what is here spoken of his faith? It didn't appear to be faith.
That is, we know even with Abraham he seemed to be under the influence of his father-in-law. Wasn't that when he first left the land and it was only after his death that he actually came into the land? But here we see God records his leaving his homeland and coming into the land as a as an evidence of faith. He doesn't record the other things here. This is the record that God gives. And I I think we have a little example here of.
What we have in First Corinthians 4 when the apostle is speaking about judging.
Servants. And he says that to God will bring everything to light, even the hidden things of darkness. And he says, Then shall every man have praise of God?
You know sometimes when we think of the judgment seat, I suppose that too often we think, oh we don't want all those things brought out. But actually the I think there's should look at it from the positive side then shall every man have praise of God. God is going and the Lord is going to to bring out the the positive side of things as well the things that were really of faith that were for his glory and.
We know that with every believer.
There is that which is going to be for the glory of Christ, you're going to be brought out that he can commend.
And it seems that in this chapter that's what God does. He gives us the what he has, what he saw in the various actions of these persons, and how it appeared to him as that he can take delight and pleasure in it, even though there was failure connected with some of these things. I was thinking not only of Abraham, but but Isaac blessing his sons by faith.
We know there was a lot of failure connected with that.
A lot of failure connected with Jacob, but then his faith is recorded here.
That age first by faith Abraham, when he was called to vote into a place which he should have to receive for inheritance, obeyed.
Read The God of glory appeared unto her father Abraham, and engulfed in Mesopotamia.
There is no mention made of any further appearance either in Heron or on the way to Canaan. But when he arrived in Canaan, then we find it's recorded that God appeared to him again and gave him further truth, further promises. Well, I wondered if we couldn't apply it to ourselves. If the Lord reveals something to us, He expects us to act in, act on us, to walk in that truth.
And then he can give us more truth.
Do we not pay with Abraham, and has already been mentioned to Isaac and Jacob?
And also with Joseph, as we go on down into the chapter to find that their faith was characterized by patience.
These all died in faith.
Waiting for the promises to be fulfilled.
So Abraham and Isaac and Jacob looked for a city which had foundations.
The builder maker is gone.
They couldn't find it down here on the Earth.
So they looked for it in God's own time to make it good to them.
See a similar plot in Peter where it says that always.
Oh.
Conversation and God in us. And then it says we, according to his promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth. For him dwelleth righteousness. And so we have Noah. He condemned the world. He saw the world as a judge place, and that is what makes us pilgrims and strangers. If we see the world as a judge place, then we see that the only hope is outside of it all together.
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And I believe that's why it follows on in this order. But as our brother remarked, with Abraham, influenced by his father, he settled down in heroin until his father had died. And then after his father had died, that was when he remembered that God's call had been not to just stop part way, but to come right into that land of Canaan. And I think there's always that tendency with us that when we first hear the call of God.
And start out why we perhaps are influenced by certain things. Might be relatives, might be temporal advantages. We don't read about them having a tent there at all. Inherent. But just that he settled down there and it wasn't until he got into the land of Canaan that he is displayed in his real character. It's sad when God has to bring circumstances into our lives to make us walk by faith.
It ought to have been sufficient that the call of God had called him to come into Canaan.
But like ourselves, we find it hard to go forward in that confidence in God.
But it's always the path of true blessing and happiness to do so.
Actually the initiative taken by his father wasn't in leaving the land originally and so it wasn't in the record given in Genesis wouldn't wouldn't show that it was the was the action of Abraham at all, but the action of his father taking him into Heron. But we see that the as you say the he had had the call and even though there was this temporary.
Hindrance.
When he goes on and acts in faith and coming on into the land, so he he does actually act on that call that he had originally, even though there was that that hindrance temporarily.
I like to.
Yes, I like to think of it in a simpler way to in comparison to the progress in a Christian's life.
In Ur of the colonies, there he was in a land of.
Great development and he could have felt well. I had better stay here. I can be more.
More of a witness for God, but God told him to come out, and they didn't tell him where he was going to go, but he told him to go out. It says there in that verse, not knowing whither he went. Well, sometimes we might act and it might be kind of the reasoning of our.
Minds of our old nature that would say, well, we better go. I like to think of that as in the case of Abraham.
It was his father. Well, we might compare him to the old nature, the old man that is still often guides us. So off he went and he traveled in that great big fertile Crescent 500 or 600 miles. Well, he stopped halfway and that often is the case in the Christian life. We go on for a while, but then the old nature is still influencing us.
And we we stopped. So he stopped there. Well, when he learned the lesson, or when the Christian learns the lesson.
That there is death to that old nature, and when they put it in that place of death then things start to open up.
Well, that's what happened when his father died. Then he begins to have that thought again of the Lord's promise. The Lord hasn't appeared to him, so off he goes. And he was on the way. And when he comes to the land, how did he know where to stop? Because if you come down that, that, and it's very, very beautiful. And he might have thought, well, this is the place. No, it's not.
On he goes. But then when he gets to the land, it's beautiful that it says. As was pointed out, the Lord appeared to him there. Well, it's nice, isn't it, that when we act in faith, putting the the old nature in that place of death and not being guided by it, then the Lord manifests his mind, and as a matter of fact it twice says and the Lord appeared to him there. That's how we know that we are in the place where the Lord would have us.
The it's it's hard for us to prove it or to show it to other Christians. They might say, well, you think you're right. And we we think we're right too. Well, how can we know? Well, it's the presence of the Lord that is manifested to us when we act in faith.
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Result of obedience, isn't it? I was thinking with each one of us when we were called, why we had to come out really from the world, but from our families, from our homes, from our land and to him? And really the blessings followed them. I was thinking, if you just look at Genesis 12.
At verse one and two it says.
Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country. From thy kindred, from thy Father's house, unto a land. I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation. I will bless thee. Well, the first thing would be obedience, and the next thing would be blessings. That's the way the Lord is, and Abraham had to go ahead in faith. Well, verse four does say.
Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken. And I just want to mention in verse seven he had an altar. But notice verse eight he removed from thence onto a mountain on the east of Bethel, pitched his tent. Bethel on the West is AI on the east. There he built an altar under the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. Well seven things happened there, and it's lovely to see what he had right away.
The first He had the promise and the Lord promised blessing. And so already we we see as that promised and he was acting on it. He had an altar. Well, we have an altar in Hebrews. It's lovely. But he had that altar, and that's everything to a believer, to have an altar. He had a House of God, that's Bethel and speaks of that. Anyway, it has that type, that God's presence. He had the name of the Lord.
It said he called upon the name of the Lord. He had a tent. He was a solejourner, a Pilgrim character. He said he had his tent, pitched his tent near Bethel, and he had fellowship. Lot was with him and and others as well. And the last thing the 7th he had the Lord himself. And so those seven things already were his. And when we look at our portion we see that in verse eight he obeyed. And verse 9.
He sojourned because now he was a stranger in the land, and in verse nine also it says he dwelt the Tabernacle attend was his and he looked at verse 10. He had the forward look. He looked ahead to God for the promises and he offered. That's verse 17. He sacrificed. You know, brethren, we have privilege.
Of sacrificing for the Lord in obedience, and he did as well. But he accounted. That's the 19th He accounted. He trusted in God. God is able, so we see what happens from obedience. And he had those seven things right away.
I.
There are many things that one might take up in regard to Abraham, but it appears that here the he's brought in.
As a way of an encouragement to those who are passing through the wilderness. And they have not yet received the they haven't come to the end of the path, and they haven't received the things to which they were called. And of course there was the danger of their.
Growing weary in the way and turning back. And so he emphasizes, does he not the fact that that Abraham, even though he was called into this place by God, he was there as a sojourner. He was there as a Pilgrim and a stranger. He was there not as one who had been brought to finality that was still future. So even though he was called of God, and there was, I'm sure that the Hebrews would have never questioned Abraham being called of God.
But he he didn't have. He hadn't reached finality when he was there, even though he was called to a place of blessing, it was a place where faith was to be an activity and as a sojourner. And so it is with us. We we have been called.
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And that call of God, of course, has in view the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus.
That we're not there yet. And so like Abraham, we were to be as sojourners as pilgrims and strangers and with faith and activity and as our brothers mentioned with that forward look, looking for that that city, looking for the, the.
The final place to which God has called us, the obtaining glory of the Lord Jesus. So it's really an encouragement to see how that these these men who were who were truly called of God, yet they didn't have that to which they were called in all of its fullness. They could only embrace it by faith.
Genesis 13 and 17 We have the Lord saying to Abraham, arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it. For I will give it unto thee I will give it. It was still future. So he was a sojourner in that land, and he didn't own the foot of it, except has been mentioned what he got for a burial place. But he the Lord would have him to range through that land.
And then enjoy all by faith what he was going to give him for an inheritance. Well, is it not the same with us? He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, and he would have us to enjoy them now by faith, what we will enjoy in the coming day and all its moments.
See the call of God as individual thing too, because as it was remarked, the call was to Abraham. In fact we read in Isaiah I called Abraham alone and blessed him, and so he allowed his father to take the lead and that hindered him. And so they remained quite a long time there in Heron before they moved on into Canaan. And then he also had lot with him. Now the call was not really to lot.
And lot seems to me to picture ones who just go along with others who are walking by faith.
And in some measures share in the blessings. But when he was finally put to the test himself, we see where his heart was and he sought the well watered plains. So we're all put to the test eventually the Lord calls us. Individually we have the same thought. In Second Timothy chapter 2 it says, if a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor sanctified and meet for the masters use.
And prepared unto every good work. And then once one has separated himself, then God gives him company. And so we find he dwelled in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob. But the call was an individual thing, and to try and induce others to come into a path that they're not really, shall I say, have seen it from God's word and are acting on it because they have the word of God. Sooner or later that will be discovered that they didn't really receive it from God.
I believe that's so important for us. We only have as much of the truth as we have received for ourselves from God.
Otherwise, it's just following along with others and we're going to be tested about that. It is beautiful, as our brother brought before us, that the thought here is heavenly blessing. Later on we know that they will possess the land and have earthly blessing. That is Israel's promise. But what is brought before us here is particularly to appeal to the hearts of the Hebrew believers to show that there was a time in their history when the very leader whom they look to.
Was not looking for earthly blessing, but a picture of those who are looking for something beyond and outside of this world. And so it tells us that he he looked for a city which had foundations whose builder and maker is God. Well, how blessed that this is our our true pathway here. But it's it's step by step as God opens up the way and it's constantly walking by faith. I believe too that we could say that.
In some miraculous way, God gave them that which sustained their faith.
And so how would he know about the city that had foundations, whose builder and maker is God? There is no mention of this whatever back in Genesis, but rather that good land. But I believe God has his own way of sustaining our faith when we're put in circumstances. And so we find when the Lord told his own that it was going to be a difficult path to follow him, then he took them up on the Mount of Transfiguration.
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And showed them a little preview of the Kingdom. And that's really what God does to us, He really.
Has a way of making these things real to our souls, and so that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It makes it real whom having not seen we love. And only as these things are made real in our souls, can we go on in the pathway of faith.
With a pathway of faith, patience is connected.
Isn't it remarkable? In Acts we find that.
It is said that when he has yet had not any son.
How long did it take before Abram had a son Who would all the many years that he was a soldier in her in that land? According to the Israelite way of life, being an earthly people, how could you speak of an inheritance when you don't have an heir? So it was all the time to Abraham that now I haven't got a child at all. What does it mean to me to be the inheritor of this land? And God waits till.
The normal.
Life is passed for a successor or a child. Abraham fails in some ways in trying to make up for this with the Egyptian life, and those are crutches that he tried to use, but God had to correct him from all this and bring him back from it all, but really only when he gives them a child in his old age.
But then the remarkable thing is Isaac was only a lad, a young lad, and then God tells him.
Go to offer him on Mount Moriah and a place that I will show thee. Well then.
Wouldn't that?
Topple it all over again.
But Abraham goes in faith, and here we have the record that we don't read in Genesis that Abraham accounted that God was able to raise him even from the dead. And when you spoke of the How did Abraham know anything about a city that had foundation? I believe in some way God taught him. Now through Isaac, here is resurrection life.
Go on that pathway looking for a resurrection.
That God has no blessing for a man for us? Not either, only in resurrection. If we lived without that, well, the end would be the end of all flesh. But here's resurrection brought in, and I wonder how much Abraham didn't understand of that because he was a friend of God.
I like the way Mr. Ballard spoke about it. He said that in the Old Testament the truth of heavenly blessing was not revealed. And it was like a dark night, and all of a sudden there is a flash of lightning and the whole countryside had lighted up, and then its darkness again. And so there were through the Old Testament those little flashes of light which God gave. We think of Job.
When he said, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and I shall see him myself, and know after my flesh worms destroy this body, Yet in my flesh shall I see God. Well, that was like a flash of lightning we find again in the Psalms. I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. If you had said, well, what is the likeness you speak of? Because the incarnation had not yet taken place. But there was that which God gave to sustain their faith.
And if we can speak of it in a practical way, I believe that God knows there are times when our faith is truly put to the test.
And in a way that is almost beyond our understanding, He'll be very near and he'll give us that which will sustain us so that we'll be able to go on. It's something that we can hardly explain, but a nearness that he will give us. We find that in the Old Testament, previous to the time, that heavenly blessing was revealed, and that's why we have those little things to show. Well, it's the same in principle even today, and we need that to sustain us.
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And the Lord knows when the heart grows weary, it says here in the 15th verse. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have return. Well, they the time must have come. And Abraham's life, God had said, I'm going to give this land to you and to your posterity. And as our brother said, he lived all his life and never had one foot of it that he could call his own.
Only a burying ground for Sarah and the enemy must have said, well, why don't you go back? You had something you could call your own. God promised it to you here, and you haven't received it. So God gave him that view by faith of what was his, and he saw that city which had foundations in faith and that sustained him. And so he was able to go on and he didn't go back because he he had that. We have that principle in Hebrews chapter 10, where it says we are not of them which draw back under perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
Would you say that?
While as you say they didn't have a a revelation of heavenly things as we have now in Christianity. But when you say that this knowledge or this feeling that they there is something outside of this scene is based on the fact that they they had a knowledge of God, that he was a living God. And I'm sure as they looked around they saw that.
Death was on everything here and decay and passing away and with a with a knowledge of the true God. That God is the God of the living, isn't he? He's not connected with that which is death and decay, but he's the God of the living. And as they get that expression that they desire a better country, they they're just their knowledge of God himself LED them to see. I believe that there was a better country something that was beyond.
What might even be blessing down here, because God is the God of the living, and in that way I believe it's that this is one of the great.
Assets. Advantages of having the word of God, and that is that we gain a knowledge of God. We we learned something of God in a way that we can judge of things according to that knowledge of God whether we have a black and white.
Scripture for it just there are things that that are not compatible, you might say with the fact of of God being the living God and God being holy when we know something of God of his character and his nature while we can judge things and and and have an estimate of things.
With the light of the knowledge of God himself, without, say, some particular.
Teaching on the matter just the knowledge of God. And it seems to me that these men of Abraham, by faith, he had that knowledge that God was the God of the living and not of the dead. And he looked for something better and heavenly, something continuing, something permanent that was outside this transitory scene.
Abraham seemed to be quite different, didn't he, from all the other Old Testament?
Ones because he seems to have had different visions. In our chapter here it says that he looked for a city. But when we turn over to John chapter 8 and verse 56, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day.
And he saw it and was glad.
Seemed to be a different vision, didn't.
What would be the difference between those two thoughts? The city and?
The day of the Lord.
Oh God made a promise. Thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And in some way God made that real to the heart of Abraham, I believe. And by faith he looked on to the coming Messiah, the promised Seed, the one in whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. And I believe that there was much that was made known to their souls personally in order to sustain them in that path. I have wondered myself, however, from this 16th verse.
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That the word now comes in. See it says in the 10th verse he looked for a city which had foundations whose builder and maker is God. Just how far he went in understanding there For there will be the city of the great king, the earthly. But it seems that here in the 16th verse the Word is now. And so we know that when Moses and Elias appeared on the mount of Transfiguration.
They knew more than they knew while they were living because they spoke of his deceased that he would accomplish at Jerusalem.
And I have wondered here if God hasn't shown them now they have died in faith. They've gone home. They're they're not there in body yet, but there is some intelligence of things that is beyond what they even possessed in their lifetime. And if it were possible for us to speak to Abraham now and say, Abraham, were you not disappointed that God didn't give you that land in present possession? I believe he would now say, well, I know God had something better for me than that.
He He knows that now. But he must die in faith. He must die in that confidence. Everything was, shall I say, not made clear. It tells us in the time when the temple was built that God dwelled in the thick darkness. But now he has come out, and we all, with open or unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image. There's no excuse for us not knowing that there's heavenly blessing.
And knowing to our portion in that coming day, but they had it very vaguely. But somehow I believe that now they do have a better understanding, although nothing will be perfect until they receive their glorified bodies. But we see that that David had a genuine desire to build the temple, and God appreciated that field, desire of His heart, and returned the whole.
Matter and said, I'll build you a house.
