Toledo Conference: 1986
Table of Contents
"If" "When" "Because" "Since
Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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Could we turn first of all to Deuteronomy, our second Chronicles? Pardon Me, Second Chronicles Chapter 6?
In this chapter I want to lay special emphasis on 2 words, the word if and the word when. And I'm just going to read parts of verses and you'll notice how often the word if comes in here. Well, we'll start in the 18th verse. But will God in very deed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this house which I have built have respect, therefore to the prayer of Thy servant.
And to his supplication all Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry, and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee.
That thine eyes may be open upon his house, day and night upon the place where all thou hast said, that thou wouldest put thy name there to hearken unto the prayer that thy servant prayeth toward, or in this place.
Now I'll read part of different verses. The 22nd verse. If a man sin against his neighbor, and an oath be laid upon him to make him swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house, then hear thou from heaven, and do and judge thy servants.
And the 24th verse. And if thy people Israel, be put to the worst before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee.
And they shall return, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication before thee.
In this house and the 26th verse, when the heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee. Yet if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, that when thou dost afflict them sin, hear thou from heaven, and forgive the sin of thy people, and of thy people Israel, which thou, when thou hast, taught them the good way wherein they should walk.
And then reign upon thy land, when thou hast given unto thy which thou has given unto thy people for an inheritance, If there be a dearth in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting or mildew, Caterpillar, locusts, or caterpillars, if their enemies besieged them in the cities of their land, whatsoever sore whatsoever sickness there be, then what prayer, What?
Supplication.
Forever shall be made of any man, or of all thy people, Israel, when everyone shall know his own sore in his own grief, and shall spread forth his hands in this House.
Then going down a little farther in the 34th verse, if I people go out to war against their enemies, by the way that thou shall send them, and they pray unto thee toward this city which thou has chosen.
And the house which I have built for thy name. Then hear thou from the heavens, their prayer, and their supplication, and maintain their cause, if they sin against thee. For there is no man that sinneth not, and thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before their enemies.
And they carry them away captive unto a land, far off or near. Yet if they bethink themselves in the land, whether they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto thee in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done amiss.
And have dealt wickedly.
The 39th verse.
I'll read the 38th too, if they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity.
Whether they have carried them captive, and pray toward this land which thou gave us unto their fathers, and toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name. Then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling, place their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people which have sinned against thee. Now I'd like to turn also to Deuteronomy, Chapter 7.
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And I want to put emphasis on the little word because here the seventh verse, then the little word because.
The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you.
Because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people. But because the Lord loved you, and because he had, He would keep the covenant which he had sworn unto your father's half, the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the House of Bondman from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
Now shall we turn also to Isaiah chapter 43? I think it is.
Isaiah Chapter 43.
First verse But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, old Jacob, and he that formed thee. O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine. When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.
Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior.
I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia, Ethiopia, and Seba for thee. Since thou was precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. And then just one more in chapter 30 of Isaiah.
Verse 15.
For thus saith the Lord God, the holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall ye be saved in quietness, and in confidence shall be your strength. And you would not. But you said, No, For we will flee upon horses, therefore shall ye flee, and we will ride upon the swift, Therefore shall lay that pursue you be swift. 18th verse, And therefore will the Lord wait.
That he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you. For the Lord is a God of judgment. Blessed are all they that wait for him.
Well, it was particularly forward that I'd like to call attention to. And I'm sure that you noticed them as I read the word if, the word when and the word because and the word sense. There are many ifs in our lives, aren't there? There are many. When's that? Is this happened? When? Well, it just happened at the wrong time. But isn't it nice to think of the other side? Because I have loved thee and since.
Thou was precious in my sight. Let's never lose sight of that brethren when those ifs to come in our lives. Let's put the other side to it, that we can say that his ways are with us because he loves us and since.
We are precious in his sight. He didn't only die on the cross to save our souls from hell. That's a wonderful deliverance indeed. But brethren, I say it because he wanted our company, and he wanted our company forever. We can spend a little time in company with others, but sometimes we say, oh, I'd like to just get off by myself occasionally. But isn't it wonderful that the Lord Jesus loves us so much that he wants to have our company and our company forever?
On as often said, that's the test of true love. If you're going with somebody and you get tired of their company, there's a question because if you really have the kind of love you should, you just like to be in their company. Whether a word is said or not just to be in their company is a relaxation.
In returning and in rest shall ye be saved in quietness, and in confidence shall be your strength.
I think of a man who was brought up and was in the assembly and he got upset about some things happened in the assembly and about a certain brother that caused some difficulty and he left. And when he was quite an older man, his son said Dad, it's too bad that you left his son happily was gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus and his father's reply was, well, I wouldn't if it hadn't been for that brother.
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And I thought this, a dear young man's answer was a very wise one, he said. But, Dad, the Lord put that man there, the Lord put that man there. And you know, we have to realize this, brethren, that God puts certain things in our lives. And this chapter that I've read in Chronicles is just saying those things that God may put into our lives. And so if that man, when that thing had come into his life and if that brother had been a cause, a thorn in the flesh, perhaps, to him.
If he had said, But the Lord loves me, and the Lord has allowed this.
I'm precious in his sight. He might have got the victory over that situation.
And but those things do come in our lives. And you know, we can't trust the flesh, brethren.
We can't say I wouldn't do this or wouldn't do that. Another little instance that came, we just had occasion to meet a girl. She's now past 50 years of age, but we knew her when she was 14 years of age. And she had come from a home where her her mother had married an unsaved man and she had had some trials in the home. And she said to my wife, I can see the mistake of marrying an unsaved man.
And the trouble that it brings, and I will never do that, but you know, she trusted herself.
She has been married three times and divorced. She is now living with another man. And she said, she said, you know, we had another problem come up in our life and we were afraid things were going to break up the third time. And she said my son who's a real believer who loves the Lord, he said, mother, mother, he said you made a mistake, you married the wrong person. Why don't you just take it to the Lord in prayer?
And she said to us, she said, I did just that. And it's wonderful the way the Lord has come in. And, brethren, that's the thing that we have in this chapter that we have read. What was the answer to all these ifs in Second Chronicles Chapter 7? The answer was prayer and turning to the Lord, confessing whatever was wrong in our lives, but getting right first of all with the Lord. And I say to myself and to any of us here, if those ifs are bothering you, you come to these meetings.
And perhaps you have a whole lot of ifs. If that boy had only treated me differently. If that girl had only treated me differently. If that hadn't happened, and if those older brethren hadn't said some unkind things, if all kinds of ifs are in our lives. And when those things happen, what do we do? Do we ride upon the swift to get away from it? That's what we read in Isaiah. It says yes.
Instead of in quietness and confidence in the Lord, we say I can find my own way out and we jump on the swift and try to run away.
But the ones that follow us are swifter still. And So what is the answer? Well, brethren, I feel that this is what God is bringing before us. In this beautiful chapter, we think of King Solomon here. When he came to the throne, he recognized that he didn't have the wisdom needed for this high position that was given to him. And we feel very often, all of us, that we're put in certain positions and we're just with them. We don't know what to do.
We don't have sufficient wisdom in ourselves. The Bible says, oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. There's no one of us that know all the answers and that can handle every situation. And more than this, the answer is not in ourselves. But oh, how wonderful. God has given us his precious word. He has given us in it all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
And more than that, he's given us himself.
He gave our poor hearts to win. He went to Calvary and died for us. And he's like the Hebrew servant. He says, I'm going to live for you forever, and whenever you're in any trouble. I'm there at the right hand of God. I'm there as your great high priest, and I know the pathway because I tread it myself.
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The Lord of redemption, that the Lord Jesus was accomplished, accomplished, which we remembered this morning, was all accomplished in those three hours of darkness when He bore our sins and then bowed His head and death and shed His precious blood to put our sins away. It was on Calvary that the work was finished that met our need as sinners. But why the 33 1/2 years of His life in order that He might tread through this very world like we live in.
A world where things were not easy. The children of Israel were under the authority the Romans. There was a lot of unpleasant situations, and all the rejection that he faced. He He said that my own familiar friend has lifted up his heel against me. He was hungry and thirsty. He was misunderstood by his disciples. He was rejected by the people he wanted to bless. And when we turned to him.
Captain of our salvation, he says, I've been through the whole path. I know what you're going through. I know the path that you're taking. When the children of Israel sinned and God said they had to spend 40 years in the wilderness, isn't it wonderful? He said. Make me a tent and I'll dwell with them. Yes, he said. If they're going to have to spend 40 years in the wilderness, I'll dwell among them. And more than that, I'll provide a way of approach into my presence.
And such it was in the Tabernacle. A way of approach was provided into his presence. Oh, if you know the Lord Jesus as your savior.
You're the most blessed person on the face of the earth, those friends that you have in school and elsewhere who don't know the Savior. They don't know the wonderful resource that you have. They don't know the secret of peace and joy that you and I are entitled to know. But isn't it strange? And I'm the same, too. At times, when we get into a problem, we try first of all, to solve it ourselves. We try human beings. But what was the answer in all these different things?
I think perhaps there are six different things in this chapter that are brought before us. And what was the answer? Oh, there was that house, and if they were so far from it, they could pray toward it. When Daniel was down in the land of Babylon, he could have said, well, I can't go to the house because it's much too far. But he opened his window and prayed toward Jerusalem. He believed that the God who had allowed them to be scattered.
Still cared about him and cared about his people, and that he could come to him with confidence.
And no King's decree or anything would stop him praying three times a day.
And don't let the problems of your life stop you from coming to the Lord Jesus and asking him for the help that you need. You'll just notice these and a little bit of detail here in First Second Chronicles chapter 6. Isn't this lovely, This 18th verse where you began?
But will God in very deed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this house which I have built? Solomon had built a glorious house. It was, I suppose, the grandest, we might say, religious building that was ever built in the whole world. And yet he said, it can't contain God. Heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.
How much less this house that I have built. But will God in very D dwell with man? We know when the Lord Jesus was born into this world, the angels proclaimed the wonderful message. They said peace on earth, goodwill to man. In other words, God had found pleasure in man that he came to dwell with him. This is when you like someone, you come down to dwell with them.
Because man had spoiled this earth through sin, but God still loved him. And I've sometimes said it was as though God said, well, you've spoiled this world through your sin and rebellion, but I'm going to open up something better to you than what you spoiled. And I'm going to open my home to you, and I'm going to pitch you for it, and you won't be able to spoil it. Oh, isn't that wonderful? And brethren, this is the one Her brother was talking about. Our friend. What a wonderful friend we have in the Lord Jesus.
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This is the one. So here was this house that Solomon had built, and he was particularly anxious that God's people would recognize God's desire to bless them in and through this house. So here we find first of all in the 22nd verse.
If a man sin against his neighbor, and an oath be laid upon him to make him swear, and the oath come before thine altar in thine house, then judge thou from heaven, and do and judge thy servants by requiting the wicked, and recompensing his way upon his head.
Here we find that there was a case where someone had trespassed against his neighbor. What was he to do? Was he to go and fight with him? Hold bitter feelings for years about it? No. He's to come and pray and lay out the whole case before the Lord. Has someone been mean to you? Someone been unfair to you? Someone really hurts you? And what did you do? Did you carry on a lot of resentment and perhaps hold a grudge for a long, long time?
Well, I'll tell you if you did, you're a very unhappy person today. You're not happy. You're, you know, and we don't forgive another person. We're the ones that are delivered to the tormentors. When you don't forgive somebody for a mean thing, you're delivered to the tormentors. And I've seen people, and they're most unhappy because they carry the forgiving spirit. Does the Lord say that it's wrong? Yes. The person has done what's wrong. Who judges righteously.
The Lord listen to this verse about the Lord Jesus, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, He threatened not, but committed himself to him the judges righteously. Isn't it good to be able to commit your case to the Lord and leave it with him? Yes, as we read there in Isaiah, they shall not be ashamed that wait for him. I want to encourage my brethren, and don't forget I'm talking to myself as well as to you.
That when those kind of things happen, and they do happen, don't let it spoil your life. Spoil your relationship with your brethren, spoil the assembly. Take it to the Lord. Lay it out before him. Ask him to straighten it out. He can straighten it out far better than you can because he knows the whole situation. That's the answer is to leave it with him and go on. Dear Joseph, his brethren were awfully mean to him, but he never held any grudge.
And when the opportunity came, he just showed kindness to them and says don't be angry with yourselves. God's hand was in the whole situation.
If that brother that I spoke of at the beginning had only seen God's hand in the situation, he probably would have gone along in the assembly for many years as a happy person. But he made himself a miserable person. So I say if this happened, has happened in your life, sometimes it does happen. People can give us what the world caused, cause a pretty raw deal sometimes. Leave it with the Lord, pray about it, committed to him.
He is the one who judges righteously in all things.
Then it says in the 24th verse, If thy people Israel, be put to the worst before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall return and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication before thee in this house, then hear thou from the heavens, and forgive the sin of thy people, and bring them again into the land which thou gave us to them.
And to their fathers, well, sometimes we're put to the worst and sometimes we have to say it's my fault, it's my fault. It's good when we're willing to admit that perhaps one of the hardest things for some of us to say is I'm sorry, It was really my fault. It was really my fault. A brother who was out of fellowship for quite a length of time. He wanted to come back and he said to me, I'll say I'm sorry if the others will say they're sorry too, because.
I wasn't the only one that did something wrong.
And I said, brother.
May be difficult, but remember this. Everyone shall give account of himself to God. You don't have to answer for those other brothers. If you're really sorry for what you did, why don't you tell your brethren that you're sorry? Never mention the others. Leave them with the Lord. He did. He's in happy fellowship with us today. It's nice to see him. You go to the meetings. The happy brother. The Lord has blessed his family. How much better than trying to hold these things.
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And so sometimes we do make mistakes. We're not the only ones. So we think, well, the other person's at fault too. Or maybe they are. Leave that person with the Lord. You're only accountable for yourself. Than hear thou from the heavens and forgive. Bring them back unto the land. This brother was brought back. There were tears when he was restored. I wasn't present at the time, but they told me a lot of tears were shed at the meeting when he was restored and brought back.
Well, may the Lord give us grace in these situations. And it says when the heaven is shut up and there's no rain. Sometimes the assembly seems like that. I've heard people say when you go to the meeting and you just don't seem to get any refreshment for your soul, you go, you go there because you believe it's where the Lord would have you. But you just get discouraged. Yeah, sometimes it does seem the heavens are shut up and there's no rain. What should you do?
Quit coming. Decide that you're going someplace else. Well, if you're really convicted, that that's where the Lord has put his name.
As I believe Mr. Potter said, be sure you don't leave before the Lord leaves. Be sure you don't leave before the Lord leaves. And there if you if there's no rain, what do you do? Take it to the Lord. Cry to him, perhaps. Before you go to that Bible reading ask the Lord to undertake. He may be surprised how he'll come in. He may be surprised how he can touch hearts that you couldn't touch. Because he has all power. He works in the hearts of man.
And he can do things that we can't do. I've often been surprised at the change in people's attitude when I prayed about something. Because the King's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water. He turneth it whithersoever he will.
And then again in the 28th verse, if there be a dearth in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting or mildew, locust or caterpillars, if the enemies besieged them in the land, whatsoever sore or whatsoever sickness there be, it's rather interesting in this one, it doesn't say that these things were necessary, allowed because of sin. The others it mentions that we had something to confess.
Sometimes things come in our lives and we we don't just understand. Perhaps, you said. What did I do?
What did I do? Well, it doesn't say anything about what they did at all here, but there's a great variety of things that could be happening. There could be dearth, there could be pestilence. There could be failure of crops. There could be enemies. There could be sickness. And you don't always know, but you always know. Your resource is in the Lord. You always know, and you know when you can't understand and when you can't see just what it is. I think sometimes things happen.
In fact it tells us there in prevalent in Hebrews chapter 13 it says.
Hebrews chapter 12 I should say it yielded A peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. It doesn't say unto them that find out the reason, just exercise. And if we're exercised about why the Lord allows things, and we carry the matter to him in prayer, then He comes in, He hears we spread out our hands before him.
And it says he knows the hearts of all men. Isn't that good? He knows the hearts of all men, and he just comes in. So perhaps you're in a kind of a trial. And you say, I don't know, just why the Lord allowed it. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Take it to him. You may not know why in heaven you're going to find out. Yes, brethren, we'll find out the answer to everything there. But perhaps not down here. Then it goes a little further here in the.
33rd verse and it even talks about the stranger.
The Lord has an interest in someone, you say? Well, I've just been gathered a short time. A lot of things I don't know. My family are not in the meetings, and I I don't seem to have the same connection with things as other people. All the Lord knows the heart of the stranger. He cares about you just as much as if you had a father and a grandfather in the meeting. He cares about you. You're one of his. Just as much. Yes, brethren, if we're his, we're in the family, we're intimate, We're members of the body of Christ.
Then it says the.
34 Verse if thy people go out to war against their enemies, and then in the 36th verse if they sin against thee. For there is no man which sinneth not, and now they're carried off into captivity. And now you say, well, I guess it's all up now because I can't get back. Well, that was the case of Daniel. Daniel was in captivity and so were his three friends. They had to go to school in the difficult day. I'm sure if you'd attended the College in Babylon you would have heard all kinds of strange things, and heathen religion, if you like to put it that way.
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Because they were idol worshippers, had all kinds of strange ideas about creation and everything, and Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, they had to go to school there. But they still feared God, and they were careful to please God in their school life. And may I say to you, dear young people, many of you going to school and college, things are getting worse. They're not improving, but you can fear God. You can look to the Lord.
You say, but the person that's over me will make it hard for me. Well, that's what they feared too. And it says that he was the man who was over them. Said, I'll endanger my head to the king if I do what for you, what you want me to do. But God brought Daniel and his friends into favor and tender love with the Prince of the eunuchs. God can touch the hearts of your professors. Your teachers follows one. Everything's in his hands.
All power is given to him in heaven and earth. What do you do? You pray. What did that girl do that I was telling you about? She'd had trouble and trouble in her life, and it took her son, a boy of props, 20, some years old, to say, mother, why don't you just pray about it? You've taken everything in your own hands, all your life. Nothing's worked. Why don't you just pray? And she prayed, she said to us.
It's wonderful. You can hardly believe it, she said. How the Lord has come in. We have one who has all power. And so here is this lovely to hear that see the Lord hearing and blessing and why Let's turn to that in Deuteronomy.
Chapter 7 again.
You say Why should he hear me? Well, I don't know why he should hear me. I don't know why, except I see the answer here. This is the only answer I know because I didn't deserve his salvation and I don't deserve anything since he saved me. I didn't never come to him on the ground of deserving something. I come to him as one who acts toward me in grace, Undeserved favor. That's what grace is, and that's the way to come to the Lord. And so it says here in Deuteronomy 7.
The seventh verse, the Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people.
For ye were the fewest of all people, but because the Lord.
Loves you. It's not lovely. All those ifs and all those When if this comes and when this comes, take it to the Lord in prayer. And why? Because he loves you. Because he loves you. You all know the feeling of going to somebody in a problem and realizing the person you're talking to you really loves you, that there's nothing you can say to him that's going to change his life.
Or to her, and you just feel confident in quietness, and in confidence shall be your strength in returning, and in rest shall ye be saved. Oh, isn't it blessed that we can come if and when we're in these situations? Maybe you're not in them today, but maybe you will some other time. But if you get into them, and when you get into them, and then turn to the Lord in prayer, but not just as a matter of ritual.
But with the feeling and the knowledge in your heart that he loves you, He loves you.
I'm just a little assembly and there's not much fellowship here, he says. You are the fewest of all people, but I loved you and I picked you out. And so he says here he didn't set his love upon you or choose you because you were more in number. But because the Lord loves you and because you would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your Father's, God's made a promise.
God has made a promise. What is the promise? He is going to bring you home. He's the captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus bringing many sons to glory. He is going to keep his word. All the promises of God in him are yay and in him Amen, to the glory of God by us. Now let's turn over to that passage in Isaiah chapter 43. And here we find this little word since that we spoke of.
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Reading again that part of the second verse, when thou passes through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.
Sin. Thou was precious in my sight, Thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not, for I am with thee. Poison this a wonderful thing. Because why? Because he loves us.
And since thought since we were precious in his sight, You're precious in His sight, you say. It doesn't feel like that sometimes when he lets things go wrong in my life, but he allows these things because we're in the school of God and we're going to learn things. My father used to have a little expression. He said you'll never learn to know God is the God of all comfort in heaven. That's an experience you can only have on earth.
You'll never need any comfort in heaven because there are no sorrows or trials there. But the remembrance of the way the Lord has helped you will be precious to you for all eternity. And as I've often said when you look back like Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, I'm sure when they look back, they'd say that was a marvelous experience. We wouldn't have been without it. Joseph would say it was marvelous how the Lord undertook I wouldn't have been without it, and you and I, when we retrace our lives in His presence as they will be retraced at the judgment seat of Christ.
We will say he led us forth by the right way, since we were precious in his sight. So he says, fear not, for I am with thee. Yes. Isn't that wonderful? Fear not. Oh, put your hand in his and let him be the one to lead you and guide you. And when you come to those points and we all come to them, when we just can't understand, we can't see the way, We can't see the wisdom of God's ways.
Just say how well he loves me. And since he loved me, I can count upon him that he knows what he is doing, that he knows the whole way ahead of time, and that he's over all these circumstances. And then, last of all, just before we close, let's turn to Isaiah 30 again.
Isaiah Chapter 30.
And this verse really speaks to my own heart when I read it this 15th verse.
For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall ye be saved in quietness, and in confidence shall be your strength. Don't say no, Don't say no.
God says yes, but it says. Some of those people were saying. But she said no, no, I'm going to flee on horses. I'm young. I'm going to plan my own life. I know how to work my way through those problems. You don't know the brothers and sisters in our assembly. I can work my way through it all, brethren. We can't, but God can. We can't but God can. In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. And in returning and rest shall ye be saved while you save it. Why doesn't he do it right away?
It says blessed are all they said wait for Him. God's time is not always our time. We'd like things to happen right now. But to God, everything is the eternal present. He knows what He's doing and he's not going to allow our faith to be tested beyond what He is able to sustain us. He is able to sustain us all along the way. Well, I trust, brethren, that the Lord will speak to my heart as well as to yours and just let me say those 4 words again if.
When? Because since. If you're in a problem, when you're in a problem, then think of the other side. Why did he love you? Because he loved you and he has made a promise and he's saying to you, you're precious in my sight. Just be content to wait for me. And so many of us are going to leave here. We're going home. Problems are not going to change just because you've been away for two days and 1/2.
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We're going to face the same situations when we came, get back home that we laughed when we came here. But God hasn't changed either, and He is sufficient. And if we go back with those precious words in our heart, in returning and in rest shall ye be saved in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. Let's say yes, don't say no.
Lessons From Four Households
Address—C. Buchanan
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Again, this meet subject to speak upon.
It is one of the oldest. Perhaps marriage institution comes first and then families in the Bible.
There were families long before there were nations.
We find that Amalek is spoken of as the first of the nations that ward against Israel.
I think that is a verse which.
Gives us warnings as to the day in which we live, for we believe that Amalek in type refers to the flesh as it has been taken over by Satan in conflict against the people of God and in the education systems of today, which I know very little about. But here somewhat about the teaching of humanism.
And the efforts to take away the authority of the parents and to make these children children of the state instead of of a family needs to be warned against, guarded against and help through the scriptures.
And there are many families that we could turn to in the scriptures. We will look at a few of them.
But going back in.
There were our first parents and children born in that family.
And we learned a little bit about that family. Not a lot, though.
But enough, and the family truth runs right through Scripture, the household truth to encourage parents and to guide the children. And we come to Noah when the world had developed into corruption and violence. Has it done that today? Oh yes, you'd say corruption and violence abound, that at that time God gave a call.