So forth. And David had to say, though it stopped with my house, that it's his family realized that God would raise up a true king. But this question about the house. Lord David had that desire, but he never saw building of the temple. His day he died before that came about. But he says with faith in Psalm 23, I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
That was revealed to his soul that he would have a heavenly portion in that respect. But I was just thinking in connection with this city. We can see how the apostle gently seeks to bring before them the fact that we ought to have our hearts set heavenward, and not on some earthly portion or an earthly hope. And so the apostle seeks to bring that before them. And finally he has to name it as he does name the trouble. For instance, there in Philippi Philip I was in a normally good state.
Philippians but there was a problem between two people that he hints at and seeks to bring before their conscience. But we see towards the end of the approval he finally has to name it the problem. I beseech Yodius and Sentichi that they be of the same mind in the Lord and I believe he does a similar thing here in the 13th verse or chapter when he says.
For here, verse 14, we have no continuing city, but we seek one.
To come. Now that's very plain. And so they should have gotten the message. But apparently they didn't. Their their minds, their hearts were so set on that earthly character of things, and finally the Lord just had to wrench it away from them. That must have been an awful shock to those Hebrew believers to see the temple, and so they should have gotten the message.
But apparently they didn't. Their minds, their hearts were so set on that earthly character of things, and finally the Lord just had to wrench it away from them. That must have been an awful shock to those Hebrew believers to see the Temple and all destroyed in 8070. And that's a very remarkable thing, because the Romans did not want to destroy the city, and especially they did not want to destroy the Temple. They were superstitious.
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And they were under strict orders to preserve it for its antiquity and for its sacred character. But we see that God would not permit it. He just so ordered things that they burnt up the city, they burnt up the temple, and everything was destroyed. It was just taken right away from them. And I believe that God sometimes has to really shake us up, that we might have more heavenly mindedness that we might set.
Our minds on things.
Above.
I could ask.
Well, my brother told about in the Old Testament the Lord given like the flash of lightning that which for the moment would light up the scene when Jacob blesses his sons and he blesses Judah.
As a most remarkable scripture, when he says in Genesis 49, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. What does Jacob saying here?
You know.
It's a revelation, I think, that Jacob could not be in the good of it, at least not fully in the good of it either. And by the Spirit of God this was uttered. But who is it? Shiloh.
The police were the temple was built on Mount Moriah and which it was said that Abraham saw my day. It was the very son of God that walked in the temple and in his day he could say my father's house it was still owned there and he drove out the money exchangers and he speaks of.
Putting all this kind of thing in my father's house, it was a very important spot that.
God spoke to Abraham to go with Isaac his son, and offer him there. Where was it? Upon a mount that I shall show thee.
I do not know how to substantiate that from scripture that it was actually, but it is always said that that was the very spot that was Arana gave the trashing floor to David when the plague was stayed. And so it was a real, not to say historical spot at all, but a very important spot.
And in a coming day, that very place will be.
Re established again, will it not?
That he is a great king.
Joy of the whole earth.
Well, here's one question I have when it speaks of Abraham looking for a city that has foundations. Is there a difference between the hope of the church having a home in glory, with Christ being a special in a special relationship with with the Lord Jesus as his bride? Is this to what Abraham was in before Abraham's vision or is it actually?
The Israelite hope that will still come about in the coming day. Is there a difference?
Well, of course it will not be an Israelite, shall I say. Israel will still be an earthly people. But it's important, I think, that we all realize that all those Israelites who have passed through death will share in the heavenly scene. They will not be a part of the bride. That is, all who believe in the Old Testament would not be part of the bride of Christ. But they will have a heavenly portion. And so Abraham will actually have a heavenly portion, though not part of the bride.
And of course, what a Jew believes today, why he becomes part of the Church of God.
In that sense, he loses his national earthly hopes, but has something better.
And it seems that's brought out in some way with Abraham. There were those national hopes, and they were looking for the establishment of those hopes because God had said he was going to give them the land. But it seems that now they know that there's something beyond this that is their portion. And as we have in the end of this chapter, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us, should not be made perfect. So on the 12Th chapter, the heavenly scene opens up and we see the ingathering of the angels.
The Church of the first born and the spirits of just man made perfect. It's all opened up to us. But I think their knowledge was very limited, but enough to sustain their faith, to walk as pilgrims and strangers and count upon God. And I think that's the great thing for us, that God has given us to know a great deal more than they know. But as Peter said, we are strangers and pilgrims here, and it's whom, having not seen we love.
00:50:19
And that blessed portion that is ours. We haven't seen heaven. We haven't seen the face of the Savior.
But faith lays hold of it, so Abraham's position represents our position as strangers and pilgrims here.
Would there be a thought that the blessing of Abraham was both as the stars of heaven and as the sandwiched upon the seashore? When we come to Jacob, we just find the blessing of the sand which is upon the seashore.
With Abraham's blessing represent both heavenly and earthly, whereas Jacob was blessing in the earth.
Well, I believe that's though, because that tells us that Abraham is the father of us all.
It mentions that in Galatians when Speaking of Christianity, it's not just that he was the father of those who had faith before the cross.
But as the one who represents the leader and the path of faith, why he is brought before us in that way? And we're children of Abraham and blessed in in on that basis and ground.
But wouldn't that?
That he had of the stars of the sky.
Be more limited to the Old Testament Saints that will be.
Raptured, but not necessarily including the church.
It's Israel that will be raptured. All the believers up until the church period. They will be raptured when the Lord comes and they won't form the bride, but they will, They will have a special place in heaven, and I would take that the stars of the sky would represent them.
While it's applied in Galatians to believers now, that is, they that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham, and that in principle applies to the Gentile as well. And he is showing that that promise that was made to Abraham was not only for those of Israel, but it's also for us who have been brought into blessing on the same principle that is the principle of faith.
That came out before the law. That's what Paul goes to bring out too. Doesn't That is a little different with Abraham once the law, when the law was given it was a different principle of things. But Abraham's experience with God and his exercise of faith and the promises given to him was altogether apart from the consideration of the the law and and the covenant that God entered into in connection with.
Israel and they're entering into the land. It was, it was on a principle that, as you say, that would include the way in which we're brought into blessing to David on the principle of the covenant in connection with the law that could not, that could would not embrace the Gentiles, that would not embrace those who exercise faith today. But I think in both Romans and the Galatians, especially in Galatians.
The Apostle shows that the calling and blessing and faith of Abraham was altogether apart from Law, and thus it's it's it's the same way in which we're brought into blessing today, just like Abraham was.
But I might ask they have one thing this little statement in verse 13.
These all died in faith.
Not having received the promises.
Do you think that would does this sort of anticipate all of these that are spoken of in this chapter or?
Well, of course, plural these all, I say. Enoch is here too. And so it's just a general thought that they lived and died without seeing what they were looking for. As pilgrims and strangers I had taken it and it hardly includes Abraham.
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Rather so that it's rather descriptive of those who are walking the path of faith as pilgrims and strangers. I had taken it.
By Speaking of the principle or the thought that is brought out in verse 15, and truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have or it really should read, they would have had opportunity to have returned. That is, they could have returned. There was an opportunity to do so.
And if they had been mindful, that is, if their hearts had been engaged from in that from which they had been called out. And it's I've often thought that if we're looking for some reason or some excuse to give up the path of separation and seeking to walk in the truth.
We'll always find an opportunity for it if we really once and and I seem afraid that very often that's what's behind some who who give it up is it's not so much that something arises that pushes them out but they're mindful of the country from which they've been called and they the heart is occupied with other things and interest and exercise wanes and then something comes up.
Something comes up and that that causes them to return. But I believe the thought here is that the the state of soul precedes it, doesn't it? It isn't the thing itself. It isn't the circumstance itself that causes one to go back. It's the state of soul. And then that circumstance arises to to to bring to life that state of so.
The way it was with Demas, we see him mentioned three times, but first time Paul commends him as being a help, second time he didn't say anything, and the third.
Dimas for Saint Paul, having loved the present world, his name means popular. And there's the problem. And he thought something of this world. He was wandered in the world popular to them.
And if we're wanted by the world, by our walk should be examined by ourselves. But doctrine is what's the type there, and a lot of believers today leave the full truth in the ground. And Paul's doctrine, having loved the present world, didn't say present evil world that the present world from whence he came.
I was just thinking of the.
But if the mind is taken up with that from whence we have come out, the mind full of those things, that is the seed that is planted, and the fruit of it is that there is going to be something that will happen, that will satisfy the mind, that will cause that person to take a step away.
But it's it's sequential, isn't it? It's the mind taken up with that from whence we have come out. Then the next step is some of the there will be an excuse that will be not an excuse, but a good reason to act and to depart from the truth and the path that has been walked in. But I believe that there, that the first part is that which we have to be very guarded against the mind.
The mindful of those things.
No matter what they might be.
James James says, Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life. Why the crown of life? That's the martyrs crown that we read up there in Revelation 2. The crown that is promised to those that endure and even to the point of death. Why the martyrs crown? Well, I believe that to go on in faithfulness daily and to endure the difficulties and temptations.
We have in a certain sense lost our lives. We've lost advantages. Whereas Demas, as you mentioned, he turned back. He he wanted those advantages. And so there is a sacrifice and the Lord acknowledges it. And so to continue on day by day in faithfulness, the Lord is going to acknowledge it with that same martyrs crown. I think that should be a great encouragement in that respect.
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We don't have to pass through the article of death in order to receive a crown like that, but to go on in faithfulness.
Losing our lives. In that sense, he that loveth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. That's a very real and practical thing, brother, and for my own soul I need to get a hold of that more in a practical way.
You have an example of that, don't we? And what's brought before us here about Moses? Moses had been providentially put in Pharaoh's court and brought up there, but now he had a choice to make. Was he going to go forward and use all those advantages that he might have had to perhaps become a pharaoh of Egypt? Or what did he really value? It's similar with Paul in Philippians 3.
He had every advantage as a Jew. He was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
Concerning the law of Pharisee, there was everything that he might have gloried in and called an advantage. But he measured the everything in comparison to Christ. And he said what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. So with Moses here it's very beautiful what it says here in this 26 verse, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, He too had a proper sense of values.
And, brethren, we have to get a right sense of values, or we will never be able to continue in the path of the truth.
If we have people before us, or something that we expect to get among those who are walking in the pathway of faith, sooner or later there's going to be a disappointment in that line. But the Lord will not be a disappointment, and we need to value things in the light of His presence. So all those advantages that Paul had, he said they were only lost in comparison to Christ. He said they were even done.
And so with Pharaoh, to have all that earthly advantage was nothing in comparison. And it wasn't to have an easy path with the people of God. It wasn't to be identified with them when they were going on as they should, because we find from other scriptures that they had to a large measure fall into idolatry. But they were God's people and God.
Wanted him to be identified with them even in their failure, and to seek to be a help and blessing, which he was, and LED them out.
But I've been struck sometimes mentioned that why it says money in one place is called filthy lucre, but another place it speaks about the shekel of the sanctuary. And you might wonder at the two expressions, filthy lucre and the shackle of the sanctuary.
But I've often said the only real place that we can find the real value of monies in the Lord's presence. If we measure it according to how things appear in this world, we say, I can get this, I can get that. If I have the money, I can. That's the way we look at it. And we say the American dollars worth so much the Canadian dollar. But what is it really worth? The only place that we learn but it's worth is in the sanctuary. And the only place we'll get a proper sense of values at all is there.
And these men got the proper sense of values. And so, as our brother Barry was saying, that's the only way that we are ever going to be able to say no. But if we think a lot of what the world has to offer, and it's more important to us than what the Lord has to offer, we're surely going to turn aside because it's not going to be an easy path.
Going to be have to be looking to the Lord for the strength to go on to. This chapter is not a chapter of failure, it's just the opposite. Failure is not mentioned, but sometimes there's a good example. And Abraham when he had all those things including the Lord's name in the altar, A famine came and he didn't go to the altar, he didn't look to the Lord.
It said it was grievous, and so he went to Egypt. Well, he was not not taking the strength that he had. He didn't really look to the Lord, and he would have been kept. Of course, we know that well, the problems that came from that are terrible. But the Lord is faithful, He called him. So he brought him out miraculously rich. Brought him out rich. And then we have that part. It just might. I'll just mention it. We have that part that was referred to.
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Where the Lord appeared to him again and made all the promises and it said, Then Abraham removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plane of mammary. That means strength. Mammary, which is in Hebrew, that means communion. Now he was where he should be. He had and he said he built an altar to the Lord. So he's at the place where he has communion now apart from Egypt and the world separated from lot at this time.
And communion is in the Lord, and mammary is the strength He had and he had the altar now, So you see, that's the secret for us. We just have to look to the Lord. We've got the altar and we have the name of the Lord. And we have everything Abraham had. And we should have the tent. We shouldn't get our tent stakes in too deep. We should have that Pilgrim character. We should be ready to go tonight.
Nothing should have to be done back where we live that would hinder it.
You see a beautiful little picture of that in the contrast with the mind in in Philippians in connection with Paul, Speaking of Timothy.
In the Philippines 2.
In verse 19.
Philippians 219.
But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort when I know your state. For this is the verse, for I have no man like minded.
Who will naturally care for your state?
For all seek their own.
Not the things which are.
Jesus Christ.
That's that's the proper mind, isn't it?
Like minded with the apostle, and like minded with the spirit of God. And therefore he was a vessel that could be used by Paul, and he was had a mind that was not taken up with the things of this life, but that could be used to bring comfort to the apostle. This is what we desire, isn't it for ourselves.
It's good to.
Think a little on that point as to this being the faith chapter and of course we see no failures are recorded here. However, with all of these Old Testament believers, we know that there was failure, real failure in their lives. But I believe that we would be encouraged to follow the faith and that's of course what we have in chapter 13. Again in verse seven it says remember them which have the rule or take the lead over you who have spoken unto you, the word of God.
Whose faith follow? Considering the end of their conversation, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Well, it's lovely to see that consistency, that steadiness, and what an encouragement and help it is to each one of us and we all set examples for others, and that we need to keep in mind and realize that others are observing us and they're either helped or hindered by our consistency.
And that, I believe, is the thought before us. Jesus Christ, the same. That's.
A title is it not? He was the unchangeable one. We are changeable, but the Lord Jesus was the unchangeable one the same. And what a lovely example that is. And as we have Christ before us in that way, then we'll go on consistently and steady, and it'll be a help to others and immense help if we continue on in a steady course.
With all this we have 6 very active verbs here from verse 24 to 28. Refusing is first and then choosing, then a steaming, Forsaking, enduring and Keeping. And it's nice to see. All of these are very important. You have to 1St refuse the things of this world and the loremits of it, the attractions.
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Perhaps.
It's almost as sharp, really, for each one of us as it was to pilot. If thou be this man's friend, thou art no friend of seasons. He chose Caesar well. Moses chose the Lord. He first refused the world. He refused Caesar, but then he chose the Lord, chose to suffer with the people of God.
To suffer I was thinking of the great woman in the second Kings 4th chapter who Who? Who was hospitable to the man of God? The man of God said what shall I do for her? Shall I introduce her into the company of great king? And she says I dwell with my own people. It's like the disciples when they were let loose after being beaten.
Not to speak in the name of Jesus again they went to their own company where they found comfort and then could speak again in the name of Jesus. Well he chose. But don't forget it's to suffer. It's to suffer affliction with the people of God. I'd rather be identified with the people of God in the sufferings and to go on with this world who hate my faith. That's the thought. But all these action verbs are precious to see.
And finally, at the end, it's keeping You see, he kept the faith, He kept the Passover. And we have the same exhortation just to keep the Word and to remember the Lord, to to keep what we did this morning. It's a thing that the Lord has most on his heart. And so all those action verbs really tell us a lot here about Moses, but about ourselves too.
Interesting going back about Joseph here. It says in the 22nd verse when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones. Because Joseph was one whom God did allow to become very prosperous and prosperous in the path of faith too, because he was faithful to God. And there are times when even lower pilgrims and strangers, God may allow us to get something of this world's goods.
But here we find Joseph. When he did have all this, he didn't put his heart there at all. His heart was back in God's land, and so he cared for the people of God. He told his brethren that he would nourish them and feed them. He had a concern and a care for them. But when the end came.
His hopes were not in that land at all, even though God had allowed him to prosper. So there are the other side that sometimes we may depravity deprived and have to suffer and go through a great deal. And there are times when God does allow his people to attain a measure of prosperity and have things of this world. And that's when we have to be on guard in another way that we don't set our hearts upon them, but use them as as.
Joseph used them and what a blessing he was to his people in the time that he had that plenty to share with them. He said if you stay close to me, I'll take care of you. And he did well. There's just all the different sets of circumstances that we can meet in the pathway of faith and we can honor God. As Paul said, 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, both to abound and to suffer need.
Then he adds that beautiful verse I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
My time is getting old, but I'd like to ask on verse 20.
The By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
The account given in Genesis.
Wouldn't lead one to.
To such a statement, would it?
Is this reference to when Jacob deceived his father and his father blessed him?
Well, I guess I believe so, but I believe is desire To bless his Son was really of faith, but we see how that unbelief and other things came in at the same time. And isn't it often true, Brother Johnson, that there's iniquity even in our holy things? And that we can do something that is pleasing to the Lord, but we can also mix in with it something that is not. And so His desire, I believe, to bless them concerning things to come.
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Was a recognition of the fact that he knew they were God's people and that God had purpose blessing, but he was swayed and had more affection perhaps for Esau, and would have blessed Esau instead if God hadn't intervened. But the faith was that God saw to it that he blessed He blessed Jacob. And Jacob's name is mentioned 1St And hasn't the Lord often come in and.
Intervene, perhaps in some circumstance in our lives where we did want to please him, but if he hadn't intervened, we would have done the wrong thing, and he perhaps in his goodness, prevented those things and takes notice of the right desire. I've always enjoyed that in connection with the passage that was mentioned in First Corinthians 4 where it says.
That he'll make manifest the councils of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God.
And the chapter before when it speaks about works, it speaks about any man's work. Be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved. But when it's talking about motives, then it says every man shall have praise of God. For there's no Christian that doesn't have right desires, but we surely mess them up sometimes.
Esau's case was that he was blind. Now. He loved venison.
At his eye and his mind on that earthly thing that pleased him so. And if we have in the in the in the main, God's purposes or God's mind on our heart follow. But we can get a little blind by maybe just the trifling thing. Our eyes don't see clear no more if we allow something to come in like that venison, you know, the love of earthly things. And as you say it, it didn't.
Alter the course here that in the main, Isaac did do just what God wanted him to do, put the blessing in the right on the right person, but it is still for Isaac's.
Blame that he was blind. And why was he blind? Why did God allow this to be? He didn't see clearly. He still was a child of God. I suppose that even in the account to remember.
Isaac.
When when the deceit was made known, Isaac recognized that Jacob was the one to be blessed. Didn't he really? I suppose that down in his heart he knew the elder should serve the younger. That was God's purpose. But as you say, he allowed, He allowed.
His personal feelings to get. His personal preferences to get involved. But.
In the end, he acknowledged that Jacob was the one that should have the blessing, even though he did have a blessing for Esau. It wasn't the the birthright, was it? Yeah. And he shall be blessed. That's right. So I suppose that would be an evidence, wouldn't it, that he did. Blessed by faith that there was faith in his. There was faith in God's pronouncement that the elder should serve the younger.
The following chapter of Genesis we have.
Isaac saying to Jacob, And give thee the blessing of Abraham to thee, and to thy seed with thee, that thou mayst inherit the land, Where in thou art a stranger which God gave unto Abraham?
Suffering in our Lives
Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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Oh brethren, what I had on my heart this afternoon was to speak a little bit of the different ways of God.
In suffering in connection with the lives of believers, I believe we can learn much by what the Word of God reveals to us as to these different ways that suffering come. We know that it's part of this world in which we live, and we'll see how that God has a purpose in all the things that come. Although we may not always understand, this is a very lovely verse that is brought before us here in Deuteronomy 20.
And the secret things belong unto the Lord our God. There are things that God has not been pleased to make known to us. There are things He has been pleased to make known for which we thank Him. And as someone has said that we should never allow the things that we don't know and don't understand to spoil the things that we do know and do understand. How often it's so that because there's something we don't understand, we dwell upon it.
We get upset about it instead of enjoying the 101 Things and far more that God has made known to us that it is our privilege to know and enjoy. And as children of God, how very richly we have been blessed. Oh, how marvelous. As Mr. Darby once said, the path of the Christian is worthwhile if it were 1000 times harder than it is.
Because we know where the path is going to end.
We know it's going to be fullness of joy in that glory above. And so as we think of this, we have the courage to go on in the pathway. It tells us in Proverbs.
Where no vision is the people perish. And if we don't have a vision of coming glory, why we do perish? Or is, another translation reads. We cast off restraint. That is, we say it's not worthwhile, this conflict is too difficult.
There are too many problems and yet when we think of the end of the journey.
When we think of the future that awaits us, why our hearts ought to be filled with praise and Thanksgiving.
Because of all that we know, of all that has been secured to us, and at so great a cost, the Lord Jesus loved us and gave Himself for us. He wanted us not only to save us from the penalty of our sins, but the wonder to my soul, brethren, is that He wanted to have my company. I just can't understand that, but I believe it's true. It says in.
Proverbs chapter 8 that when he created this world.
His delights were with the sons of men, and that he was rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth. Yes, and when man sinned as they did in the Garden of Eden. And then it's to me as though God said, well, you've spoiled this world that I made so beautiful for you, but I'm going to give you something better than what you have spoiled. And it's going to cost me a great deal. But I want your company so much.
That I'm willing to pay the price.
So that I can have your company in a place you can't spoil. Oh brethren, our hearts ought to be filled with thankfulness. We ought to be lifting a note of praise to the Lord. As a little hymn says, this is my story, this is my song praising my Savior all the day long. So here, in this verse, here, God gave many instructions to his people. Some of them they could understand.
Some of them they couldn't. Some of them when they understood them, they could do them intelligently and in faith. Others they did without understanding. For instance, if you had asked an Israelite, why do the insides of an animal have to be washed a certain way before you sacrifice them? Why, he'd have to say, well, I don't know. I just know that God has said that, and so I do it in loving obedience to Him.
There were things that they were called upon to do that they didn't understand.
But there was much that they did, much that they could rejoice in. God made it very clear to them that He had a glorious lamb for them, a lamb full flowing with milk and honey, where He would come and bless them, and that He would find His own delight, as He will in the coming day. When He does fully bless them, it says He will joy over the US singing. He will rest in his love.
So let us then, if there are things that we don't understand.
Let us be content to leave those things with God, because as we will see, I trust with the Lord's help, there is a day coming when we will understand.
00:05:08
Now we find here in this twenty 29th 18 mom, it says As for God, his way is perfect. He is the word of the Lord is tried. He is a buckler to all those that trust in him. No one that has really trusted him hasn't found that he's faithful to his word that he is a buckler to those that trust him. The ones I feel most sorry for.
Are the ones who don't trust Him? Because I know if you don't trust Him, there's nothing worse for a Christian than the wheat of unbelief growing in our hearts. And I have to say, I've experienced it myself. And it can make you terribly miserable. Doubting the wisdom and love of God's ways will only make you miserable. But believing what God says, you'll find that His word is tried.
Like the lady who wrote beside a lot of verses in her Bible T&P.
And someone said to her, well, what does that mean besides so many verses? Well, she said, tried and proven she had proved these things to be true. And so we have this privilege too of knowing that God's Word is true and He is a buckler to those that trust in Him.
And then in this 33rd Psalm, it's very interesting how it comes in here in the 33rd, in the 32nd, No, pardon me, it's in the 30th Psalm.
In the sixth verse it says, And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. Thy doubt, it's tied thy face, and I was troubled.
Sometimes God is very good to us. Sometimes he does make, so to speak, our mountain, to stand strong. He seems to undertake for us and protect us and care for us in remarkable ways. But then there are times when he allows trouble to come, as He did with Job and others. And he said, thou decide thy face. And I was troubled. And then, as you see, he goes through quite a little exercise and then.
31St Psalm that we've read. He could say, But I trusted in thee, O Lord, I said, Thou art my God. My times are in my hand. Oh, how lovely to come to that point where we can say my times are in my hand. To know that those hands as we sang, that our many sins have pierced, is now our guard and our guide.
Well, having this thought before us, our brothers spoke about these ways of God a little bit on the young people's meeting on Friday. And I'd just like to look on some of the different aspects of God's ways. He showed how that God did have a protection. Sometimes he withdrew that protection, but we know that He has a particular purpose in all the things that come, and there are some of them that we just will never.
Understand down here in this life there are those things that come that we just have to leave with God. But there are others. Let us turn first of all now to Romans chapter 8.
Romans, chapter 8.
Says here in the 22nd verse, for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together.
Until now, and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of our body. Now that shows us that there are some things that come just because we are part of this groaning creation.
And we might think of that man in the 8th chapter of John. The Lord Jesus came along where that young man was.
And it tells us that he was there, and his disciples asked the question, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind. And the Lorde answer was, neither did this man sin nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
Now as I say, there's always some purpose that God has in everything, but there are some things that are not necessarily because of anything that we have done in our lives. Now this young man, that was by where in the 8th chapter, 9th chapter of John, Rather, he was born blind. He was part of the groaning creation. There wasn't any particular discipline that had come upon him.
00:10:26
But it's just that he was part of that groaning creation. But it tells us that the works of God were made manifest in him. The very fact that he was born blind made him feel his need of the Lord. And there were many other people when the Lord Jesus passed by that could see him with good eyes, and they didn't particularly feel their need. But the Lord Jesus saw this man and this.
Felt his need and oh how grateful he was when the Lord opened his eyes. And you know, I believe that there will be many people in heaven and they'll say, well, I was born with some physical disability, but I don't regret that. I know that God has used that very thing to make me feel my need of him. It has caused me to turn to the Lord and so how often those who have.
Health and strength and all those kind of things that really have a easy life, as we might say. They just go on enjoying the pleasures of this world and leave God out. So God does have a purpose even in things that come upon us quite apart from anything that we have done, things that perhaps we were born with. Perhaps you have some physical thing that you were born with and you say why? Well, God.
Can use that very thing to make you feel constantly dependent. How often those of us who are true Christians and who are older have because we're part of this groaning creation. We have partaken of some physical limitation and that has taught us dependence. It has taught us constantly to be asking the Lord to help us. And if we didn't have that, who can tell how independent, how self willed we might be.
What things we might plunge into. And so we can see that there are things that take place in our lives, they're not particularly the governmental ways of God because of failure or other things that with the Lords help we'll speak about, but just those things that are because we are part of this groaning creation. And if I'm speaking to someone and you say I've never had good health, I've had handicaps that other people.
Have and it really gets me down at times and I don't know what I have done. Well, that man hadn't done anything particular that he was born blind, but it made him feel his need of Jesus. And as our brother brought before us last night, how beautiful it was to see that man with all those leaders, perhaps with the best of health, rejecting the Lord. But his eyes were opened and his heart was opened to acknowledge the Lord Jesus.
As the Son of God. And so instead of feeling grieved and upset because we have these things, let us realize that God has some purpose to teach us dependence upon him, to keep us looking to him constantly through our lives so that we might find the help that we need from Him. And it doesn't need to make us search our hearts and say, what? What have I done as I say?
Man hadn't done something, but it was a blessing. It was for his good.
And God used it for his good too. Well, these are things that do come upon us. And as we grow older too, the body has wears out. The scripture says the days of our years are three score years and 10. We can't expect to always have good health as we grow older.
I remember visiting an old Christian, he was about 80 years old, and he was constantly complaining that he didn't feel as well when he was 60 as when he was sixty. Well, I would hardly expect that I would feel quite as good at 80 if I lived to be that as I do and as I would at 60.
Well, so you know, we can't expect the body is going to wear out, but you know, it's very blessed as we get older to learn more and more dependence on the Lord. The scripture speaks of those who bring forth fruit in old age, and there's nothing sweeter than to visit someone in an old folks home and see them praising the Lord, learning to trust Him in a new way as they get older.
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And find the limitations of old age. Well, that's not particularly the governmental ways of God, that's just that the body wears out. Brethren, our bodies are part of a groaning creation. And it says not only the creation, the animal creation, not only unbelievers, but not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption.
To wit, the redemption of our body and the Lord is sufficient for every stage of life, no matter what it may be, whether it's youth, whether it's middle life or old age, the Lord is sufficient. He is enough to fill and satisfy the heart, and He delights to do that so that we would be happy and rejoicing in Him. But the only way we can do this is when this verse really grips our souls.
Our times are in my hand. We're content with what he orders in our lives. I've told a story before as an illustration and perhaps some have heard it, but the little boy who was flying a kite and it was a beautiful day and the wind was taking the kite up higher and higher and he was having to let out more string as it went higher.
And someone walked by and said, why are you holding your your kite down? It wants to get up and you're just holding it down with that string.
Why don't you let go and see how high it will go? Well, he let go of the string and we all know what happened.
Yes, the kite came down. The very thing that was holding it down was also keeping it up. And brethren, this is so true that those things that are keeping us down are often keeping us up. They're keeping us in communion. They're keeping us independence upon the Lord, and that is always for our good and for our blessing.
And now I'd like to turn to another one in Second Samuel.
Second Samuel in the 11Th chapter.
Well, perhaps I'll turn over is a little more about it in the 12Th chapter. Romans, I mean.
Second Samuel, chapter 12.
And the seventh verse. And Nathan said unto David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul. And I gave thy master, gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the House of Israel and of Judah. And if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.
Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in our His sight?
Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and has taken his wife to be thy wife, and has slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from mine house, because thou hast despised me and has taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
Well, this is one of the ones, Bradham, that I have to say that God has left it as one of His secret things. I don't know that I can in any way say why God allowed this to happen to Uriah. I'm not speaking now about his government upon David, but why the Lord allowed this to happen to Uriah. If you go back to the 11Th chapter, perhaps I should read a few verses.
The 11Th verse.
And Uriah said unto David, The ark and Israel and Judah abide in tents, and my Lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go into mine house to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth? I will not do this thing. Here was a man, perhaps one of the most devoted of.
David's servants, Uriah the Hittite.
And it wasn't for anything that he had done, because his answer shows that he really had a desire to please God. He really valued the ark as our brother brought before us this morning, and God's people and their interests. And here by the treacherousness of David, another person who was a real believer, he was actually put out in the forefront of the battle and killed.
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He, he, he, could you say, what blessing did he get from that?
Well, that's one of the secret things that we have to expect sometimes, that there are questions in life to which we will never find the answers. Down here. I was quite struck because I can look at other passages and with the Lorde help I will and show how we can get a blessing out of the sufferings and the trials that we go through. But you would say, what blessing did Jiraiya get from this?
Well, all I can say is that I'll have to wait until that coming day to find out. I can say this, however, that God knew what was ahead for Uriah. And if Uriah had ever found out what was happened, he would have been a terribly sad and crushed man. And God didn't let him see that. And sometimes God sees things ahead in our lives that we don't see, things that we don't know what's ahead. He does, and He knew what was ahead.
Uriah if he ever found out what had happened. And so the Lord took him away.
And we find him numbered among David's mighty men. He was counted as one who was one of the mighty men for David. And I'm sure that when we meet a Uriah in glory that we will see that God honored his faithfulness. And sometimes our faith is put to the test in things. And brethren, I say again, there are things that we just have to say. I'll never find out in this life but on another day.
We shall know, even as also we are known. Are we content to take things, those hard questions of life, those situations to which there seems absolutely no answer? A God delights in that faith that counts upon Him, as we had in that verse. The trial of your faith is much more precious than a gold perisheth, though it be tried with fire, And I think Uriah's faith was tried with fire.
And it says it'll be found under praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. I expect to see Uriah get a great reward, perhaps I can say a greater reward than this, than if this had never happened, because it brought out his devotedness to the Lord and to the Lords people. And the hardest part of it all was he didn't bear it from an unbeliever, but he had to suffer it from a believer. Have you suffered something from a believer?
And there seemed absolutely no explanation why the thing should have happened as it was. Well, just think about this and just think about the faith of Uriah and by the Lords grace look up and ask him to help you to leave all with God to commit it to him. And no, I'm glad that God has put this story in the word because I can think of a lot of other stories that I can see some good came from the thing. I can tell you of other things in the.
Where people learn lessons, but here there was just a matter of simply committing the whole matter to the Lord. And there are times like this in life, and I wish to encourage you. Perhaps someone has done something and you get bitter, you get away, you leave the meeting, you turn against them. What have you gained? I say you've lost everything by doing it. The Lord has forgiven us for many things, and He can give us the grace.
Situations, no matter how difficult, to just leave all with God. So in this second case, there is something that can't be explained, but it will be in another day. Well, and there's another kind of suffering. Perhaps we could find that in Philippians.
Philippians chapter one.
And verse 29 For unto you it is given on the behalf of Christ.
Not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict which he saw in me.
And now here to be in me. Well, here's another kind of suffering. And that tells us here not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for His sake. We could think of cases of this. I'll take one instance. We think of Paul and Silas. They came to preach the gospel in Philippi. They were sent there by the Lord. They were doing His will. It was not for any disobedience or.
Will in their lives that they had to suffer on that occasion, but it was because the world is opposed to the gospel. And while I stand here talking to you, I'm sure that I could safely say that there are thousands upon thousands of real Christians who are suffering for Christ's sake. It's not for some wrong that they have done. It's because they're in a hostile world. They're in an enemy's land.
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Suffering As we look back in the history of the Church, why the history of the Church has been just filled with suffering Saints, people who have given their lives for Christ, people who would rather die than be unfaithful to their Lord or deny him, it says in Revelation. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.
And they loved not their lives unto the death. And there will come in your life and in mine, if we seek to be faithful to the Lord, times when we'll suffer for Christ, when the confession of His name will bring reproach and suffering. It might mean just being laughed at. It might mean that you lose a promotion or lose your job. It might mean that you.