To Noah come thou and thy household, thy house into the ark, so that then there was a shelter to carry them through the judgments which were coming on the world. And there is a shelter. There are two of them, I believe, that God has for the Christian in this world today. There is the Christian home and there is the assembly, which are shelters and refuges.
To keep us and to guide us and to give us joy as we are actually in this world that is very much filled up with violence and corruption. But we come on down and I want to take up Abraham first. So if you'll open to the 18th chapter.
We have one of the loveliest scenes that I can think of in the Bible here.
Abraham had been chosen, election had come in and the promise was given to him. But there were natural ties and then God had spoken to him as to his walk and worship about there were natural Moody's.
These things we have to learn too that were in the way. Then he is taught separation.
And then when this truth comes in, there has to be the renouncing of the world and victory over it.
Then he is told in chapter 15 of The Promised Seed.
There are verses there that are very tender.
God speaking to Abram, and he says I.
Go childless.
His seed was not to be from the flesh, and so there are the promises. But he has to learn of death through the flesh in order to inherit the promises. And so it is with us too, the flesh.
Provided nothing. In fact, that's what Amalek is a type of. So Abraham has to learn this.
And then in chapter 17 there is a covenant given to him in circumcision. And then God declares what he is.
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And Abraham is has his name changed? Abraham has his name changed to Abraham? Then we come to chapter 18 and we'll read a few verses here. The Lord appeared unto him, unto Abraham.
In the heat of in the plains of mammary. And he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day.
And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and loathed three men stood by him.
When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself untoward the ground, and said, My Lord, now notice that, my Lord singular, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let a little water, I pray you be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, and I will fetch a morsel of bread.
And comfort ye your hearts, after that ye shall pass on, for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do as thou hast said. And Abram hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly 3 measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the heart. Abraham ran under the herd.
And fetch the calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man, and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them, and he stood by them under the tree.
And they did eat, and they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tents.
And he said, I will certainly return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Locera thy wife shall have a son. Sarah heard it in the tent door which was behind him. And Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age, and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am old, waxed old, shall I have pleasure?
My Lord being old also. And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child with him old? Is anything too hard? For the Lord at the time appointed? I will return unto thee according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not, for she was afraid, but he said.
Nay.
But thou didst laugh. And the men rose up from thence and looked towards Sodom. And Abraham went his with them to bring them on the way. And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
Now notice verse 19.
I know him.
That he will command his children.
And his household after him. And they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him.
To those of us who are fathers.
Can think of no more wonderful thing, perhaps in our life.
And to be a father, to have children, we who are fathers have now.
An actual experience to teach us.
Of the feelings and the heart of God.
How that he wanted children and that he has gotten shelter and that he is bringing children into the father's house.
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Oh, there's nothing perhaps more blessed than for the parents to have children.
We can understand a little of the heart of God. You remember when the Lord Jesus was here.
He was speaking with those Pharisees.
In the eighth of John.
And.
They said to him.
Thou art not yet, there are not 50 years old in. How hast thou seen Abraham? He said. He had already said Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad then he could say to them before Abraham was.
We know them, that the one who appeared here, whom Abraham called.
My Lord was Jesus.
Jehovah of the Old Testament come down.
To eat with Abraham.
Oh, it is so wonderful.
To think.
That, as it were, Abraham and Sarah.
Were put in the more blessed place.
Is more blessed to give than to receive. Here was no less than Jesus appearing as Jehovah, appearing as a man with two men who were the angels. And as they walked up to that tent, that's where Abraham lived. And it was the noonday, the heat of the day.
There he came to them, and immediately this man Abraham was so much in communion.
With his Lord, that he could settle my Lord.
And then he does after the customs of the East.
Hospitality in a most attractive manner and we see that Sarah, his wife, was where she belonged.
She was in the tent.
And she was ready to do the bidding of the one.
I think as Peter says.
She called Abraham Lord. He was the head of this household.
She was the submissive wife. She was in the home.
And they get the promise of a child.
How blessed this is. But in the midst of it all, here comes the blessed Lord.
And Abraham says.
My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away He wanted.
That fellowship, that communion with his Lord, I pray thee, pass not away from thy servant. Let a little water, I pray you be fetched, and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree. Now here's a figure. This tree is a figure of the cross, and it's under the cross, in the shadow of the cross that God and man can.
Commune together.
And the only place in the shadow of the cross. And so the Lord comes to Abraham, to that home. He finds that home. He had worked with Abraham already, bringing him through teaching in his other appearings to him.
And so it is with us practically as families, heads of families, the wife and the family and the children. The Lord instructs us gradually as to these wonderful teachings about election and our walk and our separation from the world and the promises, and brings us into sweet fellowship in the shadow of the cross.
And feasting upon the fatted calf and all the good things that went with it.
This calf, tender and good, some of the choicest of the T-bone steak, I suppose there it was, and it was food, and the Lord accepts it. To think of being able to give to Him, to minister to him. We'll see this repeated in a lovely way in the New Testament. Is it so in your home, in your family?
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Do you recognize the Lord wanting to come in and feast with you at the noon time meal? At the supper time meal? Is He the subject of your conversation? Are you communing with Him and enjoying that blessedness?
Of the which there is no better down here in this life than to enjoy the presence of the Lord.
At your table.
O you fathers, read the word of God to your children and practice.
These things that were taught to Abraham.
So we find.
That this feast is given to them, but Sarah is a little.
Slow to believe the promises.
And he even lies. And here's a lesson for us.
You know you can't have a wrong thought, but what God knows it. Apparently she didn't express this.
But he laughed within herself. She didn't laugh out loud, but God knew her thoughts and told her about it. So she gets a bit of a correction from the Lord. But then we find the men going away, and Abraham walks with them a little farther.
And the two men go on.
And.
Abraham abides there for a little while and talks with the Lord.
And then the Lord expresses his feelings.
Friendship, which we've heard of today.
Shall I hide from Abraham? And in the New Testament? Says my friend.
Ye are my friends if ye do those things, if obedience is a proof of friendship. And it's to those who are obedient that the Lord gives His revelation, even as we might say to Daniel, who is obedient in reading the word of God and prayer. And here is Abraham. God says, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing that I do?
Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation.
And that's not all.
And all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. That's Christ, the seed.
The blessing comes in the sea.
The seed of promise, not of the flesh, and all the blessing. This world is going to come.
Through Christ the nations and even Amalek which will be completely judged as a nation, won't come into that because the flesh has to be put completely away. But there are other nations who will be blessed under Christ, the promised seed. Then this 19th verse, which ought to mean so much to us, because as I know Him now, God could point to every Father.
In this room and say, I know this father, this father, this father.
Then you have to stop and leave it. At least I do.
But this is the most blessed thing that he says about Abraham. Nothing could I covet more than this as a father, that he will command his children.
And his household after him.
Fathers, we could desire this, earnestly desire this.
And it says they shall keep the way of the Lord, not my. Why not your way?
The Lord's way. Oh, let's try to do that.
To do justice and judgment, we've heard much about that.
We don't give up righteousness at the expense of peace.
To have peace, No.
Grace is wonderful.
Grace now reigns through righteousness. So these things are here.
Justice and judgment that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him. Then we'll go to a very contrasting family in the first book of Samuel for you and I need warnings.
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And they are right here in the Word of God. We have a beautiful family setting in connection with.
Elkin and Hannah and Samuel, but we're not going to take that up because we want the morning and we're going to think of Eli now. Eli and his home, his household were in the most favorable position in the world at that time.
They were there in the divine center, right at the temple.
You might say in the highest place of a priest and that's where family, that's where Eli had the privilege of bringing up his children. I tell you, being in the most privileged place today does not guarantee a family that goes on for God's glory. We find that it did not hear. We cannot fathers.
Expect the assembly to bring up our children.
I think it's a wrong thought. We are to bring them up. Thank God for the ministry of getting assembly.
But you and I as fathers have this responsibility, and we will see that Eli broke down completely on this.
So we go to the 12Th verse.
And the second chapter, chapter 2 and verse 12. Now the sons of Eli.
Were sons noticed?
They knew not the Lord.
Abraham knew the Lord and that he would teach his children the way of the Lord.
Eli did not do that. His sons did not know the way of the Lord. That's what it says now it tells what they did and this brings up something of the religious evil that has been spoken of from this platform today that is even more Highness worse than moral evil. We touch on both these here because they've come into the thought today. Verse 13 and the priest cast them with the people was.
That when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came while the flesh was in seething.
And with the flesh of our three teeth in his hand, and he struck it into the pine, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot, all that the flesh shook brought up, the priest took for himself. So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came thither also, before they burnt the fat, the priest servants came and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest.
For he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but royal, if any man.
Said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth. Then he would ask him, Nay, but thou shalt give it me now, and if not, I will take it by force.
Verse 17 Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord. Here's this grievous and a very great sin, we say a religious sin.
To bring blasphemy upon the religion, the.
Covenant, the ritual and ordinances given by God to that people in that day were blasphemed, abhorred because of the wickedness of Eli's sons.
Oh, how terrible God writes it down. It's for us to pay attention to.
We'll go on to the other sin because it's here, verse 22.
Now Eli was very old and heard all of his sons did unto all Israel. Now notice and how that they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the congregation, a door of the Tabernacle of the congregation. He said unto them, here he speaks to them, but it's late in his life. He was a very old man and all he can do is just speak to them. Now he's lost control.
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Why do ye such things? For I hear of your evil dealings by all his people.
Nay, my sons, for it is no good report that I hear ye make the Lord's people to transgress. Not only were they transgressing, they they made the people to transgress.
Verse 25. If one man's sin against another, the judge shall judge him. But if a man sin against the Lord, all sin is against the Lord. This was very grievously against the Lord, who shall entreat for him, notwithstanding they hearken not under the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them.
Chapter 3.
And verse 11 And the Lord said unto Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, after which both the years of everyone that heareth shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things that I have spoken concerning his house. When I begin, I will make also make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he doeth, because his sins have made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. We had to come down to this.
He restrained them not. This restraint in the family must come from the time children are born when they're very young. The restraining of the old nature for parents is in our children. We learn what we are and what we were when we were little ones. We didn't learn much about it then, but as parents, we learned it in our children. And here's a very solemn warning. Let's go over to something bright in the New Testament, in First Corinthians.
We are living in a more privileged time than Eli with his sons or Abraham with his children. And just to touch upon a very nice household, in the first book of Corinthians, in the first chapter and in the last chapter.
Paul is writing he was the one who carried the gospel into.
OK, into Corinth and.
In the first chapter of First Corinthians, he says in verse 16, I baptized also the household of Stephanus. Now let's go to the last chapter. This is the first chapter. Now we go to the last chapter and see the product that this wrought in that family.
In the 16th chapter of One Corinthians.
And the 15th verse. I beseech you, brethren, ye know the house.
Of Stephanus that it is the first fruits of achaya and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the Saints. Here was a household that was brought into the relationship in the assembly through baptism in the first chapter, and they addicted themselves to the ministry. This is what we would covet for ourselves today too, to bring our families.
Into this ground of profession and to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and to bring them along so that they addict themselves to the ministry. We want to read a little in the 12Th of.
John, I'm still finding that these meetings are short.
As some others have done, but they're precious. And in the 12Th of John.
We have a most beautiful scene, one of the most beautiful in the New Testament.
Where Jesus comes before the Passover unto Bethany, the first verse.
Where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
There they made him a supper, and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of them.
That sat at the table with him, then took Mary a pound of ointment.
Of spikenard very costly and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.
This household here seems to be composed of just adults.
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And we know them personally by name, but it was a home.
Where the Lord found some comfort down here? As far as I know, the only one.
Can the Lord come into your home and find some comfort every day? Can He get there and be served?
They made him a supper again. Man is put in the more blessed.
Place it is more blessed to give than to receive. It reminds one of the tender expression of the Lord in Luke 22, when He was ready to institute the Lord's Supper with desire. I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. That's his feelings.
And again in John, when the Lord.
And went through Samaria to meet that one woman.
He could say to those disciples who came back and pressed upon him to eat.
Saying.
He said to them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
And then He could say, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish His work. That blessed Lord was finding His food in serving, in going all that long distance on foot to meet one soul, and finding His food for himself in delight in her, so that he didn't need the material food. Here they made him a supper, and He did eat with them.
Well, you know, it's not literal food that we give to the Lord, It's the obedience of faith in doing the will of God. The Lord always did the will of the one who sent Him. And if you and I as obedient children are doing that, it's like expressed in both the 2nd epistle and the 30 epistles of John Speaking of the parents.
I have no greater joy than to see that my children.
Walk in truth, if you and I giving something to God by the obedience of our walk and being there in communion to serve and to worship. These all are our privileges. Well, our time is up and just a minute I want to speak a little about.
El Salvador, what we saw down there in connection with the earthquake, which reminds me of where you and I are building our homes.
We were astonished at the ruin that that earthquake, which measured 7.5 on the Richter scale, rot through the whole of the city.
One building was called the Rueben Dario building, 5 stories high and about a square building. The history of that building was that it was damaged in an earthquake in 1965 and they declared it to be uninhabitable. But they patched it up, forgot about the earthquake and have been using it ever since. Now when this earthquake came, 200 and more perished in that building.
Because it was not safe, its foundation was faulty, just patched up, and the superstructure was not strong. We saw the machines carrying that building away by buckets full, and the stench of the corpses was there in our nostrils. They had two floors yet to remove when we got there. When we left, there was only one. Now that shot me a lesson, and I'd like to pass it on.
As to where we are building our homes, for in Matthew 7 we are taught about the house that's founded on the rock. Ruben Dario building didn't have a good foundation and it didn't have good superstructure. When the test came, it came down. Now you and I must found our homes upon Christ, and we must build with this good material to bring up our families in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
To teach them the way of the Lord. As we have this wonderful privilege and opportunity, let's sing in closing #16.
Man's True Condition and God's Heart
Address—C. Hendricks
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Place where I work.
And she has a question.
How do I know that this book is true? How do I know that that Bible that you're preaching from and read from is presenting the right religion? There are many religions in this world, many different faiths.
There's Mohammedanism, there's Buddhism, there's Hinduism.
I lived in Wilmette and there was a Baha'i temple there.
And it's a nine sided building, and each one of the nine stands for one of the nine major religions in the world, two of which, according to the Baha'i Faith, are Judaism and Christianity.
They're just two of the nine major religions in the world, and to those who espouse that religion.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
Was just another prophet.
Comparable with Mohammed and other great prophets of other religions.
And I pondered. I pondered this question.
What would be?
What are the? Are there any distinctive features?
About this book The Bible.
You see, these other religions have their Bibles.
Muhammad and ISM has the Quran. The Hindu Bible is like one of our encyclopedias. It's many many volumes and it would take a lifetime just to read through it all once.
But here we have a book that we is so small and yet so incomparably vast and infinite and precious, but so small that I can hold it in my hands.
Consists of.
Two sections, the Old and the New Testament.
And as I pondered it.
I would address the question in a very simple way.
This is the only book, the only book that reveals the true state of man. The only book.
It reveals the heart of man, All other books, all other religions.
Outside of Christianity.
Start with the fundamentally false premise that man is essentially basically good.
This book, and only this book, tells us faithfully what man is, that he has lost, that he is corrupt, that he is wicked and sinful and needs to be saved. All the other religions present man as.
Able to do something to merit.
Heaven, or they may call it some other term, but to merit bliss.
Which is current, which is true.
Which is correct? The Lord Jesus when he spoke of the Old Testament? I would like to look at the testimony of this book.
Addressing these two things and the first, I've mentioned the true state of man, the heart of man, his his true condition. This book tells it faithfully, and it's the only book that does.
And it doesn't hold out any false hopes for man either.
And this book also unfolds something more precious than that, because that's not a very happy thing to look at. The true condition of man.
But this book unfolds the heart of God.
Heart of God, who is a God of love and grace and mercy and goodness.
Whose desire it is to bless man in spite of the fact that he is as rotten, as filthy and corrupt as this book tells us he is. It tells us the heart of the God who created man with the ultimate object in view.
To bring man into fellowship with himself. To share with man his creature.
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What his heart of love wants to share with him, it's this book that declares it, and only this book. Well, the Lord Jesus, let's look at the Old Testament testimony, and then we'll look at the new. And we're going to look at the testimony of Scripture about man and about his condition and about his heart.
The Lord Jesus divided the Old Testament into the law books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Psalms and the Prophets. So let's take a testimony from each one of these three major divisions of the Old Testament. Let's turn to Genesis 6.
Genesis, the Book of beginnings.
Tells us how man got here. Tells us how sin got here.
And you don't have to read very many chapters.
Just up to the 6th chapter Genesis and we read these words verse 5.
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Tremendous statement, So totally contrary to the modern day philosophy of the humanists and of all these other false religions in the world, that man has essentially a spark of divine goodness deep down within his moral being, and if that spark is only fanned, it will grow into a great flame.
Of love and devotion for God.
That's the lie of the devil. It's not true. And this book is the only book that tells us it's not true. It's the only book that tells us the truth of man's condition and his desperate need of a Savior, and it tells us of the provision of God. Verse six. It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.
Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil.
Continually.
And then God destroyed the earth with the flood, and there were only eight souls that were saved. Noah, his life, his three sons and their three wives preserved through the mercy and goodness of God. Otherwise the entire human race would have been.
Destroyed.
Now let's look at the testimony of the Psalms in connection with this.
Let's turn to the 14th Psalm. We're going to look at 2 Psalms.
The 14th Psalm first.
Verse 2.
Well, I'm going to read the first verse as well of Psalm 14. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.
They are corrupt.
They have done abominable works.
There is none that doeth good. It doesn't sound much like what they're teaching in school today about.
Man's inherent goodness.
No, that's not what God says.
Verse 2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any.
That did understand and seek God.
We're told that man is a seeker after truth.
He's a seeker after God.
Well, God looked down to see if there were any that sought Him, to see if there were any that had that exercise of soul that was really seeking God. And what did he find?
Verse three, They are all gone aside, they are all together. Become filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one.
I remember when I was saved.
Between my freshman and sophomore year in college as an engineering student at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.
My mother was delving into one of the apostate religions in Christendom, which is really a Christianized Hinduism, and it's called Christian Science. And they deny the reality of sin. They deny Mary. Baker, Eddie.
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She denied.
The need of a savior.
She made the statement once quote.
Whether Jesus of Nazareth had ever lived or not wouldn't make a particle of difference to me. UN quote.
Blasphemy.
And yet the founder of a vast religious system pattern after Hinduism.
Well.
This scripture says they are all gone aside, they are all together, become filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. I used to tell my mom that mom was no good in man. We're rotting through and through.
There's absolutely nothing good in us. Not one is good, not one.
And you remember the rich young ruler came to the Lord Jesus, and he said, Good master, what good things shall I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord asked him pointedly, Why call us thou me good?
Because you see that I am God, manifest in the flesh are.
Is it just that I'm another good religious leader?
Now the question of course searched his heart. Why call us thou me good? There's none good but one. That is God, but he is God.
And that's the great truth that we're going to look at in a little bit.
There is none that understands. There's none that seeks after God.
And that was the hardest thing for mom to get to get ahold of, because she had been poisoned in her thinking that everything is good and man is good and there's no such thing as sin.
I remember when my mother was dying of cancer, suffering on a sick bed. I asked her once, mom, where does it hurt? And she said there's not any part of my body that's not in the excruciating pain.
And her sister and Elsa, who was in that religion, never forget it. She stood at the doorway of the bedroom and she shook her head and said, oh, if she only had enough faith, she wouldn't feel that pain.
Well.
That's the delusion that Satan has brought out when he's got hundreds of false religions.
To pass out to anyone that will listen. But let me tell you, this afternoon is the only book, this is the only book that tells the truth of man's condition, the truth of man's heart, and the truth of God's heart. Let's look at the 53rd Psalm. It's the same truth that we just looked at. In fact, almost identical words.
The 53rd Psalm, the fool had said in his heart. There's no God.
Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity. There is none that doeth good. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek Him. Just think of that view. Now here it is, God the Creator, looking down upon all His creation, all the children of men. Surely if there's some good in man, he would have seen it.
Surely he would have seen it if man is what they tell us in our schools.
In our philosophy books and that man is not altogether bad.
But he sees the same thing.
Says in verse three, everyone of them has gone back. They are all together, become filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Now let's look at the prophets. Let's look at the prophet Jeremiah.
Chapter 17. Let's get his testimony. We've seen the testimony in the book of the law, book of Moses, that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil continually.
We've got, we've received, we've read the testimony in the Psalms that there's none that doeth good. No, not one. There's not one that seeks after God. I mean truly seeks him.
Jeremiah 17 verse 9. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Does man know his own heart? No, he doesn't. Does he understand the true condition that he's in? Not for a moment. Not for a moment.
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We'll get into that in just a minute. When the law was given and how the children of Israel.
Committed themselves to keeping it.
And they did so because they didn't understand their true condition before God.
The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it, You say. Well, that might be true of the the poor, of poor outcast Skid Row bum, but that's not true of me. Yes it is. It's true of me, it's true of you, it's true of every one of us. Our hearts are that way. Deceitful, desperately wicked. Who can know it? Man doesn't understand and know his own heart.
I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the reins even to give every man according to his ways.
And according to the fruit of his doings.
Well, you might say these scriptures applied to the, to the, to the bums and the derelicts. And I remember you for years, we used to go down to Skid Row in Chicago and Wilson Ave. and preach the gospel. And those are the down and outers. But we're educated nowadays. We've gone to school, we have college degrees and and we're not like that. Our hearts aren't that way. Our hearts are changed.
Better and improve. They're educated and that's what man likes to believe. He likes to believe.
That there has been a change wrought by education. We are an enlightened age. We live in the 20th century, not not in the dark ages where man believed in all kinds of superstitious nonsense, but we're educated and we understand these things now. And now we're not that way well.
When God brought Israel out of Egypt, he led them.
Carried them as on eagle's wings, brought them to himself, and they murmured, and they complained, and they.
Rebelled against him over and over again. And then he tested them. He tested them.
He said. I'll tell you what, I'm going to give you this, I'm going to give you a perfect.
Law. A perfect code of ethics, a perfect moral code for you to live by.
And that's what man wants because he's so self confident. Man is so self confident. He says so much false confidence in his own inherent goodness that he says, now you just give me what your requirements are and I'll keep them.
And so God gave them to him.
10 commandments and I'm going to recite them to you, Five God word and five man word. The 1St is thou shalt have no other gods besides me. And when they heard that, they said that's good, we shouldn't have any gods but the true God. The 2nd is thou shalt not make any graven image, any image of anything in heaven or earth, and bow down to it and worship it. That's idolatry. And they said that's good, we won't do that.
The third is, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for he will not hold him guiltlessly that taketh his name in vain.
Because the name of the Lord is holy. When they heard that, they said, we'll, we'll keep that commandment. The 4th was the only one that's ceremonial. And it has to do with keeping the Sabbath day and sanctifying it and remembering the Sabbath day. It was that day that that signified his covenant relationship with Israel, his earthly people. And the 5th commandment was honor thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth. And when they.
That they said yes, that's we should do that as children, we should be obedient and honoring to our parents. That's good.
Now those commandments all have to do our to have to do with our responsibility, God word. And then the other five, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. And then the 5th, the last one, the 10th commandment, thou shalt not covet or lust.
And they heard these commandments.
And they said, Well, that's the way we ought to live. All that the Lord hath spoken we will do and obey.
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Now I've read what Jeremiah says about the heart. I'd write I'd like to read the testimony of another prophet, Isaiah chapter one, please. And this is a testimony sent to that people of Israel who had received the holy law of God.
And hadn't kept it. And this is their condition that he describes. You see, where we're prone to think that those verses I've read about how wicked man was and how wicked his heart is and that there's none that seeks after him, that that's describing the the lowest class of mankind.
But now we're going to read a passage that describes the highest class of mankind, the nation of Israel, who were blessed with having that holy, just and good law of God, the perfect measure for man's responsibility, how man should live with respect to God and man. The Lord summed up those two tables of stone in Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength. And the 2nd is like it.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and this hang all along the prophets these two commandments.
One is our responsibility to God Word. He deserves our complete and entire allegiance.
And the other our responsibility, man worth.
How we are to treat our fellows well, Jeremiah, I mean Isaiah chapter one, verse 4.
He's speaking to this very people now that had received the law and had departed so dreadfully from it.
Our sinful nation, our people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters, they have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They are gone away, backward.
Thou shalt have no other gods besides me. Oh yes, they said, we won't will be true to thee, the only true and living God. And they went back and forsook him. He says in verse five, Why should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more the whole and here's the condition.
That nation, the best of mankind. Not the worst here, but the best.
The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint from the sole of the foot, even under the head. There is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire. Your land strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers.
And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard.
As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city, except the Lord of hosts had left us a small, a very small remnant. We should have been as Sodom and should have been made like unto Gomorrah. Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom. He's addressing the rulers of Israel, and he calls them the rulers of Sodom. That's how low they've gotten.
You hear, under the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah, to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord. They were going on with an external religion, totally ignoring their true state before God.
He says, To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt offerings of Rams, the fat of fed beasts. I don't delight in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of goats.
Well, I'm not going to read anymore.
We've had the testimony of the Old Testament. Let's look at the New Testament.
Time is running out.
Let's read Romans 3.
Romans 1. Excuse me?
I'm not going to read it all, but.
Verse 22 Says, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four footed beasts and creeping things. The very things that they had said they wouldn't do, the children of Israel wouldn't do. I know this is about the heathen, but Israel did the same thing.
They bowed down to these things, they made idols. They failed in every single commandment. They didn't they didn't keep one of them, not one, not one and yet they had said all that the Lord has spoken. We will do the Lord Jesus and John seven. I won't turn to it because of time. He says did not Moses give you the law and none of you keepeth the law. Why you go you about to kill me.
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The Spirit of God speaking through Stephen, a man full of the Holy Ghost in Acts 7, says ye stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost.
As your father's did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your Father's?
Persecuted of whom you have been, now have become now the slayers of the just, one who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. Again another testimony from God having kept it.
They said they would. They didn't. They failed.
Verse 24 of our chapter, God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. This is this is a description of the heathen world before the light of Christianity came to it, but it's a description of the Christian world today.
It's a description of what is going on in the bosom of Christendom today. We've made a complete circle, a complete circle. We're right back to the corruption that existed before the light of the gospel came into this world.
Light rejected bringeth night, and that's where we are. Let's read these verses.
Thinking of our times, verse 25. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature became idolaters more than the Creator who was blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections.
For even their women to change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one toward another. Men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was neat. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient.
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, covetousness, maliciousness.
Full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backfighters, haters of God, despiteful, proud boasters in fetters of evil things, disobedient to parents without understanding, covenant Breakers without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, Who, knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. What a description.
Of the heathen world, and what a description of the Christian world.
But that's what it is. That's what it's become.
Man not merely having the light that was given when the law was given, but that was a measure of light, but the light of the grace of God, the light of.
Of Christ, the Son of God, coming into the world to save sinners.
I've fallen into the same trouble our brother Dan fell into the first night, and that is I've talked so much about man's lost condition, having left myself much time to talk about the wonderful heart of God. And that's what I want to talk about.
Let's look at Ephesians chapter 2.
The condition of man is described here.
It's described even in a deeper way than we saw there in Romans 1.
I'll read it verse 2, Ephesians 2. It says, Well, I read from verse one, You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.
That's what man is. He is dead in trespasses and sins. That doesn't sound too much like the books of philosophy that are being.
Promoted and taught to our children in school parents, you are responsible to guard their minds against this wicked teaching of.
The philosophers of this world that reject the light of God, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
Wherein in time past Ye walked according to the course of this world. He's talking to Saints, he's talking to believers here.
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And he's talking about their past life according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
Among whom also we all had our conversation, our lifestyle in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and whereby nature, the children of wrath, even as others. What an indictment upon the human race. Now you can pick up any other religious writing. Take the Bibles of all the other religions. You'll never find a statement like that in there.
You'll never find the truth. That man is absolutely corrupt.
And vile. And he's dead without a spark of life towards God at all. And if God doesn't come down in sovereign grace and pick him up and save his soul, he's hopelessly lost. That's the condition that man is in, and that's the condition that is painted in the Word of God. This is the only book that does that.
The only one.
Tells me the truth about my condition. How good to know the truth of it and not to be believing the lie of the devil. That man can make it on his own.
We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. That was our condition. Everyone is a child of wrath.
Now we read, but God.
God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us. God the one true and living God.
There's two basic errors in man's thinking. The one is he thinks too much of himself.
He's deluded himself to believe that he's essentially good and he's rotten to the core, and he thinks very low of God. He has very low thoughts of God. He thinks of him as a hard master. He thinks of him as a big policeman up there with a Billy club waiting to just clobber us when we get out of step.
I knew thee, that thou art an hard man, an austere man. That's man's thought of God. You see it in the Pagan.
Multiplicity of gods that they had, they worshipped many, many gods. And the reason they did this, and they offered sacrifices to their gods because they had to appease an angry deity. Their gods were always out to get them. They were always out to pounce upon them and to punish them for doing something wrong. And so they offered sacrifice upon sacrifice upon sacrifice, sacrifice.
To appease an angry deity.
This book, the only book in the world, doesn't paint that kind of a picture of God.
The picture that it paints is this, that God isn't up there trying to get us.
He loves us.
Loves us with an everlasting love. Doesn't want to send us to hell. Doesn't delight in the death of the Sinner. He wants your blessing. You were created for eternity and to spend it with himself.
The summoned substance of all blessing, both in this life and in that which is to come, is to know God, and He can only be known in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know Him? He wants to bless you God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love, wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins.
He has quickened us together with Christ.
By grace you are saved, and He has raised us up together and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
For what purpose that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches?
Of His grace and His kindness.
Towards us through Christ Jesus.
God wants to bless us.
And he's given his son. He couldn't have given more.
Dear old brother used to say, if God hasn't won your heart, what more could he do to win it?
He's given the darling of his bosom the son of his love.
00:35:00
Couldn't have given more and he wouldn't have given less, because less would never have met our need.
When we were in prayer.
A few moments ago.
Many prayed and then a brother prayed and he thanked God for the precious blood.
And I thought with this, the burden of this message that I had upon my heart this afternoon, I thought, this is the only book.
That presents the necessity of the precious blood of Christ being shed to save sinners.
There is no other way but a Sinner of vile, guilty, wretched, lost, undone, corrupt, rebel, and that's what man is, could be saved but through the precious blood of Christ. The blood first of all meets the eye of God and glorifies God, satisfies God as to the whole question of sin, and it cleanses.
Vile Sinner like I was and makes me fit to stand in the light.
Of His presence God, who was rich in mercy. Let's turn to Titus 3, where we have another beautiful unfolding of God.
Verse three of Titus 3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish.
Without intelligence, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures.
Living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. Again, a true picture and description of man's condition. And yet, man says we're just around the corner from that utopia where we're going to live in peace with one another. We're all going to be brothers and we are all brothers and we're all going to live in happy harmony with hearts like that, With hearts like we have, we're going to live.
Harmony, the human race, Everyone wanting his little piece of the action, everyone wanting something for himself.
No man's never going to live in harmony and peace with himself until he vows to Christ and receives the Lord Jesus.
But after that, the kindness and love of God, our Savior toward man, appeared.
The kindness and love of God, our Savior toward man, appear.
Christianity is the only religion this book presents, the only God, the true God, the living God.
Who loves man?
Every other religion comes from the inventions of man's mind.
And it presents their deities as hard and exacting. And the concept of love. You could search through all the Pagan religions of the world. You look at Hinduism, you look at Buddhism, you look at all these religions. The concept of love is totally missing.
Must be very difficult for missionaries that go to some tribes and they're trying to convey to the tribe, to translate into their own language the concept of love, and they don't even know what that concept is. They don't understand the concept of love of God, giving of God, desiring to bless man when he's totally undeserving it.
Man's thought is if he deserves a whipping, give him a whipping.
But when we deserve the whipping, when we deserve the dungeons of the damned, when we deserve eternal separation from God, the blackness of darkness forever, the lake of fire which shall never be quenched, that's what I deserve.
That God loved me so much that he didn't send an Angel. He came himself in the person of the sound, became a man, came right to where I was, and laid his hand upon me, and being God, he laid one hand upon God.
And he's brought me to God. Has he done that with you?
This is the only book I tell you. This is the only book that reveals the heart of God.
As it reveals very faithfully the desperately wicked heart of man. Time is up. I trust enough has been said to bring before us. And if you're ever challenged with that question, how do I know? How do I know this book is true? Maybe you can remember those two things.
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It tells us man's true condition, and it tells us God's heart and his provision, and there's no other book that'll do it, because this is God's wearing.
Let's pray.
Friendship
Address—F. Allen
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.
People to talk about friendship you know, I think if I asked the question, I actually thought of asking the question how many here like to have a good friend I think I'd get every hand up I think we all love to have friends in fact, friends control our lives in so many ways and.
I want to start with the Lord's help with a verse that brother Ron.
Referred to yesterday in Acts 27.
And I'd like to say that I have a little assignment for any younger young person here under the age of 13. As we go through these passages this afternoon, I'm offering you a bit of a challenge. There's one chapter in one of the books that I'm going to read that I call a friend chapter because I believe it uses the word friend more than any other chapter in the Word of God.
And if you can find that chapter and go to Mr. Don Rule.
And point out the times that friend was used and what character of a friend is in those different verses. Then we've made arrangements for you to pick anything you want out of the bookstore.
For your use. And so I have put a little limitation on the price there. I don't look at this as a donation to DTP, but you asked Donnie what you have to spend and you go ahead and pick out anything that you would like.
If you can find the chapter that is the friend chapter in the book that we're going to be looking at partially this afternoon. So first of all, in in Acts chapter 27, you know, our friends do affect us and.
As I look around at the dear young people and I see you having such a wonderful time together and you know, it wasn't too long ago since many of us coming to conferences, we, I can remember distinctly going into Royal York in Toronto and my heart just pounding. We had stopped the car, my father had stopped the car and we got out and we were walking towards that gym and my heart just going boom, boom, boom. And you know, it wasn't.
To be honest, it wasn't because I was going to get to the meetings. I I know that that should have been there as part of it. I believe it was.
There, but it was to meet my friends and it was to see where they were and, and to relate with them. And I suppose that human, humanity being what it is that you are perhaps going through the same type of thing. You've come to this conference and you're looking for friends and you know, young people. I don't think there's a place where you could feel more lonely at our conference. I don't think there's a place where you can feel more alienated.
More alone.
If you aren't, if you don't have the friend that I want to get to and spend a lot of time on today, and that's the friend, the Lord Jesus. But you know, I've seen young people really heard at conferences, they've reached out and tried to relate with others and they've got the signal, no, we don't want you. And perhaps there's a group of young people in this room today. You're together in your own little group, and somebody has tried to reach out to get into your group because they admire you for some reason. And you said, no, we don't want you.
And that poor young person is devastated.
And this conference will be a miserable conference for them because they have not. Their friendship has not been reciprocated. And I think we've all been there at some time in our life when we reached out and we were told, no, we don't want you. And it hurts. It hurts deeply. And there are a lot of hurts here this afternoon. There are parents hurting. There are young people hurting.
And my desire is to lead you to that one, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who can? It's the only one who will fully satisfy your heart. And so in Acts 27 here #3 verse 3, Julius courteously entreated Paul and gave him liberty to go on to his friends to refresh himself.
There are two types of friends you can seek out. There are these friends that when you go to them, they will refresh you in the Lord. There are other friends if you turn with me to Proverbs chapter 18. I believe it is. I have to read this in the J&D translation because it's inaccurately, I believe, translated in the King James.
The 18th chapter and the last.
Verse, The first phrase which reads in the King James translation, A man that hath friends must show himself friendly.
Should really read A man of friends will come to ruin. And you say, well how can these two verses juxtapose on each other? Are they not in conflict? Well, no they aren't. In Acts 27 we have friends that are leading you and refreshing you in the things of God.
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And what we have in the end of Proverbs here, I believe they're friends that will ruin you. And so today what I would like to do with the Lord's help.
Is look at the characteristics of friends two negative characteristics.
7 positive and then look to the one who only fills the positive in its entirety, the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, I want to tell you at the outset the story of two Pauls. One of them is here this afternoon. I hope he doesn't mind me mentioning this because I haven't cleared it with him. But several number of years ago there was a young man came to our assembly from New Brunswick and he was coming to Ontario to get employment and he was hired by one of our brethren there.
And he was reached out to.
By his friend Paul.
And that young man came into the meeting and he saw his friend bringing friends from school out to the gospel meeting. And he told me this himself. He said, you know, I couldn't believe this Christianity was real to this person. They were bringing out friends from school and they were talking to others about the Lord. And he said, I began to see that Christianity is real, something that can be lived, something that should be practiced.
And this young man, that was a changing point in his life. He told me that himself. He, he turned around. It wasn't.
A particular sermon that he heard or something that someone said to him, but he saw Christ living in his friend and as a result he was he's turned to be flat out for the Lord. He started up a Sunday school work in Ottawa. He was always reaching out when he and his.
Fiance were engaged, they go around and visit the older folks in the assembly on their dates and encouraged a lot of the brethren and now they're serving the Lord in the Philippines. That's a true friend, isn't it? Someone that leads you, refreshes you and leads you on for the Lord. Dear young people, if you were to ask Paul of the Philippines, is it worth it?
He would say, unquestionably it's worth it. He told a young student of mine who's recently come to the Lord. He said, I think the Lord is coming so soon I have to go out there.
And tell others of the Lord and the fact that He's the only one that can satisfy the heart.
And that of course, affected that person too, who's here today. So we can be very positive in our friends or we can be very negative.
In with our influence on our friends and this verse in Proverbs chapter 24 is a very searching one.
There are many friends that I know and have had who have come to ruin, partly because of myself. Perhaps I didn't reach out in the way I should have. I didn't encourage them in the things of God the way I should have.
And this afternoon, as you look at your friends sitting next to you, ask yourself, are they refreshing you in the things of God?
Or are they ultimately leading you on a course that will lead to ruin? Turn with me, please, to Deuteronomy chapter 13 to see where friends can take us. And you know, I see this up until recently, I, this is my life working with young people and I, I could see that friends, what they call peer pressure, peer evaluation and so on.
Means so much to a young person. You can have parents.
Trying to help a child and to impress upon them certain things, but often what their friends think is more important.
And it's a very sad thing if their friends are not giving them the proper direction. And here we find in Deuteronomy chapter 13 and verse six, it says, if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or the son, thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known thou, nor thy fathers.
Namely, of the gods of the people which are around about you, nigh unto thee are far from thee, from the one end of the earth, even unto the other end of the earth. Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him. Neither shalt thine I pity him, neither shall thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him.
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This is the first warning, dear young people, that I'd like to leave with you this afternoon are your friends.
Leading you away from the Lord and into those things that will only destroy you.
There have been young people who have sat in these meetings in the past.
Who have been taking drugs, who have had an alcoholic problem, who have been involved in immorality.
And their friends have encouraged that. And here, rather than where we're instructed to do, is to separate from that.
Sometimes it's not separated from and the end result is ruin, as we have in Proverbs 18.
I asked you right now to ask yourself, is your life centered on the Lord Jesus? Do you like talking about Him, or are you being LED astray into the world by those who are taking you down Satan's path into the things that look so enchanting and yet at the end.
Will bring you to perhaps even a violent, tragic end.
The whole world system is geared by Satan to take you into his jaws, as it were, and destroy you. Are you being led in that direction? There are many people here who have would be glad, I'm sure, to warn you of the where friends can lead you because they have been partly down that path and the Lord and His grace has turned them around.
And they're rejoicing in the Lord. And so I pray this afternoon that you will not let your friends take you down this path which will take you away from the Lord. You know, we can't force you into anything. Dear young people, we're, we're at a distance here, aren't we? All we can try to do is to reach you somehow by the Spirit of God and trust that it will enter into your soul. But you know, as you sit on that seat, whether you are.
Your friends are helping you and encouraging you in the Lord.
Or whether they are taking you away into the world. What are they going to suggest to you after this meeting? Are they going to suggest to you sit in the meeting and learn something from the coming open meeting? Are they going to say to you, come on, let's go out and do something else? What are they going to say to you and what are you going to answer? Are you going to be here the next meeting? I hope you will be. You know, you always get something. You may, you may even I think many of us are older find that.
Times things go a bit above our head at times, but there's a lot of things that you do pick up. And yet it's a sadness to me that I see people whom I love and yet they're finding their interest in places other than under the sound of God's Word. Well, I hope I'm not too directed on that point, but I really feel you should ask yourself, what are your friends encouraging you to do? And if the path is away from the Lord, please reconsider, dear young person.
Before it's too late and you're lost. We could recount tragedy up here this afternoon, but it's too painful for the parents and for other friends, so we won't. But I do pray with all my heart and soul, I trust that you'll give consideration to what your friends are saying to you this afternoon. It starts now. You know, I've been encouraged by that passage in Samuel, I believe it is where there's a little expression. It says hitherto at the Lord helped us. And you think.
Perhaps that follows a great long exercise, but if you read it, they were exercised before the Lord, and it was just a very short time before, I believe the day before where they put away the gods of astronaut. And they said, hitherto hath the Lord helped us. And I like to think of that, that the littlest step for Christ, just by saying, yes, I'm going to those meetings this afternoon, or the littlest step to encourage somebody.
That will be hitherto at the Lord help to help us, and it will there will be a henceforth.
We get in in Corinthians henceforth now we can go on to Christ. So if you take that step with your friend today. It's hitherto at the Lord helped us and then it's henceforth going on and following him. How wonderful it is to see that well the next the next characteristic of a friend who is not a true friend one taking you away. I'd like to look in the book of Judges. This is in connection with.
00:15:01
The Samson Judges chapter 14 and the last verse says, but Samson's wife was given to his companion whom he had used as his friend. Samson was not in the mind of God here and he had had a friend who was he could manipulate for his use. And perhaps you have friends that you like to use for your benefit, you're manipulating them.
And you aren't any friend at all. And in the end?
Disaster occurs as we find here, and if we were to go to Proverbs, we find that there are places where, well, if we go to Proverbs chapter 27 for an example, we have a person getting up in the morning and loudly proclaiming his affiliation for his friend, and it's condemned because it it's not sincere.
And so if we have a friend who is doing that kind of thing, flattering us perhaps or.
Catering to our weaknesses? Then they aren't true friends as it says here in Proverbs 27 and verse 14.
He that blessed his friend with a loud voice rising early in the morning, it should be counted a curse to him.
So.
If you have somebody who says they're a friend.
But they're only your friend because of what you have.
It tells us again in Proverbs that if you're wealthy, there will be a lot of people who want to be friends with you.
And maybe you have something that's not well, but it's something that people desire. But it's not the fact that you're going on to the Lord that they want to relate to. It's the fact that you have something that you're giving them.
Well, you have to be wise how you respond to that kind of a person. But if you're one who's following somebody for that purpose, you're have the wrong motive in your heart. And so I trust this afternoon that again you will examine and I will examine the things that draw me to my friends. Are they things that are pleasing to the Lord, or is it some other motive that the Word of God condemns? So we have two things here.
Then that show us what bad friends can do. They can take us into the world or they can use us and manipulate us or we will manipulate them. And there's no true friendship in that. And so you know, you come to the meetings this afternoon or the the conference here and perhaps.
Because of the circumstance, you're happy to be friendly with somebody, but when you got home that you wouldn't be friendly with them. Or it's the other way around. At home you're friendly with them. You come to the conference, you aren't because they aren't giving you.
What you think you should have at this point in time, or that they are giving you whatever is needed, but it doesn't center. Your friendship isn't centered on Christ and what is pleasing to Him. And so I want to encourage you, dear young people, to examine who your friends are and why they are your friends and if there has been some of this.
Dishonesty in the relationship. Don't write them off.
Don't say, well, I'm not going to have anything to do with you now because I see that you've been leading me in the wrong way. Confess that you've been both going on the wrong way and seek the Lord's grace to go on to him, to seek his face. You know, I think one of the worst things that can be done is when you start pulling high ground on friends and you sort of look down and say, you know, I'm more spiritual than you now. You don't say it that way. We do it with nonverbal communication.
And that can be more deadly sometimes in the way that we look at somebody and it's a false look. There's no true communication there. So I hope that if there are these false relationships that have developed here this afternoon among some friends and I believe in among older brethren, I don't mean to just lay this out on the young people. But, you know, I think if we were better friends, his older brother.
They'd be happier situations in the assemblies too, and so as we look now at the positive characteristics.
Of what a good friend should be. Let us all take it into our souls and ask, have I been a good friend to my brethren, to my the people I come in contact with? And you know, when you start having a relationship that's working, it just lights up your whole life. And that type of relationship will only center in the Lord Jesus Christ himself. You know, I was really encouraged.
A week ago I was out of marriage and the young man got up.
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And he said, you know, there's a love that I love my Savior more than I love my bride, and she loves her Savior more than she loves me or something of that effect. I'm paraphrasing it. And, you know, it was said with such sincerity and it rang so true to my soul. It just thrilled me to think that this couple was starting with the primary relationship solidly in place.
And yet you could see he adored her and she adored him, but they had the their eye on Christ and they were starting their lives together. Oh dear young person, I covet that for you. We've had it in our reading meeting today. I think my favorite verse of the Scripture, if I practice it, is what we have at the end of that Corinthians chapter 3 that we all with unveiled face the holy and the glory of the Lord.
Are transformed into the very same image from glory to glory.
Even as by the Lord, the Spirit, it's all of him, but as we gaze upon his face.
We will have a vision that will satisfy us. But if you don't have that vision, what does it say in Proverbs 28? It says where no vision is the people cast off restraint. And so if you don't have a friend that fills your soul, the Lord Jesus, if he doesn't fill you, you'll start casting off restraint and you will come to ruin as you pick up other friends who reinforce you and your downward course. Well, the first verse, the 1St.
In terms of the.
Practical positive aspects of friendship and I see with my time I'm going to have to just some of these, just itemize them. I just don't have the time. If you could turn with me, please to Exodus chapter 33 and verse 11 it says and the Lord spake unto Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend. You know if you have a good friend, you look them in the eye and the communication is bang on together right between you.
There's nothing held back. There's an openness. And Abraham was called the the friend of God because he obeyed God. There's a trust.
There's not only an openness, but there's a trust between friends and I had a good friend and I thank God for him. Brother John rules. I was growing up that we could look at each other and we could help each other in a very real, meaningful way. There are things that he knows and I know that will never go any further because they're part of our friendship there as we helped each other along the way as much as failures as we were.
And are but you know, as you get older you tend to go back to those friendships and you enjoy them.
And there are friends that I don't connect with anymore because they aren't here. And you often wonder about them. You know they come through your mind and you pray for them. You don't know where they are, but it's so good to come to a meetings like this and look at childhood friends, friends that you ran around the meeting room with. And they're here and you're enjoying their fellowship.
And then I know for myself, I've often thought when I've looked at others who have gone and I've said, well, what did I do? Did I help them? Did I encourage them? Some cases I didn't. Some cases I was the one who said don't want you here, doesn't give you very much satisfaction at all. But you have to go on by the grace of God and just trust that it doesn't duplicate at a later date. Well, the next characteristic of a friend, not only are they open with you, but.
Their primary allegiance is to the Lord Himself.
We turn to Job chapter 3032, and I want to couple this with the verse in Proverbs chapter 27. But let's go to Job 32 first and I'll just quote the one in Psalm, Proverbs 27. Proverbs 27, it says faithful are the wounds of a friend.
And I believe while they're faithful is because that friend has put Christ first in your relationship together. And so, you know, you see it happening all the time. People are brethren, sisters are out doing something that is obvious to everybody that what is happening is not of the Spirit of God. But it goes on because there's nobody who's a friend who will go to them and say.