Have to suffer like some have in Russia and other places where they're sent to Siberia. And our brethren out in India, if they make a confession of Christ, they have to be content with more menial jobs because they are not following the ordinary religion of the country. And so there are many ways, brethren and dear young people, that we are called upon to suffer for Christ. Is it worth it?
Is it worth it? Is this world so important to us that we would rather put our light under a bushel or under a bed that rather than be faithful to Christ? I believe the bushel means business and the bad means laziness. And you know, there are two things that do hinder us from being loyal to the Lord and that is we don't like to lose out.
In material things, we don't like to lose out.
In things that we think are really important and then make up life, but.
All when we think of what the Lord gave up for us, the only person who could choose where he would be born was born in a Manger. The person who could say the silver and the gold is mine, but while walking through this world would say show me a penny. And we think of him not having a place to lay his head. And yet he made all the things that are used to build a finest, finest houses in this world.
All think of our precious Savior.
He's left for us. Oh, I say, and I say it to myself. Are we holding back from some situation that involves suffering for Christ? Oh, it's worth it. It's given to us. It's not as though it were something that we just had to do. As though a soldier is ordered into a an action that he is not very anxious to go in because he has to face the gunfire. But you and I.
It says it's something that is given to us, the privilege of suffering in this world for Christ. And Paul speaks of it. He experienced it himself and now he said it's given to us in the behalf of Christ. That is, we're suffering on his behalf because he's not wanted here and we love him and we want to acknowledge Him and we seek the blessing of others that they might know the.
And the pardon that he gives. And so this is something else, this kind of suffering for Christ in obedience and in telling out the glad tidings of the gospel. Well, I believe if the Lord leaves us here, we can't expect things to get easier. I believe that things are going to get more difficult. I love you, dear young people. And I often think, as I look into your faces, of what may be ahead if the Lord doesn't.
But I do know this, that the Lord will fill your heart, He will give you grace to suffer, and He will make you happy in it. The apostle Paul and Silas in the prison at Philippi, they prayed and sang praises to God, and they had the great joy that night of hearing that jail keeper confess the Lord and receive him. That was a far greater joy than the finest.
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Pay that they could have got for doing anything well, it's worth it suffering for Christ and now we have another one in first Peter chapter three, first Peter 3 and verse 14. But on if you suffer for righteousness sake, happy are ye and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.
And be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.
With meekness and fear, having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you as of evil doers, they may be ashamed that falsely accused your good conversation in Christ. Well, we spoke about suffering for Christ. Now it's here it says suffering for righteousness sake. If I could think of an example of that in the Bible, I would think of Joseph when Joseph.
Was sold down into Egypt and then was given a job there, working in the House of Potiphar. He sought to maintain a good conscience. He sought to do his work well, as he certainly should and we all should when we're working for an employer. But there was a situation there that brought temptation with it. And when he was put in this spot, why, it wasn't a matter of preaching.
It wasn't a matter of trying to bear a testimony that she might be saved, but it was to maintain a good conscience. And when he was put to the test, why it tells us this was his reply. God forbid that I should do this great wickedness and sin against God. He sought to maintain a good conscience and I know the way the world is today.
It's very easy for them to say, oh don't worry, everybody does this.
It's maybe not altogether straightforward, but everybody's doing it. And it's very easy, dear young people, and we who are older too, in the business world, very easy for us to not to maintain a good conscience, just to let little things slip in where we know that we haven't done what the Lord would have us do. What was thoroughly honest and upright, where we could say at the end of the day.
As Paul said here in Do I exercise myself to have always?
A conscience void of offense toward God and toward men.
Of that suffering for righteousness sake. And you know, that was very hard for that was very hard for Joseph on that occasion. Sometimes the Lord helps us when we try to be upright and honest, but sometimes the same thing happens to us. That happened to Joseph. Joseph not only lost his job, and I think it might have been a pretty fair job that he had because he was in charge of the household, but he was actually put in prison.
For trying to maintain a good conscience, yes, he was put in prison. And why did God allow that, you say? If he was trying to maintain a good conscience, why didn't God uphold him?
Sometimes, brethren, we have to suffer for righteousness sake.
Sometimes we have to suffer. Young people have lost their jobs, young people have failed to get promotions just because they desire to be thoroughly honest and upright.
And so this is suffering for righteousness sake. And Joseph there was cast into prison, but you know, God had his hand in it. And there in that prison he was able to speak to that Butler. And that Butler was, I believe, led to put his faith in the Lord. And he afterwards turned around and spoke up for Joseph and was the means of him getting out of prison.
Well, we see how God has ways in situations like this.
He accomplishes his own purposes, but here we sometimes have to suffer for this.
I'm Speaking of the various ways that we have to suffer in this world. It's a world where everything is out of order, so to speak, and it tells us not to be afraid of their terror and either to be troubled. We find the same thing with those three Hebrew children.
Have sometimes said they probably could have found a way to get out of that situation. When they were told they had to bow down, they could have easily said, well putting your head down isn't necessarily bowing, that's just a muscular thing and they could have found a way of getting away from the responsibility of being loyal to the Lord. But no, they wouldn't. They rather would maintain a good conscience.
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The same with David, with the Daniel rather.
He was in the school at Babylon, and he refused to eat of the King's meat or drink of the wine that he drank.
He sought to maintain a good conscience before God. And you know, there's a warning in Timothy.
That sometimes in giving up a good conscience, it says we make shipwreck. That doesn't mean we can be lost, but we can definitely spoil our usefulness in our Christian testimony. And the world is very alert about that. I don't think there's anything the world is more ready to point a finger at a Christian as in anything where he thinks that he has.
Been a little bit dishonest how quick they are to make a great deal out of it.
Reflects on the testimony. Well, there is such a thing as suffering for righteousness sake. And then it says to be ready to give an answer when we're asked, ready to tell why. And so that's what that's what Joseph did. He was ready to tell. He said God forbid that I should do this great wickedness and sin against God.
Well, then there's also suffering. Turn over to John, chapter 15.
John chapter 15 and verse one. I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, but every branch that beareth fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now we have the dealings of God with us as his children. This is not so much what we suffered in an outward way, like the case of Uriah, or suffering for righteousness sake, or suffering for our testimony to Christ.
Here it's the Lord himself. Here is God our Father as the husbandman, and he sees that we are bearing fruit. When I read this, I think about Job. The Lord bore a very wonderful testimony to Job. He said that he was a perfect and an upright man and one that feared God and astute evil. But God had a desire that there should be more fruit. And there was something that was hidden in Job's heart that Job wasn't.
A little hindrance to bearing fruit, and it was very hidden because outwardly his life seemed to be.
And was very upright and good. But you know, they're inside there. There was a pride.
There was a self righteousness have sometimes said you might be the most godly living person in the whole assembly and God would put his hand upon you and it might be brethren because we're proud and we think we're better than our brethren. Yes, that's something that God hates is pride. It's good that we should be upright and God come into Job for all these good things in his life that he was indeed a perfect and an upright man and I.
Tells us what he said about himself, that he was kind and made the widow's hearts sing for joy and did so many things for people. I believe all that was true, but there was that inward pride. And you know, there's often that within us and the Lord has to prune us. And Job couldn't see it himself. There's an interesting verse if you turn to Job.
Where Elihu is talking to him. I think it's the 34th chapter.
Verse 29 When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?
And when he hideth his face, who then can behold him, whether it be done against the nation or against a man only?
The 31St verse. Surely it is meat to be said unto God. I have borne chastisement. I will not offend any more. That which I see not teach thou me. If I have done iniquity, I will do no more.
Well, we see here that Elihu is the only one who really had a wise answer for Job. He's telling Job that this didn't happen by chance. When God gives quietness, there's not a power in the world that can disturb it. As our brother brought before us the other day, there's not a power in the world can disturb it unless God allows it.
And when he allows that he has a purpose, a job searched his own heart, and he said I have been an upright man, I have been kind, everything has been right in my life. And if I could put it very plainly, he said it doesn't seem fair that all this is coming upon me. But a lawyer who gave him a very, very needful and wise answer, He said, Joel, why don't you ask the Lord to show you what he sees? You don't see it.
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But he sees something, Mr. Darby once said, the flesh in another.
Is easily detected, but we don't see it in ourselves. Isn't that true of a lot of us? We don't see it in ourselves, but we see it in others. And there was that in Job that he didn't realize. And Eli, who says, why don't you ask the Lord to show it to you?
And we finally see that God did show to Job what was the root of his trouble. He was pruning him. There was that which was useless, so to speak. It was Job in his importance as being a better man than his neighbor, and God had to take care of that. He had to prune the branches that weren't going to bear any fruit for him. And he passed Job through a great deal to do that.
And sometimes I don't know much about pruning, but as I've been told of those who have pruned by it almost seems ruthless the way they go out the trees. But what was the result in Jobs life? It almost seems to the natural man when you read Job as though God was placing on him more than he could bear. But what was the result in the end? Job was drawn nearer to the Lord.
It tells us that he had twice as much as he had before.
And he had three children, three daughters, who are spoken of as the fairest in the lamb.
And the three names bring before us fragrance, purity and beauty.
And that's what God wants in US, brethren. He wants that fragrance of Christ, that purity of Christ, and he wants us to be for his glory here, fragrance, purity, and beauty, that beauty of Christ to be seen in us. And I believe that that pruning produced that result with Job. And so sometimes when we go through trials instead of giving ourselves a clean sheet, I think we can take good heed to what.
Eli, you said to Job and we can say, Lord, what is there in me?
That needs to be corrected. And then Eli who advised him, he said if the Lord shows it to you, be willing to give it up. If I have done evil, I will do it no more. In other words, when the Lord shows it to us, do we say I can't give that up, it's part of me. Or do we say, Lord give me grace? He giveth more grace. Well, let's pruning brethren. And very often this takes place in our lives.
Terrible things could happen, like did to job, but that was pruning and the result was.
Much blessing in Job's life as a result of it. Now let's turn over to 2nd Corinthians that we'll see another case. Second Corinthians.
Chapter 12 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buff at me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that I it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee.
For my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore.
Will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me? Well, here we could perhaps call what God was doing as preventing something.
There was a tendency on account of all that had been given to Paul, that he might be exalted, that he might be lifted up with pride. There's a tendency in every one of our hearts along that line. And if the Lord gives us more than others, it's so easy for us to become proud. Well, in in the case of in the case of Paul, it was in spiritual things. He had those wonderful revelations from.
In glory, and so along with it, God gave this thorn in the flesh.
He gave him that which, if I could choose the expression, made him somewhat despicable in the eyes.
And into the ears of those who listen, there's a suggestion of it when it says his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible so that people would say, well, I like to listen to Paul. But on the other hand, he has such a poor delivery that he's awfully hard to listen to. He tells us some wonderful things. But and that that was hurtful to Paul. It really was knocking on his pride. And I'm sure that he hesitated to get up on his feet sometimes because he said.
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I know that people are going to find it hard to listen to me. And the Lord says that's just what you need, Paul. It's going to help to keep you humble. And you know, God sometimes has to put blocks in our way to prevent things. We think we just like to rush ahead and the Lord puts blocks in our way. Has he put a block in your way? Well, His grace is sufficient.
If he has put that block in the way, he knows what he is doing and did he take it away?
Now in Job's case, he got back twice as much as before, but I think sometimes as though the Lord said to Paul, Paul, I'm not going to take it away. You're going to have it the rest of your life. You're going to have it the rest of your life, but My grace will be sufficient for you.
And there are things even when we have learned what God has for us, he still lets them remain. They still stay with us. And God allows it in his perfect wisdom and in his love, because his ways are perfect and He knows what's best. He knows our frame, He numbers the hairs of our head. He knows all about us. He knows our tendencies, all about us. And so.
Paul learned that this was a necessary thing. And isn't it beautiful to see a submission?
He says most gladly. I rather glory in my infirmities, he said. I'd rather.
Have this thing that I have to bear with all my life and have a sense of the Lord's presence with me that's better than just having all that delivery and all that nice thing that I could glory in as a man, that I was the best, I was tops and everything like that. Now He has this that keeps him down. Well, brethren, God sometimes prevents things in our lives.
He sees where the road goes and he allows things and he doesn't always take them away. He sometimes let's them remain and keep. Teaches us to be constantly dependent on him. And let's turn over to Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews chapter 12, verse seven. If he endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons.
For what Son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chest, as meant were of all our partakers, then are ye ******** and not sons? Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our Prophet.
We might be partakers of His Holiness now. No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised.
Here we find another, and that is the Lord dealing with us in chastisement. We could speak of different cases like this through the Scripture and all of us have experienced it in some measure in our lives.
Because it says what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not. We read about what David did to Uriah. Did David come under the chastisement of God for it all the rest of his life? The sword didn't depart from his house for what he did. He took the life of Uriah and he lost four sons because of it. God has to deal. God has to deal very, very solemnly sometimes in our lives.
But you know he does it for our prophet. And David was drawn nearer to the Lord.
Through the chastisement that God saw fit to bring upon him. And we all need it, brethren.
There's no one of us that can say, well, I'm such a good child in his family. He never has to correct me. He never has to put his hand upon me. None of us can say that we all have to go through this, more or less. But it's beautiful what it says he for our prophet.
It says here we had fathers that corrected us after their own pleasure. And sometimes as parents we correct children for our own pleasure. If the children are noisy and they're bothering me, I might tell them to be quiet. That's for my pleasure, not for theirs. They were enjoying having a good time, but for my pleasure. I told them to be quiet. But my Father in heaven.
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God, my Father is not like that. Every correction is for our good.
All how faithful he is, how wise he is. Sometimes I was a little too strict with my children, sometimes a little too easy with them. I wasn't always wise in the things that I did. But I have a Father who will never make a mistake in his chastening. He knows exactly what we need. He knows the very intense of our hearts. The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed. That's a beautiful verse.
Because it shows us that God not only sees the act, but He measures the amount of self will in the act. I might do something and the Lord would have to deal much more severely with me than someone who was only saved a short time. Because He does make a difference.
And those who know their Lord's will. And so we have a Father.
It's the correction is not from God as a judge, but it's from a Father and these are part of the troubles that he brings into our lives. It's good for us to be exercised thereby. We may not always discover the exact thing, but if it has drawn us nearer to the Lord, it is a results in blessing. I I'm sort of glad the verse doesn't say it heals the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those who find the reason.
Because sometimes I think as Christians we don't always see the reason for a trial that God sends.
But if it has taught us to be more dependent upon the Lord than it has accomplished a needed purpose, even although we didn't exactly see it ourselves. And so it says that it's we might be partakers of His Holiness and it yields a blessing when we're just exercised when we look up and say Lord, I want to learn what our teaching me in this trial.
Well, as I say, there are many kinds of suffering that we go through.
That are part of this groaning creation. Some through unkind acts that are done by others, Some because the world is hostile to Christ, some just because we want to do what's right. And then there are other things that have more directly to do with our own personal lives. Preventing us from things, pruning us because when we want to please the Lord, He wants to have more fruit, and then correcting us when we have done what's wrong.
There is one other that I'd like to turn to. It's in Hebrews Chapter 11 and verse 25, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. And then the 10th chapter and the 32nd verse but call to remembrance the former days in which.
After ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions.
Partly whilst you were made a gazing stock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly while he became companions of them which were so used. There is another suffering that we have, and that is when we cast in our lot with the people of God. When we cast in our lot with the people of God, then we suffer along with them.
That is, if they go through trials, Paul said. Who is a who is offended and I burned not.
He said.
The things that came upon him daily were the care of all the churches He entered into, the trials and sorrows of God's people. He shared them well. Let us be willing in this, brethren. There are a lot of trials among God's people. Do we try to run away from these situations, or do we identify ourselves with the people of God? They are suffering people.
Sometimes God has to correct them.
And we can shed our tears along with them. Even though the correction may come because of self, will were part of it because remembers one of another. Isn't it beautiful to see this with a man like Moses? He could have enjoyed all the excellence of the court of Pharaoh. He could have perhaps been the next Pharaoh in Egypt because he was in line for it and he gave it up. What for? To have a good time with the people of God.
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Now to suffer affliction with the people of God.
May I put it very practically too, If you take your place among those gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, you're going to have to suffer affliction along with the people of God. You may say, oh, there's too many problems, I'm just going to stay clear of them. Then you're not really identifying yourself with them. When these Christians got saved, why they It says here they became companions of those who were suffering and.
We cast in our lot with those who are walking to please God.
Maybe they're going through trials for their own fault. We can still cast in our lot and feel for them. Isn't it beautiful what it says about the Lord in connection with Israel and their passage through the wilderness? Many of the things came on them because of their own self will. But this is a precious verse in Isaiah. I think it's the 53rd chapter. I'm not just sure it says.
In all all the reflection he was afflicted, and the Angel of his presence saved them.
And he bare them and carried the mall. The days of old, all that they passed through, the Lord felt he. He said, you're living in tents, make me a tent and I'll live with you. Isn't that beautiful? Oh, how precious. Brethren, may we go along with the people of God when they're in trial, share it with them, because we're going to share eternal joy with them. We're going to be with them in the Father's house.