Dear brother.
Dear sister, you know what's going on here is not according to the Spirit of God. Your brethren are not encouraged by what's going on. And we let things go on to the point where sometimes it ends up in discipline or a person being put away from the Lord's table because we haven't been a friend, a true friend, but a true friend will stop you in your course and tell you and because of their love and compassion for you over the years.
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You'll listen. And so when one of my friends comes to me and says, Frank, I disagree with what you put there.
And I know that there's no other motive other than to help me because they've shown their love for me. Then you say, boy, there's something here I should consider. But if someone comes at you from a distance and attacks you, it doesn't do the same work, does it? You have to bow to it. You have to consider it under the eye of God. But it doesn't have the same impact when somebody's coming who really loves you and cares about you.
And a lot of you here. He waited in due time for all the.
Older ones take part, but then he came to the point where he spoke for the Lord as a true friend to Joe and he he opened up the counsels of God before Job. He didn't criticize Job. I'm not going to be critical of Job's friends because I think many of us have been there. When something comes into a person's life, we say, you know, you haven't been living right now. We may not verbalize that, but if non verbally it comes through.
And sometimes that's not a very great help to us. We feel even more alienated and more under the weight of the difficulty.
That a lie who comes and he brings the man Job to Christ and he says, look at what God is doing and you're criticizing him and you can't do it. But it's all in the context of lifting the eyes beyond the human circumstance to the Lord himself. And then Allah you fades out of the picture and the Lord takes over. And so there's the positive aspect of what a good friend can do. They'll take your circumstances.
They'll mix it in with what the Lord's grace can do for you.
And they'll encourage your heart. Are you a friend like that to those sitting around you? Am IA friend like that? Well, I trust so.
Well, then, we go on to the next point in Proverbs 17 and seven.
And a friend loves at all times. And I think that's so beautiful and so simple. You know, if we were to again, go back to Job 19, we'd find that when Job got into difficulty, I'm thankful for the three friends that sat there with him. Even though they didn't give the right advice, they did show that they cared about it. And a lie who came with the right advice. But many of Job's friends, if you read the 19th chapter, they, they left them. They just left them. They were fair weather friends, as we say.
But.
Here we have in the 17th verse of Proverbs 17, a friend loveth at all times. You know what, No matter where you are, what the difficulty is, they're there willing to help you.
And they accept you the way you are, and I think that's very important and they're willing to listen.
You know they don't come ex cathedral and pronounce everything to you the way it should be. They listen and they respond to what's going on. Slow to speak, swift to hear, slow to speak. There's a good friend and they love you at all times. And I think you can see now that if you haven't already, it's the only one who truly feels all these things is the Lord Himself.
Well, then we go on to the other aspect. I'm not going to turn to the portion, but you'll find it in the last chapter of Joel, which I believe is the 42nd chapter, and that is that a friend prays for you, A good friend prays for you. If you're sitting on that seat this afternoon and you don't think your friends are praying for you, you better look again at what the relationship is among you. You know, I'm always encouraged.
When I pray with my wife.
And she prays for her friends and they go back years. Some of them are no longer.
Here gathered some of them are we're just talking about one the other day and we don't know where where that particular person is, but there it is in their prayer and it jogs my memory and I think what about those friends I had that I should be praying for and never forget. True friends pray for one another. And I believe if there was prayer for one another in the assembly, if you have an assembly list and you go through and you pray for your brethren, it's going to be pretty hard to get up at the next meeting and have bad feeling.
You know when you realize too, that those brethren are going to have the name of Jesus written across them if the Lord was to come.
And there's going to be written across them very soon if he was to come and be immediate His name upon us. And we pray for them in that context that the day is coming when we're all going to be together, perfectly conformed to Christ. It's going to bond us together as we look at each other in the meeting room. And we're going to enjoy the fellowship with each other.
Well then, the next one, and this is a very important one, Proverbs, chapter 22.
And.
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Verse 11 and I our time is really up. I'm going to have to just short circuit some of this, but notice the 11Th verse. He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips, The king shall be his friend.
Two things here, pureness of heart and grace in his lips. And I was thinking of pureness of heart in Second Timothy chapter 2 That were to meet with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. And so if the friend is a true friend, he'll want us to meet with the Lord Jesus, with those that call in the Lord out of a pure heart. And the second point is the words of grace, the lips of grace, he'll be telling others of the Lord.
What the Lord has done for him. And like in Mark 5 where the Lord sends back the person who had been possessed, he goes out and he tells his friends and they heard of what Jesus had done for him to all, all around. And so there will be those two characteristics and a good friend. They'll want us to gather with the Lord Jesus. They'll want us to be with his people, with those that call in the Lord out of a pure heart. And they'll want to reach out to others with the gospel.
Because grace is in their lips. And as you sit beside your friend today.
Is a grace that you have from their lips? Are they encouraging you to be where the Lord is? There there's a good friend. There's another quality of a good friend. The other thing in Proverbs chapter 27 is that a friend gives good counsel. As it says in the 17th verse here of Proverbs chapter 27, iron sharpeneth iron. So a man sharpeneth the counsel of his friend.
And so as we work together as friends, we get good counsel from one another.
And if you notice in the end of the ninth verse, you'll see that that council should come from the heart. It should be not given at a distance, not given at arms length, but it's something that they care about you. And when a person gives advice and it's coming from something that they really because they care about you, you can read it. You can feel that. And so that's what we need as friends. We need to have that care for one another and that give that godly counsel and know that they give it to us not to set us out and to do it.
According to the spirit of the laws we had this morning, but because they want our affections touched and brought to Christ. That's the characteristic of a good friend. And finally.
In the same chapter here and a tenth verse. This is the last characteristic of a good friend, and this is more directed towards the young people. But a good friend will want to be with your family, and they'll want your family to be their friends.
As it says here, thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not. And so as we grow up, as I grew up in my home, my father and mother had people in and they became my friends. And I think of an older brother now in the Ottawa Assembly.
One of the oldest and he lived across the street for me for 19 years. So he knows that I can put a snowball through the window. And he knows that I can do a lot of things that are not very profitable, but things that he has seen me do. But, you know, every time at the meeting room and he grabs my hand, he looks into my eyes. You know, I see, I see love.
We have our disagreements from time to time, but I know when he grabs my hand, he cares about me and he loves me.
He was a friend of my father, who is now gone.
But I thank God for that man. I'm thinking of another lady this weekend who may be the we with the Lord before I get home. She's in her 80s I believe. The doctors have tried to put IV into her and they can't find any vein and so she's slowly dying. A single parent raised a boy who had been.
Had an accident when he was young.
And so hasn't been as capable of many as many of us. But that Lady raised that boy in the fear of God. And I can remember as a young man, a young boy, maybe 1011 Lords the afternoon after Sunday school being invited to her home. I can picture yet going up those stairs, going back into the little kitchen. And at our place we had dinner at noon hour. She had dinner at night. And I can remember thinking.
Is this fantastic? We get 2 meals and the same for the price of one in the same day. And we would sit down and she would put on that meal. And that's what I think of now is I see her going on. I think that kindness that came through because she was the Lord and she loved me. A poor little guy running around the meeting room. I don't know why she invited me, but she had us in as boys and we sat there. And now as I see her slipping on in the glory, I think there's my friend.
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Who really cared about me?
I've been helped by many people in my life, but that some of those older sisters in the Ottawa assembly, Mrs. Nicole won't hesitate to mention her name publicly. Who when she comes and says Frank, how's it going? Or she comes with that brown bag of her special squares on my birthday. Let me tell you, my heart keeps pumping because I know she loves me and she's seeing me with all my faults, but she says I love you unconditionally. And that is how Christ lost. That's why.
The only friend that can satisfy the heart because he loves you unconditionally. And so it tells us in Proverbs 18, the second part of that verse, there's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother because the Lord Jesus himself will stand by you in anything. And if you are feeling isolated here this afternoon, dear young person, if you're feeling alone, remember that the only one who can truly satisfy you and your heart is the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And he gave his life for you. Let us turn to John chapter 15 in closing, make a few comments and then refer to one other thing. But in John chapter 15, we read here, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. And so the Lord wants you, dear young people, to live for him, and He will stand by you.
And let me tell you, he's the only one who will.
There will be times in your life when the Lord will pass you through a circumstance that only you and He.
Can face together because everybody else won't have the perspective that you have and that he has and so you will be joined together because he loves you and he cares for you and how do you tap into that care you tap into it by praying by speaking to him each day each moment of the day. I'm sure many of us here have found that something comes up at work or at school and just a very quick acknowledgement to the Lord of what to do and you go on and you.
Take control. He orders things for his glory and he you speak to him and he hears you. And his brother Darby said he was felt the favor of God won't court the favor of man. If you have felt God speaking to you and as you talk to him, it will be an experience based on the word of God that you'll never forget. It's not something that you can pass along to somebody else. It's between you and your friend. And he's given us his word. He's spoken to us through his word. We had that this morning.
How are we going to go from glory to glory? I enjoyed our brother. If you can refrain us back to the word because that's how you do it. You go back and you see the patterns of Christ in the Old Testament. You see his graciousness. You see how they wondered at him. Yuri going to the pistols and you see the future that he has for you. And you say, oh, worldly pomp and glory, that's all spread in vain because I found a sweeter story that is centered in Christ and so.
That is the essence of the Christian life, isn't it? As we're here, I trust we can be better friends together. I hope that we can carry out these characteristics of friends one with another. I trust we can look to God for his help and realize that we are failures. Better if thou shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, David could say. And so I say here, it's not because of anyone's exemplary life, but I do believe we.
Help each other as we're awaiting His coming. He wants to stand beside us. He wants to be our friend. Are you willing to reach out and to have Him reach out to you? Think about it. Please do not allow your friends this afternoon to pervert your thinking and have you go that route of Deuteronomy 33 and take you away from the Lord.
In closing, I want to refer to a story I read this last week.
About a brother in the Lord Joseph Scriven. Some of you are familiar with this brother. He was raised I believe, I'm not quite sure what church he was raised in, but he was gathered to the Lords name in Ontario in the early 1840s. He died 100 years ago in October 1866 and he wrote these words.
1886 Rather, he wrote these words. He wrote them to his mother.
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There were two tragedies in his life. His first fiance that he went with was.
Tragically.
I think she was drowned and the second fiance also, both of them died and he wrote this letter or this, this hymn, this poem to his mother. What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh what peace we often forefoot. Oh what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. Now you sweet song that many times haven't we? But do we know that what that man went through?
To cause him to write that I want to read you just a little bit of how he lived, says here that.
In 1860 came the 2nd tragedy in his life. He had been engaged to be married to the Christian niece of the family in which he served as a tutor. Just before their proposed marriage, she too died of pneumonia. Following the 2nd shattering experience, Scriven sent a final draft of his poem, Pray Without Ceasing to his mother in Ireland. What a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear.
Following the death of his fiancee and to the conclusion of his work as a tutor to the Pingley family, Scriven immersed himself for the remainder of his life and ministering to the spiritual and physical needs of the people living in the region around Rice Lake, from Peterborough in the north to Port Hope and Coburg to the South. Then it says here, I'm just skipping over this, but he was a very practical Christian. It says here that he expressed the concern for people in extremely practical ways, though he did some tutoring, presumably to provide for his modest needs.
Much of his time was devoted to serving the poor, the aged and the handicapped. He insisted on receiving no remuneration for that service. A lady who wanted to hire a man to saw wood asked a neighbor the name of her friend who did much work, did such work. The neighbor responded that it was Joseph Striven, adding that he probably wouldn't wouldn't cut the wood for her. Why not, she asked. Because you're able to pay for it, said her friend. He saw some wood for He saw some wood for poor widows and sick people, and often he sends them wood.
Hires a man to cut it. He has some income from the old country and spends it all on the poor except for the money he needs to support himself in a quiet way. Well, we don't have time to read the rest of it, but it gives the character of the person who could pen those words what a friend we have.
Our Testimony in Every Circumstance
Address—R. Reeves
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Could we turn first of all to Deuteronomy, our second Chronicles? Pardon me, Second Chronicles, chapter 6. In this chapter, I want to lay special emphasis on 2 words. The words if and the word when. And I'm just gonna read parts of verses, and you'll notice how often the word if comes in here.
Well, we'll start in the 18th verse. But will God in very deed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this house which I have built. Have respect, therefore, to the prayer of Thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee.
That thine eyes may be open upon this house day and night, upon the place whereof thou has said that thou wouldest put thy name there, to hearken unto the prayer that thy servant prayeth toward or in this place. Now read part of different verses, The 22nd verse.
If a man sin against his neighbor, and an oath be laid upon him to make him swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house, then hear thou from heaven, and do and judge thy servants.
And the 24th verse. And if thy people Israel, be put to the worst before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and they shall return, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication before thee in this house.
Then the 26th verse, when the heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee. Yet if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin when thou dost afflict them, then hear thou from heaven, and forgive the sin of thy people, and of thy people Israel, which thou, when thou hast taught them the good way.
For in they should walk.
And send rain upon thy land, when thou hast given unto thy which thou has given unto thy people for an inheritance. If there be a dearth in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting or mildew, Caterpillar, locusts, or caterpillars, if their enemies besiege them in the cities of their land, whatsoever soar, whatsoever sickness there be, then what prayer what?
Supplication. Slavers shall be made of any man.
Or of all thy people Israel, when everyone shall know his own sword and his own grief, and shall spread forth his hands in this house. Then going down little farther in the 34th verse, if thy people go out to war against their enemies, by the way that thou shalt send them, and they pray unto thee toward this city which thou has chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name.
Then hear thou from the heavens, their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their 'cause if they sin against thee, for there is no man that sinneth not, and thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captive unto a land.
Far off or near, yet if they bethink themselves in the land, whether they are carried captive. And turn and pray unto thee.
In the land of their captivity, saying we have sinned, we have done a mess, and have dealt wickedly the 39th verse.
I'll read the 38th to If they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul, in the land of their captivity, whether they have carried them captives, and pray toward this land which thou gave us unto their fathers, and toward the city which thou has chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name.
Then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling, place their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause, and forgive Thy people which have sinned against Thee. I'd like to turn also to Deuteronomy Chapter 7, and I want to put emphasis on the little word, because here the seventh verse, then the little word because the Lord did not.
Set His love upon you, nor choose you because you were more in number than any people.
For ye were the fewest of all people, but because the Lord loved you.
And because he had, he would keep the covenant which he had sworn unto. Your Father's hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the House of Bondman, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Now shall we turn also to Isaiah chapter.
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43 I think it is Isaiah chapter 43 first verse. But now thus saith the Lord that created the old Jacob, and he that formed thee. O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine. When thou passes through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.
Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia, Ethiopia and Seba for the.
Since thou was precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. And then just one more in chapter 30 of Isaiah verse 15. For thus saith the Lord God the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest, shall ye be saved.
In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.
And she would not, but she said, No. For we will flee upon horses, therefore shall ye flee, and we will ride upon the swift. Therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. 18th verse And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you. For the Lord is a God of judgment.
Blessed are all they that wait for him.
Well, it was particularly 4 words that I'd like to call attention to, and I'm sure that you noticed them as I read. The word if, the word when and the word because and the word sense. There are many ifs in our lives, aren't there? There are many when's that is this happened when? Well, it just happened at the wrong time. But isn't it nice to think of the other side?
Because I have loved thee and since.
Thou was precious in my sight. Let's never lose sight of that. Brethren, when those ifs do come in our lives, let's put the other side to it, that we can say that His ways are with us because He loves us and since we are precious.
In his sight, he didn't only die on the cross to save our souls from hell. That's a wonderful deliverance indeed. But brother and I say it's because he wanted our company, and he wanted our company forever.
We can spend a little time in company with others, but sometimes we say, oh, I'd like to just get off by myself occasionally. But isn't it wonderful that the Lord Jesus loves us so much that he wants to have our company and our company forever on is often said that's the test of true love. If you're going with somebody and you get tired of their company, there's a question because if you really have the kind of love you should.
You just like to be in their company whether a word is said or not.
Just to be in their company is a relaxation. In returning and in rest shall ye be saved. In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. I think of a man who was brought up and was in the assembly, and he got upset about some things happened in the assembly and about a certain brother that caused some difficulty, and he left.
And when he was quite an older man, his.
Son has said, dad, it's too bad that you left his son happily was gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus and his father's reply was, well, I wouldn't if it hadn't been for that brother. And I thought this a dear young man's answer was a very wise one. He said, but dad, the Lord put that man there. The Lord put that man there and you know, we have to realize this, brethren, that God.
Certain things in our lives, and this chapter that I've read in Chronicles is just saying those things that God may put into our lives. And so if that man, when that thing had come into his life, and if that brother had been A cause, a thorn in the flesh perhaps to him.
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If he had said, but the Lord loves me and the Lord has allowed this, I'm precious in his sight, He might have got the victory over that situation. But those things do come in our lives. And you know, we can't trust the flesh, brethren. We can't say I wouldn't do this or wouldn't do that. Another little instance that came.
We just had occasion to meet a girl, she's now past 50 years of age.
But we knew her when she was 14 years of age and she had come from a home where her her mother had married an unsaved man and she had had some trials in the home. And she said to my wife, I can see the mistake of marrying an unsaved man.
And the trouble that it brings. And I'll never do that. But you know, she trusted herself.
She has been married three times and divorced. She is now living with another man. And she said, she said, you know, we had another problem come up in our life and we were afraid things were going to break up this third time. And she said, my son, who's a real believer who loves the Lord, he said, mother, mother, he said, you made a mistake. You married the wrong person.
Why don't you just take it to the Lord in prayer? And she said to us, she said, I did just that. And it's wonderful the way the Lord has come in and brethren, that's the thing that we have in this chapter that we have read. What was the answer to all these ifs in Second Chronicles Chapter 7? The answer was prayer and turning to the Lord confessing whatever was wrong in our lives, but getting.
First of all, with the Lord, and I say to myself and to any of us here, if those ifs are bothering you, you'll come to these meetings and perhaps you have a whole lot of ifs. If that boy had only treated me differently. If that girl had only treated me differently.
That hadn't happened. And if those older brethren hadn't said some unkind things, if all kinds of ifs are in our lives, and when those things happen, what do we do? Do we ride upon the swift to get away from it? That's what we read in Isaiah. It says yes, instead of in quietness and confidence in the Lord, we say I can find my own way out and we jump on the swift and try to run away. But the ones.
Follow us. They're swifter still. And So what is the answer? Well, brethren, I feel that this is what God is bringing before us in this beautiful chapter. We think of King Solomon here. When he came to the throne, he recognized that he didn't have the wisdom needed for this high position that was given to him. And we feel very often all of us that were put in certain positions and we're just with Sam.
Don't know what to do. We don't have sufficient wisdom in ourselves. The Bible says, oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. There's no one of us that know all the answers and that can hand leverage.
Situation and more than this, the answer is not in ourselves, but oh, how wonderful. God has given us His precious word. He has given us in it all things that pertain unto life and godliness. And more than that, He's given us Himself Himself. He gave our poor hearts to win.
He went to Calvary and died for us, and he's like the Hebrew servant. He says I'm going to live for you forever. And whenever you're in any trouble, I'm there at the right hand of God. I'm there as your great high priest, and I know the pathway because I tread it myself.
The work of redemption that the Lord Jesus was accomplished, accomplished which we remembered this morning.
Was all accomplished in those three hours of darkness when He bore our sins and then bowed His head and death and shed His precious blood to put our sins away. It was on Calvary that the work was finished that met our need as sinners. But why the 33 1/2 years of His life?
To in order that he might tread through this very world like we live in.
A world where things were not easy. The children of Israel were under the authority, the Romans. There was a lot of unpleasant situations and all the rejection that he faced. He he said that my own familiar friend has lifted up his heel against me. He was hungry and thirsty. He was misunderstood by his disciples. He was rejected by the people he wanted to bless. And when we turned to him.
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As the captain of our salvation, he says, I've been through the whole path. I know what you're going through. I know the path that you're taking. When the children of Israel sinned and God said they had to spend 40 years in the wilderness, isn't it wonderful? He said, make me a tent.
And I'll dwell with them, yes, he said. If they're going to have to spend 40 years in the wilderness, I'll dwell among them. And more than that, I'll provide a way of approach into my presence. And such it was in the Tabernacle, a way of approach was provided into his presence.
Oh, if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you're the most blessed person on the face of the earth. Those friends that you have in school and elsewhere who don't know the Savior, they don't know the wonderful resource that you have. They don't know the secret of peace and joy that you and I are entitled to know. But isn't it strange? And I'm the same too. At times when we get into a problem, we try first of all, to solve it ourselves. We.
Human means. But what was the answer in all these different things? I think perhaps there are six different things in this chapter that are brought before us. And what was the answer? Oh, there was that house, and if they were so far from it, they could pray toward it.
When Daniel was down in the land of Babylon, he could have said, well, I can't go to the house because it's much too far, but he opened his window and prayed toward Jerusalem. He believed that the God who had allowed them to be scattered still cared about him and cared about his people, and that he could come to him with confidence, and no King's decree or anything would stop him praying 3.
Times a day, and don't let the problems of your life stop you from coming to the Lord Jesus and asking Him for the help that you need. I'll just notice these in a little bit of detail here in First Second Chronicles chapter 6. Isn't this lovely, this 18th verse where you began? But will God in very deed dwell with man on the earth?
Behold heaven and the heaven of heavens.
Cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have built. Solomon had built a glorious house. It was, I suppose, the grandest, we might say, religious building that was ever built in the whole world. And yet he said it can't contain God, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this house that I have built but will God in very.
With me and we know when the Lord Jesus was born into this world, the angels proclaimed the wonderful message. They said peace on earth, goodwill to man. In other words, God had found pleasure in man, that he came to dwell with him.
Just as when you like someone, you come down to dwell with them. Because man had spoiled this earth through sin, but God still loved him. And I've sometimes said it was as though God said, well, you've spoiled this world through your sin and rebellion, but I'm going to open up something better to you than what you spoiled. And I'm going to open my home to you. And I'm going to fit you for it. And you won't be able to spoil it.
Oh, isn't that wonderful? And brethren, this is the one.
Her brother was talking about our friend. What a wonderful friend we have in the Lord Jesus. This is the one. So here was this house that Solomon had built, and he was particularly anxious that God's people would recognize God's desire to bless them in and through this house. So here we find first of all in the 22nd verse, if a man sinned against his neighbor, and an oath be laid upon him to make him swear.
And the oath come before thine altar in thine house. Then judge thou from heaven, and do and judge thy servants by requiting the wicked, and recompensing his way upon his head. Here we find that there was a case where someone had trespass against his neighbor.
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What was he to do? Was he to go and fight with him whole bitter feelings for years about it? Now he's to come and pray and lay out the whole case before the Lord. Has someone been mean to you? Someone been unfair to you? Someone really hurts you? And what did you do? Did you carry on a lot of resentment and perhaps hold a grudge for a long, long time?
Well, I'll tell you if you did, you're a very unhappy person today. You're not happy. You're, you know, and we don't forgive another person. We're the ones that are delivered to the tormentors. When you don't forgive somebody for a mean thing, you're delivered to the tormentors. And I've seen people and they're most unhappy because they carry this forgiving spirit. Does the Lord say that it's wrong? Yes. The person has done what's wrong. Who?
The Lord listen to this verse about the Lord Jesus, who when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him. The judges righteously. Isn't it good to be able to commit your case to the Lord and leave it with him? Yes, as we read there in Isaiah, they shall not be ashamed that wait for him.
I want to encourage my brethren, and don't forget I'm talking to myself as well as to you.
That when those kind of things happen, and they do happen, don't let it spoil your life, spoil your relationship with your brethren, spoil the assembly. Take it to the Lord, lay it out before Him. Ask him to straighten it out. He can straighten it out far better than you can.