Well, are we ever going to understand? We don't always understand.
Now maybe we just turn to 1St Corinthians chapter 13, First Corinthians chapter 13, verse nine. For we know in part and we prophecy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. And then in the 12Th verse. But now we see through a glass darkly, But then face to face. Now I know in part. But then.
Shall I know even as also I am known? And one more verse in Revelation 21, just verses three and four. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with man, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God.
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crime.
Neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. I believe, brethren, we will know in a coming day. I believe it will all be explained. When the Queen of Sheba came to King Solomon with all her hard questions, she couldn't find answers to them in the country where she lived. But when she asked Solomon these questions, it says he told her all her questions. There was nothing hid from her.
That he told her not. And I believe when we get the glory and all tears are wiped away and it's all past, then we'll know. Even as also we are known. We'll understand. We'll enter into it. And what's more, I believe we'll say Amen, it was the right way. We'll not question them as we often do now. We'll know that all was done by one who was perfect in wisdom.
In the meanwhile, we walk by faith, not by sight. We're companions in tribulation, as John said, and as we go through these different kinds of things that we have to in a world like this, may we realize that we're in good company, he said. I will never leave the nor forsake thee.
One Flock
Address—C. Buchanan
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To learn something in type.
From the Old Testament.
This is a wonderful book we have in our hands.
The whole of it reveals Christ, although we sometimes say that Christ is concealed in the Old and revealed in the New. But when we get the revelation of the New shining back on the pages of the Old Testament, we then see Christ in all the pages of the Old Testament too. That is really what it means in Corinthians where it says, where the Spirit of the Lord there is liberty, that is liberty.
By the Spirit of the Lord to understand the Old Testament.
It's talking about the Old Testament there in that passage in Corinthians.
And so we will look in John 10 at one verse very specially, and it is the 16th verse, and speak a little bit from the chapter to introduce the subject.
John 1016 then and other sheep I have which are not of this world.
Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice.
And there shall be one fold or one flock.
And one shepherd. Now this verse is very concise.
We know who the Shepherd is.
And if we go back and consider the beginning of the chapter.
Thinking of the Lord Jesus talking in that day.
To those who were Jews.
Israelites.
And remembering that in the 100th and Psalm. The 100th Psalm.
But God speaks of Israel there as.
His people, the sheep of his pasture.
So we are warranted tonight to use this term sheep as it is used in Scripture.
To refer to the people of God, not only I believe.
In the past dispensation but that God has a people today.
Who are his sheep?
Reminds me of what happened down in Bolivia.
Many years ago, some of you.
Have heard of the name of Avelino Chavez who lives in Montero, where?
Our brother Bob lives now.
When the work began in that city of Montero.
It is over on the eastern side of Bolivia in a low altitude region, the plains which drain into the Amazon and go clear cross.
Brazil north and then east through Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean.
Whereas most of our brethren in Bolivia before this time of something like.
16 or 17 years ago, lived up in the mountain region, and perhaps the bulk of them still live up in the Andes at an elevation between, we'll say 9 and 15,000 feet. The highest assembly in the world is called Santa Barbara.
They like to think of themselves as the highest assembly in the world, you know?
Of course they can't claim that as a state of soul or anything like that.
But they are up there at 15,000 feet elevation at least, and the town is called Santa Barbara. And in kind of a humorous way, they, these dear Indian brethren, will say, do you think that when the Lord comes, we'll be just a little bit ahead of the rest of you? We'll have a head start.
Well, it was interesting, you know. And so the work began over on the eastern side in Montero. Avelino Chavez was one of the first of our brethren who moved there. A few others moved there and the work was progressing rather well amongst young people.
Oh, it's always nice, you know, when young people are saved and get a hold of the truth. When I went there perhaps 16 years ago.
I remember that there were, oh, at least a dozen young men of perhaps.
1415 or 16 years of age that had been saved and were coming to meeting. Really a happy thing to see you know.
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Well, whenever the Spirit of God is busy.
The enemy gets busy too.
And a little assembly was established there.
And Avellino is rather clever.
At meeting up with souls individually and speaking to them, he became known.
In the town which is rather small then smaller yet I would guess it may be.
8 or 10,000 people at that time. So he became known and.
There was a sectarian preacher there who was a little bit jealous of Avellino coming there. He had his work there. So is Avelino's. Walking down the street one day he met this sectarian clergyman and he walked up to Havoline on, he says, What you doing here? Stealing some of my sheep.
Whose sheep? Avelino said. I thought they belonged to the Lord. Where'd you get your sheep?
Well, of course the man got the point. You see, she belonged to the Lord. They are his sheep.
We are his sheep and this verse we have read says.
Other Sheep and we have read the 16th verse of the 10th chapter. Other Sheep.
I have which are not of this fold, and them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice.
And there shall be one fold and one shepherd, that is.
The Lord Jesus speaking then talked about the future when he was going to.
Have a flock rather in contrast to what he had had.
In the beginning of the chapter where it says in the first verse sheep fooled to introduce that portion at the beginning, the Lord came into that sheepfold.
Of that people of God, the Israelites that use, and He came in through the door, was presented to them for their Messiah. He came in at a proper way, and of course they would not have him. They rejected Him.
And so well, in John's gospel, he's rejected from the very first chapter.
So he begins to teach a new truth in this chapter, and he says he went in in order to lead them out. That's very astonishing when you consider that third verse. We'll read it to him. The Porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice. That's true sheep.
And he calleth his own sheep by name. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
That the Lord Jesus knows everyone of his sheep by name.
I have meant, I suppose, thousands of Bradford.
Both of the Spanish speaking and the English and I have great difficulty when I come to a place after a year or two and remembering names.
Maybe you haven't experienced that, but I just love to think of the Lord Jesus.
He knows everyone by name, and he never forgets a single one, even little boys and girls who are his sheep, who are the people of God. He calls his own sheep by name, and then what does he do? He leads them out. Well, that's what the Lord Jesus was teaching here. He was going to lead his people out of that old fold, which was like a corral with a fence around it.
Into the liberty of grace.
Well, he develops that.
Then he comes down and says other sheep. This to us who are here tonight, I'm sure is most.
Precious.
Nationality really doesn't mean anything now, but I doubt if by birth there are.
Any or many Israelites or Jews here?
Well, thank God that the other sheep are being collected by that one shepherd, and he would always gather into that one flock. Well, going on then to look for another verse.
The 12Th chapter of Luke or.
Back to Luke, I should say.
Back to Luke 12.
If you should some on some occasion drive down to visit us down at Saint Francisville from here, you might.
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That's in Illinois, southern Illinois. You might go to Terre Haute IN and go South on Route 41 to Vincennes and come over across well, if so, if you were noticing as you drove South.
From Terre Haute.
A few miles you would see a sign up and it says Little Flock.
Little flock, Now let's read this verse.
1232 Luke 1232 Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
Well, you may have guessed what that little flock sign stands for. It's a cemetery.
One kind of enjoys that title for a cemetery though, and one just wonders if the Lord comes tonight, how many graves will be empty out there in that little flock cemetery? Surely some. And all over the world there is a little flock. But this is the living ones here that He's speaking to. It's to us. Fear not, little flock. He doesn't say big flock.
It may be a.
Diminutive endearing term like we would say of.
A dear little child. They use it more in Spanish and.
Using the name Mary, a diminutive endearing term would be.
For Little Mary would be Marita. We would say Little Mary.
As an endearing term, well, it may be that, and it may be true too, that it's just few in numbers. And I think perhaps.
That fits with what we're going to find a little later.
Let's.
Then go back to the Old Testament, to the book of First Samuel.
To develop a few.
Thoughts and connection with King David. If I asked the boys and girls here to give me a resume or an outline of chapter 17 of First Samuel, they could probably do it. But doubtless if I asked the 1St chapter 16, they wouldn't quite remember. And maybe some of us were older. So I think we ought to read chapter 16 of First Samuel.
It fits so nicely with chapter 17.
We'll draw from a few expressions in both chapters of First Samuel, but we want to read First Samuel chapter 1623 verses.
And the Lord said unto Samuel.
How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?
Fill thine horn with oil and go. I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite.
For I have provided me a king among his sons.
Samuel said How can I go? If Saul hear it, he will kill me.
And the Lord said, Take in half her with thee.
And say I am come to sacrifice to the Lord.
And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show thee what thou shalt do.
And thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee.
And Samuel did that which the Lord spake, and came to Bethlehem.
And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably?
He said peaceably, I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord.
Sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons.
And call them to the sacrifice.
Came to pass when they were come that he looked on Eliah and said.
Surely the Lord's anointed is before him. And the Lord said unto Samuel.
He looked not on his countenance or on the height of his stature.
Because I have refused him. For the Lord seeth not as man seeth.
For man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel.
And he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this.
Then Jesse made Shama to pass by, and he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this. Again Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel.
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And Samuel said unto Jesse, The Lord hath not chosen these.
Samuel said unto Jesse, Or hear all thy children. And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest. And behold, he keepeth the sheep. Now just keep in mind this expression, He keepeth the sheep.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hit her. And he sent and brought him in. Now he was Ruddy, and with all the beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise.
Anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren.
And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.
So Samuel rose up and went to Raema. But.
Or what a changer, but the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.
And an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him, and Saul's servants said unto him.
Behold, now an evil spirit from God troubles thee.
Let our Lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player on an harp.
And it shall come to pass when the evil spirit from God is upon thee.
That he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.
And Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me.
Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the Lord is with him.
Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said.
Send me David thy son, which is with the sheep. Now take note of this statement.
With the sheep.
And Jesse took an *** laden with bread.
And a bottle of wine. And a kid.
And sent them by David his son unto Saul. And so and David came to Saul, and stood before him.
And he loved him greatly and he became his armor bearer.
And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me.
For he hath found favor in my sight. And it came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul.
That David took in harp and played with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.
First, I would like to give a little outline to introduce this chapter, not so much in connection with.
The shepherd, the one who was the keeper of the sheep and with the sheep.
But another line of truth which comes in this chapter as well.
And that is King.
In the first chapter.
Of Samuel.
We encounter Elkina.
The father of Samuel, who had two wives.
Banana and Hannah.
There is a good deal of meaning in those names.
I understand the name Elkanah means God is possessing.
And Penina means earthly glory, but Hannah means grace. And that beautiful story of the birth of Samuel asked of God, that little boy given to Hannah, meaning grace, asked of God, a prophet to be there to take up the link with the people of God. Now God always has a people.
And he always maintains a link with that people.
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And up to that time of First Samuel, the link, chief link with the people of God was the priesthood.
But in the early chapters of Samuel.
Eli's sons are wicked men. The priesthood breaks down.
He lie, an old man didn't restrain his sons. The link was breaking.
So God brings the prophet on the scene.
Asked of God Samuel, but still for another purpose.
To have this last link, we may say with the people of God, which was the king. Now would would you turn back to the first chapter and get an expression out of Hannah's song, which means a good deal in the second chapter?
A wonderful.
Truth, wonderful prayer or song which came out of Hannah's mouth. In her joy she prayed. But we'll just go down to.
Verse 7.
And read 7:00 and 8:00.
Two verse Samuel 27. The Lord.
Maketh poor and maketh rich. He bringeth low and lifteth up.
He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill.
To set them among Princess and to make them inherit.
The throne of Glory for the pillars of the earth are the Lords.
And he has set the world upon them.
And I hope we can keep this.
Eight verse partly in mind. Notice that.
Expression the throne of glory.
I believe it is God's thought which is established here.
In his plan to have Christ exalted.
You know the 2nd Psalm says, Behold, I have set my son upon my holy hill of Zion.
God looks at that as past and still future.
So there had to be an introduction to that throne.
And when the line of the priest broke down, the prophet was there.
To anoint a king.
But the first king that was anointed was the People's Choice.
Oh God is so patient to teach us and all the way through Scripture.
We will find.
That one of the things that's hard for us to learn, perhaps difficult for God to get us to learn, it is that the flesh profiteth nothing. The flesh profiteth nothing. You'll find that in Genesis 6, God says the end of all flesh has come before me and he's still testing it after 6000 years. The patients have gone and showing that in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
And this lesson comes out.
Over and over again, we may say continuously.
The people choose a king, and he was head and shoulders above the rest.
Probably bigger than less Vandenberg.
A real man and a choice man.
And he begins well.
But likewise, he breaks down the People's Choice, the best of the flesh.
Breaks down and in the 15th chapter we didn't read it but.
If you want to look at the 15th chapter to see.
What God says.
First Samuel 15.
Verse 17 Samuel said he comes to Saul.
When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou?
Not made the head of the tribes of Israel and the Lord anointed the king over Israel.
And the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners of the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but did fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said unto Samuel, Yeah, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.
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And have gone the way.
Which the Lord sent me, and have brought a gag the king of the of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil sheep and oxen the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed to sacrifice under the Lord thy God in Gilgal and Samuel said.
Hath the Lord has great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of Rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
So we see that the best of the flesh as the People's Choice in soul is disobedient and rejected by the Lord.
But I really think we ought to back up and bring in another thought there, because the Amalekites were in the land and God said.
That they were to be utterly destroyed now if we were to go back to.
Earlier in the Books of Moses.
This chapter doesn't come right now to mind, but perhaps you'll remember it.
In Exodus somewhere.
Where God said that.
He would have war with Amalek from Generation.
To generation, we believe that the type there in Amalek.
Is the flesh really has taken over by the enemy?
And God says I'm going to have war with that old flesh.
That lets the enemy operate from generation to generation. My generation, my children's generation, my grandchildren's generation.
And all the way back, the generations don't improve it. The only trouble with you young people is that you're just like your parents.
And that's it, Amalek from generation to generation.
So God says the flesh profiteth nothing, and he told this king the People's Choice. Now you go, and you smite everyone of those.
And he left Agag the king. Then we have the thoughts of man.
In worship brought out here and Saul blamed it on the people.
And they brought those best of the animals to make a sacrifice to the Lord.
Oh, these wonderful verses in answer to that hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of Rams.
There is nothing.
More to be valued by God, I believe, than obedience, which suggests dependence at the same time.
That's two things that God always wants from man Obedience.
And dependence.
Saul was disobedient and.
Used an excuse in a religious way to change and bring in a sacrifice which.
God, of course, could not accept.
So we have the breakdown of the kings coming early in the very first one, the one chosen by the people. So now we come to our chapter and.
Samuel is sent.
To anoint.
God's choice.
David, a man after God's own heart.
And there again when Samuel arrives there.
The first born is brought out.
And.
It's verse 8, but we read verse number verse 6.
It's Eliab and it came to pass.
When they were come that he looked on alive.
And said, Surely the Lords anointed us before him. But the Lord said unto Samuel.
Look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature.
Because I have refused him.
Lord seeth not as man see it, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
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This is both instructive and searching.
We are prone to judge by outward appearance.
And of course, we cannot see the heart.
But out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. When we get acquainted with people a little bit more, we know them better.
And have a better discernment as to who and what they are.
But God knows he looks right into the heart.
Well, here was doubtless the first born coming right on down the line through seven of them.
Choice men they were.
In the next chapter, this Eliab rather mocks David.
The first barn mocking God's choice.
Well, he is. He's not chosen.
He's passed by and abinadab and right down through the Severn.
But where does God find the man of his choice?
We come now down to this eleventh verse. And Samuel said unto Jesse.
Are here all thy children? That was all he had, right there. Where?
In the house with him.
But there was one more the youngest.
Where was he? He keepeth the sheep.
The father's sheep.
David was out serving his father. He was keeping his father's sheep.
Oh, how typical this is of the Lord Jesus. He keeps his sheep.
Always serving, keeping the sheep.
This is for us too. This was where he was found, so he is brought in.
And he is anointed king.
This is he verse 12 at the end. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren.
And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.
Wonderful truth here, anointed King, and the Spirit of God coming upon him.
Christ, that name really means anointed.
The anointed of the Lord.
Of the Lord Jesus came.
And the oil would speak of the Spirit.
When the Lord Jesus came up out of the waters of baptism.
The Spirit of God came and abode upon him a full testimony at that moment of who was in the midst of His people there in the early chapters of Matthew and Luke.
A typical of the Lord Jesus is this here.
And.
So Christ is anointed, but here David is anointed and.
The Spirit of the Lord is with him from that day.
But.
We find the rejection.
Of saw complete in verse 14. But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul. God had tested that man, the People's Choice, and he had given up on him.
And I'll say this, that when we get the Spirit of God, he's never taken away the Spirit of God visited in the Old Testament, but he can't. He can't has come to this earth now and he abides here. And when we are sealed and anointed and have the earnest of the Spirit, we always have the Spirit. That is what really brings us into the family of God and makes us the sheep of his pasture today.
To be sealed with the Spirit of God.
Well, we go on down and we pick up another expression here and it's in verse 19.
Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said, Send me David thy son, which is with the sheep.
1St in verse 11 he was keeping the sheep.