Because he knows the whole situation. That's the answer is to leave it with him and go on. Dear Joseph, his brethren were awfully mean to him, but he never held any grudge. And when the opportunity came, he just showed kindness to them and says don't be angry with yourselves. God's hand was in the whole situation.
It's that brother that I spoke of at the beginning had only seen God's hand in the situation, He probably would have gone.
Along in the assembly for many years as a happy person, but he made himself a miserable person. So I say if this happened has happened in your life. Sometimes it does happen. People can give us what the world caused cause a pretty raw deal sometimes. Leave it with the Lord, pray about it committed to Him. He is the one who judges righteously.
In all things, then it says in the 24th verse, If thy people Israel, be put to the worst before the enemy.
Because they have sinned against thee, and shall return and confess thy name, and pray and make supplication before the in this house. Then hear thou from the heavens, and forgive the sin of thy people, and bring them again into the land which Thou gave us to them and to their fathers.
Well, sometimes we're put to the worst and sometimes we have to say it's my fault. It's my fault. It's good when we're willing to admit that perhaps one of the hardest things for some of us to say is I'm sorry. It was really my fault. It was really my fault. A brother who was out of fellowship for quite a length of time, he wanted to come back and he said to me, I'll say I'm sorry if the others will say.
Sorry too because I wasn't the only one that did something wrong and I said brother may be difficult but remember this, everyone shall give account of himself to God. You don't have to answer for those other brothers. If you're really sorry for what you did, why don't you tell your brethren that you're sorry? Never mention the others. Leave them with the Lord. He did.
He's in happy fellowship with us today. It's nice to see him. You go to the meetings, the happy brother. The Lord is blessed, his family.
How much better than trying to hold these things. And so sometimes we do make mistakes. We're not the only ones. So we think, well, the other persons at fault too, Well, maybe they are. Leave that person with the Lord. You're only accountable for yourself. Then hear thou from the heavens and forgive. Bring them aback unto the land. This brother was brought back.
There were tears when he was restored. I wasn't present at the time but they told me a lot of tears were shed at the meeting when he was restored and brought back.
Well, may the Lord give us grace in these situations. And it says when the heaven is shut up and there's no rain, sometimes the assembly seems like that. I've heard people say, well, you go to the meeting and you just don't seem to get any refreshment for your soul. You go. You go there because you believe it's where the Lord would have you, but you just get discouraged. Yeah, sometimes it does seem the heavens are shut up and there's no rain. What should you do?
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Quit coming. Decide that you're going someplace else. Well, if you're really convicted that that's where the Lord has put his name, as I believe Mr. Potter said, be sure you don't leave before the Lord leaves. Be sure you don't leave before the Lord leaves. And there, if you, if there's no rain, what do you do? Take it to the Lord. Cry to him.
Perhaps before you go to that Bible reading, ask the Lord to undertake. He may be surprised how he'll come in.
He may be surprised how he can touch hearts that you couldn't touch because he has all power, He works in the hearts of men, and he can do things that we can't do. I've often been surprised at the change in people's attitude when I prayed about something. Because the King's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water, He turneth it whithersoever he will. And then again in the 28th verse, if there be a dearth in the land, if there.
Pestilence, if there be blasting or mildew, locusts or caterpillars, if the enemies besieged them in the land, whatsoever sore or whatsoever sickness there be. It's rather interesting in this one. It doesn't say that these things were necessary, allowed because of sin. The others, it mentions that we had something to confess. Sometimes things come in our lives and we we don't just understand. Perhaps you said, what did I do?
What did I do? Well, it doesn't say anything about what they did at all here, but there's a great variety of things that could be happening. There could be dearth, there could be pestilence, there could be failure of crops, There could be enemies, there could be sickness. And you don't always know, but you always know. Your resource is in the Lord. You always know. And you know when you can't understand and when you can't see just what it is.
I think sometimes things happen.
In fact it tells us there in in Hebrews chapter 13 it says.
Hebrews chapter 12, I should say, it yielded the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them, which are exercised thereby. It doesn't say unto them that find out the reason, just exercise. And if we're exercise about why the Lord allows things, and we carry the matter to Him in prayer, then he comes in.
He hears we spread out our hands before him, and it says he knows the hearts of all men. Isn't that good? He knows the hearts of all men and he just comes in. So perhaps you're in a kind of a trial and you say, I don't know just why the Lord allowed it. Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Take it to him, you may not know why in heaven you're going to find out. Yes, brethren, we'll find out the answer to everything there, but perhaps not down here. Then it goes a little further here in the 33rd verse and it even talks about the stranger. The Lord has an interest in someone you say, well, I I've just been gathered a short time. A lot of things I don't know, my family are not in the meetings and I I don't seem to have the same.
Connection with things as other people. All the Lord knows the heart of the stranger. He cares about you just as much as if you had a father and a grandfather in the meeting. He cares about you. You're one of his just as much. Yes, brethren, if we're his we're in the family, we're intimate, we're members of the body of Christ. Then it says in the 34th verse. If I people go out to war against their enemies and then in the 36.
If they sin against thee, for there is no man which sinneth not, and now they're carried off into captivity. And now you say, well, I guess it's all up now because I can't get back. Well, that was the case of Daniel. Daniel was in captivity, and so were his three friends.
They had to go to school in a difficult day. I'm sure if you had attended the College in Babylon, you would have heard all kinds of strange things and heathen religion, if you like to put it that way, because they were idol worshippers, had all kinds of strange ideas about creation and everything and.
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Daniel and Shade recognition, Meshach and Abednego, they had to go to school there, but they still feared God, and they were careful to please God in their school life. And may I say to you, dear young people, many of you going to school and college, things are getting worse.
They're not improving. But you can fear God. You can look to the Lord, you say, but the person that's over me will make it hard for me. Well, that's what they feared too. And it says that he was the man who was over them said I'll endanger my head to the King if I do what for you? What you want me to do?
But God brought Daniel and his friends in the favor and tender love with the Prince of the eunuchs. God can touch the hearts of your professors, your teachers, all those ones. Everything in his hand, all power is given to Him in heaven and earth. What do you do? You pray? What did that girl do that I was telling you about?
She'd had trouble on trouble in her life.
And it took her son, a boy of perhaps 20 some years old, to say, mother, why don't you just pray about it? You've taken everything in your own hands all your life, nothing's worked. Why don't you just pray? And she prayed, she said to us, it's wonderful, you can hardly believe it. She said, how the Lord has come in. We have one who has all power. And so here is this lovely to hear that see the Lord.
Hearing and blessing and why? Let's turn to that in Deuteronomy Chapter 7 again, you say, why should he hear me? Well, I don't know why he should hear me. I don't know why, except I see the answer here. This is the only answer I know because I didn't deserve His salvation and I don't deserve anything since He saved me. I didn't ever come to Him on the ground of deserving something. I come to Him as one who acts toward me.
Grace, undeserved favor. That's what grace is, and that's the way to come to the Lord. And so it says here in Deuteronomy 7, the seventh verse, the Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you because you were more in number than any people for ye with a fewest of all people, but because the Lord.
Loves you. It's not lovely. All those ifs and all those when's.
If this comes, and when this comes, take it to the Lord in prayer. And why? Because He loves you, Because He loves you. You all know the feeling of going to somebody in the problem and realizing the person you're talking to you really loves you, that there's nothing you can say to him that's going to change his love or to her and you just feel confident.
In quietness.
And in confidence shall be your strength in returning, and in rest shall he be saved. Oh, isn't it blessed that we can come if and when we're in these situations? Maybe you're not in them to day, but maybe you will some other time. But if you get into them and when you can't get into them, then turn to the Lord in prayer. But not just as a matter of ritual, but with the feeling and the knowledge in your heart that.
Loves you. He loves you. Bye. Oh, you say, I'm just in a little assembly and there's not much fellowship here. He says You were the fewest of all people, but I loved you and I picked you out. And so he says here he didn't set his love upon you or choose you because you were more in number, but because.
The Lord loved you, and because you would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your Father's, God's made a promise. God has made a promise. What is the promise? He is going to bring you home. He's the captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus bringing many sons to glory.
He is going to keep His word. All the promises of God in Him are yay and in him Amen to the glory of God by us. Now let's turn over to that passage in Isaiah chapter 43. And here we find this little word sense that we spoke of.
Again, that part of the second verse, when thou passes through the waters.
I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. I am the Lord, thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee since.
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Thou was precious in my sight. Thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee.
Therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not, for I am with thee. Oh, is this a wonderful thing? Because why? Because He loves us. And since what? Since we were precious in his sight. You're precious in his sight. You say it doesn't feel like that sometimes when He lets things go wrong in my life.
But he allows these things because we're in the school of God.
And we're going to learn things. My father used to have a little expression. He said you'll never learn to know God is the God of all comfort in heaven. That's an experience you can only have on earth. You'll never need any comfort in heaven because there are no sorrows or trials there. But the remembrance of the way the Lord has helped you will be precious to you for all eternity. And as I've often said, when you look back, like Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, I'm sure.
When they look back, they'd say that was a marvelous experience. We wouldn't have been without it. Joseph would say it was marvelous how the Lord undertook. I wouldn't have been without it. And you and I, when we retrace our lives in His presence, as they will be retraced at the judgment seat of Christ, we will say He led us forth by the right way, since we were precious in His sight. So he says, fear not, for I am with thee.
Yes, isn't that wonderful? Fear not, I'll put your hand in His and let Him be the one to lead you and guide you. And when you come to those points, and we all come to them, when we just can't understand, we can't see the way, we can't see the wisdom of God's ways, just say, well, He loves me. And since He loved me, I can count upon Him that He knows what He is doing.
That he knows the whole way ahead of time and that he's over all these circumstances. And then last of all, just before we close, let's turn to Isaiah 30 again.
Isaiah chapter 30 and this verse really speaks to my own heart when I read it this 15th verse.
For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall ye be saved. In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. Don't say no, don't say no. God says yes, but it says. Some of those people were saying, but she said no, no, I'm going to flee on horses. I'm young, I'm going to plan my own life.
I know how to work my way through those problems. You don't know the brothers and sisters in our assembly. I can work my way through it all. Brethren, we can't, but God can. We can't, but God can. In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.
And in returning and rest shall he be saved? Oh, you save it. Why doesn't he do it right away?
It says blessed are all they that wait for Him. God's time is not always our time. We'd like things to happen right now, but to God everything is the eternal present. He knows what He's doing and He's not going to allow our faith to be tested beyond what He is able to sustain us. He is able to sustain us all along the way.
Well, I trust, brethren, that the Lord will speak to my heart as well as to yours.
And just let me say those four words again. If, when, because, since if you're in a problem, when you're in a problem, then think of the other side. Why did he love you? Because he loved you. And he has made a promise. And he's saying to you, you're precious in my sight. Just be content to wait for me. And so many of us are going to leave here. We're going home.
Problems are not going to change just because you've been away for two days and a half. We're going to face the same situations when we came get back home that we left when we came here. But God hasn't changed either, and He is sufficient. And if we go back with those precious words in our hearts in returning.
And in rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. Let's say yes, don't say no.
2 Corinthians 2
Reading
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To think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also has made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.
But if the ministration of death, written and engraving in stones, was glorious, so the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?
For if the ministration of condemnation be glory.
Much more that the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech.
And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfast, They look to the end of that which is abolished, but their minds were blinded. For until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. But even under this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.
Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is not spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord.
Are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
I was just thinking, brother, and how the apostle Paul had thought to be faithful with the Corinthian Saints in connection with the first epistle, watched that grieved him, and he sought to exercise their consciences. But yeah, we can see in this epistle a deep love that he had for them and the desire for their blessing, and that no matter what they said or thought of him.
He in his heart their names were written, and he loved them.
And sought their good. And I believe it speaks to us all in these days. Very easy for us as we see the state of things in the world and even among the people of God, that we might become depressed and sad. But isn't it lovely to see the Spirit that rises completely above that, having the Saints upon his heart, just like the Lord Jesus bears our names upon his heart, and then seeking their good and occupying them with Christ.
And I just thought of this chapter in that connection. The 2nd epistle had to be written, didn't it? The first Epistle to the Corinthians was not complete. It speaks on the 14th chapter about edification, exhortation and comfort. Largely. The first official takes up the 1St 2:00.
Edification and exhortation.
And a great deal of this official is comfort. All we all need comfort. Correction had to come in. But when the correction is made, then it's time for real comfort. At the end of this official, we see that some were challenging his apostleship, even that this was the word of God that he was giving out.
And so the Paul, as we see in the 5th chapter, the love of Christ constrained him. He loved the.
He commands himself to them and he says that it's through him that they're that they're saved, His precious word, the word of God, that they're saved, and he brings that out to them. It's lovely to see that we begin again to commend ourselves. Didn't the word by which you were saved commend us? And that's enough, isn't it? Can I believe that's one of the reasons he begins this chapter that way, isn't it?
Going back to chapter one, let's do this word of comfort. That's chapter one of the second epistle we have in verse three. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
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Our encouragement.
And comfort that encouragement.
From God and who is the God of all comfort, but we see that in the blessed Savior and in his life and pathway here when the brother where is such difficulty even after.
They had shut themselves up the fear of the Jews after the death of the Lord Jesus. How he comes in, in their midst. He said, peace be unto you. That is, there is comfort for them as there is for those here at Corinth and in verse four who comforted us in all our tribulation.
Well, these are real trials we're passing through. We feel them.
They're very difficult, but there's one who comforts us so that we can be a comfort one to another notice.
That we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
No, God comes in and brings that encouragement, that comfort and is necessary in the family of God so that we can be truly a comfort or an encouragement to those that are passing through the trials that perhaps we may have passed through ourselves.
And the things in these trials are never the same. We think of a loved one being taken home. Well, it's never the same in that life of that person who has suffered that loss. But there is the comfort in that trial. And so it was with this assembly where correction was so necessary, there was comfort. And so it is as we passed through the trial.
That tribulation, that trial, works in our lives to cause us to be able to comfort one another.
Some of them might have felt that it wasn't necessary that this case should be taken off of this man in First Corinthians 5, but when they acted in faithfulness to them, the apostle could rejoice. Restoration was brought in the heart of the one who was disciplined, and now he's exhorting them in the second chapter that he might be restored. But there were some who felt this was apparently not necessary.
And might have questioned the apostle and his apostleship, as our brother remarked, but nothing both. None of those things change the heart of the apostle and his feelings toward them. Instead of showing resentment, as sometimes we do over different matters, we see that love that rises completely above the whole situation and seeks to instruct them and help them.
And tell them that they were written upon his heart.
He didn't need a letter of commendation to them because they knew him very well. He does, however, use the occasion to show that normally where a person is not known and comes to another place, it would be necessary to have a letter of commendation. This would show us what he mentions in the first epistle, the importance that the assembly should be clear from that which is evil and that evil.
Be judged, and if we're not careful as to who is received at the Lord's table, there might be an identification with evil. But they knew him. They knew his walk, They knew his testimony and above all his apostleship because he, through his preaching and through the writing of an inspired epistle, they knew about salvation. They knew about assembly order, one thing that they had not known.
Was that they themselves had to deal with it.
In the way as he instructs them in the 5th chapter, they were not admonished that.
They had not dealt with the matter, but they were rebuked that they had not been grieved and humbled by what had occurred in their midst. They had not been given the instructions that they received from Paul and that we have now, because he choose to write to them the epistle rather than go there himself to correct it. The Spirit of God leads him.
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To go to them by way of a letter and give them the instruction put out from among yourself that we could person. And I thought too that when he says in verse 17, for we are not as many which corrupt the word of God. Well, beloved, we have to be careful if evil occurs amongst the people of God.
We might be come guilty of corrupting the word of God by bringing in scriptures.
Which do not apply, which would belittle the evil that has occurred and try to prevent an action to be taken for the glory of God and for the good of the one who has fallen into the evil. That would be indeed like those. And Paul says there were many that corrupted the word of God. But that was not the case with Paul.
But when he had written, he was apparently in great exercise before God.
That the epistle, which had somewhat of a harsh tone to it because of the seriousness of the situation, that it would indeed have the result of leading them to be exercised before God to deal with the evil, and He would have much rather talked to them as He does in the second epistle. But how thankful is he that He has?
Accomplished by that first epistle what he desired to accomplish.
That they cleared themselves and cleared the name of the Lord of the evil that had occurred. Beloved, we so oftentimes think when evil occurs among the Saints, we're only thinking of the person that has fallen into the evil. That is one thing that the Saints in Corinth had to learn, that they were not only to consider the persons involved, but they had to consider the name of the Lord, that the name of the Lord had to be.
And the name of the assembly and how thankful Paul was that it had accomplished that. And even though there were those that used the occasion to attack Paul, who?
Was faithful in this circumstance. He is not occupied with that as much he's occupied with that which he had seen in them, which was a result of the Spirit of God and a result of the work of the Spirit of God in their lives.
You know, beloved, I'm afraid that many times we get so occupied even with.
Saints who in difficult circumstances do not always react properly for the glory of God, and that's predominantly before us. But Paul here, as it were, makes a real effort to call to their mind and to his own mind what had previously been the result and was still, although not so clearly, seen then.
Two of them there had been fruit of his labor in their life, and now that they had acted for the glory of God.
He wants to bring that to his own memory and to the memory of the Saints. One of the products that God desires coming out of the trials that we feel assemblies is largeness of heart. He is allowing these things in view of producing that largeness of heart. We find the apostle in the 6th chapter.
Saying in the 6th chapter of this epistle.
And the 11Th verse, oh ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. That's the affection of Paul for the Corinthians. And he wanted to draw that same largest of heart, I say Paul, but God wanted to draw that same largeness of heart out of those in the assembly.
And the epistles are written.
Not to the one who did the wrong, nor to the one who suffered the wrong, but to.
The assembly there. So God is allowing these things to come along partly to produce something, this largeness of heart. Let's turn to the 4th Psalm to pick that up a little bit there in the first verse, Psalm 4, Hear me when I call, oh God and my righteousness.
Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.
Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer. Now here is an apartment prayer for everyone of us in every assembly. And when hard and difficult things come along that are necessary for the glory of the Lord, who's in the midst, and we need to pay attention to that word and obey it. But the distress or the pressure.
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Of these things is large, and the purpose God is wanting to.
Enlarge our hearts, affection for everyone of our brethren and for the Lord Himself to have this our hearts move to get something written on our hearts, and that's the word of God where He is writing today.
I might say in connection with this third verse of our chapter, For as much as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ.
Ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. You see, God is after our hearts, and to notice the different places where God has written as we pass through Scripture is a great instruction for us. Thinking of four of them, and when we have the comparison of here.
The law which was written in stone, this hard substance that cannot be bent, but can be broken, that was the law. The very substance on which it was written gives us the character of the law.
Hard right solid and can't be bent, but can be broken. Well, God wrote there and he tested man under that.
For many years and Israel had.
Turned away from him.
And some of the Jews had been carried captive to Babylon.
We get the finger of God writing on the plaster of the wall, something that man had made. God made the rock, good solid rock. But there was the plaster, the fancy work of men, a little superficial work of man, And thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.
The character of the plaster is not durable. Neither is mankind. He's found wanting.
Then we find the blessed Lord in the 8th. I believe it is of John stooping down and writing on the dust of the ground. What he wrote there we've often wondered and don't know, but at least it is grace that comes out there and he takes that low position and writes there on the dust of the ground.
Whether it was that he wanted those words to be blown away the next wind, I don't know.
But it's the marvelous grace of the Lord Jesus to come down and work here with mankind who is formed out of the dust of the ground. Now he's writing. He's writing on your heart. He's writing on mine. And it's something that will endure. This is God's work. Oh, he wants to produce largess of heart in US. I've enjoyed the thought of enlargement in that sixth verse of our 6th chapter of our book here.
We often have the fourth verse referred to about the unequal yoke, and a warning about it, but the previous verses are the one you read in verse 11 about them in large part, and then in verse 13. Now for a recompense in the same I speak as unto my children, be ye also enlarged. Be not unequally yoked together.
With unbelievers.
It's nice context to see that in.
And it's not simply be not unequally yoked together, but it's be also enlarged. And he tells us how we can be enlarged. Don't get entangled with unbelievers. Don't be linked up with that which would narrow down our sphere of service and narrow down our testimony, but stay away from that which would narrow it be enlarged. So it is not a narrow thing to say. Oh, no, don't.
Marry an unbeliever. Don't go into business with an unbeliever. That would narrow us. It would narrow us down to the unbelievers ways but to be enlarged is to be free of those things that would narrow down the Christian to the.
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Ways of the unbeliever. The heart is enlarged for Christ. Why There's not much room left for the world because he's enough to feel and satisfy the heart and how would there be any room in the heart left for those who have no love for him. I was thinking here in this chapter how very difficult in connection with what our brother Brinkman was saying for us to mingle the two things loyalty to Christ and that enlargement of heart and I thought how.
It is to see in the in Joseph we see him speaking roughly to his brethren there. He had to bring them to repentance. He had to bring them to deal with that evil which they had allowed in their lives. But in the very middle of it, he goes off and weeps secretly and then comes back and seeks to show kindness to them. And finally.
As the scripture says, the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.
And I believe when it says the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance, we think of what it cost God to put away our sins, and then how could we go on in those very things that caused him all that suffering? We think of the Lord Jesus to Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane. They're sweating us at word, great drops of blood falling down to the ground, and yet thinking of His own and setting up their remembrance of Himself.
We find the reflection of it in the Apostle here.
He wrote that first epistle not just as a cold letter to them of things that were needed, but with many tears. He even went as far as to say that he had repented of writing it. Imagine repenting of writing an inspired epistle. It shows how that hello, God had led him to write that epistle. His affection for them was so deep that he found it very difficult to be faithful, and we ought to be difficult.
US, brother, to be faithful, but we ought to be faithful, we ought to stand for truth and holiness. And there's no real blessing for us as individuals apart from self judgment, nor is there blessing for the assembly apart from dealing with evil. So we find that the valley of Eighthore, the place where Akan was stoned for what he had done.
In stealing that gold and so on, we find that later on in the prophets that it was a valley of hope and a place for the flocks to lie down.
Isn't it lovely to see the mingling of those two things? And if it comes out in all its blessed fullness, it's a Calvary, our blessed Savior there in that agony. And yet love that was stronger than death led him to go through it. That blessing might come to us. I thought of this situation with Joseph just recently again.
We don't really find that they.
Actually apologized to Joseph for what they had done, did they?
And Joseph doesn't demand it. He is perfectly satisfied when he sees that they bring to remembrance what they had done to him. They didn't realize he understood them at that time. And when they manifest what they had not manifested before, and that was concern for their father, what would it cause to the cause of the father if this other son?
Thou wilt not come. They had been totally indifferent about that. And when he sees that there is a change of heart, he is satisfied with that. And we find too with.
David, you know, we find that many followed David Absalom, the rebel in their simplicity. Now when David comes back, he does not take up this matter with them and said, listen, you fellows follow the rebel.
You have to answer for that. No, He does not take up this matter and I believe, beloved, that is a lesson that we have to learn when it comes to things amongst the people of God and many times after a matter is settled for the glory of God.
We might show a different attitude. We might want to take up in detail every mistake and lack of judgment on the part of this one and that one. That is not what we find an example to be in the Word of God. And Paul here manifests the same Spirit, does he not? But he was faithful at the time.
To take up these matters faithfully. And now he knows what it takes to make peace.
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And not to further tear apart the Saints of God by exacting the last parting out of everybody. I believe this spirit of forgiveness that was manifested in the servants of old and here with Paul is a wonderful example for us, isn't it? I think that's very important in dealing with others, but in dealing with ourselves.
It should go deeper, shouldn't it? That is, if I have failed, it's necessary to go right back to the point of departure.
Abraham had to come back to the place where he had left the 10th and altered. Peter had to be brought back to the point. And that was self-confidence. Love us down me more than these. And so we should be very gracious in dealing with others. When we see the manifestation of repentance, we ought to be very thankful. But I believe for ourselves, brethren, that there's no real happy restoration in our own personal lives until we have got to the root of the thing.