Of the Lord Jesus. It reminds us of Him. He always keeps his sheep.
Could we say he's always with his sheep?
I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. We have that promise in Hebrews 13.
Our Good Shepherd, He's always with us. He keeps us all the comfort of the Scriptures.
In type we find this in David with the sheep, so he is sent for.
He comes and he's with the king.
Well, we're going to speak about the next chapter a little to bring in some more thoughts as to David.
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Without reading it because I believe it's so well known.
How that Israel was there tested?
By this Philistine, this giant Goliath of Gath, and the suggestion that a champion be chosen in Israel to fight with this giant, this Philistine. And they were all scared and weren't they? And Eliab was too. He was down there, Jesse's son.
And perhaps some of the other brethren.
But.
We find David is not afraid and.
We'll read now from verse 12.
To get the thought, First Samuel 1712. Now David.
Was the son of that Ephratheid of Bethlehem, Judah, whose name was Jesse.
He had eight sons, and the man was among men for an old man in the days of Saul, and the three eldest sons of Jesse. Now tells us the three eldest sons of Jesse went and followed Saul to the battle.
And the names of the three sons that went to the battle were alive, the first born.
We find out he's first born next Abinadab and the third Shama. We've already read their names.
And David was the youngest, and the three eldest followed Saul.
Soldiers in the battle.
But David went and returned from Seoul.
To feed His Father's sheep at Bethlehem. Here we have another expression that we want to call attention to. To feed his Father's sheep. How? This reminds us of the Lord Jesus too.
He always is there to feed his father sheep.
What a faithful shepherd we have.
Keeps the sheep with the sheep and feeds the sheep.
How we need this, all of us, this complete.
Exercise of the Shepherd that we have read about to this point kept.
And with him personally, with him and fed by him.
Oh, what a shepherd we have. Well, David is typical of these things in our Good Shepherd, our Great Shepherd, our Chief Shepherd.
Well, the test goes on in 40 days that giant presented himself.
And you know what took place.
Verse 20.
And David rose up early in the morning.
And left the sheep with a keeper. Well, here's something a little bit different too.
As to the sheep.
David was now going to go to do battle with the Giants.
And he goes down there to visit his brethren and see how they're getting along. But the battle is coming up.
So he leaves those sheep with a keeper.
Verse 20 David rose up early in the morning and left the sheep with a keeper.
Perhaps this indicates the Lord Jesus in his.
Compassion.
To his Jewish sheep that he had gathered around him.
When he was walking the earth.
I could get it in John 17, beginning with Really chapter 13.
On through 17, the Lord getting ready to leave.
He was going away and as soon as he says a going away, he says I'll come again.
Well, the disciples in those chapters were concerned about that.
Think of this, those disciples had been kept by the Lord.
Those 3 1/2 years they had been with the Lord.
And he had fed them, He had fed them, hadn't they miraculously fed them? And now he is going away. And not only did they feel it, but the Lord felt it. So He talks to them about a comforter, the Holy Spirit.
00:40:02
And he says it's expedient that I go away, for if I go not away, the comforter will not come.
Is that the other keeper? He left the sheep with a keeper.
Possibly so, but there seems to be a kind of a double being kept.
For those disciples, and for us too, all through this dispensation.
And this comes out in that 17th of John 11 verse where the Lord says.
Praise the Father.
And says Holy Father.
Keep through thine own name those that thou hast given me.
He asked the father.
Now you keep them through your name.
Oh, what a protection it is to know God as Father.
He is the almighty God our Father is.
So we have this double way of being kept by the Lord Jesus.
Through his intercession, through sending the Spirit of God and praying to the Father.
All the time that he's gone away, he's really up there.
Our Great Shepherd is up there, but he's left us in the care of the comforter.
And the father and the father's name in particular. So this.
This expression is very precious. He left the sheep with a keeper.
Well, he goes down there to the battlefield, and he meets his older brother in verse 28.
Perhaps the older brother again would speak of the strength of the first man. The 1St man is of the earth, earthy. A first born is typical of the strength of nature.
And.
The strength of nature was afraid to do battle with that giant, wasn't it?
Eliab wouldn't go against that giant.
So Eliab, his eldest brother, verse 28, heard when he spake unto the men.
Well, I'd like to go back and read just what David's question was.
So let's begin back a little further.
Verse 26 And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel?
For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should deny the army, defy the armies of the living God? And the people answered him after this manner, saying, so shall it be done to the man that killeth him? Well, we didn't read the reward. It's back in verse 25. He was going to get the King's daughter, perhaps the type of the church as belonging to God-given to the Son.
Through conquering the enemy, the devil.
Taking over the Sword of Death.
All this comes out in the battle with Goliath. David meets him.
He conquers him with just one of those stones out of the brook, typical of the Lord Jesus meeting Satan the first time in the wilderness and conquering the enemy through the Word of God using only the book of Deuteronomy, but the enemy still had his.
Armor wherein he trusted. So David went on and took the armor.
From Goliath and cut off Goliath's own head. Typical. So preciously and accurately.
Of Hebrews 2 For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to *******.
So the Lord Jesus came.
And he not only defeated the enemy in the wilderness, but he went on to the cross.
And he worked out redemption to save us.
And he gained.
The enemy's sword. He arose victorious.
And so in Revelation he says, I am he that was dead, and behold, I am alive forever more, and Amen and have the keys of hell and of death. That all belongs to the man. Now. It isn't the enemy's Armory armor for the believer. So this all is typical of the Lord Jesus and the work that He accomplished on the cross of Calvary.
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But going on here in verse 28, Eliab rather mocking his.
Youngest brother says.
Eliab, his eldest brother, heard when he spake unto the men, and Alive's anger was kindled against Dave, and he said.
Why kemest thou down hit her? With whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness?
Well, that's enough to read there this expression, those few sheep in the wilderness.
Well, we've already explained with whom the few sheep are left as it applies to us.
But it comes out lovely.
We read there in Luke 12. Fear not little long.
It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
Verses apply to us the few sheep. We don't claim to be numerous.
Although I like to think that there are millions of real Christians.
I really think myself more.
Than of any other group.
Well, it's not necessary to know that.
But.
Christians are looked at as few in number.
They in testimony are few in number.
And we feel that if we seek to be faithful.
To the Lord Jesus.
Christ is the rejected 1 now.
If we are faithful to Christ, it says the servant is not greater than his Lord.
They that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Perhaps you and I feel this fewness, this smallness, this littleness.
It's a good thing to feel it, it says when.
Ye are weak, then are ye strong?
Strength is not in numbers.
I like to think of an expression the way poles evident put it.
When he was visiting in a very small assembly.
Two or three is the smallest number, isn't it? As we get it in the testimony and Matthew 1820. Sometimes we break bread that those small numbers.
But.
Suppose there's 20 or 30 instead of two or three.
That's still few, isn't it?
I'm speaking now of a real testimony that there is one body or one flock. As we headed in John 10, there is one flock, there's only one. And when we have that one loaf on the table, it is an expression of every believer. Yes, it is. It represents everyone as the one flock, but more particularly.
The one body.
And for instance, here in Toledo, there would be hundreds and hundreds of real Christians that we don't know the hearts are, but God does. But giving expression to that, it's very small, isn't it? And it may be discouraging, but God would encourage us. And so with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? We feel that this is a wilderness.
That's what the children of Israel found out when they were redeemed and crushed the.
Red Sea that they were not in Canaan, they were in the wilderness.
And that's where we, you and I are practically every day of our lives in the wilderness. It's a good thing to feel this funess, yet to be encouraged by the scriptures that fear not. Little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. The Kingdom is coming. The King has been rejected. He has gone up on high to receive His Kingdom. He's going to get it from the Father.
Not from Satan. He was offered that he would not take it. He could not take it. He did not take it. He waits to reign, and so do we.
But the reigning is just as sure.
As the suffering is now and so we would be encouraged to go on in spite of fewness and smallest of numbers. Now there's one more expression that we want to draw out of this chapter down in verse 34.
And David said unto Saul, thy servant.
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Kept his father's sheep.
Oh yes, he did that.
The perfect servant, he kept his Father's sheep so that the Lord Jesus in John's gospel he could say.
Of those whom thou hast given me.
I have lost none.
Little earlier the son of Perdition was there, but later on he wasn't there.
Because he really wasn't a sheep. He looked like one.
He walked with the Lord, but he was an impostor.
But every sheep that the Father gives to the Lord Jesus.
He keeps, so he says, thy servant kept his father's sheep.
He will keep you, He will keep me right until a time when He comes for us. Just a couple of practical exhortations based on this little talk in Acts 20 and in First Peter, which are readily understood.
Pull in Acts 20.
Visiting with the elders of Ephesus that Ephesians church.
To whom he writes the book. Later on, John also writing to.
The Ephesians, but Paul now visiting not in the place, but calling the elders.
Together notice in John 20 verse 17 and from my leaders he Paul.
Sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church.
Oh, he gives them lots of good instruction here, but we will only read from verse 28 a little.
Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, O we who are elders.
That is, there are elders in assemblies.
Take heed unto yourselves. This is always true, Peter said. I mean, Paul said that to Timothy.
Take heed unto thyself and to the doctrine, our own personal walk.
Comes first and then what we do and say.
To others the doctrine, Take He therefore unto yourself, and to all the flock, O he goes on.
All the flock, those few sheep that are left in the care of the elders.
What over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers? What a privilege overseers. What for? To feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. Oh, he's paid the full price. They're they're dear to him.
What a reward there is to being an under shepherd, under that great Shepherd.
Peter, as he learned that lesson so well in the end of John, passes it on to us.
In One Peter chapter 5.
And verse one. We read a couple of verses here.
We read 4 verses first Peter 51.
The elders which are among you. Likewise Peter speaking to the elders.
I exhort.
Who I am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ.
Yes. Peter walked right up there to the cross. He saw it.
Oh, to get a glimpse of that on a Lord's Day as we remember the Lord and his death.
What a wonderful thing it is by faith, and also a partaker of the glory. You and I get some of that glimpse as we read the Scriptures, the glories of Christ that shine out in a moral way to day. But I hear it's the glory that shall be revealed. Peter saw it.
Now what does he say to you?
Feed the flock of God which is among you. They are here.
We're with the sheep, aren't we? With the sheep? The Lord's gone up on high. He's left them in the care.
We say of the Spirit of God that He's given us the Spirit of God. Now He has under shepherds.
This is clear. Isn't feed the flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof?
Not by constraint, but willingly.
Not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither as being Lords over God's heritage, but being in samples to the flock. And when, when, when, when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that feedeth not away. The rewards will be great. Let's sing in closing.
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203.
The second stanza of 203 says.
Most merciful high Priest, our Savior, shepherd friend.
In thy love alone we trust until then.
What?
Characteristics of Christianity
Address—C. Hendricks
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.
To run with me tonight to John's Gospel chapter 13, John 13.
And I'll begin reading at verse one. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands.
And that he was come from God and went to God.
He rises from supper, and laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded himself.
After that he poured water into a basin and began to Washington the disciples feet.
And to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter. And Peter saith unto him.
Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do, thou knowest not now.
But thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands into my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not saved to wash his feet, but is clean.
Every whit and ye are clean.
But not all, for he knew who should betray him. Therefore said he.
Ye are not all clean.
Let me stop the reading there.
By desire tonight is to look not just at the passage that we've read, but to look at the chapters 13 through 16. I don't know if we'll get that far, but just to bring out the the precious truths which the Lord Jesus.
Brought before these disciples.
Whose thoughts were? They were Jewish disciples, of course, and their thoughts were after an earthly Kingdom, desiring that he would come in power and glory. They were looking for a Messiah that would come in power and glory and establish the Kingdom for them on earth. They were in ******* to the Romans, and they felt that yoke very severely.
And the Lord Jesus in these chapters 13 through 17. Really.
Brings before us the blessed truth that he wasn't going to at this time establish the Kingdom for Israel, but rather he was going away and he was going to leave them here in this scene and in his absence they were to be here for him.
What we get in these chapters, 13 through 17, is the real.
True character of Christianity, what Christianity is now, we'll see as we go through these chapters, the Lord telling his disciples over and over again that he was going away, that he was departing to the Father, that he wouldn't remain with them. And they didn't like that thought. Their thoughts were, of course, formed after the pattern of Judaism, and their thought was to have Him here.
We see that over and over again in the Gospels.
Even when he was the Risen One and he spoke to Mary Magdalene, he has to tell her, touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. You can't have me as the Messiah down here in his relationships with with Israel after the flesh. But he was about to enter in as the Risen 1 into an altogether new order of things, and he was going to become the head, as the risen man of a new creation, and they were going to be introduced.
As new creatures in Christ into this new creation and to be united with that man in the glory, and their portion was going to be altogether outside of this world. Well, we'll see that developing as we begin here in John 13. The first thing we notice is that when Jesus knew that his hour was come, now that wasn't the hour of the cross, but that He should depart out of this world.
Unto the Father, having loved his own, which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.
This chapter begins with the hour of His departing out of the world to the Father.
The hour of his glorification, the hour when he would ascend up back to the Father, where he from whence he had come, and supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot Simons son, to betray him. Now again it's repeated, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God and went to God. So in the consciousness.
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That he had come from God and in the consciousness that he was going to God.
In the consciousness of that he does a very significant act. He lays aside his garments. He rises from supper, lays aside his garments, takes a towel, and girds himself. Now the girding of himself presents him, of course, as the Servant. We know that when he was down here, he was the Son of man that came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. He was that blessed Servant of whom Jehovah said, Behold my Servant.
In whom my soul delighted. Oh, there was never a servant like he, but having entered the glory on high, he commences a new service.
And He is serving us today and we get a little picture of the service that He is performing today as the risen glorified man on high in what He does right here in this symbolical act of the feet washing of the disciples. He pours water into a basin and He began to wash the disciples feet. Many have seen nothing more in this chapter than an example of humility.
Well, the whole pathway of the Blessed Lord was an example of humility.
Says in Philippians 2 That being in the form of God, he thought it not not an object of rapping, or something to be grasped after and held on to to be equal with God. But he emptied himself, and he took upon him the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. His whole pathway here below was one of humility.
So there's something far deeper.
In the feet washing that the Lord Jesus undertakes with his disciples an instruction that.
We must gather from the passage.
He began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then he comes to Simon Peter, and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?
Peter had a sense in his soul of who it was that was undertaking this lowly service. It was his Master, it was his Lord, it was the Lord of glory. And he says, dost thou wash my feet? Now Notice verse seven, a very significant statement. Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do, thou knowest not now.
But thou shalt know hereafter, that is, they would not understand.
And they did not understand at that time the significance of His active feet washing. He said you will know it later. And the later time is right now when the Spirit of God is given. We're living in the days of the Spirit, you might say, the dispensation of the Spirit of God. He has been sent down from heaven in fullness of power to lead us into all the truth.
And this is the day that he's looking on to what I do thou knowest not now.
But thou shalt know hereafter, Peter saith unto him. Thou shalt never wash my feet.
And Jesus answered him, if I washed thee not notice carefully, thou hast no part with me. He doesn't say thou hast no part in me, but with me. And this gives the clue to the meaning of the feet washing the Lord Jesus was about to go to the Father. He was about to return into the glory from whence he had come. Now as a man now after he had accomplished redemption. I know this chapter is before he went to the cross, but these.
Are significant because they say his hour was come that he should depart to the father. That is he's beyond the cross in the significance of what takes place here. Redemption is accomplished and he's about to depart to the father and in the presence of the father on high, he's going to commence a new service, that of feet washing as we walk through this world.
You're walking through a defiling scene. We're walking through a scene where.
Everything that's out there in this world through which we're passing is defiling. It's a scene of death. It's a scene of defilement. There isn't one thing that the world serves us that can feed us. There's not one thing John tells us in First Epistle of John chapter 2. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the.
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Father but is of the world, and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God.
Abideth forever. There isn't one thing in the scene through which we're passing.
That can feed our souls, not one. The fear that the world deals out to those who are of it will not feed your soul. In fact it is defiling. It will tie you down to earth. And the whole purpose of the feet washing is to remove the defilements of this scene of this earth, that we might have part with him in the new position into which he is now entered as the man in the glory.
He was about to take up a new place of exaltation and supremacy on high, not the Kingdom on earth, but rather to be rejected here, to be hated here and rejected here and go on high. And in that place of glory on high, He wants our fellowship. Isn't that precious? And so he gives this significant act of the feet washing in order for us to have fellowship with himself.
The defilements of Earth must be removed and he undertakes to remove them.
By the washing of water, by the word, He gets down to our feet. That blessed One, His service on high as our advocate.
Washes away the contaminants of this world that we might have part with Him where he is in the glory.
Satan. Satan is satisfied if he can keep the Saints of God.
Occupied with Earth.
Satan is satisfied if he can keep the Saints of God occupied. On a worldly level. It isn't enough to be A to live a righteous life.
That, of course, is essential for the glory of God. But a Christian is a heavenly man. A Christian is down here in this world just as Christ was.
In the Lord's Prayer to his Father in John 17, he says, as the Father has sent me into the world, Even so.