Got to get down. And so in the ashes of the heifer there were all there was also the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop. And there is the judgment of self, I believe typified in those things. And then the death of Christ that meets our need and puts sin away. So I I believe for ourselves it's important to go right to the root of it. But let's be gracious and rejoice in the beginnings of the working of repentance I might mention.
Case how when that prodigal came back, the father's arms were around him before he had even made his confession, because the very fact that he he came back to his father was a clear sign that repentance was at work. Now the father made it easy for him to complete that work that God had begun. And in the arms of the Father, he says, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and I'm no more.
To be called thy son. There's another incident in the life of Joseph that might be worth looking at in connection with his weeping in the last chapter of Genesis. I believe there were five times that Joseph wept in the restoration of his brethren. And it was when the father died, and they sent a message to Joseph because they didn't trust him. And they said that the father had asked his forgiveness.
And a verse 17.
Right way through the verse it says, And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. Must have hurt Joseph, but he had been so kind to them, and had really forgiven them. But they didn't really trust him at that point. He wept. His brethren also went and fell down before his face. And they said, Behold, we be thy servants. They didn't want servants. He wanted them to be as as his brethren, which they were.
And Joseph said unto them, Fear not, for am I in the place of God?
And he explained what had happened, thinking of the end of verse 21.
And he comforted them and spake kindly unto them. And that's what we have in our book, don't we? The comfort, He comforted them even though they misunderstood him and felt perhaps he's going to be angry with us now and take advantage of the fact that the Father has died. But we, we maybe don't really fully appreciate what the Lord Jesus has done for us, but he wants to comfort us and he wants to encourage us. And if we have failed?
He certainly wants to welcome us back and comfort and encourage us.
If we might have a thought on the second chapter.
In connection with the area where the apostle speaks to them in reminding them that one might be swallowed up.
Over much sorrow.
Than in verse 8. Wherefore I beseech you that ye would.
Confirm your love toward him.
Is this a spirit that we could show to one who's showing repentance before 1 is really fully restored to the assembly or to the Lord? I believe we ought to recognize the beginnings of the work of God in the heart. And if there is the beginning of repentance and we don't recognize it, we're going to hinder this further work of God.
I'm quite sure it was necessary that the whole matter should be dealt with.
But.
Sometimes we're slow to recognize the beginnings of that work, and I think this is what the apostle was concerned about. Evidently from first Corinthians 5, there was neither sorrow in his heart nor sorrow in the assembly. That evil was there because our brother said they didn't have instruction how to deal with it, but they ought to have felt a dishonor to the Lord. And now if this man was sorrowing, it was an evidence that repentance had begun.
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I don't know.
That we can lay down a rule about how.
To show a recognition of the beginning. I think the Lord will give wisdom when the occasion arises where the heart is right. But I believe there has to be a full sense of it in the soul before the person is restored. But I do believe it is important to recognize the beginning of the word I. I could say this, that the the prodigal was not brought into the house.
Until he had the best robe on him. But his father showed that he recognized the repentance and the return by receiving him at the very beginning. Now the boy makes the confession afterwards, and he's clothed in the best for all. Then brought him to the table again. So with Jacob we find him wrestling, and that wrestling went on all night, and the sun rose upon him and.
Peniel, which means the face of God. But it wasn't until a little later that the Lord said arise and go to Bethel. And there were a few more things that needed to be straightened out in his household 1St and he had to put away the false gods and change their garments.
But I believe that repentance, whether it's in the center are the same, is often a gradual thing. Restoration is a process.
Forgiveness is an act, and we find with the leper when he.
Was white all over. He was permitted to come back into the camp.
For seven days before he could return to his tent to be restored to all the privileges that was his, as a Jew, as one that belonged to the people of God.
So we do see that he was partially restored so that he could be subjected to that which was necessary for his cleansing. So don't we learn from that? The same with the one that in Numbers 19 was defiled. You know, he needed the help of his brethren in order to be cleaned, and a clean man had to perform.
Of love or sprinkling the water under third and under 7th day. So we do see there was not this being outside the can. It was you might say the soul was under discipline yet.
There wasn't a possibility to minister in law to him on the part of others among the people of God. And with that man in Numbers 19, it didn't even have to be a priest.
That could be any clean person among the people of God do we have anywhere.
The what this man was put away at Corinth put out from among them. Do we have anywhere recorded as to what his words were?
What he said.
Dewey No, we don't.
How did they know of his repentance? I believe it's a state of soul. Isn't it a spirit as our brother Gordon has already said. I agree that this is could be recognized if we were more in the presence of the Lord about it and had the heart of love that desires restoration. Not just getting rid of the situation or putting away, but the restoration is really the.
And I believe that we find that.
This Speaking of the epistle being there the the Corinthians being an epistle says the apostle says written in our hearts again brings the thought of love before us, doesn't it? And I was thinking of a verse in John 13.
John's Gospel, chapter 13. We see the blessed Lord here.
Writing in that is recorded here.
00:35:02
John 13 verse 34 A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that she also that she also loved one another. Now notice verse 35 by this.
Shall all know that ye are my disciples or followers. If you have love one to another, we can't say that we.
We love their evil that we that we agree with what they have done. We don't say that, but we love the soul, we love the person. And I believe there's a keynote there that is to me in connection with the restoration of this man at Corinth. Is there also in this connection?
That the apostle is laying before those that had to deal with this brother.
In the first epistle, the responsibility of recognizing the.
Spiritual condition of the person.
Acting upon that, here was a one who was in the same assembly, and those in that assembly were responsible to recognize if there had been repentance.
Now we see in verse.
Ten, that the apostle didn't go before the assembly.
In forgiveness, that is, in showing that forgiveness.
Because he says to them to whom he forgave anything I forgive. So is it not so that even with the apostle and those in that assembly at Corinth forgive, then he himself would forgive?
And I believe there's something of a lesson for that with us, as well as thinking of forgiveness toward one who had been perhaps dealt with righteously at all. But in that restoration, there was the need of the realization that he had been restored and that there was forgiveness.
That's so true, and I think it's nice just to bring out a very simple fact.
That restoration is always first with the Lord, and it's manifested later in assembly and among faith. But I believe we have to remember that there has to be the work in the heart and restoration with the Lord himself that's private between the the soul and the Lord. And when that is worked, then the manifestation begins to show itself that it's there one way.
You want to be where the Lord is. You'll want to hear the word again.
Have a delight, even though there's a restriction yet. And of course then there's restoration publicly, but only after it's manifested clearly. And we're past that point, of course, in the second chapter here. That's why Paul had to write past the point. And he said this, this brother it, it's clear that he's in great sorrow and it's real.
Even Paul knew about it, everyone knew about it and he was concerned that his dear brother and he could refer to him that way in his heart now.
Because he's been restored in his soul with the Lord that he'd be overcome with with over much sorrow. And brethren, it's a sorrowful thing to be out of fellowship, not to be able to embrace a brother or give the hand of fellowship. It's the hard thing. And when ones restored in their soul, we should be alert for that manifestation. But if it hasn't happened, we should have never move ahead of that.
Because we can cause a lot of damage if we move ahead of that. Now the Lord reads the heart. We can't do that. So Peter was restored very early. The Lord reads the heart. He knows. But later publicly in chapter 21 of John. And it's a little example for us. There has to be a manifestation. And I believe we should be alert for it. And then we should together as an assembly because.
That's what he's speaking to an assembly restore that one publicly. So now he's back in blessed fellowship and it's beautiful to see the order, isn't it? Don't you think the sorrow to look for is not sorrow because out of fellowship, but sorrow because of the sin and the dishonor upon the Lord when those.
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Things are manifest. There is a sign.
Of this process of repentance and process of restoration. And then we ought to confirm and to help along this genuine sorrow to have the assembly cleared, not just the person, but the assembly cleared and the full victory fellowship at the Lord's table. Isn't it also with Peter?
A brother was referring to him already.
The Lord appeared unto Peter in Luke 24.
You know, and in First Corinthians 15, we have him mentioned as the first witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. But isn't that in itself a tremendous lesson to us that he goes to Peter first?
The one that had grieved him and had dishonored him. He doesn't go to John first. He goes to Peter 1St and there was that personal restoration with Peter. And then in John 21, the Lord takes up the public restoration. And notice He does not say, why did you deny me? Why did you lie?
The Lord deals with the cause of what has led to this dishonor.
And with the leper again in the Old Testament, that sounds like a paradox. When he was white all over, he was declared clean and was permitted back into the camp. Brethren have explained that this is it's all in the open, nothing concealed anymore. And David describes in Psalm 32 what happened when he covered up.
What the experience of his soul was.
But when He opened up before the Lord, then the Lord covered up. And how wonderful that is, never to bring it up again against us. And He will remember our sins and transgressions no more. He doesn't forget. That's human weakness. But He chooses to not remember. And beloved, we can ask the Lord for grace not to remember.
Especially when it comes to the sins of those that others have fallen into, when there is genuine repentance and forgiveness.
That we too ask the Lord for grace to forget or not to remember, I should say. And in the Proverbs we have a verse that speaks, and as a way of wanting to us, bringing a matter up again, separating very friends, we ought to watch not to fall into that trap.
What a wonderful thing it is when the Lord works in restoring grace, and what a joy it is to behold it.
You find that confession in Psalm 51. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies brought out by transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee the only have I sinned.
And done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judges. That was real hard work in David.
I believe it's good to remember that alone. God forgets. We should remember, and we find this with the apostle Paul. He was in the enjoyment of the fact that your sins and iniquities will I remember no more. But we find him on his own part, speaking different times, how he persecuted the Church of God, how he was the chief of sinners.
How he was less than the least of All Saints and so on. And it's been said that the greatest proof of restoration before God is humility before men. It's very lovely in these cases that have been mentioned, like here has just been read in the 51St Psalm to see this with David.
But we see a contrast with Saul. Saul said I have sinned, but his next expression was yet honor me now, I pray thee in the presence of the elders of my people. He felt that he had lost something before others by his failure, but he didn't seem to realize that his sin was against God. Then we find the case of David when he wanted to bring back Absalom just out of pure love for him as his son.
00:45:17
That he didn't wait until God had wrought in Absalom's heart. And it tells us that he brought him back and he came to Jerusalem and he was there a whole year and didn't see the King's face. And so I think it's very beautiful what has been brought out about recognizing true repentance individually and as the assembly and so on. But I think it's also important that there isn't a hurry beyond what God has brought.
And what has just been remarked about restoration before God coming 1St and then before others? For we see the sad result of it with the case of Saul, and the sad end that he came to, and Absalom too. But unless it's the work of God rather than it won't be abiding. But if it's a work of God, as you've just remarked, God forgets. But we remember. It humbles us.
And the apostle Paul mightily used of God.
Was never forgetful of what he had done in the past, and he wouldn't have the Ephesians forget that either. What they were and what Grace had done. The rock from whence were you in the pit? From whence were dead?
I think we find in the case of Peter that was already referred to.
A very helpful.
Scripture there that tells us what we can observe about the soul that is we trust restored again in the 20th 1St chapter of John. I'd like to read the seventh verse. We know the chapter and the disciples had under the leadership of Peter gone back to fishing.
And now the Lord was on the shore. And in verse seven it says therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved said unto Peter, it is the Lord. Well, that's a very natural thing that we would expect. Because John was walking so closely with the Lord, he recognized him immediately. But when Peter heard this, now look what happened. Now when Peter, Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he gird his Fisher's coat under him.
For he was naked and did cast himself into the sea. If Peter was not really at ease, and if he was not really restored, would he have wanted to go and get ahead of John and everybody else and cast himself into the water to get to the Lord first?
Father so soul had any doubt as to his restoration being accepted with the Lord, but Peter was just so anxious to get close to his master again. And once before, when Peter came from a God of fishes like that, he fell out Jesus feet and said, depart from me.
But not here he was comfortable. He's happy in the presence of the Lord and when we see that in a restored soul that it is really on the ground of being happy with the Lord wanting to get into his presence. I believe there is the best proof and and nice to remember that when the first manifestation of movement back.
And restoration is seen. We ought to react to it.
Ought to react to it. And I was thinking, you know, it's a wonderful thing, brethren.
Restoration, the wonderful thing, it brings in different kinds of tears than the tears when there has to be discipline and setting aside. Those are tears. But we've had some experience in the past in the assembly and I, we never went with such tears of joy as when there was real restoration to the assembly in the Assembly. But I was just mentioned a little portion in Ruth, the 1St chapter.
And I believe the very first signs should bring a joy in our heart. Now, it doesn't mean we can have full fellowship, but we ought to let them know. And so in verse 19 of Route 2 of Route One.
Of Naomi and Ruth. So they too went, until they came to Bethlehem, which is the House of bread. They're back again where Root, where Naomi had left ten years before.
The only place to be fed and it came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem.
That all the city was moved about them and they said not this Naomi in that lovely. And that's the way we should react. I believe we shouldn't look with astonished mother off. I believe with one comes back into the assembly and sits back in the assembly, which hard to do sometimes. There ought to be a look of love and kindness.
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Coming out right away, that's what happened here. They were all moved.
And it's a blessed thing, brethren, when the Lord works restoration of soul and heart in one of our brethren and turns them around and sends them back. Unless that's really what Paul saying here. You should have reacted to this.
Jeremiah is is referred to as the weeping prophet, and I've often referred to the Apostle Paul as the weeping apostle. He wept over the first epistle that he wrote. He wept because he thought that the firmness and the harshness with which he had written to them.
Might have alienated them. And when he got that word from Titus, he was not only encouraged by his coming, but.
By the message which Titus had brought him, that they had heeded that first epistle and enacted upon it, I'll never forget being in an assembly.
Some years past now, there were visitors there that morning, quite a number, and a brother got up at the end of the breaking of bread and asked that only those locally in fellowship remain behind, and the visitors went out into the lobby.
And it was an act where a young brother had to be put away from the Lords Table. I will never forget that meeting as long as I live. I don't believe there was a dry eye there. There were tears and weeping and when the Saints laughed and went out front and the others who were visitors.
Saw them. Not a word was spoken.
That was genuine grief and sorrow of heart and tears.
Well, the visitors remarked. What happened in there. We've never seen anything like this.
Brethren.
When we read some letters that are sent out.
Of discipline. I've read Salman. I don't feel in my soul that sorrow and that grief. Our brother's been talking about tears shed at one's restoration. How precious that is would to God we knew more of it. But what to God we knew more of tears shed when one is put away.
The Lord's glory.
The assembly and then the one that has.
Dishonored the Lord. You know the Assembly is not a court of law. We're not dealing with criminals.
And when it's carried out in that way, it's totally out of character with what we are in Christ members one of another children of God, of the same family.
Paul could say that he was among them as a nurse cherishes her own children.
Gentle.
He said I, I warned you of these things. I.
I speak firmly to you, not to shame you, but as my beloved sons, I warn you, he says. What a heart he had.
Oh, we're talking about a heart.
Think of it when you have to discipline your child and the family. You would be horrified if your other children all got together and talked about putting him out of the house. Who's going to do it first? That would horrify you as a parent, and that's it. Ought to do the same for us.
When one who has been amongst us and going on and then he falls and has to be dealt with.
How ought it to be done? With tears and grief? We've had it all before us, but I believe it's so important to stress the need. I think of old brother Jesus saying, though everything is done right, nothing is right if the motive isn't right and if the heart isn't right.
Know how true that is? They give us to see that the Assembly is not a court of law.
And we're not dealing with criminals. It's a family. It's a close knit company of beloved Saints. And if one has to be dealt with, it must be with tears. Otherwise God is going to have to deal with us about our state in the attitude and the Spirit on Christ like Spirit manifested in dealing with evil.
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Mr. Darby says.
How many there are who have gone out or been put out and have never returned because they've been dealt with in strict righteousness and they haven't even been sought, haven't even been yearned after, but if the Lord had treated us that way.
Well, we'd all be lost and we know it. It's often been pointed out that one of the characteristics of a sheep is that once he gets lost in Australia, you'll never find his way back.
So in Matthew 18 it says that the shepherd goes out after that lost sheep.
And finds it and brings it back. Where are the shepherds that do that, that go out after the straying 1? They're not going to find their way back on their own. That's not the characteristic of a sheep. They need to be sought and brought back. Well, that's the grace that seeks and restores He that is spiritual among you.
Let him restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering himself, lest he also be tempted.
One thing even a lost sheep knows the masters voice, the shepherd's voice, and we can use the word of God in that way, can't we? It says the Lord restore our soul in Psalm 23. And that that really means he brings us back with wondering. That's a lovely thought and that's what he wants us to do. And it's with the Word of God. It's the voice of God, it's the shepherd's voice that really will turn.
Bring them back. They'll, they'll, they'll react to that, won't they?
Being Like Christ When We See Him
Address—L. Judd
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Open this meeting by singing that hymn.
In hope we left our wishful longing eyes waiting to see the morning star arise. How bright, how gladsome will his advent be before the sun shines forth in majesty. One was wondering, dear brethren.
How much the coming of the Lord?
Has of a practical effect in our life. We're looking for the Lord to come, but does it affect our lives from day-to-day? Turn to the First Epistle of John, chapter 3. We'll read from the beginning. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.
Therefore, the world knows us not because it knew him not.
Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear 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. Well, our brother just mentioned that verse in the 32nd song. I will guide thee with mine eye. And how true it is, if we're to be guided by his eye, we must be gazing on his face.
Oh, we must be so near to him if we're to be guided by his eye. And this third verse, every man, that half this hope in him, purifies himself even as he is pure. What a practical effect it should have on our lives day by day, if we really.
Are looking for the Lord to come each moment.
Day come before evening or come before morning.
All beloved, I speak to my own heart. If we really talk, we were going to be face to face with our Lord and Savior. I'm sure it would change our actions, change our ways. Our words turn the First Thessalonians, First Thessalonians, chapter one and verse 9.
For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you.
And how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. They turned to God from idols for two purposes.
To serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven.
Right from the moment they were saved, from the moment they turned to the Lord, they were waiting for the Lord to come from heaven. And in the second chapter, First Thessalonians verse 19.
For what is our hope?
Or joy or crown of rejoicing.
Not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming, for ye are our glory and joy. Those dearest Thessalonians believers were the result of Paul's laborers there in Thessalonica.
And he was looking forward with joy to seeing them in the glory as the fruit of His labor there. It was connected with his service for the Lord to see them there in the glory. When the Lord comes there they are the fruit of His laborers in Thessalonica. All dear ones, is our service for Him in view of His coming again.
Then the third chapter.
Verse 12 And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love, one toward another and toward all men, even as we do toward you to the end He may establish your hearts.
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Unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His Saints. Well, this is speaking to us of His appearing when He comes with all His Saints, but nevertheless, does it not speak to us of our conduct day by day to the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness.
Well, this is the way God is going to have us.
There before himself, we turn to Ephesians chapter one for just a moment.
Verse four According as He has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, so God is holy and God is surely blameless in all that he does.
And he is going to have you and I there in that state, shall we say, reflecting his own character, holiness without blame. But should that not characterize us then as we go through this scene?
Peter would tell us we might just turn the first Peter chapter one.
Verse 14. As obedient children, or children of obedience, not passing yourselves according to your former lust in your ignorance, but as he which has called you is holy, so be holy in all manner of conversations.
Because it is written be ye holy for I am holy. Well blog. I believe this passage in a third of the First Thessalonians would bring before us our our conduct as we go through this scene.
And it might be such as would be honoring to the Lord that we might have in view before us that moment when we will see Him face to face. Are we going to see Him with joy? Or is there that which we wish had been changed all there be no sorrow there. But, beloved, I'm sure we want to see His face with joy. And we might go on then to the fifth chapter.
Verse 23.
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.
And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body, breathe, preserve blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, could we connect it with?
First Corinthians chapter 6, verse 19.
I'm going to read it for Mr. Darby's translation.
Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own, For ye have been bought with a price, Glorify now than God in your body.
Oh dear ones, we're not our own. We've been mocked with a price.
It costs the Lord Jesus Christ everything.
We have cost him everything We think about Parable in the 13th of Matthew, the merchant minds seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one Pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
He sold all that he had.
And then in Ephesians 5, Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. All the love, how little we enter into the value that He has put upon us.
And what we have cost him?
We are not our own, we are bought with a price. Then, as our whole spirit, soul and body, our whole being, belong to Him.
Is it used in his service or how much of our time? Whatever we may have.
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Is used for self. All the love that we might enter more and more into the truth that his coming is very, very near. Soon we're going to see him face to face, and every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure.
Happy Is He Who Is Forgiven
Address—W.J. Prost
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And tonight, I'm going to turn to the 32nd Psalm.
And we'll find there, I believe, that which would speak to each one of our hearts. Psalm 32.
Psalm 32 and verse one.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven.
Whose sin is covered?
We won't read the whole song. We'll go through it, perhaps verse by verse. Here we find the first verse says blessed or happy is the man or is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered? And you know, friends, tonight, this brings us face to face with the first great fact of the gospel that we must present to you tonight, and that is that you and I and every other.
In this room tonight is a Sinner before God. Have you ever thought of that? That you have a responsibility toward God? And God in looking down tells us by divine revelation here that we are sinners.
We could turn to other scriptures which would support that. We could turn to Romans 3 and 22 which says, for there is no difference, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We could turn to other scriptures which tell us that there is none righteous, no, not one. And yet here we have this blessed verse which says.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven.
Whose sin is covered? I would like to ask you tonight, in the presence of God, just going around this room and speaking to each one, can you put yourself in this verse? Can you say yes, thank God, my sins are under the shelter of the precious blood of Christ? If you can't, then I have to tell you on the authority of God's Word, that you're lost.
Lost. Oh, you say. I'm not lost. I know exactly where I am.
I know exactly where I'm going. People speak today of having control of their life. May I say that's nonsense. You don't have control of your life unless you know Christ. You're being born along by forces which you know very little about. And we'll see a little about them later on in the chapter here.
But oh how blessed to know that one's transgressions are forgiven and ones sins are covered.
Now you know the word of God doesn't repeat itself, and it speaks here of transgression and sin.
Transgression is the breaking of a known command, a known law. And I doubt if there's anyone here in this room tonight who would be prepared to stand up and say I have never done that which I knew to be wrong. Even the smallest child here, you can understand that.
You can understand when mom or dad says no, and yet perhaps you did it anyway.
Transgression breaking the known command.
But you know, the eye of God goes further than that because the eye of God goes deeper and shows us what is in our hearts. And it uses a word called iniquity or lawlessness, which simply means the act of an independent will. An old beloved friend, tonight you may sit in your seat and say, I have never done any harm to anyone. I'm a good citizen of the community. I pay my debts. I keep the law.
I try to do the best I can in this life.
I provide for my family, I try to help out wherever I can in the community, and we wouldn't belittle that in the least as far as it goes. But Oh my friend, deep down inside, God can look down in your heart as He did once into mind, and see an independent will, a will that was set up against God, that wanted its own way.
That was at enmity with God, as the word of God says.
And I ask you tonight, if you're not saved, is that not true of you? Is that not true?
People speak today of doing their own thing. Man speaks today of looking after #1 but Oh my friend, whether you're doing that or whether you're doing something else, if you're not saved, you're exercising your own will before God, and God's Word calls that sin.
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But oh, how blessed to think that there is a way that that sin can be covered. And I venture to say that if you're not saved, there have been occasions in your life when you have realised that things are not what they should be. We read about a man like that in the Word of God. We read about Nicodemus in the third chapter of John, who was just such a man as I have been describing a few moments ago.
A man who was upward, who was outwardly upright. A man who was an exemplary man, no doubt, as far as his fellow man was concerned. A man who did everything that he was supposed to do. But he knew deep down inside that something was wrong.
Well over 10 years ago when I was buying some furniture for my office, I had occasion to speak to the man who was selling it and in the course of our conversation I told him that I was a Christian and that I knew the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. To my great surprise, he started to cry. Grown man there in his office started to cry, just the two of us.
Oh, he said. I've done some awful things in my life.
And he confessed to me some things that he'd done which had ruined his marriage caused a great deal of difficulty in his home.
He says, you know, I'm going to have to get all this sorted out pretty soon, and I think I'm going to go into the ministry. Go into the ministry. Oh, I said, Sir, that might sound all very good on the surface, but will it save your soul? Why not come to Christ and bring the whole thing to him? Why not come to Christ? I said, There's no use glossing over the outside when the inside is bad. And that's what we try to do today, isn't it?
Isn't that what we try to do today? Oh beloved friend, tonight, if you're trying to fix up the outside, you have to realize that the inside is bad. Those transgressions need to be forgiven.
Those sins need to be covered through the precious blood of Christ. Notice the second verse.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
Oh, this is a very searching verse. It doesn't say Blessed is the man to whom his fellow man imputeth not iniquity.
I know things about myself.
But probably no one else knows.
But there is one whose eye can look down into my heart.
As he does into yours. And we read a verse like this in Hebrews. All things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Let me repeat that all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Some of us go over to the city of Toronto to the detention home week by week.
And we meet there with some young people, very sad cases who, having been charged with very serious crimes, are being held there in custody until their case comes up in court.
It's easy to talk to them, you know, because we don't have to tell them that they're sinners. They know it.
And sometimes we put it to them this way.
You're going to go before a judge next week, Yes.
And what's going to happen? Well, he's going to listen to our side of the story, and then he's going to listen to the other side, and then he'll decide whether I'm guilty or not, and he'll come to a judgment.
So we've put it to them like this.
Suppose that you knew that the judge had seen you do whatever you did with his own eyes. What then?
All they say then there's no point in trying to present a case because we've had it. They use pretty straight language. There's no point in saying anything because you're going to get it anyway to use their language. Oh, my friend, tonight we have to do with one.
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Who looks deep down into your heart and mine?
Knows every act that I have ever done, everything that these lips have ever said, and more than this, every thought that I have ever had.
Blessed is he, blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.
Oh my friend, it's a wonderful thing to have your sins washed away and be clear before a holy God. It's not good enough to be clean before your fellow man. How blessed to know that what the eye of God reveals in your heart and mind, the blood of Christ can cover. Oh, you say, how can you talk so freely about the blood of Christ? Why can God put such value on the precious blood of Christ?
Oh, beloved friend, because.
There is a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came down into this world in love to you and to me. A Savior who came down and went to Calvary Cross and there stretched out his hands and was nailed to a cross and there suffered for his own sins. No, for mine.
For my sins died there because he was guilty.
No died for you, beloved friends, in order that you might be saved.
Will you accept that blessed Saviour tonight? Will you come to that blessed one and accept him as your Savior? That's why we have this meeting, you know. That's why we take the trouble to have a gospel meeting like this, because we want you to know the joy in your soul that comes from knowing the Lord Jesus Christ is your Savior.
Notice the last half of verse two, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
You know, that word has particular effect on me today because we see all around us today guile being practiced. What is guile? Oh, I think in simple terms, it's trying to give an impression of being what we are not. Isn't that right? Trying to give an impression of being something that we're not, and how many there are today who are trying to do that?
I had occasion to speak to a poor elderly woman in my office a few weeks ago.
I'll tell this story for the sake of the children, because you'll understand it, and so will we older ones. And this woman, she's not very well. Not well at all. In fact, if it weren't for a very devoted husband, she'd have to be in a nursing home.
And I feel sorry for that woman. She has a lot of things wrong with her and in the natural course of events, she's not going to be here very long. And one time I ventured to speak to her about the importance of being saved and how wonderful it was to know our sins washed away through the blood of Christ. And to my great surprise, she said to me, I don't think I've ever committed a sin in my whole life.
Oh, I said can it be possible?
I said, can it be possible that you never in your life ever remember telling a lie?
Oh, the poor soul, she gave herself away.
She said, oh, she said we didn't tell lies at home because whenever we did, we got our mouth washed out with soap.
Oh, I said to her, you've you've condemned yourself. I said, why was it even necessary for your mother to do that if you never told a lie? Oh, my friend Guile, and you know, we have to be honest in the sight of God. There is a God who knows all about you and yet, beloved friend, he comes in love to you tonight. You know, there are some people that we get to know and the more we know them.
Maybe I'm one of them, but the more we know them.
Perhaps the more things we find out about them and the less we like them, we may get a good impression at the start, but then we find some things out that make us a little less enthusiastic about their friendship. But you know there is a God in heaven who looks down and knows all about you, as we already quoted naked and opened to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
God's Word uses that word naked and open strong word, as we heard last night.
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But a word that the Word of God uses, an old beloved friend. There is one who knows everything about you, and yet his heart reaches out in love to you tonight. To me, that's the most wonderful thing of the gospel, that God could look down in love on a poor guilty Sinner like me and send his Son to die for me because he loved me even though he knew everything about me.
It's no use to pretend with God.
No use to use guile, Oh beloved friend, tonight, if you're exercised about being saved, if you want to come to Christ, may I urge you to come and just come as you are. Don't try and hide anything. Don't try and spruce things up the way that man was who was going to go to a seminary and study to be a minister. As if somehow by doing that he would make himself a little more presentable before God.
Oh no, beloved friends, tonight.
What we need is the precious blood of Christ.
Notice verse three when I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
Keeping silence. That means trying to hide something, to keep it inside, to try and hide from God.
You know, that's an old story. It's been done for centuries, right from Adam on down in the Garden of Eden, who would hide amongst the trees of the garden in order that he might not have to face God. And ever since that time, man has been keeping silence. But all, beloved friend, what does it produce? Oh, it says here my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
That simply means that if the Spirit of God is exercising your soul as to your need of a Savior.
Oh, don't. Don't try and resist it. Recognize that there is a God who knows all about you and who wants to save your precious soul. Come to Him and admit that you're a Sinner. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to do that?
Have you gotten to the point that you're willing to come to Christ? If God is working with you, don't resist it.
Verse Four. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me.
My moisture is turned into the drought of summer.
Selah. That last word simply means I believe. Pause and think about that for a moment.
It reminds me of a story of a man who was lying in a hospital bed after having been in a serious automobile accident.
And while he was lying there, a Christian friend of his who knew him well.
Came to visit him.
The man had been very badly hurt, Car had flipped over and he was very, very seriously injured, not to the point of death, but to the point of needing to be in hospital for several months.
And in the course of that conversation, he said something like this.
This is the, I think, he said, the 7th automobile accident that I have had in the last five years.
Serious accidents, he said, I think the Lord is speaking to me and he was saved through that. He recognized that the hand of God was heavy upon him and all. Beloved friend, sometimes the hand of God, in order to make you realize your need of a Savior, may have to bring circumstances into your life.
Which may be most unpleasant? Are you finding that your moisture is turned into the drought of summer? Are you finding the hand of God heavy upon you all recognise that perhaps He's doing it in order to draw you to Himself. Oh, what a blessed thing it is when God works in a soul, even to the point of bringing difficulties and problems into their lives.
In order to draw them to himself.
Finally, verse 5, Here we find what we wish you would do tonight and I might mention at this point.
Don't think for one moment that I'm standing here talking down to you or anyone else in this room. I stand here as a trophy of the grace of God. I'm more than happy to admit that I'm nothing more than a Sinner saved by grace. And it's only the grace of God that saved my poor sinful heart. And I know too much about my own heart.
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Ever to talk down to someone else. No beloved friend.
But we have come to know the blessedness of him whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. And how do we get saved just by doing what we have? In this fifth verse do you say, I don't know how to be saved? Oh, here it is in plain language. Verse 5I acknowledged my sin unto thee.
And mine iniquity have I not hid, I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord.
Isn't that blessing?
You know, to me, I think the greatest hindrance of souls being saved.
Is just what we have here.
Because we are too proud to admit that we're absolutely helpless before God.
And in these favoured lands.
Where the gospel has been preached for so many years, we've become hardened to it.
I've had the privilege of visiting some foreign lands.
And I've talked with others who have visited other lands.
You'll pardon me if I say I have gone to villages in India.
And others here will bear me out.
Where I literally had to hold a handful of Sunday school papers over my head to prevent children from tearing them out of my hands. They were so anxious to have them.
Handed out gospel tracts where there just weren't enough to go round.
And yet, beloved friends, here we are in the United States of America.
Where I suppose there has been a greater gospel testimony almost than any other nation on earth, and yet we find souls that turn their back on the wondrous grace of God, and refuse to acknowledge their sin unto him.
Reminds me of our brother Eric Smith, who told us a few years ago how that he was handing out tracks in a large American city.
And how he offered a track to some college students. No, they said, we don't want that. Take that junk away.
Well, in his quiet way, he said. Boys, I'm surprised. I'm surprised to see you turn your back on the very thing that has made America great.
No doubt they detected a slightly different accent.
And they said, are you an American? And he quite truthfully answered, no, I am a Bolivian. Oh, let's see that tract. And they took it.
Whether there was blessing from it, we leave it with the Lord. But Oh my friend, tonight I dwell a little on this verse, because I tell you again, it is the reason why so many souls are not saved. We do not come to Christ and admit, as it says here, my sin and mine iniquity. Bring your stubborn will, if I may say that to the feet of the Lord Jesus tonight. Bring all your sin that you have committed.
And accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior tonight. Notice the end of the verse. Thou forgives the iniquity of my sin. Is there such a thing as the Lord Jesus Christ ever refusing one? No, him that cometh to me. It says in John 6 and 37. I will in no wise cast out. In no wise cast out.
Tonight, beloved friend, as the Word of God says, we pray you in Christ dead be reconciled to God.
Verse 6.
For this shall everyone that is godly.
Pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found.
That expression, everyone that is godly, I believe, simply means that we justify God when He tells us what we are in His sight. You know, it tells us in Acts chapter 17 that God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. And repentance simply means that you believe what this precious book says about your true condition in the sight of God.
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And that you recognize that when he says that you and I.
We're lost, guilty sinners in the sight of God that this witness is true. And old beloved friend, tonight maybe there's a boy or a girl here under the sound of my voice that isn't saved. Maybe there's an older 10. How wonderful to know the grace of God and to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Will you come tonight? Will you come and accept that blessed 1 as your Savior?
It reminds me of another story that I've told before, but I think it would be worth telling again. This was about a man who was not what we would call a young man. He was middle-aged.
And he had a wife who was a dear Christian.
And he owned a large ranch in New Zealand, and a preacher of the gospel came to that home to try and point him to Christ.
And he wouldn't have them. He said, get him out of here. I don't want to hear anything about that. Don't want that preacher coming here at all. He drove a carriage, you know, in those days, this was years ago with gospel verses on the side. And he ridiculed and he said, what nonsense to put gospel verses on the side of a carriage like that. And he wouldn't have him around the place.
Time went on. The gospel preacher came back again.
It's time. The man had softened little, he said. Well, all right, give him a room to sleep in. We'll feed him, but keep him out of my way, whatever you do.
But you know.
That man didn't wreck it on the prayers of a beloved wife and children who were saved, and they prayed earnestly that their father might come to know the Lord Jesus Christ.
As Savior.
And you know.
One day.
They were sitting in the living room, the family was, and they ventured to invite the preacher to come in and sit for the evening and chat. And of course, the father of the home could hardly refuse.
That kind of hospitality.
And.
While sitting there, the family was a musical 1. The preacher noticed a violin sitting over in the corner. Oh, he said.
Do you play the violin? He said to the father.
And a conversation ensued, a little bit about music. Finally, the father said to him, Do you play anything? No, the preacher said. But if your daughter will kindly accompany me on the piano, I'll sing a hymn for you.
And the family held their breath.
The father said. All right, all right.
And so that preacher stood up.
And he chose that hymn. The glory shines before me, I cannot linger here. And so on.
And you know, as they sat singing that hymn.
Started to rundown the face of that father.
As he realized that there was number, glory shining before him, no glory shining before him, they came to the last verse.
The glory shines before me, I know that all is well, and so on.
And that Father, right then and there, he bowed himself at the feet of the Lord Jesus and accepted him as Savior. Oh, my friend, tonight will you come to the Lord Jesus Christ, as it says here, in a day when he may be found? I can't promise you that this hour will even be completed. I can't promise you another chance. I can't promise you that there will be another gospel meeting here tomorrow.
It's scheduled on our schedule here, but it may not take place.
Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto thee. Oh my friend, our time is drawing to a close, but I have to speak to you in faithfulness to God and in faithfulness to your soul, that there is judgment ahead.
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Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh thee and the word of God. Water always speaks when it's used in this way of judgment. Floods of great waters speaks of judgment. Some hear know more about floods than I do. I've never been involved in one, but I have spoken to those who have been involved in floods. The frightening consequences of a river rising to the point where it causes.
To homes, but how wonderful it is to be in those circumstances on higher ground. And beloved friend, tonight, there is judgment coming on this world, perhaps very soon.
It tells us in Proverbs 27 And one, boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth, But oh, there is a shelter from the coming storm. Oh, if you're under the shelter of the blood of Christ, you have nothing to fear from coming judgment.
But all beloved friend tonight.
What if you should be taken from this world suddenly?
What a few should be taken?
He'll pardon a personal reference.
But earlier this week I had the responsibility of a funeral.
A dear woman whom I know knew Christ as her Savior for many years.
But as I stood there and looked at the one in that casket.
And as we saw those sitting in the room there who attended that funeral, I couldn't help but remind them of the shortness of time. Because a few short days before that funeral, I don't think that anyone expected that that dear sister would be an eternity. But she was gone from this world. Gone where?
Oh, as the word of God says to be with Christ.
Which is far better? Could we say that if you were to leave this world suddenly, or would it rather be to leave this world and to go into judgment? God's word tells us in Hebrews 9 and 27, it is appointed unto men once to die, and we all would agree with that, But after this the judgment. Oh beloved friend, what a solemn thing to think about that, if your transgressions and sins are not.
Shelter of the blood of Christ.
That you must bear the judgment for your own sins.
And you will permit me to speak very solemnly in that awful place called hell.
The Word of God uses that word. Man uses it too. But you know, I believe it's right to say that in every case but twice in the Word of God where that word is used.
That translated properly, it falls from the lips of the same blessed Savior that we're pointing you to tonight. Oh, why did He speak so much about it, Oh beloved friends, because He and He alone knew what it would be like to go into a lost eternity.
A lost eternity.
How solemn, how solemn.
Reminds me of a story that is told a true story of a man who was an atheist.
And he got into conversation with another man who was a Christian, who had never met him before.
And the one who was a believer said to him, I know the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior. Do you all? The other man said, I've been an atheist all my life. He said my father was an atheist, my grandfather was an atheist, and that's what I grew up with. But you know, I'm having second thoughts.
All the Christians said what happened.
And he told this awful story, which I would not tell if it were not true.
He told the story of how just a few weeks before, his father had died.
And he said I had the awful experience of standing there at his deathbed.
And as we stood beside that bed, he gradually lost consciousness so that we just were waiting for him to breathe his last and we expected it at any moment. We spoke to him but couldn't get any response and never expected him to say any more.
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But he said, you know.
I felt it very keenly because.
All of a sudden, my father sat up. We didn't think he had the strength to do it, but he sat up.
And he said these awful words in a clear voice. There is a God. There is a hell.
And I'm going to it.
And he fell back dead. O beloved friend, I don't tell you that story.
Just to dramatize the gospel meeting. These things are real. These things are not fiction.
What we are telling you tonight is not that which we merely put on and then walk out that door and forget about. Old beloved friend, these things are real, and someday, as the Word of God says, every one of us must give a count of himself to God.
And one day you are going to stand before the very God who made you, the very one who sent his Son down into this world.
You're going to stand before that Blessed One who hung on Calvary's cross.
And if you have not accepted Him as your savior, then He in that day will be your judge.
How will you have that blessed one? Will you have them tonight as your Savior or will you have them?
As your judge in a coming day.
Notice verse 7. Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.
I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye.
I refer to these verses simply to show you, my friend, that God isn't going to save your soul.
And then leave you to drift in this world as best you can, and then see him in heaven at the end.
No, I don't know of a happier thing than to walk through this world as a Christian, and I defy you tonight ever to find a Christian who regretted accepting Christ as his Savior. I had an elderly man in my office. He comes in from time to time, and he pointed to a gospel verse on the wall.
But I have often enjoyed believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, He said. That's a good verse. I said yes, that's what I'm resting on for eternity. He said so am I, so am I.
Recently, that man buried his daughter who died of cancer. But, you know, they told me I wasn't at the funeral, but they told me that it was a triumphant funeral because they were able to say she was absent from the body and present with the Lord. And so the Lord is able to give you strength and help to walk the pathway down here. You know, sometimes people say if I accept Christ as my Savior, I could never live as a Christian. I could never walk as a Christian. I could never do.
That, oh beloved friends, God has never asked you or me either to do it in our own strength. And I wouldn't be standing here before you tonight if I didn't continually ask God for help and strength to walk the Christian pathway. And so every Christian here tonight would tell you the same thing, that it was the grace of God that saved them, It was the blood of Christ that put away their sins, and it's only the grace of God that keeps them going on through this world.
Notice verse.
Verse 9 Be not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bitten bridal, lest they come near unto thee. Oh, how many dear souls I see going through this world with a bit and a bridle. People victims of circumstances over which they have no control, and don't know how to change them. Oh, beloved friend, how blessed it is to go through this world.
Knowing, as we said at the beginning of the chapter, that your transgressions are forgiven.
That your sin is covered, but more than that, that there is one who is going to see you all the way home.
Verse 10. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked.
But he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Now it doesn't say that the Christian will never have any trouble. It doesn't say that the Christian won't have any sorrows, but it says mercy shall compass him about. Oh, beloved friend, tonight we preach under you a Savior who not only saves, but who keeps.
00:40:07
Verse 11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart. Oh my friend, I trust, and I say it humbly, I trust on the faces of those of us who are the Lords, you see something of the joy and the peace of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. How many times?
Does the Christian burst into song as it says here?
I sometimes have a bad habit of doing it. I do it perhaps when I shouldn't and people look around and wonder what I'm doing. But all beloved friend, it's real. It's real. Reminds me of the little boy who was just saved and he couldn't help but sing. His father told him to be quiet two or three times, but he kept starting up again.
Father finally said. I told you that I didn't want you making all that row and singing.
Well, the little boy didn't mean to be disobedient, but he said, Daddy, I don't want to be disobedient. I stopped. But then it just keeps coming out. And you know that Father realized that down inside he had no song. He had no joy in his heart because he didn't know the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior. And you know, sometimes a child can be used to bring an older one to Christ. And if you're going to come to Christ tonight, it must be with the simplicity.
Of a little child that comes simply believing what God has said and accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Well, our time is up.
I trust that the gospel has been plain tonight. Again, I'd like to say what was said last night. If you don't understand, if you say I still don't get it straight, I still don't know what you mean.
Oh, there are plenty here who would only to gladly sit down with you and open this precious book and show you, if we can, more clearly the way of salvation. But whatever you do.
Don't walk out that door and allow the devil and there is a devil, there is a Satan. Don't allow the devil so to occupy your mind for things of this life.
That the Word goes right out and you forget all about it. He'd love to do that, you know. And how many times souls come to a gospel meeting like this and perhaps hear the Spirit of God working with working in their hearts. Perhaps hear the voice of God speaking to them. Perhaps realize that they need a Savior and that they should be saved. And yet.
And yet.
Later, later, later, until there comes a point.
When it's too late, O beloved friend, we're going to sing just one verse of a hymn now, and it's addressed to you.
Rejoicing in God's Forgiveness
Address—H. Brinkman
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.
We have no doubt enjoyed many thoughts on the restoring grace.
Of God in the life of his people. And I thought we might benefit by reading Psalm 32A. Brother already read one of the verses to us.
During this conference and what we have to remember when we read this Psalm.
That David.
Is the one that has written that song.
And that he is really expressing in this Psalm experiences through which he passed in his soul. You know he had.
Very seriously dishonored God, and made the enemies of God to blasphemy by what he had done.
And here in this Psalm now.
He is rejoicing in the forgiveness that he had received. We sometimes use this Psalm in the gospel, and I don't find any fault for anybody to do that, but I do believe we find especially instructions for us as believers.
After we fall into sin, and that there are certain experiences through which we have to pass in order that the work of restoration be complete in our souls, so we read this Psalm. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed all through the roaring to my roaring, all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer, Sila.
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hidden.
I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. Sila. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found.
Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto Him.
Thou art my hiding place, Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance, Sila.
I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. Be not as the horse or as the mule, which has no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that trusted in the Lord mercy shall compass him about.
Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice he righteous, and shout for joy.
All ye that are upright in heart.
And has been remarked, and it is worth repeating.
That these were not David's David's experiences.
Immediately after the Prophet came to him and told him, Thou art the man when he was under the conviction of sin.
We have to read Psalm 51.
In order to get the experiences that were necessary for David to pass through when he came to realize the awfulness of what he had done.
How he had dishonored the name of God. And when he says against thee, against thee only have I sinned. When he comes to see not only what he has done, he comes to see his utter wretchedness.
Is sinfulness before God necessary experiences for any soul to pass through, when they have fallen into sin, of such a nature as we find in the life of David? And let me say, beloved, that we might be inclined to think.
That immorality.
And this kind of a thing is the worst kind of evil that one can fall into, and one does not want in any way to belittle immorality. But when you look into the epistle of First Corinthians, you will find that they're taking up according to the order and that which was especially of importance to the Spirit of God and to Paul.
00:05:27
And those who divide the people of God.
'Cause divisions among God's people.
Seems to be in the side of God, a far more serious thing than immorality. And like I say, I do not in any way want to belittle immorality. It is important, beloved, in in whatever sin we happen to fall, that we come to face that sin.
And look at it from God's point of view to get his view of the thing.
And these unnecessary experiences?
And we have to be careful in our love for souls that we do not try to cut short those exercises, that they might be indeed a complete period, you might say, or that that exercise, that side of the exercise through which a soul has to pass, be complete.
We find in Numbers 19 that the water had to be applied under third and under seven day, and I believe the water applied on the third day is exactly that kind of an experience that the soul comes to realize the awfulness of the sin committed.
And then on the 7th day, the soul can rejoice, seeing that it is all under the blood, that the Lord Jesus died for it, and that the soul can rejoice in the forgiveness. David is rejoicing in it here, but while he is rejoicing in it.
He tells us, on the one hand what is necessary to get to that point and what hindered him to get to it. You know, there has to be a soul in which there is no guile. You know, this is so important when it comes to evil that concerns me that I don't try to cover up or belittle.
Or find fault with those who take up the question.
And guile is a question of deceit or misrepresentation.
Oh beloved, this is not going to help a soul to be restored. We have to realize that God knows us through and through. He knows all about it. We certainly cannot fool Him about what we have done, and we might fool our brethren.
As young people, we might fool our parents, but we can never fool God. We have to come to realize, beloved, that we have to be open and honest about what we have fallen into before God. This is one of the greatest hindrances to come to that point. To rejoice again in the salvation for which He prayed. Restore unto me the joy of salvation.
For to have that kind of a state of soul.
Before God, no guile.
And now in verse three and verse four, he tells us what he went through when he was trying to cover up his sin. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer.
Sila.
Well, that is what happened all during that time when he was trying to cover up. And you know he went to such an extent that he committed murder to try to cover up that sin. One sin leads to another as long as the soul is not honest before God and seeking to cover up to conceal.
And what is the soul like? Or what does the soul go through? He says.
My bones waxed all through my roaring, all the day, night along for day and night. Thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer, You know there is no refreshment, no communion or fellowship, no joy, misery, misery. But the Lord doesn't want us.
00:10:12
To go on in this, he puts his hand upon us to make us feel a misery that hopefully we will come just like David, to the point.