Have I sent them into the world? And he's talking about his own? We have been sent into this world to represent Christ, just as He was to represent the Father.
How separate should we be? The Lord gives us the measure of our separation also in that prayer in John 17 he says they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. The measure of our sanctification for Christ is our sanctification.
Is to be as separate from this scene as He is, and He is now the man in the glory. Well, here in John 13, he washes our feet now in the Tabernacle in the Old Testament, when the priests were consecrated, they were bathed in water. They were washed all over, symbolical of the new birth. The Lord had told Nicodemus in this Gospel in chapter 3.
Except a man be born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. And then he amplifies that by saying, Except a man be born of water.
And of the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God, so being born of the water.
Is the word now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you, and the the consecration of the priest set that before us. When they were bathed in water, they were symbolically born again. But then there was the Laver, and they had to use that Laver as they.
Officiated in the priesthood and they used it to wash their hands and to wash their feet. But you don't read anything in this chapter about washing the hands. Instead the Lord is at the disciples feet.
And he removes the defilement of their feet. Nothing about the hands. Why is that?
I believe that's because in Christianity there isn't anything to do. The gospel doesn't bring a work to do, but a word to believe about a work already done. The Lord Jesus cried on the cross. It is finished. And the worst, the work necessary to save our precious souls, has been done over 1900 years ago by the Lord on the cross. So it isn't anything we have to do. The hands don't need washing today. The work has all been done by Christ. But as we walk through this defiling.
We pick up its habits, its ways, its customs, its jokes, all that rubs off on us, and that has to be removed because we have a nature. Though we're born of God, we have a nature which goes out after those things every one of us does, and in order to have part with Him in that new place of exaltation and glorification where he is as the glorified man.
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He gets to our feet with the water of the word, and he removes the defilements of earth.
So that we can enter into our heavenly relationship with Himself.
Well, Peter says to him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. And the Lord says, if I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Peter then goes to the other extreme, and he says, Lord not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. And then Jesus saith to him, he that is washed all over or bathed, that's a different word. You don't see that in the King James, but it's a different word than the one later used for washed. So he says he that is bathed.
That's symbolical of the new birth.
Needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every wit, and so we need the feet washing, and the Lord undertakes that, that we might have part with him.
Well, let's go on, because there's much to be considered here.
In verse 18.
He says.
At the end of the verse, he that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.
Now I tell you before it come, that when it is come.
To pass, you may believe that I am He.
Verse 21 Jesus is troubled in spirit.
And testifies, saying, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
Verse 26 Jesus answered he It is to whom I shall give a SOP when I have dipped it, and when he had dipped the SOP, he gave it to Judas Iscariot.
The son of Simon. And after the SOP Satan entered into him, then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest do quickly. Verse 30 He then, having received the SOP, went immediately out, and it was night, and oh, what a dark night it was for that man's soul. He had been with the Lord during his public ministry. He had heard his blessed words. He had witnessed the works of power that he had wrought, and he goes out.
He is going to betray him.
He goes out in its night, and this gives the Lord occasion now to talk about the cross.
In verse 31, therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, now is the Son of man glorified? He was glorified as the Son of man in a in a life of perfection and obedience. His obedience carrying him all the way to the death of the cross, says in Philippians 2. Again we referred to it, He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and that was the perfection of obedience, the perfection of obedience, obedience.
Not just in His, as He was in His life, in a life of perfect dependence on the Father. Or he could say, I do always those things that please Him. The Father hath not left me alone, but on the cross. He was obedient in the face of divine wrath against sin. He was obedient in the place where He was forsaken. And so he says, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.
All that is in God has been glorified.
Through the death of Christ on the cross, when He was made sin, all that was in God against sin was poured out upon the head of our blessed Savior, and he cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God has been more glorified through having a loud sin to come into His fair universe, and having put it away through the sacrifice of His Son.
Than he ever would have been, and he never allowed sin to come in. God has received more glory.
In what He has allowed and how He has put it away, demonstrating His Holiness, His righteousness, His truth, His Majesty, and His love, and His grace and His mercy at the cross, all beautifully meeting for righteousness and peace, have kissed each other at the cross. God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in Himself.
And shall straightway glorify him. So God answers that work.
By which he was glorified infinitely as to sin by glorifying his Son and putting him in the highest glory. And so we have the cross before the Lord could carry out this, that which is symbolized by the feet washing, he had to go to the cross. He had to lay the basis for our redemption, for our eternal salvation. And so the cross is brought in and then immediately he says, little children, verse 33.
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Yet a little while I am with you. He tells them this over and over again, lifting their Jewish thoughts from earth, from an earthly Kingdom. They were hoping he would establish it. I say it again, and really, in order to grasp the significance of these fresh truths. It's the first time they had ever heard this.
There are thoughts you have to place yourself in the position of these Jewish disciples whose every hope was earth. They were looking for a Kingdom to be established on earth in power and glory, and when he who was the one they expected was their Messiah.
Tells them he's not going to do that, but rather he's going to be rejected, refused here, and go up on high and bring in an altogether new order of things. This was very difficult for them to grasp, even after the instruction of all these chapters, even after he had died and rose again. And he appears to them in Acts 1 as the risen man. They asked him the question in Acts 1.
Wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel?
You see, their thoughts were still Jewish, they were still looking for the establishment of an earthly Kingdom. And the Lord said, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power, but tarry ye and Jerusalem till ye be endued with power from on high, to be endued with power from on high, when He would send the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, to unite those Jewish disciples to a glorified Christ in heaven.
To bring them into an altogether new order of things, Paul could say in 2nd Corinthians 5. Though we Jews have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.
Therefore, if any man be in Christ.
All things have passed away, all things have become new and there's a new creation If any man be in Christ, there is a new creation. All things passed away, all things become new. This is what these are the truths that are being laid by the blessed Lord in this ministry from John 13 through 17 and so again he tells them verse 33 yet a little while I am with you.
You shall seek me, and as I said unto the Jews, whither I go, ye cannot come.
So now I say to you, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples. If you have loved one to another, he says, I'm going to leave you here.
I'm going away.
I'm going to leave you here and the significance of the feet washing is that he was going to be preparing them here.
To have fellowship with him there, to have fellowship with himself as the glorified man on high.
And he tells us in the next chapter, and we'll see that in a moment, that he wasn't going to leave them comfortless, but he was going to give them another comforter, the Spirit of God. He wasn't going to leave them without comfort. But in the meantime, he gives what should characterize the Christian company, and that is love, A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another.
Some have wondered what's the difference between the commandment of Christ and the commandments of Moses, The law? Well, they're as different as day and night. The commandment of Moses, the commandments of Moses. And just think of them. I'll just quickly go through them. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou should not make unto thee any graven image of anything in heaven or earth, and bow down to them. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
The 5th commandment is Honor thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth.
And then the 6th commandment which is on the second table of stones, the 1St 5.
Had to do with our responsibilities Godward, and then our responsibilities man word. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, and thou shalt not covet or lust.
You notice that almost all the commandments are negative. They are a prohibition.
On the desires of the flesh.
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Take the last commandment. Thou shalt not covet to say that to the natural man.
Is to tell him you must not be as you are. And so it's a law of *******. It's not a law of liberty.
It's seeking to prohibit that which the natural man desires to do.
And this cannot be kept by man. He fails to keep it. The command of Christ is just the opposite. He imparts to us a new nature, a nature which is love, a nature which is the very life and nature of God himself, which who is light and who is love. And then he gives a commandment, which is a directive. The command of Christ is, is the directive to the new life that we have in Christ.
It imparts energy to love one another. That's the very thing that the new life delights to do. Sometimes you might hear a brother say, well, I just can't love that brother. Well, of course you can't, because you're trying to love him in the energy of the flesh.
We can't love our brothers in the energy of the flesh. The nature that we have is born of. Adam doesn't love.
It isn't so constituted, but is born of God. We have the life of Christ and did you ever see a life that was a life of love like His?
Absolute selflessness. As you look at the four gospels, you see a man that never did anything for himself. You see a man who spent himself altogether and entirely and always for others. You see a man who lived in implicit obedience to his father.
You see a man whose joy, whose delight it was to do the will of God.
That was his very meat, as one has said. That which sustained him here was the will of God which He came to do.
As he could tell those in John Four, my meat is to do the will of him that set me and to finish his work.
And that Blessed One lived a life of love that has never been seen before.
He is called in the first Epistle of John, that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.
And we have heard it and seen it, he says, and report unto you.
That eternal life that ye also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And there isn't anything more precious than to be walking down here in this scene in fellowship with that blessed One. Well, the nature that He's imparted to us is a nature which loves. And so when the Lord Jesus says these things, I command you that you love one another. He is directing the new life that we have in Christ.
And this what? This is what must mark those who are his disciples by this.
Shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have loved one to another?
I don't know whether Peter heard those words. He had heard what the Lord had said in verse 33. Yet a little while I am with you, You shall seek me. And as I said, under the Jews, whither I go, you cannot come. So now I say to you. And now in verse 36, Peter says, Lord, whither goest thou? He had heard the Lorde words that he was going away. And all that bothered Peter, he loved. He loved the Lord so intensely.
So intensely, and he repeats that in his epistle, Whom having not seen ye love.
Peter loved him.
He says, Lord, why can't, Why cannot I follow you? Where? Where are you going? Jesus answered him, Whether I go, Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. And he meant it. He loved him wasn't false, but he didn't know his own heart. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the **** shall not crow.
Till thou hast denied me thrice.
And then in the next chapter we have the Lord Jesus going on high again. He says, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.
Why does he say that? The Lord was in their midst. They saw Him. They looked upon Him. He wasn't an object of faith. They could see Him. They could handle Him.
John says, we heard him, we saw him, we looked upon him, and to whom our hands have handled of the word of life.
But now he says, I'm going away. I'm not going to be visible to you. I'm going to be an object of faith, just as God is. You believe in God, believe also in me.
And so it is today. Peter tells us today, whom, whom having not seen ye love, in whom, though not now looking, but believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. And so he was going away. He says, In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. I go, he says. I'm going there. I'm not going to set up the Kingdom here.
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You're expecting it, and I know I'm dashing your hopes.
Dashing your hopes to pieces, but I'm going to prepare a place for you up there. You're not going to have an earthly place of prominence and glory. Christianity is not an earthly religion. It's heavenly. Christianity is associations with a heavenly Christ and so here in John 14 he goes to prepare a place for us in John 13 in the feet washing he.
Us for the place He prepares us that we may have we may have part with Him in the glory.
And in John 14 he prepares the place for us.
He says another truth. I go to prepare a place for you. They hadn't heard that before. And then he says, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again to what set up the Kingdom? Oh no.
I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. So he's taking their Jewish thoughts, and he's raising them from earth to heaven. He's saying I'm not going to set up a Kingdom and rather I'm going away. I'm washing your feet from the defilements of earth, that you might have part with me there as the risen glorified man. And as I go there, I'm going to prepare you a place, and I'm going to come back for you.
Again, not to set up the Kingdom. We know that's coming, that's coming, but that's not Christianity. Christianity is. He prepares us for the place and he prepares the place for us, and soon he's coming back to take us to that place on high.
Whither I go, ye know, and the way ye know. And Thomas says we don't know where you're going.
And how can we know the way they did not understand? They did not understand?
And I believe that today as we look around in Christendom.
We see.
The mass of those who are his true believers that love the Lord.
If they don't understand the heavenly character of Christianity, their hopes are earthly centered, they're centered down here, and it's hard for them to enter in into the thoughts that are unfolded here in these chapters, just as it was hard for these Jewish disciples.
The Lord says I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.
Have you ever noticed in scripture we have 3 great enemies, The world, the flesh and the devil, and there are three for us and they're put in opposition to these three that we've just mentioned. The Father is in opposition to the world.
It says again, I'll quote it in first John two, All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father. The Father has a new world and that world isn't here. The Father has a world which is up there. And what the Lord is doing in these chapters is preparing these, those disciples for that world.
For that world.
A brother once a remark was once made to a brother who was very.
He had tremendous.
The powers of the mind very educated and.
He had a mind that.
Probably eclipses anything that we have today and someone said to him.
You could make a name for yourself in this world.
In the world, he said.
This one here or the Father's world above if it's this one here?
Then it's not of the father.
And then we have Christ opposed to Satan.
And then we have, we know that we have many instances in Scripture where we have Satan is the great adversary to Christ. He's the one that tempted him in the wilderness 40 days and 40 nights.
And then we have the flesh and the spirit.
The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you should not do those things which you desire. The works of the flesh are and they're listed, and then the fruit of the Spirit is love.
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Joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, the fruit of the Spirit. And so we have the three that are for us, the Father opposite to the world, Christ opposite to Satan, the Spirit opposite to the flesh.
And here we have the Father's world, the Father's house mentioned in verse two. In my father's house are many mansions, and the Lord tells us that He is the way. Now let's go on. In verse 15, He says, If you love me. Again He repeats, If you love me, keep my commandments.
The principle of obedience, keeping His commandments is one of the characteristics of the new life that we have in Christ, love and obedience. And we see that perfectly manifested in the life of the Lord Jesus, love and obedience. And so he says, if you love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever. You have the whole Trinity in that verse, the Son praying the Father and the Father.
The other comforter, that he may abide with you forever. Now this is in contrast Jesus going away. He wasn't going to remain with her. Instead He was in his absence going to send them another comforter. Even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. The world cannot receive this spirit of truth.
The world has no part in it whatsoever. We were once of this world.
We were once a part of it. We've been called out of it. So separate now from it are we that the Lord says they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. He is that heavenly man. He is the Son of man who is in heaven. He speaks of himself, and He's the one who came from heaven and He's gone back to heaven. And He's preparing us for that place, and He's preparing the place for us, and He's giving us the Spirit of God to empower us while we're down here.
That that life which has been imparted to us, the life of Christ, might be manifested in us even as it was manifested in Him.
But 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. Now notice what it says of the Spirit here, for He dwelleth with you and shall be in you. The Lord wasn't dwelling, wasn't going to remain with them.
He wasn't going to remain with them, He was going to leave them. But he says when I give you the Spirit, he will dwell with you and more he will be in you. The Lord was not in the disciples, he was among them. But now in Christianity he is in us, the Spirit of God. Sometimes in in Sunday school the children sing, I would like to have been with him then and would have been a wonderful thing, wouldn't it, to have been in the company of the Lord Jesus.
When he was here on earth, that blessed man down here to have the Lord pick up the children in his arms and hold him.
Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, he said.
But we have something far more precious, far more blessed than the company of the Messiah on earth. Were united by the Spirit of God to the man in the glory. And the Spirit will never leave us. He'll be with us forever, be with us forever. He dwelleth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. And that's true now by the Spirit.
Well, let's move on.
He says in verse 23, Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings, and the word which he hears not mine, but the Father's which sent me. These words have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you 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 your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
How quickly they forgot these instructions and how we saw that from Acts One when they asked if the Lord would restore again the Kingdom to Israel. No, he says, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to bring you into an altogether new order of things, the new creation. And so the Spirit, when he came, would bring back to their minds everything that the Lord had said to them, these instructions, these blessed truths.
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And he tells us that He and the Father would come and make their abode with us if we kept His word. We have the whole Trinity abiding with us, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Spirit never to be taken from us. We cannot sin the spirits presence away. We can grieve Him, we can grieve Him, but He's with us for all eternity, not because of anything that we are not because of any of our faithfulness.
But because of the work of Christ, he's with us. He's been sent down into this scene.
To indwell us individually and then of the church collectively. Now you don't get church truth in John's gospel, in John's ministry, but you get that which is the basis, the fundamental truths of it. The Spirit of God-given to bring us into the enjoyment of heavenly things. And then he leaves us his peace in verse 27. And he gives us says peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you. He made peace by the blood of his cross.
The peace that he had as a dependent man through this world, as he passed through this world, was receiving everything from the Father.
And he says, My peace, peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. And then in the 15th chapter we must move on. He talks about fruit bearing. He says I am the true vine, and my father is the husband man.
And in verse eight he says, Herein is my father glorified, that she bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples.
Verse 10 he says if you keep my commandments, you should abide in my love. Notice that's just.
The opposite.
It's put in just the opposite way.
Of verse 15 of chapter 14 and verse 15 of chapter 14, he says if you love me.
Keep my commandments in chapter 1510 he says if ye keep my commandments.
Ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments.
And abide in His love. The Lord was one who was constantly in the consciousness of the Father's love. He was. He was always in the bosom of the Father. He was in the hiding place of love. He was always in the place of communion. He was always the obedient, dependent man. He always kept his Father's commandments. They were his delight. And so they are to us who have a new life. We are down here.
For Christ, and as Christ John tells us in his first epistle, as He is, Even so are we in this world as He is. We have His life in nature, and we're to walk through this scene first. John 26 says he that saith He abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk even as He walked. That's what you have in John 15, Fruit bearing. What is fruit bearing? Fruit bearing is merely the reproduction.
In the life of the Christian of the life of Christ.
And that's what the Father delights in. That is the only life.