I acknowledged my sin.
He opened up. I acknowledged my sin unto thee.
And my iniquity have I not hid? I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. And thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. Selah. Isn't it wonderful to see when we open up, when we are honest?
Before him and acknowledge our sin, then he covers up.
He forgives, and as we have reminded ourselves.
He will remember our sins no more. He removes them from us. As far as the East is from the West. He doesn't forget. That's human weakness, but he chooses not to remember.
He will not remember them. He is forgiven. But we have in the New Testament more than just the forgiveness of sins.
In the New Testament we have justification.
That God, and only God can justify the ungodly. What a wonderful truth that is. And it does not just mean that we stand before Him as if we had never sinned. We stand before Him as new creatures in Christ. They could have never sinned and that never sinned once we come to Him and are forgiven.
We stand that way before God.
Here we have much more in the New Testament than mere forgiveness. Yet how wonderful it is to be forgiven and to rejoice in the perfect forgiveness of God. We have justification cleared of all guilt. You know, someone has said it is not just as if I had never sinned. He says that puts me in a position where Adam was before he fell. That's not what God has for me.
He makes you and me.
To be such before him who never sinned, who could not sin, because we stand before Him in Christ as new creatures.
Well, in verse six and verse 7.
We have.
A prayer.
And how to pray?
This shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found surely in the floods of great waters, they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.
You know, I believe we can look at these two verses in two ways.
The one is that the same temptation?
That became my fault.
Might come to me again.
But realizing that I need the Lords help and I turn to him in prayer. He helps me. When that same temptation comes, it won't overcome me.
But I believe we can also see in this.
That, you know, in the government of God, He might allow us to pass through difficulties and through things which really are the result of that sin which he had forgiven or has forgiven. We see that with David and.
We find David fleeing.
From epsilon.
And Shimmy Eye comes and curses him, throws his sin into his face, you might say.
But the Lord proves himself to David. A hiding place, you know the Lord is with David.
When he passes through the results of his sin, but in the government of God, he brings difficult circumstances upon David. He is at David's side and helps him. Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it nice to see that the Lord Jesus?
00:15:05
Is a hiding place to us, you know one or the other might have.
Dishonored the Lord in a way that he had to be removed from the assembly, put outside, and then the Lord comes in, in his grace and restores that soul. And a carnal Christian, or even a person in the world at one time or another might throw it into your face. Remember what you did.
But at that time the Lord Jesus proves himself to be a friend that is at our side, that helps us bear and look. David really manifests that he is in the enjoyment of forgiveness. This behaviour of Shimia does not upset him because the Lord is at his side. He helps him bear it.
But now we have.
The Lord speaking to David.
That isn't David speaking anymore. And the Lord says, I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye.
Be not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest thou come near unto him.
You know, in order to be guided by the eye of the Savior, we have to be near to Him. We have to be able to look into His eyes. So for us.
It is like the Lord Jesus telling us, look.
I'm going to teach you.
In the way in which thou shalt go, And I'll direct you with my eye. You know, when we were children.
Or when we had children little in the home and they behaved out of place. Or when we behaved out of place when we were little children, all we had to do is look at our father or at our mother, and we knew immediately whether we were out of place, because by the look.
In their eyes.
But all we would like to see that look of approval to Vinod, we like to walk for the Lord in the way that we have His approval, that it is not sorrow that meets us when we look into His eyes, when it is joy brought to his heart because we're walking.
In his footsteps, in his path below.
But you know the Lord Jesus.
Has paid a tremendous price for us in order to make us his own. And if we do not?
Listen to him, to that still small voice as we have it in the Old Testament. He has means to bring us where he wants us to be, but he does not like to guide us in that way. Like a horse, like a mule which has no understanding.
He likes to direct us.
With his eye, so he should not be.
As those that are unintelligent creatures, you know we are his.
And we can.
Be doors that walk in communion and fellowship with the Lord Jesus, and be directed by Him in the path below. Many sorrows.
Shall be the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice he righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart. Now here we have again a similar thought as we have in verse 2, where there is no guile.
Upright in heart, you know the Lord does not look for us.
To comply with certain rules and regulations because we have no other choice. He wants to see in us that we are from the heart, joyfully doing His will. And we have already reminded ourselves, and it's really not that hard for the Christian because the Lord has given us a nature.
Which is wholly.
It is His nature that He has given to us, and that nature delights to do His will.
00:20:04
And He is looking for us to do what we do from the heart, joyfully, gladly, because that's how the divine nature manifests itself in us, the believer. Well beloved, maybe this can be of help to us and the Lord.
Is the one that restores our soul. You know in Psalm 23 we have thou restorers my soul and we have to recognize, do we not that only he can really bring about in the believer restoration. You know we cannot speak of restoration.
In the midst of the believers before.
That takes place in the individual and, for us, in the assembly.
Those in responsibility, those who have to perform priestly functions, discerning the state of souls. We have to first of all, look, where is that soul? Is that soul?
Have restored to the Lord. We cannot think of a soul being restored to the assembly when that soul is not restored to the Lord. That comes first. Only He can do that, and then we have Him restored.
The believer restored in the midst of the assembly. Well, we can, I believe, even there perhaps at times be used of God to bring a soul into exercises that would make the soul realize when we come in contact with somebody who is not broken down before God about his sin, we might perhaps be used of God to bring scriptures.
Soul that would lead to repentance. I'm told that in Germany there was a real difficult problem in one of the assemblies and.
Brethren had visited this brother that had been dealt with in discipline and could not seem to accomplish anything. So they asked an older brother if he would please go and visit that brother. Maybe the Lord could use him.
To accomplish something in this brother's heart. So what he did is he came into that house and I understand the man was on a sick bed and he came into his room and he said to him, Brother so and so I have a few scriptures to read to you and to leave with you. And he read those scriptures and he walked out. And it had the result of that brother to really come to realize his sin.
That led to his restoration, that he was restored to the Lord and to his brethren. So maybe the Lord can use us and give us that priestly discernment that we can see where that soul is in the experience. Hopefully restoration has begun, that the Lord Jesus has worked, and if not that we might be used of Him to bring scriptures before him that would lead Him to.
Proper exercises which ultimately will lead to his restoration.
The Restoring Grace of God
Address—H. Brinkmann
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.
We have no doubt enjoyed many thoughts on the restoring grace of God in the life of His people, and I thought we might benefit by reading Psalm 32A. Brother already read one of the verses to us.
During this conference and what we have to remember when we read this Psalm.
That David.
Is the one that.
Has written that song.
And that he is really expressing in this Psalm experiences through which he passed in his soul. You know he had.
Very seriously dishonored God, and made the enemies of God to blasphemy by what he had done.
And here in this Psalm now.
He is rejoicing in the forgiveness that he had received.
We sometimes use this Psalm in the gospel, and I don't find any fault for anybody to do that, but I do believe we find especially instructions for us as believers.
After we fall into sin, and that there are certain experiences through which we have to pass in order that the work of restoration be complete in our souls, so we read this Psalm. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, is forgiven whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man and to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit.
There is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones were extolled through the roaring to my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer, Cela.
I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. Sila. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee, in a time when thou mayest be found surely in the floods of great waters, they shall not come nigh unto him.
Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble.
Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. Be not as the horse or as the mule, which has no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.
Many sorrows shall be to the wicked.
But he had trusted in the Lord. Mercy shall compass him about, be glad in the Lord, and rejoice he righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart.
It has been remarked, and it is worth repeating.
That these were not David's David's experiences.
Immediately after the Prophet came to him and told him, Thou art the man when he was under the conviction of sin.
We have to read Psalm 51.
In order to get the experiences that were necessary for David to pass through when he came to realize the awfulness of what he had done.
How he had dishonored the name of God. And when he says against thee, against thee only have I sinned. When he comes to see not only what he has done, he comes to see his utter wretchedness.
Is sinfulness before God?
Necessary experiences.
For any soul to pass through when they have fallen into sin. Of such a nature as we find in the life of David. And let me say, beloved, that we might be inclined to thank.
That immorality.
00:05:00
And this kind of a thing is the worst kind of evil that one can fall into, and one does not want in any way to belittle immorality. But when you look into the epistle of First Corinthians, you will find that they're taken up according to the order and that which was especially of importance to the Spirit of God and to Paul.
And those who divide the people of God.
'Cause divisions among God's people.
Seems to be in the side of God, a far more serious thing than immorality. And like I say, I do not in any way want to belittle immorality. It is important, beloved, in in whatever sin we happen to fall, that we come to face that sin.
And look at it from God's point of view to get his view of the thing.
And these are necessary experiences, and we have to be careful in our love for souls that we do not try to cut short those exercises, that they might be indeed a complete period, you might say, or that that exercise, that side.
Of the exercise to which a soul has to pass be complete, we find in numbers 19 that the water had to be applied under third and under 7th day. And I believe the water applied on the third day is exactly that kind of an experience that the soul comes to realize the awfulness of the sin committed and then.
On the 7th day the soul can rejoice, seeing that it is all under the blood that the Lord Jesus.
Died for it, and that the soul can rejoice in the forgiveness. David is rejoicing in it here, but while he is rejoicing in it.
He tells us, on the one hand what is necessary to get to that point and what hindered him to get to it. You know, there has to be a soul in which there is no guile. You know, this is so important when it comes to evil that concerns me that I don't try to cover up or belittle.
Or find fault with those who take up the question and.
Guile is a question of deceit or misrepresentation.
Oh beloved, this is not going to help a soul to be restored. We have to realize that God knows us through and through. He knows all about it. We certainly cannot fool Him about what we have done, and we might fool our brethren.
As young people, we might fool our parents, but we can never fool God. We have to come to realize, beloved, that we have to be open and honest about what we have fallen into before God. This is one of the greatest hindrances to come to that point. To rejoice again in the salvation for which He prayed. Restore unto me the joy of salvation.
For to have that kind of a state of soul before God.
No guile.
And now in verse three and verse four, he tells us what he went through when he was trying to cover up his sin. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer, Sila.
But that is what happened all during that time when he was trying to cover up. And you know he went to such an extent that he committed murder to try to cover up that sin. One sin leads to another as long as the soul is not honest before God and seeking to cover up to conceal.
And what is the soul like? Or what does the soul go through? He says.
My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day, night along for day and night. Thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer, you know there is no refreshment, no communion or fellowship, no joy, misery.
00:10:06
Misery, but the Lord doesn't want us to go on in this. He puts his hand upon us to make us feel a misery that hopefully we will come just like David to the point I acknowledged my sin, he opened up.
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions.
Unto the Lord, and thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. Selah. Isn't that wonderful to see? When we open up, when we are honest before Him and acknowledge our sin, then he covers up.
He forgives, and as we have reminded ourselves.
He will remember our sins no more. He removes them from us. As far as the East is from the West. He doesn't forget. That's human weakness, but he chooses not to remember.
He will not remember them. He is forgiven. But we have in the New Testament more than just the forgiveness of sins.
In the New Testament we have justification.
That God, and only God can justify the ungodly. What a wonderful truth that is. And it does not just mean that we stand before Him as if we had never sinned. We stand before Him as new creatures in Christ that could have never sinned and that never sinned once we come to Him and are forgiven.
We stand that way.
God here we have much more in the New Testament than mere forgiveness. Yet how wonderful that is to be forgiven and to rejoice in the perfect forgiveness of God. We have justification cleared of all guilt. You know, someone has said it is not just as if I had never sinned. He says that puts me in a position where Adam was before he fell. That's not what God has for me.
He makes you and me.
To be such before him who never sinned, who could not sin, because we stand before him in Christ as new creatures. Well, in verse six and verse seven we have a prayer.
And how to pray?
This shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found surely in the floods of great waters, they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.
No, I believe we can look at these two verses in two ways.
The one is that the same temptation?
That became my fault.
Might come to me again.
But realizing that I need the Lord's help and I turn to Him in prayer. He helps me. When that same temptation comes, it won't overcome me. But I believe we can also see in this.
That, you know, in the government of God, He might allow us to pass through difficulties and through things which really are the result of that sin which he had forgiven or has forgiven. We see that with David and.
We find David fleeing.
From epsilon.
And Chimney comes and curses him, throws his sin into his face, you might say.
But the Lord proves himself to David. A hiding place, you know the Lord is with David.
When he passes through the results of his sin, but in the government of God he brings difficult circumstances upon David. He is at Davids side and helps him. Isn't it beautiful? Isn't that nice to see that the Lord Jesus.
00:15:02
Is a hiding place to us, You know, one or the other might have dishonored the Lord in a way that he had to be removed from the assembly, put outside, and then the Lord comes in, in his grace and restores that soul and a carnal Christian or even a person in the world at one time or another.
Might throw it into your face. Remember what you did.
But at that time the Lord Jesus proves himself to be a friend that is at our side, that helps us bear and look. David really manifests that he is in the enjoyment of forgiveness. This behavior of shimmy eye does not upset him because the Lord is at his side. He helps him bear it.
But now we have.
The Lord speaking to David, that isn't David speaking anymore. And the Lord says, I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye.
Be not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest I come near unto Him. You know, in order to be guided by the eye of the Savior, we have to be near to Him.
We have to be able to look into his eyes. So for us.
That is like the Lord Jesus telling us, look.
I'm going to teach you.
In the way in which thou shalt go, And I'll direct you with my eye. You know, when we were children.
Or when we had children little in the home and they behaved out of place. Or when we behaved out of place. When we were little children, all we had to do is look at our father or at our mother, and we knew immediately whether we were out of place, because by the look in their eyes.
But all we would like to see that look of approval, do we not? We like to walk for the Lord in the way that we have His approval, that it is not sorrow that meets us when we look into His eyes, when it is joy brought to His heart because we're walking.
In his footsteps, in his path.
Below.
But you know the Lord Jesus.
Has paid a tremendous price for us in order to make us His own. And if we do not listen to him, to that still small voice as we have it in the Old Testament, He has means to bring us where He wants us to be. But He does not like to guide us in that way. Like a horse, like a mule, which has no understanding.
He likes to direct us.
With his eye, so he should not be.
As those that are unintelligent creatures, you know we are his.
And we can.
Be those that walk in communion and fellowship with the Lord Jesus and be directed by Him in the path below. Many sorrows.
Shall be the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice he righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart. Now here we have again a similar thought as we have in verse 2, where there is no guile.
Upright in heart, you know the Lord does not look for us.
To comply with certain rules and regulations because we have no other choice. He wants to see in us that we are from the heart, joyfully doing His will. And we have already reminded ourselves, and it's really not that hard for the Christian because the Lord has given us a nature.
Which is holy.
It is His nature that He has given to us, and that nature delights to do His will.
00:20:01
And He is looking for us to do what we do from the heart, joyfully, gladly, because that's how the divine nature manifests itself in us, the believer. Well, beloved, maybe this can be of help to us and.
The Lord.
Is the one that restores our soul. You know in Psalm 23, we have thou restorers my soul and we have to recognize doing that that only he can really bring about in the believer restoration. You know, we cannot speak of restoration.
In the midst of the believers before.
That takes place in the individual and, for us, in the assembly.
Those in responsibility, those who have to perform priestly functions, discerning the state of souls. We have to first of all, look, where is that soul? Is that soul?
Restored to the Lord. We cannot think of a soul being restored to the assembly when that soul is not restored to the Lord. That comes first. Only He can do that, and then we have Him restored.
The believer restored in the midst of the assembly. Well, we can, I believe, even there.
Perhaps at times be used of God to bring a soul into exercises that what make the soul realize when we come in contact with somebody who is not broken down before God about his sin. We might perhaps be used of God to bring scriptures before that soul that would lead to repentance. I'm told that in Germany.
There was a real difficult problem in one of the assemblies and.
Brethren had visited this brother that had been dealt with in discipline and could not seem to accomplish anything. So they asked an older brother if he would please go and visit that brother. Maybe the Lord could use him.
To accomplish something in this brother's heart. So what he did is he came into that house and I understand the man was on a sick bed and he came into his room and he said to him, brother, so and so I have a few scriptures to read to you and to leave with you. And he read those scriptures and he walked out. And it had the result of that brother to really come to realize.
His sin and.
That led to his restoration, that he was restored to the Lord and to his brethren. So maybe the Lord can use us and give us their priestly discernment that we can see where that soul is in the experience. Hopefully restoration has begun.
That the Lord Jesus has worked, and if not that we might be used of Him to bring scriptures before him that would lead him to the proper exercises which ultimately will lead to His restoration.
God's Holiness and Love Inseparable
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These are not attributes of God. This is what He is, His essential being.
He is light and He is love. And I was thinking as I listened, as we all did at the reading this morning, we had much said about Grace.
And then a good deal said about righteousness, keeping the proper balance and holiness. And I just have a few thoughts to share with you that whenever there is a true manifestation of God who is light and love, there must be both of these elements, both of these characteristics present.
Or God is not properly manifested. Look at the Lord Jesus.
Look at that Blessed one as he walked through this scene. He was light and he was love. I'll just quickly refer to two incidents, one in John 4, the woman of Samaria, where he draws her heart out.
And asks her for a drink.
And she wonders why he and you would ask a drink of her, a woman of Samaria. And he says, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink. Thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. And there we see the character of God is love. We see the love of his heart going out to this woman.
And offering her that living water, which caused her to say, Sir, give me this water that I come not.
Here to draw and drink, and then we see that God is light. He says go, call thy husband. Her conscience must be reached if there's going to be blessing. It's not enough to reach the heart and draw it out and make it yearn for the blessing that he did, but the conscience must be reached.
The springs of our moral being must be touched, and we must judge ourselves, and we must realize that we're in the presence of him.
Who understands us through and through? Who knows our thoughts are far off? Who understands us? Who knows our down sitting and our uprising? The darkness and the light are both alike to Him, for all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
God is light and he knows all about you. He knows what you're thinking. He knows your life, He knows mine. He knows our motives. We have to do with Him who knows us all. And she was so blessed that her testimony was when she went into the city.
This outcast, immoral, reprobate woman come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? He had revealed to her that he knew her entire life. He knew how evil it was. He knew that the man with whom she was living was not her husband.
That she was living in sin. And yet he that one that knows all about me, he offered me living water.
Because God is love, the goodness of the heart of God flowing out to the likes of us. For we're not one bit better than that woman, that woman of Samaria. Then John 8, when these the critical, self-righteous religious Pharisees who would bring the curse and judgment of the law against this woman, bring her one caught in a very active adultery.
To the Lord Jesus. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? They were in the presence of him who is late, and so he.
Answered, He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.
And being convicted in their consciences, from the oldest to the least, they departed. And he who is loved to the said Hath no man condemned thee? No man, Lord, neither do I condemn me.
The only one there that had the right to pick up a stone and hurl it at her. He was the only one who was without sin. But he wouldn't and he didn't because God is love. Well, those are two incidents, and it's beautiful to trace in the epistles. Light and love. Light and love, holiness.
Truth, righteousness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, and where you have the one without the other, there seemed to be, there was a that was brought out in the reading this morning. Balancing truth. There must be. We are so inclined to err either on the side of legality or on the side of looseness.
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There's a ditch on either side of the road and it's only the.
Communion of the Holy Spirit, communion with the Lord that will keep us going down the center, keeping fast hold of both of these truths that God is light and that God is love, and not using them one against the other, as though to press holiness and truth and righteousness negates grace, or to press grace that that means.
You're you're just giving up. Truth.
No, we are to hold to both.
And as we walk in the fellowship with the Lord and in communion, we will hold to both. And I'll turn back with me to one verse in 2nd Corinthians 3, our chapter that we had in the readings, verse 6.
Our brother Hey Ho was making some comments about this and he said in his comments that Grace isn't mentioned in the chapter, but in this verse we certainly have it.
Also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament. Again, the article isn't there. Testament is more properly translated covenant and it's more literally rendered ministers of the of new covenant or new covenant ministers. Now the Church of God is not in covenant relationship to God.
Israel is, and they're going to be brought into blessing on the ground of the new covenant. But Paul says here we are new covenant ministers. Why does he say that? Because when Israel is brought into the blessings of the new covenant, it will be on the ground of pure and sovereign grace because they forfeited everything on the ground of their own responsibility. They forfeited everything. And if they're going to be brought into the blessings of the new covenant, it will be on the ground.
Of grace. And so here we have the principle of grace mentioned. Not not the word mentioned, but the principle of it. Paul was a new covenant minister, that is, he was the minister of grace. Now we had in the chapter the administration of righteousness.
Not the righteousness that we attain to by the works of the law, but the righteousness which is conferred upon us as a free gift. Christ Himself being our righteousness when we have to deal with difficult problems in our assemblies.
Righteousness cannot be set aside or compromised or the truth set aside. It must be according to truth and righteousness and holiness.
For He is the holy and the true. But then the Spirit of grace is to characterize us. And there's a verse this new covenant brings before me, and I want to end with that. Leave room for others in Isaiah 32. I share it with you, Isaiah 32.
Verse that some verses hear that very precious verse 15.
This is looking on to the Millennium, looking on to the time when the Spirit will be poured out upon all flesh, when righteousness and peace will cover the earth. And it says, Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, in the fruitful field be counted for a forest, then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. Now notice this.
And the work of righteousness shall be.
Peace and the effect of righteousness, Quietness and assurance forever.
And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and ensure dwellings and in quiet resting places. It's been remarked that the do only falls on a quiet night, doesn't fall.
During a stormy night, Nadu speaks a blessing. My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation. Jerusalem means that dwelling in peace. Little picture of the Assembly. The first word the blessed Lord, risen from the dead, presented to his own was peace.
Peace be unto you. And then he commissioned us to go forth with that message of peace as my Father has sent me, Even so send I you. He brings it to us, and then he commissions us to carry it to others. And the assembly, the epistle of Christ is a dwelling in peace. Now there's such a thing as having peace at the expense of righteousness. They have hurled, they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly saying, peace, peace when there is no peace.
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Now, that's not the kind of peace that we have here. Here this piece is the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever.
And when there's an action or there are actions that are done in this way, and the Lord's glory is maintained and his honor upheld and righteousness manifested, the effect will be peace. And where it isn't, so, where it might be the legality that we were referring to.
In our readings in 2nd Corinthians 3, the superior attitude Stand by thyself, for I am holier than thou.
That kind of thing. Oh, I would never do that. That kind of an attitude. The spirit of superiority, the spirit, the judgmental spirit, which alas, I have to confess to, I have had too much of in the past.
Well, the Lord puts us through things, beloved.
To teach us that we're not better as Elijah had to learn than our fathers, that we're all made out of the same stuff. And his dear old brother Eric Smith used to say nothing but a bunch of crooked sticks. Poor Jacobs, picked up by the grace of God, trophies of his grace, to manifest that in this scene, the crowning glory.
But since that's the crowning glory of the church, grace, the worst perversion, the worst corruption possible, what we read of in Jew turning the grace of God.
Into lasciviousness, using grace to palliate and cover up sin. That's the worst evil that there is. And this is the day of grace, and we're living in days when this is commonly practiced, using grace to excuse every form of moral.
And spiritual wickedness, because after all, God's the God of grace and he'll forgive it and.
To use that.
Who say, let us do evil, that good may come?
Whom Paul says of those whose judgment is just.
No, let us never turn the grace of God into an excuse for doing our own will and for wickedness. Grace the crowning blessing of the Christian. We owe everything to it but righteousness to be upheld and maintained. And when that's so, verse 17, I'll read it again and then close.
The work of righteousness.
Shall be peace, Is it so when there's been a work and it's been a work of righteousness, the assembly will be at peace. Not unrest, not troubled. Sometimes, as a result of certain actions, the assembly is not at peace. Is that the work of God? Is that what God has promised? I know this is looking on to the millennial day, but the principle applies, doesn't it?
The work of righteousness shall be peace.
And the effect of righteousness, quietness.
And assurance forever and my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and ensure dwellings and in quiet resting places.
A Sister's Place in the Home
2 Corinthians 3:2-end
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