That the Father delights him. The only life is the life of Christ, and he's given us that life.
That eternal life that was with the Father and was manifested unto us in a man down here in a in obedience and dependence. That position that he occupied as the obedient, dependent man, He was down here expressing eternal life.
Now that life is now ours, He gives it to us from His place in glory.
He gives that eternal life to us, and for what reason?
That we might be here for him. That the fruit that delights the heart of the Father might be found reproduced in US.
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, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. Have you ever thought of His joy?
Just thought of the number of times in the scriptures where it speaks of his joy.
One of them I think of is in the 40th Psalm. I delight to do Thy will, O God. It was His joy to do the will of the Father. It was his delight to do the Father's will another time, in Luke 10, when He had to pronounce judgment upon all those cities where in His mighty works were done, because they repented not.
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He has to say, Woe unto thee, Corazon, woe unto thee, Bethsaida.
For if the mighty works which were done in you were done entire incident, they would have repented, they would have continued to this day. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shall be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have continued to this day. And then we read, Jesus rejoiced in spirit. And he said, I thank thee, Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babe, unto babes.
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.
Oh, that was His joy. His joy was to receive everything from the Father. Another time we read of His joy is in Hebrews 12. Who? For the joy that was set before him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. What was that joy that was set before Him? It was to be back with the Father, back in the Father's presence.
And then to have us there Another time he speaks of his joy is in the 8th Psalm. He says, my delights were with the sons of men. He finds his joy in US and all it's going to be, it's going to fill his soul with joy in that coming day when he presents us to the Father and says, Behold I and the children which thou hast given me.
And he says he prays here that my joy, he says, might be in you.
What do we find our joy in? Is it as it was His? The delight of his heart was to please his Father in everything.
To please his Father in everything. And that is to that's our joy as well, is it not?
Verse 16 of chapter 15 You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you.
That He should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain that fruit, that fruit that we bring forth, which is Christ being reproduced in our lives by the power of the Spirit of God. Christ being reproduced, This is Christianity. He is not here, He's on high, but he's left us here. He's given us his life and nature, that the very life of Christ might be seen in each one of us and that our joy might be.
Again, he repeats in verse 17 These things I command you that you love one another.
Now, immediately after that, the Christian community ought to be characterized by love one to another.
Because that's the that's the nature that we've received. And he's the spirit of love.
The fruit of the Spirit is love.
But then he speaks of the world, and he says, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you were not of it. He's chosen us out of it. We expect the world's hatred.
Well ought to characterize those who are His is love.
In His absence, that which will bring testimony to the world that we belong to Christ. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another, if that new nature is in activity.
And love is, you know, love is manifested in obedience. If you love me, keep my commandments. And John says in the first epistle, chapter 5 by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments.
When we love God and keep his commandments. So these two principles, obedience, keeping his commandments, obedience. This is as seen in the blood Lords life down here and love.
Everything he did was in love, and he was always that obedient 1 even unto death.
And that the death of the cross. So what does He leave us here to expect? Not the glory of an earthly Kingdom, but rather He Himself rejected, He Himself hated. And He leaves us here. He gives us His life, He gives us the Holy Spirit, the other Comforter, and He washes our feet, that we might have part with Him, not where He is here, not part with an earthly Messiah.
Oh, that's so important. But a rejected Christ?
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One who's gone on high, a heavenly man. Our portion is heavenly. Our portion is heavenly. What do you find today? You find Christians urging other Christians to get involved in the politics of the world, to get involved in voting, to get involved in military affairs of nations, to get involved in the in the economic struggles that exist here.
The Word of God tells us that we're not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world. Was he here to set the world right? He will. When he comes back, He's going to set the world right. That's not why he was here the first time. He didn't come here to set the world right the first time. He didn't touch the world. Have you ever remarked how the apostle Paul when he deals with slavery in his epistles? Slavery was an awful thing.
Slavery was an awful thing. The common thought today among Christians generally would be we should assert our Christian influence to abolish slavery.
Paul didn't do that. He didn't do that. He gave instruction to the slave how to live and to obey his master, and he gave instruction to the master how to conduct himself, if he was a Christian, towards his his slave. He left the world where he found it.
Christianity is not here. It's not a system of religion to reform the world. Rather, it's a new world. This world is under judgment. This world is a condemned scene. And he takes us out of it and unites us to another world, to the man of that other world who is the center of that scene. That's Christianity. He's prepared a place for us there, and he's coming to take us home there. That's our portion.
We're not here to change things in this scene.
The Lord alone will set things right down here. We're not here for that purpose. We're not here for that purpose. We're here to bear fruit. We're here to manifest the life of Christ in lowly love and patience and goodness and humility and in service to others. But we're not here to change the course of this world. He will do it when He comes.
When he comes, when the judgments of the Lord are in the earth, then the inhabitants of the world.
Will learn righteousness, but here he prepares us for the world's hatred, he says.
Remember the word verse 20 that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my names sake, because they know not him that sent me.
If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin. But now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. But now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. Oh, if we're going to follow a rejected Savior.
A rejected Christ. We're going to meet with the world's opposition.
He tells us in the first verse, a second verse of chapter 16, They shall put you out of the synagogues.
Yeah, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God's service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you that when the time shall come, you may remember that I told you of them.
You know, these Corinthians needed this truth. The Corinthians needed this truth. In First Corinthians 4, he says to them, now you're full, now you're rich. You have reigned as kings without us. And I would to God you did reign that we also might reign with you. But he has to rebuke them because they were reigning as kings now.
And now's not the time for reigning. Now's the time for suffering. Now is the time for being identified with a rejected, hated, despised saviour. Now's the time when we take part with one.
Who is not here? What is a Christian? A Christian is one who is in Christ where he is, and one who is for Christ where he is not. He is not here. He is not here because the world has turned him out, because the world will not have him.
And we're followers of that Blessed One. And so he lifts the thoughts of these Jewish disciples from earth, from any earth expectancy to heaven to heaven.
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He tells them, verse 26 of chapter 15. But when the comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall have me. And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
Well, that's as far as we can go tonight.
But just to go back quickly, in John 13, in the consciousness that he was going, that he'd come from God and he went to God, he lays aside his garments, he girds himself, and he undertakes a new service, washing the feet of the disciples that we down here who are going to be left in this world might have part with him there as the rejected man and the accepted man on high.
Got man having rejected him, God having accepted him, we have part with him there in the 14th chapter. He prepares that place for us and tells us he's coming back to take us there, not to set up the Kingdom here. And then he says, well, I'm gone and I'm absent from you. I'm going to give the the other comforter the Spirit of God that he'll be with you forever.
He'll be with you and in you that constant companion, the Spirit of God.
To lead us into all truth and to unite us to that man in the glory. And then he speaks of fruit bearing and he's looking for that. That's why he's left us here. That's the one reason we're here. The one reason we're here. We're not here to make money. We're not here to get ahead in this world. We're not here to make a name for ourselves in the scene that Christ was rejected in.
Let me just.
Mention this.
Lovely poem.
And yet outside the camp.
Twas there my Savior died, It was the world that cast him forth and saw him crucified. Can I take part with those who nailed him to a tree, And where his name is never praised? Is there the place for me? Nay, world I turn away, Though thou seem fair and good, That friendly outstretched hand of thine is stained with Jesus blood, If in thy least device I stoop to take apart.
All unawares.
Thy influence steals God's presence from my heart. I couldn't put it any better than that.
We're not here.
For any other reason than to live Christ.
Herein is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit. And what is fruit bearing? It's the reproduction in our lives of the life of Christ. This is what delights the Father when he sees Christ in US. And what ought to characterize the Christian company is love.
And we expect the world's hatred because we're not of it. We belong to another world. We belong to the Father's world. The center of that world is Christ.
He's coming soon, He's prepared the place, He's preparing us now for the place, and soon he's going to present us to himself in that place on high. That's our portion. We belong to heaven. We're not an earthly people.
Well, you get that in chapter 16 and 17, but we don't have time for that tonight.
May God lift our gaze and may our walk be consistent with our heavenly calling until we hear the shout.
Givers as God's Children
Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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Could we look, brethren, at Ephesians chapter 5?
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse one. Be therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.
Could we turn also to 1St Epistle of John, First Epistle of John and the 4th chapter, verse 16?
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Here in his our love, or the margin love with us made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world.
There is No Fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear.
Because fear hath taught he that feareth is not made perfect in love.
We love him because he first loved us. And then one other verse in Acts chapter 20.
Acts Chapter 20.
And the 35th verse.
I have showed you all things, how that soul laboring, he ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how that he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.
Well, our brother has just spoken to us about how abundant provision has been made a leader for us, the captain of our salvation, and also how he is there as our great High Priest and our advocate. That I was thinking also of how not only is the help supplied that we need for our pathway, but here we see, I believe, the outgoing of love that reaches out to others and seeks their blessing.
And I believe that is so important for us. Our brother remarked in the young people's meeting how that it was said by another that Christianity is known by what it brings and not by what it finds. And when the Lord Jesus came into this world, what did he find? He found everything that was opposed to God and to that which he had come to display as the perfect man and as the one who came to tell out.
Father's heart here in this world, everything was opposed to it, but there was that in His blessed heart that rose above every situation.
All the wickedness of man, all that they did to him, and all that misunderstanding that he had never changed that heart that he had. He had come to tell out the heart of God. And as it says, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.
Not imputing their trespasses unto them, that is, he was in this world.
Seeking to show man what was in the heart of God. And so when that woman was brought to him, taken in sin, he said, neither do I condemn thee. It was not that he didn't condemn the sin, but he had come to bear her condemnation so that he could say to her, Neither do I condemn thee. How wondrous to trace that blessed pathway of love here through this world, how it touches our hearts.
As I believe it was Mr. Ballot who said when he read the Gospels here, he said I found a man.
Who never did one thing to please himself. His whole blessed pathway.
Was the outflow of the heart of God. And when man's evil rose to its height, as it did at the cross, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. There was that love that rose above all that man was and all that he is.
And rather than I believe we need to get this into our souls, we need to realize more of that love so that it would not only be something that we know, something that we know for ourselves, but you know, our natural hearts are selfish. Haman in the book of Esther said, to whom would the king delight to do honor more than to myself?
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And I'm afraid secretly in our own hearts, that is a great deal of our thought.
That everything should be done for us. Everything should be done to make us happy.
Everything should be done for our pleasure and for our happiness, and this is the way the world operates. It operates on the principle of selfishness. But God has brought a new principle into your life and mine, a principle that was displayed in perfection in the blessed Lord Jesus as He walked through this world. Oh, how beautiful those words in Ephesians chapter 5.
Christ also hath loved us.
And have given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour. God delighted to have his heart told out and there was only one person who could do it perfectly. The cost was great, far greater than our hearts will ever know. But the Lord Jesus came to display that and it tells us He offered himself to God.
A sacrifice for a sweet smelling savour.
How God delighted as he looked down and saw one man in this world in whom he could find all his delight. Twice in the pathway of the Lord Jesus we find the heavens open, and the Father's voice saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
The whole race of humanity had dishonored him, had turned against him, had not appreciated his sending His son-in-law. But there was one here who pleased him in everything that he did, and offered himself to God as a sweet smelling savor. His whole delight and joy was to do His Father's will. As I said before, he never did one thing to please Himself.
You don't find even a miracle, although He had the power that he did for His own comfort. That is rather striking, isn't it? Why, If we had the power, how quickly we would do miracles to help ourselves in problems, How readily we would use it if it was available? Because we're naturally selfish beings. But the Lord Jesus did everything for the glory of His Father and for the good of others.
When he was hungry, he wouldn't turn stones into bread without a word from his father.
But when that multitude were hungry, he could turn a boy's lunch into food for the whole company. He had power, but he didn't use it for himself. And I believe, brethren, that this is something that needs to get hold of our souls, and that is that we are not just a called upon to be receivers, but we are called upon to be givers. We are called upon first to give.
Praise and Thanksgiving as we think of all that He has done for us.
And then too, as it tells us in John 316, it says God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. How we praise God for that wonderful verse, and what God has done for us in giving His Son and giving us everlasting life.
But first John chapter 3 and verse 16 says.
And this was manifested the love of God toward us in that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. There ought to be that willingness that we have the privilege, and what an unspeakable privilege it is, and that we can be givers here in this world. And so he says that this work that the Lord Jesus did.
A unique work, a work in which we could have no part. It was his and his alone.
But that we can manifest that same spirit, we can walk in love.
We can be imitators of God as dear children, we can give ourselves, and that is what God desires that we should do, that we should give ourselves. Paul said in Romans 12 and 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 here's your reasonable, reasonable or your intelligent.
00:10:04
Serve us. And so here it tells us that we are to walk in love and we are to bring love into all the situations as the Lord Jesus did in his blessed pathway here. And then we find over in that passage that we read in.
First Epistle of John. How this is possible?
Says here.
In the 17th verse here in His, our love or love with us made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. Isn't that a beautiful expression? Love with us? That is, God had shown His love, but we didn't respond to it. We didn't appreciate it. So what did God do? Well, He has given us.
That responds. He has given to us the very life of Christ.
And so to me, this is a most beautiful expression. Love with us. You might love a person and the person doesn't respond, but if the person responds as you would wish, then you can say love with us. It's something you share together because they enter into and enjoy what you were trying to show to them and respond to it. And that is exactly what God has done. He has given to us a life that is capable of.
Loving a life that enables us to manifest that love down here in this world.
As it tells us in Second Corinthians chapter 4, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be seen in our bodies. That is, our natural hearts are selfish. We think of ourselves, we think of our own interest, we think of all that concerns ourselves about as we put that.
Old nature into the place of death, and then we display in a practical way.
What the Lord Jesus displayed down here, because we have his life and so that we display the life of Jesus and it says as he is, so are we in this world. Brethren, will not be any more fit for heaven when the Lord comes than we are right now. We will not have a different life in heaven than we possess right now. We already possess the life that we will have up there in.
Forever. We possess it now, and He would have us, as the IT tells us in the epistle to Jude. It says looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Oh, you say, don't we already possess it? Yes, but we possess that life in a world where everything is different from it.
If a fish were taken out of the water and laid upon the shore.
It still has a fish life, but it's out of its element and if the fish could talk, it would say.
Please put me in my element. Brethren, God has given us a life that suited to heaven. And as we see the world getting worse and worse, our hearts say all want to be grand, to be in our element. But brethren, we're here. And what can we display down here in this world? The new life that we possess? And that is what He's telling us here.
In this in this 19th verse it says we love him.
I might mention here that in the new translation the word Him is omitted. It's just simply we love because he first loved us. The word Him is omitted. You say. Well, that kind of spoils the verse for me. No, brethren, it doesn't because we love Him, but it's much, it's much wider. We love his too. We love, We have the capacity to love. Sometimes we might say.
Well, I find it so hard to love that brother. God says, oh, you don't need to say that. I've given you a life that is capable of lovely loving. Even though there's no response. The Lord didn't find any response from our hearts, but he still loved us and he gave himself on Calvary Cross to display that love. And let us never say, oh, I couldn't love that brother. You can. You already possess the life of Christ we love.
Why? Because we're better than other people? Because we're nicer dispositions? No, because he first loved us. He loved us with a love that love because of what it is in itself, not because of something in the object. If there's a stream flowing down the mountainside, why? If you put a barrier in the way, what does the stream do? Well, it just rises a little higher, doesn't it? And the bigger the barrier, you put in the way.
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As long as there's plenty of water in the source, the higher the water rises. And all the barriers that men put in the way of the display of that love only caused it to flow out in a wider sphere. As the hymn writer said, the river of Thy grace, through righteousness supplied, is flowing ore, the barren place where Jesus died. And so here we have. We love because he first loved us.
And again, that verse that we read in Acts, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Well, we have received so much that it just overflows our hearts when we think of what we have received. And we can only say, if I should declare and speak of what He has done for me, it's more than can be numbered. We can't reckon the things up in order that He has done for us. But now it says.
We have the privilege of giving.
Because He has given us of His spirit, He has given us this new life.
Let's turn over to the epistle of Jude.
I just like to read from the 20th verse. But ye beloved, building up yourselves, our most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some having have compassion making a difference, and others say with fear pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh.
Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling or stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.
Here we find what sometimes been spoken of as the four anchors, and I believe we could think of them in this way. That ship that was waiting for the break of day didn't have a wreck until they took up the four anchors. But when they took up the four anchors, then there was a wreck even though they all got safely to shore. And here we have 4 anchors. Building up your cells on your most holy faith seems to me.
Answer to reading the word praying in the Holy Ghost. That's prayer.
Keep yourselves in the love of God, that is keeping the enjoyment of His love. Just like I might say to my child on a day when it's cold out but the sun is shining, I say, well, stay in the sunshine. It's nice and warm. If you stay in the sunshine. It's a cold world, brethren.
The sun is shining, and you and I can keep in the sunshine. And then it says, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Why we just long for the time when we're going to be taken out of this scene where everything is so contrary to the life that we possess. But this little expression in the end of the 24th verse I had particularly before me.
That he's able to keep us from stumbling.
And to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.